When prospective students of the University of Southern California visit the school, tour guides like to point out several noteworthy landmarks on campus: Heritage Hall and its multiple Heisman trophies on display, the symbolic Tommy Trojan statue and Norris Cinema Theatre, where students of all majors congregate each Thursday night to watch and discuss cinema with famed film critic Leonard Maltin.
The class, officially titled Ctcs-466: Theatrical Film Symposium, was founded by a fellow critic, Arthur Knight, in the early 1960s. He proposed filmmakers bring their latest work to campus for youthful, eager minds to absorb and discuss. Stewardship of the class passed to L.A. Times critic Charles Champlin in 1985, and eventually, the opportunity to take over one of USC’s most popular electives was presented to Maltin.
Maltin, Variety’s Educator of the Year, along with hundreds of students have since convened for 26 years in the oldest screening...
The class, officially titled Ctcs-466: Theatrical Film Symposium, was founded by a fellow critic, Arthur Knight, in the early 1960s. He proposed filmmakers bring their latest work to campus for youthful, eager minds to absorb and discuss. Stewardship of the class passed to L.A. Times critic Charles Champlin in 1985, and eventually, the opportunity to take over one of USC’s most popular electives was presented to Maltin.
Maltin, Variety’s Educator of the Year, along with hundreds of students have since convened for 26 years in the oldest screening...
- 4/24/2024
- by Sharareh Drury
- Variety Film + TV
Ruth Olay, the statuesque jazz vocalist and recording artist who entertained Los Angeles nightclub audiences for nearly four decades, has died. She was 97.
Olay died Sept. 3 at her home in Desert Hot Springs, California, publicist Alan Eichler announced.
At a time when most jazz singers had deep, husky voices, Olay offered a melodious, high-pitched sound. “There is always, lurking behind the breezy, jazzy confidence, a strong hint of vulnerability and melancholy, of bedeviled romances and other items of fortune,” Charles Champlin wrote in the Los Angeles Times after she performed in 1987.
In 1951, Olay was separated ...
Olay died Sept. 3 at her home in Desert Hot Springs, California, publicist Alan Eichler announced.
At a time when most jazz singers had deep, husky voices, Olay offered a melodious, high-pitched sound. “There is always, lurking behind the breezy, jazzy confidence, a strong hint of vulnerability and melancholy, of bedeviled romances and other items of fortune,” Charles Champlin wrote in the Los Angeles Times after she performed in 1987.
In 1951, Olay was separated ...
- 9/13/2021
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Ruth Olay, the statuesque jazz vocalist and recording artist who entertained Los Angeles nightclub audiences for nearly four decades, has died. She was 97.
Olay died Sept. 3 at her home in Desert Hot Springs, California, publicist Alan Eichler announced.
At a time when most jazz singers had deep, husky voices, Olay offered a melodious, high-pitched sound. “There is always, lurking behind the breezy, jazzy confidence, a strong hint of vulnerability and melancholy, of bedeviled romances and other items of fortune,” Charles Champlin wrote in the Los Angeles Times after she performed in 1987.
In 1951, Olay was separated ...
Olay died Sept. 3 at her home in Desert Hot Springs, California, publicist Alan Eichler announced.
At a time when most jazz singers had deep, husky voices, Olay offered a melodious, high-pitched sound. “There is always, lurking behind the breezy, jazzy confidence, a strong hint of vulnerability and melancholy, of bedeviled romances and other items of fortune,” Charles Champlin wrote in the Los Angeles Times after she performed in 1987.
In 1951, Olay was separated ...
- 9/13/2021
- The Hollywood Reporter - Film + TV
Dino De Laurentiis took a lot of flack for his underwhelming remake of the incomparable 1933 horror classic, which he promoted into a monster-sized hit. Nothing could eclipse the original but the good casting still appeals. An honest ad campaign would have leaned on two points: See Jeff Bridges and Charles Grodin carry an insultingly ugly production like real stars! See ‘newcomer’ Jessica Lange play a sexualized ditz so well that she retains her dignity! …and most importantly, See the biggest special effects fraud ever perpetrated on movie screens! Umbrella Entertainment from Australia puts this one back in print, on Blu-ray.
King Kong (1976)
Region B Blu-ray
Umbrella Entertainment
1976 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 134 min. / Street Date November 4, 2020 / Available at Umbrella Enertainment 19.95 (au)
Starring: Jeff Bridges, Charles Grodin, Jessica Lange, Rick Baker, Rene Auberjonois, Julius Harris, Jack O’Halloran, Ed Lauter, John Agar.
Cinematography: Richard Kline
Film Editor: Ralph E. Winters
Production design: Mario Chiari,...
King Kong (1976)
Region B Blu-ray
Umbrella Entertainment
1976 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 134 min. / Street Date November 4, 2020 / Available at Umbrella Enertainment 19.95 (au)
Starring: Jeff Bridges, Charles Grodin, Jessica Lange, Rick Baker, Rene Auberjonois, Julius Harris, Jack O’Halloran, Ed Lauter, John Agar.
Cinematography: Richard Kline
Film Editor: Ralph E. Winters
Production design: Mario Chiari,...
- 11/28/2020
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Editors’ Note: Todd McCarthy recently wrote about his layoff from The Hollywood Reporter. To commemorate the sense of collective loss we all feel for the 2020 Cannes Film Festival that would have started tomorrow but had to be scratched for safety reasons like everything else because of the Covid-19 pandemic, McCarthy writes about his long love affair for the singular event, and reveals what movies we would have seen and how, with theatrical moviegoing an uncertainty, some might wait to get their red carpet moment at the Palais in 2021 when Cannes comes roaring back.
I can feel it in my bones. When the pages of the year’s calendar fly off as in an old Hollywood montage to finally arrive at the beginning of May, I know it’s time to get ready for my annual date with the grande dame of all film festivals, the one that requires you—in...
I can feel it in my bones. When the pages of the year’s calendar fly off as in an old Hollywood montage to finally arrive at the beginning of May, I know it’s time to get ready for my annual date with the grande dame of all film festivals, the one that requires you—in...
- 5/11/2020
- by Todd McCarthy
- Deadline Film + TV
Don Kaye Nov 27, 2019
John Frankenheimer’s 1979 environmental horror movie comes to Blu-ray, flaws and all. Brace yourself.
The 1979 film Prophecy (not to be confused with 1995’s Biblical horror movie The Prophecy) was very much the last gasp of the 1970s boom in ecologically tinged genre movies. It was a string of titles that included No Blade of Grass (1970), Silent Running (1972) and Soylent Green (1973), but leaned especially heavily on the “nature strikes back” subgenre, which gave us such offerings as Frogs (1972), Night of the Lepus (1972), Bug (1975), The Food of the Gods (1976), Day of the Animals (1977) and other, often low-budget quasi-exploitation quickies.
Prophecy on its face seemed to have more going for it. The director was John Frankenheimer, the man behind masterworks like The Manchurian Candidate, Seven Days in May, and Seconds, while the writer was David Seltzer, fresh off his horror classic The Omen. Paramount sunk $12 million into the film, which...
John Frankenheimer’s 1979 environmental horror movie comes to Blu-ray, flaws and all. Brace yourself.
The 1979 film Prophecy (not to be confused with 1995’s Biblical horror movie The Prophecy) was very much the last gasp of the 1970s boom in ecologically tinged genre movies. It was a string of titles that included No Blade of Grass (1970), Silent Running (1972) and Soylent Green (1973), but leaned especially heavily on the “nature strikes back” subgenre, which gave us such offerings as Frogs (1972), Night of the Lepus (1972), Bug (1975), The Food of the Gods (1976), Day of the Animals (1977) and other, often low-budget quasi-exploitation quickies.
Prophecy on its face seemed to have more going for it. The director was John Frankenheimer, the man behind masterworks like The Manchurian Candidate, Seven Days in May, and Seconds, while the writer was David Seltzer, fresh off his horror classic The Omen. Paramount sunk $12 million into the film, which...
- 11/26/2019
- Den of Geek
It’s a wonder movie from the 1930s, a political fantasy that imagines a Utopia of peace and kindness hidden away in a distant mountain range — or in our daydreams. Sony’s new restoration is indeed impressive. Ronald Colman is seduced by a vision of a non-sectarian Heaven on Earth, while Savant indulges his anti-Frank Capra grumblings in his admiring but hesitant review essay.
Lost Horizon (1937)
80th Anniversary Blu-ray + HD Digital
Sony
1937 / B&W / 1:37 Academy / 133 min. / Street Date October 3, 2017 / 19.99
Starring: Ronald Colman, Jane Wyatt, Edward Everett Horton, John Howard, Thomas Mitchell, Margo, Isabel Jewell, H.B. Warner, Sam Jaffe, Noble Johnson, Richard Loo.
Cinematography: Joseph Walker
Film Editors: Gene Havelick, Gene Milford
Art Direction: Stephen Goosson
Musical director: Max Steiner
Original Music: Dimitri Tiomkin
Written by Robert Riskin from the novel by James Hilton
Produced and Directed by Frank Capra
Frank Capra had a way with actors and comedy...
Lost Horizon (1937)
80th Anniversary Blu-ray + HD Digital
Sony
1937 / B&W / 1:37 Academy / 133 min. / Street Date October 3, 2017 / 19.99
Starring: Ronald Colman, Jane Wyatt, Edward Everett Horton, John Howard, Thomas Mitchell, Margo, Isabel Jewell, H.B. Warner, Sam Jaffe, Noble Johnson, Richard Loo.
Cinematography: Joseph Walker
Film Editors: Gene Havelick, Gene Milford
Art Direction: Stephen Goosson
Musical director: Max Steiner
Original Music: Dimitri Tiomkin
Written by Robert Riskin from the novel by James Hilton
Produced and Directed by Frank Capra
Frank Capra had a way with actors and comedy...
- 10/10/2017
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
The French Connection 45th Anniversary Screening in Los Angeles
By Todd Garbarini
The Ahrya Fine Arts Theatre in Los Angeles will be presenting a 45th anniversary screening of William Friedkin’s Oscar-winning 1971 crime drama The French Connection. The 102-minute film will be screened on Saturday, June 18, 2016 at 7:30 pm. Starring Gene Hackman, Roy Scheider, Tony Lo Bianco, Fernando Rey, Marcel Bozuffi, and the two real-life detectives who broke the actual case: the late Eddie Eagen and Salvatore “Sonny” Grosso, The French Connection is a New York movie of the first order and paved the way for gritty crime dramas like The Seven-Ups and The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3.
Director Friedkin is scheduled to appear at a Q&A session following the film.
From the press release:
Part of our Anniversary Classics series. For details, visit: laemmle.com/ac.
45th Anniversary Screening
This gritty and gripping police thriller won five...
By Todd Garbarini
The Ahrya Fine Arts Theatre in Los Angeles will be presenting a 45th anniversary screening of William Friedkin’s Oscar-winning 1971 crime drama The French Connection. The 102-minute film will be screened on Saturday, June 18, 2016 at 7:30 pm. Starring Gene Hackman, Roy Scheider, Tony Lo Bianco, Fernando Rey, Marcel Bozuffi, and the two real-life detectives who broke the actual case: the late Eddie Eagen and Salvatore “Sonny” Grosso, The French Connection is a New York movie of the first order and paved the way for gritty crime dramas like The Seven-Ups and The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3.
Director Friedkin is scheduled to appear at a Q&A session following the film.
From the press release:
Part of our Anniversary Classics series. For details, visit: laemmle.com/ac.
45th Anniversary Screening
This gritty and gripping police thriller won five...
- 6/11/2016
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
Robert Altman's murder tale reeks of insider access and Hollywood hipster Bs; its main claim to greatness is its fifty-plus star cameos. It may no longer seem as smart as it looked in 1992, but they don't make 'em any slicker than this. The Player Blu-ray The Criterion Collection 812 1992 / Color /1:85 widescreen / 124 min. / Available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date May 24, 2016 / 39.95 Starring Tim Robbins, Greta Scacchi, Fred Ward, Whoopi Goldberg, Peter Gallagher, Brion James, Cynthia Stevenson, Vincent D'Onofrio, Lyle Lovett. Cinematography Jean Lépine Original Music Thomas Newman Written by Michael Tolkin from his novel Produced by David Brown, Michael Tolkin, Nick Wechsler Directed by Robert Altman
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Robert Altman's filmography is undergoing what looks like a full retrospective through Criterion; even the 1975 title Nashville came out not long ago. This very successful later picture marks a revitalization of the director's career. It's sort of a Kafkaesque spin on Hail,...
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Robert Altman's filmography is undergoing what looks like a full retrospective through Criterion; even the 1975 title Nashville came out not long ago. This very successful later picture marks a revitalization of the director's career. It's sort of a Kafkaesque spin on Hail,...
- 5/31/2016
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
In the Qumra Master Class 2016 where James Schamus and Richard Peña, former long-time head of Lincoln Film Society in NYC, carried on an informal and open-ended discussion, James gave a personal view of himself before going into the professional ins and outs of his film production and distribution life.
I was surprised to hear that James, who seems like a quintessential New Yorker, is not a native New Yorker but is an Angeleno and attended Hollywood High in Los Angeles.
When I spoke with him afterward, he said that he actually was from North Hollywood but had attended Jd Melton at Hollywood High. On looking the school up for this article, I was even more pleasantly surprised to see that their branding is serendipitously, “Home of the Sheiks”.
James grew up in L.A. in the 70s and Hollywood High was equivalent to Jodie Foster’s school in “Taxi Driver” only it was in L.A. It was a working class and poor school where only half of the student body took the SATs (College qualifying exams), and he was definitely the nerd in the herd. He would spend his Friday nights watching a little known TV show on the local Channel 13 moderated by the L.A. Times critic Charles Champlin. The show was of silent films and there he saw “Birth of a Nation” and the German Expressionist movies among others. Later he wrote his PhD dissertation Carl Theodor Dreyer's ‘Gertrud’: The Moving Word, and it was published by the University of Washington Press. He moved to New York to write it after completing his Bachelors, Masters and PhD studies at Uc Berkeley.
He said he does not remember much about his high school days, but recently as he was unpacking some old boxes, he came across his high school yearbook.
You know how people signed with little paragraphs? One of these said ‘Thanks for persuading me to skip school with you and going on the 93 bus to see movies’ and it was signed ‘Frank’. I had no idea who Frank was but as I tried to remember, I recalled skipping school to go to L.A.’s only film festival which was new and called ‘Filmex’.
(Editor’s note: Filmex was the creation of ‘The two Garys’, Gary Essert and Gary Abrahams, both of whom died of Aids during the Aids epidemic. Gary Essert was a UCLA Film School student in the 60s where he started Filmex with marathon screenings in the Quonset hut which was the film school. The two Garys are both vividly remembered today by the American Cinematheque crews and others of us from L.A. because the Cinematheque was their creation.)
It was at Filmex that I saw a film made by a film student from USC. It was a sci-fi film and there was a Q&A afterward. The film was called ‘Thx-1138’ and it was by George Lucas. Then I remembered! Frank was Frank Darabont! And we were now sharing the same agent, so I gave him a call and yes, he went to Hollywood High too.
James combines his acclaimed filmmaking career with other roles within the industry: he is a revered film historian and academic. He is also a multi award-winning screenwriter, director and leading U.S. indie producer, best known for his long creative collaboration with Taiwanese director Ang Lee. He has worked with Lee on nine films, including “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” (2000), which won four Academy Awards, including Best Foreign Language Film and Best Cinematography, and remains the highest-grossing non-English-language film in the U.S. He was the screenwriter for Lee's “The Ice Storm”, for which he won the award for Best Screenplay at the Festival de Cannes in 1997 and co-wrote “Eat Drink Man Woman” (1994), the first of Lee’s films to achieve both critical and commercial success.
As producers, Schamus and Ted Hope (today head of production at Amazon) co-founded the U.S. low- to no-budget production company Good Machine in the early 1990s.
It was macho to brag about how we made films with no money. ‘I made my movie for $5,000.’ ‘Well, I made mine for $4,000.’
Ted also loves lists and he made a list of all the short films made in the past 10 years by filmmakers who had yet to make feature films. We got the VHS tapes and one of the films we saw was by Ang Lee when he was studying at Nyu. It was called “Fine Line” and was Chazz Palminteri’s first film.
“Fine Line” was about an Italian guy on the run from the mob. It takes place in New York’s Little Italy and Chinatown. Ang Lee had an agent and we called him. He said Ang Lee was working on three great films before hanging up on us…
To hear James tell this story, watch him speaking here with Richard Peña.
What was cut out of the above online story was that at the time of “Pushing Hands”
Ang had no idea we had just contacted his agent and he also thought we would steal all his money. He was 38 years old, an unemployed stay-at-home parent with a working wife and two kids living in a little apartment in New York. In his spare time he had become a great cook. He came in and pitched a comedy for one hour. It was awful. We were such no-money producers; our office was upstairs from a strip club and the music would blast into our offices starting at 2:00 every day. With this pounding beat, he pitched the worst pitch we ever heard. But there was a $5,000 fee for us. I then said that though his pitch was poor he had actually described the entire movie in his head to us scene by scene. He was not trying to sell the film.
So we made the film and then made his second film “Wedding Banquet” which shared a first prize in Berlin. The third film was “Eat Drink Man Woman” from an original idea with a Taiwanese writer, very TV in the open-endedness of all the characters feeling the push and pull of letting it happen. But in this was a Hollywood 40s style screwball comedy that could be imposed.
Again, when James and I spoke together, I challenged him on the claim that “Dim Lake” was Chazz’s first film because my own partner in life and business, Peter Belsito, claims to have produced Chazz’s first film, “Home Free All” at which time Chazz took Peter aside and said, 'I am not just a dumb guinea hoodlum, I am a real actor destined for better roles. I can act serious.' So James and I checked IMDb to see and sure enough, “Dim Lake” was his first film and “Home Free All” was his second, but it was Chazz’ first feature film. We then looked at the rest of his 68 film credits and in every single one, he is playing the Italian.
Doing this with James gave me a momentary feel of his love for research.
“For my first time writing with Ang I needed to research food in Taiwan for ‘Pushing Hands’, the position and placement of food, families and food….The script would be translated from English to Chinese, but Ang was not satisfied with it. I was having trouble tapping into the mentality of the Chinese family so I took all the characters’ names and changed them to Jewish names and rewrote the script totally as a Jewish family. Then I changed the names back to their Chinese names. Ang read the script and said ‘This is really Chinese!’ And so I got ‘the cross-cultural idea’ -- not really…I still don’t get that.
The first day in Taiwan we were shooting the film in a fast food restaurant and I as I watched the rushes, one of the character’s name was Rachel and I realized I had forgotten to change the name back. I asked if we needed to reshoot, but at that time it was a fad to change Chinese names to Anglo names and no one thought it was out of place, and so it stayed.
The most difficult part of the film was shooting the opening title sequence of the father cooking a meal. It went over schedule because it had to be perfect. We used the food so many times it was held together by glue by the end.
Preparing a shot list is very important for Ang and he constantly reduces the list and his vision jells as he does this. By his third film, the process was very internalized. Next he had to communicate it. The plan is always the result of the overall idea. That’s why his style always changes.
As he shoots, the relationship with the editor is very close. He has a long-time relationship with his editor Tim Squyres.
The “Wedding Banquet” was the first film edited on Avid. Before “Wedding Banquet”, four minutes was the full length of films edited on Avid which is now ancient technology.
Tim cuts several versions and talks them through with Ang. They have spent more time in the dark together than most married people. Ang is in the editing room from the beginning to the end. Tim talks very directly, like he might say Ang should have spent more time on a scene or should have shot a scene from a different angle. I used to watch Ang’s face tense up as he listened to Tim’s criticism and often they would fight, but they have spent 25+ years together.
On the transnational global reach of “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”:
Critics said it was not an authentic chop-socky movie. But the Hong Kong chop-socky genre itself was a regional hybrid. The origins of chop-socky were from Shanghai and Singapore. It was not so “Cantonese” as critics claimed. Bruce Lee himself was U.S. based. So the transnational aspect was already there.
From 2002 to 2014 Schamus was CEO of Focus Features, the motion picture production, financing and worldwide distribution company whose films during his tenure included Wes Anderson's “Moonrise Kingdom” (2012), Michel Gondry's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), Roman Polanski's “The Pianist “ (2002), Henry Selick's “Coraline” (2009) and Sofia Coppola’s “Lost in Translation” (2003).
On actors:
Character is secondary to the action. You only have action and words in a script. Working with good actors, you need images.
Actors are at such high risk, they are very vulnerable. They need respect. Sometimes they act out.
On casting and directors:
During the casting process, the director must direct the actor, set the tone for the part. Most of the film’s directing can be done during the casting process.
On storyboarding:
“Ride with the Devil” was the first film Ang Lee storyboarded. He also storyboarded “Life of Pi”. Storyboarding could take the life out of a movie.
On production design:
It takes lots of research. It includes the worldview of the film and everything ties in to that. It first starts with costumes. Research is not done only by the department but by everyone.
On film distribution and Focus:
Where is distribution now for specialized films? Focus was everything, attached to the studio system as its specialized film division, Focus’ model was not Fox Searchlght’s which is locked into the domestic U.S. market. Seachlight bought global rights and produced by way of its international TV deals. Focus didn’t have that. It had to presell theatrical rights to independent distributors worldwide. Driven primarily by the international marketplace, it could not be driven by U.S. Its primary focus for production was London. It was all international but also driven by flagship releases in the U.S.
In 2014, Schamus turned his hand to directing with the short documentary “That Film About Money” (2014).
Paul Allen of Microsoft started Vulcan with a commitment to shorts. I did a doc with a crew of people I had never worked with before. And it was about people like Paul.
In 2016 James made his feature directorial debut with an adaptation of Philip Roth's “Indignation”. It had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2016 and screened at this year’s Berlin International Film Festival in the Panorama section.
Schamus is also Professor of Professional Practice at Columbia University’s School of the Arts, where he teaches film history and theory.
On Doha’s newest foray into Hollywood:
Doha-based beIN Media Group’s acquiring Miramax could be a great deal depending on the price paid.
Much of the 600-plus films in the Miramax library is probably locked into licensing deals already around the globe, but depending on when those deals are up for renewal and what other rights can be exploited, if the price point was right, it’s a great way to get into the game because they are sitting on top of so much intellectual property.
Just integrating into the deal structures and understanding the economics, from the end point where the money is coming from to the rights holder, is a good idea.
Miramax, under the leadership of Zanne Devine, has also co-acquired with Roadside Attractions, the 2016 Sundance premiering feature, “Southside with You”, the narrative feature of Barak Obama and Michelle’s first date. That will bring beIN into the Roadside Attraction/ Lionsgate sphere of distribution and international sales.
On Hollywood interest in territories like China, India and the Middle East:
The less successful pattern is to find a Hollywood producer who flies in on his private jet and give him hundreds of millions (ed: Stx?) to make movies. This is a very different version, this is owning intellectual property - it’s a good first step.
On moviegoing in the Gulf:
The next step is to build a cinema culture that makes movie-going a practice in the region far more than it is now - movie exhibition and movie-going as a power lever.
On TV in the Middle East:
My intuition says new media, television in particular, is going to be a space that is very dynamic once it breaks open, here in the Gulf or elsewhere.
During this week at Qumra, James is also mentoring 10 filmmakers working on five Dfi-backed projects: Mohamed Al Ibrahim’s “Bull Shark”; Hamida Issa’s “To The Ends Of The Earth”; Sherif Elbendary’s “Ali, The Goat And Ibrahim”; Mohanad Hayal’s “Haifa Street” aka “Death Street”; and Karim Moussaoui’s “Till The Swallows Return”.
Elia Suleiman, the Artistic Advisor to Doha Film Institute, recalls how he and James “grew up together” in New York as long-time friends. James introduced him to the Chilean master filmmaker Raul Ruiz. While at Good Machine, Schamus helped him with his short film. He helped edit the script and was his guardian angel helping with his first contract. They even had a code for “urgent”. When Elia was in Jerusalem and James in London, they used the code whenever Elia was overwhelmed by the paperwork needed. James would answer within 15 minutes. Now James has come full circle on his own, from being one of the most important producers of the decade to directing his own film.
When asked by Qumra what was most important, he said “first time filmmakers are the most important”. And he has always been able to spot the most talented of emerging filmmakers.
I was surprised to hear that James, who seems like a quintessential New Yorker, is not a native New Yorker but is an Angeleno and attended Hollywood High in Los Angeles.
When I spoke with him afterward, he said that he actually was from North Hollywood but had attended Jd Melton at Hollywood High. On looking the school up for this article, I was even more pleasantly surprised to see that their branding is serendipitously, “Home of the Sheiks”.
James grew up in L.A. in the 70s and Hollywood High was equivalent to Jodie Foster’s school in “Taxi Driver” only it was in L.A. It was a working class and poor school where only half of the student body took the SATs (College qualifying exams), and he was definitely the nerd in the herd. He would spend his Friday nights watching a little known TV show on the local Channel 13 moderated by the L.A. Times critic Charles Champlin. The show was of silent films and there he saw “Birth of a Nation” and the German Expressionist movies among others. Later he wrote his PhD dissertation Carl Theodor Dreyer's ‘Gertrud’: The Moving Word, and it was published by the University of Washington Press. He moved to New York to write it after completing his Bachelors, Masters and PhD studies at Uc Berkeley.
He said he does not remember much about his high school days, but recently as he was unpacking some old boxes, he came across his high school yearbook.
You know how people signed with little paragraphs? One of these said ‘Thanks for persuading me to skip school with you and going on the 93 bus to see movies’ and it was signed ‘Frank’. I had no idea who Frank was but as I tried to remember, I recalled skipping school to go to L.A.’s only film festival which was new and called ‘Filmex’.
(Editor’s note: Filmex was the creation of ‘The two Garys’, Gary Essert and Gary Abrahams, both of whom died of Aids during the Aids epidemic. Gary Essert was a UCLA Film School student in the 60s where he started Filmex with marathon screenings in the Quonset hut which was the film school. The two Garys are both vividly remembered today by the American Cinematheque crews and others of us from L.A. because the Cinematheque was their creation.)
It was at Filmex that I saw a film made by a film student from USC. It was a sci-fi film and there was a Q&A afterward. The film was called ‘Thx-1138’ and it was by George Lucas. Then I remembered! Frank was Frank Darabont! And we were now sharing the same agent, so I gave him a call and yes, he went to Hollywood High too.
James combines his acclaimed filmmaking career with other roles within the industry: he is a revered film historian and academic. He is also a multi award-winning screenwriter, director and leading U.S. indie producer, best known for his long creative collaboration with Taiwanese director Ang Lee. He has worked with Lee on nine films, including “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” (2000), which won four Academy Awards, including Best Foreign Language Film and Best Cinematography, and remains the highest-grossing non-English-language film in the U.S. He was the screenwriter for Lee's “The Ice Storm”, for which he won the award for Best Screenplay at the Festival de Cannes in 1997 and co-wrote “Eat Drink Man Woman” (1994), the first of Lee’s films to achieve both critical and commercial success.
As producers, Schamus and Ted Hope (today head of production at Amazon) co-founded the U.S. low- to no-budget production company Good Machine in the early 1990s.
It was macho to brag about how we made films with no money. ‘I made my movie for $5,000.’ ‘Well, I made mine for $4,000.’
Ted also loves lists and he made a list of all the short films made in the past 10 years by filmmakers who had yet to make feature films. We got the VHS tapes and one of the films we saw was by Ang Lee when he was studying at Nyu. It was called “Fine Line” and was Chazz Palminteri’s first film.
“Fine Line” was about an Italian guy on the run from the mob. It takes place in New York’s Little Italy and Chinatown. Ang Lee had an agent and we called him. He said Ang Lee was working on three great films before hanging up on us…
To hear James tell this story, watch him speaking here with Richard Peña.
What was cut out of the above online story was that at the time of “Pushing Hands”
Ang had no idea we had just contacted his agent and he also thought we would steal all his money. He was 38 years old, an unemployed stay-at-home parent with a working wife and two kids living in a little apartment in New York. In his spare time he had become a great cook. He came in and pitched a comedy for one hour. It was awful. We were such no-money producers; our office was upstairs from a strip club and the music would blast into our offices starting at 2:00 every day. With this pounding beat, he pitched the worst pitch we ever heard. But there was a $5,000 fee for us. I then said that though his pitch was poor he had actually described the entire movie in his head to us scene by scene. He was not trying to sell the film.
So we made the film and then made his second film “Wedding Banquet” which shared a first prize in Berlin. The third film was “Eat Drink Man Woman” from an original idea with a Taiwanese writer, very TV in the open-endedness of all the characters feeling the push and pull of letting it happen. But in this was a Hollywood 40s style screwball comedy that could be imposed.
Again, when James and I spoke together, I challenged him on the claim that “Dim Lake” was Chazz’s first film because my own partner in life and business, Peter Belsito, claims to have produced Chazz’s first film, “Home Free All” at which time Chazz took Peter aside and said, 'I am not just a dumb guinea hoodlum, I am a real actor destined for better roles. I can act serious.' So James and I checked IMDb to see and sure enough, “Dim Lake” was his first film and “Home Free All” was his second, but it was Chazz’ first feature film. We then looked at the rest of his 68 film credits and in every single one, he is playing the Italian.
Doing this with James gave me a momentary feel of his love for research.
“For my first time writing with Ang I needed to research food in Taiwan for ‘Pushing Hands’, the position and placement of food, families and food….The script would be translated from English to Chinese, but Ang was not satisfied with it. I was having trouble tapping into the mentality of the Chinese family so I took all the characters’ names and changed them to Jewish names and rewrote the script totally as a Jewish family. Then I changed the names back to their Chinese names. Ang read the script and said ‘This is really Chinese!’ And so I got ‘the cross-cultural idea’ -- not really…I still don’t get that.
The first day in Taiwan we were shooting the film in a fast food restaurant and I as I watched the rushes, one of the character’s name was Rachel and I realized I had forgotten to change the name back. I asked if we needed to reshoot, but at that time it was a fad to change Chinese names to Anglo names and no one thought it was out of place, and so it stayed.
The most difficult part of the film was shooting the opening title sequence of the father cooking a meal. It went over schedule because it had to be perfect. We used the food so many times it was held together by glue by the end.
Preparing a shot list is very important for Ang and he constantly reduces the list and his vision jells as he does this. By his third film, the process was very internalized. Next he had to communicate it. The plan is always the result of the overall idea. That’s why his style always changes.
As he shoots, the relationship with the editor is very close. He has a long-time relationship with his editor Tim Squyres.
The “Wedding Banquet” was the first film edited on Avid. Before “Wedding Banquet”, four minutes was the full length of films edited on Avid which is now ancient technology.
Tim cuts several versions and talks them through with Ang. They have spent more time in the dark together than most married people. Ang is in the editing room from the beginning to the end. Tim talks very directly, like he might say Ang should have spent more time on a scene or should have shot a scene from a different angle. I used to watch Ang’s face tense up as he listened to Tim’s criticism and often they would fight, but they have spent 25+ years together.
On the transnational global reach of “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”:
Critics said it was not an authentic chop-socky movie. But the Hong Kong chop-socky genre itself was a regional hybrid. The origins of chop-socky were from Shanghai and Singapore. It was not so “Cantonese” as critics claimed. Bruce Lee himself was U.S. based. So the transnational aspect was already there.
From 2002 to 2014 Schamus was CEO of Focus Features, the motion picture production, financing and worldwide distribution company whose films during his tenure included Wes Anderson's “Moonrise Kingdom” (2012), Michel Gondry's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), Roman Polanski's “The Pianist “ (2002), Henry Selick's “Coraline” (2009) and Sofia Coppola’s “Lost in Translation” (2003).
On actors:
Character is secondary to the action. You only have action and words in a script. Working with good actors, you need images.
Actors are at such high risk, they are very vulnerable. They need respect. Sometimes they act out.
On casting and directors:
During the casting process, the director must direct the actor, set the tone for the part. Most of the film’s directing can be done during the casting process.
On storyboarding:
“Ride with the Devil” was the first film Ang Lee storyboarded. He also storyboarded “Life of Pi”. Storyboarding could take the life out of a movie.
On production design:
It takes lots of research. It includes the worldview of the film and everything ties in to that. It first starts with costumes. Research is not done only by the department but by everyone.
On film distribution and Focus:
Where is distribution now for specialized films? Focus was everything, attached to the studio system as its specialized film division, Focus’ model was not Fox Searchlght’s which is locked into the domestic U.S. market. Seachlight bought global rights and produced by way of its international TV deals. Focus didn’t have that. It had to presell theatrical rights to independent distributors worldwide. Driven primarily by the international marketplace, it could not be driven by U.S. Its primary focus for production was London. It was all international but also driven by flagship releases in the U.S.
In 2014, Schamus turned his hand to directing with the short documentary “That Film About Money” (2014).
Paul Allen of Microsoft started Vulcan with a commitment to shorts. I did a doc with a crew of people I had never worked with before. And it was about people like Paul.
In 2016 James made his feature directorial debut with an adaptation of Philip Roth's “Indignation”. It had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2016 and screened at this year’s Berlin International Film Festival in the Panorama section.
Schamus is also Professor of Professional Practice at Columbia University’s School of the Arts, where he teaches film history and theory.
On Doha’s newest foray into Hollywood:
Doha-based beIN Media Group’s acquiring Miramax could be a great deal depending on the price paid.
Much of the 600-plus films in the Miramax library is probably locked into licensing deals already around the globe, but depending on when those deals are up for renewal and what other rights can be exploited, if the price point was right, it’s a great way to get into the game because they are sitting on top of so much intellectual property.
Just integrating into the deal structures and understanding the economics, from the end point where the money is coming from to the rights holder, is a good idea.
Miramax, under the leadership of Zanne Devine, has also co-acquired with Roadside Attractions, the 2016 Sundance premiering feature, “Southside with You”, the narrative feature of Barak Obama and Michelle’s first date. That will bring beIN into the Roadside Attraction/ Lionsgate sphere of distribution and international sales.
On Hollywood interest in territories like China, India and the Middle East:
The less successful pattern is to find a Hollywood producer who flies in on his private jet and give him hundreds of millions (ed: Stx?) to make movies. This is a very different version, this is owning intellectual property - it’s a good first step.
On moviegoing in the Gulf:
The next step is to build a cinema culture that makes movie-going a practice in the region far more than it is now - movie exhibition and movie-going as a power lever.
On TV in the Middle East:
My intuition says new media, television in particular, is going to be a space that is very dynamic once it breaks open, here in the Gulf or elsewhere.
During this week at Qumra, James is also mentoring 10 filmmakers working on five Dfi-backed projects: Mohamed Al Ibrahim’s “Bull Shark”; Hamida Issa’s “To The Ends Of The Earth”; Sherif Elbendary’s “Ali, The Goat And Ibrahim”; Mohanad Hayal’s “Haifa Street” aka “Death Street”; and Karim Moussaoui’s “Till The Swallows Return”.
Elia Suleiman, the Artistic Advisor to Doha Film Institute, recalls how he and James “grew up together” in New York as long-time friends. James introduced him to the Chilean master filmmaker Raul Ruiz. While at Good Machine, Schamus helped him with his short film. He helped edit the script and was his guardian angel helping with his first contract. They even had a code for “urgent”. When Elia was in Jerusalem and James in London, they used the code whenever Elia was overwhelmed by the paperwork needed. James would answer within 15 minutes. Now James has come full circle on his own, from being one of the most important producers of the decade to directing his own film.
When asked by Qumra what was most important, he said “first time filmmakers are the most important”. And he has always been able to spot the most talented of emerging filmmakers.
- 4/3/2016
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
All the winners from Sunday’s 87th Academy Awards.
Show host Harris signs off with a chirpy, “Buenos noches!”
Sean Penn walks on. It’s time for the big one. Best film. Will it be Birdman or Boyhood? It’s Birdman! The movie ends the night tied with The Grand Budapest Hotel on four Oscars. Inarritu, referring to his pal Alfonso Cuaron who enjoyed success with Gravity at last year’s show, says, “Two Mexicans in a row. That’s suspicious, I guess.” Slightly more seriously, Agi also calls on his fellow Mexicans to help build a strong future for his beloved country. Wow, a good night for Birdman and a surprisingly barren one for Boyhood. Pirates indeed, Ethan Hawke, but glorious pirates.
And now Matthew McConaughey saunters on stage to announce best actress. Julianne Moore, five times a nominee at the Oscars is the favourite. Will she get it this time for Still Alice? Yes she’s got...
Show host Harris signs off with a chirpy, “Buenos noches!”
Sean Penn walks on. It’s time for the big one. Best film. Will it be Birdman or Boyhood? It’s Birdman! The movie ends the night tied with The Grand Budapest Hotel on four Oscars. Inarritu, referring to his pal Alfonso Cuaron who enjoyed success with Gravity at last year’s show, says, “Two Mexicans in a row. That’s suspicious, I guess.” Slightly more seriously, Agi also calls on his fellow Mexicans to help build a strong future for his beloved country. Wow, a good night for Birdman and a surprisingly barren one for Boyhood. Pirates indeed, Ethan Hawke, but glorious pirates.
And now Matthew McConaughey saunters on stage to announce best actress. Julianne Moore, five times a nominee at the Oscars is the favourite. Will she get it this time for Still Alice? Yes she’s got...
- 2/22/2015
- by jeremykay67@gmail.com (Jeremy Kay)
- ScreenDaily
The National Society Of Film Critics has voted Jean-Luc Godard’s Goodbye To Language best picture of the year 2014.
The group’s 49th annual poll (January 3) at the Film Society Of Lincoln Center in New York also brought joy for best director Richard Linklater for Boyhood, best actor Timothy Spall for Mr. Turner and best actress Marion Cotillard for Two Days, One Night and The Immigrant.
The 59 members voted via a weighted ballot process, without nominations, on any film or performance that opened in the Us in 2014. Scrolls are sent to the winners.
Scott Foundas of Variety was elected to succeed David Sterritt as chairman for 2015. Liz Weis remains executive director.
Full list of winners including votes:
Best Picture
*1. Goodbye To Language 25 (Jean-Luc Godard)
2. Boyhood 24 (Richard Linklater)
3. Birdman 10 (Alejandro G. Iñárritu)
3. Mr. Turner 10 (Mike Leigh)
Best Director
*1. Richard Linklater 36 (Boyhood)
2. Jean-Luc Godard 17 (Goodbye To Language)
3. Mike Leigh 12 (Mr. Turner)
Best Non-fiction Film
*1. Citizenfour 56 (Laura Poitras)
2. National Gallery 19 (Frederick Wiseman...
The group’s 49th annual poll (January 3) at the Film Society Of Lincoln Center in New York also brought joy for best director Richard Linklater for Boyhood, best actor Timothy Spall for Mr. Turner and best actress Marion Cotillard for Two Days, One Night and The Immigrant.
The 59 members voted via a weighted ballot process, without nominations, on any film or performance that opened in the Us in 2014. Scrolls are sent to the winners.
Scott Foundas of Variety was elected to succeed David Sterritt as chairman for 2015. Liz Weis remains executive director.
Full list of winners including votes:
Best Picture
*1. Goodbye To Language 25 (Jean-Luc Godard)
2. Boyhood 24 (Richard Linklater)
3. Birdman 10 (Alejandro G. Iñárritu)
3. Mr. Turner 10 (Mike Leigh)
Best Director
*1. Richard Linklater 36 (Boyhood)
2. Jean-Luc Godard 17 (Goodbye To Language)
3. Mike Leigh 12 (Mr. Turner)
Best Non-fiction Film
*1. Citizenfour 56 (Laura Poitras)
2. National Gallery 19 (Frederick Wiseman...
- 1/3/2015
- by jeremykay67@gmail.com (Jeremy Kay)
- ScreenDaily
By Don Stradley
Charles Bronson was 55 at the time of “St Ives” (1976). He was just a couple years past his star-making turn in “Death Wish”, and was enjoying a surprising run of success. I say surprising because Bronson had, after all, been little more than a craggy second banana for most of his career. Now, inexplicably, he had box office clout as a leading man. In fact, Bronson reigned unchallenged for a few years as the most popular male actor in international markets. Yes, even bigger than Eastwood, Newman, Reynolds, Redford, or any other 1970s star you can name. Many of Bronson’s movies were partly financed by foreign investors, for even if his movies didn’t score stateside, they still drew buckets of money in Prague or Madrid. Some have suggested that his popularity on foreign screens was due to how little he said in his movies (there was...
Charles Bronson was 55 at the time of “St Ives” (1976). He was just a couple years past his star-making turn in “Death Wish”, and was enjoying a surprising run of success. I say surprising because Bronson had, after all, been little more than a craggy second banana for most of his career. Now, inexplicably, he had box office clout as a leading man. In fact, Bronson reigned unchallenged for a few years as the most popular male actor in international markets. Yes, even bigger than Eastwood, Newman, Reynolds, Redford, or any other 1970s star you can name. Many of Bronson’s movies were partly financed by foreign investors, for even if his movies didn’t score stateside, they still drew buckets of money in Prague or Madrid. Some have suggested that his popularity on foreign screens was due to how little he said in his movies (there was...
- 1/2/2015
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
Peter Bart and Mike Fleming Jr. worked together for two decades at Daily Variety. In this occasional column, two old friends get together and grind their axes, mostly on the movie business.
Bart: Critics don’t like to admit it, but the conditions under which you see a film strongly influence your opinion. Birdman is a good example: If you see a film like this with a pack of cinephiles like at Telluride, everyone gets every inside joke, and you instinctively go along with the crowd. I made it a point to see Birdman with a paid civilian audience and it was like screening it in a mausoleum. No laughs, just occasional grunts and lots of walkouts. Some reviews predicted Birdman “will captivate arthouse and multiplex crowds alike and send awards pundits into orbit” (the Variety review). Well that ain’t happening with the audiences; we’ll see about the awards.
Bart: Critics don’t like to admit it, but the conditions under which you see a film strongly influence your opinion. Birdman is a good example: If you see a film like this with a pack of cinephiles like at Telluride, everyone gets every inside joke, and you instinctively go along with the crowd. I made it a point to see Birdman with a paid civilian audience and it was like screening it in a mausoleum. No laughs, just occasional grunts and lots of walkouts. Some reviews predicted Birdman “will captivate arthouse and multiplex crowds alike and send awards pundits into orbit” (the Variety review). Well that ain’t happening with the audiences; we’ll see about the awards.
- 11/23/2014
- by Mike Fleming Jr
- Deadline
The passing on Sunday of Los Angeles Times arts editor/film critic Charles Champlin, 88, is significant to me personally because he was my mentor and therefore had the greatest impact in nurturing my career as a film journalist. I interned for Chuck and the entertainment staff at the Times in the summer of 1978, my junior year at Cal State Northridge. In fact, my internship proved so valuable that he subsequently instituted a regular internship program. I wrote one published feature — an interview with art director Bob Boyle about collaborating with Alfred Hitchcock — which Chuck diligently helped me polish through at least four drafts. Indeed, he called me a diamond in the rough and took great pains to help me steer clear of academic abstraction in my writing when he critiqued a paper I wrote about "Psycho." The secret to criticism, according to Chuck, was to judge the movies on their...
- 11/18/2014
- by Bill Desowitz
- Thompson on Hollywood
"Ken Takakura, who first rose to stardom in the 1960s playing yakuza outlaws, but later became Hollywood’s go-to actor for made-in-Japan films, died on Nov. 10 at age 83," reports Mark Schilling for Variety. We're also collecting remembrances of former Los Angeles Times arts editor, film critic and columnist Charles Champlin, actress-turned-screenwriter Leigh Chapman, Battlestar Galactica creator Glen A. Larson, Jerry Blumenthal, founding partner of the Chicago documentary production house Kartemquin Films, actors Warren Clarke and David Watson and stuntman Jerry Alan. » - David Hudson...
- 11/18/2014
- Keyframe
"Ken Takakura, who first rose to stardom in the 1960s playing yakuza outlaws, but later became Hollywood’s go-to actor for made-in-Japan films, died on Nov. 10 at age 83," reports Mark Schilling for Variety. We're also collecting remembrances of former Los Angeles Times arts editor, film critic and columnist Charles Champlin, actress-turned-screenwriter Leigh Chapman, Battlestar Galactica creator Glen A. Larson, Jerry Blumenthal, founding partner of the Chicago documentary production house Kartemquin Films, actors Warren Clarke and David Watson and stuntman Jerry Alan. » - David Hudson...
- 11/18/2014
- Fandor: Keyframe
Charles Champlin, the esteemed film critic and arts columnist for the Los Angeles Times from 1965-91, died Sunday at his home in Los Angeles after a 10-year struggle with Alzheimer’s disease, his son, Charles Jr., said. He was 88. Champlin, who also hosted TV shows for Los Angeles public station Kcet, PBS and Bravo, also suffered from macular degeneration, diagnosed in the late 1990s, which he described in his 2001 book, My Friend, You Are Legally Blind. After joining the Times as entertainment editor in 1965, he elected two years later to take on the role of the
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- 11/17/2014
- by Mike Barnes
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
A Boy And His Dog is an odd duck in the world of post-apocalyptic cinema in that it’s neither pure action nor pure drama. It exists somewhere in between the two extremes with a dark yet playful sense of humor courtesy of Harlan Ellison‘s source novella. It tells the story of a young man (Don Johnson) and his telepathic dog trying to survive in a world devastated by a global five day war. Food, water and companionship are priorities, but sometimes you have to settle for two out of three. Shout! Factory’s new Blu-ray release includes a sharp HD transfer, a previously-recorded commentary, and a brand new conversation between Ellison and and director L.Q. Jones as they rehash the film’s production and their nearly forty year old disagreements. This is a must-buy for fans of Ellison, misogyny or sci-fi in general. Keep reading to see what I heard on the commentary track for...
- 8/15/2013
- by Rob Hunter
- FilmSchoolRejects.com
The Wasteland:
Television is a gold goose that lays scrambled eggs;
and it is futile and probably fatal to beat it for not laying caviar.
Lee Loevinger
When people argue over the quality of television programming, both sides — it’s addictive crap v. underappreciated populist art — seem to forget one of the essentials about commercial TV. By definition, it is not a public service. It is not commercial TV’s job to enlighten, inform, educate, elevate, inspire, or offer insight. Frankly, it’s not even commercial TV’s job to entertain. Bottom line: its purpose is simply to deliver as many sets of eyes to advertisers as possible. As it happens, it tends to do this by offering various forms of entertainment, and occasionally by offering content that does enlighten, inform, etc., but a cynic would make the point that if TV could do the same job televising fish aimlessly swimming around an aquarium,...
Television is a gold goose that lays scrambled eggs;
and it is futile and probably fatal to beat it for not laying caviar.
Lee Loevinger
When people argue over the quality of television programming, both sides — it’s addictive crap v. underappreciated populist art — seem to forget one of the essentials about commercial TV. By definition, it is not a public service. It is not commercial TV’s job to enlighten, inform, educate, elevate, inspire, or offer insight. Frankly, it’s not even commercial TV’s job to entertain. Bottom line: its purpose is simply to deliver as many sets of eyes to advertisers as possible. As it happens, it tends to do this by offering various forms of entertainment, and occasionally by offering content that does enlighten, inform, etc., but a cynic would make the point that if TV could do the same job televising fish aimlessly swimming around an aquarium,...
- 7/22/2013
- by Ricky
- SoundOnSight
The cult sci-fi fave starring Don Johnson is coming to Blu-Ray courtesy of Shout! Factory. It promises to have oodles of extras, awesome art, and more. It’s coming August 6th! Order it here. For more info, including the bonus features, read on:
Directed by L.Q. Jones and based on the award-winning novella by acclaimed science-fiction author Harlan Ellison, A Boy and His Dog is a dark and often wickedly funny trip through a post-apocalyptic world, where the friendship between a boy and his dog is the only currency that matters. On August, 6th, 2013 Shout! Factory will debut this off-beat cult film classic for the first time on Blu-ray. Winner of the 1976 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, A Boy and his Dog is presented as a Collector’s Edition Blu-ray™ + DVD combo pack, which features a reversible wrap with collectible key art as well as new bonus content , including...
Directed by L.Q. Jones and based on the award-winning novella by acclaimed science-fiction author Harlan Ellison, A Boy and His Dog is a dark and often wickedly funny trip through a post-apocalyptic world, where the friendship between a boy and his dog is the only currency that matters. On August, 6th, 2013 Shout! Factory will debut this off-beat cult film classic for the first time on Blu-ray. Winner of the 1976 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, A Boy and his Dog is presented as a Collector’s Edition Blu-ray™ + DVD combo pack, which features a reversible wrap with collectible key art as well as new bonus content , including...
- 5/13/2013
- by Andy Greene
- FamousMonsters of Filmland
Director Robert Altman.
Robert Altman: Eclectic Maverick
By
Alex Simon
Editor’s note: This article originally appeared in the April 1999 issue of Venice Magazine.
It's the Fall of 1977 and I'm a bored and rebellious ten year old in search of a new movie to occupy my underworked and creativity-starved brain, feeling far too mature for previous favorites Wily Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971) and Return of the Pink Panther (1975), and wanting something more up-to-date and edgy than Chaplin's City Lights (1931). I needed a movie to call my favorite that would be symbolic of my own new-found manhood (and something that would really piss off my parents and teachers). Mom and Dad were going out for the evening, leaving me with whatever unfortunate baby-sitter happened to need the $10 badly enough to play mother hen to an obnoxiously precocious only child like myself. I scanned the TV Guide for what...
Robert Altman: Eclectic Maverick
By
Alex Simon
Editor’s note: This article originally appeared in the April 1999 issue of Venice Magazine.
It's the Fall of 1977 and I'm a bored and rebellious ten year old in search of a new movie to occupy my underworked and creativity-starved brain, feeling far too mature for previous favorites Wily Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971) and Return of the Pink Panther (1975), and wanting something more up-to-date and edgy than Chaplin's City Lights (1931). I needed a movie to call my favorite that would be symbolic of my own new-found manhood (and something that would really piss off my parents and teachers). Mom and Dad were going out for the evening, leaving me with whatever unfortunate baby-sitter happened to need the $10 badly enough to play mother hen to an obnoxiously precocious only child like myself. I scanned the TV Guide for what...
- 2/15/2013
- by The Hollywood Interview.com
- The Hollywood Interview
When it comes to actresses, the movie business has always had an eye for beautiful faces. Unfortunately, it has often only been an afterthought as to whether or not that beautiful face could do anything other than be beautiful. Leaf through the archives of any of the movie glamour magazines from long ago and you’ll find them a cemetery of beautiful faces primped and hyped by the Hollywood PR machine to be The Next Great Thing. Some never made it past a screen test, while others managed to survive a few screen roles, but through lack of talent, charisma, the right roles — whatever mysterious magic it is that causes a performer to click with an audience — soon disappeared, never to be heard of again. It’s a long, looong casualty list of forgotten pretties like Merrilyn Grix, Eleanor Counts, Kathy Marlowe, Myrna Dell, Sandra Giles, Jean Colleran, Sunnie O’Dea,...
- 8/2/2011
- by Bill Mesce
- SoundOnSight
Updated through 6/26.
"Peter Falk, the stage and movie actor who became identified as the squinty, rumpled detective in Columbo, which spanned 30 years in primetime television and established one of the most iconic characters in police work, has died. He was 83." Anthony McCartney for the AP: "Falk made his film debut in 1958 with Wind Across the Everglades and established himself as a talented character actor with his performance as the vicious killer Abe Reles in Murder, Inc. Among his other movies: It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, Robin and the Seven Hoods, The Great Race, Luv, Castle Keep, The Cheap Detective, The Brinks Job, The In-Laws, The Princess Bride. Falk also appeared in a number of art house favorites, including the semi-improvisational films Husbands and A Woman Under the Influence, directed by his friend John Cassavetes, and Wim Wenders's Wings of Desire, in which he played himself."
Last November,...
"Peter Falk, the stage and movie actor who became identified as the squinty, rumpled detective in Columbo, which spanned 30 years in primetime television and established one of the most iconic characters in police work, has died. He was 83." Anthony McCartney for the AP: "Falk made his film debut in 1958 with Wind Across the Everglades and established himself as a talented character actor with his performance as the vicious killer Abe Reles in Murder, Inc. Among his other movies: It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, Robin and the Seven Hoods, The Great Race, Luv, Castle Keep, The Cheap Detective, The Brinks Job, The In-Laws, The Princess Bride. Falk also appeared in a number of art house favorites, including the semi-improvisational films Husbands and A Woman Under the Influence, directed by his friend John Cassavetes, and Wim Wenders's Wings of Desire, in which he played himself."
Last November,...
- 6/26/2011
- MUBI
She was just 19 when she starred in that movie. In her later years, Maria Schneider expressed regret about appearing in the film, saying ‘I felt a little raped’ by costar Marlon Brando and director Bernardo Bertolucci. She was especially good opposite Jack Nicholson in The Passenger (1975) for director Michelangelo Antonioni, but her career never went much further.
From The Los Angeles Times:
Maria Schneider, the French actress who appeared opposite Marlon Brando in “Last Tango in Paris,” the 1972 movie whose strong sexual content stirred international controversy, has died. She was 58.
Schneider died in Paris on Thursday after a long illness, her family told Agence France Presse.
She was a voluptuous, 19-year-old newcomer with long curly brown hair framing a youthful face when she was cast in writer-director Bernardo Bertolucci’s “Last Tango in Paris,” in which she played a young engaged Parisian woman who is looking for an apartment to rent.
From The Los Angeles Times:
Maria Schneider, the French actress who appeared opposite Marlon Brando in “Last Tango in Paris,” the 1972 movie whose strong sexual content stirred international controversy, has died. She was 58.
Schneider died in Paris on Thursday after a long illness, her family told Agence France Presse.
She was a voluptuous, 19-year-old newcomer with long curly brown hair framing a youthful face when she was cast in writer-director Bernardo Bertolucci’s “Last Tango in Paris,” in which she played a young engaged Parisian woman who is looking for an apartment to rent.
- 2/4/2011
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Liza Minnelli One stunning difference between Cannes then and now was the almost total absence of American film critics and journalists at that time. The Los Angeles Times critic Charles Champlin attended from time to time, but in 1970 the only American writers who actually crossed the Atlantic to cover the festival were Rex Reed and Kathleen Carroll of The New York Daily News. The New York Times sent reporters Richard and Cynthia Grenier down from Paris to do some news and feature stories and Thomas Quinn Curtis, seemingly old enough to have known H.L. Mencken, was always there for…...
- 7/3/2010
- Todd McCarthy's Deep Focus
It's been more than 25 years since Billy (Silver Dollar) Baxter last graced the Cannes Film Festival, and yet as I pack for this year's event, I am thinking about him even now, and I am smiling. Billy single-handedly created an alternate reality at Cannes, and such was the force of his personality that those who came within earshot were seduced. In the words of Elaine May, he carried on a way of life that was extinct before he was born.
Billy was a loudmouth operator from the pages of Damon Runyon, whose gift was creating scenarios to entertain us. He didn't want our money, he didn't want publicity, he didn't want a free lunch, he only wanted our laughter, and to know that we would pass around the latest "Billy Baxter story." We are still passing them around. Billy is still very much alive, and we are in touch; he lives not far from Broadway,...
Billy was a loudmouth operator from the pages of Damon Runyon, whose gift was creating scenarios to entertain us. He didn't want our money, he didn't want publicity, he didn't want a free lunch, he only wanted our laughter, and to know that we would pass around the latest "Billy Baxter story." We are still passing them around. Billy is still very much alive, and we are in touch; he lives not far from Broadway,...
- 6/11/2009
- by Roger Ebert
- blogs.suntimes.com/ebert
A newspaper film critic is like a canary in a coal mine. When one croaks, get the hell out. The lengthening toll of former film critics acts as a poster child for the self-destruction of American newspapers, which once hoped to be more like the New York Times and now yearn to become more like the National Enquirer. We used to be the town crier. Now we are the neighborhood gossip.
The crowning blow came this week when the once-magisterial Associated Press imposed a 500-word limit on all of its entertainment writers. The 500-word limit applies to reviews, interviews, news stories, trend pieces and "thinkers." Oh, it can be done. But with "Synecdoche, New York?"
Demise of the ink-stained wretch
Worse, the AP wants its writers on the entertainment beat to focus more on the kind of brief celebrity items its clients apparently hunger for. The AP, long considered obligatory...
The crowning blow came this week when the once-magisterial Associated Press imposed a 500-word limit on all of its entertainment writers. The 500-word limit applies to reviews, interviews, news stories, trend pieces and "thinkers." Oh, it can be done. But with "Synecdoche, New York?"
Demise of the ink-stained wretch
Worse, the AP wants its writers on the entertainment beat to focus more on the kind of brief celebrity items its clients apparently hunger for. The AP, long considered obligatory...
- 11/27/2008
- by Roger Ebert
- blogs.suntimes.com/ebert
Jay Sebring, who was one of Hollywood's reigning celebrity hairstylists in the 1960s and died at the hands of Charles Manson's followers in 1969, will be the subject of a documentary that his nephew Anthony Dimaria is directing for 1010 Films.
Jacob Strunk and Johnny Bishop are producing, with Voss Boreta serving as exec producer.
The film, aiming for a 2009 release, will include interviews with Sebring's protege Joe Torrenueva as well as Stuart Whitman, Debra Tate and former Los Angeles Times film critic Charles Champlin.
Jacob Strunk and Johnny Bishop are producing, with Voss Boreta serving as exec producer.
The film, aiming for a 2009 release, will include interviews with Sebring's protege Joe Torrenueva as well as Stuart Whitman, Debra Tate and former Los Angeles Times film critic Charles Champlin.
- 10/27/2008
- by By Gregg Kilday
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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