Viral marketing was very good for Neil Blomkamp on “District 9.” So, no wonder he’s indulging in it again for something which apparently first showed up in some kind of newfangled i-something version of Wired Magazine.
And now a brief clip from what seems certain to be one of the year’s biggest sensations and a very likely major Oscar contender, Darren Aronofsky’s “The Black Swan.” I’m really hoping this will be 50% Powell and Pressburger’s “The Red Shoes,” 50% Roman Polanski’s “Repulsion” and 50% something entirely new and original.
I haven’t seen as many of her films as I’d like, and I’m not sure when the phrase “scream queen” was coined, but I’ve seen enough to know one of the best and sexiest scream queens ever has left us. As you can read in this appreciation by Clark Collis over at EW, the feisty and outspoken Miss Pitt had an amazing life.
She was apparently saved from death as a child at a Polish [note: see comments] Nazi concentration camp near the end of World War II when the gas chamber failed to work as Russian troops were invading. Later, she swam her way out of Soviet-dominated East Berlin before being rescued by an American soldier whom she later married. She eventually headed to England and, ultimately, the Hammer Film studios where she became one of the studio’s regulars in such horror outings as “The Vampire Lovers” and “Countess Dracula.” She also appeared, briefly but memorably, in one of my favorite movies, 1974’s “The Wicker Man.”
In celebration of her life we present a clip and a complete film after the clip.
This is not the first time I’ve posted about the great thriller Michael Powell made with writer and famed WWII cryptographer Leo Marks. Released the very same year as “Psycho,” “Peeping Tom” was also about a serial killer, but was much more stylized and shot in eye-filling Eastmancolor. It featured, I believe, not a single drop of onscreen blood. Yet, it more or less permanently disabled the career of one of the greatest directors of all time.
Below the often thoughtful but highly tendentious BBC film critic, Mark Kermode, is on his absolute best behavior as he provides terrific interviews with Powell’s widow, famed film editor Thelma Schoonmaker, and her boss/colleague and #1 Powell fan and friend, Martin Scorsese, as they try to explain just what made, and makes, “Peeping Tom” so powerful and relevant today.
The irony of the completely opposite post-serial-killer movie fates of Alfred Hitchcock and Powell, who were of roughly the same generation and peers in the English film industry at one point, never fails to stun me. I’m also endlessly impressed by the fact that there was a time and a place where movie critics could not only destroy a film, they could end a career. I wonder how “Peeping Tom” would have been received if it came out in North America first.
You can see the even more excellent complete 22 minute interview with Martin Scorsese over at The Guardian which, among other topics includes some discussion of the upcoming “The Invention of Hugo Cabret” and Scorsese’s thoughts on shooting the film in 3D. As for, “Peeping Tom,” let’s hope, that restoration hits the States before too long.
Mike Fleming has the news that they’ve just formalized the deal to have writer-actor Mike White (“School of Rock,” “Chuck and Buck”) write and direct the movie version of the hugely popular mash-up of Jane Austen and George Romero by Seth Grahame-Smith, but why wait?
First, here’s the first ten minutes or so (Part A) of the 1940 MGM version of “Pride and Prejudice,” starring Laurence Olivier and the wondrous Greer Garson and directed by Hunt Stromberg (who?). The rest appears to be available on YouTube as well. Just go on to Part B, Part C etc.
And here are the zombies, as in “Night of the Living Dead” — the complete movie all in one handy embed, in fact. (In perhaps the single the biggest rights foul-up in movie history, George Romero’s classic fell into public domain pretty much right after its release.)
Thank me. I’ve just saved you all years of anticipation and roughly $10-$22.00 (if they do it in 3D).
I’m going to busier than usual all this week — and today especially. So, when I post, I’ll be posting even more trailers and the like than usual, starting with this one for the new Nicholas Cage costume fantasy (?) action caper, “Season of the Witch.”
Looks just a bit corny and silly, perhaps? Well, corn can be fun, especially when its silly. And, speaking of fun, I’ve got some thematically related bonus videos after the flip.
