Paul Joseph Watson
May 4, 2011
http://www.infowars.com/top-us-government-insider-bin-laden-died-in-2001-911-a-false-flag
Top US government insider Dr. Steve R. Pieczenik, a man who held numerous different influential positions under three different Presidents and still works with the Defense Department, shockingly told The Alex Jones Show yesterday that Osama Bin Laden died in 2001 and that he was prepared to testify in front of a grand jury how a top general told him directly that 9/11 was a false flag inside job.
Pieczenik cannot be dismissed as a “conspiracy theorist”. He served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State under three different administrations, Nixon, Ford and Carter, while also working under Reagan and Bush senior, and still works as a consultant for the Department of Defense. A former US Navy Captain, Pieczenik achieved two prestigious Harry C. Solomon Awards at the Harvard Medical School as he simultaneously completed a PhD at MIT.
Recruited by Lawrence Eagleburger as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Management, Pieczenik went on to develop, “the basic tenets for psychological warfare, counter terrorism, strategy and tactics for transcultural negotiations for the US State Department, military and intelligence communities and other agencies of the US Government,” while also developing foundational strategies for hostage rescue that were later employed around the world.
Pieczenik also served as a senior policy planner under Secretaries Henry Kissinger, Cyrus Vance, George Schultz and James Baker and worked on George W. Bush’s election campaign against Al Gore. His record underscores the fact that he is one of the most deeply connected men in intelligence circles over the past three decades plus.
The character of Jack Ryan, who appears in many Tom Clancy novels and was also played by Harrison Ford in the popular 1992 movie Patriot Games, is also based on Steve Pieczenik.
Back in April 2002, over nine years ago, Pieczenik told the Alex Jones Show that Bin Laden had already been “dead for months,” and that the government was waiting for the most politically expedient time to roll out his corpse. Pieczenik would be in a position to know, having personally met Bin Laden and worked with him during the proxy war against the Soviets in Afghanistan back in the early 80's.
Pieczenik said that Osama Bin Laden died in 2001, “Not because special forces had killed him, but because as a physician I had known that the CIA physicians had treated him and it was on the intelligence roster that he had marfan syndrome,” adding that the US government knew Bin Laden was dead before they invaded Afghanistan.
Marfan syndrome is a degenerative genetic disease for which there is no permanent cure. The illness severely shortens the life span of the sufferer.
“He died of marfan syndrome, Bush junior knew about it, the intelligence community knew about it,” said Pieczenik, noting how CIA physicians had visited Bin Laden in July 2001 at the American Hospital in Dubai.
“He was already very sick from marfan syndrome and he was already dying, so nobody had to kill him,” added Pieczenik, stating that Bin Laden died shortly after 9/11 in his Tora Bora cave complex.
“Did the intelligence community or the CIA doctor up this situation, the answer is yes, categorically yes,” said Pieczenik, referring to Sunday’s claim that Bin Laden was killed at his compound in Pakistan, adding, “This whole scenario where you see a bunch of people sitting there looking at a screen and they look as if they’re intense, that’s nonsense,” referring to the images released by the White House which claim to show Biden, Obama and Hillary Clinton watching the operation to kill Bin Laden live on a television screen.
“It’s a total make-up, make believe, we’re in an American theater of the absurd….why are we doing this again….nine years ago this man was already dead….why does the government repeatedly have to lie to the American people,” asked Pieczenik.
“Osama Bin Laden was totally dead, so there’s no way they could have attacked or confronted or killed Osama Bin laden,” said Pieczenik, joking that the only way it could have happened was if special forces had attacked a mortuary.
Pieczenik said that the decision to launch the hoax now was made because Obama had reached a low with plummeting approval ratings and the fact that the birther issue was blowing up in his face.
“He had to prove that he was more than American….he had to be aggressive,” said Pieczenik, adding that the farce was also a way of isolating Pakistan as a retaliation for intense opposition to the Predator drone program, which has killed hundreds of Pakistanis.
“This is orchestrated, I mean when you have people sitting around and watching a sitcom, basically the operations center of the White House, and you have a president coming out almost zombie-like telling you they just killed Osama Bin Laden who was already dead nine years ago,” said Pieczenik, calling the episode, “the greatest falsehood I’ve ever heard, I mean it was absurd.”
Dismissing the government’s account of the assassination of Bin Laden as a “sick joke” on the American people, Pieczenik said, “They are so desperate to make Obama viable, to negate the fact that he may not have been born here, any questions about his background, any irregularities about his background, to make him look assertive….to re-elect this president so the American public can be duped once again.”
Pieczenik’s assertion that Bin Laden died almost ten years ago is echoed by numerous intelligence professionals as well as heads of state across the world.
Bin Laden, “Was used in the same way that 9/11 was used to mobilize the emotions and feelings of the American people in order to go to a war that had to be justified through a narrative that Bush junior created and Cheney created about the world of terrorism,” stated Pieczenik.
During his interview with the Alex Jones Show yesterday, Pieczenik also asserted he was directly told by a prominent general that 9/11 was a stand down and a false flag operation, and that he is prepared to go to a grand jury to reveal the general’s name.
“They ran the attacks,” said Pieczenik, naming Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Stephen Hadley, Elliott Abrams, and Condoleezza Rice amongst others as having been directly involved.
“It was called a stand down, a false flag operation in order to mobilize the American public under false pretenses….it was told to me even by the general on the staff of Wolfowitz – I will go in front of a federal committee and swear on perjury who the name was of the individual so that we can break it open,” said Pieczenik, adding that he was “furious” and “knew it had happened”.
“I taught stand down and false flag operations at the national war college, I’ve taught it with all my operatives so I knew exactly what was done to the American public,” he added.
Pieczenik re-iterated that he was perfectly willing to reveal the name of the general who told him 9/11 was an inside job in a federal court, “so that we can unravel this thing legally, not with the stupid 9/11 Commission that was absurd.”
Pieczenik explained that he was not a liberal, a conservative or a tea party member, merely an American who is deeply concerned about the direction in which his country is heading.
Showing posts with label Harrison Ford. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Harrison Ford. Show all posts
Friday, May 6, 2011
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Great Quotes: Harrison Ford
When asked by Conan O'Brien what he would do if found in the same situation as 'Sully' Sullenberger, the pilot who famously landed his Airbus of passengers safely in the Hudson River after experiencing engine failure:
"I'd shit and die."
Bonus points for Harrison Ford being stoned off his ass during the interview...
Photos courtesy of DailyMail.co.uk
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
10 Things You Didn’t Know About The Empire Strikes Back
http://www.wired.com/underwire/2010/10/10-things-empire-strikes-back
10 Things You Didn’t Know About The Empire Strikes Back
October 12, 2010
Charlie Jane Anders, io9
Categories: Books and Comics, movies, sci-fi
Here’s a slightly different version of the battle between Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader at the end of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. It’s just one of many revelations in a new making-of book.
The Making of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back by J.W. Rinzler comes out today, and it’s not just essential for fans of the classic film. It’s also a must-read for anybody who’s interested in the creative process, because it goes into excruciating detail, on a day-to-day basis, on the troubled genesis of an amazing film.
You get inside the heads of everybody involved with it, and you see how much pain went into every frame of this movie. In particular, there’s a 17-page section in which you get a transcript of director Irvin Kershner and the actors — especially Harrison Ford — agonize over every second of the crucial carbonite freezing chamber scene, trying to get as much emotional truth and reality out of it as possible. This was on set, after the screenplay had already been revised several times, and every moment of that sequence gets rehashed and debated until it’s (arguably) perfect. There’s tons and tons of eye-popping concept art, including tons of versions of the Luke/Vader fight.
What Rinzler’s book drives home is that Empire Strikes Back was as groundbreaking and daring, in its own way, as the original Star Wars. The film went way over schedule and massively over budget, and almost ran out of money a bunch of times. Everybody became sick on set, Mark Hamill broke his thumb doing one stunt, and there was an accident with the bacta tank that could have killed Hamill if he’d been inside. Also, the movie’s second unit director and its first screenwriter both died during the process.
You see how George Lucas put together ESB at the same time that he was building his business empire, including Lucasfilm and the more mature version of Industrial Light & Magic. Lucas was creating his team and fighting for creative freedom, even as he was stepping back from writing and directing — and a big part of this movie’s brilliance stems from Lucas’ drive to finance the film himself, keeping 20th Century Fox out of the loop creatively. (And if Empire had failed, Lucas would have been broke, despite the first film’s huge profits.)
What comes through, in every interview and behind-the-scenes detail, is the determination of everyone involved to make The Empire Strikes Back bigger and better than the original Star Wars. In spite of huge, almost insurmountable difficulties, the determination to create something better comes through clearly.
In addition to the concept art, there are also a ton of set photos, including things like a cast being made of Harrison Ford for the “frozen in carbonite” Han Solo, and Darth Vader and Boba Fett out for a stroll. And there are tons and tons of pieces of script pages and scribbled notes. You get a real sense of what it would have been like to be inside this madhouse of creativity and seat-of-the-pants improvisation. More concept art shows the evolution of the tauntaun, which started out as a kind of weird lizard.
10 Things You Probably Didn’t Know About Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back
1. Yoda was originally named Buffy. No, really. In Lucas’ earliest outlines for the sequel, Luke meets a supernatural entity named Buffy, or Bunden Debannen. Here’s how Lucas described it:
Buffy very old — three or four thousand years. Kiber crystal in sword? Buffy shows Luke? Buffy the guardian. “Feel not think.”
And Lucas concludes by saying Luke will become the chosen one, “the human Buffy.” In later drafts, he thought of Yoda as a kind of small frog, and Yoda had a full name: Minch Yoda.
In the earliest script draft, Minch has the immortal line: “Skywalker. Skywalker. And why do you come to walk my sky, with the sword of a Jedi knight?… I remember another Skywalker.”
2. Lucas considered having a scene where Luke’s face gets injured. Mark Hamill was injured in a car accident in 1977, and his face had to be reconstructed — so for a while, Lucas planned on including a sequence where Luke’s face is damaged, and we see it getting patched up by a droid. This got as far as filming — there’s a set picture showing the droid bandaging Luke’s face — but was cut out of the movie.
3. Luke’s journey to becoming a Jedi Knight would have had a lot more bumps. One idea that got tossed around a lot in the early stages of planning ESB was the notion that Luke’s lightsaber had a crystal hidden in the hilt, with secret encrypted information on it — including the coordinates of Minch Yoda’s planet. And Luke would have been “humiliated” when he couldn’t use the Force to stop an attack by a bunch of ice monsters on the rebel’s Hoth base. (With Han telling Luke, “You’re not a Jedi knight, and you never will be.”) Meanwhile, Darth Vader senses that Luke used the force to destroy the Death Star and there’s a new wannabe Jedi in town — so Vader uses telepathy to choke Luke in his spacecraft, nearly killing him — except that R2-D2 jumps the ship into hyperspace and takes it to Yoda’s planet.
4. We could have visited other planets. Possibly including a “water planet,” with an underwater city, and a “city planet,” with the whole planet built over. And at one point, Lucas considered having a visit to the Wookiee home world (some of which ended up in the Christmas special), and Ralph McQuarrie did some concept art of a young Chewbacca. (Also, Lando Calrissian’s home would have been the planet Hoth — not the ice world, but another planet named Hoth — and there might have been a whole alien race living there. And in one early draft, Lando was a clone warrior, one of the many clans of clone fighters left over from the wars.)
5. Darth Vader would have had a castle. And it would have been an evil fortress — in some versions, it’s surrounded by lava, and full of gargoyles who are Vader’s pets.
6. Vader wasn’t Luke’s father at first. In Leigh Brackett’s first script draft, Luke meets his real dad, who says he sent away Luke and his secret sister for their own safety. (Luke’s sister has been training to be a Jedi knight in secret, just as Luke has.) And Papa Skywalker administers the oath of a Jedi Knight to Luke, in which Ben, Minch, Anakin and Luke cross lightsabers, and Luke swears to “dedicate my life to the cause of freedom and justice.”
7. The Luke-Leia-Han love triangle is a much bigger deal in earlier drafts of the script. It’s at the root of Luke’s struggles for self-respect and his humiliations. When Darth Vader is trying to win Luke over to the Dark Side in the second draft, written by Lucas himself, Vader says, “You’re in love with Leia. You don’t want to lose her to Han Solo…. But you will, if you lack the courage to use the strength that’s in you. A strength as great as mine, Luke.” And then at the end, Leia flat-out tells Luke that he’s not the one she loves, because she’s into Han. Also in this version, Han doesn’t get frozen in carbonite — instead, he just flies off to take care of business, leaving Luke and Leia watching the Millennium Falcon disappear.
8. The film posed unique challenges for special effects and model work. Darth Vader had a new Star Destroyer, which was supposed to be 16 miles long! And they built a full-size Millennium Falcon, which was 65 feet wide and 80 feet long. Also, ILM had to start a new stop-motion animation department just to make the Imperial Walkers and tauntauns work. (They tried a man-in-a-suit tauntaun, with “hilarious if not film-worthy results.”) And then there’s the challenge of Yoda — as we reported the other day, they considered everything from a monkey in a mask to a small child or little person to play the Jedi sage, before deciding to go with Frank Oz’s puppetry.
9. Stanley Kubrick nearly killed the movie. Empire was sharing studio space with The Shining, and there was a huge fire that burned down Stage 3 at Elstree Studios, destroying The Shining’s sets. That meant that Empire had to give up some of its own studio space, and The Shining went way over schedule, especially as Kubrick used the delay as an excuse to rethink his own movie. “Timewise, it is doubtful the picture will recover,” one crewmember wrote at the time.
10. Miss Piggy had a cameo in one of Yoda’s first scenes in rehearsal. When Mark Hamill first met Frank Oz, he asked him to do a brief Miss Piggy cameo during rehearsals on set, as a practical joke — but when the time came much later, it caught even Hamill off-guard. During one scene, Yoda tells Luke to follow his feelings. Luke protests that he has followed his feelings — and suddenly, Frank Oz whips out a Miss Piggy puppet, saying, “Feelings? You want feelings? Get behind the couch and I’ll show you feelings, punk. What is this hole? I’ve been booked into dumps before, but never like this. Get me my agent on the phone!”
Send an email to Charlie Jane Anders, the author of this post, at charliejane@io9.com.
Tags: George Lucas, io9, Mark Hamill, Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back
Monday, May 31, 2010
The Empire Strikes Back Turns 30, As Do Fans’ Psychic Scars
http://www.vanityfair.com/online/oscars/2010/05/the-empire-strikes-back-turns-30-as-do-fans-psychic-scars.html
Movies
The Empire Strikes Back Turns 30, As Do Fans’ Psychic Scars
Mike Ryan
May 21, 2010
There is an episode of Lost titled “Some Like it Hoth,” in which Hurley, the portly Floridian played by Jorge Garcia, travels back in time to 1977 with the express goal of writing the script for The Empire Strikes Back before George Lucas gets around to it. He figures he can make “a couple of improvements.” I’m not sure what he could be thinking, because, as far as I’m concerned, The Empire Strikes Back is not only the perfect science-fiction movie. It might just be the perfect movie.
Today is the 30th anniversary of the release of The Empire Strikes Back, a film most Star Wars fans consider the best of the franchise’s six films. Just three years after Star Wars revolutionized the blockbuster, Empire redefined it again, proving that a film that took place in outer space and featured light sabers and blasters could also be smart and, yes, depressing. If watching Star Wars was kind of like being on an amusement-park ride—smiles for everyone!—watching The Empire Strikes Back might be more comparable to getting a root-canal. Han Solo would have gladly traded what happened to him in Empire for full set of root-canals. The Empire, seemingly defeated at the end of the first movie when Luke Skywalker blew up the Death Star, struck back in a big way, and it was ugly.
In truth, The Empire Strikes Back had a lot going against it. Being the sequel to the most successful film of all time, Star Wars, raised expectations to an unprecedented level. Sure, there was no Internet to fuel speculation, but there were magazines such as Starlog that sent fans into a frenzy by printing every unsubstantiated rumor about the upcoming sequel’s plot. (Luke, Han, and Leia travel through time to present day Earth? Really, Starlog? Are you sure you’re not thinking of Star TREK?) Meanwhile, the accurate facts were anxiety-inducing enough: the shoot was way over budget, and George Lucas had decided not to direct this installment, handing over the duties to Irvin Kershner.
George Lucas likes to defend his comparatively lame prequels (Episode I, II, and III) by saying that they are kids’ movies. That, he suggests, is why all those thirty-something Star Wars nerds don’t appreciate the new movies. I’m calling bullshit on this. Has Lucas actually seen Empire? Empire is a lot of things, but it’s certainly not a kids’ movie. How do I know? Because I saw that movie when I was five-years-old and it pretty much fucked me up for life.
The Empire Strikes Back was the first film that I ever saw in a movie theater. (The second was Ordinary People, which also fucked me up, but I will not be writing a 30th anniversary story about it.) All I knew about the story of Star Wars was what I had been told by upperclassmen (i.e. second graders) and what I had deduced from playing with my already vast collection of Kenner action figures. Having not seen the film, I wound up forging some pretty strange alliances. In my world, it wasn’t Han, Luke, Chewbacca, and Leia; it was Han and his trusty sidekicks Greedo and Bossk. How ironic is that?
On May 21, 1980, my parents agreed to take me to see The Empire Strikes Back. That day, my innocence died a little. From what I had been told about Star Wars, I expected a fun-filled ride. Yeah, that didn’t happen. What I saw was C-3PO get blown into a million pieces; Luke Skywalker cut off the head of Darth Vader only to see his own face (you think that scene is trippy now, try it as a five-year-old), then, later, get his hand severed by his own father; and Han Solo get frozen in Carbonite and, for all I knew, killed. Actually, my parents got me to the film a little late, so the first piece of action I ever saw on a proper movie screen was Luke Skywalker getting slashed in the face by a Wampa—a Wampa that later got his arm cut off. Again, with all due respect to George Lucas, this is not a fucking kids movie!
All this was especially upsetting because, thanks to Irvin Kershner, I felt genuine concern for these characters. Kershner got absolutely terrific acting performances out of Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, and, yes, even Harrison Ford (who, let’s admit it, completely phoned in his performance in Return of the Jedi). This is the same reason Lost resonates where other shows fail. It’s not about how crazy or weird the setting is; it’s always about the characters. Anyone can do “weird”; not everyone can do “compelling.” Kershner understood this, whereas Lucas either doesn’t understand it or doesn’t care. This is why the Star Wars prequels failed. Empire doesn’t even have that complex of a plot: Heroes get attacked, heroes try to escape and get their asses kicked in the process. The end.
Empire’s plot taught a generation of children that when life gets you down ... it’s probably only going to get worse. The most positive people I know all love Return of the Jedi; the cynics love Empire. When my parents would ask me why I never got too excited about, well, anything, I just wanted to scream back, “Because, when I had an impressionable mind of mush, you took me to see The Empire Strikes Back!” It taught me that, yeah, no matter how hard of a fight you put up, the bad guys will still win. In 1981, I finally saw a re-release of Star Wars. My parents acted as if they had replaced a dead pet goldfish with a new alive version. “See,” they said, “ they’re all O.K.!,” as if Star Wars came chronologically after Empire and as if I had the brainpower of a Taun-Taun. It made it worse; I knew their fate. “Hey, great, you blew up the Death Star. Laugh it up now, guys. You’re about to get your asses kicked.” But that’s what made Empire great. I cared that much.
I recently asked Jorge Garcia what he actually could improve about Empire, and even he admitted he didn’t agree with his character, “I don’t know if I’d want to touch The Empire Strikes Back. It’s definitely risen to the top of the trilogy. I loved how it ended with so much dissonance. It was the tragedy of them all.” The real tragedy are people—Lucas among them—who write off the original Star Wars films as movies for children. Thirty years ago today, a generation of cynical Star Wars fans were born. It’s hard to imagine a “kids’ movie” released today having that much of an impact—about as hard as imagining anyone, in 2032, caring about the 30th anniversary of Attack of the Clones.
Sunday, April 4, 2010
30 years after 'Empire,' Boba Fett strikes back in a big way
http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/news/2010-03-25-empirestrikes25_CV_N.htm
30 years after 'Empire,' Boba Fett strikes back in a big way
"He had that Clint Eastwood vibe to him": In The Clone Wars cartoon airing in April on The Cartoon Network, a teenage Boba Fett leads a motley crew of bounty hunters.
By Anthony Breznican, USA TODAY
3-25-10
The upcoming 30th anniversary of The Empire Strikes Back is turning into a fete for Fett.
Boba Fett, the galaxy's most fearsome bounty hunter, was just a supporting character in the original Star Wars sequel, but his cult-favorite status has placed the masked mercenary at center stage in plans to commemorate the movie, which opened May 21, 1980.
There will be new toys, a convention and special screenings hosted around the world. But the biggest development: A teenage version of Fett will appear next month in the popular Cartoon Network show The Clone Wars, bridging the generational gap between fans of the original trilogy and kids reared largely on the prequels.
Who is he? That question is what makes him so popular.
Mostly silent, his face hidden behind a sinister helmet, he wore green Mandalorian armor (a race of Star Wars galaxy warriors) and seemed to unnerve even Darth Vader. "No disintegrations!" Vader warned him in Empire— the context of which still remains a mystery.
As fans guessed at his background, Fett stood out in the film by using cunning and camouflage (in the form of jettisoned space junk) to track the Millennium Falcon, leading Vader to a fugitive Princess Leia in Cloud City, and freezing Han Solo in carbonite as a trophy for gangster Jabba the Hutt.
Much of Empire's heralded dark tone can be laid directly on Boba Fett.
"Well, he started out as a character in the famed Christmas special," notes George Lucas, referring to the comically bad 1978 TV program — which he has since hidden away like an awkward high-school prom photo.
"I thought the idea of a storm trooper-ish kind of guy with rocket packs who was actually a hero — not just a nameless, faceless guy — had a chance for pizzazz. So, we made an über-storm trooper and I called him Boba Fett. I liked the idea that he was a bounty hunter and carried six-shooters. ... After the (Christmas show), we put him in the films. And then after that, he became more and more of a popular character."
The special featured Fett as a cartoon. He wouldn't appear in live action until two years later, when Empire premiered. Meanwhile, kids who collected Star Wars action figures could mail in proof-of-purchase tags to get a free Fett toy.
Dave Filoni, now the supervising director of The Clone Wars, still remembers getting his. "It came to my house in a little white box," he says. "I knew this had to be the coolest guy in the Star Wars universe — and he hadn't even done anything yet!"
When the movie finally revealed Fett as a villain — merciless, but still mysterious — the character stood out even among Yoda, the tiny, ancient, alien Jedi; gambler-turned-politician Lando Calrissian; and the film's big revelation — Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker's father.
"It speaks to individuality," Filoni says. "The storm troopers look cool, but they're all the same. Boba Fett looked like he'd been through a lot, like he must have a lot of stories. He had that Clint Eastwood vibe to him."
Filoni kept that in mind when bringing Fett into The Clone Wars. The character begins on the show April 23 and continues in the season finale April 30.
"What makes Boba Fett interesting is the mystery," Filoni says. "So I'm very careful about how much we reveal. When you watch the movies later, even if you've seen all the Clone Wars episodes, the mystique is still there. It's not like I'll turn on all the lights in the room."
Some clues have emerged
But after three decades, countless Lucasfilm novels, short stories, comic books, video games, and three feature-film prequels, fans finally know much, much more about Fett's origin.
In 2002's Attack of the Clones, it was revealed that the storm troopers are all replicas of one notoriously tough bounty hunter, Jango Fett (actor Temuera Morrison). Boba, it turns out, is also a clone — but one created without the subservience of the others, and raised by Jango as his son.
We last saw the child Boba (played by Daniel Logan, who voices the character in The Clone Wars cartoon) utterly alone, staring contemplatively into the face of his slain father's helmet.
What does he want in the animated series? "If there's one word: revenge," Logan says.
That's bad news for the Jedi, who took out his double-dealing old man. But it could be good news for real-life fathers and their kids by uniting older fans with the young in a shared appreciation for all things Fett.
Star Wars superfan Tom Pniewski, 44, co-host of the podcast We Talk Clones, says his 10-year-old son is a big Commander Cody fan (a major character from the cartoon) but hasn't developed the same appreciation for the beloved bounty hunter.
"Bringing Boba Fett on as a 12-year-old and 13-year-old means those tweens can catch on to him and attach to the character," Pniewski says. "For me, he doesn't need the explanation. But maybe for this generation he does need that."
As much as fans crave a return of the character, there's an inherent risk, too. "Their love is so profound that it almost becomes like this is sacred text. When you start messing with that, even when the creator starts messing with that, the fans take it personally," says Alexandre O. Philippe, director of the new documentary The People vs. George Lucas, about the love-hate relationship some hard-core Star Wars fans have with the franchise.
However, if Fett's appearance on The Clone Wars manages to please both old and young, Philippe says, "that would be great! But (older) fans have been so cranky for so long, it's difficult to figure out how they'll react."
Man behind the mask
One older fan who is curious about the new Fett story line is Jeremy Bulloch, the English actor who brought Fett to life in Empire and Return of the Jedi.
All of the character's back story is news to him. "I never had a script!" Bulloch says. He was just given his lines on the set and instructed to look menacing.
"The least you do with a character like Boba Fett, the stronger he is," Bulloch says. "He moves in a very slow way. Like a snake, a cobra. He stands up — then he strikes, and it's all over. And he goes back into this pose."
Boba Fett is one of the veteran character actor's smallest roles, but it has made him famous the world over. Bulloch credits three things for the popularity:
•The costume, which includes a grappling hook and wrist-mounted flame-thrower, not to mention that famous rocket pack. "And he has Wookiee braids," Bulloch says. "It's like a scalp, like the Indians. He just hangs them over his shoulder." They are never explained, but suggest bad things could be possible for Chewbacca and his kind.
•The prey, specifically the smart-aleck smuggler played by Harrison Ford, who owes galactic gangsters more money than his life is worth. "Of course Boba Fett captures Han Solo, so he gains respect for that," Bulloch says.
•The backtalk. Not only does Vader seem wary of Fett's recklessness, but he also gets scolded by the bounty hunter when Fett fears he will kill Solo instead of turning him over as a prize. "Not many people do that and get away with their lives," Bulloch says with a laugh.
While the costume made Fett iconic, it was horribly awkward to wear. Much of the character's trademark stillness came from the heaviness of the suit. "My main aim was to stand upright," Bulloch says. "It looked so cool, but to wear it was unbearable."
That's another thing many fans have come to appreciate over time. Adam Homan, 38, a metal sculptor from Tucson who has been a life-long Star Wars fan, recalled making his own Boba Fett armor for a Halloween party when he was a college student.
"At the end, I made my way to the door, saying goodbye to people, and there was this little table by the door with all these Hummel figurines and collectibles. And as I turn to leave, the jetpack just sweeps across this table — and smash," he says.
No one was interested in telling Boba Fett it was no big deal. "This gal was on her knees on the floor, trying to piece them together with her hands, saying, 'These were my grandmother's!' "
In that moment, a childhood wish returned — flight. "There was no way to play it cool," Homan says. "If the rocket pack had actually worked, I would have just fired right out of there."
Thursday, March 18, 2010
10 classic ad-lib and off-script movie moments
http://www.denofgeek.com/movies/432108/10_classic_adlib_and_offscript_movie_moments.html
10 classic ad-lib and off-script movie moments
Karla Healion
Not every moment of movie genius is written down in the script. Take this collection of ad-libs and off-script moments, for instance...
Mar 3, 2010
Sometimes, the genius moments of a film weren't in the script, and happened in an off-the-cuff moment on the shoot itself. Here are 10 examples of when an ad-lib or off-script moment went very, very right...
Taxi Driver: "You talkin' to me?"
(Martin Scorsese, 1976)
Arguably the most famous cinematic quote of all time, "You talkin' to me?" was actually improvised. Even though the film's screenplay was written by the brilliant Paul Schrader (who also wrote the adapted screenplay for Scorsese's Raging Bull), it's this line which has gone down in the annals of pop culture history.
Director Martin Scorsese has always encouraged Robert De Niro's creativity, proving that actors can contribute more than just their performance, and in this instance it paid off.
In the original script Schrader had simply written "Bickle speaks to himself in the mirror." Alone in his grubby apartment, De Niro's loner sociopath character Travis Bickle is planning to shoot a politician. In the mirror he is practising with the sleeve-holster he made for his gun. Catching his reflection, he postures, repeating "You talkin' to me?" before whipping out his gun and taking aim. It is a moment of stunning personal insight into a character as flawed, intriguing and complex as you will ever see on the big screen.
The Shining "Heeeeeere's Johnny!"
(Stanley Kubrick, 1980)
Adapted from the Stephen King novel of the same name, The Shining is one of Kubrick's best known and most commercially successful films. The shoot was a famously difficult one, as Kubrick was notorious for being a controlling, sometimes cruel, filmmaker.
It's common knowledge that the fear displayed by Shelley Duval (playing Wendy Torrance) in the film was genuine. Kubrick would scream and shout at her, and allegedly even slapped her across the face during one take. So the spooky, tense and horrifying atmosphere we see on screen is often authentic, and perhaps inspired Jack Nicholson to ad-lib one of his most famous lines.
Jack Torrance (Nicholson's character) slowly loses his mind when stationed to mind a remote hotel with his wife and little boy. At a pinnacle stage in the narrative, he chases his wife (Duval) through the hotel with an axe. She locks herself in a bathroom, and when Torrance chops through the door, he pokes his demented face through the hole and wails, "Heeeeeere's Johnny!"
Nicholson was mimicking the catchphrase used by Ed McMahon to introduce Johnny Carson on The Johnny Carson Show (a hugely popular show at the time). It is this juxtaposition, in terms of connotation and context, that gives it such a magnificently dark, creepy, yet disturbingly humorous, effect.
Despite the screenplay being adapted from a book by one of the best horror novelists of all time, "Heeeeeere's Johnny!" is certainly the most easily remembered line from this uber-stylish classic.
Indiana Jones And The Raiders Of The Lost Ark: Jones shoots the swordsman
(Steven Spielberg, 1981)
The story behind this scene is almost as famous as the scene itself. Harrison Ford, playing our protagonist explorer Indie Jones, got a bad case of food poisoning and dysentery. He was due to shoot a big fight scene with a skilled swordsman the next day. Not able to take on the action, Ford suggested to Spielberg that he simply shoot the over-zealous antagonist, in a quip that sums up the ethos and feel of Jones' character perfectly.
So, following an arduous journey through the streets of Egypt, the crowd parts to reveal a sinister, threatening swordsman dressed in black. He faces Jones, but straight after he cuts some impressive pre-fight moves in an attempt to intimidate his opponent, Jones draws and shoots him down in one. And off-script movie magic is made.
Blade Runner: Roy Batty's final soliloquy
(Ridley Scott, 1982)
With Harrison Ford in the lead again (this time as Rick Deckard) we come to Ridley Scott's revered sci-fi epic Blade Runner. The screenplay was based on the Philip K. Dick novel Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?.
Hollywood legend has it that Martin Scorsese was originally interested in the adaptation but never optioned it. That would have been interesting. But we all love Scott's dark, moody, original and highly influential shoot which launched a thousand mimics. And we especially love the Aryan, cold, violent Roy Batty, the perfect replicant (android).
Played fantastically by Rutger Hauer, Batty is LAPD Officer Deckard's nemesis. In the end Batty's life is drawing to a close, and like so much in the film, it makes a social comment on all kinds of issues.
So, sitting on a rooftop in the pouring rain Hauer takes the first few lines from David Peoples' script and adds a couple of very memorable closing lines as his character's last words. "I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time. Like tears in the rain. Time to die."
Mad to think Bladerunner is set in 2019. Doubt we'll have such perfect androids in only ten years' time.
The Third Man: Lime's cuckoo clock maxim
(Carol Reed, 1949)
Carol Reed's The Third Man is a film that constantly appears on 'best film' lists. It's a beautifully shot and scripted testament to the art of film noir, starring notorious movie heavyweight Orson Welles. It also has one of the most ferociously famous theme tunes in film history (even if it doesn't come to mind right now, you do know it).
One of its most memorable moments comes when Harry Lime (Welles) is trying to convince his old friend Holly Martins (Joseph Cotton) to join him in some dubious dealings. He's explaining that to make omelettes you need to break eggs.
Illustrating Welles' absolute cinematic brilliance, he includes the cuckoo line. It was not part of the original screenplay, adapted from a novel by reputable writer Graham Greene, but is perhaps the best known quote of the film: "In Italy for 30 years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed. They produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, five hundred years of democracy and peace. And what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."
Midnight Cowboy: "I'm walkin' here!"
(John Schlesinger, 1969)
Okay, it's been disputed as to whether this was off-script or not. But it's not past the methodical Dustin Hoffman to ad-lib such a brilliant line.
Midnight Cowboy won Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director (John Schlesinger) and Best Adapted Screenplay (Waldo Salt). It's the only X-rated film to have won any Oscars, and the only other X-rated nomination in history was Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange (1971).
There is a scene in which Hoffman's unforgettable 'Ratso' Rizzo is walking our midnight cowboy Joe Buck (played by a young Jon Voight) through the streets of New York. He's coaching him about becoming a successful stud and gigolo, and while crossing a street nearly gets hit by a yellow cab. Hoffman beats the hood with his fist and shouts, "I'm walkin' here!" in his unique New York parlance, yhen quickly retorts to Voight, "Actually, that ain't a bad way to pick up insurance y'know."
"I'm walkin' here." is often cited as one of the world's best movie quotes. It's usually thought of as an improvised line, which Hoffman has claimed. And he is certainly more than capable of this kind of fleshed-out character portrayal. But producer Jermoe Hellman has always maintained that it was in the script. The romantic film buff in me likes to believe the former, but I guess we may never really know.
Dr. Strangelove, Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb: Dr. Strangelove's sporadic involuntary Nazi salute
(Stanley Kubrick, 1964)
Apparently, so many of Sellers' lines in Dr. Strangelove were improvised that he is often cited as an uncredited co-writer. And it is considered a study of retro-scripting, ie. when ad-libbed lines are later written into the final script. So, it's difficult to know which one to pick, but perhaps the most ingenious and intuitive is when his title character performs sudden involuntary Nazi salutes in the company of the US military (Sellers plays three characters in total).
Dr. Strangelove is a wheelchair-bound German nuclear weapons expert, who has a past association with the Nazis. In one of the best comedic performances of all time, Sellers' Dr. Strangelove sometimes accidentally refers to the US President as 'Mein Fuhrer', and strangles himself with his out-of-control right arm. This is as well as having to use his left arm to push down the Nazi salutes his right arm frequently and uncontrollably lapses into.
This was entirely Sellers' creation. So much so, in fact, that the novel from which the film was adapted (Red Alert by Peter George) didn't even have the character Dr. Strangelove at all. The word genius does get thrown around but, good lord, Peter Sellers really deserves the moniker.
Goodfellas: "Funny how?"
(Martin Scorsese, 1990)
Adapted from the Nicholas Pileggi book Wiseguys, the Goodfellas screenplay is not without its share of memorable moments. It is one of the best loved films of all time, and displays a darkly humorous side to the Italio-American gangster genre, largely absent in Coppola's The Godfather series.
People always remember the crazy Joe Pesci character, Tommy DeVito, who defined and inspired a million mafia-esque archetypes. Such is the unstable and changeable world of mafia relationships that in one scene DeVito is sitting with our protagonist Henry Hill (Ray Liotta), sharing a drink and having a laugh. When Hill comments, "You're a funny guy," DeVito's face turns stone cold and he replies, "What do you mean I'm a funny guy. Funny how? Funny like I'm here to amuse you?'" The entire room stops dead. A couple of wiseguys mumble, "Hey, Tommy, calm down," as Hill looks worried and tries to explain himself.
The tension is just about to turn into what we think will be bullets, when DeVito cracks and says, "I'm just fucking with you," and everyone laughs. With relief, might I add.
It exemplifies beautifully how crazy Pesci's character is. His friends believe he may turn that easily, and also how volatile and suddenly hostile their world can be. It's thought that Pesci ad-libbed quite a lot for this role and that lines such as this were often retro-scripted into the final draft of the screenplay.
Silence Of The Lambs: Hannibal's hissing
(Johnathan Demme, 1992)
Playing one of the most iconic cinema villains ever, Sir Anthony Hopkins immortalised the cannibalistic Dr. Hannibal Lecter in this classic performance. Although he only has under twenty-five minutes of screen time, Hopkins won an Oscar for Best Actor. Jodie Foster also won for Best Actress, and the film won Best Director, Best Screenplay (Ted Tally) and Best Picture too. Not bad.
The American Film Institute named Lecter the number three screen villain ever in their top 100 in 2003, next to Norman Bates, with Darth Vader in the top spot.
Lecter is an incarcerated serial killer cannibal whom Foster's character, FBI agent Clarice Starling, interviews to help find another murdering cannibal, still at large. All in a day's work.
At one point Lecter tells of an unsavoury incident, describing a now-famous meal: "A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti." He then hisses and sucks at Starling in a truly revolting and disturbing manner, forever putting an entire generation off that particular varietal of wine.
Hollywood rumour says that this hissing was just a joke thrown in by Hopkins. He never intended it to be so frightening, not to mention appearing in the final cut and becoming so utterly conspicuous.
Casablanca: "Here's looking at you, kid."
(Michael Curtiz, 1942)
Ah, Casablanca. What can we say? If it's not your favourite oldie, and the final scene doesn't make you cry, then I'm sure you don't have a reflection in a mirror. But more than the emotion of the story, the coolness of Bogie and the beauty of Ingrid Bergman, it is a technically superb and incredibly entertaining film.
Regarding the script, the famous line, "Play it again, Sam", is not actually in the film and is probably the world's biggest cinematic misquote. Then, to our ad-libbed moment.
During the last scene and their final interaction, Rick (Humphrey Bogart) is doing the right thing and letting Ilsa (Bergman) go. Crying, she tries to convince him to let her stay. He refuses but consoles her, saying, "Here's looking at you, kid." And there isn't a dry eye in the house.
The American Film Institute often calls it one of the most memorable lines in film. It is often quoted and parodied. Yet, legend has it that this is something Bogart used to say to Bergman as he taught her to play poker in between takes on set. It was never in the original script at all.
10 classic ad-lib and off-script movie moments
Karla Healion
Not every moment of movie genius is written down in the script. Take this collection of ad-libs and off-script moments, for instance...
Mar 3, 2010
Sometimes, the genius moments of a film weren't in the script, and happened in an off-the-cuff moment on the shoot itself. Here are 10 examples of when an ad-lib or off-script moment went very, very right...
Taxi Driver: "You talkin' to me?"
(Martin Scorsese, 1976)
Arguably the most famous cinematic quote of all time, "You talkin' to me?" was actually improvised. Even though the film's screenplay was written by the brilliant Paul Schrader (who also wrote the adapted screenplay for Scorsese's Raging Bull), it's this line which has gone down in the annals of pop culture history.
Director Martin Scorsese has always encouraged Robert De Niro's creativity, proving that actors can contribute more than just their performance, and in this instance it paid off.
In the original script Schrader had simply written "Bickle speaks to himself in the mirror." Alone in his grubby apartment, De Niro's loner sociopath character Travis Bickle is planning to shoot a politician. In the mirror he is practising with the sleeve-holster he made for his gun. Catching his reflection, he postures, repeating "You talkin' to me?" before whipping out his gun and taking aim. It is a moment of stunning personal insight into a character as flawed, intriguing and complex as you will ever see on the big screen.
The Shining "Heeeeeere's Johnny!"
(Stanley Kubrick, 1980)
Adapted from the Stephen King novel of the same name, The Shining is one of Kubrick's best known and most commercially successful films. The shoot was a famously difficult one, as Kubrick was notorious for being a controlling, sometimes cruel, filmmaker.
It's common knowledge that the fear displayed by Shelley Duval (playing Wendy Torrance) in the film was genuine. Kubrick would scream and shout at her, and allegedly even slapped her across the face during one take. So the spooky, tense and horrifying atmosphere we see on screen is often authentic, and perhaps inspired Jack Nicholson to ad-lib one of his most famous lines.
Jack Torrance (Nicholson's character) slowly loses his mind when stationed to mind a remote hotel with his wife and little boy. At a pinnacle stage in the narrative, he chases his wife (Duval) through the hotel with an axe. She locks herself in a bathroom, and when Torrance chops through the door, he pokes his demented face through the hole and wails, "Heeeeeere's Johnny!"
Nicholson was mimicking the catchphrase used by Ed McMahon to introduce Johnny Carson on The Johnny Carson Show (a hugely popular show at the time). It is this juxtaposition, in terms of connotation and context, that gives it such a magnificently dark, creepy, yet disturbingly humorous, effect.
Despite the screenplay being adapted from a book by one of the best horror novelists of all time, "Heeeeeere's Johnny!" is certainly the most easily remembered line from this uber-stylish classic.
Indiana Jones And The Raiders Of The Lost Ark: Jones shoots the swordsman
(Steven Spielberg, 1981)
The story behind this scene is almost as famous as the scene itself. Harrison Ford, playing our protagonist explorer Indie Jones, got a bad case of food poisoning and dysentery. He was due to shoot a big fight scene with a skilled swordsman the next day. Not able to take on the action, Ford suggested to Spielberg that he simply shoot the over-zealous antagonist, in a quip that sums up the ethos and feel of Jones' character perfectly.
So, following an arduous journey through the streets of Egypt, the crowd parts to reveal a sinister, threatening swordsman dressed in black. He faces Jones, but straight after he cuts some impressive pre-fight moves in an attempt to intimidate his opponent, Jones draws and shoots him down in one. And off-script movie magic is made.
Blade Runner: Roy Batty's final soliloquy
(Ridley Scott, 1982)
With Harrison Ford in the lead again (this time as Rick Deckard) we come to Ridley Scott's revered sci-fi epic Blade Runner. The screenplay was based on the Philip K. Dick novel Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?.
Hollywood legend has it that Martin Scorsese was originally interested in the adaptation but never optioned it. That would have been interesting. But we all love Scott's dark, moody, original and highly influential shoot which launched a thousand mimics. And we especially love the Aryan, cold, violent Roy Batty, the perfect replicant (android).
Played fantastically by Rutger Hauer, Batty is LAPD Officer Deckard's nemesis. In the end Batty's life is drawing to a close, and like so much in the film, it makes a social comment on all kinds of issues.
So, sitting on a rooftop in the pouring rain Hauer takes the first few lines from David Peoples' script and adds a couple of very memorable closing lines as his character's last words. "I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time. Like tears in the rain. Time to die."
Mad to think Bladerunner is set in 2019. Doubt we'll have such perfect androids in only ten years' time.
The Third Man: Lime's cuckoo clock maxim
(Carol Reed, 1949)
Carol Reed's The Third Man is a film that constantly appears on 'best film' lists. It's a beautifully shot and scripted testament to the art of film noir, starring notorious movie heavyweight Orson Welles. It also has one of the most ferociously famous theme tunes in film history (even if it doesn't come to mind right now, you do know it).
One of its most memorable moments comes when Harry Lime (Welles) is trying to convince his old friend Holly Martins (Joseph Cotton) to join him in some dubious dealings. He's explaining that to make omelettes you need to break eggs.
Illustrating Welles' absolute cinematic brilliance, he includes the cuckoo line. It was not part of the original screenplay, adapted from a novel by reputable writer Graham Greene, but is perhaps the best known quote of the film: "In Italy for 30 years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed. They produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, five hundred years of democracy and peace. And what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."
Midnight Cowboy: "I'm walkin' here!"
(John Schlesinger, 1969)
Okay, it's been disputed as to whether this was off-script or not. But it's not past the methodical Dustin Hoffman to ad-lib such a brilliant line.
Midnight Cowboy won Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director (John Schlesinger) and Best Adapted Screenplay (Waldo Salt). It's the only X-rated film to have won any Oscars, and the only other X-rated nomination in history was Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange (1971).
There is a scene in which Hoffman's unforgettable 'Ratso' Rizzo is walking our midnight cowboy Joe Buck (played by a young Jon Voight) through the streets of New York. He's coaching him about becoming a successful stud and gigolo, and while crossing a street nearly gets hit by a yellow cab. Hoffman beats the hood with his fist and shouts, "I'm walkin' here!" in his unique New York parlance, yhen quickly retorts to Voight, "Actually, that ain't a bad way to pick up insurance y'know."
"I'm walkin' here." is often cited as one of the world's best movie quotes. It's usually thought of as an improvised line, which Hoffman has claimed. And he is certainly more than capable of this kind of fleshed-out character portrayal. But producer Jermoe Hellman has always maintained that it was in the script. The romantic film buff in me likes to believe the former, but I guess we may never really know.
Dr. Strangelove, Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb: Dr. Strangelove's sporadic involuntary Nazi salute
(Stanley Kubrick, 1964)
Apparently, so many of Sellers' lines in Dr. Strangelove were improvised that he is often cited as an uncredited co-writer. And it is considered a study of retro-scripting, ie. when ad-libbed lines are later written into the final script. So, it's difficult to know which one to pick, but perhaps the most ingenious and intuitive is when his title character performs sudden involuntary Nazi salutes in the company of the US military (Sellers plays three characters in total).
Dr. Strangelove is a wheelchair-bound German nuclear weapons expert, who has a past association with the Nazis. In one of the best comedic performances of all time, Sellers' Dr. Strangelove sometimes accidentally refers to the US President as 'Mein Fuhrer', and strangles himself with his out-of-control right arm. This is as well as having to use his left arm to push down the Nazi salutes his right arm frequently and uncontrollably lapses into.
This was entirely Sellers' creation. So much so, in fact, that the novel from which the film was adapted (Red Alert by Peter George) didn't even have the character Dr. Strangelove at all. The word genius does get thrown around but, good lord, Peter Sellers really deserves the moniker.
Goodfellas: "Funny how?"
(Martin Scorsese, 1990)
Adapted from the Nicholas Pileggi book Wiseguys, the Goodfellas screenplay is not without its share of memorable moments. It is one of the best loved films of all time, and displays a darkly humorous side to the Italio-American gangster genre, largely absent in Coppola's The Godfather series.
People always remember the crazy Joe Pesci character, Tommy DeVito, who defined and inspired a million mafia-esque archetypes. Such is the unstable and changeable world of mafia relationships that in one scene DeVito is sitting with our protagonist Henry Hill (Ray Liotta), sharing a drink and having a laugh. When Hill comments, "You're a funny guy," DeVito's face turns stone cold and he replies, "What do you mean I'm a funny guy. Funny how? Funny like I'm here to amuse you?'" The entire room stops dead. A couple of wiseguys mumble, "Hey, Tommy, calm down," as Hill looks worried and tries to explain himself.
The tension is just about to turn into what we think will be bullets, when DeVito cracks and says, "I'm just fucking with you," and everyone laughs. With relief, might I add.
It exemplifies beautifully how crazy Pesci's character is. His friends believe he may turn that easily, and also how volatile and suddenly hostile their world can be. It's thought that Pesci ad-libbed quite a lot for this role and that lines such as this were often retro-scripted into the final draft of the screenplay.
Silence Of The Lambs: Hannibal's hissing
(Johnathan Demme, 1992)
Playing one of the most iconic cinema villains ever, Sir Anthony Hopkins immortalised the cannibalistic Dr. Hannibal Lecter in this classic performance. Although he only has under twenty-five minutes of screen time, Hopkins won an Oscar for Best Actor. Jodie Foster also won for Best Actress, and the film won Best Director, Best Screenplay (Ted Tally) and Best Picture too. Not bad.
The American Film Institute named Lecter the number three screen villain ever in their top 100 in 2003, next to Norman Bates, with Darth Vader in the top spot.
Lecter is an incarcerated serial killer cannibal whom Foster's character, FBI agent Clarice Starling, interviews to help find another murdering cannibal, still at large. All in a day's work.
At one point Lecter tells of an unsavoury incident, describing a now-famous meal: "A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti." He then hisses and sucks at Starling in a truly revolting and disturbing manner, forever putting an entire generation off that particular varietal of wine.
Hollywood rumour says that this hissing was just a joke thrown in by Hopkins. He never intended it to be so frightening, not to mention appearing in the final cut and becoming so utterly conspicuous.
Casablanca: "Here's looking at you, kid."
(Michael Curtiz, 1942)
Ah, Casablanca. What can we say? If it's not your favourite oldie, and the final scene doesn't make you cry, then I'm sure you don't have a reflection in a mirror. But more than the emotion of the story, the coolness of Bogie and the beauty of Ingrid Bergman, it is a technically superb and incredibly entertaining film.
Regarding the script, the famous line, "Play it again, Sam", is not actually in the film and is probably the world's biggest cinematic misquote. Then, to our ad-libbed moment.
During the last scene and their final interaction, Rick (Humphrey Bogart) is doing the right thing and letting Ilsa (Bergman) go. Crying, she tries to convince him to let her stay. He refuses but consoles her, saying, "Here's looking at you, kid." And there isn't a dry eye in the house.
The American Film Institute often calls it one of the most memorable lines in film. It is often quoted and parodied. Yet, legend has it that this is something Bogart used to say to Bergman as he taught her to play poker in between takes on set. It was never in the original script at all.
Friday, September 18, 2009
Harrison Ford ready for fifth ‘Indiana Jones’
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32841449/ns/entertainment-celebrities/Harrison Ford ready for fifth ‘Indiana Jones’
Actor says story is already taking form and he’d be happy to take part again
Mon., Sept . 14, 2009
Dust off the fedora and clear out the snakes — Indiana Jones is ready to ride again.
Harrison Ford, 67, says he's already ready for the globe-trotting archaeologist's next adventure, only a year after one of history's most successful film franchises was revived — and that the next chapter is already well on its way.
"The story for the new 'Indiana Jones' is in the process of taking form," Ford told France's Le Figaro. "Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and myself are agreed on what the fifth adventure will concern, and George is actively at work. If the script is good, I'll be very happy to put the costume on again."
The screen legend was on hand to accept a career honor at the Deauville Film Festival, with partner Calista Flockhart on his arm.
In June, while promoting "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen," Shia LaBouef — who plays Indiana Jones' son, Mutt — told the BBC, "Steven's just said that he's cracked the story."
Domestic duties
But until it's again time to fight Nazis and Stalinists and overcome the supernatural, Ford says he's happy to be a simple househusband.
"I do the dishes. And I make dinner," he said. "In the mornings, I get my 8-year-old son Liam ready for school, and then I pass my time flying around in my planes. You see, I'm just like anybody else. My children are between 8 and 42, and I'm also a grandfather."
Though he's got "Indy" in the works and two films ("Morning Glory" and "The Crowley Project") set for release next year, Ford says there's one stereotypical actor's ambition he's happy to leave alone.
"[Directing]'s too hard, too long, and it doesn't pay enough!" he joked. "To be a good filmmaker is the hardest job in the world. I'm not patient enough. And I don't want to be the boss."
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Indiana Jones and the Savior of a Lost Art
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/04/movies/moviesspecial/04raff.html
May 4, 2008
Summer Movies
Indiana Jones and the Savior of a Lost Art
By TERRENCE RAFFERTY
“THIS is a recreational activity for me” is surely among the last things you’d expect to hear from the director of a huge, costly, dauntingly complex summer action movie as it nears completion, with its release date just a few weeks away.
But that is what Steven Spielberg said not long ago, speaking by phone from a dub stage where he was supervising the sound mixing of “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” (opening May 22), the first new installment in 19 years of the crowd-pleasing adventure-movie franchise that began in 1981 with “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” “In 1989,” Mr. Spielberg said, referring to the year “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” came out, “I thought the curtain was lowering on the series, which is why I had all the characters literally ride off into the sunset at the end. But ever since then the most common question I get asked, all over the world, is, ‘When are you going to make another Indiana Jones?’ ”
It’s a fair guess that theater operators and executives at Paramount Pictures have asked that question at least as frequently as the ticket-buying public has, and perhaps with a shade more urgency: the three Indy pictures — “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” (1984) was the one in the middle — have raked in well over a billion dollars worldwide from their theatrical releases alone. The anticipation, on the part of both the fans and the suits, falls somewhere between keen and breathless. And for most filmmakers that level of expectation might appear in their clammier dreams as a giant boulder bearing down on them and picking up speed.
“I’m having a great time,” Mr. Spielberg said. And, unlikely though this may seem, you can’t help believing him; he certainly sounds excited, and the secret of the Indiana Jones movies’ success has always been their free-spirited inventiveness, a what-the-hell quality that can’t (or shouldn’t) be faked, even on a gigantic budget.
Weirdly, authenticity — not faking it — is very much on his mind when he makes one of these unabashedly preposterous movies, whose hero (still played by Harrison Ford) is a two-fisted, bullwhip-wielding academic archaeologist zipping around the globe in search of rare mystical artifacts and in the process running afoul of Nazis, creepy human-sacrifice cults and other exemplars of unambiguous, unadulterated evil.
Even by the extremely flexible standards of high-adventure pulp, the Indy pictures are a pretty stern test of the audience’s willingness to suspend disbelief. (At times you feel as if it were hanging, as the hero periodically does, over a mass of writhing, fang-baring snakes, or a river full of famished crocodiles.) The authenticity Mr. Spielberg is concerned with here is something other than the historical realism of, say, “Schindler’s List” or “Munich”; what he wanted to talk about was the physical integrity of the action, of which there is, in an Indiana Jones movie, plenty.
The tone and style of the films derive from the movie serials of the 1930s and ’40s, which Mr. Spielberg, growing up in the ’50s, used to see on Saturday mornings at a revival theater in Scottsdale, Ariz.
“They made a great impression on me, both because of how exciting they were and because of how cheesy they were,” he said. “I’d kind of be involved in the stories and be ridiculing them at the same time. One week they’d give us a cliffhanger with the good guy going off the cliff, the car crashing on the rocks below and blowing up, and then the next week he’s fine. They forgot to show us the cut of the guy jumping out of the car? That we weren’t going to do in the Indiana Jones series.”
In fact, Mr. Spielberg said, he tries to cut as little as possible in these movies’ action sequences, because “every time the camera changes dynamic angles, you feel there’s something wrong, that there’s some cheating going on.” So his goal is “to do the shots the way Chaplin or Keaton would, everything happening before the eyes of the audience, without a cut.”
Warming to the subject, he went on: “The idea is, there’s no illusion; what you see is what you get. My movies have never been frenetically cut, the way a lot of action is done today. That’s not a put-down; some of that quick cutting, like in ‘The Bourne Ultimatum,’ is fantastic, just takes my breath away. But to get the comedy I want in the Indy films, you have to be old-fashioned. I’ve studied a lot of the old movies that made me laugh, and you’ve got to stage things in full shots and let the audience be the editor. It’s like every shot is a circus act.”
And in 1981, in “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” that approach was so old-fashioned it looked new. (It’s difficult to remember now just how stodgy and joyless the action genre had become; even the James Bond movies, reliably sprightly in the ’60s, turned into slow-footed, campy behemoths in the ’70s with entries like “Moonraker.”)
In the 27 years since, practically every action filmmaker has tried to drink from the grail of Indiana Jones, to tap into the movie’s quasi-mystical kinetic (and commercial) power: the pace had to be blindingly fast; the stunts insanely elaborate, the villainy extra-villainous; the hero’s attitude blithe, insouciant, almost sociopathically cool. Mr. Spielberg and George Lucas — who produces the movies and who dreamed up the basic idea of the series — have a lot to answer for.
The sad truth is that the enormous influence of the Indiana Jones films has been a distinctly mixed blessing. Action movies are, over all, a good deal snappier than they were 30 years ago, but they also tend to be a good deal less intelligible. They skimp on the exposition and go straight for sensation, as if cutting to the chase were not a metaphor but literally the cardinal rule of filmmaking. And that’s true not only of the most egregious Indiana Jones knockoffs — the “Mummy,” “National Treasure” and “Lara Croft” movies spring, unwelcomely, to mind — but of nearly every studio picture that features more action than, say, “My Dinner With André.” It’s no accident that movies of this sort, ubiquitous in summertime, are so often blurbed as “thrill rides”: they can be that exhausting, and that pointless.
Pointlessness is, however, in the eye of the beholder. When asked what kind of films he enjoyed most as a boy, Mr. Spielberg replied, simply, “Anything with a lot of movement,” and quite a few of us would say the same. Swift, thrilling motion is the hook that pulls young imaginations into movies, and although your taste might get a tad more refined over the years, vivid, intricate, ingeniously choreographed action can still give you that Saturday-matinee charge of pleasure.
The perilously long and complicated opening sequence of “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” for example — in which a song-and-dance number (“Anything Goes,” sung in Mandarin) turns into a wild slapstick action scene involving a diamond, a poisoned drink and an elusive vial of antidote, and ends with Indy and his companions jumping out of a plane in a rubber raft — delivers that sort of giddy, mildly deranging stimulation. The staging and the cutting have the “can you top this?” audacity of a silent comedy, and the timing is slyly impeccable: it’s about the length of a Keaton two-reeler.
It hardly matters that the “Anything Goes” set piece was originally planned for “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” The big action scenes in the Indiana Jones movies are almost risibly inorganic to the narratives that contain them. This kind of randomness is risky — not to be tried at home, or by any filmmaker less prodigiously gifted than Mr. Spielberg. You need a rigorous imagination for visual comedy to make movies as exhilaratingly ridiculous as these.
“John Williams and I have a word we use when we have something we think the audience will love,” Mr. Spielberg said, referring to the composer who has scored all the Indiana Jones movies. “Maybe it’ll be a little over the top, and we ask each other, ‘Are we being too shameless?’ In a way I think we’ve both grown kind of proud of being shameless.”
When the jokes are good, as they frequently are in the Indy pictures, there’s every reason for pride. These goofy movies tell you as much about Steven Spielberg as his more serious work does. Movies truly are a form of recreation for him, and he’s the kind of artist who reveals himself fully in the intensity of his play. In the Indiana Jones movies he revives the spirit of silent comedy in the adventures of an intellectual with a bullwhip. And that’s a feat that, whether you think it’s worth doing or not, at least deserves high marks for degree of difficulty. If only everybody else in Hollywood hadn’t tried to imitate him, he’d have nothing to be ashamed of at all.
May 4, 2008
Summer Movies
Indiana Jones and the Savior of a Lost Art
By TERRENCE RAFFERTY
“THIS is a recreational activity for me” is surely among the last things you’d expect to hear from the director of a huge, costly, dauntingly complex summer action movie as it nears completion, with its release date just a few weeks away.
But that is what Steven Spielberg said not long ago, speaking by phone from a dub stage where he was supervising the sound mixing of “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” (opening May 22), the first new installment in 19 years of the crowd-pleasing adventure-movie franchise that began in 1981 with “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” “In 1989,” Mr. Spielberg said, referring to the year “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” came out, “I thought the curtain was lowering on the series, which is why I had all the characters literally ride off into the sunset at the end. But ever since then the most common question I get asked, all over the world, is, ‘When are you going to make another Indiana Jones?’ ”
It’s a fair guess that theater operators and executives at Paramount Pictures have asked that question at least as frequently as the ticket-buying public has, and perhaps with a shade more urgency: the three Indy pictures — “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” (1984) was the one in the middle — have raked in well over a billion dollars worldwide from their theatrical releases alone. The anticipation, on the part of both the fans and the suits, falls somewhere between keen and breathless. And for most filmmakers that level of expectation might appear in their clammier dreams as a giant boulder bearing down on them and picking up speed.
“I’m having a great time,” Mr. Spielberg said. And, unlikely though this may seem, you can’t help believing him; he certainly sounds excited, and the secret of the Indiana Jones movies’ success has always been their free-spirited inventiveness, a what-the-hell quality that can’t (or shouldn’t) be faked, even on a gigantic budget.
Weirdly, authenticity — not faking it — is very much on his mind when he makes one of these unabashedly preposterous movies, whose hero (still played by Harrison Ford) is a two-fisted, bullwhip-wielding academic archaeologist zipping around the globe in search of rare mystical artifacts and in the process running afoul of Nazis, creepy human-sacrifice cults and other exemplars of unambiguous, unadulterated evil.
Even by the extremely flexible standards of high-adventure pulp, the Indy pictures are a pretty stern test of the audience’s willingness to suspend disbelief. (At times you feel as if it were hanging, as the hero periodically does, over a mass of writhing, fang-baring snakes, or a river full of famished crocodiles.) The authenticity Mr. Spielberg is concerned with here is something other than the historical realism of, say, “Schindler’s List” or “Munich”; what he wanted to talk about was the physical integrity of the action, of which there is, in an Indiana Jones movie, plenty.
The tone and style of the films derive from the movie serials of the 1930s and ’40s, which Mr. Spielberg, growing up in the ’50s, used to see on Saturday mornings at a revival theater in Scottsdale, Ariz.
“They made a great impression on me, both because of how exciting they were and because of how cheesy they were,” he said. “I’d kind of be involved in the stories and be ridiculing them at the same time. One week they’d give us a cliffhanger with the good guy going off the cliff, the car crashing on the rocks below and blowing up, and then the next week he’s fine. They forgot to show us the cut of the guy jumping out of the car? That we weren’t going to do in the Indiana Jones series.”
In fact, Mr. Spielberg said, he tries to cut as little as possible in these movies’ action sequences, because “every time the camera changes dynamic angles, you feel there’s something wrong, that there’s some cheating going on.” So his goal is “to do the shots the way Chaplin or Keaton would, everything happening before the eyes of the audience, without a cut.”
Warming to the subject, he went on: “The idea is, there’s no illusion; what you see is what you get. My movies have never been frenetically cut, the way a lot of action is done today. That’s not a put-down; some of that quick cutting, like in ‘The Bourne Ultimatum,’ is fantastic, just takes my breath away. But to get the comedy I want in the Indy films, you have to be old-fashioned. I’ve studied a lot of the old movies that made me laugh, and you’ve got to stage things in full shots and let the audience be the editor. It’s like every shot is a circus act.”
And in 1981, in “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” that approach was so old-fashioned it looked new. (It’s difficult to remember now just how stodgy and joyless the action genre had become; even the James Bond movies, reliably sprightly in the ’60s, turned into slow-footed, campy behemoths in the ’70s with entries like “Moonraker.”)
In the 27 years since, practically every action filmmaker has tried to drink from the grail of Indiana Jones, to tap into the movie’s quasi-mystical kinetic (and commercial) power: the pace had to be blindingly fast; the stunts insanely elaborate, the villainy extra-villainous; the hero’s attitude blithe, insouciant, almost sociopathically cool. Mr. Spielberg and George Lucas — who produces the movies and who dreamed up the basic idea of the series — have a lot to answer for.
The sad truth is that the enormous influence of the Indiana Jones films has been a distinctly mixed blessing. Action movies are, over all, a good deal snappier than they were 30 years ago, but they also tend to be a good deal less intelligible. They skimp on the exposition and go straight for sensation, as if cutting to the chase were not a metaphor but literally the cardinal rule of filmmaking. And that’s true not only of the most egregious Indiana Jones knockoffs — the “Mummy,” “National Treasure” and “Lara Croft” movies spring, unwelcomely, to mind — but of nearly every studio picture that features more action than, say, “My Dinner With André.” It’s no accident that movies of this sort, ubiquitous in summertime, are so often blurbed as “thrill rides”: they can be that exhausting, and that pointless.
Pointlessness is, however, in the eye of the beholder. When asked what kind of films he enjoyed most as a boy, Mr. Spielberg replied, simply, “Anything with a lot of movement,” and quite a few of us would say the same. Swift, thrilling motion is the hook that pulls young imaginations into movies, and although your taste might get a tad more refined over the years, vivid, intricate, ingeniously choreographed action can still give you that Saturday-matinee charge of pleasure.
The perilously long and complicated opening sequence of “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” for example — in which a song-and-dance number (“Anything Goes,” sung in Mandarin) turns into a wild slapstick action scene involving a diamond, a poisoned drink and an elusive vial of antidote, and ends with Indy and his companions jumping out of a plane in a rubber raft — delivers that sort of giddy, mildly deranging stimulation. The staging and the cutting have the “can you top this?” audacity of a silent comedy, and the timing is slyly impeccable: it’s about the length of a Keaton two-reeler.
It hardly matters that the “Anything Goes” set piece was originally planned for “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” The big action scenes in the Indiana Jones movies are almost risibly inorganic to the narratives that contain them. This kind of randomness is risky — not to be tried at home, or by any filmmaker less prodigiously gifted than Mr. Spielberg. You need a rigorous imagination for visual comedy to make movies as exhilaratingly ridiculous as these.
“John Williams and I have a word we use when we have something we think the audience will love,” Mr. Spielberg said, referring to the composer who has scored all the Indiana Jones movies. “Maybe it’ll be a little over the top, and we ask each other, ‘Are we being too shameless?’ In a way I think we’ve both grown kind of proud of being shameless.”
When the jokes are good, as they frequently are in the Indy pictures, there’s every reason for pride. These goofy movies tell you as much about Steven Spielberg as his more serious work does. Movies truly are a form of recreation for him, and he’s the kind of artist who reveals himself fully in the intensity of his play. In the Indiana Jones movies he revives the spirit of silent comedy in the adventures of an intellectual with a bullwhip. And that’s a feat that, whether you think it’s worth doing or not, at least deserves high marks for degree of difficulty. If only everybody else in Hollywood hadn’t tried to imitate him, he’d have nothing to be ashamed of at all.
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Ubisoft subsumes Tom Clancy
http://www.gamespot.com/news/6188151.html
Ubisoft subsumes Tom Clancy, new MMOG en route?
Author-inspired techno-military media empire--including book, film, and game rights--purchased by Rainbow Six publisher; CEO Yves Guillemot says Ubi looking at massively multiplayer project.
This week began with news that Sam Raimi, director of the Spider-Man and Evil Dead trilogies, was in talks to resurrect film hero Jack Ryan. The marine-turned-CIA-analyst-turned-reluctant-hero was played by Alec Baldwin in The Hunt for Red October (1988) and Harrison Ford in Patriot Games (1992) and Clear and Present Danger (1994). In 2002, an attempt was made to reboot the series with Ben Affleck in The Sum of All Fears (2002).
The now even-wealthier Tom Clancy. However, the character of Jack Ryan was famous long before his film debut. He was the preeminent literary cold warrior in 1980s fiction, starring in a series of novels by Tom Clancy. Clancy's military expertise and fast-paced writing style made every one of his 14-plus books a bestseller, which made the author rich enough to attempt to buy the Minnesota Vikings football team in 1998.
Though that deal eventually fell through, the 20 years since his first novel was published have seen Tom Clancy become less of an author and more of a brand. Besides the aforementioned films, his name is plastered on several series of books by other authors, including Tom Clancy's Ops Center and Tom Clancy's NetForce.
The past 10 years have also seen the Tom Clancy brand become a heavy hitter in the game industry, with the Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six, Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell, and Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon series selling tens of millions of copies on every platform. Two new franchises, Tom Clancy's Air Combat and Tom Clancy's EndWar, are also in development, the latter of which already has a best-selling novel complementing it.
With the Tom Clancy brand showing no signs of slowing down in gaming, Ubisoft has cut a deal with the 61-year-old author. Today, the Paris-based publisher of every Tom Clancy game announced it has acquired rights to the Tom Clancy name in virtually all forms of media. Under the deal, Ubisoft now has all rights "on a perpetual basis and free of all related future royalty payments" to make or license Tom Clancy-branded "video games and ancillary products including related books, movies, and merchandising products."
Though Ubisoft is publicly traded on the Paris Bourse, it did not disclose the amount it paid to Clancy to own his birth name. However, the company did drop some hints when it said that not having to pay royalties to Clancy would have "an average positive impact on Ubisoft's operating income of a minimum of 5 million euros ($7.7 million) per year." It also said it would be paying Clancy in four installments over its next three fiscal years. When its current fiscal year ends on March 31, 2008, the company predicts to have 130 million euros ($200 million) in cash reserves.
In a conference call with analysts after the announcement, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot further outlined his company's plans for the Tom Clancy license. First, though, he talked up the strength of the Tom Clancy brand, saying it was the number-two brand in the US last year in terms of sales, according to the NPD group. He also said that the most recent game to bear the author's name, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas 2, had already shipped 1 million copies in the US, half of which he expected to sell in the first week after the game's March 18 release.
Guillemot also said that the acquisition of the Clancy brand will lead to Ubisoft "becoming a major player" in both book publishing and film production. He said the company retains full rights to future print and celluloid offshoots of Tom Clancy branded films, and also that the company was exploring television and online video offerings related to existing brands.
To that end, Guillemot talked up how Ubisoft now has "complete editorial control" over the Tom Clancy brands, which would allow characters from one of the various series bearing the name to appear in another. This crossover potential would be especially important in games, he said, declaring, "It will allow for cross-fertilization of characters between games like Super Smash Bros."
The executive also revealed that another big factor in the acquisition was the fact the deal allows Ubisoft to explore a Tom Clancy-branded massively multiplayer project. "We will be able to adapt the brand to new formats, in particular the MMO format, where the royalties were a big thing holding us back," said Guillemot. Though no specific game was announced, his was reminiscent of those of Activision CEO Bobby Kotick, who recently dropped a huge hint to a group of investors his company was considering a massively multiplayer project based on the Call of Duty series.
That said, Guillemot also revealed the Clancy deal's limitations. For one, it doesn't include exclusive rights to Clancy's past catalog of books, the rights to which are shared among several parties. Second, the deal does not include rights to books or films set in the Rainbow Six universe, which remain with another, undisclosed party.
By Tor Thorsen -- GameSpot
Posted Mar 20, 2008
Ubisoft subsumes Tom Clancy, new MMOG en route?
Author-inspired techno-military media empire--including book, film, and game rights--purchased by Rainbow Six publisher; CEO Yves Guillemot says Ubi looking at massively multiplayer project.
This week began with news that Sam Raimi, director of the Spider-Man and Evil Dead trilogies, was in talks to resurrect film hero Jack Ryan. The marine-turned-CIA-analyst-turned-reluctant-hero was played by Alec Baldwin in The Hunt for Red October (1988) and Harrison Ford in Patriot Games (1992) and Clear and Present Danger (1994). In 2002, an attempt was made to reboot the series with Ben Affleck in The Sum of All Fears (2002).
The now even-wealthier Tom Clancy. However, the character of Jack Ryan was famous long before his film debut. He was the preeminent literary cold warrior in 1980s fiction, starring in a series of novels by Tom Clancy. Clancy's military expertise and fast-paced writing style made every one of his 14-plus books a bestseller, which made the author rich enough to attempt to buy the Minnesota Vikings football team in 1998.
Though that deal eventually fell through, the 20 years since his first novel was published have seen Tom Clancy become less of an author and more of a brand. Besides the aforementioned films, his name is plastered on several series of books by other authors, including Tom Clancy's Ops Center and Tom Clancy's NetForce.
The past 10 years have also seen the Tom Clancy brand become a heavy hitter in the game industry, with the Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six, Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell, and Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon series selling tens of millions of copies on every platform. Two new franchises, Tom Clancy's Air Combat and Tom Clancy's EndWar, are also in development, the latter of which already has a best-selling novel complementing it.
With the Tom Clancy brand showing no signs of slowing down in gaming, Ubisoft has cut a deal with the 61-year-old author. Today, the Paris-based publisher of every Tom Clancy game announced it has acquired rights to the Tom Clancy name in virtually all forms of media. Under the deal, Ubisoft now has all rights "on a perpetual basis and free of all related future royalty payments" to make or license Tom Clancy-branded "video games and ancillary products including related books, movies, and merchandising products."
Though Ubisoft is publicly traded on the Paris Bourse, it did not disclose the amount it paid to Clancy to own his birth name. However, the company did drop some hints when it said that not having to pay royalties to Clancy would have "an average positive impact on Ubisoft's operating income of a minimum of 5 million euros ($7.7 million) per year." It also said it would be paying Clancy in four installments over its next three fiscal years. When its current fiscal year ends on March 31, 2008, the company predicts to have 130 million euros ($200 million) in cash reserves.
In a conference call with analysts after the announcement, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot further outlined his company's plans for the Tom Clancy license. First, though, he talked up the strength of the Tom Clancy brand, saying it was the number-two brand in the US last year in terms of sales, according to the NPD group. He also said that the most recent game to bear the author's name, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas 2, had already shipped 1 million copies in the US, half of which he expected to sell in the first week after the game's March 18 release.
Guillemot also said that the acquisition of the Clancy brand will lead to Ubisoft "becoming a major player" in both book publishing and film production. He said the company retains full rights to future print and celluloid offshoots of Tom Clancy branded films, and also that the company was exploring television and online video offerings related to existing brands.
To that end, Guillemot talked up how Ubisoft now has "complete editorial control" over the Tom Clancy brands, which would allow characters from one of the various series bearing the name to appear in another. This crossover potential would be especially important in games, he said, declaring, "It will allow for cross-fertilization of characters between games like Super Smash Bros."
The executive also revealed that another big factor in the acquisition was the fact the deal allows Ubisoft to explore a Tom Clancy-branded massively multiplayer project. "We will be able to adapt the brand to new formats, in particular the MMO format, where the royalties were a big thing holding us back," said Guillemot. Though no specific game was announced, his was reminiscent of those of Activision CEO Bobby Kotick, who recently dropped a huge hint to a group of investors his company was considering a massively multiplayer project based on the Call of Duty series.
That said, Guillemot also revealed the Clancy deal's limitations. For one, it doesn't include exclusive rights to Clancy's past catalog of books, the rights to which are shared among several parties. Second, the deal does not include rights to books or films set in the Rainbow Six universe, which remain with another, undisclosed party.
By Tor Thorsen -- GameSpot
Posted Mar 20, 2008
Friday, February 15, 2008
10 Most Mismatched Movie Couples
http://movies.yahoo.com/feature/10mostmismatchedcouples.html
10 Most Mismatched Movie Couples
Nick Nolte & Julia Roberts
I Love Trouble - 1994
In the early 90's, Julia came out of nowhere to become the biggest female star in the world. Nick was named People Magazine's "Sexiest Man Alive" in 1992. So why not pair them together in a screwball comedy about dueling reporters? Because he was nearly twice her age, and both of them appeared to be painfully aware of that fact.
Ben Affleck & Jennifer Lopez
Gigli - 2003
Ah, "Gigli." The makers of "Ishtar" thank you for replacing their movie title as the funny word that means "embarrassing flop." Ben and J.Lo met on the set of their ill-conceived gangster-meets-lesbian love story, and the tabloids were packed with stories about them every week thereafter. Still, real life sparks don't always translate to the screen, and the movie's failure killed the couple's future.
Harrison Ford & Anne Heche
Six Days, Seven Nights - 1998
When Anne Heche was cast in this romantic action movie, she was a little-known but well-respected actress. By the time the film hit screens, everybody knew her as Ellen DeGeneres' girlfriend. But even without the real world intruding, there's no way anyone would buy the 29-year-old Heche and 56-year-old Ford ending up together, no matter how much time they spent on a desert island.
Kevin Spacey & Kate Bosworth
Beyond the Sea - 2004
The real Bobby Darin and Sandra Dee were quite an odd couple. He was a balding singer from the Bronx; she was a 16-year-old movie star. But somehow they made it work. In the movie of Darin's life, however, Spacey and Bosworth were completely unbelievable. It didn't help that Spacey was eight years older than the actual Darin ever lived to be. At least his hairline fit the part.
Hayden Christensen & Natalie Portman
Star Wars - Episode II and Episode III - 2002/2005
After watching the uncomfortable scenes with Natalie Portman and 10-year-old Jake Lloyd in The Phantom Menace, Star Wars fans everywhere thought, "It can't get worse than this." Oh, how little they knew. For the next two prequels, they were faced with Portman and Christensen stiffly reciting George Lucas' leaden dialogue. When the giant lizard Obi-Wan rides is more convincing than their romance, it's enough to make you want to scream "Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!"
Madonna & Adriano Giannini
Swept Away - 2002
The original Italian 1974 film "Swept Away," was an examination of class and gender issues. Guy Ritchie's 2002 remake is an examination of his wife's dedication to Pilates. Watching this movie makes you not only question why Madonna would fall for Adriano Giannini's crude and abusive fisherman, but why she thought it'd be a good idea to make another movie with her spouse after having already bombed with her previous husband Sean Penn in "Shanghai Surprise."
Dan Aykroyd & Rosie O'Donnell
Exit to Eden - 1994
"Exit to Eden" was a dark, romantic novel by "Interview With a Vampire" author Anne Rice about bondage and S&M. Who better, then, to turn it into a movie than the creator of "Mork and Mindy?" An even better question: what movie executive thought that the formula for box office gold was putting Dan Aykroyd and Rosie O'Donnell in skimpy studded leather outfits? As the comic relief they are painfully unfunny, and not even the kind of painful that a dominatrix would enjoy.
Justin Guarini & Kelly Clarkson
From Justin to Kelly - 2003
Casting the first and second place finishers of "American Idol" in the lead roles of a movie is sort of like letting the "Top Chef" winners perform your appendectomy. You would think being on a TV show together would make both Justin and Kelly comfortable being in the presence of both a camera and each other, but they look lost without Simon around to berate them. At least the dismal failure of the movie insured that we wouldn't be subjected to "From Jordin to Sanjaya."
Eddie Murphy & Eddie Murphy
Norbit - 2006
It took 25 years of hard work for Eddie Murphy to go from "Saturday Night Live" cast member to Oscar-nominated thespian. But it took just 2-1/2 minutes of the "Norbit" trailer to kill any hope he ever had of being taken seriously again. As both the nerdy title character and his overweight and domineering wife Rasputia, Murphy proved he can be supremely unpleasant no matter what size or gender.
Woody Allen & Any Actress 20+ Years Younger than Him
It was always part of the comedy in Woody Allen's early movies how a bespectacled, awkward guy like him could end up with gorgeous women. Unfortunately, no one ever let Woody in on the joke. And by the time he was casting women like Téa Leoni (31 years younger than him) and Julia Roberts (32), it really stopped being funny. The most absurd: when his character in "The Curse of the Jade Scorpion" is seduced by Charlize Theron (four decades younger than Woody).
10 Most Mismatched Movie Couples
Nick Nolte & Julia Roberts
I Love Trouble - 1994
In the early 90's, Julia came out of nowhere to become the biggest female star in the world. Nick was named People Magazine's "Sexiest Man Alive" in 1992. So why not pair them together in a screwball comedy about dueling reporters? Because he was nearly twice her age, and both of them appeared to be painfully aware of that fact.
Ben Affleck & Jennifer Lopez
Gigli - 2003
Ah, "Gigli." The makers of "Ishtar" thank you for replacing their movie title as the funny word that means "embarrassing flop." Ben and J.Lo met on the set of their ill-conceived gangster-meets-lesbian love story, and the tabloids were packed with stories about them every week thereafter. Still, real life sparks don't always translate to the screen, and the movie's failure killed the couple's future.
Harrison Ford & Anne Heche
Six Days, Seven Nights - 1998
When Anne Heche was cast in this romantic action movie, she was a little-known but well-respected actress. By the time the film hit screens, everybody knew her as Ellen DeGeneres' girlfriend. But even without the real world intruding, there's no way anyone would buy the 29-year-old Heche and 56-year-old Ford ending up together, no matter how much time they spent on a desert island.
Kevin Spacey & Kate Bosworth
Beyond the Sea - 2004
The real Bobby Darin and Sandra Dee were quite an odd couple. He was a balding singer from the Bronx; she was a 16-year-old movie star. But somehow they made it work. In the movie of Darin's life, however, Spacey and Bosworth were completely unbelievable. It didn't help that Spacey was eight years older than the actual Darin ever lived to be. At least his hairline fit the part.
Hayden Christensen & Natalie Portman
Star Wars - Episode II and Episode III - 2002/2005
After watching the uncomfortable scenes with Natalie Portman and 10-year-old Jake Lloyd in The Phantom Menace, Star Wars fans everywhere thought, "It can't get worse than this." Oh, how little they knew. For the next two prequels, they were faced with Portman and Christensen stiffly reciting George Lucas' leaden dialogue. When the giant lizard Obi-Wan rides is more convincing than their romance, it's enough to make you want to scream "Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!"
Madonna & Adriano Giannini
Swept Away - 2002
The original Italian 1974 film "Swept Away," was an examination of class and gender issues. Guy Ritchie's 2002 remake is an examination of his wife's dedication to Pilates. Watching this movie makes you not only question why Madonna would fall for Adriano Giannini's crude and abusive fisherman, but why she thought it'd be a good idea to make another movie with her spouse after having already bombed with her previous husband Sean Penn in "Shanghai Surprise."
Dan Aykroyd & Rosie O'Donnell
Exit to Eden - 1994
"Exit to Eden" was a dark, romantic novel by "Interview With a Vampire" author Anne Rice about bondage and S&M. Who better, then, to turn it into a movie than the creator of "Mork and Mindy?" An even better question: what movie executive thought that the formula for box office gold was putting Dan Aykroyd and Rosie O'Donnell in skimpy studded leather outfits? As the comic relief they are painfully unfunny, and not even the kind of painful that a dominatrix would enjoy.
Justin Guarini & Kelly Clarkson
From Justin to Kelly - 2003
Casting the first and second place finishers of "American Idol" in the lead roles of a movie is sort of like letting the "Top Chef" winners perform your appendectomy. You would think being on a TV show together would make both Justin and Kelly comfortable being in the presence of both a camera and each other, but they look lost without Simon around to berate them. At least the dismal failure of the movie insured that we wouldn't be subjected to "From Jordin to Sanjaya."
Eddie Murphy & Eddie Murphy
Norbit - 2006
It took 25 years of hard work for Eddie Murphy to go from "Saturday Night Live" cast member to Oscar-nominated thespian. But it took just 2-1/2 minutes of the "Norbit" trailer to kill any hope he ever had of being taken seriously again. As both the nerdy title character and his overweight and domineering wife Rasputia, Murphy proved he can be supremely unpleasant no matter what size or gender.
Woody Allen & Any Actress 20+ Years Younger than Him
It was always part of the comedy in Woody Allen's early movies how a bespectacled, awkward guy like him could end up with gorgeous women. Unfortunately, no one ever let Woody in on the joke. And by the time he was casting women like Téa Leoni (31 years younger than him) and Julia Roberts (32), it really stopped being funny. The most absurd: when his character in "The Curse of the Jade Scorpion" is seduced by Charlize Theron (four decades younger than Woody).
Friday, November 16, 2007
Blade Runner: The Final Cut
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071103/REVIEWS08/71103001/1004
Great Movies
Blade Runner: The Final CutGreat Scott
Release Date: 1982
Nov 3, 2007
By Roger Ebert
In an earlier review of "Blade Runner," I wrote; "It looks fabulous, it uses special effects to create a new world of its own, but it is thin in its human story." This seems a strange complaint, given that so much of the movie concerns who is, and is not, human, and what it means to be human anyway. Even one character we can safely assume is human, the reptilian Tyrell, czar of the corporation which manufactures replicants, strikes me as a possible replicant. And of the hero, Deckard (Harrison Ford), all we can say for sure is that director Ridley Scott has left clues in various versions of his film that can be used to prove that Deckard is a human -- or a replicant.
Now study that paragraph again and notice I have committed a journalistic misdemeanor. I have referred to replicants without ever establishing what a replicant is. It is a tribute to the influence and reach of "Blade Runner" that 25 years after its release virtually everyone reading this knows about replicants. Reviews of "The Wizard of Oz" never define Munchkins, do they? This is a seminal film, building on older classics like "Metropolis" or "Things to Come," but establishing a pervasive view of the future that has influenced science fiction films ever since. Its key legacies are: Giant global corporations, environmental decay, overcrowding, technological progress at the top, poverty or slavery at the bottom -- and, curiously, almost always a film noir vision. Look at "Dark City," "Total Recall," "Brazil," "12 Monkeys" or "Gattaca" and you will see its progeny.
I have never quite embraced "Blade Runner," admiring it at arm's length, but now it is time to cave in and admit it to the canon. Ridley Scott has released a "definitive version" subtitled "Blade Runner: The Final Cut," which will go first to theaters and then be released Dec.18 in three DVD editions, including a "Five-Disc Ultimate Collector's Edition" that includes, according to a press release, "All 4 Previous Cuts, Including the Ultra-Rare 'Workprint' Version!" plus the usual deleted scenes, documentaries, bells and whistles.
The biggest change Scott made in earlier versions was to drop the voice-over narration from the 1982 original. Spoken by Ford, channeling Philip Marlowe, it explained things on behalf of a studio nervous that we wouldn't understand the film. Since much of the interest in the film has been generated by what we weren't sure we understood, that turned out to be no problem. The ending has been tweaked from bleak to romantic to existential to an assortment of the above, and shots have come and gone, but for me the most important change in the 2007 version is in the print itself.
Scott has resisted the temptation to go back and replace analog special effects with new GCI work (which disturbed many fans of George Lucas' "Star Wars") and has kept Douglas Turnbull's virtuoso original special effects, while enhancing, restoring, cleaning and scrubbing both visuals and sound so the film reflects a higher technical standard than ever before. It looks so great, you're tempted to say the hell with the story, let's just watch it.
But the story benefits, too, by seeming more to inhabit its world than be laid on top of it. The action follows Deckard, a "blade runner" who is assigned to track down and kill six rebel replicants who have returned illegally from off-worlds to earth, and are thought to be in Los Angeles. (The movie never actually deals with more than five replicants, however, unless, as the critic Tim Dirks speculates, Deckard might be the sixth). Replicants, as you know, are androids who are "more human than human," manufactured to perform skilled slave labor on earth colonies. They are born fully formed, supplied with artificial memories of their "pasts," and set to break down after four years, because after that point they are so smart they have a tendency to develop human emotions and feelings and have the audacity to think of themselves as human. Next thing you know, they'll want the vote, and civil rights. Much of this comes from the original Philip K. Dick story, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Since replicants in general do not know they are replicants, there can be real poignancy in their lives. We feel sympathy for one in particular, Rachael (Sean Young), who finds herself involved in romance with Deckard. He loves her even though he has reason to believe she is a replicant, but a very good one, almost impossible to detect.
What I have always wondered is why the Tyrell Corporation made their androids so lifelike. Why not give them four arms and settle the matter, and get more work out of them? Is there a buried possibility that Tyrell's long-range plan is to replace humans altogether? Is the whole blade-running caper simply a cover for his scheme? But never mind. What matters to the viewer is that the ground rules seem to be in place, and apply in one of the most extraordinary worlds ever created in a film.
The skies are always dark with airborne filth in this Los Angeles of the future. It usually rains. The infrastructure looks a lot like now, except older and more crowded, and with the addition of vast floating zeppelins, individual flying cars, and towering buildings of unimaginable size. When I first saw the film I was impressed by the giant billboards with moving, speaking faces on them, touting Coca-Cola and other products. Now I walk over to Millennium Park and see giant faces looming above me, smiling, winking, and periodically spitting (but not Coke). As for the flying cars, these have been a staple of sci-fi magazine covers for decades, but remain wildly impractical and dangerous, unless locked into a control grid.
The "human story," as I think of it, involves practical tests to determine if an individual is a replicant or not, and impractical tests (such as love) to determine how much that matters to (a) people, if they are in love with a replicant, and (b) replicants, if they know they are replicants. This has always been a contrived problem, easily avoidable in practical ways, unless (as I suspect) the Tyrell Corporation has more up its sleeves than arms. But to stumble on plot logic seems absurd in a film that is more about vision. And I continue to find it fascinating how film noir, a genre born in the 1940s, has such a hammerlock on the future (look at "Dark City" again). I suspect film noir is so fruitful and suggestive that if you bring it on board, half your set and costume decisions have been made for you, and you know what your tone will be.
Ridley Scott is a considerable director who makes no small plans. His credits include "Alien," "Legend," the inexplicable "1492," "Gladiator," "Black Hawk Down" and the brilliant "Matchstick Men," and his "American Gangster" opened Friday in theaters. He has the gift of making action on a vast scale seem comprehensible. I have been assured that my problems in the past with "Blade Runner" represent a failure of my own taste and imagination, but if the film was perfect, why has Sir Ridley continued to tinker with it, and now released his fifth version? I guess he's only... human.
Ridley Scott's "Alien" is also included in the Great Movies Collection.
Cast & Credits
Warner Bros. Pictures presents a film directed by Ridley Scott. Written by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples, based on the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick. Starring: Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, Joanna Cassidy, Daryl Hannah and Edward James Olmos.
Running time: 117 minutes. Rated R (for violence and brief nudity.) A restored 35mm print of the "Blade Runner: The Final Cut" is playing at the Music Box Theatre and AMC Barrington.
Great Movies
Blade Runner: The Final CutGreat Scott
Release Date: 1982
Nov 3, 2007
By Roger Ebert
In an earlier review of "Blade Runner," I wrote; "It looks fabulous, it uses special effects to create a new world of its own, but it is thin in its human story." This seems a strange complaint, given that so much of the movie concerns who is, and is not, human, and what it means to be human anyway. Even one character we can safely assume is human, the reptilian Tyrell, czar of the corporation which manufactures replicants, strikes me as a possible replicant. And of the hero, Deckard (Harrison Ford), all we can say for sure is that director Ridley Scott has left clues in various versions of his film that can be used to prove that Deckard is a human -- or a replicant.
Now study that paragraph again and notice I have committed a journalistic misdemeanor. I have referred to replicants without ever establishing what a replicant is. It is a tribute to the influence and reach of "Blade Runner" that 25 years after its release virtually everyone reading this knows about replicants. Reviews of "The Wizard of Oz" never define Munchkins, do they? This is a seminal film, building on older classics like "Metropolis" or "Things to Come," but establishing a pervasive view of the future that has influenced science fiction films ever since. Its key legacies are: Giant global corporations, environmental decay, overcrowding, technological progress at the top, poverty or slavery at the bottom -- and, curiously, almost always a film noir vision. Look at "Dark City," "Total Recall," "Brazil," "12 Monkeys" or "Gattaca" and you will see its progeny.
I have never quite embraced "Blade Runner," admiring it at arm's length, but now it is time to cave in and admit it to the canon. Ridley Scott has released a "definitive version" subtitled "Blade Runner: The Final Cut," which will go first to theaters and then be released Dec.18 in three DVD editions, including a "Five-Disc Ultimate Collector's Edition" that includes, according to a press release, "All 4 Previous Cuts, Including the Ultra-Rare 'Workprint' Version!" plus the usual deleted scenes, documentaries, bells and whistles.
The biggest change Scott made in earlier versions was to drop the voice-over narration from the 1982 original. Spoken by Ford, channeling Philip Marlowe, it explained things on behalf of a studio nervous that we wouldn't understand the film. Since much of the interest in the film has been generated by what we weren't sure we understood, that turned out to be no problem. The ending has been tweaked from bleak to romantic to existential to an assortment of the above, and shots have come and gone, but for me the most important change in the 2007 version is in the print itself.
Scott has resisted the temptation to go back and replace analog special effects with new GCI work (which disturbed many fans of George Lucas' "Star Wars") and has kept Douglas Turnbull's virtuoso original special effects, while enhancing, restoring, cleaning and scrubbing both visuals and sound so the film reflects a higher technical standard than ever before. It looks so great, you're tempted to say the hell with the story, let's just watch it.
But the story benefits, too, by seeming more to inhabit its world than be laid on top of it. The action follows Deckard, a "blade runner" who is assigned to track down and kill six rebel replicants who have returned illegally from off-worlds to earth, and are thought to be in Los Angeles. (The movie never actually deals with more than five replicants, however, unless, as the critic Tim Dirks speculates, Deckard might be the sixth). Replicants, as you know, are androids who are "more human than human," manufactured to perform skilled slave labor on earth colonies. They are born fully formed, supplied with artificial memories of their "pasts," and set to break down after four years, because after that point they are so smart they have a tendency to develop human emotions and feelings and have the audacity to think of themselves as human. Next thing you know, they'll want the vote, and civil rights. Much of this comes from the original Philip K. Dick story, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Since replicants in general do not know they are replicants, there can be real poignancy in their lives. We feel sympathy for one in particular, Rachael (Sean Young), who finds herself involved in romance with Deckard. He loves her even though he has reason to believe she is a replicant, but a very good one, almost impossible to detect.
What I have always wondered is why the Tyrell Corporation made their androids so lifelike. Why not give them four arms and settle the matter, and get more work out of them? Is there a buried possibility that Tyrell's long-range plan is to replace humans altogether? Is the whole blade-running caper simply a cover for his scheme? But never mind. What matters to the viewer is that the ground rules seem to be in place, and apply in one of the most extraordinary worlds ever created in a film.
The skies are always dark with airborne filth in this Los Angeles of the future. It usually rains. The infrastructure looks a lot like now, except older and more crowded, and with the addition of vast floating zeppelins, individual flying cars, and towering buildings of unimaginable size. When I first saw the film I was impressed by the giant billboards with moving, speaking faces on them, touting Coca-Cola and other products. Now I walk over to Millennium Park and see giant faces looming above me, smiling, winking, and periodically spitting (but not Coke). As for the flying cars, these have been a staple of sci-fi magazine covers for decades, but remain wildly impractical and dangerous, unless locked into a control grid.
The "human story," as I think of it, involves practical tests to determine if an individual is a replicant or not, and impractical tests (such as love) to determine how much that matters to (a) people, if they are in love with a replicant, and (b) replicants, if they know they are replicants. This has always been a contrived problem, easily avoidable in practical ways, unless (as I suspect) the Tyrell Corporation has more up its sleeves than arms. But to stumble on plot logic seems absurd in a film that is more about vision. And I continue to find it fascinating how film noir, a genre born in the 1940s, has such a hammerlock on the future (look at "Dark City" again). I suspect film noir is so fruitful and suggestive that if you bring it on board, half your set and costume decisions have been made for you, and you know what your tone will be.
Ridley Scott is a considerable director who makes no small plans. His credits include "Alien," "Legend," the inexplicable "1492," "Gladiator," "Black Hawk Down" and the brilliant "Matchstick Men," and his "American Gangster" opened Friday in theaters. He has the gift of making action on a vast scale seem comprehensible. I have been assured that my problems in the past with "Blade Runner" represent a failure of my own taste and imagination, but if the film was perfect, why has Sir Ridley continued to tinker with it, and now released his fifth version? I guess he's only... human.
Ridley Scott's "Alien" is also included in the Great Movies Collection.
Cast & Credits
Warner Bros. Pictures presents a film directed by Ridley Scott. Written by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples, based on the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick. Starring: Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, Joanna Cassidy, Daryl Hannah and Edward James Olmos.
Running time: 117 minutes. Rated R (for violence and brief nudity.) A restored 35mm print of the "Blade Runner: The Final Cut" is playing at the Music Box Theatre and AMC Barrington.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
