Arquivos da tag:Sean Connery

Centenário de Ossie Davis

Além de grande ator, Davis foi um notório defensor dos direitos civis dos negros, sempre ao lado de Martin Luther King e Malcolm X (para este lançou mão de um panegírico em seus funeral que se tornou muito famoso, sendo inclusive usado por Spike Lee ao final de sua biografia sobre o mesmo), além deContinuar lendo “Centenário de Ossie Davis”

Towel Day

A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapors; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (such a mind-bogglingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can’t see it, it can’t see you); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.
More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitch hiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have “lost”. What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is, is clearly a man to be reckoned with.

Sidney Lumet (1924 – 2011)

Agora, ESSE cara foi importante na minha educação, não apenas cinematográfica, mas ética também. Tudo que você precisa saber sobre a vida pode aprender através dos filmes dele, em especial Network, Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon e 12 Angry Men. Top-dúzia, então: Nota: E além de tudo é o cineasta com quem mais o James MasonContinuar lendo “Sidney Lumet (1924 – 2011)”

Feliz dia do Tartan.

Suddenly, a large wind blew my kilt high up above my waist, exposing me to everybody. That day, they made me their king…
(Craig Ferguson imitando Sean Connery)

Tudo que você queria saber sobre…

…como fingir um orgasmo, você aprende com Kate Winslet em Mildred Pierce, embora espere que isso não seja necessário na vida de ninguém. A mulher representa um orgasmo tão bem na minissérie (the eyes! the eyes!) e só um olhar de poucos segundos mostra que nunca sentiu aquilo antes e está imediatamente apaixonada pelo GuyContinuar lendo “Tudo que você queria saber sobre…”

Cem anos de Basil Dearden

Basil Dearden was born on 1 January 1911 in Westcliffe-on-Sea as Basil Dear. His youthful interest in amateur dramatics led to him entering the theatre as an actor, but he quickly moved behind the curtain to become a stage manager. In 1931 he went to work for theatre producer Basil DEAN as his general stage manager, subsequently making the same shift into films that DEAN had, joining him at Associated Talking Pictures (ATP) whereDean was studio head. He changed his name to Dearden to avoid any confusion with his boss. When Michael Balcon took over the ATP studios at Ealing, Dearden remained. During the late 1930s he worked on a number of Ealing films, including five George Formby vehicles, usually as writer or associate producer. His directing career began on three comedies featuring another of Ealing’s music hall stars, Will Hay, with Dearden co-directing with Hay.
His first solo effort was The Bells Go Down (1943), which paid tribute to the wartime heroism of the Auxiliary Fire Service. The film’s art director was Michael Relph and his meeting with Dearden marked the beginning of a remarkable collaboration which was to last nearly thirty years. As a director-producer-writer team they became the most prolific film-makers working at Ealing. It was, perhaps, their role as studio workhorses that led to a rather poor critical reputation, with commentators dismissing their work as routine, well-meaning but dull. In retrospect, this assessment of their Ealing output seems inadequate. There are films which certainly fit the 1940s Ealing ethos in terms of adopting a realist style and dealing with contemporary issues, but Dearden and Relph frequently showed a preference for subjects which raised wider moral issues. The Captive Heart (1946) is a moving POW film, whilst Frieda (1947) deals sympathetically with the prejudice facing a German woman who, through marriage, finds herself living in postwar England. The Blue Lamp (1949) tackles juvenile crime within an exciting thriller format (a technique that was to become a trademark), but is best remembered for Dirk Bogarde’s intense performance as a young tearaway. A number of their films deal with the difficulties of postwar readjustment, from the melodramatic The Ship that Died of Shame (1955), through the documentary approach of Out of the Clouds (1955), to the crime caper The League of Gentlemen (1960). The latter was made after the demise of Ealing, but within its genre narrative offers a remarkably cynical depiction of a group of ex-soldiers who find themselves discarded in postwar Britain.
However, the sober realism that predominates in these films doesn’t tell the full story of Dearden’s output in this period. Notable among his other films are the gloriously melancholy costume piece Saraband for Dead Lovers (1948), with its sumptuous colour cinematography and rich production design, and the whimsical comedy The Smallest Show on Earth (1957), which pays nostalgic tribute to the magic of film-going in a style close to the tradition of the Ealing comedies. Dearden also provided a section for Ealing’s macabre portmanteau film Dead of Night (1945). Another reason for Dearden and Relph’s poor standing may have been this eclecticism, which didn’t sit comfortably with the strictures of the auteur theory.
In the late 1950s Dearden and Relph embarked on a series of ‘social problem’ films which explicitly tackled topical themes within a deliberately audience-pleasing entertainment format, often using the crime genre. Sapphire (1959) was among the first British films to deal with racial tensions, while Victim (1961) was groundbreaking in depicting the way that homosexuals were subject to blackmail under contemporary laws. The film was credited with being central to the subsequent decriminalisation, and eventual legalisation, of homosexuality. Violent Playground (1958) again dealt with juvenile delinquency and Life for Ruth (1962) focused on an ethical clash between religious fundamentalism and modern medicine. These films, which have become intrinsically associated with Dearden and Relph, drew a good deal of criticism on the grounds that their timid liberalism failed to fully address the complexity of the issues involved, and that the attempt to frame the topics within fairly conventional storylines drained them of any sense of conflict. The recent, and more sympathetic, reassessment of their work has tended to place the films in context, showing the risks they took in making a film like Victim, as evidenced by the fact that it effectively ended Dirk Bogarde’s Rank contract.
Their later films shifted on to safer ground, but still threwup a number of interesting items including the spectacular epic Khartoum (1965) and the modest, but neatly executed, supernatural thriller The Man Who Haunted Himself (1970), with Roger Moore as a dull man whose exciting alter ego is released in a car crash. In a ghastly irony,Dearden’s career was brought to a premature end when he died as the result of a car accident on 23 March 1971. Dearden’s considerable output is certainly uneven, particularly in the early 1950s, so it’s unsurprising that some critics dismissed him as all too typical of the restraint and mediocrity which has sometimes beset British cinema. However, his work has gradually been given more of the due it deserves. The sheer variety of his output shouldn’t obscure the consistency of his concern withmoral issues tackled within clear social settings.

British Film Directors: A Critical Guide – Robert Shail

24 frames: Highlander (1986)

Give me your hand, brotha. When only a few of us are left, we will feel an irresistible pull towards a far away land… to fight for the prize. You can’t drown, you fool, you’re immortal! Why does the sun come up, or are the stars just pinholes in the curtain of night? Who wantsContinuar lendo “24 frames: Highlander (1986)”

25 atores – Parte 2

Nota: Desta vez abri uma excessão para a televisão com um dos meus scotchs favoritos, pois nada que ele tenha feito no cinema pode equivaler aquele escocês maluco daquele seriado mais maluco ainda. Certo, eu poderia até colocar aquele Jesus Cristo, mas apesar de ter abandonado o catolicismo quando tinha dez anos, a culpa católicaContinuar lendo “25 atores – Parte 2”

Os Filmes Bacanas de Cada Ano que o Cinema Viveu: 1975

1- The Rocky Horror Picture Show (Jim Sharman)Frank N. Furter é uma das melhores personagens do cinema, sem exagero. O mais bizarro é que Tim Curry se envergonha realmente deste papel, do que ele tem orgulho então, Esqueceram de Mim 2? É fácil um dos meus filmes favoritos de sempre e merece muito ser oContinuar lendo “Os Filmes Bacanas de Cada Ano que o Cinema Viveu: 1975”

Os Filmes Bacanas de Cada Ano que o Cinema Viveu: 1989

Chegou a década do prazer absoluto, todas as sessões da tarde não serão suficientes. Nessas de túnel do tempo achei esse site sensacional Get Back. É uma rede social especializada em cultura pop vintage, ou seja, muito mais útil e divertida que as podreiras habituais do gênero. Para eles o fim do mundo foi emContinuar lendo “Os Filmes Bacanas de Cada Ano que o Cinema Viveu: 1989”

A Colina dos Homens Perdidos (The Hill, 1965)

O de The Hill do título do filme de Sidney Lumet poderia muito bem ser trocado por um The Hell, porque é isso que vemos na tela: um inferno em forma de prisão militar. A tal prisão militar é para os soldados do próprio exército britânico e não do inimigo, é uma prisão para manterContinuar lendo “A Colina dos Homens Perdidos (The Hill, 1965)”