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In the early 1980s, news emerged of an ambitious-sounding sci-fi adventure that used cutting-edge CGI. Then it vanished. We look at what happened to Spaceblasters.

It was one of winter 1982’s more eye-catching films: a sci-fi adventure filled with cutting-edge CGI effects and explosive action. Its marketing push included an arcade machine which could be played in the cinema’s lobby before you went in to see the movie itself. This was Spaceblasters – produced by Polygram Pictures and financed by CBS Theatrical Films to the tune of $10m, its budget was on a par with two of that year’s major releases, E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial and Poltergeist.

You may have seen the hole in this particular story, though: Spaceblasters never actually came out. In fact, look for it on the internet, and you’ll find next to nothing about it.

The only real source of information on Spaceblasters came...

In the 1960s, during which time she co-directed Salesman and Gimme Shelter, Charlotte Zwerin helped to define a mode of documentary filmmaking that became known as direct cinema. Zwerin collaborated with Albert and David Maysles primarily in the post-production phase, sorting through their raw footage to help shape and structure it into a coherent narrative. And that skillset is on full display in Thelonious Monk: Straight, No Chaser, one of Zwerin’s few solo-directed feature documentaries.

The film was produced following Thelonious Monk’s death in 1982, and the majority of the footage showcasing his live performances and daily life off stage was filmed for West German television in 1967 for a one-hour special that only aired in Germany. Rather than settle into a conventional unspooling of Monk’s life and work, Straight, No Chaser bounces around in rhythmic fashion, as if trying to capture the man’s feel for jazz music.

Lynn Hamilton — Sanford and Son and The Waltons actress — died at 95 on Thursday, June 19, 2025. On Friday, June 20, Hamilton’s publicist, Rev. Calvin Carson, took to Facebook and Instagram to announce her death. “With profound gratitude and admiration, we celebrate the extraordinary life of iconic actress Alzenia ‘Lynn’ Hamilton-Jenkins, whose remarkable legacy continues to uplift and inspire,” he wrote. “Her illustrious career, spanning over five decades, has left an indelible mark on the world of entertainment, motivating audiences across the globe through her work as a model, stage, film, and television actress.” In the announcement, Carson highlighted Hamilton’s impressive career, including “captivating performances” as Donna Harris in Sanford and Son and Verdie Grant Foster in The Waltons. Other “notable works” included Roots: The Next Generation, A Dream for Christmas, Generations, The Jesse Owens Story, The Practice and Lady Sings the Blues. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Calvin Carson (@calvincarson67) Additionally,...

Lynn Hamilton, known in part for her roles in the classic TV shows The Waltons and Sanford and Son, has passed away.

Per The Hollywood Reporter, it has been reported that Hamilton died on Thursday at her home in Chicago, Illinois. According to her publicist, Rev. Calvin Carson, Hamilton died of natural causes. She was 95 years old.

Hamilton was born on April 25, 1930, in Yazoo City, Mississippi, to parents Nancy and Louis. Raised in Chicago, she graduated from the Goodman School of Drama Theater, but as the only Black performer in her class, she said "there weren't any roles" for her at the time. However, she continued to perform and gain experience after moving to New York in 1956. She would act on Broadway in the late 1950s and early 60s.

Hamilton made her feature film debut in 1959 with a role in the movie Shadows. She would later appear in the Sidney Poitier...

Lynn Hamilton, best known to TV audiences for work on Sanford and Son and The Waltons, has passed away at the age of 95.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Hamilton died June 19 of natural causes at her home in Chicago.

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Hamilton recurred throughout Sanford and Son’s six-season run; she appeared in 22 episodes across six seasons,...

Lynn Hamilton, the versatile stage and screen actor best remembered as nurse Donna Harris on NBC’s “Sanford and Son,” died Thursday, 19 June 2025, at her home in Chicago. She was 95, her former manager and publicist, the Rev. Calvin Carson, confirmed, saying the cause was natural causes. Carson added in a Facebook statement that memorial details will be released once arrangements are finalized and invited fans to share tributes as the family mourns.

During six seasons on “Sanford and Son” (1972-77), Hamilton’s calm, competent Donna provided a counterweight to Redd Foxx’s irascible Fred Sanford and helped the sitcom become a breakthrough hit for Black-led television when it premiered 50 years ago. Her performance also resonated in prime-time drama as Verdie Foster, the dignified schoolteacher who sought literacy late in life on CBS’s “The Waltons,” a character fans still praise for humanizing racial issues in Depression-era Appalachia.

Born Alzenia Lynn Hamilton...

Lynn Hamilton, the theater-trained actress who portrayed the girlfriend of Redd Foxx’s character on Sanford and Son and the neighborly Miss Verdie on The Waltons, has died. She was 95.

Hamilton died Thursday of natural causes at her home in Chicago, her former manager and publicist, Rev. Calvin Carson, told The Hollywood Reporter.

Hamilton also starred as the matriarch Vivian Potter on the 1989-91 NBC daytime drama Generations — which had the unfortunate task of running up against CBS ratings juggernaut The Young and the Restless — and as Cissie Johnson, one of the ex-cons featured on the 1991-92 syndicated nighttime soap Dangerous Women.

She also played Cousin Georgia Anderson on the 1979 miniseries Roots: The Next Generations and had recurring roles as the snippy Emma Johnson on NBC’s 227 and as a judge on ABC’s The Practice.

The Chicago-raised actress made her big-screen debut in John Cassavetes’ Shadows (1959) and went...

Cynthia Erivo made Oscar history on Thursday morning with her Best Actress bid for Wicked. She is now only the second Black female performer to receive multiple bids in this category, after Viola Davis.

Erivo plays Elphaba Thropp, the Wicked Witch of the West, in director Jon M. Chu‘s big-budget adaptation of the beloved Broadway stage musical. Wicked actually marks her second Best Actress mention after Harriet (2019), for which she also earned a Best Song bid for “Stand Up” (cowritten with Joshuah Brian Campbell). Wicked received 10 Oscar nominations this year, including for Erivo’s supporting co-star Ariana Grande.

Davis was the first to accomplish such a feat, thanks to her double Best Actress Oscar bids for The Help (2011) and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (2020). While she lost both of those contests, she did win the Best Supporting Actress prize for Fences (2016); she also had a prior bid in that...

In Marc Forster's 2001 drama "Monster's Ball," Halle Berry plays Leticia Musgrove, a woman at the end of her rope. Her husband has been convicted of murder and is executed by the state of Georgia early in the film. Leticia is trying to put her life back together when her son Tyrell (Coronji Calhoun) is hit by a car and dies. Leticia can only find comfort in the arms of a gruff prison warden named Hank (Billy Bob Thornton), whose own son (Heath Ledger) recently died by suicide. What Leticia doesn't know, however, is that Hank oversaw her husband's execution. It's all very complicated, but handled tactfully and with the utmost sensitivity. "Monster's Ball" is a pretty great film.

Berry won the Oscar for Best Actress for playing Leticia at the 2002 Academy Awards ceremony, beating out Judi Dench, Nicole Kidman, Sissy Spacek, and Renée Zellweger. Her victory was well-deserved.

She...

In the past 96 years of the Academy Awards, there have only been two years in which two Black women were nominated for Best Actress in the same year. That ignominious statistic could very well change for the better this year, as performers Cynthia Erivo (“Wicked”) and Marianne Jean-Baptiste (“Hard Truths”) are both closing in on nominations.

Erivo’s star turn as Elphaba, a role which won the Best Musical Actress trophy at the 2004 Tony Awards for Idina Menzel, currently ranks fifth in our combined Oscar odds. It would mark her second nomination in the category, following her breakout film role as Harriet Tubman in “Harriet” (2019). The actress earned two nominations that year, also receiving recognition for the song “Stand Up,” which she wrote with Joshuah Brian Campbell. The Tony winner for “The Color Purple” currently has 80% of experts and 40% of Gold Derby editors predicting her for the nom.

See Oscar...

T.G. Sheppard knows exactly how people at home may have felt when they were watching Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever, the landmark 1983 TV special honoring one of the most enduring record companies ever. The singer was feeling the same way backstage at the Pasadena Civic Center in California, marveling at moments like Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean” moonwalk, Marvin Gaye’s otherworldly “What’s Going On,” and the reunions of the Jackson 5, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, and the Supremes.

He knows audiences were probably confused when comedian and host...

You don’t need to be a Bob Dylan aficionado to appreciate Timothée Chalamet’s transformation into the iconic folk singer. Even if your knowledge of Dylan’s career is limited to a few famous tracks or a vague recollection of his controversial shift to electric guitar, Chalamet’s performance in “A Complete Unknown” is undeniably a career best. He’s emerging as a leading contender for his first Academy Award — a compelling performance that may prove difficult for voters to ignore.

On Wednesday night in Los Angeles, Searchlight Pictures hosted two packed screenings of “A Complete Unknown” at the Fox Lot, followed by Q&a sessions featuring director and co-writer James Mangold, actors Monica Barbaro and Elle Fanning, costume designer Arianne Phillips, and production designer François Audouy. Chalamet, currently filming Josh Safdie’s new period project “Marty Supreme,” was notably absent, but his presence wasn’t needed to dominate the conversation.

It’s been almost 60 years since Ron Howard last played that lovable scamp Opie on “The Andy Griffith Show,” but the Oscar-winning filmmaker still carries the hit television show in his heart to this day. In announcing his TCM Picks for November, Howard began by honoring his TV father, the late Andy Griffith, with the selection of Elia Kazan’s 1957 satire, “A Face in the Crowd.”

“It’s significance has grown tremendously over the decades, both as a distinct piece of cinema and an increasingly relevant social commentary,” Howard said in the video below. “Most personal to me is Andy Griffith’s performance as the central figure, Lonesome Rhodes, an easygoing folk singer who’s transformed by a media producer into a populist figure who’s changing the face of politics.”

Howard goes on to explain how Griffith was the second choice behind Kazan’s regular leading man Marlon Brando,...

The annual TCM Classic Film Festival is expanding to the East Coast, even if just for a day.

Turner Classic Movies is launching a fan event in partnership with The 92nd Street Y in New York ahead of the 2025 Los Angeles-based festival. IndieWire can confirm that TCM “will expand its festival footprint,” per an official press statement, with the “TCM Classic Film Festival: New York Pop-Up x 92Ny” taking place in collaboration with The 92nd Street Y, New York.

The one-day event will include three different programs on Saturday, January 25 in New York, leading up to the TCM Classic Film Festival kickoff in April.

The actual 2025 TCM Classic Film Festival will take place in Hollywood, CA, from Thursday, April 24 through Sunday, April 27. The theme will be “Grand Illusions: Fantastic Worlds on Film,” with features ranging from “enchanted worlds of fantasy and stories beyond belief, from myths and magical creatures to...

by Christopher James

Billy Dee Williams was present at a screening of Lady Sings the Blues for a Q&a as part of a tribute to him at the TCM Film Festival.It wouldn’t be a trip to the TCM Film Festival if I didn’t catch some of the great romances of yesteryear.

In particular, the enemies to lovers romantic comedy troupe was alive and well. Ernst Lubitsch’s The Shop Around the Corner provides the foundation for this trope. Decades later, Doris Day and Rock Hudson would use this dynamic to great success in many collaborations, including the bonkers comedy Send Me No Flowers. Romance isn’t all fun and games though. The Billie Holliday biopic Lady Sings the Blues borrows less from the biopic genre and focuses more on the troubled relationship between Holliday (Diana Ross) and Louis McKay.

Did all these pairs sell us on their celluloid love?...

“You know you can watch that at home, right?” Such was the advice directed my way by a wisecracking passerby while queued up for a screening at the 2024 Turner Classic Movies Film Festival in Hollywood, California. They were clearly not a festival passholder, but the indifference heard right there on the Hollywood Walk of Fame was another instance of the trampling of history that both the festival and its parent channel aim to counter.

Probably the most even-handed response to that trampling would be a reminder—to flip a well-known phrase—that a home is not a house (not a movie house anyway). The folks who flock to Los Angeles every year from all over the world to attend this festival, probably all subscribers or rabid devotees of the channel that bears its name, cough up a prodigious amount of money to do so. It’s clear that for them,...

Returning for its 15th annual edition this weekend, the TCM Classic Film Festival will turn Hollywood Blvd. into the center of the movie universe again for four days, for that very obsessive and loving subset of film fans that has the network’s vintage fare as part of their weekly and daily lives. And just what time span “classics” falls into is exemplified by the big opening and closing night films.

The gala opening night picture is 1994’s “Pulp Fiction,” which festival director Genevieve McGillicuddy says “is one of the most contemporary films that we are showing this year, along with ‘The Shawshank Redemption’ and ‘Little Women,’ the 1994 version. ‘Seven,’ I think, is the most recent film we’re screening; that’s 1995. Just like with the network, we don’t have any official cutoff in terms of the years of films that we’re showing. But, interestingly — it’s the opposite of a cutoff,...

Billy Dee Williams believes actors should be able to perform in blackface.

In a new episode of Bill Maher’s “Club Random” podcast, the “Star Wars” actor recalled watching Laurence Olivier in 1965’s “Othello,” in which Olivier wore blackface to portray the title role.

“When he did ‘Othello,’ I fell out laughing,” Williams said of Olivier. “He stuck his ass out and walked around with his ass, you know, because Black people are supposed to have big asses.”

“I thought it was hysterical. I loved it,” Williams added. “I love that kind of stuff.”

Maher noted that “today, they would never let you do that,” to which Williams replied, “Why?”

“Blackface?” Maher questioned in a tone of surprise.

“Why not? You should do it,” Williams said. “If you’re an actor, you should do anything you want to do.”

Maher then pointed out that Williams, 87, “actually lived in a period...

Turner Classic Movies (TCM) will open the 15th annual TCM Classic Film Festival on Thursday, April 18 with a 35mm screening of the classic neo-noir Pulp Fiction (1994). Two-time Academy Award nominee John Travolta will attend to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the film.

Pulp Fiction kicks off a weekend of programming set within the theme “Most Wanted: Crime and Justice in Film,” as well as the 30th anniversary of the network.

“Pulp Fiction is one of the most important and influential movies of the 1990s. It was Quentin Tarantino’s magnum opus and the beginning of a well-deserved comeback for John Travolta,” said Ben Mankiewicz, TCM primetime anchor and official host of the TCM Classic Film Festival. “Like Bonnie and Clyde and The Godfather, it changed our thinking about the type of stories Hollywood could tell.”

Pulp Fiction gives an inside look at a community of criminals, starring Travolta, Uma Thurman,...

Grab your royale with cheese and double-check your grandfather’s watch because “Pulp Fiction” just turned 30.

To honor the anniversary of the Oscar-winning Quentin Tarantino film, the 2024 Turner Classic Movies Classic Film Festival will kick off with a special 35mm screening of “Pulp Fiction.” Academy Award nominee and Golden Globe and Emmy winner John Travolta will be in attendance to toast to his 1994 comeback role.

“‘Pulp Fiction’ is one of the most important and influential movies of the 1990s. It was Quentin Tarantino’s magnum opus and the beginning of a well-deserved comeback for John Travolta,” TCM Classic Film Festival host and TCM primetime anchor Ben Mankiewicz said. “Like ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ and ‘The Godfather,’ it changed our thinking about the type of stories Hollywood could tell.”

The theme of tje 2024 TCM Classic Film Festival is “Most Wanted: Crime and Justice in Film” to mark the network’s 30th anniversary.

You'd have to be the world's biggest grump to grouse over Billy Dee Williams returning to the role of Lando Calrissian for "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker" 36 years after the character's last appearance in the series. First off, it's Billy Dee Williams. The man defined 1970s suave as Louis McKay opposite Diana Ross' Billie Holiday in "Lady Sings the Blues," and was denied a bevy of further star turns for infuriatingly obvious corporate/cultural reasons. Williams didn't disappear from the movies, but he should've been topping marquees for at least a couple of decades.

If only J.J. Abrams had given the smoothest rogue in the galaxy something more interesting to do than provide a bit of crucial info, catch us up on his tragic post-original trilogy doings, and help save the day at the end of what is by far the worst entry in the series' nine-film cycle.

So...

Billy Dee Williams was primed for stardom in the 1970s. He reduced grown men to tears as Chicago Bears running back Gayle Sayers in the classic made-for-tv movie "Brian's Song," and made a super suave impression as Diana Ross' manager in the Billie Holiday biopic "Lady Sings the Blues." Handsome as hell and armed with a velvety bass voice, Williams was a seduction machine in search of the right vehicle to vault him to the Hollywood A-list.

This being the 1970s, when Black leads were generally relegated to the Blaxploitation arena, that vehicle never arrived. He was terrific in the title role of John Badham's "The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings," but he couldn't build off its box office success because the studios weren't developing movies with Black protagonists.

Although he was in his leading-man prime, Williams disappeared from the big screen for four years after "Bingo Long.

Star Wars actor Billy Dee Williams announced that he has written an autobiography, What Have We Here?, which will be published next year.

Williams -- who is perhaps best known for playing Lando Calrissian in the Star Wars original and sequel trilogies -- shared the news on X (formerly Twitter), writing, "Coming in February 2024, I will be sharing my life’s story—from Harlem to Star Wars and beyond—on all that has sustained and carried me through a lifetime of dreams and adventure." What Have We Here? is currently available for preorder on Penguin Random House.

Related: The Mandalorian: Timothy Olyphant Is Ready to Return for Dave Filoni's Movie...

At the 1959 American International Toy Fair in New York, an 11.5-inch plastic ingénue with improbably bombshell proportions made her debut. In her earliest iteration, Barbie was marketed as a “Teen Age Fashion Model” and was based on the German Bild Lilli doll that Mattel co-founder Ruth Handler had seen during her travels to Europe.

At the time, Bob Mackie was studying costume design at the since-closed Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles’ Westlake neighborhood. He would go on to a legendary career in fashion and entertainment, but already his eye for the female form was well defined. When he first saw Barbie, he was not impressed.

“I didn’t think she was very fashionable,” he says of the doll, who originally sported a simple black-and-white Chevron swimsuit, hoop earrings and a perky blond ponytail.

He had no way of knowing that he would become one of the people most closely...

In the time since Olivia Colman won the 2019 Best Actress Oscar for appearing in 49 minutes and 48 seconds of “The Favourite,” the academy has consistently given the same award to women with much higher amounts of screen time. All of the category’s last three champions delivered performances that are over 80 minutes in length and rank among the 22 longest ever honored here. Since four of the five current Best Actress nominees hit the 93-minute mark, this trend is practically bound to continue.

Reigning Best Actress victor Jessica Chastain earned the prize for her one hour, 36 minutes, and 42 seconds of work as Tammy Faye Bakker in “The Eyes of Tammy Faye,” which amounts to 76.45% of the film. Hers is the fifth longest of the 97 performances that have won this award, after those of Vivien Leigh (“Gone with the Wind”), Barbra Streisand (“Funny Girl”), Meryl Streep (“Sophie’s Choice”), and Olivia de Havilland (“To Each His Own...

Jay Weston, producer of films like “Lady Sings the Blues” and “Buddy Buddy,” died of natural causes Feb. 28 at the Motion Picture Home in Woodland Hills, Calif. He was 93.

Weston first met Billie Holiday at the Newport Jazz Festival — a chance encounter that would ultimately lead to Weston producing a biopic about her starring Diana Ross in 1972. “Lady Sings the Blues” marked Ross’ feature debut and went on to score five Academy Award nominations, including best actress for Ross and original screenplay.

“I read the book and I said to [Holiday’s] agent, ‘I want to make a movie out of it,’” Weston said in a 2011 interview with the Los Angeles Business Journal, referring to the jazz singer’s autobiography. “He said, ‘Give me $5,000, and I’ll think about it.’ So I gave him $5,000, and it took 13 years and many $5,000 payments to keep the rights because everybody wanted it.”

The veteran filmmaker...

Jay Weston, a veteran producer of Hollywood films including 1972’s “Lady Sings the Blues” starring Diana Ross and 1968’s “For Love of Ivy” starring Sidney Poitier, has died at the age or 93.

Weston, who also built a respected career as a restaurant critic, died at the Motion Picture Home in Woodland Hills, California.

Weston’s most notable producing efforts likely came on “Lady Sings the Blues,” which was nominated for five Academy Awards. Other features included “Buddy Buddy” (notable for being Billy Wilder’s final film), “Chu Chu and the Philly Flash” and “W.C. Fields and Me.”

Weston was born in Brooklyn, New York, on March 9, 1929, to Phillip and Shirley Weinstein. He went to NYU as a pre-med student, but soon switched to an arts curriculum. After earning a BA, he began a career in publicity before being drafted and sent to Korea in 1952. There he started a newspaper, The Hialean,...

Jay Weston, who was working as a publicist when a chance meeting with Billie Holiday at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival would lead to the producing of her 1972 biopic Lady Sings the Blues, died February 28 of natural causes at the Motion Picture Home in Woodland Hills, CA. He was 93.

His death was announced by spokesperson Jeff Sanderson on behalf of the Weston family.

Related Story Hollywood & Media Deaths In 2023: Photo Gallery & Obituaries Related Story Ricou Browning Dies: 'Creature From The Black Lagoon's Gill-man Was 93 Related Story Brett Radin Dies: Talent Manager With Knitting Factory Management Was 53

A prominent restaurant critic later in life, Weston’s show business career in the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s was marked by such high points as producing Billy Wilder’s last film, Chu Chu and the Philly Flash with Carol Burnett and Alan Arkin, W.C. Fields...

Jay Weston, who produced the Diana Ross-starring Lady Sings the Blues and Billy Wilder’s final feature, Buddy Buddy, has died. He was 93.

Weston died Tuesday of natural causes at the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, his family announced.

Weston also served as head of ABC’s feature film division, Palomar Pictures, where his first project was the Sydney Pollack-directed They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? (1969), nominated for nine Oscars.

And he produced the 1969 Broadway drama Does a Tiger Wear a Necktie?, starring Al Pacino in a career-launching, Tony-winning turn.

A chance meeting with Billie Holiday at the Newport Jazz Festival led him to securing the rights to her autobiography. He then produced Lady Sings the Blues (1972), the Sidney J. Furie-helmed biopic that collected five Academy Award nominations.

Weston followed with films including W.C. Fields and Me (1976), starring Rod Steiger; Chu Chu and...

On the JoBlo Movies YouTube channel, we will be posting one full movie every day of the week, giving viewers the chance to watch them entirely free of charge. The Free Movie of the Day we have for you today is the Vietnam War drama The Veteran, and you can watch it over on the YouTube channel linked above, or you can just watch it in the embed at the top of this article.

Directed by Sidney J. Furie from a screenplay by J. Stephen Maunder and John Flock, The Veteran was originally released in 2006 and is a follow-up to Furie’s 2001 film Under Heavy Fire, a.k.a. Going Back. This one has the following synopsis: Thirty years on from the Vietnam War, a government official is trying to track down soldiers who went missing in action, in the hope that it may lead her to her father. Meanwhile,...

Naomi Ackie Photo: Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images Naomi Ackie is having a moment ... you could even call it “One Moment In Time.” The British actor, who was first noticed alongside Florence Pugh in 2016’s Lady Macbeth and has since appeared in the TV comedies Master Of None and The End Of The F***ing World,...

NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.

Film Forum

To mark the great Alain Resnias’ centennial, a massive retrospective starts with Marienbad, Muriel, Hiroshima, and Je t’aime, je t’aime; The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie and The Umbrellas of Cherbourg screen.

Bam

“Intimate Epics” begins with a print of Yi Yi, Happy Hour, and Ottinger’s Joan of Arc of Mongolia.

Museum of the Moving Image

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and Licorice Pizza play back-to-back on 70mm this weekend, while one of cinema’s most unsung heroes—women in Australian cinema—get their due in a new retrospective.

Japan Society

Kore-eda’s After Life is screening on Friday.

Film at Lincoln Center

Three Colors: Blue, Three Colors: White, and a massive retrospective of King Vidor all continue.

Roxy Cinema

The series “Woman as Witch” offers plenty scintillating—prints of Alien 3, Lady Sings the Blues,...

Director Sidney J. Furie discusses his favorite films he’s watched and re-watched during quarantine with hosts Josh Olson and Joe Dante.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Dr. Blood’s Coffin (1961)

The Ipcress File (1965) – Howard Rodman’s trailer commentary, Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review

The Appaloosa (1966)

The Naked Runner (1967)

Lady Sings The Blues (1972)

The Entity (1982) – Luca Gaudagnino’s trailer commentary

The Boys in Company C (1978)

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) – John Landis’s trailer commentary, Dennis Cozzalio’s review

Full Metal Jacket (1987)

The Apartment (1960) – Dan Ireland’s trailer commentary, Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review, Randy Fuller’s wine pairing

The Best Years Of Our Lives (1946)

Twelve O’Clock High (1949)

A Place In The Sun (1951) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review

Out Of Africa (1985)

The Last Picture Show (1971) – Mark Pellington’s trailer commentary, Randy Fuller’s wine pairing

Annie Hall (1977)

The Bad And The Beautiful (1952)

Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (2019)

The Tender Bar...

Motown founder Berry Gordy had a galaxy of star executives helping him build the company into the powerhouse it became, but not many of them shone as brightly as Suzanne de Passe.

Joining the company relatively late in its heyday, de Passe moved from her native Harlem to Detroit in 1968 and soon convinced a skeptical Berry to sign a group of kids calling themselves the Jackson 5. She quickly took charge of developing the group into the pop-culture juggernaut they immediately became — their first four singles went to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 — developing their live show, imaging, choreography, television appearances and much more. Her next signing? An R&b combo called the Commodores featuring a young singer named Lionel Richie.

After being named the company’s West Coast head of A&R she went on to work with Rick James and others, while gradually transitioning into her main career: as a TV and film executive,...

The party begins at Rick’s Café Américain and ends in Bedford Falls.

Eightieth anniversary screenings of Casablanca (1942) on Jan. 23 and 26 will kick off the TCM Big Screen Classics monthly schedule of cinematic masterpieces next year, and It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) will close the show on Dec. 18 and 21.

In between, the films being shown in more than 650 locations across the country for each event are Lady Sings the Blues (1972) in February, The Quiet Man (1952) in March, Singin’ in the Rain (1952) in April, Smokey and the Bandit (1977) in May, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) in ...

The party begins at Rick’s Café Américain and ends in Bedford Falls.

Eightieth anniversary screenings of Casablanca (1942) on Jan. 23 and 26 will kick off the TCM Big Screen Classics monthly schedule of cinematic masterpieces next year, and It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) will close the show on Dec. 18 and 21.

In between, the films being shown in more than 650 locations across the country for each event are Lady Sings the Blues (1972) in February, The Quiet Man (1952) in March, Singin’ in the Rain (1952) in April, Smokey and the Bandit (1977) in May, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) in ...

Andra Day, “The United States vs. Billie Holiday” • Andra Day’s debut album “Cheers to the Fall” and single “Rise Up” in 2015 earned her a Best R&b Album and Best R&b Performance Grammy nominations, respectively, the latter of which also scored a Daytime Emmy nod after she promoted it in “The View.” About her role in “TUSvBH,” Day told the New York Post, “When I embarked on it, I was like, ‘This is such a bad idea! I’m not an actress.'” She was wrong. She has the Golden Globe and Oscar nomination to prove it.

Mary J. Blige, “Mudbound” • Mary J. Blige’s music career began in 1991 when she signed with Uptown Records and went on to release 13 albums – eight of which went multi-platinum – and sold 80 million records worldwide. The winner of nine Grammys and the title of Queen of Hip-Hop Soul, Blige smoothly transitioned to acting,...

Actors will love Liesl Tommy’s Aretha Franklin biopic “Respect.” Thirteen years after the Queen of Soul first approached Jennifer Hudson, who had just won her “Dreamgirls” Oscar, with the idea of playing her in a movie, “Respect” wrapped filming in February 2020, one month before lockdown. MGM decided to push back the movie from December 2020 to August 13, 2021, to give it a chance to play in theaters.

Judging from the way “Respect” played Saturday night at the Bruin Theatre in Westwood to (masked and vaccinated) members of the Screen Actors Guild nominating committee, the studio made the right choice to favor an exclusive theatrical release. Broadway director Tommy has mounted a solid crowdpleaser, written by Tracey Scott Wilson, that will satisfy generations of Franklin fans. And ageless 39-year-old singer-actress Hudson, who plays Franklin from her teens through her acclaimed 1972 gospel concert “Amazing Grace,” is on her way to a second Oscar nomination.

Actors will love Liesl Tommy’s Aretha Franklin biopic “Respect.” Thirteen years after the Queen of Soul first approached Jennifer Hudson, who had just won her “Dreamgirls” Oscar, with the idea of playing her in a movie, “Respect” wrapped filming in February 2020, one month before lockdown. MGM decided to push back the movie from December 2020 to August 13, 2021, to give it a chance to play in theaters.

Judging from the way “Respect” played Saturday night at the Bruin Theatre in Westwood to (masked and vaccinated) members of the Screen Actors Guild nominating committee, the studio made the right choice to favor an exclusive theatrical release. Broadway director Tommy has mounted a solid crowdpleaser, written by Tracey Scott Wilson, that will satisfy generations of Franklin fans. And ageless 39-year-old singer-actress Hudson, who plays Franklin from her teens through her acclaimed 1972 gospel concert “Amazing Grace,” is on her way to a second Oscar nomination.

Diana Ross’ music has taken in many stages: the Supremes, early solo hits, Lady Sings the Blues. But her late-Seventies dance hits remain some of her most beloved work. And apparently, Ross herself seems to agree — at least judging by “Thank You,” the first single from her upcoming comeback album of the same name.

From its springy groove to its air of positivity, “Thank You” conjures Ross’ “Upside Down” and “I’m Coming Out” era. The modern twist comes from its producer and co-writer, Troy Miller, who made a name...

When Motown Records impresario Berry Gordy made his debut as a filmmaker in 1972, the dominant mode in Black cinema was that of Blaxploitation flicks like Shaft and Superfly or gritty indies like Melvin Van Peebles’ politically and formally radical Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song. Gordy saw a void to be filled—and an opportunity to showcase his label’s biggest star, Diana Ross—by producing a glossy, old-fashioned Hollywood melodrama with Black performers; the result, the Billie Holiday biopic Lady Sings the Blues, was a landmark musical that catapulted Ross to an Oscar nomination and instantly created a new standard for leading men […]

The post Jim Hemphill’s Home Video Recommendations: Lady Sings the Blues, Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart, The Bureau: The Complete Series first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

When Motown Records impresario Berry Gordy made his debut as a filmmaker in 1972, the dominant mode in Black cinema was that of Blaxploitation flicks like Shaft and Superfly or gritty indies like Melvin Van Peebles’ politically and formally radical Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song. Gordy saw a void to be filled—and an opportunity to showcase his label’s biggest star, Diana Ross—by producing a glossy, old-fashioned Hollywood melodrama with Black performers; the result, the Billie Holiday biopic Lady Sings the Blues, was a landmark musical that catapulted Ross to an Oscar nomination and instantly created a new standard for leading men […]

The post Jim Hemphill’s Home Video Recommendations: Lady Sings the Blues, Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart, The Bureau: The Complete Series first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Andra Day has released a video for her new song “Phone Dies,” produced by Anderson .Paak.

The clip is a “docu-style” video shot entirely on Day’s iPhone and features a montage of photos and videos that the Grammy-nominated singer has taken of herself, ranging from seductive to just goofy. “This might sound crazy, but be my baby/I’ll let you feel these vibes until my phone dies,” Day promises on the chorus, over a dreamy soul production created by .Paak.

This year, Day made her feature film acting...

The 2021 Oscars were unlike any that came before, coming amid the Covid-19 pandemic that dramatically affected the entire film industry for well over a year. So the awards were already historic before any awards were handed out. But there was plenty of history up for grabs among the potential winners. Scroll down for our live blog breaking down all the results throughout the night. And check out the complete list of winners here.

These Oscars were originally scheduled for February 28, but the motion picture academy moved them to April 25 and extended the eligibility period by two months out of consideration for the pandemic. The academy also decided to loosen their eligibility criteria. Normally, studios need to release their films theatrically in order to qualify, even streaming services, but the Oscars waived that requirement for this year’s event due to the closure of theaters across the country. And there are...

The 2021 Oscar nominees for Best Actress are Viola Davis (“Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom”), Andra Day (“The United States vs. Billie Holiday”), Vanessa Kirby (“Pieces of a Woman”), Frances McDormand (“Nomadland”), and Carey Mulligan (“Promising Young Woman”). Our current odds indicate that Mulligan (69/20) will take the prize, followed in order by Davis (4/1), Day (4/1), McDormand (4/1), and Kirby (9/2).

McDormand is already one of 14 actresses to score multiple lead wins, having bagged a pair of trophies for “Fargo” (1997) and “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” (2018). This year, she could follow Katharine Hepburn, Ingrid Bergman, and Meryl Streep into the record books as the fourth woman to win three or more Oscars for acting. McDormand has three supporting bids to her name for “Mississippi Burning” (1989), “Almost Famous” (2001), and “North Country” (2006).

Davis is also a past winner for her supporting role in “Fences” (2017). A victory this year would make her the 22nd woman to earn multiple acting...

On Sunday night at the 93rd Academy Awards, when Andra Day is singled out as a best actress nominee for her performance as Billie Holiday in The United States vs. Billie Holiday, veteran Oscar watchers might well experience a moment of déjà vu. Forty-eight years ago, another popular singer, Diana Ross, was sitting in that same seat, having been nominated for her breakthrough portrayal of Holiday in 1972’s Lady Sings the Blues. The film, which earned a total of five nominations, went home empty-handed that night, but it had already left a mark on the popular culture.

In terms of box-office rentals,...

On Sunday night at the 93rd Academy Awards, when Andra Day is singled out as a best actress nominee for her performance as Billie Holiday in The United States vs. Billie Holiday, veteran Oscar watchers might well experience a moment of déjà vu. Forty-eight years ago, another popular singer, Diana Ross, was sitting in that same seat, having been nominated for her breakthrough portrayal of Holiday in 1972’s Lady Sings the Blues. The film, which earned a total of five nominations, went home empty-handed that night, but it had already left a mark on the popular culture.

In terms of box office ...

Andra Day has dropped a new single, “Phone Dies.” The soulful, grooving track was produced by Anderson .Paak.

“This must sound crazy/but be my baby,” Day sings on the sleek number. “It’s so amazing, being my baby/I’ll let you feel these vibes until my phone dies/Yea we can feel these vibes until my phone dies.”

The standalone single follows Day’s performance as Billie Holiday in Lee Daniels’ The United States vs. Billie Holiday. The role has earned her an Oscar nomination for Best Actress,...

"I spent the rest of the war on 52nd Street and a few other streets. I had the white gowns and the white shoes. And every night they'd bring me the white gardenias and the white junk." So Billie Holiday relayed in her 1956 memoir Lady Sings the Blues, the book itself a subject of admiration and scrutiny due to the liberties she took in telling her own story and what some critics saw at the time as a missed opportunity to do more than further link the art of jazz to a certain seedy lifestyle that a lot of white people just assumed was part of the Black experience. Maybe it fed a stereotype, but abject poverty, sexual violence, prostitution and drug use were part of...

Andra Day is very close to making Oscar history in a number of ways for her accomplished work as the title character in “The United States vs. Billie Holiday.” Notably, she would become only the second Black woman to win Best Actress in the Academy’s 93-year history and one of few actresses to win for their lead acting debut. Additionally, Day could become the first woman to win Best Actress for a role previously nominated in this category for a different film, with her predecessor, Diana Ross, nominated for “Lady Sings the Blues” (1972).

Every instance of women nominated in Best Actress for playing the same character has resulted in a loss. Prior to the now multi-nominated role of Billie Holiday, the Oscars nominated Janet Gaynor, Judy Garland and Lady Gaga as the female leads of the 1937, 1954 and 2018 versions of “A Star Is Born,” Cate Blanchett for playing Queen Elizabeth...