the poseidon adventure Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Oscar-winning actor Ernest Borgnine turned 90 today. Yes, he's still alive, and he's still working. But he would like to be working more. He told the Associated Press this week that few people are interested in hiring him, mostly because they don't know he's still around. If you look at his listing on the IMDb, though, you'll see that the actor is far from unemployed. Sure, he hasn't done anything high profile in decades, but when prompted for his opinion of the movies of today, he acted as though nothing is currently worth his talent.

His attitude seems ballsy even for a player of tough guy roles in The Dirty Dozen, The Wild Bunch and From Here to Eternity. But maybe because I grew up associating Borgnine first with Super Fuzz and then with The Poseidon Adventure, I can't entirely believe that he's spent the past thirty years looking for substantial parts. There had to be an opportunity for a comeback in there somewhere. But if there hasn't been, there is still time for one great swansong. For 90, he seems healthy enough. Considering two of the four movies he liked in 2006 were directed by Clint Eastwood, I would just like to put it out there that Borgnine needs a significant role in Clint's next picture.

Because I'm relatively young, my best memories of Red Buttons come from the live-action/animation hybrid Pete's Dragon, in which he played Hoagy, assistant to the weaselly villain Dr. Terminus. Between that film and C.H.O.M.P.S., which is another kids' movie he appeared in around the same time, I became familiar with his face early on. Of course it took me a few years to get the name right -- I kept confusing him with Red Skelton -- but he had an easily recognizable and somewhat goofy appearance that could put a smile on my face at anytime. Yet Buttons, who was born Aaron Chwatt and got his stage name from his hair color and a button-filled uniform he used to wear as a bellhop, was working for decades before I ever set eyes on his cute little face.

He started as a stand-up comedian when he was only 16, became an accomplished singer and composer, and eventually broke into television and movies. In 1958 he won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar and a Golden Globe for Sayonara, which starred Marlon Brando. His best recognized role these days, however, has to be nice guy James Martin from the original The Poseidon Adventure. He also appeared in The Longest Day, Harlow (which brought another Golden Globe nomination), They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (and another), the TV-movie Leave 'em Laughing and, most recently, The Story of Us.

He died Thursday of vascular disease at the age of 87 and had been ill for some time.

1972's The Poseidon Adventure has not only been re-made, but also re-named Poseidon. The story is the same: A passenger cruise ship is turned upside down by a giant wave, and a band of survivors struggle to work their way up through the wreckage and carnage to reach the bottom of the ship (which is, of course, now the top) and hopefully escape certain doom. In this iteration, the film's title is shorter, snappier, simpler. It may be a simple matter of semantics -- and the word 'Adventure' does makes it sound like our characters are on a jovial day-trip instead of a fear-soaked scramble for life -- but you can see the change in the nomenclature as a reflection of the remake itself: brisker, to-the-point, better marketed ... and a lot less fun.  

Poseidon is directed by Wolfgang Pedersen, and there's a strong chance that someone looked at how well Pedersen brought The Perfect Storm from the best-seller list to box office glory and theorized that, if you've got a giant wave in your film, there's only one man to hire. Plus, he's become an adept big-budget technician over the years with only a few black marks on his resume -- I found Troy to be thought-provoking and well-made, although I may have been the only one --  and a pretty steady track record of delivering thrills and chills and spills for multiplex audiences. Pedersen certainly doesn't linger long; the film clocks in at a short 100 minutes, and the boat goes over at around the 17-minute mark.That pace keeps Poseidon tense and terse, certainly -- there's not much letup in the action once the world turns upside down -- but viewed close on the heels of Mission: Impossible III, it also demonstrates a disturbing trend in big-budget moviemaking.

Coming Soon has shoveled out our first look at the new extended Poseidon trailer and can I just say how happy I am that Leonardo DiCaprio is nowhere near this sinking ship. When the teaser for this one hit awhile back, I was kind of annoyed at how similar to Titanic the film felt. However, after checking out this new trailer, while the two share a similar "Holy crap, the ship is sinking and we need to save our butts" vibe, Poseidon appears to kick up the action a notch.

In this remake of the classic 1972 film, The Poseidon Adventure, folks like Josh Lucas, Kurt Russell, Jacinda Barrett (Wait, wasn't she on The Real World?) and Richard Dreyfuss must come together and figure out how the hell to survive after the luxury ocean liner they're traveling in gets smashed by a gigantic tidal wave. Of course, everyone involved has their own personal stuff going on throughout (personally, I'd be thinking about who would take my massive DVD collection should I perish) and, after we build our characters for awhile, this one really looks like it's going to be a fun ride. Poseidon officially sets sail on May 12th.