The new A-Team movie is currently filming in Vancouver and the main cast includes Quinton Jackson (as BA Baracus), Bradley Cooper (as Face), Liam Neeson (as Hannibal), Sharlto Copley (Murdock) and Jessica Biel (in a new role of an army general and former lover of Face).
The Daily Mail have been busy collecting all the paparazzi photos of the set (in addition to misspelling Sharlto Copley’s name).
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[Link via Buzzfeed and The Daily Mail]
A fascinating 75 minute interview with Stanley Kubrick conducted by Jeremy Bernstein in 1966.
Stanley Kubrick interview with Jeremy Bernstein, 1966 from vvL on Vimeo.
These audio recordings were used to assist in the writing of Bernstein’s long-form profile of Kubrick, published in the November 12, 1966 issue of The New Yorker.
If the above video doesn’t work, listen to it here:
[audio:http://filmdetail.receptionmedia.com/Stanley_Kubrick_Interview_1966.mp3]Michael Moore was recently on ABC’s Good Morning America to discuss his new film Capitalism: A Love Story and towards the end makes some interesting comments about the TV workers (or ‘permalancers‘) he met backstage.
This long form advert for Johnnie Walker whisky with Robert Carlyle is a pretty incredible piece of filmmaking.
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Entitled The Man Who Walked Around The World, it features Carlyle walking and talking to camera, discussing the history of the famous Scottish beverage.
It was directed by Jamie Rafn and the copy was written by Justin Moore of BBH.
Rafn explains in this interview with Shots that:
N.B If the YouTube video gets pulled then you can watch it on the official Johnnie Walker website.
Director Edgar Wright has a Flickr account and has been posting a lot of photos of late, including ones from the set of his latest film Scott Pilgrim vs. the World which stars Michael Cera and Mary Elisabeth Wanstead.
Here is a slide show of his ‘Edgar’s Photo A Day 2009’ collection:
He also has a blog and a MySpace page.
If you still haven’t seen Spaced (and I’m still surprised by the amount of people that haven’t) then you can buy it on DVD here.
Katharine Hepburn didn’t give too many interviews but this appearance on The Dick Cavett Show was one of her most notable TV appearences.
The makers of Delgo are apparently thinking of a lawsuit against Fox for the similarities between their film and the upcoming Avatar.
They feel there are visual similarities between the two and given that Delgo was a $40 million film that grossed just over $0.6 million, perhaps they are also hoping to make a little money.
[Image comparisons via http://img.denihilation.com/delgovatar.html]
Back in March 1994 Quentin Tarantino did an interview for a Channel 4 TV series called Cinefile where he talked about the career of Robert De Niro.
He makes many astute observations about the actor’s career, discussing his performances in landmark films like Mean Streets, The Godfather Part II, Taxi Driver, The Deer Hunter, Raging Bull and Once Upon a Time in America.
Here is the show in 3 parts.
N.B. Note Tarantino’s comments towards the end which highlight the decline in the quality of De Niro’s choices during the 1980s which only got worse in recent years with appearances in The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle, Meet The Fockers and Righteous Kill. There is also a moment where he anticipates the team up of Pacino and De Niro in Heat.
A 5 minute montage of landmark visual effects in the movies from The Enchanted Drawing (1900) to The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008).
Quentin Tarantino talks about There Will Be Blood and his friendship with writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson.
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Brad Pitt was on Real Time with Bill Maher recently where he talked about Inglourious Basterds, his philanthropic efforts in New Orleans, religion, weed and angry Republicans.
Here it is in two parts.
N.B. Don’t be surprised if HBO yank this off YouTube soon.
Ernie Anderson was a voice announcer for ABC television and this TV profile of him is from 1985.
His son Paul Thomas Anderson would go on to direct such films as Boogie Nights (which was dedicated to Ernie), Magnolia and There Will Be Blood and can be seen playing basketball at 3.18 in the above video.
> Listen to a reel of Ernie’s voice overs
> More on Ernie Anderson and Paul Thomas Anderson at Wikipedia
Novelist H.G. Wells and actor Orson Welles will always be linked after the latter’s infamous radio adaptation of The War of the Worlds in 1938.
Two years later the two met each other during a radio interview on KTSA radio in San Antonio, Texas.
> More on Orson Welles and H.G. Wells at Wikipedia
> Listen to the original 1938 War of the Worlds broadcast
John Humphrys is now famous for grilling politicians on the Today programme on Radio 4 but back in 1967 he interviewed a young Clint Eastwood.
The actor was in the UK on a promotional tour for a Fistful of Dollars, which was then getting released at cinemas.
It is heartening to think that both of them are still going strong in their respective careers.
[Link via Cinebeats]
A featurette for Where The Wild Things Are, the live-action adaptation of Maurice Sendak‘s classic children’s book, directed by Spike Jonze.
Peter Jackson and James Cameron took part in a ‘visionaries’ panel at Comic-Con recently where they discussed the future of films and filmmaking.
Here are video extracts from the session:
> Peter Jackson and James Cameron at the IMDb
> Official Comic-Con site
Technology journalist Walt Mossberg recently appeared on C-SPAN‘s Q&A interview series with the great Brian Lamb.
It is fascinating because Lamb always asks the direct questions, which – when applied to Mossberg’s career – reveal a fascinating period of technological change.
Among other things, they discuss ISPs in 1994, charges at the Wall Street Journal, Twitter, Silicon Valley, the near-death of Apple in the mid-90s, netbooks and iPhone apps.
It is the 40th Anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon Landings today and here are some videos to commemorate the event.
A brief introductory snapshot:
This is NASA footage of the launch on July 16th, 1969:
This is when Neil Armstrong made ‘one giant leap for mankind’:
Buzz Aldrin becomes the 2nd man on the moon:
A montage:
Slate have done a clever job of using contemporary news footage (especially of last year’s US election) to imagine how news media would cover a moon landing today:
If you want to check out two films about the Apollo moon landings then I would recommend For All Mankind (1989) and In The Shadow of the Moon (2007).
> Official NASA site
> Find out more about the Moon landings and Apollo 11 at Wikipedia
> An interview I did last year with David Sington, the director of In the Shadow of the Moon
> For all the conspiracy goons, check out the trailer for the film that helped launch all those theories
Maurice Sendak‘s classic children’s book Where The Wild Things Are is soon to be released as a live-action movie directed by Spike Jonze.
However, in 1983 a young animator at Disney shot this short piece of CGI test footage for a potential movie.
It didn’t work out as costs were too high and that young animator was unfortunately fired soon after.
However, things worked out OK in the end because he then went on to help found Pixar, direct the Toy Story movies and eventually go back to Disney in 2006 as the chief creative officer of the revamped Walt Disney Animation Studios.
His name?
This 1980 interview with Richard Pryor from the set of Stir Crazy is probably one of those that never made it to air.
> Richard Pryor at Wikipedia
> Stir Crazy at IMDb
This interesting video shows Steve Jobs unveiling the first ever iPod in 2001.
Notice the giggles when he says the word iPod for the first time 😉
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This interview with Orson Welles on The Merv Griffin Show from October 10th 1985 was the last he ever gave.
He died two hours after the taping, which makes the discussion about old age quite poignant.
> Find out more about Orson Welles at Wikipedia
> The classic Orson Welles frozen peas advert
David Honnorat has created a cinematic subway map in which all the stations are replaced by films from the IMDb top 250 list.
Download the map as a normal JPG, a hi-res jpg or a PDF.
[Link via Buzzfeed]
Oliver Stone was recently on Bill Maher’s Real Time, in which he talked about Buddhism, Vietnam, the Obama administration and Wall Street 2.
By the way, the book by Jeremy Scahill that they mention is Blackwater and I would highly recommend it.
(Also, don’t be surprised if these clips get taken down soon from YouTube)
Director Errol Morris has done an interview with Current TV in which he talks about his five favourite films (kinda).
They are: Detour, Fallen Idol, Psycho, Sullivan’s Travels and The Emperor’s Naked Army Marches On.
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> Errol Morris at the IMDb
> Current TV
Invictus is the title of the film based on Nelson Mandela‘s life during the 1995 Rugby World Cup in South Africa.
Directed by Clint Eastwood, the film stars Morgan Freeman as the then South African President Mandela and Matt Damon as Francois Pienaar, the South African team captain.
Based on the John Carlin book Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game That Changed a Nation, it is due for release in the US in December.
However images taken on the set have surfaced on a South African website.
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> Invictus at the IMDb
> Find out more about Francois Pienaar, Nelson Mandela and the 1995 Rugby World Cup at Wikipedia
In the aftermath of last week’s Champions League final last Wednesday, it was revealed that Barcelona coach Pep Guardiola had showed his players an inspirational video ten minutes before kick-off to get them in the mood for their now famous 2-0 victory.
The film is essentially a Barca ‘greatest hits’ package that mixes images from Gladiator to the film’s soundtrack by Hans Zimmer and Lisa Gerrard, before being rounded off with a blast of the opera Turandot performed by Pavarotti.
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According to reports, the film moved several of the players to tears and has been hailed as a masterstroke by the rookie manager who doesn’t actually appear in the movie.
Although given how dominant Manchester United were in the opening 10 minutes, maybe it took a while to sink in.
Last night it was shown on Catalonia’s public television channel TV3.
> BBC report on last week’s final
> Buy the Gladiator soundtrack at Amazon
Actor Klaus Kinski and director Werner Herzog became famous for their numerous collaborations and on-set bust ups.
However, this footage of Herzog playing back an audio tape from the set of Aguirre, Wrath of God is fascinating precisely because we don’t see the manic, bulging intensity of Kinski’s face.
For those who haven’t seen them, Lesley Blank’s Burden of Dreams (a documentary about the making of Fizcarraldo) and Herzog’s My Best Fiend are essential viewing.
> More on Klaus Kinski and Werner Herzog at Wikipedia
> Watch My Best Fiend on YouTube
Jeffrey Wells of Hollywood Elsewhere recorded some parts of a debate about film journalism and the internet chaired by Eugene Hernandez of indieWIRE.
It featured the following: James Rocchi (MSN Movies and AMCtv.com), Sharon Waxman (The Wrap), John Horn (LA Times), Anne Thompson (Variety) and Karina Longworth (Spout).
Part of me rolls my eyes at yet another ‘new media’ debate as the new in ‘new media’ is actually a bit old, but this did contain some nuggets of interest.
Anne Thompson shot a bit of footage at the beginning:
Find more videos like this on AnneCam
Plus, you can read her brief take on the panel here.
Then Jeff Wells shot the following two sections, which I’m guessing pick up somewhere around the middle until the end.
There are a few points raised here that are worth chewing over.
On this wrapping up segment, things get a little more serious as the wider future of journalism is discussed.
The main thing that struck me about these discussions is that we have finally reached the point where we can actually see the end of print newspapers.
That’s because titles like the Rocky Mountain News and Seattle PI have actually closed their print operations (although both still have websites) and heavyweights like the LA Times and New York Times are in dire financial trouble.
Although I tend towards the view that print newspapers dying out is part of an evolutionary economic process, this video about the closure of the aforementioned Rocky Mountain News made me really sad.
Final Edition from Matthew Roberts on Vimeo.
Film journalism is just one slice of a larger media pie, but the issues remain the same.
From my perspective things look incredibly bleak for mainstream outlets and only slightly less alarming for smaller, more independent operators.
On a final note, given that the event was moderated by indieWIRE at the American Pavillion (the hub of US activity at Cannes), why wasn’t there official audio and/or video of this on either of their sites?
Am I missing something?
Props must go again to Jeff Wells, who has audio of the whole event which can be downloaded as an MP3 here.
> indieWIRE
> American Pavillion
> Jeff Jarvis on the death of newspapers
Director J.J. Abrams discusses the new Star Trek movie on The Charlie Rose Show.
> J.J Abrams at the IMDb
> Official site for the Star Trek film
On Sunday night I set my Freeview box to record The South Bank Show which featured screenwriter William Goldman talking about his career with Melvyn Bragg.
Just a few hours ago I sat down to catch up with it and 5 minutes in (as William and Melvyn were discussing the no-rules knife fight in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid) it stopped.
The fact that the info display said the show was 837 minutes long indicated that not all was well in the bowells of my Freeview technology.
But surely ITV, with their all new, all singing, all dancing website, would have it on demand?
Er, no. Of course they don’t.
Can anyone at ITV explain why the most recent episode of their best arts programme is not available to see their website?
But then again we could be talking about the same people who screwed up monetising the Susan Boyle viral video.
However, in my post-South Bank Show funk I did come across a 1992 interview John Cleese did with Goldman that was broadcast on BBC Radio Five (or Radio 5 as it was called back then) in 1992.
Here it is in 3 parts:
If you have never read them, Goldman’s two books about his career in Hollywood – Adventures in the Screen Trade (1982) and Which Lie Did I Tell? (2000) – are essential reading.
Both are filled with profound observations and juicy anecdotes about creating stories for the big screen and manage to avoid the usual I-did-this-and-they-did-that crap of certain memoirs.
> John Cleese and William Goldman at Wikipedia
> Guardian interview with Goldman by Joe Queenan
TCM, which is 15 years old this month, have published a list of the Most Influential Classic Movies.
Normally I’m a little sceptical about these kinds of lists, but this one is pretty hard to argue with.
I think a more challenging exercise might be to list films over the last 30 years that will have a similar status in future.
Off the top of my head I’d go for:
But what about the last decade?
> Original post at TCM
> Total Film on influential movies
> Wikipedia on film in the 2000s
This short featurette on Mad Max 2 (aka The Road Warrior in the US) details the insane risks the stuntmen took during filming.
It was presumably some kind of promotional thing shot on set in 1980.
> Mad Max 2 at the IMDb
> FAQ about the Mad Max movies
This is the original trailer for Apocalypse Now.
Note the lack of narration, the length, how it is edited and the fact that Marlon Brando and Robert Duvall are billed above Martin Sheen.
> Apocalypse Now at the IMDb
> Buy it on DVD at Amazon UK
Writer-director Kevin Smith was recently interviewed by Lee Stranahan and he had two very interesting sections where they discussed the Internet.
In this part he discusses the dark side of the online world, including negative feedback and the painful experience of when his last film opened:
Here he talks about the positive aspects of the Internet and his first experiences of it back in the mid-90s:
[Link via /Film]
> Kevin Smith at the IMDb
> Hilarious video of Smith talking about his experiences working on Superman
This is the rare trailer for The Exorcist that used some of Lalo Schifrin’s rejected score.
N.B. If you have a problem with strobe lighting then it is probably best not to watch this.
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This is the original the cast of The Goonies reuniting for the DVD commentary with director Richard Donner a few years ago.
From left to right: Jonathan Ke Quan (Richard “Data” Wang), Sean Astin (Michael “Mikey” Walsh), Martha Plimpton (Stefanie ‘Stef’ Steinbrenner), Corey Feldman (Clark ‘Mouth’ Devereaux), Kerri Green (Andrea “Andy” Carmichael), Richard Donner (Director), Jeff Cohen (Lawrence “Chunk” Cohen) and Josh Brolin (Brandon “Brand” Walsh).
[Link via Buzzfeed]
> The Goonies at IMDb
> More about the 20th anniversary of the film in 2005
This Italian stop-motion short film is called Notte Sento and was made from over 4500 photos, shot on a Canon EOS 30D camera.
Notte Sento (English subtitles) from napdan on Vimeo.
The description on Buzzfeed is quite apt:
It’s like Before Sunrise but with Italians instead of Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, and zero conversation.
[Link via Buzzfeed]
> Find out more about Notte Sento at I Love Cut
> Watch a larger version on Vimeo
A fascinating TED video in which Ed Ulbrich of Digital Domain explains how the remarkable visual effects in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button were achieved.
A short featurette explaining how the visual effects for Dr Manhattan (Billy Crudup) were achieved in Watchmen.
