Tierra Unica is a destination blogsite focusing on world travel, entertainment, cuisine, news, popular culture, sports, business, technology, humor, and events from around the world with an emphasis on the USA and South America (Peru, Argentina, Brazil, etc).
"Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water my friend." ~ Bruce Lee.
Bruce Lee was the 1960 and early '70's global superstar icon, martial artist, Hollywood actor, movie producer, teacher, businessman, philosopher, husband, father, and founder of "Jeet Kune Do". From 1971 - 1973, Bruce Lee was the world's biggest celebrity and most famous person on Earth surpassing Brazil's Pele and the U.S.'s Muhammad Ali.
With the much anticipated 2010 Winter Olympics in British Colombia, Canada just a few weeks away. The eternal question pops up again but with a twist in last month's DVD release of docu-drama classic Downhill Racer. The film asks those of us with some talent and ability - "How fast must a man go to get from where he's at?"
The 1969 sports classic movie "Downhill Racer" starting a very young Robert Redfordtries to answer this pondering question that all of us with a crumb of talent and ability ask ourselves everyday. How much ambition to you have in you to take your talent and ability to the next level? Can you take it to the highest level in your chosen field or career? At what cost?
What if you get to the top and you find out you never really left from where you started?
What gets me about this classic sports/love movie is that Gene Hackman has hair!!!
According to Hollywood critics, Downhill Racer is the best sports movie ever produced with some of the most spectacular ski scenes ever filmed. It is not really a sports movie par se (Olympic downhill ski racing is just the setting), but more of a romantic drama told in documentary style in exotic ski locations like the Lauberhorn at Wengen, Switzerland and the Hahnenkamm at Kitzbuhel, Austria. Also included were Megeve, France and St. Anton, Austria.
25 year old former Swedish glamour beauty and actress of the 60's Camilla Sparv in 1965.
Here is what Image Entertainment wrote about the movie:
"Astonishing Alpine location photography and a young Robert Redford in one of his earliest starring roles are just two of the visual splendors of Michael Ritchie's visceral debut feature, DOWNHILL RACER. In a beautifully understated performance, Redford is David Chappellet, a ruthlessly ambitious skier competing with an underdog American team in Europe for Olympic gold, and Gene Hackman provides tough support as the coach who tries to temper the upstart's narcissistic drive for glory. With a subtle screenplay by acclaimed novelist James Salter, DOWNHILL RACER is a vivid character portrait buoyed by breathtakingly fast and furious imagery that brings the viewer directly into the mind of the competitor."
Very Short List wrote last month of the new DVD release of Downhill Racer:
"Just weeks after Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
made Robert Redford into a megastar in 1969, the actor turned up in a
very different kind of picture—a documentary-style movie about a
fearless skier with an all-consuming desire for Olympic gold. Downhill Racer
(available from Criterion 11/17) shows Redford at his early best:
outrageously charming, naturally physical and unrelentingly sexy.
Much of Downhill Racer—which was directed by Michael Ritchie, who reteamed with Redford in 1972 for The Candidate—is
a sort of thrill ride: Cameras mounted to actual skiers provided
bird’s-eye footage of what it’s like to careen down slopes at what
looks like a million miles an hour. Sure, there’s a love interest, and
a rival or two, but the film focuses mostly on the development of one
great undisciplined athlete into a bona fide star. Plus, Redford’s
coach is played by a young Gene Hackman, who gives us a peek at the guy
we love so much in Hoosiers."
32 year old Robert Redford on location in the Swiss Alps for Downhill Racer in 1969.
A young 40 year old Gene Hackman with hair - Un joven de 40 años Gene Hackman con pelo!
NEW YORK - A home movie showing a relaxed Marilyn Monroe apparently smoking marijuana has surfaced, retrieved from an attic some 50 years after it was filmed.
A raw reel-to-reel silent, color film taken at a private home in New Jersey was recently purchased by collector Keya Morgan for $275,000 from the person who took the film, who has asked to remain anonymous.
Damn, what is Rosie O'Donnell doing there in this '50s clip? Wow, she must be hella old now......lol
Girls smoking anything don't look attractive - it a big turn off for most men. But Marilyn looks SUPER HOT!!!
If you are not going out and are staying in for the night, well here is a Halloween treat for you. The 1968 original classic in its entirety - Night Of The Living Dead!!!!
The entire movie is here?! This film is in fact in the public domain. Nobody owns the copyright. The original distributor actually neglected to copyright it. Can you believe that?? NO film company now would EVER make such a mistake....
The theme music and opening scenes of the old KTVU Channel 2 in San Francisco, California 1970's Saturday night monster TV show - "Creature Features"! The show featured television personality Bob Wilkins.
Here is the creepiest and most unusual music scoring of the sci-fi classic - "The Day The Earth Stood Still" (1951). This is the opening of the film without dialogue, the score
included electric violin, electric bass, 2 theremins* (treble &
bass), test oscillators, vibraphone, 4 pianos, 4 harps &
approximately 30 brass instruments. Unusual overdubbing &
tape-reversal techniques were used as well.
The film music composer
of this score Bernard Herrmann (1911-75) is particularly known for the
scores of Alfred Hitchcock's films (such as Psycho), he also composed
notable scores for many other movies (such as Citizen Kane & Taxi
Driver), radio broadcast & TV programs. His music is typified by
frequent use of ostinati (short repeating patterns), novel
orchestration & an ability to portray character traits not
altogether obvious from other elements of the film. In the last years
of Herrmann's life he did much to create interest in film scores as a
form of music worthy of appreciation & performance.
