The titles pretty much says it. It’s Memorial Day and it’s also Clint Eastwood‘s 80th birthday. It seems appropriate to feature moments from his two elegiac World War II movies about the Battle of Iwo Jima. Below, Eastwood and his cast discuss re-staging one of the most recreated moments in American history for the highly underrated “Flags of Our Fathers.”
More to come, but in the meantime be sure to take a look at the “Eastwood @ 80” page at the recently renamed MUBI.
The long Memorial Day weekend is not quite half over but it doesn’t look like a barn-burner for anyone. Looking at the traditional three days which are used to cover the more competitive side of box office results, it’s looking like Carrie Bradshaw and the other women of “Sex and the City 2” have been stood up by a significant share of the expected audience, leaving “Shrek Forever After” the box office leader.
The $60 million guessed at for the entire “five day frame” by jolly Carl DiOrio on Thursday may still be possible” but it’s start to look like it’ll be lucky to hit even that modest number. (The first film in the series earned $57 million in its initial three-day frame.) In any case,everyone really did seem to expect the film to hit #1 and that certainly doesn’t seem to be the case. The present weekend estimate for Warners’ “Sex” according to Box Office Mojo is $32.125 million while the final Shrek film took in $43.345 million.
The pleasant surprise for Dreamworks/Paramount here is that their animated comedy about the world famous fairy tale troll experienced a better than average 38% percent drop from it’s opening — which was a big let down compared to previous films at just under $71 million, but far from disastrous. This may be more evidence that telling a decent story actually counts for something.
The consensus on this “Shrek” is that it’s nothing great (Mike Fleming termed the reviews “mediogre” <yuck, yuck>), but a relatively decent ending to the series with some considering it one of the better entries in the four picture series, so word-of-mouth may be giving it a small boost. There’s also the factor of it in being in nearly a thousand more theaters than the other films and many of those being 3-D with higher ticket prices. The public may be starting to tire of those prices, but enough of them appear to still be willing to pay the added freight to keep the troll on top.
Think of this as the cinematic equivalent of cold pizza, which can be a surprisingly delicious breakfast. What follows, then are some trailers I’ve been meaning to run all week but haven’t had the opportunity as yet.
We’ll start with the latest trailer for Christopher Nolan’s much anticipated “Inception.” This Philip K. Dickish tale seems to be summer’s best hope for a quality megablockbuster and, if it fails to deliver, there are going to a lot of disappointed movie fans and film studio folks.
Posting about something aside from the passing of Dennis Hopper doesn’t really seem right today. Here’s an excerpt from Mr. Hopper’s “Inside the Actor’s Studio” appearance in which he discusses learning from James Dean and Lee Strasberg. Hopper also discusses, humorously, a different kind of learning with the prolific director Henry Hathaway.
Re: James Lipton’s dad, who he claims “invented” Venice, California — actually an unincorporated section of Los Angeles. Lawrence Liption was an Interesting guy, but this Venice High alum thinks Abbott Kinney probably deserves more credit for the actual neighborhood. However, I guess the elder Lipton deserves some credit for transforming it, to some degree, from the “Coney Island of the West” to the Berkeley of Southern California, which it still kinda sorta is.
UPDATE: Getting back to Hopper, as usual, there’s tons — and I mean tons more — about the late actor and his directing career, which I fear I’ve given short shrift to, via David Hudson at MUBI.
Dennis Hopper died today at age 74 after a lengthy and public illness. He was an icon of mid-century rebellion and an always fresh and fascinating character actor throughout a career that spanned the classic era, the American New Wave of the late sixties and early seventies, and his often astonishing later career work in numerous films and television shows after he was finally able to conquer his longstanding issues with substance abuse during the mid-eighties. He didn’t have a lot of starring roles, but that’s show business. (The still above is from one of the very few, Curtis Harrington’s 1961 “Night Tide.” He’s very good in it.)
He was also a photographer, the director of one of the most influential (i.e., copied and later spoofed) single films ever made, “Easy Rider,” as well as a major figure on the Los Angeles art landscape. It’s not often mentioned, but he was also probably the most proudly counter-cultural celebrity to ever openly associate himself with the Republican party, though, as recounted by Edward Copeland in his extremely detailed look at Hopper’s career, he was a true maverick to the end and voted for Obama in 2008.
Mr. Hopper was most certainly the real deal and there’s no way one post can do justice to his legacy. For now, we’ll keep things simple and just offer a few of the most iconic moments from Dennis Hopper’s amazing care, after the flip.
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