Clint Eastwood’s tete-a-tete with a chair at the Republican National Convention seems a distant memory now that the 2012 election is a wrap, but at BAFTA’s Brittania Awards in Los Angeles last night Daniel Day-Lewis sat invisible Obama down for an encore of sorts. Gesturing to an empty chair of his own, Day-Lewis, who received the Stanley Kubrick Award for Excellence in Acting from his Lincoln director Stephen Spielberg, said:
While I’d taken it upon myself to pick some horrific non-horror films a few Halloweens ago (Guillermo del Toro’s eyes-in-the-hands guy, you’re always on my mind), this year I was interested to know what my fellow TNB contributors might say were the most terrifying movie scenes they’ve endured to date. Below, if you dare to read on, you’ll find those iconic dead-eyed twins, bad hell-spawn hair, an unfathomable choice, and more, but first I’ll get this party started with Willy Wonka’s boat ride from the 1971 Mel Stuart film. Most of my phobias can be traced back to these two manic minutes in the tunnel:
Joss Whedon has stepped out in support of Mitt Romney. The Avengers director and cult TV icon has released a new video in which he discusses why he believes the Republican candidate is the right man to lead this nation … into the imminent zombie apocalypse. Well, uh, just watch Whedon explain it:
If you peruse the Arts and Culture archives of TNB’s 21 Questions, particularly the part that asks for a favorite actor, you’ll find Daniel Day-Lewis to be the most common answer. He’s an actor’s actor, I suppose. And also, he’s just that good. I’m convinced, anyway, that if it weren’t for his casting as Abe in Spielberg’s Lincoln, fewer of us would be paying attention. As TNB helmsman Brad Listi recently tweeted:
It would seem Alfred Hitchcock is silhouetting himself into the public consciousness once again. He’s everywhere these days. For one thing, Vertigo recently (finally!) rose above Citizen Kane to top Sight and Sound Magazine’s best movies of all time. All time. The end. For another, there are Hitchcock biopics aplenty on the horizon. On October 20, HBO premieres The Girl, based on Tippi Hedren’s account of working with Hitch on The Birds, and the feature film Hitchcock — starring Scarlett Johansson, Helen Mirren, and Anthony Hopkins as the man himself — hits the big screen November 23. Behold, the trailer:
Watch this Funny or Die production starring Christopher Walken, Richard Belzer, and some “lovely assistants,” and you, too, will envision Walken spending his days taking close-up phone pics of his nose and sharpening knives with alarming gusto:
On the heels of The Master’s nationwide release and a slew of mixed reviews (calling The Master everything from “vibrant and seductive” to “frustrating and flawed”), director Paul Thomas Anderson spoke with Terry Gross of NPR’s Fresh Air today about creating his Scientology-inspired new film.
Actor Johnny Lewis, who appeared on two seasons of Sons of Anarchy, was found dead on the driveway of a residence outside of Los Angeles on Wednesday. Early reports suggest the actor fatally attacked the home owner, an elderly woman who may have been renting a room to Lewis, before engaging in an altercation with neighbors and then falling to his death “either from the stairway, or the balcony, or one of the roofs,” according to Commander Andrew Smith in an interview with ABC News. Lewis, who was 28, also had roles in The O.C., The Runaways, and the recent Eduardo Sánchez film Lovely Molly.
September 18, 2012
Ahead of a longer Killers concert documentary that legendary filmmaker Werner Herzog is directing, Rolling Stone premiered this exclusive Herzog mini-doc with the band on the magazine’s website today:
When the first glimpses of Daniel Day-Lewis as Abraham Lincoln surfaced, I thought, is there anything Day-Lewis can’t do? Now that the first full trailer of Lincoln is here, I know the answer is nope. Lincoln, directed by Stephen Spielberg and starring Tommy Lee Jones, Jared Harris, Sally Field, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, opens in select theaters on November 9 and nationwide on November 16.
August 27, 2012
A Trip to the Moon
When Neil Armstrong’s family suggested that every time we caught sight of the moon we “give Neil a wink” in remembrance, I immediately pictured Georges Melies’ moon in this famed short film – which in turn gave me the idea for compiling this list. So let’s start with that wink, shall we?
News came late Sunday that British-born director Tony Scott has died after jumping from a bridge in Los Angeles County. Authorities discovered notes with contact information in his car parked nearby and a suicide letter in his office.
From The Wrap:
Fans of writer/director/artist extraordinaire Terry Gilliam (Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Brazil, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas) may be interested to know that Gilliam’s daughter Holly Gilliam has been sorting through her father’s extensive archive and sharing some of her discoveries online as of this month. As she explains on her blog “Discovering Dad”:
The nearly five-minute trailer for the adaptation of David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas found its way to the web this morning. The film, set to premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September, is directed by Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run) along with Lana Wachowski and Andy Wachowski (The Matrix) and stars just about everybody including Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Jim Sturgess, Hugh Grant, James D’Arcy, Jim Broadbent, and Susan Sarandon. Click below to view (via The Hollywood Reporter):
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