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Taina Elg, the Finland-born actress and dancer who starred opposite Gene Kelly in the colorful 1957 George Cukor musical Les Girls and with Kenneth More in the 1959 remake of the spy thriller The 39 Steps, has died. She was 95.

Elg died May 15 in an assisted care facility in her native Helsinki, her family told the Helsinki Times.

On Broadway, Elg worked alongside Raul Julia in the 1974-75 revival of Frank Loesser’s Where’s Charley? — she earned a Tony nomination for best featured actress in a musical for that — and in the 1982-84 original production of Tommy Tune’s Nine, where she played the mother of his character, Guido.

Her breakthrough in Hollywood came with her turn as cabaret dancer Angèle Ducros in MGM’s Les Girls, which also starred Mitzi Gaynor and Kay Kendall and featured music from Cole Porter. She and Kendall shared the Golden Globe for best actress in...

They can dry their tears on all their money, no doubt, but being documented everywhere you go is such torture that it’s the basis of several episodes of Black Mirror. It’s only natural to develop a somewhat antagonistic relationship with the hordes of photographers who follow a celebrity. Many of them just throw punches, but…

5 Paris Hilton Wore an Anti-Photography Scarf

Apparently, 2016 was the year Hilton got sick of getting attention. She began wearing a scarf designed by Saif Siddiqui to reflect so much light that it causes a camera’s flash to backfire, leaving everything but the scarf in the dark in the resulting photo. Then she posed for a bunch of paparazzi photos. Honestly, queen behavior.

4 Daniel Radcliffe Wore the Same Outfit for Six Months

At the height of his Harry Potter fame in 2007, Radcliffe signed on to a West End revival of Equus, and he...

Chiara Mastroianni has carved her own shape in the French film industry, even despite carrying her father Marcello’s name and being the daughter of Catherine Deneuve. She’s worked with Robert Altman, Claire Denis, Raúl Ruiz, Gregg Araki… we could go on. Yes, she’s the daughter of the stars of “La Dolce Vita” and “The Umbrellas of Cherbourg,” but her career is marked by bracingly original work with iconoclastic directors. Her father died in 1996, and she got the chance to work with him in a handful of films, including Altman’s “Pret-a-Porter.” But she mostly had to settle for knowing her parents as a couple onscreen, as they broke up when she was just two years old.

Still, see it in the picture above: Chiara does look like her father. In her new film “Marcello Mio” (Strand Releasing), now in theaters and directed by her friend and frequent collaborator Christophe Honoré,...

One of the most common questions film critics receive is "What's your favorite movie?" And any critic will tell you that it's a difficult question to answer. Since critics speak to their taste, and gauge a film's quality based on their reaction to it, shouldn't the film they consider the best of all time be their favorite? In a 2012 essay on his website, Ebert rolled the question around in his mind, musing that his old reviewing partner, Gene Siskel, used to say that "Citizen Kane" is the "official" answer to that question. After all, many critics consider it to be the best movie ever made, so surely that means it is their favorite, right?

Of course, we all know that taste doesn't operate that way. A film can be your favorite for any number of reasons. You might consider, say, "Ikiru" to be the best movie ever made, but it...

Cannes film festival

Playing themselves, film icons gaze into the looking-glass in this unconvincing and tiresome piece of cine-narcissism

A peculiar and tiresome piece of cine-narcissism here from Christophe Honoré, based on an insufferably twee kind of cinephilia – yet rescued, slightly, by the down-to-earth drollery of Catherine Deneuve, who is playing herself.

Chiara Mastroianni, the Franco-Italian actor and Deneuve’s daughter, is of course very well known for her startling likeness to her father: the film icon Marcello Mastroianni. We see her here also playing herself and acting in what is evidently supposed to be a homage to Anita Ekberg’s Trevi fountain scene from Fellini’s La Dolce Vita, in which Marcello famously starred. She feels haunted by her father and has a dream in which her face turns into Marcello’s in the bathroom mirror; actually, it is not much of a change. She confesses how unhappy she...

Talk about an identity crisis!

In a wonderfully funny and completely original comedy, French star Chiara Mastroianni in a bit of an existential crisis mode decides one day to morph into her very famous father, the late great Marcello Mastroianni. In a search for her own identity she discovers more about herself, her father, even her equally famous mother Catherine Deneuve who surprisingly consented to play herself and discover truths about her relationship with her ex-finacé (he died in 1996) that had never been made public.

Playing tonight in the official competition of the Cannes Film Festival, where the entire family has appeared many times as fictional characters, this time it hits close to home, but always with a light touch as Chiara drops her own persona and hits the town as if it were Marcello Mastroianni back in Fellini’s 8 1/2. Black suit, hat, moustache, large glasses — she’s all in.

Of all the actors with claims to nepo baby aristocracy, few, if any, have the same pedigree as Chiara Mastroianni. An accomplished performer and winning star all on her own, the daughter of Catherine Deneuve and Marcello Mastroianni has that rare distinction of seeing both of her parents grace Cannes Film Festival posters, leaving a project that playfully interrogates that very heritage a near shoo-in for the festival spotlight. But that vaunted competition slot does little favors for Christophe Honoré’s slight and sketch-like “Marcello Mio,” which plays as an incisive photo-shoot concept in search of wider justification.

This fashion shoot concept isn’t hypothetical, as Honoré’s meta-movie doodle opens on the very same, finding Mastroianni decked out in full Anita Ekberg garb as she saunters into a pool before Paris’ Saint-Sulpice church reformatted as an ersatz Trevi Fountain. The visual folds in several layers, taking Marcello’s iconic turn in “La Dolce Vita,...

Dubbed ‘The Sex Symbol of the silver screen’, Anita Ekberg, renowned for her iconic frolicking in the Trevi Fountain in Fellini’s ‘La Dolce Vita,’ delivers an amazingly unique barn-storming performance in ‘The Killer Nun.’ In an interview exclusive to this edition, Ekberg reveals her frustration with the ‘bombshell’ typecasting that followed, expressing a preference for working on films like ‘Killer Nun’ and she boldly declares, ‘This is the kind of film I like!‘

Originally banned as a Video Nasty, ‘Killer Nun’ is a true ‘Nunsploitation’ great, which uniquely crosses into the Giallo genre. Presented here uncut and pristinely restored from a 2K scan of the camera negative, this release finally does justice to the uninhibited and frenzied vision of its creator. With impressive high-style photography and vivid, deliciously surreal murders, it is superbly enhanced by the dreamy yet dystopian score of Alessandro Alessandroni (immortalised by his twangy guitar and...

Between The Nun II, Sister Death, Consecration, the upcoming The First Omen, and the newly released Immaculate, starring Sydney Sweeney, it’s safe to say that nuns are having a moment in horror. So often, fear thrives in the unlit nooks of the unknown, and for many of us, that includes those who dedicate themselves to religious orders. Shrouded in intrigue and literal fabric, the combo of unwavering religious devotion and rejection of various worldly pleasures makes nuns ripe for genre exploration. While nuns are certainly trending, this is by no means the first time horror has blessed us with terrifying tales featuring such religious women.

In Häxan (1922), possessed nuns mingle with witches as director Benjamin Christensen explores the connection between mental health and mass hysteria. With movies like Alucarda (1975), Ms. 45 (1981), and St. Agatha (2018), the subgenre of nunsploitation comes into play to further explore themes of religious and sexual oppression.

Get in losers, we’re going to Paramount+ to watch “Mean Girls” again. The 2024 movie musical will stream on Paramount+ beginning March 5, following its January theatrical release.

An adaptation of the Broadway musical based on the 2004 film, Tina Fey’s latest rendition of the high school comedy surpassed $100 million at the global box office after six weeks of release. It held the top spot at the domestic box office for three consecutive weeks following its Jan. 12 release. “Mean Girls” was originally slated to debut directly on Paramount+, however executives decided on a theatrical release after enthusiastic test screenings.

Taking on the role Lindsay Lohan originated, Angourie Rice stars as Cady Heron, who is forced to navigate high school politics for the first time after moving from Africa to the suburbs of Illinois. She soon encounters and infiltrates the Plastics, the most popular clique in school ruled by queen bee Regina George.

Not every movie — indeed, almost no movie — was meant to be turned into a musical. But the trend of doing so has become more common over the last two decades, and when you see a movie-to-musical transformation that really works, a surprising alchemy occurs. It can feel as if that story was always made to be told through song and dance; when you think back on the non-musical version, it can now seem like it’s missing something. That’s the sensation I’ve had at movies-turned-Broadway-musicals like “Hairspray,” “School of Rock” (built around Andrew Lloyd Webber’s greatest score in decades), and even “Back to the Future”.

The same dynamic works, in a clever if less spectacular way, in “Mean Girls,” the movie adaptation of the 2018 Broadway musical version of the classic 2004 screen comedy. Will the new movie replace the original film in anyone’s affections? That might depend on how old you are.

Movies and television have been competing for the same audience's time and money since TV was invented, but they've also formed a strange symbiosis. There have been a heck of a lot of movies based on TV shows, and a heck of a lot of TV shows based on movies.

Some of those shows based on movies have been major pop culture milestones, like "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," "The Karate Kid," and "Friday Night Lights." And of course a whole lot of been almost completely forgotten, like the sitcoms based on "Dirty Dancing," "Working Girl," and "Animal House."

But one thing these TV shows usually have in common is that they're almost always based on a hit movie. It's not surprising when a blockbuster like "M*A*S*H" or "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids" gets turned into a television series. It's even common for smaller, but critically acclaimed films...

A selection at Venice Film Festival and Sundance Film Festival, Emanuele Crialese’s 1970s-set, Penélope Cruz-starring drama L’immensità opened in theaters earlier this summer from Music Box Films. Now, with the film arriving digitally today, we’re pleased to exclusively debut an alternate poster inspired by Federico Fellini classic. Along with the poster debut, we’re delighted to give away 10 digital codes to watch the film on AppleTV. To enter, sign up for The Film Stage’s free newsletter by July 16 (available to U.S. readers only).

Designed by Greenlight Creative, here’s their statement about the new poster: “The La Dolce Vita-inspired poster for L’immensità evolved out of the original design explorations for the film’s theatrical poster. We were looking to find a design style that would place the film in a vibrant mid-century or ’70s period setting, communicate a bittersweet, nostalgic tone, and provide a star platform for Penélope Cruz.

Backstage at the Valentino Haute Couture Spring 2020 collection with Hannelore Knuts and creative director Pierpaolo Piccioli Photo: Archivio Fotografico Paolo Di Paolo

Pier Paolo Pasolini, Luchino Visconti, Anna Magnani, Michelangelo Antonioni, Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Charlotte Rampling, Grace Kelly, Marcello Mastroianni, Rudolf Nureyev, Sophia Loren, Ezra Pound, Faye Dunaway, Monica Vitti, Giorgio de Chirico, Gina Lollobrigida, Tennessee Williams, Marlene Dietrich, Giulietta Masina, Simone Signoret, Yves Montand, Brigitte Bardot, Catherine Deneuve, Anita Ekberg, Vittorio De Sica, Alberto Moravia, and many others were photographed by Bruce Weber’s muse and subject of his latest documentary The Treasure Of His Youth: The Photographs Of Paolo Di Paolo, which starts with an overture of images and film clips. After putting his camera away for decades we see di Paolo return to shoot Pierpaolo Piccioli’s Valentino Haute Couture Spring 2020 collection.

Paolo di Paolo with Silvia di Paolo and Anne-Katrin Titze on Tennessee Williams: “I...

Monica Bellucci was among the guests of honor at the 14th edition of the Lumière Film Festival in Lyon, where the Paris-based Italian icon discussed her latest film, “The Girl in the Fountain,” and looked back on her career.

In “The Girl in the Fountain,” which alternates archival footage of Hollywood icon Anita Ekberg with the story of Bellucci, the Italian actress retraces Ekberg’s frailties and choices, reflecting on what it feels like to be an icon.

The Swedish-born star was immortalized in Federico Fellini’s film, which sees her character wade into the Trevi fountain followed by Marcello Mastroianni.

“Through my eyes, you find out who this actress was, and it’s a piece of Italian history that we’re telling. But ‘La Dolce Vita’ isn’t just about post-war Italy – it has an international reach. At the time, there was so much creativity, there were so many great filmmakers – Fellini,...

From September 15th until October 30th, I’ll be watching at least one new to me horror film every day, and providing collections of capsule reviews week by week. On Halloween itself, as ever, I’m planning an all day marathon of some of my favourite horror films.

I hope you’ll find it interesting following as I dig further into a genre I’ve always loved, and maybe find some hidden gems along the way yourselves.

Week 1’s film can be found here

Week 2’s films are here.

The perils of Week 3 are just a click away.

Now… Prepare yourself for Horrorthon 4

The Collector (2009) Dir: Marcus Dunstan

Apparently, this was originally conceived as a prequel to Saw, but when the screenplay was rejected for that idea, it was re-jigged as a standalone, which has now received its own sequel, if not one that has birthed a franchise on the level of Saw.

Production has just started at Rome’s Cinecittà Studios on “Finalmente L’alba” the new film by “My Brilliant Friend” director Saverio Costanzo. It is set during the 1950s when the famed filmmaking facilities were known as Hollywood on the Tiber.

This high-end costume drama – the title of which translates as “Finally, Dawn Has Come” – features a stellar cast comprising Lily James (“Pam & Tommy”), Joe Keery (“Stranger Things”), Rachel Sennott (“Shiva Baby”), Willem Dafoe, and Italian newcomer Rebecca Antonaci.

Saverio Costanzo

“Finally, Dawn” is the journey over the course of a long and intense night of an aspiring young Italian actress, played by Antonaci. In the Cinecittà studios of the 1950s, she experiences some memorable hours that will mark her transition to full blown womanhood.

Written and directed by Costanzo, whose previous films include “Private” and Adam Driver-starring “Hungry Hearts,” the picture is produced by Mario Gianani and Lorenzo Gangarossa for Wildside,...

Chicago – Patrick McDonald of HollywoodChicago.com audio Blu-ray DVD review of “La Dolce Vita,” the Federico Fellini film masterpiece that introduced the 1960s to itself, and the term “Paparazzi” to the language, now available through Paramount Pictures wherever Blu-rays are sold.

Rating: 5.0/5.0

This is the story of Marcello (Marcello Mastroianni), a tabloid journalist who lives the “La Dolce Vita” … the luxurious but self indulgent life. The story is split into seven days in his timeline, not consecutive days, in which he wrestles the themes of his existence – religion, sex, family and death – the usual things. Along the way his fiancee Emma (Yvonne Furneaux) is angry at him; he’s also trying to seduce a gorgeous starlet (Anita Ekberg), who is ignoring him; a religious miracle turns out not to be a miracle; and his estranged Dad (Annibale Ninchi) wants to hang out with him. His times, they are a-changin’.

La Dolce Vita...

Paris-based international sales company The Party Film Sales has nabbed the rights for Antongiulio Panizzi’s hybrid documentary “The Girl in the Fountain,” a double portrait of icons Anita Ekberg and Monica Bellucci, which opened at the Torino Film Festival last November.

The story of an actress devoured by her own icon, the film alternates between archive footage of Ekberg and reenacted scenes by Bellucci, who retraces Ekberg’s weaknesses and choices, inviting the viewer to reflect on what it is like to be an icon, providing a fresh look at femininity, fame and media exposure.

The famous scene in Federico Fellini’s “La Dolce Vita,” in which Marcello Mastroianni and Anita Ekberg take a midnight dip in the Trevi Fountain, hides a much more chaotic life – that of an actress consumed by her own iconic image, says Panizzi.

Speaking to Variety ahead of the Torino premiere, Panizzi said that...

“I am a product of my dream. Even as a child, I wanted to be an actress and enter this world, even though it was very far from my reality,” said Monica Bellucci at the Torino Film Festival, where she accepted the Stella Della Mole Award for Artistic Innovation.

Bellucci also held a masterclass at the National Cinema Museum of Turin, discussing her career alongside Antongiulio Panizzi, who directed her recently in “The Girl in the Fountain.” In the film, which screened for the first time at the festival, Bellucci plays Anita Ekberg, the Swedish star famous for her role in “La Dolce Vita.”

“Back then, Italian women would exist mostly within the domestic world. When Ekberg, already so different physically, arrived and allowed herself to be so free, also economically, it was as if a bomb exploded in that society,” said Bellucci, discussing Ekberg’s rapid ascent and then her descent,...

On Tuesday, Monica Bellucci will receive the Torino Film Festival’s Stella della Mole Award for Artistic Innovation, followed by the world preview screening of Italian director Antongiulio Panizzi’s “The Girl in the Fountain,” in which Bellucci plays Anita Ekberg. The Swedish star immortalized in Federico Fellini’s “La Dolce Vita,” where her character decides to walk into the Trevi Fountain to the delight, and terror, of Marcello Mastroianni, has a “complicated” story, Panizzi tells Variety.

In “The Girl in the Fountain,” produced by Dugong Films and Eagle Pictures, and presented at the festival alongside Panizzi’s documentary “Piano Lessons: The Life and Art of German Diez Nieto,” Panizzi implies that the iconic scene turned out to be a burden for the actor, who got to experience what Rita Hayworth meant when she said that “they go to bed with Gilda; they wake up with me.”

“Anita was actually...

Italy’s Torino Film Festival, the pre-eminent event for young directors and indie cinema — now being revamped after going virtual due to the pandemic — will somewhat symbolically kick off its upcoming 39th edition with the international premiere of “Sing 2” with director Garth Jennings in tow.

“It’s a hymn to going back into movie theaters,” says Torino artistic director Stefano Francia di Celle on choosing the animated musical comedy, featuring more than 40 rock, rap and pop tunes, as opener for the Nov. 26-Dec. 4 event. It will be Italy’s first festival held in venues with 100% seating capacity since Covid-19 struck.

“Sing 2,” he points out, is also only the second feature helmed by Jennings, who cut his teeth in the indie world making videos for many of the best pop acts of the 1990s such as Blur, Radiohead and Beck, before he was able to get Universal on board for his impressive “Sing” debut.

The 39th edition of Torino Film Festival, Italy’s preeminent event for young directors and indie cinema, kicks off Friday with the international premiere of “Sing 2.” It is the country’s first festival held in venues with 100% seating capacity since Covid-19 struck, and it will also be the first in-person edition assembled by artistic director Stefano Francia di Celle, who debuted last year with an online event, due to the pandemic. Di Celle is now rebooting Torino for the present-day digital age.

The festival, which rose to international prominence under current Venice topper Alberto Barbera, has always been geared toward giving visibility to promising newcomers. These have included Luca Guadagnino, Michelangelo Frammartino (“Il Buco”) and Pietro Marcello (“Martin Eden”), who got a crucial early boost from their launches there. Di Celle’s vision going forward, he told Variety, is rooted in what he calls its “militant” tradition, but he...

The international premiere of animated musical comedy “Sing 2” will open the upcoming Torino Film Festival, Italy’s preeminent event for young directors and indie fare, which will be honoring Monica Bellucci with a lifetime achievement award.

Director Garth Jennings will be on hand in Torino for the overseas festival bow of his sequel to 2016’s “Sing,” which follows a koala named Buster Moon, voiced by Matthew McConaughey, as he and his cast of performing animals prepare for their biggest concert yet in Redshore City, and must convince a reclusive rockstar (Bono) to join them.

Bellucci, besides coming to be celebrated and to hold a masterclass, will also be attending the fest to launch her latest film “The Girl in the Fountain,” directed by Italy’s Antongiulio Panizzi, in which she plays the iconic Anita Ekberg, a role for which she died her hair blonde.

Charlotte Gainsbourg will also be...

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

33rd Israel Film Festival in Los Angeles, November 12th — 26th: Sold-Out Opening Night Gala

Six-time Academy Award winning producer Arthur Cohn and producer Sharon Harel-Cohen receive festival honors.

Incitement has its U.S. premiere

It looked like every Jew in entertainment attended the Opening Night Gala. It was the first time Opening Night was completely sold out a week in advance to a capacity crowd of over 900 guests at the Saban Theatre in Beverly Hills.

The packed audience greeted the evening’s host, Israel FilmFestival Founder/Executive Director Meir Fenigstein, with a standing ovation in recognition of his outstanding leadership of the Festival for over three decades.

Standing ovations continued as six-time Academy Award-winning producer Arthur Cohn received the 2019 Iff Lifetime Achievement Award from actress Rosanna Arquette and when WestEnd Film Chair and producer Sharon Harel-Cohen was presented with the 2019 Iff Achievement in Film Award by Avi Lerner, Chairman/CEO,...

From 15 to 22 November, the Independent Film Festival is returning to Rome with 90 films – of which 15 world premieres and 10 European premieres – and Focus sessions on both Spain and the Ukraine. A documentary honing in on the diva from La Dolce Vita Anita Ekberg (Ciao Anita), another spotlighting one of the greatest photographers of the 20th century Peter Lindbergh - Women’s Stories, and The World According to Amazon, which focuses on the global e-commerce platform’s founder Jeff Bezos, are among the most hotly anticipated titles screening at the Riff - Rome Independent Film Festival, whose 18th edition is scheduled to run from 15 to 22 November at Rome’s Nuovo Cinema Aquila multiplex. In all, 90 films, 15 world premieres, 10 European premieres and over 60 Italian premieres, both feature films and documentaries, will be offered up to audiences of this international festival celebrating independent film,...

La Dolce Vita was not submitted by Italy for best foreign-language film. Instead, Nanni Loy's The Four Days of Naples got the nomination.

Perhaps the Italians felt that Federico Fellini's eighth film, which centered on a gossip columnist (Marcello Mastroianni) wandering into fountains with Anita Ekberg and partaking in Rome's high life, had received too much publicity already. The Vatican paper L'Osservatore had called Vita "disgusting," and the Church's Centro Cattolico Cinematografico ratings board gave it an "E" for "Escluso," meaning it was "unsuitable for all....

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La Dolce Vita was not submitted by Italy for best foreign-language film. Instead, Nanni Loy's The Four Days of Naples got the nomination.

Perhaps the Italians felt that Federico Fellini's eighth film, which centered on a gossip columnist (Marcello Mastroianni) wandering into fountains with Anita Ekberg and partaking in Rome's high life, had received too much publicity already. The Vatican paper L'Osservatore had called Vita "disgusting," and the Church's Centro Cattolico Cinematografico ratings board gave it an "E" for "Escluso," meaning it was "unsuitable for all....

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Arrow Video resurrects one of nunsploitation cinema’s greatest outliers with the Anita Ekberg headlined Killer Nun, a 1979 oddity about a morphine addicted nun whose bad habits lead to the murder of long-term patients housed within the hospital she works. Infamously listed as one of the ‘video-nasties’ during the moral panic of 1983’s list of violent horror cinema collected by the UK’s Director of Public Prosecutions, the second and last film directed by Giulio Berruti defies the conventions of both the giallo and nunsploitation genre it mimics. Neither as sleazy or violent as its packaging suggests, Berruti captures the indelible presence of a gone-to-seed Ekberg as a drug addict with repressed sexual tendencies for an unforgettable camp experience.…...

Anita Ekberg in Killer Nun will be available on Blu-ray October 15th from Arrow Video

Aging blonde-bombshell Anita Ekberg gives a full-bodied performance as a sex-crazed sister with some seriously bad habits in the lurid cult classic Killer Nun.

One of the most notorious nunsploitation films, Killer Nun tells the sordid story of Sister Gertrude, a disturbed woman of the cloth who degenerates into a perverse mire of drug taking, sexual perversion, sadistic torture and murder. Joe Dallesandro, Alida Valli and the ample Paola Morra (Behind Convent Walls) offer spirited performances and able support to Ekberg, in this outrageous tale based on real events.

Boasting an incongruously classy score by legendary composer Alessandro Alessandroni (Women’s Camp 119) and stylishly rendered scenes of sex and murder, Killer Nun takes the viewer on a hair-raising journey from the heights of religious ecstasy to the depths of devilish degeneracy. Now Giulio Berruti s...

Mill Creek and Kit Parker have raided the Columbia vault once again in search of Noir Gold from the ‘fifties. Their selection this time around has a couple of prime gems, several straight crime thrillers and domestic jeopardy tales, and also a couple of interesting Brit imports. They aren’t really ‘Noir’ either, but they’re still unexpected and different. The top title is Don Siegel’s incomparable The Lineup, but also on board is a snappy anti-commie epic by André De Toth. Get set for a lineup of impressive leading ladies: Diana Dors, Arlene Dahl, Anita Ekberg — and the great Colleen Dewhurst as a card-carrying Red!

Noir Archive 9-Film Collection Volume 3

The Shadow on the Window, The Long Haul, Pickup Alley, The Tijuana Story, She Played with Fire, The Case Against Brooklyn, The Lineup, The Crimson Kimono, Man on a String

Blu-ray

Mill Creek / Kit Parker

1957 -1960 / B&w...

The Metropolitan Museum of Art Director Max Hollein with Camp: Notes On Fashion Co-Chairs Vogue Editor-in-Chief Anna Wintour, and Gucci Creative Director Alessandro Michele at the press preview Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

In Susan Sontag's Notes On 'Camp' from 1964, she counts Ernst Lubitsch's Trouble In Paradise and John Huston's The Maltese Falcon as "among the greatest camp movies ever made." Marcel Carné's Drôle De Drame, Greta Garbo, Jean Cocteau, Bette Davis, Barbara Stanwyck, Jane Russell, Gina Lollobrigida, Victor Mature, Virginia Mayo, Tallulah Bankhead, Jayne Mansfield, Mae West, Edward Everett Horton, and Anita Ekberg's performance in Federico Fellini's La Dolce Vita are noted by her for their camp appeal.

Andrew Bolton when I asked him "Are dachshunds particularly Camp?": "Oh absolutely!" Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Baz Luhrmann, Sienna Miller, Lupita Nyong'o, Emily Blunt, Elle Fanning, Emma Stone, Naomi Campbell, Ezra Miller, Cara Delevingne, Celine Dion, Bette Midler,...

Nicole Kidman, one of the most honored actresses currently working in both film and television, has returned to the nation’s movie screens in Joel Edgerton‘s “Boy Erased.” She plays the loving wife of an Arkansas minister (Russell Crowe) who both decide to ship their teenage son Jared (Lucas Hedges) off to a gay conversion center when they discover Jared’s sexual orientation.

If all of the awards buzz surrounding Kidman’s performance in “Boy Erased” comes to fruition, it will only add to her haul in awards nominations. To date, Kidman has been nominated for four Academy Awards (including a win for 2002’s “The Hours”), has earned 10 Golden Globe film nominations and has been nominated for seven Screen Actors Guild Awards for movies. Plus she just had an awards sweep at the Emmys, Globes and SAG for her TV work on “Big Little Lies.”

And if that is not enough Nicole for you,...

If nuns make you nervous, you’re not alone. Whether it’s their distinctive religious attire, their unwavering devotion to a higher power, or their reputation for meting out corporal punishment in Catholic school, it’s hard to deny that there’s something vaguely eerie about them at times. As the new supernatural horror film “The Nun 2” prepares to haunt theaters on Sept. 8, here’s a look at 20 other movie nuns that are guaranteed to give you the creeps.

Courtesy of New Line Cinema

The Conjuring 2 (2016)

Audiences first met the eerie title character of “The Nun” in the sequel to James Wan’s horror hit “The Conjuring.” Sporting a ghostly complexion, a bad attitude, and a mouthful of rotting fangs that would make Pennywise the clown jealous, the Nun is referred to by several names throughout the film, including the Marquis of Snakes, the Defiler, and the demon Valak.

Strait-Jacket

Blu ray

Shout Factory

1964 / 1.85:1 / Street Date August 21, 2018

Starring Joan Crawford, Diane Baker

Cinematography by Arthur Arling

Directed by William Castle

The planets aligned in 1964 as William Castle’s Strait-Jacket premiered in January and Susan Sontag’s Notes on Camp was published later that fall. There’s no mention of Castle’s axe-happy melodrama in Sontag’s essay – an eclectic rundown of kitsch touchstones extolling everything from The Mysterians to Steve Reeves – and that’s surprising because frame by frame, Castle’s overcooked fright-fest encompasses almost everything Sontag had to say about the joys of guilelessly bad art.

Joan Crawford stars as Lucy Harbin, a middle-aged outcast back home after a twenty year stint in a mental institution. The film’s prologue sets the stage; one hot night in 1944 Lucy paused by her bedroom window to find her husband sharing their bed with another, distinctly younger, woman. The enraged...

One thing that distinguished this year's Il Cinema Ritrovato festival of rare, rediscovered or restored cinema from around the world was the air-conditioning. In previous years, the "cinephile's heaven" had seen people falling asleep at films they'd waited their whole lives to see, struck down by stifling midsummer heat. Now, even that beloved cinematic sweatbox the Jolly can cool its customers enough to mostly stave off somnolence, and if a hardboiled cinephage does pass out, it's more likely to be due to the unforgiving schedule of nine-to-midnight viewings.The doughty traveler can concentrate on seeing everything in one or two strands—retrospectives on the cinema of 1898 and 1918, the work of directors John M. Stahl, Marcello Pagliero, Luciano Emmer and Ylmaz Guney, the studio Fox, the countries China and Russia in the early thirties, and so on... or they can do as I did, sampling almost randomly from across the goodies on offer.

March’s home media releases kick off in grand style this week with an eclectic array of horror and sci-fi arrivals, both new and old. Scream Factory has put together a stellar Collector’s Edition Blu-ray of The Strangers and Arrow Video is resurrecting yet another Dario Argento classic in HD with their limited edition celebration of The Cat O’ Nine Tails. My Friend Dahmer also arrives on both formats this Tuesday, and The Dark Crystal is getting a 4K Anniversary Edition release that fans will undoubtedly want to pick up as well.

Other notable Blu-ray and DVD titles for March 6th include Thor: Ragnarok, Fangs of the Living Dead, The Crossbreed, Curse of the Mayans, Knights of the Damned, and the House on the Edge of the Park/Last House on Massacre Street (aka The Bride) double feature from Kino Lorber.

The Cat O’ Nine Tales: Limited Edition (Arrow Video,...

Part of the Jerry Lewis tribute A Mubi Jerrython. While I am relatively new to the Jerry Lewis’s work as actor and director, it’s pretty clear how his dynamic with Dean Martin functions—Martin is charismatic and street-wise, Lewis is the sympathetic goofball. This contrast is accentuated in Frank Tashlin’s Hollywood or Bust (1956), since the film is an emphatic (or should I say cartoonish?) erotic fantasy. By the end of the film, Lewis’s clumsy, childish protagonist ends up with his Hollywood crush, Anita Ekberg. If this, by itself, requires a great effort in suspending disbelief, it’s also worth mentioning that before the Martin & Lewis characters settle into their monogamous relationships, they get a lot of female attention. Literally dozens of women wave to them as Martin & Lewis drive through the USA smiling and singing, and in their every scene that’s set in a populated space (backstage,...

Now a successful producer, John Wayne tries a big budget action picture with an anti-Communist theme. It’s The Alamo on a ferryboat, set in the far East where the locals are a hungerin’ for Freedom. Wayne is an apolitical adventurer who just feels like savin’ Chinese and kissin’ Lauren Bacall. Ace director William Wellman holds it together — barely.

Blood Alley

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1955 / Color / 2:55 widescreen / 115 min. / Street Date July 18, 2017 / available through the WBshop / 21.99

Starring: John Wayne, Lauren Bacall, Paul Fix, Joy Kim, Berry Kroeger, Mike Mazurki, Wei Ling, Henry Nakamura.

Cinematography: William H. Clothier

Film Editor: Fred McDowell

Original Music: Roy Webb

Written by A.S. Fleischman, from his novel.

Produced by John Wayne

Directed by William Wellman

John Wayne was extremely busy in 1955, starring in movies for big studios as well as for his own company Batjac. He was rated the most popular Hollywood star and was making constant public appearances,...

Ok, so Screaming Mimi, based on eccentric cult crime/sci-fi scribe Fredric Brown's novel, is at best a hot mess of a film, more often only a lukewarm one. But you somehow can't tear your eyes away from it: it's a slow-motion car wreck with musical numbers.Anita Ekberg, just ahead of her elevation to iconic status by Federico Fellini, is cantilevered into the role of Virginia, traumatized by a knife-wielding psycho while taking a shower (yes, the scene anticipates Psycho, and yes, it shows that the same elements can be used in a lame, ineffective way). The staff of the asylum from which the maniac escaped then feel it only their duty to take Anita into their care, where she meets the controlling, Svengali-like Dr. Greenwood, who becomes her lover and business manager when she returns to her life as an exotic dancer in the big city.Most...

“You are the first woman on the first day of creation. You are mother, sister, lover, friend, angel, devil, earth, home.”

La Dolce Vita screens Wednesday September 28th at The Tivoli Theater (6350 Delmar in ‘The Loop’) as part of their new ‘Classics in the Loop’ film series. The movie starts at 7pm and admission is $7. It will be on The Tivoli’s big screen.

There is sexy, and then there is Anita Eckberg, whose voluptuous figure splashing around the Trevi Fountain in Rome in Federico Fellini’s 1960 masterpiece La Dolce Vita, while wearing that bellissima black dress, was the ultimate symbol of male fantasy. The film won the Academy Award in 1960 for Best Costumes, thanks in large part to the black sleeveless gown that Miss Eckberg displayed in that famous scene. Costume designer Piero Gherardi worked in neo-realist Italian cinema from 1954 to 1971, notably on four key films by Federico Fellini.

The Little Black Dress—From Mourning to Night is a free exhibit currently at The Missouri History Museum (Lindell and DeBaliviere in Forest Park, St. Louis, Missouri). The exhibit runs through September 5th.

The Little Black Dress – a simple, short cocktail dress—is a sartorial staple for most contemporary women. Prior to the early 20th century, simple, unadorned black garments were limited to mourning, and strict social rules regarding mourning dress were rigidly observed.Featuring over 60 dresses from the Missouri History Museum’s world-renowned textile collection, this fun yet thought-provoking exhibit explores the subject of mourning, as well as the transition of black from a symbol of grief to a symbol of high fashion. You’ll also see fascinating artifacts—from hair jewelry to tear catchers—that were once a regular part of the mourning process. Plus, you’ll have the chance to share your own memories of your favorite...

Dailies is a round-up of essential film writing, news bits, videos, and other highlights from across the Internet. If you’d like to submit a piece for consideration, get in touch with us in the comments below or on Twitter at @TheFilmStage.

Cinephilia & Beyond have published a conversation between Brian De Palma and Francis Ford Coppola from a 1974 issue of Filmmmakers Newsletter.

Watch a video on the sounds of Mad Max: Fury Road:

Alamo Drafthouse’s seven-screen Brooklyn location will open this summer:

Currently in its final phase of construction, the flagship theater, located at 445 Gold Street – at the intersection of Fulton and Flatbush Avenues – will be a movie-lover’s paradise featuring seven screens celebrating all forms of cinema. True to the brand’s roots, Alamo Drafthouse Downtown Brooklyn will feature a diverse programming slate blending the best arthouse and independent releases with Hollywood’s biggest blockbusters. With the...

Dailies is a round-up of essential film writing, news bits, videos, and other highlights from across the Internet. If you’d like to submit a piece for consideration, get in touch with us in the comments below or on Twitter at @TheFilmStage.

Jessica Chastain, Juliette Binoche, Freida Pinto, Catherine Hardwicke, Amma Asante, Marielle Heller, Ziyi Zhang, Haifaa Al Mansour, and more women have launched the company We Do It Together to produce films and TV that boost the empowerment of women, Variety reports.

Dustin Hoffman discusses his screen test for The Graduate, plus read Frank Rich‘s Criterion essay:

Though The Graduate upholds some of the classic tropes of Hollywood romantic comedy dating back to the 1930s—especially in its climactic deployment of a runaway bride—Benjamin’s paralyzing emotional disconnect from the world around him is what makes his story both fresh and particular to its own time.

The...

Dalton Trumbo and Nathanael West contributed to the screenplay for John Farrow's suspense adventure about a plane crash in the Amazon jungle -- who will survive? Lucille Ball is the ranking castaway in a glossy Rko thriller that's been restored to a fine polish. Five Came Back DVD-r The Warner Archive Collection 1939 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 75 min. / Street Date June 30, 2015 / available through the WBshop / 21.99 Starring Chester Morris, Lucille Ball, Wendy Barrie, John Carradine, Allen Jenkins, Joseph Calleia, C. Aubrey Smith, Kent Taylor, Patric Knowles, Elisabeth Risdon, Casey Johnson, Frank Faylen. Cinematography Nicholas Musuraca Original Music Roy Webb Written by Jerome Cady, Dalton Trumbo, Nathanael West story by Richard Carroll Produced by Robert Sisk Directed by John Farrow

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

When they list the 'big' pictures of 1939, the ones that we're told made that year Hollywood's best ever, there are some winning titles that don't get mentioned.

“We must get beyond passions, like a great work of art. In such miraculous harmony. We should love each other outside of time… detached.”

That’s a line from Federico Fellini’s art house classic La Dolce Vita, a movie that’s pure ’60s but is so freeing and whimsical in so many regards that it too exists seemingly out of time.

And yet a new Italian studio has sought to remake Fellini’s classic and update it for the modern age. Deadline reports that Ambi and Italian producer Daniele Di Lorenzo acquired the rights to the remake via Francesca Fellini, the director’s niece and only remaining bloodline family member.

“We’ve been approached countless times and asked to consider everything from remakes and re-imaginings to prequels and sequels. We knew it would take very special producers and compelling circumstances to motivate the family to allow rights to be optioned,...

Another day, another remake. They're currently remaking Ben-Hur, so why not remake almost everything else? Ambi Group out of Italy has announced plans to remake Federico Fellini's Oscar winning 1960 classic La Dolce Vita. The project will be financed & produced by Ambi with Italian producer Daniele Di Lorenzo through his production company Ldm Productions. It's already being described as an "homage" remake to the original Fellini film, which starred Marcello Mastroianni and Anita Ekberg. Either this news will cause you to flip over a table in rage, or leave you numb, since remakes are only getting more and more plentiful. Here's a quote from Francesca Fellini, niece of Federico Fellini, in the press release commenting on how this particular remake came about and why she's not worried about it turning out bad or ruining the original. “We’ve been approached countless times and asked to consider everything from remakes and re-imaginings to prequels and sequels.

Modern take on classic film in the pipeline from Ambi Group.

A new feature is in the works that has been dubbed “an homage” to La Dolce Vita, Federico Fellini’s classic film starring Marcello Mastroianni as a philandering paparazzo journalist in Rome.

Los Angeles-based Ambi Group has closed an option agreement with the Fellini family and estate make the new feature, which they will finance and produce with Italian producer Daniele Di Lorenzo.

Di Lorenzo will produce the film through his Ldm Productions banner. Ambi, in addition to financing and producing through Ambi Pictures, will oversee global distribution of the film through its international sales division, Ambi Distribution.

Francesca Fellini, niece of Federico Fellini, said: “We’ve been approached countless times and asked to consider everything from remakes and re-imaginings to prequels and sequels. We knew it would take very special producers and compelling circumstances to motivate the family to allow rights to be optioned.”

She...

Some may call it heresy. Others will shrug and say, they did it with Lolita. Federico Fellini’s estate just closed an option agreement with Ambi Group principals Andrea Iervolino and Monika Bacardi to do a “homage” film on the filmmaker’s 1960s classic La Dolce Vita which starred Marcello Mastroianni and Anita Ekberg. Considered one the best films of the era, La Dolce Vita won the Palme d’Or at the 1960 Cannes Film Festival. The project will be financed and produced by…...