I guess it was because I grew up with Michael Caine as the star of such fantastic flicks as Jaws: The Revenge and Blame it on Rio that it took me awhile until I really understood why everyone thought he was such a genius. For me, the revelation came about 10 minutes into Sleuth, by far one his best performances. Guardian reports that two of Caine's early works are getting the HD treatment. In honor of Caine's upcoming 75th birthday, Zulu and The Italian Job will be re-mastered and aired on Britain's Sky Movies for television.Released in 1964, Zulu was the story of outnumbered British soldiers battling Zulu warriors at Rorke's Drift. This was Caine's first starring role in the true-life story (albeit with some creative license) as Lt. Gonville Bromhead. The Italian Job is the more famous of the two films. Peter Collinson's caper about a plan to steal Turin gold starred Caine as master thief Charlie Croker. It was another iconic role for Caine, who was already the epitome of Swingin' London. It also led him to some his most famous roles in the 1970's including Get Carter and Sleuth.
Expect to see a lot of retrospectives in the coming year as Hollywood continues to reformat their back catalogs for HD. For movie lovers it comes as a relief that these classics are being preserved for future generations. According to Sky Movies' Ian Lewis: "Watching a classic title re-mastered in HD is like viewing a restored painting." Luckily, Caine was a little more pragmatic about some of the downsides of HD resolution: "I love HD ... of course, it's very unforgiving, especially on young beautiful ladies, but thank God I'm old, I don't care."
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
3-03-2008 @ 6:49PM
rontaube said...
If you consider Jaws the revenge and Blame it on Rio fantastic examples of Michael Caine's acting then you must be new to films. Even he admits that he did those films for the money alone. Take a look at the Cider House Rules, or if you want earlier films, The man who would be king or the movies from Len Deighton's books like The ipcress files if you want to see his brilliance at work. His first big film Alfie is better than the ones mentioned as well. I'm glad that there will be retrospectves , but Blame it on Rio is a sexploitation film for crying out loud and the Jaws movie was the worst of the sequels.
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3-03-2008 @ 5:34PM
JimeneX said...
sar·casm –noun
A form of irony in which apparent praise conceals another, scornful meaning.
3-03-2008 @ 8:03PM
rontaube said...
dialogue: an airing of views; discussion. There was neither apparent praise nor scornful meaning. Just meant to share another opinion.
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3-04-2008 @ 2:58PM
MosquitoControl said...
Yes, but you clearly missed his sarcasm.
As for HD releases, in some ways they are a relief, yes.
In other ways they are just another attempt by studios to make us by the same movies all over again. We already bought all 10 different versions of Robocop, so the 11th sold poorly, despite featuring the Chilean VHS trailer. What now?
HD to the rescue! Now they can release the same movie another six or seven times, now with a feature far more tempting for rebuying purposes.
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