Saturday, May 31, 2014
Phone scammers impersonate Yavapai Co. deputies
Authorities say phone scammers are impersonating Yavapai County Sheriff's deputies.
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Black bear takes break in hammock at Fla. home
Some bears have gotten into the habit, it seems, of visiting neighborhoods, and on Thursday, one was literally caught hanging around -- in a Daytona Beach man's hammock.
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US soldier freed from captivity in Afghanistan
Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl was handed over to U.S. special forces by the Taliban Saturday evening, local time, in an area of eastern Afghanistan, near the Pakistani border.
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Friday, May 30, 2014
Cards' Daryl Washington suspended for 1 year
The punishment, announced Friday, was for substance abuse and did not mention his recent guilty plea to assaulting his ex-girlfriend.
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Thursday, May 29, 2014
PD: 1 dead after motorcycle crash in Phoenix
One person is dead after a motorcycle crash in north Phoenix.
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Arizona child welfare overhaul passes Senate
The Arizona Senate has approved Gov. Jan Brewer's overhaul of the state's child welfare agency after stripping out an extra $3 million added by Democrats for prevention services.
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Oak Creek Canyon evacuation order to be lifted
According to a Thursday morning report, the Slide Fire is now 55 percent contained. It has burned approximately 21,067 acres.
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Wednesday, May 28, 2014
Tuesday, May 27, 2014
Semi-truck hits overpass on I-17 in Phoenix
Traffic is delayed after a semi-truck hit an overpass on Interstate 17 in Phoenix on Tuesday morning.
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Monday, May 26, 2014
Box Office: Six Lessons From a Weak Memorial Day Weekend
1. A little competition is good for everybody. Last year’s Memorial Day weekend, which saw two would-be blockbusters aimed at similar audiences (“Fast & Furious 6" and "The Hangover Part III”) open head to head, resulted in a $250 million weekend at the box office for the top 10 movies. This year’s lopsided bout between superhero sequel “X-Men: Days of Future Past" and Adam Sandler comedy "Blended" resulted in a holiday weekend take about 29 percent behind last year’s.
2. Every potential revenue source counts. “X-Men” enjoyed the fifth-biggest Memorial Day weekend debut ever, with an estimated $90.7 million from Friday to Sunday and a projected $110.0 million over the four-day weekend. Still, that was on the low end of expectations. After all, the second-biggest Memorial Day weekend opening belonged to 2006’s “X-Men: The Last Stand" (which was the last time — until now — that we got to see the original X-Men cast playing the iconic mutant heroes), and its $102.8 million was scored at cheaper ticket prices, and without the benefit of 3D or IMAX. The new X-film did have 3D but not IMAX to boost ticket prices. Imagine if it had opened on a couple hundred of the giant screens; it could have cracked $100 million in three days.
3. This year’s blockbusters ain’t what they used to be. Among 2014’s biggest movies to date, the biggest so far is actually “The LEGO Movie,” at $254.5 million. “Captain America: The Winter Soldier" is only $1 million (and probably a couple of days) shy of surpassing it. Otherwise, however, the $250 million mark appears out of reach to the remaining current blockbusters, including "The Amazing Spider-Man 2" ($184.9 million to date), "Godzilla" ($148.8 million), "Divergent” ($147.9 million), and “X-Men: Days of Future Past.” That doesn’t mean we won’t get bigger hits later in the summer, but so far, they’re not swinging for the fences.
4. Adam Sandler’s audience is… who? On paper, “Blended” looks like a smart idea, pairing Sandler with Drew Barrymore for the third time, and counter-programming the romantic comedy against an action spectacle. But the film opened in third place with just $14.2 million from Friday to Sunday and a likely $18 million over the entire holiday weekend. That’s well below expectations, which were around $25 million for the first three days and $30 million for the four-day weekend.
The problems here are many: First, the adolescents who like Sandler’s bathroom humor and slapstick, as well as the women who might be drawn by Barrymore, were both more likely to go see “X-Men” this weekend. Or, if they were in the mood for a comedy, the still-strong “Neighbors" (No. 4 this weekend with an estimated $13.9 million three-day take and a projected $17.3 million four-day take). Also, "Blended" earned very poor reviews, which is typical for Sandler film but usually not a factor for his under-25 viewers. But this one was also trying to target adults, who do care about reviews. Sandler, who used to be able to count on $40 million opening weekends, has been very hit-or-miss at the box office in recent years, perhaps because, as he ages and addresses adult topics like marriage, parenthood, and divorce, his hot-tempered boy-man persona remains juvenile, as does his humor. Again, "Neighbors" seems to have addressed this same adult/adolescent divide a lot more deftly.
5. Speaking of adults, the studios haven’t quite forgotten about them. This week’s chart offers a couple of interesting test cases. One is “Million Dollar Arm,” which slipped only a modest 33 percent from last week’s debut for a three-day take estimated at $7.1 million and a total to date of $20.6 million (a projected $21.8 million by the end of the holiday). That’s not great for a movie that cost $25 million to make, but what’s more astonishing is that a big studio like Disney even made a $25 million movie, instead of spending under $15 million for a comedy or horror movie or $100 million or more on a cartoon or a summer spectacle. The midrange movie, typically a drama made for grown-ups, either appears only at the end of the year (awards season) or not at all. So it’s a big deal that Disney tried to launch one this summer, and that it hasn’t really panned out in a way that will encourage Disney or any other major studio to try again any time soon.
On the other hand, there’s also Jon Favreau’s “Chef,” which finally expanded wide this weekend (to nearly 500 screens) and cracked the top 9 as a result (with an estimated $2.3 million through Sunday and a likely $2.9 million through Monday). On that scale (it’s playing in only one-sixth as many theaters as “Million Dollar Arm,”) the movie looks like a promising success, one that might continue to grow throughout the summer as the studios fight for kiddie dollars at the multiplex. (It doesn’t hurt that “Chef“‘s distributor is Open Road, owned by the same corporate parents as Regal and AMC, two of the nation’s biggest theater chains, so it should be able to hold on to its screens longer than it otherwise might.)
6. Those accusations against director Bryan Singer don’t seem to have had any effect on the box office for “X-Men: Days of Future Past.” This is true not just in North America, but in more than 100 other countries where “X-Men” opened this weekend, to the tune of $261.8 million worldwide. So, that’s good news for Woody Allen and Roman Polanski.
Photo courtesy Warner Bros.
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Sunday, May 25, 2014
Saturday, May 24, 2014
Friday, May 23, 2014
Proof That Will Ferrell is One of Late Night's Funniest Guests (VIDEO)
Will Ferrell got his big break at “Saturday Night Live”, so it’s no surprise that he tends to totally kill it when he hits up a late night talk show. The funnyman is always full of surprises, wacky costumes, and silly stunts and last night’s appearance on “The Tonight Show" was no exception.
Here he is having an epic drum-off with Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith. Necessary spoiler alert: there is cowbell involved.
But do you remember when he stopped by “Conan" as Ron Burgundy? Magical flute solo ahead:
He’s quite the musical fellow, isn’t he? Here is he on “The Late Show" singing a Christmas carol with The Vienna Boys Choir. Try not to smile:
Will once participated in the “mean tweets" segment on "Jimmy Kimmel Live" while sitting on a toilet:
And last but not least, the time he “figure skated” to the “Downton Abbey" theme in an amazing get-up:
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Xavier Dolan: Who Is the Canadian Movie Director?
Canadian filmmaker Xavier Dolan is garnering rave reviews for “Mommy,” a work that he has in competition for the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival.
But how did the 25-year-old Montreal director come to be the toast of the world’s most prestigious film festival?
Dolan, a former child actor, presented a screenplay to prominent Quebec actress Anne Dorval when he was 16 years old, The Globe and Mail reports.
She called him back with suggestions, but he soon told her to forget that screenplay altogether. He had a new idea for a movie about a difficult relationship between a homosexual teen and his mother.
Dolan would play the boy and Dorval his mother.
That film, “J’ai tué ma mere (I Killed My Mother)” would become the toast of Cannes in 2009, taking three prizes in the Directors’ Fortnight section, including the Art Cinema Award and a writers’ award for top French film.
Dolan was also in the running for the Caméra d’Or prize for first-time filmmakers.
It’s been all uphill since then for the filmmaker, whose second film “Les Amour Imaginaires (Heartbeats)” screened in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes 2010 and won the Sydney Film Prize at that year’s Sydney Film Festival.
His subsequent film “Laurence Anyways” played Un Certain Regard at Cannes 2012, while his fourth film, “Tom à la Ferme,” (“Tom at the Farm”) was nominated for the Golden Lion at the 2013 Venice International Film Festival.
And now, just five years since he came on the scene, Dolan could win one of the world’s most coveted film prizes next to a Best Picture Oscar.
He has competition, with films by the likes of Jean-Luc Godard, fellow Canadian David Cronenberg, Ken Loach, and Mike Leigh also in the running for the Palme d’Or.
But what an achievement it would be to become the first Canadian ever to take the prize.
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'X-Men: Days of Future Past' Review: Answering the Questions It Leaves Unanswered
As a sequel to both “X-Men: The Last Stand" and the 2011 reboot "First Class," director Bryan Singer’s film brings the two casts together for "X-Men: Days of Future Past.” Starting in a dystopian future, what’s left of the team (plus a few newcomers) is being hunted down by unstoppable mutant-killing robots called Sentinels.
As far as they can tell, the nightmare was all set into motion back in 1973, thanks to Jennifer Lawrence's Mystique (no spoilers here, but she did something even worse than putting metal in the science oven). That means the ageless Logan (played by the equally ageless Hugh Jackman, as always), or at least his consciousness, must be transported back in time to warn a young Professor Xavier (James McAvoy) and young Magneto (Michael Fassbender) before it’s too late to stop her.
Granted, it’s a lot to process, but by now, we’ve learned better than to think too hard about movie time travel. And actually, “X-Men: Days of Future Past” is pretty darn good, especially when you stack it up against some of the other entries in the franchise (ahem, “The Last Stand”). But even though it does its best to answer most of the questions you could possibly have about the retconning time travel plot — like “Is the future truly set?” and “Hey, wait, shouldn’t Xavier be dead and/or paralyzed?” — there’s still a few questions it leaves unanswered.
Why does everyone love Mystique so much?
Everybody loves Jennifer Lawrence (and rightly so); there’s no questioning that. But “Days of Future Past” is downright obsessed with Mystique, and it’s a little strange. She’s everything every single character, from mutant to human, ever seems to want to talk about. Even our main antagonist Bolivar Trask (an underused Peter Dinklage) gets a dreamy, faraway look in his eyes at the thought of her. You can’t blame the filmmakers for wanting to capitalize on the fact that Lawrence has turned into one of the hottest actresses in Hollywood since the pre-“Hunger Games” “First Class,” but “Days of Future Past” is overflowing with great actors. At times, it feels like the entire movie was written around Mystique just because it’s Lawrence underneath all that blue makeup, not because it’s an especially compelling character.
Why would anyone ever (willingly) take part in Beast’s medical trials?
You have to give the movie credit: when Logan first sees McAvoy’s Professor X stroll down the stairs in 1973, he’s just as incredulous as the rest of us (and he didn’t even see “First Class”). But as Xavier explains, it’s all thanks to the work of Nicholas Hoult's Hank. Just to recap for a second, in the last movie, Hank created a drug meant to “cure” his mutant feet and ended up accidentally turning himself into a blue cat person (now it's more of a Jekyll and Hyde thing). And that's the guy the Professor put in charge of curing his paralysis? It's no surprise, then, when the treatment comes with side effects, like that regaining the use of his legs means losing his telepathic powers — which makes zero sense, but then again, this is a movie about time traveling mutants fighting giant robots, so it's kind of a sliding scale.
Who gets custody of Quicksilver?
Hands down, one of the most entertaining sequences in “Days of Future Past” is the introduction of Peter Maximoff, aka Quicksilver (played here by Evan Peters), a speedy mutant who makes a brief but memorable appearance. Problem is, Marvel’s “Avengers” sequel also plans to feature the character (along with his sister Scarlet Witch), as played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson. Confusing? You bet. Turns out, after some negotiation, both franchises share the rights to Quicksilver (who, in the comics, is an early member of the Avengers, as well as Magneto’s son). Ultimately though, Singer’s treatment of Quicksilver is emblematic of a large issue — unlike with Marvel, there’s no grand plan in place; he’s not especially integral to the plot here, it just seemed cool to include him (and it is). But really, that’s exactly how they painted themselves into this corner in the first place, by tossing out characters and storylines with no apparent regard for the future.
What was that groundskeeper doing at RFK Stadium?
There’s no shortage of continuity questions as a result of Singer smashing together the two casts, but for the most part, those can be explained away by the “alternate timeline” catch-all. (Or, you know, the fact that this is a summer blockbuster based on a comic book.) But there is one glaring problem: when Magneto rips D.C.’s RFK Stadium straight out of the ground in 1973, he does so while a confused groundskeeper is busy putting down foul lines on the baseball diamond. Considering the Washington Senators had already left for Texas by 1971, apparently even the MLB’s history isn’t immune from rewrites.
When will they let Hugh Jackman retire?
“Days of Future Past” marks Jackman’s record seventh time playing Wolverine, and while he’s just as fun to watch in the role now as he was some 14 years ago (and he’s somehow even more ripped), it seemed like the whole point of the “First Class” reboot was to infuse new blood into the series and take it in a different direction. Thanks to his character’s immortality, Jackman is the only actor currently in the middle of the old and new cast Venn diagram, but eventually, they’re going to need to find someone else capable of carrying the franchise, instead of just relying on what’s worked in the past.
What happens now?
In what has to make “Days of Future Past” the most ambitious reboot ever, Singer’s film doesn’t just successfully alter world history, it rewrites the entire franchise, correcting a lot of issues fans had with “The Last Stand.” Of course, that comes at the expensive of turning the original trilogy into the product of an alternate universe. And while it’s always fun to see old favorites like Sirs Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen again, it’s hard to care about their characters’ future (or their pasts) when they can be changed at any point. The obligatory post-credits scene holds some clues to the plot of the next sequel, “X-Men: Apocalypse” (although you’ll need a comic fan to explain them to you), but thanks to Singer, the franchise is now capable of calling on either cast, new or old, moving forward. Problem is, that trick only works once.
"X-Men: Days of Future Past" is now playing in theatres.
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This Is the 'Midnight Cowboy' Legacy, From A to Z
It’s a shock to go back and watch “Midnight Cowboy" 45 years after its debut (on May 25, 1969) and see how raw and otherworldly it looks. After all, the X-rated Best Picture Oscar-winner has been so thoroughly assimilated into American pop culture that even kiddie entertainments like the Muppets have copied from it.
The tale of the unlikely friendship between naïve Texas gigolo Joe Buck (Jon Voight) and frail Bronx con man Enrico “Ratso” Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman), “Midnight Cowboy” was initially considered so risqué that it’s the only X-rated movie ever to win the Academy’s top prize (though after it won, the ratings board reconsidered and gave the film an R). Still, the film featured two lead performances and a few individual scenes that were so iconic that homages (and parodies) have popped up virtually everywhere. (Most often imitated is the scene where Ratso, limping across a busy Manhattan street, is nearly flattened by a taxi and shouts at the driver, “I’m walkin’ here!”) Plus, “Midnight Cowboy” launched the careers of several film artists, many of whom are still flourishing today.
So here is a list, from A to Z, that attests to the movie’s ongoing influence after all these years.
”The Amazing Spider-Man.” In the 2012 comic-book adaptation, webslinger Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) swoops through the canyons of Manhattan, shouting, “I’m swingin’ here!”
”Back to the Future Part II.” By the year 2015, there’s so much traffic in Hill Valley that Marty McFly Jr. (Michael J. Fox) finds himself shouting, “I’m walkin’ here!” at a futuristic vehicle.
Bob Balaban. The actor made his film debut as the closeted student who hires Joe for a furtive encounter in a Times Square movie theater. He’s since gone on to a distinguished career as a character actor (he’s a regular in Christopher Guest’s comedies), director, and producer (he produced “Gosford Park" and appears in it as a Hollywood producer). His uncle, Barney Balaban, once ran Paramount Pictures and was an architect of the McCarthy-era blacklist that derailed the careers of many filmmakers, including "Midnight Cowboy" screenwriter Waldo Salt.
"The Blacklist." Given the role of the Hollywood blacklist in Salt’s life, it’s ironic that the current NBC thriller series (which has nothing to do with McCarthyism) featured in a 2014 episode a thug character known as “Midnight Cowboy.”
”Borat.” The 2006 comedy smash included a sequence where Sacha Baron Cohen’s naïve outsider walks the streets of Manhattan to the sounds of Harry Nilsson’s “Everybody’s Talkin’,” just like Joe Buck.
”The Boys in the Band.” William Friedkin’s 1970 movie about a group of gay friends in Manhattan was one of the first films to take advantage of the freedoms afforded by the envelope-pushing content of “Midnight Cowboy.” One character rents his friend a hustler and refers to the gigolo as a “midnight cowboy.”
”Forrest Gump.” The 1994 film contains the most famous of all “Midnight Cowboy” homages, in a scene set around the time of “Midnight Cowboy“‘s release, as Gary Sinise's legless Lt. Dan apes the “I'm walkin' here” shot while trying to cross a New York street, as Nilsson's “Everybody's Talkin'” plays on the soundtrack.
”The Freshman.” The first few minutes of the film, in which Matthew Broderick's Manhattan newbie is hustled out of his savings, only to meet the thief (Bruno Kirby) on the street and then become hopelessly entangled in his mischief, echoes Joe Buck's arrival in New York and his early encounters with Ratso.
Gay cinema. Director John Schlesinger was openly gay (at least within the film industry), and he carefully crafted “Midnight Cowboy” to appeal to both a gay audience starved for images of itself and a mainstream audience that could recognize humanity even in such marginalized characters. The film kicked open a closet door that allowed other filmmakers to explore more directly themes of gay identity, from “The Boys in the Band” to “Brokeback Mountain" and beyond. It also allowed future openly gay directors (including Gus Van Sant, Todd Haynes, and Bill Condon) to work both sides of the street, making mainstream Hollywood films as well as films about the gay experience.
”Glee.” On the Fox high-school-musical series, a character referred to blond Sam as “Midnight Cowboy.”
Jerome Hellman. Hellman was nearly penniless and had been abandoned by his wife and kids when Schlesinger hired him to produce “Midnight Cowboy.” After he claimed the movie’s Best Picture trophy on Oscar night in 1970, Hellman was suddenly an A-lister. He only produced a few more movies, including Schlesinger’s “The Day of the Locust,” Voight’s smash “Coming Home, ” and Harrison Ford's acclaimed “The Mosquito Coast.”
Dustin Hoffman. Not wanting to be typecast after his star-making role as preppy Benjamin Braddock in “The Graduate,” Hoffman proved his versatility by playing the scruffy, streetwise Ratso and earned an Oscar nomination in the process. Seven years later, Hoffman reunited with Schlesinger to star in another gritty New York drama, the hit “Marathon Man.” Of course, he’s continued to prove his chameleon-like skills in lead and character parts to this day, earning two Oscars along the way, but Ratso remains an iconic role in his career and one that helped put him on the map.
Adam Holender. The Polish immigrant, recommended to Schlesinger by Roman Polanski, made his big-screen debut as cinematographer on “Midnight Cowboy.” Shooting with an outsider’s point of view that suited the characters, Holender created a gritty and garish depiction of New York that influenced films for the next quarter-century, including some others that he shot, from 1971’s “Panic in Needle Park,” to 1995’s “Smoke.”
"Lost." Among the many flashback scenes in the landmark ABC sci-fi series are two featuring characters emulating the “I’m walkin’ here” scene: Sawyer (Josh Holloway) and Arzt (Daniel Roebuck).
Sylvia Miles. Miles, who is a real-life New York character and something of an institution at 81, appeared in the film as Cass, who out-hustles Joe when she becomes his first pick-up. She was on screen for only about five minutes, but that was enough to earn her a Best Supporting Actress nomination. She’d earn another for 1975’s “Farewell, My Lovely" and went on to make memorable appearances in "Crossing Delancey" (as the matchmaker) and the two "Wall Street" films (as the realtor).
The Muppets. The streetwise, Bronx-accented character Rizzo the Rat, who appears in various Muppet films, has a name that’s a punning twist on Ratso Rizzo.
"Mystery Science Theater 3000." During several bad movies watched over the course of the series, scenes with film characters walking down urban streets or trying to cross against traffic would inspire Joel, Mike, or one of the robots to start singing “Everybody’s Talkin’,” or to shout variations on “I’m walkin’ here!”
Harry Nilsson. Nilsson was working as a bank teller when the “Midnight Cowboy” filmmakers found his demo tape and used his rendition of Fred Neil’s ballad “Everybody’s Talkin’” throughout the movie. The song became a big hit and launched Nilsson’s career as one of the most beloved singer-songwriters of the 1970s.
"Northern Exposure." A dream sequence from this 1990s CBS comedy series shows aspiring filmmaker Ed’s (Darren Burrows) imagining New Yorker Joel (Rob Morrow) and Southerner Chris (John Corbett) costumed as Ratso and Joe and re-enacting the “I’m walkin’ here” scene.
Other kiddie entertainment. Besides the Muppets, several other children’s movies and TV shows pay tribute to “Midnight Cowboy,” usually by parodying the “I’m walkin’ here” scene. Among them are Disney’s cartoon “Hercules,” DreamWorks’ “The Madagascar Penguins in A Christmas Caper” and “Shrek the Third" (where the vehicle is a carriage instead of a taxi), "Barbie Mariposa and Her Butterfly Fairy Friends" (one says, "I’m flying here!"), "Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian" (where Owen Wilson's buckaroo Jedediah refers to himself as a “midnight cowboy”), “My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic” (one horse says the line after nearly colliding with another), and “Pound Puppies: King of the Heap.”
”Repo Man.” Miller’s (Tracey Walter) line, “John Wayne was a fag” recalls Joe and Ratso’s argument over whether Joe’s garish cowboy suit makes him more of a sexual fantasy object to women or men. Ratso says the Western-wear makes Joe look like a “fag,” to which Joe retorts that John Wayne dresses like that, adding “John Wayne! You wanna tell me he’s a fag?” As it turned out, both Voight and Hoffman were nominated for Best Actor Oscars but lost to Wayne himself, who won his only Academy Award that year for “True Grit.”
Jennifer Salt. The daughter of screenwriter Waldo Salt, she appears in flashbacks in “Midnight Cowboy” as Joe’s ex-girlfriend. (In real life, she moved in with Voight off-screen as well.) She went on to appear in such classic 1970s movies as “Brewster McCloud" and "Sisters" before finding her greatest fame on TV’s "Soap" as Eunice Tate." Later, she quit acting and, inspired by her father’s example, took up writing for TV and movies. That second career has flourished in her collaborations with producer/director Ryan Murphy, which include the film "Eat Pray Love" (Salt and Murphy adapted Elizabeth Gilbert’s memoir) and the hit FX series "Nip/Tuck" and "American Horror Story" (Salt served as a writer and producer on both shows).
Waldo Salt. Salt’s screenwriting career began under an MGM contract in the 1930s, but his communist ties led to his being forced out of Hollywood during the blacklist of the 1950s. After a decade of writing for TV under a pseudonym, he began to write screenplays again. An unproduced script brought him to the attention of Hellman and Schlesinger, who hired him to adapt James Leo Herlihy’s novel “Midnight Cowboy.” The script would win Salt an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay and put him back in demand. He was nominated for another Oscar for co-writing another gritty New York classic, “Serpico,” and he won a second trophy for co-writing Vietnam homefront drama “Coming Home,” which reunited him with Voight.
John Schlesinger. The British director who had helped make Julie Christie a star in “Darling” had fallen on hard times after his flop “Far From the Madding Crowd.” He made his American debut with “Midnight Cowboy” and won an Oscar for directing it. He was nominated again for “Sunday Bloody Sunday" two years later. Over the next 30 years, he became best known for directing bleak dramas and gritty thrillers, including "The Day of the Locust" (which re-teamed him with Hellman and Waldo Salt), "Marathon Man" (which reunited him with Hoffman), "The Falcon and the Snowman,” “Pacific Heights,” and “Eye for an Eye.” His last film, the Madonna-Rupert Everett collaboration “The Next Best Thing" (2000), wasn’t a great film, but its matter-of-fact-ness about the Everett character’s open gayness showed how much things had changed since "Midnight Cowboy" had helped kick open Hollywood’s closet doors three decades earlier.
"Scuzzy." Salt’s screenplay is thought to be the first use of the adjective, a combination of “scummy” and “fuzzy.”
Sundance Film Festival. Since 1992, the indie-film event has named its top screenwriting prize after Waldo Salt. Winners have included such celebrated independent films as “The Waterdance,” “Big Night,” “High Art,” “You Can Count on Me,” “Memento,” “The Station Agent,” “The Squid and the Whale,” and “Winter’s Bone.”
Brenda Vaccaro. Vaccaro launched her film career in 1969 with “Midnight Cowboy,” playing Shirley, the wealthy client who meets Joe at a psychedelic party. The raspy-voiced character actress has since gone on to enjoy a long and varied career, including such films as “Once Is Not Enough” (for which she earned a Best Supporting Actress nomination), “Airport ‘77,” “Capricorn One,” “Supergirl,” and “The Mirror Has Two Faces.” Her TV work includes “Friends,” “The King of Queens,” and cartoon “Johnny Bravo,” where she was a regular as the voice of Bunny Bravo.
Jon Voight. An actor from the New York stage, where he and Hoffman had been competitive rivals, Voight was so desperate to star in “Midnight Cowboy” that he agreed to work for scale and earned only $17,500 for the role. Of course, the part of Joe Buck earned him an Oscar nod and launched his celebrated career, which has included such landmark films as “Deliverance,” “Coming Home” (whose Waldo Salt screenplay helped him earn a Best Actor Oscar as a paraplegic Vietnam vet), “The Champ,” “Runaway Train,” “Heat,” “Mission: Impossible,” “Zoolander,” “Ali" (where he played Howard Cosell), and “Transformers.” For a while, he was better known for being Angelina Jolie's dad than for his own career, but this year, the 75-year-old scene-stealer won a Golden Globe for his recurring role as a dangerous family patriarch on Showtime's “Ray Donovan.”
Viva. Born Janet Hoffman (no relation to Dustin), Viva was one of Andy Warhol's “superstars” and a regular performer in his often sexually explicit films. In “Midnight Cowboy,” she plays Gretel McAlbertson, a photographer who invites Joe and Ratso to a party/art-happening very much like the ones Warhol used to throw at the Factory. In fact, many other Warhol regulars appear in the sequence, including Taylor Mead, Paul Morrissey, Ultra Violet, and International Velvet. The film brought some new notoriety to the Warhol scene and no doubt helped increase the mainstream receptivity to such avant-garde Warhol films as “Blue Movie” (in which Viva and Louis Waldon have sex on camera for about a fourth of the film's running time). She went on to appear in such mainstream movies as “Play It Again, Sam” and “Flash Gordon.” Today, she’s best known as the mother of actress Gaby Hoffman, who’s gone from playing Kevin Costner's daughter in “Field of Dreams” to “Sleepless in Seattle" and a recurring role this season on HBO’s "Girls."
”You’ve Got Mail.” It’s hard to imagine a portrayal of New York more different from “Midnight Cowboy” than Nora Ephron's 1998 e-mail comedy, which depicts Manhattan as a sunny, romantic playground for yuppies. Still, both films are filled with the music of Harry Nilsson, who sings four tracks on the “Mail” soundtrack. One of them, “I Guess the Lord Must Be in New York City,” is a song Nilsson wrote specifically for “Midnight Cowboy,” but the filmmakers rejected it in favor of his similar “Everybody's Talkin'.”
Warren Zevon. The 22-year-old Zevon composed a tune called “He Quit Me,” which Lesley Miller performed on the “Midnight Cowboy” soundtrack. It was one of the first career breaks for the singer-songwriter, who would hit it big over the next decade with hits like “Poor Poor Pitiful Me” and “Werewolves of London.”
Wanna watch “Midnight Cowboy”? Do it now.
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