Dear Santa...

Leica M7 Hermes Edition camera

Merry Xmas & Happy New Year

click it...

out now

shipping worldwide-enquires by post

Double Take (2009)

"If you meet your double, you should kill him".

In his new film DOUBLE TAKE, acclaimed director Johan Grimonprez

(dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y) casts Alfred Hitchcock as a paranoid history professor, unwittingly caught up in a double take on the cold war period. The master says all the wrong things at all the wrong times while politicians on both sides desperately clamor to say the right things, live on TV.

DOUBLE TAKE targets the global rise of fear-as-a-commodity, in a tale of odd couples and hilarious double deals. As television hijacks cinema, and the Khrushchev and Nixon kitchen debate rattles on, sexual politics quietly take off and Alfred himself emerges in a dandy new role on the TV, blackmailing housewives with brands they can't refuse.

Bestselling novelist Tom McCarthy (Remainder, Tintin and the Secret of Literature) writes a plot of personal paranoia to mirror the political intrigue in which Hitchcock and his elusive double increasingly obsess over the perfect murder of each other! Subverting a meticulous array of TV footage, Grimonprez traces catastrophe culture's relentless assault on the home, from the inception of televised images to our present day zapping neurosis.

DOUBLE TAKE is edited by Tyler Hubby (The Devil and Daniel Johnston, Welcome to Death Row) and Dieter Diependaele."

On Her Majesty's Secret Service 40° Anniversary

On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969) is the sixth spy film in the James Bond series, based on the 1963 novel of the same name by Ian Fleming, and the only one to star George Lazenby as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. In the film, Bond faces Blofeld, who is planning on unleashing a plague through a group of brainwashed "angels of death" (which included early appearances by Joanna Lumley and Catherina von Schell) unless his demands are met. Along the way, Bond meets, falls in love with, and eventually marries Contessa Teresa di Vicenzo.

This Bond film is the second in what is considered the "Blofeld Trilogy", coming between You Only Live Twice and Diamonds Are Forever. This trilogy is of interest not only for the three different Blofeld actors (Donald Pleasence in You Only Live Twice, Telly Savalas in On Her Majesty's Secret Service, and Charles Gray in Diamonds Are Forever) but for its two Bond actors (Sean Connery, then George Lazenby, and back to Connery).

This is the only Bond film to be directed by Peter R. Hunt, who before was a film editor or second unit director on every previous film.

Fleming wrote the original novel in 1962 as Dr. No was being filmed. It was originally intended to have brought to the screen following Goldfinger as indicated on early prints of that film. In 1965, there was a contest searching for 12 women to star as Blofeld's angels of death. Thunderball was filmed instead, however, due to the resolution of the rights dispute to the novel. It was then earmarked to follow Thunderball, but the difficulty of searching for winter locations made Harry Saltzman and Albert R. Broccoli postpone the film again, favouring production of You Only Live Twice.

Peter R. Hunt asked to direct after editing the other Bond films and being second unit director on You Only Live Twice. Hunt had been working on Chitty Chitty Bang Bang with Michael Reed and was keen to proceed with the next project. When writing the script, the producers decided to make the closest adaptation of the book possible: virtually everything in the novel occurs in the film. The script stays so close to the book that there are several continuity errors due to the movies taking place in a different order, such as Blofeld not recognising Bond, despite having met him face-to-face in the previous film, You Only Live Twice. In the original script, Bond undergoes plastic surgery to disguise him from his enemies. The intention was to allow an unrecognizable Bond to infiltrate Blofeld's hideout, and help the audience accept the new actor in the role. However, this was dropped in favor of ignoring the change in actor.

In 1967, after five James Bond films, Sean Connery quit the role. In his place Albert R. Broccoli initially chose actor Timothy Dalton. However, Dalton declined, believing himself too young for the role. Harry Saltzman considered Roger Moore, but he was unavailable because of his television programme The Saint. Saltzman also briefly considered Jeremy Brett for the role of Bond after seeing his performance in My Fair Lady. The confirmed front runners were John Richardson, Hans de Vries, Robert Campbell and Anthony Rogers. Richardson was said to have been runner up to Lazenby and was strongly considered for Live and Let Die.

Broccoli eventually chose Australian George Lazenby after seeing him in a commercial. Lazenby dressed the part by sporting several sartorial Bond elements such as a Rolex Submariner wristwatch and a Savile Row suit (ordered, but uncollected, by Connery) Lazenby recalled in an interview. Broccoli noticed Lazenby as a Bond-type man, physique and the character elements, and offered him an audition. The position was consolidated when Lazenby accidentally punched a professional wrestler, who was acting as stunt coordinator, in the face, impressing Broccoli with his ability to display aggression. As a result, he was offered a contract for seven movies, but was convinced by his agent Ronan O'Rahilly that the secret agent would be archaic in the liberated 1970s and left the series in 1969.

For Tracy Draco, the producers wanted an established actress opposite neophyte Lazenby. Brigitte Bardot was invited, but declined, so Diana Rigg, who had already been the popular heroine Emma Peel in The Avengers, was cast. Rigg said one of the reasons for accepting the role was that she always wanted to be in an epic film. Telly Savalas was cast following a suggestion from Broccoli, and Hunt's neighbour George Baker was invited for Sir Hilary Bray. Baker's voice was also used when Lazenby was impersonating Bray, as Hunt considered Lazenby's imitation not convincing enough. Gabriele Ferzetti was cast as Draco after the producers saw him in an Italian mafia film, but Ferzetti's heavy accent led to his voice being dubbed over.

Filming began in the Canton of Bern, Switzerland, on October 21, 1968, and used several locations including the capital city, Berne, itself and various regions in the Berner Oberland including the now famous revolving restaurant "Piz Gloria", and wrapped in Portugal, in May 1969. The first scene shot was an aerial view of Bond climbing the stairs of Blofeld's mountain retreat to witness the girls. Production was difficulted by weak snowing, which was not favorable to the skiing action scenes — the producers even considered moving to another location in Switzerland, but it was taken by the production of Downhill Racer.

Filming locations included the historic Pinewood Studios, England. Bern, Switzerland included several scenes shot on location. The Christmas celebrations were filmed in Grindelwald, Switzerland. Various chase scenes in The Alps were shot at Lauterbrunnen, Saas Fee while Piz Gloria and Schilthorn were shown as Blofeld's headquarters in the Alps. The restaurant atop a mountain was still under construction, but the producers found the location interesting, and had to finance electricity and aerial lift to make filming there possible. Lisbon was used for the reunion of Bond and Tracy and the pre-credit coastal and hotel scenes were filmed at Estoril and Cascais in Portugal — Harry Saltzman wanted these scenes to be in France, but after searching in that country, Peter Hunt considered that not only the locations weren't photogenic, but were already "overexposed".

"One time, we were on location at an ice rink and Diana and Peter were drinking champagne inside. Of course I wasn't invited as Peter was there. I could see them through the window, but the crew were all outside stomping around on the ice trying to keep warm. So, when she got in the car, I went for her. She couldn't drive the car properly and I got in to her about her drinking and things like that. Then she jumped out and started shouting 'he's attacking me in the car!' I called her a so-and-so for not considering the crew who were freezing their butts off outside. And it wasn't that at all in the end, as she was sick that night, and I was at fault for getting in to her about it. I think everyone gets upset at one time." said Lazenby.

The downhill skiing involved professional skiers, and various camera tricks. Some cameras were handheld, with the operators holding them as they were going downhill with the stuntmen, and others were aerial, with cameramen Johnny Jordan—which had previously worked in the helicopter battle of You Only Live Twice—developing a system where he was dangled by a parachute harness rig at 18 feet (5.5 m) high, allowing scenes to be shot from any angle. The bobsledding chase was also filmed with the help of Swiss Olympic athletes.

The avalanche scenes were due to be filmed in co-operation with the Swiss army who annually used explosions to prevent snow build-up and causing avalanches, but the area chosen naturally avalanched just before filming and so stock footage and images created by the special effects crew with salt were used. The stuntmen were filmed later, added by optical and editing to the footage.

For the scene where Bond and Tracy crash into a car race while being pursued, an ice rink was constructed over an unused airplane track, with water and snow sprayed on it constantly. Diana Rigg and George Lazenby did most of the driving due to the high number of close-ups.

To make audiences not forget it was the same James Bond, just played by another actor, the producers inserted many references to the previous movies, some as in-jokes. These include Bond mentioning "This never happened to the other fellow", the credits sequence with images of the previous installments, Bond visiting his office and finding objects from Dr. No, From Russia with Love and Thunderball, and a janitor whistling the theme from Goldfinger.

According to an interview with Lazenby, the difficulties were due to director Peter R. Hunt refusing to talk directly to Lazenby, who was too brusque in passing on a request that Hunt's friends clear a set before filming. Allegedly, there also were personality conflicts with leading lady Diana Rigg, who was already an established star. However, according to director Hunt, these rumours are untrue and there were no such difficulties - or else they were minor - and he would have agreed to direct Diamonds Are Forever if Lazenby had accepted the contract. Rigg herself acknowledged having eaten food spiced with garlic just before her kissing scenes with Lazenby, though witnesses also acknowledge that was done in an ironic and jesting tone, demonstrating a very English sense of humour on the part of Rigg.

The soundtrack to the film was composed, arranged, and conducted by John Barry. It was his fifth successive Bond film.

John Barry felt it would be difficult to compose a theme song containing the title "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" unless it was written operatically, in the style of Gilbert and Sullivan. Director Peter R. Hunt allowed an instrumental title theme. The track is notable for its incorporation of the Moog synthesizer in its recurring bassline - the first time this instrument had been heard in a film soundtrack. Its distinctive sound would become a mainstay of soundtracks in the 1970s.

The theme, "On Her Majesty's Secret Service", is used in the film as an action theme alternate to Monty Norman's "James Bond Theme", as is the case with Barry's previous "007" theme. "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" was remixed in 1997 by the Propellerheads for the Shaken and Stirred album. Barry-orchestrator Nic Raine recorded an arrangement of the escape from Piz Gloria sequence and it was featured as a theme in the trailers for the 2004 Pixar animated film The Incredibles.

Barry also composed the love song, "We Have All the Time in the World", sung by Louis Armstrong. With lyrics by Burt Bacharach's regular lyricist Hal David, it is heard during the Bond–Tracy courtship montage, bridging Draco's birthday party in Portugal and Bond's burglary of the Gebrüder Gumbold law office in Bern, Switzerland. It was Louis Armstrong's last recorded song (He died of a heart attack two years later.) Barry recalled Armstrong was very ill when he recorded the song, but recorded it in one take.

On Her Majesty's Secret Service was released on 18 December 1969.

In memoriam: Jennifer Jones (1919-2009)

Happy Birthday! (yesterday)

Kingdom of Heaven - The Director Cut -

Kingdom of Heaven is a 2005 epic film, directed by Ridley Scott and written by William Monahan. It stars Orlando Bloom, Eva Green, Jeremy Irons, David Thewlis, Marton Csokas, Brendan Gleeson, Kevin McKidd, Alexander Siddig, Ghassan Massoud, Edward Norton, Jon Finch, Michael Sheen and Liam Neeson.

The story is set during the Crusades of the 12th century. A French village blacksmith goes to aid the city of Jerusalem in its defense against the Muslim and Kurdish leader Saladin, who is battling to reclaim the city from the Christians. The film script is a heavily fictionalized portrayal of Balian of Ibelin.

Hamid Dabashi, a professor who specializes in a number of fields including Iranian and Islamic Studies as well as Comparative Literature at Columbia University, was the film's chief academic consultant regarding the Crusades.

Most filming took place in Ouarzazate in Morocco, where Scott had filmed Gladiator and Black Hawk Down. A replica of the ancient city of Jerusalem was constructed in the desert. Filming also took place in Spain, at the Loarre Castle, Segovia, Ávila, Palma del Río and Casa de Pilatos in Sevilla

An extended director's cut of the movie was released on December 23, 2005, at the Laemmle Fairfax Theatre in Los Angeles, unsupported by advertising from 20th Century Fox. This version has been universally praised and is what Ridley Scott originally wanted released to theaters, and is approximately 45 minutes longer than the original theatrical cut. The DVD of the extended Director's Cut was released on May 23, 2006. It is a four-disc box set with a runtime of 194 minutes, and is shown as a road show presentation with an overture, intermission and entr'acte. (The Blu-ray version omits the roadshow elements and runs for 189 minutes). Ridley Scott gave an interview to STV on the occasion of the Director's Cut's UK release, when he discussed the motives and thinking behind the new version.After the pitching of this film, studio marketing executives took it to be an action-adventure hybrid rather than what Ridley Scott and William Monahan intended it to be: a historical epic examining religious conflict. 20th Century Fox promoted the film as an action movie with heavy elements of romance, and in their advertising campaign, they made much of the "From the Director of Gladiator" slogan. When Scott presented the 194 minute version of the film to the studio, they balked at the length. Studio head Tom Rothman ordered the film to be trimmed down to only two hours, as he did not believe that a modern audience would go to see a three hour and fifteen minute movie. Ultimately, Rothman's decision backfired as the film gained mixed reviews (with many commenting that the film seemed "incomplete") and severely under-performed at the US box office.
The Director's Cut (DC) has received a distinctly more positive reception from film critics than the theatrical release, with many reviews suggesting that it offers a much greater insight into the motivations of individual characters. Scott and his crew have all stated that they consider the Director's Cut to be the true version of the film and the theatrical cut more of an action movie trailer for the real film. Reviewers have described it as the most substantial Director's Cut of all time and a title to equal any of Scott's other works.
It should be noted that Alexander Siddig in particular agitated for the release of a new cut to show more of the original plot.
The new director's cut provides information that may change how some interpret several characters and the story arc:

• The village priest who taunts Balian and is killed by him is revealed to be his half-brother (his mother's son by her lawful husband). The animosity between them is shown as originating from the priest's coveting of the firstborn Balian's meager inheritance.
• Godfrey is not only the father of Balian but the younger brother of the village lord who believes that Godfrey is looking for his own son to be Godfrey's heir in Ibelin. It is this lord's son and heir who organizes the attack on Godfrey's party in the forest and is subsequently killed.
• Both subplots above hinge on the firstborn son's right to exclusive inheritance: this is what apparently drove Godfrey to the Holy Land and the priest to his scheming against Balian.
• Baldwin IV is shown refusing the last sacrament from Patriarch Heraclius.
• Another major change is the re-insertion of the character of Baldwin V (who was shown in some of the trailers), the son of Sibylla by her first husband (William of Montferrat, not named in the film). The boy is crowned King after Baldwin IV's death, but is then discovered to have leprosy, like his uncle. His death is depicted as an act of euthanasia by his mother, dropping poison in his ear. Only then is Sibylla crowned queen and has Guy crowned, as in the theatrical version.
• Balian fights a climactic duel with Guy near the end of the film, after Jerusalem is surrendered and Guy has been released by Saladin (an act intended to humiliate Guy in the eyes of his former subjects). Guy is humiliated furthermore by challenging Balian to a duel, being defeated, and then spared by Balian.
• More violence, blood and gore are re-inserted.
• A scene with Balian discussing his situation with the Hospitaller in the desert, which included the line "I go to pray" (featured in most trailers) is re-inserted.
• It is made clear that Guy de Lusignan knows that Sibylla is having an affair with Balian; however, he is interested in her only for political reasons.
• It is revealed that Balian has fought in several battles in the past, is skilled at strategic fighting and is well known for building siege engines.
• Saladin decapitates Raynald de Chatillon instead of only cutting his throat; this is generally believed to be more historically accurate.
• Sibylla is portrayed much more as a corrupt princess and unpredictable as she herself stated.

Final call for passengers on the Orient Express

The world famous Orient Express is to make its final journey after falling victim to cut-price air flights and high-speed railways.

Its name evokes images of glamour and mystery and has provided authors including Agatha Christie and Ian Fleming with perfect backgrounds for their tales of intrigue and suspense.

But now the Orient Express is to be cut from Europe's rail timetables. Next weekend, the service – which runs only between Strasbourg and Vienna – will be scrapped, a victim of high-speed railways and cut-price flights.

"The name the Orient Express will disappear from the official timetables before the year is out, after more than 125 years," says Mark Smith, the rail expert who runs The Man in Seat Sixty-One website .

Only travellers who can afford lavish private trains – such as the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express and the Danube Express's Istanbul Odyssey – will be able to enjoy the service's former glory.

The original Orient Express was launched in 1883, when entrepreneur Georges Nagelmackers began a twice-weekly service which started in Paris and followed a route through Strasbourg, Vienna, Budapest and Bucharest to end at Varna on the Black Sea. A steamer would then carry passengers to Istanbul.

Over the years, the service improved and ferry journeys were cut out. The Orient Express earned a reputation for ostentatious luxury and spawned several rivals – including the Simplon Orient Express, which ran though Venice.

And in their tracks came the stories and novels. In 1929, the Orient Express was stuck in snow for days at Çerkezköy, near Istanbul – an incident that inspired Agatha Christie's 1934 novel Murder on the Orient Express.

Christie was not the first to exploit the train's glamour, however. In 1932, Graham Greene wrote his thriller Stamboul Train, while Bram Stoker used the Orient Express in Dracula, in 1897, to carry Harker and Van Helsing to Varna to tackle the evil count, who was heading there by ship.

And in Ian Fleming's From Russia with Love, James Bond travels on the Orient Express with Tatiana Romanova, a beautiful Russian clerk, while being pursued by the Russian killer Donovan "Red" Grant.

This gripping literary lineage was not enough to save the train from the impact of cheap European flights. While rival services were axed, the Orient Express was pared back until it had been reduced to an overnight Paris-Vienna trip. Then, in 2007, France's TGV line was extended to Strasbourg, which became the service's western terminus.

As for the glamour, the silver service dinners and revelry have long since disappeared. On my trip last week, the train comprised four coaches, with only a handful of passengers. There was no restaurant car or buffet. On boarding at Strasbourg, passengers found they had been provided with an apple and a bottle of mineral water. Only those who had stocked up with food and drink had anything to look forward to. "It's a good train," our coach attendant told me. "It's nice and quiet. There are hardly any passengers to bother us." I could see why.

The carriages were clean but hard to sleep in, as the train stopped at just about every station on the main line across Austria. Then an alarm was triggered, for no discernible reason, at about 3am. Finally, at 6am, we were woken with plastic cups of coffee for our arrival in Vienna, which was in the middle of a downpour.

A small group of disconsolate wanderers emerged from the Orient Express and trudged off into the grey morning, by now utterly uninterested in the fate of the historic train on which they had just travelled. It seems unfair, in retrospect.

Alien - 30° Anniversary

Alien is a 1979 science fiction horror film directed by Ridley Scott and starring Tom Skerritt, Sigourney Weaver, Veronica Cartwright, Harry Dean Stanton, John Hurt, Ian Holm and Yaphet Kotto. The film's title refers to its primary antagonist: a highly aggressive extraterrestrial creature which stalks and kills the crew of a spaceship.

Alien garnered both critical acclaim and box office success, receiving an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects, Saturn Awards for Best Science Fiction Film, Best Direction for Scott, and Best Supporting Actress for Cartwright, and a Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, along with numerous other award nominations. It has remained highly praised in subsequent decades, being inducted into the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress in 2002 for historical preservation as a film which is "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and being ranked by the American Film Institute in 2008 as the seventh-best film in the science fiction genre.

The success of Alien spawned a media franchise of novels, comic books, video games, and toys, as well as three sequel and two prequel films. It also launched Weaver's acting career by providing her with her first lead role, and the story of her character Ripley's encounters with the titular Alien creatures became the thematic thread that ran through the sequels Aliens (1986), Alien 3 (1992), and Alien Resurrection (1997). The subsequent prequels Alien vs. Predator (2004) and Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (2007) abandoned this theme in favor of a crossover with the Predator franchise.

Alien was filmed over fourteen weeks from July 5 to October 21, 1978. Principal photography took place at Shepperton Studios in London, while model and miniature filming was done at Bray Studios in Water Oakley. Production time was short due to the film's low budget and pressure from 20th Century Fox to finish on schedule. A crew of over 200 workmen and technicians constructed the three principal sets: The surface of the alien planetoid and the interiors of the Nostromo and derelict spacecraft. Art Director Les Dilley created 1/24th scale miniatures of the planetoid's surface and derelict spacecraft based on Giger's designs, then made moulds and casts and scaled them up as diagrams for the wood and fiberglass forms of the sets. Tons of sand, plaster, fiberglass, rock, and gravel were shipped into the studio to sculpt a desert landscape for the planetoid's surface, which the actors would walk across wearing space suit costumes. The suits themselves were thick, bulky, and lined with nylon, had no cooling systems and, initially, no venting for their exhaled carbon dioxide to escape. Combined with a heat wave, these conditions nearly caused the actors to pass out and nurses had to be kept on-hand with oxygen tanks to help keep them going. For scenes showing the exterior of the Nostromo a 58-foot (18 m) landing leg was constructed to give a sense of the ship's size. Ridley Scott still did not think that it looked large enough, so he had his two sons and the son of one of the cameramen stand in for the regular actors, wearing smaller space suits in order to make the set pieces seem larger. The same technique was used for the scene in which the crew members encounter the dead alien creature in the derelict spacecraft. The children nearly collapsed due to the heat of the suits, and eventually oxygen systems were added to assist the actors in breathing.

The sets of the Nostromo's three decks were each created almost entirely in one piece, with each deck occupying a separate stage and the various rooms connected via corridors. To move around the sets the actors had to navigate through the hallways of the ship, adding to the film's sense of claustrophobia and realism. The sets used large transistors and low-resolution computer screens to give the ship a "used", industrial look and make it appear as though it was constructed of "retrofitted old technology". Ron Cobb created industrial-style symbols and color-coded signs for various areas and aspects of the ship. The company that owns the Nostromo is not named in the film, and is referred to by the characters as "the company". However, the name and logo of "Weylan-Yutani" appears on several set pieces and props such as computer monitors and beer cans. Cobb created the name to imply a business alliance between Britain and Japan, deriving "Weylan" from the British Leyland Motor Corporation and "Yutani" from the name of his Japanese neighbor. The 1986 sequel Aliens named the company as "Weyland-Yutani", and it has remained a central aspect of the film franchise.

Art Director Roger Christian used scrap metal and parts to create set pieces and props in order to save money, a technique he had used while working on Star Wars. Some of the Nostromo's corridors were created from portions of scrapped bomber aircraft, and a mirror was used to create the illusion of longer corridors in the below-deck area. Special effects supervisors Brian Johnson and Nick Allder made many of the set pieces and props actually function, including moving chairs, computer monitors, motion trackers, and flamethrowers. Four matching cats were used to portray Jones, the Nostromo crew's pet. During filming Sigourney Weaver discovered that she was allergic to the combination of cat hair and the glycerin placed on the actors' skin to make them appear sweaty. By removing the glycerin she was able to continue working with the cats.

H.R. Giger designed and worked on all of the alien aspects of the film, which he designed to appear organic and biomechanical in contrast to the industrial look of the Nostromo and its human elements.For the interior of the derelict spacecraft and egg chamber he used dried bones together with plaster to sculpt much of the scenery and elements. Veronica Cartwright described Giger's sets as "so erotic...it's big vaginas and penises...the whole thing is like you're going inside of some sort of womb or whatever...it's sort of visceral". The set with the deceased alien creature, which the production team nicknamed the "space jockey", proved problematic as 20th Century Fox did not want to spend the money for such an expensive set that would only be used for one scene. Ridley Scott described the set as the cockpit or driving deck of the mysterious ship, and the production team was able to convince the studio that the scene was important to impress the audience and make them aware that this was not a B movie.


To save money only one wall of the set was created, and the "space jockey" sat atop a disc that could be rotated to facilitate shots from different angles in relation to the actors. Giger airbrushed the entire set and the "space jockey" by hand.

The origin of the jockey creature was not explored in the film, but Scott later theorized that it might have been the ship's pilot, and that the ship might have been a weapons carrier capable of dropping Alien eggs onto a planet so that the Aliens could use the local lifeforms as hosts. In early versions of the script the eggs were to be located in a separate pyramid structure which would be found later by the Nostromo crew and would contain statues and hieroglyphs depicting the Alien reproductive cycle, offering a contrast of the human, Alien, and space jockey cultures. Cobb, Foss, and Giger each created concept artwork for these sequences, but they were eventually discarded due to budgetary concerns and the need to trim the length of the film. Instead the egg chamber was set inside the derelict ship and was filmed on the same set as the space jockey scene; the entire disc piece supporting the jockey and its chair were removed and the set was redressed to create the egg chamber.

Alien originally was to conclude with the destruction of the Nostromo while Ripley escapes in the shuttle Narcissus. However, Ridley Scott conceived of a "fourth act" to the film in which the Alien appears on the shuttle and Ripley is forced to confront it. He pitched the idea to 20th Century Fox and negotiated an increase in the budget in order to film the scene over several extra days. Scott had wanted the Alien to bite off Ripley's head and then make the final log entry in her voice, but the producers vetoed this idea as they believed that the Alien had to die at the end of the film.

The design of the "chestburster" was inspired by Francis Bacon's 1944 painting Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion. Giger's original design resembled a plucked chicken, which was redesigned and refined into the final version seen onscreen. For the filming of the chestburster scene the cast members knew that the creature would be bursting out of Hurt, and had seen the chestburster puppet, but they had not been told that fake blood would also be bursting out in every direction from high-pressure pumps and squibs. The scene was shot in one take using an artificial torso filled with blood and viscera, with Hurt's head and arms coming up from underneath the table. The chestburster was shoved up through the torso by a puppeteer who held it on a stick. When the creature burst through the chest a stream of blood shot directly at Veronica Cartwright, shocking her enough that she fell over and went into hysterics. According to Tom Skerritt: "What you saw on camera was the real response. She had no idea what the hell happened. All of a sudden this thing just came up." The creature then runs off-camera, an effect accomplished by cutting a slit in the table for the puppeteer's stick to go through and passing an air hose through the puppet's tail to make it whip about. The real-life surprise of the actors gave the scene an intense sense of realism and made it one of the film's most memorable moments. During preview screenings the crew noticed that some viewers would move towards the back of the theater so as not to be too close to the screen during the scene. In 2007, the British film magazine Empire named the chestburster scene as the greatest 18-rated moment in film as part of its "18th birthday" issue, ranking it above the decapitation scene in The Omen (1976) and the transformation sequence in An American Werewolf in London (1981).

Giger made several conceptual paintings of the adult Alien before crafting the final version. He sculpted the creature's body using plasticine, incorporating pieces such as vertebrae from snakes and cooling tubes from a Rolls-Royce. The creature's head was manufactured separately by Carlo Rambaldi, who had worked on the aliens in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Rambaldi followed Giger's designs closely, making some modifications in order to incorporate the moving parts which would animate the jaw and inner mouth. A system of hinges and cables was used to operate the creature's rigid tongue, which protruded from the main mouth and had a second mouth at the tip of it with its own set of movable teeth.The final head had about nine hundred moving parts and points of articulation. Part of a human skull was used as the "face", and was hidden under the smooth cover of the head. Rambaldi's original Alien jaw is now on display in the Smithsonian Institution, while in April 2007 the original Alien suit was sold at auction. Copious amounts of K-Y Jelly were used to simulate saliva and to give the Alien an overall slimy appearance. The creature's vocalizations were provided by Percy Edwards, a voice artist famous for providing bird sounds for British television throughout the 1960s and 1970s as well as the whale sounds for Orca: Killer Whale (1977).

For most of the film's scenes the Alien was portrayed by Bolaji Badejo, a Nigerian design student. A latex costume was specifically made to fit Badejo's 7-foot-2-inch (218 cm) slender frame, made by taking a full-body plaster cast of him. Scott later commented that "It's a man in a suit, but then it would be, wouldn't it? It takes on elements of the host – in this case, a man." Badejo attended tai chi and mime classes in order to create convincing movements for the Alien. For some scenes, such as when the Alien lowers itself from the ceiling to kill Brett, the creature was portrayed by stuntmen Eddie Powell and Roy Scammell; in that scene a costumed Powell was suspended on wires and then lowered in an unfurling motion.

Scott chose not to show the Alien in full through most of the film, showing only pieces of it while keeping most of its body in shadow in order to heighten the sense of terror and suspense. The audience could thus project their own fears into imagining what the rest of the creature might look like:"Every movement is going to be very slow, very graceful, and the Alien will alter shape so you never really know exactly what he looks like." The Alien has been referred to as "one of the most iconic movie monsters in film history" in the decades since the film's release, being noted for its biomechanical appearance and sexual overtones. Roger Ebert has remarked that "Alien uses a tricky device to keep the alien fresh throughout the movie: It evolves the nature and appearance of the creature, so we never know quite what it looks like or what it can do...The first time we get a good look at the alien, as it bursts from the chest of poor Kane (John Hurt). It is unmistakably phallic in shape, and the critic Tim Dirks mentions its 'open, dripping vaginal mouth.'"

Critics have also analyzed Alien's sexual overtones. Adrian Mackinder compares the facehugger's attack on Kane to a male rape and the chestburster scene to a form of violent birth, noting that the Alien's phallic head and method of killing the crew members add to the sexual imagery. McIntee claims that "Alien is a rape movie as much as Straw Dogs (1974) or I Spit on Your Grave (1978), or The Accused (1988). On one level it's about an intriguing alien threat. On one level it's about parasitism and disease. And on the level that was most important to the writers and director, it's about sex, and reproduction by non-consensual means. And it's about this happening to a man." He notes how the film plays on men's fear and misunderstanding of pregnancy and childbirth, while also giving women a glimpse into these fears. Film analyst Lina Badley has written that the Alien's design, with strong Freudian sexual undertones, multiple phallic symbols, and overall feminine figure, provides an androgynous image conforming to archetypal mappings and imageries in horror films that often redraw gender lines.

In Mel Brooks' Spaceballs John Hurt appears in the scene in the restaurant when the alien bursts out of his stomach. The same thing happened to Hurt's character in Alien. In this case, after the alien bursts out of his stomach, Hurt's character mutters despairingly "Oh no, not again!" The alien then dons a straw boater hat and bamboo cane, and dances off and sings "Hello! Ma Baby" à la Michigan J. Frog from the cartoon One Froggy Evening, thus causing Lone Star and Barf to say "Check, please!

Stanley Kubrick's Napoleon: The Greatest Movie Never Made - Taschen

Ten books in one tell the fascinating tale of Kubrick’s unfilmed masterpiece

Tucked inside of a carved-out book, all the elements from Stanley Kubrick's archives that readers need to imagine what his unmade film about the emperor might have been like, including a facsimile of the script. This collector's edition is limited to 1,000 numbered copies.

For 40 years, Kubrick fans and film buffs have wondered about the director's mysterious unmade film on Napoleon Bonaparte. Slated for production immediately following the release of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Kubrick’s "Napoleon" was to be at once a character study and a sweeping epic, replete with grandiose battle scenes featuring thousands of extras. To write his original screenplay, Kubrick embarked on two years of intensive research; with the help of dozens of assistants and an Oxford Napoleon specialist, he amassed an unparalleled trove of research and preproduction material, including approximately 15,000 location scouting photographs and 17,000 slides of Napoleonic imagery. No stone was left unturned in Kubrick's nearly-obsessive quest to uncover every piece of information history had to offer about Napoleon. But alas, Kubrick’s movie was not destined to be: the film studios, first M.G.M. and then United Artists, decided such an undertaking was too risky at a time when historical epics were out of fashion.

TASCHEN’s sumptuous, limited-edition tribute to this unmade masterpiece makes Kubrick’s valiant work on "Napoleon" available to fans for the first time. Herein, readers can peruse a selection of Kubrick’s correspondence, various costume studies, location scouting photographs, research material, script drafts, and more, each category of material in its own book. Kubrick’s final draft is reproduced in facsimile while the other texts are tidily kenneled into one volume where they dare not interfere with the visual material. All of these books are tucked inside of—or shall we say hiding in?—a carved-out reproduction of a Napoleon history book.

The text book features the complete original treatment, essays examining the screenplay in historical and dramatic contexts, an essay by Jean Tulard on Napoleon in cinema, and a transcript of interviews Kubrick conducted with Oxford professor Felix Markham. The culmination of years of research and preparation, this unique publication offers readers a chance to experience the creative process of one of cinema’s greatest talents as well as a fascinating exploration of the enigmatic figure that was Napoleon Bonaparte.

*Includes exclusive access to searchable/downloadable online research database: Kubrick's complete picture file of nearly 17,000 Napoleonic images*

FLORAbyGucci - Chris Cunningham

Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould (1993)

Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould is an award-winning 1993 film about the piano prodigy Glenn Gould played by Colm Feore. The film's screenplay was written by François Girard (who also directed) and Don McKellar.

The film does not present a single narrative, rather a series of thirty-two short films. These include documentaries (five interviews with people who knew him), re-creations of scenes from Gould's life, and various odd items (such as "Gould Meets McLaren", in which animated spheres reminiscent of those in Norman McLaren's animations move to Gould's music).

The segments range in length from six minutes to less than one minute. The form is inspired by Johann Sebastian Bach's Goldberg Variations, which was Gould's first acclaimed recording.

According to Girard: "As Gould was such a complex character, the biggest problem was to find a way to look at his work and deal with his visions. The film is built of fragments, each one trying to capture an aspect of Gould. There is no way of putting Gould in one box. The film gives the viewer 32 impressions of him. I didn't want to reduce him to one dimension."

The soundtrack consists almost entirely of piano recordings by Gould. It includes pieces famously linked with him, such as Bach's Goldberg Variations, and the Well-Tempered Clavier, as well as others which are less so.

The film won four Genie Awards and Best Canadian Feature Film at the Toronto International Film Festival.

The structure and style of the The Simpsons episode "22 Short Films About Springfield" (first aired April 16, 1996), is inspired by this film. It was also used in an Animaniacs short entitled "Ten Short Films About Wakko Warner".

The title also inspired Cory Arcangel's piece "A Couple Thousand Short Films About Glenn Gould" which constructed the Goldberg variations out of clips of notes from YouTube.

Psycho (1998)

Although this version directed by Gus Van Saint is in color, features a different cast, and has been set in a contemporary timeframe, it is closer to a shot-for-shot remake than most remakes, often copying Hitchcock's camera movements and editing. Bernard Hermann's musical score is reused as well, though with a new arrangement by Danny Elfman and recorded in stereo. Some changes are introduced to account for advancements in technology since the original film and to make the content more explicit. Murder sequences are also intercut with surreal dream images.

Some changes are pervasive: as the film opens, it is made clear that it is set in the late 1990s, so minor changes are made throughout the dialogue to reflect the new timeframe. For example, all the references to money are updated (how much Marion Crane steals, how much a car costs, how much a hotel room costs), as are references to terms from the original script like "aspic" that would seem anachronistic in the new setting. According to Van Sant, in the original the only fully-fleshed out character was Norman Bates; the other major characters were more iconic, purposely written and portrayed to advance the plot; Van Sant relied upon his main cast more to flesh out and make consistent their character's motivations and worked with them to determine to what degree their characters were similar to the originals. According to the commentary by Van Sant, Vaughn, and Heche, some actors, such as William H. Macy, chose to stay true to the original, while others, such as Vaughn and Julianne Moore, interpreted the dialogue and scenes from the original film differently; Moore's version of Lila Crane, for example, was much more aggressive than the one portrayed by Vera Miles, and there are differences in Marion Crane's evolving attitudes about the money she stole. The cinematography and the cinematic techniques were consistent between the two films in many of the film's most memorable scenes, including the shower scene, scenes of the mother, scenes of the swamp, and the scene of Arbogast on the staircase, but other scenes changed significantly, particularly the climax, and the Dr. Simon monologue at the end, which was much shorter. Van Sant's comments from the commentary track attributes many of the updates to the need to make the film more accessible to a new audience.

Nine (2009) - 3rd trailer