TheHudsuckerProxy Tagged Articles at Cinematical

The old-school Sam Raimi fans are having a ball this weekend (I hope) with the director's long-awaited return to horror, the very cool Drag Me to Hell. And of course all of you know Mr. Raimi as the director of the Evil Dead trilogy and / or the Spider-Man trilogy, but it's easy to forget that this filmmaker has one rather impressive batting average. Doubly so if you're into good-time matinee-style genre flicks! So here's a chance to look back over some of the man's other films, mostly ones you've heard of (and probably seen by now), but flicks that are certainly worth a fresh look every now and again. I'll start with one of my true favorites ...

The Quick and the Dead (1995) -- Raimi's ode to the old-school western is an addictively entertaining mixture of A) a great ensemble, B) tons of nifty visuals, and C) tongue-in-cheek affection for the old-fashioned western tales. Plus it's not every day you see Sharon Stone, Gene Hackman, Russell Crowe, Leonardo DiCaprio shoot it out amongst themselves. And if you're a fan of character actors, this movie is an all-you-can-eat buffet of colorful performances: Keith David, Kevin Conway, Lance Henriksen, Tobin Bell, Pat Hingle, Gary Sinise, and on and on it goes. Great fun, especially if you love westerns.

Darkman (1990) -- Long before he was handed the keys to Spidey's cinematic web, Sam Raimi was already thinking about superhero movies. And he didn't even bother going with an established character! He and his brother just created one called Darkman! Just about everything that works so well in the Spider-Man series is included here, from the playful tone and stylish action to the crafty compositions and strong performances. Liam Neeson as a faceless vigilante! How can you not love that?

Okay. Deep breath. Today I am just going to go all-out fangirl, unabashedly, unashamedly. Next week you can ask me to discuss the Bechdel rule or the future of the term "mumblecore." But on Sunday, My Name is Bruce comes to Austin as part of a tour around the country, with its filmmaker-star Bruce Campbell in attendance, and my goofy inner fan is taking the upper hand over the professional film critic.

I realize that My Name is Bruce is unlikely to be one of the great films of the century, or even as fun as Army of Darkness. I'm fine with that. Look, I paid to see Man with the Screaming Brain in a theater (also with Campbell in attendance). I don't care. All of you who would go see anything touched by Joss Whedon, even if he remade an Oscar-Meyer Wiener commercial, can have your sweet revenge on me now. And I know I'm not alone -- in Austin, tickets for the My Name is Bruce screening sold out in five minutes, and they had to add two more screenings, which also sold out speedily. I talked my husband into watching the first Burn Notice episode with me on Hulu, and now we've watched all of them and he's coming with me this weekend, threatening to bring a yogurt container for Mr. Campbell to sign. We do have our limits -- you can watch the entire series of Jack of All Trades on Hulu too, but I figured once was way more than enough for me.

I keep hoping Campbell will appear in something as good as Bubba Ho-Tep again. In the meantime, I'm finding my favorite Bruce Campbell moments in film (and TV) to enjoy while keeping my fingers crossed about My Name is Bruce. So for the rest of you die hard Campbell fans out there, here are seven of my favorite moments. (I wish I had YouTube clips but the studios can be such spoilsports about copyright.) I don't need to tell you to feel free to point out what I missed, or where I'm wrong, in the comments. I'm hoping someone will let me know if I missed anything worthwhile in Serving Sara, The Love Bug, or McHale's Navy.

A friend of mine emailed this morning with a link to this site and one simple question: "Which t-shirt are you buying?" After checking out said website, the question then became: Which t-shirt am I NOT buying? Over at Last Exit to Nowhere, they specialize in creating movie t-shirts. Ah, but these aren't just your run-of-the-mill shirts, see -- they're so much better. The site's intro description says it's "home to a collection of unique shirt designs which are inspired and pay homage to some of the most memorable places, corporations and companies in modern fiction – from the sunny shores of Amity Island (Jaws) to the frozen climes of Outpost #31 (The Thing)."

Oh yes, that's the Little Lebowski urban achievers t-shirt to the right of your screen; they also have shirts for Hudsucker Industries (Hudsucker Proxy), Skynet (Terminator series), Shawshank State Prison (Shawshank Redemption), and much more. Then there's the random shirts like the Stovington Academy shirt Jack Nicholson wore in The Shining, a Polymer Records shirt from This is Spinal Tap, and a shirt wearing the logo of the fictional TV station from Romero's Dawn of the Dead. Insanity, I tell you! So many awesome shirts -- honey, consider this month's paycheck officially blown. Check out all the shirts over at Last Exit to Nowhere ...

... and extra credit goes to the first person who can name all the films from the t-shirts pictured in the galley below (no cheating!).

With No Country For Old Men coming to DVD next Tuesday (3/11) in the final paces of the film's victory lap, it seems like a good time to note that when one of the film's Oscars went to Best Supporting Actor Javier Bardem, it came as the logical conclusion of a long-established fact for many Coen watchers: the brothers have a Midas touch when it comes to supporting parts -- writing them, casting them, directing them. Throughout their career, the writing-directing duo of Joel and Ethan Coen have always peppered their films with brief, brisk parts that both famous and lesser-known actors have turned into standout moments. Here, then, is a list of seven truly great Coen Brothers supporting parts, as well as runners-up from each film. As ever, these lists are highly subjective, and our comments section below awaits your thoughts. ...

1. The Dane (J.E. Freeman), Miller's Crossing

In Miller's Crossing (for my money, the the most overlooked and under-appreciated film in the Coen canon) the brothers pull a balancing act; they not only refuse, refute and re-invent gangster film styles, plots and archetypes, but they also freshen, fire up and fulfill those gangster film styles, plots and archetypes. So it is with J.E. Freeman's Eddie Dane, a fearsome tough guy whose simple, shark-like capacity for murder and mayhem drives the plot and whose complicated private life adds a few twists to the finale. Much is made of John Turturro's work in this film (as it should be) but it's The Dane who keeps sticking out in my mind whenever I re-visit Miller's Crossing, a small, self-contained example of why the film as a whole is so good.

(Runners-up: Bernie Bernbaum (John Turturro), Vera Bernbaum (Marcia Gay Harden) and Johnny Caspar (Jon Polito).