![“[The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp] addresses something I’ve always been profoundly interested in — what it means to be English … it is about bigger things than the war. It takes a longer view of history which was an extraordinarily brave thing for someone to do in 1943, at a time when history seemed to have disintegrated into its most helpless, impossible and unforgivable state.”
Stephen Fry, interviewed by the Daily Telegraph, 2003. The lady in the picture is the lovely Deborah Kerr.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_le60oakC071qz8mh5o1_500.jpg)
“[The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp] addresses something I’ve always been profoundly interested in — what it means to be English … it is about bigger things than the war. It takes a longer view of history which was an extraordinarily brave thing for someone to do in 1943, at a time when history seemed to have disintegrated into its most helpless, impossible and unforgivable state.”
Stephen Fry, interviewed by the Daily Telegraph, 2003. The lady in the picture is the lovely Deborah Kerr.
![“I tried the independent route, spending a couple of years attempting to put together a film [Ronald Roose] and I had cowritten entitled Spoils, a film noirish piece, set during the waning days of World War II and involving two officers of the German occupation — male and female — who discover the German crown jewels in the basement of the castle where they’ve been billeted and decide to steal them. Bruce Greenwood and Linda Fiorentino were to have been our leads. A wild, true story, our script came heartbreakingly close to filming (we were ten days out) when the money disappeared, and I was obliged to fly home from Germany on air miles. The world of independent cinema is rough.”
Excerpt from The View from the Bridge: Memories of Star Trek and a Life in Hollywood, by Nicholas Meyer. Spoils would eventually see the light of day as The Hessen Affair, made by the same Belgian production company, and starring Billy Zane and Lyne Renée.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lahrqabb9J1qz8mh5o1_500.jpg)
“I tried the independent route, spending a couple of years attempting to put together a film [Ronald Roose] and I had cowritten entitled Spoils, a film noirish piece, set during the waning days of World War II and involving two officers of the German occupation — male and female — who discover the German crown jewels in the basement of the castle where they’ve been billeted and decide to steal them. Bruce Greenwood and Linda Fiorentino were to have been our leads. A wild, true story, our script came heartbreakingly close to filming (we were ten days out) when the money disappeared, and I was obliged to fly home from Germany on air miles. The world of independent cinema is rough.”
Excerpt from The View from the Bridge: Memories of Star Trek and a Life in Hollywood, by Nicholas Meyer. Spoils would eventually see the light of day as The Hessen Affair, made by the same Belgian production company, and starring Billy Zane and Lyne Renée.
“Personally, I think if a woman hasn’t met the right man by the time she’s 24, she may be lucky.”
-Deborah Kerr (via snap)
with two movies telling her story, coco chanel is hot again this year. the first one cast the obvious — and extremely boring — actress for the part: audrey tatou. the other one hit jackpot: anna mouglalis, amazingly beautiful french/greek actress. why we’ve not seen her more often dazzles me.
last two movies I saw her: merci pour le chocolat (2000), an uninteresting minor Chabrol; and novo (2002), a curious memento-style story, also starring eduardo noriega and paz vega.
worst thing about not living in spain: you can’t watch a new movie featuring maría valverde every week.
some of her pictures include melissa p., a catherine breillat-inspired tale of sexual awakening; and ladrones (thieves), a teenage version of bresson’s pickpocket.
francis coppola talks about scaring some eight-year olds in a camping trip with some vampire book.
walter salles and daniela thomas are interviewed in a bbc special in cannes film festival 2008 about their new film line of passage (linha de passe). some footage included.
“Vampire blood, of course, represented AIDS.”
s.e. hinton’s novel rumble fish was tailor-made to be filmed by francis ford coppola. the story of a boy living in the shadow of his great hero, his own older brother, had all the elements that coppola loves to tinker the most: family ties and the search of lost time. fourteen year-old russell-james — or rusty-james to friends, but never just rusty, it made he feel naked — was a boy not-so-bright looking for trouble. he was raised by downtown gangs that no longer existed save for the presence of an old leader — the mysterious and disenchanted motorcycle boy — rusty-james’s 20 year-old brother.
but fate intervened and made coppola read the outsiders first, s.e. hinton’s most famous novel. the plot and characters of the two novels are very similar and it is no surprise that coppola found in it an interesting potential film. but the time metaphors were not so obvious as in rumble fish, and it must have been a real disillusionment to the oscar-winning director when he found out about the shorter, more concise novel. that’s why he shot them both back to back, and it makes you wonder if the first film suffered because of it.
rumble fish is the quintessential coppola film from the 80’s: it was shot fast and cheap, it had some very experimental touches, like the percussion-and-clock-based soundtrack by the police’s stewart copeland, and, unfortunately, it made no money at all. coppola refers to the film to this day as ‘an art film for teenagers’, but it is perhaps more easily appreciated not by the rusty-jameses of yesterday and today, but by its motorcycle boys.
the joke in no shopping begins by its title: it actually means “in the mall” in brazilian portuguese, but can also have its literal meaning in english. this book was the first novel by brazilian writer simone campos, penned when she was only seventeen years old. like s.e. hinton in the outsiders, she took advantage of her young age to write about some of the fears and dreams of her own generation. and unlike s.e. hinton, she failed miserably in the process.
the story (god forgive us for using the word) centers on an upper-class girl from brazil who works on her father’s bookstore inside a mall. when she is not wandering around shoplifting to fight boredom, she organizes big parties and grabs the attention of every cute boy in the city. she is also the best student in her class and the most popular, because she is so cool.
no shopping is a fine example of the worst in contemporary brazilian literature: it has no plot, no character development and no classic structure. instead, in its feeble 72 pages, it brings forth “revolutionary” and “radical” use of spelling and punctuation (i.e. commas no more!), software-inspired chapter numbers — how about chapter 3.11 for workgroups? — and an incredibly idiotic choose-your-own-adventure finale. these were 60 minutes of reading i’m not getting back.
“Van had stopped at home and changed into an old t-shirt for one of her favorite Brazilian tecno-brega bands, Carioca Proibidão — the forbidden guy from Rio.”
the reason why we love penguin so much. these are probably the best set of covers ever made, and it is pitiful they will only be released in hardbacks. anyway, thanks penguin. thenguin.
this first record by scarlett johansson is probably a leftover from lost in translation. she went to some karaoke in tokyo and met dj phil spector making some wall of sound versions of tom waits’ songs.the result is pretty much what you would expect from a karaoke bar: bad singing and a lot of embarassment. tom waits said he was flattered by the homage, but that doesn’t mean he liked what he heard.
steven shaviro says alan moore can’t plot. even worse, he finds this a good thing, since plots are boring and overrated. case in point: carlos reichenbach’s latest movie, falsa loura (fake blonde) has no plot whatsoever, it is all about character. it is all about a single character, acting the same way, making repeated mistakes, over and over again. in the end, you discover what you knew all along: working class girls are easily exploited by the new aristocracy — in brazil and everywhere — and it doesn’t matter if they are really cute or if they color their hair. pretty boring and overrated, if you ask me. redemption factor: rosanne mulholland beautiful body.
this 1986 documentary is from when cronenberg was still called the king of venereal horror. of course now he’s called the king of naked lord of the rings kings in saunas, and makes movies for iowa farmers.
”let’s cook!”
