Thursday, May 25, 2017 at 8:00PM Tweet of the Week...
"now you're in the sun-Cannes place." pic.twitter.com/jgYJNzwGb9
— Neil Young (@BohemiaStable) May 24, 2017
Get it? Oh reader, I LOL'ed and LOL'ed. Cannes fun follows after the jump but first some non-Cannes thoughts and amusements featuring Twin Peaks, Rooney Mara, Reservoir Dogs and more...
Friday, December 23, 2016 at 12:00PM In this weekly feature from Murtada we will follow the Oscar contenders and examine how their many interviews and appearances impact their chances. This week we check in with Emma Stone, Octavia Spencer, Ryan Reynolds, and Michelle Williams.
Emma Stone
It seems every week there is some event or interview with one of the stars of La La Land. That campaign is going on full throttle to maintain the film’s frontrunner status...
Monday, May 30, 2016 at 9:44AM 
Happy Memorial Day my peoples. Let's have another history lesson via showbiz
On this day in history as it relates to the movies...
1431 Joan of Arc is burned at the stake. If you've never seen The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928), one of the best movies of all time containing hugely powerful actressing by Falconetti you must repent. Save your soul and watch it.
1536 King Henry VIII, whose wives all tended to die prematurely (funny how that happens) marries Jane Seymour (not to be confused with the Dr Quinn Medicine Woman & Somewhere in Time actress). 477 years later Oscar Isaac sings about Queen Jane's tragic life in Inside Llewyn Davis's very best scene.
1896 Howard Hawks is born. Makes so many great films but my favorites are: Bringing Up Baby (1938), Red River (1948) and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)
Inside Llewyn Davis (2013): The Death Of Queen Jane (The Movie Title Song) from dky6dcnQbL dky6dcnQbL on Vimeo.
1899 Movie titan Irving Thalberg is born. The craziest actressexuals (*raises hand*) know him as Mr. Norma Shearer but mostly people think of him as "another name for an Honorary Oscar" though the prize is actually a bust of the man himself. 39 people have won this at the Oscars for bodies of work that "reflect a consistently high quality of motion picture production". All 39 of them have been men.
1920 Franklin J Schaffner is born in Tokyo to American missionary parents. He'll eventually direct motion pictures like The Stripper, Boys from Brazil, and Planet of the Apes and win the Oscar for Patton (1970).
1928 International treasure Agnès Varda is born in Belgium. Anne Marie wrote about her work last year so check that out.
1941 Blood and Sand, Tyrone Power's matador pic, is released. Wins Best Cinematography at the Oscars. Happy 75th Anniversary!
1971 "Adele Dazeem" is born, shatters the ear drum of the doctor who spanks her newborn tush.
2003 Finding Nemo opens in movie theaters. Begins its gargantuan box office swim through movie theaters
2014 Maleficent opens in theaters, desecreating the beautiful wickedness of one of the all time great screen villains by making her a misunderstood victim.
Will you be making history today? What's your plan?
Thursday, June 25, 2015 at 3:01PM 
At the 2013 AFI Fest, Agnes Varda told her audience that if one really wanted to understand her, they should look to her documentaries. Varda made documentaries throughout her career, interspersed with shorts and features, on a variety of subjects. Her best-known documentary was 2000's The Gleaners and I, an examination of France's cultural history of "gleaning," in all the word's definitions. There are crop gleaners who follow the harvest, protected by French law, and immortalized in art. There are urban gleaners who pick through trash to find food or art or inspiration. And of course, there is Varda the filmmaker, gleaning what truths about life that she can from her interview subjects, while also turning her digital camera on herself. What follows is a complex documentary that - like its director/subject - has many definitions and perspectives.
The film opens with Varda introducing her viewers to the romantic image of gleaners they're probably most familiar with - a series of paintings depicting gleaning as a noble, if backbreaking, labor. Varda quickly dismisses that halcyon image by introducing the viewers to modern day gleaners - thrifty, poor men and women stuffing potatoes or oysters or apples into plastic bags and pails. A different film would have stayed with these homeless folks on the fringes of society, but Varda doesn't dwell solely on their poverty. This is a film about people, and Varda finds some fascinating examples - chefs, anarchists, lawyers, teachers, and artists, of course.
Friday, June 19, 2015 at 3:01PM 
If there’s one kind of first film I love watching above all others, it’s the first color movie by a director previously confined to black and white. Vincente Minnelli’s Meet Me in St. Louis, Powell & Pressburger’s The Thief of Baghdad, and Akira Kurosawa’s Dodes'ka-den are colorful extravaganzas by directors who, though already well-respected for their monochrome movies, will master this new filmmaking tool. The film is even better when that director, like the aforementioned Kurosawa or our director of the month Agnes Varda, is an artist. Le Bonheur is not Agnes Varda’s best film. It’s not even her best film of the 1960s. But if you want to witness an hour and a half of experimentation with how color reflects and refracts a movie’s theme, then Le Bonheur is the film you want to watch.
For a brightly-colored movie with the title “Happiness,” Le Bonheur is remarkably cruel. Perhaps this accounts for its reputation as one of Agnes Varda’s most controversial movies. Or perhaps it is because, after the empathetic female-centric Cleo from 5 to 7, Varda chose to tell a story about a man who treats the women in his life so poorly. François Chevalier (Jean-Claude Drouot) is a carefree carpenter living in idyllic marital bliss with his wife, Thérèse (Claire Drouot), and their two children. When François meets a new postal worker named Émilie (Marie-France Boyer), he falls immediately into love with her as well. The majority of the film is spent following François from his wife to his mistress and back again, as he guiltlessly and guilelessly adds to his happiness by spending time with each woman. When François finally tells his wife, her reaction is surprising and tragic.
What’s more surprising, though, is how little her tragedy means to the conclusion of the story. Since its release in 1965, Le Bonheur has been subject to many different interpretations by critics, however, Varda’s use of color commentary - of color as commentary - spells out her intent. [More...]
