May 17, 2002|With a background in broadcast journalism and corporate and educational films segueing into a short stint writing teleplays for “Trapper John M.D.”, Phil Alden Robinson broke into feature films in 1984 with the screenplays for All Of Me and Rhinestone. The two experiences (the former with Carl Reiner, the latter with Sylvester Stallone) represented disparate filmmaking philosophies, one collaborative, the other in which an egotistical star decides everything. Wisely taking a page from Reiner’s book, Robinson has endeavoured in each of his films as director (beginning with the little-seen In the Mood and continuing through Field of Dreams, Sneakers, Freedom Song, and now The Sum of All Fears) to recreate that feeling of conviviality and bonhomie with his extended ensembles.

April 19, 2002|The Catholic Church's auto-immolation at the soiled hands of pederast priests unable to live in the imitation points to a crisis of perception for those hoping to proselytize the Christian walk. For a faith of which most of its sects are evangelical, the popular secular opinion that Christians are patronizing, hypocritical, close-minded, corrupt, and smug–mostly dormant since the heyday of the Bakkers and Swaggerts, though the occasional book-banning and Darwin-bashing keeps it breathing–is resurrected again in our current climate with an Old Testament fury. A spate of terrible Christian films the last couple of years (The Omega Code, Left Behind) has led to a spate of wildly-uneven offerings in just the last several months, pictures that were greenlighted and produced prior to this most recent need for a little low profile.

January 11, 2002|Shane West loves horror movies–explanation, perhaps, for his participation in the Wes Craven-produced Dracula 2000. And he has a knowledge of them that belies his relatively tender age of twenty-three. It’s an undercurrent of the slightly wicked (with his horror jones and his punk band Average Jo) that fuels his persona across various heartthrob fansites dedicated to celebrating the young, the pretty, the slightly dangerous. Mr. West’s knowledge of film, his respect for his craft, and his politeness and obvious decency are qualities each that seem all too rare in any walk much less Tinsel Town. It’s early yet in Mr. West’s career, the upcoming adaptation of Nicholas Sparks’s A Walk to Remember is only his second leading role, but it’s his performance as the soulful Eli Sammler on ABC’s well-regarded drama “Once and Again” that has been the key to his rising popularity and critical recognition.

September 22, 2001|Stephen Ryder's voice is forceful and worn in the way of a man who has a lot of stories and knows that the stories are good ones. A published poet, a professor of dialogue and writing at NYU, and a former police officer and journalist nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for Op/Ed in 1976, he is a magnetic personality and a graceful speaker: careful not to interrupt and catching one off guard with an incisive question born of his experience as a professional interrogator. Mr. Ryder's new film L.I.E. bristles with a brittle reality balanced against a deep scholarly vein that is surprising only until you speak with the man. Also generous with his time, Mr. Ryder sat down with Film Freak Central recently to share some of his thoughts on his movie, Jack Valenti and the M.P.A.A., and Walt Whitman.