Contact Help Wanted

Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese, David Lynch Sign Roman Polanski Petition

Woody Allen, David Lynch, Martin Scorsese, Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne, and Terry Gilliam have added their names to the petition, organized by France’s Société des Auteurs et Compositeurs Dramatiques (SACD), demanding the release of Palme d’Or and Academy Award-winning filmmaker Roman Polanski, currently in the custody of Swiss authorities.
In 1978, Polanski pleaded guilty to a charge of statutory rape (sex with a minor) of 13-year-old Samantha Gailey (now Geimer), whom he allegedly drugged before having sex with her against her will. Polanski, who at the time claimed that the sex was consensual and that he was led to believe that the 13-year-old was 18, reportedly fled the United States upon learning, after spending 42 days in prison, that [...]

Behind the Motion Picture Canvas: MANHATTAN, THE BLACK STALLION Screenings

Woody Allen, Diane Keaton in Manhattan

Newly struck prints of Woody Allen’s Manhattan (1979) and Carroll Ballard’s The Black Stallion (1979) will be screened as part of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ presentation “Behind the Motion Picture Canvas: Film Formats through the 21st Century,” which will trace the history and evolution of motion picture formats from the silent era through the current digital age.
"Behind the Motion Picture Canvas" will kick off on Wednesday, September 9, at 8 p.m. at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills. It will continue with screenings of Manhattan on Thursday, September 10, and The Black Stallion on Friday, September 11. Both screenings will begin at 8 p.m. Academy [...]

WHATEVER WORKS d: Woody Allen

Whatever Works (2009)
Direction and Screenplay: Woody Allen
Cast: Larry David, Evan Rachel Wood, Patricia Clarkson, Ed Begley Jr., Henry Cavill
 

Larry David, Evan Rachel Wood
 

Woody Allen’s return to NYC has resulted in one of his best comedies in years. Of course, he hasn’t been making comedic films of late, but whatever.
"Hello, I Must Be Going" by Groucho Marx plays during the opening credits of Whatever Works. The song is perfect for setting the film’s contradictory tone. At the start, Boris (Larry David) speaks directly to the audience, commenting that this is not a feel-good movie – if you want to feel good, get a foot massage.
His character is miserable, a pessimist suffering from “I’m a genius and everyone else sucks” disease. [...]

THE LIMEY II – Terence Stamp

THE LIMEY – Part I
Aside from memory, there are superbly rendered details that distill the characters: Wilson radiates affection for Eduardo’s help in tracking down Valentine by fondly calling him Sancho (as in Panza). All of these things — along with Eduardo’s and Elaine’s motivations, and the portrayal of the relationship between the hitmen — work well. In fact, they work so well precisely because there are no specifics, but generalities sharply etched so that the viewer ‘feels,’ as well as understands, the motivations and relationships. That allows the viewer to feel what goes on inside Wilson, thus creating a stronger identification with him than would be gotten were all things laid [...]

Tribeca 2009: Woody Allen’s WHATEVER WORKS

Eric Kohn at indieWIRE:
"Marked by interchangeably trite and witty dialogue, Whatever Works is the definition of a minor Woody Allen movie. The director’s triumphant return to New York City after several years of European excursions finds him in familiar, if not exemplary, form. Most people on the Allen bandwagon will likely view this outing as a charming mediocrity."
***
Frank Scheck in The Hollywood Reporter:
"Marking Woody Allen’s first NYC-shot film in five years, Whatever Works, falls somewhere in between his lesser London efforts Scoop and Cassandra’s Dream and his return to form with Vicky Cristina Barcelona. While this comedy starring Larry David doesn’t break any new ground for its creator in either style [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Paul Rudd, Jason Segel in I LOVE YOU, MAN Trailer

Written and directed by John Hamburg (who wrote both Meet the Parents and the godawful Meet the Fockers), I Love You, Man stars Paul Rudd (ouch!) as Peter Klaven, a guy with no male friends who must find a best man for his wedding.
Peter ends up bonding with a gross-out type played by Jason Segel, which makes it understandably difficult for his fiancée (Rashida Jones) — especially if the guys don’t wear condoms when they’re together. Well, okay, for better or for worse it’s not that kind of bonding.
Anyhow, in the trailer above there are jokes about dog shit and man fart, which makes I Love You, Man a highly likely family-pleasing box-office hit come next spring. Hopefully this movie [...]

Penélope Cruz to Star for Pedro Almodóvar and Woody Allen

Penélope Cruz, Yohana Cobo in Volver

Two of the best film news of late:

Spanish Academy Goya winner and Academy Award nominee Penélope Cruz will star in Woody Allen’s next film, to be shot in Barcelona during the summer.
Spanish Academy Goya winner and Academy Award nominee Penélope Cruz will star in Pedro Almodóvar’s next film, La Piel que habito ("The Skin I Live In").

Important detail: Almodóvar is not 100% sure that his next project will be La Piel que habito. He will, however, make up his mind in the next few weeks.
The inspiration for La Piel que habito is French author Thierry Jonquet’s 1995 noir novel Mygale, which traces several seemingly disparate stories that eventually converge into a tale about a plastic [...]

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 [...]

Goya Awards 2006

2006 Goya Awards
2006 Spanish Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Goya Award winners: Jan. 29, 2006
("*" denotes the winner in each category)
 

Sarah Polley, Tim Robbins in The Secret Life of Words
 

Mejor película / Best Film
7 vírgenes / 7 Virgins, by Alberto Rodríguez
*La Vida secreta de las palabras / The Secret Life of Words, by Isabel Coixet
Obaba, by Montxo Armendariz
Princesas, by Fernando León de Aranoa
Mejor película europea / Best European Film
Der Untergang / Downfall, by Oliver Hirschbiegel (Germany)
The Constant Gardener, by Fernando Meirelles (United Kingdom)
Les Choristes / The Chorus, by Christophe Barratier (France)
* Match point, by Woody Allen (United Kingdom)
Mejor película extranjera de habla hispana / Best Spanish-Language Foreign Film
Alma mater, by Álvaro Buela (Uruguay)
* Iluminados por el [...]

MATCH POINT d: Woody Allen

Match Point (2005)
Direction and screenplay: Woody Allen
Cast: Scarlett Johansson, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Emily Mortimer, Matthew Goode, Brian Cox, Penelope Wilton
 

 

If Alfred Hitchcock were to direct a screenplay co-written by Nietzsche and Dostoevsky, and based on Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy, the result would be something like Woody Allen’s latest opus, Match Point. A dark fable about the vagaries of chance in a godless world, Allen’s aesthetically old-fashioned crime drama belies a haunting postmodern sensibility.
Set in London, the basic plot of Match Point follows certain key elements of Dreiser’s An American Tragedy: After experiencing the joys of wealth and high social standing (read: power), an ambitious petit bourgeois resorts to whatever it takes to maintain his newfound status. Between the [...]

MATCH POINT II – Jonathan Rhys Meyers

MATCH POINT: Part I
Alternating with equal ease between femme fatale, sex object, and neurotic nag, Scarlett Johansson delivers what is arguably her most effective film performance to date. Both Emily Mortimer and Matthew Goode (a stage-trained actor who’s a — more likable — cross between Hugh Grant and Rupert Everett) provide solid support as the Hewett siblings — too privileged to be distrustful, too likable to be despicable — and so does Brian Cox as the generous Hewett patriarch. But it’s Penelope Wilton who steals the show whenever she’s on screen. A milder (British) version of the domineering mothers of several of Woody Allen’s New York-based comedies, Wilton’s outspoken matriarch is always meddling in her children’s affairs.
Much has been said [...]

2005 Golden Globes: Nominations

Big-budget studio releases were mostly cast aside by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA), whose Golden Globe nominations were announced today.
As to be expected, critics’ favorite Brokeback Mountain, about the mostly long-distance love affair between two men in the American West, ruled the pack with seven nominations. Since the Globes don’t cover any of the technical awards, Jake Gyllenhaal (above, with Heath Ledger) ended up being the only major talent in that film left without a nod.
The biggest surprise was probably the absence of Steven Spielberg’s Munich from the best picture – drama shortlist. Spielberg’s tale of terrorism and revenge, based on actual events, had been touted by those who had neither seen it nor read about it as [...]

Best Films – 2001

 
FILM

Gosford Park
d: Robert Altman; scr: Julian Fellowes
Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India
d: Ashutosh Gowariker; scr:
Mulholland Dr.
d, scr: David Lynch
 
CHECK THESE OUT
The Curse of the Jade Scorpion
d: Woody Allen
Monster’s Ball)
d: Marc Forster; scr:
No Man’s Land
d: Danis Tanovic; scr:
ACTOR
Woody Allen (The Curse of the Jade Scorpion)
Gael García Bernal (Y tu mamá también / And Your Mother Too)
Rene Bitorajac (No Man’s Land)
Ricardo Darín (El Hijo de la novia / Son of the Bride)
Ethan Hawke (Training Day)
Diego Luna (Y tu mamá también)
Ewan McGregor (Moulin Rouge!)
Haley Joel Osment (A.I.: Artificial Intelligence)
Sean Penn (I Am Sam)
ACTRESS
Isabelle Huppert (La Pianiste / The Piano Teacher)
Juliane Köhler (Nirgendwo in Afrika / Nowhere in Africa)
Audrey Tautou (Le Fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain / Amelie)
Maribel [...]

San Sebastián Film Festival 2004

This year, the San Sebastián Film Festival will present a retrospective dedicated to Woody Allen, whose Melinda and Melinda (above, with Will Ferrell and Radha Mitchell) will have its world premiere on opening night. American actors Jeff Bridges and Annette Bening, for their part, will be honored with lifetime achievement awards.
The festival, which takes place on Spain’s Basque coast, is currently being used as a launching pad for movies made in Latin America via its fifteen-film sidebar Horizontes Latinos.
The 52nd edition of the San Sebastián Film Festival kicks off on September 17; nine days later, a jury headed by Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa will give out the Golden Shell to one [...]

Recently Posted

• Oscar 2010: Animated Short Film Semi-Finalists
• Golden Globes 2010 Predictions: Best Picture – Comedy or Musical
• Golden Globes 2010 Predictions: Best Picture - Drama
• Noel Clarke's ADULTHOOD on IFC Festival Direct
• Oscar 2010: Documentary Feature Semi-Finalists
• THE FUPLERS: Q&A with Matt Koval
• Yoav Shamir's DEFAMATION Opens in NY/LA
• TCM Classic Film Festival: A STAR IS BORN, METROPOLIS, BREATHLESS, 2001
• FOUR SEASONS LODGE Screenings
• Oscar 2010: Hash Hamilton to Direct Oscar Telecast

Most Popular Tags

2008 Oscar 2010 Oscar Academy Awards Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Animation Best Films Books Box Office Brokeback Mountain Censorship Classic Movies Daniel Day-Lewis Documentaries DVDs Film Awards Film Festivals Film Reviews Gay Film Festivals Gay Interest Gay Movies Heath Ledger Helen Mirren Interviews London Film Festival London Film Festival 2009 Los Angeles Screenings Martin Scorsese New York Screenings No Country for Old Men Oscar Movies Photos Political Movies Politics Sex Shorts Silent Films Slumdog Millionaire Sundance Film Festival Trailers Turner Classic Movies


Related Posts

San Sebastian Film Festival Awards 2009San Sebastian Film Festival Gala Screenings2004 San Sebastián Film Festival Award WinnersSan Sebastian Film Festival Awards – 2005BUDDHA COLLAPSED OUT OF SHAME at the 2007 San Sebastian Film FestivalSeoul Film Festival Awards 2006