Movie Questions

1. My absolute favorite movie of all time is:- I'm not really big on the idea of favourite movies. I have so many that I love in different ways!

2. My favorite movie as a child was probably either Home Alone or Anne Of Green Gables!

3. The best movie quote ever is:

Norah: There's this part of Judaism that I really like. Tikun Olam. It says that the world is broken into pieces and everyone has to find them and put them back together.

Nick: Maybe we don't have to find the pieces. Maybe we are the pieces.

4. My favorite actress is hmm... so many:- Amber Tamblyn, Kat Dennings, Kristen Vangness, Bette Davis, Gene Tierney, Jena Malone, Drew Barrymore, Kristen Wiig.....lots of favourites!

5. The movie I could watch over and over is Empire Records.

6. My favorite movie genre is I guess a mix of things, mainly drama, independently produced and coming of age movies.

7. A movie I'd like to watch this weekend is Taking Woodstock

From Belen's lovely blog - here

http://kingsheepblog.wordpress.com/2009/08/29/halloween-destination-woodstock/

Spotlight Saturday

Joe Anderson

Born 26th March, 1982, this English actor is probably best know for his portrayal of Max Carrigan in Across The Universe.

His first major role was in the odd but interesting film Silence Becomes You with Alicia Silverstone and Sienna Guillory, This is a very pretty, if overly attempting mystical story of two sisters brought up in almost isolatation, lost in the world their father created for them and the stranger they bring into the house with a clear purpose that gets muddled along the way. Then came playing Jane Austen's brother in Becoming Jane and Peter Hook in the wonderful film Control, which is about Ian Curtis and Joy Division. Anton Corbjin's film is wonderful, sad, intense and haunting with stand out performances by Sam Reily and Samantha Morton and the director's history as a still photographer results in some the most beautiful representations of Macclesfield. The black and white format adds the bleakness of the lives being lead and at the same time captures perfectly the grace and beauty which makes their music so enduring.
Across The Universe by contrast is a colour explosion and Joe portrays the enthusiam and chaos of Max who is part of the generation who embraced the freedom and insanity of the 60's while showing the price paid by those who were enlisted to the Vietnam War. It is Max and Jude's relationship that stands out in the film to me, the friendship that springs naturally and means so much to both of them. Since then Mr Anderson (yes, I had to say it) has done horror movies, The Ruins and The Crazies, the Hilary Swank bio-pic Amelia, a heist move High Life, an action-comedy Rogues Gallery with Ellen Barkin, Zach Galifianakis and Emilie de Ravin and a road movie called The 27 club about a rock star whose best friend and lead singer has just committed suicide and who goes on a road trip with a checkout boy and a fan in order to reach the funeral. He is currently filming Flutter with Billy Zane and Laura Fraser.

Also possibly working on being a director? :-

JA - I’m a big fan (of the horror genre), but I’ve also of late been getting really annoyed with the whole genre – why am I not being disturbed? I’m being disgusted a lot of the time, and I cringe a little bit, but I’m not really deeply being affected by what I’m seeing. So consequently I’ve set out to write my own psychologically disturbing thing for myself. It’s sort of a pet project that spawned out of doing research for things like The Crazies – just watching horror movie after horror movie, and asking “how I can change this and get back to where we were?” It’s such a great medium for a first time director as well because you can have a human aspect to it and use the cinematic medium to tell a story, but you have to get it right or there won’t be any jumps or anything. Also, it’s very easy to shoot something on a video camera and do a sort of Paranormal Activity type movie, but I think the genre deserves a little more respect than that to a certain degree. It’s an exciting challenge.

quote from here, an excellent recent interview with Joe by Michael Holder









1. http://www.last.fm/music/Joe+Anderson/+images/2339433
2. http://www.brandimills.com/blog/tag/the-big-lebowski/
5. http://www.screenrush.co.uk/film/galerievignette_gen_cfilm=136101&cmediafichier=19178791.html
The rest are of unknown source. If you know or can claim them then please let me know so I can credit you.

Spotlight Saturday

As a big film/reading/all round geek I often find myself saying how great certain people are and seeing blank looks. Not that these people are obscure, often I'll find forums, tumblrs and facebook pages dedicated to their wonderful selves. Anyway, I have a great deal of enthusiasm for certain people's work and would like to use my little piece of the internet to celebrate them. So:-

Amber Tamblyn

Amber Rose Tamblyn was born May 14, 1983 in Santa Monica, California. She is the daughter of actor Russ Tamblyn, and her mother, Bonnie Tamblyn, is a singer and artist. Russ Tamblyn was a childhood love of mine, especially as Gideon in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, so when I got dragged into seeing The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants by my Alexis Bledel-loving friend I made the connection to her.
She is a wonderful actress, she grew up working on the TV show General Hospital but after acting in a few movies (including the Wim Wenders segment of a short film compilation Ten Minutes Old: The Trumpet) she landed the lead role in Joan of Arcadia. The show follows Joan as she comes to term with the fact that God is taking a rather more direct interest in her life than most, and grumbles her way through it. The show is very much written by people who like science and questions, and it benefits from that, along with the genuine affectionate bonds the family group seemed to have. After JOA was cancelled and S of T P came out, Amber starred in the movie Stephanie Daley, a difficult look at a court case involving a teenage girl whose baby died immediately after birth and whether it was murder and the events running up to it. The movie is brilliant, sensitive and harrowing and wonderfully acted by Amber, Tilda Swinton and Timothy Hutton who play the pregnant criminal psychologist and her husband. After that she worked in The Grudge 2, S of the T P 2 and a number of films which I haven't had chance to see yet. Recently she has been playing Casey Shraeger on The Unusals which also starred Oscar nominated Jeremy Renner, playing a young cop out to prove herself in the bizarre dept handling the more unusual aspects of New York law enforcement.

Amber is also a writer with two books of poetry out published, a co-founder of Write Now which fundraises for quality poetry programming and supports poetry communities who also put together an annual show in LA to showcase poets living and writing in the US. I have both her books, and they are wonderful. When I was little I tried to learn all my favourite poems and passages of books to recite to myself because replaying people's beautiful words stopped me from being lonely; I grew out of it but began again when I read some of Amber's poems from Free Stallion. This Christmas I got Bang Ditto and love that just as much, her words are sharp but not vicious, angry without being vindicitve, introspective without being to self-involved and passionate while remaining involving. She talks about politcial issues she feels strongly about, about personal relationships, how she feels about herself and the world.

From the poem ROLE RESEARCH:

"1.

“Jumpers” he calls them, pushing a picture

under my dried tabloid-puke eyes.

The homicide detective at New York’s 19th precinct

sits across from me, the mascara maven.

Role research. He has no eyelids left,

just crumpled Polaroids. Murders, suicides,

robberies, kidnapping: seen one 36-year-old

Caucasian male impaled on a pole after

plummeting the length of New Jersey,

seen ’em all..."

All photos are from Amber's Facebook page
The section of Role Research is from here

The Red Shoes

As a ballet obsessed child The Red Shoes was a much beloved movie of mine, although not as much as Singing In The Rain, and my lasting memory of it was the vivid colours, the 15 minutes ballet segment and the company director Lermontov being very Mephistopheles-like. My local independant cinema screened a restored print recently and I went to see it hoping to relive my childhood. Instead it all got a little murky!

Lermontov: A dancer who relies upon the doubtful comforts ofhuman love can never be a great dancer.

With the simplicity of the childhood Lermontov was a creep, Julian was the friend (separate beds) and Vicky was just fantastic and the red pointe shoes moved her feet in the end. However, my recent re-viewing changed one vital element. Vicky is still amazing, she is determined and lovely, talented and polite. Julian is still bland as her lover/husband, but Lermontov was a revelation to me! He was suave and distant but the underlying passion and vision was like an ocean next to Julian's well. The man lived his life in pursuit of an ideal and in Vicky saw the possibility of it's realisation, he asked her she was capable of dedicating herself to it as he had and having promised and later renegaded on this promise he trusted that she would remember herself. All he did was hold the door open for her return and it was Julian who forced her to choose. He is by no means likable or blameless; he has sublimated his connection to other humans on a personal level, is harsh and but is a wonderful example of an artist holding to the highest standards in order to fulfil his vision.

Lermontov: When we first met...you asked me a question to which I gave a stupid answer, you asked me whether I wanted to live and I said "Yes". Actually, Miss Page, I want more, much more. I want to create, to make something big out of
something little - to make a great dancer out of you. But first, I must ask you
the same question, what do you want from life? To live?

Vicky: To dance.

• Brian de Palma and Martin Scorsese have both said this is their favourite film.

• Jack Cardiff, the cinematographer, broke the rules laid down by Technicolour to create the wonderful and vivid colours.

• Hein Heckroth was both production and costume design and both are spectacular.
  

• Most of those acting as dancers were professional actors rather than actors with some knowledge of dance and Robert Helpmann, who danced as lead dancer of the company, chorepgraphed most of the work. Leonide Massine is the exception, he choreographed his own role of the Shoemaker.
  

• Moira Shearer was second to Margot Fonteyn at Sadler's Wells at the time she was approached and was not struck on the idea of working in film; it took her a year to agree to it.
  

Lermontov: Time rushes by, love rushes by, life rushes by, but the Red Shoes go on


Pictures from:-
1.http://www.silverwhistle.co.uk
2. Ibid
3. http://www.bard.edu/