Passages

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John Cope
Joined: Thu Dec 15, 2005 5:40 pm
Location: where the simulacrum is true

Re: Passages

#9126 Post by John Cope » Mon Apr 12, 2021 9:13 pm

We should have a dedicated thread for The Stunt Man for sure (Color of Night too for that matter). It could also really use a Blu re-release.

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Pavel
Joined: Fri Aug 07, 2020 2:41 pm

Re: Passages

#9127 Post by Pavel » Tue Apr 13, 2021 1:52 am


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MichaelB
Joined: Fri Aug 11, 2006 6:20 pm
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Re: Passages

#9128 Post by MichaelB » Wed Apr 14, 2021 10:09 am

After effectively being sentenced to die in prison, disgraced financier Bernie Madoff has done just that.

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MichaelB
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Re: Passages

#9129 Post by MichaelB » Thu Apr 15, 2021 5:17 pm

Hugely prolific British playwright Peter Terson, whose first love by some distance was the stage, but he also notched up a fair number of British TV commissions from the late Sixties to the early Eighties. One of them, Last Train Through the Harecastle Tunnel (1969), is in the BFI's Alan Clarke box set.

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JSC
Joined: Thu May 16, 2013 9:17 am

Re: Passages

#9130 Post by JSC » Thu Apr 15, 2021 6:18 pm

As well as the very enjoyable Play for Todays The Fishing Party and Shakespeare or Bust.

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L.A.
Joined: Thu May 28, 2009 7:33 am
Location: Helsinki, Finland

Re: Passages

#9131 Post by L.A. » Fri Apr 16, 2021 4:53 am

Hungarian actress Mari Törőcsik, perhaps known for her role in Zoltán Fábri’s Merry-Go-Round (1956).

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antnield
Joined: Tue Jun 28, 2005 1:59 pm
Location: Cheltenham, England

Re: Passages

#9132 Post by antnield » Fri Apr 16, 2021 11:50 am


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Aunt Peg
Joined: Fri Dec 21, 2012 5:30 am

Re: Passages

#9133 Post by Aunt Peg » Sat Apr 17, 2021 5:53 am

Felix Silla probably best known from The Addams Family TV series playing Cousin Itt: https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/c ... 7e4a86af45

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hearthesilence
Joined: Fri Mar 04, 2005 4:22 am
Location: NYC

Re: Passages

#9134 Post by hearthesilence » Sun Apr 18, 2021 3:47 pm


Jack Kubrick
Joined: Sun Jun 02, 2019 9:13 pm

Re: Passages

#9135 Post by Jack Kubrick » Mon Apr 19, 2021 9:16 pm


beamish14
Joined: Fri May 18, 2018 3:07 pm

Re: Passages

#9136 Post by beamish14 » Tue Apr 20, 2021 2:15 pm

Jim Steinman, songwriter/producer known for his incredibly bombastic songs

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MichaelB
Joined: Fri Aug 11, 2006 6:20 pm
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Re: Passages

#9137 Post by MichaelB » Tue Apr 20, 2021 2:37 pm

Triple Oscar-winning British costume designer Anthony Powell.

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Drucker
Your Future our Drucker
Joined: Wed May 18, 2011 9:37 am

Re: Passages

#9138 Post by Drucker » Tue Apr 20, 2021 7:38 pm


beamish14
Joined: Fri May 18, 2018 3:07 pm

Re: Passages

#9139 Post by beamish14 » Tue Apr 20, 2021 7:47 pm

Drucker wrote:
Tue Apr 20, 2021 7:38 pm
Monte Hellman

Oh, no. An incredible artist and a much-loved teacher at Cal Arts. China 9 is an incredible work, and I hope WB restores it to its full glory.

If you haven't read it, Brad Stevens' book on him is phenomenal. It extensively details how he hopped to weird titles like Silent Night, Deadly Night 3 and got his name on Reservoir Dogs. He was also hired by Coppola's Zoetrope Studios in the late 70's/early 80's alongside Godard and Michael Powell to make a coke smuggling film.

It's too funny that Orion turned him down for the directing gig on RoboCop because they feared he couldn't helm an action vehicle, but he got the consolation job of handling 2nd unit on it, which was ALL action shots!

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wishhersafeathome
Joined: Sat Apr 03, 2021 6:34 pm

Re: Passages

#9140 Post by wishhersafeathome » Tue Apr 20, 2021 10:51 pm

I don't think any director - not even Peckinpah - better understood or used Warren Oates' talents than did Hellman.

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swo17
Bloodthirsty Butcher
Joined: Tue Apr 15, 2008 10:25 am
Location: SLC, UT

Re: Passages

#9141 Post by swo17 » Tue Apr 20, 2021 11:31 pm

He'd be a legend even if he'd only made Two-Lane Blacktop. These satisfactions are permanent...

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Pavel
Joined: Fri Aug 07, 2020 2:41 pm

Re: Passages

#9142 Post by Pavel » Wed Apr 21, 2021 12:46 am

Drucker wrote:
Tue Apr 20, 2021 7:38 pm
Monte Hellman
Damn, that sucks. His two westerns are some of my favorite of the genre, and the set is one of my favorite Criterion releases. A friend of mine has been telling me to check out Cockfighter for a long time now; might finally get to it these days...

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colinr0380
Joined: Mon Nov 08, 2004 4:30 pm
Location: Chapel-en-le-Frith, Derbyshire, UK

Re: Passages

#9143 Post by colinr0380 » Wed Apr 21, 2021 1:19 am

I have been curious for quite a while to see China 9, Liberty 37, which was the only film written by Z Channel head Jerry Harvey.

And Iguana (NSFW) looks astonishing!

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The Elegant Dandy Fop
Joined: Thu Dec 09, 2004 3:25 am
Location: Los Angeles, CA

Re: Passages

#9144 Post by The Elegant Dandy Fop » Wed Apr 21, 2021 2:12 am

A true legend lost. Anytime people who are not cinephiles ask me to recommend them something outside of their traditional viewing habits, Two-Lane Blacktop was always a go to and never failed to please. Nothing brings me as much joy as Warren Oates ordering an Alka-Seltzer.

During quarantine, I caught up with my gaps in Hellman’s career. I read the Cockfighter book seven or eight years ago and barely recalled much about it, but the movie is a great portrait of an obsessive gambler with strategy and mechnical precision in the sport. Despite that heavy sounding premise, the film is hilarious and pretty delightful. Worth watching to see Harry Dean Stanton embracing some outlandish seventies western wear. There was a Japanese Blu-ray of this available (I believe incorrectly displayed at 1.37) and don’t expect this to be released here on account of all the unsimulated cockfighting.

China 9, Liberty 37 is a bizarre anti-western and sort of an odd marker denoting the end of the spaghetti western genre. It seems to want to avoid violence at all costs and instead is a portrait of how western men expect women to act and how to be treated. The spaghetti western has life real cheap and often plays the violence for laughs, but Hellman’s sensibility is far more somber and poetic. Has an excellent Pino Donaggio score as well. Am I making it up that Warner Bros. owns this film?

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swo17
Bloodthirsty Butcher
Joined: Tue Apr 15, 2008 10:25 am
Location: SLC, UT

Re: Passages

#9145 Post by swo17 » Wed Apr 21, 2021 2:27 am

I believe the best version ever released of Cockfighter was the R1 Anchor Bay DVD

beamish14
Joined: Fri May 18, 2018 3:07 pm

Re: Passages

#9146 Post by beamish14 » Wed Apr 21, 2021 2:44 am

The Elegant Dandy Fop wrote:
Wed Apr 21, 2021 2:12 am


China 9, Liberty 37 is a bizarre anti-western and sort of an odd marker denoting the end of the spaghetti western genre. It seems to want to avoid violence at all costs and instead is a portrait of how western men expect women to act and how to be treated. The spaghetti western has life real cheap and often plays the violence for laughs, but Hellman’s sensibility is far more somber and poetic. Has an excellent Pino Donaggio score as well. Am I making it up that Warner Bros. owns this film?

It is 100% owned by Warner Bros. in the States, and is not in the public domain, contrary to the glut of cheap DVDs of it out there. It's been on their restoration docket for years, and Hellman personally urged them to tackle it.

China 9 is an incredibly profane and vulgar film, but that's where its charm derives from as well. It's about repellant people, and it effectively mines them for comedy.

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GaryC
Joined: Fri Mar 28, 2008 3:56 pm
Location: Aldershot, Hampshire, UK

Re: Passages

#9147 Post by GaryC » Wed Apr 21, 2021 3:00 am

R.I.P.
The Elegant Dandy Fop wrote:
Wed Apr 21, 2021 2:12 am
During quarantine, I caught up with my gaps in Hellman’s career. I read the Cockfighter book seven or eight years ago and barely recalled much about it, but the movie is a great portrait of an obsessive gambler with strategy and mechnical precision in the sport. Despite that heavy sounding premise, the film is hilarious and pretty delightful. Worth watching to see Harry Dean Stanton embracing some outlandish seventies western wear. There was a Japanese Blu-ray of this available (I believe incorrectly displayed at 1.37) and don’t expect this to be released here on account of all the unsimulated cockfighting.
1.37 is definitely wrong - 1.85:1 is what the filmography in Nestor Almendros's book says, which you'd expect for a commercially-made film in the US. According to my twenty-year-old review of the Anchor Bay DVD, that transfer is 1.78:1.

It's a difficult one - I certainly don't approve of cockfighting as a sport and yes, the film does contain footage of it, some of it edited in. Much of it MIGHT get past the BBFC on the grounds that they were genuine cockfights that Hellman and his crew filmed and which would have happened anyway. But one key scene definitely won't get past uncut - the hotel-room scene, in which the fight was staged for the film and arranged for a particular outcome, with one cock wearing plastic spurs and the other steel ones. (I am not a lawyer and it wouldn't be my money spent if anyone did submit the film to the BBFC.)

Talking of incorrect framing - the first time I saw Two-Lane Blacktop was on BBC2 in the Film Club slot, introduced by Philip French. He made the point that Hellman often used the sides of the (Scope) frame to convey particular information - only for the film to play panned and scanned with at times genuinely incomprehensible results. (FIlm Club also showed China 9, Liberty 37 panned and scanned, the only time I've seen it. It was odd that a slot aimed at film buffs and not the general audience was keen to point out that it showed the films uncut (with language that might have been removed on the BBC at the time) but still panned and scanned its Scope films, on the grounds that the general audience didn't want to see black bars on screen. They did later on start showing some Scope films with full letterboxing, starting with Last Year at Marienbad, though they tended to be at first ones in foreign languages and/or in black and white.)
Last edited by GaryC on Wed Apr 21, 2021 5:45 am, edited 1 time in total.

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colinr0380
Joined: Mon Nov 08, 2004 4:30 pm
Location: Chapel-en-le-Frith, Derbyshire, UK

Re: Passages

#9148 Post by colinr0380 » Wed Apr 21, 2021 3:38 am

GaryC wrote:
Wed Apr 21, 2021 3:00 am
(FIlm Club also showed China 9, Liberty 37 panned and scanned, the only time I've seen it. It was odd that a slot aimed at film buffs and not the general audience was keen to point out that it showed the films uncut (with language that might have been removed on the BBC at the time) but still panned and scanned its Scope films, on the grounds that the general audience didn't want to see black bars on screen. They did later on start showing some Scope films with full letterboxing, starting with Last Year at Marienbad, though they tended to be at first ones in foreign languages and/or in black and white.)
Speaking of scope foreign language films of the period like Andrei Rublev and Solaris, what was the reason for moving the letterboxed image to the top third of the screen that seemed to regularly occur? Was that just to leave the bottom two thirds free for subtitles? Or an aesthetic approach to showing widescreen films when showing them anamorphically was not in the cards anyway, and 2.35:1 imagery was both relatively rare event and treated as a novelty whenever it appeared?

Off topic but the moment I knew the end was nigh for the Moviedrome series, after many episodes of the show which put an emphasis on the widescreen nature of upcoming screenings, was when Mark Cousins introduced the premiere of Luc Besson's Leon, praising the widescreen mise-en-scene and how much better the longer director's cut of the film was, only for the version that followed to be the pan-and-scanned theatrical release! Even doing that awful thing of letterboxing the opening credits then slowly, inexorably widening out to pan-and-scan, which was a technique that has always made me desperately want to reach into the screen and hold on to the black bars for dear life! I even suffered a bit of PTSD trauma from Xavier Dolan's Mommy because of past memories of it!

If it has to happen (which it doesn't, and never did) I much prefer the ugly, jarring jump from letterboxed opening titles into the pan-and-scanned opening scene, for at least not trying to 'artistically camouflage' the disfiguring surgery taking place!

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Dr Amicus
Joined: Thu Feb 15, 2007 10:20 am
Location: Guernsey

Re: Passages

#9149 Post by Dr Amicus » Wed Apr 21, 2021 4:38 am

Or the first BBC screening of 2001, when the space sequences were shown in widescreen, but with stars painted on the black bars...

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MichaelB
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Re: Passages

#9150 Post by MichaelB » Wed Apr 21, 2021 5:08 am

...over which the BBC received quite a few complaints, including one from a Mr S. Kubrick of Borehamwood.

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