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Cary Grant, Douglas Fairbanks Jr. in GUNGA DIN Screening

George Stevens‘ rousingly politically incorrect — and for the most part much admired — action-adventure tale Gunga Din will have a special screening on Friday, June 12, at 7:30 p.m. at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences‘ Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills. Prior to the film, Oscar winners Ben Burtt and Craig Barron will discuss the sound and visual effects used in this 1939 classic starring Cary Grant, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., and Victor McLaglen.
Gunga Din will also will be presented in New York City on Monday, June 15, at 7:30 p.m. at the Academy Theater.
Written by Joel Sayre and Fred Guiol, from a story by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, which [...]

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 [...]

Golden Globes 2009: Tom Cruise, Kate Winslet, Penélope Cruz

Kate Winslet, Tom Cruise © HFPA / 66th Golden Globe® Awards

Penélope Cruz © HFPA / 66th Golden Globe® Awards

Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg © HFPA / 66th Golden Globe® Awards

Golden Globes 2009

2009 Golden Globes
Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s 2009 Golden Globe nominations: December 11, 2008
2009 Golden Globe winners: January 11, 2009
("*" denotes the winner in each category)
 

Freida Pinto in Slumdog Millionaire
 
MOTION PICTURES
Best Motion Picture, Drama
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Frost/Nixon
The Reader
Revolutionary Road
* Slumdog Millionaire
Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy
Burn After Reading
In Bruges
Happy-Go-Lucky
Mamma Mia!
* Vicky Cristina Barcelona

Ari Folman – © HFPA / 66th Golden Globe® Awards
Best Foreign Language Film
The Baader Meinhof Complex, Germany
Everlasting Moments, Sweden / Denmark
Gomorrah, Italy
I’ve Loved You So Long, France
* Waltz with Bashir, Israel
Best Animated Film
Bolt
Kung Fu Panda
* WALL-E
Best Director
* Danny Boyle – Slumdog Millionaire
Steven Daldry – The Reader
David Fincher – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Ron Howard – Frost/Nixon
Sam Mendes – Revolutionary Road
Best Actor, Drama
Leonardo DiCaprio, Revolutionary [...]

The DGA vs. the Academy

Katharine Hepburn, Rossano Brazzi in Summertime

In 1948, the 12-year-old Directors Guild of America (DGA), then known as the Screen Directors Guild (SDG), began handing out yearly achievement awards. George Sidney, Frank Capra, Delmer Daves, John Ford, H. Bruce Humberstone, Irving Pichel, Norman Taurog, and, ex-officio, Guild president George Marshall took part in the initial Awards Committee, which selected the Directors Guild Award honorees.
Before 1970, the Guild’s yearly list of finalists consisted of a variable number of directors, usually more than five. From 1970 on, when the Directors Guild began restricting its list of nominees to five directors per year, a DGA nod has usually translated into an Oscar nod. There have been, however, quite a few exceptions to [...]

Dennis Weaver

Dennis Weaver, best known for his roles in the television series Gunsmoke and McCloud, and for his driver-in-distress in Steven Spielberg’s made-for-TV thriller Duel, died of cancer on Feb. 24 at his home in the southwestern Colorado town of Ridgway. He was 81.
Born in Joplin, Mo., on June 4, 1924, Weaver studied at New York’s Actors Studio. He made his Broadway debut in Out West of 8th, directed by Burgess Meredith, and later played opposite Shelley Winters in a stage production of Tennessee Williams‘ A Streetcar Named Desire. He also toured with Shirley Booth and Sidney Blackmer in William Inge’s Come Back, Little Sheba.
In the mid-1950s, Weaver became famous as the dim-witted deputy Chester Goode — for which [...]

Peter Benchley

Author Peter Benchley, whose 1970s novel Jaws became a literary sensation, has died at his home in Princeton, New Jersey. Benchley, who was 65, had been suffering from idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a progressive and ultimately fatal scarring of the lungs.
In 1975, Jaws – the tale of a white shark with an insatiable appetite — went on to become one of the biggest box-office blockbusters ever. In fact, according to Box Office Mojo, when adjusted for 2006 ticket prices, Jaws is the seventh most successful motion picture in history in the US/Canada market, with its gross take topping US$819 million.
Directed by Steven Spielberg, the film adaptation (by Benchley and Carl Gottlieb) starred Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfuss, and Robert Shaw. [...]

Directors Guild Awards 2006

2006 Directors Guild Awards
2006 DGA award winners: January 28, 2006
("*" denotes the winner in each category)
 

Clint Eastwood, Ang Lee © Directors Guild of America
 

Theatrical Features:
George Clooney, Good Night and Good Luck.
Clooney’s Directorial Team:
Unit Production Manager: Barbara A. Hall
First Assistant Director: David Webb
Second Assistant Director: Melissa V. Barnes
Second Second Assistant Director: Richard Gonzales
Paul Haggis, Crash
Haggis’s Directorial Team:
Unit Production Manager: Betsy Danbury
First Assistant Director: Scott Cameron
Second Assistant Director: Simone Farber
* Ang Lee, Brokeback Mountain
Lee’s Directorial Team:
Unit Production Managers: Scott Ferguson, Tom Benz
First Assistant Directors: Michael Hausman, Pierre Tremblay
Second Assistant Director: Donald Murphy
Second Second Assistant Director: Brad Moerke
Bennett Miller, Capote
Miller’s Directorial Team:
Unit Production Managers: Ellen Rutter, Caroline Baron
First Assistant Directors: Ronaldo Nacionales, Richard O’Brien Moran
Second Assistant Director: [...]

Kansas City Film Critics Awards 2006

2006 Kansas City Film Critics Circle Awards
2006 Kansas City Film Critics Circle award winners: January 3, 2006
 

Mathieu Kassovitz, Eric Bana in Munich
 

Best Film: Munich
Best Foreign-Language Film: Downfall directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel
Best Documentary (tie): Murderball by Henry Alex Rubin and Dana Adam Shapiro and Grizzly Man directed by Werner Herzog
Best Animated Film: Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit by Nick Park and Steve Box
Best Director: Steven Spielberg, Munich
Best Actor: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Capote
Best Actress: Reese Witherspoon, Walk the Line
Best Supporting Actor: Paul Giamatti, Cinderella Man
Best Supporting Actress: Maria Bello, A History of Violence
Best Original Screenplay: George Clooney and Grant Heslov, Good Night and Good Luck.
Best Adapted Screenplay: Tony Kushner and [...]

MUNICH II – Eric Bana

MUNICH Review: Part I
On the positive side, for the first time since Bruce feasted along the New England coast Spielberg has made a film in which the strings are only sporadically visible. The fact that he had to rush through production in order to have Munich ready by year’s end — this is reportedly the first film he has directed without relying on storyboards — helped to give this philosophical actioner an edge it might otherwise have lacked. The film’s technical aspects are generally first-rate, while John Williams provides what could well be both the most understated and the most effective score of his career.
And since the film in question is a thriller, Spielberg and editor Michael Kahn keep [...]

MUNICH d: Steven Spielberg

Munich (2005)
Direction: Steven Spielberg
Screenplay: Tony Kushner and Eric Roth; from George Jonas’ book Vengeance: The True Story of an Israeli Counter-Terrorist Team
Cast: Eric Bana, Geoffrey Rush, Daniel Craig, Mathieu Kassovitz, Ciaran Hinds, Hanns Zischler, Ayelet Zurer, Michel Lonsdale, Gila Almagor, Mathieu Amalric, Moritz Bleibtreu, Marie-Josée Croze, Lynn Cohen, Omar Metwally, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi
 

Eric Bana, Daniel Craig, Ciaran Hinds, Hanns Zischler, Mathieu Kassovitz in Munich
 

Alternately intriguing and irritating, thought-provoking and banal, subtle and patronizing, the biggest surprise about Steven Spielberg’s Munich is that it — however grudgingly — works. The film, which Spielberg himself has referred to as "prayer for peace," follows five men contracted by Israel to avenge the massacre of that country’s athletes during the 1972 Olympic Games in [...]

Washington Film Critics Awards 2005

2005 Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association Awards
2005 Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association winners: December 12, 2005
 

Above, Eric Bana, Geoffrey Rush in the political thriller Munich. The most surprising aspect of the Washington Film Critics’ list was the total exclusion of critics’ fave Brokeback Mountain.
 

Best Film: Munich
Best Foreign-Language Film: Kung Fu Hustle directed by Stephen Chow
Best Director: Steven Spielberg, Munich
Best Actor: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Capote
Best Actress: Reese Witherspoon, Walk the Line
Best Supporting Actor: Paul Giamatti, Cinderella Man
Best Supporting Actress: Amy Adams, Junebug
Best Original Screenplay: Paul Haggis and Bobby Moresco, Crash
Best Adapted Screenplay: Dan Futterman, Capote
Best Documentary: Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room by Alex Gibney
Best Animated Film: Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of [...]

Venice Film Festival 2004

This past Wednesday, Sept. 1, the 61st edition of the Venice Film Festival kicked off with a gala screening of Steven Spielberg’s The Terminal, a box-office and critical disappointment in the United States, where it opened more than two months ago.
At the festival’s press screening, the film received an equally unenthusiastic reception — but none of that matters to festival organizers, who surely didn’t pick Spielberg’s latest production because of its cinematic qualities. What matters is that both Spielberg and The Terminal’s star, Tom Hanks, were on hand for the gala evening — a surefire way to guarantee worldwide coverage for the festival.
"I wanted a festival of quality films for mass audiences," says festival director Marco Muller. "But [...]

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