Now Screening - What Are You Watching Right Now?

[struth]

I read that Wayne did not like 'High Noon' because he thought the message of the film was 'Un-American' in that no-one is prepared to back up the sheriff. So in 'Rio Bravo' the opposite happens and a number of the other characters insist on helping him out. Likewise in 'Rio Lobo' and 'El Dorado' all the characters are keen to 'do their bit.'

sounds very like him, yes..

[struth]

Saboteur, 1942.





For the shots of police inspecting the long circus caravan at night, Alfred Hitchcock created perspective by using vehicles and people of different sizes, starting with full-sized trucks and extras at the closer end of the caravan, using smaller trucks and shorter people as it receded into the distance, and finally miniatures and cutouts with workable arms with tiny illuminations to simulate flashlights at the far end.

To achieve the sensation of the people at the ship launch being thrown up in the air during the explosion on the dock, Alfred Hitchcock had the cameras pan quickly down each of the extras, from head to toe, and cut them together quickly.

The special effects crew took stills of the Statue of Liberty's upraised hand, her torch, and the ledge beneath it. These were re-created to scale on a Universal Pictures soundstage.

[struth]

In Which We Serve, 1942.





There was a tragedy during the shooting of this movie, during a relatively straightforward special effects scene of an explosion in a gun turret. After the first take, Sir David Lean (Noël Coward wasn't present) was dissatisfied. Chief Electrician Jock Dymore, keen to get the scene wrapped before lunch, climbed onto the set with a bottle full of the flashpowder used for the explosive effect. The containers they were using were still white-hot from the first take, and the resulting blast killed Dymore and seriously injured two others.

[Macca]

'Despite largely positive reviews by audiences and critics alike, the film was not well received by some within the Admiralty who dubbed it "In Which We Sink"'

[struth]

Starman, 1984.






Actor Jeff Bridges studied ornithology and the behavior of birds to prepare for his role as an alien in human form for this movie. Bridges particularly used the sudden jerky head movements, amongst other nuances and mannerisms, of birds for his Starman character. Bridges figured that the alien would not have human characteristics and, being encased in a human body, would act with base primitive animal instincts.

This script was being developed at "Columbia" at the same time as another script about an alien visitation. The studio did not want to make both, so the head of the studio had to choose which film to make; he decided to make this one and let the other script go to a rival studio. The other script was for "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)." After 'E.T.' became such a huge hit, apparently 'Starman' sat on the shelf for almost three years before the Columbia Pictures studio agreed to release it.

[struth]

Contact, 1997.

It would be an awful waste of space.

Author and producer Carl Sagan died during production. He was reportedly taking great care to ensure that science was accurately depicted in this movie.

The remark made throughout the movie by different characters, that if humans were the only life in the universe, it would "be a terrible waste of space", is a famous quote by author Carl Sagan. It references a statement by the Scottish essayist Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881), considering the potential worlds of other stars; "A sad spectacle. If they be inhabited, what a scope for misery and folly. If they be not inhabited, what a waste of space."

Dr. Arroway hypothesizes that the message could be an "Encyclopaedia Galactica", a concept envisioned by Carl Sagan and meant to be a database for all the worlds within the Milky Way Galaxy, which Sagan had shown in his television series Cosmos (1980). The term originates from Isaac Asimov's science fiction novel "Foundation".

As part of the message, an extra-terrestrial intelligence sends a series of pulses between 2 and 101, using only prime numbers. In mathematics, prime numbers are only divisible by one and the own number. Since there is no natural mechanism known in the universe capable of generating prime numbers consecutively, it should be taken as an unequivocal sign of intelligent life.

[Macca]

I like the idea that the aliens would come and say hello and do a bit of maths with us.

In reality it's 'Look at those monkey-men in their antique jet propulsion machines, let's go and cock them about a bit':

[struth]

depending of outlook they may well have been, saw and said to themselves. best leave them be to destroy themselves. come back a time later mankind in last 200 years; yes, such a short time, it has grown, become advanced etc but are still murderous self destructive apes. Natural selection that went wrong this time.
It might get it right next time.

[struth]

Quick Change, 1990. Director Bill Murray..






The watch that the bank employee tries to give Grimm (Bill Murray) is "an Audemars Piguet, Moon Phase, 18-karat gold, alligator band" watch. He states the value is $12,000, but appreciates daily. It may be a coincidence, but in Bill Murray's SCROOGED, he is wearing the same watch, which can be seen when he checks the time in the restaurant (before the waiter lights on fire), expecting to see his first foretold ghost.

[Macca]

'The Nice Guys' (2016)

Russell Crowe is an enforcer in 1970s Los Angeles, he teams up with a dodgy P.I to find a missing girl.

Not the worst thing I have ever seen. Crowe can usually be relied on to be good and the film is quite funny in places. The problem with this sort of 'action comedy' is that Tarantino set the bar pretty high way back with 'Pulp Fiction' and no-one since has been able to quite measure up to it.

You can either do a serious film that is occasionally funny or a funny film that is occasionally serious but a film that alternates between serious and funny never really works because the tone is too uneven, and that's the problem with this one. Worth a watch but fails my test of a 'good' film which is that you would want to watch it more than once.