happy40's

title unveiled

in memory: Heath Ledger 1979-2008

control

....he's back!

The long wait since Casino Royale hit the big screens is over! The 22nd James Bond film 'lensed' Wednesday 2nd January 2008 - at Pinewood Studios in England.
Variety confirms that shooting is nearly a month behind the original schedule, but the general release on 7th November is not at risk.
Produced by Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli (Eon Productions), BOND 22 (title to be announced) is scheduled for release November 7th 2008 and will be directed by Marc Forster.
Principal photography will start on January 2nd 2008 at Pinewood Studios (UK), and foreign locations to include Italy, Panama, Austria and Bolivia. Paul Haggis completed the script based on a first draft screenplay developed by regular scribes Neal Purvis & Robert Wade.
The story will be a direct continuation of the events of Casino Royale. It is British actor Daniel Craig’s second outing as James Bond, following his debut film Casino Royale released November 16th 2006. Dame Judi Dench (M) and Giancarlo Giannini (Mathis) will also reprise their roles. Mathieu Amalric and Anatole Taubman will play villains.

best way to start 2008: THE KEY TO RESERA -Martin Scorsese does Alfred Hitchcock

I have been a longtime fan of Alfred Hitchcock from day one.
Since I opened up the file for "Key To Reserva" I had to watch many times.
As explained in the prologue, Martin Scorsese found some notes depicting a three minute scene from an unrealized Hithcock film called "The Key To Reserva". Scorsese decided to film the three minutes in the style of Hitchcock, basically the style of late 1950's Hitch ("The Man Who Knew Too Much", "North By Northwest", even "Torn Curtain") Not Marty style, Hitchcock style. Well, it was like Hitchcock came back from the grave (actually his ashes) and lensed this great piece. We have a hero in a blue business suit, ala Roger Thornhill, seek out a hidden key in an elegant theater box. It's pure Hitchcock, even down to the crazy Hitchcock logic (The key is hidden in a place that would be scientifically impossible. But we're watching Alfred entertainment us, not teach us.) Our villain hardly looks like a villain. He looks like anybody can mop the street with him, but watch it, still waters run deadly and deep.

manamana

Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds : a celebration

Alfred Hitchcock once admitted that he was in constant conflict with his audience. "When a new Hitchcock film appears, the public and critics sit back at the start and say to themselves, 'Let's see him scare me.' My job is to get them up on the edge of their seats, and to keep them there. It gets more difficult all the time because one must find new ways to surprise an audience. Any time a viewer of one of my films can say to himself, 'I knew that was coming,' I've lost him.
In The Birds, Hitchcock perhaps went to the greatest lengths of his career to avoid those "cliches." His Technicolor film version of Daphne du Maurier's novella (then widely accepted as one of the greatest horror stories by a living author), scripted by Evan Hunter, showed thousands of birds making organized attacks on mankind--evil was presented as an environmental fact of life.
The director also reportedly drew inspiration from a 1961 incident in which seabirds attacked the terrified residents of Monterey Bay. Recent research has shown that the birds were suffering the effects of ingesting contaminated plankton, but in 1961, the then-inexplicable "revolt of the birds" helped Hitchcock devise the simple but horrifying "what if" premise.

In the key role of Melanie Daniels, Hitchcock cast Tippi Hedren, a model he spotted in a TV commercial. The blonde beauty rose to the challenge, working all but one-half day of the film's 75-day schedule. Acting opposite leading man Rod Taylor and stage actress Jessica Tandy (playing Taylor's mother), Hedren took sides in the bird war on mankind--but not until after she had been fomally introduced to her "co-stars."
"For a solid week," said Hedren, "we were in large cages with the birds. And five prop men threw birds at us for seven long days. They didn't exactly bite us, but they couldn't get out of our way. In order to stand it, I shut off something mentally and said to myself, 'You can do this.' It was awful." Hedren, besieged by birds for days on end while filming the terrifying attic attack scene, suffered a breakdown during production.
Perhaps the most important player on Hitchcock's team was animal trainer Ray Berwick. "I don't think (Hitchcock) knew what he was getting into," Berwick said. "He quickly had to give up any idea of using mechanical birds if he wanted realism. No book or ornithologist could give us guidance on the control of flocks of wild birds."
"I got used to [the birds] rather quickly," claimed Jessica Tandy, "simply by looking upon them as other actors. Although I must say, I was beginning to wonder in some of those scenes toward the end. I've never had another actor bite me before."
After Hitchcock completed principal photography, two separate units continued their special effects work. Ub Iwerks, on loan from Walt Disney Studios, begna intricate laboratory work while the shooting of special effects was done by another unit. To publicize The Birds, Hitchcok, his wife Alma and Hedren went to New York to begin and advance promotional tour. Joined there by Berwick, they took part in a one-hour segment of the Today show devoted to The Birds. Hitchcock also addressed an overflow crowd of top Washington journalists at a luncheon meeting of the National Press Club.
Then, The Birds was selected to inaugurate the 1963 Cannes Film Festival with a gala showing. "The Birds Is Coming!" was the key phrase of all advertising. Critics raved and audiences flocked to see Hitchcock's most expensive film to date--perhaps enticed by Hitchcock's claim that his depiction of an assault upon the human race "could be the most terrifying motion picture I have ever made." A masterpiece of thrills and sophisticated, subtle humor, The Birds became one of 1963's top grossers and yet another feather in the cap of the Master of Suspense.
"It is merely an exercise in imagination," Hitchcock claimed, "done necessarily with complete realism. We had no extensive bird data to go on, except the basic idea provided by du Maurier in her story. I like to think that our birds are merely getting back at the human race for centuries of being hunted and shot . . . This horror story offers a unique challenge to delight me. It will give audiences the entertaining taste of fear and the knot in the stomach they expect from me.

NoL007 : out now

only by appointment. shipping worldwide.

the presence of God

W A R R I O R S O F T H E N E T

I WILL SURVIVE

in memory: Deborah Kerr 1921-2007

Collapsing in an Elegant Way : out now

only by appointment, please enquire for further details.shipping worldwide.

Sleuth (1972)

Sleuth 2007

Blade Runner 25th anniversary

Today marks the 25th anniversary of the release of the movie Blade Runner. The film's neo-noir production is cited as having influenced building design. Some argue that its dystopic setting of Los Angeles in 2019 is not far removed from life on the streets of downtown Los Angeles today.

YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE - 40th Anniversary

It's hard to believe it's been 40 years since the fifth James Bond epic, You Only Live Twice opened on theater screens around the world. To commemorate the occasion, Lee Pfeiffer and Dave Worrall (authors of the best-selling book The Essential James Bond) along with Bond author and CR columnist Raymond Benson, have provided reflections on the legacy of the film. These articles can be found on the 007 web site www.mi6.co.uk.

Ahead of the film's opening, the publicity campaign for You Only Live Twice was facing opposition with the unofficial spoof version of Casino Royale also opening the same year. United Artists ensured Bond was on top with a stunning billboard that spanned an entire block in New York City above the Astor and Victoria theatres in December 1966.

Shortly before its release, two television specials were broadcast to hype Sean Connery's fifth outing as 007. BBC 1 in the UK aired a special edition of "Whicker's World" with a behind-the-scenes look at the film, and NBC in the USA broadcast "Welcome To Japan, Mr Bond", a special featuring skits by M, Q and Moneypenny. Both can now be found on the Ultimate Edition DVD.

On the night of June 12th 1967, the World premiere of You Only Live Twice took place at the Odeon Cinema in London's Leicester Square, sponsored by the Variety Club of Great Britain in aid of the YMCA and Imperial Cancer Research Fund.

As with previous Bond premieres and blockbusters of the time, the crowds began to gather outside the Odeon early in preparation for the big event hoping to get a glimpse of the stars that would be attending. What made the premiere of You Only Live Twice all that more special was the appearance of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and her husband Prince Phillip. The event would be their first James Bond premiere and paved the way to future attendances.

Amongst the many cast and crew members, Sean Connery and wife Diana Cilento were the star attraction, especially as it was Connery's first British 007 premiere since From Russia With Love. Connery looked very un-Bond-like as he sported a bushy moustache and did not don his usual toupee.

Along with the usual press entourage were household names such as Jerry Lewis, Phil Silvers and Dick Van Dyke, as well as members of the production crew such as screenwriter Roald Dahl and producers Albert Broccoli and Harry Saltzman.

Guy Hamilton, who had previously directed "Goldfinger", was also in attendance.

You Only Live Twice broke the opening day record at the Odeon Leicester Square in London, and instantly became the number one film in the USA when it opened the following day. It took a total of over $600,000 in Balitmore, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and Philadelphia over its first weekend, and scooped almost $7m across 161 venues nationwide in its first three weeks.

for the love of God

-Damien Hirst-

Hold your breath