I was sorry to hear the news of Tony Curtis’ death earlier today. Always woefully underrated, the star was only Oscar-nominated once and not for his best work, in the 1957 drama “Sweet Smell of Success.” In typical Hollywood fashion, Curtis was nominated the following year for the earnest Stanley Kramer picture “The Defiant Ones.” Read More
Tony Curtis, R.I.P.
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The movie director who has never shied away from sex
Last week, producer Harvey Weinstein won his appeal to have the adults-only NC-17 rating on the Ryan Gosling-Michelle Williams picture “Blue Valentine” reduced to an R. In this country, the Motion Picture Association of America’s most restrictive rating is a commercial kiss of death because most multiplex chains will not book films with an NC-17 Read More
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‘Sweet Smell of Success’ gets the Criterion treatment
Art and rep movie houses might be dead or dying in this age of mass releases and multiplexes, but The Criterion Collection makes it possible for you to set up shop in your own home. Classics foreign and domestic are presented on DVD from the best possible prints and the “extras” always merit that label. Read More
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‘Weegee’: capturing the dark side of New York City
If you are drawn to the bad old days of New York City — the nighttime underworld scene captured so vividly in such great films as “Sweet Smell of Success” and “Taxi Driver” — you will love the exhibit on view at the International Center of Photography in Manhattan through September. “Weegee: Murder is My Read More
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Robert Ryan: the man who lived against type
Last year, New York’s wonderful non-profit, three-screen movie theater — Film Forum — held a two-week tribute to Robert Ryan. Although he never attained the full-fledged stardom of peers such as Burt Lancaster, Ryan worked steadily from the late 1940s up until his death in 1973. The actor went out on a high, playing the ex-anarchist Read More
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Oscar madness: try to remember Cary Grant &‘Rocky’
It’s the movie buff’s equivalent of the Super Bowl. A huge TV event that is anticipated for weeks — months? — and then forgotten almost immediately. At two recent Oscar library discussions that I led, I asked those who attended if they could name the man who won best actor last year, and it took Read More
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Film Society series ‘Man of Steel’ marks Lancaster’s 100th birthday
Born in New York City the same year that Grand Central Terminal opened, Burt Lancaster became the rare movie star of his era who insisted on miscasting himself (in the eyes of studio chiefs) in a series of unsympathetic and/or eccentric roles unlikely to bolster his popularity. The late star’s birth year centennial has already Read More
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‘Robot and Frank’: Langella hits another one out of the park
Frank Langella continued his run of wonderful twilight years performances with the 2012 independent film “Robot and Frank” a poignant comedy-drama set in the near future. The movie is now available on DVD and most of the download services So many actors find starring film roles drying up as they head into their 60s and Read More
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The good old/bad old days of Cold War paranoia films
The 1970s are often cited as the heyday of the paranoid thriller — thanks to “The Parallax View” (1974) and “Three Days of the Condor” (1975) and a few other key titles — but the genre really started a decade earlier. The ’70s films were the result of Watergate and all of the revelations about Read More
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‘Candelabra’: Oscar trio gets HBO release rather than theatrical run
There is no better indicator of the steady shift of adult audiences from the multiplexes to home viewing than “Behind the Candelabra” debuting on cable last spring rather than in theaters. Here you have a project with two Oscar-winning stars (Michael Douglas and Matt Damon) overseen by an Oscar-winning director (Steven Soderbergh) that couldn’t get Read More
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‘The Swimmer’ gets deluxe DVD treatment
The Frank and Eleanor Perry film version of the John Cheever story “The Swimmer” was a resounding flop in 1968, but over the years it has acquired a cult following. The movie has always been of particular interest in Connecticut because the Perrys and star Burt Lancaster spent the summer of 1966 filming in and […]
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Oscar chat tonight at the Plumb Library
As mainstream Hollywood films — i.e. the stuff that is shown in multiplexes most of the year — get more kiddie oriented, and more overseas market driven, adults owe a certain debt of gratitude to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Everyone knocks the Oscars for not citing the movies they love, and […]
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‘The Hateful Eight’ nostalgia trip
The glorious experiment by Quentin Tarantino and The Weinstein Company that resulted in bringing back the roadshow and Ultra Panavision 70 wide-screen format will end tomorrow night at 100 theaters around the country. “The Hateful Eight” was the first movie to be shot and projected in the super-wide format since “Khartoum” 50 years ago, and
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‘Cassavetes/Rowlands’ series opens in NYC
Downtown Manhattan’s elegant new arthouse – The Metrograph – is launching a terrific nine day series devoted to the films of writer-director-actor John Cassavetes and the work he did with his great actress wife Gena Rowlands. “Cassavetes/Rowlands” starts tonight, appropriately enough, with the 1977 film “Opening Night” in which Rowlands stars as an actress returning
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‘She Made Me Laugh’: what is a ‘friend’?
Readers and critics have been arguing about Richard Cohen’s Nora Ephron memoir/biography since it was published earlier this month. “She Made Me Laugh: My Friend Nora Ephron” (Simon and Schuster) has been attacked as an exploitation of a “best friend” when she is no longer around to respond; a name-dropping orgy filled with Hollywood celebrity
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Oscar madness: try to remember Cary Grant &‘Rocky’
It’s the movie buff’s equivalent of the Super Bowl. A huge TV event that is anticipated for weeks — months? — and then forgotten almost immediately. At two recent Oscar library discussions that I led, I asked those who attended if they could name the man who won best actor last year, and it took
↧
Deluxe DVD treatment for ‘The Swimmer’
The Frank and Eleanor Perry film version of the John Cheever story “The Swimmer” was a resounding flop in 1968, but over the years it has acquired a cult following. The movie has always been of particular interest in Connecticut because the Perrys and star Burt Lancaster spent the summer of 1966 filming in and
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Out of the vault: ‘Adrian Messenger’
No one would rank the 1963 John Huston film “The List of Adrian Messenger” among the best pictures by the director of “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre” and “Prizzi’s Honor,” but it’s an entertaining mystery that deserves to be better known. Just as the Warner video division has been releasing no-frills versions of its
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‘La Pelle’: Italian WWII drama resurfaces
The Cohen Media Group has been making waves as a relatively new player in the DVD distribution of European films. The company, headed by New York City real estate man Charles Cohen, also bought the venerable Quad Cinema in downtown Manhattan as a new showcase for art films. The renovations are expected to be finished
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‘Robot and Frank’: Langella hits another one out of the park
Frank Langella continued his run of wonderful twilight years performances with the 2012 independent film “Robot and Frank” a poignant comedy-drama set in the near future. The movie is now available on DVD and most of the download services So many actors find starring film roles drying up as they head into their 60s and
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