May, 2010 Archive
George D. Allen | Staff Notes
Bad news came to James Bond fans recently with word that development on Eon Production’s 23rd Bond film was suspended indefinitely due to MGM’s current financial woes. Now that 007 followers are forced to curb their enthusiasm for the next appearance of the famous gunbarrel logo (though there is very little doubt that "James Bond Will Return"), we can pass some time doing what fans of the superspy love to do during the down times—argue once more about the previous 22 movies!
It gets asked over and over again, so why not here: Who's the best James Bond?
It's hardly as much fun to simply ask fans to rank Sean Connery, George Lazenby, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan, and Daniel Craig like so many contestants in an acting pageant. Choosing a real champion in the realm of the Bond series offers opportunities to conduct an exercise that, especially unique to this franchise, I believe also depends on picking "bests" that reside outside any evaluation of the lead actor's performance. Fans and critics alike have frequently declared that the best Bonds in general are only as good as their villains, but as we Bond fanatics know, there are many—so many—other elements involved in picking the winner.
By the end of these posts, we’ll have figured it out once and for all.
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Jay Steinberg | This Week in Film History
May 28, 1935: Twentieth Century Pictures and Fox Film Corporation unite to form 20th Century Fox, overseen by Joseph Schenck and Darryl F. Zanuck.
May 28, 1941: Animators and artists at the Walt Disney Studios launch an acrimonious two-month strike for pay raises and the right to unionize.
May 24, 1946: Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce have their final bow as Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson in Dressed to Kill.
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Chris Cummins | New Releases This Week
If your upcoming Memorial Day plans include relaxing in front of the TV, here's some great DVD and Blu-ray picks that you can enjoy over the holiday weekend. Barbecuing, relaxing and DVDs? Sounds great to me! Let's see what new and notable releases are now available.
True Blood: The Complete Second Season
It's not TV, it's DVD! The second season of Alan Ball's HBO series (based on the Sookie Stackhouse novels by Charlaine Harris) really came alive thanks to some great stories and acting--most notably Michelle Forbes' performance as the sinister Maenad, Maryanne Forrester. To prepare yourself for the upcoming third season, check out this five-disc set that features all the sex, blood, comedy and violence of the show's second year--including the episodes "Nothing but the Blood," "Scratches," "Never Let Me Go," "I Will Rise Up," and "Beyond Here Lies Nothin'."
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guest-blogs | FanFare Guests
Guest blogger Marcello Milteer from Japan Cinema writes:
Japan Cinema presents: Oldboy, which is hands down the best film from South Korea. Period. It is arguably my favorite movie of all time and I will explain why.
Dae-su (Min-sik Choi) is on his way home from a drunken rage after his best friend bails him out of jail. It’s his daughters birthday and he wants to get home to give her a present, but before he can make it someone mysteriously kidnaps him and they vanish without a single trace. He awakes in some sort of strange apartment. It’s not a prison, which is odd, because it means some private individual has created this carpeted one-room hell-hole, with a television and a fake view of the Dutch countryside. He’s fed every day through a little opening, and occasionally the room fills with some sort of knockout gas while his captors change the towels. After 15 years, he is finally released and he must seek revenge against his captors and find the secrets as to why he was imprisoned in the first place.
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Brian Sieck | Staff Notes
The Gambler, Kenny Rogers, said it himself in his hit song aptly titled The Gambler (that also spawned a series of TV movies), that “You got to know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em,” and blah, blah, blah. Well, I’ve decided to hold ‘em as I present my list for the greatest gambling movies. After all, there’s nothing like a little risk to get the blood flowing. Now, the problem with this list is that there are actually a ton of films about the subject and I haven’t been able to view them all. Additionally, another bummer is that many of the most worthwhile gambling movies unfortunately are currently not available on video.
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guest-blogs | FanFare Guests
Guest blogger Rory B. writes:
I don’t know why it has taken me forever to blog about my favorite classic star, Joan Bennett. Do I think she was the most talented? No. The most beautiful? No. The most magical? No.
Joan Bennett is my favorite because when I was in middle school, I mailed her a fan letter to her address in Scarsdale, New York. I also mailed a letter to Olivia deHavilland in Paris and I think Maureen O’Hara in St. Croix. Anyway Bennett is the only one who replied. I received her autographed photo w/my name six months after I wrote her. (In pubescent years six months is like three years). I was so happy.
I don’t remember why I wrote to her. I think I had seen her in The Son of Monte Cristo and Father of the Bride. I also had already been exposed to Dark Shadows. I was still unaware she was a film noir queen in such films as The Woman in the Window and Scarlet Street. She also starred in the cult horror classic Suspiria. Joan Bennett worked with a lot of European directors including Fritz Lang, Jean Renoir, Max Ophuls, and Dario Argento .
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Gary Cahall | Staff Notes
There's a scene near the end of Ed Wood, Tim Burton's hilariously touching ode to the grade-Z "worst director of all time," where the title character (Johnny Depp) is seated in the balcony during the Hollywood premiere of his 1959 sci-fi opus Plan 9 from Outer Space. As Wood sits there, mouthing along to his dialogue and watching the audience, he says to himself, "This is the one. This is the one I'll be remembered for." It's a wonderful moment (albeit, as with several in the film, an historically inaccurate one), but it does demonstrate a point that moviegoers in this age of instant blog reviews and pseudo-ironic commentary sometimes forget; There are precious few, if any, filmmakers out there who get into the business because they want to shoot crap. Everyone I can think of, from D.W. Griffith, Alfred Hitchcock and Ed Wood to George Lucas, Quentin Tarantino and, yes, Michael Bay, did what they did because they they had a vision...financial as well as artistic, perhaps, and maybe a bit blurred at times, but a vision nonetheless.
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George D. Allen | Movie Buzz, Movie Buzz Podcast
How charitable is our own Movie Irv towards writer/director Nicole Holofcener's latest eccentric cinematic concoction, Please Give? Please give your attention to our resident movie guru, who's here to help you decide whether or not to seek out this dark comedy from the woman who brought you the acclaimed films Walking and Talking, Lovely and Amazing, and Friends with Money:
guest-blogs | FanFare Guests
Guest blogger Kevin Blumeyer writes:
Four films. Four films over a 37 year span. That’s all it took for Terrence Malick to make his mark as a uniquely original filmmaking master. I don’t know how many thousands of films have been made in the medium’s 100+ year history, but these four are unmistakably distinguishable as works of Terrence Malick.
It is hard to be an original in an industry with as much turnover as the movie business, but Malick is one of a kind. His films (1973′s Badlands, 1978′s Days of Heaven, 1998′s The Thin Red Line, and 2005′s The New World) feature a trademark style that is all his own. A loosely spun narrative structure, stunning imagery and profound voiceovers are all common to his expertly crafted tales of morality. His films double as masterpieces of entertainment and thought-provoking lessons in philosophy.
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Gary Cahall | Scene Stealers
The world of cinema has given audiences a goodly number of touching father-son moments over the years, from Mickey Rooney as typical teenager Andy Hardy and Lewis Stone's as his wise pop, Judge Hardy, in the 1930s- '40s MGM series, to the devotion shown by Godzilla to his less-than-gargantuan offspring Minya in Son of Godzilla, to the familial games of catch that ended the '80s baseball dramas The Natural and Field of Dreams. For the last decade or so, however, the most popular paterfamilias among moviegoers has probably been "Jim's Dad" in the American Pie films, a role that introduced a new generation of fans to one of the stars of the brilliant SCTV comedy series, Eugene Levy.
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George D. Allen | Staff Notes
Here’s a quick recommendation for sci-fi fans seeking a vintage fix: Z.P.G. (Zero Population Growth) is a seriously underrated gem directed by Michael Campus. Campus has precious few other helming credits, with The Mack and The Education of Sonny Carson among them, but in this 1972 shocker that channels classic Orwellian themes, Campus’ debut proves to be admirably assured, resulting in a picture of extremely deliberate pacing while also indulging in many unsettling and near-experimental flourishes.
This particular dystopian future is one in which the curing of diseases has resulted in a population explosion of globe-threatening proportions, while the environment has been thoroughly violated by smog so thick travelers must wear oxygen masks when venturing outdoors. At the outset of the film, childbearing is officially outlawed on punishment of death. “Legal” babies are branded with a mark that’s visible when scanned by authorities, and citizens are encouraged to fink on anyone irresponsible enough to get pregnant or carry a new baby to term.
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Tags: Daniel Craig, James Bond, Pierce Brosnan, Roger Moore, Sean Connery, Timothy Dalton