Now Screening - What Are You Watching Right Now?

[struth]

First Men On The Moon, 1964.. bluray..






In the book, the large monster which the Selenites hunt is called a Mooncalf. This is an old English term for idiot, since it was believed that being out under a full moon could cause madness (think also "lunatic"), but is also a clever pun on H.G. Wells' part, as the Selenites also hunt this beast like cattle, the young of which is called a calf.

Professor Cavor calls out "SOS" when he becomes stuck between the rocks on the moon's surface; however, SOS did not come into use until 1905, six years later.

This is the only one of Ray Harryhausen's films to be shot in anamorphic widescreen (2.35:1) due to the higher cost of anamorphic camera and projection lenses needed for his Dynamation Process.

[Macca]

certainly a different style. cgi is a bit 'in your face' but that seems to be the style folk want. it kinda reminds me of the doomed pearl harbour film, although much better done.

Yes the CGI is over the top. Same director as 'Pearl Harbour' I think?

[struth]

Terminator Genisys, 2015... bluray.





J.K. Simmons was stated to have improvised many of his lines. His description of a rocket to the T-800 ("Blows a door clean off. You know, for people who can't do that themselves.") even earns a stare of surprise from Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The original director of The Terminator (1984), James Cameron, asked and got to officially endorse this film. He said he loved this so much, he personally considers this the official third film in the franchise. However, in 2017, Cameron stated that he doesn't have much respect for the Terminator movies that were made after Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), but supported them because of his close friendship with Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Kyle Reese: Survivors called it Judgement Day. People lived like rats in shadows, hiding, starving, or worse, captured and put into camps for extermination.

sounds familiar over in ukraine

[struth]

Five Graves to Cairo, 1943... Eureka bluray..






The tank seen at the start of the picture was an actual American army tank but not authentically a British one. It was loaned to the production by a neighboring American army base. The production had attempted to get a real British tank but had had their request knocked back.

The desert scenes were filmed in sand dunes near Yuma, AZ. Shooting also took place at California's Salton Sea area and at Camp Young in Indio (Riverside County), where the battle scenes were staged, with the assistance of US Army troops.

This espionage thriller inspired a real spy operation. Actor Miles Mander looked so much like British Gen. Bernard L. Montgomery that British intelligence tried to hire him as Montgomery's double for a mission to deceive the Germans about the location of the D-Day invasion. However, Mander was too tall, so they found an Australian comic, M.E. Clifton James, to masquerade as Monty. They sent the phony Montgomery to Gibraltar to make the Germans think the British would invade southern France before they hit northern France. James later starred in I Was Monty's Double (1958). A synopsis of the operation appears in the bestseller, "Double Cross: True Story of the D-Day Spies" by Ben MacIntyre.

[struth]

Heaven Can Wait, 1943...Henry Van Cleve presents himself at the gates of Hell only to find he is closely vetted on his qualifications for entry. Surprised there is any question on his suitability, he recounts his lively life and the women he has known from his mother onwards....







In a 1983 interview, "A Conversation with Don Ameche", Don Ameche said this movie was his favorite of all the films he worked on.

Gene Tierney recalled that during production, "Lubitsch was a tyrant on the set, the most demanding of directors. After one scene, which took from noon until five to get, I was almost in tears from listening to Lubitsch shout at me. The next day I sought him out, looked him in the eye, and said, 'Mr. Lubitsch, I'm willing to do my best but I just can't go on working on this picture if you're going to keep shouting at me.' 'I'm paid to shout at you', he bellowed. 'Yes', I said, 'and I'm paid to take it - but not enough.' After a tense pause, Lubitsch broke out laughing. From then on we got along famously." (From Tierney's autobiography 'Self-Portrait'.)

This was the first of two unrelated films of the same title to receive an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture. The second was Heaven Can Wait (1978).

In his conversations with Billy Wilder, Cameron Crowe asked Wilder about Ernst Lubitsch's touch. Wilder replied like this - "It was the elegant use of the Superjoke. You had a joke, and you felt satisfied, and then there was one more big joke on top of it. The joke you didn't expect." In this film, the audience sees Charles Coburn (Grandfather) giving a big pat on young Albert's back. After that, Young Albert goes to downstairs and starts wearing his hand gloves. Grandfather (who is upstairs) takes the glass of water and pours the water on Young Albert's head.

[struth]

Heaven Can Wait, 1978.... more a remake of here comes mr jordan but they called it this...which was the original title of the play...yeah its comlex lol





Second of three collaborations of actor Jack Warden and Warren Beatty, the first having been about three years earlier with Shampoo (1975). These two 1970s films brought Warden to the peak of his acting career as he displayed a flair for comedy in both Shampoo (1975) and Heaven Can Wait (1978). As the faintly sinister businessman "Lester" in Shampoo (1975) and as the perpetually befuddled football trainer "Max Corkle" in Heaven Can Wait (1978), Warden received Academy Award nominations as Best Supporting Actor for both pictures but did not win the Oscar for either movie. Warden also later appeared in Beatty's Bulworth (1998) around twenty years after Heaven Can Wait (1978).

James Gleason was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in the role of Max Corkle for this movie's source original film Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941). This is the first time in Academy Awards history for a person to be nominated for a supporting Oscar for a role for which a different person would later also be nominated for a supporting Oscar: Jack Warden was nominated for Best Supporting Actor as Max Corkle in Heaven Can Wait (1978).

[struth]

Apollo 13... 1995...





In a commentary track, Marilyn Lovell comments that Tom Hanks exactly portrays Jim Lovell's mannerisms and style of movement.

In some scenes where the Earth can be seen from the windows of Apollo 13, it is one of the photos taken by Jim Lovell and Bill Anders on the Apollo 8 mission.

Jim Lovell wore his old Navy Captain's uniform in the scene where he greets the astronauts aboard the U.S.S. Iwo Jima. When Ron Howard asked Lovell if he'd like to be in the film as the ship's Admiral, Lovell agreed, but pointed out, "I retired as a Captain; a Captain I will be."

When the real Jim Lovell saw the film, he found the CGI work so convincing that he firmly believed that the filmmakers had uncovered some hitherto unseen NASA footage.

[struth]

Failure is not an option!. Great line that was, in the film attributed to lead flight director Gene Kranz, but it was actually said(not in those exact words) by FDO Flight Controller Jerry Bostick when the script writers, Al Reinert and Bill Broyles interviewed him on how they behaved in an emergency. The question was "Weren't there times when everybody, or at least a few people, just panicked?" My answer was "No, when bad things happened, we just calmly laid out all the options, and failure was not one of them." ..

[Barry]

Mulholland Dr, 2001.. 4k Bluray. A native 3840 x 2160p resolution image with widescreen 1.85:1 aspect ratio, uses 10-bit video depth, High Dynamic Range, a Wide Colour Gamut (WCG) and is encoded using the HEVC (H.265) codec for HRD10 and Dolby Vision. Remasterd film is beautiful.

I saw this at my film club and couldn't make head nor tail of it - and I'm not sure if I can be bothered to watch it again.

[Barry]

Apollo 13... 1995...

Good film - I have it on DVD.