Thanks to the mind-blowing first trailer for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, we know that Emperor Palpatine is set to make his shock return in the upcoming Episode IX. Ian McDiarmid’s creepy laugh heard in the preview is so ingrained in Star Wars fans’ minds that we all instantly knew that the sound of it meant that Darth Sidious would be making a comeback.
As we await the conclusion of the Skywalker saga, then, it’s interesting to look back at how the character could’ve been completely different. Most fans will know that McDiarmid didn’t play the role in the theatrical cut of The Empire Strikes Back, with Marjorie Eaton appearing under the mask and Clive Revill providing the voice. It was only for the Emperor’s increased part in Return of the Jedi that McDiarmid was hired and the rest is cinematic history.
However, ScreenRant...
As we await the conclusion of the Skywalker saga, then, it’s interesting to look back at how the character could’ve been completely different. Most fans will know that McDiarmid didn’t play the role in the theatrical cut of The Empire Strikes Back, with Marjorie Eaton appearing under the mask and Clive Revill providing the voice. It was only for the Emperor’s increased part in Return of the Jedi that McDiarmid was hired and the rest is cinematic history.
However, ScreenRant...
- 7/12/2019
- by Christian Bone
- We Got This Covered
This moody, unsettling whodunnit benefits from sensitive cinematography, fine direction and a perfectly-cast group of players. Stephen Boyd gets a worthwhile starring role, backed by some good names and a nice debut from Judi Dench. What I don’t understand is why Pamela Franklin, possibly the most talented and versatile young English player ever, didn’t become a major star. She’s more than half the picture here.
The Third Secret
Region B Blu-ray
Powerhouse Indicator
1964 / B&W / 2:35 / 103 min. / / Street Date February 25, 2019 / available from Powerhouse Films UK / £17.77
Starring: Stephen Boyd, Pamela Franklin, Diane Cilento, Richard Attenborough, Jack Hawkins, Paul Rogers, Alan Webb, Rachel Kempson, Freda Jackson, Judi Dench, Peter Copley, Nigel Davenport, Charles Lloyd Pack, Barbara Hicks.
Cinematography: Douglas Slocombe
Film Editor: Frederick Wilson
Original Music: Richard Arnell
Written and Produced by Robert L. Joseph
Directed by Charles Crichton
Trying to keep up a production schedule during the cash-flow crisis of Cleopatra,...
The Third Secret
Region B Blu-ray
Powerhouse Indicator
1964 / B&W / 2:35 / 103 min. / / Street Date February 25, 2019 / available from Powerhouse Films UK / £17.77
Starring: Stephen Boyd, Pamela Franklin, Diane Cilento, Richard Attenborough, Jack Hawkins, Paul Rogers, Alan Webb, Rachel Kempson, Freda Jackson, Judi Dench, Peter Copley, Nigel Davenport, Charles Lloyd Pack, Barbara Hicks.
Cinematography: Douglas Slocombe
Film Editor: Frederick Wilson
Original Music: Richard Arnell
Written and Produced by Robert L. Joseph
Directed by Charles Crichton
Trying to keep up a production schedule during the cash-flow crisis of Cleopatra,...
- 3/2/2019
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Finally — a satisfying home video edition of Ken Russell’s absorbing, argument-starting classic, in which D. H. Lawrence’s quartet of bohemians attempt to live out their progressive theories about love and sex. The intellectual arguments may be cold but the characters are warm and vivid. Exceptional performing from all — Alan Bates, Glenda Jackson, Oliver Reed and Jennie Linden, and outstanding cinematography from Billy Williams.
Women in Love
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 916
1969 / Color / 1:75 widescreen / 131 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date March 27, 2018 / 39.95
Starring: Sir Alan Bates, Oliver Reed, Glenda Jackson, Jennie Linden, Eleanor Bron, Alan Webb, Catherine Willmer, Vladek Sheybal.
Cinematography: Billy Williams
Film Editor: Michael Bradsell
Original Music: Georges Delerue
Written by Larry Kramer
Produced by Larry Kramer, Martin Rosen
Directed by Ken Russell
In college, this one was guaranteed to keep couples up all night, debating the merits of each character’s notion of what constitutes a good relationship.
Women in Love
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 916
1969 / Color / 1:75 widescreen / 131 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date March 27, 2018 / 39.95
Starring: Sir Alan Bates, Oliver Reed, Glenda Jackson, Jennie Linden, Eleanor Bron, Alan Webb, Catherine Willmer, Vladek Sheybal.
Cinematography: Billy Williams
Film Editor: Michael Bradsell
Original Music: Georges Delerue
Written by Larry Kramer
Produced by Larry Kramer, Martin Rosen
Directed by Ken Russell
In college, this one was guaranteed to keep couples up all night, debating the merits of each character’s notion of what constitutes a good relationship.
- 3/17/2018
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Fans that lament Orson Welles' many career frustrations will flip over this Spanish-filmed masterpiece. Not well distributed when new and Mia for decades, its serious audio problems have now mostly been cleared up. It's great -- right up there with Kane and Touch of Evil, and it features what is probably Welles' best acting. Chimes at Midnight Blu-ray The Criterion Collection 830 1966 / B&W / 1:66 widescreen / 116 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Falstaff, Campanadas a medianoche / Street Date August 30, 2016 / 39.95 Starring Orson Welles, Keith Baxter, Jeanne Moreau, Margaret Rutherford, John Gielgud, Norman Rodway, Marina Vlady, Walter Chiari, Michael Aldridge, Tony Beckley, Alan Webb, José Nieto, Fernando Rey, Beatrice Welles, Ralph Richardson. Cinematography Edmond Richard Film Editor Fritz Mueller Original Music Angelo Francesco Lavagnino Produced by Alessandro Tasca Directed by Orson Welles
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
It's even better than I remembered. Sometime during film school I went with UCLA friends Clark...
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
It's even better than I remembered. Sometime during film school I went with UCLA friends Clark...
- 8/26/2016
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Glenda Jackson: Actress and former Labour MP. Two-time Oscar winner and former Labour MP Glenda Jackson returns to acting Two-time Best Actress Academy Award winner Glenda Jackson set aside her acting career after becoming a Labour Party MP in 1992. Four years ago, Jackson, who represented the Greater London constituency of Hampstead and Highgate, announced that she would stand down the 2015 general election – which, somewhat controversially, was won by right-wing prime minister David Cameron's Conservative party.[1] The silver lining: following a two-decade-plus break, Glenda Jackson is returning to acting. Now, Jackson isn't – for the time being – returning to acting in front of the camera. The 79-year-old is to be featured in the Radio 4 series Emile Zola: Blood, Sex and Money, described on their website as a “mash-up” adaptation of 20 Emile Zola novels collectively known as "Les Rougon-Macquart."[2] Part 1 of the three-part Radio 4 series will be broadcast daily during an...
- 7/2/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
'Nicholas and Alexandra': Movie starred Michael Jayston and Janet Suzman 'Nicholas and Alexandra' movie review: Opulent 1971 spectacle lacks emotional core Nicholas and Alexandra is surely one of the most sumptuous film productions ever made. The elaborate sets and costumes, Richard Rodney Bennett's lush musical score, and frequent David Lean collaborator Freddie Young's richly textured cinematography provide the perfect period atmosphere for this historical epic. Missing, however, is a screenplay that offers dialogue instead of speeches, and a directorial hand that brings out emotional truth instead of soapy melodrama. Nicholas and Alexandra begins when, after several unsuccessful attempts, Tsar Nicholas II (Michael Jayston) finally becomes the father of a boy. Shortly thereafter, he and his wife, the German-born Empress Alexandra (Janet Suzman), have their happiness crushed when they discover that their infant son is a hemophiliac. In addition to his familial turmoil, the Tsar must also deal with popular...
- 5/7/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Teresa Wright and Matt Damon in 'The Rainmaker' Teresa Wright: From Marlon Brando to Matt Damon (See preceding post: "Teresa Wright vs. Samuel Goldwyn: Nasty Falling Out.") "I'd rather have luck than brains!" Teresa Wright was quoted as saying in the early 1950s. That's understandable, considering her post-Samuel Goldwyn choice of movie roles, some of which may have seemed promising on paper.[1] Wright was Marlon Brando's first Hollywood leading lady, but that didn't help her to bounce back following the very public spat with her former boss. After all, The Men was released before Elia Kazan's film version of A Streetcar Named Desire turned Brando into a major international star. Chances are that good film offers were scarce. After Wright's brief 1950 comeback, for the third time in less than a decade she would be gone from the big screen for more than a year.
- 3/11/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Now presenting Mr. and Mrs. Alabama! Aj McCarron and Katherine Webb got married at Orange Beach United Methodist Church in Orange Beach, Alabama on Saturday, July 11, E! News exclusively confirms. The 25-year-old bride wore a custom wedding dress and was accompanied down the aisle by her father, Alan Webb. The wedding party included 10 bridesmaids and 10 groomsmen. Webb, a model and former Miss Alabama USA who hails from Montgomery, caught the eye of the whole country during her future husband's last Bcs Championship Game in 2013, when Espn's Brent Musberger went a little gaga for her and the whole Internet took notice of the beauty queen. McCarron, the University of Alabama's...
- 7/12/2014
- E! Online
As a film lover and alumnus of the University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign (I-l-l!), Ebertfest, or Roger Ebert’s Overlooked Film Festival, has been on my radar for years. I didn’t hear about it until late into my tenure at Uiuc, but since then I’ve managed to attend a screening or two each year and it’s always a great time. Held at the beautiful Virginia Theatre in downtown Champaign, an enormous venue from the 1920s which has been newly restored this past year and just opened back up in time for the festival, Ebertfest brings in a huge, welcoming crowd of cinephiles each year and it’s an absolute pleasure to watch great films with such an engaged audience in such a gorgeous theatre with such a massive screen (56’ wide). This year, however, the festival has extra meaning. Roger Ebert was extremely hands-on in the planning of Ebertfest and,...
- 4/18/2013
- by Kate Kulzick
- SoundOnSight
Irish stage and screen character actor who appeared in Barbarella, The Verdict and the BBC's 1969 sitcom Me Mammy
For a performer of such fame and versatility, the distinguished Irish character actor Milo O'Shea, who has died aged 86, is not associated with any role in particular, or indeed any clutch of them. He was chiefly associated with his own expressive dark eyes, bushy eyebrows, outstanding mimetic talents and distinctive Dublin brogue.
His impish presence irradiated countless fine movies – including Joseph Strick's Ulysses (1967), Roger Vadim's Barbarella (1968) and Sidney Lumet's The Verdict (1982) – and many top-drawer American television series, from Cheers, The Golden Girls and Frasier, right through to The West Wing (2003-04), in which he played the chief justice Roy Ashland.
He had settled in New York in 1976 with his second wife, Kitty Sullivan, in order to be equidistant from his own main bases of operation, Hollywood and London. The...
For a performer of such fame and versatility, the distinguished Irish character actor Milo O'Shea, who has died aged 86, is not associated with any role in particular, or indeed any clutch of them. He was chiefly associated with his own expressive dark eyes, bushy eyebrows, outstanding mimetic talents and distinctive Dublin brogue.
His impish presence irradiated countless fine movies – including Joseph Strick's Ulysses (1967), Roger Vadim's Barbarella (1968) and Sidney Lumet's The Verdict (1982) – and many top-drawer American television series, from Cheers, The Golden Girls and Frasier, right through to The West Wing (2003-04), in which he played the chief justice Roy Ashland.
He had settled in New York in 1976 with his second wife, Kitty Sullivan, in order to be equidistant from his own main bases of operation, Hollywood and London. The...
- 4/3/2013
- by Michael Coveney
- The Guardian - Film News
Actor with poise and presence, best known as Alfred the butler in Tim Burton's Batman
The actor Michael Gough, who has died aged 94, was an arresting presence on stage, television and film for the entire postwar period, notably as the butler Alfred Pennyworth in Tim Burton's Batman movies. Eventually he just voiced roles, as with the Dodo Bird in the same director's Alice in Wonderland film last year, but always to striking effect.
Gough started in the Old Vic company in London before the second world war, but it took till 1946 for his career proper to get off to a flying start in the West End, in Frederick Lonsdale's But for the Grace of God. The fistfight-to-the-death scene was done with such startling verisimilitude that nearly all the stage furniture was demolished nightly, and Gough broke three ribs and injured the base of his spine. So copiously...
The actor Michael Gough, who has died aged 94, was an arresting presence on stage, television and film for the entire postwar period, notably as the butler Alfred Pennyworth in Tim Burton's Batman movies. Eventually he just voiced roles, as with the Dodo Bird in the same director's Alice in Wonderland film last year, but always to striking effect.
Gough started in the Old Vic company in London before the second world war, but it took till 1946 for his career proper to get off to a flying start in the West End, in Frederick Lonsdale's But for the Grace of God. The fistfight-to-the-death scene was done with such startling verisimilitude that nearly all the stage furniture was demolished nightly, and Gough broke three ribs and injured the base of his spine. So copiously...
- 3/18/2011
- The Guardian - Film News
The latest edition of Toronto’s mighty Images Festival will unspool on April 1-10. The full lineup of films screening at this event is listed below and, even though that looks quite extensive as it is, it’s only a small portion of everything that’s going on during the entire event.
In addition to film screenings, Images has partnered with 15 galleries and museums across the greater Toronto area to display 32 media art installations by both Canadian and international artists. Plus, there will be eight live performances that blur the edges of cinema, sound, music and installations. And, on top of all that, there will be several panel discussions with artists and other media folk, parties, award ceremonies, tours and more. This is more art and film than should be allowed in any one city, yet Images manages to squeeze it all in into just 10 days somehow.
The film lineup...
In addition to film screenings, Images has partnered with 15 galleries and museums across the greater Toronto area to display 32 media art installations by both Canadian and international artists. Plus, there will be eight live performances that blur the edges of cinema, sound, music and installations. And, on top of all that, there will be several panel discussions with artists and other media folk, parties, award ceremonies, tours and more. This is more art and film than should be allowed in any one city, yet Images manages to squeeze it all in into just 10 days somehow.
The film lineup...
- 3/30/2010
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
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