The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced on Friday that it is “conducting a review” of this season’s Oscar campaigns, with the grassroots effort that resulted in a surprising best actress Oscar nomination for Andrea Riseborough’s performance in the independent film To Leslie almost certainly the main focus of their inquiry.
The nom for Riseborough, a 41-year-old British actors’ actor, evoked audible gasps when it was announced last Tuesday because few people except members of the Academy’s actors branch, which solely determines the acting Oscar nominees, had ever even heard of the film it came for, which cost — and grossed — virtually nothing. But given the tremendous critical response to Riseborough’s portrayal of a spiraling alcoholic following the film’s premiere at last year’s SXSW film festival, and the lack of financial resources possessed by the film’s U.S. distributor Momentum Pictures, the film’s director,...
The nom for Riseborough, a 41-year-old British actors’ actor, evoked audible gasps when it was announced last Tuesday because few people except members of the Academy’s actors branch, which solely determines the acting Oscar nominees, had ever even heard of the film it came for, which cost — and grossed — virtually nothing. But given the tremendous critical response to Riseborough’s portrayal of a spiraling alcoholic following the film’s premiere at last year’s SXSW film festival, and the lack of financial resources possessed by the film’s U.S. distributor Momentum Pictures, the film’s director,...
- 1/29/2023
- by Scott Feinberg
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Much has been made about the stunning decision by Warner Bros. Discovery to shelve the 90 million-dollar DC superhero film "Batgirl" ahead of its anticipated debut on HBO Max. As it stands, the newly-minted powers that be at the studio (including CEO David Zaslav) saw fit to use a "purchase accounting" maneuver to write off the movie and not carry the losses in a limited-timeframe tax loophole. While reports on whether the film tested well or not have been mixed, the move stands as a stain on the Warners reputation and will surely put talent off of working with the studio knowing their creative efforts might never see the light of day.
Dumping a film from release permanently is a rare move by major studios, although not unheard of. In 2007 director Beeban Kidron ("Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason") began shooting the British counterculture drama "Hippie Hippie Shake" starring Cillian Murphy...
Dumping a film from release permanently is a rare move by major studios, although not unheard of. In 2007 director Beeban Kidron ("Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason") began shooting the British counterculture drama "Hippie Hippie Shake" starring Cillian Murphy...
- 9/2/2022
- by Max Evry
- Slash Film
Kino’s Noir boxes offer interesting noir-adjacent crime and mystery pix. This seventh return to the well of darkness brings up the organized crime ‘meller’ Chicago Confidential with Brian Keith and the more ambitious The Boss, starring John Payne and written by Dalton Trumbo. The third show The Fearmakers is a real oddity. Starring Dana Andrews and directed by Jacques Tourneur, it’s a political conspiracy tale about manipulating opinions with fraudulent polls. It sounds a lot like the fractured state of modern America, 65 years later. With commentaries by Jason A. Ney and Alan K. Rode.
Film Noir the Dark Side of Cinema VII
The Boss, Chicago Confidential, The Fearmakers
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1956-1958 / B&w / Street Date June 7, 2022 / 249 min. / available through Kino Lorber / 49.95
Starring: John Payne, Gloria McGehee, Brian Keith, Beverly Garland, Dana Andrews, Marilee Earle.
Directed by Byron Haskin, Sidney Salkow, Jacques Tourneur
Kino treads the dark...
Film Noir the Dark Side of Cinema VII
The Boss, Chicago Confidential, The Fearmakers
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1956-1958 / B&w / Street Date June 7, 2022 / 249 min. / available through Kino Lorber / 49.95
Starring: John Payne, Gloria McGehee, Brian Keith, Beverly Garland, Dana Andrews, Marilee Earle.
Directed by Byron Haskin, Sidney Salkow, Jacques Tourneur
Kino treads the dark...
- 5/31/2022
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
One of the more satisfying costume adventures of the ‘sixties is also one of its star’s best vehicles. Charlton Heston was born to play bigger-than-life historical types, and his Norman knight in this film has the benefit of an intelligent screenplay and a terrific supporting ensemble. This hero’s armor doesn’t shine — he’s more than willing to risk everything to possess a pagan woman with whom he’s become infatuated. Many would-be epics want us to think that the charms of unlikely damsels like Virginia Mayo and Claudette Colbert changed the course of history, but this show makes it seem more than possible. Plus, it features great action scenes and a terrific music score by Jerome Moross.
The War Lord
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1965 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 123 min. / Special Edition / Street Date January 21, 2020 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Charlton Heston, Richard Boone, Rosemary Forsyth, Maurice Evans, Guy Stockwell,...
The War Lord
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1965 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 123 min. / Special Edition / Street Date January 21, 2020 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Charlton Heston, Richard Boone, Rosemary Forsyth, Maurice Evans, Guy Stockwell,...
- 1/14/2020
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
On April 18, 1973, MGM unveiled Richard Fleischer's dystopian, 98-minute sci-fi drama Soylent Green in Los Angeles at Red Carpet theatres. The Hollywood Reporter's original review of the Charlton Heston starrer is below.
Soylent Green, produced by Walter Seltzer and Russell Thatcher and directed by Richard Fleischer from a screenplay by Stanley R. Greenberg, conjures up a terrifying vision of the future that is made all the more urgent by today's inflationary food prices and fast approaching energy crisis.
Soylent Green is a food, something like a green cookie; it feeds the 40 million inhabitants of New ...
Soylent Green, produced by Walter Seltzer and Russell Thatcher and directed by Richard Fleischer from a screenplay by Stanley R. Greenberg, conjures up a terrifying vision of the future that is made all the more urgent by today's inflationary food prices and fast approaching energy crisis.
Soylent Green is a food, something like a green cookie; it feeds the 40 million inhabitants of New ...
- 4/18/2018
- The Hollywood Reporter - Film + TV
On April 18, 1973, MGM unveiled Richard Fleischer's dystopian, 98-minute sci-fi drama Soylent Green in Los Angeles at Red Carpet theatres. The Hollywood Reporter's original review of the Charlton Heston starrer is below.
Soylent Green, produced by Walter Seltzer and Russell Thatcher and directed by Richard Fleischer from a screenplay by Stanley R. Greenberg, conjures up a terrifying vision of the future that is made all the more urgent by today's inflationary food prices and fast approaching energy crisis.
Soylent Green is a food, something like a green cookie; it feeds the 40 million inhabitants of New ...
Soylent Green, produced by Walter Seltzer and Russell Thatcher and directed by Richard Fleischer from a screenplay by Stanley R. Greenberg, conjures up a terrifying vision of the future that is made all the more urgent by today's inflationary food prices and fast approaching energy crisis.
Soylent Green is a food, something like a green cookie; it feeds the 40 million inhabitants of New ...
- 4/18/2018
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
He was a long-time friend and colleague of Charlton Heston who produced of The Omega Man and Soylent Green among others. He came to Hollywood in 1935 and his first success was running the ad campaign for that year’s Mutiny On The Bounty. He had a long and successful career that spanned from the golden age of Hollywood into the ’70s and ’80s
From the Los Angeles Times:
Walter Seltzer, a Hollywood press agent-turned-producer who started out at MGM in the 1930s and made an enduring mark on the industry in the 1980s as a tenacious fundraiser for the Motion Picture and Television Fund, has died. He was 96.
Seltzer died Friday of an age-related illness at the Motion Picture and Television Fund’s retirement home in Woodland Hills, said Jennifer Fagen, a spokeswoman for the fund. His successful ad campaign for MGM’s “Mutiny on the Bounty” (1935) helped him land...
From the Los Angeles Times:
Walter Seltzer, a Hollywood press agent-turned-producer who started out at MGM in the 1930s and made an enduring mark on the industry in the 1980s as a tenacious fundraiser for the Motion Picture and Television Fund, has died. He was 96.
Seltzer died Friday of an age-related illness at the Motion Picture and Television Fund’s retirement home in Woodland Hills, said Jennifer Fagen, a spokeswoman for the fund. His successful ad campaign for MGM’s “Mutiny on the Bounty” (1935) helped him land...
- 8/5/2011
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Shrewd film publicist who later achieved success as a producer
A masochistic Hollywood decree insists that press agents must be depicted on screen as loathsome toadying creatures, and movie moguls as vulgar, mercenary despots. Walter Seltzer, who has died aged 96, was both a press agent and a producer, but he failed to conform to either of the self-perpetuating stereotypes. As a press agent he was persuasive rather than pushy; as a producer, he believed in consensus decision-making.
Undoubtedly his greatest achievement as a press agent was in his promotion of Marty (1955), a gentle, small-scale study of the mundane with no star names. Seltzer believed so much in the Harold Hecht/Burt Lancaster production that the promotional campaign for the film was more expensive than the film itself: $400,000 compared to $343,000. Among Seltzer's tactics was his sending prints of the film to members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences,...
A masochistic Hollywood decree insists that press agents must be depicted on screen as loathsome toadying creatures, and movie moguls as vulgar, mercenary despots. Walter Seltzer, who has died aged 96, was both a press agent and a producer, but he failed to conform to either of the self-perpetuating stereotypes. As a press agent he was persuasive rather than pushy; as a producer, he believed in consensus decision-making.
Undoubtedly his greatest achievement as a press agent was in his promotion of Marty (1955), a gentle, small-scale study of the mundane with no star names. Seltzer believed so much in the Harold Hecht/Burt Lancaster production that the promotional campaign for the film was more expensive than the film itself: $400,000 compared to $343,000. Among Seltzer's tactics was his sending prints of the film to members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences,...
- 4/5/2011
- by Ronald Bergan
- The Guardian - Film News
Walter Seltzer, a Hollywood press agent turned producer, died at the Motion Picture and Television Fund's retirement home, according to The Hollywood Reporter. He was 96.
Born in Philadelphia, Seltzer moved to Hollywood in 1935, where he got a job with Fox West Coast Theatres. He quickly moved into publicity at MGM, working on films starring Joan Crawford, Greta Garbo and Clark Gable.
Read More >...
Born in Philadelphia, Seltzer moved to Hollywood in 1935, where he got a job with Fox West Coast Theatres. He quickly moved into publicity at MGM, working on films starring Joan Crawford, Greta Garbo and Clark Gable.
Read More >...
- 2/20/2011
- by Robyn Ross
- TVGuide - Breaking News
Producer and publicist Walter Seltzer has died at the age of 96.
The moviemaker passed away at a retirement home in California from an age-related illness on Friday, according to officials at the Motion Picture & Television Fund (Mptf).
Seltzer worked in film publicity from the 1930s until the 1950s but took four years out from the industry to serve in the Marines during World War II.
He also produced several movies including Soylent Green, The Omega Man, Shake Hands With the Devil and One-Eyed Jacks for Marlon Brando and Charlton Heston's production companies in the 1960s and 1970s.
He spent much of the 1980s as a fundraiser for the Mptf, co-chairing a campaign that raised $50 million (£35 million). Seltzer was on the Board of Trustees of the organisation.
The moviemaker passed away at a retirement home in California from an age-related illness on Friday, according to officials at the Motion Picture & Television Fund (Mptf).
Seltzer worked in film publicity from the 1930s until the 1950s but took four years out from the industry to serve in the Marines during World War II.
He also produced several movies including Soylent Green, The Omega Man, Shake Hands With the Devil and One-Eyed Jacks for Marlon Brando and Charlton Heston's production companies in the 1960s and 1970s.
He spent much of the 1980s as a fundraiser for the Mptf, co-chairing a campaign that raised $50 million (£35 million). Seltzer was on the Board of Trustees of the organisation.
- 2/20/2011
- WENN
Walter Seltzer, Hollywood press agent-turned-movie producer working with Marlon Brando and Charlton Heston, died Friday at the Motion Picture & Television Fund’s Woodland Hills retirement home, due to age related illness. Born Nov. 7, 1914, in Philadelphia, his father owned and operated movie theaters in the city and his two brothers, Frank and Jules, were involved with movie advertising and later, feature film production. After working with his family, in the spring of 1935, he moved to Hollywood and got a job with Fox West Coast Theaters, moving into publicity, first...
- 2/19/2011
- The Wrap
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