Movie City News Grab Bag
Submitted by jim on Wed, 11/30/2005 - 08:21
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It's been awhile since I visited Movie City News, which means they had a whole new crop of sidebar links for me to pick from. Here are the ones I actually followed:
- Hollywood Stock Exchange as research tool
- Premeire Magazine's 50 Greatest Movie Stars of All Time
- The New York Post's 7th annual Turkey Awards
- Magnolia picks up Banlieue 13
That last one really grabbed me, as I just yesterday found this insane David Belle/Parkour video (WMV 4.7MB, hosted by this fellow, who posts lots of interesting stuff).
Let the year-end listing begin.
I object to Tom Cruise being so high in the Top 50, and I object to Doris Day being on it at all.
Also the list is unfair to British actors movie stars. Where's Laurence Olivier? James Mason?
Consider this list and also of course its female counterpart.
They purposely made it North American.
Nicole Kidman, although born in Hawaii, is Australian, so is Russell Crowe (although born in New Zealand). And Peter Sellars was unquestionably British. Sean Connery still has Scottish citizenship, I dare say.
I misquoted the article. They said they made it, not American, but "Hollywood."
About Premiere Magazine's list: Tom Cruise on #3??? Julia Roberts higher ranked than Katharine Hepburn! Bogart, K. Hepburn, Tracy not among the Top 10? Pacino and De Niro lower than Tom Hanks or Tom Cruise? Tom Cruise the greatest living actor? Wow, this list makes me angry, and laugh at the same time. Never mind, thanks for the good read, Jim.
I had the same problems with the list that you had, until I read the introductory essay. They justify their choices by saying it's not about acting talent. It's about star quality, which includes things like magnetism, charisma, charm, wit, sex appeal. Box office can be construed as a measure of these things.
They also deliberately limited the list to "Hollywood" and to the sound era.
see I take 'movie star' as being completely unrelated to talent or acting, if they wanted to make a lits of the greatest acters they would have said acters not movie stars.
Perhaps it would be best to think of that list as partially composed of the greatest movie stars of all-time and partially composed of the most overpaid movie stars of all-time. I don't think their assessment of classic stars is appropriate either; Greta Garbo was very cool, but she doesn't deserve to be ranked higher than Kate Hepburn, or Audrey Hepburn for that matter. And where the hell is Marlene Dietrich? Also seems like they excluded some stars that are more commonly thought of as directors (Charlie Chaplin, Orson Welles). Will Smith? That's a laugh. Very nice to see Paul Newman and Henry Fonda on the top 10 though.
Of course, the great Marlene Dietrich. And let us not forget Alec Guinness! Or Laurence Olivier.
Word.
I really enjoyed the 50 greatest movie stars one, but is it just me or does it seem like woody allen should be on it? Not having been around that long I only assume from what I've heard that back in the 70's he was like elvis or something. Wasn't he huge?
Yeah, but even though he appears in almost all his movies, I think most folks think he really shines as a writer/director rather than actor.
well so do I... but c'mon, he is(or was) a movie star... most think the same about eastwood, but he was an insanely huge movie star and an american icon.
Very true. One of the interesting things about these lists though is how much ranking is affected by recent outings. For example, if De Niro had died 20 years ago he'd be much higher, I bet. I'm not saying I agree with that practice, it's just interesting to speculate how much that is a factor.