Neuigkeiten

It’s the world’s oldest profession, but it’s also the world’s most stigmatized profession. Sex work, be it prostitution or erotic dancing or pornographic acting, is a reality of the world, an umbrella of occupations that have never gone away or been snuffed out no matter what laws or restrictions society has tried to impose against it. Far from it: as the world has lurched forward into the online era, sex work has fully gone online, with subscription platforms and websites allowing for new ways for those in the field to make their bucks.

While people who do sex work come in all shapes and sizes, on film, sex workers tend to be painted with a reductive, dehumanizing lens. Often, they’re not really characters at all, but window-dressing in crime movies or — most appallingly — dead bodies in films about killers that don’t particularly provide them with much backstory.

Miguel Gomes’s Grand Tour takes its title from an established travel itinerary known as the Asian Grand Tour, a popular option with Westerners seeking a broad but surface-level introduction to the continent in the early 20th century. Proceeding from Mandalay to Rangoon (present-day Yangon) to Singapore, and then on through Bangkok, Saigon, Manila, and Osaka, before ending in Shanghai, the tour was ideally designed to satisfy the era’s popular taste for Eastern exoticism in an efficient, tourist-friendly package.

It’s easy to see the appeal for Gomes, a director for whom boundaries of space and time have always been ripe for cinematic manipulation. Grand Tour retraces the steps of the journey with the imagination and playfulness of his best work, indulging its globetrotting impulses while casting a satirical eye on its uncomfortable basis in colonial conquest.

Gomes’s film actually takes its titular tour twice, utilizing a diptych...

Francis Ford Coppola reveals a list of 20 movies that he highly recommends you watch and show "appreciation to the pictures that inspired" him. Widely considered one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, Coppola has directed movies such as The Godfather, The Godfather Part II, The Conversation, and Apocalypse Now. Over a decade after his last film, the 85-year-old director's latest movie is Megalopolis, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and is already fiercely divisive ahead of its theatrical release on September 27.

Ahead of Megalopolis' theatrical release, Francis Ford Coppola joined Letterboxd and created a list of 20 movies that he highly recommends. While not complete by any means, the list is simply 20 movies that he enjoys, have inspired him, and would recommend to any fan of cinema or aspiring filmmaker. Check out his list below:

French Cancan (1955) The Bad Sleep Well (1960) The Bitter Tea of General Yen (1933) Shanghai Express...

Megalopolis director Francis Ford Coppola has joined Letterboxd, the social cataloguing service where members can rate and review films and keep track of what they’ve watched. I’m a little addicted. Coppola has shared a list of twenty films that he would recommend to any cinephile or aspiring filmmaker, which you can check out below.

French Cancan (Jean Renoir) The Bad Sleep Well (Akira Kurosawa) The Bitter Tea of General Yen (Frank Capra) Shanghai Express (Josef von Sternberg) The Awful Truth (Leo McCarey) The Ladies Man (Jerry Lewis) The Burmese Harp (Kon Ichikawa) Tokyo Story (Yasujirō Ozu) The Last Laugh (F.W. Murnau) The Blue Angel (Josef von Sternberg) Splendor in the Grass (Elia Kazan) Punch Drunk Love (Paul Thomas Anderson) Empire of the Sun (Steven Spielberg) Sunrise (F.W. Murnau) Joyless Street (G.W. Pabst) A Place in the Sun (George Stevens) The King of Comedy (Martin Scorsese) After...

One of the world’s great true-life train heist stories is set to return to the big screen in China. Filmmaker DaMing Chen and veteran producer Chris Lee have partnered to develop a feature adaptation of James Zimmerman’s acclaimed nonfiction book, The Peking Express: The Bandits Who Stole a Train, Stunned the West, and Broke the Republic of China.

The new film, like the book, will recount the improbable saga of a 1923 incident once known as the “Lincheng Outrage,” which was sparked when Chinese bandits raided a luxury express train bound for Beijing and took over 300 international hostages — captivating the world and stirring up a six-week geopolitical showdown. A subject of popular fascination a century ago, the event inspired no less than Josef von Sternberg’s 1932 romance/adventure classic Shanghai Express, starring Marlene Dietrich and Anna May Wong, as well as two later Paramount Pictures remakes.

Zimmerman’s book...

In real life, cigarettes and cigars are a nasty vice that assail the olfactory nerve with a thick, pungent odor capable of leaving clothes, car interiors, and whole rooms smelling like ashtrays. They're also incredibly addictive and, when one's habit stretches out over decades, ruinous to an individual's health.

In movies, however, they're instant atmosphere machines that can, when wielded by an actor who knows how to smoke with style, heighten a character's sense of sophistication or sex appeal. Marlene Dietrich defined pre-code cinematic carnality with her wickedly sensuous French inhale in "Shanghai Express," while Humphrey Bogart conveyed marrow-deep weariness with every heavy exhale in "Casablanca." As for cigars, conjure up an image of Edward G. Robinson, and you'll invariably see the sawed-off star with a stogie clenched between his sausage-thick fingers.

Though the entire world has long been tragically aware of how deadly a nicotine addiction can be, films...

Throwback martial arts action film The Last Kumite heads to streaming in 2024, and here’s the trailer.

There is no question that the 1980s was a vintage time for action films, particularly in Hong Kong. There was a fruitful period in the mid 1980s when Hong Kong directors would hire American martial artists to go toe to toe with onscreen, both to broaden the international appeal and show a wide range of styles.

From Cynthia Rothrock going up against Sammo Hung in Shanghai Express to Richard Norton’s multiple bust ups with Jackie Chan in the likes of City Hunter and Mr Nice Guy, these performers went on to headline a series of low budget American action films that have since gained a cult following, perhaps most notably the China O’Brien series and the numerous No Retreat, No Surrender sequels

The Last Kumite looks set to be a throwback to that style,...

In the mid-eighties, Jackie Chan was the biggest star in Asia. After failing to break out like Bruce Lee in the North American market, he focused on Asia, with his film Police Story making him one of the biggest box office draws of his day. At the same time, Chan was frequently working with two other action stars, Sammo Hung and Yuen Biao, with whom he had been raised at the brutal Peking Opera School. Their movies, Project A and Wheels on Meals, where big hits, but 1988’s Dragons Forever was the breaking point for their relationship, with them never again headlining a film together. What happened?

Part of it may have been jealousy and a heavy dose of ego. At the time, Chan was the biggest star to emerge from Hong Kong since Bruce Lee. While the late seventies and early eighties were good for him, leaving to a string of popular hits,...

Anna May Wong, the first Chinese American movie star, was featured on the back of the American quarter in 2022, marking a significant moment in US coinage history and celebrating her trailblazing legacy. The inclusion of Wong's image on the quarter is part of the American Women Quarters Program, which aims to honor prominent women in American history and their accomplishments by featuring them on the coin. Despite facing racial discrimination and limited opportunities in Hollywood, Wong took control of her own career and achieved success, making her a deserving choice for the quarter and earning other honors such as a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

2022 saw an important moment in US coinage history, as legendary Asian American actress Anna May Wong was featured on the back of the American quarter. Born on January 3, 1905, Wong became both the very first Chinese American movie star and a trailblazing historical...

by Eleo Billet

After “Believer,” Lee Hae-young returns with a patriotic historical film about Korea's liberation movement in the 1930s. A spin-off of some sort to “The Age of Shadows”, the director mixes his inspirations between film noir, action flick, and “The Handmaiden” through its combative lesbian heroines.

Korea, 1933. The country has been under Japanese rule for more than twenty years. However, organized groups of Koreans are resisting colonization and risking their lives for the independence of their homeland. Park Cha-kyung, an employee in the communication department, is one of their members. She is a Phantom. The spy, with her unit, prepare the assassination of the new Japanese resident-general on his arrival in Seoul for his taking office. Unfortunately, the activist Yoon Nan-young, in charge of assassinating the high-ranking official, misses her target and is hunted down. She dies of several bullets, in the arms of Cha-kyung. Covered in blood,...

by Eleo Billet

After “Believer,” Lee Hae-young returns with a patriotic historical film about Korea's liberation movement in the 1930s. A spin-off of some sort to “The Age of Shadows”, the director mixes his inspirations between film noir, action flick, and “The Handmaiden” through its combative lesbian heroines.

Korea, 1933. The country has been under Japanese rule for more than twenty years. However, organized groups of Koreans are resisting colonization and risking their lives for the independence of their homeland. Park Cha-kyung, an employee in the communication department, is one of their members. She is a Phantom. The spy, with her unit, prepare the assassination of the new Japanese resident-general on his arrival in Seoul for his taking office. Unfortunately, the activist Yoon Nan-young, in charge of assassinating the high-ranking official, misses her target and is hunted down. She dies of several bullets, in the arms of Cha-kyung. Covered in blood,...

As part of a new initiative, the United States Mint will honor Anna May Wong, star of movies such as “Shanghai Express,” by making her the first Asian American featured on U.S. currency, placing her likeness on quarters with production starting Oct. 18.

The printed quarter shows an image of Wong resting on her hand, serving as a tribute to what most consider the first Chinese American movie star. She was born in 1905 in Chinatown, Los Angeles and died in 1961 of a heart attack in her Santa Monica home.

Wong started her career in the entertainment business at 14 years old, talking her way into her first movie role. In the following years, she rose to stardom as among the first Asian American stars in Hollywood and appeared in more than 50 films. Though the quarter seeks to pay tribute to her career in the film industry, it also acknowledges the difficulties...

Conrad Nagel, the handsome matinee idol and co-founder of the Academy Motion Picture Arts & Sciences was the host of the fifth annual Academy Awards on Nov. 18, 1932. The evening marked Nagel’s second stint at Oscars host; the then-academy prez had hosted the festivities two years earlier. He turned on the charm in his sophomore outing at the glamorous banquet at the Fiesta Room of the Ambassador Hotel honoring films released between Aug. 1, 1931 and July 31, 1932. (Nagel would later co-host the first televised Oscars with Bob Hope in 1953.)

Eight films vied for Best Picture: John Ford’s medical drama “Arrowsmith”; Frank Borzage’s marital drama “Bad Girl”; Mervyn LeRoy’s examination of tabloid journalism “Five Star Final,” Edmund Goulding’s stylish drama “Grand Hotel”; Ernst Lubitsch’s pre-Code musical comedies “One Hour with You” and “The Smiling Lieutenant”; and Josef von Sternberg’s luscious pre-Code melodrama “Shanghai Express,” starring his muse Marlene Dietrich.

Sensing a potential trend in the possible nominations of three major Oscars categories — best director, actor and actress — we could see a first-time occurrence for the Academy Awards on Tuesday. However, if you read the tea leaves put forth by the nominations for the DGA and SAG, there’s a strong possibility that all three of those categories may not include a first-time nominee — a first in Oscar history.

For best actor, the SAG lineup recognized all former nominees and winners — Javier Bardem (“Being the Ricardos”), Benedict Cumberbatch (“The Power of the Dog”), Andrew Garfield, Will Smith (“King Richard”) and Denzel Washington (“The Tragedy of Macbeth”). Even the ones on the bubble are once-nominated or crowned, including Mahershala Ali (“Swan Song”), Bradley Cooper (“Nightmare Alley”) and Leonardo DiCaprio (“Don’t Look Up”). The closest first-timers in the running seem to be Golden Globe nominees Peter Dinklage (“Cyrano”) and Cooper Hoffman (“Licorice Pizza...

The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures today announced its schedule of inaugural in-person screenings and public programs, which will begin on September 30 when the museum opens. The Academy Museum is the largest institution in the United States devoted to exploring the art and science of movies and moviemaking.

During the first three months of the Academy Museum’s opening, the museum will offer the public a robust, dynamic, and diverse slate of over 115 film screenings, discussions, and programs for film lovers of all ages, beginning with two special presentations of The Wizard of Oz (USA, 1939) featuring live musical accompaniment by the American Youth Symphony conducted by Academy Award®-nominated composer David Newman.

Other highlights of the museum’s first few months of in-person programming include the launch of ongoing series:

Stories of Cinema: featuring screenings of films highlighted in the museum’s core exhibition, including Real Women Have Curves (USA,...

Finally, after years of delays, some caused by the pandemic, some not, the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures on La Brea and Wilshire has revealed its launch schedule of live screenings and public programs to begin on opening day, September 30. The first three months brings over 115 film programs, panels, and events, beginning with two screenings of MGM musical “The Wizard of Oz” (1939) with live musical accompaniment by the American Youth Symphony conducted by Oscar perennial David Newman.

Among the continuing virtual programs leading up to the museum’s opening are a conversation with Oscar-winner Spike Lee and writer-director-producer Shaka King, and a 20th anniversary screening of “Y tu mamá también”. Clearly, the Academy Museum is launching at a time when inclusion and diversity are front and center for curators and programmers. “As with all of our exhibitions and initiatives,” stated Bill Kramer, Director and President of the Academy Museum, “we...

The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures has announced its inaugural in-person programming schedule, which features two screenings of “The Wizard of Oz” with a live accompaniment by the American Youth Symphony, conducted by composer David Newman, on opening day.

During the first three months of the museum’s opening, it will offer a diverse and robust slate of over 115 screenings, discussions and programs, along with ongoing special and standalone series

Special series and standalone screenings include:

“Malcolm X“ in 70mm: a screening for Academy Museum Members of the seminal film, with special guests Spike Lee and Denzel Washington. Oscar Frights: featuring screenings of Oscar-winning and nominated horror films, including “Get Out” (2017) and “Psycho” (1960). Hayao Miyazaki: in conjunction with the Academy Museum’s landmark exhibition on Hayao Miyazaki, the Academy Museum will screen the filmmaker’s complete body of work as a feature director, including “My Neighbor Totoro” (1988) and “Spirited Away...

Appropriately, considering one of the key attractions of the new Academy Museum of Motion Pictures are Dorothy’s infamous ruby-red shoes, the museum’s official opening screening September 30 will be The Wizard of Oz accompanied by the American Youth Symphony conducted by David Newman.

But there is much more both before and after the museum’s public unveiling at the end of September. The Academy has unveiled a slew of discussions, programs and 115 screenings over the course of the first three months after the doors open on the Los Angeles venue. Other movie-oriented events will include Oscar Sundays featuring Oscar-honored films, and “Oscar Frights” with movies like Get Out and Psycho. Spike Lee and Denzel Washington will be on hand for a 70Mm screening of Malcolm X. A program of movies featuring women composers is also on tap, and are retrospectives of filmmakers Jane Campion and Satyajit Ray among many others.

The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures‘ inaugural in-person schedule for its first three months will begin on its Sept. 30 opening day with two special presentations of the 1939 classic “The Wizard of Oz.” Those will feature live musical accompaniment by the American Youth Symphony conducted by composer David Newman, the museum said Wednesday.

MGM

The museum will offer more than 115 film screenings, discussions and programs. According to a museum statement other highlights include the launch of these ongoing series:

Stories of Cinema: featuring screenings of films highlighted in the museum’s core exhibition, including Real Women Have Curves and The Way of the Dragon.Oscar® Sundays: held every Sunday evening in the David Geffen Theater, this series celebrates films that have been honored at the Academy Awards®. For the series’ first iteration, we are celebrating the work of women directors, including Harlan County, U.S.A. and Seven Beauties.Family Matinees:...

Guillermo del Toro takes a walk on the noir side in his first film since winning the Oscar for directing the 2017 best picture winner “The Shape of Things.” “Nightmare Alley,’ based on the uncompromising 1946 novel by William Lindsay Gresham, offers a bleak depiction of humanity including low-rent carnivals filled with has-beens, geeks and “rum-dums.” Searchlight Pictures is giving “Nightmare Alley,” which had to shut down production during the height of Covid in 2020, the “A” treatment, opening the film on Dec. 3 just in time for awards consideration.

The innovative Mexican filmmaker best known for his acclaimed fantasy, horror (“The Devil’s Backbone”) and sci-fi (‘Hellboy”) productions, co-wrote the screenplay with Kim Morgan. Bradley Cooper plays Stan Carlisle, a handsome manipulative carny worker who has a massive chip on his shoulder. Stan wants to hit the big time and with the help of carnival headliner Zeena (Toni Collette) resurrects her old mentalist act.

Normal 0 false false false En-us X-none X-none

“Geek Love”

By Raymond Benson

One of the more unique entries in the film noir movement of the 1940s and 50s is the 1947 melodrama, Nightmare Alley. Based on a novel by William Lindsay Gresham, the picture was made only because Tyrone Power expressed the desire to star in it after reading the grim tale of a carnival barker who rises to the top of the charlatan world, only to ultimately fall hard to rock bottom.

While classified as film noir, the picture has little of the usual trappings of the movement. There is no central crime in the story, there are no cynical detectives, and one can argue that there are no femmes fatale. It is only in the visual presentation that one can consider Nightmare Alley an item of film noir—the high contrast black and white photography, the heavy light and shadows,...

Evidently, not the most famous category of films coming out of Asia, since the genre has been associated with Italy and Hollywood almost completely. However, in the vast plethora of movies coming out of the continent, there were bound to be some productions in the genre, which, as we are about to see, come from a number of different countries. Manchuria has always been a place to shoot these films for the Japanese and the Koreans, but lately the Indonesia landscape has been also used, for a couple of films. India and Thailand also have their share of films in the genre.

Evidently, the category stretches the term a bit, and goes beyond the basic elements of guns and desert settings. Here are 15 of the finest samples, in chronological order

*by clicking on some of the titles, you can find the full reviews. For the rest, we just included the...

After unveiling the discs that will be arriving in April, including Bong Joon Ho’s Memories of Murder, Olivier Assayas’ Irma Vep, and more, Criterion has now announced what will be coming to their streaming channel next month.

Highlights include retrospectives dedicated to Guy Maddin, Ruby Dee, Lana Turner, and Gordon Parks, plus selections from Marlene Dietrich & Josef von Sternberg’s stellar box set. They will also present the exclusive streaming premieres of Bill Duke’s The Killing Floor, William Greaves’s Nationtime, Kevin Jerome Everson’s Park Lanes, and more.

Jim Jarmusch’s Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, which recently arrived on the collection, will be landing on the channel as well, along with a special “Lovers on the Run” series including film noir (They Live by Night) to New Hollywood (Badlands) to the French New Wave (Pierrot le fou) to Blaxploitation (Thomasine & Bushrod) and beyond. Also...

As Disney quietly disappears huge swathes of film history into its vaults, I'm going to spend 2020 celebrating Twentieth Century Fox and the Fox Film Corporation's films, what one might call their output if only someone were putting it out.And now they've quietly disappeared William Fox's name from the company: guilty by association with Rupert Murdoch, even though he never associated with him.***Twentieth Century Fox is now to be called Twentieth Century, the name of a company that ceased to be back in 1935 when it swallowed the beleaguered Fox Picture Company. Zanuck's pre-merger studio is actually rather well-represented on home video, considering it existed for less than four years: Zanuck's story instinct, which had served him so well at Warners/First National, may not have fired so consistently, but it gave us punchy entertainments like The Bowery, Blood Money, and The Call of the Wild.The studio's tastes were more eclectic than Warners,...

Google is placing a spotlight on an actress considered to be the first Chinese-American movie star.

Anna May Wong was honored on Wednesday with a Google slideshow Doodle on its homepage exactly 97 years after Wong’s first leading role in a major film, The Toll of the Sea, debuted in theaters.

Wong, who died in 1961 at the age of 56 in Santa Monica, California, was born as Wong Liu Tsong in Los Angeles in 1905 to second-generation Chinese Americans as the second of seven children.

By the age of 11, she had created her stage name, Anna May Wong, and set out to become an actress.

Film culture moves awfully fast sometimes. I had never even heard of The Saga of Anatahan when the New Beverly here in Los Angeles showed it (under the title Ana-ta-han) about a year and a half ago on 16mm. It being Josef von Sternberg’s final feature, it was paired with another not-on-dvd title of his, The King Steps Out (1936). Now here we are, Anatahan has toured in a full restoration and is now available on Blu-ray for all to see. The somewhat-superior The King Steps Out has not yet had its day, sadly, but I’m glad for any von Sternberg on Blu in general, and for the chance to revisit and further consider this sincerely odd film.

Von Sternberg was born to a Jewish family in Vienna, emigrated to the United States when he was seven, then back to Vienna three years later, and back to the United States three years after that.

By Jeremy Carr

Alfred Hitchcock may have directed The Paradine Case, the 1947 adaptation of Robert Smythe Hichens’ 1933 novel, but the film is most clearly a David O. Selznick production. It was his coveted property, he wrote the screenplay (with contributions from Alma Reville, James Bridie, and an uncredited Ben Hecht), and the movie itself discloses far more of its producer’s temperament than it does its director’s. The Paradine Case was, in fact, the last film made by the British-born master as part of his seven-year contract with Selznick, and by most accounts, Hitchcock’s heart just wasn’t in it. Unfortunately, it shows.

But this is no slipshod motion picture. Selznick spared no expense—the completed film cost almost as much as Gone with the Wind—and the entire project is built on quality and class. Set in London, in “the recent past,” The Paradine Case stars an...

Take one fiercely individual auteur fed up with the Hollywood game, put him in Kyoto with a full Japanese film company, and the result is a picture critics have been trying to figure out ever since. It’s a realistic story told in a highly artificial visual style, in un-subtitled Japanese. And its writer-director intended it to play for American audiences.

The Saga of Anatahan

Blu-ray

Kino Lorber

1953 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 91 min. / Anatahan, Ana-ta-han / Street Date April 25, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95 Starring: Akemi Negishi, Tadashi Suganuma, Kisaburo Sawamura, Shoji Nakayama, Jun Fujikawa, Hiroshi Kondo, Shozo Miyashita, Tsuruemon Bando, Kikuji Onoe, Rokuriro Kineya, Daijiro Tamura, Chizuru Kitagawa, Takeshi Suzuki, Shiro Amikura.

Cinematography: Josef von Sternberg, Kozo Okazaki

Film Editor: Mitsuzo Miyata

Original Music: Akira Ifukube

Special Effects: Eiji Tsuburaya

Written by Josef von Sternberg from the novel by Michiro Maruyama & Younghill Kang

Produced by Kazuo Takimura

Directed by Josef von Sternberg...

This past weekend, the American Society of Cinematographers awarded Greig Fraser for his contribution to Lion as last year’s greatest accomplishment in the field. Of course, his achievement was just a small sampling of the fantastic work from directors of photography, but it did give us a stronger hint at what may be the winner on Oscar night. Ahead of the ceremony, we have a new video compilation that honors all the past winners in the category at the Academy Awards

Created by Burger Fiction, it spans the stunning silent landmark Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans all the way up to the end of Emmanuel Lubezki‘s three-peat win for The Revenant. Aside from the advancements in color and aspect ration, it’s a thrill to see some of cinema’s most iconic shots side-by-side. However, the best way to experience the evolution of the craft is by...

Brigitte Horney is not much remembered today, despite a long, distinguished career (films for Siodmak, Wegener, Fanck, the Nazi Baron Munchausen). Tarantino's name-checking of her during the pub games of Inglourious Basterds is probably her one star moment. Maybe the porn star name doesn't help: if Emil Jannings had been christened Emil Bigballs, he might not enjoy the status he currently has.Horney did not confine her activities to Germany: Secret Lives is a version of the Mata Hari history/legend produced in Britain with a French director, the versatile, some would say hacky, Edmond T. Gréville, whose most famous British creation was the 1960 camp classic Beat Girl (John Barry score; Gillian Hills; Christopher Lee; Oliver Reed; striptease and juvenile delinquency). But his '30s and '40s work, mostly in France, was generally slick and stylish.As a flagrant roman à clef treatment of the career of a celebrated seductress,...

18 March 1932: The star shows herself unique in Hollywood by being majestically beautiful

London, Thursday.

Von Sternberg has evidently taken the criticisms of his first two American films for Marlene Dietrich to heart. In “Shanghai Express,” which fills the bill at the Carlton to-morrow, he has a story containing more action than usual. There are bandits, rebels, murders, and hold-ups. There is also the slow sifting over of frustrated emotions which a Dietrich film appears to demand.

But the increase of physical action really reveals how little interested in it Von Sternberg is, and he does not allow himself time to follow the emotional consequences which would justify him in slurring the more dramatic aspects of his scenario.

Continue reading...

Displaying a transparency that few filmmakers of his fame and / or caliber would even bother with, Steven Soderbergh has, for a couple of years, been keen on releasing lists of what he watched and read during the previous twelve months. If you’re at all interested in this sort of thing — and why not? what else are you even doing with your day? — the 2015 selection should be of strong interest, this being a time when he was fully enmeshed in the world of creating television.

He’s clearly observing the medium with a close eye, be it what’s on air or what his friends (specifically David Fincher and his stillborn projects) show him, and how that might relate to his apparent love of 48 Hours Mystery or approach to a comparatively light slate of cinematic assignments — specifically: it seems odd that the last time he watched Magic Mike Xxl, a...

Two obscure Robert Wise titles reach Blu-ray release this month, both direct follow-ups to some of the auteur’s more iconic works. First up is 1962’s Two for the Seesaw, a romantic drama headlined by Robert Mitchum and Shirley MacLaine following the famed 1961 title West Side Story. But the decade prior would fine Wise unveiling one of his most stilted efforts, The Captive City (1952), a sort-of noir procedural which followed his sci-fi social commentary The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951). Providing John Forsythe with his first starring role (a performer who would find his most famous roles decades later on television, as Blake Carrington in “Dynasty,” and of course, the famous voice in “Charlie’s Angels”), it has to be one of the most unenthusiastic renderings of organized crime ever committed to celluloid. A scrappy journalist defies the mob ruled police force and a slick Mafia boss in a tired...

This month on the Newsstand, Ryan is joined by David Blakeslee to discuss the January and February (2016) Criterion Collection line-ups, as well as the latest in Criterion rumors, news, packaging, and more.

Subscribe to The Newsstand in iTunes or via RSS

Contact us with any feedback.

Shownotes Topics January Line-up February Line-up Latest newsletter tease (Paris nous appartient, Only Angels Have Wings) Manchurian Candidate Clouds Of Sils Maria Chimes At Midnight (Wex Arts Cinema Revival) Kieslowski films on Fandor Barnes & Noble Sale Criterion Blogathon Liv Ullmann, Angela Landsbury, and John Waters spotted at Criterion on Instagram 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days tease Shanghai Express Episode Links The Complete Lady Snowblood Lady Snowblood (1973) Lady Snowblood: Love Song of Vengeance (1974) The American Friend (1977) Bitter Rice (1949) Inside Llewyn Davis (2013) Gilda (1946) The Emigrants/The New Land The New Land (1972) The Emigrants (1971) The Kid (1921) The Graduate (1967) I Knew Her Well (1965) Paris Belongs to Us Only Angels Have Wings Liv Ullmann 4 Months,...

First off, let's make one thing clear. We're not scratching our heads at Spike Lee's "Do The Right Thing" making the BBC's 100 greatest American films. That movie, of which an image accompanies this post, not only made the list, but ranked appropriately at no. 25. It's the rest of the selections that have us scratching and, yes, shaking our heads in disbelief. A wonderful page view driver, these sorts of lists make great fodder for passionate movie fans no matter what their age or part of the world they hail from. There is nothing more entertaining than watching two critics from opposite ends of the globe try to debate whether "The Dark Knight" should have been nominated for best picture or make a list like this. Even in this age of short form content where Vines, Shapchats and Instagram videos have captured viewers attention, movies will continue to inspire because...

Louis Feuillade’s Fantômas opens with a series of disguises, image overlays revealing to us Fantomas’ various personas.Often used by silent filmmakers attempting to conjure the supernatural, they conjure the abstract instead:“It’s a visual medium”–John Ford“[Erich von] Stroheim asked me personally to take on the assignment (after the studio removed him from the film), and I did so without any protest on his part…”– Josef von Sternberg***We move from dissolves to hard cuts:Later in The Wedding March:Counterpoints:And beyond:We call for help, mere seconds later our cries our answered: “We’ve got a trial ahead of us.”Time is meaningless: there is no difference between past and present.Impressionism becomes Expressionism:But we keep being reborn:Love exists:Love unites us all, re-engages us with the world:We cease being individuals:And become a collective--We become a crowd:None of us are alone:*** Sources:Fantômas (Louis Feuillade, 1913)India Matri Bhumi (Roberto Rossellini,...

So it looks like indie-minded producer Megan Ellison of Annapurna Pictures, who backed upcoming Cannes entry "Foxcatcher" as well as such Oscar contenders as "The Master," "American Hustle" and "Her," is now developing her first TV series to be sold to the networks. Set during Hollywood's Golden Age, the drama focuses on Nordic beauties Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich, who were known for their androgynous mystery. “The Swedish Sphinx” and “The Blonde Venus” could be both glamorous and alluring--and get away with wearing pants. Thus, much like one-time roommates Cary Grant and Randolph Scott, rumors swirled surrounded them. Based at MGM, Greta Garbo ("Grand Hotel," "Ninotchka," "Queen Christina") never starred in a movie with Paramount's reigning diva Dietrich ("Shanghai Express," "Morocco," "Catherine the Great"), and the two so-called studio rivals claimed to have never met. (Back in Europe, they reportedly each enjoyed an affair with elegant aristocrat Mercedes de...

In Marlene Dietrich's ABC, the actress's marvelous book of bon mots and observations for any and every occasion, under the heading "Josef von Sternberg" you'll find just one simple line: "The man I wanted to please most." Among women who think for themselves, or even just claim to, the idea of wanting to please a man is highly unfashionable. But what if Dietrich hadn't? There would be no Amy Jolly in a white tuxedo, wooing French foreign legionnaire Gary Cooper with a posy in Morocco; no Shanghai Lily in Shanghai Express, counting — or losing count of — the number of men who helped her earn that nickname; no Agent X-27 in Dishonored, ever so glamorously clutching her black Persian cat as she readies herself for the journey to...

News.

Starting this week, filmmaker, editor, critic and Notebook contributor Gina Telaroli will be seeing the premiere of her exquisite short feature Traveling Light, "a small-scale silent (aesthetically “silent”, but with a dense sound mix) charting a trip among friends from New York to Pittsburgh carefully constructed as a string of tiny moments" (Christopher Small), around the world in a variety of venues. The most ambitious on the ground presentation will be at New York's Anthology Film Archives, in whose series "Closely Watched Trains" Traveling Light is showing alongside such other brilliant train cinema as Shanghai Express, Emperor of the North, and The Narrow Margin. For those not in New York, stay tuned for news of the film's online premiere.

As Dave Kehr prepares to take on his new position as Adjunct Curator at MoMA, it has been announced that J. Hoberman will be taking over his video column in...

Marlene Dietrich Grandson J. Michael Riva, Robert Clatworthy, and Harper Goff: Art Directors Guild Hall of Fame 2014 Production Designers Robert Clatworthy, Harper Goff, and J. Michael Riva will be posthumously inducted into the Art Directors Guild Hall of Fame at the 18th Art Directors Guild Awards ceremony, to be held on February 8, 2014, at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. (Photo: Production designer J. Michael Riva.) J. Michael Riva J. Michael Riva (1948-2012), grandson of Marlene Dietrich (The Blue Angel, Shanghai Express, A Foreign Affair), was production designer for Stuart Rosenberg / Robert Redford’s 1980 socially conscious drama Brubaker. Later on, Redford hired Riva as the art director for Ordinary People, also released in 1980. Riva’s other production design credits include the Lethal Weapon movies starring Mel Gibson and Danny Glover; A Few Good Men (1992), with Tom Cruise, Jack Nicholson, and Demi Moore; The Pursuit of Happyness (2006), with Will Smith; Spider-Man 3 (2007), with Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst,...

The Orient has been a popular film theme ever since the beginning of cinema history. Films like The Sheik (1921), Shanghai Express (1932) or Casablanca (1942) still remain some of the most prominent, ideologically resonant American movies. The trend continues to thrive to this day with the latest example of The Wolverine (2013).

As the critics express their mixed opinions on The Wolverine, some applauding Jackman’s performance, others complaining about “corny dialogue”; one thing about the film is undeniably awesome: Japan. The setting serves its own purpose in the film which makes it an independent, almost disparate element. Whether the use of the Far East is a profound allegory for the film’s themes, or the director’s lazy cover-up for the lack originality in the script, it certainly draws attention and delivers some good, fist-pumping moments. So what’s the appeal of Orientalism in film?

1. Quirkiness

Quirkiness is a bit too gentle a word to phrase this,...

Since the 85th Academy Awards nominations were announced, Lincoln has emerged as the tentative frontrunner among a plurality of headline writers, bloggers, and oddsmakers. This was fueled in large part by the fact that Steven Spielberg’s Civil War epic garnered 12 nominations, the most of any film. But does receiving the most nominations really mean that a movie is most likely to win Best Picture? The short answer is yes – 2/3 of the time. But for movie buffs and math nerds, here is the longer answer. Over the 84 years of Oscars, the movie that received the most nominations (including ties for first place) among the Best Picture nominees went on to take the top prize in 56 years, exactly 2/3 of the time. The higher a movie ranks in nominations among its Best Picture competitors, the more likely it is to win: 85% of winners came in the top two in nominations, and 93% of...

Actor of poise and beauty who enjoyed a rich and productive career on both sides of the Atlantic

Faith Brook, who has died aged 90, was an actor of remarkable elegance, poise and beauty. She was the daughter of Clive Brook, a pillar of the so-called Hollywood Raj, the British acting community that settled in Los Angeles in the 1930s. He appeared opposite Marlene Dietrich in Shanghai Express. Even if she was never a star on the scale of her father, Faith enjoyed a rich and productive career in theatre, film and television on both sides of the Atlantic.

She was born in York and moved with Clive and her mother, Mildred, to California, where her father had already put down roots. Her brother, Lyndon, was born four years after Faith and also became a successful actor.

She was educated in Los Angeles, London and Gstaad, Switzerland. She made her stage...

In the new March 2012 issue of the Brooklyn Rail, Colin Beckett previews a "five-film retrospective sampler" of work by Hong Sang-soo running at the Museum of the Moving Image from March 17 through 23: "Wherever his characters go, be it Paris or a Korean resort town, they do the same things: arrange themselves in complicated love triangles, treat others poorly, drink too much, then treat each other even worse. His deliberately artificial camera movements — long pans back and forth, and half-motivated zooms, mostly — treat real space the way a camera usually approaches a photograph or a painting: flattening it, drawing horizontal and diagonal lines to map its elements. He is concerned with atmosphere in the literal sense: the particular qualities of light and air in the types of spaces to which he obsessively returns: beaches, restaurants, apartments."

Hong's Tale of Cinema (2005) is not one of the five (which, by the way,...

Those eyebrows. Those cheekbones. That Marlene Dietrich.

It's the screen goddess' 110th birthday, and to celebrate, we've put together some of the best homages history has made to the German actress and singer. Famous for films including "Shanghai Express" and "The Blue Angel," Dietrich died in 1992, leaving behind a legacy of sight and sound that still gets referenced today.

Stars including Scarlett Johansson, Heidi Klum, and even Marilyn Monroe have posed as Dietrich, sporting the signature pencil-thin arches, waved hair and shaded in cheekbones. In January, it was announced that Gwyneth Paltrow would play the role of Dietrich herself in an upcoming biopic. There's even a perfume dedicated to her memory.

But of course, tribute's also been paid in the format that Dietrich herself occupied -- moving pictures. Read on for our compilation of some of the best:...

Tweet This! Share this on Facebook Stumble upon something good? Share it on StumbleUpon Share this on del.icio.us Share this on LinkedIn

Throughout summer it has been difficult to ignore the recent Chinoiserie trend in stores and magazines, kick-started by the opulent Louis Vuitton show in Paris and merged effortlessly into autumn by Paul Smith. Cheongsam collars and qipao slits aside, this new-found interest in the East may have been partly triggered by China’s growing appetite for high-end goods, which despite recent economic setbacks, has left Western luxury brands competing for a share of this very sizable market.

This obsession with the ‘Orient’ has also seen a proliferation of Asian models on catwalks and throughout editorial spreads, which has courted controversy for some publications and raises all manner of questions regarding ethnicity and standards of beauty. Whilst researching this trend it becomes impossible not to contemplate the...

It's risky, imperfect, expensive – and the stuff of a thousand classics. As Tacita Dean's tribute to celluloid opens, some noted movie-makers give thanks for film

Steven Spielberg Director

My favourite and preferred step between imagination and image is a strip of photochemistry that can be held, twisted, folded, looked at with the naked eye, or projected on to a surface for others to see. It has a scent and it is imperfect. If you get too close to the moving image, it's like impressionist art. And if you stand back, it can be utterly photorealistic. You can watch the grain, which I like to think of as the visible, erratic molecules of a new creative language. After all, this "stuff" of dreams is mankind's most original medium, and dates back to 1895. Today, its years are numbered, but I will remain loyal to this analogue artform until the last lab closes.

Marlene Dietrich on TCM Pt.2: A Foreign Affair, The Blue Angel Schedule (Et) and synopses from the TCM website: 6:00 Am The Monte Carlo Story (1957) Two compulsive gamblers fall in love on the French Riviera. Dir: Samuel A. Taylor. Cast: Marlene Dietrich, Vittorio De Sica, Arthur O'Connell. C-101 mins, Letterbox Format. 7:45 Am Knight Without Armour (1937) A British spy tries to get a countess out of the new Soviet Union. Dir: Jacques Feyder. Cast: Marlene Dietrich, Robert Donat, Irene Van Brugh. Bw-107 mins. 9:45 Am The Lady Is Willing (1942) A Broadway star has to find a husband so she can adopt an abandoned child. Dir: Mitchell Leisen. Cast: Marlene Dietrich, Fred MacMurray, Aline MacMahon. Bw-91 mins. 11:30 Am Kismet (1944) In the classic Arabian Nights tale king of the beggars enters high society to help his daughter marry a handsome prince. Dir: William Dieterle. Cast: Ronald Colman, Marlene Dietrich, James Craig.

Marlene Dietrich on TCM: Shanghai Express, The Scarlet Empress, The Devil Is A Woman Raoul Walsh's unpretentious Manpower (1941) is a surprisingly entertaining drama about a love triangle featuring good-time gal Marlene Dietrich and unlikely partners Edward G. Robinson and George Raft. As an ex-Nazi chanteuse/black marketer (photo), Dietrich nearly steals the show in Billy Wilder's post-war Berlin-set A Foreign Affair (1948); I say nearly because Jean Arthur is Dietrich's equal as the goody-goody American congresswoman who learns that goody-goodiness may take you far at work (at least in the movies) but not in life. In the hands of someone like Ernst Lubitsch, A Foreign Affair would have been a humorously romantic masterpiece, cleverly and subtly interweaving the personal, the social, and the political. As it is, the comedy works great whenever Arthur and Dietrich are on-screen; else, A Foreign Affair suffers from Wilder's heavy hand; lapses in judgment in Wilder,...

Marlene Dietrich is Turner Classic Movies last "Summer Under the Stars" star of 2011. Today, TCM is showing 12 Marlene Dietrich movies, in addition to J. David Riva's 2001 documentary Marlene Dietrich: Her Own Song. Riva, I should add, is the son of Maria Riva and Dietrich's grandson. [Marlene Dietrich Movie Schedule.] Unfortunately, TCM isn't presenting any Marlene Dietrich movie premieres today. In other words, no Dietrich opposite David Bowie in Just a Gigolo, or Dietrich next to Jean Gabin in Martin Roumagnac / The Room Upstairs, or any of Dietrich's little-known German-made silents, e.g., Ich küsse Ihre Hand, Madame / I Kiss Your Hand, Madame; Das Schiff der verlorenen Menschen / The Ship of Lost Men; and Gefahren der Brautzeit / Dangers of the Engagement. None of the silents are exactly what I'd call good movies — nor is Just a Gigolo — but they all are worth a look if only because Dietrich is in them. Another option for...