[...] Renoir had had the experience of war; he had been wounded; he had seen the ruin caused by the First World War; and no one but a bloodthirsty madman or a jingoistic armchair general could have wished a reprise. But in his depiction of the noble yet prejudiced Rauffenstein, Renoir advanced a fiction that, though it served the cause of peace, didn't help France face the real danger across the Rhine, which had something to do with the vast outpouring of popular support that allowed an anti-Semitic, expansionist nationalist to come to power—or even with France's own right wing, which looked there longingly.

By the time Renoir made "Rules of the Game," in 1939, his internationalist humanism had grown bilious; his depiction of the Alsatian gamekeeper Schumacher looked German populism in its ugly face, and he showed a France that kept amused with romantic games as it verged on collapse. But "Grand Illusion," for me, has always been a film that was itself a dream from which Renoir himself needed to awaken. In the long term, Renoir seems to have been right—there seems to be relatively little separating the ideals and the practicalities of ordinary Germans and Frenchmen—but it only took the occupation of France; the near-annihilation of the old Germany; a definitive guilt-trip for both countries regarding the extermination of Europe's Jews; and a pall of Soviet authority for them to realize it.

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/movies/2012/05/grand-illusion-renoir.html?printable=true¤tPage=all#ixzz1ugTJApNT

Joyce Redman, a distinguished Irish-born actress widely acclaimed for her intelligent stage presence in Shakespearean drama and French comedy, though probably best known to American audiences for her silent improvisation with a lobster, an oyster, a pear and Albert Finney in the exuberantly lascivious eating scene in the 1963 film “Tom Jones,” died on Wednesday in Kent, England. She was 96.

Her son, the actor Crispin Redman, told the BBC that Ms. Redman died of pneumonia after a brief illness.

Ms. Redman was employed almost nonstop in British theater and television from the 1940s through the 1970s, working with virtually every major repertory troupe in England, including the Old Vic and the National Theater Company, as well as the Comédie-Française in Paris.

Her diminutive size (officially 5-foot-1) and commandingly husky stage voice combined to give Ms. Redman a unique signature that she used to great effect in both dramatic and comic roles.

She was nominated for Academy Awards for best supporting actress in both genres: for her role in “Tom Jones,” based on Henry Fielding’s 18th-century comic novel, and for her portrayal of Emilia, the duped, doomed maidservant in the 1965 film version of “Othello,” with Maggie Smith and Laurence Olivier. She won the award for the role of Emilia.

Her portrayal of a defiant, unbowed, protofeminist Anne Boleyn opposite Rex Harrison’s Henry VIII in the Broadway production of “Anne of the Thousand Days” received rave reviews in 1948.

This is the most fun I've had for a long time, clicking through all of these "Not so stills" from movies.  Although some of the movies the "stills" are from are more recent, most of them qualify as classics. 

What you will note is that the "stills" MOVE!  Stay with it for a few seconds and watch the action.  On my first time I got as far as 40 pages of them.  Just click the word "older" at the bottom of each page to take you to the next one.

Have fun!!!

She's back on the water! Three cheers for Suzanne Holmquist and her engineer husband, Lance, for saving this piece of movie history.

Claude Miller, a French director whose spare and sometimes disturbing films focused on the interior lives of tormented characters, especially women, while never losing sight of their exterior beauty, died on April 4 in Paris. He was 70.

His production company, which announced his death, said he had been ill for several years, but gave no other details.

Mr. Miller’s films won many awards, including the jury prize at the Cannes Film Festival and the French version of the Oscar, the César. But for better or worse his name was almost always linked in reviews and interviews with that of his mentor, François Truffaut, for whom he had worked as an assistant director and production manager.

While making the 1988 film “The Little Thief,” which is based on the last unfinished manuscript of Truffaut, who died in 1984, Mr. Miller said he lived in dread of the inevitable comparisons. Referring to the critics, he said in an interview with The New York Times, “I was afraid they would destroy me with, ‘What a shame it was directed by Claude Miller.’ ”

The reviews were mainly good.

Like many of the movies Mr. Miller wrote and directed, “The Little Thief” was about a troubled family and its offspring, in this case a more or less abandoned girl who becomes a compulsive thief. In other films Mr. Miller cast his gaze on cruel adults and the young people they have injured (“Class Trip,” 1998); families that harbor secrets that come back to haunt their children (“A Secret,” 2008, and “I’m Glad My Mother Is Alive,” 2011); and the strange, unbreakable bonds between parents and children who otherwise find each other repellent (“Alias Betty,” 2002).

 

***

Mr. Miller was born in Paris on Feb. 20, 1942. His parents were secular Jews whose experience during the German occupation shaped his filmmaking in “A Secret,” he told interviewers. After film school, he worked with some of the giants of French cinema, as an assistant to Marcel Carne and Robert Bresson, and then as an assistant director to both Jean-Luc Godard and Truffaut, whose restrained narrative style most influenced him.

Excerpt of transcript:

Hollywood is a place where folks are often recognized more for their looks than their talent - and actress Hedy Lamarr was no exception. But it's what she invented in her spare time - to help end that war - that has history turning a kinder eye, linking her to a bombshell of a whole different sort. Lee Cowan reports:

She possessed the kind of beauty that was haunting - an almost smoldering sensuality, with an exotic accent to match.

Even her name - Hedy Lamarr - sounded dark and mysterious. But although she shared the screen with Hollywood legends like Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy and Jimmy Stewart, people rarely remember Hedy's talent.

Most remember only her face - a regret she carried with her to her grave.

"The boys abroad, during the Second World War, voted her the most desirable, beautiful actress or pinup that they could possibly see," said writer Richard Rhodes. "So she had a great deal of fame and fortune, but not that inner satisfaction that she wanted in life."

Rhodes is an author best known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning work on the making of the atomic bomb - but his most recent book about Hedy Lamarr is just as explosive.

So what got a science writer interested in a half-forgotten celebrity? Quite simply, Hedy's other side - the intellectual side - and had it turned out, it might have been the blueprint for success far beyond Hollywood.

To the untrained eye the drawing is just a maze of wires and switches. But to Richard Rhodes, it was genius. What surprised him most, he told Cowan, was "the sheer inventiveness of the invention."

It was Hedy's idea for a radio-controlled torpedo, guided by a signal that couldn't be intercepted - a technology she called "frequency hopping."

"The first question always is, "What? A Hollywood star? What was she doing inventing some piece of electrical engineering?" said Rhodes.

Her life reads like a Hollywood script: The glamorous movie star by day was, by night, the lonely immigrant channeling an inner Thomas Edison.

"She set aside one room in her home, had a drafting table installed with the proper lighting, and the proper tools - had a whole wall in the room of engineering reference books." That, Rhodes said, was where she "invented."

It was a hobby that remained obscured in the shadow of her celebrity - one she rarely revealed, even to her own son, Anthony Loder: "She was such a creative person, I mean, nonstop solution-finding. If you talked about a problem, she had a solution."

Looking back, Loder - the product of the third of Hedy's six marriages - says his mother's tinkering may have been an escape.

"She wanted to stop all the Hollywood stuff which she didn't really enjoy," he said.

Most of Hedy's inventions - including a better Kleenex box and a new traffic signal - never really went anywhere. But her idea for that torpedo got a patent...

...But Rhodes said when the Navy brass looked at the invention, "They...threw it on the back shelf. The Navy's response really was, 'You should go raise money for the war. That's what you should be doing instead of this silly inventing.'"

So Hedy did precisely that, using her celebrity to raise millions in war bonds - dismissed again for her brains in favor of her beauty.

As time went on, she tried television, but it never fit, and her star slowly faded.

But her notion of "frequency hopping" became the basis for most modern WiFi technology.

"Today, frequency hopping is used with the wireless phones that we have in our homes, GPS, most military communication systems - it's very widely used," said Rhodes.

But it was those building on her idea who got the credit. Hedy had quietly signed her patent over to the Navy, and left it at that. She gave the technology away, and never made a dime off of it.

We show you a photo of  villain, you tell us who it is

Ken Russell, the English filmmaker and writer whose outsize personality matched the confrontational brashness of his movies, among them “Women in Love” and “The Devils,” died on Sunday at his home in Lymington, England. He was 84.

His death was confirmed by a spokesman, Shade Rupe.

A polarizing figure who delighted in breaching the limits of propriety and cinematic good taste, Mr. Russell courted controversy through much of his career. “Women in Love,” a 1969 adaptation of the D. H. Lawrence novel, was his breakthrough film, and “The Devils” (1971), about a 17th-century outbreak of religious hysteria, was his most notorious. Both caused run-ins with censors.

The flamboyance and intemperance of his movies were all the more notable coming at a time when British cinema and television were still largely known for the kitchen-sink style of social realism. In the 1970s, his most active decade as a feature film director, he made a series of biographical films about artists and rock operas, like his adaptation of the Who’s “Tommy,” which were admired by some for their delirious excesses and dismissed by others as vulgar kitsch.

Mr. Russell’s feature-film career began with a couple of lightweight genre assignments, the romantic comedy “French Dressing” (1964) and “Billion Dollar Brain” (1967), a spy movie with Michael Caine. But it took off with “Women in Love,” a sensuous period piece that connected with the liberated sexual politics of the late ’60s. Although the film was generally well reviewed and a mainstream success — it earned Mr. Russell his one Academy Award nomination for best director and Glenda Jackson an Oscar for best actress — it was also the first glimpse of his flair for provocation.

“Women in Love” became infamous for an extended wrestling scene between the two male stars, Oliver Reed and Alan Bates, that showed full-frontal nudity. It made it past the British censorship board only after Mr. Russell agreed to trim a few shots, though nudity remained.

“The Dance of the Seven Veils,” a broad television drama from 1970, emphasized the connections of the composer Richard Strauss to the Third Reich. The Strauss estate withdrew the music rights, and the film, the last that Mr. Russell made for the BBC, remains out of circulation.

“The Devils,” based on real events that had inspired a play by John Whiting and a book by Aldous Huxley, tells the story of demonic possession at a French convent, complete with exorcism rituals and blasphemous orgies. Mr. Russell, who converted to Roman Catholicism in the 1950s, saw the film as an attack on corruption between the church and state.

Its American investors and the British censors called for cuts. The Catholic Church condemned the movie when it was screened at the Venice Film Festival. An edited version was banned by several local authorities in Britain; it was further trimmed in the United States to avoid an X rating.

Despite his affinity for classical music, Mr. Russell gravitated toward the flashy British rock scene of the day. The connection was made explicit with “Tommy” (1975), his frenzied film version of the Who’s rock opera and concept album. He combined classical and rock music in the follow-up, “Lisztomania” (1975), which starred the Who’s lead singer, Roger Daltrey, as Franz Liszt and featured a cameo by Ringo Starr as the pope.

Critics tended to welcome each new Ken Russell film as target practice. Reviewing “The Devils” in The New York Times, Vincent Canby called Mr. Russell “a hobbyist determined to reproduce ‘The Last Supper’ in bottle tops.” Pauline Kael called him a “shrill, screaming gossip.”

Mr. Russell was not above fighting back. Shortly after the release of “The Devils,” he appeared on live television with the British critic Alexander Walker, who had called the film “monstrously indecent.” Mr. Russell hit him on the head with a rolled-up newspaper.

We think of Hollywood as a liberal and socially progressive land of hippies, what with its endless fundraisers and giving awards to movies that teach us that intolerance is wrong. Yet in certain ways, movies are still way behind the times.

We've pointed out before how certain weird movie stereotypes refuse to die, but there are larger, sadder trends that seem like they'll never go away.

For instance ...

The pilot episode of Star Trek. Prince’s Black Album. The original edit of Blade Runner. Many formerly hard-to-find items are just a click away on Amazon.com, iTunes, and Netflix.

But the truth is that, even in this age of expanded rereleases and DVD extras, certain cultural artifacts still exist only as rumor, nigh impossible to track down. And that makes the idea of getting your hands on these curiosities, camp classics, and coulda-beens all the more intoxicating. Join us on a tour of the vault of lost artifacts — and if you have access to anything on the wanted list, ping us, huh?

--> (Original link broken-- use this one of these  instead)

"Somewhere over the rainbow
Way up high,
There's a land that I heard of
Once in a lullaby.

Somewhere over the rainbow
Skies are blue,
And the dreams that you dare to dream
Really do come true.

David Zelag Goodman, a prolific screenwriter who, with Sam Peckinpah, wrote “Straw Dogs” and was nominated for an Academy Award for his work on the romantic comedy “Lovers and Other Strangers,” died on Monday in Oakland, Calif. He was 81.

The cause was progressive supranuclear palsy, a neurological disorder, his wife, Marjorie Goodman, said.

Mr. Goodman’s most memorable work involved converting a Gordon Williams novel, “The Siege of Trencher’s Farm,” into the psychological thriller “Straw Dogs” (1971). The film starred Dustin Hoffman as an American mathematician pushed to violence by marauding hooligans at his adopted British home. A remake was released this year.

There always seems to be talk on the Internet about sequels to films - which could be made, should be made, might be made, are being made... I have already come across speculation about whether or not Cowboys and Aliens will have a second installment. Then, of course, there is always buzz about sequels that will be released in the near future. Currently, this includes titles like Avatar 2, Men in Black III, Terminator 5 and Prometheus, the Tony Scott directed prequel to Aliens. (And now Scott is talking about a Bladerunner 2.)

Of course, when it comes to quality, sequels can be good, bad, or in-between. Occasionally they can be as good as  the originals - or almost. Only rarely do they seem to outshine their predecessors.

Below is a non-exhaustive list of movie sequels that I think are among the best. Are some of your favorites included, or do you have another sequel that you like better?

28 Weeks Later, 2007 - Robert Carlyle stars in this sequel to 2002's 28 Days Later. Instead of following four survivors of the zombie inducing 'rage' virus on the run from London to Manchester, we watch the infection spread through an enclosed community set up to 'repopulate' a ravaged country.

2010: The Year We Make Contact, 1984 - Sixteen years after Stanley Kubrick gave us the incredible 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), director Peter Hyams treated us to a sequel that may not be as great as its predecessor, but that can definitely hold its own. As film critic Roger Ebert said, "This is a good movie. Once we've drawn our lines, once we've made it absolutely clear that 2001 continues to stand absolutely alone as one of the greatest movies ever made, once we have freed 2010 of the comparisons with Kubrick's masterpiece, what we are left with is a good-looking, sharp-edged, entertaining, exciting space opera."

Addams Family Values, 1993 - Raul Julia, Anjelica Huston, Christopher Lloyd, and Christina Ricci -- with the delicious addition of Joan Cusack -- ham it up in this hilarious sequel to 1991's The Addam's Family. I find it better and funnier than the first.  

After the Thin Man, 1936 - This was the second of the six Thin Man films about a witty detective couple, Nick and Nora Charles, wonderfully portrayed by William Powell and Myrna Loy. (And let's not forget their dog, Asta -- oh, and a young James Stewart has a part, too.) The original, 1934's The Thin Man, was nominated for a Best Picture Academy Award, while this sequel was nominated for Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay.

Aliens, 1985 - Sigourney Weaver returns as Ellen Ripley in a rematch with the alien creature that wiped out her crew in 1979's Alien. Damn, this movie is great! As the tagline says, 'this time it's war.'

 The Bride of Frankenstein, 1935 - Widely regarded as one of the greatest horror films of all times, this movie classic is a sequel to 1931's Frankenstein. Boris Karloff is back as the monster, while Elsa Lanchester has the dual role of his mate and Mary Shelley.

Escape From Planet of the Apes, 1971 - This is a case of good qualities skipping a movie sequel generation. While 1970's Beneath the Planet of the Apes was a somewhat disappointing immediate sequel to 1968's Planet of the Apes, the third installment in the series, Escape From Planet of the Apes, presents an ingenious twist: three of the evolved apes from the 40th century travel back in time to the 20th, where they are initially caged and studied, much like humans are in their own time. Kim Hunter and Roddy McDowall reprise their roles from the original and are joined by fellow chimpanzee Sal Mineo, and humans Bradford Dillman and Ricardo Montalbán. 

Father's Little Dividend, 1951 - Stars Spencer Tracy, Joan Bennett, and Elizabeth Taylor return under the direction of Vincent Minelli in the follow-up to the 1950 comedy hit Father of the Bride. In this film, Spencer Tracy has to come to terms with becoming a granddad. (Steve Martin and Dianne Keaton starred in remakes of these two movies: 1991's Father of the Bride and 1995's Father of the Bride Part II. While not bad, I don't think either can really compare with the originals.)

The Four Musketeers, 1974 - Filmed at the same time as 1973's The Three Musketeers. It is a pleasure to watch Oliver Reed, Charlton Heston, Raquel Welch, Faye Dunaway, Richard Chamberlain, Michael York, and Christopher Lee bring these swashbuckling Alexander Dumas tales to life. 

Godfather Part II, 1974 - This combination prequel and sequel to 1972's The Godfather tells more tales of the Corleone crime family. It was the first Hollywood movie to include 'Part II' as part of its official title, and in so doing started the trend of numbered sequels. It was nominated for 11 Academy Awards and won six, including Best Picture (the only sequel ever to do so) and Best Supporting Actor for Robert De Niro. 

Mad Max 2 The Road Warrior, 1981 - An excellent sequel to 1979's Mad Max, which in turn was followed in 1985 by another equally excellent sequel, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.

Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, 1985 - Two words: Tina Turner.

Predator 2, 1990 - In 1987's Predator, the semi-visible alien hunted soldiers Arnold Schwarzenegger, Carl Weathers, and Jesse Ventura in the jungles of Central America. In this sequel the monster has moved onto the asphalt jungle of Los Angeles, where he preys on cops Danny Glover, Maria Conchita Alonso, Ruben Blades, Gary Busey, and Bill Paxton.

 A Shot in the Dark, 1964 - 1963's Pink Panther focused on the character of a thief played by David Niven, who planned to steal the famous Pink Panther diamond. Peter Sellers' portrayal of bungling French police detective Inspector Jacques Clouseau stole the show to such a degree that plans for A Shot in the Dark, which did originally include the character, were changed to make the movie center around him -- and the rest, as they say, is cinema history.

 The Bells of St. Mary's, 1945 - A sequel to the previous year's Best Picture Oscar winner, Going My Way. Bing Crosby returns as Father Father Chuck O'Malley and is joined by Ingrid Bergman as Sister Mary Benedict, in a story of their effort to save their school from being shut down. Crosby was nominated for the Best Actor Academy Award for the role in both movies, and won it for his performance in Going My Way. According to Box Office Mojo, when adjusted for inflation, The Bells of St. Mary's is the 50th highest grossing movie of all time!

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn, 1982 - In this follow-up to 1979's Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Kirk, Spock and the rest of the crew find themselves up against genetically-engineered tyrant Khan Noonien Singh. At the time of its release, Star Trek II was much more well received by critics and fans alike -- rightly so, in my opinion.  

Terminator 2: Judgment Day, 1991 - in this sequel to 1984's Terminator, Arnold Schwarzenegger has gone from bad cyborg to good cyborg, while Linda Hamilton's character has toughened up and bulked up to fight and protect her son from a new bad killing machine from the future: the liquid-metal, shape-shifting T-1000, played by Robert Patrick.

Of course, there are many, many more I could have included on this list, but I had to stop somewhere so that we could start talking!

Image from Back to the Future 2: Jaws 19

Yes, Kenny Ortega, the the choreographer on the original film, and the man who brought us High School Musical Michale Jackson's This Is It, plans to direct a re-make of the 1987 hit. The original Dirty Dancing, directed by Emile Ardolino, written by Eleanor Bergstein, starred Jennifer Gray and Patrick Swayze as Baby and Johnny, a rich kid and a working class dance instructor, who do dancing and other things in a story of class division, back street abortions, and summer love set in a Catskill Mountains resort way back in 1963. What do you think? Is a remake a good idea or a bad idea? And since it's going to be made regardless of what we think, who do you think should be the new Baby and Johnny?

Variety: Lionsgate taps Ortega for 'Dirty Dancing'

Michael Cacoyannis, a Greek filmmaker whose art-house films and adaptations of Euripides for stage and screen were critically acclaimed, but who was best known as the director of the 1964 Hollywood hit “Zorba the Greek,” died on Monday in Athens. He was 90.

His death was confirmed by the Michael Cacoyannis Foundation, an institution for the performing arts he founded in 2003.

Mr. Cacoyannis’s early work brought a new level of respect to Greek filmmaking in the 1950s, when postwar European cinema was dominated by the Italians and French. It also gave exposure to some of Greece’s finest performers. His 1955 film, “Stella,” which won the Golden Globe as best foreign film, featured Melina Mercouri in her first movie role. Irene Papas would appear in many of his productions.

But “Zorba,” his eighth film, created a cultural phenomenon that transcended filmmaking.

Anthony Quinn’s barefooted, dancing, woman-loving Zorba became a symbol of Greek vitality that boosted Greek tourism for decades. For better and worse, it also stamped the Greeks as people with a knack for living for the moment, a characterization that has haunted them during the country’s national debt crisis.

The film won three Academy Awards. But although nominated for best director and best film, Mr. Cacoyannis and “Zorba” lost out to George Cukor’s adaptation of “My Fair Lady.”

Peter Falk died at his Beverly Hills home on June 23, 2011 at the age of 83. He had reportedly been suffering from Alzheimer's disease. Falk is best known for his role as police detective 'Columbo. He starred in 69 episodes of the show from 1968 to 2003. He won four best actor Emmys for the role, as well as a fifth one for his starring role in the 1961 TV drama, 'The Price of Tomatoes.'

Falk also starred on the big screen numerous times and was nominated for an Academy Award for best supporting actor twice - the first time for his role as Abe Reles in 1960's 'Murder, Inc.' and the next one a year later for the character of Joy Boy in 'Pocketful of Miracles.'

He also gave memorable performances in 'The Great Race,' 'A Woman Under the Influence,' 'Murder by Death,' 'Princess Bride,' as well as played himself in two Wim Wenders films, 'Wings of Desire' and 'Faraway, So Close!'

Peter Falk is survived by his wife Shera Danese and two daughters, Catherine and Jackie, from his previous marriage to Alyce Mayo.

These two videos were put together by Alexandros Molfessis of Athens, Greece

Leonard Kastle, an opera composer who unexpectedly found a niche in film history as the writer and director of the low-budget 1969 crime-thriller film “The Honeymoon Killers,” died on Wednesday at his home in Westerlo, N.Y. He was 82.

The death was confirmed by Cecelia Levin, his niece.

In the 1950s and ’60s Mr. Kastle enjoyed a modest reputation as a composer of melodic, romantic operas and as a musical director of works for the stage.

Fame arrived by an unexpected route. Warren Steibel, the producer of “Firing Line” with William F. Buckley Jr. and of Mr. Kastle’s television operas, was given $150,000 by a rich friend to make a film. He hit on the idea of making a grim, documentary-style work based on the story of Raymond Fernandez and Martha Beck, who were known as the Lonely Hearts Killers.

Fernandez was a balding lothario, Beck his obese lover. Together they sought out victims by reading newspaper personal ads, and when Fernandez had won the trust of those they contacted, they robbed them. The couple murdered two of their victims and the 2-year-old daughter of one as well. Fernandez and Beck were electrocuted at Sing Sing in 1951.

At the request of Mr. Steibel, who died in 2002, Mr. Kastle sifted through the trial records at the Bronx County Courthouse. Then, after studying scripts by Fellini, Pasolini and Truffaut, he wrote a screenplay.

Both men envisioned the film as a cinematic rebuttal to “Bonnie and Clyde.” “I was revolted by that movie,” Mr. Kastle said in an interview for the 2003 Criterion Collection reissue of his film on DVD. “I didn’t want to show beautiful shots of beautiful people.”

For his director, Mr. Steibel hired Martin Scorsese, whose first film, “Who’s That Knocking at My Door?,” he had seen recently. But as filming began near the summer home that Mr. Steibel and Mr. Kastle shared in New Lebanon, N.Y., trouble loomed.

It quickly became apparent that Mr. Scorsese’s deliberate, painstaking approach would break the budget and play havoc with the shooting. Mr. Kastle said that after Mr. Scorsese and Oliver Wood, the cinematographer, spent an entire afternoon filming a beer can in a bush, it was clear they would need another director.

When Mr. Scorsese’s replacement, an industrial filmmaker named Donald Volkman, also proved unsatisfactory, Mr. Kastle stepped into the breach. Against the odds, he turned out a quirky masterpiece.

“The Honeymoon Killers,” with Tony Lo Bianco and Shirley Stoler in the lead roles, stunned moviegoers and critics. Brutal, unblinking and ruthlessly honest, with a powerful undercurrent of black comedy, it quickly earned an exalted place in American cinema.

Dana Wynter, who ran from the pod people in the 1956 science-fiction classic “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” died on Thursday in Ojai, Calif. She was 79.

The cause was congestive heart failure, her son, Mark Bautzer, told The Los Angeles Times.

Ms. Wynter was seen frequently on television in the 1950s and ’60s and had roles in movies including “Airport” and “The List of Adrian Messenger.” But she was best known for her role opposite Kevin McCarthy in “Body Snatchers,” Don Siegel’s film about residents of a small California town who are replaced by emotionless duplicates grown from plantlike pods.

A low-budget movie released with little fanfare by Allied Artists, “Body Snatchers” developed a cult following for its paranoid atmosphere and its thinly veiled social commentary. It has since been remade several times.

...people have been doing adaptations, reboots and remakes since the first stories were told. What you may not have realized, however, is that some of the great landmark motion pictures were...remakes

Click here for numbers 6 through 4, and here for numbers 3 through 1.

Arthur Marx, who wrote screenplays for film and television and a best-selling book about his father, "Life With Groucho," died on Thursday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 89.

His death was confirmed by his son Steve.

As a child Mr. Marx spent several years on the road with Groucho Marx and the rest of the Marx Brothers' vaudeville act — Chico, Harpo, Gummo and later Zeppo — before enjoying a celebrity-filled youth in Los Angeles as the brothers rose to stardom.

His own show-business career was varied and long, writing Hollywood screenplays and scripts for some of television's most popular sitcoms.

But his father's life and career provided Mr. Marx with perhaps his richest source of material. "Life With Groucho," published in 1954, captivated readers with its sharp but affectionate portrait of Groucho — who peppered the narrative with kibitzing footnotes — and its shrewd account of the show-business milieu in which he thrived. A sequel, "Son of Groucho," was published in 1972.

Mr. Marx and Robert Fisher, a former writer for Groucho, also wrote the book for a 1970 Broadway musical about the Marx Brothers, "Minnie's Boys," with Shelley Winters in the lead role of Minnie Marx, and "Groucho: A Life in Revue," which was produced Off Broadway in 1986.

Taken together, Arthur Marx's two books about his father offered a bittersweet picture of life in the Marx home. He described himself as desperate both to escape from his father's shadow and to please him, an impossible task. The comic genius who kept millions in stitches was, in his private life, miserly and emotionally distant.

For this Saturday Matinee article, I decided to write about the movie going experience rather than focus on one particular film. What started me thinking about this was remembering movies I had seen as a child and young teen. I grew up in Huntington, WV at a time (late 50s and early 60s) when children were not ferried around from one extracurricular activity to another. For the most part, we were left alone to amuse ourselves. Sometimes that meant running around in the woods near our house. Sometimes it meant riding bikes or playing board games or shooting marbles. Sometimes simply sitting quietly and reading a book. But on a fairly regular basis, our parents would pack us into the car and drop us off at the Keith-Albee Theater downtown for a Saturday matinee. It was the Keith-Albee that defined the movie going experience for me as a child.

The Keith-Albee Theater in Huntington opened its doors in 1928. From Wikipedia:

At the time it was built the Keith-Albee Theatre was the second biggest theater in the United States, after the Roxy Theater in New York City. Seating approximately 3,000 patrons, it exemplified the opulence and grandeur of the 1920’s with a Mexican Baroque design style. Intricate plasterwork, chandeliers, and balconies create an atmosphere of sophistication, along with cosmetic rooms, smoking rooms, and fireplaces for men and women in the restrooms adjoining the main lobby. The Keith-Albee Theatre, which cost $2 million to construct in 1928, was dubbed a “temple of amusement” by Huntington’s Herald-Dispatch newspaper. The opening day performance on May 8, 1928 featured performer Rae Samuels, nicknamed the “Blue Streak of Vaudeville” for her versatile acting ability. The theatre survived a major flood in 1937.

The Keith-Albee Theatre was equipped with a Wurlitzer organ to accompany live performances and motion pictures. The organ was capable of creating almost any sound effect needed for silent films shown in the theater. This original organ was removed and sold in the 1950’s after live music had lost some of its appeal.

During my childhood, the theater still retained much of its original grandeur. This was the place where the Junior Women’s Club put on their annual shows, where I once watched my mother dance across the stage in some horrible hula number while munching on homemade fudge sold from the aisles by the non-performers. This was the place where I went to see movies. I’ll be honest. I don’t remember every single movie that I saw there. But a few do stand out:

1. A Hard Day’s Night – I was in the fourth grade when Meet the Beatles was released. Like many young girls, I had an ongoing love affair with The Beatles (George) that lasted into my teen years. We would rush to the record store downtown whenever a new album was released. (Yes, there was a record store. No coffee. No books. Just records. Rows of little 45s in their individual sleeves. Rows of colorful albums with heartthrobs prominently featured on the covers.) We thronged to the Keith-Albee to see A Hard Day’s Night when it was released in 1964. I was 10. And there we were, a hoard of young girls ensconced in the plush velvet seats, surrounded by lavish chandeliers and gilt, screaming at the top of our lungs while The Beatles cavorted across the screen in a movie so light on plot as to be positively airy. It was a heavenly experience then and one that still brings a smile to my face today.

2. The Happiest Millionaire – Okay, not exactly a classic film, not even one of Disney’s best. But in 1967 I was 13, still young enough to find Fred MacMurray comforting and definitely young enough to have a full blown crush on Tommy Steele. I adored that movie. Looking back, I’m not entirely sure why. The clearest memory I retain is of someone dancing across the screen with an alligator on a leash. But I adored it. What comes back to me most strongly is the feeling of sheer bliss as I sat in the familiar comfort of the Keith-Albee and gave myself over to a fantasy. I was able to simply be a child.

3. The Graduate – Like The Happiest Millionaire, The Graduate was released in 1967. It is probably indicative of the schizoid nature of 13-year-olds that seeing this movie also stands out as one of my most vivid movie going experiences at the Keith-Albee. What comes to mind when I think about this movie is, well, sneakiness. I went with a girlfriend. (I’m not too sure now whether it was Muffy or Jan or Kathy or possibly Martha.) We were not old enough to see the movie but decided to try and get in anyway. So we straightened ourselves up, pasted “mature” looks on our faces and nonchalantly handed our money over at the ticket booth. To our surprise, we were in! I actually remember this movie pretty well though it’s likely that some of the plot details come to me from subsequent viewings over the years. I do remember sitting in the balcony of the Keith-Albee. I do remember the final scenes of the movie with some degree of clarity; can picture them on the theater’s screen. And I do remember wondering a) what all the fuss was about and b) what it was about the movie that I didn’t quite understand. Thirteen can be kind of a horrible age.

So the Keith-Albee was with me through childhood and into puberty, until my family packed up and moved to Chicago. It was a constant in my young life. When I think about the experience of going out to see a movie, there is a part of me that yearns for the opulence and familiarity of that particular theater. Oh, I know how movie theaters have improved over the years. We have surround sound. We have more ergonomically designed seats. We have TECHNOLOGY. But no matter how high tech and impressive today’s theaters may be, I don’t believe I will ever find one that provides me with the same amount of emotional satisfaction as the Keith-Albee Theater did when I was young.

Some links for further information on and some great interior photos of the Keith-Albee:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith-Albee_Theatre

http://www.pawv.org/endgrd05/keithalbee.htm

Some information on the three movies mentioned in this article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Hard_Day%27s_Night_(film)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Happiest_Millionaire

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Graduate

Legendary television and film director Sidney Lumet is dead. Lumet, who was 86, died of lymphoma at his home in New York, a city he used as a backdrop in countless films. A former actor, who started directing live television drama in the 1950s, he directed his first feature film, 12 Angry Men, in 1957, and released his last , Before the Devil Knows You're Dead , in 2007. In the intervening 50 years he directed over 40 movies, which racked up 14 Academy Award nominations, including four for Best Director: 12 Angry Men, Dog Day Afternoon (1975), Network (1976) and The Verdict (1982). Although he never won the directing award, Dog Day Afternoon did receive a Best Picture Oscar, and in 2005 he received an Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement for "brilliant services to screenwriters, performers, and the art of the motion picture."

Lumet was once asked why he made movies. His response was a simple, “I do it because I like it and it’s a wonderful way to spend your life.”

He was a fortunate man to be able have such a long and successful career dedicated to something he apparently enjoyed so much -- and we in the audience were very fortunate, too.

Here are the films of Sidney Lumet:

1957 12 Angry Men, with Henry Fonda, Lee J. Cobb
1958 Stage Struck, with Henry Fonda, Susan Strasberg
1959 That Kind of Woman, with Sophia Loren, Tab Hunter
1959 The Fugitive Kind, with Marlon Brando, Joanne Woodward, Anna Magnani
1961 A View from the Bridge, with Raf Vallone, Jean Sorel
1962 Long Day's Journey Into Night, with Katharine Hepburn, Ralph Richardson, Jason Robards
1964 The Pawnbroker, with Rod Steiger, Geraldine Fitzgerald
1964 Fail-Safe, with Henry Fonda, Dan O'Herlihy, Walter Matthau
1965 The Hill, with Sean Connery, Harry Andrews
1966 The Group, with Candice Bergen, Joan Hackett
1967 The Deadly Affair, James Mason, Harry Andrews
1968 Bye Bye Braverman, George Segal, Jack Warden
1968 The Sea Gull, with Vanessa Redgrave, Simone Signoret
1969 The Appointment, with Omar Sharif, Anouk Aimée
1970 King: A Filmed Record...Montgomery to Memphis, narrated by Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward
1970 Last of the Mobile Hot Shots, with Lynn Redgrave, James Coburn
1971 The Anderson Tapes, with Sean Connery, Dyan Cannon, Martin Balsam
1972 Child's Play, with James Mason, Robert Preston
1972 The Offence, with Sean Connery, Ian Bannen, Trevor Howard
1973 Serpico, with Al Pacino
1974 Lovin' Molly, with Anthony Perkins, Beau Bridges
1974 Murder on the Orient Express, with Albert Finney, Lauren Bacall, Sean Connery, Ingrid Bergman
1975 Dog Day Afternoon, with Al Pacino, John Cazale
1976 Network , with Peter Finch, Faye Dunaway, William Holden, Robert Duvall, Ned Beatty
1977 Equus, with Richard Burton
1978 The Wiz, with Diana Ross, Michael Jackson
1980 Just Tell Me What You Want, with Alan King, Ali MacGraw
1981 Prince of the City, with Treat Williams, Jerry Orbach
1982 Deathtrap, with Michael Caine, Christopher Reeve, Dyan Cannon
1982 The Verdict, with Paul Newman, Jack Warden
1983 Daniel, with Timothy Hutton, Mandy Patinkin
1984 Garbo Talks, with Anne Bancroft, Ron Silver
1986 Power, with Richard Gere, Julie Christie, Gene Hackman
1986 The Morning After, with Jane Fonda, Jeff Bridges
1988 Running on Empty, with River Phoenix, Judd Hirsch
1989 Family Business, with Sean Connery, Dustin Hoffman
1990 Q & A, with Timothy Hutton, Nick Nolte, Armand Assante
1992 A Stranger Among Us, with Melanie Griffith, John Pankow
1993 Guilty as Sin, with Don Johnson, Rebecca De Mornay
1997 Night Falls on Manhattan, with Andy García, Ian Holm, Lena Olin, Richard Dreyfuss
1997 Critical Care, with James Spader, Kyra Sedgwick
1999 Gloria, with Sharon Stone, George C. Scott
2004 Strip Search, with Glenn Close, Maggie Gyllenhaal
2006 Find Me Guilty, with Vin Diesel, Alex Rocco
2007 Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, with Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ethan Hawke, Albert Finney

Do you have a favorite Sidney Lumet film?

Tura Satana, an actress whose authoritative presence, exotic looks and buxom frame commanded the attention of viewers of Russ Meyer's 1965 cult movie "Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!," died on Friday in Reno, Nev.

The cause was believed to be heart failure, her longtime manager, Siouxzan Perry, said. She said Ms. Satana was 72, though other sources listed her birth date as July 10, 1935, which would have made her 75.

Born Tura Luna Pascual Yamaguchi on the Japanese island of Hokkaido to a father of Japanese and Filipino descent and a mother who was Cheyenne Indian and Scots-Irish, Ms. Satana spent part of her childhood in the World War II Manzanar internment camp for Japanese-Americans in California before her family settled in Chicago.

Her Asian background and appearance and the fact that her physique developed early led to frequent harassment and assaults, and she lived an itinerant life, working as an exotic dancer and nude model.

After playing a supporting part in the 1963 Billy Wilder comedy "Irma la Douce," Ms. Satana found her breakthrough role in "Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!," a Meyer exploitation film that, in stark opposition to the director's later works, featured no nudity. In the film she played Varla, the leader of a gang of go-go dancers who kidnap a couple, murder the boy and force the girl to follow them on further lawless adventures.

Ms. Satana's portrayal of Varla as a brazenly violent but unapologetically feminine woman who frequently upbraids the men who dare to ogle her — when a gas-station attendant tells her he believes in "seeing America first," Varla replies, "You won't find it down there, Columbus!" — earned her a cult following that endured long after the drive-in era.

Modern-day psycho-horror legend Anthony Hopkins is in negotiations to play the original master, Alfred Hitchcock, in a new non-fiction movie about the director's life and film career. The Hollywood Reporter relays that Hopkins is talking to production company Montecito to star in a big-screen adaptation of Stephen Rebello's 1998 book, 'Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho.'

The book focuses on the story of Hitchcock's decision to make the now-famous horror movie and the struggle he had to finance and get support for the film. The script, which was written by 'Black Swan' scribe John Laughlin and which Sacha Gervasi is in talks to direct, may concentrate more on his relationship with his wife, Alma Reville.

Eastwood's film will be the fourth version of the story, which first made it to the screen in 1937.

Beyonce is in talks to play Esther Blodgett, the small-town girl who arrives in Hollywood dreaming of fame. She meets and falls in love with Norman Maine, an alcoholic former matinee idol who guides her to stardom but finds his own career on the wane.

The role of Maine is yet to be cast but Robert Downey Jr and Russell Crowe have each been linked to the role.

Last year, the legendary singer sent out a press release to The Associated Press stating she wanted Oscar-winning superstar Halle Berry to tackle the lead role in an upcoming biopic about the powerhouse songstress. During a recent phone interview on "The Wendy Williams Show," Franklin said Berry is set to star in the project.

"Halle Berry is my pick," Franklin said to a swell of cheers from the daytime-TV audience. The soul veteran said Berry has been tapped to play an adult version of Franklin but added..."There's a young Aretha that has yet to be named."

[...]

In September, Franklin said that, in addition to Berry, she wanted Academy Award-winning actor Denzel Washington and Oscar nominee Terrence Howard to appear in the film. The "Respect" diva had apparently already been in touch with the stars, saying that the trio were "enthusiastic about the project and have agreed to take on these roles, subject to further negotiation." The script will be based on her 1999 autobiography "Aretha: From These Roots."

It's hard to believe, but, as he enters his ninth decade, Eastwood is as focused, ambitious and driven as he was when he directed his first film at the age of 41. He has been racking up lifetime achievement awards since the Nineties, before he had even embarked on this late stage of his career – one that many consider to be his most creative and productive.

He is in New York to attend the premiere and party for his latest film, Hereafter, a drama written by the British screenwriter Peter Morgan and starring Matt Damon, who was also in his last movie, Invictus.

In his most recent films – Mystic River, Flags of Our Fathers, Gran Torino, Invictus – Eastwood has been pushing audiences to think about difficult and sometimes uncomfortable themes. This time he is posing the question of what happens after death: Hereafter is a drama that explores three characters' search for answers about their own lives in the face of what lies beyond.

In San Francisco, a reluctant psychic (Damon) tries to break free from the bereaved people seeking help in contacting loved ones; in Indonesia, a journalist (Cecile de France) has a near-death experience in a tsunami; while, in London, a twin loses the brother who has always guided him.

Eastwood, who filmed in Paris, London, Hawaii and San Francisco, says: "We don't know what's on the other side. People have their beliefs about what's there or what's not there, but nobody knows until you get there."

It is not something he thinks or worries about. "Whatever's out there is out there," he says with a shrug as we talk in a hotel suite a couple of hours before the premiere. "I don't think much about the hereafter because I feel you're given one opportunity to live in this world, and you have to do the best you can with the life you've got."

[...]

He is already at work on his next movie, an as-yet-untitled film about the life of J Edgar Hoover, the founder of the FBI, who will be played by Leonardo DiCaprio.

"Talk about a blockbuster! Alex Eylar is putting his own bricks on the Hollywood walk of fame by building iconic scenes from hit movies out of Legos. Eylar's collection of 30,000 Lego pieces, combined with smoke and lighting effects, helps him recreate memorable movie scenes.

Nice selection of clips (dance) from Bollywood flics,

Video proof!

In honor of the new Harry Potter movie, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1, The Daily Beast has calculated the 30 the highest-grossing films based on books, with only one Harry Potter movie making the list -- Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone coming in at number 30. Here are the top 15:

1, Gone With the Wind

Based on: Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
Director: Victor Fleming
Released: 1939
Original box office gross: $198,676,459
Box office gross adjusted for inflation: $1,606,254,800

2, The Sound of Music

Based on: The Story of the Trapp Family Singers by Maria Augusta von Trapp
Director: Robert Wise
Released: 1965
Original box office gross: $158,671,368
Box office gross adjusted for inflation: $1,132,202,200

3, The Ten Commandments

Based on: The Hebrew Bible
Director: Cecil B. DeMille
Released: 1956
Original box office gross: $65,500,000
Box office gross adjusted for inflation: $1,041,450,000

4, Jaws

Based on: Jaws by Peter Benchley
Director: Steven Spielberg
Released: 1975
Original box office gross: $260,000,000
Box office gross adjusted for inflation: $1,018,226,600

5, Doctor Zhivago

Based on: Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
Director: David Lean
Released: 1965
Original box office gross: $111,721,910
Box office gross adjusted for inflation: $986,876,900

6, The Exorcist

Based on: The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty
Director: William Friedkin
Released: 1973
Original box office gross: $232,671,011
Box office gross adjusted for inflation: $879,020,900

7, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

Based on: Snow White by the Brothers Grimm
Director: David Hand, William Cottrell, Wilfred Jackson, Larry Morey, Perce Pearce, Ben Sharpsteen
Released: 1937
Original box office gross: $184,925,486
Box office gross adjusted for inflation: $866,550,000

8, The 101 Dalmatians

Based on: The Hundred and One Dalmatians by Dodie Smith
Director: Clyde Geronimi, Hamilton Luske, Wolfgang Reitherman
Released: 1961
Original box office gross: $144,880,014
Box office gross adjusted for inflation: $794,342,100

9, Ben-Hur

Based on: Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ by Lew Wallace
Director: William Wyler
Released: 1959
Original box office gross: $74,000,000
Box office gross adjusted for inflation: $779,100,000

10, Jurassic Park

Based on: Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton
Director: Steven Spielberg
Released: 1993
Original box office gross: $357,067,947
Box office gross adjusted for inflation: $685,336,400

11, The Graduate

Based on: The Graduate by Charles Webb
Director: Mike Nichols
Released: 1967
Original box office gross: $104,901,839
Box office gross adjusted for inflation: $680,292,600

12, The Godfather

Based on: The Godfather by Mario Puzo
Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Released: 1972
Original box office gross: $134,966,411
Box office gross adjusted for inflation: $627,434,400

13, Forrest Gump

Based on: Forrest Gump by Winston Groom
Director: Robert Zemeckis
Released: 1994
Original box office gross: $329,694,499
Box office gross adjusted for inflation: $624,437,600

14, Mary Poppins

Based on: Mary Poppins by P.L. Travers with illustrations by Mary Shepard
Director: Robert Stevenson
Released: 1964
Original box office gross: $102,272,727
Box office gross adjusted for inflation: $621,545,500

15, Thunderball

Based on: Thunderball by Ian Fleming
Director: Terence Young
Released: 1965
Original box office gross: $63,595,658
Box office gross adjusted for inflation: $594,660,000

The entire list of 30 movies is available here. Is your favorite among them or do you have another (or others) you like better?

Note: I made a few adjustments for the poll, so that it would include the Harry Potter film and the two Lord of the Rings movies (The Two Towers and The Return of the King) that are on the Daily Beast's list.

Thanksgiving, arguably America's most popular holiday, is not as popular as the 4th of July, Halloween or Christmas when it comes to cinema themes or settings. In addition, it seems most Thanksgiving-related movies have been made relatively recently, with not very many made in the first half of the 20th century. However, there have been some memorable films that have something to do with the holiday or its history, including the following. (Click on a movie title to view a video clip, or to see more information on the film.)

Captain John Smith and Pocahontas 1953 - directed by Lew Landers, starring Anthony Dexter, Jody Lawrance, Alan Hale Jr.

Hannah and Her Sisters 1986 - directed by Woody Allen, starring Woody Allen, Mia Farrow as Hannah, Michael Caine as her husband, and Barbara Hershey and Dianne Wiest.

Home for the Holidays 1995 - directed by Jodie Foster, starring Holly Hunter, Robert Downey Jr., Anne Bancroft, Charles Durning, Dylan McDermott, Geraldine Chaplin, Steve Guttenberg, Cynthia Stevenson with Claire Danes, Austin Pendleton and David Strathairn.

The House of Yes 1997 - directed by Mark Waters, starring Parker Posey, Josh Hamilton, Geneviève Bujold, Freddie Prinze, Jr. and Tori Spelling.

The Ice Storm 1997 - directed by Ang Lee, starring Kevin Kline, Joan Allen, Tobey Maguire, Christina Ricci, Elijah Wood, and Sigourney Weaver.

The Myth of Fingerprints 1997 - directed by Bart Freundlich, starring Julianne Moore, Roy Scheider and Blythe Danner.

National Lampoon's Holiday Reunion 2003 - directed by Neal Israel, starring Judge Reinhold, Bryan Cranston and Penelope Ann Miller.

The New World 2006 - directed by Terrence Malick, starring Colin Farrell, Q'Orianka Kilcher, Christopher Plummer, and Christian Bale.

An Old Fashioned Thanksgiving 2008 - directed by Graeme Campbell, starring Jacqueline Bisset and Helene Joy

One Special Night 1999 - directed by Roger Young, starring James Garner and Julie Andrews.

Pieces of April 2003 - directed by Peter Hedges, starring Katie Holmes, Derek Luke, Sean Hayes, Alison Pill, Oliver Platt, and Patricia Clarkson

Planes, Trains, & Automobiles 1987 -directed by John Hughes, starring John candy and Steve Martin.

Plymouth Adventure 1952 - directed by Clarence Brown, starring Spencer Tracy, Gene Tierney, Van Johnson, Leo Genn with Barry Jones, Dawn Addams, Lloyd Bridges and John Dehner.

Pocahontas 1995 - Walt Disney animated film, directed by Mike Gabriel and Eric Goldberg, with the voices of Christian Bale, Irene Bedard, Judy Kuhn, Linda Hunt, Billy Connolly, and Gordon Tootoosis. *

Pocahontas: The Legend 1995 - directed by Danièle J. Suissa, starring Sandrine Holt, and Gordon Tootoosis. *

Squanto: A Warrior's Tale 1994 - directed by Xavier Koller and starring Adam Beach.

What's Cooking? 2000 - directed by Gurinder Chadha, starring Mercedes Ruehl, Kyra Sedgwick, Joan Chen, Lainie Kazan, Maury Chaykin, Julianna Margulies, Alfre Woodard, and Dennis Haysbert.

Are one of these your favorite, or do you have another Thanksgiving related movie to add to the list?

* Trivia: Gordon Tootoosis was in both of the 1995 Pocahontas movies

"Before there was Sylvester Stallone, Jackie Chan, whichever incarnation of James Bond that floats your boat, or Chuck Norris, there was John Wayne, the original action hero.

"There's been almost no real movement on the eagerly anticipated, long-gestating Ghostbusters 3 for months. Because of that there's been no reason to believe the movie
, despite the best intentions of people like Ivan Reitman
and Dan Akyroyd, will ever happen at all let alone any time soon. Except now, out of nowhere, not only does the oft reliable Production Weekly believe it's happening, they believe Sony
has actually set a start date for filming.

Still photos from "Casablanca"

Quotes from the movie.

Yep you heard it here first. Do you remember how horror movies scared the crap out of you in your youth? I sure do and the Universal films of the 1930s scared the poop out of me back then and they still do actually. The last movie made that was truly scarey, in my opinion, was The Haunting (1963) but everyting since have been yawners, no offense to the Halloween and Freddy movies. They just don't cut it as far as scaring me. I like gore and a monster jumping out unexpectly as much as the next person but most of the horror movies of the last 50 years seem so vanilla I can hardly stand it and I have seen them all. Gore and special effects are cool in there own right but they they do not always translate into scarey.

Am I farting into the wind like always or is there some way I can convince Hollywood to make truly scarey movies like they once did?

The buzz is that Australian director Baz Luhrmann, of 'Moulin Rouge' would like to make a new film adaptation of the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel, 'The Great Gatsby.' The book has inspired four previous movies:

* The Great Gatsby (1926 film), silent movie starring Warner Baxter, Lois Wilson and Neil Hamilton
* The Great Gatsby (1949 film), starring Alan Ladd, Betty Field and Macdonald Carey
* The Great Gatsby (1974 film), starring Robert Redford, Mia Farrow and Sam Waterston (Video clip)
* The Great Gatsby (2000 film), made-for-TV movie starring Toby Stephens, Mira Sorvino and Paul Rudd (Video clip)

In this new version it is reported that likely leads are Leonardo DiCaprio as Jay Gatsby, Tobey Maguire as Nick Carraway (although some people may think he would make a better Gatsby), and Amanda Seyfried as Daisy Buchanan.

Would you like to see a new film adaptation of this classic book? If so, who do you think would make a great Great Gatsby? And who could do service to Daisy? What about Nick and the other roles?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

UPDATE, February 20, 201: Baz Luhrmann to film 3D Great Gatsby with Leonardo DiCaprio in Sydney, Australia.

In a coup for the Australian film industry and the Keneally government, Luhrmann has brushed New York - where the classic tale is set - and will instead shoot a 3D version in NSW.

Luhrmann has already secured Leonardo DiCaprio to play Jay Gatsby in the F. Scott Fitzgerald story, one of the film industry's most anticipated projects.

DiCaprio, who commands $20 million a movie, will reprise the role made famous by Robert Redford in 1974, with 25-year-old British actress Carey Mulligan as Daisy Buchanan, played by Mia Farrow in the original.

Tobey Maguire is tipped to play young bachelor Nick Carraway, rounding out an all-star cast.

The Warner Bros-backed film will be produced at Sydney's Fox Studios and will be the first live-action 3D movie shot in NSW.

Filming will begin in August and last 17 weeks before 30 weeks of post-production.

Luhrmann and his wife Catherine Martin will re-create famous New York and Long Island landmarks from the 1920s.

We in the West usually take movies for granted and accord them little more significance than mere entertainment. But our Islamic enemies, like the Communists and Nazis before them, fully recognize the cultural power of cinema and work hard to control it. Movies, especially of the Western variety, are often banned as un-Islamic in sharia-controlled areas, especially ones that flaunt sexual immodesty (Sex and the City), homosexuality (even the merely metrosexual Zoolander), or the depiction of drug use.

That doesn't mean that such movies don't circulate underground; in very Westernized Iran, for example, the mullahs do their best to keep a lid on the populace's preference for American cultural decadence, but pirated DVDs are eagerly consumed by viewers privately.

What follows is a mostly chronological list of ten movies that for various reasons particularly offended Islamic values or regimes in the Middle East, especially Iran, which takes any opportunity to spew blustery propaganda about our warmongering, cultural aggression. With the exception of the Oscar-nominated French-Iranian film Persepolis, which I chose because Iran rated it as "more dangerous" than 300, I limited my selections to well-known Hollywood feature films, although Iran's Ahmadinejad banned all foreign films in late 2005 and even many from Iranian filmmakers.

"Somewhere over the rainbow
Way up high,
There's a land that I heard of
Once in a lullaby.

Somewhere over the rainbow
Skies are blue,
And the dreams that you dare to dream
Really do come true.

I know I must be duplicating a few hundred previous articles with the same title or subject so please excuse me but when I hear a new movie killer line I just have to write about it. I was just watching The Last Waltz (1978) and I heard something I hadn't noticed before when viewing this movie. This is Robbie Robertson applying for a job with Ronnie Hawkins: "He called me up, and I said, "Sure I'd like a job. What does it mean? What do I do?" And he said, "Well, son, you won't make much money, but you'll get more pussy than Frank Sinatra."

ROFL!!!!! That was a real classic as far as I am concerned. I hope I have not offended any of the more sensitive Newsvine users but I didn't invent that line I just quoted it and have been laughing for 24 hours since I heard it. The entire history of mankind went through my mind when I heard it and I thought "Well heck why work for money when you can get something better?"

I dare anyone to top that one!

Kevin McCarthy, the suave, square-jawed actor who earned accolades in stage and screen productions of "Death of a Salesman" but will always be best known as the star of the 1956 science fiction movie "Invasion of the Body Snatchers," died Saturday at Cape Cod Hospital in Hyannis, Mass. He was 96 and lived in Sherman Oaks, Calif.

Heist movies; caper cinema; films with intricate plots woven around attempts to steal something: money, jewelry, art objects, antiques, gold, secret plans...anything! Some of my favorites are:

(Click on the title to view a video clip of the movie's trailer.)

To Catch a Thief - 1955: Oscar award winning movie directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Cary Grant, Grace Kelly. Need I say more?

The Pink Panther - 1964: The film that spawned a classic series. Dashing David Niven as the thief, and a perfect Peter Sellers as the immortal Inspector Clousseau.

Topkapi - 1964: Peter Ustinov gets involved in a caper to steal a jewel encrusted dagger from an Istanbul museum.

The Thomas Crown Affair - 1968: directed by Norman Jewison. Steve McQueen tries to stay ahead of the sexy insurance investigator Faye Dunaway. (Great theme song, too: The Windmills of Your Mind.)

The Great Train Robbery - 1979: Written and directed by Michael Crichton, Sean Connery, Donald Sutherland and Lesley-Anne Down star in this film based on based on the Great Gold Robbery of 1855.

A Fish Called Wanda - 1988: Another comedy caper, this one involving the theft of $20 million in diamonds and the subsequent fight among the theives over the loot. Starring John Cleese, Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Kline and Michale Palin.

Jackie Brown - 1997: Pam Grier. 'Nuff said.

Ronin - 1998: Directed by John Frankenheimer, starring Robert De Niro and Jean Reno as two former intelligence agents tracking down a mysterious MacGuffin through the streets of Paris.

The Thomas Crown Affair - 1999: Pierce Brosnan and Rene Russo star in a remake of the 1968 film. Faye Dunaway has a cameo.

Snatch - 2000: Guy Ritchie directed Jason Statham, Benicio Del Toro, and Brad Pitt in this comic crime thriller. The movies tag line said it all: "Stealin' Stones and Breakin' Bones."

Sexy Beast - 2000: Excellent performances by Ray Winstone and Ben Kingsley.

Flawless - 2007: What can I say? Michael Caine and Demi Moore were flawless in this diamond heist tale set in 1960s London.

I know there are many more good heist movies. Do you have a favorite?

Many television makers have already jumped in to produce 3D TVs but will it take? Do people want to wear red and green glasses to see stuff jump out of the screeen at them or is this just another botched attempt to sell a technology that very few people want?

Back when I was a kid, 50 years ago, they had 3D movies and they didn't seem to catch on back then so is there a difference now a days?

I saw this movie when it first came out, was suitably impressed especially by the violence, and had forgotten about it until my cable company was offering it for free so I watched it again. So I watched it again with a more mature persceptive and have a few comments to make.

It is a Sam Peckinpah movie so artistic violence is expected but I was impressed by the sheer amount of casual violence in this movie. It seems that whenever Billy or Pat came to town all of the well known character actors were gunned down along with the stand ins. I can't remember when I saw so many second tier actors slaughtered to make a movie but I admit I liked it. The only guy who wasn't killed was Ben Johnson mainly because he wasn't in the movie.

In real life Billy the Kid died when we was 21 years old but here we have a 36 year old Kris Kristofferson playing the role, and it bugged me at first, but he played the role so good I soon forgot about him not looking like a kid. He did good.

Now we come to Bob Dylan who wrote the score for the movie. I rate it as one of better movie scores of all time and Bob's acting was kind of humerous but why in the heck did Pat Garrett make him read all of the labels on the cans? I loved that scene but have no idea why they did it.

This may not be a Wild Bunch but all and any comments about this movie will be appreciated.

Well not exactly non-stop back to back as it took me 2 days to accomplish the feat but I have a few comments if anyone cares to listen. It may be hard to believe but I was alive and functioning back when those two concerts happened and I admit that I did not attend either one like the 15 million people who claim to have attended Woodstock but I did make tie dyed shirts in my bathtub. That is kind of like the 10 million men who claim to have been Navy Seals but that is another story for another time.

I love both movies. Monterey Pop is, in my opinion, the movie that started it all and is the prototype of Woodstock and all concert movies that followed. I would even call Woodstock a remake of Monterey Pop with some different performers but there are major difference in the two films. Monterey Pop is raw, unrefined and all about the music while Woodstock is also about the music but is a much more refined movie with it's fancy refined filming techniques. What made the difference for me is that Country Joe McDonald did not sing in Monterey Pop while he did sing in Woodstock. Country Joe has one of the greatest folk rock voices in the histroy of music in my opinion.

Which movie do you prefer if you are old enought to watch them? This article is only about these two films but if you mention another concert film I most likely won't delete your comment as long as you discuss these two films.

I have to laugh at myself for even asking such a ridiculous question but someone had to ask it. As far as modern torture movies go like the Hostels and the Saw series go they have good realistic torture scenes but they tend to dim the mind with repetition. The shock value goes away in like 5 minutes and what is left is 90 minutes of boring finger cutting off and tearing out of internal organs. I mean a person could go to medical school to see that stuff. I find it pretty humdrum in a movie when the entire movie consists of torture.

One movie that stands out in my mind that has excellent, but brief, torture scenes are The Naked Prey (1966) where they coat a guy in clay and then slowly cook him over a fire with straws placed in his nose so he can breath. Horrifying.

"The French resist the Nazis with an emotional rendition of La Marseillaise."

ORIGINAL LINK NOT WORKING-- USE THIS ONE INSTEAD.

First of all I am not about to watch a free movie that someone has pirated and is offering free viewing of on the net. The sites I have looked at ask you to download some viewer of their chosing which I think is only a scam of some sort so I will not do it. Again I am not not looking to deprive some entertainment company of millions of dollars by me watching their movies for free but I am curious about these sites that offer first run movies at now cost. Are they for real?

I don't even know how legal this is but I occasionly watch a movie for free on YouTube and Hulu and don't expect to be hauled away in chains but you never can tell. If there is a recent must see movie I usually pay to watch it on Amazon or my cable channel. Am I missing some great free legal source of movies on the net?

I have nothing interesting to write about tonight so I would appreciate someone stepping up to the plate and writing a fascinating article about the movies. Come on anything is welcome even if you write about your home movies with uncle Don and aunt Jenny as the stars.

You know, a movie that perks you up when you are feeling listless, down and out and otherwise feel like a piece of pig poop? Kind of like comfort food. I indeed have one and I watch The Wolfman (the original with Lon Chaney Jr) whever I feel like life is hardly worth living and I want to end it all. I have no idea why that particular movie lifts my spirits but it always does. Lon Chaney Jr should have won 37 Oscars for that movie so maybe it is his amazing performance or maybe some deep dark psychological problem that I suffer from. I just saw my physician the other day and need a pick me up after hearing all of the bad news so I am going to watch it tonight!

I would like to say I watch The Sound of Music or The Brady Girls Get Married, or some other inspirational movie like Airplane, to lift my spirits but I cannot tell a lie. If you have a comfort movie now is your chance to confess.

This is more of a joke article, if you want to call a one line article an article, but any half ass or even full ass responses will be appreciated.

The difference between a regular actor and the character version seems to be blurred a bit but I suppose we all know the difference between Roy Rogers and Gabby Hays or Daniel Day Lewis and that guy who played his assistant. You know that guy, whatshisname, and all of those other sideriders. Sometimes the second rater wins all of the Oscars like Walter Brennen who won three supporting actor awards while the main stars won nothing. Amazing.

I think my all time favorite character actor is Harry Dean Stanton. I have never seen a movie with him it that wasn't enjoyable and it was because he was in it. He even made Where the Lillies Bloom into a first class movie though that movie was first class for many reasons. Paris Texas is another example. And how about Ben Johnson? By god there isn't a movie made where he didn't make it better.

All nominations are accepted.

It is Saturday night and I am bored and the NASCAR race has about ended so how about an article about two of the greatest actors who have ever lived? For those of you youngsters who have seen either of them I encourage you to go to Amazon or somewhere and watch some of their movies. For you people of normal age, like me, which one was the best?

I really can't say because they were both so exceptional that it would take pages to list all of the movies they starred in. I can't even list their best movies because it would still be many pages long. If I was forced to choose their best movies I would say James Stewart in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and Henry Fonda in The Grapes of Wrath though Fonda's performance in Once Upon a Time in the Old West is an amazing achievement.

So which was was the best? I dunno. Why don't you tell me.

Sorry but this is only about the Star Trek theatrical releases and not about the TV shows like Captain Pickard vs the Borgs as much as I liked that one. How do you rank your Star Trek movies? What is your favorite and your least favorite?

Without a doubt my favorite is still the original one, Star Trek: The Motion Picture. After waiting for years for it I went to the closest movie theater in Grand Forks, Bristish Columbia, and watched it with hundreds of screaming children and it far exceeded my expectations I must say. The original crew brought back on the big screen was something to behold and I still consider it the best of the lot. Number two would have to be Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. Great acting all around and the humor was great. My number three is Star Trek: First Contact. There is something very appealing about this movie and I think it has to do with the chemistry between the actors and a great story to boot.

I love all of the Star Trek movies except for the last one, Star Trek aka Star Trek 2009, which I consider to be one of the biggest pieces of trash ever foisted upon movie audiences, no offense to anyone who actually liked this hunk of poo. I read a few reviews of it before I went to see it and they seemed to praise it so I took a chance. All I can say was I had a major first class headache from the non-stop lens flare and the camera overlays. To make matters even worse they have the young Captain Kirk as a golly gee whiz type of character which we all know is not Captain Kirk then or now. He has always been dead serious about his work and this made no sense to me. Even the director of this movie admitted he used too much lens flare. An understatement if I have ever heard one.

Bash me for my opinions if you want!

I swear when I first watched Airplane I was in hysterics the entire time but over time it is less funny but it is still one of the funniest movies ever made. I read somewhere that it was voted in the top ten of the funniest movies ever made and I would agree. Can a comedy endure over the years even if some of the humor is topical? It seems that slapsrick comedy lasts the longest as it is not based on the current state of the world but I could be wrong.

Laurel and Hardy still make me laugh after all of these years as well as Abbot and Costello but I never liked the Three Stooges I must confess. What makes a comedy movie that will last throughout the ages?

Have the French been right all along? Is Jerry Lewis the funniest thing to come along since the Slinky?

One of the greatest actors that ever lived. He wasn't the most handsome, but neither was Jack Palance. He first played the thug type gangster in his early movies. As he gained recognition as a true actor, he started to get detective parts in some memorable movies. Especially as Sam Spade in the "Maltese Falcon".

He not only acted the part of a tough guy, he also had some of the habits. He was a heavy smoker and drinker, this was before all the facts were known about smoking. He developed cancer and died in 1957. He was married to Lauren Bacall in 1945 until his death in 1957.

I have some favorites that I would like to list:

Very favorites: Casablanca......Maltese Falcon.....High Sierra.....Across The Pacific.....The Big Sleep.....The Treasure of Sierra Madre......Key Largo.....To Have and Have Not....

I will stop here so that my fellow Viners can search their movie memories.....

I know the title isn't very original but it's the best I could come up with. Despite the title this isn't a trivia quiz but is a request for those of us who have seen a movie but just can't remember the name of it or who was in it. I am not blaming old age for this because I have been saying, "you know that movie with whats his name in it" since I was 20 years old. My memory cell that remembers names and stuff like that has always been broken.

My first request is a black and white Mexican horror movie I saw many years ago and it impressed me or I wouldn't be asking about it now. It was about a humanoid type monster that ate brains and he had something like an elephant's nose which he used to suck out the brains of his victims. That is all I remember. Help me please!

Here we go down memory lane. It has been awhile since we took a trip down the road of some of our great memories.

Most of us at one time or another have read a comic book or two. They have made movies of some, and others are still in the dust pile. I don't know about you, but I sure would like to see a movie made out of the "Dick Tracy" comic book. I could be wrong, but I don't think that one has been made, yet.

Just recently I believe it was Superman #1 comic was auctioned for a million dollars? Before that I think a Spiderman comic was also auctioned for about the same amount. Comic books and their movies are non-generational. Everyone, no matter how young or aged one becomes, has at one time or other escaped into the realm of make believe. I will first list my favorites, then list others that come to mind.

My all time favorite is: "War of The Worlds" - Orson Wells

Next us "The Shadow" - with Alec Baldwin

Batman, Superman, Spiderman, The Xmen, Captain America, Fantastic Four, The Phantom, first Punisher with Dolf Lundgren, The Dark Knight, Ghost Rider, Iron Man, Sin City, Spawn, Hellboy, Transformers, The Incredible Hulk, Dr. Strange, Star Trek.

Time for my fellow Viners and friends to delve into the realm of the comic book world...............

For me it was definitely Fantasia. My dear mother took me to the local movie theater (back when they still had old style neighborhood movie theaters) most likely in 1952 or 1953. I still remember it like it was yesterday and how much I enjoyed it until the dancing mushrooms sequence came on and then it was sheer terror and crying! Please don't ask me why dancing mushrooms induced such a reaction but they did. Perhaps an early movie experience like this can form one's movie tastes in later years which may explain why I dig horror movies so much. For me, Fantasia was the ultimate horror movie.

There have been some first rate ones it seems. It seems that alcohol was a necessary ingredient to some of their successes and I wonder how some of the legendary drunkards would do if they took the pledge before they became famous actors? My guess is not so hot.

Who are, or were, your favorites? Please don't include dope addicts as this article is about drunks only thank you. Just like many things they don't make them like they used and the same goes for slobbering drunken actors. The old ones were the best in my opinion and both of my favorites are dead. By the way I am not making fun of alcoholics here. Far from it I admire what many of them could do while drunk out of their minds.

Without any further ado my two favorites are Richard Burton and Robert Mitchum. I heard that Burton was sometimes so drunk they had to have a fellow hang on to his legs, out of camera sight, to keep him from falling down! As good as Burton was at drinking I feel that Robert Mitchum was even better at it so to speak. I once read a biography about him and it seemed that he nearly always performed drunk out of his skull but the strange thing was that he was such a perfectionst and a professional that he perfectly memorized his lines, and though blasted, he never missed a line.

I guess there are some modern contenders like Mel Gibson but it does take a lot of time to attain the legendary status.

In my opinion yes they are but the movies are so different from what they once were it is hard to compare them. In the olden days the actors were what made the movie and perhaps the old timers spent more time learning their craft than their modern counterparts. Now a days the actors share the spotlight with special effects and other such stuff and it takes a good performance to outshine the exploding cars and the machine gun fire. In any case a good actor is still a good actor and it is obvious when viewing a masterful performance.

How would Clark Gable, Humphrey Bogart, James Stewart, Marilyn Monroe, Lauren Bacall and Katherine Hepburn stand up against Johnny Depp, Robert De Niro, Leonardo DiCaprio, Meryl Streep, Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock? These are just examples and not my list of the best actors/actresses of all time.

Here I am again so let's discuss black and white movies. I am not not sure where to start on this one so I will start at the end. 99.9% of all modern movies are filmed in color for obvious reasons but occasionaly they will sneak a black and white one in. By the way I define a new or modern movie as anything filmed since 1960. That's only 50 years ago!

There are two modern black and white movies that I think are wonderful and they are Ed Wood and Dead Man curiously enough both starring Johnny Depp, who I consider to be one of the greatest living actors. I think part of the appeal of black and white movies is the stark contrast between the shades of dark and light and the emphasis on the acting as there is no color to distract one's attention from the performers. Since I am not a professional film critic all I am doing is expressing my opinion for what it is worth but I still enjoy a good black and white movie. For example would Manhattan and The Last Picture Show be better movies if they had been filmed in color? I hope not.

I wouldn't expect movies like Avatar to be filmed in black and white or most movies now that I think of it but some subjects seem to lend themselves to black and white. Are younger viewers put off by black and white movies? I don't know but I suspect they are. Are black and white movies only for the coffee house artsy crafty types? Do viewers want more color and special effects to satisfy their never ending quest for more visual stimulation? What is the meaning of life?

I don't know the answers to these questions or I wouldn't be asking them so answers will be appreciated along with any reviews or recommendations anyone has of black and white movies they have enjoyed that were made since 1960.

I have I am proud to say. Only one movie made me laugh so hard and so long that I was in convulsions and nearly passed out. I know there are many funny movies out there but I want to nominate Cheech and Chong's Next Movie as the funniest movie ever made at least in my opinion. The opening scenes, where they are siphoning gas into a garbage can, has me choking with laughter everytime I even think of it. Yes I know it is crude humor but crude humor is the best. You can take your intellectual humor and put it aside while you let loose and watch a no holds barred movie like this one. Have some brewskies, or whatever pleases you, watch this movie, and be prepared to laugh yourself silly. Every scene that follows is a killer!

I know that a lot of people rate their first movie as funnier but I disagree. The first movie, while funny, lacked the total lack of class shown in the second one. Not even Laurel and Hardy can match these guys. My only complaint is that I loaned my only copy to a female friend and she took off with it and she never even told me how much she enjoyed it before she disappeared from my life forever. I had the same experience with my vinyl record collection but with a different women.

Anyway watch it if you haven't already!

You know what I mean, I hope. The films where they filmed a concert or made a documentary movie about a group or a particlular artist. These may be two different catagories but I will lump them together because the subject is too complex for me to handle at this moment. I am referring to movies about real groups and not to the ones about fictional groups such as Spinal Tap and that great fictional Irish group, The Commitments.

Of course, my pick, being an old hippie is Woodstock. I have never seen a movie that captured the feeling, soul and sound of an era like Woodstock did and I am still in awe of it to this day. No I wasn't there like about a few million others who claim to have been:) Another killer movie was the Monterray Pop Festival filmed in 1965 I think and I may have spelled it wrong. You have an early Jimi Hendricks, Otis Redding, Simon and Garfunkel and even Ravi Shankar there! Again please forgive my mispellings. I hear the one about The Band is also good but I haven't seen it.

I am sure there are thousand of these types of movies out there but I admit I haven't seen very many of them as 5 minutes of MTV type filming makes me lose my lunch quick no offense to anyone intended.

There is one I want to mention which I rank right behind Woodstock and that is Down the Old Plank Road (2002?) featuring the Chieftains, Earl Scruggs, John Hiatt and many other bluegrass stars filmed live at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. I am no fan of country music as it has turned into cheap pop music but bluegrass is another story and that is what you will hear on Down the Old Plank Road by golly. Whether you like the combination of traditional Irish music combined with American bluegrass the sheer energy of this movie will impress you...I hope.

I would like to see a realistic biker movie about the Hells Angels or some other outlaw biker club but I can't say I have ever seen one. We all love Easy Rider but that is not a biker movie. It is a movie about two dope dealers that happen to ride motorcycles. What I am looking for is movie that actually depicts the real life of an outlaw biker.

There were hundreds of movies made in the 60s and 70s about motorcycle gangs and every one of of them was so Hollywooded up as to render them almost unwatchable in my opinion. I mean how many real bikers wear bandannas around their necks and look like Peter Fonda with his fancy hairdo or Harry Dean Stanton and ride dirt bikes? Don't get me wrong. Harry Dean Stanton is one of my all time favorite actors.

I am guessing there is no such movie but it is always worth asking about.

I went to see the new Robin Hood film last week. Having read several less than flattering reviews, I was pleasantly surprised at how good it was - although Russel Crowe's Irish sounding accent was a little off-putting at times. It had a pretty good ending too, which tied things together nicely and set it up as a prequel to other Robin Hood stories. Although I certainly would never characterize this ending as one of the best I have ever seen, it did get me thinking about the subject of movie endings I did think were great. So, here is my list of 'best movie endings ever' for your consideration:

Bonnie and Clyde, 1967 - if you can stomach the slow-motion carnage, this strangely beautiful finale will stay with you.

Casablanca, 1942 - On a tarmac: the end of a love affair, the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Citizen Kane, 1941 - Rosebud revealed.

Dead Again, 1991 - "The door just closed."

Dr. Strangelove, 1964 - Petter Seller's yelling, "Mein Fuhrer! I can walk!" followed by Vera Lynn singing We’ll Meet Again. Priceless.

E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, 1982 - "I’ll be right here." Awww.

Fargo, 1996 - A little mundane domestic contentment at the end of a gory crime movie.

Gone With The Wind, 1939 - "After all, tomorrow is another day."

Good Night, and Good Luck, 2005 - "Good night, and good luck."

Planet of the Apes, 1968 - Charlton Heston's painful cry under the beached remains of Lady Liberty.

Psycho, 1960 - "They’ll see. They’ll see and they’ll know. And they’ll say, 'Why she wouldn’t even harm a fly.' "

Memento, 2001 - Let's just say it's a total surprise.

Shane, 1953 - "Shane, come back!" I'm choking up as I write this.

The Shawshank Redemption, 1994 - Andy and Red reunited on a sunny Mexican beach.

The Silence of the Lambs, 1991 - That "I’m having an old friend for dinner" phone call.

Some Like it Hot, 1959 - 'Daphne': "I'm a man!" Osgood Fielding III: "Nobody's perfect."

Thelma and Louise, 1991 - Floor that Ford Thunderbird convertible, gals!

How many of you have seen all 3 of them and what do you thinK? Koyaanisqatsi was the first one, Powaqqatsi the second and Naqoyqatsi the third. I can't think of any other movies quite like them and am curious if anyone beside me has watched them?

In my opinion Koyaanisqatsi (a Hopi term for life out of balance) was the best of them all with the amazing slow motion and time lapse photography and the mezmerizing Phillip Glass musical score. I have watched it so many times I can't count them all and it really is like taking a trip and never leaving the farm. Who first coined that term anyway? He or she deserves a medal for inventing it. When I first saw Koyaanisqatsi I was digging for the deeper meaning of it all but I soon forgot that nonsense and learned to enjoy it for simply for the visual and audio experience. It still blows my mind away.

As far as Powaqqatsi goes it is also a fine movie especially the first sequence with the men trudging up and down the mountain of mud with a rivoting musical score but the rest of the movie lacks the intensity of the first one. As far as Naqoyqatsi goes it left me quite cold. I don't know but maybe they tried too hard on that one or something.

Any opinions out there etc etc?

I'm not saying this to impress people with my movie watching of non-English movies but just want to say that I haven't watched Ran in 20 years and I am impressed all over again. It is one heck of a good movie with great photography and all that makes a movie great even if I can't understand a work of what they are saying which brings me to my next point.

Sometimes I like to watch a non English language movie with subtitles and sometimes I like to watch them dubbed. I guess it depends on my mood but some movies seem to be better wirh subtitles and some better when dubbed. It seems that Japanese movies are better with subtitles and Russian movies are better dubbed, like Stalker, but I am not an expert. I like to hear the Japanese language even if I have no clue what they are saying.

Can anyone share their opinions of dubbed vs subtitled?

What brought this to mind is that I watched Apocalypse Now Redux for the first time in many years. There is no denying that this movie is one of the finest made in the past 25 years but how does it stack up against other Vietnam War type movies? My opinion is that Apocalypse Now is a great movie in all aspects but it is not the greatest Vietnam war movie. I only say this because of some of the unrealistic almost hallucinatory sequences in the film, while quite satisfying, perhaps go beyond what happened in the war for the sake of movie making. Please don't get me wrong. Apocalypse Now is in my top 10 list of best of all time movies but I simply can't say say it is the best Vietnam War movie mainly because it is not a realistic view of what happened over there. I was there and do not claim to be an expert but I prefer a movie about something I experienced to be more realistic and true to what really happened.

Again this is not a citicism of Apocalype Now as I feel it goes beyond a simple war movie. Platoon gets my vote with Full Metal Jacket as a close runner up.

I swear that I couldn't find a similar article anywhere so thought it safe to post this one. How do you watch your movies and I don't mean in your underwear but what equipment do you use? Speaking for myself I watch them on my gigantic 20" LCD TV with my Playstation 2 once in a great while but more and more I just watch them on a computer. I like to see my movies up close with good sound and my PC fits the bill with it's sub woofer and all of that. In fact my PC has a better sound system than my Bose system but that is another story.

I am just curious. Do you all have amazing home movie setups with 64" displays and surround sound and official movie seating for 20 people in your front room?

This is sort of a stopgap article to hold me over until I have some genuine insparation which may be 10 years in the future.

I estimate I have read about 13 million books in my lifetime and seen maybe 1 million movies so I feel fully qualified to write this silly article and ask the question. Do any movies exist that are better than the book they are based on?

The Lord of the Rings certainly doesn't qualify as the books are a true masterpiece even greater than the movies. Two movies that come to mind that are close calls and they are Gone with the Wind and To Kill a Mockingbird. Both are great books and great movies and I am undecided about them. Both of them also show my age.

I am sure there are many good movies out there based on obscure books and those aren't the ones I am referring to. I am talking about big time books being made into movies. I will give some hints here. How about Ken Kesey's books?

Of all of the popular horror movie themes the zombie genre has to rate near or at the top. If you don't agree with me then you have my permission to stop reading the rest of my pathetic article. Who can resist seeing the undead lurching around taking bites and eating the living? I know I can't. What is the attraction? I have no idea but I love zombie movies maybe even more than cherry pie and hotdogs if that is possible. What would life be without zombie movies? It would be dead believe me.

I think that White Zombie starring the immortal Bela Lugosi may been the first official zombie movie and it isn't bad for a movie made 3000 years ago but the movies have evolved since then. Of course the movie that made zombies what they are today is the original Night of the Living Dead directed by George Romero. This movie is a zombiefest of everything that makes zombie movies so great and it is filmed in black and white which only adds to it's impact. You have your flesh eating zombies, your terrified people hiding in a farmhouse, a dumb blonde, a jerk in the cellar, a child zombie and I could go on and on about the greatness of this movie. It has it all and set the standard for all zombie movies.

There are many other great zombie movies, of course, and I rate all of George Romero's movies near the top, especially Dawn of the Dead, but there is an often overlooked movie I Walked With a Zombie (1943) that deserves more acclaim that it has gotten. I have to give it my number two ranking.

Come on you 2 or 3 people people and give me your opinions on zombie movies! I have some more that I will mention later if anyone is interested. I hope this is not a repeat of some article I posted earlier but I have oldtimers disease.

I would say no with one exception which I will mention a little later. The cinema is a great place for expressing all things as distasteful as some subjects may be to some but that is the power of the cinema. We have seen it all...disembowelment, rape, torture, the end of all life as we know it, sexism, racism, child sexual abuse, all kinds of sex whether tasteful or not, toenail fungus, puking and you name it! It's all there. When I see something I can't handle in a movie I walk out of the theater or room and don't lose sleep over it figuring the movie industry has the right to depict almost anything and my personal view has nothing to do with what is shown. Nor should it. I am not the movie censor for the entire world.

With that sermon preached I have walked out of a few movies that depicted rape too realistic but that is more a problem with me than the movies. I don't wan't to see it so I don't watch it. No censorship involved. It happens in the world so I have no problem with it in the movies. I just don't want to watch it but there is one thing in the movies that disturbs me so much that I would like to see it banned. Yes I said the word ban.

I am referring to animal torture and any depictation of cruelty to real non human animals . Before anyone blasts me for saying it is ok to show cruelty against humans but not ok to show it against animals I have no defense except to say that that animals are defenseless while humans are not. I don't want to start a debate on that subject here. I have the same objection to snuff films as I do to animal torture movies.

One movie that I have not not seen and will never see is Cannibal Holocaust where I understand that they torture a turtle for the amusement of the audience. It was a real turtle and not a depictation. That is too much for me. Many years ago there were some movies called Faces of Death where I understand they did close ups of animals being slaughtered. I will not watch those either.

I want to add that, even though I eat meat and was a hunter and fisherman in my day, I am not objecting to eating other animals but just depicting the more painful aspects of it on the screen. Now a days I prefer to just eat my cellophane wrapped meat without seeing a movie about how it was actually obtained.

This was a little long winded and I apologize for that. Are there any any subjects that you feel should be taboo in the movies?

Warning: Some contain strong language!

I hope I didn't already write a similar article but the mind goes when you watch too many movies at an advanced age so I apologize if this is a repeat. I think that everyone likes werewolf movies. I mean how could anyone dislike a movie where the human turns into a wolf like creature and tears people limb from limb? I know I like them and I like them a lot.

I think my first werewolf movie was Werewolf of London and I still see that werewolf in my nightmares. He was bad news! There must be a thousand werewolf movies out there and a few stick in my mind like I Was a Teenage Werewolf starring Michael Landon who was the only werewolf in movie history to wear a letterman jacket while he was a werewolf! Another one I really like is Company of Wolves which some of you may not be familiar with. It is an adult retelling of Little Red Riding Hood and well worth a watch if you can find it.

Of course you all know where this is leading. The greatest werewolf movie of all time just has to be The Wolfman starring Lon Chaney jr. This movie has everything...a werewolf of course, a love story, a gypsy, famous actors and the definitive description of what makes a werewolf tick and how to kill one (the silver bullet of course). You can't get much better than this.

What is your favorite werewolf movie?

This may be a difficult article for me to write as I do not want to offend anyone and I hope my terms are acceptable. Honestly I don't want to offend anyone but, in my opnion, there was a turning point in American movies a number of years ago in regard to black actors. It happened when Hollywood realized that black actors were real people who had the same talents as the white actors and they no longer needed to portray them as a black person in the movies. Do you know what I mean?

In the olden days black actors were portrayed as stereotypes of black people and not given the big roles despite their talents. After all, the Hollywood moguls figured that white people wouldn't pay to see a black actor acting like your everyday American so they kept them in secondary roles except for exploitation type movies. The same goes for actors from Asian countries. Somewhere along the line the Hollywood bosses realized that there were indeed many talented non-white actors and they could put them in movies in any role and maybe even increase their profits by doing so.

I like to ask questions of my 2 or 3 readers so my question is which movie or movies, and which actors, were the breakthrough ones that enabled non-white actors to show their true abilities?

I may have screwed up the title so let me try to explain. I am a big time movie fan but I really don't care all that much about the actors/actresses's personal lives and who they are married to, cheating on, their homosexual affairs or their drug use. If I wanted to know about that stuff I would read the papers while in the grocery store line but I really don't care believe me. I want to write some more articles about movies but really want to write about what people are interested in so am asking the question.

What do you want to discuss on Newsvine? Whether Tom Cruise is homosexual or his movies? Is someone's sexual escapades and drug use more important than the movies they make? This is only my own opinion but every time I read about some star's personal details I tend to tune out thinking, "I don't really give a rats's ass."

Am I being too mean and bucking the Hollywood tradition of fans slavoring for every aspect of the star's lives?

By the way I do find personal details of long dead stars interesting, like Judy Garland, but the current ones seem kind of boring no offense to them.

There are only about 2 or 3 million movies to mention but what is the most violent disgusting single thing have you ever seen in a movie? There are some movies that have nothing but non-stop violence such as the Saw and Hostel series but after a few minutes the excess seems to dull the mind as to what is going on. What I am talking about is a movie where things are going along and all of a sudden something happens that is so violent and shocking that it makes you jump out of your seat in shock and disgust. If you don't know what I am talking about you are either too jaded or too young or both.

My choice would be Sam Peckinpah's classic Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid when somebody, I don't remember who since I haven't seen the movie in a long time, turns around and blows someone's guts out with a shotgun blast. It still tramatizes me to this day. Sudden shocking violence far exceeds long drawn out torture scenes in my opinion. Sam Peckinpah was a master of this.

I am not a fan of violence in movies for it's own sake but I do appreciate it if it is done right. All 8 repsonses will be appreciated.

There are many films about the American civil war, some about the battles and some about the whole picture so this is a broad catagory. I will be be the first one to admit that many of them were rubbish no offense to the film makers of course. First of all I am not a civil war expert but just a movie fan who writes articles that only a few bored people manage to read as pathetic as the articles are. Contrary to what some people say I was not alive to witness the civil war. So which ones are your favorites?

My pick for movies goes to Gettysburg despite the somewhat stilted speech and Martin Sheen's performance as Robert E. Lee. He looked and acted about as much as Robert E. Lee as my ex mother in law does no offense to either of them. What I did find exceptional about this movie were the realistic battle scenes which made me feel like I was actually there. It was also filmed where the battle actually took place, instead of some California desert, which is something you don't see in a lot in the movies. The battles were so intense I almost had flashbacks even though I wasn't even there. My runnerup movie has to be Glory which was my number one pick until Gettysburg came out.

As far as documentaries. or TV shows goes, Ken Burn's The Civil War stands so far above the competition I don't even know who the competition is. I loved the music, commentary, photography and everything about this film. It was simply amazing and I have watched it many times.

Okay you 4 or 5 people let's hear your opinions!

I know this is a tough question but which one do you prefer? Actually the book by H.G. Wells is better than all of them.

I find all of them disturbing as they depict animal torture which I do not tolerate but they are only movies after all. The original 1932 version starring Charles Laughton stands far above the other two in my opinion. I will never forget the animal men saying "knives" as they prepare to exact their final revenge on Laughton! His screams are a movie classic too as are Bela Lugosi's lines as the sayer of the law. "Don't eat meat" is one of my favorite lines in any movie. This movie was banned in Great Britain until 1958 by the way.

The 1977 version starring Burt Lancaster is so unmemorable that I don't remember a thing about it.

Marlon Brano's 1996 version was very interesting despite the poor reviews it got. I liked it. He rode around in a popemobile while the animal men worshipped him until he got his just rewards in the end. My favorite line of that movie was when the new guy said, "Oh god the smell". I imagine it was indeed a little smelly.

The Swedish 2007 movie De fortabte sjæles does not count as it was not based on the novel.

This may be the weirdest article I have ever written but it has been bugging and eating away at me for years and I just can' t take it no more! In nearly every movie scene that depicts people eating they seem to jab at their food and then shove it into their mouths at the fastest possible speed and I am not talking about fast chewing but the speed they get it to their mouths. This also applies to TV shows like when Anthony Bourdain, the Man vs Food guy and Andrew Zimmern are eating. Do you notice how fast they move the food from the plates to their mouths? I have seen it in the Godfather also. Maybe I am just not very observant in real life but I don't recall seeing anyone eating like this.

It bugs me because it looks like bad table manners but my question is has anyone else noticed this and is this some Hollywood/TV technique that they teach actors? My mother would slap me silly, god rest her soul, if I ate like this.

As always all comments are welcome, all 2 or 3 of them.

I am both showing my age and my lack of brainpower here but do any of you remember the great Universal Pictures movies of the 1930s? In my opinion there has never been such a run of great of horror movies by any one company in such a short period of time. While I do admire some more modern horror pictures most of them lack the sheer horror of the oldies.

When I was a kid I had to cover my eyes during certain parts of these movies and I admit I still do:)

The entire Frankenstein series was a masterpiece. The Wolfman, with Lon Chaney Jr, was the definitive wolfman movie bar none. Dracula, starring Bela Lugosi, was the greatest vampire movie ever made by a mile. Of all of them perhaps The Mummy made me hide my eyes the most with the opening scene but there are other great ones such as The old Dark House.

As I am forever seeking the deeper meaning of life and movies I am asking for some input here. Does anyone agree that those old black and white horror movies were the greatest ever made? Why can't modern movie makers come close to making a movie as scary as something made 80 years ago? Has Hollywood come to depend on "special effects" too much at the expense of real movie making? Is crunchy peanut butter better than creamy?

All of these questions are deeply eating away at me.

Can anyone tell me what this means. I see it advertized so I watch the movie and it was filmed in a California desert even though the story took place in Germany or somewhere. It seems that most American movies are filmed in some California desert even if they actually take place in Greenland or Italy or anywhere else for that matter.

I do understand the cost of filming a movie in a location where it actually is supposed to take place, as opposed to a California desert, but do not understand the logic of advertizing a movie as filmed on location when it supposed to be in the Appalachian Mountains but was actually filmed in a desert.

Is there any reason for this except for pure economics?

It seems like they make some pretty good movies in New Zealand and this is one of them. It starts out in the medieval days when some folks discover a cave and start digging like you dug for China when you were a child. They finally dig through and....I won't spoil it for those who haven't seen this amazing movie. Has anyone on Earth but me seen this one?

I was especially pleased by the photography of the real life cave in New Zealand where it was filmed. If anyone has seen this movie and can tell me the deeper meaning of it I would appreciate it.

More pathetic drivel brought to you by Merle T Wiler.

Have you ever watched a movie that got rave reviews, your friends loved but when you watched it you nearly lost your lunch? I certainly have. Sometimes the sheer hype of a movie will turn you against it before you even watch it. I even know of some people who hate The Lord of the Rings trilogy, and in my opinion, they need to be shot for having such bad taste. No offense against them.

My number one pick for the most praised movie that disgusted me beyond all befief is Star Trek 2009! Everyone told me it was a must see so I looked around on the net and saw a few thousand great reviews so I took a chance and ordered the DVD from Amazon with a almost certain expectation of watching one of the greats. I need to add that I am a fan of all things Star Trek including the original TV series, Next Generation, that series about the space station whatever it was called and every single one of the movies even the one where Kirk, Spock and McCoy sing row row row your boat around the campfire. So I was trembling with excitement as I got my new Star Trek movie and popped it into my huge multimedia computer all set for the experience of my life.

The first 2 minutes looked good until I started to notice something. It is called lens flare and I figured a few seconds of it looked ok for the opening sequence but after 15 minutes the lens flare didn't go away. In fact it never went way all the way to the very end. I thought something was wrong with my computer at first until I realized they were actually doing it on purpose! I prayed it would stop but it never did. To make matters even worse they were doing something called camera overlay which made my viewing experience a visual nightmare which I may never recover from. I even went to see my eye doctor after this miserable experience and he prescribed me some eye drops which made the lens flare even sharper when I tried to watch this movie a second time!

I felt like killing myself for wasting $9.95 on this movie. I have no idea if the acting or story was decent as I was so repulsed by the non stop lens flare and camera overlay all I could think to myself was "when will this torture end?" By the way this article is not about bashing Star Trek 2009 as many people loved it and I do not want to start a flame war.

Have any of you had a similar experience with a movie? Please share.

Another pitiful article brought to you by Merle T Wiler but I do want to thank Waydown1942 for suggesting it so he needs to share the pain.

You know what I mean. A great, average or even a crappy movie can be made great by an individual performance by a single performance regardless of the overall worth of the movie. It doesn't have to be a big mega star to count but sometimes you see a movie with such a great performance that all you can say is WOW.

My number one nomination is Joe Pesci in Goodfellas. Now don't get me wrong. This would be a good movie without Joe Pesci as it did star Robert NeNiro and Ray Liotta but good old Joe did make the movie in my opinion. His language, mannerisms and sense of timing turned this movie into what could have been a good movie into a great movie. I could watch his scenes over and over and over again no crap. I haven't checked but did he win an Oscar for this? If he didn't he was ripped off big time.

My honorable mention has to go to Bela Lugosi for his starring role in the Ed Wood classic Bride of The Monster. Without Bela this movie would be pure crap and even with him it is still pure crap but he at least made the effort near the end of his storied career. The scene where he fought the giant octopus will be seared in my memory forever.

Any other opinions out there? If you enjoy my article please make sure you give it a vote. The more votes the more visible it will be and the more responses it will get and blah blah blah.

More mindless drivel brought to you by Merle T Wiler.

I want to thank Joanna Caroll for suggesting this topic! For me, this is a hard one, as war movies are not my favorite as a group mainly because there are so many crappy ones out there. It seemed that they made a new one everyday during WW2 and the quality suffered but there have been some excellent ones made so here I go.

After 3 minutes of heavy thinking I just have to give Apocolypse Now my vote as my favorite. It's hard to beat a movie with Robert Duvall, Martin Sheen and Marlon Brando in it. As you all know it is based on Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness and is set during the Vietnam war( which the Vietnamese call the American war). I think we all remember the most famous line, " I love the smell of napalm in the moring."

My runnerups are Full Metal Jacket, Gettysberg, Saving Private Ryan and Platoon.

So what are your favorites?

For fans and scholars of the silent-film era, the search for a copy of the original version of Fritz Lang's "Metropolis" has become a sort of holy grail. One of the most celebrated movies in cinema history, "Metropolis" had not been viewed at its full length — roughly two and a half hours — since shortly after its premiere in Berlin in 1927, when it was withdrawn from circulation and about an hour of its footage was amputated and presumed destroyed.

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Quite a lot for just one film-- but of course Casablanca was no ordinary film!

"This is a musical montage I put together based on AFI's 100 Years, 100 Movies Quotes. The list was made in 2005 and was first aired on CBS as a special to commemorate the 100 greatest quotes as voted by 1500 critics, artists, and historians.

Excellent collection of stills from the movies....

Although I rarely say this in public, I must admit Republicans do some things very well. I can't think of any right off the top of my head, but I'm sure there's something. But one thing they do particularly badly, is social and cultural criticism.

One thing partisan Republicans do spectacularly badly, is understand cinema. Their film criticism is generally so incredibly shallow and superficial that it borders on error for that reason alone, not counting the times when their interpretation is grossly mistaken from the start, favoring a default position of finding insult and injury to themselves and their imagined folk (or sometimes praise for those they delude themselves into believing they champion, rather than providing insight and understanding of the work at hand.

The Establishment liberals, like the editors of Newsweek aren't much better (see: The Boomer Files and 1968: The Year That Changed Everything), but at least their criticism is insipid and superficial, obvious and cautious without being idiotically juvenile. They look at the surface and respond to it. (I suppose we all have to sit through another wave of Baby Boomer "analysis" thanks to that perfect representative of state-the-obvious Establishmentarianism, Tom Brokaw.)

And while establishment liberals tend to re-state the obvious and pride themselves for that, quite a bit of paleo-conservative cultural criticism is interesting, indeed, profound, if also occasionally misguided. George McCartney, a paleo-conservative, is a fine and honest film critic. I Love My Mother; his review of Sicko, is worth reading even if you don't agree with it.

But partisan Republicans pretty much don't get it. They are unsatisfied with the obvious but unable to discern deeper truths. They scratch the surface, then imagine they find the same thing underneath every time, mostly imagining it anyway. So then all you end up with is scratched surface.

This seems to be not just a failing of one or two Republicans but a widespread tendency. The conservative National Review ballyhooed a cover story on "The 100 Best Conservative Movies" in 1994 followed shortly afterwards by the conservative Heritage Foundation's Policy Review listing their 80 favorite conservative movies. Then National Review came up with a second list of another 100 conservative movies generated by readers' suggestions.

One amazing fact is that out of this list of well over 200 films (with some overlap), not one person thought to include one of the best and most interesting of all conservative movies, despite the fact that all three articles include a category of "anti-Communist" movies: the Italian-made adaptation of Ayn Rand's We The Living (Noi Vivi), which I saw a couple of times on late-night Canadian television, and which, scratchy subtitles and fuzzy print and all, is surprisingly faithful to the original. The conservatives, if they weren't ignorant of the film's very existence, might have been slightly embarrassed by the fact that most film scholars believe the film to have been at least partially financed by Mussolini's Fascist regime, but if that inconvenient fact doesn't bother a liberal like me, why should it bother them?

William Bennett (former chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities!) urged former Republican presidential nominee Senator Robert Dole to see Independence Day, claiming it was a movie about "marriage" and "American ingenuity" and "American leadership."

Huh? There is a throwaway marriage scene in which two longtime cohabitants finally receive the benefit of clergy, and where a spectacularly mismatched divorced couple reconcile, thereby compounding the mistake they made the first time they got married, but No--this movie is not about marriage, it's about kicking alien ass.

Of course, Bennett only wanted to make sure that Senator Dole's updated critique of Hollywood films wouldn't be subject to the same very minor criticism his original denunciation suffered, namely, that he hadn't seen the films he presumed to comment on. And that little oversight led to the Senator making the rather embarrassing mistake of praising Forrest Gump for being about family values and attacking Quentin Tarentino's True Romance for being about loveless sex. But: Forrest Gump is the movie about loveless sex, and True Romance is the one about family values.

When a narrative consists mainly of a string of random events, unlikely coincidences or acts of Providence, the theme is defined, or at least most clearly evident, in the exercise of Free Will which almost invariably begins this style of narrative. This is because--except for a few existentialist works--a narrative consisting of a random series of events implies a random universe, life without meaning (that could be true by the way, but it doesn't sell books or movie tickets). Any sophomore literature student reading works from Homer's Odyssey to Robertson Davies' Deptford Trilogy knows this. So what, I ask, is the act of Free Will that propels the young Forrest Gump on his remarkable career? When Mrs. Gump prostitutes herself to Principal Hamilton to ensure Forrest's admission to the regular school. Loveless sex. By the same token, True Romance has to be about family values, because if Clarence and Alabama don't love each other, don't marry, don't create a family, then the film is completely incoherent, random and meaningless, in other words, it would not speak to a mass audience, which it certainly did.

But the best evidence of Republican misunderstanding is in the introduction to the original list of 100 in the National Review, written by Spencer Warren, in which he identifies the film Easy Rider as one of the seminal influences on "Hollywood's nihilistic themes and chaotic styles." But Warren is entirely mistaken. As is Michael Medved, famously right-wing famous movie critic.

In Right Turns: From Liberal Activist to Conservative Champion in 35 Unconventional Lessons , his recent autobiography, Medved tells us that:

On a Saturday night in the Fall of 1969, during my first semester in law school, I went out with a half-dozen fellow students to see the new movie sensation Easy Rider. I hated almost everything about the movie, and we argued about it over burgers and fries. I specifically remember that my classmate Hillary Rodham felt especially enthusiastic about what she understood to be the message of the film: when the violent rednecks in their pick-up truck with its prominent gun rack, senselessly murder the two hippie bikers (Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper), she thought the movie made a powerful statement about intolerance and conformity and the repressed rage among the exploited yahoos of the American underclass. I insisted that the cruelty and viciousness depicted in the film bore no connection to the heartland or southern communities I knew, and suggested that the local townsfolk would be more likely to feed and welcome long-haired visitors than to shoot them. The argument continued into the night with most of my friends defending the movie and attacking our "sick society" but I stubbornly held my ground. [emphasis added]

Here we see at once both the banal obviousness of the of establishment liberal interpretation and the patronizing offense-taking of neoconservative complainers at an imagined insult to "American" culture supposedly lurking just beneath the surface of a cultural artifact.

The most famous line of dialogue in the film is probably "We blew it," spoken by Wyatt (Peter Fonda) to Billy (Dennis Hopper) by the campfire just before the final scene. The late Terry Southern, who wrote the original treatment and shares screenwriting credit with both Fonda and Hopper, literally went to his grave refusing to explicate this cryptic line. In 1995, with an enigmatic smile, Peter Fonda also refused to even speculate on the meaning of the line despite persistent questioning by Charles Grodin on his old CNBC show.

But I think I may have misspoken: Fonda's smile wasn't enigmatic, it was a condescending and patronizing smirk. And Terry Southern surely died with that same grin on his face because the answer to that question is right there for all to see. Southern--witness Doctor Strangelove--was a great satirist and all great satirists are moralists at heart, as is evident from the Ancient Roman satirists Horace and Juvenal, through the Enlightenment's Jonathan Swift and Alexander Pope to HBO's Bill Maher and Comedy Central's Jon Stewart. Fonda and Southern are laughing because they played a great joke on us, and for almost 30 years, nobody's gotten it.

The joke is this: Easy Rider is a CONSERVATIVE movie. It is not "nihilistic" and "chaotic." Not only does this movie celebrate family values, it celebrates traditional family values. But even more than that, Easy Rider argues for the enduring strength and power of faith in God as it explicitly rejects hedonism, atheism, and nihilism. This theme is evident throughout the film from the moment the travelers leave Los Angeles to the final climatic scene.

The first episode in Wyatt and Billy's journey to Mardi Gras occurs at a desert ranch where the travelers are briefly stranded by a flat tire. The rancher provides the necessary tools, then invites the men to supper with his large family. After prayer around a large outdoor table--before which the ignorant and impious Billy had to be reminded to remove his hat--Wyatt insistently and sincerely compliments the rancher on his "spread" and the life he has built there, repeated for emphasis.

Then picking up a hitchhiker, the wanderers stop for gas at Sacred Mountain, with the word "Sacred" from the gas station's sign splashed in big red letters across the screen as they pull in. Camping on the mountain, the cryptic hitchhiker admonishes Billy for disrespecting the site; once again Billy's irreverence and impiety are exposed to criticism. Reaching the hitchhiker's destination, the travelers find a commune hard at work planting crops. The laughter of children animates the episode until Wyatt and Billy join a second Circle of Prayer, movingly and famously depicted by a 360-degree pan of the inhabitants as they pray for the wherewithal to be as generous to others as others had been to them. The commune is a family as traditional as the rancher's family: underneath the beads and tie-dyed fabric is the agrarian extended family functioning in a classic pastoral.

But, although invited to stay, the travelers move on. They meet George the drunken liberal lawyer (Jack Nicholson) before continuing on towards New Orleans, stopping to camp, where George is killed by locals. Using a free pass inherited from George, they decide to visit a brothel--to the tune of "Kyrie Eleison," ("Lord have mercy"), drawn from the Electric Prunes psychedelic but authentic and respectful version of the Latin Catholic Mass in F Minor--where they encounter two prostitutes under cathedral ceilings and within walls covered by religious icons. Visiting a church graveyard, they drop acid and commence an unpleasant trip of weeping, shuddering and anxiety--amid frame after frame of sacred imagery and a comforting voice-over of a young girl saying a Rosary as a funeral unfolds before them.

On Mardi Gras night they camp, and Wyatt speaks those famous words, "We blew it" in response to Billy's shallow, juvenile excitement at the fact that "We're rich, man!" "We're free," Billy goes on, claiming to be "set for life" and ready to retire to Florida, but Wyatt quietly repeats his judgment: "We blew it." The next day, Ash Wednesday--the Christian Holy Day of atonement and repentance, the day when Catholics memento mori, that is, "contemplate death"--the story ends suddenly and shockingly on a country road in Southwest Louisiana.

If this narrative had been Medieval, could there be any doubt at all of the theme or the moral teaching intended? Sinners wander the countryside on a secular quest, encountering God's message but failing to acknowledge Him. They seek worldly pleasure at the expense of spiritual fulfillment, finding treasure and discussing it under a tree, only to finally to die a horrid death by the wayside.

As a matter of fact, such a tale was written in the Middle Ages, by Geoffrey Chaucer within the Canterbury Tales (the first "road movie"?), in "The Pardoner's Tale." Chaucer, unquestionably a moralist, was also a great satirist, as we see in the vicious lampoon of the venal and grossly hypocritical Pardoner, who preaches all his sermons on the theme of "The love of money is the root of all evil" (1 Timothy 6:10) while selling indulgences and false relics to his ignorant congregations.

Admittedly, many of the parallels may be mere coincidence. The Pardoner claims (lines 344-45):