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Are you ready to get groovy, baby? Cause Netflix is about to spin the clock back to 1975 for a month-long screening series held at its Egyptian Theatre in Los Angeles this upcoming May. Titled “1975: Fifty Is the New Hollywood,” this event aims to celebrate the 50th anniversary of what many consider the year that changed cinema forever, with films like Steven Spielberg’s “Jaws,” Mel Brooks’ “Young Frankenstein,” and Francis Ford Coppola‘s Oscar-winning “The Godfather Part II” all being released within the same 12-month span.

1975 marks the highpoint of the New Hollywood era, with gifted established filmmakers like Robert Altman, Akira Kurosawa, John Cassavetes, and Stanley Kubrick all going out on a limb to make their masterworks and newcomers like Spielberg, Coppola, Martin Scorsese, and Brian De Palma breaking through in ways that would forever alter the business and creative spirit of filmmaking. International cinema also introduced the world to the unconventional,...

Batter up, Darren Aronofsky is back with a fast-paced thriller that swings for the fences. Aronofsky took the stage at CinemaCon in Las Vegas during Sony’s presentation to premiere the first look at the trailer for his latest film, “Caught Stealing.”

“Caught Stealing” sees the filmmaker harken back to his earlier work after a series of smaller, more downbeat offerings such as “Mother!” and “The Whale.” The ’90s-set, NYC crime story stars Austin Butler as a former baseball player who gets caught up in a treasure hunt that sees him pitted against cops, mobsters, and hitmen.

Aronofsky described the project as something that took him back to what it felt like making a movie in the ’90s when he was making “Pi,” but he made this project because it was “something different” and was “simply put, a lot of fun.”

The first look at the trailer certainly was one...

As the movie world exits the January doldrums and coasts on Sundance into the romance and Marvel offerings of February, savvy cinephiles still pay closer attention to what’s heading to their small screens. Each month The A.V. Club does our part to keep you up to date on the...

Exclusive: HanWay Films has expanded its classics library after being appointed to represent The Cohen Film Collection.

The library of Cohen Media Group’s founder, Charles S. Cohen, comprises more than one hundred restored classic titles spanning from the silent era to the present day, including The Buster Keaton Collection and The Merchant Ivory Collection.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed and Cohen Media Group is the owner of HanWay, having acquired the company in 2022.

Late last year Charles Cohen’s media group hit choppy waters when the company was forced to sell multiple assets including British arthouse exhibitor and distributor Curzon to Fortress Investment Group. The company was acquired in a foreclosure auction involving multiple Cohen assets, including the Landmark cinema chain. Fortress had lent Cohen $534M but sued him last year for default. Cohen acquired Curzon in late 2019 amid a buying spree by the U.S. real estate developer.

Fernanda Torres and Karla Sofía Gascón made history on Thursday as the first pair of Best Actress Oscar nominees for non-English language performances in nearly 50 years. Torres stars in Sony Pictures Classics’ I’m Still Here from Brazil, while Gascón leads in Netflix’s Emilia Pérez from France. This marks the fourth time two actors have been nominated for non-English roles for different movies in the same year. They will compete against Cynthia Erivo (Wicked), Mikey Madison (Anora), and Demi Moore (The Substance). Both films are cited for Best International Feature and Best Picture while Emilia Pérez became the most-nominated international movie with 13 mentions.

In the Walter Salles‘ political biopic, Torres portrays Portuguese-speaking human rights activist Eunice Paiva, who searches for her missing husband, politician Rubens Paiva, during the Brazilian Military Dictatorship in 1971. Torres’ only precursor recognition was at the Golden Globes, where she surprised in Best Drama Actress. Despite missing at the Critics Choice,...

I consider myself something like a student, autodidact or otherwise, of cinema and––even still, must confess––had not ever grasped the concept of Argentine noir. Credit to Criterion Channel, who’ll expand my horizons with February’s program (concisely titled “Argentine Noir”) that includes one known title––Pierre Chenal’s Native Son, an Argentine film from a French director adapting an American novel about the African-American experience in Chicago––and five I look forward to discovering. Retrospective-wise, their wide-reaching Claudette Colbert program could double as a lesson in Old Hollywood, between Capra, Stahl, DeMille, Lubitsch, Sirk, and Sturges. February, of course, brings Black History Month and Valentine’s Day: the former engenders a series featuring films such as Nothing but a Man, Portrait of Jason, and Losing Ground; the latter brings “New York Love Stories,” from Carol to Crossing Delancey to, curiously, Annie Hall, which likely would not have...

Carol Kane received her first awards nomination 50 years ago next year. It was a big one, too; after just five years in film, working with directors of the caliber of Mike Nichols and Hal Ashby, Kane was feted by the Academy for her starring role in Joan Micklin Silver’s period drama Hester Street, a film she made in 1975 alongside Sidney Lumet’s Dog Day Afternoon. Primetime Emmy awards followed in the early ’80s, for James L. Brooks’ hit show Taxi, in which she played the wife of Andy Kaufman’s character Latka Gravas.

Awards-wise, Kane has simmered throughout her career while never quite boiling over. Instead, she focused on the work—as a young actress, she caught the tail end of the New Hollywood of the ’60s, and then quite effortlessly segued into the commercial studio mainstream of the ’80s, making Scrooged in 1988 with Bill Murray. In the ’90s,...

Perhaps the definitive image of “The Brutalist,” found near the opening of the film and featured heavily in its marketing, is an undulating, upside-down shot of the Statue of Liberty as a boat full of newly-arrived foreigners celebrate its presence. For them, it marks the end of a long journey, but in a signal to the audience, director Brady Corbet and cinematographer Lol Crawley tell us that very few are aware of what fresh horrors await on these new shores.

The immigrant experience, whether it be in depictions of dangerous crossings or the strife of settling in a new place far from what is known, has long been examined by filmmakers. Some have done so as a way of tracing their own family history, like in the case of Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Godfather: Part II,” or as a form of understanding someone else’s plight in the instance of the animated documentary “Flee.

There is something foundational about Carol Kane. She was part of the fabric of late 20th Century arts and entertainment, whether it be in films like “Dog Day Afternoon” and “The Princess Bride” or on television in her Emmy-winning performance on “Taxi” as wife to Andy Kaufman’s Latke. In transitioning into the 21st century, not only did her strengths become more amplified — her trademark quirkiness adding dynamism to movies such as “The Pacifier” and shows like “The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” — but her range continues to become more pronounced. In the last decade alone she’s taken part in a western from Jacques Audiard (“The Sisters Brothers”), a zombie comedy from Jim Jarmusch (“The Dead Don’t Die”), and will soon be seen in Darren Aronofsky’s ’90s-set crime thriller “Caught Stealing” as a character she recently told IndieWire “only spoke Yiddish.”

The role garnering her the most attention nowadays, however,...

In 1982, 76-year-old Henry Fonda finally won a long-overdue Best Actor Oscar trophy, becoming the oldest Best Actor winner up to that time. His last acting nomination had been in 1941, and he held the record for the longest span between acting nominations until 2023. Judd Hirsch broke Fonda’s 41-year record 41 years after it was set, earning his second supporting nomination for “The Fabelmans” 42 years after his bid for “Ordinary People.” Now, one of his former co-stars could possibly break that record.

Hirsch earned two Best Comedy Actor Emmys for the sitcom “Taxi” (1978-1982). Carol Kane co-starred on the series from 1980-1983, also earning two Emmys, one for lead and one for supporting comedy actress. She is now receiving rave reviews for her role in “Between the Temples,” and might be on track to break the record Hirsch broke two years ago. Kane has already earned the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actress,...

“I have to say I’m stunned. I haven’t been able to make it real in my mind yet,” reflects Carol Kane on her recent awards nominations and wins for the film “Between the Temples.” The veteran star received the Supporting Actress prize from the New York Film Critics Circle and an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Supporting Performance for her turn in the Nathan Silver movie, on which she also serves as executive producer. The recognition comes as a welcome surprise because, as she says, “It’s a unique experience at my age to get re-noticed, as it were.” Though she would prefer that she and her co-star Jason Schwartzman “were nominated for things together,” she remains “extremely grateful” and thinks the citations are “like a miracle.” Watch our complete video interview above.

Kane stars in “Between the Temples” as Carla, a woman who, following the death of her husband,...

Brady Corbet’s historical epic “The Brutalist” was the big favorite at the New York Film Critics Circle Awards, taking home two major prizes for best film and actor for Adrien Brody.

As the oldest critics’ group in the United States, the NYFCC is seen as a bellwether for awards season, with its best film winner often correlating with an Academy Award nomination for best picture. Since the Oscars expanded to 10 best picture nominees in 2009, only two NYFCC winners — “Carol” (2015) and “First Cow” (2020) — have failed to secure Oscar nominations in the category.

Brody’s win reignites his Oscar prospects surrounding his performance in Corbet’s historical epic, which has already been described as a towering achievement. The actor, who made history in 2002 as the youngest-ever best actor Oscar winner for “The Pianist” at age 29, could now become the youngest two-time winner at 51. However, he faces stiff competition from a strong...

Comedy icon Carol Kane reflected on her experience on her new TV show Dinner With The Parents in her new uInterview.

Kane gained recognition as an actress in the 1975 film Hester Street, for which she received an Academy Award nomination for best actress. In the 1970s and ’80s, she appeared in acclaimed films like Dog Day Afternoon and Annie Hall. In the early 1980s, she also appeared on the television series Taxi, acting as a comedic actress for the first time.

Dinner With The Parents is a single-camera comedy series about two 20-something brothers and their awkwardly hilarious weekly dinners at their parents’ house.

“I just think the family dynamic is so fun and so crazy, not any crazier than most families probably, but we just get to play so much, and this character is fantastic, and I got to wear such great clothes,” Kane told uInterview founder Erik Meers.

Sony Pictures Classics has acquired all rights worldwide to “Between the Temples,” a comedy with Jason Schwartzman and Carol Kane that earned strong reviews when it debuted at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. Directed by Nathan Silver, the film follows a forty-something cantor who is at a personal and professional crossroads. That’s when his grade-school music teacher re-enters his life as an adult bat mitzvah student, prompting the pair to form an unusual connection.

In a positive notice, Variety‘s Guy Lodge wrote, “Buoyed by the unlikely chemistry between its two stars, this alternately raucous and tender ‘Harold and Maude’ riff is the warmest work to date from microbudget auteur Nathan Silver.”

“Between the Temples” will have its international debut at the upcoming Berlin International Film Festival in the Panorama section. Schwartzman’s credits include “Rushmore,” “Asteroid City” and “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.” Kane is the Oscar-nominated star...

Back at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, Celine Song’s debut feature, “Past Lives,” premiered to rave reviews and early speculation about its awards chances. That turned out to be prescient. One year later, “Past Lives” is a 2024 Oscars Best Picture nominee, while Song is a nominee for Best Original Screenplay. So with the 2024 Sundance Film Festival at its end, what better time than now to speculate about what next year’s “Past Lives” will be? Whether anything on 2024’s Sundance roster can scale those heights is up for debate, but plenty of promising titles could compete for acting and screenplay prizes. The documentary lineup was robust this year, which makes sense: Six of the last 10 Best Documentary Feature Film winners got their start at Sundance.

Below is a sample of Sundance highlights that could be award contenders this time next year.

Narrative features

“Between the Temples”: It’s hard to fathom,...

After three years of virtual and hybrid event offerings, the Sundance Film Festival is set to celebrate its fortieth anniversary with its most robust in-person edition of the festival since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. While online offerings will still be available to those who wish to participate from home, with the official online viewing window opening on Thursday, January 25. That lineup will include at-home screenings of the five competition sections (including Next).

On the ground, however, seems like the place to be. As ever, this year’s festival boasts a wide variety of new films from some of our favorite filmmakers, plus an assortment of rising stars, new talents to keep an eye on, and perhaps a few surprises.

This year’s program includes new films from Steven Soderbergh, Debra Granik, David and Nathan Zellner, Richard Linklater, Lana Wilson, Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss, Dawn Porter, Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden,...

When Barbra Streisand’s “Yentl” opened on Nov. 18, 1983, directing was very much a man’s world. In the 1970s, there had been a few inroads for women. Italian director Lina Wertmuller was nominated for best director for 1976’s “Seven Beauties” Stateside, actress Barbara Loden, who was married to Oscar-winning director Elia Kazan, wrote, directed and starred in the acclaimed 1970 indie drama “Wanda,” which won best foreign film at the Venice Film Festival. She never followed up with another movie and died of breast cancer in 1980.

There was also Joan Micklin Silver (“Hester Street”), Claudia Weill (“Girlfriends”), Martha Coolidge (“Not a Pretty Picture”), Joan Tewkesbury (“Old Boyfriends”) and Joan Darling (“First Love”). But those filmmakers ran into brick walls when they tried to set up projects with the major studios. The late Silver told Vanity Fair in 2021 that a studio executive didn’t mince his word: “Feature films are expensive to make and expensive to market,...

Joanna Merlin, who created the role of the daughter Tzeitel in Fiddler on the Roof on Broadway and served as a casting director for Stephen Sondheim, Harold Prince and Bernardo Bertolucci, has died. She was 92.

Merlin died Sunday in Los Angeles of complications from myelodysplastic syndrome, a bone marrow disorder, her daughters, documentary filmmaker Rachel Dretzin (Keep Sweet: Pray and Obey) and actress Julie Dretzin (The Handmaid’s Tale), announced.

Merlin also portrayed the dance teacher Miss Berg in Alan Parker’s Fame (1980) and recurred as Judge Lena Petrovsky for more than a decade on NBC’s Law and Order: Svu.

Her acting résumé included the films Hester Street (1975), All That Jazz (1979), Baby It’s You (1983), The Killing Fields (1984), Mystic Pizza (1988), Class Action (1991) and City of Angels (1998) and such TV shows as Naked City, The Defenders, East Side/West Side, Homeland and The Good Wife.

Merlin cast the original Broadway productions of Sondheim’s Company,...

Fans are overjoyed Star Trek: Strange New Worlds returns for a new season on Paramount+, though it's bittersweet without Hemmer. The Aenar and Chief Engineer of the USS Enterprise didn't survive an encounter with the Gorn. However, stepping into his role is Lieutenant Commander Pelia, played by Emmy-award-winning Taxi actor Carol Kane. She brings a classic TV pedigree to a series that owes its existence to Star Trek's first failed pilot.

While Gene Roddenberry struggled to get Star Trek on TV in 1966, young Carol Kane was making her name as a stage actor. She was nominated for an Academy Award after playing Gitl, a Jewish immigrant wife and mother, in the 1975 film Hester Street. In the film, her character speaks mostly in subtitled Yiddish. Recently, she's appeared on the Prime Video drama Hunters and played a prominent role in Netflix's The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. In fact, Pelia's loose-cannon...

Anyone who loved Mary Tyler Moore as Laurie Petrie on “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” as the thoroughly modern career woman Mary Richards on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and as the brittle, distant Beth in her Oscar-nominated turn in 1980’s ‘Ordinary People,” will love the new Max documentary “Being Mary Tyler Moore.” Moore, who died in 2017 at the age of 80, narrates the story of her life which had incredible triumphs but also great tragedy. But one aspect of her storied career it doesn’t really delve in as her work in telefilms, miniseries and even an “PBS Hollywood Presents” that reunited her with Dick Van Dyke.

Did you know that two years before she went to Broadway winning a special Tony for her performance in “Whose Life Is It Anyway?” and did “Ordinary People,” she unveiled her dramatic chops in the 1978 CBS TV movie “First, You Cry.” Based on...

Jason Schwartzman and Carol Kane are starring in “Between the Temples,” a new film from writer and director Nathan Silver that’s being described as “an anxious comedy.” It’s the story of a cantor who is locked in a crisis of faith and finds his world turned upside down when his grade school music teacher re-enters his life as his new adult Bat Mitzvah student.

The supporting cast for this humorous exercise in neurosis boasts Dolly De Leon, who was just nominated for her scene-stealing work in “Triangle of Sadness.” Other ensemble members include Screen Actors Guild award-winner Caroline Aaron (“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”), longtime funnyman Robert Smigel (SNL’s “TV Funhouse”), stage and screen actress Madeline Weinstein (“Beach Rats”) and indie film regular Matthew Shear (“Mistress America”).

Principal photography wrapped in Kingston, N.Y., on the film. CAA Media Finance is handling domestic sales.

“Between the Temples” was...

Turns out sometimes the true undiscovered country is a revolving door.

At least it is to Capt. Kirk (Paul Wesley), who has some difficulty with one in a funny moment in the “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” Season 2 teaser, which also features normal Klingons!

Yes, the monstrous Klingons of “Star Trek: Discovery,” redesigned via additional, far more extravagant prostheses to create a truly terrifying effect, unlike anything we had seen of the warrior alien race on 50 years of previous “Trek,” seem to have been abandoned, if this Season 2 teaser is to be taken at face value. Perhaps the reappearance of Michael Dorn’s Worf on “Star Trek: Picard,” looking as he always did, other than white hair to make him look even cooler, inspired a return to the classic design.

In fact, the Season 2 teaser of “Strange New Worlds” is overflowing with moments to make fans smile, including Spock (Ethan Peck...

Spoilers for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. Consider yourself warned. The first season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds wrapped up earlier this summer, and as someone who was hungry for episodic Star Trek once again… I loved it. The second season is already in the can and will debut next year, but the production has been keeping a big secret all this time. It was announced during today’s Star Trek Day presentation that Carol Kane will be beaming up for the second season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.

Carol Kane is best known for her roles in Dog Day Afternoon, When a Stranger Calls, The Princess Bride, Taxi, and much more. She also received an Academy Award nomination for her role in Hester Street. Carol Kane will be playing Pelia in the Star Trek series, a “highly educated and intelligent” engineer who “suffers no fools.” She solves problems “calmy and brusquely,...

Every breakout independent hit seems like a miracle. This delightful ‘little’ picture was fated to be ghetto-ized into ethnic theaters before its producers opted to distribute it themselves. Capturing a vibrant part of the immigrant experience, Joan Micklin Silver’s micro-production often has a big-picture look; it charmed audiences and became a sleeper success. Star Carol Kane was nominated for an acting Oscar as ‘Gitl,’ a woman with Old-Country values plus the grit and determination to win a better life. Also with fine performances from Steven Keats, Mel Howard, Dorrie Kavanaugh and Doris Roberts.

Hester Street

Blu-ray

Cohen Media Group / Kino Lorber

1975 / B&w / 1:85 anamorphic 16:9 / 90 min. / Street Date March 8, 2022 / Available from Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Carol Kane, Steven Keats, Mel Howard, Dorrie Kavanaugh, Doris Roberts, Stephen Strimpell, Lauren Frost, Paul Freedman, Martin Garner.

Cinematography: Kenneth Van Sickle

Production Designer: Stuart Wurtzel

Film Editor: Katherine Wenning

Original Music: Herbert L. Clarke...

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“You Gotta Get A Get”

By Raymond Benson

(Note: Much of this review is repeated from an earlier Cinema Retro review of a previous Blu-ray release.)

In the world of the Jewish Conservative Orthodox community, a divorce is truly final only when the husband presents his wife with a “get”—a document in Hebrew that grants the woman her freedom to be with other men. Likewise, the wife must accept the get before the man can re-marry, too.

This is the crux of the story behind Hester Street, an independent art-house film that appeared in 1975, written and directed by Joan Micklin Silver. Starring Carol Kane, who was nominated for Best Actress for her performance as Gitl, a newly arrived immigrant to New York City in 1896, and Steven Keats as her husband Yankl, who, in an attempt to assimilate, in public goes by the name “Jake.

Fifteen years have passed since Penélope Cruz broke new ground as the first Spanish woman to receive an Oscar nomination for Best Actress. Although her performance in Pedro Almodóvar’s Spanish-language film “Volver” was passed over in favor of Helen Mirren’s in “The Queen,” she bounced back two years later by triumphing in the supporting category for “Vicky Cristina Barcelona.” Now, based on her work in Almodóvar’s “Parallel Mothers” (their seventh collaboration), she may have another shot at lead glory. If she does land in the lineup, she will join an exclusive club as the fifth leading lady to be recognized for two non-English language performances.

The first woman to accomplish this feat was Sophia Loren, who was nominated for “Marriage Italian Style” (1965) after winning for “Two Women” (1962). Both are Italian-language films directed by Vittorio De Sica. After losing on her second outing to Julie Andrews (“Mary Poppins...

The 4K restoration (released this month by Cohen Media and featured at the New York Film Festival) of Joan Micklin Silver’s 1975 “Hester Street” is getting deserved credit as a rare female-directed American film from its era. The black and white feature, set in the mostly Jewish immigrant community in New York’s Lower East side in the 1890s, overcame tough odds on multiple fronts to become a significant financial success.

The film grossed $5 million by the end of its run, the equivalent of over $22 million today. All this on a budget of $375,000 (about $1.7 million now). That was a significant success, even if at the time it wasn’t supplemented by home video, and as a black and white film it had limited interest for broadcast television.

Micklin Silver’s film is getting renewed credit for its quality, as well as for being the debut film that caused her to break out as a director.

Cohen Film Collection is gearing up for a number of newly restored releases, among them Simon Callow’s 1991 drama “The Ballad of the Sad Café” and a number of Buster Keaton works.

Part of New York-based Cohen Media Group, Cohen Film Collection restores classic films and re-releases them theatrically. It’s vast catalogue includes the Merchant Ivory collection, of which “The Ballad of the Sad Café” is a part.

Based on the 1951 novella by Carson McCullers, the film stars Vanessa Redgrave, Keith Carradine and Rod Steiger.

The George Eastman Museum in Rochester, New York, is currently finishing the restoration of the film, which Cohen Film Group plans to release next year.

“There’s still a number of features to go, so we’re working our way through those, including some of the films set in India, which I’m personally really interested in,” says Tim Lanza, Cohen Film Collection vice president and archivist.

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSAbove: Memoria (2021)Distributor Neon has announced its release plans for Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Memoria: Playing only in theaters, Memoria will be “moving from city to city, theater to theater, week by week, playing in front of only one solitary audience at any given time.”Tilda Swinton and George Mackay will be starring in the next film by Joshua Oppenheimer (The Act of Killing and The Look of Silence). Titled The End, the film has been described as a "a Golden Age musical about the last human family." Co-programmed by James Hansen & Eric Souther, Light Matter Festival is a new "moving-image art festival dedicated to experimental film and media arts." Taking place in Alfred, New York, the festival will be screening films by Simon Liu, Mary Helena Clark, Lynne Sachs, and more. Sylvester Stallone's...

“Hester Street,” Joan Micklin Silver’s classic 1975 feature debut, portrays with momentous poignancy the Jewish immigrant experience in turn-of-the-century New York City: the lure of assimilation and the falling-away of tradition; the awesome, awful promise of becoming American. Newly restored in a 4K version that retains the 35mm original’s Jacob Riis-like black-and-white textures of Lower East Side tenement life, it’s a vision of the city on the brink of modernity, willed into existence at the height of the New Hollywood by a woman unaffiliated with any movement.

Continue reading ‘Hester Street’ Is A Classic Jewish Immigrant Tale Worth Seeking Out [NYFF Review] at The Playlist.

After a hiatus where New York’s theaters closed during the pandemic, we’re delighted to announce the return of NYC Weekend Watch, our weekly round-up of repertory offerings. While many theaters are still focused on a selection of new releases, a handful of worthwhile repertory screenings are taking place.

Film at Lincoln Center

NYFF’s Revivals is back! There’s almost too much to count—Sweet Sweetback, Hester Street, Ratcatcher… meanwhile, the Amos Vogel retrospective has a number of treasures.

Roxy Cinema

A 35mm print of Eastwood’s underseen Bird screens, as do shorts by Agnès Varda.

Museum of the Moving Image

A print of Barry Lyndon screens on Saturday, while 2001 plays on 70mm this Friday and Dcp on Sunday. Meanwhile, a Shinya Tsukamoto double feature plays on Friday.

Paris Theater

Brokeback Mountain shows on 35mm this Saturday.

Film Forum

As a 4K restoration of Goodfellas continues, Breathless begins...

Most people, cinephiles or not, know Carol Kane as Valerie, bossy wife to Billy Crystal’s Miracle Max in “The Princess Bride.” Her face may have been tough to recognize under all that old age make-up, but her distinctive warble is unmistakable, causing new generations to fall in love with her as Kimmy’s eccentric landlady Lillian in “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.”

But Kane wasn’t always the incomparable character actress we know and love today, and younger audiences may be surprised to learn that her early career included some more dramatic turns, most notably in her Oscar-nominated performance in Joan Micklin Silver’s 1975 masterpiece “Hester Street,” which is receiving renewed interest with a gorgeous 4k restoration from the Cohen Film Collection.

In “Hester Street,” the young Kane plays a Jewish immigrant who arrives in New York to find her husband (Steven Keats) already happily assimilated into American life. She has...

Jack Hazan and David Mingay’s Rude Boy, starring Ray Gange with The Clash is a 59th New York Film Festival Revival highlight Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Film at Lincoln Center has announced the Revivals of the 59th New York Film Festival will include highlights Michael Powell’s Bluebeard’s Castle; Ed Lachman’s Songs For Drella; Lynne Ramsay’s Ratcatcher; Christopher Petit’s Radio On; Sedat Pakay’s James Baldwin: From Another Place; Mira Nair’s Mississippi Masala; Joan Micklin Silver’s Hester Street; Márta Mészáros’ Adoption, and Jack Hazan and David Mingay’s Rude Boy.

59th New York Film Festival Revivals

The other films in the program are John Carpenter’s Assault On Precinct 13; Sarah Maldoror’s Sambizanga; Melvin Van Peebles’ Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song; Christine Choy’s Who Killed Vincent Chin?; Nina Menkes’ The Bloody Child; Govindan Aravindan’s Kummatty; Miklós Jancsó’s The Round-Up, and...

Groundbreaking works by John Carpenter, Mira Nair, Melvin Van Peebles, Nina Menkes and Michael Powell will be featured in the Revivals lineup of the 59th New York Film Festival. These films, which range from historical dramas to pulpy crime thrillers, have been digitally remastered and restored.

Films being highlighted this year include a 4K restoration of Carpenter’s “Assault on Precinct 13,” Powell’s “Bluebird’s Ghost,” Menkes’s “The Bloody Child,” Nair’s “Mississippi Masala” and Van Peebles’s “Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song.”

“One of the biggest satisfactions of programming Revivals within this festival is looking back at cinematic treasures of the past and seeing their continuity and relevance with today’s cinema,” said Florence Almozini, Flc Senior Programmer at Large. “We think this selection is both a celebration and a thought-provoking adventure, and we hope audiences will enjoy exploring it, whether they are seeing these films for the first or 20th time.

A look at all the stars in movies, TV, music, sports and media we’ve lost this year

Mike Fenton

The “E.T.” and “Back to the Future” casting director died Jan. 1. He was 85 years old.

Joan Micklin Silver

The director known for acclaimed films “Hester Street” and “Crossing Delancey” died Jan. 1 due to vascular dementia. She was 85.

Gerry Marsden

Gerry Marsden, lead signer of the British pop band Gerry and the Pacemakers, died Jan. 3 after an infection of the heart. He was 78.

Kerry Vincent

“Food Network Challenge” judge and cake designing expert Kerry Vincent passed away Jan. 4. She was 75 years old.

Tanya Roberts

Former Bond Girl and star of “A View to Kill” and “That 70s Show” Tanya Roberts was confirmed dead Jan. 5 after initial misleading reports that she had passed away, then was still alive. Roberts died of a urinary tract infection that spread to other organs, and she was 65 years old.

Exclusive: Veteran indie executive and filmmaker Jeff Lipsky is hooking up with Kino Lorber to launch The Jeff Lipsky Collection on growing streaming service Kino Now. The collection, which becomes available on March 5, will include five out of seven of Lipsky’s directing efforts dating from 2006-2019. Other filmmakers who are similarly represented with Kino Now Auteur Collections include Jean-Luc Godard, Lina Wertmüller, Derek Jarman, István Szabó and F.W. Murnau.

On the Lipsky roster are Flannel Pajamas (2006), a relationship story co-starring Julianne Nicholson and Justin Kirk; family drama Twelve Thirty (2011), starring Jonathan Groff; surreal comedy Molly’s Theory Of Relativity (2013) with Sophia Takal and Lawrence Michael Levine; character study Mad Women (2015), co-starring Reed Birney and Jamie Harrold; and Holocaust-themed family drama The Last (2019), starring Rebecca Schull. Lipsky hopes to add his first film, 1997’s The End, to the collection as soon as its restoration is complete.

Says Lipsky, “Being inducted...

Film-maker best known for the 1988 romantic comedy Crossing Delancey

A sensitivity to cultural differences, a playful looseness with actors, and a nose for the churn and thrust of interpersonal relationships were among the characteristics of the film-maker Joan Micklin Silver, who has died aged 85 of vascular dementia. She was 40 when she made her debut with Hester Street (1975), the story of a young Russian-Jewish woman arriving in late-19th-century New York only to struggle to match her husband’s aplomb in adapting to their adopted culture.

Shot in black and white and scripted largely in Yiddish with subtitles, the film was self-distributed by her husband, Raphael D Silver, known as Ray, who worked in real estate. He volunteered to produce it after being appalled by the sexist responses his wife received; one studio executive had told her that “women directors are just one more problem we don’t need”. The picture attracted rapturous reviews,...

The late film-maker Joan Micklin Silver exploded the cliches of modern romances. If only others would do the same

The director Joan Micklin Silver, who died last week, was – to use the kind of cliche she abhorred – a pioneer. She was a female director at a time when studio executives were more than comfortable with being openly sexist, telling Silver: “Women directors are one more problem we don’t need.”

She made distinctly Jewish movies, as opposed to the kind of Jewish-lite movies that were – and are still – Hollywood’s more usual style. Her two greatest films, Hester Street (1975), about a Jewish immigrant couple (Steven Keats and Carol Kane) on the Lower East Side in the 1890s, and the peerless 1988 romcom Crossing Delancey, about a modern young woman (Amy Irving) who is reluctantly fixed up with a pickle seller (Peter Riegert), are to When Harry Met Sally what the Netflix...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSAbove: Joan Micklin Silver on the set of Chilly Scenes of Winter (1979). Trailblazing filmmaker Joan Micklin Silver, best known for films Hester Street (1975) and Crossing Delancey (1988), has died. In an interview with Film Comment in 2017, Silver described the will she possessed as a woman filmmaker who wished to spotlight stories about female relationships and women's labor: "I didn’t want to feel like the woman director. I wanted to feel like one of many women directors."The 71st edition of the Berlin Film Festival will be replacing this year's physical event with a virtual European Film Market in March, and a "mini-festival with a series of onsite world premieres" in June.The International Film Festival Rotterdam has also announced the lineup for this year's hybrid multi-part 50th edition, to be presented between February 1-...

by Nathaniel R

A appreciative goodbye to the writer/director Joan Micklin Silver who died on New Years Eve at 85 years of age of vascular dementia. Long before elevating female directors was a thing for the media or the industry, she was out there doing her thing. Imagine the lift for female directors in the 20th century to get not one but several films made with little media attention or social justice support. The NY Times has a fine overview of the type of obstacles she faced.

Silver's directorial debut came in the 1970s with the Jewish drama Hester Street which earned a well deserved Best Actress nomination for Carol Kane and a WGA nomination for Micklin herself for Comedy writing -- though what an odd classification that was for the immigrant drama...

One of the few women film-makers working in Hollywood in the 1970 and 80s was best known for her Jewish-themed films set in New York’s Lower East Side

Joan Micklin Silver, the American film-maker best known for the Jewish-inflected romcom Crossing Delancey and the largely Yiddish-language immigrant romance Hester Street, has died aged 85. The New York Times reported that Silver’s daughter Claudia said the cause of death was vascular dementia.

Silver was both one of the few female directors operating in US cinema in the 1970s, as well as one of the few film-makers that tackled specifically Jewish material – still a rarity in a Hollywood that had traditionally been dominated by Jewish figures in production and studio roles.

Joan Micklin Silver, a film director who broke several barriers for female filmmakers, died Thursday at her Manhattan home. She was 85 and her death was attributed to vascular dementia by her daughter.

Silver’s 1975 film Hester Street, the story of an immigrant Jewish couple on the Lower East Side of Manhattan set in the 1890s, was turned down by various studios as “too ethnic.” Silver also faced discrimination as a female film director. So backed by family members, she made the movie on a low budget in 34 days. The black and white film was in Yiddish with English subtitles.

Ms. Silver’s husband, Raphael D. Silver, was a tireless supporter. A commercial real estate developer, he financed the film and even worked to get it distribution. The film went on to earn $5 million after its October 1975 debut, a massive increase from its $370,000 budget. Actress Carol Kane was nominated for a Best Actress Academy Award.

Joan Micklin Silver, the trailblazing director behind “Hester Street” and “Crossing Delancey,” died on Thursday in Manhattan due to vascular dementia, her daughter Claudia Silver told the New York Times. She was 85.

Silver was outspoken about her experiences confronting sexism, misogyny and anti-Semitism within the entertainment industry.

“I came of age for film at a time when sexism was pretty strong. And although I could get work as a writer, I couldn’t get work as a director at all. And I had the experience of watching young men who had made shorts as I had, prize-winning shorts as I had, moving on to directing films and I couldn’t do it,” Silver said in a 2005 interview with the Directors Guild of America.

In 1975, she wrote and directed the indie film “Hester Street,” a low-budget production based on Abraham Cahan’s novella “Yekl” about a young Jewish couple who emigrated...

Joan Micklin Silver, who forged her own way as a female director in the 1970s and ’80s and helmed seven features including “Crossing Delancey” and “Hester Street,” died Thursday in Manhattan. She was 85.

Her daughter, Claudia Silver, told the New York Times the cause was vascular dementia.

The 1975 independent film “Hester Street” was the story of a Jewish immigrant couple in the 1890s. The low-budget black and white film, in Yiddish with English subtitles, proved a hard sell to studios, and was eventually financed by her husband, real estate developer Raphael D. Silver. It won rave reviews and earned $5 million at the box office, an impressive amount at the time. The 21-year old Carol Kane was nominated for a best actress Oscar for her role as the wife, Gitl.

The 1988 romantic comedy “Crossing Delancey” was also set in Manhattan’s Lower East Side Jewish community. Starring Amy Irving, Sylvia Miles and Peter Riegert,...

Joan Micklin Silver, the director of films like “Crossing Delancy,” “Hester Street,” and “Between the Lines” died on Thursday at the age of 85, The New York Times reports. Her daughter, Claudia Silver, told the paper that the cause of death was vascular dementia. In addition to Claudia, Silver’s survivors include two other daughters, Dina and Marisa Silver; a sister, Renee; and five grandchildren. Her long-time husband, Raphael D. Silver, died at age 83 in 2013 after a skiing accident in Park City, Utah.

An indie pioneer who first got her start writing a series of educational films for companies like Encyclopedia Britannica and the Learning Corporation of America in the 1970s, Silver was long aware of the barriers that would likely prevent her from entering into the male-dominated filmmaking milieu.

And yet the Omaha native soon made her own opportunities, including writing and directing her first film, the low-budget drama 1975 “Hester Street.

Joan Micklin Silver, the pioneering independent female director behind Hester Street and Crossing Delancey, among many other titles, who fought to bring Jewish stories to the silver screen, has died. She was 85.

Silver died on Thursday at her home in Manhattan of vascular dementia, Silver’s daughter, Claudia, told The New York Times.

Born and raised in Omaha, Nebraska to Russian Jewish parents, Silver left home to attend Sarah Lawrence College in New York. Not long after her graduation in 1956, Silver married the son of a Cleveland-based Zionist rabbi, Raphael D. Silver, and the couple settled in Cleveland, where Silver taught ...

Joan Micklin Silver, the pioneering independent female director behind Hester Street and Crossing Delancey, among many other titles, who fought to bring Jewish stories to the silver screen, has died. She was 85.

Silver died on Thursday at her home in Manhattan of vascular dementia, Silver’s daughter, Claudia, told The New York Times.

Born and raised in Omaha, Nebraska to Russian Jewish parents, Silver left home to attend Sarah Lawrence College in New York. Not long after her graduation in 1956, Silver married the son of a Cleveland-based Zionist rabbi, Raphael D. Silver, and the couple settled in Cleveland, where Silver taught ...

Exclusive: The Sarah-Jane Stratford novel Radio Girls has been optioned by @nyindieguy productions’ Ira Deutchman. The book is a historical novel set in 1920’s London which combines actual events and characters with a fictional mystery at its center. It is based on the real-life character of Hilda Matheson, an MI5 agent during WWI who became an influential producer in the early days of BBC Radio. The story is told through the eyes of a young Canadian woman, who falls into a job at the BBC where she gets caught up in the conflict between Matheson and her more conservative male superior. Along the way she unearths a conspiratorial plot with enormous consequences and potential danger to herself, the institution she works for and the whole of the European continent. The book was published in the UK, North America and Germany in 2016.

Deutchman, the former Fine Line Features chief who produces and teaches at Columbia U,...

The Covid-19 crisis has devastated cinema attendance. Several major cinema chains have closed around the world. In the face of adversity, this year’s 12th edition of the Lumière Festival in France’s Lyon, which runs Oct. 10-18, aims to fly the flag of cinema even more forcefully than ever, through its on site mix of career tributes, restored classics, world premieres of new films and a classic film market.

Veteran French filmmaker Bertrand Tavernier (“My Journey through French Cinema”) has played a key role in organizing this year’s line-up, including the tribute to the classic French screenwriter Michel Audiard, who would have turned 100 this year, the award of the Lumière Award to Belgian directing duo, the Dardenne brothers, tributes to Oliver Stone and Viggo Mortensen, and a career tribute to French actress Sabine Azéma, who starred in two films by Tavernier. The Festival also pays homage to American...

Silver films star Jeff Goldblum, Jerry Stiller, Mark Ruffalo.

Cohen Media Group has added five titles to its Cannes virtual market slate including the market world premiere of documentary Breaking Bread.

Beth Elise Hawk directed the profile of Dr. Nof Atamna-Ismaeel, the first Muslim Arab to win Israel’s Master Chef who uses the platform to build cultural bridges and invites Arab and Jewish chefs to a cooking event in Haifa, Israel.

Cohen Media Group acquired Us rights to the film before the market and plans a theatrical release this year. On Monday it emerged that Cohen and wholly-owned Curzon...