The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences Takes Major Steps Toward Diversity
You have to give credit where it’s due for decisive action. The Academy Of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, best known for the Academy Awards gala, but in fact a very active and positive organization year-round, was rightly roasted for a lack of diversity when the 2014 award nominees were announced. The hashtag #OscarsSoWhite became […]
Marlene Dietrich in Words & Images
The AFS Surrealist Love Goddesses Essential Cinema series concludes Thursday, June 30 with a 35mm screening of THE SCARLET EMPRESS, starring Marlene Dietrich. James Agate, critic“I can only say that she makes reason totter on her throne.” (Contemporary review of THE BLUE ANGEL, 1930) Ernest Hemingway, friend“If she had nothing more than her voice she could break your […]
Watch This: Robert Downey Sr. on Canadian TV, 1967
“If everybody could get turned on to not taking themselves too seriously and having a sense of humor about themselves, I think we could get over a lot of things that we take very, very seriously. We could approach the serious matters in a different way, like war, poverty, and all the things that are […]
Garbo in Words & Images
The AFS Surrealist Love Goddesses Essential Cinema series continues Thursday, June 23 with a 35mm screening of MATA HARI starring Greta Garbo. “After much brooding and re-appraisal I still cannot make up my mind whether Garbo was a remarkable actress or simply a person so extraordinary she made everything she did, even acting, seem remarkable.” […]
50 Years Ago Today: Hollywood’s Production Code Fell
Hollywood’s Motion Picture Production Code was adopted by the studios in 1930 to counter the expensive and delaying influence of the then-preponderant state censorship boards. Prior to the creation of the code, and even for a while afterward, local boards would ban films because of this or that offense, and the release would be disrupted […]
30 Minutes of THE DAY THE CLOWN CRIED Is Now Online!
One of the most elusive and sought-after films ever made is Jerry Lewis’ unreleased – in fact suppressed – film THE DAY THE CLOWN CRIED. It’s set in a concentration camp and is about a clown named Helmut Doork whose job is to lead children gleefully to their deaths. The clown is played by Jerry […]
Anna May Wong In Words & Images
Anna May Wong: “When I was about 17, a truck came booming down the street and the driver yelled for me to get out of the way. He called me “chink.” To my surprise I blazed back a remark equally insulting at him and he wilted. That was the turning of a corner for me.” […]
From MovieMaker Magazine: Julia Halperin’s Pre-Production Diary
Those of us who have never made a feature film have little idea of all the work that goes into preproduction. In this month’s MovieMaker Magazine, filmmaker Julia Halperin has shared a diary that gives us a tiny notion of how many of these little details are swarming around a producer/director during the preproduction period […]
AFS Viewfinders Podcast: Alamo Drafthouse Programmer Tommy Swenson
The new episode of the (very irregular) AFS Viewfinders Podcast is here. Alamo Drafthouse Programmer Tommy Swenson joins us to talk about the art of film programming as well as upcoming series, the social responsibility of programmers, and the mysterious but compelling “pulp imagination” embodied in both pulp fiction and other forms of expression. It’s […]
Who Are/Were The Videofreex?
This month’s doc night presentation is HERE COME THE VIDEOFREEX, screening on June 22, a new film by Jon Nealon and Jenny Raskin that tells the fascinating story of a collective of early video users who helped to pave the way for a more democratic approach to media. There are interviews with the surviving Videofreex […]
Louise Brooks in Words & Pictures
The AFS Surrealist Love Goddesses Essential Cinema series begins this Thursday, June 9. Here are some quotes about, and photos of, the woman writer Angela Carter called ““greatest of all the surrealist love goddesses. “Those who have seen her can never forget her. She is the modern actress par excellence because, like the statues of […]
Watch This: Alain Resnais’ Cinematic Love Letter to Libraries Everywhere
Alain Resnais (born on this date in 1922) was one of the world’s most important and influential filmmakers. Among his other great works, he made the short film TOUTE LA MÉMOIRE DU MONDE (ALL THE MEMORY IN THE WORLD) in 1956. It is a beautiful document of Paris’ Bibliothèque nationale de France, taking the viewer through […]
