Summer Olympics: Opening Ceremony

The opening ceremonies in London were a mixed bag, kind of messy and complicated with various "storylines," but enjoyable for various highlights involving celebrities/notables.  Queen Elizabeth's participation in a film with Daniel Craig (playing James Bond) was a definite highlight.  Amazing how long her reign has been, just a few years' short of Queen Victoria, therefore to-date currently the second longest reign of a British monarch.  Mr. Bean was a distraction but I still liked his bit (it totally, however, took away from the performance of "Chariots of Fire").  Kenneth Branagh was cheery as "Isambard Kingdom Brunel" (apparently Americans [on Twitter] thought he was playing Abraham Lincoln, and wondered why: my guess is they were being wise-asses and didn't really think he was playing Lincoln). I always love the Parade of Nations, particularly when the commentators inform the audience of the nations participating that have never medaled in the history of the Olympics! One of the best trivia pieces offered by commentators, was about tiny group island nation Tuvalu's sale of their .tv web domain, see NYT article here and wikipedia page here (unfortunately, Tuvalu is one of those South Pacific island nations that's in danger of being under water one day due to climate change).   Just before getting to the Zs, Bob Costas summed up how I feel about the Parade of Nations at the Olympics: "Regardless of the political tensions and differences-- the world hot spots-- the smiles on the faces of these Olympians are so genuine.  They're all, each in their own way, so happy to be here."   I must say that during the speeches by the officials, the clunky term "your Royal Highnessess" sure sounded like "your Royal Highn-asses" to me.  As always, the lighting of the Olympic cauldron was a natural high point, with the numerous torches coming together this time to create it a novel approach.  Paul McCartney delivered a nice finale, and was the perfect choice.  All in all, enough "spectacle" and water cooler-talk worthy highlights to say the '12 opening ceremonies succeeded, but they probably won't go down as one of the better ones.

The Dark Knight Rises Tragedy

I thought I'd say a few words about this.  I see a lot of movies and have spent many hours in a darkened theater being moved/ thrilled/ happy/ bored by the latest film.  When I saw The Dark Knight Rises I couldn't help but think in its opening minutes about the horror that befell the patrons at Aurora, and yet here I was watching the same movie settling in to enjoy what turned out to be a great epic film.  The experience was tainted as it will be for anyone who has a heart, and for me I felt especially so because the movies seem to be the one place where you can (and should be able to) forget your troubles and its also the place where, frequently, you can marvel at the most positive of our abilities: the creativity of the human race. And now I'll always probably think about how some innocent people lost there lives by going to the movies. People who instead should have been forgetting their troubles and enjoying themselves.

Best of the Year So Far: Mid-Year Top 5 2012

Several years back I realized that I had trouble diferentiating between the movies I liked and the movies I loved from the early part of the year. Roger Ebert has always suggested that this was true of the Academy and why the Oscars have such "short attention span."  He recommended a mid-year ballot to go along with the end-of-the-year ballot combining both to create the nominations list.

For me, I decided a mid-year top 5 usually works.  I wait until July 15, since the first few weeks of January are generally a wash for new releases, and so 7/15 is a little closer to the mid-point (sorry, although it would have been "eligible" I haven't yet seen Spider-Man-- I just can't get excited for a reboot that's premature!).

I have just eight "nominees" for my top 5 this year (the least since 2008)— but three at the top, i.e. "must see" (Moonrise Kingdom, Prometheus, and Seeking a Friend for the End of the World).  This year's nominees (films I'd seen by 7/15 that made my "must see" and "recommended" categories) include: The Avengers, The Grey, Haywire, Snow White and the Huntsman, The Hunger Games, Moonrise Kingdom, Prometheus, and Seeking a Friend for the End of the World.

My top 5 2012 so far (listed alphabetically)

The Grey

Haywire

Moonrise Kingdom

Prometheus

Seeking a Friend for the End of the World

Paramount's 100th

Yes, in addition to Universal's 100th, it's also Paramount Pictures' 100th. If you go to Vanity Fair's site, you can zoom in on the people in this photo, and they are identified. I've been hearing about this photo for a while, nice to finally see it. Of course most of the "comments" are negative ones, because people just HAVE to be jerks. I think it was nicely done myself, and I especially enjoyed the nostalgic pairings, like John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John and Ryan O'Neal and Ali MacGraw.

At the bottom of this article is a video showing the gathering.

Four Surviving Cast Members (Speaking Parts) Remain from "Gone With the Wind"

With the passing of Ann Rutherford at the age of 94, just four cast members with speaking parts are left from the all-time classic Hollywood epic Gone With the Wind (according to all available sources online).   As "Carreen O'Hara" she played the youngest sister of Scarlett, and is first seen at 14 minutes into the film. Here's her Associated Press obit.





The surviving actors are as follows:

Alicia Rhett (b. 2/1/15) as "India Wilkes."  She is the young daughter from the Twelve Oaks Plantation.  She can be seen at 18 minutes into the film (using the 4-disc Collector's Edition DVD version of the movie as a guide).



Olivia de Havilland (b. 7/1/16) as "Melanie Hamilton."  De Havilland was fourth billed and received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress for Gone With the Wind.   She's first seen at 19 minutes into the film.



Mary Anderson (b. 4/30/20) as "Maybelle Merriwether." She is the first girl "auctioned" at the Atlanta bazaar (where Scarlett dances with Rhett). She can be seen at 43 minutes into the film.



Mickey Kuhn (b. 9/21/32) as "Beau Wilkes."  Playing Ashley and Melanie's son, he appears toward the very end of the film (216 minutes into the approximately 223 minute film [1 hour 48 min into DVD 2])


Among the non-speaking parts is cast member Patrick Curtis who appeared at a screening of GWTW at the Motion Picture Academy— he played Beau Wilkes as a baby (and was therefore born c. 1938-39). I was also informed by a poster in the comments of my last blog entry [thanks, Julia] that Greg Giese, who was born in 1939 and played infant Bonnie and infant Beau, is still alive.

Universal's 100th Anniversary

Universal Studios is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year, and it's hardly a secret.  Here's one of their early films, By the Sun's Rays (1914) [from the Internet Archive], Lon Chaney Sr.'s earliest surviving film; a western short with Chaney as the villain, it runs 11 minutes.

Summer Movie Preview 2012

Entertainment Weekly's Summer Movie Preview is on the shelves, and as always, I can't wait for the summer movies to begin. This year seems to have some particularly strong offerings.

Here are the twenty movies I'm most excited to see (early summer heavy, it seems). The two most anticipated movies for me are probably Prometheus and The Campaign.





May 4: The Avengers
May 11: Dark Shadows
May 16: The Dictator (maybe)
May 18: Battleship
May 25: Moonrise Kingdom
May 25: Men in Black 3

June 1: Snow White and the Huntsman
June 8: Prometheus
June 22: To Rome With Love
June 22: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (maybe)
June 22: Seeking a Friend for the End of the World
June 29: Take This Waltz (maybe)

July 3: The Amazing Spider-Man
July 6: Savages (maybe)
July 20: The Dark Knight Rises

Aug 3: The Bourne Legacy
Aug 3: Total Recall (maybe; no Mars!)
August 10: Hope Springs
August 10: The Campaign
August 17: The Expendables 2 (maybe)