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The Favorite Movies of the Presidential Candidates

Posted by Vogt
at May 26, 2008

We’re not a political site, so I won’t bore you with the important issues involved in the upcoming 2008 elections. Instead we have at some real hard facts which might help you decide who to vote for. That’s right, we’re taking a look at the leading candidates favorite movies.

HHillary Clintonillary Clinton (D-New York)

Favorite Movies: The Wizard of Oz (“When I was much younger [it] was my favorite movie. I just loved imagining myself being there with Dorothy and being part of that great adventure she had.”), Casablanca (”When I was in college and law school…””I watched it I don’t know how many times. It was always so much fun. By the time we watched it over and over again, we were actually reciting the dialogue.”) Out of Africa (recent years).
Favorite Actors: Meryl Streep and Robert Redford.

BBarack Obamaarack Obama (D-Illinois)

Favorite Movies: The Godfather, The Godfather: Part II and Lawrence of Arabia
Favorite Actors: Jimmy Stewart, Spencer Tracy, Humphrey Bogart, Meryl Streep, Susan Sarandon and Angela Bassett.

JJohn McCainohn McCain (R-Arizona)

Favorite Movies: Viva Zapata, Letters from Iwo Jima and Some Like it Hot.
Favorite Actors: Marlon Brando, Jack Lemmon and Marilyn Monroe.
Recent Movies: The Bourne Supremacy, The Bourne Identity, Mission: Impossible, (”I like those kinds of things, the car chases”) The Departed, (”It’s pretty rough, but I kind of liked it. Nicholson plays too much Nicholson”) and Syriana (”I enjoyed ‘Syriana,’ although a lot of people didn’t”).

Discuss: Isn’t it strange that McCain was the only candidate with a movie made in the last 20 years?

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Audrey Hepburn Biography

Posted by Vogt
at May 9, 2008

Audrey Hepburn.JPG

Graceful former dancer and model, a much-loved star in films from 1951. After small parts in European productions, Hepburn scored a key break when she was chosen by no less than Colette herself to star onstage in the author’s “Gigi” (1951). Shortly thereafter, the radiant young actress gained immediate prominence in Hollywood with the leading role in the feature romantic comedy, “Roman Holiday” (1953), which was followed by similarly enchanting performances in films such as the inspired fashion musical “Funny Face” (1957) and, as Holly Golightly, the warmly romantic “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” (1961).

A spirited, incredibly chic gamine type famous for her waifish yet slightly tomboyish manner, thick eyebrows, bouncy bangs and Givenchy fashion flair, Hepburn proved a beautiful, elegant foil to fatherly older men Gary Cooper, Humphrey Bogart, Henry Fonda and Fred Astaire, as well as young leads George Peppard and Albert Finney. One of the most lovely and photographed of stars, the wistful, gentle-mannered Hepburn helped define one type of feminine beauty in her era (as opposed to the full-figured Marilyn Monroe-Jane Russell look at the opposite end of the spectrum). Her incredibly influential look also helped set the style for the slender, reed-like fashion model whose offshoots are still popular today.

Though not a prolific film actor, Hepburn had an extremely impressive string of fine movies and roles through the late 1950s, including Billy Wilder’s romantic comedy “Love in the Afternoon” (1957) and the absorbing drama “The Nun’s Story” (1959). The 1960s proved a thinner period, but besides “Tiffany’s”, Hepburn enjoyed notable success opposite Cary Grant in the light romantic mystery, “Charade” (1963). She had less success, however, in the title role of the ugly duckling turned beautiful swan in “My Fair Lady.” Her radiance was evident in the latter half of the film but Hepburn, the daughter of a Dutch baroness and an English banker, was unable to pull off the raffish guttersnipe of the film’s early sequences. She did rebound, however, as the blind heroine of the suspenseful thriller “Wait Until Dark” (1967), which netted Hepburn her fifth and final Oscar nomination.

After a nine-year absence from the screen Hepburn turned in a luminous “middle-aged” performance in “Robin and Marian” (1976), and continued to make occasional feature film appearances, such as her last, in Steven Spielberg’s “Always” (1989). From 1988 Hepburn served as a special ambassador for the UN Children’s Fund. Her untiring charitable work in this capacity, much of it in the field, had begun earning her worldwide admiration anew when she succumbed to colon cancer in 1993 at age 63. Her Jean Hersholt Award for humanitarian work was awarded posthumously by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

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Ingrid Bergman Biography

Posted by Vogt
at May 9, 2008

Ingrid Bergman.jpg

A highly popular actress known for her fresh, radiant beauty, Ingrid Bergman was a natural for virtuous roles but equally adept at playing notorious women. Either way, she had few peers when it came to expressing the subtleties of romantic tension. In 1933, fresh out of high school, she enrolled in the Royal Dramatic Theater and made her film debut the following year, soon becoming Sweden’s most promising young actress. Her breakthrough film was Gustaf Molander’s “Intermezzo” (1936), in which she played a pianist who has a love affair with a celebrated–and married–violinist. The film garnered the attention of American producer David O. Selznick, who invited her to Hollywood to do a remake. In 1939 she co-starred with Leslie Howard in that film, which the public loved, leading to a seven-year contract with Selznick.

Selznick promoted Bergman’s wholesomeness from the beginning. He loaned her to other studios for “Adam Had Four Sons”, “Rage in Heaven” and “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” (all 1941). In the latter film, Bergman’s insistence on playing the role of the prostitute rather than the good fiancee proved a shrewd move. She then starred with Humphrey Bogart in “Casablanca” (1942), perhaps her most popular film, and was also featured with Gary Cooper in “For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943)”. She won her first Oscar for her portrayal of a wife nearly driven mad by Charles Boyer in “Gaslight” (1944).

The following year, Bergman had starring roles as a New Orleans vixen with Cooper in “Saratoga Trunk”, a psychiatrist opposite Gregory Peck in Alfred Hitchcock’s “Spellbound” and a nun opposite Bing Crosby’s priest in “The Bells of St. Mary’s”. Bergman’s last picture under contract to Selznick, and probably her finest work, was Hitchcock’s “Notorious” (1946), an emotionally complex espionage film in which she played a woman bent on self-destruction until redeemed by the love of a federal agent, played by Cary Grant.

Bergman then went freelance, first playing a prostitute in “Arch of Triumph” and then the constrasting “Joan of Arc” (both 1948), a role she had played to great acclaim on Broadway in 1946. Her final film for Hitchcock was the 1949 period piece, “Under Capricorn”. These last three films, however, failed at the boxoffice and were hardly representative of her finest acting, serving as an unusual harbinger of the turn of the tide to follow.

Bergman’s personal and professional life went into a tailspin in 1949 after she left her husband, Dr. Petter Lindstrom, for Italian director Roberto Rossellini, by whom she was pregnant. She married Rossellini, a union which produced three children and six films of varying artistic merit, beginning with “Stromboli” (1949) and achieving its finest moments in “Voyage in Italy” (1953). The international scandal (she was even denounced in Congress) tarnished her innocent image and, extraordinarily, led to her being barred from American films for 7 years.

Bergman’s career began to recover with her appearance in Jean Renoir’s “Paris Does Strange Things” (1956). She made a triumphant return to Hollywood with “Anastasia” (1956), for which she won her second Oscar, a sign that her sins had been officially forgiven. In 1957, her marriage to Rossellini was annulled and the following year she married theatrical producer Lars Schmidt.

Thereafter, Bergman began branching out into TV and stage roles. The films of this later period of her career were of varying quality, but she gave a delightful performance in the adaptation of the Broadway comedy, “Cactus Flower” (1967). She received a third Academy Award for her supporting role in “Murder on the Orient Express” (1974) and won acclaim for her co-starring role with Liv Ullmann in Ingmar Bergman’s “Autumn Sonata” (1978), an intense drama about a pianist and her daughter.

Bergman’s health began to fail in the late 1970s, though she fought off cancer long enough to complete a TV-movie, “A Woman Called Golda” (1982), in which she portrayed Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir. The performance earned her an Emmy, her final honor.

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