items tagged with Victor Garber

For St. Ambrose University's forthcoming production of Crème de Coco - being performed at the Galvin Fine Arts Center from April 20 through 22 - the school recruited guest director Philip William McKinley to helm what will be the world premiere of William Luce's one-act play. During his area tenure, McKinley is also teaching an advanced acting course at St. Ambrose, and in a recent interview, the director explained why honesty is essential in eliciting the best work from performers:

"I think a lot of times, people tell them what they think they want to hear, rather than tell them what they really do need to hear. And if they know that you're telling them something to make them better, or for their own good, they're totally receptive to it."

That seems like a perfectly logical method for directing student actors. But, at this point in our conversation, McKinley wasn't referring to student actors. He was referring to Hugh Jackman.

PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE

Punch-Drunk Love is exactly what its writer-director, Paul Thomas Anderson, claims it to be – “an art-house Adam Sandler movie” – yet I can’t be alone in thinking: What’s the point of that? Is Anderson merely trying to show up the hacks who’ve directed Sandler in other films? (Again: What’s the point?) All throughout, the movie is beautifully filmed, exquisitely composed, and filled with Anderson’s uncanny knack for stretching a scene out longer than it should humanly run and making you hang on every delirious second of it.

JURASSIC PARK III

Jurassic Park III could have been good. Strike that – it could have been very, very good. There are ideas, gags, and individual set-pieces in director Joe Johnston’s sequel that match anything Steven Spielberg came up with in the first two installments of the Jurassic Park series, and it features one running joke involving a cell phone that is sheer perfection. The effects are impressive, the cast is fine, and the movie clocks in at 90 minutes, and who on earth wouldn’t be thrilled by that?