geena davis Tagged Articles at Cinematical

"Aargh!" "Ahoy, matey!" "Shiver me timbers!" OK, that's it, I'm out of buccaneer bon mots, which are pretty much essential in order to honor Talk Like a Pirate Day, celebrated annually on September 19. And even those pirate sayings are ones I took from an article on the event in Los Angeles Times, which credits John "OI' Chumbucket" Bauer and Mark "Cap'n Slappy" Summers for igniting the tradition years ago.

When it comes to movies, the Pirates of the Caribbean series comes trippingly to mind, especially since Disney just announced that Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides will be coming ashore in Summer 2011, with Johnny Depp returning as Jack Sparrow. But it's pretty tough to talk like Johnny Depp -- believe me, I've tried, and gotten my face slapped as a result -- so what other movie pirates can we safely imitate? Here's a quick list:

• Errol Flynn. I'm working on my Australian accent, by way of England, and I think I've got it, good enough to fake a shorter, less dashing Captain Blood.
• Graham Chapman. The Brits have got us beat when it comes to classic Pirate-speak, and Yellowbeard has so much flamingly funny talk you can pick and choose, but I'll stick with my man Graham.
• Robert Shaw. He's always talking out of the side of his mouth in Swashbuckler, which makes it easy to talk like him.
• Geena Davis. She doesn't talk like pirates usually talk in Cutthroat Island. All I have to do is talk like a rough and ready lady.

Our friends at Popeater have their own suggestions, and there's a great list at Rob Ossian's Pirate's Cove. To celebrate Talk Like a Pirate Day, what movie pirate will you be talking like?

Mother's Day is bittersweet for me because my own mother passed away 11 years ago. In recent times, though, the sweet far outweighs the bitter, because I have wonderful memories of our time together watching -- and loving -- movies. When I'd come home from school in the afternoon, we'd talk and watch old movies on a tiny, black and white TV. When everyone else in my family thought I was crazy for waiting in line for hours to see Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, she told me about waiting in line for hours as a young teen to see Gone With the Wind. When she was dying of cancer and I visited for a couple of weeks from out of state, we spent hours watching old movies together.

In honor of all of our mothers, I've compiled a list of seven of the most awesomest movie moms. But this isn't a competition; it's just a list, and it's just a highly personal reflection of my own thoughts, so please feel free to share your favorite, most awesome movie moms in the comments.

1. Geena Davis as Samantha Caine / Charly Baltimore in The Long Kiss Goodnight

As Elisabeth Rappe rhapsodized recently, "the charm of the movie is that her psychotic nature is buried within a happy-go-lucky mom who enjoys baking muffins and wearing ugly Christmas sweaters." Home-made muffins are nice and all, but wouldn't it be cool if your mother could assassinate those bullies who keep beating you up after school? Not saying she would, of course, though that would have been a tantalizing prospect for me. Of course, the flip side is that you'd better behave ... or else!

If it wasn't for Commander in Chief, I would've assumed that Geena Davis had been sucked into a vortex of family fare from which she could not escape --or more specifically, a Stuart Little vortex. She's hung out with nothing other than the talking mouse on the big screen since 1996's The Long Kiss Goodnight. But now she's got a new feature on the way, and even better -- it's a dark, indie comedy being helmed by first-timer Andrew Lancaster.

Variety reports that she's toplining Accidents Happen, and Joel Tobeck, Sebastian Gregory, Sarah Woods, Rebecca Massey, and Erik Thomson have signed on for roles in the project, which has just started shooting. The partially autobiographical story, written by Brian Carbee, focuses on a a 15-year-old accident-prone kid who causes "an almighty crash with a bowling ball and a moving car" when he hangs out with his best friend. This accident somehow results in the kid having to face his family's history.

Hopefully this is the start of more quality fare for the actress, because family films are sweet and all, but they're no Tootsie, or The Fly, or Beetlejuice, or Thelma & Louise.

This particular Cinematical Seven took awhile to sort out. First, I needed to decide whether I would focus solely on women who play sports in film or if I should open it up to women who play sports and/or appear in sports films. As you can see from the photo above, I went with the latter. Then I needed to decide whether I would only select drop-dead gorgeous women, or if there was room for the girl next door in the list as well. I'm sure you sympathize with the tough choices I had to make this afternoon. Anyway, in honor of Superbowl Sunday (Go Giants!), here are my picks for the hottest sports girls on film (a title which took me all of about an hour to come up with -- after all, there are so many different ways to write it):

Kelly Preston as Avery Bishop in Jerry Maguire -- She's harsh, she's intimidating and she doesn't exactly use those legs to kick a long field goal. Before Jerry (Tom Cruise) had his moral epiphany and wound up wooing the adorable Dorothy (Renee Zellweger), he was attached at the hip to the cunning, yet super sexy Avery. She'd come a long way from Space Camp, and after watching Jerry Maguire, I was extremely jealous that John Travolta got to spend every boot camp with this gal.

The original The Fly (1958), directed by Kurt Neumann and starring Vincent Price, is a fairly routine sci-fi programmer with one or two inspired moments. Years later, when David Cronenberg found Charles Edward Pogue's updated screenplay, he saw that there were several ways to rethink and improve upon the original story (written by George Langelaan) and to include his own favorite themes. Moreover, it was a way to deal with one of Cronenberg's own personal problems: motion sickness. In the new film, inventor Seth Brundle (Jeff Goldblum -- who deserved, but did not receive, an Oscar nomination) spends all his time working on teleportation pods so that he'll never have to ride in a car ever again. It was also Cronenberg's most seamless exploration of the changing of the human body via the introduction of outside elements, a theme he has very recently attempted to expand and deepen with Spider (2002) and his gangster films A History of Violence (2005) and the new Eastern Promises.

The Fly (1986) opens at a kind of science convention where inventors gather to discuss (or hint at) their latest findings. A sexy reporter, Veronica Quaife (Geena Davis), is there, hunting for a story. Somehow Seth's kooky enthusiasm intrigues her and she agrees to accompany him back to his lab to see his work. He gives her a cappuccino (from a real cappuccino machine with the eagle on top), and teleports her scarf across the room using two "pods." The pods, of course, are designed to look like huge, metallic beehives or cocoons. Seth decides he likes Veronica, but doesn't want her to write an article about his as-yet-unfinished invention, so he persuades her to hang around and work on a book instead. Together they work on the final hurdle: sending living tissue safely through the pods. In one horrific scene a lab monkey gets turned inside out. In another intriguing sequence, he teleports two slices of steak. The steak looks the same, but the teleported piece tastes wrong; it's the first time Cronenberg really dealt with food and the way the human body perceives and absorbs it. (Eastern Promises goes a little into this as well.)

It's been over ten years since the Renny Harlin action flick The Long Kiss Goodnight hit theaters. But if Samuel L. Jackson and Harlin have their way, a sequel could hit theaters sometime in the near future. MTV's movie blog spoke with Jackson about working with Harlin on some possible script ideas and Jackson says, "We sort of have a development project now for The Long Kiss Goodnight 2, we're talking to writers, you know, getting it together." The original film was centered on a seemingly meek and mild housewife (Geena Davis) who turns out to be a bad ass super-agent suffering from amnesia who is up against some shadowy government types. Jackson was along for the ride as a hard-drinking private eye.

The film was the second attempt for Harlin to turn his then-wife Davis into a female action hero, the first being the less than stellar pirate flick Cutthroat Island. The two films didn't seem to help their relationship and the couple were divorced in 1998. But it doesn't look like Davis is figuring into Harlin and Jackson's plans for a sequel. "Actually, we're thinking, you know, the little girl [Samantha's daughter, Caitlin] is grown up now and possibly got some skills passed onto her by her mom," Jackson says. And if that wasn't enough of a hint, he even spells out that the actual idea is "Her mom gets killed and we want to find out who did it." It looks like they will have plenty to talk about while they are working together on Harlin's latest thriller Curve.

In Hollywood, people win so many awards they apparently have trouble juggling them all. Producer Lauren Shuler Donner (X-Men franchise; She's the Man) was honored at the Women in Film Crystal and Lucy Awards on Tuesday night, and she accidentally dropped her made-of-crystal Crystal Award on the ground and broke it.

The two other winners of the Crystal Award were an overwhelmed Jennifer Lopez and songwriter Dianne Warren (Aerosmith's "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing"). Maria Bello received "The MaxMara Award" for the "Face of the Future" and Geena Davis was given The Lucy Award, which is named for Lucille Ball. After accepting her award, Davis made a speech about the gender imbalance still going on in movies and television, saying it isn't getting better.

I think it has gotten a little better, hasn't it? Okay, so there being more female superhero roles isn't a great breakthrough, especially when they're in movies like Catwoman and Aeon Flux. I get it.

In introducing the first film nominated for Best Picture - Drama, Drew Barrymore (without a bra on) showed us a clip from Good Night, and Good Luck. Men everywhere have kept their televisions paused on Drew. And here comes the "hunk" of the Hollywood Foreign Press, Philip Berk. No one cares what he has to say, we want more awards. Screw that, we want to see more Drew Barrymore.

Geena Davis wins Best Actress in a Television Drama and I'm happy about that. It shows the Hollywood Foreign Press wants us to have a female president. May I suggest nominating Drew Barrymore, so long as she leaves the green dress on? Okay, thus ends my bra-less Drew Barrymore fixation.

Who knew they were making a sequel to Twins?