BIRTHDAY
November 22, 1984
New York, NY

RECENT CREDITS
Iron Man 2 (FILM) May. 7, 2010
He's Just Not That Into You (FILM) Feb. 6, 2009
The Spirit (FILM) Dec. 25, 2008
Vicky Cristina Barcelona (FILM) Aug. 15, 2008
The Other Boleyn Girl (FILM) Feb. 29, 2008

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in Danish director Stellan Rye's and Paul Wegener's early German silent horror film Der Student von Prag (1913, Ger.) (aka The Student of Prague/A Bargain With Satan), based loosely upon the Faust legend, a poor student made a pact with the devil in return for wealth and a beautiful woman. [The student was portrayed by actor/producer/director Paul Wegener in his film debut.] It was the first artistically important German production - and was later remade in 1926 and directed by Henrik Galeen. Wegener directed the first of his influential adaptations of the Golem legend by Gustav Meyrinck - Der Golem (1914, Ger.) (aka The Monster of Fate), and then remade it a few years later as Der Golem Und Die Tanzerin (1917, Ger.) (aka The Golem and the Dancer) - notably the first horror film sequel. He remade the film a third time, with Karl Freund as cinematographer, again titling it Der Golem (1920, Ger.) (aka The Golem: or How He Came Into the World). The expressionistic film was based upon Central European myths and influenced later 'Frankenstein' monster films in the early 1930s with themes of a creator losing control of his creation. The Golem, played by Wegener, was an ancient clay figure from Hebrew mythology that was brought to life by Rabbi Loew's magic amulet to defend and save the Jews from a pogrom in the 16th century threatened by Rudolf II of Habsburg. The man-made, clay creature roamed through the Jewish ghetto of medieval Prague to protect it from persecution.

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Along with Enrico Guazzoni’s epic Quo Vadis? (1912, It.) - often considered the first successful feature-length motion picture and one of the first films with over two hours running time, the influential three-hour Italian silent film from Giovanni Pastrone, Cabiria (1914, It.), was an early example of spectacular and monumental epic film-making. It laid the pattern and groundwork for future big-budget feature-length films (by the likes of D.W. Griffith - for his Judith of Bethulia (1914), The Birth of a Nation (1915), and later his Babylonian sequences in Intolerance (1916) - and Cecil B. DeMille). Its story of 3rd century BC Ancient Rome included sequences of the eruption of Mt. Etna and Hannibal's crossing of the Alps with elephants (with an early example of tracking shots). The landmark film was shot on location in North Africa, Sicily and the Italian Alps. It was also the first film to be screened at the White House.

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Other historical swashbuckler films included the retelling of Alexandre Dumas' classic novels. In Dumas' often-told tale of revenge in The Count of Monte Cristo (1912, 1934, 1974, and 2002), an unjustly imprisoned sailor Edmond Dantes escaped after fifteen years from an island prison and returned to 1820s Paris to find revenge. British-born actor Robert Donat appeared in the 1934 version - the only film he made in Hollywood. Director James Whale's The Man in the Iron Mask (1939 and 1998) was about twin brothers (one - the tyrannical Louis XIV, the other - exiled and imprisoned with an iron mask) in 18th century France separated at birth - one eventually became a swashbuckling member of the Three Musketeers. Alexander Dumas' classic, The Corsican Brothers (1942) repeated the plot twist of twins (Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. in both roles) separated at birth but later reunited to join together to defeat a tyrannical Corsican baron.

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In other later roles, Joan Crawford, Barbara Stanwyck, and Olivia de Havilland represented powerful, liberated females on screen, and helped to create long-lasting examples of this genre. Crawford starred in the trashy, high-strung, musical melodrama Humoresque (1946) as an older, wealthy society patroness who sought revenge after being scorned by a struggling, talented violinist. She also played an emotionally unstable nurse in Possessed (1947), a playwright/heiress wise to a plot against her by her scheming husband in Sudden Fear (1952), and a middle-aged typist grasping for love with a younger man in the psychological soaper Autumn Leaves (1956). Melodramatic elements were found in the socially-conscious drama regarding mental illness and institutionalization The Snake Pit (1948) with Olivia de Havilland's showcase performance as a woman descending into madness in a brutal mental institution. De Havilland also played a courted, plain-jane spinster in the moody and somber melodrama The Heiress (1949).

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The females in film noir were either of two types (or archetypes) - dutiful, reliable, trustworthy and loving women; or femmes fatales - mysterious, duplicitous, double-crossing, gorgeous, unloving, predatory, tough-sweet, unreliable, irresponsible, manipulative and desperate women. Usually, the male protagonist in film noir wished to elude his mysterious past, and had to choose what path to take (or have the fateful choice made for him).

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The themes of noir, derived from sources in Europe, were imported to Hollywood by emigre film-makers. Noirs were rooted in German Expressionism of the 1920s and 1930s, such as in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920, Germ.) or Fritz Lang's M (1931, Germ.), Fury (1936) and You Only Live Once (1937). Films from German directors, such as F. W. Murnau, G. W. Pabst, and Robert Wiene, were noted for their stark camera angles and movements, chiaroscuro lighting and shadowy, high-contrast images - all elements of later film noir. In addition, the French sound films of the 30s, such as director Julien Duvivier's Pepe Le Moko (1937), contributed to noir's development.

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Stars: Natalie Gal, Alicja Bachleda and Cameron Goodman

Review:

This second film by the German commercial director Markus Goller will inevitably remind most viewers of its more accomplished predecessor, "Goodbye, Lenin!," in the genre of "man, was life ever stupid in the former East Germany!" Luckily, "Friendship!" shifts focus to the other end of the spectrum, to concentrate on the comic and apparently true-life travails of two young Ossies who decide to head toward San Francisco in 1990 in search of freedom and real junk food.

This shift helps a lot, but the film ends up being crippled by the cliches of the fish-out-of-water, road-movie composite genre. Yet director Goller is nothing if not energetic, and he has an ability to keep things moving in the best Hollywood fashion.

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Cast
Kevin Sorbo as Aedan
Whitney Able as Xia
Melissa Ordway as Princess Tanis
Sarah Ann Schultz as Malia
Janelle Giumarra as Rajan
Inbar Lavi as Alana
Jennifer Siebel Newsom as Queen Ma'at
Ralf Moeller as General Hafez
Matthew Willig as Giant Iberian
Lee Horsley as Talon

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Cast:
Robert De Niro as Jack Byrnes
Ben Stiller as Greg Focker
Owen Wilson as Kevin Rawley
Teri Polo as Pamela Byrnes
Blythe Danner as Dina Byrnes

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