Poltergeist (1982)

A group of seemingly benign ghosts begin communicating with five-year-old Carol Anne Freeling (Heather O'Rourke) in her parents' suburban California home via static on the television. Eventually they use the television as their path into the house itself.

First, there are a few signs that the ghosts have arrived. Carol Anne carries on a seemingly one-sided conversation with a television set that's turned on but has no signal, an earthquake occurs that only the Freelings feel. Carol Anne later announces, "They're here." The next morning, glasses break at breakfast, forks bend by themselves, and when the mother, Diane (JoBeth Williams), asks Carol Anne, "What did you mean? Who's here?" she answers, "The TV people." At first the ghosts play harmless tricks and amuse the mother, including moving and stacking the kitchen table chairs.

Diane must convince Steven (Craig T. Nelson) that night by showing him. He then announces that "Nobody goes into the kitchen until I know what's happening."

During a rainstorm, a gnarled tree comes to life and grabs Robbie (Oliver Robins), Carol Anne's brother, through a window. However, this is merely a distraction used by the ghosts to get Carol Anne's parents to leave her unattended. Like a black hole, a shining light appears in the closet that pulls everything from the room into it, but only Carol Anne is taken into their dimension. The tree attempts to swallow Robbie whole but he is rescued, and as the family watches Steven pull Robbie out of the tree, a tornado drags the tree into oblivion. They then realize that they can't find Carol Anne. They search the entire house including the hole dug for their new swimming pool, which is extremely muddy and shallow, until Robbie hears Carol Anne through the television.

Steven reluctantly calls on a group of parapsychologists from UC Irvine: Dr. Lesh (Beatrice Straight), Ryan (Richard Lawson), and Marty (Martin Casella), who are awestruck by the manifestations they witness. With the parapsychologists present, the Freelings show them things they've never before seen. They open the door to the children's room to reveal toys and other objects flying around by themselves and disembodied laughing voices reverberating throughout the room. Previously, one of the parapsychologists described a Matchbox car taking seven hours to move seven feet, calling it "[F]antastic. Of course, this would never register on the naked eye." After they see the Freelings' house, they are all humbled.

Over coffee (and a coffee urn that moves by itself), the parapsychologists explain to the Freelings the difference between a poltergeist and a haunting. They determine that indeed, it is a poltergeist they are experiencing.

It turns out that the spirits have left this life but have not gone into the "Light." They are stuck in between dimensions, watching their loved ones grow up, but feeling alone. Carol Anne was born in the house. Only 5 years old, she gives off her own life force that is as bright as the Light. It distracts and confuses the spirits, who think Carol Anne is their salvation. Hence, they take her.

After the group witnesses several paranormal episodes where they hear Carol Anne talking to Diane through the television, see spirits, and hear the pounding footsteps of the spirit, which subsequently injures Marty, Dr. Lesh leaves, with Ryan staying in the house as moral support, admitting they will need more help. Carol Anne's elder sister Dana (Dominique Dunne), shaken and overwhelmed, leaves to stay with friends. The Freelings also send Robbie to his grandmother's house for his safety.

When the parapsychologists return, they bring a spiritual medium, Tangina Barrons (Zelda Rubinstein), who informs Diane that her daughter is "alive and in this house."

That if a living being were ever to be present in the world of spirits it would confuse and attract to their lifeforce. She also explains the malevolent spirit in the house to Diane, saying "it lies to her and tells her things only a child can understand." It exploits the fact that the spirits are confused and lost, and uses Carol Anne as a distraction so they cannot move on into the Light. "To her, it simply is another child. To us, it is the Beast."

They realize the entrance to the other dimension is through the children's bedroom closet. And after witnessing several pieces of jewelry and watches fall through, and a spirit use it as a way back, they conclude the way out is through the living room ceiling. By tying a rope around a live person who can enter, and presumably exit the other side, with enough time to grab Carol Anne, they could bring her back. Diane is the only choice to go. What happens next is a terrifying sequence where Diane gets Carol Anne and Tangina coaxes the agonized spirits away from Carol Anne to the real Light (during this, Steve panics, thinking that she's talking to Carol Anne and not the spirits, and pulls on the rope, causing the Beast to appear right in front of him). Diane falls through the living room ceiling clutching Carol Anne and bearing new streaks of grey hair, presumably from fright; both Diane and Carol Anne are also covered in ectoplasm.

After both are revived in the downstairs bathtub, Tangina pronounces that "this house is clean."

The spirits, who were generally passive, have seemingly moved on. Unfortunately, the Beast hasn't, and wants revenge. On their final night in the house, when they are almost packed up and ready to go, the Beast returns to reclaim what he believes is his: Carol Anne. This time, the Beast does his own dirty work and comes after Carol Anne personally. The Beast, since losing his manipulative power over the other spirits now resorts to solely extreme fright and violent behavior.

While Robbie and Carol Anne are getting ready for bed, Robbie's clown doll comes to life and pulls him under the bed. Diane, in the other room hears her son's screaming voice and tries to investigate but is pulled against the wall and ceiling by an unknown force. Robbie manages to defeat the clown doll but a strange, mouth-like portal appears in Carol Anne's closet and attempts to pull the children in yet again.

Diane tries to get to her son and daughter but runs into the Beast himself, in the form of a snarling, skeletal demon with ghastly flowing white hair. He blocks Carol Anne's and Robbie's door and lunges at her, causing her to fall down the stairs. Diane runs to the backyard to seek help from her next-door neighbors, but slips into the mud filled pool which is now infested by skeletons, as well as a coffin, which bursts out of the ground and opens. Her neighbors hear the commotion and arrive to help Diane out of the pool, but they refuse to enter the house with its windows now blazing with ghostly energy, so Diane runs back into the house alone to get Robbie and Carol Anne.

Through skill and luck, the Freelings finally escape the house, but not before the anger of the Beast reveals the reason (so far until the sequel) for the spirits being there in the first place: coffins and skeletal bodies begin exploding out of the ground throughout the neighborhood. When the neighborhood was first built the real estate developer Steven worked for moved a cemetery that was on the location, but in reality in order to save money they moved the cemetery headstones but left the bodies, building houses right on top of them, thus desecrating the burial grounds. As the Freelings flee down the street in their car, the Beast is so angry that the house implodes into the other dimension as stunned neighbors (including Steven's boss) look on. The family checks into a Holiday Inn for the night. Not wishing to tempt fate, Steven puts the television set outside their room.

Poltergeist was a box office success worldwide. The film grossed $76,606,280 in the United States, making it the 8th biggest release (regardless of genre) and highest grossing horror film of 1982.

Many critics discussed the role of the white American middle class family in the film. Douglas Brode compares the "family values" in Poltergeist to the Bush/Quayle 1992 reelection campaign. Andrew Sarris, in The Village Voice, wrote that when Carol Ann is lost the parents and the two older children "come together in blood-kin empathy to form a larger-than-life family that will reach down to the gates of hell to save its loved ones." In the L.A. Herald Examiner, Peter Rainer wrote:

Buried within the plot of Poltergeist is a basic, splendid fairy tale scheme: the story of a little girl who puts her parents through the most outrageous tribulation to prove their love for her. Underlying most fairy tales is a common theme: the comforts of family. Virtually all fairy tales begin with a disrupting of the family order, and their conclusion is usually a return to order.

The film was re-released in cinemas for one night only on Thursday, October 4, 2007 as a promotion for the new restored and remastered 25th anniversary DVD released on October 9. This event also included the documentary "They Are Here: The Real World of Poltergeists" that was created for the new DVD.

The film spawned two sequels, Poltergeist II: The Other Side and Poltergeist III. They retained the family but introduced all-new reasons for the Beast's behavior, tying him to an evil preacher named Henry Kane, who led his religious sect to their doom in the 1820s. As the Beast, Kane went to extraordinary lengths to keep his "flock" under his control, even in death. He used Carol Anne to do this, as he discovered his flock was attracted to her innocence. Kane and his flock were never mentioned in the first movie, only that the Beast needed Carol Anne to hold spirits captive. But the original motive—building a housing development on top of a cemetery, thus disturbing the souls of those buried there—was altered; the cemetery was now on top of a cave where Kane and his flock met their ends.

"The Poltergeist curse" is the rumor of a supposed curse attached to the Poltergeist motion picture series and its stars.

The rumor is superstition largely derived from the fact that four cast members died in the six years between the release of the first film and the release of the third, with one dying during production of the second film. Two of them died at young ages, 12 and 22. It is not clear that these particular films are atypical in the number or nature of the deaths of their actors, and at least two of the supposed victims had serious health problems before becoming attached to the film series.

The actors who are supposed victims of the curse include:

• Dominique Dunne, who played the oldest sibling Dana in the first movie, died in 1982 at age 22 after being strangled by her jealous boyfriend. The boyfriend, John Thomas Sweeney, was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to six years in prison, but was paroled after serving three and a half years.
• Julian Beck, 60-year-old actor who played Kane in Poltergeist II: The Other Side, died in 1985 of stomach cancer diagnosed before he had accepted the role.
• Will Sampson, 53 years old, who played Taylor the Medicine Man in Poltergeist II, died as a result of post-operative kidney failure and pre-operative malnutrition problems in 1987.
• Heather O'Rourke, who played Carol Anne in all three Poltergeist movies, died in 1988 at the age of 12 after what doctors initially described as an acute form of influenza but later changed to septic shock after bacterial toxins invaded her bloodstream. At the time, she had suffered acute bowel obstruction, initially diagnosed as Crohn's disease, which may have been the cause of death.

Other occurrences that have been attributed to the curse include:

• While writing the novelization of the screenplay, author James Kahn told People magazine that seconds after he wrote the line "Lightning ripped open the sky", the building was struck by lightning and all the arcade games in the lounge began playing themselves.
• Louis "Lou" Perryman, who played Pugsley in the first movie, was murdered at the age of 67 in his Austin, Texas home in April, 2009, by Seth Christopher Tatum (the two did not know each other.) Tatum stabbed Perryman several times with a sharp object (possibly an axe) and then stole his car to flee from police due to an unrelated aggravated assault charge.

The curse is said to be the most famous in movie history.

Seven Days in May (1964)

Seven Days in May is a political thriller novel written by Fletcher Knebel and Charles W. Bailey II and published in 1962. The novel was made into a motion picture in 1964, with screenplay by Rod Serling, directed by John Frankenheimer, and starring Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas. The story is said to have been influenced by the right-wing anti-Communist political activities of General Edwin A. Walker after he retired from the military. The author, Knebel, got the idea for the book after interviewing then Air Force Chief of Staff Curtis LeMay.In the novel, the story is set in May 1974, not long after the conclusion of a stalemated war in Iran fought along conventional warfare lines similar to Korea (and which, unlike the actual Vietnam War, did not precipitate a major anti-war movement inside American society). The motion picture is set four years earlier, in May 1970, as shown both by the day/date indicator in the Pentagon, and the reference by Jordan Lyman to "a year and nine months" before Election Day 1972.

The novel has White House aide Paul Girard meeting with Vice Admiral Farley C. Barnswell, USN, on board the U.S. Sixth Fleet flagship, a 100,000-ton nuclear-powered aircraft carrier named after the late President Dwight D. Eisenhower, at anchor in the Bay of Gibraltar. The U.S. Navy's third nuclear-powered supercarrier was the Nimitz class USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN-69), which was actually commissioned in 1977.

The scenario of the film may have been inspired by the clash between General Curtis LeMay and President John F. Kennedy. It is suspected that LeMay, furious after the Cuban missile crisis for not being allowed to use his atomic bombs, talked to some of his staff about removing the President from power.

Other observers cite as the inspiration for the story a historically-ambiguous conspiracy among major industrial leaders to enlist retired Marine Gen. Smedley Butler in a plot to overthrow Franklin Delano Roosevelt, as reported by Butler in his testimony to the McCormack-Dickstein Congressional Committee in 1934.

Kirk Douglas and director John Frankenheimer were the moving force behind the filming of Seven Days in May; the film was produced through Douglas's Joel Productions. Douglas agreed to star in it, but he also wanted his frequent co-star Burt Lancaster to star in the film as well. This almost caused Frankenheimer to back out, since he and Lancaster had butted heads on The Birdman of Alcatraz several years before. Only Douglas's assurances that Lancaster would behave kept the director on the project. Ironically, Lancaster and Frankenheimer became close friends during the filming, while Douglas and the director had a falling out.

Some of the other actors had problems with Frankenheimer. Ava Gardner thought he favored the other actors over her, and Martin Balsam objected to his habit of shooting off pistols behind him during important scenes.

Interiors for Seven Days in May were shot at the Paramount studios in Hollywood, and on location in Paris, France, Washington, D.C., San Diego, Arizona and in California's Imperial Valley. In an example of guerrilla filmmaking, Frankenheimer photographed Martin Balsam being ferried out to the supercarrier USS Kitty Hawk, formerly CVA-63 (now CV-63), berthed at Naval Air Station North Island in San Diego without prior Defense Department permission. He also wanted a shot of Kirk Douglas entering the Pentagon, but could not get permission because of security considerations, so he rigged a movie camera in a parked station wagon to photograph Douglas walking up to the Pentagon. Douglas actually received salutes from military personnel because he was wearing the uniform of a U.S. Marine Corps colonel

Getting permission near the White House was easier. Frankenheimer said that Pierre Salinger conveyed to him President Kennedy's wish that the film be made, "these were the days of General Walker" and, though the Pentagon did not want the film made, the President would conveniently arrange to visit Hyannis Port for a weekend when the film needed to shoot outside the White House.

Some efforts were made in the film to have the film appear to take place in the near future, for instance the use of the then-futuristic technology of video teleconferencing.

Seven Days in May premiered on 12 February 1964, appropriately in Washington, D.C. It opened to good critical notices and audience response.

Sam Mendes to direct Bond 23?

British director Sam Mendes is being lined up to helm the 23rd James Bond film, it was announced today by the Hollywood Reporter. According to the trade paper, he is in negotiations with the production team to direct Daniel Craig's third outing as 007. As with every blockbuster directing assignment, Mendes' participation is contingent on the final script and the film's production scheduled.

Bond 23 would be Sam Mendes' first major action adventure film, although his 2005 movie "Jarhead", set during the first Gulf War, featured some stunt work. His most recent films include "Away We Go (2009) and Revolutionary Road (2008). In 2002 he helmed "Road to Perdition" starring Daniel Craig, but his most famous work is undoubtedly "American Beauty" (1999).

The Cannonball Run (1981)

The Cannonball Run is a 1981 film comedy starring Burt Reynolds, Roger Moore, Dom DeLuise Farrah Fawcett and an all star cast including Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Fonda among others, and directed by Hal Needham. It was produced by Golden Harvest films. There were two sequels, 1984's Cannonball Run II and 1989's Speed Zone! The latter was also known as Cannonball Fever.

The movie is based on the Cannonball Baker Sea-To-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash, an actual cross-country outlaw road race from the Red Ball Garage in New York City (later Darien, CT) to the pier at Redondo Beach, California, just south of Los Angeles, organized by automotive journalist and the movie's screenwriter Brock Yates.

Among the teams are:

• J.J. McClure and Victor Prinzim, driving a souped-up but otherwise authentic Dodge Tradesman ambulance. (Which in fact was Hal Needham's and Brock Yates' vehicle in the real-life 1979 race.)
• Former open-wheel icon (and Scotch-swilling) Jamie Blake (Dean Martin), and his teammate Morris Fenderbaum (Sammy Davis, Jr.), dressed as Catholic priests and driving a red Ferrari 308 GTS. (Based on an entry in the real-life 1972 race, in which three men disguised as priests ("The Flying Fathers") drive a Mercedes 280 SEL sedan, which they claim is "the Monsignor's car" to an ecumenical council of prelates in California.)
• Jill Rivers (Tara Buckman) and Marcie Thatcher (Adrienne Barbeau), two knockout women starting the race in a black Lamborghini Countach.
• Jackie Chan and Michael Hui as drivers of a high-tech, computer-laden Subaru GL 4WD hatchback with a rocket engine.
• A pair of good ol' boys played by Terry Bradshaw and Mel Tillis driving a street-legal replica of Donnie Allison's Hawaiian Tropic sponsored NASCAR Winston Cup Chevrolet stock car owned by Hoss Ellington (it starts off as '75-76 Laguna but after they paint it, it becomes a '76-77 Monte Carlo).
• Roger Moore playing "heir to the Goldfarb Girdles fortune" Seymour Goldfarb, Jr., who perpetually identifies himself as Roger Moore; his character behaves similarly to James Bond and is only once (by his mother) referred to by his real name, making it unclear whether or not Goldfarb and Moore are the same or if Goldfarb is simply delusional. He drives a silver Aston Martin DB5.
• Jamie Farr portraying a Middle-Eastern Sheikh driving a white Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow.

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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