Harrison Ford's quick lesson on film editing

by Tim Brayton

When we think of the most memorable moments in Oscar history, we tend to think about winners and their speeches, or maybe particularly impressive (or disastrous) musical or comedy performances during the ceremony itself. We don't, as a rule, tend to think about how the categories get introduced, but I find myself in the position this year of thinking that the very best, or at least the most gratifying moment in Sunday night’s telecast was exactly that. I'm talking about Harrison Ford introducing Best Editing, where we got one of those vanishingly rare moments throughout the years where this annual event designed to promote and celebrate filmmaking actually managed to promote and celebrate filmmaking.

If you've forgotten the moment, it was as unflashy as it gets: Ford, in an apparent state of, ahem "advanced relaxation," read a bunch of bullet points off of a sheet of paper...

Click to read more ...

Almost There: Harrison Ford in "Raiders of the Lost Ark"

by Cláudio Alves

As we well know, AMPAS has major genre bias, preferring the prestigious quality of respectable dramas above everything else. Even when they decide to embrace a genre picture, there's a branch of the Academy that's always ready to turn their collective noses at them with unashamed snobbery. We're talking about the actors, whose distaste for anything remotely close to action movies, adventure, horror, fantasy, sci-fi, and so forth, has robbed many great performers of the recognition they so richly deserve. Truth be told, this is a problem that goes beyond the Oscar voters and even affects popular views on the art of acting.

If you want a good example of this, look to the awards race of 1981, when Raiders of the Lost Ark was a major success with critics and audiences alike...

Click to read more ...

Posterized: Harrison Ford

by Nathaniel R

Harrison Ford has been a major star for our whole lives but Call of the Wild (2019), opening today nationwide, is actually the first time in many years that studios have trusted his name alone to sell a picture. Well, that and a CGI dog, but the solo name (no pun intended) above the title is still worth noting. 

Ford, who is now 77, has been a regular on movie screens for over 50 years and his films have amassed over $9 billion dollars globally. But he wasn't always a superstar. In the 1970s he wasn't just acting for filmmakers but also doing carpentry jobs to support his then wife and sons (Francis Ford Coppola famously hired him as a carpenter before casting him in The Conversation and Apocalypse Now). The rest, of course, is showbiz history.

How many of his 49 pictures (excluding uncredited appearances and voice only roles) have you seen? All 49 posters are after the jump as well as a breakdown of his career in chapters...

Click to read more ...

Over & Overs: Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

In this new series, members of Team Experience wax rhapsodic on films they've never been able to stop watching. Here's Lynn Lee...

Conventional wisdom holds that Raiders of the Lost Ark, the O.G. Indiana Jones, is also the best Indiana Jones.  Yet the Indy installment I love the most is Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, which I’ve watched more times than I can count and can practically quote from beginning to end.  It’s one of my cinematic comfort food go-tos. I can count on it to put a smile on my face and – perhaps more surprisingly – a tear in my eye.

I suspect my deep affection for The Last Crusade is at least partly rooted in the fact that it was the first Indiana Jones movie I saw, and the only one I ever saw in a theater...

Click to read more ...

Showbiz History: The Lion King, Keanu as James Dean, and NPH's Undies

six random things that happened on this day in showbiz history (June 15th)...

1960 Billy Wilder's five-time Oscar winner The Apartment had its world premiere on this day in New York City. I just watched it again recently. Shirley Maclaine and Jack Lemmon are perfect in it, don'cha think?

1967 Another premiere, this one for the WW II action drama The Dirty Dozen, an antecedent of a kind to Tarantino's Inglorious Basterds.

1991 Paula Abdul's "Rush Rush" hits #1 (it'll stay there for six weeks). Keanu Reeves does a James Dean thing in the Rebel Without a Cause (1955) themed video. Paula does Natalie of course but no Sal Mineo counterpart? Fail!

Click to read more ...