News

Meryl Streep is the best of the best.

Her performance in Sophie’s Choice (1982) has been voted the greatest Oscar Best Actress winner ever, according to a Gold Derby ballot cast by 21 of our film experts, critics, and editors, who ranked all 97 movie champs.

Diane Keaton ranked second for Annie Hall (1977), with Jodie Foster following in third for The Silence of the Lambs (1991). Liza Minnelli for Cabaret (1972) and Vivien Leigh for A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) rounded out the top five.

At the bottom of the list of the Best Actress winners is Mary Pickford for Coquette (1929). Just above that film in the rankings are Luise Rainer for The Great Ziegfeld (1936), Helen Hayes for The Sin of Madelon Claudet (1932), Loretta Young for The Farmer’s Daughter (1947), and Marie Dressler for Min and Bill (1931).

Another recent Gold Derby poll of cinema experts declared The Godfather (1972) as the greatest Best Picture Oscar winner of all...

The performance by Meryl Streep in Sophie’s Choice (1982) has been voted the greatest Oscar Best Actress winner ever. The results are from a recent Gold Derby ballot cast by 21 of our film experts and editors, who ranked all 97 movie champs.

Ranking in second place is Diane Keaton for Annie Hall (1977). Following in third place is Jodie Foster for The Silence of the Lambs (1991). Rounding out the top five are Liza Minnelli for Cabaret (1972), and Vivien Leigh for A Streetcar Named Desire (1951).

At the bottom of the list of the Best Actress winners is Mary Pickford for Coquette (1929). Just above that film in the rankings are Luise Rainer for The Great Ziegfeld (1936), Helen Hayes for The Sin of Madelon Claudet (1932), Loretta Young for The Farmer’s Daughter (1947), and Marie Dressler for Min and Bill (1931).

Another recent poll had The Godfather (1972) declared as the greatest Best Picture Oscar winner of all time (view...

[Editor’s note: For this article, The Hollywood Reporter only looked at the shortest and longest screen times in the lead acting categories. Best supporting actor and actress were not included.]

Longest Screen Times Vivien Leigh, Gone With the Wind (1939)

Movie Length 3 hrs 58 mins

Time Onscreen 2 hrs 23 mins

Percent of Run Time 60 Percent

Vivien Leigh holds the record for the longest performance to win an Oscar, though the work took a deep physical and mental toll on her. The film itself is also the longest to win best picture. At the 12th Academy Awards, Victor Fleming’s Gone With the Wind also won best supporting actress for Hattie McDaniel, who became the first African American to win an Oscar. Leigh was nominated alongside Bette Davis (Dark Victory), Irene Dunne (Love Affair), Greta Garbo (Ninotchka) and Greer Garson (Goodbye, Mr. Chips).

Charlton Heston, Ben-Hur (1959)

Movie Length 3 hrs 32 mins

Time Onscreen 2 hrs 1 min

Percent of Run Time 57.1 Percent...

Fresh off the announcement of their forthcoming live album, Live Drugs Again, The War on Drugs have dropped a new cover of Tom Petty’s “You Wreck Me.” Stream their version of the song below.

The War on Drugs’ take on “You Wreck Me” comes via the new Vince Vaughn-starring Apple TV+ series Bad Monkey. The soundtrack for the show boasts a host of Petty covers, including interpretations from Eddie Vedder (“Room at the Top”), Jason Isbel, Kurt Vile, Sharon Van Etten, Weezer, and more.

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The band’s cover of the Wildflowers cut plays it pretty darn faithfully. The performances are jangly and frontman Adam Granduciel’s lead vocals even sound a bit like Petty himself. Listen for yourself below.

Earlier today (September 4th), The War on Drugs announced Live Drugs Again, their follow-up to 2020’s Live Drugs. To accompany the announcement,...

Studiocanal is delighted to announce the release of a brand-new 4K restoration of the British comedy classic, Three Men in a Boat, that will be available to own on Blu-Ray, DVD and Digital from August 19. To celebrate we have a 2 4K Blu-Rays to give away!

Directed by Ken Annakin (Monte Carlo or Bust, Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines), Three Men In A Boat stars Laurence Harvey (Women of Twilight, Room at The Top), David Tomlinson (Mary Poppins, The Love Bug) and Jimmy Edwards (The Bed Sitting Room, Innocents in Paris) as three Edwardian men-about-town want to get away from it all and decide to take a boating holiday on the Thames.

Harris (Jimmy Edwards), J (David Tomlinson), and George (Laurence Harvey) decide to take a holiday boating up the Thames to Oxford. George is happy to spend time away from his desk at the bank, Harris is glad to get away from Mrs.

Eddie Vedder has released a cover of Tom Petty’s song “Room at the Top.”

Originally released on Petty’s 1999 album Echo, “Room at the Top” has been in rotation at Vedder’s solo shows for some time. In 2018, he even performed it during the “In Memoriam” tribute to Petty at the Academy Awards. Now, his studio version arrives as part of the soundtrack for the upcoming Apple TV+ show, Bad Monkey, set to premiere on August 14th.

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Beginning with a ballad arrangement led by simple electric guitar strumming, Vedder’s rendition of “Room at the Top” blossoms into a full-fledged rock anthem, with a climatic organ solo to boot. As for Vedder’s vocals, he exhibits his trademark power, but also masterfully delivers the emotional sensitivity the song requires.

Vedder recorded the cover with the backing of Andrew Watt, Chad Smith, Benmont Tench, Glen Hansard,...

Through Friday, August 9, listen to Eddie Vedder’s new cover of the Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers song “Room at the Top” exclusively on SiriusXM before its worldwide release. Tune in to both Pearl Jam Radio (Ch. 22) and Tom Petty Radio (Ch. 31) in cars and the SiriusXM app with a subscription and free trial to hear Eddie’s rendition of the classic throughout the day.

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“Room at the Top” is the first track from Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ album “Echo” (1999). Eddie recorded the song for the new Apple TV+ show “Bad Monkey,” premiering August 14. Over the years, the Pearl Jam frontman has performed the song live, including during the “In Memoriam” segment of the 2018 Academy Awards.

Tune into @PJRadio (ch.

Doris Day was the Oscar-nominated actress who passed away in 2019 at the age of 97. She excelled in musicals and romantic comedies, bringing a sense of edge and humor to her squeaky-clean demeanor. Although she made only a handful of movies between 1948 and 1968, several of her titles remain classics. Let’s take a look back at 20 of her greatest films, ranked worst to best.

Born in 1922, Day got her start as a band singer, making her film debut with the musical comedy “Romance on the High Seas” (1948). He vocal talents benefited her in such films as “Calamity Jane” (1953), “Love Me or Leave Me” (1955), and “The Pajama Game” (1957), and she often sang the title tunes to her films.

She is perhaps best remembered for three frothy romantic comedies she made with sly, square-jawed leading man Rock Hudson and sardonic sidekick Tony Randall: “Pillow Talk” (1959), “Lover Come Back” (1961), and “Send Me No Flowers...

Pageantry. Screw ups. Touching tributes. Private beefs made public. There are plenty of reasons to watch the Oscars. But they all amount to partaking in, witnessing, movie history in its many forms — the high art, the gossip, the record-breaking moments when an arthouse director becomes a household name.

However, there are a lot of ways to set a record. There are big moments like Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King tying the record with 11 trophies or Bong Joon-Ho’s Parasite becoming the first film not in English (or silent) to win Best Picture. And then, beyond those sit the oddities and records that are nearly impossible to break. Give me records like Walter Brennan winning three Best Supporting Actor awards because, as a former extra, he was popular with the Union of Film Extras, who were allowed to vote. At least, the story goes, they were allowed...

To celebrate the release of Room at the Top, on Blu-Ray, DVD and Digital from 11th March, we are giving away Blu-Rays to 2 lucky winners!

Based on the best-selling novel by John Braine, Room At The Top is Jack Clayton’s debut feature and is one of the earliest examples of the ‘Kitchen Sink Drama’ that helped pave the way for the incoming ‘British New Wave’ of film-makers. Featuring the first open reference to sex as well as the earliest depiction of adultery in a British film, it was a controversial film for the era and was initially refused a certificate by the censors before eventually securing an “X” certificate.

Starring Laurence Harvey, Simone Signoret, Heather Sears and Donald Wolfit, the film went on to become a major box-office success and opened the floodgates for more adult orientated movies.

The film also gained widespread critical acclaim and was nominated for six Academy Awards,...

“Oppenheimer” is the most nominated film at this year’s Oscars with 13 nominations. That’s one shy of the all-time record of 14 nominations so it missed out on Oscars history in the nomination phase.

However, Universal’s movie could match Academy Awards history in the awards phase by equalling the record of 11 Oscar wins overall. So far, three films have won 11 Academy Awards. They were “Ben-Hur” in 1960, “Titanic” in 1998, and “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” in 2004. Here’s the breakdown of what awards they won.

“Ben-Hur”

Best Picture — Sam Zimbalist Best Director — William Wyler Best Actor — Charlton Heston Best Supporting Actor — Hugh Griffith Best Film Editing Best Cinematography (Color) Best Music (Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture) Best Costume Design (Color) Best Art Direction-Set Decoration (Color) Best Sound Recording Best Visual Effects

*”Ben-Hur” was also nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay for Karl Tunberg...

A rerelease of the John Braine novel adaptation is no masterpiece but sits alongside films such as Lucky Jim and Billy Liar in its depiction of class conflict and young male frustration

“Joe … be gentle with me … ” It’s easy to imagine this demure invitation to premarital sex getting some ribald hooting in British cinemas in 1959. Jack Clayton’s multi-Oscar-winning film was adapted by Neil Paterson from John Braine’s moody, zeitgeisty bestseller, and it’s rereleased now with the traditional trigger warning about offensive and outdated attitudes. Now, that could mean pretty much everything about this film – but without doubt it is specifically aimed at Hermione Baddeley praising the hero’s manliness and grimacing: “Too many pansies about these days … ”

Room at the Top gave us Laurence Harvey as Joe Lampton, the smouldering, ambitious young working-class Yorkshireman with a chip on his shoulder and a burning desire to get on,...

Jenna Coleman is one of the most talented and charming actresses working in the film and TV industry. The English actress made her TV debut with the 2005 British soap opera Emmerdale, and her first feature film role was a very small one but it was in Captain America: First Avenger. She recently starred in the adaptation of Neil Gaiman‘s DC comics The Sandman as Johanna Constantine and she is currently starring in the Prime Vide thriller series Wilderness. So, if you also love Coleman’s performances here are the 10 best movies and TV shows starring Jenna Coleman that should be on your watchlist.

10. Room at the Top (Not Available in the US) Credit – BBC

Synopsis: Room At The Top is a drama series based on John Braine’s classic book about Joe Lampton, a young man on the make in 1940’s Yorkshire.

9. Dancing on the Edge (Tubi & Prime Video...

Welcome to our weekly rundown of the best new music — featuring big singles, key tracks from our favorite albums, and more. This week, Drake samples Kim K, Rae Sremmurd make their return, and Suga of BTS, performing as Agust D, shares the first single off his anticipated solo debut album. Plus, Brothers Osbourne, Lil Yachty, and Wednesday.

Drake, “Search & Rescue” (YouTube)

Suga, “People Pt 2” (YouTube)

Lil Yachty, “Strike (Holster)” (YouTube)

Rae Sremmurd feat. Future, “Activate” (YouTube)

Towa Bird, “Wild Heart” (YouTube)

Anna St. Louis, “Phone” (YouTube)

Ralph, “Scary Hot” (YouTube)

Mark,...

Decades ago, “when the Clash was falling apart” – as the band’s bassist Paul Simonon tells it – Joe Strummer wanted to return to his roots busking in public. So he and the band journeyed to the north of England to play in the streets. “We slept on a lot of people’s sofas, because we left our credit cards and money behind and lived on what we earned in the street,” Simonon remembers on a Zoom from his home in London. “We had enough to get to the next town and something to eat.

“The Banshees of Inisherin” scored 10 BAFTA nominations, tied with “Everything Everywhere All at Once” for second most behind “All Quiet on the Western Front’s” 14. Two of those bids are for Best Picture and Best British Film, but can Martin McDonagh‘s tragicomedy claim both? Since Best British Film was reintroduced 30 years ago, only three movies have managed to go 2 for 2.

“The King’s Speech” (2010) first accomplished it as part of its seven-trophy sweep. The second one was McDonagh’s previous film, “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” (2017), which collected a leading five statuettes. And the most recent was “1917” (2019), which also dominated with seven wins. Recent contenders that won Best British Film but not Best Picture are “The Favourite” (2018), “Promising Young Woman” (2020) and “Belfast” (2021).

And if you go by the odds, “Banshees” is poised to join the latter group. Best British Film is expected to be a blowout for the Ireland-set...

Cate Blanchett is going for her third Oscar with “TÁR,” but before that, she’ll have a chance to capture her third Best Actress BAFTA Award. Should she do so, she’ll move up to second place on the all-time winners list in the category.

A three-time BAFTA champ, Blanchett has two Best Actress trophies for “Elizabeth” (1998) and “Blue Jasmine” (2013) and one for Best Supporting Actress for “The Aviator” (2004). In the lead category, she’s one of 11 with two victories. That list gets drastically smaller the higher you go. She’s looking to become just the fourth person with three Best Actress wins, one shy of Maggie Smith‘s record of four.

Blanchett would join Anne Bancroft, Audrey Hepburn and Simone Signoret as three-time champs — but their ledgers come with a caveat. Until the ceremony in 1969 when they were consolidated into Best Actress, the BAFTAs had two actress categories: Best...

Cinematography retrospectives are the way to go—more than a thorough display of talent, it exposes the vast expanse a Dp will travel, like an education in form and business all the same. Accordingly I’m happy to see the Criterion Channel give a 25-film tribute to James Wong Howe, whose career spanned silent cinema to the ’70s, populated with work by Howard Hawks, Michael Curtz, Samuel Fuller, Alexander Mackendrick, Sydney Pollack, John Frankenheimer, and Raoul Walsh.

Further retrospectives are granted to Romy Schneider (recent repertory sensation La piscine among them), Carlos Saura (finally a chance to see Peppermint frappe!), the British New Wave, and groundbreaking distributor Cinema 5, who brought to U.S. shores everything from The Man Who Fell to Earth and Putney Swope to Pumping Iron and Scenes from a Marriage.

September also yields streaming premieres for the recently restored Bronco Bullfrog, Ang Lee’s Pushing Hands,...

Showbiz in Soho is artificial, gaudy and vulgar, but Laurence Harvey’s slick promoter-con man thinks he can cheat at the pop music game. Cliff Richard is his new discovery, a teen crooner who digs the bongo drums. Wolf Mankowitz’s portrait of talent, glitz, and double-dealing in music and TV showbiz also stars Sylvia Syms as a Soho stripper and Yolande Donlan as a singing star trying to make a comeback. The disc contains director Val Guest’s uncut original version.

Expresso Bongo

Blu-ray

Cohen / Kino Lorber

1959 / B&w / 2:35 widescreen / 111 106 min. / Street Date January 18, 2022 / Available from Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Laurence Harvey, Sylvia Syms, Yolande Donlan, Cliff Richard, Meier Tzelniker, Ambrosine Phillpotts, Eric Pohlmann, Gilbert Harding, Hermione Baddeley, Reginald Beckwith, Avis Bunnage, Sally Geeson, Kenneth Griffith, Burt Kwouk, Wilfrid Lawson, Patricia Lewis, Barry Lowe, Martin Miller, Susan Hampshire, Peter Myers, Lisa Peake, The Shadows.

Cinematography: John Wilcox

Art Director:...

Eddie Vedder resumed his Earthling tour Monday, Feb. 22, at Benaroya Hall in Seattle, Washington after a Covid outbreak caused the band to postpone a couple of California gigs. The show featured covers of Tom Petty’s “Room at the Top,” the Sex Pistols’ “God Save the Queen,” the Who’s “I’m One,” George Harrison’s “Isn’t It a Pity,” and Bob Dylan’s “All Along The Watchtower,” in addition to Pearl Jam classics like “Porch,” “Wishlist,” “Corduroy, and “Dirty Frank” and several tracks from Vedder’s new solo LP Earthling.

Just one song into Eddie Vedder’s Earthling tour launch at New York’s Beacon Theatre on Thursday night, he paused the festivities to look out at the capacity crowd and soak in the fact that he was finally back on the road after two endless years of waiting. “It’s great to be playing a show, but especially great to be playing show in a theater and especially a show at this particular cathedral so aptly named,” he said. “It feels like a sanctuary tonight, and it does feel like a beacon.

Amanda Coe has plenty of experience adapting big novels into TV series, winning a BAFTA for the 2012 drama Room at the Top and also penning her version of Apple Tree Yard. In the latest from the creator and writer of The Trial of Christine Keeler she took on Black Narcissus, an adaptation of Rumer Godden’s steamy 1939 novel, which Coe turned into a three-part limited series for FX and the BBC.

The finale, which aired in November, is the latest entry in Deadline’s It Starts On the Page, a series that highlights the scripts that will serve as the creative backbones of the now-underway TV awards season. The scripts are all being submitted for Emmy consideration this year and have been selected using criteria that includes critical acclaim, a range of networks and platforms, and a mix of established and lesser-known shows.

In the plot of Godden’s novel...

In today’s Global Bulletin, Ang Lee will be honored with this year’s BAFTA Fellowship; Locarno Pro opens the call for its Alliance 4 Development project platform; and Dandelooo’s “The Upside Down River” gets a PR boost as its creator wins the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award.

Awards

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) has selected two-time Oscar winner and multiple BAFTA-winning director Ang Lee with the Fellowship at this year’s 74th Ee British Academy Film Awards, which take place April 11.

Each year the BAFTA Fellowship is awarded as the Academy’s highest accolade that an individual can receive in recognition of an outstanding career in film, games or television. Lee joins a prestigious list of previous Fellowship honorees including the likes of Charlie Chaplin, Alfred Hitchcock, Steven Spielberg, Stanley Kubrick, Martin Scorsese, Mel Brooks and Ridley Scott.

Lee broke onto the international scene in the...

Studiocanal has picked up sales and distribution rights to the back catalogue of Romulus Films, which includes 40+ films.

On the lister are John Huston’s African Queen, Moulin Rouge and Beat The Devil, Laurence Olivier’s BAFTA winning Richard III, Philip Leacock’s Appointment In London, and Jack Clayton’s Oscar-winning Room At The Top.

Romulus is still owned by its founders the Woolf family, who have been working in UK cinema since the 1920s, when they produced early Alfred Hitchcock films, and founded the Rank Organization with J Arthur Rank. In 1948, following the early death of their father and seeking to establish their independence after working for Rank, brothers John and James Woolf established Independent Film Distributors and production companies Romulus and Remus Films.

In the 1960s and 70s they produced a number of films in partnership with studios including Oliver! And two films based on the books of...

by Eric Blume

Today is the centennial of French Oscar-winner Simone Signoret.  Daniel paid lovely tribute to her last night for her brief role in 1950's La Ronde.  Her next big film, director Jacques Becker's 1952 movie Casque d'Or, made her a star six years before Oscar embraced her with Room at the Top. Becker captures all of Signoret's magic in this turn-of-the-century Paris underworld story.  It doesn't hurt that he has his cinematographer, Robert Le Febvre, lighting her in a gloriously celestial way throughout the movie...

“No. 7 Cherry Lane” is the sort of animated film that can completely knock you for a loop if you don’t know what’s coming, and director Yonfan is totally fine with that. The film sports a pair of erotic fantasy sequences that got walkouts at some press screenings at the Venice Film Festival, but Yonfan told TheWrap that he had a blast making those scenes because…it was just fun!

“Art should not be so serious. You should have fun and have a wild imagination and sometimes let it run away a little bit to get yourself loose,” Yonfan said in an interview for TheWrap’s Awards Screening Series. “A lot of people have called my movie ‘kitsch’ and I don’t mind it because ‘kitsch’ is only a word.”

Yonfan has directed 14 films over his decades-long career, but “No. 7 Cherry Lane” is his first venture into animation. The...

Even though the Best Actress Oscar has been given out since the first Academy Awards ceremony, there is no clear way of determining whether shorter or longer performances are more likely to win. An even mix of both have prevailed over the past 92 years, performances that have won Best Actress hold more overall lead acting records than those that have won Best Actor. Here is a look at the 10 shortest winners in the category. (And here is the equivalent list for Best Actor.)

10. Katharine Hepburn (“Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner”)

43 minutes, 26 seconds (40.20% of the film)

Over three decades after her first nomination resulted in a win, Hepburn finally won a second Best Actress Oscar for her role as Christina Drayton, a mother whose liberal views are challenged when her daughter announces her intention to marry a Black man. She would go on to finish her career with four wins in...

While it is rare for a long performance to win a Best Supporting Actress Oscar, a fair amount of them have. The average screen time for winners in the category is 28 minutes and five seconds, with over one third of them surpassing 30 minutes. Here is a look at the 10 longest winners of all time. (And here’s the list of the 10 shortest winning performances for Best Supporting Actress.)

10. Katina Paxinou (“For Whom the Bell Tolls”)

43 minutes, 41 seconds (26.46% of the film)

The Greek theatre actress made history in 1944 with her debut film role as anti-fascist guerrilla fighter Pilar. She triumphed at the first ever Golden Globes ceremony and set a new record for longest performance to win in the Best Supporting Actress Oscar category, which she went on to hold for eight years.

9. Kim Hunter (“A Streetcar Named Desire”)

44 minutes, 52 seconds (35.97% of the film)

While Hunter’s role as abused wife...

Scream Factory's Hammer Films collection just keeps growing! New this week from the label comes the 1962 version of The Phantom of the Opera. Directed by one of Hammer's better-known directors, Terence Fischer, this iteration of the classic tale stars the great Herbert Lom as the Phantom and Professor Petrie. Also onboard are Heather Sears as Christine, and Hammer alums Edward de Souza as kindly opera producer Harry and Michael Gough as the lecherous opera owner Lord Ambrose d'Arcy. You all know the Gaston Leroux story: young ingenue opera singer...

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

Josh Braun, producer of some of the best documentaries in the world, joins Josh and Joe to discuss the movies that have influenced him throughout his life.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Man On Wire (2008)

The Cove (2009)

Cave of Forgotten Dreams (2010)

Encounters At The End of the World (2007)

Winnebago Man (2009)

Spellbound (2002)

Supersize Me (2004)

Tell Me Who I Am (2019)

Apollo 11 (2019)

The Edge of Democracy (2019)

Finding Vivian Maier (2013)

Searching For Sugarman (2012)

Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father (2008)

A History Of Violence (2005)

Frat House (1998)

Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex, Drugs and Rock ‘N’ Roll Generation Saved Hollywood (2003)

The Exorcist (1973)

Go West (1940)

A Night In Casablanca (1946)

Hello Down There (1974)

What’s Up Doc? (1972)

El Topo (1970)

Pink Flamingos (1972)

Female Trouble (1974)

The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)

Bambi Meets Godzilla (1969)

Gimme Shelter (1970)

Monterey Pop (1968)

Grey Gardens (1975)

Grey Gardens (2009)

Titicut Follies (1967)

To Have And Have Not (1944)

All About Eve...

Keshet International (Ki) has secured a slew of sales deals for BBC One period drama “The Trial of Christine Keeler,” which recently completed its run last month in the U.K.

An account of the notorious 1960s ‘Profumo Affair,’ the six-part series chronicles the cover-up of an affair between a British Minister (Ben Miles) and model Christine Keeler (Sophie Cookson) which threatened to destroy the government.

Ki sold first broadcast window rights to the drama into Australian premium drama channel BBC First, with Australia’s national broadcaster ABC taking the second window.

BBC First has also nabbed first window rights in Benelux and Africa, with Ki selling second window rights in the Netherlands to Dutch public service broadcaster Npo.

Ki sold first window in Spain to the female-skewing Cosmo TV, and in the U.K., Acorn Media International has snapped up home video rights. Both home video and digital rights...

“Rise Of The Angry Young Man”

By Raymond Benson

Along with the French New Wave that kick-started in 1959, Britain had its own informal New Wave of what was referred to as the “angry young man” or “kitchen sink” dramas. They began on the stage with such playwrights as John Osborne. Filmmakers like Jack Clayton, Tony Richardson, Lindsay Anderson, and Karel Reisz are most often associated with the movement, which presented gritty, realistic tales of domestic or socio-economic situations involving working class families and/or single protagonists struggling to get ahead in an England that hadn’t quite pulled herself out of the post-war doldrums.

Room at the Top was one of the first—and best—of the bunch, and even more remarkable is that it was Jack Clayton’s feature directorial debut. Made on a low budget in stark black and white (photographed by the great Freddie Francis), Room stars...

In the fall of ‘64, while Hollywood was gently satirizing the battle of the sexes with Send Me No Flowers and What a Way to Go!, Europe was at work in the trenches, peppering art houses with piercing dramas like François Truffaut‘s The Soft Skin and André Cayatte’s dual release, Anatomy of a Marriage: My Nights With Francoise and My Days with Jean-Marc (“One Ticket Admits You to Both Theaters”). Perhaps most unforgiving of all was Jack Clayton’s The Pumpkin Eater starring Anne Bancroft, Peter Finch and James Mason.

Bancroft plays Jo Armitage, a fragile beauty who responds to her husband’s infidelities by getting pregnant. Finch is Jake, a screenwriter whose recent success has emboldened him to walk on the wild side thereby provoking Jo to over-crowd the nursery. Mason is, once again, the odd man out, the deceptively genial husband of one of Jake’s conquests.

Lionsgate’s “Bombshell,” which opens Dec. 20, has been getting enthusiastic reactions at industry screenings, indicating multiple Oscar nominations are likely. If so, that would make the film a welcome addition to a rare but important Academy Awards category: The hot-button, current events film.

Director Jay Roach, writer Charles Randolph and the actors — including Charlize Theron, Nicole Kidman, Margot Robbie and John Lithgow — deliver the goods in a film that comes out only three years after the 2016 meltdown at Fox News. That puts the film on a par with other multiple-Oscar-nominated films such as the 1976 “All the President’s Men,” which opened three years after the Watergate hearings.

The banner year for this was 1940, when the best-picture nominations included Charlie Chaplin’s “The Great Dictator,” John Ford’s version of John Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath” and the Alfred Hitchcock-directed “Foreign Correspondent.” They dealt with, respectively, the grasp of Hitler,...

Tony Sokol May 14, 2019

Hollywood's iconic girl next door was TV's first single mom and an animal rights pioneer.

"Que será, sera," Doris Day sang her iconic, underplayed ode to fortune, "whatever will be, will be." The Hollywood icon died of pneumonia on Monday, May 14, at the age of 97, according to The Doris Day Animal Foundation, via Variety. The singer and actress who defined the girl next door died early at her home in Carmel Valley, California.

Day made over thirty films, including Tea for Two, On Moonlight Bay, By the Light of the Silvery Moon, David Butler’s 1953 film Calamity Jane and The Pajama Game, and over 600 recordings. Alfred Hitchcock used Day's recognizable voice to send a distress signal to her kidnapped son in The Man Who Knew Too Much. The song which held the message, “Que Sera Sera,” won the 1956 Academy Award for Best Original Song with the alternative title "Whatever Will Be,...

Whenever the subject of who should get Honorary Oscars — or the Governors Awards, as they now are known — comes up, there has not been a single year, not one, when Doris Day’s name was not at the top of the speculation. But it never happened. The Academy’s Board of Governors never even went the Debbie Reynolds route by voting this renowned animal-rights activist the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, perhaps because it has human in its title. Although she often referred to herself as the girl singer in the band, her remarkable movie career spanned a couple of decades during the 50’s and 60’s, and about three dozen movies — frequently in what might be known as Doris Day movies — and maybe that is why the Academy never honored her. Or perhaps they just knew this star, who retreated from the business almost entirely, never would show up. Still, in her big-screen prime,...

The Nightcomers

Blu ray

Kino Lorber

1971 / 1:85:1 / 96 Min.

Starring Marlon Brando, Stephanie Beacham

Written by Michael Hastings

Cinematography by Robert Paynter

Directed by Michael Winner

Between 1944 and 1992 Jack Clayton directed just nine movies but they included some of the most elegant yet clear-eyed films to come out of post-war Britain – from the hard-knock realism of Room at the Top to the broken-marriage reverie of The Pumpkin Eater. A man of letters as well as cinema, his relatively brief career was spent collaborating with writers like Wolf Mankowitz, Harold Pinter and Truman Capote.

Born in London, Michael Winner showed a talent for free-wheeling and mildly racy movies like The Girl-Getters and I’ll Never Forget What’s ‘isname – cheeky entertainments that helped define the myth of sexy swinging London for stateside audiences.

It was in the early 70s that Winner began to traffic in distinctly American product like Chato’s...

Doris Day celebrates her 97th birthday on April 3, 2019. The Oscar-nominated star excelled in musicals and romantic comedies, bringing a sense of edge and humor to her squeaky-clean demeanor. Although she made only a handful of movies between 1948 and 1968, several of her titles remain classics. In honor of her birthday, let’s take a look back at 20 of her greatest films, ranked worst to best.

SEERock Hudson movies: 12 greatest films ranked worst to best

Born in 1922, Day got her start as a band singer, making her film debut with the musical comedy “Romance on the High Seas” (1948). He vocal talents benefited her in such films as “Calamity Jane” (1953), “Love Me or Leave Me” (1955), and “The Pajama Game” (1957), and she often sang the title tunes to her films.

She is perhaps best remembered for three frothy romantic comedies she made with sly, square-jawed leading man Rock Hudson and sardonic sidekick Tony Randall...

The Strokes, Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Jenny Lewis, Tash Sultana, Incubus and Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats will lead the 2019 Ohana Festival. The fourth annual fest will run from Friday, September 27th through Sunday, the 29th at Doheny State Beach in Dana Point, California. Tickets go on sale Friday, March 8th at 10 a.m. local time.

The eclectic line-up also features Laura Jane Grace & the Devouring Mothers, Glen Hansard, Mudhoney, LP, Devendra Banhart, White Reaper, Benjamin Booker, Jacob Banks, Lukas Nelson & the Promise of the Real,...

Danny Boyle’s abrupt exit last week from the new James Bond sequel upset many Bond fans, who now face a longer wait for Bond 25, but my own reaction was one of relief. Boyle is too interesting a filmmaker to be making franchises rather than films — the Bond business had already consumed another talented Brit, Sam Mendes, for a few years (Skyfall and Spectre). Bond is surely a damn good business (the last four iterations grossed over $3 billion worldwide) but, by and large, British filmmakers haven’t been creating the sort of truly and innovate fare that they contributed in years past.

I was reminded of this yesterday when I spoke at a 50th anniversary salute to Midnight Cowboy at the Coronado Island Film Festival. Screening Cowboy pinpointed that extraordinary mid-1960s moment when the Brits essentially annexed the film world. John Schlesinger’s movie created a sort of...

“Darkest Hour” and “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” each reaped nine nominations for the 2018 BAFTA Awards. Among these are bids for Best British Film. While that nomination for the former makes sense given the subject matter and pedigree of Joe Wright‘s biopic about prime minister Winston Churchill, the latter doesn’t appear to be British. However, while the film is set in the American heartland, it was written and directed by an Englishman, Martin McDonagh, and that qualified it for consideration in this category.

Both films also number among the five in contention for Best Picture, alongside the American-made “The Shape of Water” and the international co-productions “Call Me By Your Name” and “Dunkirk.” Fans of either of “Darkest Hour” or “Three Billboards” should be rooting for one of their rivals in the Best British Film race — “The Death of Stalin,” “God’s Own Country,” “Lady Macbeth” or “Paddington 2” — to win on Feb.

Predictably, most of the memorials for the late great horror director George A. Romero focused on his influence on the zombie and wider horror genre. Yes, he was important and influential in that area. But his legacy is much wider. More than any other filmmaker, Romero changed the course of independent film making in America.

Independent films have been around as long as movies existed. Indeed, in their infancy all early features from around 1912 were basically independent, before the Hollywood studio system rapidly evolved in the late teens.

Though the majors dominated moviemaking and distribution from their hub in Southern California, many independent filmmakers such as Edgar G. Ulmer, the idiosyncratic Edward Wood, African-American pioneer Oscar Micheaux and various ethnic cinemas flourished on the side. In 1955 Robert Altman was making industrial films in Kansas City when he was hired by a local businessman to make his first feature, the low-budget...

Writer-director Elio Petri scores big in his first feature, the story of a heel suspected of murder. Is he a killer, or just an average guy trying to get ahead, who uses women to his advantage? Marcello Mastroianni impresses as well in a serious role, with Salvo Randone shining as the police inspector trying to pry a confession from him. Beautifully restored in HD; the show is from a time when Italian film was at its zenith.

The Assassin

Blu-ray + DVD

Arrow Video USA

1961 / B&W / 1:85 widescreen / 97 min. / Street Date April 18, 2017 / L’Assassino / Available from Arrow Video

Starring: Marcello Mastroianni, Micheline Presle, Cristina Gaioni, Salvo Randone, Andrea Checchi, Francesco Grandjacquet, Marco Mariani, Franco Ressel.

Cinematography: Carlo Di Palma

Film Editor: Ruggero Mastroianni

Original Music: Piero Piccione

Written by Tonino (Antonio) Guerra, Elio Petri, Pasquale Fest Campanile, Massimo Franciosa

Produced by Franco Cristaldi

Directed by Elio Petri

Fans of Elio Petri...

‘Manchester by the Sea’ (Courtesy: Amazon Studios)

By: Carson Blackwelder

Managing Editor

A fourth chance at an Oscar is right around the corner for Michelle Williams — despite how little screen time the actress racked up in Manchester by the Sea. Should the stars align, Williams will score a best supporting actress nomination at the 2017 ceremony. After you hear just how little of the film featured the 36-year-old, it might shock you — but let us just assure you that this isn’t a new accomplishment.

This site’s namesake, The Hollywood Reporter’s Scott Feinberg, lists Williams as a frontrunner in the best supporting actress category this year alongside Viola Davis (Fences), Naomie Harris (Moonlight), Nicole Kidman (Lion), and Greta Gerwig (20th Century Women). The Montana-born actress has already scored three Oscar nominations: in the best supporting actress category for 2005’s Brokeback Mountain as well as in the best actress category...

“Everything But The Kitchen Sink”

By Raymond Benson

In the late 1950s, a film movement emerged in Britain known as “Free Cinema.” Some of the U.K.’s most celebrated filmmakers of the 1960s and 70s were among its practitioners—Lindsay Anderson, Karel Reisz, Lorenza Mazzetti, and Tony Richardson. The directors made low budget, short documentaries about the working class with an almost deliberate “non commercial” sensibility. It was radical and exciting, and it was a precursor to the British New Wave that dovetailed with the French New Wave that was so influential on filmmakers everywhere.

Many of the pictures of the British New Wave, released between 1959 and 1964, focused on characters described as “angry young men,” and the films themselves were referred to by critics and theorists as “kitchen sink dramas.” This was because the movies were presented in a harsh, realistic fashion and were indeed about the gritty, working...

It's the classic paranoid conspiracy that won't go away... and that seems less impossible with every passing year. Laurence Harvey is a remote-controlled assassin, and Frank Sinatra seems to be under a little hypnotic influence himself... or are we just imagining it? John Frankenheimer and George Axelrod concoct a masterpiece from the novel by Richard Condon, a movie about conspiracies, that may be hiding more secrets in plain sight. The Manchurian Candidate Blu-ray The Criterion Collection 803 1962 / B&W / 1:75 widescreen / 126 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date March 15, 2016 / 39.95 Starring Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey, Janet Leigh, Angela Lansbury, Henry Silva, James Gregory, Leslie Parrish, John McGiver, Khigh Dhiegh Cinematography Lionel Lindon Production Designer Richard Sylbert Film Editor Ferris Webster Original Music David Amram Written by George Axelrod from the novel by Richard Condon Produced by George Axelrod, John Frankenheimer, Howard W. Koch Directed by John Frankenheimer

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson...

By Patrick Shanley

Managing Editor

On Saturday evening in Galeta, Calif., legendary actress Jane Fonda was awarded with the 10th Annual Kirk Douglas Award for Excellence in Film at the 31st Santa Barbara International Film Festival.

The 77-year-old actress has won two best actress Oscars in her decades-long career, but has not received a nomination in 28 years. This year, however, she has been generating major Oscar buzz for a supporting actress nomination after a short, but very strong, performance in director Paolo Sorrentino‘s Youth, in which she plays an aging movie star.

Fonda’s role in the film is hardly more than a cameo, with her screen time barely exceeding five minutes, and yet that could be enough for her to earn a best supporting actress nomination. Limited screen time does not necessarily bar an actress from the Oscars, and a few performances that are even shorter than Fonda...

The film with the biggest Oscar buzz out of this year's Cannes Film Festival was Todd Haynes' lesbian love story, "Carol," which took the Best Actress prize for Rooney Mara, who tied for the honor with French actress Emmanuelle Bercot ("Mon Roi"). Mara, who was nominated for the Best Actress Oscar in 2011 for "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo," now has a serious chance to return to the derby, especially since most of the buzz about the film had surrounded her co-star, two-time Oscar champ Cate Blanchett. Click Here to see the complete list of Cannes winners. -Break- Nineteem women who won this category at Cannes went on to snag Oscar nominations and four have won: Simone Signoret for "Room at the Top" (1959), Sophia Loren for "Two Women" (1961), Sally Field for "Norma Rae" (1979) and Holly Hunter for "The Piano" (1993). Will Cannes hit 'Youth' bring Michael Caine, Jane Fonda bac.

Teresa Wright: Later years (See preceding post: "Teresa Wright: From Marlon Brando to Matt Damon.") Teresa Wright and Robert Anderson were divorced in 1978. They would remain friends in the ensuing years.[1] Wright spent most of the last decade of her life in Connecticut, making only sporadic public appearances. In 1998, she could be seen with her grandson, film producer Jonah Smith, at New York's Yankee Stadium, where she threw the ceremonial first pitch.[2] Wright also became involved in the Greater New York chapter of the Als Association. (The Pride of the Yankees subject, Lou Gehrig, died of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis in 1941.) The week she turned 82 in October 2000, Wright attended the 20th anniversary celebration of Somewhere in Time, where she posed for pictures with Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour. In March 2003, she was a guest at the 75th Academy Awards, in the segment showcasing Oscar-winning actors of the past. Two years later,...

I. The Landmine

In August 1955, George Devine, director of London’s Royal Court Theatre, ventured to meet a promising writer, living on a Thames houseboat. “I had to borrow a dinghy… wade out to it and row myself to my new playwright,” he recalled. Thus began a partnership between Devine, who sought to rescue the English stage from stale commercialism, and the 26 year old tyro, John Osborne. Together, they’d revolutionize modern theater.

Born in London but raised in Stoneleigh, Surrey, Osborne lost his father at age 12, resented his low-born mother and was expelled from school for striking a headmaster. While acting for Anthony Creighton’s repertory company, his mercurial temper and violent language appeared. In 1951 he wed actress Pamela Lane, only to divorce six years later. Osborne soon immortalized their marriage: their cramped apartment, with invasive friends and intruding in-laws, John and Pamela’s pet names and verbal abuse,...