Bergman Centennial: Death and "The Seventh Seal"

by Chris Feil

The Seventh Seal begins with some of the most enigmatic and iconic imagery of Ingmar Bergman’s career. Which is saying something considering the auteur’s filmography is composed almost entirely of meditative frames. Here Max von Sydow's post-Crusades knight Antonious Block is visited by a black cloaked Death and the two take part in a literal and intellectual game of chess. It’s a grave way to start a film, one that still endures for its thematic impact and how it establishes the rest of its stark narrative as spiritually timeless.

Named for the passage in the Book of Revelation marking the final opening of the apocalyptic scrolls and the resulting period of silence in heaven, the film lives in that quiet Godlessness...

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100 Oldest Living Oscar Nominees & Winners

This list is now updated and living here. 

LAFCA Honors Max von Sydow with Career Achievement Award

by Daniel Crooke

There’s something inherently epic about Max von Sydow’s body of work, a near seven-decade span marked by performances of quiet magnanimity in tales of biblical proportions, literally and thematically. More often than not, his mere presence – lanky yet lancing, wispy and towering, handsome and weary, often perturbed by the particulars of his environment  – conjures a lightning bolt of philosophical inquiry into each scene.

After exorcising (not to mention playing chess with, and later playing) the devil, portraying a host of priests, popes, cardinals, and apostles, directors and professors, living-breathing ciphers, and the occasional everyman, von Sydow will be awarded the Career Achievement prize this year from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association...

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Link Nation

Deadline gross. They're making Animal Kingdom (2010) into a tv series? Ellen Barkin is in the Jacki Weaver role so there's that but leave great things alone!
Out talks to Judy Greer about playing girlfriend to Lily Tomlin in Grandma
AV Club another underappreciated actress Carla Gugino has taken over lead role duties from Christina Hendricks in Cameron Crowe's Roadies
MNPP Director John Curran leaves the Lewis & Clarke miniseries so Casey Affleck and Matthias Schoenaerts are without a director. (Naturally there are cute shirtless set photos this being MNPP) 

Deadline Billy Crudup won the top male role in 20th Century Women, though it's not the lead. That belongs to The Bening (yay!) and the film is from the undervalued but excellent writer/director Mike Mills (Beginners)
Demanders looks back at My Beautiful Laundrette which recently got a Criterion release 
Variety happy news: Season 2 of Transparent arrives in time for Christmas
i09 Ridley Scott still planning on filming a Prometheus sequel next year. (And with Michael Fassbender. How exactly will Fassy be able to squeeze that into his ever busy schedule?)
NY Times Christopher McQuarrie on the anatomy of the Opera scene in Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation 
MNPP Jai Courtney is... um... enjoying himself 
AV Club The legendary Max Von Sydow joining the cast of Game of Thrones. That's quite a get for the series. Related but not at this link. /Film also covered this story and were shameless traffic whores enough to not even include von Sydow's name in the headline but merely referred to him as "Star Wars Rogue Nation" actor. That's so disrespectful... and just tacky. End of times.  

Woody 2016
Woody Allen has announced the cast of his next Untitled Film (2016). We rarely get anything but a cast list and location as the projects are secretive and/or Woody is not a chatterbox. This one shoots in LA & NYC and will reunite Woody with Parker Posey (Irrational Man), Corey Stoll (Midnight in Paris) and Jesse Eisenberg (To Rome With Love) and first timer in Woody's world newbies: Jeannie Berlin (who does not work enough, she was last seen on the phone with Joaquin Phoenix in Inherent Vice), Blake Lively, Kristen Stewart, Ken Stott, Bruce Willis, Anna Camp, Stephen Kunken, Sari Lennick, and Paul Schneider

About The New Banner
"Anonny" gave me two options for banner topic when he won the theme-choosing with Question of the Week. Though "sweaty" would have been truly new, I promise y'all that it wouldn't have read in black-and-white closeups up top. Unless it was comically drenched sweating and there's only, what, Airplane (1980) for that?

So the new banner is "GRUMPY". I'm not feeling grumpy so I really had to work on my own pose. I'm hesistantly elated. Toronto International Film Festival plans seem settled and I had such a great time last year. I can't truly expect it to be that good every year but it's my favorite festival so cross your fingers that a lot of masterpieces emerge. 

THR Emmy Drama Actress Roundtable (in full)
I'd embed it here but we have a policy against "autoplay" videos. Too noisy. Too disruptive to readers. But if you're interested watch it at THR: Viola Davis, Jessica Lange, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Lizzy Caplan, Taraji P Henson, and Ruth Wilson. Kind of strange that they waited until after nominations to release the full versions of these (the others arrive throughout August) when some of the people in each roundtable weren't nominated. Naturally Taraji P Henson is the most entertaining.

Curio: Happy Birthday Max von Sydow

Alexa here.  Max von Sydow turns 83 today, and I plan on celebrating by watching a recently-gifted Criterion copy of The Magician. His presence always makes me happy, in everything from heavy fare (Pelle The Conqueror) to silly (Needful Things is a guilty pleasure).  Even he couldn't save Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close for me, though.  Here are some fan creations I've spied that celebrate some highlights from his oeuvre.

The Magician by Petur Nagy and Miklos Foldi.As Frederick in Hannah and Her Sisters, drawn by Peter Mack.

Click for Max-centric posters for The Exorcist and The Seventh Seal...

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