Bringing Up Baby (1938) is one of versatile director Howard Hawks' greatest screwball comedies and often considered the definitive screwball film. It is also one of the funniest, wackiest and most inspired films of all time with its characteristic breathless pace, zany antics and pratfalls, absurd situations and misunderstandings, perfect sense of comic timing, completely screwball cast, series of lunatic and hare-brained misadventures, disasters, light-hearted surprises and romantic comedy. The non-stop, harum-scarum farce skewered many institutions, including psychiatry, the sterile field of science, the police, and high-society upper classes. At the time of its release, it failed miserably at the box-office and was soon forgotten, until it was revived years later.

As is true of many of Howard Hawks' finest films (including the crime film Scarface (1932), Twentieth Century (1934), His Girl Friday (1940), To Have and Have Not (1944), the detective film The Big Sleep (1946), Monkey Business (1952), and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)), this masterpiece was not nominated for a single Academy Award. Director Peter Bogdanovich paid homage to Hollywood's screwball comedy genre with a loose remake titled What's Up, Doc (1972) starring Barbra Streisand and Ryan O'Neal.

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The all-time outrageous, satirical, comedy farce favorite, Some Like It Hot (1959) is one of the most hilarious, raucous films ever made. The ribald film is a clever combination of many elements: a spoof of 1920-30's gangster films with period costumes and speakeasies, and romance in a quasi-screwball comedy with one central joke - entangled and deceptive identities, reversed sex roles and cross-dressing. In fact, one of the film's major themes is disguise and masquerade - e.g., the drag costumes of the two male musicians, Joe's disguise as a Cary Grant-like impotent millionaire, and Jerry's happiness with a real wealthy, yacht-owning retiree.

It's also a black and white film (reminiscent of the early film era) filled with non-stop action (e.g., the initial car chase), slapstick, and one-liners reminiscent of Marx Brothers and Mack Sennett comedies. An earlier Bob Hope film had the same title: Some Like It Hot (1939). The film's working title was Not Tonight, Josephine! (its origin was reportedly taken from Napoleon Bonaparte's response when refusing sex with Empress Josephine).

The exceptional film was the all-time highest-grossing comedy up to its time, one of the most successful films of 1959, and Wilder's funniest comedy in his career. The film was inspired by director Kurt Hoffmann's German movie comedy/musical Fanfares of Love (1951) (aka Fanfaren der Liebe) with a similar plot element that writer/director Wilder borrowed: two down-on-their-luck, unemployed jazz musicians dress up as women in order to get two weeks of work in an all-women's dance band bound for Florida, after witnessing a gang-land massacre in Prohibition-Era Chicago and being pursued by the mob. Only a few other cross-dressing comedies have come close to approximating the film's daring hilarity: Tootsie (1982), La Cage Aux Folles (1978) and Victor/Victoria (1982). Some Like It Hot also inspired the Broadway musical Sugar that opened in 1972.

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Sleeper (1973) is Woody Allen's science-fiction satirical comedy classic and screwball comedy about the future - with Dixieland and swing music. The film's poster stated: "WOODY ALLEN TAKES A NOSTALGIC LOOK AT THE FUTURE." This film was from Allen's earlier period, when he was known for appearing in or directing lightweight comedies, such as Take the Money and Run (1969), Bananas (1971), Play It Again, Sam (1972), and Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* But Were Afraid to Ask (1972).

Filled with one-liners, Allen's film both satirizes the 1970's and parodies sci-fi books and past classics, such as Buck Rogers "Serial" (1939), Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and A Clockwork Orange (1971), George Lucas' THX 1138 (1971), George Orwell's futuristic novel 1984, and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. It also evokes such slapstick comedy classics as Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton films, the Keystone Kops, Chaplin's Modern Times (1936) and the Marx Brothers' Duck Soup (1933). Like Chaplin in many of his films, Allen directed, wrote, starred in, and composed the soundtrack for this film.

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Cast:

John Cusack, Minnie Driver, Dan Aykroyd, Joan Cusack, Alan Arkin, Jeremy Piven, Hank Azaria, Mitchell Ryan

Review:
Grosse Pointe Blank should come with a warning against advertisement-induced expectations which might diminish a viewer's appreciation of the film. The previews and TV commercials make the movie look like a frothy romantic comedy. In
Martin's profession is a bit more exotic than that of any of his former schoolmates. After joining the army and spending five years as a covert operative for the CIA (during this stint, he killed the President of Paraguay with a fork), he went into business for himself as a hit man. Over the years, Martin has developed quite a reputation. His latest job requires him to return to Grosse Pointe, Michigan during the weekend of his ten-year high school reunion. So, on the advice of his reluctant therapist (Alan Arkin), he agrees to try to patch things up with his one true love, Debi (Minnie Driver), and attend the event. Things don't exactly go as planned, however. A rival hit man (Dan Aykroyd) shows up, and soon bullets are flying all over Grosse Pointe.



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Stars: Max Ryan, Maria Conchita Alonso and Chris Mulkey

Review:

One flick we've been talking about for a while now is Dana Mennie's werewolf driven love story Dark Moon Rising. Don't let the love story part fool ya, though; the movie features Sid Haig fighting werewolves! That premise alone is enough for me to get my ass into a seat to watch it.

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Social dramas or "message films" expressed powerful lessons, such as the harsh conditions of Southern prison systems in Hell's Highway (1932) and I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang (1932), the plight of wandering groups of young boys on freight cars during the Depression in William Wellman's Wild Boys of the Road (1933), or the lawlessness of mob rule in Fritz Lang's Fury (1936), or the resourcefulness of lifer prisoner and bird expert Robert Stroud (Burt Lancaster) in John Frankenheimer's Birdman of Alcatraz (1961), or the tale of a framed, unjustly imprisoned journalist (James Cagney) in Each Dawn I Die (1939). In Yield to the Night (1956), Diana Dors relived her life and crime as she awaited her execution. A tough, uncompromising look at New York waterfront corruption was found in the classic American film, director Elia Kazan's On the Waterfront (1954) with Marlon Brando as a longshoreman who testified to the Waterfront Crimes Commission. The film drew criticism with the accusation that it appeared to justify Kazan's informant role before the HUAC.

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Cast
Channing Tatum as Marcus Flavius Aquila
Jamie Bell as Esca
Donald Sutherland as Aquila's uncle
Mark Strong as Guern
Tahar Rahim as Liathan, Prince of the Seal People
Ned Dennehy as Chief of the Seal People


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Cast:

Sylvester Stallone, John Lithgow, Michael Rooker, Janine Turner, Paul Winfield

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A major cast shake-up confirmed that Sienna Miller, William H. Macy, Brendan Fraser, Matt Dillon and Craig Robinson have left writer/director Charles Matthau’s adaptation of the Elmore Leonard crime novel Freaky Deaky.

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We went ape for a chance to have a chat with the extremely talented Andy Serkis, frequent collaborator with Peter Jackson as Gollum in The Lord of the Rings trilogy and now starring as the ape Caesar alongside James Franco.

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