John Wilkes Booth was desperate to be famous. Instead, he became infamous as the man who assassinated President Abraham Lincoln. He had been born in 1838 as the ninth of ten children of the famed actor Junius Brutus Booth. Though he had shown talent, his career was often derailed by his emotional instability. His older brother Edwin Booth was considered one of the top actors of the day.
The handsome younger Booth had received strong reviews in a New York production of “Richard III” with the New York Herald declaring him a “veritable sensation.” Booth even told the paper “I’m determined to be the villain.” A staunch supporter of the Confederacy, by 1864 he had recruited several co-conspirators in his plan to kidnap Honest Abe. Their attempts failed, but on April 14, 1865, he learned Lincoln would attend the comedy “Our American Cousin” at Ford’s Theater that evening, During the third act...
The handsome younger Booth had received strong reviews in a New York production of “Richard III” with the New York Herald declaring him a “veritable sensation.” Booth even told the paper “I’m determined to be the villain.” A staunch supporter of the Confederacy, by 1864 he had recruited several co-conspirators in his plan to kidnap Honest Abe. Their attempts failed, but on April 14, 1865, he learned Lincoln would attend the comedy “Our American Cousin” at Ford’s Theater that evening, During the third act...
- 4/8/2024
- by Susan King
- Gold Derby
In the US and Europe, a combination of figurehead film-makers allied with community partners really seems to work
One of LA’s loveliest cinemas – the huge, sentinel Village Theater in Westwood - has been bought by Jason Reitman, Steven Spielberg, Christopher Nolan, Lulu Wang, Chloé Zhao, Guillermo del Toro, Alexander Payne, Alfonso Cuarón, Ryan Coogler, Bradley Cooper, Gina Prince-Bythewood and lots of other film-makers.
The news has a hint of early Hollywood about it when, in 1919, four very different film-makers – Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and Dw Griffith – threw their hats into the industrial ring to found the United Artists Corporation movie studio.
One of LA’s loveliest cinemas – the huge, sentinel Village Theater in Westwood - has been bought by Jason Reitman, Steven Spielberg, Christopher Nolan, Lulu Wang, Chloé Zhao, Guillermo del Toro, Alexander Payne, Alfonso Cuarón, Ryan Coogler, Bradley Cooper, Gina Prince-Bythewood and lots of other film-makers.
The news has a hint of early Hollywood about it when, in 1919, four very different film-makers – Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and Dw Griffith – threw their hats into the industrial ring to found the United Artists Corporation movie studio.
- 2/22/2024
- by Mark Cousins
- The Guardian - Film News
Daniel Dae Kim, Andra Day and Carla Gutierrez joined leaders from Gold House, the NAACP and Latinx House to discuss the specific challenges their respective communities face in the entertainment industry. They outlined the work that can be done to achieve greater inclusion in conversations hosted by Variety’s Angelique Jackson at the Sundance Film Festival as a part of Adobe’s Fireside Chats with Changemakers in Film.
Watch all three conversations below:
Andra Day and Kyle Bowser, Senior Vice President of NAACP Hollywood Bureau
“I’ve been hearing this thing in the past few years about no more slave stories, no more past and all this stuff, and no more Black pain porn. And I don’t like the term because I think it boils it down. I think in order for us to be fully represented and fully realized, we need both,” said actor and singer Andra Day...
Watch all three conversations below:
Andra Day and Kyle Bowser, Senior Vice President of NAACP Hollywood Bureau
“I’ve been hearing this thing in the past few years about no more slave stories, no more past and all this stuff, and no more Black pain porn. And I don’t like the term because I think it boils it down. I think in order for us to be fully represented and fully realized, we need both,” said actor and singer Andra Day...
- 1/23/2024
- by Diego Ramos Bechara, Caroline Brew and Jaden Thompson
- Variety Film + TV
A century ago, the new artform was welcomed as an harbinger of universal harmony. Although it’s been pressed into service for darker aims since, some of that utopian spirit survives
Exactly 100 years ago, in an article in Collier’s magazine in 1924, the film director Dw Griffith made the following prediction: “In the year 2024 the most important single thing which the cinema will have helped in a large way to accomplish will be that of eliminating from the face of the civilised world all armed conflict.” He added: “Pictures will be the most powerful factor in bringing about this condition. With the use of the universal language of motion pictures the true meaning of brotherhood of man will have been established throughout the Earth.”
Leaving aside the irony that’s Griffith’s 1915 picture The Birth of a Nation, a deeply racist film that led directly to the revival of the...
Exactly 100 years ago, in an article in Collier’s magazine in 1924, the film director Dw Griffith made the following prediction: “In the year 2024 the most important single thing which the cinema will have helped in a large way to accomplish will be that of eliminating from the face of the civilised world all armed conflict.” He added: “Pictures will be the most powerful factor in bringing about this condition. With the use of the universal language of motion pictures the true meaning of brotherhood of man will have been established throughout the Earth.”
Leaving aside the irony that’s Griffith’s 1915 picture The Birth of a Nation, a deeply racist film that led directly to the revival of the...
- 1/23/2024
- by Henry Roberts
- The Guardian - Film News
Carol Littleton, one of four people who will receive awards from the Motion Picture Academy at Tuesday night’s Governors Awards, is part of an unusual statistic. She’s a film editor, a job that over the course of movie history has been done largely by men, who have been nominated for and won about 86% of all the editing Oscars.
And yet only three people have been named recipients of Honorary Academy Awards for film editing, and all three have been women. Margaret Booth, who began her career with D.W. Griffith and edited well into her 80s, received the first-ever Honorary Oscar for editing in 1977, while Anne V. Coates, who won an Oscar for “Lawrence of Arabia” in 1962, was given an honorary award in 2016.
Littleton will be the third, in recognition of a career that has included “E.T. The Extra Terrestrial,” “The Big Chill,” “The Accidental Tourist,” “Benny & Joon” and “Margot at the Wedding.
And yet only three people have been named recipients of Honorary Academy Awards for film editing, and all three have been women. Margaret Booth, who began her career with D.W. Griffith and edited well into her 80s, received the first-ever Honorary Oscar for editing in 1977, while Anne V. Coates, who won an Oscar for “Lawrence of Arabia” in 1962, was given an honorary award in 2016.
Littleton will be the third, in recognition of a career that has included “E.T. The Extra Terrestrial,” “The Big Chill,” “The Accidental Tourist,” “Benny & Joon” and “Margot at the Wedding.
- 1/8/2024
- by Steve Pond
- The Wrap
Blitz Bazawule’s big-screen adaptation of Alice Walker’s 1982 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Color Purple and its 2005 musical theater production is basically echo-chamber karaoke. The film knows the words and tunes but, with rare exception, lacks the passion and the perspective to make them truly resonate.
Walker’s book charted the emotional, sexual, and implicitly political coming of age of an African-American girl named Celie, whose life in rural, early-20th-century Georgia is several tiers below hell. She’s borne two children by a man, Alphonso, who beats and rapes her, and whom she knows as her father. And then a barbaric farmer known as Mister comes calling. He has eyes for Celie’s sister, Nettie, but Alphonso pawns off Celie instead, women being, in the eyes of these men, chattel-like property with inarguable coital benefits.
The book is written in epistolary style, with Celie addressing an unseen God throughout.
Walker’s book charted the emotional, sexual, and implicitly political coming of age of an African-American girl named Celie, whose life in rural, early-20th-century Georgia is several tiers below hell. She’s borne two children by a man, Alphonso, who beats and rapes her, and whom she knows as her father. And then a barbaric farmer known as Mister comes calling. He has eyes for Celie’s sister, Nettie, but Alphonso pawns off Celie instead, women being, in the eyes of these men, chattel-like property with inarguable coital benefits.
The book is written in epistolary style, with Celie addressing an unseen God throughout.
- 12/19/2023
- by Keith Uhlich
- Slant Magazine
Films are available. Then they aren't. Entire film series can be accessed on one day, and then are nowhere to be found the next. The tides roll in, the tides recede. The sun rises, the sun sets. So it goes with streaming.
Thanks to the Writers Strike of 2023, and the revelation that exclusive in-studio streaming services aren't an entirely viable business model, it's become more important than ever to keep tabs on what might be available on notable services in any given week. Sadly, no streaming service purports to be a permanent archive of film and TV, and even the most deeply branded properties are now being shopped around outside of their home studios; to some, it may feel strange that "Merry Little Batman" debuted on Prime Video rather than the expected Warner Bros.-owned Max streaming service. It seems that the most logical way streaming services can move forward...
Thanks to the Writers Strike of 2023, and the revelation that exclusive in-studio streaming services aren't an entirely viable business model, it's become more important than ever to keep tabs on what might be available on notable services in any given week. Sadly, no streaming service purports to be a permanent archive of film and TV, and even the most deeply branded properties are now being shopped around outside of their home studios; to some, it may feel strange that "Merry Little Batman" debuted on Prime Video rather than the expected Warner Bros.-owned Max streaming service. It seems that the most logical way streaming services can move forward...
- 12/17/2023
- by Witney Seibold
- Slash Film
For the past decade-and-a-half, cinematographer Sean Price Williams has been a staple of the New York indie-film scene, lensing features for (naming just a handful) the Safdie brothers, Alex Ross Perry, Michael Almereyda, Robert Greene.
The Sweet East finds Williams moving to the director’s chair with a script from film critic Nick Pinkerton. Deliberately provocative and very funny, The Sweet East begins with a Pizzagate sequence that separates high-schooler Lillian from her classmates in D.C. From there she drifts throughout the Northeast, mingling with a cast of outsiders who all take a special, often sexual interest in her, among them a disorganized band of Antifa-esque punks, an over-eager filmmaking duo (Ayo Edebiri and playwright Jeremy O. Harris), and closeted Neo-Nazi academic Lawrence (Simon Rex).
Fans of Pinkerton’s film criticism and Twitter account will be pleased by the wordsmithery of his dialogue, especially Lawrence’s extended monologues on...
The Sweet East finds Williams moving to the director’s chair with a script from film critic Nick Pinkerton. Deliberately provocative and very funny, The Sweet East begins with a Pizzagate sequence that separates high-schooler Lillian from her classmates in D.C. From there she drifts throughout the Northeast, mingling with a cast of outsiders who all take a special, often sexual interest in her, among them a disorganized band of Antifa-esque punks, an over-eager filmmaking duo (Ayo Edebiri and playwright Jeremy O. Harris), and closeted Neo-Nazi academic Lawrence (Simon Rex).
Fans of Pinkerton’s film criticism and Twitter account will be pleased by the wordsmithery of his dialogue, especially Lawrence’s extended monologues on...
- 12/1/2023
- by Caleb Hammond
- The Film Stage
Martin Scorsese is famous for his collaborations with Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio, and the first feature-length film with all three, “Killers of the Flower Moon,” has become a critical and commercial success. It’s not unusual for a director to find a “favorite” actor and form a successful relationship. In fact, this practice goes back to the beginning of the industry.
In 1912, pioneering filmmaker D.W. Griffith cast 18-year-old Lillian Gish in his short film “An Unseen Enemy,” and the two worked on more than 40 short and feature-length productions over the next decade. One of the most famous scenes from the silent era is in their film “Way Down East,” in which Gish floats unconscious on an ice floe; she had lifelong nerve damage in several fingers as a result of her performance in that scene.
SEEMartin Scorsese movies: All 26 films ranked worst to best
During the Golden Age of Hollywood,...
In 1912, pioneering filmmaker D.W. Griffith cast 18-year-old Lillian Gish in his short film “An Unseen Enemy,” and the two worked on more than 40 short and feature-length productions over the next decade. One of the most famous scenes from the silent era is in their film “Way Down East,” in which Gish floats unconscious on an ice floe; she had lifelong nerve damage in several fingers as a result of her performance in that scene.
SEEMartin Scorsese movies: All 26 films ranked worst to best
During the Golden Age of Hollywood,...
- 11/18/2023
- by Susan Pennington and Chris Beachum
- Gold Derby
Martin Scorsese is famous for his collaborations with Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio, and the first feature-length film with all three, “Killers of the Flower Moon,” has become a critical and commercial success. It’s not unusual for a director to find a “favorite” actor and form a successful relationship. In fact, this practice goes back to the beginning of the industry.
In 1912, pioneering filmmaker D.W. Griffith cast 18-year-old Lillian Gish in his short film “An Unseen Enemy,” and the two worked on more than 40 short and feature-length productions over the next decade. One of the most famous scenes from the silent era is in their film “Way Down East,” in which Gish floats unconscious on an ice floe; she had lifelong nerve damage in several fingers as a result of her performance in that scene.
During the Golden Age of Hollywood, there were quite a few famous collaborations,...
In 1912, pioneering filmmaker D.W. Griffith cast 18-year-old Lillian Gish in his short film “An Unseen Enemy,” and the two worked on more than 40 short and feature-length productions over the next decade. One of the most famous scenes from the silent era is in their film “Way Down East,” in which Gish floats unconscious on an ice floe; she had lifelong nerve damage in several fingers as a result of her performance in that scene.
During the Golden Age of Hollywood, there were quite a few famous collaborations,...
- 11/18/2023
- by Susan Pennington, Chris Beachum and Misty Holland
- Gold Derby
Due to the deliberately mysterious nature of the film, potential spoilers for "Foe" follow.
The premise of Garth Davis' turgid sci-fi mope-fest "Foe" is intriguing on paper. It's 2065, and the world is dying. Water and food are in short supply, and the government is experimenting with station-bound space colonies. Junior (Paul Mescal) is to be recruited for a two-year space mission that would keep him away from his long-suffering wife Hen (Saoirse Ronan). In exchange, the government has offered to outfit Hen's home with a pre-programmed clone of Junior, designed to keep her company.
From the premise, one might assume "Foe" plays out like a speculative "Twilight Zone" thought exercise, or perhaps a wicked/fun grim morality tale like one might encounter in "Tales from the Crypt." But, dear readers, let me assure you that "Foe" does nothing intriguing. Indeed, the bulk of Davis' pity party is little more than extended scenes of meandering,...
The premise of Garth Davis' turgid sci-fi mope-fest "Foe" is intriguing on paper. It's 2065, and the world is dying. Water and food are in short supply, and the government is experimenting with station-bound space colonies. Junior (Paul Mescal) is to be recruited for a two-year space mission that would keep him away from his long-suffering wife Hen (Saoirse Ronan). In exchange, the government has offered to outfit Hen's home with a pre-programmed clone of Junior, designed to keep her company.
From the premise, one might assume "Foe" plays out like a speculative "Twilight Zone" thought exercise, or perhaps a wicked/fun grim morality tale like one might encounter in "Tales from the Crypt." But, dear readers, let me assure you that "Foe" does nothing intriguing. Indeed, the bulk of Davis' pity party is little more than extended scenes of meandering,...
- 10/3/2023
- by Witney Seibold
- Slash Film
Haunted house movies have been a cinema staple for well over a century. Lorimer Johnston, Buster Keaton, D. W. Griffith, and Elliott Nugent all knocked on the creaky doors of the subgenre well before film married even sound. It’s a familiar trope, one that has permeated our culture for a very long time. Naturally, as timeless tropes are wont to do, countless filmmakers and writers have added their own signature, and The Changeling is one such example.
Perhaps the greatest? That’s what the Halloweenies debate in their exhaustive breakdown of Peter Medak‘s 1980 masterpiece. Starring George C. Scott, Trish Van Devere, and Melvyn Douglas, the “true story” follows a renown composer, who moves to Seattle from New York City following the deaths of his wife and daughter. The historic society gives him the keys to a dusty mansion, and he soon discovers there’s more than his music floating within its halls.
Perhaps the greatest? That’s what the Halloweenies debate in their exhaustive breakdown of Peter Medak‘s 1980 masterpiece. Starring George C. Scott, Trish Van Devere, and Melvyn Douglas, the “true story” follows a renown composer, who moves to Seattle from New York City following the deaths of his wife and daughter. The historic society gives him the keys to a dusty mansion, and he soon discovers there’s more than his music floating within its halls.
- 10/2/2023
- by Michael Roffman
- bloody-disgusting.com
Carl Davis, who composed the scores for The French Lieutenant’s Woman, the BBC miniseries Pride and Prejudice and perhaps most famously Abel Gance’s epic 1927 silent film Napoléon, has died. He was 86.
Davis died Thursday after suffering a brain hemorrhage, his family announced.
“We are so proud that Carl’s legacy will be his astonishing impact on music,” they wrote on Twitter. “A consummate all-round musician, he was the driving force behind the reinvention of the silent movie for this generation, and he wrote scores for some of the most-loved and remembered British television dramas.”
Born in Brooklyn but living in the U.K. since 1961, Davis was hired by documentarians Kevin Brownlow and David Gill to create music for the 13-hour 1980 miniseries Hollywood: A Celebration of the American Silent Film and for Napoléon.
“My first score for a silent movie was Napoleon,” he said in 2010. “Five hours of it! It...
Davis died Thursday after suffering a brain hemorrhage, his family announced.
“We are so proud that Carl’s legacy will be his astonishing impact on music,” they wrote on Twitter. “A consummate all-round musician, he was the driving force behind the reinvention of the silent movie for this generation, and he wrote scores for some of the most-loved and remembered British television dramas.”
Born in Brooklyn but living in the U.K. since 1961, Davis was hired by documentarians Kevin Brownlow and David Gill to create music for the 13-hour 1980 miniseries Hollywood: A Celebration of the American Silent Film and for Napoléon.
“My first score for a silent movie was Napoleon,” he said in 2010. “Five hours of it! It...
- 8/3/2023
- by Mike Barnes
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Carl Davis, the composer known for his BAFTA-winning score for “The French Lieutenant’s Woman” (1981), died of a brain hemorrhage on Thursday. He was 86.
Davis’ family issued a statement on social media, writing: “We are so proud that Carl’s legacy will be his astonishing impact on music. A consummate all-round musician, he was the driving force behind the reinvention of the silent movie for this generation and he wrote scores for some of the most loved and remembered British television dramas.”
Born in New York, Davis co-authored revue “Diversions” (1959), which won an off-Broadway Emmy and featured at the 1961 Edinburgh Festival. Davis moved to the U.K. in 1961 and was commissioned by the BBC to compose music for “That Was the Week That Was.” Subsequent work included BBC’s anthology play series “The Wednesday Play” (1964-70) and “Play for Today” (1970-84).
Davis then composed for several iconic British television shows, including...
Davis’ family issued a statement on social media, writing: “We are so proud that Carl’s legacy will be his astonishing impact on music. A consummate all-round musician, he was the driving force behind the reinvention of the silent movie for this generation and he wrote scores for some of the most loved and remembered British television dramas.”
Born in New York, Davis co-authored revue “Diversions” (1959), which won an off-Broadway Emmy and featured at the 1961 Edinburgh Festival. Davis moved to the U.K. in 1961 and was commissioned by the BBC to compose music for “That Was the Week That Was.” Subsequent work included BBC’s anthology play series “The Wednesday Play” (1964-70) and “Play for Today” (1970-84).
Davis then composed for several iconic British television shows, including...
- 8/3/2023
- by Naman Ramachandran
- Variety Film + TV
Babylon is a movie written and directed by Damien Chazelle (First Man) starring Margot Robbie and Brad Pitt.
Babylon is a movie which from its failure in the box office recalls the echoes of Intolerance (1915), in which they built those sets with elephants that were so grandiose, in a film making style of another era and an impossible dream, disconcerting, ambitious and almost orgiastic spirit.
About the Movie
Babylon captures all of this spirit from a grandiose production which did not convince the more traditional audience.
Babylon (2022)
This movie tries to reconstruct the chaos experienced in the first Hollywood times, the arrival of sound, the excesses, disconcerting situations and the fight to not wake up from an impossible dream and, in some way, reconstruct that lost Babylon that the creator of modern cinema, David Wark Griffith tried to find too.
This is a movie with a stellar cast (Margot Robbie...
Babylon is a movie which from its failure in the box office recalls the echoes of Intolerance (1915), in which they built those sets with elephants that were so grandiose, in a film making style of another era and an impossible dream, disconcerting, ambitious and almost orgiastic spirit.
About the Movie
Babylon captures all of this spirit from a grandiose production which did not convince the more traditional audience.
Babylon (2022)
This movie tries to reconstruct the chaos experienced in the first Hollywood times, the arrival of sound, the excesses, disconcerting situations and the fight to not wake up from an impossible dream and, in some way, reconstruct that lost Babylon that the creator of modern cinema, David Wark Griffith tried to find too.
This is a movie with a stellar cast (Margot Robbie...
- 7/21/2023
- by Martin Cid
- Martin Cid Magazine - Movies
It’s often claimed that good things come in threes, but try telling that to anyone who sat through the Big Momma’s House trilogy. Film sequels, in essence, are nothing new in Hollywood—the very first sequel came back in 1916 with the silent film The Fall of a Nation, Thomas Dixon Jr.‘s follow-up to D. W. Griffith’s jaw-droppingly racist epic, Birth of a Nation.
However, the concept only became commonplace in the 1970s when a string of follow-ups to successful dramas made waves at the box office. The Godfather, Part II, Rocky II, and The French Connection II were among the first movies that helped usher in this new era of filmmaking. Today though, moviedom has expanded beyond even the sequel and into new territory where the word “franchise” is king. Buoyed in recent times by the dominance of comic book movies and an increasing appetite for nostalgia,...
However, the concept only became commonplace in the 1970s when a string of follow-ups to successful dramas made waves at the box office. The Godfather, Part II, Rocky II, and The French Connection II were among the first movies that helped usher in this new era of filmmaking. Today though, moviedom has expanded beyond even the sequel and into new territory where the word “franchise” is king. Buoyed in recent times by the dominance of comic book movies and an increasing appetite for nostalgia,...
- 7/8/2023
- by David Crow
- Den of Geek
“That’s not art. A striptease isn’t art. It’s too direct. It’s more direct than art.”
That line from Akira Kurosawa’s “Ikiru” sums up a lot of feelings people seem to have about nudity in film. The history of painting and sculpture is full of nude portraiture, which is regularly and comfortably classified as art. But the nude scene in movies is rarely discussed alongside a Canova marble statue or Manet’s “Olympia.” Movies blur the boundaries between “real life” and artistic indirection so thoroughly that people discuss nude scenes in movies as practically everything but art. It’s “content” that deserves an “advisory,” or something akin to “porn,” however the Supreme Court is classifying that these days.
As many have noted, the very nature of the actor’s job demands the audience look at them. So when nudity enters the (literal) picture, it complicates the relationship between viewer and viewed.
That line from Akira Kurosawa’s “Ikiru” sums up a lot of feelings people seem to have about nudity in film. The history of painting and sculpture is full of nude portraiture, which is regularly and comfortably classified as art. But the nude scene in movies is rarely discussed alongside a Canova marble statue or Manet’s “Olympia.” Movies blur the boundaries between “real life” and artistic indirection so thoroughly that people discuss nude scenes in movies as practically everything but art. It’s “content” that deserves an “advisory,” or something akin to “porn,” however the Supreme Court is classifying that these days.
As many have noted, the very nature of the actor’s job demands the audience look at them. So when nudity enters the (literal) picture, it complicates the relationship between viewer and viewed.
- 6/28/2023
- by Alison Foreman and Wilson Chapman
- Indiewire
In The Sweet East, a high school senior take a journey through fame, exploitation, and Delaware. Working from a script co-written with the influential critic Nick Pinkerton, Sean Price Williams’ punky directorial debut boasts both the cinematographer’s signature aesthetic and Pinkerton’s idiosyncratic, roguish worldview. Premiering this week in Directors’ Fortnight, The Sweet East––seemingly taking cues from John Waters––is cinema at its most playfully facetious, infectiously puerile, and flagrantly transgressive, and an early highlight of a Cannes Film Festival that, near its midway point, has been somewhat short on provocation.
The Sweet East stars a brilliant Talia Ryder as the Californian Alice in Williams and Pinkerton’s dirty East Coast Wonderland. In her first lead role since breaking out in Never Rarely Sometimes Always, she plays Lillian (one of many nods to D.W. Griffith), a faux-ingénue with a knack for ending up in dicey situations and an...
The Sweet East stars a brilliant Talia Ryder as the Californian Alice in Williams and Pinkerton’s dirty East Coast Wonderland. In her first lead role since breaking out in Never Rarely Sometimes Always, she plays Lillian (one of many nods to D.W. Griffith), a faux-ingénue with a knack for ending up in dicey situations and an...
- 5/21/2023
- by Rory O'Connor
- The Film Stage
Singer, actor, and activist Harry Belafonte has passed away at the age of 96. Along with his rich, prolific musical career, Belafonte leaves behind an impressive legacy on screen. From one of his earliest roles in Otto Preminger's "Carmen Jones" to his last appearance in Spike Lee's "BlacKkKlansman," Belafonte left an unforgettable impression. The actor worked with talented filmmakers like Robert Altman, Robert Wise, Ava DuVernay, and Sidney Poitier, and appeared in Lee's 2006 look at the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, "When The Levees Broke." But he and Lee would also work together one more time, in a role that the then-elderly Belafonte had to get approved by a doctor.
Belafonte's scene in "BlacKkKlansman" gives the darkly funny movie about a Black cop infiltrating the KKK a sense of gravity and history; in a nine-minute scene, Black students and activists sit rapt and engrossed around a seated Belafonte as he...
Belafonte's scene in "BlacKkKlansman" gives the darkly funny movie about a Black cop infiltrating the KKK a sense of gravity and history; in a nine-minute scene, Black students and activists sit rapt and engrossed around a seated Belafonte as he...
- 4/25/2023
- by Valerie Ettenhofer
- Slash Film
Harry Belafonte, one of the most important and influential Black figures in entertainment, music, and throughout the last century of the civil rights movement, has sadly passed away at the age of 96. The news was first reported by The New York Times and confirmed by Belafonte's spokesman Ken Sunshine, the cause of death resulting from congestive heart failure.
The actor, singer, musician, and activist had most recently appeared in a small but significant supporting turn in director Spike Lee's provocative "BlacKkKlansman" in 2018, where he portrayed a fictionalized civil rights activist. In one of the most pivotal scenes towards the end of the film, Belafonte recounts the horrific real-life lynching of Black teenager Jesse Washington in 1916 and draws a direct parallel to the production of director D.W. Griffith's racist propaganda movie "The Birth of a Nation." The astute choice to cast Belafonte for this particular role speaks to...
The actor, singer, musician, and activist had most recently appeared in a small but significant supporting turn in director Spike Lee's provocative "BlacKkKlansman" in 2018, where he portrayed a fictionalized civil rights activist. In one of the most pivotal scenes towards the end of the film, Belafonte recounts the horrific real-life lynching of Black teenager Jesse Washington in 1916 and draws a direct parallel to the production of director D.W. Griffith's racist propaganda movie "The Birth of a Nation." The astute choice to cast Belafonte for this particular role speaks to...
- 4/25/2023
- by Jeremy Mathai
- Slash Film
Few literary figures have achieved the same kind of pop culture afterlife as Edgar Allan Poe. Much like Franz Kafka, the idea of Poe has become conflated with the writer's most famous works: The tragic, haunted figure, scribbling away feverishly by candlelight, only pausing occasionally to fling open the shutters of his window and gaze out into the night beyond with fear and trepidation.
This romantic notion makes Poe an intriguing character who has carried well into other mediums. There are hundreds of comics based on the author and/or his works (even teaming up with the Dark Knight in "Batman: Nevermore"), as well as stage plays, radio shows, books, and, of course, movies. The controversial master of silent cinema, D.W. Griffith, directed the first film based on the author, "Edgar Allan Poe," back in 1909, and actors including Joseph Cotton, Klaus Kinski, and Ben Chaplin have all played the gloomy author on screen.
This romantic notion makes Poe an intriguing character who has carried well into other mediums. There are hundreds of comics based on the author and/or his works (even teaming up with the Dark Knight in "Batman: Nevermore"), as well as stage plays, radio shows, books, and, of course, movies. The controversial master of silent cinema, D.W. Griffith, directed the first film based on the author, "Edgar Allan Poe," back in 1909, and actors including Joseph Cotton, Klaus Kinski, and Ben Chaplin have all played the gloomy author on screen.
- 4/8/2023
- by Lee Adams
- Slash Film
Things appeared pretty dire for Shazam! Fury of the Gods when less than two weeks before release, Warner Bros. Pictures spoiled a major surprise in a TV spot: Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman, aka the star of one of the most popular and best reviewed Dceu films, is appearing in a cameo alongside Shazam star Zachary Levi.
Typically, this is the kind of surprise that’s guarded with the utmost secrecy; an “easter egg” that folks’ jobs would be on the line to protect. It’s the cheerworthy moment that’s supposed to tie one beloved DC superhero franchise’s story to another’s, and make fans excited to see new films about each. Yet there it was, airing before practically every March Madness college basketball game in the U.S., and all in a desperate attempt to generate more buzz ahead of Shazam 2’s opening weekend. Obviously the...
Typically, this is the kind of surprise that’s guarded with the utmost secrecy; an “easter egg” that folks’ jobs would be on the line to protect. It’s the cheerworthy moment that’s supposed to tie one beloved DC superhero franchise’s story to another’s, and make fans excited to see new films about each. Yet there it was, airing before practically every March Madness college basketball game in the U.S., and all in a desperate attempt to generate more buzz ahead of Shazam 2’s opening weekend. Obviously the...
- 3/20/2023
- by David Crow
- Den of Geek
Many filmmakers yearn for their work to be at the centre of a public conversation. But it’s not always a good thing.
Sometimes, movies – even great ones – are put under the microscope for problematic characters, plotlines or moments.
Often, this is a result of changing social standards. Films like The Jazz Singer utilised blackface at a time when it was more or less completely socially acceptable. Watch it now, however, and you’ll likely be mortified.
Other films, of course, are problematic the moment they hit cinemas – such as Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
In some cases, the question of whether or not a film is offensive can provoke strong debate among fans and even those involved in making the film. This week, Michael Caine was in the news after hitting back at claims that the 1964 film Zulu was a “key text” for white supremecists.
Sometimes, movies – even great ones – are put under the microscope for problematic characters, plotlines or moments.
Often, this is a result of changing social standards. Films like The Jazz Singer utilised blackface at a time when it was more or less completely socially acceptable. Watch it now, however, and you’ll likely be mortified.
Other films, of course, are problematic the moment they hit cinemas – such as Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
In some cases, the question of whether or not a film is offensive can provoke strong debate among fans and even those involved in making the film. This week, Michael Caine was in the news after hitting back at claims that the 1964 film Zulu was a “key text” for white supremecists.
- 3/10/2023
- by Louis Chilton
- The Independent - Film
Many filmmakers yearn for their work to be at the centre of a public conversation. But it’s not always a good thing.
Sometimes, movies – even great ones – are put under the microscope for problematic characters, plotlines or moments.
Often, this is a result of changing social standards. Films like The Jazz Singer utilised blackface at a time when it was more or less completely socially acceptable. Watch it now, however, and you’ll likely be mortified.
Other films, of course, are problematic the moment they hit cinemas – such as Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
In some cases, the question of whether or not a film is offensive can provoke strong debate among fans and even those involved in making the film. This week, Michael Caine was in the news after hitting back at claims that the 1964 film Zulu was a “key text” for white supremecists.
Sometimes, movies – even great ones – are put under the microscope for problematic characters, plotlines or moments.
Often, this is a result of changing social standards. Films like The Jazz Singer utilised blackface at a time when it was more or less completely socially acceptable. Watch it now, however, and you’ll likely be mortified.
Other films, of course, are problematic the moment they hit cinemas – such as Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
In some cases, the question of whether or not a film is offensive can provoke strong debate among fans and even those involved in making the film. This week, Michael Caine was in the news after hitting back at claims that the 1964 film Zulu was a “key text” for white supremecists.
- 3/9/2023
- by Louis Chilton
- The Independent - Film
This year, all the Oscar-contending directors are nominated for original screenplay: the Daniels, Todd Field, Martin McDonagh, Ruben Östlund and Steven Spielberg (writing with Tony Kushner).
This is the first time it’s happened in AMPAS history.
The only year that came close was 2017, when all five helmers had written or co-written their scripts, though they didn’t all get writing noms.
So here’s Film History 101.
In Hollywood lore, Preston Sturges is often credited as the first scribe to become a hyphenate, as writer-director of the 1940 “The Great McGinty.” But as with all Hollywood “facts,” there is only an element of truth here.
In the next few years, he was joined by some heavyweights: Orson Welles (“Citizen Kane”) and John Huston (“The Maltese Falcon”) in 1941; Leo McCarey (co-writer of “Going My Way”); Billy Wilder (writing with Raymond Chandler) for “Double Indemnity” in 1944; and Joseph L. Mankiewicz (“Dragonwyck”), 1946.
However, a writer-director wasn’t an innovation.
This is the first time it’s happened in AMPAS history.
The only year that came close was 2017, when all five helmers had written or co-written their scripts, though they didn’t all get writing noms.
So here’s Film History 101.
In Hollywood lore, Preston Sturges is often credited as the first scribe to become a hyphenate, as writer-director of the 1940 “The Great McGinty.” But as with all Hollywood “facts,” there is only an element of truth here.
In the next few years, he was joined by some heavyweights: Orson Welles (“Citizen Kane”) and John Huston (“The Maltese Falcon”) in 1941; Leo McCarey (co-writer of “Going My Way”); Billy Wilder (writing with Raymond Chandler) for “Double Indemnity” in 1944; and Joseph L. Mankiewicz (“Dragonwyck”), 1946.
However, a writer-director wasn’t an innovation.
- 3/3/2023
- by Tim Gray
- Variety Film + TV
(To celebrate "Titanic" and its impending 25th-anniversary re-release, we've put together a week of explorations, inquires, and deep dives into James Cameron's box office-smashing disaster epic.)
James Cameron was not quite the King of the World, or Hollywood for that matter, when he announced in 1995 that he was making an epic drama based on the doomed voyage of the Rms Titanic. He was viewed primarily as an action specialist and, in tandem with collaborators like Stan Winston and Dennis Murren, a visual effects pioneer. "The Terminator" was a B-movie classic that exploded into the mega-blockbuster of "T2: Judgment Day." In between those two movies, Cameron had hit the blockbuster A-list with "Aliens" and nearly lost it all with the pricey commercial disappointment of "The Abyss."
But it was at the bottom of that three-mile-deep trench that Cameron arrived at the project that would vault him to the rarefied,...
James Cameron was not quite the King of the World, or Hollywood for that matter, when he announced in 1995 that he was making an epic drama based on the doomed voyage of the Rms Titanic. He was viewed primarily as an action specialist and, in tandem with collaborators like Stan Winston and Dennis Murren, a visual effects pioneer. "The Terminator" was a B-movie classic that exploded into the mega-blockbuster of "T2: Judgment Day." In between those two movies, Cameron had hit the blockbuster A-list with "Aliens" and nearly lost it all with the pricey commercial disappointment of "The Abyss."
But it was at the bottom of that three-mile-deep trench that Cameron arrived at the project that would vault him to the rarefied,...
- 2/6/2023
- by Jeremy Smith
- Slash Film
Celebrated British filmmaker Steve McQueen’s Oscar-winning “12 Years A Slave” was released almost a century after D W Griffith’s “The Birth of a Nation”, the first film ever to be screened at the White House, writes ‘Variety’. McQueen’s film, however, was not shown at the US President’s official residence. The director, who’s also a Camera d’Or winner for his 2008 film “Hunger”, spoke about it at an in-conversation event at the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR).
“It was just after that situation with Skip Gates,” said McQueen, recalling, according to ‘Variety’, the arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis ‘Skip’ Gates by Sergeant James Crowley. It was a suspected case of racial profiling that stirred a major controversy for then-President Barack Obama, who was accused of having allegedly taken sides by going public with his view that the local police department had acted “stupidly”.
“So,...
“It was just after that situation with Skip Gates,” said McQueen, recalling, according to ‘Variety’, the arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis ‘Skip’ Gates by Sergeant James Crowley. It was a suspected case of racial profiling that stirred a major controversy for then-President Barack Obama, who was accused of having allegedly taken sides by going public with his view that the local police department had acted “stupidly”.
“So,...
- 1/29/2023
- by News Bureau
- GlamSham
Steve McQueen’s Oscar-winning “12 Years a Slave” was released almost a century after D. W. Griffith’s “The Birth of a Nation,” the first film ever to be screened at the White House. McQueen’s film, however, was not shown at the U.S. President’s official residence. The British director spoke Saturday about this issue while at an in-conversation event at the International Film Festival Rotterdam.
“It was just after that situation with Skip Gates,” said McQueen, referring to the arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis “Skip” Gates by Sergeant James Crowley, a suspected case of racial profiling that stirred great controversy for then-President Barack Obama, who was alleged to have taken sides after publicly stating the local police department had acted “stupidly.” “So, at that time, everything Obama was doing was being scrutinized,” continued the director, “and that was the theory of why ‘12 Years a Slave’ was...
“It was just after that situation with Skip Gates,” said McQueen, referring to the arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis “Skip” Gates by Sergeant James Crowley, a suspected case of racial profiling that stirred great controversy for then-President Barack Obama, who was alleged to have taken sides after publicly stating the local police department had acted “stupidly.” “So, at that time, everything Obama was doing was being scrutinized,” continued the director, “and that was the theory of why ‘12 Years a Slave’ was...
- 1/29/2023
- by Rafa Sales Ross
- Variety Film + TV
This article contains Babylon spoilers.
Despite the lurid imagery associated with Babylon, Damien Chazelle’s three-hour bacchanal of a movie about Golden Age Hollywood, it wasn’t wretched excess or decadence which first caught Chazelle’s imagination. Nor was it the glamor and gaudiness associated with a new (read: low) art form in those heady days when the silent era gave way to the earliest sound films.
Rather the inciting idea for Babylon is borne from a simple yet disturbing bit of trivia on the mortality rate in Los Angeles—and how the number of deaths seemingly caused by suicide rose precipitously during the late 1920s and early ‘30s. When looked at from afar, it would appear that the advent of The Jazz Singer (1927) and talkies invited not only musicals to Hollywood, but Death itself.
“It was actors, directors, people both in front of the camera and behind the camera,...
Despite the lurid imagery associated with Babylon, Damien Chazelle’s three-hour bacchanal of a movie about Golden Age Hollywood, it wasn’t wretched excess or decadence which first caught Chazelle’s imagination. Nor was it the glamor and gaudiness associated with a new (read: low) art form in those heady days when the silent era gave way to the earliest sound films.
Rather the inciting idea for Babylon is borne from a simple yet disturbing bit of trivia on the mortality rate in Los Angeles—and how the number of deaths seemingly caused by suicide rose precipitously during the late 1920s and early ‘30s. When looked at from afar, it would appear that the advent of The Jazz Singer (1927) and talkies invited not only musicals to Hollywood, but Death itself.
“It was actors, directors, people both in front of the camera and behind the camera,...
- 1/12/2023
- by David Crow
- Den of Geek
"This movie could never be made today" is an increasingly familiar refrain in our fractious times. As our society grows more diverse, and we reckon with the racism and sexism of less enlightened eras, some crotchety members of the old guard have a tendency to throw up their hands and lament that an assortment of classic films with perceived problematic content would never make it past development in modern Hollywood.
In certain, screamingly obvious cases, this is a very good thing. D.W. Griffith's "The Birth of a Nation," a virulently racist movie that celebrates the Ku Klux Klan's heroic lynching of a freed slave would be a one-way ticket to infamy (or a three-picture deal with The Daily Wire). The mere notion of Walt Disney's "Song of the South" would probably result in the creator being ousted from his own company (and maybe offered a gig as the chief...
In certain, screamingly obvious cases, this is a very good thing. D.W. Griffith's "The Birth of a Nation," a virulently racist movie that celebrates the Ku Klux Klan's heroic lynching of a freed slave would be a one-way ticket to infamy (or a three-picture deal with The Daily Wire). The mere notion of Walt Disney's "Song of the South" would probably result in the creator being ousted from his own company (and maybe offered a gig as the chief...
- 1/7/2023
- by Jeremy Smith
- Slash Film
Before the Hays Code and censors came in—and honestly for long afterwards as well—Hollywood was considered to be a regular Sodom and Gomorrah by the heartland. There, out in the desert, a sinister den of iniquity had supplanted New Orleans as damnation made flesh. That reputation of course faded over the years by dint of time and the glossy sheen of fabulous studio publicists that went on to shape our nostalgia. They turned infamy into respectability. Decadence into a lost golden age.
Which is perhaps why that golden hue looks all the more sickly in Damien Chazelle’s seedy bacchanal of a movie: this Christmas’ Babylon. Named after the biggest film set ever assembled for a notorious box office flop, D.W. Griffith’s Intolerance, the new film’s title also doubles as a nod to the Biblical scale on which Chazelle is mounting his fourth feature.
Babylon is...
Which is perhaps why that golden hue looks all the more sickly in Damien Chazelle’s seedy bacchanal of a movie: this Christmas’ Babylon. Named after the biggest film set ever assembled for a notorious box office flop, D.W. Griffith’s Intolerance, the new film’s title also doubles as a nod to the Biblical scale on which Chazelle is mounting his fourth feature.
Babylon is...
- 12/22/2022
- by David Crow
- Den of Geek
What are we to make of “Babylon”? The signs are conflicting. Early word out of preview screenings for what filmmaker Damien Chazelle describes as an “insane early Hollywood vision” was mixed, from “hot mess,” to “sensational celebration of cinema.” (Both are true.) The newly constituted Golden Globes gave the movie five nominations including Best Drama, while the more Oscar predictive Critics Choice Awards went with nine, including Best Picture, Director Chazelle, and Actress Margot Robbie.
Having invested some 78 million (estimates rise to 100-110 million) in Chazelle’s opus, Paramount Pictures CEO Brian Robbins doubled down on the ambitious three-hour-nine-minute epic ahead of its wide opening on December 23 (changed from the originally-planned limited release), announcing a first-look directing and producing deal with the filmmaker.
What are the comps? On the one hand, in 2011 Martin Scorsese’s lavish 180-million period fantasy “Hugo” wound up at 73 million domestic plus five craft Oscars. On the other,...
Having invested some 78 million (estimates rise to 100-110 million) in Chazelle’s opus, Paramount Pictures CEO Brian Robbins doubled down on the ambitious three-hour-nine-minute epic ahead of its wide opening on December 23 (changed from the originally-planned limited release), announcing a first-look directing and producing deal with the filmmaker.
What are the comps? On the one hand, in 2011 Martin Scorsese’s lavish 180-million period fantasy “Hugo” wound up at 73 million domestic plus five craft Oscars. On the other,...
- 12/18/2022
- by Anne Thompson
- Indiewire
, Damien Chazelle’s sprawling “Babylon” may begin in 1926, but the movie is soon burdened with a clairvoyance that allows it to become unstuck in time. Several of the epic’s characters are haunted by glimpses of a future they’re powerless to prevent, a curse that its director brings to bear by drawing inspiration from across the entire spectrum of film history.
Burdened with the knowledge that this 80 million studio project could be the last of its kind, “Babylon” refracts Hollywood’s first major identity crisis through the prism of its latest one. It reminds us the movies have been dying for more than 100 years, and then — through its heart-bursting, endearingly galaxy-brained prayer of a finale — interprets that as uplifting proof they’ll actually live forever. It just doesn’t have any idea how the movies will do it, or where the hell they might go from here.
“Singin’ in the Rain...
Burdened with the knowledge that this 80 million studio project could be the last of its kind, “Babylon” refracts Hollywood’s first major identity crisis through the prism of its latest one. It reminds us the movies have been dying for more than 100 years, and then — through its heart-bursting, endearingly galaxy-brained prayer of a finale — interprets that as uplifting proof they’ll actually live forever. It just doesn’t have any idea how the movies will do it, or where the hell they might go from here.
“Singin’ in the Rain...
- 12/16/2022
- by David Ehrlich
- Indiewire
After enormous success and Oscars for films ranging from Whiplash to La La Land to First Man, writer-director Damien Chazelle returned to an early dream project first envisioned 15 years ago — a no-holds-barred look at early Hollywood, a time when not only movies were transitioning from silent to sound but Los Angeles itself was booming from desert to bulging metropolis. People were caught up in a turbulent time of change, and it didn’t always work out for some. As witnessed in the resulting film and years of meticulous research, Babylon is a sight to behold, a decadent, freewheeling, at times even poignant look at a series of dreamers, stars, fringe players and all who wanted a piece of a world that felt out of control, uninhibited and full of promise — and downfall.
With more than 100 speaking roles and a widescreen full of extras, Chazelle has created a vision of Hollywood...
With more than 100 speaking roles and a widescreen full of extras, Chazelle has created a vision of Hollywood...
- 12/16/2022
- by Pete Hammond
- Deadline Film + TV
Here’s something we’re not allowed to say about Ye/Kanye West’s recent series of antisemitic tirades: there’s a small grain of truth in them.
No, obviously not the conspiracy theories, Holocaust denial, or downright fascistic claims that people who don’t believe in Christ shouldn’t hold public office. Ye has clearly crossed over into either profound mental illness, or hatred, or both.
But it is true that Hollywood has a lot of Jewish people in it, right?
It should not be controversial to admit this.
No, obviously not the conspiracy theories, Holocaust denial, or downright fascistic claims that people who don’t believe in Christ shouldn’t hold public office. Ye has clearly crossed over into either profound mental illness, or hatred, or both.
But it is true that Hollywood has a lot of Jewish people in it, right?
It should not be controversial to admit this.
- 12/11/2022
- by Jay Michaelson
- Rollingstone.com
One of the most anticipated presumed Oscar contenders, and one of the very few remaining to debut before year-end, dropped last night with the first screening of Academy Award winning director Damien Chazelle’s Babylon. Paramount’s big Christmas release, and hopeful awards magnet chose the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Samuel Goldwyn Theatre for the unveiling in front of entertainment pundits, industry members, and most importantly guild and Oscar voters, a perfect venue with both sides of the massive screen bookended by those imposing large Oscar statues. In addition to the screening there was a post Q&a with Chazelle and stars Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Diego Calva, Jean Smart, Jovan Adepo, Li Jun Li, and Tobey Maguire followed by a dessert reception in the lobby.
Reviews of the December 23 wide release are embargoed for at least a month (Paramount has not chosen the exact date yet...
Reviews of the December 23 wide release are embargoed for at least a month (Paramount has not chosen the exact date yet...
- 11/15/2022
- by Pete Hammond
- Deadline Film + TV
A comprehensive, personal, and kaleidoscopic look at representation, Elvis Mitchell’s Is That Black Enough For You?!? is a passionate and loving walk through film history framed by Blaxploitation cinema of the 1970s. Written, directed, and narrated by the master conversationalist, curator, film scholar, and cultural critic, this is a densely packed visual essay told through film clips, archival materials, and interviews with Black stars of multiple eras who speak to the influence of this sub-genre on their lives and careers.
Borne from the notion that America was in a freefall spiral circa 1968, a new kind of subversive independent cinema arrived on the scene, forcing Hollywood to compete and adapt. Mitchell notes landmarks of representation along with the way—including Robert Downy Sr.’s Putney Swope, an experimental comedy set in the world of advertising,, and Martin Ritt’s The Great White Hope starring James Earl Jones.
Black Enough is...
Borne from the notion that America was in a freefall spiral circa 1968, a new kind of subversive independent cinema arrived on the scene, forcing Hollywood to compete and adapt. Mitchell notes landmarks of representation along with the way—including Robert Downy Sr.’s Putney Swope, an experimental comedy set in the world of advertising,, and Martin Ritt’s The Great White Hope starring James Earl Jones.
Black Enough is...
- 11/9/2022
- by John Fink
- The Film Stage
We don’t know where filmmaker James Gunn is at the moment, but we’d like to think he is dancing real groovy-like to some a.m. radio classics based on the news that was just made public. Because the Guardians of the Galaxy and The Suicide Squad director is joining producer Peter Safran to act as co-chair and co-ceo of DC Studios.
The stunning revelation, which was broken Tuesday afternoon by The Hollywood Reporter, confirms the pair will be reporting directly to Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav. They also replace former DC Films president Walter Hamada, who exited the company last week.
Not since perhaps the days of Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, and D.W. Griffith founding United Artists in 1919 has an A-list director moved into the position of studio executive. Yet that’s exactly what happened with Gunn, who according to THR began discussing the prospect...
The stunning revelation, which was broken Tuesday afternoon by The Hollywood Reporter, confirms the pair will be reporting directly to Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav. They also replace former DC Films president Walter Hamada, who exited the company last week.
Not since perhaps the days of Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, and D.W. Griffith founding United Artists in 1919 has an A-list director moved into the position of studio executive. Yet that’s exactly what happened with Gunn, who according to THR began discussing the prospect...
- 10/25/2022
- by David Crow
- Den of Geek
Above: 1919 Swedish poster for Out West. Design by Eric Rohman.I’ve recently come across a little known, rather brief but quite extraordinary chapter in illustrated movie poster history, thanks to the poster department of Heritage Auctions. Just over one hundred years ago in Sweden, one distribution company or state agency seems to have commissioned an astonishing series of posters for imported American silent films that to today’s eyes seem both retro and modern at the same time (some of them could be mistaken for Mondo designs). They have been popping up for auction at Heritage over the past few years, reaching prices as high as 4,320 for Out West (above) and as low as 73 for the lovely Kingdom of Youth seen below. In fact there are a number coming up for auction next month and bidding begins next week.The posters are all 2- or 3-color linocut designs and...
- 10/23/2022
- MUBI
By this time, don’t we know just about everything there is to know about Alfred Hitchcock? Few, if any, other filmmakers have had their lives and careers examined, explored and analyzed as much as has the vaunted master of suspense. So unless incontrovertible evidence were to be suddenly found that the director secretly fathered a dozen illegitimate children by as many women and personally supplied Churchill with an untraceable poison powder to drop into Stalin’s tea in Yalta, only to see the prime minister chicken out, it’s quite unlikely that much new will ever be added to his life story that we don’t already know.
But leave it to the staggeringly prolific North Irish documentary filmmaker Mark Cousins to forge a new way to approach the subject with My Name Is Alfred Hitchcock; he engaged a skilled British impressionist and comic, Alistair McGowan, to give new...
But leave it to the staggeringly prolific North Irish documentary filmmaker Mark Cousins to forge a new way to approach the subject with My Name Is Alfred Hitchcock; he engaged a skilled British impressionist and comic, Alistair McGowan, to give new...
- 9/20/2022
- by Todd McCarthy
- Deadline Film + TV
Media coverage of Jean-Luc Godard’s death will fall short of what he merits. He was a game-changing creator on the level of Sergei Eisenstein, Charlie Chaplin, D.W. Griffith, and others who changed the grammar of film forever, but his best-known films are from a half-century ago. And there’s this: Under the standards by which successful directors are judged today — box office and awards — Godard was strictly a minor-league player.
His lifelong regard as a master is a tribute to his films above all, but it also speaks to a cinephile culture that elevated and supported him for decades despite the general public’s disinterest.
In the U.S., Godard’s films initially received erratic distribution with short-run showings at a few big-city theaters; even his best-known titles like “Breathless” and “Week-end” received marginal releases. They appeared erratically, out of order, and sometimes not until two or three years after their public debuts.
His lifelong regard as a master is a tribute to his films above all, but it also speaks to a cinephile culture that elevated and supported him for decades despite the general public’s disinterest.
In the U.S., Godard’s films initially received erratic distribution with short-run showings at a few big-city theaters; even his best-known titles like “Breathless” and “Week-end” received marginal releases. They appeared erratically, out of order, and sometimes not until two or three years after their public debuts.
- 9/14/2022
- by Tom Brueggemann
- Indiewire
Plenty of actors have played Abraham Lincoln well, but the actor still most associated with the role is Raymond Massey, who starred in Robert E. Sherwood’s Pulitzer Prizewinning play. The film version was not a hit, as Sherwood’s aim is to capture the melancholy, even the foreboding, of a man who was a natural for politics. In this reading Lincoln tries to resist his ‘call to greatness’ knowing he’s letting himself in for an unhappy life. The Warner Archive’s restoration retrieves the film from old 16mm prints, restoring James Wong Howe’s handsome cinematography.
Abe Lincoln in Illinois
Blu-ray
Warner Archive Collection
1940 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 110 min. / Spirit of the People / Available at Amazon.com / General site Wac-Amazon / Street Date , 2022 / 21.99
Starring:
Raymond Massey, Gene Lockhart, Ruth Gordon, Mary Howard, Minor Watson, Alan Baxter, Harvey Stephens, Howard da Silva, Dorothy Tree, Louis Jean Heydt, Clem Bevans, Herbert Rudley,...
Abe Lincoln in Illinois
Blu-ray
Warner Archive Collection
1940 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 110 min. / Spirit of the People / Available at Amazon.com / General site Wac-Amazon / Street Date , 2022 / 21.99
Starring:
Raymond Massey, Gene Lockhart, Ruth Gordon, Mary Howard, Minor Watson, Alan Baxter, Harvey Stephens, Howard da Silva, Dorothy Tree, Louis Jean Heydt, Clem Bevans, Herbert Rudley,...
- 9/3/2022
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
The origin of United Artists is well-known to any passingly devoted Hollywood history buff, and it can be found Tin Balio's book "United Artists, Volume 1, 1919 - 1950: The Company Built by the Stars." In 1918, Mary Pickford, Carlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, and D.W. Griffith — four of the biggest celebrities of their time — felt something fishy was happening with each of their respective studio contracts. Each of their tenures was due to end soon, and none of them had yet received any offer of renewal. In order to find out what was happening, the quartet hired a private investigator (!) to look into what was going on. The P.I. found that the separate companies that each of them worked for planned on a giant merger, which would lock in standard five-year contracts.
The stars were not interested in such shenanigans and elected, instead, to simply form their own production company. As it was founded by artists,...
The stars were not interested in such shenanigans and elected, instead, to simply form their own production company. As it was founded by artists,...
- 8/30/2022
- by Witney Seibold
- Slash Film
In Tales of the Purple House, French-Iraqi filmmaker Abbas Fahdel and his wife, Lebanese artist Nour Ballouk, offer a collaborative video diary of the last few years of their lockdown life and, through that figurative keyhole, their account of the unraveling world outside. Their film is about domestic things––weather, painting, lots of cats––but it’s also about shockwaves of Covid and the Syrian refugee crisis, and of the explosion that rocked Beirut in August 2020, leveling the city’s port and taking over 200 lives. (It is also about their government’s failure to adequately respond to these things.)
Purple House is a reminder that this period––rocky for us all––has been astonishingly turbulent for the Lebanese, even by their country’s historic standards. There is no shortage of stories there, and Fahdel doesn’t skimp: over a lengthy, indulgent 186 minutes, we observe not only the slow change of...
Purple House is a reminder that this period––rocky for us all––has been astonishingly turbulent for the Lebanese, even by their country’s historic standards. There is no shortage of stories there, and Fahdel doesn’t skimp: over a lengthy, indulgent 186 minutes, we observe not only the slow change of...
- 8/19/2022
- by Rory O'Connor
- The Film Stage
Look into the series Criterion Channel have programmed for August and this lineup is revealed as (in scientific terms) quite something. “Hollywood Chinese” proves an especially deep bench, spanning “cinema’s first hundred years to explore the ways in which the Chinese people have been imagined in American feature films” and bringing with it the likes of Cronenberg’s M. Butterfly, Cimino’s Year of the Dragon, Griffith’s Broken Blossoms, and Ang Lee’s The Wedding Banquet—among 20-or-so others. A three-film Marguerite Duras series brings one of the greatest films ever (India Song) and two lesser-screened experiments; films featuring Yaphet Kotto include Blue Collar, Across 110th Street, and Midnight Run; and lest we ignore a Myrna Loy retro that goes no later than 1949.
Criterion editions include The Asphalt Jungle, Husbands, Rouge, and Sweet Smell of Success; streaming premieres for Loznitsa’s Donbass, Béla Tarr’s watershed Damnation, and...
Criterion editions include The Asphalt Jungle, Husbands, Rouge, and Sweet Smell of Success; streaming premieres for Loznitsa’s Donbass, Béla Tarr’s watershed Damnation, and...
- 7/25/2022
- by Leonard Pearce
- The Film Stage
Taking a more natural interpretation of D. W. Griffith’s phrase by way of Jean-Luc Godard—”All you need to make a movie is a girl and a gun”—Caroline Vignal’s disarmingly endearing comedy My Donkey, My Lover & I swaps a weapon for an animal and adds just the right amount of farce without losing sight of an emotional throughline. Hailing from the only country one would expect to deliver a high-concept rom-com where a donkey gets the top title billing, this French adventure may seem like a trifle on paper, yet Vignal and lead Laure Calamy find substantial charm traversing familiar paths.
Harnessing enough confidence (or obliviousness) to strip down and change outfits before her primary school students ahead of a song recital—in which she commands the spotlight as lead vocals and pianist—Calamy’s Antoinette seems to still be finding footing in life. It’s certainly...
Harnessing enough confidence (or obliviousness) to strip down and change outfits before her primary school students ahead of a song recital—in which she commands the spotlight as lead vocals and pianist—Calamy’s Antoinette seems to still be finding footing in life. It’s certainly...
- 7/21/2022
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
By the time she was 21, actress Lupe Velez had worked with nearly all the top directors of the silent era, including D.W. Griffith (“Lady of the Pavements”), Lon Chaney (“Where East Is East”), and Cecil B. DeMille (“The Squaw Man”). Her first big break came from the King of Hollywood himself, Douglas Fairbanks, in 1927’s “The Gaucho.” She was star of an eight-film series at Rko Studios.
And yet, for most, the image they have of the classic screen star is a fake one, one not at all in line with her prodigious talents and incredible filmography.
In 1965, when “Hollywood Babylon” was published, author Kenneth Anger claimed that his tell-all would unpack the sleazy and sordid lives of numerous stars of the silent and early sound film era, with many of his tawdry tales involving sex, drugs, and death. In several instances, Anger included photos of dead celebrities, like infamous...
And yet, for most, the image they have of the classic screen star is a fake one, one not at all in line with her prodigious talents and incredible filmography.
In 1965, when “Hollywood Babylon” was published, author Kenneth Anger claimed that his tell-all would unpack the sleazy and sordid lives of numerous stars of the silent and early sound film era, with many of his tawdry tales involving sex, drugs, and death. In several instances, Anger included photos of dead celebrities, like infamous...
- 7/18/2022
- by Kristen Lopez
- Indiewire
Medusa Deluxe (Thomas Hardiman).The lineup for the 75th-anniversary edition of the festival has been announced, including new films by Helena Wittmann, João Pedro Rodrígues, Aleksandr Sokurov and others, alongside retrospectives, tributes, and much more.Piazza GRANDEAlles über Martin Suter. Ausser die Wahrheit. (Everything About Martin Suter. Everything but the Truth.) (André Schäfer)Annie Colère (Blandine Lenoir)Bullet Train (David Leitch)Compartiment tueurs (The Sleeping Car Murder) (Costa-Gavras)Delta (Michele Vannucci)Home of the Brave (Laurie Anderson)Imitation of Life (Douglas Sirk)Last Dance (Delphine Lehericey)Medusa Deluxe (Thomas Hardiman)My Neighbor Adolf (Leon Prudovsky)Paradise Highway (Anna Gutto)Piano Piano (Nicola Prosatore)Printed Rainbow (Gitanjali Rao)Semret (Caterina Mona)Une femme de notre temps (Jean Paul Civeyrac)Vous n'aurez pas ma haine (You Will Not Have My Hate) (Kilian Riedhof)Where the Crawdads Sing (Olivia Newman)Human Flowers of Flesh (Helena Wittmann).Concorso INTERNAZIONALEAriyippu (Declaration) (Mahesh Narayanan)Balıqlara xütbə...
- 7/13/2022
- MUBI
Dreams Under Confinement.This year marks the second installment of Prismatic Ground (May 4 – May 8), a new festival focusing on experimental documentary and avant-garde film and video. Last year’s inaugural edition was a completely virtual affair, but this year the festival returns in a hybrid version with in-person screenings and online viewing available for most of the films in its impressive 14 programs. Co-presented by the Maysles Documentary Center and Screen Slate, Prismatic Ground brings festival-goers a wide range of politically engaged, formally challenging new work by up-and-coming artists alongside established ones like Bill Morrison, Jodie Mack, and this year’s Ground Glass Award recipient, Christopher Harris. In the world of experimental film where visibility and opportunities to premiere new work can be hard to come by, the festival is poised to make a significant splash.Founded by Inney Prakash in 2021, last year’s edition consisted of four programs of films,...
- 5/6/2022
- MUBI
Gangster movies date back to at least 1912 with D.W. Griffith's "The Musketeers of Pig Alley." The genre really took shape in the 1930s with movies such as "Little Caesar" and "The Public Enemy" (both from 1931) about ruthless Chicago outlaws. James Cagney's turn in 1938's "Angels with Dirty Faces" is another seminal entry.
These early gangster flicks are must-sees for film buffs but don't make this particular list. Cagney's mannered delivery is iconic, but the period style of these classic films makes them tough to recommend in earnest to busy people with limited recreational screen time.
Marlon Brando's performance in "On The Waterfront" in 1954 was...
The post The 20 Best Gangster Movie Characters Ranked appeared first on /Film.
These early gangster flicks are must-sees for film buffs but don't make this particular list. Cagney's mannered delivery is iconic, but the period style of these classic films makes them tough to recommend in earnest to busy people with limited recreational screen time.
Marlon Brando's performance in "On The Waterfront" in 1954 was...
The post The 20 Best Gangster Movie Characters Ranked appeared first on /Film.
- 3/23/2022
- by Gino Orlandini
- Slash Film
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.