Jean-Paul Vignon, the romantic French vocalist and actor who impressed audiences on both sides of the Atlantic during an eight-decade career, died March 22 of liver cancer in Beverly Hills, his family announced. He was 89.
Performing a repertoire of contemporary pop and American standards, Vignon debuted in the U.S. in 1963 at the famed New York supper club The Blue Angel, where he opened for stand-up comic Woody Allen.
Ed Sullivan would soon showcase him on his Sunday night CBS variety show in eight appearances — including one in which he sang a duet with young Liza Minnelli — and he became a regular guest on Johnny Carson and Merv Griffin’s programs.
Signed to Columbia Records, Vignon released his first U.S. album, Because I Love You, in 1964. Three years later, he had a supporting role opposite William Holden and Cliff Robertson in the World War II film The Devil’s Brigade.
In...
Performing a repertoire of contemporary pop and American standards, Vignon debuted in the U.S. in 1963 at the famed New York supper club The Blue Angel, where he opened for stand-up comic Woody Allen.
Ed Sullivan would soon showcase him on his Sunday night CBS variety show in eight appearances — including one in which he sang a duet with young Liza Minnelli — and he became a regular guest on Johnny Carson and Merv Griffin’s programs.
Signed to Columbia Records, Vignon released his first U.S. album, Because I Love You, in 1964. Three years later, he had a supporting role opposite William Holden and Cliff Robertson in the World War II film The Devil’s Brigade.
In...
- 4/3/2024
- by Mike Barnes
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Since the establishment of the Academy Awards in 1929, exactly 60 films have achieved lone lead male acting nominations, meaning they were each recognized in the Best Actor category and nowhere else. The last such instance occurred in 2023 and involved “Aftersun” star Paul Mescal, who, at 26, stood out as the youngest member of a lineup consisting only of first-time Oscar contenders. Although his low-budget movie had a strong shot at an original screenplay bid and was viewed as a serious Best Picture candidate, it ended up getting no love outside the acting branch.
Before Mescal was recognized, his category hadn’t seen a lone nominee since Willem Dafoe earned his first lead bid for “At Eternity’s Gate” in 2019. This was the ninth time that four or more years separated consecutive Best Actor loners, with the single largest gap having spread between Cary Grant and Clifton Webb. Such nominations appear to be becoming less common in this category,...
Before Mescal was recognized, his category hadn’t seen a lone nominee since Willem Dafoe earned his first lead bid for “At Eternity’s Gate” in 2019. This was the ninth time that four or more years separated consecutive Best Actor loners, with the single largest gap having spread between Cary Grant and Clifton Webb. Such nominations appear to be becoming less common in this category,...
- 1/22/2024
- by Matthew Stewart
- Gold Derby
If you knew Laurie Frank — and who didn’t? — you know her great heart burst skyward on Nov. 30. Hours earlier, a technicolor rainbow appeared over the Hollywood Hills, Laurie’s Promised Land.
You likely knew she was in the first class at Yale that matriculated women — class of 1973 — and went on to be an accomplished screenwriter, journalist and acclaimed gallerist. In the late ‘70s, she worked at ABC News and directed short films for Saturday Night Live, famously Prose and Cons featuring Eddie Murphy in a spoof on Norman Mailer’s championing of murderer Jack Abbott.
In the mid-1980s, she moved to Los Angeles and co-wrote Making Mr. Right (1987) starring John Malkovich and Ann Magnuson, as well as Love Crimes (1992) and later ventured into collecting and selling art. From 2002 to 2013, she ran Frank Pictures at Bergamot Station, showcasing artists of fame and those undiscovered. The latter was Laurie’s forte.
You likely knew she was in the first class at Yale that matriculated women — class of 1973 — and went on to be an accomplished screenwriter, journalist and acclaimed gallerist. In the late ‘70s, she worked at ABC News and directed short films for Saturday Night Live, famously Prose and Cons featuring Eddie Murphy in a spoof on Norman Mailer’s championing of murderer Jack Abbott.
In the mid-1980s, she moved to Los Angeles and co-wrote Making Mr. Right (1987) starring John Malkovich and Ann Magnuson, as well as Love Crimes (1992) and later ventured into collecting and selling art. From 2002 to 2013, she ran Frank Pictures at Bergamot Station, showcasing artists of fame and those undiscovered. The latter was Laurie’s forte.
- 12/29/2023
- by A.L. Bardach
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
With a title that invokes both the specific (cinema of Godard) and the universal (cinema is Godard), Cyril Leuthy’s Godard Cinema finds itself in conversation with another formulation: Everything is Cinema. Richard Brody’s 2008 study of the filmmaker, is beautifully sentenced, dare-ing criticism; one wonders, sometimes, if his honest contrarianism is the result of a theoretical attempt to widen the possibilities for transmission and reception of image and narrative. Such an attempt finds a natural bedfellow in the mercurial cinema of Jean-Luc Godard. Leuthy’s hagiographic documentary, on the other hand, is an awkward fit for Godard’s polyrhythmic image collisions.
That Brody will be on hand to introduce Leuthy’s film to kick off its New York run at Film Forum speaks, perhaps, to the heart and head-felt intentions of Leuthy, a documentary filmmaker who’s worked as a director and editor of several film histories, including a...
That Brody will be on hand to introduce Leuthy’s film to kick off its New York run at Film Forum speaks, perhaps, to the heart and head-felt intentions of Leuthy, a documentary filmmaker who’s worked as a director and editor of several film histories, including a...
- 12/15/2023
- by Frank Falisi
- The Film Stage
(Welcome to Did They Get It Right?, a series where we look at an Oscars category from yesteryear and examine whether the Academy's winner stands the test of time.)
Every year, one or several films racks up an impressive haul of nominations. 14 is currently the record, shared amongst "All About Eve," "La La Land," and "Titanic," but routinely, you'll see eight, nine, or double-digit nominations for movies. This past year, "Everything Everywhere All at Once" had 11, while "All Quiet on the Western Front" and "The Banshees of Inisherin" managed nine apiece.
Most of the time, however, the Academy likes to spread the wealth. Take last year's movies. Even with "Everything Everywhere" doing abnormally well, it only won seven of those 11. "All Quiet" just won four, and "Banshees" went home empty-handed. A nomination domination does not necessarily set you up to do a massive clean sweep of the Oscars. Even "Titanic,...
Every year, one or several films racks up an impressive haul of nominations. 14 is currently the record, shared amongst "All About Eve," "La La Land," and "Titanic," but routinely, you'll see eight, nine, or double-digit nominations for movies. This past year, "Everything Everywhere All at Once" had 11, while "All Quiet on the Western Front" and "The Banshees of Inisherin" managed nine apiece.
Most of the time, however, the Academy likes to spread the wealth. Take last year's movies. Even with "Everything Everywhere" doing abnormally well, it only won seven of those 11. "All Quiet" just won four, and "Banshees" went home empty-handed. A nomination domination does not necessarily set you up to do a massive clean sweep of the Oscars. Even "Titanic,...
- 7/23/2023
- by Mike Shutt
- Slash Film
A ruby-and-diamond bracelet that legendary star Marlene Dietrich commissioned from Van Cleef & Arpels in 1937 and wore to the Academy Awards in 1951 is headed to the auction block. It will be offered as part of Christie’s upcoming June 7 sale in New York, titled “The Magnificent Jewels of Anne Eisenhower.”
Interior designer and jewelry collector Anne Eisenhower.
Eisenhower — an interior designer who died last year and was a granddaughter of President Dwight D. Eisenhower — was also privately a collector of many pieces of exceptional jewelry, from a Panthère de Cartier brooch to a Tiffany and Co. Art Deco diamond bracelet on which a rose is depicted by rubies and emeralds. Both are included in the auction, which has a total of 31 lots.
But it’s Dietrich’s bracelet, which Eisenhower anonymously purchased at auction in 1992, that is the undisputed star of the sale as well as the lot with the highest estimate — $2.5 million to $4.5 million.
Interior designer and jewelry collector Anne Eisenhower.
Eisenhower — an interior designer who died last year and was a granddaughter of President Dwight D. Eisenhower — was also privately a collector of many pieces of exceptional jewelry, from a Panthère de Cartier brooch to a Tiffany and Co. Art Deco diamond bracelet on which a rose is depicted by rubies and emeralds. Both are included in the auction, which has a total of 31 lots.
But it’s Dietrich’s bracelet, which Eisenhower anonymously purchased at auction in 1992, that is the undisputed star of the sale as well as the lot with the highest estimate — $2.5 million to $4.5 million.
- 3/16/2023
- by Degen Pener
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
In 2020, the Covid pandemic caused the motion picture academy to cancel the Governors Awards, which has been a stand-alone event since 2009. Instead, it presented the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award to both Tyler Perry and the Motion Picture & Television Fund during the Oscars. This morale booster was a bright spot in the ceremony.
The Governors Awards are set to return on January 15, 2022. Honorary Oscars will be presented to multi-hyphenate Elaine May as well as actors Samuel L. Jackson and Liv Ullmann. Another actor, Danny Glover, will be feted with the Hersholt for his work on behalf of Unicef.
There have been four honorees at the Governors Awards every year but two since 2009. As detailed below, all but one of the academy’s 17 branches — Visual Effects — are represented among the roster of 138 winners of honorary Oscars. In the case of Visual Effects, the academy has presented special achievement awards to a host...
The Governors Awards are set to return on January 15, 2022. Honorary Oscars will be presented to multi-hyphenate Elaine May as well as actors Samuel L. Jackson and Liv Ullmann. Another actor, Danny Glover, will be feted with the Hersholt for his work on behalf of Unicef.
There have been four honorees at the Governors Awards every year but two since 2009. As detailed below, all but one of the academy’s 17 branches — Visual Effects — are represented among the roster of 138 winners of honorary Oscars. In the case of Visual Effects, the academy has presented special achievement awards to a host...
- 11/29/2021
- by Paul Sheehan
- Gold Derby
The Notebook Primer introduces readers to some of the most important figures, films, genres, and movements in film history.Above: 42nd StreetWhile other genres undoubtedly advanced with the dawning of sound technology, the musical is likely the most indebted to the reverberations of this complementary process. More than that, though, the movie musical was fundamentally born with the surge of sound—it simply could not have existed otherwise. And since that time, the musical has indeed been a uniquely cinematic venture, less beholden to conventional narratives and often disposed to experimentations in color, location, camera mobility, production design, and special effects. Especially in its heyday, the so-called “Golden Age” lasting between the mid-1930s and late-‘50s, Hollywood musicals were an enrapturing experience, delighting audiences with spectacle, romance, athleticism, fine performances, and, of course, song and dance. Some of America’s brightest stars sparkled in the musical, while many of...
- 10/7/2020
- MUBI
Alejandro Jodorowsky’s films are confounding, grotesque, beautiful and healing, often within the same frame. The post-violence images of the opening sequence of El Tropo are made more horrific as they are reflected through the eyes of a seven-year-old boy, still naked from a rite of passage. Jodorowky’s films are a gateway drug. The Alejandro Jodorowsky 4K Restoration Collection of his cult classics Fando y Lis, El Topo, and The Holy Mountain, as well as his new Psychomagic, A Healing Art, are a first taste. The most surrealistic of the psychedelic filmmakers had no special effects, or even fancy cameras in his earliest days. He had visions, and meticulously created a physical world to capture those visions–and then he stuck an objective camera in front of it.
No stranger to psychedelics, it was John Lennon who first brought Jodorowsky out of the after-hours circuit and into the daylight,...
No stranger to psychedelics, it was John Lennon who first brought Jodorowsky out of the after-hours circuit and into the daylight,...
- 9/23/2020
- by David Crow
- Den of Geek
Does a musical have to have big dance numbers, glorious cinematography and stereophonic sound? I agree with a consensus of critics and fans that this 1932 pre-Code marvel is the best musical romance of all. Maurice Chevalier may be ‘nothing but a tailor’ yet he steals the heart of Jeanette MacDonald’s princess and shocks her titled, discriminating family. Forget MGM operetta saccharine and say hello to a sexed-up fling annotated with suggestive pre-Code dialogue and song lyrics. Some of the better naughty content is delivered by Myrna Loy, who was never as gloriously slinky-seductive. Isn’t it romantic?
Love Me Tonight
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1932 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 88 104, 96 min. / Street Date September 9, 2020 / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95
Starring: Maurice Chevalier, Jeanette MacDonald, Charles Ruggles, Charles Butterworth, Myrna Loy, C. Aubrey Smith, Elizabeth Patterson, Ethel Griffies, Joseph Cawthorne, Robert Greig.
Cinematography: Victor Milner
Film Editor: William Shea
Original Music: John Leipold
Songs: Lorenz Hart,...
Love Me Tonight
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1932 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 88 104, 96 min. / Street Date September 9, 2020 / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95
Starring: Maurice Chevalier, Jeanette MacDonald, Charles Ruggles, Charles Butterworth, Myrna Loy, C. Aubrey Smith, Elizabeth Patterson, Ethel Griffies, Joseph Cawthorne, Robert Greig.
Cinematography: Victor Milner
Film Editor: William Shea
Original Music: John Leipold
Songs: Lorenz Hart,...
- 9/19/2020
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Though his actual first name was Howard, and he signed his books “James Harvey,” in the 20-plus years of our friendship I always knew him as Jim. In our household, my wife, daughter and I also had a nickname for him, “The Owl,” because of the night hours he kept. I am a morning person, and sometimes the difference created tension between us, if, say, we were having dinner after a film and it was going on 10:30 and I could barely keep my eyes open. I would stand up to signal I was done and ready to leave while he was still nursing his espresso, just getting started, and he would get a wounded look in his eyes and let me know he thought I was being rude. It’s true, I can be abrupt, and he was the opposite, apt to make a more gradual, mannerly leave-taking. We were both great walkers,...
- 5/29/2020
- by Phillip Lopate
- Indiewire
On Sunday, four film folk — actress Geena Davis, director David Lynch, actor Wes Studi and director Lina Wertmuller — were feted by the motion picture academy at the Governors Awards. This non-televised event has been around since 2009 when the academy moved these de facto lifetime achievement awards off of the Oscars.
By not being part of the televised Academy Awards, this has meant more people could be honored each year as there were no time constraints to consider. To that end there have been four honorees every year but two since 2009. And this change has allowed for a wider range of talents to be tapped.
As detailed below, all but one of the academy’s 17 branches — Visual Effects — are now represented among the roster of 135 winners of honorary Oscars. In the case of Visual Effects, the academy has presented special achievement awards to a host of films in years in which there was no competitive category.
By not being part of the televised Academy Awards, this has meant more people could be honored each year as there were no time constraints to consider. To that end there have been four honorees every year but two since 2009. And this change has allowed for a wider range of talents to be tapped.
As detailed below, all but one of the academy’s 17 branches — Visual Effects — are now represented among the roster of 135 winners of honorary Oscars. In the case of Visual Effects, the academy has presented special achievement awards to a host of films in years in which there was no competitive category.
- 10/27/2019
- by Paul Sheehan
- Gold Derby
The centerpiece of Scott Ora’s cluttered San Fernando Valley apartment is the 1939 Oscar his step-grandfather, the late lyricist Leo Robin, was presented for co-writing “Thanks for the Memory.” Sung by Bob Hope and Shirley Ross in the film “The Big Broadcast of 1938,” the trophy sits proudly on the piano where Robin worked on some of his biggest hits. The movie marked the comedian’s breakout role and Leo’s tune, co-written with frequent collaborator Ralph Rainger, soon became Hope’s theme song. It was Robin’s only Academy Award win out of a total of 10 nominations.
Over the course of 20 years, from 1934 (when the best original song category was introduced and he was nominated for “Love in Bloom”) through 1954, Robin, a member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame who died in 1984 at the age of 84, earned 10 Oscar nominations (two in 1949 alone). His impressive catalog includes signature tunes for Maurice Chevalier...
Over the course of 20 years, from 1934 (when the best original song category was introduced and he was nominated for “Love in Bloom”) through 1954, Robin, a member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame who died in 1984 at the age of 84, earned 10 Oscar nominations (two in 1949 alone). His impressive catalog includes signature tunes for Maurice Chevalier...
- 10/1/2019
- by Roy Trakin
- Variety Film + TV
Two-time Oscar winner Tom Hanks has been named the recipient of this year’s Cecil B. deMille Award from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. The honorary award will be presented at the 77th Annual Golden Globe Awards on January 5 at the Beverly Hilton.
Hanks is already the winner of four Globes for Big, Philadelphia, Forrest Gump and Castaway, along with five other nominations. He joins the long list of names over the years who have been honored for their impact on the industry.
“The Hollywood Foreign Press Association is proud to bestow the 2020 Cecil B. deMille Award to Tom Hanks,” said HFPA president Lorenzo Soria. “For more than three decades, he’s captivated audiences with rich and playful characters that we’ve grown to love and admire. As compelling as he is on the silver screen, he’s equally so behind the camera as a writer, producer and director. We’re honored to include Mr.
Hanks is already the winner of four Globes for Big, Philadelphia, Forrest Gump and Castaway, along with five other nominations. He joins the long list of names over the years who have been honored for their impact on the industry.
“The Hollywood Foreign Press Association is proud to bestow the 2020 Cecil B. deMille Award to Tom Hanks,” said HFPA president Lorenzo Soria. “For more than three decades, he’s captivated audiences with rich and playful characters that we’ve grown to love and admire. As compelling as he is on the silver screen, he’s equally so behind the camera as a writer, producer and director. We’re honored to include Mr.
- 9/24/2019
- by Pete Hammond
- Deadline Film + TV
Editor’s note: “A Rainy Day in New York” opens this week in Paris. It does not have U.S. distribution.
Here’s the thing. You can certainly watch Woody Allen’s “A Rainy Day in New York” trying to divorce the film itself from the controversy that surrounds Allen himself. When actors Timothée Chalamet and Elle Fanning show up onscreen swaddled in tweed and smelling of mothballs, you can appreciate how the young performers spit out the filmmaker’s signature dialogue – to greater or lesser success – focusing on the actors’ work, and not the fact that they would later renounce it. Only, once you do focus on the film itself, and not the circumstances of its release, you come face to face with another, nigh insurmountable obstacle: the iPhone.
Indeed, if the presence of smartphones and their accessories and the references to Jeb Bush and the 1% might anchor “A Rainy Day in New York...
Here’s the thing. You can certainly watch Woody Allen’s “A Rainy Day in New York” trying to divorce the film itself from the controversy that surrounds Allen himself. When actors Timothée Chalamet and Elle Fanning show up onscreen swaddled in tweed and smelling of mothballs, you can appreciate how the young performers spit out the filmmaker’s signature dialogue – to greater or lesser success – focusing on the actors’ work, and not the fact that they would later renounce it. Only, once you do focus on the film itself, and not the circumstances of its release, you come face to face with another, nigh insurmountable obstacle: the iPhone.
Indeed, if the presence of smartphones and their accessories and the references to Jeb Bush and the 1% might anchor “A Rainy Day in New York...
- 9/18/2019
- by Ben Croll
- Indiewire
Here’s a highly suspenseful thriller with fine characterizations, set in a grim but meaningful place — Fascist Spain in the late 1950s, when Franco’s operatives still hold the country in a tight grip. The very modern story (by Emeric Pressburger) is also timeless: the old lost-cause warrior takes on one last mission into enemy territory. Gregory Peck (he’s good) is the legendary raider on a mission to kill an old enemy, Anthony Quinn.
Behold a Pale Horse
Blu-ray
Twilight Time
1964 / B&w / 1:85 widescreen / 118 min. / Street Date July 29, 2019 / Available from Twilight Time Movies / 29.95
Starring: Gregory Peck, Anthony Quinn, Omar Sharif, Raymond Pellegrin, Paolo Stoppa, Mildred Dunnock, Daniela Rocca, Christian Marquand, Marietto Angeletti, Perrette Pradier, Zia Mohyeddin, Rosalie Crutchley, Michael Lonsdale, Martin Benson, Claude Berri, Albert Rémy, Alan Saury.
Cinematography: Jean Badal
Original Music: Maurice Chevalier
Written by J.P. Miller from a novel by Emeric Pressburger
Produced by Gregory...
Behold a Pale Horse
Blu-ray
Twilight Time
1964 / B&w / 1:85 widescreen / 118 min. / Street Date July 29, 2019 / Available from Twilight Time Movies / 29.95
Starring: Gregory Peck, Anthony Quinn, Omar Sharif, Raymond Pellegrin, Paolo Stoppa, Mildred Dunnock, Daniela Rocca, Christian Marquand, Marietto Angeletti, Perrette Pradier, Zia Mohyeddin, Rosalie Crutchley, Michael Lonsdale, Martin Benson, Claude Berri, Albert Rémy, Alan Saury.
Cinematography: Jean Badal
Original Music: Maurice Chevalier
Written by J.P. Miller from a novel by Emeric Pressburger
Produced by Gregory...
- 8/6/2019
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Wash Westmoreland at Le Parker Meridien in New York : "My co-writer and late husband Richard Glatzer was really the first one to feel a connection. He spoke fluent French and his birthday was the same day as Colette's." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
Wash Westmoreland's Colette, co-written with Richard Glatzer and Rebecca Lenkiewicz (co-writer of Sebastián Lelio's Disobedience and Pawel Pawlikowski's Oscar-winner Ida) stars Keira Knightley in the title role, Dominic West as her husband Willy, Fiona Shaw as her mother Sido, Denise Gough as her girlfriend Missy, Eleanor Tomlinson as Georgie Raoul-Duval, Robert Pugh as Colette's father Jules, and Dickie Beau as the mime Wague.
Julia Kristeva's trilogy Female Genius: Life, Madness, Words, costume designer Andrea Flesch, a connection between Coco Chanel and Colette, Maurice Chevalier's character in Vincente Minnelli's Gigi, Keira Knightley and the cat, a dog named Life, and the early influence and...
Wash Westmoreland's Colette, co-written with Richard Glatzer and Rebecca Lenkiewicz (co-writer of Sebastián Lelio's Disobedience and Pawel Pawlikowski's Oscar-winner Ida) stars Keira Knightley in the title role, Dominic West as her husband Willy, Fiona Shaw as her mother Sido, Denise Gough as her girlfriend Missy, Eleanor Tomlinson as Georgie Raoul-Duval, Robert Pugh as Colette's father Jules, and Dickie Beau as the mime Wague.
Julia Kristeva's trilogy Female Genius: Life, Madness, Words, costume designer Andrea Flesch, a connection between Coco Chanel and Colette, Maurice Chevalier's character in Vincente Minnelli's Gigi, Keira Knightley and the cat, a dog named Life, and the early influence and...
- 10/8/2018
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
On Wednesday, five film folk — producing team Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall, publicist Marvin Levy, composer Lalo Schifrin and actress Cicely Tyson — were singled out by the motion picture academy to be feted at the Governors Awards in November. This non-televised event has been around since 2009 when the academy moved these de facto lifetime achievement awards off of the Oscars.
By not being part of the televised Academy Awards, this has meant more people could be honored each year as there were no time constraints to consider. To that end there have been four honorees every year but two (2011, 2015) since 2009; this is the first year that there will be five. And this change has allowed for a wider range of talents to be tapped. Levy is the first publicist to be honored.
As detailed below, all but one of the academy’s 17 branches — Visual Effects — are now represented among the...
By not being part of the televised Academy Awards, this has meant more people could be honored each year as there were no time constraints to consider. To that end there have been four honorees every year but two (2011, 2015) since 2009; this is the first year that there will be five. And this change has allowed for a wider range of talents to be tapped. Levy is the first publicist to be honored.
As detailed below, all but one of the academy’s 17 branches — Visual Effects — are now represented among the...
- 9/6/2018
- by Paul Sheehan
- Gold Derby
He wrote the soundtracks to some of the greatest films ever, winning Oscars and partying with the stars. As he hits Britain, the 86-year-old Frenchman recalls fights with his mother – and benders with Miles Davis
A few minutes before I’m due to press the buzzer on the door of Michel Legrand’s apartment building in Paris, the announcement of Aretha Franklin’s death comes through. He greets the news with a sigh. Many years ago, he remembers, he had a plan to team Aretha with Ray Charles on a new recording of Porgy and Bess, updating the version made by Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald in 1958. He sighs again. It would have been wonderful, he says.
His anecdote hardly comes as a surprise. Legrand seems to have worked, at one time or another, with practically every figure of consequence in popular music and film since the end of the second world war,...
A few minutes before I’m due to press the buzzer on the door of Michel Legrand’s apartment building in Paris, the announcement of Aretha Franklin’s death comes through. He greets the news with a sigh. Many years ago, he remembers, he had a plan to team Aretha with Ray Charles on a new recording of Porgy and Bess, updating the version made by Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald in 1958. He sighs again. It would have been wonderful, he says.
His anecdote hardly comes as a surprise. Legrand seems to have worked, at one time or another, with practically every figure of consequence in popular music and film since the end of the second world war,...
- 9/4/2018
- by Richard Williams in Paris
- The Guardian - Film News
Keala Settle, co-star of the smash movie musical The Greatest Showman, hit the stage at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Samuel Goldwyn Theatre on Wednesday night to sing a killer rendition of the iconic Disneyland theme, “It’s a Small World,” the kickoff to a magical night as Oscar celebrated the writers of that tune: Disney legends Richard M Sherman and Robert B. Sherman.
So the lyrics might have said “it’s a small world,” but the lines outside the Academy to get into this sold-out tribute were anything but small, with upward of 100 turned away due to capacity issues. Every seat was taken, and some even tried sitting in the aisles for this once-in-a-lifetime show called The Sherman Brothers: A Hollywood Songbook, timed to Richard Sherman’s 90th birthday (the actual date was June 12). He is the surviving brother of the duo, with Robert having passed...
So the lyrics might have said “it’s a small world,” but the lines outside the Academy to get into this sold-out tribute were anything but small, with upward of 100 turned away due to capacity issues. Every seat was taken, and some even tried sitting in the aisles for this once-in-a-lifetime show called The Sherman Brothers: A Hollywood Songbook, timed to Richard Sherman’s 90th birthday (the actual date was June 12). He is the surviving brother of the duo, with Robert having passed...
- 6/22/2018
- by Pete Hammond
- Deadline Film + TV
Everyone who left the Samuel Goldwyn Theater Wednesday night was humming. It might have been “A Spoonful of Sugar,” “Winnie the Pooh,” “It’s a Small World” or any of a dozen other tunes written over the past 50 years by Richard M. Sherman and his late brother Robert B. Sherman, but they were humming something.
The Motion Picture Academy’s two-and-a-half-hour salute to the songwriters, billed as “The Sherman Brothers: A Hollywood Songbook,” may have been the most joyous celebration in that theater in recent memory. Multiple standing ovations and a warm, infectious feeling of Disney-fueled happiness were the order of the evening.
The Shermans — Dick, who just turned 90, and his brother Bob, who died in 2012 — penned some of the most memorable movie songs in history, many of them for Walt Disney. As Dick Van Dyke, reminiscing about being on the set of “Mary Poppins,” put it, “there was...
The Motion Picture Academy’s two-and-a-half-hour salute to the songwriters, billed as “The Sherman Brothers: A Hollywood Songbook,” may have been the most joyous celebration in that theater in recent memory. Multiple standing ovations and a warm, infectious feeling of Disney-fueled happiness were the order of the evening.
The Shermans — Dick, who just turned 90, and his brother Bob, who died in 2012 — penned some of the most memorable movie songs in history, many of them for Walt Disney. As Dick Van Dyke, reminiscing about being on the set of “Mary Poppins,” put it, “there was...
- 6/21/2018
- by Jon Burlingame
- Variety Film + TV
The Leisure Seeker Sony Pictures Classics Director: Paolo Virzi Screenwriter: Stephen Amidon, Francesca Archibugi, Francesto Piccolo, Paolo Virzi based on Michael Zadoorian’s book Cast: Helen Mirren, Donald Sutherland, Christian McKay, Janel Moloney, Dana Ivey, Dick Gregory Screened at: Critics’ DVD, NYC, 11/24/17 Opens: In December for awards consideration. January 18, 2018 Maurice Chevalier once said […]
The post The Leisure Seeker Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.
The post The Leisure Seeker Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.
- 12/8/2017
- by Harvey Karten
- ShockYa
Frances Dee movies: From 'An American Tragedy' to 'Four Faces West' Frances Dee began her film career at the dawn of the sound era, going from extra to leading lady within a matter of months. Her rapid ascencion came about thanks to Maurice Chevalier, who got her as his romantic interested in Ludwig Berger's 1930 romantic comedy Playboy of Paris. Despite her dark(-haired) good looks and pleasant personality, Dee's Hollywood career never quite progressed to major – or even moderate – stardom. But she was to remain a busy leading lady for about 15 years. Tonight, Turner Classic Movies is showing seven Frances Dee films, ranging from heavy dramas to Westerns. Unfortunately missing is one of Dee's most curious efforts, the raunchy pre-Coder Blood Money, which possibly features her most unusual – and most effective – performance. Having said that, William A. Wellman's Love Is a Racket is a worthwhile subsitute, though the...
- 5/18/2017
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
This is my seventh TCM Classic Film Festival. At a certain point, some things become routine – one learns to expect the exhaustion at the dawn of day three (of four), the constant negotiation between personal viewing whims and rare presentations, the way plots and aesthetic choices start to run together, and the suspicion that explaining the draw of such an event to those not immediately inclined to attend it may come across a touch insane. Film festivals are innately demanding experiences, but between the pleasure of its programming, the consolidation of the venues, and the brevity of most of its films’ running times, few make it so easy to watch four, five, six movies in a day. You tell your coworkers on Monday what you did all weekend, and it starts to not make a lot of sense. But somehow, in the midst of it all, the point of it couldn’t be clearer.
- 4/11/2017
- by Scott Nye
- CriterionCast
Love in the Afternoon
Blu-ray
Warner Archive Collection
1957 / B&W / 1:85 widescreen / 130 min. / Street Date February 7, 2017 / available through the WBshop / 21.99
Starring Gary Cooper, Audrey Hepburn, Maurice Chevalier, John McGiver, Van Doude, Lise Bourdin, Louis Jourdan, Betty Schneider.
Cinematography: William C. Mellor
Film Editor: Leonid Azar
Art Direction: Alexandre Trauner
Adapted Music: Franz Waxman
Written by: Billy Wilder, I.A.L. Diamond from a novel by Claude Anet
Produced and Directed by Billy Wilder
A favorite of Billy Wilder-philes, Love in the Afternoon is a strong expression of the ‘romantic-Lubitsch’ vein in Wilder’s work. It’s essentially a return to the early ’30s Lubitsch comedies with Maurice Chevalier, but played in a more bittersweet Viennese register. It’s also Wilder’s first collaboration with the comedy screenwriter I.A.L. Diamond. Together they fashion the predominantly verbal comedy machine that will carry them through three or four big hits, and a few losers that have become classics anyway.
Blu-ray
Warner Archive Collection
1957 / B&W / 1:85 widescreen / 130 min. / Street Date February 7, 2017 / available through the WBshop / 21.99
Starring Gary Cooper, Audrey Hepburn, Maurice Chevalier, John McGiver, Van Doude, Lise Bourdin, Louis Jourdan, Betty Schneider.
Cinematography: William C. Mellor
Film Editor: Leonid Azar
Art Direction: Alexandre Trauner
Adapted Music: Franz Waxman
Written by: Billy Wilder, I.A.L. Diamond from a novel by Claude Anet
Produced and Directed by Billy Wilder
A favorite of Billy Wilder-philes, Love in the Afternoon is a strong expression of the ‘romantic-Lubitsch’ vein in Wilder’s work. It’s essentially a return to the early ’30s Lubitsch comedies with Maurice Chevalier, but played in a more bittersweet Viennese register. It’s also Wilder’s first collaboration with the comedy screenwriter I.A.L. Diamond. Together they fashion the predominantly verbal comedy machine that will carry them through three or four big hits, and a few losers that have become classics anyway.
- 1/31/2017
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Meryl Streep is undoubtedly the finest actress of her generation.
In addition to the Cecil B. DeMille Award, it was announced that Streep is nominated for her 30th Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Comedy or Musical in Florence Foster Jenkins.
In addition to furthering her record as the most nominated person at the Golden Globes with 30 nominations, Streep is the first person since Sophia Loren to be nominated the same year as receiving the Cecil B. DeMille Award.
Golden Globes: 2017 Nominations Revealed
Loren, who was the recipient of the honorary award in 1995, was also nominated for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in Any Motion Picture for Ready to Wear. The only other two people do the same are Judy Garland (1962) and Maurice Chevalier (1959). However, no one has won both in the same night.
“It’s no surprise that the HFPA has chosen Meryl Streep as the...
In addition to the Cecil B. DeMille Award, it was announced that Streep is nominated for her 30th Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Comedy or Musical in Florence Foster Jenkins.
In addition to furthering her record as the most nominated person at the Golden Globes with 30 nominations, Streep is the first person since Sophia Loren to be nominated the same year as receiving the Cecil B. DeMille Award.
Golden Globes: 2017 Nominations Revealed
Loren, who was the recipient of the honorary award in 1995, was also nominated for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in Any Motion Picture for Ready to Wear. The only other two people do the same are Judy Garland (1962) and Maurice Chevalier (1959). However, no one has won both in the same night.
“It’s no surprise that the HFPA has chosen Meryl Streep as the...
- 12/12/2016
- Entertainment Tonight
Mubi is exclusively showing Billy Wilder and Alexander Esway's Mauvaise Graine a.k.a. Bad Seed (1934) in the United States and most countries around the world from August 18 - September 16, 2016.In light of his illustrious Hollywood career to follow, Billy Wilder’s obscure directorial debut, Mauvaise Graine (1934), may seem like a mere curiosity. Making the film as he was passing through France by way of Germany en route to America, Wilder regarded the work with little adoration. For him, the experience was one rife with difficulty; it wasn’t fun, there was tremendous pressure, and he simply wasn’t accustomed to have such sweeping control over a production. But the writing was on the wall by 1933, and Wilder, like so many others, was keen to get out of Berlin while the getting was good. Arriving first in Paris, he met other film professionals seeking refuge from the burgeoning Nazi party,...
- 8/19/2016
- MUBI
I find it impossible to believe anyone called Hobart Henley could ever be a great film director, but on the other hand, I also find it impossible to dislike a film director called Hobart Henley. It's too much fun reading his name in a credits sequence.Henley had been an actor, which seems to account for his preposterous, alliterative name, except it seems that really was his name, not a stage contrivance. He directed numerous silent films from the teens on, all of them obscure, but his late-career outpouring of a few cute pre-Codes is better remembered. Night World (1932) is enjoyable, and Roadhouse Nights (1930) is remarkable for being the only official adaptation of Dashiell Hammett's Red Harvest (unofficial source material for Yojimbo, A Fistful of Dollars, Last Man Standing...), only you wouldn't know it because it reached the screen as a Jimmy Durante musical. The only thing it has...
- 4/14/2016
- by David Cairns
- MUBI
'Ben-Hur' 1959 with Stephen Boyd and Charlton Heston: TCM's '31 Days of Oscar.' '31 Days of Oscar': 'Lawrence of Arabia' and 'Ben-Hur' are in, Paramount stars are out Today, Feb. 1, '16, Turner Classic Movies is kicking off the 21st edition of its “31 Days of Oscar.” While the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is being vociferously reviled for its “lack of diversity” – more on that appallingly myopic, self-serving, and double-standard-embracing furore in an upcoming post – TCM is celebrating nearly nine decades of the Academy Awards. That's the good news. The disappointing news is that if you're expecting to find rare Paramount, Universal, or Fox/20th Century Fox entries in the mix, you're out of luck. So, missing from the TCM schedule are, among others: Best Actress nominees Ruth Chatterton in Sarah and Son, Nancy Carroll in The Devil's Holiday, Claudette Colbert in Private Worlds. Unofficial Best Actor...
- 2/2/2016
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
'The Merry Widow' with Maurice Chevalier, Jeanette MacDonald and Minna Gombell under the direction of Ernst Lubitsch. Ernst Lubitsch movies: 'The Merry Widow,' 'Ninotchka' (See previous post: “Ernst Lubitsch Best Films: Passé Subtle 'Touch' in Age of Sledgehammer Filmmaking.”) Initially a project for Ramon Novarro – who for quite some time aspired to become an opera singer and who had a pleasant singing voice – The Merry Widow ultimately starred Maurice Chevalier, the hammiest film performer this side of Bob Hope, Jim Carrey, Adam Sandler – the list goes on and on. Generally speaking, “hammy” isn't my idea of effective film acting. For that reason, I usually find Chevalier a major handicap to his movies, especially during the early talkie era; he upsets their dramatic (or comedic) balance much like Jack Nicholson in Martin Scorsese's The Departed or Jerry Lewis in anything (excepting Scorsese's The King of Comedy...
- 1/31/2016
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Nina Hoss in 'Phoenix': 'Village Voice' Critics' Best Actress runner-up. 'Village Voice' Best of 2015: Offbeat picks include Géza Röhrig, runner-up Nina Hoss The Best of 2015 choices of the Village Voice film critics will not influence the Academy Awards, the Golden Globes, or the SAG Awards. No matter. If you're interested in movies to watch or performances to check out, then you should pay close attention to those smaller critics' lists. More so, in fact, than the lists of academies, guilds, and press/critics associations with televised awards shows – or even critics groups worried about their “Oscar relevance.” In their case, buzz easily (and usually) trumps quality. 'Mad Max: Fury Road' tops The top three slots of the Village Voice critics went to expected, English-language fare: George Miller's female-centered actioner Mad Max: Fury Road, starring Charlize Theron and Tom Hardy. Todd Haynes' female-centered romantic drama Carol,...
- 12/16/2015
- by Mont. Steve
- Alt Film Guide
Imitations of Life: The Films of Douglas Sirk (December 23 – January 6) at the Film Society of Lincoln Center in New York gathers a substantial number of the German auteur's classic films together with more obscure titles, some of which may deserve elevation into the higher ranks of his oeuvre. Already, in the past few years, There's Always Tomorrow (1956) has crept up the league table of Sirkian melodrama, mainly because it became easier to see and people recognized that it could stand comparison with All That Heaven Allows (1955) and Imitation of Life (1959), or nearly so.Some Sirk movies will, however, never be quite respectable, but in a way I love them for that. His period movies often dive headlong into Hollywood kitsch in a way that his once-despised weepies mainly avoid. There's a trio of movies playing with George Sanders which exemplify this in their different ways. Summer Storm (1944) was Hollywood's...
- 12/10/2015
- by David Cairns
- MUBI
Imitations of Life: The Films of Douglas Sirk (December 23 – January 6) at the Film Society of Lincoln Center in New York gathers a substantial number of the German auteur's classic films together with more obscure titles, some of which may deserve elevation into the higher ranks of his oeuvre. Already, in the past few years, There's Always Tomorrow (1956) has crept up the league table of Sirkian melodrama, mainly because it became easier to see and people recognized that it could stand comparison with All That Heaven Allows (1955) and Imitation of Life (1959), or nearly so.Some Sirk movies will, however, never be quite respectable, but in a way I love them for that. His period movies often dive headlong into Hollywood kitsch in a way that his once-despised weepies mainly avoid. There's a trio of movies playing with George Sanders which exemplify this in their different ways. Summer Storm (1944) was Hollywood's...
- 12/10/2015
- by David Cairns
- MUBI
Danièle Delorme: 'Gigi' 1949 actress and pioneering female film producer. Danièle Delorme: 'Gigi' 1949 actress was pioneering woman producer, politically minded 'femme engagée' Danièle Delorme, who died on Oct. 17, '15, at the age of 89 in Paris, is best remembered as the first actress to incarnate Colette's teenage courtesan-to-be Gigi and for playing Jean Rochefort's about-to-be-cuckolded wife in the international box office hit Pardon Mon Affaire. Yet few are aware that Delorme was featured in nearly 60 films – three of which, including Gigi, directed by France's sole major woman filmmaker of the '40s and '50s – in addition to more than 20 stage plays and a dozen television productions in a show business career spanning seven decades. Even fewer realize that Delorme was also a pioneering woman film producer, working in that capacity for more than half a century. Or that she was what in French is called a femme engagée...
- 12/5/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Gary Cooper movies on TCM: Cooper at his best and at his weakest Gary Cooper is Turner Classic Movies' “Summer Under the Stars” star today, Aug. 30, '15. Unfortunately, TCM isn't showing any Cooper movie premiere – despite the fact that most of his Paramount movies of the '20s and '30s remain unavailable. This evening's features are Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936), Sergeant York (1941), and Love in the Afternoon (1957). Mr. Deeds Goes to Town solidified Gary Cooper's stardom and helped to make Jean Arthur Columbia's top female star. The film is a tad overlong and, like every Frank Capra movie, it's also highly sentimental. What saves it from the Hell of Good Intentions is the acting of the two leads – Cooper and Arthur are both excellent – and of several supporting players. Directed by Howard Hawks, the jingoistic, pro-war Sergeant York was a huge box office hit, eventually earning Academy Award nominations in several categories,...
- 8/30/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Greta Garbo movie 'The Kiss.' Greta Garbo movies on TCM Greta Garbo, a rarity among silent era movie stars, is Turner Classic Movies' “Summer Under the Stars” performer today, Aug. 26, '15. Now, why would Garbo be considered a silent era rarity? Well, certainly not because she easily made the transition to sound, remaining a major star for another decade. Think Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, William Powell, Fay Wray, Marie Dressler, Wallace Beery, John Barrymore, Warner Baxter, Janet Gaynor, Constance Bennett, etc. And so much for all the stories about actors with foreign accents being unable to maintain their Hollywood stardom following the advent of sound motion pictures. A Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer star, Garbo was no major exception to the supposed rule. Mexican Ramon Novarro, another MGM star, also made an easy transition to sound, and so did fellow Mexicans Lupe Velez and Dolores del Rio, in addition to the very British...
- 8/27/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
“A peach must be eaten, a drum must be beaten, and a woman needs something like that!”
Love Me Tonight plays at The Hi-Pointe Theater ( 1005 McCausland Ave., St. Louis, Mo 63117) Saturday, July 11th at 10:30am as part of their Classic Film Series
I’ve never seen the 1932 Paramount production Love Me Tonight, a classic mix of comedy, romance, song and satire with a first-rate cast, but I will this weekend. The story takes place in France around the time the film was made. It’s an early musical that employs an unusual script device in places – rhyming dialog exchanges that often lead into song (think the early ‘Musical Novelty’ Stooges short The Woman Haters). Love Me Tonight is apparently a satire of French royalty and high society households. Its characters are either the idle rich leading empty, hedonistic lives, or their compliant, consenting household staff. Maurice Courtelin, a Parisian...
Love Me Tonight plays at The Hi-Pointe Theater ( 1005 McCausland Ave., St. Louis, Mo 63117) Saturday, July 11th at 10:30am as part of their Classic Film Series
I’ve never seen the 1932 Paramount production Love Me Tonight, a classic mix of comedy, romance, song and satire with a first-rate cast, but I will this weekend. The story takes place in France around the time the film was made. It’s an early musical that employs an unusual script device in places – rhyming dialog exchanges that often lead into song (think the early ‘Musical Novelty’ Stooges short The Woman Haters). Love Me Tonight is apparently a satire of French royalty and high society households. Its characters are either the idle rich leading empty, hedonistic lives, or their compliant, consenting household staff. Maurice Courtelin, a Parisian...
- 7/7/2015
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Ron Moody as Fagin in 'Oliver!' based on Charles Dickens' 'Oliver Twist.' Ron Moody as Fagin in Dickens musical 'Oliver!': Box office and critical hit (See previous post: "Ron Moody: 'Oliver!' Actor, Academy Award Nominee Dead at 91.") Although British made, Oliver! turned out to be an elephantine release along the lines of – exclamation point or no – Gypsy, Star!, Hello Dolly!, and other Hollywood mega-musicals from the mid'-50s to the early '70s.[1] But however bloated and conventional the final result, and a cast whose best-known name was that of director Carol Reed's nephew, Oliver Reed, Oliver! found countless fans.[2] The mostly British production became a huge financial and critical success in the U.S. at a time when star-studded mega-musicals had become perilous – at times downright disastrous – ventures.[3] Upon the American release of Oliver! in Dec. 1968, frequently acerbic The...
- 6/19/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Ninotchka
Written by Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder, Walter Reisch
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch
USA, 1939
It’s easy to see why Ninotchka works as well as it does, and why it’s one of the best films from Hollywood’s golden age and of arguably Hollywood’s greatest year. Just look at the talent involved. Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder, and Walter Reisch were all seasoned writers, though with their best work admittedly still to come. Ernst Lubitsch had directed a number of excellent silent films in Germany, had hit the ground running once in Hollywood, making his first American film with no less a star than Mary Pickford (Rosita [1923]), and after a series of charming musical comedies, many with Maurice Chevalier, directed the more sublime and sophisticated comedies for which he now best known, films like Trouble in Paradise (1932) and Design for Living (1933). While this was happening, Greta Garbo was working...
Written by Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder, Walter Reisch
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch
USA, 1939
It’s easy to see why Ninotchka works as well as it does, and why it’s one of the best films from Hollywood’s golden age and of arguably Hollywood’s greatest year. Just look at the talent involved. Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder, and Walter Reisch were all seasoned writers, though with their best work admittedly still to come. Ernst Lubitsch had directed a number of excellent silent films in Germany, had hit the ground running once in Hollywood, making his first American film with no less a star than Mary Pickford (Rosita [1923]), and after a series of charming musical comedies, many with Maurice Chevalier, directed the more sublime and sophisticated comedies for which he now best known, films like Trouble in Paradise (1932) and Design for Living (1933). While this was happening, Greta Garbo was working...
- 6/16/2015
- by Jeremy Carr
- SoundOnSight
'Sideways' movie, with Paul Giamatti and Thomas Haden Church 'Sideways' movie review: California winery tour follows conventional road to male maturity With the 1999 Matthew Broderick-Reese Witherspoon vehicle Election, Alexander Payne displayed a flair for satirical comedy the likes of which would have turned Billy Wilder greener (with envy) than the Sideways poster found further below in this commentary. With the 2002 Jack Nicholson star vehicle About Schmidt, Payne demonstrated that his comedic flair could go the way of Wilder's in fluff like Sabrina and Love in the Afternoon: artificial, cutesy, bland.* In Sideways, Payne opted for the safer About Schmidt route – which may explain the film's enormous popularity with critics and audiences alike. For my part, I found his adaptation (with Jim Taylor) of Rex Pickett's novel to be an overlong, moralistic, and thoroughly unconvincing effort. (Warning: This Sideways movie review contains spoilers.
- 5/9/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
This week marks the 10th anniversary of the release of "Crash" (on May 6, 2005), an all-star movie whose controversy came not from its provocative treatment of racial issues but from its Best Picture Oscar victory a few months later, against what many critics felt was a much more deserving movie, "Brokeback Mountain."
The "Crash" vs. "Brokeback" battle is one of those lingering disputes that makes the Academy Awards so fascinating, year after year. Moviegoers and critics who revisit older movies are constantly judging the Academy's judgment. Even decades of hindsight may not always be enough to tell whether the Oscar voters of a particular year got it right or wrong. Whether it's "Birdman" vs. "Boyhood," "The King's Speech" vs. "The Social Network," "Saving Private Ryan" vs. "Shakespeare in Love" or even "An American in Paris" vs. "A Streetcar Named Desire," we're still confirming the Academy's taste or dismissing it as hopelessly off-base years later.
The "Crash" vs. "Brokeback" battle is one of those lingering disputes that makes the Academy Awards so fascinating, year after year. Moviegoers and critics who revisit older movies are constantly judging the Academy's judgment. Even decades of hindsight may not always be enough to tell whether the Oscar voters of a particular year got it right or wrong. Whether it's "Birdman" vs. "Boyhood," "The King's Speech" vs. "The Social Network," "Saving Private Ryan" vs. "Shakespeare in Love" or even "An American in Paris" vs. "A Streetcar Named Desire," we're still confirming the Academy's taste or dismissing it as hopelessly off-base years later.
- 5/6/2015
- by Gary Susman
- Moviefone
The First Best Loser: Madden’s Wholly Unnecessary Sequel an Exercise in Nothingness
Pandering is the word that best describes the tone of The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, John Madden’s follow-up to the 2011 surprise hit The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. Whereas the first film was adapted from the bestselling novel by Deborah Moggach, screenwriter Ol Parker is left to his own sugary devices with this next chapter, volleying most of the respectable returning cast members through a series of utterly vapid subplots that are either forgettable or just plain embarrassing considering the seasoned talents. Some may argue that the chance to see so many exemplary performers of a certain age in a film that will reach mainstream platforms should be appreciated for merely existing, but that’s no excuse for doffing us with such second rate material.
Many of the mainstays from the last film have stuck around...
Pandering is the word that best describes the tone of The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, John Madden’s follow-up to the 2011 surprise hit The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. Whereas the first film was adapted from the bestselling novel by Deborah Moggach, screenwriter Ol Parker is left to his own sugary devices with this next chapter, volleying most of the respectable returning cast members through a series of utterly vapid subplots that are either forgettable or just plain embarrassing considering the seasoned talents. Some may argue that the chance to see so many exemplary performers of a certain age in a film that will reach mainstream platforms should be appreciated for merely existing, but that’s no excuse for doffing us with such second rate material.
Many of the mainstays from the last film have stuck around...
- 3/2/2015
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Marc Allégret: From André Gide lover to Simone Simon mentor (photo: Marc Allégret) (See previous post: "Simone Simon Remembered: Sex Kitten and Femme Fatale.") Simone Simon became a film star following the international critical and financial success of the 1934 romantic drama Lac aux Dames, directed by her self-appointed mentor – and alleged lover – Marc Allégret.[1] The son of an evangelical missionary, Marc Allégret (born on December 22, 1900, in Basel, Switzerland) was to have become a lawyer. At age 16, his life took a different path as a result of his romantic involvement – and elopement to London – with his mentor and later "adoptive uncle" André Gide (1947 Nobel Prize winner in Literature), more than 30 years his senior and married to Madeleine Rondeaux for more than two decades. In various forms – including a threesome with painter Théo Van Rysselberghe's daughter Elisabeth – the Allégret-Gide relationship remained steady until the late '20s and their trip to...
- 2/28/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Jourdan was the last of the dashing Continental lovers – sophisticated, rich and elegantly handsome – who delighted movie audiences during Hollywood’s golden age. Like Jourdan, they were usually French, personified by Charles Boyer and Maurice Chevalier. In his most famous screen role, the 1958 MGM musical “Gigi,” he was the nephew of Chevalier, an elderly roué. In the film Jourdan was scheduled to live the same life of rich food, elegant vacations and serial mistresses as his uncle until he fell in love with Gigi (Leslie Caron) who was being groomed to become a courtesan. The movie was a fairy tale that Jourdan carried with an easy charm. After Jourdan had played a dozen or more of such roles – as a playboy in Max Ophul’s classic “Letter From an Unknown Woman” (1948) who cannot remember a woman who was the mother of his child; as one of “Madame Bovary’s” lovers...
- 2/17/2015
- by Aljean Harmetz
- Thompson on Hollywood
Maurice Chevalier’s rendition of Thank Heaven for Little Girls may be the best known tune from the Best Picture Oscar-winner Gigi from 1958, but it was the romantic lead of the film, Louis Jourdan, who crooned the title song. It was Jourdan’s best-known role, but the French actor had a long, distinguished career, which began in Europe in the late 1930s. During World War II he joined the French underground and his film career came to a halt when he refused to act in Nazi propaganda films. He came to Hollywood where some of his notable film roles included Hitchcock’s The Paradine Case (1947), Three Coins In A Fountain (1954), and Can-can (1960). He played the 007 villain Kamal in Octopussy in 1983 and I remember him starring in a terrific adaption of Dracula that was filmed for the BBC in 1977. Louis Jourdan died on Valentine’s Day at his home in Beverly Hills,...
- 2/16/2015
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
French film actor who found stardom with Three Coins in the Fountain and Gigi, and whose later roles included a villain in the James Bond movie Octopussy
For audiences in the 1940s and 50s, Louis Jourdan’s incredible good looks and mellifluous Gallic purr seemed to sum up everything that was sexy and enticing about Frenchmen. As a result, he became the most sought-after French actor since Charles Boyer. Though perhaps this hampered him, stymying opportunities to extend his dramatic range, any actor who was constantly in demand by both French studios and Hollywood producers had a lot to be grateful for.
When Jourdan, who has died aged 93, played the consummate bon vivant in Vincente Minnelli’s Gigi (1958), he became an international celebrity. The film, which co-starred Maurice Chevalier and Leslie Caron, won nine Oscars, including best picture. Though the best-known of its Lerner and Loewe numbers was Chevalier’s Thank Heaven for Little Girls,...
For audiences in the 1940s and 50s, Louis Jourdan’s incredible good looks and mellifluous Gallic purr seemed to sum up everything that was sexy and enticing about Frenchmen. As a result, he became the most sought-after French actor since Charles Boyer. Though perhaps this hampered him, stymying opportunities to extend his dramatic range, any actor who was constantly in demand by both French studios and Hollywood producers had a lot to be grateful for.
When Jourdan, who has died aged 93, played the consummate bon vivant in Vincente Minnelli’s Gigi (1958), he became an international celebrity. The film, which co-starred Maurice Chevalier and Leslie Caron, won nine Oscars, including best picture. Though the best-known of its Lerner and Loewe numbers was Chevalier’s Thank Heaven for Little Girls,...
- 2/15/2015
- by Michael Freedland
- The Guardian - Film News
Luis Buñuel movies on TCM tonight (photo: Catherine Deneuve in 'Belle de Jour') The city of Paris and iconoclastic writer-director Luis Buñuel are Turner Classic Movies' themes today and later this evening. TCM's focus on Luis Buñuel is particularly welcome, as he remains one of the most daring and most challenging filmmakers since the invention of film. Luis Buñuel is so remarkable, in fact, that you won't find any Hollywood hipster paying homage to him in his/her movies. Nor will you hear his name mentioned at the Academy Awards – no matter the Academy in question. And rest assured that most film critics working today have never even heard of him, let alone seen any of his movies. So, nowadays Luis Buñuel is un-hip, un-cool, and unfashionable. He's also unquestionably brilliant. These days everyone is worried about freedom of expression. The clash of civilizations. The West vs. The Other.
- 1/27/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Thank heaven for not-so-little girls. A revival of the Alan Jay Lerner/Frederick Loewe musical Gigi, starring Disney-minted and Spring Breakers starlet Vanessa Hudgens, has booked the Neil Simon Theatre and will begin previews on March 19, with an official opening on April 8. The theater became available when the producers of The Last Ship announced that the Sting musical would trim its sails as of January 24.
The revival of the musical by the team behind My Fair Lady and Camelot will begin its out-of-town tryout this weekend at the Kennedy Center in Washington, where it runs through February 12. The show, based on the novel by Collette about a young Parisian girl who is being groomed for life as a courtesan, will feature a new book (Lerner wrote the original) by UK writer Heidi Thomas.
The director is Eric Schaeffer and the choreographer is Emmy-winner Joshua Bergasse (Smash, the current Broadway revival of On The Town.
The revival of the musical by the team behind My Fair Lady and Camelot will begin its out-of-town tryout this weekend at the Kennedy Center in Washington, where it runs through February 12. The show, based on the novel by Collette about a young Parisian girl who is being groomed for life as a courtesan, will feature a new book (Lerner wrote the original) by UK writer Heidi Thomas.
The director is Eric Schaeffer and the choreographer is Emmy-winner Joshua Bergasse (Smash, the current Broadway revival of On The Town.
- 1/14/2015
- by Jeremy Gerard
- Deadline
How do you solve a problem like Gigi? That was the task given to Heidi Thomas, the writer behind British hit Call the Midwife, who is adapting the book of Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe's musical for its upcoming Broadway production (starring High School Musical's Vanessa Hudgens). The musical Gigi, based on the Colette novella, began as a film—specifically, Vincente Minnelli's 1958 classic. An adaptation hit Broadway in 1973, but the production was considered somewhat of a flop. And while the beloved film won Best Picture, some of its elements haven't aged particularly well—for instance, its opening number,...
- 11/21/2014
- by Esther Zuckerman
- EW.com - PopWatch
It's the role that catapulted a newcomer named Audrey Hepburn to international stardom and later served as the centerpiece to one of the most Oscar-laden movie musicals in Hollywood history. Now, Vanessa Hudgens - exclusively seen here for the first time in character - is stepping into the enviable shoes of French novelist Colette's irresistible gamine in turn-of-the-20th-century Paris, Gigi, for the splashy stage musical of the same name. "Excited isn't a strong enough word!" the actress, who rose to fame as Gabriella Montez on the Disney Channel's High School Musical, tells People about landing the title role in the Broadway-bound adaptation.
- 11/19/2014
- by Stephen M. Silverman, @stephenmsilverm
- PEOPLE.com
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