Posted on 09/03/2006 9:16:47 PM PDT by sonsofliberty2000
FILMS made today pale against cinema classics of the past because they are so lacking in dialogue, character and plot, Sir Michael Caine told The Times yesterday.
The Oscar-winning star has lost count of the number of times he has seen films such as Casablanca, On the Waterfront and The Third Man, which he never tires of watching. Which is more, he said, than can be said for todays banal films: I cant think of one I could see again, he said.
Casablanca has so many memorable lines that audiences can quote, he said, citing the moment when Humphrey Bogart, as Rick, recalls the day the Germans marched into Paris. Rick tells Ingrid Bergmans Ilsa: I remember every detail. The Germans wore grey, you wore blue.
Sir Michael, who won Oscars for Hannah and Her Sisters and The Cider House Rules, asked: Who today writes such lines? He has now starred in more than 90 films, having got his big break in the epic production, Zulu. He found fame as Harry Palmer, the anti-hero, in the espionage thriller The Ipcress File, and went on to be showered with awards for classics such as Educating Rita, Alfie, Sleuth, and The Quiet American, in which he played The Times correspondent in Saigon.
Yesterday he spoke of having felt quite depressed on Saturday night after casting his eye over the Top Ten box-office hits in the US.
He said: I was struck by how stunningly banal and formulaic it all was.
The hits reflected Hollywood at its trashiest, with an emphasis on special effects, action and violence, he said. Singling out Beerfest, a comedy about excessive drinking, and The Worm-Eaters, a horror drama about boys who eat worms, he added: Some of the pictures are so gross.
The film industry has a responsibility to give audiences something better, he emphasised, lamenting how the pursuit of money is stifling creativity and imagination.
Too many good films, for people who understand dialogue, were being sent straight to DVD or television rather than to theatrical release in the assumption that no one will want to see them, he believes.
Sir Michael was speaking before his latest film, Children of Men, received its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival last night.
It opens in Britain on September 22.
Citizen Kane was a box office flop in 1941. Why should today be any different?
Caine is correct but it would have more impact from someone who didn't star in 'Bewitched'.
Audiences are starved for something halfway decent to see, and that desperation is the only thing keeping box office figures decent.
Caine forgot being asked once on Carson about why he made so many less-than-stellar films. His simple reply "Its my job".
Memory does strange things once you get older.
Somebody made him sit through Gigli.
And let us not forget "Goldmember"...:)
I don't like all of Caine's movies and he's apparently been in some that must've been C or D flicks, but I don't remember ever seeing him give a bad performance.
LOL! That is actually one of my favorite parts of his. He was just hilarious!
This from the guy who was in "alfie".
?! I assume that's the UK release title of How to Eat Fried Worms, an adaptation of a children's book that many here are probably familiar with. If that's a "horror drama," I'd hate to see what the Brits make of The Plant that Ate Dirty Socks, Hello My Name is Scrambled Eggs, and My Teacher's an Alien.
Caine chose the screen surname Caine because he felt so strongly about the excellence of the film The Caine Mutiny, which was based on Herman Wouk's novel of the same name. The Caine Mutiny is one of the best-ever screen adaptations of a novel, and its featured players, in addition to Bogie, who may have demonstrated his abilities as an actor better in this film than in any other he ever made (he was the anti-Bogie in this one), were never, in my opinion, better in any of their other films: Fred MacMurray, Van Johnson and Jose Ferrer -- probably because the script and characterization they were given in The Caine Mutiny were of surpassing excellence.
Made in the mid-1950s, the screenplay of The Caine Mutiny departed from Wouk's novel in one very significant particular: the novel placed heavy emphasis on antiSemitism. As good as it was, the film might bear a remake in which the theme about antiSemitism is retained. It would have a choice part for Michael Caine, playing either Queeg, or the Caine's captain who is relaced by Queeg as skipper of the good ship Caine at the beginning of the film and who replaces Queeg as the skipper of the Caine at the end of the film. As with the other featured players in the original film, Tom Tully, who played this latter part, was probably never better in any other film that he made.
It would be an oversight to fail to mention that the producer of the film (Stanley Kramer) and the director (Edward Dmytryk, who, like Elia Kazan, co-operated with HUAC) have few if any equals in to-day's Hollywood.
The Caine Mutiny is a fantastic movie, it's been on the cable channels recently, and it's worth watching again and again. Bogie was incredible in that part. Some parts of the film are flawed, like Robert Francis' flat acting, and the treacley love scenes, but that movie made me aware of Jose Ferrer, who is excellent.
It's like Mr. Roberts, one of my all time favorite movies. They just don't write them like that anymore. Sure, there's more freedom to have more realistic language and behavior (the rowdy shore leave scenes alone would be a nirvanah for today's directors), but they have things modern movies rarely have: a morality.
In Goldmember, no matter what else can be said, Caine did a great job (and so did the makeup artist) of recreating his early Ipcress File-era look.
Second Hand Lions probably could have been a great classic...it needed three or four things done to it (the clips relating back to North Africa just didn't work)...but the characters were so rich in nature. I thought it was perfect for TV and could have easily done a five-year stretch.
But the scene which is a classic out of the movie...was when the salesman drove up to the porch the first time and got shots fired at him.
"Zulu" and "The Man Who Would Be King" are two great films which I can watch over and over again. After I watch these movies I puke thinking about the scum and vermin like Brad Pitt and Angelin Jolie, etc. that represent "Hollywood".
Having seen the first one, the remake made me scream in horror at the injustice done to it.
One of my favorites of all time, along with "Zulu"!!! Sean Connery and Michael Caine were fantastic in the Rudyard Kipling masterpiece "The Man Who Would Be King".
He is so right.
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