Tickets on sale at noon today for Alison Krauss & Union Station’s Oklahoma City show
Tickets go on sale at noon today to for the upcoming Alison Krauss & Union Station, featuring Jerry Douglas, concert at Oklahoma City’s Civic Center Music Hall.
Krauss, a 26-time Grammy winner, and her acclaimed bluegrass band will play at 7:30 p.m. March 25 at the Civic Center.
Tickets are priced at $49.50 and $59.50.
In April 2011, Rounder Records released the eagerly anticipated Alison Krauss & Union Station album “Paper Airplane.” The album debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Country Albums Chart and Bluegrass Albums Chart and No. 3 on the Top 200 Album Chart. A collection of 11 exquisite songs, “Paper Airplane” is Krauss’ 14th album and the band’s follow-up to 2004’s triple Grammy-winning “Lonely Runs Both Ways” (Rounder). It is Krauss’ first release since her 2007 internationally acclaimed, multi-platinum collaboration with Robert Plant, “Raising Sand,” which won six Grammys including Record Of The Year and Album Of The Year.
Krauss and with Union Station band members Dan Tyminski (guitar, mandolin and lead vocals), Barry Bales (bass and harmony vocals), Ron Block (banjo, guitar and harmony vocals), and Jerry Douglas (dobro and harmony vocals) are continuing their tour in 2012 after a successful run of critically-acclaimed performances in 2011.
Part of Krauss’ incontestable talent is how effortlessly she bridges the gap between roots music and country, rock and pop. A highly sought-after collaborator, Krauss has worked with some of the biggest names in popular music, including James Taylor, Phish, Dolly Parton, Yo Yo Ma and Bonnie Raitt. Since signing with Rounder Records at the age of 14 in 1985 Krauss has sold in excess of 12 million albums and garnered 26 Grammy Awards, the most for any female and the third most of any recording artist in Grammy history.
For more information, go to http://okcciviccenter.com/shows.php.
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Best Bets for Jan. 27-29, 2012: Joe Ely, Chocolate Festival, “Xanadu” and Dead Sea Choir
Joe Ely
Here are my picks for the Best Bets for entertainment in the Oklahoma City area this weekend. For more events, go to www.wimgo.com:
1. Listen to renowned singer-songwriter Joe Ely at 8 p.m. Saturday at the Blue Door, 2805 N McKinley. Information: 524-0738 or www.bluedoorokc.com.
2. NORMAN — Sample decadent treats and participate in children’s art activities at Firehouse Art Center‘s 30th annual Chocolate Festival. Hours are from 10:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday at the National Center for Employee Development, 2801 State Highway 9 East. Information: 329-4523 or www.normanfirehouse.com.
3. Watch the Oklahoma premiere of the musical “Xanadu,” staged by Lyric Theatre, at 8 p.m. Friday and 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday at Lyric at the Plaza, 1725 NW 16. Performances continue through Feb. 11. Information: 524-9312 or www.lyrictheatreokc.com.
4. NORMAN — Hear Oklahoma indie rock bands Dead Sea Choir and Brother Bear at 9 p.m. Saturday at The Opolis, 113 N Crawford. Information: www.starlightmints.com/opolis.html.
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Greyson Chance returns to Oklahoma to play cancer benefit Saturday
From Friday’s Weekend Look section of The Oklahoman.
Greyson Chance returns to Oklahoma play benefit show
For the second year, the rising music star, 14, is partnering with Edmond Santa Fe High School to perform a charity concert, this time on behalf of Peggy & Charles Stephenson Oklahoma Cancer Center at the OU Health Sciences Center.
In another life, Greyson Chance might have spent a recent Tuesday afternoon riding through the suburban streets of Edmond rather than the jammed urban roadways of Los Angeles.
Although the past two years have taken the 14-year-old singer/songwriter/pianist down a different path, Chance is maintaining his connections to his hometown and home state.
For the second straight year, the rising music star will partner this weekend with Edmond Santa Fe High School, along with local radio station KJ-103, to play a local benefit show.
He could hardly turn down the invitation, considering it came from one Alexa Chance.
“The thing is, my sister goes to Santa Fe High School and is a part of the Student Council. You know, we did an event for them last year, and it went so well that they’ve offered an invitation for me to come back,” he said in a phone interview last Tuesday while stuck in L.A. traffic en route to the studio.
“This is for her and for the cancer research, and we’re just gonna raise a lot of money. It’s gonna be really good and we hope we can save some lives with this concert.”
Chance will perform Saturday night at the Coca Cola Bricktown Events Center, with all proceeds of the all-ages show going to the Peggy & Charles Stephenson Oklahoma Cancer Center at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center.
The show, which also will feature Edmond-based pop rockers At Long Last and Oklahoma City jazz-pop musician Denver Duncan with local rapper Jabee, will serve as a precursor to Santa Fe’s Double Wolf Dare Week annual charity fundraiser. Chance helped raise $40,000 last year by performing two concerts at the school during Double Wolf Dare, which earned a total of $198,000 for local charities.
“It’s been an amazing blessing to be able to put on a show, that’s what I love to do, and to be able to give all that money to cancer research. … It’s super important to me,” he said. “And I get to really show everybody in Oklahoma what I’ve been doing the past two years and get to show my friends. So it’s fun to be able to get onstage and perform for my hometown.”
The past couple of years have been packed with amazing blessings for Chance, whom Billboard in 2011 dubbed “the thinking man’s Justin Bieber.” The Edmond adolescent became an overnight Internet sensation back in spring 2010 when a YouTube video of his piano-and-voice cover of Lady Gaga’s “Paparazzi” went viral. He soon became the first artist signed to Ellen DeGeneres’ boutique label eleveneleven. The talk-show host served as executive producer of his debut album, “Hold on ‘Til the Night,” which cracked the Top 40 in its first week of release last August.
“She’s been so very involved and is always there when we need her. She’s guided me through this whole thing and has been a very good mentor and a very good friend,” he said.
“I remember the first time I met her, she told me never to change. And I really took that to heart.”
That creed is echoed in his latest single, “Hold on ‘Til the Night,” which happens to be one of the six songs he wrote or co-wrote on his debut album.
“When I was writing it, that’s when Gaga’s ‘Born This Way’ and Katy Perry’s ‘Firework,’ and all these different records they were just such feel-good records. And I wanted to make something that was a little bit more real that fit my style, and it really worked out well. I wrote that for a listener, not really for me,” he said. “I just wrote it for everybody who was gonna listen to it. I just wanted to make something that was going to make them feel strong and courageous.”
In between writing, recording and touring for his debut album, Chance last year performed at the White House Easter Egg Roll, played during Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin’s inaugural festivities and made his first foray into acting. So far, the former Edmond Cheyenne Middle School student has appeared on two episodes of the Fox sitcom “Raising Hope,” playing a younger version of the single-dad protagonist, coincidentally named Jimmy Chance (Lucas Neff).
“It is so much fun. I always love going up there. We have such a blast. Everybody has just treated me with such kindness and respect. All the actors on the show, the crew, the production team, everybody has been just been so generous and just very warm, so I kind of feel like I have family there now,” Chance said.
“I’m very excited to say that I’m going to be making a trip back to the ‘Raising Hope’ set very, very soon. … You’re gonna see me at the end of this season; that’ll be a little hint.”
He may be growing up before our eyes, but Chance maintains a boyish enthusiasm for harboring secrets. For instance, he won’t specify what had him heading back into the studio on that recent Tuesday, only that he is working on a lot of new music but refers to keep the details “a big surprise.”
“Mysteries, mysteries,” he said with a laugh. “I like keeping secrets … I’m very excited about it, so I’ve just been working, working, working. You’ll see it pretty soon.”
IN CONCERT
Greyson Chance
With: At Long Last, Denver Duncan and Jabee.
When: 8 p.m. Saturday. Doors open at 7 p.m.
Where: Coca Cola Bricktown Events Center, 429 E California Ave.
Benefits: Peggy & Charles Stephenson Oklahoma Cancer Center at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center.
Information and tickets: www.stubwire.com or (877) 990-7882 (STUB).
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Poteau High School choir preparing for May performance at Carnegie Hall; 2 benefit shows planned this weekend
Hillbilly Vegas has organized a benefit concert for Saturday night at the Coffee Cup in Poteau. The show will raise money for the Poteau High School choir's upcoming trip to Carnegie Hall.
From Friday’s Weekend Look section of The Oklahoman.
Poteau High School choir preparing for May performance at Carnegie Hall
Two benefit concerts are planning this weekend to raise money for the New York trek.
Every four years, Poteau High School choir director Bill King relishes giving his students the once-in-a-lifetime experience of performing in one of the world’s most famous concert venues.
In May, King’s students will travel to New York to perform a Memorial Day concert at Carnegie Hall.
“They get to see another part of the world. You know, a lot of them have grown up here in southeastern Oklahoma and haven’t traveled very much. Just the opportunity to sing on the stage of Carnegie Hall, which is considered one of the finest concert halls in the world, there’s just a cultural aspect of it all. And being able to see New York City and things they see on TV and movies, they get to actually experience it themselves,” said King, who has been the school’s choir director for 32 years.
“I enjoy watching the kids as we pull into New York. Their eyes get real big, and it’s fun for me. You know, it’s a lot of work, but it’s fun … for the kids to see something different than Poteau, Oklahoma.”
On May 28, the students will sing John Rutter’s “Requiem,” with the prolific British composer conducting. The New England Symphonic Ensemble will accompany the choir during the Carnegie Hall concert.
The choir has been making the trek to New York City every four years since accepting an invitation to perform at Carnegie Hall in 1996. Each trip involves two or three years of fundraising, since the costs of travel, accommodations, paying the conductor and ensemble and other expenses total about $70,000.
“The community has been very generous. They’ve always been very supportive of the arts and the choir program here,” King said. “We’re very active and very visible … and we have a fine tradition here of the Poteau High School choir.”
The choir has raised about $61,000 through spaghetti dinners, pancake breakfasts, Christmas caroling and other efforts. The final fundraising push is on, King said, since the goal is to have all the funds together by March 15.
Two benefit concerts are planned this weekend to help pay for the trip. At 2 p.m. Sunday, the choir will perform at Poteau’s First United Methodist Church, 109 S Harper.
Also, Poteau country-rockers Hillbilly Vegas are organizing a show at 7 p.m. Saturday at the Coffee Cup, 401 N Broadway. The high school jazz choir will headline the show, while Christian rock band Chaotic Resemblance will share the bill. Acoustic group Dusty, Brence & Dunn, which includes Poteau Middle School Assistant Principal Marshall Brence, also will perform.
It is the second year for Hillbilly Vegas to plan a fundraising concert for the choir. The show raised about $1,000 last year, a total the band hopes to top this weekend.
“Bill just does a really great job; he puts in a lot of hard work above and beyond. … His greatness goes unnoticed sometimes,” said Hillbilly Vegas frontman Steve Harris, who is an alternative education teacher for the district. “We love him and just want to do all we can to help.”
The band has close ties with the program: Hillbilly Vegas guitarist John Reed was among the first group from Poteau to make the trek to Carnegie Hall back in 1996, while Harris’ 15-year-old son Cameron will take the trip this spring.
“They get to stay at the Grand Hyatt there by Grand Central Station, they go to a Broadway show, they go on a dinner cruise after the show at Carnegie Hall. I mean, it’s just really something special,” Harris said. “A lot of kids in this area, they’ll never to go anywhere like that. And so this is something that’s really amazing that someone from Poteau, Oklahoma, has been arranging all these years.”
For more information or to donate, call King at (918) 649-4872 or email kingb@phs.poteau.k12.ok.us.
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Trail Dance Film Festival draws independent filmmakers and fans to Duncan this weekend
Edmond actor Mark Adam Goff appears in a scene from the independent film "Substance."
From Friday’s Weekend Look section of The Oklahoman.
Trail Dance festival draws indie filmmakers and fans to Duncan
The award-winning event will feature several Oklahoma-made movies, including two featuring local celebrity John Ferguson, aka Count Gregore.
DUNCAN — Oklahoma’s independent film scene has its own big dance happening this weekend.
While A-list stars, big-name Hollywood directors and snap-happy paparazzi flock to Utah for the final weekend of the sprawling Sundance Film Festival, Duncan is hosting a similarly named celebration of indie film: the Trail Dance Film Festival.
In its sixth year, Trail Dance boasts 90 films screening Friday and Saturday at the Simmons Center, 800 Chisholm Parkway, and Chisholm Trail Heritage Center, 1000 Chisholm Trail Parkway.
Established in 2007, the festival introduces up-and-coming filmmakers from around the globe to Oklahoma’s emergent film industry and provides a welcoming forum to showcase films. The mission of the award-winning event is to encourage originality and creativity as well as promote the film industry in Oklahoma.
An open-genre contest for indie moviemakers, Trail Dance this year features a wide array of truly independent films, from the harrowing alcoholic’s saga “Substance,” the first professional feature from Lindsay resident William Tyler, to the superheroic action-comedy short “Charlie Christmas: Corndogs and Justice,” a precursor to Shawnee-area denizen Adam Hampton’s upcoming full-length costumed vigilante tale “The Unusual Calling of Charlie Christmas.”
James Murray appears in a scene from "Control Alt Destroy."
After its standing-room-only Oklahoma City premiere back in December, the action-comedy “Control Alt Destroy” will make its debut on the festival circuit at 8:30 p.m. Friday at the Simmons Center during Trail Dance.
“It should be fun. It was an amazing experience eating Bunch-A-Crunch and watching yourself onscreen. I can’t really describe it. … I’m excited to see it again,” said Norman entertainer James Murray, who made his cinematic debut in the action-comedy.
“Control Alt Destroy” centers on the dysfunctional offices of Frederickson and Frederickson. Three of the workers — browbeaten Carl (Murray), perpetually angry Al (Eric Kuritz) and nerdy Dennis (David Courtright) — escape for a long lunch, but when they return, they discover that armed robbers have broken into the office and taken their co-workers hostage. Over Carl’s objections, the other two plot to rescue their colleagues, and they just might have enough unexpected skills to pull it off.
Local celebrity John Ferguson, aka Count Gregore, plays a small role in “Control Alt Destroy.” as the company’s evil boss, Mr. Frederickson. Co-writer/director Nick Sanford, a Moore resident studying film at Oklahoma City Community College, was happy to reunite with Ferguson, who previously appeared for free in his “really bad, I-can’t-say-enough-horrible-things-about-it” horror film “Them.”
“We always stayed in contact, and I actually got him to be in this one, too,” Sanford said. “John’s really great. He’s always really, really open and a lot of fun to work with and has a million stories.”
Ferguson’s most-requested story — how he became the beloved Dracula-esque character
John Ferguson appears as Count Gregore. (Photo by Doug Hoke, The Oklahoman Archives)
Count Gregore — will be the subject of another Trail Dance film, “Count Gregore: A Spook-Tacular Career.” A short adaptation of Oklahoma City filmmaker Scott Doyle’s feature-length documentary, it will screen right before “Control Alt Destroy” at 7:45 p.m. Friday at the Simmons Center, offering festival-goers a Ferguson double-feature.
“It’s a great experience to be part of something like that,” Ferguson said. “It’s extraordinary.”
The Moore resident made his on-air debut in 1956 on WKY-TV when he developed the villainous Duke of Mukeden as the foil for local children’s programming hero Danny Williams and his character 3-D Danny. The station’s operations manager eventually asked Ferguson to invent another character to host the late-night horror movie showcase “Shock Theater,” and on May 10, 1958, Ferguson introduced Oklahoma to the spooky but convivial Count Gregore,
“It was originally only supposed to be two years … who would have thought,” Ferguson said with a laugh. “The continuing one line or sentence that I hear constantly is ‘I grew up with you.’ Or ‘you scared me to death.’”
Ferguson, who will turn 84 on Feb. 17, appeared regularly on TV as the campy count into the 1980s, hosting for various local TV stations horror and old movie shows such as “Nightmare Theater,” “Sleepwalkers Matinee” and “Creature Features.”
“Never was there anything that said ‘John Ferguson portraying Count Gregore’ … so it became an entity unto its own,” he said. “It was something that I could just never really imagine until later on — even right now — the association for those people who grew up with him, (the chance for me) to be part of so many lives and not really even be aware of it at the time.”
Ferguson is still playing the count on Rosebud Radio, an Internet station featuring classic radio programs, along with taking roles in local film and theater productions. He is starring this weekend in Jewel Box Theatre’s “Black Comedy” and won’t be attending Trail Dance, but others from the “Control Alt Destroy” cast and crew will be there to represent.
“It’s a really cool festival … and it just gets bigger and bigger every year,” Sanford said.
GOING ON
Trail Dance Film Festival
When: Friday and Saturday.
Where: Simmons Center, 800 Chisholm Parkway, and Chisholm Trail Heritage Center, 1000 Chisholm Trail Parkway, in Duncan.
Information: www.traildancefilmfestival.com.
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Sam Worthington talks “Avatar 2″
Sam Worthington (AP file)
LOS ANGELES – Sam Worthingon fully expects filmmaker James Cameron to push the boundaries of cinema even further when they return to Pandora to make “Avatar 2.”
“He’s told me the whole story. He’s told me what we’re doing. And I turned ‘round and said, ‘How’re we gonna do that?’ And he said, ‘I’ve got no idea.’ See, that’s the fun, that’s the journey, and that’s pure Jim. You know, it’s raising the bar for himself in order to kind of raise the experience for the audience,” Worthington said during recent interviews for his new film “Man on a Ledge,” opening in theaters today.
Similarly, the Australian actor said his focus when it comes to picking film projects is giving the audience a great movie-going experience.
“I think ‘Is the audience gonna get its money’s worth?’ That’s what I think. I think ‘Is this movie gonna excite a guy who’s worked 12 hours a day all week really hard, takes his family out, he hasn’t got much money, is it gonna give him his money’s worth so when he leaves that cinema and he’s with his family he goes, “That was a good night out. Thanks for that, movie, that was awesome”?’ That’s my responsibility is to satisfy that guy or girl. I don’t think (about), I don’t care whether the movie makes a billion dollars. I worry whether he had a great time,” Worthington said during the interview at the Four Seasons Hotel.
His philosophy may stem from his blue-collar background. Worthington, who will next appear in the sequel “Wrath of the Titans,” once worked as a bricklayer and used to say in interviews that if his Hollywood career didn’t work out, he could always go back. Of course, that was before “Avatar” became the biggest blockbuster of all time.
“See, I’m lucky now. Now I don’t have to go back to bricklaying. Because ‘Avatar’ was a big success, if my acting career bellied up, I could always go to ‘Dancing with the Stars’ and be known as ‘Here comes that big blue guy doing the cha-cha,’” Worthington said, laughing uproariously. “So yeah, I’m lucky. ‘“Celebrity Big Brother” with the big blue dude!’ … If necessary, it’s like ‘“Celebrity Chef” with that big f—ing blue cat man!’ F—ing A! I never have to pick up a trowel again!”
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Sam Worthington goes to extremes with his film career, especially new action-thriller “Man on a Ledge”
From Friday’s Weekend Look section of The Oklahoman.
Sam Worthington goes to extremes
While he prefers simple pleasures at home, the “Avatar” action star gets plenty of thrills on the job. His latest movie, “Man on a Ledge,” required him to film more than 200 feet above a busy New York City street.
LOS ANGELES — At home, Sam Worthington enjoys simple pleasures like hanging out with his girl, walking his dog Bacon and watching “Law & Order” marathons.
The star of action blockbusters like “Avatar,” “Terminator Salvation” and “Clash of the Titans,” he gets plenty of thrills on the job.
In the titular role of “Man on a Ledge,” his latest adrenaline-pumping movie, Worthington, 35, faced his primal fear of heights by filming more than 200 feet above 45th Street in midtown Manhattan on a real ledge of the historic Roosevelt Hotel.
“I’m one of those actors that reads a script and doesn’t think or forgets that he has to do what he’s reading. And I said to my mate the first day, ‘They want me out on the ledge.’ He goes, ‘It’s called “Man on a Ledge,” you (expletive) idiot. What did you think you were going to be doing?’ ‘Aw, man,’ so then you get up there, and it’s like ‘Here we go. Better jump in now,’” he said with a chuckle during interviews earlier this month at the Four Seasons Hotel, where he stayed safely in a chair.
“Russell (Crowe) has this story about ‘Gladiator’ where he said he was so enthralled with the script he forgot that he actually had to wrestle tigers. So when they get there and they bring out the tiger, he was like ‘What the (expletive) that for?’ They said, ‘It’s in the script you idiot.’ So it’s the same thing with the ledge, it’s like ‘Why are we here?’”
In “Man on a Ledge,” the Australian actor plays Nick Cassidy, a former New York City cop wrongly imprisoned for a stealing a priceless diamond from ruthless businessman David Englander (University of Oklahoma alumnus Ed Harris). When he is furloughed to attend his father’s funeral, Cassidy pulls off a daring escape, checks into the Roosevelt and makes his stand on the ledge proclaiming his innocence. Embattled police negotiator Lydia Mercer (Elizabeth Banks) is summoned to try to talk him down, but she quickly realizes that Cassidy has more in mind than just being heard. The film also stars Jamie Bell as Cassidy’s brother Joey, Genesis Rodriguez as Joey’s girlfriend, Anthony Mackie as Cassidy’s former partner and Edward Burns as Lydia’s professional rival.
“It’s a different action movie ‘cause the action star is rooted to the spot,” Worthington said. “That’s kind of bizarre, so it’s trying to keep the dynamics of those scenes … where it is just like a play back and forth between me and Elizabeth. You just then rely on the fact that you’ve got a talented actress to help you through it.”
Asked to describe his first time to step out on the ledge, Worthington responded with a raspberry.
“That sums it up. It was nerve-wracking, and you see it in the movie. The first time I went on the ledge is the first time in the film when I step out. ‘Cause I said, ‘Let’s just roll the camera; let’s see what happens.’ I was lucky I didn’t kind of burst into tears or curl up in fetal position, ‘cause that wouldn’t have been a good start to the movie,” he said with a laugh.
“Your palms are sweaty, all your body, your adrenaline races. And that never lets up: the adrenaline never stops. At the end of the day you’re exhausted.”
Although he eventually gained enough confidence to run around and do stunts on the ledge, he never forgot where he was.
“Your adrenaline’s always high. But I spent enough time … I got comfortable but not complacent. And I had a safety wire on me,” he said. “So every time I tripped and did fall off a bit, it would click. And you’d be happy that it was there. But you’d just hang like a tea bag for a bit.”
For Worthington, the 21-story ledge wasn’t nearly as intimidating as his four-time Oscar-nominated co-star Harris.
“I was more nervous acting with him than getting on the ledge. Because every time I’d look at him, I’m thinking, ‘It’s Jackson Pollack,’ ‘it’s John Glenn,’ ‘this guy made ‘Truman (Show)’ for goodness sake.’ Every time I’m with him, I’m like, ‘All right, you’ve gotta stop. You’ve just gotta act,’” he said.
For his next onscreen adventure, Worthington will again battle an array of monsters and Greek myths in the sequel “Wrath of the Titans,” and he relishes getting a second chance to play the heroic Perseus.
“I personally kind of don’t like what I did in the first one. I think I dropped the ball. I let down the audience … in the sense of I created a character that wasn’t really a character. It was a generic, bland, bald-headed action thing,” he said.
“My job is to satisfy an audience. That’s how I look at it. So I don’t kind of go into projects frivolously because that lets down the people that work hard and pay money to see my ugly head. I think that’s disrespectful.”
At some point, Worthington also will return to the distant planet of Pandora for “Avatar 2,” writer-director James Cameron’s follow-up to the biggest blockbuster of all time. Making the anticipated sequel will evidently require the star to go to another extreme, since Cameron isreportedly planning on extensive underwater filming.
“Jim’s insane. He’s awesomely insane because he pushes boundaries all the time. Look, with Jim, (the) best thing Jim likes about me is that I just dive in, I just go for it, whatever you say. Really, ask me to do it, and I’ll at least try it once. So when we do ‘Avatar 2,’ it’s not just that. He’s pushing the boundaries full-time on that. It’s gonna be incredible,” Worthington said with a laugh.
“In my normal life I kind of wash up, watch TV, read a book, do normal stuff, walk the dog. And in my movies — or in the job I’ve got — I get to stand on a huge ledge. When am I ever gonna get to do that? When am I gonna drive a fast car through a cemetery without getting arrested? And as it is, they’re paying me for it. It’s crazy. So probably in the back of my head, I’m picking stuff where I got ‘That’s cool. I never get to do that.’ I never get to go to outer space, I never get to fly underwater or do whatever Jim’s gonna do.”
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Movie review: “Man on a Ledge”
From Friday’s Weekend Look section of The Oklahoman. 2 1/2 of 4 stars.
Movie review: “Man on a Ledge”
The high-stakes action-thriller effectively keeps viewers on the edge of their seats for much of its runtime before eventually slipping into conventional cinematic territory.
The high-stakes action-thriller “Man on a Ledge” effectively keeps viewers on the edge of their seats for much of its runtime before eventually slipping into conventional cinematic territory.
With its unique if farfetched premise, the debut feature from Asger Leth, who previously directed the gritty Haitian gang documentary “Ghosts of Cité Soleil,” also boasts a twisty story, which he effectively unveils in tantalizing little pieces. Of course, the mystery only really surprises if you haven’t seen the too-revealing trailers for the film.
Australian actor Sam Worthington stars Nick Cassidy, a former New York City policeman wrongly convicted of stealing a $40 million diamond from coldblooded businessman David Englander (University of Oklahoma alumnus Ed Harris). Imprisoned in Sing Sing, the ex-cop is a favorite punching bag among the inmates, and it seems that everyone except his loyal former partner Mike Ackerman (Anthony Mackie) has forsaken him. Cassidy readily admits to the prison psychiatrist that he has considered suicide.
When he is furloughed to attend his father’s funeral, Cassidy tangles with his younger brother Joey (personal favorite Jamie Bell) and then makes breathtaking escape. A few days later, he checks into the historic Roosevelt Hotel, eats a lavish meal that could be his last, wipes the room clean of fingerprints and then steps outside onto the narrow ledge 200 feet above 45th Street in midtown Manhattan.
When police negotiator Jack Dougherty (Edward Burns) arrives on the scene, Cassidy demands to speak instead with Dougherty’s rival, Lydia Mercer (Elizabeth Banks), whose life, confidence and standing with the department have been shaken since an encounter with a jumper that went terribly wrong.
Mercer quickly realizes that Cassidy isn’t your typical jumper, and as she learns his identity and listens to his pleas of innocence, she suspects he has more in mind than just being heard.
While his brother seizes the attention of people on the street and an ambulance-chasing TV journalist (Kyra Sedgwick), Joey and his faithful girlfriend Angie (TV star Genesis Rodriguez in her winning big-screen debut) carry out a fantastic scheme to prove in dramatic fashion that Cassidy has been falsely accused.
Go-to action guy Worthington ably leads the strong, diverse cast. He creates a character a bit more intriguing and worthy of cheering on than the generic ciphers he played in “Avatar” and “Clash of the Titans,” and he and Banks forge solid chemistry from opposite sides of the hotel window. They filmed their scenes on the ledge on a real-life strip of the Roosevelt Hotel’s exterior that is actually 21 stories above the ground, and their fear and caution get the audience’s adrenaline sympathetically pumping.
Safe on the ground, Burns and Mackie are still as stalwart as ever, while Harris gleefully chews scenery as the baddie Occupy Wall Street supporters will particularly love to hate.
But Bell and Rodriguez nearly steal the film as smart-mouth lovers on a secret mission, bringing just the right amount of sexy banter and comic relief to the proceedings.
Eventually, the action becomes too grounded in the usual action-movie clichés we’ve seen so many times. But between the realistic scares of the ledge and the taut suspense of the story, “Man on a Ledge” reaches entertaining heights before the drop off.
— BAM
Liam Neeson finds poetry in “The Grey”
From Friday’s Weekend Look section of The Oklahoman.
Liam Neeson finds poetry in “The Grey”
Continuing his recent run as an action-hero, the Irish actor endured of filming in hip-deep snow and subzero temperatures to make the gritty survival story.
LOS ANGELES — Liam Neeson found powerful poetry in the script for his new movie, “The Grey.”
The 59-year-old actor, who has carved out a new career as an action hero in the past few years, thought enough of the survival story to endure days of filming in hip-deep snow and subzero temperatures on a remote mountain in British Columbia, Canada, to tell it.
“It read like a 19th-century epic poem, something like ‘(The Rime of) the Ancient Mariner.’ It just was a beautiful piece of writing,” Neeson said during an interview earlier this month at the Four Seasons Hotel.
“Also, every film that I’ve seen recently there’s always someone at a computer telling the story on a computer, someone on an iPhone. … This movie doesn’t have a car — OK, it has an airplane — it’s just man vs. man vs. nature. I thought it was like a throwback to those films like ‘Jeremiah Johnson’ with Bob Redford.”
For “The Grey,” Neeson reunited with “The A-Team” director Joe Carnahan to play Ottway, a taciturn sharp-shooter hired to fend off marauding wolves, protecting a band of they-put-the-rough in roughnecks working on an oil rig in the Alaskan tundra. Devastated by the loss of his wife, Ottway has seemingly lost the will to live, until he and a half-dozen fellow workers survive a deadly plane crash in the wilderness. He and his stranded cohorts put up a fierce fight for survival against prowling wolves, dangerous cold and rugged terrain.
“The first week was minus-40. That’s absolutely an official, truthful statement. The first day we shot that scene where I … sit up in the snow after there’s a malfunction in the airplane and I’m just in a sweater. And I remember thinking, ‘We’re never gonna finish this film. It’s just impossible.’ The equipment was seizing up. Everything was being challenged, including ourselves,” said Neeson, looking casually dapper in a pinstriped jacket over a white T-shirt.
“There’s no CGI in the film with regards to the weather, you know. It’s all absolutely real, the blizzards, all that stuff was absolutely real.”
There weren’t enough clothes in the world to protect from the biting wind and bitter cold near Smithers, the small Canadian town where the production was based, but the Irish actor said he typically pulled on five layers before venturing out.
“The physical aspect for all of us was just really, really tough. Not the least putting the gear on the in morning; it took me half an hour. You know, you have to wear these layers of thermal underwear and stuff. And so after that you’re like ‘Phew, God.’ You’re like the Michelin man.”
The physical concerns of playing the role outstripped any concerns the seasoned actor had about portraying his deeply depressed character.
“I knew I had a little emotional reservoir to pull from. I wasn’t worried about that aspect of it at all,” Neeson said.
Ottway’s own devastating loss echoes the actor’s personal experience. Neeson’s wife, actress Natasha Richardson, died suddenly in 2009 after hitting her head in a skiing accident.
“I wasn’t consciously channeling anything,” the soft-spoken Neeson said. “If an audience takes that with them or is aware of that, then that’s good, you know.”
Perhaps best known for his Oscar-nominated turn in Steven Spielberg’s acclaimed Holocaust drama “Schindler’s List,” until recently Neeson was primarily regarded as a dramatic actor.
While he is hardly an action-movie novice — he made his big-screen breakthrough portraying Sir Gawain in the 1981 Arthurian adventure “Excalibur,” and he played wise Jedi Qui-Gon Jinn in “Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace” and shadowy villain Ra’s Al Ghul in “Batman Begins” — his lead turn in 2008’s “Taken” established him as an action star.
Along with “The Grey,” Neeson has several more testosterone- and adrenaline-filled movies coming up, including the board game adaptation “Battleship,” the mythological sequel “Wrath of the Titans,” the anticipated Batman three-quel “The Dark Knight Rises” and the as-yet-untitled follow-up to “Taken.”
But Neeson said days as an action star are numbered.
“My knees are complaining daily. … probably a year, then I’m done. Absolutely. Otherwise, then I’ll be on a Zimmer frame,” he said with a grin, using the British term for a walker.
Still, Neeson’s toughness impressed his cast mates, who said the A-list star acted just like one of the guys during the challenging shoot.
“He said, ‘The only way we’re going to make this work is if you guys support me and I support you. There are going to be days when I’m going to need help just getting out of bed and I’m going to need help mentally and you’re going to need it. So if we don’t do that this movie is going to fail,’” said Frank Grillo, who plays violent ex-con Diaz.
“From that day on we were like, ‘He’s one of the boys. … This guy did not slow down.”
-BAM
Movie review: “The Grey”
From Friday’s Weekend Look section of The Oklahoman. 1 1/2 of 4 stars.
Movie review: ‘The Grey’
Director/co-writer Joe Carnahan’s attempts to mix pulp and philosophy just make a muddled mess of his grim survival thriller.
Director/co-writer Joe Carnahan’s attempts to mix pulp and philosophy just make a muddled mess of “The Grey”
For the grim survival thriller, “The A-Team” helmer reunites with late-career action star Liam Neeson, one of the few actors I can think of who can believably play a deeply depressed sharp-shooter who spouts poetry one moment and punches a wolf in the face the next.
Carnahan also gets stalwart performances from his supporting cast of where-have-I-seen-that-guy-before character actors, who with Neeson braved hip-deep snow, cutting winds and subzero temperatures to give the film its striking authenticity.
But the filmmaker either has no idea what kind of movie he really wants to make or doesn’t have the wherewithal to pick a tone and stick with it. “The Grey” plays too bleak and talky to qualify as a guilty-pleasure action-horror flick, but it relies too much on stock characters, laughably fake computer-generated wolves and gruesome nature-as-slasher-villain death scenes to be taken seriously as a meaningful existential drama.
Neeson plays Ottway, a reticent marksman hired to shoot the wolves that prowl too close to the remote Alaskan oil refinery where he is an outcast among the rest of the workers: ex-cons, fugitives and others he deems not fit for the rest of mankind. Devastated by the loss of his wife (Anne Openshaw), whom he remembers in many hazy flashbacks, Ottway teeters on the brink of suicide, but changes his mind when he hears the plaintive howl of a wolf.
Instead, he heads to Anchorage with a group of fellow roughnecks, but the small, rickety plane crashes violently on the way. The brutal crash — one of the movie’s most visceral action sequences — leaves just Ottway and a half-dozen others alive and stranded in the unforgiving wilderness.
For someone who had come so close to losing the will to live, Ottway soon proves he will fight fiercely to survive and emerges as the de facto leader of the ragtag group.
The survivors include the standard action characters, including the kind family man Talget (Dermot Mulroney, almost unrecognizable in thick glasses and a thicker beard), the sensitive introvert Hendrick (Dallas Roberts), the quiet, gentle giant Burke (Nonso Anozie) and the antagonistic ex-con Diaz (Frank Grillo), who challenges Ottway’s leadership until they come to an understanding. Each of the actors, especially Grillo and Neeson, get some meaty scenes in which they contemplate the harshness of nature, question the meaning of life or die spectacularly.
While the tundra poses many dangers, including a dearth of food, water and shelter from the frigid cold, one of nature’s perils soon emerges as the deadliest: a huge pack of marauding wolves that begins picking off the crash survivors one by one.
Unfortunately, the wolves have been augmented with CGI so cut-rate it makes the digitally crafted werewolves in the “Twilight” movies look like documentary footage by comparison.
But the canines’ shoddy appearance isn’t nearly as ridiculous or offensive as their use as a cheap plot device. Even forgetting for the moment that wolves have rarely been to known to attack humans, particularly a group of reasonably able-bodied men, because, hey, it’s just a movie, the pack in “The Grey” are an uncommonly strange lot.
Carnahan’s wolves have an interesting habit of surprise attacking just as the plot begins to lag. Then then snap threateningly at the heels of the men, almost catch them in their slathering maws and then retreat to yowl until Ottway and Co. have the chance to build a bonfire, muster their strength or deal with some other more pressing hazard. Convenient.
Filmed on location in British Columbia, Canada, Masanobu Takayanagi’s cinematography effectively sets the scene, making you practically shiver with the biting cold. But “The Grey” just doesn’t have a story worth getting lost in.
— BAM
