Movies 'Til Dawn BLOG

CITY ISLAND: BOXING WITH ANDY GARCIA AND STEVEN STRAIT

Today’s clip shows Andy and Steven working in the yard together and ends with an impromptu boxing match. Again, a nice bit of work that won’t find it’s way into the finished film, so I’m dumping it into the blogosphere. In a sense, this blog is becoming the film’s “trimbim”–a

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TIMES SQUARE AFTER DARK: HELEN MORGAN

  The critic and historian, Martin Gottfried, in his excellent biography of the demonic Broadway producer Jed Harris, notes that the 1920’s were “times of floridity, of vamps with panthers on leashes, of Rudolph Valentino and Bela Lugosi…in the 1920’s it was not so odd to view and even live

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CITY ISLAND: TAKE A WALK WITH ANDY GARCIA

Here’s a take of a perfectly nice scene of Andy Garcia walking down the main drag of City Island, talking on his cell phone and then entering the famed City Island Diner. It appears unlikely to make it into the final version of the film so I decided to let

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CITY ISLAND: THE DAY THE CAR CRASH CREAMED THE CAMERA

For the “car crash” scene in “City Island” (yes, even quirky romantic family comedies need a good car crash) we mounted our lovely brand new 35mm Arricam on the back of our not so lovely 1970 Ford Galaxy. There was a lot of talk about how to achieve the car

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CITY ISLAND: ANDY AND EMILY GO TRAMMING TO ROOSEVELT

Below are two clips from a scene which takes place on the Roosevelt Island Tram. For those unfamiliar with Manhattan and it’s satellitte islands, Roosevelt Island is a strange little place located to the east of Manhattan, on which for many years the only thing of any importance was a

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ODD MAN OUT: THE DEEDS OF EDWARD DMYTRYK

On September Fifth of this year, the filmmaker Edward Dmytryk would have turned one-hundred. (He passed away in 1999). As I mentioned yesterday, this milestone went by–as far as I can tell–virtually unnoticed, unreported and un-cared about by even the hardest-core cinema buffs; and they should care. Dmytryk was virtually one of

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ODD MAN OUT: THE DEEDS OF EDWARD DMYTRYK

On September Fifth of this year, the filmmaker Edward Dmytryk would have turned one-hundred. (He passed away in 1999). As I mentioned yesterday, this milestone went by–as far as I can tell–virtually unnoticed, unreported and un-cared about by even the hardest-core cinema buffs; and they should care. Dmytryk was virtually

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CITY ISLAND: THE EZRA MILLER SHOW?

In my experience there are three kinds of improvising actors: those that can, those can can’t, and those that think they can but really shouldn’t bother. Ezra Miller belongs to none of the above categories. He belongs to one of the rarest of all actor categories: those that MUST improvise

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CITY ISLAND: JULIANNA SMOKES, SLATES AND SMILES

Apropos of my discussion the other day of the absurd contraption known as the “process trailer”, here are two charming and telling moments, showing Julianna in the one and Andy in the other, each alone–trapped–in the car trying to figure out how best to get started. Directing via walkie-talkie is

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CITY ISLAND: A STEVEN STRAIT JOYRIDE

Two clips below, featuring Steven Strait and Dominik Garcia: they’re driving in a car. Sounds simple, right? NOTHING IN MOVIES IS SIMPLE. This mini-moment involved mounting the Honda Element onto a contraption called a “process trailer”–an insane device that is, essentially, a trailer on which you mount the car you’re

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