Category: Celebs

21 Things We Learned from Rob Reiner’s “Misery” Commentary

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Rob Hunter and Film School Rejects present 21 Things We Learned from Rob Reiner’s Misery Commentary.  Here are three of my favorites…

2.  James Caan was not his first choice for the film, and he instead was turned down by Robert Redford, Warren Beatty, William Hurt (twice), Richard Dreyfuss, and others. “But at the end of the day you can’t imagine anybody else playing the part.”

13.  Bates was stage-trained and preferred excessive rehearsals while Caan is more “instinctive and naturalistic,” so they had to balance the rehearsal time to make it less than she wanted and more than he wanted.

18.  The novel has Annie chop off Paul’s feet and cauterize the stumps, but they opted to simply hobble him instead by having her break his feet with a sledgehammer. Their thinking was that they wanted him to be victorious in the end, and losing his feet would be too high of a price. “It was pretty darn painful to look at, so I don’t think we compromised it too much.”

 

 

Ric Flair Faces the Music with Regret but No Excuses

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Odds are, pro wrestling fan or not, you know that the photo above is of the “styling-and-profiling, limousine-riding, jet-flying, Rolex-wearing, champagne-drinking, kiss-stealing, wheeling-‘n-dealing, dirtiest player in the game,” Ric Flair.

Yahoo Sports!, Dan Wetzel has written an excellent profile – Ric Flair Faces the Music with Regret but No Excuses – and it is well worth a read.

20 Things We Learned from the “Atomic Blonde” Commentary.

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Rob Hunter and Film School Rejects present 20 Things We Learned from the Atomic Blonde Commentary.  Here are three of my favorites…

3. The man seen running through the street in the opening is the film’s stunt coordinator, Sam Hargrave, “who’s also a good actor” and plays the soon to be dead James Gasciogne. He does various stunts throughout the film including the car flip.

15. The “one-take” stairwell fight scene features multiple hidden (or digital) edits including the motion blur of Lorraine throwing a guy to the floor at 1:12:04 and a handful of whip-pans that follow.

10. The book holding the cassette tapes at 32:53 is also in John Wick.

 

“The Thing” Got the Cinephilia & Beyond  Treatment.

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John Carpenter / Horror fans are going to love it that The Thing Got the Cinephilia & Beyond  Treatment.

Click on the link and you’ll find…

  • the Original Script
  • John Carpenter interviewed by Erik Bauer, Creative Screenwriting, January/February 1999.
  • Dean Cundey ASC discusses the making of director John Carpenter’s 1982 sci-fi horror classic.
  • STARLOG 060—JOHN CARPENTER DIRECTING THE THING
  • STARLOG 058—BILL LANCASTER ON SCRIPTING THE THING
  • STARLOG 059—AN INTERVIEW WITH DP DEAN CUNDEY
  • JOHN CARPENTER WITH ENNIO MORRICONE
  • FANGORIA—THE THING ARTICLES
  • The Incredible Effects of The Thing, Cinefantastique issue
  • THE THING: STORYBOARDS
  • and much more!

13 Intriguing Facts About the 1962 Graveyard Smash the “Monster Mash”

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Me-TV presents 13 Intriguing Facts About the 1962 Graveyard Smash the Monster Mash.  Here are three of my favorites…

THE CRYPT-KEEPERS FEATURED SOME KEY FIGURES.
“The Crypt-Kickers” band behind the original “Monster Mash” recording featured Gary S. Saxton, who wrote the 1960 smash hit “Alley Oop” that Pickett said inspired his song. The flip side of the record featured Leon Russell (whose “A Song for You” has been covered by more than 200 artists) on “Monster Mash Party.” Russell played piano, which he also did on songs for bands like the Beach Boys and Jan and Dean. Elton John calls Russell a mentor. Considering this track record, it makes even more sense why the “Monster Mash” single took off.

THE BEACH BOYS LOVED TO PLAY IT LIVE.
Several successful cover versions of “Monster Mash” exist, including a memorable version by the Beach Boys. They made it a feature of their live show, where Mike Love came out of “his cage” to step up on vocals and the audience would flip out. Later the punk band the Misfits would revive the song again for audiences in 1997, as it was a favorite childhood song of the band’s bassist, Jerry Only, who said the decision to cover it was a “no-brainer” for the heavily Halloween-themed band who performed on the holiday every year. We wonder whose fans loved it more. Hear Beach Boys fans lose their minds screaming in response to the song below. (Click over to see the video of the Beach Boys playing the Monster Mash.)

PICKETT APPEARED IN FILMS OF VARIED CLASSIC GENRES.
When Pickett wrote “Monster Mash,” he was also an aspiring actor. He went on to appear in a handful of films that matched his heavy sense of genre, including the beach party movie It’s a Bikini World (1967), a foray into biker culture in Chrome and Hot Leather (1971) a horror movie (of course) Deathmaster (1972), and a novelty sci-fi film, Lobster Man From Mars (1989). Additionally, he wrote a bunch of musicals like Frankenstein Unbound.

 

10 Things You Never Knew About “Maverick”

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Me-TV posted 10 Things You Never Knew About Maverick.  Here are three of my favorites…

GARNER PLAYED BRET MAVERICK IN THREE DIFFERENT ‘MAVERICK’ TV SERIES.
It is the rare actor who can claim two iconic television characters and a successful big-screen career. Garner became a household name thanks to the witty and fun Maverick. The gambling Bret Maverick proved to be so beloved that numerous reboots followed over the decades. In 1979, a TV movie led to Young Maverick, an incredibly short-lived sequel that hardly featured Garner. In 1981, Maverick was dealt another hand in the series Bret Maverick. NBC surprisingly canceled the solidly performing show after a season.

THERE WAS A MASSIVE CROSSOVER EPISODE WITH OTHER WESTERNS.
The madcap season four episode “Hadley’s Hunters” trots out numerous cameos from other Warner Bros. Westerns. You can spot John Russell and Peter Brown from Lawman, Clint Walker from Cheyenne, Will Hutchins from Sugarfoot and Ty Hardin from Bronco. In addition, Edd Byrnes from 77 Sunset Strip also pops up — combing the mane of a horse called “77 Cherokee Strip.”

“SHADY DEAL AT SUNNY ACRES” WAS GARNER’S FAVORITE EPISODE.
Perhaps some of this had to do with the fact that Garner got to spend the episode comfortably whittling in a rocking chair. It’s also a flat-out brilliant piece of television, which carries many similarities to the classic film The Sting. Like we said, the outings with both Bret and Bart Maverick working together are quite special.

 

“Aliens” – 20 Facts You May Not Know

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Neil Gaskin and Film ’89 present Fact File – No.1 – Aliens (1986).  Here are three of my favorites…

2. Sigourney Weaver salary for Aliens was 28 times more than that of the first film:  Weaver was paid $35,000 for the first film and $1 million for the sequel. (she went on to earn $4 million for Alien 3 and $11 million for Alien: Resurrection).

5. For a science fiction film, it did usually well at the Academy Awards:  Aliens was nominated for seven Academy Awards, including a Best Actress nomination for Sigourney Weaver. It unsurprisingly won for Sound Effects Editing and Visual Effects.

14. It was the last roll of the dice for one of its stars:  Lance Henriksen had privately pledged to quit acting if this part didn’t work out for him after years of journeyman roles. It proved to be one of his most successful films.

34 Things We Learned from Edgar Wright’s “Baby Driver” Commentary

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Rob Hunter and Film School Rejects present 34 Things We Learned from Edgar Wright’s Baby Driver Commentary.  Here are three of my favorites…

10. Baby’s guardian, Joe, was written as a deaf African American man in his 80s, and CJ Jones was the only performer they auditioned who is actually deaf. “I started auditioning other very good actors who were pretending to be deaf, it made me feel immediately uncomfortable.”

13. The Michael Myers / Mike Myers mask gag originally featured two Halloween masks and one Austin Powers, but while Mike Myers had had granted permission “the Halloween people hadn’t said no, but they definitely hadn’t said yes.” Wright had to write an alternative for the scene and call Myers back to extend the permissions (for three masks). Myers shared a story with him about the first time he went to the bank with a paycheck from Saturday Night Live. It was made out to Michael Myers, and the teller said “Michael Myers? Are you gonna stab me?

21. The idea of having Doc’s nephew accompany Baby while casing the Post Office came from one of Wright’s interviews with ex-cons.

 

 

Jonathan Maberry: Born with a Love of Storytelling

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Jonathan Maberry: Born with a Love of Storytelling is an interview with, well, Jonathon Maberry.  Fans of Mayberry’s fiction as well as folks who’d like advice on writing should check it out.

If you don’t know… Jonathan Maberry is…

…a New York Times best-selling and multiple Bram Stoker Award-winning suspense author, editor, comic book writer, magazine feature writer, playwright, content creator and writing teacher/lecturer. Jonathan Maberry was named one of the Today’s Top Ten Horror Writers, and his books have been sold to more than two-dozen countries. Jonathan is known for his writing that spans several different genres; including horror, mystery and young adult fiction.

Source: The Reading Lists.