Tyrone Power
If Clark Gable was the King of Hollywood, then Tyrone Power was its — more handsome, more charming, more pleasant — Crown Prince.
Allan Ellenberger has reported on and posted photos of the memorial service marking the 50th anniversary of the death of Tyrone Power, 20th Century Fox’s top male star from the mid-1930s to early 1950s. The service was held at Hollywood Forever Cemetery’s Chapel of the Psalms, where Power’s funeral was held on November 15, 1958. Among those in attendance were Power’s children Taryn Power, Tyrone Power, Jr. , and Romina Power, in addition to two of Power’s former co-stars, Terry Moore (King of the Khyber Rifles) and Coleen Gray (Nightmare Alley).
Now, to say that the young Tyrone Power was good-looking is akin to saying that the sun is hot. He may not have been the greatest of actors, but all he needed was to flash a smile — or even brood a bit — for me to just about forget everything and everybody else sharing the screen with him.
Okay, so perhaps I’m exaggerating somewhat here, for Power shared the screen with some of the best-looking female stars of the studio era, among them Gene Tierney, Frances Farmer, Linda Darnell, Rita Hayworth (photo), Betty Grable, Joan Fontaine, Jean Peters, Alice Faye, Norma Shearer, Kim Novak, Loretta Young, Myrna Loy, Dorothy Lamour, Susan Hayward, and Maureen O’Hara. There were also French imports Annabella (whom he later married) and Micheline Presle, Marlene Dietrich, Joan Blondell, Sonja Henie, Mai Zetterling, Patricia Neal, Nancy Kelly, Piper Laurie, and fellow Fox player Don Ameche (who did become invisible whenever he shared the screen with Power).
Born into a theatrical family — his father, Tyrone Power, Sr. , was a renowned English actor and the grandson of a renowned Irish stage star — in Cincinnati, Ohio, on May 5, 1914, Tyrone Power began his Hollywood career appearing in bit parts in the early 1930s. Following some stage work in mid-decade, he landed one of the (semi-)leading male roles in the Fox melodrama Ladies in Love (1936) — the ladies in question were Janet Gaynor, Constance Bennett, Loretta Young, and Simone Simon — and from then on was cast in nearly thirty of that studio’s top productions of the late 1930s and 1940s.
Among those were Lloyds of London (1936), replacing first-choice Don Ameche and wearing an unbecoming wig while wooing Madeleine Carroll; the slow-moving super spectacle In Old Chicago(1937), one of the biggest hits of the 1930s, in which he fights brother Ameche and wins the heart of Alice Faye while Miss O’Leary’s pyromaniac cow wreaks havoc on the city; The Rains Came (1939), a solid disaster (floods, earthquakes) melodrama in which Power capably plays an Indian nobleman in love with White Woman Myrna Loy; the watchable Technicolor Western Jesse James (1939), in the title role; and Johnny Apollo (1940), once again in the title role as the best-looking thug Hollywood has ever produced.
(During that period, Power all but disappeared under a ridiculous blondish wig in the MGM blockbuster Marie Antoinette (1938, right), starring Norma Shearer. That may well have been his most ineffectual performance; so much so that Fox’s Darryl F. Zanuck reportedly refused to loan out the actor again for a number of years. Thus, Power missed out on Warner Bros.’ well-respected Kings Row in 1942.)
Upon his return from World War II, Power’s features had hardened considerably. He was only 31 or so when he starred in the Academy Award-nominated drama The Razor’s Edge (1946), but looked close to 40. (In fact, in many of his later films he looked a number of years older than his actual age.) Following the success of The Razor’s Edge, Fox continued giving him choice assignments for a little while, but by the late 1940s Gregory Peck, only two years younger than Power, had become the studio’s most prestigious star. Power, for instance, was never nominated for an Oscar, but between 1945–49 Peck starred in three best picture nominees and one best picture winner, in addition to nabbing no less than four best actor nods during that same period.
Most of Power’s vehicles from the late 1940s on were barely watchable, while several were of even lower quality. Fox alternated between casting Power in A productions of variable quality (Captain from Castile, The Luck of the Irish, That Wonderful Urge, Rawhide) and what amounted to B fare (An American Guerrilla in the Philippines, Pony Soldier, King of the Khyber Rifles). Needless to say, Power’s career faltered in the early 1950s, though the actor managed to regain his box-office footing with the highly successful romantic melodrama The Eddy Duchin Story at Columbia in 1956.
A major career renaissance seemed to be taking place as Power landed key roles in the 1957 film adaptations of Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises (for which Power — and just about everybody else in the cast — was much too old) and Agatha Christie’s Witness for the Prosecution, as the man on trial. That came to an abrupt halt the following year when the actor collapsed on the Spanish set of the epic Solomon and Sheba after a particularly arduous swordfighting scene with George Sanders. Power, 44, died shortly thereafter of a massive heart attack. (Curiously, Power’s father had died on a film set in 1931. Yul Brynner was brought in to reshoot Power’s scenes. Directed by veteran King Vidor, the historical melodrama was released in 1959. Vidor later said that with Power, Solomon and Sheba would have been "a simply marvelous picture," but without him it became "an unimportant, nothing sort of film.")
My favorite Tyrone Power film and performance are his Don Diego de la Vega in the 1940 version of The Mark of Zorro (right). Under Rouben Mamoulian’s masterful hands, Power is the perfect Diego/Zorro: foppish/dashing, humorously fey/humorously deadly, and, mask or no mask, stunningly handsome. The film itself (adapted by Garrett Fort, Bess Meredyth, and John Taintor Foote) is a clever, rousing (Alfred Newman‘ score is a great help), fast-paced rendition of the Old California tale, featuring a flawless supporting cast that includes gorgeous Linda Darnell, Basil Rathbone, J. Edward Bromberg, and Gale Sondergaard. Even Eugene Pallette, hardly the most likable of actors, is a pleasure to watch in this one.
In terms of looks, Power is at his most god-like in the Technicolored Blood and Sand (1941), also directed by Mamoulian. Though eons better than the 1922 version with Rudolph Valentino, the film itself isn’t all that great; in this instance, Mamoulian seemed more concerned with the use of color and sets to express mood than with his leading man’s performance as the bullfighter to end all bulls — well, if only vamp Rita Hayworth hadn’t gotten in the way.
Another cool Power vehicle from that period is The Black Swan (1942), directed by the underrated Henry King. In this swashbuckling Technicolor adventure inspired by Rafael Sabatini’s novel, Power is a pleasure to watch as a pirate teasingly in love with feisty Maureen O’Hara. I also enjoyed the forgotten Prince of Foxes (1949), also directed by King, in which Power’s hero gets enmeshed with the Borgias (Orson Welles, Marina Berti) in Renaissance Italy.
Yet, I’d say that my second favorite Power vehicle was released near the end of his career. That’s The Eddy Duchin Story, corny and phony to the bone marrow, but somehow still effective as a tale of lost love — Kim Novak plays the girl Power’s musician falls for and loses much too soon. Then Power/Duchin himself falls ill shortly after falling in love again (with Victoria Shaw, who ended up not having much of a film career) and becoming reacquainted with his estranged young son (Rex Thompson). Director George Sidney somehow succeeded in keeping the melodrama from sinking the biopic, while cinematographer Harry Stradling did wonders for the film’s classy look. All that and "I’ll Take Manhattan," too.
Not everyone enjoyed it. "It plods from one gloomy climax to another for more than two hours," wrote William K. Zinsser in the New York Herald Tribune. "… The writing is pedestrian. George Sidney’s direction is sluggish, and the actors go about their chores with apathy … Power smiles through the piano sequences and frowns during the soulful moments, but there is no middle ground."
Power’s acting in Nightmare Alley (1947, under the direction of Edmund Goulding) and Witness for the Prosecution (directed by Billy Wilder) is generally considered his very best. ("Tyrone Power, who asked to be cast in the picture, steps into a new class as an actor," said Time.) I haven’t seen the former, yet, in which Power plays a scuzzy carnie-cum-seer (above, with Coleen Gray), but I found the latter a major disappointment — not only in terms of storytelling and filmmaking, but in terms of acting as well. As far as I’m concerned, despite a cast of heavyweights such as Charles Laughton, Marlene Dietrich, and Elsa Lanchester, that film’s best performances come courtesy of scene stealers Una O’Connor and Torin Thatcher.
Onstage, Power, who had been unhappy with most of his film work — according to Henry King, he "wanted to be a character actor" — did a reading of John Brown’s Body with Laughton on Broadway in 1953, appeared in Mister Roberts and The Devil’s Disciple in London, and toured the US in a version of Back to Methuselah. He reportedly claimed to be proud of only four of his films: Blood and Sand, Nightmare Alley, (the weak) Abandon Ship / Seven Waves Away, and Witness for the Prosecution.
Power was married three times, twice to actresses: French star Annabella, one of his Suez (1938, right) leading ladies (the other was Loretta Young) and minor supporting player Linda Christian. His daughter Taryn Power (with Christian) was the female lead in Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (1977), while his son, Tyrone Power Jr (with third wife Deborah Minardos), had one of the leads in Cocoon (1985), which also featured best supporting actor Oscar winner — and former Power co-star — Don Ameche.
Power was also involved in a number of well-publicized affairs, including one with Janet Gaynor in the late 1930s (who at about the same time was having a not-at-all-publicized affair with Margaret Lindsay) and Lana Turner in the late 1940s. As for the stories about Tyrone Power having an affair with Errol Flynn, those sound as believable as the tales about Greta Garbo doing Marie Dressler.
Though Tyrone Power was a superstar for nearly 15 years and a major star for another ten or so, he hasn’t been given his due by today’s critics perhaps because he seldom worked with directors revered by that crowd. True, there was Mamoulian a couple of times, a Billy Wilder here, a John Ford there (the usually overlooked The Long Gray Line, 1956), but that’s about it. The directors with whom Power was most closely associated — Fox contractees Henry King (eleven times) and Henry Hathaway (five times) — are hardly known as auteurs or as directors of "prestigious" (i.e., tough, male-centered) films. (As an aside, I find it bizarre that Henry Hathaway and William Wellman, both of whom — more than capably — directed numerous action-oriented films featuring your usual movie toughies, have never developed the following of a John Ford or a Howard Hawks. )
Now, it could also be that Tyrone Power is ignored by today’s critics because the man was just too beautiful — in other words, impossible to be taken seriously. Worse yet, Power’s persona, even when he played thugs and low-lives, exuded a refined form of sensuality, sensitivity, and charm coupled with a certain "softness" — or rather, vulnerability — all of which are characteristics that, in a man, are not only undervalued but downright despised in our current crude-crass, gutter-trash cultural environment. Our loss.
TAPESTRIES OF HOPE: Q&A with Michealene Cristini Risley
UNTIL THE LIGHT TAKES US: Q&A with Aaron Aites and Audrey Ewell
ANTARCTICA: Q&A with Yair Hochner
Gina Lollobrigida in the NEW YORK TIMES
I’VE LOVED YOU SO LONG: Philippe Claudel Interviewed at indieWIRE
Tilda Swinton, Danny Boyle Tributes: AFI FEST 2008
SAVING MARRIAGE: Q&A with Mike Roth
Douglas Fairbanks in THE GAUCHO Academy Screening
Amazonas Film Festival and the Environment in THE GUARDIAN
Demetrios Matheou in The Guardian:
"The Amazonas film festival, whose flagship venue is that same opera house in crestfallen Manaus, is a much gentler affair [than Werner Herzog's Fitzcarraldo], of course, whose guests could not be more mollycoddled. In its way, though, the festival is just as bizarre as Herzog’s mythic-mad films. Here we are, 150 film-makers and journalists from all over the world, congregated in a luxurious hotel, fed succulent fruits with impossibly beautiful names – the cupuacu, caju, abacaxi, the pupunha and the jambo – and connected to intravenous drips of caipirinha, looking across the inky-black waters of the aptly named Rio Negro, the river that will take us into the Amazon. Here we are, ostensibly, to discuss the end of the world.
"That is to say, the environment. …
"The introduction of a film festival with such an important theme is welcome. But what that means, in practice, is difficult to grasp here. And the reason for that lies in the Brazilian personality. From red carpets and nightly parties, to a trip into the jungle where we enjoy a spectacular beach carnival and swim with river dolphins, these are unadulterated good times, fuelled by ebullience that no human with a pulse could resist. How it will lead to informed pieces about the environment, however, is a puzzle."
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Among the 2008 Amazonas Film Festival award winners were, in the best narrative feature category, Arash T. Riahi’s Ein Augenblick Freiheit / For a Moment, Freedom (photo), about a group of Iranians trying to flee that country, and in the best documentary feature category, Robert Nugent’s Tout l’or du monde / End of the Rainbow, which focuses on the consequences of the arrival of industrialized gold-mining in Guinea.
Penélope Cruz, Kristin Scott Thomas, Clint Eastwood at the Santa Barbara Film Festival 2009
MARY AND MAX to Open Sundance 2009
Sundance, Prop. 8, and Boycotts
Danny Boyle, GOMORRAH, WALTZ WITH BASHIR: AFI FEST 2008
THE WRESTLER, EVERLASTING MOMENTS, LA RABIA: AFI FEST 2008
Tilda Swinton, Juliette Binoche, Bill Plympton: AFI FEST 2008
THE DESERT WITHIN, TWO-LEGGED HORSE, Documentary Shorts: AFI FEST 2008
ACHILLES AND THE TORTOISE, THE BROTHERS BLOOM: AFI FEST 2008
POUNDCAKE, WITCHHUNT, KASSIM THE DREAM, OF ALL THE THINGS: AFI FEST 2008
THE BAADER MEINHOF COMPLEX, JOHNNY MAD DOG: bfi London Film Festival 2008
Penélope Cruz, Kristin Scott Thomas, Clint Eastwood at the Santa Barbara Film Festival 2009
Awards and honorees at the 2009 Santa Barbara International Film Festival, to be held in the Southern California coastal town between January 22-February 1, 2009, include the Modern Master Award for Clint Eastwood (on Thursday, January 29, at the historic Arlington Theatre); the American Riviera Award for Mickey Rourke (on Friday, January 30); the Cinema Vanguard Award for Kristin Scott Thomas (on Tuesday, January 27, at the Lobero Theater); and the Outstanding Performer of the Year Award for Penélope Cruz (on Saturday, January 31, at the Arlington Theatre). This year’s Kirk Douglas Award, handed out a few weeks ago, went to Ed Harris.
Past Modern Master Award winners include Michael Douglas, Peter Jackson, Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins, Sean Penn, Jeff Bridges, Diane Keaton, George Clooney, Will Smith, and Cate Blanchett.
Tickets are on sale at the Lobero Theater box office — (805) 963-0761 — and the Arlington Theater box office — (805) 963-4408 — at a 20 percent discount until December 20.
MARY AND MAX to Open Sundance 2009
Sundance, Prop. 8, and Boycotts
Danny Boyle, GOMORRAH, WALTZ WITH BASHIR: AFI FEST 2008
THE WRESTLER, EVERLASTING MOMENTS, LA RABIA: AFI FEST 2008
Tilda Swinton, Juliette Binoche, Bill Plympton: AFI FEST 2008
THE DESERT WITHIN, TWO-LEGGED HORSE, Documentary Shorts: AFI FEST 2008
ACHILLES AND THE TORTOISE, THE BROTHERS BLOOM: AFI FEST 2008
POUNDCAKE, WITCHHUNT, KASSIM THE DREAM, OF ALL THE THINGS: AFI FEST 2008
THE BAADER MEINHOF COMPLEX, JOHNNY MAD DOG: bfi London Film Festival 2008
Pittsburg Lesbian & Gay Film Festival 2008
WERE THE WORLD MINE Trailer
Co-written by partners Cory James Krueckeberg and Tom Gustafson (from Gustafson’s 2003 short Faeries) and directed by Gustafson, Were the World Mine tells the story of small-town teen Timothy (Tanner Cohen), who happens to be gay, ostracized, and in love with his private school’s top jock (Nathaniel David Becker). Timothy’s sole means of escape is his musico-magical world, filled with shining lights and singing athletes.
Enters a quirky English teacher (hilariously played by Wendy Robie of Twin Peaks), who decides to stage a production of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Timothy is cast as Puck and ends up [...] Continue Reading…
MARY AND MAX to Open Sundance 2009
The 2009 Sundance Film Festival will open with Adam Elliot’s clay animation feature Mary and Max, the tale of an 8-year-old Australian girl who becomes the pen pal of an obese, 44-year-old male New Yorker. Throughout their two-decade exchanges, they discuss a wide range of subjects, from autism to taxidermy.
Written and directed by Elliot, who won an Academy Award for his 2002 animated short Harvie Krumpet, Mary and Max sounds like a quirky variation on the 84 Charing Cross Road theme, the James Roose-Evans play that became a 1984 movie directed by David Hugh Jones, and starring Anne [...] Continue Reading…
LIFE Magazine Images Available on Google
Google has recently launched an online photo gallery featuring images from Life magazine’s archives, many of which have never been publicly seen before. The new Google service is available at http://images.google.com/hosted/life; it currently offers 2 million photos. In the coming months, Google plans to scan all 10 million photos from Life’s library.
Life’s own website will begin showing the magazine’s photo archive in late February.
The Time cover above shows Miriam Hopkins in the title role of Becky Sharp, the 1935 film adaptation of W.M. Thackeray’s Vanity Fair. Hopkins received her one and only best [...] Continue Reading…
Buster Keaton’s THE GENERAL - Ultimate 2 Disc Edition
Considered by many Buster Keaton’s masterpiece and one of the greatest movies ever made, the 1927 silent comedy The General — co-directed by Keaton and Clyde Bruckman — has received a classy DVD treatment courtesy of Kino International: "The General - Ultimate 2 Disc Edition." Whether or not you’re a Keaton admirer — and I’m no fan of gag-based comedies — I find it impossible not to be thrilled that this cinematic landmark is now available on DVD in a version newly mastered in HD from a 35mm archive print struck from the original camera negative.
As [...] Continue Reading…
MAN BITES DOG d: Benoît Poelvoorde, Rémy Belvaux, André Bonzel
C’est arrivé près de chez vous / Man Bites Dog aka It Happened in Your Neighborhood (1992)
Direction: Benoît Poelvoorde, Rémy Belvaux, André Bonzel. Screenplay: Benoît Poelvoorde, Rémy Belvaux, André Bonzel, Vincent Tavier. Cast: Benoît Poelvoorde, Rémy Belvaux, André Bonzel, Jean-Marc Chenut, Alain Oppexxi, Vincent Tavier
By Dan Schneider of Cosmoetica:
The 1992 Belgian mockumentary C’est arrivé près de chez vous / Man Bites Dog (or, somewhat literally, It Happened in Your Neighborhood) is one of those films that is neither bad nor good, and not really its own "thing," either. By that I mean that it is [...] Continue Reading…
MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET at the Academy
A newly restored 35mm print of Miracle on 34th Street, the whimsical 1947 classic about Santa Claus posing as Santa Claus, will be presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on Thursday, December 11, at 7:30 p.m. at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills.
Written (from a story by Valentine Davies) and directed by the unjustly forgotten George Seaton, whose credits range from the Technicolor Betty Grable musical Billy Rose’s Diamond Horseshoe to the disaster melodrama Airport, Miracle on 34th Street stars Maureen O’Hara as a no-nonsense Macy’s executive [...] Continue Reading…
TAPESTRIES OF HOPE: Q&A with Michealene Cristini Risley
American filmmaker Michealene Cristini Risley (right) met Zimbabwean social activist Betty Makoni at an International Development Exchange event in San Francisco. Risley was impressed with Makoni’s achievements as the founder of Zimbabwe’s Girl Child Network, an organization dedicated to helping young women and girls who have survived rape, a not uncommon occurrence in a part of the world where the spread of HIV remains out of control and "healers" prescribe "young (female) virgins" as a cure for males infected with the virus.
Now in post-production, Tapestries of Hope became — or rather, is becoming — [...] Continue Reading…
Berta Singerman Recites “Camino de la Patria”
Argentinean stage legend Berta Singerman — actually born in Russia — made only three films, one of which in Hollywood: Nada más que una mujer / Nothing More Than a Woman, the 1934 Spanish-language version of the Fox production Pursued (itself a remake of The Painted Woman).
Singerman, who died at the age of 97 in Buenos Aires in 1998, was renowned for her poetry readings. Spanish classical music composer Manuel de Falla once said, "While we, composers, look for music for our words, Berta extracts music from words."
The clip above (I’d say it’s from the [...] Continue Reading…
A STORY OF HEALING, THE LONG WAY HOME: Oscar’s Docs
The two 1997 Oscar-winning documentaries, Donna Dewey’s A Story of Healing (right) and Mark Jonathan Harris’ The Long Way Home, will be screened as the final installment of “Oscar’s Docs, Part Four: Academy Award-Winning Documentaries 1988–1997” on Monday, November 24, at 7:30 p.m. at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Linwood Dunn Theater in Hollywood.
The documentary short subject A Story of Healing follows American plastic surgeons and nurses who have volunteered to help disfigured children and young adults in Vietnam. The screening will be followed by an onstage [...] Continue Reading…
Sundance, Prop. 8, and Boycotts
Via The Advocate:
"Film Independent released a statement on Friday in response to Los Angeles Film Festival director Richard Raddon’s donation to the campaign for Proposition 8, which succeeded in banning gay marriage in California. ‘As a champion of diversity,’ the statement said, ‘Film Independent is dedicated to supporting the civil rights of all individuals. At the same time, our organization does not police the personal, religious, or political choices of any employee, member, or filmmaker.’"
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Via Robert Hofler and Michael Jones’ article "Same-Sex Activists Target Sundance" in Variety:
"With activists [...] Continue Reading…
Oscar 2009: 15 Documentary Semi-Finalists
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced that 15 films in the Documentary Feature category will move forward in the voting process for the 81st Academy Awards. A record 94 films had originally qualified in the category.
The 15 films are (in alphabetical order):
At the Death House Door
The Betrayal (Nerakhoon)
Blessed Is the Match: The Life and Death of Hannah Senesh
Encounters at the End of the World
Fuel
The Garden
Glass: [...] Continue Reading…
UNTIL THE LIGHT TAKES US: Q&A with Aaron Aites and Audrey Ewell
Aaron Aites and Audrey Ewell’s Until the Light Takes Us was one of the most unusual entries at the 2008 AFI FEST held in Los Angeles in early November. In the words of co-director Ewell, the film is "a feature length documentary chronicling the history, ideology and aesthetic of Norwegian black metal — a musical subculture infamous as much for a series of murders and church arsons as it is for its unique musical and visual aesthetics. This is the first (and only) film to truly shed light on a movement that has [...] Continue Reading…
RASHOMON: Monday Nights with Oscar
Akira Kurosawa’s 1950 classic Rashomon, which officially introduced Japanese cinema to the world at large, will be the next film presented as part of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ series “Monday Nights with Oscar.” The East Coast premiere of the new digitally restored print of Rashomon will take place on Monday, November 17, at 7:30 p.m. at the Academy Theater in New York City.
Though it revolves around the rape of a woman and the murder of her Samurai husband, Rashomon, co-adapted by Kurosawa and Shinobu Hashimoto from Ryunosuke Akutagawa’s [...] Continue Reading…
QUANTUM SOLACE Soars to the Top of the Box Office
Quantum of Solace crushed its competition at the North American box office this weekend with a whopping $70.4 million in ticket sales, according to studio estimates Sunday.
Directed by Marc Forster, the 22nd official James Bond adventure scored the best opening for a Bond movie ever, beating the opening weekend gross of predecessor Casino Royale by $29.6 million. Quantum Solace is currently the worldwide box-office leader.
Last week’s winner, Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, slipped to No. 2, earning an impressive $36.1 million to reach a domestic total of $118 million after only [...] Continue Reading…
PURPLE VIOLETS d: Edward Burns
Purple Violets (2007)
Direction and screenplay: Edward Burns. Cast: Selma Blair, Patrick Wilson, Edward Burns, Debra Messing, Dennis Farina, Donal Logue.
Writer-director Edward Burns’ perfectly watchable Purple Violets is a romantic drama about relationships and, to a lesser extent, the world of fiction writing. The film’s focal point is Patti Petalson (Selma Blair), a real-estate agent who has been married for seven years to overbearing chef Chazz Coleman (Donal Logue) and who longs to indulge her true passion, fiction writing. A former college boyfriend, Brian Callahan (Patrick Wilson), is [...] Continue Reading…
LET THE RIGHT ONE IN d: Tomas Alfredson
Låt den rätte komma in / Let the Right One In (2008)
Direction: Tomas Alfredson. Screenplay: John Ajvide Lindqvist, from his novel. Cast: Kåre Hedebrant, Lina Leandersson, Per Ragnar, Henrik Dahl, Karin Bergquist.
Directed by Tomas Alfredson from a screenplay by John Ajvide Lindqvist, Låt den rätte komma in / Let the Right One In is not only a satisfying horror film from beginning to end — one of the best entries in the vampire genre since Blade, Interview with a Vampire, and Bram Stoker’s Dracula — but it’s also a subtle love story, which [...] Continue Reading…
A Century Ago: The Films of 1908
"A Century Ago: The Films of 1908" will be presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on Monday, December 1, at 7:30 p.m. at the Linwood Dunn Theater in Hollywood. The program will be repeated on Thursday, December 4, at 7 p.m. at the Christopher B. Smith Rafael Film Center in San Rafael, California.
"A Century Ago" will feature a number of 1908 shorts, among them Edison’s Rescued from an Eagle’s Nest (above, lower photo), featuring a performance by none other than D.W. Griffith (right); Biograph’s After Many Years, starring [...] Continue Reading…
ANTARCTICA: Q&A with Yair Hochner
In writer-director Yair Hochner’s intriguing, multi-layered, remarkably well-acted Antarctica, which Regent Releasing is opening tomorrow, November 14, at the Regent Showcase in Hollywood, several gay men and a couple of lesbians get enmeshed in a complex web of sexual/romantic entanglements set in the streets, clubs, and apartment houses of Tel Aviv.
There’s Omer (Tomer Ilan), a handsome, soft-spoken — and still single — librarian who’s about to turn thirty; his sister, Shirley (Lucy Dubinchik), who feels the need to get away from it all despite her love for club owner Michal (Liat Ekta), who also happens to be [...] Continue Reading…
MILK, Prop. 8, and More Celebrity Gay Slurs
Kristopher Tapley at In Contention:
"And I can’t help but wonder what Milk might have meant for today’s cause, if anything, had it landed in the marketplace last month.
"Some of the film’s most inspiring and, indeed, captivating moments come during the sequence that details the Prop 6 fight. Consistently, Harvey Milk (Sean Penn’s career-best portrayal) makes the point, to paraphrase, ‘We have to make them understand that they know us.’ That message, I think, might have carried a lot of heft if voters had made it to the polls four weeks later."
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I doubt that [...] Continue Reading…
Sundance 2009: To Boycott or Not to Boycott
David Poland at Movie City News:
"Movie City News will spend a lot of money in Park City to cover Sundance this year. I will be happy to pledge, right now, that we will not spend a dime that money in businesses that were financial supporters of California’s Prop 8.
"So… activists… make that list. Make it honestly. Don’t tell me all Mormons are evil or that the entire state is off limits. But if a local gas station company is owned by a Prop 8 funder… we will fill up elsewhere. If a [...] Continue Reading…
Oscar 2009: Animated Film Submissions
Fourteen features have been submitted for consideration in the Animated Feature Film category for the 81st Academy Awards®.
The 14 submitted features are:
“Bolt”
“Delgo”
“Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who!”
“Dragon Hunters”
“Fly Me to the Moon”
“Igor”
“Kung Fu Panda”
“Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa”
“$9.99”
“The Sky Crawlers”
“Sword of the Stranger”
“The Tale of Despereaux”
“WALL-E”
“Waltz [...] Continue Reading…
MADAGASCAR: ESCAPE 2 AFRICA Tops Box Office
DreamWorks Animation’s Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa dominated the North American box office this weekend with a stunning $63.5 million in ticket sales, according to studio estimates Sunday.
Eric Darnell and Tom McGrath’s sequel to the 2005 hit raced to the top spot early on, beating its predecessor’s opening weekend gross by $16.3 million. In Escape 2 Africa, New York zoo animals Alex, Marty, Gloria and Melman try to fly back home, but accidentally end up somewhere else in Africa.
Debuting in second place with a surprising $19.2 million was David Wain’s [...] Continue Reading…
