As expansive and iconic as its title suggests, Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West certainly seemed to be written in John Ford’s blood, from the vast wide-angle visions of Monument Valley that Leone and cinematographer Tonino Delli Colli luxuriated in, to the railroad-based, future-of-America economic landscape that serves as a backdrop to a number of bandit-versus-bandit power plays. Henry Fonda, with that methodical, stately stroll of his and those killer blue eyes barely visible from under the rim of his hat, can be seen and heard throughout, sending a shiver of great nostalgia up one’s spine. Ripened and tanned by years of desert sunlight, Ford’s Wyatt Earp is back in the saddle again.
But that particular pace and posture that Fonda had become known for in such films as My Darling Clementine, matched with the devious glint in those baby blues, now took...
But that particular pace and posture that Fonda had become known for in such films as My Darling Clementine, matched with the devious glint in those baby blues, now took...
- 5/21/2024
- by Chris Cabin
- Slant Magazine
For as long as “teenager” has been a demographic, there have been stories about teens breaking free from the status quo. While a lot of the modern great teen rebellion media is confined to the world of TV — where shows like “Euphoria” attract constant buzz — the archetypal troubled teen story remains 1955’s “Rebel Without a Cause.” Starring James Dean in unquestionably his defining role, a rebellious teen struggling with his demons in L.A., Nicholas Ray’s film spoke to young people at the time with its story of high schoolers struggling with, and going against, the social pressures that bring them down. Over the years it became a touchstone because its themes and its honesty transcends generations.
As the teen film has evolved and morphed as a genre, there’s always been room for stories of iconoclastic youth who don’t fit in with the status quo. Oftentimes, these...
As the teen film has evolved and morphed as a genre, there’s always been room for stories of iconoclastic youth who don’t fit in with the status quo. Oftentimes, these...
- 4/23/2024
- by Wilson Chapman
- Indiewire
When screenwriter A.I. Bezzerides was asked about the complex layers of meaning running through his adaptation of Mickey Spillane‘s classic crime novel “Kiss Me Deadly,” he denied having any conscious intention of exploring the post-wwii anxieties that gave the film its jittery core. “People ask me about the hidden meanings in the script,” he told an interviewer. “About the A-bomb, about McCarthyism, what does the poetry mean, and so on. And I can only say that I didn’t think about it when I wrote it . . . I was having fun.” Bezzerides may have been just “having fun,” but in the process, he and director Robert Aldrich crafted one of the greatest noirs of all time, an apocalyptic detective story that looks into the heart of 1950s America and sees annihilation.
It’s one of several stone-cold masterpieces written by the novelist-turned-screenwriter, whose work is being properly acknowledged by the...
It’s one of several stone-cold masterpieces written by the novelist-turned-screenwriter, whose work is being properly acknowledged by the...
- 4/16/2024
- by Jim Hemphill
- Indiewire
Barbra Rush, the prolific actress best known for roles in 1953’s It Came From Outer Space and long runs on Peyton Place and All My Children, has died. Her daughter confirmed Rush’s passing to Fox News on Sunday. She was 97.
Rush had a near 60-year career. In the ’50s and ’60s, she worked on the big screen with Paul Newman (three times), Kirk Douglas, Rock Hudson, Dean Martin, Marlon Brando, Frank Sinatra and Richard Burton. In addition to pulpier fare like Prince of Pirates and Taza, Son of Cochise, Rush did a trio of films with Douglas Sirk — The First Legion, Magnificent Obsession and Captain Lightfoot — and Bigger Than Life with Nicholas Ray.
By the late 1960s, Rush had segued mostly to TV, appearing in mainstays of the period such as Ben Casey, Dr. Kildare, The Fugitive, Marcus Welby, M.D., McCloud, Maude, Ironside and Mannix.
Rush appeared in...
Rush had a near 60-year career. In the ’50s and ’60s, she worked on the big screen with Paul Newman (three times), Kirk Douglas, Rock Hudson, Dean Martin, Marlon Brando, Frank Sinatra and Richard Burton. In addition to pulpier fare like Prince of Pirates and Taza, Son of Cochise, Rush did a trio of films with Douglas Sirk — The First Legion, Magnificent Obsession and Captain Lightfoot — and Bigger Than Life with Nicholas Ray.
By the late 1960s, Rush had segued mostly to TV, appearing in mainstays of the period such as Ben Casey, Dr. Kildare, The Fugitive, Marcus Welby, M.D., McCloud, Maude, Ironside and Mannix.
Rush appeared in...
- 4/1/2024
- by Tom Tapp
- Deadline Film + TV
Barbara Rush, the classy yet largely unheralded leading lady who sparkled in the 1950s melodramas Magnificent Obsession, Bigger Than Life and The Young Philadelphians, has died. She was 97.
Rush, a regular on the fifth and final season of ABC’s Peyton Place and a favorite of sci-fi fans thanks to her work in When Worlds Collide (1951) and It Came From Outer Space (1953), died Sunday in Westlake Village, her daughter, Fox News senior correspondent Claudia Cowan, announced.
“My wonderful mother passed away peacefully at 5:28 this evening. I was with her this morning and know she was waiting for me to return home safely to transition,” Cowan said. “It’s fitting she chose to leave on Easter as it was one of her favorite holidays and now, of course, Easter will have a deeper significance for me and my family.”
A starlet at Paramount, Universal and Fox whose career blossomed at...
Rush, a regular on the fifth and final season of ABC’s Peyton Place and a favorite of sci-fi fans thanks to her work in When Worlds Collide (1951) and It Came From Outer Space (1953), died Sunday in Westlake Village, her daughter, Fox News senior correspondent Claudia Cowan, announced.
“My wonderful mother passed away peacefully at 5:28 this evening. I was with her this morning and know she was waiting for me to return home safely to transition,” Cowan said. “It’s fitting she chose to leave on Easter as it was one of her favorite holidays and now, of course, Easter will have a deeper significance for me and my family.”
A starlet at Paramount, Universal and Fox whose career blossomed at...
- 4/1/2024
- by Mike Barnes and Duane Byrge
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Cinephiles will have plenty to celebrate this April with the next slate of additions to the Criterion Channel. The boutique distributor, which recently announced its June 2024 Blu-ray releases, has unveiled its new streaming lineup highlighted by an eclectic mix of classic films and modern arthouse hits.
Students of Hollywood history will be treated to the “Peak Noir: 1950” collection, which features 17 noir films from the landmark film year from directors including Billy Wilder, Alfred Hitchcock, and John Huston.
New Hollywood maverick William Friedkin will also be celebrated when five of his most beloved movies, including “Sorcerer” and “The Exorcist,” come to the channel in April.
Criterion will offer the streaming premiere of Wim Wenders’ 3D art documentary “Anselm,” which will be accompanied by the “Wim Wenders’ Adventures in Moviegoing” collection, which sees the director curating a selection of films from around the world that have influenced his careers.
Contemporary cinema is also well represented,...
Students of Hollywood history will be treated to the “Peak Noir: 1950” collection, which features 17 noir films from the landmark film year from directors including Billy Wilder, Alfred Hitchcock, and John Huston.
New Hollywood maverick William Friedkin will also be celebrated when five of his most beloved movies, including “Sorcerer” and “The Exorcist,” come to the channel in April.
Criterion will offer the streaming premiere of Wim Wenders’ 3D art documentary “Anselm,” which will be accompanied by the “Wim Wenders’ Adventures in Moviegoing” collection, which sees the director curating a selection of films from around the world that have influenced his careers.
Contemporary cinema is also well represented,...
- 3/18/2024
- by Christian Zilko
- Indiewire
April’s an uncommonly strong auteurist month for the Criterion Channel, who will highlight a number of directors––many of whom aren’t often grouped together. Just after we screened House of Tolerance at the Roxy Cinema, Criterion are showing it and Nocturama for a two-film Bertrand Bonello retrospective, starting just four days before The Beast opens. Larger and rarer (but just as French) is the complete Jean Eustache series Janus toured last year. Meanwhile, five William Friedkin films and work from Makoto Shinkai, Lizzie Borden, and Rosine Mbakam are given a highlight.
One of my very favorite films, Comrades: Almost a Love Story plays in a series I’ve been trying to program for years: “Hong Kong in New York,” boasting the magnificent Full Moon in New York, Farewell China, and An Autumn’s Tale. Wim Wenders gets his “Adventures in Moviegoing”; After Hours, Personal Shopper, and Werckmeister Harmonies fill...
One of my very favorite films, Comrades: Almost a Love Story plays in a series I’ve been trying to program for years: “Hong Kong in New York,” boasting the magnificent Full Moon in New York, Farewell China, and An Autumn’s Tale. Wim Wenders gets his “Adventures in Moviegoing”; After Hours, Personal Shopper, and Werckmeister Harmonies fill...
- 3/18/2024
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
Filmax has acquired international rights to Spanish thriller “Nina,” the new feature written and directed by Andrea Jaurrieta (“Ana by Day”) that bows at this week’s Málaga Film Festival as one of its higher profile titles in main competition.
Loosely based on the play of the same name by José Ramón Fernández, which borrows elements of Anton Chekhov’s “The Seagull,” “Nina” tells the story of a woman, an actress, who returns to her home town on Spain’s rugged northern coast seeking to take revenge on a celebrated writer. As she encounters past acquaintances, including a once close childhood friend, and faces dark memories, she begins to question whether vengeance is the only way forward.
“Nina” stars Goya-winning actress Patricia López Arnaiz (“Ane is Missing”) as the titular character and San Sebastián Silver Shell winner Darío Grandinetti, famed for his performance in Pedro Almodovar’s “Talk to Her,...
Loosely based on the play of the same name by José Ramón Fernández, which borrows elements of Anton Chekhov’s “The Seagull,” “Nina” tells the story of a woman, an actress, who returns to her home town on Spain’s rugged northern coast seeking to take revenge on a celebrated writer. As she encounters past acquaintances, including a once close childhood friend, and faces dark memories, she begins to question whether vengeance is the only way forward.
“Nina” stars Goya-winning actress Patricia López Arnaiz (“Ane is Missing”) as the titular character and San Sebastián Silver Shell winner Darío Grandinetti, famed for his performance in Pedro Almodovar’s “Talk to Her,...
- 3/4/2024
- by Ed Meza
- Variety Film + TV
NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.
Film at Lincoln Center
A retrospective of Denis Villeneuve’s work also brings the director’s programming choices, among them films by Godard, Resnais, Cassavetes, and Wong Kar-wai.
Roxy Cinema
Bob Fosse’s Star 80, The Piano Teacher, The Pillow Book, Looking for Mr. Goodbar, and End of Night all play on 35mm.
Anthology Film Archives
As retrospective of Haitian cinema continues, films by Hollis Frampton and Ernie Gehr play Saturday and Sunday, respectively.
Film Forum
“Sapph-o-rama” continues with films by Nicholas Ray, Jonathan Demme, Lizzie Borden, and more; a 4K restoration of Pandora’s Box has begun a run; a print of The Third Man continues, while the Harold Lloyd film Hot Water shows on 35mm this Sunday.
Museum of the Moving Image
A retrospective of snubbed performances brings films by Scorsese, Elaine May, Jonathan Demme, and Gus Van Sant...
Film at Lincoln Center
A retrospective of Denis Villeneuve’s work also brings the director’s programming choices, among them films by Godard, Resnais, Cassavetes, and Wong Kar-wai.
Roxy Cinema
Bob Fosse’s Star 80, The Piano Teacher, The Pillow Book, Looking for Mr. Goodbar, and End of Night all play on 35mm.
Anthology Film Archives
As retrospective of Haitian cinema continues, films by Hollis Frampton and Ernie Gehr play Saturday and Sunday, respectively.
Film Forum
“Sapph-o-rama” continues with films by Nicholas Ray, Jonathan Demme, Lizzie Borden, and more; a 4K restoration of Pandora’s Box has begun a run; a print of The Third Man continues, while the Harold Lloyd film Hot Water shows on 35mm this Sunday.
Museum of the Moving Image
A retrospective of snubbed performances brings films by Scorsese, Elaine May, Jonathan Demme, and Gus Van Sant...
- 2/16/2024
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.
Film Forum
“Sapph-o-rama” highlights lesbian cinema with films by Chantal Akerman, Nicholas Ray, Ulrike Ottinger, and more; a 4K restoration of The Pianist and The Third Man on 35mm continue; A Hard Day’s Night plays on Sunday.
Museum of the Moving Image
A retrospective of snubbed performances brings films by Cassavetes, Jonathan Demme, and more; The Gods of Times Square and a print of Prince’s vastly underrated Under the Cherry Moon both play on Sunday.
Metrograph
The series “Dreamlike Visions” puts modern master Alain Gomis front-and-center.
Roxy Cinema
Carpenter’s Christine, Almodóvar’s Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!, and Secretary all play on 35mm.
Museum of Modern Art
As the massive run of Luis Buñuel’s Mexican films continues, a retrospective of Finnish filmmaker Ilkka Järvi-Laturi begins.
IFC Center
A Dario Argento series continues; Audition, Basket Case 3,...
Film Forum
“Sapph-o-rama” highlights lesbian cinema with films by Chantal Akerman, Nicholas Ray, Ulrike Ottinger, and more; a 4K restoration of The Pianist and The Third Man on 35mm continue; A Hard Day’s Night plays on Sunday.
Museum of the Moving Image
A retrospective of snubbed performances brings films by Cassavetes, Jonathan Demme, and more; The Gods of Times Square and a print of Prince’s vastly underrated Under the Cherry Moon both play on Sunday.
Metrograph
The series “Dreamlike Visions” puts modern master Alain Gomis front-and-center.
Roxy Cinema
Carpenter’s Christine, Almodóvar’s Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!, and Secretary all play on 35mm.
Museum of Modern Art
As the massive run of Luis Buñuel’s Mexican films continues, a retrospective of Finnish filmmaker Ilkka Järvi-Laturi begins.
IFC Center
A Dario Argento series continues; Audition, Basket Case 3,...
- 2/9/2024
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.
Museum of Modern Art
A massive run of Luis Buñuel’s Mexican films begins; “To Save and Project,” continues.
Film at Lincoln Center
“Never Look Away: Serge Daney’s Radical 1970s” brings films by Tati, Samuel Fuller, Nicholas Ray (x2), Godard, Straub-Huillet, Pasolini, and more.
Film Forum
“Sapph-o-rama” highlights lesbian cinema with films by Chantal Akerman, Lizzie Borden, Ulrike Ottinger, Yvonne Rainer, Celine Sciamma, and more; a 4K restoration of The Pianist, I Heard It Through the Grapevine, and The Third Man continue; a print of Calamity Jane plays on Sunday.
IFC Center
As Francis Ford Coppola’s latest recut, One from the Heart: Reprise, continues, Bertrand Bonello’s masterpiece Coma gets a New York premiere and a Dario Argento series begins; Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar plays late.
Roxy Cinema
Cronenberg’s Crash and Keith McNally...
Museum of Modern Art
A massive run of Luis Buñuel’s Mexican films begins; “To Save and Project,” continues.
Film at Lincoln Center
“Never Look Away: Serge Daney’s Radical 1970s” brings films by Tati, Samuel Fuller, Nicholas Ray (x2), Godard, Straub-Huillet, Pasolini, and more.
Film Forum
“Sapph-o-rama” highlights lesbian cinema with films by Chantal Akerman, Lizzie Borden, Ulrike Ottinger, Yvonne Rainer, Celine Sciamma, and more; a 4K restoration of The Pianist, I Heard It Through the Grapevine, and The Third Man continue; a print of Calamity Jane plays on Sunday.
IFC Center
As Francis Ford Coppola’s latest recut, One from the Heart: Reprise, continues, Bertrand Bonello’s masterpiece Coma gets a New York premiere and a Dario Argento series begins; Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar plays late.
Roxy Cinema
Cronenberg’s Crash and Keith McNally...
- 2/2/2024
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
For better or worse, Elvis Presley and Jesse James are two of America’s rebel icons. Elvis lost out on the opportunity to play the Western outlaw for reasons beyond his control. Another famous actor of the era replaced him. Regardless, the Western genre became a significant part of the singer’s career.
The director of ‘Rebel Without a Cause’ wanted Elvis Presley to play Jesse James
Nicholas Ray was a film director known for making movies about outcasts. His filmography includes King of Kings, In a Lonely Place, Johnny Guitar, and, most famously, Rebel Without a Cause. According to the book Elvis Films Faq: All That’s Left to Know About the King of Rock’ n’ Roll in Hollywood, Ray wanted the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll to star in his movie The True Story of Jesse James. The director wanted James to come across as a sex symbol,...
The director of ‘Rebel Without a Cause’ wanted Elvis Presley to play Jesse James
Nicholas Ray was a film director known for making movies about outcasts. His filmography includes King of Kings, In a Lonely Place, Johnny Guitar, and, most famously, Rebel Without a Cause. According to the book Elvis Films Faq: All That’s Left to Know About the King of Rock’ n’ Roll in Hollywood, Ray wanted the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll to star in his movie The True Story of Jesse James. The director wanted James to come across as a sex symbol,...
- 12/15/2023
- by Matthew Trzcinski
- Showbiz Cheat Sheet
In his fascinating book about Hollywood, Quentin Tarantino said Elvis Presley almost appeared in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, one of the most beloved Westerns of the 1960s. Another source says the director’s claim is dubious. Regardless, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid inspired one of the best movie themes of its era.
Warren Beatty and Elvis Presley could have been ‘Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid’
In his 2022 book Cinema Speculation, Tarantino discussed the making of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. “After [Steve] McQueen dropped out of the role of the Sundance Kid, before [Robert] Redford, it was offered to Warren Beatty,” he said. “Naturally, if Beatty did it he wanted to play Butch Cassidy (a nonstarter because that role had always been Newman’s). But if they had gone for it, Beatty wanted to do it with Elvis Presley as Sundance.”
The book Elvis Films Faq: All...
Warren Beatty and Elvis Presley could have been ‘Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid’
In his 2022 book Cinema Speculation, Tarantino discussed the making of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. “After [Steve] McQueen dropped out of the role of the Sundance Kid, before [Robert] Redford, it was offered to Warren Beatty,” he said. “Naturally, if Beatty did it he wanted to play Butch Cassidy (a nonstarter because that role had always been Newman’s). But if they had gone for it, Beatty wanted to do it with Elvis Presley as Sundance.”
The book Elvis Films Faq: All...
- 12/15/2023
- by Matthew Trzcinski
- Showbiz Cheat Sheet
Joan Evans, the daughter of screenwriters and goddaughter of Joan Crawford, who starred opposite Farley Granger in her first three films and with Audie Murphy in a pair of Westerns, has died. She was 89.
Evans died Oct. 21 in Henderson, Nevada, her son, John Weatherly, told The Hollywood Reporter.
She also toplined the Charles Lederer-directed On the Loose (1951), playing a suicidal teenager in the drama written by her parents, Dale Eunson and Katherine Albert; portrayed Irene Dunne’s daughter in the fantasy It Grows on Trees (1952); and enlisted in the U.S. Navy with Esther Williams in the musical comedy Skirts Ahoy! (1952).
Evans played the love interest of Granger’s character in the title role of Roseanna McCoy (1949), a drama loosely based on the family feud between the Hatfields and the McCoys. The two worked together again in the 1950 releases Our Very Own and Edge of Doom, a bleak film noir directed by Mark Robson.
Evans died Oct. 21 in Henderson, Nevada, her son, John Weatherly, told The Hollywood Reporter.
She also toplined the Charles Lederer-directed On the Loose (1951), playing a suicidal teenager in the drama written by her parents, Dale Eunson and Katherine Albert; portrayed Irene Dunne’s daughter in the fantasy It Grows on Trees (1952); and enlisted in the U.S. Navy with Esther Williams in the musical comedy Skirts Ahoy! (1952).
Evans played the love interest of Granger’s character in the title role of Roseanna McCoy (1949), a drama loosely based on the family feud between the Hatfields and the McCoys. The two worked together again in the 1950 releases Our Very Own and Edge of Doom, a bleak film noir directed by Mark Robson.
- 10/28/2023
- by Mike Barnes
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Among the myriad reasons we could call the Criterion Channel the single greatest streaming service is its leveling of cinematic snobbery. Where a new World Cinema Project restoration plays, so too does Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight. I think about this looking at November’s lineup and being happiest about two new additions: a nine-film Robert Bresson retro including L’argent and The Devil, Probably; and a one-film Hype Williams retro including Belly and only Belly, but bringing as a bonus the direct-to-video Belly 2: Millionaire Boyz Club. Until recently such curation seemed impossible.
November will also feature a 20-film noir series boasting the obvious and the not. Maybe the single tightest collection is “Women of the West,” with Johnny Guitar and The Beguiled and Rancho Notorious and The Furies only half of it. Lynch/Oz, Irradiated, and My Two Voices make streaming premieres; Drylongso gets a Criterion Edition; and joining...
November will also feature a 20-film noir series boasting the obvious and the not. Maybe the single tightest collection is “Women of the West,” with Johnny Guitar and The Beguiled and Rancho Notorious and The Furies only half of it. Lynch/Oz, Irradiated, and My Two Voices make streaming premieres; Drylongso gets a Criterion Edition; and joining...
- 10/24/2023
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
Italian American actor won herself iconic status with the 1959 film where she played a woman ‘passing’ as white
Lelia Goldoni, the actor best known as the female lead in John Cassavetes’ groundbreaking film Shadows, has died aged 86. The news was first reported by the Wrap, who said that her manager Jd Sobol announced that she died on Saturday at the Actors Fund Home in Englewood, New Jersey.
Goldoni had become involved with Shadows as a result of the acting workshop Cassavetes had started in 1956 – before which, according to Cassavetes, she had no professional acting experience. The film itself arose from an improvised audition sketch Cassavetes had performed for acting guru Lee Strasberg about two black siblings who “passed” for white. Having elaborated the idea into a full-length film, Cassavetes asked Goldoni to play the sister to brothers Hugh Hurd and Ben Carruthers; her character became the central figure of the film,...
Lelia Goldoni, the actor best known as the female lead in John Cassavetes’ groundbreaking film Shadows, has died aged 86. The news was first reported by the Wrap, who said that her manager Jd Sobol announced that she died on Saturday at the Actors Fund Home in Englewood, New Jersey.
Goldoni had become involved with Shadows as a result of the acting workshop Cassavetes had started in 1956 – before which, according to Cassavetes, she had no professional acting experience. The film itself arose from an improvised audition sketch Cassavetes had performed for acting guru Lee Strasberg about two black siblings who “passed” for white. Having elaborated the idea into a full-length film, Cassavetes asked Goldoni to play the sister to brothers Hugh Hurd and Ben Carruthers; her character became the central figure of the film,...
- 7/28/2023
- by Andrew Pulver
- The Guardian - Film News
Carmen Sevilla, the Spanish-born actor who starred in the Oscar-nominated 1958 film Vengeance and played Mary Magdalene in Nicholas Ray’s 1961 Biblical epic King of Kings, died Tuesday of Alzheimer’s disease and pneumonia at a hospital in Madrid. She was 92.
Her death was reported by her son to the Europa Press new agency.
Born in Seville, Spain, Sevilla launched her show business career as a dancer in the 1940s but had pivoted to film acting by the end of the decade. During the 1950s she became one of Spanish cinema’s most popular stars.
Her starring role in writer-director Juan Antonio Bardem’s 1958 La Venganza (Vengeance) made her an international star as the film became the first Spanish film nominated for a Best Foreign Language Film Oscar.
Sevilla became more widely known in the U.S. with King of Kings, in which she played a beautiful Mary Magdalene opposite Jeffrey Hunter’s equally attractive Jesus.
Her death was reported by her son to the Europa Press new agency.
Born in Seville, Spain, Sevilla launched her show business career as a dancer in the 1940s but had pivoted to film acting by the end of the decade. During the 1950s she became one of Spanish cinema’s most popular stars.
Her starring role in writer-director Juan Antonio Bardem’s 1958 La Venganza (Vengeance) made her an international star as the film became the first Spanish film nominated for a Best Foreign Language Film Oscar.
Sevilla became more widely known in the U.S. with King of Kings, in which she played a beautiful Mary Magdalene opposite Jeffrey Hunter’s equally attractive Jesus.
- 6/28/2023
- by Greg Evans
- Deadline Film + TV
The Golden Age of Hollywood gave us a plethora of phenomenal acting pairs that would appear together in film after film. We had Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire, Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn, Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, and many more. In a time where franchises and intellectual properties were not ruling Hollywood, pairing two actors together again was its own form of franchising. They were similar kinds of movies, but each told different stories with the actors playing different characters. The chemistry was all you needed to get people to come back for more.
One of the best pairings of the era was obviously Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. Not only were both of them phenomenal actors who had scintillating on-screen chemistry, but there was also the added factor that the two became a couple and were married until Bogart's death in 1957. Over the course of their partnership,...
One of the best pairings of the era was obviously Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. Not only were both of them phenomenal actors who had scintillating on-screen chemistry, but there was also the added factor that the two became a couple and were married until Bogart's death in 1957. Over the course of their partnership,...
- 4/29/2023
- by Mike Shutt
- Slash Film
Hot on the heels of their love-it-or-hate-it niche hit "Beau Is Afraid", Ari Aster and Joaquin Phoenix are evidently ready to run it back.
According to cinematographer Pawel Pogorzelski, who has shot all three of Aster's films, the filmmaker's next movie will be "Eddington." Aster has been dropping hints about this project for the last four years, but he's been especially chatty about it during the press tour for "Beau Is Afraid." Per World of Reel, the confirmation came from Pogorzelski as he was speaking at a seminar in Nashville.
What is "Eddington?" If you've been following Aster's career since his 2018 breakout "Hereditary," you know all about it. If not, allow me to fill you in.
Aster Is Ready To Ride Strange In The Saddle
Five years ago, Aster revealed during a Reddit Ama that "Eddington" was nearly his first movie. Per Aster:
"Although it's sort of a — I don't...
According to cinematographer Pawel Pogorzelski, who has shot all three of Aster's films, the filmmaker's next movie will be "Eddington." Aster has been dropping hints about this project for the last four years, but he's been especially chatty about it during the press tour for "Beau Is Afraid." Per World of Reel, the confirmation came from Pogorzelski as he was speaking at a seminar in Nashville.
What is "Eddington?" If you've been following Aster's career since his 2018 breakout "Hereditary," you know all about it. If not, allow me to fill you in.
Aster Is Ready To Ride Strange In The Saddle
Five years ago, Aster revealed during a Reddit Ama that "Eddington" was nearly his first movie. Per Aster:
"Although it's sort of a — I don't...
- 4/20/2023
- by Jeremy Smith
- Slash Film
Life World
Film Stage contributor Matthew Danger Lippman hosts a screening of Tom Green’s masterpiece Freddy Got Fingered this Friday, with tickets for $5 at the door, on the occasion of its 22nd anniversary. (Read Matthew’s interview with Green for the 20th.)
Film at Lincoln Center
Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s early feature Passion has begun screening (read our interview with him here) while a series of films selected by Ari Aster begins, featuring films by Hitchcock, Nicholas Ray, Tai, and more.
Roxy Cinema
The Bedroom Window, featuring the Huppert-Guttenberg romance you never knew you wanted has 35mm showings Friday and Saturday, while Barbarella plays on the latter; on Sunday, new cult sensation For the Plasma screens, while Meg “U.S. Girls” Remy hosts a (currently sold-out) screening of Dennis Hopper’s Out of the Blue that includes music videos.
IFC Center
Gregg Araki’s The Doom Generation shows in a...
Film Stage contributor Matthew Danger Lippman hosts a screening of Tom Green’s masterpiece Freddy Got Fingered this Friday, with tickets for $5 at the door, on the occasion of its 22nd anniversary. (Read Matthew’s interview with Green for the 20th.)
Film at Lincoln Center
Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s early feature Passion has begun screening (read our interview with him here) while a series of films selected by Ari Aster begins, featuring films by Hitchcock, Nicholas Ray, Tai, and more.
Roxy Cinema
The Bedroom Window, featuring the Huppert-Guttenberg romance you never knew you wanted has 35mm showings Friday and Saturday, while Barbarella plays on the latter; on Sunday, new cult sensation For the Plasma screens, while Meg “U.S. Girls” Remy hosts a (currently sold-out) screening of Dennis Hopper’s Out of the Blue that includes music videos.
IFC Center
Gregg Araki’s The Doom Generation shows in a...
- 4/14/2023
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
As many a therapist’s coach has witnessed, in favour of running day to day as a cohesive unit many a family opt for the (perhaps not healthiest) strategy of pushing the simmering tensions they hold against one another to the background. But what if there was a way for you to have a much need cathartic vent, free from the worry of hurting the feelings of those you hold dearest? Filmmaker Daniel Turvil may have found a possible solution with This Much, So Far, his short film about a suburban dad who gathers a stand in cast of life-like dolls so he can deliver a torrent of unflattering home truths to his kin. It’s a film that does a great job of deploying the talents of actor Adam James, whose frenzied performance of Turvil’s high concept script is just as terrifying as it is captivating. Dn is...
- 4/14/2023
- by Sarah Smith
- Directors Notes
Misfits and Outlaws: Jim Jarmusch's Cinema of Outsiders is now showing on Mubi in many countries.The Notebook Primer introduces readers to some of the most important figures, films, genres, and movements in film history.In Permanent Vacation (1980)—Jim Jarmusch’s underseen, undercooked, wholly unpolished first feature—Aloysius “Christopher” Parker (Chris Parker), a disaffected young drifter who recalls the ’50s Jazz-Age hipster and presages the ’90s slacker, wanders around a bombed-out Manhattan without an agenda. He dances in his apartment as his indifferent girlfriend smokes out the window. He talks to various strangers: a concessions attendant at a repertory house, a streetwise saxophone player, a disturbed man who believes he’s in a war zone. Eventually, he steals a car and uses the profits to board a steamer ship to Paris, content to roam as if he’s a tourist on a… well, you know.It's almost beside...
- 4/12/2023
- MUBI
Ari Aster’s nearly-three hour journey Beau Is Afraid, described by the filmmaker himself as a “Jewish Lord of the Rings,” will arrive a bit earlier than expected. Now set to debut on April 14 in New York and LA before expanding wide the following week, including IMAX screens, we’ve received more context for what to expect thanks to a new series the director curated for Film at Lincoln Center.
Set to run April 14-20 at the NYC venue, selections include works by Alfred Hitchcock, Jiří Menzel, Guy Maddin, Albert Brooks, Nicholas Ray, Powell and Pressburger, Tsai Ming-liang, Jacques Tati, and more. “This eclectic and unexpected collection of masterworks drawn from seven decades of film history across a range of genres and production contexts sheds light on the inspirations and influences behind one of the most compelling directorial voices in Hollywood today,” notes the press release.
Aster also recently let...
Set to run April 14-20 at the NYC venue, selections include works by Alfred Hitchcock, Jiří Menzel, Guy Maddin, Albert Brooks, Nicholas Ray, Powell and Pressburger, Tsai Ming-liang, Jacques Tati, and more. “This eclectic and unexpected collection of masterworks drawn from seven decades of film history across a range of genres and production contexts sheds light on the inspirations and influences behind one of the most compelling directorial voices in Hollywood today,” notes the press release.
Aster also recently let...
- 3/30/2023
- by Leonard Pearce
- The Film Stage
Los Angeles is such a large and sprawling city, it doesn't have a singular identity. As can be seen from the wide variety of movies set here, neighborhoods in the east, south, and west of LA, from the beaches to the vast San Fernando Valley, all have extremely different flavors. LA is a city of transplants and immigrants, and I'm no exception, as I moved here 6.5 years ago from the UK. Most of the best-known LA movies were made by outsiders trying to get to grips with a city that in one sense is dominated by the movie industry but also has a rich cultural life outside of that.
One of the best ways to discover LA is through documentaries, such as "City of Gold" (2015), "Los Angeles Plays Itself" (2003), and "Dogtown and Z-Boys" (2001). Like most people, my perception of LA was entirely built by the movies I watched growing up,...
One of the best ways to discover LA is through documentaries, such as "City of Gold" (2015), "Los Angeles Plays Itself" (2003), and "Dogtown and Z-Boys" (2001). Like most people, my perception of LA was entirely built by the movies I watched growing up,...
- 3/26/2023
- by Fiona Underhill
- Slash Film
Mubi has announced its lineup of streaming offerings for next month, including David Easteal’s The Plains (one of the best films we saw on the festival circuit last year), Christophe Honoré’s Winter Boy, Koji Fukada’s 10-part series The Real Thing, Bruce Labruce’s Saint-Narcisse, and more.
Additional highlights include three films by Joan Micklin Silver, additions to their Lars von Trier series, Sylvain Chomet’s The Triplets of Belleville, Sally Potter’s Orlando, Steven Soderbergh’s Haywire, Nadav Lapid’s Synonyms, and more.
Check out the lineup below and get 30 days free here.
April 1 – Henry Fool, directed by Hal Hartley
April 2 – Waltz with Bashir, directed by Ari Folman
April 3 – The All-Round Reduced Personality – Redupers, directed by Helke Sander | What Sets Us Free? German Feminist Cinema
April 4 – Saint-Narcisse, directed by Bruce Labruce
April 5 – Jaime Francisco, directed by Javier Rodríguez | Brief Encounters
April 6 – Hester Street, directed by Joan Micklin...
Additional highlights include three films by Joan Micklin Silver, additions to their Lars von Trier series, Sylvain Chomet’s The Triplets of Belleville, Sally Potter’s Orlando, Steven Soderbergh’s Haywire, Nadav Lapid’s Synonyms, and more.
Check out the lineup below and get 30 days free here.
April 1 – Henry Fool, directed by Hal Hartley
April 2 – Waltz with Bashir, directed by Ari Folman
April 3 – The All-Round Reduced Personality – Redupers, directed by Helke Sander | What Sets Us Free? German Feminist Cinema
April 4 – Saint-Narcisse, directed by Bruce Labruce
April 5 – Jaime Francisco, directed by Javier Rodríguez | Brief Encounters
April 6 – Hester Street, directed by Joan Micklin...
- 3/23/2023
- by Leonard Pearce
- The Film Stage
Good news for those who wish to know what their Twitter feed’s jacking off to: the Criterion Channel are launching an erotic thriller series that includes De Palma’s Dressed to Kill and Body Double, the Wachowskis’ Bound, and so many other movies to stir up that ceaseless, fruitless “why do movies have sex scenes?” discourse. (Better or worse than middle-age film critics implying they have a hard-on? I’m so indignant at being forced to choose.) Similarly lurid, if not a bit more frightening, is a David Lynch retro that includes the Criterion editions of Lost Highway and Inland Empire (about which I spoke to Lynch last year), a series of shorts, and a one-month-only engagement for Dune, a film that should be there in perpetuity.
Retrospectives of Harold Lloyd, Rohmer’s Tales of the Four Seasons, and shorts by Fanta Régina Nacro round out the big debuts,...
Retrospectives of Harold Lloyd, Rohmer’s Tales of the Four Seasons, and shorts by Fanta Régina Nacro round out the big debuts,...
- 3/20/2023
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
Exclusive: Luxury labels are “naturally evolving” toward producing and making their own indie feature films, says Charles Finch, founder and chief executive of Finch and Partners, the consulting firm that has been the prime mover in enabling “a synergy of content” between the entertainment sector and the crème de la crème of brands.
Related Story Breaking Baz: Ruth Wilson On “Huge Act Of Stamina” Needed To Perform For 24 Hours With 100 Men On London Stage; Mud, Glorious Mud For ‘All Quiet On The Western Front’ Related Story NFL Playoffs Fuel Broadcast Viewing In January; Prime Video Sees Largest Jump In Streaming Usage Due To 'Jack Ryan,' Nielsen Says Related Story Ruby Stokes On What She Misses Most About 'Bridgerton' After Series Exit
For 25 years, Finch tells Deadline, “we have either represented studios in helping to promote their programming or we have brought enormous luxury deals to artists, and...
Related Story Breaking Baz: Ruth Wilson On “Huge Act Of Stamina” Needed To Perform For 24 Hours With 100 Men On London Stage; Mud, Glorious Mud For ‘All Quiet On The Western Front’ Related Story NFL Playoffs Fuel Broadcast Viewing In January; Prime Video Sees Largest Jump In Streaming Usage Due To 'Jack Ryan,' Nielsen Says Related Story Ruby Stokes On What She Misses Most About 'Bridgerton' After Series Exit
For 25 years, Finch tells Deadline, “we have either represented studios in helping to promote their programming or we have brought enormous luxury deals to artists, and...
- 2/16/2023
- by Baz Bamigboye
- Deadline Film + TV
Tom Luddy, the understated co-founder and artistic director of the Telluride Film Festival who championed world cinema, spotlighted overlooked gems and saluted legends during his near half-century run with the event, has died. He was 79.
Luddy died peacefully Monday in Berkeley, California, after a long illness, Telluride senior vp public relations Shannon Mitchell told The Hollywood Reporter.
“The world has lost a rare ingredient that we’ll all be searching for, for some time,” Telluride executive director Julie Huntsinger said in a statement. “I would sometimes find myself feeling sad for those who didn’t get to know Tom Luddy properly. He had a sphinx-like quality that took a little time to get around, for some.
“But once you knew him, you were welcomed into a kingdom of art, history, intelligence, humor and joie de vivre that you knew you couldn’t be without. He made life richer. Magical. He...
Luddy died peacefully Monday in Berkeley, California, after a long illness, Telluride senior vp public relations Shannon Mitchell told The Hollywood Reporter.
“The world has lost a rare ingredient that we’ll all be searching for, for some time,” Telluride executive director Julie Huntsinger said in a statement. “I would sometimes find myself feeling sad for those who didn’t get to know Tom Luddy properly. He had a sphinx-like quality that took a little time to get around, for some.
“But once you knew him, you were welcomed into a kingdom of art, history, intelligence, humor and joie de vivre that you knew you couldn’t be without. He made life richer. Magical. He...
- 2/14/2023
- by Mike Barnes
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Babylon (2022).Hollywood has been making movies about movies for almost as long as there have been movies. This is not surprising given the town’s penchant for self-mythologizing; the dramatic potential of silver-screen fame, always an Icarus flight on wax wings melting in the California sun; and the allure of a glimpse behind the scenes into the factory where the dreams are made. It would be hypocritical to mock the self-importance of a place that exerts such an inexhaustible fascination—on me, I own, and probably on you—and Hollywood’s addiction to turning the cameras on itself has produced a few masterpieces of clear-eyed ambivalence. It has also revealed, even in less successful efforts, a strain of insecurity and self-loathing under the celebratory tinsel. Some films portray the industry as crass and cruel, spitting out used-up stars and corrupting artistic integrity; some exploit chaotic, unhinged movie sets for laughs or thrills.
- 2/3/2023
- MUBI
We love this Fritz Lang western even though it’s not particularly good; only in hindsight do we realize that the brilliant director’s intentions may have been compromised. High-key lighting does Marlene Dietrich no favors, but she scores good scenes performing with Arthur Kennedy (revenged crazed cowpoke) and Mel Ferrer (tranquilized gunslinger). Lang fans will be impressed by the gaudy, over-bright restored Technicolor, and we can always blame Howard Hughes.
Rancho Notorious
Blu-ray
Warner Archive Collection
1952 / Color / 1:37 Academy / 89 min. / Available at Amazon.com / General site Wac-Amazon / Street Date January 10, 2023 / 21.99
Starring: Marlene Dietrich, Arthur Kennedy, Mel Ferrer, Lloyd Gough, William Frawley, Jack Elam, George Reeves, Frank Ferguson, Dan Seymour, John Doucette, Dick Elliott, Russell Johnson, Charlita.
Cinematography: Hal Mohr
Production Designer: Wiard Ihnen
Dietrich’s wardrobe designed by: Don Loper
Editorial Supervisor: Otto Ludwig
Original Music: Emil Newman
Written by Daniel Taradash, Silvia Richards
Produced by Howard Welsch
Directed...
Rancho Notorious
Blu-ray
Warner Archive Collection
1952 / Color / 1:37 Academy / 89 min. / Available at Amazon.com / General site Wac-Amazon / Street Date January 10, 2023 / 21.99
Starring: Marlene Dietrich, Arthur Kennedy, Mel Ferrer, Lloyd Gough, William Frawley, Jack Elam, George Reeves, Frank Ferguson, Dan Seymour, John Doucette, Dick Elliott, Russell Johnson, Charlita.
Cinematography: Hal Mohr
Production Designer: Wiard Ihnen
Dietrich’s wardrobe designed by: Don Loper
Editorial Supervisor: Otto Ludwig
Original Music: Emil Newman
Written by Daniel Taradash, Silvia Richards
Produced by Howard Welsch
Directed...
- 1/31/2023
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Farewell to Tom Verlaine, for some of us the greatest American rock guitarist not named “Hendrix.” Verlaine, who died Saturday at 73, could hit cosmic heights that no other guitar virtuoso could reach. He made his bones in the 1970s with Television, the garage band who created a new kind of psychedelic sublime in the Cbgb punk scene. Television made two of the Seventies’ best guitar albums, Marquee Moon and Adventure, until they fell apart, just as they were hitting their musical peak. But the music Verlaine got out of his...
- 1/29/2023
- by Rob Sheffield
- Rollingstone.com
The Berlin Film Festival has revealed a raft of titles across strands and also 33 film projects vying for coin at the coproduction market.
Selections for the topical Perspektive Deutsches Kino strand from emerging German talent include “Seven Winters in Tehran” by Steffi Niederzoll, “Elaha” by Milena Aboyan, “Ararat” by Engin Kundag, “The Kidnapping of the Bride” by Sophia Mocorrea, Fabian Stumm’s “Bones and Names,” “Long Long Kiss” by Lukas Röder, Tanja Egen’s “On Mothers and Daughters,” “Ash Wednesday,” by João Pedro Prado and Bárbara Santos, “Nuclear Nomads” by Kilian Armando Friedrich and Tizian Stromp Zargari and “Lonely Oaks” by Fabiana Fragale, Kilian Kuhlendahl and Jens Mühlhoff.
All the selected films in the strand will compete for the Heiner Carow Prize and the Compass-Perspektive-Award, both of which are endowed with €5,000.
A 4K restoration of David Cronenberg’s “Naked Lunch” will open the Berlinale Classics section, which also includes Oliver Schmitz’ “Mapantsula,...
Selections for the topical Perspektive Deutsches Kino strand from emerging German talent include “Seven Winters in Tehran” by Steffi Niederzoll, “Elaha” by Milena Aboyan, “Ararat” by Engin Kundag, “The Kidnapping of the Bride” by Sophia Mocorrea, Fabian Stumm’s “Bones and Names,” “Long Long Kiss” by Lukas Röder, Tanja Egen’s “On Mothers and Daughters,” “Ash Wednesday,” by João Pedro Prado and Bárbara Santos, “Nuclear Nomads” by Kilian Armando Friedrich and Tizian Stromp Zargari and “Lonely Oaks” by Fabiana Fragale, Kilian Kuhlendahl and Jens Mühlhoff.
All the selected films in the strand will compete for the Heiner Carow Prize and the Compass-Perspektive-Award, both of which are endowed with €5,000.
A 4K restoration of David Cronenberg’s “Naked Lunch” will open the Berlinale Classics section, which also includes Oliver Schmitz’ “Mapantsula,...
- 1/9/2023
- by Naman Ramachandran
- Variety Film + TV
Director Hirokazu Kore-eda earned an Oscar nomination with his 2018 family drama, "Shoplifters." His film pulled heartstrings organically, subtly, and unforgettably. The director's humor resonated with audiences around the world, and his earlier films also manage to feel both meditative and packed to the brim at once. So when I heard Kore-eda was making a road film with some incredible South Korean actors, including Song Kang-Ho of "Parasite" and Bae Doona of "The Host," I was overjoyed.
"Broker" stars the K-pop idol Iu (real name: Lee Ji-eun) as a young woman who leaves her baby in front of a baby box. The baby is then abducted by two men, portrayed by Song Kang-ho and Dong-won Gang, who plan to illegally facilitate an adoption. The mother comes back for her child and encounters the baby brokers, and, wanting to make sure her baby has a better life than she did, she decides...
"Broker" stars the K-pop idol Iu (real name: Lee Ji-eun) as a young woman who leaves her baby in front of a baby box. The baby is then abducted by two men, portrayed by Song Kang-ho and Dong-won Gang, who plan to illegally facilitate an adoption. The mother comes back for her child and encounters the baby brokers, and, wanting to make sure her baby has a better life than she did, she decides...
- 12/27/2022
- by Shae Sennett
- Slash Film
Humphrey Bogart is practically the face of film noir. While not quite a genre, the very flexible film movement reflected America's malaise following the Great Depression and eventually World War II. There was a grimness and heightened sense of realism to the movies, often made on lower budgets and with a documentary intensity. Even when the movies ended happily, as many did, the feelings unearthed in the telling of the story would be left unresolved to gnaw at viewers indefinitely.
Bogart, the Broadway actor turned B-movie character actor turned one of the biggest stars in the world, fit the mood perfectly. His scars and trademark lisp separated him from his more conventionally beautiful peers and gave him a natural feel for the hardboiled material. His way with dialogue — spat out with ferocity or tenderness — colored the films as well. His cinematic stature, helped by his refusal to do television, also...
Bogart, the Broadway actor turned B-movie character actor turned one of the biggest stars in the world, fit the mood perfectly. His scars and trademark lisp separated him from his more conventionally beautiful peers and gave him a natural feel for the hardboiled material. His way with dialogue — spat out with ferocity or tenderness — colored the films as well. His cinematic stature, helped by his refusal to do television, also...
- 12/18/2022
- by Anthony Crislip
- Slash Film
The inarguably true cliché about Jean-Luc Godard was that the late filmmaker, who died this week at the age of 91, was a rule-breaker, an artist whose style changed the course of film history by revealing the medium for everything it had already been and pointing to the future of what it could eventually be. Obviously, his body of work has been influential — but that’s an understatement.
And not only for his extensive, time- and media-spanning filmography, ranging from his cucumber-cool debut, Breathless, to the didactic political experiments of the 1960s and 1970s,...
And not only for his extensive, time- and media-spanning filmography, ranging from his cucumber-cool debut, Breathless, to the didactic political experiments of the 1960s and 1970s,...
- 9/14/2022
- by K. Austin Collins
- Rollingstone.com
Click here to read the full article.
Gary Nelson, who directed the Disney films Freaky Friday and The Black Hole, served as the in-house helmer on the first two seasons of Get Smart and called the shots for scores of other shows, has died. He was 87.
Nelson died May 25 in Las Vegas of natural causes, his son Garrett Nelson told The Hollywood Reporter.
His father was Sam Nelson, who served as an assistant director on such landmark films as The Lady From Shanghai (1947), All the King’s Men (1949), Some Like It Hot (1959) and Experiment in Terror (1962) and was a co-founder, along with King Vidor and others, of what would become the DGA.
Gary Nelson started out as an A.D., too, working on films including Nicholas Ray’s Rebel Without a Cause (1955), John Ford’s The Searchers (1956) and John Sturges’ Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957), before he got a big break thanks to his future wife,...
Gary Nelson, who directed the Disney films Freaky Friday and The Black Hole, served as the in-house helmer on the first two seasons of Get Smart and called the shots for scores of other shows, has died. He was 87.
Nelson died May 25 in Las Vegas of natural causes, his son Garrett Nelson told The Hollywood Reporter.
His father was Sam Nelson, who served as an assistant director on such landmark films as The Lady From Shanghai (1947), All the King’s Men (1949), Some Like It Hot (1959) and Experiment in Terror (1962) and was a co-founder, along with King Vidor and others, of what would become the DGA.
Gary Nelson started out as an A.D., too, working on films including Nicholas Ray’s Rebel Without a Cause (1955), John Ford’s The Searchers (1956) and John Sturges’ Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957), before he got a big break thanks to his future wife,...
- 9/10/2022
- by Mike Barnes
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
No more enjoyable conversation grudge match can be had than pitting James Dean against Marlon Brando in a Hollywood Heartthrob showdown. Which do prefer? The rough, raw honesty of Brando in László Benedek's "The Wild One," wherein he plays a humming, human motorcycle engine, tanked up on erotic, rebellious energy and living to subvert paradigms and dismiss 1950s squareness? Or the brooding, poetic angst of Dean in Nicholas Ray's "Rebel Without a Cause," a sensitive, mature soul -- even a little kooky -- who may sometimes let pride get the better of him, but who would be content to form his own blissful, star-gazing queer polycule with a pair of classmates.
Each of the actors was also sexually open at a time when queerness was notoriously repressed and pilloried; remember when Rock Hudson and Liberace were "ladies men"? Commonly attributed to Dean is the quote "No, I'm not homosexual.
Each of the actors was also sexually open at a time when queerness was notoriously repressed and pilloried; remember when Rock Hudson and Liberace were "ladies men"? Commonly attributed to Dean is the quote "No, I'm not homosexual.
- 9/9/2022
- by Witney Seibold
- Slash Film
First things first: Yes, Luca Guadagnino still wants to make a sequel to “Call Me By Your Name” with Timothée Chalamet as the soul-searching Elio, but he wouldn’t put it in those terms. “A sequel is an American concept,” the filmmaker said during an interview at the Telluride Film Festival. “It’s more like the chronicles of Elio, the chronicles of this young boy becoming a man. It is something I want to do.”
For now, though, Guadagnino has already satiated his desire to collaborate with the actor who became a star as a result of that 2017 romance. With “Bones and All,” Guadagnino and screenwriter David Kajganich have transformed Camille DeAngelis’ 2015 cannibal into a gothic plunge into the ’80s-era midwest. Equal parts “Badlands” and “Bonnie and Clyde,” the movie is a sensitive look at the kind of marginalized characters who populate all of Guadagnino’s films.
A scrawny Chalamet plays Lee,...
For now, though, Guadagnino has already satiated his desire to collaborate with the actor who became a star as a result of that 2017 romance. With “Bones and All,” Guadagnino and screenwriter David Kajganich have transformed Camille DeAngelis’ 2015 cannibal into a gothic plunge into the ’80s-era midwest. Equal parts “Badlands” and “Bonnie and Clyde,” the movie is a sensitive look at the kind of marginalized characters who populate all of Guadagnino’s films.
A scrawny Chalamet plays Lee,...
- 9/6/2022
- by Eric Kohn
- Indiewire
While he may not be as well-known today as Alfred Hitchcock or Billy Wilder, director Nicholas Ray had a fantastic run during the '50s working across a range of genres from film noir ("In a Lonely Place") to war saga ("Flying Leathernecks"), coming-of-age teen angst ("Rebel Without a Cause") to westerns, the strangest of which is undoubtedly "Johnny Guitar." Shot in gaudy Trucolor, it stands apart from other studio westerns of the day, maybe because it isn't really a western at all -- It's more like a twisted gothic psychodrama that just happens to be set in the Old West.
Although the title refers to Sterling Hayden's nonchalant protagonist, Mr. Guitar takes a back seat for much of the movie, just one of many of Ray's subversive twists to the standard western formula. Instead, the main focus is the bitter rivalry between Vienna (Joan Crawford), a steely saloon keeper,...
Although the title refers to Sterling Hayden's nonchalant protagonist, Mr. Guitar takes a back seat for much of the movie, just one of many of Ray's subversive twists to the standard western formula. Instead, the main focus is the bitter rivalry between Vienna (Joan Crawford), a steely saloon keeper,...
- 9/5/2022
- by Lee Adams
- Slash Film
Unlike many classic movies about World War 2, "Casablanca" was made during the war. The film was released in 1942, just under a year after America entered the conflict, and is set a year earlier in the eponymous Moroccan city. Club owner Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) discovers that his old flame Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman) and her husband Victor Laszlo (Paul Heinrid), both Nazi resistance fighters, are in Casablanca and looking to escape to America.
The film shows Casablanca as a refugee hub, full of unique characters scattered to the winds by Nazi oppression of their homelands. Rick, the sole American in the cast, becomes an avatar of his country's role in the war; he's initially neutral but ultimately chooses the right side. Underlining this, the film is set mere days before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, which pushed America into the war.
"Casablanca" and its connection to contemporary events helped make it a hit.
The film shows Casablanca as a refugee hub, full of unique characters scattered to the winds by Nazi oppression of their homelands. Rick, the sole American in the cast, becomes an avatar of his country's role in the war; he's initially neutral but ultimately chooses the right side. Underlining this, the film is set mere days before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, which pushed America into the war.
"Casablanca" and its connection to contemporary events helped make it a hit.
- 9/4/2022
- by Devin Meenan
- Slash Film
Sergio Leone's "Once Upon a Time in the West" is an elegy for a genre that has died countless deaths. The Western has passed in and out of favor many times since the advent of the motion picture, and is currently ticking anew thanks to Taylor Sheridan's "Yellowstone" franchise. But as the 1970s approached, there was a realization that the stars and filmmakers who'd transformed the oater into the most American of movie genres were on their way out. John Ford had been driven into retirement. John Wayne was dying. Anthony Mann was dead. A glorious, yet complicated era was drawing to a close.
This was the perfect moment for Sergio Leone to go once more to the Western well with a mythic send-off to the films on which he'd built his international reputation. But his scope wasn't limited to "A Fistful of Dollars," "For a Few Dollars More...
This was the perfect moment for Sergio Leone to go once more to the Western well with a mythic send-off to the films on which he'd built his international reputation. But his scope wasn't limited to "A Fistful of Dollars," "For a Few Dollars More...
- 8/19/2022
- by Jeremy Smith
- Slash Film
by Cláudio Alves
Today, it's time for another name from your list of requests – James Dean. The doomed star was nominated posthumously for Best Actor in 1955 and 1956 for his work on East of Eden and Giant. In that first year, however, he was also in Nicholas Ray's Rebel Without a Cause, delivering a performance that's arguably more iconic than the one that got him Academy recognition. Playing a troubled teen, Dean embodied a new archetype and carved a place for himself in the annals of Hollywood history.
Considering the actor's meteoric rise and both films' popularity, it's fair to say that Dean got some votes for the Ray-helmed adolescent drama. Indeed, if not for the other flick, he probably would have scored a nom for Rebel Without a Cause…...
Today, it's time for another name from your list of requests – James Dean. The doomed star was nominated posthumously for Best Actor in 1955 and 1956 for his work on East of Eden and Giant. In that first year, however, he was also in Nicholas Ray's Rebel Without a Cause, delivering a performance that's arguably more iconic than the one that got him Academy recognition. Playing a troubled teen, Dean embodied a new archetype and carved a place for himself in the annals of Hollywood history.
Considering the actor's meteoric rise and both films' popularity, it's fair to say that Dean got some votes for the Ray-helmed adolescent drama. Indeed, if not for the other flick, he probably would have scored a nom for Rebel Without a Cause…...
- 8/17/2022
- by Cláudio Alves
- FilmExperience
The Criterion Channel’s July lineup is an across-the-board display of strengths, ranging as it does from very specific programming cues to actor retrospectives and hardly ignoring the strength of Criterion Editions. Surely much fun’s to be had with “In the Ring,” a decade-spanning, 16-film curation of boxing pictures—Raging Bull and Fat City, of course, with some you forget are boxing movies (Rocco and His Brothers) and others you’ve likely never seen at all (count me excited for King Vidor’s The Champ). “Noir in Color” brilliantly upends common conception of a drama (and gives you excuse to see Nicholas Ray’s Party Girl); Setsuko Hara films are gathered into a handy collection; and Blake Edwards gets six.
On the Criterion Editions front they’ve gone all out: the Before trilogy, Alex Cox’s Walker, Leave Her to Heaven, Shaft, Destry Rides Again, Raging Bull, Hedwig and the Angry Inch,...
On the Criterion Editions front they’ve gone all out: the Before trilogy, Alex Cox’s Walker, Leave Her to Heaven, Shaft, Destry Rides Again, Raging Bull, Hedwig and the Angry Inch,...
- 6/21/2022
- by Leonard Pearce
- The Film Stage
This grouping of Bogart’s Columbia output has one bona fide noir, a pair of exotic ‘romantic intrigue’ thrillers and three social issue pictures. It’s a good set, with films directed by John Cromwell, Nicholas Ray and Mark Robson, and with leading ladies Lizabeth Scott, Florence Marley, Marta Toren, Jody Lawrance and Jan Sterling. And the Powerhouse Indicator extras are especially well curated. Watch out — it’s Region B only.
Columbia Noir #5 Humphrey Bogart
Region B Blu-ray
Dead Reckoning, Knock on Any Door, Tokyo Joe,
Sirocco, The Family Secret, The Harder They Fall
Powerhouse Indicator
1947-1956 / B&w / 1:37 Academy & 1:85 widescreen
Street Date June 27, 2022 / available from Powerhouse Films UK / £49.99
Starring or Executive Produced by Humphrey Bogart
For an established actor who really didn’t break through as a starring leading man until age 41, Humphrey Bogart sure gave us a legacy of prominent movies. As movie stars go he...
Columbia Noir #5 Humphrey Bogart
Region B Blu-ray
Dead Reckoning, Knock on Any Door, Tokyo Joe,
Sirocco, The Family Secret, The Harder They Fall
Powerhouse Indicator
1947-1956 / B&w / 1:37 Academy & 1:85 widescreen
Street Date June 27, 2022 / available from Powerhouse Films UK / £49.99
Starring or Executive Produced by Humphrey Bogart
For an established actor who really didn’t break through as a starring leading man until age 41, Humphrey Bogart sure gave us a legacy of prominent movies. As movie stars go he...
- 6/21/2022
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Photo: 'In a Lonely Place' A Novel, a Man, a Woman, a Murder ‘In a Lonely Place’ was released in 1950, deep into the era of the classic film noir, when the Golden Age of Hollywood was at its brightest; TV had not yet become popular enough to present an existential threat to movie theaters, and some of the finest filmmakers and actors were still very much active — and producing some of their best work. Related Video: Full Commentary on 'Top Gun: Maverick': Tom Cruise, Val Kilmer, Jennifer Connelly, Miles Teller Related video: 'Top Gun: Maverick' Full Premiere Reactions: Tom Cruise, Val Kilmer, Jennifer Connelly, Miles Teller Related video: Evolution: Every Tom Cruise Role From 1981 to 2021, All Performances Exceptionally Poignant The film was directed by Nicholas Ray, a rebel with a cause whose films consistently did poorly at the box office (with the exception of ‘Rebel Without a Cause...
- 6/14/2022
- by Brian Collins
- Hollywood Insider - Substance & Meaningful Entertainment
What happens the moment gunmen go South of the border in American westerns? Implied foreign policy, that’s what! Updating an old ‘MGM Video Savant’ article from 1999, CineSavant takes a look at a fistful of big Hollywood shoot-out epics that formed less-than-optimal public impressions of international relations. You know, the Friendly Neighbor Policy, only with guns. The essay rewrite was first reprinted at Lee Broughton’s Current Thinking on the Western page, ‘An Internet Resource for Scholars of the Western Worldwide.’
The Foreign Adventurism Western
CineSavant Article
Discussing the films
Vera Cruz (1954),
The Magnificent Seven (1960),
Major Dundee (1965),
The Professionals (1966),
The Wild Bunch (1969)
Directed by Robert Aldrich, John Sturges, Sam Peckinpah, Richard Brooks
While enjoying an escapist, ostensibly apolitical Hollywood western, did you ever get the feeling that the filmmakers were commenting on foreign policy?
Back in the early 1970s the best studies of American genre films seemed to emanate from English critics.
The Foreign Adventurism Western
CineSavant Article
Discussing the films
Vera Cruz (1954),
The Magnificent Seven (1960),
Major Dundee (1965),
The Professionals (1966),
The Wild Bunch (1969)
Directed by Robert Aldrich, John Sturges, Sam Peckinpah, Richard Brooks
While enjoying an escapist, ostensibly apolitical Hollywood western, did you ever get the feeling that the filmmakers were commenting on foreign policy?
Back in the early 1970s the best studies of American genre films seemed to emanate from English critics.
- 6/11/2022
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.
Roxy Cinema
A 35mm-heavy David Cronenberg retro is underway, with Dead Ringers playing Friday and Naked Lunch on Sunday; a print of The Blair Witch Project plays Saturday; on Sunday a 16mm double-bill programmed by J. Hoberman will screen.
Film Forum
A restoration of Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s Distant has begun, while Jean-Jacques Beineix’s Diva continues on 35mm and Kiki’s Delivery Service screens this Sunday.
IFC Center
Johnnie To’s The Heroic Trio plays in a restoration as the Gaspar Noé retrospective continues; the new restorations of Inland Empire and Mississippi Masala continue; Mulholland Dr., Perfect Blue, Scanners, and Paprika have late-night showings.
Japan Society
Terror of Yakuza and Untamagiru play in the incredible new series “Okinawa in Focus,” which you can see a trailer for here.
Museum of the Moving Image
The great Dp James Wong Howe...
Roxy Cinema
A 35mm-heavy David Cronenberg retro is underway, with Dead Ringers playing Friday and Naked Lunch on Sunday; a print of The Blair Witch Project plays Saturday; on Sunday a 16mm double-bill programmed by J. Hoberman will screen.
Film Forum
A restoration of Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s Distant has begun, while Jean-Jacques Beineix’s Diva continues on 35mm and Kiki’s Delivery Service screens this Sunday.
IFC Center
Johnnie To’s The Heroic Trio plays in a restoration as the Gaspar Noé retrospective continues; the new restorations of Inland Empire and Mississippi Masala continue; Mulholland Dr., Perfect Blue, Scanners, and Paprika have late-night showings.
Japan Society
Terror of Yakuza and Untamagiru play in the incredible new series “Okinawa in Focus,” which you can see a trailer for here.
Museum of the Moving Image
The great Dp James Wong Howe...
- 5/19/2022
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings. On the subject of Metrograph’s “It Happens to Us,” we also encourage donations to local abortion funds, while the theater will be donating 50 of all proceeds from ticket sales towards Naral Pro-Choice America and additional U.S. reproductive rights orgs.
Japan Society
Films by Chris Marker and Nagisa Oshima play in the incredible new series “Okinawa in Focus,” which you can see a trailer for here.
Museum of the Moving Image
The great Dp James Wong Howe is given his dues in a new retrospective, while Coming to America and war films by John Huston and John Ford both screen on Sunday.
Roxy Cinema
2046 screens on 35mm this Sunday, while a print of Wild at Heart shows Friday and Sunday; Friday the 13th Part IV shows on 35mm this Friday.
Metrograph
Emma Myers has curated “It Happens to Us,...
Japan Society
Films by Chris Marker and Nagisa Oshima play in the incredible new series “Okinawa in Focus,” which you can see a trailer for here.
Museum of the Moving Image
The great Dp James Wong Howe is given his dues in a new retrospective, while Coming to America and war films by John Huston and John Ford both screen on Sunday.
Roxy Cinema
2046 screens on 35mm this Sunday, while a print of Wild at Heart shows Friday and Sunday; Friday the 13th Part IV shows on 35mm this Friday.
Metrograph
Emma Myers has curated “It Happens to Us,...
- 5/13/2022
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
The Palm Springs area will live up to its reputation for seediness under the cover of never-ending nights — irony intended — as the Arthur Lyons Film Noir Festival returns to town for its 22nd annual marathon of vintage crime dramas this weekend. Leonard Maltin and TCM “Noir Alley” host Eddie Muller will be among the guest hosts joining festival curator Alan K. Rode for a four-day deep dive into the dark that kicks off Thursday night with the 1949 Nicholas Ray film whose title pretty much says it all about the genre being celebrated: “They Live by Night.”
That opening night will be preceded Wednesday by a fundraising performance by frequent festival guest Victoria Mature, daughter of Hollywood golden-age icon Victor Mature, dubbed “Victoria/Victor Mature Cabaret, an Evening of Memories and Music,” to be held, as with the festival proper, at the Palm Springs Cultural Center. Mature will also be on...
That opening night will be preceded Wednesday by a fundraising performance by frequent festival guest Victoria Mature, daughter of Hollywood golden-age icon Victor Mature, dubbed “Victoria/Victor Mature Cabaret, an Evening of Memories and Music,” to be held, as with the festival proper, at the Palm Springs Cultural Center. Mature will also be on...
- 5/10/2022
- by Chris Willman
- Variety Film + TV
The Locarno Film Festival recently announced a complete retro dedicated to Douglas Sirk, 35 years after the death of the director best known for melodramas made in Hollywood in the 1940s and 1950s, such as “Magnificent Obsession” and “Written on the Wind,” that aims to provide a fresh critical interpretation of his work.
Sirk, who was born in Denmark and worked in Germany, which he left for Hollywood during Hitler’s rise to power, later returned to Europe and eventually retired in Switzerland.
Among his most prominent fans were late great German filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Bernardo Bertolucci.
For the first time, Sirk’s filmography will be reviewed in the light of unpublished documents made available by the director’s family through the Douglas Sirk Foundation and preserved since 2012 at the Cinémathèque Suisse, broadening the perspective on this major auteur.
Variety spoke to Locarno’s artistic director Giona A. Nazzaro...
Sirk, who was born in Denmark and worked in Germany, which he left for Hollywood during Hitler’s rise to power, later returned to Europe and eventually retired in Switzerland.
Among his most prominent fans were late great German filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Bernardo Bertolucci.
For the first time, Sirk’s filmography will be reviewed in the light of unpublished documents made available by the director’s family through the Douglas Sirk Foundation and preserved since 2012 at the Cinémathèque Suisse, broadening the perspective on this major auteur.
Variety spoke to Locarno’s artistic director Giona A. Nazzaro...
- 2/16/2022
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
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