Savages, from Award-Winning Director Oliver Stone

Written by Kirk Baird

Remember when Oliver Stone was as much about entertaining audiences as he was preaching to them?

Apparently Stone had someone or something jog his memory, since his latest movie, Savages, marks a return to form for the filmmaker. Based on Don Winslow’s bestselling novel, Savages is the story of two successful drug dealers in Southern California and their shared girlfriend whose lives are radically altered after a Mexican drug cartel attempts to take over their business. The film is edgy, violent, dramatic, and twisty. And no, you don’t have to dig too deep to find messages either.

Here are some other highlights from Stone’s more than three decades of film work:

Midnight Express (1978): Stone wrote this unforgettable drama about the horrific plight of an American caught smuggling drugs out of Turkey.

Scarface (1983): Stone also wrote this classic twisted celebration of the American Dream and a stern rebuke of the excesses that often come with it.

Salvador (1986): The director turns political in only his second film, assessing the escalating government-rebel war in El Salvador through the eyes of an American photojournalist.

Platoon (1986): Stone’s most personal film about his experiences as a soldier in Vietnam remains his defining film.

Wall Street (1987): Michael Douglas earned his Oscar as corporate raider Gordon Gekko, who utters the immortal line, “greed … is good.”

Talk Radio (1988): An overlooked film in Stone’s career and based on a one-man play, this searing and claustrophobic drama examines a provocative radio host who pushes his audience and himself too far.

Born on the Fourth of July (1989): Tom Cruise plays against type in the stirring autobiographic story of Ron Kovic, a soldier paralyzed in Vietnam who becomes an antiwar crusader.

The Doors (1991): Val Kilmer’s Oscar-nominated performance as Jim Morrison has almost been forgotten, but remains reason enough to see the film.

JFK (1991): The director takes on the Kennedy assassination in this Oscar-winning drama starring Kevin Costner that dives headfirst into the conspiracy theories that Oswald did not act alone.

Natural Born Killers (1994): A hyper-violent film that decries our cultural obsession with violence and celebrity…and Stone made this film years before reality TV.

Nixon (1995): Stone coaxes yet another tremendous lead performance from his star, this time Anthony Hopkins in the Oscar-nominated role of the disgraced U.S. president.

Any Given Sunday (1999): Stone takes on the NFL in this stylized and violent behind-the-scenes drama featuring a star-making performance by Jamie Foxx.

In Remembrance: Andy Griffith and Ernest Borgnine

Written by Kirk Baird

With the recent deaths of beloved TV actor Andy Griffith and Oscar-winning film star Ernest Borgnine, here are some of their best film and television performances to remember and celebrate their careers.

Griffith:
The Andy Griffith Show (1960-1968): Griffith anchored one of the great and enduring sitcoms.
No Time for Sergeants (1958): A classic fish-out-of-water comedy that previewed Griffith’s downhome charm and impeccable timing — this time as the instigator of the jokes rather than as the straight man.
A Face in the Crowd (1957): Directed by Elia Kazan and written by Budd Schulberg, this film about a country boy changed by fame is proof that Griffith could handle drama as well as comedy.

Borgnine:
Escape From New York (1981): John Carpenter’s cult classic has Kurt Russell sent into New York City — now an island prison — to save the U.S. President, with Borgnine as an inmate who offers him help.
The Poseidon Adventure (1972): Borgnine joins an all-star cast in one of Irwin Allen’s classic — and better — disaster flicks.
The Wild Bunch (1969): Sam Peckinpah’s violent Western masterpiece focuses on the last days of an outlaw gang, including Borgnine, looking for one final big score before they retire.
The Dirty Dozen (1967): This classic World War II action-adventure about convicted murderers trained to kill Nazis features Borgnine as part of a tremendous cast led by Lee Marvin.
McHale’s Navy (1962-1966, TV series): Before he became an actor, Borgnine was in the navy, and plays the titular character in this lighthearted TV series.
Jubal (1956): A loose version of Othello set in the Wild West with Borgnine as a good-natured rancher betrayed by the woman he loves.
Marty (1955): Borgnine won his only Oscar — it was also his only nomination — playing a shy Bronx butcher who finds love.
Bad Day at Black Rock (1955): John Sturges directed this classic drama with Spencer Tracy as the mysterious hero who shows up in a small town and Borgnine as one of the villain’s henchmen determined to make his life miserable.
From Here to Eternity (1953): Borgnine is memorable as a murderous sergeant who swears revenge on Frank Sinatra’s Private Maggio.

For these titles and more, SmartBrowse each actor’s name on www.cvsmidwesttapes.ca.

Channing Tatum is Box Office Magic

Written by Kirk Baird

Before a recent screening of Magic Mike, the male stripper movie starring Channing Tatum and directed by Steven Soderbergh, another film critic wondered aloud to me just how successful the movie would be. I told him I thought it would be quite successful based on two themes: female audiences and Tatum.

The weekend box-office performance of Magic Mike returns proved me right, with the R-rated comedy-drama easily outperforming expectations and opening with a nearly $40 million haul. Considering Magic Mike was produced with a budget of only $7 million, that’s a profit four times over. And thus a lesson is learned: Never underestimate the female audience and never underestimate the appeal of Tatum.

It was young female moviegoers who helped make James Cameron’s Titanic the biggest film of all time for more than a decade before Cameron’s Avatar in 2009 took the title away. It’s a lot of the same crowd who struck again with Magic Mike, which drew a 70% female audience. And their reason for flocking to the theatres? Channing Tatum. The former stripper whose life inspired Magic Mike is now a major player in Hollywood. Tatum has a total gross so far of nearly $921 million in combined movie ticket sales at the North American box office. That’s more than action-film star Jason Statham, more than comic-actor Paul Rudd, and about $100 million shy of equaling his Magic Mike costar Matthew McConaughey, who’s been around about a decade longer.

2012 has been a very good year for Tatum. The romantic drama The Vow made $125 million, and the comedy 21 Jump Street made $138 million. His January action-thriller Haywire, also directed by Soderbergh, did underperform, however, with less than $20 million, but it was also budgeted at $30 million, so the losses weren’t significant. Tatum was supposed to appear in the new G.I. Joe movie, G.I. Joe: Retaliation, which was scheduled for a June release. In fact, Tatum’s character, Captain Duke Hauser, was killed off early in the film. The rumor has it that test audiences didn’t like his early exit, and that the film is being retooled, in part so Hauser lives to appease Tatum fans.

Based on the success of Magic Mike this weekend, that’s a financially wise decision.

Nora Ephron - Writer, Producer, and Director - Passes at 71

Hollywood lost a beloved personality this week when filmmaker Nora Ephron passed away on Tuesday, June 26. She was 71.

Ephron is perhaps best known for writing the screenplay for When Harry Met Sally, starring Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan. She went on to write and direct such hit romantic comedies as Sleepless in Seattle and You’ve Got Mail. She was nominated three times for an Academy Award for Best Writing.

Before she broke into Hollywood, Ephron was briefly an intern in the Kennedy White House. She also wrote for the New York Post, where she broke the news of Bob Dylan’s marriage to Sara Lownds, as well as Esquire and other notable publications. She assisted Carl Bernstein (then her husband) and Bob Woodward with their script for All the President’s Men, which led to her career in the movies.

Away from the silver screen, Ephron also made a name as a novelist and essayist, playwright, and journalist. Her most recent essay collection, I Remember Nothing, was published in 2010.

Many celebrities have expressed their thoughts on Ms. Ephron’s passing, including Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, whom she paired in both Sleepless in Seattle and You’ve Got Mail. Hanks said, “…she lifted us all with wisdom and wit mixed with love for us and love for life.” Ryan said that Ephron was “All wisdom, wit, and sparkle lights, what a treat she was, what a blessing.”

Although Nora Ephron may be gone, her books and classic films remain very popular. Make sure you have them in your collection.

Ordering System Update

Written by Nedda Pourahmady

Recently, you may have noticed some moderate delays in product delivery times from our company. We just wanted to let you know that we have heard your concerns and have been proactive in addressing this issue. We have made recent modifications to expedite all orders.

However, due to the new logic put into place, you may notice deliveries arriving out of sequences from when they were ordered.  For example, if you have placed additional copy order requests to receive more quantities of a title previously ordered, there is a chance that the additional copies will arrive before the originally ordered selections.  We guarantee that you will receive all parts of your order and will monitor orders to maximize the proper sequence of orders as much as possible.

Please note that this change will only impact deliveries temporarily and only affect catalog titles, with no impact on street date sensitive titles.

Here at CVS/Midwest, we are dedicated to following a steadfast, first-in-first-out order policy. We value our libraries and wanted to make you all aware of this situation.

If you have any further questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact our customer service department at 866-698-2231.

We thank you for your understanding!

An Update on Actress Lindsay Lohan

Written by Kirk Baird

She’s not dead. She’s only resting.

There’s something Monty Python-esque about the latest news from the camp de Lindsay Lohan, a one-time actress-turned media circus. Even as the 25-year-old is again trying to get her career pointed in the right direction, she makes news for appearing unconscious in a hotel room, someone gets worried and calls 911, and paramedics show up.

Her publicist told People magazine, the actress "was examined and is fine" and that her condition was due to her "grueling schedule" on the set of the Lifetime movie Liz & Dick, an Elizabeth Taylor biopic with Lohan in the starring role. 

Lohan also dismissed any concern about her health via a Tweet.

"Note to self.." she Tweeted, "after working 85 hours in 4 days, and being up all night shooting, be very aware that you might pass out from exhaustion & 7 paramedics MIGHT show up @ your door."

A week ago, Lohan escaped serious injury when her Porsche smashed into the back of a dump truck on the Pacific Coast Highway. Lohan and her assistant were unhurt. The truck driver alleges that a member of the actress’ entourage attempted to bribe him into not calling the police, while a Lohan publicist denied this, and said that the actress was cooperating fully with the police investigation.

Trouble never seems to be far away from Lohan. As the saying goes, there’s no such thing as luck; you make your own breaks. Could the same be said of misfortune?

Meanwhile, her promising career is suffering. Prior to the Liz & Dick cable film, Lohan was cast in a yet-to-be-released theatrical film, InAPPropriate Comedy, directed by the ShamWow pitchman Vince Offer. She’s also rumored to have a lead role in novelist/screenwriter Bret Easton Ellis’ sex-fueled Los Angeles drama The Canyons, starring adult-film star James Deen.

 Her first big-screen comeback, Robert Rodriguez’s 2010 grindhouse nod Machete, did make money — $44 million worldwide — but that was largely based on a reasonable production budget of $10.5 million.

So how distant does Lohan’s Disney past — including a platinum-selling debut record Speak in 2004 — seem now? Lohan was once the freckled angelic face of several Disney family comedy remakes.

For a refresh of her career, check out these Lohan films — proof that once upon a time she was more than a celebrity, she was an up-and-coming actress.

Parent Trap (1998)

Freaky Friday (2003)

Mean Girls (2004)

A Prairie Home Companion (2006)

What are your thoughts on Lohan's career?

Jukebox Musicals on Film

Written by Kirk Baird

With the recent release of Rock of Ages to movie theaters, here are some other jukebox musicals on DVD.

Singin’ in the Rain(1952) (Will be released as a special 50^th anniversary set in mid-July)

A Hard Day’s Night (1964)

Help! (1965)

Yellow Submarine (1968)

The Blues Brothers (1980)

American Pop (1981)

Moulin Rouge (2001)

Across the Universe (2007)

Mamma Mia! (2008)

Have you seen any of these films? Which would you rate as your favorite and why?