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“I’m Janelle Monáe. And we are in spooky season. And to be in this iconic closet is a nightmare come true. Or is it a scream come true? Hmm.”

So begins Monáe’s venture into the Criterion Closet. Shot and released ahead of Halloween, the actress and singer stayed on theme, wearing mostly black and keeping her selections to the frightful, dystopian, and surreal. First on her list was the 1958 version of “The Blob” starring a young Steve McQueen as he tries to protect his hometown from a gelatinous alien life-form that sucks up everything in its path.

“So this deals with, like, a whole town of teens that are trying to warn the community, like, ‘this alien-like blob is taking over, and it’s basically gonna consume all of us, so beware.’ So it’s super campy,” Monáe said in describing the film. “All the actors and everybody involved,...

Dick Pope, the esteemed British cinematographer who received Academy Award nominations for his exquisite work on “The Illusionist” and Mike Leigh‘s “Mr. Turner,” has died at the age of 77. His death was confirmed by a publicist on his final film, Leigh’s “Hard Truths.”

“Hard Truths” producer Georgina Lowe shared the following statement: “On behalf of Mike, the team at Thin Man Films, and the cast and crew who worked regularly with Dick on our films for over 30 years, I wanted to say what a privilege it has been to have collaborated with him. His work, both with us, and on the eclectic collection of films he shot over his impressive career, was extraordinary. We have lost a friend and will miss him so much.”

Born in Bromley, Kent, in 1947, Pope became obsessed with still photography as a child and published some of his pictures in local papers as a teenager.

‘1984’ by George Orwell (Photo Credit: Penguin Random House)

The American Library Association (Ala) runs the Office for Intellectual Freedom (Oif) to track attempts to ban or restrict access to books across the United States, and then to inform the public about censorship efforts in our libraries and schools. The last week of September is usually the time it sets aside for its annual Banned Books Week, which celebrates the freedom to read whatever you want. And what better way to celebrate that than by watching 10 films based on banned books that also ran into censorship issues? Celebrate the freedom to watch!

From the Ala website: “In 2023, Oif documented 1,269 demands to censor library books and resources, the highest number of attempted book bans since Ala began compiling data about censorship in libraries more than 20 years ago. 4,240 unique book titles were targeted for censorship in 2023, a 65% increase compared to 2022 numbers. A...

Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli is a beloved presence on the stages of this world. Now, his fans have a chance to find out more about his personal history since his childhood in the Tuscan village of La Sterza, get a feeling for what happens behind the scenes, and enjoy new insight into his private life thanks to Cosima Spender’s documentary Andrea Bocelli: Because I Believe, which celebrated its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) on Saturday.

“Over the last 30 years, with a rare repertoire that encompasses pop, rock, and opera, Andrea Bocelli and his golden voice have touched the hearts of millions of listeners around the world,” a synopsis highlights. “Using last year’s magisterial concert at the Baths of Caracalla as its anchor, Andrea Bocelli: Because I Believe is an intimate portrait of one of the world’s greatest living singers.”

Spender (doc Palio, The...

Lucas Lynggaard Tønnesen, Clara Rugaard and Til Schweiger lead the international cast of “Desperate Journey,” a newly-announced thriller set in the burlesque world of 1940s Paris.

The film — which has now wrapped production — comes from Emblem Pictures, and was written by two-time Oscar nominee Michael Radford (best known for directing 1994 global sensation “Il Postino”) and directed by Emmy winner Annabel Jankel (“Tell It to the Bees”).

Produced by Warren Derosa and Zsófia Kende, “Desperate Journey” is based on the true story of Freddie Knoller (played by Tønnesen), a young man forced to flee Vienna as Nazi hysteria takes hold. Knoller’s captivating story has been widely recognized around the world and he was honored by the late Queen Elizabeth.

Rounding out the supporting cast of the film are Sienna Guillory (“Meg 2: The Trench,” “Clifford the Big Red Dog”), Steven Berkoff, Fernando Guallar (“Love Divided”), Hugo Speer (“The Full Monty...

Tom Priestley, the son of British playwright and novelist J.B. Priestley who established his own show business career as an Oscar-nominated film editor on such major projects as John Boorman’s Deliverance (1972), Blake Edwards’ The Return of the Pink Panther (1975) and Roman Polanski‘s Tess (1979), died December 25. He was 91.

His death was only later announced by the J.B. Priestley Society.

“It with the utmost sadness we announce the death of out President Tom Priestley,” the J.B. Priestley Society said in a statement. “Tom who was J. B. Priestley’s only son became one of this country’s finest film editors. Perhaps his most famous film was Deliverance for which he was Oscar Nominated. He was a most charming man.”

Born Tom Holland Priestley on April 22, 1932, in London, he was educated at Bryanston School and King’s College, Cambridge, before beginning his professional career at Shepperton Studios in various capacities,...

Rita Hollingsworth, a longtime publicist for entertainment clients and non-profit organizations, died Nov. 16 in Los Angeles. She was 61.

Her husband Jeff Hollingsworth said she had suffered a intracerebral brain hemorrhage.

When working at the Lee Solters Company, she represented clients including Barbra Streisand, Michael Jackson, Liza Minnelli and Neil Diamond, as well as the Carousel of Hope and Race to Erase Ms with Barbara and Nancy Davis.

After founding publicity firm Rmh Media, she worked with directors including Robert Altman, Mike Figgis, Alan Rudolph, Michael Radford, Tim Hutton and Chen Kaige, bringing their films to Cannes, Toronto, Sundance and other festivals.

Rmh also represented clients including bestselling author Reyna Grande, the Angelus Student Film Festival, the Anthony & Jeannie Pritzker Family Foundation, Foster Care Counts, artworxLA and St. Vincent Meals on Wheels, where she was a key strategist for the large senior nutrition program.

Rmh Media is working with filmmaker Matthew Solomon...

Veteran British actor known for his many and varied film, TV and stage roles in a career that spanned more than 70 years

There was something grand, large, embracing about the actor Joss Ackland, who has died aged 95. He was a fixture in British films for several decades and a stalwart of the Old Vic, the Royal Shakespeare Company – he played Falstaff in the opening RSC production of Henry IV, Parts One and Two, in the new Barbican Centre in 1982 – and the West End stage.

He appeared in more than 100 films, and countless TV plays and series, usually, in later years, white-haired and bearded, but always with energy and force, whether as the cuckolded husband, Jock Delves Broughton, in Michael Radford’s White Mischief (1987) with Greta Scacchi and Charles Dance, or as the drug-running heavy in Lethal Weapon 2 (1989) with Mel Gibson and Danny Glover.

Newly minted best actor Oscar winner Brendan Fraser is headed to the Gulf of Naples, Italy, for the Ischia Global Film & Music Festival, where he will be honored as Global Actor of the Year, the fest announced on Saturday.

“We are proud to welcome to Ischia Brendan Fraser, a great artist and man who symbolizes rebirth and redemption,” festival founder and producer Pascal Vicedomini said in a statement.

Fraser, who garnered career-best reviews last year for The Whale and is associated with another awards hopeful this year, Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, will be feted on July 15.

On that same date, the fest will present Rob Marshall, the Oscar-nominated filmmaker most recently behind this year’s live-action version of The Little Mermaid, with its Luchino Visconti Legend Award. Diane Warren, the hit-machine songwriter who collected an honorary Oscar last year and hopes to finally be awarded a...

Italian producer Luciano Sovena, who was instrumental to bringing early works by several of Italy’s now-prominent auteurs such as Alice Rohrwacher, Luciano Frammartino, and Saverio Costanzo, to the big screen, has died. He was 73.

News of Sovena’s sudden death was announced on Sunday by the Rome and Lazio Film Commission Foundation, of which he was president. The cause of death was not disclosed.

The foundation paid tribute to Sovena as “A great and generous professional; a friend of Italian cinema,” in a statement. It went on to note that he was “Ironic, ‘simpatico’ and open to everyone.”

Prior to heading Rome’s film commission – which runs Italy’s top regional film fund – Sovena was for a long stretch managing director of Italy’s state film entity Istituto Luce.

In both of these roles, “He had become a reference point for the world that he loved: the world of...

Ever since the printing press was invented, there's been no shortage of instances of books being banned. The reasons for these bans run the gamut from the religious to the political to the moral. Because the standards of decency have changed so much over the centuries, books that were once considered obscene are now socially acceptable, and sometimes, it's the other way around.

While the general intent of banning a book is to prevent readers from engaging with it, it often has the opposite effect. Labeling a book "forbidden" can bring more attention to it. This "Streisand Effect" makes a lot of sense. When the powers that be condemn a piece of media, this only increases the audience's curiosity about why it's so controversial. Not only have bans led to books becoming more popular, but it has also led to them getting the big screen treatment. Hollywood has rarely shied away from capitalizing on controversy,...

Veteran auteur Mario Martone, whose Naples-set drama “Nostalgia” launched last year from Cannes, has quite a lot in common with Massimo Troisi, Italy’s beloved late comic actor-director who is best known internationally as the star of Oscar-winning film “Il Postino.”

Which is why Martone was well-suited to direct the multi-layered doc about Troisi’s legacy “Somebody Down There Likes Me” that is screening in the Berlinale Special sidebar.

For starters, they are both Neapolitan, and were born only a few years a part. Troisi – who in “Il Postino” played the simple postman who rides his bicycle on a sandy Italian island to deliver mail to his sole client, the Nobel Prize-winning poet Pablo Neruda – died tragically of congenital heart failure at age 41 in June 1994, the day after “Il Postino” finished shooting at Rome’s Cinecittà studios.

Martone in Berlin spoke to Variety about capturing Troisi’s combination of humor,...

Exclusive: Italian director Mario Martone, who has been on the festival and awards circuit over the past year with Oscar submission and Cannes title Nostalgia, is at the Berlinale with his passion project Somebody Down There Likes Me.

The documentary pays tribute to late Italian actor and fellow Neapolitan Massimo Troisi who died tragically young at the age of 41 in 1994, just hours after filming wrapped on Michael Radford’s Il Postino (The Postman).

Selected for the Berlinale Specials sidebar, the documentary plays at a sold-out screening on Saturday, on the eve of what would have been the actor’s 70th birthday on February 19. Deadline can reveal a trailer.

Martone says he wants to shed light on the popular actor who he believes has never been properly celebrated.

“Massimo has always remained alive in the collective consciousness because he was a great actor and a great artist,” says the director.

Il Postino,...

In Herman Melville's original 1851 novel "Moby-Dick," not much was known about the vengeful Capt. Ahab beyond his obsession with finding the story's titular whale. In Mike Barker's 2011 miniseries, Ahab (William Hurt) interacts with his on-screen wife Elizabeth (Gillian Anderson). Ethan Hawke plays Starbuck, Raoul Trujillo plays Queequeg, and Charlie Cox plays the stalwart narrator Ishmael. Cox has recently been getting a great deal of attention from Marvel fans for his performance as the superhero Daredevil in his own show, and for guest spots on "She Hulk: Attorney at Law" and in "Spider-Man: No Way Home." This author first noticed Cox for his performance as Lorenzo in Michael Radford's 2004 adaptation of "The Merchant of Venice." His appearance in "Moby Dick" would immediately be followed by 23 episode of the hit show "Boardwalk Empire," putting the actor on the map.

Filming on "Moby Dick" took place in Malta in 2009. As its story demands,...

Burning Patience (Ardiente Paciencia) is a 2022 Netflix drama movie directed by Rodrigo Sepúlveda starring Vivianne Dietz, Claudio Arredondo and Andrew Bargstead.

A movie that appeals to the land, the emotions and to poetry.

Premise

A young fisherman, Mario, dreams of becoming a poet. Destiny would have it that he lands a job as the postman to Pablo Neruda when the legendary writer moves there after being exiled from Chile.

Movie Review

A movie that uses beauty as an excuse to appeal to the autochthonous, and poetry to tell us a story (at times very political) of love in times of conflict, applying language borrowed from a man in exile with a great deal of political awareness.

Burning Patience

The result? A modest production, with decent photography, and relatively good performances, albeit a tad melodramatic. Making a blockbuster was not in the cards at the time of taking this project on.

Film Bazaar host nation India and Spain are seeking to improve ties in the film and TV industries.

Delegations from both countries last week signed a three-way memorandum intended to boost production and assist filmmakers. The deal was signed by the Producers Guild of India, the Spain Film Commission and Casa de la India.

“The association will help Indian producers – across film, television and digital content – to access the best of equipment, talent, facilities, locations, incentives and government support when shooting in Spain,” said the Pgi on Friday.

The two countries have an audiovisual co-production treaty that was signed in 2012. But the Nfdc’s Film Facilitation Office website shows no example of it being used for a feature film. A seminar will be held at Film Bazaar on Monday on the future of Spain-India co-productions.

Adjacent to the Mou, industry delegations sat down to discuss cooperation. The Producers Guild of...

Director and screenwriter Michael Radford, who won BAFTA awards and Oscar nominations for his Italian language film “Il Postino: The Postman,” is set to co-direct “The Princess of Kapurthala” (aka “La Princesa De Kapurthala”). Directing duties on the 20th century romance will shared with Spanish filmmaker Manuel Estudillo (“El Eden Perdido”).

The Spanish language co-production between companies from Spain, the U.K., France and India, is part of the Co-Production Market at Nfdc’s Film Bazaar 2022 in Goa.

“The Princess of Kapurthala” is a trilogy based on the true life story of Spanish girl Anita Delgado, who became the Maharani Prem Kaur of Kapurthala in India at the age of 16. “Not just a pretty face that the Maharajah falls in love with, Anita is also a strong and determined woman who learns everything needed to become a princess, and later uses these charms to leave her mark on the society of that time,...

India’s Film Bazaar, South Asia’s largest film market, has selected a range of projects from around the world for its annual co-production market, which will be held in-person this year after two years of being online due to Covid-19.

Though the 20 selected projects are from 11 countries, and most are already structured as co-productions, they are all South Asian-themed. Michael Radford, best known for BAFTA and Oscar-winning film “Il Postino,” has Spanish-language Spain-India project “The Princess of Kapurthala,” which he will co-direct with Manuel Estudillo (“Caso Urquijo”). Juan Antonio Casado and Davide Cottarelli of Pok Production are producing.

Gautam Arora’s Hindi and English-language film “The Last Lane” (India) is being produced by Kite Rabbit Films, the production company of Shaunak Sen, whose “All That Breathes” won best documentary at both Sundance and Cannes this year.

Gogularaajan Rajendran’s Tamil and Malay-language project “Depth of Darkness” is being produced...

Italian auteur Mario Martone, who was recently in Cannes with “Nostalgia,” is set to direct a high-profile doc about the late Massimo Troisi, one of Italy’s most beloved comic actors who starred in the Oscar-winning film “Il Postino.”

Troisi, who played the simple postman who rides his bicycle on the sandy terrain of an Italian island to deliver mail to his sole client, the Nobel Prize-winning poet Pablo Neruda, died tragically of congenital heart failure at age 41 in June 1994, the day after “Il Postino” finished shooting at Rome’s Cinecittà studios.

The film directed by Michael Radford, which also starred Maria Grazia Cucinotta and Philippe Noiret, became an arthouse sensation one year later when it opened in the U.S. distributed by Miramax.

“Il Postino” went on to win an Oscar in 1996 for best dramatic score, having earned five nominations, including for best film, as well as best director for Radford,...

For its upcoming 26th edition the Capri Hollywood Intl. Film Festival, dedicated to launching Oscar hopefuls and establishing a creative and business bridgehead between Hollywood and Italy’s film and showbiz communities, is countering the Omicron variant by expanding its venues beyond the “blue island” off the coast of Naples.

For sanitary safety reasons, the small picturesque town of Sorrento, overlooking the bay of Naples, will become the main hub where guests, most of whom this year will be flying from Europe for the Dec. 26-Jan. 2 shindig, will congregate.

Expected international attendees include directors Michael Radford and Terry Gilliam, who are fest regulars, coming from the U.K. Also from the Blighty, actor Sadie Frost making the trek to promote British director Kirsty Bell’s Covid-19 debut feature lockdown drama “A Bird Flew In,” having its international premiere. Bell will be receiving the fest’s European Breakout Director of the Year award.

Sandra Newman’s “Julia,” a feminist retelling of George Orwell’s much-adapted 1949 dystopian political novel “Nineteen Eighty-Four,” has found publishers on both sides of the pond.

Variety understands that while film and TV rights won’t be optioned for several months yet, there is already tremendous interest in “Julia,” which will be published after Newman’s next novel “The Men” is released in 2022.

Newman’s version is fully authorized by the Orwell Estate, which is is represented by literary agency A. M. Heath.

Jason Arthur has acquired rights for the U.K. and Commonwealth excluding Canada, for Granta, from Victoria Hobbs at A.M. Heath. North American rights have been acquired by Peter Hubbard for Mariner Books, an imprint of the William Morrow Group at HarperCollins Publishers. Mariner Books, formerly Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, is the longstanding U.S. publisher of Orwell.

Orwell’s novel is set in an imagined future beset by war,...

Young was director of the Nfts from 1971-92.

Colin Young, the founding director of the UK’s National Film and Television School (Nfts), has passed away aged 94.

According to a statement from the Nfts, Young died peacefully at home, surrounded by his family, on Saturday (November 27).

Young was born in Glasgow in 1927. He started off writing film and theatre reviews in Aberdeen, before heading to Los Angeles to study film at UCLA. After graduating, he worked as a technician at the university, and eventually made his way up through various departments to be put in charge of the Department of Theatre Arts,...

Film

Netflix is teaming with the Larraín brothers’ indie production outfit Fabula to produce its second Chilean original, a feature-length adaptation of Antonio Skármeta’s “Burning Patience,” sometimes referred to as “The Postman,” adapted by one of Chile’s highest-profile screenwriters in Guillermo Calderón and helmed by “Sex With Love” director Boris Quercia. According to Fabula, a wide casting call will be announced soon, with shooting set for next year.

The book tells the fictional story of Mario, a young fisherman who dreams of becoming a poet. To that end, the young man gets a job as the postman to Pablo Neruda when the legendary writer, poet and diplomat moves there after being exiled from Chile. The Netflix adaptation has big shoes to fil. In 1996, Michael Radford’s adaptation of the story was nominated for five Academy Awards including best picture, best actor (Massimo Troisi), best director and best adapted screenplay,...

Anna Gross, the film executive behind such acclaimed titles as Tootsie and The NeverEnding Story, died on July 23 at her home in Twentynine Palms, CA, following a long battle with cancer. She was 68.

Gross was born in New York City on October 25, 1952. She spent the first eight years of her career working alongside famed Italian producer Dino De Laurentiis. In her time with the Oscar winner, she worked in various capacities on 14 films, including Charles Bronson starrer Death Wish (1974), Sydney Pollack’s Three Days of the Condor (1975), Western The Shootist (1976), King Kong (1976), starring Jeff Bridges and Charles Grodin, and Milos Forman’s Ragtime.

Gross subsequently served as Vice President of Production for Pollack, working on his 1979 film The Electric Horseman and developing two others: 1982’s Tootsie and 1985’s Out of Africa.

Gross spent much of the 1980s working in Germany alongside producer Bernd Eichinger, overseeing production on classic fantasy pic...

ABC’s Epic fairytale drama has found its first prince.

Created by Once Upon a Time writer Brigitte Hales with Ouat creators Adam Horowitz and Eddy Kists also serving as EPs, Epic is described as a romantic anthology “that reinvents fairy tales for a new audience.”

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As recently reported,...

The race to space is getting crowded.

Andrea Iervolino — a veteran film producer with dozens of credits including Michael Radford’s The Merchant of Venice and the upcoming Lamborghini biopic starring Alec Baldwin along with back-to-back best producer wins at the Venice Film Festival — is jumping in the galaxy game with the launch of Space 11. The entity, a subsidiary of his global film and TV company Iervolino Entertainment, is solely dedicated to projects in outer space.

Space 11 aims to produce film, TV and web content, as well as live events like concerts, sports competitions, all filmed in zero gravity....

The race to space is getting crowded.

Andrea Iervolino — a veteran film producer with dozens of credits including Michael Radford’s The Merchant of Venice and the upcoming Lamborghini biopic starring Alec Baldwin along with back-to-back best producer wins at the Venice Film Festival — is jumping in the galaxy game with the launch of Space 11. The entity, a subsidiary of his global film and TV company Iervolino Entertainment, is solely dedicated to projects in outer space.

Space 11 aims to produce film, TV and web content, as well as live events like concerts, sports competitions, all filmed in zero gravity....

Independent studio Wiip (“Dickinson”) is adapting Robert Icke and Duncan Macmillan’s play “1984,” based on George Orwell’s eponymous 1949 dystopian social science fiction novel, as a five-part series for television.

The play had successful runs at the U.K.’s Nottingham Playhouse and the West End, as well as on Broadway.

Executive producers on the series include Icke, Macmillan, and Wiip’s Paul Lee and David Flynn, with Flynn overseeing the project for the studio.

“As the world grapples with democracy and government in our divided age of surveillance, ‘fake news’ and truth decay, the urgency of Orwell’s masterpiece is undeniable,” said Icke and Macmillan. “The small screen feels like a natural home for his portrait of a society in which people trust their screens more than the world outside their windows. We couldn’t be more excited to work with Wiip to make a bold new version...

Exclusive: George Orwell’s iconic dystopian story 1984 is to become a television series after former ABC chief Paul Lee’s independent studio wiip optioned the rights to Robert Icke and Duncan Macmillan’s 2013 stage show of the same name.

There have been a number of attempts to adapt 1984 for a contemporary screen audience and wiip is the latest out of the gates, working with Icke and Macmillan to transform their 100-minute theatre production into a five-part limited series.

The stage show, based on Orwell’s 1947 science fiction novel, first launched at the Nottingham Playhouse in 2013 and enjoyed three separate runs on the West End. It played at the Hudson Theatre on Broadway in 2017, starring Olivia Wilde and Tom Sturridge.

The play made headlines for its shocking reimagining of Orwell’s vision of denialism, propaganda, endless war, and mass surveillance. Protagonist Winston Smith was depicted in brutal, blood-spattering torture scenes...

Aaron Sorkin’s acclaimed and increasingly relevant political drama The Trial of the Chicago 7, which revolves around the raucous trial of a group of protesters accused of disrupting the 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention, took a leading four awards including best picture at the just concluded 25th annual Capri, Hollywood – The International Film Festival. If past winners at this Italian fest are any indication, the victories should give the Netflix film a boost stateside during Oscar season.

The DreamWorks production, originally put in motion 14 years ago by Steven Spielberg and written and directed by Sorkin, was originally set to be released by Paramount before the coronavirus pandemic turned the exhibition business on its heels and shut theaters — especially in key cities like New York and Los Angeles. It premiered on Netflix in October.

The film also took Capri awards for Sacha Baron Cohen as best supporting actor, film editing and a...

Additions include sex trafficking drama ‘Lost Girls’.

UK-based genre specialist Jinga Films has added three titles to its slate ahead of next month’s American Film Market.

Described by Jinga CEO Julian Richards as “a classic whodunit mystery thriller in the vein of Knives Out,” Beast Within stars Steven Morana, Colm Feore, Ari Millen and Holly Deveaux as participants of an exclusive launch party for gaming app Werewolves Awaken. When a guest is found dead, everyone becomes a suspect and player in a real-life version of the game.

Chris Green and Morana directed the film, which received an online release...

The chilling 1989 British Serial Killer film Cold Light Of Day is available on Blu-ray from Arrow Video

February, 1983. Detectives are called to a residential address in the London suburbs following reports that the drains have been clogged by human remains. One of the property s residents, Dennis Nilsen a mild-mannered and unassuming civil servant is brought in for questioning, leading to the discovery of one of the most shocking and disturbing cases of serial murder ever to rock Britain.

Offering a grim and gritty retelling of the story of Des Nilsen, often dubbed the British Jeffery Dahmer , 1989 s Cold Light of Day stars Bob Flag (the face of Big Brother in Michael Radford s 1984) as Nilsen-cipher Jorden March, delivering one of the most chilling and credible portrayals of a serial killer ever committed to screen!

From writer-director Fhiona-Louise, Cold Light of Day which picked up the Ucca Venticittà Award at...

With Halloween approaching quickly, we have one final round of home media releases headed our way this week in case you’re looking to pick up some last-minute films to check out this spooky season. Blue Underground is releasing Daughters of Darkness in 4K this Tuesday, and Severin Films is keeping busy with an array of titles, including The Black Cat, Patrick Still Lives, and Shock Treatment.

Vinegar Syndrome also has quite the lineup of films coming home this week, including Grave Robbers, Memorial Valley Massacre, Zombie 5: Killing Birds, and several Amityville sequels. Arrow Video is also showing some love to both Cold Light of Day and The Last Starfighter, and if you’re a big fan of The Monster Squad, you’ll definitely want to check out the Wolfman’s Got Nards documentary.

Other releases for October 27th include Scary Tales, Spine Chiller, Weedjies: Halloweed Night, Attack of the Unknown,...

The year continues to provide plenty more surprises — and flies on the heads of politicians — and over the last week we saw “Dune” from Warner Bros. exit the calendar year, something that was very much expected around these parts. While many on the internet want to decry “the end of cinema” and that the film year is “canceled,” it’s time to start expanding your cinematic palates.

In terms of what it means to awards, an interesting observation is how young and “novice” the best director field seems this year. Traditional Oscar years have always had a good amount of the “Og masters” of cinema in the mix like Martin Scorsese or Steven Spielberg, which brought the average age of the nomination pool up considerably. In the current contenders for best director, Aaron Sorkin would be the oldest of the top five predicted lineup, at 59, for “The Trial of the Chicago 7.

Earlier this year all eyes were on Alfonso Cuaron‘s “Roma” to make Oscar history as the first foreign language film to win Best Picture. Though it came up short in the end, it may have opened the door for Bong Joon Ho‘s “Parasite” to finally end that 91-year drought.

“Roma,” Netflix’s epic domestic drama about a poor maid (Yalitza Aparicio) working for an upper-middle class Mexican family in the 1970s, came into the 2018 Oscar race with a whopping 10 nominations. Cuaron prevailed for his directing — which made it the first non-English language movie to win that award — and it took home additional prizes for Best Cinematography and Best Foreign Language Film. Yet when the final envelope was opened, the very American “Green Book” was announced as the recipient instead. Perhaps voters felt “Roma” had been amply taken care of in the foreign film category (not to mention the...

Goldsack also helped develop films with Werner Herzog, Mike Newell and Michael Radford.

London-based producer Nigel Goldsack, whose credits include The Merchant Of Venice and The World Is Not Enough, died suddenly aged 62 on October 18.

Goldsack was born in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, in 1957 and was involved in film from an early age, working as a runner on Blake Edwards’ The Pink Panther Strikes Again while he was a teenager.

He began his career in the late 1970s as an assistant director on several independent UK films, including Brian Gibson’s rock drama Breaking Glass, Dh Lawrence biopic Priest Of Love starring Ian McKellen,...

One of the Criterion Collection's latest releases is the, well, 1984 adaptation of George Orwell's dystopian classic, 1984. The story is as timely as ever, unfortunately. Lies are spun and accepted as truth. Slavery is freedom. Big brother is watching. Will we ever evolve out of this particular kind of fascist nightmare? It may be impossible to guess, as full of violence as our society is, and particularly because of the leaders we have in place, and not just in this country. This deeply upsetting adaptation is directed by Michael Radford. It was only his second feature, and if you watch his interview on this disc, you'll be agape on how seemingly easy it was for him to bring 1984 to...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

Paranoia reigns supreme in three recent Blu-Rays from the Criterion Collection. Leading the charge is Alan Pakula’s 1971 neo-noir Klute, widely regarded as the first and most overlooked of the director’s 1970s “paranoid trilogy” which also includes The Parallax View and All the President’s Men. A phenomenally tense, haunting and deliberate detective thriller, Klute leverages two intense lead performances from Donald Sutherland and Jane Fonda cast as perfect foils: a stoic, repressed private dick visiting New York City in search of a missing friend, and an outspoken, libertine call girl and aspiring actress who may be connected to the case. Fonda’s performance was met with emphatic critical acclaim at the time, culminating in an Academy Award, and for good reason: her antiheroine Bree is one of the most multilayered and intriguing femme fatales in all of cinema, a child of the sexual revolution who is simultaneously empowered...

July 23rd is playing host to an excellent variety of home media releases for films both new and old. In terms of recent titles, Alita: Battle Angel, Hellboy (2019), and Critters Attack! are all hitting a variety of formats this Tuesday, and for those of you who grew up during the heyday of John Hughes, Arrow Video’s special edition release of Weird Science looks to be yet another home run collection from the distributor.

Criterion is showing some love to Michael Radford’s 1984 adaptation this week (which unfortunately feels super timely these days), Scream Factory has put together another Universal Horror Collection box set, and if you happen to dig psychological thrillers from the ’90s, Pacific Heights hits Blu-ray on Tuesday as well.

Other Blu-ray and DVD releases for July 23rd include Master Z: Ip Man Legacy, Assimilate and Rock, Paper, Scissors.

1984: The Criterion Collection

This masterly adaptation of...

Oscar-nominated English filmmaker Michael Radford has signed on to direct Sweethearts, an indie biopic set 1930s Hollywood about the love affair between movie stars and frequent on-screen co-stars Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy. Eve Pomerance is producing the film under her Major Motion Pictures banner, alongside Bill Black of Jaba Films, Attit Shah’s Creation Entertainment, and Amanda Kiely.

MacDonald and Eddy were first paired in the 1935 W. S. Van Dyke-directed film Naughty Marietta, which was under MGM where MacDonald was signed to. The went on to star in eight films together. During the time, there was a struggle for MacDonald’s heart and soul between Eddy and MGM studio boss Louis B. Mayer who controlled her life and career.

Production is scheduled to begin later this year in Spain.

Radford first garnered mass attention with his 1984 film, Nineteen Eighty-Four, based George Orwell’s novel of the same title and...

The Criterion Collection has announced its July titles, with Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Brd Trilogy — “The Marriage of Maria Braun,” “Veronika Voss,” and “Lola” — leading the new additions. Also joining the Collection are Agniezka Holland’s “Europa Europa,” Alan J. Pakula’s “Klute,” Marcel Pagnol’s “The Baker’s Wife,” and Michael Radford’s adaptation of “1984,” with Spike Lee’s “Do the Right Thing” getting upgraded from DVD to Blu-ray.

The news comes just a week after Criterion’s streaming service, the aptly named Criterion Channel, went live in the wake of FilmStruck’s closure late last year. “These audiences do need hubs,” the company’s president, Peter Becker, told IndieWire last week.

“If you’re lucky enough to live in a city like New York, which has hubs like the Film Forum and the Metrograph and Lincoln Center, then you actually have living, breathing, every-night film culture with great...

Al Pacino is taking on Shakespeare again. After playing Shylock in 2004’s “The Merchant of Venice,” the Oscar winner is set to star as the title character in a new adaptation of the Bard’s “King Lear.” Michael Radford, who directed that version of “Venice” and received an Oscar nomination for “Il Postino,” is helming the new project.

“Lear is the one that everyone aims for. Al has been toying with the idea for a long time. There’s a difference between Shylock, who’s only in five scenes, and Lear, who is in every scene, pretty much,” Radford said. “It’s enormous. I think [Pacino] would like to have that kind of kudos because he’s a terrific actor.”

“Before, we had the passion and the desire, but we never had a start date. We all have the energy to do [King Lear] now. We’re creating, hopefully, an epic,” said producer Barry Navidi,...

A kooky, disposable caper that’s light on charm and heavy on nonsense, Hadi Hajaig’s “Blue Iguana” was conceived as a throwback to the golden age of VHS crime-comedies — as the kind of freewheeling late-80s’ fare in which anything could happen because everything turned a profit on home video. And maybe, if you squint really hard, you can see the faintest shades of films like “Something Wild” or “Miami Blues” mixed into this manic parade of dumb criminals and even dumber plotting. Alas, anybody who watches Hajaig’s movie that closely will be more transfixed by the enormous gap between what the writer-director was going for and what he ultimately got.

Harkening back to John Lafia’s 1988 “The Blue Iguana” (a forgotten video store treasure starring Dylan McDermott as a bounty hunter) and Michael Radford’s more recent “Dancing at the Blue Iguana” (a Daryl Hannah/Sandra Oh...

Thanks to the birth and immediate ubiquity of MTV in the eighties, English duo Eurythmics — who won the Vma for Best New Artist back in 1984 — will forever be associated with their artsy, edgy videos. But, in fact, the former couple-and-collaborators Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart went on to release 20 international hits and sell 80 million albums over the course of their career. “We weren’t like an English band that didn’t cross over — we were literally number one in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Australia, Italy,” recalls Stewart. “We were flying all over the world and we could play to huge audiences and they would all know our songs.” And their legend lives on today: Not only were Eurythmics nominated for the 2018 induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, they are re-releasing all eight studio albums on vinyl this year — including the haunting, dystopian soundtrack to the movie “1984” — tomorrow. On the...

This year Al Pacino may pick up his third career Emmy Award as Best Movie/Mini Actor for the HBO telefilm “Paterno.” He plays the title role of disgraced Penn State football coach Joe Paterno, whose successful 45-year career ended after his assistant coach Jerry Sandusky was revealed to have been a child molester. Pacino previously won the same prize for “Angels in America” in 2004 and “You Don’t Know Jack” in 2010, and he was nominated once more for “Phil Spector” in 2013. But of course, most of Pacino’s career has been in film and not television. In honor of his latest small-screen achievement, let’s take a look back at some of his best big-screen performances. Tour through our photo gallery above of Pacino’s 25 greatest films above, ranked from worst to best.

Pacino is an Academy Award winner for his cinematic work, but it took him 20 years and...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSThis year the Directors' Fortnight (Quinzaine des réalisateurs) in Cannes is celebrating its 50th anniversery. The poster for this year's festival uses a photo by William Klein, whose film The Pan-African Festival of Algiers was in the 1971 edition.Recommended VIEWINGThe trailer for Paul Schrader's fabulous new film First Reformed. Our critics raved about it (here and here) last year from the Toronto International Film Festival.Recommended READINGThe last interview Hollywood filmmaker Nicolas Ray (Johnny Guitar) recorded was in 1979 with Sarah Fatima Parsons and Kathryn Bigelow. The Italian film magazine La Furia Umana has the full text in English.With last week's release of Ready Player One getting all fans of Steven Spielberg in a tizzy, the A.V. Club has run a compendium of the best set pieces of the director's career.The Courtisane...

Bobby Moresco is stepping in to direct the new Lamborghini biopic after Michael Radford dropped out. 

Moresco, who won an Oscar for best original screenplay for Crash, had already penned the script for the new biopic which Michael Radford was attached to direct for Ambi pictures. 

A representative for Radford told The Hollywood Reporter that the picture was originally slated to start shooting last November, but production delays moved it to this year, which conflicted with his prior commitments. Radford recently directed The Music of Silence, a biopic on Andrea Bocelli for Ambi. He is currently attached to...

By Brad Gullickson

We spoke to the Game of Thrones actor about inhabiting the skin of pop culture phenomenon, Andrea Bocelli. Biopics are a dime a dozen. Rise and fall musician stories are even more prevalent and often suffer under the true-to-life misery that usually scars an icon’s lifestyle. Director Michael Radford (1984, Il Postino) was not looking […]

The article Toby Sebastian On Becoming Andrea Bocelli appeared first on Film School Rejects.

Andrea Bocelli fans (and there are plenty of them, God knows) will probably adore Michael Radford's hagiographical biopic about the famed blind tenor. But much as serious opera lovers know that Bocelli's talents aren't all they're cracked up to be, discerning viewers will recognize The Music of Silence for the tediously sentimental, rote exercise that it is. It's the cinematic equivalent of listening to opera in an elevator.

The film is based on a semi-autobiographical novel by Bocelli, which no doubt accounts for its endlessly self-regarding tendencies. The central character, dubbed "Amos Bardi" (Tony Sebastian, Game...

"Love is the wonderful symphony of every beating heart. It is the divine music that whispers to us..." Ambi Distribution has released a new official Us trailer for an Italian biopic film titled The Music of Silence, from filmmaker Michael Radford. The film tells the story of an Italian musician named Andrea Bocelli, who went blind when he was a child. Years later he became one of the most famous musicians, but not without trials and tribulations, of course. Toby Sebastian plays Bocelli, and the cast includes Antonio Banderas, Jordi Mollà, Alessandro Sperduti, Luisa Ranieri, and Antonella Attili; with a special appearance by the real Andrea Bocelli. This looks like a very Italian film, with lots of opera singing and beautiful scenes in the countryside. The cinematography here is particularly impressive, I just hope the rest of it is that good. Here's the official trailer (+ poster) for Michael Radford's The Music of Silence,...