We’ve been making films at Ealing Studios for over 100 years. And films like St Trinians are proving just as popular today as when the Studio was boosting London’s morale during the Blitz or Michael Balcon and Alexander Korda were creating the classic Ealing Comedies. Ealing has always been at the heart of the British film industry.
Yes- we know you've been waiting for it very patiently and we finally have it here for your viewing pleasure! It's the trailer to our latest movie- Burke & Hare directed by John Landis and starring Simon Pegg, Andy Serkis, Isla Fisher, Tom Wilkinson, Tim Curry, Ronnie Corbett, Hugh Bonneville, Michael Smiley, Sir Christopher Lee and many many more!
So sit back an enjoy! B&H is out in the UK on October 29th.
It was Clash of the Filmmaker Titans at the BFI on Saturday when world renowned directors, visual effects artists and animators turned out to celebrate the 90th birthday of stop-motion genius Ray Harryhausen (Clash of the Titans, Sinbad, Jason and the Argonauts).
Lifelong fan John Landis (Director of Burke & Hare) hosted the event to massive acclaim. Among the audience were Burke & Hare themselves Simon Pegg and Andy Serkis, directors Peter Jackson, Edgar Wright and Terry Gilliam and though not there in person ("because they were too cheap to take the flight" joked Landis) there were video tributes from Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and John Lassester, Tim Burton and James Cameron.
Also in attendance were Wallace & Gromit creator Nick Park, King Kong star Rick Baker and Caroline Monroe one of the stars of Sinbad.
John Landis on why Ray Harryhausen's effects are still so special
King Kong bowled him over, and in turn Ray Harryhausen bowled over millions with his stop-motion magic in the likes of The 7th Voyage of Sinbad and Jason of the Argonauts
Stop-motion magic … Ray Harryhausen's Jason and the Argonauts. Photograph: The Kobal Collection
In 1933, the 13-year-old Ray Harryhausen went to see King Kong at Grauman's Chinese theatre in Los Angeles. That is the moment his life changed. In 1958, the eight-year-old John Landis went to see The 7th Voyage of Sinbad at the Crest theatre in Los Angeles. That is the moment my life changed. I asked my mom: "Who makes the movie?" She answered: "The director." So from that moment on, a director was all I wanted to be.
When you ask someone for their favourite movie, they can usually tell you how old they were, the name of the theatre and who they were with when they first saw it. An argument can be made that, indeed, the movies are our collective memory, contemporary man's new mythology. Harryhausen was overwhelmed by his experience watching "the 8th Wonder of the World".
All films require "suspension of disbelief" to work effectively. And every film creates its own unspoken rules to accomplish this. The filmmaker uses lighting, actors, montage and narrative to convey the "reality" of the story being told. And by "reality", I do not mean the actuality of the situation and characters. I mean that the audience should care about what is taking place before them. In 1975, I worked as one of the writers of the James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me. Guy Hamilton was the director I was trying to please. (Neither Guy nor I ended up working on the final film.) I mention this only because Guy told me a marvellous thing. When explaining why every Bond film had to start with a particularly outrageous prologue, he said this was the way the film-makers said to the audience: "Right, please put your brains under your seats and here we go!"
What does all this have to do with Ray Harryhausen? Ray was inspired by the brilliant stop-motion work through which Willis O'Brien made King Kong a reality – not only an awesomely powerful physical presence, but also a sympathetic being with thoughts and emotions. After he saw King Kong, Ray's encouraging and tolerant parents encouraged him in his pursuit of his craft. He cut up his mother's fur coat to cover his puppet of a woolly mammoth, and his father helped him with the steel armatures (or skeletons) of his creatures. (His father continued to create armatures for Ray for many years.)
Ray served in Frank Capra's army film unit in the second world war. When it ended, he moved into making shorts, then started generating special effects for features. The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, which became a tremendous box office success for Columbia, was the first colour movie he worked on, and he was credited as an executive producer. That is an important moment in the history of the movies: Harryhausen, a below-the-line special effects technician, had become his own genre. In fact, Ray is truly unique in the history of movies as a special effects technician who is really the auteur of his films. The stop-motion creatures and vehicles Ray created were not only the stars of those movies, but the main reason for them to exist at all. Ray would conceive the stories and create illustrations and storyboards to guide the picture's art directors and crew. He created reality – audiences cared about what was being put before them.
Jason and the Argonauts remains my favourite of Ray's films, probably because it has the best script of all of his pictures. But all of his films hold a special place in both my heart and my mind. Maybe it is the tactile reality of movement generated by Ray's hands and the extraordinary personalities his figures display that makes his work so special. I don't know. But I do know that Ray Harryhausen is a true giant of the cinema, and I am proud to call him both my mentor and my friend. Ray's 90th birthday is rapidly approaching. And all of his fans, and we are legion, wish him well.
Ray Harryhausen: A Birthday Celebration Hosted by John Landis is on 26 June at BFI Southbank, London SE1.
TAORMINA, Sicily (Hollywood Reporter) – When Jake and Elwood Blues, the protagonists in John Landis' cult classic "The BluesBrothers," claimed they were on a mission from God, the Catholic Church apparently took them at their word.
On the 30th anniversary of the film's release, "L'Osservatore Romano," the Vatican's official newspaper, called the film a "Catholic classic" and said it should be recommended viewing for Catholics everywhere.
The film is based on a skit from "Saturday Night Live." In the story, Jake and Elwood -- played by John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd, respectively -- embark on an unlikely road trip featuring concerts, car chases, clashes with the police and neo-Nazi groups, and attempts at revenge from a spurned lover, all, ostensibly, to raise money for the church-run orphanage where they grew up.
But aside from a brief appearance from Kathleen Freeman as a wrist-slapping nun referred to as "The Penguin" and the brothers' periodic claim that they were on a mission from God, spirituality does not play a significant role in the film.
In addition to Belushi and Aykroyd, the film featured an all-star cast including musicians James Brown, Cab Calloway, Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, John Lee Hooker, and Chaka Khan, in addition to noted actors John Candy, Carrie Fisher, Charles Napier, and Henry Gibson, and cameo roles for Frank Oz, Steven Spielberg, Landis, Mr. T, and Paul Reubens.
With the recommendation, "The Blues Brothers" joins the list of dozens of films recommended by Catholic authorities that includes Cecil B. DeMille's "The Ten Commandments," "Jesus of Nazareth" from Franco Zeffirelli," Mel Gibson's "The Passion of The Christ," Victor Flemming's "Joan of Arc," and "It's a WonderfulLife" from Frank Capra.
