The matinee idol’s death in 1985 changed the public’s perception of Aids. Yet in life, the golden age actor was anything but an activist
Gore Vidal’s reaction to the news of Truman Capote’s death in 1984 is well known. “Good career move,” the writer said. Rock Hudson, once the most bankable star in Hollywood, died the following year – like Capote, he was 59 – but the manner of his death and the revelations that preceded it have deterred anyone from applying Vidal’s line to him. Looked at coldly from a 21st-century vantage point, though, Hudson’s death was a good career move, deepening his persona in ways that would never otherwise have happened. The actor died of complications from Aids, having been outed as gay months beforehand. His sexuality had been an open secret within the industry for decades: his pool parties, described as “blond bacchanalias”, were legendary. The public,...
Gore Vidal’s reaction to the news of Truman Capote’s death in 1984 is well known. “Good career move,” the writer said. Rock Hudson, once the most bankable star in Hollywood, died the following year – like Capote, he was 59 – but the manner of his death and the revelations that preceded it have deterred anyone from applying Vidal’s line to him. Looked at coldly from a 21st-century vantage point, though, Hudson’s death was a good career move, deepening his persona in ways that would never otherwise have happened. The actor died of complications from Aids, having been outed as gay months beforehand. His sexuality had been an open secret within the industry for decades: his pool parties, described as “blond bacchanalias”, were legendary. The public,...
- 10/6/2023
- by Ryan Gilbey
- The Guardian - Film News
What’s the scariest creature the world has ever known? If you said the sloth, you’re not alone. Some may find these furry bundles of lethargy charming, but a closer look reveals a devious predator lurking amidst the trees just waiting to attack us with those long, blood-soaked claws. Matthew Goodhue’s Slotherhouse pits this tree-hanging menace with another fearsome fiend: the ambitious sorority girl.
Animal lover Emily (Lisa Ambalavanar) has set her sights on the Presidential Suite of her lavish sorority house as she begins her senior year of college. Unfortunately, this means she’ll have to take down incumbent mean girl Brianna (Sydney Craven) and her team of frightened minions. Hoping to boost her social media cred, Emily adopts a three–toed sloth she names Alpha from a sketchy animal poacher and unwittingly unleashes a blood bath as the tiny assassin slices her way through the Sigma Lambda Theta sisters.
Animal lover Emily (Lisa Ambalavanar) has set her sights on the Presidential Suite of her lavish sorority house as she begins her senior year of college. Unfortunately, this means she’ll have to take down incumbent mean girl Brianna (Sydney Craven) and her team of frightened minions. Hoping to boost her social media cred, Emily adopts a three–toed sloth she names Alpha from a sketchy animal poacher and unwittingly unleashes a blood bath as the tiny assassin slices her way through the Sigma Lambda Theta sisters.
- 8/30/2023
- by Jenn Adams
- bloody-disgusting.com
Like a lot of all-American dreamboats, Roy Harold Fitzgerald (née Scherer Jr.) made his way to Hollywood after World War II, making good on the offer to look up a friend’s brother should he ever find himself in the greater Los Angeles area. The ex-Navy mechanic had matinee-idol looks, a cornfed wholesomeness, and a lean-beefcake physique; anyone who took one look at Fitzgerald would have immediately thought, “He ought to be in pictures.” The young man had been told that acting was “sissy stuff” when he was growing up in the Midwest,...
- 6/28/2023
- by David Fear
- Rollingstone.com
Just over 30 years ago, director Mark Rappaport in his playful deconstructionist essay Rock Hudson’s Home Movies, cleverly mined the queer subtext in the midcentury Hollywood superstar’s screen work to speculate on his inner conflict as a gay public figure confined to the closet. Stephen Kijak’s more conventional, though also more heartfelt docu-portrait, Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed, takes a similarly cheeky approach to sniffing out coded behavior in a staggering array of clips that find just as much pathos as amusement.
Contextualizing Hudson’s regimented stardom against the relative freedom with which he lived his sexuality within a trusted circle, the HBO film paints him less as a victim of repressive times — though he certainly was that — than as a savvy product of the studio system who learned quickly how to play the game without losing his sense of self.
The tragic conclusion of his life...
Contextualizing Hudson’s regimented stardom against the relative freedom with which he lived his sexuality within a trusted circle, the HBO film paints him less as a victim of repressive times — though he certainly was that — than as a savvy product of the studio system who learned quickly how to play the game without losing his sense of self.
The tragic conclusion of his life...
- 6/15/2023
- by David Rooney
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
During his lifetime, Rock Hudson was a model for American masculinity. That changed after his death, when the strapping, straight-acting (but occasionally sensitive) hunk from Winnetka became the poster boy for Hollywood homophobia: a closeted star who’d been forced to play a role his entire career that wasn’t true to himself, on screen and off. “Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed” treats that compromise as a tragedy, leaning on the fact Hudson died of AIDS to underscore the injustice, but Stephen Kijak’s documentary does him a disservice, reducing Hudson’s career — in exactly the way he went so far out of his way to avoid — to the dimension of his sexuality.
Built around interviews with a handful of former lovers and friends, Kijak spills private details from Hudson’s personal life, ranging from whom he shagged to how he arranged such trysts in the first place. A...
Built around interviews with a handful of former lovers and friends, Kijak spills private details from Hudson’s personal life, ranging from whom he shagged to how he arranged such trysts in the first place. A...
- 6/11/2023
- by Peter Debruge
- Variety Film + TV
I started my new essay film, It’s a Zabriskie, Zabriskie, Zabriskie, Zabriskie Point, with an attractive if patently absurd proposition. I was convinced that one could seamlessly edit together Antonioni’s Zabriskie Point with Stanley Kramer’s It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. Imagine situating Daria Halprin, Mark Frechette, and their “dirty hippie” friends in California desert landscapes next to Milton Berle, Ethel Merman, Jonathan Winters, Buddy Hackett, Mickey Rooney, and the rest of that legendary cast.
One narrative universe, with just a little editing room hocus-pocus!
There are lots of highlights, but to whet your appetite: University radical Mark Frechette flies his stolen aircraft right past the one piloted by Mickey Rooney and Buddy Hackett as they spin out of control. Daria Halprin ignores a hitchhiking Jonathan Winters. Milton Berle leaps right into a cascade of amorous sand-covered bodies. Spencer Tracy and Daria Halprin in a torrid extramarital affair.
One narrative universe, with just a little editing room hocus-pocus!
There are lots of highlights, but to whet your appetite: University radical Mark Frechette flies his stolen aircraft right past the one piloted by Mickey Rooney and Buddy Hackett as they spin out of control. Daria Halprin ignores a hitchhiking Jonathan Winters. Milton Berle leaps right into a cascade of amorous sand-covered bodies. Spencer Tracy and Daria Halprin in a torrid extramarital affair.
- 7/7/2022
- by Daniel Kremer
- Trailers from Hell
Paris Theater
To mark their return, a frighteningly stacked weekend: Get Out Your Handkerchiefs and Mort Rifkin favorite A Man and a Woman on Friday; Buñuel double Viridiana and Belle de Jour, plus Emmanuelle on Saturday; then Merchant-Ivory’s Maurice and Howards End on Sunday.
Film at Lincoln Center
Wojciech Has’ amazing The Hourglass Sanatorium screens Saturday and Sunday.
Roxy Cinema
Naturally, Persona and Jackass both play this weekend.
Anthology Film Archives
A retrospective of Mark Rappaport is underway.
Museum of the Moving Image
2001 and Spartacus have 70mm showings.
Film Forum
Three films by Wayne Wang are screening while La Piscine continues.
IFC Center
World of Wong Kar-wai and Miyazaki’s debut Lupin the 3rd have kept going.
The post NYC Weekend Watch: Buñuel Double, The Hourglass Sanatorium, Persona & More first appeared on The Film Stage.
To mark their return, a frighteningly stacked weekend: Get Out Your Handkerchiefs and Mort Rifkin favorite A Man and a Woman on Friday; Buñuel double Viridiana and Belle de Jour, plus Emmanuelle on Saturday; then Merchant-Ivory’s Maurice and Howards End on Sunday.
Film at Lincoln Center
Wojciech Has’ amazing The Hourglass Sanatorium screens Saturday and Sunday.
Roxy Cinema
Naturally, Persona and Jackass both play this weekend.
Anthology Film Archives
A retrospective of Mark Rappaport is underway.
Museum of the Moving Image
2001 and Spartacus have 70mm showings.
Film Forum
Three films by Wayne Wang are screening while La Piscine continues.
IFC Center
World of Wong Kar-wai and Miyazaki’s debut Lupin the 3rd have kept going.
The post NYC Weekend Watch: Buñuel Double, The Hourglass Sanatorium, Persona & More first appeared on The Film Stage.
- 8/20/2021
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
by Cláudio Alves
Sometimes, a writing project can take a life of its own, overwhelming you. That's what happened to me when trying to write about Old Hollywood director Mitchell Leisen. Initially, I pitched this piece to Nathaniel as a way of spotlighting an oft-forgotten talent whose best films feature in one of the Criterion Channel's latest collections. Later, as our 1946 journey began, the piece gained new value as a profile of the man who directed that year's Best Actress champion, Olivia de Havilland in To Each His Own. However, what most surprised me was how Leisen's story correlates with queer history and everything we celebrate and mourn during Pride month.
As I went down a rabbit hole of research, the marvelous writings of Mark Rappaport, David Melville, Farran Nehme, and others revealed the complex case. That of an acclaimed queer artist whose legacy was systematically tarnished, if not downright erased,...
Sometimes, a writing project can take a life of its own, overwhelming you. That's what happened to me when trying to write about Old Hollywood director Mitchell Leisen. Initially, I pitched this piece to Nathaniel as a way of spotlighting an oft-forgotten talent whose best films feature in one of the Criterion Channel's latest collections. Later, as our 1946 journey began, the piece gained new value as a profile of the man who directed that year's Best Actress champion, Olivia de Havilland in To Each His Own. However, what most surprised me was how Leisen's story correlates with queer history and everything we celebrate and mourn during Pride month.
As I went down a rabbit hole of research, the marvelous writings of Mark Rappaport, David Melville, Farran Nehme, and others revealed the complex case. That of an acclaimed queer artist whose legacy was systematically tarnished, if not downright erased,...
- 6/8/2021
- by Cláudio Alves
- FilmExperience
Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSAbove: David Fincher and Gary Oldman on the set of Mank (2020). David Fincher's Mank leads this year's nominations for the Academy Awards. A complete list of all nominations can be found here.Legendary actor Yaphet Kotto, best known for his charismatic presence in films like Alien, Blue Collar, and Live and Let Die has died.Spike Lee will be leading the 2021 Cannes Film Festival Jury, promising to return after the cancellation of last year's festival: "Book my flight now, my wife and I are coming!" After a months-long hiatus, Film Comment has announced its return, marked by a new weekly letter and two new episodes of the Film Comment podcast. Recommended VIEWINGAbove: Mark Rappaport's The Stendhal Syndrome or My Dinner with Turhan Bey. Today's the last day to watch two new essay films...
- 3/17/2021
- MUBI
Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSAbove: Carl Reiner, Annie Reiner, and Mel Brooks, photographed together at Brooks's 94th birthday celebration.We're saddened by news that actor, comedian, screenwriter and director Carl Reiner has died. Mel Brooks remembers Reiner, his best friend, in a post reflecting upon their famous collaborations together. Sundance Film Festival director Tabitha Jackson has unveiled plans for the 2021 Sundance Film Festival, which will take place "live in Utah and in at least 20 independent and community cinemas across the U.S. and beyond." Elsewhere, the Locarno International Film Festival announced its 20 selections for the Films After Tomorrow program, which aims to offer support to productions that were put on hold by the health crisis. These films include films by Lucrecia Martel, Wang Bing, Verena Paravel and Lucien Castaing-Taylor, Helena Wittmann, and Lisandro Alonso. Recommended VIEWINGArthur Jafa directed...
- 7/1/2020
- MUBI
Since any New York City cinephile has a nearly suffocating wealth of theatrical options, we figured it’d be best to compile some of the more worthwhile repertory showings into one handy list. Displayed below are a few of the city’s most reliable theaters and links to screenings of their weekend offerings — films you’re not likely to see in a theater again anytime soon, and many of which are, also, on 35mm. If you have a chance to attend any of these, we’re of the mind that it’s time extremely well-spent.
Metrograph
Valentine’s Day continues with films by Hawks, Scorsese, Ôshima, Lubitsch and more.
“To Hong Kong with Love” looks at one of the world’s most luminous cities in its past and present.
Henry Fool plays this Saturday, while a new 35mm print of New York, New York screens on Sunday.
Clueless and Whisper of the Heart screen early,...
Metrograph
Valentine’s Day continues with films by Hawks, Scorsese, Ôshima, Lubitsch and more.
“To Hong Kong with Love” looks at one of the world’s most luminous cities in its past and present.
Henry Fool plays this Saturday, while a new 35mm print of New York, New York screens on Sunday.
Clueless and Whisper of the Heart screen early,...
- 2/14/2020
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
Jean Seberg in Les hautes solitudes. Courtesy of The Film Desk.It is a raw experience. No title, no credits of any sort. No soundtrack—although I defy anyone to watch it in absolute silence and not “hear” something, at some point, in their head. Just a series of “moving images” (for once the currently fashionable artworld term is correct), portraits in black-and-white, mostly trained on faces, or the upper parts of several bodies. There is no make-up, only minimal lighting and staging, and no post-production effects or clean-up whatsoever. The on-screen participants include Nico, Tina Aumont, Laurent Terzieff. And, most extensively, Jean Seberg—which may come as a shock to viewers not entirely au fait with the biography of the film’s director, Philippe Garrel. “Garrel’s camera sees Seberg honestly,” wrote David Ehrenstein in his book Film: The Front Line 1984, “as if discovering her for the first time,...
- 2/22/2017
- MUBI
There is no other place where fact and fiction become more indistinguishable from one another than at the cinema. What you see isn’t always what you get: a manufactured image might feel genuine, while an image that feels inauthentic might be the real thing. The finest stories can often be found somewhere in the middle. As Pablo Picasso once said, “Art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize truth.”
Kate Plays Christine, the latest film from Actress and Fake It So Real director Robert Greene, caught a great deal of attention at Sundance — we gave it the highest grade at the festival — and is now in limited release. It’s a documentary that follows actress Kate Lyn Sheil (House of Cards) as she prepares for the role of Christine Chubbuck, a real-life news reporter who committed suicide via handgun on live television in 1974, and the...
Kate Plays Christine, the latest film from Actress and Fake It So Real director Robert Greene, caught a great deal of attention at Sundance — we gave it the highest grade at the festival — and is now in limited release. It’s a documentary that follows actress Kate Lyn Sheil (House of Cards) as she prepares for the role of Christine Chubbuck, a real-life news reporter who committed suicide via handgun on live television in 1974, and the...
- 8/31/2016
- by Tony Hinds
- The Film Stage
Mark Rappaport, the film essayist, is long gone from New York and from America, but he’s back with more of his often-acerbic reflections on cinema and society. His five new films, which premiered at the Viennale, are short—most of them under half an hour. Their subjects range from tough guy John Garfield to the French actor Marcel Dalio to the largely forgotten actress Debra Paget, a "kitsch princess," as Rappaport calls her. As always, these are the reflections of a man who has seen a lot of cinema, maybe too much. Rappaport is best known for two feature-length film essays—"Rock Hudson’s Home Movies" (1992), and "From the Journals of Jean Seberg" (1995), both wry views of art and society from unexplored perspectives. Since moving to Paris some 12 years ago, Rappaport has been most visible in the media for a dispute with the American film professor Ray Carney over...
- 11/18/2015
- by David D'Arcy
- Thompson on Hollywood
Becoming Anita EkbergThe Film Society of Lincoln Center’s "Art of the Real" series, which recently unspooled its second season, has become New York’s annual showcase for the “hybrid” film, experimental works that, despite a more than tenuous relationship with the documentary tradition, oscillate between fiction and nonfiction. Now that documentary has become unmistakably fashionable (a banal subplot in Noah Baumbach’s dreary comedy, While We’re Young, is even spawned by cartoonish version of a debate over “documentary ethics”) the schism between films such as The Hunting Ground and Merchants of Doubt, which resemble feature-length 60 Minutes stories, and the sort of documentaries programmed at film festivals like Doclisboa and Cph: Dox has grown even wider. Art of the Real, laden with an amalgam of festival favorites and classic precursors of cinematic hybridity (this year’s Agnés Varda retrospective is a case in point) is certainly a cheerleader for...
- 4/25/2015
- by Richard Porton
- MUBI
In the expanded cinema of Mark Rappaport, crossing film, video, digital media and writing/publishing, voice—of every kind—is crucial. Crucial to the work, and crucial to our enjoyment of it, and engagement with it. From his remarkable run of experimental fiction features in the 1970s and 1980s—Casual Relations (1974), Mozart in Love (1975), Local Color (1977), The Scenic Route (1978), Impostors (1979) and Chain Letters (1985)—loyal fans came to recognize his voice in the abstract, auteurist sense: a dry, ironic tone, a critical finesse in collecting and twisting clichés, a taste for melodramatic passion as processed through a somewhat jaded, skeptical, modern sensibility. And each of these films was, in its own sense, an essay, but under the guise of narrative: an exploration of cultural stereotypes and all the rotten ideological baggage that comes with them, infiltrating our individual minds and hearts.>> - Adrian Martin...
- 4/24/2015
- Fandor: Keyframe
In the expanded cinema of Mark Rappaport, crossing film, video, digital media and writing/publishing, voice—of every kind—is crucial. Crucial to the work, and crucial to our enjoyment of it, and engagement with it. From his remarkable run of experimental fiction features in the 1970s and 1980s—Casual Relations (1974), Mozart in Love (1975), Local Color (1977), The Scenic Route (1978), Impostors (1979) and Chain Letters (1985)—loyal fans came to recognize his voice in the abstract, auteurist sense: a dry, ironic tone, a critical finesse in collecting and twisting clichés, a taste for melodramatic passion as processed through a somewhat jaded, skeptical, modern sensibility. And each of these films was, in its own sense, an essay, but under the guise of narrative: an exploration of cultural stereotypes and all the rotten ideological baggage that comes with them, infiltrating our individual minds and hearts.>> - Adrian Martin...
- 4/24/2015
- Keyframe
In some of the first moments of Mark Rappaport’s winsome exploration From the Journals of Jean Seberg you see Jean Seberg’s first screen test. She’s seventeen and auditioning for Otto Preminger’s Saint Joan. The film was the actress’s screen debut and a highly publicized one at that. Preminger was known for buzz-making and the director had launched a public casting call half America’s actresses attended with crosses and pixie cuts. In the screen test, Seberg says she wants to be an actress “very badly,” and smiles with tangible charm. It’s bittersweet to see her hopeful, because you know in years to come, that seventeen year old will age and struggle to find work. Her philanthropy will get her on the FBI’s Cointelpro list. And, one day, in Paris, she’ll take too many sleeping pills and be found dead in her car...
- 7/31/2014
- Fandor: Keyframe
In some of the first moments of Mark Rappaport’s winsome exploration From the Journals of Jean Seberg you see Jean Seberg’s first screen test. She’s seventeen and auditioning for Otto Preminger’s Saint Joan. The film was the actress’s screen debut and a highly publicized one at that. Preminger was known for buzz-making and the director had launched a public casting call half America’s actresses attended with crosses and pixie cuts. In the screen test, Seberg says she wants to be an actress “very badly,” and smiles with tangible charm. It’s bittersweet to see her hopeful, because you know in years to come, that seventeen year old will age and struggle to find work. Her philanthropy will get her on the FBI’s Cointelpro list. And, one day, in Paris, she’ll take too many sleeping pills and be found dead in her car...
- 7/31/2014
- Keyframe
The fight between the great director Mark Rappaport (Local Color, From The Journals Of Jean Seberg) and Boston University film scholar/Cassavetes specialist Ray Carney has its origins in 2005, when the filmmaker entrusted copies of his movies to the professor. In 2012, Rappaport went public with the troubling contention that Carney refused to return his work, effectively making it impossible for the director to earn any revenue from exhibiting the films. As Rappaport wrote last year, “the chances of anyone or any organization either having the interest, inclination, and, even more importantly, the cash to go through the very expensive […]...
- 4/16/2014
- by Vadim Rizov
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
The fight between the great director Mark Rappaport (Local Color, From The Journals Of Jean Seberg) and Boston University film scholar/Cassavetes specialist Ray Carney has its origins in 2005, when the filmmaker entrusted copies of his movies to the professor. In 2012, Rappaport went public with the troubling contention that Carney refused to return his work, effectively making it impossible for the director to earn any revenue from exhibiting the films. As Rappaport wrote last year, “the chances of anyone or any organization either having the interest, inclination, and, even more importantly, the cash to go through the very expensive […]...
- 4/16/2014
- by Vadim Rizov
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
Martin Amis once wrote that the literary critic must "proceed by quotation" — that the quotation, however vigorously embellished, remains the book reviewer's "only hard evidence" in the case for or against a work. Film criticism is denied even this meager luxury. For the writer, film's nonverbal qualities are always just out of reach of the pen; the image is never quite accessible to words. But what about another image? What if, as Jean-Luc Godard believed, the appropriate way to criticize a movie is to make another movie? Perhaps this accounts for why some of our most significant works of film criticism, like Godard's own Histoire(s) du cinéma or Mark Rappaport's From the Journals of Jean Seberg, approach their subjects cinematically, responding to film in ki...
- 1/1/2014
- Village Voice
Local Color
Written and directed by Mark Rappaport
USA, 1977
Local Color is an independent American film from a time long before “independent” could be used as a marketing device, before it could be (laughably) associated with Pulp Fiction and Miramax, and long before the word was bastardized to “indie.” It thus retains a grittiness and a smart amateurism that sets itself apart from Hollywood sentimentalism while simultaneously being unabashedly in love with glitz and glamour as well as melodramatic material of rampant adultery and suicide. This is in large part due to director Mark Rappaport’s appreciation of the pulpy elements of Hollywood and its grandstanding messages that somehow, no matter how recycled, manage to seek out and endear audiences. Rappaport would later direct faux-biopics (more visual essays) of legendary actors Jean Seberg and Rock Hudson, seeking the undertones in each of their filmographies — the female form’s place in...
Written and directed by Mark Rappaport
USA, 1977
Local Color is an independent American film from a time long before “independent” could be used as a marketing device, before it could be (laughably) associated with Pulp Fiction and Miramax, and long before the word was bastardized to “indie.” It thus retains a grittiness and a smart amateurism that sets itself apart from Hollywood sentimentalism while simultaneously being unabashedly in love with glitz and glamour as well as melodramatic material of rampant adultery and suicide. This is in large part due to director Mark Rappaport’s appreciation of the pulpy elements of Hollywood and its grandstanding messages that somehow, no matter how recycled, manage to seek out and endear audiences. Rappaport would later direct faux-biopics (more visual essays) of legendary actors Jean Seberg and Rock Hudson, seeking the undertones in each of their filmographies — the female form’s place in...
- 10/9/2013
- by Zach Lewis
- SoundOnSight
Thanks to their wide availability and extensive catalogs, the VOD model of distribution and exhibition has become the prime source for audience to access content. Leading the field are services like Netflix and Hulu Plus, which carry enormous amount of films and TV shows; however, for those who look for the fully "indie" experience Fandor is the best alternative. The service launched in the U.S in March 2011 will now be available for Canadian audiences.
The Fandor service combines discovery features, expert curation and social collaboration so audiences can explore the world of independent film and find cinematic gems they didn’t even know existed. Furthermore, one of the most interesting facts about the company is their particular revenue strategy, which designates half of its subscription fees to support independent filmmakers, ensuring like this the future creation of new independent content.
Fandor’s Canadian service features over 2,200 independent releases, with more added every day, and includes award-winning narrative and documentary features, quality shorts and film festival favorites from across the globe, including:
• City of Life and Death directed by Chuan Lu (courtesy of Kino Lorber)—Toronto International Film Festival, 2009
• Smithereens directed by Susan Seidelman (courtesy of FilmBuff)— Toronto International Film Festival, 1982
• Carcasses directed by Denis Côté (courtesy of Vanguard Cinema) — Toronto International Film Festival, 2009
• Local Color directed by Mark Rappaport (courtesy of the filmmaker)1977
With a monthly or an annual subscription, Canadian audiences can stream unlimited films from an extensive cinema library that spans nearly 400 genres, directly to their TVs, computers, mobile devices or tablets.
"Fandor provides a unique library of films to people wherever they are, on whatever device they prefer for media consumption,” said Dan Aronson, co-founder and CEO of Fandor. “Launching in Canada allows us to bring our collection of films to a broader audience hungry to discover great content they may not otherwise find.”
Features of the new service include:
A recommendation engine that considers a user’s stated tastes and ongoing activity to provide refined, personalized recommendations. The ability to filter films by cast, crew and film festivals. Access to daily news, interviews and multi-media features from Fandor’s Keyframe digital magazine. Regular contributors include industry notables B. Ruby Rich ( Film Quarterly , Uc Santa Cruz, Sight & Sound ), Dennis Harvey ( Variety) and Michael Atkinson ( Village Voice, In These Times ). Spotlight, a special selection of themed films curated by Fandor twice monthly. Social sharing via email and multiple social networks allowing viewers to spread buzz about the films they love.
About Fandor
Launched in 2011, Fandor is the leading on-demand movie service providing access to a curated global library of high-quality, smart independent films. By leveraging online distribution, technology and social media, Fandor takes the hard work out of finding great movies. Fandor’s subscription-based service allows audiences to discover cinema through its comprehensive library of thousands of film festival favorites, world cinema, award-winning documentaries and quality shorts. Fandor uses the latest streaming technology to allow viewing anywhere, from home theaters to computers, mobile devices and tablets. For more information, visit www.fandor.com .
The Fandor service combines discovery features, expert curation and social collaboration so audiences can explore the world of independent film and find cinematic gems they didn’t even know existed. Furthermore, one of the most interesting facts about the company is their particular revenue strategy, which designates half of its subscription fees to support independent filmmakers, ensuring like this the future creation of new independent content.
Fandor’s Canadian service features over 2,200 independent releases, with more added every day, and includes award-winning narrative and documentary features, quality shorts and film festival favorites from across the globe, including:
• City of Life and Death directed by Chuan Lu (courtesy of Kino Lorber)—Toronto International Film Festival, 2009
• Smithereens directed by Susan Seidelman (courtesy of FilmBuff)— Toronto International Film Festival, 1982
• Carcasses directed by Denis Côté (courtesy of Vanguard Cinema) — Toronto International Film Festival, 2009
• Local Color directed by Mark Rappaport (courtesy of the filmmaker)1977
With a monthly or an annual subscription, Canadian audiences can stream unlimited films from an extensive cinema library that spans nearly 400 genres, directly to their TVs, computers, mobile devices or tablets.
"Fandor provides a unique library of films to people wherever they are, on whatever device they prefer for media consumption,” said Dan Aronson, co-founder and CEO of Fandor. “Launching in Canada allows us to bring our collection of films to a broader audience hungry to discover great content they may not otherwise find.”
Features of the new service include:
A recommendation engine that considers a user’s stated tastes and ongoing activity to provide refined, personalized recommendations. The ability to filter films by cast, crew and film festivals. Access to daily news, interviews and multi-media features from Fandor’s Keyframe digital magazine. Regular contributors include industry notables B. Ruby Rich ( Film Quarterly , Uc Santa Cruz, Sight & Sound ), Dennis Harvey ( Variety) and Michael Atkinson ( Village Voice, In These Times ). Spotlight, a special selection of themed films curated by Fandor twice monthly. Social sharing via email and multiple social networks allowing viewers to spread buzz about the films they love.
About Fandor
Launched in 2011, Fandor is the leading on-demand movie service providing access to a curated global library of high-quality, smart independent films. By leveraging online distribution, technology and social media, Fandor takes the hard work out of finding great movies. Fandor’s subscription-based service allows audiences to discover cinema through its comprehensive library of thousands of film festival favorites, world cinema, award-winning documentaries and quality shorts. Fandor uses the latest streaming technology to allow viewing anywhere, from home theaters to computers, mobile devices and tablets. For more information, visit www.fandor.com .
- 10/7/2013
- by Carlos Aguilar
- Sydney's Buzz
For decades, Mark Rappaport has been championed by cinephiles and scholars. His distinctively meta and at times essayistic work has screened at major film festivals and art houses around the world. And for years, one of Rappaport's biggest fans was Boston University film professor Ray Carney, who once called Rappaport "a genuine national treasure." As recently as 2010, Carney -- an iconoclastic scholar of indie cinema primarily known for his research on John Cassavetes -- hoped to teach an entire seminar dedicated to Rappaport's films, which range from a period of irreverent comedies released in the seventies and eighties (such as the acclaimed "The Scenic Route") to quasi-diary films produced in the nineties that include the imaginative "Rock Hudson's Home Movies." Over the past year, however, the two men have become intrinsically linked for reasons that have nothing to do with the quality of Rappaport's films. Instead, Carney has been...
- 4/10/2013
- by Eric Kohn
- Indiewire
Otto Preminger's restored classic showcases both his own tyrannical genius and the fleeting luminosity of Jean Seberg
In 1956, at the age of 18, Jean Seberg – one of more than 18,000 wannabes in a Hollywood X Factor-style search for a new star – was plucked from obscurity by director Otto Preminger. She went on to become a cinematic icon in Jean Luc Godard's seminal film Breathless four years later and killed herself at 40, following years of personal turmoil exacerbated by the infamous lies spread about her by the FBI.
François Truffaut described Seberg as "the best actress in Europe", but we are left with glimpses of fleeting luminosity from a faltering career and tragically short life. One of those outstanding moments came in Preminger's Bonjour Tristesse, newly restored and screened this month at the London film festival. The movie is now widely regarded as a prime example of Hollywood's golden age,...
In 1956, at the age of 18, Jean Seberg – one of more than 18,000 wannabes in a Hollywood X Factor-style search for a new star – was plucked from obscurity by director Otto Preminger. She went on to become a cinematic icon in Jean Luc Godard's seminal film Breathless four years later and killed herself at 40, following years of personal turmoil exacerbated by the infamous lies spread about her by the FBI.
François Truffaut described Seberg as "the best actress in Europe", but we are left with glimpses of fleeting luminosity from a faltering career and tragically short life. One of those outstanding moments came in Preminger's Bonjour Tristesse, newly restored and screened this month at the London film festival. The movie is now widely regarded as a prime example of Hollywood's golden age,...
- 10/10/2012
- by Tony Paley
- The Guardian - Film News
This will be the year that revenue from streaming passes revenue from DVD sales, according to a recent article in the Hollywood Reporter.
How do we feel about this? I ask as a movie-watcher who subscribes to Netflix, Hulu and Fandor, and also rents online from Amazon and Vudu. iTunes gets none of my business because the iTunes Store has been misbehaving on my computer. I average three streaming movies a week and three or four on DVD. I'm not an average consumer, because a lot of my viewing is for work. But often of an evening I'll stream for pleasure. All of my streaming happens through a Roku Player on HDTV.
Does anyone recall the time when HBO was first test-marketing Movies on Demand? There was much hilarity when it was learned that their Florida test market wasn't exactly a model of digital automation. Apparently actual employees were taking...
How do we feel about this? I ask as a movie-watcher who subscribes to Netflix, Hulu and Fandor, and also rents online from Amazon and Vudu. iTunes gets none of my business because the iTunes Store has been misbehaving on my computer. I average three streaming movies a week and three or four on DVD. I'm not an average consumer, because a lot of my viewing is for work. But often of an evening I'll stream for pleasure. All of my streaming happens through a Roku Player on HDTV.
Does anyone recall the time when HBO was first test-marketing Movies on Demand? There was much hilarity when it was learned that their Florida test market wasn't exactly a model of digital automation. Apparently actual employees were taking...
- 6/8/2012
- by Roger Ebert
- blogs.suntimes.com/ebert
"In 1962 Pier Paolo Pasolini received a suspended sentence for his allegedly blasphemous contribution to the portmanteau film Rogopag, a brilliant sketch satirizing biblical movies," writes Philip French in his brief review of the new Masters of Cinema release of The Gospel According to St Matthew in today's Observer. "Two years later the gay, Marxist atheist showed the world how a life of Christ should be made, and it is a magnificent achievement, far superior to Scorsese's or Gibson's films."
David Jenkins in Little White Lies: "Essentially a 'straight' retelling of the life of Christ (who is played with fervent intensity by Enrique Irazoqui), which, on its surface, seldom editorializes or strays towards controversy, the film was fully embraced by the religious community to the extent that a colorized version was made to capitalize on the Bible belt buck. General familiarity of with the text makes this one of Pasolini's most easily approachable films,...
David Jenkins in Little White Lies: "Essentially a 'straight' retelling of the life of Christ (who is played with fervent intensity by Enrique Irazoqui), which, on its surface, seldom editorializes or strays towards controversy, the film was fully embraced by the religious community to the extent that a colorized version was made to capitalize on the Bible belt buck. General familiarity of with the text makes this one of Pasolini's most easily approachable films,...
- 4/8/2012
- MUBI
The National Film Preservation Foundation and the Film Foundation have announced the recipients of their annual Avant-Garde Masters Grants, which goes towards preserving classic experimental, avant-garde and underground films.
This year, $50,000 will be given to five different film preservation and archival organizations to preserve 10 avant-garde films from the ’60s and the ’70s. The most significant recipient of grant funds is Ohio State University who will be preserving five early works by Lillian Schwartz, a pioneer in early computer animation.
Pictured above is a film still courtesy of Ohio State from Schwartz’s Olympiad (1971), one of the films being preserved. The other four are Pixillation (1970), Enigma (1972), Mutations (1972), and Papillons (1973). While computer animation is ubiquitous today, Schwartz led early efforts to use computer languages to create artistic animated forms.
According to Dan Streible, acting director of Nyu’s Moving Image Archiving and Preservation program:
Lillian Schwartz worked alongside At&T research scientists...
This year, $50,000 will be given to five different film preservation and archival organizations to preserve 10 avant-garde films from the ’60s and the ’70s. The most significant recipient of grant funds is Ohio State University who will be preserving five early works by Lillian Schwartz, a pioneer in early computer animation.
Pictured above is a film still courtesy of Ohio State from Schwartz’s Olympiad (1971), one of the films being preserved. The other four are Pixillation (1970), Enigma (1972), Mutations (1972), and Papillons (1973). While computer animation is ubiquitous today, Schwartz led early efforts to use computer languages to create artistic animated forms.
According to Dan Streible, acting director of Nyu’s Moving Image Archiving and Preservation program:
Lillian Schwartz worked alongside At&T research scientists...
- 8/17/2011
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
New York's Anthology Film Archives introduces its series, The Films of Mark Rappaport, running today through Thursday: "Rappaport's career has unfolded in two distinct chapters, the first consisting of the radically stylized, intellectually playful, and absurdly comical fictional features he produced throughout the 1970s and into the 80s; while the 90s found him developing a genre largely of his own invention, with a series of video-essays that delved into various realms of film history and culture, two of them in the form of monologues-from-beyond-the-grave by once-famous movie stars."...
- 3/11/2011
- MUBI
Despite the fact that virtually none of the week’s releases are related in any way to the Academy Awards, whose annual ceremony takes place next Sunday, February 27, there are a lot of new DVDs and Blu-rays being released this week that are well worth consumers’ attention. As per usual, there are several new releases coming to home video for the first time, a few perennial favorites finding their way onto high-definition formats, and a few rediscoveries of obscure or...
- 2/22/2011
- by Todd Gilchrist
- Speakeasy/Wall Street Journal
When we talked, I talked about me, you talked about you, when we should have talked about each other.
Soon this site will become the Godard Cast? Or better yet, The Belmondo Cast. I think I’d be all for that one. But is that really a bad thing? One of the fathers of the French New Wave coupled with one of the essential faces of French film makes way for the quintessential granddaddy of them all, Breathless. And the Criterion Collection is releasing a brand new transfer on Blu-ray and the question isn’t should you see this film. The real question is, should you buy this new Blu-ray, especially if you already have the DVD?
Jean-Paul Belmondo exudes Humphrey Bogart level charm in his role of Michel, a petty criminal who is in over his head when he steals a car and shoots a policeman. He has nothing,...
Soon this site will become the Godard Cast? Or better yet, The Belmondo Cast. I think I’d be all for that one. But is that really a bad thing? One of the fathers of the French New Wave coupled with one of the essential faces of French film makes way for the quintessential granddaddy of them all, Breathless. And the Criterion Collection is releasing a brand new transfer on Blu-ray and the question isn’t should you see this film. The real question is, should you buy this new Blu-ray, especially if you already have the DVD?
Jean-Paul Belmondo exudes Humphrey Bogart level charm in his role of Michel, a petty criminal who is in over his head when he steals a car and shoots a policeman. He has nothing,...
- 9/14/2010
- by James McCormick
- CriterionCast
Here we are, another 15th of the month, another group of amazing releases from the Criterion Collection announced on schedule. Being so obsessively attached to rumors and gossip on Twitter and forums and the like, many of these titles have been hinted at in one form or another.
Way back in March, we got a somewhat obvious clue in the monthly Criterion Collection e-mail newsletter, in the form of a thin, red lion, and after some back and forth as to which movie it was referring to, many came to the conclusion it was in fact Terrance Malick’s The Thin Red Line. Criterion’s recent Blu-ray release of Malick’s Days of Heaven was an incredible production, with a transfer that cannot be beaten. The Thin Red Line was also teased at in a twitter picture post that Criterion sent out back in March, giving further proof to the...
Way back in March, we got a somewhat obvious clue in the monthly Criterion Collection e-mail newsletter, in the form of a thin, red lion, and after some back and forth as to which movie it was referring to, many came to the conclusion it was in fact Terrance Malick’s The Thin Red Line. Criterion’s recent Blu-ray release of Malick’s Days of Heaven was an incredible production, with a transfer that cannot be beaten. The Thin Red Line was also teased at in a twitter picture post that Criterion sent out back in March, giving further proof to the...
- 6/16/2010
- by Ryan Gallagher
- CriterionCast
With the recent re-release (and rumored Criterion Blu-ray) of Jean-Luc Godard’s seminal piece of work, the legendary French New Wave classic, Breathless, comes a new wave of marketing for the film.
And I must say, one hell of a campaign this truly is.
While this new line of clothing is directly done by the film’s distributor, Janus Films, the line of tee shirts is no less amazing. The famous Rodarte sisters recently teamed up with Paris based boutique Colette, on what can best be described as a collection of tees directly inspired by the classic piece of cinema.
Including the famous New York Herald Tribune shirt that Jean Seberg made into a classic, the line also includes a pair of shirts that feature a photo of Seberg and Belmondo with a set of graphic overlays. While these aren’t the most interesting or creative takes on the film,...
And I must say, one hell of a campaign this truly is.
While this new line of clothing is directly done by the film’s distributor, Janus Films, the line of tee shirts is no less amazing. The famous Rodarte sisters recently teamed up with Paris based boutique Colette, on what can best be described as a collection of tees directly inspired by the classic piece of cinema.
Including the famous New York Herald Tribune shirt that Jean Seberg made into a classic, the line also includes a pair of shirts that feature a photo of Seberg and Belmondo with a set of graphic overlays. While these aren’t the most interesting or creative takes on the film,...
- 6/14/2010
- by Joshua Brunsting
- CriterionCast
Today Criterion sent out their monthly e-mail newsletter, with the usual updates on their new releases. The May and June titles, which we have already begun covering on the podcast, were highlighted.
As expected, they included hints at future releases, tucked into the text, as well as the usual “Wacky” drawing from the veteran Criterion artist, Jason Polan. This months drawing is a blue cake, with fifty candles, with the text “Gasp! Wheeze!” attempting to blow out the candles.
From The Criterion Collection E-mail Newsletter
Twitter quickly lit up as soon as this e-mail went out, and our good friend over at Hollywood Elsewhere, Moises Chiullan, was the first I spotted to have thrown out a presumably correct guess: Jean Luc Godard’s Breathless.
A couple months back we told you about Rialto presenting a new 35mm print of Breathless, in honor of it’s 50th anniversary, which will be premiering in New York,...
As expected, they included hints at future releases, tucked into the text, as well as the usual “Wacky” drawing from the veteran Criterion artist, Jason Polan. This months drawing is a blue cake, with fifty candles, with the text “Gasp! Wheeze!” attempting to blow out the candles.
From The Criterion Collection E-mail Newsletter
Twitter quickly lit up as soon as this e-mail went out, and our good friend over at Hollywood Elsewhere, Moises Chiullan, was the first I spotted to have thrown out a presumably correct guess: Jean Luc Godard’s Breathless.
A couple months back we told you about Rialto presenting a new 35mm print of Breathless, in honor of it’s 50th anniversary, which will be premiering in New York,...
- 5/14/2010
- by Ryan Gallagher
- CriterionCast
"'Star Wars: The Phantom Menace' was the most disappointing thing since my son."
That's the daffy opening line of filmmaker Mike Stoklasa's "'Star Wars: The Phantom Menace' Review," an insightful, rudely funny takedown of George Lucas' prequel. And it's as good a place as any to start an appreciation of a hybrid of the video essay and the mash-up -- an emerging format that's often more entertaining than the work it cannibalizes.
Let's start by distinguishing straightforward mash-ups and video essays from works created by Stoklasa and his siblings-in-spirit. The term "mash-up" was first applied to musical works that combined existing pieces of recording music in order to create something new. The YouTube equivalent is defined by Wikipedia as a work that "combines "multiple sources of video -- which often have no relation to each other -- into a derivative work, often lampooning...
That's the daffy opening line of filmmaker Mike Stoklasa's "'Star Wars: The Phantom Menace' Review," an insightful, rudely funny takedown of George Lucas' prequel. And it's as good a place as any to start an appreciation of a hybrid of the video essay and the mash-up -- an emerging format that's often more entertaining than the work it cannibalizes.
Let's start by distinguishing straightforward mash-ups and video essays from works created by Stoklasa and his siblings-in-spirit. The term "mash-up" was first applied to musical works that combined existing pieces of recording music in order to create something new. The YouTube equivalent is defined by Wikipedia as a work that "combines "multiple sources of video -- which often have no relation to each other -- into a derivative work, often lampooning...
- 1/20/2010
- by Matt Zoller Seitz
- ifc.com
While Sean Penn’s recent Best Actor Oscar win for Milk helped bring Harvey Milk’s message to a wide audience — both from the increased visibility of the film and from Penn’s moving acceptance speech — the occasion marked another instance of a Hollywood tradition: a gay character played by a heterosexual actor.
Penn, like Tom Hanks (Philadelphia [1993]) and William Hurt (Kiss of the Spider Woman [1985]) before him, was praised for his “bravery” for taking on the role and even — eek! — kissing another man.
Gay actors, on the other hand, get no such credit for playing gay roles; let’s not forget the year that Rupert Everett’s hilarious supporting turn in My Best Friend’s Wedding (1997) was ignored by the Academy, with the implication that queer thespians need merely show up to play queer characters, with no actual acting involved. (To add insult to injury, that same year saw...
Penn, like Tom Hanks (Philadelphia [1993]) and William Hurt (Kiss of the Spider Woman [1985]) before him, was praised for his “bravery” for taking on the role and even — eek! — kissing another man.
Gay actors, on the other hand, get no such credit for playing gay roles; let’s not forget the year that Rupert Everett’s hilarious supporting turn in My Best Friend’s Wedding (1997) was ignored by the Academy, with the implication that queer thespians need merely show up to play queer characters, with no actual acting involved. (To add insult to injury, that same year saw...
- 4/8/2009
- by dennis
- The Backlot
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