“I’ve seen Paris, France, and Paris, Paramount Pictures,” Ernst Lubitsch said, or so they say, “and on the whole I prefer Paris, Paramount Pictures.”
The great director’s preference for the Hollywood city of lights over the French one expresses a common enough affinity for illusion over reality, but the studio in question was not chosen for alliteration alone. If gritty Warner Bros. specialized in mean streets and threadbare apartments and glitzy MGM spent big on grand hotels and emerald cities, Paramount transported moviegoers into realms of dreamy exoticism, allegedly set in Vienna, Budapest or St. Petersburg, but conjured with better-than-the-original costuming, set design, lighting and dialogue. In an age before jumbo jets, who was to quibble over verisimilitude?
A new version of Paramount looks to be a-borning: Controlling stakeholder Shari Redstone may put her company on the auction block. Whatever conglomerate or mogul buys the assets, it’ll...
The great director’s preference for the Hollywood city of lights over the French one expresses a common enough affinity for illusion over reality, but the studio in question was not chosen for alliteration alone. If gritty Warner Bros. specialized in mean streets and threadbare apartments and glitzy MGM spent big on grand hotels and emerald cities, Paramount transported moviegoers into realms of dreamy exoticism, allegedly set in Vienna, Budapest or St. Petersburg, but conjured with better-than-the-original costuming, set design, lighting and dialogue. In an age before jumbo jets, who was to quibble over verisimilitude?
A new version of Paramount looks to be a-borning: Controlling stakeholder Shari Redstone may put her company on the auction block. Whatever conglomerate or mogul buys the assets, it’ll...
- 2/29/2024
- by Thomas Doherty
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Humphrey Bogart movies: ‘The Maltese Falcon,’ ‘High Sierra’ (Image: Most famous Humphrey Bogart quote: ‘The stuff that dreams are made of’ from ‘The Maltese Falcon’) (See previous post: “Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall Movies.”) Besides 1948, 1941 was another great year for Humphrey Bogart — one also featuring a movie with the word “Sierra” in the title. Indeed, that was when Bogart became a major star thanks to Raoul Walsh’s High Sierra and John Huston’s The Maltese Falcon. In the former, Bogart plays an ex-con who falls in love with top-billed Ida Lupino — though both are outacted by ingénue-with-a-heart-of-tin Joan Leslie. In the latter, Bogart plays Dashiel Hammett’s private detective Sam Spade, trying to discover the fate of the titular object; along the way, he is outacted by just about every other cast member, from Mary Astor’s is-she-for-real dame-in-distress to Best Supporting Actor Academy Award nominee Sydney Greenstreet. John Huston...
- 8/1/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
When you’re looking to put together a movie collection, it doesn’t hurt if you happen to be Warner Brothers. If the collection you’re after is classic gangster movies, you’re really in luck.
For fans of the genre, especially those looking to upgrade titles to Blu-Ray, the new Ultimate Gangsters Collection: Classics is one you’ve got to get your hands on. Not only do you get some of the films that helped create the genre, and have become the foundation upon which countless movies are built, but the extras are worth the price on their own.
The collection here comes at you like a history lesson, not just of the genre, but of film. Little Caesar, with Edward G. Robinson setting the stage for all future gangsters with “short man syndrome,” but struggling mightily against the production theories of the day, is not only a classic treasure,...
For fans of the genre, especially those looking to upgrade titles to Blu-Ray, the new Ultimate Gangsters Collection: Classics is one you’ve got to get your hands on. Not only do you get some of the films that helped create the genre, and have become the foundation upon which countless movies are built, but the extras are worth the price on their own.
The collection here comes at you like a history lesson, not just of the genre, but of film. Little Caesar, with Edward G. Robinson setting the stage for all future gangsters with “short man syndrome,” but struggling mightily against the production theories of the day, is not only a classic treasure,...
- 6/7/2013
- by Marc Eastman
- AreYouScreening.com
Ultimate Gangster Collection — Classics
Little Caesar
The Public Enemy
The Petrified Forest
White Heat
Due Out: May 21, 2013
The “Ultimate Gangster Collection: Classics“ and “Ultimate Gangster Collection: Contemporary” are available on Blu-ray 5/21
Who’S It For?
This collection is for anyone who gets excited for a gangster flick. The look of each film is fantastic, especially considering the age of these movies. Just being able to own (and compare) Little Caesar and The Public Enemy is worth the price alone. Little Caesar has every single cliché that Hollywood is still using for its gangster films. It doesn’t hold up compared to modern movies, but that’s the point of watching it. With Little Caesar these aren’t exactly clichés, but new attempted techniques. The Public Enemy completely holds up. It’s an amazing character study brought to life by the brilliant Cagney. Seeing the intro, explaining that Hollywood is against...
Little Caesar
The Public Enemy
The Petrified Forest
White Heat
Due Out: May 21, 2013
The “Ultimate Gangster Collection: Classics“ and “Ultimate Gangster Collection: Contemporary” are available on Blu-ray 5/21
Who’S It For?
This collection is for anyone who gets excited for a gangster flick. The look of each film is fantastic, especially considering the age of these movies. Just being able to own (and compare) Little Caesar and The Public Enemy is worth the price alone. Little Caesar has every single cliché that Hollywood is still using for its gangster films. It doesn’t hold up compared to modern movies, but that’s the point of watching it. With Little Caesar these aren’t exactly clichés, but new attempted techniques. The Public Enemy completely holds up. It’s an amazing character study brought to life by the brilliant Cagney. Seeing the intro, explaining that Hollywood is against...
- 5/21/2013
- by Jeff Bayer
- The Scorecard Review
With Father’s Day coming up, it makes perfect sense for Warner Bros. to look to the past, and release two impressive Blu-ray collections. Ultimate Gangster Collection Classic and Ultimate Gangster Collection Contemporary should make plenty of men happy*.
*Women are also allowed to be happy by this news.
Here is the news release…
Burbank, Calif., March 11, 2013 – As part of the studio’s 90th Anniversary celebration, eight of Warner Bros. Pictures’ greatest gangster films – from Edward G. Robinson’s 1931 classic Little Caesar to Martin Scorsese’s Oscar-winning masterpiece The Departed– will now be available in two Blu-ray sets May 21. Released to coincide with Father’s Day gift-giving, the WB genre greats, along with one of Paramount’s best gangster films, will be offered in the Ultimate Gangster Collection: Classic and Ultimate Gangster Collection: Contemporary.
The four films in the Classic Collection have been remastered for their Blu-ray debuts. They include...
*Women are also allowed to be happy by this news.
Here is the news release…
Burbank, Calif., March 11, 2013 – As part of the studio’s 90th Anniversary celebration, eight of Warner Bros. Pictures’ greatest gangster films – from Edward G. Robinson’s 1931 classic Little Caesar to Martin Scorsese’s Oscar-winning masterpiece The Departed– will now be available in two Blu-ray sets May 21. Released to coincide with Father’s Day gift-giving, the WB genre greats, along with one of Paramount’s best gangster films, will be offered in the Ultimate Gangster Collection: Classic and Ultimate Gangster Collection: Contemporary.
The four films in the Classic Collection have been remastered for their Blu-ray debuts. They include...
- 3/11/2013
- by Jeff Bayer
- The Scorecard Review
An ambitious attempt to write a 'personal' history of cinema is sometimes intelligent but rarely convincing
Maxim Gorky, the first major writer to record his impressions of the cinema, wrote in his local newspaper the day after seeing the first Lumière brothers show in Nizhny Novgorod in 1896: "Last night I was in the Kingdom of Shadows. If you only knew how strange it is to be there … I was at Aumont's and saw Lumière's cinématographe – moving photography. The extraordinary impression it creates is so unique and complex that I doubt my ability to describe it with all its nuances." A few years later Rudyard Kipling wrote Mrs Bathurst, the first significant work of fiction inspired by the movies, a mysteriously haunting tale of a sailor driven to his death by a brief newsreel he obsessively views in Cape Town. The new medium had the power to disturb, to fascinate,...
Maxim Gorky, the first major writer to record his impressions of the cinema, wrote in his local newspaper the day after seeing the first Lumière brothers show in Nizhny Novgorod in 1896: "Last night I was in the Kingdom of Shadows. If you only knew how strange it is to be there … I was at Aumont's and saw Lumière's cinématographe – moving photography. The extraordinary impression it creates is so unique and complex that I doubt my ability to describe it with all its nuances." A few years later Rudyard Kipling wrote Mrs Bathurst, the first significant work of fiction inspired by the movies, a mysteriously haunting tale of a sailor driven to his death by a brief newsreel he obsessively views in Cape Town. The new medium had the power to disturb, to fascinate,...
- 10/15/2011
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
Jennifer Jones, Humphrey Bogart, Gina Lollobrigida, Beat the Devil Humphrey Bogart on TCM: The Caine Mutiny, The Maltese Falcon, Sahara Schedule (Et) and synopses from the TCM website: 6:00 Am Bogart: The Untold Story (1996) Stephen Bogart hosts this one-hour special on the life and career of his legendary father, Humphrey Bogart. Dir: Chris Hunt. Cast: Stephen Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Robert Sklar. C-46 mins. 7:00 Am Bullets Or Ballots (1936) A cop goes undercover to crack an influential crime ring. Dir: William Keighley. Cast: Edward G. Robinson, Joan Blondell, Barton MacLane. Bw-82 mins. 8:30 Am San Quentin (1937) A convict's sister falls for the captain of the prison guards. Dir: Lloyd Bacon. Cast: Pat O'Brien, Humphrey Bogart, Ann Sheridan. Bw-70 mins. 9:45 Am King Of The Underworld (1939) A lady doctor gets mixed up with a criminal gang. Dir: Lewis Seiler. Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Kay Francis, James Stephenson. Bw-67 mins. 11:00 Am To Have And Have Not...
- 8/18/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Nyu Cinema Studies professor and one-time department chairman Robert Sklar died June 26 in a bicycling accident at age 74. While I earned my degree in Cinema Studies from Nyu and respected Sklar, I never took one of his classes. Here's his Nyt obit; current Cinema Studies chair Richard Allen's tribute is below. In Memory Of Robert Sklar 1936-2011 It is with great sadness that I must report to you the death of our beloved colleague, Robert Sklar. On Sunday, June 26, Bob had an accident while bicycling in Barcelona with his wife, Adrienne Harris. He lost control of his bike, fell and hit his head. He was removed to a Barcelona hospital with head injuries. At the hospital he was diagnosed as having extensive ...
- 7/8/2011
- Thompson on Hollywood
I was lucky enough to take one course taught by Robert Sklar, the esteemed film historian and scholar who passed away over the weekend in an unexpected accident, but wish I could have taken many more. Sklar's most influential work, "Movie-Made America," first came out over thirty years ago but remains one of the most important texts for the study of American cinema. (After all, he helped invent the field.) Its thesis, that American film culture owed much to the lower class and the struggles against capitalist interests rather than efforts to sustain them, echoed the egalitarian nature of Sklar's writing: Although primarily an academic, he had the capacity to speak to movie lovers of all stripes. In doing so, he was essentially an activist, capable of making the inarguable case for taking movies seriously--not only as an art form, but a socio-economic force that helps us understand the world.
- 7/5/2011
- Screen Rush
I was lucky enough to take one course taught by Robert Sklar, the esteemed film historian and scholar who passed away over the weekend in an unexpected accident, but wish I could have taken many more. Sklar's most influential work, "Movie-Made America," first came out over thirty years ago but remains one of the most important texts for the study of American cinema. (After all, he helped invent the field.) Its thesis, that American film culture owed much to the lower class and the struggles against capitalist interests rather than efforts to sustain them, echoed the egalitarian nature of Sklar's…...
- 7/5/2011
- Screen Rush
Details are sketchy at this point, but I just received the very sad news that Robert Sklar, film historian, author, and long-time professor of cinema studies at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts passed away over the weekend in Spain, apparently of injuries suffered in a cycling accident. Professor Sklar -- Bob to his friends, but always Prof. Sklar to me -- was my faculty adviser for my two years at Nyu and one of the best teachers I ever had, on the subject of film or anything else.
Though you may not recognize his name, Sklar had an enormous impact on the world of film and film studies. His books, including the indispensable "Movie-Made America,", have become required reading for thousands of cinema studies students. Educated at Princeton and Harvard, Sklar worked as a professor of history at the University of Michigan before moving to Nyu's burgeoning...
Though you may not recognize his name, Sklar had an enormous impact on the world of film and film studies. His books, including the indispensable "Movie-Made America,", have become required reading for thousands of cinema studies students. Educated at Princeton and Harvard, Sklar worked as a professor of history at the University of Michigan before moving to Nyu's burgeoning...
- 7/4/2011
- by Matt Singer
- ifc.com
Tuesday, DVD roundup day, is a fine day for taking a look at the new Summer 2011 issue of Cineaste, particularly since, among the online samplings this time around, DVD reviews outnumber all other types of articles combined.
To begin, Darragh O'Donoghue on Harun Farocki's Still Life (1997): "Five aphoristic essays on 17th-century Dutch still-life painting, of about three minutes each, bracket four documentary sequences of photographers creating modern still lifes for magazine advertisements. These two levels, though defined by opposites — stasis/motion, tell/show — are linked by visual motifs and rhymes, just as the modern products echo the subjects of the paintings. The documentary sequences have no commentary, mostly last ten to fifteen minutes, and take their cue from Farocki's earlier An Image (Ein bild, 1983). In that short, he recorded the shooting of a German Playboy centerfold spread, from the building of sets and the arrangement of props (including...
To begin, Darragh O'Donoghue on Harun Farocki's Still Life (1997): "Five aphoristic essays on 17th-century Dutch still-life painting, of about three minutes each, bracket four documentary sequences of photographers creating modern still lifes for magazine advertisements. These two levels, though defined by opposites — stasis/motion, tell/show — are linked by visual motifs and rhymes, just as the modern products echo the subjects of the paintings. The documentary sequences have no commentary, mostly last ten to fifteen minutes, and take their cue from Farocki's earlier An Image (Ein bild, 1983). In that short, he recorded the shooting of a German Playboy centerfold spread, from the building of sets and the arrangement of props (including...
- 6/7/2011
- MUBI
For Hollywood pundits, industry folk and Oscar fans still paying attention on Monday, a major question remained: How did David slay Goliath?For as much as "The Hurt Locker" was the critics' darling, it had three major strikes against it in its battle against the mighty James Cameron's "Avatar."First, the box office was paltry . it's taken in just $14.7 million domestically, compared to an amazing $720.6 million for "Avatar." That makes "The Hurt Locker" the lowest-grossing best picture winner since accurate records have been kept.Second, it had no big acting names, usually an important factor in Oscar victory.And third, it was about the Iraq war, a subject moviegoers traditionally just don't want to deal with. "Iraq is usually the kiss of death at the Oscars," says Tom O'Neil, blogger for the Los Angeles Times' Envelope, an awards site.
- 3/8/2010
- Filmicafe
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