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7 articles from 2008

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Barry Norman Looks At The Making Richard Stanley's Hardware And Revenge of Billy the Kid (Video)

21 October 2008 11:49 PM, PDT | From Latemag.com/film | See recent LateFilmFull news

Legendary UK TV film critic Barry Norman looks at the making of two early 90's Low budget UK horror movies. Jim Grooms 1992 cult horror-comedy Revenge of Billy the Kid and Cult director Richard Stanley's horror / sci-fi Hardware.

This segment is taken from the BBC's long running film show Film '90 (now obviously Film 2008). Barry Norman presented the show for 25 years starting in 1972 up until he left and in 1999 and was replaced by current host Jonathan Ross.

Though Hardware was slated as a Terminator rip off by some at the time it made a profit and Richard Stanley went on to make another film with a cult following the Namibian serial killer movie Dust Devil in 1993. DVD label put out a remasterd directors cut of Dust Devil in 2006 which you can still pick up from Amazon. However his career stalled when he was thrown off the set of the 1996 production of The Island of Dr.

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Leigh

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Weekend Movie News Wrap Up: October 19, 2008

19 October 2008 9:33 AM, PDT | From ScreenRant.com | See recent Screen Rant news

Sunday again and that means that it is time for the Weekend Movie News Wrap Up.

This week:

We see who is top of the box office; Kevin Smith ups his budget and goes into space; Brad Pitt goes on an Odyssey and plays an Unfair Game; Liam Neeson and Christina Ricci do Life and Ronin zooms to the small screen.

 

Box Office

Marky Mark Wahlberg is the box office champion with Max Payne. The film should manage about $20 million over the weekend giving 20th Century Fox their first solid hit in months.

Oliver Stone’s W bucked the political movie trend by making a solid bit of cash. Grossing around $12Mm for the weekend the film should be a modest hit. Considering the current political overkill going on in the press this is a considerable coup.

The Secret Life of Bees had a modest opening too, and should match

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Niall Browne

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Ronin: the series?

15 October 2008 4:10 PM, PDT | From JoBlo.com | See recent JoBlo news

The spies-turned-mercenaries of the slick action flick Ronin may be blasting their way to your hi-def set -- a series based on the 1998 Robert DeNiro/Jean Reno movie from director John Frankenheimer is now in the works. MGM is working on bringing the car chases and gunfights to the small screen. The show (being co-produced by the BBC) will be "reconfigured" from the movie, but will presumably still involve various freelance operatives searching for work in the wake of their...

Dave Davis

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Tiff Review:  Sauna

6 September 2008 3:41 PM, PDT | From TwitchFilm.net | See recent Twitch news

Let us start with this.  If I see a better flat out horror film than Aj Annila‘s wonderfully twisted Sauna in 2008, I’ll eat my shirt.  This film is a major growth from his ambitious, yet fatally flawed 2006 genre fusion urban drama and wuxia epic, Jade Warrior.  Where that film was rigid and strained, this one soars into the dark places of the minds of men effortlessly flowing to its soon-to-be iconic conclusion.  It is fitting that Finland is half way between America and Japan, because Sauna takes the stylings and tropes of best of American Art-Horror and J-Horror and froths them together into something that is mesmerizing and uniquely Scandinavian.  The result, a period film which is impossible to actually identify the period, lies somewhere in the neighborhood of Edgar Allen Poe and the opening credits for Lars Von Trier‘s The Kingdom.  Those enthusiastic for Fabrice Du Welz

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Kurt Halfyard

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Sydney Pollack Dies at 73

27 May 2008 4:12 AM, PDT | From IMDb News

Acclaimed director, producer, and actor Sydney Pollack has died of cancer. He was 73.

According to the AP, quoting Pollack's agent Leslee Dart, Pollack died Monday afternoon (5/26/08) at his home in Pacific Palisades, surrounded by family and friends.

Though Sydney Pollack started out as an actor and acting coach and later ended his career doubling producer duties with cameo and supporting roles, it was as a director that Pollack will probably best be remembered. His films had the sheen of the Golden Era of Hollywood, even though most were made in the `70s and `80s. They also spanned genres and included The Way We Were (`73), Three Days of the Condor (`75), The Electric Horseman (`79), Tootsie (`82), culminating in what was arguably his greatest success, Out of Africa (`85).

Sydney Irwin Pollack was born on July 1, 1934, in Lafayette and raised in South Bend, Indiana. He developed a love of acting at South Bend High School and went straight to New York and the Neighborhood Playhouse School for Theater. There, Sanford Meisner took him under his wing, first as a student and then as his assistant. Pollack received favorable marks from his students, which included Robert Duvall and Rip Torn, and Claire Griswold, a former pupil whom Pollack married and remained married to for 50 years.

His time at the Neighborhood Playhouse was destined not to last as long and, under the encouragement of director John Frankenheimer and nudging from Burt Lancaster, Pollack began directing. He started out small, in television shows such as The Alfred Hitchcock Hour and Ben Casey.

He soon branched out into feature filmmaking. His first was The Slender Thread, starring Anne Bancroft and Sydney Poitier in a story about a desperate woman and the suicide hotline volunteer who attempts to keep her on the line while waiting for the police to find her.

The film fared poorly, both critically and financially, as, to a lesser extent, did Pollack's second feature, 1966's This Property Is Condemned, based upon a Tennessee Williams play (with a screenplay by Francis Ford Coppola). It featured Natalie Wood as a girl desperate to break out of her small town who sets her sights and hopes on a traveling railroad official and company hatchet man, played by Robert Redford. Property was the start of a lifelong association and friendship with Redford; Pollack would direct Redford in seven films in total, including some of his most famous.

His first success came with the depression-era They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, which followed the characters involved in a grueling dance marathon. It starred Jane Fonda and shattered her American image as a comely ingénue or a sex kitten and established her as a serious actress once and for all. She received her first Oscar nomination for the part.

Most actors benefited from appearing in a Pollack film. Twelve actors received Oscar nominations after being in one of his movies, including Barbra Streisand, Meryl Streep, Jessica Lange, and Dustin Hoffman. He was no stranger to the Academy himself. He was nominated three times for Best Director (Horses and Tootsie, winning for Out of Africa). Oddly enough, Redford never received a nomination for any of the multiply-lauded films in which he starred for Pollack.

Industry recognition was just part of his success. His films were also profitable at the box office. Hits included Horses, The Way We Were, Three Days of the Condor, The Electric Horseman and The Firm.

Out of Africa was where everything gelled. It had an enormous canvas, an epic scope, a glorious score, luscious cinematography and two superstars (Redford and Streep) in the leads. The film was nominated for 11 awards, picking up seven including Best Picture and Director.

He had misses too. Havana, Random Hearts and Sabrina were the rare examples of critical and commercial failures.

Producing became a passion for him after this string of misfires. Along with the late Anthony Minghella, who died earlier this year during a throat operation, Pollack created Mirage Enterprises. The shop produced The Fabulous Baker Boys, Sense and Sensibility, The Talented Mr. Ripley and Cold Mountain. But Mirage represented just a smattering of Pollack's producing duties, which also included Searching for Bobby Fischer, The Quiet American, Michael Clayton and the HBO film, Recount.

In recent years Pollack also specialized in the role of the powerful corporate or societal patriarch, one willing to lay down the law or to teach the hard truths of life to the protagonist. He played variations of it in Eyes Wide Shut, Changing Lanes and Michael Clayton and created what can only be described as avuncular malevolence, inspiring fear and awe while exuding a tinge of mercy. It was the stature of Pollack in the industry itself and his commanding presence on and off the screen that lent the roles their gravitas. They sprang from the man himself.

Pollack is survived by his wife, Claire; two daughters, Rebecca and Rachel; his brother Bernie; and six grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his son, Steven, who died in 1993 in a plane crash in Santa Monica.

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Dennis Farina Reveals What Happens in Vegas

9 May 2008 3:01 AM, PDT | From MovieMaker.com | See recent Movie Maker news

He’s been a part of some of the most critically acclaimed movies (Saving Private Ryan) and popular television shows (“Miami Vice,” “Law & Order”) of the past 30 years. But for Dennis Farina, the notion of making a living as an actor was not the first one that occurred to this son of blue-collar Chicago; his first career was as a beat cop in the City of Broad Shoulders. It was only after meeting director Michael Mann through a mutual friend that the actor best known for his wiseguy roles (Midnight Run, Get Shorty) and the occasional unorthodox ladies’ man (Sidewalks of New York, “Empire Falls”) landed his first role in the 1981 thriller, Thief. While Mann helped launch his career, Farina has gone on to work with a number of other strong auteur directors, including Steven Soderbergh (Out of Sight), Guy Ritchie (Snatch) and John Frankenheimer (Reindeer Games).

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Actor Paul Scofield Dies at 86

20 March 2008 | From IMDb News

Paul Scofield, the imperious British actor of stage and screen who won an Oscar for his portrayal of Sir Thomas More in A Man for All Seasons, died Wednesday; he was 86. Scofield, who passed away at a hospital near his home in southern England, had been suffering from leukemia. Scofield began his acting career onstage, where it would always be centered, and he found his first successes in taking on a variety of Shakespearean roles during and after World War II. His towering presence and amazing performances quickly drew comparison to fellow thespian Laurence Olivier. While continuing his theater work, Scofield began appearing in a handful of films in the 1950s and early 1960s, most notably the John Frankenheimer thriller The Train. In fact, he had only three films to his credit when he was asked to reprise his celebrated role as Sir Thomas More in the 1966 film adaptation of A Man for All Seasons, directed by Oscar-winning filmmaker Fred Zinnemann. The story of King Henry VIII's Chancellor of England, who refused to go along with the monarch's break from the Roman Catholic Church and was executed for it, the film was a sumptuous adaptation of the Robert Bolt play and a critical and commercial success, winning six Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Director and Actor for Scofield.

Despite his acclaimed Oscar success, the actor continued to work mainly in the theater, with occasional forays into cinema, primarily in stage-to-film adaptations; notable films in the 1970s included Peter Brook's version of King Lear and Edward Albee's A Delicate Balance opposite Katharine Hepburn. Scofield found the second role of a lifetime in the stage production of Amadeus, where he played the tortured and envious composer Antonio Salieri (F. Murray Abraham would win an Oscar for the role in the 1984 film). Considered reclusive, a trait he would deny in many interviews, he hand-picked his film roles very carefully, appearing in Kenneth Branagh's Henry V and Franco Zeffirelli's Hamlet, and he received a second Oscar nomination, this time for Best Supporting Actor, for Robert Redford's Quiz Show. His last major film role was in 1996's The Crucible, which won him his third BAFTA award. Scofield is survived by his wife, the actress Joy Parker, whom he married in 1943, and their two children, Martin and Sarah. --Mark Englehart, IMDb staff

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2008 | 2006 | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 | 2001 | 2000 | 1999 | 1998 | 1997

7 articles from 2008

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