Zack O’Malley Greenburg is the author of five books, including “A-List Angels” and the Jay-Z biography “Empire State of Mind,” and a former senior editor for Forbes. He writes a music business newsletter called the Zogblog.

I first got to know legendary sex guru Dr. Ruth Westheimer as an undergrad at Yale, where I took her seminar on “Personal Fulfillment and Intimacy in the American Family” in the spring of 2007. And although I learned a great deal about her primary area of expertise, some of her most memorable comments involved another passion of hers: music.

“Some people get aroused by Bolero,” she explained, rolling each letter “r” as she always did. “And I say fine! If that’s what arouses you, then go have a good time.”

Westheimer, who passed away on Saturday at the age of 96, became an international celebrity in the 1980s, breaking societal taboos around sex while...

If Joseph Kosinski’s last film “Top Gun: Maverick” is any metric, his next film “F1,” starring Brad Pitt and Damson Idris as teammates in the world of Formula 1 racing, is set up to be another propulsive, edge-of-your set experience about man’s bond with machine and the limits it can take you to.

Kosinski filmed actual scenes at last year’s British Grand Prix, as well as other races throughout the season, incorporating footage of actors actually behind the wheel of F1 vehicles along with real-life drivers like Lewis Hamilton.

In addition to Pitt and Idris, “F1” also boasts a cast that includes Kerry Condon, Javier Bardem, Tobias Menzies, Sarah Niles, Kim Bodnia, and Samson Kayo.

According to the official synopsis of the film, “F1” follows former Formula 1 driver Sonny Hayes (Pitt), who is lured back to the sport to partner rookie teammate Joshua Pearce (Idris) at the fictional Apxgp team.

What's the best Jack Nicholson movie? Ask a group of film fans, and you'll likely get a half-dozen different answers. The actor's most historically significant movie may be "Chinatown," the sun-baked California noir from 1974 that earned 11 Oscar nominations and a permanent spot in the American Library of Congress' National Film Registry. Or it might be "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," the beloved adaptation of Ken Kesey's novel that swept the Oscars in 1975 and turned the already-popular Nicholson into Hollywood's hottest commodity.

The actor's most popular films according to Letterboxd users are Stanley Kubrick's horror masterpiece "The Shining" and Martin Scorsese's crime saga "The Departed." His highest-grossing role at the box office came in 1989, when Tim Burton cast him as the rictus-grin supervillain The Joker in "Batman." Other popular moneymakers featuring the veteran performer include James L. Brooks' "As Good As It Gets," Nancy Meyers' "Something's Gotta Give,...

Within a career that lasted over 50 years, French singer-songwriter, actress, author, fashion icon, and astrologist Françoise Hardy — who passed away Tuesday, June 11 after a long battle with cancer — produced 32 studio albums, performed in over 10 films and television specials, wrote six books, and influenced countless artists ranging from Carla Bruni to Charli Xcx. Her screen career includes roles in films like Jean-Luc Godard’s “Masculin Féminin” and John Frankenheimer’s “Grand Prix.”

She was a renegade. A heartbreaker. Born at the height of World War II in Paris, her upbringing coincided with a great sociopolitical re-evaluation in France that fed her own anxieties and obsessions. Seeking artistic refuge outside of her home country, she found inspiration in American music that, by her teen years, was starting to reach her shores.

“This passion for singing became real madness when I discovered an English station called Radio Luxembourg,” Hardy said in a 2012 interview with Télérama.

Jean-Paul Vignon, the romantic French vocalist and actor who impressed audiences on both sides of the Atlantic during an eight-decade career, died March 22 of liver cancer in Beverly Hills, his family announced. He was 89.

Performing a repertoire of contemporary pop and American standards, Vignon debuted in the U.S. in 1963 at the famed New York supper club The Blue Angel, where he opened for stand-up comic Woody Allen.

Ed Sullivan would soon showcase him on his Sunday night CBS variety show in eight appearances — including one in which he sang a duet with young Liza Minnelli — and he became a regular guest on Johnny Carson and Merv Griffin’s programs.

Signed to Columbia Records, Vignon released his first U.S. album, Because I Love You, in 1964. Three years later, he had a supporting role opposite William Holden and Cliff Robertson in the World War II film The Devil’s Brigade.

In...

“Any resemblance to real events and dead or living people is not a coincidence. It is Intentional.” So reads a title card at the beginning of Costa-Gavras’ Z, set in an unnamed Mediterranean country that could stand in for any number of police states torn between Russian and American influence at the height of the Cold War. The 1969 Franco-Algerian production was fittingly international: While the dialogue (by Spanish writer Jorge Semprún) is in French, the plot itself, based on a book by Greek author Vassilis Vassilikos, adheres to events in Greece following the 1963 assassination of a popular pacifist candidate (whose counterpart is played by Yves Montand) who’d dared to oppose the ruling junta. The titular letter, painted across the street in a climactic scene, was a protest slogan that meant “He lives.”

“Here is the new Hitchcock we have been awaiting,” crowed THR about the Greek director. “Whatever the political commitments of its makers,...

Update: A memorial service for Norma Barzman will be held tomorrow from 10 Am-1 Pm at Pierce Brothers Westwood Village Memorial Park & Mortuary in Los Angeles.

Norma Barzman, a prominent screenwriter who was blacklisted due to her involvement with the American Communist Party, died Sunday at her Beverly Hills home, according to a social media post from her daughter Suzo Barzman. She was 103.

Barzman wrote the original story for Never Say Goodbye (1947) starring Errol Flynn with husband Ben Barzman. She was an uncredited writer on The Locket (1946) starring Laraine Day and Robert Mitchum. She wrote Finishing School (1952) and on the TV series Il triangolo rosso (1967). She also appeared as an actress in Theatre 70 (1970) and Pajama Party (2000) as the “Groovy Grandma.”

Barzman was unapologetic about her involvement with the Communist party from 1943-49. In a 2014 interview with the L.A. Times, she maintained that “one should be proud to have been a member...

When Barbra Streisand delivered her 992-page memoir to her editor at Viking earlier this year, did anyone urge her to cut? Even gently?

Not that it would have done any good, for Streisand has a lot to say and her opus was termed “exhausting, ecstatic and undeniably moving” by the New Yorker this week.

Streisand hasn’t changed. On her first day of shooting On a Clear Day You Can See Forever (1970), when her director Vincente Minnelli shouted “cut,” she shook her head, saying she intended to keep going.

Minnelli had made great movies like An American In Paris and Gigi and had even survived working with (and being married to) Judy Garland. “One doesn’t say ‘no’ to Minnelli,” Streisand was warned by legendary writer Alan Jay Lerner (My Fair Lady).

Neither had as yet learned their Barbra lesson. Nor had her agent, Sue Mengers, who later tried to...

With both Disney and Warner Bros. turning 100 this year, it’s a great time to remember the Golden Age of moviemaking. The business is changing at a precipitous rate, and recent studio mergers have forever altered the longtime map of Hollywood production.

Actors and crew members, like armies, march on their stomachs, and since the dawn of the industry, it’s been up to the studios where they’re shooting to keep them well fortified. Studio executives and office workers, too, needed a convenient place to eat on the lots.

While researching the recent Culinary Historians presentation “Lunching on the Lot,” a 1997 quote from Variety story turned up which deftly explained what studio commissaries meant to the business. “After a gourmet tour of studio eateries, however, one thing is clear — It ain’t the chow that’s important. When the tribe hunkers down for its daily repast, ritual and symbolism are the rule.

Netflix has announced a remake of the 1950s French classic The Wages of Fear (Le Salaire de la Peur), in a production reuniting the platform with action-thriller maestro Julien Leclercq.

Production is currently underway on the untitled film for a scheduled release in 2024.

The 1953 original starred Yves Montand, Peter van Eyck, Charles Vanel and Folco Lulli as four down-on-their-luck men who are hired to drive trucks laden with nitroglycerine through the mountains as part of an operation to extinguish an oil well fire.

The work is regarded as one of the most suspenseful action-thrillers of all time.

Leclercq’s reboot stars Franck Gastambide, best known internationally for his role in Taxi 5, opposite Alban Lenoir (Lost Bullet), Ana Girardot (The House) and Sofiane Zermani (No Limit).

“To reunite this cast for the reboot of such a film, for a worldwide broadcast with Netflix, forces me to put all my heart and guts into it,...

Backstage at the Valentino Haute Couture Spring 2020 collection with Hannelore Knuts and creative director Pierpaolo Piccioli Photo: Archivio Fotografico Paolo Di Paolo

Pier Paolo Pasolini, Luchino Visconti, Anna Magnani, Michelangelo Antonioni, Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Charlotte Rampling, Grace Kelly, Marcello Mastroianni, Rudolf Nureyev, Sophia Loren, Ezra Pound, Faye Dunaway, Monica Vitti, Giorgio de Chirico, Gina Lollobrigida, Tennessee Williams, Marlene Dietrich, Giulietta Masina, Simone Signoret, Yves Montand, Brigitte Bardot, Catherine Deneuve, Anita Ekberg, Vittorio De Sica, Alberto Moravia, and many others were photographed by Bruce Weber’s muse and subject of his latest documentary The Treasure Of His Youth: The Photographs Of Paolo Di Paolo, which starts with an overture of images and film clips. After putting his camera away for decades we see di Paolo return to shoot Pierpaolo Piccioli’s Valentino Haute Couture Spring 2020 collection.

Paolo di Paolo with Silvia di Paolo and Anne-Katrin Titze on Tennessee Williams: “I...

Irene Papas, the Greek actress known for such films as “Zorba the Greek,” “Z” and “The Guns of Navarone,” has died. She was 93.

Greece’s Ministry of Culture and Sports confirmed the news Wednesday in a statement.

Papas starred in over 70 films and stage productions throughout her career spanning nearly six decades, from Hollywood features to French and Italian cinema. She also appeared in dozens of Greek tragedies, including the title role in the 1961 film adaptation of “Antigone.”

Born on Sept. 3, 1929, in the village of Chiliomodi near Corinth, Papas began her acting studies as a teenager and later worked on multiple film and TV projects in the ’40’s and ’50s, including “The Man from Cairo,” “The Unfaithfuls,” “Bouboulina” and “Attila,” among others.

In 1961, she played a supporting role in “The Guns of Navarone” starring Gregory Peck, David Niven and Anthony Quinn. Papas then starred opposite Quinn and Alan Bates in...

Irene Papas, the Greek actress who starred in such films as The Guns of Navarone, Z, Zorba the Greek and dozens of other films, playing opposite many of Hollywood’s biggest stars, died Wednesday in her hometown of Chilimodion. She was 93.

No cause of death was given, but Papas was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in the mid-2010s.

Greece’s Ministry of Culture and Sports confirmed the news. “Magnificent, majestic, dynamic, Irene Papas was the personification of Greek beauty on the cinema screen and on the theater stage, an international leading lady who radiated Greekness,” Minister Lina G. Mendoni said in a statement.

Hollywood & Media Deaths 2022: A Photo Gallery

Papas was a veteran of French and Italian cinema as well as Hollywood. During her nearly six-decade screen career, she starred with such screen legends as Gregory Peck, Kirk Douglas, Katharine Hepburn, Richard Burton, James Cagney, Maximilian Schell, David Niven,...

Jean-Luc Godard, who died Tuesday at 91, was the filmmaker who changed everything. He directed “Breathless,” the 1960 landmark that helped to launch the French New Wave, employing a new, fast, leaping-ahead technique and style — the jump cut — that altered the DNA of how movies were made. In the ’60s, he took his camera out into the streets and into cafés, stores, offices, and apartments, so that a Godard film often seemed like a documentary about fictional characters. He drew many of those characters from Old Hollywood, a world he’d grown up on and remained obsessed with, but one that he always made seem a million miles away, like some black-and-white Garden of Eden the world had fallen from. So even as you were watching Jean-Paul Belmondo play a glamorous hoodlum or Anna Karina play a femme fatale, you knew that you were also seeing an actor toy with the very...

The 2022 Cannes Film Festival has revealed its competition jury, with “Titane” and “Fire” star Vincent Lindon presiding as President of the Jury to mark the 75th anniversary of the festival.

Lindon is the first French actor to be Jury President in over a decade, since Isabelle Huppert helmed the jury in 2009. In the history of the Festival, French celebrities have often held this role in an anniversary year, such as Yves Montand in 1987 for the 40th Festival, Gérard Depardieu in 1993 for the 45th Festival, and Isabelle Adjani in 1997 for the 50th.

The festival is set to take place May 17 through May 28, resuming in-person festivities for the second year in a row after last year’s return to normal (albeit two months later than usual).

Rebecca Hall, Deepika Padukone, Noomi Rapace, Asghar Farhadi, Ladj Ly, Jeff Nichols, and Joachim Trier also serve as jury members.

Jury President Lindon starred in the...

Following a tortuous journey and dozens of crazy rumors, the Cannes Film Festival has landed Vincent Lindon, the French actor of last year’s Palme d’Or winning “Titan,” as jury president of its 75th edition.

Lindon, who won best actor in 2015 for his role in Stephane Brizé’s movie “The Measure of a Man,” will be the first French star to be jury president since Isabelle Huppert in 2009. The festival said “French celebrities have often held this role in an anniversary year, such as Yves Montand in 1987 for the 40th Festival, Gérard Depardieu in 1993 for the 45th Festival, and Isabelle Adjani in 1997 for the 50th.”

The jury will comprise two-time Oscar-winning filmmaker Asghar Farhadi (“A Hero”), as well as U.S. helmer Jeff Nichols (“Take Shelter”), British actor and filmmaker Rebecca Hall (“Passing”), Danish-born Indian actor Deepika Padukone (“Chennai Express”), Swedish actor Noomi Rapace (“Lamb”), Italian actor and director...

The last French acting star to preside over the jury was Isabelle Huppert in 2009.

French actor Vincent Lindon has been named president of the jury for the 75th Cannes Film Festival, running May 17-28.

He will be joined by eight other jury members comprising UK actress and director Rebecca Hall, Indian actress Deepika Padukone, Swedish actress Noomi Rapace, Italian actress and director Jasmine Trinca, Iranian director Asghar Farhadi, French director Ladj Ly, US director Jeff Nichols and Norwegian director Joachim Trier.

In the same release, Cannes also announced that Trinca’s debut feature Marcel! will world premiere as a Special Screening.

Jean-Pierre Melville in 4K? That’s an inviting idea. All of Melville crime pictures are memorable, and this is one of his best-remembered, a traditional caper drama with a wordless heist scene that lasts almost half an hour. The color production stars three big French actors and one Italian. Alain Delon and Gian Maria Volonté are the career thieves, joined by the conflicted Yves Montand as an alcoholic ex-cop. Comedian Bourvil is enlisted in a surprise role as the completely serious and less-than-ethical police inspector on their trail. We have to admire producer-writer-director Melville’s skill — he achieves a high-budget sheen with a minimum of production resources.

Le cercle rouge

4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 218

1970 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 140 min. / The Red Circle / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date March 15, 2022 / 49.95

Starring: Alain Delon, Bourvil, Gian Maria Volonté, Yves Montand, Francois Périer, Ana Douking, Paul Crauchet, Paul Amiot, Pierre Collet,...

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Cinema Retro continues covering films that are not currently available on home video in the U.S. or U.K.

By Brian Hannan

"Sanctuary" is an overheated melodrama that stands as a classic example of Hollywood’s offensive attitudes to women. Nobel prize-winning author William Faulkner could hardly blame the movies for sensationalising his misogynistic source material since, if anything, the movie took a softer line. The story is told primarily in flashback as headstrong southern belle Temple Drake (Lee Remick) attempts to mitigate the death sentence passed on her maid Nancy (Odetta). Given that such appeals are directed at Drake’s Governor father (Howard St John), and that the maid has been condemned for murdering Drake’s infant child, that’s a whole lot of story to swallow.

Worse is to follow. Drake takes up with Prohibition bootlegger Candy Man (Yves Montand...

Cate Blanchett has been named as the latest recipient of Film At Lincoln Center’s Chaplin Award.

The two-time Oscar winner will receive the honor at the 47th Chaplin Award Gala taking place at the Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall on April 25 at 7 p.m. Et, following a look back at her career through clips, conversation and speaker tributes.

The Chaplin Award was first introduced back in 1972, when iconic actor and filmmaker Charlie Chaplin returned to the U.S. from exile to accept the commendation. Other past honorees include Spike Lee, Helen Mirren, Robert De Niro, Morgan Freeman, Robert Redford, Rob Reiner, Barbra Streisand, Catherine Deneuve, Sidney Poitier, Michael Douglas, Tom Hanks, Meryl Streep, Diane Keaton, Jessica Lange, Dustin Hoffman, Michael Caine, Susan Sarandon, Francis Ford Coppola, Jane Fonda, Al Pacino, Mike Nichols, Martin Scorsese, Sean Connery, Clint Eastwood, Shirley MacLaine, Robert Altman,...

French director Jean-Jacques Beineix, who made waves with stylish works of 1980s cinema including “Diva” and “Betty Blue,” died Thursday at 75.

He died at home in Paris after a long illness, his brother told Le Monde.

Beineix started out as an assistant director to filmmakers including Claude Berri, Rene Clement and Jerry Lewis. After making a short film, he made his feature debut in 1981 with “Diva,” which won the Cesar for best first feature and three more Cesar awards. The story revolves around a young postman infatuated with an American opera singer who gets caught up in an international intrigue when he tries to make a bootleg recording of her performance.

The thriller was one of the most successful French films to play internationally in the 1980s. It ushered in a new style of filmmaking that melded auteur and genre elements, and Luc Besson and Leos Carax also made films...

While on set for her Rolling Stone cover shoot, Doja Cat revealed the five songs she can’t live without. The Grammy-nominated rapper is the face of Rs‘s January issue.

In the video, Doja Cat shares an eclectic mix of favorite songs, showing off her unique taste and wide-ranging influences. She singles out the French-language Yves Montand tune “Le Jazz et La Java” first, citing a specific throat sound the singer makes while lingering on a note. Other artists include Babyxsosa, Mulherin, Big Thief (one of her favorite bands), and Ms.

Sony Pictures Classics Doc NYC Julia première with directors Betsy West and Julie Cohen on Julia Child takes place on Sunday, November 14 Photo: Jim Scherer, courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics

Legend has it that one filet of sole with lemon and butter altered the path of Julia Child’s life. With one omelette, she set in motion a change of the kitchen culture in America. Julie Cohen and Betsy West’s mouthwatering documentary implicitly gives credit to this fish and this hen, and explicitly to the woman who appreciated so much the culinary treasures they had to offer. Julia is a film about food and about the change in attitude towards cooking one woman could spark. Based on Julia’s great-nephew, Alex Prud’homme’s book, The French Chef in America: Julia Child's Second Act, directors West and Cohen (of Rbg fame), trace her career and enlighten us about what was at stake.

Colcoa, the Los Angeles-based French film festival, will be launching a competitive documentary section at its upcoming 25th edition.

The documentary lineup will tackle contemporary and historical topics such as climate change, immigration, transgender inclusion, holocaust revelations and centenary celebration. Seven documentaries will vie for the 2021 Colcoa Best Documentary Award.

“Documentary films have grown in prominence in France in the past few years, with more than 150 released in theaters in 2019 and strong sales worldwide,” said Colcoa’s deputy director Anouchka van Riel. “We are showing seven of the most innovative documentaries coming out of France today that cover the gamut of style, approach, and artistic vision.”

The roster include the North American premieres of actor-turned-filmmaker Aissa Maiga’s “Above Water” which opened at Cannes in the climate section; Jacques Loeuille’s “Birds of America” about Jean-Jacques Audubon, the American ornithologist, naturalist, and painter; Christophe Cognet’s “From Where They Stood...

Bill Gavin in Cannes in 1988 (Photo credit: © Richard Blanshard).

Former producer, exhibitor and sales agent Bill Gavin has died in Auckland after a short illness, aged 83.

“Bill Gavin’s long career touched on almost every aspect of the screen industry and he was great friend to the many filmmakers whose careers benefited from his touch,” the New Zealand Film Commission said.

A former journalist who covered motor racing in Auckland and internationally, his entrée into filmmaking came when he wrote the narration for John Frankenheimer’s sports drama Grand Prix, which starred James Garner, Eva Marie Saint, Yves Montand, Brian Bedford and Jessica Walter, in 1966.

In the early 1970s he moved into the music business, joining Gto in the UK where he managed a number of acts including Sweet and The New Seekers.

At Gto he helped set up Gto Films to make movies promoting its musical acts and later into distribution,...

The writer/director of Tigers Are Not Afraid takes us through some of her most formative cinematic experiences.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983)

The Innocents (1961)

Tigers Are Not Afraid (2017)

The Goonies (1985)

Gremlins (1984)

Ghostbusters (1984)

Ravenous (1999)

Raw (2016)

T2 Trainspotting (2017)

Macario (1960)

Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)

The Lady From Shanghai (1947)

Lake Mungo (2008)

The Witches of Eastwick (1987)

Happy Feet (2006)

Lorenzo’s Oil (1992)

Babe (1995)

Mad Max: Fury Road (2014)

Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983)

Blade Runner (1982)

Casablanca (1942)

Gone With The Wind (1939)

Fanny and Alexander (1982)

Terrified a.k.a. Aterrados (2017)

Terrified (1963)

Gates of the Night (1946)

Other Notable Items

Rome TV series (2005-2007)

Jack Clayton

Ray Bradbury

Jonathan Pryce

Walt Disney Pictures

Walt Disney

Shudder

Richard Donner

Steven Spielberg

The Donner Party

Antonia Bird

Guy Pearce

Robert Carlyle

Once Upon A Time TV series (2011-2018)

Julia Ducournau

Roberto Gavaldón

Gabriel Figueroa

The Criterion Channel

“The Third Guest” short story by B. Traven (1953)

The Haunting of Hill House...

The saga continues, featuring Adam Rifkin, Robert D. Krzykowski, John Sayles, Maggie Renzi, Mick Garris and Larry Wilmore with special guest star Blaire Bercy from the Hollywood Food Coalition.

Please support the Hollywood Food Coalition. Text “Give” to 323.402.5704 or visit https://hofoco.org/donate!

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Key Largo (1948)

I Don’t Want to Talk About It (1993)

Camila (1984)

I, the Worst of All (1990)

The Wages of Fear (1953)

Le Corbeau (1943)

Diabolique (1955)

Red Beard (1965)

Seven Samurai (1954)

Ikiru (1952)

General Della Rovere (1959)

The Gold of Naples (1959)

Bitter Rice (1949)

Pickup On South Street (1953)

My Darling Clementine (1946)

Viva Zapata! (1952)

Panic In The Streets (1950)

Yellow Sky (1948)

Ace In The Hole (1951)

Wall Street (1987)

Women’s Prison (1955)

True Love (1989)

Mean Streets (1973)

Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)

The Abyss (1989)

The China Syndrome (1979)

Big (1988)

Splash (1984)

The ’Burbs (1989)

Long Strange Trip (2017)

Little Women (2019)

Learning To Skateboard In A War Zone (If You’re A Girl) (2019)

The Guns of Navarone...

If you’re looking to take a break from binge-watching garbage television and exercise your brain during quarantine, film historian Annette Insdorf and 92Y might have a perfect solution for you. Beginning Sunday, March 29, you can take the online film course “Reel Pieces Remote: Classic Films with Annette Insdorf,” for five weeks every Sunday at 8 p.m.

The five films she has selected — all of them indisputable masterpieces — can be streamed on The Criterion Channel. You can view the film any time before the Sunday night class, along with a prerecorded introduction from Insdorf, followed by the weekly lecture that will also engage live group discussion. Signing up for the 92Y class includes a free Criterion Channel trial membership good for 45 days. The cost for the five courses altogether is $150 — not free by any means, if you’re in the position to enroll.

More from IndieWireThe Show Must Go On:...

Costa-Gavras, the Greek-born France-based director of some of the most famed movies of political cinema, from 1969’s “Z” to 1981’s “Missing,” will receive a career achievement Donostia Award at this September’s 67th San Sebastian Film Festival.

The filmmaker will collect his prize on Sept. 21 at a ceremony held at San Sebastian’s Victoria Eugenia, where his latest film, “Adults in the Room,” will screen.

The feature is the cinematic adaptation of the book of the same title written by former Greek minister of finance Yanis Varoufakis.According the film’s synopsis, it marks a portrayal of a group of politicians “trapped in an inhuman network of power” in a “brutal circle of Eurogroup meetings which imposed on Greece a dictatorship of austerity.” It’s described as a modern-day tragedy which chronicles the brief six months Varoufakis served in his position.

Costa-Gavras’ was last in San Sebastian in 2012 when his...

Here’s a highly suspenseful thriller with fine characterizations, set in a grim but meaningful place — Fascist Spain in the late 1950s, when Franco’s operatives still hold the country in a tight grip. The very modern story (by Emeric Pressburger) is also timeless: the old lost-cause warrior takes on one last mission into enemy territory. Gregory Peck (he’s good) is the legendary raider on a mission to kill an old enemy, Anthony Quinn.

Behold a Pale Horse

Blu-ray

Twilight Time

1964 / B&w / 1:85 widescreen / 118 min. / Street Date July 29, 2019 / Available from Twilight Time Movies / 29.95

Starring: Gregory Peck, Anthony Quinn, Omar Sharif, Raymond Pellegrin, Paolo Stoppa, Mildred Dunnock, Daniela Rocca, Christian Marquand, Marietto Angeletti, Perrette Pradier, Zia Mohyeddin, Rosalie Crutchley, Michael Lonsdale, Martin Benson, Claude Berri, Albert Rémy, Alan Saury.

Cinematography: Jean Badal

Original Music: Maurice Chevalier

Written by J.P. Miller from a novel by Emeric Pressburger

Produced by Gregory...

Marilyn Monroe is clearly pregnant in a collection of extremely rare photographs -- at least that's what the person trying to sell them is saying, but they're not alone.  The pics, purporting to show a pregnant Marilyn in 1960, are going up for sale through the memorabilia company, Moments in Time -- where they're hawking the shots for a cool $95,000 ... and pushing the pregnancy angle.  The stunning pics were shot by Marilyn's confidant, Frieda Hull, who...

Thierry Fremaux, the artistic director of the Cannes Film Festival, delivered a heartfelt homage to Alain Delon at a ceremony on Sunday during which the French actor received the honorary Palme d’Or.

Alluding to the controversy that Delon has triggered with his past declarations, Fremaux said the actor was entitled to have his own convictions and has never tried to convince anyone of his beliefs.

“We know that intolerance is back (…) we’re being asked to believe that if we all think the same it will protect us from the risk of being disliked or being wrong, but Alain Delon is afraid of being disliked, being wrong, and he doesn’t think of others, and he’s not afraid of being alone,” said Fremaux inside the jam-packed Debussy theater to an audience that included high-profile guests such as John Bailey, the president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

The Cannes Film Festival is going forward with its decision to award an honorary Palme d’Or to Alain Delon despite criticism from the U.S. organization Women and Hollywood over comments that the veteran French actor has made about slapping women, opposing the adoption of children by same-sex parents and supporting the rise of the far right in France.

Following Cannes’ April 17 announcement of the honor, Women and Hollywood founder Melissa Silverstein said she was “extremely disappointed” that Cannes would honor someone who held such “abhorrent values.” In a tweet, Silverstein said Delon “has publicly admitted to slapping women. He has aligned himself with the racist and anti-Semitic National Front. He has claimed that being gay is ‘against nature.’ The Cannes Film Festival has committed itself to diversity and inclusion. By honoring Mr. Delon, Cannes is honoring these abhorrent values.”

Cannes told Variety that it was “honoring Alain Delon...

Revered French actor Alain Delon, who starred in Luchino Visconti’s masterpiece “The Leopard,” will receive an honorary Palme d’Or at this year’s 72nd Cannes Film Festival.

In receiving the honor from Cannes, Delon will follow in the footsteps of Jeanne Moreau, Woody Allen, Bernardo Bertolucci, Jane Fonda, Clint Eastwood, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Manoel de Oliveira, Agnès Varda and Jean-Pierre Léaud.

Describing Delon as a “giant, a living legend, a global icon… [and even] a box office champion,” the festival said the honorary Palme d’Or will “pay tribute to [Delon’s] wonderful presence in the history of film.”

“Pierre Lescure and I are delighted that Alain Delon has accepted to be honored by the festival,” said Thierry Fremaux, Cannes’ artistic director. Fremaux added that Delon “hesitated for a long time, having long been reluctant to [accept] this Palme d’Or because he thought he should only come to Cannes to celebrate the directors he had been working with.

Hélène Fillières on Nick Cave's Into My Arms in Raising Colors (Volontaire): "It's probably the most romantic song I've ever heard." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze Laure (Diane Rouxel) with Commander Rivière (Lambert Wilson)

The last time I saw Lambert Wilson in person, he was performing his tribute to Yves Montand at the French Institute Alliance Française in New York. He was Jacques Cousteau in Jérôme Salle's The Odyssey (L'Odyssée) and now in Hélène Fillières' Raising Colors (Volontaire), co-written with Mathias Gavarry, he is Commander Rivière at the École Navale. The Commander is lovingly called 'the monk' by the chief training officer Albertini, played by Alex Descas. Laure (Diane Rouxel) in her twenties and with a first-rate education, decides to accept a job offer in the administration of the French Navy. Her mother (Josiane Balasko), a famous stage actress, is particularly upset and vocal about this turn of events.

Michel Legrand, Oscar-winning film composer and pianist, whose memorable works included the score for the 1960s film The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and the song “The Windmills of Your Mind” from The Thomas Crown Affair, died Saturday at his home in Paris, his publicist told Agence France-Presse. He was 86.

Legrand won three Academy Awards, five Grammys and two top awards at the Cannes Film Festival among other honors. Known for his haunting, often jazz-tinged scores, he received his first Oscar in 1968 for the song “The Windmills of Your Mind” from The Thomas Crown Affair. Sung by Noel Harrison in the film, the song was later recorded by Dusty Springfield and many others. That was followed by two more Oscars in 1971 and 1983 for best original scores, for Summer of ’42 and Yentl, respectively.

In his film work, LeGrand has worked with directors including Jean-Luc Godard, Richard Brooks, Claude Lelouch, Clint Eastwood, Barbra Streisand,...

Alfonso Cuaron’s “Roma” has tied “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” with 10 Oscar nominations, the most ever for a non-English language contender. This comes on the heels of wins from the New York and Los Angeles critics’ groups, along with multiple guild nominations, and a best director Golden Globes award. What once looked like a streaming-service outlier is now a serious, if not leading, contender to win the industry’s top award.

In the nine-decade history of the Academy, no foreign-language film has ever won. Nine foreign-language films received five or more nominations among all categories (some — but not all — included Foreign Language Film). Of these, perhaps two — “Z” and “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” — had a legitimate shot at winning Best Picture.

The ascension of “Roma” isn’t certain. It’s receiving limited theatrical play, and is streaming worldwide on Netflix — although that’s something that didn’t dissuade the Academy in its nominations.

No foreign-language film has ever won an Oscar for Best Picture.

But given the promotional push that Netflix is giving Alfonso Cuaron‘s “Roma,” which just made the cut as one of the nine titles to make the subtitled short list as Mexico’s entry, the Golden Lion winner at Venice has one of the best chances in years to finally take home both statuettes.

Not that subtitled nominees haven’t tried before. There have been 10 bold movies that have attempted grab the Academy Award’s ultimate gold, starting with France’s 1937 World War I masterpiece “Grand Illusion” and including Italy’s 1994 romantic drama “The Postman” and Clint Eastwood‘s 2006 Japanese-American World War II effort “Letters From Iwo Jima.” But none competed for foreign-language film as well. In the case of France’s “Grand Illusion,” directed by Jean Renoir, the category did not officially exist until 1956. The year that “The Postman” competed,...

Among the many pleasures nestled in Joseph Losey’s late triumph Roads to the South (Yves Montand saying the name “Walter Benjamin” is the purest delight) is a scene where father and son communists, Montand and Laurent Malet, play Russian roulette. Montand is a screenwriter whom Malet believes has lost his revolutionary nerve and sold out. Their mother, who linked the firebrands, has died, and they seem to have nothing left binding them. How could a young agitator respect this lapsed whore of a Marxist, selling movies and living vicariously through real activists as he grows old and dies in his cozy estate? How can one be a Marxist and still respect the cinema? Pasolini spent his too-short life investigating this question with every movie he made, never arriving at an answer beyond the mere fact of having done so, thus demonstrating its possibility. Have we need of further proof?...

A cinematic puzzle and a filmic detective piece, Serge Bromberg’s examination of a world-class filmmaker’s catastrophic, never-finished production fascinates and dazzles. If the particulars of H.G. Clouzot’s experimental epic of internal torment remain clouded, the astonishing visuals he created are a total knockout. Working with hours of uncut dailies and precise collaborator memories, Bromberg gives us the most interesting filmic autopsy on record. Incredible stuff!

Inferno

(L’enfer d’Henri-Georges Clouzot)

Blu-ray

Arrow Academy

2009 / Color & B&W / 1:78 widescreen / 100 min. / L’enfer d’Henri-Georges Clouzot / Street Date February 6, 2018 / Available from Arrow Video 34.95

Starring: Romy Schneider, Serge Reggiani, Bérénice Bejo, Jacques Gamblin, Dany Carrel, Jean-Claude Bercq, Mario David, Catherine Allégret, Henri-Georges Clouzot, Gilbert Amy, Jacques Douy, Jean-Louis Ducarme, Costa-Gavras, William Lubtchansky, Thi Lan Nguyen, Joël Stein, Bernard Stora, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Bernard Blier, Inès Clouzot, Yves Montand, Simone Signoret, Lino Ventura, Burt Lancaster.

Cinematography: Jérôme Krumenacker, Irina Lubtchansky...

Born 1917, as Jean-Pierre Grumbach, son of Alsatian Jews, Jean-Pierre adopted the name Melville as his nom de guerre in 1940 when France fell to the German Nazis and he joined the French Resistance. He kept it as his stage name when he returned to France and began making films.

Melville at 100 at the American Cinematheque in Hollywood is showcasing eight of his films made from 1949 to to 1972 to honor the 100th year since his birth.

Americn Cinemtheque’s historic Egyptian Theater in Hollywood

The American Cinematheque has grown tremendously sophisticated since its early days creating the 1960 dream of “The Two Garys” (for those who remember). Still staffed by stalwarts Barbara Smith, Gwen Deglise, Margot Gerber and Tom Harris, and with a Board of Directors of Hollywood heavy hitters, it has also been renovated by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association which has spent more than $500,000 restoring its infrastructure and repainting its famous murals.

“I spent a lot of time reviewing the silent films for crowd scenes –the way extras move, evolve, how the space is staged and how the cameras capture it, the views used,” Nolan said earlier this year when it came to the creation of his WWII epic Dunkirk, referencing films such as Intolerance, Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, and Greed, as well as the films of Robert Bresson.

Throughout the entire month of July, if you’re in the U.K., you are lucky enough to witness a selection of these influences in a program at BFI Southbank. Featuring all screenings in 35mm or 70mm — including a preview of Dunkirk over a week before it hits theaters — there’s classics such as Greed, Sunrise, and The Wages of Fear, as well as Alien, Speed, and even Tony Scott’s final film.

Check out Nolan’s introduction below, followed by...

Running from 1-31 July, BFI Southbank are delighted to present a season of films which have inspired director Christopher Nolan’s new feature Dunkirk (2017), released in cinemas across the UK on Friday 21 July.

Christopher Nolan Presents has been personally curated by the award-winning director and will offer audiences unique insight into the films which influenced his hotly anticipated take on one of the key moments of WWII.

The season will include a special preview screening of Dunkirk on Thursday 13 July, which will be presented in 70mm and include an introduction from the director himself.

Christopher Nolan is a passionate advocate for the importance of seeing films projected on film, and as one of the few cinemas in the UK that still shows a vast amount of celluloid film, BFI Southbank will screen all the films in the season on 35mm or 70mm.

In 2015 Nolan appeared on stage alongside visual artist...

Bertrand Tavernier on Jacques Prévert and Joseph Kosma's Les Feuilles Mortes with Yves Montand in Marcel Carné's Les Portes De La Nuit: "The birth of the song. I mean, that's a good scene." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

In the second installment of my conversation with Bertrand Tavernier on his Voyage À Travers Le Cinéma Français we go towards Ernst Lubitsch's Heaven Can Wait, Lino Ventura and Jean-Pierre Melville, Jean Gabin in Jean Delannoy's adaptation of Georges Simenon's Inspector Maigret, Bernard Blier in Henri Verneuil's Le Président, Nadja Tiller in Gilles Grangier's Le Désordre Et La Nuit, Eddie Constantine, and composers Jean-Jacques Grunenwald, George Van Parys, and Paul Misraki.

Martin Scorsese critiquing a Robert De Niro performance in a film by another director is unimaginable to Bertrand. "Distance is important to give you a wider vision of things."

Lino Ventura to Bertrand Tavernier on...

David’s Quick Take for the tl;dr Media Consumer:

Mr. Freedom begins with a wail of sirens as Chicago cops swarm in to crack the skulls of rioters and looters. It ends with a catastrophic explosion that levels a city block in Paris and mutilates the body of the movie’s titular hero. In between all that, against a backdrop of Cold War intrigue and superpower paranoia run amok, we see scenes involving overt racist mockery, rape as a spectator sport, sacrilege, poisoning, prostitution, assassination, the sexist degradation of women and a pervasive attitude of unmitigated cynicism and ridicule toward the aspirations of the USA as a bulwark of liberty, democracy and decency against the forces of tyranny and oppression around the world. All the necessary ingredients for a robust satirical take-down of good old fashioned patriotism, American-style! The politics are radical, the humor is often guttural, and the...

Close-Up is a column that spotlights films now playing on Mubi. Jean-Luc Godard's La gai savoir (1969) is showing from January 18 - February 17, 2017 in many countries around the world as part of the retrospective For Ever Godard.Le gai savoir (Joy of Learning, 1969) is a film by Jean-Luc Godard which, unlike classics such as Breathless (1960) or Contempt (1963) is hardly a household name. Godard’s Weekend (1967) gives us an inkling of what is to come in its postscript production credit: What translates to mean “End of story” and then “End of cinema” flashes in blue lettering on a black backdrop; a moment later, we see that this word game has been created using a statement of the film’s visa control number. Of course, Godard had already been engaging in this kind of word play for years in his credits and intertitles. Although these statements could also be taken as being typical,...

Rebecca Clough Jan 20, 2017

As America gets its new President, we look at some excellent political drama films that may have slipped under your radar...

Political dramas can be entertaining, informative and even educational, opening up debates and offering new points of view. (When experiencing a year of tumultuous change like the one we’ve just had, they can also be a comforting reminder that, no matter what your situation, it could always be worse...) With the full whack of corruption, war, and conspiracy, here are 25 political dramas which deserve to be better known.

See related 25 underrated political thrillers 17 new TV shows to watch in 2017 Taboo episode 3 review The Girl On The Train review 25. The Marchers/La Marche (2013)

When teenager Mohamed (Tewfik Jallab) is shot by police, his friends want revenge, but he has a better idea: peaceful protest. Marching from Marseille to Paris, they band together with quite an assortment of characters along the way.

Bertrand Tavernier with Anne-Katrin Titze: "Josef von Sternberg's Macao. Dubbed in Vietnamese and I have never been able to watch the film again ..." Photo: Sophie Gluck

The day before the opening of the 54th New York Film Festival, I met with Bertrand Tavernier for an in-depth conversation on his documentary My Journey Through French Cinema (Voyage À Travers Le Cinéma Français) that spanned fashion from Mila Parély wearing Coco Chanel's ocelot coat in Jean Renoir's La Règle Du Jeu, the daring of Mireille Balin's deep décolleté in Jean Delannoy's Macao, L'Enfer Du Jeu, to Jean Paul Gaultier's reaction to Jacques Becker's Falbalas.

Bertrand Tavernier: "Also, it's learning about myself. How I discovered those films."

Also, Robert Mitchum in Vietnamese, never having to see Howard Hawks's Rio Bravo again, Yves Montand and the birth of Autumn Leaves, Ernst Lubitsch interactions between Lino Ventura...

Colcoa French Film Festival, "9 Days of Film Premieres in Hollywood," and its producer, the Franco-American Cultural Fund, have  announced the Focus on a Filmmaker program as well as an exclusive line up of predominantly digitally restored French Classics, presented as World, International or U.S. Premieres. All screenings will take place at the Directors Guild of America.

The Colcoa Classics Series will be shown from Tuesday 19 to Saturday 23 and on Monday April 25 as part of the 20th anniversary program.

Focus on a Filmmaker: Academy Award0 Nominee Jean-Paul Rappeneau

Colcoa will honor Academy Award-nominated writer-director Jean-Paul Rappeneau on Thursday, April 21 with the World Premiere of new digitally restored "A Matter of Resistance"  (1965), starring Catherine Deneuve and Philippe Noiret, as well as the U.S. Premiere of his new film "Families.," which had its World Premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival last fall. Rappeneau joins previous honorees, writer-directors Michel Hazanavicius, Cédric Klapisch, Bertrand Blier, Costa Gavras, Florent Siri, Julie Delpy and Alain Resnais, whose key bodies of work have been cited in past festivals.

Jean-Paul Rappeneau will make a rare personal appearance as well as meeting audience members for a Happy Hour Talk panel dedicated to his work. (Colcoa Classics + Panel +Premiere of "Families"). This focus is presented with the support of TF1 International.

International Premiere of Digitally Restored "More"

Writer-director Barbet Schroeder, feted at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival, will have a Colcoa-presented International Premiere of his digitally restored masterpiece, "More" (1969), in association with Les Films du Losange and Janus Films. Initially banned in France, Schroeder's debut feature cast the myth of Icarus as a cautionary tale of free love and drug addiction in the shadow of the May '68 Paris, illustrated by an original score by The Pink Floyd. (Colcoa Classics)

45th Anniversary of "Delusions of Grandeur"

The digitally restored version of writer-director Gérard Oury's hit comedy, "Delusions of Grandeur" (1971), will have its U.S. Premiere at the festival. Co-written with his daughter, Danièle Thompson, and Marcel Jullian, this historical spoof of the Victor Hugo play,Ruy Blasfeatures a first -time collaboration of two French giants, Louis de Funès and Yves Montand ."Delusions of Grandeur" will be presented in association with French studio Gaumont (celebrating its own 120th anniversary). (Colcoa Classics)

- International Premeire of Digitally Restored "Marius"

Colcoa will present the digitally restored version of "Marius" (1931), the first part of the famous trilogy taking place in Marseille, created by novelist Marcel Pagnol and writer director Alexander Korda. It stars Pierre Fresnay, Fernand Charpin , Raimu and Orane Demazis. This exclusive presentation in the U.S. is made possible by the Franco American Cultural Fund (Facf), which supported the restoration, La Cinémathèque Française and Les Films Marcel Pagnol. (Colcoa Classics)

- Internatonal Premiere of the Digitally Restored "They Were Five"

A special 80th anniversary screening of digitally restored "They Were Five" (La belle équipe) (1936) will be offered to the Colcoa audience just weeks after its French release. Thus, the festival will pay tribute to writer-director Julien Duvivier (born 120 years ago) who was the first filmmaker to cast two French stars Jean Gabin and Charles Vanel in this classic, popular, social comedy (presented with the support of Pathé International - (Colcoa Classics)

- World Premiere of Digitally Restored Colcoa Hit: "On Guard"  

Romance and revenge are the main ingredients in this sweeping swashbuckler set in a lavish 17th century backdrop. "On Guard,"   which premiered 19 years ago at Colcoa, stars Daniel Auteuil, Philippe Noiret, Fabrice Luchini, three of the multi-star cast and co-written and directed by Philippe de Broca. The festival will present the World Premiere of the restored version for its U.S. release by The Cohen Media Group (Colcoa Classics)

From April 18 to April 26, 2016, filmgoers will celebrate the 20th edition of Colcoa French Film Festival  at the Directors Guild of America.

The full line-up of films in competition for the Colcoa Cinema and Television Awards, will be announced before March 29 .

Close-Up is a column that spotlights films now playing on Mubi. The Law is playing on Mubi in the Us through January 21, 2016.For those who like nice touches, keep your eye on the bird. In Jules Dassin's The Law (1959), it's the first character we meet, where, in a town square under the hot Mediterranean sun, a group of men are watching a pigeon. The men are out of work and squarely at the bottom of the socioeconomic totem pole. The pigeon is an idiot, one man says—why would anything that could fly choose to stay here? Because sometimes people throw it crumbs, a man answers. And if you had any doubts what this all symbolizes, another of the men hastily adds: just like us. This is a film very much about hierarchy, and the forces or illusions that keep everyone in their place. The air is soon...