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The historical epic “Becket” is turning 60 this week. When it was released, “Becket” was considered Important. It was a huge and handsome production with sumptuous sets and costumes and a cast seemingly of thousands. And it featured two of the top and sexiest stars of the day – Peter O’Toole, fresh from his Oscar-nominated triumph in 1962’s “Lawrence of Arabia” and Richard Burton whose career had been overshadowed with his high-profile love affair with Elizabeth Taylor that began during the production of the infamous 1963 “Cleopatra.”

Set in the 12th century England, “Becket” revolves around the relationship between the hedonistic King Henry II (O’Toole), who never met a wench he didn’t bed, and Thomas Becket, his loyal friend and wingman for Henry’s sexual escapades. And because the Production Code was still in force, the film can only imply that Henry is in love with Becket. Henry makes Becket his...

French actor Alain Delon has been a revolutionary presence in the film industry for decades.

From his early work in the ‘60s to more recent films like The Professional, Alain Delon has challenged ideas about acting and storytelling. He has created a unique style of performance that is both powerful and subtle. He is also credited with popularizing the ‘anti-hero’ type of character – a morally ambiguous figure who often exists outside traditional violence or justice systems.

Delon’s influence on filmmaking has been immense, but it’s not just about his individual performances: his work was also driven by philosophy and activism. Throughout his career, he became an outspoken advocate for gay rights and gender equality – two issues that were not widely discussed at the time.

In this article, we’ll explore Delon’s revolutionary impact on cinema and culture, looking at his career highlights, acting styles and philosophies.

Alain...

To anyone in their 20s, Michael Anderson's 1976 sci-fi film "Logan's Run" remains a pop culture fulcrum of anxiety. Based on the 1967 novel by William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson, "Logan's Run" is set in the distant future of 2274 where the human population has been gathered in high-tech, dome-enclosed living facilities where their every wish is granted by an elaborate computer system. Everyone is young and attractive, and sex partners of any gender identity can be dialed up on a local roulette system.

All citizens are equipped with a crystal in the palm of their hands. When they turn 30, the crystal begins glowing red, and the citizen in question must undergo a bleak ritual called Carousel. No one survives Carousel. If someone attempts to flee when their time is up — if they become a Runner — they are hunted down by local police called Sandmen. The title character, Logan 5 (Michael York...

Tom Hooper, Roland Emmerich, Resident Evil franchise director Paul W. S. Anderson lining up projects.

Tom Hooper, Roland Emmerich and Resident Evil franchise director Paul W. S. Anderson are in talks to make shows with AGC Television. The US company is reaping the benefits of a “parallel tracks” strategy to secure project backing via streamers and independent film financing practices.

While a series like Gabriel Garcia Marquez adaption News Of A Kidnapping was fully financed by Amazon, which will release the thriller worldwide in August, AGC Television has also deployed pre-sales, split rights deals, co-productions and equity financing to move...

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“Waterloo, Making An Epic: The Spectacular Behind-the-Scenes Story of a Movie Colossus”

By Simon Lewis (BearManor Media), 534 pages, illustrated (B&w), Hardback, Paperback & Ebook, Isbn 978-1-62933-832-3

Review By Brian Hannan

One would think that a film that flopped as dramatically as Waterloo would scarcely deserve a book as superb as this. In quite extraordinary detail, author Simon Lewis discusses every aspect of the making of the film, from initial set-up to release, by way of analysis of dozens of separate scenes through to rarely discussed elements like the editing and mixing, and even the myth of the missing longer version and the importance of wooden boxes. It might have helped the movie’s commercial chances, and not put too much of a dent in the ultimately massive budget of $26.1 million if producer Dino De Laurentiis has snagged original dream team...

Christopher Plummer died Friday at age 91. A star of the stage, film and television, Plummer’s career spanned six decades and included memorable turns in “The Sound of Music,” “Beginners” (for which he became the oldest actor to win an Oscar) and “Knives Out.” Check out some of his most memorable roles.

“The Lark” (1955)

Like many actors of his generation, Plummer honed his acting chops on the stage. Here he is backstage performing in “The Lark” by Jean Anouilh on Broadway.

“The Sound of Music” (1965)

In perhaps his most famous role, Plummer played the dashing Captain Von Trapp, a widower with seven children who falls in love with their governess, portrayed by Julie Andrews. Bill Lee provided Plummer’s singing voice in the film.

“Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country” (1991)

Plummer donned prosthetics and an eye path to portrayed the Klingon General Chang, who (naturally) had a penchant for quoting Shakespeare.

Christopher Plummer, the Canadian-born Shakespearean actor who starred in films including “The Sound of Music” and “Beginners,” died on Friday morning at his home in Connecticut. He was 91.

“Chris was an extraordinary man who deeply loved and respected his profession with great old fashion manners, self deprecating humor and the music of words,” said Lou Pitt, his longtime friend and manager of 46 years. “He was a national treasure who deeply relished his Canadian roots. Through his art and humanity, he touched all of our hearts and his legendary life will endure for all generations to come. He will forever be with us.”

An imposing theatrical presence with a well-cultivated, resonant voice, that critic John Simon once observed, “in its chamois mode, can polish mirrors,” Plummer was best known for playing Captain von Trapp in the Oscar-winning musical “The Sound of Music.” He also won an Oscar in 2012 for his supporting turn in the film “Beginners,...

A new documentary about “Frankenstein” actor Boris Karloff is in the works.

Voltage Films is currently in production on the feature documentary “Boris Karloff: The Man Behind The Monster.” Co-produced and co-written by Ron MacCloskey and Thomas Hamilton with Hamilton directing and Tracy Jenkins producing, the film offers a fascinating portrait of Karloff, examining his illustrious 60-year career in the entertainment industry and his enduring legacy as one of the icons of 20th century popular culture.

The film follows on from the acclaimed 2010 biography “Boris Karloff: More Than A Monster,” written by Karloff’s official biographer Stephen Jacobs, who serves as the film’s historical consultant.

MacCloskey dedicated 23 years to the project, travelling the world to conduct extensive research. Since 2018, the team has filmed 50 interviews in Toronto, New York, Los Angeles and London. Contributors include Peter Bogdanovich, Guillermo del Toro, Christopher Plummer, John Landis, Roger Corman and Kevin Brownlow.

The...

AGC Studios CEO Stuart Ford has a number of UK film and TV projects in development.

As AGC Studios kicks off talks at AFM 2020 Online this week on Dave Bautista sci-fi Universe’s Most Wanted and updates buyers on Doug Liman’s recent London production Lockdown, first details have emerged of the company’s ambitious UK slate.

Since founder and CEO Stuart Ford launched the company two years ago, he and his European team have been quietly assembling a robust film and TV production and development roster alongside the US titles.

The burgeoning pipeline features a rare directorial outing from Richard E. Grant,...

In 1964, Variety reviewer Robert J. Landry was over the moon about the Paramount movie “Becket,” which Edward Anhalt scripted from Jean Anouilh’s play. Landry said the film was “invigorated by story substance, personality clash, bright dialogue and religious interest. Patrons and perhaps reviewers will tend to heap credit on the actors. They deserve it … but the film proves again that a great film is the harmoniously combined amalgam of many professional talents.” The result, he said, is “an intellectual as well as an emotional experience.”

He was talking about the Peter Glenville-directed movie, but those exact words also describe Netflix’s “The Two Popes.” The film scored three Oscar noms, for lead actor Jonathan Pryce, supporting for Anthony Hopkins and the script by Anthony McCarten (his fourth Oscar nomination in six years).

In conversation, McCarten cites “Becket” as one of the films that impressed him when he was young,...

French director David Oelhoffen, whose latest film, “Close Enemies,” is competing at the Venice Film Festival, is preparing two new politically minded, internationally driven films: “The Fourth Wall” (“Le quatrieme mur”) and “Les derniers hommes.”

“Les derniers hommes” is being developped by Galatée Films, the company co-founded by French actor-turned-producer Jacques Perrin, whose credits include “The Chorists.” The project is based on Alain Gandy’s autobiographical novel, “Légion étrangère Cavalerie,” which chronicles the hellish journey of foreign soldiers who fought on behalf of the French in March 1945 as they struggled to make their way out of the jungle after being defeated by the Japanese army.

Oelhoffen said the project was brought to him by Perrin, who bought rights to Gandy’s novel and is passionate about the subject, having starred in Pierre Schoendoerffer’s 1965 film “The 317th Platoon,” which is set in Vietnam in 1954.

“It will be a survival drama...

Decades before Hollywood got serious about the need for diversity, Anthony Quinn was diversity. This month marks the birthday of the Mexico-born, L.A.-raised actor who played Bedouins, Native Americans, Soviets — and even Mexicans and Americans in his 60-year career. He was the first Mexican-American to win an Oscar, for his supporting performance in “Viva Zapata!” (1952) and won another as French painter Gaugin in “Lust for Life” (1956). His two trademark performances were in “Zorba the Greek” (another Oscar nom) and as an Italian circus strongman in Fellini’s “La Strada.”

Antonio Rodolfo Oaxaca Quinn was born in Chihuahua, Mexico, on April 21, 1915, and began acting in 1936. His rise in Hollywood is especially remarkable considering the times. From 1929-36, the U.S.’ “Mexican Repatriation” program sent those of Mexican descent south of the border (even though many were U.S. citizens) out of fear they were taking jobs from whites. In...

Theodore Bikel. Theodore Bikel dead at 91: Oscar-nominated actor and folk singer best known for stage musicals 'The Sound of Music,' 'Fiddler on the Roof' Folk singer, social and union activist, and stage, film, and television actor Theodore Bikel, best remembered for starring in the Broadway musical The Sound of Music and, throughout the U.S., in Fiddler on the Roof, died Monday morning (July 20, '15) of "natural causes" at the UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles. The Austrian-born Bikel – as Theodore Meir Bikel on May 2, 1924, in Vienna, to Yiddish-speaking Eastern European parents – was 91. Fled Hitler Thanks to his well-connected Zionist father, six months after the German annexation of Austria in March 1938 ("they were greeted with jubilation by the local populace," he would recall in 2012), the 14-year-old Bikel and his family fled to Palestine, at the time a British protectorate. While there, the teenager began acting on stage,...

★★★☆☆ The play was once again the thing for Alain Resnais, as theatre serves as the backcloth for The Life of Riley (2014), his final film and the follow up to follow-up to 2013's Cannes Competition entry You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet (itself based upon Jean Anouilh's Eurydice). This time around, Resnais chose to rework British playwright Alan Ayckbourn's The Life of Riley, with the story's comedy about middle-class infidelity translating well into French. A curious overture places the audience in the Yorkshire Dales as the nonagenarian takes us on a tour through the area's twisting roads before the confines of a sound stage.

Simone Simon in 'La Bête Humaine' 1938: Jean Renoir's film noir (photo: Jean Gabin and Simone Simon in 'La Bête Humaine') (See previous post: "'Cat People' 1942 Actress Simone Simon Remembered.") In the late 1930s, with her Hollywood career stalled while facing competition at 20th Century-Fox from another French import, Annabella (later Tyrone Power's wife), Simone Simon returned to France. Once there, she reestablished herself as an actress to be reckoned with in Jean Renoir's La Bête Humaine. An updated version of Émile Zola's 1890 novel, La Bête Humaine is enveloped in a dark, brooding atmosphere not uncommon in pre-World War II French films. Known for their "poetic realism," examples from that era include Renoir's own The Lower Depths (1936), Julien Duvivier's La Belle Équipe (1936) and Pépé le Moko (1937), and particularly Marcel Carné's Port of Shadows (1938) and Daybreak (1939).[11] This thematic and...

'Henry V' Movie Actress Renée Asherson dead at 99: Laurence Olivier leading lady in acclaimed 1944 film (image: Renée Asherson and Laurence Olivier in 'Henry V') Renée Asherson, a British stage actress featured in London productions of A Streetcar Named Desire and Three Sisters, but best known internationally as Laurence Olivier's leading lady in the 1944 film version of Henry V, died on October 30, 2014. Asherson was 99 years old. The exact cause of death hasn't been specified. She was born Dorothy Renée Ascherson (she would drop the "c" some time after becoming an actress) on May 19, 1915, in Kensington, London, to Jewish parents: businessman Charles Ascherson and his second wife, Dorothy Wiseman -- both of whom narrowly escaped spending their honeymoon aboard the Titanic. (Ascherson cancelled the voyage after suffering an attack of appendicitis.) According to Michael Coveney's The Guardian obit for the actress, Renée Asherson was "scantly...

Marie Dubois, actress in French New Wave films, dead at 77 (image: Marie Dubois in the mammoth blockbuster 'La Grande Vadrouille') Actress Marie Dubois, a popular French New Wave personality of the '60s and the leading lady in one of France's biggest box-office hits in history, died Wednesday, October 15, 2014, at a nursing home in Lescar, a suburb of the southwestern French town of Pau, not far from the Spanish border. Dubois, who had been living in the Pau area since 2010, was 77. For decades she had been battling multiple sclerosis, which later in life had her confined to a wheelchair. Born Claudine Huzé (Claudine Lucie Pauline Huzé according to some online sources) on January 12, 1937, in Paris, the blue-eyed, blonde Marie Dubois began her show business career on stage, being featured in plays such as Molière's The Misanthrope and Arthur Miller's The Crucible. François Truffaut discovery: 'Shoot the...

“You never had a rope around your neck. Well, I’m going to tell you something. When that rope starts to pull tight, you can feel the Devil bite your ass.”

A shame when they go so young!

98! –and his last role was just four years ago! Eli Wallach had such a long and memorable career beginning with Baby Doll in 1956. It was always nice seeing him in more recent films like Eastwood’s Mystic River and in the back of my mind I would think about the great villains he played like Tuco in The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly, Calvera in The Magnificent Seven, and even Mr. Freeze on TV’s Batman! He was a great actor and true gentleman who, fortunately for us, led a long and active life. Wallach enjoyed a long, loving relationship with his wife of 66 years, actress Anne Jackson and is also survived by three children,...

"Eli Wallach, who was one of his generation’s most prominent and prolific character actors in film, onstage and on television for more than 60 years, died on Tuesday," reports Robert Berkvist for the New York Times. "A self-styled journeyman actor, the versatile Mr. Wallach appeared in scores of roles, often with his wife, Anne Jackson. No matter the part, he always seemed at ease and in control, whether playing a Mexican bandit in the 1960 western The Magnificent Seven, a bumbling clerk in Ionesco’s allegorical play Rhinoceros, a henpecked French general in Jean Anouilh’s Waltz of the Toreadors, Clark Gable’s sidekick in The Misfits or a Mafia don in The Godfather: Part III." More remembrances… » - David Hudson...

"Eli Wallach, who was one of his generation’s most prominent and prolific character actors in film, onstage and on television for more than 60 years, died on Tuesday," reports Robert Berkvist for the New York Times. "A self-styled journeyman actor, the versatile Mr. Wallach appeared in scores of roles, often with his wife, Anne Jackson. No matter the part, he always seemed at ease and in control, whether playing a Mexican bandit in the 1960 western The Magnificent Seven, a bumbling clerk in Ionesco’s allegorical play Rhinoceros, a henpecked French general in Jean Anouilh’s Waltz of the Toreadors, Clark Gable’s sidekick in The Misfits or a Mafia don in The Godfather: Part III." More remembrances… » - David Hudson...

It all begins with a freeze frame of a dirt road somewhere in Yorkshire county, lined with trees whose lush foliage converges above in an arch. What could it be if not a portal? The movie itself, meanwhile, has not even started as we watch the opening credits, encased in large old-fashioned frames, slowly fade away—a device consistently favored by Alain Resnais who opened each of his 19 features likewise, holding off the films themselves until the screen no longer contained any visual surplus. The freeze frame comes to life as the camera pans farther down the road; then we find ourselves in a theatrical set.

We have been here before, of course. Resnais' Smoking/No Smoking, also based on a play by British playwright Sir Alan Ayckbourn, is set in Yorkshire as well. Life of Riley (Aimer, boire et chanter) borrows from the five-hour diptych its theatrical setting, one...

Complex and avant-garde French film director best known for Night and Fog and Last Year in Marienbad

Alain Resnais, who has died aged 91, was a director of elegance and distinction who, despite generally working from the screenplays of other writers, established an auteurist reputation. His films were singular, instantly recognisable by their style as well as through recurring themes and preoccupations. Primary concerns were war, sexual relationships and the more abstract notions of memory and time. His characters were invariably adult (children were excluded as having no detailed past) middle-class professionals. His style was complex, notably in the editing and often – though not always – dominated by tracking shots and multilayered sound.

He surrounded himself with actors, musicians and writers of enormous talent and the result was a somewhat elitist body of work with little concern for realism or the socially or intellectually deprived. Even overtly political works, Night and Fog,...

Columbia Pictures

Peter O’Toole finally succumbed to a long-term illness at the weekend. He was aged 81. The sad news quickly changed to countless tributes proclaiming the death of an icon of cinema. Possibly the last of his kind.

Whilst constantly oozing style and class, O’Toole was arguably one of the least recognised actors of his generation, in terms of a major awards haul. He was famously acknowledged for being nominated for an Academy Award on eight separate occasions without winning a single one. In fact, it wasn’t until 2003 that he finally received an award from the Academy, in the form of an honorary recognition for a long, glittering career.

O’Toole was a master of his trade in that he could comfortably adapt himself to fit any genre or nature of the film required by the role. In acknowledgement of of the expansive career, and on the sad occasion of his death,...

Peter O’Toole movies and Best Actor Oscar nominations (photo: young Peter O’Toole in the early ’60s) (See previous post: "Peter O’Toole ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ Actor: Eight-Time Oscar Nominee Dead at 81.") At the 2003 Academy Awards ceremony, Meryl Streep handed Peter O’Toole an Honorary Oscar. That remained O’Toole’s sole Academy Award "victory." In fact, with eight Best Actor Oscar nominations to his credit, Peter O’Toole held — or rather, holds — the Oscars’ record for the most nods in any of the acting categories without a single (competitive) win. He was shortlisted for the following films: ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ "I can’t imagine anyone whom I’m less like than T.E. Lawrence," Peter O’Toole himself admitted, but his characterization in David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia (1962) was widely admired all the same. The movie itself, however historically inaccurate, also received enthusiastic praise, and was perceived as...

Guinness World Records titleholder has starred in 80 plays, 30 films and made numerous television and radio performances

The Romanian actor Radu Beligan has been declared the world's oldest active actor at the age of 95.

Beligan celebrated the title, confirmed by Guinness World Records on Sunday, by stepping into the main role of The Egoist by the French playwright Jean Anouilh, playing the ageing playwright Leon Saint-Pe for the 330th time.

Beligan debuted in a stage version of Crime and Punishment in 1937. Beloved by Romanians for his melodious voice, aquiline features and stern gaze, he has starred in 80 plays, acted in 30 films and made numerous television and radio performances.

After being presented with a certificate of the Guinness award, he called on theatregoers to stop applauding. "I have no merits at all. I am the result of the love you have shown me for so many, many years," he said.

RomaniaEurope

theguardian.

She won Oscars for her Scarlett O'Hara and Blanche DuBois, yet Vivien Leigh – born 100 years ago this month – was always subject to Hollywood's impossible demands on its female stars

Every great Hollywood star is both an actor and the embodiment of a myth. Film transforms them, turning their selves, their presence, their talents, into an individual archetypal narrative, one seen both in their movies but also in the public knowledge of their private lives: wounded Monroe; malleable Audrey Hepburn; James Stewart, the irascible, increasingly neurotic all-American guy. Vivien Leigh is one of Britain's few genuine women "movie stars"; her myth is memorable and dark, her life a rise and fall story, centred on the consequences of what was then called her "manic depression" – around her vulnerability, her promiscuity, her ageing. Her films themselves similarly want to tell us stories about suffering and resilience, about surviving and about being punished for doing so.

Resurrections: Orpheus' own; his myth as Jean Anouilh' play, Eurydice; Anouilh's play into Bruno Podalydès' video adaptation, continuously projected throughout Vous n'avez encore rien vu's screening room in a kind of mystic real-time subtending the latter's recursive chronologies; and this Podalydès adaptation into Resnais' own adaptation, or rather his characters' own, as they recite the lines of the Podalydès video they're watching, or rather the Anouilh play they've all performed, to relive old performances, or rather, as usual in Resnais, to relive the lives of characters that have never been lived in the first place. One actor's performance will in turn be resurrected by another's of the same. Either they ain't seen nothin' or they've seen it all.

Story Of Your Life!

Very academic, except that Vous, like all of Resnais' films, works opposite to academic illustrations by problematizing its "source" text only within the text's terms.

New York (Associated Press) — Julie Harris, one of Broadway's most honored performers, whose roles ranged from the flamboyant Sally Bowles in "I Am a Camera" to the reclusive Emily Dickinson in "The Belle of Amherst," died Saturday. She was 87.

Harris died at her West Chatham, Mass., home of congestive heart failure, actress and family friend Francesca James said.

Harris won five Tony Awards for best actress in a play, displaying a virtuosity that enabled her to portray an astonishing gallery of women during a theater career that spanned almost 60 years and included such plays as "The Member of the Wedding" (1950), "The Lark" (1955), "Forty Carats" (1968) and "The Last of Mrs. Lincoln" (1972).

She was honored again with a sixth Tony, a special lifetime achievement award in 2002. Her record is up against Audra McDonald, with five competitive Tonys, and Angela Lansbury with four Tonys in the best actress-musical category and one for best supporting actress in a play.

Veteran film and theatre actor won greatest accolades for her work on Broadway

Julie Harris, one of Broadway's most honoured performers, whose roles ranged from the flamboyant Sally Bowles in I Am a Camera to the reclusive Emily Dickinson in The Belle of Amherst, died on Saturday. She was 87.

Harris died at her home in West Chatham, Massachusetts, of congestive heart failure, the actor and family friend Francesca James said.

Harris won a record five Tony awards for best actress in a play, displaying a virtuosity that enabled her to portray an astonishing gallery of women during a theatre career that spanned almost 60 years and included such plays as The Member of the Wedding (1950), The Lark (1955), Forty Carats (1968) and The Last of Mrs Lincoln (1972).

She received a sixth Tony, a special lifetime achievement award, in 2002.

Harris had suffered a stroke in 2001 while she was in Chicago appearing in a production of Claudia Allen's Fossils.

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This mildly entertaining British thriller by Ian Softley (accomplished director of the Beatles film Backbeat and The Wings of the Dove) is based on a novel by Sébastien Japrisot, French translator of Jd Salinger and author of a number of ingenious policiers, most famously The Sleeping Car Murders. It was originally adapted by Jean Anouilh in 1965 and directed by André Cayatte as Piège pour Cendrillon, and has been partially transposed to Britain with the opening and closing scenes in France. The familiar noir plot has a young woman (Tuppence Middleton, an actor born to star in Half a Sixpence) survive a terrible country house explosion suffering from amnesia and needing a total facial reconstruction in an operation that leaves not a scar. Is she a rich heiress, as her former guardian (Kerry Fox) says, or the victim of some elaborate hoax?...

Paul Henreid: From lighting two cigarettes and blowing smoke onto Bette Davis’ face to lighting two cigarettes while directing twin Bette Davises Paul Henreid is back as Turner Classic Movies’ Star of the Month of July 2013. TCM will be showing four movies featuring Henreid (Now, Voyager; Deception; The Madwoman of Chaillot; The Spanish Main) and one directed by him (Dead Ringer). (Photo: Paul Henreid lights two cigarettes on the set of Dead Ringer, while Bette Davis remembers the good old days.) (See also: “Paul Henreid Actor.”) Irving Rapper’s Now, Voyager (1942) was one of Bette Davis’ biggest hits, and it remains one of the best-remembered romantic movies of the studio era — a favorite among numerous women and some gay men. But why? Personally, I find Now, Voyager a major bore, made (barely) watchable only by a few of the supporting performances (Claude Rains, Best Supporting Actress Academy Award nominee...

Above: L'amour d'une femme.

Edinburgh International Film Festival, under the direction of Chris Fujiwara, has ended for the year, and with it the Jean Grémillon retrospective, Symphonies of Life. Gathering most of the features (saving a few for-hire assignments) and all the surviving shorts, the season afforded an overview rarely possible with this neglected filmmaker.

Though the shorts were not my favorite Grémillons, they do illuminate the rest of his body of work. Documentaries on alchemy and astrology expose the filmmaker's fascination with the esoteric sciences, a major part of his life, which informs the tarot scenes in Lumière d'été and Maldone, where the cards indeed know all. Grémillon's sonorous, dreamy tones probably make him the greatest director-narrator outside of Orson Welles, and his self-penned music may be the finest outside of Chaplin's. The festival also played, at a fascinating symposium, the player piano score Grémillon wrote for a lost silent short,...

Title: You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet (Vous n’avez encore rien vu) Kino Lorber Director: Alain Resnais Screenwriter: Laurent Herbiet, Alex Reval, based on Jean Anouilh’s “Eurydice” and “Dear Antoine” Cast: Mathieu Amalric, Pierre Arditi, Sabine Azéma, Jean-Noël Bouté, Anne Cosigny, Denis Podalydès, Hippolyte Girardot, Michel Piccoli, Lambert Wilson Screened at: Review 1, NYC, 5/28/13 Opens: June 7, 2013 If you’re a fan of theater—and I mean cerebral theater, not “Cats” or “The Lion King”—you may have run across Luigi Pirandello’s 1921 play “Six Characters in Search of an Author,” one of the best examples of metatheater. In that imaginative work, an acting company prepares to rehearse the play “The Rules [ Read More ]

The post You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.

★★★☆☆ Alain Resnais has forged a hugely successful career that has had, running through it, an exploration of memory and the past. Having lost none of the experimental edge of his formative years, the French auteur returns to these themes once again for his latest film, You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet (Vous n'avez encore rien vu, 2012), a purposely artificial adaptation of two Jean Anouilh plays; Eurydice and Dear Antoine. An intriguing opening sequence sees a variety of well-known French actors (among them Mathieu Amalric and Michel Picolli) informed that a mutual friend, Antione d'Anthac (Denis Podalydés), is dead.

Read more »...

Actor known for his roles as clergymen, favourite uncles and tragic-comic characters

There is a great tradition in the rotundity of actors, and Roger Hammond, who has died aged 76 of cancer, stands proudly in a line stretching from Francis L Sullivan and Willoughby Goddard through to Roy Kinnear, Desmond Barrit and Richard Griffiths, though he was probably more malleably benevolent on stage than any of them.

He reeked of kindness, consideration and imperturbability, with a pleasant countenance and a beautiful, soft voice, qualities ideal for unimpeachable clergymen, favourite uncles and tragic-comic characters such as Waffles in Chekhov's Uncle Vanya (whom he played in a 1991 BBC TV film, with David Warner and Ian Holm), a man whose wife left him for another man on his wedding day but who has remained faithful to her and forgiving ever since.

Hammond grew up in Stockport, Lancashire. His chartered accountant father was managing director of his own family firm,...

Starring Arjun Rampal, Abhay Deol, Anjali Patil, Esha Gupta, Om Puri, Manoj Bajpai

Directed by Prakash Jha

Becket beckons Bollywood once again. The immortal French play by Jean Anouilh was furnished a sensitive renewability by Hrishikesh Mukherjee in Namak Haraam 38 years ago and then again much later by Govind Nihalani in Dev.

Now the stories of two friends separated by caste creed and ideology who are torn apart by their irreconcilable socio-political differences, is given a seriously spunky spin by Prakash Jha.

Staightaway, let’s get to the point(much in the same vein that the film does). This is Prakash Jha’s most resolutely etched and firmly grounded drama since Mrityudand, and a work way superior to his last two film Raajneeti and Aarakshan both of which suffered to some extent by being scattered in intent and pulled in too many directions.

While here again in Chakravyuh we witness...

Movie Review: Chakravyuh; Star Cast: Arjun Rampal, Abhay Deol, Anjali Patil, Esha Gupta, Om Puri, and Manoj Bajpayee; Director; Prakash Jha; Rating: **** - resolutely etched, firmly grounded drama.

"Becket" beckons Bollywood once again. The immortal French play by Jean Anouilh was furnished with a sensitive renewability by Hrishikesh Mukherjee in the 1973 movie "Namak Haraam" and then again by Govind Nihalani in "Dev" (2004).

Now the story of two friends, separated by caste, creed and ideology, who are torn apart by their irreconcilable socio-political differences, is given.

From Palme d’Or winner “Amour” to the latest offerings from some of the biggest names of world cinema such as Alain Resnais, Abbas Kiarostami, Bernando Bertoluci, Manoel de Oliveira , Brillante Mendoza, Ken Loach, Jacques Audiard, 14th Mumbai Film Festival has a lot to offer to the filmbuffs.

The festival offers an exciting lineup of more than two hundred films, spread over about a dozen screen and seven days! To help our readers decide we’ve picked up the most talked about films from festival circuit.

14th Mff runs from October 18th-25th, 2012 at the National Centre for Performing Arts (Ncpa), and Inox, Nariman Point, Liberty Cinemas, Marine Lines as the main festival venues and Cinemax, Andheri and Cinemax Sion as the satellite venues.

To get delegate pass for the festival, you can register here:

1) Beast of the Southern Wild

Dir.: Benh Zeitlin (USA/ 2012 /Col./ 92’)

Section: International Competition for...

Several famous actors, including Michel Piccoli, Pierre Arditi, Lambert Wilson, and Mathieu Amalric, receive the same phone call informing them that Antoine d'Anthac, a prominent playwright who would frequently cast all of them, has passed away. Summoned to the late man's estate by his well-mannered butler, they arrive to see Antoine's videotaped last will and testament: speaking from the screen, the deceased asks his lifelong friends to evaluate a contemporary take on his play, Eurydice, adapted by a much younger company. As the projection begins, the spectators involuntarily repeat the familiar dialogue, as if it were lifted out of their shared favorite movie; so the performance begins on its own and the spacious living room suddenly turns into a small-town railway café. Orpheus starts his soft fiddle-scraping. He is about to meet Eurydice.

"The playwright's duty," Jean Anouilh, French dramatist, once wrote, "is to produce plays on a regular basis.

Out of circulation for decades, Peter Glenville’s acclaimed film of Jean Anouilh’s 1959 play was recently restored by The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and Martin Scorsese’s Film Foundation. Friendly rivals Richard Burton and Peter O’Toole once again don regal robes as Archbishop Thomas Becket and King Henry II, whose emotional relationship sours over matters of faith. Edward Anhalt’s eloquent, endlessly quotable screenplay won the only one of the 12 Oscars this film was nominated for. Five years later O’Toole played an older Henry II in The Lion in Winter.

Liberated into the unexplored wilderness of the outside world–genre-bending, free-wheeling—with Wild Grass, Alain Resnais now turns inward, back to the studio, back to adapting theater, back to pleating life onto itself to resemble memories and the cinema. You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet sees a cast of the directors' regulars “playing themselves” and being mysteriously called to the mansion of a deceased playwright, their longtime collaborator. They are asked to evaluate a recorded rehearsal performance of a new edition of a classic play by the deceased, “Eurydice” (in fact a combination of two real plays by Jean Anouilh), and as they watch young French actors taking on the roles they once played, the older generation begins wistfully recalling lines, then, growing more enamored by the memories and the material, become entranced by the recitation, take it over, and begin to perform the play themselves.

Some characters are played by multiple actors—the romantic leads,...

French actors play themselves in Alain Resnais' indulgent, self-conscious film about acting, memory and the persistence of the past

Alain Resnais' remarkable film-making career continues with his return to the Cannes competition at the age of 89. This is a quasi-theatrical contrivance based partly around Jean Anouilh's 1941 play Eurydice. Bruno Podalydès plays Antoine D'Anthac, a cultured and wealthy dramatist whose death is announced by telephone to his close friends in the opening sequence. These are French acting eminences, playing themselves: Michel Piccoli, Mathieu Amalric, Anne Consigny, Lambert Wilson and many more. His lawyer invites them to D'Anthac's home and declares it is the wish of the deceased that they all watch a video recording of a performance of his play Eurydice, acted by a company of twentysomethings, La Compagnie de la Colombe. This was a play they had all been in, when younger, and the recording transports them...

Vivacious Irish actor best known for her role opposite Albert Finney in Tom Jones

The red-haired, vivacious and provocative Irish actor Joyce Redman, who has died aged 93, will for ever be remembered for her lubricious meal-time munching and swallowing opposite Albert Finney in Tony Richardson's 1963 film of Tom Jones. Eyes locked, lips smacked and jaws rotated as the two of them tucked into a succulent feast while eyeing up the afters. Sinking one's teeth into a role is one thing. This was quite another, and deliciously naughty, the mother of all modern mastication scenes.

Redman and Finney were renewing a friendship forged five years earlier when both appeared with Charles Laughton in Jane Arden's The Party at the New (now the Noël Coward) theatre. Redman was not blamed by the critic Kenneth Tynan for making nothing of her role as Laughton's wife. "Nothing," he said, "after all, will come of nothing.

With new offerings from Audiard, Haneke and Loach, this year's festival will be another feast of quality film-making. Could have done with a few more women directors, mind

Once again, the Cannes film festival has unveiled a gorgeous list. The only disappointments, for some, will be the fact that Paul Thomas Anderson's The Master and Terrence Malick's new project were not included, reportedly because they were not ready in time – although the idea of Malick actually having a new film completed just one year after the last head-spinning epic is fantastically improbable: as if he had moved up to a Roger Corman level of productivity. Some observers will be disappointed that Stoker, by the South Korean director Park Chan-wook has not been selected, likewise Wong Kar-wai's The Grand Master – although the festival could sneak in a late entry here and there.

The relative absence of women in the list of directors is,...

Photo: Cannes Film Festival Update: The full line-up is now available right here. We are now less than 24 hours away from the official 2012 Cannes Film Festival line-up announcement and I have to admit, my excitement for what may come is hitting overload. As much as the Toronto Film Festival has come to be the place where several films begin their Oscar run, there simply is nothing better than the international cinematic prestige of attending the Cannes Film Festival each year and this will mark my third year attending. With that in mind, late last night I added an additional nine films to the RopeofSilicon database that have the potential of being named during tomorrow's (April 19) announcement, which should come sometime around 2 or 3 Am Pst. After doing so I felt it wouldn't hurt to take one last look at what films have the strongest chance of showing up at the festival this year.

Kristen Stewart, Garrett Hedlund, Sam Riley (back), On the Road Woody Allen/Abbas Kiarostami/Robert Pattinson/Kylie Minogue: Cannes 2012 Possibilities Pt.1 Below are a few more strong Cannes 2012 possibilities: Alain Resnais' Vous n'avez encore rien vu / You've Seen Nothing Yet. The veteran Resnais — who turns 90 next June — completed his version of Jean Anouilh's Eurydice last April. The film's all-star cast includes Mathieu Amalric, Lambert Wilson (as Orpheus), Michel Piccoli, Anne Consigny (as Eurydice), Sabine Azéma (also as Eurydice), Hippolyte Girardot, Michel Robin, Pierre Arditi (also as Orpheus), Denis Podalydès, and Anny Duperey. Terrence Malick's The Funeral (possibly a provisory title), supposedly about an American man whose marriage to an European woman flounders. He then begins a relationship with a woman from his own hometown. Malick's drama features Ben Affleck, Jessica Chastain, Rachel McAdams, Rachel Weisz, Javier Bardem, Michael Sheen, Olga Kurylenko, Amanda Peet, and Barry Pepper.

The best part about being a film fan in a big city is that you are exposed to so many films that you would have otherwise never heard of. Obscure arthouse releases, strange french films and more film festivals that you can shake a fist at, it’s rare that I am able to predict with any accuracy my year end list. Even looking at my attempt to put together my most anticipated films of 2011, only three actually end up on my year end-list, the same amount that were shelved or pushed to 2012. It’s nonetheless a fun experiment, a chance to have a look at the year ahead.

21- Holy Motors

It has been over ten years since French filmmaker Leos Carax, best known for Mauvais Sang, has released a film. Always a daring filmmaker, there is no surprise that his new film treads new ground, exploring space and...

A few weeks ago I featured a couple of posters by the French illustrator Roger Jacquier, also known as Rojac. Since then I’ve tried to find out as much about him as possible, but have gleaned little more than that he was born in 1913, designed his first posters in 1932 (when he was just 19), worked steadily throughout the 30s, 40s and 50s, and died in 1997. Beyond that, and the fact that he always signed his posters with “rojac” and the last two digits of the year, I know nothing and if anyone can enlighten me further I’m all ears. I did, however, manage to find a number of Rojac’s posters online, almost all of which confirmed my first impression of him as one of the great movie poster illustrators. If he’s not as well known as some of his peers, it may be because a lot of...

Actor often seen in unsympathetic roles

Although she rarely had a leading role, the actor Neva Patterson, who has died aged 90, made the most of the parts she was given. She had a great line in cold, uptight, probably sexually repressed women. In the romantic comedy An Affair to Remember (1957), she played an heiress, Lois Clark, waiting on the dock in New York for a playboy (Cary Grant) to arrive from Europe to marry her. But she had not reckoned that he might have fallen for another woman (Deborah Kerr) on board. Although her character is spoilt and controlling, Patterson elicited some sympathy as Lois gradually realises that she is losing her fiance.

To a degree, Patterson was typecast in the movies. In the delightful comedy The Solid Gold Cadillac (1956), she is Judy Holliday's prim secretary, with her hair in a bun and dressed in a severe suit. Holliday...

Note: this is not some casting news headline from a couple of years back. Wild Grass featured ensemble of André Dussollier, Sabine Azéma, Mathieu Amalric and Anne Consigny are joining Alain Resnais' next feature, which will begin lensing in January of next year. Also joining the cast of Vous N'avez Encore Rien Vu, we have Jean-Pierre Bacri, Isabelle Nanty and trio Pierre Arditi, Lambert Wilson and Claude Rich who all appeared in Resnais' 2006 film Private Fears in Public Places. Filming begins in January and will last for. Gist: Co-written by Resnais and Laurent Herbiet, this is adapted from Jean Anouilh’s stage play Eurydice, where a violinist Orphée and touring actress Eurydice leave everything behind to fulfill their love. But jealousy takes hold of Orphée. Worth Noting: For a French filmmaker who has made very little amount of films, he sure if cranking them out in the late stages of his career.