Turin International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival Awards 2008
Turin International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival: April 17–25, 2008
Santiago Otheguy (above, right) directed and wrote (from a story he’d co-written with Juan Solanas) the Argentinian drama. La León, winner of the jury’s best film award at the 2008 Turin Gay and Lesbian Film Festival. Set in [...]
Julie Ege, Miss Norway 1962 and the leading lady in several B movies of the 1970s, has died. Ege, who had been suffering from cancer, was 64.
Born in the Norwegian town of Sandnes on November 12, 1943, Ege made her screen debut in 1967 in a couple of bit parts. After a brief appearance [...]
The Naked Kiss (1964)
Direction and Screenplay: Samuel Fuller. Cast: Constance Towers, Anthony Eisley, Michael Dante, Virginia Grey, Patsy Kelly, Betty Bronson, Marie Devereux, Karen Conrad, Linda Francis
In the opening scene of Samuel Fuller’s The Naked Kiss, we see a bald-headed prostitute using her bare hands to beat the crap out of her pimp. It’s [...]
Numb (2008)
Direction and Screenplay: Harris Goldberg. Cast: Matthew Perry, Lynn Collins, Kevin Pollak, Bob Gunton, Helen Shaver, William B. Davis, Mary Steenburgen, Barry W. Levy, Ben Ayres
The first thing to mention is that I hardly ever walk out of movies. I hardly ever stop films, period. Even if I am not enjoying them, for some [...]
Posted in Film, Film Awards, Shorts on April 29th, 2008 No Comments »
Five finalists will compete for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences‘ Honorary Foreign Film award in the 35th Annual Student Academy Awards competition. As per the Academy’s press release, the winning foreign student filmmaker and the US-based Student Academy Award winners will be brought to Los Angeles "to participate in a week of [...]
Sing and Like It (1934)
Direction: William A. Seiter. Screenplay: Marion Dix and Laird Doyle; from a story by Aben Kandel. Cast: Zasu Pitts, Nat Pendleton, Edward Everett Horton, Pert Kelton, Ned Sparks, Richard Carle, John Qualen
When a tough but simple-minded gangster — while in the middle of a bank heist — overhears an off-key singer [...]
Ron Howard’s 1995 Best Picture nominee Apollo 13 will be the next film in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences‘ ongoing "Great To Be Nominated" series. The sentimentalized tale of the failed 1970 lunar landing mission will screen on Monday, May 5, at 7:30 p.m. at the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater.
Following the [...]
The Science and Technology Council of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will present "The Art, Science and Psychology of Production Design" at 8 p.m. on Friday, May 16, at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills.
Hosted by Science and Technology Council member Bill Kroyer, the evening will feature onstage presentations by [...]
Hello, Everybody! (1933)
Direction: William A. Seiter. Screenplay: Lawrence Hazard and Dorothy Yost; from a story by Fannie Hurst. Cast: Kate Smith, Randolph Scott, Sally Blane, Charley Grapewin, George Barbier, Julia Swayne Gordon
In 1933, radio and stage performer Kate Smith was a force to be reckoned with when Paramount tapped her talents for the absurd romantic [...]
Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008)
Direction: Nicholas Stoller. Screenplay: Jason Segel and Judd Apatow. Cast: Jason Segel, Kristen Bell, Mila Kunis, Russell Brand, Bill Hader, Jack McBrayer, Paul Rudd, Liz Cackowski, Maria Thayer, Jonah Hill, Steve Landesberg, Billy Bush, William Baldwin, Jason Bateman
Nicholas Stoller’s directorial debut Forgetting Sarah Marshall is a romantic-disaster comedy — at a time [...]
The Belles of St. Trinian’s (1954)
Direction: Frank Launder. Screenplay: Frank Launder, Sidney Gilliat, and Val Valentine. Cast: Alastair Sim, Joyce Grenfell, Hermione Baddeley, George Cole, Betty Ann Davies, Renee Houston, Beryl Reid, Irene Handl, Mary Merrall, Joan Sims, Guy Middleton
From the first shot of The Belles of St. Trinian’s — which shows the sign of [...]
Posted in Box office on April 27th, 2008 1 Comment »
Tina Fey and Amy Poehler’s comedy Baby Mama (above) crawled to the top of the North American box office this weekend with US$18.2 million, according to studio estimates Sunday.
Released by Universal and directed by Michael McCullers, Baby Mama stars Fey as an infertile businesswoman who hires an irresponsible sluggard (Poehler) as her surrogate.
New [...]
Tom Hanks, who fell under the spell of 2001: A Space Odyssey way back when, introduced the 40th Anniversary screening of Stanley Kubrick’s science-fiction masterpiece this past Friday, April 25.
Others in attendance at the event, held at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences‘ Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills, were the film’s [...]
Night of the Quarter Moon / Flesh and Flame (1959)
Direction: Hugo Haas. Screenplay: Frank Davis and Franklin Coen. Cast: John Drew Barrymore, Julie London, Anna Kashfi, Dean Jones, Agnes Moorehead, Nat King Cole, Jackie Coogan, Charles Chaplin, Jr., Cathy Crosby, Billy Daniels, Ray Anthony, Edward Andrews, Arthur Shields, Robert Warwick
Julie London looks just like [...]
Screaming Mimi (1958)
Direction: Gerd Oswald. Screenplay: Robert Blees; from Fredric Brown’s novel. Cast: Anita Ekberg, Philip Carey, Gypsy Rose Lee, Harry Townes, Linda Cherney, Romney Brent, Red Norvo Trio
When a big, busty blonde is assaulted in an outdoor shower by an escaped lunatic, her life is spared just in time by her stepbrother. The [...]
Posted in Film, Shorts, Video on April 26th, 2008 1 Comment »
Pangea Day, billed as "the result of documentary filmmaker Jehane Noujaim’s 2006 TED Prize wish" is a global film event to be held on May 10, 2008.
According to the organization’s press release, "Pangea Day aims to leverage the unifying power of film by encouraging everyone in the world to watch the same films, submitted [...]
German Film Academy Awards - Lola 2007-2008
2007-2008 German Film Academy Award nominations: March 28, 2008.
2007-2008 German Film Academy Award winners: Palais am Funkturm in Berlin on April 25, 2008.
(”*” denotes the winner in each category)
The big winner of the 2008 Lola Awards was writer-director Fatih Akin’s cross-cultural drama Auf der anderen Seite / The [...]
Posted in Actors, Books on April 25th, 2008 No Comments »
In the Los Angeles Times, Matthew DeBord offers what amounts to a promotional puff piece on Julie Andrews ("that bold Andrews sexiness, maternal and theatrical at the same time") and her autobiographical tome Home: A Memoir of My Early Years. (According to DeBord, this Sunday it’ll land on the No. 1 spot among hardcovers tracked [...]
Posted in Film on April 25th, 2008 No Comments »
The Independent Feature Project (IFP) and the National Alliance for Media Arts and Culture (NAMAC), representing filmmakers and filmmaker organizations throughout the United States, welcomed the Orphan Works legislation introduced in the US Congress yesterday. The legislation — known as S. 2913, the Shawn Bentley Orphan Works Act of 2008, and H.R. 5889, The Orphan [...]
La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc / The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)
Direction: Carl Theodor Dreyer. Screenplay: Carl Theodor Dreyer and Joseph Delteil. Cast: Maria Falconetti, Eugene Silvain, André Berley, Maurice Schutz, Antonin Artaud, Michel Simon, Jean d’Yd
Carl Theodor Dreyer’s late silent film La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc / The Passion of Joan of Arc [...]
Disney’s Ink & Paint Department, 1957. Photo courtesy of Ann Guenther.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences‘ new exhibition "Ink & Paint: The Art of Hand-Drawn Animation" will showcase more than 125 hand-drawn artwork pieces from such classics as Alice in Wonderland, 101 Dalmatians, and The Lion King. The exhibition will open on [...]
London’s BFI Southbank has been hosting an homage to Robert Donat, who died fifty years ago (on June 9, 1958) of a chronic asthma attack at the age of 53.
In spite of his best actor Oscar (for Goodbye Mr. Chips in 1939) and his starring in Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps (1935), Donat is all [...]
The Story of Esther Costello (1957)
Direction: David Miller. Screenplay: Charles Kaufman; from Nicholas Monsarrat’s novel. Cast: Joan Crawford, Rossano Brazzi, Heather Sears, Lee Patterson, Ron Randell, Fay Compton, John Loder, Denis O’Dea, Sid James, Bessie Love
As Margaret Landi, Joan Crawford gets top billing in The Story of Esther Costello, a maudlin tale of a deaf, [...]
"Important international stars from the silent era of filmmaking are undeservedly forgotten today because of the unavailability of their motion pictures, which are often considered lost."
Thus begins the press release for the seventh "Meet the Makers: Silent Film Accompanists" series, which will attempt to rectify that problem by screening five little-seen star vehicles of the [...]
Downstairs (1932)
Direction: Monta Bell. Screenplay: Lenore Coffee and Melville Baker; from a story by John Gilbert. Cast: John Gilbert, Virginia Bruce, Paul Lukas, Olga Baclanova, Reginald Owen, Hedda Hopper, Bodil Rosing, Otto Hoffman, Karen Morley
Monta Bell’s seldom-seen drama Downstairs proves not only what a great actor John Gilbert was, but, quite contrary to legend, how [...]
