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Months after the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences expelled Harvey Weinstein following widespread accusations of sexual misconduct, the Academy has now removed two more from its ranks, Bill Cosby and Roman Polanski. The decision to expel Cosby comes just days after he was found guilty on three counts of aggravated indecent assault against former Temple University employee Andrea Costrand. Polanski has been living overseas for 40 years after he fled the United States in 1978 while awaiting sentencing for statutory rape. Here's what the Academy had to say in their full statement.

"The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Board of Governors met on Tuesday night (May 1) and has voted to expel actor Bill Cosby and director Roman Polanski from its membership in accordance with the organization's Standards of Conduct. The Board continues to encourage ethical standards that require members to uphold the Academy's values of respect for human dignity.

Olaf Möller on Black Gravel (Schwarzer Kies) starring Ingmar Zeisberg, Helmut Wildt and Hans Cossy: "This is really Käutner on his realism track."

At the Film Society of Lincoln Center inside the Furman Gallery of the Walter Reade Theater, Olaf Möller, the curator of The Lost Years of German Cinema: 1949–1963, discussed with me the films of Helmut Käutner, including his Hamlet adaptation, Der Rest Ist Schweigen (The Rest Is Silence), starring Hardy Krüger, Der Traum Von Lieschen Müller (The Dream Of Lieschen Mueller) and Bildnis Einer Unbekannten (Portrait Of An Unknown Woman).

Oe Hasse, Lilli Palmer and Peter van Eyck in Harald Braun's The Glass Tower (Der Gläserne Turm)

Wolfgang Staudte's The Fair (Kirmes) starring Juliette Mayniel, and Harald Braun's The Glass Tower (Der Gläserne Turm) with Lilli Palmer, Oe Hasse and Peter van Eyck, along with Käutner's Redhead (Die Rote) with Gert Fröbe and Ruth Leuwerik,...

Olaf Möller in front of Katharine Hepburn posters for Christopher Strong and Spitfire: "Das Spukschloss im Spessart [The Haunted Castle]! Which is fantastic. Great musical! It's a horror musical." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

On the opening night of The Lost Years of German Cinema: 1949–1963 at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, film historian Olaf Möller, following his introduction of Gottfried Kolditz's White Blood (Weißes Blut), joined me for a conversation on the program he curated that includes sensational work of filmmakers Helmut Käutner, Hans Heinz König, Fritz Lang, Peter Lorre, Kurt Hoffmann, Harald Braun, Wolfgang Staudte, Aleksander Ford, Konrad Petzold, and Robert Siodmak.

Earlier in the day at the Walter Reade Theater I watched Robert Siodmak's The Devil Strikes At Night (Nachts, Wenn Der Teufel Kam) and Hans Heinz König's Roses Bloom In The Moorland (Rosen Blühen Auf Dem Heidegrab). I started out with a couple of childhood television memories.

Fritz Lang's The Tiger Of Eschnapur...

Read More: Attention, Filmmakers: Learn How to Replicate Fritz Lang's 'Beam of Light' Effect from 'Metropolis' In collaboration with The Deutsches Filminstitut, Frankfurt am Main and Cinémathèque suisse, the 69th Festival del film Locarno has announced that it will feature a retrospective based on West German Cinema 1949 to 1963. The program will be a part of next year's festival and is intended to shed light on forgotten stories of the era. The retrospective has been curated by Olaf Möller and Roberto Turigliatto, who initiated their endeavor in pursuit of analyzing national cinemas.  Industry icons, including directors like Fritz Lang and Robert Siodmak, will be showcased in the retrospective; most notably because they ended their successful careers in Germany and influenced the next generation of innovative filmmakers like Géza von Radványi, Harald Braun and Peter Pewas. The retrospective will be conclude with films that...

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Now that we’re officially in the second half of the season, True Blood appears to be doing that thing it does where regardless of the momentum (or lack thereof) its various stories are carrying, the show just doubles down on the crazy, for better or worse. The good news is that even if this doesn’t seem to work well on a logical level it at least tends to deliver on the outrageousness. “In the Beginning” found the insanity dialed up a notch and the “Other” metaphor about this close to just taking a piss on the fourth wall, but at least most of the plots are moving forward, I just hope they all have something to say by the end of the season. Let’s break them down in terms of winners and losers.

First off, the episode’s big win – seeing Russell Edgington...

Note: Do not read on if you have not seen Season 5, Episode 7 of HBO's "True Blood," titled, "In The Beginning."

Did you hear that? That was the sound of the largest eye roll in the history of eye rolls. And it was directed at the latest episode of "True Blood," more specifically that ending, but let's start with the beginning.

Following last week's cliffhanger, Russell Edgington is caught by security courtesy of a silver net. I'm assuming he is then imprisoned within the Authority headquarters, but when Bill and Eric are summoned by Salome, we are then presented with a free Nora and a free Russell. They go on about Lilith and their plan and how Salome was the one who dug up Russell in the first place. Turns out that she followed them when they originally buried him, and she needed Russell to take down the Guardian. And that he did.