Ernst Lubitsch's 1940 Christmas comedy "The Shop Around The Corner" has a bit of everything: petty workplace drama, an affair, and a most unlikely romance, making for a combination that is both sweet and acidic at once. Everything in it is graced with the so-called "Lubitsch touch," a precise set of innuendo and body language that turns funny or sentimental material into something far greater, and the warmth and melancholy of the holiday only heighten that complex feeling. It also is probably the second-best James Stewart-led Christmas movie, just beneath "It's a Wonderful Life."
While "Shop" would sadly be the only Lubitsch movie with James Stewart playing the lead, the actor's typical affability and relaxed posture made him a natural fit for Lubitsch's sensibilities. Few of the director's other leading men, whether they were Gary Cooper or Don Ameche, could match what Stewart could suggest with a raised eyebrow.
While "Shop" would sadly be the only Lubitsch movie with James Stewart playing the lead, the actor's typical affability and relaxed posture made him a natural fit for Lubitsch's sensibilities. Few of the director's other leading men, whether they were Gary Cooper or Don Ameche, could match what Stewart could suggest with a raised eyebrow.
- 1/13/2023
- by Anthony Crislip
- Slash Film
As Hollywood mourns the death of Bob Rafelson, the director of “Five Easy Pieces” and an essential member of the New Hollywood movement who helped launch the careers of Jack Nicholson and Peter Bogdanovich, one of the world’s greatest filmmakers (and film historians) has paid his respects. In a new statement, Martin Scorsese spoke about the impact that Rafelson had on the world of cinema, both through the art he created and the way he helped usher in a new business model for artistic filmmaking.
“Bob Rafelson was a pivotal figure in the history of cinema, American cinema most of all, and he was a bridge between two eras in Hollywood moviemaking,” Scorsese wrote. “He was literally born into the old Hollywood — his cousin was the great screenwriter Samson Raphaelson, one of Lubitsch’s key collaborators — and he was one of the people who made the New Hollywood possible,...
“Bob Rafelson was a pivotal figure in the history of cinema, American cinema most of all, and he was a bridge between two eras in Hollywood moviemaking,” Scorsese wrote. “He was literally born into the old Hollywood — his cousin was the great screenwriter Samson Raphaelson, one of Lubitsch’s key collaborators — and he was one of the people who made the New Hollywood possible,...
- 7/28/2022
- by Christian Zilko
- Indiewire
Bob Rafelson, the director, producer and writer who brought a European sensibility to American filmmaking with “Five Easy Pieces” in 1970, died Saturday evening at his home in Aspen, Colo. He was 89 years old.
Rafelson’s death was confirmed by his former personal assistant of 38 years, Jolene Wolff, who worked under Rafelson’s production banner Marmont Productions. Wolff stated that Rafelson died peacefully, surrounded by his family.
The Monkees vocalist and drummer Micky Dolenz, the final surviving member of the music group, offered a statement on Rafelson’s death Sunday afternoon.
“One day in the spring of 1966, I cut my classes in architecture at L.A. Trade Tech to take an audition for a new TV show called ‘The Monkees.’ The co-creator/producer of the show was Bob Rafelson,” Dolenz said. “At first, I mistook him for another actor there for the audition. Needless-to-say, I got the part and it completely altered my life.
Rafelson’s death was confirmed by his former personal assistant of 38 years, Jolene Wolff, who worked under Rafelson’s production banner Marmont Productions. Wolff stated that Rafelson died peacefully, surrounded by his family.
The Monkees vocalist and drummer Micky Dolenz, the final surviving member of the music group, offered a statement on Rafelson’s death Sunday afternoon.
“One day in the spring of 1966, I cut my classes in architecture at L.A. Trade Tech to take an audition for a new TV show called ‘The Monkees.’ The co-creator/producer of the show was Bob Rafelson,” Dolenz said. “At first, I mistook him for another actor there for the audition. Needless-to-say, I got the part and it completely altered my life.
- 7/24/2022
- by Rick Schultz and J. Kim Murphy
- Variety Film + TV
The lasting horror of war is the blight it leaves on the lives of those left behind. Early sound pictures tried to deal with the guilt and pain of WW1, and the great Ernst Lubitsch took time out from romantic comedies and musicals for this very grim rumination on lies and responsibility. A French soldier decides to contact the family of a German he killed in the trenches; with no clear purpose or plan, he’s apt to make things worse for everybody. Lionel Barrymore and Nancy Carroll are wonderful, but you’ll choke up in the scenes with the German mother, played by Louise Carter. The film is best known for its opening montage, in which Lubitsch openly attacks the hypocrisy of militarist patriotism. It’s an exceedingly effective, non-hysterical piece of anti-war filmmaking.
Broken Lullaby
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1932 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 76 min. / The Man I Killed / Street...
Broken Lullaby
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1932 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 76 min. / The Man I Killed / Street...
- 3/29/2022
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Years in the making! The glory of MGM on parade! Enough studio resources to film twenty pictures were expended on this paean to showman Florenz Ziegfeld. It’s really Metro Goldwyn Mayer’s Technicolor valentine to itself, showing off the studio’s enormous stable of musical talent, along with various of its comic performers. Arthur Freed and Louis B. Mayer’s notion of ‘something for everyone’ results in weird stack of grandiose musical numbers and mostly weak comedy. The biggest draw is the incredible color cinematography that peeks through in three or four jaw-droppingly elaborate musical spectacles. The picture is a workout to find the artistic limits of the Technicolor system.
Ziegfeld Follies
Blu-ray
Warner Archive Collection
1945 / Color / 1:37 Academy / 117 110 min. / Street Date June 15, 2021 / 21.99
Starring: (alphabetically): Fred Astaire, Lucille Ball, Lucille Bremer, Fanny Brice, Judy Garland, Kathryn Grayson, Lena Horne, Gene Kelly, Victor Moore, Red Skelton, Esther Williams. Also...
Ziegfeld Follies
Blu-ray
Warner Archive Collection
1945 / Color / 1:37 Academy / 117 110 min. / Street Date June 15, 2021 / 21.99
Starring: (alphabetically): Fred Astaire, Lucille Ball, Lucille Bremer, Fanny Brice, Judy Garland, Kathryn Grayson, Lena Horne, Gene Kelly, Victor Moore, Red Skelton, Esther Williams. Also...
- 7/20/2021
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
CineSavant’s hands-down favorite holiday film, this Ernst Lubitsch classic radiates human kindness in all directions. Nobody is perfect: misunderstandings benign and profound are the gentle impetus for a sweet story that will renew one’s belief that people are basically good. It’s James Stewart’s best pre-war performance, as he fits his character so perfectly; as in last month’s The Mortal Storm he and Margaret Sullavan exude decency and ‘niceness’ even when they’re being rude to each other. Frank Morgan tops his Wizard characterization, and the movie is so generous that it lets the nervy little go-getter William Tracy be the hero of the day. I’m glad this wasn’t re-invented as a sitcom, but they sure ran it through the remake hurdles.
The Shop Around the Corner
Blu-ray
Warner Archive Collection
1940 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 99 min. / Street Date December 22, 2020 / available through the WBshop / 21.99
Starring: James Stewart,...
The Shop Around the Corner
Blu-ray
Warner Archive Collection
1940 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 99 min. / Street Date December 22, 2020 / available through the WBshop / 21.99
Starring: James Stewart,...
- 12/5/2020
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
William Goldman wrote the way Joe Dimaggio played ball: with such deft and consummate skill that the impossible seemed easy. (It wasn’t. And isn’t.) Reading a Goldman screenplay, you never see the armature, the scaffolding. You see people, real people, just a bit more vivid than they might be were they not in a Goldman movie.
Perhaps because he was a novelist long before he was a screenwriter, his screenplays are writerly. They’re literate without ever being literary. And though Goldman’s dialogue was ferociously memorable – is there a more iconic line in all of cinema than the one in which Inigo Montoya announces his name, his motivation, his intention? — Goldman knew that image creates character creates story. The very first words of Goldman’s very first original screenplay:
He was introducing his protagonist; but he might as well have been describing himself.
Goldman was also a master of exposition.
Perhaps because he was a novelist long before he was a screenwriter, his screenplays are writerly. They’re literate without ever being literary. And though Goldman’s dialogue was ferociously memorable – is there a more iconic line in all of cinema than the one in which Inigo Montoya announces his name, his motivation, his intention? — Goldman knew that image creates character creates story. The very first words of Goldman’s very first original screenplay:
He was introducing his protagonist; but he might as well have been describing himself.
Goldman was also a master of exposition.
- 11/19/2018
- by Howard Rodman
- Variety Film + TV
The rough, sometimes druggy genesis of the American independent movie business of the ‘60s and ‘70s was recalled by Micky Dolenz and Michael Nesmith of the Monkees during a sold-out 50th anniversary American Cinematheque screening of the band’s ill-fated feature film “Head.”
Looking out into the Egyptian Theatre before the film unspooled, Dolenz drolly asked one audience member, “You’ve seen it? Can you tell me what it’s about?”
The evening was hosted by the Monkees’ Boswell, producer Andrew Sandoval, who asked for a show of hands of how many in the crowd were returning “Head” cultists and how many were seeing it for the first time. The 60 percent or so making return trips were hugely enthusiastic, but Sandoval wasn’t making any promises to the 40 percent newbies, warning dryly, “We’ll see how many of you are here when we’re done.”
Relentlessly post-modern and lacking anything...
Looking out into the Egyptian Theatre before the film unspooled, Dolenz drolly asked one audience member, “You’ve seen it? Can you tell me what it’s about?”
The evening was hosted by the Monkees’ Boswell, producer Andrew Sandoval, who asked for a show of hands of how many in the crowd were returning “Head” cultists and how many were seeing it for the first time. The 60 percent or so making return trips were hugely enthusiastic, but Sandoval wasn’t making any promises to the 40 percent newbies, warning dryly, “We’ll see how many of you are here when we’re done.”
Relentlessly post-modern and lacking anything...
- 11/2/2018
- by Chris Morris
- Variety Film + TV
This may be the year for new cinephile converts to the cult of appreciation for the great Ernst Lubitsch. One of his last pictures but his first in color is this Production Code-defying tale of a serial philanderer and his relationship with the woman of his dreams, his wife. It’s stylized as a series of birthdays, and our hero is judged not by St. Peter but at the gates of Hades, by the fallen angel himself.
Heaven Can Wait
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 291
1943 / Color / 1:37 flat full frame / 112 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date August 21, 2018 / 39.95
Starring Gene Tierney, Don Ameche, Charles Coburn, Marjorie Main, Laird Cregar, Spring Byington, Allyn Joslyn, Eugene Pallette, Signe Hasso, Louis Calhern
Cinematography Edward Cronjager
Art Direction James Basevi, Leland Fuller
Film Editor Dorothy Spencer
Original Music Alfred Newman
Written by Samson Raphaelson from a play by Leslie Bush-Fekete
Produced and Directed by Ernst Lubitsch
Wait one second,...
Heaven Can Wait
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 291
1943 / Color / 1:37 flat full frame / 112 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date August 21, 2018 / 39.95
Starring Gene Tierney, Don Ameche, Charles Coburn, Marjorie Main, Laird Cregar, Spring Byington, Allyn Joslyn, Eugene Pallette, Signe Hasso, Louis Calhern
Cinematography Edward Cronjager
Art Direction James Basevi, Leland Fuller
Film Editor Dorothy Spencer
Original Music Alfred Newman
Written by Samson Raphaelson from a play by Leslie Bush-Fekete
Produced and Directed by Ernst Lubitsch
Wait one second,...
- 8/7/2018
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Call him strange, but CineSavant is fascinated by ‘women’s films’ that advance a consensus role template for American women. Then they ask questions like, “Is Hilda Crane a . . . Tramp?” Ladies attending these films may have sought to stir up fantasies with a racy romantic adventure — but not too racy. What a tough nut to crack within the Production Code: ace screenwriter Philip Dunne chose this as his third writing-directing assignment. Jean Simmons gives it her best shot, but the screen is stolen by everybody’s favorite harpy, Evelyn Varden.
Hilda Crane
Blu-ray
Twilight Time
1956 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 87 min. / Street Date , 2018 / Available from the Twilight Time Movies Store / 29.95
Starring: Jean Simmons, Guy Madison, Jean-Pierre Aumont, Judith Evelyn, Evelyn Varden, Peggy Knudsen, Gregg Palmer.
Cinematography: Joseph MacDonald
Film Editor: David Bretherton
Original Music: David Rakson
From the play by Samson Raphaelson
Produced by Herbert B. Swope Jr.
Written and Directed by...
Hilda Crane
Blu-ray
Twilight Time
1956 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 87 min. / Street Date , 2018 / Available from the Twilight Time Movies Store / 29.95
Starring: Jean Simmons, Guy Madison, Jean-Pierre Aumont, Judith Evelyn, Evelyn Varden, Peggy Knudsen, Gregg Palmer.
Cinematography: Joseph MacDonald
Film Editor: David Bretherton
Original Music: David Rakson
From the play by Samson Raphaelson
Produced by Herbert B. Swope Jr.
Written and Directed by...
- 5/29/2018
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Alfred Hitchcock assembles all the right elements for this respected mystery thriller. Joan Fontaine is concerned that her new hubby Cary Grant plans to murder her. But Hitch wasn't able to use the twist ending that attracted him to the story in the first place! Suspicion Blu-ray Warner Archive Collection 1941 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 99 min. / Street Date , 2016 / available through the WBshop / 21.99 Starring Joan Fontaine, Cary Grant, Cedric Hardwicke, Nigel Bruce, Dame May Whitty, Auriol Lee, Leo G. Carroll Cinematography Harry Stradling Art Direction Van Nest Polglase Film Editor William Hamilton Original Music Franz Waxman Written by Samson Raphaelson, Joan Harrison, Alma Reville from the novel Before the Fact by Francis Iles (Anthony Berkeley) Produced and Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Some movies don't get better as time goes on. Alfred Hitchcock got himself painted into a corner on this one, perhaps not realizing that in America,...
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Some movies don't get better as time goes on. Alfred Hitchcock got himself painted into a corner on this one, perhaps not realizing that in America,...
- 4/9/2016
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
'The Merry Widow' with Maurice Chevalier, Jeanette MacDonald and Minna Gombell under the direction of Ernst Lubitsch. Ernst Lubitsch movies: 'The Merry Widow,' 'Ninotchka' (See previous post: “Ernst Lubitsch Best Films: Passé Subtle 'Touch' in Age of Sledgehammer Filmmaking.”) Initially a project for Ramon Novarro – who for quite some time aspired to become an opera singer and who had a pleasant singing voice – The Merry Widow ultimately starred Maurice Chevalier, the hammiest film performer this side of Bob Hope, Jim Carrey, Adam Sandler – the list goes on and on. Generally speaking, “hammy” isn't my idea of effective film acting. For that reason, I usually find Chevalier a major handicap to his movies, especially during the early talkie era; he upsets their dramatic (or comedic) balance much like Jack Nicholson in Martin Scorsese's The Departed or Jerry Lewis in anything (excepting Scorsese's The King of Comedy...
- 1/31/2016
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
'Saint Joan': Constance Cummings as the George Bernard Shaw heroine. Constance Cummings on stage: From sex-change farce and Emma Bovary to Juliet and 'Saint Joan' (See previous post: “Constance Cummings: Frank Capra, Mae West and Columbia Lawsuit.”) In the mid-1930s, Constance Cummings landed the title roles in two of husband Benn W. Levy's stage adaptations: Levy and Hubert Griffith's Young Madame Conti (1936), starring Cummings as a demimondaine who falls in love with a villainous character. She ends up killing him – or does she? Adapted from Bruno Frank's German-language original, Young Madame Conti was presented on both sides of the Atlantic; on Broadway, it had a brief run in spring 1937 at the Music Box Theatre. Based on the Gustave Flaubert novel, the Theatre Guild-produced Madame Bovary (1937) was staged in late fall at Broadway's Broadhurst Theatre. Referring to the London production of Young Madame Conti, The...
- 11/10/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Constance Cummings in 'Night After Night.' Constance Cummings: Working with Frank Capra and Mae West (See previous post: “Constance Cummings: Actress Went from Harold Lloyd to Eugene O'Neill.”) Back at Columbia, Harry Cohn didn't do a very good job at making Constance Cummings feel important. By the end of 1932, Columbia and its sweet ingenue found themselves in court, fighting bitterly over stipulations in her contract. According to the actress and lawyer's daughter, Columbia had failed to notify her that they were picking up her option. Therefore, she was a free agent, able to offer her services wherever she pleased. Harry Cohn felt otherwise, claiming that his contract player had waived such a notice. The battle would spill over into 1933. On the positive side, in addition to Movie Crazy 1932 provided Cummings with three other notable Hollywood movies: Washington Merry-Go-Round, American Madness, and Night After Night. 'Washington Merry-Go-Round...
- 11/5/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
By Anjelica Oswald
Managing Editor
Into the Woods, Disney’s adaptation of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s Broadway musical, could land an Oscar nomination for its screenplay, which was adapted by Lapine. It may be a stretch for Into the Woods to land in the top five, though. Adapted — or even original — musical screenplays may be discounted for the music in the Oscar race, which might be why few musicals are nominated for adapted or original screenplay. Twelve musicals have been nominated for adapted screenplay since 1929, but 2002’s Chicago was the last musical to do so.
Adapted from Bob Fosse and Fred Ebb’s 1975 musical of the same name, Chicago won six of its 13 nominations, including best picture. It was the first musical since 1968’s Oliver! to win best picture, but its screenplay lost to The Pianist.
Carol Reed’s Oliver! was nominated for 11 Oscars and won five. It...
Managing Editor
Into the Woods, Disney’s adaptation of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s Broadway musical, could land an Oscar nomination for its screenplay, which was adapted by Lapine. It may be a stretch for Into the Woods to land in the top five, though. Adapted — or even original — musical screenplays may be discounted for the music in the Oscar race, which might be why few musicals are nominated for adapted or original screenplay. Twelve musicals have been nominated for adapted screenplay since 1929, but 2002’s Chicago was the last musical to do so.
Adapted from Bob Fosse and Fred Ebb’s 1975 musical of the same name, Chicago won six of its 13 nominations, including best picture. It was the first musical since 1968’s Oliver! to win best picture, but its screenplay lost to The Pianist.
Carol Reed’s Oliver! was nominated for 11 Oscars and won five. It...
- 12/30/2014
- by Anjelica Oswald
- Scott Feinberg
Claudette Colbert movies on Turner Classic Movies: From ‘The Smiling Lieutenant’ to TCM premiere ‘Skylark’ (photo: Claudette Colbert and Maurice Chevalier in ‘The Smiling Lieutenant’) Claudette Colbert, the studio era’s perky, independent-minded — and French-born — "all-American" girlfriend (and later all-American wife and mother), is Turner Classic Movies’ star of the day today, August 18, 2014, as TCM continues with its "Summer Under the Stars" film series. Colbert, a surprise Best Actress Academy Award winner for Frank Capra’s 1934 comedy It Happened One Night, was one Paramount’s biggest box office draws for more than decade and Hollywood’s top-paid female star of 1938, with reported earnings of $426,944 — or about $7.21 million in 2014 dollars. (See also: TCM’s Claudette Colbert day in 2011.) Right now, TCM is showing Ernst Lubitsch’s light (but ultimately bittersweet) romantic comedy-musical The Smiling Lieutenant (1931), a Best Picture Academy Award nominee starring Maurice Chevalier as a French-accented Central European lieutenant in...
- 8/19/2014
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Angel
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch
Written by Samson Raphaelson
USA, 1937
Angel is a 1937 feature directed by Ernst Lubitsch and starring Marlene Dietrich. It’s not the greatest film of either one of their careers, however, it is a film deserving of attention, at the very least because it’s a film directed by Ernst Lubitsch and starring Marlene Dietrich. And now, it’s also available for the first time on an American-issued DVD, by way of Universal’s Vault Series collection.
Dietrich is Maria Barker, but we first see her as “Mrs. Brown,” the false name she registers under when arriving in France. She’s “in Paris but not in Paris,” there to meet an old acquaintance, the Russian émigré, Grand Duchess Anna Dmitrievna (Laura Hope Crews). At the same time, Anthony Halton (Melvyn Douglas) drops by the duchess’ “salon,” at the suggestion of a friend who sent him there for an “amusing time.
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch
Written by Samson Raphaelson
USA, 1937
Angel is a 1937 feature directed by Ernst Lubitsch and starring Marlene Dietrich. It’s not the greatest film of either one of their careers, however, it is a film deserving of attention, at the very least because it’s a film directed by Ernst Lubitsch and starring Marlene Dietrich. And now, it’s also available for the first time on an American-issued DVD, by way of Universal’s Vault Series collection.
Dietrich is Maria Barker, but we first see her as “Mrs. Brown,” the false name she registers under when arriving in France. She’s “in Paris but not in Paris,” there to meet an old acquaintance, the Russian émigré, Grand Duchess Anna Dmitrievna (Laura Hope Crews). At the same time, Anthony Halton (Melvyn Douglas) drops by the duchess’ “salon,” at the suggestion of a friend who sent him there for an “amusing time.
- 6/6/2014
- by Jeremy Carr
- SoundOnSight
Miklos Laszlo, a Jewish émigré from Hungary, penned his play Illatszertar in 1936 before he fled Europe in 1938 for New York City. Acquired by producer-director Ernst Lubitsch and brilliantly adapted for the screen as The Shop Around the Corner (1940) by the immortal Samson Raphaelson (who wrote nine screenplays for Lubitsch including Trouble in Paradise, The Merry Widow and Heaven Can Wait), the sublime cast included James Stewart, Margaret Sullavan, Frank Morgan, Joseph Schildkraut and Felix Bressart. It represents perhaps the very pinnacle of transcendent romantic comedy in cinema: precise, subtle, intricately intimate. The material was remade as a
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- 12/7/2013
- by Myron Meisel
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
(Ernst Lubitsch, 1932, Eureka, PG)
,
Ernst Lubitsch (1892-1947) was an established character actor with Max Reinhardt's Deutsches Theater in Germany before he was 21 and started working in the cinema in 1913. He was one of the world's most accomplished directors when, in 1923, he was lured to Hollywood, a decade before Hitler drove most of Germany's leading film-makers into exile. Visual wit, a sophisticated worldly view of mankind's follies and fashionable urban settings in continental cities were the hallmarks of his work, and Trouble in Paradise, one of his greatest films, is widely considered to be flawless.
Suave society thief Gaston Monescu (Herbert Marshall) and beautiful pickpocket Lily (Miriam Hopkins), both posing as aristocrats, meet while stealing from the rich guests of a Venetian hotel, join forces, and target Madame Colet (Kay Francis), the attractive young widow of a French millionaire. But things get truly complicated when Gaston develops a real affection for the heiress.
,
Ernst Lubitsch (1892-1947) was an established character actor with Max Reinhardt's Deutsches Theater in Germany before he was 21 and started working in the cinema in 1913. He was one of the world's most accomplished directors when, in 1923, he was lured to Hollywood, a decade before Hitler drove most of Germany's leading film-makers into exile. Visual wit, a sophisticated worldly view of mankind's follies and fashionable urban settings in continental cities were the hallmarks of his work, and Trouble in Paradise, one of his greatest films, is widely considered to be flawless.
Suave society thief Gaston Monescu (Herbert Marshall) and beautiful pickpocket Lily (Miriam Hopkins), both posing as aristocrats, meet while stealing from the rich guests of a Venetian hotel, join forces, and target Madame Colet (Kay Francis), the attractive young widow of a French millionaire. But things get truly complicated when Gaston develops a real affection for the heiress.
- 11/25/2012
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
Netflix has revolutionized the home movie experience for fans of film with its instant streaming technology. Netflix Nuggets is my way of spreading the word about independent, classic and foreign films made available by Netflix for instant streaming.
Sorry, folks… there are simply too many great films streaming this week to post an image for them all, but that’s a good thing, eh? You’ve got your movie watching work cut out for you, due in great part to Miramax releasing damn near their entire catalog of films on one day!
B. Monkey (1999)
Streaming Available: 05/01/2011
Director: Michael Radford
Synopsis: Good-hearted schoolteacher Alan Furnace (Jared Harris) desperately wants some excitement in his life — and he may just get some. One lonely night at a London bar, Alan spies the raven-haired beauty Beatrice (Asia Argento) arguing with two friends, Paul (Rupert Everett) and Bruno (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers). Beatrice quickly befriends Alan and...
Sorry, folks… there are simply too many great films streaming this week to post an image for them all, but that’s a good thing, eh? You’ve got your movie watching work cut out for you, due in great part to Miramax releasing damn near their entire catalog of films on one day!
B. Monkey (1999)
Streaming Available: 05/01/2011
Director: Michael Radford
Synopsis: Good-hearted schoolteacher Alan Furnace (Jared Harris) desperately wants some excitement in his life — and he may just get some. One lonely night at a London bar, Alan spies the raven-haired beauty Beatrice (Asia Argento) arguing with two friends, Paul (Rupert Everett) and Bruno (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers). Beatrice quickly befriends Alan and...
- 4/29/2011
- by Travis Keune
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
The Merry Widow (1934) Direction: Ernst Lubitsch Cast: Maurice Chevalier, Jeanette MacDonald, Edward Everett Horton, Una Merkel, George Barbier, Minna Gombell, Sterling Holloway Screenplay: Ernest Vajda and Samson Raphaelson; from Franz Lehár's operetta Oscar Movies Highly Recommended Jeanette MacDonald, Maurice Chevalier, The Merry Widow The Merry Widow is neither one of Ernst Lubitsch's most discussed nor best-liked films. Film critics and historians generally tend to focus on a couple of his early, pre-Code Paramount talkies, One Hour with You (co-directed with George Cukor) and Trouble in Paradise, and his later comedies Ninotchka and To Be or Not to Be. But that's the critics' and historians' fault. For the visually and aurally arresting The Merry Widow is a superlative musical, boasting sumptuous sets (production design by Cedric Gibbons), exquisite black-and-white cinematography (Oliver T. Marsh), and a magnificently staged ballroom-dancing sequence that should impress even those who couldn't care less about...
- 3/26/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Hailed as a milestone for New Hollywood, Five Easy Pieces now reveals itself as a curio of a more conservative time, says John Patterson
Forty years on, Bob Rafelson's Five Easy Pieces – the movie that made Jack Nicholson, as Robert Dupea, a Pacific-Northwestern dropout who loses himself among Texas wildcatters – stands as a truly protean experience. The first time I saw it, I wanted to be the same kind of self-absorbed, mercurially charming asshole Jack played (indulge me, I was 13); second time, not so much; third time, the cast infuriated me; fourth time, I thought the blue-collar characters were insultingly one-dimensional; fifth time, I got over it; and last week, we met in the middle, shook hands, and it felt almost like a masterpiece.
It was shot while Nixon was secretly bombing Cambodia in the winter of 1969-70, and released in September 1970, after the summer that saw the Kent State shootings in May,...
Forty years on, Bob Rafelson's Five Easy Pieces – the movie that made Jack Nicholson, as Robert Dupea, a Pacific-Northwestern dropout who loses himself among Texas wildcatters – stands as a truly protean experience. The first time I saw it, I wanted to be the same kind of self-absorbed, mercurially charming asshole Jack played (indulge me, I was 13); second time, not so much; third time, the cast infuriated me; fourth time, I thought the blue-collar characters were insultingly one-dimensional; fifth time, I got over it; and last week, we met in the middle, shook hands, and it felt almost like a masterpiece.
It was shot while Nixon was secretly bombing Cambodia in the winter of 1969-70, and released in September 1970, after the summer that saw the Kent State shootings in May,...
- 8/6/2010
- by John Patterson
- The Guardian - Film News
I recently traded a sunny day in Central Park to witness David Hyde Pierce's tour de force performance in the Manhattan theater club revival Accent On Youth. The only downside -- this dazzling old gem whizzed by too fast in the dark theater. Accent On Youth's the story of successful,sophisticated playwright in his fifties who "smells sixty" and who lives to write. Suddenly his life is unsettled when his twenty-something secretary declares she loves him madly. I was still marveling at the post-modern relevance of the play written by Samson Raphaelson in 1939 when suddenly David Hyde Pierce and the cast including superb comic actor Charles Kimbrough (stiff newscaster Jim Dial on TV's Murphy Brown) were taking final bows. There was no sensation of blood draining from my brain -- that I too frequently get in dark theaters. Yes, I am...
- 5/29/2009
- by Susan Braudy
- Huffington Post
Manhattan Theatre Club is pleased to announce guests and dates for After Words, the popular discussion series at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre (261 West 47th Street), which will feature friends, colleagues and scholars of the work of Samson Raphaelson. The series will kick off this Saturday, April 18 following the matinee performance of Accent On Youth with Grafton Nunes, Founding Dean of the Emerson College School of the Arts, and Daniel Sullivan, the Tony Award winning director of Accent On Youth. The discussion will be moderated by Lisa McNulty, Mtc's Artistic Associate.
- 4/17/2009
- BroadwayWorld.com
Scintillating romantic comedy is the holy grail that everyone in Hollywood dreams of capturing. Producers Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner have achieved some success reinvigorating classic formulas in their English comedies including Four Weddings and a Funeral and Notting Hill.
But in crossing the pond for their latest effort, Definitely, Maybe, they run into some problems. Writer-director Adam Brooks ("Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason") doesn't have the knack for the genre demonstrated by the masters. Opening on Valentine's Day, the film hopes to tap the date crowd, but it falls somewhere between a mass audience crowd-pleaser and a literate class act. Business will be middling but not spectacular.
Yet the film is far from a complete washout, and this is chiefly a tribute to its immensely attractive and appealing cast. Ryan Reynolds proves to have the stuff of a true leading man. He plays disgruntled ad man Will Hayes, who receives divorce papers in the movie's opening scene. He goes to pick up his daughter Maya ("Little Miss Sunshine's" Abigail Breslin) at school, where she has just attended her first sex education class and has a million questions for her befuddled dad.
Maya's discovery of sex prompts her to ask Will how he met and fell and love with her mother. Instead of giving her a straightforward answer, Will recounts his romantic involvement with three women: college sweetheart Emily (Elizabeth Banks), flaky co-worker April (Isla Fisher) and aspiring journalist Summer (Rachel Weisz). He frames his history as something of a mystery that Maya will have to solve: Which of the three women became his wife, and which of the three is his true soulmate?
The answer to the first question is not immediately apparent, but the answer to the second is clear because Fisher has top billing and the most screen time. It's also clear because Fisher and Reynolds have the kind of sizzling chemistry that defines all the memorable movie couples. This film is a great showcase for both of them.
Will is an unusual romantic hero in that he spends most of the movie being dumped instead of conquering women. Considering that Reynolds has the looks to be a superstar, it's a shrewd decision for him to play against that and come across as awkward and even dorky in his pursuit of women. His lack of confidence in his sexual prowess makes him even more endearing.
Fisher, best known for her role in Wedding Crashers, is absolutely irresistible. She, too, seems frazzled and rumpled rather than glamorous. April is the kind of no-nonsense, down-to-earth woman who always has been the mainstay of romantic comedy. Fisher actually seems to be channeling Jean Arthur or Claudette Colbert.
Weisz and Banks are ravishing enough to make the contest among the three women viable, though Banks' role is underdeveloped, and even Weisz could use some meatier scenes. (A bland montage that shows Summer and Will falling in love doesn't do the trick.)
Kevin Kline has a sharp cameo as the drunk writer who is Summer's mentor and lover. But a lot of the other supporting players don't really have enough to do. Even Breslin is reduced to little more than a sounding-board until the very last scenes, when she finally gets to play a more active role in Will's search for fulfillment.
The film begins in 1992, when Will goes to work for Bill Clinton's campaign for president, and an entertaining subplot concerns Will's disillusionment with Clinton during the course of the '90s. But the evocation of the era is fairly lackluster. Cinematographer Florian Ballhaus does capture the allure of Manhattan, though the editing by Peter Teschner lets the picture drag on too long.
The bigger problem is that the romantic banter between Will and his three paramours strains for sparkling wit and only occasionally achieves it. In addition, the script cries out for the kind of clever plotting that distinguished such movies as It Happened One Night and "Adam's Rib." Is it impossible for today's writers to match the urbanity of Samson Raphaelson or Donald Ogden Stewart or Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin?
Such performers as Reynolds and Fisher might rank with Gable and Lombard or Tracy and Hepburn, but we'll never know until they get the crack scripts that helped to turn an earlier generation of actors into legends.
DEFINITELY, MAYBE
Universal
Working Title, StudioCanal
Credits:
Screenwriter-director: Adam Brooks
Producers: Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner
Executive producers: Liza Chasin, Bobby Cohen
Co-executive producer: Kerry Orent
Director of photography: Florian Ballhaus
Production designer: Stephanie Carroll
Music: Clint Mansell
Costume designer: Gary Jones
Editor: Peter Teschner
Cast:
Will Hayes: Ryan Reynolds
April: Isla Fisher
Maya Hayes: Abigail Breslin
Russell McCormack: Derek Luke
Emily: Elizabeth Banks
Summer Hartley: Rachel Weisz
Hampton Roth: Kevin Kline
Gareth: Adam Ferrara
Arthur Robredo: Nestor Serrano
Running time -- 110 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13...
But in crossing the pond for their latest effort, Definitely, Maybe, they run into some problems. Writer-director Adam Brooks ("Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason") doesn't have the knack for the genre demonstrated by the masters. Opening on Valentine's Day, the film hopes to tap the date crowd, but it falls somewhere between a mass audience crowd-pleaser and a literate class act. Business will be middling but not spectacular.
Yet the film is far from a complete washout, and this is chiefly a tribute to its immensely attractive and appealing cast. Ryan Reynolds proves to have the stuff of a true leading man. He plays disgruntled ad man Will Hayes, who receives divorce papers in the movie's opening scene. He goes to pick up his daughter Maya ("Little Miss Sunshine's" Abigail Breslin) at school, where she has just attended her first sex education class and has a million questions for her befuddled dad.
Maya's discovery of sex prompts her to ask Will how he met and fell and love with her mother. Instead of giving her a straightforward answer, Will recounts his romantic involvement with three women: college sweetheart Emily (Elizabeth Banks), flaky co-worker April (Isla Fisher) and aspiring journalist Summer (Rachel Weisz). He frames his history as something of a mystery that Maya will have to solve: Which of the three women became his wife, and which of the three is his true soulmate?
The answer to the first question is not immediately apparent, but the answer to the second is clear because Fisher has top billing and the most screen time. It's also clear because Fisher and Reynolds have the kind of sizzling chemistry that defines all the memorable movie couples. This film is a great showcase for both of them.
Will is an unusual romantic hero in that he spends most of the movie being dumped instead of conquering women. Considering that Reynolds has the looks to be a superstar, it's a shrewd decision for him to play against that and come across as awkward and even dorky in his pursuit of women. His lack of confidence in his sexual prowess makes him even more endearing.
Fisher, best known for her role in Wedding Crashers, is absolutely irresistible. She, too, seems frazzled and rumpled rather than glamorous. April is the kind of no-nonsense, down-to-earth woman who always has been the mainstay of romantic comedy. Fisher actually seems to be channeling Jean Arthur or Claudette Colbert.
Weisz and Banks are ravishing enough to make the contest among the three women viable, though Banks' role is underdeveloped, and even Weisz could use some meatier scenes. (A bland montage that shows Summer and Will falling in love doesn't do the trick.)
Kevin Kline has a sharp cameo as the drunk writer who is Summer's mentor and lover. But a lot of the other supporting players don't really have enough to do. Even Breslin is reduced to little more than a sounding-board until the very last scenes, when she finally gets to play a more active role in Will's search for fulfillment.
The film begins in 1992, when Will goes to work for Bill Clinton's campaign for president, and an entertaining subplot concerns Will's disillusionment with Clinton during the course of the '90s. But the evocation of the era is fairly lackluster. Cinematographer Florian Ballhaus does capture the allure of Manhattan, though the editing by Peter Teschner lets the picture drag on too long.
The bigger problem is that the romantic banter between Will and his three paramours strains for sparkling wit and only occasionally achieves it. In addition, the script cries out for the kind of clever plotting that distinguished such movies as It Happened One Night and "Adam's Rib." Is it impossible for today's writers to match the urbanity of Samson Raphaelson or Donald Ogden Stewart or Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin?
Such performers as Reynolds and Fisher might rank with Gable and Lombard or Tracy and Hepburn, but we'll never know until they get the crack scripts that helped to turn an earlier generation of actors into legends.
DEFINITELY, MAYBE
Universal
Working Title, StudioCanal
Credits:
Screenwriter-director: Adam Brooks
Producers: Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner
Executive producers: Liza Chasin, Bobby Cohen
Co-executive producer: Kerry Orent
Director of photography: Florian Ballhaus
Production designer: Stephanie Carroll
Music: Clint Mansell
Costume designer: Gary Jones
Editor: Peter Teschner
Cast:
Will Hayes: Ryan Reynolds
April: Isla Fisher
Maya Hayes: Abigail Breslin
Russell McCormack: Derek Luke
Emily: Elizabeth Banks
Summer Hartley: Rachel Weisz
Hampton Roth: Kevin Kline
Gareth: Adam Ferrara
Arthur Robredo: Nestor Serrano
Running time -- 110 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13...
- 2/11/2008
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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