cape fear Tagged Articles at Cinematical

The thing I've always loved about Martin Scorsese is that the man lives to tell you a story. He piles on the details and approaches every angle -- and as a result he creates living breathing people -- and thanks to him, his crime flicks are about as close to the mob as I need to get. When Casino was released in 1995, it was considered Scorsese's return to the world of crime after taking a little diversion with films like Age of Innocence and Cape Fear. But, the comparisons between Casino and Goodfellas were inevitable, and unfortunately Casino was branded the inferior film. Now I'm not denying the genius of Goodfellas, but I stand by the fact that Casino is a kick-a** film in its own right.

Are you ready to see Robert De Niro and Al Pacino as partners in Righteous Kill? Is it the casting pair-up you've been waiting 35 years for? Or does it feel too strange to watch a whole movie in which they're all buddy buddy? Perhaps you were fully satisfied with their showdown as enemies in Heat, even though the esteemed veteran actors had much less screen time together. Personally, I like the idea of them going head to head better, but that's mainly because they're both such huge figures that having them team up seems a bit unfair to the other side. As enemies they're like the Incredible Hulk and the Abomination or Iron Man and Iron Monger, to compare them with recent superpowered showdowns in cinema.

It's difficult to choose the better actor of the two, or even decide who's been the more successful Hollywood player. De Niro's been in a lot more films, but his ratio of bad films to good might have suffered as a result. Meanwhile, they've both arguably become too much of caricatures of themselves, to the point where it's sometimes hard to tell which performances are intentional self-parodies and which are accidental. However, despite the difficulty of pitting De Niro against Pacino for a general comparative showdown, there are a number of easily corresponding roles among them. So, just for fun, I've come up with seven specific character showdowns, chosen my pick for which is the better performance, and invite you all to vote on your favorite, whether you agree or disagree with my own.

After the jump ... De Niro vs. Pacino -- it's on!

It would be easy to offer you appropriately themed movies for the Fourth of July. There is, of course, Independence Day, plus flicks like Yankee Doodle Dandy, or on a more serious note, Born of the Fourth of July. But what's the fun in that? You could come up with those yourself. I could be snarky and offer only British fare, which is actually very tempting, but I have something else in mind: Independence-themed chills.

The two films for this double feature are not centered specifically on the Fourth of July, but the date is important to both stories -- whether it's the tale of tourists and teeth, or parades and creepiness. Do you see where I'm headed? For this double feature, in honor of the Fourth of July, I give you: Jaws and Cape Fear.

Each week, The Exhibitionist comments on the latest news, trends and innovations related to the theater industry, or it discusses long-continuing problems with and complaints against cinemas in general, or it simply relates a specific moviegoing experience of yours truly. But rarely does this column get into the subject of actual movies. Well, seeing as there's not much new in the industry this week, and seeing as I'm fortunately not being dragged to see Sex and the City and therefore have no experience to relate about being a sole male in an auditorium packed with women, I figure this is a perfect time to bring up actual movies. Not just any movies, though: I'm presently only interested in discussing movies about, set in or prominently featuring movie theaters.

The earliest movie that I'm familiar with that significantly involves a theater is Buster Keaton's Sherlock Jr. The silent comedian plays a projectionist who falls asleep on the job then has a dream in which he literally climbs through the movie screen and into a detective film. A similar idea of breaking the boundary between auditorium and screen is used in Woody Allen's The Purple Rose of Cairo and in John McTiernan's The Last Action Hero, both of which involve a movie character who manages to leave his respective film within the film. But nothing tops Keaton's screen-entering stunt, which utilizes special effects that still astonish more than 80 years later.

Oscar-winning art director and production designer Henry Bumstead has died from prostate cancer, according to the Los Angeles Times. Bumstead, who was born in Ontario, California, in 1915, began his career during the Depression as an apprentice draftsman at RKO Studios but was quickly hired by Paramount Pictures where he was taken under the wing of art-department head Hans Dreir (Oscar-winning art director for Sunset Boulevard). After World War II he began designing films for Paramount and by the middle of the next decade his stint at the studio led him to work with Alfred Hitchcock on The Man Who Knew Too Much and then Vertigo, the latter which got him his first Academy Award nomination. In 1960 he moved on to Universal and collaborations with Robert Mulligan. He won his first Oscar in 1963 for Mulligan's To Kill a Mockingbird. Then the 70s saw him working a few times with George Roy Hill and earning his second Oscar for The Sting.

Bumstead had a fairly weak period during the 1980s, but after teaming with Martin Scorsese on the remake of Cape Fear in 1991, he was hired by Clint Eastwood for Unforgiven, which led to another nomination. From that point he worked with Eastwood on eight more films up until he was diagnosed with cancer during production of Million Dollar Baby. In 1998, Bumstead, who was known as "Bummy" to friends and colleagues, received a lifetime achievement award from the Society of Motion Picture and Television Art Directors.

In an interview with MovieMaker Magazine, Henry Bumstead summed up his life as a great success: "I'm very happy. Nobody could've had more fun than I had. I've seen the world first class and worked with lots of talented and wonderful people. Sometimes I wake up in the night and just can't believe that I've been able to raise four kids, send them all to universities and, at the same time, been so lucky to do what I've always loved to do. It's been a great life every minute of it."