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9 items from 2012
100 Facts on Universal Pictures' 100th Birthday
30 April 2012 11:28 AM, PDT | Rope of Silicon | See recent Rope Of Silicon news »
Today marks the 100th birthday of Universal Pictures and to celebrate the studio has released a list of 100 facts based on its first 100 years in existence. I have placed in bold some of the ones I found interesting as well as offered a selection of photo and video accompaniments here and there. 1. Universal Film Manufacturing Company was officially incorporated in New York on April 30, 1912. Company legend says Carl Laemmle was inspired to name his company Universal after seeing "Universal Pipe Fittings" written on a passing delivery wagon. 2. The only physical damage made during the filming of National Lampoon's Animal House was when John Belushi made a hole in the wall with a guitar. The actual Sigma Nu fraternity house (which subbed for the fictitious Delta House) never repaired it, and instead framed the hole in honor of the film. 3. The working title for Et: The Extra Terrestrial was "A Boy's Life. »
- Brad Brevet
Sweet Revenge: The Intimate Life of Simon Cowell by Tom Bower – review
26 April 2012 3:00 AM, PDT | The Guardian - TV News | See recent The Guardian - TV News news »
He's been the linchpin of top-rating TV for a decade, but we still know little about Cowell the man. This book doesn't help much
"Rosebud," croaks Charles Foster Kane with his dying breath, the mysterious utterance symbolic of what drives Orson Welles's antihero to become a monster of his time. A reporter embarks on a doomed struggle to find out what he meant by it – and similar questions are being asked about Simon Cowell in Sweet Revenge. What drives the TV music mogul? What does he mean by it all?
Whether or not you care for Cowell's output is irrelevant. The unavoidable fact is that TV audiences here and in America have spent a decade gripped by top-rating productions in which he is the linchpin, which should make this a story of the age as much as of the man. Cowell has had an extraordinarily sustained ability to gauge and manipulate public taste. »
- Marina Hyde
Barney Rosset, 1922 - 2012
24 February 2012 7:41 AM, PST | MUBI | See recent MUBI news »
From John Gall, art director for Vintage and Anchor Books, comes word that legendary publisher and film distributor Barney Rosset has passed away at the age of 89. Gall points us to a lively profile by Louisa Thomas that ran in Newsweek in late 2008: "Rosset's publishing house, Grove Press, was a tiny company operating out of the ground floor of Rosset's brownstone when it published an obscure play called Waiting for Godot in 1954. By the time Beckett had won the Nobel Prize in 1969, Grove had become a force that challenged and changed literature and American culture in deep and lasting ways. Its impact is still evident — from the Che Guevara posters adorning college dorms to the canonical status of the house's once controversial authors. Rosset is less well known — but late in his life he is achieving some wider recognition. Last month, a black-tie crowd gave Rosset a standing ovation »
The 5 Most Deserving Best Supporting Actress Oscar Wins
22 February 2012 12:07 PM, PST | AfterElton.com | See recent AfterElton.com news »
Cloris Leachman and Timothy Bottoms in The Last Picture Show
Newsflash: I can't stop thinking about the Oscars. I'm writhing around in my bathrobe crying Irving Thalberg's name and opening every briefcase I can find, just in case Price Waterhouse hid the list of this year's winners in my attic. (Still looking!) In the meantime, let's take a moment to honor some occasions when The Academy Awards were worthy of this level of fanaticism. Here are the five greatest winners in my favorite category, Best Supporting Actress. You can't beat a woman going for broke in a secondary role; there's a nothing-to-lose gutsiness about these dames, and they make the most of their every fleeting moment onscreen.
5. Kim Hunter, A Streetcar Named Desire
Though Blanche DuBois (Vivien Leigh) and Stanley Kowalski (Marlon Brando) are compelling portraits on their own, the genius in Elia Kazan's adaptation of Tennessee Williams »
- virtel
The Help: The Power of Film to Create Social Change
4 February 2012 9:29 AM, PST | Hollywoodnews.com | See recent Hollywoodnews.com news »
HollywoodNews.com: There is a vibrant tradition in American cinema of films that tackle compelling social issues. Seminal films, including “To Kill a Mockingbird,” “In the Heat of the Night,” “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” and “Norma Rae” remind everyone that the smallest acts of courage can inspire social change. This tradition continues with the recent film “The Help,” which examines the relationships between black maids and their white employers in 1960s Mississippi. The film reminds audiences that popular culture has the power to affect change and illuminate the plight of those without a voice.
About “The Help”: Based on one of the most talked about books in years and a #1 New York Times best-selling phenomenon, “The Help” stars Emma Stone (“Easy A”) as Skeeter, Academy Award®–nominated Viola Davis (“Doubt”) as Aibileen and Octavia Spencer as Minny—three very different, extraordinary women in Mississippi during the 1960s, »
- Josh Abraham
TCM Celebrates The Artist With List Of 10 Most Influential Silent Films
18 January 2012 2:09 PM, PST | WeAreMovieGeeks.com | See recent WeAreMovieGeeks.com news »
Turner Classic Movies (TCM) has unveiled its list of 10 Most Influential Silent Films in celebration of Michel Hazanavicius’ ode to the silent era, The Artist, which won three Golden Globes® Sunday night, including Best Picture . Musical or Comedy, Best Actor . Musical or Comedy for Jean Dujardin and Best Original Score. The Artist also picked up 12 British Academy Film Award nominations. The Weinstein Company will expand its release of The Artist nationwide on Friday.
TCM’s list of 10 Most Influential Silent Films spans from the years 1915 to 1928 and features such remarkable films as D.W. Griffith’s groundbreaking (and controversial) The Birth of a Nation (1915), which revolutionized filmmaking techniques; Nanook of the North (1922), a film frequently cited as the first feature-length documentary; Cecil B. DeMille’s epic silent version of The Ten Commandments (1923); Sergei Eisenstein’s oft-imitated Battleship Potemkin (1925), which took montage techniques to an entirely new level; and Fritz Lang’s »
- Michelle McCue
365 Days, 100 Films #88 - A Night at the Opera (1935)
10 January 2012 8:50 AM, PST | Flickeringmyth | See recent Flickeringmyth news »
A Night at the Opera, 1935.
Directed by Sam Wood.
Starring Groucho Marx, Chico Marx, Harpo Marx, Kitty Carlisle, Allan Jones, Margaret Dumont and Sig Ruman.
Synopsis:
The Marx Brothers make fools of high society’s opera lovers, and try to help their two friends-in-love along the way.
Groucho always gets the most ridiculously stately names. Captain Geoffrey T. Spaulding from Animal Crackers, for example, or Professor Quincy Adams Wagstaff from Horse Feathers. Mr Otis B. Driftwood is his character in A Night at the Opera. He’s still Groucho, though. He’s always Groucho.
Groucho acts as an advisor of sorts to Mrs Claypool (Margaret Dumont, of course). She’s trying to break into high society and solicits Groucho’s help. Why, we have no idea. This is a Marx Brothers film. Logic and rationality are the enemies.
He chooses the opera as their way up society’s ladder, encouraging »
- flickeringmyth
The history of MGM: the silent era
10 January 2012 3:25 AM, PST | Den of Geek | See recent Den of Geek news »
In the first part of a new series, Zoe takes a look back at the history of MGM, one of Hollywood’s oldest and most notable studios...
Studios have come and gone since the birth of cinema, and the film business is an unpredictable one, as the history of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer reveals. Founded in 1924, its name conjures up images of lavish musicals, sweeping historical epics, glamorous stars and its mascot, Leo the lion.
It’s fair to say that MGM is one of the most famous and influential studios in Hollywood, and certainly one of the most iconic studios to come out of American film industry. But where did it all begin?
The story begins in the early 1920s. Vaudeville, previously one of the most popular forms of entertainment, is beginning to dwindle, as movies capture the public’s imagination. Enter Marcus Loew, a theatre chain owner. What Loew wanted was »
Frederica Sagor Pt.3: The Way Of All Flesh Plagiarism
6 January 2012 7:04 PM, PST | Alt Film Guide | See recent Alt Film Guide news »
Frederica Sagor Pt.2: Women Screenwriters in 1920s Hollywood [Photo: Emil Jannings in The Way of All Flesh.] Frederica Sagor's reported final Hollywood screen credit was the scenario for the 1928 slapstick comedy The Farmer's Daughter, directed by Arthur Rosson at Fox. Marjorie Beebe, previously featured in several comedy shorts, had the title role (no relation to Loretta Young's 1947 Oscar-winning Congresswoman-to-be). In her book, Sagor says she was paid $750 a week (approx. $9,700 today) to write the story for this programmer — one she hated — about rural lovers and piles of manure. The previous year, Sagor had married screenwriter Ernest Maas, who held an executive post at Fox. In her autobiography, she states that the couple wrote a story named Beefsteak Joe, inspired by the life of Maas' father, that was misappropriated by Paramount and released as The Way of All Flesh. Directed by Gone with the Wind's Victor Fleming, the now-lost melodrama — Madame X meets Stella Dallas in »
- Andre Soares
2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2004 | 2002 | 2001 | 1999
9 items from 2012
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