Put On Your Dancing Shoes Once Again! “Magic Mike” IS Back!
“Magic Mike” Comes Home!
That’s right, the surprise hit of the summer is now available in a Blu-ray/DVD/Digital combo pack!
The special bonus features include extended dance sequences, a featurette with Channing Tatum being interviewed on what it was like to get his fellow actors into the mold as male strippers and much more!
Here’s what I said originally about this very original, terrifically entertaining movie!
“Will you welcome to the stage, the one, the only… Magic Mike!”
With those words, here comes the funniest, raunchiest and most entertaining movie of the summer! The reviews have started coming in, and it appears that Director Steven Soderbergh has another winner!
First, a quick update on the movie’s plot: meet Magic Mike, an experienced stripper, who takes a younger performer called The Kid under his wing and schools him in the arts of partying, picking up women, and making easy money.
Channing Tatum is Magic Mike, and Alex Pettyfer co-stars. Also in the film is Matthew McConaughey…
The film is based on Tatum’s own experiences as a male stripper, a world that is as raunchy and funny as you would imagine…look at this dialogue:
Mike: [dressed as a police officer] Good evening. You live here?
Kim: Yeah.
Mike: Yeah? What’s your name?
Kim: Kim.
Mike: Kim, can you move back for me, please?
[enters house full of women]
Mike: We keep getting complaints about noise and underage drinking. Everybody sit down, we’re gonna be here for a while! You don’t have anything sharp on you that I can stick myself with, do you?
Kim: No.
Mike: Good. ‘Cause I do!
[rips off pants, women scream]
And now the reviews are out! Here’s what The Hollywood Reporter has to say: “Inspired by Channing Tatum’s stint at 18 as a male stripper, Steven Soderbergh’s comedy-drama also stars Alex Pettyfer, Matthew McConaughey, Cody Horn and a host of tasty It Boys and Girls.”
“In ‘Magic Mike’, Channing Tatum’s pre-Hollywood experience as a male stripper has inspired not only one of his better roles, but also arguably the raunchiest, funniest and most enjoyably nonjudgmental American movie about selling sex since ‘Boogie Nights’, its obvious if considerably darker precursor.
Delivering what feels like a young director’s work and not that of a guy nudging 50, Steven Soderbergh taps into the jazzy erotic energy that put him on the map more than 20 years ago with Sex, Lies, and Videotape.”
Congratulations to Soderbergh, who has made some of the most interesting and provocative films of the last twenty years. I have done lists of his work, so check it out on the blog as well…
The Soderbergh films that I love the most always focus on unique people: Erin Brockovitch, The Informant!, The Limey – even the guys in “Ocean’s Eleven” – great characters in a fascinating world…and that’s what drives “Magic Mike” as well…
CONGRATS OLIVIA MUNN!
My former “Attack Of The Show” Host Olivia Munn stars in the film as well, and here she is at the premiere the other night:
Paige: [sees Mike counting money] Wow. That’s a lot of ones.
Magic Mike: There are some fives in there.
Paige: Oh, ok. No twenties?
Magic Mike: Oh, you don’t wanna know what I have to do for twenties.
“Magic Mike” opens on June 29th – can’t wait to see it – and speaking of great Steven Soderbergh movies, don’t forget to watch this gem again!
Out Of Sight.
Here is the deceptively simple log line: A career bank robber breaks out of jail and shares a moment of mutual attraction with a US Marshall he has kidnapped.
Now add that career bank robber Jack Foley is George Clooney. Add that US Marshall Karen Sisco is Jennifer Lopez. Add Ving Rhames, Don Cheadle, Albert Brooks, Steve Zahn, Michael Keaton and a half dozen other great Actors and you have a true masterpiece. It is. Watch it and we can argue if you think you need to – but you won’t.
This is not a comedy, but it has great comic moments. It is not an action movie – but has some great action. It is not a thriller, but is a thrilling film to watch. It is, pure and simple, a great piece of entertainment that defies a category, and is all the better because of that.
The terrific website IMDB has this trivia about the casting: Sandra Bullock almost got the part of Karen Sisco but Steven Soderbergh was against it. He said: “I spent some time with Clooney and Bullock, and they actually did have a great chemistry. But it was for the wrong movie. I’m sure they could do a movie together. But not an Elmore Leonard movie.”
Once you see the chemistry between Clooney and Lopez – of course including the iconic “locked together in the truck” scene – you will agree.
This is a tough, tight movie…with great characters such as Maurice “Snoopy” Miller, played by Don Cheadle, who doesn’t appreciate Clooney butting in on his extortion of Richard Ripley, played to perfection by Albert Brooks:
[eavesdropping on Maurice trying to shakedown Ripley]
Jack Foley: If you’re smart, Ripley, you’ll tell this guy to fuck off.
Richard Ripley: Really?
[Maurice gives him a threatening stare]
Richard Ripley: Well, I – I – I don’t know.
Jack Foley: First of all, if he kills you, then he’s gonna get nothin’.
Maurice “Snoopy” Miller: Well, uh, the man don’t just have to die, Foley. I mean, he could accidentally hurt himself falling down on something real hard, you know. Like a shiv, or my dick.
Richard Ripley: [whispers to Foley] I’ll pay. I’ll pay it. Don’t worry.
Jack Foley: If he falls on anything, Snoop, then they’re transfer his ass outta here faster than you can throw a fight, and you’re still gonna get nothin’.
Maurice “Snoopy” Miller: You know, last time I checked, man, this shit over here ain’t got nothin’ to do with you, Foley. Why don’t you go outside man? Smoke a cigarette or some shit?
Jack Foley: I don’t smoke.
There are so many scenes that are so good: a clueless Michael Keaton as the lunkhead boyfriend to Jennifer Lopez…JLo telling guys to get lost as they try to pick her up in a bar….and the magical moment when George Clooney arrives to do just that…just watch the directing and editing choices in this sequence…one of the best movies ever made, pure and simple.
Categories: Awards, Movies, Steven Soderbergh, Uncategorized
johnrieber 
I have never seen the “Magic Mike” movies before. I know *gasp* a WOMAN who has not seen Channing Tatum take his clothes off?? I just figured it was a vapid movie with lots of buff guys. Lol! It got good reviews for sure!
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NO! You should definitely watch “Magic Mike” – Soderbergh gave it a gritty 70’s vibe – except when they do the dance numbers, which are lots of fun – and Matthew McConaughey is really terrific in the film – the scene in the mirror is incredibly – one long take that is mesmerizing!
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I’ll definitely check it out! For artistic purposes!
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