Great Movies
Tributes
George Segal: 1934-2021
A tribute to the great George Segal.
A tribute to the great George Segal.
A tribute to the late Oscar-winning actor, Martin Landau.
Molly Haskell speaks with Matt Zoller Seitz about "From Reverence to Rape," "Love and Other Infectious Diseases," "Steven Spielberg: A Life in Films" and more.
"The Girl" premieres on HBO at 9:00pm (8:00pm Central) on Saturday, Oct. 20. It will also be available on HBO GO.
by Jeff Shannon
October, 1961: A New York fashion model on the verge of Hollywood stardom, 31-year-old Tippi Hedren (Sienna Miller) is invited to a celebratory lunch with legendary film director Alfred Hitchcock (Toby Jones) and his wife Alma (Imelda Staunton), who's also his long-time collaborator. A divorced single mother (of future actress Melanie Griffith, then four years old), Hedren is plucked from obscurity to star in "The Birds," Hitchcock's highly anticipated follow-up to his phenomenally successful 1960 thriller, "Psycho." After Alma sees her in a TV commercial ("I like her smile," she says to "Hitch"), she arranges a meeting. Secretly smitten, Hitchcock directs Hedren's screen test in his own Bel Air home and, shortly thereafter, offers a toast.
Matt Zoller Seitz devotes his final Friday Night Seitz slideshow at Salon (he's starting as New York Magazine's TV critic Monday -- most deserved congrats!) to a list of his "Movies for a desert island." His rules: ten movies only, plus one short and one single season of a TV series, for a total of 12 titles. "Part of the fun of this exercise," he writes, "is figuring out what you think you can watch over and over, and what you can live without."
Matt's titles include "What's Opera, Doc?," Season One of "Deadwood," Bob Fosse's "All That Jazz," Terrence Malick's "The New World" (surprise!), Terrence Davies' "The Long Day Closes" (my #1 film of 1992), Joel & Ethan Coen's "Raising Arizona" (a movie I like, but consider among their lesser efforts) and Albert and David Maysles' "Salesman." Click here to see the complete list and Matt's comments.
OK, I'm game. So, the challenge, as MZS sets it up, is not just to pick "favorites," but to choose pictures that will stand up to repeated viewing since nobody is going to get you (or vote you) off the island and "It is assumed that you'll have an indestructible DVD player with a solar-recharging power source, so let's not get bogged down in refrigerator logic, mm'kay?"
In contemporary Hollywood, when a young actor becomes successful, he immediately tries to convert fame into power and money, investing his time in formulaic projects that guarantee great results at the box office and, thus, his ascension in the industry. It was not always like this - and we just need to observe Al Pacino's career to confirm that: after he became a hit with The Godfather, dozens of screenplays fell onto his lap, but he still focused on challenging and complex works in which he struggled against Hollywood's attempts to turn him into a heartthrob - projects such as A Dog Day Afternoon (in which he robbed a bank to pay for the sex reassignment surgery of his boyfriend, played by Chris Sarandon) and, of course, Serpico.
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Roger Ebert / April 23, 1995
For the centennial of cinema, 100 great moments from the movies:
Clark Gable in "Gone With the Wind":
"Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn."
Buster Keaton standing perfectly still while the wall of a house falls over upon him; he is saved by being exactly placed for an open window.
Charlie Chaplin being recognized by the little blind girl in "City Lights."
The computer Hal 9000 reading lips, in "2001: a Space Odyssey."
The singing of "La Marseillaise" in "Casablanca."
Snow White kissing Dopey Bashful on the head.
John Wayne putting the reins in his mouth in "True Grit" and galloping across the mountain meadow, weapons in both hands.
Jimmy Stewart in "Vertigo," approaching Kim Novak across the room, realizing she embodies all of his obsessions - better than he knows.
The early film experiment proving that horses do sometimes have all four hoofs off the ground.
Gene Kelly singin' in the rain.
Samuel L. Jackson and John Travolta discuss what they call Quarter Pounders in France, in "Pulp Fiction."
The Man in the Moon getting a cannon shell in his eye, in the Melies film "A Voyage to the Moon."
Pauline in peril, tied to the railroad tracks.
A boy running joyously to greet his returning father, in "Sounder."
Harold Lloyd hanging from a clock face in "Safety Last."
Orson Welles smiling enigmatically in the doorway in "The Third Man."
An angel looking down sadly over Berlin, in Wim Wenders' "Wings of Desire."
The Zapruder film of the Kennedy assassination: Over and over again, a moment frozen in time.
A homesick North African, sadly telling a hooker that what he really wants is not sex but couscous, in Rainer Werner Fassbinder's "Fear Eats the Soul: Ali."
Wile E. Coyote, suspended in air.
Zero Mostel throwing a cup of cold coffee at the hysterical Gene Wilder in Mel Brooks' "The Producers," and Wilder screaming: "I'm still hysterical! Plus, now I'm wet!"
An old man all alone in his home, faced with the death of his wife and the indifference of his children, in Yasujiro Ozu's "Tokyo Story."
"Smoking." Robert Mitchum's response, holding up his cigarette, when Kirk Douglas offers him a smoke in "Out of the Past."
Marcello Mastroianni and Anita Ekberg wading in the fountain in "La Dolce Vita."
The moment in Akira Kurosawa's "High and Low" when a millionaire discovers that it was not his son who was kidnapped, but his chauffeur's son - and then the eyes of the two fathers meet.
The distant sight of people appearing over the horizon at the end of "Schindler's List."
R2D2 and C3PO in "Star Wars."
E.T. and friend riding their bicycle across the face of the moon.
Marlon Brando's screaming "Stella!" in "A Streetcar Named Desire."
Hannibal Lecter smiling at Clarise in "The Silence of the Lambs."
"Wait a minute! Wait a minute! You ain't heard nothin' yet!" The first words heard in the first talkie, "The Jazz Singer," said by Al Jolson.
Jack Nicholson trying to order a chicken salad sandwich in "Five Easy Pieces."
"Nobody's perfect": Joe E. Brown's last line in "Some Like It Hot," explaining to Tony Curtis why he plans to marry Jack Lemmon even though he is a man.
"Rosebud."
The shooting party in Renoir's "Rules of the Game."
The haunted eyes of Antoine Doinel, Truffaut's autobiographical hero, in the freeze frame that ends "The 400 Blows."
Jean-Paul Belmondo flipping a cigarette into his mouth in Godard's "Breathless."
The casting of the great iron bell in Andrei Tarkovsky's "Andrei Rublev."
"What have you done to its eyes?" Dialogue by Mia Farrow in "Rosemary's Baby."
Moses parting the Red Sea in "The Ten Commandments."
An old man found dead in a child's swing, his mission completed, at the end of Kurosawa's "Ikiru."
The haunted eyes of the actress Maria Falconetti in Dreyer's "The Passion of Joan of Arc."
The children watching the train pass by in Ray's "Pather Panchali."
The baby carriage bouncing down the steps in Eisenstein's "Battleship Potemkin."
"Are you lookin' at me?" Robert De Niro in "Taxi Driver."
"My father made them an offer they couldn't refuse:" Al Pacino in "The Godfather."
The mysterious body in the photographs in Antonioni's "Blow-Up."
"One word, Benjamin: plastics." From "The Graduate."
A man dying in the desert in von Stroheim's "Greed."
Eva Marie Saint clinging to Cary Grant's hand on Mt. Rushmore in "North by Northwest."
Astaire and Rogers dancing.
"There ain't no sanity clause!" Chico to Groucho in "A Night at the Opera."
"They call me Mr. Tibbs." Sidney Poitier in Norman Jewison's "In the Heat of the Night."
The sadness of the separated lovers in Jean Vigo's "L'Atalante."
The vast expanse of desert, and then tiny figures appearing, in "Lawrence of Arabia."
Jack Nicholson on the back of the motorcycle, wearing a football helmet, in "Easy Rider."
The geometrical choreography of the Busby Berkeley girls.
The peacock spreading its tail feathers in the snow, in Fellini's "Amarcord."
Robert Mitchum in "Night of the Hunter," with "LOVE" tattooed on the knuckles of one hand, and "HATE" on the other.
Joan Baez singing "Joe Hill" in "Woodstock."
Robert De Niro's transformation from sleek boxer to paunchy nightclub owner in "Raging Bull."
Bette Davis: "Fasten your seat belts; it's gonna be a bumpy night!" in "All About Eve."
"That spider is as big as a Buick!" Woody Allen in "Annie Hall."
The chariot race in "Ben-Hur."
Barbara Harris singing "It Don't Worry Me" to calm a panicked crowd in Robert Altman's "Nashville."
The game of Russian roulette in "The Deer Hunter."
Chase scenes: "The French Connection," "Bullitt," "Raiders of the Lost Ark," "Diva."
The shadow of the bottle hidden in the light fixture, in "The Lost Weekend."
"I coulda been a contender." Brando in "On the Waterfront."
George C. Scott's speech about the enemy in "Patton:" "We're going to go through him like crap through a goose."
Rocky Balboa running up the steps and pumping his hand into the air, with all of Philadelphia at his feet.
Debra Winger saying goodbye to her children in "Terms of Endearment."
The montage of the kissing scenes in "Cinema Paradiso."
The dinner guests who find they somehow cannot leave, in Bunuel's "The Exterminating Angel."
A knight plays chess with Death, in Bergman's "The Seventh Seal."
The savage zeal of the Klansmen in Griffith's "The Birth of a Nation."
The problem of the door that won't stay closed, in Jacques Tati's "Mr. Hulot's Holiday."
"I'm still big! It's the pictures that got small!" Gloria Swanson in "Sunset Boulevard."
"We're a long way from Kansas!" Judy Garland in "The Wizard of Oz."
An overhead shot beginning with an entrance hall, and ending with a closeup of a key in Ingrid Bergman's hand, in Hitchcock's "Notorious."
"There ain't much meat on her, but what's there is choice." Spencer Tracy about Katharine Hepburn in "Pat and Mike."
The day's outing of the mental patients in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest."
"I always look well when I'm near death." Greta Garbo to Robert Taylor in "Camille."
"It took more than one night to change my name to Shanghai Lily." Marlene Dietrich in "Shanghai Express."
"I'm walkin' here!" Dustin Hoffman in "Midnight Cowboy."
W.C. Fields flinching as a prop man hurls handfuls of fake snow into his face in "The Fatal Glass of Beer."
"The next time you got nothin' to do, and lots of time to do it, come up and see me." Mae West in "My Little Chickadee."
"Top o' the world, Ma!" James Cagney in "White Heat."
Richard Burton exploding when Elizabeth Taylor reveals their "secret" in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"
Henry Fonda getting his hair cut in "My Darling Clementine."
"Badges? We ain't got no badges. We don't need no badges. I don't have to show you any stinkin' badges!" Alfonso Bedoya to Humphrey Bogart in "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre."
"There's your dog. Your dog's dead. But there had to be something that made it move. Doesn't there?" Line from Errol Morris' "Gates of Heaven."
"Don't touch the suit!" Burt Lancaster in "Atlantic City."
Gena Rowlands arrives at John Cassavetes' house with a taxicab full of adopted animals, in "Love Streams."
"I want to live again. I want to live again. I want to live again. Please God, let me live again." Jimmy Stewart to the angel in "It's a Wonderful Life."
Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr embrace on the beach in "From Here to Eternity."
Mookie throws the trash can through the window of Sal's Pizzeria, in "Do the Right Thing."
"I love the smell of napalm in the morning," dialogue by Robert Duvall, in "Apocalypse Now."
"Nature, Mr. Allnut, is what we are put in this world to rise above." Katharine Hepburn to Humphrey Bogart in "The African Queen."
"Mother of mercy. Is this the end of Rico?" Edward G. Robinson in "Little Caesar."
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Everybody hates it when they don't explain everything that happened by the time the movie is over. What we need at the end is not open-endedness but clarity, loose-end tying-up, closure. We need more movies like "Psycho" (unfortunately Simon Oakland has passed, but Larry King is still with us) and "Mulholland Dr." -- movies that take a little time to explain exactly what happened so we're not left feeling stupid all the way home. You know what they say: The difference between a comedy and a tragedy is where you end the story. Well, the same goes for the ending: The difference between a good ending and a bad ending is how good the ending is. Here are eleven of the most outrageously unsatisfactory ambiguous endings in movie history:
"Gone With the Wind" (1939) Scarlett O'Hara says, "I'll go home. And I'll think of some way to get him back. After all... tomorrow is another day." That's not the ending of a movie -- that's the beginning of act three! Put up or shut up, Scarlett. Clark Gable has just said the word "Damn" at you and that's it? If tomorrow is such another day, then bring it on!
"Casablanca" (1942) What do you mean Ingrid Bergman goes off with Paul Henreid and all Bogart's left with is the barest hint of a homosexual future with Claude Rains? At the end he puts her on a damn plane (something about how she doesn't amount to a hill of beans) and he and Rains walk off into the fog together as Bogart says, "Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship." Whoa! What the hell happened then? What if "Brokeback Mountain" ended right after Heath Ledger threw up? What kind of ending would that be? And how does Peter Lorre figure into it?
View image An extreme close-up -- up Thomas Jefferson's nose, that is. Wee Roger O. Thornhill and Eve Kendall are in long shot.
For the Close-Up Blog-a-thon at The House Next Door:
When is a long shot a close-up? When it's part of an Alfred Hitchcock cliffhanger sequence on Mount Rushmore in 1959's "North by Northwest," that's when.
View image Full profile of Roger on right, as Eve drops right out of the bottom of the picture. The most prominent facial feature in the shot is Jefferson's schnoz (this could almost be microphotography, if you thought of it on that scale), with Abe Lincoln looking on in semi-Bergmanesque three-quarter profile from below his predecessor's nostril.
View image Mr. Washington is ready for his close-up now, with a teeny henchman standing to the left of his cheek and miniscule Roger and Eve hanging out between him and Jefferson.
View image Mr. Lincoln. And Leonard. (That would be a tiny Martin Landau.)
Hitchcock is having so much fun with scale and perspective here that I chuckle with delight (even as I tense up) every time I see the, uh, climactic sequence, which ends with an insertion shot -- both long shot and close-up, depending on how you look at it -- that's so naughty, so pornographic it will have to wait until after the jump....
The seventh annual Outdoor Film Festival in Grant Park will open with James Dean as a rebel without a cause, and end with Ferris Bueller as a rebel with one. The series of seven free Tuesday evening screenings, which draw crowds upward of 14,000, unspools starting July 18 at Butler Field, Monroe and South Lake Shore. The schedule of this year's festival, which is presented by the Mayor's Office of Special Events, Commonwealth Edison, the Chicago Park District and the Chicago Film Office, was released today.
HYDERABAD, India--After the Calcutta Film Festival, I stop for a few days in Hyderabad, the pearl capital of central India, where they are holding their 14th annual Golden Elephant Children's Film Festival. Headquarters is the Holiday Inn Krishna, where a papier-mache elephant dominates the lobby. After Calcutta's bump-'em traffic, Hyderabad is a relief; the drivers here are as laid back as the typical Manhattan cabbie.
Nineteen years after his death, he remains as famous as any director in movie history - even Steven Spielberg. Other directors have had their films remade, but only Alfred Hitchcock made one so monumental that another director, a good one, actually tried to duplicate it, shot by shot. Gus Van Sant's "Psycho" (1998) was a bad idea, but it's the thought that counts.
The questions about Elia Kazan's honorary Oscar have no simple
HYDERABAD, India After the Calcutta Film Festival, I stop for a few days in this pearl capital of central India, where the 14th annual Golden Elephant Children's Film Festival is taking place. Headquarters is the Holiday Inn Krishna, where a papier-mache elephant dominates the lobby. After Calcutta's bump-'em traffic, Hyderabad is a relief; the drivers here are as laid back as the typical Manhattan cabbie.
For the centennial of cinema, 100 great moments from the movies: Clark Gable in "Gone With the Wind":
