Entertainment

Jules Bass, who brought ‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer’ to TV, dies at 87 | CNN

Published

2 years ago

October 28, 2022

Jules Bass, who brought ‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer’ to TV, dies at 87 | CNN

CNN
—

What sort of Christmas wouldn’t it be with out the resourceful Rudolph or Hermey the aspiring dentist, with out pleasant Frosty or the dastardly Warmth and Snow Misers?

Jules Bass introduced all of them to vivid, animated life on TV. And together with his producing and directing accomplice Arthur Rankin Jr., he didn’t simply contribute indelible classics to the canon of Christmas specials – he helped popularize the style.

Bass, who helmed beloved animated Christmas specials like “Rudolph the Pink-Nosed Reindeer” and “Frosty the Snowman,” died this week, publicist Jennifer Ruff advised CNN. He was 87.

Born Julius Bass, the Philadelphia native attended faculty in New York Metropolis, the place he met Rankin. The pair, then employed at an promoting company, teamed up first to create commercials however yearned to maneuver into inventive programming.

After Rankin toured a Tokyo animation studio, he and Bass determined to create a collection in stop-motion animation, a method they’d name “Animagic.” Their first effort was the youngsters’s present “The New Adventures of Pinocchio,” additionally the primary collection produced by the corporate that might turn into Rankin/Bass Animated Leisure.

However the duo left a everlasting mark on TV with the 1964 debut of “Rudolph the Pink-Nosed Reindeer,” a stop-motion particular based mostly on the Christmas story and well-liked music. The 55-minute particular expanded the story to incorporate a crew of misfit toys, a snowman narrator voiced by Burl Ives, a too-skinny Santa and a weird mustachioed prospector named Yukon Cornelius.

“Rudolph’s” distinctive animation model and lovable solid made it a success amongst critics – the New York Occasions referred to as it a “charming and tuneful hour of fantasy” – and audiences. It’s since turn into one of many longest-running Christmas specials in historical past, airing on TV almost yearly since its first run.

The pair went on to create extra Christmas specials in stop-motion, like “The Yr With out a Santa Claus” and “Santa Claus is Comin’ to City” in addition to historically animated hits like “Frosty the Snowman.” Lots of these specials nonetheless air yearly between Thanksgiving and New Yr’s Day.

Bass and Rankin labored collectively for many years, crafting stop-motion characteristic movies like “Mad Monster Celebration” and animated variations of “The Hobbit” and “The Return of the King.” The duo additionally produced the cult-classic TV collection “Thundercats.” They continued working collectively till Rankin/Bass shut down for good in 1987, although they’d reunite as soon as extra for a 2001 particular referred to as “Santa, Child!”

“A partnership comes from two individuals who assist one another and complement one another,” Rankin mentioned in an interview about his work with Bass. Rankin died in 2014 at age 89.

Bass’ creative accomplice was the extra vocal of the 2, and he repeatedly dealt with interviews and press for his or her tasks, mentioned Rick Goldschmidt, a former colleague of the pair who wrote “The Enchanted World of Rankin/Bass.” Bass was content material to remain out of the limelight and proceed his work, which included writing the youngsters’s image ebook “Herb, the Vegetarian Dragon” and the romantic novel “Headhunters,” which grew to become a 2011 movie referred to as “Monte Carlo” starring Selena Gomez. An “unbelievable chef,” based on Ruff, Bass additionally created a kids’s cookbook of vegetarian recipes that includes, naturally, Herb the dragon.

Within the 2010s, he tried to mount a musical about composer Oliver Messiaen, who composed music whereas imprisoned at a German POW camp. The present by no means made it to Broadway, however Bass’ personal affinity for music shone by in his varied tasks. He penned lyrics to beloved songs in lots of the movies he co-directed, together with the themes for each Warmth and Snow Misers in “The Yr With out a Santa Claus” and “The Best Journey” from “The Hobbit.”

The latter music was a easy however stirring story that encapsulated Bilbo Baggins’ life-changing resolution in just some traces, and stays one among Bass’ most touching creations: “The best journey is what lies forward; right this moment and tomorrow are but to be mentioned. The possibilities, the modifications are all yours to make. The mildew of your life is in your fingers to interrupt.”

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Movie Reviews

Film Review: The Fire Inside – SLUG Magazine

Published

3 hours ago

December 24, 2024

Press Room

Film

The Fire Inside
Director: Rachel Morrison
Michael De Luca Productions, PASTEL
In Theaters: 12.25

I’m not a fan of combat sports in real life, yet I find that movies about them are nearly irresistible. Whether it’s Rocky, The Karate Kid, Warrior or the upcoming wrestling flick Unstoppable, the underdog who comes out swinging and bests their bigger, more experienced opponent always plays. It’s also nearly always the same movie, and that’s what makes The Fire Inside a knockout.

In this fact–based story, Claressa Shields (Ryan Destiny, A Girl Like Grace, Oracle) is a young woman from Flint, Michigan, who has one skill and one passion: boxing. Despite limited support from her family, Claressa is taken under the wing of Jason Crutchfield (Brian Tyree Henry, If Beale Street Could Talk, Godzilla vs. Kong), a coach at a local gym. As Jason becomes as much a surrogate father as a coach, Claressa trains with a ferocious determination and earns a spot on the 2012 Summer Olympic team — Claressa “T-Rex” Shields becomes the first American woman to take home the gold in the sport at age 16. From there, Claressa goes from being a poor inner city kid with nothing to … a poor inner city kid with a gold medal overnight. There are no endorsement deals, no professional career and seemingly no new worlds to conquer. As Claressa fights discouragement, she must find a path to lead her beyond a one time victory into a lasting better life.

Rachel Morrison, the first woman to be nominated for an Academy Award for her work on Black Panther, makes a strong directorial debut, coming out swinging. She’s ably assisted by a terrific script by Barry Jenkins (Moonlight). The Fire Inside transcends the tropes of the genre by reaching the rush of climactic fight and then daring not to end there, instead delving into the reality that in Shields’ life, one triumph in the sports world doesn’t change your circumstances, especially for an uncouth young woman with no interest in playing the public relations game and selling a softer, more traditionally feminine image. We’ve heard the cliche “this isn’t just a movie about sports, it’s about life,” but such a candid look at a life-changing moment that does nothing to change your life, and learning how to face this, was something refreshingly new and honest. The often bleak and at times stunningly beautiful cinematography by Rina Yang, along with the stirring score by Tamar-kali, lift the sensory experience and go a long way to making this one a winner.

Destiny shows potential as a breakout star, commanding the screen as effortlessly as Claressa commands the ring. Henry is the highlight of any film he’s in, and The Fire Inside is no exception, with his grounded performance keeping the film moving along and setting the tone for a story about learning that you can still lean on others while you’re believing in yourself. The sizzling chemistry between these two actors drives a poignant and entertaining story to a satisfying and believable conclusion that’s not the one you’re expecting.

The Fire Inside is a breath of fresh air in a genre that far too often settles for stale and dank. It provides enough inspirational warmth to fulfill its duties as an uplifting sports movie, but its got the stamina and the drive to go a few extra rounds and push its own limits. Unlike most boxing films, this champ doesn’t pull any punches. –Patrick Gibbs

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Movie Reviews

Movie review: Reverence to source material drains life from ‘Nosferatu’

Published

14 hours ago

December 24, 2024

Press Room

Movie review: Reverence to source material drains life from ‘Nosferatu’

Katie Walsh
| Tribune News Service

Passion projects are often lauded simply for their passion, for the sheer effort that it took to bring a dream to life. Sometimes, that celebration of energy expended can obfuscate the artistic merits of a film, as the blinkered vision of a dedicated auteur can be a film’s saving grace, or its death knell. This is one of the hazards of the passion project, which is satirically explored in the 2000 film “Shadow of the Vampire,” a fictionalized depiction of the making of F.W. Murnau’s 1922 silent horror film “Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror,” in which John Malkovich plays the filmmaker obsessed with “authentic” horror.

This meta approach is a clever twist on the iconic early horror movie that looms large in our cultural memory. Inspired by Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel “Dracula” (with names and details changed in order to skirt the lack of rights to the book), “Nosferatu” is a landmark example of German Expressionism, and Max Schreck’s performance as the vampire is one of the genre’s unforgettable villains.

“Nosferatu” has inspired many filmmakers over a century — Werner Herzog made his own bleak and lonely version with Klaus Kinski in 1979; Francis Ford Coppola went directly to the source material for his lushly Gothic “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” in 1992. Now, Robert Eggers, who gained auteur status with his colonial horror film “The Witch,” the Edgar Allen Poe-inspired two-hander “The Lighthouse,” and a Viking epic “The Northman,” delivers his ultimate passion project: a direct remake of Murnau’s film.

His first non-original screenplay, Eggers’ version isn’t a “take” on “Nosferatu,” so much as it is an overly faithful retelling, so indebted to its inspiration that it’s utterly hamstrung by its own reverence. If “Shadow of the Vampire” is a playful spin, Eggers’ “Nosferatu” is an utterly straight-faced and interminably dull retread of the 1922 film. It’s the exact same movie, just with more explicit violence and sex. And while Eggers loves to pay tribute to the style and form of cinema history in his work, the sexual politics of his “Nosferatu” feel at least 100 years old.

“Nosferatu” is a story about real estate and sexual obsession. A young newlywed, Thomas Hutter (Nicholas Hoult) is dispatched from his small German city to the Carpathian Mountains in order to execute the paperwork on the purchase of a rundown manor for a mysterious Count Orlok (an unrecognizable Bill Skarsgård), a tall, pale wraith with a rumbling voice that sounds like a beehive.

Thomas has a generally bad time with the terrifying Count Orlok, while his young bride at home, the seemingly clairvoyant Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp) is taken with terrifying nightmares and bouts of sleepwalking, consumed by psychic messages from the Count, who has become obsessed with her. He makes his way to his new home in a rat-infested ship, unleashing a plague; Ellen weighs whether she should sacrifice herself to the Count in order to save the town, which consists of essentially three men: her husband, a doctor (Ralph Ineson) and an occultist scientist (Willem Dafoe).

There’s a moment in the first hour of “Nosferatu” where it seems like Eggers’ film is going to be something new, imbued with anthropological folklore, rather than the expressionist interpretation of Murnau. Thomas arrives in a Romanian village, where he encounters a group of jolly gypsies who laugh at him, warn him, and whose blood rituals he encounters in the night. It’s fascinating, fresh, culturally specific, and a new entry point to this familiar tale. Orlok’s mustachioed visage could be seen as a nod to the real Vlad the Impaler, who likely inspired Stoker.

But Eggers abandons this tack and steers back toward leaden homage. The film is a feat of maximalist and moody production design and cinematography, but the tedious and overwrought script renders every character two-dimensional, despite the effortful acting, teary pronunciations and emphatically delivered declarations.

Depp whimpers and writhes with aplomb, but her enthusiastically physical performance never reaches her eyes — unless they’re rolling into the back of her head. Regardless of their energetic ministrations, she and Hoult are unconvincing. Dafoe, as well as Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Emma Corrin, as family friends who take in Ellen, bring a winking campiness, breathing life into the proceedings, while Simon McBurney devilishly goes for broke as the Count’s familiar. However, every actor seems to be in a different movie.

Despite the sex, nudity and declarations of desire, there’s no eroticism or sensuality; despite the blood and guts, there’s nothing scary about it either. This film is a whole lot of style in search of a better story, and without any metaphor or subtext, it’s a bore. Despite his passion for the project, or perhaps because of it, Eggers’ overwrought “Nosferatu” is dead on arrival, drained of all life and choked to death on its own worship.