Filmmaker and Panavision cofounder Richard Moore was probably the least famous person whose passing today received any notice, but he certainly had a big impact on what you see at the movie theater and on DVD. Below are a few trailers for films made the Panavision 65 process he is credited with developing. (Technically, all 70 mm films are really 65mm — 5 milimeters are required for the magnetic sound strips.)
All of these, particularly “Lawrence of Arabia” and “2001” are movies you should try to see on the biggest screen possible, ideally projected on film and in a movie theater. If you’re lucky enough to live someplace where older movies are occasionally still shown on 70mm prints, leap at the chance. Seeing movies like that is too much fun to be left only to hardcore film geeks.
As at least a large chunk of America mourns the passing of Ted Kennedy, today is a day when we honor William Faulkner’s phrase: “The past is not dead. In fact, it’s not even past.”
* Did you know that the late Walter Cronkite stumbled into a den of Colombian narco-terrorists? The result was that a few years later the most trusted man in America gave testimony before a Florida jury. No surprise, a major conviction resulted. Now, as Michael Fleming tells it, international thrillmeister Luc Besson wants to turn Uncle Walter into a movie action hero, or something close. Interesting.
* Great news for those of us who are involved with cinema’s past here in Southern California. The endangered film program of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) has been given a $150,000 reprieve.
* Something tells me that maybe Vin Diesel is taking that Faulkner quote a bit too seriously. Does anyone want XXX III?
* Martin Anderson of Den of Geek wonders about the future of Blu-Ray in general and a newer superduper 3-D compatible version being tied to “Avatar.” He’s right about the still-problematic nature of at least some of the glasses and the fact that we quickly forget we’re even watching 3-D after the first few minutes, so there’s a point of diminishing returns for the viewer which might prevent folks from making the large initial investment in the technology. For me, I love 3-D as a novelty for certain kinds of movies, but I really don’t think we need it to become standard. Having 3-D available to me at home would almost defeat the purpose and ruin the fun.
* More deaths: Writer turned film producer turned diarist Dominick Dunne (h/t David Hudson) and widescreen/large format pioneer, Panavision cofounder, cinematographer, and director Richard Moore.
There’s little question that one of the most lively panels during the early days of the TCA tour was the one dedicated to Joan Rivers’ new TV Land series, “How’d You Get So Rich?” Or, if you read my coverage of the panel, you may be more familiar with it as “How’d You Get So Fucking Rich?” But, y’know, that’s Joan for you. You can learn just about anything you need to know about the concept of the series by checking out the link to my panel coverage that I just offered up (though I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that there’s a new episode of the series airing tonight at 10 PM EST / PST), but after she held court before the crowd of critics, a few of us actually had a chance to speak to her one on one for a few minutes each.
Now, I’ll be the first to admit that, were it a contest to see who got the best pull quotes out of Joan, Joel Keller of TV Squad – who preceded me in speaking with her – would have taken the victory (she hadn’t been aware that David Tutera was scheduled to have his own TCA panel, but when he brought it up, she let fly with her thoughts on him in her usual forthright manner), but I still managed to get a couple of good lines from Ms. Rivers about “Z Rock,” “The Celebrity Apprentice,” and “Rabbit Test,” and the closing moments of our conversation will live in my memory forever.
Bullz-Eye: It’s a pleasure to meet you.
Joan Rivers: And it’s a pleasure to…well, we’ll see.
BE: (Laughs) I’ve got only got a couple of minutes, but I’ll do my best.
A few items worthy of your attention this evening.
* A new study predicts that the Redbox video kiosks will be taking over 30% of the DVD market before the end of 2010. There’s no stopping this and you can’t really argue with success, but I fear this will only narrow the already narrow marketing of films further, as the kiosks can only rent a very limited of inevitably mostly recent and blockbuster titles. It’s really the opposite of Netflix, which is a godsend for those who want to broaden their movie/TV horizons.
* Speaking of matters of life and death, writer Johnathon Williams finds truth in his love of zombie flicks. (H/t David Hudson)
* Also via The Autuers/Mr. Hudson’s invaluable Twitter feed, comes this interesting comparison of the late John Hughes and the even later master of forties screwball comedy, Preston Sturges. I personally would never really compare the two but it is slightly spooky that they both died on August 6th and were almost the same age, and there were some similarities to their respective careers, but not to their sensibilities. Of course, that also happens to be the day the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan and my sister’s birthday, draw whatever connections you want. (My sister is, however, way nicer than an atom bomb or a writer-director’s untimely death.) I will say that, to me, Sturges movies are much, much funnier and a lot more interesting.
* Another TV-to-movie adaptation. This one based on Fred Astaire’s favorite show. See why below. And, no, that guy just doesn’t look like Rerun, he isRerun.
That was too much fun. I’ll have a couple of bonus “Soul Train” videos after the flip.
I’m intensely skeptical, but someone claiming to be movie/stage legend Lauren Bacall has an account on Twitter and is doing a pretty good job of sounding like the woman born Betty Joan Perske. Well, some of the time, anyhow.
For those of you who may not be familiar with her, Bacall’s status is entirely earned. A born entertainer, she became one of the screen’s sexiest young sirens playing opposite the substantially older Humphrey Bogart, whom she married. After starring with Bogie, and stealing all her scenes, in Howard Hawks’ “To Have and Have Not” and “The Big Sleep,” she graduated to more mature roles over the years and she became a Broadway star and occasionally popped up in great movies like “The Shootist,” and TV shows like “The Rockford Files.” Now nearing her mid-eighties, she continues to work and be terrific in movies like Paul Shrader’s political thriller, “The Walker.” She even allowed herself to be robbed and mistreated by Christopher Moltisanti (Michael Imperioli) on an episode of “The Sopranos.”
As Karina Longworth points out, her posts do have a Betty Bacall like cadence, so if you’d like to think that’s actually her, I can’t stop you and I might be tempted to join you. I’m in awe to even think it might be for real.
It’ll be sometime before we find out the truth behind these Tweets. In the meantime, a great Bacall moment or two. We’ll start with her most memorable scene from “The Big Sleep,” which was actually added to boost her role after the success of “To Have and Have Not” and their marriage made Bogart and Bacall one of Hollywood’s hottest couples.
After the flip, I’ve got a couple of iconic clips with Lauren Bacall in her way, way pre-Twitter days.
