Walter Lantz was born on this date in 1899. Lantz was the creator of such animated characters as Andy Panda, Chilly Willy, Wally Walrus and the greatest cartoon character of them all, Woody Woodpecker.
Walter Lantz was nominated for the Academy Award 10 times. He received the Academy’s Life-Time Achievement Award in 1979.
Click on the image above to visit lantz.toonzone.net for audio and video clips and lots of other goodies.
Clint is 46 today. He has appeared in many of his brother’s films — Cocoon and Apollo 13 come to mind, but most will remember Clint Howard as the 8-year-old kid in the TV series Gentle Ben. (Dennis Weaver was the dad.) Howard was also the voice of Roo in the Disney Winnie the Pooh films.
Since NewMexiKen first posted information about Clint Howard a year ago, the term “Ron Howard’s brother” (and variants) has been the most popular search term for people finding their way to the site.
Happy Birthday Clint.
In 1984, when Eisner took command, the “Mouse House” produced only one animated picture every three to five years. Its entire film library had only 158 features, and its single cable channel, the Disney Channel, lost money. In addition, Disney had virtually no income from sales of videos. To keep afloat, the company depended on its amusement parks and its Mickey Mouse licensing. Yet even with these assets Disney had a tax-free cash flow of just $100 million. Its share price, reflecting this precarious financial position, was $1.33 (adjusted for splits).
In 2005, Disney was one of the richest companies in America. Its enterprise value—Wall street’s favored measure of an entertainment company—had increased 32-fold since 1984 and stood at $69 billion. Its tax-free cash flow had increased 29 times, to $2.9 billion. Its film library had grown to 900 features, which were licensed on TV and sold on video and DVD, and its home-entertainment division accounted for nearly one-third of the revenues of the entire industry. Its share price, reflecting this robust health, had risen to $28.25.
Eisner’s success becomes even more impressive when compared with his peers. Between 1984 and 2005, TimeWarner wrote off $99.7 billion; Vivendi-Universal, $40.6 billion; Viacom, $21.2 billion; News Corporation, $7.2 billion; and Sony, $2.7 billion. Among the six companies (“the sexopoly”) that now dominate the TV industry, Disney alone did not write off any loss during this time.
How Did Michael Eisner Make Disney Profitable? – Not with cartoons. By Edward Jay Epstein at Slate.
Steve Zahn says he’s the envy of every man on the planet after spending three days naked with Penelope Cruz and Salma Hayek.
NewMexiKen doubts that Mr. Zahn is the envy of “every” man on the planet, but I will say this — having the words “naked,” “Penelope Cruz” and “Salma Hayek” in one posting on NewMexiKen is going to increase my internets traffic measurably.
The three were working on the film Bandidas, due out in January.
the most important thing about Apollo 13. The film featured Ron Howard’s brother, Clint Howard, as a NASA flight controller.
And, over time, “Ron Howard’s brother” has brought more people to NewMexiKen than any other term.
It was on this date, April 13, in 1970 that Houston learned Apollo 13 had a problem.
This report from the next day’s New York Times:
The Apollo 13 Astronauts, their lives threatened by a serious oxygen leak, were forced to evacuate their command ship late last night and use their intended moon-landing craft as a “lifeboat” for a fast return to the earth.
In cool and cryptic words, they were instructed by mission control here to use the attached lunar module’s rocket to power them back to an emergency splashdown in the Pacific Ocean at about noon on Friday.
There will be great risks and little margin for error or delay. …
Capt. James A. Lovell Jr. of the Navy, the commander, and his two civilian co-pilots, Fred W. Haise Jr. and John L. Swigert Jr., crowded into the two-man lunar module at about 11:40 P.M. Eastern standard time.
NewMexiKen attended the Washington, D.C., premiere of Ron Howard’s film Apollo 13. Astronauts Lovell and Haise were there with several of the other principals from NASA. (Astronaut Swigert, played by Kevin Bacon in the film, died in 1982, shortly after being elected to Congress from Colorado.)
The film was very well done. Late in the movie as suspense builds over whether the astronauts will survive and make it back to earth, NewMexiKen actually had to remind the person next to him: “Relax. It’ll be OK. They make it back. They’re here in the theater.”
Another insidious victory for the smallest common denominator:
From a report in The New York Times:
The fight over evolution has reached the big, big screen.
Several Imax theaters, including some in science museums, are refusing to show movies that mention the subject – or the Big Bang or the geology of the earth – fearing protests from people who object to films that contradict biblical descriptions of the origin of Earth and its creatures.
The number of theaters rejecting such films is small, people in the industry say – perhaps a dozen or fewer, most in the South. But because only a few dozen Imax theaters routinely show science documentaries, the decisions of a few can have a big impact on a film’s bottom line – or a producer’s decision to make a documentary in the first place.
Ralph has this great movie review that I want you to read, so I have copied it all. If you like the review go visit Ralph and let him know (and read the comment from Colorado Luis).
When a really great movie comes along, one that really grabs you, you think: “With all the dough the big shots in Hollywood spend, why can’t they make a movie like that.” Such is the case with Rabbit Proof Fence.
In what is very arguably the best directing job I’ve ever seen, Phillip Noyce took three young amateur actors and made a film that is starkly believable.
In 1931, three aboriginal children were taken from their home and transported to a boarding school to further the Eugenic policies of the Australian government. They aren’t in the school long when the oldest, Molly, takes her sister and her cousin and says, simply, “C’mon, we’re leaving.” So begins one of the most incredible (yet true) chase scenes on the big screen.
The young actors are incredibly good, and Noyce deserves the highest praise for getting this work out of them. The strength and determination the young women display is incredible. Kenneth Branaugh is actually so good I didn’t realize it was him until the movie was almost over.
The screenplay and cinematography are first rate and quite frankly this is a film everyone should see. I was left with two questions: 1972? Did it really take until 1972 before the Australian government abandoned this hideous policy? and Why can’t Hollywood make a movie about America’s experience with boarding schools?
NewMexiKen understands that ABC is talking to Dr. Phil about hosting.
These observations from Dave Pell:
Bummer of the Night
Of course it was painful to see Scorcese go home empty-handed yet again. But look at it the other way. What if he had failed to win for masterpieces like Goodfellas and Raging Bull but won for an afterschool special like The Aviator?Blowhard of the Night
The idiotic moment of the night belonged to Sean Penn who showed up looking like he had just been booted out of a Hollywood version of an Irish bar and defended Jude Law who Chris Rock has poked fun of in the opening monologue. Law needed no defending. Penn was immediately rushed to the Betty Ford wing for actors who take themselves way too seriously (Hollywood’s most overbooked destination).Best Oscar Feature of the Night
No Billy Crystal song and hence no listening to people who think he’s just so creative and talented and hence no deep and painful feelings of alienation for those who have at least half a brain.
Caryn James in The New York Times:
And with “Million Dollar Baby” winning three of the four biggest prizes – best picture, Clint Eastwood’s for director and Ms. Swank’s for actress – the awards themselves hint at how happy Oscar voters are to linger in the past. The film may be about a woman boxer, but it is shaped by a pure retro sensibility. It’s a throwback not only to 30’s-era boxing movies but also to other Oscar-winning films about underdogs, like “Rocky.”
“Million Dollar Baby” is, essentially, “Rocky” with a tragic ending, the kind of familiar movie it is easy for the academy to embrace. … But in the future the enthusiasm for such an unoriginal film may seem as inflated as the Oscar for “Rocky” does now.
The most original film to gather a handful of nominations this year, “Sideways,” went the way of another fine, innovative movie, “Lost in Translation,” which in 2003 was also nominated for best director and best picture and, like “Sideways,” won only for its screenplay. The fate of “Sideways,” like the choice of Mr. Rock as host, says that the academy will let in a breath of fresh air, but quickly close the window before an actual breeze comes in.
Sideways is fresh air?! Sideways is original? How was it original?
Yah!
From Yahoo! News:
[Halle] Berry was named worst actress of 2004 by the Golden Raspberry Award Foundation for her performance in “Catwoman” and she showed up to accept her “Razzie” carrying the Oscar she won in 2002 for “Monster’s Ball.”
“They can’t take this away from me, it’s got my name on it!” she quipped. A raucous crowd cheered her on as she gave a stirring recreation of her Academy Award acceptance speech, including tears.
She thanked everyone involved in “Catwoman,” a film she said took her from the top of her profession to the bottom.
“I want to thank Warner Brothers for casting me in this piece of s—,” she said as she dragged her agent on stage and warned him “next time read the script first.”
NewMexiKen doesn’t want to to be just about the Oscars and movies but I did find these factoids in the Los Angeles Times interesting:
While all five candidates for the top Oscar have managed respectable ticket sales, they collectively have been seen by fewer moviegoers than any batch of best-picture nominees in 20 years.
…At $436 million, “Shrek 2” far out-grossed the entire best-picture lineup combined. Add in “The Incredibles” ($259 million) and “Shark Tale” ($160 million), and the three animated nominees did more than 2 1/2 times the business of the five best-picture contestants.
The article has lots of details including a great graphic.
You might want to consider this article from the Los Angeles Times when you make your own Oscar picks:
Barely any A-list stars showed up at the Four Seasons Hotel for the “Maria Full of Grace” reception, just one of countless Oscar get-out-the-vote efforts that surface during awards season each year. A handful of people made cocktail party chatter with director Joshua Marston and star Catalina Sandino Moreno, sampled a few drab appetizers, then quickly went on their way, most with a modest parting gift: a copy of the film’s DVD.
The “Sideways” blowout a few weeks later stood at the opposite end of the spectrum. Hundreds of top show business talent and Oscar voters jammed the restaurant Vibrato, where they drank expensive Hitching Post Pinot Noir by the gallon. On stage, the film’s composer, Rolfe Kent, jammed with a jazz band.
Maybe only the naive consider the Academy Awards to be an evenhanded referendum on the best films, but rarely has it devolved into such a marked battle between the haves and the have-nots as it has with this year’s motley crop of large and small contenders.
Desperate to adorn their films with the valuable Oscar seal of approval, well-heeled studios now spend as much as $15 million promoting the award chances for such movies as “The Aviator” and “Million Dollar Baby.” Other films, such as “Finding Neverland” and “Hotel Rwanda,” try to stay in the race with a fraction of that.
The Daily Howler’s Bob Somerby has his list:
Finding Neverland. Could anyone makes a duller film bio?
The Aviator. Omigod! Somebody did!
Sideways. As Quinn observes, a classic male fantasy. Creates modern film’s most soulful character. Instantly drops her like a rock.
Million Dollar Baby. A well-wrought tone poem. But what’s up with Clint’s now-repetitive gloomy tone? Explanation: It’s all about Clint! At the end, he rides off silently into the west, the way the big stars always do. Mopping up for the final time, Morgan Freeman gives the closing narration.
Ray. We thought this film was loaded with merit, but a bit short of a Best Picture.
Two we thought were better:
Maria Full of Grace. The most fascinating study of manners and morals we have seen in quite a long time. And then, of course:
Hotel Rwanda. No, [it] isn’t great film art, something we especially noticed on second viewing. But the importance of Hotel Rwanda’s meditation dwarfs that of the five nominees combined. With most films, we find ourselves wondering why anyone bothered to make it. In the case of the dissed Hotel, no one is likely to ask.
Sally Quinn didn’t like Sideways either.
Imagine, if you can, a movie about two unattractive, gross women slobs going on a week-long spree and ending up with Brad Pitt and Ben Affleck. Imagine that becoming a hit, nominated for five Academy Awards, acclaimed by critics.
Wait, don’t even try. It ain’t gonna happen.
“Sideways,” the low-budget Oscar contender, is a guys’ movie that celebrates a certain cultural fantasy: Set off on a drinking-carousing-debauching adventure for a week with your buddy, seduce two great-looking girls and then dump them and go home. What fun!
The reviews were fabulous, and then Charles Krauthammer wrote a whole column about it on the op-ed page, calling it “sublime . . . intelligent . . . clever, funny, moving.” He concluded, “Trust me on this one. See it.”
I did. I hated it. And it wasn’t just me. Most of the women I know feel the same way.
Read the rest of Ms. Quinn’s critique.
This afternoon NewMexiKen saw the fourth of the five relatively depressing films nominated for the Best Picture Oscar — Sideways. While well written and well acted, this film disappointed. Perhaps there was just too much praise when it was first released — or perhaps I’m just unsophisticated. It would rank fourth among the four I’ve seen. It wouldn’t have made my five best list.
Thomas Haden Church has been nominated for the best supporting actor Oscar for his performance as Jack in this film. I don’t get it. While good, and funny, it seemed to me as if Mr. Church was playing the actor who played the part of Lowell Mather in the TV series Wings.
Virginia Madsen has also been nominated for a best supporting Oscar for her performance as Maya. Ms. Madsen was fine, but it’s almost as if she was nominated because Maya is just so damn appealing.
Paul Giamatti on the other hand was excellent and, I think, deserving of an Oscar nomination. He didn’t get one.
NewMexiKen viewed the DVD of The Fog of War this afternoon. The film, which won the Oscar for documentary feature last year, is subtitled “Eleven Lessons of Robert S. McNamara.” It is a fascinating, and frightening, look at war, both World War II and particularly Vietnam. The moral of the story: In war no one really knows what’s happening.
Stephen Holden reviewed the movie in October 2003 for The New York Times. Holden begins:
If there’s one movie that ought to be studied by military and civilian leaders around the world at this treacherous historical moment, it is “The Fog of War,” Errol Morris’s sober, beautifully edited documentary portrait of the former United States defense secretary, Robert S. McNamara.
I encourage all interested students of history to view this very fine film.
Well, that changes everything.
NewMexiKen saw The Aviator this evening and must admit that Leonardo DiCaprio’s portrayal of Howard Hughes was first rate. More was demanded in this role than in Jamie Foxx’s portrayal of Ray Charles, superb as that was. Not every note was perfect, but overall I’d say DiCaprio played a more complex piece.
Overall, The Aviator was excellent; much more the “major motion picture” than Million Dollar Baby or Ray, great as both are. Cate Blanchett deserved her Oscar nomination for playing Katharine Hepburn and Alan Alda his for the venal Senator Brewster, though in a relatively minor role (contrast with Jamie Foxx in Collateral).
Still need to see Sideways, Finding Neverland and Hotel Rwanda by Sunday evening.
is 78 today.
American Masters from PBS sums it up nicely:
More than an actor (and Academy-Award winner), Sidney Poitier is an artist. A writer and director, a thinker and critic, a humanitarian and diplomat, his presence as a cultural icon has long been one of protest and humanity. His career defined and documented the modern history of blacks in American film, and his depiction of proud and powerful characters was and remains revolutionary.
Lilies of the Field — with Poitier’s Oscar winning performance — has been one of NewMexiKen’s favorites since it was released more than 40 years ago. If you don’t know the film, you should.
Frank Rich’s column is about the assinine controversy surrounding Million Dollar Baby. Along the way he includes this:
As Mr. Eastwood has pointed out, advance knowledge of the story’s ending did nothing to deter the audience for “The Passion of the Christ.” My own experience is that knowing the ultimate direction of “Million Dollar Baby” – an organic development that in no way resembles a plot trick like that in “The Sixth Sense” – only deepened my second viewing of it.
Six days after mailing two DVDs back to Netflix neither had been received (Netflix sends you an email), so NewMexiKen thought it was time to let them know. In a few steps I told them when each DVD was mailed and from where.
Within minutes I received an email:
We’re sorry to hear that Friday Night Lights was lost in the mail. Unfortunately discs do go missing during shipment from time to time, so it is our policy to accomodate for the occasional disc lost during shipment. …
If you’ve requested a replacement copy, it will be shipped to you as soon as possible, otherwise, your next movie should be on its way soon. We apologize for the inconvenience.
“We apologize for the inconvenience.” Meanwhile carpet decorator lady hasn’t contacted me to apologize for her errors during a purchase hundreds of times larger. In fact, more than 24 hours after the shortage was identified by the installers, she still hadn’t contacted the supplier when I did. Don’t buy carpet from Costco in Albuquerque.
UPDATE: The DVDs showed up at Netflix the next day.
Perhaps as remarkable in the film Ray is the performance of C.J. Sanders as the young Ray Charles Robinson.
