Category: Movies

The 20 Scariest Movies of All-Time

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The Entertainment Weekly staff came up with their list of the 20 Scariest Movies of All-Time.

The EW list is a pretty good one and using just their choices I came up with my top three:

  1.  The Exorcist: Not only scary while you’re watching it, but even more frightening when you think about it later.
  2. 28 Days Later: Fast moving zombies (and let’s not argue the point that they aren’t zombies) and humans that are equally as dangerous.
  3. John Carpenter’s The Thing: Isolated in an environment that can kill and unable to tell friend from monster.

Martin Scorsese’s List Of 85 Must-See Films

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Here we have Martin Scorsese’s List Of 85 Must-See Films.  Of the 85, I’ve seen 23 and tried to watch a few more but couldn’t get into them…

1. Apocalypse Now
2. Arsenic and Old Lace
3. Cape Fear
4. Cat People
5. Citizen Kane
6. Dial M for Murder
7. Do the Right Thing
8. Duel in the Sun
9. The Godfather
10. Gun Crazy
11. House of Wax
12. The Hustler
13. Jason and the Argonauts
14. Kiss Me Deadly
15. The Lady From Shanghai
16. Midnight Cowboy
17. Smith Goes to Washington
18. Night and the City
19. Pickup on South Street
20. The Player
21. Stagecoach
22. The Third Man
23. Touch of Evil

Surely You Can’t Be Serious: An Oral History of “Airplane”

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Will Harris’ Surely You Can’t Be Serious: An Oral History of Airplane takes us behind the scenes of the making of the classic comedy with remembrances from the creators and stars of the film.

Check out the piece to learn about Peter Graves not getting the humor until seeing the film, Leslie Nielsen‘s fart machine, and a whole lot more.

Source: AV Club.

30 Things We Learned from Ridley Scott’s “Blade Runner” Commentary

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Rob Hunter and Film School Rejects  have posted 30 Things We Learned from Ridley Scott’s “Blade Runner” Commentary.

Here are three of my favorites…

1. It was Scott’s choice to have the opening credits be simply text against a black screen. “I knew my opening shot would be so spectacular,” he says, “that I didn’t want the titles to upstage them in any form.”

29. He points out a detail during the end sequence with Deckard hanging from a building that I’ve never noticed in my numerous watches of the film. Just as Deckard loses his grip he spits at Roy in a final act of bravado, and it’s that action, that refusal to beg for his life, that leads Roy to save his life.

30. Regarding whether or not Deckard is a replicant, Scott is okay with either interpretation, but he himself believes the answer to be yes. He says the expression on Deckard’s face after noticing the origami unicorn outside his apartment door is confirmation. Gaff was there, the unicorn is from Deckard’s dreams, and Gaff would have had access to Deckard’s file which would probably include mention of the unicorn dream implant. I guess we’ll find out for sure in the sequel…

21 Wonderful Facts About “The Wizard of Oz”

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 Cory Mahoney and Hollywood.com  have posted 21 Wonderful Facts About The Wizard of Oz.  There are some new [at least to me] facts and here are three of my favorites…

1. The snow the wakes Dorothy up from the poppy field was 100% asbestos. 

Even though the health hazards had been known for years. [Hey – that is not a wonderful fact! – Craig]

4. And that horse [the horse of a different color see in Oz] originally had a much larger part in the film. The horse, which was originally a striped with different colors and could speak, joined the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Cowardly Lion, along with the Wizard, to save Dorothy from the Witch.

6. Because Margaret Hamilton’s performance as the Wicked Witch of the West was so frightening, many of her scenes were trimmed or deleted entirely. 

They were thought to be too frightening.

17 Things You Might Not Know About “Scarface”

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Sean Hutchinson and Mental_Floss have posted 17 Things You Might Not Know About Scarface.  Here are three of my favorites…

5. A budding screenwriting star brought De Palma back.
Producer Bregman offered relative newcomer Oliver Stone a chance to overhaul the screenplay, and Stone agreed to do the movie for two reasons. First, his 1981 film The Hand had bombed at the box office, so he needed the work. He also wanted to work with Lumet, who eventually dropped out of the project because he felt Stone’s screenplay became too over the top and too violent. De Palma, who had moved on to potentially direct Flashdance, then read Stone’s script and loved how exaggerated it was, so he dropped Flashdance and rejoined Scarface.

10. Tony is only referred to as “Scarface” once, and it’s in Spanish.
Hector, the Colombian gangster who threatens Tony with the chainsaw, refers to him as “cara cicatriz,” meaning “scar face” in Spanish.

14. Steven Spielberg directed a single shot.
De Palma and Spielberg had been friends since the two began making studio movies in the mid ‘70s, and they made a habit of visiting each other’s sets. Spielberg was on hand for one of the days of shooting the Colombians’ initial attack on Tony Montana’s house at the end of the movie, so De Palma let Spielberg direct the low angle shot where the attackers first enter the house.

Anthony Petrie’s “Rambo: First Blood, Part II” Poster

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The very cool Rambo: First Blood, Part II poster was created by Anthony Petrie and is available from Grey Matter art…

“First Blood: Part II” By Anthony Petrie
Grey Matter Art under license from StudioCanal, is pleased to announce the next poster in our officially licensed Rambo series. A limited edition screen print for the iconic 80’s film, “Rambo: First Blood Part II”, by the very talented artist, Anthony Petrie…

21 Facts About the Movie “Goodfellas” You Never Knew

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Corey Mahoney and Hollywood.com present 21 Facts About the Movie Goodfellas You Never Knew.  Here are three of my favorites…

5. When Joe Pesci was younger, he told a mobster that he was funny. The gangster’s ensuing anger was never forgotten and ended up inspiring Pesci to ask Scorsese to include it.
The director allowed Pesci and Liotta to improvise the now iconic “funny how?” scene. The other actors weren’t aware of the plan, so their reactions are genuine.

6. The now legendary Steadicam shot through the kitchen of the nightclub was unplanned.
Scorsese was denied permission to use the front entrance, and the alternative is now film history.

9. And while filming Spider’s death scene, actor Michael Imperioli had to be rushed to the hospital for breaking a glass in his hand; the doctors, however, attempted to treat what appeared to be a gunshot wound to his chest. 
When they learned the real reason behind his hospital visit, he was forced to wait three hours before he was treated. Scorsese told Imperioli that he would one day share the story on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, and, ten years after the film’s release, in 2000, Imperioli did just that.

15 Things You Probably Didn’t Know About “Predator”

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Sean Hutchinson at Mental_Floss is back with 15 Things You Probably Didn’t Know About Predator.   Here are three of my favorites…

2. THE PITCH FOR THE MOVIE NAME-DROPPED SOME RECOGNIZABLE MOVIE HITS.
The screenwriters pitched Predator to studios as “Rocky meets Alien.”

4. SHANE BLACK WAS CAST FOR HIS SCRIPT EXPERTISE, NOT HIS ACTING CHOPS.
Black, who plays Hawkins, had previously written the screenplay for Lethal Weapon; he was covertly cast in the film so that he would be available to make on-the-fly and uncredited script changes while on set. Most famously, Black would later write and direct Iron Man 3.

6. THE LOOK OF THE COMMANDOS WAS BASED ON THE SGT. ROCK COMICS.
Hawkins can be seen reading a Sgt. Rock comic in the end credits.

15 Things You Didn’t Know About “The Godfather”

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Sean Hutchinson at Mental_Floss presents 15 Things You Didn’t Know About The Godfather.   My three favorites are…

9. HE [Coppola] ALSO TOOK ADVANTAGE OF MISTAKES.
Lenny Montana, who played Luca Brasi, was a professional wrestler before becoming an actor. He was so nervous delivering his lines to a legend like Brando during the scene in the Godfather’s study that he didn’t give one good take during an entire day’s shoot. Because he didn’t have time to reshoot the scene, Coppola added a new scene of Luca Brasi rehearsing his lines before seeing the Godfather to make Montana’s bad takes seem like Brasi was simply nervous to talk to the Godfather.

14. THE “TAKE THE CANNOLI” LINE WAS IMPROVISED.
The line in the script only had actor Richard Castellano as Clemenza say “Leave the gun” after the hit on the mobster who ratted on the Corleones. He was inspired to make the sweet addition after Coppola inserted a line in which the character’s wife asks him to buy cannoli for dessert.

1. COPPOLA WAS AT RISK OF BEING FIRED DURING PRODUCTION.
Coppola (who got the job because of his previous movie, The Rain People) wasn’t the first director Paramount Pictures had in mind for The Godfather (Elia Kazan, Arthur Penn, Richard Brooks, and Costa-Gavras all turned the job down), and after filming began, executives didn’t like the brooding, talky drama that Coppola was shooting.

The studio wanted a more salacious gangster movie, so it constantly threatened to fire Coppola (even going so far as to have stand-in directors waiting on set). Coppola was reportedly getting the ax until he shot the scene where Michael kills Solozzo and McCluskey, which the executives saw and loved.