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A Tribute to Dick Smith: The Godfather of Special Makeup Effects

The Godfather: Dick Smith and Al Pacino (top); Smith, Marlon Brando, and Phil Rhodes (bottom)

"A Tribute to Dick Smith: The Godfather of Special Makeup Effects" will be presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on Wednesday, June 17, at 7:30 p.m. at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills.
Six-time Oscar-winning makeup artist Rick Baker will host the evening, which will be attended by Dick Smith himself and will feature a panel discussion including writer-director Guillermo del Toro, actor Hal Holbrook, and makeup artists Greg Cannom, Kazuhiro Tsuji and Andrew Clement, among others.
The evening will highlight Smith’s long career, which began in 1945 when he became NBC’s first [...]

Golden Globes 2009: Tom Cruise, Jake Gyllenhaal, Emma Thompson

Tom Cruise © HFPA / 66th Golden Globe® Awards

Jake Gyllenhaal © HFPA / 66th Golden Globe® Awards

Emma Thompson, Dustin Hoffman © HFPA / 66th Golden Globe® Awards

Johnny Depp © HFPA / 66th Golden Globe® Awards

Palm Springs Film Festival 2009: Film Line-Up

PRESS RELEASE
The 20th Annual Palm Springs International Film Festival has announced a roster of 210 films, culled from 73 countries for the 2009 Festival.  The selection of films for screening includes a total of 77 premieres (14 World, 48 U.S. and 16 North American).  Also, 50 of the 67 films submitted for consideration in the Best Foreign Language Film category for the Academy Awards will be screened at this year’s Festival, held from January 8-19, 2009.  (Complete list of this year’s films)
"Over the course of its first 19 years, this Festival has always celebrated creative expression and embraced a diversity of visions and viewpoints," said Festival Director Darryl Macdonald.  "Happily, we are reaching our [...]

STRAW DOGS d: Sam Peckinpah

Straw Dogs (1971)
Direction: Sam Peckinpah
Screenplay: David Zelag Goodman and Sam Peckinpah; from Gordon Williams’ novel The Siege of Trencher’s Farm
Cast: Dustin Hoffman, Susan George, Peter Vaughan, T.P. McKenna, Del Henney, Jim Norton, Donald Webster, Ken Hutchison, Len Jones, Sally Thomsett, Robert Keegan, Peter Arne
 

Dustin Hoffman, Susan George in Straw Dogs
 

By Dan Schneider of Cosmoetica:
If there has ever been a more over-interpreted and stolidly misinterpreted film than director Sam Peckinpah’s 1971 Straw Dogs, I’ve yet to encounter it. Films like Citizen Kane and 2001: A Space Odyssey have had more ink spilled over them, but most of the ideas tossed about are on the money and far less is read into them. Also, those two classics have one big [...]

MEET THE FOCKERS – Ben Stiller, Robert De Niro

Meet the Fockers (2004)
Direction: Jay Roach
Screenplay: John Hamburg and James Herzfeld; from an original story by Herzfeld and Marc Hyman
Cast: Robert De Niro, Ben Stiller, Dustin Hoffman, Barbra Streisand, Blythe Danner, Teri Polo, Owen Wilson
 

 

THE DISPLEASURE OF THEIR COMPANY
Four of the six principals in the Meet the Fockers cast — Barbra Streisand, Dustin Hoffman, Robert De Niro, and Blythe Danner — have among themselves five Academy Awards and an additional ten Oscar nominations for acting, one Tony win and six additional nominations, and numerous other acting awards and nominations from around the world.
What to do with all that honor and prestige? Throw them into the fetid garbage dumpster of a Ben Stiller flick about chopped-off foreskin, babies that say [...]

MARATHON MAN – Dustin Hoffman, Laurence Olivier

Marathon Man (1976)
Direction: John Schlesinger
Screenplay: William Goldman, from Goldman’s novel
Cast: Dustin Hoffman, Laurence Olivier, Roy Scheider, William Devane, Marthe Keller, Fritz Weaver, Richard Bright, Marc Lawrence
 

 
The worst sin a good-guy-vs.-bad-guy movie can commit is to — unintentionally — have us root for the evildoer. That is exactly what screenwriter William Goldman (adapting his own novel, reportedly with some help from Robert Towne) and director John Schlesinger, he of Darling, Midnight Cowboy, and Sunday, Bloody Sunday, achieve in the thrill-less "thriller" Marathon Man. Adding insult to injury, the villain I came to root for was a horrific Nazi war criminal, while the hero that bored me to tears was a pacifist Jew.
Now, how could anyone manage to [...]

LENNY – Dustin Hoffman – d: Bob Fosse

I HEART HUCKABEES – Jason Schwartzman, Lily Tomlin

i ♥ huckabees / I Heart Huckabees (2004)
Director: David O. Russell
Screenplay: David O. Russell and Jeff Baena
Cast: Jason Schwartzman, Dustin Hoffman, Isabelle Huppert, Jude Law, Lily Tomlin, Mark Wahlberg, Naomi Watts, Tippi Hedren, Talia Shire
 

 
SPANKING THE NIETZSCHE
Beginning with Spanking the Monkey (not a film about animal abuse), David O. Russell has made a reputation as a director of quirky comedies. I Heart Huckabees is no exception. Not that the comedy works — the film is as funny as a funeral mass — but simply because in this age of formulaic filmmaking, I was flabbergasted to be watching a Hollywood movie that is so abrasively unconventional both in form and content.
The storyline — if the film’s meandering thread [...]

Toronto Film Festival 2004

The 2004 Toronto Film Festival will screen 321 features and short films from 61 countries.
Among the festival’s 100 world premieres are Being Julia, starring Annette Bening and directed by István Szabó; David O. Russell’s comedy i heart huckabees, with Dustin Hoffman and Lily Tomlin as a duo of "existential detectives"; and two biopics: Beyond the Sea, directed by Kevin Spacey, who also stars as 1950s-60s singer and actor Bobby Darin, and Kinsey, which stars Liam Neeson as controversial scientist Alfred Kinsey, who created a furor in the postwar years with his book Sexual Behavior in the Human Male.
Other festival highlights include The Good Woman, an adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s Lady Windermere’s Fan starring Helen Hunt; Jean-Luc Godard’s Notre musique; [...]

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