ice cream, I scream!

Un bambacione trova in una cava della brodaglia biancastra che gorgoglia dal terreno e saggiamente la assaggia, trovandola squisita e decidendo di commercializzarla con l'invitante nome di The Stuff.

Qual tragica fatalità! Preso il dessert si rivela essere un organismo (forse alieno, forse no) che svuota le persone dall'interno, prendendone il controllo.
Nooo, nooo... il gelato controlla la mia meeente... nooo... hanno anche aumentato il prezzo... NOOOOO....

Per la fortuna dell'umanità, avrà degni avversari (oh, beh... ): un esperto di spionaggio industriale assoldato da un'azienda concorrente, un bimbetto che ha capito tutto, l'addetta al marketing dello Stuff, un simpatico tizio di colore utile per il politicamente corretto e soprattutto uno sbiellato colonnello dell'esercito che vede complotti comunisti ovunque (Ehi! Questo tizio è il babbo di SeLaRiMira Sorvino!)

Questo classico di Larry Cohen ha il merito di non prendersi certo sul serio e di sbeffegiare molti cliché del genere. Inoltre ci ricorda che è meglio controllare la data di scadenza dello yogurt che abbiamo in frigorifero.

Voto 5.
Trashometro^®:

Stuff, The (1985)

The Stuff - Il gelato che uccide

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Regista: Larry Cohen
Scrittore: Larry Cohen
Genere: Horror, Comedy, Sci-Fi, Mystery
Valutazione: 5.1/10 (840 voti)
Durata: 93 min
Paese: USA
Lingua: English

Cast:

• Michael Moriarty .... David 'Mo' Rutherford
• Andrea Marcovicci .... Nicole
• Garrett Morris .... Chocolate Chip Charlie (Charlie W. Hobbs)
• Paul Sorvino .... Col. Malcolm Grommett Spears
• Scott Bloom .... Jason
• Danny Aiello .... Vickers
• Patrick O'Neal .... Fletcher
• James Dixon .... Postman
• Alexander Scourby .... Evans
• Russell Nype .... Richards

Trama:
Weird yummy goo erupts from the earth and is discovered by a couple of miners. They taste it and decide to market it because it tastes so good. The American public literally eats up the new dessert known as The Stuff but, unfortunately, it takes over the brains of those who eat it, turning them into zombie-like creatures. It is up to ex-FBI agent David Rutherford and a kid named Jason to stop the spread of the mind-devouring dessert.

Trivia random: According to the audio commentary on the 1999/2000 DVD, some of the substance props, or stand-ins for the real "stuff" used in the movie included lots of "Häagen Das" ice-cream, yogurt, and for one scene involving an enormous avalanche like effect of "stuff" crashing though a wall, the F/X team used fire extinguishing foam. Other shots, like the ones of the giant-lake of "stuff" required superimposed images and animation.

Sorvino, Paul

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Data di nascita: 13 April 1939
Altezza: 6' 2" (1.88 m)
Coniuge: Vanessa Arico::(20 March 1991 - 1996) (divorced), Lorraine Davis::(? - 1988) (divorced) 3 children

Ultimi lavori:

• The Real Catch (2006) .... Dale Parker [attore]
• Giovanni's Song (2005) .... [attore]
• Mineville (2005) .... Jacob Laremy [attore]
• Mr. Fix It (2005) .... Wally [attore]
• Rites of Winter (2005) .... [regista]
• Goodnight, Joseph Parker (2004) .... Charlie [attore]
• Law & Order: The First 3 Years (2004) (V) .... (special thanks) [misc]
• Mr 3000 (2004) .... Gus Panas [attore]
• The Cooler (2003) .... Buddy Stafford [attore]
• Mafia Doctor (2003) (TV) .... Nicola [attore]

Biografia:
Tall, commanding looking Italian American actor who has made a solid career of portraying authority figures (on both sides of the law). Sorvino originally had his heart set on a life as a singer in the Opera, but never quite achieved the vocal finesse required. As he had additionally been exposed to dramatic arts whilst studying at the New York Music & Dramatic Academy, Sorvino furthered his studies in the theatre and eventually appeared in his first film _Where's Poppa (1970)_ at the age of thirty. An interesting point is that Sorvino suffered from severe asthma, and worked hard at mastering various breathing techniques to manage the illness, and not let it interfere with his blossoming career.Sorvino appeared in a mixture of film, TV & theatre productions over the next few years, and received huge critical praise for his role in the Broadway play of That Championship Season, a role he reprised in the 1981 film alongside Robert Mitchum and Martin Sheen. Other noteworthy performances during the 1980/90s included as a strained police chief in Cruising (1980), as Mike Hammer's cop buddy in I, the Jury (1982), as "Lips Manlis" in the big budget production of Dick Tracy (1990), and he was outstanding as criminal patriach figure "Paul Cicero" in the powerhouse Goodfellas (1990).Keeping himself continually busy, Sorvino has performed in nearly 50 movies in the past decade, including dynamic acting as Henry Kissinger in Nixon (1995), as Fulgencio Capulet in the updated Romeo + Juliet (1996) and in the Las Vegas thriller The Cooler (2003). Sorvino has also tried his hand at film direction, started the Sorvino Asthma Foundation, and is the proud father of actress Mira Sorvino.

Trivia random: Ranked #10 on Tropopkin's Top 25 Most Intriguing People [Issue #100]
Citazione random: On why he left "Law & Order" (1990): "One of the frustrating things about that role - one of the reasons George Dzundza left, I assume, and certainly why I left - is that there wasn't enough range...It wasn't a large enough vehicle for me to express what it was I want to express as an artist."

Sorvino, Mira

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Nome di battesimo: Sorvino, Mira Katherine
Data di nascita: 28 September 1967
Altezza: 5' 10" (1.78 m)
Coniuge: Christopher Backus::(11 June 2004 - present) 1 child

Ultimi lavori:

• Leningrad (2006/I) .... Kate Davis [attrice]
• "Human Trafficking" (2005) (mini) .... Kate Morozov [attrice]
• Instant Karma (2005/I) .... [attrice]
• The Final Cut (2004) .... Delila [attrice]
• Gods and Generals (2003) .... Fanny Chamberlain [attrice]
• Behind the Scenes of 'Wisegirls' (2002) (V) .... (special thanks) [misc]
• Between Strangers (2002) .... Natalia Bauer [attrice]
• Semana Santa (2002) .... Maria Delgado [attrice]
• WiseGirls (2002) .... Meg Kennedy [attrice]
• The Grey Zone (2001) .... Dina [attrice]

Biografia:
Mira Sorvino was born in Tenafly, an affluent northern New Jersey suburb, in 1967. She is the daughter of veteran character actor Paul Sorvino, who discouraged her from becoming an actor, as he knew how the industry often chews up young stars. The young Sorvino was intelligent, an avid reader and an exceptional scholar. She attended Harvard, majoring in Chinese, graduating magna cum laude in 1989, largely on the strength of her thesis, a Hoopes Prize-winning thesis on racial conflict in China, written and researched during the year spent in Beijing, which helped her fluency in Mandarin Chinese.However, she showed interest in a career in acting from an early age, and moved to New York City to try her hand in the City's film industry, waitressing, auditioning and working at the Tribeca production company of Robert De Niro. She succeeded in getting a little TV work in the early 90s, but got her first film job in the independent gangster movie Amongst Friends (1993), on which she worked her way up the ladder behind the camera to eventually associate-produce the film, and, more importantly, was eventually cast as the female lead. The movie was forgettable, but Sorvino's performance was not, and attracted enough buzz to get her cast in two more movies, one a more prominent indie, Barcelona (1994), the other her first Hollywood feature, Quiz Show (1994), and her skillful performances brought her yet more attention.An exceptionally poised and articulate young woman, she may have seemed inappropriate to play a loopy hooker, but Woody Allen took the chance, and her magnificent performance as the female lead in his Mighty Aphrodite (1995) proved her range as a performer and earned her an Oscar (at the tender age of 29) for best supporting actress.Since winning the Oscar, Sorvino has continued to take a wide range of roles, including another stretch as Marilyn Monroe in Norma Jean & Marilyn (1996) (TV), co-starring with another very intelligent and skilled young actress, Ashley Judd. Forays into action and horror, such as 1997's Mimic (1997) and 1998's The Replacement Killers (1998) show that Sorvino is not above being playful in the film roles she chooses.However, what forever cemented her role in popular culture was her performance as charmingly dopey California beach girl Romy in Romy and Michele's High School Reunion (1997), in which she and co-star Lisa Kudrow utter one hilarious absurdity after another.Sorvino married Christopher Backus in 2004, and the couple had a daughter later that year.

Trivia random: Member of jury at the Cannes Film Festival in 1997
Citazione random: "There's a side of my personality that goes completely against the East Coast educated person and wants to be a pin-up girl in garages across America...there's a side that wants to wear the pink angora bikini!"

Cohen, Larry (I)

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Nome di battesimo: Cohen, Lawrence G.
Data di nascita: 15 July 1938
Coniuge: Janelle Webb::(10 June 1964 - 1 January 1987) (divorced) 5 children, Cynthia Costas Cohen::(? - ?)

Ultimi lavori:

• Captivity (2006) .... (written by) [scrittore]
• "Masters of Horror" (2005) .... [regista]
• Air Force One: The Final Mission (2004) .... (producer) [produttore]
• Cellular (2004) .... (story) [scrittore]
• Phone Booth (2002) .... (written by) [scrittore]
• The Defenders: Choice of Evils (1998) (TV) .... (story) (teleplay) [scrittore]
• Misbegotten (1998) .... (screenplay) [scrittore]
• Ed McBain's 87th Precinct: Heatwave (1997) (TV) .... (teleplay) [scrittore]
• The Ex (1997) .... (screenplay) [scrittore]
• Uncle Sam (1997) .... (written by) [scrittore]

Biografia:
Low-budget auteur whose exploitative pictures are a notch above the typical genre fare. Growing up in New York City, Cohen learned rudimentary filmmaking techniques at the City College Film Institute. He broke into the movie business as a screenwriter, first on TV Westerns and later on the likes of I Deal in Danger (1966) and Daddy's Gone A-Hunting (1969). In the early 1970s, he took up directing, cranking out pictures that were heavy on social consciousness and laced with irony. His Black Caesar (1973) was one of the most successful "blaxploitation" films; the same year's Bone examined racial attitudes and stereotyping among middle-class whites. Cohen turned his attention to the horror genre with It's Alive! (1974), a story about a monsterish mutant baby deformed by environmental pollution. This loopy picture was successful enough to spawn two sequels, It Lives Again (1978) and It's Alive III: Island of the Alive (1987). Cohen's work, not always easy to classify in spite of recognizable genre trappings, is characterized by taut action and ambitious philosophical concerns. For example, his Demon (aka God Told Me To 1977) dealt with nothing less than a possible Messiah from outer space, while The Stuff (1985) was as much a critique of unbridled consumerism as horror picture. He also had the distinction of directing Bette Davis in her final film, on which she worked just one week, Wicked Stepmother (1989). Cohen's screenwriting talents and budgetary efficiency have brought him work on larger-scale studio projects, notably I, The Jury (1982), on which he was replaced as director), Best Seller (1987), and Maniac Cop (1988). He wrote the screenplay for 1993's mainstream thriller Guilty as Sin. Copyright © 1994 Leonard Maltin, used by arrangement with Signet, a division of Penguin Putnam, Inc.

Trivia random: Does not use a laptop or typewriter to write. Dictates his scripts into a hand held tape recorder.