Watching Showtime

Here’s some great shots of Jonathan Rhys Meyers on the set of Children Of Huang Shi, thanks to the Jonathan Rhys Meyers Fan Blog. I can’t wait for this movie to be released. For more info on the movie, check out this post.

Did everyone else get super freaked out excited over the commercial for Trantasia, the new movie set to hit Showtime on Valentine’s Day? In case you missed it, or aren’t fully convinced, here’s some plot synopsis to get you excited!

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The Children of Huang Shi Trailer Jonathan Rhys Meyers 2008
Uploaded by sorties-cinema

Check out a trailer for Jonathan Rhys Meyers’ newest movie, The Children of Huang Shi. According to the IMDB website, the movie is about a young journalist named George Hogg (Meyers) who leads 60 orphaned boys to safety. Based on a true story, this will be a departure from his work on The Tudors, but anything with Jonathan in it is worth watching in my book!

King Henry himself, Jonathan Rhys Meyers has a new movie coming out just before Thanksgiving, and Just Jared has some great movie stills. What’s the movie even about?

August Rush tells the story of a charismatic young Irish guitarist (Rhys Meyers) and a sheltered young cellist (Kerri Russell) who have a chance encounter one magical night above New York’s Washington Square, but are soon torn apart, leaving in their wake an infant, August Rush, orphaned by circumstance. Now performing on the streets of New York and cared for by a mysterious stranger (Robin Williams), August (Highmore) uses his remarkable musical talent to seek the parents from whom he was separated at birth.

Jonathan Rhys Meyers, August Rush, Kerri Russell, Terrance Howard, Robin Williams

Growing up gay in the South in the 70’s, with a strong Christian family who prayed you’d become a preacher doesn’t sound like the ideal start for an ex-Marine turned playwright. But that’s exactly the upbring Jeff Key had, and he wouldn’t trade it for the world. In Showtime’s original movie/documentary about the man, his autobiographical play, and his experiences in the Iraq War, you meet Key (as his Marine buddies call him), take a journey with him as he describes his early life, his coming out and his move to LA after college, and then follow his words and pictures as he joins the marines and less than two years later is sent to Iraq.

Jeff Key most definitely has a poet’s soul, as the words to describe a country torn apart by war flow out of him effortlessly. His descriptions of the children, the beautiful and radiant children, moved me to tears. “Mister Mister!” is a cry I’ve heard in other countries as children starving for nourishment of both the body and the spirit crowd around. For this Marine, it was an experience that altered him to the core. From his first footprints on sandy soil to his airlift out in a medical chopper, Jeff’s story rings of a heartbreak I cannot imagine.

That’s what it was for him, too. Heartbreak. The friends interviewed for the show all saw it, his family saw it, and it radiates in his eyes through the screen. The Iraqi people broke Jeff Keys’ heart. Which is why, upon returning home to discover he and his team had been looking for weapons that did not exist, had been surrounded by people who increasingly wanted them out of their country, Jeff Keys wrote the hardest letter he’d ever written. He came out of the closet, claiming “Don’t ask, don’t tell simply doesn’t work for me anymore.”

Keys went into the Marines knowing he was gay. Most of the men he served with knew he was gay. Jeff chose to closet himself to fight for a country he believed in, but his reasons for fighting and serving as a Marine became his reasons for leaving. And so he came out, and is asking and telling all over the place.

An amazing movie, a must-see. It’s showing several more times, so be sure to catch it next time around. And to Jeff Keys, I say Semper Fi, brother. Semper Fi.

Showtime, Semper Fi, Jeff Key, Marines, don’t ask don’t tell

Premiering tomorrow, Showtime is running a powerful documentary. We all hopefully still remember Mukhtaran Mai, the Pakistani woman who was gang-raped and then shamed out of her village. Her struggle for human rights and willingness to use her life as an example has been turned into a documentary. Definitely worth watching, recording, and then showing to anyone you know who does not have Showtime.

tonite on Showtime, “Get Rich or Die Tryin’”. from Showtime’s website:

“Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson stars in this gritty drama loosely based on his own life as Marcus, a tough kid who grew up orphaned in a New York neighborhood and turned to drug-dealing as a way of survival. When a brush with death convinces him to pursue his passion for rap music, however, Marcus’s former associates object violently to his new plans. Bill Duke and Joy Bryant costar in this inspiring film from director Jim Sheridan (”In the Name of the Father,” “My Left Foot”).”

Curtis Jackson, 50 Cent, Get Rich or Die Tryin’, Bill Duke, Joy Bryant, Jim sheridan, In the Name of the Father

The other day, I watched one of the more amazing documentaries I’ve seen in quite some time, and it was (of course) on Showtime. Rize follows the dance movements in inner-city L.A. From around 1992 and the inception of clown dancing to the present and “krumping”. In an area marked by violence, these youth, usually ranging in age from eight to twenty, have been channeling their agression through dance as a non-violent alternative to gang warfare.

The documentary follows the more traditional clown dancers and their newer and more agressive counterparts as they describe their dance, their lives, and their differences. The show culminates with a dance battle, which ultimately creates the same gang-style rivalries these youth were trying to move away from. In the end, they seem unable to fully escape the constraints an oppressive culture has placed over them, although there is hope for these youth. The recognition that they need something more than the violence that is expected of them, and the explanation of their dance as expression of their oppression is a tremendous thing. Rare is the young adult in the dominant culture of America who is able to express their lives and their tradition so eloquently.

A must-see. It’s on again several times this weekend and into next week, so you have no excuse for missing it.

Last night “hustle and flow” was on showtime. I’ve never seen it, so I watched most of it, and I gotta say, it’s not quite the movie i’ve heard it to be. Okay, so there was some great character development, and the “hos” played the part well. But Terrance Howard simply donned an accent and a bad hairdo and somehow he’s supposed to be believable as a pimp and hustler?

Let’s not forget my feminist background here, either. While I know sex-work can be a valid choice for women all over the world, I have issue with any movie that makes a woman out to be little more than a hole. And Nola (Bijou Phillips’ character) was just such a woman. Towards the end, when she was ‘in charge’ and got D Jay’s songs on the radio? She screwed the guy at the station. That much was made relatively obvious with her disheveled clothing and swagger out of the station.

Why does that have to be how Nola “takes charge” and gets Jay’s song on the radio?

In all, a decent way to pass the time, but I wouldn’t have rented it, and I definitely won’t watch it again.