Thursday, September 10, 2020

September 10 - Guy Ritchie

 

Happy 52nd Birthday, Guy Ritchie! Born today in today in 1968 as Guy Stuart Ritchie, this English businessman, screenwriter, film producer and film director is known for his British gangster films. 


Ritchie, who is dyslexic, was educated at Windlesham House School and Stanbridge Earls School. Later on, he was expelled from the latter at the age of fifteen.  


He has claimed that drug use was the reason for the expulsion; his father has said that it was because his son was caught "cutting class and entertaining a girl in his room." 


In 1998, Ritchie contacted American businessman Peter Morton, co-founder of the Hard Rock Cafe chain, as a potential investor for a debut film. 


Morton's nephew, English film producer, director and screenwriter Matthew Vaughn, had been studying film production in Los Angeles, California.  


Morton informed Vaughn of Ritchie's new film idea, and Vaughn agreed to produce. Matthew, John, Guy and Peter asked their mutual acquaintance. 


Matthew, John, Guy and Peter asked their mutual acquaintance, English film actress, film producer and director Trudie Styler, to invest in the production of Ritchie's second film production. 


This was following his twenty-minute 1995 British short crime film 'The Hard Case', whichStyler had seen and decided that co-funding the project would be a worthwhile opportunity. 


The production of the film was completed in about eight months. This was the 1998 British crime/comedy film 'Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels'. 


Narrated by English actor Alan Ford, Eddie (Nick Moran) convinces three friends, Tom (Jason Flemyng), Soap (Dexter Fletcher), and Bacon (Jason Statham) to pool funds for a high-stakes poker game against local crime boss Hatchet Harry (P.H. Moriarty).  


However, Harry cheats and Eddie loses, giving him a week to pay back 500,000 pounds or hand over his father's pub. Desperate, Eddie and his friends wait for their neighbors to rob some drug dealers, then rob the robbers in turn.  


After both thefts, the number of interested criminal parties increases, with the four friends in dangerously over their heads. 


The following year, 'Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels' won the Audience Award at the 52nd British Academy Film Awards in April 11. 


One year later, a British television crime drama seriesLock, Sock..., followed for Channel 4. The show ran for seven episodes, including the pilot. However, the show only lasted from May 29–July 11, 2000. 


Five months later, Ritchie married Madonna in December of that same year. Both would later divorce in November 2008. They had two children together. 


During this time, in 2004, Total Film named 'Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrel' the 38th greatest British film of all time.  


In 2006, Focus Features released the Locked n' Loaded Director's Cut This version of the film contains more of each of the characters' backstories, and runs at a total time of two hours. 


Empire ranked 'Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels' 75th on their list of the 100 Best British film.


Their entry states: “to call the plot "complex" is to do it a disservice – it's all so slickly done, delivered with such balls-out confidence and written with such an amazing turn of phrase that somehow the convoluted to-ing-and-froing works like clockwork.  


So well, in fact, that over 18 years later, it remains Ritchie's finest film, a fantastic achievement from a first-time director who took a group of meticulously-cast but relatively unknown actors and spun them into solid fackin' gold." 


A director who had more of a critical and financial success with his first film than many of his colleagues have had over the course of their entire careers, Ritchie became one of Britain's most talked-about filmmakers. 


Ritchie, has had more of a critical and financial success with his first film than many of his colleagues. He has had over the course of their entire careers, becoming one of Britain's most talked-about directors on the strength of his jaw-dropping debut. 


Ritchie has been active from 1995–present. 


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