TCMFF Day 3: Michael Douglas and the power of protest

Though the theme of the TCM Classic Film Festival this year is comedy, that hasn't stopped political themes from emerging during discussions with special guests. Yesterday morning's screening of The China Syndrome with Michael Douglas in attendance was just such an example. Douglas and host Ben Mankiewicz started out talking about the aesthetic and casting choices of the nuclear meltdown film, produced by Douglas and starring Jack Lemmon and Jane Fonda. However, as with the release of the movie - which happened to be released days before the Three Mile Island accident in early 1979 - the timing of the Q&A between the TCM host and the veteran actor/producer meant that conversation soon turned to themes of destruction, education, and protest.

It turns out that Michael Douglas makes a very charming protestor. Douglas explained that while he hadn't cared much about nuclear dangers or disarmament before producing The China Syndrome, when the script was handed to him by a documentarian, his interest and irateness was piqued...

Click to read more ...

TCMFF Day 2: Carl & Rob Reiner Honored at Handprint Ceremony

by Anne Marie

While Turner Classic Movies is typically known for celebrating film history, today TCM made history. Carl Reiner and Rob Reiner, writer/director/actor/producer quadruple threats whose career includes Sid Caesar's Show of Shows, The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Russians are Coming, The Russians Are Coming, The Princess Bride and This Is Spinal Tap, were the first father/son duo to be immortalized in the Chinese Theater handprint ceremony. Before the two cemented their legacy next to Marilyn Monroe, Al Pacino, and Trigger the Horse, friends and colleagues from their cumulative 135 year long careers paid tribute to two of the funniest men in Hollywood...

Click to read more ...

TCM Classic Film Festival 2017 Starts Today!

Greetings, classic Hollywood fans! Anne Marie, here, returning to the blog! The sun is shining, the stars on Hollywood Blvd are gleaming, and there's been an uptick of tourists taking pictures of Bette Davis's handprints outside the TCL Chinese Theatre, all of which mean just one thing: it's time for the TCM Classic Film Festival! 

This year, the most explosive news of the festival is the screening of several movies on nitrate film. TCM has always prided itself on screening 35mm at its festival side by side with new digital restorations. However, projecting nitrate prints requires a retrofit of the projection booths that handle the infamously flammable film stock. Fortunately, the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood recently underwent just such a renovation thanks the Hollywood Foreign Press, The Film Foundation, and Turner Classic Movies. As a result, movies ranging from Laura to Black Narcissus and the original The Man Who Knew Too Much will once again get the chance to light the screen ablaze - metaphorically, of course...

Click to read more ...

Cannes Poster Unveiled

Claudia Cardinale is this poster girl for the 70th edition of the Cannes Film Festival (May 17th-28th). 

The Italian star, whose credits include classics like 8½, Once Upon a Time in the West, The Leopard, Big Deal on Madonna Street, and Rocco and His Brothers is 78 now. She's still a regular on film festival red carpets. This photo of her was taken in 1959 when she was just 21 (and people are not happy that it's been reportedly airbrushed to make her thighs smaller.)

More news: Another Italian goddess Monica Bellucci has been named the Mistress of Ceremonies; Romanian auteur Cristian Mungiu (4 Months 3 Weeks and 2 Days,  Beyond the Hills) will preside over the Cinéfondation and Short Films Jury; and the Main Competition Jury president is Spain's Pedro Almodóvar. We don't yet know what the films he'll be judging are (and who will be on his jury) but speculated titles include Alexander Payne's Downsizing, Todd Haynes Wonderstruck, Michael Haneke's Happy End, and Sofia Coppola's The Beguiled. 

New Directors / New Films: "Happiness Academy"

Have you ever seen a film which mixes documentary with fiction? Hybrid films, films with documentary and fiction parts or at least performed / acted elements have been around for some time. I'm not enough of a documentary expert to know if this is an increasing trend but in the past few years I've seen a few. From my (extremely limited) experience the combo can spark frissons of excitement and thoughtful layers as in Sarah Polley's autobiographical mystery Stories We Tell. The hybrid approach can also be both fascinating and exhausting simultaneously as with Clio Barnard's The Arbor (2010) in which actors lipsynched to recorded interviews from the actual documentary subjects.

At this year's New Directors / New Films festival, which wraps today in NYC, the hybrid technique (genre?) gets another discussable entry via Happiness Academy...

Click to read more ...