Category: Movies

Diane Keaton…

who has a brief nude shot in Something’s Gotta Give, was born in Los Angeles on this date in 1946. Keaton’s first major role was in the Broadway rock musical Hair — where she did not remove her clothing. As for her nude scene in Something’s Gotta Give she says, “At this point, does it really matter? Nobody is looking at me the way I once imagined people would look at me, like with deviant thoughts. I think they just go, ‘Huh. There it is. Intact.'”

Diane Keaton won the best actress Oscar for her portrayal of Annie Hall in 1977.

She has never married but has adopted two children. Her real name is Diane Hall; she changed to Keaton, her mother’s maiden name, because there was already a Diane Hall in the Actor’s Guild.

Robert Duvall…

was born in San Diego on this date in 1931. Duvall won the best actor Oscar for his portrayl of Mac Sledge in Tender Mercies in 1983. Among other characters he has portrayed are Boo Radley, Frank Burns, Tom Hagen, Lt. Col. William ‘Bill’ Kilgore, Bull Meechum and the unforgettable Augustus McCrae.

The 34 Best Movies of 2003

David Edelstein writes about movies on Slate.com.

There were too many good movies this year for me to do a proper 10-best list—and not enough great ones. What I mean is, there isn’t that much difference between my ninth-favorite movie and my 20th, and any numerical distinction is pretty much whimsical. That’s why I’ve done four 10-best lists for sundry newspaper, Internet, and radio outlets, and no two are the same.

Edelstein discusses his 34 best movies. And, as he says, “You’ll learn much more from a lively writer you think is nuts (c.f., Manohla on In the Cut or Elvis Mitchell on the execrable 21 Grams) than from the 10-best list of someone with whom you agree.”

Best movies 2003 — some critics’ lists

Washington Post movie critic Stephen Hunter’s list of the 10 best films of 2003:
1. Cold Mountain
2. Kill Bill: Vol. 1
3. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
4. Lost in Translation
5. 21 Grams
6. Bus 174
7. Shattered Glass
8. Dirty Pretty Things
9. Open Range
10. Bad Santa

Post critic Deeson Thomson’s top 10:
1. City of God
2. Capturing the Friedmans
3. Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
4. Fog of War: Eleven Lessons From the Life of Robert S. McNamara
5. Kill Bill, Vol. 1
6. Dirty Pretty Things
7. Lost in Translation
8. American Splendor
9. Thirteen
10. Mondays in the Sun

New York Times critic Elvis Mitchell:
1. Pirates of the Caribbean
2. 21 Grams
3. The Triplets of Belleville
4. Elephant
5. Capturing the Friedmans
6. Lost in Translation
7. Raising Victor Vargas
8. American Splendor
9. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
10. The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Times critic A.O. Scott:
1. Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
2. Mystic River
3. The Son
4. Spellbound
5. The Barbarian Invasions
6. The Man Without a Past
7. The Triplets of Belleville
8. Finding Nemo
9. Bus 174
10. A Mighty Wind

And Times critic Stephen Holden:
1. Angels in America
2. Mystic River
3. The Fog of War
4. Capturing the Friedmans
5. Lost in Translation
6. House of Sand and Fog
7. The Barbarian Invasions
8. American Splendor
9. Thirteen
10. City of God

Steven Spielberg…

was born on this date in 1946. The Writer’s Almanac has an interesting biographical essay.

It’s the birthday of Steven Spielberg, born in Cincinnati, Ohio (1946). Even as a child, he knew he wanted to make movies. When he was 13 years old, he won a contest with a 40-minute film called Escape to Nowhere. When he was 16, he produced a movie called Firelight that made a $100 profit at the local movie theater. He wanted to study film at the University of Southern California, but the film school rejected him, so he went to California State University in Long Beach and majored in English. One day, he was taking a tour of Universal Studios when he slipped by security, found an abandoned janitors’ closet, cleaned it up, and turned it into an office. He discovered that if he wore a suit and tie he could walk right past the security guards at the front gate, and he began coming in to his makeshift office every day. While he was there, he started making a short silent movie called Amblin’. It caught the attention of some Universal executives, and he began to make TV movies. His first real breakthrough was Duel (1971), a suspenseful thriller about a man in a small car being terrorized by a man in a large truck for no apparent reason. It came out on TV in the U.S. and in theaters in Europe. Four years later, he directed Jaws (1975), one of the most successful movies ever made.

Spielberg’s parents divorced when he was a child, after years of intense arguing. Many of his movies deal with the relationships between parents and children, especially fathers and sons. In Close Encounter of the Third Kind (1977), children and parents are abducted from their homes. In E.T. (1982), Elliott befriends an alien, in part to make up for the loss of his father. And in the more recent film Catch Me if you Can (2002), the main character runs away from home and becomes a con man after his parents announce their plans to divorce.

Spielberg said, “I dream for a living.”

Gone With The Wind…

premiered in Atlanta, Georgia, on this date in 1939.

Hattie McDaniel, who won a supporting-actress Oscar for her portrayal of Mammy, was not present in segregated Atlanta.

Martin Luther King, Jr., sang in the “negro boys choir” from his father’s church at the Gone With The Wind Ball the evening before the premiere.

The 2,000 tickets were $10 and up.

When the news of war is announced in the film, the audience in the theater rose to its feet with rebel yells.

Laurence Olivier reportedly proposed to Vivien Leigh on their flight from Atlanta to New York after the premiere. Their marriage lasted 20 years.

The Loew’s Grand Theater, where the premiere was shown, was destroyed by fire in 1978.

The film, however great as a motion picture, forever ruined America’s understanding of what the War of the Rebellion was all about.

Life imitates Monty Python

As David Bernstein noted Monday on The Volokh Conspiracy, “the incident [see Absurdity alert and Absurdity alert part two] is reminiscent of the ‘Jehovah’ scene in Monty Python’s “Life of Brian:”

OFFICIAL: You have been found guilty by the elders of the town of uttering the name of our Lord, and so, as a blasphemer,…
CROWD: Ooooh!
OFFICIAL: …you are to be stoned to death.
CROWD: Ahh!
MATTHIAS: Look. I– I’d had a lovely supper, and all I said to my wife was, ‘That piece of halibut was good enough for Jehovah.’
CROWD: Oooooh!
OFFICIAL: Blasphemy! He’s said it again!
CROWD: Yes! Yes, he did! He did!…
OFFICIAL: Did you hear him?!
CROWD: Yes! Yes, we did! We did!…
WOMAN #1: Really!
[silence]
* * * *
OFFICIAL: * * * Now, where were we?
MATTHIAS: Look. I don’t think it ought to be blasphemy, just saying ‘Jehovah’.
CROWD: Oooh! He said it again! Oooh!…
OFFICIAL: You’re only making it worse for yourself!
MATTHIAS: Making it worse?! How could it be worse?! Jehovah! Jehovah! Jehovah!
CROWD: Oooooh!…
OFFICIAL: I’m warning you. If you say ‘Jehovah’ once more– [MRS. A. stones OFFICIAL]
Right. Who threw that?
MATTHIAS: [laughing]
[silence]
OFFICIAL: Come on. Who threw that?
CROWD: She did! It was her! He! He. Him. Him. Him. Him. Him. Him.
OFFICIAL: Was it you?
MRS. A.: Yes.
OFFICIAL: Right!
MRS. A.: Well, you did say ‘Jehovah’.
CROWD: Ah! Ooooh!…
[CROWD stones MRS. A.]
OFFICIAL: Stop! Stop, will you?! Stop that! Stop it! Now, look! No one is to stone anyone until I blow this whistle! Do you understand?! Even, and I want to make this absolutely clear, even if they do say ‘Jehovah’.
CROWD: Ooooooh!…
[CROWD stones OFFICIAL]
WOMAN #1: Good shot!
[clap clap clap]

New Mexico Big Star in Film “The Missing”

From the Santa Fe New Mexican

Georgia O’Keeffe came later and settled at Ghost Ranch, one of the locations in The Missing.

It’s a ranch said to have been named for the chilling screams that were heard echoing off canyon walls — some said from witches or tortured spirits, some said from unknown wild beasts. O’Keeffe painted the striated bluffs that nowadays find their way into motion pictures.

Another key location, according to the New Mexico Film Office, was Valles Caldera, now federal park land, which geologists nonetheless warn is still a threat to erupt like Mount St. Helens.

A flash-flood scene was filmed at the Tino Griego Swimming Pool in Santa Fe.

Other shooting sites were:

  • The Bonanza Creek Ranch outside Santa Fe.
  • The Cerro Pelon Ranch, formerly known as the Cook Movie Ranch.
  • La Cienega, south of Santa Fe.
  • El Rancho de las Golondrinas, south of Santa Fe.
  • Zia Pueblo northwest of Albuquerque.

Says [Director Ron] Howard: “In making a suspense film that takes place primarily outdoors, it was important to use the landscape, primarily in its most threatening kind of way.

“It’s one thing to be alone in a dark alley, an abandoned street,” he said, “but it’s another thing to be all alone out there. There’s just an element of threat despite the beauty.”

And like so many Westerns, The Missing uses the vastness of the landscape to give evil a script and a stage and the freedom to operate that kept people looking over their shoulders.

No Golden Years Yet for a 75-Year-Old Mouse

It seems that Mickey Mouse doesn’t hold as much appeal as he used to now that he’s older than toddler’s grandparents. An article from The New York Times tells of the Walt Disney Company’s efforts to rejuvenate the Mouse.

NewMexiKen always liked Mickey Mouse comic books but was really more of a Donald Duck fan. Mickey was somewhat supercilious while Donald was always in trouble, at least until the end of the story. Mickey was often a detective; Donald someone trying to fake Uncle Scrooge out of his money.

My, a Cat Can Be Mean on a Very Big Screen

Movie Review: “Dr. Seuss’ The Cat in the Hat”

In 1957 Dr. Seuss published “The Cat in the Hat,” a whimsical story of feline misrule written in infectious four-beat anapestic lines, that forever changed the way American children learn to read. The book’s rambunctious main character and its giddy, slightly disconcerting treatment of mischief in the absence of maternal supervision have proven remarkably durable as generations of children have grown to adulthood with its antic rhymes firmly lodged in their heads.

And now Hollywood, perhaps inevitably, has gone and messed it up. Under the supervision of Brian Grazer, who was responsible for the monstrous “Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas” three years ago, and with the permission of Audrey Geisel, the author’s widow and the custodian of his posthumous reputation, the first-time director Bo Welch has put together a vulgar, uninspired lump of poisoned eye candy that Universal has the temerity to call “Dr. Seuss’ The Cat in the Hat.”

Erin Brockovich’s Weird Science

“This is not a publicity stunt,” Erin Brockovich-Ellis informs the crowd gathered at the exclusive Beverly Hills Hotel. “This is not about making another movie.” It’s March, and the famous environmental crusader is speaking before hundreds of Beverly Hills High School parents and alumni crammed into the hotel’s Crystal Ballroom. It’s a strange confluence of Hollywood story lines: The heroine of the 2000 film Erin Brockovich–whom Julia Roberts won an Oscar portraying–is here to warn that current and former students at the school on which “Beverly Hills 90210” was based are being poisoned by toxic emissions from nearby oil wells.

As just about anybody who has set foot in a multiplex knows, in the mid-’90s Brockovich and her boss, lawyer Ed Masry, helped uncover groundwater contamination in the central California town of Hinkley and as a result won a massive settlement from Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E). (As the film’s promo line put it, “She brought a small town to its feet and a huge company to its knees.”) In the decade since the Hinkley case, Masry and Brockovich-Ellis (she changed her name after remarrying four years ago) have led several more class-action suits against alleged corporate polluters, with mixed results. Tonight, their crusade has brought them to Beverly Hills.

Read Eric Umansky’s two-part article Toxic from The New Republic Online.

Zeta-Jones vs. Atkins

From The Smoking Gun

[L]awyers for Zeta-Jones assert that “her likeness and persona have been improperly linked” to the popular diet in press accounts, adding that the weight loss program “has been derided by nutritionists and other health care officials for decades.” By incorrectly reporting that Zeta-Jones “uses and/or endorses the Atkins diet,” the letter states, publications are “falsely representing to the average reader, including many young women who look up to my client and admire her beautiful appearance, that Ms. Zeta-Jones would recommend this diet to any person looking to lose weight.”

Over and over

More David Pogue: “Books and movies are different [from music]. Most people don’t read the same book over and over again, and most people don’t watch the same movie every time they hit the couch. (Families with young children are, of course, the exception. My kids have watched “Monsters, Inc.” roughly 83,000 times.)”

“Moonlight” Graham

Those who have seen Field of Dreams or read the book on which it was based, Shoeless Joe by W.P. Kinsella, will remember the character “Moonlight” Graham, played by Burt Lancaster in the film. Archibald Wright Graham (1876-1965) was an actual player, and a doctor.

Graham played in one game for the New York Giants in June 1905; in the movie it was the last game of the season in 1929. Graham played two innings in the field but never batted in the major leagues; he was on deck when his one game ended.

Ebert’s Great Movies

Every other week Roger Ebert writes a review of a classic film, what he calls Great Movies. There are now more than 180 of these reviews.

As Ebert writes:

One of the gifts one movie lover can give another is the title of a wonderful film they have not yet discovered. In university, I had a Shakespeare professor who was the world’s leading expert in “Romeo and Juliet,”‘ and who used to say he would give anything for the ability to read the play again for the first time.

When I meet someone who has never seen “The Third Man” or “Singin’ in the Rain,” I envy them the experience they are about to have.

24 Angry Men

Until this evening NewMexiKen was unaware there had been a 1997 remake of the 1957 classic 12 Angry Men, a movie which tells the story of jury deliberations in a murder trial. The original is superb. Directed by Sidney Lumet (Network, Serpico, The Pawnbroker) and starring Henry Fonda as the protagonist, it is well written, exceptionally well acted, and a film worth seeing again and again.

Reginald Rose’s screenplay remains remarkably intact 40 years later in the 1997 version. Produced for the cable network Showtime, the film was directed by William Friedkin (The Exorcist, The French Connection) and stars Academy Award winners Jack Lemmon and George C. Scott. It is a surprisingly fine film in its own right, made even more compelling by comparisons with its predecessor.

 

1957

1997
Juror #1 Martin Balsam Courtney Vance
Juror #2 John Fiedler Ossie Davis
Juror #3 Lee J. Cobb George C. Scott
Juror #4 E.G. Marshall Armin Mueller-Stahl
Juror #5 Jack Klugman Dorian Harewood
Juror #6 Edward Binns James Gandolfini
Juror #7 Jack Warden Tony Danza
Juror #8 Henry Fonda Jack Lemmon
Juror #9 Joseph Sweeney Hume Cronyn
Juror #10 Ed Begley, Sr. Mykelti Williamson
Juror #11 George Voskovec Edward James Olmos
Juror #12 Robert Webber William L. Petersen