#Sunset Blvd.

[savage-kult-of-gorthaur]

SF HARDCORE HITS L.A. -- "PLASTIC SURGERY DISASTERS" ON TOUR.

PIC INFO: SpHITSguht on vocalist/lyricist Jello Biafra & guitarist East Bay Ray of San Francisco-based hardcore punk band DEAD KENNEDYS, performing live at the Whisky, Sunset Blvd., L.A., on July 4, 1982. TSOL and BUTTHOLE SURFERS opened.

"The Whisky was my favorite venue to shoot at. Plus it was close to my house. My dad would drop me off early enough to walk in and hang out. Being a 16 year old, nobody ever noticed me milling around upstairs. I’m still convinced that people thought I was someone’s kid."

-- ALISON BRAUN (L.A.-based '80s punk rock photographer)

Source: https://twitter.com/zzzkpdzzz/status/1149502962852478976.

#DEAD KENNEDYS #DEAD KENNEDYS 1982 #DEAD KENNEDYS band #80s hardcore #1982 #The Whisky #The Whisky a Go Go #American hardcore punk #Punk gigs #Band Tee #SF hardcore #SF punk #80s #Hardcore punk #American hardcore #Sunset Blvd. #East Bay Ray #Guitarist #Jello Biafra #DKs #Punk photography #Los Angeles #80s hardcore punk #L.A. #Sunset Strip #LIBYAN HIT SQUAD band #1980s #LIBYAN HIT SQUAD #80s punk #Alison Braun

[scenephile]

We didn't need dialog. We had faces.

#sunset boulevard #sunset blvd. #billy wilder #william holden #gloria swanson #charles brackett #joe gillis #norma desmond #scenephile #1950 #film quotes #movie scenes #film scene #movie scene #movie quotes #movie #Black Comedy #film noir

[vickster51]

Favourite Theatre Shows of 2023

My Favourite Theatre Shows of 2023

It’s hard to believe it’s that time of year again, when I look back at my theatregoing year and look forward to the year to come (that’s coming soon in another post). Although 2023 has seen me see more shows than last year, I’ve still only seen about a third of the shows I’d see pre-lockdowns. I’m slowly getting back in the routine of planning ahead and booking theatre (which is something I’d…

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#A Little Life #A Streetcar Named Desire #Dear England #Groundhog Day #Macbeth #Next To Normal #Review #Standing At The Sky&039;s Edge #Stranger Things #Sunset Blvd. #The Curious Case of Benjamin Button #The Motive and the Cue #Theatre #Theatre 2023 #Theatre review #Vanya

[thecynical-idealist]

OF COURSE she did.

[Barbara Stanwyck after a private screening of Billy Wilder's Sunset Blvd. Source: IMDB]

#sunset boulevard #sunset blvd #sunset blvd. #barbara stanwyck #gloria swanson #norma desmond #billy wilder #old hollywood #cinema #IMDB

[crowdvscritic]

crowd vs. critic single take // THE APARTMENT (1960)

Note: This is a modified version of a review originally written for ZekeFilm. Photo credits: IMDb.com.

Need a creative way to climb the corporate ladder? C.C. “Bud” Baxter might have found the solution. To garner his bosses’ favor, he lends his apartment out to them for their extramarital trysts. But as if scheduling the time he can spend at home weren’t complicated enough, he discovers a new wrinkle: the co-worker he’s trying to romance (Shirley MacLaine) is one of the mistresses his residence accommodates. 

CROWD // Writer-director Billy Wilder got a kick out of straightforward character dramas, and he found his mojo when he was writing “just” a man and a woman talking. He found it in Sabrina and Sunset Blvd., but his mojo arguably worked its magic best in The Apartment. (No matter how you rank those three, we can agree they all beat Love in the Afternoon.) Lemmon and MacLaine bring fully realized people to a New York City apartment, he an insecure conformist, she a wounded spark. They’re both dreamers of a kindred sort, ones who yearn for the stability that comes with unconditional acceptance. For something so simple, The Apartment digs deeper and darker than you’d think if you’ve only seen the image of Lemmon and MacClaine’s playful hand of gin rummy. Yes, it’s witty (“When you’re in love with a married man, you shouldn’t wear mascara.”), but it’s just as heartbreaking. (In the age of #MeToo, it weighs in a new way.) Today’s Hollywood may not be so enamored with stories that feel this small, but today’s audiences will find it just as moving and winsome.

POPCORN POTENTIAL: 8.5/10

CRITIC // I get a kick out of the original posters for this film: “Movie-wise, there has never been anything like The Apartment, love-wise, laugh-wise, or other-wise!” While that sounds like typical marketing hyperbole, the Academy seemed to agree: The Apartment was nominated for 10 awards and won 5, including top dogs Best Original Screenplay, Best Director, and Best Picture. 

Would the today’s Academy be so enamored with Wilder’s writing/directing/producing gig? I don’t think so, but that says more about the their current tastes than about this title. Voters now like their films historical (12 Years a Slave, Argo, The King’s Speech), artsy/experimental (Moonlight, Birdman, The Artist, Parasite, Nomadland, Everything Everywhere All at Once), or issues-focused (Spotlight, The Hurt Locker, Slumdog Millionaire, The Shape of Water, Green Book), and they like them most when they can combine them. A straightforward, contemporary character drama about a 9-to-5 office job wouldn’t rank high their Oscar bait checklist; so much so, the only Best Picture nominees in the last 10 years with any resemblance are CODA, Lady Bird, Marriage Story, and Silver Linings Playbook. But even if this film isn’t the Oscar bait we’re familiar with today, don’t underestimate the poignant performances actors like Lemmon, MacLaine, and Fred MacMurray can find in a Wilder script or the commentary on corporate culture a Wilder script can find.

ARTISTIC TASTE: 9/10

#Best Picture #Best Picture Project #Academy Awards #Oscars #The Apartment #1960 #Billy Wilder #Jack Lemmon #Shirley MacLaine #Fred MacMurray #Sabrina #Sunset Blvd. #Love in the Afternoon #12 Years a Slave #Argo #The King's Speech #Moonlight #Birdman #The Artist #Parasite #Nomadland #Everything Everywhere All at Once #Spotlight #The Hurt Locker #Slumdog Millionaire #The Shape of Water #Green Book #CODA #Lady Bird #Marriage Story

[sugarkatt]

Dizzy Damage | The Glamour Punks

#The Glamour Punks #Glamour Punks #Dizzy #Dizzy Damage #Damage #Glam Punk #Glam #Punk #Punk Rock #Punkx #Punks Not Dead #1990s #90s #Sunset Blvd. #Sunset Strip #Hollywood #Hollywood Glam #California #USA #United States #United States Of America #Print #T-Shirt

[byneddiedingo]

Sunset Blvd. (Billy Wilder, 1950). Cast: William Holden, Gloria Swanson, Erich von Stroheim, Nancy Olson, Fred Clark, Lloyd Gough, Jack Webb, Franklyn Farnum, Larry J. Blake, Charles Dayton, Cecil B. DeMille, Hedda Hopper, Buster Keaton, Anna Q. Nilsson, H.B. Warner. Screenplay: Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder, D.M. Marshman Jr. Cinematography: John F. Seitz. Art direction: Hans Dreier, John Meehan. Film editing: Arthur P. Schmidt. Music: Franz Waxman.

Sunset Blvd., with the abbreviation, is the "official" title because it's the only way we see it in the credits of the film: as a shot of the street name stenciled on a curb. So from the beginning we are all in the gutter, and later we are looking at the stars -- or at least one fading star, Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson). Accepting the role of Norma was a truly courageous act by Swanson: She must have known that it was the part of a lifetime, but that posterity would remember her as the campy has-been silent star, and not as the actress who had a long and distinguished career, playing both comedy and drama with equal skill, or as the spunky title character of Sadie Thompson (Raoul Walsh, 1928), which earned her her first Oscar nomination. The role of Norma Desmond might have won her an Oscar if it hadn't been for another star whose career was beginning to fade: Bette Davis, who was nominated for All About Eve (Joseph L. Mankiewicz). The conventional wisdom has it that Swanson and Davis split the votes, allowing Judy Holliday to win for Born Yesterday (George Cukor). This was also a landmark film for William Holden, who had been an unremarkable leading man until his performance as Joe Gillis established his type: the somewhat cynical, morally compromised protagonist. It would earn him an Oscar three years later for another Wilder film, Stalag 17 (1953), and would be his stock in trade through the rest of his career, in films like Picnic (Joshua Logan, 1955), The Bridge on the River Kwai (David Lean, 1957), The Wild Bunch (Sam Peckinpah, 1969), and Network (Sidney Lumet, 1976). Holden almost didn't get to play Gillis; Montgomery Clift was offered the role but backed out. One story has it that Clift thought the role, of a man out to get the money of a woman he doesn't love, was too much like one he had just played, in The Heiress (William Wyler, 1949), while others have said that he backed out because the story of a man's affair with an older woman would remind people of his own earlier affair with the singer Libby Holman, 16 years his senior. There is in fact an unfortunate whiff of disapproval in Wilder's treatment of the age difference between Norma Desmond and Joe Gillis -- Norma is said to be 50, which was Swanson's age when the film was made, while Holden, who was 32, was made up to look even younger. Wilder, it must be observed, seemed to have no problems when the age difference was reversed, as in his 1954 film Sabrina, in which a 54-year-old Humphrey Bogart romances a 25-year-old Audrey Hepburn, or the 1957 Love in the Afternoon, with 28-year-old Hepburn and 56-year-old Gary Cooper. Sunset Blvd. remains one of the great movies, with its its superb black-and-white cinematography by John F. Seitz. It won Oscars for the mordant screenplay, the art direction, and the score. It's also one of the few films to receive nominations in all four acting categories: In addition to Swanson and Holden, Nancy Olson and Erich von Stroheim received supporting player nominations, but none of them won.

photo from pygartheangel

#Sunset Blvd. #william holden #gloria swanson

[thesarahfiles]

#Sarah Brightman #sunset boulevard #Sunset Blvd.

[jasonsutekh]

Sunset Blvd. (1950)

A has-been silent movie actress clings on to her former life and drags an aspiring writer into her fantasy world.

 The acting is fairly strong, mainly because the lead woman has a license to be over-dramatic the entire time but gives her madness just enough nuance to make it melancholic. The sets are all attractive and remind the audience of the decadent but feeling-less lifestyle of the actress. There are also a number of meta-textual elements about the business which create both comedy and self-reflective criticism.

 Easily the weakest part of the movie was showing the ending at the start just to create an attention grab moment. It swiftly becomes irrelevant to the rest of the movie as we jump back in time to explain it and plod through the sequence of events until we almost forget about it. It’s weak because it’d have made a striking, and possibly unexpected, ending.

 Although the cynicism can get wearisome at times since it’s chronic throughout the movie, it is necessary to make such a cutting exploration of the backstage underworld of film. It’s atypical in that the love story is only teased with no real intention to fulfil it. There are also some fitting literary parallels to amuse and reinforce some plot elements.

 Most of the characters are somewhat unrelatable because of their niche roles, the strongest being the younger true love interest who is more of a plot device than main character. The characters largely invent their own inter-personal problems which undermines the drama they create. There’s also some attempts at film worker banter which gets tedious really quick since the humour is often strained and limited.

 4/10 -It’s below average, but only just!-

 -While shopping Norma remarks that if Joe isn’t careful he’ll need a cutaway. This is a reference to a grey morning suit worn by a groom, and also a piece of footage shot separately to add context to a scene.

-The failed script presented at the beginning of the film is the basic plot of A League of Their Own which was released 42 years later.

-Many articles were provided from the leading lady’s genuine possessions, including jewellery, accessories, and the film they watch is from her repertoire.

#Film #Review #Sunset Blvd. #1950 #Drama #Crime #JasonSutekh

[sinanem]

ROXY

Circa 2018

#roxy #viper #whisky #magic #slvr. #silver #sunset #boulvard #hollywood #sunset boulevard #on paper #sunset blvd. #los angeles #sina tremp

[markashtonlund]

The First Ten

The B-21 Raider will appear in SOS United States Yesterday I finished the first ten pages of SOS United States as a novel. The process I’ve taken is to take one page of script a day to write in novel form. This process seems to be working as it gives me time to fully describe a scene that sometimes isn’t available in a screenplay. By example, “The second-generation Concorde raced above a…

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#A Woman of Substance #All About Eve #Avatar: The Way of Water #Diane Baker #filmmaking #First World (movie) #novel #science fiction #SOS United States #Sunset Blvd. #YouTube

[savage-kult-of-gorthaur]

"WELL, THE CLOCK SAYS IT'S TIME TO CLOSE NOW, I GUESS I'D BETTER GO NOW."

PIC(S) INFO: Spotlight on fan shots of American rock band THE DOORS, performing live at the Whisky a Go Go, Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA, c. 1967.

""Jim had never sung before and your singing muscles need time to develop,” he said. “It didn’t take long but, vocally, Jim became a 95 on a scale of 100 after starting as a 10. His voice became a weapon.”

Likewise, though Morrison “was very shy and reserved on stage at first”, the guitarist said, “as we played night after night, he got better and better – and wilder and wilder.""

-- THE GUARDIAN, "DOORS guitarist Robby Krieger: "The music will outlast the crazy Jim stuff,"" published December 3, 2021

Source: www.reddit.com/r/thedoors/comments/14skjrf.

#THE DOORS #THE DOORS band #1967 #60s rock #1960s #DOORS band #DOORS #Sixties #Jim Morrison #Robby Krieger #Guitarist #American Poet #Sunset Blvd. #Los Angeles CA #THE DOORS 1967 #Whisky a Go Go #60s #The Whisky

[bwallure]

#sunset boulevard #sunset blvd #classicfilmedit #filmedit #classicfilmsource #classicfilmblr #classicfilmcentral #old hollywood #cinemaspast #uservintage #userfilm #userstream #filmgifs #moviegifs #films #*mine #filmdaily #doyouevenfilm #cinemapix #fyeahmovies #1950s #billy wilder #noir #drama #y: 1950 #classic

[oldshowbiz]

The

#sunset strip #sunset blvd #vintage

[inthedarktrees]

Sunset Blvd., Polish film poster design by Waldemar Swierzy, 1957

#sunset blvd #sunset boulevard #film noir #1950s #classic movies #vintage movie posters #waldemar swierzy #movie poster #sunset blvd 1950 #film #billy wilder #illustration #vintage #photo restoration #polish film poster #polska szkoła plakatu

[crowdvscritic]

crowd vs. critic single take // THE LOST WEEKEND (1945)

Photo Credits: IMDb.com

What’s one weekend away? For an alcoholic, torture.

Struggling writer Don (Ray Milland) is dreading a trip with his brother Wick (Phillip Terry), who monitors what he imbibes. He keeps a covert stash in the crannies of their New York City apartment, but it won’t be easy to sneak it out of town alongside his brother and his girlfriend Helen (Jane Wyman). Part belligerence and part willful ignorance convinces him perhaps it’s best not to go at all. A weekend spent only with himself—and a few fellow bar patrons—would be better.

CROWD // One of the reasons I love movies is they’re the closest to time travel we’ll ever get. Like Harry Potter dunking his head into the Pensieve, a screen always reveals more than the filmmakers intended because it's a literal portal into the past. The Lost Weekend’s portrayal of alcoholism feels melodramatic today, borderline heavy-handed, but in 1945, The New York Daily News called it "the most daring film that ever came out of Hollywood.” Turner Classic Movies notes it had a special relevance in a year when soldiers were returning from a traumatizing war, and it was “the first to treat drinking seriously and not play it for laughs. Gone were the inebriated Nick and Nora Charles of The Thin Man movies.” Just a few years later in 1949, Gone With the Wind author Margaret Mitchell died when she was was hit by a drunk driver. When Malcolm Gladwell explored it on his podcast Revisionist History, he observed, “The fact that his drinking might have been the reason he was speeding somehow didn't seem to occur to many people... but in the mentality of the time, the driver was irrelevant. He was as unlucky as the victim." All that to say, how we feel about alcoholism has changed in the last eight decades. 

Though the context feels foreign today, the characters do not. If you’ve ever known someone struggling with crippling mental health issues, watching Helen and Wick waffle between support for Don and total exasperation will feel too familiar. You’ll also recognize the truth in Don’s statement that there are two versions of himself—the one who would love to be a writer, and the one who believes he’s a failure. One version wants to be the man Helen deserves and a responsible brother who pays the rent, but the other cons and manipulates them, even swiping the maid’s paycheck for his habit. (Writer/director Billy Wilder would create another unstable, manipulative character in Sunset Blvd., but Norma Desmond would add a sinister edge.) Even if The Lost Weekend doesn’t feel congruent with modern depictions of substance abuse, it’s still moving because its heart is empathetic to those struggling as well as their friends and family. 

POPCORN POTENTIAL: 7/10

CRITIC // That success is largely thanks to the cast. In another film, Don could have been a villain or comic relief—here is treated with as much care as Milland took in preparing for the role. His commitment is an early example of the strategy many Best Actor hopefuls still take today, volunteering a physical transformation to become this character. In addition to changing his diet to lose weight, he took the initiative to stay in Bellevue Hospital for a time (where some of the film was shot, though Bellevue later regretted it) to experience their treatment of alcoholics. Though he was unsuccessful at achieving drunkenness, he was successfully mistaken as public day drinker by acquaintances who were gracious enough to mention it to the press. Without Milland, Matthew McConaughey might have still lost weight for Dallas Buyers Club, Brendan Fraser might still have gained weight for The Whale, and Leonardo DiCaprio might still have gone through the tortures of The Revenant, but perhaps Milland's win is the source code for actors going to extremes to show commitment to their craft. 

In addition to nominations for editing and cinematography, Billy Wilder won his first Oscars for writing and directing The Lost Weekend. (He’d already lost five times, including for Ninotchka and Double Indemnity, and he’d win four more for Sunset Blvd. and The Apartment. Yeesh, what a career!) A Best Score nod brought to the tally to 7 total nominations, though that’s less impressive when you know the Academy recognized 47 nominees in 3 different music categories for the year of 1945. (The following year each category was narrowed down to the traditional five.) 

One more indicator of the Ghost of Oscars Yet to Come: The Lost Weekend is the first social issues drama to win Best Picture. Previous winners danced around what is now a staple during Awards Season, but Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans and Grand Hotel were really slice-of-life character dramas, The Broadway Melody and Going My Way were really musicals, and It Happened One Night and You Can't Take It With You were really comedies, although all six of those titles were conscious of money, class, marriage, and religion. The Lost Weekend is the first winner about everyday people facing a present day challenge not set during war or a historical period. For the first time, the Academy affirmed the value of a "small" story with its highest honor, giving dignity to people and concerns that could be mistaken as unimportant.

ARTISTIC TASTE: 9/10

#The Lost Weekend #1945 #Best Picture Project #Best Picture #Academy Awards #Oscars #Ray Milland #Billy Wilder #Jane Wyman #Phillip Terry #Doris Dowling #7/10 #Crowd #Critic #Single Take #Harry Potter #Sunset Blvd. #The Thin Man #Margaret Mitchell #Malcolm Gladwell #Revisionist History #Gone With the Wind #Matthew McConaughey #Dallas Buyers Club #Leonardo DiCaprio #The Revenant #Brendan Fraser #The Whale #The Broadway Melody #Grand Hotel