alan arkin Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Today, Warner Home Video announced the titles that will be released in May through the studio's video on demand service, Warner Archives. Among these titles is the 1963 Steve McQueen film Soldier in the Rain, costarring Jackie Gleason, and most excitingly, the 1974 buddy comedy Freebie and the Bean.

Chances are if you aren't already shouting at the top of your lungs in excitement, you have no idea what Freebie and the Bean is. And yet, in retrospect it seems like the missing - and absolutely essential - link between the gritty potboilers of the 1970s, such as The French Connection, and the glib, profane thrillers of the '80s and '90s, in particular the early work of Shane Black. At the urging of a few well-informed buddies I went to see the film late last year at a revival theater in Los Angeles, not the least of which because it stars Alan Arkin as a Hispanic detective (i.e., The Bean), and James Caan as his determined-to-be-corrupted partner (Hence "Freebie"). And while it certainly doesn't have the palpable drama of Friedkin's film, or even the slick polish of the Lethal Weapon films (or even The Last Boy Scout, a movie with which it shares an unhealthy number of similarities), it's an amazing, explosive, almost self-destructive exercise in action, comedy, racism, and property damage, not necessarily in that order.

Cinematical has just received this exclusive poster for Sunshine Cleaning, starring Amy Adams, Emily Blunt and Alan Arkin. The film follows a down-on-her-funds mom (Adams) who, in order to raise money to send her son to private school, listens to the advice of her father (Arkin) and starts up a crime scene cleaning business with her sister (Blunt). Adams and Blunt together seems like a recipe for success, and advanced buzz on the film -- which comes to us from the producers of Little Miss Sunshine -- is pretty positive so far. Directed by Christine Jeffs and written by Megan Holley (nice female duo at the top there), Sunshine Cleaning hits theaters on March 13th.

Click below for a larger version of the poster.

I can't vouch for John Grogan's 2005 best-selling memoir, Marley & Me, in which owning a yellow lab helped the journalist (Owen Wilson) and his wife (Jennifer Aniston) tolerate any number of trials and tribulations that came their way -- many of which could be chalked up to the carnage-prone canine himself. I suspect that, unlike their on-screen counterparts, the Grogans actually showed some indications of aging after thirteen years and three kids. I doubt that John had a perpetual bachelor of a best bud (Eric Dane) who lingered around to both knock and envy his marriage with convenient doses of sarcasm and handsomeness. I question that the couple could own a picturesque Pennsylvania estate on just one reporter's salary. But I'm fairly sure that both the book and the film shared a common goal -- to make its audience sit, stay, laugh, cry, and then get on with their lives -- and at those modest aspirations, the movie version pretty much succeeds.

While creepy monsters can send chills straight to the spine, there's nothing quite as thrilling as the perfectly simple fright. Thanks to the master Alfred Hitchcock, as well as a number of other filmmakers over the years, we've been showered in an array of scenarios so believable that every shadow becomes eerie, and every noise, threatening. They're the scares that could happen to any one of us on an unlucky day; they are the dangers that await us when we're alone and in the dark.

For tonight's double feature, I wanted to go old school with chills that go back to the '50s and '60s, centered on New York's Greenwich Village. These films might be decades old, but they hold premises that make them worthy, unforgettable classics. Without further ado, I give you: Rear Window and Wait Until Dark.

The whole idea of secret children who come out of the woodwork is challenging as it is. Should the secret be revealed, or should it stay hidden? How do you make up for lost years? How do you integrate them into the family? Now, imagine that you're part of the law, and you find out that your secret kid is in jail. That's the basic idea behind a new indie comedy called City Island, and The Hollywood Reporter has posted that Julianna Margulies, Emily Mortimer, and Alan Arkin have joined the cast.

Andy Garcia had previously signed on to play Vince Rizzo, "a Bronx prison official who realizes that an inmate (Steven Strait) is his secret love child. His efforts to become his guardian lead to comic complications." Marguiles is taking on the role of Garcia's wife, and it seems that the man is also looking to become an actor because Arkin will play a teacher in the acting class, and Mortimer will be a fellow student he becomes friends with. Garcia's real-life daughter Dominik Garcia-Lorido will play his daughter, and Ezra Miller has also nabbed an undisclosed part.

I really don't know how all of this acting works into prison officials and long-lost bad boy sons, but we should see soon enough. The film went into production this week in the Bronx.

Bringing TV properties to the big screen is a dicey proposition; for every success, there's a fistful of failures that didn't make the cut. (Hands up if you remember I Spy. ...) But gathered in Hollywood for a press conference, the stars and creative staff of Get Smart were relaxed and calm, fielding questions about everything from the tricky business of mocking intelligence in a post-9/11 world, what it takes to play a bad guy, and what it's like to make out with Steve Carell.

The cast was asked if they actually went back to the '60s TV show to get a sense of playing their parts; each of them had a different answer. Steve Carell explained "I didn't want to do an impersonation of Don Adams; I figured there was no way to improve upon what he had done, and I thought the more I watched of him, the more inclined I would be to do an impersonation, because he was so good, so definitive in the role; so no, I sort of backed off."

During the opening of Get Smart, the new big-screen re-visitation of the '60s spy spoof TV show created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry, we're shown a montage detailing the mighty workings of the modern intelligence apparatus; covert microphones, satellite communications intercepts, frantic translation, secretive meetings. As top analyst Maxwell Smart (Steve Carell) walks the streets of Washington to the hidden headquarters of the secret agency where he works, listening to intercepted conversations to better understand the plans and thoughts of America's enemies, his iPod switches over ... to Abba's "Take a Chance on Me." Spies, it seems, are people too.

And pause here to think about the challenges facing any director who wants to make a spy comedy in our modern times. If you depict spies as too competent, the audience unconsciously fears for their civil liberties; depict spies as too incompetent, the audience unconsciously fears for their lives. Make the film's threat to the free world too credible, and the film's more scary than silly; make the threat to the free world too fantastic and foolish (as in the earlier Get Smart big-screen project, 1980's The Nude Bomb) and the film's more goofy than gripping. The makers of the new Get Smart seem to have thought about this, and have transformed the character somewhat from Don Adams's nasal know-nothing in the '60s TV show; as played by Carell, Smart is a bright, dedicated, insightful analyst for the secret agency CONTROL who dreams of being a field agent. And Max learns he's passed the field agent's exam with flying colors; still, his boss The Chief (Alan Arkin) rejects Max's request for transfer to field work because he needs Max behind a desk.

In the big-screen adaptation of the '60s TV show Get Smart, Alan Arkin takes on the role of The Chief, the spymaster originally portrayed by Edward Platt. Bold, resolute, and perpetually frustrated by the efforts and mistakes of the overly-enthusiastic Maxwell Smart (Steve Carell), The Chief is an ideal part for someone with Arkin's slow-burn comedy timing, and a chance for the Oscar-winning actor to stand out in one of the biggest-budget films of Arkin's career. Cinematical spoke with Arkin in Hollywood about how he came on board the film, his long professional history of mocking the American intelligence establishment, doing his own stunts and if he'd be back for a Get Smart sequel.

Cinematical: I was reading in the press notes, which I'm never inclined to trust ...

Alan Arkin: I deny it; I never said anything like that in my life. ...

Cinematical: I read how Mr. Carell was how you got involved in the film ...

AA: I'm hearing that today for the first time; I've heard it from three people, so maybe it's true ...

"Agent 23 is the greatest agent on the planet." -- Dwayne "The Rock' Johnson

Moviefone has debuted an exclusive behind-the-scenes clip from this summer's Get Smart, starring Steve Carell, Anne Hathaway (is it me, or does she look GOOD in this flick?), Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and Alan Arkin. Above, watch as Dwayne (Johnson? Rock?) takes us through the trials and tribulations of his character, Agent 23. As Carrell points out in the video above, "Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson is a formidable force. It's very emasculating to even be in a room with him because he sweats testosterone, whereas I sweat estrogen." Nice.

Watch the video above (or over on Moviefone), then head out to the theater to see Get Smart when it arrives on June 20 (trailers available here, here and here).

Why We Can't Wait to See It: Because in pretty much every film he's made -- big, boring, insipid not-quite-sequels excepted -- Steve Carell brings the funny. The trailers look surprisingly solid, and the cast -- including Anne Hathaway, Dwayne Johnson, Alan Arkin and Terence Stamp -- is top-notch.

Why It Might Do Well: Because people just plain like Carell -- and the film's plot pitch where a secret agency's having their top people exposed forces them to shove unknown agents out into the field is, in fact, a solid story-driven reason for an incompetent like Max to placed in harm's way. ...

Why It Might Not Do Well: We may be a little tired of Baby Boomer-era nostalgia TV getting splashed up on the big screen; anyone else remember how well I Spy turned out?

Fun Fact: Get Smart was created by Buck Henry and Mel Brooks -- yes, the men behind The Graduate and Young Frankenstein.

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