The Screengrab : sharon stone

The Screengrab Highlight Reel: Sept. 27-Oct. 3, 2008

Scott Von Doviak — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 21:00:00 GMT

Look, we know lots of movie blogs out there on the webbing paid tribute to Paul Newman this week, and rightly so. But you’re never going to have closure until you’ve read Phil Nugent’s obituary, our Paul Newman Top 10 (Parts One, Two and Three) and Paul Clark’s look back at Exodus. That’s simply a fact. And while you’re at it, you might as well check out these other highlights from the week that was:

Reviews galore: Religulous, Ballast, Choke, Let the Right One In and Wild Man of the Navidad

Movies you may have missed: Getting to Know You, War of the Gargantuas, Jail Bait

People we love: Kat Dennings, The Angry Police Captain

People we can probably do without: Sharon Stone, David Spade, Lee Atwater

Worse idea: Kenneth Branagh’s Thor or Blade Runner 2?

Why, there’s so much good stuff here, I don’t know whether to shit or go blind.

Sharon Stone Loses Ground in the Race for Mother of the Year

Phil Nugent — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 18:00:00 GMT

With her movie career basically on permanent hiatus, Sharon Stone continues to maintain her hold on the world's attention as some species of gossip-blogger freak. Stone has just wrapped up her lastest sideshow, the child custody hearings centered on Roan, the eight-year-old boy who Stone and her former husband, newspaperman Phil Bronstein, adopted during their six-year marriage. Stone lost her bid to have her son move in with her in Los Angeles, in part because of the judge's determination that she "appears to overreact to many medical issues involving Roan", and that her "overreactions" to nonexistent problems is a "painfully real" problem for the boy. Stone apparently became convinced that Roan had a spinal problem and couldn't be talked out of seeking treatment for it by doctors who assured her that Roan was perfectly healthy. Of course, delusions of spinal meningitis are one thing, but the tidbit from the proceedings that's really gotten people excited is the news that Stone, as the court delicately put it, "suggested that Roan should have Botox injections in his feet to resolve a problem he had with foot odor. As father appropriately noted, the simple and common sense approach of making sure Roan wore socks with his shoes and used foot deodorant corrected the odour problem without the need for any invasive procedure on this young child." One website claims that Stone was heard to say of her little one's pungent stumps, "If you smelled Roan's feet, you'd lose faith in God." Wait a minute, are we sure we're not talking about my mother? (To fully appreciate the impact of Stone's comments, keep in mind that she was apparently able to hang onto her faith in God even after seeing herself in the rushes for Catwoman.

Other bloggers have offered, in the place of fearless investigative journalism, cruel and snarky comments of a nature that just make us here at the Screengrab reach for the smelling salts, lest we swoon before copy them down here so we can share them with out own appalled readership. One blogger has even gone so far as to offer a long-distance diagnosis that Stone might suffer from Munchausen syndrome by proxy, rare and scary psychological disorder that compels parents to detect and even inflict illnesses on their children for the sake of the attention it gets them, adding, "Phil Bronstein must be thanking his lucky stars that he left with his man berries still in the tree." This may or may not be a veiled reference to what may have been the high point of the Stone-Bronstein marriage, at least for those of us on the outside gawking through the protective glass: the fabled moment back in 2001 when, with baby Roan in tow, the happy couple went to the zoo for a summit meeting that Stone had arranged for her reptile-happy husband with a Komodo dragon, which proceeded to try to eat his foot. (Bronstein had removed his tennis shoes after the zoo keeper expressed concern that the creature might mistake them for the white rats that are a staple of his diet when no movie star's husband is around.) We've all learned a lot from Stone and Bronstein's marriage. The most important lesson I've learned is that if I'm ever introduced to a Komodo dragon, I should not wear my kilt.

The Screengrab Highlight Reel: August 16-22, 2008

Andrew Osborne — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 12:17:00 GMT

Hello? Oh...Mr. Rooney...what? Uh, no...Scott's not here. This is Andrew...Andrew Osborne...yes, sir, I'm another one of the writers here at The Screengrab. You may have read my ongoing autobiographical posts about the summer I spent working for Troma ...no? Well, maybe you read my special 50th birthday salute to the films of Madonna or my review of Vicky Cristina Barcelona? No? Oh, well...

...uh, what's that, sir? Scott Von Doviak? You mean the author of "Tom Cruise Still Creepy, Still Not Funny," "Anna Faris, Honorary Bunny" and "Unwatchable #74: You Got Served"? Oh, well, he's not here right now, but...

...excuse me? You've heard rumors that Scott is singing "Twist and Shout" in the streets of Chicago with his colleague Leonard Pierce, author of "Video of the Day: Sharon Stone Bares All For Paul Verhoeven," "Summerfest '08: Corvette Summer" and that cool story about the state of DC Comics film adaptations? And that Sarah Sundberg, one of the hardworking contributors to "Screengrab Salutes The Top 20 Animated Feature Films" was riding around with them in a bright red Ferrari convertible?

Oh, no, sir, I'm afraid you must be mistaken. In fact, I'm pretty sure that Scott was just in here a few minutes ago...see, he and Paul Clark were both working on their individual Fall Movie Previews and...

...excuse me? Oh...I see. You're saying nobody posted the weekly Screengrab highlight reel on Friday? Well, sir, I'm sure there must be a good reason...in fact, now that you mention it, I remember Phil Nugent telling me his friend's sister's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who's going with a girl who's pretty sure that Scott passed out at 31 Flavors last night. I guess it's pretty serious.

But I'm sure if Scott were feeling better, he would have reminded everyone about the memorial for Manny Farber, the cool trailers he saw for Rachel Getting Married, a reexamination of Passion of the Christ and...

...I'm sorry? Could you repeat that, sir? "Les jeux sont faits." Yes, sir, well, I'll be sure to pass the message along if I see him.

Gummi bear?

Madonna On Film: Screengrab Celebrates Her Top Ten "Best" and Worst Performances (Part Two)

Andrew Osborne — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 19:00:00 GMT

And now...the stinkers.

6. Marie in Shadows and Fog (1992), Elspeth in Four Rooms (1995)

As noted in Part One, Madonna works best in movies when used as spice in a cameo...except, of course, when the cameo is lousy. Yet, though these two performances are, in fact, terrible, it’s hard to judge Ms. Ciccone too harshly for either of them, given the fact that Lily Tomlin, Jodie Foster and Kathy Bates hardly fare much better in Woody Allen’s limp, pretentious Shadows and Fog, and nobody but the lucky actors in Robert Rodriguez’s section of the misbegotten omnibus film Four Rooms bothered to give a coherent performance, either.

7. Abbie Reynolds, The Next Best Thing (2000)

The only movie in Madonna’s filmography where she attempts to play a completely “normal,” contemporary human being (as opposed to a 1940s ballplayer, an S&M obsessed murder suspect, a tightrope walker, an elfin princess, a witch, an Argentine dictator, a kooky East Village free spirit, etc.), Ms. Ciccone earns low points here if only for somehow finding a way to make the song “American Pie” even more annoying than it already was. To be fair, I never saw this movie either, but my lovely Polish bride informs me that Madonna's performance here as a straight woman in a custody battle with her gay baby daddy features exactly one funny sight gag involving the Material Boobs, but otherwise earns its #7 spot fair and square, given Madge's complete lack of chemistry with friend and co-star Rupert Everett and the fact that she seems "like an automaton” throughout “like she always is.”

8. Eva Peron in Evita (1996)

While Ms. Ciccone may have worked harder on this role than any other in her cinematic career (even finally learning to sing after more than a decade as a successful recording artist) it is, in many ways, her most annoying performance, partly because she’s clearly so impressed with herself, partly because so many critics played along with the charade (even going so far as to award her efforts with a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical), but mostly because she transformed an ironic cautionary tale of the rise and fall of a dictator’s wife into a triumphant love story about the rise and rise of a plucky, ambitious gal (not unlike – hey! – Madonna herself!), all the while downplaying the nastier side of Peron’s (and her own) egomaniacal megalomania and its often toxic effect on the peasants who love her...thus deliberately undercutting the plot and theme of her own movie (not to mention Antonio Banderas’ role as spokesman for the downtrodden and future t-shirt model Che Guevara who, with no antagonist to play against, merely comes across like a whiny little bitch).

9. Rebecca Carlson in Body of Evidence (1993)

For all her onstage masturbation, conical Gauliter bras and nude photo shoots, Madonna has never really had a handle on sex. For her, the beast with two backs has nothing to do with joy, love, pleasure or fun, which makes this so-called “erotic” thriller such a complete slog as she fucks Willem Dafoe on shards of broken glass (hot!!!), spits out Razzie-winning lines like “Have you ever seen animals make love, Frank?” and reminds us that, apparently, being Sharon Stone isn’t quite as easy as it looks.

10. Gloria Tatlock, Shanghai Surprise (1986), Amber Leighton, Swept Away (2002)

For some reason, both of Madonna’s husbands (co-star Sean Penn and director Guy Ritchie) managed to distill all of Ms. Ciccone’s worst cinematic instincts into a pair of monumentally shrill, annoying, wooden performances in two of the worst movies ever made. Penn at least had the excuse of being drunk throughout production of Shanghai Surprise (though, sadly, I wasn’t drunk or stoned or, even better, unconscious while sitting through it), and I’m not sure what Guy Ritchie’s excuse was for making Swept Away, unless (as with his short BMW promotional film “Star”) he simply couldn’t resist the opportunity to publicly humiliate his beloved spouse. Given her total lack of chemistry with nearly every co-star in her career (except Rosie O'Donnell and, of course, her own reflection), it’s no surprise Ms. Ciccone fares no better with Penn in Shanghai or Adriano Giannini in Swept Away, which my wife summed up with a quote that could apply to any number of Madonna’s past and future cinematic blunders: “Painfully unfunny...another joyless performance.”

Click here for Part One

Video of the Day: Sharon Stone Bares All For Paul Verhoeven

Leonard Pierce — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 14:45:00 GMT

Okay, well, maybe not all -- she'd save that for the actual movie. But this is Stone's initial screen test for her most notorious role, as ice-cold killer Catherine Trammell in 1992's Basic Instinct. At the time this footage was shot, Sharon Stone was still considered one of Hollywood's hottest bombshells instead of one of Hollywood's biggest kooks, and Paul Verhoeven, still three years away from Showgirls, was still a subversive genius.

Ah, '90s nostalgia! Unfortunately, we weren't able to locate a similar clip of Stone staring intently at Michael Caton-Jones in preparation for Basic Instinct 2. You can thank us later.

The Screengrab Highlight Reel: May 24-30, 2008

Scott Von Doviak — Fri, 30 May 2008 21:00:00 GMT

By the clock on the wall it looks like it’s Happy Hour, so amble on down to one of the Top 15 Bars of Cinema, order a cold one and play the Screengrab Drinking Game:

A shot of whiskey for each of the Five Kinds of Twist Endings

A strawberry daiquiri for Miranda July and a bottle of Night Train for Abel Ferrara

Margaritas for Summer Lovers and a pouch of powdered scotch for Capricorn One

A jug o’ moonshine for Rose McGowan in Chains!

A shoe full of Jagermeister for Jena Malone

Heartbreak motor oil and Bombay gin for Mad Max

A six-pack of Fosters for Baz Luhrmann’s Australia

A Mai Tai for Sharon Stone

And one for The Road

Dimwitted Sharon Stone Comment Somehow Considered Big News

Andrew Osborne — Fri, 30 May 2008 14:00:00 GMT

Okay, look...can we all agree that tragedies are tragic? Yes? And terrible? Okay...we agree: nobody likes tragedies. Especially natural disasters, where there’s nobody to blame (except in the case of tragic government incompetence, but let’s not go there).

And can we also agree that many celebrities are vacuous and dimwitted? Okay.

If it please the court, may I further stipulate that dimwitted celebrities (by which I mean dimwits without influential government posts and/or vast congregations of credulous worshippers and/or daily radio shows where they can hammer home the same nonsensical arguments over and over and over again) are likely to say dimwitted things which are, at worst, annoying and insensitive, but not...I repeat NOT...especially newsworthy, in that they don’t actually affect public policy, public opinion, government relief efforts, plate tectonics or anything else?

No? We don’t agree? I may not stipulate? You’re outraged? Or you don't know what the heck I'm talking about? Okay, then...watch the following clip of Sharon Stone talking out her ass at Cannes and be grateful we finally have someone to blame for all the recent sorrow in China (and, uh...Tibet?).

Trailer Review: Deception

Paul Clark — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 16:00:00 GMT

Most thrillers today feel curiously neutered, with studios' demands for PG-13 entertainment making it difficult for directors to inject too much sex into their films. Deception feels like a throwback to the early-90s heyday of the erotic thriller subgenre, when it almost certainly would have been penned by Joe Eszterhas and starred Michael Douglas. As bad as most of those movies where, they had a trashy yet glossy allure to them, which makes it all the more disappointing that Deception comes across as fairly bland by comparison, with the role that would've been played by Sharon Stone or Demi Moore now falling to... Michelle Williams? Even with its female-friendly leading men Hugh Jackman and Ewan McGregor, I can't imagine this really scoring with audiences (especially with that generic-sounding title). On the other hand, I imagine it'll have a solid second life on late-night pay cable. Who knows, I may even catch it there. If I hear there's T&A, that is.

Take Five: We Love The '80s

Leonard Pierce — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 22:30:00 GMT

American moviegoers can't get enough of the 1980s, apparently. Those of us who had to live through it the first time remember it primarily as a time of bad metal, worse sitcoms, and waiting around to see what dumb-ass thing Ronald Reagan would say next, but to the generations that followed, it is a time for richly veined cultural nostalgia. From what we can recollect through the haze of drugs and alcohol that coat our memories of the decade, the hallmark of 1980s cinema was very loud explosions punctuated by the occasional car chase or wise-cracking black transvestite. It's not something we thought anyone would be eager to repeat, and yet there have been, in recent memory, new installments of the Die Hard and Rocky franchises; a new TV series based on The Terminator; an upcoming Indiana Jones picture; and, opening all across the country this Friday, a new Rambo movie. Even the Screengrab is getting into the act, with Gabriel Mckee posting his top ten action heroes who deserve a comeback, many of whom hail from the Decade That Time Refuses To Forget. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em: so says Take Five as we present a fistful of '80s action movies that we. . . well, we don't love, exactly, but we at least look back on with something less than severe brain trauma.

ROCKY III (1982)

Sure, the first movie had heart and soul. And the second movie had a ruthless determination to capitalize on the first movie's heart and soul. But do you know what they didn't have? Do you know what they lacked, which made the third installment unquestionably the best of all the Rocky movies? That's right: MR. T. They didn't have Mr. T, and as such, they suffered, as do all artistic projects not involving Mr. T. Here's a little secret they don't teach you at film school: sure, Citizen Kane might have been the greatest movie of all time — but it would have been even better if it had been able to feature Mr. T yelling at people. And Rocky III, whatever its other faults — and it had hundreds, from its hamhanded TV-movie direction (by Sly himself) to its predictable storyline — at least gave us Mr. T yelling at people in abundance. When his Clubber Lang (a savage, media-loathing brute allegedly inspired by young George Foreman) wasn't yelling at people, he was beating people up, and Rocky III brings us the double pleasure of seeing Sylvester Stallone clobbered by Clubber and Hulk Hogan as "Thunderlips". Just turn it off halfway through.

BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA (1986)

If it wasn't the most exciting or accomplished action movie of the 1980s, it was at least probably the most enjoyable: Big Trouble in Little China was brought to us by an uncharacteristically light-hearted John Carpenter, and worked both as a straight-up pseudo-mystical punch-'em-out and as a loopy parody of same. Carried largely on the back of Kurt Russell's endearing performance as antihero "ol' Jack Burton", a trucker who's chock full of bogus wisdom delivered in a ridiculously over-the-top John Wayne accent. Part of the reason it plays so well as both sincere action and goofy action send-up is because the script was written by W.D. Richter, who originally conceived it as a sequel to his own The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension from two years earlier. Legal and financial issues kept the sequel from being made, but Big Trouble features some of its characteristic touches and clever bits of dialogue. It also features swell performances from a young Kim Cattrall and James Hong, everyone's favorite inscrutable Asian. Besides, how can you not love a movie featuring a wizard named Egg Shen?

ACTION JACKSON (1988)
Where is the love for Sgt. Jericho Jackson, we ask you? Where? This compelling saga of America's forgotten black action hero was released in the same month as Bloodsport, making 1988 — which also brought us Die Hard, Above the Law, Red Heat and They Live — a banner year from cheesy guilty-pleasure action movies. This one had it all: a post-Rocky, pre-Arrested Development Carl Weathers playing a tough Detroit cop who was also an all-American track star and a Harvard-educated attorney; former Prince plaything Vanity making hay while the sun shone as a sex kitten; Sharon Stone, doing the thing that she was best known for doing before everyone all of the sudden decided to take her seriously; and villains Craig T. Nelson and Robert Davi overacting like there was no tomorrow. (Which, for Robert Davi at least, there probably wasn't.) Action Jackson had everything you could have wanted out of a 1980s action flick: a wisecracking tough guy hero, naked dead chicks, tons of explosions, people dying in extremely creative ways, egregious use of narcotics, and a protagonist whose name rhymed! Come back, Carl Weathers, all is forgiven.

BLOODSPORT (1988)

Before Jean-Claude Van Damme was a full-time crazy person, he was America's next big martial arts star. Bloodsport was the movie that put the rubber-groined Belgian on the map, portraying real-life martial arts semi-star Frank Dux. The plot of Bloodsport — well, it's giving it a lot more credit than it deserves to even call it a plot, involving (as does every other martial arts movie ever made) a bunch of well-toned Asians out to kick each other in the face. It's not much for memorable acting, either; Van Damme had already, in his first starring role, perfected the self-satisfied smirk that would carry him through the rest of his career, and while the movie does feature a young Forest Whitaker as a federal agent tasked to stand around looking exasperated, it also features Leah Ayres failing to become America's sweetheart, Donald Gibb trying to make the transition from hooligan to lummox, and Bolo Yeung (the former Bruce Lee nemesis known as Yang Tse) putting in the kind of performance only a trunk full of steroids can deliver. But it does feature some stunning martial arts battles, which is really all you can hope for in a movie like this.

ROAD HOUSE (1989)

In all the calls for a revival of action movie heroes like Rocky, Rambo, Ryan, and Indy, where are the legions of fans clamoring for a return of James Dalton? Patrick Swayze desperately needs something to do, people. Believe it or not, there was once a time when women would line up around the block to get a load of this chunk-headed 'King of the Sleepers' with his shirt off, and nowhere was he more chunk-headed or shirtless than in this deleriously zany action flick about a Zen-influenced tough guy ("Pain don't hurt") who is hired, despite his small stature and philosophy degree from NYU, to act as the bouncer at an out-of-control bar. Directed by a former electrician named Rowdy and co-starring Kelly Lynch at the height of her blondeness, Road House transcends its shortcomings by being so completely indifferent to its own craziness that it chugs along on its own energy with nary a look back. Ben Gazzara is the bad guy in this thing, clearly bombed out of his coconut, and it features the immortal line "I used to fuck guys like you in prison".

No SNL Skit Required

Peter Smith — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 18:00:00 GMT

Somehow we missed the October 18 release of Inside the Actor’s Studio host James Lipton’s scintillating new book, cleverly titled Inside Inside. Aside from his penchant for making famous people cry, Lipton has been immortalized by Will Ferrell in several SNL skits and interviewed in one of my personal favorite Ali G episodes, made all the more hilarious by just how hard Lipton tries to take the interview seriously amidst well placed questions like, "Have you ever interviewed Shakespeare?"

If you go over to Amazon.com, you will not only be able to order Lipton’s new book but also check out a short video intro to what you’ll find inside Inside Inside (I swear, I never get sick of hearing him say that). Besides his obvious credits as actor, screenwriter, director, producer and tv host, you may be surprised to find choreographer, equestrian and pilot listed. What this has to do with writing a book or kissing the asses of hundreds of actors, we’re not too sure, but now you know. Lipton is a master of false modesty, and after a brief disclaimer goes on to show off his thirteen Emmy nominations, a lifetime achievement award and his French medal of knighthood. Honestly, when you see him utter lines like, "Sharon Stone, Ben Stiller — heroes, heroes of my life," with a completely straight face. . . I just don’t think it goes any higher on the scale of unintentional comedy. We’re not actually planning on buying or reading his book but man, do we love this guy. — Bryan Whitefield