Escapade

Love and Other Drugs

2011-01-02T04:05:00.000-08:00

Sometimes the problem with my cinema-going is that I have no quality control. I'll usually just turn up at the picturehouse and go for whatever is next to start. This has advantages and disadvantages - I might miss something I'd quite like to see because of my timing, but I might also check out a film that I really wouldn't go near in a million years if I had the choice.I saw Megamind last week and absolutely loved it, but I wouldn't have chosen to see it. There's also the day last year when I saw three films in one day: The Last Exorcism, Toy Story 3D and Piranha 3. That was a night of strange dreams I can tell you.

Yesterday's New Year's Day trip to the pictures was to see Love & Other Drugs. There were a couple of other options, but the multiplexes are almost crammed to bursting with kids' films at this time of year. Gulliver's Travels I'm not keen on (mostly due to the Orange advert, which, if you're as regular as I am is now just IR-RIT-AT-ING!) and although I don't mind the Narnias and Harry Potters etc I'd rather not be in a packed cinema of little people to see them. So, the choice was also The Way Back or Burlesque, which I'm secretly desperate to see, but I ended up with the first-come first-seen Love & Other Drugs.

So, Jake Gyllenhaal and Anne Hathaway are lovely, right. They have proved their acting chops many times before but this is just poor. I was a little disappointed that it became one of those best-bits-in-the-trailer films and whilst I could look at Jake Gyllenhaall's arse all day it was underused on this occasion. A modern day 'Love Story', Gyllenhaal plays Jamie Randall an arrogant and omni-sexual drugs rep sleeping his way across Ohio leaving a trail of doe-eyed chest-heavers in his wake. Everyone falls for his charms, eventually even the doctors he is trying to flog his sub-Prozac pills too. Luckily he's working for Pfizer and when Viagra comes along he's the perfect rep in the perfect position to make it big. Cue some excruciating gags about hard-ons and shagging. So far so Farrelly Brothers. But he meets Maggie, naturally whilst staring at her spider-bitten tit (a cinema first?) a no-nonsense 26 year old in early stages of Parkinson's disease who is just like him, no frills, no commitment, no long-term plans. So they start shagging, a lot. But, what do you know?... he falls for her (one of the funniest scenes in the film is Jamie's declaration of love which is tantamount to having a heart-attack) and this quickly develops into something scarily like a relationship which both of them are trying to avoid.

Despite good performances from the leads, and also Josh Gad as funny, fat, younger brother, what bothered me the most about this film is that it was so obvious. The disease of the day movies have been doing the rounds for decades and there really isn't much more to it here, except maybe a bit more tits and ass that you don't see on a Hallmark TV movie. Trying to make these characters a bit more sassy and believable makes them less so. When Maggie visits a Parkinson's convention it's almost like she's never realised that, "hey, I'm just a normal person after all!", even though that's how she's behaved for most of the film up to that point. The plot and characters are not dissimilar to Up In The Air, but where that film managed to be truthful this is just cloying.

So, a disappointing start to the year but then I wasn't expecting Citizen Kane I suppose. One thing that might have improved my enjoyment of the film is if the couple next me hadn't been noisily scoffing popcorn and sucking Coke like a pair of elephants for pretty much the whole film.

Spot the Prisoner!

2010-07-14T06:33:00.000-07:00

A little game I like to play when watching fillums, especially Australian or New Zealand ones, is Spot the Prisoner! I was just the right age in the late 1980s when the ITV network in the UK started to screen Prisoner: Cell Block H late at night on Thursdays and got hooked from episode one, along with a million other students, Neighbours fans, gayboys and lesbians, and lovers of trash telly. It was a genuine cult happening and it revitalised the careers of some of Australia's lesser known character actresses and brought new fame to some of the best-loved who discovered a whole new fanbase, ten years after they'd started filming the thing. It even got Lynne Hamilton a 1989 top ten hit single!

Prisoner was brilliant, and that's a fact. It wasn't 'so bad it's good' it was simply good. It had it all and more and it went where even some soaps today still fear to tread, all within those wobbly walls of Wentworth. For ten years it paraded it's lags, dags, fags, hags and slags and I never missed an episode. Thousands of us mourned when it finally came to and end, only to be reborn with repeat showings on Channel 5 for another 8 years! Then we mourned again when it finished once more.... but it lives on, not only in the largest DVD boxset ever made, but also in the work of the thousands of actresses and actors who walked those grey corridors. Anyone who is anyone from Australian telly of the 80s cut their teeth at Wentworth and the alumni now pop up all over the place.

So, whenever I see an Aussie film I always get diverted with a bit of Spot the Prisoner... this week, BBC1 showed a strange little thriller with Susan Sarandon called Irresistible which starred herself, Sam Neill and Emiy Blunt engaged in mysterious shenanigans, owls and dark secrets of the past. It also has a Prisoner score of 2 - with appearances from the legendary Charles 'Bud' Tingwell (Priz characters: Mr. Hudson and Dr. Massey, mid-80s) who basically appeared in every Australian drama series you could name as well as a few British ones, and Alethea McGrath (above) (Priz: Dot Farrar) whose phizog has turned up all over the place from Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones to Neighbours.

Spotting the Prisoner can make the dullest movies even a just a little more interesting and I'll let you know when I spot some more.

Oscar Trivia July 4th - 11th 2010

2010-07-12T13:19:00.000-07:00

So, last week I began to pose an Oscar Trivia Question on my Twitter feed every day, just for fun. I'll be blogging about some of the facts here alongside my other blogposts but at the end of each week I think I'll do a round-up of all the teasers. So, this week's were:

July 4th: Which Oscar-nominated director appeared in the film Independence Day (1994)?
- Jeff Goldblum (see this post for more info)

July 5th: Who are the only two Oscar-winners to play James Bond and the James Bond villain in the same film?
- David Niven and Orson Welles in Casino Royale (1964) (see this post for more info)

July 6th: Who is the youngest person ever awarded an Academy Award?
- Shirley Temple was only 6 years old when she received an Honorary Oscar in 1935. Her Oscar statuette was created especially for her and was a unique miniature version. The citation read "In grateful recognition of her outstanding contribution to screen entertainment during the year 1934".

July 7th: After the US & UK which country is the birthplace of the most Oscar winning actors/actresses? Bonus: name them!
- Canada has borne six Oscar winning actors and actresses: Marie Dressler, Walter Huston, Anna Paquin, Mary Pickford, Harold Russell and Norma Shearer

July 8th: Who has won the most Oscars? And who comes second in the table?
- An easy one, but the second place proved trickier. Walt Disney has won the most Oscars with an astonishing 22 competitive wins plus another four Honorary Awards out of a record 59 nominations. When he was awarded and Honorary Academy Award in 1939 "For Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, recognized as a significant screen innovation which has charmed millions and pioneered a great new entertainment field" the Academy presented him with one full size Oscar and seven miniature statuettes. Second place in the table of Oscar wins is art director Cedric Gibbons who was nominated 39 times and won 11. If you have seen any MGM film from the 1930s to the 1960s you've probably seen sets designed by Gibbons who received a credit on over 1500 films. He has a place in Oscar history as one of the founders of the Academy and the man credited with designing the Oscar statuette itself.

July 9th: Who is the only character 'nominated' for 2 different performances in the same year?
- Truman Capote was one answer for this question (a good one but not right - there were two Capote films released in 2005 but only Philip Seymour Hoffman got an Oscar nod). The answer was Elizabeth I who was 'nominated' for two perfomrances by Cate Blanchett (Elizabeth) and Judi Dench (Shakespeare in Love) at the 1998 Oscars. Dench (who appeared for only eight minutes) controversially went on to win the Best Supporting Actress award.

July 10th: What 3 films have done the Oscar Grand Slam, winning for Best Director, Actor, Actress, Writing and Film?
- It Happened One Night (1934), One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest (1975) and Silence of the Lambs (1990)

July 11th: Who were the first divorced couple nominated for an Oscar in the same year?
- Whilst much was made of Kathryn Bigelow and James Cameron fighting it out over the Best Director Oscar at the 2009 ceremony, the first divorced couple did so almost 70 years earlier: William Powell and Carole Lombard were both nominated for My Man Godfrey (1936). Neither won. Despite their divorce three years earlier they remained friends until Lombard's untimely death in an air crash, aged 33.

There's a question every day over on my twitter feed if you want to have a go. I'll keep tally of the scores and at the end of the month I'll announce a winner....

In Praise of RG Armstrong

2010-07-09T06:58:00.000-07:00

One of those weird little coincidences happened this week when I was reminded of the great character actor RG Armstrong, who then turned up in a film I'd forgotten he was in the very next day. On Wednesday VivaVHS Tweeted about his Random Movie of the day, The Car (1977), which is a better-than-most entry in the 'possessed vehicle' sub-genre of the late 70s, early 80s, (see also the demented Killdozer (1974) and the much-maligned Christine (1983) and which holds a nostalgic place in my brain. I was only about 7 when I first saw it and it was one of a small handful of films we taped off the telly onto our space age V2000 video recorder. This means, along with Flash Gordon (1980) and Dawn of the Dead (1978), that it was watched repeatedly until my brother and I knew most of the script and could play-act most of the scenes. My favourite was trying to outrun The Car on my bike in our back garden; The Car always won. The brilliant, demented honking of the horn every time this monolithic black sedan dispatched with another hapless cyclist, or itinerant tuba player is classic. There's a great sequence which always reminded me of Hitchcock's The Birds when the Car drives into town to make roadkill of a parade of schoolkids and baton-twirlers when I always found myself rooting for the Car not the kids, who escape to the sanctuary of the local graveyard and hallowed ground. Of course, the heroic sheriff (a butch James Brolin) gets his way in the end and the Car is forced off a cliff into a ball of flames but that horn's still a-honking.

Anyway, I haven't seen The Car for almost 30 years, but I remember it still very well. I was surprised that one of the first things I remembered was old Amos, played by RG Armstrong, one of those faces that turns up unexpectedly in all sorts of places but whose name you can never quite remember. As a fan of horror films since those early VHS days RG is as familiar to me as Dick Miller or Brad Dourif and I when I settled in to watch Predator (1987) on Film4 last night who should be there, but himself. I'd forgotten he was even in that, but the combination of the two made me decide to write a bit more about him.

According to all sources the 'G' stands for Golden, and he started out training with Lee Strasberg and the Actors Studio in New York before bits on TV serials of the 1950s and 1960s where he popped up in pretty much everything and he later went on to some of the pivotal TV series of the 70s - Starsky and Hutch, Baretta, Dynasty, The Dukes of Hazzard... His film career started in Westerns and he became a favourite of Sam Peckinpah who cast him in four movies - Ride the High Country (1962), Major Dundee (1965), The Ballad of Cable Hogue (1970) and Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973). In the 1970s and 1980s he moved into cult territory in some low-budget horrors playing grizzled old men, notably Children of the Corn (1984) and the Friday the 13th television series. His was also cast by Warren Beatty as the perfectly-named Pruneface in Dick Tracy (1990) (Beatty also cast him in Heaven Can Wait (1978) and his Oscar-winning Reds (1981)). His is one of those careers that the word 'prolific' was invented for, but, unusually he seems to have avoided the typecasting of many character players with a range of roles, good and evil. Who couldn't love his creased and weathered features?

I'm pleased to find that RG is still with us, now in his 93rd year and that he was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award at Frightfest in 2003. I'm heading over to Lovefilm now to add his finest moments to my wants list.

James Bond at the Oscars

2010-07-06T01:37:00.000-07:00

Yesterday's Twitter Trivia question was: Which two Oscar winners played James Bond and the Bond villain in the same film, and what was the film?

The question came to me just as it was announced that money troubles at MGM have seen the official cancellation of the latest in the long-running franchise. Back in April doubts surfaced over the future of the 23rd official film in the series when it was reportedly postponed due to the size of studio debts, but with Sam Mendes signed on to direct it was expected that pre-production and filming would resume... it looks like this is not to be and leaves the record-breaking series in serious doubt.

Since the first film, Dr. No (1962), the Bond films have been commercially, if not always critically, successful with the latest rebooted incarnation starring Daniel Craig taking back the box office crown. But Bond has been less successful at the Oscars with only a handful of the films receiving nominations, mainly in the technical categories. A record of sorts was broken in 2006 when Casino Royale, Craig's debut in the role, was nominated for 9 British Academy Awards (BAFTAs) but didn't appear in any of the Oscar categories (it won only one BAFTA for Best Sound).

007's Oscar history goes like this:

Goldfinger (1964)

Winner - Best Effects, Sound Effects: Norman Wanstall
Norman Wanstall worked on the first five of the James Bond films and n 1983 he defected to the other side to work on the 'rival' Bond film Never Say Never Again. This was his only Oscar win and only nomination.

Thunderball (1965)

Winner - Best Effects, Special Visual Effects: John Stears
John Stears worked on the visual effects for six Bond films from 1963 to 1974 and won his second Oscar in 1977 for his work on Stars Wars (1977)

Diamonds are Forever (1971)

Nomination - Best Sound: Gordon K. McCallum, John W. Mitchell and Al Overton
Gordon K. McCallum won his only Oscar in the same year as this nomination for his work on Fiddler on the Roof (1971) with David Hildyard. He worked on 8 of the Bond films between 1964 and 1983.

Live and Let Die (1973)

Nomination - Best Music, Original Song: Paul and Linda McCartney
Collectively The Beatles won an Oscar in 1971 for the score to their film Let It Be (1970), but Paul remains the only member to receive a solo nomination; he was nominated again in 2002 for his song Vanilla Sky from the film of the same name.

The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)

Nomination - Best Art Direction-Set Decoration: Ken Adam, Peter Lamont and Hugh Scaife
Two-time Oscar-winner Ken Adam worked on 7 Bond films and was responsible for the iconic look of films from the outset, including the legendary volcano set for You Only Live Twice (1967). He won for Barry Lyndon (1975) and The Madness of King George (1994). Peter Lamont is a four-time Oscar nominee who has worked on 18 James Bond films since 1964 - he won an Oscar for his production design on the Oscar-laden Titanic (1998), and this was the first of three nominations for Hugh Scaife (followed by The Elephant Man (1980) and A Passage to India (1984).
Nomination - Best Music, Original Score: Marvin Hamlisch
Nomination - Best Music, Original Song: Marvin Hamlisch and Carole Bayer Sager for Nobody Does It Better
Marvin Hamlisch has been nominated for an Oscar nine times and won three: The Way We Were (1973), for Song and Score, and The Sting (also 1973). Interestingly, he is the only composer to receive an Oscar nomination for a Bond score and this is the only film of the series that he worked on. John Barry, although famous for his work on the series was never nominated for any of his 007 music.
With these three nominations The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) is the most Oscar nominated James Bond film.

Moonraker (1979)

Nomination - Best Effects, Visual Effects: Derek Meddings, Paul Wilson and John Evans
Derek Meddings worked on six of the Bond films and died in 1995 before the release of his last film, Goldeneye (1995); he received an on screen dedication at the end of that film.

For Your Eyes Only (1981)

Nomination - Best Music, Original Song: Bill Conti and Michael Leeson
As performed by Sheena Easton (the only title singer who has also appeared on screen in the opening credits, fact fans!) For Your Eyes Only was Conti's second nomination after penning Gonna Fly Now for Rocky (1976). He won an Oscar in 1984 for his score to The Right Stuff (1983)Like Marvin Hamlisch, this was his only Bond.

So, for almost 30 years the world of the Oscars and the world of 007 have never troubled one another but despite this lacklustre showing over the last 50 years the Academy did bestow it's highest honour on producer Albert R. Broccoli in 1982 when he was the recipient of the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award which recognised a whole body of work, not just the James Bond series, although this is arguably his greatest achievement. The award was presented by the then James Bond, Roger Moore at the ceremony in Los Angeles. He was responsible for the official series from the very beginning until his death in 1996, but his legacy lives on and he remains (along with Ian Fleming) the only person whose name appears on screen in every one of the official films.

Of course, for a series that's been running for so long there are a number of other cast and crew members who have been nominated or have won the Oscar for their work on other films; the aforementioned John Barry as won five Oscars from seven nominations; Sean Connery remains the only Bond actor to win an Oscar (Best Actor in a Supporting Role for The Untouchables (1987)); cinematographer Ted Moore worked on seven Bonds and won his Oscar for A Man For All Seasons (1966); that same film provided a Best Actor in a Supporting Role nomination for Robert Shaw as Henry VIII, who had previously appeared as the menacing Red Grant in From Russia With Love (1963); since 1995 Judi Dench has given us her unique interpretation of Bond's boss M, and since then she's had six nominations, including her win for the least of those roles in Shakespeare in Love (1998); Christopher Walken became the villain Max Zorin in A View to a Kill (1985) seven years after winning a Supporting Actor Oscar for The Deer Hunter (1978)... and the list goes on (maybe that's a whole other post sometime in the future).

And, what of the question...? The two Oscar winners who have, uniquely, played Bond and Bond villain don't appear in the realms of the 'official' James Bond series at all. In 1966 producer Charles K. Feldman jumped on the Bond bandwagon and with the rights to Fleming's first novel Casino Royale not snapped up by EON Productions he put together the psychedelic monstrosity that is Casino Royale (1966). With an incredible roster of talent and no less than five directors this spoof Bond film is a genuine oddity and is always a good way to trick people when you're asking trivia questions... sorry about that. Here we have David Niven (Oscar winner for Best Actor in Separate Tables (1958)) as Sir James Bond brought out of retirement to face Le Chiffre, played by Orson Welles (Oscar winner for Best Original Screenplay for Citizen Kane (1941)). And there's your answer. Bonus points for those who thought it was Woody Allen (Oscar winner in 1977 and 1986), although he actually played Bond's nephew Jimmy!

The Daily Oscar Trivia Twitter Quiz

2010-07-05T03:39:00.000-07:00

Snappy title, eh?
Yesterday I decided to start a daily quiz for my handful of Twitter followers offering a little tidbit of Oscar trivia. As it was the 4th of July the first question was: "Which Oscar nominated director appeared in the film Independence Day (1996)?"... and the winner was... no-one. Maybe a bit tough to start with, but the second question has now be posted. They won't all be this tricky, I promise, and at the end of the month I'll tally the scores and see who is the winner. Now, can I really manage to think of an Oscar related question EVERY DAY? If you want to join in: www.twitter.com/escapade1935

The answer to yesterday's opener was Jeff Goldblum who (not so famously) received his only Oscar nomination, so far, for directing the Live Action Short Little Surprises, in 1995. The film also featured Oscar winner Rod Steiger and remains Goldblum's only directorial effort. He has, of course, continued his acting career (mostly playing the tall, dark, nerdy, philosophic types) and is currently on stage in London's West End in the Old Vic's The Prisoner of Second Avenue.

Today's question is: Who are the only two Oscar winners to play James Bond and the Bond villain in the same film, and in what film? Answer tomorrow!