Mischief and mishaps undeniably characterized the event, but a wave of hush fell over the audience as student poets Janessa Terry and Canice Munroe performed their work at the show’s opening. Their words had audience members and celebrities alike enthralled, and highlighted the excellent forum provided by Urban Arts in enabling young creatives from underprivileged backgrounds to showcase their talent.

Indeed, there was much talent on display throughout the evening as six plays, written just a day earlier, had their first and last public airing. All the ubiquitous components of a 24 hour play were there – on-stage tumbles, corpsing and reams of questionable props. The clear favorite of the evening had to be Reservation for Rockwell: a play about Sam Rockwell, starring Sam Rockwell as Sam Rockwell. No points for innovation there.

But creativity came in a different form entirely, with Justin Long and Billy Crudup showing a lot of skin in tiny Hooters tank tops. Battling to see who could offer up the best Rockwell impression before the man himself arrived for dinner, their competition was comedy gold. Mr. Rockwell’s entrance inspired some serious slo-mo shapes being thrown onstage, and as High School Musical darling and 24 hour play participant Vanessa Hudgens so neatly surmised to The Observer on the red carpet, “Seeing Sam Rockwell and Justin Long doing a dance-off kind of blew my mind.”

Also on the red carpet at BB King Blues Club was Broadway veteran and self-proclaimed “mama hen” Tracie Thoms who agreed, “We all know the best play was that dang Sam Rockwell piece. I mean, how do you write that overnight? The tiny Hooters tops…I mean, it was a package deal, they sealed it, they win, they get the 24 hour Oscar. It’s not even fair it was so good!” Thoms starred as lady loving ghetto princess Shaneetra in Impeach the Socialist, a somewhat strange play saved by the stage skills of both her and comedy queen Kristen Schaal. Other star performances included 30 Rock’s Jack McBrayer as a man who fell in love with a horse, Seth Green as a surprisingly convincing Mexican and American Pie’s Eddie Kaye Thomas as a zombie banker.

Jason Biggs, also of American Pie fame, starred alongside his childhood pal Kaye Thomas, but when it came to the zombie-off, there was only one real contender. “Eddie clearly made the better zombie,” he conceded, but Mr. Biggs certainly made an impact in the charm stakes, winning over The Observer with a refreshingly laid back attitude.

“I’ve always wanted to be on stage with Eddie, so it was really cool for me to act with my buddy on stage tonight,” he said, before revealing: “I’ve done two 24 hour plays before, and the way to do it is to go first. All night I was watching and enjoying everyone perform, but I was also fucking nervous!”

Stage fright had also plagued Precious star Gabourey Sidibe, who enthused, “I loved tonight, I had so much fun! But I always get really scared and I was like ‘I can’t do it this year.’ I always regret thinking that and want to punch myself in the face about it afterwards because I have so much fun doing it.”

Thankfully, there was no need for self-flagellation, apart from perhaps an enthusiastic pat on the back. As the afterparty – also attended by Macaulay Culkin, who shunned the spotlight in favor of a dark corner at Amber Heard’s table – continued late into the evening, the actors hit the dance floor to let off some steam. Ms. Heard had taken a somewhat epic tumble onstage during her performance, but recovered like a trooper, characterizing an evening whereby the calamities were a vital – and probably the best – part of the process.

You go, Paul Ryan. (TIME Magazine)

– Just in time for the vice presidential debates, here's Paul Ryan looking like Zach Morris's stand-in during a TIME Magazine photo shoot that teased him by saying it was considering naming him its man of the year. Yeah, right!

– The reason Lindsay Lohan was fighting with her mom on Tuesday? Apparently it had something to do with a $40,000 loan Ms. Lohan gave to her mother to keep her Long Island home from being foreclosed on.

– Last night was the New York premiere of Seven Psychopaths. Watch Christopher Walken, Sam Rockwell and Colin Farrell reenact a scene from Here Comes Honey Boo Boo last night.
http://youtu.be/NzIsz3fU9xQ

– Here's how you know you've been hanging around brooding British vampires too much ... you start referring to yourself as a "miserable c**t." In Marie Claire of all places. Oh, K-Stew!

Harrelson and Walken in Seven Psychopaths.

Garbage comes in all sizes, and every one of them seems to fit into a load of violent, hateful and incomprehensible trash called Seven Psychopaths. Written by talented Irish playwright Martin McDonagh, who shocked Broadway audiences with dark, funny, gothic creepshows like The Beauty Queen of Leenane, The Cripple of Inishmaan and A Behanding in Spokane,this movie is proof that moving to Hollywood is poisonous Kool-Aid to the creative process. Kneeling at the trough of Hollywood pop psychobabble that has come to symbolize the New Cinema, Mr. McDonagh seems to have taken leave (temporarily, I hope) of his senses. He proved in 2008, with a brooding job called In Bruges, about hit men on holiday in Belgium, that he cannot stretch his bristling ideas into one full-length feature. Unfortunately, he also thinks he’s a director—a job for which he shows no patience, aptitude or proficiency. The result is a twitching convulsion of vicious drivel passing itself off as a movie, which can be best appreciated by the kind of people who dig Showgirls, the Saw franchise and Spike Jonze-Charlie Kaufman flicks.

For starters, the title means nothing. Don’t even try to count the number of psychopaths who bang around from scene to scene without reason or rhyme. Colin Farrell, a fellow Irishman who bonded with Mr. McDonagh on the In Bruges shoot, plays Marty, a drunken Hollywood screenwriter who has lost his inspiration in the middle of a numbskull morality tale (called Seven Psychopaths, natch) about a serial killer who longs for love, murder and world peace. His best friend Billy (Sam Rockwell), an actor who can’t get a job in the movies because he keeps punching out the directors, is determined to help Marty finish his script at all costs, including a few massacres of his own. The first thing he does is introduce his hapless pal to his partner in crime, an aging Polish loser (Christopher Walken, looking like 10 miles of broken asphalt painted green) with a dying wife, who cooks up a scheme to steal dogs then return them to their desperate owners to collect the rewards. The blocked writer finally gets a glimmer of the Real McCoy when the dognapper makes the mistake of stealing a fluffy, yappy, sissy Shih Tzu named Bonny (played by a real Shih Tzu named Bonny) that belongs to a macho gangster (Woody Harrelson). The effeminate but brutal thug goes viral and tracks down the Polish thief and everyone he knows, beginning with his terminally ill wife, whom he exterminates in the cancer ward. Thanks to a plot that backfires and a newspaper ad that Billy places inviting closeted psychopaths to come forward and be interviewed, Marty the ill-fated scribe is suddenly up to his inkjet printer cartridges in real serial killers, including Tom Waits, who is not much better as an actor than he is as a tone-deaf musician (except he mercifully does not sing out of tune this time), as a maniac who ties his victims to a table and chops them up with a meat cleaver while a white rabbit licks up the blood, then pours gasoline on the corpses and sets them on fire. You sit there trying to figure out what’s going on, before you finally realize they’re making it up as they go along. As they act out their different versions of events in the unfinished screenplay, the movie is making it up, too.

Suddenly the entire cast is busy slaughtering each other as the screen is crowded to capacity with psycho killers and more psycho-killing psycho killers, including a pair of homicidal maniac lovebirds, a razor-slashing Quaker and a Viet Cong killer disguised as a priest seeking revenge against America. They all end up in Joshua Tree National Park in a blazing shootout that leaves almost everyone dead except the delusional writer, whose finished screenplay might be on its way to an Oscar. I’ve never seen such a colossal waste of talent. The acting is so bad in this picture that even the quirky, inventive Sam Rockwell can’t save it. The pulpy Quentin Tarantino-style dialogue mixes Little Caesar with Grand Guignol to no effect, the camerawork is garish, the pacing ludicrously twisted, the bloodshed gratuitous. The women in the film (Abbie Cornish, Olga Kurylenko and Gabourey Sidibe from Precious) are underdeveloped to the status of walk-ons. The direction has a scattered buckshot effect, which may be trendy but is not meant as a recommendation. At the recent Toronto International Film Festival, where it premiered in a sidebar event called Midnight Madness, one wag informed me that Seven Psychopaths is actually a comedy with a potential cult following and that I just don’t get it. Whatever. This time ignorance is bliss, but to me, the movie is genuinely humor-resistant. Any cult it develops will be chewing gum and wearing Halloween costumes.

rreed@observer.com

 SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS

Running Time 109 minutes

Written and Directed by  Martin McDonagh

Starring Colin Farrell, Woody Harrelson and Sam Rockwell

0/4

"Sam is our spokesman," Hoffman said, pointing to his fellow actor.

The three of them had come to the Hudson Hotel for a particularly raucous after-party celebrating LAByrinth Theater's "Celebrity Charades 2010: Fight Night," in which actors and other luminaries do battle in a series of competitions. The main event was held in St. Paul of the Apostle Church Hall, and before long the crowd had shifted over to the Hudson Bar and were taking full advantage of the open bar. As we dodged actors such as Juliette Lewis and Justin Theroux, Billy Crudup pulled us into the scrum.

We asked about the event, naturally, but it became evident that Sam Rockwell had no intention of staying on topic.

"I love Monopoly," Sam Rockwell said.

What?

"I'm a huge fan of Monopoly." Rockwell repeated, taking a slug of his Negro Modelo. "I'm a buyer and a seller."

Phillip Seymour Hoffman nodded. "Sam will buy Baltic and Boardwalk--you know what I mean?" he added in slow serious beats.

"Sam is famous for his financial wherewithal," Billy said, emphasizing the last word with a jab of the right hand. At this point, Crudup's baby blue shirt was unbuttoned to the undershirt, and he was wearing metal cowboy belt buckle.

"He's known to not buy a house or a hotel but a little hut," Hoffman said with his glance askew, tilted toward the dancefloor. When we'd first walked in, his figure could be easily spotted dancing and twirling a member of the opposite sex in and under his arm.

Then Crudup again, with the same open-fisted jab: "His real estate acumen is off the charts!"

"It's fricken weird how that happens..." Hoffman wondered. It seems he was stuck on Sam Rockwell's little huts. "He actually builds them..."

"Take us through it step by step!" Crudup asked Rockwell.

There was a pause, long, pregnant even, and then Sam Rockwell looked The Observer in the face.

"I love, I love... I love people" he said.

And with that the charade, if you will, came to an end.

"Everyone has a great time as you can see," Philip said. "It's a bit of a reunion, actually. A lot of us don't see each other until this event. And it's a good night, you know?"

Is there another song, Philip Seymour Hoffman, that will bring you back to the dance floor?

"Oh, hey no," the actor said. "That was my girlfriend--she started dancing and I felt, you know, compelled."

Then we were talking with Billy Crudup about Almost Famous, in which he plays guitarist Russell Hammond, and about how the film helped lead us toward a career in journalism.

"I love that shit!" Crudup exclaimed. "I'm gonna write Cameron."

Oh no, Billy, you really don't have to write Cameron Crowe about this, we said.

"Nope," Billy Crudup said, "I'm gonna write Cameron."

nfreeman [at] observer.com | @nfreeman1234

Conviction, directed by Tony Goldwyn, is the inspirational true-life story of a high-school dropout named Betty Anne Waters (Hilary Swank) who devoted 20 years of her life to becoming a lawyer in order to prove the innocence of her brother Kenny (Sam Rockwell), who was wrongfully accused and sentenced to life in prison for a murder he did not commit. Her unshakable belief in his innocence and her determination to expose and reverse a travesty of justice provides the raw material for an expertly detailed, soundly constructed film about family love that is undeniably powerful.

Betty Anne, a Massachusetts wife and mother of two from the wrong side of the tracks, and Kenny, who has neither an education nor a solid family background, were deserted by their father and raised by a trashy, self-absorbed mother who shipped them both off to a string of foster homes. Practically joined at the hip, they learn at an early age to depend solely on each other, but although they both eventually marry and start their own families, Kenny is always a rowdy prankster--violent, wild and impulsive--who spends most of his time on the wrong side of the law. So, in the rural hick town where they lived, when the body of a woman is found in a bloodstained trailer house in 1980, he is a natural suspect, but because of a lack of evidence, he is cleared and released. Two years later, two so-called "witnesses" come forward to testify they heard Kenny confess to the brutal slaying. With the relentless push of a crooked, man-hating cop (the excellent Melissa Leo), the case is reopened and Kenny is sentenced to life without parole. Betty Anne's world falls apart, but her faith in her sibling remains undiminished. While working as a waitress in a pub and trying to raise two sons, she gets her high-school diploma and earns a B.A. degree, neglecting her husband and wrecking her marriage in the process, but somehow manages to save enough money to enter law school and pass the bar exam.  Fueled by unconditional love, she intends to overturn Kenny's conviction while acting as his lawyer. 

With the aid of her best friend (Minnie Driver), she pulls every lever in the legal system, only to find the evidence in the case has disappeared. Appealing to famed lawyer Barry Scheck (Peter Gallagher) and his newfound knowledge of miraculous DNA testing to exonerate Kenny, Betty Anne pores over every shred of the investigation from start to finish, searching for blood work from the first trial to force an acquittal, bending a few laws herself to reach the truth. Meticulously examining every clue to piece together the missing elements of the puzzle, director Goldwyn and screenwriter Pamela Gray build a film of crime, suspense and adventure with breathless pacing and all the earmarks of a first-rate mystery story. Ms. Swank, who specializes in roles of bravery and true grit, and the always colorful and versatile Mr. Rockwell, one of the screen's youngest and most appealing character actors, exude amazing chemistry as the brother and sister living through two decades of hell. It's a thrill to watch his transformation from cocky young stud to hardened convict without hope, showing the cruelty and indifference of the American prison system at work. The flawless supporting cast includes a juicy performance by Juliette Lewis as a brainless witness whose lies under oath for personal reasons in order to ruin Kenny's life. 

Filled with nuance, intricate emotion and a refreshing absence of melodramatics, Conviction is a moving exploration of light and love shining through the darkness of despair. Its impact cannot easily be shaken. 

CONVICTION
Running time 106 minutes
Written by Pamela Gray
Directed by Tony Goldwyn
Starring Hilary Swank, Sam Rockwell, Melissa Leo, Minnie Driver, Peter Gallagher, Juliette Lewis

3/4

Based on a true story, Conviction stars Swank as Betty Ann Waters, a Massachusetts woman who quits her job and goes to law school in an attempt to get her wrongfully convicted brother out of jail (hey, Sam Rockwell!). And that means tin-eared Boston accents! And tears! And dramatic music that sounds ripped out of The Lovely Bones trailer! And, well, we just got tired of seeing this kind of performance from Swank around the time of Amelia.

That said, it's all perfect Oscar-bait — though if the trailer gave away any more of the movie, it would have shown the closing credits. And any film that tracks Sam Rockwell's looks from "used car salesman" to "cast member on Oz" can't be all bad, even one directed by actor-turned-director Tony Goldwyn.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCwlaLyjtcA

The week’s second remake (never a good idea) is Everybody’s Fine, an Americanization of Giuseppe Tornatore’s Italian comedy Stanno tutti Bene. Originally, Marcello Mastroianni played a retired bureaucrat who discovers his five children are strangers he’s never known. The role now goes to Robert De Niro as Frank Goode, a widowed father of four with lung disease from a blue-collar job coating telephone wires. He was never close to his kids, but now that their mother is no longer around to solve their problems and share their secrets, he longs to make up for lost time. Happy that they’re planning to pay him a weekend visit, he makes plans. One by one, they cancel. And one by one, he goes looking for them. Thus begins an offbeat but predictable holiday movie about a dysfunctional family that learns to bond before it’s too late.

Packing up his keys, prescriptions and camera, Frank heads for New York, where his son David is an artist. But David is not home, so he spends the night on the cold front steps. The next day he takes a bus to Chicago to see daughter Amy (Kate Beckinsale), an advertising executive with a mopey, sad-sack son and a husband who makes a formal appearance just to hide a marriage on the rocks. Amy is too busy to let him stay, so Frank moves on to Denver, where he thinks son Robert (Sam Rockwell) is a symphony conductor. Robert is really only a percussionist in the orchestra; he makes up a story about flying to Europe that afternoon. He’s actually got nothing to do, but he lies to avoid any kind of uncomfortable father-son intimacy. In Denver, Frank makes the mistake of befriending a homeless kid who robs him and smashes the bottle containing his vital medication; then he misses his bus and hitches a ride with a lady truck driver to Las Vegas to see youngest daughter Rosie (Drew Barrymore), a dancer who spares him the fact that she’s a lesbian with a baby to raise. What Frank learns is that doesn’t know his children any better as adults than he did when they were children.

Wherever he goes, Frank asks, “Are you happy?” They all leave him with the impression that everybody’s fine. The truth is, they all have their own challenges, just like everyone else, and it takes an entire movie before they stage a contrived family reunion better suited to a glorified TV “Hallmark Hall of Fame” Christmas special. Still, Mr. De Niro is convincing and humane as a simple man who wants to be a good father but doesn’t know how. He’s not mean, selfish, demanding or judgmental. He just wants his kids to confide in him, without realizing he’s never been easy to talk to. He’s an accomplished actor who has been sleepwalking through films for such a long time that we’ve forgotten how to take him seriously, and it’s a pleasure to see him feeling his way through a role again, moment by moment. His scenes with Drew Barrymore have exceptional sincerity. Everyone works well under the perfunctory direction of Kirk Jones, but even with an easily resolved fade-out replete with turkey and cranberry sauce, Everybody’s Fine has the look and taste of leftovers.

Michael Jackson's This Is It

What's the story: This is it. The Michael Jackson concert film-cum-documentary landed in over 3,400 theaterson Wednesday and has grossed around $13 million domestically since opening. The surprise isn't that bank, but the fact that This Is It has gotten great reviews—it's currently rocking a 79 percent Fresh rating over at Rotten Tomatoes. Oh, and did we mention it's in 3-D? Still, all that being said, we'd rather head to YouTube and watch the "Thriller" video for the 900th time.

 Who should see it: The Jackson Family.

Gentlemen Broncos

What's the story: Okay, we lied: there's an indie release this weekend too! Remember Napoleon Dynamite? Remember that you liked Napoleon Dynamite? (Hey, we all make mistakes.) Well then perhaps Gentlemen Broncos is for you. After departing for the mainstream with Nacho Libre, director Jared Hess returns to the world of misfit indies to tell the tell of a young nerd who gets his one great idea stolen by his idol, a pompous fantasy writer named Roland Chevalier. The trailer for this looks all kinds of irritating, but with actors like Sam Rockwell and Jermaine Clement (as the amazingly named Chevalier) in the cast, we're almost tempted to search this one out when it hits Netflix, despite near universal pans.

Who should see it: Napoleon Dynamite.

Also opening this weekend: because you've always said, "there should be a sequel to Boondock Saints!" here comes Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day.

Monday: Trauma
Not to be confused with Mercy, here comes Trauma. This new NBC series—which has the snazziest ad campaign of the fall (non-Man Men edition)—eschews whiny nurses for tough-as-nails EMT workers and hopes to give action junkies a boost of adrenaline. Of course, that all sounds perfectly generic, but remember: Peter Berg is an executive producer, and, in addition to shepherding Friday Night Lights, he’s also the man behind such films as The Kingdom. The guy knows how to blow stuff up real good. [NBC, 9 p.m.]

Tuesday: Choke
As a movie, Choke is scattered and messy, which given that it’s an adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk’s scattered and messy novel should be expected. But as a study of the genius that is Sam Rockwell, it’s focused and brilliant. Mr. Rockwell preens and mugs, all herky jerks and fits of motion. He’s a virtuoso here, every bit as mesmerizing as a Young Robert De Niro. (That he’s playing Mr. De Niro’s son in the upcoming Everything’s Fine is not an irony lost on us.) And, hey, if all of that doesn’t float your boat, at least stick around for the final scenes, which get underscored by Radiohead’s “Reckoner.” [More Max, 9 p.m.]

Wednesday: Modern Family
Frankly, we’re a little concerned that we didn’t go head-over-heels for the debut of Modern Family. The new ABC familial comedy—think: a castrated version of Arrested Development—received some of the best reviews of the fall (our esteemed colleague even loved it!) but when we sat down to watch it last Wednesday, our apartment was stricken with an infestation of crickets. What are we missing? The ratings were huge in week one, so we’ll give this one another shot, on the off chance that it becomes the kind of zeitgeist-y hit that we simply have to be watching. But we’re skeptical… [ABC, 8 p.m.]

Thursday: My Cousin Vinny
Many times, the movies you found hilarious as a kid, don’t hold up when you become an adult. That’s not the case here. My Cousin Vinny is just as funny now as it was—hold onto your butts—17 years ago. (Where has the time gone!) Joe Pesci won his Oscar for Goodfellas, but we’d call My Cousin Vinny his tour-de-force. As the titular cousin, he’s frantic, foul and utterly hilarious, blessed with brilliant comic timing and a streak of New York bitterness. It doesn’t hurt that he’s surrounded by a top-notch supporting cast: the late Fred Gwynne, the late Lane Smith, Ralph Macchio and Marissa Tomei, who, of course, actually did win her Oscar for My Cousin Vinny. Somewhere, Vanessa Redgrave is still smarting over that loss. [Encore, 3 a.m.]

Friday: Atonement
Occasionally, it’s hard to separate an actor from a role. Take Saoirse Ronan. The teenage starlet is so unctuous and horrible as the busybody sister, Briony, in Atonement, we can’t think of her doing anything else. This doesn’t bode well for Peter Jackson’s The Lovely Bones, where she’ll play the murdered protagonist, but it works to her advantage here. The adaptation Ian McEwan’s novel is gorgeous—director Joe Wright and his cinematographer Seamus McGarvey make sure of that—but without Ms. Ronan, it wouldn’t have such a biting edge. [@Max, 5 p.m.]

Taking of Pelham 1 2 3

What’s the story: A remake of the 1974 film of the same name, Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 finds an M.T.A. dispatcher (Denzel Washington, in full everyman regalia) thrust into work as an amateur hostage negotiator, after a criminal mastermind (John Travolta, doing his Broken Arrow bad-guy routine) takes forceful charge of a New York City subway. With a good supporting cast of recognizable New York types (James Gandolfini as the mayor; John Turturro as a cop; Luis Guzman as, well, Luis Guzman) and action kingpin Tony Scott behind the camera, Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 looks like it’ll be a bit of dumb summer fun for adults. Or, it could be Money Train.

Who should see it: M.T.A. president Howard H. Roberts, Jr.

Imagine That

What’s the story: In his continuing quest for a mantle full of Razzie Awards, Eddie Murphy stars as an overworked executive who uses tips from his daughter’s imaginary friends to help further his career. Seriously, that’s the plot. We’re pretty sure taking your kids to see Imagine That qualifies as some sort of crime. Do everyone a favor and go see Up again instead.

Who should see it: Norbit.

Moon

What’s the story: While “in space, no one can hear you scream,” in a movie theater, all bets are off. In this creepy science fiction mood piece, Sam Rockwell plays an astronaut preparing to return home to earth following a three-year trip to the moon when he encounters something bizarre. Hint: It’s himself! Moon comes from director Duncan Jones (better known as David Bowie’s son) and looks to be an appropriately tense throwback to films like 2001; there’s even a HAL-like computer, voiced by Kevin Spacey. The reviews have been pretty spectacular, and our Sara Vilkomerson particularly loved the way Mr. Jones ratchets up the anxiety and suspense. Eek! We have a feeling this is one of those movies we’ll be watching through covered eyes.

Who should see it: Major Tom.