It’s a powerful plea against the death penalty, but also an Oscar bid for a fiery actress. And don’t forget the cool jazz music score. On top of this Robert Wise adds a formerly- taboo sequence, a realistic depiction of an execution in the gas chamber. Of such things were gritty, hard-hitting reputations made.
I Want to Live!
Blu-ray
Twilight Time
1958 / B&W / 1:85 widescreen / 121 min. / Street Date November 15, 2016 / Available from the Twilight Time Movies Store 29.95
Starring Susan Hayward, Simon Oakland, Theodore Bikel, Virginia Vincent, Wesley Lau, Philip Coolidge.
Cinematography Lionel Lindon
Original Music Johnny Mandel
Written by Nelson Gidding, Don M. Mankiewicz
Produced by Walter Wanger (for Joseph Mankiewicz)
Directed by Robert Wise
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Robert Wise’s I Want to Live! from 1958 is a Can of Worms movie… start discussing its subject matter, and opinions immediately become a stumbling block. So I’ll...
I Want to Live!
Blu-ray
Twilight Time
1958 / B&W / 1:85 widescreen / 121 min. / Street Date November 15, 2016 / Available from the Twilight Time Movies Store 29.95
Starring Susan Hayward, Simon Oakland, Theodore Bikel, Virginia Vincent, Wesley Lau, Philip Coolidge.
Cinematography Lionel Lindon
Original Music Johnny Mandel
Written by Nelson Gidding, Don M. Mankiewicz
Produced by Walter Wanger (for Joseph Mankiewicz)
Directed by Robert Wise
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Robert Wise’s I Want to Live! from 1958 is a Can of Worms movie… start discussing its subject matter, and opinions immediately become a stumbling block. So I’ll...
- 12/13/2016
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
He was the hypnotic trumpeter with a divine voice who lost it all to heroin. As Ethan Hawke plays Chet Baker in Born to Be Blue, he talks about perfection versus charisma – and the perils of early success
When asked how much he knew about jazz before playing the fabled trumpeter Chet Baker in Born to Be Blue, Ethan Hawke starts off by mentioning the Miles Davis LP he filched from his mother while still only a boy. She only had about 20 LPs, he reports, so the heist did not go unnoticed. He then moves on to discuss Baker’s attempts to impress the laconic, distant Davis, Charlie Parker’s influence on the music of the 1950s, and Baker’s working relationships with saxophonist Gerry Mulligan, trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie and pianist Herbie Hancock. The actor also mentions a snippy remark Wynton Marsalis once made about the ageing, past-his-prime Baker. By the sound of things,...
When asked how much he knew about jazz before playing the fabled trumpeter Chet Baker in Born to Be Blue, Ethan Hawke starts off by mentioning the Miles Davis LP he filched from his mother while still only a boy. She only had about 20 LPs, he reports, so the heist did not go unnoticed. He then moves on to discuss Baker’s attempts to impress the laconic, distant Davis, Charlie Parker’s influence on the music of the 1950s, and Baker’s working relationships with saxophonist Gerry Mulligan, trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie and pianist Herbie Hancock. The actor also mentions a snippy remark Wynton Marsalis once made about the ageing, past-his-prime Baker. By the sound of things,...
- 7/20/2016
- by Joe Queenan
- The Guardian - Film News
Editor’s Note: There are so many different paths to becoming a movie director, but a career in late night isn’t one of the more common ones. Rob Burnett spent 30 years working for David Letterman, rising from intern to executive producer, before directing Paul Rudd and Selena Gomez in the upcoming Netflix release “The Fundamentals of Caring.” We asked the writer/director what lessons he took from “The Late Show” and how did it prepare him for being a filmmaker. What we got was the following essay, which is a great insight into the mindset it takes to direct a feature film.
Read More: ‘The Fundamentals of Caring’ Trailer: Paul Rudd & Selena Gomez Take an Emotional Road Trip
During one of the Q&A sessions after “The Fundamentals of Caring” screened at Sundance, someone asked me what influence my work in television has had on me as a filmmaker.
Read More: ‘The Fundamentals of Caring’ Trailer: Paul Rudd & Selena Gomez Take an Emotional Road Trip
During one of the Q&A sessions after “The Fundamentals of Caring” screened at Sundance, someone asked me what influence my work in television has had on me as a filmmaker.
- 6/20/2016
- by Chris O'Falt
- Indiewire
In the minds of many, "Carol" has already won all the awards. The romantic drama was a major Cannes Film Festival sensation (where Rooney Mara picked up a Best Actress prize and Todd Haynes won the Queer Palm), it has Oscars in its sights, and a new poster has landed. Read More: All The Songs In Todd Haynes' 'Carol' Including Billie Holiday, Gerry Mulligan, the Clovers, Jo Stafford & More Cate Blanchett is the co-lead of the movie which is based on the book by Patricia Highsmith detailing the relationship that blooms between a married woman and a younger department store clerk. Reviews so far have been universal raves (read ours), and there's no doubt this is going to be a major awards season contender. "Carol" opens on November 20th. Check out the new poster below. [Vanity Fair]...
- 9/2/2015
- by Kevin Jagernauth
- The Playlist
If super hero movies and blockbusters are taking over at the box-office and, as some predict, dramas and art movies may head to VOD and TV cable premieres, then adults should be grateful that Cannes will always exist as a global launching pad for dramas. And if there’s only a handful of filmmakers left who represent a kind of superstar prestige drama that “matters,” then director Todd Haynes has to be one of them. Read More: All The Songs In Todd Haynes' 'Carol' Including Billie Holiday, Gerry Mulligan, The Clovers, Jo Stafford, & More Off the heels of his somewhat underrated and underappreciated HBO miniseries “Mildred Pierce” (which received solid reviews, but is capital A f*cking awesome), Haynes latest is “Carol,” an adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s “The Price Of Salt” which centers on an illicit lesbian affair between two women in the 1950s. Haynes' terrific...
- 5/14/2015
- by Edward Davis
- The Playlist
Oscar-winning film producer behind One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Amadeus and The English Patient
The career of the film producer Saul Zaentz, who has died aged 92, was marked not only by his independence (his productions were often largely self-funded) but also by his dedication to each individual film. Unlike most producers, who have numerous projects on the go, Zaentz worked on just one at a time. This resulted in a relatively short CV but one with a high share of Oscars, including three best picture winners: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), Amadeus (1984) and The English Patient (1996).
Zaentz was born in Passaic, New Jersey, the youngest of five children of Russian-Polish Jewish parents, Morris and Goldie. An avid reader and a fan of pop music, movies and sport, he ran away from home as a teenager to work at the St Louis Cardinals baseball team's training camp, then rode...
The career of the film producer Saul Zaentz, who has died aged 92, was marked not only by his independence (his productions were often largely self-funded) but also by his dedication to each individual film. Unlike most producers, who have numerous projects on the go, Zaentz worked on just one at a time. This resulted in a relatively short CV but one with a high share of Oscars, including three best picture winners: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), Amadeus (1984) and The English Patient (1996).
Zaentz was born in Passaic, New Jersey, the youngest of five children of Russian-Polish Jewish parents, Morris and Goldie. An avid reader and a fan of pop music, movies and sport, he ran away from home as a teenager to work at the St Louis Cardinals baseball team's training camp, then rode...
- 1/5/2014
- by Sheila Whitaker
- The Guardian - Film News
In these exclusive extracts from his classy memoir, the Anchorman opens his head and shares his biggest memories
Ron on myths about his hair
1. My hair is called Andros Papanakas. It is not. I have no name for my hair.
2. My hair was bestowed upon me by the gods. This one is hard to dispel. It would have been just like Zeus to make such a gift, or Hermes, but even though I have called on these two gods many times I have never been told specifically by either one that I was given my hair, so I have to say no to the gift-from-the-gods theory.
3. My hair is insured by Lloyd's of London for $1,000. Nope! It's fifteen hundred, thank you.
4. My hair won't talk to my moustache. This is basically true but I would hardly call that a myth.
5. My hair starred in the movie Logan's Run. It was...
Ron on myths about his hair
1. My hair is called Andros Papanakas. It is not. I have no name for my hair.
2. My hair was bestowed upon me by the gods. This one is hard to dispel. It would have been just like Zeus to make such a gift, or Hermes, but even though I have called on these two gods many times I have never been told specifically by either one that I was given my hair, so I have to say no to the gift-from-the-gods theory.
3. My hair is insured by Lloyd's of London for $1,000. Nope! It's fifteen hundred, thank you.
4. My hair won't talk to my moustache. This is basically true but I would hardly call that a myth.
5. My hair starred in the movie Logan's Run. It was...
- 11/11/2013
- The Guardian - Film News
Sex Mob: Cinema, Circus & Spaghetti: Sex Mob Plays Fellini: The Music of Nino Rota (Royal Potato Family)
Call me crazy, but I feel a connection between Rota's themes for Fellini's films and the melodic styles of Albert Ayler and Ornette Coleman. Granted, what each did once past their respective themes became wildly different, with Rota never abandoning harmony, Ornette twisting it in new directions, and Ayler abandoning it altogether, but before that happens, their themes share an effulgent earthiness and overflowing humanity. And who better to bring out the jazz side of that earthy humanity than the great recontextualizer Steve Bernstein and his longstanding quartet with Briggan Krauss (alto and baritone saxes), Tony Scherr (electric bass), and Kenny Wollesen (drums, gongs, log drum, waterphone, vibraphone).
Bernstein's slide trumpet in particular has the microtonal relationship with pitch that Ayler and Coleman each cherished to varying degrees, including a wide...
Call me crazy, but I feel a connection between Rota's themes for Fellini's films and the melodic styles of Albert Ayler and Ornette Coleman. Granted, what each did once past their respective themes became wildly different, with Rota never abandoning harmony, Ornette twisting it in new directions, and Ayler abandoning it altogether, but before that happens, their themes share an effulgent earthiness and overflowing humanity. And who better to bring out the jazz side of that earthy humanity than the great recontextualizer Steve Bernstein and his longstanding quartet with Briggan Krauss (alto and baritone saxes), Tony Scherr (electric bass), and Kenny Wollesen (drums, gongs, log drum, waterphone, vibraphone).
Bernstein's slide trumpet in particular has the microtonal relationship with pitch that Ayler and Coleman each cherished to varying degrees, including a wide...
- 7/2/2013
- by SteveHoltje
- www.culturecatch.com
American music producer who worked with many pop greats including Bob Dylan, Barbra Streisand and Frank Sinatra
Once nicknamed "The Pope of Pop", Phil Ramone, who has died aged 79, worked as a sound engineer and producer with an unparalleled list of popular musicians including Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Billy Joel, Ray Charles and Barbra Streisand. In 1993, he produced Frank Sinatra's comeback album Duets, which paired the crooner with a host of stars such as Aretha Franklin, Bono and Tony Bennett. Its success prompted a follow-up, Duets II, which was Sinatra's final studio album. Ramone used the celebrity guests concept again for Charles's album Genius Loves Company (2004) and duets albums for Bennett.
Ramone won 14 Grammys during his career and was in demand for television, film and stage projects. He collaborated with Streisand on soundtracks for A Star Is Born and Yentl, worked on stage productions of Chicago, The Wiz and...
Once nicknamed "The Pope of Pop", Phil Ramone, who has died aged 79, worked as a sound engineer and producer with an unparalleled list of popular musicians including Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Billy Joel, Ray Charles and Barbra Streisand. In 1993, he produced Frank Sinatra's comeback album Duets, which paired the crooner with a host of stars such as Aretha Franklin, Bono and Tony Bennett. Its success prompted a follow-up, Duets II, which was Sinatra's final studio album. Ramone used the celebrity guests concept again for Charles's album Genius Loves Company (2004) and duets albums for Bennett.
Ramone won 14 Grammys during his career and was in demand for television, film and stage projects. He collaborated with Streisand on soundtracks for A Star Is Born and Yentl, worked on stage productions of Chicago, The Wiz and...
- 4/1/2013
- by Adam Sweeting
- The Guardian - Film News
Gil Evans, perhaps the second-greatest arranger in jazz after Duke Ellington, was born Ian Ernest Gilmore Green on May 13, 1912 in Toronto, Canada (Evans was his stepfather's name). Though best known for his collaborations with Miles Davis, Evans released many great albums as a bandleader and created a highly influential style that changed the course of jazz history.
Though self-taught, by age 21 Evans was leading a big band that became the house group at the Rendezvous Ballroom in Balboa Beach. Eventually it was fronted and then led by singer Skinnay Ennis, and Claude Thornhill joined Evans in providing arrangements for them. Thornhill then moved to New York to start his own band, and in 1941 invited Evans to New York to write arrangements. Soon Evans's arrangements with their lush, hazy, floating textures defined the Thornhill style.
Though theoretically a swing band, the Thornhill ensemble was one of the most progressive big bands of its time,...
Though self-taught, by age 21 Evans was leading a big band that became the house group at the Rendezvous Ballroom in Balboa Beach. Eventually it was fronted and then led by singer Skinnay Ennis, and Claude Thornhill joined Evans in providing arrangements for them. Thornhill then moved to New York to start his own band, and in 1941 invited Evans to New York to write arrangements. Soon Evans's arrangements with their lush, hazy, floating textures defined the Thornhill style.
Though theoretically a swing band, the Thornhill ensemble was one of the most progressive big bands of its time,...
- 5/13/2012
- by SteveHoltje
- www.culturecatch.com
Written by the great Richard Rogers and Lorenz Hart for the 1937 musical Babes In Arms, "My Funny Valentine" is one of those genuinely timeless standards that put the Great in the Great American Songbook. Today, as we were spending our pre-Valentine's Day Saturday doing such romantic activities as getting her car serviced, driving our kids around town and cleaning my home office, Fran somehow made me laugh many times. And though I'm the one whose "looks are laughable" and she's the "work of art," I dedicate this funny playlist to her with love. "My Funny Valentine" - Frank Sinatra "My Funny Valentine" - Elvis Costello & Marian McPartland "My Funny Valentine" - Gerry Mulligan "My Funny Valentine" - Miles Davis Quintet "My Funny Valentine" - Ella Fitzgerald "My Funny Valentine" - Tony Bennett "My Funny Valentine" - Chet Atkins "My Funny Valentine" - Etta James "My Funny Valentine"...
- 2/14/2010
- by David Wild
- Huffington Post
American photographer whose informal shots defined the youthful glamour of the 1950s and 1960s
With his artfully informal shots of Audrey Hepburn and Chet Baker, the American photographer Bob Willoughby, who has died of cancer aged 82, defined the youthful glamour of the 1950s. Hired by studios and record companies to make actors and musicians look good, Willoughby went beyond his brief to deliver portraits of an idealised elegance particular to its time. He captured the gamine, doe-eyed 24-year-old Hepburn reading letters on a hotel bed in 1953, and the impossibly cool Baker, the same age in the same year, seated on a folding chair in a recording studio, patiently awaiting his moment.
Much sought-after by Hollywood film studios, Willoughby developed new techniques to help him take still photographs on the set, using remote-controlled devices and brackets specially made to attach his apparatus to Panavision film cameras. The films he worked on...
With his artfully informal shots of Audrey Hepburn and Chet Baker, the American photographer Bob Willoughby, who has died of cancer aged 82, defined the youthful glamour of the 1950s. Hired by studios and record companies to make actors and musicians look good, Willoughby went beyond his brief to deliver portraits of an idealised elegance particular to its time. He captured the gamine, doe-eyed 24-year-old Hepburn reading letters on a hotel bed in 1953, and the impossibly cool Baker, the same age in the same year, seated on a folding chair in a recording studio, patiently awaiting his moment.
Much sought-after by Hollywood film studios, Willoughby developed new techniques to help him take still photographs on the set, using remote-controlled devices and brackets specially made to attach his apparatus to Panavision film cameras. The films he worked on...
- 1/19/2010
- by Richard Williams
- The Guardian - Film News
Celebrity photographer Bob Willoughby has died, aged 82.
Willoughby, who photographed Audrey Hepburn, Roman Polanski and Mia Farrow, Frank Sinatra, Dustin Hoffman, and many others on Hollywood movie sets, lost his battle with cancer on 18 December at his home in Vence, in the South of France.
In the early 1950s he began photographing jazz musicians in California clubs, notably Chet Baker and Gerry Mulligan.
He became well known in Hollywood after Warner Brothers asked him to photograph Judy Garland on the set of her 1954 film A Star Is Born. The iconic photo later landed the cover of Life magazine.
Willoughby also created lasting images of Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor on the set of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Jane Fonda at work on Klute, Hepburn on Roman Holiday, and Sinatra, whom he photographed with the Rat Pack in front of the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas during the filming of Ocean’s Eleven.
He is survived by his wife Dorothy, his sons Christopher, Stephen and David, a daughter, Catherine, and eight grandchildren.
Willoughby, who photographed Audrey Hepburn, Roman Polanski and Mia Farrow, Frank Sinatra, Dustin Hoffman, and many others on Hollywood movie sets, lost his battle with cancer on 18 December at his home in Vence, in the South of France.
In the early 1950s he began photographing jazz musicians in California clubs, notably Chet Baker and Gerry Mulligan.
He became well known in Hollywood after Warner Brothers asked him to photograph Judy Garland on the set of her 1954 film A Star Is Born. The iconic photo later landed the cover of Life magazine.
Willoughby also created lasting images of Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor on the set of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Jane Fonda at work on Klute, Hepburn on Roman Holiday, and Sinatra, whom he photographed with the Rat Pack in front of the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas during the filming of Ocean’s Eleven.
He is survived by his wife Dorothy, his sons Christopher, Stephen and David, a daughter, Catherine, and eight grandchildren.
- 12/29/2009
- WENN
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