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Jennifer Aniston in LOVE HAPPENS Photos

Aaron Eckhart, Jennifer Aniston in Love Happens

Directed by first-timer Brandon Camp, and written by Camp and Mike Thompson, the romantic drama Love Happens stars Aaron Eckhart as a widower whose book about coping with the loss of a loved one turns him into a self-help guru. Jennifer Aniston plays a woman our widower meets — and falls in love with — at one of his seminars in Seattle.
The catch is that the man who teaches about coping with loss hasn’t actually gotten over the death of his own wife.
Also in the Love Happens cast: Martin Sheen, Joe Anderson, Judy Greer, John Carroll Lynch, Dan Fogler, and Frances Conroy.
Love Happens opens in the US on Sept. 18.
Photos: [...]

Aaron Eckhart in LOVE HAPPENS Photos

Aaron Eckhart

Aaron Eckhart, Jennifer Aniston

Aaron Eckhart, Brandon Camp
Photos: Kimberley French / Copyright: © 2009 Universal Studios
Click on the images to enlarge them.

Jennifer Aniston in LOVE HAPPENS Photos
Martin Sheen, Judy Greer in LOVE HAPPENS Photos

Martin Sheen, Judy Greer in LOVE HAPPENS Photos

Aaron Eckhart, Martin Sheen

Martin Sheen

Judy Greer
Photos: Kimberley French / Copyright: © 2009 Universal Studios
Click on the images to enlarge them.

Jennifer Aniston in LOVE HAPPENS Photos
Aaron Eckhart in LOVE HAPPENS Photos

GOODBYE, MR. CHIPS Screening

Goodbye, Mr. Chips, directed by Sam Wood, and starring Robert Donat and Greer Garson, will be the next feature in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ series “Hollywood’s Greatest Year: The Best Picture Nominees of 1939” on Monday, June 29, at 7:30 p.m. at the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills. Juliet Mills, daughter of John Mills, who has a supporting role in the film, will introduce the program.
The evening will begin at 7 p.m., with a screening of the seventh chapter of the 1939 serial Buck Rogers, starring Buster Crabbe and Constance Moore, and the MGM Oscar-nominated cartoon Peace on Earth.

Robert Donat, who could be a truly excellent actor [...]

A TALE OF TWO CITIES d: Jack Conway

A Tale of Two Cities (1935)
Direction: Jack Conway
Screenplay: W. P. Lipscomb and S. N. Behrman; from Charles Dickens’ novel
Cast: Ronald Colman, Elizabeth Allan, Edna May Oliver, Reginald Owen, Basil Rathbone, Blanche Yurka, Donald Woods, Lucille La Verne, Henry B. Walthall, H. B. Warner, Walter Catlett, Fritz Leiber, Isabel Jewell, Tully Marshall, Mitchell Lewis, Robert Warwick
 

 

Although not as widely known as other big Old Hollywood productions, David O. Selznick’s film adaptation of Charles Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities, set during the time of the French Revolution, is far, far better than most of the other period dramas made during the studio era.
Starring former silent-screen heartthrob Ronald Colman; featuring respected supporting players such as Edna May Oliver, [...]

THE MERRY WIDOW d: Ernst Lubitsch

The Merry Widow (1934)
Direction: Ernst Lubitsch
Screenplay: Ernest Vajda and Samson Raphaelson; from Franz Lehár’s operetta
Cast: Maurice Chevalier, Jeanette MacDonald, Edward Everett Horton, Una Merkel, George Barbier, Minna Gombell, Sterling Holloway
 

 
The Merry Widow is not one of Ernst Lubitsch’s most discussed films. Critics generally tend to focus on his early Paramount talkies, such as One Hour with You (co-directed by George Cukor) and Trouble in Paradise, and his later comedies Ninotchka and To Be or Not to Be.
Yet, The Merry Widow is a superior musical, boasting sumptuous sets (production design by Cedric Gibbons), exquisite cinematography (courtesy of Oliver T. Marsh), a magnificently staged ballroom-dancing sequence, witty lines and situations (by Lubitsch collaborators Samson Raphaelson and Ernest Vajda, from Franz Lehár’s operetta), [...]

QUEEN CHRISTINA – Greta Garbo, John Gilbert

Queen Christina (1933)
Direction: Rouben Mamoulian
Screenplay: H. M. Harwood and S. N. Behrman
Cast: Greta Garbo, John Gilbert, Ian Keith, Lewis Stone, Elizabeth Young, C. Aubrey Smith, Reginald Owen, David Torrence
 

 

One of the most ambitious productions of the early 1930s, Queen Christina remains surprisingly modern in its execution thanks in large part to Rouben Mamoulian’s assured hand. Those looking for historical accuracy in the film, however, will be greatly disappointed, for credited screenwriters H. M. Harwood and S. N. Behrman kept themselves busy concocting a highly fictionalized version of the Swedish queen; one who experiences an all-consuming and ultimately tragic love affair with a Spanish envoy. (Garbo biographer Mark Vieira explains [see below] that credited screenwriter — and close Garbo friend [...]

SHALL WE KISS? – Q&A with Emmanuel Mouret

In Emmanuel Mouret’s quietly observant Un baiser s’il vous plaît / Shall We Kiss? (literally, "A Kiss, If You Please"), which opens today in Los Angeles, a young, good-looking couple, Émilie and Gabriel (Julie Gayet and Michaël Cohen), meet accidentally and are just about ready to go for some physical intimacy when Judith decides to tell Gabriel a story. See, she’s in a relationship. But then again, so is he.
Well, the story in question is about another young, good-looking couple, Judith and Nicolas (Virginie Ledoyen, Mouret, top photo) who broke the barriers of social conventions and personal trust — Judith was married — by kissing one another. But it was all for a [...]

Torino GLBT Film Festival 2009: Auraeus Solito’s BOY

Filipino filmmaker Auraeus Solito, best known for his 2006 Teddy Award-winning The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros, will be at the Torino GLBT Film Festival, which runs April 23-30, as a member of the international jury and to present the world premiere of his new feature, Boy, recently banned in Singapore.
In Boy, a young poet sells his comic books to afford a one-night stand with a macho rent-boy on New Year’s Eve. However, their relationship will not end that night as the boy in question will learn to accept his sexuality.
Tuli (2005) and Philippine Science (2007); the latter follows eight students at the elite [...]

GONE WITH THE WIND: A 70th Anniversary Celebration

Among the special events at the 2009 Atlanta Film Festival, which runs April 16-25, is "Gone With the Wind: A 70th Anniversary Celebration," with the presence of Turner Classic Movie’s host and film historian Robert Osborne, Baltimore Sun critic Michael Sragow, and author/critic Molly Haskell.
On Saturday, April 18, at 8:00 pm, "The Gone With the Wind Legacy" will feature a discussion with Osborne, Sragow and Haskell at the Margaret Mitchell House’s Literary Center. All three participants will be showcasing their new books: 80 Years of the Oscar: The Official History of the Academy Awards by Osborne, Victor Fleming, a Biography by Sragow, and Frankly, My Dear: Gone with the Wind Revisited [...]

David Spaltro Interview II

David Spaltro Interview Part I
What about Molly Ryman? Is her character based on a real person?
Molly was an absolute joy to work with and a real find for the role of Allyson, which is based mostly on one real person and also a few others. She was cast in a marathon casting session in January ‘07 out of thirty NY actresses. Other than being a very gifted actress and a classically beautiful girl, she has the ability to walk into a room and light it up with just a genuine sweetness and energy. She’s so committed to the work that her level of excitement about it brings up everyone on [...]

…AROUND: Q&A with David Spaltro

David Spaltro’s …Around is appropriately subtitled, "Embrace the Fall." For "falling" — both emotionally and financially — is what happens to the film’s protagonist, whose hurdles are based on writer-director Spaltro’s own experiences while studying film at the School of Visual Arts in New York City.
…Around follows the travails of Doyle (Rob Evans — a better-looking and more naturalistic James Stewart type), a young film student from a highly dysfunctional family who suddenly finds himself without the means to pay for a place to live in pricey New York. As a result, home becomes where Penn Station is.
Curiously, the film’s chief concern is not Doyle’s struggle to come out of poverty or to succeed in film [...]

CASABLANCA

Casablanca (1942)
Direction: Michael Curtiz
Screenplay: Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein, Howard Koch; from Murray Burnett and Joan Alison’s unproduced play "Everybody Comes to Rick’s"
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, Conrad Veidt, S. Z. Sakall, Dooley Wilson, Joy Page
 

Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca
 

By Dan Schneider of Cosmoetica:
About three years ago, I finally gave in to watch It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) for the first time. I had hesitated because of the five- and ten-minute snippets of the film I had seen, and for its reputation as a hokey Christmas story ‘chestnut.’ Well, was I wrong, for It’s a Wonderful Life is a truly great film — arguably the best [...]

THE IRONY OF FATE Strikes Again

"Much like Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life in American culture," writes Peter Finn in the Washington Post, "the Soviet film The Irony of Fate has a permanent home in Russian hearts — and on TV screens every holiday season."
Finn describes Eldar Ryazanov’s 184-minute 1975 romantic comedy-drama as "a sweet, witty romance that also took a sly shot at homogenization in Soviet life." Though initially shown on Soviet television, The Irony of Fate became a huge box-office hit in 1976.
Ryazanov and Emil Braginsky’s screenplay follows Zhenya (Andrei Miagkov), a Moscow doctor who, after a night of reveling on New Year’s Eve, wakes up in the Leningrad airport. Zhenya, however, believes he is still in Moscow.
As a result of the [...]

BIG EDEN d: Thomas Bezucha

Big Eden (2001)
Direction and screenplay: Thomas Bezucha
Cast: Arye Gross, Eric Schweig, Tim DeKay, Louise Fletcher, Nan Martin, George Coe
 

 

Having perhaps watched way too many Frank Capra films while growing up, first-time writer-director Thomas Bezucha has come up with a drippy romantic fable — one bathed not in corn chowder but in maple syrup: Big Eden. In this overlong romantic comedy, every damn person in the small, picturesque Montana community of the title is kind-hearted, open-minded, politically correct, and utterly unreal. Worse yet, they are all, to one degree or another, matchmakers — and of a special kind. The whole community wants what is best for the two local gay men, Henry (Arye Gross), the prodigal [...]

YOSSI & JAGGER d: Eytan Fox

 

Yossi & Jagger (2002)
Direction: Eytan Fox
Screenplay: Avner Bernheimer
Cast: Ohad Knoller, Yehuda Levi, Assi Cohen, Aya Steinovitz, Hani Furstenberg, Sharon Raginiano, Yuval Semo, Yaniv Moyal, Hanan Savyon
 

 

Yossi & Jagger is a tragic love story set in a most unlikely place: an Israeli army camp. Directed by Eytan Fox from a screenplay by Avner Bernheimer, Yossi & Jagger is what the much more publicized, more elaborate, more expensive, and ultimately inferior Brokeback Mountain is supposed to be: A subversive film (not surprisingly, the Israeli army refused to give any assistance to the filmmakers) that shows soldiers, whether male or female, who seem as eager to fight a war as they are to, say, kneel over and vomit, and gay [...]

BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN d: Ang Lee

Brokeback Mountain (2005)
Direction: Ang Lee
Screenplay: Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana; from E. Annie Proulx’s short story
Cast: Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Williams, Anne Hathaway, Randy Quaid, Linda Cardellini, Kate Mara
 

 

Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain is without a doubt a culturally significant motion picture. The same-sex romantic drama has won numerous awards, has been discussed all over the media, and has been labeled "groundbreaking" by numerous film critics. Of course, the fact that those critics’ knowledge of film history only goes as far back as Revenge of the Sith should not be held against Lee’s film. Yet, except for a few touching moments in its second half Brokeback Mountain fails to become fully involving chiefly because its central relationship — between a [...]

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE STREET – Fernanda Montenegro

O Outro Lado da Rua / The Other Side of the Street (2004)
Direction: Marcos Bernstein
Screenplay: Marcos Bernstein and Melanie Dimantas
Cast: Fernanda Montenegro, Raul Cortez, Laura Cardoso, Luiz Carlos Persy, Miguel Lunardi
 

As in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1954 thriller Rear Window, the amateur sleuth in Marcos Bernstein’s feature film début, O Outro Lado da Rua / The Other Side of the Street, believes she has witnessed a murder while spying with binoculars on a neighbor. But has she, or is it all a figment of the imagination of a lonely, embittered older woman?
Unlike Hitchcock, Bernstein (co-writer of Central Station) is less preoccupied with the alleged murder than with the psychological and emotional workings of the two protagonists: a widower (Raul Cortez) [...]

CAST AWAY – Tom Hanks, Helen Hunt

Cast Away (2000)
Direction: Robert Zemeckis
Screenplay: William Broyles Jr.
Cast: Tom Hanks, Helen Hunt, Lari White
 

 

Many will see Cast Away as a celebration of the triumph of the human spirit. Others will prefer the more mundane explanation that the film merely depicts a man following his animal survival instincts, which propel him to remain alive almost against his will. Whichever way one chooses to view the survival of Tom Hanks‘ Federal Express engineer Chuck Noland (No-land, get it?) after being stranded for years on a desert island (mostly shot in Monuriki, Fiji), Cast Away is little more than an elaborate star vehicle disguised as an existential adventure film. Indeed, this Robert Zemeckis production offers little depth in its presentation of [...]

SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE – Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan

Sleepless in Seattle (1993)
Direction: Nora Ephron
Screenplay: Nora Ephron, David S. Ward, Jeff Arch, and Delia Ephron (uncredited), from an original story by Jeff Arch
Cast: Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan, Bill Pullman, Ross Malinger, Rosie O’Donnell, Gaby Hoffman, Victor Garber, Rita Wilson, David Hyde Pierce, Rob Reiner
 

 

In Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Red, the last installment of his "Three Colors" trilogy, the word "magic" is never bandied about. No need to. Magic is just about everywhere in that lyrical tale about love and fate. In Nora Ephron’s Sleepless in Seattle, which received an Academy Award nomination for best original screenplay, the word "magic" seems to crop up every other minute. Ephron and fellow screenwriters Jeff Arch, David S. Ward, and (an uncredited) Delia Ephron were [...]

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