The tenant (1976)

The Tenant (French: Le Locataire) is a 1976 psychological thriller/horror film directed by Roman Polanski based upon the 1964 novel Le locataire chimérique by Roland Topor. It is also known under the French title Le Locataire. It co-stars actress Isabelle Adjani. It is the last film in Polanski's "Apartment Trilogy", following Repulsion and Rosemary's Baby.

"I think I'm pregnant," Roman Polanski coos beguilingly to the mirror in his 1976 film, The Tenant. He's clearly thrilled with his appearance; he's done himself up in a black floral print dress, with a blonde wig, blue eye shadow, nude stockings, strappy black pumps, and pretty red nail polish, haltingly applied. Like Dustin Hoffman, he has a little bit of nose, so that he resembles that actor's drag in Tootsie, but without the glasses. It's not so bad. He preens a while, and shows some leg by lifting one foot onto a chair.

Seeing him all dressed up like this, you can't help but wonder about the occasion. Playing Trelkovsky, a Polish immigrant living in Paris, Polanski imagines he's the target of a plot to drive him insane and thus secure his suicide. The plotters, his neighbors in the building, have a specific method in mind: they want him to throw himself out the window, like the previous tenant of his apartment, a young Egyptologist named Mme. Schulz. Indeed, they are trying to make Trelkovsky become Mme. Schulz. And so it is that he's wearing his wig and makeup.

The Tenant is Polanski at his funniest, and its humor is premised on its excess. You can think of it as a staring contest where your opponent is dressed in wild drag, sneaking distracting glances at the human teeth embedded in the walls. In The Tenant, Polanski invites you to dwell on the absurdity of situations and appearances, and his straight-faced demeanor in doing so becomes part of the joke: you laugh at its gall, inappropriateness, and self-parody. When Trelkovsky purchases his wig, he buys the first one he sees, and creates considerable discomfort for the help by trying it on in the store. He uses binoculars to spy on the toilet, located down the hall, again and again. He goes out in public, dressed as himself, but still wearing a little forgotten lipstick.

Polanski at his funniest is also Polanski at his creepiest, and The Tenant is as rich in scary moments as it is in laughs, often simultaneously. The horror is macabre, and provided in clearly observed bursts. (This is surely Polanski's style; in Repulsion [1965], stretches of quotidian activity are punctuated by a glimpse of a phantom man in a mirror or the sudden, startling appearance of fissures in the walls.) In one discomfiting scene, Trelkovsky goes to the toilet and discovers himself, in his apartment, watching with binoculars.

In another, a ball bounces with supernatural uniformity before his third floor window; upon closer examination, we find that it's actually a human head. In a less imaginative film, an explanation would arrive, killing the enigma by consigning it to the supernatural or to a dream. But Polanski declines to make sense of it for us, and we leave the film with the mystery unresolved.

Sven Nykvist, best known for his work with Ingmar Bergman, shot The Tenant with his trademark clarity, and the precision of his images adds to the nightmare atmosphere. It's Nykvist's special contribution that he gives us a good look at Polanski's wild imaginings, so that when a character suddenly sprouts a thin, forked tongue, you don't miss that detail. (Contrast that with the fast-cut, muddied action of a recent horror film such as 28 Days Later, and you get the idea.)

Trelkovsky isolated, is an immigrant without friends or family, a man who feels he doesn't fit in. The film doesn't say that urban living is too much to bear (as do some '70s films, like Little Murders or Taxi Driver), and it's not a treatise on the necessity of family or social immersion. The Tenant says that we can be made to be aliens by our own psyches, even in our own homes.

Still, Trelkovsky's story isn't precisely "universal." What Gilliatt balked at saying in her review, and what I hesitate to bring up myself, is that the character's circumstances in some ways mirror Polanski's. Estranged from the privileges of Hollywood by his own ill-advised flight from justice, and without a family (his wife, the actress Sharon Tate had been slaughtered by the Manson Family some years before), it's not hard to imagine why this material may have appealed to him. Having lived out the Holocaust in the woods outside Warsaw, and having lost his mother to the camps and his wife to butchers, Polanski presents horrors that surely pale before those he's experienced.

Everything about The Tenant is too much, not just a little, but way too much. We often treasure excess, as in Kurosawa's Throne of Blood (1957), Macbeth stands, teeth clenched, with arrows bristling from him. When Godard pans interminably across a traffic jam in Week End (1967), or when his protagonists reenact the death of Jesse James in Band of Outsiders (1964), his radical experiments seem beyond "good sense." Even David Fincher's The Game (1997) exhibits this excessiveness, when the "game" goes on so long and becomes so elaborate that it's riding on ether.

And it is in the company of these terrific, one-of-a-kind films, not among the failed efforts, that The Tenant belongs. Its madness informs its sublime balance between the ridiculous and the terrifying. This madness is born of Polanski's pain, no doubt, and it's a madness that forges ahead.

The cast, which combines actors of different generations and experience, is impressive:

apart Roman Polanski and Isabelle Adjani, the building is in fact populated by great old Academy Award winners such as Melvyn Douglas, Jo Van Fleet, Shelley Winters, Lila Kedrova and fine supporting actors as Claude Dauphin, Bernard Fresson, Michel Blanc, Josiane Balasko, Gérard Jugnot.

Perhaps peculiarly, the film has no end credits, only the Paramount logo.

The original poster of the film is designed by Richard Amsel.

Fitness First - Wait Watching

No more living in denial about the size of your waist line, thanks to this fantastic albeit terrifying guerrilla marketing initiative from the health club chain, Fitness First. Unsuspecting commuters in the Netherlands are faced with viewing their body weight in bright lights - quite literally - when they take a seat at this Rotterdam bus stop. Scary to say the very least, but extraordinarily clever and likely to increase membership numbers at the local Fitness First. The brainchild of Netherlands’ agency N=5, the initiative takes the concept of guerilla marketing to a whole new level.

Requiem for a dream (2000)

Requiem for a Dream is a 2000 film adaptation of the 1978 novel of the same name. The novel was written by Hubert Selby, Jr.; the film adaptation was directed by Darren Aronofsky, and starred Ellen Burstyn, Jared Leto, Jennifer Connelly, and Marlon Wayans. Burstyn was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance.

The film depicts different forms of addiction, leading to the characters’ imprisonment in a dream world of delusion and reckless desperation that is subsequently overtaken and devastated by reality.

The majority of reviewers characterized Requiem for a Dream in the genre of "drug movies," along with films like Trainspotting, Spun, and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. However, Aronofsky has said:

Requiem for a Dream is not about heroin or about drugs… The Harry-Tyrone-Marion story is a very traditional heroin story. But putting it side by side with the Sara story, we suddenly say, 'Oh, my God, what is a drug?' The idea that the same inner monologue goes through a person's head when they're trying to quit drugs, as with cigarettes, as when they're trying to not eat food so they can lose 20 pounds, was really fascinating to me. I thought it was an idea that we hadn't seen on film and I wanted to bring it up on the screen.

In the book, Selby refers to the "American Dream" as amorphous and unattainable, a compilation of the various desires of the story's characters. All the characters use some form of addiction as a substitute for the actual fulfillment of a dream, choosing immediate sensory placation over a struggle for some higher good. Selby explains the title of his book in this context—as a requiem for some specific dream (a dream) as opposed to the larger, overarching "American Dream" (the dream).While an individual dream can wither and die, the American Dream is persistent and cannot be easily overcome, certainly not by those who are so entangled in it that they cannot see it.

As in his previous film, π, Aronofsky uses montages of extremely short shots throughout the film (sometimes termed a hip hop montage). While an average 100-minute film has 600 to 700 cuts, Requiem features more than 2,000. Split-screen is used extensively, along with extremely tight closeups. Long tracking shots (including those shot with an apparatus strapping a camera to an actor, called the Snorricam) and time-lapse photography are also prominent stylistic devices.

In order to portray the shift from the objective, community-based narrative to the subjective, isolated state of the characters' perspectives, Aronofsky alternates between extreme closeups and extreme distance from the action and intercuts reality with a character's fantasy. Aronofsky aims to subjectivise emotion, and the effect of his stylistic choices is personalisation rather than alienation.

The film's distancing itself from empathy is furthered structurally by the use of intertitles (Summer, Fall, Winter), marking the temporal progress of addiction. The average scene length shortens as the movie progresses (beginning around 90 seconds to 2 minutes) until the movie's climactic scenes, which are cut together very rapidly (many changes per second) and are accompanied by a score which increases in intensity accordingly. After the climax, there is a short period of serenity, during which idyllic dreams of what may have been are juxtaposed with portraits of the four shattered lives. Many magazine film critics consider Requiem for a Dream the director's masterpiece.

The soundtrack was composed by Clint Mansell with the string ensemble performed by Kronos Quartet. It is notable for its use of sharp string instruments to create a cold and discomforting sound from instruments frequently used for their warmth and softness. The string quartet arrangements were done by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer David Lang.

The soundtrack has been widely praised and has subsequently been used in various forms in trailers for other films and series, including The Da Vinci Code, Sunshine, Lost, I Am Legend, Valley of Flowers, Babylon A.D., Zathura, and the video game Assassin's Creed. More specifically, a version of the recurring theme was reorchestrated for the The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers film trailer. This version is often known as "Requiem for a Tower." It has also been featured in many other commercials and trailers and as remixes on other artists' albums. For example, G.M.S. are widely known for their mix of the song, titled "Juice by GMS." Lil' Jon's track "Throw It Up" uses a sample from the main theme as the beat.

The soundtrack also confirmed its popularity with the remix album Requiem for a Dream: Remixed, which contains new mixes of the music by Paul Oakenfold, Josh Wink, Jagz Kooner, and Delerium, among others. The score is also used as the main theme for the UK's Sky Sports News channel and the entrance theme for the 2007–08 Boston Celtics NBA championship team.

X I P H O P H I L I A

Peter Ibbetson (1935)

Peter Ibbetson is an American black-and-white drama film released in 1935 and directed by Henry Hathaway.

The picture is based on a novel by George du Maurier, first published in 1891. In 1917, du Maurier's story was adapted into a very successful Broadway play starring John Barrymore, Lionel Barrymore, Constance Collier and Laura Hope Crews. The story had also been filmed in 1921, as a silent film called Forever (1921), directed by George Fitzmaurice and starring the popular Wallace Reid.

This tale of a love that transcends all obstacles relates the story of two young lovers who are separated in childhood and then drawn together by destiny years later, even after they die. The movie's transitions between reality and fantasy are captured by the cinematography of Charles Lang, as discussed in the documentary Visions of Light (1992).

Gogo is a young boy of English extraction growing up in Paris. He is friendly with the neighbor girl, Mimsey. Gogo is taken to England by his uncle, who gives him an English name based on his mother's maiden name, transforming Gogo into Peter Ibbetson.

"So ended the first chapter in the strange foreshadowed life of Peter Ibbetson."

Now an adult Englishman, Ibbetson (Gary Cooper) is an architect working in Paris on a restoration job for the British Duke of Towers (John Halliday). He discovers that the Duchess of Towers (Ann Harding) is Mary, his childhood sweetheart. Mary keeps the dress she wore at their last childhood meeting in the dresser beside her bed.

The Duke becomes jealous and pulls a gun on Ibbetson. Ibbetson manages to kill the Duke in self-defense.

"So Death ended the second chapter. And then, in a prison on the bleak English moors..."

Ibbetson is sentenced to life in prison, and despairs that he will never see Mary again. However, the lovers are reunited in one another's dreams, which connect them spiritually. Peter can leave prison to join Mary in sunlit glades and meadows, but only in his slumbers.

"...and so, many years went by."

Though the years pass, Peter and Mary remain youthful in their dreams. Mary speaks to Peter from beyond. Then Peter joins her there.

Zoolander (2001)

Zoolander is a 2001 comedy film directed by Ben Stiller. The film is based on a pair of short films directed by Russell Bates and written by Drake Sather and Stiller for the VH1 Fashion Awards television specials in 1996 and 1997. The short films and the movie feature Derek Zoolander, a dimwitted male model. The title role is played by Ben Stiller, and in the feature film (which Stiller directed), Zoolander's agent, Maury Ballstein, is played by Stiller's father Jerry Stiller. It was banned and never released in Malaysia and Singapore.

The movie's box office was hurt by the fact that it opened two weekends after the September 11, 2001 attacks; it was among the first comedy films after the occurrence to enter theaters. In the trailer for the Oliver Stone movie World Trade Center, a poster for Zoolander can be seen in the background as the shadow of the first plane to hit the WTC passes over New York City.

Zoolander's name is derived from the last names of male models Mark Vanderloo and Johnny Zander. The original combination had been "Zanderloo," which Ben Stiller felt was too close to the original sources.

Throughout most of the film, Zoolander shows an inability to turn left. (Quote: "I'm not an ambi-turner.") To compensate, he will continuously turn right until he faces the correct direction. So, rather than making a 90° turn left, Zoolander will turn 270° right. However, a goof showed him exiting the awards show by turning left. In fact, an inability to turn left is one symptom experienced by those with Hemispatial neglect, a condition caused by damage to the right hemisphere of the brain. Patients with this problem compensate in the same way as Zoolander, turning right until they are facing the desired direction.

"Blue Steel" is the name of a male model pose in Zoolander. The film's protagonist Derek Zoolander invented the pose and he protects it as a trade secret (it is supposedly patented). It is his claim to fame, along with his "Spiky Black Hair". The style of the pose is identical to all his other named poses, which include "Le Tigre" and "Ferrari". This contributes to the running joke that despite his reputation as a male model, Zoolander knows only one pose. However, his "Magnum" pose that saved the Prime Minister is different from the others because he turns left, The reason he could not complete the pose Magnum was because he could not turn left, until the final scene where he uses "Magnum" to save the day.

The name of the character Jacobim Mugatu is a reference to the Star Trek episode "A Private Little War." In the episode, there is a predatory, venomous primate called a "Mugato". It, like Zoolander's Mugatu, has bright white hair. The name of the character Matilda Jeffries is a reference to Star Trek set designer Matt Jeffries. Ben Stiller has said he is a huge Star Trek fan.

Additionally, when it is revealed that he was a former keytar player for Frankie Goes to Hollywood, his real last name is shown to be "Moogberg": a reference to the Moog synthesizer and its inventor, Robert Moog.

"Derelicte" is the name given to the fashion line designed by Will Ferrell's character Mugatu. It is described by Mugatu in the film as "a fashion, a way of life inspired by the very homeless, the vagrants, the crack whores that make this wonderful city so unique." The fashion line consists of clothing made from everyday objects that could be found on the streets of New York. Derelicte is a parody of a real fashion line created by John Galliano in 2000.

Mugatu is also a parody of the Bond villain Blofeld, who (in the films) is famous for his white cat. Mugatu on the other hand, is always seen with a white poodle.

In December 2008, according to media reports Ben Stiller did confirm that he intends to make a sequel to this movie, currently called 'Zoolander 2' which is presumably only a working title at this early stage.

Wild at Heart (1990)

Wild at Heart is a 1990 American film written and directed by David Lynch, and based on Barry Gifford's pulp novel Wild at Heart: The Story of Sailor and Lula. Both the book and the film revolve around Sailor Ripley (Nicolas Cage) and Lula Pace Fortune (Laura Dern), a young couple from Cape Fear, North Carolina who decide to go on the run from her domineering mother (Diane Ladd). As a result of her mother's plans, the mob becomes involved.

Lynch was originally going to produce the film but after reading Gifford's book decided to also write and direct the film version. The filmmaker did not like the ending of the novel and decided to change it in order to stay true to his vision of the main characters. Wild at Heart is a road movie and includes bizarre, almost supernatural events and off-kilter violence with sometimes overtly heavy allusions to The Wizard of Oz and strong references to Elvis Presley and his movies that found their way into screenplay as Lynch was writing it.

Early test screenings for Wild at Heart did not go well; Lynch estimated that 80 people walked out of the first test screening and 100 in the next. The film received mixed to negative critical reviews and was a moderate success at the United States box office, grossing USD $14 million, above its $10 million budget. The film won the Palme d'Or at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival, which received both negative and positive attention by the audience. Diane Ladd was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for both the Academy Awards and the Golden Globes.

One of the film's themes is, according to Lynch, "finding love in Hell". He has stated "For me, it's just a compilation of ideas that come along. The darker ones and the lighter ones, the humorous ones, all working together. You try to be as true as you can to those ideas and try to get them on film." Similar to Lynch's previous Blue Velvet, the sudden idealistic ending of perfect happiness is so drenched in irony that ultimately Lynch seems to be suggesting that people who have the potential for violence struggle to find true happiness.

Barry Gifford's character Perdita Durango (played by Isabella Rossellini in Wild at Heart) also appears in Alex de la Iglesia's movie Perdita Durango (1997), where she is played by Rosie Perez.

Groundhog Day (1993)

Groundhog Day is a 1993 comedy film directed by Harold Ramis, starring Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell. It was written by Ramis and Danny Rubin, and based on a story by Rubin.

In the film, Murray plays Phil Connors, an egocentric Pittsburgh TV weatherman who, during a hated assignment covering the annual Groundhog Day event (February 2) in Punxsutawney, finds himself repeating the same day over and over again. After indulging in all manner of hedonistic pursuits, then going through a suicidal streak, he begins to reexamine his life and priorities.

In 2006, Groundhog Day was added to the United States National Film Registry as being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." It is listed as the 174th most popular movie at the Internet Movie Database as of Groundhog Day, 2009.

Self-centered TV meteorologist Phil Connors, his producer Rita, and cameraman Larry from the fictional Pittsburgh television station WPBH-TV9 travel to Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania to cover the annual Groundhog Day festivities with Punxsutawney Phil. Having grown tired of this assignment, Phil grudgingly gives his report and attempts to return back to Pittsburgh when a blizzard that he predicted would miss the area shuts down the main roads. Phil and his team are forced to stay in town an extra day.

Phil wakes up to find that he is reliving February 2 again. Everyone else is repeating the same actions as the day before, seemingly unaware of the time loop, though Phil remains aware of the events of the previous day. At first he is confused, but, when the loop continues, he starts to try to take advantage of the situation without fear of long-term consequences: learning secrets from the town's residents, seducing women, stealing money, and driving drunk. However, his attempts to get closer to Rita are repeatedly shut down. With each passage of the loop, Phil becomes despondent; during one loop, he kidnaps Punxsutawney Phil and after a long police chase, drives over a cliff, appearing to kill both himself and the groundhog. However, Phil wakes up in the next loop and finds that nothing has changed; further attempts at suicide are just as fruitless as he continues to find himself back at the start of February 2.

Phil continues to try to learn more about Rita, and when he reveals his situation to her and the knowledge he's gained about the town's residents, she opens up to him and suggests he try to use his situation to help benefit the town. Phil uses her advice and the time loop to help as many people around town as possible, as well as bettering himself, such as by learning to play jazz piano and speaking French. Phil, now engrossed with the town's celebration, is able to admit his love to Rita, and she accepts and returns his love. After the evening dance, the two retire together to Phil's room.

Phil wakes up the next day, and finds the time loop has broken; it is now February 3 and Rita is still in bed with him. As the team prepare to return to Pittsburgh, Phil and Rita talk about eventually settling down in Punxsutawney, but they'll "rent to start."

The film's cult following has made Phil Connors one of Murray's best-known roles. In a recorded holiday greeting played on Air America Radio, the actor wishes the listener a "Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy New Year and Happy Groundhog Day."

An Italian remake, È già ieri, moved the action to a tiny island in the Canary Islands archipelago, on August 13. Instead of groundhogs, the protagonist is there to cover the migration of storks.

During Groundhog Day in the video game Animal Crossing, a character mentions that Groundhog Day was good enough to have a movie made about it.

The Stargate SG-1 episode "Window of Opportunity" (itself about a time loop) has Jack O'Neill refer to the film, saying "So you can be king of Groundhog Day".

In book eight of The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi series, Kyon mentions that he might end up repeating his first year of high school for the rest of his life "Groundhog's Day style".

The BBC released a docu-drama called End Day which depicts a scientist who is unknowingly caught in a loop of different apocalyptic and disastrous events including a massive tsunami, asteroid impact, a supervolcano, a global pandemic, and a black hole-like phenomenon. At the start of each loop, the scientist hails a cab near a London cinema, which displays the words "Groundhog Day, now showing", an obvious reference to the inspiration behind the loop concept used in the programme.

The episode of Xena: Warrior Princess titled "Been There, Done That" involves Xena stuck in a time loop until she figures out how to unite two lovers. The episode is a direct homage, going so far as having the wake up line "Rise & shine" spoken by one of the characters at the start of each repeated day.

The third-season episode of Supernatural titled "Mystery Spot" involves Sam reliving the same day over and over, continually having to deal with Dean's death. In several of the time loops when Sam explains his predicament to Dean, Dean says it's "like Groundhog Day". More direct references include Sam awakening each time to the same song ("Heat of the Moment" by Asia) and Dean announcing "Rise and shine, Sammy!"

The premise of the ABC television series Day Break starring Taye Diggs was promoted as a "re imagining" of the Groundhog Day premise, as the lead character is also repeating the same day over and over.

A movie on Nickelodeon entitled The Last Day of Summer is about a boy stuck in a time loop on the last day of summer.

In the 6th season episode of The X-Files entitled "Monday", a woman is forced to repeat the same day over and over until she finds a way to get FBI agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully to end the day correctly.

A February 2nd, 2009 episode of G4's Attack of the Show! also copied the film's plot, in which hosts Kevin Pereira and Olivia Munn welcomed viewers to the show and presented the show's "Around the Net" segment over and over again in each part of the show. They were not able to finish the countdown until that day's number one video, which was a Super Bowl XLIII ad from Cash4Gold.com starring Ed McMahon and M.C. Hammer, appeared at the end of the show.

The Seven percent Solution

The Seven-Per-Cent Solution is the title of a 1974 novel by Nicholas Meyer. It is written as a pastiche of a Sherlock Holmes adventure, and was adapted for the cinema in 1976. The novel's full title is The Seven-Per-Cent Solution: Being a Reprint from the Reminiscences of John H. Watson, M.D.

Published as a "lost manuscript" of the late Dr. John H. Watson, the book recounts Holmes' recovery from cocaine addiction (with the help of Sigmund Freud) and his subsequent prevention of a European war through the unraveling of a sinister kidnapping plot. It was followed by two other Holmes pastiches by Meyer, The West End Horror (1976) and The Canary Trainer (1993), neither of which has been adapted to film.

The story was adapted for the screen in 1976, starring Nicol Williamson as Sherlock Holmes, Robert Duvall as Watson, and Alan Arkin as Dr. Sigmund Freud. Laurence Olivier played the brief role of Professor Moriarty.

Though Meyer adapted his novel to screenplay form, the film version differs significantly from the novel, mainly by supplementing the book's Austrian baron-villain with an older, Turkish foe. Also, the film departs from traditional Holmes canon in portraying the detective as light-haired instead of the traditional black-haired, and as a somewhat flirtatious Holmes at that. (Doyle's hero never let women see any signs of interest.) Furthermore, the traumatic revelation that affected Holmes in his childhood is heightened; in the final hypnosis therapy reveals that Sherlock personally witnessed his mother's murder by his father, and that Moriarty himself was her lover. (Though even in the original novel, Watson suspects that Moriarty's role was larger than Freud thought.) Meyer's three Holmes novels are much more faithful to the original stories in these regards. Meyer's adapted screenplay was nevertheless nominated for a 1977 Academy Award.

Charles Gray, who plays Sherlock's brother Mycroft Holmes in the film, later went on to play the same role opposite Jeremy Brett in four episodes of Granada Television's The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes series.

The original poster of the film is designed by Richard Amsel.

In memoriam : Millard Kaufman 1917-2009

The creator of the bumbling cartoon character Mr Magoo, Millard Kaufman, has died at the age of 92.

survival kit n°1

The Wicker Man (1973)

The Wicker Man is a classic cult 1973 British film filmed in Scotland, combining thriller, existential horror and musical genres, directed by Robin Hardy and written by Anthony Shaffer. The film stars Edward Woodward, Christopher Lee, Diane Cilento, Ingrid Pitt and Britt Ekland. Paul Giovanni composed the soundtrack.

The story follows a Scottish police officer, Sergeant Neil Howie, visiting the isolated island of Summerisle, in the search for a missing girl whom the locals claim never existed. The inhabitants of Summerisle all follow a reconstucted form of Celtic paganism, which shocks and appalls the devoutly Christian Sergeant.

The Wicker Man is generally very highly regarded by critics and film enthusiasts in general. Film magazine Cinefantastique described it as "The Citizen Kane of Horror Movies", and in 2004 the magazine Total Film named The Wicker Man the sixth greatest British film of all time. It also won the 1978 Saturn Award for Best Horror Film. A scene from this film was #45 on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments.

The work was later allocated as the first film of The Wicker Man Trilogy, with a sequel, entitled Cowboys for Christ, currently in production based on a book by Robin Hardy, 35 years after the film's original release. A third film, The Twilight of the Gods, is set for a later release.

A 2006 American remake has also been produced, from which Robin Hardy and other members of the British original disassociate themselves. A stage adaptation is also being produced for Autumn 2009.

A novelized version of the screenplay, attributed to both Shaffer and Hardy, was published in 1978.

Christopher Lee was well known as a Hammer Films regular, in particular playing Dracula in a series of successful films. At the time, Lee was looking to expand his acting horizons, and collaborated with British Lion head Peter Snell and playwright Anthony Shaffer (already well known for Sleuth) to develop a film based on the 1967 novel Ritual by David Pinner. Though the book was all but completely abandoned (all that survived from Pinner's book into the finished film is the scene in which Howie presses himself against his bedroom wall as a means of communing with the siren-like calls of Willow next door), the idea of an idealistic confrontation between a modern Christian and a remote, pagan community continued to intrigue Shaffer, who performed painstaking research on the topic. Brainstorming with director Robin Hardy, the film was conceived as presenting the pagan elements objectively and accurately, accompanied by authentic music and a believable, contemporary setting.

After Michael York and David Hemmings turned down the role of the policeman, television actor Edward Woodward was cast. In Britain he was already familiar as the TV spy Callan, a role he played from 1967 to 1972. He later gained international attention portraying the title character in the 1980 Australian film Breaker Morant. (American audiences probably know Woodward best for his role in the 1980s CBS TV series The Equalizer.)

Diane Cilento was lured out of semi-retirement after Shaffer saw her on the stage to play the town's schoolmistress, and Ingrid Pitt (another British horror film veteran) was cast as the town librarian and registrar. The Swedish actress Britt Ekland was cast as the innkeeper's lascivious daughter (perhaps for box office appeal), though her singing and possibly all her dialogue was redubbed by Annie Ross, and some of her nude dancing was performed by a double called Jane Jackson who lived in Castle Douglas at the time.

The film was produced at a time of crisis in the British film industry. The studio in charge of production, British Lion Films, was in financial trouble and was bought out by millionaire businessman John Bentley. To convince the unions that he was not about to asset-strip the company, Bentley needed to get a film into production quickly. This meant that The Wicker Man, a film set during spring, was actually filmed in October: artificial leaves and blossoms had to be glued to trees in many scenes. The production was kept on a tight budget. Christopher Lee was extremely keen to get the film made; he and others worked on the production without pay. While filming took place, British Lion was taken over by EMI Films.

The film was almost entirely filmed in the small Scottish towns of Gatehouse of Fleet, Newton Stewart, Kirkcudbright and a few scenes in the village of Creetown in Dumfries and Galloway. Culzean Castle in Ayrshire and its grounds were also used for much of the shooting. The end burning of the Wicker Man took place at Burrow Head (on a caravan site).

Don't look now (1973)

Don't Look Now is an Anglo-Italian thriller, directed by Nicolas Roeg and released in 1973. It is based on a short story by Daphne du Maurier.

Don't Look Now tells the story of a couple, Laura (Julie Christie) and John Baxter (Donald Sutherland) whose young daughter has recently drowned in a tragic accident at home. Their grief puts a sudden pressure on their marriage.

Seeking a change of scenery and an opportunity to work through their loss, they take a "working vacation" to Venice, Italy, where John has been contracted to restore an ancient church. While John attends to this project, Laura is befriended by two strange elderly sisters. One of the sisters, Heather (Hilary Mason), is blind and claims to be in psychic contact with the Baxters' dead daughter. Laura is drawn to the sisters, but John finds their influence on her unsettling and suspects them of deceit. The ensuing drama is set against a subplot involving a serial killer who has eluded the police. John catches glimpses of a child-like figure in red raingear who resembles his dead daughter, although the figure vanishes whenever John pursues it. He begins to question his own sanity and that of his wife as Laura appears to be completely under the command of the sisters, who in turn suggest that John shares their gift of a "second sight."

John's fears and Laura's apparent obsession with the sisters lead them into a spiraling vortex of coincidences, recurring themes and motifs (light on water, breaking glass, the colour red), which reaches a dramatic conclusion in an old bell tower. John confronts the mysterious figure in red, realizing too late that his visions were premonitions of a grisly end.

Although memorable for its puzzling story and unusual editing, Don't Look Now has become almost as well-known for its sex scene involving Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie. The scene was unusually graphic for the time, leading to rumours that it was unsimulated, though only 9 frames were trimmed for the original American theatrical release in order to avoid an MPAA X rating. The assertion that Sutherland and Christie actually had sex was repeated as recently as 2001 in Patrick Robertson's Film Facts.

The scene was an unscripted last-minute improvisation by Roeg who felt that without it there would be too many scenes of the couple arguing. It is edited in a typically unorthodox Roeg manner, with the footage of the act intercut with footage of the couple getting dressed for dinner, afterward.

Director Steven Soderbergh paid homage to the scene by including a tamer version in a similar style in his 1998 Elmore Leonard adaptation Out of Sight. A similar scene also appears in the 1981 thriller, Ghost Story, between Craig Wasson and Alice Krige. Christie and Sutherland reteamed for the 1992 film, The Railway Station Man, which also included a frank depiction of a sexual act.

The theme of the little red-clad Venetian figure is used in a dream sequence in the "Book Clubbin'" episode of television series Absolutely Fabulous, Series 5.

In the feature film Flatliners, Kiefer Sutherland is tormented by a small childlike figure in a red hooded coat in an homage to his father's film.

This film heavily influenced Alice, Sweet Alice.

This film seems to have influenced "RD", Episode 13 of The Big O.

The video to Sophie Ellis-Bextor's single "Catch You" draws heavily on the film's imagery as Bextor runs around Venice in a red evening dress.

The Irish feature film Intermission (starring Colm Meaney and Colin Farrell) references the chase of a small figure in a red coat several times.

The film is often referenced by cult British television series The League of Gentlemen.

Clips from this film appear in the video for Big Audio Dynamite's 1986 hit "E=MC2"

The Vast video "Pretty When You Cry" has many references to the movie.

The drowning scene is referenced by the 2005 film The Dark starring Sean Bean and Maria Bello in which their daughter drowns wearing a bright red sweater.

In the 2005 film Hostel, a figure fleetingly glimpsed wearing a red raincoat is pursued through narrow alleyways.

The end chase scene is referenced in the 2006 release of Casino Royale where James Bond is pursuing Vesper through Venice while she is wearing a red coat.

In the 2006 remake of The Wicker Man, the little girl is seen running around in a red coat. As well, there is a pair of twins, old women, except both of them are blind. The original The Wicker Man was released as a double-bill with Don't Look Now.

The animated portion of the Halloween episode of children's program Yo Gabba Gabba features many classic movie monsters. Near the end a small figure in a red slicker appears as an obscure homage.

The 2008 film In Bruges has many references to Don't Look Now, including the claim by one character that the film-within-a-film is a pastiche of Don't Look Now.

Portions of the film are sampled in the M83 song "America."

In an episode of the British television series Spaced, a girl in a red coat is seen whilst Tim is looking for Colin.

In Bruges (2008)

In Bruges is a 2008 film directed and written by Martin McDonagh. The film stars Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson as hitmen in hiding, with Ralph Fiennes as their gangster boss. The film takes place within the Belgian city of Bruges. In Bruges was the opening night film of the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. The film opened in limited release in the United States on 8 February 2008; premiered at the Dublin Film Festival on 15 February 2008; later went on full release in the Republic of Ireland on 7 March 2008; and opened 18 April 2008 in the United Kingdom.

Colin Farrell won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy for the film, while Martin McDonagh won a BAFTA for Best Original Screenplay.

The plot bears notable similarities to Harold Pinter's The Dumb Waiter. The film also contains many references to Don't Look Now, including the claim by Chloë that the film-within-a-film is an homage of Don't Look Now. There are also several references to Touch of Evil, which Ken watches in his hotel room.

The film received generally favourable reviews from critics. As of 4 March 2009 the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 81% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 147 reviews. Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 67 out of 100, based on 34 reviews. Chicago Sun-Times film critic Roger Ebert gave the film high praise and a four-out-of-four-star rating, saying, "This film debut by the theater writer and director Martin McDonagh is an endlessly surprising, very dark, human comedy, with a plot that cannot be foreseen but only relished."

The Party (1968)

The Party (alternative title: "Hollywood Party") is a 1968 comedy written and directed by Blake Edwards, starring Peter Sellers (in what was his only non-Pink Panther collaboration with Edwards) and Claudine Longet. The film has a very loose structure, and essentially serves as a series of set pieces for the comic talents of Sellers. Sellers had played another Indian man in his hit film The Millionairess, and a similar (though self-important, unlike the humble role he plays here) klutz as Inspector Clouseau. The film remains popular among fans of Sellers as one of his most inventive comic roles, much of which was improvised at the time of filming.

The minimal plot involves Sellers playing a well-meaning, but hapless, Indian actor who is accidentally invited to a lavish Hollywood party, causing havoc.

Hrundi V. Bakshi (Peter Sellers) is a seemingly nameless and faceless actor from India brought to Hollywood for a role in a film similar to Gunga Din. Unfortunately, he manages to blow up the set before the cameras are rolling, ruining the entire film. The director (Herbert Ellis) is beside himself, fires Bakshi immediately and wants him blacklisted. However, instead of being blacklisted, Bakshi's name is accidentally written on the guest list of the studio boss's party.

Upon arrival, he loses his shoe in the stream that flows through the house and spends a significant amount of time attempting to retrieve it (a scene copied by Amitabh Bachchan in the movie Namak Halaal). As he offers to engage in banter, guests and host look on in puzzled confusion. The only ones at the party to pay him much notice, at first, are Michèle (Claudine Longet) and a macaw to whom Bakshi talks gibberish and overfeeds "birdie num nums."

Invites and attendants include a drunken female guest, a drunken waiter (who becomes increasingly more inebriated as the film progresses) and his irritated superior, politicians, various Hollywood luminaries, and a Russian ballet troupe that arrives towards the end of the party.

At the dinner table, the drunken waiter (Steven Franken) serves the guests Caesar salad using his bare hand instead of the proper utensil. During the main course, Bakshi's roast cornish game hen is accidentally catapulted off his fork and becomes impaled on a guest's tiara. He asks the waiter to retrieve his meal, and the clumsy man complies, unaware that the woman's fall-wig has come off along with her tiara, as she is obliviously engaged in conversation.

Bakshi leaves damaged appliances and havoc wherever he wanders. At one point he mistakenly sticks his hand into a bowl of crushed ice that turns out to be the caviar dish; he spends a good amount of time shaking hands with other guests, passing around a fishy odor.

Other party obstacles include a control panel with various switches that activate the intercom, the slide-out bar (which Bakshi closes while the bartender is still busy mixing drinks), various retractable floor panels that extend the size of the indoor-outdoor swimming pool, artwork, a backed-up toilet with bidet, and an electric toilet paper roll.

The would-be hippie children of the Hollywood executives eventually turn up with a baby elephant covered in stereotypical 1960s slogans. The action of the party then moves to the pool, where Bakshi asks that the elephant be restored to a more dignified state. The entire house is soon overrun with soap bubbles as they scrub graffiti off the animal. The police arrive as well. Bakshi offers to drive Michèle home (in his Morgan three-wheeler car) and the film ends with a hint that this is the beginning of a romantic relationship.

The film's interiors were shot on a set, at the MGM lot. The original script was only 56-60 pages in length. Blake Edwards later said it was the shortest script he ever shot from, and the majority of the content in the film was improvised on set.

The film draws much inspiration from the works of Jacques Tati; Bakshi arrives at the party in a Morgan three-wheeler similar to Monsieur Hulot's cyclecar in Monsieur Hulot's Holiday; the entire film storyline is reminiscent of the Royal Garden restaurant sequence of Playtime; and the comedic interaction with inanimate objects and gadgets parallels several of Tati's films, especially Mon Oncle.

The score of The Party was by Henry Mancini, including the song "Nothing to Lose." Mancini, commenting on audience reactions, noted, "That's what I get for writing a nice song for a comedy. Nobody's going to hear a note of it." During a scene later in the film, the band can be heard playing "It Had Better Be Tonight," which was a song Henry Mancini composed for the first Pink Panther film.

The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)

The Royal Tenenbaums is a 2001 dramatic dark comedy directed by Wes Anderson about three gifted siblings who experience great success in youth, and even greater disappointment and failure after their eccentric father leaves them in their adolescent years. An off-beat, ironic, absurdist sense of humor pervades the entire film.

The film features an ensemble cast, including Anjelica Huston as Etheline Tenenbaum, Owen Wilson as Eli Cash, Luke Wilson as Richie Tenenbaum, Ben Stiller as Chas Tenenbaum, Gwyneth Paltrow as Margot Tenenbaum, Danny Glover as Henry Sherman, Gene Hackman as Royal Tenenbaum and Bill Murray as Raleigh St. Clair. Alec Baldwin narrates.

Gene Hackman won a Golden Globe for his performance and Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson's screenplay was nominated for an Academy Award.

The movie begins at the point where Royal Tenenbaum is explaining to his three children Chas, Margot, and Richie that he and his wife, Etheline, will soon separate. The scene then evolves into a short explanation of each of the Tenenbaums' lives. Each experiences great success at a very young age.

Chas is a math and business genius who creates a business in his teens selling specially mutated "dalmatian" mice to dealers in Little Tokyo. He also has money stolen from his personal safe deposit box by Royal.

Margot is the only adopted child of Etheline and Royal. Royal always mentions it when introducing her. Margot was awarded a $50,000 Braverman grant for a play that she wrote at a very young age. She invites Royal to a birthday party where her first play will be shown, and Royal tells her the plot is "just not believable."

Richie is a tennis prodigy and artist, but "failed to develop as a painter." He expresses his love for adopted sister Margot through many paintings, and also camps out in the African wing of the public archives, sharing a sleeping bag with her. Royal takes him on regular outings, to which neither of the other children are invited. Richie also has a hawk named Mordecai, which takes flight at the end of this montage. Eli Cash is the Tenenbaums' neighbor, and Richie's best friend.

The action then skips ahead 22 years. Royal is kicked out of the hotel he had been living in for the past 22 years. All three of the Tenenbaum children are in a post-success slump. Richie is traveling all over the planet in a cruise ship following a breakdown at a tennis match, presumably hiding from the world. He writes a letter to Eli saying that he loves Margot romantically.

Chas has become extremely overprotective of his two children, Ari and Uzi, following his wife Rachael's tragic death in a plane crash. Margot is married to a neurologist named Raleigh St. Clair, but soaks in a bathtub six hours a day. She hides her smoking habit - along with most of her past - from her husband. Raleigh performs tests on Dudley Heinsbergen (Stephen Lea Sheppard), researching a strange disorder he calls Heinsbergen syndrome. It involves elements of "amnesia, dyslexia, color blindness, and an extremely acute sense of hearing." The movie then cuts to Etheline's situation. Her accountant, Henry Sherman, proposes to her. Etheline has had many suitors since her separation from Royal, yet this is the first proposal she actually considers accepting.

Being kicked out onto the street, broke, homeless, and given the news that his wife, Etheline, is considering marrying her accountant, Royal devises a plot to convince Etheline that he has stomach cancer in order to win her back as well as the affections of his estranged children.

Etheline calls each of the Tenenbaum children, and for the first time in 17 years they are all living in the same house together. As soon as they meet, Royal discovers that things are very wrong in each of the children's lives. Chas has harbored hate against him for shooting him in the hand with a BB gun as a child (among other reasons). To Chas's dismay, Royal moves into the old house and sets up a large amount of medical equipment in Richie's room. Royal discovers that Chas is ridiculously overprotective of his children. He then decides to "breed a little recklessness" into Ari and Uzi. He takes them on outings involving swimming, horse riding, go-karting around town, shoplifting a convenience store, throwing water balloons at cars, riding on the back of a garbage truck, and dogfights. When he gets back, Chas takes him into a closet and berates him for endangering his children. When Royal shouts out, "I think you're having a nervous breakdown!" Chas steps out of the closet to avoid breaking his chain of denial.

Margot, on the other hand, has issues of her own. Eli, with whom Margot has been having an affair, tells her that Richie loves her. Later, Raleigh comes to check things out with her. Royal observes the two, and discovers that she has been cheating on Raleigh with Eli and objects to Margot's treatment of Raleigh. Raleigh has his suspicions, too. He talks to Richie (who also loves her) about it, and (although it is not shown in the movie) they hire a private investigator to spy on her. This forms a sort of "love quadrilateral." On the other hand, Royal starts to try to win back Etheline. Henry observes Royal eating a cheeseburger and decides to tell Etheline that he thinks that he may not have cancer. Royal starts using a variety of racial slurs to try to anger Henry. At one point, he calls him "Coltrane," and they start a fight over it. The fight is broken up by Etheline. Henry, suspicious, investigates Royal's supposed hospital, discovering it had closed years before and the doctor is an invention of Royal's. Henry then confronts Royal's partner in crime, Pagoda, and asks him how much Royal is paying him. Henry also discovers that Royal's cancer medication pills are just Tic Tacs in medicine bottles.

Henry picks an opportune moment, and tells the whole family that he knows that Royal can't have stomach cancer. He explains that it's extremely painful, and you can't eat "three cheeseburgers a day and fries if you have it." He also says that his past wife had died from it, so he would know what it looks like. Henry also mentions that the hospital he claimed to have been receiving treatment from is no longer operating. Having been discovered, Royal and Pagoda leave. Before he goes, Royal says that the past six days had been the best days of his life. Now even more broke than before, he and Pagoda get jobs as elevator attendants.

Richie and Raleigh then get the private eye report on Margot back. The following montage shows Margot at various points in her life: starting smoking, escaping from school, having a lesbian affair, getting married to a Jamaican recording artist for nine days, and having brief affairs with various men, including Eli Cash. Upon hearing the report, Raleigh says "So, she smokes." The news has a much more profound effect on Richie. He goes into the bathroom, shaves off his beard and most of his hair, calmly says "I'm going to kill myself tomorrow," and then slits his wrists, causing massive blood loss. Dudley finds him in a pool of his own blood, and Raleigh rushes him to the hospital. Soon after as the Tenenbaums sit in the waiting room, a visibly sad Raleigh acknowledges Margot's extramarital affairs in front of her and the family before leaving. Soon after, Richie escapes the hospital and meets with Margot. They share with each other their secret love and kiss.

Not long before, Royal and Etheline had signed the divorce papers making Etheline single. Henry and Etheline then plan their wedding. Before the marriage, Eli, high on mescaline and painted like an African priest, crashes his car into the side of the house. Royal saves the boys, Ari and Uzi, from being run over, but their dog Buckley isn't so fortunate. Eli flies out of the car, through a window. An infuriated Chas chases after Eli through the house, breaking Father Peterson's ankle during the chase. When Chas catches up to Eli, he wrestles with him, and damages Richie's eye as he tries to pull him off of Eli. Chas throws Eli over a fence and turns around to realize that he's the only one chasing Eli. He then climbs over the fence and lays down next to Eli. Eli realizes that his problem has risked the lives of two children and admits that he needs serious help. Chas agrees that they both need help. During the aftermath, Chas recognizes that Royal saved his children from death, mending their relationship. Royal then buys a dalmatian from the firefighters that are at the scene for Ari and Uzi.

Forty-eight hours later, Etheline and Henry are married in a Judge's Chamber. Margot releases a new play based on her family, which gets fair attendance and mixed reviews with a snickering Royal among the audience, who is aware of the semi-autobiographical elements. Raleigh publishes a book on Dudley's condition entitled "Dudley's World." Eli checks himself into rehab somewhere in North Dakota. Richie starts a junior tennis program. Royal has a heart attack and dies quietly, at the age of 68. Chas is the only witness to his death, with the father and son having re-established their familial bond on Royal's deathbed. The funeral is small, but Royal's headstone reads "Died tragically rescuing his family from the remains of a destroyed sinking battleship." The movie closes with most of the characters walking away from the funeral to the tune of Van Morrison's "Everyone".

he siblings of the Tenenbaum family are all highly intelligent and disillusioned, struggling with their own identities. They are loosely based on a rabble of similarly disillusioned siblings from the later books of famed author J.D. Salinger. The Glass family, composed of seven child-prodigy-turned-adult-misanthrope characters, is the central subject of three of Salinger's four published books, and form the basis for the quirky and unhappy Tenenbaum family, as director Wes Anderson revealed in an interview with Premiere magazine conducted in January 2001.

In one scene, Etheline Tenenbaum urges her daughter Margot Tenenbaum to get out of the bathroom. A similar scene takes up a large part of J.D. Salinger's book Franny and Zooey, when Bessie Glass spends quite a bit of time bothering her son Zooey Glass.

Another key influence was Orson Welles's film The Magnificent Ambersons. Ambersons is the story of the moral and financial decline of the once-great Amberson family. Additionally, the opulent Amberson house is central to the visual style of the film, as in The Royal Tenenbaums.

Some members of the Tenenbaum family are actually modeled after members of cinematographer Robert Yeoman's brother-in-law Walter Karnas's family. Certain small points of family members were exaggerated to make the character its own. The part of Royal Tenenbaum was written for Gene Hackman, but written after Walter Karnas himself. The same goes for the three Tenenbaum children, partially written after three of the Karnas children.

Etheline Tenenbaum, played by Anjelica Huston, was modeled after Wes Anderson's own mother. Anderson's mother similarly adopted archaeology after divorcing her husband. The glasses Etheline wears are actually Mrs. Anderson's. At one point during filming, Anjelica Huston asked Wes Anderson if she was, in fact, supposed to be playing his mother.

Two of the film's characters are thought to be modeled after popular culture icon Nico. The blonde hair and dark mascara of Nico is reflected in the styling of Margot Tenenbaum; additionally, Chas's son Ari shares a name with Nico's son. Nico's "These Days" and "The Fairest of the Seasons" are featured in the movie.

Ari and Uzi's beagle Buckley is a tribute both to singer/songwriter Jeff Buckley and, as a beagle, to the Peanuts character Snoopy. Buckley's replacement by a dalmatian named "Spark Plug" near the end of the film may be a homage to Peanut's creator Charles M. Schulz, who was given the same nickname by his uncle. Furthermore, the instrumental and vocal versions of the song "Christmas Time Is Here" from A Charlie Brown Christmas are played in the film.

The name for the movie was inspired, in part, by a longtime friend of Wes Anderson, Brian Tenenbaum, who has appeared in several of Anderson's movies in bit parts. In the Royal Tenenbaums he is one of the paramedics seen at the end of the film.

Henry Sherman is the name of Wes Anderson's former landlord. When the character of Henry Sherman is introduced in the film, he is standing in front of an apartment with a sign that says "H. Sherman - Landlord".

According to Wes Anderson in the DVD commentary, the subplot in which Margot and Richie hide in a museum is a homage to the book From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, by E. L. Konigsburg. In the book, the characters Claudia and Jamie run away to live in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Luke Wilson's character Richie takes two self portrait shots, the second showing similarities to Stanley Kubrick's self portrait photo.

Happy Birthday!

Sir Michael Caine CBE (born Maurice Joseph Micklewhite Jr. on 14th March 1933 in London, England), is a two-time Academy Award and multiple BAFTA and Golden Globe winning English film actor who has appeared in more than one hundred films. Considered one of British cinema's elite actors, he became known for a number of notable critically acclaimed performances, particularly in the late 1960s, 1970s and 1980s in films such as Zulu (1964), The Ipcress File (1965), Billion Dollar Brain (1967) and others as Harry Palmer, the woman-chasing title character in Alfie (1966), The Italian Job (1969), Get Carter (1971), The Man Who Would Be King (1975), Educating Rita (1983), Oscar-winning performances for supporting actor in Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) and The Cider House Rules (1999), as Nigel Powers in the spoof Austin Powers in Goldmember (2003), and more recently as Alfred Pennyworth, the butler from the Batman film series. Caine was knighted in 2000 by Queen Elizabeth II in recognition of his contribution to cinema. He is noted for retaining his strong cockney accent.

The Safety of Objects (2001)

The Safety of Objects is a 2001 independent film based upon a series of short stories written by A. M. Homes about four suburban families who find that their lives become intertwined. The film was directed by Rose Troche, and has many characters. It is often considered an "intellectual film" in the sense that it touches upon many deep issues of the human experience in life. There are about 15 major characters in the film. Perhaps most notable is the character Esther Gold, played by Glenn Close. Esther Gold is the mother of several children, including a son who is in a coma from a car accident. The other characters are also related to the accident either directly or indirectly. As the film's story continues, the audience finds that all of the characters are connected in ways that they never knew.

In a modest suburban neighborhood, Paul Gold (Joshua Jackson) lies in his bedroom in a coma, nursed by his mother, Esther (Glenn Close). Esther dutifully tends to Paul day and night, and in doing so has distanced herself from her husband Howard (Robert Klein) and teenage daughter Julie (Jessica Campbell). In an attempt to elicit her mother's attention, Julie enters Esther in a local radio contest in hopes of winning the brand new car that is up for grabs.

Meanwhile, after years of putting his job first, Jim Train (Dermot Mulroney) feels his family, especially his efficient wife Susan (Moira Kelly), no longer needs him. He tries to reconnect with his son Jake (Alex House), but pubescent Jake is preoccupied with romantic fantasies that revolve around his younger sister's twelve-inch plastic doll. Jim stops going to work, claiming that a bomb threat was called into his office, and convinces Esther and Julie to let him help them win the car.

The Trains' neighbor, Helen Christianson (Mary Kay Place), feeling older and less desirable, tries new products to keep her feeling young but succeeds only in alienating her husband, who loves her as she is.

Helen's good friend, Annette Jennings (Patricia Clarkson), in the midst of a messy divorce, struggles to financially provide for her two daughters. Sam (Kristen Stewart), the older tomboyish daughter, is desperate to go off to camp that summer. Sam's younger sister suffers from mental disabilities and requires special schooling, schooling that her selfish ex-husband refuses to pay for. Annette is also mourning the loss of Paul, with whom she was having a relationship. Randy (Timothy Olyphant), the neighborhood's landscaper, is also dealing with the loss of his younger brother.

Annette's estranged husband comes over so that he can see the children. He states that he would like to take their eldest, Sam, on holiday. Annette refuses because Sam isn't interested in spending time with her father and her ex-husband does not want to care for the younger daughter. Sam overhears the ensuing argument and as a result runs away from her father when he tries to talk to her at the park. After stopping behind a near by building, she bumps into Randy who convinces her that her mom instructed him to pick her up.

Randy takes Sam to a remote cabin in the woods and keeps her there, not allowing her to call home while calling her 'Johnny'. After what appears to be three days, Randy starts driving back to the suburb in an attempt to recreat that night. However, when the beer he asks Sam to hand him doesn't explode, he appears to come to the realization that the person in the back seat is Sam, not his brother, named Johnny.

Esther eventually gets to the final two in the radio contest, only to pull out at the last moment after nearly three days of physical and emotional taxation. Julie becomes angry and runs off. Jim, angry at what he feels is an inadequate second place prize, becomes violent and wrecks the area. He gets chased off by Bobby, Helen's son, who works as the mall security guard. Esther, who finally becomes aware of how much she has neglected her daughter, goes home and tearfully suffocates her son. Jim returns home, and Randy lets Sam go home. Helen almost cheats on her husband, but eventually returns home having done nothing.

It is revealed in a flashback what caused the car crash which put Paul in a coma. Randy, Paul, and Randy's younger brother were travelling in a car after a gig that Paul's band played. Randy's younger brother gave Randy and Paul beers which were secretly shaken, so that they exploded on Paul, who was driving. As they were driving, another car carrying Julie and Bobby came from the opposite direction. (They were rushing Julie home after an impromptu tryst so that Julie wouldn't get in trouble for violating her curfew.) As they weren't looking, both cars had to swerve to avoid one another, and Paul's car swerved up the side of a hill and flipped over. Randy and Julie both ended up thinking that they were to blame for the crash.

Jerry....again

Robbie Williams in Little Britain

Pop star Robbie Williams stars in a special Comic Relief episode of Little Britain with David Walliams and Matt Lucas. Williams plays a little girl who attends a sleepover at the home of her friend, who is played by Lucas. Comic Relief is on BBC One from 1900 GMT on Friday.