Odd List Simon Brew 15 Nov 2013 - 07:08
Lots of films are dedicated to, or in memory of someone. But it's not always clear why. We've been finding out...
Back when Breaking Bad returned for its final batch of episodes in August 2013, it had a dedication at the end of it. The card read 'Dedicated to our friend Kevin Cordasco'. As it turned out, Kevin Cordasco was a 16-year old who had been battling cancer for seven years, who had met both Bryan Cranston and Vince Gilligan. Cordasco died before he could ever get to see the episode dedicated to him.
I found this such a moving story, that it got me wondering about the dedications that appear on films, and what the story behind them was. After all, the dedications are there for a reason. What I uncovered was some funny stories, mainly extremely sad ones, and some extremely moving dedications.
Lots of films are dedicated to, or in memory of someone. But it's not always clear why. We've been finding out...
Back when Breaking Bad returned for its final batch of episodes in August 2013, it had a dedication at the end of it. The card read 'Dedicated to our friend Kevin Cordasco'. As it turned out, Kevin Cordasco was a 16-year old who had been battling cancer for seven years, who had met both Bryan Cranston and Vince Gilligan. Cordasco died before he could ever get to see the episode dedicated to him.
I found this such a moving story, that it got me wondering about the dedications that appear on films, and what the story behind them was. After all, the dedications are there for a reason. What I uncovered was some funny stories, mainly extremely sad ones, and some extremely moving dedications.
- 11/14/2013
- by sarahd
- Den of Geek
Part of the Tony Scott: A Moving Target critical project. Go here for the project's description, index and links to project's other movement.
This is one "movement" of our exquisite corpse-style critical project, Tony Scott: A Moving Target, which coincidentally begins with a look at Crimson Tide, the same movie that begins the other movement. As outlined in the introduction to the entire project, this project began in my mind, as something fairly simple: a snaking continuum of scene analysis. This is only in part what resulted.
The varied responses I got back from my group—"mine" in the sense that it is the one I participated in, since Gina's contribution closes Movement B—seem to say as much about the participating critics as they do about Tony Scott's films and the overlap between the two: the perception of Scott's films and career. Thus many entries, including my own,...
This is one "movement" of our exquisite corpse-style critical project, Tony Scott: A Moving Target, which coincidentally begins with a look at Crimson Tide, the same movie that begins the other movement. As outlined in the introduction to the entire project, this project began in my mind, as something fairly simple: a snaking continuum of scene analysis. This is only in part what resulted.
The varied responses I got back from my group—"mine" in the sense that it is the one I participated in, since Gina's contribution closes Movement B—seem to say as much about the participating critics as they do about Tony Scott's films and the overlap between the two: the perception of Scott's films and career. Thus many entries, including my own,...
- 11/27/2012
- by Daniel Kasman
- MUBI
This article is part of the critical project Tony Scott: A Moving Target in which an analysis of a scene from a Tony Scott film is passed anonymously to the next participant in the project to respond to with an analysis of his or her own.
<- the previous analysis | movement index | the next analysis ->
The first time I saw True Romance, I couldn’t see a thing.
I had a window in my bedroom that looked out into the kitchen, and had anybody stopped in for a snack, there at one in the morning, they’d have seen the back fifth of the room bathed in a pulsing pus-green/electro-purple glow, like it was The Hunger all over again and Tony Scott had broken out the gels. All of the colors of the entrails of cable were on my television as I watched pay movies scrambled, solarized ghost images looping and looping—it was how I saw the adult movies,...
<- the previous analysis | movement index | the next analysis ->
The first time I saw True Romance, I couldn’t see a thing.
I had a window in my bedroom that looked out into the kitchen, and had anybody stopped in for a snack, there at one in the morning, they’d have seen the back fifth of the room bathed in a pulsing pus-green/electro-purple glow, like it was The Hunger all over again and Tony Scott had broken out the gels. All of the colors of the entrails of cable were on my television as I watched pay movies scrambled, solarized ghost images looping and looping—it was how I saw the adult movies,...
- 11/26/2012
- by Joe McCulloch
- MUBI
The Hollywood director's first films were premiered at the National Film Theatre in London
Tony Scott's short feature One of the Missing (1969), his own adaptation of an Ambrose Bierce story, was one of several films chosen to launch the newly built NFT2 screen at the National Film Theatre (now the BFI Southbank), in London, in 1970. It ran for the opening week. He later wrote, photographed, edited and directed Loving Memory (1971), financed by the British Film Institute and Memorial Enterprises, which we also premiered at the Nft, where I was programmer. After this and his film of the Henry James story The Author of Beltraffio, for the BBC, he shortened his name from Anthony Scott and abandoned "art" movies for advertising and his remarkable career in Hollywood.
Tony ScottBFIBrian Baxter
guardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is...
Tony Scott's short feature One of the Missing (1969), his own adaptation of an Ambrose Bierce story, was one of several films chosen to launch the newly built NFT2 screen at the National Film Theatre (now the BFI Southbank), in London, in 1970. It ran for the opening week. He later wrote, photographed, edited and directed Loving Memory (1971), financed by the British Film Institute and Memorial Enterprises, which we also premiered at the Nft, where I was programmer. After this and his film of the Henry James story The Author of Beltraffio, for the BBC, he shortened his name from Anthony Scott and abandoned "art" movies for advertising and his remarkable career in Hollywood.
Tony ScottBFIBrian Baxter
guardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is...
- 8/24/2012
- by Brian Baxter
- The Guardian - Film News
Tony Scott (1944 – 2012)
As with any prominent artist’s or entertainer’s passing, it gives us a chance to look back on their body of work in a way we’ve never looked at it before — as completed cannon. After the terrible news broke of director Tony Scott’s apparent suicide, we decided to do just that and compile a list of the Hollywood mainstay’s five greatest cinematic achievements.
#5. The Hunger (1983)
“The Hunger” is an assured, ambitious — if often ridiculous – debut feature (not counting the 57-minute, rarely seen “Loving Memory”) that wasn’t appreciated upon its release but has since become something of a cult classic. It also features an infamous lesbian scene between Susan Sarandon and Catherine Deneuve, and one of David Bowie’s best dramatic performances.
#4. Top Gun (1986)
Don’t laugh. Yes, “Top Gun” represents everything Tony Scott has come to be mocked for in more snobbish cinematic circles: it’s over-indulgent,...
As with any prominent artist’s or entertainer’s passing, it gives us a chance to look back on their body of work in a way we’ve never looked at it before — as completed cannon. After the terrible news broke of director Tony Scott’s apparent suicide, we decided to do just that and compile a list of the Hollywood mainstay’s five greatest cinematic achievements.
#5. The Hunger (1983)
“The Hunger” is an assured, ambitious — if often ridiculous – debut feature (not counting the 57-minute, rarely seen “Loving Memory”) that wasn’t appreciated upon its release but has since become something of a cult classic. It also features an infamous lesbian scene between Susan Sarandon and Catherine Deneuve, and one of David Bowie’s best dramatic performances.
#4. Top Gun (1986)
Don’t laugh. Yes, “Top Gun” represents everything Tony Scott has come to be mocked for in more snobbish cinematic circles: it’s over-indulgent,...
- 8/23/2012
- by Eric M. Armstrong
- The Moving Arts Journal
This text was begun in mid-to-late 2010. I posted two work-in-progress excerpts on my personal blog in December of that year. Following Scott's death, I decided that it was time to revise and complete it.
***
More often than not, innovation resembles deficiency. Jean-Luc Godard couldn't tell a story, Yasujiro Ozu never learned the 180 degree rule, Robert Bresson didn't know how to direct actors, D.W. Griffith first didn't understand that the audience wanted to see the whole actress and not just her face and then didn't understand how you were supposed to make a talkie—and, toward the end of his career, Tony Scott made movies the wrong way, never letting an image hold long enough for the viewer to figure out just exactly what was going on.
The party line on Tony Scott is that he was a "stylist," a man who made popular, "technically accomplished" and therefore insubstantial films; he...
***
More often than not, innovation resembles deficiency. Jean-Luc Godard couldn't tell a story, Yasujiro Ozu never learned the 180 degree rule, Robert Bresson didn't know how to direct actors, D.W. Griffith first didn't understand that the audience wanted to see the whole actress and not just her face and then didn't understand how you were supposed to make a talkie—and, toward the end of his career, Tony Scott made movies the wrong way, never letting an image hold long enough for the viewer to figure out just exactly what was going on.
The party line on Tony Scott is that he was a "stylist," a man who made popular, "technically accomplished" and therefore insubstantial films; he...
- 8/22/2012
- MUBI
As you've undoubtedly heard, director Tony Scott, youngest brother of Ridley, died Sunday after throwing himself off a bridge at the age of 68 just two years after his latest huge hit (Unstoppable). The internet was awash with morbid rumors about why (an inoperable brain cancer diagnosis chief among them) but when it comes to private struggles of the soul, you never can expect to know so we stick to the facts. Facts: A lot of people saw and liked his movies; His feature career as a director spanned from 1971's Loving Memory (not the type of movie you'd associate with his filmmaking persona) through 2010's Unstoppable (exactly the type of you'd associate with his filmmaking persona).
Tony Scott with his preferred leading man Denzel Washington. They made five films together.
Somewhere along the line I decided I wasn't interested in him as a filmmaker but not every filmmaker is for...
Tony Scott with his preferred leading man Denzel Washington. They made five films together.
Somewhere along the line I decided I wasn't interested in him as a filmmaker but not every filmmaker is for...
- 8/21/2012
- by NATHANIEL R
- FilmExperience
Still from The Artist
The 2011 edition of Mumbai Film Festival can boast of a strong French connection. Not only does it include a strong line-up of French films in a special section, but it will also celebrate the 50th anniversary of Cannes Critics Week by presenting a retrospective of 25 films.
The special section called ‘Rendez-vous with French Cinema’ will be co-organized with the French Embassy in India and Unifrance. For those who remember, this is the fourth edition of the event in Mumbai which has been merged with the Mumbai Film Festival this year. The past three editions were held separately as film festivals. This section will bring to Mumbai some of the critically acclaimed contemporary French films which include The Artist by Michel Hazanavicius, The Snows of Kilimanjaro by Robert Guédiguian and Declaration of War by ValérieDonzelli.
The Artist which will open the section competed at the Cannes Film...
The 2011 edition of Mumbai Film Festival can boast of a strong French connection. Not only does it include a strong line-up of French films in a special section, but it will also celebrate the 50th anniversary of Cannes Critics Week by presenting a retrospective of 25 films.
The special section called ‘Rendez-vous with French Cinema’ will be co-organized with the French Embassy in India and Unifrance. For those who remember, this is the fourth edition of the event in Mumbai which has been merged with the Mumbai Film Festival this year. The past three editions were held separately as film festivals. This section will bring to Mumbai some of the critically acclaimed contemporary French films which include The Artist by Michel Hazanavicius, The Snows of Kilimanjaro by Robert Guédiguian and Declaration of War by ValérieDonzelli.
The Artist which will open the section competed at the Cannes Film...
- 10/10/2011
- by Nandita Dutta
- DearCinema.com
"Oh yeah, Tony Scott—he's good," says even Lav Diaz, currently residing in Vienna's Ferronian headquarters, and further proof rushes into cinemas with Unstoppable (and to home systems with the highly recommended BFI unearthing of his 1970 medium-length feature Loving Memory on DVD/Blu-Ray). Intriguingly, after the delirious triple whammy of Man on Fire, Domino and Déjà vu, Unstoppaple now forms a diptych with its minor, but still underrated predecessor The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 of almost straightforward suspense filmmaking: But while the remake of Joseph Sargeant's still-splendid 1974 New York crime picture The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (together they make a for a great, entertaining double feature lesson about changes of a city and the corresponding zeitgeist mentality) was centered around a train standing still, Unstoppable is predicated on a constant increase of speed. As such, it is both an expertly pared-down exercise in pure orchestration of...
- 11/15/2010
- MUBI
The Innocents, A Zed & Two Noughts, The Edge Of The World, Loving Memory
DVD & Blu-ray, BFI
These releases preserve and promote the works of four significant British directors: Michael Powell, Tony Scott, Peter Greenaway and Jack Clayton. The least prolific of the four, the latter is represented by The Innocents, which remains one of the finest ghost stories ever filmed. Greenaway's A Zed & Two Noughts, only his second feature, still stuns too; the hairstyles and lighting may look a bit 1980s, but his symmetrical framing and the frankly bizarre storyline of twin zoologists obsessed with decay is timeless. Michael Powell's offering is his romantic 1937 drama The Edge Of The World, made before he teamed up with Emeric Pressburger and shot on the Shetland Islands, miles from any established film-making community. Tony Scott is the odd one out here – his recent output, films such as Domino and The Taking Of Pelham 123,...
DVD & Blu-ray, BFI
These releases preserve and promote the works of four significant British directors: Michael Powell, Tony Scott, Peter Greenaway and Jack Clayton. The least prolific of the four, the latter is represented by The Innocents, which remains one of the finest ghost stories ever filmed. Greenaway's A Zed & Two Noughts, only his second feature, still stuns too; the hairstyles and lighting may look a bit 1980s, but his symmetrical framing and the frankly bizarre storyline of twin zoologists obsessed with decay is timeless. Michael Powell's offering is his romantic 1937 drama The Edge Of The World, made before he teamed up with Emeric Pressburger and shot on the Shetland Islands, miles from any established film-making community. Tony Scott is the odd one out here – his recent output, films such as Domino and The Taking Of Pelham 123,...
- 8/20/2010
- by Phelim O'Neill
- The Guardian - Film News
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