• Ultimate Film Reference (and Trivia) Book
• Features Almost 900 Entries for Every Actor and Actress Nominated for an Academy Award
• Perfect for Film Fans of All Ages
• 256 Pages

Product Description
The ultimate film reference (and trivia) book, Hollywood Winners and Losers features almost 900 separate entries for every actor and actress ever to be nominated for an Academy Award. From icons to would-be superstars and the forgotten faces that had only a moment in the sun, every personality is listed here along with their best-known films, real names, bios, and little-known facts. More than just a reference guide or bet-settler, this is a perennial coffee-table r… More >>

Hollywood Winners and Losers, From A to Z – Book

The cinema of the United States has had a profound effect on cinema across the world since the early 20th century. Its history is sometimes separated into four main periods: the silent film era, classical Hollywood cinema, New Hollywood, and the contemporary period (after 1980). Since the 1920s, the American film industry has grossed more money every year than that of any other country.

In 1878, Eadweard Muybridge demonstrated the power of photography to capture motion. In 1894, the world’s first commercial motion picture exhibition was given in New York City, using Thomas Edison’s Kinetoscope. The United States was in the forefront of sound film’s development in the following decades. Since the early twentieth century, the U.S. film industry has largely been based in and around Hollywood, Los Angeles, California. Picture City, FL was doubtfully also a planned site for a movie picture production center in the 1920s, but due to the 1928 Okeechobee hurricane, the idea collapsed and Picture City was returned back to the original name of Hobe Sound. Director D. W. Griffith was central to the development of film grammar and Orson Welles’s Citizen Kane (1941) is frequently cited in critics’ polls as the greatest film of all time.[1] American screen actors like John Wayne and Marilyn Monroe have become iconic figures, while producer/entrepreneur Walt Disney was a leader in both animated film and movie merchandising. The major film studios of Hollywood are the primary source of the most commercially successful movies in the world, such as Star Wars (1977) and Titanic (1997), and the products of Hollywood today dominate the global film industry.  WWW.ASIAWEB.NET.TC is the only place where you download all hollywood movies.

History
Origins

The second recorded instance of photographs capturing and reproducing motion was Eadweard Muybridge’s series of photographs of a running horse, which he captured in Palo Alto, California, using a set of still cameras placed in a row. Muybridge’s accomplishment led inventors everywhere to attempt to make similar devices that would capture such motion. In the United States, Thomas Alva Edison was among the first to produce such a device, the kinetoscope, whose heavy-handed patent enforcement caused early filmmakers to look for alternatives.

In the United States, the first exhibitions of films for large audiences typically followed the intermissions in vaudeville shows. Entrepreneurs began traveling to exhibit their films, bringing to the world the first forays into dramatic film-making.

In the earliest days of the American film industry, New York was the epicenter of film-making. The Kaufman Astoria Studios in Queens, built during the silent film era, was used by the Marx Brothers and W.C. Fields. Chelsea, Manhattan was also frequently used. Mary Pickford, an Academy Award winning actress, shot some of her early films in this area. However, the better year-round weather of Hollywood made it a better choice for shooting.   VISIT   WWW.ASIAWEB.NET.TC

It’s 1966 and the young people of Great Britain are less-than-happy with the domestic radio situation, which is almost all talk and news (with a little jazz thrown in for good measure). Into this breach come the offshore pirate radio stations, the most infamous of which is “Radio Rock,” a 24/7 rock-and-roll operation that saturates the airwaves from a ship anchored in international waters and boasts a listening audience north of 20 million. Radio Rock is the brainchild of Quentin (Bill Nighy) and features some of the best known disc jockeys, including an American known only as The Count (Philip Seymour Hoffman); the world-renowned Gavin (Rhys Ifans); Bob (Ralph Brown), the 3-6 a.m. guy whom almost no one has seen; and Simon (Chris O’Dowd), who’s convinced no one likes him. Into this setting comes Carl (Tom Sturridge). After being kicked out of school, Carl’s mom (Emma Thompson) sends him to spend some time on the Radio Rock ship under the watchful eye of his godfather, Quentin. Life aboard the ship is all sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll (although the sex only arrives once every two weeks when a boatload of women arrive for overnight stays). Carl, a virgin, is at something of a disadvantage when it comes to the opposite sex, but various members of the crew set out to help him remedy the situation. Meanwhile, on land, cabinet member Sir Alistair Dormandy (Kenneth Branagh), announces his determination to shut down Radio Rock. Since what they’re doing is breaking no current laws, he hires the unfortunately named Twatt (Jack Davenport) to find a loophole that he can turn into a noose.

For the most part, Pirate Radio, called The Boat that Rocked during its U.K. run, is a series of poorly connected vignettes about life aboard the ship during a time when the social views of the government were at odds with those of its younger citizens. As Dormandy and Twatt seek to stifle Radio Rock, we are shown a cross-section of British people enjoying the music in different settings. Some of the episodes work (such as the visit to the ship by Carl’s mother); others exhibit forced comedy that really isn’t funny (Carl’s attempts to lose his virginity, the “duel” between The Count and Gavin). The characters are mostly likable but none exhibits much depth. The best comedic elements derive from Kenneth Branagh’s satirization of ’60s stuffed shirt politicians. At times, it’s as if he’s channeling John Cleese in the way he sends them up. He also has some great lines about the role of government.

Ultimately, however, Pirate Radio is more about the music than it is about anything else. Hardly a scene goes by without at least one classic rock song being played. There are reportedly about 60 clips (ranging from a few bars to full singles) in the movie, which makes it a pretty comprehensive survey of the music of the era, with artists ranging as far and wide as Dusty Springfield, Herb Alpert, Cream, The Who, Cat Stevens, The Beach Boys, and The Moody Blues. Without such a rich and diverse soundtrack, there’s little doubt that Pirate Radio would have been considerably less endearing and enjoyable. Of the features on Richard Curtis’ resume (he wrote Four Weddings and a Funeral and Bridget Jones’ Diary and wrote and directed Love, Actually), this is arguably the least substantive.

Some of the marketing material is hyping the “based on a true story” aspect of the movie although, in fact, this was always intended to tell the tale of a fictional pirate radio boat. Some aspects are loosely based on historical events and some of the characters are composites of real people, but Pirate Radio should not be mistaken for anything other than a creation of a writer’s imagination. The distributors apparently would like us to believe these people actually existed and Radio Rock occupies an almost mythical position in recent British pop history.

Films with large ensemble casts rarely afford opportunities for individual standout performances, and this is no exception. Bill Nighy is amusing but hardly reaches the heights he scaled for his small role in Love, Actually. Philip Seymour Hoffman is very good in what may be his most limited non-cameo since Twister. Tom Sturridge, who is the closest Pirate Radio has to a lead, is a little on the limp side. Those who appreciate trivia will note that this is the first movie in which both Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson have both appeared since the dissolution of their marriage (although they do not share any scenes).

Two obvious cinematic references came to mind while I was watching Pirate Radio. The first, Pump up the Volume, also deals with issues of censorship and free speech over the public airwaves and, as is the case here, it sets up a radio pirate as the champion of a group of individuals whose voices and opinions are often ignored by those in power. The second and more unfortunate reference is Titanic. The scenes with a boat sinking in the North Sea are simply too familiar for the association not to be made.

One of the biggest complaints about the U.K. release of the film was that it’s too long and, even though the American version is shorter by 15 minutes, it still seems like there’s too little content for such a robust running time. Nevertheless, the music is great, the comedy provides occasional laughs, and there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with the movie. Distilled to its essence, it represents a respectable diversion.

That title – The Men Who Stare at Goats – is, in and of itself, an indication that this movie is not directed squarely at mainstream multiplex-goers. It’s hard to imagine an army of 14-year old boys and their dates lining up to see this movie, which is designed with a more sophisticated audience in mind. The film is more than a little odd but it has fun with its offbeat premise and moves along breezily until it gets bogged down in the third act. (Watch out for the appearance of Kevin Spacey – that’s when the momentum starts to flag as a more direct focus on narrative undermines some of the wit and comedy.)

The Men Who Stare at Goats opens with the following caption: “More of this is true than you would believe.” But isn’t truth always said to be stranger than fiction? We are introduced to Ann Arbor journalist Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor), who is looking for the story of his life; he wants to impress his wife, who has unceremoniously dumped him. His quest leads him to Kuwait, where he hopes to become embedded with a group of troops entering Iraq. There he meets Lyn Cassady (Clooney), an ex-Special Ops military officer who claims to have been part of the “New Earth Army,” a covert group of “psychic spies” who use their “Jedi mind powers” to influence others. Cassady agrees to take Wilton with him on a mission across the border. Along the way, he tells him about the New Earth Army’s history and its commanding officer, Bill Django (Jeff Bridges), who ran a very different kind of unit.

The first half of The Men Who Stare at Goats is superior to the second half. For about 45 minutes, the film is content to play with the absurdity of the concept of having a covert group of “psychic spies.” It also works brilliantly as a parody of the military and its rules and structure. Unfortunately, past the midpoint, the movie begins to pay more attention to plot and, when it does this, the humor erodes. The more The Men Who Stare at Goats focuses on developing and advancing the narrative, the less enjoyable it is because Cassady’s “mission” turns out to be rather uninteresting.

The director of The Men Who Stare at Goats is Grant Heslov. This is his feature debut behind the camera, but not his first opportunity to join forces with Clooney. He co-wrote (with Clooney) and produced Good Night and Good Luck and filled similar producing duties for Leatherheads. The two men clearly know each other and work well together, and it shows in the easy way this movie unfolds. Heslov is not performing without a net. Who better than Clooney to lend a helping hand – a man who has learned from Soderbergh and the Coens and directed three films in his own right (two of which he collaborated with Heslov)?

The movie contains one of the best in-jokes of recent times. The psychic spies go by a number of different names, among them the “remote viewers” and the “Jedis.” This allows for multiple references to Star Wars. Of course, it will be lost on no one in the audience that Ewan McGregor played none other than the young Obi-Wan in the prequel trilogy. So this creates a little amusement every time McGregor and Clooney discuss the Jedis and Jedi powers. McGregor provides us with this quote: “What’s a Jedi Warrior?” He then ends up pursuing the path of the Jedi in the end. It would be interesting to know whether Heslov and screenwriter Peter Straughan were aware of McGregor’s pending involvement when those lines were written. If they were, it was an amusing way to work in one of the actor’s most (in)famous roles. If they weren’t, it was a case of an eyebrow-raising coincidence.

Fans of The Big Lebowski, which has achieved a major cult status since its theatrical release, will note similarities between Bill Django and the “The Dude” of the earlier film. Both are played by Jeff Bridges, who has apparently drawn from the same wellspring of inspiration for these laid-back, New Age-y parts.

The Men Who Stare at Goats is enjoyable to watch “in the moment,” but it doesn’t leave a powerful or lasting impact, at least insofar as the comedic elements are concerned. (Re-watching it a second time after initially seeing it a month earlier at the Toronto Film Festival, I was surprised how fresh the humor was – mainly because I didn’t remember most of the jokes.) As entertaining as the production is, however, the fact that it contains a kernel of truth reminds us of one damning truth: This is the kind of thing that American tax dollars are being spent on. The Men Who Stare at Goats is a comedy, and I laughed quite a few times while watching it, but that sobering reality almost makes me want to cry.

The lead character is aspiring actor Richard Samuels (Zac Efron), a teenager who is picked by Welles (Christian McKay) to appear in Julius Caesar even before he graduates from high school. Welles, however, is a notoriously difficult boss. One moment, he is cruel and dismissive. The next, he acts like a mentor, bringing Richard with him to a radio studio and allowing him to observe as Welles improvises lines in a live audio play. Since Richard’s role as Lucillus is relatively minor, the young performer is given ample time to observe the behind-the-scenes goings-on at the Mercury. Two famous actors, Joseph Cotton (James Tupper) and George Coulouris (Ben Chaplin), are involved in the production, and John Houseman (Eddie Marsan) is Welles’ partner in the business side of the venture. For Richard, however, the Mercury’s real attraction, aside from the opportunity to work with Welles, is Sonja Jones (Claire Danes), Welles’ secretary. He pursues her with the dogged single-mindedness of a young man in love.

In a courageous move, Linklater devotes the better part of the film’s final half-hour to exacting re-creations of scenes from Julius Caesar, providing a view of how the play might have looked on Opening Night. There’s not enough of the play for someone unaware of its general trajectory to understand what’s happening, but those who have seen or read it will be able not only to follow the excerpts but be able to understand the uniqueness of Welles’ vision. The unfortunately downside of this approach is that it narrows the target audience considerably.

The ostensible star is Zac Efron, who chose this role as an opportunity to step far away from the parts that have made him famous. (It’s difficult to imagine many members of his core audience enjoying Me and Orson Welles.) His heartthrob status effectively submerged, Efron is solid although unspectacular. It’s difficult to see it when Welles calls Richard a “natural born actor,” but Efron’s performance is workmanlike and certainly nothing to be ashamed of. Likewise, Claire Danes snaps off her dialogue like a whip and exhibits sufficient screen presence to avoid being a liability. The love affair between Richard and Sonja, despite being underplayed, is believable. Both Efron and Danes, however, exist in the shadow of Christian McKay, whose portrayal of Welles captures the essence of the great man: impatient, egotistic, arrogant, brilliant, and a perfectionist. It’s all there – the good and the bad – presented with such astonishing force that it’s impossible for McKay to not dominate every scene in which he appears. (McKay, before making this movie, had played Welles in a stage play.) Physically, McKay bears a passing resemblance to Welles, but his voice is uncannily exact – so much so that, if you watch with your eyes closed, the experience is almost eerie. Not since Anthony Hopkins took over a movie with his supporting role in The Silence of the Lambs has a secondary actor so dominated a movie.

Me and Orson Welles is designed primarily for those who are intrigued by theater, curious about Welles, or some combination of both. The film’s storyline is strong enough to provide structure for the production, but it is dramatically limited. Despite Linklater’s directorial credit and Efron’s name at the top of the marquee, Me and Orson Welles has taken fourteen months since its September 2008 world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival to obtain a limited United States release. Many distributors passed on the movie not because they weren’t impressed by its craft but because the potential audience is restricted. This is a specialty movie. Those in its demographic will fall under its impressive spell, but it will be difficult to find enough of those individuals to make the production profitable. McKay alone is well worth the price of admission and, if Me and Orson Welles proves to be too small for the Academy to notice, his performance could go down as one of the great overlooked ones of the decade.

Many tremendous movies could be made about Welles, whose larger-than-life personality would easily lend itself to an epic. From his critically adored stage productions to his War of the Worlds Halloween broadcast to his cinematic debut (and pinnacle), Citizen Kane, to the travesty of The Magnificent Ambersons, few 20th century personalities were more colorful. For Me and Orson Welles, we are presented not only with a minor slice from the man’s life, but one that is shown through the eyes of another. It’s an effective way to introduce the essence of Welles without overwhelming the viewer with his life story.

Reitman brings the same mixture of comedy and drama to this movie that he brought to Juno. There’s some funny, laugh-out-loud material here, but the characters and their situations are well-developed. None of the three principals ever veer in the direction of caricature and Clooney is especially convincing as the lead. Playing a role 180 degrees opposite to the one he essays in The Men Who Stare at Goats, Clooney reminds us why he is among this generation’s most consistent and reliable actors.

It helps immeasurably that Clooney’s supporting female duo is in top form. Vera Farmiga, who, not unlike Tilda Swinton, has the uncanny ability be entirely credible as a sultry siren or a frumpy housewife, provides Clooney’s perfect foil. She’s in “upscale” mode here; their verbal jousts are memorable and the sexual chemistry between them sizzles. No less impressive is Anna Kendrick, whose performance as the ingénue getting some hard life lessons allows us to forgive her appearing in the Twilight series. She’s easily dismissed in those; here, she shows that she has acting chops and knows what to do with them.

Clooney plays corporate layoff officer Ryan Bingham, a man whose most salient quality is his impermanence. He spends his days traveling from city-to-city and, for a fee, he delivers news of layoffs to soon-to-be-departed employees. He lives his life in hotels, airplanes, and airports, saying “All the things you hate about flying are warm reminders I’m home.” In the past year, he has spent 322 days on the road and 43 “miserable” days in the one-bedroom unit he rents in Omaha. He has no time for relationships or possessions, and his one goal in life is to collect 10,000,000 miles so he can become the seventh member of that oh-so-rare club.

Two events add chaos to Ryan’s ordered existence. The first is a chance meeting with fellow traveler Alex (Vera Farmiga), who expresses herself this way: “Think of me as yourself, only with a vagina.” In Alex, Ryan finds someone with whom he might actually be able to develop a semi-normal relationship, even if it is predominantly in hotels and airports. Meanwhile, at home base, Ryan’s boss, Craig Gregory (Jason Bateman), has decided to implement a radical new strategy proposed by new hire Natalie Keener (Anna Kendrick) – using teleconference technology to allow remote layoffs. Determined to prove to her that this is not the way to go, Ryan brings Natalie on the road with him with unexpected results.

Up in the Air is one of the best movies to deal with the inhumanity of the way corporations cut work forces. The parody is razor-sharp and unflinching. Reitman nails his targets one-by-one and drives home each spike with resolute force. Ryan represents a fascinating specimen – a product of modern technology and today’s culture – whose goal is almost the exact opposite of the “American dream.” He doesn’t want the house, the wife, or the children. He is almost estranged from his two sisters. And his relationships consist of one-night stands in airport hotels. He’s a master at what he does yet, because of the way Clooney plays him, we sympathize with this guy, even though he thrives on the misery of others. All of the charisma and intelligence and wit almost make his lifestyle seem bizarrely desirable until those moments when the curtain is peeled back and we see the chilly loneliness that resides within Ryan’s cupboard.

At times, Up in the Air looks and feels a little like a romantic comedy, but that’s illusory. Ryan’s relationship with Alex is a secondary plot – a way to illustrate things about him and to provide some tightly-scripted dialogue. (There is a brilliant sequence in which Alex and Natalie detail their very different expectations of the ideal mate.) The movie earns its ending; it may come as a surprise to some viewers, but it is foreshadowed and makes perfect sense in hindsight. Up in the Air never cheats and delivers an almost perfect mix of humor, satire, and underplayed drama.

(By the way, the first trailer for Up in the Air is excellent. It’s extremely well put together and gives a sense of what the film is about without giving away specific plot elements. The second trailer is more conventional and not nearly as impressive. I have linked to the preferred one below – hopefully, the link stays active.)