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Martin Scorsese's World Cinema Project on Blu-ray
Film study literature has done its best to praise and promote filmmaking from around the world, produced and directed by local talent. Undeveloped countries in the 20th century had a spotty filmmaking tradition, mostly due to the domination of commercial films from America, Europe and more cosmopolitan regional neighbors. Yet distinctive and vibrant films were made in South America, Asia and Africa, sometimes supported by governments. In film school we were shown sample features by the Senegalese director Ousmane Sembène and the Brazilian political firebrand Glauber Rocha. None of the film prints were in particularly good shape. As art film houses couldn't draw a crowd with obscure foreign fare, film festivals were often a dead-end for 'World Cinema'. Politics also militated against the free circulation of films. When the Los Angeles Film Exposition showed a large number of post-revolution Cuban I.C.A.I.C. films in the mid- 1970s, most had not been screened here previously.
Much more troubling is the poor state of film preservation in nations without developed film industries. For decades, much of the early film heritage of Argentina and Mexico was held in private hands, in unknown condition and mostly unavailable to the public. Conditions in Africa and Asia are worse.
Martin Scorsese started The Film Foundation in 1991, connecting with studios to promote the preservation of neglected American cinema. In 2007 he helped initiate a program called The World Cinema Project, which in six years has restored nineteen feature films from around the world. Martin Scorsese's World Cinema Project gathers six notable features from five continents, spread between 1936 and 1981.
1973's Touki-Bouki is a 'young lovers on the run' picture with a unique vision. Senegalese director Djibril Diop Mambéty's story expresses the desire of a generation to break free of the limits of reality in a former French colony where ordinary people have few or no opportunities. Less violent than Perry Henzell's Jamaican-set The Harder They Come, it's a surreal dream of freedom played out against realistic backgrounds. Mambéy has a great eye for arresting images, and gives the film pace and dramatic tension, not to mention animal imagery and a playful use of his soundtrack. Vintage French songs by Josephine Baker represent the elusive dream of Paris. Will the hero take the boat from Dakar to Paris? Should he?
The picture is in excellent condition, restored from the original negative elements. Colors are bright and accurate, and George Bracher's cinematography is a fine match for Mambéy's visual imagination.
Martin Scorsese provides brief intros for all six features. On Touki-Bouki he first reminds us that American awareness of foreign films has been limited mostly to a few name directors, often one per country. The visual essay on Mambéty's picture is by Abderrahmane Sissako, who does his best to express the director's special genius. Third World directors often go to America or France for formal film educations, but Djibril Diop Mambéty was self-taught. The remarkably accomplished Touki-Bouki was his first feature.
Released in 1936, Mexico's Redes strains the ground rules of 'World Cinema' in that its co-director Fred Zinnemann and cinematographer Paul Strand came from abroad, much as had Sergei Eisenstein with his legendary unfinished project Que viva Mexico! But we're given to understand that this film's style set the standard for visuals in the Golden Era of Mexican filmmaking that followed: beautiful scenery and proud compositions of earthy figures silhouetted against the sky. Acclaimed photographer Strand also made impressive film art in America, the experimental 1921 short Manhatta and the poetic pro-union feature Native Land from 1942. Featuring the artistic input of John Dos Passos and composer Silvestre Revueltas, Redes is a committed, if formulaic drama about the exploitation of working men. Performed almost entirely by non-actors, it is often compared to Luchino Visconti's Italian neo-realist La Terra Trema, made over a decade later.
The story concerns a fishing village doing poorly in a bad season. A local boss owns most of the boats and buys good catches at a price he determines, enjoying large profits at the markets in Vera Cruz. Fisherman Miro's child dies because the boss won't advance him money for a doctor. When the boss cuts salaries for a good day's fishing the bitter Miro leads an angry movement to set up a fisherman's cooperative. Unfortunately, a candidate for local office offers to serve as the Boss's henchman in exchange for financial assistance for his campaign. The candidate's talk of tradition and honor splits the fishermen into opposing camps. When a fight breaks out the opportunity arises to silence Miro with a gun.
The film was made by a committee. Mexican co-director Emilio Gómez Muriel worked with the actors; cameraman Paul Strand imposed the aesthetics of still photography on most of the shots. Strand favored static poses while co-director Fred Zinnemann reportedly did his best to interject action into the frame. Zinnemann would later helm such classics as High Noon and From Here to Eternity. Backed by Silvestre's impressive music score, several montage scenes are works of visual art.
Critic Kent Jones' visual essay for Redes presents a multitude of back-stories. His visual analysis of this attractive film is especially acute. The film exists only in surviving positive prints, but Criterion's transfer raises its presentation to a high standard. Scratches and a tiny bit of film damage remain, yet most scenes are remarkably sharp and Paul Strand's images retain the look of fine art photography.
Redes won a pictorial spread in Life magazine but won little success commercially, as with much of critically acclaimed World Cinema. 1973's A River Called Titas is an epic-length tale of a lost way of life on the rivers of what is now Bangladesh. Director Ritwak Ghatak made few movies, and this one was considered too pessimistic to attract a wide audience. Yet the 2.5-hour show has enough story complications for three movies.
While visiting a neighboring village fisherman Kishore (Probir Mitra) marries Basanti (Rosi Samad) and has barely had words with her before she's kidnapped on the river. She's found alive by strangers, but has lost her memory of the crime. She doesn't know her husband's name or have a clear idea what he looks like, but she remembers the name of his village. Ten years later she sets out with his son to find him. Basanti's story is only the first chapter in a long, impassioned series of events and side stories that eventually lead to even bigger tragedies. One emotional climax is almost unbearably sad.
The movie sways between melodrama and documentary-like recreations of a riverside culture that has mostly disappeared. Occasionally, a burst of fantasy wish fulfillment will occur, as when Basanti's son envisions his mother as an idealized, bejeweled goddess. Much of the acting is primitive, and in some scenes the post-synched dialogue makes no effort to match the actors' lips. Some of the plot turns can be unclear for a few minutes, yet the movie is always compelling. Beautiful images record an entire cultural lifestyle -- the boats, the customs, the rituals.
Ghatak's compositions are bold but his film is never merely pictorial in impact. We see fascinating moments of cultural interaction, as when the lovers on their wedding night are too shy to speak to each other. Ghatak makes good use of his soundtrack. One scene has only the sound of heavy breathing, and another, falling rain. We see several ceremonies and an impressive boat race.
The movie is pessimistic in that the potential for disaster seems built-in to the lives of these people. They depend on the river for everything, and old men worry that it will some day dry up. A landowner uses his influence to bring legal and monetary penalties against the entire village. Some villagers seem cruel in refusing to share their food with needy new arrivals like Basanti. But that's only because the possibility of starvation is always near.
A River Called Titas was restored from incomplete elements, so the film quality changes in a few scenes. An unsteady shot or two appear to be the result of a problem with the original cinematography, but most of the film is in extraordinary shape.
Visual essay host Kumar Shahani tells us that director Ritwik Ghatak was deeply critical of the political situation in Bangladesh, and used his films to express the feelings of pain and loss in his partitioned country. Ghatak worked extensively in the theater as both a director and an actor. He plays an old boatman in a number of scenes.
The Turkish Dry Summer (1964) was a big local hit for director Metin Erksan, and won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival. Erksan's tale could be a story from the Bible. The greedy farmer Osman (Erol Tas) has the only water spring in the valley. He decides to cut off his neighbors without a drop, against the wishes of his younger brother Hasan (producer Ulvi Dogan). Osman also covets Hasan's lovely new bride, Bahar (Hulya Kocylgit). When the other farmers take reprisals, Osman shoots one of them and then persuades his brother to go to prison in his place. Instead of helping as promised, Osman destroys Hasan's letters and begins a slow seduction of his lonely sister-in-law.
An elemental story of universal interest, Dry Summer asks whether water resources are to be owned by some or shared by all. The loathsome Osman claims that he's a fair man safeguarding his interests, but those interests include lording it over his neighbors and finding a way to possess his own brother's wife. The gullible Hasan has no idea that his older brother spies on their lovemaking, and trusts that leaving major decisions to him is the right thing to do. We watch Dry Summer aghast at Osman's black-hearted deeds, fearing that he'll not be punished for his crimes.
Metin Erksan's direction is superb. Bahar uses a mirror to signal Hasan for a romantic chase through the thick trees; the sexual attraction between them is expressed in positive, healthy terms. Erksan sketches his characters quickly. His 'sex scenes' are chaste yet supremely sensual; Bahar's flesh is as magical as Osman's water supply. Erksan makes the most of the precious substance water: hoarded in Osman's pond, running through his canals and restrained by an improvised spillway gate. In the satisfying ending Osman and his water become one and the same.
The B&W presentation is excellent. The title sequence was lost so Criterion has provided a substitute. Although the production is modest at best, Ali Ugur's cinematography is precise and resourceful. Those mirror reflections figure several times in the film, and when Bahar becomes delirious with grief, the camera spins madly. Some of the film's music is by the celebrated Manos Hatzidakis. Viewers should be forewarned that one graphic scene shows what appears to be the actual shooting of a dog.
In a new featurette Turkish director Fatih Akin praises Dry Summer and explains its historical context. He says that Turkey acted like Osman to the Syrians in the 1990, withholding water from a major river. Director Metin Erksan appears in an older interview to declare that the greatest enemy of Turkish cinema is oppressive censorship. Although it is a common custom for a surviving brother to 'inherit' his brother's widow -- to keep the land from being split up -- the censors objected to scripted scenes of Osman marrying Bahar.
Trances from 1981 confirms that this grouping of films really is Martin Scorsese's personal selection. The director's The Last Temptation of Christ credits the Moroccan musical group Nass-El Ghiwane for inspiration. Trances is a concert movie showing the band performing their rhythmic, hypnotic songs. Traditional elements are present, especially with the ancient musical instruments being played. Repetitious chants predominate. The remarkable feature of a Nass-El Ghiwane concert is the participation of the audience, which becomes so complete that individuals work themselves into real gyrating trances.
Director Ahmed El Maanouni gives us plenty of interview material with the band members. Nass-El Ghiwane began in 1969. Its member-musicians are more like traveling troubadours than performing celebrities. They perform in ordinary street clothes. Huge audiences dance in place, wave their shirts and come on stage if allowed. More than one band member says that music isn't 'something he does', but instead part of his essential personality.
Also included are documentary scenes of Moroccan neighborhoods, and a few staged moments. Known as "the Rolling Stones of North Africa", the band's lyrics are a combination of non-militant calls for freedom and lamentations for lost family traditions.
Martin Scorsese's intro explains how he discovered Trances while watching the TV show Night Flight during all-night editing sessions on The King of Comedy. The lengthy featurette includes input from Scorsese, director Ahmed El Maanouni, producer Izza Génini and Nass-El Ghiwane musician Omar Sayed.
The Housemaid (1960) is a suspense thriller by Kim Ki-young, a once-forgotten director now championed by a new generation of Korean filmmakers. Made under heavy censorship rules, it is nevertheless a scathingly subversive critique of 'family values' among the emerging middle class. As if Luis Buñuel had moved to Seoul, director Kim's film is a series of socially uncomfortable, volatile confrontations. A blood-dripping main title tips us off that this tale of "Father Knows Best" will go in dark directions.
The audacious film easily bests American thrillers about families disrupted by a sexual intruder. The husband (Kim Jin-kyu) is a handsome music teacher in a girls' factory school, who proudly moves his wife (Ju Jeung-nyeo) and two children into a larger house. Following school rules, he reports a student who slips him a mash note, and she's suspended. The girl's best friend becomes the husband's private piano pupil, and helps him find a maid to work in the new house. It's not long before the scheming housemaid (Lee Eun-shim) discovers a way to sexually compromise the husband. She wants to take the wife's place, and exploits the fact that her employers will do almost anything to avoid a scandal. The situation gets so bad that murder seems the next step -- and all know that there's a bottle of rat poison in the kitchen.
The Housemaid's amorous intruder reminds us of Buñuel's Susana, a caustic satire about a sexy female convict who invades a 'proper' Mexican hacienda. A close look reveals that director Kim's happy Korean family is anything but. The outwardly decent husband only thinks that he can resist the temptations of the factory girls he teaches. The mother has another baby on the way, and overworks herself to better justify the television she covets. The children are not idealized. The daughter is a polio victim, and her selfish little brother swipes candy while openly making fun of her crutches. In keeping with the Korean culture of tough love, the parents do not object; the father declares that the steep stairs in the new house will force the daughter to exercise more.
The mercenary, two-faced housemaid initiates a series of petty blackmail threats that escalate into a war of nerves. When she becomes pregnant all notions of normality break down: the servant's new orders include sleeping rights with the husband. Things go over the edge when a demand that the housemaid abort her unborn child leads to outright murder attempts. She becomes a monster, haunting the house by pounding on the keys of the husband's piano.
With its lurid tailspin into despair and doom, The Housemaid is like a Douglas Sirk domestic drama gone mad. It defies prevailing entertainment norms that exalt family values as a shining ideal, and even a trick ending can't dissipate its power. Korean audiences must have felt that the uncompromising film revealed truths about middle class values, as it was very popular -- Kim Ki-young remade it twice at ten-year intervals.
The World Cinema Project had a difficult time rescuing The Housemaid. It was considered lost for years because two reels of its negative could not be located. An export print was found in the 1990s, albeit marred by intrusive English subtitles. For two nine-minute sections, the film quality drops considerably. The digital patch job used to eliminate the burned-in subs is a little distracting as well.
The expertly directed movie is a masterpiece worth seeing in any condition. The plaster patterns in the walls of the new house soon begin to resemble spider webs, or the 'cat's cradle' string game played by the children in the first scene. The director punctuates the seduction of the husband with a blast of lighting striking a tree. The family's perfect home soon becomes a house of horrors. I can see a lot of attractive housemaids losing their jobs, back in Seoul of 1960.
In the featurette for The Housemaid director Bong Joon-Ho (The Host) expresses his enthusiasm for Kim Ki-young in no uncertain terms, noting the film's taut camera moves and superb direction of actors. Bong also provides a cultural analysis of the characterizations, especially the portrait of the 'perfect' Korean wife -- who also joins the murderous scheming as soon as her comfortable social status is threatened.
Criterion's Blu-ray + DVD of Martin Scorsese's World Cinema Project is a good cross-section of worthy international films not likely to be revived through normal commercial channels. Scorsese's selection covers a wide range of appeal. All of the restorations were performed at the Cineteca di Bologna. Most of the HD transfers yield excellent results, with flaws occurring only when original elements were missing or damaged. The English subtitles are up to Criterion's high standards. We hope that more World Cinema Project collections are on the way.
As with all new Criterion releases, the disc set is a Dual-Format Edition with identical contents. Three Blu-rays share two feature films each, while each title also gets its own DVD disc. A 64-page booklet contains essays on the Project's aims as well as scholarly pieces on each of the pictures by Richard Porton, Charles Ramírez Berg, Adrian Martin, Bilge Ebiri, Sally Shafto and Kyung Hyun Kim.
By Glenn Erickson
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New Books
Mabel And Me: A Novel About The Movies
By John Boorstin
Mabel Normand became a star known as much for her beauty as her comedic timing. In a series of shorts she made with Roscoe Arbuckle, Normand perfected that timing and became known as the Queen of Comedy.
But Normand was also known for her hard-living ways, her attempts at sobriety and her love affair with legendary producer Mack Sennett .
John Boorstein's novel is set in the early days of silent filmmaking, before the movies became an industry known as the Dream Factory. It is a coming-of-age story about a young man who finds himself as obsessed with the new art form--as much as he is with the woman at the center of it all, Mabel Normand. John Boorstein is a writer and filmmaker who works in a broad range of media. He made the Oscar®-nominated documentary Exploratorium; created Time Mobile, a pioneer prototype video game; was Associate Producer on All The President's Men; and with director Alan J. Pakula, wrote and produced the thriller Dream Lover. He is a member of the Writers Guild of America, the Los Angeles Institute for the Humanities at USC, and the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. He lives in Los Angeles.
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The Cinematic Voyage of The Pirate: Kelly, Garland and Minnelli at Work
By Earl J. Hess and Pratibha A. Dabholkar
During Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's glory days, the studio's famous Arthur Freed Unit made an extraordinary string of dazzling musicals. Amid a glittering array of such film, one of the most interesting was The Pirate. Based on a successful 1942 Broadway production, the film was directed by Vincente Minnelli and starred Gene Kelly and Judy Garland. It showcased some of the brightest work of these three gifted moviemakers and entranced many critics and viewers with exotic set décor and costumes, brilliant Technicolor application, stunning dance routines, and a clever plot about an actor who pretends to be a famous pirate to win the love of a fanciful island girl.
Drawing on extensive research, including archives, memoirs, interviews, and newspaper coverage, this story of the making of the film takes the reader from the original conception of the story in the mind of a German playwright named Ludwig Fulda, through S. N. Behrman's Broadway production starring Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, to the arduous task of crafting a suitable screenplay at MGM. Behind-the-scenes issues such as Garland's personal problems during shooting and the shaping of the film by Minnelli and Kelly are among the many subjects detailed.
While initial reception of The Pirate reinforced hopes for its success, many audiences did not understand the film's tongue-in-cheek tone, and some critical reviews were mixed. This shaded perception of the film, and its significance. As this careful study shows, The Pirate was a commercial and critical success despite some early misperceptions. The movie made a small profit for MGM, and has grown in public appeal over time.
Earl J. Hess is the Stewart W. McClelland Chair in History at Lincoln Memorial University. Partibha A. Dabholkar is a Retired Associate Professor of Business from the University of Tennessee. Although Dr. Hess's principal area of research is the Civil War and Dr. Dabholkar's is technology in services, both are connoisseurs of the film musical, applying their rigorous academic approach to researching and writing full histories of classic musicals. Their first book on the comprehensive history of a film musical was Singin' in the Rain: The Making of an American Masterpiece. The authors are married and live in the southeastern U.S.
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The Lost Notebook: Herman Schultheis and the Secrets of Walt Disney's Movie Magic
By John Canemaker
In this handsomely illustrated book, author John Canemaker brings to life the covert scrapbook of special effects wizardry compiled by Disney artist Herman Shultheis, who used it to detail how many animated effects were created over seventy years ago.
Schlutheis not only worked on effects photography but also documented, sometimes painstakingly, how famous sequences in Disney animated classics were conceived and achieved--from the elaborate opening shot of Pinnochio to the snowflakes in Fantasia. Schultheis was in the perfect position to create such a chronicle: his work at the Disney studios was focused on effects photography, but he also shot the reference photographs that animators would often use when creating their drawings.
Schulteis' story reads a bit like a Hollywood tale: he was a German immigrant and a part-time nudist, a suspected German sympathizer, and a technical whiz with a camera who worked at the Disney studios from 1938 to 1941. After World War II, he worked at Twentieth Century-Fox and Telefilms before going to Guatamela, camera in hand, in 1955. He never came back--disappearing while on a trip into the jungle.
Thirty-five years later, after his widow's death in 1990, his notebooks were discovered in a cabinet drawer. The originals are on display at The Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco and are reproduced for this book. A forward by Pixar's Pete Docter, the Academy Award-winning animation director, puts the importance of the notebooks into context, helping us to understand what they represent in terms of the history of animation and why they are so valued by technicians and film buffs today.
John Canemaker is an Academy Award-, Emmy Award-, and Peabody Award-winning animation director and designer. His twenty-eight minute film, The Moon and the Son: An Imagined Conversation, won the 2005 Academy Award for Best Animated Short, and his more than twenty films (and their original art) are in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He is also a tenured professor and director of the animation program at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts.
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The Making of Gone With the Wind
By Steve Wilson
Seventy-five years ago, moviegoers watched a young heroine stand on a hillside in the early morning hours and swear she would never go hungry again. By that point in the movie, Scarlett O'Hara had already encountered love, loss and an invading army. Audiences were swept up in the epic story and the film has become an enduring classic.
To commemorate the milestone anniversary of this beloved film, author Steve Wilson scoured the archives of the David O. Selznick collection at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin for this new book chronicling the making of the film.
This rarely-seen material offers fans and film historians a fascinating behind-the-scenes view of the challenges, trials, and successes related to the production of this timeless classic.
Before a single frame of film was shot, Gone With The Wind was embroiled in controversy. There were serious concerns about how the film would depict race and violence in the Old South during the Civil War and Reconstruction. And while Clark Gable was almost everyone's choice to play Rhett Butler, there was no clear favorite for Scarlett O'Hara which, stymied the legendary producer Selznick for some time.
There was also the huge challenge of turning Margaret Mitchell's Pulitzer Prize-winning epic into a manageable screenplay and producing it at a reasonable cost. Various screenwriters tried to tame the story and Selznick himself kept the pressure up with his own notoriously detailed memos. George Cukor was hired and then fired before Selznick finally settled on Victor Fleming as the man most able to handle the scale of both the story and the production.
With a foreword by film historian and TCM Host Robert Osborne, the book includes on-set photographs, storyboards, correspondence, fan mail, production records, costumes and, of course, Selznick's own lengthy memos. The author writes effectively about how creative choices helped produce one of the most loved films of all time and why it remains so influential all these years later.
Steve Wilson is the curator of the film collection at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin. He has curated several exhibitions at the Ransom Center, including Shooting Stars, a display of Hollywood glamour photography, and Making Movies, a major exhibition on film production.
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DVD Reviews
Southern Comfort on Blu-ray
A motley crew of Louisiana National Guardsman wade out into the swamps for weekend maneuvers. It's 1973, as the war in Vietnam is grinding away the soul of America and the heart of the military, and this platoon of weekend warriors--a volatile collection of rednecks, hotheads, jokers, and guys who probably signed up to steer clear of the draft--are like fresh recruits going into battle for the first time. They've got the fatigues and the cocky attitude but dubious discipline and training and their machine guns are loaded with blanks as they head into the bayou. To the Cajun swamp folk, the trappers and hunters living on the fringes of society, these men are invaders who trample their camps and steal their boats. And when one of the soldiers lets loose a burst from his weapon, laughing like the class bully after humiliating the new kid, these shadowy swamp dwellers defend themselves, becoming a guerilla strike force waging a war of terror on the utterly unprepared toy soldiers. They don't know that it's just blanks in those guns but it likely wouldn't matter if they did. They've been attacked and they will respond. These city dwellers are out their element and after their commanding officer (Peter Coyote) is gone, the first casualty in the war of attrition, they are out of their depth, flailing around with a panic that dumps their radio, compass, map, and pretty much everything else that was supposed to keep them alive.
Southern Comfort will never be mistaken for a Nation Guard recruitment tool. Call it an anti-platoon movie. Hill gives the squad the outward accoutrements of a real fighting force, down to the uniforms and weapons, but this is a military unit in name only. Beyond the swaggering banter of the soldiers and self-deprecating comments of Spencer (Keith Carradine), the self-appointed company joker, they have no real training, no experience under fire, and no commitment to one another. These guys are more like barroom buddies playing soldier than a disciplined force.
There are two voices of restraint in the wilderness, Spencer and new guy Hardin (Powers Booth), a transfer from Texas who doesn't know anyone in the company but sizes up their weaknesses quickly and realizes that they haven't much a chance as long as wild cards like Reece (Fred Ward) and Stuckey (Lewis Smith) go charging through the swamps looking for payback. Casper (Les Lannom) takes command by virtue of an essentially meaningless detail of rank and bumbles around quoting regulations and making speeches, doggedly following the book because he hasn't a clue what to do next. The filmmakers don't make him a figure of ridicule, mind you, just a guy falling back on the only thing he knows. In fact, none of them are necessarily "bad guys," though like any Hill ensemble, it has its share of jerks, bullies, racists, and anger management candidates and the pressure brings out their worst instincts.
So yes, it's a story of American soldiers in an alien land, lost in an unfamiliar landscape and outmaneuvered by a guerrilla army at home in the jungle. Director / screenwriter Walter Hill and producer / co-screenwriter David Giler insist to this day that Southern Comfort was never intended to be an allegory for Vietnam, simply a survival tale in an overwhelming and unfamiliar environment. It's hard to take them at face value but it is easy to forget the allegory in the heat of the drama. It also shares DNA with Deliverance, another film about city boys with guns who take their sense of ownership and entitlement into the wilderness, threaten the locals, and end up hunted by them. But where John Boorman's primal thriller turns his Appalachian backwoods men into brutal outlaws who take pleasure in stalking the city invaders, Hill and Giler keep their Cajun soldiers hidden, seen as figures in the distance or blurs running behind the trees, ghosts on the fringes of sight. They treat the would-be soldier like wild game, silently shadowing their progress and whipping them into a state of panic to steer them into their traps. And whatever the short-fused guys in the platoon think, this is no cultural conspiracy to wipe out the invaders. Their enemy consists of a handful of isolated hunters who didn't start the war but by God are determined to finish it. The rest of the Cajun folks they meet don't seem to be a part of it, though after a couple of days in the swamps, the paranoia is powerful enough to make every sidelong glance look ominous. Ry Cooder's eerie and haunting score only intensifies the paranoia.
What ultimately differentiates them from the soldiers of a classical platoon drama is that they haven't bonded under fire and have never had to put their trust in one another. This group unravels and tears itself apart from fear and panic and unfocused rage. And in classic Hill manner, there are no philosophical musings or existential conversations. The closest the film comes to putting its theme into words is from the mantra of a terrified Simms (Franklyn Seales), who finds himself cut off from the group and suddenly aware of just how vulnerable he is. "I'm not supposed to be here," he repeats, as if begging the universe to correct some cosmic planning error. And then he's no longer there.
While this band of infighting brothers wades blindly through the swamp without a clue as to their bearings or direction, Hill's direction never falters. He has always had a sure hand as a storyteller, keeping his plots uncluttered and letting the details of character, conflict, and the world around them define the story. Southern Comfort limits the world to the middle of the swamp, where we (like the soldiers) are unable to find any point of reference, and observes how the discomfort of the environment and the constant disorientation takes its toll on what little good sense the characters bring with them to the mission. It exacerbates the already dysfunctional dynamics of this platoon of battle virgins and is as deadly on its own as the native hunters who use the environment as a weapon in their arsenal. It's not necessarily skill or even luck that saves the guardsmen who survive the ordeal. In classic Hill fashion, it is a matter of intelligence, awareness, teamwork, and the commitment to do what is necessary to survive. There's no sense of victory in survival, merely relief.
Blu-ray / DVD Combo Pack. Both discs feature the new HD master but the Blu-ray of course features superior clarity and richness of color. Both are clean, strong images while the Blu-ray shows off excellent detail. The Dolby Digital Mono soundtrack puts the mix right up front. A couple of scenes of chaos and confusion overwhelm the dialogue with background sound, which is surely intentional but still seems a little out of balance to my ears.
New to this release in an original 27-minute featurette with new interviews with actors Keith Carradine, Powers Boothe, Lewis Smith, and Peter Coyote and, on low-resolution video via Skype, director Walter Hill and producer David Giler, who collaborated on the script with Hill. The actors share stories of shooting in the Louisiana swamps in February with wet suits under their uniforms, six weeks of working in the cold and damp, and they remind us that they were all in it together. The crew endured the same conditions so no one had the right to complain. More interesting is the discussion around the themes of the film. Hill and Giler maintain that while they did not intentionally set out to make a Vietnam allegory they were aware that audiences would make that connection, while the actors admit that they knew it was an allegory from the moment they read the script. Keith Carradine's reading is particularly detailed and interesting. Curiously, none of the six participants mention Deliverance.
Carried over from the old DVD release is a brief collection of outtakes and the original trailer. All of the supplements are featured in both the Blu-ray and DVD discs of the Combo Pack.
By Sean Axmaker
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Tess on Blu-ray
Tess (1979), Roman Polanski's film adaptation of Thomas Hardy's 1890 novel Tess of the D'Urbervilles, has in 2014 received a sublime Blu-Ray and DVD release from Criterion. Restored by Pathe under the direct supervision of Polanski himself, the movie looks and sounds magnificent. At first glance, the lushly beautiful Tess is a seemingly unusual work for Polanski, whose films we tend to associate with horror and sex, but this was actually a highly personal project for the master filmmaker. It was his first picture after fleeing the United States in 1977, and also a project that his wife, Sharon Tate, had suggested he make as a vehicle for herself -- just before she was murdered by the Manson gang in 1969. Polanski read the novel after her death and realized it was indeed right up his alley, and he dedicated the eventual film to her with an on-screen inscription.
Hardy's tale, to which the film is very faithful, is about a poor English girl, Tess, whose father learns he is a distant descendant of a once prominent, rich family, the D'Urbervilles. He sends Tess to the home of a remaining D'Urberville to find employment (or at least a handout), but Tess winds up being seduced by the ne'er-do-well Alec D'Urberville (Leigh Lawson), who becomes obsessed with her. Fleeing Alec, she eventually finds work at a dairy farm and starts a passionate relationship with a young farmer named Angel Clare (Peter Firth). But in this society, the revelation of the sins of her past, even if they were not her fault, could doom Tess to shame, ostracism and worse. Ultimately, Tess is about a woman struggling to make her way in the world, looking for happiness, or at least survival, but finding that a judgmental society, timing and even luck are all working against her.
Polanski explores this theme vividly, sympathetically and cinematically. Costumes, speech and physical mannerisms of the actors all convince the audience of the time period and of the distinctions among the social classes, and the film's pictorial beauty does much to stress the contrasting cruelty of some of the characters. The movie is not "pretty" for prettiness' sake. Most important, one really feels the isolation of Tess throughout the film, which is at once sprawling and intimate. The plot itself, while important, feels less vital here than the depiction of Tess' emotional experience of the world she is forced to inhabit, and as a result, the long running time feels entirely appropriate and never tedious.
Tess was shot entirely in France, mostly on locations in Normandy and Brittany, because Polanski worried that if he traveled to England he would be extradited to the United States. Polanski later wrote, "To tell the story at all, it was essential to find the proper setting, a twentieth-century equivalent of Hardy's nineteenth-century Dorset. The only way to convey the rhythm of his epic was to use that setting as an integral part of the film, signaling the passage of time and the change in Tess herself by means of a visible, almost palpable change in seasons. Once our rural locations were chosen, we would have to film throughout the year from early spring, through high summer, to the depths of winter." With such a shooting strategy, filming wound up lasting nine months over 80 separate locations, and Tess became, at $12 million, the most expensive film ever made in France to that point. Freak weather and labor strikes only added to the overall time and expense.
If Tess is atypical of Polanski, it's in the way that The Age of Innocence (1993) is atypical of director Martin Scorsese. But in fact, both films are completely emblematic of their directors' concerns and are indeed suffused with violence. It's just that the violence is emotional, an undercurrent beneath a pristine surface -- exactly like the societies the films depict.
That being said, it's hard to shake some of Tess's most exquisitely beautiful imagery, such as the lovely natural light of an outdoor dance, or the riders and dogs on a fox hunt who appear out of a sublime mist, or the face of Nastassia Kinski, who is heart-stoppingly gorgeous (a quality, incidentally, that is vital to the story). Cinematographer Geoffrey Unsworth, who had shot such films as Becket (1964) and Cabaret (1972), died a few weeks into production and was replaced by Ghislain Cloquet, who sadly would himself pass away two years later. They shared the Oscar for Best Cinematography. The film also won for Best Art Direction and Best Costume Design and was nominated for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Score.
Criterion's dual-format release contains one Blu-ray disc and two DVDs, with both formats containing the film and identical extras. And there are plenty, starting with three short documentaries about the film's making (originally included in Columbia's 2004 DVD release), directed by Laurent Bouzereau and totaling 73 minutes in length. Bouzereau expertly interviews key players like Polanski, producers Claude Berri and Timothy Burrill, co-writer John Brownjohn, actors Nastassia Kinski and Leigh Lawson, set decorator Pierre Guffroy, costume designer Anthony Powell, hair and makeup artists, the crew electrician, the assistant editor and others. The artists discuss fascinating details of production, like the challenge of getting the "strawberry seduction" scene between Kinski and Lawson just right (which astonishingly was shot on a rainy day despite looking on-screen like the height of warm summer), the creation of the Stonehenge set outside of Paris, and the design of the costumes to be authentic and truly expressive of character -- beautiful without being decorative. Powell is fascinating as he discusses his approach, and also about the little splotch of blood he put on the hem of Tess' dress at a key point in the story, which Polanski shot for maximum impact.
Burrill recalls that on location the filmmakers were only able to see the rushes days after shooting, rather than the next day, and not always under the best conditions. But gradually, he says, "we started to see what was happening, the magic that was coming off the screen, and the extraordinary professionalism of Nastassia.... I don't think there was ever one day when she fluffed a line. She was word-perfect, always."
Second is a 52-minute documentary from 2006 by Daniel Ablin and Serge July entitled Once Upon a Time... Tess. This is also interesting, but it covers much of the same material as the Bouzereau pieces, with many of the same interviewees telling the same stories. It's also not as smoothly edited. But unlike the Bouzereau film, it includes composer Philippe Sarde, and delves more into Polanski's pre-Tess life and career. It also recounts the difficulties in Tess's post-production, particularly concerning the running time. Francis Coppola was brought in by producer Claude Berri to trim the film, which was deemed overlong, but Polanski hated the result, leading to a falling-out between Berri and Polanski and between Polanski and Sarde. Polanski himself eventually trimmed the film by about 20 minutes, resulting in the current running time of 171 minutes.
Third, there's a 1979 episode of the French TV program Cine Regards, running 48 minutes, that looks at the making of Tess and interviews Polanski during the film's production. The interviews with Polanski are revealing, but the real strengths of the piece are the long, uninterrupted slices of life on the set as Polanski directs and thinks through scenes, conducting his orchestra of crewmembers. These sequences go on long enough to make us feel as if we are there.
Fourth is a 1979 episode of the British TV program The South Bank Show, 50 minutes in length, in which host Melvyn Bragg interviews Polanski. And Criterion rounds things out with the film's trailer as well as a handsome printed booklet containing a fine essay by Colin MacCabe and crisp, colorful photos from the film, almost all of which feature the entrancing Nastassia Kinski. It's a beautiful package and motion picture, all very highly recommended.
By Jeremy Arnold
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Used Cars on Blu-ray
The opening of Used Cars (1980) has the ominous, wind-scoured character of a modern crime film in a desperate southwest town where a Sergio Leone western wouldn't be out of place. The camera cranes down from a high shot over a struggling used car dealership, where a few pathetic beaters line the lot, and slowly glides over to one car with someone is crammed under the dashboard. The only sound is the lonely wind--the kind of strangled, desolate howl you get in dustbowl dramas and desert survival thrillers--and the grunts of the man struggling with the mechanics under the dash. And then we see the odometer turn back, shaving some 40,000 or so miles from the record. The title hits the screen, a brass band jumps in with "Stars and Stripes Forever," and the unidentified mechanic wriggles out to reveal Kurt Russell in a cheap, loud suit making his rounds to mask the sorry condition of the cars on the lot. It turns out that this is a crime movie after all, or at least a film of multiple misdemeanors and bald-faced misrepresentation, and the perpetrators are the good guys.
The second feature from director Robert Zemeckis and co-writer and producer Bob Gale, Used Cars comes right out of the screen comedy culture of the late 1970s and early 1980s, when the underdogs snubbed their collective noses at authority, propriety, property and privacy laws and anything else that crossed their paths in slobs vs. snobs comedies like Animal House (1978), Caddyshack (1980) and Ghostbusters (1984). Used Cars is raucous and reckless and far more gleefully corrupt than any of its brothers in rebellion, embracing the confidence games and illegal stunts pulled by the skeleton crew that works for Luke Fuchs (Jack Warden), who is the closest thing that the film has to an honest man. The devotion of salesmen Rudy (Russell) and Jeff (Gerrit Graham) and mechanic Jim (Frank McRae) to Luke is really all that separates them from Luke's rapacious brother and across-the-street rival Roy L. Fuchs (Warden again) and his slick sales force. That and the fun they have ripping off the rubes who wander on to their lot.
The premise of film - two used car outfits at war with one another - was hatched by John Milius, who was one of the executive producers (along with Steven Spielberg), but the script is pure Zemeckis and Gale. The rivals are twin brothers, the Cain and Abel of used car dealers. When impending freeway construction threatens to destroy bad brother Roy's dealership and make the good brother Luke rich, Roy finds a way to speed the demise of Luke's bad heart and Rudy makes good on his promise to keep Roy from taking over the lot. Rudy has his own, more immediate motivation, of course--he's trying to buy his way into the local political machine and he's still a little short on the down payment--but it's also personal. Luke is something of a father figure to the crew, which makes them the mischievous sons who break the rules whenever dad's back is turned. After Luke dies, their antics more outrageous, from secretly burying Luke on the lot (his beloved convertible fittingly serves as his casket) to jamming satellite signals with wild pirate commercials replete with gratuitous nudity and senseless destruction of private property. The plot seems to careen from one comic collision to another but there's a nicely-constructed plan under it all, simple but ingenious enough that you don't actually see how the pieces are laid in place until it all comes together in the ragged spectacle of final act.
It's not really a satire of American business so much as a wicked lampoon: lie, cheat and steal as the American way, as long as you do it with a sense of fun. Kurt Russell was just breaking out of his clean-cut post-Disney persona when he took on the role and he sinks his teeth into Rudy, turning the brash characters into the epitome of the smiling mercenary selling lemons to suckers with dirty tricks and phony promises. Gerrit Graham is his partner in commercial piracy, unfazed by anything but harbingers of bad luck, notably red. Deborah Harmon is both romantic interest and plot complication as Luke's long lost daughter, who shows up just after dad's death. Jack Warden has a field day playing twin brothers and Frank McRae is hilarious as the giant adrenaline-pumped mechanic. The crotch-grabbing Mexican junk car wholesaler is ubiquitous character actor and future director Alfonso Arau in his first great comic role in an American film (Romancing the Stone and Three Amigos soon followed). But the entire cast is in danger of being upstaged by the adorable dog Toby, who has his own role to play in the sale stunts. This pooch's hilarious performance makes him one of the greatest movie dogs.
Zemeckis matured into a polished filmmaker and an ambitious storyteller and went on to make more sophisticated, more provocative, and certainly more subtle films, but he never made anything as savagely funny as Used Cars. Its banged-up ingenuity and rough-and-tumble energy and warped mirror reflection of the American Dream as a snatch and grab free-for-all is wickedly funny. Everyone is a crook here and the epilogue even enshrines mendacity as a virtue, at least when it comes to stepping into the used car game.
Used Cars has a remarkably tidy visual aesthetic for a film about a seedy, shabby culture, with a screen that is uncluttered and flooded with desert sunlight in day scenes and blasted with floodlights as bold as a football stadium night game for the after-dark stunts. The new HD transfer shows a well-preserved print and is sharp and clear. Simply put, it looks superb.
The commentary track with Zemeckis, Gale, and Russell, carried over from the 2002 DVD reelease, is almost as fun as the movie. "We wanted Jimmy Stewart in It's A Wonderful Life, except he's totally corrupt," is how Zemeckis explains the genesis of Rudy. Kurt Russell laughs back: "So you cast me!" These guys are having a blast laughing their way through their remembrances, but they manage to stay on track and keep the production stories coming. Few commentaries manage to balance the information and entertainment so well.
There's a four-minute reel of outtakes (apparently taken from surviving video dub; it's all quite hazy), a radio interview with Russell, a car commercial featuring Russell, galleries of art and stills, and not one but two isolated score tracks: along with Patrick Williams' musical score heard in the film is an alternate, unused score by Ernest Gold. We don't quite get it in the context of the film (at least not with dialogue and sound effects) but it's a more conventional, less satirical approach. The accompanying 8-page booklet features another fine essay by Julie Kirgo.
By Sean Axmaker
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Caught on Blu-ray
The American films of German-born filmmaker Max Ophuls have never been as celebrated as his more overtly stylized and seductively romantic French films. That attitude is fed by a sense of ill-treatment by the studios. He dropped the "h" to become Max Opuls in the credits of his Hollywood movies, which can either be seen as an insult to his heritage or simply part of the American assimilation that his fellow immigrants also went through. More defining is Ophuls' miserable experience on his first American project, Vendetta (1947), a production micromanaged by Howard Hughes, who ultimately fired Ophuls. That experience colored Ophuls' entire American period to the point that he himself dismissed the films he made as compromised. I disagree with that assessment. His films haunt the space between the idealism of unconditional love and the reality of social barriers and fickle lovers. Yet his greatest films are anything but cynical; ironic certainly, but also melancholy, sad and wistful, and always respectful of the dignity of those who love well if not too wisely. There is a great dignity in his best American movies, but where his European films present obstacles in the form of social "rules" versus emotion and desire, his American films frame the same issues in terms of economics, opportunity, and the lack of social and legal power to break out of circumstances.
Olive previously gave us the Blu-ray and DVD debut of Letter From an Unknown Woman (1948), the most continental of his American movies, a romantic tragedy set in an idealized past with a decadent, self-absorbed high society man and a dreamy poor girl briefly swept into his world. Caught shares the same elegant camerawork, evocative production design, and the meeting of high culture and working class society but imports it into contemporary (circa 1940s) United States. It's the first truly "American" film of his American era and, for all the film's over-enunciated social commentary, it is a powerful drama rooted in the dreams and anxieties and realities of American filmgoers.
Barbara Bel Geddes is the dreamily naïve and innocent girl from Denver who comes to Los Angeles to marry her way to success. "A charm school is like a college and finishing school combined," promises her roommate, a department store model who still can't afford anything better than their tiny shared bungalow. Rebranding herself with the name Leonora, she is reluctantly talked in to attending a yacht party thrown by millionaire industrialist Smith Ohlrig (Robert Ryan) and, through sheer luck (whether it's good or bad luck is your call) ends up spending the evening with him: the nervous, naïve good girl playing at being available and the hard, controlling businessman who looks for the profit in every social transaction. He marries her for the same reason he does anything and makes her a prisoner to his whims, a social prop and hostess expected to jump at every command.
In this jaundiced look at the American dream, money is power for the sake of money and power. Smith Ohlrig is a cruel, angry Charles Foster Kane, born to wealth but determined to prove to the world that he's as self-made as they come by building it into a fortune and a legacy. The character of Ohlrig was supposedly based on Howard Hughes in the original novel. No fan of Hughes himself, Ophuls pushed the portrait into satire, encouraging Ryan to take on Hughes' mannerisms and play up the controlling nature and emotional coldness of the character whose defining motivations are competitiveness and vengeance. It's all about winning, whether it's a business deal or a marriage. Bel Geddes comes off weak-willed and meek next to the stony, confident Ryan, unsure and tentative and thus easily overwhelmed by him, but what looks to be an unsure actress is actually a perfectly evocation of the character.
James Mason, who gets top billing, doesn't appear until the second act. He's Dr. Larry Quinada, an overworked pediatrician in New York's East Side, and Leonora gets a job as his receptionist when she finally screws up the courage to leave Smith. The rest of the film is a struggle between the two men over Leonora (Smith, of course, doesn't like to lose) and Leonora's struggle over what is most important: the aspiration to wealth and social position that she has grown up adoring, thanks to the fashion magazines and gossip columns that she devours, or the personal growth and satisfaction of doing good and doing a good job, both of which Larry encourages. Mason delivers all the explanations, the psychological analyses of Leonora (the psychiatrist, played by the great, underappreciated Art Smith, delivers Smith's diagnosis), and the social commentary. The script by Arthur Laurents puts it all in dialogue form, unnecessarily so given the script's structure and Ophuls' imagery. It's a weakness in the film but a forgivable one given the film's strengths.
A dark Cinderella melodrama, Caught belongs as much to the murky world of American film noir as to the polished European dramas of high society social appearances and power games, and it takes on class in America head on. Like many a European in Hollywood, Ophuls takes up the issue with a slightly different perspective, one that you don't see in his European films. While Leonora is the center of the story, she doesn't even have a real identity as far as society is concerned. The headlines of the marriage proclaim a Cinderella story of a car-hop who marries into wealth and stature, as if this was the definition of the American success story, and never gives her an identity outside of her marriage. She is referred to not by her own name, as an autonomous individual, but as an accessory--"Smith Ohlrig's car-hop wife"--in gossip column pieces. Never mentioned but far too present to be healthy are the bottles of pills that Leonora reaches for when she's under stress or unhappy, bottles that are nowhere to be seen when she's outside of Smith's control. These touches are far more resonant than the psychological commentary of the dialogue.
Though distributed by MGM, Caught was an independent production without the standing resources of a major studio. Ophuls, with the help of the cinematographer Lee Garmes (who helped Josef von Sternberg create his gorgeously gauzy imagery) and art director Frank Paul Sylos (who created wonders on low budgets on many an indie feature), makes the most of his resources. This world is created entirely in the studio, even the first meeting between Leonora and Smith on a foggy dock (you can see the seams in the cyclorama backdrop serving as the night sky obscured by mist on the Blu-ray). That artificiality works well in the high society world, where everything is about appearances, and Garmes delivers a deep focus depth less showy but just as striking as Orson Welles' work in Citizen Kane. Ophuls contrasts the cavernous, tastefully austere empty spaces of the Ohlrig manors (reminiscent of Citizen Kane's Xanadu), where Leonora and Smith are separated by a vast gulf with Smith invariably dominating the foreground in close-up dwarfing Leonora in the background, with Leonora's tiny, cluttered apartments and the cramped, bustling doctor's office. That visual contrast continues throughout, becoming knowingly comical in a scene when Leonora and Larry go dancing in a crowded East Side bar, practically fighting their way through the dancers packed into the tiny space. Ophuls' camera is remarkably mobile in this scene, elegantly yet unobtrusively tracking them through the entire sequence in an unbroken shot. This isn't the intricate choreography of The Earrings of Madame de... but its simplicity is perfectly matched to the subject.
Along the way Bel Geddes' Leonora transforms from callow, naïve kid to woman of strength and moral fortitude while Mason tempers the saintliness of Larry with moments of doubt and Ryan reveals Smith a chillingly cruel manipulator whose only goal is to "win" at all costs. Ophuls beautifully twists the American dream into a nightmare, where even the happy ending feels just a bit tarnished.
The film debuts on Blu-ray and DVD in a very good edition. Like most of the films released on Olive from the Paramount vaults, it is a well-mastered edition of archival elements. It has not been restored and minor abrasions, scuffs, and speckles are visible through the film, but the clarity is good and the image is strong, with vivid contrasts and deep, inky blacks. The mono soundtrack is perfectly fine and there are no supplements.
By Sean Axmaker
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The Big Red One on Blu-ray
Director, writer, pulp fiction author, raconteur and all-around maverick character Samuel Fuller was as proud of his military service as any of his artistic accomplishments. Like hundreds of thousands of other Americans, he enlisted in the armed services after Pearl Harbor was bombed by the Japanese. He joined the infantry and, as a rifleman in the First United States Infantry Division (aka "the Big Red One"), he participated in the Allied assault on North Africa in 1942, fought his way through Sicily, landed in the first wave on Omaha Beach during the D-Day invasion of Normandy, took part in the liberation of France and Belgium, and marched into Germany, where his squad helped liberate the Falkenau Concentration Camp. "I began a journal in North Africa," he shared in his autobiography, A Third Face. "If I survived, I was going to write about my war experiences." His experiences informed The Steel Helmet and numerous other war films but it was forty years before he put his own story down, first in the novel The Big Red One, published in 1980, and then in the film that came out the same year, in a compromised form that was partially restored in 2004.
The Big Red One is Fuller's most autobiographical film, at once an old-fashioned war thriller and a portrait of the insanity and senseless destruction of combat, and the most expensive and ambitious production of his career. It charts the journey of his own real life unit (1st Infantry, 1st Platoon) through the experiences of four riflemen. Robert Carradine, Mark Hamill, Bobby Di Cicco, and Kelly Ward play the "four horsemen," as their tough, taciturn Sergeant (Lee Marvin) names them, the eternal figures in a rifle squad filled out by a couple of hundred replacements whose names they finally give up trying to learn over the four years of combat. The rest are simply "dead men with temporary use of their arms and legs," explains one of the riflemen, and in Fuller's clear-eyed portrait of combat, the only glory in war is survival.
We never learn the platoon leader's his name--he's just The Sergeant or Sarge--but this retread (the film opens on him during the final day of World War I) guides them from green volunteers to hardened survivors. A World War II vet himself, Marvin's face is a road map of the war, the worn, battered, yet unusually calm and warm face of a survivor. His heart is hidden under a helmet and three-day stubble, but the weary serenity behind his eyes turn warm and protective when the children of liberated villages follow Sarge around like puppies and he wordlessly adopts them for a few heartbreaking moments.
Carradine's cigar-chomping, pulp-fiction-writing Zab stands-in for Fuller--his journal entries provide the narration and commentary and at one point in the film he finds out that his novel, "The Dark Deadline" (a twist on Fuller's "The Dark Page") has been published and sent to the front in a military edition--but there's a little of Fuller in all of the young men. Hamill's Griff is a marksman who doesn't think he can murder another human ("We don't murder, we kill," explains Sarge); Di Cicco's Vinci the smart aleck Brooklyn kid; and Ward's Johnson the artist who sketches his impressions along the way.
Fuller gives us North Africa, Italy, even D-Day on Omaha Beach, all recreated on a fraction of the budget and a sliver of the cast that Steven Spielberg had at his disposal for Saving Private Ryan. He shoots with a spare, suggestive visual style, largely in close-up, in part to keep the focus on the immediate experience, but also to make the most of his limited resources. Isolated, deserted locales dominate their odyssey. Death is abrupt and brutal, ready to strike at any moment. It verges on the unreal, and these boys learn to respond instinctively to the unreality of it all. For such a sprawling portrait, it is all about the details: condoms used for everything except sex, a wooden crucifix with the crucified dead-eyed Jesus in the desert presiding over scenes of death and destruction, the indescribable, cold fury that hits Griff when he discovers the horrors that the Nazis perpetrated at the concentration camp they liberate.
Fuller's original rough cut reportedly ran over four hours. That cut is lost to time and commerce (its ownership bounced around as studios sold off libraries) but in 2004, film critic, historian, and documentary filmmaker Richard Schickel oversaw a reconstruction using a trove of unearthed footage and Fuller's original script as a guide. It doesn't come close to the lost cut but The Big Red One: The Reconstruction fills out the film with over 45 minutes of new and expanded scenes that restore characters lost in the cutting, fill out experiences, and give the film a shape missing in the original cut. Schickel also gives the film the perfect opening Fuller quote: "This is a fictional life based on factual death." The most defining addition (apart from the sense of heft that the accumulation of details gives the experience) is a structural element: a Nazi Sergeant (Siegfried Rauch) whose journey mirrors the Sarge's. In the theatrical cut he appear at the end of the film in a collision with Sarge that bookends the opening scene. In the expanded version he's a ruthless Nazi (he kills his own soldier in one scene) and a brutal officer who winds through the film in parallel to Sarge, a warped mirror double. It gives the climactic echo of the opening scene a much more complicated resonance that reflects Fuller's distinctive approach to the war film. At the end this Nazi is, like Sarge, just a soldier and soldiers don't judge. They kill and when the war is over they stop killing.
The Blu-ray debut of The Big Red One only upgrades the theatrical cut to high definition. It looks superb, with noticeable improvement in clarity, detail, and color. The expanded 2004 Reconstruction is included in standard definition only, making it more like a supplement than what it should be: the featured attraction. Given that, it looks very good, just not 1080p good.
The Blu-ray imports all of the supplements from the two-disc DVD special edition. Film historian and reconstruction producer Richard Schickel provides commentary on the reconstructed version, discussing the changes in terms of story and theme. The Real Glory: The Reconstruction of the Big Red One is a 48-minute documentary from 2005 that opens with the young stars (now 24 years older) doing their impressions of Fuller growling and barking orders with a gruff energy ("That was what it was like to be directed by Sam Fuller in The Big Red One") and concludes with a journey through the legend of Fuller's long lost original cut, the inspiration for the reconstruction, the process of searching for and restoring missing scenes, and the technical tools used in the reconstruction.
There are over 30 minutes of further deleted scenes, including an eight-minute "French Vichy" scene that was an entire subplot originally shot for the opening sequence but unused in the reconstruction (for editorial as much as technical reasons). Two scenes are shown in their rough form (Sam Fuller's voice is heard in one) and there are comparisons of the Amphitheatre Cavalry Battle and the "Tank Baby" scenes from before and after the reconstruction. All are presented with commentary by reconstruction editor Bryan McKenzie and post-production supervisor Brian Hamblin (which is, frustratingly, not an optional track--you can't view the scenes without their commentary). They explain why some scenes were not incorporated and point out the differences in extended reconstruction scenes.
It also features the complete Fuller-produced 30 minute promo reel which tantalized film historians with footage cut out of the original release and inspired the reconstruction project when it was discovered in 1999, Richard Schickel's 1973 documentary The Men Who Made the Movies: Samuel Fuller, the archival War Department documentary The Fighting First, a still gallery, original TV and radio spots and trailer and the 2004 reconstruction trailer.
The disc is available as a stand-alone single-disc Blu-ray release and as part of the four-disc set World War II Collections: Invasion Europe, along with the feature films The Dirty Dozen, which also stars Lee Marvin, and Where Eagles Dare with Richard Burton and young Clint Eastwood, both on Blu-ray, and the documentary George Stevens: D-Day to Berlin, which is included as a "bonus DVD."
By Sean Axmaker
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Press Release
Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha Screens THE BIRDS on 11/7!
On Friday, November 7 Omaha Film Historian Bruce Crawford will host his 35th tribute to classic films with a screening of Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds, with special guest Tippi Hedren. The screening will also include an unveiling of the commemorative U.S. Postal Envelope honoring the film, created by artist Nicolosi. Both Miss Hedren and Nicolosi will sign autographs at the event.
Tickets are $23 and go on sale October 15 at all Omaha Hy Vee food store customer service counters. The event will take place Friday, November 7, 7pm at the Joslyn Art Museum, 2200 Dodge St., Omaha NE. 68102, and will benefit the Nebraska Kidney Association. For more information please call 402-932-7200 or visit www.omahafilmevent.com
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NOIRCON: October 30-November 2
NOIRCON 2014: This biennial tribute to all things noir--from literature to film, art and poetry--will take place from October 30 through November 2, 2014. The conference is produced and headquartered at Society Hill Playhouse in Philadelphia, PA.
Programming includes panels on Friday, Saturday and Sunday; parties; movie screenings; an awards banquet at MOCA (the Philadelphia Mausoleum of Contemporary Art) on the banks of the Delaware, on Thursday evening; and a Sunday visit to Philadelphia's Port Richmond Books.
Farley Books of New Hope will be on site at the Playhouse throughout the weekend as the official bookseller for NOIRCON.
Featured Guests:
Fuminori Nakamura of Tokyo, Japan, who will receive the David Goodis Award for excellence in writing. Nakamura has won many prizes for his novels including Japan's most prestigious literary award, the Akutagawa Prize . Two of his books have been translated into English, The Thief and Evil and the Mask, both published by Soho Press. Tom Nolan, of The Wall Street Journal will do a one on one interview with this outstanding young writer on Saturday.
Bronwen Hruska, Soho Publishing, is being recognized as an outstanding publisher in crime fiction with the Jay and Deen Kogan award, last given to Otto Penzler of Mysterious Books. She has led the way in translation publishing and opened many doors for women in the field.
Eddie Muller, better knows as the Czar of Noir, will accept the Anne Friedberg Award for contribution to Noir Education and Preservation, and will also introduce a special screening of the film The Prowler (written by Dalton Trumbo and first released in 1951), at 1pm Thursday, October 30 at The International House. A novelist from San Francisco, many of his books relate to and examine Film Noir.
Scheduled panels include: The Black Dahlia, Jewish Noir, Existential Noir, The Politics of Noir, A Ross MacDonald Examination, Veering Off the Highway: How Springsteen's Music Shapes Crime Fiction, and Three Minutes of Terror, when every attending writer gets three minutes to share his work or ideas.
Among the program participants are: Joseph Samuel Starnes, William Lashner, Joan Schenker, Stuart Neville, Jean Cash, Jonathan Woods, Robert Polito, Vicki Hendricks, Steve Hodel, Carole Mallory, Sigrid Sarda, Buffy Hastings, Jeff Wong, Duane Swierczynski, Tom Nolan, Alan Gordon, Megan Abbott and keynote speaker Eric Miles Williamson.
Dr. Louis Boxer and Deen Kogan, director of Society Hill Playhouse, co-chair NOIRCON 2014. For further information call 215-923-0210 or check the website: www.noircon.com
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DICK DINMAN SALUTES LEGENDARY VOCALIST VIC DAMONE (PART THREE): Iconic vocalist Vic Damone shares some fascinating stories about his years as an MGM star with producer/host Dick Dinman and also reveals why he ultimately turned down an important role in THE GODFATHER. Among the songs included in this show are Vic's rarely heard outtake number that was not used in ATHENA as well as an exclusive presentation of Jane Powell and Vic's never before heard musical audition (with piano accompaniment only) for THE STUDENT PRINCE/DEEP IN MY HEART.
DICK DINMAN SALUTES LEGENDARY VOCALIST VIC DAMONE (PART FOUR): Vic Damone candidly reveals to producer/host Dick Dinman how the callous behavior of acclaimed director Vincente Minnelli made his experience costarring in MGM's mega-budget musical extravaganza KISMET so relentlessly unpleasant. Among the songs included in this show are Vic's rarely heard duet of "This Is My Beloved" with Judy Garland.
The award-winning DICK DINMAN'S DVD CLASSICS CORNER ON THE AIR is the only weekly half hour show devoted to Golden Age Movie Classics as they become available on DVD. Your producer/host Dick Dinman includes a generous selection of classic scenes, classic film music and one-on-one interviews with stars, producers, and directors. To hear these as well as other DVD CLASSICS CORNER ON THE AIR shows please go to www.dvdclassicscorner.com or www.dvdclassicscorner.net.
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"The Making of GONE WITH THE WIND" Exhibition
The exhibition "The Making of 'Gone With The Wind'" commemorates the 75th anniversary of one of the most popular films ever created by exploring its history and legacy. The exhibition runs from Sept. 9 to Jan. 4, 2015, at the Harry Ransom Center, a humanities research library and museum at The University of Texas at Austin.
Featuring more than 300 items, the exhibition is drawn entirely from the Ransom Center's collections and includes on-set photographs, storyboards, makeup stills, costume sketches, concept art, correspondence and fan mail, production records, audition footage and producer David O. Selznick's own extensive memos. Three original gowns worn by Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O'Hara, including the iconic green curtain dress, will be exhibited together for the first time in more than 25 years. In 2010 donors from around the world contributed more than $30,000 to support conservation work for these costumes. Replicas of two gowns will also be on view.
From the time Selznick purchased the rights to the book, it took more than three years to bring the film to the screen. The materials in the exhibition document the challenges of turning Margaret Mitchell's Pulitzer Prize-winning book into a manageable screenplay and producing it at a reasonable cost.
Before a single frame was shot, "Gone With The Wind" was embroiled in controversy. There were serious concerns about how the film would depict race and violence in the South during the Civil War and Reconstruction. While Clark Gable was a popular choice to play Rhett Butler, there was no clear favorite for Scarlett O'Hara, and there was a nationwide search before British actress Leigh was cast in the role.
"'The Making of 'Gone With The Wind'" is the largest and most comprehensive exhibition on this film," said Steve Wilson, exhibition curator and the Ransom Center's curator of film. "The David O. Selznick archive, which is the Center's largest collection, forms the backbone of the exhibition, placing the Ransom Center in a unique position to tell the story of the making of this epic film."
The chronologically organized exhibition will reveal the challenges involved in the making of this quintessential film from Hollywood's Golden Age and illustrate why it remains influential and controversial 75 years after it was released. Visitors will get an insider's perspective on the search for an actress to play Scarlett, the film's iconic scenes, the influence of the African-American press on filmmakers' decisions and the enthusiastic reception of the film by fans.
A fully illustrated exhibition catalog of the same title will be co-published by the Harry Ransom Center and University of Texas Press in September with a foreword written by Turner Classic Movies (TCM) host and film historian Robert Osborne. Generous support for the exhibition has been provided by TCM.
The David O. Selznick holdings comprise the core of the Ransom Center's film collection, which also includes the archives of silent film star Gloria Swanson, screenwriters Ernest Lehman and Paul Schrader, director Nicholas Ray and actor, director and producer Robert DeNiro.
"The Making of 'Gone With The Wind'" can be seen starting Sept. 9 in the Ransom Center Galleries on Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., with extended Thursday hours until 7 p.m. On Saturdays and Sundays the galleries are open from noon to 5 p.m. Member-only hours are offered on Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to noon.
Public tours are offered every day at noon, as well as Thursdays at 6 p.m. and Saturdays and Sundays at 2 p.m. "Gone With The Wind" screentests will be shown in the Ransom Center's first-floor theater at 1:30 p.m. and 3:30 p.m. on weekends, immediately following the public tour.
In conjunction with the exhibition, the Ransom Center will host the 2014 Flair Symposium, "Cultural Life During Wartime, 1861-1865," from Sept. 18 to 20. The symposium will look back to the 19th century to examine the cultural world of Union and Confederate painters, photographers, musicians, theater companies and writers. The songs, images, poems, books and plays that appeared between 1861 and 1865 offer a nuanced perspective on the Civil War that challenges later narratives, both fictional and historical.
Complementing the physical exhibition is the web exhibition "Producing Gone With The Wind," which explores producing the film, including rarely seen fan mail from individuals who sought auditions, solicited employment and protested the production. Visitors can also see teletypes from Selznick's production company that detail the casting of Leigh as Scarlett O'Hara and explore the costumes, hair and makeup that contributed to the film's vibrant imagery. The web exhibition launches Sept. 9 at www.hrc.utexas.edu/webgwtw.
- More >
DICK DINMAN SALUTES LEGENDARY VOCALIST VIC DAMONE (PART ONE): Producer/host Dick Dinman commences his six-show tribute to iconic vocalist Vic Damone as guest Vic Damone shares his reminiscences of his upbringing in a rough section of Brooklyn, the early influence of his idol Frank Sinatra, his first break and first of many hit recordings, and the generous help and encouragement of stars Perry Como and Milton Berle.
DICK DINMAN SALUTES LEGENDARY VOCALIST VIC DAMONE (PART TWO): Producer/host Dick Dinman continues his tribute to ever-popular song stylist Vic Damone as Vic chats about his first screen test courtesy of MGM producer Joe Pasternak and reveals the identity of the silver screen superstar who saved the day by guiding him through it, his stint in the Army that temporarily interrupted his rise to screen stardom, and his marriage ceremony to the troubled MGM star Pier Angeli as Angeli's ex-beau James Dean looks on mournfully.
The award-winning DICK DINMAN'S DVD CLASSICS CORNER ON THE AIR is the only weekly half hour show devoted to Golden Age Movie Classics as they become available on DVD. Your producer/host Dick Dinman includes a generous selection of classic scenes, classic film music and one-on-one interviews with stars, producers, and directors. To hear these as well as other DVD CLASSICS CORNER ON THE AIR shows please go to www.dvdclassicscorner.com or www.dvdclassicscorner.net.
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TCM Book Corner Try for a chance to win a free book ENTER NOW >
TCM Podcast An in-depth look at this month's films by the employees of TCM DOWNLOAD TODAY >
TCM This Show Taking viewers beyond the pages of TCM's Now Playing Guide WATCH FEATURES >
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Wednesday, March 20, 2011
Removed: 10:00pm Springfield Rifle 12:00pm Casablanca Added: 1:00pm Virginia City 12:15pm Casablanca
Wednesday, March 20, 2011
Removed: 10:00pm Springfield Rifle 12:00pm Casablanca Added: 1:00pm Virginia City 12:15pm Casablanca
Wednesday, March 20, 2011
Removed: 10:00pm Springfield Rifle 12:00pm Casablanca Added: 1:00pm Virginia City 12:15pm Casablanca


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Apple Pie in a Glass
- Yield 2 servings
Spread holiday cheer with this seasonal apple cocktail.
Ginger, nutmeg and brown sugar lend familiar flavors, while sherry adds a nutty note and apple brandy boosts the intensity.
- 12 ounces fresh apple cider
- 2 cinnamon sticks
- 2 thin slices of fresh gingerroot
- Freshly grated nutmeg
- 2 teaspoons firmly packed light brown sugar
- 3 ounces dry sherry
- 2 ounces apple brandy
- Put cider, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and brown sugar in a small saucepan over high heat. Bring to a simmer, then reduce heat to low and cook 5 minutes. Remove from heat and divide between two Irish coffee glasses or mugs. Transfer a cinnamon stick to each. Top each with half the sherry and brandy. Serve hot.
Recipe courtesy of the U.S. Apple Association

subset: commoncrawl


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Related Photo Galleries
4. Demon calls the revised secondary throttle plate a Goggle Valve Secondary (GVS) that is intended to increase airflow. The center peak is designed to clear the divider plate in dual-plane intake manifolds. As a result, the Street Demon will bolt right on a typical Holley square-flange dual-plane intake manifold without requiring an adapter.


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Alonso coy over future plans
Fernando Alonso has again left his fans playing a guessing game over his future.
F1 betting for the 2014 season, which started in Australia on 16 March and will finish in Abu Dhabi on 23 November. For more information visit the official F1 site.
Lewis Hamilton (Mer) (11/17), Nico Rosberg (Mer) (5/2), Valtteri Bottas (Wil) (14), Daniel Ricciar…
Lewis Hamilton (Mer) (7/10), Nico Rosberg (Mer) (2), Valtteri Bottas (Wil) (14), Felipe Massa (Wil…
Lewis Hamilton (Mer) (1/4), Nico Rosberg (Mer) (3/11), Valtteri Bottas (Wil) (10/11), Daniel Ricci…
|Participant name
|All odds
Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes)
Nico Rosberg (Mercedes)
Daniel Ricciardo (Red Bull)
Felipe Massa (Williams)
Adrian Sutil (Sauber)
Fernando Alonso has again left his fans playing a guessing game over his future.
FIA president Jean Todt is to review the shock financial downfall of Marussia and Caterham over the past week.
Sebastian Vettel has indicated hopes of being released early from his Red Bull contract were blocked by the team.
Marussia driver Jules Bianchi remains "critical but stable" in hospital following his Japanese Grand Prix crash.
Daniel Ricciardo believes the demise of Caterham and Marussia would represent a bitter loss for Formula One.
Sebastian Vettel feels it will be "a shame" if he is unable to run in qualifying ahead of Sunday's United States Grand Prix.
Our F1 tipster Tom Millard previews the US Grand Prix and feels Kevin Magnussen is still being underrated by the bookies.
Former F1 stars have criticised Bernie Ecclestone's controversial double-points system for the final race this season
Rob Smedley believes F1 will be wasting money if plans to unfreeze the current engine rules are pushed through for 2015.
Marussia have become the second Formula 1 team in a matter of days to be placed in administration.


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3 hours; 3 credits
Exploration of the origins and development of the idea of the perfect society (utopia) including examples of ones that have gone terribly wrong (dystopias). Focus will be on historical, philosophical, and literary material. Readings to include such authors as Aristophanes, Plato, Bacon, More, Butler, Orwell, and Weston. Satisfies Pathways College Option requirement.
Prerequisite: Junior standing.
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If you can't be here in person, take our virtual tour and discover the beauty and vitality of our campus.
Our faculty not only share their discoveries and knowledge with you, they invite you to be active members of their research teams.
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Enraptured :">
"Ladies, never chase a man because a true Gentleman would never make you run in heels."
(via kimpoyfeliciano)
did you know that
your eyebrows
are there to protect
your eyes
from sweat
coming from
your forehead
just like when
i first met you
when i walked
along the street
you're also on
and i was so nervous
my sweat ran like i ran miles
and it continued when…
"Anhedonia: The loss of interest and enjoyment in all activities that you once liked; the feeling of not caring anymore."
(via psych-facts)
"You can ask the universe for all the signs you want, but ultimately, we see what we want to see when we're ready to see it."
"Eventually, I managed to stay happy in pain. To be happy for myself and for other things. But never was I happy for him. Never. I always prayed for their fall, always wished for regret to come chase him until he chokes. All those I'm-happy-for-you and I-wish-you-well were total BS. I secretly…


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Posts tagged photography
Random Acts of Photography: St. Patrick's Day Fever in Dublin
We're rapidly approaching Ireland's annual national holiday, St. Patrick's day. Actually, technically, I don't think it is the equivalent of other countries' National Days (like 4th of July or Australia day) but we pretty much treat it as the same thing. Every year there is an influx of tourists into the Capital city for "The Craic" (not to be confused with the illicit substance). this year,…
My Photography featured in National Campaign by Marks & Spencer
My Photography featured in National Campaign by Marks & Spencer While I generally don't shoot commercially, I do…
9 Features Every DSLR Should Have Now
Great article from PetaPixel on how many DSLRs are missing out on modern camera features that are present in mirrorless, compacts and even smart phones.
After lots of going back and forward, hours of mucking about in CSS and several weeks of indecisiveness - my new website re-design is now live. I still have a few things to do - like setting some posts to full page, but I think it looks well. It's much more flexible than my old design so let me know what you think
Sometimes it pays to be in the right place at the right time
There's one thing about street photography that is pretty important to the genre, and that's the aspect of luck. In commercial photography, or travel, or portrait, or food, you are in control of everything and you can work whatever needs to be worked to get the picture you want. In street photography, you're somewhat at the disposal of the whims of fate. While you can always get good shots with…
XF 56mm additional photos
Roundup of samples of Fuji's f1.2 monster from Fuji Rumors. That's some damn fine bokeh!
How Sony Is Ushering In a Golden Age of Photography
Great piece on Sony's recent camera innovations from David Pogue in his new digs. I couldn't agree with him more, Sony are really shaking things up in the Camera market, and are one of the few companies looking forward, while everyone else looks back.
15 Rare Photos of New York's Graffiti-Covered Subway in the 1980s
Amazing photos of the graffiti covered new york subway from the 80's. It's amazing how much it's changed.
" And that's exactly how it turned out when I took the Nikon Df on a walk around my neighborhood. Shooting in Aperture-priority mode, I found the front command dial to be usable, but not as good as more typical dials on other high-end DSLRs. I like to shoot in Aperture-priority and make heavy use of exposure compensation. On the Df, the exposure compensation dial requires you to press a locking button to make a change. It can be done by feel without taking your eye off the viewfinder, but it's still slower and less convenient to use than most exposure compensation controls on modern, advanced DSLRs."
And that is my single biggest issue with the Nikon DF. The location and design of the exposure compensation dial is utterly stupid.
The Streets of Dublin
If you're a fellow Tumblr user and you Like Ireland, and Photography, please follow my Streets of Dublin project on Tumblr :-)
" When discussing their goals of image quality and sharpness for the lens, Sigma mentioned they're confident they'll surpass competitive products from Canon and Nikon and are instead gunning for Zeiss's new 55mm Otus lens. It's a serious claim. The Zeiss 55mm f/1.4 Otus lens — with its $4000 price tag — is squarely aimed at high-end professional shooting such as fashion, advertising and editorial work."
From Imaging Resource
Sigma have been on fire lately. Seriously, if sigma can pull this off it will be amazing, and given how well their 35mm has gone down with reviewers, I bet they can. Well, maybe not quite, but close. I can't wait.
Hands on: Sigma 50mm f/1.4 Art ignores Canon L, Nikon glass and targets Zeiss Otus. No, really.
Star Wars toys photos look more realistic than the real Star Wars
AmazingVesa Lehtimäki. Not sure if it's forced perspective or photoshop, but the results speak for themselves.
The Secrets of Richard Photo Lab
Great piece from Jonny Patience on the importance of a professional photo lab when shooting film.
Beautiful Photos of Norway from Mark Weinberg on VSCO's Journal Blog
Some amazing photos of the beautiful countryside of Norway
The X100s now available in stylus black!
(via The Fujifilm X100s is Back in Black - The Phoblographer)


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Tagged Questions
130 views
Effect of pH on life? Use buffer or HCl? How about lactic acid?
I'm trying to find the effect of pH on living things like E. coli and such. At first I thought of using a buffer solution which maintains its level of pH, but it's possible that the inactive ions of ...


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Wiki Headlines
23rd Oct: It's time for the Second TV Tropes Halloween Avatar Contest! Details here.
main index
Pure Souls Foster Home for Exceptional Children. He always misread the first word as "poor."Brown Leafed Vertigo is a Bleach fanfic by Foxflare.An Alternate Universe fic in which 15-year-old orphan Kira Izuru is sent to Pure Souls Foster Home, and attends its sister institution, Seireitei Academy. Pure Souls is run by a deceptively affable Aizen and the shinigami captains are teachers at the Academy. The story is eventual Gin/Kira with a side helping of Kenpachi/Unohana, Gin/Aizen, and Renji/Byakuya.A Darker and Edgier retelling of Bleach written with incredible prose, it is highly recommended.The story can be found here.
Brown Leafed Vertigo provides examples of:


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Vacation Packages
Places to Stay
More to See & Do
Places to Play
Featured Offers & Rates
Itineraries & Dates
The Value of a Disney Cruise
Disney Castaway Cay
Cruise Add-On Options
Planning Your Vacation
The Disney Difference
Adventure Insiders
Resort Enhancements
The Aulani Story
Resort Overview
Cars Land is now open at Disney California Adventure® Park. You'll feel like you're walking into the Disney·Pixar Cars movie, because Radiator Springs has now been brought to life.
Welcome to the place where imagination is the destination. For young and old, big and small it's the happiest place on earth! When you enter one of the Lands that comprise Disneyland® Park, stories come to life around you, immersing you in tales from some of your favorite Disney films...
Step into Fantasy Faire, an enchanting new storybook world within Fantasyland in Disneyland® Park, where you can meet favorite Disney heroes and heroines-and become part of their timeless tales come to life. In Fantasy Faire, once upon a time begins the moment you arrive-and happily ever after happens every day.
Disney Cruise Line® now offers an expanded collection of European cruises. Plus, departures from new homeports such as Venice, Italy and San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Experience the new AquaDunk, a 3-story body slide, aboard the Disney Magic.
Disney's private island paradise, Castaway Cay, is reserved exclusively for Disney Cruise Line® Guests.
There's a whole magical world out there just waiting to be explored with destinations spread across six continents
From the wilds of Alaska to the birthplace of liberty, there's so much to discover in North America through Adventures by Disney
Greece - Athens, Delphi, Santorini & Crete


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October 31, 2014
Sept. 9, 2013
University of Virginia alum Tina Fey is making a return to Charlottesville.
The actress and comedian will help kick off a new speaker series highlighting the positive impact of the arts on society.
The event is scheduled to take place at UVa's McIntire Amphitheatre at 8:15 PM this Saturday, Sept. 14.
General admission is available on a first-come, first-served basis.
Fey graduated from UVa in 1992.
Click Here to access the online Public Inspection File
Viewers with disabilities can get assistance accessing this station's FCC Public Inspection File by contacting the station with the information listed below. Questions or concerns relating to the accessibility of the FCC's online public file system should be directed to the FCC at 888-225-5322, 888-835-5322 (TTY), or email@example.com.


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Apr 2013 | Drivers Advised to 'Lose the Latte' When Choosing a Garage
April 2013
Halfords Autocentres is urging drivers to look beyond the complimentary coffee they are offered by garages carrying out work on their vehicles and at the true value of the service being delivered.
The call to action follows a recent study undertaken by the leading independent garage business that found more than one in six car owners are unwittingly tied into maintenance deals when purchasing their vehicle or slavishly return to that garage because they are unaware of the better value options open to them.
Rory Carlin from Halfords Autocentres said: "It has been a decade since European legislation was put in place that gives car owners the right to choose their own garage for repair and maintenance work without invalidating their warranty.
"However, the initial furore has long since died down and independent garages now clearly need to reach out to drivers more effectively if they are to help them overcome an over reliance on car retailers and franchises affiliated to particular manufacturers."
Halfords Autocentres' research found that 17% of both men and women make their garage selection based on where their car was purchased. However age does play a factor, with young first-time drivers and older motorists being far more likely to make this default choice.
Among drivers aged 18-24, 17% reported their garage choice was dictated by where they bought their car whilst rising to 18% for drivers aged 55-64 and 30% of those aged over 65.
However, there was a marked difference for owners aged 25-34 (11%) and 35-44 (10%) - suggesting that this group of drivers, whose new car buying and maintenance habits were being formed ten years ago when publicity for the incoming legislation was at its height, have retained the information.
Rory Carlin added: "Drivers are in danger of being taken for a ride. For example, our independent benchmarking shows that motorists are paying up to 40% more for a Full Service on their car to use manufacturer approved garages ? often more if customers take advantage of online promotional offers.
"But this is not just about shopping on price. Drivers need to consider whether the service and workmanship they are getting is of a high standard or whether the complementary latte they are offered when they drop off or collect their vehicle is really masking poor overall value for money."
From highly trained technicians capable of working on any make or model of car, to guaranteed replacement parts, a price match guarantee and the backing of a minimum 12 month warranty ? many drivers don't realise that independent garages can deliver the same quality and peace of mind as a main dealer often at a more affordable price.
Throughout April Halfords Autocentres will be highlighting the valuable role that independent garages play in offering motorists a competitive alternative for vehicle repair and maintenance work - hosting online discussions with customers, launching special promotional offers, running competitions and championing the free-of-charge services that many independent garages offer.


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Level :Bachelors | Stream :Commerce | Subject :Commerce
"i have done my bachelor's in humanities. and want to pursue law from US. what is the qualifying exam and what are the papers in that?"
21 Jan 2010 01:10 PM in USA:Application Procedure
"I done MBBS. i want to do a specialization in surgery from US. can you tell me where should i apply to?"
"i wan to know how shud i register for IELT exam"
13 Jan 2010 10:12 AM in UK:Application Procedure
National University Of Singapore Offers NGS Scholarship 2015 - Scholarship Notification : September 12, 2014 - November 15, 2014
"Awarding Institute / Body: National University of Singapore Synopsis:- SingaporeApplications are open for the NGS scholarship 2015 at the National University of Singapore. Scholarship Description:- The..."
University Of Auckland Offers Weston Scholarship 2014 - Scholarship Notification : September 1, 2014 - November 1, 2014
"Type Of Award:- Scholarships Value Of The Award:- Up to $5,000 Awarding Institute / Body: University of Auckland, New Zealand Synopsis:- aucklandThe University of Auckland is offering..."
"AIEEE is a national level entrance test conducted by Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) for admission to undergraduate courses in Engineering, and Architecture(including Planning) and Pharmacy..."
Form Available from :November 4, 2012 | Form Submission deadline :December 31, 2012 | Exam Date :April 8, 2013
"Civil Services constitute all non-military departments of the government machinery, which run the central and state administration. Civil Services Examination is held every year in three stages to select..."
Lucknow University - Lucknow
College Of Engineering - Visakhapatnam
Government College Of Pharmacy - Shimla
"Medicine is all about a person getting or seeking treatment from a physician for certain ailments. Once you have decided you want to go in for medicine, you can pretty much stop calling your life your..."
"The die hard desire to connect and interact with people, and serve the society makes one a mass communication professional. As the profession name itself suggests, it is about communication through and..."
New Delhi: Ever since the semester system has been introduced at the University of Delhi (DU), a series...
Bhopal: Madhaya Pradesh (MP) has introduced a new scheme for improving its academic performance. About...
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Mumbai: The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has decided to set up special question papers...
The Central Board of Secondary Examination (CBSE) is all set to implement upon its new initiatives in...
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