Ethics and Social Criticism in the Hollywood Films of Erich Von Stroheim, Ernst Lubitsch and Billy Wilder
Hollywood Elsewhere (Free subscription) | 06/11/2009
MCN's Gurus of Gold, finally up and running, have Up In The Air in the top Best Picture prediction slot, fine, followed by Precious and The Hurt Locker. Wait...they have A Serious Man in tenth place following the unseen Invictus, Nine and The Lovely Bones, and one slot behind Inglourious Basterds? Am I reading this correctly? Jokey-dokey, baseball-bat-and-gloppy-brain-matter Basterds -- a movie costarring...
A Boat Against the Current (Free subscription) | 04/11/2009
Ninotchka ( played by Greta Garbo ): “What have you done for mankind'” Count Leon D'Algout ( played by Melvyn Douglas ): “Not so much for mankind... for womankind, my record isn't quite so bleak.”— Ninotchka (1939), screenplay by Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder and Walter Reisch, story by Melchior Lengyel, directed by Ernst Lubitsch Ninotchka premiered on the nation’s...
The New Yorker - Arts and Culture (Free subscription) | 02/11/2009
paragraph class="noindent"> Hollywood has always been a haven for immigrants with talent. One of the greatest, Ernst Lubitsch, arrived there from Germany in the early nineteen-twenties, not pushed by political turmoil but pulled by money. American wealth is at the heart of his 1938 comedy, “Bluebeard’ . . .
Hugger Food (Free subscription) | 26/10/2009
Although it has been a long while since I was last there, I used to attend screenings of restored classic films through the UCLA Film & Television Archive very often. The best films I saw there were Ernst Lubitsch 's The Smiling Lieutenant (1931) and One Hour with You (1932). Oh, how I wish those were available on DVD to watch anytime I'd like. This is supposed to be about the food, though, and...
Something Old, Nothing New (Free subscription) | 25/10/2009
Comments on a previous post bring up a good point about special effects: it seems like every Hitchcock movie has a special effect or process shot that's just plain terrible. It often involves rear projection, which Hitchcock embraced enthusiastically but never used convncingly; Notorious , where rear-projection shots were used for every outdoor scene in Brazil, makes the characters look like they're...
The Observer (Free subscription) | 14/10/2009
His early death sealed his reputation as a rising Hollywood talent. But how would the late actor's career have developed after The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus? Heath Ledger, in his final role as the mysterious outsider Tony in The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, will probably be kept from strict considerations of acting genius by the traditional frolic and froth of a Terry Gilliam picture. Which...
Fleapit of the Mind (Free subscription) | 09/10/2009
Straight away I have to admit that if I have a blindspot amongst the acknowledged great directors, it is Ernst Lubitsch. People rave about "the Lubitsch touch" but his films just waft over me leaving no real impression. I couldn't really tell you why and I'm quite happy to admit that the fault probably lies completely with me. A ROYAL SCANDAL was a Lubitsch project but illness prevented him...
Edward Copeland on Film (Free subscription) | 06/10/2009
By Edward Copeland The words that appear on the screen at the opening of Ernst Lubitsch's Ninotchka , 70 years old today, tells us that the film is set in Paris at the time when a siren was a brunette not an alarm and that when a Frenchman turned off a light, it wasn't because of an air raid. You have to think that those words came from the typewriters of Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett, who are...
Out 1 (Free subscription) | 03/09/2009
by Brandon Colvin Critics, audiences, and QT himself have been locked in a nice, hot argument about Inglourious Basterds for weeks now. Punchy quotes, accusations, and defenses are flying like hurled Nazi scalps. Some of the least eloquent of these come from some of my favorite writers, and even Tarantino seems to dig himself a few holes in professing his love of this 70s revenge film or that unseen...
Only The Cinema (Free subscription) | 01/09/2009
It's an irreverent, silly, lightweight World War II comedy/thriller that plays fast and loose with historical facts, including having some fun at Hitler's expense, with a grand climax at a theater, where actors mingle among the Nazi elites. And no, it's not Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds . (Though, as promised, more on that tomorrow at The House Next Door .) It's Ernst Lubitsch's To Be Or...
Vinyl Is Heavy (Free subscription) | 24/08/2009
by Ryland Walker Knight —I can stare for a thousand years. Gaslight [George Cukor, 1944] # So much more painful this time, though I can't imagine it not being painful. I really need to re-read Contesting Tears . A Little Death [Gina Telaroli, 2009] Gina tells me this is a work in progress but it certainly looked cohesive and complete to my eyes. Johnny Guitar [Nicholas Ray, 1954] # Color like...
Dear Author.Com (Free subscription) | 21/08/2009
Ninotchka (1939) Genre: Comedy, Romance Grade:B- I’ve now seen 4 Ernst Lubitsch films. I know there are plenty more I need to try but for now, I’m batting average with him. I did not care, at all, for “The Shop Around the Corner” while Ninotchka earns a somewhat lukewarm B-grade. It’s 1939 and the Soviet Union’s glorious new people’s [...]
Laura's Miscellaneous Musings (Free subscription) | 21/08/2009
Yesterday was the official move-in day at the University of Southern California, but today was the day our daughter moved back up to her dorm. Has it really been three months already since she returned from her semester in London? Here's new university construction as you approach the campus, at Figueroa and Jefferson: It's good to see Tommy Trojan again! In the background is Bovard Auditorium, seen...
US Official Tabloid Gossip (Free subscription) | 16/08/2009
Quentin Tarantino is nothing if not daring. His new Second World War movie, Inglourious Basterds, is a serious comedy which invokes the Holocaust and chronicles the rancid brutality of the Nazi regime during its occupation of France. The film also makes a mockery of Adolf Hitler and his henchmen as it sets Brad Pitt up as an Apache-hillbilly American who leads a group of Jewish soldiers on a Nazi-killing...
L. A. Times Dodgers Blog (Free subscription) | 16/08/2009
To appreciate the director's World War II flick starring Brad Pitt, a knowledge of Sergio Leone, Ernst Lubitsch, Leni Riefenstahl and G.W. Pabst doesn't hurt. Quentin Tarantino has long considered the original "Inglorious Bastards" to be his "own private little movie." So when he bought the rights to Enzo Castellari's little-seen 1978 Italian World War II flick -- later retitled...
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