The Godfather Without Brando?: It Almost Happened

in Film, Video - Arts & Culture | November 3rd, 2007

It’s hard to imag­ine The God­fa­ther, the icon­ic 1972 film, with­out Mar­lon Bran­do. But that’s almost how it turned out.

Dur­ing cast­ing, Para­mount exec­u­tives orig­i­nal­ly pushed for Lau­rence Olivi­er. But when he could­n’t take the film, and when the direc­tor, Fran­cis Ford Cop­po­la, asked them to con­sid­er Bran­do, they ini­tial­ly respond­ed: “Mar­lon Bran­do will nev­er appear in this motion pic­ture.” Below, Cop­po­la and co-star James Caan explain how the execs were even­tu­al­ly cajoled into chang­ing their minds, and how film his­to­ry fell into place. As you watch this, also keep in mind that Para­mount orig­i­nal­ly asked two oth­er direc­tors to make The God­fa­ther before approach­ing Cop­po­la, and they lat­er want­ed Robert Red­ford or Ryan O’Neal to play Michael Cor­leone. But Cop­po­la, who threat­ened to quit pro­duc­tion, even­tu­al­ly got his way and put the rel­a­tive­ly unknown Al Paci­no into the film.

FYI: Best Week Ever has a good post on the Top 10 Actor / Direc­tor Tandems In Movie His­to­ry.

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“One of The Supreme Creations of Documentary Filmmaking” Airs Tonight

in Film | October 9th, 2007

A.O. Scott (The New York Times) calls it “One of the most remark­able exper­i­ments in the his­to­ry of cin­e­ma.” Roger Ebert says it “is on my list of the ten great­est films of all time.” The film is 49 UP, and it airs tonight on PBS.

The film is the sev­enth film in a long-run­ning series of doc­u­men­taries that has traced the lives of 14 Brits, start­ing when they were 7 years old in 1964. The direc­tor, Michael Apt­ed, has revis­it­ed these chil­dren every sev­en years (they are now 49 years old), watch­ing how their lives have changed over the years. Talk about ambi­tious. You can watch a trail­er for the film here, and lis­ten to an inter­view with the direc­tor here.

P.S. The quote in the title comes from Salon.

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Vintage Woody Allen (From His Stand Up Days)

in Comedy, Film, Video - Arts & Culture | October 7th, 2007

I’ve heard this joke many times before on audio, but nev­er seen it on video. Here it goes. The Moose Joke appar­ent­ly from 1965.

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Blade Runner: The Final, Final Cut of the Cult Classic

in Film | September 30th, 2007

25 years after the release of Blade Run­ner, Rid­ley Scott has assem­bled a final and defin­i­tive direc­tor’s cut of the film, giv­ing audi­ences the chance to see the film as Scott orig­i­nal­ly intend­ed it.Before the film’s orig­i­nal release in 1982, pre­view screen­ings went hor­ri­bly, and the mon­ey men stepped in and imposed changes on the aes­thet­ic and nar­ra­tive. Voice-overs and hap­py end­ings were added. New film shot. Dia­logue changed. “I went along with the idea that we had to do cer­tain things to get audi­ences inter­est­ed,” Scott lament­ed in an arti­cle in appear­ing this week­end’s New York Times. “I lat­er real­ized that once I adopt­ed that line, I was sell­ing my soul to the dev­il, inch by inch drift­ing from my orig­i­nal conception.”This is actu­al­ly Scot­t’s sec­ond attempt at cre­at­ing a final cut. Back in 1992, he took a first crack at revis­ing Blade Run­ner. But he ulti­mate­ly did­n’t have the time and resources to get the job done as he liked. Now, just in time to cap­i­tal­ize on the 25th anniver­sary of the film, he’s releas­ing what he calls the final, final cut. The movie will be released in New York and Los Ange­les the­aters on Octo­ber 5, and by Christ­mas, you can buy it on DVD. (Actu­al­ly, it can already be pre-ordered on Ama­zon.)If you have a free moment, you may want to watch the audio slideshow that the Times put togeth­er on the cult clas­sic as well as the new film’s trail­er (see below). And to get even more info on this film’s mak­ing and remak­ing, see this arti­cle by MTV’s Kurt Loder.

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Martin Scorsese on The Rolling Stones, Then George Harrison

in Film, Music, Video - Arts & Culture | September 29th, 2007


Mar­tin Scors­ese is on a rock ‘n roll tear.

In 2006, he released No Direc­tion Home, an acclaimed doc­u­men­tary on Bob Dylan (long after he filmed his first rock­u­men­tary, The Last Waltz in 1978). Next April, he’s set to release anoth­er doc­u­men­tary on The Rolling Stones, ten­ta­tive­ly called Shine a Light. (Watch the already released trail­er below.) And now he has just agreed to direct a film about George Har­ri­son. The movie, being made with the sup­port of Har­rison’s fam­i­ly, will cov­er his time with the Bea­t­les, his music and film career there­after, and Har­rison’s spir­i­tu­al engage­ment with East­ern reli­gion. Report­ed­ly, Paul McCart­ney and Ringo Starr may also con­tribute to the mak­ing of the film. It won’t be out for a few good years. In the mean­time, check out our recent piece, The Bea­t­les: Pod­casts from Yes­ter­day.

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Classic Films on Google Video

in Film, Google, Video - Arts & Culture | September 24th, 2007

Here’s a lit­tle some­thing for the film buffs out there: The­Lis­tU­ni­verse has post­ed a col­lec­tion of ten clas­sic films from the 1920s, 30s and 40s that you can watch on Google Video. Just click and watch. On the list, you’ll find Fritz Lang’s M, the 1922 Ger­man silent film Nos­fer­atu, The Gold Rush with Char­lie Chap­lin, The Gen­er­al with Buster Keaton, and three films by the great Frank Capra — It Hap­pened One Night (with Clark Gable), It’s a Won­der­ful Life and Mr. Smith Goes to Wash­ing­ton (both with Jim­my Stew­art). Being one of our favorites, we have post­ed “Mr. Smith” below.

Note: For more great films, please see our col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online, which fea­tures more than 120 films, many of them clas­sics.

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The Return of Dr. Strangelove?

in Books, Current Affairs, Film | September 7th, 2007

strangelove2.jpgThe Stan­ley Kubrick clas­sic Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Wor­ry­ing and Love the Bomb cen­ters around a Sovi­et dooms­day device. If Rus­sia is attacked by nuclear weapons, the device will set off count­less nuclear bombs auto­mat­i­cal­ly, there­by ren­der­ing the Earth unin­hab­it­able. It was dark humor when Peter Sell­ers brought it to life on the sil­ver screen…but what if it’s real?

That’s just what a new book from the U.K. is argu­ing. Dooms­day Men by P. D. Smith pro­vides evi­dence that a Russ­ian dooms­day sys­tem called “Perimetr” went oper­a­tional in the mid-1980s, and still is. As Ron Rosen­baum points out in Slate, this is par­tic­u­lar­ly upset­ting news since Vladimir Putin recent­ly announced that Russ­ian nuclear bombers would recom­mence “strate­gic flights”–potentially armed with nukes. The prospect of war between the U.S. and Rus­sia might seem remote, but the return to nuclear pos­tur­ing is not a good sign for human­i­ty. Rosen­baum once inter­viewed some of the Min­ute­man com­man­ders who con­trol our own nuclear arse­nal and his arti­cle makes a great read:

“This dooms­day appa­ra­tus, which became oper­a­tional in 1984, dur­ing the height of the Rea­gan-era nuclear ten­sions, is an amaz­ing feat of cre­ative engi­neer­ing.” Accord­ing to Blair, if Perimetr sens­es a nuclear explo­sion in Russ­ian ter­ri­to­ry and then receives no com­mu­ni­ca­tion from Moscow, it will assume the inca­pac­i­ty of human lead­er­ship in Moscow or else­where, and will then grant a sin­gle human being deep with­in the Kosvin­sky moun­tains the author­i­ty and capa­bil­i­ty to launch the entire Sovi­et nuclear arse­nal.

Oth­er con­tent worth explor­ing:

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Ingmar Bergman Dies at 89

in Film, Video - Arts & Culture | July 30th, 2007

Ing­mar Bergman, one of the great film­mak­ers of the last cen­tu­ry, has died at 89. You can read the full obit in the NY Times here, and catch a piece of his mas­ter­work Per­sona below (or buy the film in full here). Film buffs may also want to check out Bergman’s auto­bi­og­ra­phy, The Mag­ic Lantern.

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