Cinesation 2006
Cinesation 2006 has on its website a few of the titles that will be screened at this year’s festival.
Among those are rarities such as Robert Z. Leonard’s 1917 melodramaA Mormon Maid, starring his future wife Mae Murray and Hobart Bosworth, which is thus described: "A young woman and [...]
Taj Mahal in Pakistan
"This is a very proud moment for me. I am a Pakistani who has arrived from India with a message of love." Actress Sonia Jehan, granddaughter of revered Pakistani singer and actress Noor Jehan.
Jehan is in Pakistan promoting Taj Mahal, only the second Indian movie to be shown in that country since 1965. More [...]
Show People in Echo Park
Next Thursday, May 4, at the Echo Park Film Center, Tom Barnes will present his 8mm print of King Vidor’s quite funny 1928 comedy Show People, starring Marion Davies and William Haines, and with live accompaniment by veteran organist Bob Mitchell. "If any of you don’t know Bob," says [...]
Off the Book Shelf
I’ve been reading James Reid Paris’s The Great French Films. Published in 1983, Reid’s pictorial history book discusses approximately fifty French films, from Abel Gance’s 1927 epic Napoléon to Alain Resnais’s highly cerebral 1980 drama Mon oncle d’Amérique. The text is informative and concise - Reid provides each film’s background, synopsis, and commentary - though [...]
Last Remaining Seats in 2006
In late spring/early summer, the Los Angeles Conservancy will present the 20th edition of the film series Last Remaining Seats. As usual, all screenings will be held at old film palaces located in downtown Los Angeles:
Wed., May 31 - The Mark of Zorro (1940), directed by Rouben Mamoulian, and starring Tyrone Power, Linda Darnell, [...]
Giuliani Time in New York City
Via the San Jose Mercury News: "Republicans see [former New York City mayor Rudolph] Giuliani on a white horse, the Napoleon in the corner, the hero of 9/11. But it’s the biggest delusional lie ever put forward. The guy’s a demagogue."
That’s documentarian Kevin Keating, whose Giuliani Time premieres [...]
THE LOST WORLD at the Paramount Ranch
As part of the Silents Under the Stars film series, on Sunday, July 20, the 1925 version of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World will be screened at the Paramount Ranch National Park, located near Agoura Hills, north of Los Angeles.
The Lost World - quaint but perfectly watchable - stars Wallace Beery, Lewis Stone, [...]
JUDGMENT AT NUREMBERG: Great To Be Nominated
Copyright © A.M.P.A.S.
Some critics have dismissed Judgment at Nuremberg as sentimental Hollywood claptrap, but Mr. Contrarian here finds it the best 1961 American film I’ve seen. (See Best Films - 1961.)
Director Stanley Kramer manages to sustain interest in the lengthy proceedings - the film runs 186 minutes - and, even if events and [...]
Airplane! Discussion at the Academy
Writers/directors Jim Abrahams, David Zucker and Jerry Zucker and actor Robert Hays will be among the participants in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences‘ cast and crew reunion and screening of the 1980 juvenile comedy Airplane! on Friday, May 19, at 8 p.m.
Academy Governor and producer Hawk Koch, whose father’s company produced [...]
The Art of Flight Available on Google Video
According to its press release, Davin Anders Hutchins’s "guerrilla documentary" The Art of Flight is one of the first "new independent documentary films" to be made available on Google Video. A copy of the documentary is also available on the Nomads Land Films website.
The Art of Flight depicts [...]
Jean Harlow’s Elizabethan Mural
Lisa Burks, currently working on a biography of actor Franchot Tone (Mutiny on the Bounty, Phantom Lady), has posted on her site a magazine copy of an oil-on-canvas mural that MGM producer Paul Bern gave his wife Jean Harlow back in the early 1930s.
The mural, by Russian artist V. Ignatieff, portrays several of [...]
Tribeca Film Festival 2006 Line-Up
INTERNATIONAL COMPETITIONS
The Architect, directed and written by Matt Tauber (USA) — World Premiere. A Magnolia Pictures Release Based on Scottish playwright David Greig’s The Architect, Tauber’s debut feature pits an architect (Anthony LaPaglia) against a female community resident who lives in a dangerous housing project that he designed. By contrasting two Chicago families [...]
David di Donatello - 2005-2006 Italian Academy Awards
50th David di Donatello - 2005-2006 Italian Academy Awards
The 50th David di Donatello Awards were presented by the Italian Film Academy to films released between March 31, 2005 and May 31, 2006.
The 50th David di Donatello Award nominations were announced on April 4, 2006.
The 50th David di Donatello Award winners were announced on April 21, [...]
2006 Cannes Film Festival Film Line-Up
The 59th Cannes Film Festival will open on May 17. The awards will be announced on May 28.
Films in competition:
L’Amico di famiglia / Friend of the Family (Paolo Sorrentino)
Babel (Alejandro González Iñárritu)
Il Caimano [...]
Bollywood Awards to Be Held in Dubai
Dubai has been chosen as the stage for the next round of Bollywood’s top awards ceremony.
In order to raise the international profile of its film industry, the International Indian Film Academy (IIFA) has staged its awards ceremony abroad since 2000. In previous years, the ceremony was held in South Africa (twice), Singapore, Malaysia, the [...]
Sarasota Film Festival Awards 2006
2006 Sarasota Film Festival Awards
2006 Sarasota Film Festival Awards: April 18, 2006
Narrative Feature Award: OLD JOY,
directed by Kelly Reichardt
Special Jury Prize: MOARTEA DOMNULUI
LAZARESCU / THE DEATH OF [...]
Muriel Spark
Scottish-born writer Muriel Spark, author of more than 20 books including The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, died on Apr. 13 in Tuscany.
Spark became famous after Jean Brodie was published in 1962. The book - about a teacher fascinated with Mussolini - was turned into a play, and seven years after its publication Ronald Neame [...]
Loving Old Movies and Buster Who?
"This is a question I hear quite often: ‘Why do you spend all your vacation days sitting in theatres watching old movies?’ Here’s another one: ‘Buster who?’"
That’s from the Graceann Maciolek article "A Note from One of Those ‘Wonderful People Out There in the Dark,’" in which she talks about her love of old movies [...]
SONS AND LOVERS: Great To Be Nominated
Copyright © A.M.P.A.S.
Press Release:
Beverly Hills, CA — The 1960 Best Picture nominee Sons and Lovers will be screened as the next installment in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences‘ "Great To Be Nominated, Part Three." The film, based on the D.H. Lawrence [...]
Thelma Todd Screenings in Lawrence, Mass.
On Sunday, April 23, actress Thelma Todd’s native city of Lawrence, Mass., will celebrate the 100th anniversary of Todd’s birth by screening five of her short films at the Lawrence Heritage State Park. More information on the screenings and on Todd herself can be found here.
Todd’s death, officially a result of accidental carbon monoxide poisoning, [...]
Sarasota and Beverly Hills Film Festival Winners
A couple more festival awards:
Winners at the Sarasota Film Festival include Kelly Reichardt’s Old Joy as Best Narrative Film and Peter Richardson’s Clear Cut: The Story of Philomath, OR., as best documentary feature.
Winners at the Beverly Hills Film Festival include Golden Palm winner Nuri Kino and Erik Sandberg’s [...]
Alwan Film Festival in New York City
The Alwan Film Festival, which is screening more than 30 films from predominantly Muslim countries, is currently taking place in New York City.
Among the upcoming scheduled shorts are Sayid Ali Nasir’s The Miseducation of Pakistan, which "offers a controversial probe into the corruption and nepotism of the education [...]
2006 Milan International Film Festival and Busto Arsizio Film Festival Awards
I’ve added the list of winners at the 2006 Milan International Film Festival, which was held between March 28 and April 10.
Paul McGuigan’s thriller Lucky Number Slevin, which was greeted by mixed reviews in the U.S., won both the jury and the audience awards for Best Film, while Julian Jarrold was Best Director for [...]
Rajkumar Mourners Riot in Bangalore
Via The [London] Independent: "These are not scenes the outside world is used to seeing from Bangalore, the hub of India’s IT industry and the flagship for its extraordinary pace of economic growth."
The "scenes" in question have consisted of violent rioting that have left several dead as mourners have set buses and cars on fire [...]
Getting to Know Your Brazilian Pornochanchadas
At Sala Especial [site no longer available], there’s a light-hearted analysis of Brazil’s pornochanchadas: dirt-cheap soft-core comedies — and a few dramas — that helped the Brazilian cinema survive during the dark years of political repression from the late 1960s to the mid-1980s. The text is in Portuguese, but the language of the photographs is [...]
