Prolific Indian studio Maddock Films has three successful projects currently on, 15 more in the pipeline and is developing an ambitious film series based on the “Arabian Nights.”
Laxman Utekar’s comedy-drama film “Zara Hatke Zara Bachke,” a co-production with Jio Studios starring Vicky Kaushal and Sara Ali Khan, has emerged as the sleeper hit of the year grossing $11.1 million theatrically so far. Homi Adajania’s action drama series “Saas, Bahu Aur Flamingo,” starring Dimple Kapadia, is a hit for streamer Disney+ Hotstar, while Arunima Sharma, Hussain Dalal and Abbas Dalal’s coming-of-age Prime Video drama series “Jee Karda,” starring Tamannaah Bhatia, is garnering positive reviews.
Maddock also had a major success earlier this year with Ajay Singh’s Netflix original thriller film “Chor Nikal Ke Bhaga” proving a worldwide hit for the streamer.
The upcoming film slate includes:
An untitled film starring Shahid Kapoor and Kriti Sanon, written and directed...
Laxman Utekar’s comedy-drama film “Zara Hatke Zara Bachke,” a co-production with Jio Studios starring Vicky Kaushal and Sara Ali Khan, has emerged as the sleeper hit of the year grossing $11.1 million theatrically so far. Homi Adajania’s action drama series “Saas, Bahu Aur Flamingo,” starring Dimple Kapadia, is a hit for streamer Disney+ Hotstar, while Arunima Sharma, Hussain Dalal and Abbas Dalal’s coming-of-age Prime Video drama series “Jee Karda,” starring Tamannaah Bhatia, is garnering positive reviews.
Maddock also had a major success earlier this year with Ajay Singh’s Netflix original thriller film “Chor Nikal Ke Bhaga” proving a worldwide hit for the streamer.
The upcoming film slate includes:
An untitled film starring Shahid Kapoor and Kriti Sanon, written and directed...
- 6/20/2023
- by Naman Ramachandran
- Variety Film + TV
Hello, dear readers! November is officially upon us, as well as a new week of Blu-ray and DVD releases, which means it’s time to make some room for more horror and sci-fi to fill your home entertainment shelves. One of this writer’s favorite indie genre movies of the year, Come True, is getting released to both Blu and DVD this week courtesy of Scream Factory, and Kino Lorber is showing some love to a pair of classic thrillers as well: The Spider Woman Strikes Back and The Mad Doctor. Other releases for November 2nd include The Banishing, Pig featuring Nicolas Cage, and The Spore.
The Banishing
From acclaimed genre director Chris Smith (Creep) comes the true story of the most haunted house in England. A young reverend, his wife and daughter move into a manor with a horrifying secret. When a vengeful spirit haunts the little girl and...
The Banishing
From acclaimed genre director Chris Smith (Creep) comes the true story of the most haunted house in England. A young reverend, his wife and daughter move into a manor with a horrifying secret. When a vengeful spirit haunts the little girl and...
- 11/1/2021
- by Heather Wixson
- DailyDead
Review: "Arabian Nights" (1942) And "Al Baba And The Forty Thieves" (1944); Blu-ray Special Editions
Normal 0 false false false En-us X-none X-none
“Technicolor Sabers”
By Raymond Benson
Was this really a movie sub-genre? Colorful “Middle Eastern” action-comedy-adventures loosely derived from The Book of One Thousand and One Nights? Full of harem girls, saber-wielding swashbucklers, epic set pieces with beautifully designed sets and “Arabian” costumes, camels and horses and tigers, and… comedians?
The answer is, ahem, yes. During the war years of the early 1940s, Universal Pictures made several of these “exotic adventure” pictures that capitalized on the success of Britain’s Thief of Bagdad (1940). Hollywood quickly got into this act, but like the Bing Crosby and Bob Hope “Road to…” pictures, these movies set in the world of ancient Arabia were filmed on sound stages in southern California… and it shows.
The films were hugely popular at the time, but they have not aged well. We shall examine two of the more successful entries of...
“Technicolor Sabers”
By Raymond Benson
Was this really a movie sub-genre? Colorful “Middle Eastern” action-comedy-adventures loosely derived from The Book of One Thousand and One Nights? Full of harem girls, saber-wielding swashbucklers, epic set pieces with beautifully designed sets and “Arabian” costumes, camels and horses and tigers, and… comedians?
The answer is, ahem, yes. During the war years of the early 1940s, Universal Pictures made several of these “exotic adventure” pictures that capitalized on the success of Britain’s Thief of Bagdad (1940). Hollywood quickly got into this act, but like the Bing Crosby and Bob Hope “Road to…” pictures, these movies set in the world of ancient Arabia were filmed on sound stages in southern California… and it shows.
The films were hugely popular at the time, but they have not aged well. We shall examine two of the more successful entries of...
- 8/4/2020
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
The title Arabian Nights conjures up very specific images. Itself a collection of Middle Eastern and South Asian tales best known for stories like Aladdin’s Wonderful Lamp, Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves and The Seven Voyages Of Sinbad The Sailor (all of which were not a part of the original versions but added in later translations), the tales have been fodder for visual arts ranging from centuries old paintings to the very earliest efforts from the fathers of cinema, like George Melies. The inspiration for musical pieces coming as early as 1800 and helping inspire literature icons like Marcel Proust and James Joyce, these stories have become some of the most recognizable folk tales in all of world history. And yet, few adaptations have been quite like the loose one (if by loose one means connected almost in name only) director Miguel Gomes has given the world.
Volume one of Gomes’ latest masterpiece,...
Volume one of Gomes’ latest masterpiece,...
- 12/2/2015
- by Joshua Brunsting
- CriterionCast
With Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb almost in theaters, Shawn Levy is looking for his next project. And he may have found one in Forty Thieves, a retelling of the classic folk tale Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. Casting is already underway, with Liam Hemsworth (above), Dan Stevens, and Evan Peters […]
The post Shawn Levy to Direct ‘Forty Thieves’; Evan Peters or Liam Hemsworth Could Be the New Ali Baba appeared first on /Film.
The post Shawn Levy to Direct ‘Forty Thieves’; Evan Peters or Liam Hemsworth Could Be the New Ali Baba appeared first on /Film.
- 11/14/2014
- by Angie Han
- Slash Film
Mark Boal (The Hurt Locker, Zero Dark Thirty) has been brought on to do a "three-week production polish" on the screenplay for the video game adaptation of Uncharted which will be directed by Seth Gordon (Horrible Bosses) following the previous draft written by David Guggenheim (Safe House). Chris Pratt (Guardians of the Galaxy) recently passed on an offer to play the film's lead, an Indiana Jones type named Nate Drake, a descendent of explorer Sir Francis Drake, who believes he has learned the whereabouts of the fabled golden South American city El Dorado from a cursed statue. The film is currently slated for a June 10, 2016 release. THR Jack O'Connell (Unbroken, Starred Up) and Julia Roberts are in talks to join George Clooney in director Jodie Foster's financial thriller Money Monster in which Clooney stars as Lee Gates, a bombastic financial TV personality who offers up stock advice on his...
- 11/14/2014
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
Forty Thieves
Liam Hemsworth ("The Hunger Games"), Evan Peters ("X-Men: Days of Future Past") and Dan Stevens ("The Guest") are all reportedly testing for the lead role in Shawn Levy's "Forty Thieves" at 20th Century Fox.
The project is an adventure comedy take on the classic folk tale 'Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves' with the trio of actors testing for the male lead 'Allen'. [Source: The Wrap]
The Birth of a Nation
Armie Hammer has joined the cast of actor/director Nate Parker’s "The Birth Of A Nation" about Nat Turner, an African-American slave turned revolutionary who led a bloody rebellion in Virginia in 1831.
Turner went down in history as one of the most controversial American figures preceding the Civil War. Hammer plays Samuel Turner, the son of Nat's first master Benjamin Turner. [Source: Deadline]
The Accountant
J.K. Simmons is in negotiations and Anna Kendrick is circling the cast of...
Liam Hemsworth ("The Hunger Games"), Evan Peters ("X-Men: Days of Future Past") and Dan Stevens ("The Guest") are all reportedly testing for the lead role in Shawn Levy's "Forty Thieves" at 20th Century Fox.
The project is an adventure comedy take on the classic folk tale 'Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves' with the trio of actors testing for the male lead 'Allen'. [Source: The Wrap]
The Birth of a Nation
Armie Hammer has joined the cast of actor/director Nate Parker’s "The Birth Of A Nation" about Nat Turner, an African-American slave turned revolutionary who led a bloody rebellion in Virginia in 1831.
Turner went down in history as one of the most controversial American figures preceding the Civil War. Hammer plays Samuel Turner, the son of Nat's first master Benjamin Turner. [Source: Deadline]
The Accountant
J.K. Simmons is in negotiations and Anna Kendrick is circling the cast of...
- 11/13/2014
- by Garth Franklin
- Dark Horizons
Wonder Woman: Television veteran Michelle MacLaren, who has directed multiple stylish, memorable episodes of Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones, is in talks to helm Wonder Woman. Also on that list, according to THR, are Homeland director Lesli Linka Glatter and The Babadook director Jennifer Kent. Gal Gadot is set to debut as the character in 2016's Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, with a stand-alone Wonder Woman adventure due in theaters in 2017. [Variety] Forty Thieves: The ever-busy Shawn Levy (Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb) will direct a new, comic version of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, titled simply Forty Thieves. Young actors Liam Hemsworth (The Hunger Games), Dan Stevens (The Guest) and Evan Peters (Kick-Ass) are testing to play the lead, a...
Read More...
Read More...
- 11/13/2014
- by Peter Martin
- Movies.com
Shawn Levy has signed on to direct Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves.
Liam Hemsworth (The Hunger Games), Dan Stevens (Downton Abbey) and Evan Peters (X-Men: Days of Future Past) are testing for the lead role, reports The Wrap.
The film will be based on the classic tale from The 1,001 Arabian Nights.
The project will have strong comedic tones and has been compared to Guardians of the Galaxy and Pirates of the Caribbean.
The tale centres around woodcutter Ali Baba, who discovers a secret horde hidden by a magical door that responds to the words 'open sesame'.
Levy's most recent projects include This Is Where I Leave You and Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb.
Levy will produce Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves through his 21 Laps banner.
Liam Hemsworth (The Hunger Games), Dan Stevens (Downton Abbey) and Evan Peters (X-Men: Days of Future Past) are testing for the lead role, reports The Wrap.
The film will be based on the classic tale from The 1,001 Arabian Nights.
The project will have strong comedic tones and has been compared to Guardians of the Galaxy and Pirates of the Caribbean.
The tale centres around woodcutter Ali Baba, who discovers a secret horde hidden by a magical door that responds to the words 'open sesame'.
Levy's most recent projects include This Is Where I Leave You and Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb.
Levy will produce Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves through his 21 Laps banner.
- 11/13/2014
- Digital Spy
This year, director Shawn Levy has worked on two very different films. This Is Where I Leave You was a touching family drama with plenty of comedy, and Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb is a big, fun family friendly adventure. Now it sounds like he's heading into epic territory at Fox as The Wrap reports Levy is set to direct Forty Thieves, a new adaptation of the classic tale of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, which most people are probably familiar with because of Disney's Aladdin franchise. However, this won't be a straight-up action epic as it's said to be an adventure movie with some "strong comedic undertones." The trade cites Guardians of the Galaxy and Pirates of the Caribbean as apt comparisons for the film. The original story follows a poor woodcutter who discovers the secret of a thieves' den, entered with the phrase "Open Sesame.
- 11/13/2014
- by Ethan Anderton
- firstshowing.net
The Wrap is reporting Shawn Levy (Real Steel, Night At The Museum) will direct a new take on the Arabian Nights tale "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves" for Fox called 40 Thieves. The project is being described as "an adventure movie with strong comedic undertones," similar to Pirates Of The Caribbean and Guardians Of The Galaxy. The site also has some information on who is being considered for the lead role Allen, who might be a stand-in for Ali Baba....
- 11/13/2014
- by Jesse Giroux
- JoBlo.com
TheWrap is reporting that director Shawn Levy is in talks with 20th Century Fox to helm a new take on the classic Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves story. Conveniently titled Forty Thieves, the film is said to be in the vein of Pirates of the Caribbean and Guardians of the Galaxy and will be an “adventure film with strong comedic undertones.”
No lead has been set just yet, but the report states that several young candidates are in the running, and they include Liam Hemsworth, Dan Stevens and Evan Peters. While I’d love to see Peters get a bit more exposure, the fact that Levy just worked with Stevens on Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb probably gives the former Downton Abbey star a bit of an edge. At this point, however, it’s anyone’s game as all three actors are still testing.
Unfortunately, we...
No lead has been set just yet, but the report states that several young candidates are in the running, and they include Liam Hemsworth, Dan Stevens and Evan Peters. While I’d love to see Peters get a bit more exposure, the fact that Levy just worked with Stevens on Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb probably gives the former Downton Abbey star a bit of an edge. At this point, however, it’s anyone’s game as all three actors are still testing.
Unfortunately, we...
- 11/13/2014
- by Matt Joseph
- We Got This Covered
"Night at the Museum" director Shawn Levy is set to direct the adventure comedy "40 Thieves" for 20th Century Fox.
Described as a reimagining of the classic "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves" story, the original 'Arabian Nights' tale follows a poor woodcutter who discovers treasure in a band of thieves' secret den after he gains access using the phrase "Open Sesame".
Adventure follows after the clan finds that their treasure has been uncovered and begin a pursuit of Baba. Jayson Rothwell penned the script with Bernie Goldman producing.
Fox aims to turn the project into a four-quadrant tentpole that aims to yield "Maleficent" or "Alice in Wonderland" style success.
Source: Variety...
Described as a reimagining of the classic "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves" story, the original 'Arabian Nights' tale follows a poor woodcutter who discovers treasure in a band of thieves' secret den after he gains access using the phrase "Open Sesame".
Adventure follows after the clan finds that their treasure has been uncovered and begin a pursuit of Baba. Jayson Rothwell penned the script with Bernie Goldman producing.
Fox aims to turn the project into a four-quadrant tentpole that aims to yield "Maleficent" or "Alice in Wonderland" style success.
Source: Variety...
- 11/13/2014
- by Garth Franklin
- Dark Horizons
Warner Bros. Pictures has acquired a ninety-page "script-ment" from new scribe David Weil which lays out plans for a seven-film franchise based on the inter-connected stories in the famed folk tale collection "One Thousand and One Nights".
The plan is to re-imagine these classic (and in the public domain) stories as period-set big-budget CGI fantasy adventure tentpoles with modern themes. The 'script-ment' itself is essentially a bible for a potentially long-running franchise which 3 Arts will produce.
A compilation of numerous folks stories from ancient Arabic, Persian, Indian, Egyptian and Mesopotamian folklore, the famed work includes such stories as Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, Aladdin's Wonderful Lamp, The Fisherman and the Jinni and The Seven Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor.
It isn't known which of these stories the franchise will draw from, or if the framing story of the work involving Scheherazade reciting of the tales to Sultan Shahriyar to...
The plan is to re-imagine these classic (and in the public domain) stories as period-set big-budget CGI fantasy adventure tentpoles with modern themes. The 'script-ment' itself is essentially a bible for a potentially long-running franchise which 3 Arts will produce.
A compilation of numerous folks stories from ancient Arabic, Persian, Indian, Egyptian and Mesopotamian folklore, the famed work includes such stories as Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, Aladdin's Wonderful Lamp, The Fisherman and the Jinni and The Seven Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor.
It isn't known which of these stories the franchise will draw from, or if the framing story of the work involving Scheherazade reciting of the tales to Sultan Shahriyar to...
- 7/23/2014
- by Garth Franklin
- Dark Horizons
Prolific comedy actor who worked with Peter Sellers, Tony Hancock, Spike Milligan and Hattie Jacques
The stony-faced, beaky comedy actor Graham Stark, who has died aged 91, is best remembered for his appearances alongside Peter Sellers, notably in the Pink Panther movies. His familiar face and voice, on television and radio, were part of the essential furniture in the sitting room of our popular culture for more than half a century. A stalwart in the national postwar comedy boom led by Sellers, Tony Hancock, Spike Milligan, Dick Emery, Eric Sykes and Benny Hill, he worked with them all in a sort of unofficial supporting repertory company that also included Hattie Jacques, Deryck Guyler, Patricia Hayes and Arthur Mullard. He was also a man of surprising and various parts: child actor, trained dancer, film-maker, occasional writer, and dedicated and critically acclaimed photographer.
Like Gypsy Rose Lee, he had a resourceful and determined...
The stony-faced, beaky comedy actor Graham Stark, who has died aged 91, is best remembered for his appearances alongside Peter Sellers, notably in the Pink Panther movies. His familiar face and voice, on television and radio, were part of the essential furniture in the sitting room of our popular culture for more than half a century. A stalwart in the national postwar comedy boom led by Sellers, Tony Hancock, Spike Milligan, Dick Emery, Eric Sykes and Benny Hill, he worked with them all in a sort of unofficial supporting repertory company that also included Hattie Jacques, Deryck Guyler, Patricia Hayes and Arthur Mullard. He was also a man of surprising and various parts: child actor, trained dancer, film-maker, occasional writer, and dedicated and critically acclaimed photographer.
Like Gypsy Rose Lee, he had a resourceful and determined...
- 11/1/2013
- by Michael Coveney
- The Guardian - Film News
There is a fascinating but little-known prequel to Indian cinema that goes right back to silent films made in the 1890s
In October 1917, Hiralal Sen was sick, bankrupt and just a few days away from death when he received some cruel news. His brother's warehouse was on fire and, as it burned, Sen's career as a film-maker went up in flames. The warehouse contained the entire stock of the Royal Bioscope Company, the Sen brothers' firm, which showed and produced films in the Kolkata area in the early years of the 20th century. The blaze destroyed Sen's films, and with them much of the proof of India's early cinema history.
The centenary celebrations suggest that Indian film production began in 1913, but that is far from the truth. "The history of Indian cinema before 1913 is a fragmentary one, but it is no less interesting for that," says Luke McKernan, moving...
In October 1917, Hiralal Sen was sick, bankrupt and just a few days away from death when he received some cruel news. His brother's warehouse was on fire and, as it burned, Sen's career as a film-maker went up in flames. The warehouse contained the entire stock of the Royal Bioscope Company, the Sen brothers' firm, which showed and produced films in the Kolkata area in the early years of the 20th century. The blaze destroyed Sen's films, and with them much of the proof of India's early cinema history.
The centenary celebrations suggest that Indian film production began in 1913, but that is far from the truth. "The history of Indian cinema before 1913 is a fragmentary one, but it is no less interesting for that," says Luke McKernan, moving...
- 7/25/2013
- by Pamela Hutchinson
- The Guardian - Film News
Arabian Nights
Directed by John Rawlins
Starring Jon Hall, Maria Montez, and Sabu
USA, 86 min – 1942.
Part of a series of exotic pictures released by Universal in the 1940s (the others of which include Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves and White Savage), Arabian Nights places the Hollywood spin on the classic tale of Scheherazade and her murderous husband. The name of the source material’s heroine – Scheherazade – is kept the same, while others are changed. The tale is twisted, so that there seems to be very little of the original myth and of the original Scheherazade. What is left are some names, supposed exotic places (“Arabia”), a brother’s feud, and humorous references to the stories of Aladdin and Sinbad. Arabian Nights becomes a campy adventure film to take war-minded audiences away to a far off place, for a while. It works.
Universal’s Arabian Nights begins with a frame...
Directed by John Rawlins
Starring Jon Hall, Maria Montez, and Sabu
USA, 86 min – 1942.
Part of a series of exotic pictures released by Universal in the 1940s (the others of which include Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves and White Savage), Arabian Nights places the Hollywood spin on the classic tale of Scheherazade and her murderous husband. The name of the source material’s heroine – Scheherazade – is kept the same, while others are changed. The tale is twisted, so that there seems to be very little of the original myth and of the original Scheherazade. What is left are some names, supposed exotic places (“Arabia”), a brother’s feud, and humorous references to the stories of Aladdin and Sinbad. Arabian Nights becomes a campy adventure film to take war-minded audiences away to a far off place, for a while. It works.
Universal’s Arabian Nights begins with a frame...
- 1/29/2013
- by Karen Bacellar
- SoundOnSight
Successful 1940s film actor whose exotic roles led fan magazines to dub him 'the Turkish Delight'
"Exotic" is the epithet most frequently used to describe the series of Technicolored escapist movies produced by Universal Pictures in the 1940s. These profitable films, often set in a North African or Arabian desert recreated on the studio backlot, featured the Dominican actor Maria Montez; Sabu, the Indian teenage boy; Jon Hall (son of a Swiss actor and a Tahitian princess); and Turhan Bey, who has died aged 90. Bey was often cast as wily, "foreign" villains, or romantic leads in thrillers and Arabian Nights fantasies, for which he was dubbed by fan magazines "the Turkish Delight".
Son of a Turkish diplomat father and a Czech industrialist mother, he was born Turhan Gilbert Selahattin Sahultavy in Vienna, but emigrated to the Us with his mother and grandmother shortly before Austria was annexed by Germany in 1938. In California,...
"Exotic" is the epithet most frequently used to describe the series of Technicolored escapist movies produced by Universal Pictures in the 1940s. These profitable films, often set in a North African or Arabian desert recreated on the studio backlot, featured the Dominican actor Maria Montez; Sabu, the Indian teenage boy; Jon Hall (son of a Swiss actor and a Tahitian princess); and Turhan Bey, who has died aged 90. Bey was often cast as wily, "foreign" villains, or romantic leads in thrillers and Arabian Nights fantasies, for which he was dubbed by fan magazines "the Turkish Delight".
Son of a Turkish diplomat father and a Czech industrialist mother, he was born Turhan Gilbert Selahattin Sahultavy in Vienna, but emigrated to the Us with his mother and grandmother shortly before Austria was annexed by Germany in 1938. In California,...
- 10/10/2012
- by Ronald Bergan
- The Guardian - Film News
A-Lad-In His Lamp was a 1948 Warner Brothers Bugs Bunny cartoon that had showed an aerial map depicting two bodies of water named Veronica Lake and Turhan Bay. This probably seemed clever 64 years ago but later generations of kids catching it on TV most likely missed the joke. Born Turhan Gilbert Selahattin Sahultavy in Austria in 1922, Turhan Bey was dubbed “The Turkish Delight” by his fans and the movie mags. He costarred with exotic Dominican-born actress Maria Montez in seven films including Ali Baba And The Forty Thieves and Sudan. His is an especially sad passing for monster kids as Bey was just about the last living link to The Golden Age of Universal’s Horror films, having starred in The Mad Ghoul, Captive Wild Woman, and opposite Lon Chaney in The Mummy’S Tomb. Bey left Hollywood in 1949 to return to his native Vienna, working as a photographer. However, he...
- 10/10/2012
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
A recent retrospective on the cult film-maker revealed his inspiration – a dazzling 1940s diva who could not even act
Jack Smith and Maria Montez were made for each other. They never met. Sadly, she had died before he started making films – drowning in her bathtub in Paris at the age of 39 on 7 September 1951. Yet her spirit imbued his first movie, Buzzards over Bagdad, which reimagined her teaming with Jon Hall and Sabu in Arabian Nights (1942), one of the garishly fantasies that earned Montez the nickname "the Queen of Technicolor".
Indeed, she inspired many of the works contained in the Ica's recent landmark season, Jack Smith: A Feast for Open Eyes, and even acted as a posthumous beard for his avant-garde manifesto, The Perfect Filmic Appositeness of Maria Montez, which appeared in the Winter 1962 edition of Film Culture and laid out Smith's vision for a new Queer cinema. In so doing,...
Jack Smith and Maria Montez were made for each other. They never met. Sadly, she had died before he started making films – drowning in her bathtub in Paris at the age of 39 on 7 September 1951. Yet her spirit imbued his first movie, Buzzards over Bagdad, which reimagined her teaming with Jon Hall and Sabu in Arabian Nights (1942), one of the garishly fantasies that earned Montez the nickname "the Queen of Technicolor".
Indeed, she inspired many of the works contained in the Ica's recent landmark season, Jack Smith: A Feast for Open Eyes, and even acted as a posthumous beard for his avant-garde manifesto, The Perfect Filmic Appositeness of Maria Montez, which appeared in the Winter 1962 edition of Film Culture and laid out Smith's vision for a new Queer cinema. In so doing,...
- 9/23/2011
- by David Parkinson
- The Guardian - Film News
Edinburgh (Reuters) - Classic Arabian folk tales brimming with the modern influence of the Arab Spring sweeping North Africa and the Middle East closed out the 2011 Edinburgh International Festival.
Erotic, tragic, hilarious, romantic, the stories from the cities, souks and courtyards contained in "Alf layla wa-layla" - the Thousand-And-One Nights - played to enthusiastic audiences as the three-week festival drew to a close at the weekend.
Director Tim Supple said it was inevitable that the events of the "Arab Spring" sweeping through the Middle East and North Africa "would become and overwhelming part of our project."
He said events reflected in the stories "aren't the first and they won't be the last in the on-going debate and struggle in the Arabic world to define the nature of law, the nature of rule...
"It was an issue back in the 900s with (the Caliph) al-Rashid, and it's an issue today with Mubarak,...
Erotic, tragic, hilarious, romantic, the stories from the cities, souks and courtyards contained in "Alf layla wa-layla" - the Thousand-And-One Nights - played to enthusiastic audiences as the three-week festival drew to a close at the weekend.
Director Tim Supple said it was inevitable that the events of the "Arab Spring" sweeping through the Middle East and North Africa "would become and overwhelming part of our project."
He said events reflected in the stories "aren't the first and they won't be the last in the on-going debate and struggle in the Arabic world to define the nature of law, the nature of rule...
"It was an issue back in the 900s with (the Caliph) al-Rashid, and it's an issue today with Mubarak,...
- 9/5/2011
- by Reuters
- Huffington Post
DVD Playhouse—July 2009
By
Allen Gardner
Do The Right Thing: 20th Anniversary Edition (Universal) Spike Lee’s groundbreaking fable about race relations in an ethnically mixed Brooklyn neighborhood during a sweltering New York summer remains as potent, timely and prescient as it was in 1989. Lee is among the cast, which also includes John Turturro, Danny Aiello, Samuel L. Jackson, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, and Rosie Perez (to name a few), that provide the tableaux-like framework for this stunning work. Criminally ignored by Oscar (it wasn't even nominated for Best Picture, but did garner nods for Supporting Actor Danny Aiello and Lee’s screenplay), it endures as a timeless classic. Also available on Blu-ray disc. Bonuses: Commentary by Lee, Ernest Dickerson, Wynn Thomas, Joie Lee; Documentary; Deleted and extended scenes; Featurettes. Widescreen. Dolby and DTS 5.1 surround.
Coraline (Universal) A young girl moves into an old Victorian house with her parents...
By
Allen Gardner
Do The Right Thing: 20th Anniversary Edition (Universal) Spike Lee’s groundbreaking fable about race relations in an ethnically mixed Brooklyn neighborhood during a sweltering New York summer remains as potent, timely and prescient as it was in 1989. Lee is among the cast, which also includes John Turturro, Danny Aiello, Samuel L. Jackson, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, and Rosie Perez (to name a few), that provide the tableaux-like framework for this stunning work. Criminally ignored by Oscar (it wasn't even nominated for Best Picture, but did garner nods for Supporting Actor Danny Aiello and Lee’s screenplay), it endures as a timeless classic. Also available on Blu-ray disc. Bonuses: Commentary by Lee, Ernest Dickerson, Wynn Thomas, Joie Lee; Documentary; Deleted and extended scenes; Featurettes. Widescreen. Dolby and DTS 5.1 surround.
Coraline (Universal) A young girl moves into an old Victorian house with her parents...
- 7/14/2009
- by The Hollywood Interview.com
- The Hollywood Interview
The 1944 Technicolor sword and scandal flick takes us back to 1001 Arabian Nights. Maria Montez adds some Spanish flair to her starring role, but they never explain where here character got the accent in the desert. The Mongol Hulagu Khan (Kurt Ketch) invades and overthrows Baghdad disposing the Caliph (Moroni Olsen). The Caliph hides in the palace of Prince Cassim (Frank Puglia) with his young son Ali (Scotty Beckett). During their confinement, Ali makes a blood pact with Cassim.s daughter Amara (Yvette Duguay) to betroth themselves to each other. Cassim turns out to be a treacherous rat and sets a trap for the Caliph and he.s killed. Ali barely escapes, wearing the seal of Baghdad. During his...
- 7/7/2009
- by Jeff Swindoll
- Monsters and Critics
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