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If Ridley Scott stopped making movies immediately after Alien in 1979, he’d likely still be remembered as one of the great horror directors of all time. But I’m damn glad he didn’t stop there, because six years later he released a film that would forever shape my taste as a movie fan. And while his twisted fairytale Legend isn’t strictly horror, it has more than enough gorgeously spooky elements to enthrall any horror fan. Anytime it popped up on television I remember dropping everything and planting myself in front of the screen, ready to be enraptured by a world of fairies, goblins, and one of the most terrifying (yet captivating) villains ever put to screen.

Now, the seed for Legend actually predates Alien, as Scott first conceived the idea while he was filming The Duelists. The story took shape over the course of several years, with Scott...

Meet Rita Tushingham, the cutest comic (and dramatic) actress of swinging London. This '60s masterpiece applies director Richard Lester's talent for comedy to a new kind of quirky, youthful sex farce. Shy boy Michael Crawford takes lessons on how to dominate women from Ray Brooks, when all he has to do to win cute Rita Tushingham is be himself. With a glorious music score by John Barry. The style is everything; the movie was extremely influential. The Knack... and how to get it Blu-ray Kl Studio Classics 1965 / B&W / 1:66 widescreen / 84 min. / Street Date January 12, 2015 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95 Starring Rita Tushingham, Ray Brooks, Michael Crawford, Donal Donnelly, Jane Birkin, Jacqueline Bisset, Charlotte Rampling. Cinematography David Watkin Production Designer Assheton Gorton Film Editor Antony Gibbs Original Music John Barry Written by Charles Wood from the play by Ann Jellicoe Produced by Oscar Lewenstein Directed by Richard Lester

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The Englishman’s long but sporadic career included an Oscar and BAFTA nomination for his art direction and set decoration on 1981’s The French Lieutenant’s Woman. Assheton Gorton’s daughter told local paper the Shropshire Star that he died in his sleep September 14 at his home near the England-Wales border. He was 84. Gorton also worked on such well-known films as Michelangelo Antonioni‘s Blow-Up (1966) — scoring his first BAFTA nom — Ridley Scott’s Tom Cruise starrer Legend (1985) and Disney’s live-action 101 Dalmatians (1996) and sequel 102 Dalmatians (2000), both starring Glenn Close as Cruella de Vil. Gorton worked on fewer than 20 films during his four-decade career, including The Magic Christian (1969), Get Carter (1971), For the Boys (1991), Rob Roy (1995) and Shadow of the Vampire (2000). He also worked on a handful of television programs including ITV’s Armchair Theatre and 1980 NBC miniseries The Martian Chronicles.

Assheton Gorton, the Oscar-nominated and avant-garde English production designer and art director who worked on Blow-Up, Get Carter and The French Lieutenant’s Woman, has died. He was 84. Gorton died peacefully in his sleep Sept. 14 in the Churchstoke valley on the Wales-England border after battling a heart condition in recent years, his daughter Sophie told the Shropshire Star. Gorton received Oscar and BAFTA nominations for French Lieutenant’s Woman (1981), which was directed by Karel Reisz and adapted by Harold Pinter. In the lush drama, Meryl Streep and Jeremy Irons play two sets of couples —

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Director Ridley Scott followed up Blade Runner with the fantastical whimsy of Legend. Michael looks back at Scott’s cult fantasy...

Hindsight is a strange gift. Geek history dictates that the 1980s were a heyday for the fantasy genre; however, few of the decade’s sword ‘n sorcery flicks were outright hits, and many barely made a comfortable profit. Indeed, nostalgia may enshrine the likes of Dark Crystal, Clash Of The Titans and Willow, but even the most successful only just cracked the domestic top 20 for their respective years.

Of the bunch, Ridley Scott’s Legend remains a particularly tricky case. On its theatrical release, it wasn’t just a box office failure, it was that terrible thing: a box office failure that, even after much pre-release tinkering by the studio, still bombed. Various cuts, endings, even soundtracks exist, but nothing that Universal changed attracted the desired audience. In 1985, Legend was pronounced dead on arrival,...

DVD Playhouse—February 2012

By Allen Gardner

To Kill A Mockingbird 50th Anniversary Edition (Universal) Robert Mulligan’s film of Harper Lee’s landmark novel pits a liberal-minded lawyer (Gregory Peck) against a small Southern town’s racism when defending a black man (Brock Peters) on trumped-up rape charges. One of the 1960s’ first landmark films, a truly stirring human drama that hits all the right notes and isn’t dated a bit. Robert Duvall makes his screen debut (sans dialogue) as the enigmatic Boo Radley. DVD and Blu-ray double edition. Bonuses: Two feature-length documentaries: Fearful Symmetry and A Conversation with Gregory Peck; Featurettes; Excerpts and film clips from Gregory Peck’s Oscar acceptance speech and AFI Lifetime Achievement Award; Commentary by Mulligan and producer Alan J. Pakula; Trailer. Widescreen. Dolby and DTS 2.0 mono.

Outrage: Way Of The Yakuza (Magnolia) After a brief hiatus from his signature oeuvre of Japanese gangster flicks,...

Boxoffice is going to the dogs, namely Disney's "101 Dalmatians", a bounding, tail-wagging charmer that should fill the holiday bowls with piles of green stuff. A certain domestic hit, Buena Vista should also strike gold internationally with this farcical, live-action family film. And when it comes time for video leftovers, they'll need more than doggie bags to carry away the rental-purchase booty.

With John Hughes' screenwriting pawprint all over this blazing, warm holiday potion, "101 Dalmatians'" lineage is a bit of a mongrel, with its pedigree traced from the original English novel through the classic Disney animated film to Hughes' most recent kids' comedies, namely "Home Alone" and, most pointedly, "Beethoven".

Analytically apt seventh graders just might notice that "101 Dalmatians" is, basically, "Beethoven" played once again: Namely, a beloved bowser is dognapped by an evil ogre who will kill him for personal gain. Instead of a St. Bernard being whisked away under the cruel orders of a diabolical vet as in "Beethoven", in "Dalmatians" we have a whole slew of dogs, 101 to be exact, who are stolen under the orders of a cruel fashion maven who wants to turn their hides into a dog cape. As in "Home Alone" and "Beethoven", the actual perps are a pair of dimwits, one tall and skinny and one short and dumpy, who ultimately suffer the jolts and wallops of Hughes' severe sense of slapstick justice.

As those who are experts in the dog-in-jeopardy genre will attest, "if the dogs aren't cute, the kids will scoot." In "Dalmatians", they've packed the canines with plenty of puppy charm and loaded them with individual personality. Best, director Stephen Herek has packed the pic with scads of reactive dog shots to tug us even closer to them. With plenty of bright, anthropomorphic moments as the two lead dogs conspire to get the humans to behave in the fashion they want, the film is a heart-pulling winner. The kids and the menfolk will be especially pleased that the filmmakers do not wallow in any mushy moments: such sludge as grownup romance, happily, is put on fast-forward and quickly dispensed with.

The acting ensemble here is not ald dogs, however: The humans are doggone good also, particularly Glenn Close as the archvillainess Cruella DeVil$ whose haughty snappings are wicked-witch scary. Whether barking out her vicious orders or snapping at underlings, Close's yelpings are a zesty blend of cruelty and coeedy. Playing the central huean characters, Jeff Daniels and Joely Richardson are warmly appealing as newlyweds whose betrothal was, naturaldy, inspired by some kindly canine matchmaking. As the Daniel Stern and Joe Pesci characters, oops, we mean the two bumblers Jasper and Horace, Hugh Laurie and Mark Wildiams are amusingly dunderheaded, while Joan Plowright adds some kindly charm as a nattering nanny.

Technical coftributions are blue-ribbon consistent, comic and comfy all at once. Keeping us in stitches are costume designers Anthony Powell and Rosemarq Burrows' apt and arch flourishes, particularly DeVil's hideously haute fashionware& Similarly, production designer Assheton Gorton has kindled the right mix of fireplace comfort with dastardly menace, while composer Michaed Kamen has captured the fergcity of the evildoers while conveying the sweetness of the good-natured characters. Capturing all in a rich holaday glow, cinematographer Adrian Biddle's luminescent laghting is a perfect holiday wrap. Although Industrial Laght & Magic is credited wit` creating computer images of dogs when the real ones couldn't do the stuff, we conclude this must be a program-note misprint since there didn't seem to be afy fake dogs in the pack.

101 DALMATIANS

Buena Vista Distribution

Walt Disney Pictures

A Great Oaks Prodn.

A Stephen Herek Film

Producers :John Hughes, Ricardo Mestres

Director :Stephen Herek

Screenwriter :John Hughes

Based upon the novel "The One Hundred and One Dalmatians" by Dodie Smith

Executive producer:Edward S. Feldman

Director of photography:Adrian Biddle

Production designer:Assheton Gorton

Special visual effects and animation:Industrial Light & Magic

Editor :Trudy Ship

Costume designer:Anthony Powell, Rosemary burrows

Music: Michael Kamen

Casting :Celestia Fox, Marcia Ross

Visual effects supervisor:Michael Owens

Visual effects producer:Chrissie England

Associate producer:Rebekah Rudd

Sound mixer :Clive Winter

Color/stereo

Cast:

Cruella DeVil :Glenn Close

Roger :Jeff Daniels

Anita :Joely Richardson

Nanny :Joan Plowright

Jasper:Hugh Laurie

Horace :Mark Williams

Skinner :John Shrapnel

Running time -- 98 minutes

MPAA rating: G...