john huston Tagged Articles at Cinematical

• Russell Lloyd (1916-2008) - Oscar-nominated editor of John Huston's The Man Who Would Be King. He edited 11 of Huston's films in total, including Moby Dick, The MacKintosh Man, Reflections in a Golden Eye, The Unforgiven and Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison. He also edited Tinto Brass' Caligula, Anthony Page's The Lady Vanishes, Peter Sellers' final film, The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu and Julien Duvivier's 1948 adaptation of Anna Karenina, on which he was also a second-unit director. He co-directed the 1949 melodrama The Last Days of Dolwyn, which starred Richard Burton, and was a location director for the 1950 Disney adaptation of Treasure Island. He died January 21 in Cranleigh, England. (Independent)

• Christopher Allport (1947-2008) - Character actor who starred in the 1979 slasher flick Savage Weekend. He also appears in To Live and Die in L.A., the '86 Invaders from Mars remake and the horror film Jack Frost and its direct-to-video sequel Jack Frost 2: Revenge of the Mutant Killer Snowmen. He died in an avalanche January 25, in Wrightwood, California. (Star-Telegram.com)
• Christian Brando (aka Gary Brown) (1958-2008) - Actor and son of Marlon Brando. He appears in the Barbara Streisand movie Yentl and the Peter Sellers movie I Love You, Alice B. Toklas! He died from pneumonia January 26, in Los Angeles. (Variety)
• Heath Ledger (1979-2008) - Oscar-nominated actor who starred in Brokeback Mountain, Cassanova, The Brothers Grimm, 10 Things I Hate About You, Monster's Ball, The Order, A Knight's Tale, Ned Kelly, I'm Not There and The Four Feathers. He will be seen this summer as The Joker in The Dark Knight. Read Monika's original breaking news post and my update and also check out the Cinematical tribute to Ledger here.
• Reverend Lynn Lemon (1911-2008) - Minister who played a minister in Ed Wood's Plan 9 From Outer Space and Denis Sanders' Invasion of the Bee Girls. He also appears as himself in the documentary The Haunted World of Edward D. Wood Jr. He died of a heart attack January 15, in Bedford, Texas. (Fangoria)
• Gina Louise (1971-2008) - Hair stylist who worked on Playing Mona Lisa, which starred Alicia Witt and Harvey Fierstein, and Around the Fire, starring Tara Reid and Devon Sawa. She died January 1. (Entertainment Insiders)

Americans have always been, and always will be, fascinated with epics. I think it's a scale thing; it's in our very history, our very being, to do things in a big way. Thus many critics have been impressed by Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood, using big words to describe it: "bold," "magnificent," "saga," "titanic," "grandeur." Comparisons have been slung around not with anything recent, but with the likes of Citizen Kane, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, and, appropriately, Giant. I have to admit, I was impressed too, but not excited. Though Anderson's pure filmmaking skill, his sense of movement, rhythm, timing, light and dark, places him among the greats of our time, I feel that There Will Be Blood is a step back into the all-too conventional, and the least of his five films.

Let's start with his source material, Upton Sinclair's novel Oil!, which was published in 1927. Sinclair was more of a political writer than a creative writer; he apparently sent copies of some of his books to members of Congress, and his views helped establish certain laws. Because of this condescending, soapbox quality, his work has inevitably fallen out of fashion, and out of print; the new movie tie-in is the only way one can buy the book today. Why dust off this creaky source material in 2007? Anderson undoubtedly found something resonant about it, which must invariably be political rather than personal. Perhaps he saw a connection between Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis), scooping up all the oil in the Midwest and swindling anyone who gets in his way, and a lot of the suspicious oil activity that still goes on today.

Roman Polanski's recent supporting role in Brett Ratner's Rush Hour 3 raised more questions than the film itself ever could. What could that dynamic have been like? How could one of the world's greatest directors have taken orders from one of the world's worst? We know from previous films (The Fearless Vampire Killers, Zemsta, etc.) that Polanski has a yen for acting, even if his skills in this arena run toward broad, rather than subtle. Likewise Kevin Smith working for Len Wiseman in Live Free or Die Hard. Would Smith have made suggestions on how to make the movie nerdier? It got me thinking about the many directors who have performed for their colleagues, and the very interesting dynamics they created. The following are the seven best and/or most interesting combos. I've only included people who are primarily known as directors, as opposed to actor-directors, like Jackie Chan, George Clooney, Denzel Washington, etc.. I've also left out glorified cameos (Steven Spielberg in The Blues Brothers) and jokey appearances (Samuel Fuller in Pierrot le Fou). Finally, I've excluded Quentin Tarantino, whose lack of thespian skills is unquestioned. (Though I would have loved to have been on the set of Spike Lee's Girl 6 the day those two crossed paths...)

1. Orson Welles in Carol Reed's The Third Man (1949)
This is the most obvious one; the Big Guy's presence as Harry Lime has led generations of moviegoers to believe that Welles actually directed this movie. Certainly his fingerprints are on it. He spoke often about building up to the first appearance of a character by having other characters talk about him long before we actually see him. Welles managed to do this with his Rochester in Jane Eyre (1944), and even more memorably here. We know all about Harry Lime before those lights unexpectedly splash on his face and he lets slip an amused smile. Reportedly, the famous "cuckoo clock" speech was his own. However, Reed undoubtedly directed; the overall suspense and structure of the film has more in common with Reed's The Fallen Idol than with anything Welles made.

2. John Huston in Roman Polanski's Chinatown (1974)
The maverick director had a terrific screen presence with his large, ambling frame, cavernous face and sonorous voice, and acted in many films, mostly his own, and notably in cult films like Winter Kills (1979) and Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973). Happily, the news recently broke that rights issues surrounding Orson Welles' The Other Side of the Wind have been resolved, and so the world may get to see Huston's lead performance in that film as well. In Chinatown, Huston gives a flat-out great performance as the insidious industrialist who gets away with more than murder and justifies it with a hearty laugh. Jack Nicholson may have got his nose cut, but Huston emerges untouched.

When I was a very gullible first-grader, somebody told me the name Pelé was short for "Peg Leg". I was then convinced for a very short, very stupid afternoon that the soccer legend actually played the sport with a wooden leg. After I was set straight on the truth, I felt like an idiot, but the worst of it is that I was never able to fully appreciate Pelé's real talents. I couldn't get over the fact that he'd be more impressive to me if he had that handicap. I haven't thought much about him since elementary school, after which I gave up on soccer, but now I'm looking forward to finally learning about Pelé as I wish I had in the beginning -- with a biopic.

The three-time World Cup winner has just signed with the William Morris Agency, which will be packaging a movie in his honor. Even with both legs, Pelé's story should be perfect for a film with plenty of crowd-pleasing dramatic arcs. He grew up in poverty in Brazil and was taught to play by his father, a former pro footballer. At 15, he went pro, at 16, he joined the Brazil national team, and at 17, he was the youngest person to play in a World Cup final, and subsequently the youngest to win. About a decade later he scored his 1000th goal and then won his third Cup. After retiring from playing the sport in Brazil, he functioned as a star player (past his prime) for the New York Cosmos and also co-starred with Michael Caine and Sylvester Stallone in John Huston's Victory. I'm not sure who will be best to star as Pelé, but since the actor will have to be repped by WMA, the list is certainly narrowed down. Unfortunately I have no access to the agency's list of talent. And I don't suppose City of God's Alexandre Rodrigues is on it.

Danny Huston may have a famous Hollywood last name, but not a lot of movie fans know who he is. It would seem, however, that all that is about to change for the 43-year-old actor, whose father is late director John Huston and is half-brother of the lovely Anjelica Huston. In John Hillcoat's Australian western, The Proposition, penned by fellow Aussie Nick Cave, Huston plays a killer outlaw whose brother, played by Guy Pearce, is sent into the Outback to kill him to save their simpleton brother (Richard Wilson) from the gallows. All comparisons to Brando's maniacal Col. Kurtz in Coppola's Apocalypse Now aside, Huston puts his nice-guy looks aside and steps confidently into the role of the film's key character and makes a lot of those inevitable comparisons valid ones. He took the time to talk with Cinematical during a promotional stop in Boston last week.