Jackie Brown
Tonight I’m seeing Jackie Brown, a 1997 motion picture written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. The film stars Pam Grier, Robert Forster, Robert De Niro, Samuel L. Jackson, Bridget Fonda and Michael Keaton. This movie follows Tarantino’s success directing Reservoir Dogs (1992) and Pulp Fiction (1994) which also stars Jackson in a lead role (both these movies were selected for my movie list). The screenplay is based on the novel Rum Punch by American novelist Elmore Leonard, although Tarantino made significant changes to the story and characters.
Cyd Charisse
Cyd Charisse passed away yesterday, Jun 18th, aged 86 (just heard this on the news - yes, not all information comes to me via the internet…). Cyd was born to be a dancer. She spent her early childhood taking ballet lessons and joined the Ballet Russe at 13. In 1939 she married Nico Charise, her ex-dance teacher. In 1943 she appeared in her first film, Something to Shout About (1943), billed as Lily Norwood. The same year she played the Russian dancer Galina Ulanova in Mission to Moscow (1943), directed by Michael Curtiz (indeed, the director from the famous movie Casablanca !). In 1945 she was hired to dance with Fred Astaire in Ziegfeld Follies (1946), and that uncredited appearance got her a seven-year contract with MGM. She appeared in a number of musicals over the next few years, but it was Singin’ in the Rain (1952) with Gene Kelly that made her a star. That was quickly followed by her great performance in The Band Wagon (1953). As the 1960s dawned, musicals faded from the screen, as did her career.
Cyd Charisse and Gene Kelly in Singing in the Rain:
And with Fred Astaire in The Band Wagon:
Obituary at the BBC, more about Cyd at Legs - A tribute to Cyd Charisse
Aliens
I’m watching Aliens right now. Aliens is a 1986 science fiction/action film starring Sigourney Weaver, Michael Biehn, Lance Henriksen, and Bill Paxton. A sequel to the 1979 film Alien, Aliens is set fifty-seven years after the first film and is regarded by many film critics as a benchmark for the action and science fiction genres. In Aliens, Weaver’s character Ellen Ripley returns to the planet where she first encountered the hostile Alien; this time she is accompanied by a unit of Colonial Marines.
Directed by James Cameron, Aliens’ action/adventure tone was in stark contrast to the science fiction/horror motifs of the original Alien. Following the success of The Terminator (1984), which helped establish Cameron as a major action director, Twentieth Century Fox greenlit Aliens with a budget of approximately $18 million. It was filmed in England at Pinewood Studios, the same location used for the filming of Alien, and at a decommissioned power plant.
Dressed to sell: the secret plot to change James Bond’s suit
In a move that will shock the espionage community to its foundations - James Bond has changed his tailor. After weeks of dangerous undercover investigation, we [The Times] reveal who’ll be measuring 007’s inside leg.
The Wind That Shakes the Barley
The Wind That Shakes the Barley is a 2006 Ken Loach film set during the Irish War of Independence (1919–21) and the Irish Civil War (1922–3). Written by long-time Loach collaborator Paul Laverty, this drama tells the story of two County Cork brothers, played by Cillian Murphy and Pádraic Delaney, who join the Irish Republican Army to fight for Irish independence from Great Britain. Widely praised, the film won the Palme d’Or at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival. A great movie and a nice way to spend this Eastern afternoon.
Nessun dorma
Nessun Dorma (None Shall Sleep) is an aria from the final act of Giacomo Puccini’s opera Turandot, and is one of the best known tenor arias in all opera. It is sung by Calaf, Il principe ignoto (The unknown prince), who falls in love at first sight with the beautiful but cold Princess Turandot. However, any man who wishes to wed Turandot must first answer her three riddles. If he fails, he will be beheaded.
I just heard this song watching Mar Adentro, a 2004 film by the Spanish/Chilean director Alejandro Amenábar. This superb movie is based on the real-life story of Ramón Sampedro (played by Javier Bardem), a Spanish ship mechanic left quadriplegic after a diving accident who fought a 28-year campaign in support of euthanasia and his right to end his own life. In the movie the song is performed by José Manuel Zapata. Here is another version by Luciano Pavarotti. This particular song was also played at his funeral last year during the flypast by the Italian Air Force :
Lyrics
The Prince
Nessun dorma, Nessun dorma!
Tu pure, o Principessa,
nella tua fredda stanza,
guardi le stelle
che tremano d’amore e di speranza.
Ma il mio mistero è chiuso in me,
il nome mio nessun saprà, no, no!
No, no, sulla tua bocca lo dirò
quando la luce splenderà!
Ed il mio bacio scioglierà il silenzio
che ti fa mia!
Chorus
Il nome suo nessun saprà!
e noi dovrem, ahimè, morir!
The Prince
Dilegua, o notte!
Tramontate, stelle!
All’alba vincerò!
Meet The Cast
Helvetica is a feature-length independent film about typography, graphic design and global visual culture. It looks at the proliferation of one typeface (which celebrated its 50th birthday in 2007) as part of a larger conversation about the way type affects our lives. The film is an exploration of urban spaces in major cities and the type that inhabits them, and a fluid discussion with renowned designers about their work, the creative process, and the choices and aesthetics behind their use of type.
Helvetica encompasses the worlds of design, advertising, psychology, and communication, and invites us to take a second look at the thousands of words we see every day.
(source text - official film web site)
Helvetica is the name of a widely used sans-serif typeface developed in 1957 by Swiss typeface designer Max Miedinger. More info on this typeface here and here.
Six Degrees Could Change the World - Preview
A video from the National Geographic Channel’s “Six Degrees Could Change the World” explores the potential impacts of global warming degree-by-degree—through six degrees over the next hundred years. Filmed on five continents, the program tracks the world’s top climate researchers and follows ranchers, photographers, and everyday people to uncover climate trends.
Flatland
How would a creature limited to two dimensions be able to grasp the possibility of a third? Edwin A. Abbott’s droll and delightful ‘romance of many dimensions’ explores this conundrum in the experiences of his protagonist, A Square, whose linear world is invaded by an emissary Sphere bringing the gospel of the third dimension on the eve of the new millennium. Part geometry lesson, part social satire, this classic work of science fiction brilliantly succeeds in enlarging all readers’ imaginations beyond the limits of our ‘respective dimensional prejudices’. In a world where class is determined by how many sides you possess, and women are straight lines, the prospects for enlightenment are boundless, and Abbott’s hypotheses about a fourth and higher dimensions seem startlingly relevant today.
Edwin Abbott’s beloved mathematical adventure novel Flatland (1884) is now being introduced to a whole new generation of readers and viewers through Flatland: The Movie, a dramatic computer-animated adaptation starring Martin Sheen, Kristen Bell, Michael York, Tony Hale, and Joe Estevez. This book is the companion to the movie–and the ultimate edition of the classic book on which it is based. A beautiful, large-format volume, Flatland: The Movie Edition includes: the full text of the original novel; the screenplay of the movie; essays on the making of the movie by the writers and filmmakers–producer Seth Caplan, director Jeffrey Travis, and director and animator Dano Johnson; color illustrations; and a new introduction by Thomas Banchoff, a Brown University mathematician and Flatland authority who served as an advisor to the filmmakers.
The Inhabitants of SPACE IN GENERAL
And H. C. IN PARTICULAR
This Work is Dedicated
By a Humble Native of Flatland
In the Hope that
Even as he was Initiated into the Mysteries
Of THREE Dimensions
Having been previously conversant
With ONLY TWO
So the Citizens of that Celestial Region
May aspire yet higher and higher
To the Secrets of FOUR FIVE OR EVEN SIX Dimensions
Thereby contributing
To the Enlargement of THE IMAGINATION
And the possible Development
Of that most rare and excellent Gift of MODESTY
Among the Superior Races
Of SOLID HUMANITY
Bessie Smith - St. Louis Blues
In this, her only appearance on film from 1929, Bessie Smith performs with orchestra, choir, piano and strings. The band includes James P. Johnson on piano, Thomas Morris and Joe Smith on cornet, as well as the Hall Johnson Choir with some thrilling harmonies at the end. The sound quality is not tremendous, but than again this is a very old recording.
La Sconosciuta
Tonight La Sconosciuta (The Unknown) at the Studio Leuven (Dutch link).
Irena “the unknown” (Rappoport) is an Ukranian young woman living in the Italian city of Velarchi. Soon we discover she has an horrible past of violence and humiliations. To pursue a mysterious aim she manages, by any means, legal and illegal, to get the job as an house servant for a wealthy couple with a little girl. She grows closer and closer to the family, especially to the girl, who suffers from a rare neurological disease. But someone will come back from her past, bringing new horrors and violence.
The movie won already several awards, including 5 David di Donatello Awards and a European FIlm Award.
Kwisatz Haderach
KWISATZ HADERACH: “Shortening of the Way.” This is the label applied by the Bene Gesserit to the unknown for which they sought a genetic solution: a male Bene Gesserit whose organic mental powers would bridge space and time.
We are 1965 and we come to know Arrakis, the only known source of the spice melange.
I see dead people
Watching The Sixth Sense right now (VT4 TV station - Dutch link), a psychological horror film written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan that tells the story of Cole, a troubled, isolated boy who claims to be able to see and talk to the dead (the famous line “I see dead people” is from this movie), and an equally troubled child psychologist (played by Bruce Willis) who tries to help him. The film established Shyamalan as a writer and director, and introduced the cinema public to his signatures: his appearance in Hitchcock-like cameos, his liking for twist endings, and his use of the color red as a symbol of strangeness or otherness (e.g. the shelter used by Cole, the grieving mother’s dress, a napkin, and many more).
RK sez: The Sixth Sense is probably the only film by Shyamalan worth seeing. The Village and Signs, 2 other of his movies are -to put it mildly- disappointing.
Te doy mis ojos
“A very damaging and a wrong one, but a love story all the same,” is how director Iciar Bollain describes Take my eyes (Te doy mis ojos), an award-winning tale of domestic abuse. Laia Marull gives a terrific performance as Pilar, a terrified housewife on the run from husband Antonio (Luis Toscar) and his regular outbursts of violent rage. Taking refuge with her sister Ana (Candela Peña), she tries to build a new life - but she’s still in love with the man who beat her. Review by Roger Ebert.
RK sez: a well told story about a difficult subject with some great acting. Domestic abuse has been portrayed on film before but never with this much complexity. Usually, we are treated to a parade of brutality, bordering on stylised cartoon violence in some cases, as oafish men hit their women for not having tea on the table. Iciar Bollain’s treatment is completely different. She keeps the rough stuff to a minimum, though the emotional abuse is continually evident.
(Tonight on DVD)
Articles of interest
Santiago Sierra is the king of shock art. But Adrian Searle wonders if his new show, featuring slabs made of human faeces, really hits its target (yes, this is the same guy of the homemade gas chamber set up in a former synagogue).
In other news a bear man walks away with Turner prize.
David Cronenberg’s “Eastern Promises” opens with a throat- slashing and a young woman collapsing in blood in a drugstore, and connects these events with a descent into an underground of Russians who have immigrated to London and brought their crime family with them. Like the Corleone family, but with a less wise and more fearsome patriarch, the Vory V Zakone family of the Russian mafia operates in the shadows of legitimate business — in this case, a popular restaurant. Reviews here and here. Official site. One of the best movies of 2007 !
Or may I advise you to watch Persepolis. Based on the graphic novel by Marjane Satrapi, it tells the story of a young girl in Iran during the Iranian Revolution. Through the eyes of the nine-year-old Marjane it shows how people’s hopes were dashed as the fundamentalists took power, forced the veil on women and imprisoned thousands. The title is a reference to the historical town of Persepolis. The film won the Prize of the Jury at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival. Reviews here and here. Official site. Another highlight for 2007.
A reason to visit Paris again ? A secret archive of erotic art is exposed for the first time by the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (French link). No entry if you are not at least 16 years of age…
Italians offer saints for download. Devout Italians will no longer have to carry around worn and tattered images of their favorite saints. A new service is launching on Wednesday that offers downloads of the holy images to mobile phones. The Catholic Church has reacted with horror.
Movie
Ha ! Northern Lights, the opening episode of Philip Pullman’s fantasy series His Dark Materials, premiers Dec 5th. with Nicole Kidman as Mrs Coulter. Review at the Guardian. Watch the trailer. Northern Lights was some time ago declared the finest children’s book of the past 70 years.
Zodiac
A nice cup of warm milk with honey and a rented movie: Zodiac, a film directed by David Fincher (remember The Game, se7en and Fight Club ?).
Top 10 movie lines
As reported by the Sun, the 10 most memorable movie lines:
- “I’ll be back.” (The Terminator)
- “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.” (Gone With The Wind)
- “Beam me up, Scotty.” (Star Trek)
- “May the force be with you.” (Star Wars)
- “Life is like a box of chocolates.” (Forrest Gump)
- “You talking to me?” (Taxi Driver)
- “Show me the money.” (Jerry Maguire)
- “Do you feel lucky, punk?” (Dirty Harry)
- “Here’s looking at you, kid.” (Casablanca)
- “Nobody puts Baby in the corner.” (Dirty Dancing)
Well, a list is a list.
Paths of Glory
Paths of Glory (1957) is an anti-war black and white film by Stanley Kubrick based on the novel of the same name by Humphrey Cobb. The book had no title when it was finished, so the publisher held a contest. The winning entry came from the ninth stanza of the famous Thomas Gray poem Elegy Written in a Country Church-yard (line 33-36).
The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e’er gave,
Awaits alike the inevitable hour.
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.
Tonight on Arte (French link)
