I
did not see William Friedkin’s version of Reginald Rose’s 12 Angry Men
when it premiered on Sunday, August 17, 1997 on Showtime, although I wish that
I had as it would not have seemed as dated as it does today. Like many other
fine dramas, 12 Angry Men originated as a 1954 teleplay for Studio
One and starred Norman Fell and Robert Cummings. The following year it was
staged as a play and finally directed as a film by Sidney Lumet in 1957 in
arguably its finest incarnation starring Henry Fonda as the lone juror out to
debate the fate of a teenager who may have killed his father in a moment of
rage. That star-studded interpretation bolsters excellent camera work and highly
lauded acting and makes for gripping cinema as Mr. Fonda attempts to get eleven
other jurors to reconsider their positions on whether the teen should be
convicted of murder and potentially face capital punishment, or if he should be
acquitted should there be reasonable doubt of his guilt. Forty years later, the
most obvious changes are in the casting. This time around, the judge is a
female (Mary McDonnell) and the jurors, unlike in Mr. Lumet’s version, are not
all white. Several of them are African-American and they come to blows with
each other at times. Jack Lemmon, who I loved as Shelley “The Machine” Levine
in Glengarry Glen Ross (1992), is Juror #8 who decides to stand against
the mob mentality that is comprised of Courtney B. Vance who I first saw in Fences
on Broadway in 1988; Ossie Davis who was wonderful in Spike Lee’s Do The
Right Thing (1989) as Da Mayor; George C. Scott who I loved in Patton
(1970) and The Changeling (1979); Armin Mueller-Stahl who played the
Nazi guard/grandfather in Music Box (1989); Dorian Harewood who played
Eight-Ball in Full Metal Jacket (1987); James Gandolfini who appears to
be auditioning his Tony Soprano accent; Tony Danza (yes, that Tony
Danza!) who is amusing as the juror itching to get to a ball game; Hume Cronyn
who was brilliant in The Gin Game (1981); Mikelti Williamson who I loved
as Al Pacino’s sidekick in Heat (1995); Edward James Olmos who was
creepy as Gaff in Blade Runner (1982); and William Petersen who was
never better than when he played Rick Chance in To Live and Die in L.A.
(1985).
For
those who have seen the 1957 film, everything from the film’s opening to the
poignant denouement are identical, so there are no surprise twists or changes.
This version is nearly a scene-for-scene remake, and it is shot on video rather
than film. The scenery is such that it replicates the deliberation room and
gives the feeling of the audience watching a play up close and personal. For a
remake, I would have thought that forty years hence would have made some
considerable alterations in the way the jurors speak to one another. Aside from
the inclusion of a few expletives to demonstrate the easing of social
conventions that have, incredibly, branded the film with a PG-13 rating, the teleplay
sticks almost verbatim to the 1957 film while managing to pad out the running
time to 117 minutes, a full 21 minutes longer than Mr. Lumet’s version. Even
1976’s All the Preseident’s Men with its multiple F-bombs, dropped
however casually, managed a PG-rating. The opportunity to update the story with
discussions of murder and justice, especially coming on the heels of the
explosion and proliferation of televised court proceedings and crime-based
television shows, the Rodney King beatings, race relations and the burning of
Los Angeles in 1992, and the O.J. Simpson trial, is all there for the taking
but is blatantly and noticeably eschewed. The lack of cell phones and the absence
of the then-six-year-old World Wide Web is also jarring as they were becoming
prevalent at the time of filming.
12
Angry Men is now available
on Blu-ray from Kino Lorber and is the most bare-bones release that I have seen
from them. The disc’s sole extra is the requisite trailer, this one for the VHS
release of the film. Mr. Friedkin has provided some terrific commentaries in
the past, most notably on The French Connection (1971), The Exorcist
(1973), and the aforementioned To Live and Die in L.A., and I would have
loved to have heard his thoughts on this release as he is such an entertaining
and informative speaker.
The
viewer has the choice of watching the film in either 1.33:1, which is the
original analog television aspect ratio, or 1.78:1 for anamorphically enhanced
high definition televisions.
It
has been twenty-five years since this version originally aired, and we are in
desperate need of 12 Angry Jurors comprised of men and women from
diverse ethnic backgrounds with the inclusion of examples of and discussions
regarding forensic science, computers, and DNA. The story needs relevance and a
much-needed facelift so that a fitting update is truly possible.
We
have all had those days where nothing, literally nothing, ever seems to
go right. As we leave the comfort of childhood and make our way into the
battlefield of adolescence and then ultimately into the often-nonsensical world
of the adult, the issues that we face grow daily and exponentially. Traveling
during the holidays is a small albeit often infuriating annual torture that most
of us put ourselves through (often begrudgingly) for purposes of keeping the
peace with significant others or ensuring that our names are included in our relatives’
last wills and testaments or for other reasons too numerous to entertain.
One
of the most traveled days of the year in the United States is indubitably
Thanksgiving. Cinematic depictions of the Fourth Thursday of November tend to mirror
the insanity of hosting a meal for family members while others are more
innocuous. The fine Showtime series Brotherhood from the mid-aughts depicts
the inner workings of a Rhode Island family embroiled in politics and organized
crime, two areas they excel in, though in the twentieth episode of the series
no one can seem to cook a Thanksgiving turkey to save their life. Woody Allen’s
Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) is a rare outing that paints Thanksgiving
the way that it should be (though I would have thrown in a TV somewhere on the
set with a broadcast of March of the Wooden Soldiers (1934) for good
measure).
A
scenario that anyone who has traveled by public transportation prior to the
holiday can easily relate to is the marathon run by Neal Page (Steve Martin) which
begins innocently enough as he attempts to casually bolt from a soporific advertising
meeting with a New York client to make his way back home to Chicago in the late
John Hughes’s comedy Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, which was released
on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving in 1987. Neal manages to hail a cab, but
it is commandeered by another passenger at the last minute. Making his way to
JFK Airport, Neal sits opposite the very person who took the cab he wanted, a jovial
and highly talkative shower curtain ring salesman named Del Griffith (John
Candy). In true-to-life form, Neal and Del sit next to one another in the plane.
Del chews Neal’s ear off because he loves talking, and this quality makes him
an expert sales rep. Neal grimaces and does his best to hide his umbrage when
Del removes his shoes and socks which, while comedic in the film, has now
become a common breach of etiquette on flights to the point that airplane
personnel should be given permission to discharge the offenders down the
inflatable raft prior to take off. A snowstorm hijacks their plans, and the
plane is rerouted to Wichita, KS wherein they share not only a motel room, but
the same bed.
Del’s
idiosyncrasies come to light and receives a hasher-than-expected tongue lashing
from Neal who just wants to get home and whose intolerance for the situation at
hand is slowly reaching a boiling point. A burglar swipes cash from both of
their wallets limiting their options to get back home. Despite an amusing and
understandable vituperative outburst laden with F-bombs that Neal suffers at the
airport counter (the sole reason for the film’s unfair R-rating), Planes
ends with a heartfelt and emotional denouement that anticipates Martin Brest’s
best film, Midnight Run (1988), another great “road” comedy film that
also has an emotional story at its center – to say nothing of both films’ uses
of “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall”.
Planes has been released on home video a
multitude of times in all recent formats. Its latest incarnation is in the form
of a two-disc set. The first disc contains a 4K Ultra High Definition (UHD)
Blu-ray and presents the film in Dolby Vision and High Dynamic Range (HDR).
Other reviewers have complained about the picture quality and its lack of
color(?), but it looked fine on my 4K setup. For the subject matter and the age
of the film, I believe that one could do much worse. Among the extras on this
disc:
Getting
There is Half the Fun: The Story of Planes, Trains and Automobiles – this piece runs about 17 minutes and
is a panel discussion from the time of the film’s release with reporters and
the stars and director, interspersed with comments from the supporting
performers. Mr. Hughes was initially a writer for National Lampoon Magazine and
his articles brought him to screenwriting.
John
Hughes: Life Moves Pretty Fast
– this is a roughly 54-minute piece that, unfortunately, is told in the past
tense as Mr. Hughes tragically passed away in New York at the age of 59 while
jogging in August 2009. Much of the interviews in this piece are reminiscences
about working with him and are tinged with poignancy and sadness. It is
comprised of two smaller pieces: John Hughes: The Voice of a Generation
and Heartbreak and Triumph: The Legacy of John Hughes.
John Hughes for Adults – this piece is
four minutes and discusses his transition from making movies about young adults
(he hates the word “teenagers”) to films for adults.
A
Tribute to John Candy –
this is a three-minute tribute to this comic who brought out the best in those
he worked with.
The
second disc is where this release really shines. This is a standard Blu-ray
disc (BD) in 1080p very cleverly titled Lost Luggage that contains a
treasure trove of both deleted scenes and extended scenes that made their way on
to the proverbial cutting room floor. Aside from one sequence that contains a
hilarious visual gag that I refuse to spoil (it is HD quality and is in
finished form), all the other presented scenes are taken from VHS cassettes
found in director Hughes’ archives/estate. While the video quality is what you
would expect from VHS, all the scenes seem to be mined from raw footage and
lacks sound effects and are by no means a finished product. However, despite
this drawback, the footage presented is entertaining and definitely worth
seeing. It also includes Dylan Baker’s onscreen audition for Owen, as well as
more extended blabbering from Del in Neal’s ear prior to takeoff. I wish that
they had also included onscreen bloopers.
True
fans of this film should splurge for the upgrade for this reason alone. John
Candy was a treasure, and his absence is truly missed and still felt today.
The summer of 1978 was one of the best summers that I can recall
from childhood. My grandmother took my sister and I to see Heaven Can Wait,
Warren Beatty's remake of 1941’s Here Comes Mr. Jordan. I immediately
took to Mr. Beatty’s interpretation of Joe Pendleton, despite not being an avid
fan of football. Two years later I was introduced to Jack Nicholson's work
when, in July 1980, I saw a broadcast of Mike Nichols’ 1975 film The Fortune
on ABC-TV in which he co-starred with Mr. Beatty, along with Stockard Channing.
It was not a particularly memorable film, but I enjoyed both of them in their
respective roles.
In the winter of 1981, Paramount Pictures released Reds, a
three-and-one-quarter hour long drama that Mr. Beatty wrote, produced, and
directed. I had seen the ads for the film and while traveling to and from New
York City with my Boy Scout troop to broaden our horizons of the world of art by
visiting the Museum of Modern Art. We spent a significant amount of time in New
York's Pennsylvania train station awaiting our journey home, which was an
education in and of itself. Aside from the cross-dressers and drug addicts,
there was a video playback system positioned near the rear of the terminal.
This advertising mechanism the name of which completely escapes me, was sponsored
by Paramount Pictures. It ran movie trailers on ¾” U-matic videotape for
several films released by the studio. One of them was Raiders of the Lost
Ark, my favorite film of that year, and another one was Reds. I
never had the opportunity to see Reds theatrically, and my parents correctly
figured that the film would have gone way over my head. The prospect of sitting
in a theater for nearly three-and-a-half hours did not sit well with them,
understandably so. Movie theater seats in those days were simply not
comfortable. I did not catch up with Reds until many years later, but
the film has finally found its way restored on Blu-ray for its 40th
anniversary. I’m finally getting around to review it.
If there is anything that can be said about this film, Reds
is about many things. It is a love story, it is an ambitious work, it is the
brainchild of a man who managed to pull off an extraordinary feat of
filmmaking, and it is arguably the last of the big-budgeted sprawling epics of
the time, following Michael Cimino’s failed Heaven’s Gate from the
previous year. While I am not completely understanding of the ideologies in the
politics involved, I can safely say that Reds is probably not the sort
of film that would be green-lit today, as the climate of filmmaking now is
completely different than it was four decades ago.
Reds opened on Friday, December 4, 1981 nationwide, however the story it
depicts begins sixty-six years earlier in 1915 when Louise Bryant, expertly
portrayed by Diane Keaton who had already appeared in TheGodfather
(1972) and The Godfather Part II (1974) and played opposite Woody Allen
in six films, meets fellow journalist John Reed (Warren Beatty) at a Portland,
Oregon lecture. She interviews him in an hours-long session that compels her to
leave her stuffy husband (Nicolas Coster) and move with Reed to Greenwich
Village in New York City where she is introduced to anarchist and author Emma
Goldman (Maureen Stapleton, who won an Oscar for her performance) and Eugene O’Neill
(Jack Nicholson), the playwright.
Following a move to Provincetown, Massachusetts, Bryant and Reed
find themselves involved in the local theater scene. Bryant has realized that
her writing is what makes her truly happy, and her ideologies begin to align
with Reed’s, who is now involved in labor strikes with the Communist Labor
Party of America. These people are called “Reds,” hence the film’s title. While
Reed is off covering the 1916 Democratic National Convention in Missouri, Bryant
becomes romantically involved with O’Neill, the truth of which comes to Reed’s
attention when he returns to Massachusetts and finds a letter O’Neill wrote
Bryant inside the pages of a book. Despite this, he still loves Bryant and
after marrying, they move to upstate New York. However, a fight ensues when
evidence of his own affairs comes to light, which causes Bryant to take a
position of war correspondent in Europe, a role that Reed also follows despite
his doctor’s admonitions to slow down. The Russian Revolution commences, and
Bryant and Reed are reunited.
Following an intermission (possibly the last major American film
to feature one, not counting Serio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in America in
1984), Reed publishes his famous Ten Days That Shook the World and
becomes inebriated on the ideals perpetuated by the Revolution and does his
best to introduce the United States to the political theory of Communism, the
antithesis of the beliefs espoused by Grigory Zinoviev (Jerzy Kosinski) and the
Bolsheviks. Unfortunately, the effects of typhus catch up with him following a
prison stint in Finland. The film’s most celebrated sequence is Reed’s return
to Moscow and his reunion with Bryant at a train station. His demise occurs
shortly thereafter, while Bryant can only look on, helplessly.
The supporting cast is excellent and the transfer on this Blu-ray is
beautiful. Cinematographer Vittorio Storaro added this film to his Oscar
collection following his win for his work on Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse
Now (1979). He would later win again for Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Last
Emperor (1987), although not having even been nominated for his stunning
work on Signor Bertolucci’s The Conformist (1970), Last Tango in
Paris (1972) or Luna (1979) makes one scratch their head in
disbelief.
Reds was a
boxoffice bomb despite the fact that the film was nominated for Best Picture
and Beatty was named Best Director. Beatty’s sentimental look at a man who
espoused Communism was ill-timed for the beginning of the Reagan era.
There is a second Blu-ray added which consists of the same extras
that accompanied the 25th anniversary DVD edition:
Witness To Reds:
The Rising (SD, 6:29)
Comrades (SD, 13:30)
Testimonials (SD, 11:58)
The March (SD, 9:07)
Revolution, Part 1 (SD,
10:18)
Revolution, Part 2 (SD,
6:55)
Propaganda (SD, 9:11)
The
story of the making of this film and Paramount Pictures’ (which was owned by Gulf
and Western at the time) willingness to make it is a fascinating one. While the
film looks beautiful, I would have loved a running commentary from the major
performers giving their insights and memories of the making of the film. A
missed opportunity to be sure, but the film alone is enough to warrant the
purchase.
David
Nutter is a director who has worked almost exclusively in television through
his entire career, most notably helming episodes of 21 Jump Street (1987
– 1991), Superboy (1988 – 1992), The X-Files (1998 – 2018), ER
(1994 – 2009), The “Kevin Finnerty” episode of The Sopranos (1999 –
2007), Entourage (2004 – 2011) and Game of Thrones (2011 – 2019),
to name an illustrious few. His two theatrical credits to date are Cease
Fire (1998) with Don Johnson and Disturbing Behavior starring James
Marsden and Katie Holmes, a film released in New York on Friday, July 24, 1998,
that attempts to be a commentary on high school culture and ends up being a
pastiche of parts of Village of the Damned (1960), A Clockwork Orange
(1971), The Stepford Wives (1975) and Invasion of the Body Snatchers
(1978).
Steve
Clark’s (Marsden) family has moved to Cradle Bay, Washington from Chicago, Illinois
following his older brother Allen’s (Ethan Embry) suicide (shown in flashback
snippets), which is a topic off-limits during family dinners. Steve’s parents
want to behave as though the tragedy never happened and when he starts
attending his new high school, he is befriended by outcasts Gavin (Nick Stahl),
U.V. (Chad Donella) and Rachel (Katie Holmes) but is encouraged to join a group
of preppy, school-sweater wearing seniors known as the Blue Ribbons who promote
themselves as do-gooders but come off as cliquish and robotic. Gavin is
suspicious of the cult-like group and admonishes Steve to avoid them, fearing
their artificial smiles. Something just seems “off” about them. Gavin’s
conjecture about the Blue Ribbons proves correct when, while overhearing a PTA
meeting, it comes to light that school psychologist Dr. Edgar Caldicott (Atom
Egoyan favorite Bruce Greenwood) is responsible for hypnotizing and
brainwashing the teens into subservient, positive-thinking students to curb
juvenile delinquency. He has implanted brain microchips into the teens with
their parents’ consent – apparently, even they are tired of out-of-control
adolescents! The teens’ sexual urges are too strong, however, to be controlled by
the procedure and, when aroused, they act out in fits of violent,
amygdala-hijacking rage. Newberry, a fly-on-the-wall janitor portrayed by
William Sadler, is on to Caldicott and leaves the screen with deliberate
abandon with a memorable shoutout to Pink Floyd’s Another Brick in the Wall.
Without spoiling the ending, let’s just say that Gavin does an about-face.
What
had the potential to truly dive into the very universal nature of the existence
of disparate characters in American high schools and what the driving force is behind
such behavior is missed in this film that instead simply wants to come off as
scary but fails to do so. The by-the-numbers plot is so different from what the
director envisioned due to negative audience test screenings that the film
studio felt compelled to order more edits to alter the movie’s direction and in
the process is such a mess that it has left the audiences wanting something
different. For many years, I avoided anything and everything taking place in
high school as most films of this ilk tend to have one-note cardboard cut-outs
wherein no one is a complex character – good-looking jocks and sexy
cheerleaders are always assholes, nerds are devoid of self-confidence and are sexually
inexperienced and consequently shunned, and teachers are often portrayed as
doofuses. Any action partaking in hallways with lockers and bullies
automatically makes me cringe.
It’s
no secret that director Nutter was unhappy with this cut of the film, so much
so that he contemplated pulling an “Allan Smithie” on it but reconsidered.
Disturbing
Behavior was released on
Blu-ray from Shout! Factory in 2016 and the new pressing from MVD Rewind Collection
is identical to that release (it ports over the same extras) except for adding
a cardboard sleeve and a pullout poster in the company’s requisite differentiation.
It also represents a missed opportunity to provide the audience with the
desired director’s cut of the film which can be read about here, something that I hope a future
release will provide. This release suffers from a dark transfer that makes it
difficult to see most of the action.
The
extras contain:
Full-length
feature audio commentary from director Nutter who talks about the making of the
film, the performers involved, and the overall story and how it came about.
Deleted
Scenes – this section consists of the following 11 scenes:
1.
Caldicott Talks About His Daughter
2.
Newberry Tells Steve the Truth
3.
Office Cox Gives Steve a Ride Home
4.
Steve’s Nightmare
5.
Steve Confronts Dad
6.
Caldicott Explains His Plan
7.
Steve Walks Lindsay Home
8.
Steve Talks About His Brother
9.
Mom Finds the Gun
10.
Rachel Vents to Steve / Love Scene
11.
The Original Ending
The deleted scenes
run just under 25 minutes and are even darker than the film presentation.
Disturbing
Behavior theatrical trailer,
which runs 2:31 in length.
The
late director Tony Scott’s Top Gun (1986) was the top dog at the box
office in 1986, grossing over $350 million globally and understandably
compelling studio Paramount Pictures to want to fast-track a follow-up to it.
The idea that roughly thirty-six years would exist between it and the original
film, which catapulted Tom Cruise to super stardom and household name status, is
something that no one could have predicted, especially the film’s producers Don
Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer. This powerhouse producing partnership also yielded
the financially successful Flashdance (1983), Beverly Hills Cop
(1984), and Days of Thunder (1990) before Mr. Simpson’s life was
tragically cut short by drug addiction in 1996.
The
primary question most filmgoers may have going into Top Gun: Maverick is
if seeing the original film is essential. The answer is yes, as the emotional
arc that Mr. Cruise’s character undergoes in the sequel would be lost on those
unfamiliar with its predecessor. For the uninitiated, the original Top Gun
revolves around a group of the world’s best fighter pilots – the top of the
line, or Top Guns. Maverick (Tom Cruise), Goose (Anthony Edwards), and Iceman
(Val Kilmer) are among these pilots, and Charlotte (Kelly McGillis) is an
instructor who begins a romantic relationship with Maverick (he has a
reputation for taking unnecessary risks while flying, but she is intrigued by
him). While on a training mission, a Douglas A-4 Skyhawk light attack aircraft engages
Maverick (Goose is seated behind him) and Iceman (in a separate fighter).
Iceman attempts to lock his sights on the fighter and fails, so Maverick attempts
the maneuver instead. Unfortunately, Maverick’s Grumman F-14 Tomcat flies
through the vapor trail left over from Iceman’s fighter (known as “jet wash”) which
shuts down both of his engines, sending him hurtling towards Earth. Maverick
and Goose eject themselves from the F-14, but Goose slams his head into the top
of the jettisoned aircraft canopy and is killed. Maverick is devastated and
blames himself, despite the military absolving him of any wrongdoing in a
situation over which he had no control.
The
sequel, directed by Joseph Kosinski of Tron: Legacy (2010) fame, is set
over thirty years later and we find Maverick as a test pilot. The “Darkstar”
program is a manned flight in danger of becoming extinct due to the
availability of unmanned drones. Maverick pushes the limit of the prototype
beyond its intended purpose and inadvertently destroys it, infuriating the head
of the program (Ed Harris). Summoned by a now terminally ill Iceman, who is the
commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, Maverick is to head up the training of Top
Gun graduates for the purpose of sending them on a mission to destroy a secret uranium
enrichment facility set deep beneath the bottom of a steep canyon. One of the
recruits is Rooster (Miles Teller), the son of Goose from the first film. Maverick
promised Rooster’s mother that he would not allow Rooster to become a pilot for
fear of meeting a similar fate that befell his father and interfered with
Rooster’s career to stop that from happening, something Maverick discloses to
Penny (Jennifer Connelly), an old girlfriend he begins dating again. To his
chagrin, Rooster wants to be The Best, having no knowledge of Maverick’s
interference. This premise is what gives the film the conflict that needs to be
overcome along with what is unquestionably the most awe-inspiring and most
breathtaking fighter footage ever shot for a major motion picture. Had I seen
this film instead of Don Taylor’s The Final Countdown in 1980 at the age
of eleven, I would be a pilot today.
If
I have any carping about the sequel, it is the brief flashback to the original
film; the use of previous footage from a first film is generally anathema to
me, however, I understand the rationale behind the film’s use, and it is a
minor quibble that does not negatively impact the film. Poltergeist II: The
Other Side (1986) did this, with poor results. Top Gun: Maverick
also ports over “Danger Zone”, the hit song by Kenny Loggins that was featured
in the original and was a massive hit.
Jennifer
Connelly was hand-chosen by Mr. Cruise to play his former girlfriend who is
mentioned in passing in the first film. She more than holds her own in this
film. I first saw Mrs. Connelly when she portrayed Jennifer Corvino in Dario
Argento’s supernatural Phenomena (1985), a film role that she landed
after Signor Argento spotted her in Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in
America (1984). She has since become one of America’s foremost actresses.
Top
Gun: Maverick is a
case wherein the sequel easily bests its predecessor. George Miller’s The
Road Warrior (1981) easily blows Mad Max (1979) out of the water,
even though the sequel uses footage from Mad Max!
Top
Gun: Maverick is
now available on 4K UHD Blu-ray and the transfer is reference quality. It comes
with the following extras:
Cleared
for Take Off (HD –
9:15) – This piece illustrates how much personal investment Mr. Cruise put into
this film and how he wanted to take on other film roles to further his craft of
acting. The level of dedication that he gave to this film is incredible. Then
again, he always does.
Breaking
New Ground – Filming Top Gun: Maverick
(HD – 7:56) – This piece dives into the technical challenges beset by the film
crew as traditional methods of filming proved impractical. The desire to film
the performers in the cockpits of the F-18 fighter jets that they are flying
could only be accomplished by designing and manufacturing miniature high
resolution. This required them all to become fighter jet pilots!
A
Love Letter to Aviation
(HD – 4:48) – Mr. Cruise wears many hats in life, and this piece illustrates
his love of flying.
Forging
the Darkstar (HD –
7:31) – This is very cool, the conception and design of the aircraft that is
seen in the beginning of the film.
Masterclass
with Tom Cruise: Cannes Film Festival
(HD – 49:04) – This is my favorite piece as Mr. Cruise talks about his
experiences making films with other directors, and when you look at his
filmography, it is mind-blowing. Mr. Cruise is humble, a wonderful raconteur,
and just as personable as he was when I met him in front of the Ziegfeld
Theater at the premiere of Steven Spielberg’s War of the Worlds in 2005.
Lady
Gaga’s “Hold My Hand” Music Video (HD – 3:52)
OneRepublic’s
“I Ain’t Worried” Music Video (HD – 2:37)
