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Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. To keep up with our latest features, sign up for the Weekly Edit newsletter and follow us @mubinotebook on Twitter and Instagram.News No Other Land.Oscar-winning Palestinian filmmaker Hamdan Ballal was violently attacked by a group of masked Israeli settlers and subsequently arrested by the army, apparently under suspicion of “hurling rocks.” The following day, Yuval Abraham, who codirected No Other Land (2024) with Ballal, wrote that “after being handcuffed all night and beaten in a military base, Hamdan Ballal is now free and is about to go home to his family.” According to the Center for Jewish Nonviolence, there have been at least 43 attacks against the Palestinian residents of Susya since the beginning of the year. “This might be their revenge on us for making the movie,” says Basel Adra, who also codirected the film. “It feels like a punishment.

Illustration by Stephanie Lane Gage.It's that time of the year again! Here at Notebook, we celebrate the season of light in the traditional way: with a gift guide, of course, stuffed with all manner of goodies to delight the lucky cinephile in your life—and why not get yourself a little something while you’re at it?You might start with a Mubi subscription and a Notebook print subscription if your recipient is still without either: these are the gifts that keep on giving. Plus: get a jump on next year’s holiday rush by preordering Read Frame Type Film, the just-announced first book by Mubi Editions. Naughty? Nice? Who are we to judge? Whatever your pleasure, we hope you’ll enjoy this twice-checked list.Jump to a category:BooksHome videoMusic and soundtracksPosters, prints, and memorabiliaApparel and home goodsMiscellanyBOOKSIf this first category is somewhat overrepresented in the scope of the overall guide,...

People often refer to a film being "dumped on Netflix" as a pejorative, despite the fact the landscape of entertainment has evolved well beyond a non-theatrical release being a sign of lesser quality. The streamer has distributed some genuinely incredible films, many of which have already been deemed worthy of a physical release treatment by the Criterion Collection, including "Beasts of No Nation," "Okja," "Roma," "The Irishman," "Marriage Story," "Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese," "Dick Johnson is Dead," "The Power of the Dog," and if we're counting international distribution, "Uncut Gems."

And now, the best Netflix film of 2022 and the reigning Oscar winner for Best Animated Feature, "Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio," is joining that elusive club.

A reborn take on Carlo Collodi's classic character of the same name, "Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio" is a marvel of stop-motion animation and arguably the definitive adaptation of the tale.

Guillermo del Toro is returning to The Criterion Collection, as his 2022 Oscar winner Pinocchio will be released on December 12th as spine #1201. What, no love for Robert Zemeckis’ version?

Here are the special features for The Criterion Collection’s upcoming release of Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, which also comes complete with stunning cover art by James Jean:

4K digital master, supervised by directors Guillermo del Toro and Mark Gustafson, with Dolby Atmos One 4K Uhd disc of the film presented in Dolby Vision Hdr and one Blu-ray with the film and special features Handcarved Cinema, a new documentary featuring del Toro, Gustafson, and cast and crew, including the film’s puppet creators, production designers, and animation supervisor Directing Stop-Motion, a new program featuring del Toro and Gustafson New conversation between del Toro and film critic Farran Smith Nehme New interview with curator Ron Magliozzi on The Museum of...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSWomen Talking.The 49th edition of the Telluride Film Festival, which doesn't reveal its lineup until the four-day festival starts, took place last weekend. Its program included world premieres of Sarah Polley’s Women Talking and Sam Mendes’s Empire of Light, as well as Adam Curtis’s new 420-minute-long Russia [1985-1999] Traumazone, plus a tribute to Cate Blanchett. A.O. Scott, reporting from the festival for the New York Times, remarks that "Every so often, Telluride’s best is as good as movies can be," and singles out Women Talking specifically: "...what Women Talking shares with Moonlight is an absolute concentration on the specifics of story and setting that nonetheless illuminate a vast, underexplored region of contemporary life. A reality that has always been there is seen as if for the first time."Charlbi Dean Kriek—South African model,...

I’m going to start by setting a scene. The head of the Moving Image Section at the Library of Congress, Mike Mashon, takes the stage at the Castro Theater to introduce a screening of Erich Von Stroheim’s ambitious debut Blind Husbands (1919) at the 25th San Francisco Silent Film Festival. It’s a full house and that’s certainly not unusual for this event. “Recently, I was watching a conversation on the Criterion Channel,” Mashon tells the crowd. “Critic/curator Dave Kehr and historian Farran Smith Nehme were discussing Raoul Walsh and one of them said that Walsh was one of the least intellectual directors. He didn’t have a pretentious bone in his body; he was just a straight-ahead guy.” Mashon pauses, timing the silence for comic impact. “So… Erich Von Stroheim.” He need say nothing more. The entire audience erupts in laughter. Mashon smiles, saying, “You know,...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSAbove: The Temenos screening in Lyssarea, Greece.Registration for Temenos 2022, which will premiere a new section of avant-garde master Gregory Markopoulos's epic Eniaios, is now open. This very special event, which usually takes place every four years, will be taking place June 9-19 in Lyssarea, Greece. For more information on the Temenos screenings and the ongoing restoration of Eniaios, visit here.Hou Hsiao-hsien has announced two new projects: the long-gestating, Shu Qi-led film Shulan River, an adaptation of the Hsieh Hai-meng novel about a river goddess; and a yet unnamed project starring Chang Chen about "an elderly father and his son." Filmmaker, painter, writer, Nick Zedd has died. In addition to his darkly funny no-budget films like They Eat Scum (1979) and his zine Underground Film Bulletin, Zedd is coining the term "Cinema of...

I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for Leo McCarey’s beloved 1939 romance “Love Affair” starring Irene Dunne and Charles Boyer as star-crossed lovers who meet cute on a luxury liner. Since they are both attached to others — Dunne is actually a “kept” woman — they agree to meet six months after they land in New York at the Empire State Building. For years, “Love Affair” was near impossible to see after the rights of the Rko production had been sold to 20th Century Fox for Carey’s scene-by-scene 1957 remake “An Affair to Remember” with Deborah Kerr and Cary Grant.

But in 1977, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s film department lead by the late great Ron Haver presented a months’ long Rko festival featuring every film from the studio that still existed including “Love Affair,” which had earned six Oscar nominations including Best Picture and Best...

“This picture is perfect, end of review.” That may not be 100 true, but Leo McCarey’s unabashed leap into romantic Nirvana really hasn’t been bettered, although his color & ‘scope remake is very good. Never was smart adult dialogue this winning — Irene Dunne and Charles Boyer’s cinematic courtship is a highlight of the Big Studio years. And Maria Ouspenskaya’s performance will send you out to pamper the nearest grandmother. The restoration for this one is a revelation, as the show has looked terrible for sixty years- plus. Serge Bromberg and Farran Smith Nehme make the extras especially valuable.

Love Affair

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 1114

1939 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 88 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date February 15, 2022 / 39.95

Starring: Irene Dunne, Charles Boyer, Maria Ouspenskaya, Lee Bowman, Astrid Allwyn, Maurice Moscovitch, Ferike Boros, Scotty Beckett, Bess Flowers, Harold Miller, Dell Henderson, Frank McGlynn, Sr., Joan Leslie.

Cinematography: Rudolph Maté

Art Director: Van Nest Polglase,...

On Tuesday night, The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced to its members a significant change to the upcoming 2022 Oscars broadcast. Eight different category winners will be revealed to assembled industry personnel at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, but it won’t happen live on the air. These trophies will be handed out one hour prior to the “official” start of the show (as A-listers are making their red carpet arrivals) and then the acceptances will be edited (and likely truncated) into the show later.

This will, the thinking goes, tighten up the length of the ceremony for home viewers. “For the audience at home, the show’s flow does not change, though it will become tighter and more electric with this new cadence, and the live broadcast should end – yes, with the Best Picture category – at the three-hour mark,” Academy president Dave Rubin wrote in a letter to AMPAS members.

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSAbove: Monica Vitti in Red Desert (1964). (Courtesy of Janus Films)One of the most captivating presences in Italian cinema, actress Monica Vitti has died at age 90. She started as a stage and television actor before becoming known for her roles in Michelangelo Antonioni's L'avventura (1960), La notte (1960), L'eclisse (1962) and Red Desert (1964). After the end of her professional and romantic relationship with Antonioni (the two would return for The Mystery of Oberwald in 1980), Vitti turned to lighter fare by international directors, including a small part in Luis Buñuel's surrealist comedy The Phantom of Liberty (1974). In the official announcement of Vitti's death, Italy’s culture minister Dario Franceschini wrote, “Goodbye to the queen of Italian cinema.”The groundbreaking artist James Bidgood, whose artistic output spanned from photography and music to films like Pink Narcissus (1971), has also died.

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“Citizen Kane” is being restored by the Criterion Collection in honor of the film’s 80th anniversary. Regarded as one of the greatest movies of all time, “Citizen Kane” follows the story of a reporter tasked with decoding the meaning of “Rosebud” — the final word uttered by Charles Foster Kane (Orson Welles) on his death bed. Kane, a fictitious newspaper mogul, was inspired by real-life tycoons William Randolph Hearst, Joseph Pulitzer, Samuel Insull, and Harold McCormick.

The Criterion edition of Welles’ 1941 feature film directorial debut will be released on November 23, but you can pre-order it now to make sure that you get a copy (in case they sell out during the Black Friday...

“That’s all he ever wanted out of life… was love. That’s the tragedy of Charles Foster Kane. You see, he just didn’t have any to give.”

Orson Welles’ classic Citizen Kane (1941) will be available on 4k and Blu-ray October 19th. A 4-disc 4K Uhd+Blu-ray Combo and a 3-blu-ray Edition will both be available.

In the most dazzling debut feature in cinema history, twenty-five-year-old writer-producer-director-star Orson Welles synthesized the possibilities of sound-era filmmaking into what could be called the first truly modern movie. In telling the story of the meteoric rise and precipitous fall of a William Randolph Hearst–like newspaper magnate named Charles Foster Kane, Welles not only created the definitive portrait of American megalomania, he also unleashed a torrent of stylistic innovations—from the jigsaw-puzzle narrative structure to the stunning deep-focus camera work of Gregg Toland—that have ensured that Citizen Kane remains fresh and...

Stars: Joe Pesci, Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Harvey Keitel, Ray Romano, Bobby Cannavale, Anna Paquin, Stephen Graham | Written by Steven Zaillian | Directed by Martin Scorsese

It’s a strange thing, really, that until I had a chance to check out the new Criterion Blu-ray release of The Irishman, I hadn’t seen it. It had been one of those many films sitting on my “need to watch soon” list, yet I didn’t. Until now. Martin Scorsese has been a director I’ve had great respect for for many years, and I’m a fan of a whole bunch of his movies. Goodfellas, for my money, is the greatest mafia film out there, and other titles, like King of Comedy, Taxi Driver, The Wolf of Wall Street and Shutter Island, are also incredible. The Irishman, then, is one that I was excited to sit down and watch, albeit a year late.

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSAbove: The Hour of the Furnace by Fernando Solanas.Argentinian filmmaker Fernando Solanas, best known for his 1968 documentary The Hour of the Furnace and his manifesto "Toward a Third Cinema", has died. Celine Sciamma has started filming her follow-up to Portrait of a Lady on Fire. The film, entitled Petite Maman, will be filmed by regular collaborator Claire Mathon and will focus on the childhood of two eight-year old kids. Although her adaptation of Denis Johnson's Stars at Noon has been delayed, Claire Denis will be reteaming with Juliette Binoche and Bastards star Vincent Lindon for a still-untitled film. Sean Baker has also confirmed that his "secret movie" called Red Rocket, starring Simon Rex (of the Scary Movie franchise), will complete shooting this month. Recommended VIEWINGStarting on November 16, Jr and Alice Rohrwacher's...

An epic 15-disc box set featuring the films of Federico Fellini isn’t the only release arriving on The Criterion Collection this November. Following Roma and Marriage Story, they will also be adding another Netflix title to their library: Martin Scorsese’s mob epic The Irishman. Featuring a brand-new documentary on the making of the film, a video essay by critic Farran Smith Nehme, and program on the visual effects, and more, it looks like an essential pick-up even if you already have a Netflix subscription.

Also among the November lineup is Norman Jewison’s delightful romantic drama Moonstruck, featuring interviews with the cast and crew, an audio commentary from 1998 with Cher, Jewison, and John Patrick Shanley, and more. Claudia Weill’s landmark indie drama Girlfriends is also coming to Criterion, with interviews featuring the cast and crew, short films by Weill, and more. Lastly, Jim Jarmusch’s Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai...

For producer-director John Ford Columbia Studios was apparently a calm port in a hostile movie climate. Away from the bankability guaranteed by John Wayne, Ford never quite regained the power of his earlier triumphs, from the silent era to his socially conscious classics at Fox. The four Columbia-controlled pictures presented on Powerhouse Indicator’s lavishly appointed disc set consist of two winners and (for this viewer) a pair of odd ducks. But the quality of his filmmaking remained consistent.

John Ford at Columbia 1935-1958

The Whole Town’s Talking, The Long Gray Line, Gideon’s Day, The Last Hurrah

Region B Blu-ray

Powerhouse Indicator

1935-1958 / Color & B&w / 1:37 Academy, 2:55 widescreen, 1:85 widescreen / / Street Date April 27, 2020 / available from Powerhouse Films UK / £ 42.99

Starring: Edward G. Robinson, Jean Arthur; Tyrone Power, Maureen O’Hara; Jack Hawkins, Anna Massey; Spencer Tracy, Jeffrey Hunter.

Cinematography: Joseph August; Charles Lawton Jr., Charles Lang; Frederick A.

“Hitch Finding His Way”

By Raymond Benson

While there are many DVD collections (and VHS anthologies before that) of the early British material directed by Alfred Hitchcock in the 1920s and most of the 1930s, there are very few that contain decent transfers. The silent films, until recently, all existed in extremely poor quality, as so did most of the British sound pictures. Companies like The Criterion Collection and Kino Lorber have begun to finally restore these classics in high definition Blu-ray.

The new 2-disk Kino Lorber set, British International Pictures Collection, contains a handful of these early movies—The Ring (1927), The Farmer’s Wife (1928), Champagne (1928), The Manxman (1929), and the only sound feature in the bunch, The Skin Game (1931). They all display Hitch finding his way, exploring the possibilities of the medium, and trying to find his directorial “voice.” He was not yet the “Master of Suspense,” even though he...

Stars: Bette Davis, Paul Henreid, Gladys Cooper, Claude Rains, Bonita Granville | Written by Casey Robinson | Directed by Irving Rapper

The secret at the heart of the Boston social scene is Charlotte Vale (Bette Davis) – a shy, repressed, mentally unstable young woman, tortured by her overbearing mother (Gladys Cooper). Charlotte’s older sister (Bonita Granville) arranges for a visit from the esteemed Dr Jaquith (Claude Rains), who recommends a stay at his hospital in Vermont. The retreat proves life changing. Charlotte’s adventurous spirit is awoken, and she takes a voyage to Brazil. En route she meets the unhappily married Jerry (Paul Henreid). The pair fall in love. Having said farewell to Jerry – apparently forever – Charlotte returns home, and finds that while she has been transformed, her increasingly ill mother hasn’t changed at all. It’s now a question of whether Charlotte’s increasing self-confidence can continue in the great yawning mansion,...

Cluny Brown

Blu ray

Criterion

1946/ 1.33:1 / 100 min.

Starring Charles Boyer, Jennifer Jones

Cinematography by Joseph Lashelle

Directed by Ernst Lubitsch

The last film completed by Ernst Lubitsch before his sudden death in 1947, Cluny Brown is the life-embracing work of a determined romantic – unintimidated by poor health let alone the World War that raged during the movie’s production.

The story of an unvarnished beauty who finds happiness in a leaky faucet, Jennifer Jones plays Cluny, the low-brow but high-spirited plumber’s apprentice and Charles Boyer is her romantically inclined guardian angel, Adam Belinski.

Belinski is a penniless refugee who drops by a posh party in search of cash and is mistaken for the maintenance man – just as Cluny arrives to unclog the pipes and save the day. She celebrates with one too many beverages (“My first sink and my first cocktail… I feel… ‘chirrupy’”) and is banished by her class-conscious...

Celebrate Olivia de Havilland’s 103rd birthday by ordering the new blu-ray of one of her best films. Hold Back The Dawn (1941) will be available on Blu-ray July 16th From Arrow Academy

From one of the most underrated directors of Hollywood’s golden era, Mitchell Leisen (Remember the Night), comes the heart-rending romantic drama Hold Back the Dawn…

Charles Boyer (Gaslight) gives an enthralling performance as Georges Iscovescu, a Romanian-born gigolo who arrives at a Mexican border town seeking entry to the Us. Faced with a waiting period of eight years, George is encouraged by his former dancing partner Anita to marry an American girl and desert her once safely across the border. He successfully targets visiting school teacher Emmy Brown, but his plan is compromised by a pursuing immigration officer, and blossoming feelings of genuine love for Emmy.

A moving and thoughtful film with a wonderful script (co-written by...

Yes, you could spend your holiday in the company of family and friends. But wouldn’t you rather curl up with a new book centered on cinema? There are new options aplenty, but let’s start with the latest from one of the most insightful, compelling voices we have: the great Karina Longworth.

Seduction: Sex, Lies, and Stardom in Howard Hughes’s Hollywood by Karina Longworth (Custom House)

Is there more to say about Howard Hughes after decades of biographies and films? Indeed, and the latest from Longworth, the host of the essential podcast You Must Remember This, is evidence. The focus in Seduction is not only Hughes himself, but the many women in the mega-tycoon’s orbit. These include household names like Katharine Hepburn but also figures like silent star Billie Dove and Mighty Joe Young star Terry Moore. Longworth brings these women to vivid life, and captures the absurdity of Hughes’s universe.

Following their impressively varied Main Slate section and Projections lineup, the full slate for Retrospective and Revivals at the 56th New York Film Festival have been announced. After last year’s Robert Mitchum retrospective, this year’s edition is split into three parts, paying tributing to the late Dan Talbot and Pierre Rissient, as well as spotlighting a trio of documentaries that delve into cinema history.

“For Pierre and Dan, two genuine heroes, everything to do with cinema was urgent. This year’s retrospective section pays tribute to both men, who passed away within six months of each other,” Nyff Director and Selection Committee Chair Kent Jones said.

Talbot, founder of New Yorker Films and longtime director of Lincoln Plaza Cinemas, will be honored with personal favorites from Bernardo Bertolucci, Straub-Huillet, Nagisa Oshima, Jean-Luc Godard, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and more. Meanwhile, producer, publicist, distributor, curator, and cinema polymath Pierre Rissient...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSThis year the Directors' Fortnight (Quinzaine des réalisateurs) in Cannes is celebrating its 50th anniversery. The poster for this year's festival uses a photo by William Klein, whose film The Pan-African Festival of Algiers was in the 1971 edition.Recommended VIEWINGThe trailer for Paul Schrader's fabulous new film First Reformed. Our critics raved about it (here and here) last year from the Toronto International Film Festival.Recommended READINGThe last interview Hollywood filmmaker Nicolas Ray (Johnny Guitar) recorded was in 1979 with Sarah Fatima Parsons and Kathryn Bigelow. The Italian film magazine La Furia Umana has the full text in English.With last week's release of Ready Player One getting all fans of Steven Spielberg in a tizzy, the A.V. Club has run a compendium of the best set pieces of the director's career.The Courtisane...

Make room for a genuine rarity, come back from the cinema graveyard in excellent condition: a lavish color musical extravaganza from 1930 that’s been effectively Mia for generations. Universal undertook a daunting restoration of this ‘revue-‘ style spectacle, which includes a full presentation of George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue in its original orchestration.

King of Jazz

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 915

1930 / Color / 1:33 flat full frame / 98 105 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date March 27, 2018 / 39.95

Starring: Paul Whiteman, John Boles, Bing Crosby (unbilled),

Laura La Plante, Jeanette Loff, Glenn Tryon, Wiliam Kent, Slim Summerville, The Rhythm Boys, Kathryn Crawford, Beth Laemmle, Stanley Smith, Charles Irwin, George Chiles, Jack White, Frank Leslie, Walter Brennan, Churchill Ross, Johnson Arledge, Al Norman, Jacques Cartier, Paul Howard, Nell O’Day, The Tommy Atkins Sextette, Marion Stadler, Don Rose, The Russell Markert Girls.

Cinematography: Hal Mohr, Jerry Ash, Ray Rennahan

Film Editor: Maurice Pivar, Robert Carlisle...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.Recommended VIEWINGJay-z's great taste in directors continues with the Safdie brothers, who both lent a deft hand for the "Marcy Me" video, which feels like a thematic addendum to their own film Good Time.Ava Duvernay (Selma) also directed this star-studded epic music video for Jay-z's "Family Feud".Who doesn't love pulp movie maestro Samuel Fuller? In the event of their active retrospective of his work, the Cinémathèque française provides this ecstatic montage of a few of his finest films.Recommended READINGPerhaps you missed Sarah Nicole Prickett's incisive recaps of Twin Peaks: The Return for Artforum? If that's the case, you can catch up here. Prickett has shared her final take on Episode 18 and the series overall, and it was well worth the wait. From Alejandro G. Iñárritu to Jia Zhangke—the January/February...