FilmJerk Favorites

A group of unique directors and the essential works that you've got to see.

||| Sergio Leone |||
Sergio Leone

Leone’s career is remarkable in its unrelenting attention to both American culture and the American genre film, exploring the mythic America he created with each successive film examining the established characters in greater depth.

Only his second feature (a remake of Kurosawa’s Yojimbo), Leone's landmark "spaghetti western" caused a revolution and features Clint Eastwood in his breakthrough role as "The Man With No Name". This classic brutal drama of feuding families wasn’t the first spaghetti Western, but it was far and away the most successful up to that time.

Plot is of minimal interest, but character is everything to Leone, who places immense meaning in the slightest flick of an eyelid, extensively using the extreme close-up on the eyes to reveal any feeling, as demonstrated by Clint, who squints his way through this slam-bang sequel to A Fistful of Dollars as a wandering gunslinger that must combine forces with his nemesis to track down a wanted killer.

The final chapter in the groundbreaking trilogy follows Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, and Eli Wallach as they form an uneasy alliance to find a stash of hidden gold. Leone focuses on his central theme as they find themselves facing greed, treachery, and murder, showing that the desire for wealth and power turns men into ruthless creatures who violate land and family and believe that a man’s death is less important than how he faces it.

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Michael Bay wants to scare you "Half to Death"

By EdwardHavens

June 14th, 2007

Michael Bay's production company Platinum Dunes, which has recently realized they can make crappy original movies just as much as they can make crappy remakes of horror films and toy commercials -- I mean animated children's shows -- will begin production this August on the thriller "Half to Death." To quote Morrissey, stop me if you've heard this one before...

Michael Bay wants to scare you

A young college freshman named Teresa is troubled by when she discovers she is living the same day over and over again, one that starts out innocently enough but always ends with her brutal murder by an unknown attacker. Could the murdered be her boyfriend Gregory, who is also sleeping with Teresa's roommate Lori? Or could it be Lori, who is ferociously envious that Gregory might like Teresa more? Maybe it is one of Teresa's classmates, unable to get her attention? Perhaps one of her professors, who cannot consummate their passion for their top student? Or perhaps it's some secret Skull & Bones-type society, who picked Teresa for no good reason to be their ritualistic sacrifice? It's like "Single White Female" meets "Groundhog's Day" meets "Captivity," and certain to be just as terrifying.

Finnish video director Antti Jokinen will make his feature directing debut, from a screenplay by one-time Buffy comic book writer Scott Lobdell. Look for the film in theatres sometime in 2008.


The Scorecard
Producers: John Baldecchi, Michael Bay, Andrew Form, Brad Fuller, Angela Mancuso
Director: Antii Jokinen
Screenwriter: Scott Lobdell
Production Start Date: August 2007
Location: Canada
Production Company: Platinum Dunes and Rogue Pictures
Distributor: Rogue Pictures