BLUE MAG

Thanks to somebody’s countless hours digitizing, every review Siskel, Ebert and Roeper have ever done is now available for viewing online. This includes Ebert and Scorsese’s “Best Films of the 90s” which in my mind is one of the best things about movies ever to air on television. Note: there are still some glitches (it launched today) but the wealth of information (at least for a film junkie like me who first heard of films like “Blue Velvet” through this show) is priceless.

In looking at the “Cloverfield” posters depicting a headless Statue of Liberty gazing headlessly at NYC being destructified, like the “FURIOUS” one posted today on AICN (at right; click to embiggen), I am noticing what appears to be ripples in the water, that look like something giant has just emerged from it. See right above the release date? Does that say anything to anyone?

From AP:
“In the empty, silent spaces of the world, he has found metaphors that illuminate the silent places our hearts, and found in them, too, a strange and terrible beauty: austere, elegant, enigmatic, haunting,” Jack Nicholson said in presenting Antonioni with the career Oscar. Nicholson starred in the director’s 1975 film The Passenger.

I’m getting tired of reporting the deaths of film greats.

He was “probably the greatest film artist, all things considered, since the invention of the motion picture camera,” Woody Allen said in a 70th birthday tribute in 1988. For me the last of the GREAT filmmakers has passed. Continue reading Ingmar Bergman, 1918 - 2007.

The dorkocity of others - at ComiCon - has yielded this…

UPDATE: And of course there’s also the teaser trailer, with no footage. An email buddy questioned what exactly the mob could do that would be “too far”…

Wes Anderson fans will be delighted to see the trailer for The Darjeeling Limited, Wes and Co’s next movie due out in September. I think it looks pretty good.

Lazlo Kovacs was a cinematographer who named himself after Belmondo’s character in Breathless after moving from Hungry to America. It was almost as if he were saying he was born from the movies once he got to Hollywood. He was at film school in his native Budapest when a revolt against the Communist regime started on the streets. With classmate Vilmos Zsigmond, he borrowed a school camera and filmed the conflict. They smuggled the footage into Austria and entered the U.S. as political refugees in 1957. The historic footage was later featured in a CBS docu narrated by Walter Cronkite. Once in Hollywood, Kovacs went on to make the images for “Easy Rider,” “The King of Marvin Gardens,” “Paper Moon,” “The Last Movie,” “Shampoo,” “New York, New York,” “Ghostbusters” and many others. I’m not sure this man was created by the movies but he was certainly created for them.

He was won or was even nominated for an Oscar but shot with Bogdanovitch, Rafelson, and Scorsese on some of the best films of the 1970s. Do yourself a favor and watch one of the many films he made this week.

We’re midway through the summer season of blockbuster extravaganzas so here’s a brief recap of what has spilled across the silver screen and into my brain. Summer is usually about these huge big budget spectacles but I’ve thrown a couple of smaller films in there just to spice it up. Continue reading Summer Movies: Part One

As an offshoot of the recently revised AFI’s 100 great film list, I’ve come to the conclusion that there are several films that everyone considers great that I just can’t stand. I doubt I’ll make any friends with this list, as most of these films are beloved favorites that have transcended generations but for some reason have skipped me. (Thanks to Tony for the topic suggestion) Continue reading Top Ten Great Films Fred Can’t Stand