CITIZEN KANE Screenings in the UK

Orson Welles‘ 1941 masterpiece Citizen Kane, winner of the best original screenplay Academy Award, will hit UK theaters on Nov. 30. In addition to London’s bfi Southbank, Citizen Kane will also be screened in Newcastle, Edinburgh, and Glasgow.
Written by Welles and Herman J. Mankiewicz, Citizen Kane stars Welles as a newspaper magnate based on William Randolph Hearst. Also in the cast: Joseph Cotten, Dorothy Comingore (a distorted version of Marion Davies), Ruth Warrick, Agnes Moorehead, Ray Collins, Erskine Sanford, and Everett Sloane.
Cinematography by the masterful Gregg Toland, music by Bernard Herrmann.
Citizen Kane was nominated for nine Academy Awards, including best picture, director, and actor (Welles).
More information here.

Linwood Dunn: Celebrating a Visual Effects Pioneer – CITIZEN KANE Screening

"Linwood Dunn: Celebrating a Visual Effects Pioneer," will explore the work of special effects artist Linwood Dunn (above, lower photo), including the techniques he used in creating optical effects for Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane, on Friday, October 9, at 8 p.m. at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ appropriately named Linwood Dunn Theater in Hollywood. A newly struck print of Citizen Kane from the Academy Film Archive will be screened. This event is sold out, but standby tickets may become available.
Presented by the Academy’s Science and Technology Council, "Linwood Dunn" will be hosted by Oscar-winning visual effects artist and Academy governor Craig Barron. The evening will also [...]

Outfest 2009: PRODIGAL SONS

"I started out making a film about my adopted brother’s journey to discover his new lineage. It was undeniably a great story, a real-life fairy tale. I also felt guilty that life had been easy for me but not for Marc. I imagined that by celebrating his amazing tale I could ease his pain, and maybe heal our relationship. I thought I’d be making a film about the second chapter in our lives. Little did I know we weren’t done with the first.
"Anyone who has met Marc will tell you that you can’t tell his story without telling mine. Our rivalry growing up was the most important dynamic in his life, and remains so to this day. So I knew [...]

Great Directors Series on Turner Classic Movies

Jeanne Moreau, Henri Serre, Oskar Werner in François Truffaut’s Jules et Jim

In June, Turner Classic Movies‘ month-long series "Great Directors" will be celebrating the efforts of 52 films directors, from past and present, from Hollywood and overseas (though, as to be expected, mostly Hollywood).
Among TCM’s "greats" are, inevitably, Alfred Hitchcock, Orson Welles, Billy Wilder, Steven Spielberg, and John Ford, but also Jacques Tourneur, Mervyn LeRoy, and Budd Boetticher.
Akira Kurosawa, Federico Fellini, Carol Reed, and Ingmar Bergman are four of the non-Hollywood filmmakers who have been included in the series.
Each weekday of the "Great Directors" series will feature two directors — one during the day; the other at night.  The daytime lineup includes Victor Fleming (June [...]

MY KID COULD PAINT THAT Review Part II

MY KID COULD PAINT THAT Review – Part I

The My Kid Could Paint That DVD’s best (or worst) feature is a brief set of queries directed at the New York Times’ Kimmelman (above). His answers and disingenuity make for an enjoyable bit of borderline hilarity as the man shows an utter ineptness in responding to even the most basic and straightforward queries on art, as well as having nothing of substance to say even when one decodes his pontifications. It’s as if he’s dedicated to the notion that art is the preserve of didacts and dilettantes such as himself.
Had Bar-Lev really wanted to push the documentary form further, he could have crafted [...]

Best Films – 1941

Orson Welles in Citizen Kane
FILM
Cheers for Miss Bishop
d: Tay Garnett; scr: Sheridan Gibney, Adelaide Heilbron
Citizen Kane
d: Orson Welles; scr: Herman J. Mankiewicz, Orson Welles
The Devil and Miss Jones
d: Sam Wood; scr: Norman Krasna
Dumbo
d: Ben Sharpsteen; scr: Joe Grant, Dick Huemer and others
The Great Lie
d: Edmund Goulding; scr: Lenore J. Coffee
Here Comes Mr. Jordan
d: Alexander Hall; scr: Seton I. Miller, Sidney Buchman
The Lady Eve
d, scr: Preston Sturges
The Little Foxes
d: William Wyler; scr: Lillian Hellman
Manpower
d: Raoul Walsh; scr: Richard Macauley, Jerry Wald
The Sea Wolf
d: Michael Curtiz; scr: Robert Rossen
 

Sara Allgood, Roddy McDowall in How Green Was My Valley
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La Fille du puisatier / The Well-Digger’s Daughter
d, scr: Marcel Pagnol
How Green Was My Valley
d: John Ford; scr: Philip Dunne
Meet John Doe
d: [...]

Orson Welles’ CITIZEN KANE Oscar for Sale

Orson Welles‘ screenwriting Oscar for Citizen Kane, considered by some the greatest story ever told on film, is set to be auctioned by its current owner, the Los Angeles-based charity Dax Foundation, next December.
Produced and directed by Welles, the 1941 classic also received nominations for best picture and best director, but lost in both instances to John Ford’s How Green Was My Valley.
Welles and Herman J. Mankiewicz shared the screenplay Oscar for Citizen Kane, the story of a greedy tycoon — inspired by William Randolph Hearst — who discovers that money doesn’t bring happiness and that untalented mistresses shouldn’t be pushed to opera stardom. (Hearst’s mistress, however, was quite talented. Marion Davies was an excellent comedienne.)
The Academy frowns [...]

Ruth Warrick

Ruth Warrick, Charles Foster Kane’s wife in Orson Welles‘ 1941 classic Citizen Kane, died today of complications from pneumonia. She was 89.
Also in 1941, Warrick was Douglas Fairbanks, Jr’s leading lady in the period adventure The Corsican Brothers, but despite an auspicious beginning her film career didn’t go very far.
In the following years, Warrick (born in St. Joseph, Missouri, on June 29, 1915) was cast in supporting roles in major productions or in leads in B fare, usually playing the hero’s or the second male lead’s wife. Among the most important of those were Norman Foster and (an uncredited) Orson Welles’ Journey into Fear (1942), in which she plays hero Joseph Cotten’s wife — though the chief female role [...]

Best Films – 1948

Joan Fontaine, Louis Jourdan in Letter from an Unknown Woman
FILM
Anna Karenina
d: Julien Duvivier; scr: Jean Anouilh, Guy Morgan, Julien Duvivier
Cry of the City
d: Robert Siodmak; scr: Richard Murphy
Johnny Belinda
d: Jean Negulesco; scr: Irmgard von Cube, Allen Vincent
Key Largo
d: John Huston; scr: Richard Brooks, John Huston
Ladri di biciclette / The Bicycle Thief
d: Vittorio De Sica; scr: Oreste Biancoli, Suso Cecchi D’Amico, Vittorio De Sica, Adolfo Franci, Gherardo Gherardi, Gerardo Guerrieri, Cesare Zavattini
Letter from an Unknown Woman
d: Max Ophüls; scr: Howard Koch
Portrait of Jennie
d: William Dieterle; scr: Peter Berneis, Paul Osborn, Leonard Berrovici
State of the Union
d: Frank Capra; scr: Anthony Veiller, Myles Connolly
The Winslow Boy
d: Anthony Asquith; scr: Terence Rattigan, Anatole de Grunwald
 

Joan [...]