A Tribute to John Cazale

What is it called when you have thought about something one day and then later that week the same subject that you were thinking of  reappears somewhere else, making you realise that you thought about that earlier. It’s not deja vue, because that’s just in the mind. This actually happened to me this week. Last weekend I was downloading the movie Dog Day Afternoon, and I just thought about Pacino’s co-star, John Cazale, and remembered reading about him on IMDB some time ago and discovering he died in 1978 of lung cancer. This morning I was using my guests bathroom (as my main one is being painted), and found that my last guest had left a copy of the latest British GQ magazine (Simon Cowell front cover). So I took it downstairs to read it, only to stumble across a story about non other, John Cazale. Wow, I thought, I was just thinking about him earlier in the week. Freaky. It was a sign though. I’m a firm believer that everything happens for a reason.

Anyway, the story was about the short, but ultra successful film career that is being paid tribute in a soon-to-be released documentary about Cazale titled, I Knew It Was You: Rediscovering John Cazale. Most people know him best as Fredo in the Godfather movies. But what is so special about this guy? He only made 5 movies in his short career, all supporting roles which added up to a little over an hour. But his skill at being a character actor, mostly sad, troubled characters, made him the envy of his peers and the ultimate for most directors. His friends and co-actors such as Pacino, DeNiro and Streep all say they learnt more about acting from Cazale than anybody else. Sure he only made 5 movies, but everyone of those movies were nominated for Best Picture Oscars, and each of them is considered the finest, most important films of all time- The Godfather (1972), The Conversation (1974), The Godfather Part II (1974), Dog Day Afternoon (1975) and The Deer Hunter (1978). They also hauled over 40 Oscar nominations in total. He didn’t really have the beauty or demeanor worthy of being a leading man, but apparently he still dated some of the most beautiful women in the world. The guy just had it. His girlfriend for the rest of his life was Meryl Streep who was at his bedside during his final moments. I will be scanning the QC article and posting it for those who can’t get a copy.

Speaking about character actors and/or bit players, there a few more actors that we see in just about every film. We know their faces, we recognize that they’ve been in other big films, but they don’t have major parts and we don’t know their names. I’ll mention a few here then you can add more as you wish and I’ll make a list in my Movies page. I like to call this segment: Hey, It’s THAT Guy!

The most famous one (for me anyway) is James Rebhorn.

Then there’s Clint Howard. Usually in all his brother Ron’s movies.

Vincent Schiavelli

Jeffrey Jones

R. Lee Emrey

Fred Thompson                                                                                                                                         Paul Gleason

Is the new Burj Khalifa the 21st century Tower of Bable or just a Cuckoo’s Nest?

So a friend of mine has a blog here on wordpress and on his banner I noticed a painting of an ancient tower. I immediately thought if that was the Tower of Bable from the Bible, so I wikied it and sure enough the exact same image was there. I remember bits and pieces of this story from Sunday school days and it was interesting to read up on this tower and how the story of the tower represents the origins of nations, languages and Babylon (the centre of scientific and cultural advancement in the Middle East). The tower was to have “it’s top to the Heavens” and be home to a united nations speaking a single language. But God didn’t like this and saw it as an idol for man and man’s desire for pride, so he he came and crushed the Tower and scattered the people all over the earth to start new nations and languages. He was pretty pissed off that king Nimrod wanted to make a name for himself and bring in many people from other parts of the earth and control humanity. I had to search “Nimrod” aswell because I thought that name is used as an insult when we were kids- “You stupid Nimrod”- But couldn’t find anything to back this up. If you know what I’m talking about or where I’m going wrong with that please let me know. I’ve just heard this, or something that sounds like that, before somewhere.

And yesterday when I was reading about the opening of the World’s tallest tower in Dubai, the Burj Khalifa, and looking at the amazing photos of the celebrations I couldn’t help think that the images of the tower presiding over the Middle Eastern town looked very familiar to The Tower of Bable. And considering the economic state of Dubai and the fact that the developer of this building- Emaar Properties- is going bankrupt and it’s share price plumeting from $70 odd to $1.20, and also how the tower was built to attract many residents, hotels, companies etc, made me think that this is maybe the 21st Century Tower of Bable. Which we know was “a sin” in God’s eyes and as a result it was destroyed. What do you think conspriacy theorists? Do you think this tower will stand for long?

And now for something completely different, as Monty Python would say. I got home from a friend’s birthday dinner last night absolutely bloated from the 7 course meal and copious amounts of fine wine, armagnac, and champagne and discovered that my download of the movie One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest had finished. What better way to end the night with my laptop and my friend Mary Jane. During the scene when Nicholson arrives at the “Nest” and is interviewed by the Head, it is mentioned that Jack’s character is 38 years old. Damn, this got me wondering if Jack was really 38 when filming this movie in 1976. He looked quite good but that would mean he is 71 years old. Is he really that old? So I turned to my good friend IMDB.com , and sure enough he is 72 years old! Born in 1937, it’s kind of hard to believe, but I suppose that’s because we really only ever see him in movies from the 70’s to 90’s and not in real life. He’s won 3 Oscars and can you tell me what he won these for?

I noticed he’s in an untitled James L. Brooks movie which is in post production, due for release this year, so that sounds like a great film. Can’t go wrong with James L. Brooks, writer and producer of The Simpsons, Taxi TV series, Bottle Rocket, As Good As It Gets, Big, Broadcast News, Tracey Ullman Show, Terms of Endearment and I could go oon. He is among an elite group of 7 Directors who have won best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay (Original/Adapted) for the same film. In 1984 he won all three for Terms of Endearment (1983). The other directors are Leo McCarey (for Going My Way (1944)), Billy Wilder (for The Apartment (1960)), Francis Ford Coppola (for The Godfather: Part II (1974)), Peter Jackson (for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King(2003)) and Joel Coen and Ethan Coen (the brothers co-produced, co-directed and co-wrote No Country for Old Men (2007) with each other). Brooks is the only one to do so with his directorial debut and the only one to do so without collaborators in any of the three categories.Will be interesting to see what this 2010 release will be like.