The Academy Awards came and went this year, and one of my favorite films of 2010, True Grit, got no love at the Oscars, despite receiving 10 nominations! While The King's Speech won best picture, it tied with Inception for the most number of wins--four. (All of the wins for Inception were much deserved technical awards.) Otherwise, the winners were evenly distributed--The Social Network won three awards, while The Fighter, Toy Story 3 and Alice in Wonderland each won two. Black Swan received one win, as did The Wolfman (for make-up, which was the only thing in that movie that was worth even mentioning). Despite all that sharing of Oscar gold, Joel and Ethan Coen's adaptation of Arkansan Charles Portis' beloved novel didn't make the cut.
Our Home Fry-ed Movie for March also got no love on Oscar night, even though it received six nominations including best picture. Love Affair, directed by Leo McCarey and starring Irene Dunne and Charles Boyer, didn't have a chance. It was bested in four of its nominated categories by Gone With the Wind, that went on to receive a record-setting ten Academy Awards. In the other two categories, it was beat out by Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and The Wizard of Oz. If you're going to get beaten, this is good company!
Like True Grit, 1939's Love Affair is a great movie and well worth seeing, even though both got the snub on Oscar night. The first showings of Love Affair are Friday, March 25 at 8 p.m., Saturday, March 26 at midnight and Sunday, March 27 at 11 a.m. on UALR University Television (Channel 61 on Little Rock Comcast and 99 on U-Verse). You can also catch it at various times in April.
Monday, March 21, 2011
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
And Then There Was... The Devil?
I recently watched the 2010 movie Devil, produced by M. Night Shyamalan. It's the first film in a trilogy he's producing based on some "Twilight Zone" type stories that he comes up with and then passes on to other writers and directors to complete. I was interested to find out that part of Night's inspiration for Devil came from Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None, which was adapted to the screen in 1945 and featured on Home Fry-ed Movies in February.
Devil is about five people that get trapped on an elevator in a high-rise office building. One by one, they get murdered, and we discover that one of them may be the devil in disguise. As we get to know each of the characters, we discover that they all have some guilt from their past.
And Then There Were None was about 10 people trapped on an island, who get killed off one by one. Like the characters in Devil, they all have committed some crime (or at least look like they have), and one of them is the murderer (although he or she is probably not the devil).
Hollywood is heavily into recycling, especially when it comes to stories.
Devil is about five people that get trapped on an elevator in a high-rise office building. One by one, they get murdered, and we discover that one of them may be the devil in disguise. As we get to know each of the characters, we discover that they all have some guilt from their past.
And Then There Were None was about 10 people trapped on an island, who get killed off one by one. Like the characters in Devil, they all have committed some crime (or at least look like they have), and one of them is the murderer (although he or she is probably not the devil).
Hollywood is heavily into recycling, especially when it comes to stories.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Home Fry-ed Oscars
The Oscars are this Sunday night (Feb. 27) and we’ll all be gathered around the big screen TV in the Home Fry-ed Diner to see who the winners are. I’m torn between True Grit and The King’s Speech, both very good and both very different. I’d be happy if either one took home Best Picture. However, I’m afraid it might be The Social Network, also a good movie, but not as good as those two, in my opinion.
The Home Fry-ed Movie for February/March is And Then There Were None, which didn’t get any Academy Award nominations back in 1945 but has a cast and crew full of Oscar nominees and winners. Barry Fitzgerald had one Oscar win and one additional nomination. Walter Huston had one win plus three nominations. Judith Anderson, Roland Young and Mischa Auer each had a nomination. Screenwriter Dudley Nichols had one win and three additional Academy Award nominations. Art director Ernst Fegte had a win plus three nominations and set decorator Edward Boyle had a staggering six nominations plus a win.
So which Home Fry-ed Movie was the most honored by the Academy? A Star is Born (1937), our Home Fry-ed Movie for August 2010. It received an Oscar for best original screenplay and an honorary award for its color photography, plus six additional nominations, including Best Picture. The only other Home Fry-ed Movie to get recognition was our September 2010 pick, The Stranger (1947), which received a nomination for best original screenplay. The rest of our Home Fry-ed Movies have been snubbed by the Academy. They’ll just have to settle for receiving the Honorary Fries (or is it Fry-es?) in our Home Fry-ed Diner.
Friday, January 28, 2011
The Road to Public Domain
This month's Home Fry-ed Movie is Road to Bali with Bing Crosby and Bob Hope, the sixth of the seven Road pictures the two stars would make. It is, however, the only one of these films in the public domain. Why? The answer is quite simple. Somebody make a mistake.
(BTW, if you haven't figured it out yet, Home Fry-ed Movies presents only films that are in the public domain, meaning we can show the movies without paying licensing fees. Our budget is pretty thin, and the cost to show films, even really old ones, on cable can be prohibitive. So we mine through the extensive list of movies in public domain and show some of the best--and worst--movies we can.)
Road to Bali received a copyright registration on Jan. 1, 1953. However, the entry says the registration was in notice in 1952, so that year becomes the actual copyright date. Under current law, a movie from that time period must have its renewal made in the 28th calendar year of its original term. Whoever filed the paperwork to renew Road to Bali's copyright counted from 1953 instead of 1952, and submitted the renewal a year late.
Clerical errors like that put a lot of movies in the public domain. Those of us here at Home Fry-ed Movies would like to thank all those people that are a day late and a dollar short for giving us a wide variety of movies from which to choose!
(BTW, if you haven't figured it out yet, Home Fry-ed Movies presents only films that are in the public domain, meaning we can show the movies without paying licensing fees. Our budget is pretty thin, and the cost to show films, even really old ones, on cable can be prohibitive. So we mine through the extensive list of movies in public domain and show some of the best--and worst--movies we can.)
Road to Bali received a copyright registration on Jan. 1, 1953. However, the entry says the registration was in notice in 1952, so that year becomes the actual copyright date. Under current law, a movie from that time period must have its renewal made in the 28th calendar year of its original term. Whoever filed the paperwork to renew Road to Bali's copyright counted from 1953 instead of 1952, and submitted the renewal a year late.
Clerical errors like that put a lot of movies in the public domain. Those of us here at Home Fry-ed Movies would like to thank all those people that are a day late and a dollar short for giving us a wide variety of movies from which to choose!
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Little Green Men and a Jolly Old Elf!
December's Home Fry-ed Movie is Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, one of the strangest (if not the strangest) Christmas movies of all time. There are, of course, hundreds of Christmas movies out there. Favorites of mine would be It's a Wonderful Life (I loved this movie long before it became a holiday staple), the original Miracle on 34th Street (1947), and Christmas in Connecticut (1945) with Barbara Stanwyck and a whole host of Hollywood character actors. Some modern favorites include A Christmas Story (1983) and Elf (2003). Any others I'm missing?
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Welcome to a Haunted House Party!
October brings Halloween, so we had to do something special on Home Fry-ed Movies. This month, we're presenting a "Home Fry-ed Halloween Haunted House Party" with the classic Vincent Price film, House on Haunted Hill. It's a fun (and silly) film with one of weirdest haunted houses in history -- the Ennis House in Los Angeles, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.
Movies about ghosts have grown very popular in the past ten years, probably following the success of M. Night Shyamalan's The Sixth Sense (1999). Several decent ghost stories followed: Stir of Echoes (1999), What Lies Beneath (2000), The Others (2001). A whole slate of remakes of classic ghost movies also came along during this same time period including a remake of House on Haunted Hill (1999).
Another ghost story remade in 1999 was The Haunting. Okay, but the original from 1963 is much better and one of my favorite ghost stories of all time. It's subtle, atmospheric and creepy -- everything I think makes for a good haunted house movie.
Of recent ghost stories, I'd rank 1408 (2007) among the best. Do you have a favorite movie with a ghostly theme?
Movies about ghosts have grown very popular in the past ten years, probably following the success of M. Night Shyamalan's The Sixth Sense (1999). Several decent ghost stories followed: Stir of Echoes (1999), What Lies Beneath (2000), The Others (2001). A whole slate of remakes of classic ghost movies also came along during this same time period including a remake of House on Haunted Hill (1999).
Another ghost story remade in 1999 was The Haunting. Okay, but the original from 1963 is much better and one of my favorite ghost stories of all time. It's subtle, atmospheric and creepy -- everything I think makes for a good haunted house movie.
Of recent ghost stories, I'd rank 1408 (2007) among the best. Do you have a favorite movie with a ghostly theme?
Thursday, August 26, 2010
A Star is Born!
Our movie for August-September is A Star is Born (1937) with Janet Gaynor and Fredric March. The setting for this movie is Hollywood. Not just the city itself, but the whole idea of making movies. Despite the fact that Hollywood is kind of shy about making movies about itself, there have been many good (and a few bad) ones.
My favorites include the following:
Sunset Blvd. (1950) - Billy Wilder's somewhat satirical film noir about a down-on-his-luck screenwriter (are there any other kind?) and a past-her-prime silent film star is one of the best American movies ever. Along with William Holden as the writer and Gloria Swanson as film legend Norma Desmond, it features Erich von Stroheim playing a former movie director that has become the chauffeur/butler of Desmond. Stroheim had actually directed Swanson during the silent era, but she fired him a third of the way through the movie they were working on. It was one of Stroheim's last directorial efforts, and afterwards he turned strictly to acting.
The Player (1992) - Even though Robert Altman said this was one of his least favorite works, it's the Altman film I like the best. Tim Robbins plays a producer who thinks he's getting death threats from a disguntled (read, "down-on-his-luck") screenwriter. The movie is famous for all the cameos of Hollywood celebrities (more than 60). It's also famous for its opening tracking shot, where the camera follows different characters around a movie studio lot, while many of them talk about famous tracking shots!
Singin' in the Rain (1952) - Not only is this a great musical, but it also gives you a funny and slightly accurate view of what Hollywood was like in that transition period from silent pictures to sound. My favorite sequence has always been the re-shooting of The Dueling Cavalier as a talkie. Placing the microphones is impossible, the lead actress's Brooklyn accent is annoying, and when they finally screen the picture, the sound gets out of synch. "Yes yes yes!" "No no no!"
I should also mention some great documentaries about moviemaking:
Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse (1991) chronicles the difficult task of shooting Apocalypse Now. The lead actor has a heart attack, a typhoon wrecks the set, and Marlon Brando shows up late, having never read the script. The film was shot by director Francis Ford Coppola's wife Eleanor.
Lost in La Mancha (2002) is about another difficult production, only this one never made it past the first few days of shooting. It's about Terry Gilliam's The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, which encountered its own problems with weather and sick actors. The film was eventually closed down, but we hear that Gilliam is back at it and plans to release a completely re-shot version in 2011.
American Movie (1999) is about the difficulties of an eccentric ne'er-do-well trying to make a super-low-budget independent film. Even though he's working on a shoestring, it's no easy task.
I guess when it comes to documentaries, I like watching other people have problems.
My favorites include the following:
Sunset Blvd. (1950) - Billy Wilder's somewhat satirical film noir about a down-on-his-luck screenwriter (are there any other kind?) and a past-her-prime silent film star is one of the best American movies ever. Along with William Holden as the writer and Gloria Swanson as film legend Norma Desmond, it features Erich von Stroheim playing a former movie director that has become the chauffeur/butler of Desmond. Stroheim had actually directed Swanson during the silent era, but she fired him a third of the way through the movie they were working on. It was one of Stroheim's last directorial efforts, and afterwards he turned strictly to acting.
The Player (1992) - Even though Robert Altman said this was one of his least favorite works, it's the Altman film I like the best. Tim Robbins plays a producer who thinks he's getting death threats from a disguntled (read, "down-on-his-luck") screenwriter. The movie is famous for all the cameos of Hollywood celebrities (more than 60). It's also famous for its opening tracking shot, where the camera follows different characters around a movie studio lot, while many of them talk about famous tracking shots!
Singin' in the Rain (1952) - Not only is this a great musical, but it also gives you a funny and slightly accurate view of what Hollywood was like in that transition period from silent pictures to sound. My favorite sequence has always been the re-shooting of The Dueling Cavalier as a talkie. Placing the microphones is impossible, the lead actress's Brooklyn accent is annoying, and when they finally screen the picture, the sound gets out of synch. "Yes yes yes!" "No no no!"
I should also mention some great documentaries about moviemaking:
Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse (1991) chronicles the difficult task of shooting Apocalypse Now. The lead actor has a heart attack, a typhoon wrecks the set, and Marlon Brando shows up late, having never read the script. The film was shot by director Francis Ford Coppola's wife Eleanor.
Lost in La Mancha (2002) is about another difficult production, only this one never made it past the first few days of shooting. It's about Terry Gilliam's The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, which encountered its own problems with weather and sick actors. The film was eventually closed down, but we hear that Gilliam is back at it and plans to release a completely re-shot version in 2011.
American Movie (1999) is about the difficulties of an eccentric ne'er-do-well trying to make a super-low-budget independent film. Even though he's working on a shoestring, it's no easy task.
I guess when it comes to documentaries, I like watching other people have problems.
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