Australian postcard by Avant Card, no. 1 in a series of 5. Photo: Jerry Bruckheimer Films / Buena Vista International / Touchstone Pictures. Publicity still for Pearl Harbor (Michael Bay, 2001).

Pearl Harbor (Michael Bay, 2001) is an American romantic war drama, produced by Michael Bay and Jerry Bruckheimer and written by Randall Wallace. It stars Ben Affleck, Kate Beckinsale, Josh Hartnett, Cuba Gooding Jr., Tom Sizemore, Jon Voight, Colm Feore, and Alec Baldwin. The film presented a heavily fictionalised version of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, focusing on a love story set amid the lead up to the attack, its aftermath, and the Doolittle Raid. The film was a box office success, earning $59 million in its opening weekend and nearly $450 million worldwide, but received generally negative reviews from critics, who criticized the story, long runtime, screenplay and dialogue, pacing, performances, and historical inaccuracies. It was nominated for four Academy Awards, winning in the category of Best Sound Editing. However, it was also nominated for six Golden Raspberry Awards, including Worst Picture. This marked the first occurrence of a Worst Picture-nominated film winning an Academy Award.

Pearl Harbor is a classic tale of romance set during a war that complicates everything. It all starts when childhood friends Rafe (Ben Affleck) and Danny (Josh Hartnett) become Army Air Corps pilots and meet Evelyn (Kate Beckinsale), a Navy nurse. Rafe falls head over heels and he and Evelyn and Rafe hook up. Then Rafe volunteers to go fight in Britain, and Evelyn and Danny get transferred to Pearl Harbor. While Rafe is off fighting, suddenly one morning comes the air raid we now know as 'Pearl Harbor'. The film had a proposed budget of $208 million which Bay and Bruckheimer wanted. This was an area of contention with Disney executives since a great deal of the budget was to be expended on production aspects. Also controversial was the effort to change the film's rating from R to PG-13. Bay initially wanted to graphically portray the horrors of war and was not interested in primarily marketing the final product to a teen and young adult audience. However, even though he wanted to make an R-rated movie, Bay admitted that the problem was that young children would not be able to see it, and he felt that they should. As such, when he was ordered by Disney to make a PG-13 movie, he didn't argue. As a compromise, he was allowed to release an R-rated Director's Cut on DVD later on in 2002. Budget fights continued throughout the planning of the film, with Bay "walking" on several occasions. Dick Cook, chairman of Disney at the time, said "I think Pearl Harbor was one of the most difficult shoots of modern history." In order to recreate the atmosphere of pre-war Pearl Harbor, the producers staged the film in Hawaii and used current naval facilities. Many active-duty military members stationed in Hawaii and members of the local population served as extras during the filming. The set at Rosarito Beach in the Mexican state of Baja California was used for scale model work as required. Formerly the set of Titanic (1997), Rosarito was the ideal location to recreate the death throes of the battleships in the Pearl Harbor attack. A large-scale model of the bow section of USS Oklahoma mounted on the world's largest gimbal produced an authentic rolling and submerging of the doomed battleship. Production Engineer Nigel Phelps stated that the sequence of the ship rolling out of the water and slapping down would involve one of the "biggest set elements" to be staged. Matched with computer-generated imagery, the action had to reflect precision and accuracy throughout. The vessel most seen in Pearl Harbor was USS Lexington, representing both USS Hornet and a Japanese carrier. All aircraft take-offs during the movie were filmed onboard the Lexington, a museum ship in Corpus Christi, Texas. The aircraft on display was removed for filming and replaced with film aircraft as well as World War II anti-aircraft turrets. Other ships used in filler scenes included USS Hornet, and USS Constellation during filming for the carrier sequences. Filming was also done onboard the museum battleship USS Texas located near Houston, Texas.

Disney chose to premiere the film inside Pearl Harbor itself, aboard the active nuclear aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis, which made a six-day trip from San Diego to serve as "the world's largest and most expensive outdoor theater". More than 2,000 people attended the premiere on the Stennis, which had special grandstand seating and one of the world's largest movie screens assembled on the flight deck. The guests included various Hawaii political leaders, most of the lead actors from the film, and over 500 news media from around the world that Disney flew in to cover the event. The party was estimated to have cost Disney $5 million. Pearl Harbor grossed $198,542,554 at the domestic box office and $250,678,391 overseas for a worldwide total of $449,220,945, ahead of Shrek. The film was ranked the sixth highest-earning picture of 2001. Pearl Harbor received mostly negative reviews from critics. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film one and a half stars, writing: "Pearl Harbor is a two-hour movie squeezed into three hours, about how, on Dec. 7, 1941, the Japanese staged a surprise attack on an American love triangle. Its centerpiece is 40 minutes of redundant special effects, surrounded by a love story of stunning banality. The film has been directed without grace, vision, or originality, and although you may walk out quoting lines of dialogue, it will not be because you admire them." Ebert also criticized the liberties the film took with historical facts: "There is no sense of history, strategy or context; according to this movie, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor because America cut off its oil supply, and they were down to an 18-month reserve. Would going to war restore the fuel sources? Did they perhaps also have imperialist designs? Movie doesn't say." In his later "Great Movies" essay on Lawrence of Arabia, Ebert likewise wrote, "What you realize watching Lawrence of Arabia is that the word 'epic' refers not to the cost or the elaborate production, but to the size of the ideas and vision. Werner Herzog's Aguirre, the Wrath of God didn't cost as much as the catering in Pearl Harbor, but it is an epic, and Pearl Harbor is not."

Sources: Wikipedia and IMDb.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

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German postcard. Photo: Touchstone Pictures / Bueno Vista International. Ben Affleck in Pearl Harbor (Michael Bay, 2001).

Tall and handsome Ben Affleck (1972) has the looks of a matinee idol and the résumé of an actor who honed his craft as an indie film slacker before flexing his muscles as a Hollywood star. Affleck became a star when he and Matt Damon wrote and starred in Good Will Hunting, winning a Best Original Screenplay Oscar for their work.

Ben Affleck was born Benjamin Géza Affleck-Boldt in Berkeley, California in 1972 to a schoolteacher mother, Chris Anne (née Boldt), and a drug rehab counselor father, Timothy Byers Affleck. His middle name, Géza, is after a Hungarian family friend who was a Holocaust survivor. His younger brother, Casey (1975), also became an actor. When he was very young, Affleck's family moved to the Boston area, and it was there that he broke into acting. His first acting experience was for a Burger King commercial. At the age of eight, he starred in PBS's marine biology-themed The Voyage of the Mimi (Richard Hendrick, D'Arcy Marsh, 1984), endearing himself to junior high school science classes everywhere. The same year he made Mimi, Affleck made the acquaintance of Matt Damon, a boy two years his senior who lived down the street. The two became best friends and, of course, eventual collaborators. After a fling with higher education at both the University of Vermont and California's Occidental College, Affleck set out for Hollywood. He began appearing in made-for-TV movies and had a small role in School Ties (Robert Mandel, 1992), a film that also featured Damon. Further bit work followed in Dazed and Confused (Richard Linklater, 1993) and Mallrats (Kevin Smith, 1995). Around this time, both Affleck and Damon were getting fed up with the lack of substantial work to be found in Hollywood, and they decided to write a screenplay that would feature them as the leads. Affleck's brother Casey introduced them to Gus Van Sant, who had directed Casey in To Die For (1995). Thanks to Van Sant's interest, the script was picked up by Miramax. (According to IMDb, it was friend Kevin Smith who took the script to the head of Miramax in 1997). Their story of a troubled mathematical genius living in South Boston became known as Good Will Hunting (Gus Van Sant, 1997). Before the film's release, Affleck starred in Chasing Amy (Kevin Smith, 1997) that same year. The tale of a comic book artist (Affleck) in love with a lesbian (Joey Lauren Adams), received good reviews and showed Affleck to be a viable leading man. Good Will Hunting (Gus Van Sant, 1997) was nominated for 9 Academy Awards and won two, including the Best Original Screenplay Oscar awarded to Affleck and Damon. This success effectively transformed both young men from struggling actors into Hollywood golden boys. Having won his own Golden Boy, Affleck settled comfortably into a reputation as one of the industry's most promising young actors. His status was further enhanced by widespread media reports of an ongoing relationship with Gwyneth Paltrow.

The following year, Ben Affleck could be seen in no less than three major films, ranging from his self-mocking supporting role in the Oscar-winning period comedy Shakespeare in Love (John Madden, 1998) to the thriller Phantoms (Joe Chappelle, 1998) to the big-budget box-office monster Armageddon (Michael Bay, 1998), starring Bruce Willis. In 1999, Affleck continued to keep busy, appearing in a dizzying four films. He could be seen as a dull bartender in 200 Cigarettes (Risa Bramon Garcia, 1999), an errant groom opposite Sandra Bullock in Forces of Nature (Bronwen Hughes, George Casey, 1999), a supporting role as a ruthless stockbroker in the crime drama The Boiler Room (Ben Younger, 1999), and a supporting cast member in Billy Bob Thornton's sophomore directorial effort, Daddy and Them (1999). Finally, Affleck reunited with Smith and Damon for Dogma (Kevin Smith, 1999), starring with the latter as a pair of fallen angels in one of the year's more controversial films. In 2000, he would appear as an ex-con trying to mend his ways in the action thriller Reindeer Games (John Frankenheimer, 2000), with Charlize Theron. Re-teaming with Armageddon cohort Michael Bay again in 2001 for another exercise in overbudgeted excess, Affleck flew into action in Pearl Harbor (Michael Bay, 2001) Despite unanimous lambasting from critics, Pearl Harbor blasted to number one at the box office, earning $75.2 million on its Memorial Day weekend opening and beginning a summer-2001 trend of high profile films with precipitous box-office runs. Following a self-mocking return to the Smith collective in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (Kevin Smith, 2001) and spearheading, along with Damon, the innovative HBO series Project: Greenlight, Affleck returned to the Hollywood machine with roles in the thrillers Changing Lanes (Roger Michell, 2002) with Samuel Jackson, and The Sum of All Fears (Phil Alden Robinson, 2002) with Morgan Freeman. Filling the shoes of Harrison Ford as a green version of Ford's famous Jack Ryan persona, The Sum of All Fears contemplated a radical group's plan to detonate a nuclear weapon at a major sporting event during a time of particularly sensitive public distress at such an idea. With the massive success of Spider-Man (2002) prompting numerous comic-book superhero revivals, Affleck would next suit up for the role of Daredevil (Mark Steven Johnson, 2002), with Jennifer Garner. As a lawyer turned into a true public defender following a mishap involving radioactive waste, Daredevil's incredibly enhanced senses enable him to get the jump on New York City evil-doers, and with his athletic physique and heroically protruding chin, Affleck seemed just the man to suit-up for the job. Rebecca Flint-Marx at AllMovie: "The lukewarm performance of that particular effort would hardly compare to the critical lashing of his subsequent efforts Gigli, Paycheck, and Jersey Girl. A notorious flop that couldn't be mentioned to movie lovers without fear of derisive laughter, Gigli alone would have likely sunken the career of a lesser star. Though Hollywood gossip rags were indeed talking about Affleck, it was more the result of his turbulent relationship with singer and Gigli co-star Jennifer Lopez than it was anything to do with his acting career."

After his relationship with Jennifer Lopez had ended, Ben Affleck married Jennifer Garner in 2005. Affleck subsequently skewered Hollywood materialism in the showbiz comedy Man About Town (Mike Binder, 2006) with John Cleese, before making a cameo in pal Smith's eagerly-anticipated sequel Clerks II (Kevin Smith, 2006). By this point, Affleck strapped on the famous red cape to portray original television Superman George Reeves in the Tinseltown mystery Hollywoodland (Allen Coulter, 2006) with Adrien Brody. As the 2000s rolled onward, Affleck appeared in a number of films that garnered a lukewarm reception, like Smokin' Aces (Joe Carnahan, 2006), He's Just Not That Into You (Ken Kwapis, 2009), and State of Play (Kevin Macdonald, 2009), starring Russell Crowe. He would reverse that trend with a vengeance, directing and writing the critically acclaimed crime thriller Gone Baby Gone (Ben Affleck, 2007), starring his brother Casey Affleck. He followed that up by directing and starring in the crime thriller The Town (Ben Affleck, 2010), which put Affleck back into audiences' good graces. He immediately got to work on his next big project, working both behind and in front of the camera once again for the political thriller Argo (Ben Affleck, 2012). It garnered strong reviews, solid box office, and nabbed Affleck his second Oscar, as a producer of the film. Affleck played a romantic lead in Terrence Malick's experimental drama To the Wonder (2012), appeared in the poorly-reviewed thriller Runner, Runner (Brad Furman, 2013), opposite Justin Timberlake, and played the accused husband in the hit Gone Girl (David Fincher, 2014) with Rosamund Pike. He starred as an autistic accountant in the action thriller The Accountant (Gavin O'Connor, 2016), which was an unexpected commercial success. Affleck also starred as Bruce Wayne/Batman in the superhero film Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (Zack Snyder, 2016) opposite Henry Cavill, briefly reprised the character in Suicide Squad (David Ayer, 2016) and did so again in Justice League (Zack Snyder, 2017). In 2015, Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner separated, and in 2018, they divorced. They have three children. Recently, he received praise for his performance as a recovering alcoholic in the sports drama The Way Back (Gavin O'Connor, 2020). The themes of the film were "close to home" for Affleck. He relapsed during pre-production in 2018 and the film was shot in the days after he left rehab. Affleck agreed to put his salary in escrow and was accompanied to set by a sober coach. In 2021, Affleck will star opposite Ana de Armas in Adrian Lyne's thriller Deep Water, an adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's novel. He has a supporting role in the Ridley Scott-directed The Last Duel and co-wrote the film's screenplay with Matt Damon and Nicole Holofcener. During the COVID-19 pandemic, production of Robert Rodriguez's action thriller Hypnotic, in which Affleck plays a detective, was postponed. Affleck will star in an adaptation of the memoir The Tender Bar, directed by George Clooney. In addition, both Affleck and Michael Keaton have agreed to reprise their roles as Batman in The Flash (2022).

Sources: Rebecca Flint Marx (IMDb), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

Tags:   Ben Affleck Ben Affleck American Actor Hollywood Movie Star Pearl Harbor 2001 Film Cinema Cine Kino Picture Screen Movie Movies Filmster Star Vintage Postcard carte Postale Cartolina Tarjet Postal Postkarte Postkaart Briefkarte Briefkaart Ansichtskarte Ansichtkaart Jerry Bruckheimer Jerry Bruckheimer Michael Bay Michael Bay Touchstone Pictures Touchstone Bueno Vista International Bueno Vista

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German postcard. Photo: Touchstone Pictures / Bueno Vista International. Josh Hartnett in Pearl Harbor (Michael Bay, 2001).

Handsome American actor Josh Hartnett (1978) made his feature film debut in the slasher film Halloween H20: 20 Years (1998). Later, followed by teen roles in films such as the Sci-Fi horror film The Faculty (1998) and the drama The Virgin Suicides (1999). He also starred in the war films Pearl Harbor (2001) and Black Hawk Down (2001).

Joshua Daniel Hartnett was born in 1978 in Saint Paul, Minnesota. His parents were Wendy Anne (Kronstedt) and Daniel Thomas Hartnett, a building manager. He has three younger siblings: Jessica, Jake, and Joe. Josh was raised for the most part by his father, Daniel, and stepmother, Molly. His mother moved back to San Francisco after divorcing his father. Josh attended Cretin-Derham Hall in St. Paul Minnesota before attending South High School. After graduating from South High School in 1996, he attended the Conservatory of Theatre Arts & Film at SUNY Purchase in New York. Wikipedia: "Although the series was cancelled after sixteen episodes, Hartnett had made a name for himself." In 1997, he was offered the role of Michael Fitzgerald in the short-lived but acclaimed drama series Cracker (1997-1998). Josh started off doing small plays and national commercials but broke into the film business with his starring roles in the horror films Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (Steve Miner, 1998) playing the son of Jamie Lee Curtis, and The Faculty (Robert Rodriguez, 1998). Director Sofia Coppola directed Hartnett in The Virgin Suicides (1999) with Kirsten Dunst.

Josh Hartnett played the role of Danny Walker in Pearl Harbor (Michael Bay, 2001). He appeared as Hugo, the film's version of Iago, in the romantic drama O (Tim Blake Nelson, 2001), an update of Shakespeare's 'Othello'. The film is set in an upper-class prep school, and centered around basketball player Odin (Mekhi Phifer). One of his best films is the war drama Black Hawk Down (Ridley Scott, 2001) with Ewan McGregor and Eric Bana. Hartnett was chosen as one of Teen People magazine's "21 Hottest Stars Under 21" in 1999, Teen People's "25 Hottest Stars under 25", and one of People magazine's "50 Most Beautiful People", both in 2002. He was also voted Bliss magazine's "3rd Sexiest Male", and in 2003 PETA named him the Sexiest Vegetarian Alive, as chosen by voters. Then followed the crude romantic comedy 40 Days and 40 Nights (Michael Lehmann, 2002) in which he played a young man who vows to stay celibate for forty days, but then finds the girl of his dreams. He co-starred with Diane Kruger in the romantic mystery Wicker Park (Paul McGuigan, 2004). He was one of the many stars in Sin City (Robert Rodriguez, 2005), followed by Mozart and the Whale (Petter Næss, 2005), a love story between two savants (Hartnett and Radha Mitchell) with Asperger's syndrome. Hartnett reunited with Paul McGuigan for the excellent crime drama Lucky Number Slevin (Paul McGuigan, 2006), with Ben Kingsley and Morgan Freeman. Less successful was the Neo-Noir thriller The Black Dahlia (Brian de Palma, 2006), with Scarlett Johansson and based on the crime novel by James Elroy. He played a detective investigating the notorious real-life murder of Elizabeth 'Black Dahlia' Short. From 2004 to late 2006, Josh Hartnett was the boyfriend of Scarlett Johansson. Hartnett co-starred with Samuel Jackson in the sports drama Resurrecting the Champ (Rod Lurie, 2007). That same year, he starred in the graphic novel–based vampire horror film 30 Days of Night (David Slade, 2007). After some forgettable films, he starred in the action film Bunraku (Guy Moshe, 2010) opposite Demi Moore and Woody Harrelson.

In 2011, Josh Hartnett co-starred in the romantic comedy-drama Stuck Between Stations (Brady Kiernan, 2011). Since 2012, he is in a long-term relationship with actress Tamsin Egerton. They have two daughters, Thisbe (2015) and Roxanna (2017). A flop was the action film The Lovers (Roland Joffé, 2015) in which Hartnett and Egerton co-starred. From 2014 to 2016, he starred as Ethan Chandler in the horror TV series Penny Dreadful, for which he was nominated for a Fangoria Chainsaw Award. He co-starred with Michiel Huisman in the historical war drama The Ottoman Lieutenant (Joseph Ruben, 2017) and was in the Japanese-American comedy-drama Oh Lucy (Atsuko Hirayanagi, 2017), starring Shinobu Terajima. Recently, he starred in the TV series Paradise Lost (2020) with Barbara Hershey and Nick Nolte, and Die Hart (Eric Appel, 2020) starring Kevin Hart and John Travolta. 20121 seems a promising year for Hartnett. Upcoming films are Wrath of Man (Guy Ritchie, 2021) with Jason Stratham and Ida Red (John Swab, 2021) with Melissa Leo. Josh Hartnett lives in Surrey, England, with Tamsin Egerton and their children.

Sources: D'Amico (IMDb), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

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Australian postcard by Avant Card, no. 3 in a series of 5. Photo: Jerry Bruckheimer Films / Buena Vista International / Touchstone Pictures. Kate Beckinsale in Pearl Harbor (Michael Bay, 2001).

Pearl Harbor (Michael Bay, 2001) is an American romantic war drama, produced by Michael Bay and Jerry Bruckheimer and written by Randall Wallace. It stars Ben Affleck, Kate Beckinsale, Josh Hartnett, Cuba Gooding Jr., Tom Sizemore, Jon Voight, Colm Feore, and Alec Baldwin. The film presented a heavily fictionalised version of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, focusing on a love story set amid the lead up to the attack, its aftermath, and the Doolittle Raid. The film was a box office success, earning $59 million in its opening weekend and nearly $450 million worldwide, but received generally negative reviews from critics, who criticized the story, long runtime, screenplay and dialogue, pacing, performances, and historical inaccuracies. It was nominated for four Academy Awards, winning in the category of Best Sound Editing. However, it was also nominated for six Golden Raspberry Awards, including Worst Picture. This marked the first occurrence of a Worst Picture-nominated film winning an Academy Award.

Pearl Harbor is a classic tale of romance set during a war that complicates everything. It all starts when childhood friends Rafe (Ben Affleck) and Danny (Josh Hartnett) become Army Air Corps pilots and meet Evelyn (Kate Beckinsale), a Navy nurse. Rafe falls head over heels and he and Evelyn and Rafe hook up. Then Rafe volunteers to go fight in Britain, and Evelyn and Danny get transferred to Pearl Harbor. While Rafe is off fighting, suddenly one morning comes the air raid we now know as 'Pearl Harbor'. The film had a proposed budget of $208 million which Bay and Bruckheimer wanted. This was an area of contention with Disney executives since a great deal of the budget was to be expended on production aspects. Also controversial was the effort to change the film's rating from R to PG-13. Bay initially wanted to graphically portray the horrors of war and was not interested in primarily marketing the final product to a teen and young adult audience. However, even though he wanted to make an R-rated movie, Bay admitted that the problem was that young children would not be able to see it, and he felt that they should. As such, when he was ordered by Disney to make a PG-13 movie, he didn't argue. As a compromise, he was allowed to release an R-rated Director's Cut on DVD later on in 2002. Budget fights continued throughout the planning of the film, with Bay "walking" on several occasions. Dick Cook, chairman of Disney at the time, said "I think Pearl Harbor was one of the most difficult shoots of modern history." In order to recreate the atmosphere of pre-war Pearl Harbor, the producers staged the film in Hawaii and used current naval facilities. Many active-duty military members stationed in Hawaii and members of the local population served as extras during the filming. The set at Rosarito Beach in the Mexican state of Baja California was used for scale model work as required. Formerly the set of Titanic (1997), Rosarito was the ideal location to recreate the death throes of the battleships in the Pearl Harbor attack. A large-scale model of the bow section of USS Oklahoma mounted on the world's largest gimbal produced an authentic rolling and submerging of the doomed battleship. Production Engineer Nigel Phelps stated that the sequence of the ship rolling out of the water and slapping down would involve one of the "biggest set elements" to be staged. Matched with computer-generated imagery, the action had to reflect precision and accuracy throughout. The vessel most seen in Pearl Harbor was USS Lexington, representing both USS Hornet and a Japanese carrier. All aircraft take-offs during the movie were filmed onboard the Lexington, a museum ship in Corpus Christi, Texas. The aircraft on display was removed for filming and replaced with film aircraft as well as World War II anti-aircraft turrets. Other ships used in filler scenes included USS Hornet, and USS Constellation during filming for the carrier sequences. Filming was also done onboard the museum battleship USS Texas located near Houston, Texas.

Disney chose to premiere the film inside Pearl Harbor itself, aboard the active nuclear aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis, which made a six-day trip from San Diego to serve as "the world's largest and most expensive outdoor theater". More than 2,000 people attended the premiere on the Stennis, which had special grandstand seating and one of the world's largest movie screens assembled on the flight deck. The guests included various Hawaii political leaders, most of the lead actors from the film, and over 500 news media from around the world that Disney flew in to cover the event. The party was estimated to have cost Disney $5 million. Pearl Harbor grossed $198,542,554 at the domestic box office and $250,678,391 overseas for a worldwide total of $449,220,945, ahead of Shrek. The film was ranked the sixth highest-earning picture of 2001. Pearl Harbor received mostly negative reviews from critics. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film one and a half stars, writing: "Pearl Harbor is a two-hour movie squeezed into three hours, about how, on Dec. 7, 1941, the Japanese staged a surprise attack on an American love triangle. Its centerpiece is 40 minutes of redundant special effects, surrounded by a love story of stunning banality. The film has been directed without grace, vision, or originality, and although you may walk out quoting lines of dialogue, it will not be because you admire them." Ebert also criticized the liberties the film took with historical facts: "There is no sense of history, strategy or context; according to this movie, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor because America cut off its oil supply, and they were down to an 18-month reserve. Would going to war restore the fuel sources? Did they perhaps also have imperialist designs? Movie doesn't say." In his later "Great Movies" essay on Lawrence of Arabia, Ebert likewise wrote, "What you realize watching Lawrence of Arabia is that the word 'epic' refers not to the cost or the elaborate production, but to the size of the ideas and vision. Werner Herzog's Aguirre, the Wrath of God didn't cost as much as the catering in Pearl Harbor, but it is an epic, and Pearl Harbor is not."

Sources: Wikipedia and IMDb.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

Tags:   Kate Beckinsale Kate Beckinsale English British Actress European Film Star Hollywood Movie Star Pearl Harbor 2001 American Film Cinema Cine Kino Picture Screen Movie Movies Filmster Star Vintage Postcard carte Postale Cartolina Tarjet Postal Postkarte Postkaart Briefkarte Briefkaart Ansichtskarte Ansichtkaart Jerry Bruckheimer Jerry Bruckheimer Michael Bay Michael Bay

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German postcard by Edgar Medien AG. Photo: Touchstone Pictures / Bueno Vista International. Kate Beckinsale and Josh Hartnett in Pearl Harbor (Michael Bay, 2001).

Pearl Harbor (Michael Bay, 2001) is an American romantic war drama, produced by Michael Bay and Jerry Bruckheimer and written by Randall Wallace. It stars Ben Affleck, Kate Beckinsale, Josh Hartnett, Cuba Gooding Jr., Tom Sizemore, Jon Voight, Colm Feore, and Alec Baldwin. The film presented a heavily fictionalised version of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, focusing on a love story set amid the lead up to the attack, its aftermath, and the Doolittle Raid. The film was a box office success, earning $59 million in its opening weekend and nearly $450 million worldwide, but received generally negative reviews from critics, who criticized the story, long runtime, screenplay and dialogue, pacing, performances, and historical inaccuracies. It was nominated for four Academy Awards, winning in the category of Best Sound Editing. However, it was also nominated for six Golden Raspberry Awards, including Worst Picture. This marked the first occurrence of a Worst Picture-nominated film winning an Academy Award.

Pearl Harbor is a classic tale of romance set during a war that complicates everything. It all starts when childhood friends Rafe (Ben Affleck) and Danny (Josh Hartnett) become Army Air Corps pilots and meet Evelyn (Kate Beckinsale), a Navy nurse. Rafe falls head over heels and he and Evelyn and Rafe hook up. Then Rafe volunteers to go fight in Britain, and Evelyn and Danny get transferred to Pearl Harbor. While Rafe is off fighting, suddenly one morning comes the air raid we now know as 'Pearl Harbor'. The film had a proposed budget of $208 million which Bay and Bruckheimer wanted. This was an area of contention with Disney executives since a great deal of the budget was to be expended on production aspects. Also controversial was the effort to change the film's rating from R to PG-13. Bay initially wanted to graphically portray the horrors of war and was not interested in primarily marketing the final product to a teen and young adult audience. However, even though he wanted to make an R-rated movie, Bay admitted that the problem was that young children would not be able to see it, and he felt that they should. As such, when he was ordered by Disney to make a PG-13 movie, he didn't argue. As a compromise, he was allowed to release an R-rated Director's Cut on DVD later on in 2002. Budget fights continued throughout the planning of the film, with Bay "walking" on several occasions. Dick Cook, chairman of Disney at the time, said "I think Pearl Harbor was one of the most difficult shoots of modern history." In order to recreate the atmosphere of pre-war Pearl Harbor, the producers staged the film in Hawaii and used current naval facilities. Many active-duty military members stationed in Hawaii and members of the local population served as extras during the filming. The set at Rosarito Beach in the Mexican state of Baja California was used for scale model work as required. Formerly the set of Titanic (1997), Rosarito was the ideal location to recreate the death throes of the battleships in the Pearl Harbor attack. A large-scale model of the bow section of USS Oklahoma mounted on the world's largest gimbal produced an authentic rolling and submerging of the doomed battleship. Production Engineer Nigel Phelps stated that the sequence of the ship rolling out of the water and slapping down would involve one of the "biggest set elements" to be staged. Matched with computer-generated imagery, the action had to reflect precision and accuracy throughout. The vessel most seen in Pearl Harbor was USS Lexington, representing both USS Hornet and a Japanese carrier. All aircraft take-offs during the movie were filmed onboard the Lexington, a museum ship in Corpus Christi, Texas. The aircraft on display was removed for filming and replaced with film aircraft as well as World War II anti-aircraft turrets. Other ships used in filler scenes included USS Hornet, and USS Constellation during filming for the carrier sequences. Filming was also done onboard the museum battleship USS Texas located near Houston, Texas.

Disney chose to premiere the film inside Pearl Harbor itself, aboard the active nuclear aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis, which made a six-day trip from San Diego to serve as "the world's largest and most expensive outdoor theater". More than 2,000 people attended the premiere on the Stennis, which had special grandstand seating and one of the world's largest movie screens assembled on the flight deck. The guests included various Hawaii political leaders, most of the lead actors from the film, and over 500 news media from around the world that Disney flew in to cover the event. The party was estimated to have cost Disney $5 million. Pearl Harbor grossed $198,542,554 at the domestic box office and $250,678,391 overseas for a worldwide total of $449,220,945, ahead of Shrek. The film was ranked the sixth highest-earning picture of 2001. Pearl Harbor received mostly negative reviews from critics. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film one and a half stars, writing: "Pearl Harbor is a two-hour movie squeezed into three hours, about how, on Dec. 7, 1941, the Japanese staged a surprise attack on an American love triangle. Its centerpiece is 40 minutes of redundant special effects, surrounded by a love story of stunning banality. The film has been directed without grace, vision, or originality, and although you may walk out quoting lines of dialogue, it will not be because you admire them." Ebert also criticized the liberties the film took with historical facts: "There is no sense of history, strategy or context; according to this movie, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor because America cut off its oil supply, and they were down to an 18-month reserve. Would going to war restore the fuel sources? Did they perhaps also have imperialist designs? Movie doesn't say." In his later "Great Movies" essay on Lawrence of Arabia, Ebert likewise wrote, "What you realize watching Lawrence of Arabia is that the word 'epic' refers not to the cost or the elaborate production, but to the size of the ideas and vision. Werner Herzog's Aguirre, the Wrath of God didn't cost as much as the catering in Pearl Harbor, but it is an epic, and Pearl Harbor is not."

Sources: Wikipedia and IMDb.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

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