Plenty of Nothing

Multi Pass!

The Fifth Element came out 25 years ago tomorrow. Source. Khaled, "N'ssi N'ssi."

The Sky Is Calling (1959)

небо зовёт (The Sky Is Calling) is a Soviet science fiction film released in 1959. In 1961 Roger Corman bought the US rights, dubbed and recut it and released it as Battle Beyond the Sun. IMDb.

Hideko Takamine

Hideko Takamine starred in Twenty-Four Eyes (1954), the movie within a movie seen about four minutes into Jun Ichikawa's Tugumi (1990) which was based on Banana Yoshimoto's novel Goodbye Tsugumi. See Tugumi here.

PS Waverley in Comfort and Joy (1984)

PS Waverley makes a cameo appearance in Bill Forsyth's Comfort and Joy (1984). The paddle steamer can be seen tied up at the Springfield Quay in Glasgow. See here for an article on the Comfort and Joy locations.

Notre Dame de Backlot

A replica Notre Dame de Paris was created by Universal Studios for the 1923 extravaganza The Hunchback of Notre Dame. The upper part of the cathedral is actually a miniature suspended in front of the camera. Source.

Merle Oberon

Merla Oberon, who played Anne Boleyn in The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933) and Cathy in Wuthering Heights (1939), was born in Mumbai to a British father and a Sri Lankan mother. Over her career a lot of effort was put into whitewashing her ancestry, but in this portrait photograph she confronts you as a South Asian movie star. Source.

Jigokumon (1953)

Jigokumon, also known as Gate of Hell, the first colour film exported from Japan, was released on this date in 1953. It won the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 1954. Machiko Kyō (above) was also in that other movie about a gate, Rashomon. Watch.

Dulcinea (1962)

Millie Perkins starred in the 1962 release Dulcinea, also titled Girl from La Mancha. Source.

Abakayada

Abakayada Sichyu, a Sakha woman who married the Russian explorer Semyon Dezhnev, is a romantic figure in the story of the 17th-century colonization of Yakutia. Here she is played by Margarita Borisova in the 1983 film Semyon Dezhnev. Source.

Jido

Still from The Sound of the Mountain (1954).

    Shingo put on his glasses and started to untwist the cord; and the moment he could see them clearly the hair and lips of the jido mask struck him as so beautiful that he wanted to cry out in surprise.

    When Suzumoto had left, Eiko came to his desk.

    "Isn't it beautiful."

    Eiko nodded silently.

    "Put it on for a minute."

    "But that would be all wrong. Here I am in foreign clothes." When Shingo handed her the mask, however, she put it on and tied the cord.

    "Move your head, very gently."

    Standing before him, Eiko moved her head this way and that.

    "Good. Very good." The words came of their own accord. Even with so little movement, the mask quite came to life. Eiko had on a russet dress, and her hair sent waves cascading at the sides of the mask, but she had taken on a charm that held him captive.

    "Is that enough?"

    "Yes." Shingo immediately sent Eiko out to buy a reference work on No masks.

Kawabata, The Sound of the Mountain (trans. Edward Seidensticker), pages 85-6.