“The Big Heat” Italian Style
Today we have an Italian poster for one of my favorite noirs – The Big Heat starring Glenn Ford, Gloria Grahame, Jocelyn Brando and Lee Marvin.
Source: 41 Strange.
Clay Shelburn and Zac Stokes are WalMart Rockstars!
Clay Shelburn (guitar and vocals) and Zac Stokes are WalMart Rockstars!
The Return of The Three Stooges
Cake, animation studio Titmouse, Inc. and C3 Entertainment Inc.— owners of The Three Stooges brand have announced that Larry, Curly and Moe will be returning in a new animated series of 52 eleven minute episodes.
While I’m happy that three of our favorite knuckleheads will be exposed to a new generation of fans, wouldn’t it be cool if each new cartoon was paired with one of the original Three Stooges shorts for a thirty minute episode? The cherry on the top would be to include Shemp in the cartoons paired with original shorts that he co-starred.
Source: Entertainment Weekly.
1000 Frames of Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock fans will want to check out the 1000 Frames of Hitchcock site.
The idea behind the site is to reduce each of the 52 available major Hitchcock films down to just 1000 frames. The aim of the project is to create a library of images which can be used to illustrate blog posts, web articles and reviews, etc.
19 Fun Facts About “Married with Children”
Roger Cormier and Mental_Floss present 19 Fun Facts About Married with Children. Here are three of my favorites…
5. THE SHOW WAS PITCHED WITH SAM KINISON AS AL AND ROSEANNE BARR AS PEGGY.
Both Kinison and Barr’s managers told Moye, Leavitt, and the other producers that their clients were shooting for the movies, not television.
9. THE SHOW BRIEFLY RUINED O’NEILL’S MOVIE CAREER.
O’Neill had to be recast long after the 1991 war film Flight of the Intruder had finished shooting because test audiences kept laughing whenever he appeared on screen, even though he was playing a Navy captain involved in a court-martial.
6. MICHAEL RICHARDS AUDITIONED TO PLAY AL.
Two years before he landed the career-making role of Kramer on Seinfeld, Richards auditioned to play the Bundy family patriarch. Moye estimated that out of the many people who auditioned for the role, “80 percent” played Al like Jackie Gleason as Ralph Cramden and “five percent” went the Jack Nicholson in The Shining route.
“Extinction” Trailer
Extinction was not on my radar until just recently. I’m a sucker for apocalyptic movies so I give you the trailer to Extinction.
Guy Ritchie’s “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” Trailer 2
The second trailer for Guy Ritchie’s The Man from U.N.C.L.E. looks great. Wish I could say the same for the poster above.
“Fear the Walking Dead” Poster
The first poster for Fear the Walking Dead is a bit on the disappointing side, isn’t it?
15 Giant Facts About “Shrek”
Roger Cormier and Mental_Floss present 15 Giant Facts About Shrek. Here are three of my favorites…
4. CHRIS FARLEY WAS THE ORIGINAL SHREK.
Farley was not only cast in the title role, but he had actually completed recording somewhere between 80 to 95 percent of his dialogue before he passed away in 1997. In the version of the film Farley worked on, Shrek was a teenage ogre who didn’t want to go into the family business and had aspirations of becoming a knight.
12. THE MOVIE WAS SCREENED BY DREAMWORKS AND DISNEY LAWYERS TO AVOID POSSIBLE LAWSUITS.
Shrek was considered by some to be a series of jabs at Disney, with its general cynicism toward the traditional fairy tales that Disney had presented in movie form since 1937, Farquaad’s castle resembling Disneyland, and Farquaad’s diminutive stature possibly a reference to an infamous quote by Katzenberg’s former Disney boss Michael Eisner about his hatred of the former employee in a lawsuit. While there was no legal action, some Radio Disney affiliates did not allow Dreamworks to buy ad time to promote Shrek.
5. NICOLAS CAGE TURNED DOWN THE LEAD ROLE BECAUSE HE DIDN’T WANT TO BE AN OGRE.
Dreamworks executives considered Tom Cruise and Leonard DiCaprio for Shrek, until Katzenberg offered Nicolas Cage the part. Cage told the Daily Mail that he turned the role down because “I just didn’t want to look like an ogre.” Though, upon reflection, Cage realized that “Maybe I should have done it looking back.”
R.I.P. Virgil Riley Runnels Jr. aka Dusty Rhodes
Virgil Riley Runnels Jr. passed away today. Perhaps you knew him better as Dusty Rhodes aka The American Dream.
Pro Wrestling fan or not, I’ll bet you knew of him.
Dusty began his career in 1968 in the AWA as a bad guy. That’s when I first saw him wrestle on late night tv. Dusty was a bad guy and partnered with Dirty Dick Murdock. They were a couple of cowboys chasing the tag team title.
I was a kid living deep in WWA territory that was run by Dick the Bruiser and we considered the AWA a lesser organization. I knew who Dusty was but since I never saw him in “my” territory, going against my champs, I didn’t give him much thought.
In 1973, I moved to Florida and into NWA territory. Remember this was when pro wrestling wasn run by several smaller organizations with no national company like the WWE. Dusty showed up as a singles wrestler. He was still a cowboy but definitely a more modern man of the people.
Given the mic, Dusty shined. He didn’t look like the typical champion, but once he dropped his atomic elbow and did a little victory dance, he became the people’s champ. Dusty’s career flourished and he went on to great success not only in the NWA, but also Vince McMahon’s WWF (later the WWE), the WCW and ECW.
Dusty Rhodes was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame on March 31, 2007 and continued to be a force behind the scenes as a writer and creative director.
Our thoughts and prayers go out to Dusty Rhodes’ family, friends and fans.
Quentin Tarantino’s Best Visual Film References
Published on May 23, 2015
By Jacob T. Swinney
Many filmmakers pay homage to other films, but Tarantino takes things a step further by replicating exact moments from a variety of genres and smashing them together to create his own distinct vision.
The Original Opening Song to “Gilligan’s Island”
That’s a photo of some original cast member of the 60’s cult classic tv show, Gilligan’s Island. They [except for Skipper, Alan Hale] weren’t the only things that changed before the show hit our tv screens. Check out the original opening song below.
25 Facts About “Jaws” for Its 40th Anniversary
Sean Hutchinson and Mental_Floss present 25 Facts About Jaws for Its 40th Anniversary. Here are three of my favorites…
4. THERE’S NOT A LOT OF JAWS IN JAWS.
The shark doesn’t fully appear in a shot until one hour and 21 minutes into the two-hour film. The reason it isn’t shown is because the mechanical shark that was built rarely worked during filming, so Spielberg had to create inventive ways (like Quint’s yellow barrels) to shoot around the non-functional shark.
12. ROBERT SHAW WASN’T THE FIRST CHOICE TO PLAY QUINT.
When actors Lee Marvin and Sterling Hayden—the first and second choices to play the grizzled fisherman Quint, respectively—both turned Spielberg down, producers Zanuck and Brown recommended English actor Robert Shaw, whom they had previously worked with on 1973’s The Sting.
14. GREGORY PECK FORCED A SCENE TO BE CUT FROM THE MOVIE.
In early drafts of the screenplay, Quint was originally introduced while causing a disturbance in a movie theater while watching John Huston’s 1958 adaptation of Moby Dick. The scene was shot, but actor Gregory Peck—who plays Captain Ahab in that movie—owned the rights to the film version of Moby Dick and wouldn’t let the filmmakers on Jaws use the footage, so the sequence was cut.
9 Important Lessons from Cannon Films Documentary
Ben Rawson-Jones and Digital Spy present 9 Important Lessons from Cannon Films Documentary. Here are three of my favorites…
1. FAO Casting Directors – Beware ‘That Stone Woman’!
When looking for a lead actress to cast opposite Richard Chamberlain in the 1985 Indiana Jones knock-off King Solomon’s Mines, producer Menahem Golan proclaimed “I want that Stone woman!” So Sharon Stone was duly given the role. Beyond being hated and soaked in urine on set everything looked great for the future Basic Instinct leg-crosser… until Golan watched the movie and was horrified.
It turns out he was after Kathleen Turner from Romancing the Stone. Oops.
3. Danger! Dolph Dialog!“You gave that guy lines?”That was reportedly Sylvester Stallone‘s reaction when he paid a random visit to the Masters Of The Universe set and spotted his Rocky IV nemesis Dolph Lundgren playing the lead role of He-Man. Sly had a point – the movie bombed. Monologues were certainly kept to a minimum for Dolph when the Rambo legend signed him up for his Expendables franchise.
4. Sequels Require No Previous MovieSigning up iconic martial arts star Chuck Norris was seen as quite a coup by Cannon. They had enough faith to fund the production of two Missing In Action movies featuring Norris as an American prisoner of war in North Vietnam and shoot them back-to-back in 1984. However, they realized the first was an absolute dud. So what did Cannon do? They released the better second movie first to a still overwhelmingly negative critical reception, but found that audiences flocked to see it on the back of the similarly themed First Blood’s success. They then released the intended first film under the guise of a prequel a year later. Amazing.
15 Things You Might Not Know About Schwarzenegger’s “Total Recall”
Michael Arbeiter and Mental_Floss present 15 Things You Might Not Know About Total Recall. Here are three of my favorites…
5. THE QUAID/HAUSER CHARACTER WENT THROUGH AN IMAGE OVERHAUL.
Producer De Laurentiis’ initial vision of the film’s hero Douglas Quaid (originally named “Quail”)/Carl Hauser was decidedly more in line with Dick’s short story: A schlubby office drone who dreams of a more exciting life. With this characterization in mind, his first choice for the part was Richard Dreyfuss. Over time, the desired machismo of the film’s leading man increased, prompting suggestions like William Hurt (courtesy of Cronenberg) and Patrick Swayze.
7. TO GET THE PART, SCHWARZENEGGER LED ANOTHER COMPANY TO BUY THE MOVIE.
Schwarzenegger saw an opportunity when De Laurentiis’ production company, De Laurentiis Entertainment Group, went bankrupt. The actor convinced Carolco Pictures, with whom he had recently worked on Red Heat, to purchase the rights to Total Recall.
8. SCHWARZENEGGER HAD AN UNUSUAL AMOUNT OF CONTROL OVER PRODUCTION.
The coveted role of Quaid was not the only thing Schwarzenegger won in the transaction: In addition to being welcome to recruit the director of his choice (as a big fan of RoboCop, he picked Paul Verhoeven), Schwarzenegger maintained authority over all creative aspects of the film, script, production, and even elements of distribution.
For instance, Schwarzenegger took issue with the portrayal of the movie in its TriStar Pictures studio trailer, demanding that the company create and release a preview that better represented Total Recall. Furthermore, when the actor was dissatisfied with the middling public awareness conjured by the movie in the weeks leading up to release, he convinced Carolco to invest more and more money into marketing until virtually everyone had heard of Total Recall.
