Italy’s Torino Film Festival will celebrate the centennial of Marlon Brando’s birth with a 24-title retrospective of films featuring the groundbreaking two-time Oscar winner, known for his naturalistic acting style and rebellious streak.
The Brando retro will be “the backbone” of the fest, according to its new artistic director, Italian actor/director Giulio Base. Accordingly, an image of Brando – photographed when he was shooting Bernardo Bertolucci’s “Last Tango in Paris” – is featured on the poster for the fest’s upcoming 42nd edition, which will run Nov. 22-30.
Torino is Italy’s preeminent event for young directors and indie cinema, and is where Matteo Garrone and Paolo Sorrentino screened their first works. The festival’s lineup will be announced at a later date.
“As an actor, Brando has always been my guiding star and I had been wondering for a while – since way before being appointed at Torino...
The Brando retro will be “the backbone” of the fest, according to its new artistic director, Italian actor/director Giulio Base. Accordingly, an image of Brando – photographed when he was shooting Bernardo Bertolucci’s “Last Tango in Paris” – is featured on the poster for the fest’s upcoming 42nd edition, which will run Nov. 22-30.
Torino is Italy’s preeminent event for young directors and indie cinema, and is where Matteo Garrone and Paolo Sorrentino screened their first works. The festival’s lineup will be announced at a later date.
“As an actor, Brando has always been my guiding star and I had been wondering for a while – since way before being appointed at Torino...
- 2/27/2024
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
Paul Mescal’s rise from the Dublin theater scene to global recognition over the last 32 months has been nothing short of meteoric. Mescal burst onto the scene in April of 2020 with his starring role in the Hulu limited series “Normal People,” a performance that won him legions of fans and multiple acting prizes, including two Gold Derby TV Awards. Movie roles for Mescal were quick to follow – including a praised supporting turn in last year’s “The Lost Daughter” – and it didn’t take him very long to find a big screen part that left viewers and industry peers once again in awe of his talent.
In “Aftersun,” Mescal stars as Calum, a troubled young father on what will become a fateful trip with his 11-year-old daughter Sophie (breakout star Frankie Corio). The film is the debut feature from writer-director Charlotte Wells and has already won acclaim in these early stages of awards season.
In “Aftersun,” Mescal stars as Calum, a troubled young father on what will become a fateful trip with his 11-year-old daughter Sophie (breakout star Frankie Corio). The film is the debut feature from writer-director Charlotte Wells and has already won acclaim in these early stages of awards season.
- 12/1/2022
- by Christopher Rosen
- Gold Derby
By the time of Humphrey Bogart's final film performance, in 1956's "The Harder They Fall," the movie star had fallen gravely ill. His years of smoking and drinking climaxed with what would become fatal esophageal cancer, which cast an unmissable pall on his performance. And yet, he still brings his star-making qualities: the toughness and bitterness, the anger and wry sarcasm.
Because "The Harder They Fall" is just one of many noir-era movies about the boxing underworld, it gets less respect than Bogart's many classics. He hadn't even wanted to be in the movie, focusing his remaining energy in vain on another movie with his wife Lauren Bacall, according to Stefan Kanfer's Bogart biography "Tough Without a Gun." He had many reasons for not being interested in the movie, but the cast was a big one.
"The Harder They Fall" is unromantic and cynical, with Bogart, reduced...
Because "The Harder They Fall" is just one of many noir-era movies about the boxing underworld, it gets less respect than Bogart's many classics. He hadn't even wanted to be in the movie, focusing his remaining energy in vain on another movie with his wife Lauren Bacall, according to Stefan Kanfer's Bogart biography "Tough Without a Gun." He had many reasons for not being interested in the movie, but the cast was a big one.
"The Harder They Fall" is unromantic and cynical, with Bogart, reduced...
- 9/4/2022
- by Anthony Crislip
- Slash Film
“I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.”
Nothing’s more fun than The Wildey’s Tuesday Night Film Series. The 1951 film A Streetcar Named Desire starring Vivien Leigh and Marlon Brando will be on the big screen when it plays at The Wildey Theater in Edwardsville, Il at 7:00pm Tuesday February 8th. Tickets are only $3 Tickets available starting at 3pm day of movie at Wildey Theatre ticket office. Cash or check only. Lobby opens at 6pm.
Ahead of its time in how it showed raw and naked sexual and emotional passions on the screen, A Streetcar Named Desire made 27 year-old Marlon Brando, who also played the role of Stanley Kowalski on Broadway, an overnight sensation and one of the all-time greats of the silver screen. Blanche Dubois (Viven Leigh) is a Southern belle, one who had every man in the palm of her man. Blanche moves in...
Nothing’s more fun than The Wildey’s Tuesday Night Film Series. The 1951 film A Streetcar Named Desire starring Vivien Leigh and Marlon Brando will be on the big screen when it plays at The Wildey Theater in Edwardsville, Il at 7:00pm Tuesday February 8th. Tickets are only $3 Tickets available starting at 3pm day of movie at Wildey Theatre ticket office. Cash or check only. Lobby opens at 6pm.
Ahead of its time in how it showed raw and naked sexual and emotional passions on the screen, A Streetcar Named Desire made 27 year-old Marlon Brando, who also played the role of Stanley Kowalski on Broadway, an overnight sensation and one of the all-time greats of the silver screen. Blanche Dubois (Viven Leigh) is a Southern belle, one who had every man in the palm of her man. Blanche moves in...
- 2/2/2022
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
The opening moments of Amanda Kramer’s “Please Baby Please” play like an archly stylized “West Side Story” by way of Kenneth Anger. Only, instead of the Jets, we have the “Young Gents,” a group of leather-clad rascals who dance their way through the streets of a neon-tinged, foggy 1950s Manhattan before descending on an unsuspecting couple and, well, beating them to death. Looking like Marlon Brando circa “The Wild One” cosplayers, this ragtag group is interrupted by two stunned bystanders, Arthur and Suze (Harry Melling and Andrea Riseborough). The moment will change the bohemian couple forever. The lustful gazes exchanged between Arthur and Teddy, as well as the electrifying fear-turned-titillation Suze experiences, set them both on a conquest to undo the relationship they thought they wanted. In the process, Kramer sketches out a feverish queer manifesto on gender that feels both novel and familiar.
For by the time the...
For by the time the...
- 1/26/2022
- by Manuel Betancourt
- Variety Film + TV
This The Simpsons review contains spoilers.
The Simpsons Season 33 Episode 1
Why don’t we do the show right here, Mickey Rooney or Judy Garland might ask in a Hollywood Golden Age movie about barnstorming local theater. Sadly, The Simpsons’ “The Star of the Backstage” can’t go Rent-free. The techies, theater-geeks, and all the animators pull out almost all the stops for the season 33 premiere, but offer a mixed bag, even when it takes a Wicked turn.
The premise is great. It begins at the funeral for Springfield High School’s theater director Franklin Chase, and Marge wants to bring the whole gang back together for one last revival of their senior year production, only to find she was never really part of the group. The show is called “Y2K: The Millennium Bug,” and the opening ode to pre-millennial paranoia teases wonderful promise with lines like “How will I...
The Simpsons Season 33 Episode 1
Why don’t we do the show right here, Mickey Rooney or Judy Garland might ask in a Hollywood Golden Age movie about barnstorming local theater. Sadly, The Simpsons’ “The Star of the Backstage” can’t go Rent-free. The techies, theater-geeks, and all the animators pull out almost all the stops for the season 33 premiere, but offer a mixed bag, even when it takes a Wicked turn.
The premise is great. It begins at the funeral for Springfield High School’s theater director Franklin Chase, and Marge wants to bring the whole gang back together for one last revival of their senior year production, only to find she was never really part of the group. The show is called “Y2K: The Millennium Bug,” and the opening ode to pre-millennial paranoia teases wonderful promise with lines like “How will I...
- 9/27/2021
- by Alec Bojalad
- Den of Geek
In the 1970s, Marlon Brando was unforgettable as “The Godfather” and shocked filmgoers with his powerful performance in “Last Tango in Paris.” The two-time Oscar winner, who would have turned 97 on April 3, made the role of Colonel Kurtz his own in “Apocalypse Now” and negotiated a stunning payday to play Superman’s father Jor-el.
But long before those marquee roles, 1950s critics sometimes had a hard time embracing the young stage performer who developed his highly naturalistic style of acting after training with Stella Adler and being guided by director Elia Kazan, who founded the Actor’s Studio. He modeled his Stanley Kowalski character in Tennessee Williams’ “A Streetcar Named Desire” on Broadway after boxer Rocky Graziano, and the rawness of his performances were sometimes confusing to observers more attuned to formal, old-fashioned acting. Long before “mumblecore” became a film genre, critics complained about Brando’s speech patterns until it...
But long before those marquee roles, 1950s critics sometimes had a hard time embracing the young stage performer who developed his highly naturalistic style of acting after training with Stella Adler and being guided by director Elia Kazan, who founded the Actor’s Studio. He modeled his Stanley Kowalski character in Tennessee Williams’ “A Streetcar Named Desire” on Broadway after boxer Rocky Graziano, and the rawness of his performances were sometimes confusing to observers more attuned to formal, old-fashioned acting. Long before “mumblecore” became a film genre, critics complained about Brando’s speech patterns until it...
- 4/3/2021
- by Pat Saperstein
- Variety Film + TV
The toxic chemistry between Vivien Leigh and Marlon Brando isn’t all about sex in the 1951 adaptation of Tennessee Williams’ play, now rereleased
At the beginning of this drama, bewildered and highly-strung Blanche DuBois famously arrives in New Orleans off the train, intending to stay with her sister Stella and rough-hewn brother-in-law Stanley Kowalski. She tells a kindly stranger she is supposed to get the streetcar named “Desire” – so called because it is headed for the city’s Desire Street. (There is also Pleasure Street and Piety Street.) She must then change on to a streetcar named “Cemeteries” (in the direction of the St Louis and Lafayette burial grounds) and finally alight at Elysian Fields Avenue, where Stella and Stanley live.
The metaphorical progression of desire, death and heaven is obvious, but heaven is not where Blanche is to wind up. This 1951 movie, adapted by Tennessee Williams from his stage...
At the beginning of this drama, bewildered and highly-strung Blanche DuBois famously arrives in New Orleans off the train, intending to stay with her sister Stella and rough-hewn brother-in-law Stanley Kowalski. She tells a kindly stranger she is supposed to get the streetcar named “Desire” – so called because it is headed for the city’s Desire Street. (There is also Pleasure Street and Piety Street.) She must then change on to a streetcar named “Cemeteries” (in the direction of the St Louis and Lafayette burial grounds) and finally alight at Elysian Fields Avenue, where Stella and Stanley live.
The metaphorical progression of desire, death and heaven is obvious, but heaven is not where Blanche is to wind up. This 1951 movie, adapted by Tennessee Williams from his stage...
- 2/6/2020
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
“A Star is Born” is predicted to win three of the four acting awards and Best Picture at the Oscars. We expect that leads Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper as well as supporting player Sam Elliott will all take home Academy Awards. The casts of only two other films in the 90-year history of the Oscars have pulled off such a feat — “A Streetcar Named Desire” (1951) and “Network” (1976) — and neither of those films claimed the top prize.
“A Streetcar Named Desire” won a second Best Actress Oscar for Vivien Leigh (she’d picked up her first in 1939 for “Gone With the Wind”) and the supporting acting awards for Kim Hunter and Karl Malden. However Marlon Brando, who was recreating his breakout stage role of Stanley Kowalski, lost the Best Actor race to Humphrey Bogart (“The African Queen”). And the film fell to the frothy MGM musical “An American in Paris.
“A Streetcar Named Desire” won a second Best Actress Oscar for Vivien Leigh (she’d picked up her first in 1939 for “Gone With the Wind”) and the supporting acting awards for Kim Hunter and Karl Malden. However Marlon Brando, who was recreating his breakout stage role of Stanley Kowalski, lost the Best Actor race to Humphrey Bogart (“The African Queen”). And the film fell to the frothy MGM musical “An American in Paris.
- 12/26/2018
- by Paul Sheehan
- Gold Derby
Glenda Jackson is almost certain to win her first Tony Award on Sunday for her acclaimed performance in the first Broadway production of Edward Albee’s 1991 Pulitzer Prize-winning play “Three Tall Women.” She will become the 24th performer to win the Triple Crown of show business awards and cap off a comeback after an absence of almost a quarter of a century.
Jackson walked away from acting in 1992 to began a second career in politics, winning election to the British parliament. Yes, Ronald Reagan did the same thing but he had never reached the level of acclaim and success that Jackson had in Hollywood.
She is one of only 14 two-time Best Actress Oscar winners and she pulled off this double act in just four years. What makes that even more surprising is that she expressed a certain disdain for awards and didn’t attend any of the four Academy Awards...
Jackson walked away from acting in 1992 to began a second career in politics, winning election to the British parliament. Yes, Ronald Reagan did the same thing but he had never reached the level of acclaim and success that Jackson had in Hollywood.
She is one of only 14 two-time Best Actress Oscar winners and she pulled off this double act in just four years. What makes that even more surprising is that she expressed a certain disdain for awards and didn’t attend any of the four Academy Awards...
- 6/6/2018
- by Robert Pius
- Gold Derby
Bill Gold, the graphic designer responsible for some of the most indelible and powerful images in Hollywood history, died Sunday at Greenwich Hospital in Connecticut. He was 97, and his death, the result of complications of Alzheimer’s disease, was confirmed by a family spokeswoman.
Gold was remembered on Twitter by, among others, Malcolm McDowell, whose image as the knife-wielding droog of A Clockwork Orange was captured in Gold’s unforgettable poster (see it and other tweets below).
From 1942 – the year he designed the Casablanca poster that would land the gun-toting Humphrey Bogart on countless college dorm walls for decades – to 2011, when a ranting Leonardo DiCaprio was transformed into an aging J. Edgar Hoover for J. Edgar, Gold’s poster art and designs for scores and scores of movies not only enticed audiences into handing over whatever was the going rate for tickets, but sometimes even bettered the films themselves.
But...
Gold was remembered on Twitter by, among others, Malcolm McDowell, whose image as the knife-wielding droog of A Clockwork Orange was captured in Gold’s unforgettable poster (see it and other tweets below).
From 1942 – the year he designed the Casablanca poster that would land the gun-toting Humphrey Bogart on countless college dorm walls for decades – to 2011, when a ranting Leonardo DiCaprio was transformed into an aging J. Edgar Hoover for J. Edgar, Gold’s poster art and designs for scores and scores of movies not only enticed audiences into handing over whatever was the going rate for tickets, but sometimes even bettered the films themselves.
But...
- 5/22/2018
- by Greg Evans
- Deadline Film + TV
Howdy y'all Jason from Mnpp popping in to clear my throat and let out a rollicking "Stella!!!" in honor of the master Tennessee Williams birth - he was born in the town of Columbus, Mississippi (three hours south of Memphis) on this day in the year 1911, and went on to basically shape the entire Southern United States with his writings; I'd argue he's had more of an effect on our modern view of the sub-Mason-Dixon than maybe anybody but Margaret Mitchell did. And to think a gay man did that!
Anyway for this week's "Beauty vs Beast" let's zoom in on his most famous story, the one about the Streetcar Named Desire that you take to the one called Cemetery that you take to Elysian Fields. And yes that means we're facing down arguably two of the greatest movie performances ever put on screen - Vivien Leigh as Blanche DuBois...
Anyway for this week's "Beauty vs Beast" let's zoom in on his most famous story, the one about the Streetcar Named Desire that you take to the one called Cemetery that you take to Elysian Fields. And yes that means we're facing down arguably two of the greatest movie performances ever put on screen - Vivien Leigh as Blanche DuBois...
- 3/26/2018
- by JA
- FilmExperience
The 2017 film “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri” has now placed its star Frances McDormand back on the in-demand list for actresses over a certain age. Long before this comeback, McDormand won the 1996 Best Actress award for her role in “Fargo” and also had supporting nominations for “Mississippi Burning” (1988), “Almost Famous” (2000), and “North Country” (2005). A second Academy Award could be hers on March 4, especially since she has already won at the Golden Globes, SAG Awards, Critics’ Choice and more.
McDormand is also part of an elite group of actors who have won the “Triple Crown of Acting.” That distinction is given to actors who have won all three of the major acting awards given: the Oscar, Emmy and Tony. McDormand won her Emmy for the HBO miniseries “Olive Kitteridge” in 2015. She was also nominated for another Emmy for her supporting role in the TV movie “Hidden in America” in 1997.
SEE2018 Oscars:...
McDormand is also part of an elite group of actors who have won the “Triple Crown of Acting.” That distinction is given to actors who have won all three of the major acting awards given: the Oscar, Emmy and Tony. McDormand won her Emmy for the HBO miniseries “Olive Kitteridge” in 2015. She was also nominated for another Emmy for her supporting role in the TV movie “Hidden in America” in 1997.
SEE2018 Oscars:...
- 1/31/2018
- by Robert Pius and Chris Beachum
- Gold Derby
The 2017 film “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” placed its star Frances McDormand back on the in-demand list for actresses over a certain age. Long before this comeback, McDormand won the 1996 Best Actress award for her role in “Fargo” and also had supporting nominations for “Mississippi Burning” (1988), “Almost Famous” (2000), and “North Country” (2005).
McDormand is also part of an elite group of actors who have won the “Triple Crown of Acting.” That distinction is given to actors who have won all three of the major acting awards given: the Oscar, Emmy and Tony. McDormand won her Emmy for the HBO miniseries “Olive Kitteridge” in 2015. She was also nominated for another Emmy for her supporting role in the TV movie “Hidden in America” in 1997.
Her Tony award came for her work on Broadway in the play “Good People” in 2011 for Best Actress in a Play. She had previous been nominated in that same...
McDormand is also part of an elite group of actors who have won the “Triple Crown of Acting.” That distinction is given to actors who have won all three of the major acting awards given: the Oscar, Emmy and Tony. McDormand won her Emmy for the HBO miniseries “Olive Kitteridge” in 2015. She was also nominated for another Emmy for her supporting role in the TV movie “Hidden in America” in 1997.
Her Tony award came for her work on Broadway in the play “Good People” in 2011 for Best Actress in a Play. She had previous been nominated in that same...
- 1/28/2018
- by Misty Holland, Robert Pius and Chris Beachum
- Gold Derby
2017-08-23T05:06:14-07:00Denzel Washington Going Back to Broadway
Page Six reports that Denzel Washington will go back to Broadway next year. We think it's great to see an actor of his stature showing off his skills on stage. What do you think? Let us know below.
Denzel Washington will return to Broadway this spring in “The Iceman Cometh,” The Post has learned.
A 14-week run of Eugene O’Neill’s drama, to be directed by five-time Tony winner George C. Wolfe, is set to start March 22 at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre.
“I’m very excited to come back to Broadway in this great play and to be working on it with George Wolfe,” Washington told The Post.
Scott Rudin, fresh off a home run with Bette Midler in “Hello, Dolly!” is producing.
Washington will play Hickey, a charismatic traveling salesman with a secret who...
Page Six reports that Denzel Washington will go back to Broadway next year. We think it's great to see an actor of his stature showing off his skills on stage. What do you think? Let us know below.
Denzel Washington will return to Broadway this spring in “The Iceman Cometh,” The Post has learned.
A 14-week run of Eugene O’Neill’s drama, to be directed by five-time Tony winner George C. Wolfe, is set to start March 22 at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre.
“I’m very excited to come back to Broadway in this great play and to be working on it with George Wolfe,” Washington told The Post.
Scott Rudin, fresh off a home run with Bette Midler in “Hello, Dolly!” is producing.
Washington will play Hickey, a charismatic traveling salesman with a secret who...
- 8/21/2017
- by EG
- Yidio
The cut only only takes a fraction of a second, but the trauma it leaves behind takes a lifetime to heal. It happens every winter, as teenage boys of South Africa’s Xhosa culture are spirited up to the hills around their hometowns, stripped down and smothered in ghostly white paint, and told to spread their legs. Their foreskins are then sliced away by tribal surgeons, many of whom use rusted knives rather than sterile medical equipment. All the same, it’s absolutely forbidden for the initiates to scream out in pain. This is a rite of passage, the start of a three-week initiation ritual meant to confer manhood — boys cry, but men suffer in silence. As Nelson Mandela wrote in his memoir: “An uncircumcised Xhosa man is a contradiction in terms.”
Ukwaluka is a time-honored practice; it began long before Mandela himself endured the experience in 1934, and it still...
Ukwaluka is a time-honored practice; it began long before Mandela himself endured the experience in 1934, and it still...
- 8/16/2017
- by David Ehrlich
- Indiewire
Christopher Abbott essentially has two modes: Intense, and way more intense. The former “Girls” star, whose blooming career is still often seen as a response to his brief time on (and tumultuous exit from) that epochal HBO show, has spent the last few years playing one brooding knuckle-dragger after another, like he’s trying to rid himself of whatever cooties Lena Dunham may have left behind.
From “James White” to “Katie Says Goodbye,” the Greenwich, Ct native seems exclusively drawn to characters who could punch a wall at any moment — you can’t take your eyes off the guy, but it’s hard to shake the feeling that he picks his roles by imagining what might happen if Marlon Brando’s Stanley Kowalski walked off the screen and started wandering through the modern indie landscape.
But that’s all about to change, as Jamie M. Dagg’s “Sweet Virginia” brings...
From “James White” to “Katie Says Goodbye,” the Greenwich, Ct native seems exclusively drawn to characters who could punch a wall at any moment — you can’t take your eyes off the guy, but it’s hard to shake the feeling that he picks his roles by imagining what might happen if Marlon Brando’s Stanley Kowalski walked off the screen and started wandering through the modern indie landscape.
But that’s all about to change, as Jamie M. Dagg’s “Sweet Virginia” brings...
- 4/23/2017
- by David Ehrlich
- Indiewire
“I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.”
The 1951 film A Streetcar Named Desire starring Vivien Leigh and Marlon Brando will screen Sunday March 26th at Brown Hall Auditorium on the campus of Washington University. This is to celebrate playwright Tennessee Williams 106th Birthday. The screening is at 7pm and is followed by a reception that will be attended by Tennessee Williams’ niece Francesca Williams. This event is Free and open to the public.
Ahead of its time in how it showed raw and naked sexual and emotional passions on the screen, A Streetcar Named Desire made 27 year-old Marlon Brando, who also played the role of Stanley Kowalski on Broadway, an overnight sensation and one of the all-time greats of the silver screen. Blanche Dubois (Viven Leigh) is a Southern belle, one who had every man in the palm of her man. Blanche moves in with her sister Stella (Kim Hunter) and her husband,...
The 1951 film A Streetcar Named Desire starring Vivien Leigh and Marlon Brando will screen Sunday March 26th at Brown Hall Auditorium on the campus of Washington University. This is to celebrate playwright Tennessee Williams 106th Birthday. The screening is at 7pm and is followed by a reception that will be attended by Tennessee Williams’ niece Francesca Williams. This event is Free and open to the public.
Ahead of its time in how it showed raw and naked sexual and emotional passions on the screen, A Streetcar Named Desire made 27 year-old Marlon Brando, who also played the role of Stanley Kowalski on Broadway, an overnight sensation and one of the all-time greats of the silver screen. Blanche Dubois (Viven Leigh) is a Southern belle, one who had every man in the palm of her man. Blanche moves in with her sister Stella (Kim Hunter) and her husband,...
- 3/10/2017
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
For nearly two decades, Keegan-Michael Key has been tirelessly chiseling out a successful path in comedy. Name a standout sitcom from “Reno 911” to “How I Met Your Mother,” “Parks and Recreation” to “It’s Always Philadelphia,” “Modern Family,” “The Muppets” or “Ricky and Morty,” and Key has popped by to add his hilarious flare. The path began back in 2004 when he was cast on “MADtv,” and eventually led to he and castmate Jordan Peele spawning their own sketch show, the critically heralded and sharply satirical “Key and Peele.”
Through all of the above, Key has shown himself to be one of the boldest and most entertaining comedy performers working today. But in his new film, “Don’t Think Twice,” the funny man smoothly slides into drama. Which turns out to be an important next step for the challenge Key’s looking to take on next.
Read More: ‘Don’t Think Twice...
Through all of the above, Key has shown himself to be one of the boldest and most entertaining comedy performers working today. But in his new film, “Don’t Think Twice,” the funny man smoothly slides into drama. Which turns out to be an important next step for the challenge Key’s looking to take on next.
Read More: ‘Don’t Think Twice...
- 7/20/2016
- by Kristy Puchko
- Indiewire
European directors have often faltered when crossing the Atlantic. Billy Wilder and Wim Wenders found things to say where Paolo Sorrentino could not. American Honey is certainly the former. Based on a 2007 article from the New York Times, it’s a backwater American road movie directed by an Englishwoman, Andrea Arnold, and shot by Irishman Robbie Ryan. We spot a few cowboys and gas stations and even the Grand Canyon, but it’s nothing to do with any of that. It’s about America (duh) but it’s also about friendship and money and learning to look out for yourself, and that primal connection young people make between music and identity. It’s visually astonishing and often devastating, too. This might be the freshest film about young people in America since Larry Clark’s Kids from 1995.
Arnold opens in shallow-focus Academy ratio, the concentrated square shaped format she and Ryan employed on Wuthering Heights.
Arnold opens in shallow-focus Academy ratio, the concentrated square shaped format she and Ryan employed on Wuthering Heights.
- 5/15/2016
- by Rory O'Connor
- The Film Stage
“I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.”
Ahead of its time in how it showed raw and naked sexual and emotional passions on the screen, A Streetcar Named Desire made 27 year-old Marlon Brando, who also played the role of Stanley Kowalski on Broadway, an overnight sensation and one of the all-time greats of the silver screen. Blanche Dubois (Viven Leigh) is a Southern belle, one who had every man in the palm of her man. Blanche moves in with her sister Stella (Kim Hunter) and her husband, Stanley (Brando) in a small, grotty New Orleans apartment. Blanche’s family owned an estate but lost it and now Blanche has gone to live with her sister, much to the animal-like Stanley’s dismay. Stanley hates her, hates her with a passion. Once she arrives, hell breaks loose between Stanley and Stella, who is pregnant. Stanley gets his contacts and...
Ahead of its time in how it showed raw and naked sexual and emotional passions on the screen, A Streetcar Named Desire made 27 year-old Marlon Brando, who also played the role of Stanley Kowalski on Broadway, an overnight sensation and one of the all-time greats of the silver screen. Blanche Dubois (Viven Leigh) is a Southern belle, one who had every man in the palm of her man. Blanche moves in with her sister Stella (Kim Hunter) and her husband, Stanley (Brando) in a small, grotty New Orleans apartment. Blanche’s family owned an estate but lost it and now Blanche has gone to live with her sister, much to the animal-like Stanley’s dismay. Stanley hates her, hates her with a passion. Once she arrives, hell breaks loose between Stanley and Stella, who is pregnant. Stanley gets his contacts and...
- 5/10/2016
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
★★★★☆ "You've got to stop the movement from the popcorn to the mouth," Marlon Brando says, speaking of the peak of movie acting. "You've got to get them to stop chewing." At his best, Brando could do that. He was a movie actor for who was serially iconic and yet paradoxically detailed in his performances. From Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desired (1951) to Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now (1979), Brando was capable of intense performances that bursts the bounds of the specific film and entered into the culture.
- 11/30/2015
- by CineVue UK
- CineVue
Recent indie upstart Broad Green has announced they are developing John Lahr's biography Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh for a biopic on the titular playwright. No talent is attached yet, but the potential is enticing.
Williams, legendary for work such as A Streetcar Named Desire and The Glass Menagerie, has a life ready for any number of interpretations. Struggling with mental illness at an early age and battling rampant addiction, attracting and creating stars with consistently controversial and revolutionary writing, not to mention temptestous family and love lives - if nothing else, we have a catnip coctail for any actor who could fit the bill.
Could this be heading toward a fluffy, star-filled treatment a la Hitchcock or something more character-focused like Capote? Lahr's book, a finalist for the National Book Award and National Book Critics Circle Award winner, dives deeply into all aspects of Williams's life,...
Williams, legendary for work such as A Streetcar Named Desire and The Glass Menagerie, has a life ready for any number of interpretations. Struggling with mental illness at an early age and battling rampant addiction, attracting and creating stars with consistently controversial and revolutionary writing, not to mention temptestous family and love lives - if nothing else, we have a catnip coctail for any actor who could fit the bill.
Could this be heading toward a fluffy, star-filled treatment a la Hitchcock or something more character-focused like Capote? Lahr's book, a finalist for the National Book Award and National Book Critics Circle Award winner, dives deeply into all aspects of Williams's life,...
- 11/13/2015
- by Chris Feil
- FilmExperience
Vivien Leigh ca. late 1940s. Vivien Leigh movies: now controversial 'Gone with the Wind,' little-seen '21 Days Together' on TCM Vivien Leigh is Turner Classic Movies' star today, Aug. 18, '15, as TCM's “Summer Under the Stars” series continues. Mostly a stage actress, Leigh was seen in only 19 films – in about 15 of which as a leading lady or star – in a movie career spanning three decades. Good for the relatively few who saw her on stage; bad for all those who have access to only a few performances of one of the most remarkable acting talents of the 20th century. This evening, TCM is showing three Vivien Leigh movies: Gone with the Wind (1939), 21 Days Together (1940), and A Streetcar Named Desire (1951). Leigh won Best Actress Academy Awards for the first and the third title. The little-remembered film in-between is a TCM premiere. 'Gone with the Wind' Seemingly all...
- 8/19/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
“I coulda been a contender! I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am, let's face it.” That classic scene from “On The Waterfront” was part and parcel behind Marlon Brando's release into the stratosphere of supercool. Beginning with his stage debut as Stanley Kowalski in “A Streetcar Named Desire” (which he, of course, reprised in the 1951 film adaptation), his film debut in “The Men,” and a string of larger-than-life roles culminating with his Oscar-winning turn as Terry Malloy in 'Waterfront,' Hollywood was Brando's oyster in the 1950s, and a man became a cultural symbol. Through these roles, and future titanic turns in “The Godfather,” “Apocalypse Now,” and “The Last Tango in Paris,” we know and remember Marlon Brando as one of the greatest screen actors of all time. But what of the man behind the actor? This question fuels Stevan Riley's documentary,...
- 7/28/2015
- by Nikola Grozdanovic
- The Playlist
Theodore Bikel. Theodore Bikel dead at 91: Oscar-nominated actor and folk singer best known for stage musicals 'The Sound of Music,' 'Fiddler on the Roof' Folk singer, social and union activist, and stage, film, and television actor Theodore Bikel, best remembered for starring in the Broadway musical The Sound of Music and, throughout the U.S., in Fiddler on the Roof, died Monday morning (July 20, '15) of "natural causes" at the UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles. The Austrian-born Bikel – as Theodore Meir Bikel on May 2, 1924, in Vienna, to Yiddish-speaking Eastern European parents – was 91. Fled Hitler Thanks to his well-connected Zionist father, six months after the German annexation of Austria in March 1938 ("they were greeted with jubilation by the local populace," he would recall in 2012), the 14-year-old Bikel and his family fled to Palestine, at the time a British protectorate. While there, the teenager began acting on stage,...
- 7/23/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
“I coulda been a contender! I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am, let's face it.” That classic scene from “On The Waterfront” was part and parcel behind Marlon Brando's release into the stratosphere of supercool. Beginning with his stage debut as Stanley Kowalski in “A Streetcar Named Desire” (which he, of course, reprised in the 1951 film adaptation), his film debut in “The Men,” and a string of larger-than-life roles culminating with his Oscar-winning turn as Terry Malloy in 'Waterfront,' Hollywood was Brando's oyster in the 1950s, and a man became a cultural symbol. Through these roles, and future titanic turns in “The Godfather,” “Apocalypse Now,” and “The Last Tango in Paris,” we know and remember Marlon Brando as one of the greatest screen actors of all time. But, what of the man behind the actor? This question fuels Stevan Riley's documentary,...
- 3/27/2015
- by Nikola Grozdanovic
- The Playlist
I. The Landmine
In August 1955, George Devine, director of London’s Royal Court Theatre, ventured to meet a promising writer, living on a Thames houseboat. “I had to borrow a dinghy… wade out to it and row myself to my new playwright,” he recalled. Thus began a partnership between Devine, who sought to rescue the English stage from stale commercialism, and the 26 year old tyro, John Osborne. Together, they’d revolutionize modern theater.
Born in London but raised in Stoneleigh, Surrey, Osborne lost his father at age 12, resented his low-born mother and was expelled from school for striking a headmaster. While acting for Anthony Creighton’s repertory company, his mercurial temper and violent language appeared. In 1951 he wed actress Pamela Lane, only to divorce six years later. Osborne soon immortalized their marriage: their cramped apartment, with invasive friends and intruding in-laws, John and Pamela’s pet names and verbal abuse,...
In August 1955, George Devine, director of London’s Royal Court Theatre, ventured to meet a promising writer, living on a Thames houseboat. “I had to borrow a dinghy… wade out to it and row myself to my new playwright,” he recalled. Thus began a partnership between Devine, who sought to rescue the English stage from stale commercialism, and the 26 year old tyro, John Osborne. Together, they’d revolutionize modern theater.
Born in London but raised in Stoneleigh, Surrey, Osborne lost his father at age 12, resented his low-born mother and was expelled from school for striking a headmaster. While acting for Anthony Creighton’s repertory company, his mercurial temper and violent language appeared. In 1951 he wed actress Pamela Lane, only to divorce six years later. Osborne soon immortalized their marriage: their cramped apartment, with invasive friends and intruding in-laws, John and Pamela’s pet names and verbal abuse,...
- 3/7/2015
- by Christopher Saunders
- SoundOnSight
Rihanna‘s reign won’t let up. Since she hit the scene in 2008, she’s had 13 No. 1 hits on the Billboard Hot 100—tying her with Michael Jackson for the third most No. 1 songs on the chart. And she’s achieved all this before her 27th birthday, which just so happens to be today, Feb. 20. Related: Kanye West Is Executive Producing Rihanna’s New Album While we anxiously await the release of RiRi’s next album—her eighth, oh so cleverly titled, R8—to drop, we decided to take stock of her entire career so far. From Barbadian dancehall queen to a good girl gone bad to a Beatle‘s new bestie, we’re ranking every single song she’s ever put her stamp on. All 131 of Rihanna’s tracks—every single solo track, collaboration and guest feature on an Eminem song that’s out there. So, from worst to best,...
- 2/20/2015
- by Shannon Carlin - Radio.com
- Hitfix
'Henry V' Movie Actress Renée Asherson dead at 99: Laurence Olivier leading lady in acclaimed 1944 film (image: Renée Asherson and Laurence Olivier in 'Henry V') Renée Asherson, a British stage actress featured in London productions of A Streetcar Named Desire and Three Sisters, but best known internationally as Laurence Olivier's leading lady in the 1944 film version of Henry V, died on October 30, 2014. Asherson was 99 years old. The exact cause of death hasn't been specified. She was born Dorothy Renée Ascherson (she would drop the "c" some time after becoming an actress) on May 19, 1915, in Kensington, London, to Jewish parents: businessman Charles Ascherson and his second wife, Dorothy Wiseman -- both of whom narrowly escaped spending their honeymoon aboard the Titanic. (Ascherson cancelled the voyage after suffering an attack of appendicitis.) According to Michael Coveney's The Guardian obit for the actress, Renée Asherson was "scantly...
- 11/5/2014
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Rob counts down the top 50 episodes of TV's longest-running animated series, The Simpsons...
Since its debut in 1989, across 552 episodes and 25 seasons, The Simpsons has become one of the most revered and beloved TV programmes of all time. It’s a true cultural phenomenon that’s influenced not just animation, but all areas of TV comedy and sitcom. For so many of us, its quotes and catchphrases have permeated our everyday vernacular, from single words like “crisitunity” and “embiggen” to phrases “you don’t win friends with salad” and “everything’s coming up Milhouse.”
Personal opinions may vary, but for me the show’s peak years were from season 4 through to 10. They’re consistently funny, all killer and no filler runs with barely a dud episode to be found between 1992-1998. Past this point the standard becomes a little more mixed, and recent seasons have been distinctly average at best. The...
Since its debut in 1989, across 552 episodes and 25 seasons, The Simpsons has become one of the most revered and beloved TV programmes of all time. It’s a true cultural phenomenon that’s influenced not just animation, but all areas of TV comedy and sitcom. For so many of us, its quotes and catchphrases have permeated our everyday vernacular, from single words like “crisitunity” and “embiggen” to phrases “you don’t win friends with salad” and “everything’s coming up Milhouse.”
Personal opinions may vary, but for me the show’s peak years were from season 4 through to 10. They’re consistently funny, all killer and no filler runs with barely a dud episode to be found between 1992-1998. Past this point the standard becomes a little more mixed, and recent seasons have been distinctly average at best. The...
- 8/28/2014
- by louisamellor
- Den of Geek
If George Bernard Shaw had conceived Stanley Kowalski, you would have Theresa Rebeck‘s character Ian, who is at the center of her new play, “Poor Behavior,” which opened Sunday at The Duke on 42nd Street. Or, to look at this Irish cad Ian in another way, imagine Kowalski crossed with the late Christopher Hitchens. Ian, as portrayed in a brilliant performance by Brian Avers, is irritating, provocative, bombastic and absolutely riveting to watch, even if you'd never want to be in the same room with him. A few rows away in a theater are close enough. Ian is a lot.
- 8/17/2014
- by Robert Hofler
- The Wrap
Ironside fans have Stanley Kowalski to thank for getting Blair Underwood back to television, as the actor revealed to me this morning when we met up for a quick chat about his new NBC series. After playing the iconic character in Broadway's acclaimed A Streetcar Named Desire revival, Underwood was looking to find an equally powerful man to inhabit on the small screen. Enter Ironside.
Dark, complex, mysterious and exciting, the role -- and the show -- have only begun to hint at the seedy underbelly lying in wait for fans and tonight's all-new episode goes to great lengths to prove it. Keep reading to find out what made Ironside the perfect vehicle for Underwood, what surprised him most about the character and why tonight's criminal will give you nightmares!
ETonline: What kind of response did you get to last week's premiere?
Blair Underwood: My Twitter feed was really excited about it. But I will...
Dark, complex, mysterious and exciting, the role -- and the show -- have only begun to hint at the seedy underbelly lying in wait for fans and tonight's all-new episode goes to great lengths to prove it. Keep reading to find out what made Ironside the perfect vehicle for Underwood, what surprised him most about the character and why tonight's criminal will give you nightmares!
ETonline: What kind of response did you get to last week's premiere?
Blair Underwood: My Twitter feed was really excited about it. But I will...
- 10/9/2013
- Entertainment Tonight
More shows a-comin’ in what looks to be a busy fall, but it’s a summer Tony winner that’s still packing ‘em in. Kinky Boots, which scored Best Musical, Best Score (for Cyndi Lauper), and Best Actor in a Musical (Billy Porter), among other trophies, recouped its running costs in what’s been a staggering seven months for Broadway (even The Book of Mormon took longer, though Kinky has a few hundred more seats per show to sell, in all fairness). The Glass Menagerie, boasting ecstatic reviews (including ours) has extended seven extra weeks to play through February 2014, Taxi...
- 10/5/2013
- by Jason Clark
- EW.com - PopWatch
Cate Blanchett is superb as a socialite fallen on hard times in Woody Allen's homage to Tennessee Williams
"Anxiety, nightmares and a nervous breakdown; there's only so many traumas a person can withstand before they take to the street and start screaming." Awards season is declared officially open as Cate Blanchett becomes an early frontrunner for best actress with this magnificent portrayal of a woman on the edge.
A former New York socialite whose life has imploded in the wake of her husband's imprisonment (à la Bernie Madoff), Jasmine has been forced to park her Louis Vuitton luggage in the incongruous surroundings of her adoptive sister's San Francisco apartment, with corrosive results. Attempting to "move on" and make a new start (she is a past master of reinvention), Jasmine is finally out of her depth as she careers between ill-fitting employment, ill-judged social climbing and abysmal interpersonal relations. Meanwhile,...
"Anxiety, nightmares and a nervous breakdown; there's only so many traumas a person can withstand before they take to the street and start screaming." Awards season is declared officially open as Cate Blanchett becomes an early frontrunner for best actress with this magnificent portrayal of a woman on the edge.
A former New York socialite whose life has imploded in the wake of her husband's imprisonment (à la Bernie Madoff), Jasmine has been forced to park her Louis Vuitton luggage in the incongruous surroundings of her adoptive sister's San Francisco apartment, with corrosive results. Attempting to "move on" and make a new start (she is a past master of reinvention), Jasmine is finally out of her depth as she careers between ill-fitting employment, ill-judged social climbing and abysmal interpersonal relations. Meanwhile,...
- 9/28/2013
- by Mark Kermode
- The Guardian - Film News
You do not want to distract Joe Manganiello when he is performing on stage because he will reprimand you. The True Blood star, who is starring as Stanley Kowalski in the Tennessee Williams classic A Streetcar Named Desire with the Yale Repertory Theatre, stopped mid-erformance on Wednesday, Sept. 25, to address a fan who was taking photos with his or her phone. "Dear person taking pictures during our show tonight..the ushers are going to be looking for you and you will be thrown out", the hunky actor tweeted about the shutterbug. "You are insanely distracting to all of the actors onstage and incredibly rude. If you read this, please leave and don't come back," he...
- 9/27/2013
- E! Online
Cate Blanchett film marks the director's return to making movies in the States. But it's the stars who catch the eye
Woody Allen's Blue Jasmine is being welcomed as a return to late-period form for the writer-director. Well, it's a return to something, that's for sure. It's a return to America, where he's only made one movie in the last eight years – Whatever Works, which didn't – during his peregrinations across England and Europe. But it's not a full return to New York (except in flashbacks), which always makes me wonder if he isn't wanted for questioning over some heinous crime back in his beloved Gotham. Instead, most of Blue Jasmine was shot in San Francisco, a city for which Allen has little or no instinctive feel. It's also a return to A Streetcar Named Desire, whose broad plot outlines have been rather nakedly appropriated here by Allen, whether as...
Woody Allen's Blue Jasmine is being welcomed as a return to late-period form for the writer-director. Well, it's a return to something, that's for sure. It's a return to America, where he's only made one movie in the last eight years – Whatever Works, which didn't – during his peregrinations across England and Europe. But it's not a full return to New York (except in flashbacks), which always makes me wonder if he isn't wanted for questioning over some heinous crime back in his beloved Gotham. Instead, most of Blue Jasmine was shot in San Francisco, a city for which Allen has little or no instinctive feel. It's also a return to A Streetcar Named Desire, whose broad plot outlines have been rather nakedly appropriated here by Allen, whether as...
- 9/23/2013
- by John Patterson
- The Guardian - Film News
Yale Repertory Theatre has announced that Rene Augesen will play Blanche DuBois and Joe Manganiello will play Stanley Kowalski in its first-ever production of A Streetcar Named Desire, the Pulitzer Prize winning masterpiece by Tennessee Williams. Directed by Mark Rucker, the production, which will open Yale Rep's 2013-14 season, will play tonight, September 20-October 12, at the University Theatre 222 York Street.
- 9/20/2013
- by BWW News Desk
- BroadwayWorld.com
Birthday shoutouts go to James Marsden (above), who is 40, Aisha Tyler is 43, Jason Sudeikes is 38, Jinkx Monsoon is 26, and James Gandolfini would have been 52.
NBC is developing the sitcom G’Uncle, based on the experiences of out writer Billy Finnegan. “G’Uncle is inspired by Finnegan’s own experience as a gay man living with his sister, her husband, and their two little kids in Washington DC. At that time, he became a go-between in his sister’s marriage and the go-to babysitter for the kids.” A lot of us have been there. Can’t wait for this.
Yes!
Thank you Ms. Stevie Nicks for letting us use your music in Coven! You rock and I love you.
— Ryan Murphy (@MrRPMurphy) September 18, 2013
But which coinslot to use?
Tim Gunn talks to Larry King about never coming out to his parents.
Joe Manganiello is performing A Streetcar Named Desire at the Yale Repertory Theater,...
NBC is developing the sitcom G’Uncle, based on the experiences of out writer Billy Finnegan. “G’Uncle is inspired by Finnegan’s own experience as a gay man living with his sister, her husband, and their two little kids in Washington DC. At that time, he became a go-between in his sister’s marriage and the go-to babysitter for the kids.” A lot of us have been there. Can’t wait for this.
Yes!
Thank you Ms. Stevie Nicks for letting us use your music in Coven! You rock and I love you.
— Ryan Murphy (@MrRPMurphy) September 18, 2013
But which coinslot to use?
Tim Gunn talks to Larry King about never coming out to his parents.
Joe Manganiello is performing A Streetcar Named Desire at the Yale Repertory Theater,...
- 9/18/2013
- by snicks
- The Backlot
A paradox of watching special-effects films in the all-fantasy-all-the-time CGI era is that you can go to the movies every week, especially in the summer, and experience things that really ought to seem magical — a man of steel zipping through the air, an endless zombie army shimmying over a wall, cracks opening in the earth as the world ends — and as entertaining as much of this stuff is, none of it, at heart, leaves you truly, deeply amazed, because eye-popping visual miracles have become so routine that they’re simply the new normal. (How far we’ve evolved from the...
- 9/8/2013
- by Owen Gleiberman
- EW - Inside Movies
Blue Jasmine may bring another Gold Statue to the talented Cate Blanchett, who gives a performance almost certain to put her on the list of Best Actress nominees for 2013. Come inside to check out our thoughts on Woody Allen's latest film!
Written & Directed by Woody Allen
Cast: Cate Blanchett as Jasmine, Sally Hawkins as Ginger, Alec Baldwin as Hal, Peter Sarsgaard as Dwight
Cate Blanchett (Elisabeth, Veronica Guerin, Hanna, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, I’m Not There, The Lord of the Rings trilogy) has previously won an Oscar for her portrayal of Katherine Hepburn in The Aviator. Buzz is already building for her second, and it’s well deserved. She carries the entire film and lifts it above the limitations of the material.
Woody Allen’s 44th movie seems partly inspired by the classic A Streetcar Named Desire, with Blanchett as a surrogate for Blanche DuBois, Sally Hawkins as a Stella-type,...
Written & Directed by Woody Allen
Cast: Cate Blanchett as Jasmine, Sally Hawkins as Ginger, Alec Baldwin as Hal, Peter Sarsgaard as Dwight
Cate Blanchett (Elisabeth, Veronica Guerin, Hanna, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, I’m Not There, The Lord of the Rings trilogy) has previously won an Oscar for her portrayal of Katherine Hepburn in The Aviator. Buzz is already building for her second, and it’s well deserved. She carries the entire film and lifts it above the limitations of the material.
Woody Allen’s 44th movie seems partly inspired by the classic A Streetcar Named Desire, with Blanchett as a surrogate for Blanche DuBois, Sally Hawkins as a Stella-type,...
- 8/29/2013
- by feeds@cinelinx.com (Rob Young)
- Cinelinx
I’m sure you’re still recovering from the adrenaline-fueled and ARTPOPpy rush of the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards, but if you’re like me, you’re already searching for another award show fix. Have no fear: The Emmys are coming up in September, and we’re previewing the big TV trophycast with a rundown of the show’s 11 hottest acting nominees.
11. Rupert Friend, Homeland (Guest Actor, Drama Series)
I first dug this guy in The Young Victoria, but his amazingly squarish jawline has earned Emmy cred on Showtime’s unstoppable Homeland. At the TCAs this past month, he wore suspenders and looked strangely Amish. He’s weird, and I’m proud of Keira Knightley for having dated him.
10. John Benjamin Hickey, The Big C: Hereafter (Supporting Actor, Miniseries/Movie)
The 50-year-old gay actor stole our hearts in The Normal Heart, which earned him a Tony and gave him the...
11. Rupert Friend, Homeland (Guest Actor, Drama Series)
I first dug this guy in The Young Victoria, but his amazingly squarish jawline has earned Emmy cred on Showtime’s unstoppable Homeland. At the TCAs this past month, he wore suspenders and looked strangely Amish. He’s weird, and I’m proud of Keira Knightley for having dated him.
10. John Benjamin Hickey, The Big C: Hereafter (Supporting Actor, Miniseries/Movie)
The 50-year-old gay actor stole our hearts in The Normal Heart, which earned him a Tony and gave him the...
- 8/27/2013
- by Louis Virtel
- The Backlot
In his 48th feature as writer/director, Woody Allen seems to have been inspired by Tennessee Williams' timeless tale of class, booze and sexual tension, A Streetcar Named Desire. Cate Blanchett plays Jasmine, a woman who was born of a different name and led a posh life until everything came crashing down. Financially broke and mentally broken, Jasmine leaves Manhattan and heads to San Francisco to stay with her grocery clerk sister Ginger (Sally Hawkins). Ginger has not one but two Stanley Kowalski's in her life: Augie, her ex-husband (Andrew Dice Clay), and current hot-tempered fiancé, the too obviously named Chili (Boardwalk Empire's Bobby Cannavale). Yet Blanchett's performance is more than just a...
- 7/28/2013
- E! Online
Diane Keaton. Mia Farrow. Dianne Wiest. Scarlett Johansson. Penelope Cruz.
To the long list of actresses who've thrived in Woody Allen films, it's now time to add Cate Blanchett. And in big, capital letters, because her spectacularly wrenching performance in Allen's latest, "Blue Jasmine," lives up to every bit of hype you may have heard.
As his fans well know, Allen, 77, keeps up the incredible pace of about a film a year, and had lately been focusing on frothy comedic fare – the whimsical hit "Midnight in Paris," and the less successful "From Rome with Love."
"Blue Jasmine," surely one of his meatiest films in years, finds him in different territory, both geographically – we're back on U.S. shores – and emotionally, addressing serious issues like the Bernard Madoff financial scandal and its social ramifications.
It's also a fascinating character study of a woman trying to keep her head above water, financially and mentally,...
To the long list of actresses who've thrived in Woody Allen films, it's now time to add Cate Blanchett. And in big, capital letters, because her spectacularly wrenching performance in Allen's latest, "Blue Jasmine," lives up to every bit of hype you may have heard.
As his fans well know, Allen, 77, keeps up the incredible pace of about a film a year, and had lately been focusing on frothy comedic fare – the whimsical hit "Midnight in Paris," and the less successful "From Rome with Love."
"Blue Jasmine," surely one of his meatiest films in years, finds him in different territory, both geographically – we're back on U.S. shores – and emotionally, addressing serious issues like the Bernard Madoff financial scandal and its social ramifications.
It's also a fascinating character study of a woman trying to keep her head above water, financially and mentally,...
- 7/23/2013
- by AP
- Huffington Post
Title: Blue Jasmine Director: Woody Allen Starring: Cate Blanchett, Alec Baldwin, Sally Hawkins, Bobby Canavale, Andrew Dice Clay, Peter Sarsgaard, Alden Ehrenreich, Michael Stuhlbarg. Do you recall Blanche DuBois? The Southern Belle fallen out of grace, who took A Streetcar Named Desire up to Elysian Fields in New Orleans to join her sister Stella, married to the vicious tempered Stanley Kowalski? Well, Woody Allen seems to readapt Tennessee Williams’ masterpiece in a contemporary setting, betwixt the Big Apple and Frisco. The socialite Jasmine (Cate Blanchett) is “blue” for how fate has taken her from riches to rags, after her marriage with her husband Hal (Alec Baldwin), a Wall Street financier, [ Read More ]
The post Blue Jasmine Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.
The post Blue Jasmine Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.
- 7/22/2013
- by Chiara Spagnoli Gabardi
- ShockYa
Us actor best known for his role as the mafia boss Tony Soprano
James Gandolfini, who has died aged 51 of a heart attack, was one of those rare actors who was able to portray a violent, bullying, murderous, vulgar, serial adulterer, while simultaneously eliciting sympathy and understanding from television audiences. In 86 episodes from 1999 to 2007, in HBO's hit series The Sopranos, the balding, beefy, middle-aged Gandolfini, as Tony Soprano, a New Jersey mafia boss, managed to transcend any stereotyping of Italian-Americans (although the charge was still made) by showing the flawed character's vulnerable side.
While Tony Soprano does embody the close-knit Italian-American community, with its codes of masculinity, Gandolfini, who had studied the Sanford Meisner method of acting for two years, lived up to Meisner's exhortation to "find in yourself those human things which are universal". Gandolfini always claimed to be nothing like Tony Soprano: "I'm really basically just like a 260-pound Woody Allen.
James Gandolfini, who has died aged 51 of a heart attack, was one of those rare actors who was able to portray a violent, bullying, murderous, vulgar, serial adulterer, while simultaneously eliciting sympathy and understanding from television audiences. In 86 episodes from 1999 to 2007, in HBO's hit series The Sopranos, the balding, beefy, middle-aged Gandolfini, as Tony Soprano, a New Jersey mafia boss, managed to transcend any stereotyping of Italian-Americans (although the charge was still made) by showing the flawed character's vulnerable side.
While Tony Soprano does embody the close-knit Italian-American community, with its codes of masculinity, Gandolfini, who had studied the Sanford Meisner method of acting for two years, lived up to Meisner's exhortation to "find in yourself those human things which are universal". Gandolfini always claimed to be nothing like Tony Soprano: "I'm really basically just like a 260-pound Woody Allen.
- 6/21/2013
- by Ronald Bergan
- The Guardian - Film News
by Lynn Elber, AP
Los Angeles (AP) - James Gandolfini, whose portrayal of a brutal, emotionally delicate mob boss in HBO's "The Sopranos" was the brilliant core of one of TV's greatest drama series and turned the mobster stereotype on its head, died Wednesday in Italy. He was 51.
Gandolfini died while on holiday in Rome, the cable channel and Gandolfini's managers Mark Armstrong and Nancy Sanders said in a joint statement. No cause of death was given.
[Related: James Gandolfini Dies of Heart Attack at 51 (Report)]
"He was a genius," said "Sopranos" creator David Chase. "Anyone who saw him even in the smallest of his performances knows that. He is one of the greatest actors of this or any time. A great deal of that genius resided in those sad eyes."
Gandolfini, who won three Emmy Awards for his role as Tony Soprano, worked steadily in film and on stage after the series ended. He earned a 2009 Tony Award...
Los Angeles (AP) - James Gandolfini, whose portrayal of a brutal, emotionally delicate mob boss in HBO's "The Sopranos" was the brilliant core of one of TV's greatest drama series and turned the mobster stereotype on its head, died Wednesday in Italy. He was 51.
Gandolfini died while on holiday in Rome, the cable channel and Gandolfini's managers Mark Armstrong and Nancy Sanders said in a joint statement. No cause of death was given.
[Related: James Gandolfini Dies of Heart Attack at 51 (Report)]
"He was a genius," said "Sopranos" creator David Chase. "Anyone who saw him even in the smallest of his performances knows that. He is one of the greatest actors of this or any time. A great deal of that genius resided in those sad eyes."
Gandolfini, who won three Emmy Awards for his role as Tony Soprano, worked steadily in film and on stage after the series ended. He earned a 2009 Tony Award...
- 6/19/2013
- by The Associated Press
- Moviefone
Does Stanley Kowalski remove his shirt in "A Streetcar Named Desire?" He might this time around with "True Blood" and "Magic Mike" star Joe Manganiello taking on the iconic character. Mark Rucker will stage the production of Tennessee Williams' Pulitzer Prize winning piece at the Yale Repertory Theatre in Connecticut. The play will mark Rucker's ninth show at the venue, including 2008's production of Tom Stoppard's "Rough Crossing," the theater's website says. See video: 'True Blood' Season 6 Previews: Friends, Frenemies and Faeries Here's description of the classic play from the Yale Repertory Theatre:...
- 6/14/2013
- by Tony Maglio
- The Wrap
Yale Repertory Theatre James Bundy, Artistic Director Victoria Nolan, Managing Director has announced that Rene Augesen will play Blanche DuBois and Joe Manganiello will play Stanley Kowalski in its first-ever production of A Streetcar Named Desire, the Pulitzer Prize winning masterpiece by Tennessee Williams. Directed by Mark Rucker, the production, which will open Yale Rep's 2013-14 season, will play September 20-October 12, at the University Theatre 222 York Street.
- 6/14/2013
- by BWW News Desk
- BroadwayWorld.com
New York -- Stellaaagggrrrrr!!! Joe Manganiello, the actor best known as hunky werewolf Alcide Herveaux on HBO's True Blood, will tackle the plum role of Stanley Kowalski in Tennessee Williams' 1947 drama about shattered illusions, A Streetcar Named Desire. Directed by Mark Rucker, the production will open the 2013-14 season at Yale Repertory Theatre in New Haven, Conn., running Sept. 20 through Oct. 12. Playing Blanche DuBois, the faded Southern belle whose facade of delicate refinement doesn't wash with her brutish brother-in-law Stanley, is Rene Augesen. The actress previously appeared at Yale Rep in The Beaux' Stratagem and A
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- 6/14/2013
- by David Rooney
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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