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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.

Pope Francis, who died at the age of 88 on Easter Monday, had a special relationship with cinema going back to his childhood in Buenos Aires.

“I owe my cinema culture above all to my parents who took us to the cinema a lot,” the pontiff said in a 2013 interview, a few months after his election as head of the Roman Catholic Church.

Born Jorge Mario Bergoglio in the Argentinian capital in 1936 to parents with roots in northern Italy, Italian cinema figured highly in his early cinema-going.

In the same 2013 interview, Pope Francis named Federico Fellini’s 1954 Oscar-winning work La Strada, starring Giulietta Masina as fragile protagonist Gelsomina who is abused by brutish circus strongman Zampanò, played by Anthony Quinn, as the film he loved the most.

“I identify with that film, in which there is an implicit reference to Saint Francis,” said the pontiff referring to its themes of love...

When director Duke Johnson sat down and watched Federico Fellini’s 1954 classic “La Strada,” he was immediately drawn to the iconic clown costume worn by Giulietta Masina. Now in his newest film, “The Actor,” a similar outfit is adorned by Edna (Gemma Chan) while out on an intimate date with Paul (André Holland).

“It’s these two people that feel like maybe they don’t fit into the world,” Johnson tells Variety. “With these two oddballs finding each other, the possibility of connection was the driving force. They’ve really hit it off.”

The moment takes place on Halloween night when Paul, still trying to piece together who he is after waking up with amnesia, goes out with Edna after the two meet at the cinema. Despite it being Halloween, you’d hardly be able to tell by looking at the men’s synonymous coats, making Edna’s hand-stitched blue clown costume immediately stand out.

“I feel like this will all close in on me and I’ll disappear, which wouldn’t be such a bad fate, actually,” said “Emilia Pérez” writer/director Jacques Audiard as he surveyed the contents of the Criterion Closet.

The French filmmaker has been on a hot streak lately with his gonzo crime musical sweeping the European Film Awards last month and this month earning Outstanding Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy at the Golden Globes, as well as Outstanding Motion Picture – Non-English Language, Outstanding Supporting Actress for Zoe Saldaña, and Outstanding Original Song for “El Mal.” To celebrate these wins and potential Oscar fortune, Audiard took a brief trip off the red carpet to Criterion’s offices in New York City, where he selected a bagful of cinema’s finest, including Fritz Lang’s expressionistic serial-killer thriller starring Peter Lorre, “M.”

“For me, Lang is synonymous with silent films, even...

Although the extent to which the iconically dark-shaded and silver-streaked Guido Anselmi (Marcello Mastroianni) can truly be accepted as a Federico Fellini surrogate is a source of endlessly inconsequential debate, we tend to take the lightly fictive director at his word when he dismally claims that he had planned to make a truly honest and direct film this time around. 8½ represents the most unceremonious and abrupt transition in the development of Fellini’s cinema from putatively neorealist ideologies to unabashedly oneiric claptraps about the onus of an overly imaginative but waning masculinity—and it is, for all its Freudian bitchery and post-libidinous angst, one of the few personal statements in film utterly unhindered by stretches for social or cosmic relevance.

There are some aphoristic generalizations related to living the creative life, most of them articulated by Guidio’s lean script advisor and logos personification Daumier (Jean Rougeul)—“Destroying is better...

Admire the Criterion Collection, but can’t afford the thousands of dollars required to purchase all those DVDs? There’s a more elegant solution…just get a Max subscription. Warner Bros and HBO have announced a renewal of their deal with Criterion to keep decades of film classics in one streamable spot. “We are excited to continue to bring the Criterion Collection’s catalog of top-quality films to our audiences,” said Royce Battleman, Executive Vice President, Content Acquisitions, Warner Bros. Discovery. “Both the existing and new additions to the collection provide Max viewers with the opportunity to experience cinematic excellence as part of our offering.” Founded in 1984, the Criterion Collection is dedicated to the preservation, restoration and protection of the art of cinema. Their famous line of DVDs and Blu-Rays span a hundred years of moviemaking, publishing important classic and contemporary films from around the world. The list is too long to mention here,...

Kaseem “Ka” Ryan, who passed away on Oct. 12 at the age of 52, was a one-of-one hip-hop visionary who left a legacy as brilliantly idiosyncratic as any the genre has produced. He emerged as a fiercely evocative artist in a moment when a new wave of voices revitalized street rap, shearing the style from its mid-Nineties thug origins while avoiding any pretense of commercial viability, and girding it with dusty, deeply-sourced sample loops. Ka’s 2012 album, Grief Pedigree, is widely cited alongside Roc Marciano’s 2010 album, Marcberg, as a blueprint for...

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...

Jake Gyllenhaal has been in the movie industry since he was 11 years old. Born to a director-father and screenwriter-mother, both him and his older sister, Maggie Gyllenhaal, were part of the movie business before they even made it. With impressive filmography and a career spanning decades, Jake Gyllenhaal has made a name for himself in Hollywood.

Jake Gyllenhaal in Road House

With movies like Donnie Darko, Nightcrawler, and even superhero projects like Spider-Man: Far From Home, Gyllenhaal has made movies that are loved by millions. But do you know which movie Jake Gyllenhaal considers to be his favorite? Well, it’s none other than the 1996 Tom Cruise hit, Jerry Maguire, which the Road House star considers to be “a quintessential ’90s movie.”

Jake Gyllenhaal Loves Tom Cruise’s Jerry Maguire

Back in 2014, actor Jake Gyllenhaal sat with Rotten Tomatoes to rank his top 5 favorite movies of all time. He named...

In April 2019, the Academy made a major change to the category formerly known as best foreign-language film. The following March, at the 92nd Academy Awards, Parasite made Oscar history when it became the first non-English film to take best picture — and the first movie to win the Oscar for the newly designated category of best international film.

The decision to rename the category was born out of the Academy’s efforts to diversify its membership and embrace the global filmmaking community. “We believe that ‘international feature film’ better represents this category, and promotes a positive and inclusive view of filmmaking, and the art of film as a universal experience,” Larry Karaszewski and Diane Weyermann, then co-chairs of the international film committee (Weyermann died in 2021), said in a statement.

The Academy has embraced more foreign-language films in its competition — since Parasite’s win in 2020, the best picture category has seen international (or largely non-English) nominees Minari,...

With the advent of streaming platforms such as Netflix and Amazon Prime, many have predicted the end of physical media. The story comes up every year it seems, with DVDs, Blu-rays and even UHDs still present, whereas those relying solely on streaming start protesting as more and more of these services embrace advertisements in their content. However, this debate, which seemingly is based on ownership, misses the point of creating a large collection of movies, as people who do so may actively (or unknowingly) preserve these cultural artifacts. This side to the debate gets another meaning entirely, when viewed from the perspective of an authoritarian regime repressing all modes of expression or censoring them, which is one of the aspects of Ehsan Khoshbakht's documentary “Celluloid Underground”.

The story of the feature is about the biography of the director, who left his home country Iran for London as the political...

When it comes to selecting which year of the 1950s was the best for cinema, 1954 is a difficult one to argue against. For the Japanese films alone, it had the likes of Seven Samurai, Godzilla, and Sansho the Bailiff, with classics from elsewhere in the world including Rear Window, La Strada, and of course On the Waterfront. But every year has its great movies, and 1959 - to haphazardly paraphrase that aforementioned Marlon Brando movie - could well be a contender.

Mitski will play a handful of North American shows this month to mark the release of her new album, The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We, out Sept. 15.

The singer-songwriter has announced four “Amateur Mistake” shows, starting Sept. 11 at the Teatro de la Ciudad in Mexico City. She’ll then play the Theatre at Ace Hotel in Los Angeles on Sept. 20, Town Hall in New York City on Sept. 26, and Trinity Church in Toronto on Sept. 29. (A run of previously-announced shows in the U.K. and Europe will follow in October.

There are compliments and there are compliments. For a young Italian actress making her big screen debut, being compared to Giulietta Masina — best known for her work in front of the camera of Federico Fellini (who also doubled up as her husband), most notably La Strada and Nights of Cabiria — it’s definitely one of the better ones to receive.

But it was this that, Rebecca Antonaci explains, led director Saverio Costanzo to cast her as the lead in his Venice-bowing drama Finally Dawn (Finalmente L’alba in Italian). “Saverio told me that I, in some way, reminded him of Messina,” the 18-year-old says, speaking from Rome.

If Costanzo was looking for someone who could capture Masina’s renowned youthful, wide-eyed innocence, he certainly found it with this newcomer.

Set in the mid 1950s, in the golden age of the Italian capital’s historic Cinecitta studio (and the period where Masina...

Mitski stans will get to listen to her new album early and watch some classic films at listening parties the singer is hosting across the U.S. and Australia prior to the release of her new album. On Tuesday, Mitski announced that she’ll throw “music and film double features” in support of her new album The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We, out Sept. 15.

Depending on the location, The Land will be played alongside films 1954’s La Strada, 1978’s Days of Heaven, Donna Deitch’s Desert Hearts, and 1989’s Drugstore Cowboy.

Italian auteur Vittorio De Sica triumphed at the Berlin Film Festival when his 1971 masterpiece “The Garden of the Finzi-Continis” claimed the Golden Bear, on its way to the best foreign-language Oscar in 1972.

“Finzi” also earned Italian film and TV star Fabio Testi an Italian Golden Globe for best breakthrough actor. A half-century later, with over 100 credits on his resume, Testi remains active and game for parts that utilize his still stunning looks and hearty appetite for performing.

He’s also game for the role he seems destined to play in the Italian tabloids. A quick Google search of Testi’s current film and TV projects is dominated by stories – which Testi playfully plays along with – of current and past romantic adventures with women all over the globe.

Testi turns 82 this year and remains dedicated to two other passions beyond the aforementioned amorous actitivies: farming and acting.

“I did 102 movies with my name on them,...

Germany’s anti-war epic “All Quiet on the Western Front” based on Erich Maria Remarque’s 1929 classic World War I novel made a lot of noise at the 95th annual Oscar nominations January 24th. The Netflix production earned nine nominations just two behind the “Everything Everywhere All at Once” and tying with “The Banshees of Inisherin.”

The Oscar nominations for “All Quiet” come a week after the war drama dominated the BAFTA nominations earning 14. Only two other foreign language films have earned more Oscar nominations: both Ang Lee’s exhilarating “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” from 2000 and 2018’s “Roma” received 10 nominations with “Tiger” winning four Academy Awards while “Roma” picked up three including Best Director for Alfonso Cuaron.

As predicted, “All Quiet” was nominated for Best International Feature, and it has made history by becoming the first German-language movie to be nominated for Best Picture. Its nine nominations topped the six...

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.

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Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda is famous for his films’ small details, vivid characters and delicate but relatable stories. With Broker, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May, he decided to both stick to his strengths and make a change. It is the director’s first Korean-language movie, but it tells another Kore-eda story about social outcasts who come together to form a makeshift family. Broker began years ago; Kore-eda developed the idea for the story at the same time he was writing Shoplifters, which later won Cannes’ Palme d’Or in 2018. He quickly assembled a star-studded cast of Korean actors — Sang Kang-ho, Gang Dong‑won, Bae Doona and Iu — and continued from there.

Last week, Kore-eda, who has just started developing his next project in Japan, attended the Venice Film Festival to receive Ente dello Spettacolo’s Besson Prize, ahead of Broker’s Italy release on Oct.

While his personal filmmaking career alone is more than enough to enrich the history of film culture, Martin Scorsese also dedicates his knowledge and resources to restoring and preserving cinema from around the world with his nonprofit The Film Foundation. They’ve now launched a new initiative to bring new restorations to a wider audience.

Deadline reports they will be launching a new free virtual screening room beginning May 9, featuring a new restoration in a 24-hour window, with subsequent films to launch on the second Monday of each month. First up is Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s 1945 classic I Know Where I’m Going!, while additional selections, co-curated by Scorsese and Kent Jones, include Federico Fellini’s La Strada; G. Aravindan’s Kummatty; Edgar G. Ulmer’s Detour paired with Arthur D. Ripley’s The Chase; Sarah Maldoror’s Sambizanga; Marlon Brando’s One-Eyed Jacks, John Huston’s Moulin Rouge...

Martin Scorsese’s nonprofit The Film Foundation is officially launching a free virtual screening room to showcase film restorations. The Film Foundation Restoration Screening Room, which will showcase both foundation restorations as well as those from partners, will launch on Monday, May 9, with Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s 1945 romantic comedy “I Know Where I’m Going!” starring Wendy Hiller and Roger Livesey. The restoration was overseen by The Film Foundation and BFI National Archive, in association with ITV and Park Circus.

The film and subsequent titles will be available for a 24-hour window and will feature introductions and conversations with filmmakers and archivists, providing an inside look at the restoration process. The Film Foundation Restoration Screening Room will offer “appointment viewing,” with screenings starting at a set time and available for a limited period, which is unlike other classic streaming options.

The restoration of “I Know Where I’m Going,...

Martin Scorsese’s nonprofit The Film Foundation is launching a free virtual screening room to showcase restored films starting May 9 with I Know Where I’m Going!.

The 1945 film directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger and restored by The Film Foundation and BFI National Archive, in association with ITV and Park Circus, will be available for a 24 -hour window. Subsequent features will debut on the second Monday of each month. Events will start at a set time with introductions and conversations with filmmakers and archivists providing an inside look at the restoration process.

The lineup from co-curators Scorsese and Kent Jones includes Federico Fellini’s 1954 La Strada; G. Aravindan’s 1979 Indian film Kummatty; a film noir double feature of Detour and The Chase; Sambizanga; One-Eyed Jacks; Moulin Rouge; Lost Lost Lost and others Tba.

It’s TCM‘s 28th annual airing of films recognized by the Academy, and this year’s lineup features only Oscar victors, not nominees, grouped by decade or category. Here are some can’t-miss golden titles airing through the first week of March. Tuesday: 1940s Winners, Gaslight (2am/1c) The term gaslighting — manipulating a person for your benefit — comes from this mesmerizing 1944 thriller. Best Actress Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer (above) play a young wife and the husband who preys upon her sanity. La Strada (Credit: Courtesy of the Everett Collection) Wednesday: 1950s Winners, La Strada (6/5c) The Best Foreign-Language Film Oscar went to Federico Fellini’s 1954 tale of a sweet, simpleminded woman (Giulietta Masina) and a callous circus strongman (Anthony Quinn). The tear-jerking finale is stunning. Thursday: 1960s Winners, The Graduate (10:15/9:15c) From 1967: that rare film to win Best Director (Mike Nichols) and nothing else. Dustin Hoffman...

Filmmaker Boaz Yakin discusses some of his favorite films with hosts Josh Olson and Joe Dante.

Show Notes:

Movies Referenced In This Episode

Aviva (2020)

The Harder They Fall (2021)

The Harder They Come (1972)

Reservoir Dogs (1992)

Pulp Fiction (1994)

Fresh (1994)

Mo’ Better Blues (1990)

Safe (2012)

Scream (2022)

The Punisher (1989)

The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)

Kagemusha (1980) – Bernard Rose’s trailer commentary

Mean Streets (1973)

Jaws (1975) – Josh Olson’s trailer commentary

The 400 Blows (1959) – Robert Weide’s trailer commentary

Yojimbo (1961)

Dodes’ka-den (1970)

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

Casablanca (1942) – John Landis’s trailer commentary

Coonskin (1975) – Larry Karaszewski’s trailer commentary

Fritz The Cat (1972) – Mick Garris’s trailer commentary, Charlie Largent’s Blu-ray review

The Lord of the Rings (1978)

Wizards (1977)

Heavy Traffic (1973) – Larry Karaszewski’s trailer commentary, Randy Fuller’s wine pairing

The Warriors (1979)

Quintet (1979)

Brewster McCloud (1970) – Larry Karaszewski’s trailer commentary, Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review

Mash (1970)

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

Everything old is new again. Steven Spielberg’s acclaimed remake of “West Side Story” has garnered seven Oscar nominations. That haul is impressive but pales next to that of the 1961 original which reaped a whopping 11 bids. Not surprisingly, it was the big winner at the 34th annual Oscars. These took place at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium on April 9, 1962 with Bob Hope hosting.

The Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins adaptation of the Leonard Bernstein–Stephen Sondheim landmark Broadway musical waltzed away with 10 wins including Best Picture, Director (shared for the first time) and for supporting players Rita Moreno and George Chakiris.

Robbins also received an honorary Oscar that night for his “brilliant achievement in the art of choreography on film.” Ironically, Robbins had received his walking papers from his directing duties 45 days into production. Wise told me in a 2002 L.A. Times interview that the production was behind schedule and over-budget.

The Museum of Modern Art and Cinecittà announced that Federico Fellini, a retrospective honoring the Italian director, will run from Dec. 1 to Jan. 12, 2022 at MoMA’s Debra and Leon Black Family Film Center in the Roy and Niuta Titus Theaters.

The retrospective will open with “I Vitelloni,” Fellini’s semi-autobiographical 1953 film translating to “The Young and the Passionate” in English, as well as the U.S. premiere of Cinecittà’s 4K restoration of 1954’s “La Strada,” which won the first-ever Academy Award for foreign language film. The closing film will be 1980’s “La Città Delle Donne,” or “City of Women.”

Federico Fellini is organized by La Frances Hui, MoMA’s curator in the department of film, as well as Cinecittà’s Camilla Cormanni and Paola Ruggiero.

“There is no better tribute to a cinema titan like Fellini than a complete retrospective of all his films fully restored in 4K,” Hui said.

It’s a pleasant thing to revisit an old favorite and discover that it’s better than you remember. The tale of Zampanò and Gelsomina is Italo neo-realism 2.0: it’s got poverty, misfortune and misery but also a bankable American star or two. The visually revamped presentation of Federico Fellini’s international breakthrough picture is a wonder — no more distorted audio and images that look as if they were filmed yesterday. Several of the extras are new, but the main charm is still provided by Giulietta Masina, Anthony Quinn and the Nino Rota music.

La Strada

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 219

1954 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 98 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date November 2, 2021 / 39.95

Starring: Anthony Quinn, Giulietta Masina, Richard Basehart, Aldo Silvani, Marcella Rovena, Livia Venturini.

Cinematography: Otello Martelli, Anna Primula.

Production Designer: Mario Ravasco

Art Direction: E. Cervelli, Brunello Rondi

Film Editor: Leo Cattozzo

Original Music: Nino Rota

Written by ederico Fellini,...

The former head of the ACLU discusses some of the movies – and sports legends – that made him.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Mighty Ira (2020)

The Jackie Robinson Story (1950)

42 (2013)

Shane (1953)

Panic In The Streets (1950)

Last Year At Marienbad (1962)

The Seventh Seal (1957)

La Strada (1954)

Wild Strawberries (1957) – Allan Arkush’s trailer commentary

The Virgin Spring (1960) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review

The Last House On The Left (1972) – Darren Bousman’s trailer commentary

A Walk In The Sun (1945) – Glenn Erickson’s review

Paths Of Glory (1957) – George Hickenlooper’s trailer commentary, John Landis’s trailer commentary

All Quiet On The Western Front (1930) – Ed Neumeier’s trailer commentary

Lonely Are The Brave (1962)

Casablanca (1942) – John Landis’s trailer commentary

On The Waterfront (1954) – John Badham’s trailer commentary

12 Angry Men (1957)

Inherit The Wind (1960)

Judgment At Nuremberg (1961)

Witness For The Prosecution (1957)

Anatomy of a Murder (1959)

The Verdict (1982)

Twelve Angry Men teleplay (1954)

The Front (1976)

Judgment At Nuremberg teleplay...

Above: Qui rido io (The King of Laughter).Ever so slowly, at least in good parts of Europe, life is returning more and more to a semblance of what we once knew as normal—setbacks and snags included, of course.The 2021 Venice Film Festival was a curious example of that on the organizational level: The same security measures as last year plus vaccination or recovery certificates on top; the same ticketing system, but much more attendees. Which ended in a bit of a massive mess as getting access to screenings became an ordeal. The festival probably hoped that if they just offered enough possibilities to watch a film then everything would even out somehow, but that was not the case, for myriads of reasons, some too mathematical to get into here and others too tediously defined by circumstances. These things happen when a team has to deal with dozens and...

“What a funny face! Are you a woman, really? Or an artichoke?”

Frederico Fellini’s LA Strada (1954) will available on 4k and Blu-ray as part of The Criterion Collection November 2nd

With this breakthrough film, Federico Fellini launched both himself and his wife and collaborator Giulietta Masina to international stardom, breaking with the neorealism of his early career in favor of a personal, poetic vision of life as a bittersweet carnival. The infinitely expressive Masina registers both childlike wonder and heartbreaking despair as Gelsomina, loyal companion to the traveling strongman Zampanò, whose callousness and brutality gradually wear down her gentle spirit. Winner of the very first Academy Award for Best Foreign-Language Film, La strada possesses the purity and timeless resonance of a fable and remains one of cinema’s most exquisitely moving visions of humanity struggling to survive in the face of life’s cruelties.

Blu-ray Special Edition Features

• 4K digital restoration,...

November’s a major month for Criterion, who round out 2021 with an induction into the 4K market. Surprising precisely nobody, all 2,160 pixels of their Citizen Kane release are so stacked that a home-video debut for Welles’ The Hearts of Age is nearly a footnote; while Mulholland Dr. is getting more or less the same packaging as before, a new transfer being the notable exception, Menace II Society‘s treatment further shows they’re not taking this new format lightly.

The biggest deal of all, though, might be a six-film box set for the Once Upon a Time in China series, marking Tsui Hark’s entry into the Criterion Collection and first time these films have had anything like a decent U.S. release. A Blu-ray upgrade of La Strada, one of their oldest titles, rounds out an exceptional month.

See artwork below and further details on all titles here:

The...

Pixar movies have been set in all kinds of places: a coral reef, a closet full of toys, and the inside of the human brain are just a few examples of such creative flights of fancy. But with Luca, the original new fantasy coming from the fabled studio that will stream exclusively on Disney+ next month, director Enrico Casarosa and the filmmaking team have ventured into an exotic new locale: Italy during the 1950s.

Luca is the charming story of two young friends, Luca and Alberto (voiced by Jacob Tremblay and Jack Dylan Grazer respectively), who spend a delightful, seemingly carefree summer in a small town named Portorosso on the Italian Riviera, doing the kinds of things young boys in Italy do: riding Vespas, eating pasta, and seeing what kind of mischief they can get up to. But Luca and Alberto are not your run-of-the-mill boys. They’re sea monsters...

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.

In the nearly 50 years that she has served as the director of Film Forum, Karen Cooper has seen more than a few threats to the future of the moviegoing experience. “The fact that you could take the damn box home and watch the movie was a real sea change,” Cooper said in an interview this week, remembering the mid-’80s rise of the VHS. “Our numbers went down terribly for a couple of years. Then the newness of it wore off and the public became sensitized to that experience being entirely different to sitting in a theater. It’s just not the same thing as your own living room. People said that was the death of cinema.”

Still, those challenges pale in comparison to the past 12 months. On Monday, it will be exactly once year since New York’s venerated arthouse closed its doors as pandemic shutdowns took hold. Since then,...

Martin Scorsese criticizes streaming platforms and the movie business in a new essay for Harper’s Magazine entitled Il Maestro. While the piece is an homage to director Federico Fellini, Scorsese also discusses how streaming and current movie industry practices have negatively impacted the art of cinema, which he says is being “systematically devalued, sidelined, demeaned, and reduced to its lowest common denominator, ‘content.'”

“As recently as 15 years ago, the term ‘content’ was heard only when people were discussing the cinema on a serious level, and it was contrasted with and measured against ‘form,...

In a new essay for Harper’s Magazine, legendary filmmaker Martin Scorsese doesn’t pull any punches as he has some harsh criticisms for the state of the movie industry. Titled “Il Maestro”, the article focus is on director Federico Fellini but dives into so much more especially the current state of streamers and his issues with their effect on the movie going experience.

“As recently as 15 years ago, the term ‘content’ was heard only when people were discussing the cinema on a serious level, and it was contrasted with and measured against ‘form,’” Scorsese writes. “Then, gradually, it was used more and more by the people who took over media companies, most of whom knew nothing about the history of the art form, or even cared enough to think that they should.”

Scorsese does mention how he has benefited from places like Netflix that produced and distributed his gangster...

Martin Scorsese riled up a lot of Marvel fans with his comments that the MCU is not cinema, but the Oscar-winning filmmaker is now turning his ire to a much larger trend in Hollywood: the labeling of films as “content.”

In a new essay for Harper’s Magazine reflecting on the career of Federico Fellini, Scorsese lamented how the new era of streaming has made that dreaded c-word far too common in discussion of movies, particularly within the film industry.

“As recently as fifteen years ago, the term ‘content’ was heard only when people were discussing the cinema on a serious level, and it was contrasted with and measured against ‘form,'” he wrote. “Then, gradually, it was used more and more by the people who took over media companies, most of whom knew nothing about the history of the art form, or even cared enough to think that they should.

Martin Scorsese rails against the movie business in a powerful new essay on Federico Fellini, published in the March 2021 edition of Harper’s Magazine (read the full essay here). Titled “Il Maestro,” the essay finds Scorsese waxing poetic on Fellini’s filmography and using the Italian filmmaking icon to argue why the magic of cinema is now being lost among the onslaught of content being released by film studios and streaming companies. Scorsese acknowledges streamers benefit his career, but writes “the art of cinema is being systematically devalued, sidelined, demeaned, and reduced to its lowest common denominator” by conceptualization of films as “content.”

“As recently as 15 years ago, the term ‘content’ was heard only when people were discussing the cinema on a serious level, and it was contrasted with and measured against ‘form,'” Scorsese writes. “Then, gradually, it was used more and more by the people who took over media companies,...

Organizations that give awards think every category is important. The American public, on the other hand, seems to only care about best picture, actor and actress.

However, to millions of people around the world, the most important category is the one devoted to movies that are not in the English language — what the Oscars call international feature film and what the Globes call foreign language.

For them, it’s not just about validation for one movie. Brillante Ma Mendoza, director of this year’s Philippines Oscar submission “Mindanao,” says, “An Oscar is more than a trophy,” adding that a nomination or win would be proof that “the whole Philippine film industry can stand with the best.”

Poland has been nominated three times in the past five years, including one win. Director Małgorzata Szumowska hopes the momentum carries to her film this year, “Never Gonna Snow Again.” After the award to Pawel Pawlikowski’s “Ida,...

From launch, critics dogged HBO Max about its higher pricing, the lack of access via Roku — and most of all, the apparent dearth of must-see shows that would make the streamer essential instead of one more platform among so many. Last summer, the complaints were still fresh when HBO Max announced a slate of international acquisitions: There, next to “The Great Pottery Throw Down,” was “Gomorrah.” All four seasons, companion movie “The Immortal,” and a fifth season to come. An Italian mafia drama didn’t get much attention; it wasn’t the stuff of corporate strategy.

But “Gomorrah” is much more than a quirky streamer pickup. For its Italian producer, Cattleya, “Gomorrah” sparked a trend in gritty, real-world storytelling that reshaped Italian TV. Beta Film — a company founded to exploit Federico Fellini’s “La Strada” — licensed “Gomorrah” in nearly 200 countries, and it became one of the most successful properties in its history.

Sophia Loren is generating red-hot Oscar buzz for her performance in Netflix’s Italian-language drama “The Life Ahead.” The screen legend has earned some of the best reviews of her seven-decade career for her heartbreaking performance as a former prostitute and Holocaust survivor who takes care of children of streetwalkers.

Loren made Oscar history 59 years ago when she became the first performer to receive an Academy Award for a foreign-language film. She took home Best Actress for Vittorio DeSica’s harrowing World War II drama “Two Women,” which was also in Italian. Loren, who also starred with Charlton Heston that year in the lavish epic “El Cid,” had very strong competition when the Oscar nominations were announced in the winter of 1962.

Natalie Wood, who had received a Supporting Actress nomination as a teenager for 1955’s “Rebel Without a Cause,” gave an extraordinary performance as a sensitive teenager living in Kansas...

It started as a continuation of the misadventures of the Griswold family; it ended up becoming one of the most surprisingly popular and oft-quoted holiday movies of all time.

This month marks the 25th anniversary of National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, in which beleaguered patriarch Clark Griswold – played by the inimitable Chevy Chase – tries to engineer the picture-perfect seasonal festivities: the best naturally procured tree, the biggest and brightest (literally) Christmas-light display on the block, the end-of-the-year bonus from his Scrooge-like boss. It’s the only comedy to appeal...

Welcome to this week’s Friday Night SmackDown review, right here on Nerdly. I’m Nathan Favel and we have Daniel Bryan returning to fight Jey Uso and…is there any build for Survivor Series…at all?! Holy Mothers Of Invention! What does a Smurf gotta do to get some attention for a major Pay Per View event, especially when The Undertaker is retiring at the event? In the name of Kanuk, we ride the Walrus Of Justice to SmackDown!

Match #1: The New Day & The Street Profits def. Sami Zayn, King Corbin, Dolph Ziggler & Robert Roode The following is courtesy of wwe.com:

Raw Tag Team Champions Kofi Kingston & Xavier Woods returned to the blue brand to talk about their upcoming Survivor Series showdown against SmackDown Tag Team Champions The Street Profits and do their best impression of The Undertaker. It wasn’t long, however, before Intercontinental Champion Sami...

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No matter how convenient our digital lives are, there’s still something special about physical media — especially when it’s so beautifully and thoughtfully curated by the Criterion Collection.

Each of Criterion’s releases takes an exemplary film, from auteur classic to Hollywood blockbuster and everything in between, and includes a slew of special features — commentary tracks, restored film transfers, essays about its importance in the cinematic pantheon — that help “deepen the viewer’s understanding and appreciation of the art of cinema.”

While there are literally hundreds of important classic and contemporary...

Sandra den Hamer, president of the Association of European Film Archives and Cinematheques (Ace) and director of the Netherlands’ Eye Filmmuseum, has called for a European framework to facilitate the sharing of European film heritage with the public.

In a lively online discussion between several representatives of European film institutes at the Lumière Film Festival’s International Classic Films Market (Mifc) in Lyon, France, on Thursday, den Hamer pointed out that many small national cinematheques faced exorbitant charges from rights holders for simply screening a film that they themselves are keeping and preserving.

“In many occasions we have reasonable fees and agreements and collaborations, but in some cases not,” den Hamer explained. “I’m not talking about the Netherlands, but I know from some of our members, European cinematheques, quite small cinematheques, that have to pay high fees, like €2,000 [$2,346] for one screening of a film in a cinematheque where you can have 25 visitors.

Cinema Retro has received the following press release:

Joining in the international celebration of Federico Fellini's 100th birthday, Criterion is thrilled to announce Essential Fellini, a fifteen-Blu-ray box set that brings together fourteen of the director's most imaginative and uncompromising works for the first time. Alongside new restorations of the theatrical features, the set also includes short and full-length documentaries about Fellini's life and work, archival interviews with his friends and collaborators, commentaries on six of the films, video essays, the director's 1968 short Toby Dammit, and much more.

The edition is accompanied by two lavishly illustrated books with hundreds of pages of notes and essays on the films by writers and filmmakers, as well as dozens of images of Fellini memorabilia. Essential Fellini is a fitting tribute to the maestro of Italian cinema!

Fifteen-blu-ray Special Edition Collector's Set Features

New 4K restorations of 11 theatrical features, with uncompressed monaural soundtracks for...

Classic movie buffs with $200 to burn, take note: The Criterion Collection has announced “Essential Fellini,” a box set of 14 films from legendary film director Federico Fellini.

The Blu-Ray set, which will release on November 24,will include several features, including 4K restorations of 11 of the films, as well as uncompressed monaural soundtracks for each title. Most of the director’s most celebrated films will be included in the box set. The 14 films are: “Variety Lights” (1950), “The White Sheik” (1952), “I Vitelloni” (1953), “La Strada” (1954), “Il Bidone” (1955), “Nights of Cabiria” (1957), “La Dolce Vita” (1960), “8½” (1963), “Juliet of the Spirits” (1965), “Fellini Satyricon” (1969), “Roma” (1972), “Amarcord” (1973), “And the Ship Sails On” (1983), and “Intervista” (1987).

Here’s Criterion’s announcement of the news:

One hundred years after his birth, Federico Fellini still stands apart as a giant of the cinema. The Italian maestro is defined by his dualities: the sacred and the profane, the masculine and the feminine, the provincial and the urbane.

On the day their gorgeous Agnès Varda box set arrives, The Criterion Collection has announced details on their next director collection. In celebration of his 100th birthday this year, Federico Fellini will be receiving a 15-disc box set featuring fourteen of his films, set for a release on November 24, 2020.

Titled Essential Fellini, the release features new restorations of the theatrical features, as well as short and full-length documentaries about Fellini’s life and work, archival interviews with his friends and collaborators, commentaries on six of the films, video essays, the director’s 1968 short Toby Dammit, and much more. It also includes two illustrated books with hundreds of pages of notes and essays on the films by writers and filmmakers, plus memorabilia. Check out a list of films and special features below.

List of Films

Variety Lights (1950)The White Sheik (1952)I Vitelloni (1953)LA Strada (1954)Il Bidone (1955)Nights Of Cabiria (1957)LA Dolce Vita...

Selection also pays tribute to late UK filmmaker and cinema theorist Peter Wollen.

Hong Kong director Wong Kar-wai’s award-winning romantic drama In The Mood For Love is among the 25 narrative titles and seven documentaries selected for Cannes Classics 2020, the cinema heritage programe of the Cannes Film Festival.

The festival said many of the titles would now play at the Festival Lumière in Lyon, which Cannes Film Festival’s delegate general Thierry Frémaux oversees and runs October 10-18 this year.

Some of the works will also screen at the long-running Rencontres Cinématographiques de Cannes, scheduled for November 23 to 26.

The festival...