News

Known as the Queen of Screwball Comedy, Carole Lombard was one of the biggest stars during the early days of Hollywood's Golden Age, gaining prominence for classic screwball comedies such as Twentieth Century, My Man Godfrey, and To Be or Not to Be. Born in Fort Wayne, Indiana, Lombard started in B-list dramas but eventually found her niche and immense success in comedy, becoming a pillar of the screwball and romantic comedy genres.

What are the defining traits of a character actor? Why is a shapeshifting virtuoso like Daniel Day-Lewis considered a full-blown movie star, while a chameleon-like genius like Giancarlo Esposito is routinely relegated to supporting player status? As previously discussed here at /Film, there are multiple factors at play: box office, deeply ingrained cultural notions of physical attractiveness, distinctive utility, and the Borgnine Paradox.

It should come as no surprise that my solo endeavor to arrive at a solid-ish definition of "character actor" is not the first in the history of the written word. There have been many, many attempts by whole groups of esteemed journalists to get at some kind of reasonable understanding of this term/concept, and, having read more than a few of them, I can assure you that there is no hard-fast rule. You could call just about everyone outside of Britney Spears a character actor --...

Julien’s Auctions, the Beverly Hills-based company that specializes in movie memorabilia, drew sharp criticism on Friday for listing a fragment for sale from the plane crash that killed actress Carole Lombard in 1942.

The item is offered as part of the “Danger, Disaster and Disco” lot, which runs from June 12-14 and is cosponsored by Turner Classic Movies. The starting bid is $250, with the piece of wreckage valued at between $1,000 and $2,000.

Film historian Olympia Kiriakou tweeted, “It’s quite despicable that @JuliensAuctions is selling a piece of mangled plane debris from the crash that killed Carole Lombard.”

Her tweet was shared by X user Frank Wells, who wrote, “I’m trying to figure what kind of ghoul would want this in their home, certainly not an actual Carole Lombard fan. And do what with it? Display? Trot it out at parties? ‘Hey, check this out….'”

One X user called the auction “horrible and macabre,...

Man's Castle.“When you’re dead, you get a hunk of earth. When you’re alive, all you’ve got is that hunk of blue.” This is how Bill (Spencer Tracy), the restless hero of Frank Borzage’s Man’s Castle (1933), explains his insistence on sleeping under the open sky. Borzage’s films always cast their eyes heavenward with exalted sincerity; they offer no sop to modern irony or cynicism. No one should watch them who is not prepared to be enraptured.The essence of Borzage’s romanticism resides in the enchanted spaces his lovers create together: sometimes a semi-permanent home, like the Parisian garret in 7th Heaven (1927), at other times a fleeting idyll of shared fantasy, like the abandoned plantation mansion where the outcast couple in Moonrise (1948) waltz amid the shadows and cobwebs. These magical playhouses are spaces of care and refuge as much as dreamy eroticism; in Man’s Castle,...

Clockwise from top left: Priceless (Screengrab); 2 Days In Paris (Screengrab); Jeffrey (Screengrab); Something’s Gotta Give (Screengrab); The Big Sick (Amazon/Lionsgate); My Man Godfrey (Screengrab)

Lovers of romantic comedies have an array of options on Amazon Prime Video—particularly when it comes to oldies but goodies. Cary Grant classics abound,...

Dashiell Hammett didn't invent detective fiction, he just perfected it — partially because he knew good and goddamn well of what he wrote. The high school dropout landed a gig with the Pinkerton National Detective Agency and evidently saw the worst side of the profession when his employer got fat off industrial cash by assigning their operatives to muscle, if not kill labor organizers. Years later, he laced his first published novel, "Red Harvest," with the bitter conscience of a man who witnessed evil but out of self-preservation did nothing.

Much of Hammett's work stings like a day drunk's swallow of rotgut whiskey, a belt they absorb over and over again to escape the awfulness of a world they cannot change in any meaningful way. The Continental Op eradicating a cluster of cold-blooded thugs with the 20-steps-ahead cool of a chess grandmaster in "Red Harvest" is so satisfying it's provided the foundation for several brilliant films.

(Welcome to Did They Get It Right?, a series where we look at Oscars categories from yesteryear and examine whether the Academy's winners stand the test of time.)

If you were to guess who the most nominated director was in the history of the Academy Awards, who would you guess? Maybe you'd say Steven Spielberg, who has made films for a half-century that have been beloved by millions. Or maybe you're inclination was to guess Martin Scorsese, given his level of simultaneous mainstream acclaim and critical adoration. Or maybe you'd go back to the golden age of Hollywood and guess someone like Frank Capra or John Ford, filmmakers fundamental to establishing what popular American cinema was and directed many films still revered today. In reality, it's not any of these people.

It may come as a surprise to learn that the most nominated director of all time is William Wyler.

Screwball comedy is a subgenre of romantic comedy that saw its classic period run from the mid-1930s until the mid-1940s. Directors such as Frank Capra, Preston Sturges, and Howard Hawks, along with stars such as Cary Grant, Carole Lombard, William Powell, and Katharine Hepburn, all helped shape the foundation of the genre.

Screwball comedies are distinguishable from stereotypical romantic comedies because screwballs typically spoof notions of love rather than emphasize romantic ideals. Common elements found in screwball comedies are rapid-fire overlapping dialogue, zany slapstick antics, mistaken identities, and a battle of the sexes narrative. Many of cinema's classic screwball comedies rank among Hollywood's funniest films.

Related: 10 Rom-Coms Critics Loved But Audiences Hated

The Awful Truth (1937)

Leo McCarey's The Awful Truth is a screwball comedy starring Cary Grant and Irene Dunne as a wealthy couple who decide to divorce but end up trying to sabotage each other's subsequent romantic conquests.

Jessica Lange came by her restlessness naturally. Born on April 20, 1949, to a stay-at-home mom and a traveling salesman father who moved the family all over the state of Minnesota, she quickly became acclimated to the process of re-acclimating. Eventually, the need for stabilization lost its appeal. Three years into studying art and photography at the University of Minnesota, she married Spanish photographer Paco Grande, at which point their shared wanderlust took them all over the United States and Mexico. The pair split upon moving to Paris, where Lange discovered Étienne Decroux and corporeal mime -- which departs from the conventional white-faced japery you're familiar with, and seeks to find abstract poetry in the movement of people and things.

Lange possessed the soul of a poet, but found this form of performance emotionally unrewarding, so she decamped for New York City to study acting with Mira Rostova at Hb Studio. She...

Ted McGinley, Julia Montgomery, Robert Carradine in Revenge Of The Nerds. Image: 20th Century Fox In No Hard Feelings, Jennifer Lawrence plays Maddie, a floundering 32-year-old so down on her luck she’s willing to make a deal with the parents of a sheltered 19-year-old to “date” him in exchange...

Jennifer Lawrence and Andrew Barth Feldman in No Hard FeelingsPhoto: Macall Polay/Sony Pictures Entertainment

In No Hard Feelings, Jennifer Lawrence plays Maddie, a floundering 32-year-old so down on her luck she’s willing to make a deal with the parents of a sheltered 19-year-old to “date” him in exchange...

Films like Bringing Up Baby and My Man Godfrey are timeless screwball comedies and notable classic movies from the early days of American cinema. The screwball comedy was born in the 1930s and gained significant popularity as a humorous escape for many Americans at the time. Screwball comedies continued to flourish into the 1940s with box office hits such as Howard Hawks' His Girl Friday and To Be or Not to Be.

For only the eighth time ever and first time since 1978, multiple films have simultaneously received at least four Oscar nominations for acting. “The Banshees of Inisherin” and “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” which earned a collective total of 20 academy notices, are now the 39th and 40th films to have four or more of their performers recognized, and they could soon be added to the list of 25 films of this kind that scored at least one acting win. However, it is possible that one or both could follow the 13 other movies – including “The Power of the Dog” (2022) – that lost on all of their acting bids.

“The Banshees of Inisherin” and “Everything Everywhere All at Once” each ended up with one lead acting notice, for Colin Farrell and Michelle Yeoh, respectively. Farrell’s three nominated supporting cast mates are Kerry Condon, Brendan Gleeson, and Barry Keoghan, while Yeoh’s are Jamie Lee Curtis,...

Bringing Up Baby, His Girl Friday, It Happened One Night, My Man Godfrey, The Awful Truth — welcome, one and all, to the all-too-brief era of the screwball comedy. From the mid-1930s to the early 1940s, theatergoers couldn't toss a stick without hitting banter speedy enough to make Fast and Furious racing scenes blanch, ludicrous plot MacGuffins, the biggest stars of the day merrily making fools of themselves, and slapstick stunts so outrageous that no one would survive a real life equivalent. Roughly a decade after the sub-genre's inception, however, its heyday had already come and gone without so much as a Mid-Atlantic accented "by your leave." What caused this style to burn out almost as fast as it arrived?...

Clockwise from top left: Priceless (Screengrab); 2 Days In Paris (Screengrab); Jeffrey (Screengrab); Something’s Gotta Give (Screengrab); The Big Sick (Amazon/Lionsgate); My Man Godfrey (Screengrab) Lovers of romantic comedies have an array of options on Amazon Prime Video—particularly when it comes to oldies but goodies. Cary Grant classics abound,...

Click here to read the full article.

It’s a foolhardy plan to craft a film almost entirely around the onscreen chemistry between two movie stars and hope for the best. But when those stars are George Clooney and Julia Roberts, the combustive power of their pairing will go a long-ish way. Thinly scripted rom-com Ticket to Paradise puffs its way through 104 minutes mostly on the vapors of its lead actors gassing around together, albeit with an assist from spectacular Australian scenery standing in for Bali.

It’s the first time the actors have been paired on screen since dreary hostage drama Money Monster (2016), and it’s their first proper comedy together since they made those first two highly enjoyable Ocean’s movies with Steven Soderbergh at the helm back in the aughts. In fact, it’s the first time in a while either of them have done anything substantial...

In addition to being this year’s Oscar nominations leader with a dozen bids across 11 categories, “The Power of the Dog” is the 38th film in the academy’s 94-year history to amass at least four acting nominations. Star Benedict Cumberbatch is up for the Best Actor award, while his castmates Kirsten Dunst, Jesse Plemons, and Kodi Smit-McPhee have all been recognized as supporting players. In a matter of weeks, their film will either be the 26th to score at least one win from four or more acting bids or the 13th to lose them all.

On average, a film of this kind earns a total of 10 nominations. 33 of them have received Best Picture bids and 13 have won the top honor. “The Power of the Dog” is nominated there as well as in the next seven non-acting categories where its predecessors have most often landed: Best Director (33; 12 wins), Best Film...

To lose ourselves in a world of winks and wisecracks from quick-witted showgirls, ditzy heiresses and fast-talking career women may seem like a borderline irresponsible choice in These Troubled Times. But the blast of pure pleasure that is the Berlin Film Festival’s 27-movie tribute to Mae West, Rosalind Russell and Carole Lombard is an act of cinematic self-care with a precedent. The “No Angels” Retrospective, which co-ordinator Annika Haupts says was conceived as “mood-lightening” counter-programming during Germany’s first corona lockdown, comprises comedies that were themselves developed during America’s Great Depression. Spanning 1932 to 1943, there are ordained classics like “My Man Godfrey,” “His Girl Friday,” “Twentieth Century,” “To Be or Not to Be” and “The Women.” But there’s also a trove of less well-known treasures, united by irreverence and leading ladies whose charisma transforms the contrivances of Hayes Code-era Hollywood into escapism so effervescent it froths the blues away.

In the two dozen years since Paul Thomas Anderson first became an Oscar nominee, he has received seven more bids across four categories, the two most recent of which came in 2018 for “Phantom Thread” (Best Picture; Best Director). He has also directed nine nominated performances that span three of the four acting categories; to date, no Anderson film has ever figured in a Best Actress lineup. But now, Alana Haim (“Licorice Pizza”) could make history as the first to do so.

Haim, whose performance in “Licorice Pizza” marks her film debut, ranks ninth in our Best Actress odds but that should change based on her surprise BAFTA bid. Those running ahead of her are four women snubbed by the BAFTAs — Olivia Colman (“The Lost Daughter”), Nicole Kidman (“Being the Ricardos”), Jessica Chastain (“The Eyes of Tammy Faye”) and Kristen Stewart (“Spencer”) — plus Lady Gaga (“House of Gucci”), Penélope Cruz (“Parallel Mothers...

The Notebook Primer introduces readers to some of the most important figures, films, genres, and movements in film history.Twentieth CenturyA common misconception about 1930s Hollywood cinema is that escapism was the trend du jour. The ubiquity of genres like historical melodramas and musicals indicates that rationale may be true to an extent, but even the most fantastic films were grounded in some semblance of social realism. And how could they not be? With nearly one in four Americans out of work by 1933 and a slow-but-stable economic recovery stimulated by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal program, the bleakness of the Great Depression and the disparity between the haves and have-nots was an omnipresent thread throughout the decade’s popular culture. Like any major American industry, Hollywood was formative to the public’s perception of culture and politics, and the movies were a temperature gauge of the decade’s cultural climate.

Hello, dear readers! November is officially upon us, as well as a new week of Blu-ray and DVD releases, which means it’s time to make some room for more horror and sci-fi to fill your home entertainment shelves. One of this writer’s favorite indie genre movies of the year, Come True, is getting released to both Blu and DVD this week courtesy of Scream Factory, and Kino Lorber is showing some love to a pair of classic thrillers as well: The Spider Woman Strikes Back and The Mad Doctor. Other releases for November 2nd include The Banishing, Pig featuring Nicolas Cage, and The Spore.

The Banishing

From acclaimed genre director Chris Smith (Creep) comes the true story of the most haunted house in England. A young reverend, his wife and daughter move into a manor with a horrifying secret. When a vengeful spirit haunts the little girl and...

On the August 30, 2021 episode of /Film Daily, /Film senior writer Ben Pearson is joined by news editor Hoai-Tran Bui to talk about what they've been up to at the virtual water cooler.

Opening Banter:

At The Water Cooler:

What we've been Doing: What we've been Reading: What we've been Watching:

Ben watched Riders of Justice, My Man Godfrey, Happier Than Ever: A Love Letter to Los Angeles, and The Package.

Hoai-Tran watched Dear Evan Hansen, Annette, Beastars season 2, finished Evil season 1.

What we've been Eating: What we've been Playing:

Also mentioned:

All the other stuff you need to know:

You...

The post Daily Podcast: Mini-Water Cooler, Annette, My Man Godfrey, Riders of Justice, Beastars, and More appeared first on /Film.

by Cláudio Alves

The Criterion Channel is honoring Carole Lombard with one of their latest collections. This curated sample of eleven films illuminates different talents in the Old Hollywood star's repertoire, from her comedic chops to less heralded, though not less excellent, work in melodramas. While she's best remembered as the queen of the screwball genre thanks to films like My Man Godfrey, Lombard was a multifaceted actress whose range deserves to be remembered. While her life was cut short by a tragic plane crash in 1942, the starlet's filmography is a thing of beauty, vast and distinctive, full of treasures to discover and enjoy…...

Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

Ahead of the Curve

In 1990, a 23-year-old named Frances “Franco” Stevens applied for multiple credit cards. When she was approved, she withdrew as much cash as she could from them, and used the money to launch Deneuve, one of the first lesbian magazines in the United States. In a fiction feature-length film, this moment would arrive halfway through the running time, the percussion in the score would tense as we saw an actor convey the fear and hopefulness of someone attempting something bold and risky. A mellow piano would probably announce that this is “the” make or break moment for our heroine. – Jose S. (full review)

Where to Stream: VOD

Bad Tales (D’Innocenzo Brothers)

Amid the litany of horrors the biting little film Bad Tales presents,...

The Criterion Channel has unveiled their lineup for next month and it’s another strong slate, featuring retrospectives of Carole Lombard, John Waters, Robert Downey Sr., Luis García Berlanga, Jane Russell, and Rob Epstein & Jeffrey Friedman. Also in the lineup is new additions to their Queersighted series, notably Todd Haynes’ early film Poison (Safe is also premiering in a separate presentation), William Friedkin’s Cruising, and Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Teorama.

The new restorations of Manoel de Oliveira’s stunning Francisca and Francesco Rosi’s Christ Stopped at Eboli will join the channel, alongside Agnieszka Holland’s Spoor, Bong Joon Ho’s early short film Incoherence, and Luc Dardenne & Jean-Pierre Dardenne’s Rosetta.

See the lineup below and explore more on criterionchannel.com.

#Blackmendream, Shikeith, 2014

12 Angry Men, Sidney Lumet, 1957

About Tap, George T. Nierenberg, 1985

The AIDS Show, Peter Adair and Rob Epstein, 1986

The Assignation, Curtis Harrington, 1953

Aya of Yop City,...

On this day, March 4th, in Oscar history only...

1937 The 9th Academy Awards are held honoring the best of 1936. Historical epic Anthony Adverse wins the most Oscars (4) but showbiz biopic The Great Ziegfeld takes Best Picture. Some interesting things about this Oscar year: This was the first ceremony with the Supporting acting categories; My Man Godfrey became the first film nominated in all four acting categories and it remains the only film to achieve that without a parallel Best Picture nomination; The Story of Louis Pasteur earned the very weird now impossible distinction of being named both "Best Original Story" And "Best Adaptation"... the "Best Original Screenplay" category was not yet invented and it did not technically replace "Best Story" as they ran parallel for the first 16 years of Best Original Screenplay...

For this Oscar flashback, we’re throwing it back 70 years to the night of March 29, 1951. The affable Fred Astaire hosted for his first and only time, helming one of the most memorable ceremonies in Academy history. Two now-iconic films battled in a number of categories, with one setting Academy records that hold today. There were surprising wins in the acting categories, with Broadway being well-represented on the night that honors film. It was an especially great year for women, with two grande dames of film facing off for their now-legendary portrayals of aging actresses, and the Best Actress category being one of the best in the history of the Academy. One can almost hear Bette Davis saying, “Fasten your seatbelts. It’s going to be a bumpy night.”

On a night in which three of the four acting winners triumphed for roles they had also played on Broadway, it’s...

When the supporting acting Oscar categories were introduced in 1937, two films (“Dodsworth” and “Romeo and Juliet”) each received one lead and one supporting nomination. A third, “My Man Godfrey,” immediately made Oscar history by scoring a nomination in each of the four categories. In all three cases, the supporting nominees had less screen time than the corresponding leads, as was and continues to be expected.

The opposite did not occur until 1950, when John Ireland was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for a longer performance in “All the King’s Men” than the one given by his co-star, Best Actor-winner Broderick Crawford. Since then, 10 more supporting male nominees have boasted higher screen time totals than their lead-nominated co-stars. Here is a look at each instance, in order from lowest screen time difference to highest.

1997: William H. Macy (“Fargo”) – 27 minutes, 7 seconds

0 minutes, 38 seconds over Frances McDormand

“Fargo” begins as a story about...

6 random things that happened on this day in showbiz history...

1942 Movie star Carole Lombard, then married to the "King of Hollywood" Clark Gable, tragically dies in a plane crash on the way home from a war bond rally. She was just 33 but thankfully left behind stone cold comedy classics like Nothing Sacred, My Man Godfrey, and her last film, released posthumously, To Be Or Not To Be...

Exclusive: Acclaimed Miss Juneteenth writer-director Channing Godfrey Peoples has signed a first-look deal with UCP to write, produce and direct projects for the studio. As part of the deal, Godfrey Peoples is developing a TV adaptation of her critically praised film Miss Juneteenth.

“Channing is a filmmaker and storyteller who makes modern, diverse, topical stories, with an extra dose of visual sophistication,” said UCP President Beatrice Springborn “We loved the contemporary lens she brought to Miss Juneteenth in not only exploring, but celebrating what it means to be Black, young, and female. We are thrilled to partner with her to bring that vision, passion and immense talent to UCP.”

Miss Juneteenth premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival in U.S. Dramatic Competition and garnered rave reviews from audiences and critics. It currently sits at 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. It later won the Louis Black “Lone Star” Award at the 2020 SXSW Film...

With a screen time total of 18 minutes and 36 seconds, Laura Dern’s 2020 Best Supporting Actress-winning performance in “Marriage Story” was noted for its brevity. However, it ranks as the 24th shortest to ever win in the Oscar category, proving the academy’s particular and everlasting fondness for smaller supporting female roles. Here is a look at the 10 winners with the least amount of screen time. (And here’s the equivalent list for Best Supporting Actor.)

10. Jo Van Fleet (“East of Eden”)

15 minutes, 4 seconds (12.82% of the film)

After a decade of stage acting, Tony winner Jo Van Fleet earned an Oscar for her film debut as child abandoner and brothel operator Kate Ames. Many of the votes she received were likely in honor of her body of work in 1955, since she also had roles in two other Oscar-nominated films that year (“I’ll Cry Tomorrow” and “The Rose Tattoo”). Her few scenes in “East of Eden,...

Over here in the UK it may not be as widely known, but Juneteenth is a big deal in the States, as a day to celebrate the emancipation of the enslaved. This brilliant drama is about a Texan beauty pageant that commemorates that very day – and to mark the release of the movie we spoke to director Channing Godfrey Peoples, and impressive newcomer Alexis Chikaeze, who plays the young woman entering into the aforementioned competition.

We speak about the film’s pertinence, and how it fits into a current socio-political landscape, while we also get onto the subject of mother-daughter relationships, which is a prevalent theme within this production. Chikaeze speaks about wanting to continue performing as her career, and what it meant for her to study poet Maya Angelou for this role. Meanwhile Peoples speaks about the film industry and how she hopes it may change thanks to the BLM movement.

We told you. Remember the rules. You didn’t listen. Now we’re Back with an all new batch of guest recommendations featuring Blake Masters, Julien Nitzberg, Floyd Norman, Tuppence Middleton and Blaire Bercy.

Please support the Hollywood Food Coalition. Text “Give” to 323.402.5704 or visit https://hofoco.org/donate!

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

The Wild Angels (1966)

Spirits of the Dead (1966)

The Trip (1967)

Mooch Goes To Hollywood (1971)

Stalker (1979)

The Candidate (1972)

The Parallax View (1974)

Network (1976)

Sweet Smell of Success (1957)

Ace In The Hole (1951)

Margin Call (2011)

Death Wish (1974)

Death Wish (2018)

Seconds (1966)

Soylent Green (1973)

Rage (1972)

Assault on Wall Street (2013)

Repo Man (1984)

Elmer Gantry (1960)

The Train (1965)

Clouds of Sils Maria (2014)

Strange Brew (1983)

To Have And Have Not (1944)

Singin’ In The Rain (1952)

Easter Parade (1948)

The Band Wagon (1953)

Guys And Dolls (1955)

On The Town (1949)

Casablanca (1942)

The Dirt Gang (1972)

Back To The Future (1985)

The Maltese Falcon (1941)

The Big Sleep (1946)

Bomba, the Jungle Boy (1949)

My Man Godfrey...

Who is your favourite from each year in the 1930s? My current votes go like so though there are always more films to see so one must always reserve the right to change one's mind.

1930 Norma Shearer, The Divorcee 1931 Marie Dressler, Min & Bill 1932 Marlene Dietrich, Blonde Venus 1933 Greta Garbo, Queen Christina 1934 Claudette Colbert, It Happened One Night 1935 Katharine Hepburn, Alice Adams 1936 Carole Lombard, My Man Godfrey 1937 Irene Dunne, The Awful Truth 1938 Bette Davis, Jezebel 1939 Vivien Leigh, Gone With the Wind (though I'll admit to being somewhat torn because Dark Victory is my favourite pre 1950s Bette Davis performance)...

Carole Lombard came to Hollywood from the Midwest at the age of 7 and was making Westerns at Fox by age 9.

The legendary star of such classics as “My Man Godfrey” and “Twentieth Century” would rise to become a high-paid performer in the middle of the Depression. Lombard was known for her tomboy style, for throwing great parties, for her marriages to megastars William Powell and Clark Gable. She was also destined to be Hollywood’s first casualty of World War II. She was only 33 and at the peak of her career.

“Carole Lombard gave her life in the service of America,” Will Hays, president of Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, told Variety in January 1942 as the shock of Lombard’s death in a plane crash outside Las Vegas spread through the industry.

Daily Variety editor Arthur Ungar penned a page-one tribute to Lombard that led the Jan. 19, 1942, edition.

There’s a fascinating game of movie fandom that goes like this:

“What’s the greatest movie of [that year] or [that decade] that never got the love, or the reputation, it deserved?” If you’re talking about the 1980s, I wouldn’t hesitate to say that it’s Jonathan Demme’s “Something Wild.”

You’ve probably heard of it, and have probably never seen it. It came out near the end of 1986, and though it received a handful of good reviews, along with some fairly hostile ones, the movie was basically ignored. No one was buzzing about it; no one was seeking it out. Its two stars, Jeff Daniels and Melanie Griffith, connected on camera in a way that should have propelled each of them into the stratosphere, but the power of that spark never made it onto the cultural radar. As the villain, the film featured a seethingly handsome young actor named...

(Welcome to The Quarantine Stream, a new series where the /Film team shares what they’ve been watching while social distancing during the Covid-19 pandemic.) The Movie: My Man Godfrey Where You Can Stream It: Amazon Prime The Pitch: William Powell plays the titular Godfrey, a “forgotten man” living in a dump on the East River who is recruited […]

The post The Quarantine Stream: ‘My Man Godfrey’ is a Winning Screwball Comedy With a Conscience appeared first on /Film.

Continuing our series of writers recommending underseen films available to stream, a recommendation for a sly screwball comedy from 1936

Sometimes escapist films only need to take the audience a few steps, or city blocks, from reality. Gregory La Cava’s My Man Godfrey, a peerless comedy from Hollywood’s Golden Age, is a screwball with a social conscience. This 1936 classic is a glamorous 90 minutes of frivolity that doesn’t so much explore the divided society of the Great Depression, as take the imbalance between the haves and have-nots as the launchpad for a series of grimly bitter jokes. With slammers of punchlines.

Related: My streaming gem: why you should watch Results...

The anarchic director on good stuff to see for free including a stack of colourised black-and-white film treasures

What I do during lockdown … is pretty much what I would do anyway. Read books, stare at screens, listen to music, play with the dogs, go for walks. My wife Tod and I are very fortunate because we live in a rural area and there’s no prohibition against walking in Oregon! The images of honest British footpath walkers being harassed by police drones are most troubling. What will the cops do with the malefactors? Send ’em to court, and jail?

Anyway, as far as films are concerned we don’t have a good TV signal or a streaming contract so we’re limited to things that we can see for free. Fortunately, there is a considerable amount of good stuff for nothing if you dig for it! We watched Dead of Night...

by Cláudio Alves

Throughout Oscar history, 15 films have conquered nominations in all acting categories. 1936's My Man Godfrey was the first and David O. Russell's American Hustle is the most recent example. Many didn't deserve such honors, their bountiful Oscar haul being mostly a matter of awards buzz rather than undeniable excellence. That said, there are also movies that got tangentially close to this feat and deserved it but didn't get it. Upon rewatching Jerry Maguire (currently streaming on Netflix), I was surprised to realize Cameron Crowe's seminal comedy was one of those productions which deserved to enter that exclusive club of Oscar champions…...

This classy late-’30s Park Avenue romp gives us Katharine Heburn and Cary Grant at their best; Grant is especially good in a particularly demanding comedy role. The original play is warmed up a bit with comedy touches, and some pointed political barbs slip in there as well. The marvelous acting ensemble gives terrific material to favorites like Jean Dixon and Edward Everett Horton.

Holiday

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 1009

1938 / Color / 1:37 Academy / 95 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date January 7, 2020 / 39.95

Starring: Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, Doris Nolan, Lew Ayres, Edward Everett Horton, Henry Kolker, Binnie Barnes, Jean Dixon, Henry Daniell, Ann Doran.

Cinematography: Franz Planer

Film Editor: Al Clark, Otto Meyer

Original Music: Sidney Cutner

Written by Donald Ogden Stewart, Sidney Buchman from the play by Philip Barry

Produced by Everett Riskin

Directed by George Cukor

Holiday was written by Philip Barry, the playwright who tailored The Philadelphia Story for Katharine Hepburn.

Every filmmaker hopes to make a good movie, but sometimes the impact is bigger than expected.

Neon’s “Parasite” is one example of a 2019 film hitting a nerve. Writer-director Bong Joon Ho’s film has been praised for its originality and daring shifts in tone. It also has resonance due to its subject matter: the gap between the haves and the have-nots.

“Parasite” is only one of the year’s films that address this zeitgeist subject, also including “Hustlers,” “Joker,” “Knives Out” and the French “Les Miserables,” to name a few. It’s not a new theme: In prehistoric times, some people were no doubt troubled that other cave dwellers had more than they did.

But the subject found new expression in 19th century novels from writers including Victor Hugo and Charles Dickens. In 1902, Maxim Gorky’s play “The Lower Depths” was a sensation with its depiction of people at a homeless shelter.

“Marriage Story” looks like the only Oscar contender this season with a plausible shot at earning nominations in all four acting races, in large part because it’s one of the few films in the conversation with male and female co-leads. Only 15 other movies have accomplished that feat, which would make “Marriage” the 16th. But it’s even more impressive when you consider that it has only happened twice in the last 37 years.

According to the combined predictions of Gold Derby users, “Marriage Story” is a reasonably safe bet for Best Actress (Scarlett Johansson as an actress filing for divorce), Best Actor (Adam Driver as her husband fighting to retain custody of their son) and Best Supporting Actress (Laura Dern as Johansson’s lawyer). That leaves Best Supporting Actor, where Alan Alda is a contender for playing Driver’s kindly but out-of-his-depth attorney, but he’s an underdog according to...

Hepburn and Tracy. Loy and Powell. Garson and Pidgeon. They’re all iconic movie duos, and it’s time to add another: Bale and Adams. With three films together, Christian Bale and Amy Adams‘ joint filmography is much smaller than Myrna Loy and William Powell‘s 14, but Bale and Adams have done something none of any of these pairs have: They’ve received Oscar nominations for all three of their movies together so far.

Bale and Adams picked up Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress nominations Tuesday for “Vice.” This follows a Best Supporting Actor win for him and a Best Supporting Actress nomination for her for “The Fighter” (2010) and matching lead nominations for “American Hustle” ( 2013).

Before the Bale-Adams hat trick of nominations, no pair of co-stars had been nominated for the same film more than twice. Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon made eight pictures together, but were only jointly...

Whaddaya know, this new disc of the Carole Lombard / Fredric March comedy hit looks great, besting by far all previous videos and prints I’ve seen of the early (1937) Technicolor production. Hazel Flagg’s Madcap Manhattan Weekend now pops with brilliant hues. And a little digging tells us that Ben Hecht’s morbid premise is based on a real-life scandalous workplace tragedy called ‘The Living Dead Women.’

Nothing Sacred

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1937 / Color / 1:37 flat Academy / 74 min. / Street Date November 13, 2018 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Carole Lombard, Fredric March, Charles Winninger, Walter Connolly, Sig Ruman, Troy Brown, Max ‘Slapsie Maxie’ Rosenbloom, Margaret Hamilton, Olin Howland.

Cinematography: W. Howard Greene

Original Music: Oscar Levant

Written by Ben Hecht suggested by a story by James H. Street

Produced by David O. Selznick

Directed by William A. Wellman

Here’s something we didn’t expect to see. When I reviewed an older Kino disc of this title,...

One of the best ways to get yourselves into the Halloween spirit is by checking out the very first installment of Into the Dark, the brand new original series from Blumhouse TV and Hulu, that will be delivering up 12 horror films, debuting on the first Friday of every month, over the course of the next year. Kicking off the launch of Into the Dark is Paul Davis’ The Body, which is based on his 2013 award-winning short film of the very same name, expanding this story of a killer who must transport his latest victim to a new locale, and thankfully it happens to be Halloween night, which means a guy walking down the streets with a corpse in tow doesn’t seem all that weird.

Daily Dead recently checked in with Davis (this writer has proudly been covering his work across various mediums since his Beware the Moon days in...

Stars: Carole Lombard, William Powell, Gail Patrick, Eugene Pallette, Alice Brady | Written by Eric Hatch, Morrie Ryskind | Directed by Gregory La Cava

The fate of the stars of this socially-conscious screwball comedy, directed by former animator Gregory La Cava in 1936, couldn’t be more different. Carole Lombard was cruelly cut off in her prime, dying in a plane crash at the age of 33, while William Powell led a remarkably long life, marrying three times and beating cancer, before passing in 1984.

They show great chemistry in La Cava’s darkly comic fable. The rich WASPs of New York engage in a “Scavenger Hunt”, getting wasted and hunting down things no one else wants. This includes Godfrey (Powell), a homeless man living on a trash heap. He spurns the condescending Cornelia Bullock (Gail Patrick), but when her sister Irene (Lombard) takes an interest, he lets her take him back to the party,...

For my money this is the brightest, most endearing and wittiest ’30s comedy to be given the name ‘screwball.’ Everyone on screen is flawlessly magnificent — Carole Lombard, William Powell, Alice Brady, Gail Patrick, Jean Dixon, Eugene Pallette and Mischa Auer — and Gregory La Cava’s direction is so good, it’s invisible. No kidding, I’ve never watched this with a group or individual that didn’t immediately rank it among the best entertainments they’ve seen.

My Man Godfrey

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 114

1936 / B&W / 1:37 Academy / 93 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date September 18, 2018 / 39.95

Starring: William Powell, Carole Lombard, Alice Brady, Gail Patrick, Eugene Pallette, Alan Mowbray, Jean Dixon, Mischa Auer.

Cinematography: Ted Tetzlaff

Film Editors: Ted Kent, Russell Schoengarth

Original Music: Charles Previn

Written by Morrie Ryskind, Eric Hatch from his novel

Produced by Gregory La Cava, Charles R. Rogers

Directed by Gregory La Cava

Screwball...

by Nathaniel R

Today marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Alan Jay Lerner, one of the most crucial figures in the American songbook. The lyricist, librettist, and screenwriter was born in New York City. That's where he first made his mark, too, on Broadway with his first big hit Brigadoon in 1947. Soon he went Hollywood, working on original movie musicals as well as transfers of his famous work from the stage, and garnering 7 Oscar nominations and 3 wins. His career ended with The Little Prince (1974) but at the time of his death in 1986 he was working on a musical adaptation of My Man Godfrey and had started work on Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera, though his only efforts are in the song "Masquerade" (uncredited).

Earlier this summer I had the opportunity to moderate a screening of My Fair Lady (1964) and my guest was Amy Asch who...

It's never too late to receive good news, is it? I hope not, because I am terribly late in sharing information on the Criterion Collection's upcoming releases in September 2018. And it's a very good lineup, indeed. My eye was first drawn to My Man Godfrey, which I saw again a few weeks ago, wishing that it was on Blu-ray so I could enjoy the ace chemistry of William Powell and Carole Lombard in high definition. And behold! The detective comedy will arrive in September. Looking for something a little less familiar? How about Cold Water from filmmaker Olivier Assayas? The official verbiage says that the film has been "long-unavailable" and is a "coming-of-age masterpiece." If you'd like to decide for yourself, Criterion will make...

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