Word: avnet
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Steve Graham, a lifelong R.-and-B. fan, had a fantasy: to spend time with the legendary B.B. King. The Minneapolis-based business-development manager for electronics manufacturer Avnet thought he had about as much chance of doing that as he had of becoming Governor of Minnesota. Until last New Year's Eve, that is, when Graham, 49, and his wife Janet plunked themselves down beside King following a concert in Indian Wells, Calif. The couple spent 45 minutes chatting with the blues great, whose work Graham has adored for nearly 20 years. Along with the cherished face time...
Ultimately, the transplantation to China of the plot is well done. The customs and protocols which Moore must battle through are realistic and convincing, sometimes even engaging, even if they are just a gimmick to put new complications in old situations. Director Jon Avnet does a good job of making the culture shock as real for the audience as it is for Moore. This is achieved mostly through the exploitation of the language barrier to show the foreign and conflicting pursuits of the two sides...
...plays a lawyer who finds himself accused of rape and murder while in China. If you're thinking of this as an opportunity for the longtime Tibetan activist to educate his fans on the peculiarities of the Chinese judicial system, you're on the right track. Director Jon Avnet says that several Chinese judges and lawyers put themselves at risk to be consultants on the movie. "The catchphrase of the Chinese courts is 'Severity for those who resist,'" says Avnet, who got offered a lot of pirated copies of his last movie, Up Close and Personal, while in Beijing researching...
...something Redford and Pfeiffer have in their back pockets. They can also act, though they don't have to here--for in this film, as in some TV news, the look is more important than the feeling. "Hair is character," says a woman in the movie, and director Jon Avnet seems to agree. Up Close has the tone of a fashion shoot; the movie lavishes art on the arrangement of bed sheets over Pfeiffer's body, the vector of her hair blowing in Redford's rugged face. Hard news, soft focus...
...Avnet's brightest idea is to call on Stockard Channing, ace resuscitator of mediocre films (see her work in Smoke and To Wong Foo), who arrives mid-movie to perk things up. She's a local anchor who oozes compassion but, off-air, is so cool and hard you could skate on her. She meets Tally for a drink, asks, "Is that actually a banana daiquiri?" and acidly adds, "Spring Break, Lauderdale...