FILM 1989: OVERLORD

FILM 1989: OVERLORD

TRIVIA: The movie featured more practical effects rather than the standard cgi effects most movies use. This was done to get a better reaction from the actors involved in the scenes where something gruesome would happen.

Confirmed by J.J. Abrams at the Paramount CinemaCon presentation on April 25, 2018, that the film is, in fact, not an entry in the Cloverfield franchise, despite initial speculations.

Operation Overlord was the code-name for the Allied operation for the Battle of Normandy, which launched the successful invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe. This, alongside Operation Neptune, would become known as D-Day.

TOP FIVE: BOOKS

TOP FIVE: BOOKS

It’s World Book Day and I can’t believe I’ve never shared with you my favourite books – so here is my Top Five…

1. LOLITA - VLADIMIR NABOKOV

This is, despite it’s uncomfortable subject matter, without a doubt, my favourite book of all time. I read it in college for the first time for my English Literature class (my choice though, it wasn’t assigned) and instantly fell in love with it. I read it several times, in fact this is one of the few books I’ve read more than once. The combination of a compelling story along with the most beautifully written prose I’ve ever read, makes this my benchmark against which all other books I read are judged. I recommend it to everyone, despite the raised eyebrows. And may I remind you, probably the most amazing thing about this book; Nabokov wrote this in English, which is not his native tongue. He wrote, what some consider to be the greatest work of the 20^thcentury, in a language not his own!

Find more information here…

2. MARIANNE DREAMS - CATHERINE STORR

I first read this book when I was ten and I thought it was the best thing I’d ever read, and every few years I get it out again and think, ‘man, I had good taste, this still holds up.’ I was an odd kid, with a love of the supernatural and a thirst for the kind of adventure that could just turn up on your doorstep, and this book ticked all my boxes. It’s a story about a girl who dreams what she draws, but it’s dark, almost too dark for a children’s book, but also wonderful. 

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3. ASK THE DUST - JOHN FANTE

This book, I believe, is the reason, my boyfriend and I are together. I recommended this book to him and I think he’s loved me for it ever since. I read it in my late teens, recommended to me while searching for books by Bukowski (who is Fante’s biggest fan) but I can’t remember whom I read first. This book spoke to me, not because of circumstance but because of tone. I felt Bandini’s fear and nerves, I sympathized with his unrequited love and feelings of hopelessness and neglect, confusion about how to be in the world and how to succeed in life. Bandini is probably one of the characters in the literary world I worry and care for the most. I haven’t re-read this for a long time – I hope I still feel the same when I do.

Find more information here…

4. THE OUTSIDER - ALBERT CAMUS

The opening to this book is a stinger and it doesn’t get any easier to read, but it is brilliant. I always find it hard to judge the writing of a translation but I feel that the English version of this book at least keeps the tone and sentiment of the original, although it probably sounds more deep and beautiful in the French language. I read this and a few other existentialist books at the same time during my teens but this was the one that stuck, it stuck with a few others too because it is the inspiration for a lot of works of art and music. 

Find more information here…

5. NAÏVE. SUPER - ERLEND LOE

This book is amazing in it’s simplicity. It is about a man in his twenties who suddenly becomes disillusioned and confused by the world and his attempts to reset his thinking. It’s a truly modern book (almost ahead of it’s time). This is another book that my boyfriend and I bonded over and I would recommend it to anyone maybe feeling a little lost who needs some reassurance in the world but doesn’t want to read a self help book because sometimes they can be patronizing and this book gives the complete opposite notion.

Find more information here…

FILM 1939: A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH

FILM 1939: A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH

TRIVIA: The huge escalator linking this World with the Other, called "Operation Ethel" by the firm of engineers who constructed her under the aegis of the London Passenger Transport Board, took three months to make, and cost three thousand pounds sterling (in 1946). "Ethel" had one hundred six steps, each twenty feet wide, and was driven by a twelve horsepower engine. The full shot was completed by hanging miniatures.

The first scene shot was David Niven washing up on the beach. Originally planned to fade in from black, Michael Powell decided on the spot that the effect would be too cheesy. When Jack Cardiff told him to look through the camera, Cardiff then deliberately breathed right onto the lens, which fogged the glass for a few seconds until it evaporated. Powell loved the idea and had him use it for the shot.

The premiere (November 1, 1946), at the Empire, Leicester Square, London was held in the presence of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, and became the first Royal Film Performance.

For the ping pong scene, Kim Hunter and Roger Livesey were trained by Alan Brooke, the British champion who played many games with International Champion Victor Barna. During a visit to Denham Studios the two champions played a couple of games before an admiring audience of artists and technicians. For luck, Hunter borrowed one of Brooke's tournament paddles for her movie game.

The inspiration for Peter's medical condition came from the semi-autobiographical novel "A Journey Round My Skull" by Hungarian novelist Frigyes Karinthy. More precise medical detail came from Emeric Pressburger's research in the British Library and consultations with Michael Powell's brother in law, Dr. Joe Reidy, who was a plastic surgeon in London.

J.K. Rowling has cited this movie as her favorite movie of all time.

Sir Richard Attenborough (An English Pilot) only has one line: "It's Heaven, isn't it?"

During his "final" radio broadcast, Peter tells June that he is twenty-six-years-old. David Niven was actually thirty-six when this movie was made, and twelve years older than Kim Hunter.

Crispus Attucks was a black American killed in the Boston Massacre on March 5, 1770.

Included among the "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die", edited by Steven Schneider.

FILM 1785: SECRET IN THEIR EYES

FILM 1785: SECRET IN THEIR EYES

TRIVIA: Like in the original The Secret in Their Eyes (2009), the role played by Julia Roberts was initially earmarked for a male actor, but director and screenwriter Billy Ray rewrote it specifically for the actress.

The film's cinematographer Daniel Moder is the husband of Julia Roberts. This marks their third collaboration.

This is the first collaboration between the two actresses Julia Roberts and Nicole Kidman. Both actresses have been working since the 1980's, both won their Academy Award in the early 00's, and both have been among the highest paid actresses in the movie industry. According to the director 'Billy Ray' there was a healthy working relationship between the two; "There was enormous respect, great camaraderie, and, in my opinion - I don't know if either of them would ever admit to it - there was a very healthy, kind of athletic level of competitiveness. They both had such regard for each other and they both wanted to do their best because the other was in the movie."

http://www.booooooom.com/2017/03/24/artist-spotlight-bo-bartlett/

PARKS AND RECREATION (2009–2015)

TRIVIA: The writers didn't know Nick Offerman could already play the saxophone when they made his character, Ron Swanson, a secret saxophone player.

Ron's second ex-wife ("Tammy Two") is played by Megan Mullally, who in her real life is married to Nick Offerman (Ron).

Jay Jackson, the actor who plays the comically literal Pawnee newscaster Perd Hapley, was for many years an actual print and broadcast journalist and anchor at news outlets in San Diego and Los Angeles. After he retired from journalism in the mid-2000s, through a friend's manager he got a small role as a reporter on a 2007 episode of Dexter. He agreed to allow the manager to send him on other auditions, but only as long as they only were for reporter roles, since that was his professional background, so he ended up also playing reporters on TV shows such as Scandal, Revenge, The Closer, The Mentalist, Body of Proof, and Braindead, as well as in movies such as Battleship and Fast Five.

In the episode "London parts 1 & 2" Ben says to Andy "So all you did is stop drinking beer?" and Andy replies "Yea I lost like 50lbs in a month." This is a reference to Chris Pratt's real life weight loss for his role in Zero Dark Thirty. He actually lost 60lbs.

Mayfair Games, makers of Settlers of Catan, were contracted to make Ben Wyatt's Cones of Duneshire look like a professional board game. Instead, Mayfair Games made a playable game with a full set of rules. However, it's complex and dense, so it has not been produced for the market. It was played at GenCon 2014 in Indiana, where 33 people paid $100 each for a ticket to play and the Ledgerman position (the scorekeeper who doesn't play) was auctioned off. The event made more than $20,000 for an Indiana food bank.

Chris Pratt modelled Andy's singing voice after Eddie Vedder, frontman of the band Pearl Jam, of whom Andy Dwyer is a huge fan.

In Season 7 Episode 12, one of the children trick or treating at Andy and April's house is wearing a Star Lord costume. Chris Pratt (Andy Dwyer) played the character of Star Lord in Marvel's Guardians of The Galaxy (2014).

FILM 1647: YOU'RE NEXT

TRIVIA: Simon Barrett, the Tiger Mask Killer, is also the movie's screenwriter.

Both Joe Swanberg and Ti West, who play eldest brother Drake and Aimee's underground director boyfriend Tariq are two prominent mumblegore directors, a horror genre in which You're Next (2011) is also included.

The primary filming location was an antique home that had been empty for 12 years.

BOOK 157: MOBY DICK: HERMAN MELVILLE

Moby-Dick; or, The Whale is a novel by American writer Herman Melville, published in 1851 during the period of the American Renaissance. Sailor Ishmael tells the story of the obsessive quest of Ahab, captain of the whaler the Pequod, for revenge on Moby Dick, the white whale which on the previous whaling voyage destroyed his ship and severed his leg at the knee. The novel was a commercial failure and out of print at the time of the author's death in 1891, but during the 20th century, its reputation as a Great American Novel was established. William Faulkner confessed he wished he had written it himself, and D. H. Lawrence called it "one of the strangest and most wonderful books in the world", and "the greatest book of the sea ever written".

"Call me Ishmael" is among world literature's most famous opening sentences.

Dedicated to Nathaniel Hawthorne, "in token of my admiration for his genius", the work was first published as The Whale in London in October 1851, and under its definitive title in New York in November. Hundreds of differences, mostly slight and some important, are seen between the two editions. The London publisher censored or changed sensitive passages and Melville made revisions, as well, including the last-minute change in the title for the New York edition. The whale, however, appears in both editions as "Moby Dick", with no hyphen. About 3,200 copies were sold during the author's life.

The novel has been adapted or represented in art, film, books, cartoons, television, and more than a dozen versions in comic-book format. The first adaptation was the 1926 silent movie The Sea Beast, starring John Barrymore, in which Ahab kills the whale and returns to marry his fiancée. The most famous adaptation was the John Huston 1956 film produced from a screenplay by author Ray Bradbury. The long list of adaptations, as Bryant and Springer put it, demonstrates that "the iconic image of an angry embittered American slaying a mythic beast seemed to capture the popular imagination", showing how "different readers in different periods of popular culture have rewritten Moby-Dick" to make it a "true cultural icon".