Negromancer News Bits and Bites for the Week of August 10th to August 16th, 2014 - Update #13

NEWS:

From the BostonHerald:  Jackie Chan says that he has been approached about appearing in a few sequels, including "Rush Hour 4" and "The Expendables 4."

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From Today:  Star Trek legend, George Takei (Sulu), recalls his family being taken at gunpoint (with bayonet) in 1942 on their way to an American internment camp during World War II.  This story and more will be included in "To Be Takei," the documentary about his life.

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From Deadline:  Mike Epps apparently delivered an explosive screen test that has him as the front-runner to play iconic stand-up comic and actor, Richard Pryor, in a planned biopic from Oscar-nominated director, Lee Daniels, for The Weinstein Company.

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One of the other actors being considered is Marlon Wayans, who was the choice when Adam Sandler's Happy Madison was producing a Pryor film with Dreamgirls' Bill Condon directing.  Michael B. Jordan and Nick Cannon are also being considered.  Kate Hudson and Anne Hathaway are among those considered to play Pryor's wife, Jennifer Lee Pryor.

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From YahooFinance:  Amazon is refusing to accept pre-orders on some Walt Disney DVDs in a battle that is similar to Amazon's feud with book publisher, Hachette.

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From YahooCelebrity:  Tyler Posey, star of MTV's "Teen Wolf," played Jennifer Lopez's young son in the 2002 film, Maid in Manhattan.  Lopez and Posey reunited on stage last night at the 2014 Teen Choice Awards.  This article also has a list of the award ceremony's winners.  Most of the winners were movies based on books written for teens and the young adult audience.


COMIC BOOKS - Movies, TV, and Comics:

From IGN:  SPOILERS! Lex Luthor's dastardly plot in "Batman Vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice" may have been revealed.  It involves a corpse and kryptonite.

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From Yahoo:  Vin Diesel teasing or trolling his fans about starring in a possible Marvel Studios film featuring the Inhumans.

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From TheWrap:  The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles update won the August 8 to 10, 2014 weekend box office.

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From THR:  Ninja Turtles sequel announced for June 3, 2016.

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From YahooMovies:  Photographic evidence that Guardians of the Galaxy star, Chris Pratt, was homeless and lived in a van at one time.


STAR WARS:

From LatinoReview:  Episode VII plots, villains, spoilers, etc.

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From IndieRevolver:  An alleged look at how Han Solo (Harrison Ford) will look in Star Wars: Episode VII.

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From IndieRevolver:  About the alleged Sith villain of Episode VII.

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From Twitter:  An interesting photo.


OBITS:

From Variety: Lauren Bacall, legendary Hollywood actress and icon of the Golden Age of Hollywood, has died at the age of 89.  She made her debut at the age of 19 in the film, To Have and to Have Not (directed by Howard Hawks), opposite another legend and icon, Humphrey Bogart.  She died at her apartment in Manhattan today, Tuesday, August 12, 2014.  My heart is broken.  Negromancer sends condolences to Ms. Bacall's family and friends.

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From TheWeek:  Bacall on Humphrey Bogart's illness and death.

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From CNN:  The actress, Arlene Martel, has died at the age of 78.  She was known to "Star Trek" fans as "T'Pring," the Vulcan priestess who was engaged to marry Spock in the episode "Amok Time" (the first episode of the second season).  Martel died Tuesday, August 12, 2014.  Negromancer sends condolences to her family and friends.


TRAILERS:

From 20th Century Fox:  Second trailer for the animated film, The Book of Life. Film is due Halloween 2014.


MISC:

From YahooNews and the NYPost:  Brittney Griner of the WNBA's Phoenix Mercury is engaged to fellow WNBA player, Glory Johnson of the Tulsa Shock.  Both Arizona and Oklahoma, however, practice bigotry in their marriage laws.

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From Truthout:  How the Mainstream Media Helped Kill Michael Brown.  The author's argument makes sense, especially the standpoint of the relationship between law enforcement a crime reporters.

Inaugural "Humphrey Bogart Film Festival" Set for May 2013

The Humphrey Bogart Estate and Key Largo Chamber of Commerce Announce Creation of Humphrey Bogart Film Festival

Inaugural Edition in May 2013, 65 years after Premiere of 'Key Largo'; Fans Can Help Select Movies at Festival's Website

KEY LARGO, Fla., Sept. 6, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- The Humphrey Bogart Estate and the Key Largo Chamber of Commerce have created an annual Humphrey Bogart Film Festival. "We have long been looking for a natural home for a family-backed Bogie film fest, and we believe there is no better place than Key Largo," said Stephen Humphrey Bogart, son of the iconic performer. "My father and mother starred in 'Key Largo,' and the actual boat from 'The African Queen' is here in Key Largo. It just feels right to honor my father and his movies in this beautiful place, which has such an organic connection to his legacy."

"It feels great to welcome Humphrey Bogart back to Key Largo," said Russell Yagel, who led the effort of the Key Largo Chamber of Commerce to bring the Bogart Film Festival to Key Largo. "This is a great partnership between Key Largo and the Bogart Estate. In 1948, Humphrey Bogart starred in 'Key Largo.' Now, 65 years later, for Key Largo to become the home of the only Bogart Estate-backed Humphrey Bogart Film Festival is just wonderful."

Each year, the Humphrey Bogart Film Festival will screen a rotating selection of Bogie classics and a group of movies centered around that year's theme. There will be a formal Bogart Ball, an outside screening of Casablanca, a display of Bogart memorabilia, question and answer sessions with Stephen Bogart, and tours on the fully-restored African Queen. Additional festival elements will be announced as the inaugural event continues to take shape.

"Part of the reason the festival is being announced now is that the Bogart Estate would love for Bogie fans to play a role in creating the festival," said Robbert de Klerk, managing partner of Bogart LLC, the entity through which the Bogart Estate manages Bogie's legacy. "Fans can visit the festival website at www.bogartfilmfestival.com to vote for the Bogart movies they'd like to see on the big screen. Soon, fans will also be able to buy tickets, hotel packages, and merchandise on the site. All of us are excited to welcome the first group of Bogie fans to Key Largo in May 2013. We plan to work hard to make sure the Humphrey Bogart Film Festival becomes an annual must-see event in Key Largo."

Review: "The Maltese Falcon" is an All-Time Great (Remembering John Huston)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 44 (of 2003) by Leroy Douresseaux

The Maltese Falcon (1941) – Black & White
Running time: 101 minutes (1 hour, 41 minutes)
DIRECTOR: John Huston
WRITER: John Huston (based upon the novel by Dashiell Hammett)
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Arthur Edeson
EDITOR: Thomas Richards
PRODUCER: Hal B. Wallis (executive producer)
Academy Award nominee

MYSTERY/FILM-NOIR

Starring: Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Gladys George, Peter Lorre, Barton MacLane, Lee Patrick, Sydney Greenstreet, Ward Bond, Jerome Cowan, and Elisha Cook, Jr.

The subject of this movie review is The Maltese Falcon, a 1941 film noir detective film. It is based upon Dashiell Hammett’s 1930 novel of the same name and was the film debut of actor, Sydney Greenstreet, who earned a best supporting actor Oscar nomination for his performance. The Maltese Falcon was also John Huston’s directorial debut and went on to earn a best picture Oscar nomination.

Before the word “thug” entered the popular lexicon via Hip-Hop culture, there were men we could have called “thugs.” If we go by popular rapper Nas’s definition, a thug is “a man who answers to no one.” That describes one of my favorite characters of the golden age of Hollywood, “Bogie,” a popular nickname for that famous actor Humphrey Bogart, to a tee. Bogie was a thug, and he gave the ladies and not-so-lady-like his thug lovin;’ he answered to no man and even used cops to further his own agenda. And in no film is that more evident than in the beautiful and fantastic The Maltese Falcon, one of the great detective dramas and one of the films that created the template for film noir.

After someone kills his associate Miles Archer (Jerome Cowan) during a seemingly routine assignment, Samuel “Sam” Spade (Bogart) reasons, “When a man’s partner is killed, he’s supposed to do something about it.” He’s not “all talk,” and is certainly going to do something about the murder of his partner. Along the way of finding the killer, Spade becomes involved in a desperate quest to find and to possess “The Black Bird,” the Maltese Falcon, a legendary treasure so prized that it tangles Spade with some of the most devious and eccentric characters he’s ever faced.

There’s the damsel in distress Brigid O’Shaughnessy (Mary Astor) who first catches Archer’s eye and later Spade’s. Close on her heels is the shifty and effete Joel Cairo (Peter Lorre) who always finds himself on the wrong side of slap or a punch even when he has the gun. Finally, there’s “The Fat Man,” Kasper Gutman (Sydney Greenstreet) and his tag-along gunman (or “gunsel” as Spade slyly calls him), Wilmer Cook (Elisha Cook, Jr.). Gutman is the main mover and shaker in the scheme to get the Falcon, the man with the most dough and who is a gourmand when it comes to the finer things.

The performances are heightened to a fever pitch, and the actors play their characters with a theatrical flair. Even the dialogue crackles with energy, bite and wit, but it’s all for a good purpose. It adds style and even color to the black and white film. Most of the players fairly drip with deceit and duplicity, but the mack daddy, the playa, is Bogart’s Sam Spade. A crouching tiger and a hidden dragon, he’s always on top even when it seems as if he’s just got the bad end of things. With the ladies, especially Ms. Astor’s Brigid, he’s tough but romantic. He’s world weary, but savvy, and he has an unbreakable code of honor when it comes to his profession as a detective. It’s what drives him through the maze of weird foes and police traps to find his partner’s murderer.

Spade would define the kind of characters Bogart would play for the rest of his career, but even in this highly stylized performance, we can see a man with superior talent and ability to act in front of a movie camera. Both Bogart and his character Spade are intriguing and exciting; let this performance go down as one of the great ones.

The Maltese Falcon was the debut of legendary director and filmmaker John Huston. Although he would continue to do fine and challenging work, Huston caught lightning in a bottle with Falcon. He gave life to a genre of film and a style of filmmaking that continues to influence all of popular culture to this day. It’s a great work, and if you like movies, you should have seen it already.

10 of 10

NOTES:
1942 Academy Awards: 3 nominations: “Best Picture” (Warner Bros.), “Best Actor in a Supporting Role” (Sydney Greenstreet), and “Best Writing, Screenplay” (John Huston)

1989 National Film Preservation Board, USA: National Film Registry

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Casablanca: Still the Greatest 70 Years Later

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 143 (of 2005) by Leroy Douresseaux


Casablanca (1942) – B&W
– wide release in 1943 –
Running time: 103 minutes (1 hour, 43 minutes)
DIRECTOR: Michael Curtiz
WRITERS: Julius J. Epstein & Philip G. Epstein and Howard Koch (based upon a play Every Body Comes to Rick’s by Murray Burnett and Joan Allison)
PRODUCER: Hal B. Wallis
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Arthur Edeson
EDITOR: Owen Marks
Academy Award winner

FILM-NOIR/DRAMA/ROMANCE with elements of thriller

Starring: Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains, Conrad Veidt, Dooley Wilson, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, S.Z. Sakall, Madeleine LeBeau, Leonid Kinskey, and Corinna Mura

The subject of this movie review is the 1942 American romantic drama film, Casablanca. Starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, the film was apparently considered, at the time of its production, to be just another Hollywood movie.

Casablanca: some consider it to be the best American film ever made; the winner of the Oscar for “Best Picture” at the 1944 Academy Awards certainly has a place in my holy trinity. Directed by Michael Curtiz, who won the directing Oscar for helming this film, Casablanca is a beloved and popular movie, cherished by film fans, movie historians, and film critics throughout America – then and now.

In the story: Casablanca (a city in Morocco, a country in northwest Africa), circa 1941, is easy to enter, but much harder to leave – especially for people trying to escape the Nazi infestation of Europe. Living a life of exile in Casablanca is American Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart), who owns and operates Rick’s Café Américain. He’s a cynical man who sticks his neck out for no one, but his ex-lover Isla Lund (Ingrid Bergman) tests that rigid cynicism when she arrives in Casablanca with her husband, both on the run from Nazi persecutors.

Isla’s husband, Victor Laszlo (Paul Henreid), is on the top of the Nazi’s most wanted list. Victor and Isla came to Casablanca seeking the transit papers/official documents that would get them safe passage to Lisbon, Portugal, from where they could leave for America. From the USA, Victor could continue his work in support of the various European undergrounds fighting the Nazi’s. However, the papers have come into Rick’s possession, and his bitterness at Isla for suddenly and mysteriously leaving him some years ago after a whirlwind Paris love affair. So when Isla offers herself to Rick in exchange for Victor’s safe transport out of the country, the bitter and angry Rick must decide what’s important – his happiness, revenge, or the countless lives that hang in the balance and depend of Victor Laszlo’s safe passage.

What can I say that hasn’t been said. Casablanca was the right movie at the right time. It’s the consummate Hollywood production – superbly acted and directed, and filmed with beautiful production values, including art direction, set decoration, cinematography, and editing. The film’s popularity at the time has much to do with America’s involvement in World War II. The Allies invaded Casablanca in real life on November 8, 1942, and Warner Bros. premiered Casablanca in New York about three and half weeks later. By the time, of the film’s wide release in 1943, the real life city was still in the news, and the film captured the sense that the good guys (represented by Rick, Isla, and Victor) were at war with the bad guys (the Nazi’s, best represented in the film by Major Strasser, played by Conrad Veidt), mirroring American’s situation. The semi-tragic romantic triangle of Rick, Isla, and Victor, the intense drama, the fictional Casablanca’s atmosphere of intrigue and danger all came touched audiences and continues to.

The miracle, considering that Casablanca began filming without a completed script and went through the usual casting difficulties, is not really that the film was popular then (it was, after all, topical), but is instead that the film remains a favorite and outshines most of the great films made after its release nearly 63 years ago.

10 of 10

NOTES:
1944 Academy Awards: 3 wins: “Best Director” (Michael Curtiz), “Best Picture” (Warner Bros.), and “Best Writing, Screenplay” (Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein, and Howard Koch); 5 nominations: “Best Actor in a Leading Role” (Humphrey Bogart), “Best Actor in a Supporting Role” (Claude Rains), “Best Cinematography, Black-and-White” (Arthur Edeson), “Best Film Editing” (Owen Marks), “Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture” (Max Steiner)

1989 National Film Preservation Board, USA: National Film Registry

Friday, September 9, 2005