The generational chasm between our parents’ lives and the memories we preserve of them — sure, in turn, to warp and fade when passed to our children — is elegantly explored in “Little Girl Blue,” Mona Achache’s pained, poignant docudrama cry to her female elders. In an effort to process her mother Carole’s death by suicide in 2016, the filmmaker collates an assortment of archival materials to trace the arc of a turbulent and care-starved life, leading inevitably to the time-blurred figure of Achache’s grandmother, writer and editor Monique Lange. But it’s in the gaps between tangible records that the film gets most interesting, as Marion Cotillard steps in to inhabit the Carole of her memories, the ones Achache can’t quite find on paper.
This is hardly a novel technique, given the evolving hybridization of the documentary form, as filmmakers chase larger audiences with the narrative and aesthetic comforts of fiction.
This is hardly a novel technique, given the evolving hybridization of the documentary form, as filmmakers chase larger audiences with the narrative and aesthetic comforts of fiction.
- 3/6/2024
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
Micheline Presle, the standout French actress who starred in the controversial Devil in the Flesh before making a foray into Hollywood that included roles opposite John Garfield, Tyrone Power, Errol Flynn and Paul Newman, has died. She was 101.
Presle died Wedneday in the Paris suburb of Nogent-sur-Marne, her son-in-law Olivier Bomsel told Le Figaro.
Presle came to international attention when she portrayed a nurse having an affair with a student (Gérard Philipe) in the World War I drama Devil in the Flesh (1947), which the National Board of Review voted as one of the 10 best films of the year.
Because it featured a woman who took a lover while her husband was away at war, it generated a great deal of discussion.
In 1949, Presle met American actor William Marshall, who had been married to another French star, Michèle Morgan, and followed him to America. They would wed that year in Santa Barbara.
Presle died Wedneday in the Paris suburb of Nogent-sur-Marne, her son-in-law Olivier Bomsel told Le Figaro.
Presle came to international attention when she portrayed a nurse having an affair with a student (Gérard Philipe) in the World War I drama Devil in the Flesh (1947), which the National Board of Review voted as one of the 10 best films of the year.
Because it featured a woman who took a lover while her husband was away at war, it generated a great deal of discussion.
In 1949, Presle met American actor William Marshall, who had been married to another French star, Michèle Morgan, and followed him to America. They would wed that year in Santa Barbara.
- 2/22/2024
- by Rhett Bartlett and Mike Barnes
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Alec Mills, who served as a camera operator on five James Bond films before graduating to cinematographer on the Timothy Dalton-starring The Living Daylights and Licence to Kill, has died. He was 91.
Mills died Monday, his son, Simon Mills, announced. He battled dementia and was living in an assisted care home in Denham, Buckinghamshire, England, he said.
For 007 movies, Mills operated a camera on Peter Hunt’s On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969), Lewis Gilbert’s The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) and Moonraker (1979), and John Glen’s For Your Eyes Only (1981) and Octopussy (1983).
Glen then made him his director of photography on the only two Bond films to star Dalton, The Living Daylights (1987) and Licence to Kill (1989), with the latter shooting mostly at Churubusco Studios in Mexico City.
Mills also was a camera operator on Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1969), Roman Polanski’s Tragedy of Macbeth (1971), Gulliver’s Travels (1973), John Guillermin’s...
Mills died Monday, his son, Simon Mills, announced. He battled dementia and was living in an assisted care home in Denham, Buckinghamshire, England, he said.
For 007 movies, Mills operated a camera on Peter Hunt’s On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969), Lewis Gilbert’s The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) and Moonraker (1979), and John Glen’s For Your Eyes Only (1981) and Octopussy (1983).
Glen then made him his director of photography on the only two Bond films to star Dalton, The Living Daylights (1987) and Licence to Kill (1989), with the latter shooting mostly at Churubusco Studios in Mexico City.
Mills also was a camera operator on Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1969), Roman Polanski’s Tragedy of Macbeth (1971), Gulliver’s Travels (1973), John Guillermin’s...
- 2/16/2024
- by Mike Barnes
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
They say that one person’s loss is another person’s gain, but cinematographer Christopher Blauvelt had mixed emotions about his recent good fortune in landing the coveted director of photography gig on “May December,” the latest film from Todd Haynes. The director is known for his Oscar-nominated collaborations with longtime colleague Ed Lachman, which include “Carol” and “Far from Heaven.” Lachman, however, suffered a broken hip after a fall while shooting Pablo Larraín’s “El Conde,” and Haynes needed a new set of eyes. So he turned to his filmmaker pal Kelly Reichardt for recommendations, and Blauvelt stepped aboard the darkly comic tale of a tenacious actress, Elizabeth (Natalie Portman), infiltrating the lives of Gracie (Julianne Moore), a Mary Kay Letourneau-esque homemaker and her much younger husband, Joe (Charles Melton), who was 13 when they first got together.
“Kelly and Todd are teachers for me, I learned so much from them,...
“Kelly and Todd are teachers for me, I learned so much from them,...
- 1/3/2024
- by Jason Clark
- The Wrap
The preshoot rituals they can’t live without, the studio negotiations they’ve learned to finesse and the creative choices they still can’t believe they got away with — the directors of six of this year’s most remarkable movies got together and talked shop. In November, Blitz Bazawule (The Color Purple), Bradley Cooper (Maestro), Ava DuVernay (Origin), Greta Gerwig (Barbie), Todd Haynes (May December) and Michael Mann (Ferrari) convened for THR’s annual Director Roundtable.
How do you like to start on set? Do you actually call action?
Greta Gerwig I guess I say, “When you’re ready.” It seems less aggressive.
Ava Duvernay I call action. Or I have action called. It took me a long time in my filmmaking to feel confident not to be the one calling action. Now I’ll just tap my Ad, and he or she will do it. But I find it...
How do you like to start on set? Do you actually call action?
Greta Gerwig I guess I say, “When you’re ready.” It seems less aggressive.
Ava Duvernay I call action. Or I have action called. It took me a long time in my filmmaking to feel confident not to be the one calling action. Now I’ll just tap my Ad, and he or she will do it. But I find it...
- 12/15/2023
- by Rebecca Keegan
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
The boundary-pushing melodrama "May December" is a tonally unique film, and the stand-out score electrifies the audience into this strange mood. The dramatic piano music matches the off-beat camp of the absurd comedic moments, while more eerie dissonant notes immediately foreshadow the dark subject matter ahead. The film was composed by Marcelo Zarvos, an accomplished composer and proficient piano player. However, some of the music was taken straight from Joseph Losey's 1971 romance thriller "The Go-Between."
Todd Haynes' 2023 film follows an actress' background research as she prepares for a fictional adaptation of a true crime story about a woman who had an affair with a 13-year-old at age 36. Their relationship was the subject of tabloid fodder in the '90s, but the controversial couple remained married well into the boy's adulthood and raised several children together. However, the actress' arrival brings up questions for the young man about his relationship.
Todd Haynes' 2023 film follows an actress' background research as she prepares for a fictional adaptation of a true crime story about a woman who had an affair with a 13-year-old at age 36. Their relationship was the subject of tabloid fodder in the '90s, but the controversial couple remained married well into the boy's adulthood and raised several children together. However, the actress' arrival brings up questions for the young man about his relationship.
- 12/9/2023
- by Shae Sennett
- Slash Film
Photo: Sony Pictures, MGM/Amazon Studios, Netflix, Hilary Bronwyn Gayle/Searchlight Pictures, Murray Close/Lionsgate, Marvel Studios, Graphic: Jimmy Hasse, The A.V. Club, Screenshot: Sony, Sony Pictures Entertainment/YouTubeThanksgiving review: Eli Roth serves up a gory feastThanksgiving Photo: Sony Pictures
Horror fans have been waiting more than a decade for Thanksgiving,...
Horror fans have been waiting more than a decade for Thanksgiving,...
- 11/18/2023
- avclub.com
Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore in May December.Photo: Netflix
From its very first shot Todd Haynes’ May December announces itself as a wildly intoxicating, intentionally strident provocation. Close-up images of Monarch butterflies and their surrounding manicured flower gardens are scored by the theme from Joseph Losey’s 1971 film The Go-Between.
From its very first shot Todd Haynes’ May December announces itself as a wildly intoxicating, intentionally strident provocation. Close-up images of Monarch butterflies and their surrounding manicured flower gardens are scored by the theme from Joseph Losey’s 1971 film The Go-Between.
- 11/16/2023
- by Manuel Betancourt
- avclub.com
First reviews out of Cannes for Todd Haynes’ poisonously witty and complex new film “May December” heralded “a heartbreakingly sincere piece of high camp,” “a camp and curious pleasure,” a “camp look at an actor’s process of transformation into a character.”
But how does “camp” figure into the context of a film starring Natalie Portman as a celebrity actress studying Julianne Moore as a Southern spin on Mary Kay Letourneau, the middle school teacher who had a sexual relationship with her 12-year-old student, was convicted of rape and imprisoned, and then married and had two children with him? Portman’s character is set to play Moore’s in a new movie. Is it by virtue of seeing these two gay-iconic actresses on a set with the director of “Carol,” “Velvet Goldmine,” and “Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story,” a 1988 documentary about the ill-fated singer stop-motion-animated with Barbie dolls? Is it...
But how does “camp” figure into the context of a film starring Natalie Portman as a celebrity actress studying Julianne Moore as a Southern spin on Mary Kay Letourneau, the middle school teacher who had a sexual relationship with her 12-year-old student, was convicted of rape and imprisoned, and then married and had two children with him? Portman’s character is set to play Moore’s in a new movie. Is it by virtue of seeing these two gay-iconic actresses on a set with the director of “Carol,” “Velvet Goldmine,” and “Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story,” a 1988 documentary about the ill-fated singer stop-motion-animated with Barbie dolls? Is it...
- 11/15/2023
- by Ryan Lattanzio
- Indiewire
Michel Ciment, the esteemed French film critic, historian, author, radio producer and editor of the influential film magazine Positif, has died. He was 85.
His death was reported Monday by the French radio channel France Inter, the home of his culture program Le Masque et la Plume since 1970.
Ciment was “perhaps the freest and most encyclopedic mind that film criticism has ever produced,” Le Masque et la Plume producer Jérome Garcin in a statement. He made what would be his last appearance on the show in September.
The Paris native also produced Projection privée on France Culture radio from 1990-2016. He was “an immense critic and historian who devoted his entire life to passing on, in words and in writing, his erudition and his passion for the seventh art,” a statement from the channel said.
Ciment joined Positif after sending in a story about the Orson Welles film The Trial in 1963 and would become its editor,...
His death was reported Monday by the French radio channel France Inter, the home of his culture program Le Masque et la Plume since 1970.
Ciment was “perhaps the freest and most encyclopedic mind that film criticism has ever produced,” Le Masque et la Plume producer Jérome Garcin in a statement. He made what would be his last appearance on the show in September.
The Paris native also produced Projection privée on France Culture radio from 1990-2016. He was “an immense critic and historian who devoted his entire life to passing on, in words and in writing, his erudition and his passion for the seventh art,” a statement from the channel said.
Ciment joined Positif after sending in a story about the Orson Welles film The Trial in 1963 and would become its editor,...
- 11/14/2023
- by Mike Barnes
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
To celebrate Studiocanal’s brand new 4K restoration of King and Country available in the UK for the first time ever on Blu-ray & Digital and on a new DVD 6th November, we’re giving away a Blu-Ray copy!
Studiocanal is thrilled to announce a brand new 4k restoration of British anti-war classic King And Country (1964) from esteemed American director Joseph Losey (The Servant), available in time for Remembrance Day on Blu-Ray & Digital for the first time ever in the UK, plus a new DVD on 6th November, through the Vintage Classics brand. The new restoration of King And Country recently premiered at Venice Film Festival to great acclaim.
Returning for another stellar collaboration with director Joseph Losey is revered British actor Dirk Bogarde (The Servant), seen here as Captain Hargreaves, a tough army lawyer assigned to defend army volunteer-turned-deserter Private Hamp, played by the brilliant Tom Courtenay (Billy Liar), whose...
Studiocanal is thrilled to announce a brand new 4k restoration of British anti-war classic King And Country (1964) from esteemed American director Joseph Losey (The Servant), available in time for Remembrance Day on Blu-Ray & Digital for the first time ever in the UK, plus a new DVD on 6th November, through the Vintage Classics brand. The new restoration of King And Country recently premiered at Venice Film Festival to great acclaim.
Returning for another stellar collaboration with director Joseph Losey is revered British actor Dirk Bogarde (The Servant), seen here as Captain Hargreaves, a tough army lawyer assigned to defend army volunteer-turned-deserter Private Hamp, played by the brilliant Tom Courtenay (Billy Liar), whose...
- 11/4/2023
- by Competitions
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
Tom Courtenay is unforgettable as a first world war private on trial for desertion. But it is Dirk Bogarde, dripping with distaste for his defendant who delivers a horrific coup de grâce
There’s an extra, unexpected shiver of contemporary relevance and horror in this rerelease of Joseph Losey’s brutal expressionist drama from 1964. Tom Courtenay plays the pinch-faced, talkative but also somehow inscrutable Private Hamp, who is court-martialled for desertion in 1917 having “gone for a walk” away from the guns at Passchendaele.
Dirk Bogarde’s suave, sorrowing Capt Charles Hargreaves is assigned the task of defending Private Hamp – suppressing his distaste for Hamp, of course, like all the officer class, and trying not to think about the inevitability of his execution – and he boldly asks the court to consider Hamp’s “mental health”. The presiding colonel, played by Peter Copley, erupts with contempt at this modern-sounding phrase. “Do you...
There’s an extra, unexpected shiver of contemporary relevance and horror in this rerelease of Joseph Losey’s brutal expressionist drama from 1964. Tom Courtenay plays the pinch-faced, talkative but also somehow inscrutable Private Hamp, who is court-martialled for desertion in 1917 having “gone for a walk” away from the guns at Passchendaele.
Dirk Bogarde’s suave, sorrowing Capt Charles Hargreaves is assigned the task of defending Private Hamp – suppressing his distaste for Hamp, of course, like all the officer class, and trying not to think about the inevitability of his execution – and he boldly asks the court to consider Hamp’s “mental health”. The presiding colonel, played by Peter Copley, erupts with contempt at this modern-sounding phrase. “Do you...
- 11/3/2023
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
May December director Todd Haynes said of first reading Samy Burch’s script, “I loved how disquieting it was for the reader and thought, ‘Wow, if there was a way to convey this on screen and ignite that sense of engaged questioning and uncertainty’… It reminded me of the kind of movies that I came of age watching. It made you question your assumptions going in, made you want to discuss them and think about them later.” Haynes was speaking at Deadline’s Contenders London event this afternoon.
Starring Natalie Portman, Julianne Moore and Charles Melton, the film picks up 20 years after an affair between Gracie (Moore), an adult woman and a much – much – younger man (Melton) made tabloid headlines. In the present day, famous TV star Elizabeth (Portman) visits the now-married couple while researching a film that will be based on the old scandal.
Burch said she was inspired...
Starring Natalie Portman, Julianne Moore and Charles Melton, the film picks up 20 years after an affair between Gracie (Moore), an adult woman and a much – much – younger man (Melton) made tabloid headlines. In the present day, famous TV star Elizabeth (Portman) visits the now-married couple while researching a film that will be based on the old scandal.
Burch said she was inspired...
- 10/7/2023
- by Nancy Tartaglione
- Deadline Film + TV
The first shots of Todd Haynes’s May December (cinematography by Christopher Blauvelt), screenplay by Samy Burch, are of butterflies with one of them seemingly stuck, accompanied by the most perfectly ominous and playful music, which sounds a lot like Michel Legrand. Precisely because it is a variation of a Legrand score (for Joseph Losey’s The Go-Between), adapted by Marcelo Zarvos for this film.
We enter the Southern world by the river - where the trees wear veils and moms bake pies for business and children hang out on the slanted roofs - with movie star Elizabeth (Natalie Portman) during a barbecue. Many mirrors reflect the journey of an actress through the looking glass into the world of Gracie (Julianne Moore), a woman whose affair at age 37 with a seventh grader was tabloid fodder 20 years prior.
Elizabeth arrives in Savannah, Georgia, in understated, carefully chosen...
We enter the Southern world by the river - where the trees wear veils and moms bake pies for business and children hang out on the slanted roofs - with movie star Elizabeth (Natalie Portman) during a barbecue. Many mirrors reflect the journey of an actress through the looking glass into the world of Gracie (Julianne Moore), a woman whose affair at age 37 with a seventh grader was tabloid fodder 20 years prior.
Elizabeth arrives in Savannah, Georgia, in understated, carefully chosen...
- 10/2/2023
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
May December director Todd Haynes with screenwriter Samy Burch, and his producers Christine Vachon, Pamela Koffler, Jessica Elbaum and Sophie Mas Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
Todd Haynes’s May December, screenplay by Samy Burch, shot by Christopher Blauvelt and starring Natalie Portman, Julianne Moore, and Charles Melton opened the 61st New York Film Festival on Friday. Todd’s previous films screening at the New York Film Festival were Velvet Goldmine (NYFF 36), I’m Not There (NYFF 45), Carol (NYFF 53), Wonderstruck (NYFF 55 - Centerpiece Selection), and The Velvet Underground (NYFF 59).
Todd Haynes responding to Anne-Katrin Titze’s comment and question: “I did not create the lisp! There are some people who are missing today who could speak so beautifully about how they built these characters.” Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
At the press conference Todd Haynes spoke about connecting his composer Marcelo Zarvos to Michel Legrand’s score for Joseph Losey’s The Go-Between (Harold Pinter...
Todd Haynes’s May December, screenplay by Samy Burch, shot by Christopher Blauvelt and starring Natalie Portman, Julianne Moore, and Charles Melton opened the 61st New York Film Festival on Friday. Todd’s previous films screening at the New York Film Festival were Velvet Goldmine (NYFF 36), I’m Not There (NYFF 45), Carol (NYFF 53), Wonderstruck (NYFF 55 - Centerpiece Selection), and The Velvet Underground (NYFF 59).
Todd Haynes responding to Anne-Katrin Titze’s comment and question: “I did not create the lisp! There are some people who are missing today who could speak so beautifully about how they built these characters.” Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
At the press conference Todd Haynes spoke about connecting his composer Marcelo Zarvos to Michel Legrand’s score for Joseph Losey’s The Go-Between (Harold Pinter...
- 10/2/2023
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Antonio Marras’ catwalk transformed into a set where he shot a remake of a 1968 Hollywood movie. During Milan Fashion Week on Sept. 20, the Sardinian fashion designer set up an onstage film studio, with various rooms in which actors, actresses, workers, divas, a production secretary, costume designer, editing secretary, personal assistant, seamstress, director, producer, set coordinator, clapboard operator, sound engineer, extras, models and aspiring actresses took turns in the spotlight. In a flash, the audience found itself catapulted to the end of the golden years of cinema, amid fleeting and rambling kaftans, couture gowns, robes, tailored suits cinched at the waist with masculine styles, duster coats, sheath dresses, and dramatic and divine evening gowns.
The entire show was pulled together to recreate the atmosphere of Joseph Losey’s film Boom!, translated into Italian when it was released as The Cliff of Desires. Tennessee Williams adapted the screenplay from his own stage script,...
The entire show was pulled together to recreate the atmosphere of Joseph Losey’s film Boom!, translated into Italian when it was released as The Cliff of Desires. Tennessee Williams adapted the screenplay from his own stage script,...
- 9/22/2023
- by Pino Gagliardi
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
While at the Deauville American Film Festival to present “May December,” Todd Haynes spoke to Variety, during a one-on-one interview at the Royal Hotel, about bringing Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore together in a film for the first time, provoking audiences and pushing against American conservatism. Haynes, who is attending Deauville with his producers Christine Vachon and Sophie Mas, also teased his next directorial effort starring Joaquin Phoenix, a “sexually explicit” movie telling a “love story between two men set in the 30s.”
Loosely based on the story of Mary Kay Letourneau, the teacher who had an affair with her 6th grade student, “May December” has already earned awards buzz since world premiering in competition at the Cannes Film Festival, where it was bought by Netflix. In France, the movie will be released by Arp Selection in January.
What’s your next project with Joaquin Phoenix about?
It’s a...
Loosely based on the story of Mary Kay Letourneau, the teacher who had an affair with her 6th grade student, “May December” has already earned awards buzz since world premiering in competition at the Cannes Film Festival, where it was bought by Netflix. In France, the movie will be released by Arp Selection in January.
What’s your next project with Joaquin Phoenix about?
It’s a...
- 9/9/2023
- by Elsa Keslassy
- Variety Film + TV
To briefly remind readers of the saga:
Back in June of 2023, it was announced that the leadership behind Turner Classic Movies, a long-beloved curator of cinema from Hollywood's Golden Age and beyond, would be laid off. VP of enterprises and strategic partnerships Genevieve McGillicuddy, senior VP of programming and content strategy Charles Tabesh, executive vice president and general manager Pola Changnon, marketing VP Dexter Fedor, and VP of studio production Anne Wilson all lost their jobs. The future of TCM was suddenly up in the air. This not only outraged fans of classic cinema but threw some of Hollywood's most beloved filmmakers into a panic. Was David Zaslav, the CEO of the beleaguered Warner Bros. Discovery nixing the entire TCM brand the same way he did with so much of the films and TV shows on HBO Max? Perhaps Zaslav, having already accrued a horrendous reputation for a long series of consumer-hostile business decisions,...
Back in June of 2023, it was announced that the leadership behind Turner Classic Movies, a long-beloved curator of cinema from Hollywood's Golden Age and beyond, would be laid off. VP of enterprises and strategic partnerships Genevieve McGillicuddy, senior VP of programming and content strategy Charles Tabesh, executive vice president and general manager Pola Changnon, marketing VP Dexter Fedor, and VP of studio production Anne Wilson all lost their jobs. The future of TCM was suddenly up in the air. This not only outraged fans of classic cinema but threw some of Hollywood's most beloved filmmakers into a panic. Was David Zaslav, the CEO of the beleaguered Warner Bros. Discovery nixing the entire TCM brand the same way he did with so much of the films and TV shows on HBO Max? Perhaps Zaslav, having already accrued a horrendous reputation for a long series of consumer-hostile business decisions,...
- 9/1/2023
- by Witney Seibold
- Slash Film
Garth Craven, the British-born sound and film editor and second-unit director whose credits included six Sam Peckinpah features, as well as Turner and Hooch, My Best Friend’s Wedding and Legally Blonde, has died. He was 84.
A resident of Malibu, Craven died May 20 after he suffered a medical emergency while flying back to Los Angeles from a safari in Namibia, his daughter, Willow Kalatchi, told The Hollywood Reporter.
Craven collaborated with the maverick director Peckinpah on Straw Dogs (1971), The Getaway (1972), Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (1973), Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974), The Killer Elite (1975) and Convoy (1978).
He worked with fellow editor Roger Spottiswoode on the first three of those films, and when Spottiswoode graduated to director, they partnered on the features Shoot to Kill (1988), Turner and Hooch (1989) and Air America (1990) and on two HBO telefilms: 1989’s Third Degree Burn and 1993’s And the Band Played On.
Craven also cut Gaby: A True Story...
A resident of Malibu, Craven died May 20 after he suffered a medical emergency while flying back to Los Angeles from a safari in Namibia, his daughter, Willow Kalatchi, told The Hollywood Reporter.
Craven collaborated with the maverick director Peckinpah on Straw Dogs (1971), The Getaway (1972), Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (1973), Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974), The Killer Elite (1975) and Convoy (1978).
He worked with fellow editor Roger Spottiswoode on the first three of those films, and when Spottiswoode graduated to director, they partnered on the features Shoot to Kill (1988), Turner and Hooch (1989) and Air America (1990) and on two HBO telefilms: 1989’s Third Degree Burn and 1993’s And the Band Played On.
Craven also cut Gaby: A True Story...
- 8/22/2023
- by Mike Barnes
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Film and sound editor Garth Craven, who edited films including “Legally Blonde” and got his start in film editing with Sam Peckinpah’s “Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid,” died May 20 in Barcelona. He was 84.
His death was only recently announced by his daughter Willow.
Craven not only worked in the cutting room but also in sound departments and served as second unit director on several films. At the beginning of his career, Craven worked on Federico Fellini’s fantasy drama “Satyricon” (1969) in the sound editing department, which served as his introduction to filmmaking.
Back in England, he continued working on films in London. Resuming his work in the sound department, Craven received a BAFTA for the critically acclaimed romantic drama “The Go-Between” (1971) directed by Joseph Losey.
He eventually became a frequent collaborator and friend of Peckinpah. Craven worked as a sound consultant on “The Getaway,” a sound editor on “Straw Dogs,...
His death was only recently announced by his daughter Willow.
Craven not only worked in the cutting room but also in sound departments and served as second unit director on several films. At the beginning of his career, Craven worked on Federico Fellini’s fantasy drama “Satyricon” (1969) in the sound editing department, which served as his introduction to filmmaking.
Back in England, he continued working on films in London. Resuming his work in the sound department, Craven received a BAFTA for the critically acclaimed romantic drama “The Go-Between” (1971) directed by Joseph Losey.
He eventually became a frequent collaborator and friend of Peckinpah. Craven worked as a sound consultant on “The Getaway,” a sound editor on “Straw Dogs,...
- 8/21/2023
- by Jaden Thompson
- Variety Film + TV
Walking robot who looks like a Nazi youth leader turns out – surprise surprise – to have creepy designs on his owner
As if the future of AI wasn’t already nightmarish enough, along comes this British sci-fi thriller with its storyline about an AI servant becoming dangerously infatuated with his female owner. It’s a creepy premise: a cross between Fatal Attraction and The Servant, Harold Pinter and Joseph Losey’s 1963 drama about a malevolent manservant. Though in the end Tim might be too silly to be scary and yet not sharp enough to work as satire.
Part of the problem is the AI itself, a humanoid robot inoffensively named Tim (short for “technologically integrated manservant”), played by Eamon Farren. There’s no question of keeping us guessing about his intentions: Tim is sinister from the get-go. With his slicked-down blond hair and penetrating blue-eye stare, he looks like a spoof...
As if the future of AI wasn’t already nightmarish enough, along comes this British sci-fi thriller with its storyline about an AI servant becoming dangerously infatuated with his female owner. It’s a creepy premise: a cross between Fatal Attraction and The Servant, Harold Pinter and Joseph Losey’s 1963 drama about a malevolent manservant. Though in the end Tim might be too silly to be scary and yet not sharp enough to work as satire.
Part of the problem is the AI itself, a humanoid robot inoffensively named Tim (short for “technologically integrated manservant”), played by Eamon Farren. There’s no question of keeping us guessing about his intentions: Tim is sinister from the get-go. With his slicked-down blond hair and penetrating blue-eye stare, he looks like a spoof...
- 8/14/2023
- by Cath Clarke
- The Guardian - Film News
La BêteCOMPETITIONComandante (Edoardo De Angelis)The Promised Land (Nikolaj Arcel)Dogman (Luc Besson) La Bête (Bertrand Bonello) Hors-Saison (Stéphane Brizé) Enea (Pietro Castellitto) Maestro (Bradley Cooper)Priscilla (Sofia Coppola)Finalmente L’Alba (Saverio Costanzo)Lubo (Giorgio Diritti) Origin (Ava DuVernay) The Killer (David Fincher)Memory (Michel Franco)Io capitano (Matteo Garrone)Evil Does Not Exist (Ryûsuke Hamaguchi)The Green Border (Agnieszka Holland)The Theory of Everything (Timm Kröger)Poor Things (Yorgos Lanthimos)El conde (Pablo Larrain)Ferrari (Michael Mann)Adagio (Stefano Sollima)Woman OfHolly (Fien Troch)Out Of COMPETITIONFictionSociety of the Snow (J.A. Bayona)Coup de Chance (Woody Allen)The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar (Wes Anderson)The Penitent (Luca Barbareschi)L’Ordine Del Tempo (Liliana Cavani)Vivants (Alix Delaporte)Welcome to Paradise (Leonardo di Constanzo)Daaaaaali! (Quentin Dupieux)The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial (William Friedkin)Making of (Cedric Kahn)Aggro Dr1ft (Harmony Korine)Hitman (Richard Linklater)The Palace (Roman Polanski...
- 7/29/2023
- MUBI
At a certain point you care less about world premieres and fixate mostly on a festival’s repertory slate. And even by the high standards set with Cannes Classics or NYFF Revivals is this year’s Venice Classics in a class of its own. We could start at the new cuts for three of the greatest directors ever: One from the Heart is the latest film to be given a revision by Francis Ford Coppola, following recuts of Apocalypse Now, Twixt, and Dementia 13––to say nothing of restorations like The Rain People, of which we’re hosting the New York premiere next weekend––while Andrei Tarkovsky’s Andrei Rublev will debut in “the reconstruction of the complete original version, which was censored before its release and has never been seen until now.” Meanwhile one of Yasujiro Ozu’s greatest films, There Was a Father, has been amended by “recent rediscovery...
- 7/21/2023
- by Leonard Pearce
- The Film Stage
Recently restored versions of William Friedkin’s “The Exorcist,” Terrence Malick’s “Days of Heaven” and Francis Ford Coppola’s “One From the Heart” feature in the Venice Classics section of the 80th Venice Film Festival.
The lineup of recently restored films in Venice Classics, which is curated by the festival’s artistic director Alberto Barbera in collaboration with Federico Gironi, was unveiled on Friday.
“The Exorcist” is screened, 50 years after it was produced by Warner Bros., alongside Disney’s “Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm,” starring Shirley Temple and directed by “the prolific and sometimes brilliant” Allan Dwan, to mark the Hollywood studios’ 100th anniversaries.
“One From the Heart” and Arturo Ripstein’s “Deep Crimson” are “not just restored, but also revised by the filmmakers themselves in what are genuine Director’s Cuts,” Barbera and Gironi said, while Andrei Tarkovsky’s masterpiece “Andrei Rublev” will be presented in the reconstruction of the original version,...
The lineup of recently restored films in Venice Classics, which is curated by the festival’s artistic director Alberto Barbera in collaboration with Federico Gironi, was unveiled on Friday.
“The Exorcist” is screened, 50 years after it was produced by Warner Bros., alongside Disney’s “Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm,” starring Shirley Temple and directed by “the prolific and sometimes brilliant” Allan Dwan, to mark the Hollywood studios’ 100th anniversaries.
“One From the Heart” and Arturo Ripstein’s “Deep Crimson” are “not just restored, but also revised by the filmmakers themselves in what are genuine Director’s Cuts,” Barbera and Gironi said, while Andrei Tarkovsky’s masterpiece “Andrei Rublev” will be presented in the reconstruction of the original version,...
- 7/21/2023
- by Leo Barraclough
- Variety Film + TV
It’s February morning in Berlin. “I’m a little out of consciousness,” Christian Petzold explains, a tad frazzled but keen to talk––and Petzold likes to talk. His latest film Afire had premiered the night before and the party had slipped into the wee hours. “There’s Thomas, he was at the party till 6 a.m.,” Petzold explains as his leading man shuffles by, fresh from a round of junkets and looking just a little shellshocked.
That look is one that viewers will soon be familiar with when Afire is released this week. Taking place in a secluded house by the Baltic Sea, it shows Petzold at his most sultry and melodramatic. The drama stars Thomas Schubert as Leon, a writer struggling to follow up on the success of his first novel. He travels with a friend for a summer getaway but becomes infatuated with a woman who shares the house with them.
That look is one that viewers will soon be familiar with when Afire is released this week. Taking place in a secluded house by the Baltic Sea, it shows Petzold at his most sultry and melodramatic. The drama stars Thomas Schubert as Leon, a writer struggling to follow up on the success of his first novel. He travels with a friend for a summer getaway but becomes infatuated with a woman who shares the house with them.
- 7/11/2023
- by Rory O'Connor
- The Film Stage
I honestly never expected Steven Spielberg in a Criterion Channel series––certainly not one that pairs him with Kogonada, anime, and Johnny Mnemonic––but so’s the power of artificial intelligence. Perhaps his greatest film (at this point I don’t need to tell you the title) plays with After Yang, Ghost in the Shell, and pre-Matrix Keanu in July’s aptly titled “AI” boasting also Spike Jonze’s Her, Carpenter’s Dark Star, and Computer Chess. Much more analog is a British Noir collection obviously carrying the likes of Odd Man Out, Night and the City, and The Small Back Room, further filled by Joseph Losey’s Time Without Pity and Basil Dearden’s It Always Rains on Sunday. (No two ways about it: these movies have great titles.) An Elvis retrospective brings six features, and the consensus best (Don Siegel’s Flaming Star) comes September 1.
While Isabella Rossellini...
While Isabella Rossellini...
- 6/22/2023
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
If anyone was going to dramatize the scandalous Mary Kay Letourneau story, it makes sense that it would be "Carol" director Todd Haynes. There's something about the way the filmmaker approaches the stories he is compelled to tell that uniquely positions him to decipher and reinvent what has always felt stranger than fiction. Haynes expertly capitalizes on that strangeness and turns it on its ear, employing it for demented laughs as much as he does for crushing awareness. In his hands, "May December" is all at once an exploration of the human condition and a tightrope line of boundaries uncrossable. Haynes' work positions this new film to be a high-drama Trojan horse filled with self-actualizing horrors, and it's safe to say that the playful yet sobering style the filmmaker uses this time will stick with audiences long past awards season.
"May December" chronicles the aftermath of a tabloid scandal romance...
"May December" chronicles the aftermath of a tabloid scandal romance...
- 5/30/2023
- by Lex Briscuso
- Slash Film
There’s a postmodernist horror movie about performance as predation hidden beneath the semiotician’s gaze in Todd Haynes’ May December, a complex drama that’s intrinsically intimate and yet also detached, at times almost clinical. The director is poking around in territory that’s familiar to him — self-knowledge and public perception, identity and duality, transparency and performance, social norms and the sexual outlaw. But the emotional volatility of the story ends up being somewhat muted by the approach, likely making this a tough sell beyond Haynes’ devoted admirers.
What will give the film a significant degree of traction, however, are the riveting performances of Natalie Portman and frequent Haynes muse Julianne Moore, as two women at cross purposes, one seeking to excavate the past and another who has spent two decades endeavoring to bury it. An astonishing monologue delivered by Portman into a mirror in particular demands to be seen.
What will give the film a significant degree of traction, however, are the riveting performances of Natalie Portman and frequent Haynes muse Julianne Moore, as two women at cross purposes, one seeking to excavate the past and another who has spent two decades endeavoring to bury it. An astonishing monologue delivered by Portman into a mirror in particular demands to be seen.
- 5/20/2023
- by David Rooney
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Austrian actor Helmut Berger, who became a star of 60s and 70s art cinema with roles in films such as Luchino Visconti’s The Damned, and Ludwig and Joseph Losey’s The Romantic Englishwoman, has died aged 78. His death was announced by his management agency, which posted a statement on its website saying Berger had “passed away peacefully but unexpectedly” in Salzburg, the city where he grew up.
Born Helmut Steinberger in the Austrian spa town of Bad Ischl in 1944, Berger studied acting in London before moving to Italy, where he met and began a relationship with acclaimed director Luchino Visconti, nearly 40 years his senior. Visconti gave him his first acting role, a small part in the comic anthology The Witches, and subsequently cast him in a spectacular role in his landmark 1969 epic The Damned.
Born Helmut Steinberger in the Austrian spa town of Bad Ischl in 1944, Berger studied acting in London before moving to Italy, where he met and began a relationship with acclaimed director Luchino Visconti, nearly 40 years his senior. Visconti gave him his first acting role, a small part in the comic anthology The Witches, and subsequently cast him in a spectacular role in his landmark 1969 epic The Damned.
- 5/19/2023
- by Andrew Pulver
- The Guardian - Film News
Following word of an incredible Pasolini boxset, the Criterion Collection have unveiled their larger June lineup. The 4K rollout continues apace, and for some reason Terry Gilliam now has the most releases––following The Fisher King and Baron Munchausen, his George Harrison-produced Time Bandits arrives in a well-stacked edition. Much as I might question more and more super-hi-def releases for this of all filmmakers, one must remember: everybody has their reasons. And it’s arguably a suitable compensation, for ourselves and film history at larger, that this same month brings an upgrade for The Rules of the Game.
Barry Jenkins joins the collection with his debut feature Medicine for Melancholy, whose lifespan––small SXSW premiere in 2008, minor theatrical release 12 months later, years of relative obscurity, and now a Criterion––we can only consider aspirational. But maybe my favorite movie arriving in June––even greater than Renoir––is Joseph Losey’s absurdly entertaining,...
Barry Jenkins joins the collection with his debut feature Medicine for Melancholy, whose lifespan––small SXSW premiere in 2008, minor theatrical release 12 months later, years of relative obscurity, and now a Criterion––we can only consider aspirational. But maybe my favorite movie arriving in June––even greater than Renoir––is Joseph Losey’s absurdly entertaining,...
- 3/15/2023
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
Tár writer/director Todd Field discusses a few of his favorite movies with Josh Olson and Joe Dante.
Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode
You Only Live Twice (1967) – Dana Gould’s trailer commentary
Tár (2022)
Man With A Movie Camera (1929)
Battleship Potemkin (1925)
Koyaanisqatsi (1982)
The Big Parade (1925)
Lawrence Of Arabia (1962)
The Crowd (1928)
Star Wars (1977)
The Servant (1963)
Parasite (2019) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review, Dennis Cozzalio’s review
The Three Musketeers (1973) – Josh Olson’s trailer commentary
Figures In A Landscape (1970)
M (1931)
M (1951)
I Am Cuba (1964)
The Cranes Are Flying (1957) – Glenn Erickson’s Criterion Blu-ray review
Letter Never Sent (1960)
Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (1965)
Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid (1969)
The Towering Inferno (1974) – George Hickenlooper’s trailer commentary
The Great Waldo Pepper (1975)
The Sting (1973)
The World of Henry Orient (1964) – Larry Karaszewski’s trailer commentary
Thelma And Louise (1991)
Murmur Of The Heart (1971)
The Silent World (1956)
Opening Night (1977)
The Killing Of A Chinese Bookie (1976) – Larry Karaszewski’s...
Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode
You Only Live Twice (1967) – Dana Gould’s trailer commentary
Tár (2022)
Man With A Movie Camera (1929)
Battleship Potemkin (1925)
Koyaanisqatsi (1982)
The Big Parade (1925)
Lawrence Of Arabia (1962)
The Crowd (1928)
Star Wars (1977)
The Servant (1963)
Parasite (2019) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review, Dennis Cozzalio’s review
The Three Musketeers (1973) – Josh Olson’s trailer commentary
Figures In A Landscape (1970)
M (1931)
M (1951)
I Am Cuba (1964)
The Cranes Are Flying (1957) – Glenn Erickson’s Criterion Blu-ray review
Letter Never Sent (1960)
Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (1965)
Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid (1969)
The Towering Inferno (1974) – George Hickenlooper’s trailer commentary
The Great Waldo Pepper (1975)
The Sting (1973)
The World of Henry Orient (1964) – Larry Karaszewski’s trailer commentary
Thelma And Louise (1991)
Murmur Of The Heart (1971)
The Silent World (1956)
Opening Night (1977)
The Killing Of A Chinese Bookie (1976) – Larry Karaszewski’s...
- 1/10/2023
- by Kris Millsap
- Trailers from Hell
Italian screenwriter and director Ruggero Deodato, whose lengthy career was most noted for the controversial horror film “Cannibal Holocaust,” died Thursday at age 83, according to multiple reports.
The 1980 film, a “found footage” pseudo-documentary pioneer, depicts an anthropologist from New York University played by Robert Kerman leading a team into the Amazon rainforest to find crew of documentary filmmakers that went missing. They discover their bodies, but are able to recover the crew’s film reels, which a US television station then wants to air, despite gory footage of real violence against animals, sexual assault and exploitation of the native Amazonian populations.
The graphic violence in the film raised objections, including an arrest of Deodato on a series of charges including murder after rumors said some of the deaths depicted in the film were real. Deodato later brought the actors to court to prove they were alive, and the charges were dropped.
The 1980 film, a “found footage” pseudo-documentary pioneer, depicts an anthropologist from New York University played by Robert Kerman leading a team into the Amazon rainforest to find crew of documentary filmmakers that went missing. They discover their bodies, but are able to recover the crew’s film reels, which a US television station then wants to air, despite gory footage of real violence against animals, sexual assault and exploitation of the native Amazonian populations.
The graphic violence in the film raised objections, including an arrest of Deodato on a series of charges including murder after rumors said some of the deaths depicted in the film were real. Deodato later brought the actors to court to prove they were alive, and the charges were dropped.
- 12/29/2022
- by Eileen AJ Connelly
- The Wrap
The Black Vampire! The most impressive Spanish-language noir restoration yet, Román Viñoly Barreto’s superior serial murder thriller hails from 1953 Argentina. It re-interprets Fritz Lang’s “M” from a different, more emotionally engaging perspective: star Olga Zubarry’s nightclub singer hesitates to tell what she knows about a child-killer, because she might lose custody of her own young daughter. The expressionist noir owes little to Hollywood. Some find it more satisfying than Lang’s classic version. The Film Noir Foundation’s extras are excellent.
El vampiro negro
Blu-ray + DVD
Flicker Alley
1953 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 90 min. / Street Date November 18, 2022 / Available from Flicker Alley / 39.95
Starring: Olga Zubarry, Nathan Pinzón, Roberto Escalada, Nelly Panizza, Pascual Pelliciota, Georges Rivière, Mariano Vidal Molina, Gloria Castilla, Emma Bernal, Lucía Besse.
Cinematography: Anibal González Paz
Production Designer: Jorge Beghé
Film Editors: Jorge Gárate, Higinio Vecchione
Original Music: Juan Ehlert
Written by Román Viñoly Barreto, Alberto Etchebehere
Produced...
El vampiro negro
Blu-ray + DVD
Flicker Alley
1953 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 90 min. / Street Date November 18, 2022 / Available from Flicker Alley / 39.95
Starring: Olga Zubarry, Nathan Pinzón, Roberto Escalada, Nelly Panizza, Pascual Pelliciota, Georges Rivière, Mariano Vidal Molina, Gloria Castilla, Emma Bernal, Lucía Besse.
Cinematography: Anibal González Paz
Production Designer: Jorge Beghé
Film Editors: Jorge Gárate, Higinio Vecchione
Original Music: Juan Ehlert
Written by Román Viñoly Barreto, Alberto Etchebehere
Produced...
- 11/22/2022
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
The first movie to directly confront McCarthyism! Or so said the editorials touting this ‘Long-Awaited Screen Event’ in which ‘Bette Davis Hits the Screen in a Cyclone of Dramatic Fury!’ The storm of the title was based on a real activist in Oklahoma who lost her job for promoting equal rights. Bette’s polite librarian is victimized by small-minded civic types; a subplot depicts the traumatic reaction of one of her patrons, a child expected to despise her as a traitor to the country. Daniel Taradash’s movie is an excellent starting point to discuss the thorny dramatic subgenre of liberal social issue movies.
Storm Center
Blu-ray
Viavision [Imprint] 155
1956 / B&w / 1:78 widescreen / 86 min. / Street Date September 30, 2022 / Available from / au 39.95
Starring:
Bette Davis, Brian Keith, Kim Hunter, Paul Kelly, Joe Mantell, Kevin Coughlin, Sallie Brophie, Howard Wierum, Curtis Cooksey, Michael Raffetto, Joseph Kearns, Edward Platt, Kathryn Grant, Howard Wendell, Malcolm Atterbury,...
Storm Center
Blu-ray
Viavision [Imprint] 155
1956 / B&w / 1:78 widescreen / 86 min. / Street Date September 30, 2022 / Available from / au 39.95
Starring:
Bette Davis, Brian Keith, Kim Hunter, Paul Kelly, Joe Mantell, Kevin Coughlin, Sallie Brophie, Howard Wierum, Curtis Cooksey, Michael Raffetto, Joseph Kearns, Edward Platt, Kathryn Grant, Howard Wendell, Malcolm Atterbury,...
- 11/12/2022
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Severin’s October offerings include this investigation of Euro-weirdness curated with academic purpose and clarity by Kier-La Janisse, evoking the name of her book from 2012. The thesis is the representation of women in filmic horror — except that in these strange experiences, hysteria transforms into a liberating form of empowerment: Identikit, I Like Bats, Footsteps and The Other Side of the Underneath. Elizabeth Tayor and Florinda Bolkan are the top stars in the collection, two of which bear the cinematography of Vittorio Storaro. The final film is a totally different, experimental experience. Ms. Janisse’s introductions connect the dots for these filmworks that envigorate and disturb.
House of Psychotic Women
Blu-ray
Severin Films
1972 – 1986 / Color / 1:85 + 1:66 + 1:85 + 1:33 / 102 + 81 + 96 + 111 min. / Street Date October 25, 2022 / Available from Severin Films / 104.95
Starring: Elizabeth Taylor; Katarzyna Walter; Florinda Bolkan; Sheila Allen, Ann Lynn, Penny Slinger, Jane Arden .
Directed by Giuseppe Patroni Griffi; Grzegorz Warchol; Luigi Bazzoni; Jane...
House of Psychotic Women
Blu-ray
Severin Films
1972 – 1986 / Color / 1:85 + 1:66 + 1:85 + 1:33 / 102 + 81 + 96 + 111 min. / Street Date October 25, 2022 / Available from Severin Films / 104.95
Starring: Elizabeth Taylor; Katarzyna Walter; Florinda Bolkan; Sheila Allen, Ann Lynn, Penny Slinger, Jane Arden .
Directed by Giuseppe Patroni Griffi; Grzegorz Warchol; Luigi Bazzoni; Jane...
- 10/11/2022
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Actor / Filmmaker Alex Winter joins Josh Olson and Joe Dante to discuss movies featuring a cog in the machine – the individual struggling to exist within the system.
Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode
Bill And Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989) – Alex Kirschenbaum’s Bill and Ted character power rankings
Bill And Ted’s Bogus Journey (1991)
Bill And Ted Face The Music (2020)
The Game (1997)
Showbiz Kids (2020)
The Panama Papers (2018)
Zappa (2020)
200 Motels (1971)
Modern Times (1936)
Metropolis (1927) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review
Avatar (2009)
Things To Come (1936) – Jesus Trevino’s trailer commentary
M (1931)
M (1951)
The Last Laugh (1924) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review
Brazil (1985)
Gremlins (1984) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review, Tfh’s Mogwai Madness
City Lights (1931)
Goin’ Down The Road (1970)
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review
The Young And The Damned (1950)
Shock Corridor (1963) – Katt Shea’s trailer commentary
The Naked Kiss (1964)
Stroszek (1977)
Even Dwarves Started Small (1970)
Ikiru (1952) – Glenn Erickson’s trailer...
Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode
Bill And Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989) – Alex Kirschenbaum’s Bill and Ted character power rankings
Bill And Ted’s Bogus Journey (1991)
Bill And Ted Face The Music (2020)
The Game (1997)
Showbiz Kids (2020)
The Panama Papers (2018)
Zappa (2020)
200 Motels (1971)
Modern Times (1936)
Metropolis (1927) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review
Avatar (2009)
Things To Come (1936) – Jesus Trevino’s trailer commentary
M (1931)
M (1951)
The Last Laugh (1924) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review
Brazil (1985)
Gremlins (1984) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review, Tfh’s Mogwai Madness
City Lights (1931)
Goin’ Down The Road (1970)
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review
The Young And The Damned (1950)
Shock Corridor (1963) – Katt Shea’s trailer commentary
The Naked Kiss (1964)
Stroszek (1977)
Even Dwarves Started Small (1970)
Ikiru (1952) – Glenn Erickson’s trailer...
- 10/11/2022
- by Kris Millsap
- Trailers from Hell
In Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Chinese Roulette (1976), a venomous marital melodrama, a character played by Margit Carstensen provocatively inquires, “Who would this person have been under the Third Reich?” In the generation removed from the dark shadows of WWII, a glut of 1970s spectacles grappled with the sinister aftermath of their parents’ atrocities, an inheritance which pushed well beyond the limits of a divided Germany.
Premiering the same year was Joseph Losey’s late period masterpiece, Mr. Klein, a Kafkaesuqe escapade about an amoral art dealer who receives karmic retribution for his aggressive ambivalence and opportunistic profiteering. As directed by Losey, the blacklisted American director whose native banishment resulted in one of the most interesting cinematic trajectories across periods and cultures, there’s a distilled sense of just desserts in his presenting a protagonist whose ruin seems not only inevitable, but welcomed.…...
Premiering the same year was Joseph Losey’s late period masterpiece, Mr. Klein, a Kafkaesuqe escapade about an amoral art dealer who receives karmic retribution for his aggressive ambivalence and opportunistic profiteering. As directed by Losey, the blacklisted American director whose native banishment resulted in one of the most interesting cinematic trajectories across periods and cultures, there’s a distilled sense of just desserts in his presenting a protagonist whose ruin seems not only inevitable, but welcomed.…...
- 10/4/2022
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Michael Grandage had more than a few film movies to recommend to Harry Styles.
The “My Policeman” director required stars Styles, Emma Corrin, and David Dawson to view a slew of films to prepare for queer love scenes onscreen.
“As a gay man, I thought, if I’m going to direct this film, I do at least want to somehow make sure that — if I’m lucky enough to carry on living in another 10, 15, 20 years or so — I want to be able to look at the film constantly and go, ‘I did what I set out to do in terms of intimacy,'” Grandage told Entertainment Weekly. “I just knew that there was a way of telling a very specific story about same-sex intimacy that, each time we saw it in the film, helps move the narrative on. You can’t do that if you just fade to black.”
In “My Policeman,...
The “My Policeman” director required stars Styles, Emma Corrin, and David Dawson to view a slew of films to prepare for queer love scenes onscreen.
“As a gay man, I thought, if I’m going to direct this film, I do at least want to somehow make sure that — if I’m lucky enough to carry on living in another 10, 15, 20 years or so — I want to be able to look at the film constantly and go, ‘I did what I set out to do in terms of intimacy,'” Grandage told Entertainment Weekly. “I just knew that there was a way of telling a very specific story about same-sex intimacy that, each time we saw it in the film, helps move the narrative on. You can’t do that if you just fade to black.”
In “My Policeman,...
- 10/3/2022
- by Samantha Bergeson
- Indiewire
Above: French grande for Love in the Afternoon (aka Chloé in the Afternoon) which was the opening night film of the 10th New York Film Festival. Designer tbd.In the catalogue for the 10th New York Film Festival in 1972, festival director Richard Roud looked back on the first decade of the NYFF, musing on the changes in cinema of the previous 10 years: “a greater freedom of subject matter,” “an accompanying new freedom of form,” the obsolescence of “the tightly plotted film,” the rise of personal filmmaking and the inroads of political cinema and documentary techniques into narrative film. He also muses on international movements: the snuffing out of the Czech Renaissance (there were no Czech films in the 1972 festival), the rise of New Hollywood and American independent cinema, and the ebbing of the movement that had in many ways defined the festival to that point, the French New Wave:Some of...
- 9/29/2022
- MUBI
Jules Dassin’s powerful picture was a hit in Europe but remained mostly obscure here, despite featuring the great Melina Mercouri and a score of Continental stars. Adapted by two blacklistees in exile it doesn’t try to hide its revolutionary aims — Nikos Kazantzakis’s uncompromised storyline places The Church as a main obstruction to social progress, justice, and life & liberty. It’s no wonder it wasn’t ‘movie of the week’ in 1957. It’s been beautifully remastered at its original CinemaScope width, uncut.
He Who Must Die
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1957 / B&w / 2:35 widescreen / 128 122 min. / Street Date September 6, 2022 / Celui qui doit mourir / Available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Jean Servais, Carl Möhner, Grégoire Aslan, Gert Fröbe, René Lefèvre, Lucien Raimbourg, Melina Mercouri, Roger Hanin, Pierre Vaneck, Nicole Berger, Maurice Ronet, Fernand Ledoux.
Cinematography: Gilbert Chain, Jacques Natteau
Production Designer: Max Douy
Film Editors: Roger Dwyre, Pierre Gillette
Original Music: Georges Auric
Written by Ben Barzman,...
He Who Must Die
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1957 / B&w / 2:35 widescreen / 128 122 min. / Street Date September 6, 2022 / Celui qui doit mourir / Available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Jean Servais, Carl Möhner, Grégoire Aslan, Gert Fröbe, René Lefèvre, Lucien Raimbourg, Melina Mercouri, Roger Hanin, Pierre Vaneck, Nicole Berger, Maurice Ronet, Fernand Ledoux.
Cinematography: Gilbert Chain, Jacques Natteau
Production Designer: Max Douy
Film Editors: Roger Dwyre, Pierre Gillette
Original Music: Georges Auric
Written by Ben Barzman,...
- 8/30/2022
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Cinematography retrospectives are the way to go—more than a thorough display of talent, it exposes the vast expanse a Dp will travel, like an education in form and business all the same. Accordingly I’m happy to see the Criterion Channel give a 25-film tribute to James Wong Howe, whose career spanned silent cinema to the ’70s, populated with work by Howard Hawks, Michael Curtz, Samuel Fuller, Alexander Mackendrick, Sydney Pollack, John Frankenheimer, and Raoul Walsh.
Further retrospectives are granted to Romy Schneider (recent repertory sensation La piscine among them), Carlos Saura (finally a chance to see Peppermint frappe!), the British New Wave, and groundbreaking distributor Cinema 5, who brought to U.S. shores everything from The Man Who Fell to Earth and Putney Swope to Pumping Iron and Scenes from a Marriage.
September also yields streaming premieres for the recently restored Bronco Bullfrog, Ang Lee’s Pushing Hands,...
Further retrospectives are granted to Romy Schneider (recent repertory sensation La piscine among them), Carlos Saura (finally a chance to see Peppermint frappe!), the British New Wave, and groundbreaking distributor Cinema 5, who brought to U.S. shores everything from The Man Who Fell to Earth and Putney Swope to Pumping Iron and Scenes from a Marriage.
September also yields streaming premieres for the recently restored Bronco Bullfrog, Ang Lee’s Pushing Hands,...
- 8/22/2022
- by Leonard Pearce
- The Film Stage
Antonio Campos, creator of the new HBO Max miniseries The Staircase, walks hosts Josh Olson and Joe Dante through his favorite films noir.
Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode
Afterschool (2008)
The Devil All The Time (2020)
Rashomon (1950) – Brian Trenchard-Smith’s trailer commentary, Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review
The Typewriter, the Rifle & the Movie Camera (1996)
Raw Deal (1948) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review
T-Men (1947) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review
A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies (1995)
House of Bamboo (1955) – Allan Arkush’s trailer commentary
Pickup On South Street (1953) – Sam Hamm’s trailer commentary, Glenn Erickson’s Criterion Blu-ray review
The Naked Kiss (1964)
Reign of Terror (1949)
Detour (1945) – Glenn Erickson’s Criterion Blu-ray review
Scarlet Street (1945)
The House on 92nd Street (1945) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review
Barry Lyndon (1975) – Glenn Erickson’s Criterion Blu-ray review
The Killing (1956) – Michael Lehmann’s trailer commentary
Kiss of Death (1947) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review
Kiss of Death...
Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode
Afterschool (2008)
The Devil All The Time (2020)
Rashomon (1950) – Brian Trenchard-Smith’s trailer commentary, Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review
The Typewriter, the Rifle & the Movie Camera (1996)
Raw Deal (1948) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review
T-Men (1947) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review
A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies (1995)
House of Bamboo (1955) – Allan Arkush’s trailer commentary
Pickup On South Street (1953) – Sam Hamm’s trailer commentary, Glenn Erickson’s Criterion Blu-ray review
The Naked Kiss (1964)
Reign of Terror (1949)
Detour (1945) – Glenn Erickson’s Criterion Blu-ray review
Scarlet Street (1945)
The House on 92nd Street (1945) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review
Barry Lyndon (1975) – Glenn Erickson’s Criterion Blu-ray review
The Killing (1956) – Michael Lehmann’s trailer commentary
Kiss of Death (1947) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review
Kiss of Death...
- 5/31/2022
- by Alex Kirschenbaum
- Trailers from Hell
Expatriate blacklistee Joseph Losey is the perfect director for this excellent, strange tale, a big award winner in France. The terrible Occupation-era victimization of the Jewish citizens of Paris is told tangentially from the viewpoint of a jackal-like opportunist who buys art and valuables cheaply from Jews desperate for cash. But Klein has a little ‘doppelgänger’ problem straight out of Franz Kafka . . . and finds himself in an existential nightmare that’s strangely . . . appropriate. This original, superior thriller arrives in a new special edition.
Mr. Klein
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 1123
1976 / Color / 1:66 widescreen / 123 min. / Monsieur Klein / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date May 10, 2022 / 39.95
Starring: Alain Delon, Jeanne Moreau, Francine Bergé, Michael Lonsdale, Juliet Berto, Suzanne Flon, Massimo Girotti, Jean Champion, Francine Racette, Louis Seigner.
Cinematography: Gerry Fisher
Production Designer: Alexandre Trauner
Film Editors: Marie Castro-Vasquez, Henri Lanoë, Michèle Neny
Original Music: Egisto Macchi, Pierre Porte
Written by Franco Solinas, collaborator...
Mr. Klein
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 1123
1976 / Color / 1:66 widescreen / 123 min. / Monsieur Klein / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date May 10, 2022 / 39.95
Starring: Alain Delon, Jeanne Moreau, Francine Bergé, Michael Lonsdale, Juliet Berto, Suzanne Flon, Massimo Girotti, Jean Champion, Francine Racette, Louis Seigner.
Cinematography: Gerry Fisher
Production Designer: Alexandre Trauner
Film Editors: Marie Castro-Vasquez, Henri Lanoë, Michèle Neny
Original Music: Egisto Macchi, Pierre Porte
Written by Franco Solinas, collaborator...
- 5/10/2022
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
One Shot is a series that seeks to find an essence of cinema history in one single image of a movie. It must have been a familiar scene for actor Patrick Magee. Here he was again playing an aging bachelor, surrounded by audio recording paraphernalia, listening to voices out of the past. The first time was on stage at the Royal Court Theater in 1958: a different room, different audio equipment, playing a different aging bachelor. The play was Samuel Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape, in which the decrepit, solitary Krapp listens to tape recordings of his younger, sometimes comically confident self. Krapp, caustic and disillusioned, has diminished since making his first recordings, growing ever more contemptuous of his youthful enthusiasms. Though the role was played by many great actors, including John Hurt, Michael Gambon, and Harold Pinter, Beckett wrote the part for Magee, or more specifically for “Magee’s distinctively Irish voice,...
- 4/27/2022
- MUBI
NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.
Film at Lincoln Center
A series of thematically arranged Hong Sang-soo double features has begun.
IFC Center
The new restoration of Inland Empire is now playing, while Eraserhead, Dune, Twilight, Mamma Mia!, and Derek Jarman’s Sebastiane have late-night showings.
Roxy Cinema
A 35mm-heavy Alex Ross Perry retrospective is underway; a print of Lady Terminator plays on Saturday; prints of River’s Edge and The Seventh Seal play on Sunday.
Museum of Modern Art
As retrospectives of Larry Fessenden’s genre house Glass Eye Pix and films by Larry Clark continue, The Birds has a screening.
Metrograph
The Robert Siodmak retrospective continues, as does “Pop Plays Itself,” a collection of musicians onscreen; Eden and After plays in Left Bank Cinema; Perfect Blue and Son of the White Mare are in “Late Nights.”
Anthology Film Archives
The Hong-Kong-a-Thon returns, while programs screen in “Essential Cinema.
Film at Lincoln Center
A series of thematically arranged Hong Sang-soo double features has begun.
IFC Center
The new restoration of Inland Empire is now playing, while Eraserhead, Dune, Twilight, Mamma Mia!, and Derek Jarman’s Sebastiane have late-night showings.
Roxy Cinema
A 35mm-heavy Alex Ross Perry retrospective is underway; a print of Lady Terminator plays on Saturday; prints of River’s Edge and The Seventh Seal play on Sunday.
Museum of Modern Art
As retrospectives of Larry Fessenden’s genre house Glass Eye Pix and films by Larry Clark continue, The Birds has a screening.
Metrograph
The Robert Siodmak retrospective continues, as does “Pop Plays Itself,” a collection of musicians onscreen; Eden and After plays in Left Bank Cinema; Perfect Blue and Son of the White Mare are in “Late Nights.”
Anthology Film Archives
The Hong-Kong-a-Thon returns, while programs screen in “Essential Cinema.
- 4/7/2022
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.
Museum of Modern Art
Peter Bogdanovich’s very funny, never-before-seen Squirrels to the Nuts has an exclusive run (about which more here), while a retrospective of Larry Fessenden’s genre house Glass Eye Pix is underway.
Metrograph
A Robert Siodmak retrospective has started, as has “Pop Plays Itself,” a collection of musicians onscreen, while Resnais, Demy, and Marker lead Left Bank Cinema; Metrograph A to Z continues with Powell-Pressburger and Ray; Perfect Blue and Son of the White Mare are in “Late Nights“; Charles Grodin is paid tribute with screenings of Midnight Run and Clifford.
Anthology Film Archives
A series on imageless films—featuring Hollis Frampton, Guy Debord, and Derek Jarman—is underway while some of Buster Keaton’s greatest works screen in “Essential Cinema.”
Film Forum
Joseph Losey’s great Mr. Klein has been restored, as has Bronco Bullfrog...
Museum of Modern Art
Peter Bogdanovich’s very funny, never-before-seen Squirrels to the Nuts has an exclusive run (about which more here), while a retrospective of Larry Fessenden’s genre house Glass Eye Pix is underway.
Metrograph
A Robert Siodmak retrospective has started, as has “Pop Plays Itself,” a collection of musicians onscreen, while Resnais, Demy, and Marker lead Left Bank Cinema; Metrograph A to Z continues with Powell-Pressburger and Ray; Perfect Blue and Son of the White Mare are in “Late Nights“; Charles Grodin is paid tribute with screenings of Midnight Run and Clifford.
Anthology Film Archives
A series on imageless films—featuring Hollis Frampton, Guy Debord, and Derek Jarman—is underway while some of Buster Keaton’s greatest works screen in “Essential Cinema.”
Film Forum
Joseph Losey’s great Mr. Klein has been restored, as has Bronco Bullfrog...
- 4/1/2022
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
No two ways about it: April’s a great month for the Criterion Channel, which (among other things; more in a second) adds two recent favorites. We’re thrilled at the SVOD premiere of Hamaguchi’s entrancing Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy, our #3 of 2021, and Bruno Dumont’s lacerating France, featuring Léa Seydoux’s finest performance yet.
Ethan Hawke’s Adventures in Moviegoing runs the gamut from Eagle Pennell’s Last Night at the Alamo to 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, while a 14-film John Ford retro (mostly) skips westerns altogether. And no notes on the Delphine Seyrig retro—multiple by Akerman, Ulrike Ottinger, Duras, a smattering of Buñuel, and Seyrig’s own film Be Pretty and Shut Up! That of all things might be the crown jewl.
See the full list of April titles below and more on the Criterion Channel.
—
3 Bad Men, John Ford, 1926
Aar paar, Guru Dutt,...
Ethan Hawke’s Adventures in Moviegoing runs the gamut from Eagle Pennell’s Last Night at the Alamo to 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, while a 14-film John Ford retro (mostly) skips westerns altogether. And no notes on the Delphine Seyrig retro—multiple by Akerman, Ulrike Ottinger, Duras, a smattering of Buñuel, and Seyrig’s own film Be Pretty and Shut Up! That of all things might be the crown jewl.
See the full list of April titles below and more on the Criterion Channel.
—
3 Bad Men, John Ford, 1926
Aar paar, Guru Dutt,...
- 3/25/2022
- by Leonard Pearce
- The Film Stage
NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.
Metrograph
Resnais, Demy, and Varda lead Left Bank Cinema; Metrograph A to Z continues with Hawks and Lang; Kim’s Video has Hooper and Fulci; The Muppets Take Manhattan screens in Play Time;; Delta Space Mission is in “Late Nights.”
Roxy Cinema
Romeo + Juliet has 35mm showings, while Flaming Creatures and Fuses screen on 16mm this Saturday.
Film at Lincoln Center
A regular performer for Ozu, Mizoguchi, and Naruse, Kinuyo Tanaka is celebrated in a retrospective of films she directed, as restored by Janus, alongside work by her collaborators.
Film Forum
Joseph Losey’s great Mr. Klein has been restored, as has Bronco Bullfrog, while Space is the Place screens this Saturday; Fantasia and Buster Keaton’s Seven Chances play on Sunday.
IFC Center
Late-night showings of Eraserhead, Dune, Twilight, Brazil, and Mysterious Skin have showings.
The post NYC Weekend Watch: Alain Resnais,...
Metrograph
Resnais, Demy, and Varda lead Left Bank Cinema; Metrograph A to Z continues with Hawks and Lang; Kim’s Video has Hooper and Fulci; The Muppets Take Manhattan screens in Play Time;; Delta Space Mission is in “Late Nights.”
Roxy Cinema
Romeo + Juliet has 35mm showings, while Flaming Creatures and Fuses screen on 16mm this Saturday.
Film at Lincoln Center
A regular performer for Ozu, Mizoguchi, and Naruse, Kinuyo Tanaka is celebrated in a retrospective of films she directed, as restored by Janus, alongside work by her collaborators.
Film Forum
Joseph Losey’s great Mr. Klein has been restored, as has Bronco Bullfrog, while Space is the Place screens this Saturday; Fantasia and Buster Keaton’s Seven Chances play on Sunday.
IFC Center
Late-night showings of Eraserhead, Dune, Twilight, Brazil, and Mysterious Skin have showings.
The post NYC Weekend Watch: Alain Resnais,...
- 3/24/2022
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
Now up for grabs in Region A, it’s the Robert Aldrich movie that wins over all that see it. The epitome of Men In Peril adventures, the tale of 14 random oil men marooned in the Sahara is brutal yet optimistic about human cooperation — please, the world needs more of that right now. James Stewart is at his best, stretching his hard-bitten loner persona and tapping into his flying experience. Also with an English-language-best performance from Hardy Krüger. The male group dynamics are absorbing and the suspense powerful — especially when seen cold. No spoilers here!
The Flight of the Phoenix
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 1116
1965 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 142 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date March 22, 2022 / 39.95
Starring: James Stewart, Richard Attenborough, Peter Finch, Hardy Krüger, Ernest Borgnine, Ian Bannen, Ronald Fraser, Christian Marquand, Dan Duryea, George Kennedy, Gabriele Tinti, Alex Montoya, Peter Bravos, William Aldrich, Barrie Chase.
Cinematography: Joseph Biroc...
The Flight of the Phoenix
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 1116
1965 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 142 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date March 22, 2022 / 39.95
Starring: James Stewart, Richard Attenborough, Peter Finch, Hardy Krüger, Ernest Borgnine, Ian Bannen, Ronald Fraser, Christian Marquand, Dan Duryea, George Kennedy, Gabriele Tinti, Alex Montoya, Peter Bravos, William Aldrich, Barrie Chase.
Cinematography: Joseph Biroc...
- 3/19/2022
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.
Film at Lincoln Center
A regular performer for Ozu, Mizoguchi, and Naruse, Kinuyo Tanaka is celebrated in a retrospective of films she directed, as restored by Janus, alongside work by her collaborators.
Bam
“Lynchian” mostly does what it says on the tin—and plenty on 35mm—but also includes those influenced: Perfect Blue, Trouble Every Day, and Uncle Boonmee.
Film Forum
Joseph Losey’s great Mr. Klein has been restored, while School of Rock screens this Sunday.
Roxy Cinema
Manhunter and Ikiru screen on 35mm this weekend.
Paris Theater
The all-35mm Jane Campion retrospective winds down with Holy Smoke and Bright Star.
Metrograph
Metrograph A to Z continues; two Muppet movies screen in Play Time; Eyes Without a Face, Vagabond, and The Young Girls of Rochefort lead “Left Bank Cinema“; South Park and Perfect Blue are in “Late Nights.
Film at Lincoln Center
A regular performer for Ozu, Mizoguchi, and Naruse, Kinuyo Tanaka is celebrated in a retrospective of films she directed, as restored by Janus, alongside work by her collaborators.
Bam
“Lynchian” mostly does what it says on the tin—and plenty on 35mm—but also includes those influenced: Perfect Blue, Trouble Every Day, and Uncle Boonmee.
Film Forum
Joseph Losey’s great Mr. Klein has been restored, while School of Rock screens this Sunday.
Roxy Cinema
Manhunter and Ikiru screen on 35mm this weekend.
Paris Theater
The all-35mm Jane Campion retrospective winds down with Holy Smoke and Bright Star.
Metrograph
Metrograph A to Z continues; two Muppet movies screen in Play Time; Eyes Without a Face, Vagabond, and The Young Girls of Rochefort lead “Left Bank Cinema“; South Park and Perfect Blue are in “Late Nights.
- 3/16/2022
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
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