The teary eyes, damp cheeks, choked-up emotion? A natural part of the reflective special ‘Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts,’ premiering on HBO Max New Year’s Day. Two decades since ‘Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone’ premiered to launch one of the most profitable, most watched franchises in film history, many cast members and the series’ 4 directors sit and reminisce. There are film clips from all the films, as well as startling early footage of the screentests for Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter of course!), Rupert Grint (Ron Weasley) and Emma Watson (Hermione Granger). Watson describes herself at the age of 8 as being determined to play Hermione because she WAS Hermione.
We hear author/creator JK Rowling talk about the difficulty of finding their Harry Potter. They don’t mention that Chris Columbus, who cast and directed the first 2, making the template of all that was to come, had found his Harry – but he was American and Rowling was emphatic that a Brit play Harry. We hear how difficult and yet how simple it was with that first film – a big-budget special effects movie powered by kids with hardly any professional experience. Talk about a challenge, a risk, a bit of crazy faith. Columbus is rightly credited with letting them be kids while doing the very hard demanding work of filmmaking. We see how the unalloyed joy that came with that first success eventually morphed into identity crises. ‘It was the fame thing,’ Watson says of her brief but highly unsettling notion of quitting the series to be a ‘normal’ student (not mentioned, how she went to college and soon dropped out). When the series ended, says Grint, ‘I didn’t know who I was. I only knew I could play Ron Weasley.’ All 3 acknowledge they were helped in their acting development first by the very elaborate, seemingly ‘real’ settings which didn’t require severe flights of imagination.
And then the directors were there to help them take the next steps. Future Oscar-winning director and producer Alfonso Cuaron (‘Roma’) notes that his third Potter feature ‘Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban’ (2004) leaves the trio’s childhood innocence and becomes a coming of age story. Mike Newell, who directed the 4th film, 2005’s ‘Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire,’ was a commanding sparkplug who may have been a bit too strong for the kids. He cracked several ribs demonstrating how a fight should be waged! Newell was succeeded by David Yates who helmed the final 4 films in the series.
Here with vivid memories and heart-tugging recognition of what once was are a vibrant Helena Bonham Carter (the mad witch Bellatrix Lestrange), a subdued Robbie Coltrane (the mighty giant Hagrid), Ralph Fiennes on being the snake-like Lord Voldemort who has no nose, Jason Isaacs as so evil Lucius Malfoy, a terribly cruel father to his son Draco (Tom Felton) and Gary Oldman (Sirius Black) who we learn was instrumental in helping Radcliffe discover his instrument to be a better actor. Warner Bros. invited the press to London to launch the series. I’ll always remember what a real thrill it was to have the first-ever press conference with these 3 kids who were going to see their lives forever changed and, especially, to talk with Dumbledore himself, Richard Harris, the great Irish actor who would succumb to cancer after his next Potter film. He is among the many who didn’t live to see this 20th anniversary. Richard Griffiths was the hideous Vernon Dursley, the mean, malicious Muggle foster parent to Harry. Helen McCrory who died last April at 52 was an enchanting Narcissa Malfoy in the last 3 Potter films.
NEW DVDs:
FRANK HERBERT RETURNS Nowhere in the packaging for ‘Dune’ (4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray + Digital Code) does it say ‘Part 1.’ But Denis Villeneuve’s faithful, critically acclaimed version of the first half of the Sixties’ hippie opus is all foreplay, establishing characters, a universe and the stakes. The fireworks will come in a few years when everyone who can will return for ‘Part 2.’ Bonus (an hour plus!): Featurettes on ‘The Royal Houses,’ ‘Inside the Training Room,’ ‘Designing the Sandworm’ and ‘Wardrobe from Another World.’
TIMELESS AMERICANA In the 1930s one of America’s most beloved and popular figures was Will Rogers, a witty, philosophical cowboy who did movies and one man shows. ‘The Andy Griffith Show: The Complete Series Collection’ (Blu-ray, 32 discs, CBS-Paramount, Not Rated) has all 8 seasons, 249 half-hour episodes, of the ‘60s sitcom which was, emotionally, psychically, intentionally set in that bygone era of the 1930s. On the ‘Today’ show Griffith said, ‘Though we never said it, and though it was shot in the ’60s, it had a feeling of the ’30s. It was, when we were doing it, of a time gone by.” Griffith, a first-rate actor who had scored as a scary good ole boy fascist in Elia Kazan’s 1957 ‘A Face in the Crowd,’ made Mayberry, North Carolina, a magical place. The series made stars of its supporting players. Ronny Howard would go on to star in another nostalgic hit series ‘Happy Days’ and win an Oscar as an A-list Hollywood director. Don Knotts and Jim Nabors took their comical country hicks on to other ventures. There’s a glorious footnote to the show’s ratings in its final 1968 season — it ended as the most watched number 1 show on television, a feat only matched by ‘I Love Lucy’ and ‘Seinfeld.’ ‘The Andy Griffith Show’ was a spin-off from comedian Danny Thomas’s hit sit-com. In turn it spun the Gomer Pyle series starring Nabors. ‘Good Ol’ Special Features’ include The Howards’ on-set home movie, original sponsor spots, a colorized version of ‘The Pickle Story,’ the 1986 reunion TV movie ‘Return to Mayberry,’ the 2nd season episode ‘Opie Joins the Marines’ from ‘Gomer Pyle USMC’ and Griffith interviewed in 1957 on the hit television show ‘Person to Person.’
BANA’S RETURN Eric Bana pops up way too infrequently, so the Aussie-made ‘The Dry’ (Blu-ray, IFC, R) is a welcome sight. Much like a Clint Eastwood loner, Bana’s Federal Agent returns home for a funeral and becomes enmeshed in not just a current homicide case but an unsolved mystery from his youth. What’s striking is how convincing Bana is as a younger man searching for clarity and truth. Special Features: Homecoming, Page to Screen, Two Timelines, Filming in the Wimmera Region.
GARNER TIMES 2 John Sturges’ 1963 classic ‘The Great Escape’ (4K Ultra HD + Special Features Blu-ray, MGM-KL Studio Classics, Not Rated) made a movie star of motorcycling escapee Steve McQueen. But James Garner? Like McQueen he broke into celebrity with a hit TV series – ‘Maverick’ – and he continued to star in movies throughout the Sixties. But it was ‘The Rockford Files’ in the Seventies that cemented his standing – as a genial, beloved TV star. Fame’s funny that way. Among the many Special Features are 2 audio commentaries, one with Sturges and the cast, many featurettes on behind the scenes, a documentary ‘Great Escape: The Untold Story’ about the real-life inspiration and a supplement to that doc with additional interviews. Garner did good work in the Sixties – ‘The Americanization of Emily,’ ‘Hour of the Gun,’ ‘Grand Prix,’ ‘Support Your Local Sheriff’ and ‘Marlowe’ – but he was an uneven box-office draw. His 1968 adventure comedy ‘’The Pink Jungle’ (Blu-ray, KL Studio Classics, Not Rated) is a blatantly commercial enterprise satirizing jungle thrillers as Garner’s fashion photographer and his top model (Germany’s Eva Renzi) become enmeshed in George Kennedy’s wild scheme to find a South American diamond mine. They have come to shoot a commercial for a lipstick called, what else! ‘Pink Jungle.’ Originally called ‘The Jolly Pink Jungle’ – imagine that!
DARKNESS IN WALES ‘Hinterland: Complete Collection’ (DVD, 3 Series, AcornTV, Not Rated) follows DCI Tom Mathias (Richard Harrington) who’s left London after a decade for coastal Wales, partly in an effort to recover from long-simmering trauma. Dark, dour crime-solving here over 3 seasons in landscapes and a seaside village where isolation and human depravity are sometimes vividly intertwined. Mathias is helped by the local DI (Mali Harries) which boosts the investigations and viewers’ interest. There’s a bonus behind the scenes featurette for all 3 series.
SUPERNATURAL HORROR Do you know about the Wendigo? In ‘Antlers’ (Blu-ray + Digital Code, Searchlight, R) it’s described as a cannibalistic monster which means you definitely wouldn’t want it taking root in your home. Alas, that’s the set-up, there’s this monster in the house for Scott Cooper’s latest which stars Keri Russell, Jesse Plemons, Scott Haze and Amy Madigan. Its producer is horror afficionado Guillermo del Toro. Many, many Extras led by a substantial hour-plus conversation between Cooper and Del Toro from Comic.con@Home, shorts like ‘The Evil Among Us,’ ‘Gods Walk Among Us’ and ‘Cry of the Wendigo.’
HITCHCOCK!! OPHULS!! The 1931 ‘Alfred Hitchcock’s Rich and Strange’ (Blu-ray, KL Studio Classics, Not Rated) is truly a strange entry in Hitchcock’s early British sound filmography. As always there are technical issues like the use of a miniature for a ship at sea that harken to the filmmaker’s lifelong interests. The plot is what we might term ‘adult’ – as in adultery. A poor couple are given a future inheritance to enjoy their lives now – and they take a Mediterranean cruise where each finds a lover and decides to divorce. Only when she discovers her husband is being fleeced by a hooker pretending to be a ‘German princess,’ they reunite – poorer but together. Only they nearly drown when their ship home has a collision. Finally back home, Hitchcock has his own laugh at their situation for the twosome are arguing just as they were at the very beginning. Another iconic, influential director Max Ophuls, the German émigré whose many classics include films made in France (‘La Ronde,’ ‘The Earrings of Madame D’) and the US (‘The Reckless Moment,’ ‘Caught’ and ‘Letter from an Unknown Woman’). Ophuls was particularly known for his intricate camerawork with lengthy takes and a circular viewpoint. His ‘Laughing Heirs’ (Blu-ray, Kino Classics, Not Rated) was made in his native Germany in 1933, when the Nazis ascended to power. ‘Heirs’ is a rom-com set in wine country with the heir (German superstar Heinz Ruhmann) to a vast vineyard must, to inherit, abstain from alcohol for a month. For Americans under Prohibition at that time, this was indeed a delightful fantasy. Audio commentary by film historian Anthony Slide. In German with optional English subtitles.
‘S MARVELOUS In 1966 ‘Gambit’ (Blu-ray, KL Studio Classics, Not Rated) which starred a top-billed Shirley MacLaine and, in his first made-in-LA movie, Michael Caine, was not a hit. Shot entirely on Universal’s backlot, the exotic adventure begins in British Hong Kong and quickly segues to the Mideast where Caine’s elaborate scheme is underway to separate an oil billionaire (Herbert Lom of the Pink Panther series) from his money with a bogus ancient sculpture. The reason ‘Gambit’ retains its allure a half century plus later is its brilliantly conceived opening — for nearly a half hour, we follow Caine’s recruitment of nightclub dancer MacLaine for his complicated heist and see how that daring plan works so well. But – SPOILER! – it’s only Caine’s fantasy we are seeing. When the real scheme begins, MacLaine is but the first wrench to upset his not-so-smart enterprise where the mark is wise to his shenanigans from the very start. What makes ‘Gambit’ invaluable is the nearly 2 hour audio commentary by director Ronald Neame. The British-born Neame began his career in silents and then with Alfred Hitchcock. In postwar England he produced the classic David Lean-Charles Dickens adaptations before becoming a successful director himself (‘Tunes of Glory,’ ‘The Prime of Miss Jean Brody,’ ‘Poseidon Adventure’). Neame’s commentary covers his remarkable career and was recorded in 2009 when he was a still sharp 98! He would die a year later. There is another audio commentary by 3 film historians. We learn that MacLaine ruled behind the scenes. It was her brilliant notion that in that remarkable opening sequence, she discarded all her dialogue and never uttered a word. It makes Caine’s fantasy of how the heist should go a damning indictment of what we now call ‘the male gaze,’ where a woman is literally seen but never heard. Nominated for 3 Oscars including costume and production design.
"Hollywood" - Google News
January 01, 2022 at 01:56PM
https://ift.tt/32xCVPL
Stephen Schaefer's Hollywood & Mine - Boston Herald
"Hollywood" - Google News
https://ift.tt/38iWBEK
Shoes Man Tutorial
Pos News Update
Meme Update
Korean Entertainment News
Japan News Update
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Stephen Schaefer's Hollywood & Mine - Boston Herald"
Post a Comment