Vår alles kjære Kevin Bacon fyller 50 år idag. Vil ønske alle dere der ute tillykke med dagen. Hurra!

1. fact:
- Kevin Bacon har IKKE spilt i Gudfaren. Det har derimot Robert Duvall.

How about these:

Looking for Mr. Goodbar

American Gigolo

Officer and a Gentleman

"Melhor ser julgado por 12, do que ser carregado por 6."

Após assistir um filme onde civis urbanos se acham no direito de fazer justiça com as próprias mãos (Aliás, um que não devem deixar de ver: "Zona do Crime")... Fiquei com vontade de ver um com policiais versus bandidos... Entre tantos, escolhi esse. E não me decepcionei.

O que temos nesse filme? Numa Nova York de 1988, mais precisamente no Brooklyn, a máfia russa leva grande vantagem sobre a polícia. Com várias baixas de Tiras. E no meio de tudo isso, dois jovens se despontando nas carreiras que escolheram.

De um lado, temos Bobby Green (Joaquin Phoenix), gerente de uma casa noturna, El Caribe. Que pertence a uma família russa. Carismático, Bobby cai nas graças dos donos. Que pelo sucesso que ele conseguiu com essa Discoteca, o querem para gerenciar uma outra. Para Bobby, é começo de um sonho: de estar a frente de uma no coração de Manhattan. Para ele, tudo estava indo bem. Até que...

O outro jovem, é Joseph Grusinky (Mark Wahlberg). Ainda recente na polícia, mas querendo muito mostrar serviço. Até para não ficar à sombra do pai, Burt Grusinsky (Robert Duvall), um dos oficiais mais respeitados da Polícia. Ele é meio fechadão, mas também um pouco do tipo pavio-curto.

Ambos, são irmãos. Mas poucos sabem disso. Principalmente, os com quem Bobby convive. Apenas sua namorada, Amada (Eva Mendes) sabe disso.

A polícia, fica ciente da chegada de um novo carregamento de drogas. Mas não sabe quando, nem como. Dai, numa de "tragam os suspeitos de sempre"... Partem para uma blitz no El Caribe. Nessa, até o Bobby é levado para a delegacia; sendo solto por seu pai. O que queriam de fato: que alguém contasse sobre o carregamento que está para chegar. Mas os tiras nada conseguiram. E as desavenças que já existiam cresce, entre os dois irmãos.

O peso maior está nos ombros de Bobby. E ele não vai poder ficar mais tempo neutro nessa história. Com os rumos dos acontecimentos, dificulta mais esconder que tem pai e irmão na polícia. Há uma cena, onde um russo conta o que ele fez... Tem que ter muito sangue-frio para não esboçar a menor reação. Até por conta do que o cara fez.

Enfim, é um bom policial! De ver com tempo e calma. Eu gostei"

Por: Valéria Miguez (Lella).

Os Donos da Noite (We Own the Night). 2007. EUA. Direção e Roteiro: James Gray. Elenco: Joaquin Phoenix, Mark Wahlberg, Robert Duvall, Alex Veadov, Eva Mendes, Danny Hoch, Oleg Taktarov. Gênero: Policial. Duração: 117 minutos.

—How far Sin City star Rosario Dawson would go to land a role in the next Star Trek flick.

—What big-screen legend Robert Duvall thinks is the best Western of all time.

—Which Motown tune American Idol runner-up Justin Guarini may be trying to adopt as the theme for his recently-launched BTR show.

—And why one BTR host has a bone to pick with the Grammy people about his idol, Gloria Gaynor.

The best part is, all that – and more – happens in under 15 minutes, as BTR’s own Shaun Daily debuts The Daily Mix tonight at 11 p.m. EDT.

This fast and furious new show features highlights from the best of our unmatched mix of social-radio programming. Music, movies, TV, comedy, books, sports, politics, lifestyle and much, much more – Shaun’s got it all.

So don’t miss The Mix, every Monday at 11 p.m. EDT!

Hablar de “El Padrino” es hablar posiblemente de una de las mejores películas de toda la historia del cine y una de las obras maestras más importantes del séptimo arte.

Está basada en el libro de Mario Puzo “The Godfather”, que fue su obra cumbre y que permaneció 67 semanas como best seller en Estados Unidos, llegando a vender más de 21 millones de ejemplares desde su salida en 1969.

Sinopsis: Don Vito Corleone es el jefe de una de las cinco familias que ejercen el mando de la Cosa Nostra en Nueva York en los años 40. Don Corleone tiene cuatro hijos; una chica, Connie, y tres varones, Santino, o Sonny, como le gusta que le llamen, Michael y Freddie, al que envían exiliado a Las Vegas, dada su incapacidad para asumir puestos de mando en la ”Familia”. Cuando otro capo, Sollozzo, al rechazar el Padrino intervenir en el negocio de estupefacientes, intenta asesinar a éste, empieza una cruenta lucha de violentos episodios entre los distintos grupos.

La película presenta un retrato preciso y profundo de una época y un ambiente, pero sobre todo es una crítica subrepticia a la sociedad norteamericana, las relaciones intrafamiliares, la práctica política y sus esquemas morales tratados sutilmente como trasfondo del guión mediante asuntos relativos al mundo de la mafia, la inmigración, la relación de pareja, los sistemas de dominación familiares, la violencia criminal y su asociación política.

Parte del atractivo visual y estilístico de la obra consiste en la interpretación de la figura de Michael Corleone (Al Pacino). En la secuencia inicial de la película Michael se nos presenta con rostro angelical, incluso Coppola emplea filtros especiales que reducen sus arrugas y combinados con la iluminación y el maquillaje nos enseñan un Michael mucho más joven, recién abandonada la adolescencia. El brutal cambio que se opera en su alma cuando asume la herencia de sangre de los Corleone se refleja también en su rostro, que en la última escena es ya el de un hombre maduro, complejo, que mira directamente a los ojos y miente con todo su corazón.

Trailer

Título Original: The Godfather

Duración: 175 minutos

Director: Francis Ford Coppola

Argumento: Mario Puzo

Guión: Francis Ford Coppola & Mario Puzo

Música: Nino Rota

Reparto: Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton, James Caan, John Cazale, Talia Shire, Richard Castellano, Sterling Hayden, Gianni Russo, Rudy Bond, John Marley, Richard Conte, Al Lettieri, Abe Vigoda

Presupuesto: 6.200.000$

Recaudación: 150.000.000$

Premios: 3 Oscars de la Academia de Hollywood (Mejor Película, Mejor Actor – Marlon Brando, Mejor Guion Adaptado), 5 Globos de Oro.

Fue escogida como la tercera mejor película de todos los tiempos por detrás de “Ciudadano Kane” (1941) y “Casablanca” (1942), aunque más tarde se situaría en segundo lugar por detrás ya solo de “Ciudadano Kane”.

Fascinante compendio de cine de Coppola. La compleja historia de una familia mafiosa liderada por un implacable padre de familia y hombre de honor (inmenso Marlon Brando) y cuyo poder hereda su hijo más pacífico (asombroso un primerizo Al Pacino de mirada gélida) es, ante todo, un ejercicio narrativo de insuperable nivel: la brillante disección de todos los personajes, el ritmo magistral que alterna largas secuencias familiares con creíbles escenas de acción, y una ambientación perfecta consiguen un film que entró "violentamente" entre los mejores clásicos de todos los tiempos... para alzarse con el título de obra cumbre del cine moderno. (Pablo Kurt: FILMAFFINITY)

"El padrino son palabras mayores. Las dos primeras partes están entre las 10 mejores películas de la historia del cine." (Carlos Boyero: Diario El Mundo)
"Coppola inventa una nueva mirada para el cine y amplía los horizontes de una industria que pedía a gritos savia nueva" (Luis Martínez: Diario El País)
"Una obra maestra" (Fernando Morales: Diario El País)

A lista original, com os títulos em inglês, pode ser encontrada aqui.

Os melhores "pais de filmes" que compõem esta curiosa lista foram:

1. Chris Gardner de "À procura da felicidade", 2006 [Will Smith]
2. Atticus Finch de "O sol é para todos", 1962 [Gregory Peck]
3. Guido Orefice de "A vida é bela", 1997 [Roberto Benigni]
4. Clark Griswold da série de filmes "Férias frustradas" [Chevy Chase]
5. John Quincy Archibald de "Um ato de coragem", 2002 [Denzel Washington]
6. Daniel Hillard de "Uma babá quase perfeita", 1993 [Robin Williams]
7. Pai de Jim da série de filmes "American Pie" [Eugene Levy]
8. Jack de "Dona de casa por acaso", 1983 [Michael Keaton]
9. Arthur Weasley da série de filmes Harry Potter [Mark Williams]
10. Ted Kramer de "Kramer vs Kramer", 1979 [Dustin Hoffman]
11. Marlin de "Procurando Nemo", 2003 [voz de Albert Brooks]
12. Mac MacGuff de "Juno", 2007 [J.K. Simmons]
13. Stanley Banks de "O papai da noiva", 1950 [Spencer Tracy]
14. Peter, Michael e Jack de "Três solteirões e um bebê", 1987 [Tom Selleck, Steve Gutenberg e Ted Danson]
15. Henry Jones Sr. de "Indiana Jones e a última cruzada", 1989 [Sean Connery]
16. Mr. Parker de "Uma história de Natal", 1983 [Darren McGavin]
17. Gil Buckman de "O tiro que não saiu pela culatra", 1989 [Steve Martin]
18. Ray Ferrier de "Guerra dos mundos", 2005 [Tom Cruise]

Mas há também os piores. Eis a lista de "piores pais", do mesmo site:

1. Jack Torrance de "O iluminado", 1980 [Jack Nicholson]
2. Darth Vader da série de filmes "Guerra nas estrelas" [voz de James Earl Jones]
3. Noah Cross de "Chinatown", 1974 [John Houston]
4. Daniel Plainview de "Sangue negro", 2007 [Daniel Day-Lewis]
5. Homer Simpson de "Os Simpsons - O filme", 2007 [voz de Dan Castellaneta]
6. Dwight Hansen de "O despertar de um homem", 1993 [Robert de Niro]
7. Darryl Cooper de "Relação indecente", 1992 [Tom Skerritt]
8. Norman Osborn da trilogia "Homem-Aranha" [Willem Dafoe]
9. “Bull” Meechum de "O grande Santini - O dom da fúria", 1979 [Robert Duvall]
10. Don Vito Corleone de "O poderoso chefão", 1972 [Marlon Brando]
11. Big Daddy de "Gata em teto de zinco quente", 1958 [Burl Ives]
12. Jake Shuttlesworth de "Jogada decisiva", 1998 [Denzel Washington]
13. Fletcher Reede de "O mentiroso", 1997 [Jim Carrey]
14. Royal Tenembaum de "Os excêntricos Tenembaums", 2001 [Gene Hackman]
15. Wayne Szalinski de "Querida, encolhi as crianças", 1989 [Rick Moranis]

Post do Batata: clique aqui.
Fonte da lista: clique aqui.

"America Is Living In Spin."

I LOVE this film. We saw it in the theater and it was laugh out loud funny, over and over, and so clever - which is rare these days. An instant favorite. Thank You For Smoking is a satyrical comedy about Nick Naylor [Aaron Eckhart], the PR spin doctor for Big Tabacco who loves his job. Not because he loves cigarettes, but because he loves to argue his way out of difficult situations in a time when all the negative effects of smoking are becomming public. He is so good at it that he doesn't just get people to see both sides, he changes peoples' minds and has them thinking of Big Tabacco as almost altruistic. He's good at it, he knows it, and it pays the mortgage. Things change when his son starts asking questions about what he does, and he's betrayed by a news reporter [Katie Holmes] who has sex with him to get the scoop on all his dirty little secrets...

This movie is full of terrific performances, including William H. Macy as Nick's arch nemesis, the Senator of Vermont, out to ruin Nick, Nick's best friends - the M.O.D. Squad [Merchants of Death] - fellow spin doctors who compare casualties of their respective businesses, tobacco, alcohol and guns [played by Maria Bello and David Koechner], and compete for who has the toughest job... even Sam Elliot as the Marlboro Man is perfectly cast. The kid that plays Nick's son does a great job as well [Cameron Bright]. He's convincing as being Nick's son. He's just as bright and potentially 'morally flexible' as he approaches his dad's work with an objectivity that is well beyond his years. One of the funniest appearances is Rob Lowe's character, Jeff Magell, the Hollywood product placement guru who never sleeps. And finally, Robert Duvall, as the dying father figure and J.K. Simmons as NIck's obnoxious boss.

Do yourself a favor and see this. Funny and satisfying... we own it and watch it again and again. 4 out of 5.

~ HELENA

Add'l Info: Released: Apr 14, 2005 • Runtime: 92 minutes • Rated R for language and some sexual content

For some reason, I'm a complete sucker for the gloss-on-dross lessons of sexy Sicilian gangland flicks.

About four years ago, I finally forced myself to read Mario Puzo's 1969 novel, which was adapted to the big screen in 1972. I'd been putting off reading it since I picked it up -- mostly for the respectable black hardcover -- for 25 cents at a library book sale some years before.

It took about six pages to become totally engrossed, and I literally didn't put the book down for two days straight. I read it while cooking. I read it in the bathroom. I read it at work. I tried to read it while driving, but that didn't work out too well.

If you've never seen the movie (sinner), then we can't be friends. But here's a brief summary: New York Mafia boss Vito Corleone is gunned down by a rival Sicilian family because he refused to fund a venture into the narcotics trade. His eldest son, Santino, wants to take revenge. His middle son, Fredo, is too deep in shock to do anything. His youngest son, Michael, wants nothing to do with Vito's criminal lifestyle.

But Michael is the one who ultimately takes vengeance against his father's attacker, and he is forced to flee to Italy to seek refuge from the law. When he returns years later, Michael feels he has no choice but to assume his father's role at the head of the family. His naivety is stripped away and he becomes his father's more ruthless, vigilant incarnation.

It's an amazing story, and I tried to sidestep a whole mess of spoilers about who lives, who dies, who betrays The Family, and how Michael comes to grips with his destiny. In some ways, The Godfather is almost a western, showing how some men utterly scoff at the idea of rule by any law other than power.

I only have one problem: I've read this book three times now, mostly using the huge stars of the Francis Ford Coppola movie as the characters in my imagination. This last time I read through, though, I've found myself supplanting Al Pacino, James Caan, Marlon Brando, Robert Duvall, and the rest of the Coppola cast for more recent actors.

I feel dirty. But flow with me here and I'll try to explain who I would envision in a modern recasting of the film:

• Vito Corleone
  1972: Marlon Brando
  2008: Alfred Molina
  .
  Nobody will ever have Brando's nasal Italian drone, understated power, or screen presence. But Molina has the capacity to be evil and sympathetic, which when reduced to its core components is what The Godfather is all about. He's about the right age and physique to play the wizened head of the family, and he has a commanding demeanor about him, even when playing ridiculous roles like Doctor Octopus.
  .
• Michael Corleone
  1972: Al Pacino
  2008: Mark Ruffalo
  .
  He's done some dreadful romantic comedies (13 Going on 30, anyone?), but with a beard and some crow's feet, Ruffalo could pull off Michael's reluctant gravitas. He's proven he's more than a handsome face with his roles in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Zodiac, and I think he has the capacity for someone cold and brutal as Michael must become.
  .
• Santino Corleone
  1972: James Caan
  2008: Brad Garrett
  .
  Roll with me here. Garrett's sitcom acting is genuinely bad. But the man is towering, and I think he could be apishly scary as hell with a .45 strapped under his arm and a deathly oath of vengeance against a rival family. Imagine him bearing down on you with a scowl. Give the man a chance to show he's something other than a hack comedian and I guarantee he'll scare the crap out of you as a true-blood Sicilian.
  .
• Fredo Corleone
  1972: John Cazale
  2008: Giovanni Ribisi
  .
  Ribisi is always good, even when he's in bad films (The Mod Squad). He's edgy enough to be a mobster but boyish enough to be shocked into incompetence when Sollozo has Vito shot. Fredo is taken out of the picture pretty early in The Godfather, but comes back in The Godfather II as a cretinous boot-licker to a Las Vegas hotelier. Craven is something I think Ribisi could pull off well.
  .
• Tom Hagen
  1972: Robert Duvall
  2008: Gabriel Byrne
  .
  The adopted Irish son of Vito Corleone, Hagen is the Don's consiglieri, his chief adviser. He's also The Family's chief legal muscle. Byrne (whom I remember best for The Usual Suspects) might be a little too old to play a contemporary to Vito's blood sons, like he is in the original, but he has the right intelligence in his eyes and slick bravado for the roll, I think.
  .
• Luca Brasi
  1972: Lenny Montana
  2008: Stanley Tucci
  .
  He's nowhere old or muscularly bloated as his 1972 counterpart, but I think Tucci has the capacity to be one scary mofo. Brasi is Vito's loyal assassin, a one-man army working in the shadows and striking enough fear into rival families to keep them in line. Tucci, when he's not playing a gay guy (The Devil Wears Prada), can be hard. Think his bad-guy-cop in Lucky Number Slevin but silent and apathetic about death.
  .
• Virgil Sollozzo
  1972: Al Lettieri
  2008: Armand Assante
  .
  He's already been in Gotti and Hoffa, so if you can forget Judge Dredd, then we have a ringer. Assante can come off as indifferently dangerous, cool on the outside but ready to erupt and spew violence at any moment. He also has a somewhat exotic look that could work given Sollozzo's nickname of "The Turk."

Rounding out the supporting cast, I would probably give the role of Michael's all-American wife, Kay Adams, to Jennifer Connelly. She's just pin-up-girl-pretty enough and has a bit of 1940s glamor without being outright gorgeous.

The part of Hollywood producer Jack Woltz -- the one who wakes up with a horse's head in his bed in the famous scene -- would go to J.K. Simmons. That's right, good ol' J. Jonah Jamison. He's just brusque jerk enough.

Carlo Rizzi, the angry wife-beater who marries Michael's sister, would go to Vincent D'Onofrio. He has just the right mix of crazy and wrathful to really make you hate him. And we could give the role of Corleone mercenary boss Clemenza to Dennis Farina and toadie Paulie Gatto to Joe Pantaliano.

Well, there. I hope that list pissed off a great many film and book buffs. Feel free to post your own ideas.

Filming started in late February mostly in and around Pittsburgh with its "deserted coalfields, run-down parts of Pittsburgh, windswept dunes."

I'm glad to hear that the script is faithful to the book and I hope that Viggo Mortensen portrays the father well (Charlize Theron is set to play the wife and Robert Duvall and Guy Pierce also have minor roles).

The son will be played by Kodi Smit-McPhee, an 11 year of Australian who is known for his masterful American accent!

The Road has great cinematography potential and I will definitely see it when it comes out in theaters!

I wish I could say something positive about Pollack the man, who I found rather smug and standoffish during my only encounter with him, or about his movies.  Pollack's films tended to garner praise for their "adult" good taste and their classical, old-fashioned style.  I thought they were banal and middlebrow, and that none of them excepting a few of the earliest ones did anything to stimulate the senses or the intellect.

But Pollack was an ideal episodic television director, and for a short time, a tremendously important one.  Between 1961 and 1965, Pollack enjoyed a meteoric rise from assignments on a few journeyman westerns (Shotgun Slade and The Tall Man) through the top episodic dramas (Ben Casey, The Fugitive, The Defenders) and into the handful of remaining anthology hours (Kraft Suspense Theatre and the Chrysler Theatre, both shot on film, not staged live) still on the air in the mid-sixties.  That wasn't as unusual an accomplishment as it sounds.  In television at that time, one tended to either get stuck in the episodic rut for a long haul, or make the leap to features quickly; ambitious young directors and their agents understood that the clock was ticking.  Stuart Rosenberg, Elliot Silverstein, Robert Ellis Miller, and Mark Rydell were the Big Five along with Pollack who vied for the top TV jobs throughout the early sixties and then got their first important movies between 1965-1967; if one compares their television resumes, the chronologies and the shows that crop up look a lot alike.  But Pollack was younger than any of them and among his contemporaries he may have the record for the smallest number of TV segments done before the pole-vault into the big leagues was achieved.

Pollack in a rare leading role (he began as an actor, but mostly in supporting parts) in the 1960 Alfred Hitchcock Presents segment "The Contest of Aaron Gold"

And how does the early work stand up today?  Energetic, inventive, youthful, far livelier than the most TV episodes of the time, but notably devoid of personality.   The shows are kid-in-a-candy-store exercises in technique, all tracking pull-backs and crane shots, most of it just restrained enough to complement the material rather than overwhelm it.  Pollack's Cain's Hundreds and "The Black Curtain," a flavorful, seedy Cornell Woolrich adaptation for The Alfred Hitchock Hour, are experiments in noir lighting and composition, deliberate studies in a particular style. 

The film critic Scott Foundas, one of the few to write about Pollack's TV period, describes a "dazzling ... cubistic montage of bustling street scenes to suggest the disorientation felt by a timid Native American boy ill at ease in the big city" in the Ben Casey "For the Ladybug ... One Dozen Roses."  "Karina," a Frontier Circus, begins with an abstraction, a harlequin against blackness, walking straight into the camera.  A moment later a shot of Elizabeth Montgomery's gartered legs glimpsed in a crystal ball ripple-dissolves into the real thing.  Then a shot of her as a black-clad wraith, cape swirling, running into and over the camera.  That's all in the teaser - and everything after the opening titles is routine.  These sound like gratuitous, indulgent flourishes wedged incongruously between whole acts of standard rhythmic shot-reverse shot framing that Pollack couldn't vary and keep to his tight production schedule - and that's exactly what they are.  But the truth is that so much of television looks so monotonous, one tends to take the visual pleasures where they come without dwelling too much on how unmotivated or immature they might be.

Since Pollack was working on the best TV shows in Los Angeles, the material was very good - the writers Pollack worked with, Howard Rodman and Stirling Silliphant and S. Lee Pogostin, put more of a personal stamp on the episodes than he did - and so were the performers hired to guest-star.  That was Pollack's saving grace: he was good with actors.  "King of the Mountain," a Cain's Hundred, is a fine three-character piece with Edward Andrews as a corrupt cornpone bigwig and Nashville's Barbara Baxley as his sullen, suffering wife.  Robert Duvall, not always his subtle, reliable self this soon, has key early roles in that segment as a crooked, slow-moving sheriff's deputy who finds the buried vestiges of his decency, and in Pollack's Arrest and Trial (Rodman's "The Quality of Justice") as a child killer.   There are delicious riffs from Pat Hingle as a smiling, straight-out-of-Jim Thompson psycho lawman (Cain's Hundred's "The Fixer") and a Vegas high-roller in a string tie (Kraft's "The Name of the Game"); and Cliff Robertson, going from broken-down fighter pilot on Ben Casey ("For the Ladybug ... One Dozen Roses") to a compulsive gambler on the Chrysler Theatre ("The Game").  And, of course, there's "A Cardinal Act of Mercy," the Ben Casey tour de force in which Pollack coaxed perhaps the finest of Kim Stanley's few recorded performances out of the fragile actress.  She won an Emmy.  Already Pollack was forming, not a stock company of character actors, but a model in miniature of the succession of crucial star relationships (with Robert Redford, famously, but also Jane Fonda and others) that would drive his movie career.

Dutch angles, not dated at all: Piper Laurie in "Something About Lee Wiley"

As one of the top-of-the-heap young directors, Pollack enjoyed a certain amount of control over the material he worked on, a considerable rarity.  It was during the anthology period that he first connected with David Rayfiel, later the most important of his screenwriters, and I'm guessing that Rayfiel's TV scripts for Pollack bear the director's clearest thumbprint out of all his small-screen work.  "Something For Lee Wiley," a lush twenties melodrama about a female singer blinded in a riding accident, was a 1963 Chrysler with a terrific star turn by Piper Laurie and some gorgeous color photography (Pollack's first).  Foundas wrote that its "air of dreamy fatalism and a jagged use of flashbacks . . . directly anticipates They Shoot Horses Don't They?"  That gets at another influence that Pollack's work begins to show around this time, an influx of dutch angles, freeze frames, interpolated stills, and tricky edits.  Perhaps Pollack merits another award: as the director who imported the biggest undigested European New Wave influence into sixties television.  The obvious contemporaneous reference point is Arthur Penn's Mickey One, the mid-sixties American cinema's boldest attempt to grapple with the New Wave form in the raw; Pollack's most avant-garde TV efforts hold the same fascination as the Penn film, more fascinating objects than real successes.  Oh, and there's the jazz music, another New Wave signpost that Pollack appropriate with as much constancy as possible in episodic TV: "Lee Wiley" was scored by Benny Carter, "The Watchman" (the second Rayfiel script, for Kraft) by Lalo Schifrin.  Early harbingers of the inexcusable Dave Grusin muzak to come.

The Pollack-Rayfiel collaboration curdled on "The Watchman," a talky, pseudo-existential mess that limned the thirty-year relationship between a Spanish guerrilla (Telly Savalas), his Boswell (Jack Warden), and the woman they shared (Victoria Shaw).  Pollack pulled off some stunning beauty shots, stumbled over a clumsy expository gimmick (Warden addresses a psychiatrist who remains off-camera), and emphasizes the romance between Warden and Shaw.  It was the same trick he'd fall back on in The Way We Were - duck the half-baked ideas in the script and pour on the emotion.  (There's at least one more Pollack-Rayfiel effort, an unsold pilot called "The Fliers," starring John Cassavetes, that I've been unable to see.)

Pollack would've blanched at my assessment of his film career; he disowned his early works, like the earnest, urgent The Slender Thread, and most especially his TV work.  I can guess why: he probably felt there were too many camera moves, too many crude cuts, in comparison to the smooth style of his features.  In his book Female Brando: The Legend of Kim Stanley, Jon Krampner got some good, specific quotes from Pollack about that Ben Casey segment, so the memories were there if Pollack chose to dredge them up.  But in virtually every other interview I've read, when he was asked about his TV work, Pollack copped a superior attitude, putting down both the shows and his own contributions to them.  Which is fine if you're, say, Robert Altman and your style really did evolve into something revolutionary; conversely, if your career has instead yielded sentimental, brain-rotting slop like The Way We Were (which is the blacklist rendered as a Hallmark card) and Out of Africa, then curt dismissals of the rambunctious, promising early impulses might be taken as snooty and ungracious. 

I don't make that comparison arbitrarily, for Altman was another contemporary of Pollack's who moved up from TV into features in the late sixties.  Altman worked on Kraft Suspense Theatre, too - got fired off it, actually; he had a hard head and his ten-year trudge through TV had a lot more detours and tangents than Pollack's.  Altman's TV segments are eccentric, personal, audacious, while Pollack's are clever, imitative, pretentious, ultimately writer- and actor-centric.  You can see the blueprint for their film careers right there in the television resumes.  Altman, for what it's worth, seemed to cherish his TV work in his later years, took pride in it alongside his films (almost to a comic extent, considering how powerful some of those are), even recorded audio commentaries for DVDs of his Combat episodes.

In mid-1965, Pollack directed "The Game," a Chrysler Theatre which was, like his earlier Kraft piece "The Name of the Game," a taut, claustrophobic gambling story set entirely within the interior of a casino.  It's a remarkable work that I'll write about in another context later.  Even before "The Game" won him an Emmy the following year, Pollack had run into some sort of conflict with the suits at Universal and turned the final editing over to his writer, S. Lee Pogostin.  The statue clenched Pollack's ability to flip the bird to TV for good (he'd already finished The Slender Thread).  Robert Altman's exit from TV came around the same time, when he told Variety that Kraft's Suspense Theatre was as bland as its cheese (it wasn't, but no matter) and necessarily had to clean out his office at that enterprise; it was a long winter before MASH.  Pollack wafted out of TV on the golden wings of his Emmy.  He was 31 - the same age I am now.

Jack Warden (note how skillfully Pollack integrates his shock of red hair into the mise-en-scene) and Telly Savalas in "The Watchman"

Above we have the first screen cap from upcoming Oscar contender "The Road." It is my MOST anticipated film of the year, for sure, and if it lives up to the book on which it is based (by Cormac McCarthy) it is the darkhorse of this Oscar season. The film will star Viggo Mortensen, Charlize Theron and Robert Duvall.

"The Road" takes place on a post-apocalyptic Earth. Millions are dead and most of the survivors have grouped themselves into gangs of thieves and cannibals. It is every man for himself . . . except for one lonely father, journeying along the highway with his son in search of some sort of safety and normalcy.

Filme: The Godfather

Direção: Francis Ford Coppola

Roteiro: Mario Puzo / Francis Ford Coppola

Ator(es)/Atriz(es): Al Pacino / Diane Keaton / Talia Shire

Ano: 1972

The Men of The Corleone Family

What can I say about The Godfather that hasn't been said before?

As far as movies, films, art, story, screenplay, directing, casting, photography, editing, soundtrack and every other filmmaking element that goes into making a movie, The Godfather is about as close to perfection as it gets.

This is the Mona Lisa, the Sistine Chapel, The Sergeant Pepper's, The Twilight Zone (the original Serling hosted ones), the Tiger Woods, the Roger Federer, the hamachi nigiri and just about every other superlative ever all rolled into one.

I believe in America. America has made my fortune. And I raised my daughter in the American fashion. I gave her freedom, but I taught her never to dishonor her family. She found a boyfriend, not an Italian. She went to the movies with him. She stayed out late. I didn't protest.

Two months ago, he took her for a drive, with another boyfriend. They made her drink whiskey. And then they tried to take advantage of her. She resisted. She kept her honor. So they beat her, like an animal!

When I went to the hospital, her nose was broken. Her jaw was shattered, held together by a wire. She couldn't even weep because of the pain. But I wept. Why did I weep? She was the light of my life. Beautiful girl. Now she will never be beautiful again.

(chokes up; coughs)
Sorry.

I went to the police like a good American. These two boys were brought to trial. The judge sentenced them to three years in prison, and suspended their sentence. Suspended sentence! They went free that very day! I stood in the courtroom like a fool! And those two bastards, they smiled at me.

Then I said to my wife, 'for justice, we must go to Don Corleone.'

The Most Memorable Opening Line Since: "In the beginning..."

The themes are not only timeless, but as you age, the film begins to mean something different than it did before. More accurately, it continues to develop and add more layers of everything about life as you revisit it again and again. It grows with you.

That is one of the most distinguishing characteristics of anything that transcends the upper echelon of any great group or list and becomes something wholly unique. Something that isn't just a fad or a "right time, right place" sort of thing but rather something that grows as you do. Think about it. There's really not much out there that you can make such a claim about. 99.9% of just about anything and everything is mediocre at best.

"Be my friend? Godfather?"

The Godfather not only stands the test of time, culture, gender, age and all other demographics, it continues to steer itself further away from anything that remotely tries to share it's status and legend.

From the opening note of the score to the very first spoken line, The Godfather commands your attention.

Star Wars is great. Nashville is great. Amadeus is great. 2001 is great. Citizen Kane is great. Battleship Potemkin is great. The Birth of a Nation is great pretty long and whatever. They're all great films and movies.

"Don't ask me about my business, Kay."

The Godfather is something more. The Godfather is the peak of the mountain. The Godfather is the creme de la creme. The Godfather is quite simply... The Godfather.

The Original 1972 Trailer for The Godfather

As far as I'm concerned, there's only one film that could possibly be better than The Godfather.

Come back soon to find out.

cap

Veja os destaques do dia de hoje, em mais um Daily Hotvnews [cine].

Sala 1

Batman - O Começo - Esta é talvez uma das melhores adaptações de sempre da B.D. para o cinema. A história de Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale; American Psycho) é agora contada por Christopher Nolan, realizador de Memento e Insomnia, que lhe confere uma dimensão dramática muito superior, não tivesse ele à sua disposição um dos melhores elencos reunidos nos últimos anos. A história é conhecida por todos: A acção decorre em Gotham City, e principia-se quando Bruce, ainda criança, testemunha o homicídio dos pais. Anos mais tarde, Bruce ainda recorda o fatídico evento pelo qual se culpa. Isto leva-o a fugir para a Ásia e a procurar auxílio espiritual com Ra's Al-Ghul (Ken Watanabe; O Último Samurai), que o ensina também a lutar e a defender-se do mundo. Regressa a Gotham City, agora uma cidade em decadência governada pelo crime organizado e por criminosos que não olham a meios para manipular o sistema a seu favor. É ao descobrir uma debaixo da sua mansão, e uma armadura prototipo desenvolvida pela sua empresa, que Bruce começa a levar uma vida dupla, uma que irá deixar causar problemas no seio dos criminosos de Gotham City. Ele torna-se Batman.

realizado por: Christopher Nolan

escrito por: Christopher Nolan e David S. Goyer

com: Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Liam Neeson, Gary Oldman, Katie Holmes, Cillian Murphy, Tom Wilkinson, Rutger Hauer, Mark Boone Junior, Linus Roache, Rade Serbedzija, Larry Holden, Colin McFarlane com Ken Watanabe e Morgan Freeman

Às 15h45 na RTP 1

Sala 2

60 Segundos - Os galardoados Angelina Jolie e Nicolas Cage interpretam Sara "Sway" Wayland" e Randall "Memphis" Raines, dois ladrões de carros, capazes de executar qualquer roubo, por mais difícil que este possa parecer. Anos depois de deixarem a profissão, os dois são forçados a voltar a roubar quando o irmão de Memphis, Kip (Giovanni Ribisi) não cumpre um trabalho para o perigoso vendedor de carros Raymond Calitri (Christopher Eccleston). Agora, Memphis terá que recorrer a velhos amigos como Sway, Otto Halliwell (vencedor de Óscar - Robert Duvall), Donny Astricky (Chi McBride) e Sphinx (Vinnie Jones) para roubar cinquenta carros exóticos sem que o Detective Roland Castlebeck (Delroy Lindo) e o seu parceiro Drycoff (Timothy Olyphant) dêem por isso.

realizado por: Dominic Sena

escrito por: Scott Rosenberg

com: Nicolas Cage, Angelina Jolie, Giovanni Ribisi, Christopher Eccleston, Delroy Lindo, Will Patton, Vinnie Jones, Chi McBride, Timothy Olyphant, Scott Caan, William Lee Scott, James Duval, T.J. Cross, Grace Zabriskie, Frances Fisher, Michael Peña e Robert Duvall

Às 16h38 na TVI

Indiana Jones E Os Salteadores Da Arca Perdida - Veja ou reveja Harrison Ford no papel que o imortalizou no cinema - Indiana Jones. No primeiro filme da saga, Indiana é contratado pelos Estados Unidos para encontrar um artefacto sagrado: A Arca Perdida, que de acordo com a mitologia, contem as tábuas com os dez mandamentos. A sua aventura complica-se quando Indy descobre que Hitler e os nazis também procuram a Arca, e farão de tudo par a ter. Com a ajuda de uma antiga paixão, Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen) e de um amigo egípcio Sallah (John Rhys-Davies), Indy percorrerá os cantos mais obscuros do Egipto, até encontrar um artefacto que poderá mudar a história do mundo.

realizado por: Steven Spielberg

escrito por: Lawrence Kasdan, Philip Kaufman e George Lucas

com: Harrison Ford, Karen Allen, John Rhys-Davies, Paul Freeman, Ronald Lacey, Alfred Molina e Denholm Elliott

Às 17h40 na SIC

Joaquin Phoenix is the star here. The first film I saw him in was Inventing the Abbotts. On an off-tangent here, Inventing the Abbotts was a revolutionary film of sorts for me because it introduced me not only to Joaquin Phoenix, but also Billy Crudup, Liv Tyler, and Jennifer Connelly (one of my favorites). He then went on to star opposite Vince Vaughn in Return to Paradise as Anne Heche's brother. You probably also know him as the bad guy from Gladiator, with Russell Crowe. This guy is one amazing actor. He's got this brooding attitude that the scar on his lip works well with.

Best line of the movie was when Robert Duvall, as NYC police chief, said, "If you piss in your pants, you can only stay warm for so long." It means "do things the right way and don't take shortcuts." At least that's what I got out of it.

Phoenix runs a club where mobs hang out and deal drugs. His dad (Duvall) and brother (Wahlberg) are NYPD. They make life difficult for Phoenix. Shit goes down and Wahlberg gets shot by a mobster. To exact revenge, Phoenix becomes an informant. Oh, Eva Mendes plays his girlfriend. She oozes sex appeal, but I'm not that big of a fan. She's probably best known as Denzel Washington's baby-mama in Training Day or Will Smith's better half in Hitch.

The action's decent, probably because I was expecting it the whole time and received it only sparingly. The Russian mob portrayal in this film is easily outdone by Viggo Mortensen character (by himself) in Eastern Promises.

We Own the Night was written and directed by James Gray, who also wrote and directed Mark Wahlberg and Joaquin Phoenix in The Yards. I've never seen that one, but will probably check it out after watching this one.

Duvall "If you piss in your pants, you can only stay warm for so long."

Llevo una temporada de enhorabuena porque últimamente salen buenas películas de mafia y policías más o menos serias. Siempre tengo algo que echarme a la boca, por ejemplo American Gangster, Promesas del Este, etc. Quizá esta película sea más bien puramente policial que de mafia, pero es bastante interesante.

Trata sobre un chico (Joaquin Phoenix) que rechaza totalmente a su familia de policías, tanto que ha renunciado a su apellido. Es un chico rebelde, que se ha hecho un hueco como encargado de una discoteca, que es propiedad de un anciano ruso que el considera casi como un padre. Es el clásico bala perdida: fiestas, drogas, pero con un buen fondo; no trafica, simplemente vive y deja vivir.

La película comienza cuando su padre, el siempre convincente Robert Duvall, se jubila de la policía, siendo como es toda una leyenda del cuerpo; allí ve a su hermano, el igual de recto Mark Wahlberg, un niño modelo a imagen y semejanza de su padre. Joaquin Phoenix va allí a presentar a su novia, una despampanante Eva Mendes, pero tanto su padre como su hermano aprovechan para contarle los problemas que tienen con la mafia rusa, y como saben que en su local se reúnen traficantes le piden ayuda, que el rechaza darles.

Una vez sentadas las bases de la película, se va desarrollando una clásica trama del hijo pródigo que vuelve a ser bueno, esta vez por un motivo muy lógico como es la defensa de su familia. Una transformación muy veloz pero a la vez bastante lógica, quizá de una manera excesiva, casi debería volverse matón más que colaborar con la policía. Para mí gusto, Joaquin Phoenix sobreactúa un poco, y además no se le saca todo el partido que se le puede sacar a una muy guapa y muy eficaz Eva Mendes.

No es un peliculón, pero es muy aceptable, con secuencias francamente conseguidas como la persecución en coche bajo la lluvia, muy real, caótica, sin que tú (que vas en el coche de Joaquin Phoenix) sepas más que lo que sabe el protagonista. En ciertos momentos me recordaba a Canción Triste de Hill Street, si te gustan los policías merece la pena.

Well, of course the season started with practices usually no later than mid-August. And coaches offered all sorts of warnings to prevent injuries, such as “lead with your body, not with your head! Make sure your chinstrap is buttoned! Get rid of your gum!” The last one made no sense to me, which is not unusual for my age. The coaches could see we all had bubble gum in our mouths and warned all of us about how we might bite our tongue. After his speech, the coach looked directly at me and instructed me to get rid of my gum. I feigned like I had but didn’t. Shortly after, we started a practice drill and I was asked to carry the ball and a defender hit me low and wrapped his arms around my calves. I went to my knees first, followed by my stomach and then my chin. When my chin hit the ground, my teeth bit into my tongue right where I was chewing the gum. Sure enough, I ended up in the emergency room with a small chunk of my tongue missing. When the coach saw blood coming out of my mouth, he looked inside and mentioned that a chunk was missing. Instinctively, I started looking around on the ground the way someone looks for a contact lens. I couldn’t find the chunk, but no matter. Off to the emergency room I went. I was embarrassed but with this little uniform on, people treated me like they were getting me ready to receive a “Purple Heart.” The doctor stitched it up with two stitches and without a local anesthetic. I’ll spare you what it felt like. But if I put my tongue out far enough almost 45 years later, you can still see the scar. It seemed strange to be in an emergency room for a mouth injury due to playing football, but this was before plastic mouthguards. Heck, I don’t remember my first practice helmet having a facemask, although we got helmets with facemasks for the actual games.

I was a middle linebacker and fullback that first year and started both ways. I must have played decently that first year, because I do have fond memories of my father taking me on occasion to the Whippy Dip or Dairy Queen below Hawkins Avenue and the tracks on Fourth street for milkshakes. He was of the mindset that milkshakes were good for your bones and strength and who was I to argue with him. Bring it on! As many as I could get! There were three teams in our division of 8 and 9 year olds. This division was called the “Termites.” There was the Red team, Green team and Yellow team. The Green team was stacked with the best players from the three wards that made up the borough of North Braddock. I know there is usually an effort on the part of the coaches to create equity, but for whatever reason it wasn’t there. I was on the worst of the three teams, the Read team. But as a nine-year old on offense, I held my own and managed to run well, rarely fumbled and could drag more than a few players along. On defense was where I shined, capable of anticipating the snap count and blitzing in to take down the quarterback or halfback just as he was receiving the ball. My big drawback has always been that I am slow, have always been slow and will always be slow. But it is strange, I was slow, but very quick. I could get anybody if it was within five yards. I had great peripheral vision and field vision. Occasionally, I would get taken in by a bootleg, a double reverse or fake handoff, but they were rare.

The following year, I played with the 10 and 11 year olds on the “Mighty-Mites.” I went from starting the prior year to seeing limited action at fullback. They had better players to run the ball. But I still started at middle-linebacker. There are a couple of experiences that season that stood out in my memory. One had to do with a practice where a very, very large defender was to tackle me as I try to run through him. They place dummies on the left and right to keep the players from trying to skirt around the defender. And for this practice, my mother’s first cousin, my Great Aunt Beulah’s son, “Nuffy” was helping out as an assistant coach with the team. As we line up, the defender smiles at me as if to say, “You are mine!” Well Nuffy hands me the ball and I run at the humongous defender. Now, I was no smallfry, but this kid was definitely eating his Wheaties and whatever else he could get his hands on. I thought to myself, “this guy is going to kill me!” Instinctively, just before we made contact, I jumped straight up in the air, straight up. You must remember, if a person is slow chances are they can’t jump either. And without thinking I come back down to the ground looking in the direction I’m running and the defender is gone. As my feet hit the ground I run forward and turn back to see what happened. The coaching staff are laughing. I mean, they are bent over, laughing with tears in their eyes. Apparently, when I jumped up, the defender at that time tried to move in on me very low and he moved so quickly he went under me completely and never touched me. When I came back to where everyone was standing, the coaches said they were laughing at the grimaced look of fear on my face when I jumped and the smile of satisfaction tied to the fact that I pulled it off. They made me run it again and told me not to jump. “Just go through him, don’t be afraid!” Nuffy still tells the story and shakes his head.

The second recollection that stands out was an away game against Lower Burrell. I remember one play that stands out where the quarterback fakes a handoff to the halfback going to my right but the quarterback keeps the ball and bootlegs to the left as I am blitzing. Given the blitz, I didn’t bite on the fake and stayed right with the quarterback. I remember him being just out of my reach as I ran, leaning with my arms dangling, hands reaching and grasping. Now of course the quarterback was faster than me, but I was managing to stay just behind him. And it became clear, very quickly that I was the only one who did not go with the play fake and it was a foot race between this Lower Burrell quarterback and me. As I chased him following him out into the flat, he began to turn upfield and he was beginning to put more space between the both of us. I had myself in a full sprint and could not close on him. Just then, I heard my dad yell, “dive, dive!” They say that babies and children can distinguish the calls of their parents in the presence of other adults and even when the noise level is rather high. Well, no one has ever heard my dad yell. He could bellow above most crowds and his voice was clear and distinct. At the moment I heard him holler, “dive, dive,” I did exactly that. I dove and stretched out my arms and hands and caught the heels and shoelaces of the quarterback. As he was thrown off stride by my reach, I found myself grabbing both of his feet. My body was completely stretched out and at this point, his body was the same. In that moment our bodies were a straight line parallel to the ground. We hit the ground hard and I prevented the touchdown. This was the only classic shoe-string tackle I would ever make. Everyone cheered after the play on both sides of the stadium as every football lover thrills to see a great play! It was particularly satisfying to have the coaches from the other team single me out when we walked through the handshake ritual to signify good sportsmanship after the game was over. My dad grinned from ear to ear. And I think I got a whole milkshake for that one play.