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.

In memoriam : Tullio Pinelli 1908-2009

Harold and Maude (1971)

Harold and Maude is a cult classic film directed by Hal Ashby in 1971. The film, featuring slapstick, dark humour, and existentialist drama, revolves around the exploits of a morbid young man – Harold (played by Bud Cort) – who drifts away from the life that his detached mother prescribes for him, as he develops a relationship with septuagenarian Maude (played by Ruth Gordon).

The film is number 45 on the American Film Institute's list of 100 Funniest Movies of all time, number 69 in its list for most romantic, and number 42 on Bravo's 100 Funniest Movies. In 1997, it was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress as being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

The film was a commercial failure when it was released, and the critical reception was extremely mixed; however, it has since developed a large cult following.

The screenplay upon which the film was based was written by Colin Higgins, and published as a novel in 1971. The movie was shot in the San Francisco Bay Area. Harold and Maude was also a play on Broadway for some time. A French adaptation for television, translated and written by Jean-Claude Carrière, appeared in 1978. It was adapted for the stage and performed in Québec, starring Roy Dupuis.

Hal Ashby, the director of the film, shared certain ideals with the era's youth culture, and in this film he contrasts the doomed outlook of the alienated youth of the time with the hard-won optimism of those who endured the horrors of the early 20th century, contrasting nihilism with purpose. Maude's past is revealed in a glimpse of the concentration camp ID number tattooed on her arm.

Harold is part of a society in which he has no personal importance; and existentially, therefore, he is without meaning. Maude, however, has survived and lives a life rich with meaning. It is in this existential crisis, shown against the backdrop of the Vietnam War, that we see the differences between one culture, personified by Harold, handling a meaningless war, while another has experienced and lived beyond another war that produced a crisis of meaning, the Holocaust.

Suicide attempts

Harold tells Maude when they are talking candidly at her home the reasons he fakes his death so often. Once, when he was at boarding school, he set his science lab on fire. Escaping the fire, Harold slid down the laundry chute and left to hide at home. When the authorities came, Harold couldn’t be found. Believed to be dead, the police come to the Chasens' home and told Mrs. Chasen that Harold was dead. Coming up from the back balcony, Harold watched as his mother fell over in grief for the police officers. Harold tells Maude, “I decided then I enjoyed being dead.”

Throughout the movie, Harold “kills” himself a total of eight times. He tells his psychologist that he has done similar attempts approximately 15 times.

1. Hanging himself in opening scene: Harold hangs himself while his mother is on the phone in the opening scene, in which she barely blinks twice.

2. Slitting his throat in his mother’s bathroom: after this act, we see Harold seeing a psychiatrist.

3. Floating dead in pool: Harold floats face down, fully clothed, as his mother swims laps around him.

4. Shooting towards his head: Harold initially points a gun at his mother and then shoots close to his head as his mother is reading off the questionnaire for his dating service.

5. Fire: For the first blind date, Harold pretends to set himself on fire, scaring away his date.

6. Hand chopping: The second blind dates ends abruptly with Harold chopping off a fake hand.

7. Romeo scene: For the final date, Harold stabs himself with a fake hari-kari sword. Instead of this date running off as the others have, Sunshine Doré instead lies down beside him and “dies” with him.

8. Car: Harold sends his Jaguar/hearse off a cliff. From the initial scene, the audience may believe Harold was stricken with enough grief from Maude’s death to kill himself. However, the camera pans up to the cliff to show Harold playing Maude's banjo and dancing away casually.

This film was one of Peter Sellers' favourite movies, so much so that he sort out Hal Ashby to direct him in Being There.

Hitchcock devoured by pigeons

Who is killing the great chefs of Europe? (1978)

Sunday@home

Happy birthday!

Sir Sidney Poitier, KBE ( born February 20, 1927) is an Academy Award-, Golden Globe-, BAFTA- and Grammy award-winning Bahamian-American actor, film director, author, and diplomat. He broke through as a star in acclaimed performances in American films and plays, which, by consciously defying racial stereotyping, gave a new dramatic credibility for black actors to mainstream film audiences in the Western world.

In 1963, Poitier became the first black man to win an Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in Lilies of the Field. The significance of this achievement was later bolstered in 1967 when he starred in three very well received films—To Sir, With Love; In the Heat of the Night; and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner—making him the top box office star of that year.

Poitier has directed a number of popular movies such as Uptown Saturday Night, and Let's Do It Again (with friend Bill Cosby), and Stir Crazy (starring Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder). In 2002, 38 years after receiving the Best Actor Award, Poitier was chosen by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to receive the Honorary Award, designated "To Sidney Poitier in recognition of his remarkable accomplishments as an artist and as a human being."

Since 1997 he has been the Bahamian ambassador to Japan.

Jerry again

The Black Hole (1979)

The Black Hole is a 1979 science fiction movie directed by Gary Nelson for Walt Disney Productions. It stars Maximilian Schell, Robert Forster, Joseph Bottoms, Yvette Mimieux, Anthony Perkins, and Ernest Borgnine. The voices of the main robot characters in the film are provided by Roddy McDowall and Slim Pickens. The music for the movie was composed by John Barry. The plot was inspired by Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, filmed by Disney in 1954. Alan Dean Foster novelized the screenplay.

At $20 million (plus another $6 million for its advertising budget) it was at the time the most expensive picture ever produced by the company. It was generally not well-received by critics, although the special effects were highly praised. At the time of its release, the movie's opening credits sequence featured the longest computer graphics shot that had ever appeared in a film. The film also had a digitally recorded soundtrack, reportedly the world's first.

The movie earned $36 million at the US box office, making it the 13th highest grossing film of the year. The film was nominated for cinematography and visual effects Academy Awards and was notable for being the first Disney film not to have a universal rating, due to mild language (being the first Disney film to include profanity of any type) and scenes of human death never seen in a Disney production before (e.g., a character is eviscerated). To that end, it was rated PG in the U.S. Along with frequent subtexts, there were also metaphysical and religious themes expressed through the film. This film led the company towards experimenting with more adult-oriented films, which would eventually lead to the creation of its Touchstone Pictures and Hollywood Pictures arms to handle films considered too mature in nature to carry the Walt Disney label.

The Black Hole

La Jetée

La jetée (1962) is a 28-minute black and white science fiction film by Chris Marker.

Constructed almost entirely from still photos, it tells the story of a post-nuclear war experiment in time travel.

The survivors of a destroyed Paris in the aftermath of World War III live underground in the Palais de Chaillot galleries. They research time travel, hoping to send someone back before the devastating war to recover food, medicine, or energy for the present, "to summon the past and future to the aid of the present." The traveler is a male prisoner; his vague but obsessive childhood memory of witnessing a woman (Hélène Chatelain) during a violent incident on the boarding platform ("The Jetty") at Orly Airport is the key to his journey back in time.

He is thrown back to the past again and again. He repeatedly meets and speaks to the woman who was present at the terminal. After his successful passages to the past, the experimenters attempt to send him into the deep future. In a brief meeting with the technologically advanced people of the future, he is given a power unit sufficient to regenerate his own destroyed society. On his return, he is cast aside by his jailers to die. Before he can be executed, he is contacted by the people of the future, who offer to help him escape to their time, but he asks to be returned to the time of his childhood. He is returned, only to find the violent incident he partially witnessed as a child was his own death as an adult.

La jetée has no dialogue aside from small sections of muttering in German. The story is told by a voice-over narrator. It is constructed almost entirely from optically printed photographs playing out as a photomontage of varying pace. It contains only one brief shot originating on a motion-picture camera. The stills were taken with a Pentax 24x36 and the motion-picture segment was shot with a 35mm Arriflex. The film score was composed by Trevor Duncan. Due to its brevity, La jetée is often screened in theatres alongside other films; Jean-Luc Godard's Alphaville (1965) was the film with which it was first released. 

The scene in which the hero and the woman look at a cut-away trunk of a tree is a reference to Alfred Hitchcock's 1958 film Vertigo, which Marker also references in Sans soleil.

Terry Gilliam's Twelve Monkeys (1995) was inspired by, and takes several concepts directly from, La Jetée.

i n B r u x

Kyle Cooper

Kyle Cooper is a designer of motion picture title sequences. His work includes the opening credit sequences of Se7en (1995), The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996), Flubber (1997), The Mummy (1999), Spider-Man (2002), Dawn of the Dead (2004), Spider-Man 2 (2004), Godzilla Final Wars (2004); and the video games Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (2001) and Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (2004). For his work in the credits field is often considered the Saul Bass, of whom replaced his role as title designer for Martin Scorsese's 1990 film Goodfellas.

He has also directed a film, New Port South (2001).



Cooper specializes in crafting title sequences - the short introductions and closings to films, videogames, and television shows that list the names of the cast and crew involved in the production. In this boutique industry, Cooper is king. He has designed the lead-ins to 150 features - including Donnie Brasco, the 1996 remake of The Island of Dr. Moreau, Mission: Impossible, Spider-Man, Sphere, Spawn, Twister, and Flubber. The movies themselves may not be cinematic classics, but Cooper's credits - which operate as minifilms in their own right - consistently stun and entertain audiences. For this spring's Dawn of the Dead, he even used real human blood. Critic Elvis Mitchell, in his New York Times review of the movie, summed up the Cooper effect: "The opening and closing credits are so good, they're almost worth sitting through the film for." Indeed, the word in Hollywood is that some filmmakers have refused to work with Cooper, says Dawn of the Dead director Zach Snyder, because he's "the guy who makes title sequences better than the movie." Not since Saul Bass' legendary preludes to The Man With the Golden Arm (1955) and Vertigo (1958) have credits attracted such attention. Cooper counts Bass' work, along with Stephen Frankfurt's lead-in for To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), as his greatest influences.



Directors don't call on Cooper for a signature style; they hire him to dig under the celluloid and tap into the symbolism of a film. That aptitude first became apparent in 1995, with the abrasive and highly stylized intro to David Fincher's Se7en. In it, the letters - hand-scratched by Cooper with a needle onto film stock, frame by painstaking frame - disintegrate to the industrial rhythms of a remix of Nine Inch Nails' "Closer." The oft-imitated setup perfectly captured the addled mind of the movie's serial killer and set the tone for the entire film. "It's a unique blend of auteur and creative genius that makes his sequences memorable - but not at the expense of the film," says Grant Curtis, coproducer of Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2. "That's what makes Kyle truly unique, his innate sensibility that opening title sequences are not separate from the film, they're part of it."



The production on Spider-Man 2's titles, from conception to delivery, has stretched almost an entire year. Cooper began by digitally scanning dozens of vintage Spider-Man comics and editing them together in a blink-and-you-miss-it five-second montage that encompasses the entire story arc of the first film. After that, "the credits get caught in the web. I love the moment when you kind of figure it out," he says. "Oh wow, metaphors! Flies in a web, type in a web like flies. That's great!"
Unlike the first Spider-Man's title sequence - which took months of tweaking with software apps including Cinema 4D, Adobe After Effects, Maya, and Photoshop - Cooper this time relies on old-school filmic techniques. The credit's primary conflict between Spidey and arch nemesis Dr. Octavius is presented in striking stop-motion animation. Which brings us back to Cooper's black widows and the octopus. "I always liked the black cat fighting the white cat in the main titles for Walk on the Wild Side," Cooper says, citing Saul Bass' classic work. In homage to Bass, Cooper pits his spider and his octopus against each other. "They both have eight legs and very similar body designs," he says, showing off the photos he took of his pets for inspiration. "The metaphors of these animals already existed. I just thought the animals fighting would look good together."

Jazzin'withJerry!

In defence of Richard III - The Daughter of Time (1951)

The Daughter of Time is a 1951 novel by Josephine Tey. Born Elizabeth Mackintosh, she was also a well-known playwright. She used the pseudonym Gordon Daviot and her most successful play was Richard of Bordeaux. The Daughter of Time is undoubtedly the most popular of her crime novels and deals with the controversy of King Richard III in an innovative way.

The Daughter of Time (1951) brought the controversy surrounding Richard III and the Princes in the Tower to a wide public audience and is perhaps the most popular defense of Richard. This mystery novel addresses the issue of historical truth. Inspector Alan Grant, trapped in a hospital with a broken leg, is bored senseless. Because he fancies himself to be an expert on faces, his friend, Marta Hallard, a famous actress, gives him some portraits to study. In the portrait of Richard III, he sees power and suffering in the face of a man of conscience and integrity. Is it "a judge, a soldier, a prince? Someone used to great responsibility, and responsible in his authority. Someone too conscientious. A worrier, perhaps a perfectionist. A man at ease in large design but anxious over details. A candidate for a gastric ulcer." Grant is dismayed to discover that it is the portrait of one of the most infamous villains in history, the "monster" said to have murdered his nephews to obtain the crown of England. How could he have misjudged? Grant decides that he will read everything he can find to discern the truth of the matter. With his detective skills and reasoning ability, he hopes to solve the mystery the missing princes.

Tey keeps the pace lively by the constant activities of contemporary characters, while Grant's "flashbacks" to the past through the reading of historical sources guides the reader stepwise through the collection of evidence, such as it is, and the reasoning process. Grant's research is very similar to a modern day criminal investigation, except that the witnesses are long dead and left behind little tangible evidence. Grant cross-compares facts from the various sources to try to forge a logical scenario. He discovers that once an erroneous account is published, it is often unquestioningly accepted as true. Historians subsequent to Sir Thomas More (in particular, Hall and Holinshed) appear to have accepted More's account as indisputable, when in fact he could have only obtained his information secondhand (most likely from the highly-prejudiced Bishop Morton.) In today's courtroom, such "evidence" would be inadmissible as "hearsay." Josephine Tey/Gordon Daviot addresses the question, in this book and others: "How much of history is solidly grounded in fact, and how much is it malleable for the sake of political expediency?" In The Daughter of Time, Inspector Grant eventually tries to dig up sources contemporaneous with Richard III to eliminate the Tudor bias. In writing Richard III, Shakespeare's goal was to write a compelling drama, and historical accuracy was sacrificed for the sake of plot. Because it was widely believed in those days that Richard III had had his nephews murdered, he was a logical villain; Shakespeare only needed to superimpose exaggerated physical deformities and a Machiavellian-inspired personality to create an unforgettable character.

In The Daughter of Time, Grant bounces ideas off of the other people in his life--nurses, doctors, and acquaintances to illustrate the reactions of varying personalities to the information he discovers; this gives him opportunities to expound on his findings and theories. The characters include the previously-mentioned Marta Hallard, the busy, efficient, no-nonsense Nurse Ingham ("The Midget"), the sympathetic and helpful Nurse Ella Darroll ("The Amazon"), and Brent Carradine, an American student who obtains research materials for Grant and discusses the issues with him at length. This mystery demonstrates that once an idea, right or wrong, becomes "fixed" in a culture, people resist changing their opinions on the matter, even in the face of overwhelming contrary evidence.

Arguments presented in the book in defence of King Richard:

The Bill of Attainder brought by Henry VII against Richard III makes no mention whatsoever of the Princes. There never was any formal accusation, much less a verdict of guilt. The Princes were probably still alive when Richard's reign came to an end.
The mother of the Princes remained always in very good terms with Richard III. No mother would ever be so friendly towards the murderer of her children.

The title of the novel is taken from Bertolt Brecht's play Life of Galileo, in which the eponymous hero observes: "Truth is the daughter of time, not of authority."

Lezione Ventuno di Alessandro Baricco

In memoriam : James Withmore 1921 -2009

A kiss before dying

A Kiss Before Dying is a 1953 novel written by Ira Levin. It won the 1954 Edgar Award, for Best First Novel.
The book has been adapted twice for the cinema: first in 1956 and later in 1991.
Now a modern crime classic, Levin's story tells the shocking tale of a charming, intelligent man who will stop at nothing, even murder, to get where he wants to go. His problem is a pregnant woman who loves him. The solution involves desperate measures.

still alive!

Juanita Moore and Susan Kohner mother and daughter in "Imitation of Life"

ensamble

tonight from West Side Story

el tango de Roxanne from Moulin Rouge

Being There 30th Anniversary Edition

Warner Home Video has released a 30th anniversary of director Hal Ashby's Being There, based on the Jerzy Kosinski novel. The film represented Peter Sellers' last cinematic triumph and earned him an Oscar nomination. Sellers gives an unusually understated performance that gives credence to the notion that sometimes less is more. The story centers on Chance, a dapper but dim-witted gardener who has been kept in complete isolation for his entire life by his benefactor, an elderly millionaire. Deprived of a social life or formal education, Chance is totally satisfied with his daily routine of presiding over an elaborate garden. His only vice is an obsession with television, which he watches without the slightest regard for a program's content. Like a parrot, he learns to mimic the actors he witnesses on the boob tube and the entire level of his intellectual capabilities is limited to statements about gardening and television. When the old man dies, Chance is evicted from the house - but is too stupid to realize the implications of his dilemma. When he is injured by a limousine belonging to Shirley MacLaine, Chance is brought back to her mansion to recuperate. It turns out she is the wife of one of America's most influential industrialists and power brokers (Melvin Douglas, in his final triumphant role which won him the Oscar for Supporting Actor.) Through a complex series of events, Douglas and the intellectual yes men in his circle mistake Chance for a great philosopher, feeling that his elementary observations have meaning regarding the economy and political scenarios. Before long, even the President (Jack Warden) is using the hapless man as an adviser. The film hints that Chance has a political future ahead of him -despite the fact that he can't read, write or relate whatsoever to the world around him.
The film is not only hilarious, but prescient in foreseeing the day when a charming personality is all a candidate needs to rise to the top. The brilliant screenplay also takes aim at intellectuals and pseudo-intellectuals whose obsession with being considered deep thinkers allows them to read meaning into the most innocuous of statements. The film presents Peter Sellers as he had never been seen before. He rarely utters more than a few words at a time, instead relying on a gentle demeanor and disarming smile to impress those he encounters. In one hilarious scene, MacLaine tries to seduce him and mistakes his statement that "I like to watch" as a reference to a sexual fetish. In fact, he is simply referring to the cartoon playing on the TV in the bedroom. MacLaine then engages in a liberating mastubation session in front of the oblivious Chance, who is mesmerized by the TV program. Sellers' great performance is matched by a superb supporting cast, with Melyvn Douglas having the kind of role that every actor dreams of for a cinematic farewell. There is also yeoman work from Jack Warden and Richard Dysart. The film is a reminder that Hal Ashby was a major talent whose work is not as widely discussed as it should be.

This special edition is somewhat meager on extras but includes a trailer and an interesting featurette in which Melvyn Douglas' grandaughter Ilena discusses her memories of visiting the set as a young girl. She also reminds us of her grandfather's long and distinguished career. It's an informative and bittersweet documentary produced by David Naylor.

80 years of Oscar best picture

From the Australian newspaper The Daily Telegraph, the hair removal brand Veet joined in the loud chorus of 'goodbye and good riddens' with this special AD and sold a few more tubes of hair removal cream at the same time. Brilliant. No more Bush indeed.

Hedda Hopper

Hedda Hopper (May 2, 1885 – February 1, 1966) was an American actress and gossip columnist, whose long-running feud with friend turned arch-rival Louella Parsons became at least as notorious as many of Hopper's columns.

Hopper began acting in silent movies in 1915. Her motion picture debut was in Battle of Hearts (1916). She appeared in more than 120 movies over the following twenty-three years, usually portraying distinguished-looking society women.

As her movie career waned in the mid-1930s, Hopper looked for other sources of income. In 1937, she was offered the chance of a lifetime and embarked on a career doing something she was quite adept at: gossip. Her gossip column called "Hedda Hopper's Hollywood" debuted in the Los Angeles Times on February 14, 1938. After years of struggling as an actress, she had finally found her niche. She christened the home she purchased in Beverly Hills "The House That Fear Built." She then had a notorious feud with the long-established Louella Parsons, who had been friendly to her in print and to whom she had sometimes passed information. Hopper and Parsons became arch-rivals competing fiercely, and often nastily, for the title "Queen of Hollywood", although those who knew both declared that Hopper was the more sadistic.

She was noted for her hats, considered her trademark, mostly because of her taste for large, flamboyant ones. She was known for hobnobbing with the biggest names in the industry, for getting a "scoop" before almost anyone else most of the time, and for being vicious in dealing with those who displeased her, whether intentionally or not. The columnist J.J. Hunsecker, played by Burt Lancaster in the film Sweet Smell of Success, is said to have been inspired partly by Hopper.

Hopper courted controversy as well for "naming names" of suspected or alleged Communists during the Hollywood Blacklist. Her frequent attacks against Charlie Chaplin in the 1940s for his leftist politics and love life contributed to his departure from America in 1952. After publishing a blind item on Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy's relationship, Tracy confronted her at Ciro's and kicked her in the behind. A similar incident occurred when Hopper leaked info about the extramarital affair between Joseph Cotten and Deanna Durbin. She tried to "out" Cary Grant and Randolph Scott as gay lovers, but Grant was too big a star even for her to touch. 

She also spread rumors that Michael Wilding and Stewart Granger had been intimate (Wilding later sued Hopper for libel and won). ZaSu Pitts compared Hopper to "a ferret", and pointed out that she should not have been surprised her (Hopper's) own movie career did not pan out. Joan Fontaine sent Hopper a skunk on Valentine's Day with a note reading "I stink and so do you".

Roberto Fonseca ZAMAZU

1º parte EPK ZAMAZU

2ª parte EPK ZAMAZU

a PATRICK MCGOOHAN tribute

Mike Malloy remembers Patrick McGoohan

Most movie-star hopefuls enter the entertainment industry knowing full well they will have to scratch and claw out a career for themselves in ways that compromise their previously held values. This is not to say they’ll necessarily cheat and backstab to make it in The Biz (it often comes to that), but they certainly won’t turn down precious advancement opportunities on moral grounds.

Recently deceased, thoughtful thesp Patrick McGoohan (“The Prisoner,” Ice Station Zebra, Braveheart, “Secret Agent”) found a different route to stardom, one that reflected his very principled beliefs. And because he made choices detrimental to his fame—he could’ve been 007, after all—and yet became an international film and TV star nonetheless, one would like to believe his was an irrepressible talent that shone through despite the actor’s lack of career-mindedness.

The eponymous role in Henrik Ibsen’s play Brand was considered the definitive role of McGoohan’s 1950s career. He played the part both on the London stage and, fortunately for posterity, for a BBC broadcast that has been released as a PAL DVD. It’s little wonder that the character—a priest who took his principles to new heights and extremes (“Unless you give all, you give nothing!”)—fit the actor like a glove; he was soon proving that he too lived according to a distinct personal code. Shortly thereafter, McGoohan declined the role of James Bond, reportedly citing moral objections.

McGoohan’s passing on the 007 part came as the franchise’s first feature—1962’s Dr. No—was being developed, and almost all accounts had him disliking the spy’s brutish use of force and sexual promiscuity. This version of events is certainly reinforced by examining McGoohan’s 1960s television breakthrough of “Danger Man” (which was actually two different British shows of the same name, the latter of which ran as “Secret Agent” stateside). McGoohan’s spy character, John Drake, was a more-brains-than-brawn agent who wasn’t seen to carry a gun or kill a man (although each episode had its requisite fistfight) and wasn’t caught bedding a woman onscreen.

Even if Drake was the sanitized version of Bond, McGoohan cut a suave, intelligent figure—and one with the ability to summon up a tremendously forceful dialogue delivery when needed (the American-born, Irish-raised actor perhaps possessed the small screen’s most intimidating bark of toughguyspeak). It was therefore little surprise that McGoohan was reportedly offered the Bond role again, sometime in the late ‘60s and/or early ‘70s (which certainly fits with the Connery-Lazenby-Connery tumult the film series was undergoing). A second refusal of 007 has even more significance, as McGoohan would have then certainly understood the extent of riches and fame he was forgoing (even if the Bond series was at its shakiest point, being terribly out of step with the era’s counterculture).

Instead of Bond, McGoohan launched another television project in the late ‘60s—this time of his own conception. In the 17-part mini-series “The Prisoner,” he not only starred but also occasionally directed and wrote (usually pseudonymously). Often described as “television’s first masterpiece,” the show boasted a plot—about a spy who tries to resign but who is instead whisked away to a secret island where a bizarre society tries to break his spirit and crack open his head full of espionage secrets—that functioned as a brilliant allegory exposing the dangers of conformity and group culture. Some of the episodes, including the absurd finale, were too nonsensical (it was the hippy-dippy late ‘60s, mind you), but the better ones rank right up with Ayn Rand in their power to promote the idea of individualism. McGoohan had used the Bond-fueled fluffy spy craze to create something of importance.

A bit of negative personal information regarding McGoohan came from the set of the 1979 Clint Eastwood vehicle Escape from Alcatraz, when the joke was born that McGoohan, who was boozing during production, couldn’t be doubled in a hand close-up, because director Don Siegel couldn’t find another actor who had the shakes that bad. It’s been suggested the actor was drinking to protect against the bitter cold, but we fans rationalize that any drinking resulted from the burden of genius of the man who created “The Prisoner.”

“Genius” is not a stretch, but “principled to the point of career injury” is rock-solid certain. Circa 1997, a fan-made Patrick McGoohan webshrine existed, containing reprints of rare interviews with the generally reclusive actor. Although your humble writer was then new to the Internet, he quickly zeroed in on the site and checked back regularly. Then one day in the late ‘90s, the site bore a message that it would cease to operate, as McGoohan himself had contacted the webmaster and requested the removal of all content. This was possibly another instance of McGoohan’s preference for privacy, but it’s not hard to imagine the actor having a disdain for idol worship of pop-cultural figures too.

On a more personal note, your writer got a phone call from McGoohan in 2002, in response to an interview request for an “almost 007” article—in fact, the only returned phone call received in connection with the piece. Sure, it could’ve been the sturdy Irish name of Mike Malloy that prompted McGoohan to phone (he declined to comment about “events that happened 40 years ago” but graciously accepted my nervous, short-of-breath praise of his career), but the actor didn’t have to bother with some journalist writing a spec piece. But he did, and it’s nice to imagine a returned phone call out of courtesy (and general obligation to one’s fellow man) was his standard operating procedure.

Maybe it’s just as well that he shuffled off this mortal coil earlier this week. Today’s world is such that a crass, shallow fame anthem like The Pussycat Dolls’ “When I Grow Up” can instruct tweens to aim at stardom for the spoils of “nice cars and groupies.” There’s little room for understanding a Patrick McGoohan, who acted because he excelled at the craft but who accepted projects with guidance from his personal convictions. And if AMC TV’s remake of “The Prisoner” serves ultimately to dilute the power of the original when it airs later this year, it’s best that Patrick McGoohan departs dearly now.

Laurence Olivier in MARATHON MAN (1976)

In Memoriam : Ricardo Montalban (1921-2009) - Patrick McGoohan (1929-2009)

Billy&Otto

T H E F A L L

Tarsem's "The Fall" is a mad folly, an extravagant visual orgy, a free-fall from reality into uncharted realms. Surely it is one of the wildest indulgences a director has ever granted himself. 

The story framework for the imagery is straightforward. In Los Angeles, circa 1915, a silent movie stunt man has his legs paralyzed while performing a reckless stunt. He convalesces in a half-deserted hospital, its corridors of cream and lime stretching from ward to ward of mostly empty beds, their pillows and sheets awaiting the harvest of World War I. The stunt man is Roy (Lee Pace), pleasant in appearance, confiding in speech, happy to make a new friend of a little girl named Alexandria (Catinca Untaru).

Roy tells a story to Alexandria, involving adventurers who change appearance as quickly as a child's imagination can do its work. We see the process. He tells her of an "Indian" who has a wigwam and a squaw. She does not know these words, and envisions an Indian from a land of palaces, turbans and swamis. The verbal story is input from Roy; the visual story is output from Alexandria.

The story involves Roy (playing the Black Bandit) and his friends: a bomb-throwing Italian anarchist, an escaped African slave, an Indian (from India), and Charles Darwin and his pet monkey, Wallace. Their sworn enemy, Governor Odious, has stranded them on a desert island, but they come ashore (riding swimming elephants, of course) and wage war on him.

Roy draws out the story for a personal motive; after Alexandria brings him some communion wafers from the hospital chapel, he persuades her to steal some morphine tablets from the dispensary. Paralyzed and having lost his great love (she is the Princess in his story), he hopes to kill himself. There is a wonderful scene of the little girl trying to draw him back to life.

What you see in the title sequence for Tarsem’s “The Fall” is a director’s absolute control over his vision. To view it after seeing the film is a gift; a rare and beautiful thing. Surreal, extravagant and a world I’d like to step in to, not to bear witness, but to sense things in such a way.

Scored to Beethoven’s Symphony No 7 In A Major, Op.92 (2-Allegretto), the visuals hit their money notes in quick succession. The bridge becomes a stage and the caballus curtain rises as the sequence concludes.

From Tarsem’s DVD commentary, out on January 26, 2009 : “It is hard to define…I wanted chaos without energy.”

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What is Brazil?

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THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE INDEPENDENT BOOK STORE

Remember when a hallmark of big cities was the large numbers of distinctive, independent book stores? They were often cluttered, musty places run by tweedy eccentrics with an almost surrealistic knowledge of virtually every book ever published. Browsing through such stores used to be one of life's small pleasures, but it's a pleasure that is rapidly vanishing. In recent years, behemoth book chains have taken over the landscape and systematically targeted smaller independent stores and put them out of business. The larger chains are certainly impressive in many ways: they stock a huge number of titles, provide comfortable settings where you can sit and browse through volumes at your leisure, and often discount titles. The smaller shops simply couldn't compete. However, as writer Hugh McGuire of The Huffington Post points out, a tradeoff for the benefits of the big stores was that we've lost an important part of our heritage. The major chains are cookie-cutter carbon copies of each other and lack the intimacy that the small shops provided - not to mention knowledgeable staff. It's virtually impossible to imagine having a prolonged conversation about the title you are buying with some of the pimple-faced kids who run many of the giant book stores. More importantly, the book business is increasingly in the hands of a relatively few companies that exercise enormous clout with publishers. The stores shake down publishers for fees in order to ensure certain titles received prominent placement, and they issue draconian demands in terms of pricing and return policies. From a book store's standpoint, the business is risk free. Stores can stock up on as many copies of a book as they would like in the knowledge they can be returned to the publisher at any time without penalty. Meanwhile, the publishers bear the burden of the entire risk of publishing a book. With the increasing clout exercised on publishers by big chain stores, it can influence what types of books are published. If major chains say they are less-than-enthusiastic about stocking certain genres or authors, it leaves the publisher in a quandry about where to sell these books if the chain stores turn them down. Even worse, the large chain stores are now devoting more of their real estate to secondary types of products, squeezing out books at the expense of DVDS, electronics and giftware. 

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In memoriam: Donald E. Westlake 1933-2008

Donald Edwin Westlake (12 July 1933 – 31 December 2008) was an American writer, with over a hundred novels and non-fiction books to his credit. He specialized in crime fiction, especially comic capers with an occasional foray into science fiction. He was a three-time Edgar Award winner, one of only two writers (the other is Joe Gores) to win Edgars in three different categories (1968, Best Novel, God Save the Mark; 1990, Best Short Story, "Too Many Crooks"; 1991, Best Motion Picture Screenplay, The Grifters). In 1993, the Mystery Writers of America named Westlake a Grand Master, the highest honor bestowed by the society.
He was also an occasional contributor to science fiction fanzines.

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In memoriam: Harold Pinter 1930-2008 - Eartha Kitt 1927-2008