Danny Glover's Short Film "Second Life" Debuts Online

Danny Glover’s Newest Short Film Debuts on The Responsibility Project


“Second Line” Reminds Viewers to “Do the Right Thing”

Directed by Danny Glover and Produced by Moving Parts, Inc.

--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Liberty Mutual Group:
About the Film: A neighbor, a friend or a stranger in need of a small act of kindness often passes by us unnoticed. It’s a decision we make every day — “Am I too busy to lend a moment of my time to another person?” Despite overloaded schedules and the struggle to balance the responsibilities of daily life, it’s important to remember how little time it takes to “do the right thing.”

Danny Glover directs and stars in the latest short film from Liberty Mutual’s Responsibility Project entitled, “Second Line.” Glover portrays a wealthy and frustrated businessman who is forced to walk to work after his car will not start. The man, characterized as being too busy and self-consumed to notice the people and places he passes, rushes through the streets of San Francisco. Viewers join the man on what appears to be an ordinary walk to work. After breezing past others in need, the man arrives at work and finally realizes all that he has missed. A changed expression appears on his face and he suddenly becomes present again as he helps a homeless man on the street. The film ends as the businessman enters his office building, turns around and notices another “lost soul” speeding by.

The four-and-a-half minute short film, “Second Line” was written by Nicole Middleton, directed by Danny Glover and produced by Moving Parts, Inc. The film’s director of photography, Michael Chin, was nominated for an Emmy® in Outstanding Cinematography for “The American Experience,” a series of documentaries on American history. The filmmakers were inspired by the collective spirit of street parades or “second lines,” a long-standing cultural tradition in New Orleans that celebrates family and community. The short film can be found at www.ResponsibilityProject.com.


About the Director:
Danny Glover, who grew up in San Francisco, where “Second Line” was filmed, made his directing debut in 2002 with “Just A Dream.” Glover, a beloved American actor, has produced over 20 films and television productions. He has been nominated for four Emmy® awards and has been recognized for his support of various humanitarian and political causes.

About The Responsibility Project:
The Responsibility Project, created by Liberty Mutual, uses entertainment content to create a forum for people to discuss personal acts of responsibility. Through short films, online content and television programming, The Responsibility Project is a catalyst for examining the decisions that confront people trying to “do the right thing.”

Individuals can participate in online conversations about personal responsibility and also review live-action and animated film shorts on the project’s online community, www.ResponsibilityProject.com.

About Liberty Mutual:
Boston-based Liberty Mutual Group is a diversified global insurer and fifth largest property and casualty insurer in the U.S. based on 2008 direct written premium. The Company also ranks 71st on the Fortune 500 list of largest corporations in the U.S. based on 2009 revenue. As of December 31, 2009, Liberty Mutual Group had $109.5 billion in consolidated assets, $94.9 billion in consolidated liabilities and $31.1 billion in annual consolidated revenue.

Liberty Mutual Group offers a wide range of insurance products and services, including personal automobile, homeowners, workers compensation, commercial multiple peril, commercial automobile, general liability, global specialty, group disability, assumed reinsurance, fire and surety.

Liberty Mutual Group (www.libertymutualgroup.com) employs over 45,000 people in more than 900 offices throughout the world.

Where: “Second Line” is available now on http://www.responsibilityproject.com/.

Review: "Tears of the Sun" Offers Sentiment with Military Action

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 30 (of 2003) by Leroy Douresseaux

Tears of the Sun (2003)
Running time: 121 minutes (2 hours, 1 minute)
MPAA – R for strong war violence, some brutality and language
DIRECTOR: Antoine Fuqua
WRITERS: Alex Lasker and Patrick Cirillo
PRODUCERS: Ian Bryce, Mike Lobell, and Arnold Rifkin
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Mauro Fiore
EDITOR: Conrad Buff IV
COMPOSER: Lisa Gerrard and Hans Zimmer

WAR/ACTION/DRAMA with elements of a thriller

Starring: Bruce Willis, Monica Bellucci, Cole Hauser, Eamonn Walker, Charles Ingram, Tom Skerritt, and Malick Bowens

Is Tears of the Sun a good movie? Well, the boy parts: the action, the blood and guts, the special ops intrigue, the shootouts, the male camaraderie, etc. are good There’s lots of that and it’s as good, in that respect as, say, Black Hawk Down. The parts of the film that’s supposed to pass for girl stuff: concerned foreign doctors, martyred priests and nuns, and defenseless refugees are negligible. It’s not that you won’t feel sympathetic to the plight of natives being hunted by genocidal soldiers because there are some touching moments and some very riveting, frightening moments, but they get in the way of a very good movie about a group of brave soldiers.

A special operations commander, A.K. Waters (Bruce Willis), leads his team into remote Nigeria to rescue an American doctor (Monica Bellucci). However, Dr. Lena Hendricks refuses to leave without her village friends whom she calls “my people.” When Waters gets to feeling that he can’t leave Lena’s people behind to be slaughtered by vicious rebel troops, he puts himself and his men on a perilous journey through the thick Nigerian jungles to bring the doctor and her people to safe harbor. Not only does escorting civilians slow the team down, but there’s a horde of vicious killers on their trail.

Director Antoine Fuqua has a deft touch with the military scenes. They’re exciting and invigorating; he has the infinite patience to let his camera soak in the special operatives stealth work and also the vigor to grasp the sudden and rapid violence of a firefight. In Training Day, Fuqua wasn’t good with the film’s few sentimental and romantic moments. They might have been important in establishing Training Day’s characters, but the sentiment took a back seat to the conflict between the lead characters.

Here, the soft moments, those moments when the film focuses on the plight of the refugees and the hideous, soul wrenching horror of post-colonial Africa, are boring and they hamper the film. Unlike Training Day, sentiment is important to Tears. I just didn’t care about that in this film, although I do care when I’m not busy demanding blood and gore from my entertainment. The special ops guys mesmerized me: their camaraderie, their bravery, their sense of humanity and kindness even in the face of long odds, and their believe in the team that makes them do even the things upon which individuals disagree. All this machismo in a movie makes for effective war propaganda.

The quality of the acting ranges from very good to average. Willis is himself, a bit of ham at the most inopportune moments, and Ms. Bellucci’s succeeds in making an annoying character quite annoying and self-righteous. The actors who make up Waters team including Cole Hauser are excellent; they carry the film and make it worth seeing. And that’s the recommendation, Tears of the Sun is an entertaining film with edge of your seat action and scenes that skirt your nerves along the razor’s edge, very similar to Black Hawk Down, albeit a lower rent version, but still a good film.

6 of 10
B

NOTES:
2004 Black Reel Awards: 1 nomination: “Film: Best Director” (Antoine Fuqua)

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Halle Berry Headed for the Great White Way? (Negromancer New Bits & Bites)

I found this news at AOL's Black Voices:  Halle Berry is apparently close to being cast in a Broadway production of The Mountaintop, a play about the final hours of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s final hours, written by Katori Hall.  Of course, I'll being watching for more news on this.

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Review: Denzel Washington Blew Minds with "Training Day"

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 12 (of 2001) by Leroy Douresseaux

Training Day (2001)
Running time: 122 minutes (2 hours, 2 minutes)
MPAA – R for brutal violence, pervasive language, drug content and brief nudity
DIRECTOR: Antoine Fuqua
WRITER: David Ayer
PRODUCERS: Bobby Newmyer and Jeffrey Silver
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Mauro Fiore (director of photography)
EDITOR: Conrad Buff
Academy Award winner

DRAMA/CRIME/THRILLER

Starring: Denzel Washington, Ethan Hawke, Scott Glenn, Tom Berenger, Harris Yulin, Raymond J. Barry, Cliff Curtis, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Macy Gray, Charlotte Ayanna, and Eva Mendes

After not winning the Oscar for Best Actor 1999 for his portrayal of the noble but controversial Rubin “Hurricane” Carter (to the worthy Kevin Spacey), Denzel Washington may likely not earn even an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of the thoroughly evil and corrupted L.A. cop Alonzo Harris in Training Day. [Actually, after I wrote this, Washington did earn both an Oscar nomination and a win for his portrayal of Harris – Leroy 2010/7/10.]

Training Day begins with Jake Hoyt (Ethan Hawke), a young cop of 19 months, earns an assignment to the narcotics division under the tutelage of Harris. From the get go, Harris is rude and crude to Hoyt, and before long Harris takes Hoyt on a whirlwind tour of the seamy underbelly of L.A. County: gang neighborhoods, slums, drug dealing, and police corruption. But a recent miscue haunts Harris, and his attempt to get from under the cloud his carelessness has earned him brings the movie to its abrupt, brutal, and violent end. All the while, Hoyt struggles to maintain his law-abiding nature.

Washington is shocking, brilliant and intense as the dirty cop Harris. Known for playing clean policemen, upright detectives, and uplifting African-American heroes, Washington’s turn as a villain will wake people up to this artistic diverse resume. That he is one of the great actors of the last 15 years in not debatable. The passion that he brought to his role in The Hurricane, he brings here, and one can see passion in his eyes, in his gestures, and in the way he carries himself. It is the most invigorating character Washington has played since The Hurricane.

Hawke remains a player of mostly melancholy characters for which one can feel the deepest sympathy. He is an everyman with matinee idol good looks and charm, although it’s hard to accept his character late in the movie as Hoyt vengefully stalks Harris. He isn’t miscast; the movie just goes slightly awry, focusing on Harris’s evil rather than Hoyt’s coming of age as a policeman.

Antoine Fuqua (the director of the clumsy The Replacement Killers) brings the eye he used as a director of music videos to the film, but with the sensibility to follow a longer, more coherent story than is usually found in videos. Training Day’s pace is steady and breezy, and doesn’t start to stumble until the last quarter.

This isn’t entirely his fault. David Ayer, a rising screen writing star (U-571, The Fast and the Furious) convinces us until the last fifteen minutes or so of this film that Harris will get away with it. Harris’s ideology isn’t entirely unacceptable to mainstream audiences. If his believe system works and keeps the streets clean, most citizens would be happy as long as the could keep their hands clean and the truth buried so that they never have to deal with him and look the other way. It must be Ayers’s goody-two shoes nature that resolves things in the direction in which he does. It is sometimes nice when a movie eschews a happy ending, and the happy ending is usually positive, even when negative would have been more believable. This time the happy ending would have been the ugly truth, and this movie deserved a happy ending.

Not to reveal too many things, but with a deadline looming to save his life, Harris wouldn’t have stopped for a dalliance.

An entertaining cop flick, Training Day is good look at excellent work from a very talented actor, Washington. It may come across as harsh for those who like him as a romantic, good guy leading man, but it’s great for those who want a tour de force from a screen artist.

7 of 10
A-

NOTES:
2002 Academy Awards: 1 win: “Best Actor in a Leading Role” (Denzel Washington); 1 nomination: “Best Actor in a Supporting Role” (Ethan Hawke)
2002 Golden Globes: 1 nomination: “Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama” (Denzel Washington)
2002 Black Reel Awards: 3 wins: “Black Reel Theatrical - Best Actor” (Denzel Washington), “Theatrical - Best Director” (Antoine Fuqua), and “Theatrical - Best Film;” 1 nominations: “Best Song” (Nelly for the song "#1")

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"Harold & Kumar 3" Goes into Production

Mandate Pictures and New Line Begin Production on the Third Harold & Kumar Comedy

John Cho and Kal Penn Head the Ensemble Cast in the First 3-D Installment of the Comedy Franchise

BURBANK, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The ensemble cast has been set for Mandate Pictures’ and New Line Cinema’s third installment of the Harold & Kumar film franchise, which began with the 2004 cult hit “Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle.” John Cho (“Star Trek,” TV’s “Flash Forward”) and Kal Penn (“Superman Returns,” TV’s “House”) reprise their title roles in the holiday-themed comedy, which recently began principal photography on location in Michigan.

The first of the Harold & Kumar comedies to be shot in 3-D, the film is being directed by Todd Strauss-Schulson, marking his major feature film directorial debut. Academy Award®-winning producer Greg Shapiro (“The Hurt Locker”) and Mandate president Nathan Kahane return as producers. The screenplay is by Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg, who wrote the previous two movies and directed the second, “Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay.” They are also serving as co-producers, together with Nicole Brown, who is overseeing the project on behalf of Mandate.

It would not be a “Harold & Kumar” film without Neil Patrick Harris, who reunites with Cho and Penn in the cast. Returning “Harold & Kumar” cast members also include Paula Garcés (TV’s “The Shield”) as Maria; Danneel Harris (TV’s “One Tree Hill”) as Vanessa; Bobby Lee (“Pineapple Express”) as Kenneth Park; and Eddie Kaye Thomas (“American Pie,” HBO’s “How to Make It in America”) as Rosenberg.

Joining the “Harold & Kumar” ensemble are Tom Lennon (“17 Again,” TV’s “Reno 911”) and Danny Trejo (“Grindhouse”). Rounding out the new film cast are Amir Blumenfeld (TV’s “Pranked,” CollegeHumor.com), David Burtka (TV’s “How I Met Your Mother”), Fred Melamed (“A Serious Man”), Patton Oswalt (“The Informant!”) and Richard Riehle (“Halloween II”).

Harold and Kumar were introduced in the first film of the series, “Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle,” which follows two post-college friends on their search for the best pot and snacks that suburban New Jersey has to offer. The second film, “Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay,” found them being mistaken for terrorists and having to clear their names—with the help of old friend Neil Patrick Harris.

The new “Harold & Kumar” comedy picks up six years after the duo’s last adventure. After years of growing apart, Harold Lee (John Cho) and Kumar Patel (Kal Penn) have replaced each other with new best friends and are preparing for their respective Christmas celebrations. But when a mysterious package arrives at Kumar’s door, his attempt to deliver it to Harold’s house ends with him inadvertently burning down Harold’s father-in-law’s prize Christmas tree. With his in-laws out of the house for less than a day, Harold decides to cover his tracks rather than come clean, and reluctantly embarks on another ill-advised but hilarious journey with Kumar, taking them through New York City on Christmas Eve in search of the perfect Christmas tree.

Collaborating with Todd Strauss-Schulson behind the scenes are: director of photography Michael Barrett (“You Don’t Mess with the Zohan,” “Bedtime Stories”); production designer Rusty Smith (the “Austin Powers” movies, “Elf”), editor Eric Kissack (“Brüno,” “Role Models”), and costume designer Mary Claire Hannan (“Into the Wild”).

The film is a production of Mandate Pictures and New Line Cinema and will be distributed worldwide by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company.


ABOUT MANDATE PICTURES:
Mandate Pictures is a multifaceted film production and financing company with a distinguished reputation and proven track record of success and profitability. Acquired by Lionsgate (NYSE: LGF) in 2007, Mandate continues to operate as an independent brand delivering acclaimed commercial and independent films worldwide. Under President Nathan Kahane, Mandate has carved out a unique position in the film industry, having the creative autonomy and capital to finance, develop, package and produce theatrical films, including the Academy Award®-nominated film “Juno,” directed by Jason Reitman, written by Diablo Cody, and starring Ellen Page, Michael Cera, Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman.

ABOUT NEW LINE CINEMA:
New Line Cinema continues to be one of the most successful independent film companies. For more than 40 years, its mission has been to produce innovative, popular, profitable entertainment in the best creative environment. A pioneer in franchise filmmaking, New Line produced the Oscar®-winning “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy, which is a landmark in the history of film franchises. New Line Cinema is a division of Warner Bros.

Review: Before "Inception," Chris Nolan Did Trippy with "Memento"

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 13 (of 2002) by Leroy Douresseaux

Memento (2000)
OPENING DATE: March 16, 2001
Running time: 113 minutes
MPAA – R for violence, language, and some drug content
DIRECTOR: Christopher Nolan
WRITER: Christopher Nolan (based upon a short story “Memento Mori” by Jonathan Nolan)
PRODUCERS: Jennifer Todd and Suzanne Todd
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Wally Pfister
EDITOR: Dody Dorn
Academy Award nominee

DRAMA/THRILLER/MYSTERY

Starring: Guy Pearce, Carrie-Anne Moss, Joe Pantoliano, Stephen Tobolowsky, Mark Boone Junior, Jorja Fox, and Harriet Samson Harris

Leonard “Lenny” Shelby (Guy Pearce, L.A. Confidential) was an insurance investigator. While intervening in the murder of his wife Catherine (Jorja Fox), Lenny receives a blow to his head. The resulting brain damage causes Lenny to suffer from Anterograde Amnesia, a condition in which Lenny cannot create new memories. Everyday he wakes up knowing who he is, but not remembering anything that happened since the injury. From that day on, he awakes every day, his mind a virtual blank slate. He compensates by taking pictures with a Polaroid camera, tattooing information on all over his body, and annotating pictures and pages of notes as a way to remember important information from previous days.

His current associates are a cheeky friend, Teddy (Joe Pantoliano, The Matrix) and a friendly bar waitress, Natalie (Carrie-Anne Moss, The Matrix). They’re either assistance or hindrance as Lenny searches for the man who killed his wife, a search he remembers began the night of his wife’s murder and his injury.

Memento is a combination mystery, thriller, crime drama, and like most of them, the answer comes at the end of the film. However, a twist that can confuse viewers, the movie begins with what is the conclusion of the story. The movie works backwards in time with each succeeding scene taking place earlier in the story than its predecessor. By the time the movie ends, the answer to the puzzle is actually the beginning of the story. If this sounds confusing, it isn’t. Memento is one of the most engaging mystery thrillers in quite a while.

Writer/director Christopher Nolan plays with time the way that Quentin Tarantino does, and he dresses his film in hardboiled film noir in the tradition of Los Angeles crime dramas. Memento’s execution is a mental exercise of the kind found in European cinema. Once you learn that the story works in reverse, you are drawn in and you can’t quit the film until its end. As you watch the story, you see a result of an action, so you must continue to watch to see what caused the action. To the bitter end, or beginning as it is, you want to know how Lenny’s suffering, how his search began, and each scene you watch only makes it more imperative that you see what happened get closer to the beginning of Lenny’s odyssey.

The performances by Pearce, Pantoliano, and Ms. Moss are excellent. Pearce makes an excellent everyman hero, and Pantoliano is the perfect sly trickster. However, Ms. Moss’s character turns are a revelation of her latent talent. Known for playing sexy heroines in sci-fi movies, to see her play a low-end bar hop is shocking.

The most brilliant work comes from Nolan, his brother Jonathan (whose original short story, upon which this movie is based, was published after the film’s release), and film editor, Dody Dorn (the special edition of Terminator 2: Judgment Day). These three creators, in particular Dody and Christopher Nolan, compose a beautiful piece of work that easily could have fallen apart upon its central conceit. They turn a gimmick on its ear. You’re impatient to learn what’s going on, and the film is so beautifully put together that you can never abandon it, lest you never learn the how it all began.

Like the tattoos that cover Lenny’s body, Memento will leave its own mark on your film viewing memory. Words in praise of Memento don’t do it just. Its impact is purely in what you see. Some film lovers see sound as a corruption of the pure visual magic of film, and Memento’s stock in trade is images and memories. The experience of seeing this film is itself a cherished memento.

9 of 10
A+

NOTES:
2002 Academy Awards: 2 nominations: “Best Editing” (Dody Dorn) and “Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen” (Christopher Nolan and Jonathan Nolan-story)

2002 Golden Globes: 1 nominations: “Best Screenplay - Motion Picture” (Christopher Nolan)

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2010 Emmy Nominations Announced

Since African-Americans are routinely ignored, I really don't care too much about the Emmy Awards.  I can't blame the voters, though.  Most of the networks don't even have any starring or major supporting roles played by Black actors.  Would it kill such totally white shows as "How I Met Your Mother" to have even a recurring Black character?  Thank God for TBS.

Anyway, here are the 2010 Emmy nominations in a few major categories:

OUTSTANDING DRAMA

Lost
Breaking Bad
Dexter
Mad Men
True Blood
The Good Wife

OUTSTANDING COMEDY
Glee
Modern Family
Curb Your Enthusiasm
Nurse Jackie
30 Rock
The Office
Curb Your Enthusiasm

OUTSTANDING ACTRESS IN A DRAMA
Julianna Margulies (The Good Wife)
Mariska Hargitay (Special Victims Unit)
Glenn Close (Damages)
Kyra Sedgwick (The Closer)
January Jones (Mad Men)
Connie Britton (Friday Night Lights)

OUTSTANDING ACTOR IN A DRAMA
Jon Hamm (Mad Men)
Kyle Chandler (Friday Night Lights)
Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad)
Hugh Laurie (House M.D.)
Michael C. Hall (Dexter)
Matthew Fox (Lost)

OUTSTANDING ACTRESS IN A COMEDY
Lea Michele (Glee)
Tina Fey (30 Rock)
Toni Collette (The United States of Tara)
Julia Louis-Dreyfus (The New Adventures of Old Christine)
Edie Falco (Nurse Jackie)
Amy Poehler (Parks and Recreation)

OUTSTANDING ACTOR IN A COMEDY
Larry David (Curb Your Enthusiasm)
Alec Baldwin (30 Rock)
Matthew Morrison (Glee)
Steve Carell (The Office)
Jim Parsons (The Big Bang Theory)
Tony Shalhoub (Monk)

OUTSTANDING SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A COMEDY
Chris Colfer (Glee)
Neil Patrick Harris (How I Met Your Mother)
Jesse Tyler Ferguson (Modern Family)
Jon Cryer (Two and A Half Men)
Eric Stonestreet (Modern Family)
Ty Burrell (Modern Family)

OUTSTANDING SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A DRAMA
John Slattery (Mad Men)
Aaron Paul (Breaking Bad)
Martin Short (Damages)
Terry O’ Quinn (Lost)
Michael Emerson (Lost)
Andre Braugher (Men of a Certain Age)

OUTSTANDING SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A DRAMA
Sharon Gless (Burn Notice)
Christine Baranski (The Good Wife)
Christina Hendricks (Mad Men)
Rose Byrne (Damages)
Archie Panjabi (The Good Wife)
Elisabeth Moss (Mad Men)

OUTSTANDING SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A COMEDY
Jane Lynch (Glee)
Kristen Wiig (Saturday Night Live)
Jane Krakowski (30 Rock)
Julie Bowen (Modern Family)
Sofia Vergara (Modern Family)
Holland Taylor (Two and A Half Men)

OUTSTANDING REALITY SHOW (COMPETITION)
The Amazing Race
American Idol
Dancing with the Has-Beens
Project Runway
Top Chef

OUTSTANDING GUEST ACTRESS IN A COMEDY
Kristen Chenoweth (Glee)
Jane Lynch (Two and a Half Men)
Christine Baranski (The Big Bang Theory)
Elaine Stritch (30 Rock)
Tina Fey (SNL)
Kathryn Joosten (Desperate Housewives)
Betty White (SNL)

If you want to see a complete list, go here.