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The strangeness of the Kung Fu film known as “Demon of the Lute” goes well beyond language barriers and cultural idioms. This movie is downright nutty, even the YouTube description sounds crazy:
Bear witness to Yuan Fei’s heroic struggle against the soulless ginger, Red Haired Evil, and his logic-defying pal, Eagle Man. Shazam!
Isn’t it nice to get a little craziness mixed in with our martial arts action once in a while? I, for one, love the Red Haired Evil’s magnetic personality, and to say he’s having a bad hair day is an understatement.
–via GeeksAreSexy
Why are Nic Cage, Holly Hunter and the baby from the 1987 movie Raising Arizona on the cover of this Serbian biology textbook? Your guess is as good as mine, but I’d be willing to bet this image wasn’t used with the studio’s permission!
Peter Jackson is such a visionary film director that he’s even changing the way movies are advertised to the public by releasing a video blog series which shows the making of his new J.R.R. Tolkien movie adaptation “The Hobbit”.
He shows things that directors generally keep to themselves, like the process of filming 3d footage with a stereoscopic camera, all the while remaining in charge of the production like a total badass. This video is number 4 in the series, so check out the other 3 if you want to see more behind-the-scenes footage from “The Hobbit”.
–via Ology
Neatorama presents a guest post from actor, comedian, and voiceover artist Eddie Deezen. Visit Eddie at his website.
Some Like It Hot, besides being the most famous film made by legendary sex symbol Marilyn Monroe (her signature performance) is a comedy classic in its own right. In 2000, it was voted by the American Film Institute as #1 on its list of the 100 Funniest Movies (interestingly, the #2 choice was Tootsie, making both the #1 and #2 choices cross-dressing films).
Besides the great Marilyn (and Billy Wilder’s awesome direction), the brilliant gender-bending performances by Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon make it, without a doubt, one of the most entertaining comedies ever filmed. Let’s take a look at a few facts you may not know about a truly hilarious movie: Some Like It Hot.
* The “almost cast” list is almost as great as the final choices. Director Billy Wilder originally wanted Bob Hope and Danny Kaye to play the Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon roles. Frank Sinatra was another early choice the play the Jack Lemmon “Daphne” role. Perhaps the strangest actor to audition for Lemmon’s role was a young Anthony Perkins (rejected. He was to star in Alred Hitchcock’s Psycho the next year).
* Jerry Lewis was also offered the role of the zany “Daphne.” Lewis turned down the role because he “didn’t think drag was funny.” Lemmon, who earned an Oscar nomination for his performance, sent Lewis chocolates annually in gratitude. According to Jerry, every time he ran into Billy Wilder, Billy greeted him with, “Hello, Schmuck!” Jerry later admitted he regretted his rejection of the role.
* Actress Mitzi Gaynor was the original choice for the female lead “Sugar Kane” role, but as soon as Wilder found out Marilyn Monroe was available, he offered her the role.
* The film’s original working title was Not Tonight, Josephine.
* Marilyn wanted the film to be in color (her contract actually stipulated that all her movies be filmed in color), but after looking at Curtis and Lemmon in the color film tests, they were deemed to be too grotesque-looking (they photographed with a green tinge).
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Remember the 1986 film Big Trouble in Little China? Kurt Russell spent the entire movie without a clue. He is just plain confused. They obviously didn’t let him read the script. -via The Daily What
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How do you make costumes designed around a 20-year-old movie work? You get all of your friends involved! The gang at Intense Individuals did just that last year, and dressed as almost the entire cast of Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure. See more pictures at their site. Link -via Buzzfeed
The Wizard was a 1989 movie that was entirely made of product placement, mainly for Ninento’s Power Glove. I have never heard of this film that was catnip for kids (it’s about video games!), but it sounds like the most bizarre mishmash ever. It involves a road trip across the country for three runaways, one who has escaped from a mental institution, in which no police are involved and the people they meet don’t find anything odd about unaccompanied minors.
The trek to California is accomplished primarily by gambling — a series of double-your-money hustles instigated by the queerly parentless Haley. We actually get to see Haley’s trailer home at one point, though her father (a trucker) is on the road. In addition to video game-related hustles, the trio end up at one point in an actual casino, wherein Haley’s skill at craps allows an adult (“Spankey,” a mentally challenged “trucker friend” of her father’s, played by Frank McRae) to win hundreds. It’s later revealed that Haley’s deceased mother had a gambling problem, which apparently led to Haley’s hustling skills. Corey’s mother is also dead. And Jimmy’s sister/Corey’s half-sister? She’s dead, too. What?! Never mind that now. We have to get to California.
The climax involves a video game tournament, so you can guess the ending. It doesn’t make any sense, either. Read more about how a favorite movie from a writer’s childhood becomes completely nonsensical when he watches it again as an adult. Link
The following is an article from Uncle John’s All-Purpose Extra Strength Bathroom Reader.
A few years ago one of our BRI writers saw the classic 1931 horror film Dracula for the first time …and thought it was terrible. He never knew there was a story behind why the film had so many problems -or even that other people agreed with him that this Hollywood classic was flawed- until he came across this story in a book called Hollywood Gothic by David J. Skal, a leading authority on the history of monster movies.
UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE
One of the nice things about silent films is that everyone can understand them, regardless of what language they speak. Of course, they needed title cards to help explain the plot, but it was easy -and cheap- to write new cards for each foreign market.
As a result American films found their way into countries all over the world, and silent films became a truly universal art form: American studios made half of their revenues from foreign film sales; silent screen stars like Charlie Chaplin and Jackie Coogan became the most recognized human beings on the face of the earth.
SILENT TREATMENT
But the advent of talking pictures changed everything -and not just for silent-screen stars whose thick accents quickly consigned them to the Hollywood scrap heap. Suddenly, American films became incomprehensible to anyone who didn’t speak English. American film studios faced the prospect of losing up to half of their business overnight.
Bela Lugosi
Foreign countries that had become used to a steady stream of Hollywood films found themselves left out in the cold; some threatened to retaliate by slapping tariffs on films with dialogue in English, or by boycotting American films entirely.
Making matters worse, sound recording and synchronization technology was still very primitive, and dubbing foreign-language dialogue onto English-language films was all but impossible. Besides, one of the things that attracted audiences to the first “talkies” was the thrill of hearing their favorite actors speak for the very first time. Even if dubbing had been practical, it might not have been very popular. There was no easy solution to the problem, and as a result many foreign language markets were left out of the early years of the talkie era -except for the Spanish-language market. Spanish was too popular, and Mexico, Central, and South America were too close for Hollywood to ignore.
THE DOPPELGÄNGER ERA
No film crew works 24 hours a day. At some point everyone goes home, leaving the soundstage and the expensive sets unused until morning. So, reasoned Hollywood studios, why not bring in a second cast and crew at night to film foreign-language versions of the same films that were being made in English during the day?
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Mario’s brother Luigi once had his day in the sun, thanks to a Nintendo Gamecube game called Luigi’s Mansion, in which Luigi wins a haunted mansion and must rescue Mario from his ghostly captors using a vacuum pack to bust the spooks. Sounds like the perfect game to turn into a live action movie, right? Well, watch this spoof trailer made by YouTube user SAXjewell and see what you think.
–via Ology
Comments Off Here is a Disney Studios reference test film synched with the finished scene from the 1951 film Alice in Wonderland. You also see the animators at work, capturing the mood and the movements of the actors. -via The Daily What
All I know about the 2004 time travel film Primer is that it’s very confusing. That was made clear in an xkcd plot graph that we linked (Primer is at the bottom right). Although the movie covers only five days, there are nine timelines, according to this graph at Unreality magazine (which you can enlarge at the link). Does this clear things up? Link
You may have seen all the movies of the ’90s, but that’s been a few years now. Test your memory with today’s Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss. You’ll be given 12 different movie quotes, and for each one, decide whether it’s from Reality Bites, Empire Records, or Singles. I scored 42%, which is honestly not bad for someone who hasn’t seen any of the movies. Link
Comments Off I’m sure you’re thinking “Gee, just what we need, another deleted scene…”, but this one’s a little different than the rest. In this scene from The Empire Strikes Back, featuring Han and Leia bickering and oozing all kinds of sexual tension, you get to see Harrison Ford’s acting sound forced and a bit hackneyed, which may result in feelings of disillusionment and sadness. Not all deleted scenes hit the cutting room floor due to time constraints, some were removed to avoid fan heartbreak!
-via Ology
Photo Credit: WETA Workshops
Chances are if you are a regular reader of Neatorama, you’ve already got your geek on and have seen this promotional still from the set of The Hobbit. Still–just in case. (And at least one of them are hot! Go figure. Why did this well-armed group need Bilbo again?) The first photograph is a composite and the second is–don’t ask me why–a “final full-body rendering” for all the dwarves and conveniently includes their names–Lord knows I can’t tell them apart. Check out all things dwarf and Hobbit related at The One Ring.net, which is working as Peter Jackson’s ersatz PR team.
The movie Cowboys & Aliens opens nationwide today, marking Harrison Ford’s 40th credited movie role. In honor of the occasion, the National Post created 40 icons of Ford in his roles (although strangely all appearing to be the same age). Each is linked to an explanation of the role depicted. Link -via Buzzfeed
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Novels, movies, cartoons, tattoos… everything is better on the second draft.
1. THE CATCH IN CATCH 22: The Edit that became an idiom
In 1961, author Joseph Heller finally submitted his manuscript for Catch-18 to his editor, Robert Gottlieb. Although Heller had spent seven years perfecting the story, Gottlieb saw room for improvement. The editor taped the pages to his office wall and restructured the novel, giving more emphasis to the now-famous Major Major character and instructing Heller to delete entire 60-page sections. But most importantly, Gottlieb wanted to change the title. Earlier that year, writer Leon Uris had released Mila 18, and Gottlieb didn’t want any confusion between the two books. What followed was an exchange of frantic letters in which Heller and Gottlieb considered and rejected various numbers for the title. They decided 11 didn’t work because of Ocean’s 11; 14 was an “unfunny number;” and 26 just didn’t feel right. “I’ve got it!” Gottlieb blurted out one night in a eureka moment. “It’s Catch-22! It’s funnier than 18.” The edit stuck, and a major, major idiom was born.
2. AN AFFAIR TO FORGET: The Edit that Changed Hemingway’s Life
Hadley and Ernest Hemingway in 1922
The turmoil of Ernest Hemingway’s personal life continued long after his death thanks to the publication of his autobiography, A Moveable Feast. Released in 1964, three years after his suicide, the book was uncharacteristically poignant and sentimental. It even included a tender apology to his first wife, Hadley, whom Hemingway had cheated on with his second wife, Pauline. Yet, for decades, few people knew the apology existed. That’s because it was edited out of the text by Hemingway’s fourth wife, Mary.
As the author’s literary executor, Mary prepared the work for publication, and she removed the apology out of spite. Mary had always resented Hadley for being the literary giant’s favorite spouse, and Hemingway confirmed that belief in A Moveable Feast when he wrote, “I wished I had died before I ever loved anyone but her.”
Decades later, in 2009, Hemingway’s grandson Sean reinserted the apology into a new edition of the book. But that wasn’t the only serious edit he made. Sean also scrapped passages about his grandmother, Pauline, whom Hemingway blamed for ruining his first marriage. Of course, literary historians were quick to criticize Sean’s selective whitewashing. They claim that while Hemingway may have wanted to cut Pauline out of his life, he never intended to cut her out of his life story.
3. HALL MARKS: The Edit that Resulted in Two Masterpieces
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What movies make you cry? When I saw The Champ during its initial theater run, I did not expect to cry, but I did, and so did everyone in the audience. Watching 9-year-old Ricky Schroeder begging his father not to die was just too much. When researchers Robert Levenson and James Gross began looking for a trigger that would ethically induce sadness in volunteer test subjects, they searched for the most sure-fire tear-jerking film ever. It took years, but they found The Champ.
In 1995, Gross and Levenson published the results of their test screenings. They came up with a list of 16 short film clips able to elicit a single emotion, such as anger, fear or surprise. Their recommendation for inducing disgust was a short film showing an amputation. Their top-rated film clip for amusement was the fake orgasm scene from When Harry Met Sally. And then there’s the two-minute, 51-second clip of Schroder weeping over his father’s dead body in The Champ, which Levenson and Gross found produced more sadness in laboratory subjects than the death of Bambi’s mom.
“I still feel sad when I see that boy crying his heart out,” Gross says.
Cue the argument for Old Yeller. Excuse me, I think I need a handkerchief. Link -via Metafilter
Link to the specific scene from The Champ.
This in part may stem from my undiagnosed ADD, but watching Part I of Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows left me abused and confused. To me it seemed like lots of random stuff that looked expensive was happening but a coherent plot wasn’t one of them. How could I enjoy the new HP flick without remembering all the details of the first six films? That’s when I discovered The Fine Brothers seven minute recap of the Harry Potter franchise that will bring diehard fans and newbies (like me) up to speed.
Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows Part 2 comes to theaters this week, so we present a recap of the 7 Harry Potter films, so you can be fully caught up to watch and enjoy the final film with your friends, and make them think you actually know the series when in reality you just spent 7 minutes watching this video.
Carl and Ellie’s dream house from the movie Up! comes to life in Herriman, Utah, with Disney’s blessing. At Lovely Listing, you can also see a bit of the inside, too. Link
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The Retroist reprinted some letters from the 1983 book Letters to E.T. Most of the letters are from children to the alien character, but this one is to Steven Spielberg himself. Link -via @LettersOfNote
Comments Off Charlie took his sister Ginny to the movies. What Charlie knew, but Ginny didn’t, was that Ginny’s boyfriend Matt had bought a slot during the previews. And we have her reaction on video during the whole thing. -via reddit
This poster for the movie O Brother, Where Art Thou was created by artist Chris DeLorenzo for the Silver Screen Society collection, where you can see it moving. Link -via Laughing Squid
Comments Off We don’t yet know a lot about the movie Night of the Little Dead, except that it stars Penn Jillette (of Penn and Teller) and Adam Savage (of Mythbusters), but that is enough to make me want to see it! Link
The White House prepared a movie trailer for president Barack Obama’s routine last night at the annual White House Correspondents Dinner. It’s a sequel to The King’s Speech.
The car that was built for the 1968 film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is up for auction at eBay.
Built on a custom ladder frame chassis, many old world forms of car building were employed, and modern technology stepped in to create a vehicle which was both accurate enough to fool veteran and classic car experts, when held under the scrutiny of 70mm cinema cameras, and durable enough to withstand everything from driving in sand, cobbled streets and down staircases. The bonnet is crafted of polished aluminum; the boat deck is hand-crafted of red and white cedar built by boat builders in Buckinghamshire, and the array of brass fittings were obtained from Edwardian cars. Even the alloy dashboard plate is from a British World War I fighter plane! The car weighs approximately 2 tons and measures 17 1/2 feet in length and is powered by a Ford 3 litre V-6 engine mated to an automatic transmission.
Other vehicles were built for the film to be used for special effects, but this particular car was the only one that actually worked. And it only has 44 miles on it. However, bidding has started at a million dollars. Link -via the Presurfer
The following is an article from the book Uncle John’s Absolutely Absorbing Bathroom Reader. Contains spoilers, but you can skip to the end and watch the entire movie first if you like.
There are bad movies…and then there are BAD movies. Years ago the Medved brothers reintroduced stinkers like Plan 9 From Outer Space to the public in their groundbreaking books, The 50 Worst Films of All Time and The Golden Turkey Awards. The “Mystery Science Theater 3000″ gave us a chance to watch the best of the worst on TV. Today there are millions of bad movie buffs… and Uncle John is one of them. Here’s one of his favorite stinkers.
ROBOT MONSTER (1953)
Starring George Nader, Claudia Barrett, Selena Royle, John Mylong, George Barrows.
Background: Director Phil Tucker made this opus for less than $20,000. He couldn’t afford to rent a real robot costume, but (fortunately for bad movie lovers) he knew a guy named George Barrows, who owned his own gorilla suit. “When [moviemakers] needed a gorilla in a picture,” Tucker explained to the Medveds in The Golden Turkey Awards, “they called George. [He] got like forty bucks a day… [but] I thought, ‘George will work for me for nothing. I’ll get a diving helmet, put it on him, and it’ll work!’”
It did work. Years later, Tucker’s robot even won an award. Okay, it was a Golden Turkey Award for “The Most Ridiculous Monster in Screen History.” But it was well-deserved. “Unlike many other cinematic robots,” Ken Beggs writes in Jabootu’s Bad Movie Universe, “[this one] has the appearance of a morbidly obese man in a shaggy gorilla costume, adorned with a deep sea diving helmet over his nylon-stocking bedecked noggin” -and the helmet was topped with a rabbit-ears TV antenna. You have to see it to believe it.
Note: Strange anomaly for such a seat-of-the-pants production: Robot Monster was filmed in 3D, and the music recorded in stereo. Even more surprising: the score was written by Elmer Bernstein, later one of Hollywood’s most accomplished composers (he wrote the music, for example, for The Magnificent Seven and The Great Escape).
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On April 12th, 1961, 50 years ago today, Yuri Gagarin {wiki} became the first human to go into space. Today is also the premiere of a full-length movie First Orbit.
In a unique collaboration with the European Space Agency, and the Expedition 26/27 crew of the International Space Station, we have created a new film of what Gagarin first witnessed fifty years ago.
By matching the orbital path of the Space Station, as closely as possible, to that of Gagarin’s Vostok 1 spaceship and filming the same vistas of the Earth through the new giant cupola window, astronaut Paolo Nespoli, and documentary film maker Christopher Riley, have captured a new digital high definition view of the Earth below, half a century after Gagarin first witnessed it.
Weaving these new views together with historic, recordings of Gagarin from the time, (subtitled in Englsih) and an original score by composer Philip Sheppard, we have created a spellbinding film to share with people around the world on this historic anniversary.
You can watch the entire movie (99 minutes) at the website. Link
Billy Crystal and Helen Mirren team up for a sequel to the megahit romantic comedy When Harry Met Sally. Contains some NSFW language. -via The Daily What
This picture and others from the same sequence are everywhere on the internet today, but rarely is there any source or context attached. These are stills from the movie Rescued from an Eagle’s Nest.
Rescued from an Eagle’s Nest {wiki} is a 1908 film by D.W.Griffith. It featured cutting-edge special effects that were frightening to audiences. -via Dangerous Minds
Artist Clint Wilson interpreted the movie O Brother Where Art Thou? in the style of an ancient Grecian vase. I love it! Link -via Nag on the Lake
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