Monthly Archives: October 2010
Oscar Vault Monday – Citizen Kane, 1941 (dir. Orson Welles)
Love it or hate it, Citizen Kane made an indelible mark in cinematic history and will forever be lauded as one of the great films ever made. The American Film Institute listed it as the #1 American film on both their 1998 list of the 100 Greatest American Films and their Ten Year Anniversary list from 2007. Everybody knows that quote “rosebud….” whether they know what it refers to or no. It did not, however, win the Academy Award for the Best Picture of 1941. No, indeed, that award went to the schmaltzy Zanuck produced, John Ford directed family drama/literary adaptation How Green Was My Valley. I recently saw that film, and I must say I found it to be the most boring of all the Best Picture winners I’ve seen (I’ve only got six left to watch!) I can see why it won though, Academy Politics and John Ford at the helm and Darryl F. Zanuck as producer. But it definitely is not a film that endures or a film many will remember, other than perhaps how much it bored them, the way thatCitizen Kane will. Kane is a classic in every sense of the word. It was nominated for nine Academy Awards, ultimately only winning one. Those nominations were Best Film Editing – Robert Wise (who would go on to become a great director/producer in his own right, winning four Academy awards), Best Score, Best Sound, Best B&W Cinematography, Best B&W Art Direction, Best Actor Orson Welles, Best Director Orson Welles, Best Original Screenplay Orson Welles and Herman J. Mankiewicz (won) and Best Picture. It was up against Blossoms In The Dust, Here Comes Mr. Jordan, Hold Back The Dawn, One Foot In Heaven, Sergeant York, Suspicion, The Little Foxes, The Maltese Falcon and winner How Green Was My Valley.
Beware, if you’ve never seen the film before there will be at least one really big spoiler.
Movie Quote of the Day – The Shining, 1980 (dir. Stanley Kubrick)
Jack Torrance: Wendy? Darling? Light, of my life. I’m not gonna hurt ya. You didn’t let me finish my sentence. I said, I’m not gonna hurt ya. I’m just going to bash your brains in.
Movie Quote of the Day – Live Free or Die Hard, 2007 (dir. Len Wiseman)
Matt Farrell: You just killed a helicopter with a car!
John McClane: I was out of bullets.
Movie Quote of the Day – Before Sunrise, 1995 (dir. Richard Linklater)
Jesse: Um, do you believe in reincarnation?
Céline: Yeah, yeah, it’s interesting.
Jesse: Most people, you know, a lot of people talk about the past lives, and things like that, you know, and even if they don’t believe in it in some specific way, you know, people have some kind of notion of an eternal soul, right?
Céline: Yeah.
Jesse: Okay. Well, this is my thought. Fifty thousand years ago, there are not even a million people on the planet. Ten thousand years ago, there’s like two million people on the planet. Now, there’s between five and six billion people on the planet, right? Now, if we all have our own, like, individual, unique soul, right, where do they all come from? Are modern souls only a fraction of the original souls?. Because if they are, that represents a five thousand-to-one split of each soul in just the last fifty thousand years, which is like a blip in the earth’s time. You know, so, at best, we’re like these tiny fractions of people, you know, walking… I mean, is that why we’re all so scattered? You know, is that why we’re all so specialized?
Céline: Wait a minute, I’m not sure I…I don’t….
Jesse: Hang on, I know, I know, its a totally scattered thought, which is kind of why it makes sense.
New Posters For Aronofksy’s “Black Swan”
These posters. I just can’t even describe my love for these posters.
The film hit the festival circuit earlier this fall to almost universal acclaim. The film opens on December 3rd.
Movie Quote of the Day – Across The Universe, 2007 (dir. Julie Taymor)
Max’s Father: Goddammit, Max! Get serious, for once! What are you going to DO with your life?
Max: Why is it always what will I do? “What will he do”, “What will he do,” “Oh, my god what will he do”, Do, do, do, do, do. Why isn’t the issue here who I am?
Uncle Teddy: Because, Maxwell, what you do defines who you are.
Max: No, Uncle Teddy. Who you are defines what you do. Right Jude?
Jude: Well, surely it’s not what you do, but the, uh… the way that you do it.
Movie Quote of the Day – Ghostbusters, 1984 (dir. Ivan Reitman)
Winston Zeddemore: Ray, when someone asks you if you’re a god, you say “YES”!
Movie Quote of the Day – Wolf, 1994 (dir. Mike Nichols)
Roy: Two things.
Will Randall: Go.
Roy: How many investors do we have?
Will Randall: I don’t know. Haven’t called any yet.
Roy: But you want me to say it anyway?
Will Randall: Yes.
Roy: Second thing: Is any of this true?
Will Randall: Not yet.
Roy: You are my God.
Auteur of the Week: Stephen Daldry
Stephen Daldry is pretty much the John Cazale of directors. (Google John Cazale if you don’t get what I mean by that). He’s directed three films and has been nominated for Best Director by the Academy for all three films. Only two of them were nominated for Best Picture, but it’ quite possibly Billy Elliot was thisclose to getting one of those five slots in 2000. Odds are if the Weinsteins hadn’t had a film out that year (Chocolat) that they aggressively campaigned for, it would have. What I love the most about Daldry as a director, and I think this comes from his background as a theater director, is the strong performances he gets out of his actors. I dare you to find one bad, or even “just okay” performance in one of his films. You’ll be hard-pressed to find one. He has director five Academy Award nominated and two Academy Award winning performances. That’s pretty good for a guy who’s only done three feature films so far.
Movie Quote of the Day – The Godfather: Part II, 1974 (dir. Francis Ford Coppola)
Michael Corleone: I know it was you, Fredo. You broke my heart. You broke my heart!
the diary of a film history fanatic 