Another clip inspired by “Inglourious Basterds.” This brief sequence from “Casablanca” is one of my favorite scenes from any movie. Here is World War II in microcosm as the Paul Henreid’s heroic Victor Laszlo and the employees and customers of Rick’s Cafe Americain take on Conrad Veidt’s Nazi Colonel Strasse and Claude Rains’ Vichy-regime opportunist, Captain Renault, the only way they can.
One thing to consider about just why this scene remains so powerful is that very many of the actors here, including the German-born Veidt, whose first wife was Jewish, were themselves refugees from World War II-era persecution.
A series of clips inspired by guess which movie, starting with my favorite sixties war flick, Robert Aldrich’s brilliant, deeply cynical “The Dirty Dozen.” Here, mega-man-among-men Lee Marvin gets his first look at his new charges and shows John Cassavettes a little tough love.
Warner Bros. and Turner Broadcasting are the latest to come to terms with YouTube, allowing the online video sensation to stream clips from their shows and movies.
The pact, done through the home entertainment and television divisions, is aimed at driving digital sales of Warner movies and TV shows online, the company said. Links on some WB shows already on the site point users directly to WBshop.com, where they can buy DVDs of what they’re watching.
Warner said it will offer clips of everything from CNN news programs to Cartoon Network shows and WB TV hit “Gossip Girl” on a number of different Warner-branded channels on the site.
I don’t understand why they only want to show clips. CBS, Sony Pictures, and Starz run complete episodes and movies on the site, which are supported by pop-up ads and brief commercials. That’s no reason to complain, obviously, as you’re getting the content free of charge. Perhaps they are being cautious, as production companies and networks are waiting for a data-tracking system that tallies television, cell phone, and Internet audiences. Warner Bros. and Turner can then gauge if the audience is large enough online and soon proceed to show full-length features and episodes.
A few last minute items as the the inglourious weekend gets seriously underway.
* If the movie world had a “Friday news dump” the way they do in D.C., the news that Martin Scorsese’s Dennis Lehane adaptation, “Shutter Island,” has been moved from November of ’09 to February of ’10 might be so handled. No such luck for Paramount as Nikki Finke, Anne Thompson and Screenrant and pretty much every two-bit blogger on the ‘net, including me, has something to say. This is not the first promising film to be so switched. “The Wolf Man” was also shunted by Universal from the traditionally good-movie rich fall to the less auspicious late winter.
Finances are obviously at the root, but speculation is rife on how the move might have been influenced by the Academy’s recent switch to ten awards annually. In any case, I tend to buy at least two of Nikki Finke’s reasons — a simple delay to spread out the financial cost of marketing the film around during tough economic times (perhaps with the hope of a better 2010) and the fact that star Leonardo DiCaprio wouldn’t have been able to promote the film this autumn. Considering they had people already fairly worked about the film, it’s a definite sign of some fragility, I’d say.
* Will the Twitter effect make movies better? Is it even real? Michael Sragow has a decent, yet frustrating, article on the ongoing topic. (H/t Anne Thompson.)
* After making one deal to direct an extremely ill-advised possible “Battlestar Galatica” re-reboot, Bryan Singer has also signed on to do a remake of John Boorman’s King Arthur epic, “Excalibur.” I love John Boorman’s work in general and also tales of chivalry and swordplay, yet I kind of hate (or at least can’t sit through) the original film, which many love but I find unspeakably turgid. So, I guess I’m open-minded about what Singer will do with it. Can almost only be an improvement for me. Of course, neither of these films may ever actually happen. Bryan Singer’s next film is expected to be “Jack, the Giant Killer.”
An interesting note about the 1962 movie version of the fairy tale (one no one ever bothered to tell me…I always thought it was another name for “Jack and the Beanstalk”). Many musicals have had their songs removed to be released in non-musical versions over the years, this is one of the very few where a producer attempted to turn it into a musical after the fact.
* And because everyone else is giving it to you, I might as well also serve up the trailer for Michael Moore’s new “Capitalism: A Love Story.” It made me laugh but of Christopher Campbell, whose favorite words lately seem to be “dated” and “derivative” (but not “delightful” or “delovely”) and his crew of usual suspects mostly think it disappoints. Do these guys ever like anything? Campbell never seems to. In comments, JoblessInTampa has some choice words for the Eastern film geek elites on the issue of being out-of-step.
If you’re “Avatar”-enthusiast enough to be one of the ticket holders for tonight’s quarter-hour Imax 3-D free preview of James Cameron’s “Avatar,” you’ve probably seen the already much discussed online trailer. Nikki “I don’t do geek” Finke is unimpressed, as are some actual geeks. That news comes courtesy of Spoutblog’s Christopher Campbell, who can’t seem to ever resist joining a geek pile-on.
Personally, while I obviously have opinions pro- and con- on trailers quite often myself, I get a little irritated at the tendency to pass early judgment on an entire film, though I also understand it. We’re all busy and life is short. Let’s all move on with life so we can dismiss something else. Personally, though, I found a lot of the imagery in this trailer quite arresting and find the comparisons to Jar-Jar Binks, etc., not entirely fair — even if some of the characters do look like things we’ve seen before. At the same time, when you tell people they’re going to see something completely new and mind-blowing, expectations are sure to be absurdly high.
I’m sure it’ll look a great more impressive in Imax 3-D, but for those of us who won’t be there, and those who can’t wait to watch it again, here’s your moment of trailer.
