Rereleased for its 50th anniversary, this ultraviolent urban pastoral remains thrilling, sensual, dangerous and effortlessly fluent
Sin and shame are the driving forces of Martin Scorsese’s blistering early classic from 1973, now on rerelease for its 50th anniversary; it is an ultraviolent urban pastoral boiling up from the streets of Little Italy in Lower Manhattan around the time of the annual San Gennaro feast. It’s a thrillingly sensual, dangerous, effortlessly fluent movie which reaches back to the Warner Brothers’ gangster films, but also to Fellini’s I Vitelloni (1953), Godard’s Breathless (1960) and even the Boulting brothers’ Brighton Rock (1948). One year before, Francis Ford Coppola had released his sensational mob drama The Godfather, the great top-down grand political narrative of organised crime. Mean Streets is a great example of the opposite tradition: the ordinary worm’s-eye-view of the mafia, which was to lead to Scorsese’s GoodFellas and David Chase’s The Sopranos,...
Sin and shame are the driving forces of Martin Scorsese’s blistering early classic from 1973, now on rerelease for its 50th anniversary; it is an ultraviolent urban pastoral boiling up from the streets of Little Italy in Lower Manhattan around the time of the annual San Gennaro feast. It’s a thrillingly sensual, dangerous, effortlessly fluent movie which reaches back to the Warner Brothers’ gangster films, but also to Fellini’s I Vitelloni (1953), Godard’s Breathless (1960) and even the Boulting brothers’ Brighton Rock (1948). One year before, Francis Ford Coppola had released his sensational mob drama The Godfather, the great top-down grand political narrative of organised crime. Mean Streets is a great example of the opposite tradition: the ordinary worm’s-eye-view of the mafia, which was to lead to Scorsese’s GoodFellas and David Chase’s The Sopranos,...
- 10/12/2023
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
The 80th annual Venice Film Festival launches on the Lido on August 30. This edition features a slew of Oscar hopefuls including Sofia Coppola’s “Priscilla,” Bradley Cooper’s “Maestro,” David Fincher’s “The Killer,” Yorgas Lanthimos’ “Poor Things” and Michael Mann’s “Ferrari.” They’re all vying for the top prize, the Golden Lion.
Seventy years ago, there were four now-classics in competition: William Wyler’s “Roman Holiday,” for which Audrey Hepburn would win Oscar, John Huston’s “Moulin Rouge,” Samuel Fuller’s “Pickup on South Street” and Vincente Minnelli’s “The Bad and the Beautiful,” which had recently picked up five Oscars. But the Golden Lion didn’t roar at the 14th edition of the international film festival.
The jury headed by future Nobel Prize laureate in literature Eugenio Montale just couldn’t decide on the best of the fest because according to the New York Times “the quality...
Seventy years ago, there were four now-classics in competition: William Wyler’s “Roman Holiday,” for which Audrey Hepburn would win Oscar, John Huston’s “Moulin Rouge,” Samuel Fuller’s “Pickup on South Street” and Vincente Minnelli’s “The Bad and the Beautiful,” which had recently picked up five Oscars. But the Golden Lion didn’t roar at the 14th edition of the international film festival.
The jury headed by future Nobel Prize laureate in literature Eugenio Montale just couldn’t decide on the best of the fest because according to the New York Times “the quality...
- 8/29/2023
- by Susan King
- Gold Derby
If you weren’t around at the time, it’s hard to communicate just what a splashy, dominating place the Italian filmmaker Lina Wertmüller occupied during the 1970s. Wertmüller, who died on Thursday at 93, was far from the first celebrated woman director — just think of Agnès Varda, Shirley Clarke, Elaine May, Lois Weber, Ida Lupino, Dorothy Arzner, or Barbara Loden. But apart from the infamous Leni Riefenstahl, it’s fair to say that Wertmüller was the first woman filmmaker to become a household name. She was the first to receive an Academy Award nomination for best director, the first to adorn the cover of major magazines, the first to rule and own the zeitgeist.
And rule it she did. “Swept Away,” Wertmüller’s controversial 1974 drama about a wealthy snob (Mariangela Melato) and one of her lowly yacht crew members (Giancarlo Giannini), who wind up swapping roles after the two are stranded on a desert island,...
And rule it she did. “Swept Away,” Wertmüller’s controversial 1974 drama about a wealthy snob (Mariangela Melato) and one of her lowly yacht crew members (Giancarlo Giannini), who wind up swapping roles after the two are stranded on a desert island,...
- 12/10/2021
- by Owen Gleiberman
- Variety Film + TV
The Museum of Modern Art and Cinecittà announced that Federico Fellini, a retrospective honoring the Italian director, will run from Dec. 1 to Jan. 12, 2022 at MoMA’s Debra and Leon Black Family Film Center in the Roy and Niuta Titus Theaters.
The retrospective will open with “I Vitelloni,” Fellini’s semi-autobiographical 1953 film translating to “The Young and the Passionate” in English, as well as the U.S. premiere of Cinecittà’s 4K restoration of 1954’s “La Strada,” which won the first-ever Academy Award for foreign language film. The closing film will be 1980’s “La Città Delle Donne,” or “City of Women.”
Federico Fellini is organized by La Frances Hui, MoMA’s curator in the department of film, as well as Cinecittà’s Camilla Cormanni and Paola Ruggiero.
“There is no better tribute to a cinema titan like Fellini than a complete retrospective of all his films fully restored in 4K,” Hui said.
The retrospective will open with “I Vitelloni,” Fellini’s semi-autobiographical 1953 film translating to “The Young and the Passionate” in English, as well as the U.S. premiere of Cinecittà’s 4K restoration of 1954’s “La Strada,” which won the first-ever Academy Award for foreign language film. The closing film will be 1980’s “La Città Delle Donne,” or “City of Women.”
Federico Fellini is organized by La Frances Hui, MoMA’s curator in the department of film, as well as Cinecittà’s Camilla Cormanni and Paola Ruggiero.
“There is no better tribute to a cinema titan like Fellini than a complete retrospective of all his films fully restored in 4K,” Hui said.
- 11/11/2021
- by Selome Hailu
- Variety Film + TV
With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options—not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves–each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit platforms. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.
Bad Trip (Kitao Sakurai)
The Eric Andre persona is best understood by his popular late-night Adult Swim series, succinctly titled The Eric Andre Show. In every episode Andre’s irreverent and self-destructive behavior leads him to trash his set, causing bodily harm, and torturing a slew of celebrities that range from Jimmy Kimmel to the Real Housewives of Atlanta. Andre is the equivalent of a magic mushrooms trip: wildly confusing, incoherent, sometimes causing one to burst at the seams with ecstatic comedic moments. Andre’s energy finds the perfect vessel in Bad Trip, his first starring role with a script he wrote with frequent collaborator and director Kitao Sakurai.
Bad Trip (Kitao Sakurai)
The Eric Andre persona is best understood by his popular late-night Adult Swim series, succinctly titled The Eric Andre Show. In every episode Andre’s irreverent and self-destructive behavior leads him to trash his set, causing bodily harm, and torturing a slew of celebrities that range from Jimmy Kimmel to the Real Housewives of Atlanta. Andre is the equivalent of a magic mushrooms trip: wildly confusing, incoherent, sometimes causing one to burst at the seams with ecstatic comedic moments. Andre’s energy finds the perfect vessel in Bad Trip, his first starring role with a script he wrote with frequent collaborator and director Kitao Sakurai.
- 3/26/2021
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
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No matter how convenient our digital lives are, there’s still something special about physical media — especially when it’s so beautifully and thoughtfully curated by the Criterion Collection.
Each of Criterion’s releases takes an exemplary film, from auteur classic to Hollywood blockbuster and everything in between, and includes a slew of special features — commentary tracks, restored film transfers, essays about its importance in the cinematic pantheon — that help “deepen the viewer’s understanding and appreciation of the art of cinema.”
While there are literally hundreds of important classic and contemporary...
Products featured are independently selected by our editorial team and we may earn a commission from purchases made from our links.
No matter how convenient our digital lives are, there’s still something special about physical media — especially when it’s so beautifully and thoughtfully curated by the Criterion Collection.
Each of Criterion’s releases takes an exemplary film, from auteur classic to Hollywood blockbuster and everything in between, and includes a slew of special features — commentary tracks, restored film transfers, essays about its importance in the cinematic pantheon — that help “deepen the viewer’s understanding and appreciation of the art of cinema.”
While there are literally hundreds of important classic and contemporary...
- 11/5/2020
- by Jean Bentley
- Indiewire
Cinema Retro has received the following press release:
Joining in the international celebration of Federico Fellini's 100th birthday, Criterion is thrilled to announce Essential Fellini, a fifteen-Blu-ray box set that brings together fourteen of the director's most imaginative and uncompromising works for the first time. Alongside new restorations of the theatrical features, the set also includes short and full-length documentaries about Fellini's life and work, archival interviews with his friends and collaborators, commentaries on six of the films, video essays, the director's 1968 short Toby Dammit, and much more.
The edition is accompanied by two lavishly illustrated books with hundreds of pages of notes and essays on the films by writers and filmmakers, as well as dozens of images of Fellini memorabilia. Essential Fellini is a fitting tribute to the maestro of Italian cinema!
Fifteen-blu-ray Special Edition Collector's Set Features
New 4K restorations of 11 theatrical features, with uncompressed monaural soundtracks for...
Joining in the international celebration of Federico Fellini's 100th birthday, Criterion is thrilled to announce Essential Fellini, a fifteen-Blu-ray box set that brings together fourteen of the director's most imaginative and uncompromising works for the first time. Alongside new restorations of the theatrical features, the set also includes short and full-length documentaries about Fellini's life and work, archival interviews with his friends and collaborators, commentaries on six of the films, video essays, the director's 1968 short Toby Dammit, and much more.
The edition is accompanied by two lavishly illustrated books with hundreds of pages of notes and essays on the films by writers and filmmakers, as well as dozens of images of Fellini memorabilia. Essential Fellini is a fitting tribute to the maestro of Italian cinema!
Fifteen-blu-ray Special Edition Collector's Set Features
New 4K restorations of 11 theatrical features, with uncompressed monaural soundtracks for...
- 9/4/2020
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
Classic movie buffs with $200 to burn, take note: The Criterion Collection has announced “Essential Fellini,” a box set of 14 films from legendary film director Federico Fellini.
The Blu-Ray set, which will release on November 24,will include several features, including 4K restorations of 11 of the films, as well as uncompressed monaural soundtracks for each title. Most of the director’s most celebrated films will be included in the box set. The 14 films are: “Variety Lights” (1950), “The White Sheik” (1952), “I Vitelloni” (1953), “La Strada” (1954), “Il Bidone” (1955), “Nights of Cabiria” (1957), “La Dolce Vita” (1960), “8½” (1963), “Juliet of the Spirits” (1965), “Fellini Satyricon” (1969), “Roma” (1972), “Amarcord” (1973), “And the Ship Sails On” (1983), and “Intervista” (1987).
Here’s Criterion’s announcement of the news:
One hundred years after his birth, Federico Fellini still stands apart as a giant of the cinema. The Italian maestro is defined by his dualities: the sacred and the profane, the masculine and the feminine, the provincial and the urbane.
The Blu-Ray set, which will release on November 24,will include several features, including 4K restorations of 11 of the films, as well as uncompressed monaural soundtracks for each title. Most of the director’s most celebrated films will be included in the box set. The 14 films are: “Variety Lights” (1950), “The White Sheik” (1952), “I Vitelloni” (1953), “La Strada” (1954), “Il Bidone” (1955), “Nights of Cabiria” (1957), “La Dolce Vita” (1960), “8½” (1963), “Juliet of the Spirits” (1965), “Fellini Satyricon” (1969), “Roma” (1972), “Amarcord” (1973), “And the Ship Sails On” (1983), and “Intervista” (1987).
Here’s Criterion’s announcement of the news:
One hundred years after his birth, Federico Fellini still stands apart as a giant of the cinema. The Italian maestro is defined by his dualities: the sacred and the profane, the masculine and the feminine, the provincial and the urbane.
- 8/12/2020
- by Tyler Hersko
- Indiewire
On the day their gorgeous Agnès Varda box set arrives, The Criterion Collection has announced details on their next director collection. In celebration of his 100th birthday this year, Federico Fellini will be receiving a 15-disc box set featuring fourteen of his films, set for a release on November 24, 2020.
Titled Essential Fellini, the release features new restorations of the theatrical features, as well as short and full-length documentaries about Fellini’s life and work, archival interviews with his friends and collaborators, commentaries on six of the films, video essays, the director’s 1968 short Toby Dammit, and much more. It also includes two illustrated books with hundreds of pages of notes and essays on the films by writers and filmmakers, plus memorabilia. Check out a list of films and special features below.
List of Films
Variety Lights (1950)The White Sheik (1952)I Vitelloni (1953)LA Strada (1954)Il Bidone (1955)Nights Of Cabiria (1957)LA Dolce Vita...
Titled Essential Fellini, the release features new restorations of the theatrical features, as well as short and full-length documentaries about Fellini’s life and work, archival interviews with his friends and collaborators, commentaries on six of the films, video essays, the director’s 1968 short Toby Dammit, and much more. It also includes two illustrated books with hundreds of pages of notes and essays on the films by writers and filmmakers, plus memorabilia. Check out a list of films and special features below.
List of Films
Variety Lights (1950)The White Sheik (1952)I Vitelloni (1953)LA Strada (1954)Il Bidone (1955)Nights Of Cabiria (1957)LA Dolce Vita...
- 8/11/2020
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
The British Film Institute Southbank, the iconic London movie theater on the South Bank of the Thames River, is set for a Sept. 1 reopening with a host of health and safely measures in place.
The measures include social distancing throughout the venue, face coverings as standard for all visitors and staff, increased frequency of deep cleans, e-ticketing, and scheduling of staggered screenings.
The venue’s programming will include “Redefining Rebellion,” a season of films that share the spirit of Matthew Kassovitz’s seminal “La Haine,” that will also feature in-conversation events with Kassovitz and Riz Ahmed, who lists the film as a major influence, and a 4K rerelease of the film from Sept. 11. Other rereleases include “Ema,” “Clemency” and “Parasite: Black-and-White Edition.”
A Federico Fellini season will feature “I vitelloni,” “Nights of Cabiria,” “La dolce vita,” “8 1/2” and “Juliet of the Spirits.” Following a successful pivot to an online edition due to the pandemic,...
The measures include social distancing throughout the venue, face coverings as standard for all visitors and staff, increased frequency of deep cleans, e-ticketing, and scheduling of staggered screenings.
The venue’s programming will include “Redefining Rebellion,” a season of films that share the spirit of Matthew Kassovitz’s seminal “La Haine,” that will also feature in-conversation events with Kassovitz and Riz Ahmed, who lists the film as a major influence, and a 4K rerelease of the film from Sept. 11. Other rereleases include “Ema,” “Clemency” and “Parasite: Black-and-White Edition.”
A Federico Fellini season will feature “I vitelloni,” “Nights of Cabiria,” “La dolce vita,” “8 1/2” and “Juliet of the Spirits.” Following a successful pivot to an online edition due to the pandemic,...
- 8/4/2020
- by Variety Staff
- Variety Film + TV
Mubi's retrospective Fellini at 100 is showing April 29 - July 13, 2020 in many countries.As someone raised in a town of 500, itching to escape to the nearest city for the best part of my childhood, Fellini’s characters have always felt familiar. “His films are a small-town boy’s dream of the big city,” Orson Welles told Playboy in a 1967 interview, and indeed, dotting them are heroes and eccentrics who either share the director’s provincial origins or dance through the frame with the stupor of perpetual strangers in strange lands. “He’s right,” Fellini said about Welles’s remark, “and that’s no insult.” For that naïve awe is the source of the ageless charm of Fellini’s whole cinema. If the films he made over a career spanning five decades still feel so alive and vibrant, it’s because they nurture the same childlike wonder of their protagonists, and their inordinate lust for life.
- 6/12/2020
- MUBI
Davidson plays a would-be tattoo artist whose firefighter dad died in the line of duty in Judd Apatow’s charming, New York-set tale
It is not strictly relevant, but this film briefly breaks the unwritten movie rule that cocaine is the drug for bad people. Heroin can be for tragic jazz geniuses, LSD for visionaries or broad-minded experimentalists, Mdma for party animals and weed for lovable stoners – but coke is for cynics and nasty rich people heading for a well-deserved fall. Not here. With this richly enjoyable movie, comedy maven Judd Apatow has found a new register to go with his habitual stories of middle-aged angst and disillusion.
It’s a freewheeling and funny blue-collar dramedy set in Staten Island, New York, often feeling as if Bruce Springsteen has directed a remake of I Vitelloni. Apatow’s co-writer and star is 26-year-old Pete Davidson, the SNL comedian whose father, a New York City firefighter,...
It is not strictly relevant, but this film briefly breaks the unwritten movie rule that cocaine is the drug for bad people. Heroin can be for tragic jazz geniuses, LSD for visionaries or broad-minded experimentalists, Mdma for party animals and weed for lovable stoners – but coke is for cynics and nasty rich people heading for a well-deserved fall. Not here. With this richly enjoyable movie, comedy maven Judd Apatow has found a new register to go with his habitual stories of middle-aged angst and disillusion.
It’s a freewheeling and funny blue-collar dramedy set in Staten Island, New York, often feeling as if Bruce Springsteen has directed a remake of I Vitelloni. Apatow’s co-writer and star is 26-year-old Pete Davidson, the SNL comedian whose father, a New York City firefighter,...
- 6/8/2020
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
This year’s centennial of Federico Fellini’s birth is spawning a flurry of commemorative events, many of which will travel.
For starters the late great auteur, who was born on January 20, 1920, in Rimini, Italy, is being celebrated by his native seaside city with a new International Federico Fellini Museum, a so-called museum without walls, comprising an exhibition in a medieval castle titled “Fellini 100 and The Dolce Vita” and other components in other parts of Rimini’s historic center.
Elements of the high-tech show involving installations and “liquid screens” are expected to be replicated in a tribute to the “La Dolce Vita” director set at the new Academy Museum of Motion Pictures – when the Renzo Piano-designed museum opens later this year – alongside a complete Fellini retrospective. This Fellini tribute will also be traveling to other major museums and film institutes around the world.
Meanwhile the first U.S. leg of...
For starters the late great auteur, who was born on January 20, 1920, in Rimini, Italy, is being celebrated by his native seaside city with a new International Federico Fellini Museum, a so-called museum without walls, comprising an exhibition in a medieval castle titled “Fellini 100 and The Dolce Vita” and other components in other parts of Rimini’s historic center.
Elements of the high-tech show involving installations and “liquid screens” are expected to be replicated in a tribute to the “La Dolce Vita” director set at the new Academy Museum of Motion Pictures – when the Renzo Piano-designed museum opens later this year – alongside a complete Fellini retrospective. This Fellini tribute will also be traveling to other major museums and film institutes around the world.
Meanwhile the first U.S. leg of...
- 1/7/2020
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
In the first 72 years of the Academy Awards (1927-99), 14 fact-based movies won the best-picture prize, or 19%. In the 21st century, fact-based films have won 33% of the time.
Last year, three of 2018’s four acting winners were playing real-life characters. And six of the eight best-picture contenders were fact-based, including winner “Green Book.”
For whatever reasons, based-on-reality films are clearly increasing, and are increasingly finding favor from awards-givers. At the same time, there has also been a boost in a sub-category: the autobiographical film. Last year’s “Roma” fit into that category and the auto-truth group has multiplied this year.
In 2019 there have been so many reality-based tales that it’s possible (but unlikely) that every Oscar nominee will be from a fact-based film. In alphabetical order, the list includes “The Aeronauts,” “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood,” “Bombshell,” “Dark Waters,” “Dolemite Is My Name,” “Ford v Ferrari,” “Harriet,” “A Hidden Life,...
Last year, three of 2018’s four acting winners were playing real-life characters. And six of the eight best-picture contenders were fact-based, including winner “Green Book.”
For whatever reasons, based-on-reality films are clearly increasing, and are increasingly finding favor from awards-givers. At the same time, there has also been a boost in a sub-category: the autobiographical film. Last year’s “Roma” fit into that category and the auto-truth group has multiplied this year.
In 2019 there have been so many reality-based tales that it’s possible (but unlikely) that every Oscar nominee will be from a fact-based film. In alphabetical order, the list includes “The Aeronauts,” “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood,” “Bombshell,” “Dark Waters,” “Dolemite Is My Name,” “Ford v Ferrari,” “Harriet,” “A Hidden Life,...
- 12/24/2019
- by Tim Gray
- Variety Film + TV
Ask Lina Wertmüller if she’s pleased to be honored by Hollywood, and here’s the typical response you get from the groundbreaking director, who at 91 is still out to shock: “I certainly am. It beats a kick in the balls!”
Wertmüller, in 1976, became the first female director to receive an Academy Award nomination for helming grotesque Holocaust drama “Seven Beauties,” which received four nominations, including original screenplay for her, foreign-language film and lead actor Giancarlo Giannini. She will be celebrated on Oct. 27 with an honorary Oscar at the Governors Awards ceremony, followed the next day by a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Genoma Films, which funded the restoration of her Oscar winning “Seven Beauties,” and Sardinia Film Commission are spearheading a retrospective of her films at the American Cinematheque on Oct. 20 and 25.
Wertmüller has always been a free spirit. After being kicked out of 11 convent schools, by her count,...
Wertmüller, in 1976, became the first female director to receive an Academy Award nomination for helming grotesque Holocaust drama “Seven Beauties,” which received four nominations, including original screenplay for her, foreign-language film and lead actor Giancarlo Giannini. She will be celebrated on Oct. 27 with an honorary Oscar at the Governors Awards ceremony, followed the next day by a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Genoma Films, which funded the restoration of her Oscar winning “Seven Beauties,” and Sardinia Film Commission are spearheading a retrospective of her films at the American Cinematheque on Oct. 20 and 25.
Wertmüller has always been a free spirit. After being kicked out of 11 convent schools, by her count,...
- 10/28/2019
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
Hardly one to waste an opportunity, James Gray has already lined up his post-Ad Astra (coming this fall! maybe!) picture. Whatever can be said for how that oft-delayed project turns out, it’s seemingly given incentive to go somewhere familiar: Variety tell us the film, Armageddon Time, concerns his mid-80s upbringing in Queens’ Kew-Forest School, its principal, and board member Fred Trump, whose own son (you’ll have to look that up) is a fellow alum.
Aside from a production start early next year and the involvement of companies you don’t care about, details are currently a bit scarce. One may, if inclined, nevertheless draw a couple of lines towards Armageddon Time: knowing Gray’s Fellini love would put one in mind of that director’s autobiographical I Vitelloni, to which he paid a particular homage in The Lost City of Z; and he’d earned headlines last year when he,...
Aside from a production start early next year and the involvement of companies you don’t care about, details are currently a bit scarce. One may, if inclined, nevertheless draw a couple of lines towards Armageddon Time: knowing Gray’s Fellini love would put one in mind of that director’s autobiographical I Vitelloni, to which he paid a particular homage in The Lost City of Z; and he’d earned headlines last year when he,...
- 5/16/2019
- by Leonard Pearce
- The Film Stage
by Nathaniel R
With only 44 days until Oscar nominations and lots of confusion as to what might be nominated for screenplay (there are seemingly 7 locks for Original and only 1 contender for Adapted -- the math doesn't work. Haha!) let's use today's numerical trivia prompt for writing awards. Fact: Oscar's 4 favorite screenwriters have 44 nominations between them for writing. That's a lot of hogging of writing honors. They are...
Oscar's 20 Favorite Screenwriters
(Numbers below are for screenwriting categories only)
01 Woody Allen (16 nominations and 3 wins)
He's also been in the Acting and Directing races. Classics include Annie Hall, Hannah and Her Sisters, Manhattan and more...
02 Billy Wilder (12 nominations and 3 wins)
He's also been in the Directing and Producing races. Classics include Sunset Blvd, The Apartment, Some Like it Hot, and more...
03 John Huston (8 nominations and 1 win)
He's also been in the Acting, Directing, and Producing races. Classics include The African Queen, The Asphalt Jungle,...
With only 44 days until Oscar nominations and lots of confusion as to what might be nominated for screenplay (there are seemingly 7 locks for Original and only 1 contender for Adapted -- the math doesn't work. Haha!) let's use today's numerical trivia prompt for writing awards. Fact: Oscar's 4 favorite screenwriters have 44 nominations between them for writing. That's a lot of hogging of writing honors. They are...
Oscar's 20 Favorite Screenwriters
(Numbers below are for screenwriting categories only)
01 Woody Allen (16 nominations and 3 wins)
He's also been in the Acting and Directing races. Classics include Annie Hall, Hannah and Her Sisters, Manhattan and more...
02 Billy Wilder (12 nominations and 3 wins)
He's also been in the Directing and Producing races. Classics include Sunset Blvd, The Apartment, Some Like it Hot, and more...
03 John Huston (8 nominations and 1 win)
He's also been in the Acting, Directing, and Producing races. Classics include The African Queen, The Asphalt Jungle,...
- 12/10/2017
- by NATHANIEL R
- FilmExperience
This remake of a pre-Code classic adds amazing European locations, glorious Technicolor and entire armies on the move, yet doesn’t improve on the original. Producer David O. Selznick secured Rock Hudson to play opposite Jennifer Jones, but the chemistry is lacking. Why did the man spend twenty years trying to top Gone With the Wind?
A Farewell to Arms
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1957 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 152 min. / Street Date April 18, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Jennifer Jones, Rock Hudson, Vittorio De Sica, Mercedes McCambridge, Elaine Stritch.
Cinematography: Oswald Morris, Piero Portalupi
Production Designer: Alfred Junge
Art Direction: Mario Garbuglia
Film Editors: John M. Foley, Gerard J. Wilson
Original Music: Mario Nascimbene
Written by Ben Hecht from a play by Laurence Stallings from a novel by Ernest Hemingway
Produced by David O. Selznick
Directed by Charles Vidor
What happens when a major Hollywood producer thinks he has all the answers?...
A Farewell to Arms
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1957 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 152 min. / Street Date April 18, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Jennifer Jones, Rock Hudson, Vittorio De Sica, Mercedes McCambridge, Elaine Stritch.
Cinematography: Oswald Morris, Piero Portalupi
Production Designer: Alfred Junge
Art Direction: Mario Garbuglia
Film Editors: John M. Foley, Gerard J. Wilson
Original Music: Mario Nascimbene
Written by Ben Hecht from a play by Laurence Stallings from a novel by Ernest Hemingway
Produced by David O. Selznick
Directed by Charles Vidor
What happens when a major Hollywood producer thinks he has all the answers?...
- 4/29/2017
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Read even just a couple of interviews with him and you’ll realize that James Gray — in his humor, candor, self-effacement, knowledge, and general kindness — is better at the process than almost anybody else. So I’d experienced twice over, and now a third time on the occasion of his latest picture, The Lost City of Z. Although I liked the film a whole lot upon seeing it at last year’s Nyff and found it a rich source of questions, our conversation proved too casual and genial to be intruded about with a query about sound mixing — which I, of course, just knew I’d ask before entering a hotel room and sitting at a tiny table, complementary chocolate cake between us, and realizing that my muse then and there was instead a question about Steven Soderbergh’s Twitter account.
It’s not every day you can bring it up,...
It’s not every day you can bring it up,...
- 4/12/2017
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
‘Toni Erdmann’ (Courtesy: Tiff)
By: Carson Blackwelder
Managing Editor
It’s not too often that foreign-language films get recognized for anything at the Oscars beyond the best foreign-language film category — but it does happen. And, believe it or not, it happens more for best original screenplay and best adapted screenplay than many other categories. A prime example of that is Toni Erdmann, Germany’s submission this year that is proving to be a cross-category threat, which could score a nomination — or a win — for its writing.
The story of Toni Erdmann — which has a solid Rotten Tomatoes score of 91% — follows a father who is trying to reconnect with his adult daughter after the death of his dog. It sounds simple enough but, of course, the two couldn’t be more unalike. The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2016 and where it won the Fipresci Prize. Since then, it...
By: Carson Blackwelder
Managing Editor
It’s not too often that foreign-language films get recognized for anything at the Oscars beyond the best foreign-language film category — but it does happen. And, believe it or not, it happens more for best original screenplay and best adapted screenplay than many other categories. A prime example of that is Toni Erdmann, Germany’s submission this year that is proving to be a cross-category threat, which could score a nomination — or a win — for its writing.
The story of Toni Erdmann — which has a solid Rotten Tomatoes score of 91% — follows a father who is trying to reconnect with his adult daughter after the death of his dog. It sounds simple enough but, of course, the two couldn’t be more unalike. The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2016 and where it won the Fipresci Prize. Since then, it...
- 1/4/2017
- by Carson Blackwelder
- Scott Feinberg
It is the little-stated, undeniable truth that critics are surrounded by a nearly countless number of factors when experiencing the work they’ve been assigned to review. Presentation is rarely treated as a basic on the level of form, theme, or auteurist interest, and most mentions will come only if something had gone terribly wrong. This issue sometimes being rather important, I feel compelled to say James Gray’s The Lost City of Z is a rather forceful thing when projected on 35mm, as befits the writer-director’s wishes and with which the New York Film Festival, premiering this picture as the closing title of their 54th year, complied. I can and will compliment the movie for a number of reasons not necessarily pertaining to what material it was printed on and what machine it came out of, so let it be stated upfront that this is most likely the best (only?...
- 10/17/2016
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
Since any New York cinephile has a nearly suffocating wealth of theatrical options, we figured it’d be best to compile some of the more worthwhile repertory showings into one handy list. Displayed below are a few of the city’s most reliable theaters and links to screenings of their weekend offerings — films you’re not likely to see in a theater again anytime soon, and many of which are, also, on 35mm. If you have a chance to attend any of these, we’re of the mind that it’s time extremely well-spent.
Metrograph
“Welcome to Metrograph: A to Z” has a packed weekend with a slate that includes Alain Resnais‘ Je t’aime, je t’aime, Nicholas Ray‘s The Lusty Men, Jackie Brown, and, yes, Jackass 3D.
Baumbach & Paltrow‘s De Palma plays with a Jim McBride feature on Saturday and two De Palma shorts on Sunday.
Metrograph
“Welcome to Metrograph: A to Z” has a packed weekend with a slate that includes Alain Resnais‘ Je t’aime, je t’aime, Nicholas Ray‘s The Lusty Men, Jackie Brown, and, yes, Jackass 3D.
Baumbach & Paltrow‘s De Palma plays with a Jim McBride feature on Saturday and two De Palma shorts on Sunday.
- 7/8/2016
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
Louis Garrel on Paul Thomas Anderson, Eric Rohmer, Jacques Demy and Federico Fellini, I Vitelloni moments Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
Arnaud Desplechin, César Best Director for My Golden Days and Cannes jury member along with Valeria Golino, Donald Sutherland, Katayoon Shahabi, Mads Mikkelsen, Kirsten Dunst, Vanessa Paradis, László Nemes, headed by George Miller, has announced that Mathieu Amalric, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Marion Cotillard and Louis Garrel will star in his next film, Les Fantomes D’Ismaël.
Mona (Golshifteh Farahani) with Abel (Louis Garrel) and Clément (Vincent Macaigne)
Garrel's Two Friends (Les Deux Amis), written with Métamorphoses director Christophe Honoré, stars Golshifteh Farahani (of Asghar Farhadi's About Elly), Vincent Macaigne (Mia Hansen-Løve's Eden) and Garrel. The director is also featured in Maiwenn's My King (Mon Roi) with Emmanuelle Bercot, Isild Le Besco and Vincent Cassel.
Both films had their World Premieres at last year's Cannes Film Festival and screened at...
Arnaud Desplechin, César Best Director for My Golden Days and Cannes jury member along with Valeria Golino, Donald Sutherland, Katayoon Shahabi, Mads Mikkelsen, Kirsten Dunst, Vanessa Paradis, László Nemes, headed by George Miller, has announced that Mathieu Amalric, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Marion Cotillard and Louis Garrel will star in his next film, Les Fantomes D’Ismaël.
Mona (Golshifteh Farahani) with Abel (Louis Garrel) and Clément (Vincent Macaigne)
Garrel's Two Friends (Les Deux Amis), written with Métamorphoses director Christophe Honoré, stars Golshifteh Farahani (of Asghar Farhadi's About Elly), Vincent Macaigne (Mia Hansen-Løve's Eden) and Garrel. The director is also featured in Maiwenn's My King (Mon Roi) with Emmanuelle Bercot, Isild Le Besco and Vincent Cassel.
Both films had their World Premieres at last year's Cannes Film Festival and screened at...
- 5/13/2016
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Each week, the fine folks at Fandor add a number of films to their Criterion Picks area, which will then be available to subscribers for the following twelve days. This week, the Criterion Picks focus on seven films featuring the music of Nino Rota.
Celebrate iconic Italian films in a new way: ears first, through the scores composed by this long-time collaborator of Fellini (and many others).
Don’t have a Fandor subscription? They offer a free trial membership.
8 1/2
Marcello Mastroianni plays Guido Anselmi, a director whose new project is collapsing around him, along with his life. One of the greatest films about film ever made, Federico Fellini turns one man’s artistic crisis into a grand epic of the cinema.
Amarcord
This carnivalesque portrait of provincial Italy during the fascist period, the most personal film from Federico Fellini, satirizes the director’s youth and turns daily life into a circus of social rituals,...
Celebrate iconic Italian films in a new way: ears first, through the scores composed by this long-time collaborator of Fellini (and many others).
Don’t have a Fandor subscription? They offer a free trial membership.
8 1/2
Marcello Mastroianni plays Guido Anselmi, a director whose new project is collapsing around him, along with his life. One of the greatest films about film ever made, Federico Fellini turns one man’s artistic crisis into a grand epic of the cinema.
Amarcord
This carnivalesque portrait of provincial Italy during the fascist period, the most personal film from Federico Fellini, satirizes the director’s youth and turns daily life into a circus of social rituals,...
- 1/5/2016
- by Ryan Gallagher
- CriterionCast
Italian film and stage actor best known for his role in Federico Fellini’s I Vitelloni
The Italian film and stage actor Franco Interlenghi, who has died aged 83, will be remembered for two masterpieces of postwar Italian cinema. He was the elder of the two Roman urchins in Vittorio De Sica’s Sciuscià (Shoeshine, 1946) and went on to be the semiautobiographical Moraldo in Federico Fellini’s I Vitelloni – big calves, or loafers (1953). In this he played the youngest of the band of provincial layabouts and the only good-looking one, who at the end of the film decides to quit the Adriatic seaside resort, intended to be Rimini (though it was not actually filmed in that town, Fellini’s birthplace, which he left for Rome in search of a more interesting future). This character would evolve into Marcello in La Dolce Vita, played by Marcello Mastroianni, with whom Interlenghi had acted...
The Italian film and stage actor Franco Interlenghi, who has died aged 83, will be remembered for two masterpieces of postwar Italian cinema. He was the elder of the two Roman urchins in Vittorio De Sica’s Sciuscià (Shoeshine, 1946) and went on to be the semiautobiographical Moraldo in Federico Fellini’s I Vitelloni – big calves, or loafers (1953). In this he played the youngest of the band of provincial layabouts and the only good-looking one, who at the end of the film decides to quit the Adriatic seaside resort, intended to be Rimini (though it was not actually filmed in that town, Fellini’s birthplace, which he left for Rome in search of a more interesting future). This character would evolve into Marcello in La Dolce Vita, played by Marcello Mastroianni, with whom Interlenghi had acted...
- 9/23/2015
- by John Francis Lane
- The Guardian - Film News
"Cooley High" ought to be remembered as a cinema milestone, and its writer and director remembered as pioneers.
Released 40 years ago this week (on June 25, 1975), it ought to be celebrated for its vast influence on movies, TV, and music. As a young-men-coming-of-age movie, it deserves to be mentioned alongside Fellini's "I Vitelloni," George Lucas's "American Graffiti," Barry Levinson's "Diner," and John Singleton's "Boyz N the Hood." And yet, the film and its creators have been largely forgotten, lost to history.
The story behind "Cooley High" is even more dramatic than the comedy-drama that unspooled on the screen. It's the story of Kenneth Williams, who, like protagonist Preach, left Chicago's Cabrini-Green projects with dreams of becoming a Hollywood screenwriter. Having dropped out of high school, he hitchhiked from the Windy City to Hollywood with $5 in his pocket and no connections, and for a while he supported himself selling drugs.
Released 40 years ago this week (on June 25, 1975), it ought to be celebrated for its vast influence on movies, TV, and music. As a young-men-coming-of-age movie, it deserves to be mentioned alongside Fellini's "I Vitelloni," George Lucas's "American Graffiti," Barry Levinson's "Diner," and John Singleton's "Boyz N the Hood." And yet, the film and its creators have been largely forgotten, lost to history.
The story behind "Cooley High" is even more dramatic than the comedy-drama that unspooled on the screen. It's the story of Kenneth Williams, who, like protagonist Preach, left Chicago's Cabrini-Green projects with dreams of becoming a Hollywood screenwriter. Having dropped out of high school, he hitchhiked from the Windy City to Hollywood with $5 in his pocket and no connections, and for a while he supported himself selling drugs.
- 6/25/2015
- by Gary Susman
- Moviefone
I'm a huge fan of Federico Fellini's films, films that have essentially become part of the the fabric of cinema history. This largely refers to La Dolce Vita, 8 1/2, La Strada, The Nights of Cabiria and Amarcord. Of course, I've also seen and enjoyed I Vitelloni and Juliet of the Spirits while also not particularly loving The White Sheik or Ginger & Fred. I mention this only as a note that I will pretty much devour whatever Fellini feature is placed in front of me, and as much as I was ready to delve into this new Criterion release of his 1969 feature Fellini Satyricon, I can't say the trip was an enjoyable one. Admittedly, Criterion always manages to deliver something intriguing with their releases and this new Blu-ray edition of Fellini Satyricon is no different, but not for the film itself, more for the supplemental material that makes you start to...
- 2/24/2015
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
My Winnipeg
Written by Guy Maddin, George Toles
Directed by Guy Maddin
Canada, 2007
Since its release in 2007, a good deal of the conversation surrounding Guy Maddin’s My Winnipeg has been how exactly to define the film. Is it, as Maddin himself has dubbed the picture, a “docu-fantasia,” or is that not even accurate? During an interview between Maddin and critic Robert Enright, as part of the newly released Criterion Blu-ray, the two evoke a number of references in hopes of situating the film: Werner Herzog, melodrama, Chris Marker, city symphonies of the silent era, Fellini’s I Vitelloni. Yes, it is like these, but also not quite. An essay by Wayne Koestenbaum, also included with the disc, likewise alludes to everything from Hitchcock and James Joyce to Andy Warhol’s Blow Job and Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah. So what does it say about a film that can draw such parallels,...
Written by Guy Maddin, George Toles
Directed by Guy Maddin
Canada, 2007
Since its release in 2007, a good deal of the conversation surrounding Guy Maddin’s My Winnipeg has been how exactly to define the film. Is it, as Maddin himself has dubbed the picture, a “docu-fantasia,” or is that not even accurate? During an interview between Maddin and critic Robert Enright, as part of the newly released Criterion Blu-ray, the two evoke a number of references in hopes of situating the film: Werner Herzog, melodrama, Chris Marker, city symphonies of the silent era, Fellini’s I Vitelloni. Yes, it is like these, but also not quite. An essay by Wayne Koestenbaum, also included with the disc, likewise alludes to everything from Hitchcock and James Joyce to Andy Warhol’s Blow Job and Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah. So what does it say about a film that can draw such parallels,...
- 1/27/2015
- by Jeremy Carr
- SoundOnSight
Before receiving Criterion's new Blu-ray release of Guy Maddin's 2007 feature My Winnipeg I hadn't seen any of Maddin's films, and about 30 minutes into this one I felt I'd made the right choice. However, as the short, 80-minute, "something like a documentary" played out, I found myself increasingly intrigued. The Lynchian vibe matched with visuals appearing as if it had been made in the mid-'20s, slowly drew me in. I was fascinated by the preposterous (but true) story of Winnipeg's "If Day", the idea of a "Ledge Man" television show and then those frozen horse heads... I'll get to those in just a second. Described as a "docu-fantasia" by the folks at Criterion, Maddin sets out to tell the story of his hometown of Winnipeg, but in his own unique fashion. Using stories of his childhood to the point he even hires actors (including iconic femme fatale Ann Savage...
- 1/16/2015
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
I vinti
Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni
Written by Michelangelo Antonioni, Giorgio Bassani, Suso Cecchi D’Amico, Diego Fabbri, Roger Nimier, Turi Vasile
Italy/France, 1953
In 1953, Michelangelo Antonioni directed the episodic I vinti (The Vanquished), quite possibly the least “Antonioni-esque” feature he ever made (the roster of credited writers above is some indication of the impersonal nature of the film). Comprised of three vignettes about troubled youth in France, Italy, and England, the film at times comes across almost as a moralizing after school special, whereby it attempts to draw attention to the desperate and destructive state of young people during this period. But while the film’s obvious didacticism is its least laudable characteristic, I vinti is nevertheless a fascinating examination of this “burnt out generation.”
These young people were just children during World War II. They’ve grown up in a time of upheaval and violence, and now as...
Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni
Written by Michelangelo Antonioni, Giorgio Bassani, Suso Cecchi D’Amico, Diego Fabbri, Roger Nimier, Turi Vasile
Italy/France, 1953
In 1953, Michelangelo Antonioni directed the episodic I vinti (The Vanquished), quite possibly the least “Antonioni-esque” feature he ever made (the roster of credited writers above is some indication of the impersonal nature of the film). Comprised of three vignettes about troubled youth in France, Italy, and England, the film at times comes across almost as a moralizing after school special, whereby it attempts to draw attention to the desperate and destructive state of young people during this period. But while the film’s obvious didacticism is its least laudable characteristic, I vinti is nevertheless a fascinating examination of this “burnt out generation.”
These young people were just children during World War II. They’ve grown up in a time of upheaval and violence, and now as...
- 7/16/2014
- by Jeremy Carr
- SoundOnSight
Michelangelo Antonioni’s third feature, I Vinti, translating as The Vanquished, gets a Blu-ray upgrade from Raro Video, serving as a definite collector’s item for aficionados of the director. A rather stilted and stuffy moral tale about lost youth, it’s a title championed by some as serving as an index for the turning point in Italian cinema, which was heavily influenced in the post-war period by a Catholic revival. Certainly, this is the auteur still struggling to find his stride, and the title most notably serves as an influential precursor to his most celebrated work, 1966’s Blow-Up. Beyond this, it’s a rather lukewarm trio of segments based on ‘ripped-from-the headline’ scenarios concerning privileged youths and their apathetic ambivalence toward their fellow man, supposedly caused from growing up through war.
Bouncing from France, to Italy, and finally, London, England, we get a series of disturbing acts of violence...
Bouncing from France, to Italy, and finally, London, England, we get a series of disturbing acts of violence...
- 7/8/2014
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
I first watched Federico Fellini's 1960 film, La Dolce Vita, just over five years ago and with this week marking what would have been the filmmaker's 94th birthday I've chosen La Dolce Vita as the debut film in my Best Movies feature. Not because I believe it to be his best (though it certainly is one of the best), but largely because I've had the urge to watch it again ever since learning Paramount has finally been granted exclusive rights to the film, prompting me to hope it will finally receive a domestic Blu-ray release sometime soon. Captured in lovely black-and-white, Otello Martelli's cinematography lives up to the literal translation of the film's title -- "the sweet life" -- while the narrative focuses on a character living a life more empty than "sweet". Marking the first time Marcello Mastroianni and Fellini would work together, Mastroianni plays Marcello Rubini, a...
- 1/22/2014
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
The 25th-anniversary restoration of Giuseppe Tornatore’s crowd-pleasing Oscar-winner is the original version, not the later, longer director’s cut. As a celebration of old-fashioned flammable nitrate film in all its unpredictability, it has an added resonance in today’s digital era. Cinema Paradiso is a movie of glorious moments but it is undermined by its own chronic, nostalgia-fuelled soppiness. At times, the sentimentality risks becoming very cloying indeed. Tornatore’s screenplay owes an obvious debt to Federico Fellini’s I Vitelloni, likewise a story about a man looking back with longing on his provincial roots.
- 12/12/2013
- The Independent - Film
Above: 1968 Hans Hillmann poster for Shadows (John Cassavetes, USA, 1959).
There is an exhibition of the great German graphic designer Hans Hillmann currently running at the Museum Folkwang in Essen, Germany. Devoted entirely to Hillmann’s film posters from 1952 to 1974, the show, called The Title is Continued in the Picture, runs through the 1st of September and I’m sorry that I didn’t know about it sooner. But for those of us who can’t make it to the Ruhr in the next three weeks, the website Kunst + Film has posted a wonderful, almost-as-good-as-being-there video of the show.
The revelation of the video for me is the size of that Seven Samurai poster. Where most of Hillmann’s film posters are 33" x 23" (slightly smaller than a Us one-sheet), and the Cassavetes above is only 16.5" x 23", that glorious Seven Samurai is 93" x 132", or 11 feet wide.
While many of Hillmann’s witty,...
There is an exhibition of the great German graphic designer Hans Hillmann currently running at the Museum Folkwang in Essen, Germany. Devoted entirely to Hillmann’s film posters from 1952 to 1974, the show, called The Title is Continued in the Picture, runs through the 1st of September and I’m sorry that I didn’t know about it sooner. But for those of us who can’t make it to the Ruhr in the next three weeks, the website Kunst + Film has posted a wonderful, almost-as-good-as-being-there video of the show.
The revelation of the video for me is the size of that Seven Samurai poster. Where most of Hillmann’s film posters are 33" x 23" (slightly smaller than a Us one-sheet), and the Cassavetes above is only 16.5" x 23", that glorious Seven Samurai is 93" x 132", or 11 feet wide.
While many of Hillmann’s witty,...
- 8/10/2013
- by Adrian Curry
- MUBI
Have you seen Kubrick’s top 10?
In 1963, Stanley Kubrick created a list of the greatest films of all time. It has recently resurfaced, and is worth checking out:
I Vitelloni (dir. Federico Fellini, 1953) Wild Strawberries (dir. Ingmar Bergman, 1957) Citizen Kane (dir. Orson Welles, 1941) The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (dir. John Huston, 1948) City Lights (dir. Charlie Chaplin, 1931) Henry V (dir. Laurence Olivier, 1944) La Notte (dir. Michelangelo Antonioni, 1961) The Bank Dick (dir. Edward F. Cline, 1940) Roxie Hart (dir. William A. Wellman, 1942) Hell’s Angels (dir. Howard Hughes, 1930)
Find details, and links to more of the greatest movies of all time here.
In 1963, Stanley Kubrick created a list of the greatest films of all time. It has recently resurfaced, and is worth checking out:
I Vitelloni (dir. Federico Fellini, 1953) Wild Strawberries (dir. Ingmar Bergman, 1957) Citizen Kane (dir. Orson Welles, 1941) The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (dir. John Huston, 1948) City Lights (dir. Charlie Chaplin, 1931) Henry V (dir. Laurence Olivier, 1944) La Notte (dir. Michelangelo Antonioni, 1961) The Bank Dick (dir. Edward F. Cline, 1940) Roxie Hart (dir. William A. Wellman, 1942) Hell’s Angels (dir. Howard Hughes, 1930)
Find details, and links to more of the greatest movies of all time here.
- 7/30/2013
- Hollywonk
Any time a top ten list is made nowadays it is typically made by movie bloggers born in the late '70s / early '80s and therefore the span of time it covers is frequently limited to just a few years before their birth to modern day. As a result many great films are forgotten simply because it's damn near impossible to see everything. Thankfully, there are others out there to encourage us to see films before our time and expand our cinematic knowledge. Just yesterday I posted Spike Lee's list of 87 Essential Films (see that here) and I've always pointed out and referenced Roger Ebert's list of Great Movies, which you can see in its entirety right here. If you haven't seen these films, add them to a spreadsheet of your own and get to work as today I have ten more for you to consider. Born...
- 7/30/2013
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
Screenwriting isn’t quite as hard as novel writing or literary writing of any kind, but it is still a difficult thing. Forming a character and its words is a most disagreeable endeavour – imagine what Tolstoy went through – but there are some people who have gone a long way in making screenwriting as important as the film itself – almost. The script is as we know a blueprint for what could be a great thing. There are thousands of screenwriters but only a few who have gone on to utter greatness but in my mind there is only one who has never failed, and he ranks at number 1 on this list. That person’s films are so enjoyable that even the bad ones are fun to watch.
Considering a small list like this means considering an awful lot of people and making it a small list – 5 points – makes it that much...
Considering a small list like this means considering an awful lot of people and making it a small list – 5 points – makes it that much...
- 4/15/2013
- by Quinn Steers
- Obsessed with Film
During the first week of August, Sight & Sound organized a poll that dethroned "Citizen Kane" as the best movie ever made. Alfred Hitchcock's "Vertigo" took the title as the Greatest Film ending "Citizen Kane's" long run. (See Dethroned! "Citizen Kane" No Longer Best Movie Ever! Critics, Directors Pick Top 10 Films of All Time!)
Academians, archivists, critics, directors, and distributors all over the world were among the ones invited to participate in the poll. Now, Sight & Sound has revealed the choices made by our favorite directors (via Collider). Here they are (it's interesting to note that among the list of directors below, only Martin Scorsese, David O'Russell, and Sam Mendes picked "Vertigo"):
Andrew Dominik (The Assassination of Jesse James, Killing Them Softly)
Apocalypse Now (1979) . Francis Ford Coppola
Badlands (1973) . Terrence Malick
Barry Lyndon (1975) . Stanley Kubrick
Blue Velvet (1986) . David Lynch
Marnie (1964) . Alfred Hitchcock
Mulholland Dr. (2003) . David Lynch
The Night of the Hunter...
Academians, archivists, critics, directors, and distributors all over the world were among the ones invited to participate in the poll. Now, Sight & Sound has revealed the choices made by our favorite directors (via Collider). Here they are (it's interesting to note that among the list of directors below, only Martin Scorsese, David O'Russell, and Sam Mendes picked "Vertigo"):
Andrew Dominik (The Assassination of Jesse James, Killing Them Softly)
Apocalypse Now (1979) . Francis Ford Coppola
Badlands (1973) . Terrence Malick
Barry Lyndon (1975) . Stanley Kubrick
Blue Velvet (1986) . David Lynch
Marnie (1964) . Alfred Hitchcock
Mulholland Dr. (2003) . David Lynch
The Night of the Hunter...
- 8/27/2012
- by Manny
- Manny the Movie Guy
There are Tons of new releases this past week, and as my co-host and friend Travis George said, it was going to be a hell of a time to write these up for all of you people out there who want to know about Criterion’s blossoming Hulu Plus page. And as usual, I’m elated to tell you all about these films, especially if you want to join up to the service, which helps us keep this weekly article series going. I mean, come on, there’s an Ingmar Bergman film that’s not in the collection yet! More on that at the end of the article. So let’s get right to it then.
The epic film The Human Condition (1959) has been put up, separated into three videos. Parts 1 & 2, Parts 3 & 4 and Parts 5 & 6 are there for your ease of watching, so if you have 574 minutes to kill watching the...
The epic film The Human Condition (1959) has been put up, separated into three videos. Parts 1 & 2, Parts 3 & 4 and Parts 5 & 6 are there for your ease of watching, so if you have 574 minutes to kill watching the...
- 6/12/2011
- by James McCormick
- CriterionCast
tuesday top ten returns! It's for the list-maker in me and the list-lover in you
The Cannes film festival wrapped this weekend (previous posts) and the most recent Oscar winner for Best Foreign Language Film, The Secret in Their Eyes is still in the midst of a successful Us run. That Oscar winning Argentinian film came to us from director Juan Jose Campanella. It's his second film to be honored by the Academy (Son of the Bride was nominated ten years back). The Academy voters obviously like Campanella and in some ways he's a Hollywood guy. When he's not directing Argentinian Oscar hopefuls he spends time making Us television with episodes of Law & Order, House and 30 Rock under his belt.
So let's talk foreign-language auteurs. Who does Oscar love most?
[The film titles discussed in this article will link to Netflix pages -- if available -- should you be curious to see the films]
Best Director winners Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain) and Milos Forman
(Amadeus and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest)
Please Note:...
The Cannes film festival wrapped this weekend (previous posts) and the most recent Oscar winner for Best Foreign Language Film, The Secret in Their Eyes is still in the midst of a successful Us run. That Oscar winning Argentinian film came to us from director Juan Jose Campanella. It's his second film to be honored by the Academy (Son of the Bride was nominated ten years back). The Academy voters obviously like Campanella and in some ways he's a Hollywood guy. When he's not directing Argentinian Oscar hopefuls he spends time making Us television with episodes of Law & Order, House and 30 Rock under his belt.
So let's talk foreign-language auteurs. Who does Oscar love most?
[The film titles discussed in this article will link to Netflix pages -- if available -- should you be curious to see the films]
Best Director winners Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain) and Milos Forman
(Amadeus and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest)
Please Note:...
- 5/31/2010
- by NATHANIEL R
- FilmExperience
Imagine Federico Fellini's I Vitelloni set in Reading in the early 1970s and sprinkled with Dick Emery-style gags and you'll come close to the essence of Cemetery Junction.
This is a heartfelt and intermittently funny account of growing up in – and trying to escape from – suburban England. Freddie (Christian Cook) takes a job selling life insurance under stern patriarch Mr Kendrick (Ralph Fiennes in Leonard Rossiter mode). His mum (Julia Davis) and dad (Gervais) mock his middle-class aspirations ("why do you want to go to Paris? There are parts of Reading you haven't seen?").
This is a heartfelt and intermittently funny account of growing up in – and trying to escape from – suburban England. Freddie (Christian Cook) takes a job selling life insurance under stern patriarch Mr Kendrick (Ralph Fiennes in Leonard Rossiter mode). His mum (Julia Davis) and dad (Gervais) mock his middle-class aspirations ("why do you want to go to Paris? There are parts of Reading you haven't seen?").
- 4/15/2010
- The Independent - Film
As a film inspired by the renowned Italian director opens, his niece quits the foundation in Rimini that promotes his works and takes his Oscars with her
Federico Fellini, revered in Italy as a cinematic great and cited abroad as a key influence on Martin Scorsese and Woody Allen, is at the centre of a row in his home town of Rimini.
Celebrations of the 90th anniversary of the director's birth have been marred by a battle over his legacy between his niece and the foundation set up in his name to promote such classics as La Dolce Vita.
Francesca Fabbri Fellini, the daughter of Fellini's sister, has stormed off the board of the foundation, claiming that she was frozen out and has taken with her Fellini's personal library and his collection of Oscars.
A tale of money, blood ties and show business, the battle of Rimini...
Federico Fellini, revered in Italy as a cinematic great and cited abroad as a key influence on Martin Scorsese and Woody Allen, is at the centre of a row in his home town of Rimini.
Celebrations of the 90th anniversary of the director's birth have been marred by a battle over his legacy between his niece and the foundation set up in his name to promote such classics as La Dolce Vita.
Francesca Fabbri Fellini, the daughter of Fellini's sister, has stormed off the board of the foundation, claiming that she was frozen out and has taken with her Fellini's personal library and his collection of Oscars.
A tale of money, blood ties and show business, the battle of Rimini...
- 1/23/2010
- by Tom Kington
- The Guardian - Film News
Scriptwriter Pinelli Dies
Oscar-nominated screenwriter Tullio Pinelli has died at the age of 100.
The Italian stage and film scribe passed away on 7 March in Rome.
Beginning his career in the 1940s, Pinelli was best known for his collaborations with director Federico Fellini.
Together, they earned recognition for movies like 1953's I Vitelloni, 1954's La Strada, 1960's La Dolce vita and 1963's 8 1/2 - all of which were nominated for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay Academy Awards.
Pinelli was also noted for his work on Pietro Germi's 1951 crime film Four Ways Out, starring Gina Lollobrigida, and Fellini's La voce della luna in 1990.
The star is also widely acknowledged for his contributions to Italian cinema's golden age with Monicelli comedies like 1975's Amici miel and 1981's Il Marchese del Grillo.
He is survived by four children, including his director son, Carlo Alberto Pinelli.
The Italian stage and film scribe passed away on 7 March in Rome.
Beginning his career in the 1940s, Pinelli was best known for his collaborations with director Federico Fellini.
Together, they earned recognition for movies like 1953's I Vitelloni, 1954's La Strada, 1960's La Dolce vita and 1963's 8 1/2 - all of which were nominated for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay Academy Awards.
Pinelli was also noted for his work on Pietro Germi's 1951 crime film Four Ways Out, starring Gina Lollobrigida, and Fellini's La voce della luna in 1990.
The star is also widely acknowledged for his contributions to Italian cinema's golden age with Monicelli comedies like 1975's Amici miel and 1981's Il Marchese del Grillo.
He is survived by four children, including his director son, Carlo Alberto Pinelli.
- 3/9/2009
- WENN
Film star Alberto Sordi dies; embodied 'Italian comedy'
Alberto Sordi, the Italian film star who came to personify the genre known as "Italian comedy" in a career spanning seven decades and more than 150 films, died Tuesday in Rome of bronchitis, ending a six-month battle with cancer. He was 82. The son of a Roman orchestra conductor, Sordi started out in the movies in the 1930s as a dubber with a contract from MGM to give Oliver Hardy -- the chubby man of comic duo Laurel and Hardy -- an Italian voice. Sordi's acting career got a big boost after working with Federico Fellini, who picked the strapping, dark, typically Roman-looking Sordi to play the part of a romantic movie star in his 1952 feature The White Sheik. The next year, Sordi worked again with Fellini in the Italian cinema classic I Vitelloni, in which Sordi played one of five indolent young men shirking the responsibilities of adulthood in a sleepy seaside town. But it was for his roles in scores of popular comedies of the 1950s, '60s and '70s -- social satires in which he played a traffic cop, a doctor, a taxi driver, a playboy, a convict and a Mafioso, among many other roles -- that Sordi rose to icon status in Italy.
- 2/26/2003
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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