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ChaiFlicks is launching its third annual free Hanukah Film Festival. The world’s leading streaming platform for Jewish storytelling will begin its latest iteration on the first night of Hanukah, which this year falls on Dec. 7. The film festival, which this year features a “Heroes” theme, is available to all ChaiFlicks subscribers globally and is also free for anyone that would like to enjoy all eight nights’ worth of films.

Among the movies set to run during this year’s event are “Nicky’s Family” (Dec. 7), “Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story” (Dec. 8), “The Ritchie Boys” (Dec. 9), “Golda” (Dec. 10), “Hannah Arendt” (Dec. 11), “An Act of Defiance” (Dec. 12), “Slavery to Freedom” (Dec. 13) and “Sylvia: Tracing Blood” (Dec. 14).

ChaiFlicks will also launch a specifically themed “Orthodox Life” programming week on Dec. 16. The site will premiere two new titles, the three-episode series “Match Made in Heaven” and the documentary “Divorce Denied” (Dec. 20). Also debuting on the platform,...

Independent film distributor Kino Lorber has officially unveiled streaming service Kino Film Collection, available via Prime Video here.

The Kino Film Collection will be launched in the U.S. on the Amazon Service via Prime Video Channels for $5.99 per month. The Collection will feature new Kino releases fresh from theaters, along with hundreds of films from its expansive library of more than 4,000 titles, with many now streaming for the first time.

New 4K restorations of films like Bernardo Bertolucci’s “The Conformist,” Yorgos Lanthimos’ “Dogtooth,” Jafar Panahi’s “Taxi,” Todd Haynes’ “Poison,” Tran Anh Hung’s “The Scent of Green Papaya,” Ana Lily Amirpour’s “A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night,” and Jia Zhangke’s “A Touch of Sin” are among highlights of the first offerings from Kino Film Collection.

Kino canon films like Fritz Lang’s historic “Metropolis,” F.W. Murnau’s “Nosferatu,” Robert Wiene’s “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari,...

Distributing films by Todd Haynes, Guy Maddin, Abbas Kiarostami, Laura Poitras, Olivier Assayas, and even Jacques Demy, Zeitgeist Film has been one of the most vital caretakers of independent and international cinema in the last few decades. Founded in New York City in 1988 by Nancy Gerstman and Emily Russo, they will now get a well-deserved celebration at NYC’s Metrograph beginning this Friday, November 3, with the series Zeitgeist Films at 35, and we’re pleased to exclusively debut the trailer.

Along with Olivier Assayas’ Irma Vep, Todd Haynes’ Poison, Derek Jarman’s The Garden, Abbas Kiarostami’s Taste of Cherry, Atom Egoyan’s Speaking Parts, and Jacques Demy’s Umbrellas of Cherbourg (released in a new restoration by Zeitgeist in 1996), the series features premieres of new 4K remasters of Guy Maddin’s Archangel and Marc Rothemund’s Sophie Scholl: The Final Days, plus an exclusive series closing night Member Preview of...

Hedy Lamarr starred in Jack Conway’s Boom Town with Spencer Tracy, Claudette Colbert, Clark Gable, and Frank Morgan (in the exhibition) Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Hedy Lamarr: Actress. Inventor. Viennese is an impressive exhibition curated by Danielle Spera (director of the Jewish Museum Vienna from 2010 - 2022) and designed by Stefan Fuhrer (Fuhrer Vienna) at the Austrian Cultural Forum in New York. You can watch scenes from Georg Jacoby”s Money on the Street with Heinz Rühmann, Carl Boese’s No Money is Needed, Gustav Machatý Ecstasy, John Cromwell’s Algiers (1938), Georg Misch’s Calling Hedy Lamarr (2004), and Hedy Lamarr – An Ingenious Mind (2022).

Danielle Spera with Anne-Katrin Titze on the KaDeWe Group Lamarr building, Rem Koolhaas and his Oma partners: “Ellen van Loon is the architect and she is great to work with …”

Hedy’s beauty was an inspiration for Walt Disney’s Snow White, Batman co-creator Bob Kane’s Catwoman,...

Exclusive: 101 Studios and Versus Productions have teamed up to produce Access the Public, a docuseries tracing the rise of public access television between 1970 and 1990.

Before there was YouTube, Facebook and TikTok, public access TV proved revolutionary, creating genres, advancing women’s and LGBTQ rights, winning Supreme Court rulings and changing the way content was consumed by providing an outlet for free speech.

The limited series featuring exclusive interviews and behind-the-scenes material will touch on TV series that played a hand in these movements including Gay USA, The Live Show, Midnight Blue and others. It will also examine the public television starts of some of entertainment’s biggest names, including Whoopi Goldberg, The Beastie Boys and RuPaul.

Versus Entertainment’s Rob Meyers, Justin Barnes and Mark Grande will exec produce the series with Ben Bitonti, David Hutkin and David C. Glasser of 101 Studios.

“Access the Public is an exciting project...

Jennifer Callahan’s Making The Case and Lyn Goldfarb’s Eddy's World

The Museum of Tolerance (in Los Angeles) last night hosted virtual screenings of Jennifer Callahan’s Making The Case (a Doc NYC highlight) on Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s handbags (Alessandro Nivola and Emily Mortimer are thanked) and Lyn Goldfarb’s Eddy's World on the prolific inventor Eddy Goldfarb. Following the short films there was a live event discussion moderated by Museum of Tolerance Director Liebe Geft with Jennifer Callahan, Lyn Goldfarb and the director’s 98-year-old father Eddy Goldfarb.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg being filmed for Making The Case

Alexandra Dean’s revelatory documentary Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story shows us the brilliant mind of Hedy Lamarr, who, on the side, was developing innovative technology that ended up being used by the US military during the Second World War. In Eddy’s World, we learn that Eddy Goldfarb came...

Jennifer Callahan’s Making The Case and Lyn Goldfarb’s Eddy's World

The Museum of Tolerance (in Los Angeles) last night hosted virtual screenings of Jennifer Callahan’s Making The Case (a Doc NYC highlight) on Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s handbags (Alessandro Nivola and Emily Mortimer are thanked) and Lyn Goldfarb’s Eddy's World on the prolific inventor Eddy Goldfarb. Following the short films there was a live event discussion moderated by Museum of Tolerance Director Liebe Geft with Jennifer Callahan, Lyn Goldfarb and the director’s 98-year-old father Eddy Goldfarb.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg being filmed for Making The Case

Alexandra Dean’s revelatory documentary Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story shows us the brilliant mind of Hedy Lamarr, who, on the side, was developing innovative technology that ended up being used by the US military during the Second World War. In Eddy’s World, we learn that Eddy Goldfarb came...

Zeitgeist Films, in association with Kino Lorber, have swooped for all North American rights to Sundance award winner “Acasa, My Home.”

The film, which in January picked up the Special Jury Award for cinematography in the World Cinema Documentary category at Sundance, has been selected for more than 60 festivals around the world, and is a recent documentary contender in the European Film Awards.

The film tells the story of a Romanian family with nine children that lived fully off-grid in the wilderness of the Bucharest Delta, in harmony with nature. However, when the land becomes a public park, they are evicted and forced to adapt to the big city, where they must fight for acceptance.

“Acasa, My Home” is directed by Radu Ciorniciuc and produced by Monica Lăzurean-Gorgan for Manifest Film in collaboration with HBO Europe, Corso Film and Kino Company.

The film — which has been sold internationally by Autlook Filmsales...

After being in development at Showtime for more than two years, the Gal Gadot-led “Hedy Lamarr” has instead moved to Apple TV+, with the tech giant giving the project an eight episode limited series order.

The show will be executive produced by Gadot (“Wonder Woman”) who will also star, and Sarah Treem (“House of Cards”). A release date has not been determined.

Here’s the series’ synopsis, per Apple: Hailed as “the most beautiful woman in the world,” Hedy Lamarr was first exalted and iconized, then destroyed and eventually forgotten by American audiences, all the while keeping her brilliant mind active through a series of inventions, one of which became the basis for the spread spectrum technology we use today. The series will follow the incredible life-story of Hollywood glamour girl, spanning 30 years from Hedy’s daring escape from pre-war Vienna; to her meteoric rise in the Golden...

Hedy Lamarr, the Gal Gadot-led eight-episode limited series from The Affair co-creator Sarah Treem, The Handmaid’s Tale producer Warren Littlefield and Endeavor Content, has moved to Apple from Showtime with a straight-to-series order.

The project had been in development at Showtime since August but never received a series order. Per Apple, the series will follow the incredible life-story of the Hollywood glamour girl, played by Gadot, spanning 30 years from Hedy’s daring escape from pre-war Vienna to her meteoric rise in the Golden Age of Hollywood to her fall and eventual disgrace at the dawn of the Cold War. An epic tale of an immigrant woman both ahead of her time and very much victim to it.

2020 Apple TV Pilots & Series Orders

The notion for the historical drama originated from Gadot and her husband and producing partner Jaron Varsano (My Dearest Fidel), who then partnered with Littlefield and Treem, the...

Exclusive: U.S. art house distributor Kino Lorber is launching film and TV VOD streaming platform Kino Now, we can reveal. The service, which includes options to rent and buy, currently hosts 600 titles from the company’s catalog and includes early access to new releases. The number of titles is set to double by the end of the year.

Kino Lorber, which will unveil the platform at a stateside event this evening, tells us the service will be annually refreshed with more than 50 new theatrical releases from Kino Lorber’s first-run and repertory divisions and more than 500 yearly additional titles as “festival direct” exclusives and indie art house digital premieres.

Movies will be generally available around 30-90 days after their theatrical release but some will also get day-and-date releases. Most titles will be $9.99 or less. New releases and certain films that are considered premium will be $14.99 or $19.99 if they are day-and-date releases.

Festival favourite to open in New York in November.

Zeitgeist Films in association with Kino Lorber has acquired North American rights to Matt Wolf’s documentary and festival favourite Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project.

Andrew and Walter Kortschak of Los Angeles-based End Cue and Kyle Martin of Electric Chinoland developed and produced the documentary, which received its world premiere at Tribeca Film Festival and went on to screen at AFI Docs and Hot Docs.

Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project centres on Marion Stokes, a radical recruited by the Communist Party, who became a wealthy reclusive archivist later in life and...

Two of the most talked about shows right now — both streaming on Netflix — are “Nanette,” the passionate and potentially game-changing performance by comedian Hannah Gadsby, and “Bombshell,” a documentary about the woman many consider the most beautiful to ever grace a screen.

On the face of it, you might think there could not be two more diverse women: Gadsby is an Australian gender- and genre-probing lesbian. Hedy Lamarr was an Austrian-born Jew who emigrated here and found film stardom — as well as six husbands. But viewers are clearly responding to both women who, while more than 70 years apart, are capturing a moment. The truth is, if the two time-traveled to meet, they might say, “Yeah, me too!”

Gadsby, whose powerful and surprising rant of a performance manages to analyze and question her dedication to stand-up comedy — claims she has often been the butt of jokes, and asks what self-deprecation means...

“Beauty And Brains”

By Raymond Benson

One of the unsung heroines of the 20th Century—her fame as a Hollywood star notwithstanding—is actress and inventor Hedy Lamarr. Few have known about her extraordinary proclivity to invent stuff, and even less are aware that she came up with a patent during World War II for a communications system that was later adopted and is still used today.

Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story, a wonderful documentary on the woman’s life and career, deliberately emphasizes that Lamarr’s scientific knowledge and technical imagination takes precedence over her Hollywood legacy. And while Lamarr appears to have maintained an upbeat attitude throughout the decades, the motion picture reveals that her struggles were many. Lamarr was troubled, misunderstood, and too many times ignored for her efforts beyond being a “pretty face.”

Pretty she was indeed. Lamarr was one of those Hollywood beauties who turned heads and dropped jaws.

The second and final season of “Timeless,” NBC’s time travel drama, embraces more inclusion and diversity, including encounters with abolitionist Harriet Tubman, suffragist Alice Paul, and blues musician Robert Johnson. This greatly expanded the challenges and opportunities for costume designer Mari-An Ceo, who especially enjoyed “Hollywoodland,” in which she got to recreate Katherine Hepburn’s lavish Greek goddess gown from “The Philadelphia Story” for star Abigail Spencer.

“The stories shifted and became more evolved [this season], but this was one of my favorites,” Ceo said. “Going into Hollywood, it felt like we were making a movie and dressed all the people that worked on movies. We made hundreds of background costumes. We were on the Paramount lot and, finally, we were shooting where the place actually was supposed to be.”

In “Hollywoodland,” the Lifeboat team of Lucy, Wyatt (Matt Lanter), and Rufus (Malcolm Barrett) travel to 1941 Hollywood to retrieve the stolen...

With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options — not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves — we’ve taken it upon ourselves to highlight the titles that have recently hit platforms. Every week, one will be able to see the cream of the crop (or perhaps some simply interesting picks) of streaming titles (new and old) across platforms such as Netflix, iTunes, Amazon, and more (note: U.S. only). Check out our rundown for this week’s selections below.

3/4 (Ilian Metev)

The characters populating Ilian Metev’s 3/4 (read: Three Quarters) often walk and talk in pairs, but they are seldom framed together, the camera lingering on each as the separate halves of a whole that never quite comes into being. They are the three quarters of a family enjoying what is likely to be their last summer together: physics professor Todor (Todor Veltchev) and his two children, adolescent...

Zeitgeist Films and Kino Lorber have picked up U.S. rights for Matt Tyrnauer’s “Studio 54,” a documentary about the club that was at the epicenter of New York city nightlife in the 1970s.

The deal between Kino Lorber and A&E IndieFilms, the company that produced the film, was finalized during Cannes Film Festival. “Studio 54” will be released in theaters in the fall of 2018. The companies are planning to campaign the film for Academy Awards consideration.

Tyrnauer, a Vanity Fair editor-at-large turned filmmaker, previously directed “Valentino: The Last Emperor,” “Citizen Jane: Battle for the City,” and “Scotty and the Secret of Hollywood.” He’s shown a knack for getting under the skins of iconoclasts and myth-makers. He hit pay dirt with Steve Rubell, the flamboyant outer-bourough social-climber who created the ultimate playground for the rich and glamorous with his partner co-owner Ian Schrager. Over the course of a mere 33 months,...

It’s not that Alexandra Dean’s documentary “Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story” starts off with a montage of individuals attesting to the legendary actress’ on-screen allure. It’s how quickly the film moves past that to a more profound understanding of the woman behind the face. “Bombshell,” which airs this week as part of PBS’ American Masters series, is a biography of a classic film star that doesn’t need to do much to bolster Lamarr’s bona fides as someone who captivated the moviegoing public’s attention.

But even if Lamarr (born Hedwig Kiesler in 1914 Austria) is best known for her roles, she left behind a legacy that extends far beyond her filmography. It’s a testament to both Lamarr’s life and Dean’s crafting of the film that the interview subjects for this doc extend into a variety of fields. There are film historians, family members, friends, and the man who becomes a kind of unofficial narrator of the film, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Rhodes.

The St. Louis Jewish Film Festival, held annually at the Landmark Plaza Frontenac Cinema, is one of the local Jewish community’s most popular and highly attended events of the year. Each year, the festival presents international Jewish films, both documentaries and features that explore universal issues through traditional Jewish values, opposing viewpoints and new perspectives. And each year, the fest packs ‘em in so get there early – it’s first come first serve for seats and those Frontenac theaters aren’t very big. Attendance is always through the roof for this thing, a testament to the group’s marketing and choice of programming. Guest lecturers are brought to the fest to discuss and illuminate the subjects of these films.

The 23rd Annual St. Louis Jewish Film Festival opens with two exciting films on Sunday, June 3 at the Landmark Plaza Frontenac Cinema. The first, Heading Home: The Tale of Team...

To mark the release of Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story on 23rd April, we’ve been given 3 copies to give away on DVD.

As famous for her performances as she was infamous for her multiple marriages and affairs with the likes of Spencer Tracy and JFK, Hedy Lamarr was enigmatic. There was substance behind the beauty, though; a side to her far more interesting than the spotlight of stardom. She was a maverick, an ingenious inventor whose pioneering work helped revolutionise modern communication. Her groundbreaking concept of frequency hopping is now used as the basis for secure Wi-Fi, Gps and Bluetooth. We have far more than beautifully poised performances to thank her for.

Produced by Academy Award® winning Susan Sarandon, as well as Michael Kantor and Regina Scully, Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story finally gives Hedy the voice denied to her by Hollywood. In 2016, director Alexandra Dean and producer Adam Haggiag...

"She was so ahead of her time." Dogwoof in the UK is about to release the documentary Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story in cinemas, so it's probably the best time to post this trailer. Rediscover Hollywood wild-child, Hedy Lamarr, not only as an actress but as the brilliant mind who coinvented 1940s wireless technology. Alexandra Dean's Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story is a historical documentary biopic telling the other "secret" story of Hedy Lamarr most don't know - that she and composer George Antheil helped develop a radio guidance system for Allied torpedoes, which used spread spectrum and frequency hopping technology to defeat the threat of jamming by the Axis powers. This seems like a fascinating, entertaining documentary that is worth watching at some point. It's playing in theaters in the UK right now. See below. The UK trailer (+ poster) for Alexandra Dean's doc Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story,...

Diane Kruger reads from Lamarr's letters in Alexandra Dean's revelatory documentary Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story

In the final installment of my conversation with Alexandra Dean, the director of the revelatory documentary Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story, we explore the background of the woman who inspired the looks of Catwoman, as well as Disney's Snow White, Mel Brooks and his Hedley Lamarr character (portrayed by Harvey Korman) in Blazing Saddles, the impact Hedy Lamarr had from the start with a role in Gustav Machatý's 1933 film Ecstasy (Ekstase), and the discovery of the interview tapes done by Fleming Meeks, that allow Hedy herself to guide us through her life.

With interviews (including Peter Bogdanovich, Jeanine Basinger, Robert Osborne, Michael Tilson Thomas, Mel Brooks, and Lamarr's family), expertly edited (by Dean, Penelope Falk and Lindy Jankur), Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story is assembled with care. Her life plays out...

Chicago – Hedy Lamarr was tagged as “the world’s most beautiful woman” in movies during her brief run as matinee idol during the 1940s. While taking that on, she was also co-inventing a wireless guidance system during World War II. Director Alexandra Dean contrasts that double life in “Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story.”

The documentary film – an impressive look at a somewhat famous woman both in her time and ahead of it – explores how an extraordinarily beautiful immigrant from Vienna became an American movie star, and in her spare time co-invented a wireless “frequency hopping” system that was the root of Gps, wi-fi and other technological marvels of our age. Dismissed in her era, and finally recognized when she well past her prime, Hedy Lamarr is a fascinating both as a film star and as an innovator. The documentary opens Friday, January 19th, 2018, at the Music Box Theatre in Chicago.

The Academy Awards shortlist for Best Original Song contains 70 different tunes, which a pedant might say isn’t very short at all. Frontrunners have emerged, like “Remember Me” from the “Coco” soundtrack and Sufjan Stevens’ two contributions to “Call Me by Your Name,” but there’s a variety that may not be reflected when the five nominees are announced January 23. Until then, avail yourself of this playlist.

Read More:Oscars 2018: Listen to Selections from 141 Scores Eligible for This Year’s Academy Award

Read More:Oscars 2018: How the ‘Dunkirk’ and ‘Phantom Thread’ Original Scores Dodged Disqualification

And here’s the not-that-shortlist:

“U.N.I (You And I)” from “And the Winner Isn’t”

“Love And Lies” from “Band Aid”

“If I Dare” from “Battle of the Sexes”

“Evermore” from “Beauty and the Beast”

“How Does A Moment Last Forever” from “Beauty and the Beast”

“Now Or Never” from “Bloodline: Now or Never...

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences revealed 70 songs that qualify for the Best Original Song Oscar this afternoon. Films with more than one submission include “Beauty and the Beast,” “Call Me By Your Name,” “Cars 3,” “Elizabeth Blue” and “Pulimurugan.” It’s worth noting that “The Greatest Showman,” a musical featuring original songs from last year’s winners Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, only submitted one song, “This Is Me.”

Dierks Bentley enters the Best Song fire with ‘Only The Brave’

The full list of qualifying songs is as follows:

“U.N.I (You And I)” from “And the Winner Isn’t”

“Love And Lies” from “Band Aid”

“If I Dare” from “Battle of the Sexes”

“Evermore” from “Beauty and the Beast”

“How Does A Moment Last Forever” from “Beauty and the Beast”

“Now Or Never” from “Bloodline: Now or Never”

“She” from “Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story...

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced the 70 original songs still in contention for the Oscar this year. Five of the shortlisted songs will earn nominations, which are set to be revealed on January 23. Original songs from “Call Me By Your Name,” “Battle of the Sexes,” “Beauty and the Beast,” and more all made the shortlist this year. “City of Stars” from “La La Land” took home the prize last year.

The following tracks have been included on the Oscars shortlist for Best Original Song:

“U.N.I (You And I)” from “And the Winner Isn’t”

“Love And Lies” from “Band Aid”

“If I Dare” from “Battle of the Sexes”

“Evermore” from “Beauty and the Beast”

“How Does A Moment Last Forever” from “Beauty and the Beast”

“Now Or Never” from “Bloodline: Now or Never”

“She” from “Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story”

“Your Hand I Will...

Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story Zeitgeist Films Director: Alexandra Dean Screenwriter: Alexandra Dean Cast: Anthony Loder, Mel Brooks, Jennifer Hom, Wendy Colton, Fleming Meeks, Peter Bogdanovich, Diane Kruger, Michael Tilson Thomas Screened at: Critics’ link, NYC, 12/13/17 Opens: November 24, 2017 How would you feel if you invented something worth thirty billion dollars, that’s $30,000,000,000, […]

The post Bombshell Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.

Over the last six weekends, six new specialized releases have opened to a per-theater average of over $60,000. “I, Tonya” is the latest, and comes at a time when seats at prime theaters are at a premium.

Still, it isn’t necessarily a bad weekend to open. Last year, “La La Land” launched to $881,000 in five theaters, a nearly $170,000-per-theater result. But it had far less competition, ecstatic reviews, top stars, and signs of early appeal that propelled it to over $100 million and much more worldwide.

This year has more strong titles; even better, most show early success with wider audiences. “The Disaster Artist” expanded quickly in its second weekend to place #4 overall, while A24 had a second Top 10 hit again with “Lady Bird.” That film, coming off critics’ group wins, is thriving and easily the leader among fall releases so far. In fact, it already is the second-biggest specialized release...

Alexandra Dean on Diane Kruger in Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story: "She reads Hedy's letters … I was thrilled." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

On New York's Upper West Side, Alexandra Dean, the director of Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story, met with me for a conversation on the movie star who was lauded in the Thirties and Forties as the most beautiful woman in the world. In her revelatory documentary, executive produced by Susan Sarandon, Regina Kulik Scully and Michael Kantor, a highlight of this year's Tribeca Film Festival, we see a person who was much more than a pretty face.

Hedy Lamarr, born Hedwig Kiesler in 1914, grew up in an assimilated Jewish family in Vienna. Her swim in the nude in Gustav Machatý's 1933 film Ecstasy (Ekstase) made even the American press notice the young actress. "She goes through her role thoroughly, her facial expressions are most expressive and the lack...

Few would dispute that Hedy Lamarr belongs in the pantheon of screen goddesses from Hollywood's golden age. But recognition has proven far more elusive for her work beyond the realm of movie stardom—"in the pantheon of great inventors," as filmmaker Alexandra Dean puts it. Dean's new documentary Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story attempts to correct the record. "She had true flashes of genius. There were men who helped bring that genius to reality and Howard Hughes was one…...

More often than not, biographic documentaries can feel staid in the way they so relentlessly follow a basic Point A to Point B narrative. It is understandable, really. After all, one must suppose that if somebody is interesting enough to have a documentary made about them, then they must be interesting enough to sustain 90 minutes without the need for their story to be gussied up with stylistic bells and tricky whistles.

Still, watching as many of these sort of films as I do, it can grow tiresome and can take me out of whatever spell the filmmaker hopes to cast.

And then there is a movie like Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story. This is a film that it would be easy to pigeonhole before the opening scene has even begun - and it’s true that Alexandra Dean’s film adheres to a very traditional birth-to-death narrative. But what makes...

Above: Italian personality poster for Hedy Lamarr. Art by Sergio Gargiulo.Once promoted as “Hollywood’s No. 1 Glamour Girl,” Hedy Lamar (1914-2000) was much more than a pretty face, as the new documentary Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story gloriously attests. Born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler in Austria, Lamarr was catapulted to fame as the star of the scandalous 1933 Czech import Ecstasy, in which she appeared nude (and ecstatic). In America she became one of the biggest stars of the 1940s, often called the most beautiful woman in Hollywood, a designation she thought of as a curse. But she was also blessed with a curious and inventive mind. As an amateur inventor she pioneered what is known as “frequency hopping” during World War II to prevent the Nazis jamming Allied torpedoes, a technology which has become the basis of Bluetooth and Wi-fi. With that in mind, it might seem perverse to...

Hedy Lamarr was one of Hollywood's most beautiful stars. She was known for her amazing face and propensity to stand up for herself in the old Hollywood boy's club -- a feminist before the word was invented.  But it wasn't widely known that she was also smart as hell; in fact, she was the inventor of the frequency hopping technology that secure wifi, bluetooth, cell phones, military tech, and Gps all use. Sadly, we learn in Alexandra Dean's eye-opening doc, Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story, that she was largely ignored because of her looks and Hollywood status. Lamarr had delivered her patent (created with friend and composer George Antheil) to the U.S. Navy with hopes of helping defeat the Nazis in World War II --...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

I’d imagine every one of us, despite our individual life situations, however privileged or difficult they may be, wouldn’t have too much trouble coming up with a pretty long list of people and circumstances for which to be grateful, during the upcoming week traditionally reserved for the expression of thanks as well as throughout the entirety of the year.

Even in our brave new world, where gratitude and humility and generosity of spirit often seem to be in short supply, at the mercy of greed, abuse of power, disregard for the rule of law, and megalomaniac self-interest cynically masquerading as an aggressive strain of nationalist, populist passion, there are good, everyday reasons to look around and take stock of blessings in one’s immediate surroundings.

And speaking specifically as one who has the privilege and opportunity to occasionally write about matters concerning the movies, and even a (very...

The tell-all “autobiography” Ecstasy and Me: My Life As A Woman was exactly what Hedy Lamarr’s agent wanted to make quick money. But it wasn’t her life. Whether her ghostwriter’s words were true or not, the story dealt with everything she hoped wouldn’t define her legacy. Sadly she never had the chance to set the record straight with a follow-up of her own creation despite ambitions for one. The former Hollywood starlet became a recluse, barely seen in public and hardly in a position to be listened to or believed. And yet there were rumors — clear-cut facts actually — that Lamarr did much more than act, dance, and sell war bonds. The truth had her being the inventor of a patent with an estimated market value of $30 billion. Hedy Lamarr was a trendsetting genius and no one knew.

So of course director Alexandra Dean would want to...

MaryAnn’s quick take… The infuriatingly tragic true story of the Hollywood superstar whose brain was ignored because she was beautiful. A stupendous tribute to a remarkable woman. I’m “biast” (pro): I’m desperate for stories about women, especially true ones that have gone untold

I’m “biast” (con): nothing

(what is this about? see my critic’s minifesto)

If you were crafting a parable to explain how our culture values women for nothing but our looks and denies our intelligence, you might come up with something like what happened to Hedy Lamarr… though your parable could legitimately be criticized as too on-the-nose, too absurd to be taken even as metaphor. “What’s that? The most beautiful woman in the world is also a brilliant inventor, whose astonishingly creative idea would radically reshape civilization, but only decades after her work was denied, ignored, and belittled because she...

The Thanksgiving holiday is often a very busy weekend at the box office, with studios putting out some of their most highly-anticipated movies on the Wednesday before Turkey Day. Perhaps indicative of the sagging box office trend in 2017, that is not the case this year, with Disney Pixar's Coco being the only major studio movie to open in wide release. Bleecker Street's The Man Who Invented Christmas is also opening nationwide alongside Paramount's expanding drama Roman J. Israel, Esq., although neither of those movies is expected to give Coco much competition. We're projecting that Coco will take the top spot with $60.2 million over the three day-weekend, and $92.6 million over the five-day holiday weekend, while the box office disappointment that is Justice League likely poised for a huge drop in the coming days.

If Disney Pixar's Coco does hit its projection, it will mark a decent three-day improvement over its last outing,...

Warner Bros.' Justice League, the studio's fourth Dceu entry, was expected to easily top the box office this weekend, although it came in far under even the most modest of expectations. The Dceu superhero ensemble had no trouble taking the top spot and beating other newcomers like Wonder and The Star, but it failed to hit its projections, coming in far below most expectations with $96 million. Wonder did manage to overperform, coming in above expectations with a solid $27 million in its opening weekend in second place.

Back in September, box office analysts put Justice League's opening weekend at $150 million, coming in just shy of the $166 million of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Last month, those numbers dipped even more, with analysts predicting an opening weekend between $110 million and $120 million, and while some thought it may exceed those more modest expectations, it still managed to fall quite short of most projections,...

After two weeks in a row of box office dominance, Thor: Ragnarok will certainly not come out on top this weekend, with that honor almost certainly going to Warner Bros. Justice League. Unlike most Marvel movies, this Dceu movie does have some competition in wide release, with the Lionsgate drama Wonder, starring Julia Roberts and Jacob Tremblay, and Sony's animated biblical tale The Star, although none of those movies will come anywhere close to Justice League. We're predicting that Justice League comes in just a bit over its latest box office projections, taking in $126.7 million.

In late October, the latest Justice League box office tracking put the superhero ensemble between $110 million and $120 million, an opening weekend which comes in below both Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice ($166 million) and Suicide Squad ($133.6 million), but above the opening weekend of Wonder Woman ($103.2 million). Ironically, Wonder Woman ($412.5 million) ended up besting both Batman...

Hedy Lamarr lived the glamorous life of a Golden Age Hollywood actress, starring alongside legends like Clark Gable and Judy Garland in over 18 films during the 1940s. But the Austrian star — widely hailed during her time as the most beautiful woman alive — also had a secret second life as a successful wartime inventor.

Lamarr’s intriguing life — and her tragic end as a recluse — is the subject of the new documentary Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story. Co-executive-produced by Susan Sarandon and directed by Alexandra Dean, the documentary takes a deep dive into the unknown story behind one of Hollywood’s most alluring stars.

One hundred seventy features have been submitted for consideration in the Documentary Feature category for the 90th Academy Awards. That’s 25 more than 2016. Assuming they all book their qualifying runs in New York and Los Angeles, the members of the documentary branch have just a few more weeks to see as many films as possible and file their votes for the shortlist of 15 to be announced in December. They’re each supposed to watch an assigned list of about 20 films, plus as many more as they can.

Read More:2018 Oscar Predictions: Best Documentary Feature

It’s possible for documentaries to also vie for Best Picture, although it is rare. Among this year’s most lauded features are “City of Ghosts,” “Faces Places,” “Jane,” “Kedi” and “One of Us.”

The submitted features, listed in alphabetical order, are:

“Abacus: Small Enough to Jail”

“Aida’s Secrets”

“Al Di Qua”

“All the Rage...

One hundred seventy features have been submitted for consideration in the Documentary Feature category for the 90th Academy Awards. That’s 25 more than 2016. Assuming they all book their qualifying runs in New York and Los Angeles, the members of the documentary branch have just a few more weeks to see as many films as possible and file their votes for the shortlist of 15 to be announced in December. They’re each supposed to watch an assigned list of about 20 films, plus as many more as they can.

Read More:2018 Oscar Predictions: Best Documentary Feature

It’s possible for documentaries to also vie for Best Picture, although it is rare. Among this year’s most lauded features are “City of Ghosts,” “Faces Places,” “Jane,” “Kedi” and “One of Us.”

The submitted features, listed in alphabetical order, are:

“Abacus: Small Enough to Jail”

“Aida’s Secrets”

“Al Di Qua”

“All the Rage...

Zeitgeist Films and Kino Lorber have teamed to acquire Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story, the documentary that bowed in the spring at the Tribeca Film Festival. The pic directed by Alexandra Dean and executive produced by Susan Sarandon will bow November 24 at the IFC Center in New York with a national rollout to follow. Lamarr was one of the most famous Hollywood actresses of the 1930s and ’40s but also a scientist and inventor. She perfected a radio system to throw Nazi…...

Eighth season of outdoor screening series kicks off on June 29 in Newport, Rhode Island.

newportFILM has announced its line-up of documentaries for the annual summer series newportFILM Outdoors, with guests including Clive Davis, Wendy Whelan, Dr. Jim Yong Kim, and Rory Kennedy.

The sunset screenings begin on June 29 and run through August 31, with weekly Thursday night screenings accompanied by pre-film live music and post-screening conversations with filmmakers. Film screenings are free to the public.

newportFILM Outdoors will open with Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story at the Redwood Library & Athenaeum. The film centres on the 1940s film whose work as an inventor helped revolutionise modern communication.

Also screening are Clive Davis: The Soundtrack Of Our Lives, to be followed by a conversation with Davis himself; May It Last: A Portrait Of The Avett Brothers from Judd Apatow and Michael Bonfiglio; and Linda Saffire and Adam Schelsinger’s Restless Creature: Wendy Whelan, followed by a conversation...

Exclusive: Company wracks up deals on Cannes slate.

UK documentary specialist Dogwoof has inked a series of deals on its sales slate.

Westwood, Lorna Tucker’s film about fashion icon Vivienne Westwood, has sold to Japan (Kadokawa), Germany, Austria, Switzerland (Nfp), Australia and Nz (Madman), China (Tencent), and Hong Kong (Edko).

Currently in post-production ahead of delivery in autumn 2017, the film is being produced by John Battsek of Passion Pictures.

78/52, Alexandre O.Philippe’s feature which explores the iconic shower scene from Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, has gone to Australia and New Zealand (Monster), Italy (Koch Media), China (Huanxi Media), Spain (A Contracorriente), France (Films Distribution). The film premiered at Sundance and played SXSW. Watch a clip below.

Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story, Alexandra Dean’s film about the Hollywood career and life of Hedy Lamarr, has sold to Australia and New Zealand (Madman). The film was produced by Susan Sarandon and narrated by Diane Kruger. Previously...

Chicago – The 16th Tribeca Film Festival wrapped last Sunday (April 30, 2017) and the award-winning films of the festival have been named. Patrick McDonald of HollywoodChicago.com was there for the first week of Tribeca and files his personal best of the films he experienced.

This is Patrick switching to first person, and I was able to see 13 media and film works, and took a turn in the “Immersive” or Virtual Reality arcade (there will a separate article on that experience). I sampled TV, short films, documentaries and narrative films, and rank them from first preferred on down, but honestly I didn’t see anything that I didn’t like, which is a testament to the programmers of this iconic film festival.

The following are the prime 13, and an indication of when they are scheduled to release…

“Flower”

’Flower,’ Directed by Max Winkler

Photo credit: Tribeca Film Festival

What seems like a “Juno” rip-off,...

Even a fairly serious classic-Hollywood buff could be forgiven for not knowing much about Hedy Lamarr, an actress whose beauty was far more impressive than her filmography. But as Alexandra Dean's eye-opening Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story shows, Lamarr's films were far from the most interesting thing about her. An entertaining argument that we should view the Austrian immigrant as an ahead-of-her-time woman trapped by the mores of the 1940s and '50s, the doc has art house appeal and afterward would make a wonderful fit for TCM, whose late host Robert Osborne (a close friend of the star's) makes several...