Live Fast, Die Young: 20 Great Artists that Never Reached 30

The phrase Live fast, die young and leave a good-looking corpse, originally spoken by actor John Derek in Nicholas Ray's Knock on Any Door (1949), emphasizes how unfulfilled promises have always been fascinating and intriguing for many of us. While some great artists lived up to their full potential, sometimes through decades of fruitful careers, others have passed away long before that, leaving many of us wondering which masterpieces might have lost along with their elder years. Following are 20 great artists that enlightened our souls with their art for a short time, but signed-off to rest in peace before reaching the age of 30.

1) Jean Vigo



French film maker Jean Vigo contributed to poetic realism in film in the 1930s and influenced the French New Wave of the late 1950s and early 1960s. He died of Tuberculosis on October 5, 1934 when he was 29.
More about Jean Vigo
Picture: lucidscreening

2) Egon Schiele



Austrian painter Egon Schiele is well known for his twisted body shapes repeating in many of his paintings and drawings. Schiele became one of the notable exponents of Expressionism but died of Influenza on October 31, 1918 when he was 28.
More about Egon Schiele
Picture: myspace

3) Janis Joplin



In 2004 American singer and songwriter Janis Joplin was ranked by the Rolling Stone magazine #46 on a list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. She was a heroin addict and died of heroin overdose on October 4, 1970 when she was 27.
More about Janis Joplin
Picture: herbgreenefoto

4) Kurt Cobain



American musician, singer, guitarist and songwriter Kurt Cobain was co-founder of the Seattle based rock band Nirvana and their leading singer. Even though there are many different versions for what really happened with that shotgun on April 5, 1994 the official version is that Cobain shot himself to death when he was 27.
More about Kurt Cobain
Picture: justnevermind

5) Brian Jones



British musician Brian Jones was a founding member, guitarist and multi-instrumentalist of British rock band The Rolling Stones. Jones drowned in his own private swimming pool in Sussex, England on 3 July 1969 when he was 27.
More about Brian Jones
Picture: preciousstones

6) Jim Morrison



American singer, poet, songwriter, writer and (frustrated) film director Jim Morrison, also known as The Lizard King and Mr. Mojo Risin', was the founder, leading singer and lyricist of the legendary rock band The Doors. Considered by many as the greatest, most charismatic and influential figure in rock history, Morrison ended up with very few friends and a heart attack while bathing in a Paris hotel room on July 3, 1971. He was 27.
More about Jim Morrison
Picture: dailymail.co.uk

7) Jimi Hendrix



American guitarist, singer and songwriter Jimi Hendrix is considered as one of the greatest and most influential guitar artists in rock music history. According to Dr. Bannister who attended the star at the time of his death Hendrix was drowned in his own vomit, almost entirely red wine served at an earlier party. The full circumstances which led to his death, however, have never been fully uncovered. Hendrix was 27.
More about Jimi Hendrix
Picture: guitarch

8) Jean Harlow



American film actress Jean Harlow was one of the most prominent sex symbols of the 1930s. Also known as the Platinum Blonde and The Blonde Bombshell, Harlow starred in several films, mainly designed to showcase her magnetic sex appeal. She died of uremic poisoning and kidney failure on June 7, 1937 when she was 26.
More about Jean Harlow
Picture: doctormacro

9) Sharon Tate



American film actress and Golden Globe-nominated Sharon Tate was one of Hollywood's most promising upcoming stars even before her marriage to genius film director Roman Polański. She was murdered on August 9, 1969 by the Charles Manson gang. Tate was 26 years old and two weeks from giving birth at the time of her horrific death. This famous photo (from John Gilmore and Ron Kramer's Manson: The Unholy Trail of Charlie and the Family) shows Tate on the murder day.
More about Sharon Tate
Picture: lehigh

10) Georg Heym



German poet Georg Heym is known for his outstanding groundbreaking expressionist poetry. He drowned in a frozen lake during a skating trip while trying to save his friend Ernst Balcke. It was January 16, 1912 and the genius poet was just 25.
More about Georg Heym
Picture: wikimedia

11) James Dean



Double Oscar-nominated American film actor James Dean became a cultural icon following his roll as Jim Stark in Nicholas Ray's monumental film Rebel Without a Cause. He played two more pantheon rolls (Cal Trask in East of Eden and as the Jett Rink in Stevens' Giant) but was killed in a car crash accident at the age of 24. Dean was one of the most talented and original style actors Hollywood has ever seen. He was the first actor to receive an "after death" Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. Actually, Dean the only actor ever received two such nominations.
More about James Dean
Picture: smu

12) Judy Tyler



American film actress Judy Tyler appeared in the 1957 film Bop Girl Goes Calypso but is mostly remembered for her co-starring with Elvis Presley in the movie Jailhouse Rock. After completing her part of the Presley movie filming Tyler and her husband Greg Lafayette went on a vacation. They were killed July 4, 1957 in a car accident north of Rock River, Wyoming. Tyler was only 24 when she died. She was so young she never got to watch any of her only two films.
More about Judy Tyler
Picture: elviswomen.greggers.net

13) River Phoenix



American film actor River Phoenix was an Academy Award and Golden Globe nominated and was listed on John Willis's Screen World, Vol. 38 as one of twelve "promising new actors of 1986". On the Halloween morning of October 31, 1993 Phoenix died of speedball (mix of heroin and cocaine) overdose outside a Hollywood night club named the Viper Room. He was 23.
More about River Phoenix
Picture: freewebz

14) Ian Curtis



British vocalist and lyricist Ian Curtis joined the new wave band Joy Division in 1976 and quickly became their undisputed leader. Years after his death Curtis is still a major source of inspiration and a subject for many other artists. Curtis hanged himself in his own kitchen on May 18, 1980 after watching Werner Herzog's Stroszek and listening to Iggy Pop's The Idiot. Amongst suggested reasons for his suicide are epilepsy related problems and failure of his marriage. He was 23 years old.
More about Ian Curtis
Picture: liverpool.com

15) Dominique Dunne



American actress Dominique Dunne appeared in several made for television movies, television series, and films but was most known for her role as Dana (the oldest daughter) in Poltergeist (1982). Dunne was strangled into coma on November 4, 1982 by her ex-boyfriend John Thomas Sweeney after she refused to reconcile with him. Sweeney, then a popular Los Angeles chef, strangled Dunne in the driveway of her home. She died a few days later, at the age of 22.
More about Dominique Dunne
Picture: nndb

16) Buddy Holly



American singer-songwriter and rock and roll inventor Charles Hardin Holley aka "Buddy Holly" is considered one of the most influential artists in pop music history but only lived to see about one and a half years of success. He was described as "the single most influential creative force in early rock and roll" and in 2004 ranked #13 on a list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time by the Rolling Stone magazine. He died in an airplane crash on February 3, 1959 on his way to Fargo, North Dakota. The plane took off in light snow and gusty winds at around 12:55 A.M., but crashed after only a few minutes.
More about Buddy Holly
Picture: buddy-holly.com

17) Sid Vicious



British punk musician John Simon Ritchie also known as Sid Vicious was the bass player of the Sex Pistols and one of the most prominent prophets of the punk-rock decade. He died of heroin overdose on February 2, 1979 at the age of 21.
More about Sid Vicious
Picture: dubhthachsidheag

18) Charles Sorley



Scottish war poet Charles Sorley volunteered for military service in England during World War I and arrived at the Western Front in France as a lieutenant in May 1915. He ranked Captain at the very early age of 20 but was shot in the head by a German sniper at the Battle of Loos on October 13, 1915 and died instantly.
More about Charles Sorley
Picture: thelondonseason

19) Divya Bharti



Indian film actress Divya Bharti born Divya Om Prakash Bharti was a popular Indian film actress in the early 1990s. Bharti was already a shining star in 1990 when she was just 16 years old. In 1992 she appeared in more than 14 Hindi films which was at the time a record for a newcomer to the Hindi film industry. Bharti's career was ended in April 5, 1993 when she mysteriously accidentally fell off a 5-storey apartment building in Mumbai. She was 19 when she died.
More about Divya Bharti
Picture: treklens

20) Tara Correa-McMullen



American actress Shalvah McMullen, better known with her stage name Tara Correa-McMullen, was mostly famous for her role as gang member Graciela Reyes on the CBS TV series Judging Amy. McMullen had just about enough time to co-star with Martin Lawrence in a first feature film - Rebound - but was murdered on October 21, 2005. She was just 16 when she died.
More about Tara Correa-McMullen
Picture: minorcon

Grindhouse: Planet Terror and Death Proof

Grindhouse is a 2007 anthology film co-written, produced and directed by Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino. The film's title derives from the U.S. film industry term "grindhouse", which refers to a movie theater specializing in B movies, often exploitation films, shown in a multiple-feature format.



Planet Terror: revolves around an outfit of rebels attempting to survive an onslaught of zombie-like creatures as they feud with a military unit.



Death Proof: focuses on a misogynistic, psychopathic stunt man who targets young women, murdering them with his "death proof" stunt car. Each feature is preceded by faux trailers of exploitation films in other genres that were developed by other directors.

Source: Wikipedia
See also: Grindhouse on imdb

My Top 5 Criticker Users & Critics 2007 Movie Mix

My friends Mike Powell and Juergen Horn from Criticker published a few very interesting top movie ranking lists for the year of 2007. Criticker is an innovative community platform dedicated to movie reviews. By using the Taste Compatibility Index (TCI), Criticker identify with whom you most agree, out of thousands. Claimed to be "much more than just movie recommendations" Criticker's algorithm pairs you with "the people whose tastes are most compatible with your own, and thus get the most accurate advice possible." (More about Criticker in this review). Following are the top 5 movies for 2007 which made it to the "top 10" lists of both Criticker Users and Critics. The final order is based on my personal preference. All trailers are from YouTube.

5. Hot Fuzz


4. Ratatouille


3. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street


2. Zodiac


1. The Bourne Ultimatum


For more 2007 movie ranking lists including Top 10 Movies 2007 by Criticker Users (Wide Release), Top 10 Movies 2007 by Critics on wide Release, Top 5 Movies 2007 by Criticker Users on limited Release, Top 5 Movies 2007 by Critics on limited Release, Worst 5 Movies 2007 by Criticker Users and Worst 5 Movies 2007 by Critics check on Best & Worst Movies of 2007 at Criticker.

[Top5 image courtesy strivepr.com]

Jathia's Wager: Open Source Social Movie Making

The opening scene in the first draft of Jathia's Wager shows a group of people is led by an old man to the edge of a dark forest looking outside into a new world:

EXT. GRASS FIELD - DAY: A dark forest sits at the end of a perfectly maintained sea of grass. Small clusters of buildings shimmer in the distance. A huddled group of people slowly walk through the grass toward the edge of the forest. Their faces turn deadly serious as they get closer to the edge. An old man with flowing gray hair leads the pack. He stops abruptly and holds up a fist. OLD MAN: This is as far as we go.

Change this old man with a young passionate dude, the forest with our existing life and the new world with the Internet and you might figure out the same metalanguage metaphor I see here, as Jathia’s Wager will be no ordinary movie.

Defined as "an open source collaborative filmmaking project" this project invites Internet community to re-interpret, revise, produce, reuse distribute and redistribute a movie for free. Officially announced on July 16, 2007 by Solomon Rothman Films the short Sci-Fi is planned to be telling the story of a "young man living in an isolated community of humans, who must make a life changing decision about his future and his species."

Other than being a cool movie buff and an avid blogger, Solomon Rothman is an American filmmaker living at Los Angeles who has already used the new challenges of online video revolution and released a full movie online. Boy Who Never Slept tells the story of a stagnant insomniac writer who meets a beautiful teenage girl online and falls into an "unlikely love story wrapped in hard reality" and with some sex. As Youtube only allow a maximum of 10 minutes per clip Rothman distributed it in 20 pieces. Took me a while to dig it out but here is the first piece, you can get the rest by searching Solomon Rothman on YouTube:



According to Rothman his hopes are that the new project of Jathia’s Wager "will fully explore the concept of open, collaborative filmmaking and inspire people to create a true open-source filmmaking community." We sure hope so too. It is not yet clear how "fully" it will really be at the end as it seems to be quite a new concept with many edges still remain unsolved. Yet, I think Rothman already deserves my applause for helping us take the first steps into... mmm... how shall we call that? Open Sources Social Movie Making? OSSMM?

Jathia's Wager is not the first collaborative open source movie. A Swarm of Angels, by Steve O'Hear, was recently announced to be moving into its next phase, which "should see the community grow to 5,000 paying members" from just under a thousand in June this year. This interesting article on linux.com titled Can open source methodology make a movie? claims the folks behind The Digital Tipping Point (DTP) are betting it can.

Main Jathia’s Wager page
First Jathia's Wager draft
Official press release
Forums

Between Two Rivers, my friend and the Saddam Hussein dreamroll

18 years ago, in 1989, I left The Department of the Theater Arts in Tel Aviv university and joined a fringe production written by a friend who was studying with me, and served as assistant for director Rami Danon who was already a well known and reputed theater director. The young writer was Ilan Hatzor and the play was named "Reulim" (AKA "Masked") which is the Hebrew word for the face cover used by Palestinian activists, demonstrators guerrilla fighters and terrorists.

The play was about the story of three Palestinian brothers struggling with their loyalty to duty, family, principles and survival when one of them is accused of collaboration during the first Intifada. After about a year of hard work we went to the Acco Fringe Theater Festival and won 5 first prizes for best play, best leading actor, best decoration (Amnon Levi) best soundtrack and best direction (Rami Danon).



After it was purchased by The Cameri, a leading Israeli theater production house, I continued working with the Reulim production for almost two years. It was one of the most exciting times in my life. We played all over the country about 10-12 times a month, earned well and had time for lots of others things. But I also made a few very good friends with some of the folks in this production, mainly with Yigal Naor, the leading roll actor who won the first prize for his performance and was already becoming a mega star in the sky of Israeli Theater. The play gained enormous success, helped Ilan become a leading play writer and was recently even launched in the DR2 Theater in Union Square, New York as you can see in the above screenshot.



Here is a short bio of Yigal Naor, shown above (with his dear friend and wife Lilach, btw, not just "with a guest...") written by Nathan Southern from All Movie Guide:

"A thickset character actor with an exotic countenance (piqued by his bushy black eyebrows and bald pate), Yigal Naor opted to parlay his appearance into gritty, evocative portrayals of thugs and heavies onscreen -- often, though not always, characters of expressly Middle Eastern origin. He took his premier onscreen bows around 1987 but peaked in activity approximately two decades later, in the early 2000s. Memorable portrayals included that of a principal in the 2004 Israeli comedy Bonjour Monsieur Shlomi, the terrorist Mahmoud Hamshari in Steven Spielberg's Munich (2005) and the intimidating head of an underground prison in the thriller Rendition (2007)."



I think I can safely say Yigal and I liked each other from the minute we met. Other than being a huge muscled body person with a thunder tenor voice and a genius stage performer, which was pretty cool, Yigal had a very interesting history and very special views about life. That would be mainly as opposed to me who was hardly 20 years old and didn't know much of anything. I guess you can say he was like my older brother but anyway, as we got closer I learned about Yigal the most important thing there is to know about an actor: his dream roll.



Having a string Iraqi roots with his family immigrated to Israel from Iraq, and the time being the days of before, during and after the first Gulf War, when Israel was hit by Iraqi Scad missiles, Yigal had this wild dream-roll fascination about playing former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in some "bigtime international production". Well guess what. I have this list of people I know who fulfilled their life dream and this morning I was informed (Thanks Tammy!) it needs to be updated as the following news was published June 26, 2007 on hollywoodreporter.com (G, I am late...):

"HBO Films and the BBC are co-producing a four-hour miniseries that recounts the 24-year reign of Saddam Hussein. The four-part miniseries, titled "Between Two Rivers," will offer a detailed look at the inner workings of Saddam's family and his relationship with his closest advisers and shed light on his 1979-2003 reign as president of Iraq. Yigal Naor ("Munich") is set to play Saddam, while Oscar-nominated actress Shohreh Aghdashloo ("House of Sand and Fog") will play his wife, Sajida. Another wife, Samira, will be portrayed by Christine Stephen-Daly ("The Bill")."

Well? what do you say about that? isn't this cool?



Between Two Rivers (IMDB)
Yigal Noar on IMDB
Masked in New York

Movies that changed Cinema: The African Queen - fiction meets reality

Some people say hunting elephants was the real type of activity director John Huston had in mind when he decided to do The African Queen. Anyway, right from the start, he insisted this is not going to be just another cardboard decorated studio feature. Ranked by the American Film Institute in 2007 as the 65 greatest movie of all time, The African Queen had to be made on location, where real crocodiles and leaches eat real people. Looking for the most perfect place to follow C. S. Forester's fascination, Huston had to fly 25,000 miles across the African continent until finding the right spot, on the Ruiki river in what then used to be Belgian Congo.



The magic chemistry between Katharine Hepburn (Rose Sayer) and Humphrey Bogart (Charlie Allnut) seen in this early color movie is of the most famous in motion picture history, as "other plot elements were secondary comparing to the quintessential love-hate relationship that went on between Rose and Charlie." Yet, the thing mostly remembered about this movie is that the making of The African Queen was an adventure, and not a very easy one for unexperienced explorers as the people who made it.



A book by Peter Viertel and the 1990 film White Hunter Black Heart directed by and starring Clint Eastwood, both sketched Peter Viertel's experiences working with Huston during the on-location filming on a time when, especially for American films outside of the USA, were very very rare. A 2000 article by Catherine Henry, describes the kind of experiences Hepburn, Bogart and the rest of Huston's crew had to cope with in a few short and very effective words:

"At a time (1951) when on-location shooting was nowhere near as common as today, traveling 1,100 miles up the Congo to make what is essentially a filmed dialogue must have seemed fanatical. And subsequent encounters with blood flukes, crocodiles, soldier ants, wild boars, stampeding elephants, malaria, and dysentery were hardly reassuring."

Just to make things clear, make no mistake: Huston was not the first director to shoot a large portion of his movie on location. Even in those early days some film makers, including himself, had already shot a few on location scenes "for realistic flavoring". Westerns being made on location, for example, were not very unusual back then and one of them - The Treasure of Sierra Madre - was even made in 1948 by Huston himself. Yet, as described by Robert Moore on this review of African Queen: Limited Commemorative Edition (1952) DVD, this was a very different case:

"in the 1940s and 1950s [...] films might go to a famous locale and shoot a couple of scenes for realistic flavoring, as with a couple of scenes in On The Town or An American In Paris. Many Westerns had been shot on location, but that was no great challenge given the close proximity of Hollywood to Western locales. John Huston had previously filmed The Treasure of Sierra Madre in Mexico, but going to the Congo and Uganda for extensive filming had rarely been attempted (sorry, all those Tarzan movies were filmed in California). It was a spectacular undertaking (which Katherine Hepburn recorded in a book she wrote about making The African Queen)."

And indeed, the "spectacular undertaking" experience had triggered many books and articles, some of them written by Hepburn herself. In her 1987 book The Making of The African Queen, or How I Went to Africa with Bogie, Bacall and Huston and Almost Lost My Mind, cited on IMDB, Hepburn describes the first African Queen shooting day, which required five cars and trucks to take the cast, crew and equipment three and a half miles from Biondo to the Ruiki river. They then loaded everything onto boats and sailed another two and a half miles to the shooting location. Hepburn describes Huston's obsession with hunting and how one day she was convinced to join Huston on one of his hunting journeys when he "inadvertently led her into the middle of a herd of wild animals" from which they were "lucky to escape alive."



Also, according to IMDB, dysentery, malaria, bacteria-filled drinking water and several close brushes with wild animals and poisonous snakes is just a partial list of the close encounters participants of this movie had to deal with. In addition, most of both cast and crew "were sick for much of the filming." Yet, other sources claimed almost everyone in the cast and crew got sick. Everyone except for Huston and Bogy, who attributed it to the fact that they basically lived on imported Scotch as later described by Bogart whom this role won him the only Oscar of his career: "All I ate was baked beans, canned asparagus and Scotch whiskey. Whenever a fly bit Huston or me, it dropped dead."



Sources
The African Queen, Wikipedia
White Hunter Black Heart, Wikipedia
Mark O'Hara, movie-page.com
The African Queen, Catherine Henry
The African Queen, IMDB
African Queen DVD review by Robert Moore

Image sources
* bennettauctions.com * movieposter.com * movietreasures.com * history.sandiego.edu * pressport.dk * britannica.com * filmreference.com * vims.edu

Previous Movies that changed Cinema articles
Jaws - the first Blockbuster

"Movies that changed Cinema: The African Queen - fiction made of reality” is the second in a series of articles about movie masterpieces that changed the face of cinema history. If you liked this article subscribe to CultCase RSS and stay posted on the next. Please feel free to post your comments or suggestions for next reviews. Thanks!

The return of Dr. Caligari

The first thought that came to my head when I saw the photos of the Film & Visual Media Research Center at the University of London’s Birkbeck College is that someone was crazy enough to color a copy of the cardboard decoration from my favorite horror movie The Cabinet of Dr Caligari, a 1921 silent B&W masterpiece from genius director Robert Wiene. Apparently I was not very far from truth and the Architects of this construction were aiming at people who realize how cool this movie was.



According to The Cool Hunter, a dot uk blog focusing on global zeitgeist phenomenas and fashion who posted these pictures, London-based Surface Architects created this magnificent new home for the institute using an old reconstructed building as a “cover” when basement, ground floor and the extension were transformed "Robert Wiene style" into a cinema auditorium, surrounded by all other necessities such as media study suite, seminar rooms and offices.



Ian Christie, Birkbeck’s Professor of Film and Media History, kind of said so himself when explaining how the projection of intersecting cones has various film associations and how “the jagged angles recall the Expressionist set design of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, an influential German film of 1921”. Here is a small taste of the original Dr. Caligari cardboard decoration, just in case you still didn't have the pleasure to watch it.



Lastly, as we live a new world where media is freely shared by movie buffs, here is folks: ten whole minutes with the Dr. and his human living-dead pat, hosted for you by a Google Inc. company. Thank you so very much Mr. BigBananaTV!

Movies that changed Cinema: Jaws - the first Blockbuster

On June 20, 1975 when Jaws was limitedly released at 409 theaters, followed by a wider release five days later into 675 theaters the word Blockbuster was still never used to describe a movie. American media needed a new word to describe what this movie did to people: Based on Peter Benchley's best-selling novel and inspired by a real event, audiences loved to be horrified by that movie so much that they were literally lined-up around street blocks, causing traffic jams, waiting to see it again and again.

Truly said, with films about aliens and dinosaurs, Spielberg is first and foremost a dreamer, and Alfred Hitchcock was the one to show us how much we love to be scarred. Yet, in the old world where people were still paying money to watch movies more than once Jaws will always be remembered as the one that showed us how much we are willing to pay to be afraid. “See it again, this time with your eyes open” said one of the movie advertisements and, indeed, some people had seen this movie much more than twice.



In his article The Summer Of Jaws, Ralph Grassi who was 11 years old when the movie hit the screens, tells about a guy named Vince Sculli who became known as "Joe Jaws" at the Blaker Theatre and was featured in the local press for seeing the movie 28 times. According to Grassi's story the two nightly performances at the 600 seat Blaker had sold out 28 consecutive times in its first two weeks. The photo above, taken in early July of 75', was published by AC Press and put online by Grassi who says his "life changed" when Jaws came to the Blaker Theatre:

“The build up of this movie overwhelmed me. The commercials alone had me bouncing off the walls with anticipation. Finally the moment had arrived... to wait in line with Mom and Dad for what seemed like forever. The line was the longest I had ever seen for a movie and the theatre was packed to capacity. I can still remember the nervous laughter of the audience after each gruesome death - their reactions carrying well into the next scene on the screen. I walked out of the theatre that night with a new agenda. School had just let out and I had the whole summer ahead of me to fantasize about sharks at the Jersey shore.”

On June 23, 1975, just three days after its official release, the phenomenal success of Spielberg's low-budget shark thriller made the Time cover. According to Wikipedia on its first weekend Jaws grossed more than $7 million, and was the top grosser for the following five weeks.

During its run in theaters, the Jaws beat the $89 million domestic rentals of the reigning box-office champion, The Exorcist - an Academy Award-winning horror thriller and one of the most profitable horror films of all time - and became the first film to reach more than $100 million in theatrical rentals. Eventually, Jaws grossed more than $470 million worldwide (around $1.85 billion in 2006 dollars) and was the highest grossing box-office hit until George Lucas' Star Wars was released two years later.



For a fantastic high-res flashback experience click the above US 1 One Sheet Original Movie Poster (27x41 ROLLED NEVER FOLDED) from cinemasterpieces.com that was available for you to purchase for $1595.00 until it was sold out. As they say, “Rolled originals DO EXIST!!” but “Almost impossible to find.”



"Movies that changed Cinema: Jaws - the first Blockbuster” is the first in a series of articles about movie masterpieces that changed the face of cinema history. If you liked this article subscribe to CultCase RSS and stay posted on the next. Please feel free to post your comments or suggestions for next reviews. Thanks!

Criticker: Movie taste now shares better

The folks from Criticker, reviewed here last Friday, seem to doing lots of extra hours lately and when folks does that I tend to take my hat off as its not easy: following a recent successful launching of a Facebook movie application (screenshot above) Criticker just announced their new movie widget yesterday. Blogoholic movie buffs are now invited to publish their personal movie taste not just on their FaceBook profile but also on any blog template and website supporting html widgets. The widget is auto updated with the recently ranked list every 24 hours.

To get your widget code, login to your Criticker account (don't have one? get one here) and then go to the Resources page. The page serves all sorts of buttons and code streams including personal feeds, links & buttons, general feeds and widgets. The following is for my Recently Ranked Films.



With the Criticker Facebook app you can show your recently ranked movies directly from your FaceBook profile. You can also track rankings from your friends and get recommendations on new releases directly from Facebook. If you like movies and have a FaceBook account you can get the app at http://apps.facebook.com/criticker/. Meanwhile I found out about two more witty articles reviewing Criticker so I thought it might be a good idea to mention them here. Just to show I am not the only weirdo who like this:

Criticker - Movie Recommendations Based on Taste
Community Site Criticker.com – A Review

Snarkerati: Top 50 Dystopian Movies of All Time

If you liked my toughest movie characters review From Sam Spade to Harry Callahan: toughest movie characters of all times here is some light Sunday afternoon reading for you to enjoy with your cookies.

The Free Dictionary defines dystopia as an "imaginary place or state in which the condition of life is extremely bad, as from deprivation, oppression, or terror." I stumbled upon this fantastic subject review titled Top 50 Dystopian Movies of All Time from snarkerati.com on Wolfman5750's movies.



The article follows up on the dystopia concept as reflected in some of the most morbid film noir masterpieces ever made, movies where "massive dehumanization, totalitarian government, rampant disease, post-apocalyptic terrains, cyber-genetic technologies, societal chaos and widespread urban violence are some of the common themes".



Thus, from Kathryn Bigelow Sci-Fi thriller Strange Days (1995) and Alex Proyas' I Robot (2004) to Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange (1971) and Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927), In contrast to utopian realities and fictions, the dystopian worlds described in those movies are "undesirable with poverty and unequal domination by specific individuals over others". Fantastic review with great pictures and a long (295) list of commentators and comments as it should be when its just that good.



Snarkerati.com is edited by a young group of pop culture fans addicted to entertainment and the arts, monitoring Hollywood and other international entertainment issues including feature articles, latest celebrity gossip, TV and movie news. If you like well made movie reviews, don't miss this one: Top 50 Dystopian Movies of All Time

Criticker: Movies taste better and It's scientific (kind of)

Mike Powell and Juergen Horn are based in the small fishing village of Killala, in Ireland's picturesque County Mayo. Other than this they are also fearless entrepreneurs and the creators of Criticker, a film recommendation and community website that matches people who share similar taste in film. By using the Taste Compatibility Index (TCI), Criticker identify with whom you most agree, out of thousands. Claimed to be "much more than just movie recommendations" Criticker's algorithm pairs you with "the people whose tastes are most compatible with your own, and thus get the most accurate advice possible."



I have been a heavy user of imdb and Wikipedia for years as far as it concerns to movie references. Yet, both of them are not very suitable in the sense of immediate social interaction and networking. Movie blogs are much better in that. Thus, when I stumbled Criticker I had to give it a chance. registration went pretty easy and after a short few min I was already submitting my first "mini-reviews" aiming to obtain the first 10 required to participate in the Taste Compatibility Index (TCI). I am always interested with ranking and matching algorithms so here are just a few more words about how Criticker' TCI works:

"The lower the TCI, the greater the tendency to agree on which movies ruled and which sucked. Once you've ranked a handful of movies at Criticker, you can generate TCIs with everyone in the community -- both normal users and published critics. It's better than just finding a few people with whom you generally agree -- Criticker will show you the exact people whose tastes are the most similar to your own. It's scientific (kind of)!"



I won't get into all the details about this matching system, lets just say I think it might work so I am going to give it a try. More detailed explanation and cute demonstration here. Meanwhile I have already put up eight mini-reviews and have two more to go. Following are my seven with the overall grade I have given them: Breathless (100), The Terminator (90) Raiders of the Lost Ark (90), Memento (90), The Lost World: Jurassic Park (90), The Terminal (80) Once Upon a Time in Mexico (80) and The Lion King (70).

I also felt like sharing one of them entirely as it refers to one of my favorite movies of all times and I was looking for a suitable opportunity to put something of it up on this blog. So here it is, my review of the most beautiful love movie ever made, namely Jean-Luc Godard's À bout de souffle AKA Breathless in English speaking countries:



"Under no circumstances don't mix this 1960 French New Wave masterpiece - À bout de souffle by Jean-Luc Godard - with the 1983 Richard Gere remake. À bout de souffle changed the face of the cinema in so many aspects it's hard to think of many others alike. The Jump-Cut, to point one example, was considered as a mistake when this movie was released to the screens. Thus, along with making À bout de souffle Godard had also invented the video clip. Seberg and Belmondo make you want to fall in love."

My Criticker profile
Criticker blog

Hollywood dinosaurs: social video is behind you!

Four Eyed Monsters was the first original feature film ever to be released on YouTube. Developed by Arin Crumley and Susan Buice from a video blog and became public on June 8, 2007 the film seem to be gaining great success in many parameters, mainly in terms of public awareness.

With a total view count of 810,505 when this article was made and still counting, Four Eyed Monsters has already been favorited by 5,296 users, rated by 5318 and commented 3,374 times all summing it up to a 4/5 stars grade movie. I think its safe to say "the people" like both the idea of consuming feature films online and this particular implementation of it. Four Eyed Monsters "made it".

Social video

The Four Eyed Monsters project "started small" with just Crumley and Buice "writing each other notes and sending each other videos". Then, according to the couple, it evolved into creating a feature length film about their story. The movie was of course blogged all over the place and got to be the talk of the day for quite some time. I particularly liked this comment posted by Mike Abundo on insideonlinevideo.com:

Hollywood dinosaurs who think social video is restricted to bite-sized entertainment are in for a full-length dose of reality. Four Eyed Monsters an autobiographical Bohemian love story, is the first original feature-length film on YouTube.

Perhaps somewhat obvious at first yet not a trivial phenomena at all, there are also excellent short films on YouTube taking this great form of art from the darkness of esoteric filmoholics scene to the sunlight of the public eye. Armistice by Triune Films was the first professional short film for me to actually watch and enjoy on YouTube. Triune Films is an Independent production company based in South Florida. Hollywood dinosaurs: social video is behind you.

High Heels on Wet Pavement: Film Noir and the Femme Fatale

Defined as “an irresistibly attractive woman, especially one who leads men into danger or disaster” Femme Fatale characters have always been one of the most important aspects of every respectable film noir classics.

Michael Mills from moderntimes.com wrote this wonderful piece about his Femme Fatale favorites, naming the stunning image of Lana Turner, as the camera pans from her ankles upward in that breathtaking shot from “The Postman Always Rings Twice” 1946 as his most engaging semblance of a “femme fatale”. Don't miss the chapter about Vera played with "absolute aplomb by the very underrated" Ann Savage at Edgar G. Ulmer’s Detour - one of my favorite film noir of all times.

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Until the End of the World: Days

Released in 1991 by the German-born film director Wim Wenders, Until the End of the World (German: Bis ans Ende der Welt) has been a culture milestone for quite a few people I know. Wenders' career had always been distinguished by his mastery of the road movie and according to Wikpedia had intended this piece as "the Ultimate Road Movie".

I remember how thrilled were everyone before it was released in Israel (well perhaps not everyone but everyone who likes good movies...) as well as finally watching it when it finally came (Haifa's Cinémathèque...). It was not even clear what this movie is all about as the plot is very hard to describe. We just knew it was about the "future" and being avid futurists at the time, a movie about "the future" sounded very promising coming from Wenders :)

About two and a half years ago before Carmel was born and we were still watching late night movies together I got a copy of the director cut DVD and we had the privilege to see it together. The following is our favorite scene in the movie - a magic millennium party with colorful garland lights and a a fantastic unplugged version preformed by Claire Tourneur (Solveig Dommartin) doing Kirsty MacColl's "Days". Held by a squad of the most "powerful" living actors at the time, this scene mixes death, sorrow and happiness in the most Wendersed way there is.

I'd like to dedicate this song and post to my loving wife who has been sharing her moments with me for six years already.

Days by Kirsty MacColl

Thank you for the days
Those endless days, those sacred days you gave me
I'm thinking of the days
I won't forget a single day believe me

I bless the light
I bless the light that lights on you believe me
And though you're gone
You're with me every single day believe me

Days I'll remember all my life
Days when you can't see wrong from right
You took my life
But then I knew that very soon you'd leave me
But it's alright
Now I'm not frightened of this world believe me

I wish today could be tomorrow
The night is long
It just brings sorrow let it wait

Thank you for the days
Those endless days, those sacred days you gave me
I'm thinking of the days
I won't forget a single day believe me

Days I'll remember all my life
Days when you can't see wrong from right
You took my life
But then I knew that very soon you'd leave me
But it's alright
Now I'm not frightened of this world believe me

Days

Thank you for the days
Those endless days, those sacred days you gave me
I'm thinking of the days
I won't forget a single day believe me

I bless the light
I bless the light that lights on you believe me
And though you're gone
You're with me every single day believe me

Days