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Patton (1970) More at IMDbPro »

6 items from 2013

1 May 2013 12:56 PM, PDT | TheHDRoom | See recent TheHDRoom news »

MGM's World War II classic adventure The Great Escape starring Steve McQueen, James Garner, Charles Bronson, and James Coburn is speeding onto Blu-ray for the first time on May 7 in celebration of the film's 50th anniversary. Thanks to the fine folks at MGM Home Entertainment, we have two copies of The Great Escape on Blu-ray that will be awarded to a pair of lucky readers in this contest.

All you have to do for a chance to win The Great Escape on Blu-ray is fill out and submit the short entry form below. The odds of winning can be increased each day you stop back to enter again for as many days as the contest is open. You must be a resident of the U.S. or Canada to enter.

Based on a true story set in 1943, the Germans opened a maximum-security prison-of-war camp, designed to hold even the craftiest escape artists. »

27 February 2013 2:18 PM, PST | SoundOnSight | See recent SoundOnSight news »

This article is dedicated to Andrew Copp: filmmaker, film writer, artist and close friend who passed away on January 19, 2013. You are loved and missed, brother.

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Looking at the Best Actor Academy Award nominations for the film year 2012, the one miss that clearly cries out for more attention is Liam Neeson’s powerful performance in Joe Carnahan’s excellent survival film The Grey, easily one of the best roles of Neeson’s career.

In Neeson’s case, his lack of a nomination was a case of neglect similar to the Albert Brooks snub in the Best Supporting Actor category for the film year 2011 for Drive(Nicolas Winding Refn, USA).

Along with negligence, other factors commonly prevent outstanding lead acting performances from getting the kind of critical attention they deserve. Sometimes it’s that the performance is in a film not considered “Oscar material” or even worthy of any substantial critical attention. »

- Terek Puckett

25 January 2013 12:06 PM, PST | Huffington Post | See recent Huffington Post news »

Michael Moore stopped by HuffPost Live on Friday to weigh in on the seemingly never-ending debate around "Zero Dark Thirty." Moore penned a HuffPost blog post defending the film against critics, many of whom say it condones and promotes torture.

"I understand why a lot of people on the left ... believe the movie endorses torture," Moore began on HuffPost Live. "But that's not how I saw it, I left the movie thinking it made an incredible statement against torture."

Moore also claimed it's important to move beyond the issue of whether torture "does or does not work." "The film shows the abject brutality [of torture]," Moore said. "It doesn't matter if it works. It's wrong."

"These are works of fiction -- 'Zero Dark Thirty,' '24,'" Moore said. "[The interrogators] torture 100 people. One guy has the information. Everyone who doesn't have the information makes up shit ... so you have 99 people making up »

- Kia Makarechi

24 January 2013 10:57 PM, PST | Cinelinx | See recent Cinelinx news »

Our daily countdown continues, with part 24 out of 30, in our list of the 300 Greatest Films Ever Made. These are numbers 70-61.

70) Snow White & the Seven Dwarves (1937) Walt Disney USA Animated

69) Modern Times (1936) Charlie Chaplin USA Silent

68) The Deer Hunter (1978) Michael Cimino USA

67) Ben Hur (1959) William Wyler USA

66) American Grafetti (1973) George Lucas USA

65) Rocky (1976) John Alvidsen USA

64) Mutiny On The Bounty (1935) Frank Lloyd USA

63) Fargo (1996) Joel & Ethan Cohen USA

62) Patton (1970) Frank Schaffner USA

61) The Gold Rush (1925) Charlie Chaplin USA Silent

Numbers 60-51 coming next.

film cultureClassicslist300 »

- feeds@cinelinx.com (Rob Young)

14 January 2013 11:19 AM, PST | SoundOnSight | See recent SoundOnSight news »

Anybody who has ever been to a high school reunion (and I’ve been to my share) will tell you that the calendar and the clock can be incredibly cruel (particularly when combined with the long-term effects of gravity, but let’s not go there).

Time punishes creative works as well. Some work grows dated, stale, stiff. Time and the evolving form of the given art leaves a once vibrant and exciting work behind looking dead and obsolete.

More cruel, perhaps, is work that is simply…forgotten. Not for any good reason. Good as it was, maybe it was simply not successful enough to lodge very deeply in the popular consciousness; working well enough in its day, but soon lost among the ever-growing detritus of a lot of other pieces of yesterday.

Movie music is particularly vulnerable to the cruelties of time. Outside of the form’s devotees, it rarely »

- Bill Mesce

5 January 2013 1:42 PM, PST | Obsessed with Film | See recent Obsessed with Film news »

Niall Johnson is a sterling British filmmaker you may not have heard of, but you will certainly be aware of his work. Starting off with television dramas like The Ghost of Greville Lodge, then moving onto small indie pictures like The Big Swap, Johnson made waves in Hollywood when he wrote the script for the Michael Keaton-starring supernatural chiller White Noise, which shattered Box Office records at the time of its release. But the writer-director is perhaps best known for his wonderful black comedy Keeping Mum, now a staple on Film4, which tells the tale of Maggie Smith’s housekeeper, who hides a dark past, helping change a divided family for the better, even if she does so through rather unorthodox means…

Johnson did anything but keep mum in this exclusive interview where he very candidly discusses his career so far, his very busy upcoming slate, and his thoughts on the film industry today. »

- Oscar Harding

6 items from 2013