What are the odds that a boy born in the tiny town of Caslav, Czechoslovakia, who lost his parents to the Nazis around the age of 10, would go on to make a pair of Academy Award-nominated comedies about everyday Czech people in the late ’60s, escape Prague on the eve of the Russian invasion, and find his way to the United States, where he would direct two Oscar best picture winners?
Unlikely as it sounds, that is the path that brought Milos Forman to Hollywood, which enabled him to make “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” and “Amadeus,” in addition to such films as “Taking Off,” “Hair,” and “Ragtime.” Forman was an exceptional artist in so many ways, and his death earlier this year at the age of 86 concludes a life of enormous sensitivity, insight, and good humor — traits that made his characters, whether great or small, so recognizably human.
Unlikely as it sounds, that is the path that brought Milos Forman to Hollywood, which enabled him to make “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” and “Amadeus,” in addition to such films as “Taking Off,” “Hair,” and “Ragtime.” Forman was an exceptional artist in so many ways, and his death earlier this year at the age of 86 concludes a life of enormous sensitivity, insight, and good humor — traits that made his characters, whether great or small, so recognizably human.
- 6/27/2018
- by Peter Debruge
- Variety Film + TV
It’s a quality true-life mystery-exposé that doesn’t come off as tabloid trash or Oliver Stone hysteria — the true story of Karen Silkwood is told without cooking the books. The all-superstar cast is something too — Meryl Streep, Cher and Kurt Russell. Only a fine director like Mike Nichols could steer this one into good entertainment & memorable cinema territory.
Silkwood
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1983 / Color B&W / 1:85 widescreen / 131 min. / Street Date July 25, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Meryl Streep, Kurt Russell, Cher, Craig T. Nelson, Diana Scarwid, Fred Ward, Ron Silver, Charles Hallahan.
Cinematography: Miroslav Ondrícek
Production Designer: Patrizia von Brandenstein
Art Direction: Richard D. James
Film Editor: Sam O’Steen
Original Music: Georges Delerue
Written by Alice Arlen and Nora Ephron
Produced by Larry Cano, Michael Hausman, Buzz Hirsch, Mike Nichols
Directed by Mike Nichols
Remember when the big movies about adult themes were in the theaters, and not on cable TV?...
Silkwood
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1983 / Color B&W / 1:85 widescreen / 131 min. / Street Date July 25, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Meryl Streep, Kurt Russell, Cher, Craig T. Nelson, Diana Scarwid, Fred Ward, Ron Silver, Charles Hallahan.
Cinematography: Miroslav Ondrícek
Production Designer: Patrizia von Brandenstein
Art Direction: Richard D. James
Film Editor: Sam O’Steen
Original Music: Georges Delerue
Written by Alice Arlen and Nora Ephron
Produced by Larry Cano, Michael Hausman, Buzz Hirsch, Mike Nichols
Directed by Mike Nichols
Remember when the big movies about adult themes were in the theaters, and not on cable TV?...
- 8/5/2017
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Milos Forman was the prince of the Prague Spring with this Czech New Wave classic, a hilarious black comedy about the cheerful corruption and incompetence of petty bureaucrats. A fire brigade throws a bash, and by the end of the evening the lottery prizes are all stolen and the beauty contest has become a travesty. And they can't even put out a simple fire. The joke is clearly aimed at the Communist government. The Fireman's Ball Region-Free Blu-ray + Pal DVD Arrow Academy (UK) 1967 / Color / / 71 min. / Horí, má panenko / Street Date October 12, 2015 / Available from Amazon UK £14.99 Cinematography Miroslav Ondrícek Production Designer Karel Cerny Film Editor Miroslav Hájek Original Music Karel Mares Writing credits Milos Forman, Jaroslav Papousek, Ivan Passer and Václav Sasek Produced by Rudolf Hajek, Carlo Ponti Directed by Milos Forman
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
We know Milos Forman from his American pictures Hair and Ragtime, but he made big...
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
We know Milos Forman from his American pictures Hair and Ragtime, but he made big...
- 11/17/2015
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Based on a novel published in 1978, "The World According To Garp" was released in 1982, and yet watching the film on the recently-released Blu-ray from Warner Archive, I was struck by how timely and even urgent the material felt, and how much more adult and daring it is than most of the movies released by studios today. Not only do they not make them like this anymore, but I'd offer the opinion that they never really did. How can a film from 1978 have a better handle on the times we're living in right now than most of the films coming out this year? After all, much of John Irving's novel is a direct reaction to the late '70s and what Irving thought of the social landscape at that particular moment. How relevant could it be today, since we've obviously progressed so much since then? You'd be surprised. For those...
- 9/30/2015
- by Drew McWeeny
- Hitfix
By Todd Garbarini
Director Robert Mandel's F/X is one of the most entertaining and compulsively watchable thrillers of 1986. I originally caught up with it on VHS and, while I was impressed with the film, the ending I found to be both hokey and frustrating, mostly due to the completely out-of-place 1982 song “Just an Illusion” by Imagination that plays over the end credits. I felt that it undermined all that preceded it. However, like William Friedkin's To Live and Die in La (1985) and David Lynch's Blue Velvet (1986), F/X is a film that would only grow on me after subsequent repeated viewings. I learned to forgive the inclusion of this song as the final minutes should really be viewed as a visual pun on the film’s overall theme, which begs the question “What is real and what is fiction?”
F/X, which was released on Friday,...
Director Robert Mandel's F/X is one of the most entertaining and compulsively watchable thrillers of 1986. I originally caught up with it on VHS and, while I was impressed with the film, the ending I found to be both hokey and frustrating, mostly due to the completely out-of-place 1982 song “Just an Illusion” by Imagination that plays over the end credits. I felt that it undermined all that preceded it. However, like William Friedkin's To Live and Die in La (1985) and David Lynch's Blue Velvet (1986), F/X is a film that would only grow on me after subsequent repeated viewings. I learned to forgive the inclusion of this song as the final minutes should really be viewed as a visual pun on the film’s overall theme, which begs the question “What is real and what is fiction?”
F/X, which was released on Friday,...
- 5/29/2015
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
The first peer-reviewed issue of [in]Transition features the likes of Adrian Martin and Kevin B. Lee on a total of four outstanding audiovisual essays on cinema. Also in today’s roundup of news and views: a guide to Stanley Kubrick’s lenses, a forthcoming book on The Shining, Jonathan Rosenbaum on Fritz Lang’s Spies, Colin Beckett’s critique of the work of Joshua Oppenheimer, Errol Morris and Jill Godmilow; interviews with Alex Gibney and Charles Grodin; and remembering Gene Saks, cinematographer Miroslav Ondrícek and Italian actor Rik Battaglia. » - David Hudson...
- 3/30/2015
- Fandor: Keyframe
The first peer-reviewed issue of [in]Transition features the likes of Adrian Martin and Kevin B. Lee on a total of four outstanding audiovisual essays on cinema. Also in today’s roundup of news and views: a guide to Stanley Kubrick’s lenses, a forthcoming book on The Shining, Jonathan Rosenbaum on Fritz Lang’s Spies, Colin Beckett’s critique of the work of Joshua Oppenheimer, Errol Morris and Jill Godmilow; interviews with Alex Gibney and Charles Grodin; and remembering Gene Saks, cinematographer Miroslav Ondrícek and Italian actor Rik Battaglia. » - David Hudson...
- 3/30/2015
- Keyframe
It seems that every award season cinemas big and small are assaulted by a glut of biopics. Whether they are a retelling of an inspirational personal triumph al a 127 Hours or whether they retell the stories of life’s heroes and characters. Already in the run-in to 2012’s Oscar Ceremony we have already had Phyllida Lloyd’s the iron lady which had a powerhouse of a performance from Meryl Streep, so at least there was some value if everything else was such a cataclysmic misfire. Other recent and forthcoming biopics include J.Edgar and Albert Nobbs. Instead of looking forward to those films, I will use this opportunity to list some examples of biopics that show how varied this mode of storytelling can be, without that reliance of awards baiting coming into view.
Raging Bull
Once upon a time Robert De Niro was one of the best actors in the...
Raging Bull
Once upon a time Robert De Niro was one of the best actors in the...
- 1/16/2012
- by Robert Simpson
- SoundOnSight
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