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Oscar-winning Italian composer Nino Rota, who scored “La Dolce Vita,” “The Leopard” and “The Godfather” – among many other masterpiece movies – is set for “Nino” a high-profile documentary being directed by prominent editor, screenwriter and director Walter Fasano.

Fasano is known for his longtime creative collaboration with Luca Guadagnino mainly as an editor on films such as “I Am Love,” on which he served both as editor and co-writer; “A Bigger Splash”; “Call Me by Your Name”; and the doc “Bertolucci on Bertolucci” that Guadagnino and Fasano co-directed. Fasano more recently directed the doc “Pino” about Italian artist, sculptor, and set designer Pino Pascali.

Rota wrote the score for 16 films directed by Federico Fellini, including “La Strada,” “8 1/2,” “Juliet of the Spirits” and “Amarcord,” besides “La Dolce Vita.” He also composed music for Franco Zeffirelli’s “Romeo and Juliet” and the Sicilian-inspired theme for “The Godfather,” whose “Part II” score won him his only Oscar.

NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.

Roxy Cinema

Martin Scorsese has programmed Living, Breathing New York, which starts with Shadows and a 35mm print of Heaven Knows What on Sunday; The Rubber Gun (watch our exclusive trailer debut) plays Saturday with a Stephen Lack Q&a; Blue Velvet, Lost Highway, and Wild at Heart screen.

Anthology Film Archives

Robina Rose’s Nightshift (watch our exclusive trailer debut) begins playing in a new restoration; Matías Piñeiro-curated series offers Antonioni, Hollis Frampton, and Straub-Huillet.

Film Forum

Luis Buñuel’s Él begins screening in a 4K restoration; Lou Ye’s Suzhou River and Spring Fever screen; Play It As It Lays and Godard’s A Woman Is a Woman continue; Space Jam screens on Sunday.

IFC Center

Hideaki Anno’s Love & Pop plays in a new restoration; eXistenZ, Mulholland Dr., Paprika, Best in Show, Palindromes, and Pink Flamingos show late.

Who said the French and British couldn’t get along? When they’re not lighting up the screen together in films like Anthony Minghella’s “The English Patient, the 1992 adaptation of Emily Brontë’s “Wuthering Heights,” and recently in “The Return,” based on the last chapters of Homer’s “Odyssey,” pals and collaborators Juliette Binoche and Ralph Fiennes enjoy just getting to spend a little time with one another. And thankfully, Criterion gave them the chance to do just that.

Stepping into the Criterion Closet, Binoche and Fiennes pretended not to know one another, but soon became quite intimate, a not-so-unforeseen side effect of the tight quarters they found themselves in. Binoche led most of the selection efforts, with the “Conclave” star serving as the curious pupil, having heard of many films she pulled down, but not actually having seen them. After coming across Jim Jarmusch’s moody prison comedy “Down by Law,...

Known as the queen of Italian pop, Mina has sold over 150 million records worldwide and remains a music legend who’s been captivating fans since the ’60s. Her new album, Gassa d’Amante, drops on November 22, and its title — named after an essential sailing knot — represents the solid and yet easily untangled nature of love. Just like the knot, the album explores the twists and turns of love in all of its beauty and complexity. At 84, Mina is still going strong, and she’s as iconic as ever.

Mina, born Mina Anna Mazzini, is one of the most adored pop stars in Italy. She is a cult figure who can be compared to Liza Minelli and Bette Midler; a musical diva who is as great a superstar to the Italians as Lady Gaga or Taylor Swift today. Like a 21st century Greta Garbo, she lives in exile in Lugano, Switzerland,...

Though the Criterion Collection may be taking their beloved closet on the road to celebrate their 40th anniversary, only the lucky few have been able to step foot in the actual hallowed space. Now, renaissance man Bill Hader can say he’s done so twice. The actor, writer, and director behind the hit HBO series “Barry” first entered the Criterion Closet in 2011. Dressed for the occasion with an orange shirt sporting the Kaibyō from the poster for the 1977 Japanese horror film “House,” Hader drew selections such as Federico Fellini’s “Amarcord” and Pier Paolo Pasolini’s grotesque “Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom,” which he referred to at the time as “a great date movie.”

Referencing this pick in his latest video, Hader displayed “Salò” once again and said, “It is not a good date movie. Just want to clear that up.”

After making a few jokes at the expense...

Italy has selected “Vermiglio” as the country’s entry for Best International Feature Film at the 97th Academy Awards. The movie written and directed by Maura Delpero won the Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize at the 2024 Venice Film Festival and will make its stateside debut at the Hamptons International Film Festival on October 10.

“Vermiglio” is set in 1944, in Vermiglio, a high mountain village of the Italian Alps where war looms as a distant but constant threat. The arrival of Pietro (Giuseppe De Domenico), a refugee soldier, disrupts the dynamics of the local teacher’s family, changing them forever. During the four seasons marking the end of World War II, Pietro and Lucia (Martina Scrinzi), the eldest daughter of the teacher, instantly drawn to each other, led to marriage and an unexpected fate. As the world emerges from its tragedy, the family will face its own.

Italy has won Best International...

The Oscars international feature film race got another strong competitor on Tuesday when Italy announced it would submit “Vermiglio” as its entry for the 97th Academy Awards. Written and directed by Maura Delpero, the film won the Silver Lion in Venice earlier this month.

Delpero’s drama is set in 1944 in the alpine village of the film’s title. When a young Sicilian soldier named Pietro (Giuseppe De Domenico) comes to town, his presence, according to the synopsis provided by Sideshow and Janus Films, “disrupts the dynamics of the local teacher’s family, changing them forever. During the four seasons marking the end of World War II, Pietro and Lucia, the eldest daughter of the teacher, instantly drawn to each other, led to marriage and an unexpected fate. As the world emerges from its tragedy, the family will face its own.”

Produced by Cinedora, Charades and Versus Productions, “Vermiglio” was...

Once more, and with feeling…

Roxy Cinema

Our 35mm print of Bertrand Bonello’s House of Tolerance has a final screening on Sunday; Spike Lee’s He Got Game and Hoosiers play on prints, while Blonde Ambition screens this Sunday.

Anthology Film Archives

The films of Med Hondo play in a massive retrospective.

Film Forum

Hondo’s West Indies begins screening in a 4K restoration; the Belmondo-led Classe tous risques begins playing in a new 4K restoration; Buster Keaton’s The Cameraman plays with live music on Sunday.

Film at Lincoln Center

The films of Wojciech Has are highlighted in a new series.

Paris Theater

A new retrospective shows just how incredible a year 1974 was: Chinatown, Badlands, Amarcord, California Split, The Conversation, Kiarostami’s The Traveler and more screen, many on 35mm.

Museum of the Moving Image

The Red Shoes screens on Saturday and Sunday.

Museum of Modern Art

The...

Netflix is bringing 1974 back to theaters thanks to rare archival prints, restorations, and select 35mm screenings of the curated “Milestone Movies” streaming collection.

The streaming platform debuts a slew of classic films across its trio of theaters in Los Angeles and New York City. The rarely screened archival prints for Martin Scorsese’s “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore” and John Cassavetes’ “A Woman Under the Influence” are among the selected titles, as well as the premiere of the Dcp restoration of iconic Blaxploitation film “Foxy Brown” starring Pam Grier.

The screening series marks the 50th anniversaries of the 1974 films, which were unveiled as part of Netflix’s inaugural (and Criterion Channel-esque) curation channel “Milestone Movies: The Anniversary Collection,” which was unveiled in January 2024. Fifteen films will screen at the Paris Theater in New York from March 22 through 28, as 12 films screen at the Egyptian Theatre in Los Angeles from March 11 through...

Landmark Theatres will mark its 50th anniversary this year with several classic film screening series and discounted tickets.

As part of the exhibitor’s ongoing Retro Replay program, the West Hollywood-based chain will celebrate movies from 1974 as well as other milestone moments in film history. Among the vintage titles set for the series are 1967’s “Bonnie and Clyde” and “The Graduate,” 1973’s “Badlands” and “Amarcord” and 1975’s “Jaws.”

“In commemoration of our 50th Anniversary, we want to recognize our guests, studio partners, and members of the creative community who’ve played pivotal roles in Landmark’s storied history,” said Kevin Holloway, president of Landmark Theatres. “Throughout 2024 we’ll be offering evergreen programming across the business, ranging from signature series to food and beverage promotions, loyalty member pricing, and more. We look forward to celebrating this milestone with our audience this coming year.”

The planned series include “1974 – The Year Landmark Opened,...

There are touches of Fellini and Satyajit Ray in the gentle, unforced artistry of Aktan Abdykalykov’s film, which casts the director’s son in the title role

The admirable Klassiki streaming service, in response to some modest proposals from myself, is now showcasing five movies from central Asian film-makers, and the first is this absolute gem from Kyrgyzstan. It is an autobiographical movie by writer-director Aktan Abdykalykov, much acclaimed on the European festival circuit on first release in 1998: a very personal and immediate film, but with the mystery and calm of a folk tale. It’s a story of the director’s own childhood, and he casts his own teenage son Mirlan as himself. Beshkempir has the fluency and candour of something by Satyajit Ray and its ecstatic retrieval of memory makes me think of Fellini’s Amarcord.

The film is mostly in black and white but starts...

Disney Entertainment Television is celebrating Hispanic and Latin American Heritage Month through a partnership with Ghetto Film School.

For the collaboration, Disney commissioned four alumni from the nonprofit — Alyse Arteaga (21 years old), Kian Cloma (24 years old), Alejandro Ayala (22 years old) and Tommy Espinal (22 years old) — to create a short film honoring their Hispanic and Latin American culture, titled Yo Recuerdo/ I Remember.

Watch a trailer for the short film above. In it, each alumni speaks about how their core memories have influences their storytelling.

Yo Recuerdo/ I Remember expands upon a collaboration between Disney and Ghetto Film School that spans several years. In order to make the project come to life, each alumni filmmaker featured in the short film was provided access to a full service of production resources including video equipment, graphic designers and editing bays in order to execute their vision.

They were also paired with mentors from...

In 1973, Hollywood was amid a creative renaissance known as the New Hollywood movement. Several of the era's most prominent filmmakers, Martin Scorsese, Terrence Malick, and George Lucas, directed their first major successes in 1973. The year also saw the elevation of the horror genre to blockbuster status with the premiere of William Friedkin's The Exorcist, which eventually became 1973's highest-grossing film.

Internationally, auteurs such as Ingmar Bergman, Federico Fellini, and François Truffaut continued to direct groundbreaking works. It isn't easy to fathom the films of 1973 are celebrating their 50th anniversary in 2023.

Related: 10 Best Superhero Movies From The 1970s

The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973)

Although The French Connection, The Godfather, and Chinatown are more well-known films, The Friends of Eddie Coyle certainly belongs in the conversation of best crime films of the 1970s. Robert Mitchum stars as Eddie Coyle, a Boston gangster who is a gunrunner for small-time bank robbers. Facing a lengthy jail sentence,...

Glam metal veterans Dokken have announced their long-awaited 13th studio album, Heaven Comes Down, arriving October 27th. The video for the lead single “Fugitive” can be streamed now.

The track marks the first new music from Don Dokken and company in over 10 years — not counting 2020’s archival collection The Lost Songs: 1978-1981 — and it’s a valiant return. Jon Levin’s high-flying guitar work is reminiscent of Dokken’s ’80s heyday, and Don himself sounds strong and confident vocally, even if he’s an octave or two down from the falsettos he famously hit decades ago.

“The inspiration for the lyrics came from what seems to me to be an uncertain world these days,” commented Don Dokken on the track. “It’s an up-tempo Rokker as are many on the album. I don’t know what the future holds for our world, so I decided to take a step back and watch it all unfold…...

Park Seo-joon is a South Korean actor. He is best known for his leading roles in the television series Kill Me, Heal Me (2015), She Was Pretty (2015), Hwarang: The Poet Warrior Youth (2016–2017), Fight for My Way (2017), What’s Wrong with Secretary Kim (2018), and Itaewon Class (2020). He has also appeared in films such as The Chronicles of Evil (2015), Midnight Runners (2017), and The Divine Fury (2019).

What’s Wrong with Secretary Kim (2018)

Park Seo-joon was born in Seoul, South Korea. He attended Kyungpook National University, where he studied theater and film. After graduating from college, Park Seo-joon began his acting career in 2011. He made his debut in the music video for Bang Yong-guk’s single “I Remember”. He then appeared in supporting roles in television dramas such as Dream High 2 (2012) and Pots of Gold (2013).

Park Seo-joon’s breakthrough role came in 2015, when he starred in the television series Kill Me, Heal Me. He played the dual...

The A24 and Apple TV+ film Causeway is an exploration of trauma centered around the struggles faced by a United States soldier after returning home from Afghanistan. The story by Ottessa Moshfegh, Luke Goebel, and Elizabeth Sanders was brought to life by director Lila Neugebauer and Causeway’s fantastic cast, led by Jennifer Lawrence and Brian Tyree Henry. Henry even garnered a “Best Supporting Actor” Academy Award nomination for his gripping performance as James.

The musical score for Causeway was written by Alex Somers; Screen Rant previously premiered two pieces of the composer’s emotional and engaging work on the film. The soundtrack for Causeway is already available on streaming platforms, but vinyl collectors will soon be able to purchase Somers’ score on a unique “White & Blue-Black Burst” vinyl. Screen Rant is excited to offer a first look at the vinyl release. Check it out below:

More About The Causeway...

Sprawling Cinecittà complex is in demand again thanks to tax breaks and boom in film and TV production

Walk through the 1930s-built, dusty pink gates of Cinecittà, the legendary film studios in Rome, and the magic of its golden era is immediately palpable. This is where Charlton Heston rode to victory in his chariot race in Ben Hur, which went on to win 11 Oscars. It is where the real-life love affair between Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton played out on the set of Cleopatra, and where Federico Fellini produced classics including La Dolce Vita and Amarcord.

The sprawling Cinecittà was opened with great pomp by Benito Mussolini in 1937, in part to make films promoting the dictator’s fascist propaganda. During the second world war it was first occupied by the Nazis and later became a refuge to the thousands made homeless by the allied bombing of the Italian capital.

Continue reading.

Sacred Bones Records has announced a vinyl reissue of the late Julee Cruise’s debut album (and unofficial Twin Peaks soundtrack) Floating into the Night, out on August 11th.

The reissue will be available in pink and black vinyl variants. Pre-orders are ongoing. Watch the commercial Sacred Bones put together for the release below.

Originally released in September 1989, Floating into the Night was composed by Angelo Badalamenti with lyrics written by David Lynch. The lead single, “Falling,” was used as the Twin Peaks theme song, while Cruise performed another track, “Rockin’ Back Inside My Heart,” during a crucial episode in which the identity of Laura Palmer’s killer was finally revealed.

Other tracks featured in Twin Peaks include “Into the Night,” “The Nightingale,” and “The World Spins.” Prior to the album’s release, Lynch had used “Mysteries of Love” in his 1986 film Blue Velvet.

Cruise, who was also a touring member of The B-52’s,...

Steven Spielberg was still just a cocky 29-year-old kid – albeit an immensely talented one – on the winter morning in 1976 when Academy Award nominations were announced. He had just finished directing his blockbuster “Jaws” and was so excited and confident about the film’s Oscar prospects that he filmed the announcement. The result is a fascinating look back at who Spielberg was on that fateful day. Watch the three-and-a-half-minute video above.

It opens with Spielberg speaking directly to the camera: “My name is Steve Spielberg, and I just directed a movie called ‘Jaws.’ And ‘Jaws’ is about to be nominated in 11 categories. You’re about to see a sweep of the nominations. We’re very confident this very moment. And so you all have a seat and we’ll get on with it.” (There’s a smattering of applause.)

SEEOscars Best Picture nominee profile: Steven Spielberg reflects on his roots with...

The annual Oscar nominees luncheon was back at the Beverly Hilton, and back just like the old days before the pandemic changed everything. But if the vibe and attendance at today’s lunch is any indication the Oscars themselves could be in for a very good night as the Academy seems bound and determined to bring the show back to its old self, and that means a more traditional kind of Oscar experience after the surreal pandemic-affected ceremony at Union Station in 2021, and last year’s Will Smith Slap edition. We can use a little comfort food from the Oscars and I just get the feeling, with Jimmy Kimmel back as host, it might be just what the doctor ordered for the Academy’s big night.

Related Story Movie Academy President Addresses Will Smith Oscar Slap: AMPAS Response “Inadequate” Related Story Oscar Nominees 2023: The Class Photo Related Story...

Starting in 1947, the Film Academy began recognizing foreign-language films for Oscars. For the first nine years, however, it was a non-competitive award as there were no nominations, just one winner. Italian director Vittorio De Sica was the first winner for his film Shoe Shine.

In 1956, the Academy created a Best Foreign-Language Film category and countries began submitting films for Oscar nominations. The prize has been given out every year since. The Academy changed the name of the category to Best International Feature Film in 2020.

The foreign-language competition has been dominated by European films. Italy and France have won 14 and 12 times, respectively. Outside of Europe, Japan has the most foreign-language Oscars with five. Akira Kurosawa was the first non-European director to capture the Oscar, winning in 1951 for Rashomon. Kurosawa’s other Oscar, oddly enough, did not come for a Japanese film, but for a film submitted by the Soviet Union in 1975, Dersu Uzala.

Director/Tfh Guru Allan Arkush discusses his favorite year in film, 1975, with Josh Olson and Joe Dante.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Rules of the Game (1939)

Le Boucher (1970)

Last Year At Marienbad (1961)

Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid (1982)

Topaz (1969)

Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022)

Hollywood Boulevard (1976) – Jon Davison’s trailer commentary

The Innocents (1961) – Joe Dante’s trailer commentary

The Earrings of Madame De… (1953)

Rope (1948) – Darren Bousman’s trailer commentary

Make Way For Tomorrow (1937)

The Awful Truth (1937) – Charlie Largent’s Criterion Blu-ray review

Duck Soup (1933) – John Landis’s trailer commentary

Going My Way (1944)

Nashville (1975) – Larry Karaszewski’s trailer commentary, Dan Perri’s trailer commentary

M*A*S*H (1970)

Shampoo (1975) – Allan Arkush’s trailer commentary, Glenn Erickson’s Criterion Blu-ray review

Bonnie And Clyde (1967) – John Landis’s trailer commentary

The Nada Gang (1975)

Get Crazy (1983) – Allan Arkush’s trailer commentary

Night Moves (1975) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review

Dog Day Afternoon (1975) – Katt Shea’s trailer...

No director has done more to deconstruct the myth of the suburban American family than Steven Spielberg. Dissertations have been written and documentaries made on the subject. And now, at the spry young age of 75, Spielberg himself weighs in on where his preoccupations come from in “The Fabelmans,” a personal account of his upbringing that feels like listening to two and a half hours’ worth of well-polished cocktail-party anecdotes, only better, since he’s gone to the trouble of staging them all for our benefit. Spielberg’s a born storyteller, and these are arguably his most precious stories.

From the first movie he saw (“The Greatest Show on Earth”) to memories of meeting filmmaker John Ford on the Paramount lot, this endearing, broadly appealing account of how Spielberg was smitten by the medium — and why the prodigy nearly abandoned picture-making before his career even started — holds the keys to so...

Image Source: Elephante: Alex Lopes; Thuy: Sarah Ohta; Luna Li: Felice Trinidad; Background Image: Unsplash

In recent years, a handful of Asian American musicians have made a name for themselves in the American music scene. There's indie rock artist Mitski, Michelle Zauner of the genre-defying band Japanese Breakfast, and house DJ and producer Yaeji. The list grows a bit longer if we count Grammy-winning mainstream artists like H.E.R., Olivia Rodrigo, Bruno Mars, and Anderson .Paak, all of whom have some Asian heritage. However, they're the notable exceptions in an industry in which Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (Aapi) are still grossly underrepresented and underpromoted, despite the wealth of musical talent that exists within the community.

In contrast, many K-pop stars - the majority of whom hail from South Korea - are now more successful and famous in the US than most Aapi artists. This striking paradox speaks to...

Italian producer Massimo Cristaldi, who as a production manager worked with masters such as Federico Fellini and Francesco Rosi before setting up his own company and shepherding films including prizewinning drama “Sicilian Ghost Story,” has died. He was 66.

Cristaldi’s death was announced over the weekend by his Rome-based company Cristaldi Pictures in a statement that did not specify the cause.

Born in 1956, Massimo Cristaldi was the only son of prominent producer Franco Cristaldi, the triple Oscar-winner who made Pietro Germi’s “Divorce Italian Style,” Federico Fellini’s “Amarcord” and Giuseppe Tornatore’s “Cinema Paradiso.”

In 1974 Massimo Cristaldi started cutting his teeth in the film business first as a production assistant and eventually, starting in the 1980s, becoming a line producer on many of his father’s productions, working with Fellini, Rosi, Tornatore, and many other Italian cinema greats.

After Franco Cristaldi’s death in 1992, he took over management of...

Joachim Trier, writer/director of the multi-Oscar nominated film The Worst Person in the World, discusses his favorite movies with hosts Josh Olson and Joe Dante.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

A History of Violence (2005)

Gremlins (1984) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review, Tfh’s retrospective links

Innerspace (1987) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review

The Worst Person In The World (2021)

Back To The Future (1985)

Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959)

Hour of the Wolf (1968)

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) – John Landis’s trailer commentary, Dennis Cozzalio’s review

Mirror (1975)

Stalker (1979) – Glenn Erickson’s Criterion Blu-ray review

Soylent Green (1973)

Dr. Strangelove (1964) – Michael Lehmann’s trailer commentary, Glenn Erickson’s Criterion Blu-ray review

Last Year At Marienbad (1961)

The Hunt (1959)

Remonstrance (1972)

Don’t Look Now (1973) – John Landis’s trailer commentary

Bad Timing (1980) – Bernard Rose’s trailer commentary

Walkabout (1971) – Larry Karaszewski’s trailer commentary

Performance (1970) – Mark Goldblatt’s trailer commentary

Drive My Car (2021)

491 (1964)

The Seventh Seal (1957)

Persona (1966)

The Wild Strawberries...

Fourteen years after Kaskade and Deadmau5 collaborated for the first time, the two Edm stars are uniting under the name Kx5. On Friday, the duo dropped their dance-ready, progressive first single, “Escape” featuring Hayla.

The track taps into the nostalgia of the early 2000s with a “throwback to that kind of minimalistic approach to that melodic sing-songy house,” Deadmau5 told Dancing Astronaut.

The collaborative project has been years in the making — and for the duo, it just made sense. “I mean after Covid, I’m just like, I want do stuff that I want do.

If any other filmmaker achieved eight Oscar nominations for Best Director across six decades, it might sound like a fluke. For Steven Spielberg, it’s destiny.

No director in history has been so closely associated with juggling the commercial and artistic potential of the medium. Even as he remains an underdog this year with his “West Side Story” nomination (which is Jane Campion’s to lose for “The Power of the Dog”), Spielberg’s latest opportunity speaks to his unique capacity to make audience-friendly movies that his Academy brethren embrace as embodying filmmaking at its finest. He’s a crowdpleaser with big ideas whose entire oeuvre chases the mainstream concept of “movie magic” as a mission statement.

However, a closer look at the spectrum of Best Director nominations he has received over the years tells a deeper story, and tracks the efforts of a filmmaker whose desire to make audience-friendly...

Critics matter. That’s how I interpret the love the Academy showed for “Drive My Car” this year, nominating the three-hour Japanese drama in four separate categories: best picture, director, adapted screenplay and international film, and in so doing, effectively issuing a referendum to the Spike Lee-led Cannes jury that awarded the Palme d’Or to the relatively divisive “Titane.”

Sure, other non-u.S. films have been widely recognized by the Academy before. “Parasite” scored six noms and won best picture just two years earlier, but that film was also a huge commercial phenomenon, earning $25 million by the day nominations were announced in 2020. “Drive My Car,” by contrast, hadn’t yet cracked $1 million.

Keep in mind: The Academy voters who select the international feature nominees watch every film that is submitted for that honor. But in every other category, popularity matters, and nothing gets nominated unless a sufficient number...

Veteran actor and frequent scene stealer Bruce Davison joins Josh Olson and Joe Dante to discuss a few of his favorite films.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Extra School (2017)

Gone With The Wind (1939)

Willard (1971) – Joe Dante’s review, Lee Broughton’s Blu-ray review

Fortune And Men’s Eyes (1971)

Short Cuts (1993) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review

Longtime Companion (1989)

Last Summer (1969) – Larry Karaszewski’s trailer commentary

Short Eyes (1977)

The Manor (2021)

Ulzana’s Raid (1972) – John Landis’s trailer commentary, Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review and All-Region Blu-ray review

King Solomon’s Mines (1950) – John Landis’s trailer commentary

Snow White and the Seven Dwarves (1937)

Them! (1954) – Joe Dante’s trailer commentary

Tarantula (1955) – Joe Dante’s trailer commentary, Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review

20,000 Leagues Under The Sea (1954) – Mick Garris’s trailer commentary, Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review

Spartacus (1960) – Larry Cohen’s trailer commentary, Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review

Ben-Hur (1959) – John Landis’s trailer commentary

Psycho (1960) – John Landis’s trailer commentary,...

Jane Alsobrook, an influential film executive, producer and publicist whose marketing work led to the success of numerous films in the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s, died Dec. 13 at her home in Sedona, Ariz. of breast cancer. She was 78.

Alsobrook’s career in movies began in 1971. She was recruited to help organize the Los Angeles Film Exposition, or Filmex and soon became part of what is now known as “New Hollywood” — a group that included Francis Ford Coppola, Steven Spielberg, Woody Allen, George Lucas and more. While working for Roger Corman, she also supervised the 1975 Academy Award campaign for “Amarcord,” resulting in four nominations and the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.

In 1975, Alsobrook entered the music industry as national publicity director for ABC Records, working alongside legends such as The Pointer Sisters, Steely Dan, Crosby and Nash and Chaka Khan. She then moved back to the world of film in...

Jane Alsobrook, a marketing and publicity specialist who coordinated the U.S. campaigns for numerous successful independent and foreign films in the 1970s and 1980s, has died. She was 78.

It was revealed today that Alsobrook died December 13 at her home in Sedona, Az on after a lengthy battle with breast cancer.

While doing post-graduate work at USC in the early 1970s, Alsobrook joined Gary Essert and Gary Abrahams to help launch the Los Angeles Film Exposition, aka Filmex, the city’s first film festival.

She then joined Roger Corman’s New World Pictures to handle marketing and publicity, notably for Fellini’s Amarcord, which won the Foreign Language Film Oscar in 1975. The following year she shifted gears to become national publicity director for ABC Records, and in the late ’70s she helped engineer the launch of Rock ‘n’ Roll High School, starring The Ramones, which Corman released.

In the early 1980s,...

Contemporary filmmakers clearly have an enormous bee in their bonnet for the coming-of-age film and poetic youth memoir—even Steven Spielberg is currently getting in on the action with his cutely named The Fabelmans, reminiscing on his Eisenhower-era boyhood in Arizona. There are a handful of potential explanations for this: the adjacent popularity of autofiction (that modish literary form initially popularised in France) has found authors—from Norway’s Knausgaard to Ferrante in Naples—deep-mining their own backstories, reinventing what we know to be realism. So there’s something in the air. Can it also be the self-publicising spree of social media platforms? For this writer’s money, climate anxiety seems relevant: the urge to preserve, to scan past memories before a great erasure. Even James Gray, often impervious to fashion, is setting up Armageddon Time, about his upbringing in ‘80s Queens.

This is all eternally relevant for Paolo Sorrentino’s new film,...

The Hand of God In April 1987, Paolo Sorrentino’s parents left Naples for a weekend gateway in Roccaraso, Abruzzo. The future Oscar winner was meant to come along, but turned down the invite on account of a far juicier plan: a die-hard Napoli fan, his football team was to play an away match against Empoli, which meant a chance for the lad to see his hero, Greatest Player ff All Time Diego Armando Maradona, dispense his genius on the pitch. As it turned out, Sorrentino’s parents never made it back—they died of carbon monoxide poisoning from a faulty heater, and the boy was left an orphan. He was only sixteen. “It was Maradona,” a relative exclaims in the director’s latest and most personal project to date, The Hand of God: “He saved you!” A portrait of the filmmaker as an adolescent, the film traces a sentimental...

In movies as disparate and vividly imagined as Il Divo, Loro, the Oscar winning The Great Beauty, as well as English language efforts like This Must Be The Place, Youth, and his TV miniseries The Young Pope and The New Pope Paolo Sorrentino has always seemed to be a director with a large brush and even more of a Fellini influence in some cases. That is why his latest, a largely autobiographical coming of age film called The Hand Of God which just had its World Premiere at the Venice Film Festival, and is next headed this weekend to Telluride, is such a departure, one absent the usual flourish the director often favors. Instead is an enormously effective and touching personal memoir of growing up in Naples circa the 1980’s. In many ways this is Sorrentino’s Amarcord, Day For Night, Cinema Paradiso,Pain And Glory, but first and foremost...

Fabietto (Filippo Scotti), the autobiographical hero of Paolo Sorrentino’s “The Hand of God,” is a teenager growing up in the 1980s in the bustling port metropolis of Naples, and he keeps a watchful gaze on just about everything. He’s like the eye at the center of a storm of avidly impassioned but overstated filmmaking. Filippo Scotti, the actor who plays him, is handsome in a pale way, with curly hair and a presence that’s elegant in its quietude. There’s something Chalamet-esque about him; at the same time, you could imagine him playing the young Bob Dylan. The year is 1984, and Fabietto is a kid who knows how to fit in but still sets himself apart. He wears a small hoop earring (not so common back then), and he’s got a Walkman whose earphones are always draped around his neck. In the cracked asphalt field at school,...

If The Great Beauty was Paolo Sorrentino’s extravagant homage to La Dolce Vita — with nods also to 8½ and Roma — The Hand of God is the Italian Oscar winner’s Amarcord. But although the Fellini inspiration is acknowledged in the story in an amusing audition scene, this is an intensely personal film, very much imprinted with Sorrentino’s own signature. Returning to his Neapolitan roots to reflect on the experiences of the tender teenage years that shaped him has brought out sumptuous veins of joy and sorrow that feel richer, deeper, more searingly poignant than anything the director has done before.

Scheduled for limited theatrical ...

If The Great Beauty was Paolo Sorrentino’s extravagant homage to La Dolce Vita — with nods also to 8½ and Roma — The Hand of God is the Italian Oscar winner’s Amarcord. But although the Fellini inspiration is acknowledged in the story in an amusing audition scene, this is an intensely personal film, very much imprinted with Sorrentino’s own signature. Returning to his Neapolitan roots to reflect on the experiences of the tender teenage years that shaped him has brought out sumptuous veins of joy and sorrow that feel richer, deeper, more searingly poignant than anything the director has done before.

Scheduled for limited theatrical ...

“I Remember: Daddy Did It.”

That’s a newspaper headline used in Buried, a Showtime docuseries that spotlights the reverberations of the first criminal case based on a recovered memory and analyzes how fallible and malleable the mind can be. Watch the teaser trailer above.

The premium cabler has set an October 10 premiere date for all four episodes of Buried. It centers on Eileen Franklin, who, while playing with her young daughter in 1989, suddenly had a memory of witnessing the rape and murder of her childhood best friend 20 years earlier. It led to the reopening of the long-cold case of 8-year-old Susan Nason — and in a shocking twist, Eileen told the police that she remembered the murderer was her own father, George Franklin.

Buried reveals the consequences of that fateful assertion of the subconscious and the infinite questions it sparked about the accuracy and reliability of unearthing traumatic events in the court of law.

Sometimes having good intentions and eye-witness testimony is not enough to make a topical, issues-driven movie connect with its anticipated audience.

The movie “Dea,” recently boarded by Hong Kong sales company Good Move Media, is a case in point. It probes the put-upon lives of foreign domestic helpers, who number several hundred thousand in Hong Kong, but are politically invisible.

These female helpers, mostly hailing from Indonesia or The Philippines, enable Hong Kong’s middle classes to function as double income families and facilitate the territory’s hard-charging, long-hours work culture. And yet foreign domestic helpers endure often demeaning living standards, sleeping in their employer’s smallest rooms, precarious employment conditions and widespread ridicule for their colorful group activities in public places on their Sunday rest days.

The film was written by a workshop of such women in Hong Kong and neighboring Macau, who had experienced sexual violence in the course of their work.

With today’s release of Ludovico Einaudi’s “Cinema,” Universal Music Group confirms its status as one of the world’s most soundtrack-friendly music companies.

Music by Einaudi, the Italian composer and pianist, was featured in recent Oscar winners “Nomadland” and”The Father.” “Cinema” collects 28 pieces featured in those films and such earlier projects as “The Water Diviner,” “The Intouchables” and the miniseries “Doctor Zhivago.”

Each of the last seven Academy Award winners for original score was released or distributed by a Umg label or composed by a Umg artist, according to a spokesperson. Umg artists Jon Batiste and Hildur Guðnadóttir were the composers of “Soul” and “Joker,” respectively. “Grand Budapest Hotel” was on Abkco, “The Hateful Eight” and “The Shape of Water” on Decca, and “La La Land” and the “Black Panther” song album on Interscope.

Similarly, the last seven Grammy-winning scores, and the last seven BAFTA winners, were also Umg-affiliated.

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For those who collect Blu-rays and DVDs, one name stands above the rest: Criterion. With its impeccable eye for curation and excellent restorations and bonus features, the Criterion Collection has established itself as the definitive home video release company. The Criterion Collection is reserved for “important classic and contemporary films;” for directors, receiving that stamp of approval is almost as good as an Oscar. Criterion honors obscure foreign films and popular contemporary work with equal zeal; the only criteria is the brand’s high standards.

Many movie lovers outsource the legwork of collecting to Criterion, using their annual releases as a barometer of the films that are worth owning. Browsing the Criterion website...

With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options—not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves–each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit platforms. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

Bad Trip (Kitao Sakurai)

The Eric Andre persona is best understood by his popular late-night Adult Swim series, succinctly titled The Eric Andre Show. In every episode Andre’s irreverent and self-destructive behavior leads him to trash his set, causing bodily harm, and torturing a slew of celebrities that range from Jimmy Kimmel to the Real Housewives of Atlanta. Andre is the equivalent of a magic mushrooms trip: wildly confusing, incoherent, sometimes causing one to burst at the seams with ecstatic comedic moments. Andre’s energy finds the perfect vessel in Bad Trip, his first starring role with a script he wrote with frequent collaborator and director Kitao Sakurai.

Among the Oscar nominations surprises every year is the Best Director lineup. Remember when Steven Spielberg (“The Color Purple”), Ron Howard (“Apollo 13”) and Ben Affleck (“Argo”) all won at the Directors Guild of America Awards but were snubbed by the directors branch of the academy. This year DGA nominee Aaron Sorkin (“The Trial of the Chicago 7”) was likewise left off the list of Oscar contenders. He was replaced by Danish director Thomas Vinterberg for his superb “Another Round,” which also picked up a bid for Best International Feature. He joins a long roster of Best Director nominees for films other than in English.

The academy first embraced international filmmakers in the 1960s. Italian auteur Federico Fellini was nominated for his 1961 classic “La Dolce Vita.” He contended again two years later for “8 1/2.” He reaped two more bids for “Fellini Satyricon” (1970) and “Amarcord’ (1975).

Predict the 2021 Oscars winners through...

Following up his most ambitious film yet, the glorious space opera Ad Astra, James Gray is setting his sights a bit smaller for his next film. Armageddon Time is inspired by his mid-80s upbringing in Queens’ Kew-Forest School, and also involves its principal as well as board member Fred Trump. Led by Robert De Niro, Cate Blanchett, Donald Sutherland, Oscar Isaac, and Anne Hathaway, the director said last summer that The 400 Blows and Amarcord were key influences on the project.

Now, he’s revealed an intriguing role for one of his actors. “Cate Blanchett is going to play Donald Trump’s sister which is the weirdest sentence I have ever said,” Gray revealed in Qumra event (via Screen Daily). “She’s only in it for three days, she’s doing me a favor. She has a really long speech to deliver, it’s a real scene-stealer. I’ve...

Italian filmmaker Federico Fellini is one of the most celebrated and influential figures in the history of cinema. Steeped in the Italian neo-realist movement of the 1940s and 1950s, Fellini went on to help rewrite the visual style and cinematic grammar of cinema with such universally beloved pictures as 8 1/2, La Dolce Vita, Amarcord, and many more that he wrote but did not direct.

Related: 10 Best Final Films From Directors

Although Fellini passed away in 1993, his work continues to be felt by audiences and filmmakers around the globe. His legacy is forever cemented in the annals of all-time great moviemakers that helped shape the way movies are made and received.

Frank Moreno, who was known for screening films at Cannes for Roger Corman’s New World Pictures to purchase and distribute in the United States in the 1970s and 1980s, died Wednesday in Florida. He was 82 and died after a brief battle with cancer, according to his daughter.

Moreno was a promoter for such Art films as Ingmar Bergman’s Cries and Whispers and Federico Fellini’s Amarcord, both the biggest US grossing pictures of the directors’ careers up to that point.

He also touted Volker Scholondorff’s The Tin Drum, which won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film in 1980; Bruce Beresford’s Breaker Morant; Fantastic Planet, the winner of numerous animated awards; and Bergman’s The Magic Flute.

In addition, Moreno acquired and distributed many mainstream commercial pictures, including The Private Eyes, starring Tim Conway and Don Knotts; managed theater circuits, including one out of Florida; and was a consultant to movie producers,...

Giuseppe Rotunno, the cinematographer highly regarded for his collaborations with Federico Fellini, has died at the age of 97. Italian news agency Ansa reported that he passed away at his home in Rome yesterday, February 7.

Rotunno and Fellini combined on eight films, beginning with Satyricon and encompassing Roma, Amarcord and Casanova. The cinematographer worked with a range of directors, including Italian legends Vittorio De Sica and Luchino Visconti, and also made his mark in the U.S., such as on Bob Fosse’s 1979 musical drama All That Jazz, which won the Palme d’Or in Cannes and was nominated for nine Oscars including cinematography, and on Terry Gilliam’s boundary-pushing The Adventures Of Baron Munchausen.

Born in 1923, Rottuno began his career as a still photographer before being employed as a cameraman with the Italian army. He moved into films as a cinematography assistant in the 1940s and worked consistently all the way through the 1990s.

Ace Italian cinematographer Giuseppe Rotunno, who was instrumental to the making of masterpieces such as Luchino Visconti’s “The Leopard” and Federico Fellini’s “Amarcord,” but also worked in Hollywood and was an Oscar nominee for Bob Fosse’s “All That Jazz,” has died. He was 97.

Rotunno, who was nicknamed Peppino, died on Sunday in his Rome home, his family announced without disclosing the exact cause.

Born in Rome on March 23, 1923, Rotunno started his remarkable six-decade career as a still photographer at the Italian capital’s Cinecittà Studios in 1940 before being recruited in 1942 to serve as a newsreel cameraman with the Italian army where he cut his teeth as a cinematographer.

In 1943 at age 20, with World War II still raging, Rotunno was hired as an assistant Dp by Roberto Rossellini for the 1943 war film “L’Uomo dalla croce” (The Man with a Cross), a drama about a military chaplain.

After the war,...

Hong Kong’s “Shock Wave 2” out-earned “Wonder Woman 1984” in China in just two days, topping the local box office this weekend with a $51.4 million debut, according to data from Maoyan.

By the end of Christmas Day, “Shock Wave 2” had grossed $28.6 million (RMB187 million), more than the $23 million (RMB151 million) “Wonder Woman” had earned since Dec. 18.

Its opening is nearly triple the Patty Jenkins-directed blockbuster’s China debut of $18.8 million last weekend, and more than 35 times the mere $1.46 million “Wonder Woman” managed to lasso this weekend to come in seventh at the box office.

Meanwhile in North America, “Wonder Woman” opened to $16.7 million from 2,100 cinemas, marking the best opening weekend to date for the region since the Covid-19 pandemic began. Shortly afterwards, the studio announced that it is now fast-tracking development on a third, concluding installment of the franchise that will bring back both director Patty Jenkins and leading lady Gal Gadot.