Despite the Coast Guard’s warnings to stay safe on the water this holiday weekend,one Hollywood star got stranded in Long Island Sound. Russell Crowe was kayaking with his friend in Cold Spring Harbor off Long Island Sound on Sept. 1, according to US Magazine. The pair lost track of time and headed in to shore at dusk. They landed at Huntington Beach, N.Y., 10 miles from where they began their journey. Coast Guardsmen from Coast Guard Station Eatons Neck were patrolling the area when they heard Crowe yell from shore around 10pm, the magazine reported. The actor and his friend…
Browsing: Movies
The less-than-stellar box office performance of “Battleship” (avoid the rush; pre-order your DVDs now) isn’t stopping a surge in Navy-themed television and film productions. Here’s a quick look at four sailor-heavy releases headed to a movie theater or TV set near you. 1. Last Resort When and where: Thursdays this fall, 8 p.m., ABC What: The fictional USS Colorado is ordered to nuke Pakistan. The commander disobeys the order and is relieved. The sub is shot at by other American forces, escapes to a tropical island, then fires a missile toward Washington. And that’s just the three-minute preview. Don’t believe…
Ernie Borgnine was the reason I joined the Navy, though I didn’t meet him until 2003 at the Navy Memorial in downtown Washington, D.C. As a child growing up in the 1960s, one of my favorite television shows was “McHale’s Navy,” with Borgnine playing the part of Lt. Cmdr. Quentin McHale, drawing from his own experiences in nearly 10 years on active duty. “Doing that show was very much like being back in the Navy for me,” Borgnine said. “And like being part of a ship’s crew, we really became very close doing that show and many of us stayed…
There were special screenings for sailors stateside and promotional events abroad. There was a massive marketing campaign that involved sandwich shops and soda makers. There was a positive review from Military Times’ octoplex guru. There was a cameo by the Navy Department’s top civilian. Despite all that, and despite an overseas box office take worth more than $220 million, movie-industry reports are pretty much unanimous: “Battleship” bombed. Deadline Hollywood reports a $25.3 million take for the film over its debut weekend in U.S., well behind “The Avengers,” which topped $55 million in its third weekend. One analyst quoted in this…
Want to see Battleship on a big screen at your base? Eventful Inc., is holding a “Battle of the Bases” campaign to bring sneak previews of the movie Battleship to 10 military bases across the country before the film opens everywhere May 18. Family, friends and servicemembers can vote online at http://eventful.com/battleship. The 10 military bases with the most votes by May 8 will get an advanced screening of Battleship at a theater near the base between May 15 and May 17. The action-adventure movie, which includes real sailors as extras, is about Earth fighting for survival against aliens. It…
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOq2EVbv0B0[/youtube] Hollywood just went to boot camp — surface Navy-style. The task of getting the cast of the forthcoming movie Battleship to look and speak Navy fell to the retired Navy captain who served as the film’s technical adviser. It was no easy task. “Is that your war face? What kind of a face is that!” retired Capt. Rick Hoffman, who in real-life commanded frigate DeWert and cruiser Hue City, shouts at one actor in jest during a movie trailer released April 3. “Wipe that smile off your face, sailor!” This is all part of what he called “Capt. Rick’s…
It’s shaping up to be a traditional Super Bowl Sunday: A six-hour pregame show followed by football, snacks, drinks, aliens, surface warships and Liam Neeson. The last part might need an explainer. “Battleship,” the action movie somehow based on the board game of the same name, will debut in theaters this May, but you’ll get a new 60-second sneak peek during the first quarter of Sunday’s big game, Deadline New York reports. We’ve shown you earlier, longer trailers for this one before, but this’ll be the biggest audience yet for the SWOs-vs.-aliens adventure, which stars Neeson, “Friday Night Lights” youngster…
The Navy’s “silent” warriors won’t exactly be off radar when “Act of Valor” hits the theaters in February. The movie, produced by the Bandito Brothers, is notable for the use of some real Navy SEALs, rather than more actors, to portray the commandos. Since the successful killing of Osama bin Laden last year, and even the 2009 rescue of an American boat captain held hostage by Somali pirates, the oft-secretive naval special warfare community has been in the spotlight more than usual. The occasional best-selling book and, unfortunately, tragic losses of SEALs fallen in combat capture the public’s focus. This…
It is the end of an era for Harry Potter fans. The final installment, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2, is set for release at midnight July 15 in theaters across the country. But lucky fans (and their spouses) stationed at Naval Base San Diego have the chance to see an early screening of the movie July 9 , and one Navy wife is so excited she thinks it’s the best “perk” of being married to a SWO. “The Navy base showing a sneak peek of Harry Potter is a better perk than free checked bags at the airport,” Colleen…
It’s not just the littoral combat ship Independence that has a cameo in a Disney movie. All sorts of Navy hardware show up for an upcoming release. A carrier and at least a squadron’s worth of Super Hornets are featured in “Planes,” a direct-to-video movie expected in 2013. A frame-by-frame review of the trailer shows that in addition to Hornets, there’s what looks like an S-3B Viking in the background of an unidentifiable aircraft carrier (a big “10” is painted on the flight deck, but this ship is clearly is not Yorktown, which was decommissioned in 1970), and a B-2…
