MD News Desk: Tooth & Nails

Keep up to date with all the latest from the entertainment world with the MD News Desk:

Videodrone:
- Trailer Park: The new A Nightmare on Elm Street (starring Watchmen's Jackie Earle Haley as Freddy Krueger), Duane Johnson is the Tooth Fairy and Bradley Cooper and Eric "McSteamy" Dane go gay in Valentine's Day.
- Dancing with the Stars Watch: Debi Mazar and Maksim Chmerkovskiy do the "El Tango de Roxanne" from Moulin Rouge!, Kathy Ireland and Tony Dovolani perform to "Shall We Dance" from The King and I and Aaron Carter and Karina Smirnoff (with special guests) take on ... "The Muppet Show Theme"?

Tune in to TCM:
This week's star spotlights on Turner Classic Movies: Leslie Caron (Monday), Esther Williams (Tuesday), Goldie Hawn (Wednesday) and Paul Muni (Saturday).

Cinematic Crushes:
- Casting About: Leonardo DiCaprio in the mystery The Deep Blue Goodbye, Josh Brolin replaces Sean Penn in the drama Cartel and Hugh Jackman in the futuristic boxing flick Real Steel.
- Speaking of Jackman, here he is with Daniel Craig in Broadway's A Steady Rain. And if you're planning to see it, remember to turn off your cel phones ... our he'll go Wolverine on your ass.
- Surprise of the Week: James Franco will be visiting Port Charles for an extended guest stint on the daytime soap General Hospital starting next month.

Coming Soon:
- Sequel Watch: The Dark Crystal 2, Kill Bill 3, Transformers 3 and, following all the recent headlines, the documentary Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired.
- And in Remake News, Oscar nominee Richard Jenkins joins the cast of the Americanized Let the Right One In.
- Sex and the City 2 Watch: Liza to perform Beyoncé’s "Single Ladies" at the gay wedding.


From Screen to Stage:
- Priscilla Queen of the Desert will strut to Broadway in early 2011.
- David Ogden Stiers is among the new cast of the Broadway return of Irving Berlin's White Christmas.
- Shrek the Musical adds "I'm a Believer" to its score.
- Hairspray Tony winners Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman to pen the score for a new stage version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
- Prior to Broadway, Douglas Hodge will reprise his Olivier Award-winning performance of Albin/Zaza in London's La Cage aux Folles.
- Tony winner Ann Reinking will choreograph the Time After Time musical.

Hands Off the Merchandise:
- Hello, gorgeous! Mattel releasing a Barbra Streisand Barbie. The "little plastic diva is ready to sing on The Ed Sullivan Show, direct The Prince of Tides or blog furiously about her political beliefs". Pre-order now from EntertainmentEarth.com.

GLBT Entertainment:
- Thanks to such shows as Brothers & Sisters, Glee, Modern Family and Ugly Betty (whose season premiere, by the by, has been delayed a week), GLAAD reports that broadcast television now boasts the highest number of GLBT characters ever.
- Glenn Close to host a special pre-show for the world premieres of The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later.
- Stritchie herself, Nicol Paone, talks about the upcoming season of The Big Gay Sketch Show.
- Project Runway winner Christian Siriano set to star in his own reality series.
- The Real L Word is looking for lesbians while Bravo's Kept is looking for, well, kept boys (or those who really want to be).

Kish:
- Rumor Watch: Is One Life to Live on the verge of cancellation? And if so, is "Kish" moving to All My Children? The Advocate's Soapside tells you what you can do to help save it.

Out in Film:
- The Power of Two, the new duets CD featuring Cheyenne Jackson and Michael Feinstein, will hit stores November 3. (Click hereto pre-order from Amazon.com.)
- In more Cheyenne news: is the Broadway hunk joining 30 Rock?
- David Greenspan, currently starring in the Broadway revival of The Royal Family, fills out Playbill.com's Cue & A.
- Riot grrrl Carrie Brownstein turns to acting in the indie drama Some Days Are Better Than Others.
- Rufus Wainwright on his new concert movie, Milwaukee at Last!!!
- AfterElton.com interviews Sam and Dan McMillen, the gay brothers on the run on this season's Amazing Race.
- Carol Leifer is working on two upcoming sitcoms, one starring Marlee Matlin and Mario Cantone, the other about a pregnant woman, her ex-husband and her new girlfriend.
- Boy George to return to the Taboo stage for an Up Close and Personal concert.


Women We Love:
- Madonna raises her arms across the ages.
- Guest Star Watch: Kathy Najimy on Desperate Housewives and Shakira on Ugly Betty.
- Barbara Cook and Vanessa Williams will star in yet another Stephen Sondheim revue, Sondheim on Sondheim.
- Character actress supreme Holland Taylor chats about her lesbian past with AfterEllen.com.

MD Poll: Vampire-alooza

Week one of our vampire-themed MD "Mega-Poll" is now complete, and the not-so-surprising results are in: Bela Lugosi is your favorite movie Dracula. Nipping at his heels though were Gary Oldman from Bram Stoker's Dracula and Max Schreck in Nosferatu, both of whom should end up in the "Ultimate Vamp" championship in two weeks (see comments section below for the full results of week one's voting).

But first, we have a few more cinematic bloodsuckers to get your opinion on with this week's poll, which covers all the non-Dracula movie vampires. Pick your favorite and place your vote in the MD Poll located in the right hand sidebar. And remember, the poll is only open for one week, so vote now!

Tune in next week for the results as well as part three of the "Mega-Poll": your favorite TV vamps.

UPDATE: This poll is now closed; click here for the results, and click here to vote in the next MD Poll.

Reverend's Reviews: Almost-Divine Providence

I've already posted on my Facebook page that all my teacher friends should see The Providence Effect, an inspiring documentary now playing in New York and Los Angeles and expanding to other cities. I'm a little more reserved in my recommendation that others see it, because more objective viewers may criticize the filmmakers' tendency to view their subject through rose-colored glasses.

Still, the subject is fascinating. The Providence Effect recounts the remarkable transformation Providence-St. Mel, an inner-city school on the west side of Chicago, has undergone over the last 30 years. Created by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago in 1969, the archdiocese decided to close the school a mere 9 years later over declining enrollment and majority non-Catholic student body.

Paul Adams III, a former civil rights activist who has served as principal of Providence-St. Mel since 1973, felt this was unacceptable. He orchestrated a grassroots fundraising campaign that soon went national, and raised enough money to buy the school from the archdiocese. Adams then began the process of turning Providence-St. Mel into a K-12 college prep school.


The faculty implemented a simple yet demanding approach to learning: "Do the work". Their students, mostly black with a growing number of Latinos, memorize a lengthy mission statement that speaks not only of the school's philosophy but the students'. The statement ends with the stirring conviction, "With God's help, we will find a way or make one."

Since 1978, 100% of Providence-St. Mel graduates have gone on to college, with many of them receiving full-tuition scholarships based on their academic merit. Half of the school's graduates have, over the last seven years, been accepted into first-tier and Ivy League colleges and universities. The Providence-St. Mel approach has expanded to a newer charter school in the Chicago area and is gradually being adopted by schools nationwide.


The Providence Effect shows that this approach works, and works well. What producer-director Rollin Binzer (Ladies and Gentlemen: The Rolling Stones) fails to show are any flaws in or criticisms of the Adams/Providence-St. Mel formula. There is one somewhat disturbing sequence in the documentary — in which the assistant principal catches a student doing a Spanish homework assignment during another class and publicly chastises both student and teacher — that opens an avenue to debate over the school's devotion to "focus." The debate, however, will have to take place off-screen among viewers.

While it's clear Providence-St. Mel does many things very successfully and these should be emulated by other educators, few viewers will be naive enough to believe that the school does things as perfectly as the film indicates. Even with normal, human flaws in the system, though, Providence-St. Mel is clearly doing blessed work, and this is cause for celebration.

Click here to watch the trailer for The Providence Effect.

Review by Rev. Chris Carpenter, resident film critic of Movie Dearest and the Orange County and Long Beach Blade.

Reel Thoughts Interview: Once in Love with Amy

Given the timing of the first Scottsdale International Film Festival, it’s a wonder the event made it through year one, much less year nine. It’s a testament to festival founder Amy Ettinger’s faith and tenacity that she went ahead with that first festival, opening it just over two weeks after September 11, 2001. She was happily surprised when double the seating capacity came out to support her diverse program.

This year’s schedule includes the chance to see films from 25 countries, and the opportunity to catch high-profile films like Clive Owens’ The Boys Are Back and Cheryl Hines’ directorial debut, Serious Moonlight, starring Meg Ryan and Timothy Hutton and written by Hines’ Waitress costar, the late Adrienne Shelley.

Of special interest to the GLBT community is the documentary T is for Teacher, which tells the inspiring story of four transgender teachers who transition from male to female within the American school system (including one Phoenician).


I spoke with Ettinger about how the festival has changed, and the surprising reason she gave for closing the once popular Out Far GLBT Film Festival.

NC: What’s new in the festival this year?
AE: First and foremost, this year the programming includes nine Oscar contenders, and what I mean by that is that for the Best Foreign Film category, most countries submit something. Whether or not they get nominated or win, these are the films that they consider their best each year. I’ve got nine of those contenders from the most recent Academy Awards season. And you know what? I’ve got to tell you that there are a couple of them that I think are every bit as good or better than the one that won. I worked extra hard to track down those Oscar contenders because I’ve been asked for them repeatedly year in and year out by people who say, “Gosh, we hear about them, but we never see them. What are they like?” I’m pretty pleased to say that I’ve been able to deliver on that request.


NC: I also want to touch on T is for Teacher. How would you describe it?
AE: What makes it unique is that it’s documenting the realities of these trans individuals who are doing this in the schools, whereas you and I know, there’s been such backlash for all sorts of the alternative designations, gay, lesbian, transgender, queer, whatever you want to call it. Whenever you have an educator who’s in a position of authority and people find out – I mean, look what happened to Obama who wanted to make the Stay in School speech! You take that and ratchet it up several notches, and the beauty part of this is that these two women have been highly successful, even going through their process in full view and being completely accepted. I think it’s a very loving, hopeful message, especially since one of the schools is here (in Arizona). The students are so excited and so proud and so supportive, and one of the programmers thought that this would be a good educational tool.


NC: Tell me about a couple of movies that might need pointing out so that people don’t miss them. What’s exciting to you?
AE: Exciting is a good word for one of the films. I have a film in the festival from Germany and Austria called North Face (Nordwand), which is a mountain-climbing film pre-World War II, a true story about climbing the Eiger. It’s as close to action as I’ve ever had in the festival. It’s not a special effects movie either – they use the real mountain and they do real climbing, and you can feel the thin atmosphere.

Another film, Shameless, from the Czech Republic – gosh, it’s funny. It’s really an off comedy. This guy, you don’t know whether to slap him or to just laugh at him. He wakes up one morning and realizes that his wife’s nose is gigantic and it just unravels from there. Most films are selling really well, but I want to make sure people don’t miss these fringe films.

Ettinger explained how she lost one of her favorite films, Jerusalema, only to score two other films she thought were lost causes, France’s Séraphine and Italy’s Mid-August Lunch. “I’ll take those two over the one.”


She said this has been a good year for GLBT themed films, which is a sentiment her fellow festival programmers have echoed. She did have the gay sidebar of films last year, but was a little disappointed by the turnout, although she thanked her core GLBT audience who have stuck with the festival for years.

She revealed the surprising reason she stopped putting on the Out Far Festival. “I can almost pinpoint the day Out Far died,” she said. “And that was with the release of Brokeback Mountain. That same year, we had Brokeback, Transamerica and Breakfast on Pluto and they all came out within a 45 day period, and then my festival hit, and nobody came. I lost 3,700 audience members over the previous year. I think they thought ‘ Well that’s that. We’re in the mainstream now and we can go to the multiplex whenever we want to, and we don’t have to be ghetto-ized.’ That audience dried up. I don’t know…” She said she received only four emails of protest when she shuttered Out Far.


Ettinger offered advice to anyone trying to decide whether to attend this year’s festival. “Just go to one film – that’s it. Don’t make any high-falutin’ plans about buying a pass, and then make your decision afterwards. I say that with a smile on my face because we haven’t lost anybody with that. Inevitably, I’ve got people coming to me and saying, ‘I took your advice and then I bought six tickets for the rest of the weekend.’ And then people who’ve done that come back to me and say ‘I bought a VIP Pass this year!’”

The 9th Annual Scottsdale International Film Festival begins tomorrow and runs through October 6. For more information, visit their official website.

Interview by Neil Cohen, resident film critic of Movie Dearest and Phoenix's Echo Magazine.