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If you haven’t already heard through the thousands of ads being seen at this very moment, the Tintin movie opens today. For the handful of Americans who are actually fans of the Belgian hero, this is big news. But since Tintin never caught on in America like he did throughout the rest of the world, many people are purely interested to see if a Peter Jackson/Steven Spielberg crossover could possibly be as epic as the big names on the marquee would suggest.
That’s why we here at Neatorama wanted to share a little bit of history and trivia about the world-famous character. Even if you are already a fan of Tintin though, read on because there might just be a few tidbits you didn’t know about.
Image Via Dylan Parker [Flickr]
Tintin was created by Belgian artist Georges Rémi, who wrote under the pen name Herge. He was largely based on one of the author’s earlier characters, a chubby boy scout named Totor. While he was thinner and better dressed than Totor, Tintin maintained the earlier character’s high ideals and kindness, as well as his knack for getting into sticky situations.
The first Tintin strip was printed in the Belgian right wing newspaper, Le XXe Siècle (The 20th Century), on January 10, 1929. Going along with the paper’s right wing beliefs, the character’s first adventure, titled Tintin in the Land of the Soviets, featured him fighting against socialist leaders in the Soviet Union. After the comic proved to be a success, Herge went on to send Tintin on adventures throughout the world, both in real and imaginary locales.
While Herge started out with a right wing mindset, his opinion quickly changed as Hitler’s legions began to ramp up their occupation of other European countries. By 1939, Tintin began to fight off authority figures from the far right, even battling Musstler, the leader of the imaginary fascist state Borduria, in King Ottokar’s Sceptre. If you couldn’t tell by the name and the time period, Musstler was Herge’s take on a combination of Hitler and Mussolini.
Later that very year, Belgium was invaded by the Nazis, who quickly closed down the majority of the newspapers in the country. They did leave open the leading paper, Le Soir, under the condition that it be put under German management. After Le XXe Siècle, was closed, Herge was briefly unemployed, but soon was hired to work as an illustrator for Le Soir. Soon enough he started printing new Tintin stories in the paper’s children section, but under the repressive political atmosphere, he was forced to strip the comic of its political affiliations. In an effort to get around these limitations, Herge changed Tintin’s occupation from that of a reporter to an explorer, which allowed him a much more politically-neutral world in which to operate.
By 1949, Herge’s character was so popular that he was offered the opportunity to publish his own magazine exclusively dedicated to Tintin. He immediately left Le Soir and go to working on Le journal de Tintin. The character became a massive success and was adored in countries throughout the world, eventually having his adventures translated into more than 50 languages.
As for Herge, he continued working on new stories for the character all the way up until his death in 1983.
Image Via CoffeeGeek [Flickr]
At first glance, Tintin seems like a pretty straightforward guy. In fact, fans of the series often praise how uncomplicated the character is, as it makes him entirely relatable even when confronted by an array of bizarre and eccentric characters in fantastical cities. But when you look a little deeper, you soon realize that Tintin’s lack of complexities make him quite enigmatic.
For example, how old is Tintin? No one really knows. He’s old enough to not be concerned with school or family, to go to a pub and drink, to hold down a job and to live alone, but everyone still calls him a young boy. In 1979, Herges said that when he first started the comic, he thought of Tintin as being about 14 or 15, but by that point, he considered the character to be 17.
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Sure we usually think of horror movies as a Halloween treat, but movie makers don’t limit themselves to just one holiday. Flavorwire has a slideshow featuring horror movies that feature just about every major holiday of the year.
From Black Night (Chirstmas) to Easter Bunny, Kill! Kill!, they’ve got them all covered. I’m a little disappointed that Silent Night, Deadly Night, but they only used one movie per holiday.
Personally, I haven’t seen any movies on their list, but some of them certainly sound entertaining. Have you guys watched any of these?
Did you know the Star Wars films still haven’t made a profit? That’s because the studio distributes the film although the distribution branch is considered a separate company. The distributor charges the studio (itself) whatever fees it wants, so even after the film earns billions of dollars, it might still be billions of dollars more away from turning a profit.
And that’s just one of the dirty little movie-making secrets the industry doesn’t want you to know about. Find out more over at Film School Rejects.
Did you know they made a National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation 2? Or that there was a sequel to American Psycho that didn’t have anything to do with the film Christian Bale starred in? If not, then you’d probably enjoy this great list of terrible sequels found over at Mental Floss.
You may think that the “body swap” genre of comedy films is tired and done. You may think that it’s really terrible signs of how bad Hollywood can be that there is a “genre” of body swap movies. And you would be right in all of these things. Yet this past weekend “The Change-up” hit theaters. As a tribute this gallery looks back at the “best” body swap movies.
Stunt men always have had dangerous jobs, but back in the silent era of films, their jobs were incredibly risky. Mental Floss has an incredible list of some of the most famous stunts from the period and how they were performed. For the most part, even the ones with some safety techniques built in were still very dangerous and many ended up in disaster.
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Ten movies are in contention for the 2011 Oscar for Best Motion Picture. While we suppose they are all good films, there is no movie that can’t be improved by being rendered in Lego! An art collective by the name of Old Red Jalopy re-created the posters for all ten Best Picture nominees in Lego form. I love this poster for 127 Hours! See all ten posters at NextMovie. Link -Thanks, Andie!
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I always liked Fantasia, but since I’ve been watching it as a kid, I had no idea just how significant the movie was to both Disney and the history of motion pictures in general. Did you know that it was the first movie ever made featuring stereoscopic sound? Or that the original showings were supposed to be more like a symphony performance than a movie and that the audience was expected to wear formal wear and sit in assigned seats? It’s also the only Disney movie to extend over two hours in length.
While many of us may fondly remember Fantasia as an interesting movie, the behind the scenes of this breakthrough animation are equally fascinating. So throw on your favorite classical album and enjoy this detailed look at one of Disney’s most inspired creations.
Image via Lauren Javier [Flickr]
The inception of Fantasia started with The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. Disney wanted to do a special Silly Symphonies episode based on Goethe’s poem Der Zauberlehrling. The animation would be completely voiceless and set to the music of Paul Dukas’ L’apprenti sorcier. He wanted it to star Mickey Mouse, who was losing popularity against many other cartoon characters of the time, even Donald Duck was proving to be more profitable. Disney saw this as an opportunity for a Mickey comeback.
The studio immediately set about making this a notably high budget version of Silly Symphonies. Mickey was updated with a more modern look with more weight and this is the first time he was seen to have pupils (because the creation of Fantasia took so long, four new cartoons featuring this new version of Mickey were released in the meantime). The animation was slated to run two minutes longer than most of the cartoon shorts seen at the time, running a full nine minutes.
As animators started working in the studio (basing the unnamed wizard on Walt himself and nicknaming him “Yen Sid” –Disney backwards), Disney happened to run into the second most famous conductor in America at the time, Leopold Stokowski (above), at a restaurant. He talked to Stokowski about the project and was shocked when the composer said he loved the idea and offered to conduct the music for no charge. Stokowski quickly collected over 100 musicians in Los Angeles to record the score for the animation, making it the only section of Fantasia to not feature the Philadelphia Orchestra.
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If you’re looking to ramp up for Halloween by watching some horror flicks, you could go the typical route of Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street marathons, but if you’re really looking for a spooky movie fest, why not go the extra mile. The films on this list are all so violent and so offensive that they have been subject to protests, boycotts or censorship and many have even been banned in a few countries. While many of these are lesser known and hard to find, some of the big name controversial movies may surprise you. Because offensiveness and scariness are so subjective, these are presented in order of release date.
Warning: this post contains video clips that may be disturbing to some viewers, as they are from intentionally disturbing films.
Video link
This movie was the directorial debut of Wes Craven and depicted two teenage girls who are kidnapped by escaped convicts on their way to a rock concert. They are then sadistically tortured, raped and eventually murdered. By using a grainy, hand-held 16 mm camera, Craven’s picture seemed all too real to many movie viewers. He tried to defend the violence by saying it was “a reaction on my part to the violence around us, specifically to the Vietnam War.”
Craven’s excuses didn’t do much to quell the controversy and the movie was censored in many countries, particularly the U.K., where it was banned for seventeen years and remained subject to censorship until 2008.
Video link
You probably already know this is a darn creepy movie, but you may not know that it was so shocking to movie goers that many viewers were subject to nausea, convulsions, fainting and shocking displays of anger –one viewer in San Francisco attacked the movie screen, attempting to kill the demon. Paramedics began to be called to the screenings and it wasn’t long before picketers started showing up at the theaters. The film was even banned on video for 14 years in the U.K.
After the film was released, there was a major increase in requests for priests to perform exorcisms and a drastic rise in alleged spiritual possessions and psychoses by people claiming to be possessed. Taking advantage of the hysteria, Reverend Billy Graham claimed he “felt the power of evil buried within the celluloid of the film itself.”
Inception is one of those rare movies that has gotten rave reviews from nearly everyone who has seen it, critics and the public alike (it’s currently 87% fresh at Rotten Tomatoes). If you haven’t seen it yet, don’t worry – there’s a spoiler warning if you scroll down. Just don’t read past that point if you don’t want to know anything until you see it for yourself!
Inception was originally written as a horror film about dream-stealers. It developed over a period of nine to ten years, and somewhere during that time it evolved into more of a heist movie.
Christopher Nolan tried to work with Leonardo DiCaprio for years, but Inception was the first script of his that DiCaprio was really interested in.
When Nolan first started writing the movie, he was influenced by The Matrix, Dark City and The Thirteenth Floor, movies that were supposed to make you wonder how real the world around you really is.
Without Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, there would have been no Inception. Although Nolan had the basic idea ready in 2001, he felt he needed more experience making large-scale films. Once he had proved himself with the smash success of the Batman movies, he thought he was ready to pitch and make his own large-scale, big-budget idea.
Production took the cast and crew all over the world. Locations included Tokyo, London, Paris, Tangiers, L.A. and Canada.
Instead of Joseph Gordon-Levitt, it could have been James Franco playing Cobb’s right-hand-man Arthur. Franco had to drop out due to “scheduling conflicts.” One source reports that he was busy working on Your Highness, the sequel to Pineapple Express.
Despite the difficult and surreal subject matter, Christopher Nolan tried to limit the use of computer-generated effects as much as possible.
The guitar parts of the soundtrack were played by Johnny Marr, former guitarist of The Smiths.
Some critics said Nolan ripped off a 1961 French movie called Last Year at Marienbad, but Nolan says he didn’t see it until after Inception had wrapped.
According to Box Office Mojo, as of last week, Inception is the highest-grossing film ever in three categories: Crime Time, Heist/Cape, and Mindbender.
Ariadne, the character Ellen Page plays, was originally supposed to be played by Evan Rachel Wood. When she turned it down, Nolan considered Emily Blunt, Emma Roberts and Rachel McAdams before deciding on the Juno star.
This movie is proof that some child stars grow up to be wildly successful in their careers: Leonardo DiCaprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page and Lukas Haas were all working in the entertainment industry before they were 10.
In the movie, Saito owns an interesting set of barrel chairs. Those were originally designed for the famous Frank Lloyd Wright house, Fallingwater, but the owners of the house didn’t particularly care for them.
An Edith Piaf song – “Rien de rien” – is used in the movie. Because Marion Cotillard (Mal) played Ms. Piaf in La vie en rose in 2007, the song was nearly pulled because Christopher Nolan didn’t want viewers to think he was making an inside joke. Composer Hans Zimmer convinced him the song was too perfect to get rid of.
Many of the names in the movie have hidden (or not-so-hidden) meaning.
• Cillian Murphy’s character, Robert Fischer, Jr., is named after chess player Bobby Fischer.
• Maurice Fischer is named after M.C. (Maurits Cornelis) Escher.
• Eames is a reference to Charles and Ray Eames, a couple who designed furniture and architecture and made avant-garde films.
• The word “Cobb,” the last name of Leonardo DiCaprio’s character, means “dream” in Sanskrit, Hindi, Urdu, and Punjabi.
• “Mal” is short for ‘Mallorie’ from the French word Malheur – misfortune. And of course, in lots of languages “mal” translates to something along the lines of “bad.”
• Ariadne is part of the Greek Minotaur myth. Legend has it she helped Theseus find his way out of the Minotaur’s maze by giving him a ball of red fleece.
• Yusuf is the Arabic form of Joseph. In the Bible, Joseph had the gift of dream interpretation.
There’s another reference to M.C. Escher in the movie – the “paradox staircase.” It’s an homage to Escher’s “The Infinite Staircase” or “Ascending and Descending.”
A long hotel corridor was constructed that actually rotated 360 degrees to create strange gravity effects. The hallway was originally only supposed to be 40 feet long but expanded to 100 feet as the action sequence was written to be more elaborate and in depth. Joseph Gordon-Levitt did all of his own stunts in the hallway, by the way, and spent time practicing in a “human hamster wheel.”
Ariadne’s tight bun hairstyle in some scenes is more for practical reasons than aesthetic ones: during the anti-gravity parts, filmmakers didn’t want to worry about how her hair should be reacting.
Christopher Nolan and Cillian Murphy have worked together three times in the past few years (Batman Begins, The Dark Knight and Inception) and each time, Cillian Murphy has spent the majority of his time onscreen with a bag over his head. Hmm. Coincidence, I’m sure.
the films of the 2000s from Paul Proulx on Vimeo.
A compact look at what the 2000′s provided for movie fare. At the link, check comments for titles. Thankfully Mr. Proulx only used one iconic scene from the Star Wars prequels.
-via BuzzFeed
Illustrator Paul Rogers puts together six drawings of iconic images for each classic movie. Your challenge is to name the movies from the drawings. You don’t get a clue as to the plot, the dialog, or the actors. I could name most of them; I suspect that the others are movies I haven’t seen. Link -via reddit
I have to admit, the first time I saw Step Brothers, my reaction was this: “Eh….”
But like all Will Ferrell movies, Step Brothers eventually wormed its way into my brain and now I love it. I felt the same way about Anchorman when I first saw it, and I really disliked Talladega Nights the first time around. Citizen Kane it’s not, but Step Brothers definitely makes me grin. Enjoy the trivia, and let me know what you think about the movie in the comments. Did you hate it or love it?
• The Director of Photography shot the Bourne films, so this is quite a departure for him, I would think.
• The driving scenes were all green screen so the actors would be free to improvise more.
• Richard Jenkins (he plays Dale’s dad) met John C. Reilly when he was only about four. He worked for Reilly’s dad when they both lived in Chicago. The “C” is for Christopher, by the way.
• The commentary was largely musical, which was weird.
• Pablo Cruise offered to play at the premiere when they saw that Will Ferrell was wearing a Pablo Cruise t-shirt in one of the trailers. Honestly, I didn’t even know that Pablo Cruise was a real band. They had a few fits in the ’70s, including “Whatcha Gonna Do?” and “Love Will Find a Way.”
• Writer/director Adam McKay says they shot something like 12 hours of the scene where the new family eats their first dinner together. Both actors commented on how sick they were of chicken nuggets and salty fast food afterward.
• Mary Steenburgen and Richard Jenkins both improvised lots of different backstories for Brennan and Dale. Neither of them were really improv pros before, even though Steenburgen is on Larry David’s unscripted Curb Your Enthusiasm on a regular basis. Steenburgen said that even though Curb is unscripted, it was actually a lot harder shooting Step Brothers. With Curb, she said, although there was no script, there was a loose plot line. Step Brothers would veer so far off of script sometimes that the plot line would take a completely different direction.
• You’d never know it to look at them, but the prosthetic testicles Will Ferrell rubs on Dale’s drums were worth $25,000. Will got to keep them as a present when the movie wrapped.
• There’s a sign for Hugalo’s Pizza in Dale’s bedroom, which is the pizza joint Ricky Bobby (played by Will Ferrell) worked at in Talladega Nights.
• The drumset obsession was based on something that really happened to John C. Reilly – one of his brothers was apparently insanely possessive over his drum set when they were growing up and Reilly (I feel like I need to call him John C. Reilly at all times) used to sneak in and use them.
• John was not supposed to throw the glasses at the windows in the kitchen scene when the stepbrothers are sleepwalking, but Adam McKay encouraged him to when the set designers weren’t listening. When he threw glasses, he actually broke real windows because they weren’t made of breakaway glass since the set wasn’t planned for that purpose. The set designers were not pleased with them.
• John C. Reilly says he had to be careful not to choke on food when they were filming that scene. Will Ferrell accidentally ingested some coffee grounds (ew).
• The second dinner scene when Brennan’s jerk brother Derek is there took about seven hours to shoot. When Derek falls out of the treehouse after Dale punches him, the actor really got hurt: everyone was under the impression that there was a pad on the ground, but there wasn’t. No one was seriously hurt, though, and shooting continued.
• Right before Derek comes up to the clubhouse, the guys are in the clubhouse looking at porn and were holding a real “popular pornographic magazine” (Adam McKay referred to it as such) but later found out that they didn’t get clearance to use the brand in the movie, so they spent a lot of money to go back and add a fake cover to the magazines they were holding. I’m kind of curious about this myself, because at the end of the movie, they brothers hold up a bunch of Hustlers. So if they had the clearance for Hustler, why didn’t they just use those magazines earlier in the film? Hmmm.
• The scene where Brennan tries to bury Dale in the backyard was one of the first scenes they shot.
• If you’ve seen the movie, no doubt you’ve noticed the huge array of logo and band t-shirts the brothers wear in the movie. I’m partial to the Judds baseball tee, myself. Adam McKay said the costume designer found hundreds of suitable t-shirts and then he, Will and John would take turns removing 10 until the shirts got down to a manageable level.
• The Catalina Wine Mixer scene wasn’t actually filmed on Catalina Island. They scouted it out for location but didn’t care for the way things looked; however, you can actually see it in the background of the scene because they ended up shooting on the shore facing the island.
• Coincidentally, Will Ferrell sings Por Ti Volare at the end of the film, which is the song he and Jon Heder skate to in Blades of Glory. Will does his own singing in the movie, by the way, and John C. Reilly does his own drumming.
• At one point during the commentary, Baron Davis, point guard for the Clippers, randomly comes in and starts chatting with Adam McKay, Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly. A good 30 minutes of non-movie related basketball talk ensues, in which I discovered that Baron feels Shaq is the scariest dude to encounter on the court in the NBA. He also does some commentary even though he wasn’t there and had never seen the movie. He refers to John C. Reilly and Will Ferrell as “Adult Cabbage Patch Kids”. Also, Baron did not have bunk beds growing up; he slept on the floor in the living room. You know, just FYI.
Let Hollywood Saloon take you back to a time before Stanley Kubrick was "Stanley Kubrick", before Spielberg was "Spielberg" and Scorsese was "Scorsese".
The folks at Hollywood Saloon have gathered together the early directorial efforts of some of cinema’s biggest and most acclaimed names, ranging from Stanley Kubrick and James Cameron to Paul Thomas Anderson.
These early works, consisting of 16mm student productions, Super 8 and VHS films, give us a glimpse of the youthful talent that would go on to produce some of the most important films of the 20th century.
From the Upcoming 
ueue, submitted by whitespace.
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• Michael Keaton has said that out of all of his films, this one is his favorite.
• …Which is perhaps because he only spent two weeks filming. Even though Keaton plays the movie’s title character, Beetlejuice is only in 17.5 minutes of the whole film.
• The screenplay was originally written by Michael McDowell, who also wrote the script for an episode of The New Alfred Hitchcock Presents . The episode, “The Jar,” was directed by Tim Burton. McDowell also went to on write for Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas.
• Warner Brothers really didn’t care for the original title, which happened to be Beetlejuice. They suggested House Ghosts, which Burton hated, so he retaliated with the equally horrible Scared Sheetless, just to annoy them. He was mortified when they loved it and considered using it.
• After the movie’s success – it grossed $73,707,461 in North America alone and was made for only $13 million – a sequel was considered. It was called – brace yourself – Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian. The premise: the Deetzes move to Hawaii to develop a posh resort. Construction begins, and it’s quickly discovered that the hotel will be sitting on top of an ancient burial ground. Uh-huh. Michael Keaton and Winona Ryder were in, but Tim Burton was busy making Batman Returns and lost interest in the campy sequel. Thank God. I don’t think I could deal with Beetlejuice in a lei and flip-flops.
• The film won the Oscar for best makeup. It was up against Scrooged and Coming to America.
• Betelgeuse is a star in the constellation Orion – more specifically, it’s the star that represents his armpit. No coincidence, I’m sure.
• In the waiting room of the afterlife is a sign that says “No Exit” instead of “Exit.” That’s a reference to the Jean-Paul Sartre play, which is about three people stuck in a room together after they bite the big one.
• Tim Burton lobbied hard for Sylvia Sidney to play Juno the caseworker. She turned him down on multiple occasions, but finally said yes after some of the other stars (Michael Keaton in particular) confirmed. As an aside note, Sylvia Sidney’s first husband was Bennett Cerf, Dr. Seuss’ editor. And Sidney was certainly no newbie to the horror genre – she was the star of Alfred Hitchcock’s Sabotage in 1936.
• The guy who plays Otho, Glenn Shadix, can be found in some other Tim Burton productions as well. He’s the voice of the mayor in The Nightmare Before Christmas and was Senator Nado in Burton’s Planet of the Apes remake. He was also in the 1996 Michael Keaton movie Multiplicity. Photo from GlennShadix.com.
• Be sure to check out all of the guests at the famous dinner party scene – Bernard, the snobby dude who is clearly unimpressed with Delia’s “sculpture,” is played by Dick Cavett.
• Beetlejuice features our first-ever look at Jack Skellington, five years before Nightmare came out. He’s on the top of Beetlejuice’s carousel hat when he comes out during the seance.
As of 2005, Michael Keaton said he was still up for a Beetlejuice sequel. A year later, however, Tim Burton, said sequel plans were all but dead. What do you think? I could handle a sequel, just not a Brady Bunch-esque Hawaiian holiday. Maybe Lydia has grown up and our favorite Ghost with the Most comes calling again? Hmm. Be sure to share your thoughts in the comments.
Am I the only one that remembers it’s Black History Month? I we finally have a black president, but does that mean we don’t have black history month anymore? Last I checked, it’s still on the calendar.
If you do want to celebrate black history month, you may enjoy watching a few great films regarding race and our society. I know everyone thinks of Malcolm X, Amistad and The Color Purple when they think of African American films, but here are five great movies that tend to get overlooked.
The Basic Plot: A white senator [Warren Beatty], sick of politics and life in general, takes out a life insurance policy on himself and hires a hit man to whack him. Since he doesn’t care what happens to him, he starts speaking to people about the truth of politics, for example, if you don’t donate money to your representative’s campaigns, they won’t represent you. In the process of exposing Washington corruption, he finds a new interest in life when he falls for a beautiful black woman from Compton [Halle Berry]. Now he needs to avoid the hit man, win his lady and deal with the media frenzy his new “campaign tactic” has created.
Why Was It Underrated: People either thought it was going to be a stupid movie about a white senator pretending to rap, or they heard about the politics of the movie and were turned off. Either way, this movie is constantly listed as one of the top underrated films of the 90’s.
Why You Should See It: It is damn funny to see someone tell movie executives they wouldn’t be criticized about decency standards if they just made better movies. Aside from the humor though, there are some great political points about what happened to the leaders of the black community, why so many black youths enter gangs and more.
More: Bulworth
The Basic Plot: An African American television writer [Damon Wayans] is criticized one too many times by his white “not racist” boss [Michael Rapaport] for not being street enough. As a way to get back at his condescending boss, he proposes a modern day minstrel show, complete with black actors in black face. Amazingly, the show not only is approved by the executives, but becomes a nation-wide success leading to legions of fans running around the streets in black face. As you could guess, things could only go downhill from there…
Why Was It Underrated: Some people found the whole concept rather offensive, completely ignoring the fact that it was a satire created by a black man. Other people simply don’t look to Spike Lee for humor, though if they did, they may be pleasantly surprised.
Why You Should See It: It’s a funny movie filled with some of the best, biting satire of the last century. You’ll find yourself laughing awkwardly and not believing your eyes at points of the show. At the same time, you’ll realize that the show isn’t much of a stretch for modern television.
More: Bamboozled
The Basic Plot: The true story of the first African American U.S. Navy diver. Carl Brashear [Cuba Gooding Jr.] must not only struggle to become a diver, but to live through the harassment and racism of his fellow trainees and the trainer [Robert DeNiro] determined to see him fail. In the end, he not only wins the respect of other soldiers, but manages to become the first black diver and the first amputee diver.
Why Was It Underrated: Maybe it was Cuba Gooding Jr. – after all, a lot of people consider him to be about as “black” as Colin Powell. Maybe it’s diver-discrimination and people would much rather see a movie about black fighter pilots than a black diver. Whatever the reason, this moving film received little attention, especially when compared to the George Lucas Tuskegee Airmen film, Red Tails, expected to come out sometime this year.
Why You Should See It: This is a touching story showing the ugliness of racism and the strength of the human spirit. I know it sounds kind of cliché, but it is a good movie depicting how many obstacles we can pass when we set our hearts to doing something.
More: Men of Honor
The Basic Plot: Three young black men are recruited to join the Vietnam War. After serving duty, the three friends all end up back home in New York. After finding it difficult to adjust to modern society outside the army, the group sets up an armored car heist. The ensuing action is not to be missed.
Why Was It Underrated: Between Menace II Society and their later works like American Pimp and From Hell, this fantastic film directed by the Hughes brothers seems to have gotten lost in the shuffle. Additionally, many people didn’t know how if this movie was a heist movie, a Vietnam flick or a statement about racism in America. Since people often like their movies to be easily classified, this may have been the film’s downfall.
Why You Should See It: Although on the surface, it appears to be a heist movie, this film highlights important issues facing black veterans of the Vietnam War and the continuing racism they experienced when they returned home to a country still wrought with civil rights injustices. This early Hughes Brother’s film is a great display of their talent and a promise of the good things to come.
More: Dead Presidents
The Basic Plot: When three kids from all walks of life start attending college together, they start encountering racial tension and personal problems like finances and personal insecurities. The main African American character [Omar Epps] is a young African American track star without an exceptional mind. The main female character [Kristy Swanson] is date raped and joins a feminist group to cope with her demons. She begins to become attracted to another woman [Jennifer Connelly] in the group. The main white character [Michael Rapaport] has a hard time fitting in with anyone until a group of white supremacists accept him as one of their own. Rape, racism, sexuality, education and more are all touched upon in this intense film depicting reality on college campuses across the nation.
Why Was It Underrated: Many critics found the characters to be a little stereotypical, but when there are so few movies actually exploring these roles in depth, is that really a problem? Another reason it may be underrated: how many people expect a deep-thinking movie to involve Tyra Banks?
Why You Should See It: There is an all-star cast in this film and it does an excellent job depicting relationships of all types –student/teacher, woman/man, woman/woman, white/black and more. Additionally, it’s one of the few college movies that moves beyond grades, booze and money and depicts a student’s path to self-discovery.
More: Higher Learning
Do you think I missed any? If so, please let me know in the comments.
It’s unimaginable to think that today’s Hollywood A-List could someday die in obscurity. Just imagine, 50 years from now they’ll be running one of those “In Memoriam” clip shows at the Oscars and your grandkid will turn to you and say, “Who was Angelina Jolie? She was kinda pretty.”
That’s basically what happened to these ex-Hollywood starlets. Once A-Listers at the height of their fame, these celebs died in semi-obscurity – sometimes, especially in the case of our first actress, their anonymity was their own doing.
In the 1930s, Jean Arthur was known for her screwball comedies. You might know her from her three Frank Capra movies: Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town and You Can’t Take It With You. Despite seeming like a carefree funnylady, though, Jean had terrible anxiety and would run to her dressing room and cry the second the film stopped rolling. The rumor is that when her contract with Columbia Pictures ran out in 1944, she ran through the streets joyfully screaming about her freedom. Jean made her last movie in 1953 – Shane with Alan Ladd – and then turned to television for a few years. She taught drama at Vassar from 1968 to 1972 (Meryl Streep was in attendance), and then retreated from the spotlight entirely, refusing all acting jobs and interviews. “Quite frankly, I’d rather have my throat slit” than do an interview, she famously said. Jean was living in Carmel, California, when she had a stroke in 1989, and then died of a heart attack in 1991.
Back in the silent movie era, Theda Bara was one of the biggest stars there was. She was kind of the Cher of her day, as far as fashion went – she wore extremely risque stuff that hardly covered anything. Some of it is eye-popping even by today’s standards. But by the ’20s, Theda was on her way out. She was sick of being typecast as the vamp character, but couldn’t really get any work otherwise. She couldn’t find a publisher to sell her memoirs to; she sold her life story to Columbia Pictures but they never made it. In 1954, she was diagnosed with cancer and died the next year, forgotten by the industry. Sadly, most of her work is lost to the ages – a 1937 fire at some Fox storage vaults in New Jersey destroyed all but three of her films, and even then, sometimes only seconds of the film have been saved.
Clara Bow was the It Girl of the ’20s – the original It Girl, really, and definitely more interesting and talented than some of today’s actresses with the title. But she suffered from insomnia and had nervous breakdowns all of the time – she even earned the nickname “Crisis-A-Day Clara.” She married actor Rex Bell in 1932 and had two sons with him; she tried to commit suicide while he was running for the House of Representatives in 1944. After this, she holed up in her house and never left. She no longer lived with Rex; his political life in the spotlight was just too much for her to deal with. He died in 1962; she died in 1965 while watching an old Gary Cooper movie on TV.
Hedy is particularly fascinating, I think. Not only was she a gorgeous and talented actress, she was also an inventor. But we’ll get to that in a second. At the height of her career, Hedy co-starred in movies with Spencer Tracy, Jimmy Stewart, Clark Gable and Bob Hope. After her 1951 movie with Hope, though, her career slid into oblivion. She was scheduled to make a comeback in the early ’60s, but when she pulled a Winona Ryder and was arrested for shoplifting, the studio had her replaced in the movie with Zsa Zsa Gabor. Nothing much was heard from her for the next 30 years, then in 1991, she was arrested for shoplifting again. Tabloids immediately painted the picture of a destitute, washed-up starlet who couldn’t even afford her $21 bill at a drugstore, but she insisted that the problem was that she was absent-minded, legally blind and just confused about the situation. But she wasn’t poor: when she died in 2000, she left a $3 million estate to be split up among two of her children (the third later sued for his share). Before she died, though, she finally received some credit for her patriotic duty in 1941 – she and her then-husband had invented a device that would jam Nazi radar signals during WWII. The War Department declined, but when the patent later expired, they scooped it up to use on U.S. ships in 1962. Neither Hedy nor her ex-husband ever saw any money for it, or even an acknowledgment until a book mentioned the invention in 1992.
Now we’re talking about the Brangelina of the first half of the last century! Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks were probably the most celebrated Hollywood couple of the day. Their palatial mansion, Pickfair, was the place to be seen. Despite the same, she retired in 1933 at the age of 41, sick of the business. When Fairbanks left her for actress Sylvia Hawkes in 1936, she married Buddy Rogers, an actor 11 years younger than her. That’s when she started withdrawing from Hollywood. She started drinking a lot (up to a quart of whiskey a day, some reports said), spent an inordinate amount of time in bed during the day and got up in the middle of the night to roam the halls of the mansion she and Fairbanks had once so happily shared. She was all but forgotten until 1976, when she was honored at the Academy Awards for her contributions to the industry. She came out of her Hobbit-hole to accept the award, but it ended up being weird – her wig was stuck on her head crooked and she muttered some unintelligible sentences into the microphone before wandering off stage. Mary died of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1979.
For more interesting information like this, check out The Hollywood Book of Death – it’s morbid, yeah, but also full of fascinating (if not depressing) tidbits.
Those of you who are huge Coen brothers fans like me know that despite being set in a variety of outlandish places (e.g. Arizona in “Raising Arizona”, L.A. in “Barton Fink,” Brainerd in “Fargo”) a lot of their films have similarities: ponderous voiceovers, psychotic white males, copious amounts of gunplay. But this brilliant mashup by Youtube user barringer82 not only reveals the visual and aural similarities between many of their films; it also does an excellent job of showing you how diverse and compelling their films really are. Bonus points if you can identify every single one of the films used.
