HollywoodGolightly
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Posts posted by HollywoodGolightly
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Glad you enjoyed it!
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From today's L.A. Times:
The Big Picture
Patrick Goldstein on the collision of entertainment, media and pop culture
*The 'Clash of the Titans' conundrum: Why animated films look better in 3-D*
*April 8, 2010*
Why was the 3-D in "Clash of the Titans" so awful?
Slate's Daniel Engber offers some pretty darn intriguing theories about the issue in a recent post, taking us way past the most obvious explanation -- that the effects were simply done on the cheap. As he explains, if you want to add depth to a flat image, you need skilled 3-D artisans, and skilled artisans cost moolah.
But more important, he argues that the biggest problem with "Clash of the Titans" is that it's largely a live-action film. And when it comes to 3-D, computer animators are farther along the learning curve than conventional cinematographers. As he put it:
"'Alice in Wonderland,' by contrast, is mostly animated, as are all the other recent 3-D blockbusters, like 'Up,' 'Monsters vs. Aliens,' 'Ice Age 3,' 'A Christmas Carol,' and 'Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs.' Even big-daddy 'Avatar,' which some took as a test-case for live-action 3-D, was more animated than not. There are plenty of reasons why animated films might have a leg up when it comes to 3-D. For one, the movie-makers have full control over all the pixels on the screen, which allows for precise correction of every optical artifact. They also have access to a set of 3-D tricks that haven't yet migrated into live cinema. One nifty innovation, called the 'dynamic floating window,' tilts the edges of the frame forward and backward in space as the movie goes along. Those adjustments -- invisible to the audience -- let the director add depth to a scene without resorting to awkward, pop-out effects."
He also argues that a fundamental drawback to the 3-D conversion gimmick is that it essentially undermines the 3-D storytelling process. "'Clash of the Titans' appears to suffer for being shot with a flat image in mind," he wrote. "Stereo cinema has its own rules for visual storytelling, and some tried-and-true flat-film techniques are a liability in three dimensions. Quick cuts and fast-paced action scenes, for example, can be hard to follow in a 3-D movie."
In other words, Michael Bay -- my new 3-D guru -- is right. If you're going make a movie in 3-D, you have to do it from the very beginning, not at the end, when it looks like it will help you score big-time at the box office. If you don't want moviegoers to end up seeing 3-D as a marketing gimmick, it's time to give it the respect it deserves.
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The Reluctant Debutante
next: offering the smallest chance of danger
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Ben-Hur - Charlton Heston in Ben-Hur
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O'Brien, Virginia
Oldman, Gary
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T - From Hell to Texas
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Zempi, Mario - directed Too Many Crooks
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Mitchum, Robert
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Libeled Lady
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Charles Laughton was in Salome with Rita Hayworth
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Richard Boone
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Fun facts about Jean Harlow:
* Birth name: Harlean Harlow Carpenter
* Refused the lead in *King Kong* (1933), as well as the lead in the Tod Browning classic *Freaks* (1932).
* Her final film, *Saratoga* (1937), became the highest grossing film of 1937 and set all-time house records, due almost entirely to her untimely death.
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It is amazing that a childhood favorite like The Empire Strikes Back is now 30 years old.
And it may be equally remarkable to think there was once a time when a young film school grad could challenge the status quo in such an amazing way - using much of his own millions from his previous movie to finance the next installment of a saga that paid homage to Saturday morning matinees - and hiring some old Hollywood veterans to help him get the movie made, including most notably a screenwriter who was a frequent collaborator of director Howard Hawks.
The writer, of course, was Leigh Brackett, writer of such Hollywood classic screenplays as The Big Sleep, Rio Bravo and Hatari! for Hawks.
At the time I watched The Empire Strikes Back, of course, I couldn't have understood how amazing it was for someone to get the project made with a screenwriter who'd penned some of the most highly regarded movies of the Golden Age of Hollywood. There was so much more that caught one's eye at the time. There were amazing special effects, and astonishing story twists - and you know which one was the biggest jaw-dropper.
In hindsight, I'm glad that there were movies like these that relied so heavily on older material for inspiration, and on at least one of Hollywood's top screenwriters to get the job done.
And mostly I'm very grateful to the filmmakers from my parents' generation for having had the courage to stay true to their convictions, to pay homage in the way they did to the great serials and children's movies of yesteryear while at the same time giving them a shiny new coat of magic to help us get the same sense of discovery that they had had with Flash Gordon or The Thief of Bagdad.
In fact, I'm almost certain that if they hadn't awakened my curiosity, I might never have become a fan of classic movies.
P.S. For more coverage of 30th anniversary of TESB, check out the April 16th issue of Entertainment Weekly:
http://popwatch.ew.com/2010/04/08/empire-strikes-back-star-wars/
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> {quote:title=Meanie220 wrote:}{quote}
> thanks for the heads up, Hollywood Golightly. It's good to get something well-rounded about the man, because for the longest I couldn't stop laughing about a person getting shot in the face.
Oh, I know if I were ever shot in the face, I sure wouldn't want people laughing about it.
finance - I didn't watch it when it was on TCM but I'm surprised they would have aired two Essentials on the same day. Could it have been another control room error?
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> {quote:title=audreyforever wrote:}{quote}
> I'm really disappointed I didn't record Meet the People. From what I saw, it looked good.
I didn't record it this time - but if it is any consolation, it's available from the Warner Archive.
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> {quote:title=sandykaypax wrote:}{quote}
> She was so pretty and spunky in *Merton of the Movies* that I wish she had been allowed to do more films where she wasn't just deadpan. She was more than a one-trick pony.
>
I agree, absolutely, for all of the great things that MGM did and the stars that they knew how to groom well, occasionally Louis B. totally missed the boat.
And like peter, I also had no idea about her having to abandon The Harvey Girls, I really wish things had been differently so she could have finished the movie.
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Did you get a chance to finish it yet?
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Finally had a chance to watch last year's Alice, which I think was originally shown on the SyFi channel before being released on video to coincide with the Burton movie.
The 3-hour extravaganza seems to throw out everything but the kitchen sink. The younger actors in the cast are not very well known, I think, but there are some well-known actors in the other parts - most notably Kathy Bates as the Queen of Hearts, Tim Curry as the Dodo, Harry Dean Stanton as the Caterpillar and Matt Frewer (of "Max Headroom" fame) as the White Knight.
Speaking of the White Knight, I think this is the first adaptation since the 1933 Paramount version to make good use of him - and he's an endearing, goofy delight.
Since everything here is updated to take place more or less in the present time and there are no wild make-up jobs, this might not appeal to the purists. But if you give it a try, it's not a totally bad made-for-cable adaptation.
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> {quote:title=faceinthecrowd wrote:}{quote}
> Whatever happened to Cliff Eastwood? He had such a promising career.
Cliff Eastwood? What sort of a silly name is that!
He probably changed his name and went on to bigger and better things.
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> {quote:title=SansFin wrote:}{quote}
> The list of Twilight Zone episodes is at:
> http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0052520/episodes
Than you, SansFin! That should come in handy.
And thanks, Arturo, for mentioning Peggy Sue Got Married, which is still one of my favorite Francis Coppola movies after all these years (and possibly also one of his most underrated).
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Belle,
I agree with you completely, she always brought something very special to every movie that she was in and I can't believe Mayer was so short-sighted as to let her go in 1948, as he reportedly did.
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I'm especially looking forward to Dangerously They Live and Slightly French. I don't think I've ever seen either one of them, and the Sirk movie may even be a TCM premiere.
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> {quote:title=AllenJenkins wrote:}{quote}
> Now can they extend the fest an extra day? How are we gonna be able to see everything we wanna see!
I hear ya. With all the stars and films they've announced so far, it should really run a whole week - but I'm sure many folks wouldn't be able to stay in L.A. a whole week.
*A to Z of Movies*
in Games and Trivia
Posted
Napoleon