Category Archives: Academy Award

“I’ll Make Him an Offer He Can’t Refuse”🐴

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IN THEATERS JUNE 4th and JUNE 7th

TCM Big Screen Classics Presents

“The Godfather”

A Special 45th Anniversary Event

 

The Godfather

 

This iconic film about a New York mafia family’s rise to power in the years following World War II stars Marlon Brando as the family’s patriarch, Don Corleone, and features career-making performances by Al Pacino, James Caan, and Robert Duvall. Directed by Francis Ford Coppola, it’s based on Mario Puzo‘s best-selling novel. This searing and brilliant film garnered seven Academy Award nominations and won three, including Best Picture of 1972.

 

 

I’ve stated for years that if you want a blueprint for the rules of life, a screening of “The Godfather” is mandatory. In an interview about the making of the film, Coppola revealed that his idea was to approach the Corleone family like a king and his sons. I believe focusing on the family dynamics versus “the mob” gave more depth and layers to the characters and the audience’s involvement in the film.

 

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Cinematographer Gordon Willis initially turned down the opportunity to film The Godfather because the production seemed “chaotic” to him. After Willis later accepted the offer, he and Coppola agreed to not use any modern filming devices, helicopters, or zoom lenses. Willis and Coppola chose to use a “tableau format” of filming to make it seem if it was viewed like a painting. He made use of shadows and low light levels throughout the film to showcase psychological developments.

Willis and Coppola agreed to interplay light and dark scenes throughout the film. Willis underexposed the film in order to create a “yellow tone.” The scenes in Sicily were shot to display the countryside and “display a more romantic land,” giving these scenes a “softer, more romantic” feel than the New York scenes. (Wikipedia)

 

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Although many films about gangsters preceded “The Godfather”, Coppola’s heavy infusion of Italian culture and stereotypes, and his portrayal of mobsters as characters of considerable psychological depth and complexity was unprecedented.

 

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Coppola took it further with The Godfather Part II, and Part III. The success of those films, critically, artistically and financially, opened the doors for numerous other depictions of Italian Americans as mobsters, including films such as Martin Scorsese‘s Goodfellas and TV series such as David Chase‘s The Sopranos.

Goodfellas 1990

Ray Liotta, Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci

“Goodfellas” (1990)

 

“The Godfather” is widely regarded as one of the greatest films in world cinema and one of the most influential, especially in the gangster genre. It was selected for preservation in the U.S. National Film Registry of the Library of Congress in 1990, being deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” and is ranked the second greatest film in American cinema (behind Citizen Kane) by the American Film Institute. (Wikipedia)

 

So, whether this would be your first viewing or you’re a lifelong fan, get your tickets here and check out “The Godfather” on the big screen for this special, limited-time performance!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stepping into the Light – 20 Feet From Stardom!✨

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(Prince and Judith Hill. Photographs by Karrah Kobus/NPG Records, via Getty Images)

Mourning the 1 year passing of music legend Prince, I was amazed to learn about his relationship with the powerhouse singer-songwriter Judith Hill as her confidant and musical collaborator.

Ms. Hill was a contestant on the 2013 season of “The Voice” (the TV singing competition) and later that same year appeared in the Academy Award-winning documentary about backup singers, “20 Feet From Stardom” earning a Grammy for her performance.

Judith Hill

(“I was with Prince the last two years of my life,” Judith Hill said. “Now he’s gone, and I realize I was leaning on him a lot,” she said. “And that’s what’s scary. I’m on my own.” Elizabeth Weinberg for The New York Times)

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I cheered for Ms. Hill on “The Voice” and was shocked when she didn’t make the cut. Her voice is phenomenal and once before she had been so close to blowing up as a recording star when she was paired as a featured vocalist with Michael Jackson on his ill-fated tour “This is It”. On “The Voice” I thought, maybe this time she’ll get her shot.

 

And now, with the passing of Prince, Judith would once again be denied the major exposure that could have skyrocketed her to the top of the musical ladder instead of her forever feeling – “20 feet from stardom”.

 

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Judith Hill, Michael Jackson

 

Here’s a look at the Oscar-winning documentary about the incredible backup singers and the travesty of how their careers have always been “20 Feet From Stardom”.

 

20 feet from stardom

 

2014 Academy Award Winner for Best Documentary Feature,  “20 Feet From Stardom” is directed by Morgan Neville and inspired by producer Gil Friesen’s quest to reveal the untold stories of the phenomenal voices behind some of the greatest artists in American music.

 

Darlene Love
“Godmother” of backup singers
Jo Lawry, Judith Hill, Lisa Fischer
Sweet music!
Lisa Fischer, Merry Clayton

 

The film takes a backstage look at the lives and experiences of backup singers Darlene Love ( Rock & Roll Hall of Fame), Judith Hill (The Voice), Merry Clayton, Lisa Fischer, Tata Vega and Jo Lawry among others.

 

 

The Ladies Speak:  Lisa Fischer, Darlene Love, Judith Hill

 

Merry Clayton performed that killer background vocal on The Rolling Stones’ classic “Gimme Shelter”

Millions know their voices, but no one knows their names. I was thrilled when this film was released to showcase these gifted women that for whatever reason remain in the shadows. It’s a sad fact but, nevertheless, they stayed in the game and they are legends!

 

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Which One is Bigger? Really?!!

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Two unstable people with access to nuclear bombs is a serious recipe for disaster! One mad man got elected President. The other is the supreme ruler of N. Korea.  

 

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Kim Jung-Un, Trump

 

This is strikingly close to the storyline of Dr. Strangelove and in reality my daily nightmare!

“Dr. Strangelove” is the 1964 political satire black comedy film that satirizes the Cold War fears of a nuclear conflict between the Soviet Union and the United States. The film was directed, produced, and co-written by Stanley Kubrick, stars Peter Sellers and George C. Scott, and features Sterling Hayden, Keenan Wynn, and Slim Pickens. Production took place in the United Kingdom. The film is loosely based on Peter George‘s thriller novel Red Alert (1958). (Wikipedia)

 

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(“Red Alert” originally published in the UK as Two Hours to Doom, with George using the pseudonym “Peter Bryant”)

 

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The story concerns an unhinged United States Air Force general who orders a first strike nuclear attack on the Soviet Union. It follows the President of the United States, his advisers, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and a Royal Air Force (RAF) officer as they try to recall the bombers to prevent a nuclear apocalypse. It separately follows the crew of one B-52 bomber as they try to deliver their payload.

 

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Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)

 

“Dr. Strangelove” is Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece about the absurdity of war that nevertheless is a daily possibility!

 

Kubrick filmology

 

 

Peter Sellers is at his over the top best with his performance as nutcase Dr. Strangelove. (and a few other characters) A wheelchair-bound nuclear scientist with bizarre ideas about man’s future. The entire war room scene totally represents the lunacy of nuclear war.

 

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Columbia Pictures agreed to finance the film if Peter Sellers played at least four major roles. The condition stemmed from the studio’s opinion that much of the success of Kubrick’s previous film Lolita (1962) was based on Sellers’s performance in which his single character assumes a number of identities.

 

Peter Sellers as – President Merkin Muffley, Dr. Strangelove, and Captain Lionel Mandrake

 

Sellers is said to have improvised much of his dialogue, with Kubrick incorporating the ad-libs into the written screenplay so the improvised lines became part of the official screenplay.

 

 

Awards and honors

The film was nominated for four Academy Awards and also seven BAFTA Awards, of which it won four.

 

Stanley Kubrick

Stanley Kubrick

Kubrick won two awards for best director, from the New York Film Critics Circle and the Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists, and was nominated for one by the Directors Guild of America.

In 1989 the United States Library of Congress included it in the first group of films selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. It was listed as number three on AFI’s 100 Years…100 Laughs list.

 

Slim Pickens

Ye Ha! Slim Pickens as Aircraft commander Major T. J. “King” Kong riding the bomb down.

Let us pray this nightmare doesn’t come true! 

 

 

 

What We Do in the Dark!

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“We didn’t need dialogue. We had faces!” Norma Desmond

 

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As she descended the well-worn stairs of her aged and decadent mansion steeped in long past memories, Norma Desmond uttered the declaration that forever remains in the memories of those who witnessed her performance in the 1950 classic, “Sunset Boulevard.” It’s impossible to forget those delusional words spoken by the creepy Norma Desmond as she is escorted through the end scene for her deadly deed; not surprisingly surrounded by gawkers vying for a tiny glimpse of the reclusive silent film star.

 

 

Before the film, I had only heard of Gloria Swanson but hadn’t seen any of her films. After witnessing her tour-de-force performance as the legendary diva, Norma Desmond, I sought out every movie of hers that I could. Wow, she inhabited the role of Norma Desmond with intimate knowledge of the silent film era since those were Swanson’s actual glory days. By the way, the dialogue is both fantastic and hilarious.

 

Gloria May Josephine Swanson (March 27, 1899 – April 4, 1983)

 

“Sunset Boulevard” (stylized onscreen as SUNSET BLVD.) is a 1950 American film noir directed and co-written by Billy Wilder and produced and co-written by Charles Brackett. It was named after the boulevard that runs through Los Angeles and Beverly Hills, California. (Wikipedia)

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Billy Wilder

 

The film stars William Holden as Joe Gillis, an unsuccessful screenwriter, and Gloria Swanson as Norma Desmond, a faded silent film star who draws him into her fantasy world where she dreams of making a triumphant return to the screen, with Erich von Stroheim as Max Von Mayerling, her devoted servant.

 

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Erich von Stroheim, William Holden, Gloria Swanson

 

Nancy Olson, Fred Clark, Lloyd Gough and Jack Webb play supporting roles. Director Cecil B. DeMille and gossip columnist Hedda Hopper play themselves, and the film includes cameo appearances by leading silent film actors Buster Keaton, H. B. Warner, and Anna Q. Nilsson.

 

Anna Q. Nilsson
Cecil B. DeMille
Hedda Hopper
Buster Keaton

Praised by many critics when first released, Sunset Boulevard was nominated for eleven Academy Awards (including nominations in all four acting categories) and won three. Deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” by the U.S. Library of Congress in 1989, Sunset Boulevard was included in the first group of films selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. In 1998, it was ranked number twelve on the American Film Institute‘s list of the 100 best American films of the 20th century, and in 2007, it was 16th on their 10th Anniversary list. (Wikipedia)

 

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I’ve never been a famous movie star (maybe stage😎) But God help me if I ever get that Norma Desmond look in my eyes, dial 911!

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