Now Screening - What Are You Watching Right Now?

[Barry]

The Maltese Falcon, 1941.. all new 4k steelbook.




The Maltese Falcon was shot on 35 mm black and white film (specifically Eastman Plus-X 1231 stock) using Mitchell BNC cameras with spherical lenses (Edeson reportedly favored a personally-owned 21 mm wide-angle for this production), and it was finished at the 1.37:1 Academy ratio typical of the period. While there are no restoration notes available, studio sources have confirmed that Warner Bros. Motion Picture Imaging completed a new 16-bit 4K scan and frame-by-frame digital remastering of the original camera negative earlier this year (and it’s worth noting that the entire original negative for this film actually does survive in good condition). The image was then carefully graded for High Dynamic Range for its Ultra HD release (HDR10 alone is available on this disc). The result is absolutely stunning, a gorgeous presentation that exhibits a significant uptick in resolution and refinement compared to the previous Blu-ray edition. Extremely deep blacks are in evidence, along with luminous highlights, and much greater variation in grayscale than ever before. Fine detail is crisp and clean, with more nuanced texturing too, an improvement that’s readily apparent in facial features, hair, costume textiles, furniture, and brickwork. Archer’s tweed suit in the opening scene, for example, reveals its intricate herringbone pattern with ease. You can nearly read the text on the business license in Spade’s office, not to mention the instructions on the pay phone he uses early in the film. The worn paint and wallpaper in his apartment too are remarkably detailed. Photochemical grain is light to moderate but controlled and natural looking at all times. To the extent that there’s any softness in the image at all, it’s found in optically-printed transitions or slight variations in the depth of focus in low-lighting conditions. But it seems abundantly clear that every bit of detail available in the negative is visible on screen.

Are you quoting publicity blurb, or are they your own words?

Good film nonetheless - one of the best.

[struth]

Are you quoting publicity blurb, or are they your own words?

Good film nonetheless - one of the best.

mostly from a review mate..


now after finishing Ripping Yarns...

Memoirs of an Invisible Man, 1992... bluray..




According to visual effects supervisor Bruce Nicholson, "Success in this movie was showing invisibility in detail". During nine months of preparation, Nicholson studied four previous films on the subject, The Invisible Man - which receives a tribute in the scene where Nick is shown to have his head wrapped in bandages and is wearing large dark goggles - and its sequel The Invisible Man Returns, Bedknobs and Broomsticks and Ghost.
Chase would wear a blue bodysuit below his clothing, so that computer artists would erase his body through chroma key and match the clothes with computer-generated replicas so that even the inside of the clothing could be seen, along with other touches such as erasing the shadow made by Chase's body. A particularly elaborate effect had Nick's invisible face being covered in flesh-colored make-up. The make-up was applied to Chase as his head was covered in viscous blue cosmetic, tongue and teeth coated with blue food coloring, and the cornea of each eye covered with blue contact lenses, an uncomfortable makeover made worse by the June heat and heavy studio lighting.

[struth]

The Wild Bunch, 1969... bluray....one of the greats this...





In an interview, Ben Johnson said that the Mexican women who "frolicked" with him and Warren Oates in the huge wine vats weren't actresses but prostitutes from a nearby brothel, who were hired by Sam Peckinpah so he could tell people that Warner Bros. paid for hookers for his cast.

During a screening in New York, Sam Peckinpah invited Jay Cocks, of "Time" magazine, who brought his friend Martin Scorsese. They sat in an empty Warner Bros. screening room with only two other critics, Judith Crist and Rex Reed. That final scene knocked them out of their seats. Recalled Scorsese, "We were mesmerized by it; it was obviously a masterpiece. It was real filmmaking, using film in such a way that no other form could do it; it couldn't be done any other way. To see that in an American filmmaker was so exciting." Cocks remembered that he and Scorsese "literally turned to each other at the end and were stunned. We were looking at each other, shaking our heads, like we had just come out of a shared fever dream."

[struth]

The Jungle Book, 2016... 4k bluray..




The CGI character Baloo is so large and furry, he took almost five hours of rendering time per frame.

Neel Sethi said that since he never actually worked with real animals on-set during filming, director Jon Favreau would on occasion stand in for where the animals would be present, most notably as Shere Khan lunging out from the tall grass.

This is the final movie of Garry Shandling (Ikki the Porcupine), released less than a month after he died of a heart attack. In a tragic parallel, The Jungle Book (1967) also had a posthumous performance from Verna Felton (Winifred, Hathi's wife).

[struth]

The Long Riders, 1980...




The film stars four sets of actual brothers: the Carradines, the Keachs, the Quaids and the Guests.

[struth]

The Alamo, 1960...




John Wayne formed a close friendship with Laurence Harvey during filming. He later said Harvey should have received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor instead of Chill Wills.

John Wayne partially financed this film himself. During shooting, the film was delayed due to various production problems. Wayne was under so much pressure, he smoked cigarettes almost non-stop when not acting.

Although it was a biggish hit, it cost so much to film, much of which Wayne morgaged himself to hilt to get, that it took 11 years for him to get it payed back... madness...

[struth]

stay with the western genre and john wayne again in.... Rio Lobo, 1970...




John Wayne felt that Jack Elam had stolen several scenes from him in this movie, and therefore vetoed the casting of Elam as Grady in The Train Robbers (1973). Jack Elam (Phillips, the "Old Man") was 13 years younger than John Wayne.

When Howard Hawks told John Wayne that he was remaking Rio Bravo (1959) for the second time, Wayne's immediate response was: "Do I get to play the drunk this time?"

When Cord McNally (John Wayne) visits Sheriff Pat Cronin (Bill Williams) in the Sheriff's office, there is a wanted poster on the wall for Hondo Lane, the character Wayne played in Hondo (1953).

[struth]

The Big Sleep, 1946





According to Lauren Bacall, production was such fun that they got a memo from Jack L. Warner saying, "Word has reached me that you are having fun on the set. This must stop."

Philip Marlowe's habit of feeling his earlobe while in deep thought was something Humphrey Bogart incorporated from his own behavior.

The scene where Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall make suggestive talk about horses was added almost a year after filming was otherwise complete, in an attempt to inject the film with the kind of risqué innuendos that had made To Have and Have Not (1944), and Bacall, so popular a few years earlier.

[Barry]

Another excellent film there Grant.

[struth]

another classic bogey film with... To Have and Have Not, 1944..



Lauren Bacall as Marie "Slim" Browning. At the time of casting, Bacall was an 18-year-old model. She had appeared on the cover of Harper's Bazaar, and was noticed by Hawks' wife, Nancy "Slim" Keith, who showed the cover photo to her husband. Hawks sought Bacall out in April 1943 and signed her for the role, her first movie appearance. In the film, Harry calls her by the nickname "Slim", and she calls him "Steve", the nicknames used between Keith and Hawks. Hawks shot her screen test with contract player John Ridgely in January 1944. Her screen test was the seduction and "whistle" scene. This scene wasn't originally meant to go in the film, but Jack L. Warner told Hawks that he needed to integrate it into the film, and so it was later adapted into the film. After the screen test, Hawks signed his first personal contract with an unknown actress with Bacall.