First look notwithstanding, details have been few and far between on Richard Linklater’s Nouvelle Vague, largely understood to concern the production of Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless, making notable a new set report from Les Inrockuptibles. It should’ve been obvious from the jump that America’s premier hangout filmmaker would resurrect cinema’s most-influential group as, well, a group, with Linklater describing his film as (in a somewhat contradictory manner) “the story of a personal revolution in cinema led by one man, and all the people around him,” with the implication of actors playing Jacques Rivette, Éric Rohmer, Jacques Demy, Agnès Varda, Alain Resnais, and Jean Cocteau.
Fittingly, Nouvelle Vague will not start with Zoey Deutch’s Jean Seberg (admittedly odd combination of words) filming on the Champs-Élysées, but at least stretches back to the 1959 Cannes Film Festival, where, upon The 400 Blows‘ triumphant debut, Godard “succeeded in convincing producer...
Fittingly, Nouvelle Vague will not start with Zoey Deutch’s Jean Seberg (admittedly odd combination of words) filming on the Champs-Élysées, but at least stretches back to the 1959 Cannes Film Festival, where, upon The 400 Blows‘ triumphant debut, Godard “succeeded in convincing producer...
- 5/14/2024
- by Leonard Pearce
- The Film Stage
Running April 4-7, the Iff Panama brings to this year’s edition a rich mix of standout director driven titles from Europe, the Spanish-speaking world and beyond, spangled by highlights from Central America, including Panama:
“Bila Burba,” (Duiren Wagua, Panama)
Documentary. Wagua’s debut feature. The Gunadule nation’s ties with the Panamanian government were fraught with territorial and cultural disputes. In 1925, leaders Simral Colman and Nele Kantule, inspired by their warrior ancestors, joined forces to unite their communities in the ‘Dule Revolution’ against police brutality. Today, their descendants honor this legacy through street theater, transforming community streets into stages to commemorate their ancestors’ struggle.
Bila Burba
“Brown,” (Ricardo Aguilar, Panama)
Penned by Aguilar’s regular collaborator, Manolito Rodríguez, the story centers on Teófilo Alfonso, also known as “Panamá Al” Brown, the first Latin American World Boxing Champion. After a fixed fight costs him his title, he retires to Paris.
“Bila Burba,” (Duiren Wagua, Panama)
Documentary. Wagua’s debut feature. The Gunadule nation’s ties with the Panamanian government were fraught with territorial and cultural disputes. In 1925, leaders Simral Colman and Nele Kantule, inspired by their warrior ancestors, joined forces to unite their communities in the ‘Dule Revolution’ against police brutality. Today, their descendants honor this legacy through street theater, transforming community streets into stages to commemorate their ancestors’ struggle.
Bila Burba
“Brown,” (Ricardo Aguilar, Panama)
Penned by Aguilar’s regular collaborator, Manolito Rodríguez, the story centers on Teófilo Alfonso, also known as “Panamá Al” Brown, the first Latin American World Boxing Champion. After a fixed fight costs him his title, he retires to Paris.
- 4/3/2024
- by Anna Marie de la Fuente
- Variety Film + TV
Long-time friends Tilda Swinton and Pedro Almodóvar are reuniting for the Oscar-winning director’s first English-language feature, “The Room Next Door.”
It’s hard to believe the Scottish high priestess of playing women unmoored from the people and places around her had never collaborated with the Spanish filmmaker before his proper English-language debut, “The Human Voice.” In that sharp shock of a 30-minute film, based on a Jean Cocteau play, Swinton starred as a woman going through a breakup over the telephone, surrounded by expressive Almodóvarian set design on a soundstage, and eventually a fire.
In “The Room Next Door,” also being released by Almodóvar’s perennial North American distributor Sony Pictures Classics, she’s a woman named Martha grappling with a strained relationship with her mother, and helped by a friend named Ingrid.
Swinton was embargoed from saying too much about the film, now in pre-production and shooting in Madrid next week,...
It’s hard to believe the Scottish high priestess of playing women unmoored from the people and places around her had never collaborated with the Spanish filmmaker before his proper English-language debut, “The Human Voice.” In that sharp shock of a 30-minute film, based on a Jean Cocteau play, Swinton starred as a woman going through a breakup over the telephone, surrounded by expressive Almodóvarian set design on a soundstage, and eventually a fire.
In “The Room Next Door,” also being released by Almodóvar’s perennial North American distributor Sony Pictures Classics, she’s a woman named Martha grappling with a strained relationship with her mother, and helped by a friend named Ingrid.
Swinton was embargoed from saying too much about the film, now in pre-production and shooting in Madrid next week,...
- 2/28/2024
- by Ryan Lattanzio
- Indiewire
Grief is a concept that everyone with a heart can relate to, but it’s not always something that everyone with a brain can deal with. Riffing on Jean Cocteau’s 1950 classic Orphée and giving it a very modern makeover, French writer-director Jérémy Clapin explores that very paradox with Meanwhile on Earth, a strange, poetic, and endearingly surreal meditation on the counterintuitive ways in which we react when confronted with loss.
In a very literal way, Clapin has been here before, with his acclaimed and surprisingly poignant 2019 animated film I Lost My Body, in which the disembodied hand of a pizza delivery boy goes on a journey to find the rest of itself. This much more cryptic follow-up pushes the notion a whole lot further, and whether it works or not will be in the eye of the beholder.
The loss this time is felt by Elsa (Megan Northam), who...
In a very literal way, Clapin has been here before, with his acclaimed and surprisingly poignant 2019 animated film I Lost My Body, in which the disembodied hand of a pizza delivery boy goes on a journey to find the rest of itself. This much more cryptic follow-up pushes the notion a whole lot further, and whether it works or not will be in the eye of the beholder.
The loss this time is felt by Elsa (Megan Northam), who...
- 2/17/2024
- by Damon Wise
- Deadline Film + TV
Swimming Home is an adaptation of Deborah Levy’s 2011 novel, written and directed by debut UK flmmaker Justin Anderson.
The UK-Dutch co-production premiered in the Tiger competition of this year’s International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR).
The film centres around a war reporter played by Mackenzie Davis, on a family holiday with her husband (Christopher Abbott), a poet, and their teenage daughter. Returning home to their villa with a friend (Nadine Labaki) they find a naked stranger, Kitti (Ariane Labed) floating in the pool. Invited to stay, Kitti’s presence comes to emphasise the tensions within the family.
Anderson studied...
The UK-Dutch co-production premiered in the Tiger competition of this year’s International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR).
The film centres around a war reporter played by Mackenzie Davis, on a family holiday with her husband (Christopher Abbott), a poet, and their teenage daughter. Returning home to their villa with a friend (Nadine Labaki) they find a naked stranger, Kitti (Ariane Labed) floating in the pool. Invited to stay, Kitti’s presence comes to emphasise the tensions within the family.
Anderson studied...
- 2/2/2024
- ScreenDaily
Swimming Home is an adaptation of Deborah Levy’s 2011 novel, written and directed by debut UK flmmaker Justin Anderson.
The UK-Dutch co-production premiered in the Tiger competition of this year’s International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR).
The film centres around a war reporter played by Mackenzie Davis, on a family holiday with her husband (Christopher Abbott), a poet, and their teenage daughter. Returning home to their villa with a friend (Nadine Labaki) they find a naked stranger, Kitti (Ariane Labed) floating in the pool. Invited to stay, Kitti’s presence comes to emphasise the tensions within the family.
Anderson studied...
The UK-Dutch co-production premiered in the Tiger competition of this year’s International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR).
The film centres around a war reporter played by Mackenzie Davis, on a family holiday with her husband (Christopher Abbott), a poet, and their teenage daughter. Returning home to their villa with a friend (Nadine Labaki) they find a naked stranger, Kitti (Ariane Labed) floating in the pool. Invited to stay, Kitti’s presence comes to emphasise the tensions within the family.
Anderson studied...
- 2/2/2024
- ScreenDaily
Did Beauty kill the Beast? Or was it the other way around? Or maybe they lived happily ever after? Writer-director Caroline Lindy plays with classical expectations in her enjoyable debut feature Your Monster. Actress Laura Franco (Melissa Barrera) is just out of surgery when the film starts. We quickly learn she’s survived some unnamed cancer and, in the tough year of treatments, her theater-director boyfriend of five years Jacob (Edmund Donovan) broke up with her. To make matters worse, he also moved forward with producing a Broadway musical that they developed together, one with a lead role he’d promised to Laura.
Her only friend is fellow actress Mazie, played well by Kayla Foster, who lifts up a thinly written supporting character. Mazie’s unreliability leaves Laura alone in her transient mother’s New York City apartment, crying and eating pies. Until, that is, an upstairs neighbor reveals himself.
Her only friend is fellow actress Mazie, played well by Kayla Foster, who lifts up a thinly written supporting character. Mazie’s unreliability leaves Laura alone in her transient mother’s New York City apartment, crying and eating pies. Until, that is, an upstairs neighbor reveals himself.
- 1/20/2024
- by Dan Mecca
- The Film Stage
Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For regular updates, sign up for our weekly email newsletter and follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSBreak no.1 & Break no.2..The lineups for select sections of the 2024 editions of the Berlinale and International Film Festival Rotterdam have been unveiled, with films from Panorama, Forum, Forum Expanded, Generation, and Berlinale Special announced for the former, and the Tiger and Big Screen competitions at the latter. In Berlin, so far, we are excited by the prospect of new films by Jane Schoenbrun (We’re All Going to the World’s Fair) and Jérémy Clapin (I Lost My Body), whereas in Rotterdam, we have our eye on new work by Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich and Lei Lei. As the year comes to a close, the Best of 2023 lists keep coming. Sight & Sound shared the seventh edition of their always-interesting poll of the best video essays of the year,...
- 12/20/2023
- MUBI
Writer, director, and producer Ridley Scott has been making movies for decades, but one of his earliest features was also apparently one of his most difficult. The man behind "Napoleon" (read our review!) is no stranger to directing historical epics, real-world dramas, and even existential science-fiction, but in an interview with Wired in 2007, he revealed that the most difficult film to create was his 1982 science fiction classic, "Blade Runner." Loosely based on the 1968 Phillip K. Dick novel "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?," "Blade Runner" is a noirish sci-fi starring Harrison Ford as Rick Deckard, who hunts down renegade android "replicants" in his job as a blade runner. In the course of hunting down a handful of such replicants that escaped from an off-world labor camp, he starts to question the very nature of humanity. It's heady, moody stuff, but it's also a deeply beloved film that inspired both a sequel and an animated series.
- 12/10/2023
- by Danielle Ryan
- Slash Film
NYC Weekend Watch: World Cinema Project, Peeping Tom, The Long Day Closes, the Before Trilogy & More
NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.
Anthology Film Archives
The films of Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Project are screening, while a Jean Cocteau program runs in Essential Cinema.
Film Forum
Michael Powell’s career-killing masterwork Peeping Tom plays in a long-overdue restoration, while Glauber Rocha’s Black God, White Devil continues; “Hitchcock’s ’50s” runs through arguably the director’s greatest decade; Kirikou and the Sorceress plays this Sunday.
Museum of the Moving Image
Reverse Shot celebrates its 20th anniversary with a months-long programming run, continuing this weekend with the Before trilogy on 35mm and Feast of the Epiphany; prints of They Live and Holiday show this weekend.
Roxy Cinema
The Josh Safdie-presented The Gods of Times Square plays on Sunday, while The Long Day Closes and Dogtooth show on 35mm; “City Dudes” returns on Saturday.
IFC Center
Distant Voices, Still Lives continues its run while Ocean’s Twelve,...
Anthology Film Archives
The films of Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Project are screening, while a Jean Cocteau program runs in Essential Cinema.
Film Forum
Michael Powell’s career-killing masterwork Peeping Tom plays in a long-overdue restoration, while Glauber Rocha’s Black God, White Devil continues; “Hitchcock’s ’50s” runs through arguably the director’s greatest decade; Kirikou and the Sorceress plays this Sunday.
Museum of the Moving Image
Reverse Shot celebrates its 20th anniversary with a months-long programming run, continuing this weekend with the Before trilogy on 35mm and Feast of the Epiphany; prints of They Live and Holiday show this weekend.
Roxy Cinema
The Josh Safdie-presented The Gods of Times Square plays on Sunday, while The Long Day Closes and Dogtooth show on 35mm; “City Dudes” returns on Saturday.
IFC Center
Distant Voices, Still Lives continues its run while Ocean’s Twelve,...
- 11/24/2023
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
November 1st is a tough day for horror hounds. The decorations are still up, the air remains crisp, but the spirit has seemingly moved on, perhaps vanquished by the sun. Alamo Drafthouse says to hell with all of that and has announced two month’s worth of genre joy that’ll take you from Dia de los Muertos to Christmas Eve with minimal whiplash.
Terror Tuesday is a weekly slash-and-thrash through the world of horror, and they’ve booked a number of holiday-tinged forever classics mixed in with new canon-busting entries, many of which are screening from new, sparkling scans. Highlights include Lake Mungo, Tales from the Hood, The Changeling, and a pre-Thanksgiving feast with the Sawyers.
Weird Wednesday is similarly a weekly exploration of exploitation, pop oddities, and underloved gems. (Think of it as channel-surfing a transmission from a better dimension). And like Terror Tuesday, they’ve loaded it...
Terror Tuesday is a weekly slash-and-thrash through the world of horror, and they’ve booked a number of holiday-tinged forever classics mixed in with new canon-busting entries, many of which are screening from new, sparkling scans. Highlights include Lake Mungo, Tales from the Hood, The Changeling, and a pre-Thanksgiving feast with the Sawyers.
Weird Wednesday is similarly a weekly exploration of exploitation, pop oddities, and underloved gems. (Think of it as channel-surfing a transmission from a better dimension). And like Terror Tuesday, they’ve loaded it...
- 11/1/2023
- by Michael Roffman
- bloody-disgusting.com
Rock Brynner, who escaped the shadow of his iconic actor father Yul Brynner to launch a multifaceted career, died Oct. 13 in Salisbury, Connecticut. He was 76 and was in hospice battling complications of multiple myeloma, according to family friend Maria Cuomo Cole.
Like many children of major celebrities, Rock Brynner tried to carve his own path. That included time spent as a road manager for The Band, bodyguard for Muhammad Ali, farmer, pilot, street performer, novelist, and professor of constitutional history at several universities.
Rock Brynner attended Yale, Trinity College Dublin, and Columbia, where he received a doctorate in American history in 1993 before teaching for more than a decade at Marist College, in Poughkeepsie, N.Y.
His life was filled with intriguing stints in various roles. He wrote a one-man play based on French playwright Jean Cocteau’s addiction memoir, “Opium,” which he performed briefly on Broadway in 1970. Cocteau was Brynner’s godfather.
Like many children of major celebrities, Rock Brynner tried to carve his own path. That included time spent as a road manager for The Band, bodyguard for Muhammad Ali, farmer, pilot, street performer, novelist, and professor of constitutional history at several universities.
Rock Brynner attended Yale, Trinity College Dublin, and Columbia, where he received a doctorate in American history in 1993 before teaching for more than a decade at Marist College, in Poughkeepsie, N.Y.
His life was filled with intriguing stints in various roles. He wrote a one-man play based on French playwright Jean Cocteau’s addiction memoir, “Opium,” which he performed briefly on Broadway in 1970. Cocteau was Brynner’s godfather.
- 10/25/2023
- by Bruce Haring
- Deadline Film + TV
Mubi has unveiled their November 2023 lineup, featuring notable new releases such as Ashley McKenzie’s Queens of the Qing Dynasty and Alain Gomis’ Thelonious Monk documentary Rewind & Play. Also in the lineup is three stellar earlier films from Christian Petzold––Yella, Jerichow, and The State I Am In––along with John Cassavetes’ Husbands and Gloria, a Hayao Miyazaki short, and a retrospective dedicated to Argentinian-born, French-educated filmmaker and theorist Nelly Kaplan.
Check out the lineup below and get 30 days free here.
November 1
A Very Curious Girl, directed by Nelly Kaplan | A Mischievous Rebellion: Films by Nelly Kaplan
The Pleasure of Love, directed by Nelly Kaplan | A Mischievous Rebellion: Films by Nelly Kaplan
Charles and Lucie, directed by Nelly Kaplan | A Mischievous Rebellion: Films by Nelly Kaplan
Papa the Little Boats, directed by Nelly Kaplan | A Mischievous Rebellion: Films by Nelly Kaplan
Yella, directed by Christian Petzold | Phantoms Among Us: The Films of Christian Petzold
Jerichow,...
Check out the lineup below and get 30 days free here.
November 1
A Very Curious Girl, directed by Nelly Kaplan | A Mischievous Rebellion: Films by Nelly Kaplan
The Pleasure of Love, directed by Nelly Kaplan | A Mischievous Rebellion: Films by Nelly Kaplan
Charles and Lucie, directed by Nelly Kaplan | A Mischievous Rebellion: Films by Nelly Kaplan
Papa the Little Boats, directed by Nelly Kaplan | A Mischievous Rebellion: Films by Nelly Kaplan
Yella, directed by Christian Petzold | Phantoms Among Us: The Films of Christian Petzold
Jerichow,...
- 10/25/2023
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSLa Práctica.The New York Film Festival has announced its Main Slate. Alongside a good showing of Cannes prizewinners, the festival will present new films from Radu Jude, Yorgos Lanthimos, Andrew Haigh, Kleber Mendonça Filho, Hong Sang-soo (x2 this year), Raven Jackson, Martín Rejtman, and the feature debut from playwright Annie Baker.In an interview with Indiewire, Ira Sachs shared that he and Ben Whishaw are preparing a new film about the photographer Peter Hujar, titled Peter Hujar’s Day (and presumably inspired by Linda Rosenkrantz’s book of the same name).Recommended VIEWINGIn memory of William Friedkin, who died this week at the age of 87, revisit Christopher Small and James Corning’s video essay about his films’ deftly constructed endings. “Over the course of Friedkin's films,” they write in their introduction, “our perspective...
- 8/9/2023
- MUBI
Part of the reason why Fleetwood Mac broke up was because many of the band were romantically involved, and none of those relationships worked out. After Stevie Nicks split with longtime partner Lindsey Buckingham, she was involved in a brief affair with drummer Mick Fleetwood. Their relationship only lasted a few years, but it did lead to a few new songs from Nicks. Here are three songs Nicks wrote about Fleetwood.
Stevie Nicks expressed regret toward her affair with Mick Fleetwood in ‘Storms’
Nicks and Fleetwood started their affair in 1977 while on the Rumours tour in Australia. At the time, both were in relationships. Fleetwood was married to Jenny Boyd, sister of Pattied Boyd, and Nicks was dating the Eagles’ Don Henley. Fleetwood and Boyd got divorced in 1978 after he started his affair with Nicks.
Shortly after the “Landslide” singer ended her affair with Fleetwood, she wrote “Storms”, which appeared on Fleetwood Mac’s 1979 album,...
Stevie Nicks expressed regret toward her affair with Mick Fleetwood in ‘Storms’
Nicks and Fleetwood started their affair in 1977 while on the Rumours tour in Australia. At the time, both were in relationships. Fleetwood was married to Jenny Boyd, sister of Pattied Boyd, and Nicks was dating the Eagles’ Don Henley. Fleetwood and Boyd got divorced in 1978 after he started his affair with Nicks.
Shortly after the “Landslide” singer ended her affair with Fleetwood, she wrote “Storms”, which appeared on Fleetwood Mac’s 1979 album,...
- 6/29/2023
- by Ross Tanenbaum
- Showbiz Cheat Sheet
When Stevie Nicks and Mick Fleetwood met, they were both in long-term relationships. They eventually began a relationship, but they didn’t wait until they were single. As a result, the affair was messy and caused a good deal of drama. Nicks wrote several songs about the relationship. In one, she included a line telling Fleetwood to pull himself together.
Stevie Nicks wrote the song ‘Sara’ about her relationship with Mick Fleetwood
Fans have interpreted Nicks’ 1979 song “Sara” as being about a number of people. Some wonder if it’s about her friend, Sara, who began a relationship with Fleetwood. Others wonder if she wrote it about Don Henley. In 2009, Nicks cleared things up and revealed the song was about her relationship with Fleetwood.
“It’s not about Mick’s Fleetwood’s ex-wife, who was also one of my best friends, even though everybody thinks it is,” she told Entertainment Weekly.
Stevie Nicks wrote the song ‘Sara’ about her relationship with Mick Fleetwood
Fans have interpreted Nicks’ 1979 song “Sara” as being about a number of people. Some wonder if it’s about her friend, Sara, who began a relationship with Fleetwood. Others wonder if she wrote it about Don Henley. In 2009, Nicks cleared things up and revealed the song was about her relationship with Fleetwood.
“It’s not about Mick’s Fleetwood’s ex-wife, who was also one of my best friends, even though everybody thinks it is,” she told Entertainment Weekly.
- 6/15/2023
- by Emma McKee
- Showbiz Cheat Sheet
Seven years ago this month, in the aftermath of the attack on Orlando’s Pulse nightclub, one call to action rose above the din: “Say their names.” New Yorkers chanted it steps from the Stonewall Inn. The mother of a child gunned down at Sandy Hook penned it in an open letter. The Orlando Sentinel printed the names. Anderson Cooper recited them. A gunman, 29-year-old Omar Mateen, murdered 49 people and wounded 53 others in the wee hours of that awful Sunday, massacring LGBTQ people of color and their allies in the middle of Pride Month, and the commemoration of the dead demanded knowing who they were. “These,” as MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell urged his viewers, “are the names to remember.”
The titles on our list of the best LGBTQ movies of all time are a globe-spanning, multigenerational testament to our existence in a world where our erasure is no abstraction. From...
The titles on our list of the best LGBTQ movies of all time are a globe-spanning, multigenerational testament to our existence in a world where our erasure is no abstraction. From...
- 6/12/2023
- by Slant Staff
- Slant Magazine
Kenneth Anger, the avant-garde filmmaker whose surrealistic queer compositions Fireworks and Scorpio Rising made him a pioneer of underground cinema and a target for censorship, has died. He was 96.
Anger’s death was announced Wednesday by the Sprüeth Magers art gallery. “Kenneth was a trailblazer,” it said in a statement. “His cinematic genius and influence will live on and continue to transform all those who encounter his films, words and vision.”
No details of his death were immediately available.
In 1959, Anger authored the smutty exploitative book Hollywood Babylon — banned after its U.S release in 1965 — and followed it up with a sequel in 1984.
Anger’s work spanned the years 1941 to 2013 yet totaled just eight hours, a kaleidoscope of symbolism, homoeroticism and the occult found in his 36 dialogue-free short films (some complete, others fragmented) by THR‘s count.
His collage Scorpio Rising (1963), a pastiche of pop songs plastered over homoerotic biker imagery,...
Anger’s death was announced Wednesday by the Sprüeth Magers art gallery. “Kenneth was a trailblazer,” it said in a statement. “His cinematic genius and influence will live on and continue to transform all those who encounter his films, words and vision.”
No details of his death were immediately available.
In 1959, Anger authored the smutty exploitative book Hollywood Babylon — banned after its U.S release in 1965 — and followed it up with a sequel in 1984.
Anger’s work spanned the years 1941 to 2013 yet totaled just eight hours, a kaleidoscope of symbolism, homoeroticism and the occult found in his 36 dialogue-free short films (some complete, others fragmented) by THR‘s count.
His collage Scorpio Rising (1963), a pastiche of pop songs plastered over homoerotic biker imagery,...
- 5/24/2023
- by Rhett Bartlett
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
“Time is all we have and every second that ticks away is one less second we’re alive,” Kenneth Anger told an interviewer from The Guardian 16 and a half years before his death this May at the age of 96. “The sands of time are going through the hourglass but it doesn’t frighten me.”
If Woody Allen’s Zelig was found rubbing elbows with the storied and famous of the ’20s and ’30s, starting in the 1950s Anger was for some decades more than a match for him. His legacy is poised between the pathbreaking cinematic auteur who made such avant-garde shorts as “Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome” (1954) and “Scorpio Rising” (1963) and the purveyor of at times fictionalized Hollywood scandal in the sensational and frequently updated “Hollywood Babylon” (1959).
He was not immune from his own brushes with dark history — the very bikers he incorporated in some of his middle-period work...
If Woody Allen’s Zelig was found rubbing elbows with the storied and famous of the ’20s and ’30s, starting in the 1950s Anger was for some decades more than a match for him. His legacy is poised between the pathbreaking cinematic auteur who made such avant-garde shorts as “Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome” (1954) and “Scorpio Rising” (1963) and the purveyor of at times fictionalized Hollywood scandal in the sensational and frequently updated “Hollywood Babylon” (1959).
He was not immune from his own brushes with dark history — the very bikers he incorporated in some of his middle-period work...
- 5/24/2023
- by Fred Schruers
- Indiewire
Every time two cowboys point their guns at one another on screen, there’s something homoerotic at play. Hollywood Westerns may be loath to admit as much, but not so Pedro Almodóvar, who casts Ethan Hawke and Pedro Pascal as lonesome cowboys reunited after 25 years in “Strange Way of Life.” Commissioned by Saint Laurent Productions (which is also premiering a Jean-Luc Godard short at Cannes), this half-baked half-hour serves as a sexy showcase for creative director Anthony Vaccarello’s latest designs, while barely delivering on the promise that an Almodóvar-made “gay cowboy” movie conjures in the imagination.
At the Cannes premiere, the Spanish director described “Strange” as his response to a question posed by “Brokeback Mountain”: What can two men do on a ranch? Silva (Pascal) gives Jake (Hawke) his answer in the final seconds of the short, and it’s sweet, though it turns out Almodóvar is misremembering Ang Lee’s 2005 Western.
At the Cannes premiere, the Spanish director described “Strange” as his response to a question posed by “Brokeback Mountain”: What can two men do on a ranch? Silva (Pascal) gives Jake (Hawke) his answer in the final seconds of the short, and it’s sweet, though it turns out Almodóvar is misremembering Ang Lee’s 2005 Western.
- 5/17/2023
- by Peter Debruge
- Variety Film + TV
Rebecca (Margaret Qualley) is here for legal counsel. But her questions for Hal Porterfield (Christopher Abbott) are getting inappropriate, and fast. She wants to know about the frequency of his masturbation, how much he drinks, if he’s capable of taking on the herculean task of running his father’s massive hotel monopoly. And Hal is getting annoyed. After all, this isn’t the script that he had written for Rebecca to perform.
Rebecca isn’t a lawyer, nor an actress. Not really. She’s a hired dominatrix in a no-contact sexual relationship with Hal, who really is set to step in as CEO of his recently passed father’s company, and who really does write extensive scripts to support his unusual sexual proclivities.
Zachary Wigon’s Sanctuary is a two-hander that sees a power play through the prism of performance, class, and sexual dynamics. As Hal prepares to be...
Rebecca isn’t a lawyer, nor an actress. Not really. She’s a hired dominatrix in a no-contact sexual relationship with Hal, who really is set to step in as CEO of his recently passed father’s company, and who really does write extensive scripts to support his unusual sexual proclivities.
Zachary Wigon’s Sanctuary is a two-hander that sees a power play through the prism of performance, class, and sexual dynamics. As Hal prepares to be...
- 5/13/2023
- by Greg Nussen
- Slant Magazine
NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.
Japan Society
One of Japan’s greatest directors, Shinji Somai, is subject of a retrospective that features many of his films in new restorations. Read our piece on Somai here.
Museum of Modern Art
A Rialto Pictures retrospective offers a smorgasbord of classic films, including The Conversation and That Obscure Object of Desire on 35mm.
Bam
A series on actor-director jobs includes Touch of Evil, Do the Right Thing, and Playtime on 35mm.
Anthology Film Archives
Three by Jean Cocteau screen in Essential Cinema, while Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One screens and a Jean Rouch retrospective begins.
Film at Lincoln Center
György Fehér’s remarkable, Béla Tarr-produced Twilight continues in a new restoration (read Z.W. Lewis on the film and its history here).
Museum of the Moving Image
Major League and a print of The Untouchables screen on Saturday.
Roxy Cinema
Schrader’s Affliction,...
Japan Society
One of Japan’s greatest directors, Shinji Somai, is subject of a retrospective that features many of his films in new restorations. Read our piece on Somai here.
Museum of Modern Art
A Rialto Pictures retrospective offers a smorgasbord of classic films, including The Conversation and That Obscure Object of Desire on 35mm.
Bam
A series on actor-director jobs includes Touch of Evil, Do the Right Thing, and Playtime on 35mm.
Anthology Film Archives
Three by Jean Cocteau screen in Essential Cinema, while Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One screens and a Jean Rouch retrospective begins.
Film at Lincoln Center
György Fehér’s remarkable, Béla Tarr-produced Twilight continues in a new restoration (read Z.W. Lewis on the film and its history here).
Museum of the Moving Image
Major League and a print of The Untouchables screen on Saturday.
Roxy Cinema
Schrader’s Affliction,...
- 4/28/2023
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
The 76th Cannes Film Festival announced this morning that its closing night film in, oh, just about five weeks will be Pixar’s latest innovative animated film, “Elemental.” The movie is directed by Peter Sohn, whose only other feature credit as director is 2015’s “The Good Dinosaur.” Sohn has been a part of Pixar, working in some capacity as an animator or story developer on most of their titles, going back to 2003. Job security at that shop!
“Elemental”’s premise is a forbidden love between anthropomorphic representations of Fire and Water in Element City. How this will make any kind of logical sense is beyond me, but have you seen how much money the “Cars” franchise has earned? I think it’s best not to worry too much about realism and, following water’s lead, go with the flow.
The voice cast is led by Leah Lewis of “The Half of It...
“Elemental”’s premise is a forbidden love between anthropomorphic representations of Fire and Water in Element City. How this will make any kind of logical sense is beyond me, but have you seen how much money the “Cars” franchise has earned? I think it’s best not to worry too much about realism and, following water’s lead, go with the flow.
The voice cast is led by Leah Lewis of “The Half of It...
- 4/19/2023
- by Jordan Hoffman
- Gold Derby
Nothing beats a good car chase in a movie. These wacky stunts are a hallmark of modern Hollywood blockbusters, but they've been around since silent films. Nowadays, car-centric flicks conjure images of "The Fast & Furious" and "Mad Max" franchises. However, action doesn't always have to be the focus.
Cars playing an integral part in developing a main character always hold more weight for me than a gonzo chase scene. We see a sense of isolation from society in movies like "Taxi Driver" and "Drive." Meanwhile, in John Carpenter's 1983 horror, "Christine," the auto becomes a ruthless death machine. The Stephen King adaptation makes for a clever metaphor about bullying, acceptance, and toxic masculinity in teens.
It would be unfair to say that a car movie can't be enjoyed without the profound social commentary of a Martin Scorsese film or the brooding touches of Nicolas Winding Refn. Sometimes, we crave high-octane...
Cars playing an integral part in developing a main character always hold more weight for me than a gonzo chase scene. We see a sense of isolation from society in movies like "Taxi Driver" and "Drive." Meanwhile, in John Carpenter's 1983 horror, "Christine," the auto becomes a ruthless death machine. The Stephen King adaptation makes for a clever metaphor about bullying, acceptance, and toxic masculinity in teens.
It would be unfair to say that a car movie can't be enjoyed without the profound social commentary of a Martin Scorsese film or the brooding touches of Nicolas Winding Refn. Sometimes, we crave high-octane...
- 4/15/2023
- by Marta Djordjevic
- Slash Film
Many artists are not appreciated till after they have long passed away or society catches up with their ideas. Dying is not a prerequisite to fame since garbage is still garbage. In the case of the singular Jean Rollin, you have a double-edged sword which in documentary Orchestrator of Storms: The Fantastique World of Jean Rollin (2022) tells well.
Jean Rollin was one of the later to become Eurocult cinema’s most misunderstood personalities. These creators imbue their personalities in their work, unlike mainstream directors. Mainstream will say they create unique stories or camera angles with the full knowledge that it all comes down to one from a studio. The Diabolique films team of Dima Ballin and Kat Ellinger who Directed, Wrote & Produced this roughly two-hour documentary has done a solid job without being academically dry.
Orchestrator of Storms (2022) features lips and interviews with key people in Rollin’s past. The...
Jean Rollin was one of the later to become Eurocult cinema’s most misunderstood personalities. These creators imbue their personalities in their work, unlike mainstream directors. Mainstream will say they create unique stories or camera angles with the full knowledge that it all comes down to one from a studio. The Diabolique films team of Dima Ballin and Kat Ellinger who Directed, Wrote & Produced this roughly two-hour documentary has done a solid job without being academically dry.
Orchestrator of Storms (2022) features lips and interviews with key people in Rollin’s past. The...
- 3/10/2023
- by Horror Asylum
- Horror Asylum
With half the decade spent in the midst of a century-defining world war and the other half spent recovering from its horrors, it's understandable that cinema in the 1940s would be a little bit on the dark side. While films explicitly about World War II dominated the early years of the 1940s, they quickly gave way to utterly unique film noir movies. Less a genre and more a series of stylistic elements, these pictures were defined by their seediness, cynicism, and focus on crime that reflected the trauma of filmmakers and audiences alike.
Still, 1940s cinema isn't all dark! The decade actually has a surprising amount of humor, with both satire and romantic comedies proving popular in Hollywood. You can almost feel films from this era negotiating between two powerful emotions: the anguish that the turbulent 1930s and 1940s brought along with them, and the joy that existed in spite of it.
Still, 1940s cinema isn't all dark! The decade actually has a surprising amount of humor, with both satire and romantic comedies proving popular in Hollywood. You can almost feel films from this era negotiating between two powerful emotions: the anguish that the turbulent 1930s and 1940s brought along with them, and the joy that existed in spite of it.
- 11/20/2022
- by Audrey Fox
- Slash Film
"A Nightmare on Elm Street" was the little movie that could, a film that became a turning point for its writer and director, Wes Craven. Inspired by a series of newspaper articles concerning a group of people complaining of having bad nightmares and then dying of mysterious causes soon afterward, the tale of dream demon Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund) menacing a group of teens led by Nancy Thompson (Heather Langenkamp) made such an enormous amount of money (as did its first few subsequent sequels) that it made distribution house New Line Cinema into "the house that Freddy built," and began a franchise that remains popular to this day.
Yet "Nightmare" wasn't only successful for its makers; it also added to the culture in numerous ways. It became a watershed moment for the horror film, providing a brand new template for unscrupulous producers and ambitious young stalwarts to follow ever since...
Yet "Nightmare" wasn't only successful for its makers; it also added to the culture in numerous ways. It became a watershed moment for the horror film, providing a brand new template for unscrupulous producers and ambitious young stalwarts to follow ever since...
- 11/7/2022
- by Bill Bria
- Slash Film
The Beauty and the Beast fable ranks as one of the most filmed fairy tales ever written. There have been so many different versions, with arguably the animated Disney version from 1991 (and its remake) being the one that’s endured the most. But, many other versions exist, including the landmark Jean Cocteau version and this week’s subject of Gone But Not Forgotten, the 1987 TV version, starring Linda Hamilton and Ron Perlman as the titular pair.
Boasting a writing staff that included none other than Game of Thrones writer George R.R. Martin, the TV version of Beauty and the Beast reimagined the fable as a contemporary fantasy show. Hamilton’s Beauty, aka Catherine, was no longer a peasant farm girl but a high-powered New York attorney. After a brutal attack, she’s nursed back to health by Ron Perlman’s Vincent, a kind of man/lion hybrid living in an underground society of outcasts.
Boasting a writing staff that included none other than Game of Thrones writer George R.R. Martin, the TV version of Beauty and the Beast reimagined the fable as a contemporary fantasy show. Hamilton’s Beauty, aka Catherine, was no longer a peasant farm girl but a high-powered New York attorney. After a brutal attack, she’s nursed back to health by Ron Perlman’s Vincent, a kind of man/lion hybrid living in an underground society of outcasts.
- 10/20/2022
- by Chris Bumbray
- JoBlo.com
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
Replacement directed yet to be announced.
A Manual For Cleaning Women will no longer be Pedro Almodóvar’s English-language feature directorial debut after the Spanish directorr withdrew, citing “a very painful decision”.
Cate Blanchett will star and produce through Dirty Films, however Almodóvar said he was not ready to tackle a project of such magnitude. No replacement director has been announced yet.
A Manual For Cleaning Women is an adaptation of Lucia Berlin’s short story collection of the same name comprising 43 tales of women in challenging jobs. Almodóvar and Berlín co-wrote the screenplay adaptation.
The feature is also being...
A Manual For Cleaning Women will no longer be Pedro Almodóvar’s English-language feature directorial debut after the Spanish directorr withdrew, citing “a very painful decision”.
Cate Blanchett will star and produce through Dirty Films, however Almodóvar said he was not ready to tackle a project of such magnitude. No replacement director has been announced yet.
A Manual For Cleaning Women is an adaptation of Lucia Berlin’s short story collection of the same name comprising 43 tales of women in challenging jobs. Almodóvar and Berlín co-wrote the screenplay adaptation.
The feature is also being...
- 9/13/2022
- by Emilio Mayorga
- ScreenDaily
Replacement directed yet to be announced.
A Manual For Cleaning Women will no longer be Pedro Almodóvar’s English-language feature directorial debut after the Spanish master withdrew, citing “a very painful decision”.
Cate Blanchett will star and produce through Dirty Films, however Almodóvar said he was not ready to tackle a project of such magnitude. No replacement director has been announced yet.
A Manual For Cleaning Women is an adaptation of Lucia Berlin’s short story collection of the same name comprising 43 tales of women in challenging jobs. Almodóvar and Berlín co-wrote the screenplay adaptation.
The feature is also being...
A Manual For Cleaning Women will no longer be Pedro Almodóvar’s English-language feature directorial debut after the Spanish master withdrew, citing “a very painful decision”.
Cate Blanchett will star and produce through Dirty Films, however Almodóvar said he was not ready to tackle a project of such magnitude. No replacement director has been announced yet.
A Manual For Cleaning Women is an adaptation of Lucia Berlin’s short story collection of the same name comprising 43 tales of women in challenging jobs. Almodóvar and Berlín co-wrote the screenplay adaptation.
The feature is also being...
- 9/13/2022
- by Emilio Mayorga
- ScreenDaily
Phone Call from a Stranger: Buscemi Conducts a Conduit of Trauma in Striking One-Woman Show
Conjuring everything from Jean Cocteau to T.S. Eliot, Steve Buscemi unites with The Messenger (2009) scribe Alessandro Camon for his first narrative feature in fifteen years, the diametrically opposed The Listener. A one-woman grandstand for Tessa Thompson (also producing), the only actor onscreen guiding multiple phone conversations through miscellaneous vestiges of desperation during a routinely numbing night shift as a helpline volunteer, it’s a hypnotic exercise predicated by moments of suggested violence, trenchant melancholy and often poetic rumination on human resilience despite the odds.
A cast of notables provide the vocal counterparts for Thompson, some immediately recognizable and others not, but Buscemi presents conversational vignettes both soothing and upsetting.…...
Conjuring everything from Jean Cocteau to T.S. Eliot, Steve Buscemi unites with The Messenger (2009) scribe Alessandro Camon for his first narrative feature in fifteen years, the diametrically opposed The Listener. A one-woman grandstand for Tessa Thompson (also producing), the only actor onscreen guiding multiple phone conversations through miscellaneous vestiges of desperation during a routinely numbing night shift as a helpline volunteer, it’s a hypnotic exercise predicated by moments of suggested violence, trenchant melancholy and often poetic rumination on human resilience despite the odds.
A cast of notables provide the vocal counterparts for Thompson, some immediately recognizable and others not, but Buscemi presents conversational vignettes both soothing and upsetting.…...
- 9/9/2022
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Alliance 4 Development, a co-development initiative for film projects from Austria, France, Germany, Italy and Switzerland hosted by Locarno Pro, has revealed 11 titles selected for its 7th edition.
The majority of the projects will be directed by women, from Giorgia Wurth’s “Allegra” about a late-life sexual awakening to Malina Mackiewicz’s “Bottom of the Ocean Electric Fish” and Mariko Minoguchi’s upcoming “Element.” The latter will address some environmental fears as a team of scientists tries to ensure that Earth’s water supply won’t suddenly disappear.
Minoguchi, who previously co-wrote the script to Tim Fehlbaum’s “The Colony,” is hoping to develop a German science fiction film that “doesn’t shy away from big emotions or images,” she stated, “that makes you think and reflect and, above all, is a moving and impressive cinematic experience.”
Big emotions will also fuel Manon Coubia’s “Songs of the Fallen Mountains,” with...
The majority of the projects will be directed by women, from Giorgia Wurth’s “Allegra” about a late-life sexual awakening to Malina Mackiewicz’s “Bottom of the Ocean Electric Fish” and Mariko Minoguchi’s upcoming “Element.” The latter will address some environmental fears as a team of scientists tries to ensure that Earth’s water supply won’t suddenly disappear.
Minoguchi, who previously co-wrote the script to Tim Fehlbaum’s “The Colony,” is hoping to develop a German science fiction film that “doesn’t shy away from big emotions or images,” she stated, “that makes you think and reflect and, above all, is a moving and impressive cinematic experience.”
Big emotions will also fuel Manon Coubia’s “Songs of the Fallen Mountains,” with...
- 8/3/2022
- by Marta Balaga
- Variety Film + TV
Gulzar in Griha Pravesh (1979).Cinema and poetry seem to be such kindred art forms that one would imagine a lot of poets to have turned to filmmaking. In reality, such instances are relatively rare. Maya Angelou directed just the one film, Down in the Delta (1998), and Ethan Coen published a book of poetry called The Drunken Driver Has the Right of Way. Kiarostami was a poet, so were Pasolini and Jean Cocteau. Indian cinema has produced a few poet-filmmakers of its own, such as Buddhadeb Dasgupta and Kidar Sharma. But probably the one filmmaker who has also been staggeringly prolific as both a poet and songwriter is Gulzar.The Western world predominantly sees Indian cinema in two extremities: either as the garish vaudevillian spectacle that everyone broadly recognizes as Bollywood, or the stark realistic storytelling by the likes of Satyajit Ray and Ritwik Ghatak. But with at least eleven major...
- 6/14/2022
- MUBI
"Films don't need to have grandiose visual production to have pertinent and strong imagery." While film is a visual medium, there's more to cinema than just pointing a camera at actors. Here's another excellent video essay to enjoy - brought to us by UK-based distributor Studiocanal. The Art of Visual Storytelling is a video essay created by "The Cinema Cartography", a collective creating videos about film and exploring various themes (we also posted their The Greatest Films You Don't Know a few months ago). This one looks at how films use visual storytelling and the different kinds of visual techniques that filmmakers are fond of utilizing. They discuss classics like Guillermo del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth, Akira Kurosawa's Ran, David Lynch's The Elephant Man, Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now, plus Michael Powell's films and Jean Cocteau's films. As always, this just make me want to watch more...
- 4/22/2022
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
Exclusive: A major new Ivo van Hove stage adaptation of Stephen King’s horror classic The Shining is in the works for a 2023 West End debut, with an A-list creative team in place and Ben Stiller in talks to play the role of the crazed, haunted dad Jack Torrance.
Rehearsals are set to begin in the fall, with London performances targeted for January 2023. An eventual move to Broadway is expected.
Sources tell Deadline that director van Hove, last seen on Broadway pre-pandemic with the reworked West Side Story, will lead the creative team, with Tony winner Simon Stephens adapting the King novel.
Deadline first reported about a planned stage adaptation in 2017, and plans for a West End...
Rehearsals are set to begin in the fall, with London performances targeted for January 2023. An eventual move to Broadway is expected.
Sources tell Deadline that director van Hove, last seen on Broadway pre-pandemic with the reworked West Side Story, will lead the creative team, with Tony winner Simon Stephens adapting the King novel.
Deadline first reported about a planned stage adaptation in 2017, and plans for a West End...
- 3/21/2022
- by Greg Evans
- Deadline Film + TV
French helmer Bertrand Mandico has achieved a cult following for his gender-bending sensorial surrealist visions, with more than 20 short films and two feature films completed to date.
His first feature, “The Wild Boys,” about five wealthy adolescent boys sent to a tropical island, all played by actresses, premiered in Venice. It won the Louis-Delluc 2018 prize for best first film and topped Cahiers du Cinéma’s 2018 list of Top 10 films.
His sophomore feature “After Blue (Dirty Paradise),” is a sci-fi western, again primarily with a female cast, including Mandico’s fetish actress Elina Löwensohn. It had its world premiere at Locarno in 2021, where it won the Fipresci prize, followed by its North American premiere in Toronto’s Midnight Madness sidebar, and U.S. premiere in the Fantastic Fest, where it won Best Film. It won the Special Jury Prize at Sitges.
The helmer is now completing post-production on his third feature,...
His first feature, “The Wild Boys,” about five wealthy adolescent boys sent to a tropical island, all played by actresses, premiered in Venice. It won the Louis-Delluc 2018 prize for best first film and topped Cahiers du Cinéma’s 2018 list of Top 10 films.
His sophomore feature “After Blue (Dirty Paradise),” is a sci-fi western, again primarily with a female cast, including Mandico’s fetish actress Elina Löwensohn. It had its world premiere at Locarno in 2021, where it won the Fipresci prize, followed by its North American premiere in Toronto’s Midnight Madness sidebar, and U.S. premiere in the Fantastic Fest, where it won Best Film. It won the Special Jury Prize at Sitges.
The helmer is now completing post-production on his third feature,...
- 1/13/2022
- by Martin Dale
- Variety Film + TV
Greenlight
Starzplay has greenlit a six-episode second season of hit travel documentary series “Men in Kilts: A Roadtrip with Sam and Graham,” featuring “Outlander” stars Sam Heughan and Graham McTavish. They will hit the road again, this time in New Zealand. Developed by Heughan and McTavish, the original series is produced by Boardwalk Pictures, in association with Sony Pictures Television.
Heughan and McTavish conceived the original idea and serve as executive producers alongside Alexander Norouzi, Andrew Fried, Dane Lillegard, Sarina Roma and Kevin Johnston who also serves as director.
The first season saw Heughan and McTavish having an adventure in Scotland.
Sales
Keshet International has completed a raft of deals on crime thriller series “Furia” to Scandinavian streamer Viaplay in 26 new territories, including Poland and the Baltics; Filmin in Spain; Cellcom tv in Israel; and Mola TV in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore; alongside the previously announced pre-sale to Sbs in Australia.
Starzplay has greenlit a six-episode second season of hit travel documentary series “Men in Kilts: A Roadtrip with Sam and Graham,” featuring “Outlander” stars Sam Heughan and Graham McTavish. They will hit the road again, this time in New Zealand. Developed by Heughan and McTavish, the original series is produced by Boardwalk Pictures, in association with Sony Pictures Television.
Heughan and McTavish conceived the original idea and serve as executive producers alongside Alexander Norouzi, Andrew Fried, Dane Lillegard, Sarina Roma and Kevin Johnston who also serves as director.
The first season saw Heughan and McTavish having an adventure in Scotland.
Sales
Keshet International has completed a raft of deals on crime thriller series “Furia” to Scandinavian streamer Viaplay in 26 new territories, including Poland and the Baltics; Filmin in Spain; Cellcom tv in Israel; and Mola TV in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore; alongside the previously announced pre-sale to Sbs in Australia.
- 11/30/2021
- by Naman Ramachandran
- Variety Film + TV
Wada Emi, the celebrated Japanese costume designer who won an Oscar for Kurosawa Akira’s “Ran” in 1985, has died.
Wada’s family told Japanese media that she died on Nov. 13, 2021, but did not disclose the cause or the place of her death.
Appreciated for her painstaking attention to detail – she hand-dyed the costumes for “Ran” – and for playing hard to get, Wada won numerous awards in addition to the Oscar and BAFTA. Other prizes included a Prime Time Emmy for her costumes in British TV show “Oedipus Rex” in 1993 and a Hong Kong Film Award for her designs on Zhang Yimou’s spectacular martial arts fantasy “Hero.”
Born Noguchi Emiko in 1937 to a wealthy family, Wada was surrounded from an early age by concert-level pianists, European artistic influence and Japanese literature.
At middle school she discovered that she liked the films of Jean Cocteau, but wanted to be a painter.
Wada’s family told Japanese media that she died on Nov. 13, 2021, but did not disclose the cause or the place of her death.
Appreciated for her painstaking attention to detail – she hand-dyed the costumes for “Ran” – and for playing hard to get, Wada won numerous awards in addition to the Oscar and BAFTA. Other prizes included a Prime Time Emmy for her costumes in British TV show “Oedipus Rex” in 1993 and a Hong Kong Film Award for her designs on Zhang Yimou’s spectacular martial arts fantasy “Hero.”
Born Noguchi Emiko in 1937 to a wealthy family, Wada was surrounded from an early age by concert-level pianists, European artistic influence and Japanese literature.
At middle school she discovered that she liked the films of Jean Cocteau, but wanted to be a painter.
- 11/22/2021
- by Patrick Frater
- Variety Film + TV
One of this year’s animated Oscar contenders could be veteran Mamoru Hosoda’s dazzling Cannes debut “Belle: The Dragon and the Freckled Princess”, inspired by the French “Beauty and the Beast” fairy tale, about rural school kids who take on alter egos in a digital universe, based on their strengths and weaknesses. “Belle” could mark the filmmaker’s second animated feature Oscar nomination after “Mirai.” The movie screens October 23 at Hollywood’s Animation Is Film festival before its later Oscar-qualifying GKids release.
Hosoda updates the 18th-century fairy tale that has spawned countless movie adaptations, from Jean Cocteau’s 1946 black-and-white French classic to the Disney animated musical and its recent live-action remake, with a near-future story that combines “Ready Player One” with “Eighth Grade.” The movie’s naturalistic setting is the filmmaker’s birthplace Kamiichi, a remote western island.
“It’s a very rural place,” Hosoda said. “It’s a...
Hosoda updates the 18th-century fairy tale that has spawned countless movie adaptations, from Jean Cocteau’s 1946 black-and-white French classic to the Disney animated musical and its recent live-action remake, with a near-future story that combines “Ready Player One” with “Eighth Grade.” The movie’s naturalistic setting is the filmmaker’s birthplace Kamiichi, a remote western island.
“It’s a very rural place,” Hosoda said. “It’s a...
- 10/23/2021
- by Anne Thompson
- Indiewire
One of this year’s animated Oscar contenders could be anime veteran Mamoru Hosoda’s dazzling Cannes debut “Belle”, inspired by the French “Beauty and the Beast” fairy tale, about rural school kids who take on alter egos in a digital universe, based on their strengths and weaknesses. “Belle” could mark the filmmaker’s second animated feature Oscar nomination after “Mirai.” The movie screens October 23 at Hollywood’s Animation Is Film festival before its later Oscar-qualifying GKids release.
Hosoda updates the 18th-century fairy tale that has spawned countless movie adaptations, from Jean Cocteau’s 1946 black-and-white French classic to the Disney animated musical and its recent live-action remake, with a near-future story that combines “Ready Player One” with “Eighth Grade.” The movie’s naturalistic setting is the filmmaker’s birthplace Kamiichi, a remote western island. “It’s a very rural place,” Hosoda said. “It’s a part of Japan that is dying away.
Hosoda updates the 18th-century fairy tale that has spawned countless movie adaptations, from Jean Cocteau’s 1946 black-and-white French classic to the Disney animated musical and its recent live-action remake, with a near-future story that combines “Ready Player One” with “Eighth Grade.” The movie’s naturalistic setting is the filmmaker’s birthplace Kamiichi, a remote western island. “It’s a very rural place,” Hosoda said. “It’s a part of Japan that is dying away.
- 10/23/2021
- by Anne Thompson
- Thompson on Hollywood
Let loose some airy English film aesthetes with a big budget, a French film studio and a theme somewhere between Marcel Proust and Jean Cocteau, and back comes this strange, slightly off-balance but extremely impressive objet d’art. Eric Portman is really good, Edana Romney not so much. English actresses Barbara Mullen and Joan Maude compensate greatly — they’re haunting, actually. For his first job of direction Terence Young gives us a flash of Christopher Lee in his first film, along with pretty Lois Maxwell. Content-wise the film has the screwiest construction … its style and obsessions are split between the two films presently rated the best ever made! Expect something different: the baroque style may prompt some viewers to reach for the ‘eject’ button.
Corridor of Mirrors
Blu-ray
1948 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 96 min. / Street Date October 19, 2021 / Available from /
Starring: Eric Portman, Edana Romney, Barbara Mullen, Hugh Sinclair, Bruce Belfrage, Alan Wheatley,...
Corridor of Mirrors
Blu-ray
1948 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 96 min. / Street Date October 19, 2021 / Available from /
Starring: Eric Portman, Edana Romney, Barbara Mullen, Hugh Sinclair, Bruce Belfrage, Alan Wheatley,...
- 10/16/2021
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Pedro Almodóvar’s Parallel Mothers had Venice Film Festival attendees on their feet in the Sala Grande this evening, giving the opening night world premiere a nine-minute standing ovation. The movie, which traces the complicated relationship of two women (Penélope Cruz and newcomer Milena Smit) who meet in a hospital room where they are going to give birth, was screened for the press this morning and has received resoundingly positive reviews.
There are political undercurrents to Parallel Mothers which add drama to the melodrama while the comedic turns of some of Almodóvar’s work are eschewed — there are the trademark candy-colored flourishes, however. In Deadline’s review of the film, Stephanie Bunbury called Parallel Mothers “profoundly and sincerely about deep love and loss” and “a triumphant choice” for the opening night of the world’s oldest film festival.
Almodóvar was last on the Lido with his adaptation of Jean Cocteau...
There are political undercurrents to Parallel Mothers which add drama to the melodrama while the comedic turns of some of Almodóvar’s work are eschewed — there are the trademark candy-colored flourishes, however. In Deadline’s review of the film, Stephanie Bunbury called Parallel Mothers “profoundly and sincerely about deep love and loss” and “a triumphant choice” for the opening night of the world’s oldest film festival.
Almodóvar was last on the Lido with his adaptation of Jean Cocteau...
- 9/1/2021
- by Nancy Tartaglione
- Deadline Film + TV
Photo: Eiza Gonzalez & María Félix María Félix was born in Sonora Mexico of the name María de los Angeles Félix Güereña on April 8th, 1914. This young girl with 15 brothers and sisters would go on to become one of the most influential figures in Latin American history the world has ever known. Her time as an actress, singer, model and fashion icon revolutionized how the media portrayed and, to an extent, accepted Latin American stars post WWII. She starred in 47 films, modeled for dozens of world-famous painters the likes of Frida Kahlo and Jean Cocteau, was a fashion model for the likes of Dior, Ysl, Chanel, and Balenciaga, and released two solo albums as a singer. Most impressively, she achieved these feats as a single mother. Related article: ‘In the Heights’ – Behind the Scenes and Full Commentary/Reactions from Cast & Crew Related article: The Hollywood Insider’s CEO Pritan Ambroase:...
- 8/13/2021
- by Tyler Sear
- Hollywood Insider - Substance & Meaningful Entertainment
The late American indie film auteur Monte Hellman was fond of a quote from Jean Cocteau that poetically summed up the fate of any real work of art: “A work of art should also be ‘an object difficult to pick up.’ It must protect itself from vulgar pawing, which tarnishes and disfigures it. It should be made of such a shape that people don’t know which way to hold it, which embarrasses and irritates the critics, incites them to be rude, but keeps it fresh. The less it’s understood, the slower it opens its petals, the later it will fade.”
Cocteau’s dictum certainly applies to Hellman’s 1971 film, “Two-Lane Blacktop.” It opened its petals 50 years ago today and still confounds not only the critics but its fans and friends, including the film’s unit publicist Beverly Walker, whose groundbreaking campaign for the film included getting Esquire magazine...
Cocteau’s dictum certainly applies to Hellman’s 1971 film, “Two-Lane Blacktop.” It opened its petals 50 years ago today and still confounds not only the critics but its fans and friends, including the film’s unit publicist Beverly Walker, whose groundbreaking campaign for the film included getting Esquire magazine...
- 7/7/2021
- by Steven Gaydos
- Variety Film + TV
Winning the prize for first post-pandemic indoor stage performance, L.A. Opera will present composer Igor Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex for a single matinee June 6 at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. The inimitable Stephen Fry — prerecorded at London’s Abbey Road studios — will appear onscreen as the narrator of the production.
Based on a 1927 libretto written by Jean Cocteau and later translated by E.E. cummings, the 50-minute opera-oratorio recounts Oedipus’ inquiry into the murder of King Laius. Oedipus, the King of Thebes, discovers that Laius, whom he secretly killed, was actually his father and that he has slept ...
Based on a 1927 libretto written by Jean Cocteau and later translated by E.E. cummings, the 50-minute opera-oratorio recounts Oedipus’ inquiry into the murder of King Laius. Oedipus, the King of Thebes, discovers that Laius, whom he secretly killed, was actually his father and that he has slept ...
Winning the prize for first post-pandemic indoor stage performance, L.A. Opera will present composer Igor Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex for a single matinee June 6 at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. The inimitable Stephen Fry — prerecorded at London’s Abbey Road studios — will appear onscreen as the narrator of the production.
Based on a 1927 libretto written by Jean Cocteau and later translated by E.E. cummings, the 50-minute opera-oratorio recounts Oedipus’ inquiry into the murder of King Laius. Oedipus, the King of Thebes, discovers that Laius, whom he secretly killed, was actually his father and that he has slept ...
Based on a 1927 libretto written by Jean Cocteau and later translated by E.E. cummings, the 50-minute opera-oratorio recounts Oedipus’ inquiry into the murder of King Laius. Oedipus, the King of Thebes, discovers that Laius, whom he secretly killed, was actually his father and that he has slept ...
The Criterion Channel has unveiled their lineup for next month and it’s another strong slate, featuring retrospectives of Carole Lombard, John Waters, Robert Downey Sr., Luis García Berlanga, Jane Russell, and Rob Epstein & Jeffrey Friedman. Also in the lineup is new additions to their Queersighted series, notably Todd Haynes’ early film Poison (Safe is also premiering in a separate presentation), William Friedkin’s Cruising, and Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Teorama.
The new restorations of Manoel de Oliveira’s stunning Francisca and Francesco Rosi’s Christ Stopped at Eboli will join the channel, alongside Agnieszka Holland’s Spoor, Bong Joon Ho’s early short film Incoherence, and Luc Dardenne & Jean-Pierre Dardenne’s Rosetta.
See the lineup below and explore more on criterionchannel.com.
#Blackmendream, Shikeith, 2014
12 Angry Men, Sidney Lumet, 1957
About Tap, George T. Nierenberg, 1985
The AIDS Show, Peter Adair and Rob Epstein, 1986
The Assignation, Curtis Harrington, 1953
Aya of Yop City,...
The new restorations of Manoel de Oliveira’s stunning Francisca and Francesco Rosi’s Christ Stopped at Eboli will join the channel, alongside Agnieszka Holland’s Spoor, Bong Joon Ho’s early short film Incoherence, and Luc Dardenne & Jean-Pierre Dardenne’s Rosetta.
See the lineup below and explore more on criterionchannel.com.
#Blackmendream, Shikeith, 2014
12 Angry Men, Sidney Lumet, 1957
About Tap, George T. Nierenberg, 1985
The AIDS Show, Peter Adair and Rob Epstein, 1986
The Assignation, Curtis Harrington, 1953
Aya of Yop City,...
- 5/24/2021
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Exclusive: Sony Pictures Television’s TriStar is adapting Laurie Fabiano’s bestselling 2010 historical novel Elizabeth Street for television, with Edoardo Ponti (The Life Ahead) attached to direct and executive produce. Tyler Hisel has written a pilot for the project, based on Fabiano’s own great-grandmother’s epic struggles.
Elizabeth Street is set in New York’s Little Italy at the dawn of the 20th century. It follows Giovanna Pontillo, an Italian immigrant reeling in the wake of personal tragedy. Arriving in America, her survival and success on the streets of Old New York soon draws the unwanted attention of the notorious Black Hand, the earliest form of the Italian-American Mafia. As the stakes grow higher, Giovanna desperately fights to save what is important above all else – family.
“Elizabeth Street brings together everything that inspires me: the journey of a strong female protagonist who faces insurmountable odds to bring justice to her family,...
Elizabeth Street is set in New York’s Little Italy at the dawn of the 20th century. It follows Giovanna Pontillo, an Italian immigrant reeling in the wake of personal tragedy. Arriving in America, her survival and success on the streets of Old New York soon draws the unwanted attention of the notorious Black Hand, the earliest form of the Italian-American Mafia. As the stakes grow higher, Giovanna desperately fights to save what is important above all else – family.
“Elizabeth Street brings together everything that inspires me: the journey of a strong female protagonist who faces insurmountable odds to bring justice to her family,...
- 5/20/2021
- by Nellie Andreeva
- Deadline Film + TV
The director and actor have finally achieved ‘a far-fetched dream’ by working together on his first film in English, The Human Voice. They talk about their mutual admiration, filming in lockdown – and how falling in love can destroy your sense of humour
For more than 30 years, the film-maker Pedro Almodóvar has had a voice in his head – The Human Voice, that is. In Jean Cocteau’s monologue, first performed in 1930, a woman goes to pieces during a telephone conversation with her soon-to-be-ex lover. The audience hears only one side of the exchange, lending her the upper hand in the drama at the precise moment she has been robbed of everything else.
Almodóvar has now adapted Cocteau’s piece into a typically plush half-hour short starring Tilda Swinton as the injured party, though this isn’t his first brush with the material. A performance of the play is glimpsed in his...
For more than 30 years, the film-maker Pedro Almodóvar has had a voice in his head – The Human Voice, that is. In Jean Cocteau’s monologue, first performed in 1930, a woman goes to pieces during a telephone conversation with her soon-to-be-ex lover. The audience hears only one side of the exchange, lending her the upper hand in the drama at the precise moment she has been robbed of everything else.
Almodóvar has now adapted Cocteau’s piece into a typically plush half-hour short starring Tilda Swinton as the injured party, though this isn’t his first brush with the material. A performance of the play is glimpsed in his...
- 5/14/2021
- by Ryan Gilbey
- The Guardian - Film News
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.