7 unproduced screenplays by Nabokov, Churchill, Adorno & Horkheimer, Huxley… – In Los Angeles in the 1940s, Frankfurt School philosophers Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer spent nearly six years working on a screenplay about prejudice. The final draft, titled "Below the Surface," features a violent commotion on a subway car, during which a woman carrying a vacuum cleaner either falls or is pushed onto the tracks. A one-legged peddler tries to rally the passengers against a Jewish man, who had previously jostled him. At the end of the film, the audience is to be polled regarding the guilt or innocence of the Jew; other audiences might be shown a similar film in which the Jew would be substituted by a "Negro" or a "Gentile white-collar worker." "Below the Surface" was batted around Hollywood for years, subjected to numerous scriptwriting consultations, and pitched to the likes of Jack Warner and Elia Kazan. It was never produced.
Cruisen ja Diazin tähdittämä Knight and Day on ollut kehitteillä ainakin viisi vuotta – As of last week the Writers Guild of America West had yet to determine final writing credits for the film. But Fox, in submitting the project for credits arbitration, said it viewed the story as having been written by Mr. O’Neill, with a script by Mr. O’Neill and Mr. Mangold — a tribute to the staying power of the original story, notwithstanding the many writers who were involved.
Christopher Walken visits Astoria, Queens (New Yorker / Talk of the Town) – The woman in the apartment was looking out her window at Christopher Walken. “Hello, hello! I used to live here,” he said to the window. […] In the kitchen, he pointed at an avocado pit suspended by toothpicks in a glass of water, a green taproot reaching downward. “Look, my avocado is growing,” he said. “Isn’t that great? It’s been sitting there for two months, then it did that.”
Dennis Hopper didn't blow it – The line between Mr. Hopper’s on-screen delivery and his off-screen reputation seems too thin, it makes you squirm, as do many of his later, greater roles. If the pleasure of his performance is tinged with discomfort, it’s because Mr. Hopper has apparently never been afraid of looking ridiculous — an important quality for performers. Few actors can navigate the line between terror and comedy as unnervingly, evidenced by his mesmerizing turn in David Lynch’s “Blue Velvet.” Where does that character end and Mr. Hopper begin? You don’t know, and that not knowing is the space in which Mr. Hopper works.
Cannes 2010: Lineup reveals a heavy dose of auteurs, with a dollop of celebrity – Terrence Malick's much-ballyhooed and long-gestating "Tree of Life" was also not included in the lineup, negating the rumors, for now, that the Brad Pitt film would make a Cannes debut. It could still be added later — "we're crossing our fingers," festival artistic director Thierry Fremaux said at the announcement — but if it isn't, look for yet another round of rumors about Malick's exacting process.
Herzog tekee 3d-dokkarin Chauvet'n luolamaalauksista – "I do it [3D] very reduced and as if it was the most natural way to do it," he says. "3D will always have one major problem, and that is when you look as a human being, normally only one eye looks dominantly at things. The other eye is mostly ignored. And only in specific cases – if somebody approaches you – all of a sudden the brain starts to use both eyes for establishing depth of field and understanding space.
