Dark City (1998)

Dark City is a 1998 science fiction film directed by Alex Proyas. In the film, human inhabitants live in a city where the sun is not seen, and their lives are manipulated by alien Strangers studying humanity. The film was written by Proyas, Lem Dobbs, and David S. Goyer, and stars Rufus Sewell, William Hurt, Kiefer Sutherland, and Jennifer Connelly.

John Murdoch (Sewell) awakens in a hotel bathtub, suffering from what seems to be amnesia. As he stumbles into his hotel room, he receives a telephone call from Dr. Daniel Schreber (Sutherland), who urges him to flee the hotel from a group of men who are after him. During the telephone conversation, John discovers the corpse of a brutalized, ritualistically murdered woman, along with a bloody knife. Murdoch flees the scene, just as the figures, known as the Strangers, arrive at the room. Eventually he learns his real name, and finds his wife Emma (Connelly). He is also sought by police inspector Frank Bumstead (Hurt) for a series of murders, which he cannot remember. While being pursued by the Strangers, Murdoch discovers that he has psychokinetic powers like them and uses it to escape from them.

Murdoch moves about the city, which experiences perpetual night. He sees people become comatose at midnight, with the cityscape being altered along with people's identities being changed at that time. Murdoch questions the dark urban environment and discovers through clues and interviews with his family that he was originally from a coastal town called Shell Beach. Attempts at finding a way out of the city to Shell Beach are hindered by lack of reliable information from everyone he meets. Meanwhile, the Strangers, disturbed by the presence of a human who also possesses psychokinetic powers, inject one of their men, Mr. Hand (O'Brien) with Murdoch's memories in an attempt to find him.

Murdoch eventually finds Bumstead, who recognizes Murdoch's innocence and has his own questions about the nature of the dark city. They find and confront Dr. Schreber, who explains that the Strangers are endangered extraterrestrial parasites who use corpses as their hosts. Having a collective consciousness, the Strangers have been experimenting with humans to analyze the human soul in the hopes that some insight might be revealed that would help their race survive. Schreber reveals Murdoch as an anomaly who inadvertently awoke during the midnight process when Schreber was in the middle of fashioning his identity as a murderer. The three men embark to find Shell Beach, which ultimately exists only as a billboard at the edge of the city. Frustrated, Murdoch tears through the wall, revealing a hole into outer space. The men are confronted by the Strangers, including Mr. Hand, who holds Emma hostage. In the ensuing fight, Bumstead, along with one of the Strangers, falls through the hole into space, revealing the city as an enormous space habitat surrounded by a force field.

The Strangers bring Murdoch to their home beneath the city and force Dr. Schreber to imprint Murdoch with their collective memory, believing Murdoch to be the final answer to their experiments. Schreber betrays them by inserting false memories in Murdoch which artificially reestablish his childhood as years spent training and honing his psychokinetic abilities and learning about the Strangers and their machines. Murdoch awakens, fully realizing his abilities, frees himself and battles with the Strangers, defeating their leader Mr. Book (Richardson) in a battle high above the city. After learning that "Emma" is gone and cannot be restored, Murdoch utilizes his newfound powers through the Strangers' machine to create an actual Shell Beach by flooding the area within the force field with water and forming mountains and beaches. On his way to Shell Beach, Murdoch encounters Mr. Hand and informs him that the Strangers have been searching in the wrong place—the head—to understand humanity. Murdoch opens the door leading out of the city, and steps out to view a sunrise that he created. Beyond him is a dock, where he finds Emma, now with new memories and a new identity as Anna. Murdoch reintroduces himself as they walk to Shell Beach, beginning their relationship anew.

Dark City is a retelling of the Allegory of the Cave used by Greek philosopher Plato, who conveyed the allegory as a fictional dialogue between his teacher Socrates and Plato's brother Glaucon. In the film, the city inhabitants are prisoners who do not realize they are in a prison. John Murdoch's escape from the prison parallels the escape from the cave in the allegory. He is assisted by Dr. Schreber, who explains the city's mechanism as Socrates explains to Glaucon how the shadows in the cave are cast. Murdoch however becomes more than Glaucon; Loughlin writes, "He is a Glaucon who comes to realize that Socrates' tale of an upper, more real world, is itself a shadow, a forgery."

Murdoch defeats the Strangers who control the inhabitants and remakes the world based on childhood memories, which were themselves illusions arranged by the Strangers. Loughlin writes of the lack of background, "The original of the city is off–stage, unknown and unknowable." Murdoch now casts new shadows for the city inhabitants, who must trust his judgment. Unlike Plato, Murdoch "is disabused of any hope of an outside" and becomes the demiurge for the cave, the only environment he knows.

The city in Dark City is described by Higley as a "murky, nightmarish German expressionist film noir depiction of urban repression and mechanism". The city has a World War II dreariness reminiscent of Edward Hopper's works and has details from different eras and architectures that are changed by the Strangers; "buildings collapse as others emerge and battle with one another at the end".

The round window in Dark City is concave like a fishbowl and is a frequently seen element throughout the city. The inhabitants do not live at the top of the city; the main characters' homes are dwarfed by the bricolage of buildings.

In memoriam : Raimondo Vianello (1922-2010)

Raimondo Vianello (May 7, 1922 – April 15, 2010) was an Italian film actor, comedian and TV host. He was a well known and most beloved Italian television personality.

He was born in Rome, but spent his in his youth in Split, where his father, Admiral of the Italian Navy directed the local naval academy.

During World War II he joined the Italian Social Republic, the fascist puppet state established in northern Italy after the Allied invasion of Italy. He was captured by the American troops. In 1958 he met actress Sandra Mondaini, whom he would marry four years later, and with whom he collaborated in TV shows during his whole career with enormous success creating one of the most beloved couple in Italy for most than 50 years.

His first famous partner on the small screen was Ugo Tognazzi with whom, starting from 1954, he hosted the satyrical show Un due tre; the show was halted in 1959 after the couple performed an ironical sketch about the then-president of the Republic, Giovanni Gronchi.

Vianello then moved full-time to cinema, appearing in a total of 79 films between 1947 and 1968. In the 1970s he returned to RAI (the Italian state network, then the only one existing) with a series of Saturday shows which made him and Mondaini extremely popular as hosts and authors of sketches. During his TV career Vianello also hosted quiz shows, such as Zig Zag on RAI and Il gioco del 9 on Canale 5; he also hosted the 1998 edition of the Sanremo Music Festival and, from 1991 to 1999, Pressing, Mediaset's Sunday night sport show.

His most well-known and long-lasting TV programme, Casa Vianello, was a sit-com shot from 1988 to 2008 and broadcast by Mediaset channels Canale 5 and later moved on Rete 4, in which him and Sandra Mondaini performed as themselves.

He died today at the San Raffaele Hospital.

Bond 23 updates (from MI6)

After a week of April Fool's, tabloid rumours and movie blogs running endlessly recycled hype and hoaxes, some refreshing information on the 23rd James Bond film has come to light today.

Respected British newspaper The Telegraph has today confirmed that Sam Mendes will be helming Daniel Craig's third outing as 007. The paper's Mandrake column said, "Sam Mendes caused astonishment when he announced the end of his marriage to Kate Winslet, which had been seen as one of the most solid in show business. He is now provoking intrigue in his professional life. Barbara Broccoli, the producer, confirmed to Mandrake recently that Mendes, 44, would be the director of the next James Bond film."

Mendes is currently understood to be signed as a 'consultant' on Bond 23 to avoid a trigger payment from cash-strapped MGM. As the future ownership of the studio is in question, EON have avoided any possible ownership issues on the movie by holding fire on Mendes signing as director until the situation is resolved. MGM's debt holders have extended the freeze on interest payments until mid-May to help the lion find a new suitable owner, or other financial restructuring plan.

Still on the subject of Bond 23, The Telegraph also says that Peter Morgan, the screenwriter of "Frost/Nixon" and "The Queen", who had been announced as one of the writers on the 007 film, may no longer working on the script.

"Patrick Marber, the acclaimed playwright, is understood to be wanted by Mendes as his replacement. 'It is a mystery worthy of a Bond script,' says Mandrake's source. A spokesman for the Hollywood studio MGM said: 'The film-makers say the Morgan / Marber switch is just speculation.'"

MGM may have little knowledge of the work being done on Bond 23 behind the scenes by EON, and it is a standard response from the studio. Peter Morgan said he completed his work on the Bond 23 draft between July and October last year, until his work was put on hold due to the MGM debacle.

Oscar nominated and British-born writer Patrick Marber has seen success with a couple of high-profile films in recent years, including "Closer" (2004) and Dame Judi Dench starrer "Notes on a Scandal" (2006). Marber picked up the BAFTA for Best Short Film last year with "Love You More". He is also known for writing on comedy projects with Steve Coogan.

In recent months, Daniel Craig has said he expects filming to start in late 2010, indicating a tentative release window of late 2011. Dame Judi Dench has been told to hold her diary for early 2011 to film her scenes as MI6 chief M.

Bond 23 is being written by regular Bond duo Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, and "The Queen" and "Frost/Nixon" scribe Peter Morgan. Daniel Craig will play 007 for the third time, with Dame Judi Dench returning as MI6 chief 'M'. David Arnold will compose the score for his sixth 007 movie. Producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson have yet to confirm a director, although Sam Mendes is understood to be in a holding pattern.

The Prize (1963)

The Prize is a 1963 spy film starring Paul Newman, Elke Sommer and Edward G. Robinson. It was directed by Mark Robson, produced by Pandro S. Berman and adapted for the screen by Ernest Lehman from the novel of the same name by Irving Wallace.

The Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded to Andrew Craig (Paul Newman), who seems to be more interested in women and drinking than writing. When he arrives in Stockholm for the award ceremony, he is delighted to find that the Swedish Foreign Department has sent the beautiful Inger Lisa Andersson (Elke Sommer) as his personal chaperone. When Craig arrives at his hotel, he is introduced to another laureate, Dr. Max Stratman (Edward G. Robinson), a famous German-American physicist, who is accompanied by his niece Emily (Diane Baker).

When Craig meets Stratman for the second time, at a press conference, Stratman acts as if they had never met before and also displays a change in personality, despising photographs and being less talkative. Craig then, with no time to further talk to Dr. Stratman, has to give his interview, and in short succession admits to suffering from writer's block for years, having not even started his highly anticipated next novel, Return to Carthage, and having written pulp detective stories to pay the rent. He even suggests that he may have lost his talent. Asked for an example of developing a detective story, he suggests the possibility that Stratman may be an imposter.

The Nobel laureates for chemistry, Dr. Denise Marceau (Micheline Presle) and Dr. Claude Marceau (Gérard Oury), as well as his "private" secretary, Monique Souvir (Jacqueline Beer) are also staying at the hotel. So are Dr. Carlo Farelli (Sergio Fantoni) and Dr. John Garrett (Kevin McCarthy), the laureates for medicine.

As events progress toward the prize ceremony, Craig realizes that his offhand suggestion that Stratman is an imposter is actually the truth, and pursues the case. Unfortunately, his adversaries are able to stay one move ahead of him and cover their tracks, and due to Craig's reputation of heavy drinking and fiction writing, nobody believes him.

The film has an overall Hitchcock-esque mood, bearing some similarities to North by Northwest (1959), including usage of Hitchcockian actor Leo G. Carroll. The scene on the bridge and in the nudist club are most often mentioned.

Providence (1977)

Providence is a French/Swiss 1977 film directed by Alain Resnais and starring Dirk Bogarde, David Warner, Ellen Burstyn, Elaine Stritch, and John Gielgud.

Over a drunken, tormented night, dying writer Clive Langham (Gielgud) struggles with the plot of a novel. The characters are based on Langham's own family, who are depicted as spiteful, treacherous and decadent. Langham makes these people interact in a variety of settings - courtrooms, mortuaries, werewolf-haunted forests. Although it is obvious that the writer's perceptions are distorted by bitterness and guilt, the extent of this is not made clear until the end, when the "real" family members come to Langham's house to celebrate his birthday.

The film contains a unique variety of visual techniques which illustrate Langham’s internal editing of his material. We watch one scene evolve, and after several minutes, Langham decides that the dialogue is all wrong. The scene is performed again with different dialogue accompanying the basic actions of the scene. The most unusual example of internal editing is a scene between Dirk Bogarde and Ellen Burstyn. Burstyn enters the frame on the left side through a door. The camera then follows the characters in one continuous shot as they walk to the other side of the room, as their conversation progresses. In the end, Burstyn returns to the side of the room where the door was. Now the door is gone, and she must descend a flight of stairs for her exit from the scene.

Robert Morley

Robert Morley CBE (26 May 1908 – 3 June 1992) was an English actor who, often in supporting roles, was usually cast as a pompous English gentleman representing the Establishment. In Movie Encyclopedia, film critic Leonard Maltin describes Morley as "recognizable by his ungainly bulk, bushy eyebrows, thick lips, and double chin, […] particularly effective when cast as a pompous windbag". More politely, Ephraim Katz in his International Film Encyclopaedia describes Morley as a "a rotund, triple-chinned, delightful character player of the British and American stage and screen."

He was born Robert Adolph Wilton Morley in Semley, Wiltshire, England. Morley attended Elizabeth College (an independent school in Guernsey), followed by RADA, and made his West End stage debut in 1929 in Treasure Island at the Strand Theatre and his Broadway debut in 1938 in the title role of Oscar Wilde at the Fulton Theatre. Although soon won over to the big screen, Morley remained both a busy West End star and successful author, as well as tirelessly touring.

A versatile actor, especially in his younger years, he played roles as divergent as those of Louis XVI, for which he received an Academy Award Nomination as Best Supporting Actor (Marie Antoinette 1938). He gave powerful performances in Oscar Wilde (1960) and as a missionary in The African Queen (1951), but didn't receive Oscar nominations for either.

As a playwright he co-wrote and adapted several plays for the stage, having outstanding success in London and New York with Edward, My Son, a gripping family drama written in 1947 (with Noel Langley) in which he played the central role of Arnold Holt. But the disappointing film version, directed by George Cukor at MGM Elstree in 1949, instead starred the miscast Spencer Tracy, who turned Holt, an unscrupulous English businessman, into a blustering Canadian expatriate.

Morley also personified the conservative Englishman. He was also the face of BOAC (British Airways) in television commercials of the 1970s. British Airways: 'We'll take good care of you'. In many comedy and caper films. Later in his career, he received critical acclaim and numerous accolades for his performance in Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe?. Renowned for repartee and for being an eloquent conversationalist, Morley gained the epitheton of being a "wit".

Morley was honoured by being the first King of Moomba appointed by the Melbourne Moomba festival committee and, in typical humility, he accepted the crown in bare feet. Morley was in Australia touring his one-man show, The Sound of Morley.

He married Joan Buckmaster (1910–2005), a daughter of Dame Gladys Cooper. Their elder son, Sheridan Morley was a well-known writer and critic. They also had a daughter Annabel and another son Wilton. He was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1957. He was also offered a Knighthood during the Wilson government but declined it. He died in Reading, Berkshire from a stroke, aged 84. He was cremated and his ashes scattered across the graveyard of the parish church at Wargrave, Berkshire.

Cary Grant and LSD

from wfmu.

"I knew Cary Grant very well and he loved ... what did they call it? Acid! LSD. He said he liked to take the trip." - Debbie Reynolds

"I learned many things in the quiet of that room ... I learned that everything is or becomes its own opposite ... You know, we are all unconsciously holding our anus. In one LSD dream ... I imagined myself as a giant penis launching off from earth like a spaceship." - Cary Grant

It was 1943. Cary Grant was starring in the motion picture Destination Tokyo; an action-filled wartime drama co-starring John Garfield and a deluge of racial slurs. While America was embroiled in the intense fighting of World War Two, Axis powers had surrounded the neutral country of Switzerland. Deep within these beleaguered boundaries, Swiss chemist Albert Hoffman was busy toiling away in a dimly lit laboratory, about to study the properties of a synthesis he had abandoned five years earlier. Hoffman was trying to devise a chemical agent that could act as a circulatory and respiratory stimulant when he accidentally absorbed lysergic acid through his fingers. While Americans sat in darkened theaters enjoying Cary Grant's portrayal of a submarine captain, Hoffman was experiencing accelerated thought patterns, polychromatic visions and an unbearable onslaught of intense emotion. This was the world's first acid trip. The discovery was soon to transform the life of one of Hollywood's most glamorous stars.

Cary Grant was the first mainstream celebrity to espouse the virtues of psychedelic drugs. Whereas novelist Aldous Huxley's famous 1954 treatise The Doors of Perception recounted his remarkable experiences with mescaline, Huxley was hardly mainstream - a darling of intellectual circles to be sure, but a far cry from a matinee idol. Grant was one of the biggest stars Hollywood had to offer when he jumped headlong into Huxley's Heaven and Hell. His endorsement of subconscious exploration, arguably, created more interest in LSD than Dr. Timothy Leary who was largely preaching to the converted.1 Grant on the other hand was the fantasy of countless Midwestern women. He convinced wholesome movie starlets like Esther Williams and Dyan Cannon to blow their minds. When Ladies Home Journal and Good Housekeeping interviewed him, the topic of conversation wasn't Cary's favorite recipe or "the problem with youth today." Instead, Cary Grant was telling happy homemakers that LSD was the greatest thing in the world.

"We come into this world with nothing on our tape. We are computers, after all," concluded Grant. "The content of that tape is supplied by our mothers, mainly because our fathers are off hunting or shooting or working. Now the mother can teach only what she knows and many of these patterns of behavior are not good, but they're still passed on to the child. I came to the conclusion that I had to be reborn, to wipe clean the tape ... When I first started under LSD I found myself turning and turning on the couch, and I said to the doctor, 'Why am I turning around on this sofa?' and he said 'Don't you know why?' and I said I didn't have the vaguest idea, but I wondered when it was going to stop. '[It will stop] when you stop it,' he answered. Well, it was like a revelation to me, taking complete responsibility for one's own actions." He described the feeling of being high, "I passed through changing seas of horrifying and happy sights, through a montage of intense hate and love, a mosaic of past impressions assembling and reassembling; through terrifying depths of dark despair replaced by glorious heavenlike religious symbolism."

Cary Grant wrote of his experiences, "The feelings is that of an unmarshaling of the thoughts as you've customarily associated them. The lessening of conscious control ... similar to the mental process ... when we dream. Dreams ... could be classified as hallucinations ... [With LSD] one becomes a battleground of old and new beliefs ... The shock of each revelation brings with it an anguish of sadness for what was not known before in the wasted years of ignorance and, at the same time, an ecstasy of joy at being freed from the shackles of such ignorance ... I learned many things in the quiet of that room ... I learned that everything is or becomes its own opposite ... it releases inhibition. You know, we are all unconsciously holding our anus. In one LSD dream I shit all over the rug and shit all over the floor. Another time I imagined myself as a giant penis launching off from earth like a spaceship ... I seemed to be in a world of healthy, chubby little babies' legs and diapers, smeared blood, a sort of general menstrual activity taking place ... As a philosopher once said, you cannot judge the day until the night ... I used it about one hundred times before it became illegal. Each session lasted about six hours ... My intention in taking LSD was to make myself happy. A man would be a fool to take something that didn't make him happy ... One day, after many weeks of LSD, my last defense crumbled. To my delight, I found I had a tough inner core of strength. In my youth, I was very dependent upon older men and women. Now people come to me for help!" He had one regret. "Oh, those wasted years; why didn't I do this sooner?"

Reaction to Cary Grant's drug use varied among his Hollywood peers. Religious Debbie Reynolds thought it was funny, as did Alfred Hitchcock who said, "I sometimes think Cary is attracted to LSD because those letters in England stand for pounds, shillings and pence." David Niven expressed concern, "[It was] a most hazardous trip for Cary to have taken to find out what we could have told him anyway: that he had always been self-sufficient, that he had always been loved, and that he would continue to give a damn about himself - and particularly about others." Director Stanley Donen didn't find Grant's enthusiasm particularly infectious. "LSD gave him the belief he had found the real answer to the miracle of how to live. Did I notice any real changes? Not really." Richard Brooks, the writer and director of cinema classics like The Blackboard Jungle and In Cold Blood thought the drugs had a dulling effect. "I didn't recognize that the changes in him were from taking LSD," said Brooks. "Under LSD he was too placid. He was not his questioning self." Peter Stone, the screenwriter on the Grant vehicles Charade and Father Goose felt psychedelics had turned Cary from a charming man into an aggravating pest. "Everything was uncritical after LSD, It wasn't real. It was beatific. You'd say, 'Cary stop it. You're making me crazy.' He'd say, 'I'm not making you crazy. You're making you crazy.' ... It was cosmic in scope. Up and down. Black was white. In was out. Everything was a cycle. What's the difference? He could literally stop any discussion by one of these tautologies."

IF YOU MEET YOUR DOUBLE, YOU SHOULD KILL HIM!

The best art imitates life, but at a slant. Johan Grimonprez adroitly proves this in his highly original film, which locates and develops thematic conjunctions between escapist entertainment and real-life horror; more specifically, between the work and images of legendary film director Alfred Hitchcock and the escalation of the cold war in the 1960s. Appropriating and reprocessing film and television images of Hitchcock, John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Nikita Khruschev, and others, Grimonprez expands droll generalizations about doppelgangers, guilt, and paranoia into a full-blown analysis of global politics, fear of the bomb, and the mad rush to mutually assured destruction. As public anxieties are sublimated in popular entertainment, so do they sometimes erupt in artistic expressions (such as Hitchcock’s The Birds). In addition to pinpointing the postmodern, movielike unreality of public life, Grimonprez convincingly indicates the precision with which an artist may sketch the public psyche in entertainment, and why Hitchcock still haunts our dreams.

Tom McCarthy, who wrote Double Take for director Johan Grimonprez, based his screenplay on a story by Jorge Luis Borges called August 25th, 1983, in which the author encounters and talks with his 83-year-old self on his deathbed as a slightly younger man, on the date specified. Quite apart from the wittily Hitchcockian weirdness that Grimonprez has confected in his movie.

Just the title of Borges's story puts one in mind of the opening caption in Psycho: "Friday, December the Eleventh," and the doubling of authors (also seen in Borges And I) recalls the almost manic use of doppelgangers and alter egos throughout Hitchcock's career, most famously in (giveaway title!) Shadow Of A Doubt, in which the two main characters (male and female) are both called Charlie, where doublings abound quite riotously, including in Hitchcock's own cameo, where he's twinned with an uncooperative double-bass, his physical counterpart among the stringed instruments. And of course, Hitchcock loved a little blindness, eyelessness and many another narrative or visual coup based on visual impairment – in The Birds alone, think of all-pecked-up farmer Fawcett, the crushed spectacles, the game of blind man's buff.

One wonders what Hitchcock might have done with a Borges story like The Shape Of The Sword or Theme Of The Traitor And The Hero (later filmed by Bertolucci as The Spider's Strategem), or if he ever delved into his works.

In memoriam : Nicola Arigliano (1923-2010)

Erykah's back

Updates

British actress Rachel Weisz has been linked to a possible role in the upcoming James Bond film, the 23rd in the official series.

Despite the financial situation with MGM keeping production officially on hold, Sam Mendes is understood to be working on planning the movie, although he is performing this duty as 'consultant' rather than director until the studio can fund the film, or until EON can produce under a different banner.

With the first draft script from Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and Peter Morgan complete, thoughts have reportedly turned to casting. This despite the fact that female lead casting for recent films has often been finalized just days ahead of shooting, or in some case, after shooting had actually started.

Cinema Blend claims, via a reputable source, that Rachel Weisz is being considered for a major role in the film. But she would not take on the traditional Bond Girl part, rather the head of the mysterious organization 'Quantum' that have been behind the plots in both of Daniel Craig's two outings as 007 so far.

The site says, "Weisz is actually friends with Daniel Craig (in fact they’re working together on the upcoming movie Dream House) and in the past she had a personal relationship with would-be Bond 23 director Sam Mendes. She has before expressed real interest in doing a Bond movie with Craig. So why not give her something substantive in the movie, something that won’t reduce her to being 007’s latest conquest? Why not let her play the villain? Our source says that’s exactly what they’re discussing behind the scenes of Bond 23. In fact, they’re considering Weisz to play the head of Quantum."

finally got it!

back in 1964....

the Wicker tree (2010)

It's little more than a funky new poster at the moment, but the website for The Wicker Tree, Robin Hardy's "spiritual sequel" to 1974's The Wicker Man, has just gone live, confirming a release date sometime in 2010.

This is the film that used to be Cowboys For Christ. Not sure about that new title although it's obviously less Texas-baiting than its predecessor (the title of Hardy's novel on which the film is based) and makes the connection to Lord Summerisle and co. more obvious. Double-edged sword though, running the risk of non-savvy mallrats immediately writing it off as something to do with "that retarded Nicolas Cage movie".

Hardy's first film for 24 years is, if the novel is an indicator, a close parallel to The Wicker Man, rather than a sequel per se. Each character from 1974 has an equivalent and the plot structure is similar, but the details this time involve an evangelical Texan country singer and her boyfriend attempting to introduce religion to the small Scottish town of Tressock.

Cast-wise, Christopher Lee (who describes The Wicker Tree as "erotic, romantic, comic and horrific enough to loosen the bowels of a bronze statue") is joined by Graham McTavish, Clive Russell, Brittania Nicol and Honeysuckle Weeks. Shooting took place last year in Texas and Scotland, and Hardy showed ten minutes at a screening of The Wicker Man in Tribeca last Hallowe'en. It's been a long time coming, but it's actually happening!

Wrong is right (1982)

Wrong Is Right (Columbia Pictures, 1982) is a prescient black comedy thriller about the theft of two suitcase bombs, featuring the plot conventions of media bias, government conspiracy, and Islamic terrorism. The film, which starred Sean Connery as superstar TV news reporter Patrick Hale, and directed by Richard Brooks from his own script based on Charles McCarry's novel, The Better Angels, was a commercial and critical failure at the time of its release. Most reviews found the film implausible. British reviews castigated the film for its distributor's attempt to tie it in with James Bond in its advertising scheme and retitling of the film, The Man with the Deadly Lens. In France, where the film was called Meurtres en direct, it was compared negatively to Bertrand Tavernier's La Mort en direct, as did Stanley Kauffmann of The New Republic. The New York Daily News emerged as a champion for the film, Liz Smith calling it "a sleeper not to miss" prior to its release, and Rex Reed and Kathleen Carroll giving it four and three and a half star reviews published a day apart.

The film is also notable for a joke at the end of the movie in which Connery rips off his toupee on camera. Jennifer Jason Leigh has a small role as a girl who is doing a fantasy killing of her parents on national TV (a controversial new recreational activity), and tells Hale that she hopes that her parents are watching, even though she has no particular grudge against them.

Based on Charles McCarry's 1979 novel The Better Angels, Wrong is Right is set in a near future in which violence has become something of a national sport and television news has fallen to tabloid depths (a significantly bigger stretch in 1982, when the film was released.) Star Sean Connery plays Patrick Hale, a globe-trotting reporter with access to a staggering array of world leaders. As the film opens, he has ventured to the Arab country of Hegreb to interview his old acquaintance, King Ibn Awad (Ron Moody). Awad has learned that the President of the United States (George Grizzard) may have issued orders for his removal; as a result, Awad) is apparently making arrangements to deliver two mini-nuclear devices — each about the size of a small suitcase — to a terrorist, with the intention of detonating them in Israel and the United States, unless the President resigns. In the intricate plot that unfolds, nothing is quite the way it seems, and Hale finds himself caught between political leaders, revolutionaries, CIA agents and other figures, trying to get to the bottom of it all.

GregoryPeck as AtticusFinch

12 Monkeys (1995)

12 Monkeys is a 1995 science fiction film directed by Terry Gilliam, inspired by the French short film La Jetée (1962), and starring Bruce Willis, Madeleine Stowe, Brad Pitt, and Christopher Plummer. The film depicts the world in 2035 as devastated by disease, forcing the human population to live underground. Convict James Cole (Willis) "volunteers" for time travel duty to gather information in exchange for prison release. When he first arrives in the past, Cole is arrested and locked up in a psychiatric hospital, where he meets Dr. Kathryn Railly (Stowe), a psychiatrist, and Jeffrey Goines (Pitt), the insane son of a world-renowned virologist.

After Universal Studios acquired the rights to remake La Jetée as a full-length film, David and Janet Peoples were hired to write the script. Under Terry Gilliam's direction, Universal granted the filmmakers a $29.5 million budget, and filming lasted from February to May 1995. The film was shot mostly in Philadelphia and Baltimore, where the story was set.

The film was released to critical praise and grossed approximately $168 million worldwide. Brad Pitt was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, and won a Golden Globe for his performance. The film also won and was nominated for various categories at the Saturn Awards.

12 Monkeys studies the subjective nature of memories and their effect upon perceptions of reality.

Examples of false memories include:

• Cole's recollection of the airport shooting which is altered each time he has a dream.
• A "mentally divergent" man at the asylum who has false memories.
• Railly telling Cole "I remember you like this" when a barely recognizable Cole and Railly are seen in disguise for the first time.

References to time, time travel and monkeys are scattered throughout the film, including the Woody Woodpecker "Time Tunnel" cartoon playing on the TV in a hotel room, The Marx Brothers movie Monkey Business (1931) on TV in the asylum and the subplots of monkeys (drug testing, news stories and animal rights). The film is also a study of modern civilization's declining efforts to communicate with each other due to the interference of technology.

The genesis of 12 Monkeys came from executive producer Robert Kosberg, who had been a fan of the French short film La Jetée (1962). Kosberg persuaded the film's director, Chris Marker, to let him pitch the project to Universal Pictures, seeing it as a perfect basis for a full-length science fiction film. Universal reluctantly agreed to purchase the remake rights and hired David and Janet Peoples to write the screenplay. Producer Charles Roven chose Terry Gilliam to direct because he believed the filmmaker's style was perfect for 12 Monkeys's nonlinear storyline and time travel subplot. Gilliam had just abandoned a film adaptation of A Tale of Two Cities when he signed to direct 12 Monkeys. The film also represents the second film for which Gilliam did not write or co-write the screenplay. Although he prefers to direct his own scripts, he was captivated by the Peoples' "intriguing and intelligent script. The story is disconcerting. It deals with time, madness and a perception of what the world is or isn't. It is a study of madness and dreams, of death and re-birth, set in a world coming apart."

Universal took longer than expected to green-light 12 Monkeys, although Gilliam had two stars (Bruce Willis and Brad Pitt) and a firm budget of $29.5 million (low for a Hollywood science fiction film). Universal's production of Waterworld (1995) had resulted in various cost overruns. To get 12 Monkeys greenlighted, Gilliam convinced Willis to lower his normal asking price. Because of Universal's strict production incentives and his previous history with the studio on Brazil (1985), Gilliam received the right of final cut privilege. The Writers Guild of America was also skeptical of the "inspired by" credit for La Jetée and Chris Marker.

12 Monkeys is inspired by the French short film La Jetée (1962), notably the story of both protagonists being haunted by the image of their own death. The climaxes for both films also take place in an airport.
Similar to La Jetée, 12 Monkeys also presents Hitchcockian elements and references to Alfred Hitchcock's own Vertigo (1958). Toward the end of the film, Cole and Railly hide in a theater showing a 24 hour Hitchcock marathon and watch a scene of Vertigo. Railly then transforms herself with a blonde wig, as Judy (Kim Novak) transformed herself into blonde Madeleine in Vertigo; James sees her emerge within a red light, as Scottie (James Stewart) saw Judy emerge within a green light.Brief notes of Bernard Herrmann's 1958 film score can also be heard. Railly also wears the same coat Novak wore in the first part of Vertigo. The scene at Muir Woods National Monument, where Judy (posing as Madeleine) looks at the growth rings of a felled redwood and traces back events in her past life, resonates with 12 Monkeys' larger themes. Cole and Railly later have a similar conversation while the same music from Vertigo is repeated. Further on in the film, Cole wakes up in a hospital bed with scientists of the future talking to him in chorus. This is a direct homage to the "Dry Bones" scene in Dennis Potter's The Singing Detective.

Gilliam undertook the same filmmaking style from his own Brazil (1985), including the art direction and cinematography (specifically using fresnel lenses). The interrogation room where Cole is being interviewed by the scientists was based on the work of Lebbeus Woods; these scenes were shot at three different power stations (two in Philadelphia and one in Baltimore). Gilliam intended to show Cole being interviewed through a multi-screen interrogation TV set because he felt the machinery evoked a "nightmarish intervention of technology. You try to see the faces on the screens in front of you, but the real faces and voices are down there and you have these tiny voices in your ear. To me that's the world we live in, the way we communicate these days, through technical devices that pretend to be about communication but may not be."

The art department made sure that the 2035 underground world would only use pre-1996 technology as a means to depict the bleak future. To create the majority of visual effects sequences, Gilliam awarded the shots to Peerless Camera, the London-based effects studio he founded in the late-1970s with visual effects supervisor Kent Houston (The Golden Compass, Casino Royale). Additional digital compositing was done by The Mill, while Cinesite worked on film scanning services.

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Silent running (1972)

Silent Running is a 1972 environmentally-themed science fiction film, directed by Douglas Trumbull, who had previously worked as a special effects supervisor on such science fiction films as 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Andromeda Strain.

Silent Running depicts a future in which all plant life on Earth has been made extinct, except for a few specimens preserved in a fleet of space-borne freight ships converted to carry greenhouse domes. When orders come from Earth to jettison and destroy the domes, the botanist aboard the greenhouse-ship 'Valley Forge' (Bruce Dern) rebels, and eventually opts instead to send the last dome into deep space to save the remaining plants and animals.

In an interview with Starlog magazine in the late 1970s, Douglas Trumbull revealed that the plot of the movie in the original version of the script was quite a bit different from what was actually filmed. In the original version, the Space Freighters were on permanent duty, carrying biological domes. When they are finally told to blow the domes and return to earth, it is because the freighters are going to be scrapped.

The Freeman Lowell character in the original version was an older, more curmudgeonly man who simply did not want to return to earth and be forced into retirement, so he steals the Valley Forge, and heads off into deep space. As in the filmed version, he reprograms the robots for some companionship, and the subplot involving the plants dying due to a lack of light was involved, but his main interest in the plants was simply as a means of extending his limited food supplies. In the second half of the film, he receives a signal from an alien ship, and decides to approach it, making humanity's first contact with aliens. The last part of the movie was a race between Lowell, who was trying to contact the aliens, and the human boarding party trying to re-take the ship. Finally, in desperation, Lowell detaches one of the domes with one of the robots aboard seconds before he is killed by the boarding party. The dome drifts off into deep space, where it is found by the aliens.

Trumbull had been involved with creating effects for 2001: A Space Odyssey. Director Stanley Kubrick wanted the "Stargate" sequence of that film to be centered around Saturn, but there were technical difficulties in getting the special effects for this sequence finished in the limited time frame. The Saturn idea was scrapped, and Kubrick substituted Jupiter instead. Trumbull developed the sequence after production, and it was recreated for Saturn in Silent Running.

The interiors were filmed aboard the decommissioned WW2 aircraft carrier USS Valley Forge (CV-45), which was docked at the Long Beach Naval Shipyard in Long Beach, California. Shortly after filming was completed, the carrier was scrapped. The forest environments were originally intended to be filmed in the Mitchell Park Domes in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, but the production budget forced the sequences to be shot in a newly-completed aircraft hangar in Van Nuys, California. Trumbull stated on the commentary accompanying the DVD release that the geodesic domes containing the last forests of Earth's future on the spaceship Valley Forge were based on the Missouri Botanical Garden Climatron dome.

There are three freighters seen in the film, the Valley Forge, the Berkshire and the Sequoia. Five other ships that carried domes are also named, but do not appear on screen — they are the Yellowstone, Acadia, Blue Ridge, Glacier and Mojave. Each ship features a designation on the hull, which notes the area from which some of the flora and fauna samples were taken. The Valley Forge is listed as "Bahia Honda Subtropical," indicating at least some specimens were taken from this area of the Florida Keys.

The model of the Valley Forge Space Freighter was 26 feet (8 m) long, and took six months to build from a combination of custom castings and the contents of approximately 800 prefabricated model aircraft or tank kits. After filming was completed, American Airlines expressed an interest in sending the model on the tour circuit, but this was not feasible due to the fragile nature of the model (in fact, during filming, pieces of the model kept falling away). The ship was subsequently disassembled after several years sitting in Douglas Trumbull's personal storage facility. Several pieces, including the domes, wound up in the hands of collectors. Several domes survive, including one that now rests in the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame in Seattle, Washington, and another which was sold at auction in 2008.

The three "drones" were played by four double-amputees, an idea inspired by Johnny Eck, a sideshow performer of the early 20th century who had been born without lower limbs.[citation needed] The 20 pound (9 kg) "drone suits" were custom tailored for the different actors. The suits still exist, and are in Douglas Trumbull's personal collection.

The soundtrack was written by bassoonist and P.D.Q. Bach creator Peter Schickele. It contains two songs—"Silent Running" and "Rejoice in the Sun"—written by Schickele and Diane Lampert, which were performed by popular folk singer-songwriter Joan Baez. The two songs were issued as a single on Decca (32890). In addition, an LP record (LP-81072) was released on Decca DL7-9188, and was later reissued by Varese Sarabande on green vinyl. In 1998 a limited release on CD by the "Valley Forge Record Groupe" included an additional track with the spoken introduction "God Bless These Gardens"

Dead Again (1991)

Dead Again is a 1991 psychological thriller/neo-noir directed by Kenneth Branagh, starring Branagh and his then-wife Emma Thompson. Andy Garcia, Derek Jacobi and Robin Williams are also featured.

The film begins with opening credits intercut with pans across newspaper clippings about a society murder committed by conductor-composer Roman Strauss. Most of the articles were written by Gray Baker (Andy Garcia), who visited Roman Strauss on the day of his execution. The gates of a mansion in the past fade into the same gates in the present day. As the main narrative begins, we meet Mike Church (Branagh), a smart-alecky Los Angeles private investigator whose jobs usually involve running down deadbeats and finding missing persons. One day he's called in by the priest in charge of the orphanage where Mike was raised, to help identify a woman (Thompson) who showed up at their gates (the same gates as in the black and white scenes in the past) in a state of shock. The woman is unable to speak and seems to have no recollection of who she is or what happened to her.

After making a few inquiries, Mike takes the woman, whom he calls Grace, to stay at his apartment, where he discovers she has a terror of scissors. Over the course of a few days, the two of them uncover clues to her identity, but find nothing concrete; Mike finds himself attracted to Grace and is somewhat protective of her. Grace regains her voice during a hypnotic session with Franklyn (Jacobi), an antique dealer who claims she is having a "past-life" experience. She is made to recall a couple who lived during the 1940s, a famous composer and his pianist wife, as if she were part of their history. Franklyn finds a LIFE magazine identifying the couple as actual people, Roman and Margaret. Margaret was brutally murdered, and Roman was tried and executed for her murder.

As Mike and Grace fall in love, Grace is upset by the similarities of their courtship to that of Roman and Margaret. Grace becomes afraid of Mike and is unconvinced by his assertions that he's "not Roman." Franklyn hypnotizes Mike, leading to the revelation that Mike is not the reincarnation of Roman, but of Margaret. Now, Mike becomes afraid of Grace. Mike consults with Cozy Carlisle (Robin Williams), a disgraced psychiatrist who lost his license due to having sex with female patients. Grace consults with Franklyn; each is advised to kill the other. Meanwhile, Mike's friend at the newspaper, Pete (Wayne Knight), uncovers the true identity of "Grace." She is Amanda Sharpe, an artist. He takes Amanda and Franklyn to her apartment, where she is stunned to discover that she is an artist who is obsessed with scissors, using them in every conceivable way in her art. To make her feel safer, Franklyn gives Amanda an antique gun from his shop.

Mike finds Gray Baker, old and decrepit, at a nursing home. Baker says he no longer thinks Roman killed Margaret, and says that the housekeeper, Inga, would know. After the murder, the housekeeper moved out and opened an antiques shop that is now run by her son, Frankie, a disturbed boy who was a stutterer and kleptomaniac. Thus, Mike comes to believe that Inga killed Margaret. Mike visits Inga, who explains that it was her son, Frankie, who killed Margaret. Inga had always been in love with Roman, after she saved his life while they fled war-torn Europe. After Margaret married Roman, Inga was treated coldly. Gray Baker, who was attracted to Margaret, instilled suspicions in Margaret that Roman had indeed killed his first wife, and that he was having a sexual affair with Inga. But Roman refused to fire Inga, despite Margaret's pleading, which made her more suspicious. Inga was unhappy about her treatment, and told it to her son Frankie one night. Frankie, then still a young boy, killed Margaret with scissors (to her throat), believing that this would solve his mother's problems. After having heard Inga's story, Mike (realizing that Franklyn is in fact Frankie Madison) leaves and races to Amanda's apartment; Frankie in the meantime arrives and kills his mother (Inga by smothering).

A distressed Mike, desperate to save his love from murder at the hands of Frankie once again, breaks into Amanda's apartment. She, carefully prepared by Frankie to believe Mike to be a crazed killer, shoots him as he is trying to explain to her the truth about Roman and Margaret. Then Frankie shows up. Amanda (knowing who he now really is) tries to shoot him but the gun misfires. Frankie (gloating over said jammed gun) slaps Amanda unconscious and prepares to shoot her (in the mouth, so it looks like suicide), but Mike rouses himself from his state of shock following his shooting, and stabs Frankie with the scissors (placed in his hand by Frankie to incriminate him). Pete shows up with a pizza and tries to prevent Mike from what he thinks he's doing — killing Amanda — but he quickly realizes that it is Frankie who intends to do the killing (who now has got hold of Mike's gun). After a brief Mexican standoff, Frankie is stabbed in the back with the scissors (making him discharge all the bullets into the air), by Amanda. Enraged by this, a now totally unhinged Frankie (whose stutter has now returned) removes said scissors, to then lunge at her and Mike with it, but Mike moves a giant sculpture made of scissors directly into his path, Frankie, who cannot stop from colliding into it, is fatally impaled on them. Roman and Margaret kiss, and the scene fills with color as the shot fades to Mike and Grace kissing.

The movie was filmed entirely in color. After test screenings, it was decided to use black and white for the "past" sequences to help clear up audience confusion. The final frame, once the mystery is solved, fades from black and white to color.

The negative of the final frame was flipped to match the present day lovers to the doomed 1940s newlyweds they embodied; i.e., Margaret dissolves into Mike, and Roman dissolves into Grace.

When the audience first meets Mike Church, he's seated in his car, which is parked on the wrong side of the street. While most people believe this is because Kenneth Branagh is from the United Kingdom (where cars are driven on the left-hand side of the road), it is actually because behind him are a number of skyscrapers that he, as the director, wanted included in the background.

In addition to the dual roles played by Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson, actress Jo Anderson and the film's composer Patrick Doyle both play small dual parts, appearing in the present-day and 1940s sequences.

Branagh has said that at the time he made this film (and still, to some extent) he was very interested in the technique of uninterrupted takes, and several can be seen throughout the movie. Also note sequences such as the first hypnosis sequence at the Laughing Duke, which features an extremely complicated camera shot in 360 degrees, which involved a great deal of precise timing and technical faculty. Branagh noted that this relatively short scene was shot perhaps fifteen times, taking all day.

According to the director's commentary on the DVD edition of the movie, the film has numerous in-jokes. For instance, a date seen in one of the newspaper clippings is actually Branagh's birthday, and Roman Strauss' prisoner number is the date of the Battle of Agincourt (Branagh's previous film, which had just launched his career at the time he undertook Dead Again, was Henry V).

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Bigger than life (1956)

Bigger Than Life is an American film made in 1956 directed by Nicholas Ray and starring James Mason, who also co-wrote and produced the film, about a school teacher and family man whose life spins out of control upon becoming addicted to cortisone. The film co-stars Barbara Rush as his wife and Walter Matthau as his closest friend, a fellow teacher. Though it was a box-office flop upon its initial release, many modern critics hail it as a masterpiece and a brilliant indictment of the conformist 1950s suburbia.

Schoolteacher and family man Ed Avery, who has been suffering bouts of severe pain and even blackouts, is hospitalized with what's diagnosed as a rare inflammation of the arteries. Told by doctors that he probably has only months to live, Ed agrees to an experimental treatment: doses of the hormone cortisone.

Ed makes a remarkable recovery. He returns home to his wife, Lou, and their son, Richie. He must keep taking cortisone tablets regularly to prevent a recurrence of his illness. But the 'miracle' cure turns into a nightmare as Ed starts to misuse the tablets, causing him to experience wild mood swings and, ultimately, a psychotic episode which threatens the safety of his family.

Bigger Than Life was extremely controversial upon its release. It's attack on the nuclear family was considered shocking for the time, and it was not a financial success, however the film was extremely popular with the critics at the Caheirs du cinema, and Jean-Luc Godard named it one of his Top 10 favorite movies.

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JoanneWoodward&PaulNewman

Anastasia (1956)

Anastasia is a 1956 20th Century Fox historical drama film directed by Anatole Litvak. The film stars Ingrid Bergman, Yul Brynner, and Helen Hayes. Supporting players include Akim Tamiroff (who earlier worked with Ingrid Bergman in the film For Whom the Bell Tolls) and Martita Hunt (who provides comic relief as a fluttering lady-in-waiting).

The film tells the story of a young, confused woman in 1920s France (Ingrid Bergman), who is picked up and influenced by a group of Russian expatriates, led by Yul Brynner, into passing herself off as Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia, the daughter of the murdered Tsar Nicholas II of Russia. However, the ultimate test for her is to convince the Dowager Empress, Maria Feodorovna (Helen Hayes), of her authenticity.

The movie was adapted by Guy Bolton and Arthur Laurents from the play by Marcelle Maurette. The structure of the play can still be detected in the static settings and theatrical "scenes" of the cinematic version, which has additional, essentially decorative ball scenes. It was directed by Anatole Litvak.

The film marked Bergman's return to Hollywood after several years working with her then-husband, Roberto Rossellini, in Italy. Anastasia won her an Academy Award for Best Actress, the second of three Oscars she would receive. The musical score from the film was also nominated for an Academy Award for Original Music Score and was popular after the film's release.

The secret cameo - part 2

In previous post HITCH IN DRAG? on October 29, 2008 I reported about a so called secret cameo of Alred Hitchock. In "North by Northwest" there is a short sequence onboard the train (approximately 44 minutes into the film) where an old lady has her ticket checked by a pair of rail guards, after a brief (unheard) exchange of words, the guards move on and the lugubrious lady half turns to the camera and gives a slightly comical shrug of the shoulders.

Hitchcock had already made an obvious cameo near the start of the film. With that out of the way, did he decide to play one of his many practical jokes by slipping into a blue dress to make a second cameo in drag?

Although the lady does indeed bear more than a passing resemblance to Hitchcock, the role was actually played by renowned character actress Jesslyn Fax. Fax had previously appeared in Rear Window and Suspicion and would go on to appear in several episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour.

The following picture shows her in Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode "Four O'Clock", which was filmed a couple of years before "North by Northwest".

1958 Oscar reharsal

Clark Gable, Cary Grant, Bob Hope, David Niven

Shirley McLaine&daughter