Happy Birthday Gwyneth Paltrow

One of my favorite modern actresses, Gwyneth Paltrow celebrates her 38th birthday today.
She has starred in such films as Malice, Seven, A Perfect Murder, Shallow Hal and of course the Iron Man films.

Hero Worship In October

Halloween is next month and it is one of my favorite months. So expect all things scary on my blog in October. The star of the month will be Milla Jovovich, who just did her 4th Resident Evil movie, and she hasn't lost a step when it comes to killing zombies. Expect reviews and photos of Milla all month long. I will also post a horror movie review a day as part of Monty's Horror-Thon, and hopefully I will some guest bloggers coming by with their input as well. I will also revamp my Top 25 Scream Queens...see who still made the cut and some that may be making their first appearance on the list. So October should be grand here on Hero Worship. Just sit back and enjoy the fright.

Who will be Wonder Woman?

It appears that a live-action Wonder Woman movie is in the works again. There is no story or actress attached yet, but Warner Bros announced it on it's production slate for next year. And Wizard magazine made a list of the top 5 actresses who should be considered for the part of our favorite Amazon. Usually Wizard is pretty accurate when it come to casting comic book movies.  Most likely this would be a series of movies so that's why their ages are listed. Because whoever gets the part, may end up playing our Amazon for several films. And whoever gets the coveted role, they certainly will have big shoes to fill, following in the footsteps of Lynda Carter. So here's my take on their choices.

GEMMA ARTERTON (26) - British actress who is currently riding a crest of successful films including Clash of the Titans, Quantum Solace, and the recent award worthy film, Tamara Drewe. Seems like a good choice and I do like her as an actress.

JESSICA BIEL (28) - No question that Ms. Biel could not handle all the action that would be required to play Wonder Woman. Having starred in Blade: Trinity and this summer's A-Team. Plus she is a capable enough actress...check her out in The Illusionist.

LAURA VANDERVOORT (26) - I thought Laura made a terrific Supergirl on the TV series, Smallville. But evidently I'm in the minority on that, judging by how many fans didn't like her. She was the only reason I watched Smallville for that year. And despite her trademark blonde hair, I can see her as a potential Wonder Woman. But that's just me.

AMANDA RIGHETTI (27) - Got to be considered the dark horse of the group. Amanda is mainly known for the TV series, The Mentalist. And while she has the looks and stature to be WW, I don't know about her as much as the others.

MISSY PEREGRYM (28) - And finally Missy, who is my pick to play Diana. She has played on series such as Smallville, Heroes, and the short lived, now cult classic series Reaper. She just seems right to me. She's got my vote.

I would be interested in what everyone else thought of the choices listed and maybe someone else who might make a great Wonder Woman.

Spotlight on Minnie Driver and my 100th post

Today me and a friend were talking about movies and that led to a movie called Return To Me with David Duchovny and Minnie Driver. I let my friend borrow my copy because she had never seen it and she loved it. That began a discussion about Minnie Driver. So I decided to do a post about her on my blog.

Minnie was born on January 31, 1970 in Finsbury Park, London, England. Her mother, was a designer and former couture model and her father, Ronnie Driver, was a businessman. She has a sister, Kate, who's a model and a producer. Minnie's mother was her father's mistress. Her father's wife did not know about his second family. She has Irish, Scottish, Italian and French ancestry. She was raised in Barbados.

She attended finishing schools in Paris and Grenoble. She worked as a jazz singer and guitarist in London. Completed her debut album, 'Everything I've Got In My Pocket' (2004)

Gave birth to first child, a boy named Henry Story Driver, on September 5, 2008. He weighed 9 lbs. 12 oz.

Now I first saw Minnie in the 1995 romantic drama, Circle of Friends, co-starring Chris O'Donnell, Colin Firth, and Saffron Burrows. The movie was set in 1950's Ireland and focused on the friendship between three girls who attend college. Minnie played Bernadette "Benny" Hogan who falls for Jack Foley (played by O'Donnell). I loved this movie and thought Minnie turned in a marvelous performance. Later that year she had a small part as Irina, a Russian singer who loves country songs, in the James Bond film Goldeneye. And that was Minnie performing with her own voice and she did a great job. In 1997, Minnie co-starred with John Cusack in the cool action/comedy film Grosse Point Blank, which is one of my favorite films of all time. She would also star in her biggest film to date that year, Goodwill Hunting with Matt Damon, Robin Williams, and Ben Affleck. Minnie gave one of her best performances in Hunting. She kind of cooled off after that but Minnie is still one of my favorite modern actresses.

She does have a new upcoming film this December called Conviction, and it co-stars that Oscar magnet, Hilary Swank. The story is about a working mother who puts herself through law school in an effort to represent her brother, who has been wrongfully convicted of murder and has exhausted his chances to appeal his conviction through public defenders. Sounds like another winner for Minnie.

By the way, I just realized this is my 100th post here on Hero Worship. Wow! That really went fast.

Favorite Schwarzenegger Movie Tag Lines

Since Arnold Schwarzenegger movies always had the big guy dropping quips and puns all the time, I thought I would do a post about the coolest tag lines of his films. You know the lines on the movie posters or the ones spoken in the trailer. Just something fun and cool to post. So here are some of my favorites.

The Running Man - A game nobody survives. But Schwarzenegger has yet to play.

Predator - It came for the thrill of the hunt. It picked the wrong man to hunt.

Terminator 2 - It's nothing personal.

Commando - Somewhere... somehow... someone's going to pay.

True Lies - When he said I do, he never said what he did.

Red Heat - Moscow's toughest detective. Chicago's craziest cop. There's only one thing worse than making them mad. Making them partners.

10 Reasons Why Piranha was a cool and fun movie...

The last film I saw as the summer movie season ended was the enjoyable Piranha 3-D. Yes, it was a trashy b-movie, but it was a good trashy one. Instead of the usual review, I will list the top ten reasons why I liked this movie.

1. By casting veteran actors Richard Dreyfuss and Chistopher Lloyd and letting them have some fun with their roles. It was cool seeing these guys back on the screen.

2. Elisabeth Shue (from the original Karate Kid) was an unusual choice to play the town sheriff, but she pulled it off. She was tough when she needed to be and was believable. Not use to hearing her say lines like "Get the f***ck out of the water now!".

3. Ving Rhames going medieval on some of the deadly fish with an outboard motor that was just bad ass.

4. By setting the film in a lake town in Arizona instead of Florida or California made it fresh and different.

5. The timing of Spring Break meant thousands of college kids being there partying, drinking, playing loud music and wet t-shirt contests. Plenty of nudity and rough language. A definite R-rated film just like the good old 80's.

6. Kelly Brook as the sexy Girl Gone Wild video star was actually one of the best characters in the film. Usually the sexy man hungry type character is not the girl you want to see the lead guy hook up with. She had to contend with the guy's returning high school sweetheart, who was annoying as hell. So in this case, Kelly outshines the virginal best friend of said hero.

Actress Kelly Brook

7. The piranha attacks start off slow but then build to a 40 minute feeding frenzy with graphic and bloody killings and deaths. Limbs are chewed off, torsos cut in half, faces ripped off...just gnarly stuff. The director staged the centerpiece sequence where everyone is trying to saying above the water on this floating stage and it starts sinking was awesome. And when the bodies start piling up in boats and in the water, it starts to look like Saving Private Ryan's Omaha Beach scene.

8. Jerry O'Connell is wicked as the Girl Gone Wild coke snorting producer who just wants to make videos. Damn the fish!

9. Adam Scott with shotgun, riding around on a jet ski, doing his best tough guy impression.

10. And finally, director/writer Eli Roth, who I thought was just unbearable for the whole length of Inglorious Basterds, is perfect in a 5 minute cameo as the wet t-shirt host who says the memorable line to his dj after telling the police they aint shutting down...."Hit it Chocolate Thunder!".

So those are my top 10 reasons why I liked Piranha. Every now and then you need junk food to go along with the good healthy cuisine. And Piranha is pure junk, but it goes down so good.

Star Of The Month - George Clooney

My star of the month for September is George Clooney. He first gained stardom as hotshot Doctor Ross on the hit TV series ER. Then he became a bonafide movie star thanks to such films as The Ocean Eleven series, Brother Where Art Thou?, The Perfect Storm, Michael Clayton, Three Kings and several more. I will be posting pics and reviews of his films for the whole month of September.

Hot Tub Time Machine is a great trip back to the 80's

In 2010, three high school buddies (John Cusack, Rob Coddry, and Craig Robinson) come together after being years apart thanks to one of them trying to committ suicide. They decide to take a trip to a ski resort town to relieve their glory days and bring along Cusack's nephew (played by Clark Duke). Once there, they get wild and drunk and in a hot tub and before you know they're back in 1986. The catch is they have their current memories as adults but everyone sees them as their teen-age counterparts. There is an abundance of jokes and gags recalling the 80's such as leg warmers, cassette players, Max Headroom, rubik's cube, Red Dawn, and so on. Also loads of popular songs like Motley Crue's Home Sweet Home, which is kind of the movie's theme song, since they play it several times. And Poison is actually performing at the ski resort. Well, not THE Poison band but close enough. With enough nostalgia to please any fan or person that came of age during the 80's Hot Tub Time Machine is a fun and great comedy. All the guys are terrific, especially Coddry and Robinson. Also look for appearances from Chevy Chase, Crispin Glover and William Zabka (Johnny from The Karate Kid). Be warned it is heavily rated R and the language is very crude but funny.
B
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Jacob: Hey look, it's the douchbag from Karate Kid 3.

Awesome Movie Weapons - rail gun (Eraser)

This has to be one of the coolest weapons ever. From Arnold Schwarzenegger 1996's action flick Eraser, which has him playing bad ass U.S. Marshal John Kruger, who is assigned to protect witness Vanessa Williams. During the rousing finale, the bad guys are using rail guns, which the U.S. Navy has clocked the speed of a railgun at seven times the speed of sound, to flush out Kruger in a warehouse. Well once our man takes those two fools out, he picks up the guns and proceeds to kick some ass. Once the rail gun is fired, it  leaves a plasma trail in it's wake which is very cool. It also has a night vision scope on the side which even uses X-ray technology to see through walls. Awesome weapon indeed.

Fun Summer Movies: SUMMER SCHOOL (1987)

Summer Release Date: 22 July 1987. Starring Mark Harmon, Kirstie Alley, Courtney Thorne-Smith, Dean Cameron, Shawnee Smith, Robin Thomas, Carl Reiner.

For my final fun summer movie for the year, I chose the aptly titled Summer School, a very funny movie from 1987. For everyone who only know Mark Harmon from two distinct periods. One being on the current show NCIS. And the other from the earlier 80's when he was on St. Elsewhere and also when he played Ted Bundy in a TV movie. Well Mark got to cut loose in this comedy which cast him as high school gym teacher Freddy Shoop, who is pushed into teaching summer school when the other teacher bails out after winning the lottery. Which means he can't spend the summer in Hawaii with his girlfriend. She ends up going anyway, no sense in wasting the tickets and her summer as well. Of course Mark gets saddled with some of the worst students in school including two horror movie fanatics who love pulling pranks on class-mates and Mr. Shoop. Now Freddy is probably the most laid back teacher you will ever meet. But once he meets another teacher (Kirstie Alley) he starts to change his outlook on his career. The main goal is to get the kids all to pass summer school or at least show major improvement from the last set of kids. Freddy's main enemy is the vice principal who wants to see him fail. He also happens to be dating Kirstie. There are tons on laughs through-out especially when Freddy tries to help all his kids in different ways outside of school. Such as teaching one girl how to drive so she can pass her drivers test; being another girl's lamaze coach as she is expecting a baby, and trying to ward off the advances of a young Courtney Thorne-Smith. Plus Freddy has one of the coolest dogs ever, named Wondermutt. So if you never seen Summer School, check it out, it's pretty funny.

Notes:

Was a sleeper hit during the summer of 1987 with almost $40 million. Considered a success since Mark Harmon was not known as a big movie star.

The same school was used for the filming of The Karate Kid (1984).


On Shoop's left hand, you can see that he has injured one of his fingers and it appears to have been smashed. This occurred when 'Mark Harmon' had to actually put out the fire on the couch during the party scene that grew quickly out of control.
 
The Hawaiian shirt that Mark Harmon wears is the same exact Duke Kahanamoku model Montgomery Clift wears in "From Here To Eternity."


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Quotes:

Phil Gills: Would someone tell me what Mr. Shoop had planned for today?
Chainsaw: Group sex. No, that's tomorrow. Today is independent study, right after our mid-morning nap.

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Pam: You want us to study?

Shoop: The thought did cross my mind.
Denise: Well, what's in it for us? What do we get out of it?
Shoop: Literacy?