Tag Archives: Jack Poessiger
New Jack City: KCI Ticket Pricing Heading North?
Mark my words…
The year 2012 could spell the end for KCI to be known as one of the three low-cost ticket airports in the U.S. The other two being Orlando and Las Vegas.
What’s always given us clout – and unusually low pricing – is that we’ve had the luxury of having three discount carriers flying out of here. Those three—Southwest, AirTran and Frontier—have kept the legacy carriers in check.
Something many other markets would kill to get.
So why I am prediciting a future pricing doom for K.C.? Let’s look at the three discounters individually.
New Jack City: Clint Eastwood–Hollywood’s Real Mensch
Clint Eastwood‘s Super Bowl commercial for Chrysler has garnered him renwed attention and respect…
The kind I bet he wishes might have been timed closer to the release of his latest (directed) picture J. EDGAR starring Leonardo DiCaprio. Even Saturday Night Live tipped its hat to the venerable Hollywood legend this past Saturday.
So what is Eastwood like in real life?
I’m here to tell you that with Clint, what you see is what you get. And I know that for a fact!
Jack Goes Confidential: Staying Alive Ain’t Easy in Dizzying SAFE HOUSE
SAFE HOUSE is a gritty, R-rated action-thriller that pits inexperienced CIA operative Ryan Reynolds against once proud but now rogue agent Denzel Washington.
Their location: a safe house off the grid in Cape Town, South Africa where Reynolds is holding Washington who’s in possession of some heavy duty agency secrets that must be protected at all cost.
But when the you-know-what hits the fan—an attack on the safe house—the unlikely duo is forced to escape and make their way through the deadly underground. All while Reynolds is trying to keep Denzel from taking a hike.
But make no mistake, everbody betrays everybody in this movie.
You’ll have to pay close attention or you could become hopelessly lost. But if it’s stark violence you’re seeking, SAFE HOUSE delivers. Or as Washington puts it: "You do what you have to do."
Consider yourself forewarned.
New Jack City: Do-Gooders Outraged at Super Bowl ‘F You’
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The Parents Television Council – protectors of everything wholesome over the airwaves – was appalled at the indecency and filth experienced during Sunday’s Super Bowl halftime show.
Specifically rapper M.I.A. flipping off America while performing with Madonna at center stage.
PTC president Tim Winter didn’t mince words when he got the finger during the NBC telecast.
His shock and indignation was clearly spelled out in a just-released statement to the press regarding M.I.A.’s middle finger malfunction.
And it’s worth sharing.
New Jack City: Hollywood Casino at Kansas Speedway Lets the Good Times Roll
Enticed by a huge, month-long, multimedia ad campaign, I headed west on I-70 Friday afternoon to see what all the excitement created by Penn National Gaming at the Hollywood Casino at Kansas Speedway was all about.
Surely with all that rain we wouldn’t have any trouble ducking right in for a quick peek into the metro’s newest casino. After all, this was a sleepy Friday afternoon.
Wrong!
Jack Goes Confidential: Harry Potter Grows Up, Goes Ghost Hunting
Is there life after Harry Potter for Daniel Radcliffe?
You’ll have an opportunity to judge for yourself as Radcliffe ventures beyond the mega franchise for the first time this weekend.
Ironically he chose a good old fashioned ghost story for the transition.
In THE WOMAN IN BLACK Radcliffe plays young, widowed-with-kid lawyer Arthur Kipp who travels to a remote village. His assignment, to do the legal follow-up on a recently deceased older woman’s property.
The job’s location: a creepy gothic ‘house on a hill’ setting where at every turn something could—and does go bump in the night.
New Jack City: ‘Mercedes Murder’ a Shot at German Americans?
It’s still a little tough for a German to get a fair shake in this country…
Subtle shades of bigotry and discrimination are very much alive today. The latest example being the recent homicide in Detroit where socialite / marketing exec Jane Bashara was found murdered in her car, with husband Bob Bashar‘s now a person of interest in case.
Yeap, they found her in her car, but just not in any car, mind you. It was a German-made Mercedes-Benz. Hence some national and local news media calling it, the MERCEDES MURDER. Stereotyping by association or plutocratic, teutonic racism?
What if the victim had been found in her KIA—would there have been a slight against Koreans?
Would it have been called the Kia Killing?
Jack Goes Confidential: ‘Man On A Ledge’ Spells Diversionary Vertigo
Granted, MAN ON A LEDGE could easily qualify as a so-called ‘high concept film’—meaning its plot can be described in a single paragraph.
However, that’s not fair to this ensemble action-thriller of vertigo proportions.
MAN ON A LEDGE stars Sam Worthington as a disgraced ex-cop who was framed, convicted and imprisoned for the theft of a rare and highly prized diamond. But to clear his name, he’s escaped the big house, checks into a Manhattan hotel and climbs onto the ledge ready to jump 200 feet down to 45th street and certain death.
Now it’s up to tough police negotiator Elizabeth Banks to talk Worthington down.
But does he really want to jump? And who is Worthington secretly communicating with from the window’s ledge on his tiny, hidden two-way?
Jack Goes Confidential: Liam Neeson ‘Dances’ with Hungry Wolves
Technically speaking THE GREY is a first class action thriller…
It’s got all the elements, fright, surprise, action and manly survival, one could ask for. And its primary setting of the sub-arctic Alaskan wilderness is relentless as duplicated for the film in Canada.
THE GREY stars Liam Neeson as an unlikely hero who, along with a group of oil-rig roughnecks, are the only survivors left and stranded after their plane crashes into this godforsaken icy horrorland.
But if the jet crash and the Alaskan winter wasn’t brutal enough, the survivors now face a new enemy, a vicious packs of rogue wolves.
And they’re hungry.
New Jack City: Few Surprises In Today’s Oscar Nominations
The Academy Of Motion Picture Arts And Sciences announced today its nominees for the best on film for 2011.
The actual OSCAR awards will be presented Sunday, February 26th on ABC with Billy Crystal hosting.
The scorecard has HUGO in 1st with 11 nominations, followed closely behind by THE ARTIST with 10.
Other big hauls this morning were by MONEYBALL and WAR HORSE, with each scoring six nominations.
THE DESCENDANTS and THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO had five each. And THE HELP and MIDNIGHT IN PARIS both got four Academy Award nominations.
Now here are the Oscar nominations in the major categories as well as my takes on them:
New Jack City: Feds Force Airlines to Show Us the Money!
With the frustration over a la carte pricing by airlines these days, the government is fighting back...
Starting this week, the Feds are forcing carriers to become more transparent when it comes to airfare pricing and the online purchasing of tickets.
Since forever airlines have been using low prices as come-ons in their advertising only to ambush frustrated customers with veiled final pricing that includes additional taxes, fees and fuel surcharges.
But now, as of later this week, the airlines must reconfigure their "now you see it now you don’t" selling model in the following manner:
** Advertised fares must include all government taxes and other associated fees such as fuel surcharges which can add 30% to 50% to the final ticket price.
Jack Goes Confidential: Make that ‘Mother Knows Best’ in Tom Hanks ‘Extremely Loud’
Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock may have top billing, but it’s young Thomas Horn as Oskar who’s the real star in the movie, EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE…
It features Hanks working in one of the World Trade Center‘s doomed towers on September 11th—desperately trying to reach his wife on their home’s answering machine.
Gut-wrenching stuff.
New Jack City: ‘Deep Throat’ Judge Dies, Remakes of Porn Classic Coming Soon
It’s been 40 long years since the granddaddy of porn movies—the allegedly mafia controlled— DEEP THROAT launched the golden age of big screen porn in the 1970s.
The inexpensively produced DEEP THROAT became the first, bigtime porn film to have both a plot and feature actual character development.
It was promptly declared obscene and rapidly became the most profitable porn flick of all time.
After premiering in the Big Apple in 1972, Gerard Damiano‘s trendsetting hardcore adult film – which asked the question, ‘How far does a girl have to go to untangle her tingle?’ – fanned out to other markets most of which also declared it obscene.
Kansas City was one of those decadent cities that dared to show it.
Jack Goes Confidential: Meryl Streep Makes Believer Out Of ‘IRON LADY’
Need more proof as to Meryl Streep‘s status as our finest working film actress?
Look no further than her riviting and flawless performance as British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
In THE IRON LADY we flash back from her now dementia impaired living status to a career that had made her the most famous and influential woman of the 20th Century. An 11 year long political reign of running the British government that began in 1979 and ended in 1990.
And even further back to her humble origins as the daughter of a local grocer.
But there’s something quite unusual going on here…
New Jack City: KC Film Critics Lay Down Pre Oscar Picks, Descendents Best Picture
Sunday made for a festive evening just seven weeks ahead of February 26’s Oscar Night 2012.
The Kansas City’s Film Critics Circle voted for and unveiled its choices for best on film for 2011.
Women critics in the latest Paris fashions and tuxedo clad gents waved to excited crowds as they graced the red carpet leading to the festive Screenland Theatre in downtown KC, the site of this year’s main event.
And to think, once again I was part of it all.
Come to think of it, it was all just a dream.
Jack Goes Confidential: ‘TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY’ Makes For Inglorious Spy Thriller
We’ve seen a ton of TV spots of late for the screen adaptation of John le Carre’s best-selling, Cold War spy thriller, TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY.
The film is receiving a platform release pattern—meaning that it opened in major centers in mid-December then was gradually opened in additional markets in subsequent weeks.
It opens as a limited multiple in Kansas City today.
TV spots for the movie would have you believing that it’s a fast paced spy thriller along the line of James Bond.
Well, I’m here to tell you that it’s not!
New Jack City: What to See This Weekend? Jack to the Rescue!
It’s been a fantastic holiday week at the boxoffice thus far…
It kicked in midday on Christmas and is primed to continue strong through New Year’s weekend. If you’ve even driven past Kansas City’s theater parking lots the past few days you know what I’m talking about.
Still haven’t decided on what to see? Let me be of help. Here are MY BEST BETS AT BOXOFFICE—by catagory:
First for ALL-AGES (family friendly) FILMS:
New Jack City: For All That Was Bad at the Movies In 2011, Here’s What Made it Worthwhile
Last week was my lineup of movie stinkers..
Now here are the movies that made my twisted life as a critic all worth it.
My 10 favorite films to play in Kansas City during 2011:
# 1—THE HELP—Great ensemble film. Lots of kudos all around but for some reason Emma Stone isn’t getting enough of them for her superb performance as Skeeter.
# 2—THE IDES OF MARCH—Here’s the great American political story with dream casting of Gosling, Clooney, Hoffman, Tomei & Giamatti—not to mention superb direction by Mr. Clooney himself.
# 3—MONEYBALL—Pitt, Hill & Hoffman. This past year’s triple threat. And what a breakthrough for slimmed down Jonah Hill.
# 4—THE DESCENDANTS—Proof that George Clooney is rapidly becoming one of the our best all around actors,
Jack Goes Confidential: Steven Spielberg Dishes Up Top Notch Family Fare
The WAR HORSE is rated PG-13 because it contains battlefield sequences that may be too intense for young kids.
Having said that, let’s applaud director Steven Spielberg for delivering the type of epic adventure film here we just don’t see much anymore.
WAR HORSE is an odyssey-like story of a boy’s pursuit of his horse Joey which has been drafted by the British army by an England on the brink of joining the European conflict World War 1.
Jack Goes Confidential: Cameron Crowe’s ‘Zoo’ Delivers Exceptional Family-Fun
Typecasting a film as a ‘Family Movie’ can often backfire…
It’s such a broad term and can be a turnoff to adult moviegoers. Well we’ve got two such branded cinematic entries in Kansas City this holiday weekend and the good news is that both do the description justice.
The first is director Cameron (JERRY MAGUIRE) Crowe’s funny, inspirational true story about the magical power of family to persevere in the face of extraordinary challenges.
