Peter O’Toole and Orson Welles Discuss “Hamlet”

O'Toole Hamlet
We are sad to hear of the passing of the great actor Peter O’Toole. One need only to watch the classic Lawrence of Arabia (1962) to see O’Toole’s talent. But it is easy to forget the intelligence of some of the great classic actors. In the following video, O’Toole and Orson Welles discuss William Shakespeare’s play Hamlet in a type of intellectual conversation we do not see enough of on television. Thank goodness YouTube has something besides cat videos.

The video excerpt is from the October 1963 episode of the BBC program Monitor, which ran from 1958 through 1965. The episode also features the series host, Huw Wheldon. In addition to Wheldon, Welles, and O’Toole, actor Ernest Milton contributes to the conversation too. According to YouTube, at the time of this video, O’Toole was playing Hamlet at the National Theatre in a production directed by Laurence Olivier. RIP.

What is your favorite Peter O’Toole performance? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    Glenn Miller’s Disappearance

    Glenn MillerOn December 15, 1944, trombonist and bandleader Glenn Miller got on a single-engine aircraft near London to fly to France. Somewhere over the English Channel, though, the plane went down and was never recovered. Miller was 40 years old.

    Miller had left behind his successful career in 1942 to join the United States Air Force during World War II. After basic training, he formed the Glenn Miller Army Air Force Band, playing for troops to boost morale. He took the flight in 1944 to play for soldiers who had helped liberate France. Some attribute bad weather to the plane crash, while others have argued that bombs jettisoned from Allied planes may have accidentally hit Miller’s plane.

    Miller had a number of popular swing hits that established a special sound for the Glenn Miller Orchestra. But when most people think of Glenn Miller, the first tunes that comes up are “Moonlight Serenade” and “In the Mood” (which also played an important role in a book recently reviewed here, Stephen King’s 11/22/63.) So, while we remember the great loss to popular music on this date, we also remember the great joy (and service) Miller gave us.

    Photo via public domain.

    What is your favorite Glenn Miller performance? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    All-Star “Fairytale of New York” on Jimmy Fallon

    fairytale new york hansard fallon
    On a recent Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, Sam Beam from Iron & Wine joined Calexico for a rousing version of The Pogues holiday classic, “Fairytale of New York” (a song discussed in a previous Chimesfreedom post about depressing holiday songs). As if that were not enough, Glen Hansard and Kathleen Edwards joined in the fun too. Check it out. [February 2014 Update: The video is no longer available from NBC, so below is an amateur video of the same group performing the song at the WWFUV Holiday Cheer Concert.]

    Iron & Wine, Calexico, Kathleen Edwards, and Glen Hansard recently played together, including a performance of “Fairytale of New York,” at a Holiday Cheer benefit concert in New York.

    What is your favorite “sad” holiday song? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    Mistakes in “Back to the Future”?

    A new video examines “Everything Wrong With Back To The Future in 8 Minutes Or Less.” CinemaSins compiled the errors and created the entertaining video. What happened to one of George McFly’s pens? How did Doc open the doors on the DeLorean inside the truck? How did Marty McFly turn around the car inside the barn? These and other questions will be raised (but not answered). Check it out.

    What is your favorite mistake in “Back to the Future”? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    “The Way Way Back” Way Way Suprised Me (Missed Movies)

    Sam Rockwell Way Way Back Occasionally, I will receive in the mail a Netflix movie where I have no idea how the movie ended up on my list. By the time I received The Way Way Back (2013) and popped it in my DVD player, I was expecting a film about prisoners escaping from a Siberian Gulag camp during World War II before realizing that movie was called The Way Back, a 2010 movie I still want to see. Instead, The Way Way Back turned out to be a surprisingly enjoyable movie about a teenage outcast trying to understand his life one summer.

    The Way Way Back    , written and directed by Nat Faxon and Jim Rash, follows the awkward 14-year-old Duncan, played by Liam James, who goes with his divorced mother Pam (Toni Collette) on vacation to a Cape Cod beach house with her boyfriend Trent (Steve Carell) and his daughter. Duncan is out of place in the world of adults, and eventually he begins exploring on his own, finding a surrogate family at the local water park managed by Owen, played by Sam Rockwell.

    While I would not describe The Way Way Back as a small independent film, it does use a modest budget to illustrate a realistic story that does not overly play to Hollywood stereotypes. The victories and the defeats in the movie are not overblown, and the story seems honest, while also being fun.

    I suspect that The Way Way Back ended up in my Netflix Queue because I had read a good review and saw that two actors I like, Rockwell and Carrell are in the movie. Steve Carrell plays against type here, portraying someone who is a jerk, while Rockwell uses his quirky charm to full effect. And Toni Collette is brilliant at playing a troubled mom, as she did in About a Boy (2002). The excellent cast also includes Maya Rudolph and Rob Corddry.

    Considering the small budget, The Way Way Back was modestly successful at the box office and created a lot of buzz coming out of The 2013 Sundance Film Festival. But if you missed it the first time around, it is worth a rental.

    Conclusion? If you are in the mood for a modest story with interesting characters and are not expecting an overblown adventure, you probably will enjoy the small coming-of-age tale in The Way Way Back. The honesty of the story and the excellent cast make the movie a nice surprise and a good movie that you might have missed. Rotten Tomatoes gives the movie a respectable 86% rating from both critics and audience members.

    {Missed Movies is our continuing series on good films you might have missed because they did not receive the recognition they deserved when released.}

    What did you think of The Way Way Back? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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