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JUNE...
The Italian Job 6.6 I thought The Italian Job remake was
pretty decent, for a mainstream, studio, summer action film, and a remake.
Good cast, music, locales. Solid entertainment.
Tagline: Steal The Day 5.30.03. Plot Outline (from imdb): Based on a
1969 Michael Caine film of the same name, thieves plan to pull of the
heist of their lives by creating Los Angeles largest traffic jam ever.
Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Charlize Theron, Donald Sutherland, Jason Statham,
Seth Green, Mos Def, Edward Norton, Franky G, Olek Krupa. Directed by
F. Gary Gray. Screenplay by Donna Powers & Wayne Powers, based on Troy
Kennedy-Martin's 1969 screenplay. Paramount Pictures. Rated PG-13 for
violence and some language. Runtime: 111 min.
This is what Amazon.com says about the original 1969 version: "This little-known
cult caper is about as depraved as they come. Michael Caine, ever the
enterprising swinger and swindler, has an ingenious plan to steal a huge
cache of Chinese gold to be shipped to Turin as collateral for a new Fiat
plant. Since the Italy-Great Britain soccer match is being played at the
same time, Caine wants to create a diversion in the form of a monumental
traffic jam. For financing, he turns to Noel Coward, who directs British
criminal enterprises from his jail cell. A motley crew is assembled, including
Benny Hill as a computer expert with a fetish for large-breasted women.
It's all a nasty and fun parody, with the most memorable robbery-chase
sequence in the history of the caper genre." -- Bill Desowitz.
Also from Amazon on the '69 version: "Internal countercasting is a big
plus in this caper comedy: where else are you going to find Benny Hill
and Michael Caine in the same movie? Peter Collinson directs those two
as well as Noel Coward, Raf Vallone, Rossano Brazzi, and Irene Handl in
a story about the effort to steal gold bullion from the town of Turin.
Screenwriter Troy Kennedy Martin eschews heist film tradition by placing
more emphasis on the gang's getaway than on the complex robbery itself.
The film's main claim to comic fame is a wild chase scene set against
an enormous traffic jam. The rest of the movie is less memorable, but
that extended action sequence is well worth the wait." -- Tom Keogh.
First, Owning Mahowny opens:
Second, I send Jane an email, which contained a list of some movies I wanted to see:
Third, I send my sister an email:
More on John Hurt: The son of a clergyman, John Vincent Hurt was born on January 22, 1940, in Chesterfield, Derbyshire, England. Hurt has an IMDb reported height of 5' 9" -- but I don't think he's quite that tall. Married to Annette Robertson 1962; divorced 1964. Lived with Marie-Lise Volpeliere-Pierrot from 1967-83, when she was killed in a riding accident. Married Donna Peacock 1984; divorced 1990. Married to Jo Dalton in 1990; 2 sons: Nicolas and Alexander. Hurt was trained to become a painter at Grimsby Art School. Studied at RADA and is an Associate of RADA. Personal quote: "I've done some stinkers in the cinema. You can't regret it; there are always reasons for doing something, even if it's just the location." Films include A Man for All Seasons (1966) -- the story of Thomas More; the dark kidnapping tale, 10 Rillington Place (1971); Oscar-nominated in Midnight Express; Kane in Alien (1979); again Oscar-nominated for his demanding role as John Merrick, The Elephant Man (1980); the famously expensive film flop Heaven's Gate (1980); Jesus in Mel Brooks' History of the World: Part I (1981); Sam Peckinpah's last film, the messy The Osterman Weekend (1983); The Fool in King Lear (1984) for TV; great in Stephen Frears' awesome The Hit (1984) with Terence Stamp, Tim Roth, Bill Hunter, Fernando Rey, and Jim Broadbent; Winston Smith in Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984) (also Richard Burton's last film appearance); parodying his Alien role in Mel Brooks' otherwise dismally stupid Spaceballs (1987); White Mischief (1987); as politician Stephen Ward, who becomes involved with British call girls Christine Keeler and Mandy Rice-Davies in the true story of the Scandal (1989). In the 90s he was in Frankenstein Unbound (1990); The Field (1990); wasted (along with Peter O'Toole) in the just plain dumb John Goodman vehicle King Ralph (1991); the Gus Van Sant disaster Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (1993); pirate adventure Rob Roy (1995); Jarmusch's offbeat, moody western Dead Man (1995) with John Depp and Robert Mitchum; another western, Walter Hill's Wild Bill (1995); as Giles De'Ath, the fey Englishman who falls in love with Jason Priestly in Love and Death on Long Island (1997); the best thing about the otherwise ridiculous God-in-space epic Contact (1997); with Winona Ryder in Lost Souls (2000); Penelope Cruz's father in Captain Corelli's Ass (Mandolin) (2001); Mr. Ollivander in the kiddie-epic Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001); and soon to be seen in writer-director Lars von Trier's highly touted Dogville (2003). This nearly 3-hour, Danish/ Swedish/ French/ Norwegian/ Dutch/ Finnish/ Gerry/ Italian international co-production co-stars Nicole Kidman, Lauren Bacall, Jean-Marc Barr, James Caan, Patricia Clarkson, Ben Gazzara, Philip Baker Hall, Udo Kier, ChloÎ Sevigny, Stellan SkarsgÂrd. 28 Days: I liked it, but it seemed a little routine/predictable. Not "routine/predictable," just "a little routine/predictable." Light spoilers ahead. I liked a lot of things about it, but it also felt like two movies, like with the first one (which ended when Brendan Gleeson got killed), it's as though they didn't have an ending or anywhere else to go with it, so they tossed in the military part, which seemed like unoriginal territory. Also, I felt those characters were a little too one-dimensional. All those people were a little too willing to become rapists and murderers so quickly. I liked the characters of the guy, the girl, the little girl and her father. Sometimes the characters seemed to do some things that seemed out of character (ie Cillian Murphy going into that dark empty building alone with his ball bat -- unless this was meant as a scene of parody/satire of the horror genre -- in which case it seemed out of place?). But these aren't huge problems, I did like the movie, but I don't consider it a masterpiece, not nearly as good as the same director's (Danny Boyle) Shallow Grave and Trainspotting, but still a major comeback after his most recent attempts. The hopeful ending seemed a little pat, but I must admit I liked it; I like hope, and I'm a sucker for happy endings. It was original in some aspects though, and it was more thought-provoking than a lot of other movies. I liked the digital videoed desolate look of London Town. I liked the two leads and Gleeson. I liked some of the music quite a bit. The second half reminded me a little of Don Siegel's The Beguiled -- anyone see that? That video footage the apes were watching was real; I mean it looked real, I figured it was. It seemed like an anti-PETA-types statement, more than anti the scientists, although I found what was being done to those monkeys the most disturbing thing in the picture. Saturday, June 28, 2:00pm; Stanford Theatre, Palo Alto; with Jane: Lawrence of Arabia (1962); Genre: Adventure; IMDb User Rating: 8.6/10 (20,499 votes) top 250: #22. Lawrence of Arabia is a four hour epic that must be seen in the theatre, on a big screen. It's not boring. Beautiful cinematography, music. Great locales, great cast. O'Toole is amazing. After seeing this movie, Jane has a thing for Omar Sharif. I have a thing for Anthony Quayle. No, kidding, kidding. Thank you, thank you. I do like Anthony Quayle though. Seems very forgotten nowadays. British actor...
He was educated at Rugby, trained for the theatre at RADA (Royal Academy Of Dramatic Art) and debuted in 1931 as Will Scarlett in Robin Hood. Bit parts in films Moscow Nights aka I Stand Condemned (1936) and Pygmalion (1938) as Eliza's Hairdresser. He then appeared onstage in John Gielgud's Hamlet. During the war he fought with Albanian partisans and left the army as a major. Quayle had served as a spy in Albania nosing into Nazi plans.
Between 1948 and 1956, Quayle served as director of the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre, laying the groundwork for the founding of the famed Royal Shakespeare Company. Other theatrical appearances included Crime And Punishment, Anthony And Cleopatra, King Lear, Sleuth and Titus Andronicus. There had been another long gap, of seven years, until a fifth film appearance, in Powell and Pressburger's Oh... Rosalinda!! (1955), as General Orlovsky. He was appointed a CBE in 1952 and knighted in 1985. This makes him Sir Anthony Quayle.
In 1968 and 1969 Anthony Quayle played Adam Strange, a retired Scotland Yard commissioner, on the TV show, Strange Report. Quayle's Strange was called into action whenever the authorities were baffled by bizarre mysteries in "Swinging Sixties" London... Our hero employed the latest techniques in forensic investigation, which he undertook in his own laboratory in his Paddington flat. Until this time, Quayle was more likely to have been seen at the theatre than on television, and while he starred in numerous TV movies (such as Moses the Lawgiver, this was his only leading role in a series of any length.
Also in 1969 was Mackenna's Gold; Quayle was The King in Woody Allen's Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex * But Were Afraid to Ask (1972); Tom Banniester in the TV miniseries QB VII (1974); Jack Loder the Head of MI6 in The Tamarind Seed (1974); Jaggers in a TV version of Great Expectations (1974); King Saul in The Story of David (1976) for TV; General Zvi Zamir in 21 Hours at Munich (1976) (TV); The Eagle Has Landed (1976); Sir Charles Warren in another Sherlock Holmes vs. Jack the Ripper film Murder by Decree (1979); Falstaff in Henry IV, Part I and Part II (1979) (TV); in the old John Williams role, Inspector Hubbard, in a TV remake of Hitchcock's Dial M for Murder (1981); Lace (1984) (TV); General Villiers in the original TV version of The Bourne Identity (1988); with Phil Collins in Buster (1988); and his last work, as Glanville in The Endless Game, (1990) for TV. "What made Quayle special was his discipline and intensity. Watch him in any of his films and you will see a man consumed by his role, a man who abandons his own identity to assume another's. In performance, he is always busy, preoccupied, his brow furrowed by the concerns of his character." -- Mike Cummings, All Movie Guide. "Ruddy-faced, distinguished British stage actor, a graduate of the Royal
Academy of Dramatic Art, who in his big screen assignments specialized
in authoritative characters both sympathetic and unsympathetic..." --
from Leonard Maltin's Movie Encyclopedia. Ah, here's some more info on Sir Anthony Quayle... His autobiography, A Time to Speak, was published in 1990. He wrote two novels: Eight Hours From England and On Such a Night. Quayle starred as Andrew Wyke in the original London and Broadway stage productions of Anthony Shaffer's Sleuth. (The film role went to Larry Olivier.) He recorded many spoken-word LP albums for Caedmon Records in the 1960s, especially of complete Shakespeare plays, where his roles included Falstaff, Brutus, Macbeth, and Mark Antony. Nickname: Tony Quayle (not too original, but it will do). IMDb reported height is 6' 1". Quayle was married to Hermione Hannen from 1934 to 1941; and to Dorothy Hyson from 1947 to 1989. His daughter Jenny Quayle is also an actress. Quayle Quotes! "If life doesn't have that little bit of danger, you'd better create it. If life hands you that danger, accept it gratefully." Quayle made six films with Sylvia Syms: No Time for Tears (1957), Woman in a Dressing Gown (1957), Ice-Cold in Alex (1958), East of Sudan (1964), Operation Crossbow (1965), and The Tamarind Seed (1974). He made five films with Omar Sharif: The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964), Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Mackenna's Gold (1969), Poppies Are Also Flowers (1966), and The Tamarind Seed (1974). He appeared in three films each with Robert Brown, Frank Finlay, John Gielgud, Alec Guinness (The Fall of the Roman Empire [1964], H.M.S. Defiant [1962], Lawrence of Arabia [1962]), Jack Hawkins, Christopher Lee, James Mason (The Fall of the Roman Empire [1964], Great Expectations [1974] (TV), Murder by Decree [1979]), Franco Nero, Laurence Olivier, Christopher Plummer (Dial M for Murder [1981] (TV), The Fall of the Roman Empire [1964], Murder by Decree [1979]), Jenny Agutter, Angie Dickinson (A Case of Libel [1968] (TV), Dial M for Murder [1981] (TV), Poppies Are Also Flowers [1966]), Irene Papas and Nigel Stock. Quayle made two films with cinemas other Anthony Qu, Anthony Quinn (The Guns of Navarone [1961] and Lawrence of Arabia [1962]).
Back to Lawrence... Cast: Peter O'Toole as T.E. Lawrence, Alec Guinness as Prince Feisal, Anthony Quinn as Auda abu Tayi, Jack Hawkins as Gen. Allenby, Omar Sharif as Sherif Ali ibn el Kharish, JosÈ Ferrer as Turkish Bey (as Jose Ferrer), Anthony Quayle as Col. Harry Brighton, Claude Rains as Mr. Dryden, Arthur Kennedy as Jackson Bentley, Donald Wolfit as Gen. Murray, I.S. Johar as Gasim. Directed by David Lean. Screenplay by Robert Bolt, Michael Wilson (originally uncredited) based on the writings T.E. Lawrence. Produced by Sam Spiegel. Original Music by Maurice Jarre. Cinematography by Freddie Young. Film Editing by Anne V. Coates. Distributors Columbia. Runtime: 216 min/227 min (restored roadshow version). Technicolor. Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle (1 hr, 51 mins). June 30. Century Solano Drive-Ins I & II 9:30pm, with Jane. I had given my friend P.C. an off-the-cuff run down on current films and how many stars I gave them (out of four, these may not match my 5 star reviews on this site) Bend It Like Beckham *** P.C. asked, "Who's starring these things? You're crazy if you give CA2 a higher rating than almost anything else out there... I hear League of is a disaster, did you see it?" I said, "I thought you liked it... Here's from your email: 'Charlie's Angels is lots of fun, but not worth $9.50. Probably better than the first, for which I was mildly thumbs up on. The best place to see it, by far, is the Concord Drive In. It's a super bright popcorn pic.'" P.C.: "I thought CA2 was bright and lively, that's why I recommended the drive-in because you were set on seeing it. But for me, its ultimately worthless, more in a bad way than the first, which was frivi-worth-lous." Anyway, re the list, I responded: "Who's starring these things? Me. A higher rating than almost anything else out there? I gave CA2 a higher rating than: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen **1/2, Down With Love **1/2, T3 **, A Mighty Wind **, Identity **, Jet Lag **, and Bruce Almighty *." Four stars: Three and a half stars: Three stars: Two and a half stars: Two stars: One star: P.C., still reeling from my relatively positive review of CA2, said: "Most people gave CA2 like 1.5*s." Ted: "I didn't." P.C.: "you must have been seriously bummed on Jet Lag, was it that bad?" Ted: "It was two stars. Nice production values, set design, cinematography, music, and it got a little better as it went along, but the script just wasn't that good. It was silly, and not that funny. I liked a couple of parts. Jean Reno looked thin." P.C.: "Ebert said League of goes straight to the worst 10 list. Funniest review last night: I Capture The Castle with Henry Hank Thomas..." Ted: "I saw the show. I think Ebert and especially Roeper took League of too seriously. I was expecting it to be mediocre-weak, which was what the reviews seemed to be like, so maybe I liked it a little more based on that... ? Connery was good, and it wasn't boring. Roeper likes to rip movies. Another take on I Capture the Castle: http://www.salon.com/ent/movies/review/2003/07/11/castle/print.html." P.C.: "I thought Bruce Almighty was pretty funny, a lot better than CA2! Parts of CA2 were pretty to look at, but it was a pretty horrible mess as a story. More annoying than the first, which was kind of charming." Ted: "I thought, originally, you said you kind of liked CA2, and that you liked it more than the first. It was light fluff, but I laughed a lot and it was a fun time. BA was terrible." P.C.: "I watched Strange Impersonation by Tony Mann on DVD. Good stuff, 68 mins. "PC's Top 10 of 03 Ted: "What's TK? "Ted's Top Ten of 2003 So Far: Those Top Tens aren't very strong, as they were only designed around June.
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Anthony
Quayle was born John Anthony Quayle on September 7, 1913, at Ainsdale,
Sefton, England, where his father was a lawyer. He died on October 20,
1989, in London, England, of cancer.
From 1955 until his death he was more regularly in films, including:
Powell and Pressburger's Pursuit of the Graf Spee (1957); Hitchcock's
The Wrong Man (1956); Ice-Cold in Alex (1958); The Guns
of Navarone,(1961); Col. Harry Brighton in Lawrence of Arabia
(1962); Damn the Defiant! (1962); Anthony Mann's The Fall
of the Roman Empire (1964); Dr. Murray in a Sherlock Holmes vs. Jack
the Ripper picture, A Study in Terror (1965); the all-star anti-drug
film The Poppy Is Also a Flower (1966). He then earned an Academy
award nomination for his portrayal of Cardinal Wolsey -- lord chancellor
of England under Henry VIII -- in Anne of the Thousand Days (1969).
The series also starred former Doctor Who girl Anneke Wills as
Evelyn McLean, and Kaz Garas as Hamlyn Gynt. The program episodes were
directed by Charles Crichton; written by Roger Parkes & Bill Strutton;
produced by Robert Berger; and executive produced by Norman Felton. Original
Music by Roger Webb. There are reportedly somewhere between 13-16 episodes
of 50-60 minute duration.
