Cinephiles will have plenty to celebrate this April with the next slate of additions to the Criterion Channel. The boutique distributor, which recently announced its June 2024 Blu-ray releases, has unveiled its new streaming lineup highlighted by an eclectic mix of classic films and modern arthouse hits.
Students of Hollywood history will be treated to the “Peak Noir: 1950” collection, which features 17 noir films from the landmark film year from directors including Billy Wilder, Alfred Hitchcock, and John Huston.
New Hollywood maverick William Friedkin will also be celebrated when five of his most beloved movies, including “Sorcerer” and “The Exorcist,” come to the channel in April.
Criterion will offer the streaming premiere of Wim Wenders’ 3D art documentary “Anselm,” which will be accompanied by the “Wim Wenders’ Adventures in Moviegoing” collection, which sees the director curating a selection of films from around the world that have influenced his careers.
Contemporary cinema is also well represented,...
Students of Hollywood history will be treated to the “Peak Noir: 1950” collection, which features 17 noir films from the landmark film year from directors including Billy Wilder, Alfred Hitchcock, and John Huston.
New Hollywood maverick William Friedkin will also be celebrated when five of his most beloved movies, including “Sorcerer” and “The Exorcist,” come to the channel in April.
Criterion will offer the streaming premiere of Wim Wenders’ 3D art documentary “Anselm,” which will be accompanied by the “Wim Wenders’ Adventures in Moviegoing” collection, which sees the director curating a selection of films from around the world that have influenced his careers.
Contemporary cinema is also well represented,...
- 3/18/2024
- by Christian Zilko
- Indiewire
April’s an uncommonly strong auteurist month for the Criterion Channel, who will highlight a number of directors––many of whom aren’t often grouped together. Just after we screened House of Tolerance at the Roxy Cinema, Criterion are showing it and Nocturama for a two-film Bertrand Bonello retrospective, starting just four days before The Beast opens. Larger and rarer (but just as French) is the complete Jean Eustache series Janus toured last year. Meanwhile, five William Friedkin films and work from Makoto Shinkai, Lizzie Borden, and Rosine Mbakam are given a highlight.
One of my very favorite films, Comrades: Almost a Love Story plays in a series I’ve been trying to program for years: “Hong Kong in New York,” boasting the magnificent Full Moon in New York, Farewell China, and An Autumn’s Tale. Wim Wenders gets his “Adventures in Moviegoing”; After Hours, Personal Shopper, and Werckmeister Harmonies fill...
One of my very favorite films, Comrades: Almost a Love Story plays in a series I’ve been trying to program for years: “Hong Kong in New York,” boasting the magnificent Full Moon in New York, Farewell China, and An Autumn’s Tale. Wim Wenders gets his “Adventures in Moviegoing”; After Hours, Personal Shopper, and Werckmeister Harmonies fill...
- 3/18/2024
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
It was more than a little heartening to see Roger Corman paid tribute by Quentin Tarantino at Cannes’ closing night. By now the director-producer-mogul’s imprint on cinema is understood to eclipse, rough estimate, 99.5% of anybody who’s touched the medium, but on a night for celebrating what’s new, trend-following, and manicured it could’ve hardly been more necessary. Thus I’m further heartened seeing the Criterion Channel will host a retrospective of Corman’s Edgar Allan Poe adaptations running eight films and aptly titled “Grindhouse Gothic,” though I might save the selections for October.
Centerpiece, though, is a hip hop series including Bill Duke’s superb Deep Cover, Ghost Dog, and numerous documentaries––among them Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of a Tribe Called Quest, making Michael Rapaport a Criterion-approved auteur. Ten films starring Kay Francis and 21 Eurothrillers round out series; streaming premieres include the Dardenne brothers’ Tori and Lokita,...
Centerpiece, though, is a hip hop series including Bill Duke’s superb Deep Cover, Ghost Dog, and numerous documentaries––among them Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of a Tribe Called Quest, making Michael Rapaport a Criterion-approved auteur. Ten films starring Kay Francis and 21 Eurothrillers round out series; streaming premieres include the Dardenne brothers’ Tori and Lokita,...
- 7/19/2023
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
During a recent Gold Derby video interview, senior editor Matt Noble spoke in-depth with Jeff Bridges (“The Old Man”) about Season 1 of his FX action drama, which is eligible at the 2023 Emmys. Watch the full video above and read the complete interview transcript below.
The actor plays former CIA agent and fugitive Dan Chase, who after going Awol for the past several decades is now on the run from the FBI and an old friend, Harold Harper (John Lithgow). Earlier this year, Bridges was nominated at the Golden Globes, Critics Choice and SAG Awards for his role on “The Old Man.”
Bridges admitted in our webchat that his father, legendary actor Lloyd Bridges, encouraged his children to get into the same business as him, which was unusual with “a lot of showbiz folks” at the time. As he explained, “He really encouraged all his kids to go into acting. He...
The actor plays former CIA agent and fugitive Dan Chase, who after going Awol for the past several decades is now on the run from the FBI and an old friend, Harold Harper (John Lithgow). Earlier this year, Bridges was nominated at the Golden Globes, Critics Choice and SAG Awards for his role on “The Old Man.”
Bridges admitted in our webchat that his father, legendary actor Lloyd Bridges, encouraged his children to get into the same business as him, which was unusual with “a lot of showbiz folks” at the time. As he explained, “He really encouraged all his kids to go into acting. He...
- 7/6/2023
- by Latasha Ford and Marcus James Dixon
- Gold Derby
The effort to restore neglected films doesn’t get more rewarding than this 4K rebirth of Lewis Milestone’s version of the acclaimed Somerset Maugham story. Loaned from MGM, Joan Crawford tries on the role of Sadie Thompson and holds her own opposite Walter Huston’s fire & brimstone preacher. It’s still a major achievement of the pre-Code era, an adult story that doesn’t water down its ‘dangerous’ themes: it’s exactly the kind of show that the censors didn’t want made.
Rain
Blu-ray
Mary Pickford Foundation / Vci
1932 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 94 + 76 min. / Street Date September 27, 2022 / Available from Mvd / 29.95
Starring: Joan Crawford, Walter Huston, Fred Howard, Ben Hendricks Jr., William Gargan, Mary Shaw, Guy Kibbee, Kendall Lee, Beulah Bondi, Matt Moore, Walter Catlett.
Cinematography: Oliver Marsh
Art Director: Richard Day
Film Editor: W. Duncan Mansfield
Original Music: Alfred Newman
Screen adaptation by Maxwell Anderson from the play by John Colton,...
Rain
Blu-ray
Mary Pickford Foundation / Vci
1932 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 94 + 76 min. / Street Date September 27, 2022 / Available from Mvd / 29.95
Starring: Joan Crawford, Walter Huston, Fred Howard, Ben Hendricks Jr., William Gargan, Mary Shaw, Guy Kibbee, Kendall Lee, Beulah Bondi, Matt Moore, Walter Catlett.
Cinematography: Oliver Marsh
Art Director: Richard Day
Film Editor: W. Duncan Mansfield
Original Music: Alfred Newman
Screen adaptation by Maxwell Anderson from the play by John Colton,...
- 9/20/2022
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Cinematography retrospectives are the way to go—more than a thorough display of talent, it exposes the vast expanse a Dp will travel, like an education in form and business all the same. Accordingly I’m happy to see the Criterion Channel give a 25-film tribute to James Wong Howe, whose career spanned silent cinema to the ’70s, populated with work by Howard Hawks, Michael Curtz, Samuel Fuller, Alexander Mackendrick, Sydney Pollack, John Frankenheimer, and Raoul Walsh.
Further retrospectives are granted to Romy Schneider (recent repertory sensation La piscine among them), Carlos Saura (finally a chance to see Peppermint frappe!), the British New Wave, and groundbreaking distributor Cinema 5, who brought to U.S. shores everything from The Man Who Fell to Earth and Putney Swope to Pumping Iron and Scenes from a Marriage.
September also yields streaming premieres for the recently restored Bronco Bullfrog, Ang Lee’s Pushing Hands,...
Further retrospectives are granted to Romy Schneider (recent repertory sensation La piscine among them), Carlos Saura (finally a chance to see Peppermint frappe!), the British New Wave, and groundbreaking distributor Cinema 5, who brought to U.S. shores everything from The Man Who Fell to Earth and Putney Swope to Pumping Iron and Scenes from a Marriage.
September also yields streaming premieres for the recently restored Bronco Bullfrog, Ang Lee’s Pushing Hands,...
- 8/22/2022
- by Leonard Pearce
- The Film Stage
The Criterion Channel has unveiled their lineup for next month and it’s another strong slate, featuring retrospectives of Carole Lombard, John Waters, Robert Downey Sr., Luis García Berlanga, Jane Russell, and Rob Epstein & Jeffrey Friedman. Also in the lineup is new additions to their Queersighted series, notably Todd Haynes’ early film Poison (Safe is also premiering in a separate presentation), William Friedkin’s Cruising, and Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Teorama.
The new restorations of Manoel de Oliveira’s stunning Francisca and Francesco Rosi’s Christ Stopped at Eboli will join the channel, alongside Agnieszka Holland’s Spoor, Bong Joon Ho’s early short film Incoherence, and Luc Dardenne & Jean-Pierre Dardenne’s Rosetta.
See the lineup below and explore more on criterionchannel.com.
#Blackmendream, Shikeith, 2014
12 Angry Men, Sidney Lumet, 1957
About Tap, George T. Nierenberg, 1985
The AIDS Show, Peter Adair and Rob Epstein, 1986
The Assignation, Curtis Harrington, 1953
Aya of Yop City,...
The new restorations of Manoel de Oliveira’s stunning Francisca and Francesco Rosi’s Christ Stopped at Eboli will join the channel, alongside Agnieszka Holland’s Spoor, Bong Joon Ho’s early short film Incoherence, and Luc Dardenne & Jean-Pierre Dardenne’s Rosetta.
See the lineup below and explore more on criterionchannel.com.
#Blackmendream, Shikeith, 2014
12 Angry Men, Sidney Lumet, 1957
About Tap, George T. Nierenberg, 1985
The AIDS Show, Peter Adair and Rob Epstein, 1986
The Assignation, Curtis Harrington, 1953
Aya of Yop City,...
- 5/24/2021
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
William Wellman’s The Public Enemy (1931) turns 90 this weekend. When the film first came out, a theater in Times Square showed it nonstop, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The movie marks the true beginning of gangster movies as a genre. Mervyn LeRoy’s Little Caesar may have hit theaters first, but The Public Enemy set the pattern, and James Cagney nailed the patter. Not just the street talk either; he also understood its machine gun delivery. His Tommy Powers is just a hoodlum, never a boss. He is a button man at best, even if he insisted his suits have six buttons.
The Public Enemy character wasn’t even as high up the ladder as Paul Sorvino’s caporegime Paul Cicero in Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas. But Cagney secured the turf Edward G. Robinson’s Rico Bandello took a bullet to claim in Little Caesar, and for the...
The Public Enemy character wasn’t even as high up the ladder as Paul Sorvino’s caporegime Paul Cicero in Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas. But Cagney secured the turf Edward G. Robinson’s Rico Bandello took a bullet to claim in Little Caesar, and for the...
- 4/23/2021
- by David Crow
- Den of Geek
This streets-of-New-York cop drama — shot in Philly, which should tell you something is off — has all the ingredients: adrenalized action, gritty atmosphere and a ready-to-rock cast, led by the Black Panther himself, Chadwick Boseman. How do you screw that up? The prosecution offers as Exhibit A. The skilled TV director Brian Kirk (Game of Thrones, Luther, Penny Dreadful), in his feature debut, huffs and puffs to keep the plot spinning. But he can’t blow down the dead end of a script by Adam Mervis and Matthew Michael Carnahan. The...
- 11/20/2019
- by Peter Travers
- Rollingstone.com
There are few Hollywood stars more deserving of a career-spanning achievement award than Jeff Bridges, who has been acting since he was an actual infant — the son of the legendary actor Lloyd Bridges and actress and writer Dorothy Bridges made his uncredited debut in John Cromwell’s “The Company She Keeps” when he was less than two years old — and so his Sunday night coronation as the latest winner of the Golden Globes’ Cecil B. DeMille Award seemed nothing if not incredibly appropriate (and perhaps a little overdue).
Bridges, of course, likes to mix things up, and the star of such varied films as “The Big Lebowski,” “The Last Picture Show,” “Tron,” “Hell or High Water,” and “The Mirror Has Two Faces,” offered up a charming, wide-ranging acceptance speech after a loving introduction from fellow actor (and “Hell or High Water” co-star) Chris Pine and a career-spanning montage narrated by Sam Elliott.
Bridges, of course, likes to mix things up, and the star of such varied films as “The Big Lebowski,” “The Last Picture Show,” “Tron,” “Hell or High Water,” and “The Mirror Has Two Faces,” offered up a charming, wide-ranging acceptance speech after a loving introduction from fellow actor (and “Hell or High Water” co-star) Chris Pine and a career-spanning montage narrated by Sam Elliott.
- 1/7/2019
- by Kate Erbland
- Indiewire
Jeff Bridges grew up with show business in his veins. His father, the late Lloyd Bridges, was a gregarious sort who not only loved the making of movies, but the selling of them as well. He would encourage his children to give it a go. “This is a great life,” he would tell them.
Still, like any rebellious kid, the younger Bridges — who will receive the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn.’s Cecil B. DeMille Award for career achievement at the 76th annual Golden Globe Awards on Jan. 6 — was resistant to chasing his father’s chosen trade. He wanted to be a musician instead, or an artist. “I had maybe 10 movies under my belt before I thought I could do this for the rest of my life,” he said in 2009.
Eventually the passion kicked in. Six decades into a movie career that technically began when he was a 6-month-old infant on...
Still, like any rebellious kid, the younger Bridges — who will receive the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn.’s Cecil B. DeMille Award for career achievement at the 76th annual Golden Globe Awards on Jan. 6 — was resistant to chasing his father’s chosen trade. He wanted to be a musician instead, or an artist. “I had maybe 10 movies under my belt before I thought I could do this for the rest of my life,” he said in 2009.
Eventually the passion kicked in. Six decades into a movie career that technically began when he was a 6-month-old infant on...
- 1/3/2019
- by Kristopher Tapley
- Variety Film + TV
Ronald Colman: Turner Classic Movies' Star of the Month in two major 1930s classics Updated: Turner Classic Movies' July 2017 Star of the Month is Ronald Colman, one of the finest performers of the studio era. On Thursday night, TCM presented five Colman star vehicles that should be popping up again in the not-too-distant future: A Tale of Two Cities, The Prisoner of Zenda, Kismet, Lucky Partners, and My Life with Caroline. The first two movies are among not only Colman's best, but also among Hollywood's best during its so-called Golden Age. Based on Charles Dickens' classic novel, Jack Conway's Academy Award-nominated A Tale of Two Cities (1936) is a rare Hollywood production indeed: it manages to effectively condense its sprawling source, it boasts first-rate production values, and it features a phenomenal central performance. Ah, it also shows its star without his trademark mustache – about as famous at the time as Clark Gable's. Perhaps...
- 7/21/2017
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
'The Magnificent Ambersons': Directed by Orson Welles, and starring Tim Holt (pictured), Dolores Costello (in the background), Joseph Cotten, Anne Baxter, and Agnes Moorehead, this Academy Award-nominated adaptation of Booth Tarkington's novel earned Ricardo Cortez's brother Stanley Cortez an Academy Award nomination for Best Cinematography, Black-and-White. He lost to Joseph Ruttenberg for William Wyler's blockbuster 'Mrs. Miniver.' Two years later, Cortez – along with Lee Garmes – would win Oscar statuettes for their evocative black-and-white work on John Cromwell's homefront drama 'Since You Went Away,' starring Ricardo Cortez's 'Torch Singer' leading lady, Claudette Colbert. In all, Stanley Cortez would receive cinematography credit in more than 80 films, ranging from B fare such as 'The Lady in the Morgue' and the 1940 'Margie' to Fritz Lang's 'Secret Beyond the Door,' Charles Laughton's 'The Night of the Hunter,' and Nunnally Johnson's 'The Three Faces...
- 7/8/2017
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Turner Classic Movies continues with its Gay Hollywood presentations tonight and tomorrow morning, June 8–9. Seven movies will be shown about, featuring, directed, or produced by the following: Cole Porter, Lorenz Hart, Farley Granger, John Dall, Edmund Goulding, W. Somerset Maughan, Clifton Webb, Montgomery Clift, Raymond Burr, Charles Walters, DeWitt Bodeen, and Harriet Parsons. (One assumes that it's a mere coincidence that gay rumor subjects Cary Grant and Tyrone Power are also featured.) Night and Day (1946), which could also be considered part of TCM's homage to birthday girl Alexis Smith, who would have turned 96 today, is a Cole Porter biopic starring Cary Grant as a posh, heterosexualized version of Porter. As the warning goes, any similaries to real-life people and/or events found in Night and Day are a mere coincidence. The same goes for Words and Music (1948), a highly fictionalized version of the Richard Rodgers-Lorenz Hart musical partnership.
- 6/9/2017
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Frances Dee movies: From 'An American Tragedy' to 'Four Faces West' Frances Dee began her film career at the dawn of the sound era, going from extra to leading lady within a matter of months. Her rapid ascencion came about thanks to Maurice Chevalier, who got her as his romantic interested in Ludwig Berger's 1930 romantic comedy Playboy of Paris. Despite her dark(-haired) good looks and pleasant personality, Dee's Hollywood career never quite progressed to major – or even moderate – stardom. But she was to remain a busy leading lady for about 15 years. Tonight, Turner Classic Movies is showing seven Frances Dee films, ranging from heavy dramas to Westerns. Unfortunately missing is one of Dee's most curious efforts, the raunchy pre-Coder Blood Money, which possibly features her most unusual – and most effective – performance. Having said that, William A. Wellman's Love Is a Racket is a worthwhile subsitute, though the...
- 5/18/2017
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Feeling festive today but not quite ready for Christmas? Celebrate one of these anniversaries!
1805 Joseph Smith Jr, founder of the Mormon Church is born in Vermont. Here's a very random piece of trivia: Outside of the very early movie Brigham Young (1940) about his successor with Vincent Price in the Joseph Smith role, the only actually famous actor to ever play him is Dean Cain of Lois & Clark fame in a movie called September Dawn (2007)? It's kind of hard to draw a line connecting Vincent Price and Dean Cain otherwise, right?
1867 Madame Cj Walker, cosmetics mogul and the first black female millionaire in America, is born in Louisiana. Where's her biopic, Hollywood? History has more than just Great White Man stories.
1887 Underappreciated director John Cromwell who guided Bette Davis's breakthrough role in Of Human Bondage , and the all female wonders of Caged was born in Ohio. One more Bette related anniversary after the jump.
1805 Joseph Smith Jr, founder of the Mormon Church is born in Vermont. Here's a very random piece of trivia: Outside of the very early movie Brigham Young (1940) about his successor with Vincent Price in the Joseph Smith role, the only actually famous actor to ever play him is Dean Cain of Lois & Clark fame in a movie called September Dawn (2007)? It's kind of hard to draw a line connecting Vincent Price and Dean Cain otherwise, right?
1867 Madame Cj Walker, cosmetics mogul and the first black female millionaire in America, is born in Louisiana. Where's her biopic, Hollywood? History has more than just Great White Man stories.
1887 Underappreciated director John Cromwell who guided Bette Davis's breakthrough role in Of Human Bondage , and the all female wonders of Caged was born in Ohio. One more Bette related anniversary after the jump.
- 12/23/2016
- by NATHANIEL R
- FilmExperience
I live in Los Angeles, and my residency here means that a lot of great film programming-- revival screenings, advance looks at upcoming releases and vital, fascinating glimpses at unheralded, unexpected cinema from around the world—is available to me on a week-by-week basis. But I’ve never been to Cannes. Toronto, Tribeca, New York, Venice, Berlin, Sundance, SXSW, these festivals are all events that I have yet to be lucky enough to attend, and I can reasonably expect that it’s probably going to stay that way for the foreseeable future. I never attended a film festival of any kind until I made my way to the outskirts of the Mojave Desert for the Lone Pine Film Festival in 2006, which was its own kind of grand adventure, even if it wasn’t exactly one for bumping shoulders with critics, stars and fanatics on the French Riviera.
But since 2010 there...
But since 2010 there...
- 4/24/2016
- by Dennis Cozzalio
- Trailers from Hell
Merle Oberon films: From empress to duchess in 'Hotel.' Merle Oberon films: From starring to supporting roles Turner Classic Movies' Merle Oberon month comes to an end tonight, March 25, '16, with six movies: Désirée, Hotel, Deep in My Heart, Affectionately Yours, Berlin Express, and Night Song. Oberon's presence alone would have sufficed to make them all worth a look, but they have other qualities to recommend them as well. 'Désirée': First supporting role in two decades Directed by Henry Koster, best remembered for his Deanna Durbin musicals and the 1947 fantasy comedy The Bishop's Wife, Désirée (1954) is a sumptuous production that, thanks to its big-name cast, became a major box office hit upon its release. Marlon Brando is laughably miscast as Napoleon Bonaparte, while Jean Simmons plays the title role, the Corsican Conqueror's one-time fiancée Désirée Clary (later Queen of Sweden and Norway). In a supporting role – her...
- 3/26/2016
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
A few years ago the editors of Shadowlocked asked me to compile a list of what was initially to be, the ten greatest movie matte paintings of all time. A mere ten selections was too slim by a long shot, so my list stretched considerably to twenty, then thirty and finally a nice round fifty entries. Even with that number I found it wasn’t easy to narrow down a suitably wide ranging showcase of motion picture matte art that best represented the artform. So with that in mind, and due to the surprising popularity of that 2012 Shadowlocked list (which is well worth a visit, here Ed), I’ve assembled a further fifty wonderful examples of this vast, vital and more extensively utilised than you’d imagine – though now sadly ‘dead and buried’ – movie magic.
It would of course be so easy to simply concentrate on the well known, iconic,...
It would of course be so easy to simply concentrate on the well known, iconic,...
- 12/28/2015
- Shadowlocked
Danièle Delorme and Jean Gabin in 'Deadlier Than the Male.' Danièle Delorme movies (See previous post: “Danièle Delorme: 'Gigi' 1949 Actress Became Rare Woman Director's Muse.”) “Every actor would like to make a movie with Charles Chaplin or René Clair,” Danièle Delorme explains in the filmed interview (ca. 1960) embedded further below, adding that oftentimes it wasn't up to them to decide with whom they would get to work. Yet, although frequently beyond her control, Delorme managed to collaborate with a number of major (mostly French) filmmakers throughout her six-decade movie career. Aside from her Jacqueline Audry films discussed in the previous Danièle Delorme article, below are a few of her most notable efforts – usually playing naive-looking young women of modest means and deceptively inconspicuous sexuality, whose inner character may or may not match their external appearance. Ouvert pour cause d'inventaire (“Open for Inventory Causes,” 1946), an unreleased, no-budget comedy notable...
- 12/18/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Constance Cummings in 'Night After Night.' Constance Cummings: Working with Frank Capra and Mae West (See previous post: “Constance Cummings: Actress Went from Harold Lloyd to Eugene O'Neill.”) Back at Columbia, Harry Cohn didn't do a very good job at making Constance Cummings feel important. By the end of 1932, Columbia and its sweet ingenue found themselves in court, fighting bitterly over stipulations in her contract. According to the actress and lawyer's daughter, Columbia had failed to notify her that they were picking up her option. Therefore, she was a free agent, able to offer her services wherever she pleased. Harry Cohn felt otherwise, claiming that his contract player had waived such a notice. The battle would spill over into 1933. On the positive side, in addition to Movie Crazy 1932 provided Cummings with three other notable Hollywood movies: Washington Merry-Go-Round, American Madness, and Night After Night. 'Washington Merry-Go-Round...
- 11/5/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
'Sorrell and Son' with H.B. Warner and Alice Joyce. 'Sorrell and Son' 1927 movie: Long thought lost, surprisingly effective father-love melodrama stars a superlative H.B. Warner Partially shot on location in England and produced independently by director Herbert Brenon at Joseph M. Schenck's United Artists, the 1927 Sorrell and Son is a skillful melodrama about paternal devotion in the face of both personal and social adversity. This long-thought-lost version of Warwick Deeping's 1925 bestseller benefits greatly from the veteran Brenon's assured direction, deservedly shortlisted in the first year of the Academy Awards.* Crucial to the film's effectiveness, however, is the portrayal of its central character, a war-scarred Englishman who sacrifices it all for the happiness of his son. Luckily, the London-born H.B. Warner, best remembered for playing Jesus Christ in another 1927 release, Cecil B. DeMille's The King of Kings, is the embodiment of honesty, selflessness, and devotion. Less is...
- 10/9/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Douglas Fairbanks Jr. ca. 1935. Douglas Fairbanks Jr. was never as popular as his father, silent film superstar Douglas Fairbanks, who starred in one action-adventure blockbuster after another in the 1920s (The Mark of Zorro, Robin Hood, The Thief of Bagdad) and whose stardom dates back to the mid-1910s, when Fairbanks toplined a series of light, modern-day comedies in which he was cast as the embodiment of the enterprising, 20th century “all-American.” What this particular go-getter got was screen queen Mary Pickford as his wife and United Artists as his studio, which he co-founded with Pickford, D.W. Griffith, and Charles Chaplin. Now, although Jr. never had the following of Sr., he did enjoy a solid two-decade-plus movie career. In fact, he was one of the few children of major film stars – e.g., Jane Fonda, Liza Minnelli, Angelina Jolie, Michael Douglas, Jamie Lee Curtis – who had successful film careers of their own.
- 8/16/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Raymond Massey ca. 1940. Raymond Massey movies: From Lincoln to Boris Karloff Though hardly remembered today, the Toronto-born Raymond Massey was a top supporting player – and sometime lead – in both British and American movies from the early '30s all the way to the early '60s. During that period, Massey was featured in nearly 50 films. Turner Classic Movies generally selects the same old MGM / Rko / Warner Bros. stars for its annual “Summer Under the Stars” series. For that reason, it's great to see someone like Raymond Massey – who was with Warners in the '40s – be the focus of a whole day: Sat., Aug. 8, '15. (See TCM's Raymond Massey movie schedule further below.) Admittedly, despite his prestige – his stage credits included the title role in the short-lived 1931 Broadway production of Hamlet – the quality of Massey's performances varied wildly. Sometimes he could be quite effective; most of the time, however, he was an unabashed scenery chewer,...
- 8/8/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Stars: Shelley Duvall, Sissy Spacek, Janice Rule, Robert Fortier, Ruth Nelson, John Cromwell, Sierra Pecheur, Craig Richard Nelson, Maysie Hoy, Belita Moreno, Leslie Ann Hudson, Patricia Ann Hudson, Beverly Ross, John Davey | Written and Directed by Robert Altman
There are some movies that just get under your skin and cause you to have to think, and the worst part is you realise that they aren’t meant to be understood, and that is how they get their hooks into you. Robert Altman’s 3 Women was said to be based on a dream. I guess it comes as no surprise that it feels like it is one of the most haunting dreams you’ll have. With Arrow Video’s new Blu-ray it is also a dream of a release…
When Pinky (Sissy Spacek) starts work at a spa in the California desert, she meets fellow attendant Millie (Shelley Duval) a lonely...
There are some movies that just get under your skin and cause you to have to think, and the worst part is you realise that they aren’t meant to be understood, and that is how they get their hooks into you. Robert Altman’s 3 Women was said to be based on a dream. I guess it comes as no surprise that it feels like it is one of the most haunting dreams you’ll have. With Arrow Video’s new Blu-ray it is also a dream of a release…
When Pinky (Sissy Spacek) starts work at a spa in the California desert, she meets fellow attendant Millie (Shelley Duval) a lonely...
- 7/18/2015
- by Paul Metcalf
- Nerdly
Teresa Wright: Later years (See preceding post: "Teresa Wright: From Marlon Brando to Matt Damon.") Teresa Wright and Robert Anderson were divorced in 1978. They would remain friends in the ensuing years.[1] Wright spent most of the last decade of her life in Connecticut, making only sporadic public appearances. In 1998, she could be seen with her grandson, film producer Jonah Smith, at New York's Yankee Stadium, where she threw the ceremonial first pitch.[2] Wright also became involved in the Greater New York chapter of the Als Association. (The Pride of the Yankees subject, Lou Gehrig, died of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis in 1941.) The week she turned 82 in October 2000, Wright attended the 20th anniversary celebration of Somewhere in Time, where she posed for pictures with Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour. In March 2003, she was a guest at the 75th Academy Awards, in the segment showcasing Oscar-winning actors of the past. Two years later,...
- 3/15/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Teresa Wright movies: Actress made Oscar history Teresa Wright, best remembered for her Oscar-winning performance in the World War II melodrama Mrs. Miniver and for her deceptively fragile, small-town heroine in Alfred Hitchcock's mystery-drama Shadow of a Doubt, died at age 86 ten years ago – on March 6, 2005. Throughout her nearly six-decade show business career, Wright was featured in nearly 30 films, dozens of television series and made-for-tv movies, and a whole array of stage productions. On the big screen, she played opposite some of the most important stars of the '40s and '50s. It's a long list, including Bette Davis, Greer Garson, Gary Cooper, Myrna Loy, Ray Milland, Fredric March, Jean Simmons, Marlon Brando, Dana Andrews, Lew Ayres, Cornel Wilde, Robert Mitchum, Spencer Tracy, Joseph Cotten, and David Niven. Also of note, Teresa Wright made Oscar history in the early '40s, when she was nominated for each of her first three movie roles.
- 3/5/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Editor's Note: RogerEbert.com is proud to reprint Roger Ebert's 1978 entry from the Encyclopedia Britannica publication "The Great Ideas Today," part of "The Great Books of the Western World." Reprinted with permission from The Great Ideas Today ©1978 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
It's a measure of how completely the Internet has transformed communication that I need to explain, for the benefit of some younger readers, what encyclopedias were: bound editions summing up all available knowledge, delivered to one's home in handsome bound editions. The "Great Books" series zeroed in on books about history, poetry, natural science, math and other fields of study; the "Great Ideas" series was meant to tie all the ideas together, and that was the mission given to Roger when he undertook this piece about film.
Given the venue he was writing for, it's probably wisest to look at Roger's long, wide-ranging piece as a snapshot of the...
It's a measure of how completely the Internet has transformed communication that I need to explain, for the benefit of some younger readers, what encyclopedias were: bound editions summing up all available knowledge, delivered to one's home in handsome bound editions. The "Great Books" series zeroed in on books about history, poetry, natural science, math and other fields of study; the "Great Ideas" series was meant to tie all the ideas together, and that was the mission given to Roger when he undertook this piece about film.
Given the venue he was writing for, it's probably wisest to look at Roger's long, wide-ranging piece as a snapshot of the...
- 2/12/2015
- by Roger Ebert
- blogs.suntimes.com/ebert
Hedy Lamarr: 'Invention' and inventor on Turner Classic Movies (photo: Hedy Lamarr publicity shot ca. early '40s) Two Hedy Lamarr movies released during her heyday in the early '40s — Victor Fleming's Tortilla Flat (1942), co-starring Spencer Tracy and John Garfield, and King Vidor's H.M. Pulham, Esq. (1941), co-starring Robert Young and Ruth Hussey — will be broadcast on Turner Classic Movies on Wednesday, November 12, 2014, at 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. Pt, respectively. Best known as a glamorous Hollywood star (Ziegfeld Girl, White Cargo, Samson and Delilah), the Viennese-born Lamarr (née Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler), who would have turned 100 on November 9, was also an inventor: she co-developed and patented with composer George Antheil the concept of frequency hopping, currently known as spread-spectrum communications (or "spread-spectrum broadcasting"), which ultimately led to the evolution of wireless technology. (More on the George Antheil and Hedy Lamarr invention further below.) Somewhat ironically,...
- 11/2/2014
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Eleanor Parker dead at 91: ‘The Sound of Music’ actress, three-time Best Actress Oscar nominee (photo: Eleanor Parker ca. 1945) Eleanor Parker, one of the best and most beautiful actresses of the studio era, a three-time Best Actress Academy Award nominee, and one of the stars of the 1965 blockbuster and Best Picture Oscar winner The Sound of Music, died today, December 9, 2013, of complications from pneumonia at a medical facility near her home in the Southern Californian desert town of Palm Springs. Eleanor Parker was 91. “I’m primarily a character actress,” Parker told the Toronto Star in 1988. “I’ve portrayed so many diverse individuals on the screen that my own personality never emerged.” At one point, wildly imaginative publicists called her The Woman of a Thousand Faces — an absurd label, when you think of Man of a Thousand Faces Lon Chaney. Eleanor Parker never altered her appearance the way Chaney did — her...
- 12/10/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Bette Davis. No doubt the name instantly brings to mind Kim Carnes’ earworm ‘Bette Davis Eyes’, which has been covered by artists ranging from Gwyneth Paltrow to Brandon Flowers and Taylor Swift. Ah yes, those spellbinding, haunting heavy-cast eyes. They bewitched countless men and are part of our cultural zeitgeist. Bette Davis was so much more than the sum of her parts though. Her tenacity, independence, unique idiosyncrasies, and artistic instincts had and have no equal, even today. She has been labeled a diva and an outright bitch, but she is unquestionably a trailblazer and an icon in every sense.
This “Noirvember” Tiff Cinematheque’s senior programmer James Quandt has curated a divine tribute to the classy dame (labeled The Hard Way:The Films of Bette Davis), highlighting fifteen of her most memorable roles.
Some crowning films of the tribute include (In chronological order):
Three on a Match (1932)-Now...
This “Noirvember” Tiff Cinematheque’s senior programmer James Quandt has curated a divine tribute to the classy dame (labeled The Hard Way:The Films of Bette Davis), highlighting fifteen of her most memorable roles.
Some crowning films of the tribute include (In chronological order):
Three on a Match (1932)-Now...
- 11/18/2013
- by Leora Heilbronn
- IONCINEMA.com
Irene Dunne movies: Five-time Best Actress Academy Award nominee starred in now-forgotten originals of well-remembered remakes In his August 2007 Bright Lights article "The Elusive Pleasures of Irene Dunne," Dan Callahan explained that "the reasons for Irene Dunne’s continuing, undeserved obscurity are fairly well known. Nearly all of her best films from the thirties and forties were remade and the originals were suppressed and didn’t play on television. She did some of her most distinctive work for John Stahl at Universal, and non-horror Universal films are rarely shown now. Practically all of her movies need to be restored; even her most popular effort, The Awful Truth (1937), looks grainy and blotchy on its DVD transfer, to say nothing of things like Stahl’s When Tomorrow Comes (1939), or Rouben Mamoulian’s High, Wide, and Handsome (1937), two key Dunne films that have languished and deteriorated in a sort of television/video purgatory.
- 9/12/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Rex Harrison hat on TCM: ‘My Fair Lady,’ ‘Anna and the King of Siam’ Rex Harrison is Turner Classic Movies’ final "Summer Under the Stars" star today, August 31, 2013. TCM is currently showing George Cukor’s lavish My Fair Lady (1964), an Academy Award-winning musical that has (in my humble opinion) unfairly lost quite a bit of its prestige in the last several decades. Rex Harrison, invariably a major ham whether playing Saladin, the King of Siam, Julius Caesar, the ghost of a dead sea captain, or Richard Burton’s lover, is for once flawlessly cast as Professor Henry Higgins, who on stage transformed Julie Andrews from cockney duckling to diction-master swan and who in the movie version does the same for Audrey Hepburn. Harrison, by the way, was the year’s Best Actor Oscar winner. (See also: "Audrey Hepburn vs. Julie Andrews: Biggest Oscar Snubs.") Following My Fair Lady, Rex Harrison...
- 8/31/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Ramon Novarro: Silent movie star proves he can talk and sing (See previous post: "Ramon Novarro: Mexican-Born Actor Was First Latin American Hollywood Superstar.") On Ramon Novarro Day, Turner Classic Movies’ first Novarro movie is Rex Ingram’s The Prisoner of Zenda (1922), a stately version of Edward Rose’s play, itself based on Anthony Hope’s 1897 novel: in the Central European kingdom of Ruritania, a traveling Englishman takes the place of the kidnapped local king-to-be-crowned. A pre-Judge Hardy Lewis Stone has the double role, while Novarro plays the scheming Rupert of Hentzau. (Photo: Ramon Novarro ca. 1922.) Despite his stage training, Stone is as interesting to watch as a beach pebble; Novarro, for his part, has a good time hamming it up in his first major break — courtesy of director Rex Ingram, then looking for a replacement for Rudolph Valentino, with whom he’d had a serious falling out...
- 8/8/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Fritz Lang aficionados can rejoice this month with Criterion’s release of his 1944 title, Ministry of Fear, the first time it sees a DVD transfer. Long regarded as a minor entry in Lang’s prestigious filmography, the last of a successive trio of anti-Nazi themed films from the German émigré is finally available for rediscovery. Though it may never escape its current status in the pantheon of its director’s legacy, it certainly stands out as an oddly constructed creature, a fussy war time noir whose sinister narrative is occluded by a stagnant paranoia that stirs the proceedings into a twisty nightmare.
Stephen Neale (Ray Milland) has just been released from Embridge Asylum in England while World War II rages on. He’s been put away for two years and insistently plans on traveling directly to London, even though it’s being bombed continuously. On the way there, he innocently stops at a village fair,...
Stephen Neale (Ray Milland) has just been released from Embridge Asylum in England while World War II rages on. He’s been put away for two years and insistently plans on traveling directly to London, even though it’s being bombed continuously. On the way there, he innocently stops at a village fair,...
- 3/19/2013
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Continuing our daily countdown, here is part three out of 30 in our list of the 300 Greatest Films Ever Made. These are numbers 280-271.
280) A Christmas Carol (1951) Brian Desmond-Hurst British
279) The Prisoner Of Zenda (1937) John Cromwell USA
278) To Be Or Not To Be (1942) Ernst Lubitsch USA
277) The Hunchback Of Notre Dam (1939) William Dieterle USA
276) Ed Wood (1994) Tim Burton USA
275) Red River (1948) Howard Hawks USA
274) Hotel Rwanda (2004) Terry George USA
273) How Green Was My Valley (1941) John Ford USA
272) Lost In Translation (2003) Sofia Coppola USA
271) Kiki's Delivery Service (1989) Hayao Miyazaki Japan Animated
Numbers 270-261 coming next.
film cultureClassicslist300...
280) A Christmas Carol (1951) Brian Desmond-Hurst British
279) The Prisoner Of Zenda (1937) John Cromwell USA
278) To Be Or Not To Be (1942) Ernst Lubitsch USA
277) The Hunchback Of Notre Dam (1939) William Dieterle USA
276) Ed Wood (1994) Tim Burton USA
275) Red River (1948) Howard Hawks USA
274) Hotel Rwanda (2004) Terry George USA
273) How Green Was My Valley (1941) John Ford USA
272) Lost In Translation (2003) Sofia Coppola USA
271) Kiki's Delivery Service (1989) Hayao Miyazaki Japan Animated
Numbers 270-261 coming next.
film cultureClassicslist300...
- 1/4/2013
- by feeds@cinelinx.com (Rob Young)
- Cinelinx
Fay Wray: King Kong actress, but never a Hollywood superstar [See previous article "Fay Wray bio."] While at Paramount at the dawn of the sound era, Fay Wray was featured opposite the fast-rising Gary Cooper in three movies: William A. Wellman’s war drama Legion of the Condemned (1928), Rowland V. Lee’s romance The First Kiss (1928), and John Cromwell’s Western The Texan (1930), the pair’s last film together while they were both at the studio. (Photo: Fay Wray King Kong, in which Wray plays screaming heroine Ann Darrow.) A mere three years later, Wray was reunited with Gary Cooper in Stephen Roberts’ slice of [...]...
- 9/17/2012
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
2016 movie still trailing Michael Moore, Al Gore 2016 Obama's America, Dinesh D'Souza and John Sullivan's anti-Obama documentary, has surpassed the concert movie Katy Perry: Part of Me to become the second highest-grossing non-fiction film released in North America in 2012. By Sunday evening, D'Souza and Sullivan's right-wing doc -- current cume according to the web site Box Office Mojo stands at an estimated $27.66 million (as of Wed., September 13) -- should have also surpassed the nature doc Chimpanzee ($28.97 million) to become the year's top documentary in the United States and Canada. Worldwide, 2016 -- a 100% domestic sleeper hit like, say, the Tyler Perry movies (which have no audience overseas) -- remains behind both Chimpanzee (another domestic-only release) and Katy Perry: Part of Me. (Please scroll down for more details about the box-office performances of non-fiction films worldwide both in 2012 and "all-time.") As per numerous box-office reports, as the sixth biggest non-fiction film ever (or rather,...
- 9/13/2012
- by Zac Gille
- Alt Film Guide
With her sleekly-styled hair and outspoken support of her husband, Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, Ann Romney makes her debut Tuesday night at the Republican National Convention as one in a long line of would-be first ladies.
While the phrase “behind every great man there’s a great woman” may seem quaintly archaic by modern standards, when it comes to presidential biopics, those married to the president can be just as politically and emotionally fierce as the men they stick by — and stand up to.
Here are some memorable Republican first ladies from movie biopics about the Commander-in-Chief:
Joan Allen...
While the phrase “behind every great man there’s a great woman” may seem quaintly archaic by modern standards, when it comes to presidential biopics, those married to the president can be just as politically and emotionally fierce as the men they stick by — and stand up to.
Here are some memorable Republican first ladies from movie biopics about the Commander-in-Chief:
Joan Allen...
- 8/29/2012
- by Solvej Schou
- EW - Inside Movies
Charles Boyer, Hedy Lamarr, Algiers Hedy Lamarr can be seen later this month on Turner Classic Movies: I Take This Woman (1940) will be shown on Saturday, April 28, and The Conspirators (1944) on Monday, April 30. I Take This Woman was a troubled production that took so long to make — W.S. Van Dyke replaced Frank Borzage who had replaced original director Josef von Sternberg — that punsters called it "I Retake This Woman." Spencer Tracy co-stars as a doctor who marries European refugee Lamarr. Jean Negulesco’s The Conspirators has several elements in common with Michael Curtiz’s Casablanca, including an "exotic" World War II setting (in this case, Lisbon), conflicting loyalties, male lead Paul Henreid, and supporting players Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre. Curiously, at one point Lamarr had been considered for the Casablanca role that eventually went to Ingrid Bergman. Neither I Take This Woman nor The Conspirators did much for Hedy Lamarr’s Hollywood career.
- 4/24/2012
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Peter O'Toole, Katharine Hepburn, The Lion in Winter Martin Poll, best known for producing Anthony Harvey's 1968 Best Picture Oscar nominee The Lion in Winter, starring Katharine Hepburn as Eleanor of Aquitaine and Peter O'Toole as King Henry II, died of "natural causes" on April 14 according to various online sources. Poll was 89. An Avco Embassy release, The Lion in Winter was considered the favorite for the Best Picture and Best Director Oscars. The film had won the Best Film Award from the New York Film Critics Circle, while Harvey was the year's Directors Guild Award winner. However, Carol Reed's Columbia-distributed musical Oliver! turned out to be the winner in both categories. (Curiously, the previous year another Embassy release, Mike Nichols' The Graduate, unexpectedly lost the Best Picture Oscar to Norman Jewison's United Artists-distributed In the Heat of the Night. But at least Nichols came out victorious.
- 4/17/2012
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Jean Dujardin Jean Dujardin backstage at the 84th Academy Awards ceremony at the Hollywood and Highland Center in Hollywood on February 26. Dujardin was the year's Best Actor winner for his performance as a Douglas Fairbanks- and John Gilbert-like silent film star in Michel Hazanavicius' The Artist. (Photo: Richard Harbaugh / ©A.M.P.A.S.) Jean Dujardin's fellow Best Actor contenders were Demián Bichir for Chris Weitz's A Better Life, George Clooney for Alexander Payne's The Descendants, Brad Pitt for Bennett Miller's Moneyball, and Gary Oldman for Tomas Alfredson's Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. A first-time Oscar nominee, Dujardin became the first Frenchman to win an Oscar in the acting categories. (French-born actresses have been luckier at the Academy Awards: It Happened One Night's Claudette Colbert, Room at the Top's Simone Signoret, La Vie en Rose's Marion Cotillard, and The English Patient...
- 4/9/2012
- by D. Zhea
- Alt Film Guide
Bette Davis sings "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?" Bette Davis would have turned 104 today. The clip below, in which Davis sings "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?," is from the December 20, 1962, episode of The Andy Williams Show. ("What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?," song lyrics: "She could dance! She could sing! Make the biggest theater a ring! … I see old movies on TV. And they're always a thrill to me. My daddy says I can be just like her. How I wish, I wish, I wish I wish I were!") What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? was released that year, earning Davis her tenth — and last — Academy Award nomination. Robert Aldrich directed the sleeper hit, which also featured Joan Crawford and Victor Buono. The beginning of the "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?" song, minus the lyrics, can be heard on the radio right before the film's grand finale.
- 4/5/2012
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Uggie (front), Thomas Langmann, Jean Dujardin, Michel Hazanavicius, James Cromwell, Bérénice Bejo, Penelope Ann Miller, Missi Pyle Some of The Artist talent: Producer Thomas Langmann, son of Claude Berri; Jean Dujardin, Oscar winner for Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role; Michel Hazanavicius, Oscar winner for Achievement in Directing; James Cromwell, Oscar nominee for Babe (2005), and son of director John Cromwell and actress Kay Johnson; Best Supporting Actress nominee Bérénice Bejo; Penelope Ann Miller; Missi Pyle, and, once again stealing the show, Uggie the dog (also seen last year opposite Robert Pattinson and Reese Witherspoon in Water for Elephants). The Artist crowd and canine posed for the media backstage following the 84th Academy Awards held at the Hollywood and Highland Center on February 26, 2012. (Photo: Richard Harbaugh / © A.M.P.A.S.) This year, there were nine Best Picture nominees. Besides The Artist, the contenders were: Alexander Payne's The Descendants,...
- 3/21/2012
- by D. Zhea
- Alt Film Guide
Calling Hedy Lamarr (2004) Direction and Screenplay: Georg Misch Recommended with Reservations Hedy Lamarr Shot in digital format, Georg Misch's entertaining documentary Calling Hedy Lamarr has the look of a well-crafted low-budget movie and the feel of a quirky independent film. That is hardly the sort of approach one would expect to find in a documentary about one of the most beautiful, most glamorous, and most synthetic film stars of the 20th century. Yet, Misch mostly gets away with it. What Calling Hedy Lamarr lacks in terms of style and depth of analysis is compensated for by a sly, offbeat look at the cult of celebrity in American culture. In Calling Hedy Lamarr, several friends and family members of Austrian-born actress and phone addict Hedy Lamarr (1911 or 1913-2000) get together in a staged conference call to talk about the legendary movie star. Among those are Lamarr's former South Florida neighbors,...
- 3/11/2012
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Jean Dujardin, Natalie Portman This year's Best Actor Oscar winner, Jean Dujardin, poses with 2010 Best Actress Oscar winner Natalie Portman backstage at the 2012 Academy Awards Awards, held at the Hollywood and Highland Center on February 26. Dujardin won his Oscar for Michel Hazanavicius' The Artist. Portman won hers for Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan. (Photo: Todd Wawrychuk / © A.M.P.A.S.) Jean Dujardin was a first-time nominee. His Best Actor competition consisted of Demián Bichir for Chris Weitz's A Better Life, Gary Oldman for Tomas Alfredson's Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, George Clooney for Alexander Payne's The Descendants, and Brad Pitt for Moneyball. In the past year, in addition to the Oscar Dujardin took home three major Best Actor awards: the BAFTA, the SAG Award, and the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Motion Picture Comedy/Musical. Thus, Dujardin became the first actor ever to win all four trophies.
- 3/9/2012
- by Anna Robinson
- Alt Film Guide
Best Actor Oscar winner Jean Dujardin Best Actor Academy Award winner Jean Dujardin did his Oss 117 act backstage at the 84th Academy Awards last Sunday, February 26, 2012. Dujardin won the Oscar for his portrayal of a fast-fading silent-film star in Michel Hazanavicius' Best Picture winner The Artist. Dujardin's two Oss films, Oss 117: Cairo Nest of Spies and Oss 117: Lost in Rio, were both directed by Hazanavicius, who also helmed one segment of Dujardin's latest movie, Les Infidèles / The Players. (Photo: Todd Wawrychuk / © A.M.P.A.S.) Dujardin's Best Actor competition consisted of Demián Bichir for Chris Weitz's A Better Life, George Clooney for Alexander Payne's The Descendants, Brad Pitt for Bennett Miller's Moneyball, and Gary Oldman for Tomas Alfredson's Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. A first-time Oscar nominee, Dujardin became the first Frenchman to take home an Oscar in the acting categories. (French-born actresses...
- 3/7/2012
- by Anna Robinson
- Alt Film Guide
Jean Dujardin kissing Oscar statuette Best Actor Oscar winner Jean Dujardin kisses his Oscar statuette at the Governors Ball 2012. For his performance as a fading silent-film star in Michel Hazanavicius' The Artist, Dujardin became the first Frenchman to win an Oscar in the acting categories: Charles Boyer, Maurice Chevalier, and Gérard Depardieu had all been nominated before, but none of them had ever won. (Photo: © A.M.P.A.S.) The list of Frenchwomen who either won or were nominated for Oscars in the acting categories is much more extensive. The French-born, American-raised Claudette Colbert was the Best Actress of 1934 for Frank Capra's comedy It Happened One Night. The other French Best Actress Oscar winners are Simone Signoret for Jack Clayton's 1959 British drama Room at the Top and Marion Cotillard for Olivier Dahan's French-language Edith Piaf biopic La Vie en Rose. Additionally, Juliette Binoche was a...
- 3/6/2012
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Mario Lopez, Anna Stuart, James Cromwell Mario Lopez interviews James Cromwell and guest Anna Stuart at the 84th Academy Awards from Hollywood, CA, on February 26, 2012. Cromwell wasn't nominated for anything this year, but he is one of the featured players in Michel Hazanavicius' The Artist, which won five Oscars, including Best Picture. Thus, Cromwell got the chance to hop onstage with his fellow cast members, among them Penelope Ann Miller, Bérénice Bejo, and Best Actor winner Jean Dujardin. (Matt Brown / ©A.M.P.A.S.) An animals rights advocate and a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nominee for Chris Noonan's Babe, Cromwell is also the son of filmmaker John Cromwell and actress Kay Johnson, both of whom were kept quite busy at the dawn of the sound era — the time period in which The Artist is set. John Cromwell directed three 1929 releases, including two Nancy Carroll musicals, The Dance of Life and Close Harmony.
- 2/27/2012
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Jean Dujardin Jean Dujardin at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Oscar Nominees Luncheon in Beverly Hills, California, on Monday, February 6, 2012. Dujardin is a Best Actor nominee for Michel Hazanavicius' The Artist. (Photo: Greg Harbaugh / © A.M.P.A.S.) Dujardin's Best Actor competition consists of Demián Bichir for Chris Weitz's A Better Life, George Clooney for Alexander Payne's The Descendants, Brad Pitt for Bennett Miller's Moneyball, Gary Oldman for Tomas Alfredson's Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Dujardin is a first-time Oscar nominee. Just recently, he won three major Best Actor awards: the BAFTA, the SAG Award, and the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Motion Picture Comedy/Musical. Among Dujardin's other movie credits are two James Bond-ish spoofs directed by Michel Hazanavicius: Oss 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies and Oss 117: Lost in Rio. In addition, Dujardin starred or was featured in numerous French productions,...
- 2/18/2012
- by D. Zhea
- Alt Film Guide
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