World Celebrity Wallpapers: Agustus 2009

Minggu, 30 Agustus 2009

Olivia Munn Hairstyles

Of course we all know Olivia Munn as being a super hot babe with a rocking sexy body, but this beauty also has a flare for style.

Olivia Munn has some very full lovely flowing locks, just checkout these pictures of her delight hairstyles.

"Casablanca" next "Meet Me at the Movies" feature

The Prairie District Neighborhood Alliance (PDNA) invites you to "Meet Me at the Movies," Friday October 2 at 6:30 p.m. at Sherwood Conservatory recital hall, 1312 S. Michigan Ave.

An American film classic

Casablanca, the 1942 classic directed by Michael Curtiz and starring Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, and Paul Henreid is the third film to be shown in this continuing monthly series. Winner or three Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Casablanca has become part of the American consciousness, its dialogue ("Here's looking at you kid.") part of our lexicon.

Just another movie?

What started out as just another movie during Hollywood's golden age, turned into an instant classic. It made Bogart a credible leading man, and pushed him out of the shadows of fellow contract players James Cagney, George Raft, and Edward G. Robinson. Bergman in only her fourth American film, became a superstar and one of the most popular movie actresses of the 1940s. For Hungarian-born director Curtiz, Casablanca was his only Best Director win in a career that spanned more than four decades.

Click here to see the original movie trailer.

Jumat, 28 Agustus 2009

"Wizard of Oz" in high definition coming to Chicago

To celebrate the seventieth anniversary of The Wizard of Oz, Turner Classic Movies (TCM), NCM Fathom, and Warner Home Video will be presenting the movie in a new high-definition version.

On September 23, 2009, 400 movie theaters around the United States will have special one-night-only screenings. One of the classics from 1939, the event will also include a documentary on the talent behind the movie called We're Off to See the Wizard. A special introduction by TCM host Robert Osborne will also be presented that evening.

Seating is limited. To reserve your tickets for this event, click here.

Kamis, 27 Agustus 2009

How The West Was Won: Three-Disc Special Edition

This is hardly breaking news, since How The West Was Won has been out on DVD for several years, but the special three-disc edition is just under a year old. As a huge fan of this film, I had the DVD version released in 2000. When I heard about the remastered edition released in September 2008, I had to have it. With today's computer technology, the wizards at Warner Home Video were able to remove the Cinerama three-panel join lines. The print is also beautifully restored and is bright and clear as a bell. By contrast, the 2000 DVD version is grainy and drab.

How The West Was Won is the first movie I remember seeing in the movie theater where I was able to follow the narrative. Seeing the film in the old Cinerama process was an overwhelming experience. I was only six years old when it was released in the United States. Experiencing the Prescott family's perilous trip west was an exciting and emotional adventure for me.

The Cinerama process required three projectors that projected the image on a huge curved screen. The effect was that you felt you were in the movie action somehow, not just an indifferent observer. When the Prescott family rode the rapids you felt like you were on the raft with them (at some theatrical showings, they sprayed the audiences with water). When the buffalo thundered over the settlers and the railroad under construction, you thought they would trample and thunder past you as well.

Three men famous for making memorable westerns, John Ford, Henry Hathaway, and George Marshall directed the different segments. The movie employed just about every major star working in Hollywood in the early 1960s, including Henry Fonda, James Stewart, Gregory Peck, Carroll Baker, Debbie Reynolds, and John Wayne. The supporting cast boasted the likes of Walter Brennan, Agnes Morehead, Thelma Ritter, and Russ Tamblyn.

Discs 1 and 2 contain the road show edition of the classic western, along with commentary by filmmaker David Strohmaier, film historian Rudy Behlmer, Director of Cinerama, Inc., John Sittig, music historian Jon Burlingame, and stuntman Loren James. Disc 3 includes a new documentary Cinerama Adventure, that explains the development of the wide screen process and the unique way Cinerama exhibited its films.

Bette Davis's amazing year

This year, 2009, is the seventieth anniversary of what has been called the most amazing year in the history of American movies. In 1939, the studio system and their star-making abilities were at their zenith. So many classic films were produced that year that it almost boggles the mind.

Of all the major stars working in 1939, perhaps none had the year that Bette Davis had. In the year she won her Best Actress Academy Award* for Jezebel, Davis established herself as one of the biggest stars entering the 1940s. If Davis hadn’t made another film after 1939, she would still be regarded as a film legend.

While her rival, Joan Crawford’s, star was on the decline at Metro Goldwyn Mayer, with clunkers like Ice Follies of 1939, Davis was burnishing her reputation as a top star and serious actress on the Warner Brothers lot. Already a two-time Oscar winner for Best Actress, Davis had both popular and critical success. At the end of the thirties she appeared in no less than four classic films: The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex, The Old Maid, Juarez, and Dark Victory. During this string of critical and box office successes, Davis worked with three legendary directors, including Michael Curtiz, Edmund Goulding (twice that year), and William Dieterle. Goulding’s direction of Davis in Dark Victory won her a fourth nomination for Best Actress.

By 1940, Davis was Warner’s biggest star, earning millions of dollars in box office receipts for her employer. From 1939 to 1943, she racked up five consecutive Academy Award nominations, a record she shares with Greer Garson.

Bette Davis would have many more successes after 1939, but few that can match that most amazing of all movie years.

*Awarded for her performance in Jezebel released in 1938

Minggu, 23 Agustus 2009

The Remarkable Andrews

Dana Andrews arrived in Hollywood at the height of its golden age. One of the best and most dependable leading men during the 1940s, he created several iconic roles that are still with us today.

Andrews was born Carver Dana Andrews in Mississippi, the third of thirteen children born to Charles Forrest Andrews and his wife Annis. The family eventually moved to Huntsville, Texas, where his younger siblings (including actor Steve Forrest) were born.

After moving to California as an adult and after a few odd jobs, Andrews studied opera, planning to become a singer. He also began studying acting and performing at the famed Pasadena Playhouse where he was one of its most popular performers. Andrews signed a contract with producer Samuel Goldwyn and appeared in his first movie role in The Westerner (1940) starring Gary Cooper. The film was directed by the legendary William Wyler, who would later cast Andrews in one of his most famous roles as returning World War II veteran, Fred Derry, in The Best Years of Our Lives (1946).

Early in his movie career, Andrews was cast in a variety of roles, most of which he pulled off quite well, including that of Barbara Stanwyck’s gangster boyfriend, Joe Lilac, in the Howard Hawks classic Ball of Fire (1941). More important roles came his way throughout the early forties and by 1944, Andrews was receiving star billing, working alongside major stars like Tyrone Power and Henry Fonda.

In 1944, Andrews became a major star in his own right as detective Mark McPherson in Otto Preminger’s Laura. The film cast him opposite Gene Tierney as the mysterious Laura Hunt. The role made Andrews a hot property, and Tierney a film icon. Andrews’s work in Laura began an interesting, if not always successful, collaboration with director Otto Preminger. After Laura, Andrews would be directed by Preminger in Fallen Angel (1945), Daisy Kenyon (1947), Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950), and In Harm’s Way (1965).

In the mid- to late 1940s, Andrews costarred with some of Hollywood’s great beauties including Linda Darnell, Jeanne Crain, Merle Oberon, Maureen O’Hara, Joan Crawford, Lili Palmer, Susan Hayward, as well as the aforementioned Tierney. Andrews and Tierney starred opposite each other in five films, with Where the Sidewalk Ends being their last. In addition to some of his legendary leading ladies, Andrews worked with directors like John Ford, Elia Kazan, Lewis Milestone, Fritz Lang, Jacques Tourneur, Mark Robson, William Dieterle, and Tony Richardson.

At the beginning of his film career, Andrews was often compared to Spencer Tracy. Both actors had a naturalistic, honest style of acting that, in the case of Andrews, was often overlooked, especially by modern critics and film fans. This lack of appreciation is revealed in the fact that Andrews was never once nominated for an Academy Award. It is hard to believe that his peers overlooked his roles in Laura and The Best Years of Our Lives come Oscar time.

In spite of the lack of acting awards, Andrews left us with a body of film work that most actors dream of having. Anyone who could read the line “for a charming intelligent girl, you’ve certainly surrounded yourself with a remarkable collection of dopes” from Laura and make it sound like real speech, deserved at least a nomination in our books.

Jumat, 21 Agustus 2009

Meet Me at the Movies

The Prairie District Neighborhood Alliance (PDNA) and the "Classic Movie Man" invites you to "Meet Me at the Movies," Friday August 28 at 6:30 p.m. at Sherwood Conservatory recital hall, 1312 S. Michigan Ave.

Classic Audrey

Blake Edward's classic Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961) starring Audrey Hepburn, George Peppard, and Patrica Neal is the second film to be shown in this continuing monthly series.

A fashion icon is born

Audrey He

pburn as Holly Golightly has become a film icon, but she wasn't the original choice for the role. Author Truman Capote and the original producers wanted Marilyn Monroe to play Holly. Famed acting coach Lee Strasburg, who was working with Monroe at the time, told her playing a call girl would be bad for her image, so she turned the role down. When Hepburn stepped into the part, script changes were made to tailor it to her unique talents. Even though Breakfast at Tiffany's is one of Hepburn's most popular films, Hepburn thought she was miscast as Holly.

Steve McQueen was Wanted

Steve McQueen was offered the role that eventually went to George

Peppard, but the producers of McQueen's popular TV show, Wanted: Dead or Alive, wouldn't let him out of his contract. Audrey Hepburn was paid $750,000 for her role, which made her the second highest paid movie actress (after Elizabeth Taylor).

Click link to view the original movie trailer.