President Donald Trump touched down in Japan on Saturday for a 13-day tour through five countries in Asia — Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines — and he’s already raising eyebrows.
Trump first met with American service members stationed at the Yokota Air Base outside Tokyo before visiting Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for a round of golf alongside Hideki Matsuyama, the fourth-ranked golfer in the world.
The two leaders then indulged in a steak dinner, with Abe even surprising Trump with trucker hats Trump embroidered in gold with a slogan borrowed from the president’s campaign motto, “Make America Great Again.
Trump first met with American service members stationed at the Yokota Air Base outside Tokyo before visiting Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for a round of golf alongside Hideki Matsuyama, the fourth-ranked golfer in the world.
The two leaders then indulged in a steak dinner, with Abe even surprising Trump with trucker hats Trump embroidered in gold with a slogan borrowed from the president’s campaign motto, “Make America Great Again.
- 11/6/2017
- by Stephanie Petit
- PEOPLE.com
The name is Jolie, Angelina Jolie.
In a case of the truth being far stranger than even Hollywood fiction can create, the Salt actress once came perilously close to taking part in some real-life espionage on behalf of the International Criminal Court (Icc).
A hoard of 40,000 Icc documents leaked to the French investigative website Mediapart reveals that Jolie once offered to act as human bait in a trap to arrest brutal Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony.
She “has the idea to invite Kony to dinner and then arrest him,” reads an e-mail sent by former Icc Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo,...
In a case of the truth being far stranger than even Hollywood fiction can create, the Salt actress once came perilously close to taking part in some real-life espionage on behalf of the International Criminal Court (Icc).
A hoard of 40,000 Icc documents leaked to the French investigative website Mediapart reveals that Jolie once offered to act as human bait in a trap to arrest brutal Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony.
She “has the idea to invite Kony to dinner and then arrest him,” reads an e-mail sent by former Icc Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo,...
- 10/8/2017
- by Phil Boucher and Peter Mikelbank
- PEOPLE.com
President Donald Trump announced in a series of tweets that transgender people will no longer be allowed to serve in the military, and Twitter users are reacting.
Trump wrote in three tweets that the military “must be focused” and “cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail.”
U.S. Army Pvt. Chelsea Manning called the move, “cowardice.”
so, biggest baddest most $$ military on earth cries about a few trans people but funds the F-35? sounds like cowardice #WeGotThis
— Chelsea E. Manning (@xychelsea) July 26, 2017
Writer and transgender activist Janet Mock, who transitioned in her teens,...
Trump wrote in three tweets that the military “must be focused” and “cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail.”
U.S. Army Pvt. Chelsea Manning called the move, “cowardice.”
so, biggest baddest most $$ military on earth cries about a few trans people but funds the F-35? sounds like cowardice #WeGotThis
— Chelsea E. Manning (@xychelsea) July 26, 2017
Writer and transgender activist Janet Mock, who transitioned in her teens,...
- 7/26/2017
- by Julie Mazziotta
- PEOPLE.com
The depiction of Native Americans in the movies is notorious for its reductive stereotypes. By those standards, “Mohawk,” a bloody, low-budget survival saga about members of a flailing tribe facing off against brutish American soldiers during the war of 1812, arrives like a revelation. The sophomore feature from Ted Geoghegan is a far cry from the haunted house tropes of his debut, “We Are Still Here,” but it explores a much more realistic horror — the struggle to survive against ruthless persecution, even as the future looks grim.
It’s a fast-paced action-thriller that, while rough around the edges, delivers a wild ride — and an implicit rebuke to the limitations of Hollywood storytelling.
The movie, which premiered at the 2017 Fantasia International Film Festival, revolves around the plight of Oak (Kaniehtiio Horn), a young member of the Mohawk tribe in upstate New York, and the two men with whom she enjoys a polyamorous...
It’s a fast-paced action-thriller that, while rough around the edges, delivers a wild ride — and an implicit rebuke to the limitations of Hollywood storytelling.
The movie, which premiered at the 2017 Fantasia International Film Festival, revolves around the plight of Oak (Kaniehtiio Horn), a young member of the Mohawk tribe in upstate New York, and the two men with whom she enjoys a polyamorous...
- 7/17/2017
- by Eric Kohn
- Indiewire
“Resistance” the story of the famed mime Marcel Marceau and how he learned to mime in order to survive and to save the lives of Jewish orphans in World War II France, written and to be directed by “Hands of Stone” director Jonathan Jakubowicz and produced by Claudine Jakubowicz and Carlos Garcia de Paredes, will star the curly haired and fast talking Jesse Eisenberg who played Mark Zuckerberg in the 2010 film “The Social Network”. Baptiste Marceau, the oldest son of Marcel, has been closely involved in the research for this European coproduction that CAA is packaging and representing in Cannes. Marceau the artist of silence gave his first major performance to 3,000 American troops after the liberation of Paris in August 1944.
Michael Jackson and Marcel Marceau
The producers of last year’s Norwegian hit, “The Wave”, have turned their attention to Marius Holst’s “Betrayed”, the story of the Norwegian Jews...
Michael Jackson and Marcel Marceau
The producers of last year’s Norwegian hit, “The Wave”, have turned their attention to Marius Holst’s “Betrayed”, the story of the Norwegian Jews...
- 6/5/2017
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Jonathan Jakubowicz to write and direct.
Jesse Eisenberg will play the legendary mime Marcel Marceau in Resistance, a feature that will focus on his involvement in the French resistance during the Second World War.
The film will be in the vein of Life Is Beautiful, in which comedy was used as a device to help children survive the Holocaust.
Jonathan Jakubowicz, whose last film Hands Of Stone starring Edgar Ramirez and Robert De Niro premiered in Cannes last year, will direct from his screenplay.
Production is earmarked for early 2018 and the project is being set up as a European coproduction due to Jakubowicz’s EU citizenship.
Marcel Marceau learned to mime to survive and to save the lives of Jewish orphans whose parents had been killed by the Nazis.
He was born Marcel Mangel and grew up speaking Yiddish as the son of a kosher butcher from Strasbourg. His father was eventually killed in Auschwitz.
Marceau was most...
Jesse Eisenberg will play the legendary mime Marcel Marceau in Resistance, a feature that will focus on his involvement in the French resistance during the Second World War.
The film will be in the vein of Life Is Beautiful, in which comedy was used as a device to help children survive the Holocaust.
Jonathan Jakubowicz, whose last film Hands Of Stone starring Edgar Ramirez and Robert De Niro premiered in Cannes last year, will direct from his screenplay.
Production is earmarked for early 2018 and the project is being set up as a European coproduction due to Jakubowicz’s EU citizenship.
Marcel Marceau learned to mime to survive and to save the lives of Jewish orphans whose parents had been killed by the Nazis.
He was born Marcel Mangel and grew up speaking Yiddish as the son of a kosher butcher from Strasbourg. His father was eventually killed in Auschwitz.
Marceau was most...
- 5/19/2017
- by jeremykay67@gmail.com (Jeremy Kay)
- ScreenDaily
At 53, Brad Pitt is more candid about his personal life than ever. In a new interview with the Associated Press, the actor reveals intimate details about the process of playing General McMahon, a fictional character based on the real-life General Stanley McChrystal. Pitt's forthcoming Netflix original movie, War Machine, is based on an original 2010 Rolling Stone story by the late journalist Michael Hastings.
The normally reclusive actor and newly single father of six also elaborates on his the flawed similarities he has the lifelong military man less than a month...
The normally reclusive actor and newly single father of six also elaborates on his the flawed similarities he has the lifelong military man less than a month...
- 5/16/2017
- Rollingstone.com
Aaron Taylor-Johnson in The Wall. Photo credit: David James.
Courtesy of Amazon Studios and Roadside Attractions ©
Director Doug Liman’s The Wall is not about Donald Trump’s wall on the Mexican border, the Berlin Wall that symbolized the divide between communist and capitalist countries in the Cold War, or even the Great Wall the Chinese built along their border. No, this wall is the crumbling remains of what was once a building in a contemporary desert war, zone a wall behind which a sniper may be hiding and which later shelters an American serviceman pinned down in that dusty war.
Liman is a skillful film maker but this a decidedly smaller film for the director behind The Bourne Identity and many others. The intimate war drama The Wall starts out in a contemporary desert war zone with a pair of U.S. Army Rangers, Sgt. Allen Isaac (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and Staff Sgt.
Courtesy of Amazon Studios and Roadside Attractions ©
Director Doug Liman’s The Wall is not about Donald Trump’s wall on the Mexican border, the Berlin Wall that symbolized the divide between communist and capitalist countries in the Cold War, or even the Great Wall the Chinese built along their border. No, this wall is the crumbling remains of what was once a building in a contemporary desert war, zone a wall behind which a sniper may be hiding and which later shelters an American serviceman pinned down in that dusty war.
Liman is a skillful film maker but this a decidedly smaller film for the director behind The Bourne Identity and many others. The intimate war drama The Wall starts out in a contemporary desert war zone with a pair of U.S. Army Rangers, Sgt. Allen Isaac (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and Staff Sgt.
- 5/12/2017
- by Cate Marquis
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
With the respected directors making their way to television, the medium is now luring Michael Mann back into its warming embrace. The Heat director, who cut his teeth on TV shows like Starsky and Hutch, Police Story, and Miami Vice, has, along with producer Michael De Luca, snapped up the rights to Black Hawk Down author Mark Bowden’s Hue 1968: A Turning Point of the American War in Vietnam.
Deadline reports that Mann and De Luca will shape Bowden’s book into an an eight-to ten-hour miniseries event, with Mann directing “numerous episodes.” Hue 1968 focuses on the Tet Offensive that became a major turning point of American involvement in the Vietnam War, and one can see the Amazon synopsis below.
By January 1968, despite an influx of half a million American troops, the fighting in Vietnam seemed to be at a stalemate. Yet General William Westmoreland, commander of American forces,...
Deadline reports that Mann and De Luca will shape Bowden’s book into an an eight-to ten-hour miniseries event, with Mann directing “numerous episodes.” Hue 1968 focuses on the Tet Offensive that became a major turning point of American involvement in the Vietnam War, and one can see the Amazon synopsis below.
By January 1968, despite an influx of half a million American troops, the fighting in Vietnam seemed to be at a stalemate. Yet General William Westmoreland, commander of American forces,...
- 4/24/2017
- by The Film Stage
- The Film Stage
American Experience’a look a The Great War continues and this second of the three parts examines America’s entry into World War I. The U.S. declared war on Germany as an independent power on April 6, 1917. Up until this point it had supplied the Allied Powers with equipment but had remained neutral. 4 million men were mobilized and by the spring of the next year American troops were on the Western Front. Public opinion was quite divided regards entering the war, with many people wanting the country to keep its neutral status. The scaling up to enable the country to...read more...
- 4/11/2017
- by James Wray
- Monsters and Critics
Several years ago, Mark Harris began feeling a little self-conscious about a gap in his film-history knowledge. As a journalist for Entertainment Weekly, New York Magazine and the late, lamented Web site Grantland, among others, he'd covered the waterfront of contemporary moviemaking. As an author, his book Pictures at a Revolution dissected the moment in the late 1960s when the last gasp of the Golden Age studio system gave way to what become known as "New Hollywood." Ask him about the works of legends like, say, John Ford and Frank Capra,...
- 4/1/2017
- Rollingstone.com
You’d think that the Oscar race for Best Editing would be very much in play. After all, “Arrival” and “La La Land” took the Ace Awards for drama and comedy, respectively, while “Hacksaw Ridge” won the BAFTA.
But given the audacity of Best Picture frontrunner “La La Land” and the fact that editor Tom Cross previously won the Oscar for Damien Chazelle’s “Whiplash,” the odds are with him again.
Still, with such a strong group of nominees, the craft awards could break unexpectedly. Each editor explores existential crises in different ways and creatively plays with time and space.
Here’s how the race is shaking out.
“La La Land”
With the bittersweet love story between Ryan Gosling’s Sebastian and Emma Stone’s Mia, Chazelle constructed a musical bridge between the past and the present — Hollywood as both dreamland and boulevard of broken dreams. It’s filled with flashbacks and fantasy sequences,...
But given the audacity of Best Picture frontrunner “La La Land” and the fact that editor Tom Cross previously won the Oscar for Damien Chazelle’s “Whiplash,” the odds are with him again.
Still, with such a strong group of nominees, the craft awards could break unexpectedly. Each editor explores existential crises in different ways and creatively plays with time and space.
Here’s how the race is shaking out.
“La La Land”
With the bittersweet love story between Ryan Gosling’s Sebastian and Emma Stone’s Mia, Chazelle constructed a musical bridge between the past and the present — Hollywood as both dreamland and boulevard of broken dreams. It’s filled with flashbacks and fantasy sequences,...
- 2/16/2017
- by Bill Desowitz
- Indiewire
Hameed Khalid Darweesh worked as a translator for American troops in Iraq and is “a marked man” in his country for helping the U.S. government, New York congressman Jerrold Nadler tells People. “This is a person who risked his life to work with American forces for years,” he says, “and whose life was in danger back home,”
So Darweesh decided to come to America.
After an extensive vetting process, Darweesh was granted a special immigrant visa. On Friday — the same day President Donald Trump signed an executive order banning nationals from Iraq and six other Muslim countries — he, his...
So Darweesh decided to come to America.
After an extensive vetting process, Darweesh was granted a special immigrant visa. On Friday — the same day President Donald Trump signed an executive order banning nationals from Iraq and six other Muslim countries — he, his...
- 1/29/2017
- by Diane Herbst
- PEOPLE.com
See Full Gallery Here
Nicholas Hoult, Henry Cavill, and Logan Marshall-Green find themselves under the scorching hot Iraqi sun in today’s first batch of images for Sand Castle, Netflix and Fernando Coimbra’s upcoming wartime thriller
Based on screenwriter Chris Roessner’s own tour of the Iraqi war, Sand Castle promises a tense, Hurt Locker-esque story funnelled through the eyes of three grunts – in this case Hoult, Marshall-Green and the Man of Steel himself – fighting for a cause they don’t quite understand. Cavill is set to take point as the burly Captain Syverson, with Hoult playing the part of Matt Orce, the quasi-surrogate to Chris Roessner in this particular instance.
Little is currently known about the Logan Marshall-Green’s character, but Netflix’s official logline teases an arc that involves our leading trio coming to terms with the “true cost of war,” as they break course to restore...
Nicholas Hoult, Henry Cavill, and Logan Marshall-Green find themselves under the scorching hot Iraqi sun in today’s first batch of images for Sand Castle, Netflix and Fernando Coimbra’s upcoming wartime thriller
Based on screenwriter Chris Roessner’s own tour of the Iraqi war, Sand Castle promises a tense, Hurt Locker-esque story funnelled through the eyes of three grunts – in this case Hoult, Marshall-Green and the Man of Steel himself – fighting for a cause they don’t quite understand. Cavill is set to take point as the burly Captain Syverson, with Hoult playing the part of Matt Orce, the quasi-surrogate to Chris Roessner in this particular instance.
Little is currently known about the Logan Marshall-Green’s character, but Netflix’s official logline teases an arc that involves our leading trio coming to terms with the “true cost of war,” as they break course to restore...
- 1/26/2017
- by Michael Briers
- We Got This Covered
Battleground
Blu-ray
Warner Archive Collection
1949 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 118 min. / Street Date January 10, 2017 / available through the WBshop / 21.99
Starring: Van Johnson, John Hodiak, Ricardo Montalban, George Murphy, Marshall Thompson, Don Taylor, James Whitmore, Douglas Fowley, Leon Ames, Guy Anderson, Denise Darcel, Richard Jaeckel, James Arness
Cinematography: Paul Vogel
Art Direction: Cedric Gibbons, Hans Peters
Film Editor: John D. Dunning
Original Music: Lennie Hayton
Written by: Robert Pirosh
Produced by: Dore Schary
Directed by William A. Wellman
“The Guts, Gags and Glory of a Lot of Wonderful Guys!”
— say, what kind of movie is this, anyway?
Action movies about combat are now mostly about soldiers that fight like killing machines, or stories of battle with a strong political axe to grind. WW2 changed perceptions completely, when a mostly civilian army did the fighting. With the cessation of hostilities combat pictures tapered off quickly, and Hollywood gave the subject a break for several years.
Blu-ray
Warner Archive Collection
1949 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 118 min. / Street Date January 10, 2017 / available through the WBshop / 21.99
Starring: Van Johnson, John Hodiak, Ricardo Montalban, George Murphy, Marshall Thompson, Don Taylor, James Whitmore, Douglas Fowley, Leon Ames, Guy Anderson, Denise Darcel, Richard Jaeckel, James Arness
Cinematography: Paul Vogel
Art Direction: Cedric Gibbons, Hans Peters
Film Editor: John D. Dunning
Original Music: Lennie Hayton
Written by: Robert Pirosh
Produced by: Dore Schary
Directed by William A. Wellman
“The Guts, Gags and Glory of a Lot of Wonderful Guys!”
— say, what kind of movie is this, anyway?
Action movies about combat are now mostly about soldiers that fight like killing machines, or stories of battle with a strong political axe to grind. WW2 changed perceptions completely, when a mostly civilian army did the fighting. With the cessation of hostilities combat pictures tapered off quickly, and Hollywood gave the subject a break for several years.
- 1/6/2017
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Scarlett Johansson and Craig Campbell just performed their first duet live from Afghanistan.
The actress and country star have been hanging out with the troops overseas while on tour with the Uso, and this week they decided to team up for a rendition of Nancy Sinatra’s classic “These Boots Are Made for Walkin.’ ”
Campbell set up the performance as part of a new series on his social media channels called Woman Cover Wednesday, in which he covers a song by a different female singer every week.
This week, the “Family Man” singer enlisted a little help on vocals, and...
The actress and country star have been hanging out with the troops overseas while on tour with the Uso, and this week they decided to team up for a rendition of Nancy Sinatra’s classic “These Boots Are Made for Walkin.’ ”
Campbell set up the performance as part of a new series on his social media channels called Woman Cover Wednesday, in which he covers a song by a different female singer every week.
This week, the “Family Man” singer enlisted a little help on vocals, and...
- 12/14/2016
- by m34miller
- PEOPLE.com
By Lee Pfeiffer
Time Life has released "Bob Hope: Entertaining the Troops", a priceless presentation of Hope's famous Uso shows for American troops serving overseas. The two programs, presented uncut, are a wonderful time capsule of the era. At the time the Vietnam War was raging and the only glimpses concerned Americans got of the fighting men were grim images squeezed into the half-hour evening news during this pre-cable TV era. Thus, Hope's merry band of entertainers allowed some welcome views of the servicemen getting a rare and well-deserved laugh from the songs, skits and stand up presented by Hope and his troupe. Not surprisingly, the biggest reactions are afforded to the sex symbols who traveled with him. In this case, they include Connie Stevens, Lola Falana, Romy Schneider and Ursula Andress. Admittedly, the humor creaks with age but the spirit and good will is timeless. One of the...
Time Life has released "Bob Hope: Entertaining the Troops", a priceless presentation of Hope's famous Uso shows for American troops serving overseas. The two programs, presented uncut, are a wonderful time capsule of the era. At the time the Vietnam War was raging and the only glimpses concerned Americans got of the fighting men were grim images squeezed into the half-hour evening news during this pre-cable TV era. Thus, Hope's merry band of entertainers allowed some welcome views of the servicemen getting a rare and well-deserved laugh from the songs, skits and stand up presented by Hope and his troupe. Not surprisingly, the biggest reactions are afforded to the sex symbols who traveled with him. In this case, they include Connie Stevens, Lola Falana, Romy Schneider and Ursula Andress. Admittedly, the humor creaks with age but the spirit and good will is timeless. One of the...
- 8/31/2016
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
As the Summer starts to fade, the multiplex looks again to sports films, those (like the “sport” of movie viewing) which are set indoors, away from the harsh cold winds. We’re not talking hockey or basketball, but rather the “mano y mano” battle that seems almost tailor-made for movies, boxing. Of course, there are many times when the boxing flick has been mixed with other genres. Just last year we had a boxing/ family tear-jerker with Southpaw and a boxing/ fantasy/ franchise-reboot Creed (it squeezed a few tears from audiences, too). This time out (perhaps to be an early Oscar contender), we’re seeing a pugilistic biography, a mix that goes back to the dawn of cinema. The 1940’s had Gentleman Jim, and the 50’s had Paul Newman as Rocky Marciano in Somebody Up There Likes Me. The greatest true-life boxing biopic may be 1980’s Raging Bull with an Oscar-winning turn by Robert DeNiro.
- 8/26/2016
- by Jim Batts
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Jonah Hill and Miles Teller fire up big-time laughs, but don't ignore the crazy-ass political absurdity that burns through War Dogs. (Crazy-ass political absurdity being right up in our faces these days.) Based on the 2011 Rolling Stone article, "The Stoner Arms Dealers," the movie is so achingly true it defies belief. I mean, who'd accept that two twentysomething yeshiva boys from Miami could strike it rich by bidding on U.S. military contracts?
But that's what was going down in the mid 2000s, during the Bush-Cheney invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.
But that's what was going down in the mid 2000s, during the Bush-Cheney invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.
- 8/18/2016
- Rollingstone.com
There’s been much record of the Civil War and World War I, but what about the time inbetween? AMC’s new limited docudrama series “The American West” documents exactly that, unveiling that the period was full of spilt blood, political unrest and iconic outlaws.
In an IndieWire exclusive clip, the show portrays the result of the Battle of the Little Bighorn, a conflict between American troops and Native American tribes over the gold on the tribes’ land. The clip features commentary by Robert Redford and the show will also host other actors from classic Westerns, including James Caan, Burt Reynolds, Tom Selleck, Kiefer Sutherland, Mark Harmon and Ed Harris.
Read More: ‘Hell on Wheels’ Final Season: Confrontation Sparks an Uneasy Partnership in Exclusive Video
Per the release, “Spanning the years 1865 to 1890, ‘The American West,’ will show how — in the aftermath of the Civil War — the United States transforms into the “land of opportunity.
In an IndieWire exclusive clip, the show portrays the result of the Battle of the Little Bighorn, a conflict between American troops and Native American tribes over the gold on the tribes’ land. The clip features commentary by Robert Redford and the show will also host other actors from classic Westerns, including James Caan, Burt Reynolds, Tom Selleck, Kiefer Sutherland, Mark Harmon and Ed Harris.
Read More: ‘Hell on Wheels’ Final Season: Confrontation Sparks an Uneasy Partnership in Exclusive Video
Per the release, “Spanning the years 1865 to 1890, ‘The American West,’ will show how — in the aftermath of the Civil War — the United States transforms into the “land of opportunity.
- 7/1/2016
- by Kyle Kizu
- Indiewire
It's been four years since Tom Cruise first suited up as Lee Child's elite Military Police Corps Officer Jack Reacher, but in the new trailer for the second in the spy-vs-spy franchise — titled Jack Reacher: Never Go Back — he's re-started his revenge rampage without skipping a beat.
"Two things are going to happen in the next 90 seconds," Cruise informs two sheriffs at the beginning of the clip, as he sits bloodied and bruised in a diner. "First, that phone over there is going to ring. Second ... you're going to...
"Two things are going to happen in the next 90 seconds," Cruise informs two sheriffs at the beginning of the clip, as he sits bloodied and bruised in a diner. "First, that phone over there is going to ring. Second ... you're going to...
- 6/22/2016
- Rollingstone.com
“We used to go to the movies. Now we want the movies to come to us, on our televisions, tablets and phones, as streams running into an increasingly unnavigable ocean of media. The dispersal of movie watching across technologies and contexts follows the multiplexing of movie theaters, itself a fragmenting of the single screen theater where movie love was first concentrated and consecrated. (But even in the “good old days,” movies were often only part of an evening’s entertainment that came complete with vaudeville acts and bank nights). For all this, moviegoing still means what it always meant, joining a community, forming an audience and participating in a collective dream.” –
From the UCLA Film and Television Archive’s programming notes for its current series, “Marquee Movies: Movies on Moviegoing”
Currently under way at the Billy Wilder Theater inside the Armand Hammer Museum in Westwood, the UCLA Film and Television Archive’s far-reaching and fascinating series “Marquee Movies: Movies on Moviegoing” takes sharp aim at an overview of how the movies themselves have portrayed the act of going out to see movies during these years of seismic change in the way we see them. What’s best about the collection of films curated for the series is its scope, which sweeps along from the anything-goes exhibition of the silent era, on through an examination of the opulent era of grandiose movie palaces and post-war audience predilection for exploitation pictures, and straight into an era—ours—of a certain nostalgia for the ways we used to exclusively gather in dark places to watch visions jump out at us from the big screen. (That nostalgia, as it turns out, is often colored by a rear-view perspective on the times which contextualizes it and sometimes gives it a bitter tinge.) As the program notes for the Marquee Movies series puts it, whether you’re an American moviegoer or one from France, Italy, Argentina or Taiwan, “the current sense of loss at the passing of an exhibition era takes its place in the ongoing history of cultural and industrial transformation reflected in these films.”
The series took its inaugural bow last Friday night with a rare 35mm screening of Matinee (1993), director Joe Dante and screenwriter Charlie Haas’s vividly imagined tribute to movie love during a time in Us history which lazy writers frequently like to describe as “the point when America lost its innocence” or some other such silliness. For Americans, and for a whole lot of other people the world over, those days in 1962 during what would come to be known as the Cuban Missile Crisis felt more like days when something a whole lot more tangible than “innocence” was about to be lost, what with the Us and Russia being on the brink of nuclear confrontation and all. The movie lays down this undercurrent of fear and uncertainty as the foundation which tints its main action, that of the arrival of exploitation movie impresario Laurence Woolsey (John Goodman, channeling producer and gimmick maestro William Castle) to Key West, Florida, to promote his latest shock show, Mant!, on the very weekend that American troops set to sea, ready to fire on Russian missile installments a mere 90 miles away in Cuba.
Woolsey’s hardly worried that his potential audience will be distracted the specter of annihilation; in fact, he’s energized by it, convinced that the free-floating anxiety will translate into box office dollars contributed by nervous kids and adults looking for a safe and scary good time, a disposal cinematic depository for all their worst fears. And it certainly doesn’t matter that Woolsey’s movie is a corny sci-fi absurdity-- all the better for his particular brand of enhancements. Mant!, a lovingly sculpted mash-up of 1950s hits like The Fly and Them!, benefits from “Atomo-vision,” which incorporates variants of Castle innovations like Emergo and Percepto, as well as “Rumble-rama,” a very crude precursor to Universal’s Oscar-winning Sensurround system. The movie’s Saturday afternoon screening is where Dante and Haas really let loose their tickled and twisted imaginations, with the help of Woolsey’s theatrical enhancements.
Leading up to the fearful and farcical unleashing of Mant!, Dante stages a beautifully understated sequence that moved me to tears when I saw it with my daughters last Friday night at the Billy Wilder Theater. Matinee is seen primarily through the eyes of young Gene Loomis (Simon Fenton), a military kid whose dad is among those waiting it out on nuclear-armed boats pointed in the direction of Cuba. Gene is a monster-movie nerd (and a clear stand-in for Dante, Haas and just about anybody—like me—whose primary biblical text was provided not by that fella in the burning bush but instead by Forrest J. Ackerman within the pages of Famous Monsters of Filmland), and he manages to worm his way into Woolsey’s good graces as the producer prepares the local theater to show his picture. At one point he walks down the street in the company of the larger-than-life producer, who starts talking about his inspirations and why he makes the sort of movies he does:
“A zillion years ago, a guy’s living in a cave,” Woolsey expounds. “He goes out one day—Bam! He gets chased by a mammoth. Now, he’s scared to death, but he gets away. And when it’s all over with, he feels great.”
Gene, eager to believe but also to understand, responds quizzically-- “Well, yeah, ‘cause he’s still living.”
“Yeah, but he knows he is, and he feels it,” Woolsey counters. “So he goes home, back to the cave. First thing he does, he does a drawing of a mammoth.” (At this point the brick wall which the two of them are passing becomes a blank screen onto which Woolsey conjures an animated behemoth that entrances Gene and us.) Woolsey continues:
“He thinks, ‘People are coming to see this. Let’s make it good. Let’s make the teeth real long and the eyes real mean.’ Boom! The first monster movie. That’s probably why I still do it. You make the teeth as big as you want, then you kill it off, everything’s okay, the lights come up,” Woolsey concludes, ending his illustrative fantasy with a sigh.
But that’s not all, folks. At this point, Dante cuts to a Steadicam shot as it moves into the lobby hall of that Key West theater, past posters of Hatari!, Lonely are the Brave, Six Black Horses and Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?. The tracking shot continues up the stairs, letting us get a really close look at the worn, perhaps pungent carpet, most likely the same rug that was laid down when the theater opened 30 or so years earlier, into the snack bar area, then glides over to the closed swinging doors leading into the auditorium, while Woolsey continues:
“You see, the people come into your cave with the 200-year-old carpet, the guy tears your ticket in half—it’s too late to turn back now. The water fountain’s all booby-trapped and ready, the stuff laid out on the candy counter. Then you come over here to where it’s dark-- there could be anything in there—and you say, ‘Here I am. What have you got for me?’”
Forget nostalgia for a style of moviegoing. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more compact, evocative and heartfelt tribute to the space in which we used to see movies than those couple of minutes in Matinee. The shot and the narration work so vividly together that I swear I could whiff the must underlying that carpet, papered over lovingly with the smell of popcorn wafting through the confined space of that tiny snack bar, just as if I was a kid again myself, wandering into the friendly confines of the Alger Theater in Lakeview, Oregon (More on that place next week.)
Dante’s movie is a romp, no doubt, but its nostalgia is a heartier variety than what we usually get, and it leaves us with an undercurrent of uneasiness that is unusual for a genre most enough content to look back through amber. Woolsey’s words resonate for every youngster who has searched for reasons to explain their attraction to the scary side of cinema and memories of the places where those images were first encountered, but in Matinee there’s another terror with which to contend, one not so easily held at bay.
Of course the real world monster of the movie— the bomb— was also, during that weekend in 1962 and in Matinee’s representation of the missile crisis, “killed off,” making “everything okay.” But Dante makes us understand that while calm has been momentarily restored, something deeper has been forever disturbed. The movie acknowledges the societal disarray which was already under way in Vietnam, and the American South, and only months away from spilling out from Dallas and onto the greater American landscape in a way so much less containable than even the radiative effects of a single cataclysmic event. That awareness leaves Matinee with a sorrowful aftertaste that is hard to shake. The movie’s last image, of our two main characters gathered on the beach, greeting helicopters that are flying home from having hovered at the precipice of nuclear destruction, is one of relief for familial unity restored—Gene is, after all, getting his dad back. But it’s also one of foreboding. Dante leaves us with an extreme close-up of a copter looming into frame, absent even the context of the sky, bearing down on us like a real-life mutant creature, an eerie bellwether of political and societal chaos yet to come as a stout companion to the movie’s general air of celebratory remembrance.
***************************************
The “Marquee Movies” series has already seen Matinee (last Friday night), Woody Allen’s The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985) paired with Polish director Wojciech Marczewski’s 1990 Escape from Liberty Island (last Saturday night), and Ettore Scola’s masterful Splendor (1989), which screened last Sunday night.
But there’s plenty more to come. Sunday, June 12, the archive series unveils a double bill of Lloyd Bacon’s Footlight Parade (1933) with the less well-known This Way, Please (1937), a terrific tale of a star-struck movie theater usherette with dreams of singing and dancing just like the stars she idolizes, starring Charles ‘Buddy’ Rogers, Betty Grable, Jim Jordan, Marian Jordan and the brilliantly grizzled Ned Sparks.
Wednesday, June 15, you can see Uruguay’s A Useful Life (2010), in which a movie theater manager in Montevideo faces up the fact that the days of his beloved movie theater are numbered, paired up with Luc Moullet’s droll account of the feud between the French film journals Cahiers du Cinema and Positif, entitled The Seats of the Alcazar (1989).
One of my favorites, Tsai Ming-liang’s haunting Goodbye, Dragon Inn (2003) gets a rare projection at the Wilder on Sunday, June 19, along with Lisandsro Alonzo’s Fantasma (2006), described by the archive as “a hypnotic commentary on cinematic rituals and presence.”
Friday, June 24, you can see, if you dare, Lamberto Bava’s gory meta-horror film Demons (1985) and then stay for Bigas Luna’s similarly twisted treatise on the movies and voyeurism, 1987’s Anguish.
Saturday afternoon, June 25, “Marquee Movies” presents a rare screening of Gregory La Cava’s hilarious slapstick spoof of rural moviegoing, His Nibs (1921), paired up with what I consider, alongside Matinee and Goodbye, Dragon Inn, one of the real jewels of the series, Basil Dearden’s marvelously funny The Smallest Show on Earth (1957), all about what happens when a newlywed couple inherits a rundown cinema populated by a staff of eccentrics that include Margaret Rutherford and Peter Sellers. (More on that one next week.)
And the series concludes on Sunday, June 26, with a screening of the original 174-minute director’s cut of Giuseppe Tornatore’s Cinema Paradiso (1988).
(Each program also features a variety of moviegoing-oriented shorts, trailers and other surprises. Click the individual links for details and show times.)
******************************************
(Next week: My review of The Smallest Show on Earth and a remembrance of my own hometown movie theater, which closed in 2015.)
*******************************************
Later this year Matinee will be released by Universal in the U.S. (details to come) and by Arrow Films in the UK (with a nifty assortment of extras).
From the UCLA Film and Television Archive’s programming notes for its current series, “Marquee Movies: Movies on Moviegoing”
Currently under way at the Billy Wilder Theater inside the Armand Hammer Museum in Westwood, the UCLA Film and Television Archive’s far-reaching and fascinating series “Marquee Movies: Movies on Moviegoing” takes sharp aim at an overview of how the movies themselves have portrayed the act of going out to see movies during these years of seismic change in the way we see them. What’s best about the collection of films curated for the series is its scope, which sweeps along from the anything-goes exhibition of the silent era, on through an examination of the opulent era of grandiose movie palaces and post-war audience predilection for exploitation pictures, and straight into an era—ours—of a certain nostalgia for the ways we used to exclusively gather in dark places to watch visions jump out at us from the big screen. (That nostalgia, as it turns out, is often colored by a rear-view perspective on the times which contextualizes it and sometimes gives it a bitter tinge.) As the program notes for the Marquee Movies series puts it, whether you’re an American moviegoer or one from France, Italy, Argentina or Taiwan, “the current sense of loss at the passing of an exhibition era takes its place in the ongoing history of cultural and industrial transformation reflected in these films.”
The series took its inaugural bow last Friday night with a rare 35mm screening of Matinee (1993), director Joe Dante and screenwriter Charlie Haas’s vividly imagined tribute to movie love during a time in Us history which lazy writers frequently like to describe as “the point when America lost its innocence” or some other such silliness. For Americans, and for a whole lot of other people the world over, those days in 1962 during what would come to be known as the Cuban Missile Crisis felt more like days when something a whole lot more tangible than “innocence” was about to be lost, what with the Us and Russia being on the brink of nuclear confrontation and all. The movie lays down this undercurrent of fear and uncertainty as the foundation which tints its main action, that of the arrival of exploitation movie impresario Laurence Woolsey (John Goodman, channeling producer and gimmick maestro William Castle) to Key West, Florida, to promote his latest shock show, Mant!, on the very weekend that American troops set to sea, ready to fire on Russian missile installments a mere 90 miles away in Cuba.
Woolsey’s hardly worried that his potential audience will be distracted the specter of annihilation; in fact, he’s energized by it, convinced that the free-floating anxiety will translate into box office dollars contributed by nervous kids and adults looking for a safe and scary good time, a disposal cinematic depository for all their worst fears. And it certainly doesn’t matter that Woolsey’s movie is a corny sci-fi absurdity-- all the better for his particular brand of enhancements. Mant!, a lovingly sculpted mash-up of 1950s hits like The Fly and Them!, benefits from “Atomo-vision,” which incorporates variants of Castle innovations like Emergo and Percepto, as well as “Rumble-rama,” a very crude precursor to Universal’s Oscar-winning Sensurround system. The movie’s Saturday afternoon screening is where Dante and Haas really let loose their tickled and twisted imaginations, with the help of Woolsey’s theatrical enhancements.
Leading up to the fearful and farcical unleashing of Mant!, Dante stages a beautifully understated sequence that moved me to tears when I saw it with my daughters last Friday night at the Billy Wilder Theater. Matinee is seen primarily through the eyes of young Gene Loomis (Simon Fenton), a military kid whose dad is among those waiting it out on nuclear-armed boats pointed in the direction of Cuba. Gene is a monster-movie nerd (and a clear stand-in for Dante, Haas and just about anybody—like me—whose primary biblical text was provided not by that fella in the burning bush but instead by Forrest J. Ackerman within the pages of Famous Monsters of Filmland), and he manages to worm his way into Woolsey’s good graces as the producer prepares the local theater to show his picture. At one point he walks down the street in the company of the larger-than-life producer, who starts talking about his inspirations and why he makes the sort of movies he does:
“A zillion years ago, a guy’s living in a cave,” Woolsey expounds. “He goes out one day—Bam! He gets chased by a mammoth. Now, he’s scared to death, but he gets away. And when it’s all over with, he feels great.”
Gene, eager to believe but also to understand, responds quizzically-- “Well, yeah, ‘cause he’s still living.”
“Yeah, but he knows he is, and he feels it,” Woolsey counters. “So he goes home, back to the cave. First thing he does, he does a drawing of a mammoth.” (At this point the brick wall which the two of them are passing becomes a blank screen onto which Woolsey conjures an animated behemoth that entrances Gene and us.) Woolsey continues:
“He thinks, ‘People are coming to see this. Let’s make it good. Let’s make the teeth real long and the eyes real mean.’ Boom! The first monster movie. That’s probably why I still do it. You make the teeth as big as you want, then you kill it off, everything’s okay, the lights come up,” Woolsey concludes, ending his illustrative fantasy with a sigh.
But that’s not all, folks. At this point, Dante cuts to a Steadicam shot as it moves into the lobby hall of that Key West theater, past posters of Hatari!, Lonely are the Brave, Six Black Horses and Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?. The tracking shot continues up the stairs, letting us get a really close look at the worn, perhaps pungent carpet, most likely the same rug that was laid down when the theater opened 30 or so years earlier, into the snack bar area, then glides over to the closed swinging doors leading into the auditorium, while Woolsey continues:
“You see, the people come into your cave with the 200-year-old carpet, the guy tears your ticket in half—it’s too late to turn back now. The water fountain’s all booby-trapped and ready, the stuff laid out on the candy counter. Then you come over here to where it’s dark-- there could be anything in there—and you say, ‘Here I am. What have you got for me?’”
Forget nostalgia for a style of moviegoing. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more compact, evocative and heartfelt tribute to the space in which we used to see movies than those couple of minutes in Matinee. The shot and the narration work so vividly together that I swear I could whiff the must underlying that carpet, papered over lovingly with the smell of popcorn wafting through the confined space of that tiny snack bar, just as if I was a kid again myself, wandering into the friendly confines of the Alger Theater in Lakeview, Oregon (More on that place next week.)
Dante’s movie is a romp, no doubt, but its nostalgia is a heartier variety than what we usually get, and it leaves us with an undercurrent of uneasiness that is unusual for a genre most enough content to look back through amber. Woolsey’s words resonate for every youngster who has searched for reasons to explain their attraction to the scary side of cinema and memories of the places where those images were first encountered, but in Matinee there’s another terror with which to contend, one not so easily held at bay.
Of course the real world monster of the movie— the bomb— was also, during that weekend in 1962 and in Matinee’s representation of the missile crisis, “killed off,” making “everything okay.” But Dante makes us understand that while calm has been momentarily restored, something deeper has been forever disturbed. The movie acknowledges the societal disarray which was already under way in Vietnam, and the American South, and only months away from spilling out from Dallas and onto the greater American landscape in a way so much less containable than even the radiative effects of a single cataclysmic event. That awareness leaves Matinee with a sorrowful aftertaste that is hard to shake. The movie’s last image, of our two main characters gathered on the beach, greeting helicopters that are flying home from having hovered at the precipice of nuclear destruction, is one of relief for familial unity restored—Gene is, after all, getting his dad back. But it’s also one of foreboding. Dante leaves us with an extreme close-up of a copter looming into frame, absent even the context of the sky, bearing down on us like a real-life mutant creature, an eerie bellwether of political and societal chaos yet to come as a stout companion to the movie’s general air of celebratory remembrance.
***************************************
The “Marquee Movies” series has already seen Matinee (last Friday night), Woody Allen’s The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985) paired with Polish director Wojciech Marczewski’s 1990 Escape from Liberty Island (last Saturday night), and Ettore Scola’s masterful Splendor (1989), which screened last Sunday night.
But there’s plenty more to come. Sunday, June 12, the archive series unveils a double bill of Lloyd Bacon’s Footlight Parade (1933) with the less well-known This Way, Please (1937), a terrific tale of a star-struck movie theater usherette with dreams of singing and dancing just like the stars she idolizes, starring Charles ‘Buddy’ Rogers, Betty Grable, Jim Jordan, Marian Jordan and the brilliantly grizzled Ned Sparks.
Wednesday, June 15, you can see Uruguay’s A Useful Life (2010), in which a movie theater manager in Montevideo faces up the fact that the days of his beloved movie theater are numbered, paired up with Luc Moullet’s droll account of the feud between the French film journals Cahiers du Cinema and Positif, entitled The Seats of the Alcazar (1989).
One of my favorites, Tsai Ming-liang’s haunting Goodbye, Dragon Inn (2003) gets a rare projection at the Wilder on Sunday, June 19, along with Lisandsro Alonzo’s Fantasma (2006), described by the archive as “a hypnotic commentary on cinematic rituals and presence.”
Friday, June 24, you can see, if you dare, Lamberto Bava’s gory meta-horror film Demons (1985) and then stay for Bigas Luna’s similarly twisted treatise on the movies and voyeurism, 1987’s Anguish.
Saturday afternoon, June 25, “Marquee Movies” presents a rare screening of Gregory La Cava’s hilarious slapstick spoof of rural moviegoing, His Nibs (1921), paired up with what I consider, alongside Matinee and Goodbye, Dragon Inn, one of the real jewels of the series, Basil Dearden’s marvelously funny The Smallest Show on Earth (1957), all about what happens when a newlywed couple inherits a rundown cinema populated by a staff of eccentrics that include Margaret Rutherford and Peter Sellers. (More on that one next week.)
And the series concludes on Sunday, June 26, with a screening of the original 174-minute director’s cut of Giuseppe Tornatore’s Cinema Paradiso (1988).
(Each program also features a variety of moviegoing-oriented shorts, trailers and other surprises. Click the individual links for details and show times.)
******************************************
(Next week: My review of The Smallest Show on Earth and a remembrance of my own hometown movie theater, which closed in 2015.)
*******************************************
Later this year Matinee will be released by Universal in the U.S. (details to come) and by Arrow Films in the UK (with a nifty assortment of extras).
- 6/11/2016
- by Dennis Cozzalio
- Trailers from Hell
Criterion's special edition of Stanley Kubrick's doomsday comedy is more powerful than ever in a 4K remaster; and it even comes with a top-secret mission profile package and a partial-contents survival kit. A Kubrick fan can have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff. Dr. Strangelove Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love The Bomb Blu-ray The Criterion Collection 821 1964 / B&W / 1:66 widescreen / 95 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date June 28, 2016 / 39.95 Starring Peter Sellers, George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden, Keenan Wynn, Slim Pickens, Peter Bull, James Earl Jones, Tracy Reed Cinematography Gilbert Taylor Production Designer Ken Adam Art Direction Peter Murton Film Editor Anthony Harvey Original Music Laurie Johnson Written by Stanley Kubrick, Terry Southern, Peter George from his book Red Alert Produced by Stanley Kubrick, Leon Minoff Directed by Stanley Kubrick
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
When I heard that Criterion was putting out a Blu-ray of Dr. Strangelove, Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love The Bomb I thought that there already was a disc out there from The Collection. Nope, Sony released a Blu-ray in 2009, and back around 2000, a DVD. I was thinking of a deluxe laserdisc from Criterion sometime in the early 1990s. I remember being impressed by its extras, which included documentary materials about the Bomb in the Cold War years. Potential new fans of Kubrick's wickedly funny movie are being born every year, which leaves those of us for whom Strangelove was an important part of growing up having to remind ourselves just how good it still is. I remember recording the soundtrack off TV in high school and memorizing all of the dialogue; this has to be the most quotable movie of its decade. I also can remember my father's reaction when we watched it together on network TV, ABC, I think. An Air Force lifer who wouldn't discuss politics (or much of anything), the Old Sarge had little use for 'defeatist' movies like On the Beach. But he thought the premise of Seven Days in May wasn't really farfetched, having worked with Hap Arnold and Curtis LeMay. He shook his head after seeing Dr. Strangelove but I could tell that he found it very funny. It's too bad the two of us couldn't have gotten our senses of humor more in sync -- as soon as I wore my hair long, I think he stopped trusting me. I believe that Dr. Strangelove is one of few movies that 'made a difference' in that it redirected American public opinion about a major life issue. From that point forward only the ignorant and Shoot First fanatics talked about nuclear war as win-able, at least not until the neo-con Millennium. 1963 audiences had little use for suspect 'pacifist' movies that ended in masochistic doom, like On the Beach. The nuclear crisis was such a hot topic that that the low-key English science fiction film The Day the Earth Caught Fire was a surprise hit. Strangelove is more realistic than the straight atom nightmare movies. We're told that when Ronald Reagan was briefed at the start of his first term in office, he asked where the White House elevator to the War Room was. He figured it was there because he saw it in the movie. The decision to opt for broad comedy was Kubrick's inspired stroke. Dr. Strangelove may be the first hit film that was a bona-fide black comedy; I don't recall anybody even using the expression before it came out. It's not a crazy comedy where anything funny is okay. The backbone of the story remains 100% serious, while the jokes relentlessly demolish the death-cult logic of our Nuclear Deterrent. Kubrick and Terry Southern populate Peter George's credible cold-sweat crisis with insane caricatures given ridiculous names. The scary part is that, no matter how stupid they behave, none are really that exaggerated. Peter Sellers serves triple duty in a trio of characterizations, effectively outdoing previous champion film chameleon Alec Guinness. George C. Scott steals the show as an infantile Air Force General who acts like a Looney Tunes cartoon character. And the rest of the inspired cast nails their highly original quasi-comic characters. Every joke is a gallows joke; we're never allowed to forget that we all have an atomic noose around our necks. I almost envy the dead viewers still unfamiliar with Dr. Strangelove, as seeing it for the first time was a mind-opening experience. Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden), the commander of Burpelson Air Force Base, orders a flight of B-52s to attack Russia. He then seals off Burpelson to prevent a recall of the planes. Exchange officer Group Captain Lionel Mandrake (Peter Sellers) tries to talk him into divulging the recall code. Holding court in the War Room, President Merkin Muffley (Peter Sellers) is horrified to discover that such a Snafu is even possible. He orders General Buck Turgidson (George C. Scott) to take Burpelson Air Base by force and recall the planes, and gets on the hotline with the Soviet Premier. Up in the lead B-52, Major 'King' Kong (Slim Pickens) receives Ripper's orders, coded 'Wing Attack Plan R.' He urges his crew to avoid Russian defenses and reach their primary target, while Turgidson tries to talk Muffley into launching an all-out attack. Advising in the War Room is ex-Nazi scientist Dr. Strangelove, a grinning theoretician already fantasizing about the sexual recreation for the ruling elite in the VIP bomb shelters, where America's chosen high officials will be living for the next 93 years. Dr. Strangelove divides its time between three main locations, each with its own deadly serious function and each overlaid with a different comedic tone. In his locked executive office in the Alaskan Air Force Base, the sexually obsessed American General Ripper faces off with a veddy proper English officer in a farcical one-act. Beady-eyed and intense in his anti-Communist convictions, Sterling Hayden contrasts beautifully with Seller's genial Group Captain, who can't fathom the depth of his commanding officer's madness. The action in the B-52 is a throwback to those gung-ho WW2 action films in which a racially and ethnically diverse attack team uses brains and guts to barrel through their suicide mission. Even though their pilot is a cowboy clown (Slim Pickens doing his only characterization, Slim Pickens) they're an admirable bunch, seemingly the only humans capable of doing anything without red tape or Coca-Cola machines getting in their way. The horror is that our heroes' mission is totally against every moral precept ever imagined. The docu feeling in the B-52 is further amplified by the gritty newsreel-like footage of the taking of Burpelson Afb, with American troops fighting American troops. In 1964 these were traumatic, subversive scenes. U.S. troops on film are supposed to fight for freedom and righteousness, not kill each other. Kubrick has the audacity to place in the middle of it all a big sign that reads, 'Peace is our Profession.' The grainy authenticity of these scenes would come back to haunt us when similar footage started being seen nightly on television, fresh from Vietnam. The center of activities is the War Room, a Camelot-like round table of Death located in the basement of the White House. The rational President Merkin Muffley trips over an ideological roadblock in the form of Buck Turgidson, a gum-chewing military nutcase itching to go to war and overjoyed that Jack Ripper has 'exceeded his authority.' The President is hardly in charge of foreign policy, and none of fifty advisors come to his aid with any original thinking. An amateur among experts, Muffley must be shepherded through protocol by an assistant. Here's where Southern and Kubrick make their biggest points, basically asserting that a showdown with the Russkies is inevitable because the American stance is a military one -- Sac just wants the peacenik in the Oval Office to get out of their way. The comedy is all over the place, and it's a miracle that it works. The stand-up humor on the hot line to Moscow is very much like a Bob Newhart routine. At Burpelson, it's the Goon Show all over again. Sellers' Mandrake cannot sway General Ripper, and the moronic Major Bat Guano (Keenan Wynn) suspects the Raf officer of being a 'deviated prevert.' Up in the bomber, Mad Magazine craziness is grafted onto combat realism. Previous looks at the Air Force's flying deterrent were enlistment booster films like Strategic Air Command. Kubrick drove his English craftsmen to fake the entire bomber interior right down to the switches and gauges. The aerial combat is more realistic than that in escapist films, even with inadequate models used for exteriors of the jet bomber in flight. Dr. Strangelove maintains a nervous tension between absurd comedy and morbid unease. Kubrick's main career themes -- sexual madness, treacherous technology and the folly of human planning -- come into strong relief. We're motivated to root for the fliers that are going to destroy the world. Then we fret over the President's pitiful lack of control. Dour, glowering Russian Ambassador De Sadesky (Peter Bull) informs the War Room about his country's solution to the costly Arms Race, the dreaded Doomsday Machine. Security advisor Dr. Strangelove enters the film in the last act to serve as sort of an angel of Death. Based loosely on Rand-corporation experts that calculated eventualities in nuclear war scenarios, Sellers' vision of Strangelove is a throwback to German Expressionism. A Mabuse in a wheelchair, he's black-gloved like the brilliant but mad Rotwang of Metropolis. Strangelove enters like the specter of Death itself; his grin looks like a skull. Contemplating 'megadeaths' gives him sexual pleasure. The detonation of the first bomb seems to liberate Strangelove, and he finds he can walk again. The character is straight from the Siegfried Kracauer playbook. The evil of nuclear war has restored the representative of apocalyptic Nazi vengeance to full power. Twenty years after his death, we all get to join Hitler in his suicide bunker. First-time viewers are usually floored by the audacious Dr. Strangelove. Only the truly uninformed will not recognize baritone James Earl Jones as one of Major Kong's flight crew. Those going back for a repeated peek will derive added enjoyment from Kubrick's deft juggling of his several visual styles and his avoidance of anything that might deflate tension: we hear about the recall code being issued but are spared any view of the responsible military personnel that must have sent it. Some of the best fun is finding details in designer Ken Adam's impressive War Room, such as the pies already laid out in preparation for the aborted pie-fight finale. Even better is watching the War room extras as they strain to maintain straight faces no matter how funny Sellers and Scott get; that contrast is what makes the comedy so brilliant. Watch Peter Bull carefully. In one extended take he starts to smile at Sellers, more than once. He catches himself and then is clearly on the verge of cracking up, forcing Kubrick to cut away. The Criterion Collection's Blu-ray of Dr. Strangelove, Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb is the expected sterling transfer of this Kubrick classic, a 4K digital transfer. I put it up against Sony's old Blu-ray and the difference is not so great as to recommend that a trade-up is necessary. However, it looks extremely good. The Kubrick faithful out there will be thinking, 'I must not allow a disc shelf gap.' The HD picture makes quite a bit of difference in understanding Kubrick's photographic strategy. Not only do the hand-held Burpelson combat sequences approximate the look of documentary footage, a more contrasty and grainy film stock has been used. Switching "film looks" later became a fad for directors looking to be viewed as artists. The idea perhaps reached its zenith in Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers. Back in 1964 the effect of imitating a news film look was quite stunning -- audiences reacted to the combat scenes as if they were real. I'm glad that we're finally beyond the frustrating early DVD years, when someone (at Warner Home Video?) claimed that Stanley Kubrick insisted that his films be shown at the old 1:33 aspect ratio for TV and disc. Even if they wangled a note from Kubrick to that effect, I still believe that the aspect ratio games were played because Kubrick was too busy to oversee new masters of his films, and Whv wanted to market them in a hurry at a minimum of cost. That's all old news now, but there was also the interesting aspect ratio question concerning Strangelove. At least one disc iteration -- Criterion's laserdisc, I'm fairly sure -- was released in a completely un-original dual-ratio scan. Kubrick apparently said that he preferred to see the War Room scenes at a full-frame 1:37, and so this one transfer of the film popped back and forth between ratios. I've never heard of anything like this before or after. Criterion's British 1:66 framing for this disc is correct, even though the film was probably screened at 1:85 for many of its American play dates. Criterion's new extras begin with interview featurettes with well-chosen spokespeople, like scholars Mick Broderick and Rodney Hill. Kubrick archivist Richard Daniels' piece is quite good, as is an examination of the film's visuals by two of the original camera crew. The son of author Peter George gives an excellent account of his father's life and the adaptation of his novel Red Alert. George reportedly liked the notion of turning his story into a black comedy, especially when his original narrative was changed very little. The stroke of genius was deciding that the entire subject could best be approached as a sick joke. Other extras are repeated from Sony's DVD disc of 2004. A making-of docu interviews several surviving technicians and actors, and a primer on the Cold War atom standoff goes deep into detail. The featurettes have input from Robert McNamara, Spike Lee and Bob Woodward. Critics Roger Ebert and Alexander Walker are also represented. Docu pieces on Peter Sellers and Kubrick appear to suffer from legal restraints disallowing the use of clips from non-Columbia sources. The Peter Sellers show features several choice film clips from the 'fifties, including Sellers' almost perfect take on a William Conrad-like hired killer. We're shown some stills from the legendary The Goon Show, which is not mentioned by name. A Stanley Kubrick career piece that uses UA, MGM and Universal trailers covers a lot of territory a bit too quickly. It does have some nice interview input from Kubrick's partner James B. Harris. Harris has since given terrific interviews on Criterion discs for Kubrick's The Killing and Paths of Glory. Criterion's Curtis Tsui produced those discs as well as this one. An entertaining extra is a pair of vintage 'split screen' fake interviews with Sellers and Scott intended for publicity use. Each actor projects his chosen PR image. They're charming, especially when Sellers takes us on a lightning tour of regional English accents. I wonder if those distinctions have faded, 52 years later? As a pleasant surprise, Curtis Tsui has overseen the creation of a collectable, highly amusing substitute for a standard disc insert booklet. Inside an authentic-looking 'Wing Attack Plan R' envelope, David Bromwich's insert essay is printed in the form of classified orders on two sheets of loose-leaf paper. Terry Southern's hilariously profane 1994 essay on the movie comes in the form of a Playboy parody, illustrated with photos of Tracy Reed as 'Miss Foreign Affairs.' Finally, the disc credits and details are printed in a genuine miniature Russian Phrase Book and Holy Bible, a little bigger than one-inch square. It indeed offers some phrases that I'll have to try on my multi-lingual daughter, like "Where is the toilet?" But the cover Lies, as there's no Bible in there that I could find. Also, no nine packs of chewing gum and no issue of prophylactics. On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor, Dr. Strangelove Blu-ray rates: Movie: Excellent Video: Excellent Sound: Excellent uncompressed monaural + alternate 5.1 surround soundtrack, presented in DTS-hd Master Audio Supplements: (from Criterion stats): New interviews with Stanley Kubrick scholars Mick Broderick and Rodney Hill; archivist Richard Daniels; cinematographer and camera innovator Joe Dunton; camera operator Kelvin Pike; and David George, son of Peter George, on whose novel Red Alert the film is based. Excerpts from a 1966 audio interview with Kubrick, conducted by physicist and author Jeremy Bernstein; Four short documentaries about the making of the film, the sociopolitical climate of the period, the work of actor Peter Sellers, and the artistry of Kubrick. Promotional interviews from 1963 with Sellers and actor George C. Scott; excerpt from a 1980 interview with Sellers from NBC's Today show; Trailers; insert essay by scholar David Bromwich and a 1994 article by screenwriter Terry Southern on the making of the film. Deaf and Hearing-impaired Friendly? Yes; Subtitles: English Packaging: Keep case Reviewed: June 7, 2016 (5136love)
Visit DVD Savant's Main Column Page Glenn Erickson answers most reader mail: dvdsavant@mindspring.com
Text © Copyright 2016 Glenn Erickson...
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
When I heard that Criterion was putting out a Blu-ray of Dr. Strangelove, Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love The Bomb I thought that there already was a disc out there from The Collection. Nope, Sony released a Blu-ray in 2009, and back around 2000, a DVD. I was thinking of a deluxe laserdisc from Criterion sometime in the early 1990s. I remember being impressed by its extras, which included documentary materials about the Bomb in the Cold War years. Potential new fans of Kubrick's wickedly funny movie are being born every year, which leaves those of us for whom Strangelove was an important part of growing up having to remind ourselves just how good it still is. I remember recording the soundtrack off TV in high school and memorizing all of the dialogue; this has to be the most quotable movie of its decade. I also can remember my father's reaction when we watched it together on network TV, ABC, I think. An Air Force lifer who wouldn't discuss politics (or much of anything), the Old Sarge had little use for 'defeatist' movies like On the Beach. But he thought the premise of Seven Days in May wasn't really farfetched, having worked with Hap Arnold and Curtis LeMay. He shook his head after seeing Dr. Strangelove but I could tell that he found it very funny. It's too bad the two of us couldn't have gotten our senses of humor more in sync -- as soon as I wore my hair long, I think he stopped trusting me. I believe that Dr. Strangelove is one of few movies that 'made a difference' in that it redirected American public opinion about a major life issue. From that point forward only the ignorant and Shoot First fanatics talked about nuclear war as win-able, at least not until the neo-con Millennium. 1963 audiences had little use for suspect 'pacifist' movies that ended in masochistic doom, like On the Beach. The nuclear crisis was such a hot topic that that the low-key English science fiction film The Day the Earth Caught Fire was a surprise hit. Strangelove is more realistic than the straight atom nightmare movies. We're told that when Ronald Reagan was briefed at the start of his first term in office, he asked where the White House elevator to the War Room was. He figured it was there because he saw it in the movie. The decision to opt for broad comedy was Kubrick's inspired stroke. Dr. Strangelove may be the first hit film that was a bona-fide black comedy; I don't recall anybody even using the expression before it came out. It's not a crazy comedy where anything funny is okay. The backbone of the story remains 100% serious, while the jokes relentlessly demolish the death-cult logic of our Nuclear Deterrent. Kubrick and Terry Southern populate Peter George's credible cold-sweat crisis with insane caricatures given ridiculous names. The scary part is that, no matter how stupid they behave, none are really that exaggerated. Peter Sellers serves triple duty in a trio of characterizations, effectively outdoing previous champion film chameleon Alec Guinness. George C. Scott steals the show as an infantile Air Force General who acts like a Looney Tunes cartoon character. And the rest of the inspired cast nails their highly original quasi-comic characters. Every joke is a gallows joke; we're never allowed to forget that we all have an atomic noose around our necks. I almost envy the dead viewers still unfamiliar with Dr. Strangelove, as seeing it for the first time was a mind-opening experience. Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden), the commander of Burpelson Air Force Base, orders a flight of B-52s to attack Russia. He then seals off Burpelson to prevent a recall of the planes. Exchange officer Group Captain Lionel Mandrake (Peter Sellers) tries to talk him into divulging the recall code. Holding court in the War Room, President Merkin Muffley (Peter Sellers) is horrified to discover that such a Snafu is even possible. He orders General Buck Turgidson (George C. Scott) to take Burpelson Air Base by force and recall the planes, and gets on the hotline with the Soviet Premier. Up in the lead B-52, Major 'King' Kong (Slim Pickens) receives Ripper's orders, coded 'Wing Attack Plan R.' He urges his crew to avoid Russian defenses and reach their primary target, while Turgidson tries to talk Muffley into launching an all-out attack. Advising in the War Room is ex-Nazi scientist Dr. Strangelove, a grinning theoretician already fantasizing about the sexual recreation for the ruling elite in the VIP bomb shelters, where America's chosen high officials will be living for the next 93 years. Dr. Strangelove divides its time between three main locations, each with its own deadly serious function and each overlaid with a different comedic tone. In his locked executive office in the Alaskan Air Force Base, the sexually obsessed American General Ripper faces off with a veddy proper English officer in a farcical one-act. Beady-eyed and intense in his anti-Communist convictions, Sterling Hayden contrasts beautifully with Seller's genial Group Captain, who can't fathom the depth of his commanding officer's madness. The action in the B-52 is a throwback to those gung-ho WW2 action films in which a racially and ethnically diverse attack team uses brains and guts to barrel through their suicide mission. Even though their pilot is a cowboy clown (Slim Pickens doing his only characterization, Slim Pickens) they're an admirable bunch, seemingly the only humans capable of doing anything without red tape or Coca-Cola machines getting in their way. The horror is that our heroes' mission is totally against every moral precept ever imagined. The docu feeling in the B-52 is further amplified by the gritty newsreel-like footage of the taking of Burpelson Afb, with American troops fighting American troops. In 1964 these were traumatic, subversive scenes. U.S. troops on film are supposed to fight for freedom and righteousness, not kill each other. Kubrick has the audacity to place in the middle of it all a big sign that reads, 'Peace is our Profession.' The grainy authenticity of these scenes would come back to haunt us when similar footage started being seen nightly on television, fresh from Vietnam. The center of activities is the War Room, a Camelot-like round table of Death located in the basement of the White House. The rational President Merkin Muffley trips over an ideological roadblock in the form of Buck Turgidson, a gum-chewing military nutcase itching to go to war and overjoyed that Jack Ripper has 'exceeded his authority.' The President is hardly in charge of foreign policy, and none of fifty advisors come to his aid with any original thinking. An amateur among experts, Muffley must be shepherded through protocol by an assistant. Here's where Southern and Kubrick make their biggest points, basically asserting that a showdown with the Russkies is inevitable because the American stance is a military one -- Sac just wants the peacenik in the Oval Office to get out of their way. The comedy is all over the place, and it's a miracle that it works. The stand-up humor on the hot line to Moscow is very much like a Bob Newhart routine. At Burpelson, it's the Goon Show all over again. Sellers' Mandrake cannot sway General Ripper, and the moronic Major Bat Guano (Keenan Wynn) suspects the Raf officer of being a 'deviated prevert.' Up in the bomber, Mad Magazine craziness is grafted onto combat realism. Previous looks at the Air Force's flying deterrent were enlistment booster films like Strategic Air Command. Kubrick drove his English craftsmen to fake the entire bomber interior right down to the switches and gauges. The aerial combat is more realistic than that in escapist films, even with inadequate models used for exteriors of the jet bomber in flight. Dr. Strangelove maintains a nervous tension between absurd comedy and morbid unease. Kubrick's main career themes -- sexual madness, treacherous technology and the folly of human planning -- come into strong relief. We're motivated to root for the fliers that are going to destroy the world. Then we fret over the President's pitiful lack of control. Dour, glowering Russian Ambassador De Sadesky (Peter Bull) informs the War Room about his country's solution to the costly Arms Race, the dreaded Doomsday Machine. Security advisor Dr. Strangelove enters the film in the last act to serve as sort of an angel of Death. Based loosely on Rand-corporation experts that calculated eventualities in nuclear war scenarios, Sellers' vision of Strangelove is a throwback to German Expressionism. A Mabuse in a wheelchair, he's black-gloved like the brilliant but mad Rotwang of Metropolis. Strangelove enters like the specter of Death itself; his grin looks like a skull. Contemplating 'megadeaths' gives him sexual pleasure. The detonation of the first bomb seems to liberate Strangelove, and he finds he can walk again. The character is straight from the Siegfried Kracauer playbook. The evil of nuclear war has restored the representative of apocalyptic Nazi vengeance to full power. Twenty years after his death, we all get to join Hitler in his suicide bunker. First-time viewers are usually floored by the audacious Dr. Strangelove. Only the truly uninformed will not recognize baritone James Earl Jones as one of Major Kong's flight crew. Those going back for a repeated peek will derive added enjoyment from Kubrick's deft juggling of his several visual styles and his avoidance of anything that might deflate tension: we hear about the recall code being issued but are spared any view of the responsible military personnel that must have sent it. Some of the best fun is finding details in designer Ken Adam's impressive War Room, such as the pies already laid out in preparation for the aborted pie-fight finale. Even better is watching the War room extras as they strain to maintain straight faces no matter how funny Sellers and Scott get; that contrast is what makes the comedy so brilliant. Watch Peter Bull carefully. In one extended take he starts to smile at Sellers, more than once. He catches himself and then is clearly on the verge of cracking up, forcing Kubrick to cut away. The Criterion Collection's Blu-ray of Dr. Strangelove, Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb is the expected sterling transfer of this Kubrick classic, a 4K digital transfer. I put it up against Sony's old Blu-ray and the difference is not so great as to recommend that a trade-up is necessary. However, it looks extremely good. The Kubrick faithful out there will be thinking, 'I must not allow a disc shelf gap.' The HD picture makes quite a bit of difference in understanding Kubrick's photographic strategy. Not only do the hand-held Burpelson combat sequences approximate the look of documentary footage, a more contrasty and grainy film stock has been used. Switching "film looks" later became a fad for directors looking to be viewed as artists. The idea perhaps reached its zenith in Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers. Back in 1964 the effect of imitating a news film look was quite stunning -- audiences reacted to the combat scenes as if they were real. I'm glad that we're finally beyond the frustrating early DVD years, when someone (at Warner Home Video?) claimed that Stanley Kubrick insisted that his films be shown at the old 1:33 aspect ratio for TV and disc. Even if they wangled a note from Kubrick to that effect, I still believe that the aspect ratio games were played because Kubrick was too busy to oversee new masters of his films, and Whv wanted to market them in a hurry at a minimum of cost. That's all old news now, but there was also the interesting aspect ratio question concerning Strangelove. At least one disc iteration -- Criterion's laserdisc, I'm fairly sure -- was released in a completely un-original dual-ratio scan. Kubrick apparently said that he preferred to see the War Room scenes at a full-frame 1:37, and so this one transfer of the film popped back and forth between ratios. I've never heard of anything like this before or after. Criterion's British 1:66 framing for this disc is correct, even though the film was probably screened at 1:85 for many of its American play dates. Criterion's new extras begin with interview featurettes with well-chosen spokespeople, like scholars Mick Broderick and Rodney Hill. Kubrick archivist Richard Daniels' piece is quite good, as is an examination of the film's visuals by two of the original camera crew. The son of author Peter George gives an excellent account of his father's life and the adaptation of his novel Red Alert. George reportedly liked the notion of turning his story into a black comedy, especially when his original narrative was changed very little. The stroke of genius was deciding that the entire subject could best be approached as a sick joke. Other extras are repeated from Sony's DVD disc of 2004. A making-of docu interviews several surviving technicians and actors, and a primer on the Cold War atom standoff goes deep into detail. The featurettes have input from Robert McNamara, Spike Lee and Bob Woodward. Critics Roger Ebert and Alexander Walker are also represented. Docu pieces on Peter Sellers and Kubrick appear to suffer from legal restraints disallowing the use of clips from non-Columbia sources. The Peter Sellers show features several choice film clips from the 'fifties, including Sellers' almost perfect take on a William Conrad-like hired killer. We're shown some stills from the legendary The Goon Show, which is not mentioned by name. A Stanley Kubrick career piece that uses UA, MGM and Universal trailers covers a lot of territory a bit too quickly. It does have some nice interview input from Kubrick's partner James B. Harris. Harris has since given terrific interviews on Criterion discs for Kubrick's The Killing and Paths of Glory. Criterion's Curtis Tsui produced those discs as well as this one. An entertaining extra is a pair of vintage 'split screen' fake interviews with Sellers and Scott intended for publicity use. Each actor projects his chosen PR image. They're charming, especially when Sellers takes us on a lightning tour of regional English accents. I wonder if those distinctions have faded, 52 years later? As a pleasant surprise, Curtis Tsui has overseen the creation of a collectable, highly amusing substitute for a standard disc insert booklet. Inside an authentic-looking 'Wing Attack Plan R' envelope, David Bromwich's insert essay is printed in the form of classified orders on two sheets of loose-leaf paper. Terry Southern's hilariously profane 1994 essay on the movie comes in the form of a Playboy parody, illustrated with photos of Tracy Reed as 'Miss Foreign Affairs.' Finally, the disc credits and details are printed in a genuine miniature Russian Phrase Book and Holy Bible, a little bigger than one-inch square. It indeed offers some phrases that I'll have to try on my multi-lingual daughter, like "Where is the toilet?" But the cover Lies, as there's no Bible in there that I could find. Also, no nine packs of chewing gum and no issue of prophylactics. On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor, Dr. Strangelove Blu-ray rates: Movie: Excellent Video: Excellent Sound: Excellent uncompressed monaural + alternate 5.1 surround soundtrack, presented in DTS-hd Master Audio Supplements: (from Criterion stats): New interviews with Stanley Kubrick scholars Mick Broderick and Rodney Hill; archivist Richard Daniels; cinematographer and camera innovator Joe Dunton; camera operator Kelvin Pike; and David George, son of Peter George, on whose novel Red Alert the film is based. Excerpts from a 1966 audio interview with Kubrick, conducted by physicist and author Jeremy Bernstein; Four short documentaries about the making of the film, the sociopolitical climate of the period, the work of actor Peter Sellers, and the artistry of Kubrick. Promotional interviews from 1963 with Sellers and actor George C. Scott; excerpt from a 1980 interview with Sellers from NBC's Today show; Trailers; insert essay by scholar David Bromwich and a 1994 article by screenwriter Terry Southern on the making of the film. Deaf and Hearing-impaired Friendly? Yes; Subtitles: English Packaging: Keep case Reviewed: June 7, 2016 (5136love)
Visit DVD Savant's Main Column Page Glenn Erickson answers most reader mail: dvdsavant@mindspring.com
Text © Copyright 2016 Glenn Erickson...
- 6/11/2016
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
More than 14 years later and the war in Afghanistan is still going on. President Obama declared the end of U.S. military combat operations in Afghanistan in December of 2014, but 9,800 American troops and 3,200 Nato troops remain there to prop up the ineffectual Afghan Army as the longest war in U.S. history unofficially continues. The war is so far from over, in fact, that just last week, the United Nations reported that there were 7,457 civilian casualties in Afghanistan in 2015, a record high for this war. Despite these alarming statistics, media ink and airtime dedicated to the daily situation on the ground there is sparse, which seems just fine by the war-weary public, so much so that the Korean War may no longer lay the strongest claim to the title of Forgotten War.
The understated, fictional A War, written and directed by Danish filmmaker Tobias Lindholm, best known for gritty dramas...
The understated, fictional A War, written and directed by Danish filmmaker Tobias Lindholm, best known for gritty dramas...
- 2/24/2016
- by Eric M. Armstrong
- The Moving Arts Journal
Still doing it his way: Sayles today.
By Mark Cerulli
The interview was set for 10:30 Am. Usually they run a few minutes late as the celebrity works his way through a call list. When the moment arrives an assistant handles the intros. Not this time. At precisely 10:30:00, the phone rang and iconic Indie filmmaker John Sayles introduced himself. And why not? A no-nonsense, get- it -done type of auteur, Sayles handles his own publicity calls and was keen to discuss his remarkable and varied career in advance of a weekend retrospective at La’s Cinefamily February 18 - 20.
Sayles broke into the business, like so many before him, by working with genre legend Roger Corman who figuratively and literally wrote the book on low budget filmmaking. “I got very lucky, didn’t realize it at the time, “Sayles recalls. “I wrote three screenplays (Piranha, The Lady in Red...
By Mark Cerulli
The interview was set for 10:30 Am. Usually they run a few minutes late as the celebrity works his way through a call list. When the moment arrives an assistant handles the intros. Not this time. At precisely 10:30:00, the phone rang and iconic Indie filmmaker John Sayles introduced himself. And why not? A no-nonsense, get- it -done type of auteur, Sayles handles his own publicity calls and was keen to discuss his remarkable and varied career in advance of a weekend retrospective at La’s Cinefamily February 18 - 20.
Sayles broke into the business, like so many before him, by working with genre legend Roger Corman who figuratively and literally wrote the book on low budget filmmaking. “I got very lucky, didn’t realize it at the time, “Sayles recalls. “I wrote three screenplays (Piranha, The Lady in Red...
- 2/18/2016
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
Hit Australian musical drama "The Sapphires" is being turned into a twenty-six part animated series by Goalpost Pictures, Sticky Pictures, ABC and Screen Nsw.
The Wayne Blair-directed film, an adaptation of a musical stage play by Tony Briggs, followed four Aboriginal girls from an Outback town who who went to Vietnam to entertain American troops fighting in the Vietnam War.
Premiering at Cannes in 2012, the film went on to collect 12 Aacta awards and became a box-office success domestically. Tony Briggs and Keith Thompson return as writers for the TV series which will be lighter and aimed at kids and family audiences as it follows the girls through musical misadventures in a small Australian town.
Source: Variety...
The Wayne Blair-directed film, an adaptation of a musical stage play by Tony Briggs, followed four Aboriginal girls from an Outback town who who went to Vietnam to entertain American troops fighting in the Vietnam War.
Premiering at Cannes in 2012, the film went on to collect 12 Aacta awards and became a box-office success domestically. Tony Briggs and Keith Thompson return as writers for the TV series which will be lighter and aimed at kids and family audiences as it follows the girls through musical misadventures in a small Australian town.
Source: Variety...
- 2/3/2016
- by Garth Franklin
- Dark Horizons
Performance and recreation have a greater presence in documentaries at this year’s Sundance than in many past. Pieter-Jan De Pue‘s The Land of the Enlightened, like A Flag Without a Country in particular, foregoes making its subjects talk about their lives in favor of turning them into re-enactors of themselves. Shot over the course of seven years in Afghanistan, this film uses unreality to protect its own integrity while still making immediate some glimpses of reality’s horrors. This is mainly about children in harrowing situations who are often doing extraordinarily dangerous things. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to actually film them in action without being hideously exploitative — which is not even to mention how hazardous it would be for the crew. Instead, the filmmakers help the children “put on a show” of sorts about their daily lives.
In the midst of the then-ongoing American occupation of Afghanistan,...
In the midst of the then-ongoing American occupation of Afghanistan,...
- 1/25/2016
- by Daniel Schindel
- The Film Stage
Something Better Better Come: Afghan Kids Reign Supreme
In the opening sequence of The Land of the Enlightened following a radio broadcast from President Obama that announces that American troops would soon be pulling out of Afghanistan, first time filmmaker Pieter-Jan De Pue‘s alluring vérité depiction of Afghanistan’s bleak future, makes no bones about the country’s seemingly cursed existence, plotting out the cycle of Afghan misfortune via voiceover of holy legend and images mythical landscapes. “I made a mistake,” he (god) said. “I don’t have any land left for you.” With stunning 16mm cinematography, an empathetic eye, and a great deal of courage, De Pue digs into this lawless desert world, following a renegade band of armed children as they raid weary travelers and trade the opium and lapis lazuli they take as bounty, forging in the end a futureless portrait in which morals are discarded in the name of survival.
In the opening sequence of The Land of the Enlightened following a radio broadcast from President Obama that announces that American troops would soon be pulling out of Afghanistan, first time filmmaker Pieter-Jan De Pue‘s alluring vérité depiction of Afghanistan’s bleak future, makes no bones about the country’s seemingly cursed existence, plotting out the cycle of Afghan misfortune via voiceover of holy legend and images mythical landscapes. “I made a mistake,” he (god) said. “I don’t have any land left for you.” With stunning 16mm cinematography, an empathetic eye, and a great deal of courage, De Pue digs into this lawless desert world, following a renegade band of armed children as they raid weary travelers and trade the opium and lapis lazuli they take as bounty, forging in the end a futureless portrait in which morals are discarded in the name of survival.
- 1/25/2016
- by Jordan M. Smith
- IONCINEMA.com
A new year means an opportunity to reflect on the past. This is our list of the 100 best films of the last 15 years, Part 1 #100 through 76.
The first decade and a half of the 21st century has brought a lot of changes to the landscape of film. The advancement and sophistication of computers has made realistic computer generated effects a mainstay in both big-budget and small-budget films. The internet and streaming technologies have given big Hollywood new competition in films produced independently and by non-traditional means. We went from purchasing films on yards of tape to plastic disks, and now we can simply upload them to the cloud. Advertisements for films have reached a higher, more ruthless level where generating hype through trailers and teasers is crucial for a film’s commercial success. Movie attendance has fluctuated along with the economy, but that hasn’t stopped films from breaking box office records,...
The first decade and a half of the 21st century has brought a lot of changes to the landscape of film. The advancement and sophistication of computers has made realistic computer generated effects a mainstay in both big-budget and small-budget films. The internet and streaming technologies have given big Hollywood new competition in films produced independently and by non-traditional means. We went from purchasing films on yards of tape to plastic disks, and now we can simply upload them to the cloud. Advertisements for films have reached a higher, more ruthless level where generating hype through trailers and teasers is crucial for a film’s commercial success. Movie attendance has fluctuated along with the economy, but that hasn’t stopped films from breaking box office records,...
- 1/6/2016
- by feeds@cinelinx.com (G.S. Perno)
- Cinelinx
Twitter.com/GetUpMike
According to some posts that surfaced on social media, several WWE talents made a surprise trip to Afghanistan on Thursday to visit with United States military personnel during the holiday season.
A post by Mike Gilbert, a Bee with the U.S. Air Force according to his Twitter page, shows a few of America’s finest alongside Vince McMahon, The Big Show, Alicia Fox, and R-Truth.
Check me out with @VinceMcMahon and the #WWE wrestlers in Afghan last night @JoeyStyles @TripleH @StephMcMahon pic.twitter.com/IY3Tlo7ETc
— Mike Gilbert (@GetUpMike) December 19, 2015
The visit was completely unannounced, though likely taped by a production crew for inclusion in next week’s Tribute To The Troops show, which airs on Wednesday, December 23rd.
Not to be outdone, Vince McMahon himself also showed off his trip to Afghanistan with a post on his official Twitter page.
Thumbs up for our troops :) pic.
According to some posts that surfaced on social media, several WWE talents made a surprise trip to Afghanistan on Thursday to visit with United States military personnel during the holiday season.
A post by Mike Gilbert, a Bee with the U.S. Air Force according to his Twitter page, shows a few of America’s finest alongside Vince McMahon, The Big Show, Alicia Fox, and R-Truth.
Check me out with @VinceMcMahon and the #WWE wrestlers in Afghan last night @JoeyStyles @TripleH @StephMcMahon pic.twitter.com/IY3Tlo7ETc
— Mike Gilbert (@GetUpMike) December 19, 2015
The visit was completely unannounced, though likely taped by a production crew for inclusion in next week’s Tribute To The Troops show, which airs on Wednesday, December 23rd.
Not to be outdone, Vince McMahon himself also showed off his trip to Afghanistan with a post on his official Twitter page.
Thumbs up for our troops :) pic.
- 12/19/2015
- by Ryan Droste
- Obsessed with Film
MPRNews.org / HuffingtonPost.com
There has been some talk making the rounds of late pertaining to Jesse Ventura returning to politics. However, the question always comes up as to who the longtime independent would align himself with in today’s very divided two party system in the United States.
Ventura, the former Governor of Minnesota, had previously mentioned that Donald Trump was a candidate that interested him. Ventura has known the current candidate for the Republican nomination for over 25 years, going back to the days of Trump hosting WrestleMania IV and V at his hotel and casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
However, in a new interview with the New York Daily News, it sounds like a different figure has garnered Ventura’s interest: Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.
In regards to the current Vermont senator (Sanders), Ventura told the NY Daily news, “Would I run with Bernie? Sure, I’d give him consideration.
There has been some talk making the rounds of late pertaining to Jesse Ventura returning to politics. However, the question always comes up as to who the longtime independent would align himself with in today’s very divided two party system in the United States.
Ventura, the former Governor of Minnesota, had previously mentioned that Donald Trump was a candidate that interested him. Ventura has known the current candidate for the Republican nomination for over 25 years, going back to the days of Trump hosting WrestleMania IV and V at his hotel and casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
However, in a new interview with the New York Daily News, it sounds like a different figure has garnered Ventura’s interest: Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.
In regards to the current Vermont senator (Sanders), Ventura told the NY Daily news, “Would I run with Bernie? Sure, I’d give him consideration.
- 9/28/2015
- by Ryan Droste
- Obsessed with Film
Bruce Beresford says that by 1980 most Australians had forgotten that their countrymen had fought in the Boer War, and this scathing condemnation of England's scapegoating of commonwealth volunteers had a big impact. Stars Edward Woodward, Jack Thompson and Bryan Brown front a protest from the past, in one of the most respected Aussie Renaissance features of the late '70s. 'Breaker' Morant Blu-ray The Criterion Collection 773 1980 / Color / 1:78 anamorphic widescreen / 107 min. / Street Date September 22, 2015 / 39.95 Starring Edward Woodward, Jack Thompson, John Waters, Bryan Brown, Lewis Fitz-Gerald Cinematography Don McAlpine Production Design David Copping Film Editor William S. Anderson <Written by Bruce Beresford, Jonathan Hardy, David Stevens from a play by Kenneth Ross Produced by Matt Carroll Directed by Bruce Beresford
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Bruce Beresford's 'Breaker' Morant is one of the stronger entries in the late '70s -- early '80s upsurge of quality movies from Australia and New Zealand.
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Bruce Beresford's 'Breaker' Morant is one of the stronger entries in the late '70s -- early '80s upsurge of quality movies from Australia and New Zealand.
- 9/15/2015
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Part I. A Filmmaker’s Apotheosis
April 20th, 1938 marked Adolf Hitler’s 49th birthday. In the past five years, he’d rebuilt Germany from destitute anarchy into a burgeoning war machine, repudiated the Versailles Treaty and, that March, incorporated Austria into his Thousand-Year Reich. In Nazi Germany, fantasy co-mingled with ideology, expressing an obsession with Germany’s mythical past through propaganda and art. Fittingly, Hitler celebrated at the Ufa-Palast am Zoo in Berlin, Germany’s most prestigious cinema.
There, Nazi officials and foreign diplomats joined dignitaries of German kultur. Present were Wilhelm Furtwangler, conductor of Berlin’s Philharmonic Orchestra; Albert Speer, Hitler’s architect and confidante; actor Gustaf Grundgens, transformed from Brechtian Bolshevik to director of Prussia’s State Theater; and movie star Emil Jannings, Oscar-winner of The Lost Command and The Blue Angel, now an Artist of the State. Also Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, who nationalized German cinema in...
April 20th, 1938 marked Adolf Hitler’s 49th birthday. In the past five years, he’d rebuilt Germany from destitute anarchy into a burgeoning war machine, repudiated the Versailles Treaty and, that March, incorporated Austria into his Thousand-Year Reich. In Nazi Germany, fantasy co-mingled with ideology, expressing an obsession with Germany’s mythical past through propaganda and art. Fittingly, Hitler celebrated at the Ufa-Palast am Zoo in Berlin, Germany’s most prestigious cinema.
There, Nazi officials and foreign diplomats joined dignitaries of German kultur. Present were Wilhelm Furtwangler, conductor of Berlin’s Philharmonic Orchestra; Albert Speer, Hitler’s architect and confidante; actor Gustaf Grundgens, transformed from Brechtian Bolshevik to director of Prussia’s State Theater; and movie star Emil Jannings, Oscar-winner of The Lost Command and The Blue Angel, now an Artist of the State. Also Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, who nationalized German cinema in...
- 7/8/2015
- by Christopher Saunders
- SoundOnSight
After American Sniper was the biggest box office draw of 2014, it seems anyone will pay to see Bradley Cooper in uniform again. Deadline reports Cooper is set to produce Ghost Army, a World War II story about an agency tasked with feeding the Nazis fake intelligence about the actual number of American troops, with the hope that Cooper will star. Cooper, Todd Phillips, and Andrew Lazar are producing a script by Henry Gayden (Earth to Echo), working from a non-fiction book entitled The Ghost Army of World War II and a 2013 documentary also titled Ghost Army.
Not even a year after Tom Wilkinson portrayed Lyndon B. Johnson in Selma, Woody Harrelson will now portray our former president in Rob Reiner’s political drama simply titled Lbj. Via Variety, production will begin in the fall on a film about the life of Johnson up through his childhood and how he was...
Not even a year after Tom Wilkinson portrayed Lyndon B. Johnson in Selma, Woody Harrelson will now portray our former president in Rob Reiner’s political drama simply titled Lbj. Via Variety, production will begin in the fall on a film about the life of Johnson up through his childhood and how he was...
- 6/19/2015
- by Brian Welk
- SoundOnSight
With Monsters: Dark Continent out in UK cinemas this weekend, director Tom Green talks to us about filming in the desert, Misfits and more.
In 2010, British director Gareth Edwards made a huge splash with his feature debut Monsters, a road trip drama with giant monsters stalking around in the background. It was an atmospheric movie that made ingenious use of its low budget; Monsters' success led to Edwards departing for Hollywood, where coveted franchises like Godzilla and Star Wars awaited.
Five years later, and director Tom Green brings us Monsters: Dark Continent, an entirely new story set in the same world as the first movie. A decade after a Nasa probe crashed in Mexico, bringing the giant monsters to Earth, their lumbering threat has spread to the Middle East. The Us Airforce is dispatched to bomb the creatures to prevent their spread, while on the ground, American troops try...
In 2010, British director Gareth Edwards made a huge splash with his feature debut Monsters, a road trip drama with giant monsters stalking around in the background. It was an atmospheric movie that made ingenious use of its low budget; Monsters' success led to Edwards departing for Hollywood, where coveted franchises like Godzilla and Star Wars awaited.
Five years later, and director Tom Green brings us Monsters: Dark Continent, an entirely new story set in the same world as the first movie. A decade after a Nasa probe crashed in Mexico, bringing the giant monsters to Earth, their lumbering threat has spread to the Middle East. The Us Airforce is dispatched to bomb the creatures to prevent their spread, while on the ground, American troops try...
- 4/29/2015
- by ryanlambie
- Den of Geek
An intelligent, dense political thriller in the middle of summer? We visit Harrison Ford in Tom Clancy's Clear And Present Danger...
This article contains spoilers for, er, Clear And Present Danger.
How many times have you walked out of seeing a big summer blockbuster movie, and felt like you'd been treated like a grown-up? Christopher Nolan movies, whether you like them or not, treat you with that level of respect. But when it comes to major thrillers, there's generally something about them where you feel you've been shortchanged.
It's why it puzzles me that Clear And Present Danger doesn't get a lot more love. From the day I saw it for the first time back in 1994, and on every viewing since, I've really loved this film. I love that it isn't afraid of a dense plot, isn't afraid of putting a big movie star on the poster yet finds time for supporting characters,...
This article contains spoilers for, er, Clear And Present Danger.
How many times have you walked out of seeing a big summer blockbuster movie, and felt like you'd been treated like a grown-up? Christopher Nolan movies, whether you like them or not, treat you with that level of respect. But when it comes to major thrillers, there's generally something about them where you feel you've been shortchanged.
It's why it puzzles me that Clear And Present Danger doesn't get a lot more love. From the day I saw it for the first time back in 1994, and on every viewing since, I've really loved this film. I love that it isn't afraid of a dense plot, isn't afraid of putting a big movie star on the poster yet finds time for supporting characters,...
- 3/30/2015
- by simonbrew
- Den of Geek
Ricky Schroder experiences the horror of war firsthand in his new documentary series “The Fighting Season,” which debuts on DirecTV’s Audience Network on May 19, TheWrap has exclusively learned. Viewers will see a side of the former “Silver Spoons” and “NYPD Blue” actor they never imagined as he spends over 100 days encamped with American troops in the midst of war with the Taliban in the run-up to last year’s historic Afghan presidential elections in the six-episode documentary that he created and produced. “It was the experience of a lifetime, but I am not sure I want to experience it again,...
- 3/20/2015
- by Debbie Emery
- The Wrap
He’s portrayed fictional soldiers in ‘Stop-Loss‘ and ‘Dear John‘, but Channing Tatum‘s support of the military is 100% real, and last weekend he showed his love with a surprise visit to Afghanistan for the Uso!
Chan flew over along with his good friend Nick Zano, ‘Magic Mike‘ costar Adam Rodriguez, Free Association producing partner Reid Carolin, friend and vet Brett Rodriguez, and more. Together, they spent time with more than 1,500 American troops, visiting seven bases and the U.S. Embassy. Click here for more pics and info, and check out his candid slide show below!
What an incredible journey! Thank you for everything you do. Know that we all wish you a safe return home. Till then, keep holding it down. http://bit.ly/1uFg5NT #Uso #USOMoments @theuso
A video posted by Channing Tatum (@channingtatum) on Feb 13, 2015 at 11:26am Pst
The post Channing Tatum Visits Troops in...
Chan flew over along with his good friend Nick Zano, ‘Magic Mike‘ costar Adam Rodriguez, Free Association producing partner Reid Carolin, friend and vet Brett Rodriguez, and more. Together, they spent time with more than 1,500 American troops, visiting seven bases and the U.S. Embassy. Click here for more pics and info, and check out his candid slide show below!
What an incredible journey! Thank you for everything you do. Know that we all wish you a safe return home. Till then, keep holding it down. http://bit.ly/1uFg5NT #Uso #USOMoments @theuso
A video posted by Channing Tatum (@channingtatum) on Feb 13, 2015 at 11:26am Pst
The post Channing Tatum Visits Troops in...
- 2/16/2015
- by admin
- Channing Tatum Unwrapped
With Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper heading to theatres next week, cinema’s gaze has shifted to the Middle East, as the eighty-four-year-old director and former pretend cowboy partners up with Bradley Cooper (American Hustle) to tell the story of Chris Kyle, the sniper with the most confirmed kills in U.S. military history.
But what about Canada’s soldiers in the Middle East?
Canadian actor, writer, and director Paul Gross follows up on his Wwi drama, 2008’s Passchendaele, with three different stories of modern warfare all in one movie – Hyena Road.
Don’t expect the romanticism of Passchendaele. Gross will be relying on some of his own overseas experience. The actor spent two weeks at an operating base thirty kilometers away from Kandahar City when Canada’s combat mission was nearing its end in Afghanistan. As such, Hyena Road’s script is principally based on interviews he had with...
But what about Canada’s soldiers in the Middle East?
Canadian actor, writer, and director Paul Gross follows up on his Wwi drama, 2008’s Passchendaele, with three different stories of modern warfare all in one movie – Hyena Road.
Don’t expect the romanticism of Passchendaele. Gross will be relying on some of his own overseas experience. The actor spent two weeks at an operating base thirty kilometers away from Kandahar City when Canada’s combat mission was nearing its end in Afghanistan. As such, Hyena Road’s script is principally based on interviews he had with...
- 1/8/2015
- by Sasha James
- Cineplex
Beyoncé and Jay Z gave thousands of American troops stationed in Afghanistan and Kuwait a New Year's Eve to remember. The music power couple surprised the audience, who was watching a screening of their On the Run HBO special, with a heartfelt video message. "Hello everyone. I just want to say a big thank you to our troops for everything you do to keep our country safe," Bey was shown telling the star struck crowd during the Uso countdown to 2015. "We all sleep better at night knowing that you guys are protecting us, and we're filled with gratitude. So we wanted to do something special for you guys and we teamed up with our friends, the Uso, to do a private screening, just for you...
- 1/7/2015
- E! Online
She’s been crisscrossing the globe for various promotional duties as of late, and Kim Kardashian took some time to encourage American troops while hanging out in the Middle East.
The “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” star posted a series of photographs on Monday (December 1) from her visit, and it looks like she had a fabulous experience.
In one tweet, Kim wrote, “When in Abu Dhabi I stopped by the USS San Diego navy ship to meet the troops. Had the best time seeing everyone.”
Mrs. Kanye West added, “Of course I need a selfie!!!!” followed by, “Kisses to the troops! Thank you for all you do! Was an honor to meet you all.”...
The “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” star posted a series of photographs on Monday (December 1) from her visit, and it looks like she had a fabulous experience.
In one tweet, Kim wrote, “When in Abu Dhabi I stopped by the USS San Diego navy ship to meet the troops. Had the best time seeing everyone.”
Mrs. Kanye West added, “Of course I need a selfie!!!!” followed by, “Kisses to the troops! Thank you for all you do! Was an honor to meet you all.”...
- 12/2/2014
- GossipCenter
In the week after Gone Girl opened at the top of the box office with a robust $37 million, Naomi Wolf, the author of The Beauty Myth and onetime political advisor most famous for questioning Al Gore’s alpha-maleness, posted a series of, to say the least, questionable conspiratorial rantings on Facebook. The Isis beheading videos, she suggested, were fakes; the bereft parents of the victims, featured so often on the news, were actors, and by the way, Obama was sending American troops to Africa to bring back Ebola as a pretense to institute martial law. Wolf’s theories were disarmingly similar, in form if not in content, to the kind of “false flag” narratives perpetrated by commentators like the radio host Alex Jones and, once upon a time, Glenn Beck: tales of Fema camps, black helicopters, and shadow governments. In fact, Wolf’s suggestions follow the rough outline of several persistent and,...
- 10/15/2014
- by Adam Sternbergh
- Vulture
On October 17, director David Ayer’s film Fury opens in theaters. For many whose fathers and grandfathers served during World War II over in Europe, this movie will undoubtedly take on a very personal meaning.
Sony Pictures has released six powerful new clips and photos from the movie.
Fury takes place in late-war Germany, 1945. As the Allies make their final push in the European Theatre, a battle-hardened army sergeant named Wardaddy (Brad Pitt) commands a Sherman tank and her five-man crew on a deadly mission behind enemy lines. Outnumbered and outgunned, and with a rookie soldier thrust into their platoon, Wardaddy and his men face overwhelming odds in their heroic attempts to strike at the heart of Nazi Germany.
“The war’s almost over and this dying elephant – the Nazi empire – is on its last legs,” Ayer explains. “It’s a different world from your usual war movie, where we...
Sony Pictures has released six powerful new clips and photos from the movie.
Fury takes place in late-war Germany, 1945. As the Allies make their final push in the European Theatre, a battle-hardened army sergeant named Wardaddy (Brad Pitt) commands a Sherman tank and her five-man crew on a deadly mission behind enemy lines. Outnumbered and outgunned, and with a rookie soldier thrust into their platoon, Wardaddy and his men face overwhelming odds in their heroic attempts to strike at the heart of Nazi Germany.
“The war’s almost over and this dying elephant – the Nazi empire – is on its last legs,” Ayer explains. “It’s a different world from your usual war movie, where we...
- 10/7/2014
- by Michelle McCue
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (Isis) has released a slickly produced 52-second video threatening to kill American troops if the U.S. steps up its campaign against the terrorist organization in Iraq and Syria. Also read: Obama's Isis Speech Yields Ratings Win for Fox News The video, titled “Flames of War,” resembles a trailer for a Hollywood blockbuster and vows a campaign of violence is “coming soon” against American forces. The ominous message comes after President Barack Obama's speech on Sept. 10 announcing the U.S. would expand airstrikes to “degrade, and ultimately destroy” Isis. The clip shows...
- 9/17/2014
- by Travis Reilly
- The Wrap
Level Five
Written & Directed by Chris Marker
France, 1997
As visual animals, to a large extent, something doesn’t truly exist until we see it. What, then, do we make of memories, which may seem just as real as any image, but are subject to degradation and bias? They are the ethereal made real; flights of fancy, fact and practical necessity. Level Five, produced in 1997 and recently restored for a limited North American release, finds accomplished film essayist, Chris Marker, questioning the nature of memory in the new digital age. Though his big ideas and haunting visuals never quite coalesce, Marker still provides a fascinating peek into the darkest corners of humanity.
“I won already, but we could go on if you like.”
Such is the game confronting our heroine, Laura (Catherine Belkhodja), who is tasked (by Marker himself) with reconstructing the Battle of Okinawa for a videogame. A pivotal battle...
Written & Directed by Chris Marker
France, 1997
As visual animals, to a large extent, something doesn’t truly exist until we see it. What, then, do we make of memories, which may seem just as real as any image, but are subject to degradation and bias? They are the ethereal made real; flights of fancy, fact and practical necessity. Level Five, produced in 1997 and recently restored for a limited North American release, finds accomplished film essayist, Chris Marker, questioning the nature of memory in the new digital age. Though his big ideas and haunting visuals never quite coalesce, Marker still provides a fascinating peek into the darkest corners of humanity.
“I won already, but we could go on if you like.”
Such is the game confronting our heroine, Laura (Catherine Belkhodja), who is tasked (by Marker himself) with reconstructing the Battle of Okinawa for a videogame. A pivotal battle...
- 8/25/2014
- by J.R. Kinnard
- SoundOnSight
Robin Williams brought laughter to even the darkest corners of the world. Throughout his life, the late actor traveled across the war-torn Middle East with the United Service Organizations, entertaining American troops stationed in Afghanistan, Baghdad and Kuwait. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel honored Williams on behalf of the Department of Defense on Monday, remembering his patriotism. "Robin was a gifted actor and comedian, but he was also a true friend and supporter of our troops," he said in a statement. "From entertaining thousands of service men and women in war zones, to his philanthropy that helped veterans struggling with hidden wounds of war,...
- 8/12/2014
- by Michele Corriston, @mcorriston
- PEOPLE.com
Artists like Robin Williams only come along once in a lifetime, and in addition to being considered one of the greatest standup comedians of all time, the late actor was unparalleled in his ability to emotionally connect with audiences of all ages.
While his family, friends and fans begin the mourning process, let’s take a look at ten of Mr. Williams’ greatest characters throughout his long and successful career.
1. “Mork & Mindy”- Though the role originated in two episodes of “Happy Days,” Robin used Mork as a vehicle to show the world his incredible charisma and endearing charm. Also, he was an alien.
2. “Good Morning Vietnam”- Against the horrific backdrop of the Vietnam War, unorthodox deejay Adrian Cronauer managed to use his wit and rapid-fire delivery to help American troops forget about all the killing and just laugh. Williams again managed to pair his intelligence, humor and heart...
While his family, friends and fans begin the mourning process, let’s take a look at ten of Mr. Williams’ greatest characters throughout his long and successful career.
1. “Mork & Mindy”- Though the role originated in two episodes of “Happy Days,” Robin used Mork as a vehicle to show the world his incredible charisma and endearing charm. Also, he was an alien.
2. “Good Morning Vietnam”- Against the horrific backdrop of the Vietnam War, unorthodox deejay Adrian Cronauer managed to use his wit and rapid-fire delivery to help American troops forget about all the killing and just laugh. Williams again managed to pair his intelligence, humor and heart...
- 8/12/2014
- GossipCenter
Artists like Robin Williams only come along once in a lifetime, and in addition to being considered one of the greatest standup comedians of all time, the late actor was unparalleled in his ability to emotionally connect with audiences of all ages.
While his family, friends and fans begin the mourning process, let’s take a look at ten of Mr. Williams’ greatest characters throughout his long and successful career.
1. “Mork & Mindy”- Though the role originated in two episodes of “Happy Days,” Robin used Mork as a vehicle to show the world his incredible charisma and endearing charm. Also, he was an alien.
2. “Good Morning Vietnam”- Against the horrific backdrop of the Vietnam War, unorthodox deejay Adrian Cronauer managed to use his wit and rapid-fire delivery to help American troops forget about all the killing and just laugh. Williams again managed to pair his intelligence, humor and heart...
While his family, friends and fans begin the mourning process, let’s take a look at ten of Mr. Williams’ greatest characters throughout his long and successful career.
1. “Mork & Mindy”- Though the role originated in two episodes of “Happy Days,” Robin used Mork as a vehicle to show the world his incredible charisma and endearing charm. Also, he was an alien.
2. “Good Morning Vietnam”- Against the horrific backdrop of the Vietnam War, unorthodox deejay Adrian Cronauer managed to use his wit and rapid-fire delivery to help American troops forget about all the killing and just laugh. Williams again managed to pair his intelligence, humor and heart...
- 8/12/2014
- GossipCenter
Artists like Robin Williams only come along once in a lifetime, and in addition to being considered one of the greatest standup comedians of all time, the late actor was unparalleled in his ability to emotionally connect with audiences of all ages.
While his family, friends and fans begin the mourning process, let’s take a look at ten of Mr. Williams’ greatest characters throughout his long and successful career.
1. “Mork & Mindy”- Though the role originated in two episodes of “Happy Days,” Robin used Mork as a vehicle to show the world his incredible charisma and endearing charm. Also, he was an alien.
2. “Good Morning Vietnam”- Against the horrific backdrop of the Vietnam War, unorthodox deejay Adrian Cronauer managed to use his wit and rapid-fire delivery to help American troops forget about all the killing and just laugh. Williams again managed to pair his intelligence, humor and heart...
While his family, friends and fans begin the mourning process, let’s take a look at ten of Mr. Williams’ greatest characters throughout his long and successful career.
1. “Mork & Mindy”- Though the role originated in two episodes of “Happy Days,” Robin used Mork as a vehicle to show the world his incredible charisma and endearing charm. Also, he was an alien.
2. “Good Morning Vietnam”- Against the horrific backdrop of the Vietnam War, unorthodox deejay Adrian Cronauer managed to use his wit and rapid-fire delivery to help American troops forget about all the killing and just laugh. Williams again managed to pair his intelligence, humor and heart...
- 8/12/2014
- GossipCenter
Update (5:02 Pm Pst): Williams' wife and publicist have spoken out on the comedian's death (via The Hollywood Reporter): Wife Susan Schneider: "This morning, I lost my husband and my best friend, while the world lost one of its most beloved artists and beautiful human beings. I am utterly heartbroken. On behalf of Robin's family, we are asking for privacy during our time of profound grief. As he is remembered, it is our hope the focus will not be on Robin's death, but on the countless moments of joy and laughter he gave to millions." Publicist Mara Buxbaum: "Robin Williams passed away this morning. He has been battling severe depression of late. This is a tragic and sudden loss. The family respectfully asks for their privacy as they grieve during this very difficult time." [Hollywood and the world reacts to Robin Williams passing.] Original Story: Oscar-nominated actor Robin Williams has been found dead at his home at...
- 8/11/2014
- by HitFix Staff
- Hitfix
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