HollywoodGolightly
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*Focus on Polanski case turns back to Switzerland*
By ANTHONY McCARTNEY
AP Entertainment Writer
Apr 23, 5:51 am ET
LOS ANGELES ? With his latest appeal rejected, Roman Polanski's fate once again lies in the hands of Swiss authorities.
A California appeals court on Thursday rejected Polanski's bid to have his case reviewed by a special counsel or to be sentenced in absentia.
The Swiss Justice Ministry had been waiting for the court's ruling before deciding whether to allow the Oscar-winning director to be returned to Los Angeles for sentencing on his 33-year-old sex case.
But a Swiss official said Friday that the ministry wouldn't rush into a decision. If it ultimately approves extradition, Polanski could still lodge court appeals in Switzerland that would delay his return to the United States for months.
Polanski has been under house arrest for months at his chalet in the luxury resort of Gstaad as his attorneys repeatedly sought to win the director's freedom in Los Angeles courtrooms.
They have argued that Polanski shouldn't have to be present to be sentenced on one count of unlawful sexual intercourse. In their latest appeal, they argued that he should be sentenced to time served.
The recent appeal focused on newly obtained testimony from a former prosecutor who felt the original judge handling Polanski's case acted improperly. That testimony remains sealed.
The California 2nd District Court of Appeal dismissed Polanski's appeal without issuing an opinion. They also dismissed a petition by Polanski's victim, Samantha Geimer, to have the case dismissed.
The Swiss will only extradite Polanski to the United States if he faces a sentence longer than six months. U.S. prosecutors say Polanski faces up to two years in prison.
It remains unclear how quickly the Swiss will rule on Polanski's extradition, although Swiss Justice Ministry spokesman Folco Galli has said a decision usually comes within a year of a person's arrest. Polanski was arrested in late September.
"We first have to receive the official information from the United States, and then we will examine it," Galli told The Associated Press on Friday. "We can't make a decision based on media reports. We have to study the ruling."
"We must have some patience," he added.
Galli declined to say in which direction Swiss authorities were leaning on Polanski. "If it was obvious that he couldn't be extradited, we wouldn't have arrested him," he said. "But it remains open."
The director could still seek to end the case in California by appealing to the state Supreme Court. His attorneys declined comment Thursday and have not indicated what their next step will be.
Polanski was accused in 1977 of plying Geimer, then aged 13, with champagne and part of a sedative pill, then **** her at Jack Nicholson's house.
Polanski was indicted on six felony counts, including rape by use of drugs, child molesting and ****. He later pleaded guilty to one count of unlawful sexual intercourse.
Authorities are seeking Polanski's extradition from Switzerland so he can be sentenced on the charge. The Academy Award-winning director fled the United States on the eve of sentencing in 1978.
His attorneys have said he fled because the judge handling the case planned to send Polanski back to prison even though he had completed a diagnostic study ordered by the court.
Polanski's attorneys have cited numerous instances of apparent misconduct in the case by the judge, who is now dead. The appeals court and a lower court judge have said there are indications of serious misconduct in how the case was handled, but neither have ordered an evidentiary hearing that could resolve the matter.
Geimer, Polanski's victim, has also been advocating for the "Rosemary's Baby" and "Chinatown" director. Her appeal, which was also rejected Thursday, sought to dismiss the case because of a recent change to California's constitution that gave victims a greater role in criminal cases.
Prosecutors argued that the changes did not hand victims the authority to end prosecutions.
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AP Special Correspondent Linda Deutsch in Los Angeles and AP writer Bradley S. Klapper in Geneva contributed to this story.
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Hope everyone's enjoying Friday's schedule in honor of Miss Temple. The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer is coming up next.
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Hattie McDaniel was in Gone with the Wind with Olivia de Havilland
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Walter Brennan
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Sylvia Sydney
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Arthur O'Connell was in Pocketful of Miracles with Bette Davis
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Yet another interesting article on the 3-D trend, from the L.A. Times:
*3-D: Hollywood?s latest hot trend*
Everybody ? from studios to directors to theaters ? is jumping on the bandwagon. All this to give filmgoers a ?new? experience ? and collect an extra $3 to $5 per ticket.
By Richard Verrier and Ben Fritz, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
April 25, 2010
On a recent afternoon, a dozen cinematographers, directors and camera assistants huddled inside a sound stage on the Sony Pictures lot in Culver City, wearing black plastic glasses as they watched a monitor.
The object of their gaze: the body movements of a USC acting student sitting at a kitchen table on a set a few yards away.
"Hold up one finger,'' bellowed the instructor, cinematographer David Drzewiecki.
The student obliged as a technician several yards away used a remote-control device to adjust the position and angle of the left and right lenses (one for each eye) of a 3-D camera rig on rollers. The finger gradually protruded from the monitor screen while the kitchen background faded into a blur.
This is Hollywood's 3-D frenzy, from ground level.
Directors and cinematographers are mastering new skills and equipment. Studio executives are scouring their movie slates and their libraries for films with the potential to be released in 3-D. Technology companies that provide 3-D equipment and services are hiring new workers. Theater operators are taking out loans to convert projection rooms to the digital technology.
All this to give filmgoers a "new" experience ? and collect an extra $3 to $5 per ticket.
As with every hot trend in Hollywood, it's uncertain whether the 3-D onslaught is simply a flash, like the push in the 1980s to colorize black-and-white films, or a fundamental transformation akin to the advent of sound in the 1920s.
"The real question now is: ?How many movies per year does the audience want to put on glasses and pay a premium for?' " said Rob Moore, vice chairman of Paramount Pictures.
Hollywood rarely does anything unless it overdoes it. Warner Bros. President Alan Horn recently said that 3-D will be standard for its big-event movies. In all, 19 films will be released in 3-D this year, up from five in 2008.
"If you're pitching event movies to a studio and you're not at least prepared to discuss the possibility of shooting in 3-D, you're going to be severely handicapped," said Marty Bowen, producer of the "Twilight" films.
Cinematographer Irek Hartowicz had no intention of taking a class on how to shoot in 3-D until producers of his next project, a "comedy" set against the French invasion of Russia in 1812, changed plans. "Our production was in 2-D and suddenly, after the whole boom of ?Avatar,' producers strongly began to think about shooting in 3-D because the market is so huge,'' said Hartowicz, who attended the three-day Sony class.
"We're not allowed to train on the job, so we have to get it right the first time," said Mark Weingartner, chair of the national training committee for the International Cinematographers Guild, which helped Sony develop the class at the studio's new 3-D training center. "We're trying to prepare our members for this 3-D tsunami."
The goal is to train a "community of experts" and build a better understanding of the new technology. "We're trying to cure the fear of the unknown,'' said the center's senior vice president, Buzz Hays.
For directors, the new medium can be a challenge. They need to imagine scenes in three dimensions and create longer, slower shots, because the technology isn't suited to rapid cutting. "I felt like I was making my first movie again,'' said Paul W.S. Anderson, a veteran horror film director and producer who recently shot "Resident Evil: Afterlife" in 3-D. "Suddenly, you have this whole new palette."
This isn't the first time Hollywood has tried to persuade moviegoers to don glasses, of course. Stereoscopic cinema first became popular in the 1950s with such horror flicks as "Creature From the Black Lagoon." High costs and technology problems ? or perhaps just campy filmmaking ? curbed its appeal, until a brief resurgence in the 1980s.
Then "Avatar" took the nation by storm, running up grosses of $2.7 billion worldwide, so far. A staggering 83% of "Avatar's" domestic ticket sales revenue came from theaters where moviegoers paid extra to put on 3-D glasses.
"I don't think that the mainstream adult audience was buying into live-action 3-D before ?Avatar,' " said Donna Langley, co-chair of Universal Pictures.
Avatar opened Dec. 18, a Friday, and by the following Monday, Bobby Jaffe's phone was ringing off the hook.
Jaffe is a senior executive of Legend 3D, a San Diego company that specializes in converting conventional movies to digital 3-D. The process takes eight to 16 weeks and costs between $3 million and $20 million, depending on the timetable, type of film and number of scenes involved.
" ?Avatar' came out and all of a sudden people saw a $1-billion business in 17 days,'' Jaffe said. "We went from a lot of people kicking our tires to a lot of people kicking down our door."
Two hours north, in the heart of Hollywood, the visual effects house Prime Focus recently hired 80 additional people to work on 3-D conversions, including the recent "Clash of the Titans." "We're trying to build a pipeline that can handle 20 to 30 projects a year,'' said the company's North American visual effects president, Chris Bond, anticipating a rush of converting both old and new 2-D films.
A mile to the west on Hollywood Boulevard, workers were recently testing a new $75,000 digital projector and 3-D adapter that was being installed at the historic Grauman's Chinese Theatre. "Over the next 12 months, we'll ship more than 6,000 projectors," said Jack Kline, president of Christie Digital Systems USA Inc., the Cypress-based firm that supplied the digital projector to Grauman's. "We can't meet the demand."
While the film industry scrambles, however, the future of 3-D lies in the hands of moviegoers who have embraced spectacles such as "Avatar" and "Alice in Wonderland," but may be less enthusiastic once the novelty wears off.
While walking out of a recent screening of "Avatar" at the ArcLight Hollywood, San Diego resident Shelley Streeby called the movie's 3-D effects "amazing" but questioned the need for its widespread adoption. "I don't think most new movies need to be in 3-D," she said. "Only if it's something amazing, like one out of a 100."
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Robert Blake was in PT 109 with Cliff Robertson
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TCM is showing this one on Sunday as part of its "History of Hollywood" lineup - I think that is why we get 2 silents this Sunday instead of just one. Has anyone seen this before?
*Souls for Sale* (1923)
In this silent film, a young woman turns Hollywood upside down in her search for stardom.
Cast: Eleanor Boardman, Mae Busch, Barbara La Marr, Richard Dix Dir: Rupert Hughes BW-90 mins, TV-G
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Queen Christina
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Barbara Stanwyck was in Double Indemnity with Edward G. Robinson
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I seem to remember when they mentioned it being a 10-part documentary, but maybe they decided to narrow it down a little bit. As a 7-hour documentary, it's still probably a pretty thorough one, and represents perhaps the longest original documentary TCM's ever produced.
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Great news for noir fans! A small outfit called Olive Films has licensed several titles from Paramount Pictures, and will be releasing 3 film noirs from the 50s on DVD. The titles - Dark City, Union Station and Appointment with Danger - are scheduled for release on July 13th.
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> {quote:title=Mogul-o-maniac wrote:}{quote}
> Just bear in mind that, at forty-six, Russell Crowe is exactly the same age as Sean Connery was thirty-four years ago when he played "old" Robin Hood in ROBIN AND MARIAN.
True, but he doesn't look as old as Connery was made to look in that movie.
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Velez, Lupe
Vaughn, Robert
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Mineo, Sal
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Out of the Past
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Zuko, Danny - John Travolta in Grease
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Zinneman, Fred - directed The Member of the Wedding
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Robert Coogan
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*_FRIDAY, APRIL 23_*
*Rio Conchos* (1964) 6am ET
The Wild West gets wilder when a power struggle erupts between a sadistic Indian-killer (Boone), a Mexican bandit (Franciosa), an Army captain (Whitman) and a demented Confederate general (O'Brien) who all fight for a shipment of arms.
Cast: Richard Boone, Stuart Whitman, Tony Franciosa, Jim Brown, Wende Wagner. Director: Gordon Douglas - NOT AVAILABLE ON DVD
*The Big Trail* (1930) 8am ET
Breck Coleman (John Wayne-first starring role) leads hundreds of settlers in covered wagons from the Mississippi River out West. The film is recognized as one of the most significant early talking films and for its grand sweeps and naturalistic sound.
Cast: John Wayne, Marguerite Churchill, El Brendel, Tully Marshall. Director: Raoul Walsh
*_SATURDAY, APRIL 24_*
*Broken Arrow* (1950) 12pm ET
Ex-Union soldier (James Stewart) helps Apache Chief Cochise (Jeff Chandler) as they try to find peace between feuding Indians and settlers.
Cast: James Stewart, Jeff Chandler, Will Geer, Jay Silverheels. Director: Delmer Daves
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This was also one of Falk's earliest screen credits, funny how long he's been in the business.
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Great idea on the part of the TCM folks to have Eli Wallach appear on the intros and outros of the movie Thursday night, even if he isn't in it, because he'd worked with Leone before he made this film and had some good insight to offer - kind of wonder what else he might have to say at the festival.
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> {quote:title=fredbaetz wrote:}{quote}
> Ford's heart may have been in the right place, along with the courage he showed in making it, but between his age, health, the scripts, the fights with the studio and casting, personal problems, it seems that Pappy had 3 strikes on him from the outset..
> With all this said I still think it should be viewed as a major piece of film making by one of America's greatest directors, flawed as it is......
Great post, fred! Thank you so much for sharing your insight into the problems that plagued this production, it's really hard to say that things weren't going Ford's way in so many ways, but like you said, even though it is flawed, there's still some good things the movie has going for it.
It's very interesting to note that Ford was interested in casting actual Native-Americans for the Cheyenne parts, funny how it wouldn't be until several decades later that an idea like that would happen in a major studio motion picture, with Kevin Costner's Dances with Wolves.
"Souls for Sale" (1923)
in Silent
Posted
Sounds pretty interesting. It'll also be nice if they can give it a "special" intro like they've been doing with the movies since last night (for the festival).