 Six years ago, Werner Herzog released arguably the greatest documentary of the 21st Century (so far), Grizzly Man. Using Timothy Treadwell’s tragic story as a conduit for Herzog’s own recurring themes made it an electrifying real-world culmination of his most acclaimed works. Fitzcarraldo and Aguirre: The Wrath of God being the most obvious examples of men whose passions clash with the force of nature itself, Herzog’s subjects – including Treadwell – are often a refraction of his own persona, both in awe of and terrified by the natural world.
It is through his latest film that he decides make the leap of projecting himself onto a location: the Chauvet caves of Southern France, one of the most protected natural sites in the world. Herzog had to get special permission to film there and faced heavy restrictions during production. It is his first – and according to him, last – 3D film, as he wanted to capture the immersive experience of the caves. The site is also home to advanced, perfectly preserved cave paintings that, amazingly, are some of the oldest in human history. It’s a fascinating place, but one that unfortunately leads to a few problems in Herzog’s approach. Read more on Cave of Forgotten Dreams (**½)…
 Anne Hathaway is this generations “America’s Sweetheart”. In every film, including Rachel Getting Married, she manages to shine and win the audiences heart. Audiences love her because they love to watch her. She has an amazing sense of comedy, an outstanding dramatic side, a wonderful singing voice and is incredibly attractive. This makes her the full package.
Anne Jacqueline Hathaway was born November 12th, 1982 in Brooklyn, New York. Her father was a lawyer and her mother was actress/singer, Kate McCauley Hathaway. At a young age, Hathaway was inspired to follow in her mother’s footsteps and become an actress. She then went to star in many school productions and was a part of The Barrow Group, a New York theater company. All of this was preparation for her first job in the industry where she appeared in the TV series Get Real.
Read more on Women In Cinema: Anne Hathaway…
It’s an annual tradition for me at The Awards Circuit…sizing up what the first 6 months of the year were like in film. For me, I found it to be a decently strong year so far, though I know that not everyone shares my sentiment. About a dozen movies to date have qualified as particularly memorable for me, ranging from very good to masterpiece status. To give you some perspective, I’ve seen about 80 movies so far this year, and am on pace (with DVD viewings of films I missed in theaters coming into play) to potentially break last year’s record of 200 films seen in a year. The following is how I saw the year shape up, with breakdowns of the best and worst not just in film, but in terms of performances as well. I even threw in what my first half awards would look like, so enjoy that. Let’s get it started now, with the much anticipated Top 10 list.
Read more on The Highlights and Lowlights of the 1st Half of 2011…
 By now, I’m sure everyone is aware that the Academy has voted to change their rules again, notably regarding Best Picture. Not that anyone has possibly forgotten, but 2 years ago, a change was made, expanding the slate of nominees for the top prize from 5 to 10. Much was made of this decision, both in the affirmative and the negative (mostly in the negative, though I spoke out in favor of it, but more on that later), but once the nominees were announced, the passion dissipated a bit. Both years of 10 have produced 5 clear “top choices”, since now once can just look at the Best Director field and match those nominees up to their films. This year, however…things are going to be different. Now, we’re at the point where we could anywhere from 5 to 10 nominees, and it’ll all be a surprise right up until nomination morning. Here’s some highlights from the AMPAS in their press release: “The governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences voted on Tuesday (6/14) to add a new twist to the 2011 Best Picture
competition, and a new element of surprise to its annual nominations announcement. The Board voted to institute a system that will now produce anywhere between five and 10 nominees in the category. That number won’t be
announced until the Best Picture nominees themselves are revealed at the January nominations announcement…After much analysis by Academy officials, it was determined that 5% of first place votes should be the minimum in order to receive a nomination, resulting in a slate of anywhere from five to 10 movies…If this system had been in effect from 2001 to 2008 (before the expansion to a slate of 10), there would have been years that yielded 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 nominees.” What this essentially means is that they’re looking to eliminate the types of films that are seen as “weak links” in the field. I understand what they’re doing, but I don’t agree with it one bit.
Read more on Best Picture Changes…A Mistake?…
 I’ve always liked Ben Affleck more than most. I’ve never had a problem with his acting (more his choice of roles once he got famous), and in fact found him nomination worthy in a slew of films, including ‘Chasing Amy’, ‘Good Will Hunting’, ‘Jersey Girl’, ‘Hollywoodland’, ‘The Town’, and ‘The Company Men’. Not only have I enjoyed his acting, I think that his 2 directorial projects and 3 scripts have all been some of the very best movies of their years. I never got the Affleck hatred, though I freely admit that starring in a crappy movie called ‘Paycheck’ at the height of his “paycheck acting” days was less than a wise choice. He’s got his limits as an actor, but in the right role he’s still incredibly good. As of late, a lot of people have taken to comparing Affleck to Clint Eastwood, in terms of an actor finding his footing as a director. I’ve found it to be an apt comparison, but I’m going to be taking it one farther here. I actually believe that when Affleck’s career comes to a conclusion you’ll be able to look at his career as a director and
compare it favorably to Eastwood’s. Strong words, I know, but hear (or read) me out.
Read more on Ben Affleck…Better than Eastwood?…
 Let’s face it, we all have movies that it’s assumed we’ve seen but we actually have not. For someone in my position, it’s a bit more of a notable thing, because I’m expected to have as wide a knowledge of film as possible. I’d like to think that I’ve got a good handle on a wide variety of film, but I’ve got my blind spots, like anyone else. This got me thinking, and it turned into an article/discussion piece. What films have I yet to see that I really feel like I should have seen, or just people would be surprised that I’ve yet to see, and are they really as essentially as people make them out to be? Honestly, I’d argue that no one has seen EVERY film that’s out there, and you’d be hard pressed to find someone who doesn’t have a big blind spot or two on the list of films they’ve seen throughout their lives. It’s all but unavoidable, but it’s sometimes hard to know just which films those blind spots are made up of. Consider this my cinematic blind spot confession. As a guideline I’ll work off of the IMDb Top 250 films of all time list, though it’s not the only thing I’m using. I’ll mention it again later, but definitely take the time to let me know where your cinematic blind spots are. As for the list, here are 10 of my most glaring omissions, both in terms of films and filmmakers:
Read more on Cinematic Blind Spots…
 I don’t know about you, but I’m a real lover of movie trailers. There’s something about getting a 1-3 minute glimpse ata film you’ve only heard of previously. Sometimes, the trailers have you over the moon about the flick, ready to plunk
down your hard earned cash and get in line immediately (or hound the studio for a press screening). Sometimes they can show you too much, however, and almost ruin the movie for you. There’s also the trailers that make a movie seem great but in reality are just setting you up for disappointment. I’m not going to be talking about those, however. I’m more concerned with the trailers that were most beneficial to their films. To that end, I have a list of 10 recent (or recent-ish) instances where a trailer did a real solid mitzvah for its full length counterpart. This is just my own personal thoughts, and I’ll even include list my 25 favorite trailers of all time at the bottom, but I’m counting on you guys telling me what trailers you’ve dug (or hated) in the past and taking the discussion even further. That’s for later though…for now, let’s get started and take a look at my 10 selections!
Read more on 10 Great Movie Trailers…
 Do you ever watch a young actress in a film, and say to yourself, “What a good actress, and at such a young age too”? Do you ever wonder after that what their career will be like? Well, I did, with Evan Rachel Wood, when I first saw Thirteen. Now, this might not be the typical piece where I compliment this week’s woman’s career but merely a disappointment with the road it’s gone in.
Evan Rachel Wood was born in Raleigh, North Carolina on September 7th, 1987 to actor/director parents. She began acting at age 3, at the theater her father owned in Raleigh. At the age of seven, Wood made her way into film. She had a few small roles in various TV movies and landed a 3 episode recurring role on the TV series American Gothic in 1996.
Read more on Women In Cinema: Evan Rachel Wood…
 Each year numerous romantic comedies are released. Some are good, some are bad and some become movies we talk about for years. Aside from Woody Allen, women write some of the best romance movies. Women love watching them and men hate to admit they love them. I can tell you that I sure do. A lot of common romance movies concentrate on younger actors falling in love but Nancy Meyers brings the love of the typical average woman to the screen.
Nancy Meyers was born December 8th, 1949. She earned her Journalism Degree from American University in 1971. In 1972 she relocated to Los Angeles to work as a story editor for Rastar Productions. After being in the industry she lent her words to such sitcoms as The Odd Couple and All in the Family.
Read more on Women In Cinema: Nancy Meyers…
 Due to the recent reviews focusing on the HBO miniseries Mildred Pierce, I figured I’d take some time to compliment Kate Winslet’s work.
Winslet was born October 5th, 1975 in Reading, England to a family filled with actors and stage managers. Both of her grandparents were stage managers and her parents were actors. Winslet began acting as a child, making appearances in commercials and British TV. She eventually dropped out of school to pursue her acting career.
Winslet appeared on the British stage and had a recurring role on a British TV sitcom before landing her debut film role in Peter Jackson’s Heavenly Creatures (1994). The movie attracted a lot of attention for Winslet leading her to her next film Sense and Sensibility (1995). Winslet played a supporting role, surrounding herself with well known actors such as Alan Rickman, Emma Thompson and Hugh Grant. The movie earned Winslet her first Academy Award Nomination for Best Supporting Actress.
Read more on Women In Cinema: Kate Winslet…
 This is a special week for me writing Women in Cinema. It’s not because of the actress I am spotlighting but why I have chosen this actress. In honor of my husband taking a huge step in his career, I have decided to spotlight his favorite actress. His favorite actress is, Christina Ricci.
Most famous for her role as Wednesday Addams, Christina Ricci was born February 12th, 1980 in Santa Monica, California and was the youngest of four children of a lawyer father and realtor mother. Ricci attended Glenfield Middle School in New Jersey and soon after, enrolled at the Professional Children’s school after appearing in a school play.
After enrolling at the Professional Children’s School, Ricci appeared in many commercials at the age of six, soon after she made her big screen debut in Mermaids (1990) as Cher’s younger daughter.
Read more on Women In Cinema: Christina Ricci…
 Not only is Tootsie (1982) the finest American comedy ever made, it is without question the greatest movie made about the art of acting! No other film has ever so fully displayed the intense passion with which an actor approaches a role, the manner in which they are willing to live in abject poverty waiting for that big break, the love they possess for the character they are portraying, or that moment when they know they have ceased to be the actor and become the character, inhabiting their character as though they were its soul. Tootsie portrays the truth in acting, making clear how essential truth is for the art to be complete. How they managed to make a film about both is quite incredible, but how they managed to make it so damned good is quite another level of brilliance. When I say the greatest American comedy ever made, I mean a film that is impeccably acted and directed, superbly written and edited, everything coming together to create a film that was hugely funny, deeply moving, a monster hit with audiences and adored by critics. The great strengths of Tootsie are the performances, though at the center of the film is Dustin Hoffman giving what is his greatest performance, one that should have won him a second Academy Award, and a performance that I believe to be
one of the greatest ever put on film.
Tootsie is that great.
Read more on Historical Circuit: Tootsie (****)…
 The trees sway gently back and forth, as the screen goes from black to this image. It is a tropical jungle setting, and in the distance we here something oddly familiar. Helicopters? A yellow mist moves across the screen, and the beginnings of a song are heard on the track. Suddenly the jungle explodes in an inferno of fire, helicopters zipping by and Jim Morrison of The Doors begins to croon, ‘This is the end, my only friend, the end.” The apocalypse, this apocalypse has begun and we have been plunged into the nightmare that was American involvement in Viet Nam. Willard (Martin Sheen) an army assassin is waiting for a mission, slowly becoming unhinged in his filthy hotel room, drinking heavily and sparring naked
with his reflection in the mirror he will break, coating his face with the blood that seeps from his wounded hand, before he falls over sobbing on the floor. He gets his mission, sent into the dark jungle of Cambodia to terminate “with extreme prejudice” a decorated Colonel who has lost control and waged his own war against both the Americans and the Viet Cong. Willard is being sent to kill Kurtz (Marlon Brando) one of the military’s most decorated men, who has seen too much and lost touch with reality. By the time he has completed his journey, Willard will
understand what happened to Kurtz and come to know precisely why he went mad. The journey upriver takes him through the nightmare that is Viet Nam, where we see soldiers fighting a war without a commanding officer, and an entire village wiped out so a Colonel can see his boys go surfing. Encountering Kilgore (Robert Duvall) takes the film to such a fever pitch, it never quite recovers, but it is one of the most astonishing sequences ever filmed.
Read more on Historical Circuit: Apocalypse Now (****)…
 There is a moment in Cabaret, in my mind the single greatest musical ever made, that sets the film far apart from all other films of the genre. It happens in the second half of the in an outdoor beer garden where Sally, Brian and Max have stopped for refreshment. A beautiful young boy stands up and begins to sing, his face that of an angel, his blonde hair shining in the mid-day sun, his blue eyes almost piercing. His song, ”Tomorrow Belongs to Me” is an anthem for the youth, a soaring song about the joy the world holds for the youth of the next generation. The camera slowly pans down from the teenager’s face to reveal that he is a member of the Nazi Brown Shirt Party, and suddenly the mood shifts to something dark and terribly sinister. He becomes obsessed with the song, his passion and voice rising, the people in the outdoor garden joining in singing to the increasingly passionate lyrics, though the elderly decline. We see at once how Hitler seduced Germany, through its youth, through promises of a bright tomorrow and suddenly Cabaret becomes unlike any movie musical ever made.
Of all the genres in film, the musical is my least favorite, though I count this one as one of the greatest films, not musicals, films ever made. No bursting in song in the middle of the Alps, no running through the streets singing songs with no story point at all, but rather an intense dark look at the impact of Nazism on Berlin in 1931 and the effect it would have on the lives of two young lovers from different parts of the world. Brain (Michael York) comes to Berlin to teach English and meets night club singer Sally Bowles (Minnelli) a talented woman who will do anything for success, including sleep her way to the top. He enters into a relationship with Sally which he must know is doomed from the beginning, and they walk a precarious line towards a threesome with a wealthy bi-sexual Max, who has larger eyes for Brian than he does Sally. Finding out that Max and Brian have sletp together Sally is stunned at the betrayal, but far worse more upset at being pregnant and not knowing who the father is. Brian agrees to marry her and raise the child, but Sally unable to leave her dream of being famous, sells her fur coat to pay for an abortion, enraging Brian who leaves her to continue singing her heart out for the audience, now mostly Nazis of the Kit Kat Club.
Read more on Historical Circuit: Cabaret (****)…
 Michael Cimino’s much maligned western epic is often discussed as being among the worst films ever made and the greatest failure in cinema history. It is neither, though it does represent the film that ended the directors’ era of the seventies, a time when filmmakers had complete freedom and access to the deep pockets of the studios. Heaven’s Gate (1980) is an example of a film ruined by the directors’ ego, self indulgence, and blind belief in his project without ever having the ability to see what was happening around him. Cimino was the toast of the town when United Artists signed him to direct Heaven’s Gate, a film based on his own screenplay, and originally budgeted at nine million dollars. He had recently won Academy Awards for best director and best picture for his searing study of the impact of
the Viet Nam war on a small community in The Deer Hunter (1978). United Artists (UA) believed that Cimino could helm the studio’s next great film, their next Oscar winner and their belief led them to give the director whatever he wanted, which was the beginning of the nightmare that would bankrupt the studio. Over the course of 1978 through to the ill fated release of the film in November of 1980, the studio marched silently towards bankruptcy, caused directly by Cimino and his overages on this film. What started at nine, quickly elevated to thirteen, then eighteen, then twenty five at which point the studio panicked and spoke to another director about finishing the film. Knowing that the union would never stand for their recent Directors Guild of America Award as Best Director being fired from his own film, the studio decided to finish the film, for thirty million. Still Cimino kept up his nonsense and the budget tapped out at forty four million dollars. The picture was delivered more than a year late, ran five hours, and was unwatchable. Beyond being vastly overlong, the film is noisy, and many sequences cannot be seen because of the dust on the screen. Where the average battle scene in a film takes twenty minutes, the one in Heaven’s Gate goes on and on and on.
Read more on Historical Circuit: Heaven’s Gate (**)…
 When it was first released The Shining, directed by the legendary Stanley Kubrick, was not the great success, or critical hit it was hoped it would be. In fact some of the scenes drew laughter in the theater, in particular some of Nicholson’s scenes, which I remember hearing people saying was “over the top,”. I never felt that way.
Playboy film critic Bruce Williamson wrote, “the film was terrifying…I forgot to breathe for minutes at a time” which was how I felt. I found the film terrifying, and Nicholson’s performance to be utterly perfect. How did people miss it? How did they NOT recognize Kubrick’s slow building masterpiece of terror, that was as perverse as it was terrifying? What so many people forget when they watch a film directed by the great Kubrick was that never did he intend his audience to merely watch the film, but rather to experience the work, placing themselves in the film. If it is you on the other side of the door as Jack Torrance (Nicholson) wields an axe, bursting through with the sick cry, “Here’s Johnny!!!”, how funny is that? It provoked laughter the first time I saw it, but those that really get the film are not laughing, those that have placed themselves in the shoes of Wendy (Shelly Duvall) are not at all amused. THAT is why The Shining is terrifying, because the director creates such a creepy atmosphere, claustrophobic, haunting and placed in it a man slowly losing his grip on reality. The target of his attack becomes his family, and that to me is frightening.
There are I believe clues to how Kubrick directed the Nicholson performance, which borders on being cartoon, making it all the more terrifying. As Danny watches TV we hear the familiar Warner Brothers tune, ‘If you’re on a highway, a road runner goes bee…beep…” while later, Torrance knocks on the door as the big bad wolf and threatens to huff and puff and blow the house in. The wonderful bike Danny rides through the hotel is called a road runner, thus Torrance becomes the coyote. What is entertaining in childhood becomes an abomination when seen as this. This coyote, like the cartoon, keeps getting up after injury, though unlike the cartoon there is blood and injury and consequences for failure. On the other side, for Danny and Wendy there is the chance of death should he catch up to them.
Read more on Historical Circuit: The Shining (****)…
John Ford was the greatest American director of the classic era, a poet with a camera, able to convery volumes of dialogue with a single image. Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg and George Lucas each cite Ford as one of their strongest influences, and Orson Welles once said he studied directing under the three masters, being “John Ford, John Ford, and John Ford.” High praise indeed. Ford once introduced himself as “My name is John Ford, I make westerns” at a famous meeting of the Directors Guild in which his speech ended a divide and coup that was taking place engineered by rabid American Cecil B. Demille. In a few short sentences, Ford cut the pompous Demille down to size, and then left the meeting, perhaps going home to read or play poker with John Wayne and Ward Bond. Ford won four Academy Awards as Best Director, ironically not one of them came for a western though that is the genre with which he is most associated. His finest The Searchers (1956) is also the greates of the genre, a masterpiece of visual poetry with a towering, seething performance from John Wayne that marked the greatest work of Wayne’s career. Never before had Wayne portrayed such a conflicted, twisted man as Ethan Edwards, a warrior at war with himself more than any man he ever fights. His deep hatred for the Indians will emerge over the course of the film, after the slaughter of his brother’s family at the hands of a murder raid in which the two your neices of Ethan’s are taken. One girl is found, the eldest, raped and murdered in a canyon where Ethan forever scarred by the sight, wraps her in his coat and gently buries her. The youngest, Debbie, becomes the obsession of Ethan’s search, spanning the years, with Ethan always coming, never stopping, forever chasing down the tribe and cief that took Debbie to raise as one of their own.
Read more on Historical Circuit: The Searchers (****)…
 With the release of the new Peter Biskind book Star, a biography and study of actor-director-producer-writer Warren Beatty, I took a look at Reds (1981) the other night, his seminal study of John Reed and the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, as seen through the eyes of Reed who wrote the first great journalistic book Ten Days That Shook the World. Long a passion project of Beatty’s he was never comfortable being a movie star,
wanting to be taken seriously as an artist, producing the brilliant work Bonnie and Clyde (1967) and dabbling in direction for the first time with Heaven Can Wait (1978) a remake of the classic Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1942). For his work on that romantic comedy he received four Academy Award nominations, as Best Actor, Best Director (shared), Best Producer (shared) and Best Screenplay (shared), a feat not accomplished since Orson Welles with Citizen Kane (1941). Never comfortable as a mere movie star, Beatty saw himself as an artist and his obsession with John Reed turned fever pitch when he went to Paramount to ask them to finance a film about Reed to the tune of twenty five million dollars. At one point the head of Paramount told him to take twenty five million, spend one million on any movie and pocket the rest but do not make Reds. Too late, Beatty was hooked.The result was a massive epic in which the director never lost sight of the fact he was making an intimate study about people, artists like himself.
Read more on Historical Circuit: Reds (****)…
 Religious groups went out of their minds after viewing Mel Gibson’s extraordinary study of the last few hours in Christ’s life because they were expecting a film about his life. Instead Gibson made a brilliant, scalding work about his death, and what a terrible death it was. We have all the stories of the crucifixion, but never before had we truly understood the punishment Christ went through on the way to Golgotha and his destiny, if we truly believe in that sort of thing?
Seeing The Passion of the Christ was an amazing experience for me, an atheist who struggles with religion and what it stands for. I am bothered that more people have died in the name of God than for any other reason in the history of recorded mankind, but I do believe Christ walked the earth. Whether or not he was the son of God is not for me to decide, but he was special, there is no doubt of that. How can I say that with such boldness and certainty?
His story has survived two thousand years.
To this day in churches around the globe people bow down in the name of Jesus Christ and give thanks for what he gave to us, or to ask for his forgiveness. I struggle with all organized religions, I struggle with the facts of the Old Testament, I struggle with the theories of Van Daniken and how science has answered many historical questions for us, but emerging from this film, I struggled with a firm belief in Christ no more. Even if he was not the son of God, he believed himself to be, he must have to allow himself to be put through this extreme torture and horrible manner of death. And if he was not truly the son of God, so what, does it really matter? He was an astounding man who taught important things to mankind at the time, at least those who would listen to him. The miracles? I don’t know. I know I got out of a car accident I had no business surviving, I know my sister came back to us after being taken off life support and lingering for ten days while we waited for her to die, having been told by her medical team she had no brain activity. People have said to me those are miracles, and there are thousands more through history, many we have never heard of. Mel Gibson is devoutly religious, he believes in God and Jesus Christ and he wanted to make a film that was about the last hours in the life of Jesus that explored realistically went this man went through, what he endured to fulfill whatever destiny he believed he had on earth.
Read more on Historical Circuit: The Passion of the Christ (****)…
 One of the more under appreciated films of the eighties, True Confessions earned strong reviews upon being released, but sadly never really found an audience, never really did well at the box office and somewhat sadly slipped out of theaters before audiences had a chance to discover the movie. One would think the pairing of Robert Duvall and Robert De Niro would draw audiences in as the pair were at the height of their careers, De Niro fresh from an Oscar winning performance in Raging Bull (1980) and Duvall having just been declared America’s greatest actor by the New York Times.
The film is a classic film noir, beginning in present day (circa 1981) where an old man, Tom (Duvall) is driving through the desert, his destination an old church where his brother, Des (De Niro) is the priest. They greet one another with genuine fondness and then begin to discuss the crime that in ruining Des’s aspirations within the church served to bring them closer together in every way.
We move back to the forties, where Tom is a detective for the Los Angeles Police Department and his brother Des is a fast rising priest within the Catholic Church, often turning a blind eye to the political goings on. When a young woman is literally cut in half, her body left to rot, Tom begins connecting the dots of the crime and all arrows point to the Church. Jack Amsterdam (Charles Durning) is a crooked businessman who donates a great deal of money to the church, who in turn look the other way on his criminal activities. Knowing that his brother is connected, or at the very least has knowledge of the crime, Tom targets Amsterdam, recognizing his brother may be ruined. Obsessed with the law, with upholding the law, Tom barges through the case indeed taking Amsterdam down, but in the process, destroys his brother’s career.
Read more on Historical Circuit: True Confessions (***)…
 I would bet my soul that one year after the Academy Awards were dominated by Richard Attenborough’s old fashioned biography of Gandhi (1982), the voters were wishing they could do it all again and perhaps honor the right film, E.T.: The Extraterrestrial (1982). Even Attenborough recognized that Spielberg had made the better picture, stopping on his way to the podium to tell Spielberg exactly that. The Academy got caught up in honoring the man, honoring Gandhi and not the film. Indeed what Gandhi did for India was extraordinary, the act of a brilliant, selfless man who deserves to be remembered for what he did and what he was? If indeed they had made a film that properly explored his life, warts and all, then indeed that film should be so honored, but they did not. Instead Attenborough made the mistake of falling in love with his subject to the point he saw no warts, he saw only goodness. Had the Gandhi in this film suddenly walked on water I would not have been shocked. Rather than make a biography Attenborough made a film that was akin to Gandhi: The Greatest Hits and explored the best things he did in his life, many of which we already knew. Why not do what Spike Lee did with Malcolm X (1992); show the man has flaws?? Do what Oliver Stone did with Nixon (1995); show how those flaws impacted his life and those around him!! We know Gandhi slept between two teenage girls in his later years to test his celibacy, so why not show that?? Why did his celibacy have to be tested? Perhaps because he worried he was weak?? Show that!! He seemed always surrounded by pretty women, why? Show us, help us understand!! His treatment of his wife was often terrible, making her live for him rather than live her own life. And he certainly enjoyed those cameras that were often turned on him. Show these things because these flaws, if they can be called such, humanize him!! Rather than giving us a virtual saint, and that is what Attenborough does, give us a man, a simple man who did great things.
Read more on Historical Circuit: Gandhi (**)…
Jane Fonda’s angry attack on the United States and President Richard Nixon for American involvement in Viet Nam earned her the nickname “Hanoi Jane” and the hatred of the American government. Fonda had begun her career as a light comic actress- sex kitten before becoming a major dramatic actress with her Oscar nominated performance in They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? (1969) which would win her the New York Film Critics Award for Best Actress. Two years later she was back on the stage of the Academy Awards accepting an Oscar for her brilliant performance in Klute (1971) which won her a second Best Actress plaque from the New York Film Critics Circle. That performance, as a hooker being stalked by a murderous client, the actress gave one of the cinema’s greatest performances, surpassed by only Meryl Streep in Sophie’s
Choice (1982) and Vivien Leigh in Gone with the Wind (1939). Her career was soaring, she was on the cusp of becoming America’s greatest actress, and she turned her back on film to protest the war in Viet Nam.
Fonda made a major comeback in 1977 with a superb performance in Julia (1977) which earned her a third Oscar nomination, and proved her box office power with the hit film Fun with Dick and Jane (1977). During this time Fonda was also working on a film about the war in Viet Nam, initially entitled Buffalo Soldiers. Screenwriter Nancy Dowd, best known for the superb Slap Shot (1977) screenplay fashioned a powerful story that Fonda would produce and take a role in the film. After being turned down by Jack Nicholson, Al Pacino and Sylvester Stallone for the male lead, she turned to Jon Voight who at once headed to a veterans hospital and sat himself in a wheelchair that he refused to get out for the entire shoot. Character actor Bruce Dern was cast as Fonda’s husband, a man who cannot wait to get to war, but once there finds it is very different than he believed it would be. Hal Ashy was invited to direct the film, and working with Fonda quickly made it his own picture, bringing that brilliant insight Ashby brought to all of his work.
Read more on Historical Circuit: Coming Home (****)…
 I confess to leaping (as much as I can these days) for joy when the courier delivered my press copy DVD of this outstanding film.
FINALLY!!!!! IT’S HERE!!!
For the first time since the creation of these lovely little discs, The African Queen (1951) makes its way to the digital realm in alls its glory, having been lovingly retsored by the wizards who work their magic behind the scenes. Shot on location in the African Congo when director John Huston insisted on doing so, the behind the scenes making of the movie was every bit the adventure the film itself became. In fact Clint Eastwood would direct White Hunter Black Heart (1990), a superb study of the film’s making, in which he portrayed a thinly disguised version of John Huston.
Huston was a wild man, feared by the studios, adored by actors and admired by critics for his literate, often beautiful films that were very much a slice of life. His greatest film, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) won him an Oscar for Best Director and Screenplay, as well as an award for his father’s supporting performance. Years later he would direct his daughter Anjelica to an Oscar in Prizzi’s Honor (1985) the last great film he made. Most of his films were adpatations of great literary works, be it classics such as Moby Dick (1956) or The Man Who Would Be King (1975) or modern pot boilers such as The Maltese Falcon (1941) of the aforementioned Prizzi’s Honor (1985). He lived life hard, drinking his way through much of his existence, fighting whenever the spirit moved him, and making some of the greatest movies of the last century. One of his best friends was Humphrey Bogart, an equally hard drinking, hard living man, who was under the direction of Huston a brilliant actor. In the manner that John Ford knew which buttons to push with John Wayne, or Martin Scorsese with Robert de Niro, Huston understood Bogart and guided from him some of the actors darkest performances.
Read more on Historical Circuit: The African Queen (****)…
 Written as a pulp novel, the studio brought in little known director-writer Francis Ford Coppola believing they could control him to make the film they wanted to see, something very different from The Arrangement (1969)…something successful. Paramount had no idea that they had just hired one of the most stubborn and willful young men in the business, who saw his chance to make a film about something different than just the book, but rather a film about the corruption of the America Dream, and family.
Think about it for a minute.
The Corleone family are of Italian descent, Vito having been born in Italy but forced to flee as a child, left alone to be raised by strangers, but who found love, had a family, made the decision to murder and prospered as a criminal, rising to the position of Don of the most powerful Mafia family in New York in the years after the war. He allows his sons to work for him but does not ask of them to do so. There is enormous love between this father and his sons, and they truly love one another. They are a family just as we have families, but their business happens to include murder. He brought to the film an operatic story of a father and his sons and their business, and the tragedy that befalls the youngest son, being drawn into the family business after being a war hero, never wanting to be involved, but doing so to avenge an attempt on his father’s life.Coppola had no interest in the cast Paramount suggested, which included Burt Lancaster, Ernest Borgnine, Frank Sinatra or Laurence Olivier as the Don, with Warren Beatty, Robert Redford, Jack Nicholson, David Carradine or Martin Sheen as any one of the sons. Coppola had other ideas. He wanted little known Al Pacino for the role of Michael, easily the film’s best part, James Caan as the hot headed Sonny, John Cazale as the weak Fredo, Robert Duvall as the adopted son Tom, and in the coveted role of the Don, he wanted Marlon Brando. Aghast the studio shut the idea down, at which point Coppola threw himself on the floor in the throes of some sort of seizure.Obviously he got his cast, and the rest, as they say is history.
Well almost.
Read more on Historical Circuit: The Godfather (****)…
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Six years ago, Werner Herzog released arguably the greatest documentary of the 21st Century (so far), Grizzly Man. Using Timothy Treadwell’s tragic story as a conduit for Herzog’s own recurring themes made it an electrifying real-world culmination of his most acclaimed works. Fitzcarraldo and Aguirre: The Wrath of God being the most obvious examples of men whose passions clash with the force of nature itself, Herzog’s subjects – including Treadwell – are often a refraction of his own persona, both in awe of and terrified by the natural world.
