Tag: Patricia Arquette

Chelsea: The Right, Fair Thing to Do – Patricia Arquette (Review)

Chelsea Handler

Chelsea “The Right, Fair Thing to Do” was all about “woman power.” Patricia Arquette was the main guest and she talked mainly about equal pay.  The theme of modern women in charge of themselves  and their careers also continued with second guest Aisha Tyler.  

At the start of the episode, Chelsea talked of having the Stranger Things kids on the show.  Before the first guest came on, there was a humorous segment where Chelsea’s new “life coaches” Paul and Jackie Greenberg walked the host through dealing with child actors.

It was a funny segment, “Do not give them gum,” that went over very well with the audience.

Arquette spoke briefly about her role in Boyhood. The 2014 film, shot over a timespan of 12 years, garnered the actress her only Oscar for Supporting Actress. Chelsea mentions her performance and her character’s speech at the end of the film.

The two women also talked about living in a commune, (or as Chelsea put it, living “on” a commune) and how Patricia felt growing  up in that environment.

Midway through their chat, there was a “field” segment where Chelsea visited with a “commune” family. A German couple with four kids were the focus of this away day.

The “hippyish” family talked of potty training their children from “day one” and the oldest played a song for Chelsea. It was investing to see that  the father blushed quite a lot.

Then it was back to Arquette who spent a fair amount of time talking about how women are still “held down” in this country. In terms of equal rights and not just equal pay women continue to get the short end of the stick.

She talked about rape statistics in terms of jail time for the perpetrators  and pointed out that  rapist Brock Turner was not an anomaly. Arquette was also there to plug her new documentary Equal Means Equal.

The actress is, as Chelsea points out, a strong woman.  She believes passionately in equal rights for women, it is not shy about airing her views and beliefs.

Next up was Aisha Tyler, a friend of Chelsea’s as well as one very busy performer. Tyler is on The Talk, does voice work on the animated series Archer, and appears on Whose Line Is It Anyway.

The busy performer, Aisha is also a stand-up comic, just finished directing her first feature length film.  Tyler is funny and her segment had the audience laughing on a regular basis.

She spoke of her Vegas trip with Chelsea, and falling asleep on the couch with her feet on the assistant’s lap. Tyler and Chelsea have an excellent chemistry together and it added to the segment.

Aisha mentioned that she liked being on cable as she could swear without fear of recrimination.  Chelsea agreed.

There was another segment, outside the studio, where Handler featured her father Seymour again. He revealed that he had a 21 year old “girlfriend” who “looks after him.”

Chelsea took her two assistants to see Laura Wasser again, in a very short segment where they spoke of alternative schooling and home schools.

The episode ended with Chelsea’s tips on going to college, something she did not do. The best bit of this segment was the advice to lower expectations, i.e. standards.

This was another interesting episode that left politics behind and focussed instead on women’s issues of equality and a little bit on communes and home schooling.

Chelsea airs Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays on Netflix. Tune in and enjoy the force that is Chelsea Handler.

Patricia Arquette Kicks the Hornet Nest of Equality

Patricia Arquette kicked the hornet nest of equality at the Oscar ceremony during, and after her acceptance speech. Inadvertently, she also released a storm of controversy over her calls to minority and the LGBT community to join her glorious fight. This call to arms then sparked a row over just how racist the Academy Awards ceremony was on Sunday, “Did you see how many white people won?”

Read the rest of the article on Viral Global News…

‘Boyhood’ Patricia Arquette Boring Moments in Time (Review and Trailer)

‘Boyhood’ Patricia Arquette Boring Moments in Time (Review and Trailer)

The Oscar buzz thus far has Patricia Arquette with her, and the rest of the cast’s, boring moments in time, in Boyhood a favorite to get some sort of gong come award time. The film was made over a 12 year time period and used the same actors over said filming period. The audience get watch an entire fictional family grow up together. This is a real slice of Americana where one “family” is put under the spotlight and viewers are treated to the warts and all vantage point of observer in this rather mundane look at a family’s son and his journey up to leaving the nest and striking out on his own.

Holes (2003): What We Have Here…

I was originally going to title this piece ‘Shawshank Redemption for Kids’ But it’s not really Shawshank Redemption for kids, even though it’s damn close. The theme of the two films are very similar and you get the same sense of satisfaction when you have finished watching the film.

But if I were to be really honest, the film is closer to a juvenile version of Cool Hand Luke without Strother Martin’s character drawling, ” What we have here is a failure to communicate.”

Instead we have Sigourney Weaver‘s, “Excuse me??” Shia LaBeoff is of course the Paul Newman of this story and that is where any similarity to ‘Luke’ ends. Where Newman’s Luke was a good ole’ boy who didn’t mind breaking the law in order to have a good time, LaBeoff’s Stanley aka Caveman, is a true innocent.

Holes is great little entertainment piece that doesn’t stretch too far into character development territory, although it does try to give us a ‘back story’ and plot intertwining that only just about works.

It has a good pedigree as far as cast lists go. Henry Winkler, Jon Voight, Patricia Arquette are all part of the capable actors who populate this film. Eartha Kitt has a splendid cameo as Madame Zeroni the fortune teller who curses the Yelnats when an ancestor breaks a promise that he made to her.

The film starts with Stanley (LaBeoff) walking home and getting hit in the head with a pair of stolen baseball shoes. This occurance knocks Stanley out cold, the shoes were thrown off of an overpass. He is arrested for stealing the shoes and after being found guilty, is offered the choice of jail or Camp Green Lake (a juvenile chain gang operation run by Warden Walker).

Stanley and his whole family blame this recent turn of events on the Yelnats family curse.

Stanley goes through the usual drill when he arrives at Camp Green Lake, he manages to piss off everyone he meets and is, of course, bullied because he is the new boy. The only lad who doesn’t bully or ostracise Stanley is Zero (Khleo Thomas) who, we find out later in the film, was the person who stole the shoes that Stanley was arrested for stealing.

All the inmates at Camp Green Lake are made to dig holes in the dry lake bed that the camp has been named after. We learn of the story behind the lake drying up. We also learn more about the ‘kissing bandit’ (Arquette).

The back story helps to tie up the connection between the Yelnets family curse and the dry lake bed. Mister Sir (Jon Voight), Warden Walker’s (Weaver) ‘foreman’ is a bully of the finest order. His second in command is Dr Pedanski (Tim Blake Nelson) a ‘make-believe’ doctor who also likes bullying the boys.

After Pedanski insults Zero, Zero hits him in the face with a shovel and escapes. He heads across the barren lake bed out into an area that has no water or shade. Stanley takes out after him.

This film is notable because it is Labeoff’s first film (the opening credits say, ‘Introducing’ in front of his name) and it gives us a chance to see Shia in his pre-Transformers days.

Considering that this is a film that has been exclusively targeted for children, it is still entertaining. Yes the villains are all ‘cartoon’ type villains (you know, so stupid that it beggars belief that they are not all in prison) all that is missing is the twirling of the pencil thin moustache.

But the film works in spite of the two dimensional characterisation of all the characters and it’s paper thin plot as well as it’s comparison (or some would say homage?) to other films.

At the end of the film, you feel that justice has been served. You also feel a sense of relief that those ‘poisonous’ lizards don’t really exist in real life. You might also feel like checking out the book by Louis Sachar that the film is adapted from.

A final verdict of a one bagger film. One bag of popcorn should see you through this ‘feel good film.’

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