Ask 411 Movies for 3.3.08: The Column that Never Suffers a Rain Delay!

Posted by Leonard Hayhurst on 03.03.2008

Michael Clayton, Semi-Pro, the best actors ever, time is money and sunshine on my shoulder…but for only fifteen minutes.


Due to bad weather and car trouble, I wasn't able to get out and see Semi-Pro like I wanted to this weekend. Despite bad reviews, I believe I would still find it hilarious. Enjoy the below music video.




NETFLIX MOVIE OF THE WEEK: MICHAEL CLAYTON



I don't think the film needed to be structured the way it was to work, but it does add some curiosity and depth to the themes as elements start to click with the audience. Tilda Swinton wasn't given much to do at all, but she got every little bit she could out of it. She does come off as very Jodie Foster. Tom Wilkinson was fantastic and I think this is without a doubt the best lead acting performance I've seen from Clooney. Notice I said lead there. I liked a lot of the little flourishes with the casting as we get Sydney Pollack, Michael O'Keefe and the White Shadow himself, Ken Howard, in small parts. The writing and directing never lets you forget that you're watching a movie and that's ok. The story isn't important, but the morals and themes are. It's not heavy on exposition, but relates everything you need to know about the characters and situations through natural dialogue and interaction. We don't need to know what happened eight years previous when Arthur snapped before. We know it happened and we know that Michael was there to clean it up. That's all you need to know and the actors fill in the rest with their chemistry and interaction.

Q: I have 2 movies I remember as a kid that I can not remember for the life of me... I read the wrestling portion of this site and its "ask" column so I figured this is where I should turn to find the answers

Movie #1 - I remember it being a not so big budget movie... possibly a TV movie but I did see it more than once and I feel it had a British feel to the way it was made but I am unsure... anyhow it had to do with people using "time" as currency... if you wanted to buy something you would slide a card or type out the amount of time from a necklace you wore and that's how you paid for things... there was a male and a female that were possibly brother and sister and i think the sister enjoyed the "wild life" and ends up spending all her "life/currency" and dies

Movie #2 - it takes place on a planet that constantly rained all year long... but every now and then it would stop raining for a day or a short while and that was almost like when we have an eclipse or something... everyone would wait to see it... and I remember a little kid (possibly a girl) being locked in a closet as punishment and not allowed to see when it stopped raining and the sun emerged for a moment

Please help me with this... or direct me in the right place to ask someone

Thanks, Dan

A: I'll give dap to the imdb boards for helping me out with these two.

Your first film is 1987's The Price of Life. It's not English, probably just low budget. There are some recognizable names in the cast with small parts including Willie Garson ("Sex and the City"), Dustin Diamond ("Saved by the Bell") and Fred Ward (Tremors). In the future, time is the most available commodity and can be traded for goods and services. If you need a gallon of milk, that's a day of your life, for instance. Zachary (Jim Youngs as an adult) saves as much of his life as he can, while his sister Alice (Dana Andersen as an adult) squanders her life for frivolous fun. Zachary challenges the standards of the society in an attempt to save his mother and sister. The underlying theme is the old story of the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, or here the old get older and the young just die.

The second one is an episode of PBS's "Wonderwerks" from 1982 called "All Summer in a Day." It's based on a story by Ray Bradbury. On Venus, the sun comes out for fifteen minutes every 42 years. A group of school kids are excited for this, but are jealous of a new kid from earth who remembers what the sun looks like. They lock her in a closet, so she misses the break in the rain. The episode has a happier ending than the story as the kids give Margot the flowers they picked while the sun was out. Keith Coogan is about the only name from the cast I recognize.

Q: Hey Leonard,

I've got a couple of subjective oscar-inspired questions for your column.

Who is the best actor to have never won an oscar?

What is the best acting performance ever?

Thanks for the great column. When I am in charge there will be a seat of high honor reserved for you, my friend.
-Andrew

A: Best is very subjective, so let's keep that in mind.

Peter O'Toole is the actor with the most nominations without a win, so he's probably the answer to your first question. He did receive an honorary Oscar in 2003. The eight films he's been nominated for are Venus, My Favorite Year, the Stunt Man, The Ruling Class, Goodbye Mr. Chips, The Lion in Winter, Becket and Lawrence of Arabia.


Second on the list is Richard Burton with seven nominations for Equus, Anne of a Thousand Days, Whose Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, Becket, the Robe and My Cousin Rachel. A story has Richard Dreyfuss winning best actor for The Goodbye Girl in 1978 only to mess with Burton who was up for Equus. The presenter would say "and the Oscar goes to Richard…" and he would think it was him and get excited.



On the female side, Thelma Ritter has six nominations for best supporting actress without a win for Birdman of Alcatraz, Pillow Talk, Pickup on South Street, With a Song in My Heart, The Mating Season and All About Eve.



Orson Welles, Clint Eastwood, Kevin Costner and Robert Redford all have Oscars, but not for acting, just to mention.

For your second question, I'm guessing we would let Oscar winners in. Jack Nicholson has the most nominations with twelve and three wins. Meryl Streep has fourteen nominations and two wins. Katherine Hepburn had four wins in twelve nominations. Spencer Tracy has two wins in nine nominations. Paul Newman has just one win in ten nominations, along with an honorary award and the Jean Hersholt humanitarian award.

My personal choices here would be Newman and Hepburn. Both showed they could play a multitude of roles in different genres, aged gracefully with their roles and have a firm understanding of the basics of acting and filmmaking. They might have made some bad movies, but they were always on. They showed such a consistence of quality performance over a number of years.

And just to fill space, hot pictures of Scarlett Johansson and Natalie Portman, who are currently appearing in The Other Bolyen Girl. I would say in a theater near you, but probably not by the time you read this.





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