O Cinema

[MIAMI HERALD] Kareem Tabsch of O Cinema talks about their 4/20 premiere of Marley, the documentary of legendary musician, Bob Marley.

Road to Perdition (2002)

Inspired by the popular Japanese comic book series Lone Wolf and Cub and based loosely on the notorious real-life crime figures John and Connor Looney, Road to Perdition was Sam Mendes’ follow-up to the Oscar-winning American Beauty and it did not disappoint. In this scene Paul Newman gives us a fitting goodbye as this was the last scene he ever shot in a major motion picture.     

La Femme Nikita (1990)

Luc Besson is a master when it comes to the hitman movies, but least we forget that it was a hitWOMAN that helped kickstart his proficiency in the genre. Anne Parillaud takes on the title role of Nikita, an average drugged-up Nihilist bank robber turned deadly special opts assassin. In this classic scene she is left on her lonesome in a restaurant, given a gun and told to shoot the guys sitting behind her. Easy enough, right?…. 

Beetlejuice (1989)

Beetlejuice is hands down my favorite of Tim Burton’s films. In part because of it’s beautiful sense of originality and weirdness, but also because I must have watched it 100 times on VHS when I was a kid. And now it looks like Burton & Keaton are teaming up again for a sequel, to which I have mixed feelings. Here’s what Screenwriter,  Seth Grahame-Smith, had to say about the story… 

“I have a rough idea of what it’s gonna be. However—I should stress this—it’s not a remake, it’s not a reboot, it is a true sequel with Michael Keaton as the title character Beetlejuice. The thing that Tim and Michael and I all agree on, and is most important for me is, I don’t wanna be the guy that destroys the legacy and the memory of the first film; I would rather die. I would rather just not make it, I’d rather just throw the whole thing away than make something that pays no respect and doesn’t live up even close to the legacy of the first film… This will be a true 26 or 27 years later sequel. What’s great is that for Beetlejuice, time means nothing in the afterlife, but the world outside is a different story.”

Say what you will, but I’m just glad it’s not the sequel that almost was - Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian… Yeah…

Gone With The Wind (1939)

I’m just going to say it… Rhett Butler was a pimp! No, seriously - In Margaret Mitchell’s original Gone with the Wind book Rhett doesn’t just visit Belle Watling’s whorehouse, he owns it. Unlike the proper, repressed gentlemen and ladies that surround him, Rhett believes that sex is an important part of life that should be explored and enjoyed at every opportunity. His wild behavior causes considerable gossip among the ladies and his illegal war heroics leave him with a healthy profit. He views social niceties as ridiculous and says exactly what he thinks, no matter who is listening or what their reaction might be… Rhett Butler - The Original Gangster. 

The Machinist (2004)

For his role in The Machinist, Christian Bale starved himself for over four months prior to filming, as his character needed to look drastically thin. Allegedly, his eating consisted of one cup of black unsweetened coffee and an apple (or a can of tuna) each day (approximately 55-260 calories). During that period Bale lost 62 lbs, reducing his body mass down to 120 lbs! Bale wanted to go down to 99 lbs, but the filmmakers wouldn’t let him due to health concerns. He later regained the mass, plus an additional 60 lbs in preparation for his role in Batman Begins.

Daniel Day-Lewis threw his personal version of “method acting” into full throttle in 1989 with his performance as Christy Brown in Jim Sheridan’s My Left Foot which garnered him numerous awards, including the Academy Award for Best Actor. Daniel prepared for his role by frequent visits to Sandymount School Clinic in Dublin, where he formed friendships with several people with disabilities, some of whom had no speech. During filming, his eccentricities came to the fore, due to his refusal to break character. Playing a severely paralyzed character on screen, off screen Day-Lewis had to be moved around the set in his wheelchair, and crew members would curse at having to lift him over camera and lighting wires, all so that he might gain insight into all aspects of Brown’s life, including the embarrassments. He broke two ribs during filming from assuming a hunched-over position in his wheelchair for so many weeks.

Alpha Dog (2006)

Ben Foster has cemented his place as one of the greatest actors of his generation and his role in the 2006 film Alpha Dog only reconfirms his status. I’d be depriving you if I were only to show one clip, so instead here’s a compilation of clips from his role as the meth addicted black belt Jake Mazursky.   

Reservoir Dogs (1994)

There isn’t much I can say about this classic scene from Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs that hasn’t already been said, so all I’ll say is that rarely do we get scenes quite like this anymore.