sneakers Tagged Articles at Cinematical

He's always a great actor, but Ben Kingsley has a habit lately of working with undeserving directors (e.g. Uwe Boll) and appearing in undeserving movies (e.g. A Sound of Thunder). Give him a great director (Spielberg, Glazer) or even a good one (Attenborough, Levinson) and he shines. So, it's an enormous treat to learn he's finally working with Martin Scorsese, appearing in the newly Oscar-winning director's next film, Shutter Island. According to the Hollywood Reporter, Kingsley (or Sir Ben, as he's typically referred to on set) will play Dr. Cawley, the chief physician at a Massachusetts hospital for the criminally insane who must play host to two U.S. marshals played by Leonardo DiCaprio and Mark Ruffalo. Based on the novel by Dennis Lehane (Mystic River, Gone Baby Gone), the plot follows the marshals as they investigate the disappearance of a mental patient/inmate. While on the case, they experience a hurricane, get stuck on the eponymous island thanks to a riot and of course, "encounter a web of deceit."

Best known for being the fourth collaboration between Scorsese and DiCaprio, Shutter Island will also hopefully be known as the movie in which Sir Ben has a Massachusetts accent. As a cranky "enigmatic" doctor, though, he could be from anywhere (and with Kingsley, I truly mean that literally). Actually, this could be a rare Lehane adaptation where none of the main characters have that Boston-area intonation. Regardless, it should be entertaining to watch Kingsley as a slightly villainous physician who performs illegal brain surgery. Picture a cross between Don Logan, his character from Sexy Beast, Cosmo, his character from Sneakers, and Xavier Fitch, from Species. I would add in his loony psychiatrist character from the upcoming The Wackness, but I've only seen one scene and you likely aren't familiar with any of it. Of course, under the masterful direction of Scorsese, Kingsley will probably give us something fresh, like no character of his we've encountered before. I see a fifth Oscar nomination on the horizon.

According to the trailer for the documentary Stephen Tobolowsky's Birthday Party, the scene-stealing actor Stephen Tobolowsky, "has been in more movies than Tom Cruise," and, "is linked to more movie stars than Kevin Bacon." His name isn't all that familiar, but his face and voice are both distinctly recognizable. Not so much for being the lead singer in an early band featuring Stevie Ray Vaughn or for co-writing True Stories, but for his stand out appearances in a number of films, most of which he hardly features in more than one scene. Most people would probably place him first in Groundhog Day or Single White Female, where he played the similar-sounding characters Ned Ryerson and Mitch Myerson, respectively. He also features prominently in Memento, Memoirs of an Invisible Man, Thelma and Louise, and many other films.

His best part, though, has to be Dr. Werner Brandes in Sneakers. In the film, which stars heavyweights Robert Redford, Sidney Poitier, Dan Aykroyd, David Strathairn, River Phoenix, Mary McDonnell and Ben Kingsley, his character is not only significant to the story, but the actor's voice is even more vital to the plot; in my opinion, it's one of the best purely vocal pieces of scene-stealing in the history of cinema. In an attempt to enter a high-security office, which requires voice-identification, Robert Redford's crew sends in McDonnell on a date with Tobolowsky, where she must get the man to say the following words: "Hi, my name is Werner Brandes. My voice is my passport. Verify me." Only she has to get the words through casual conversation, so he doesn't catch on to her reason for needing them -- Redford's crew can stitch the out-of-order individual words into the pass-phrase; the way McConnell gets Toblowsky to say "passport" is the best part. Later, when the edited recording of these words are played to gain entry into an office, Tobolowsky's voice is immortalized forever. More than any other scene in the film -- and there are some great ones in there -- I always remember Tobolowsky's and McConnell's scene together the best.

Hokey smokes, Al Cabino sure does like sneakers. The young man, who chooses to remain silent about himself, is not at all silent when it comes to his love of footwear, and especially his quest to convince Nike to create a pair of shoes based on the swanky footwear worn by Michael J. Fox in Back to the Future II. I mentioned this back in December, and also opined that such online petitions rarely get results. Those in the sneaker biz tend to agree, claiming the shoes would be more for show than anything and not serve any useful function. Yeah, well, Cabino doesn't care. He's garnered over 3,700 signatures, some of which are allegedly from such big names in the recording industry as Lupe Fiasco, DJ AM, and Billions McMillions. Personally, I'd rather have a pair of Inspector Gadget shoes. Now those would come in handy.