Entertainment

Robert Towne, Oscar-Winning Writer Of ‘Chinatown,’ Dies At 89

Published

5 months ago

2024-07-03

NEW YORK — Robert Towne, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of “Shampoo,” “The Last Detail,” and other outstanding films, has died. His work on “Chinatown” was a model of the art form and helped define the jaded allure of his native Los Angeles. He was 89.

According to publicist Carri McClure, Towne died on Monday at home in Los Angeles, surrounded by his family. She refuses to remark on the cause of death.

Towne | AP Image

Robert Towne, Oscar-Winning Writer Of ‘Chinatown,’ Dies At 89

Towne once enjoyed prestige on par with the actors and directors he worked with in a field that gave rise to rueful jokes about writers’ standing. Through friendships with two of the biggest actors of the 1960s and 1970s, Warren Beatty and Jack Nicholson, he authored or co-wrote some of the iconic films of a period when artists had exceptional creative power. The rare “auteur” among screenwriters, Towne was able to convey a profoundly personal and influential picture of Los Angeles to the cinema.

“It’s a city that’s so illusory,” Towne said in a 2006 interview with the Associated Press. “It’s the farthest west of America. It is a final resort. It’s a location where people go to make their aspirations a reality. “And they’re always disappointed.”

Towne, known in Hollywood for his prominent brow and long beard, won an Academy Award for “Chinatown” and was nominated for three more, including “The Last Detail,” “Shampoo,” and “Greystoke.” In 1997, the Writers Guild of America honored him with a lifetime achievement award.

“His life, like the characters he created, was incisive, iconoclastic and entirely (original),” quoted “Shampoo” actor Lee Grant on the television show X.

Towne’s success came after a long career in television, including roles in “The Man from U.N.C.L.E” and “The Lloyd Bridges Show,” as well as low-budget films for “B” producer Roger Corman. In a classic show business scenario, he partly owes his breakthrough to his psychiatrist, who introduced him to Beatty, another patient. As Beatty worked on “Bonnie and Clyde,” he brought Towne to revise the Robert Benton-David Newman script and had him on set while the film was shot in Texas.

Towne’s contributions to the famous crime picture “Bonnie and Clyde,” released in 1967, went unacknowledged, and he was a popular ghostwriter for many years. He worked on “The Godfather,” “The Parallax View,” and “Heaven Can Wait,” among others, and described himself as a “relief pitcher who could come in for an inning but not pitch the entire game.” However, Towne was named in Nicholson’s macho “The Last Detail” and Beatty’s erotic comedy “Shampoo” and was immortalized in “Chinatown,” a 1974 thriller set during the Great Depression.

“Chinatown” was directed by Roman Polanski and stars Nicholson as J.J. “Jake” Gittes, a private investigator assigned to track down Evelyn Mulwray’s husband. The spouse is the chief engineer of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, and Gittes becomes entangled in a catastrophic spiral of corruption and violence led by Evelyn’s brutal father, Noah Cross (John Huston).

Towne, influenced by Raymond Chandler’s fiction, revived the danger and ambiance of a classic Los Angeles film noir but set Gittes’ convoluted quest against a wider, more sinister backdrop of Southern California. Clues gather into a timeless detective story that leads helplessly to tragedy, summed up by one of the most repeated lines in film history, words of gloomy fatalism delivered to a distraught Gittes by his partner Lawrence Walsh (Joe Mantell): “Forget it, Jake, it’s Chinatown.”

Towne’s script has long been a mainstay of filmwriting workshops, but it also teaches how movies are made and the dangers of attributing any film to a single point of view. He admits to working closely with Polanski as they revised and tightened the story and arguing fiercely with the director about the film’s despairing ending, which Polanski pushed for and Towne later agreed was the right choice.

However, the notion originated with Towne, who passed down the opportunity to adapt “The Great Gatsby” for the cinema to work on “Chinatown,” which was inspired in part by Carey McWilliams’ 1946 book “Southern California: An Island on the Land.”

“There was a chapter called ‘Water, water, water,’ which was a revelation for me. In 2009, he told The Hollywood Reporter, “And I thought, ‘Why not do a picture about a crime right in front of everybody’?”

“Instead of a jewel-encrusted falcon, make it something as common as water faucets, and create a conspiracy out of it. And after reading about what they were doing, dumping water and starving farmers, I knew there were immense visual and dramatic potential.”

The backstory of “Chinatown” has become a kind of detective story, explored in producer Robert Evans’ memoir, “The Kid Stays in the Picture”; in Peter Biskind’s “East Riders, Raging Bulls,” a history of 1960s-1970s Hollywood; and Sam Wasson’s “The Big Goodbye,” which is entirely dedicated to “Chinatown.” In “The Big Goodbye,” released in 2020, Wasson claimed that Towne received substantial assistance from a ghostwriter, former college buddy Edward Taylor. According to “The Big Goodbye,” for which Towne declined to be interviewed, Taylor did not seek credit for the picture since his “friendship with Robert” was more important.

Wasson also wrote that the movie’s famous concluding phrase came from a vice detective who told Towne that crimes in Chinatown were rarely prosecuted.

“Robert Towne once said that Chinatown is a state of mind,” Wasson wrote in an email. “Not just a location on a map in Los Angeles, but a state of complete awareness almost identical to blindness. Dreaming you’re in paradise and waking up in the dark—that’s Chinatown. Thinking you’ve got it figured out and then discovering you’re dead – that’s Chinatown.”

After the mid-1970s, the studios gained power, and Towne’s reputation dwindled. His directorial efforts, such as “Personal Best” and “Tequila Sunrise,” yielded mixed success. “The Two Jakes,” the long-awaited sequel to “Chinatown,” was a commercial and critical failure when released in 1990, resulting in a temporary estrangement between Towne and Nicholson.

Towne | Variety Image

Robert Towne, Oscar-Winning Writer Of ‘Chinatown,’ Dies At 89

Around the same time, he agreed to work on a film far removed from the 1970s’ art-house goals, the Don Simpson-Jerry Bruckheimer production “Days of Thunder,” starring Tom Cruise as a racing car driver and Robert Duvall as his crew chief. The 1990 film was notoriously over budget and critically derided, despite its admirers, including Quentin Tarantino and other racing enthusiasts. And Towne’s script popularized a word used by Duvall when Cruise complains that another automobile hit him: “He didn’t slam into you, he didn’t bump you, he didn’t nudge you.” He rubbed you.

“And rubbin,′ son, is racin.'”

Towne later collaborated with Cruise on “The Firm” and the first two “Mission: Impossible” films. His most recent film, “Ask the Dust,” a Los Angeles narrative he wrote and directed, was released in 2006. Towne married twice, the second time to Luisa Gaule, and they had two children. His brother, Roger Towne, also authored scripts, with credits including “The Natural.”

Towne was born Robert Bertram Schwartz in Los Angeles and moved to San Pedro when his father’s clothes shop failed due to the Great Depression. (His father changed the family’s name to Towne). He had always enjoyed writing and was encouraged to work in film by the vicinity of the Warner Bros. Theater and by reading critic James Agee. Towne had worked on a tuna boat and frequently discussed its impact.

“I’ve identified fishing with writing in my mind to the extent that each script is like a trip that you’re taking — and you are fishing,” he told the Writers Guild Association in 2013. “Sometimes they both require an act of faith… Sometimes it’s just faith that keeps you going, because you’re thinking, “God damn it, nothing—not a bite today.” “Nothing is happening.

SOURCE – (AP)

Entertainment

Gladiator II Rakes in $87 Million in Weekend Debut

Published

6 days ago

2024-11-18

Geoff Brown

Despite not playing in theaters in the United States, Canada, and China until this coming Friday, Gladiator II earned $87 million over the weekend, which is the best foreign opening for a Ridley Scott film to date.

Last week, the picture premiered in 63 countries, including the UK, and grossed $11.4 million from 722 theatres. Particularly impressive was its performance in France, where it raised $10.3 million from 729 outlets.

But this one is a little weaker compared to February’s smash hit sequel, Dune: Part Two, which grossed $97 million worldwide in its opening weekend. At the same time, Deadpool & Wolverine made $233 million for Disney, while Inside Out 2 for Pixar grossed $140 million.

The Fall Guy, an action comedy starring Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt, earned $36.7 million in its opening weekend worldwide, while Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga earned $30 million.

Last Monday, King Charles III attended a screening of Gladiator II in London, capping off a weeks-long worldwide press tour for the film’s cast and production. A Mexican biscuit brand, Rome’s public transportation system, and a German bank VR are just a few multinational brands it has teamed up with to boost its visibility.

In Australia, dessert merchant Oliver Brown offered a special edition of pistachio-heavy puds and drinks dubbed the Emperor’s Collection. The Gladiator II salted caramel latte is available at French Coffee Shop, a business in Paris.

After poor statistics for Venom: The Last Dance and The Rock’s comedy Red One, which premiered worldwide last week, fans hope that Scott’s delayed sequel can lift the global box office for the last month and a half of the year.

Some are predicting a Barbenheimer-style struggle for the top spot in the US box office when Gladiator II and the highly anticipated musical Wicked premiere on the same day, even though double-bill events are unlikely to be very popular.

Gladiator Star Russell Crowe Honored in Rome

Gladiator Star Russell Crowe Honored in Rome

Entertainment

Blizzard’s Remastered Versions Of Warcraft 1 And 2 Are Now Available On PCs.

Published

2 weeks ago

2024-11-13

Salman Ahmad

Image credit: Blizzard Entertainment

(VOR News) – It has been said by Blizzard that it does not intend to remake Warcraft 1 and 2 since the company believes that these games are “just not that fun any longer.”

When the corporation first made this declaration, it has been almost exactly eight years since it was delivered.

However, the firm has only recently made the news that it will be doing precisely that, and as part of the celebrations for Warcraft’s 30th anniversary, both of the remastered versions are now available to play. The celebrations did not start until today.

The public first played Warcraft in 1994.

This game played a significant role in Blizzard’s rise to the top of the competition. In the year that followed, Warcraft 2 was hastily created in order to suit the requirements of the burgeoning fanbase that the first Warcraft had established.

Additionally, the company has just disclosed that they will be remastering the games, and these remasters will contain a variety of additions to the traditional real-time strategic action that is included in the games.

The initial stage of these enhancements to the development process consists of a new collection of hand-drawn pictures that may be toggled on and off in real time. The artistic style of the originals has been said to be completely captured by these photos, according to the assertions made.

Specifically, Blizzard has implemented “modern controls” for Warcraft 1, which include the option to move with a right click, the ability to pick bounding boxes, and a faster progression rate.

These features are all present in the Warcraft game.

The alterations that have been made include these, however they are not the only ones. It is important to note that these changes have been introduced in addition to the user interface and user experience enhancements that have been implemented throughout both games.

Tool tips, health bars, mission decision screens, and increased unit selection are some of the enhancements that have been introduced in this version of the game. As an additional feature, the multiplayer mode that was included in the first version of Warcraft 2 is still included in the remastered version of the game.

As an additional point of interest, each and every one of the legacy custom maps is entirely compatible with the new edition and may be played in the same capacity.

Despite the fact that there is currently no information regarding whether or not Warcraft 1 Remastered and Warcraft 2 Remastered will eventually be made available on other markets, both of these remastered versions of the game are currently available for purchase on Battle.net for personal computers at prices of $9.99 and $14.99, respectively.

Both of these versions of the game are remastered versions of the original game. A Battle Chest bundle is also available for purchase, and it can be purchased for the price of $39.99. All of the titles that have been remastered are included in this bundle, in addition to Blizzard’s Warcraft 3: Reforged, which has been met with a considerable deal of criticism.

Blizzard has been making continual efforts to improve the game ever since it was first made available to the public in the year 2020.

This is despite the fact that the game was met with poor reviews practically immediately after it was released. An entirely new upgrade, version 2.0, is currently being made available to all gamers without delay.

One of the numerous enhancements to the quality of life that are included in this is “much, much more,” in addition to a wide range of options for personalizing the hockey experience within the game and a new ladder.

In addition to the high-definition versions of all of the older Warcraft assets, these upgrades also include new environments and lighting, a redesigned user interface, and a variety of other enhancements.

SOURCE: EG

Entertainment

Yellowstone Season 5 Part 2 Returns Without Kevin Costner

Published

2 weeks ago

2024-11-11

Geoff Brown

Yellowstone is finally returning for the second half of its fifth season without Kevin Costner

Yellowstone will finally return for the second half of its fifth season. We have a lot to speak about, such as recalling what is going on in this program, Kevin Costner’s departure, and whether or not season 5, part 2, will truly end Yellowstone.

Season 5 Part 1 ended on a cliffhanger—we could be in for a full-fledged Dutton family civil war—and we’ve been waiting for nearly two years.

A quick recap: nothing changes from how this program usually goes, except it’s a little more intense. Beth Dutton (Kelly Reilly) despised Jamie Dutton. Jamie Dutton (Wes Bentley) despised Beth Dutton.

That has always been the case since childhood trauma, but now things have escalated. Their father, John Dutton (Kevin Costner), is now Montana’s Governor, and Jamie, who should be his top legal thinker, is played by a group of local businessmen known as Market Equities.

Anyway, Jamie and Beth are attempting to kill each other, and John appears to be leaning toward Beth’s side.

Given Kevin Costner’s public exit from the program, part 2 of season 5 will be especially noteworthy. Long story short, he departed to make his Horizon films and never returned.

So, how will Yellowstone pick up the tale without John? That much is unknown, which adds to the season’s appeal!

Of course, our other characters continue to do what they do. Rip (Cole Hauser) is doing his Rip thing. Kayce (Luke Grimes) oversees the ranch. His wife, Monica (Kelsey Asbille), is still grieving the loss of their unborn son.

But we do have some high stakes to pick up—and they will begin on Sunday, November 10th, whether Kevin Costner appears on screen or not.

Another twist: While we believed season 5 would conclude the Yellowstone story, part 2 is in the works.

There have also been suggestions that Yellowstone could return for a sixth season, starring Cole Hauser and Kelly Reilly as Rip and Beth. Hmm, certainly!

Yellowstone’s fifth season, part 2, will air each episode of the truncated half-season on Sunday nights at 8:00 PM EST.

The episodes will then be shown on linear TV, Hulu with Live TV, or the Paramount Network website and app for those with a cable subscription. The premiere will also re-air on CBS at 10:00 p.m. EST.

Yellowstone season 5, part 2, will consist of six episodes, the first of which is currently accessible to watch and stream. That implies the series might end with five more episodes of Western family drama.