Daily Loaf

Welcome to Radar, where we run down the up-and-coming arts events to mark your calendar for. Today’s edition is a perennial favorite that you can’t help singing along to, no matter how hard you try.

Forget what your preacher told you: Grease is the word, and the 50s-era rock ‘n’ roll musical about Danny, a leather-clad, too-cool for school T-Bird, and Sandy, a prim and proper gal from down under, kicks off the 2009-2010 season at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center later this month. Songs like “Summer Nights,” “Greased Lightning” and “You’re the One That I Want” that inspired love (or, frequently, intense hate) for John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John are reprised for the stage, and in one of the most bizarre casting decisions of all time, Taylor Hicks (of American Idol but decidedly not Just for Men fame) urges beauty school dropouts to “go back to high school” in his role as Teen Angel. Then again, it might be an improvement over the fake-baked, afroed glory of Frankie Avalon. (Pictured: Will Blum, Brian Crum, David Ruffin, Eric Schneider and Nick Verina; photo by Joan Marcus) Aug. 18-23, 7:30 p.m. Tues.-Thurs., 8 p.m. Fri., 2 and 8 p.m. Sat., 2 and 7:30 p.m. Sun., Carol Morsani Hall, Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center, 1010 N. MacInnes Place, Tampa, $39.50-$72.50, 813-229-7827, tbpac.org. — Franki Weddington

[Ed. note: Each week I'll be breaking down the big summer blockbuster movie releases. If you're curious about what's coming out in future weeks, be sure to check out the Summer Movie Preview. For more info on this week's releases, please check out my full length review of The Taking of Pelham 123 or visit our movie site for all things film-related.]

FRIDAY, JUNE 12TH
Box office gold: The Taking of Pelham 123
Worth seeing? Definitely. Pelham is a remake of a well-liked 1974 thriller about a band of criminals (led by Jaws’ Robert Shaw) who take a New York subway train hostage and negotiate with a transit worker played by Walter Mattheau. Denzel Washington steps in for Mattheau in the remake, while John Travolta takes over for Shaw and Tony Scott (Top Gun, Days of Thunder) takes on directing duties. And therein lies the rub. Denzel is good in anything, and Travolta really shines here (a first for the actor when he plays a villain), but Tony Scott’s “style” hampers the film. Still, you could do much worse at the multiplex right now. Bonus factoid: In the original, the criminals are all named after a color — a conceit later lifted by Quentin Tarantino in Reservoir Dogs.
Counter-programming: Instead of Pelham’s high-octane suspense, try a dose of fantasy in Imagine That. Eddie Murphy stars as a high-finance guy whose can’t figure out how to keep his career out of the shitter, but goes looking for the answers to his problems in an imaginary world created by his daughter. If Imagine That isn’t the opposite of a claustrophobic subway hostage movie, I don’t know what is. Also: The Tampa Theatre brings Valentino: The Last Emperor to town. The acclaimed documentary recounts the life of famed Italian fashion designer Rudolph Valentino.

Previews for each film after the break …

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For more news and reviews of the summer’s biggest movies, go to the CL Movies & Television site.

The only things for sure in this life are death, taxes and that any movie starring John Travolta as the villain will suck. Swordfish, Battlefield Earth, Face/Off, Broken Arrow, The Punisher — the list goes on. If Travolta’s playing the heavy, the movie’s going to sink like a stone. Until now: With The Taking of Pelham 123, this rule finally has its exception.
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Whiff of lav·en·der: n.

1.      A relationship or marriage that disguises one or both of the partners’ homosexuality.

Use: It is much easier to find a woman willing to have a whiff of lavender relationship if you have money or fame. Just look at Tom Cruise and John Travolta.

Some of the craziest video I’ve seen in a while. These guys can really fly. Sorry, but the flying-guys video is apparently gone. In its place, here’s this … other random, flying-related video.

• Illinois House committee could decide soon on whether or not to impeach Blago.

Click below for much more news!

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As today is my last here at the Loaf, (you can reach me at anthonyjohn71@yahoo.com) this may well be my final Reel Projections (I know, boo fucking hoo, the end of an era). But rather than cry in my beer (which I really don’t like to drink these days, anyway, and after Benjamin Button, I’ve pretty much dried out my tear ducts), I’ll go out with the shiny, happy enthusiasm that made men admire me and women want me.

So let’s get this might-be-a-farewell party started with the hands-down best trailer I saw last night before the screening of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (did I mention you should bring your hankies?). OK, that’s not saying much, since most of the other 29 trailers were, how do you say, fucking horrible. But The Proposal, yet another rom-com starring the rom-commiest of actresses, Sandra Bullock, was a breath of fresh, frothy air. See if you agree:

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I had every intention of seeing Valkyrie at the Regal Park Place Stadium 16 last night, but the 7:50 show was sold out. Although Valkyrie has received middling reviews, I still want to see it, a desire I can attribute to three reasons:

1. Tom Cruise (so intense, so watchable,)

2. It was directed by Bryan Singer (X-Men, The Usual Suspects)

3. (And most important) The poster for Valkyrie has the balls to make Nazis look like the antihero studs of Reservoir Dogs.

Watchmen ruling: Now what? If you read Wednesday’s Reel Projections, you know that a federal judge ruled that Fox Studios owns the distribution rights to Watchmen, putting its March 6 release by Warner Bros. in serious jeopardy. Over at Slashfilm, Peter Sciretta offers a few scenarios that could play out between the two studios, ranging from a co-distribution deal to the film not being released at all.

Every Friday, Reel Projections welcomes the Cranky (Because He’s Soon to Be Unemployed) Copy Editor into the screening room to review one trailer for an upcoming film. Take it away, CCE: Read the rest of this entry »