Andrew Wright - 1961-2012

Australian filmmaker Andrew Wright has been killed in a helicopter crash. Wright was filming a documentary about Papua New Guinea when the helicopter he was piloting crashed near Nowra, south of Sydney, killing both himself and fellow filmmaker Mike DeGruy. Mr Wright wrote and produced the James Cameron-backed film Sanctum, which was released last year and became the most successful Aussie film of 2011. Mr Wright assisted Cameron in the filming of his many dive-based documentaries, including Ghosts of The Abyss and Aliens of The Deep. Wright was also heavily involved in the the development of the 3D technology used by Cameron in Avatar, and was recently announced as the director new Aussie-based, James Cameron-funded production house Cameron Pace.

More on the tragic accident which killed both Mr Wright and Mr DeGruy can be found here.

Andrew Wright was 52.

Zalman King - 1942-2012

One of my childhood heroes, Zalman King, has passed away. Mr King was a director/producer who gave us such memorable classics as Two Moon Junction and the Kim Basinger flick 9½ Weeks. The majority of his work was generally soft erotica (and as a young lad, this was, of course, essential viewing), and many a furtive screening of Two Moon Junction (starring hottie Sherilyn Fenn and Richard Tyson) gave me a reason to …. ahem… love cinema. The Mickey Rourke/Carre Otis flick Wild Orchid, which was initially rated X in the US due to some graphic sex scenes (it was trimmed to bring it down to an R rating, because at the time the NC17 rating had not been created) was a bomb, although the controversy surrounding the steamy on-set affair between the two leads led to it being a mild success.

Mickey Rourke would go on to appear alongside Kim Basinger in the steamy erotic drama, 9½ Weeks, with King producing the film over director Adrian Lyne. This film was a commercial success, and remains King’s most popular work.

Mr King passed away from cancer on February 3rd, aged 69.

Ben Gazzara - 1930-2012

Emmy-winning US actor Ben Gazzara has passed away. Mr Gazzara made a name for himself initially on stage, in the Broadway production of Cat On A Hit Tin Roof, and while he went for the role of Brick in the film version, he lost out to Paul Newman. Gazzara would make a number of film and television appearances in his near-60 year career, including Husbands (with John Cassavettes), They All Laughed (for Peter Bogdanovich), Road House (alongside the white-hot Patrick Swayze), The Bridge At Ramagen (with Robert Vaughn), The Big Lebowski, The Thomas Crown Affair (1999), Capone, The Killing Of A Chinese Bookie, Dogville (for Lars von Trier) and 13 (2010).

In 1999 Mr Gazzara was diagnosed with throat cancer, and passed away on February 3rd from pancreatic cancer.

I know, I know, we don’t often promote films or ask for donations here at fernbyfilms.com, but this time, we’re gonna slide this one in and hope nobody notices. Actually, we hope everybody notices. A good friend of ours has a little brother involved in film production, and his group recently came up with an idea for a series; they went to the Flinders Ranges, shot a three minute prologue with the hope of obtaining funding to complete the series. Look, we’re just gonna embed the clip and attach a couple of links in the hope that anyone reading this might be able to chip in a few bucks. They need to raise $20,000 by March 14th. The name alone sounds awesome. Watch this, and tell me you disagree!  For more info on this project, check out the Epic Films facebook page, and their official website as well….

 Ladies and Gentlemen and Al K Hall, I give you: Wasteland Panda!

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Wastelander Panda Prologue from Epic Films on Vimeo.

Ian Abercrombie - 1934-2012

Just wanted to touch base this afternoon with some sad news I learned – British actor Ian Abercrombie has passed away. Mr Abercrombie was well known in the film industry for playing roles in productions as diverse as Addams Family Values, Firestarter, Army Of Darkness (as Wiseman), The Lost World: Jurassic Park, Mousehunt and lastly, Rango (as the voice of Ambrose). Mr Abercrombie was also known for his portrayal of Palpatine (the future Emperor) in the Star Wars animated series, The Clone Wars. As well as his film work, he also appeared in a number of television series, in cameo roles for The Nanny, Desperate Housewives, Seinfeld, Airwolf and Babylon 5, as well as a recurring role in The Wizards Of Waverly Place. His best known role was that of Alfred Pennyworth, Bruce Wayne’s butler, in the short-lived television series Birds Of Prey.

Mr Abercrombie passed away on January 26th, aged 77.

A champion of independent film has passed away. Bingham Ray, the co-founder of October Films, and the President of United Artists between 2001 and 2004, has passed away. Ray, who co founded October Films with Lipsky, ensured the continued support of smaller, independent films throughout the 90′s. Under Ray’s guidance, the company distrubuted films such as Del Toro’s Cronos, The Last Seduction, Breaking The Waves, The Funeral (1996), The Last Days, Three Seasons, Topsy-Turvy, and Cherry Falls. Through a series of aquisitons and sales, October Films now forms part of Focus Features, when it merged with USA Films in 2002.

Mr Ray passed away on January 23. He was 57.

Frankly, the Academy has no idea. Drive, a film I consider to be easily the best film of 2011, missed out on virtually any Oscar nominations at all, save a filler spot for Best Sound Editing (I mean, c’mon, when you’re up against a Transformers movie, what hope to you have?) – not even Albert Brooks’ nasty turn as a gangster in that film was given so much as a nod. Instead, Melissa McCarthy now becomes an Oscar nominee for her work in the female slanted comedy Bridesmaids. Really?

And so the frustrating spectacle of seeing truly great films miss out on the Oscar glow comes around again.

(more…)

Bob Anderson - 1922-2012

While he’s not a household name, everyone should know who Bob Anderson is. Anderson was the man working behind the scenes of some of cinemas great sword fights, from Star Wars, The Princess Bride, to The Lord Of The Rings and even Peter Jackson’s currently-in-production The Hobbit. Mr Anderson was the man under Vader’s mask whilst dueling with Obi Wan in the original Star Wars, Luke Skywalker in Empire Strikes Back and Return of The Jedi, as well as choreographing the sword fighting sequences in films as diverse as Highlander, Barry Lyndon (for Stanley Kubrick), The Three Musketeers (1993, with Charlie Sheen and Keifer Sutherland), both recent Zorro films, and even the fencing sequence in Die Another Day. He also worked with the legendary Errol Flynn, on the film The Master Of Ballantrae. Chick-flick fans across the globe also need to remember that it was Bob who designed the amazing fight choreography in The Princess Pride. Up until his passing he was continuing to work, returning to Middle Earth for the Hobbit production, designing more fight sequences.

Among his on-screen appearances, he played a small role in the Doctor Who serial Enemy Of The World, and an Imperial Officer in The Empire Strikes Back.

Mr Anderson was 90.

In the hundred or so years since film was invented and turned into a multi-billion dollar industry, plenty of ink has been spilled over lists and articles about just who has been the best – the best director, the best actor, the best musician – like humanity can’t get enough out of figuring out the most superior of our own self-importance. The Hollywood awards season seems to last the entire year, with a multitude of industry-based awards shows dominating the blogosphere and newsprint each and every month, culminating in the very pinnacle of cinematic artistic achievement, The Academy Awards. Each year, golden gongs are handed out to those folks judged by others folks to be the best in their category at what they’ve done that year. Whether those awards are warranted or not isn’t the point of this article; here, we’re going to spotlight the very best of the best – the best Actors and Actresses, the best Directors, the best Films, even the best cinematic advances of the Modern Age. What do I mean by Modern Age, you ask. Simple. Hollywood’s boom times of the 30′s and 40′s, at least prior to the War, are known today as the Golden Age, and the three decades after that could be termed the Bronze Age – with a shift into color film, multi-channel stereo and the re-invention of the Hollywood “blockbuster” away from biblical epics and sweeping melodramatic romance. The 80′s, however, when you look at films produced at that time in a reflective mood, represents a shift both artistically and stylistically in the medium of film to such a degree that I think a new “age” of Hollywood could be coined: the Modern Age. An epoch of cinema between 1980 and 2010, 30 years of both massive successes, and epic fails. The Greatest of the Modern Age attempts to distill the best of the Modern Age into a series of opinion-based lists, and we hope you enjoy (if not disagree with) our work.

While stars of the bygone era, names like Shirley Temple, Burt Lancaster, Clark Gable, Rita Hayworth and others may have faded from the forefront of our social conscience, due mainly to the passing of time and the innocence of youth, a youth more obsessed with Justin Bieber than James Dean, the stars of the modern era have, and can, reach a global audience unlike any in history before now. Whereas Hollywood of the 30′s seemed like a fairytale time by today’s standards, nowadays, stars run their own shows and have such a social presence thanks to online media and saturation TV coverage, it’s impossible to not see them every day. Which begs the question: if the stars of today had lived back in the heyday of Hollywood, alongside the greats of cinema, who would be the biggest and the best? It’s like equating apples and oranges, I know, but I wanted to take a chance and try and sift through the smorgasbord of superstars getting about today and put together a definitive list of the ten best actors and actresses living today. I realize it’s a mission fraught with danger and controversy, but here at fernbyfilms.com, we’re all about danger and controversy. Okay, perhaps not exactly all about it, but we don’t mind stoking the flames of fan passion from time to time.

Ergo, we’ve come up with a list of actors which we consider to be the greatest cinema legends since 1980.The criteria for inclusion isn’t that stringent: each actor must have performed in a minimum 5 films since 1980, been nominated for and/or won an Oscar, and have a substantial following from the general public. The majority of their major work must be post-1980.

The Modern Age. The Facebook Age. Call it what you will, it’s a Top 10 list and it’s gonna kick up some mud!

Click here to reveal who our choices for the ten best actors of the modern age are!!!