Below are some clips which show what a versatile director of photography like Mr. Fraker can do, starting with the obvious, which really shows that Fraker knew his way around shadows.

More after the flip.

The granddaddy of modern day movie car chases.

From “Tombstone”

“American Hot Wax”

And because DP’s never seem to get any respect for doing comedies…

I’m in the midst of a crazy day that for me that will include a screening tonight and then a quick jaunt across the street over to the New Beverly, which is in the midst of Dante’s Inferno, to catch a movie I’ve literally been trying to see for decades. It’s 1967’s “The President’s Analyst,” a political-thriller/spy comedy satire, which is basically three or four of my favorite genres all mushed up together. Writer-director Theodore J. Flicker went on to create “Barney Miller,” so there’s that, too. Sadly, I’ll miss the even more obscure first feature which I featured here just a couple of weeks back, “Cold Turkey.”

Anyhow, I shall be brief, or not. Starting now, anyway:

* It looks like there may be yet one more “last Kubrick movie” to come and it’ll be a Holocaust-themed drama to be directed by Ang Lee. Something tells me we’re looking at a Fall or Winter release here.

* Matthew Vaughn’s “Kick-Ass” is attracting strong studio interest, not surprisingly. And I can still remember a time when they’d have to put a picture of a donkey on the film poster in order to get away with that title.

* If you don’t know who Hank Williams is, then you don’t know really know that much about the good kind of actual country music. (Actually, I could stand to learn some myself.) Maybe a planned biopic will reduce the woeful ignorance out there about the singer songwriter who died at age 29, but not before writing scads of the best songs ever written. And, yes, this is another dreaded “remake,” in the sense that there was another Hank Williams biopic in 1964. It was “Your Cheatin’ Heart” with a presumably untanned George Hamilton. I gather it might have been pretty good. (BTW, you can hear many great Williams tunes while watching a great movie as part of a double DVD set I reviewed a while back which includes “The Last Picture Show.”)

* If you, like me, you were late to see the possibly leaked “Iron Man 2” footage that’s been floating around, it’s been pulled from some spots. Apparently with Jon Favreau’s blessing, JoBlo still has it.

* For those who think directing is a young man’s game, the man behind this movie is 87.

* Someday, I’m going to have to throw a party like Tilda Swinton and director/journo Mark Cousins just did.

* Fans of the “G.I. Joe” mythos, and even a guy like me who doesn’t even get the references, might find this all-star production kind of amusing.

H/t Whedonesque.