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Charlie Chaplin was one of the most influential figures in the early days of cinema, and his feature films represented some of the best that Old Hollywood had to offer. From his onscreen debut in 1914 to his eventual passing in 1977, Chaplin often pushed the boundaries of what was possible in film production, and his work always had an abundance of heart to go along with the laughs. Although he was most remembered for his Tramp character, Chaplin wasn't limited only to silent films and his body of work grew along with the film technology of the time.

Starting with his first feature film, The Kid in 1921, it was obvious that Chaplin was on the cutting edge of film production and every one of his early works often involved visual innovation as well as his signature humor. Charlie Chaplin used VFX long before CGI, and his works were usually only bound...

Actor Arjun Kapoor revealed that through his forthcoming films he will tackle diverse genres and challenge himself to deliver better performances. “As an actor, my journey in cinema has been of immense learning and growth. I feel I have finally found my groove in cinema and discovered what I truly want to do on screen. I have realised that I need to only do projects that bring me happiness and help me mature on screen,” said Arjun.

He added: “Sandeep Aur Pinky Faraar is one such film that has given me tremendous love and appreciation. I received acting accolades for this film and I can’t be thankful enough for this project.”

Arjun hopes to wow everyone again and earn rave reviews with Aasman Bhardwaj’s ‘Kuttey’ and Ajay Bahl’s ‘The Ladykiller’.

He said: “‘Kuttey’ is again that film which I feel will bring me a lot of joy and love and then,...

Actor Arjun Kapoor has just wrapped ‘Ek Villain 2’ and has dived headlong into the prep for his next, Ajay Bahl’s ‘The Ladykiller’ that he starts in the first week of April. Sources share that Arjun will head north for about a month to shoot this gritty suspense drama. A source says, “Arjun is not […]...

Bollywood actor Arjun Kapoor’s lineup for 2022 looks quite diverse and interesting. He will not only be seen showcasing his muscles in the entertainer ‘Ek Villain 2’ but will also flaunt his acting mettle in ‘Kuttey’ and ‘The Ladykiller’. The 36-year-old actor is happy that he is in a position to explore both spectrums of […]...

Léo Kouper, who passed away last week at the age of 94, was rather unusual among poster artists for having a special association with one filmmaker, his being Charlie Chaplin. From the early 1950s through the early ’70s Kouper created some of the most striking and charming Chaplin poster designs for almost all his feature films. Born in Paris on August 20, 1926, Kouper was mentored from the age of 19 by the great French poster artist Hervé Morvan (1917-1980) who was nine years his senior. Morvan did his fair share of movie posters, including a stunning double panel Grand Illusion, but is best known for his bold, colorful, child-like illustrations advertising French products like Gitanes, Perrier and Lanvin Chocolate.Kouper’s illustration work is in a similar faux naïf style to Morvan’s and its simplicity and charm no doubt appealed to Chaplin over the years. His first Chaplin poster, seen above, was...

To celebrate Variety’s 115th anniversary, we went to the archives to see how some of Hollywood’s biggest stars first landed in the pages of our magazine. Read more from the archives here.

Variety first mentioned Charles Chaplin, as he was billed, in his American stage debut, before he had made any films. In 1910, the British-born entertainer was appearing in a revue, “The Wow Wows,” at New York’s Colonial Theater. The review said the 29-minute show was performed in three scenes, describing Chaplin as “typically English,” with a manner that was “quiet and easy” as a group pretends to initiate him into a secret society, but they’re really getting revenge on him. Variety said the show dragged when Chaplin wasn’t onstage, and predicted he “will do all right for America.”

He did more than all right. He started in films in 1914, eventually writing, directing, acting and composing music scores,...

Exclusive: This year’s Hainan Island International Film Festival (December 5 – 12) will host China’s biggest retrospective of Charlie Chaplin films.

The event will host 20 screenings of Chaplin films across the island, encompassing five of his classic comedies: Modern Times, The Kid, City Lights, The Great Dictator and Monsieur Verdoux. The fest is also looking into touring the films around major Chinese cities at a later date.

Chaplin visited China in 1936 and 29 of his films were released in the country between 1919 and 1924. Despite that connection, there has yet to be a significant retrospective of his works in the country to date. Last year’s Hainan film festival hosted a screening of Chaplin’s The Gold Rush.

The deal was brokered by the UK-China Film Collab with Trinity CineAsia, a leading distributor of Chinese films in Europe, and licensed by rights holder Mk2 Films, which represents the filmmaker’s library internationally.

“We...

Charlie Chaplin would’ve celebrated his 131st birthday on April 16, 2020. The silent movie comedian was a trailblazing writer, director, producer and performer, paving the way for the likes of Woody Allen, Albert Brooks and several other funny filmmakers who followed in his footsteps. In honor of his birthday, let’s take a look back at all 11 of the feature films he directed, ranked worst to best.

Born in London, England, in 1889, Chaplin grew up in extreme poverty with an absent father and a mother who was committed to a mental institution when he was 14. He began performing in music halls at an early age, traveling to America to find work in the burgeoning film industry. It was at Keystone Studios that he created the Little Tramp, a lovable vagabond who finds himself in one hilarious situation after another.

He transitioned into directing with a series of shorts before helming his first feature,...

Since any New York City cinephile has a nearly suffocating wealth of theatrical options, we figured it’d be best to compile some of the more worthwhile repertory showings into one handy list. Displayed below are a few of the city’s most reliable theaters and links to screenings of their weekend offerings — films you’re not likely to see in a theater again anytime soon, and many of which are, also, on 35mm. If you have a chance to attend any of these, we’re of the mind that it’s time extremely well-spent.

Museum of the Moving Image

A major Terrence Malick retrospective has begun.

“No Joke: Absurd Comedy as Political Reality” ends with the staggering The Trial and Monsieur Verdoux.

Film Forum

Films on the Romanian revolution are showcased in a new series.

Ozu’s Tokyo Twilight screens in a restored version.

Films by George Roy Hill...

Charlie Chaplin would’ve celebrated his 130th birthday on April 16, 2019. The silent movie comedian was a trailblazing writer, director, producer and performer, paving the way for the likes of Woody Allen, Albert Brooks and several other funny filmmakers who followed in his footsteps. In honor of his birthday, let’s take a look back at all 11 of the feature films he directed, ranked worst to best.

Born in London, England, in 1889, Chaplin grew up in extreme poverty with an absent father and a mother who was committed to a mental institution when he was 14. He began performing in music halls at an early age, traveling to America to find work in the burgeoning film industry. It was at Keystone Studios that he created the Little Tramp, a lovable vagabond who finds himself in one hilarious situation after another.

SEEThe Marx Brothers movies: All 13 films ranked from worst to best

He...

It was just three years ago that Spike Lee collected an Honorary Oscar, which is often the academy’s way of rewarding an overdue veteran who hasn’t picked up a competitive prize. But the iconoclastic filmmaker seems poised to return to the awards race in a big way with the hard-hitting “BlacKkKlansman,” which has already earned him nominations from the Directors Guild, the Producers Guild, the Writers Guild and much more. Should Lee win Oscars for writing, directing or producing — or all three — he’d join an elite group of people who have taken home the gold in a competitive race after receiving a career-achievement award.

The last person to do this was Ennio Morricone, the legendary Italian composer who lost five Oscars for Best Original Score — “Days of Heaven” (1978), “The Mission” (1986), “The Untouchables” (1987), “Bugsy” (1991), and “Malena” (2000) — before being handed an honorary statuette in 2007. Several years later, however, he...

Jean-Luc Godard quipped that his criticism represented a kind of cinematic terrorism. Serge Daney said his writing taught him not to be afraid to see. The Parisian publishing house Post-Éditions has made available a long overdue collection of his articles in French to decide for ourselves. Jacques Rivette became a filmmaker even before he became a critic. When he came to Paris from Rouen in 1950, he had already completed a short film, unlike Truffaut, Godard, Rohmer or Chabrol, his colleagues-to-be at Cahiers du cinéma and later fellow New Wave directors. By his own admission, he never wanted to be a film critic, not in the traditional sense of the term. But, considering his own dictum that “a true critique of a film can only be another film,” he never ceased to be one. Textes Critiques as an object has the appearance of a cinephilic totem: half-a foot in size, portable,...

Filtered through her experience as an unequalled comic performer, writer-director Elaine May scores a bulls-eye with this grossly underappreciated gem, fashioned in a style that could be called ‘black comedy lite.’ And that’s the release version mangled by the producer. What might it have been if May had been allowed to finish her director’s cut?

A New Leaf Olive Signature

Blu-ray

Olive Films

1971 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 102 min. / Street Date December 5, 2017 / available through the Olive Films website / 29.99

Starring: Walter Matthau, Elaine May, Jack Weston, George Rose, James Coco, Doris Roberts, Renée Taylor, William Redfield, David Doyle.

Cinematography: Gayne Rescher

Original Music: Neal Hefti

Written by Elaine May from a story by Jack Ritchie

Produced by Hilliard Elkins, Howard W. Koch, Joseph Manduke

Directed by Elaine May

Olive’s next title up for Signature Collection status is A New Leaf, the directing debut of comedienne-writer Elaine May. It’s certainly a worthy title.

After polling critics from around the world for the greatest American films of all-time, BBC has now forged ahead in the attempt to get a consensus on the best comedies of all-time. After polling 253 film critics, including 118 women and 135 men, from 52 countries and six continents a simple, the list of the 100 greatest is now here.

Featuring canonical classics such as Some Like It Hot, Dr. Strangelove, Annie Hall, Duck Soup, Playtime, and more in the top 10, there’s some interesting observations looking at the rest of the list. Toni Erdmann is the most recent inclusion, while the highest Wes Anderson pick is The Royal Tenenbaums. There’s also a healthy dose of Chaplin and Lubitsch with four films each, and the recently departed Jerry Lewis has a pair of inclusions.

Check out the list below (and my ballot) and see more on their official site.

100. (tie) The King of Comedy (Martin Scorsese,...

Each month, the fine folks at FilmStruck and the Criterion Collection spend countless hours crafting their channels to highlight the many different types of films that they have in their streaming library. This July will feature an exciting assortment of films, as noted below.

To sign up for a free two-week trial here.

Saturday, July 1 Changing Faces

What does a face tell us even when it’s disguised or disfigured? And what does it conceal? Guest curator Imogen Sara Smith, a critic and author of the book In Lonely Places: Film Noir Beyond the City, assembles a series of films that revolve around enigmatic faces transformed by masks, scars, and surgery, including Georges Franju’s Eyes Without a Face (1960) and Hiroshi Teshigahara’s The Face of Another (1966).

Tuesday, July 4 Tuesday’s Short + Feature: Premature* and Ten*

Come hitch a ride with Norwegian director Gunhild Enger and the late Iranian master...

NEWSSofia Coppola has begun shooting her remake of Don Siegel's cult favorite The Beguiled, a genre defying Gothic about a Civil War soldier who recovers from injuries in an all-girl school in an old mansion in the South.American distributors Kino Lorber have launched a Kickstarter to fund "a collection of landmark American films directed by women, digitally restored from archive film elements." There's 16 days and a little over $10,000 to go to meet their goal. Give a helping hand if you can!Wellsnet reports on the excruciating wait for Orson Welles' unfinished film The Other Side of the World, whose crazy legal and editing history was supposed to have been resolved by now.Chinese director Jia Zhangke has opened a noodle restaurant named after his last film, Mountains May Depart, in Shanxi Province's Fenyang, the hometown of Jia and the setting of so many of his great movies.

Writer-director Sergio Sollima gives us one of the best 'political' Italo westerns from the pre- May '68 era... with two top stars in great form, Gian Maria Volontè and Tomas Milian. This two-disc German import has both the long and short versions of the movie in HD, with full language options for each. Face to Face (Faccia a faccia; Von Angesicht zu Angesicht) Region A+B Blu-ray Explosive Media (Alive) 1967 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 93, 112 min. / Street Date April 29, 2016 / available at Amazon.de / E 21,93 Starring Gian Maria Volontè, Tomas Milian, William Berger, Jolanda Modio, Gianni Rizzo, Carole André Ángel del Pozo, Aldo Sambrell, Antonio Casas, Lidia Alfonsi, John Karlsen, Gastone Moschin, G&eacutge;rard Tichy. Cinematography Raphael Pacheco Film Editor Eugenio Alabiso Original Music Ennio Morricone Art Direction and sets Carlo Simi Written by Sergio Donati, Sergio Sollima Produced by Arturo González, Alberto Grimaldi <Directed by Sergio Sollima

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Wow,...

Let’s start with this obvious point: few cities need another repertory outlet less than New York City, which provides enough decent-to-outstanding options every week (or day) to fully occupy any caring customer. And so when a new theater, Metrograph, was announced this past August, the largely enthusiastic response — people taking note of a good location, a dedication to celluloid presentations and new independent releases, its strong selection of programmers, and other services (e.g. a restaurant and “cinema-dedicated bookshop”) — went hand-in-hand with some people’s skepticism, or at least a certain raising of the eyebrows. The question of necessity was premature, but such is the influx of available material that it should inevitably come up.

It’s safe to say their first selections silenced those skeptics. Metrograph’s slate is strong in a way that’s uncommon; one could say it’s exactly the sort that a cinephile with...

Here are 10 Oscar moments that left us gobsmacked. Which winners, speeches, performances, fashions, and gaffes surprised you the most? Let us know in the comments below. 10. Charlie Chaplin Receives 12-Minute Standing Ovation (1972) It may not be surprising, exactly — after all, he earned it with "The Gold Rush," "City Lights," "Modern Times," and "The Great Dictator," among others — but the sheer length of the ovation Chaplin upon receiving an honorary Oscar in 1972 left the filmmaker himself nearly speechless. (Though he'd received a special award for "The Circus" in 1929, his remarkable career had, to that point, netted but three competitive nominations — two for "The Great Dictator" and one for "Monsieur Verdoux" — and no wins.) As perhaps the greatest of the silent cinema's actors and directors understood, there are times when "words seem so futile, so feeble," and this was surely one. 9. Roberto...

If one wishes to highlight what made Jacques Rivette a significant figure in the cinematic landscape, it’s key that they cite his cinephilia — the rabid sort that is uncommon in even our smartest voices, filmmaking or otherwise. More than one who saw a bunch of movies, though, the late, great director maintained a critical fashioned at Cahiers into our contemporary day, sharing a wide, sometimes unexpected range of thoughts on what made works of all kinds stand tall or fall apart.

All of which is to say that his list of favorite films should come from a wellspring of knowledge and passion. In any case, his selection, shared by critic Samuel Wigley — rather a selection, being that it’s from the 1962 Sight & Sound ballot — is a fine one for spanning from the form’s earlier days to its then-contemporary masters, and perhaps as an immediate window into the Cahiers critical mindset.

December 19th marks 35 years since the release of 9 to 5, the cult comedy that brought together Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin with Dolly Parton in her film debut as Miss Doralee Rhodes, a kind-hearted secretary who fantasizes about lassoing her "sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot" boss and roasting him on a spit.

Tomlin stars as Violet Newstead, a working widow and mother of four who's passed over for promotions despite her obvious qualifications. The project was conceived of by Jane Fonda, who was inspired by the work of Karen Nussbaum, an...

Since any New York City cinephile has a nearly suffocating wealth of theatrical options, we figured it’d be best to compile some of the more worthwhile repertory showings into one handy list. Displayed below are a few of the city’s most reliable theaters and links to screenings of their weekend offerings — films you’re not likely to see in a theater again anytime soon, and many of which are, also, on 35mm. If you have a chance to attend any of these, we’re of the mind that it’s time extremely well-spent.

Film Society of Lincoln Center

The release of Carol (our coverage can be found here) brings “Todd Haynes: The Other Side of Dreams,” which will pair the director’s work with his personal favorites. Safe and Imitation of Life show on Friday; on Saturday, see “Todd Haynes: Rarities” — which brings Dottie Gets Spanked,...

The advertising promised a surfeit of sleaze -- but the film is a superior thriller about a real-life, low-rent serial killers from back in the late 1940s. Tony Lo Bianco and the great Shirley Stoler are Ray and Martha, mixed-up lovers running a Merry Widow racket through the personals ads in romance magazines. Leonard Kastle's film is dramatically and psychologically sound, while the disc extras detail the true crime story, which is far, far, sleazier. The Honeymoon Killers Blu-ray The Criterion Collection 200 1969 / B&W / 1:85 widescreen / 107 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date September 29, 2015 / 39.95 Starring Shirley Stoler, Tony Lo Bianco, Mary Jane Higby, Doris Roberts, Kip McArdle, Marilyn Chris, Dortha Duckworth, Barbara Cason, Ann Harris Cinematography Oliver Wood Film Editor Richard Brophy, Stanley Warnow Music Gustav Mahler Produced by Warren Steibel Written and Directed by Leonard Kastle  

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

The ad campaign for this crime shocker...

It had been so long since I last saw Vittorio De Sica’s Bicycle Thieves—the last time being long before I started to become involved with movie posters—that I had forgotten that Antonio Ricci’s job at the start of the film, the job he so desperately needs a bicycle for, is pasting up movie posters.Researching De Sica posters to coincide with the current month-long restrospective at New York’s Film Forum I discovered that De Sica’s most famous film centers—as does the Shawshank Redemption, coincidentally—on a poster of Rita Hayworth. I had hoped that it would be a poster by Anselmo Ballester, who painted Hayworth gloriously many times, but the signature on the top right of the poster is clearly that of one T. Corbella. Tito Corbella (1885-1966) was an artist known for his sensuous portraits of Italian divas since the 1910s. Dave Kehr...

Though he would actually direct other features, including the ill received 1967 A Countess From Hong Kong, wherein Marlon Brando decided to be a mean girl to co-star Sophia Loren, and the neglected A King in New York (1957), many read the 1952 Limelight as Charles Chaplin’s ‘enduring’ final film. An appropriate approximation of his immortal Tramp character after fame has fallen away, the bittersweet tragicomedy wasn’t well-received at the time (though Bosley Crowther raved in The New York Times, hailing the film as “eloquent, tearful, and beguiling with supreme virtuosity”). McCarthyism succeeded in thwarting the film’s distribution, limiting the release to New York City and those labeling Chaplin a Communist picketed screenings where it did play. In the UK, the film’s release was less harried, with newcomer Claire Bloom securing a BAFTA win for Most Promising Newcomer. The film would receive a theatrical release for the first in Los Angeles twenty years later,...

Limelight

Written and directed by Charles Chaplin

USA, 1952

Rightly dubbed a “supreme auteur” by David Robinson, who provides a video essay on the newly released Criterion Collection Blu-ray of Limelight, Charlie Chaplin wore many hats in making this 1952 film. Aside from writing, directing, and starring in the picture, he was the producer, he arranged the score, and he choreographed the dance sequences, in addition to other supervisory duties behind the scenes. Part of the preparation for the film even included Chaplin penning a novel on which the movie was based, called Footlights, which was then adapted with great ease by the author. Set in 1914 London (about the time Chaplin had left England for America), Limelight is a basically familiar showbiz story, with one performer’s career on the wane as another’s is ripe for revival, but there is far more to this late Chaplin classic. For the great comedian,...

It was curious yesterday when The Lego Movie,” one of the best reviewed animated movies of 2014, couldn’t make the final cut in the Best Animated Film category at the Oscars. Just as curious yesterday, the film’s co-director Phil Lord called his own film “a classic.” To be fair to Lord, he’s not the first director to laud his own film. Case in point? Federico Fellini. The folks over at Open Culture have shared Fellini’s top 10 list from Sight And Sound and as expected, it’s very idiosyncratic. First of all, the list isn’t confined to only 10 selections —Fellini left the list open for as few as 12 movies to as many as 131. How? He had three Charlie Chaplin films tied for the top spot (“The Circus,” “City Lights” and “Monsieur Verdoux”) and declined to list a title for the next spot, opting instead to write “Any...

It's that time of year again and it's time to update the list for the second half of 2014 as Barnes & Noble has just kicked off their 50% off Criterion sale and as impossible a task as it is to cut things down to just a few titles, I have done my best to break Criterion's titles down into a few categories. Hopefully those looking for box sets, specific directors or what I think are absolute musts will find this makes things a little bit easier. Let's get to it... First Picks I was given the Zatoichi collection for Christmas last year and being a collection that holds 25 films and another disc full of supplementary material it is the absolute definition of a must buy when it comes to the Criterion Collection. It is, once again, on sale for $112.49, half off the Msrp of $224.99, and worth every penny. I spent the entire year going through it.

Barnes & Noble has just kicked off their 50% off Criterion sale and while it's impossible to suggest titles that will suit everyone looking to beef up their collection at this perfect time of year, I will do my best to offer some suggestions. Let's get to it... My Absolute First Pick I am almost done going through this collection and it was a collection I got for Christmas under these exact circumstances. Typically priced at $224.99, you can now get this amazing set of 25 Zatoichi films for only $112. Box sets, in my opinion, are what sales like this were made for. Zatoichi: The Blind Swordsman Next Ten Recommendations It isn't easy so this is a collection of just some of my favorite films (of all-time and within the collection) and a little variety, though pretty much my standard, go to Criterion first picks, especially if you are just starting out. Persona Breathless...

Mabel Normand in Fatty and Mabel Adrift (1916)

Mabel Normand is someone I knew more as a concept than as an actual screen personality. As Mack Sennett's one-again-off-again betrothed, and his favorite leading lady at Keystone, she helped discover Charlie Chaplin and threw the screen's first custard pie. And she was a wild girl who gave good copy. ("Say anything you like, but don't say I love to work. That sounds like Mary Pickford, that prissy bitch. Just say I like to pinch babies and twist their legs. And get drunk.")

I'd seen her in some early Chaplin films, typically rather disorganized affairs where she cries a lot and is almost crowded off the screen by rhubarbing clowns (Mabel's Busy Day, 1914). It was always a problem, making any impression amid the chaos of a Keystone movie, which is part of why Chaplin hated it. No room to breathe for the gags,...

The Moon, the opposite of the sun, hovers over us by night, the opposite of day. 

In F.W. Murnau’s Tabu (1931), Reri, the sacred maiden of the small island of Bora Bora, writes this to her lover Matahi: 

And indeed, when Matahi chases after her, the moon spreads its path on the sea.

He runs and swims after her, moving faster than a normal human being, defying the laws of gravity. 

Miraculously, he catches up to the boat. 

Thus, he must die, sinking back into a void…

…while ghost ships linger on in the distance…

…carrying another hopeless romantic, and a moving corpse—A second Nosferatu.

The moon is absent in Murnau’s earlier film, made nearly ten years before Tabu, but it is in the one he made nearly five years after Nosferatu, when George O’Brien leaves his wife for a midnight rendezvous with another woman. 

And indeed,...

Today sees the release of Soumik Sen’s Gulaab Gang. The first time director brought together a dream team for the highly anticipated film that includes Anubhav Sinha in his producer avatar and then two of India’s finest actresses to play the lead roles. In a radical and cool concept, Gulaab Gang takes the classic hero vs villain and turns it on its head, featuring Madhuri Dixit-Nene as good and Juhi Chawla as evil in a film all about female empowerment.

Synopsis:

Somewhere in the heartland, an ashram of sorts has been set up by ‘Rajjo’ (Madhuri Dixit), where women armed with axes and sickles and dressed in pink mete out evil and seek out justice for one and all, while making hand-ground spices, hand-woven baskets and sarees. But when the party she was campaigning for reveals its true colours, Rajjo knows she has a whole new battle ahead of her,...

City Lights

Written by Charles Chaplin

Directed by Charles Chaplin

USA, 1931

As they have with The Gold Rush, Modern Times, The Great Dictator, and Monsieur Verdoux, The Criterion Collection has released another stunning Blu-ray/DVD transfer of a Charlie Chaplin classic, rife with a surplus of features. City Lights (1931), which Criterion itself calls, “the most cherished film by Charlie Chaplin … his ultimate Little Tramp chronicle,” is certainly a film easy to love and admire; it’s The Tramp at his most endearingly hapless, his best of intentions always hilariously undermined, and it’s perhaps the most emotionally affecting Chaplin film.

The Kid has the unforgettable Jackie Coogan desperately reaching out for his newfound father figure, and throughout, the young boy and Chaplin tug at the heartstrings. But City Lights, especially with its transcendent final scene, trumps the more manipulatively straightforward sentiment in the earlier feature. Much has been made of this supremely effective conclusion,...

Amazon is having a massive sale on Criterion Collection titles, virtually all of them listed at 50% off and I have included more than 115 of the available titles directly below along with a selection of ten I consider must owns. Titles beyond my top ten include Amarcord, Christopher Nolan's Following, David Fincher's The Game, Stanley Kubrick's Paths of Glory and The Killing, Roman Polansk's Rosemary's Baby, Wes Anderson's The Royal Tenenbaums, Rushmore and The Darjeeling Limited and plenty of Terrence Malick. All the links lead directly to the Amazon website, so click on through with confidence. Small Note: By buying through the links below you help support RopeofSilicon.com as I get a small commission for the sales made through using these links. Thanks for reading and I appreciate your support. Top Ten Must Owns 8 1/2 (dir. Federico Fellini) 12 Angry Men (dir. Sidney Lumet) The 400 Blows (dir.

Amazon is having a massive sale on Criterion Collection titles, virtually all of them listed at 50% off and I have included more than 115 of the available titles directly below along with a selection of ten I consider must owns. Titles beyond my top ten include Amarcord, Christopher Nolan's Following, David Fincher's The Game, Stanley Kubrick's Paths of Glory and The Killing, Roman Polansk's Rosemary's Baby, Wes Anderson's The Royal Tenenbaums, Rushmore and The Darjeeling Limited and plenty of Terrence Malick. All the links lead directly to the Amazon website, so click on through with confidence. Small Note: By buying through the links below you help support RopeofSilicon.com as I get a small commission for the sales made through using these links. Thanks for reading and I appreciate your support. Top Ten Must Owns 8 1/2 (dir. Federico Fellini) 12 Angry Men (dir. Sidney Lumet) The 400 Blows (dir.

People tend to forget that Charlie Chaplin was more than The Tramp, his iconic mute character of physical peculiarity. Seven years after his baffoonic incarnation of Hitler in The Great Dictator, Chaplin bought the rights to a murderously bleak black comedy from Orson Welles and went to work on his most controversial work, Monsieur Verdoux. As a cunning killer of well-to-do middle aged housewives, Henri Verdoux showcased Chaplin’s crisp, flamboyant diction by playing against type. Never before had he played a deceitfully murderous man, slyly articulate and devilishly selfish in his conquest for corpses.

Subtitled ‘A Comedy of Murders’, Chaplin’s outspoken dark horse begins at the end, on Henri Verdoux’s grave stone with him speaking frankly about his late life career as a bluebeard. After 35 years behind the counter as a banker, he lost his job to the depression and found himself in need of a new...

Moviefone's New Release of the Week "Lincoln" What's It About? Steven Spielberg and Daniel Day-Lewis take on the story of The Great Emancipator in "Lincoln." The film centers on honest Abe's final months in office, trying to unite a divided country and abolish slavery. See It Because: With the incomparably method Day-Lewis at the forefront, looking like the spitting image of the 16th President, he successfully altered the public's perception of Lincoln -- and went on to win an unprecedented third Academy Award for Best Actor . New on DVD & Blu-ray "Easy Money" What's It About? Three men -- a status-chasing business student, a two-bit crook, and a single-dad mafia hitman -- collide in this heavy, stylish Swedish crime thriller. In or Out?: In. "The Collection" What's It About? A poor man's version of the "Saw" franchise tries to get a sequel off the ground, and fails. In or Out?...

News.

Above: Martin Scorsese has sent a letter to NYC's City Planning Commission, protesting the gentrification of the Bowery. If only every city had a master of cinema protecting the heritage of its neighborhoods... Above: Quinzane des Réalisateurs have unveiled their poster for the upcoming edition this May in Cannes. According to The Wrap, William Friedkin's misunderstood 1976 film Sorcerer will be re-released after undergoing a remastering. Above: Tilda Swinton has been sleeping in a box as part of an exhibition at MoMA entitled "The Maybe", but even though this was unannounced, can any of us really say it's surprising?

Finds.

Above: Harmony Korine discusses his approach to Spring Breakers. Speaking of Korine, in what will likely go down as one of the most entertaining Reddit AMAs ever, the filmmaker fielded questions (sort of) from curious fans, resulting in exchanges such as this one:

"tetegomme: was Spring Breakers at all influenced by Tree of Life?...

Here’s a brief look at this week’s new Blu-ray releases: The Borgias: The Second Season [Blu-ray] - $34.99 (47% off) The Collection [Blu-ray] - $16.99 (32% off) Jurassic Park (Blu-ray + DVD + Digital Copy + UltraViolet) - $16.99 (51% off) Killing Them Softly [Blu-ray] - $19.96 (50% off) Lincoln (Two Disc Blu-ray Combo Pack) - $22.99 (41% off) Lincoln (Four Disc Blu-ray / DVD + Digital Copy) - $27.99 (39% off) Monsieur Verdoux (Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray] - $31.99 (20% off) Parental Guidance [Blu-ray] - $22.99 (43% off) A Royal Affair [Blu-ray] - $24.86 (17% off) The Sandlot: 20th Anniversary Edition [Blu-ray]- $14.96 (25% off) Veep: The Complete First Season (Blu-ray/DVD Combo + Digital Copy) - $19.99 (60% off) Hit the jump for details on the extras included on the aforementioned Blu-rays. The Borgias: The Second Season [Blu-ray] The entirety of the extras included on this Blu-ray are accessible only through Bd-Live, but they include episodes of Californication and House of Lies, a short featurette that includes behind-the-scenes interviews, and a collection of short featurettes that focus on Vicar of Rome, Gunpowder Revolution,...

Killing Them Softly I watched my digital copy on my plane flight home from Park City, Utah on Sunday and enjoyed Killing Them Softly all over again, but I was also able to understand a little better why the film didn't necessarily work for audiences. Though I still can't understand the "F" CinemaScore, I can see where audiences that felt duped into the theater, thinking they were getting a gangster film only to be served an allegorical tale of corporate America would be lost and wondering just what the hell they were watching. Granted, you would hope people would look on and say, "This isn't what I thought it was going to be, but I'm wiling to explore what the film has to offer," but I guess that would be asking too much. The Blu-ray comes with a making-of featurette and some deleted scenes, neither of which I have had a chance yet to watch,...

Self-professed cinephiles the world over appreciate the Criterion Collection's mission to preserve classic and contemporary films deemed culturally or artistically important. Every month they select somewhere between 4 to 6 features and digitally remaster them for new Blu-ray and DVD releases to ensure that some of the world's best cinematic works survive the transfer to today's high-definition era. This March the releases include the horror classic The Blob (starring a young Steve McQueen), the celebrated British dramatic comedy The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, Fritz Lang's war drama Ministry of Fear, the Charlie Chaplin comedy Monsieur Verdoux, Terrence Malick's directorial debut Badlands, and Robert Bresson's jailbreak drama A Man Escaped.

For all the details on each of these releases.

Read more...

The authors wish to acknowledge with gratitude the venues in which some version of this article previously appeared: Cinema Scope 24 (Fall, 2005), Trafic 62 (Summer, 2006), and the late and twice-lamented The New-York Ghost (Dec. 26, 2006).

In the Place of No Place

Every movie contains its alternates, phantom films conjured variously by excess or dearth: textures and movements that carry on their own play apart from the main line of the narrative, an obtruding performance or scene, an unexplained ellipsis or sudden character reversal, the chunk life of an object seizing the frame in an insert whose plastic beauty transcends its context.

Though the extremes of pure narrative economy (in which each detail exists purely for transmission of plot) or utter dispersal (in which no piece connects to any other) can never exist, we can tentatively use the concepts as limit-cases to differentiate films which make room for their phantoms (or, in the worst case,...

Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: March 26, 2013

Price: DVD $29.95, Blu-ray $39.95

Studio: Criterion

Charles Chaplin is Monsieur Verdoux.

Charlie Chaplin (Modern Times) plays against his classic type in the 1947 dark comedy Monsieur Verdoux, which is generally considered to be his most controversial film.

In this film about money, marriage, and murder, Chaplin is a twentieth-century Bluebeard, an enigmatic family man who goes to extreme lengths to support his wife and child, attempting to bump off a series of wealthy widows (including one played by the ever-lively Martha Raye).

Both wildly entertaining and deeply philosophical, the quite-sophisticated Monsieur Verdoux is a multi-level work for its asking of heavy-duty moral questions and for its deconstruction of its superstar’s loveable on-screen persona.

The Criterion DVD and Blu-ray editions of the film contain the following features:

• New 2K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the

Blu-ray edition

• Chaplin Today: “Monsieur Verdoux,” a 2003 program on the film’s production and release,...

Photos for Gangster Squad, Kill Your Darlings, The Hangover Part III and Red 2.

Posters for Parker, A Haunted House, and Escape from Planet Earth.

20th Century Fox has revealed the worldwide release dates for The Wolverine. There's also a trailer for the upcoming Blu-ray release of Willow, and a new viral website for Star Trek Into Darkness.

"'Draft Day', the football-themed drama script with Kevin Costner attached, topped the annual Black List of Hollywood's best unproduced screenplays…" (full details)

"Criterion have announced their March Blu-ray titles which include Terrence Malick’s 'Badlands,' Fritz Lang's 'Ministry of Fear,' Robert Bresson's 'A Man Escaped,' the Charlie Chaplin title 'Monsieur Verdoux,' the 50's version of 'The Blob,' and Powell and Pressburger's 'The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp'…" (full details)

"The Weinstein Company has scrapped the L.A. premiere of...

Photos for Gangster Squad, Kill Your Darlings, The Hangover Part III and Red 2.

Posters for Parker, A Haunted House, and Escape from Planet Earth.

20th Century Fox has revealed the worldwide release dates for The Wolverine. There's also a trailer for the upcoming Blu-ray release of Willow, and a new viral website for Star Trek Into Darkness.

"'Draft Day', the football-themed drama script with Kevin Costner attached, topped the annual Black List of Hollywood's best unproduced screenplays…" (full details)

"Criterion have announced their March Blu-ray titles which include Terrence Malick’s 'Badlands,' Fritz Lang's 'Ministry of Fear,' Robert Bresson's 'A Man Escaped,' the Charlie Chaplin title 'Monsieur Verdoux,' the 50's version of 'The Blob,' and Powell and Pressburger's 'The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp'…" (full details)

"The Weinstein Company has scrapped the L.A. premiere of...

News broke today that spies for Britain’s MI5 have been puzzling over the exact date of Charlie Chaplin’s birth. Despite Chaplin’s own claim that he was born in London on April 16, 1889, no proof exists to back up that claim. When all is said and done, it may go down as a mystery for the ages, but there’s no doubt about what the legendary comic did with the (presumed) 88 years that followed until his death on Dec. 25, 1977. Below, we run down some of the highlights of Chaplin’s 86-film career, which spanned five decades.

Decked out as his now-famous character,...

Elizabeth Taylor, Farley Granger, Jane Russell, Peter Falk, Sidney Lumet: TCM Remembers 2011 Pt. 1

Also: child actor John Howard Davies (David Lean's Oliver Twist), Charles Chaplin discovery Marilyn Nash (Monsieur Verdoux), director and Oscar ceremony producer Gilbert Cates (Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams, I Never Sang for My Father), veteran Japanese actress Hideko Takamine (House of Many Pleasures), Jeff Conaway of Grease and the television series Taxi, and Tura Satana of the cult classic Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!.

More: Neva Patterson, who loses Cary Grant to Deborah Kerr in An Affair to Remember; Ingmar Bergman cinematographer Gunnar Fischer (Smiles of a Summer Night, The Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries); Marlon Brando's The Wild One leading lady Mary Murphy; and two actresses featured in controversial, epoch-making films: Lena Nyman, the star of the Swedish drama I Am Curious (Yellow), labeled as pornography by prudish American authorities back in the late '60s,...

I’ve finally made it to the grand master of the bravura sequence, or, more specifically, of the ending bravura sequence, King Vidor.

It isn’t surprising that a producer as knowledgeable as Selznick often ran to the services of the two major champions of “slice of cake” cinema and strong sequences, Hitchcock (Rebecca, Spellbound, Notorious, The Paradine Case) and Vidor (Bird of Paradise, Duel in the Sun, Light’s Diamond Jubilee, even Ruby Gentry), who, without a doubt, made the best films for Selznick.

Love Never Dies, Wild Oranges, Hallelujah, Our Daily Bread, Comrade X, Duel in the Sun, The Fountainhead, Ruby Gentry and their terrific denouements once made me write that Vidor was a director of film endings. No doubt I was exaggerating, but it isn’t for nothing that he hesitated for a long time between several different endings for The Crowd. I was also exaggerating because...

Japanese cinema isn’t all Takeshi Miike, Battle Royale, Takeshi Kitano and Akira Kurosawa you know. Director Kenji Mizoguchi took a more poetic and no less masterful approach to his work which is being celebrated in an amazing boxset collection released by Eureka’s Masters of Cinema label from 23rd January focusing on the man’s 1950s classic-after-classic output.

We’ve been sent over a press release with details of what films feature and what extra features there are. FilmShaft’s Alex Wagner is a big Mizoguchi fan, so imagine he’s excited by this news! So if you’re a connoisseur of Japanese film or a film student wanting to look good in class by saying something like, “well Mizoguchi’s Street of Shame is largely considered by many critics to be one of the greatest films of the 20th century”, this boxset is definitely for you.

Eureka! have...

Louis Black Presents Charlie Chaplin in:

Monsieur Verdoux

Monday 11/29 & Wednesday 12/1, 7:00 @Ritz

Advance tickets available here

We’re very proud to invite Louis Black, founder and editor of the Austin Chronicle and SXSW, to present one of the greatest black comedies of all time, Charlie Chaplin’s Monsieur Verdoux. In addition to founding two of the biggest and hippest institutions in Austin Texas, Black is a serious film scholar and enthusiast. While earning a degree in Film studies at the University of Texas, he was one of the key members/programmers of the legendary CinemaTexas series. He also was one of the original board members of the Austin Film Society.

Needless to say, he’s a man of great esteem in the Austin film scene. He also happens to love this awesome Charlie Chaplin movie Monsieur Verdoux. This is Chaplin’s darkest and most sadistic work, a comedy of murder that,...