Sure, there were some happy shock waves when Jon Batiste, the much-admired musical multi-hyphenate, unexpectedly picked up the most nominations by far — 11 — when the final candidates were announced in November for the 64th annual Grammy Awards. Despite this achievement, the instrumentalist, composer and “Late Show With Stephen Colbert” bandleader speaks in selflessly communal terms about his seeming designation as the Grammys’ flagship artist heading toward the Jan. 31 telecast.
“These nominations are a real affirmation of my belief that music is bigger than genre,” says Batiste from his “Late Show” dressing room at Manhattan’s Ed Sullivan Theater, the very room where he started the recording process for the genre-jumping 2021 album “We Are,” which landed the lion’s share of his Grammy recognition. The recognition is also for “Soul,” his Oscar-winning score for Disney/Pixar’s animated love letter to jazz, shared with co-composers Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.
“These nominations are an affirmation,...
“These nominations are a real affirmation of my belief that music is bigger than genre,” says Batiste from his “Late Show” dressing room at Manhattan’s Ed Sullivan Theater, the very room where he started the recording process for the genre-jumping 2021 album “We Are,” which landed the lion’s share of his Grammy recognition. The recognition is also for “Soul,” his Oscar-winning score for Disney/Pixar’s animated love letter to jazz, shared with co-composers Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.
“These nominations are an affirmation,...
- 12/15/2021
- by A.D. Amorosi
- Variety Film + TV
The legendary actor reflects on her riches-to-rags childhood, confronting depression and alcoholism – and dancing with Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire
Leslie Caron and her companion, Jack, greet me at the front of their apartment. They make a well-matched couple – slight, chic, immaculately coiffured. Caron, the legendary dancer and actor, is 90 in two weeks’ time. Jack, her beloved shih tzu, is about nine.
Caron heads off to make the tea, with Sidney Bechet’s summery jazz playing in the background. I am left alone with Jack to explore the living room. It feels as if I am tunnelling through the history of 20th-century culture. Here is a photo of a pensive François Truffaut; below is a smirking Warren Beatty. The centrepiece on the wall is a huge watercolour of Caron’s great friend Christopher Isherwood, painted by his partner, Don Bachardy. To the left is Louis Armstrong, to the right Rudolf Nureyev,...
Leslie Caron and her companion, Jack, greet me at the front of their apartment. They make a well-matched couple – slight, chic, immaculately coiffured. Caron, the legendary dancer and actor, is 90 in two weeks’ time. Jack, her beloved shih tzu, is about nine.
Caron heads off to make the tea, with Sidney Bechet’s summery jazz playing in the background. I am left alone with Jack to explore the living room. It feels as if I am tunnelling through the history of 20th-century culture. Here is a photo of a pensive François Truffaut; below is a smirking Warren Beatty. The centrepiece on the wall is a huge watercolour of Caron’s great friend Christopher Isherwood, painted by his partner, Don Bachardy. To the left is Louis Armstrong, to the right Rudolf Nureyev,...
- 6/21/2021
- by Simon Hattenstone
- The Guardian - Film News
From "Modern Lusts," Berghahn 2020, 340PPErnest Borneman not only wrote the greatest detective novel set in the movie-business, with one of the best titles, The Face on the Cutting-Room Floor (1937), but was also a screenwriter, editor, producer, distributor and director who worked closely with two cinema colossi, John Grierson and Orson Welles. He was also a painter, musician, revered jazz critic and historian of African-American life, a radical agitator and sexologist whose stated aim was to destroy the patriarchy. Modern Lusts, the first biography of this protean polymath, reveals a man who did everything, knew everyone, and remained in the forefront of avant-garde art and politics, Black liberation and sexual freedom, like some ultra-woke Zelig. Never in the field of human culture was so much done, so many met, now known to so few.Born in Berlin in 1915, Borneman attended Karl Marx school and by 15 had met Brecht, with whom he collaborated over the decades,...
- 12/23/2020
- MUBI
Jazz is an art form that can be examined any number of ways — historically, racially, structurally, even philosophically — but choosing one of those runs the risk of ignoring the equally-important rest. Sophie Huber’s thoughtful but unfocused documentary “Blue Note Records: Beyond the Notes” falls short primarily because it tries too much, examining history, modern-day impact and legacy all in one.
Nevertheless an engaging thumbnail overview of the record label’s heyday, its key players, and the descendants and disciples committed to carrying on its name and vision, “Beyond the Notes” succeeds better as an introduction to Blue Note and jazz in general than as an expert or in-depth examination of the musical genre or one of its most iconic distributors.
Part of the challenge is deciding where to start: With the musicians who pioneered the genre, or the earliest fans-turned visionaries who helped get them heard? Huber begins with Alfred Lion and Francis Wolff,...
Nevertheless an engaging thumbnail overview of the record label’s heyday, its key players, and the descendants and disciples committed to carrying on its name and vision, “Beyond the Notes” succeeds better as an introduction to Blue Note and jazz in general than as an expert or in-depth examination of the musical genre or one of its most iconic distributors.
Part of the challenge is deciding where to start: With the musicians who pioneered the genre, or the earliest fans-turned visionaries who helped get them heard? Huber begins with Alfred Lion and Francis Wolff,...
- 6/12/2019
- by Todd Gilchrist
- The Wrap
Sophie Huber’s film, though sanctioned by the jazz record label, is no hagiography, interviewing key players and adding fantastic rostrum pictures of the era
This damn-near immaculate music documentary by Swiss film-maker Sophie Huber pays tribute to Blue Note Records, the iconic label most associated with mid-20th-century bebop jazz. Co-founded in 1939 by German-Jewish immigrants Alfred Lion and Francis Wolff, Blue Note became a home for artists such as Thelonious Monk, Art Blakey, Horace Silver, Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter (the last two are interviewed here). The label also issued key work by Miles Davis, Sidney Bechet and John Coltrane among others who largely recorded elsewhere.
Although clearly officially sanctioned by the label’s current owners this doesn’t feel like a slick, bland exercise in self-promotion. Instead, Huber crafts a respectful, crisply told but depth-plumbing history of the label, drawing from original recordings, vintage audio of studio chatter,...
This damn-near immaculate music documentary by Swiss film-maker Sophie Huber pays tribute to Blue Note Records, the iconic label most associated with mid-20th-century bebop jazz. Co-founded in 1939 by German-Jewish immigrants Alfred Lion and Francis Wolff, Blue Note became a home for artists such as Thelonious Monk, Art Blakey, Horace Silver, Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter (the last two are interviewed here). The label also issued key work by Miles Davis, Sidney Bechet and John Coltrane among others who largely recorded elsewhere.
Although clearly officially sanctioned by the label’s current owners this doesn’t feel like a slick, bland exercise in self-promotion. Instead, Huber crafts a respectful, crisply told but depth-plumbing history of the label, drawing from original recordings, vintage audio of studio chatter,...
- 3/15/2019
- by Leslie Felperin
- The Guardian - Film News
Eve Goldberg looks back on a "can't miss" film production that fell short of expectations:
Paris Blues could have been a hit. It could have been a game-changer. It could have become a classic. Starring Paul Newman and Sidney Poitier as expatriate jazz musicians, this 1961 movie was filmed in Paris, directed by Martin Ritt and written by Walter Bernstein (The Front). All the ingredients for a compelling, top-notch entertainment were in place.
But the movie misses. Despite strong performances, a fascinating milieu, meaty subject matter, gorgeous cinematography, several unforgettable set pieces, and a score by Duke Ellington, the whole is distinctly less than the sum of its parts.
So, what went wrong?
The problem is the script. How the script falters, and why, is perhaps the most intriguing aspect of the film.
Paris Blues is based on a 1957 same-titled novel by Harold Flender. The book tells the story of Eddie Cook,...
Paris Blues could have been a hit. It could have been a game-changer. It could have become a classic. Starring Paul Newman and Sidney Poitier as expatriate jazz musicians, this 1961 movie was filmed in Paris, directed by Martin Ritt and written by Walter Bernstein (The Front). All the ingredients for a compelling, top-notch entertainment were in place.
But the movie misses. Despite strong performances, a fascinating milieu, meaty subject matter, gorgeous cinematography, several unforgettable set pieces, and a score by Duke Ellington, the whole is distinctly less than the sum of its parts.
So, what went wrong?
The problem is the script. How the script falters, and why, is perhaps the most intriguing aspect of the film.
Paris Blues is based on a 1957 same-titled novel by Harold Flender. The book tells the story of Eddie Cook,...
- 8/8/2018
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
1973's The Sting took it global, but there's more to ragtime music than that film's Keystone Kops crazy-chase soundtrack
Reading on mobile? Click here to listen to The Maple Leaf Rag played by Scott Joplin
One album was all it took to herald a revival. In 1970, the year of Simon & Garfunkel's Bridge Over Troubled Water and The Beatles' Let It Be, a record of arcane late 19th-century American piano music, released on a label that was otherwise building its reputation as a chronicler of the hardcore American avant-garde, began to sell in implausible quantities. Audiences ordinarily enamoured of piano miniatures by Chopin, Brahms and Liszt were suddenly taking pleasure in the compositions of Scott Joplin, the Texas-born "King of Ragtime" whose über-catchy 1899 Maple Leaf Rag brought him immediate popularity, but who died in 1917 with two typically embarrassing composerly problems hanging over him: syphilis and a terminally unproduced opera, Treemonisha,...
Reading on mobile? Click here to listen to The Maple Leaf Rag played by Scott Joplin
One album was all it took to herald a revival. In 1970, the year of Simon & Garfunkel's Bridge Over Troubled Water and The Beatles' Let It Be, a record of arcane late 19th-century American piano music, released on a label that was otherwise building its reputation as a chronicler of the hardcore American avant-garde, began to sell in implausible quantities. Audiences ordinarily enamoured of piano miniatures by Chopin, Brahms and Liszt were suddenly taking pleasure in the compositions of Scott Joplin, the Texas-born "King of Ragtime" whose über-catchy 1899 Maple Leaf Rag brought him immediate popularity, but who died in 1917 with two typically embarrassing composerly problems hanging over him: syphilis and a terminally unproduced opera, Treemonisha,...
- 1/22/2014
- The Guardian - Film News
In these exclusive extracts from his classy memoir, the Anchorman opens his head and shares his biggest memories
Ron on myths about his hair
1. My hair is called Andros Papanakas. It is not. I have no name for my hair.
2. My hair was bestowed upon me by the gods. This one is hard to dispel. It would have been just like Zeus to make such a gift, or Hermes, but even though I have called on these two gods many times I have never been told specifically by either one that I was given my hair, so I have to say no to the gift-from-the-gods theory.
3. My hair is insured by Lloyd's of London for $1,000. Nope! It's fifteen hundred, thank you.
4. My hair won't talk to my moustache. This is basically true but I would hardly call that a myth.
5. My hair starred in the movie Logan's Run. It was...
Ron on myths about his hair
1. My hair is called Andros Papanakas. It is not. I have no name for my hair.
2. My hair was bestowed upon me by the gods. This one is hard to dispel. It would have been just like Zeus to make such a gift, or Hermes, but even though I have called on these two gods many times I have never been told specifically by either one that I was given my hair, so I have to say no to the gift-from-the-gods theory.
3. My hair is insured by Lloyd's of London for $1,000. Nope! It's fifteen hundred, thank you.
4. My hair won't talk to my moustache. This is basically true but I would hardly call that a myth.
5. My hair starred in the movie Logan's Run. It was...
- 11/11/2013
- The Guardian - Film News
There are a whopping nine films nominated for Best Picture at this year’s Academy Awards. And between your work, family, and constant USA marathons of Law & Order: Svu (when will those ever stop being addictive?!), you simply may not have time to catch all nine in the theaters or at home. But never fear, dear PopWatchers — that’s why we’re here! Each day leading up to the Academy Awards on Feb. 26, we’ll provide you with a deep dive into one of the nine Best Picture nominees. Fear showing up to your Oscars party unprepared to discuss the year’s most notable films?...
- 2/21/2012
- by Mandi Bierly
- EW.com - PopWatch
From its rapturous opening sequence, Midnight in Paris announces that Woody Allen has returned to at least one of his most beloved forms. The writer-director, whose work has skimmed screwball comedy, Bergman-esque drama, melancholic romance and misanthropic satire, comes back to his Manhattan roots here, as that opening number soaringly attests. While saxophonist Sidney Bechet plays 'Si Tu Vois Ma Mere', images of Paris amble past, each street corner, rooftop and rainy square more unabashedly romantic than the last. Allen lingers on the sequence, letting it play just a tad longer than is strictly comfortable. His message to the audience is ...
- 5/28/2011
- Hindustan Times - Cinema
From its rapturous opening sequence, Midnight in Paris announces that Woody Allen has returned to at least one of his most beloved forms. The writer-director, whose work has skimmed screwball comedy, Bergman-esque drama, melancholic romance and misanthropic satire, comes back to his Manhattan roots here, as that opening number soaringly attests. While saxophonist Sidney Bechet plays 'Si Tu Vois Ma Mere', images of Paris amble past, each street corner, rooftop and rainy square more unabashedly romantic than the last. Allen lingers on the sequence, letting it play just a tad longer than is strictly comfortable. His message to the audience is ...
- 5/28/2011
- Hindustan Times - Cinema
From its rapturous opening sequence, Midnight in Paris announces that Woody Allen has returned to at least one of his most beloved forms. The writer-director, whose work has skimmed screwball comedy, Bergman-esque drama, melancholic romance and misanthropic satire, comes back to his Manhattan roots here, as that opening number soaringly attests. While saxophonist Sidney Bechet plays 'Si Tu Vois Ma Mere', images of Paris amble past, each street corner, rooftop and rainy square more unabashedly romantic than the last. Allen lingers on the sequence, letting it play just a tad longer than is strictly comfortable. His message to the audience is ...
- 5/28/2011
- Hindustan Times - Cinema
From its rapturous opening sequence, Midnight in Paris announces that Woody Allen has returned to at least one of his most beloved forms. The writer-director, whose work has skimmed screwball comedy, Bergman-esque drama, melancholic romance and misanthropic satire, comes back to his Manhattan roots here, as that opening number soaringly attests. While saxophonist Sidney Bechet plays 'Si Tu Vois Ma Mere', images of Paris amble past, each street corner, rooftop and rainy square more unabashedly romantic than the last. Allen lingers on the sequence, letting it play just a tad longer than is strictly comfortable. His message to the audience is ...
- 5/28/2011
- Hindustan Times - Cinema
From its rapturous opening sequence, Midnight in Paris announces that Woody Allen has returned to at least one of his most beloved forms. The writer-director, whose work has skimmed screwball comedy, Bergman-esque drama, melancholic romance and misanthropic satire, comes back to his Manhattan roots here, as that opening number soaringly attests. While saxophonist Sidney Bechet plays 'Si Tu Vois Ma Mere', images of Paris amble past, each street corner, rooftop and rainy square more unabashedly romantic than the last. Allen lingers on the sequence, letting it play just a tad longer than is strictly comfortable. His message to the audience is ...
- 5/28/2011
- Hindustan Times - Cinema
From its rapturous opening sequence, Midnight in Paris announces that Woody Allen has returned to at least one of his most beloved forms. The writer-director, whose work has skimmed screwball comedy, Bergman-esque drama, melancholic romance and misanthropic satire, comes back to his Manhattan roots here, as that opening number soaringly attests. While saxophonist Sidney Bechet plays 'Si Tu Vois Ma Mere', images of Paris amble past, each street corner, rooftop and rainy square more unabashedly romantic than the last. Allen lingers on the sequence, letting it play just a tad longer than is strictly comfortable. His message to the audience is ...
- 5/28/2011
- Hindustan Times - Cinema
From its rapturous opening sequence, Midnight in Paris announces that Woody Allen has returned to at least one of his most beloved forms. The writer-director, whose work has skimmed screwball comedy, Bergman-esque drama, melancholic romance and misanthropic satire, comes back to his Manhattan roots here, as that opening number soaringly attests. While saxophonist Sidney Bechet plays 'Si Tu Vois Ma Mere', images of Paris amble past, each street corner, rooftop and rainy square more unabashedly romantic than the last. Allen lingers on the sequence, letting it play just a tad longer than is strictly comfortable. His message to the audience is ...
- 5/28/2011
- Hindustan Times - Cinema
From its rapturous opening sequence, Midnight in Paris announces that Woody Allen has returned to at least one of his most beloved forms. The writer-director, whose work has skimmed screwball comedy, Bergman-esque drama, melancholic romance and misanthropic satire, comes back to his Manhattan roots here, as that opening number soaringly attests. While saxophonist Sidney Bechet plays 'Si Tu Vois Ma Mere', images of Paris amble past, each street corner, rooftop and rainy square more unabashedly romantic than the last. Allen lingers on the sequence, letting it play just a tad longer than is strictly comfortable. His message to the audience is ...
- 5/28/2011
- Hindustan Times - Cinema
From its rapturous opening sequence, Midnight in Paris announces that Woody Allen has returned to at least one of his most beloved forms. The writer-director, whose work has skimmed screwball comedy, Bergman-esque drama, melancholic romance and misanthropic satire, comes back to his Manhattan roots here, as that opening number soaringly attests. While saxophonist Sidney Bechet plays 'Si Tu Vois Ma Mere', images of Paris amble past, each street corner, rooftop and rainy square more unabashedly romantic than the last. Allen lingers on the sequence, letting it play just a tad longer than is strictly comfortable. His message to the audience is ...
- 5/28/2011
- Hindustan Times - Cinema
From its rapturous opening sequence, Midnight in Paris announces that Woody Allen has returned to at least one of his most beloved forms. The writer-director, whose work has skimmed screwball comedy, Bergman-esque drama, melancholic romance and misanthropic satire, comes back to his Manhattan roots here, as that opening number soaringly attests. While saxophonist Sidney Bechet plays 'Si Tu Vois Ma Mere', images of Paris amble past, each street corner, rooftop and rainy square more unabashedly romantic than the last. Allen lingers on the sequence, letting it play just a tad longer than is strictly comfortable. His message to the audience is ...
- 5/28/2011
- Hindustan Times - Cinema
From its rapturous opening sequence, Midnight in Paris announces that Woody Allen has returned to at least one of his most beloved forms. The writer-director, whose work has skimmed screwball comedy, Bergman-esque drama, melancholic romance and misanthropic satire, comes back to his Manhattan roots here, as that opening number soaringly attests. While saxophonist Sidney Bechet plays 'Si Tu Vois Ma Mere', images of Paris amble past, each street corner, rooftop and rainy square more unabashedly romantic than the last. Allen lingers on the sequence, letting it play just a tad longer than is strictly comfortable. His message to the audience is ...
- 5/28/2011
- Hindustan Times - Cinema
From its rapturous opening sequence, Midnight in Paris announces that Woody Allen has returned to at least one of his most beloved forms. The writer-director, whose work has skimmed screwball comedy, Bergman-esque drama, melancholic romance and misanthropic satire, comes back to his Manhattan roots here, as that opening number soaringly attests. While saxophonist Sidney Bechet plays 'Si Tu Vois Ma Mere', images of Paris amble past, each street corner, rooftop and rainy square more unabashedly romantic than the last. Allen lingers on the sequence, letting it play just a tad longer than is strictly comfortable. His message to the audience is ...
- 5/28/2011
- Hindustan Times - Cinema
From its rapturous opening sequence, Midnight in Paris announces that Woody Allen has returned to at least one of his most beloved forms. The writer-director, whose work has skimmed screwball comedy, Bergman-esque drama, melancholic romance and misanthropic satire, comes back to his Manhattan roots here, as that opening number soaringly attests. While saxophonist Sidney Bechet plays 'Si Tu Vois Ma Mere', images of Paris amble past, each street corner, rooftop and rainy square more unabashedly romantic than the last. Allen lingers on the sequence, letting it play just a tad longer than is strictly comfortable. His message to the audience is ...
- 5/28/2011
- Hindustan Times - Cinema
From its rapturous opening sequence, Midnight in Paris announces that Woody Allen has returned to at least one of his most beloved forms. The writer-director, whose work has skimmed screwball comedy, Bergman-esque drama, melancholic romance and misanthropic satire, comes back to his Manhattan roots here, as that opening number soaringly attests. While saxophonist Sidney Bechet plays 'Si Tu Vois Ma Mere', images of Paris amble past, each street corner, rooftop and rainy square more unabashedly romantic than the last. Allen lingers on the sequence, letting it play just a tad longer than is strictly comfortable. His message to the audience is ...
- 5/28/2011
- Hindustan Times - Cinema
From its rapturous opening sequence, Midnight in Paris announces that Woody Allen has returned to at least one of his most beloved forms. The writer-director, whose work has skimmed screwball comedy, Bergman-esque drama, melancholic romance and misanthropic satire, comes back to his Manhattan roots here, as that opening number soaringly attests. While saxophonist Sidney Bechet plays 'Si Tu Vois Ma Mere', images of Paris amble past, each street corner, rooftop and rainy square more unabashedly romantic than the last. Allen lingers on the sequence, letting it play just a tad longer than is strictly comfortable. His message to the audience is ...
- 5/28/2011
- Hindustan Times - Cinema
From its rapturous opening sequence, Midnight in Paris announces that Woody Allen has returned to at least one of his most beloved forms. The writer-director, whose work has skimmed screwball comedy, Bergman-esque drama, melancholic romance and misanthropic satire, comes back to his Manhattan roots here, as that opening number soaringly attests. While saxophonist Sidney Bechet plays 'Si Tu Vois Ma Mere', images of Paris amble past, each street corner, rooftop and rainy square more unabashedly romantic than the last. Allen lingers on the sequence, letting it play just a tad longer than is strictly comfortable. His message to the audience is ...
- 5/28/2011
- Hindustan Times - Cinema
From its rapturous opening sequence, Midnight in Paris announces that Woody Allen has returned to at least one of his most beloved forms. The writer-director, whose work has skimmed screwball comedy, Bergman-esque drama, melancholic romance and misanthropic satire, comes back to his Manhattan roots here, as that opening number soaringly attests. While saxophonist Sidney Bechet plays 'Si Tu Vois Ma Mere', images of Paris amble past, each street corner, rooftop and rainy square more unabashedly romantic than the last. Allen lingers on the sequence, letting it play just a tad longer than is strictly comfortable. His message to the audience is ...
- 5/28/2011
- Hindustan Times - Cinema
From its rapturous opening sequence, Midnight in Paris announces that Woody Allen has returned to at least one of his most beloved forms. The writer-director, whose work has skimmed screwball comedy, Bergman-esque drama, melancholic romance and misanthropic satire, comes back to his Manhattan roots here, as that opening number soaringly attests. While saxophonist Sidney Bechet plays 'Si Tu Vois Ma Mere', images of Paris amble past, each street corner, rooftop and rainy square more unabashedly romantic than the last. Allen lingers on the sequence, letting it play just a tad longer than is strictly comfortable. His message to the audience is ...
- 5/28/2011
- Hindustan Times - Cinema
From its rapturous opening sequence, Midnight in Paris announces that Woody Allen has returned to at least one of his most beloved forms. The writer-director, whose work has skimmed screwball comedy, Bergman-esque drama, melancholic romance and misanthropic satire, comes back to his Manhattan roots here, as that opening number soaringly attests. While saxophonist Sidney Bechet plays 'Si Tu Vois Ma Mere', images of Paris amble past, each street corner, rooftop and rainy square more unabashedly romantic than the last. Allen lingers on the sequence, letting it play just a tad longer than is strictly comfortable. His message to the audience is ...
- 5/28/2011
- Hindustan Times - Cinema
From its rapturous opening sequence, Midnight in Paris announces that Woody Allen has returned to at least one of his most beloved forms. The writer-director, whose work has skimmed screwball comedy, Bergman-esque drama, melancholic romance and misanthropic satire, comes back to his Manhattan roots here, as that opening number soaringly attests. While saxophonist Sidney Bechet plays 'Si Tu Vois Ma Mere', images of Paris amble past, each street corner, rooftop and rainy square more unabashedly romantic than the last. Allen lingers on the sequence, letting it play just a tad longer than is strictly comfortable. His message to the audience is ...
- 5/28/2011
- Hindustan Times - Cinema
From its rapturous opening sequence, Midnight in Paris announces that Woody Allen has returned to at least one of his most beloved forms. The writer-director, whose work has skimmed screwball comedy, Bergman-esque drama, melancholic romance and misanthropic satire, comes back to his Manhattan roots here, as that opening number soaringly attests. While saxophonist Sidney Bechet plays 'Si Tu Vois Ma Mere', images of Paris amble past, each street corner, rooftop and rainy square more unabashedly romantic than the last. Allen lingers on the sequence, letting it play just a tad longer than is strictly comfortable. His message to the audience is ...
- 5/28/2011
- Hindustan Times - Cinema
From its rapturous opening sequence, Midnight in Paris announces that Woody Allen has returned to at least one of his most beloved forms. The writer-director, whose work has skimmed screwball comedy, Bergman-esque drama, melancholic romance and misanthropic satire, comes back to his Manhattan roots here, as that opening number soaringly attests. While saxophonist Sidney Bechet plays 'Si Tu Vois Ma Mere', images of Paris amble past, each street corner, rooftop and rainy square more unabashedly romantic than the last. Allen lingers on the sequence, letting it play just a tad longer than is strictly comfortable. His message to the audience is ...
- 5/28/2011
- Hindustan Times - Cinema
From its rapturous opening sequence, Midnight in Paris announces that Woody Allen has returned to at least one of his most beloved forms. The writer-director, whose work has skimmed screwball comedy, Bergman-esque drama, melancholic romance and misanthropic satire, comes back to his Manhattan roots here, as that opening number soaringly attests. While saxophonist Sidney Bechet plays 'Si Tu Vois Ma Mere', images of Paris amble past, each street corner, rooftop and rainy square more unabashedly romantic than the last. Allen lingers on the sequence, letting it play just a tad longer than is strictly comfortable. His message to the audience is ...
- 5/28/2011
- Hindustan Times - Cinema
From its rapturous opening sequence, Midnight in Paris announces that Woody Allen has returned to at least one of his most beloved forms. The writer-director, whose work has skimmed screwball comedy, Bergman-esque drama, melancholic romance and misanthropic satire, comes back to his Manhattan roots here, as that opening number soaringly attests. While saxophonist Sidney Bechet plays 'Si Tu Vois Ma Mere', images of Paris amble past, each street corner, rooftop and rainy square more unabashedly romantic than the last. Allen lingers on the sequence, letting it play just a tad longer than is strictly comfortable. His message to the audience is ...
- 5/28/2011
- Hindustan Times - Cinema
From its rapturous opening sequence, Midnight in Paris announces that Woody Allen has returned to at least one of his most beloved forms. The writer-director, whose work has skimmed screwball comedy, Bergman-esque drama, melancholic romance and misanthropic satire, comes back to his Manhattan roots here, as that opening number soaringly attests. While saxophonist Sidney Bechet plays 'Si Tu Vois Ma Mere', images of Paris amble past, each street corner, rooftop and rainy square more unabashedly romantic than the last. Allen lingers on the sequence, letting it play just a tad longer than is strictly comfortable. His message to the audience is ...
- 5/28/2011
- Hindustan Times - Cinema
From its rapturous opening sequence, Midnight in Paris announces that Woody Allen has returned to at least one of his most beloved forms. The writer-director, whose work has skimmed screwball comedy, Bergman-esque drama, melancholic romance and misanthropic satire, comes back to his Manhattan roots here, as that opening number soaringly attests. While saxophonist Sidney Bechet plays 'Si Tu Vois Ma Mere', images of Paris amble past, each street corner, rooftop and rainy square more unabashedly romantic than the last. Allen lingers on the sequence, letting it play just a tad longer than is strictly comfortable. His message to the audience is ...
- 5/28/2011
- Hindustan Times - Cinema
From its rapturous opening sequence, Midnight in Paris announces that Woody Allen has returned to at least one of his most beloved forms. The writer-director, whose work has skimmed screwball comedy, Bergman-esque drama, melancholic romance and misanthropic satire, comes back to his Manhattan roots here, as that opening number soaringly attests. While saxophonist Sidney Bechet plays 'Si Tu Vois Ma Mere', images of Paris amble past, each street corner, rooftop and rainy square more unabashedly romantic than the last. Allen lingers on the sequence, letting it play just a tad longer than is strictly comfortable. His message to the audience is ...
- 5/28/2011
- Hindustan Times - Cinema
From its rapturous opening sequence, Midnight in Paris announces that Woody Allen has returned to at least one of his most beloved forms. The writer-director, whose work has skimmed screwball comedy, Bergman-esque drama, melancholic romance and misanthropic satire, comes back to his Manhattan roots here, as that opening number soaringly attests. While saxophonist Sidney Bechet plays 'Si Tu Vois Ma Mere', images of Paris amble past, each street corner, rooftop and rainy square more unabashedly romantic than the last. Allen lingers on the sequence, letting it play just a tad longer than is strictly comfortable. His message to the audience is ...
- 5/28/2011
- Hindustan Times - Cinema
From its rapturous opening sequence, Midnight in Paris announces that Woody Allen has returned to at least one of his most beloved forms. The writer-director, whose work has skimmed screwball comedy, Bergman-esque drama, melancholic romance and misanthropic satire, comes back to his Manhattan roots here, as that opening number soaringly attests. While saxophonist Sidney Bechet plays 'Si Tu Vois Ma Mere', images of Paris amble past, each street corner, rooftop and rainy square more unabashedly romantic than the last. Allen lingers on the sequence, letting it play just a tad longer than is strictly comfortable. His message to the audience is ...
- 5/28/2011
- Hindustan Times - Cinema
From its rapturous opening sequence, Midnight in Paris announces that Woody Allen has returned to at least one of his most beloved forms. The writer-director, whose work has skimmed screwball comedy, Bergman-esque drama, melancholic romance and misanthropic satire, comes back to his Manhattan roots here, as that opening number soaringly attests. While saxophonist Sidney Bechet plays 'Si Tu Vois Ma Mere', images of Paris amble past, each street corner, rooftop and rainy square more unabashedly romantic than the last. Allen lingers on the sequence, letting it play just a tad longer than is strictly comfortable. His message to the audience is ...
- 5/28/2011
- Hindustan Times - Cinema
From its rapturous opening sequence, Midnight in Paris announces that Woody Allen has returned to at least one of his most beloved forms. The writer-director, whose work has skimmed screwball comedy, Bergman-esque drama, melancholic romance and misanthropic satire, comes back to his Manhattan roots here, as that opening number soaringly attests. While saxophonist Sidney Bechet plays 'Si Tu Vois Ma Mere', images of Paris amble past, each street corner, rooftop and rainy square more unabashedly romantic than the last. Allen lingers on the sequence, letting it play just a tad longer than is strictly comfortable. His message to the audience is ...
- 5/28/2011
- Hindustan Times - Cinema
From its rapturous opening sequence, Midnight in Paris announces that Woody Allen has returned to at least one of his most beloved forms. The writer-director, whose work has skimmed screwball comedy, Bergman-esque drama, melancholic romance and misanthropic satire, comes back to his Manhattan roots here, as that opening number soaringly attests. While saxophonist Sidney Bechet plays 'Si Tu Vois Ma Mere', images of Paris amble past, each street corner, rooftop and rainy square more unabashedly romantic than the last. Allen lingers on the sequence, letting it play just a tad longer than is strictly comfortable. His message to the audience is ...
- 5/28/2011
- Hindustan Times - Cinema
I had a smile on my face from the moment Woody Allen’s latest film began, with an idyllic series of Parisian street scenes set to the music of jazz great Sidney Bechet…and the film maintained that lovely quality all the way to the finale. Allen may be a fatalist, as he often claims, but this film is whimsical and romantic—a divertissement that recalls one of his most endearing and original comedies, The Purple Rose of Cairo. Owen Wilson is the latest in a long line of Woody surrogates (since the filmmaker has backed away from starring in his own movies)…...
- 5/20/2011
- Leonard Maltin's Movie Crazy
The festival has famously neglected the talents of female directors, but this year four are vying for the top prize, including Lynne Ramsay, whose dazzling interpretation of Lionel Shriver's novel We Need to Talk About Kevin is tipped for glory
Oone of the 15 golden rules of Cannes president Gilles Jacob, as set out in his new memoir Citizen Cannes, is: Never forget that a beautiful woman's face is the reason cinema exists.
A reflection of cinema itself, the festival has always been in the thrall of beautiful women: Faye Dunaway adorns this year's striking festival poster, slinked as she is in a mid-length black dress around the digits 64, while Marilyn Monroe in a sparkly playsuit is poster girl for the Un Certain Regard sidebar.
However adoring of on-screen beauty, Cannes has notoriously neglected female talent behind the camera, the Australian Jane Campion being the only Palme d'Or winner, for The Piano,...
Oone of the 15 golden rules of Cannes president Gilles Jacob, as set out in his new memoir Citizen Cannes, is: Never forget that a beautiful woman's face is the reason cinema exists.
A reflection of cinema itself, the festival has always been in the thrall of beautiful women: Faye Dunaway adorns this year's striking festival poster, slinked as she is in a mid-length black dress around the digits 64, while Marilyn Monroe in a sparkly playsuit is poster girl for the Un Certain Regard sidebar.
However adoring of on-screen beauty, Cannes has notoriously neglected female talent behind the camera, the Australian Jane Campion being the only Palme d'Or winner, for The Piano,...
- 5/14/2011
- by Jason Solomons
- The Guardian - Film News
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Midnight in Paris, which debuted on the Croisette at the 11am press screening opening of the Cannes Film Festival is a surprisingly delightful excursion into a cultured man’s fantasies… perhaps and probably Woody Allen’s own nostalgic wish to have been born in a different time and place.
Warning – The marketing team behind Midnight in Paris have done a terrific job of keeping the neat concept of the movie under-wraps and hidden by sleight of hand misdirection, so although there are no real spoilers ahead, I know I certainly enjoyed the movie more for not knowing what it actually was going in.
Full review follows…
It’s an interesting riff of the concept, oddly enough, of Nicolas Lyndhurst’s Goodnight Sweetheart British sitcom, but this time with our lead falling in love with a girl from the 1920′s who actually knew the likes of Ernest Hemingway,...
Midnight in Paris, which debuted on the Croisette at the 11am press screening opening of the Cannes Film Festival is a surprisingly delightful excursion into a cultured man’s fantasies… perhaps and probably Woody Allen’s own nostalgic wish to have been born in a different time and place.
Warning – The marketing team behind Midnight in Paris have done a terrific job of keeping the neat concept of the movie under-wraps and hidden by sleight of hand misdirection, so although there are no real spoilers ahead, I know I certainly enjoyed the movie more for not knowing what it actually was going in.
Full review follows…
It’s an interesting riff of the concept, oddly enough, of Nicolas Lyndhurst’s Goodnight Sweetheart British sitcom, but this time with our lead falling in love with a girl from the 1920′s who actually knew the likes of Ernest Hemingway,...
- 5/11/2011
- by Matt Holmes
- Obsessed with Film
I couldn't wait to watch Sunday night's latest HBO series, Treme, from The Wire's David Simon, set in post-Katrina New Orleans. I was not disappointed. Toh critic Tim Appelo has the review: The word “Treme” rhymes with “cachet” instead of “dream,” but both rhymes would be equally apt. It’s the name of America’s oldest, freest black community, and the setting of David Simon’s and Eric Overmyer’s newest, freest, blackest epic series, Treme (Sundays on HBO at 10 pm, starting Apr. 11). The show, about New Orleans after the flood, emits shimmering heatwaves of prestige, and sustains a sense of place as dreamy as Twin Peaks, only rigorously reality-based. “Treme” also aptly rhymes with “Sidney Bechet,” who came from the place, as did jazz. No TV show ...
- 4/11/2010
- Thompson on Hollywood
The stately side of the Crescent City
The funkiest man this side of Zigaboo Modeliste, Allen Toussaint is a one-man repository of New Orleans music, having produced or played with everyone from—oh, what’s the point? He’s worked with everyone. And now, at 71, he’s made a solo album as genteel as a Garden District mansion. It’s called The Bright Mississippi, and it does indeed shimmer. Toussaint leaves the producing to Joe Henry, freeing himself to play dignified piano and, on one track, sing. He also leads a crack band: Don Byron plays trilling clarinet on Sidney Bechet’s “Egyptian Fantasy,” Marc Ribot shreds an acoustic-guitar solo on Django Reinhardt’s “Blue Drag,” and Brad Mehldau tangles with Toussaint in a four-handed piano-only blues crawl called “Winin’ Boy Blues.” Like New Orleans itself, the album understands how to strut. But it also knows its manners. For all his funky pedigree,...
The funkiest man this side of Zigaboo Modeliste, Allen Toussaint is a one-man repository of New Orleans music, having produced or played with everyone from—oh, what’s the point? He’s worked with everyone. And now, at 71, he’s made a solo album as genteel as a Garden District mansion. It’s called The Bright Mississippi, and it does indeed shimmer. Toussaint leaves the producing to Joe Henry, freeing himself to play dignified piano and, on one track, sing. He also leads a crack band: Don Byron plays trilling clarinet on Sidney Bechet’s “Egyptian Fantasy,” Marc Ribot shreds an acoustic-guitar solo on Django Reinhardt’s “Blue Drag,” and Brad Mehldau tangles with Toussaint in a four-handed piano-only blues crawl called “Winin’ Boy Blues.” Like New Orleans itself, the album understands how to strut. But it also knows its manners. For all his funky pedigree,...
- 4/29/2009
- Pastemagazine.com
Movie director Woody Allen and wife SOON-YI have adopted a baby girl - naming her after one of Allen's beloved jazz musicians. The Annie Hall (1977) star, 64, and his 29-year-old wife have called the 6-month-old Manzie Tio Allen after Manzie Johnson, the drummer in clarinetist Sidney Bechet's jazz band - who their first adopted daughter Bechet was named after - and Lorenzo Tio who taught Bechet how to play. A friend says, "Woody is the happiest I've ever seen him. He has a beautiful house. A wife who is a wife - not an actress. Whoever would have thought a Jewish kid from Brooklyn would end up with an Asian daughter and a Caucasian daughter, both named after black musicians? Manzie has reportedly been living with the Allens for some months after being born in Texas to an American citizen...
- 8/24/2000
- WENN
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