Lawrence of Arabia (1962) is one of the greatest films ever made and a tie for my number one favorite film alongside Dr. Strangelove (1964). It is one of director David Lean’s most lasting legacies in Hollywood and a truly epic one-of-a-kind film. It was a film that was the inspiration to future filmmakers Steven Spielberg, Sam Peckinpah, Martin Scorsese, and George Lucas.

I first saw the film at the age of twelve when my father took me to the Ziegfeld Theater in New York City in 1989 for the film’s restored re-release. My father told me that it was his most favorite film and that I was very privileged to see it on the big screen. I will never forget when the lights dimmed and Maurice Jarre’s score played before the opening credits of the film. It was the first film that I can remember where my eyes were completely fixed to the screen in fear that if I turned away for a spilt second that I might miss a pivotal moment.

As I began rummaging through the popcorn bag, I looked over to my father who smiled and gave me a wink. My experience seeing the film on the big screen was like for so many others, a film, which made me want to become a director and it solidified my love of cinema from that moment forward.

Continue Reading →

One of the most intriguing films currently filming is Hitchcock. The movie that tells the tale of the making of Psycho, arguably Alfred Hitchcock’s most famous work. Sir Anthony Hopkins plays the titular director and before now it was hard to really envision the famous actor as the equally famous director.

Then People Magazine released this picture.

Wow, that has to be the penciled in favorite for best make-up at the 2013 Oscars. He looks amazing in one of the most recognizable silhouettes in cinema history. Hitchcock is fast becoming one of the must see films of next year with an all star cast that includes Hopkins, Jessica Biel, Helen Mirren, Scarlett Johansson, Danny Huston, Toni Collette, Kurtwood Smith and Michael ‘flipping’ Wincott!

That is a must see cast, and considering they are telling the story of how one of the most iconic and important films ever made came to be, it is easy to get excited. Of course as famous as Hitchcock’s visage is, his voice is also very specific, so it will would still behoove us all to wait on the first trailer before we set our final expectations.

The film is directed by Anvil! The Story of Anvil director Sacha Gervasi, and is set for release some time in 2013.

When Steve Jobs passed last year there seemed to be a big push to commit his life story to film. Job’s story is incredibly interesting, and he eventually was a key contributor in many cultural milestones.

Variety is reporting that the independent production, Jobs, has landed its lead:

The King of Twitter is now the King of Apple, as “Two and a Half Men” star Ashton Kutcher is attached to play Steve Jobs in the indie pic “Jobs,” which Joshua Michael Stern (“Swing Vote”) will direct from a script by Matt Whiteley… The film will chronicle Steve Jobs from wayward hippie to co-founder of Apple, where he became one of the most revered creative entrepreneurs of our time.

At first glance Kutcher seems an odd choice to play one of the most beloved CEOs of our time, but when you really think about it could be an inspired choice. Kutcher has a pretty obnoxious personality, but he is a capable actor who certainly looks the part.

Jobs is only one of several Steve Jobs related projects that are trying to see the light of day, so snagging a big name actor to star is a good first step in making the independent production relevant against other larger profile competition.

Moneyball was a great film and it was very interesting to watch Jonah Hill stand toe to toe with Brad Pitt and deliver Aaron Sorkin dramatic dialogue like a pro. So the news that he has signed on to a new dramatic feature is exciting.

Deadline is reporting that Jonah Hill will be joining forces with James Franco, himself another actor fully capable in drama or comedy, for the upcoming film True Story. A film about a New York Times journalist who’s identity had been stolen by a wanted murder while on the run from authorities.

Like Moneyball, this is another opportunity for Hill to veer from his comic persona. He will play Finkel, who was a writer at The New York Times Magazine in 2002 when he learned that Christian Longo was captured in Mexico after a long stint on the FBI Ten Most Wanted List for killing his family. The strange part was that he had been living under the identity of Finkel.

The very next day, the real Finkel was fired by the editors of The Times, right after they ran an editor’s note declaring that he had falsified parts of an investigative article. His career seemed over, until Longo (who’ll be played by Franco) declared that the real Finkel was the only journalist he would talk to. 

Sounds very interesting, hopefully we are just getting to meet a whole new side to Jonah Hill.

Daniel Day Lewis is a badass. The There Will Be Blood star is infamous for never breaking character during a film’s production, and it seems that his latest portrayal of the iconic American president in Steven Speilberg’s Lincoln is no exception.

Spotted at a local cafe in Richmond, Virginia by Michael Phillips, this image has been making the rounds as the first glimpse of what this film could look like.  Even though he’s enjoying his meal in jeans and a turtleneck, his hair an makeup certainly make a spot-on Abraham Lincoln.

Take a look at the candid image in full after the jump.

Continue Reading →

For the record, I don’t know all that much about the early years of the infamous J. Edgar Hoover. I do know that he helped make the FBI what it is today but also had some other, more secret, proclivities that make him a rather controversial figure in history.

So, it makes sense that someone like Clint Eastwood, who likes complicated characters and to explore the “grey area” of morality, would take on a biopic about the late FBI director. That’s exactly what he’s done and cast Leonardo DiCaprio as the man himself.

Today, Warner Bros released the theatrical trailer for the film and in it we get a good look at DiCaprio’s portrayal of Hoover as well as some insight into the movie itself. Gotta say, and not really surprised here, it looks good.

Check it out for yourself after the break. J. Edgar, which in addition to DiCaprio features Naomi Watts, Josh Lucas, Armie Hammer, Dermot Mulroney, Lea Thompson and Judi Dench, hits theaters on November 9.

Continue Reading →

This week’s pick is Clint Eastwood’s World War II masterpiece Flags of Our Fathers that depicts the famous flag raising on Mt. Suribachi on the Pacific island of Iwo Jima. The film stars Ryan Phillippe (Navy Corpman 2^nd class John “Doc” Bradley), Jesse Bradford (Corporal Rene Gagnon), Paul Walker (Sgt. Hank Hansen), and Robert Patrick (Col. Chandler Johnson).

The film is told through a series of flash-forwards and flashbacks, through the three remaining men who were responsible for the flag raising which helped to raise America’s morale as the Pacific war raged on with no foreseeable end in sight. The seven Marines that are the focal point of the film begin their training at Camp Tarawa in Hawaii with mountain climbing and other P.T. drills.

As they set sail towards their destination, it is revealed that the target in question is the Japanese held island of Iwo Jima, which sits just seven hundred miles away from the Japanese mainland.

During a debriefing, the company commander, Captain Severance (McDonough) tells the men that they will meet stiff enemy resistance than ever before because Iwo is Japanese soil and its defenders will fight to the last man in order to prevent the Americans from gaining a closer foothold toward Japan.

Continue Reading →

According to Deadline, a biopic of writer and  Twilight Zone creator Rod Serling is in development by Andrew Meieran and his Bureau of Moving Pictures company. About time, I say.

“Rod Serling was one of the true visionaries in television history,” Meieran said. “He single-handedly broke the mold and established television as a powerful artistic medium capable of changing the world when used wisely.”

To be honest, I’m surprised it took this long to get a movie about Rod Serling off the ground. The man is a genius and true visionary with a story that’s sure to be highly interesting and entertaining.

To prove that point, here’s but a sample of that life (as summarized by the Deadline article):

Serling spent his youth as an Army paratrooper and member of a demolition squad during WWII. He was stationed in the Philippines and his experiences would help shape much of what he wrote about in later life.

He worked his way into radio and then became a TV writer who found his niche with the CBS series Twilight Zone, a series that elevated scripted television with thought-provoking science fiction tales, each with a great and unexpected plot twist. The segments have influenced a legion of TV and feature writers to this day.

Influential to say the least. Now that this is going, the real question is who should play Serling? Any votes for your favorite actor?

Happy Memorial Day to all those currently serving in the U.S. armed forces, and to you vets of America’s foreign wars.  This week’s pick is Oliver Stone’s 1986 Academy Award winner for Best Picture Platoon, which depicts the horrors and struggles of infantrymen figthing not only the enemy, but themselves during one of the most difficult periods of the Vietnam conflict.

The film stars Charlie Sheen (Chris Taylor), Tom Berenger (SSgt. Bob Barnes), Willem Dafoe (Sgt. Elias), Forest Whitaker (Big Harold), Francesco Quinn (Rhah), John C. McGinley (Sgt. O’Neill), Kevin Dillon (Bunny), Reggie Johnson (Junior), Keith David (King), Johnny Depp (Lerner), Mark Moses (Lt. Wolfe), Chris Pedersen (Crawford), Corey Glover (Francis), and veteran Marine and the film’s technical advisor Dale Dye (Captain Harris).

The film is an autobiographical account of Stone’s own experiences during 1967-68 as told by a fresh-faced new recruit Chris Taylor (Sheen) who dropped out of college and volunteers for combat duty in Vietnam.  The film opens with Taylor’s arrival in country as he and others deplane from an Air Force transport.  Taylor and fellow recruit Gardner (Bob Orwig) see body bags which are being loaded onto their plane.

Continue Reading →

This week’s pick salutes World War II’s most decorated hero. Audie L. Murphy stars as himself in the 1955 film To Hell and Back directed by Jesse Hibbs. The film was based on Murphy’s autobiography of the same name.

The film also stars Marshall Thompson (Pvt. Johnson), Charles Drake (Pvt. Brandon), Jack Kelly (Pvt. Kerrigan), Paul Picerni (Pvt. Valentino), Richard Castle (Pvt. Kovak), and Art Aragon (Pvt. Sanchez).

The film opens up as a young Murphy struggles to keep his family’s farm going during the Great Depression. When Murphy’s father deserts the family, young Audie drops out of school in order to work full time and now become the head of the household for his younger siblings and ill mother.

When World War II breaks out, Audie takes the advice of his friend and neighbor to enlist in the U.S. Marine Corp and go career in order to provide for his siblings and older sister due to the death of their mother. Audie is denied due to his small stature and his boyish looks. After being rejected by the Navy and Paratroopers, he enlists in the U.S. Army to become an infantry man in the 3rd Infantry Division, the “Marne Division”.

Audie hits the beaches of North Africa in November 1942 to help the British and Free French forces drive out the German and Italian forces who are being sandwiched into Tunisia by the advancing British 8th Army moving East from Egypt. As soon as he joins the men of the 3rd Division, he is ridiculed due to how young he appears. The men of his squad soon take a liking to him after he’s proven himself, especially Johnson (Thompson), Brandon (Drake), and Kerrigan (Kelly) who become his pals throughout their campaigns together.

Continue Reading →

This week’s pick is the real life story about the Bridge over the River Kwai, and a fantastic war drama about a group of allied POWs who are forced to build the infamous Burma “Railway of Death” in director David L. Cunningham’s To End All Wars (2001).

The film stars Robert Carlyle (Maj. Ian Campbell), Kiefer Sutherland (Lt. Jim “Yanker” Rearton), and Ciaran McMenamin as Capt. Ernest Gordon who plays the film’s narrator and was the man who wrote the book Miracle on the River Kwai a.k.a. Through the Valley of the Kwai about the accounts depicted in the film.

The film opens as a flashback where Ernest Gordon (McMenamin) tells why he decided to enlist in the second “war to end all wars” as he was attending university in Scotland at the outbreak of World War II. He says that he decided to stop reading about history and became a part of it.

Gordon joined the ranks of Scotland’s legendary Argyll Sutherland Highlanders who were Britain’s first and last line of defense. His brigade marches from Edinburgh Castle to cheering Scots seeing the men off to war.

The film then flashes forward to the allied defeat in Singapore in February 1942 as the Japanese seized the great British naval base which was the gateway to the East Indies. Thousands of British and other allied prisoners including Dutch, Australian, and one American Merchant Marine, Lt. Jim Rearton (Sutherland) who attached himself to the surrendering forces. They don’t know it yet, but these men are to be brought to Burma where their Japanese captors plan to use them as slave labor in order to build a railway in order for the Japanese to attempt an invasion of British colonial India.

Continue Reading →

This week’s pick is the 1941 Howard Hawks classic Sergeant York which stars Gary Cooper as the back woods Tennessee hero of World War I. The supporting cast include Walter Brennan (Pastor Pile), Joan Leslie (Gracie Williams), George Tobias (“Pusher” Ross), Ward Bond (Ike Botkin), Stanley Ridges (Maj. Buxton), Dickie Moore (George York), June Lockhart (Rosie York), and Margaret Wycherly (Mother York).

The film was adapted by Harry Chandlee, Abem Finkel, and actor/director John Huston, from York’s own memoirs about his experiences.

It was Alvin York himelf who insisted on Gary Cooper taking the role. Henry Fonda, Jimmy Stewart and Ronald Reagan were also considered for the part, but York still insisted that Cooper was the right choice for the role.

The film is an autobiographical account of York’s upbringing in the Cumberland Mountains of Tennessee where he is struggling to make enough money so that he may be able to buy a plot of land for himself. He is young, rambunctious, a drinker, and brawler who has good intentions, but is a burden on his poor family who share a tiny shanty.

Pastor Pile (Brennan) sees good in Alvin and tries to convince him to put his faith in god. Alvin is at first against the idea of religion and asks why he should trust in god. An epiphany overcomes Alvin one night after a night of hard drinking and fighting, which makes him change his ways and to put faith in the lord, in order to marry his sweetheart Gracie (Leslie) and acquire a piece of land in order to be a good husband and provider for her.

Continue Reading →