Alain Delon Tagged Articles at Cinematical

• Claus Nissen (1938-2008) - Actor. Played "The Perfect Man" in Jørgen Leth's The Perfect Human, which was featured in and updated for Leth and Lars von Trier's documentary The Five Obstructions. He also played the character "Jensen" in von Trier's miniseries The Kingdom and The Kingdom II and appears in Susanne Bier's Family Matters, Bernard Girard's The Happiness Cage, Erik Balling's Olsen Gang series and Leth's Notes on Love and Good and Evil. He died April 29. (Danske Film)

• Carl Belfour (1952-2008) - Chief projectionist for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. He died of a brain aneurysm April 23, in Los Angeles. (Variety)
• Nino Candido (1942-2008) - Property master and actor. Worked on Bull Durham, Wes Craven's New Nightmare, Smile, Timescape, Night Game and TV's My Name is Earl. He appears in Hud and I Come in Peace. He died April 26, in Laughlin, Nevada. (IATSE Local 44)

Eons ago (i.e. my early teen years), I was given a lovely hardcover volume of Asterix comics, which I remember enjoying yet never fully embracing. Theoretically, I should have related more (Asterix is short like me and an underdog character, as I imagine myself to be); what held me back? Was something lost in the translation? Asterix the Gaul has never really caught on in the United States, but worldwide it's among the best known French comics ever made. Likewise, numerous movie versions have been made, none of which have dented the American market, even though they've done well worldwide.

The latest cinematic edition, Asterix at the Olympic Games, will have its world premiere on January 13 in Paris, according to Variety, which also says that it's "one of the most expensive European films ever made," with a budget reported to be $114.6 million. The film is a co-production by French, German and Spanish companies. The comic series followed "the exploits of a village of ancient Gauls as they resist Roman occupation," according to Wikipedia; the new film appears to, uh, pit the Gauls against the Romans in the Olympics -- and they said I couldn't read!

The French-language official site for Asterix at the Olympic Games has an impressive-looking teaser as well as a full-scale trailer and a selection of gorgeous high-resolution stills (click "Espace Presse" for those). From the looks of things, a good chunk of the budget was set aside for computer graphics. Human stars include Gerard Depardieu as Obelix, Alain Delon as Julis Caesar and Clovis Cornillac as Asterix. The "family adventure comedy" is scheduled for wide release on Wednesday, January 30; no word on North American distribution, so hard-core fans will need to make some European travel plans.

Some weeks I find it's very rewarding to research the lesser-known titles in a selective release list like the one maintained by the good folks at DVD Journal. Dave Kehr's column in The New York Times is indispensable; he gives glowing reviews this week to martial-arts masterpiece The 36th Chamber of Shaolin and Allan Dwan's version of The Three Musketeers. But what if you're in the mood for something less action-oriented? The Criterion Collection rolls out two arthouse films by Yugoslavian director Dušan Makavejev (WR: Mysteries of the Organism and Sweet Movie) and one Brit boarding-school classic (Linday Anderson's If...). Digging a bit deeper in the list, I wondered about Close to Home, an Israeli film about two young women doing compulsory military service in Jerusalem. Unfortunately, Christopher Campbell was none too impressed when he saw it at Tribeca last year: "Basically it follows the same pattern of the [buddy-cop, action-comedy] genre, but it leaves out the action and the comedy so all that is left is a predictable narrative with no entertainment appeal. Even with its likeable, attractive leads, the film is a lifeless effort." The other reviews I found agreed with his assessment.

What about The Life and Hard Times of Guy Terrifico, originally billed as a "honky-tonkumentary"? Joe Leydon in Variety said it could stand to lose a third of its running time, but it did have "some modestly amusing snippets of on-target satire, along with a few hilarious episodes of self-parody by real-life pop and country music heavyweights." I'm not a fan of mockumentaries, but if you are, you might want to give it a chance. I also searched for information about 1968's Honor Among Thieves (AKA Farewell, Friend), directed by Jean Herman. Alain Delon and Charles Bronson star as two former members of the French Foreign Legion who end up cracking a safe. This is actually the one I'm most interested in, simply because I like the premise and the teaming of ultra-suave Delon and ultra-gruff Bronson. It was originally released on DVD in 1998; the new release is from Lionsgate and features Bronson alone on the cover. But if you're truly not in an action mood, I'm afraid there's not much for you this week on the indie side of the DVD aisle.

A trio of insanely great series recently started in New York City, once again displaying the cultural embarrassment of riches with which those of us lucky enough to live here grapple on a daily basis (I'm not complaining, trust me).

Friday saw the opening of Summer Swashbucklers at Manhattan's Film Forum, a series of 30 pirate and adventure films -- most made between 1920 and 1950 -- that will unspool over the next three weeks, many of them in double features. Among the films in the series are such Errol Flynn classics as Captain Blood (his first starring role, in which he displays a surprising knack for screwball humor) and The Adventures of Robin Hood, the elder Douglas Fairbanks' The Mark of Zorro and The Three Musketeers, and Gunga Din, starring the junior Fairbanks and Cary Grant.

Meanwhile, over in Brooklyn, the BAM Cinematek has put together two truly magnificent series that will run concurrently though the month of August. The first half of each week features the work of controversial American master Sam Peckinpah, from the shocking Straw Dogs (that one's showing Tuesday the 15th -- go see it, if you haven't) to the Steve McQueen starrers The Getaway and Junior Bonner. Then, from Thursday to Sunday each week, the theater is given over to a series called Leading Men of French Cinema. As you might expect, the films showcase the work of a wide range of French stars, in films that are equally diverse. Highlights of the series include Purple Noon, Rene Clement's 1960 version of The Talented Mr. Ripley (starring Alain Delon at his most impossibly beautiful), Jean-Luc Godard's Pierrot le fou (starring the wonderful Jean-Paul Belmondo) and Les tontons flingueurs, which stars Lino Ventura, a wrestler who transformed himself during the 1960s into an unexpectedly appealing screen presence.

While September is sure to bring good series of its own, these are all well worth sweating on a subway platform to see.

The New York Asian Film Festival is celebrating its fifth birthday this year with its largest-ever slate of films: 25 features on just two screens, most of which are making their New York or US debuts. The festival is dedicated to exploring "the latest and greatest movies from Asia," and the 2006 line-up includes works from Japan, China, Korea, India, Thailand, and Malaysia. The festival runs from June 15 to July 1; watch the official website for ticket and showtime information.

A Bittersweet Life is an utterly gorgeous film. Filled with surfaces so polished they seem to glow, and tableaus so carefully composed they look like paintings, it aspires to and often achieves a magical sort of visual perfection. Each scene and face is lit with aggressive disregard for reality; director Kim Ji-woon's only concern is what looks best, and his meticulous attention to detail is our reward as we take in one sumptuous image after another.

For a time, the film's content matches its look. At the center of A Bittersweet Life is Sun-Woo, a tightly controlled gang enforcer who, after seven years of service, has earned the trust of his employer. Played by Lee Byung-hun in a narrow black suit, Sun-Woo's resemblance to Alain Delon's Jef in Le Samouraï couldn't possibly be accidental. Lee shares Delon's wide, blank eyes, as well as his uncanny ability to make his face go completely slack. Like Jef, Sun-Woo is disciplined, unquestioning, and careful. And, like Jef, he make a conscious choice to disobey his employer over a woman. After the betrayal, both men use their ruthlessness and skill for themselves for the first time, a choice that makes turning back impossible. In Le Samouraï, Jef's actions are smart, informed, and decisive. In A Bittersweet Life, however, both Sun-Woo's and the film's careful control fall apart, and what had been an intelligent, highly promising convergence of character and structure turns into a bloody mess with a sky-high body count and very little in the way character development.

As even the least film-dorky among us know - if only from the story of Kevin Costner's editing room transformation from Big Chill supporting actor to a body on a slab - directors shoot storylines and sequences that don't make it into the final cuts of their films. Sometimes, as with Costner, the faces that end up on the cutting room floor are very familiar ones, which inevitably leaves us wondering about what might have been. (Harrison Ford? In E.T.?!)

The folks at Film Threat recently put together a list of the Top Deleted Performances of All Time and, while the title seems wildly inappropriate (some of the performances were bad, and many have never even been seen), the list offers up ten very recognizable names who, for a variety of reasons, were relegated to the rubbish bin. Among the names on the list are such megastars as Tyrone Power, Buster Keaton, W.C. Fields, and Alain Delon (Why anyone would want to cut him out of anything is beyond me.), and the widely-varied stories behind their disappearances are fascinating and well worth a look, for trainspotters and fans alike.