Feed the Queue #84
Here are the results of last week's poll.
- A Hard Day's Night (1964)
- This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
- Interview with the Assassin (2002)
- Take the Money and Run (1969)
- Zelig (1983)
- Borat (2009)
A Hard Day's Night wins and goes into my queue.
Oscar Profile #86: Ann Sothern
Born Harriet Lake on January 22, 1909 in Valley City, North Dakota and raised in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Ann Sothern was the daughter of a singer and vocal coach. Her younger sister was the composer Bonnie Lake. Her paternal grandfather, Simon Lake, was the inventor of the modern submarine.
With her good looks and outgoing personality she had no trouble breaking into movies right after high school. She was an extra in 1927’s Broadway Nights and a chorus girl in several early musicals including 1930’s Whoopee! and 1933’s Footlight Parade. At the same time, she appeared in small parts on Broadway in shows including the Pulitzer Prize winning musical Of Thee I Sing.
Signed by Columbia, by 1934 she was starring opposite Whoopee! star Eddie Cantor in Kid Millions. She made eleven mostly forgettable films for Columbia in 1934 and 1935, after which she went to RKO where the material was better, but only marginally. Now married to actor Richard Pryor, a dramatic role in independent producer Walter Wanger’s 1938 film, Trade Winds, led to an RKO contract where her first film was Maisie from the play by Wilson Collinson, whose Red Dust had been a hit for Jean Harlow. MGM had purchased the property for Harlow, but the property was put on hold after her death in 1936. The 1939 film was such a success that MGM turned it into a profitable series that spawned eight sequels.
Sothern introduced the Oscar winning song “The Last Time I Saw Paris” in 1941’s Lady Be Good. The song, which quickly became a standard, was written by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II.
2012 Summer Preview: June
The year has had some strong months, mostly due to high grosses from two particular films The Hunger Games from March and The Avengers from two weeks ago. While I think the closest any film in June will come to these is Brave's 270 million prediction, it's going to be an overall stronger breakdown per weekend. So, here are my predictions for the upcoming month of June with the standard caveat that I'm not great at the numbers game, but I do my very best.
June 1-3, 2012
Blogathon: The Hitch Ten, Part 4
For the For Love of Film Blogathon this week, today we're counting down our third and second favorite Alfred Hitchcock films along with a brief note on why they are important to each of our contributors (Wesley Lovell, Peter J. Patrick, Tripp Burton) here at Cinema Sight.
Number 3
Rebecca (Wesley Lovell)
The only time Hitchcock took home an Oscar for Best Picture just so happened to be his first American-made film. While the story and genre is fairly traditional, Hitchcock never lets the audience feel they are watching something old hat. From the iconic performance of Judith Anderson as Mrs. Danvers to the stellar turns by Laurence Olivier, Joan Fontaine and George Sanders, there's nothing milquetoast about the production. And because it fits more nicely into the mainstream of the time, a lot of people tend to dismiss the film unfairly while it stands as a testament to how Hitch had the capability of taking convention and turning it on its ear all while maintaining that feeling of traditionalism the genre needed.
Rear Window (Peter J. Patrick)
Hitchcock's breeziest film revolves around the uncomfortable situation of a wheelchair bound voyeur who may or may not have witnesses a murder. The word-play between James Stewart and Grace Kelly, and Stewart and Thelma Ritter is a bonus.
Psycho (Tripp Burton)
It almost seems too obvious to put Psycho high up on this list, since it is Hitchcock's most famous film, and contains so many "classic" elements that is almost seems like you know the entire film long before you ever see it. Watching Psycho for the first time though, you encounter a film so well-made that it never feels familiar or stale, no matter how many imitators and spoofers it has inspired. Anthony Perkins gives one of cinema's greatest performances as mentally deranged innkeeper Norman Bates, whose surprise twist is only one place where Hitchcock completely subverts the genre he perfected. Nothing in this film is ever what it seems, from the identity of the killer to the fate of the leading lady to the way that Hitchcock so openly treats sexuality and violence throughout the film. Then, of course, there is the shower scene, probably the most famous and most dissected sequence in cinematic history, and still as chilling today as it was 50 years ago.
Number 2
Rear Window (Wesley Lovell)
Few films in Hitchcock's stable of masterpieces can live up to the lofty goals set by one of his most inventive and original stories. Set entirely within the small courtyard of an apartment complex, a voyeuristic photographer, confined to his wheelchair, believes he's seen the man across the courtyard murder his wife. Stuck with a broken leg the superb James Stewart struggles to uncover the truth while those around him scoff and his nosiness draws the unwanted attention of the murderous neighbor. There are so many twists and turns in the film that you'll scarcely notice the running time drifting by as you live vicariously through Stewart and his troubled lens. Hitchcock was a very experimental filmmaker and this is his most profoundly original experiment.
Notorious (Peter J. Patrick)
Hitchcock's great cynical romance played against the background of Nazi spies is probably the Hitchcock film I've seen more than any other. There are four superb perfomrances in this film, by Ingrid Bergman as the German-born American agent caught in a hornet's nest of spies; Cary Grant as her American handler; Claude Rains as her Nazi husband; and Leopoldine Konstantin as Rains' serpentine mother.
Notorious (Tripp Burton)
Hitchcock was always famous for the "MacGuffin," the thing that set the plot of a film in motion but had little bearing on the true meaning of the film. In Notorious, there is a plot involving Nazis, uranium, kidnapping and spys. What the film is really about, though, is the sparkling sexual tension between Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant, and the ways in which they can find to keep their own passion ignited in the face of evil. Claude Raines is exceptional as the Nazi villain, but it is the way that Hitchcock keeps everything so tight, while giving his two leads the room to breathe and take in each other that makes the film so exciting. It also contains the longest kiss in film history.
This Day in Oscar History: May 17
Here's what happened today in Oscar History.
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Trailer Watch: People Like Us
It's a terrible title for a film so bland and milquetoast.
People Like Us
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Plot Summary: When his father dies and leaves him a hefty some of money, his father's request that he split it with the sister he didn't know he had puts a crimp in his plans to use the money to pay down his sizable debts. Release Date: June 29, 2012 |
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Rating: C Commentary: All they need is a picket fence and a lovable mutt and they'd have a white-washed poster design appealing to the middle America of the late 1950's. |
Rating: C+ Commentary: In spite of not being a romantic comedy, the trailer is cut like one making this story seem semi-incestuous, which is probably not the goal of the producers. |
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Preview Link: CLICK HERE for link to the trailer, more posters (if available) and other commentary not featured here. Oscar Chances: None. |
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Game: 2012 Summer Box Office Week 3 & Week 2 Results
For a full list of rules, click here: 2012 Summer Box Office Predictions Game Rules.
Submit Your Predictions for This Week
- Top Ten Films at the U.S. Box Office of the week in order from most money to least.
- Individual monetary predictions for each film.
- Final box office tally for all new wide releases.
- Awards predictions for any film you think has a shot at an end-of-year awards nomination.
This Week's New Wide Releases
Battleship (3,750 screens)
The Dictator (2,800 screens)
What to Expect When You're Expecting (3,000 screens)
Last Week's Results
Looking at the Weekend: May 18-20, 2012
It's possible that The Avengers could again top the weekend box office. This weak line up is evinced by the number of releases competing for a piece of the pie. While The Dictator might be the kind of comedy that does good business, never underestimate the power of aliens+visual effects, which I think gives Battleship the best chance of being the week's top new release.
Consensus
Below is a list of what we have come to a general consensus on. The number in parens represents the percentage of our contributors who agree with the statement.
Battleship: Loud and bombastic, it's going to need to do big business to avoid being labeled a flop.
The Dictator: Does anyone really find Sacha Baron Cohen funny anymore?
What to Expect When You're Expecting: The chances of this being a lame "chick flick" are fairly high.
Hysteria: If you don't mind period dramas, then this story of the purported invention of the vibrator may pique your interests.
Blogathon: Hitch at the Oscars
For the For Love of Film Blogathon this week, we're not only counting down our favorite Hitchcock films, but Peter and I have both prepared articles for the event. Peter's article will cover prominent actors and how their onscreen personas were altere at his hands in various films. My article (this one) will be a little more trivia-oriented covering the Academy love affair and lackthereof with the late Master of Suspense.
Alfred Hitchcock had made more than 20 films in his native England before moving stateside in 1940. Although he critical acclaim for those early films, the Academy didn't take notice of him until his first foray into American productions. Not only did they nominate both of his first American features released concurrently in 1940, Rebecca and Foreign Correspondent for Best Picture, they gave his Rebecca the prize for Best Picture. It was a great welcome from Hollywood.
Although his films regularly received Oscar nominations, wins were few and far between and even his most prominent work wasn't recognized for Best Picture after his fourth and final time in that category for Spellbound in 1945. As for his own Oscar nominations, he received five for Best Director, never taking home the award. In 1968, they gave him an honorary trophy, the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award for producing. But make no mistake, the Thalberg (a bust of the late producer Irving G. Thalberg) is not an Oscar, making Hitchcock one of the most celebrated directors in history never to have an Oscar statuette with his name inscribed on it.
Blogathon: The Hitch Ten, Part 3
For the For Love of Film Blogathon this week, today we're counting down our fifth and fourth favorite Alfred Hitchcock films along with a brief note on why they are important to each of our contributors (Wesley Lovell, Peter J. Patrick, Tripp Burton) here at Cinema Sight.
Number 5
The Birds(Wesley Lovell)
Being a fan of the horror genre, two classics directed by Hitchcock helped define all others that followed. One of those two was the killer-bird drama The Birds. Set almost entirely within the cramped confines of a lonely house, trapped by a flock of territorial birds hell-bent on attacking anyone that gets near them. Psychologically thrilling without the need for gore, The Birds is one of those films that you remember vividly after only a single watch. It's always been one of my favorite genre flicks and is on my list films I'd like to re-watch after I've seen the full Hitch canon.
Psycho (Peter J. Patrick)
Hitchcock's taut direction, Bernard Herrmann's pulsating score and the performances of Anthony Perkins and Janet Leigh combined to make the first modern horror film an unforgettable experience, a feat that can never be duplicated and shouldn't have been tried, even though they did -abysmally- in 1998.
Lifeboat (Tripp Burton)
Perhaps the biggest surprise for me putting this list together was how high up I placed Lifeboat. One of Hitchcock's great experiments in filmmaking, confining a group of actors to a boat in a tank of water for 90 minutes, creates one of his most unusual yet compelling films. Most importantly, though, is how complex Hitchcock is able to make each of his characters, and how real he made even the Germans in a World War II-era war film. It is one of his smallest films, and one of his least "thrilling," but it is still just as powerful and explosive as any other film in his canon.
Number 4
Psycho (Wesley Lovell)
The ultimate genre thriller by Hitchcock is often cited as the mother, and I use that with tongue firmly set in cheek, of all slasher films. Although it was beaten to the punch every so briefly by Peeping Tom, it's this masterpiece that fans of the genre look back to for all the cues and styles that have defined generations of films in the milieu. Crisply edited with a shocking twist that left audiences in the day reeling (and even some modern audiences who might be unfamiliar with the finale), this is easily one of his best films.
Vertigo (Peter J. Patrick)
A rare Hitchcock film in which the mystery is as important as the getting there with James Stewart at the top of his game as a private detecitve who suffers from acrophobia (the fear of heights) and how that fears plays into a cunning murderer's plans. Two Kim Novaks and great location filming in and around San Francisco add to the fun.
Shadow of a Doubt (Tripp Burton)
Hitchcock's work with actors (whom he called cattle on multiple occasions) is not usually talked about in his body of work, but he had an impeccable eye for casting and drawing out the best from movie stars in unsuspected ways. In Shadow of a Doubt, he gives reliable movie star Joseph Cotten his most complex and three-dimensional role as the murderous uncle who strolls back into town and upends his entire family. Hitchcock's eye for detail was never better than on this film, which is among his tautest thrillers and most complex character studies, filled with great actors giving thrilling performances and thrilling set pieces adding up to a great film.
This Day in Oscar History: May 16
Here's what happened today in Oscar History.
Ceremonies
1929: 1st Annual Academy Awards
(Presentation Ceremony) {for the films of 1927/28}
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Poll: What Are You Watching? (May 18-20, 2012)
Return Links
What Are You Watching? Poll Archive
What Are You Watching? (May 18-20, 2012)
Trailer Watch: Gangster Squad
A period mob drama starring some of the hottest actors working today...but will it be any good?
Gangster Squad
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Plot Summary: As Los Angeles falls deeper under the control of a powerful mob boss, a group of cops return their badges and begin taking the law and the destruction of the mob into their own hands. Release Date: Coming Soon |
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Rating: None Commentary: Poster was a placeholder at the time this post was written. |
Rating: B- Commentary: The banner of the Apple trailer page is quite interesting, but the film looks less so. There are some fine actors and actresses in this production and it could be a great deal of fun, but there's something off about the film as portrayed in the trailer. |
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Preview Link: CLICK HERE for link to the trailer, more posters (if available) and other commentary not featured here. Oscar Chances: A lot depends on how well the film is received by audiences and critics. It could be one of the year's big contenders, but the trailer doesn't give me much hope of that. |
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5 Favorites #78: 5 Favorite Ellen Burstyn Performances
Every week, we'll pose a new "five favorites" question. You just list your five favorites that fit in that category (preferably in preference order) and you're welcome to discuss and debate the selections and see just how much you do or do not have in common with others. If you want to take a look back at our past articles to comment or enjoy, here is a post set aside to track all of our articles.
She still puts out interesting work, so she might have more great performances to come, but as of now which are your favorites?
What are your 5 Favorite Ellen Burstyn performances?
The DVD Report #256
I tend not to read other people’s reviews of films before rendering my own opinion of them so as not to allow other people’s thoughts to influence my own. This week, however, I made an exception and checked out Rotten Tomatoes’ reviews of The Vow.
I had been under the impression that the film had received widespread critical approval, when in fact its Rotten Tomatoes rating was a decidedly rotten 29 on a scale of 100. I didn’t think it was that bad, but a few of the things others found problematic were the things that bothered me about it.
The thing that really bothered me was that I recalled the film according to several TV pundits as being “based on” a real story. Wrong! It was “inspired by” a real story, which is an entirely different matter. When a film is “based on” something, it has to have some kind of relation to the source material. When it’s “inspired by” something, it can go off in his own direction regardless of the facts. That’s what seemed to be going on here. The film doesn’t resemble real life so much as lives lived in a novel by Nicholas Sparks. That thought is underscored by the principal casting of Rachel McAdams and Channing Tatum who starred, respectively, in The Notebook and Dear John, earlier films based on Sparks’ novels.
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- Record Number of Entries in Academy's 2012 Nicholl Screenwriting Competition May 16, 2012
- The Academy Welcomes "Barry Lyndon" in NYC, Director Bennett Miller to Introduce May 15, 2012
- Academy Announces U.S. Winners for 2012 Student Academy Awards® May 15, 2012
- Foreign Winners Selected for 2012 Student Academy Awards® May 11, 2012
- Academy Docs Paint Personal Portraits of Eccentric Genius May 9, 2012