michael curtiz Tagged Articles at Cinematical

In a rather surprising move, Warner Bros. has decided to release Clint Eastwood's Letters from Iwo Jima in New York and L.A., and possibly San Francisco, on December 20 instead of its original date of February 9. The film is a sort of companion piece to the director's WWII drama Flags of Our Fathers, which is currently playing in theaters around the world, and tells the story of the Battle of Iwo Jima from the Japanese point of view. Considering the expectations for Oscar recognition for Flags, the schedule shift is a bold strategy. Now, it is possible that Eastwood will either receive two directing nominations, one for each of the two movies, or voters will be torn and he will receive none.

The motives may lie in the fact that each film has a different distributor. Flags was released by Dreamworks and Letters will reportedly be put out by Warner Bros. Of course, they were each produced by Steven Spielberg, along with Eastwood and Robert Lorenz, and each was co-produced by Dreamworks (Paramount) and Warner Bros., so the whole thing is a bit complicated and confusing, to say the least.

If Letters can gain enough momentum with such short notice, Eastwood could join Steven Soderbergh and Michael Curtiz as one of only three directors to earn two directing noms in the same year. Currently he's a front-runner for the award, which would liken him more to Soderbergh if he wins (Curtiz didn't win for either of his two 1938 noms). However, I don't imagine that like Soderbergh, Eastwood will see both of his films in the best picture category (this would put him with Curtiz on that note). Guess which one I think will be left out.

Talk about guts! This kid submitted this video to Stanley Kubrick way back in 1983 when Kubrick was having open auditions for Full Metal Jacket. Kubrick had advertised around the U.S. for young actors to send in audition tapes to be considered in the casting process. Brian Atene, aged 20 at the time, sent this tape in and was apparently never heard from again, as least by Hollywood. That is until this video started making the rounds on the web.

Now, Mr. Atene can be accused of many things, but being shy about his "acting abilities" sure isn't one of them. He compares himself to a young Alec Guiness, and calls the Juliard School where he is a student, the "finest acting institution in the world". Although he says this, "not as a statement of conceit, but humbly as a statement of fact." He calls Kubrick one of the greatest directors of all time while rolling his eyes to the heavens, although tells him that he isn't quite as good a director as Michael Curtiz, who directed The Sea Hawk (which is apparently Atene's favorite film) in 1940.

After taking Kubrick to task for not directing 2010, he goes on to let him know that his favorite composer is Erich Wolfgang Korngold (he composed the music for The Sea Hawk, of course), that he won a puppy for 50 cents when he was 12 years-old, and his favorite color is green. Oh, and he's a Trekkie. He then performs a short "cutting" loosely based upon on The Outsiders, by which I think he means the book, and not the film, since that came out the same year that Atene was recording the tape.

This is probably the best video definition of the word hubris that I've ever seen. See for yourself after the jump. Once you've seen that, check out the parody update of Mr. Atene, aged 43.

The Princess Bride was recently rereleased on DVD, and it's a movie that nearly everyone I know has enjoyed. The great fencing scene between Westley (Cary Elwes) and Inigo (Mandy Patinkin) is a treat to watch, as is a later fight scene that I won't spoil for the three remaining people who haven't seen the film.

But somehow it doesn't quite measure up to the charming and exciting swashbuckling performed by the dashing Errol Flynn in many of his early movies. Flynn's birthday is today -- he would have been 96, but died at 50 of heart failure. The above photo is from The Adventures of Robin Hood, the 1938 film in which Flynn fences daringly with Basil Rathbone's delightfully evil Sir Guy. I'm not all that fond of the film overall, but I love all the wonderful fight scenes. Flynn and Rathbone also dueled in an earlier film, Captain Blood. Both films were directed by Michael Curtiz, who went on to direct Casablanca, as well as another swashbuckling classic starring Flynn, The Sea Hawk. I've heard the theory that Henry Daniell's evil lord in The Sea Hawk was the inspiration for Christopher Guest's characterization of Count Rugen in The Princess Bride ... and so we've come full circle. All the above-mentioned films starring Flynn are available on DVD, so rent them and compare for yourself.