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It’s that time of year again. While some directors annually share their favorite films of the year, Steven Soderbergh lists everything he consumed, media-wise. For 2024––another year in which he not only premiered a new film, but shot another and is prepping another to begin production shortly––he still got plenty of watching in.

Along with catching up on 2024’s new releases, he took in plenty of classics, including Opening Night, Jaws, Casablanca, All About Eve, The Conversation, Alien, and nine viewings of various Star Wars films. He also got an early look at Andrew Patterson’s The Rivals of Amziah King and after beginning production on Black Bag on May 7, he had a first cut on June 23.

See the list below via his official site.

01/02 Blaming, Elizabeth Taylor

01/04 The Conversation

01/05 Predators, American Greed

01/06 The Curse

01/09 The Curse

01/10 Break Point (3)

01/11 Break Point (3), Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone,...

I honestly never expected Steven Spielberg in a Criterion Channel series––certainly not one that pairs him with Kogonada, anime, and Johnny Mnemonic––but so’s the power of artificial intelligence. Perhaps his greatest film (at this point I don’t need to tell you the title) plays with After Yang, Ghost in the Shell, and pre-Matrix Keanu in July’s aptly titled “AI” boasting also Spike Jonze’s Her, Carpenter’s Dark Star, and Computer Chess. Much more analog is a British Noir collection obviously carrying the likes of Odd Man Out, Night and the City, and The Small Back Room, further filled by Joseph Losey’s Time Without Pity and Basil Dearden’s It Always Rains on Sunday. (No two ways about it: these movies have great titles.) An Elvis retrospective brings six features, and the consensus best (Don Siegel’s Flaming Star) comes September 1.

While Isabella Rossellini...

Is Joseph Losey’s elusive, maudit masterpiece really a masterpiece? Stanley Baker’s foolish lout of a writer ruins his life pursuing the wanton Jeanne Moreau, and it’s hard to tell if she’s punishing him or he’s punishing himself. Losey’s directing skills are in top form on location in Venice and Rome for this absorbing art film. Pi’s overdue and very welcome disc sorts out the multiple release versions for the first time, and in so doing finally makes the show critically accessible. Co-starring (swoon) Virna Lisi and James Villiers.

Eve

Region B Blu-ray

Powerhouse Indicator

1962 / B&w / 1:85 widescreen / 126 109, 108 min. / Eva, The Devil’s Woman / Street Date October 19, 2020 / available from Powerhouse Films UK / £15.99

Starring: Jeanne Moreau, Stanley Baker, Virna Lisi, James Villiers, Riccardo Garrone, Lisa Gastoni, Checco Rissone, Enzo Fiermonte, Nona Medici, Roberto Paoletti, Alexis Revidis, Evi Rigano.

Cinematography: Gianni Di Venanzo, Henri Decaë

Film...

Our 75th guest! The legendary filmmaker John Sayles joins Josh and Joe to explore some of his favorite movies.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Ulzana’s Raid (1972)

Django (1966)

The Birth Of A Nation (1915)

City Of Hope (1991)

Return of the Secaucus 7 (1980)

The Challenge (1982)

Avalanche (1978)

Eight Men Out (1988)

Piranha (1978)

The Howling (1981)

The Wizard Of Oz (1939)

The Killers (1964)

The King And I (1956)

Time Without Pity (1957)

The Incredible Mr. Limpet (1964)

Ben-Hur (1957)

The Ten Commandments (1956)

Two Women (1960)

Sunset Boulevard (1950)

Citizen Kane (1941)

Spartacus (1960)

Fixed Bayonets! (1951)

The Steel Helmet (1951)

Merrill’s Marauders (1962)

Targets (1968)

Touch Of Evil (1958)

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Woodstock (1970)

Crime In The Streets (1956)

The Bad Seed (1956)

The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971)

Fedora (1978)

Dune (1984)

The Cotton Club (1984)

Choose Me (1984)

Raising Arizona (1987)

El Norte (1983)

Yellow Sky (1948)

Apocalypse Now (1979)

The Irishman (2019)

A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood (2019)

The Thing (1982)

Chinatown (1974)

Manhattan (1979)

Duck Amuck (1953)

Goodfellas (1990)

Humanoids Of The Deep (1980)

Cockfighter (1974)

Dynamite Women a.k.a. The Great Texas Dynamite Chase...

'Saint Joan': Constance Cummings as the George Bernard Shaw heroine. Constance Cummings on stage: From sex-change farce and Emma Bovary to Juliet and 'Saint Joan' (See previous post: “Constance Cummings: Frank Capra, Mae West and Columbia Lawsuit.”) In the mid-1930s, Constance Cummings landed the title roles in two of husband Benn W. Levy's stage adaptations: Levy and Hubert Griffith's Young Madame Conti (1936), starring Cummings as a demimondaine who falls in love with a villainous character. She ends up killing him – or does she? Adapted from Bruno Frank's German-language original, Young Madame Conti was presented on both sides of the Atlantic; on Broadway, it had a brief run in spring 1937 at the Music Box Theatre. Based on the Gustave Flaubert novel, the Theatre Guild-produced Madame Bovary (1937) was staged in late fall at Broadway's Broadhurst Theatre. Referring to the London production of Young Madame Conti, The...

For the fans of this wonderful man, which I proudly count myself as one; 26 May 2013 marks the centenary of horror legend Peter Cushing. One of the most versatile actors to grace the big screen, Cushing never gave a single bad performance throughout his 50-year career. A dedicated perfectionist, who believed in giving nothing less than his best effort, Cushing’s 100% commitment always lifted a bad film. The movie may fail him but he would never fail his public.

Cushing began his acting career in repertory theatre and with his legendary one-way ticket to Hollywood, made his film debut in 1939. After a couple of productive years in the States, he worked his way back to England following the outbreak of World War 2. Marrying actress Helen Beck, he worked on stage but struggled to find good roles until he became a member of the RSC under Laurence Oliver. As British TV’s first big star,...

Dan Sallitt's new film, The Unspeakable Act, marks the return of an underseen, major American filmmaker (long esteemed as one of the superior cinema critics writing in English, often here at The Notebook) with a feature which surely ranks among the richest works of the last several years.

Additionally, the new Sallitt film introduces the world to Tallie Medel, a performer whose intellect, emotive capacity, and force of persona place her in the outstanding category of such ascendant figures as Greta Gerwig and Kate Lyn Sheil while outlining a contour of being, a persuasion, that are hers alone.

The Unspeakable Act has its New York premiere as part of BAMcinemaFest on Sunday, June 24th, and its international premiere at the Edinburgh International Film Festival on Friday, June 29th, with three screenings at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival to follow in July.

The conversation below took place over email across the last two months.

A little late this week, mainly because of my own random b.s. that one goes through when attempting to juggle too many things at once. Try not to do it kids, because it means a Hulu article gets sidetracked a bit. A ton of stuff was added since I last was here, but unlike last week’s where I focused on 10 specific films that weren’t in the Collection, this time it’s a bunch of familiar (and not so) faces, be it in their great Eclipse sets or in Criterion’s own pantheon.

A huge thanks to who have already used this link to enjoy their own Hulu Plus and in turn keeping this series of articles up and running. We can always use the help, so please sign up using that specific link. Every little bit does keep this nice and polished. But enough about that. You...

Kino Lorber will release the 1975 British romantic comedy-drama film The Romantic Englishwoman, starring Michael Caine (The Man Who Would Be King) and Glenda Jackson (Women in Love), on DVD and Blu-ray on June 21.

Glenda Jackson and Michael Caine get the low-down in The Romantic Englishwoman.

Adapted for the screen by Tom Stoppard (Brazil) from the 1975 novel by Thomas Weisman and directed by Joseph Losey (Time Without Pity), the movie focuses on the ups and downs of the marriage between novelist/screenwriter Lewis (Caine) and his wife Elizabeth (Jackson).

While Elizabeth is away on holiday in the German resort town of Baden Baden, jealous Lewis imagines she’s having an affair with a mysterious German poet (Helmut Berger) she has met in an elevator. Soon Berger inexplicably shows up at their house in England, and Caine’s heated feelings begin to grow … prompting him to take on a script assignment and...