National Film Registry Recognizes SF, Fantasy
Every year, the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry names 25 films for historic preservation. This year’s list was announced yesterday and we applaud the inclusion of several genre offerings including The Invisible Man and the first Terminator film. The Perils of Pauline, the first movie serial, makes the list and is seminal for the way it influenced moviemakers and storytellers, notably comic book writers, ever since.
Here’s a look at this year’s list:
The Asphalt Jungle (1950)
John Huston’s brilliant crime drama contains the recipe for a meticulously planned robbery, but the cast of criminal characters features one too many bad apples. Sam Jaffe, as the twisted mastermind, uses cash from corrupt attorney Emmerich (Louis Calhern) to assemble a group of skilled thugs to pull off a jewel heist. All goes as planned — until an alert night watchman and a corrupt cop enter the picture. Marilyn Monroe has a memorable bit part as Emmerich’s "niece."
Deliverance (1972)
Four Atlanta professionals (Burt Reynolds, Ned Beatty, Ronnie Cox and Jon Voight) head for a weekend canoe trip — and instead meet up with two of the more memorable villains in film history (Billy McKinney and Herbert Coward) in this gripping Appalachian "Heart of Darkness." With dazzling visual flair, director John Boorman and cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond infuse James Dickey’s novel with scenes of genuine terror and frantic struggles for survival battling river rapids — and in the process create a work rich with fascinating ambiguities about "civilized" values, urban-versus-backwoods culture, nature, and man’s supposed taming of the environment.
Funimation Entertainment announced this week that it has acquired broadcast, digital, and home entertainment rights to the 13-episode Ikki Tousen anime series, which was produced by J.C. Staff and broadcast in Japan in 2003. The Ikki Tousen anime was previously released in the domestically by Geneon, but Funimation’s announcement clearly stated it had licensed the series directly from Enoki Films.
