training day Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Shocker! Displaying a positive attitude that should warm the heart of any moviegoer who loves the female form, Eva Mendes declares: "If I feel it's appropriate to show some nudity in the scenes then I go for it." She told Fox News: "As much as I use my sexuality, I have never felt exploited. I feel like it's on my terms and I have no problem with it."

Speaking as someone who first noticed Mendes when Ethan Hawke opened a door in Training Day to reveal her lying naked on a bed, I say: "I have no problem with it, either." The actress is promoting her appearance in Werner Herzog's Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, which opens later this month (and prompted our own Jeffrey D. Anderson to wonder if the remake was a good idea in the first place.) Mendes has been willing to bare portions of her body for several films, but it's not like she's leisurely walking around naked in any of them. Instead, they're more like brief flashes, tantalizing glimpses that are either frankly sexual (We Own the Night) or fanboy flirtatious (The Spirit, pictured).

Mendes was open in talking about 'turning up the heat and turning up the sexuality' when appropriate, admitting that it's "no accident" that she appeared in an "amazing" Calvin Klein advertising campaign that caused American TV censors to tremble badly. I think it's refreshing to hear an actress admit that she uses all of her assets on her terms, rather than feeling ashamed or exploited. Good for her!

There are those actors who somehow manage to raise the 'quality quotient' of any film that they are in -- and Denzel Washington is one of those actors. Whether he can keep that streak alive when The Taking of Pelham 123 opens on Friday remains to be seen, but today for Scenes We Love, I decided to throw a little love towards Washington for his performance in Antoine Fuqua's Training Day. Now just for starters; I have to say that it's not a great film...corny and satisfying? Yes, but great? Not quite. So how did Washington win an Oscar for his role as the corrupt LAPD officer, Alonzo Harris? Well, I think he earned it by taking a role in a paint-by-numbers cop thriller and turning it into an Oscar-worthy performance.

Everyone loves to see the bad guy get their comeuppance, and that's exactly what the final scenes of Training Day deliver. But in this scene, as Washington's dirty cop watches it all slip away, you can see it register on his face as all that power and respect circles the drain. In the hands of a lesser actor, this scene could have just been a cheap thrill of watching the bad guy get what he deserves, but to Washington's credit, he creates a very real moment where 'The Player' finally realizes he has lost the game.

Video and Training Day Fun Facts after the jump...

What happens when men in blue, sworn to protect and to serve, fly out of control? If we're lucky, we get a good movie out of it. If we're really lucky, we get a larger than life character to cheer and to fear. Are you feeling lucky, punk?

Keanu Reaves, of all people, will follow in the steel-toed shoes of some of cinema's finest as a cop who goes on an avenging rampage in David Ayer's Street Kings, which opens tomorrow. That made me reflect on my favorite out of control cinematic cops, men in blue who break free from the laws of god and man. Let us know who we missed in the comments section. But be nice, or we'll track you down and crack you over the head with a night stick.

1. Clint Eastwood, Dirty Harry

Clint is so cool as Harry Callahan that he can just glare at bad guys and they give themselves up. Dirty Harry never met a criminal he couldn't beat up, a sergeant he couldn't hate, or a partner he couldn't get killed. He can't help it: he married justice a long time ago and the blind old bat won't leave him alone until he takes out the garbage. Don't even think about getting in his way: he solved the Zodiac killings in 102 minutes! Dirty Harry paved the way for several sequels and countless gruff, lone wolf outlaw police detectives.

Two reasons I'm writing this story: 1) I love screenwriter success stories, and 2) I love New York City screenwriting success stories. (No, I'm not very interested in seeing a sequel to New Jack City ... unless, of course, Chris Rock loses fifty pounds and plays another crack addict.) Over at Yahoo, they have a great story about a NYC tollbooth worker who wrote a crime script last year called Brooklyn's Finest. See, his car was totaled in an accident and so he entered this screenwriting competition with hopes the cash prize would help pay for a new ride. While Michael Martin had studied film in college, he had never written a full screenplay before -- and though his script placed second, it attracted attention from all over the place; landing on the steps of a Warner Bros-based producer who was searching for someone gritty enough to write the sequel to New Jack City.

Dude eventually moved to Los Angeles, wrote for the Showtime series Sleeper Cell, but then got homesick and returned to New York -- where, to this day, he works for the Transit Authority (he was just promoted to construction flagger). In between flagging, he still works on the New Jack City 2 script (which will probably go direct to DVD) on break in the subway tunnels, all while Brooklyn's Finest gears up to go into production this May -- in Brookyln -- with Don Cheadle, Ethan Hawke, Richard Gere and Ellen Barkin starring. Training Day's Antoine Fuqua will direct.

Oh, and he has a new car now.

Great story; you can read the entire thing here. And good luck to you Mr. Martin!

Stepping into David Ayer's hotel room, for the first time in my life I felt as if I was shaking hands with a screenwriter who could literally snap me in half without even flinching. It's not that he's muscular, menacing or intimidating -- in fact, he's none of those things. However, as my eyes met his, I could tell the man had traveled (mentally and physically) to some dangerous places. And, although he managed to survive a tough childhood, going on to become one of the most sought-after screenwriters in Hollywood, his gritty past was written all over his face.

While I was a big fan of Ayer's script for Training Day (a film which saw Denzel Washington take home an Oscar for Best Actor), as well as interested in talking about his directorial debut Harsh Times (opening this Friday), I really wanted to know more about Ayer, and what attracted him to such dark, rough material. Here's a guy who grew up on the streets of South Central, Los Angeles, who somehow found a way to escape by joining the Navy and then wound up writing Hollywood screenplays. How does that happen? Well, I did my best to find out ...

Cinematical: What was it about the story and the idea behind Harsh Times that made you so determined to get this thing made? I know you took out a mortgage on your home to finance it yourself -- I mean, what was about it that spoke to you that way?

David Ayer: Well, I wanted to direct and I wrote it with the intention to direct. I know the world, I know the characters and I know how to do it right. And there's also a uniqueness to it because it's so personal and I knew I could really duplicate some of what I've seen in my experiences and thoughts. I couldn't hand it over to someone else, and it was just time for me to direct -- it was time for the career change. I believed in it. It was a Sundance Institute Screenwriters Lab Script, and we ended up doing a table reading at the silent movie theater for like 350 people. People were crying at the end, and I'm like okay -- this is a movie. I have no doubt now, this thing could be a movie. So I was just determined to get it to the screen.

You know the rule: If a film has the word American in its title, then that means it's going to kick ass. C'mon, you've got American Pie, American Beauty, American History X, American Splendor...oh, it is so a rule. If that's the case, then Universal's American Gangster should thrive, assuming this time it's finally moving forward.

Awhile back, Steven Zaillian wrote a script for Gangster that was to star Denzel Washington and Benicio Del Toro, with Antoine Fugua (Training Day) attached to direct. However, feeling the story was a bit too edgy and afraid the budget would soar to over $100 million, the studio put the project on hold.

Afterward, Terry George was brought on to re-write the original script and tone things down, though producer Brian Grazer was having a hard time letting go of Zaillian's version. That's when Ridley Scott became interested in directing and, after convincing Russell Crowe to jump on-board, Universal decided to go back to Zaillian and pay him a sweet seven-figure deal to, well, re-write his own damn script. The good news is that the film is now on the move and Washington is still attached - and the budget will remain the same as it was before. Yeah, you figure it out - because I sure as hell can't. That's Hollywood for ya.