Jaws Poster by Anthony Petrie
Artist Anthony Petrie has quietly been perfecting a unique, very cool way to approach well-known films. Over the past year or so, he’s been making posters for iconic movies that look like charts or maps of each movie. I love this Jaws poster. For more of Anthony’s work check out Gallery 1988 HERE
Gestapo Toht Candle
Christmas will soon be upon us and some will be running around looking for that perfect gift, candles! They’re always popular…
If you’ve seen Raiders of the Lost Ark, there’s probably one scene that really sticks in the memory. No not that gigantic boulder tumbling after Indy, nor when he shoots that sword-twirling nutter in the market square, nor even when he has that uncomfortable staring contest with a cobra…
No, the scene when ruthless Gestapo agent Toht gets his gory comeuppance at the end of the film – you know, when his eyes roll back like a couple of boiled eggs and he lets out a blood-curdling scream as his entire face dribbles off his skull. That bit. Just awesome.
Whether it left you with nightmares for weeks or just had you repeatedly hitting the re-wind button, celebrate one of the greatest deaths in all of cinema history with the Melting Toht Candle. Thankfully this detailed replica won’t melt quite as fast so you can really savour the moment.
Just light the wick to set the glorious melting process in motion – there’s no need to seek out the Ark of the Covenant and unceremoniously release its supernatural powers. Order it HERE
The Art of Ralph McQuarrie
Best known for his instrumental contributions to the making of the original Star Wars trilogy, Ralph McQuarrie has inspired several generations of film fans and artists. While much of his Star Wars artwork has been reproduced in numerous volumes over the years, his non-Star Wars work has previously only been available in The Art of Ralph McQuarrie, a limited edition that Dreams and Visions Press published in 2007. That book is long out of print and now commands high prices on the secondary market.
With The Art of Ralph McQuarrie: ARCHIVES, Dreams and Visions Press will bring back into print a career-spanning retrospective of Ralph McQuarrie’s non-Star Wars artwork. At 13” x 9.5”, this 432-page volume is not only offered at a more affordable price point than the original 2007 release, one third of the content is original to this edition. That’s hundreds of Ralph McQuarrie illustrations spanning all aspects of his body of work.
The book will be available in two states: 1) a hardcover version with printed covers and 2) a deluxe cloth-bound individually numbered limited edition housed in a cloth-bound presentation traycase. Each copy will be smyth-sewn with head and tail bands to provide a sturdy binding that will last for years to come.
You can help get these editions made by supporting the guys on their kickstarter campaign HERE where they have some amazing rewards for backers…
Kathleen Kennedy
Kathleen Kennedy (born June 5, 1953) is an American film Producer. In 1981 she co-founded Amblin Entertainment with her husband, Frank Marshall, and Steven Spielberg. Kennedy is the second-most successful film producer of all time (after Speilberg) in terms of domestic box office receipts with totals at just over $5 billion.
Kennedy was born in Berkeley, California. Kennedy graduated from Shasta High School in Redding, California, in 1971. She continued her education at San Diego State University where she graduated, majoring in telecommunications and film. In her final year, Kennedy got a job at a local San Diego TV station, KCST, taking on various roles and posts including camera operator, video editor, floor director and finally KCST news production coordinator.
After her employment with KCST, she then went on to produce a local talk show, entitled You’re On, for the station for four years before moving to Los Angeles where she secured her first film production job working with John Milius who at the time was making Spielberg’s 1941 (1979). The credits list her as a production assistant. During the production of 1941, while working for Milius, Kennedy came to the attention of Steven Spielberg who hired her as his secretary, but both she and he reported that she was a terrible typist who was only kept on because of her good production ideas.
Kennedy went on to executive producer credit on Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) and then co-produce Spielberg’s project of Tobe Hooper’s Poltergeist (1982) and received her first full producer’s credit on the box-office smash E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982). Following her work on the Indiana Jones films, especially Raiders of the Lost Ark , she rose to become one of Hollywood’s leading producers. Although working on a variety of projects, she continued her business relationship with Spielberg and became executive producer for both the blockbuster Jurassic Park and the historically dramatic Schindler’s List (both 1993). She went on to collaborate with a large and important group of filmmakers, including Martin Scorsese, Robert Zemekis, Barry Levinson, and Clint Eastwood.
A truncated list of some of her other work includes, Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983), Gremlins (1984), Back to the Future (1985), The Goonies (1985), Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), Back to the Future Part II (1989), Back to the Future Part III (1990), Cape Fear (1991), Twister (1996), The Sixth Sense (1999), A. I. (2001), Munich (2005), War of the Worlds (2005), The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008), The Adventures of Tintin (2011) and War Horse (2011).
In 1981 she helped co-found and run the hugely successful production company Amblin Entertainemnt, with Spielberg and her husband Frank Marshall. Kennedy took over a large portion of the running of Amblin and served as president of the Amblin company until 1992, when she decided to form her own film company with her husband. She became and still is a partner with Frank Marshall in The Kennedy/Marshall Company, a Santa-Monica-based film-production company with a deal at Sony Pictures.
She is also a Governor on the Board of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In 1995, she was awarded the Women in Film Crystal Award for outstanding women who, through their endurance and the excellence of their work, have helped to expand the role of women within the entertainment industry. Marshall and Kennedy were the producers for the US versions of two Studio Ghibli animated features, Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea released in 2009 and The Secret World of Arrietty, released in 2012.
Ralph McQuarrie
Legendary concept artist Ralph McQuarrie died on Saturday, March 3rd, 2012. Rest in Peace.
Ralph McQuarrie (June 13, 1929 – March 3, 2012) was a conceptual designer and illustrator who designed the original Star Wars trilogy, the original Battlestar Galactica TV series, Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and Cocoon, for which he won an Academy Award.
Born in Gary, Indiana, McQuarrie moved to California in the 1960s. Initially he worked as a technical illustrator for Boeing, as well designing film posters and animating CBS New’s coverage of the Apollo space program at the three-man company Reel Three. While there, McQuarrie was asked by Hal Barwood to produce some illustrations for a film project he and Matthew Robbins were starting.
Impressed with his work, director George Lucas met with him to discuss his plans for a space-fantasy film. Several years later, in 1975, Lucas commissioned McQuarrie to illustrate several scenes from the script of the film, Star Wars. McQuarrie designed many of the film’s characters, including Darth Vader, Chewbacca, R2-D2 and C-3PO and drew many concepts for the film’s sets. McQuarrie’s concept paintings, including such scenes as R2-D2 and C-3PO arriving on Tatooine, helped convince 20th Century Fox to fund Star Wars, which became a huge success upon release in 1977. Neil Kendricks of The San Diego Union-Tribune stated McQuarrie “holds a unique position when it comes to defining much of the look of the “Star Wars” universe.” McQuarrie noted “I thought I had the best job that an artist ever had on a film, and I had never worked on a feature film before. I still get fan mail — people wondering if I worked on Episode I or just wanting to have my autograph.”
McQuarrie went on to work as the conceptual designer on the film’s two sequels The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.
McQuarrie played the uncredited role of General Pharl McQuarrie in The Empire Strikes Back. An action figure in his likeness as “General McQuarrie” was produced. Action figures based on McQuarrie’s concept art, including conceptual versions of the Imperial Stormtrooper, Chewbacca, R2-D2, C-3Po, Darth Vader, Han Solo, Boba Fett, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Yoda and other characters have also been made.
McQuarrie designed the alien ships in Steven Spielberg’s films Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), while his work as the conceptual artist on the 1985 film Cocoon earned him the Academy Award for Visual Effects.He also worked on the 1978 TV series Battlestar Galactica, and the films Raiders of the Lost Ark, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, *batteries not included and Jurassic Park.
Rick McCallum offered McQuarrie a role as designer for the Star Wars prequel trilogy, but he rejected the offer, noting he had “run out of steam” and Industrial Light & Magic animator Doug Chiang was appointed instead. He retired and his Star Wars concept paintings were subsequently displayed in art exhibitions, including the 1999 Star Wars: The Magic of Myth.
McQuarrie died aged 82 on March 3, 2012, in his Berkeley, California home. He is survived by his wife Joan.
Lucas commented after McQuarrie’s death: “His genial contribution, in the form of unequalled production paintings, propelled and inspired all of the cast and crew of the original Star Wars trilogy. When words could not convey my ideas, I could always point to one of Ralph’s fabulous illustrations and say, ‘do it like this’.”
Steven Spielberg – Part 2
Rejecting offers to direct ‘Jaws 2’, ‘King Kong’ and ‘Superman’, Spielberg and actor Richard Dreyfuss re-convened to work on a film about UFO’s, which became ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ (1977). One of the rare films both written and directed by Spielberg, Close Encounters was a critical and box office hit, giving Spielberg his first Best Director nomination from the Academy as well as earning six other Academy Award nominations. It won Oscars in two categories (Cinematography, Vilmos Zsigmond, and a Special Achievement Award for Sound Effects Editing, Frank E. Warner). This second blockbuster helped to secure Spielberg’s rise. However, his next film, ‘1941’, a big-budgeted World War II farce, was not nearly as successful and though it grossed over $92.4 million dollars worldwide (and did make a small profit for co-producing studios Columbia and Universal) it was seen as a disappointment, mainly with the critics.
Spielberg then revisited his Close Encounters project and, with financial backing from Columbia Pictures, released Close Encounters: The Special Edition in 1980. For this, Spielberg fixed some of the flaws he thought impeded the original 1977 version of the film and also, at the behest of Columbia, and as a condition of Spielberg revising the film, shot additional footage showing the audience the interior of the mothership seen at the end of the film (a decision Spielberg would later regret as he felt the interior of the mothership should have remained a mystery). Nevertheless, the re-release was a moderate success, while the 2001 DVD release of the film restored the original ending.
Next, Spielberg teamed with Star Wars creator and friend George Lucas on an action adventure film, ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark‘ (1981), the first of the Indiana Jones films. The archaeologist and adventurer hero Indiana Jones was played by Harrison Ford. The film was considered an homage to the cliffhanger serials of the Golden Age of Hollywood. It became the biggest film at the box office in 1981, and the recipient of numerous Oscar nominations including Best Director (Spielberg’s second nomination) and Best Picture (the second Spielberg film to be nominated for Best Picture). Raiders is still considered a landmark example of the action-adventure genre. The film also led to Ford’s casting in Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner.
A year later, Spielberg returned to the science fiction genre with ‘E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial’ (1982). It was the story of a young boy and the alien he befriends, who was accidentally left behind by his companions and is attempting to return home. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial went on to become the top-grossing film of all time. E.T. was also nominated for nine Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director.
Between 1982 and 1985, Spielberg produced three high-grossing films: ‘Poltergeist’ (1982), for which he also co-wrote the screenplay; a big-screen adaptation of ‘The Twilight Zone’ (1983), for which he directed the segment “Kick The Can”; and ‘The Goonies’ (1984) on which he was executive producer and also wrote the story on which the screenplay was based.
His next directorial feature was the Raiders prequel ‘Indiana Jones & the Temple of Doom’ (1984). Teaming up once again with Lucas and Ford, the film was plagued with uncertainty for the material and script. This film and the Spielberg-produced Gremlins led to the creation of the PG-13 rating due to the high level of violence in films targeted at younger audiences. In spite of this, Temple of Doom is rated PG by the MPAA, even though it is the darkest and, possibly, most violent Indy film. Nonetheless, the film was still a huge blockbuster hit in 1984. It was on this project that Spielberg also met his future wife, actress Kate Capshaw.
In 1985, Spielberg released ‘The Color Purple’, an adaptation of Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name, about a generation of empowered African-American women during depression-era America. Starring Whoopi Goldberg and future talk-show superstar Oprah Winfrey, the film was a box office smash and critics hailed Spielberg’s successful foray into the dramatic genre. Roger Ebert proclaimed it the best film of the year and later entered it into his Great Films archive. The film received eleven Academy Award nominations, including two for Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey. However, much to the surprise of many, Spielberg did not get a Best Director nomination.
In 1987, as China began opening to Western capital investment, Spielberg shot the first American film in Shanghai since the 1930s, an adaptation of J. G. Ballard’s autobiographical novel ‘Empire of the Sun’ (1987) starring John Malkovich and a young Christian Bale. The film garnered much praise from critics and was nominated for several Oscars, but did not yield substantial box office revenues. I’s one of y favourite Spielberg films and was one of the best films of the year.
Karen Allen
Karen Jane Allen (born October 5, 1951) is an American actress best known for her role as Marion Ravenwood in ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’ (1981) and ‘Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull’ (2008). Allen has also had roles in films of varied genres including ‘National Lampoon’s Animal House’ (1978), ‘The Wanderers’ (1979), ‘Cruising’ (1980), ‘Starman’ (1984), ‘Scrooged’ (1988), ‘Malcolm X’ (1992), ‘The Perfect Storm’ (2000) and ‘In the Bedroom’ (2001).
Allen was born in Carrollton, rural western Illinois, the daughter of Patricia Allen, a teacher, and Carroll Thompson Allen, an FBI agent. She is of English, Irish, Scottish and Welsh descent. Allen spent her first 10 years traveling around the country with her parents and two sisters. After she graduated from DuVal Senior High School, in Lanham, Maryland at 17, she moved to New York City to study art and design briefly before attending the University of Maryland and spent time traveling through South and Central America. In 1974, Allen joined Shakespeare & Company in Massachusetts and, three years later, moved back to New York City and studied at the Lee Strasberg Theater Institute.
In 1978, Allen made her major film debut in ‘National Lampoon’s Animal House’. Her next two film appearances were in the 50’s gang movie ‘The Wanderer’s’ in 1979, and ‘A Small Circle of Friends’ in 1980, where she played one of three radical college students during the 1960s. Her career-changing role came with the blockbuster hit ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’ (1981), directed by Steven Spielberg, in which she played the feisty heroine Marion Ravenwood, love interest of Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford). Allen established herself as a fan favourite for the role and won a Saturn Award for Best Actress for her performance. After a few minor films, including leading roles in the dramatic thriller ‘Split Image’ (1982), directed by Ted kotcheff and the Paris-set romantic drama ‘Until September’ (1984), as well as stage appearances.
She then co-starred with Jeff Bridges in the criminally under-rated science-fiction film ‘Starman’ (1984). Directed by John Carpenter, Starman tells the story of an alien (Jeff Bridges) who has come to Earth in response to the invitation found on the gold phonograph record installed on the Voyager 2 space probe. Both Allen and Bridges are excellent in the film, Bridges was nominated for a Best Actor Award at the Oscars.
After a stint on stage Allen returned to the big screen as Bill Murray’s long-lost love, Claire, in the Christmas comedy ‘Scrooged’. In 1990, she portrayed the doomed crew member Christa McAuliffe in the controversial television movie ‘Challenger’, based on the 1986 Space Shuttle disaster. Subsequently, she appeared in Spike Lee’s ‘Malcolm X’ (1992), in a small supporting role in ‘The Perfect Storm’ (2000) and ‘In the Bedroom’ (2001). Allen then reprised her best-known role as Marion Ravenwood for the awful 2008 sequel ‘Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull’, in which she renews her relationship with Indiana Jones and reveals to him that they have a son named Henry Jones III, who named himself Mutt Williams, played by Shia LaBoeuf. Allen was good in what was a really bad movie, she deserved better for her reprisal as Marion Ravenwood.
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