“In the Streets” is the first edition of the Notebook Insert, a seasonal supplement on moving-image culture. For the Multiplex column, we ask filmmakers, critics, and artists for short-form responses to the topic in question.Illustration by Lale Westvind.Martine Syms (Los Angeles)Artist; director, The African Desperate (2022)1.I’m shopping with **** and *** at a high-end store. I have a rare jewel up my butt. We’re looking for gifts. I run into Alex ****. She works at the store now. I try to remember lyrics to a punk song I wrote in high school. I jump up and I’m on a glider, gliding around town. I see a sign for legal services. Her & Her Feminist Law Office. The ad is a giant pair of pink panties. I decide to land there and check out their services. I have two Rimowa suitcases with me. I attempt to walk down the steps to the elevator,...
- 5/2/2024
- MUBI
Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. To keep up with our latest features, sign up for the Weekly Edit newsletter and follow us @mubinotebook on Twitter and Instagram.NEWSThe Truman Show.Joana Vicente has resigned from her post at the helm of the Sundance Film Festival after less than three years. Some industry sources have pointed to a contentious relationship with the board on fundraising matters as one possible explanation.This year’s Cannes Film Festival will open with Quentin Dupieux’s The Second Act, a surrealist backstage comedy starring Léa Seydoux, Vincent Lindon, Louis Garrel, and Raphaël Quenard.Concerns about copyright, continuity, tech business models, and the uncanny valley lead industry insiders to speculate that generative AI won’t soon be making its big-screen debut, though it will increasingly be a part of pre-production workflows.Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer (2023) has opened in Japan to mixed...
- 4/3/2024
- MUBI
With a title that itself feels like a soothing murmur, Hong Kong director Ray Yeung’s “All Shall Be Well” returns to the social and lifestage milieu of his well-received 2019 later-life gay romance “Suk Suk,” and occupies a similarly melancholic, placatory register. But those hoping for a renewal, or maybe even an amping up of “Suk Suk”s restrained interrogation of internalized and externalized homophobia within Hong Kong’s economically advanced but culturally conservative middle class, may be a little disappointed. Although his fourth film revolves around a sixty-something lesbian couple, Yeung’s focus is broader, not sharper. The disappointment will however be mild, not just because there are plenty of other plaintive insights on offer, but because everything here is mild.
Angie (Patra Au Ga-man) and Pat (Maggie Li Lin-lin) have been a settled, loving couple for more than 40 years. They are now enjoying the simpler, slower pleasures of...
Angie (Patra Au Ga-man) and Pat (Maggie Li Lin-lin) have been a settled, loving couple for more than 40 years. They are now enjoying the simpler, slower pleasures of...
- 2/25/2024
- by Jessica Kiang
- Variety Film + TV
Within the same broad outline as Jean Renoir’s La Chienne, Fritz Lang’s Scarlet Street strikes many notes to emphasize the emasculation of Christopher “Chris” Cross (Edgar G. Robinson): at a dinner in his honor, the lowly bank cashier sees his boss (Russell Hicks) rush through a ceremonial toast to make time with his mistress; in his own home he’s obligated to indulge his unwelcome hobby of picture painting in the bathroom; and there’s a bit of business with a frilly smock he puts on to do the dishes.
Against the grain of what we might assume about put-upon little guys in movies and the way they lash out, Lang only dwells on the tableaux of Chris eunuchized doldrums to make one almost invisible moment work—when, over drinks with Katherine “Kitty” March (Joan Bennett), Chris doesn’t really correct her when she makes the fateful...
Against the grain of what we might assume about put-upon little guys in movies and the way they lash out, Lang only dwells on the tableaux of Chris eunuchized doldrums to make one almost invisible moment work—when, over drinks with Katherine “Kitty” March (Joan Bennett), Chris doesn’t really correct her when she makes the fateful...
- 2/6/2024
- by Jaime N. Christley
- Slant Magazine
M3GAN (Universal Pictures), Taken 3 (20th Century Studios), Paddington 2 (Warner Bros.), Cloverfield (Paramount Pictures)Graphic: The A.V. Club (AP)
Historically and annually speaking, January is a bad month for Hollywood movies. It’s a “dump month,” that time of year when the major studios offload the projects in which they have no faith.
Historically and annually speaking, January is a bad month for Hollywood movies. It’s a “dump month,” that time of year when the major studios offload the projects in which they have no faith.
- 1/19/2024
- by A.V. Club Staff
- avclub.com
The Holdovers director Alexander Payne (in Nirvana T-shirt) with Anne-Katrin Titze on Westward The Women: “It’s as though Jean Renoir and Akira Kurosawa got together to make a Western.”
In the first instalment with Alexander Payne on his intricately layered Golden Globe-nominated The Holdovers (screenplay by David Hemingson with an Oscar-shortlisted score by Mark Orton) we started out discussing a film he recommended, William A Wellman’s Westward The Women (screenplay by Frank Capra and Charles Schnee), starring Robert Taylor and Denise Darcel with a formidable supporting cast of women, led by Hope Emerson.
Angus Tully (Dominic Sessa) and Paul Hunham (Paul Giamatti) with Mary Lamb (Da'Vine Joy Randolph)
From there we touched upon his longtime collaborators, Wendy Chuck and Nathan Carlson, production designer Ryan Warren Smith, a scene between (Golden Globe-nominated) Paul Giamatti and Carrie Preston leading to Slavoj Žižek’s comment in Sophie Fiennes’s The Pervert’s Guide To Ideology...
In the first instalment with Alexander Payne on his intricately layered Golden Globe-nominated The Holdovers (screenplay by David Hemingson with an Oscar-shortlisted score by Mark Orton) we started out discussing a film he recommended, William A Wellman’s Westward The Women (screenplay by Frank Capra and Charles Schnee), starring Robert Taylor and Denise Darcel with a formidable supporting cast of women, led by Hope Emerson.
Angus Tully (Dominic Sessa) and Paul Hunham (Paul Giamatti) with Mary Lamb (Da'Vine Joy Randolph)
From there we touched upon his longtime collaborators, Wendy Chuck and Nathan Carlson, production designer Ryan Warren Smith, a scene between (Golden Globe-nominated) Paul Giamatti and Carrie Preston leading to Slavoj Žižek’s comment in Sophie Fiennes’s The Pervert’s Guide To Ideology...
- 12/24/2023
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Quick, silly and lent weight only by the costume department’s copious wigs and furs, “The Crime Is Mine” finds tireless French auteur François Ozon in the playful period pastiche mode of “Potiche” and “8 Women.” It’s a film less about any frenetic onscreen shenanigans as it is about its own mood board of sartorial and cinematic reference points — Jean Renoir, Billy Wilder, some vintage Chanel — and as such it slips down as fizzily and forgettably as a bottle of off-brand sparkling wine. This story of an aspiring stage star standing trial for a top impresario’s murder (and making the most of her moment in the tabloid flashbulbs) may be based on a nearly 90-year-old play, but for those versed more in Hollywood and Broadway than in French theater, Ozon’s adaptation resembles a kind of diva fanfic: What if Roxie Hart went up against Norma Desmond, except in rollicking 1930s Paris?...
- 12/24/2023
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
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
Rodrigo Moreno's The Delinquents is screening exclusively on Mubi in many countries.The Delinquents.Words have no owner. They simply are. They live in the speakers of a language, but no one has possession of a verb or a noun. If anyone can come close to such ownership, it is an artist, who puts the word in a complex combination that is theirs alone. A filmmaker's material is not words—though some might say a shot is its equivalent—but rather the world. Through framing, cutting, and duration, the director makes a movie their own, yet what is shot does not obey the will of the filmmaker. The material of the world is the filmmaker's lyrics, and the world does not belong to them.The arrangement and rearrangement of material—whether of words or of the world when it is filmed—into new works of art can be linked...
- 12/18/2023
- MUBI
Georgian film director who was the true heir to Jean Renoir, Jacques Tati and Luis Buñuel
At the time when the film Favourites of the Moon was released in France in 1985, little was known in western Europe about its Georgian director, Otar Iosseliani, who has died aged 89. He had already made three features and several shorts in the Soviet Union, where he had suffered some censorship, the prime reason for his becoming an exile in France in 1982. For many, Favourites of the Moon, shot in Paris in French, was their first entry into the singular world of Iosseliani.
His self-described “abstract comedies” are understated and incisive explorations of human absurdity, always faithful to his idiosyncratic vision, and discarding any kind of cohesive narrative. Iosseliani observed his characters through behaviour rather than dialogue. His use of sound and silence, and his complex movements of people, animals and objects made him the true heir to Jean Renoir,...
At the time when the film Favourites of the Moon was released in France in 1985, little was known in western Europe about its Georgian director, Otar Iosseliani, who has died aged 89. He had already made three features and several shorts in the Soviet Union, where he had suffered some censorship, the prime reason for his becoming an exile in France in 1982. For many, Favourites of the Moon, shot in Paris in French, was their first entry into the singular world of Iosseliani.
His self-described “abstract comedies” are understated and incisive explorations of human absurdity, always faithful to his idiosyncratic vision, and discarding any kind of cohesive narrative. Iosseliani observed his characters through behaviour rather than dialogue. His use of sound and silence, and his complex movements of people, animals and objects made him the true heir to Jean Renoir,...
- 12/18/2023
- by Ronald Bergan
- The Guardian - Film News
Fans of the celebrated Iranian film director Dariush Mehrjui have woken to the shocking news of his murder at home by an unknown assailant. He was 83.
State media reported Sunday that Mehrjui and his wife Vehideh Mohammadifar were both stabbed to death inside their home in a suburb west of the country’s capital Tehran.
The Irna news agency reported that the director’s daughter Mona Mehrjui made the terrible discovery when she went to visit her father’s home on Saturday evening. Both victims were reportedly found with knife wounds in their necks. While the investigation is ongoing, it has emerged that Mohammadifar had complained on social media about a knife threat she had received in recent weeks.
Fans of Mehrjui’s work have been quick to express their sadness on social media and remember his work as a co-founder of Iran’s film new wave in the early 1970s.
State media reported Sunday that Mehrjui and his wife Vehideh Mohammadifar were both stabbed to death inside their home in a suburb west of the country’s capital Tehran.
The Irna news agency reported that the director’s daughter Mona Mehrjui made the terrible discovery when she went to visit her father’s home on Saturday evening. Both victims were reportedly found with knife wounds in their necks. While the investigation is ongoing, it has emerged that Mohammadifar had complained on social media about a knife threat she had received in recent weeks.
Fans of Mehrjui’s work have been quick to express their sadness on social media and remember his work as a co-founder of Iran’s film new wave in the early 1970s.
- 10/15/2023
- by Caroline Frost
- Deadline Film + TV
Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSAggro Dr1ft.NYFF have announced a few new lineups, including their adventurous-looking Spotlight section, with new work by Harmony Korine, Hayao Miyazaki, Nathan Fielder & Benny Safdie, and more. They've also shared the experimental program for Currents, which opens with Eduardo Williams’s The Human Surge 3 and features James Benning, Deborah Stratman, and Pham Thien An. And finally, their Revivals section includes restorations of Jean Renoir’s “almost ghostly last film in Hollywood,” The Woman on the Beach (1947); Niki de Saint Phalle's first solo feature Un rêve plus long que la nuit (1976); and a 4K restoration of Horace Ové’s Pressure (1976), world-premiering in conjunction with the London Film Festival. Following news last week that Leila’s Brothers (2022) filmmakers Saeed Roustayi and Javad Noruzbegi have been sentenced to six months in prison, suspended over five years,...
- 8/23/2023
- MUBI
Following Main Slate and Spotlight, the 61st New York Film Festival has unveiled its Revivals lineup, featuring new restorations of classic and overlooked films. Highlights include Manoel de Oliveira’s Abraham’s Valley, Jean Renoir‘s The Woman on the Beach, Bahram Beyzaie’s The Stranger and the Fog, Abel Gance’s La Roue, Paul Vecchiali’s The Strangler, Lee Grant’s Tell Me a Riddle, Nancy Savoca’s Household Saints, Horace Ové’s Pressure, and more.
“This year’s edition of Revivals is a thrilling showcase of cinema history, packed with groundbreaking discoveries and long unseen classics alike, all in outstanding restorations,” said Florence Almozini, Senior Director of Programming at Film at Lincoln Center and NYFF Revivals Programmer. “We never cease to be amazed at the lasting influence of these cinematic gems on our collective sense of cinema, with the way they have tackled cultural, societal, or political issues with such modernity and artistry.
“This year’s edition of Revivals is a thrilling showcase of cinema history, packed with groundbreaking discoveries and long unseen classics alike, all in outstanding restorations,” said Florence Almozini, Senior Director of Programming at Film at Lincoln Center and NYFF Revivals Programmer. “We never cease to be amazed at the lasting influence of these cinematic gems on our collective sense of cinema, with the way they have tackled cultural, societal, or political issues with such modernity and artistry.
- 8/21/2023
- by Leonard Pearce
- The Film Stage
Based on Emile Zola’s 1980 novel La Bête Humaine, Fritz Lang’s Human Desire is an entirely different beast than Jean Renoir’s 1938 adaptation. The Renoir film’s pointed humanism and everybody-has-their-reasons ethos is swapped out here for a considerably steelier point of view. Indeed, the film is less interested in its characters’ interiority than it is in viewing their lives through a fatalistic lens.
What’s most compelling about Lang’s film is how elegantly it toys with noir tropes and subverts our expectations, particularly with regard to Vicki (Gloria Grahame), who’s initially presented as your prototypical femme fatale. Vicki is trying to convince her new lover, Jeff (Glenn Ford), to murder her slovenly, abusive husband, Carl (Broderick Crawford). It’s a setup familiar from countless noirs, most notably Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity and Tay Garnett’s The Postman Always Rings Twice, so the audience is already...
What’s most compelling about Lang’s film is how elegantly it toys with noir tropes and subverts our expectations, particularly with regard to Vicki (Gloria Grahame), who’s initially presented as your prototypical femme fatale. Vicki is trying to convince her new lover, Jeff (Glenn Ford), to murder her slovenly, abusive husband, Carl (Broderick Crawford). It’s a setup familiar from countless noirs, most notably Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity and Tay Garnett’s The Postman Always Rings Twice, so the audience is already...
- 7/19/2023
- by Derek Smith
- Slant Magazine
Few directors boast the consistent excellence of German auteur Christian Petzold. The puckish filmmaker got on Zoom from New York to unwind some of the surprises in Berlin’s Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize winner “Afire,” his tenth feature and third to star Paula Beer.
It started out being called “The Lucky Ones.” “I love this title,” he told IndieWire during a recent interview. “But it was forbidden, because there was a wave of copyright problems.” When he came up with “The Red Sky,” referring to the film’s wildfire encroaching on his trio of Baltic Sea vacationers, “This was also forbidden for use. They said the word ‘afire’ and I said, ‘it sounds good.'”
Petzold was working on adapting a dystopian novel during the pandemic, but when he contracted Covid, he put it aside. “To erase-delete, to delete it out of my mind, this was the hard work on ‘Afire,...
It started out being called “The Lucky Ones.” “I love this title,” he told IndieWire during a recent interview. “But it was forbidden, because there was a wave of copyright problems.” When he came up with “The Red Sky,” referring to the film’s wildfire encroaching on his trio of Baltic Sea vacationers, “This was also forbidden for use. They said the word ‘afire’ and I said, ‘it sounds good.'”
Petzold was working on adapting a dystopian novel during the pandemic, but when he contracted Covid, he put it aside. “To erase-delete, to delete it out of my mind, this was the hard work on ‘Afire,...
- 7/16/2023
- by Anne Thompson
- Indiewire
Jean Renoir’s The Rules of the Game has been part of the film canon for so long that it’s valuable to remind audiences how gloriously alive and just plain fun it is. Low comedy walks hand and hand with tragedy and beauty throughout the film, which is frothy one minute, nearly apocalyptic the next—and so you’re never fully allowed to gather your bearings. It has a tone that could be symbolized by the escalating merry-go-round that prominently plays into the climax of Strangers on a Train—up and down, all around and seemingly totally out of control. The film, as Paul Schrader says in this Criterion edition’s liner notes, represents all of cinema’s possibilities in 106 minutes.
That controlled chaos is partially driven by anger and despair. Renoir often said that the film was a response to his frustrations with the bourgeoisie at a time...
That controlled chaos is partially driven by anger and despair. Renoir often said that the film was a response to his frustrations with the bourgeoisie at a time...
- 7/5/2023
- by Chuck Bowen
- Slant Magazine
There are obscure treasures and there are holy grails. Of the latter, none is more mythic than the original 131-minute cut of Orson Welles’s The Magnificent Ambersons, believed by many to be lost somewhere in Brazil. All others arguably belong to Erich von Stroheim. Born in Vienna in 1885 into a Jewish household, von Stroheim is mostly remembered for playing evil Germans in films like Jean Renoir’s Grand Illusion. Cinephiles, though, know him as the unluckiest auteur in the history of cinema.
Intended to run anywhere between six and 10 hours, many of von Stroheim’s films, from Greed to the Gloria Swanson vehicle Queen Kelly, were severely bastardized by studio heads upon their release. In this context, the iris shot that opens 1922’s Foolish Wives feels especially poignant. This is no ordinary “fade into” effect, but an entrancing reinforcement of the sinister, insular, and constrictive nature of the film’s milieu.
Intended to run anywhere between six and 10 hours, many of von Stroheim’s films, from Greed to the Gloria Swanson vehicle Queen Kelly, were severely bastardized by studio heads upon their release. In this context, the iris shot that opens 1922’s Foolish Wives feels especially poignant. This is no ordinary “fade into” effect, but an entrancing reinforcement of the sinister, insular, and constrictive nature of the film’s milieu.
- 6/27/2023
- by Ed Gonzalez
- Slant Magazine
Let’s get this out of the way right from the top: Wes Anderson has never made a bad movie, and — in all likelihood — he probably never will. He’s too particular, too immaculate, too in command of his craft. Of course, the fact that he has always been so sure of himself only makes it more tempting to chart the progress of his career and to measure his films against each other. Or maybe it’s just fun because there are still only 11 of them, and everyone seems to have their own favorite. Who could say?
Anderson is the rarest of rarities, an arthouse filmmaker who not only finds ways to consistently make ambitious original projects, but also maintains genuine influence on what remains of mainstream pop culture. (None of the other esteemed directors who competed for the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival were...
Anderson is the rarest of rarities, an arthouse filmmaker who not only finds ways to consistently make ambitious original projects, but also maintains genuine influence on what remains of mainstream pop culture. (None of the other esteemed directors who competed for the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival were...
- 6/14/2023
- by David Ehrlich, Alison Foreman and Christian Zilko
- Indiewire
Veteran actress Noreen Nash, who starred in the films The Big Fix and The Red Stallion and TV shows such as The Lineup and Yancy Derringer, has died. She was 99. Nash’s passing was confirmed by The Neptune Society, revealing that she died on Tuesday, June 6, in Sherman Oaks, California. No other details were provided. Born Norabelle Jean Roth on April 4, 1924, in Wenatchee, Washington, Nash started her show business career in 1942 after winning the Apple Blossom Queen competition in her hometown. From there, she was contacted by Bob Hope‘s agent Louis Shurr, who helped her get a contract with MGM as a showgirl. That same year, she worked as a model alongside Marilyn Monroe. She made her on-screen debut in 1943 in the musical film Girl Crazy, opposite Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland. After a number of uncredited roles, Nash landed a part in Jean Renoir’s 1945 film The Southerner,...
- 6/9/2023
- TV Insider
Noreen Nash, a starlet of the 1940s and ’50s who appeared in such notable films as The Southerner, Giant and The Lone Ranger and the Lost City of Gold, has died. She was 99.
Nash died Tuesday of natural causes at her home in Beverly Hills, her oldest son, Lee Siegel Jr., told The Hollywood Reporter.
Nash worked on about two dozen features during her two-decade career, including several “B” pictures like Phantom From Space (1953), where she portrayed an abducted scientist in a movie shot at the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles.
The blue-eyed, dark-haired Nash also starred as the wife of an owner of a Palm Springs tennis club on the CBS summer replacement series The Charles Farrell Show — it stood in for I Love Lucy in 1956 — and appeared on episodes of Hopalong Cassidy, The Abbott and Costello Show, My Little Margie, Dragnet and 77 Sunset Strip.
Nash played the...
Nash died Tuesday of natural causes at her home in Beverly Hills, her oldest son, Lee Siegel Jr., told The Hollywood Reporter.
Nash worked on about two dozen features during her two-decade career, including several “B” pictures like Phantom From Space (1953), where she portrayed an abducted scientist in a movie shot at the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles.
The blue-eyed, dark-haired Nash also starred as the wife of an owner of a Palm Springs tennis club on the CBS summer replacement series The Charles Farrell Show — it stood in for I Love Lucy in 1956 — and appeared on episodes of Hopalong Cassidy, The Abbott and Costello Show, My Little Margie, Dragnet and 77 Sunset Strip.
Nash played the...
- 6/8/2023
- by Mike Barnes
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Past Lives, writer-director Celine Song’s debut feature, opens with a guessing game: There are three people sitting at a bar, drinking in the wee hours. We’re observing the trio from a distance, unable to hear what they’re saying. Folks off-frame are making up possible back stories. The two Koreans are tourists, one of them says, and the white guy sitting to their left is their guide. No, the other replies, the lady and the white guy are a couple, and the Korean gent is their old friend.
- 6/2/2023
- by David Fear
- Rollingstone.com
“You Hurt My Feelings” is the latest exquisitely mounted comedy from writer-director Nicole Holofcener, the American cinema’s master of marital unease. The premise is classic Holofcener: A writer (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) overhears her husband (Tobias Menzies) saying what he really thinks of her work and reevaluates what she thought she knew about her relationship and, by extension, her own identity. That reevaluation provides fodder rich in both comic possibilities and penetrating insights into the subtle negotiations, minor and major grievances, and temptations and disappointments that make up a long-lasting marriage. “You Hurt My Feelings” is unblinking in the pain it puts its protagonist through, yet the breadth of Holofcener’s perspective yields as much hope and genuine romance as it does awkwardness, alienation, and pain; it’s perhaps the closest any contemporary American filmmaker has come to Jean Renoir.
What’s all the more remarkable is that “You Hurt My Feelings...
What’s all the more remarkable is that “You Hurt My Feelings...
- 5/26/2023
- by Jim Hemphill
- Indiewire
Director Mike Newell has set an August shoot at U.K. locations for “China Court.”
The film will be directed by Newell from a script by Brian Kinsey, based on the 1961 novel “China Court: The Hours of a Country House” by Rumer Godden.
The film centers around a house, China Court, and the family that inhabits it. The film follows generations of the family over a century, up to the death of the matriarch in 1961. Characters move seamlessly in and out of each other’s timelines as they grow up, fall in love, fall out with each other and – always – pass on to those who follow them the consequences of their actions.
“White Noise” producer Uri Singer has joined forces with Echo Lake’s Mike Marcus (“The Ward”) and U.K.-based Pippa Cross to produce the film.
Fortitude International’s Nadine de Barros and Singer’s Passage Pictures are financing the film.
The film will be directed by Newell from a script by Brian Kinsey, based on the 1961 novel “China Court: The Hours of a Country House” by Rumer Godden.
The film centers around a house, China Court, and the family that inhabits it. The film follows generations of the family over a century, up to the death of the matriarch in 1961. Characters move seamlessly in and out of each other’s timelines as they grow up, fall in love, fall out with each other and – always – pass on to those who follow them the consequences of their actions.
“White Noise” producer Uri Singer has joined forces with Echo Lake’s Mike Marcus (“The Ward”) and U.K.-based Pippa Cross to produce the film.
Fortitude International’s Nadine de Barros and Singer’s Passage Pictures are financing the film.
- 4/5/2023
- by Naman Ramachandran
- Variety Film + TV
Jean Renoir was a prolific filmmaker who left an indelible mark on cinema.
As a director, he blended realism and fantasy in groundbreaking films such as Grand Illusion, La Grande Illusion. Throughout his career, he continued to explore the possibilities of film and cinematography. His films are filled with complex characters and settings that often blur the line between our reality and fiction.
Renoir’s films were critically acclaimed, and his influence on cinema can still be seen today. Many filmmakers have been inspired by his unique vision and style. His wisdom is timeless, and he continues to inspire new generations of filmmakers.
In this article, we look at the life and work of Jean Renoir through the wisdom of his films. We invite you to explore how Renoir’s films challenge us to think differently about our world and how we perceive it.
Jean Renoir’s Early Life and...
As a director, he blended realism and fantasy in groundbreaking films such as Grand Illusion, La Grande Illusion. Throughout his career, he continued to explore the possibilities of film and cinematography. His films are filled with complex characters and settings that often blur the line between our reality and fiction.
Renoir’s films were critically acclaimed, and his influence on cinema can still be seen today. Many filmmakers have been inspired by his unique vision and style. His wisdom is timeless, and he continues to inspire new generations of filmmakers.
In this article, we look at the life and work of Jean Renoir through the wisdom of his films. We invite you to explore how Renoir’s films challenge us to think differently about our world and how we perceive it.
Jean Renoir’s Early Life and...
- 3/27/2023
- by Movies Martin Cid Magazine
- Martin Cid Magazine - Movies
François Truffaut is back with another Hitchcock-influenced adaptation of a Cornell Woolrich murder thriller, with stars Catherine Deneuve and Jean-Paul Belmondo as lovers – criminals – fugitives, and partly filmed in a remote French island in the Indian Ocean. It’s a tale of a mail-order bride, larcenous deception, and irrational amor fou run amuck. The things we do for love sometimes obey no logic. Also starring Michel Bouquet.
Mississippi Mermaid
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1969 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 123 110 min. / La Sirène du Mississippi / Street Date February 14, 2023 / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95
Starring: Jean-Paul Belmondo, Catherine Deneuve, Michel Bouquet, Nelly Borgeaud.
Cinematography: Denys Clerval
Production Designer: Claude Pignot
Deneuve dresses: Yves Saint-Laurent
Film Editor: Agnès Guillemot
Original Music: Antoine Duhamel
Screenplay by François Truffaut based upon the novel Waltz into Darkness by William Irish (Cornell Woolrich)
Produced by Marcel Berbert
Directed by François Truffaut
François Truffaut was the least radical of the official New Wave directors.
Mississippi Mermaid
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1969 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 123 110 min. / La Sirène du Mississippi / Street Date February 14, 2023 / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95
Starring: Jean-Paul Belmondo, Catherine Deneuve, Michel Bouquet, Nelly Borgeaud.
Cinematography: Denys Clerval
Production Designer: Claude Pignot
Deneuve dresses: Yves Saint-Laurent
Film Editor: Agnès Guillemot
Original Music: Antoine Duhamel
Screenplay by François Truffaut based upon the novel Waltz into Darkness by William Irish (Cornell Woolrich)
Produced by Marcel Berbert
Directed by François Truffaut
François Truffaut was the least radical of the official New Wave directors.
- 3/11/2023
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
While we’ve known the results of Jeanne Dielman Tops Sight and Sound‘s 2022 Greatest Films of All-Time List”>Sight & Sound’s once-in-a-decade greatest films of all-time poll for a few months now, the recent release of the individual ballots has given data-crunching cinephiles a new opportunity to dive deeper. We have Letterboxd lists detailing all 4,400+ films that received at least one vote and another expanding the directors poll, spreadsheets calculating every entry, and now a list ranking how many votes individual directors received for their films.
Tabulated by Genjuro, the list of 35 directors, with two pairs, puts Alfred Hitchcock back on top, while Chantal Akerman is at number two. Elsewhere in the top ten are David Lynch, Francis Ford Coppola, Jean-Luc Godard, Agnès Varda, Orson Welles, Yasujirō Ozu, and Stanley Kubrick, and tied for the tenth spot is Wong Kar Wai and Ingmar Bergman.
Check out the list below,...
Tabulated by Genjuro, the list of 35 directors, with two pairs, puts Alfred Hitchcock back on top, while Chantal Akerman is at number two. Elsewhere in the top ten are David Lynch, Francis Ford Coppola, Jean-Luc Godard, Agnès Varda, Orson Welles, Yasujirō Ozu, and Stanley Kubrick, and tied for the tenth spot is Wong Kar Wai and Ingmar Bergman.
Check out the list below,...
- 3/5/2023
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
It’s easy to get caught up in awards season excitement as the Oscars approach – the glitz and glamour of the red carpet generating global talking points, memes and pub chatter for weeks on end.
But when it’s really broken down, the Oscars are essentially just a microcosm of Hollywood. It’s a depressing fact that films directed by previous winners have more chance of being nominated than those directed by newcomers.
Because of this, the best film in any given year almost never wins the evening’s most coveted prize – in fact, it’s sometimes not even nominated in the first place. The ceremony in 2021, which saw Parasite take home the top prize, was a rare exception.
Over the decades, there have been countless glaring omissions – films that were nominated but were beaten by far inferior films and classic films that failed to secure a single nomination.
As the 2023 Oscars approach,...
But when it’s really broken down, the Oscars are essentially just a microcosm of Hollywood. It’s a depressing fact that films directed by previous winners have more chance of being nominated than those directed by newcomers.
Because of this, the best film in any given year almost never wins the evening’s most coveted prize – in fact, it’s sometimes not even nominated in the first place. The ceremony in 2021, which saw Parasite take home the top prize, was a rare exception.
Over the decades, there have been countless glaring omissions – films that were nominated but were beaten by far inferior films and classic films that failed to secure a single nomination.
As the 2023 Oscars approach,...
- 2/22/2023
- by Jacob Stolworthy
- The Independent - Film
The idea that monsters are an allegory for the human condition is just about as old as the ideas of monsters themselves. But we keep coming back to it because the human condition is full of monstrousness. And also movies where people bite each other are nifty.
Fantastical creatures like werewolves hold up a mirror to our own inner natures, revealing uncomfortable truths about our lusts, our shames, our hidden strengths, our hidden weaknesses. And when the makeup department has a decent budget, they look pretty cool, too.
And so it goes that Jacqueline Castel’s debut feature “My Animal” utilizes the werewolf mythology as our entryway for a queer coming-of-age tale. Bobbi Salvör Menuez (“Under My Skin”) stars as Heather, a young woman still living with her parents and two younger, twin brothers in a snowy town in Canada. She spends her days practicing hockey, even though the local...
Fantastical creatures like werewolves hold up a mirror to our own inner natures, revealing uncomfortable truths about our lusts, our shames, our hidden strengths, our hidden weaknesses. And when the makeup department has a decent budget, they look pretty cool, too.
And so it goes that Jacqueline Castel’s debut feature “My Animal” utilizes the werewolf mythology as our entryway for a queer coming-of-age tale. Bobbi Salvör Menuez (“Under My Skin”) stars as Heather, a young woman still living with her parents and two younger, twin brothers in a snowy town in Canada. She spends her days practicing hockey, even though the local...
- 1/23/2023
- by William Bibbiani
- The Wrap
After “Peter van Kant,” French director François Ozon goes many shades lighter to revisit gender and power dynamics in “The Crime Is Mine,” a lush ensemble comedy set in 1930s Paris.
Loosely inspired by the 1934 play by Georges Berr and Louis Verneuil, the film tells the story of Madeleine, a pretty, young and penniless actress, who is accused of murdering a famous producer. Helped by her best friend Pauline, a jobless lawyer, she is acquitted on the grounds of self-defense and becomes a star, as well as a feminist icon.
“The Crime Is Mine,” produced by Mandarin Cinema, brings together a sprawling cast, led by a pair of up-and-coming actors, Nadia Tereszkiewicz (“Forever Young”) and Rebecca Marder (“Simone”), alongside Isabelle Huppert, Fabrice Luchini, André Dussolier, Dany Boon and Félix Lefebvre. The movie has been sold by Playtime in many key markets.
Ozon discussed his new film with Variety following its...
Loosely inspired by the 1934 play by Georges Berr and Louis Verneuil, the film tells the story of Madeleine, a pretty, young and penniless actress, who is accused of murdering a famous producer. Helped by her best friend Pauline, a jobless lawyer, she is acquitted on the grounds of self-defense and becomes a star, as well as a feminist icon.
“The Crime Is Mine,” produced by Mandarin Cinema, brings together a sprawling cast, led by a pair of up-and-coming actors, Nadia Tereszkiewicz (“Forever Young”) and Rebecca Marder (“Simone”), alongside Isabelle Huppert, Fabrice Luchini, André Dussolier, Dany Boon and Félix Lefebvre. The movie has been sold by Playtime in many key markets.
Ozon discussed his new film with Variety following its...
- 1/14/2023
- by Elsa Keslassy
- Variety Film + TV
"Let the game begin." Janus Films has revealed a brand new trailer for the 4K restoration and re-release of the Jean Renoir 1939 classic The Rules of the Game, considered one of the best films ever made despite opening to very negative reviews. The film depicts members of upper-class French society and their servants just before the beginning of World War II, showing their moral callousness on the eve of destruction. At la Colinière, the deceptively idyllic country estate of a wealthy Parisian aristocrat, a selection of society’s finest gather for a rural sojourn and shooting party, and reveal themselves to be absurdly, almost primitively, cruel and vapid. Starring Nora Gregor, Paulette Dubost, Mila Parély, Marcel Dalio, Julien Carette, Roland Toutain, Gaston Modot, and Pierre Magnier. The film received terribly negative reviews and even provoked near riots in Paris upon its initial release. As a result, Renoir cut 23 minutes from the film at the time.
- 12/22/2022
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
“Let the game begin:” Considered one of the greatest films ever made by the likes of Robert Altman, Wim Wenders, and Francois Truffaut, who deemed it “the film of films,” Jean Renoir’s “The Rules of the Game” is set to hit theaters this month in a stunning 4K restoration. A scathing critique of the French bourgeois, it is difficult to believe that this masterpiece was once feared lost forever.
Continue reading ‘The Rules Of The Game’ Trailer: 4K Restoration Of Jean Renoir’s Satirical Sendup Of Power & Privilege To Hit Theaters Later This Month at The Playlist.
Continue reading ‘The Rules Of The Game’ Trailer: 4K Restoration Of Jean Renoir’s Satirical Sendup Of Power & Privilege To Hit Theaters Later This Month at The Playlist.
- 12/21/2022
- by Rosa Martinez
- The Playlist
What will be your first movie of 2023? If you’re reading this it’s likely you put some (let’s be honest: too much) thought into what commences the cinematic year. The Criterion Channel’s January lineup will put some good things front and center: they’re launching a 20-film cinema verité series that highlights all major figures of the form; an eight-film Mike Leigh retrospective that focuses on his little-seen, lesser-discussed BBC features produced between 1973 and 1984; a series on Abbas Kiarostami’s studies of childhood; and because you’ve either seen Eo or have it marked to watch, Jerzy Skolimowski’s three most-acclaimed films should be of equal note.
Another 2022 favorite, Il Buco, will have its streaming premiere alongside Kamikaze Hearts, the Depardieu-led Cyrano de Bergerac, and the recent restoration of Lodge Kerrigan’s Keane. The sole Criterion Edition for this month is 3 Women, while some notable recent documentaries—The American Sector,...
Another 2022 favorite, Il Buco, will have its streaming premiere alongside Kamikaze Hearts, the Depardieu-led Cyrano de Bergerac, and the recent restoration of Lodge Kerrigan’s Keane. The sole Criterion Edition for this month is 3 Women, while some notable recent documentaries—The American Sector,...
- 12/20/2022
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
There is nothing quite like the shades of red in a Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger movie. The color absolutely radiates from the screen in their Technicolor masterpieces, fully immersing us in the passions of the characters. You have the rouge on Kim Hunter's heart-shaped lips in "A Matter of Life and Death," like a premonition of a love so pure and strong it can bring David Niven's dashing airman back from the afterlife. At the other end of the scale, you have the ominous red in the closing scenes of "Black Narcissus," enveloping us in a spurned nun's murderous jealousy.
Then, of course, you have the titular footwear in "The Red Shoes," the film often considered the writer-producer-director duo's greatest work. Along with Jean Renoir's "The River," Powell and Pressburger superfan, Martin Scorsese, considers it to be one of the two most beautiful movies ever shot in color,...
Then, of course, you have the titular footwear in "The Red Shoes," the film often considered the writer-producer-director duo's greatest work. Along with Jean Renoir's "The River," Powell and Pressburger superfan, Martin Scorsese, considers it to be one of the two most beautiful movies ever shot in color,...
- 12/18/2022
- by Lee Adams
- Slash Film
When Sight & Sound’s once-in-a-decade poll ranking the greatest films of all time was released on Thursday, it was bound to provoke controversy and discourse within the film community. When it comes to something as arbitrary as ranking movies, such debates are inevitable: especially when a new film is sitting at the top of the list.
Sight & Sound voters selected Chantal Akerman’s “Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles” as this decade’s greatest film of all time. It is the fourth film to ever receive the honor, after “Bicycle Thieves,” “Citizen Kane,” and “Vertigo.” But Paul Schrader isn’t sold on the pick.
The “Master Gardener” director took to his always colorful Facebook page to question the logic of the selection and question if the poll’s voters were committed to judging films by their artistic value.
“For 70 years, the Sight & Sound poll has been a reliable if somewhat...
Sight & Sound voters selected Chantal Akerman’s “Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles” as this decade’s greatest film of all time. It is the fourth film to ever receive the honor, after “Bicycle Thieves,” “Citizen Kane,” and “Vertigo.” But Paul Schrader isn’t sold on the pick.
The “Master Gardener” director took to his always colorful Facebook page to question the logic of the selection and question if the poll’s voters were committed to judging films by their artistic value.
“For 70 years, the Sight & Sound poll has been a reliable if somewhat...
- 12/3/2022
- by Christian Zilko
- Indiewire
I have been breathlessly awaiting the release of Sight and Sound's once-a-decade poll on the 100 greatest films of all time. Even though the makeup of the list has absolutely no bearing on my own feelings about the films I love, I am always curious to get a lay of the land and see what kind of filmgoing consensus is out there, especially in a corner of the film community that isn't constantly obsessed with superheroes and the box office. This only comes around every 10 years, so it's important for us to treasure this celebration of Hollywood classics, art-house favorites, and international landmarks.
In this new 2022 update of the poll, 25 of the films that appeared on the previous list in 2012 are completely gone. This isn't a case of 25 films released in the last 10 years — or, actually, 24 new films, as the 2012 list featured 101 titles due to a tie — joining the list since it was last published.
In this new 2022 update of the poll, 25 of the films that appeared on the previous list in 2012 are completely gone. This isn't a case of 25 films released in the last 10 years — or, actually, 24 new films, as the 2012 list featured 101 titles due to a tie — joining the list since it was last published.
- 12/2/2022
- by Mike Shutt
- Slash Film
Another decade, another Sight & Sound poll. On Thursday, the British magazine unveiled the 2022 edition of its long-running critics’ poll on the greatest films of all time, with “Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles” taking the top spot — the first film from a female director to achieve the honor since the poll began in 1952.
Directed by Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman and released in 1975, “Jeanne Dielman” is a three-hour, 20-minute film following the title character (Delphine Seyrig), a single mother and prostitute, as she carries out a monotonous daily routine that slowly breaks apart and collapses. Since its premiere, the film has been highly acclaimed as a landmark of feminist cinema. Previously, it ranked 36 on Sight & Sound’s 2012 edition of the poll, where it was one of only two films in the top 100 from a female filmmaker; the other, “Beau Travail” by Claire Denis, is now ranked at number seven.
In celebration...
Directed by Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman and released in 1975, “Jeanne Dielman” is a three-hour, 20-minute film following the title character (Delphine Seyrig), a single mother and prostitute, as she carries out a monotonous daily routine that slowly breaks apart and collapses. Since its premiere, the film has been highly acclaimed as a landmark of feminist cinema. Previously, it ranked 36 on Sight & Sound’s 2012 edition of the poll, where it was one of only two films in the top 100 from a female filmmaker; the other, “Beau Travail” by Claire Denis, is now ranked at number seven.
In celebration...
- 12/1/2022
- by Wilson Chapman and Christian Blauvelt
- Indiewire
Click here to read the full article.
Almost 50 years after its release, Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles — Chantal Akerman’s groundbreaking 1975 drama following the meticulous daily routine of a middle-aged widow over the course of three days — has become the first film by a female director to top Sight & Sound magazine’s once-a-decade “Best Films of All Time” poll in 70 years.
More than 1,600 film critics, academics, distributors, writers, curators, archivists and programmers voted in the poll, which the BFI-backed publication has been running since 1952, with the results, announced Thursday, seeing Akerman’s feature — which was heralded by Le Monde in January 1976 as “the first masterpiece of the feminine in the history of the cinema” — leapfrog from 36th position in 2022 to No. 1.
The 2012 winner, Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo, now sits in second place, with Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane (which held the No. 1 spot for 50 years) placed third and Yasujirō Ozu’s Tokyo Story fourth.
Almost 50 years after its release, Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles — Chantal Akerman’s groundbreaking 1975 drama following the meticulous daily routine of a middle-aged widow over the course of three days — has become the first film by a female director to top Sight & Sound magazine’s once-a-decade “Best Films of All Time” poll in 70 years.
More than 1,600 film critics, academics, distributors, writers, curators, archivists and programmers voted in the poll, which the BFI-backed publication has been running since 1952, with the results, announced Thursday, seeing Akerman’s feature — which was heralded by Le Monde in January 1976 as “the first masterpiece of the feminine in the history of the cinema” — leapfrog from 36th position in 2022 to No. 1.
The 2012 winner, Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo, now sits in second place, with Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane (which held the No. 1 spot for 50 years) placed third and Yasujirō Ozu’s Tokyo Story fourth.
- 12/1/2022
- by Alex Ritman
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
What remains unsaid is often as important as what is said in “Sr.,” an emotional documentary directed by Chris Smith about the relationship between Robert Downey Jr. and his namesake father, a director of counterculture movies of the late 1960s and the 1970s.
Sr., who begins to physically decline due to Parkinson’s disease as this documentary progresses, is a quietly controlling sort of guy who deflects personal questions. When his son asks him about the title of this movie, Sr. says, “I like it, but we can do better,” in an offhand tone of voice that sounds a lot like Alan Arkin, who was a friend of Sr. and is interviewed here.
In Sr.’s office, there is a poster of Jean Renoir’s “La Grande Illusion” next to a poster of Charles Busch in “The Lady in Question,” and this reveals Sr.’s dedication to the spirit of downtown New York theater,...
Sr., who begins to physically decline due to Parkinson’s disease as this documentary progresses, is a quietly controlling sort of guy who deflects personal questions. When his son asks him about the title of this movie, Sr. says, “I like it, but we can do better,” in an offhand tone of voice that sounds a lot like Alan Arkin, who was a friend of Sr. and is interviewed here.
In Sr.’s office, there is a poster of Jean Renoir’s “La Grande Illusion” next to a poster of Charles Busch in “The Lady in Question,” and this reveals Sr.’s dedication to the spirit of downtown New York theater,...
- 12/1/2022
- by Dan Callahan
- The Wrap
French filmmaker Jean-Marie Straub, who was one half of the radical, arthouse filmmaking duo Straub-Huillet with his late wife Danièle Huillet, has died at the age of 89 in Switzerland.
Straub, who hailed from the industrial northeastern French city of Metz, moved to Paris as a student in the 1950s, where he first met Huillet.
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The pair were involved in the city’s legendary film scene of the time with Straub contributing to the Cahiers du Cinema and becoming friends with then-co-editor Francois Truffaut.
Like many of the film journal’s contributors, Straub moved into filmmaking, working as an assistant to the likes of Jacques Rivette, Abel Gance, Jean Renoir and Robert Bresson.
The...
Straub, who hailed from the industrial northeastern French city of Metz, moved to Paris as a student in the 1950s, where he first met Huillet.
Related Story Hollywood & Media Deaths In 2022: Photo Gallery Related Story Future Of TF1, M6 & France Télévisions' Joint Streaming Platform Salto Hangs In The Balance Related Story Jason David Frank Dies: 'Mighty Morphin Power Rangers' Star Was 49
The pair were involved in the city’s legendary film scene of the time with Straub contributing to the Cahiers du Cinema and becoming friends with then-co-editor Francois Truffaut.
Like many of the film journal’s contributors, Straub moved into filmmaking, working as an assistant to the likes of Jacques Rivette, Abel Gance, Jean Renoir and Robert Bresson.
The...
- 11/21/2022
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- Deadline Film + TV
Jean-Marie Straub, the French director who created an influential body of rigorous political films with his late partner Danièle Huillet, died Saturday evening in Rolle, Switzerland. He was 89.
Straub’s death was confirmed by the French publication Le Monde.
In 1954, Straub met Huillet in Paris when she was a member of Cahiers du Cinema alongside Jean-Luc Godard, Jacques Rivette and François Truffaut. The two emigrated to Germany so Straub could avoid military service during the Algerian War.
The directing duo drew from literature and musical works by figures such as Johann Sebastian Bach, Bertolt Brecht, Franz Kafka and Elio Vittorini to hone an uncompromising form across a diverse body of work that committed to exploring historical fragmentation and Marxist analysis of class struggle. The pair formed a sentimental, fiercely creative partnership that has made its mark on global political filmmaking, with directors such as Pedro Costa and Thom Andersen citing the two as major influences.
Straub’s death was confirmed by the French publication Le Monde.
In 1954, Straub met Huillet in Paris when she was a member of Cahiers du Cinema alongside Jean-Luc Godard, Jacques Rivette and François Truffaut. The two emigrated to Germany so Straub could avoid military service during the Algerian War.
The directing duo drew from literature and musical works by figures such as Johann Sebastian Bach, Bertolt Brecht, Franz Kafka and Elio Vittorini to hone an uncompromising form across a diverse body of work that committed to exploring historical fragmentation and Marxist analysis of class struggle. The pair formed a sentimental, fiercely creative partnership that has made its mark on global political filmmaking, with directors such as Pedro Costa and Thom Andersen citing the two as major influences.
- 11/21/2022
- by J. Kim Murphy
- Variety Film + TV
France’s Oscar submission nominated in best feature and birst first film categories.
French Oscar submission Saint Omer by Alice Diop has earned a double nomination for France’s prestigious Louis Delluc prize in both the best feature and best first film categories.
The film will vie against an eclectic blend of titles spanning political thriller, comedy and drama, many from female directors and mostly titles that have bowed at major festivals.
In the best French feature category, Saint Omer will compete against fellow Venice title Rebecca Zlotowski’s Other People’s Children, Cannes premieres Albert Serra’s Pacifiction, Louis Garrel’s The Innocent,...
French Oscar submission Saint Omer by Alice Diop has earned a double nomination for France’s prestigious Louis Delluc prize in both the best feature and best first film categories.
The film will vie against an eclectic blend of titles spanning political thriller, comedy and drama, many from female directors and mostly titles that have bowed at major festivals.
In the best French feature category, Saint Omer will compete against fellow Venice title Rebecca Zlotowski’s Other People’s Children, Cannes premieres Albert Serra’s Pacifiction, Louis Garrel’s The Innocent,...
- 11/11/2022
- by Rebecca Leffler
- ScreenDaily
Before he was a superstar auteur, a Royale-with-Cheese rock star, the divisive and worshiped motormouth who launched a thousand dissertations and 10 times as many Film Twitter flame wars, Quentin Tarantino was a movie fanatic.
It pays to remember this fact — not that the raconteur would ever let you forget it. Read those early interviews, right as Reservoir Dogs was beginning to establish him as one of the exciting (and the most excitable) filmmakers of the 1990s, and you’ll hear him wax poetic about John Woo and Jean-Pierre Melville, Rio Bravo...
It pays to remember this fact — not that the raconteur would ever let you forget it. Read those early interviews, right as Reservoir Dogs was beginning to establish him as one of the exciting (and the most excitable) filmmakers of the 1990s, and you’ll hear him wax poetic about John Woo and Jean-Pierre Melville, Rio Bravo...
- 11/6/2022
- by David Fear
- Rollingstone.com
Another classic-era Eurohorror title has surfaced on Blu-ray. Straight from the exploitation trenches of postwar Germany, this elusive opus jangles plenty of nerves with its tale of mad surgery and crazy transplants. Partly a girlie show — most every scene involves some form of disrobing — it’s nevertheless an intriguing horror cocktail with top production values. The capable cast is really into the melodramatic shocks — it may not be Georges Franju but it’s several cuts above other ‘severed head’ epics — an insane carnival of flesh confusion that’s technically tame but truly adults-only by 1959 standards.
Die Nackte und Der Satan (The Head)
Blu-ray
Anolis Entertainment
1959 / B&w / 1:66 widescreen; 1:33 flat full frame / 97 min. / Standard Edition Street Date September 9, 2022 / Available from Diabolik DVD / 26.99
Starring: Horst Frank, Karin Kernke, Michel Simon, Christiane Maybach, Dieter Eppler, Helmut Schmid, Barbara Valentin, Kurt Müller-Graf, Paul Dahlke, Maria Stadler.
Cinematography: Georg Krause
Production Designers: Bruno Monden,...
Die Nackte und Der Satan (The Head)
Blu-ray
Anolis Entertainment
1959 / B&w / 1:66 widescreen; 1:33 flat full frame / 97 min. / Standard Edition Street Date September 9, 2022 / Available from Diabolik DVD / 26.99
Starring: Horst Frank, Karin Kernke, Michel Simon, Christiane Maybach, Dieter Eppler, Helmut Schmid, Barbara Valentin, Kurt Müller-Graf, Paul Dahlke, Maria Stadler.
Cinematography: Georg Krause
Production Designers: Bruno Monden,...
- 10/25/2022
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
When Jane Fonda was preparing for the galactic striptease that opens the 1968 sci-fi fantasy Barbarella, she plied herself with vodka. She was so terrified that she made sure she was completely drunk before the cameras started rolling. A bat flew in front of the lens, spoiling the shot, and the director, her then-husband Roger Vadim, insisted that she shoot it again the next day.
“The take that was actually used, I was not only drunk. I was hungover too,” Fonda recalled in the 2018 documentary about her, Jane Fonda in Five Acts.
It’s one of the most memorable sequences in an otherwise patchy and eccentric movie that scarcely deserves its cult reputation. Fonda appears to be floating as she pulls off her outfit. In fact, she was lying on a pane of glass with the rest of the spaceship behind her for the shot. While she removes her helmet, gloves and eventually everything else,...
“The take that was actually used, I was not only drunk. I was hungover too,” Fonda recalled in the 2018 documentary about her, Jane Fonda in Five Acts.
It’s one of the most memorable sequences in an otherwise patchy and eccentric movie that scarcely deserves its cult reputation. Fonda appears to be floating as she pulls off her outfit. In fact, she was lying on a pane of glass with the rest of the spaceship behind her for the shot. While she removes her helmet, gloves and eventually everything else,...
- 10/21/2022
- by Geoffrey Macnab
- The Independent - Film
Click here to read the full article.
Jane Rosenthal wasn’t mincing words about the slow growth of women’s representation behind the camera in Hollywood: “The statistics are bleak,” she said Sept. 20 at the Through Her Lens luncheon, presented by Chanel at New York’s Locanda Verde restaurant in the Greenwich Hotel. “The numbers have hardly budged over the years, despite assumed progress.”
Indeed, even as conversations about women-helmed projects have heightened in recent years, Rosenthal pointed to industry figures gathered since 1998, noting that the percentage of women directors, writers, producers and cinematographers since then had only increased by four percent. “More than two decades and an increase of only 4 percent? You’ve gotta be kidding me,” added Rosenthal, the CEO and co-founder of Tribeca Enterprises, host of the annual Tribeca Film Festival, set for June 7-18 in 2023.
If she sounded frustrated, the reason was partly to illustrate why...
Jane Rosenthal wasn’t mincing words about the slow growth of women’s representation behind the camera in Hollywood: “The statistics are bleak,” she said Sept. 20 at the Through Her Lens luncheon, presented by Chanel at New York’s Locanda Verde restaurant in the Greenwich Hotel. “The numbers have hardly budged over the years, despite assumed progress.”
Indeed, even as conversations about women-helmed projects have heightened in recent years, Rosenthal pointed to industry figures gathered since 1998, noting that the percentage of women directors, writers, producers and cinematographers since then had only increased by four percent. “More than two decades and an increase of only 4 percent? You’ve gotta be kidding me,” added Rosenthal, the CEO and co-founder of Tribeca Enterprises, host of the annual Tribeca Film Festival, set for June 7-18 in 2023.
If she sounded frustrated, the reason was partly to illustrate why...
- 9/21/2022
- by Laurie Brookins
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Now, at the venerable age of 90, Venice is the oldest major film festival in the world. Founded in 1932, the event is still held on the balmy, beach-filled island of the Lido and has a faded elegance that other events such as Cannes and Berlin simply can’t emulate. In the 1930s, the controversies tended to be political. The main award was called The Mussolini Cup. There were furious rows over movies like Jean Renoir’s Grand Illusion, later banned in Italy for being too left wing, and German director Leni Riefenstahl’s Olympia, which many saw as Nazi propaganda.
The 2022 edition has had plenty of talking points, too, but this time not to do with fascism. Olivia Wilde’s Don’t Look Now, which landed on the Lido midway through the festival like some dangerous UFO with Harry Styles inside, provoked a media feeding frenzy thanks to all the lurid advance...
The 2022 edition has had plenty of talking points, too, but this time not to do with fascism. Olivia Wilde’s Don’t Look Now, which landed on the Lido midway through the festival like some dangerous UFO with Harry Styles inside, provoked a media feeding frenzy thanks to all the lurid advance...
- 9/11/2022
- by Geoffrey Macnab
- The Independent - Film
There are echoes of the Jean Renoir classic Boudu Saved From Drowning in Eric Pennycoff’s filmic fable about a sanctimonious priest who welcomes a homeless man into his house only to lose control of the situation. It lacks the master’s style but its narrative crudity, whilst it may seem more extreme, is very much the modern equivalent. Though clearly made on a shoestring, it’s an entertaining effort and a natural fit for a Frightfest crowd.
It opens with a sermon in which Father David (prolific genre actor Graham Skipper) tells his parishioners, in the run-up to Christmas, that they should always be ready to help strangers because one never knows, they could be Jesus in disguise. The absence of true altruism in this argument echoes throughout the film, with David’s superficially kindly gestures providing scant cover for a selfish and even totalitarian agenda. There’s a hint that this may stem.
It opens with a sermon in which Father David (prolific genre actor Graham Skipper) tells his parishioners, in the run-up to Christmas, that they should always be ready to help strangers because one never knows, they could be Jesus in disguise. The absence of true altruism in this argument echoes throughout the film, with David’s superficially kindly gestures providing scant cover for a selfish and even totalitarian agenda. There’s a hint that this may stem.
- 8/28/2022
- by Jennie Kermode
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Take a refreshing plunge into classic French Poetic Realism — pre-noir drama with softer edges and a touch of romantic fatalism. A low-rent hotel on a barge canal is the gathering point for a cross-section of quasi- undesirables. Scandals and crimes aside, they’re a touching, human bunch, as performed to perfection by Louis Jouvet, Annabella, Arletty, Jane Marken, Jean-Pierre Aumont, Paulette Dubost and Bernard Blier. Marcel Carné’s show is also a beautiful production, with Alexandre Trauner designs that recreate ‘reality’ on an enormous scale.
Hôtel du Nord
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 1139
1938 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 96 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date August 23, 2022 / 39.95
Starring: Annabella, Jean-Pierre Aumont, Louis Jouvet, Arletty, Paulette Dubost, Andrex, André Brunot, Henri Bosc, Marcel André, Bernard Blier, Jane Marken, François Périer, Dora Doll, Raymone.
Cinematography: Louis Née, Armand Thirard
Production Designer and Art Director: Alexandre Trauner
Film Editor: Marthe Gottie
Original Music: Maurice Jaubert
Written by Henri Jeanson,...
Hôtel du Nord
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 1139
1938 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 96 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date August 23, 2022 / 39.95
Starring: Annabella, Jean-Pierre Aumont, Louis Jouvet, Arletty, Paulette Dubost, Andrex, André Brunot, Henri Bosc, Marcel André, Bernard Blier, Jane Marken, François Périer, Dora Doll, Raymone.
Cinematography: Louis Née, Armand Thirard
Production Designer and Art Director: Alexandre Trauner
Film Editor: Marthe Gottie
Original Music: Maurice Jaubert
Written by Henri Jeanson,...
- 8/23/2022
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
In the marketing for the notorious 1981 horror film "The Evil Dead," director Sam Raimi skewed happily away from modesty, describing his film as "The ultimate experience in grueling terror." As there would be two sequels, it proved to be the antepenultimate experience in grueling terror.
Given the size and power of the cult behind it, it seems almost churlish to put a film like "Evil Dead II" (called "Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn" on the posters) into an introductory context. "Evil Dead II" remains one of the finest horror comedies cinema has yet offered, presenting extreme horror visuals with the slapstick timing of Buster Keaton or the Three Stooges. "Evil Dead II" has long been standard viewing for any ninth grade would-be horror fanatic, eager to chuckle at death, and persists at midnight screenings the world over.
Raimi and his crew famously made the "Evil Dead" movies on the cheap.
Given the size and power of the cult behind it, it seems almost churlish to put a film like "Evil Dead II" (called "Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn" on the posters) into an introductory context. "Evil Dead II" remains one of the finest horror comedies cinema has yet offered, presenting extreme horror visuals with the slapstick timing of Buster Keaton or the Three Stooges. "Evil Dead II" has long been standard viewing for any ninth grade would-be horror fanatic, eager to chuckle at death, and persists at midnight screenings the world over.
Raimi and his crew famously made the "Evil Dead" movies on the cheap.
- 8/21/2022
- by Witney Seibold
- Slash Film
White NoiseCOMPETITIONWhite Noise (Noah Baumbach)Il Signore Delle Formiche (Gianni Amelio)The Whale (Darren Aronofsky)L’Immensita (Emanuele Crialese)Saint Omer (Alice Diop)Blonde (Andrew Dominik)Tár (Todd Field)Love Life (Koji Fukada)Bardo, False Chronicle Of A Handful Of Truths (Alejandro G. Inarritu)Athena (Romain Gavras)Bones & All (Luca Guadagnino)The Eternal Daughter (Joanna Hogg)Beyond The Wall (Vahid Jalilvand)The Banshees Of Inisherin (Martin McDonagh)Argentina, 1985 (Santiago Mitre)Chiara (Susanna Nicchiarelli)Monica (Andrea Pallaoro)No Bears (Jafar Panahi)All The Beauty And The Bloodshed (Laura Poitras)A Couple (Frederick Wiseman)The Son (Florian Zeller)Our Ties (Roschdy Zem)Other People’s Children (Rebecca Zlotowski)Out Of COMPETITIONFictionThe Hanging Sun (Francesco Carrozzini)When The Waves Are Gone (Lav Diaz)Living (Oliver Hermanus)Dead For A Dollar (Walter Hill)Call Of God (Kim Ki-duk)Dreamin’ Wild (Bill Pohlad)Master Gardener (Paul Schrader)Siccità (Paolo Virzi)Pearl (Ti West)Don’t Worry Darling...
- 7/28/2022
- MUBI
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