News

”I am going to start my speech by saying how utterly wonderful it is, but I still have things to achieve in my career,” Oscar-winning costume designer Jenny Beavan told IndieWire shortly before accepting a Career Achievement Award from the Costume Guild. “And I’ve got a small mortgage still to pay.”

Luckily for Beavan’s mortgage and for all of us, it doesn’t seem like anyone wants Beavan to stop working anytime soon. Her designs encompass a huge swath of what we picture when we think of our favorite movies from the last 40 years, from Merchant Ivory films to “Furiosa.” That wide range is reflected in her three Oscar wins for “A Room With a View,” “Mad Max: Fury Road,” and “Cruella.”

“ I take things if they interest me,” Beavan said. “And I do love working. I mean, I don’t want to work absolutely every day of the year,...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. To keep up with our latest features, sign up for the Weekly Edit newsletter and follow us @mubinotebook on Twitter and Instagram.NEWSChinatown.Wildfires continue to devastate the greater Los Angeles area, having killed 25 people and destroyed more than 1,400 homes, schools, businesses, and institutions.A number of disaster relief and emergency resource funds are positioned to help those affected, including the California Community Foundation Wildfire Recovery Fund, the California Fire Foundation, the Entertainment Industry Community Fund, and finally the Motion Picture & Television Fund. GoFundMe has also organized a Wildfire Relief Fund and hosts a number of individual verified fundraisers that will continue to be updated.The nomination voting period for the Oscars, which was supposed to end on January 12, has been extended through January 17, with nominations to be announced on January 23. (The Academy will also donate a portion of...

It’s not often that a doc about the transformative power of cinema will deliberately use bad clips of the movies it’s talking about, but that’s part of the point of this insightful, sprawling film, corralled by director David Hinton. Though the masterpieces made by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger at the height of their big-screen, Technicolor powers were visually impeccable, their subversive emotional power could still pack a punch through a 16-inch TV screen, even from the most scratched, butchered, and washed-out black-and-white prints.

This is, famously, how the young Martin Scorsese discovered The Archers (as the pairing styled themselves), and in this lengthy discourse he gets to position them both as an influence on his own movies and as unsung heroes in the history of world cinema. Now, there are plenty of people who will immediately say that Powell and Pressburger have actually been sung quite a bit,...

The European Film Market is heating up as it winds to a close, with several major deals coming out of chilly Berlin. On Monday, art house streamer Mubi announced its first big buy of EFM, snatching up David

Hinton’s Martin Scorsese-narrated documentary, Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger, for much of the world.

Mubi has acquired all rights in German-speaking Europe, Italy, France and Benelux for the doc, as well as Latin America, Turkey and India. The film has its world premiere in Berlin this week as part of the Berlinale Special. The deal was done between Mubi and Altitude Film Sales.

The latest from the BAFTA and Emmy-award winner Hinton (The South Bank Show, All This Can Happen) explores the life and work of British filmmaking duo Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, who together created some of the greatest films of the British golden age,...

We're back with another Blu-ray round-up! As always, I gather up the latest releases for you in one handy spot. You're welcome. This latest round-up includes Criterion's release of Terry Gilliam's "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen," Taylor Russell and Timothée Chalamet playing a pair of fine young cannibals in "Bones and All," Ralph Fiennes serving up "The Menu," and a tooth-drilling double feature of "The Dentist" movies.

Bones And All

Luca Guadagnino's "Bones and All" is a beautiful road trip movie that just happens to be about cannibals. It's the 1980s, and Maren (Taylor Russell) has a big secret: she's a cannibal who can't resist eating human flesh. After an unfortunate incident involving a classmate, Maren hits the road. She eventually encounters Lee (Timothée Chalamet), another cannibal. It turns out there are cannibals all over the country, and they can sense each other. Lee and Maren fall...

London, Aug 15 (Ians) English journalist and author Nicholas Evans, popularly known for writing ‘The Horse Whisperer’, which was made into a film by Robert Redford, passed away following a heart attack aged 72, reports ‘Variety’ quoting a statement issued by United Agents.

The agency said the “much-loved” author had died following a heart attack on August 9. “He lived a full and happy life, in his home on the banks of the River Dart in Devon,” the statement added.

Evans’s 1995 novel ‘The Horse Whisperer’ sold 20 million copies worldwide and was the number one bestseller in 20 countries. It has been translated into 40 languages.

The 1998 film, produced by and directed by Redford, also starred him alongside Scarlett Johansson, Kristin Scott Thomas and Sam Neill, according to ‘Variety’.

The inspiration for ‘The Horse Whisperer’came in 1993 when Evans met a blacksmith in the south-west of England who informed him about horse whisperers, those who...

English journalist and author Nicholas Evans, popularly known for writing ‘The Horse Whisperer’, which was made into a film by Robert Redford, passed away following a heart attack aged 72, reports ‘Variety’ quoting a statement issued by United Agents.

The agency said the “much-loved” author had died following a heart attack on August 9. “He lived a full and happy life, in his home on the banks of the River Dart in Devon,” the statement added.

Evans’s 1995 novel ‘The Horse Whisperer’ sold 20 million copies worldwide and was the number one bestseller in 20 countries. It has been translated into 40 languages.

The 1998 film, produced by and directed by Redford, also starred him alongside Scarlett Johansson, Kristin Scott Thomas and Sam Neill, according to ‘Variety’.

The inspiration for ‘The Horse Whisperer’came in 1993 when Evans met a blacksmith in the south-west of England who informed him about horse whisperers, those who have the gift...

British journalist and author Nicholas Evans, best known for writing “The Horse Whisperer,” which was adapted as a film by Robert Redford, has died of a heart attack, according to United Agents. He was 72.

In a statement, United Agents said the “much-loved” author had died following a heart attack on Aug. 9. “He lived a full and happy life, in his home on the banks of the River Dart in Devon,” the statement added.

Evans’ 1995 novel “The Horse Whisperer” sold 20 million copies worldwide and was the number one bestseller in 20 countries. It has been translated into 40 languages. The 1998 film, produced by and directed by Redford, also starred him alongside Scarlett Johansson, Kristin Scott Thomas and Sam Neill.

The inspiration for “The Horse Whisperer” came in 1993 when Evans met a blacksmith in the south-west of England who informed him about horse whisperers — those who have the gift of healing traumatized horses by speaking to them.

Back in 1983, when I was but a wee lad in Wales, I saw an episode of the British arts TV program The South Bank Show about the making of Bill Forsyth’s new film Local Hero (my family already being huge Gregory’s Girl fans). It covered the whole process of making the film, from script to screen, but the scene that most interested me, and which had stayed with me ever since, was the marketing meeting in which hot-shot producer David Putnam and the staff of the British branch of 20th Century Fox discussed the various concepts for the film’s poster. I remember thinking that that would be the greatest job in the world, but it was so far from anything I thought I’d really end up doing.The Criterion Collection is releasing Local Hero on Blu-ray and DVD on September 24, and I was very happy to...

So Season 7 is finally finished and we have only six more episodes left of Game of Thrones in total, there could also be a bit of a wait for Season 8, with many people predicting a 2019 release, and from what HBO has been saying recently, that is looking every likely indeed!

Let’s start by mentioning here that there could be potential Spoilers for Season 8 (If any of this is accurate) and definite Spoilers if you are not finished watching Season 7 yet. You Have Been Warned!!

.....

....

...

..

.

With only six epsiodes left, it's hard to get a feel for what theories we have left to explore.

So far in the previous two Game of Theories articles we have made several predictions based on popular fan theories, firstly I have a slight follow up to two of these theories.

UpdateValonqar – You can find this Theory here

If you read the first Game of Theories piece,...

Ermanno Olmi’s three-hour saga is a masterful ethnographic recreation of the long-gone way of life of Italian tenant farmers, virtual slaves working for a landowner. We see the entire agrarian lifestyle, with hints of modern times on the way. An ever-present backdrop of spiritualism and faith keeps the laborers going. Using unprofessional actors and an obsolete dialect, this is listed as one of the great Italian films of the 1970s.

The Tree of Wooden Clogs

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 854

1978 / Color / 1:33 flat full frame / 187 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date February 14, 2017 / 39.95

Photographed & Edited by Ermanno Olmi

Sets: Enrico Tovaglieri

Costumes: Francesca Zucchelli

Produced by Attillio Torricelli

Written and Directed by Ermanno Olmi

Some filmmakers move quietly from show to show, until a project comes along that’s hailed as a career masterpiece. For Italian Ermanno Olmi the film is The Tree of Wooden Clogs (L’albero degli...

As the art film revolution of the late 1950s and 1960s gave way to more populist manifestations of its stylistic inventions, so too did the “foreign language drama” become a codified form. As Bergman, Antonioni, Kurosawa, Fellini, and other renowned directors of that earlier time aged out of their peak years of financial viability, a new class found a framework in which to ground their career. They didn’t always have the training in commercial art that their forerunners had worked in and helped develop before eventually resisting, subverting, or overthrowing, but they had the stamina and the work ethic to invest in the trappings that made earlier more revolutionary works so galvanizing.

Ermanno Olmi made his start in documentary shorts, making more than two dozen from 1953-1959, before making his feature narrative debut with Time Stood Still (1959), an avalanche drama about a generational divide. He gained considerably more acclaim for 1961’s Il Posto,...

Update: The Before Trilogy on Criterion is currently $39.95. Pre-order while you can.

After The Criterion Collection hinted at it and some of the own crew confirmed it, it’s now been officially revealed that one of their most-requested releases will be arriving next year. Richard Linklater‘s Before trilogy will be joining the colelction just a few weeks after Valentine’s Day, on February 28th, featuring new 2K restorations of Before Sunrise and Before Sunset as well as Before Midnight.

Special features include a new discussion with Linklater, Julie Delpy, and Ethan Hawke, moderated by Kent Jones, and Athina Rachel Tsangari’s documentary on the making of the most recent feature. There’s also the full feature-length documentary Richard Linklater: Dream Is Destiny, and more. While we’re still waiting on cover art for the Linklater set, check out the full details on February’s line-up below, also including one...

Ed Cripps’s article on a South Bank Show about Paul Greengrass scooped second place at the annual arts journalism awards

Read the winning essay by Leah Broad

The South Bank Show’s episode on Paul Greengrass was the best kind of arts journalism, an accidental celebration of two aesthetic statesmen dense with respect and common ground. Melvyn Bragg and his subject are sophisticatedly mainstream, lustrously haired documentarians with inverse social trajectories, Bragg the Wigton-born baron of the arts, Greengrass the public school anti-establishment renegade, a peer and a parabolist. If Bragg has become our post-Parkinson interviewer-laureate, Greengrass is (along with Shane Meadows) a sort of director-laureate, north-south magnets of tough, humane Englishness.

Bragg’s approach flickers between tutorial, therapy, dance and seduction, occasionally catching himself in the mirror

Continue reading...

On the centennial of the Easter Uprising and just a few days past St. Patrick's Day, Whv present's Neil Jordan's biopic epic of Ireland's most beloved patriotic hero -- a militant who stood up to the English occupiers. It's the role that should have cemented Liam Neeson's stardom. Michael Collins Blu-ray The Warner Archive Collection 1996 / Color / 1:78 widescreen / 132 min. / Street Date March 22, 2016 / available through the WBshop / 21.99 Starring Liam Neeson, Aidan Quinn, Julia Roberts, Alan Rickman, Stephen Rea, Brendan Gleeson, Charles Dance, Jonathan Rhys Myers, Ian McElhinney. Cinematography Chris Menges Film Editors J. Patrick Duffner, Tony Lawson Original Music Elliott Goldenthal Produced by Stephen Wooley Written and Directed by Neil Jordan

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Irish politics must be in ascendance, as this St. Patrick's Day Warner Bros. has bumped its Irish patriot biopic up to Blu-ray status. A DVD of it came out only a year before. It's...

In the decades since its premiere, The French Lieutenant’s Woman is now most commonly discussed for its placement in the extensive awards resume of its star Meryl Streep, since it was her follow-up to her Best Supporting Actress win for 1979’s Kramer vs. Kramer and would serve as netting her first nomination in a leading category (it’s also interesting to note Streep won the Golden Globe but ultimately, perhaps ironically, lost to Katharine Hepburn, the iconic performer who previously held the most nominations record). But at the time of its release, the final product was the result of a decade long ordeal, seeing many auteurs, actors, and screenwriters attempting to adapt the notoriously ‘unfilmable’ 1969 novel by John Fowles, an experiment in form termed “post-modern historical fiction.” Directed by Karel Reisz, the Czech-born British auteur a British New Wave progenitor of the realist strain of filmmaking, it remains one of his most prolific works.

Game of Thrones fans finally have an answer as to why it took 15 years for George Rr Martin's novels to get a live-action adaptation.

Martin offered a detailed explanation as to why he spent a decade opposing a Game of Thrones film series in an interview with The South Bank Show.

Be the first to own Game of Thrones season 5 digitally with a branded iPad

Game of Thrones 'The Dance of Dragons' recap: Devastating and exhilarating

"It took Peter Jackson three movies to make Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, and he still had to cut things," Martin told host Melvyn Bragg.

"It would take three movies for A Storm of Swords alone! And if you figure like two movies for A Game of Thrones, and two for A Clash of Kings, you're already up to seven movies and you're halfway through the series.

"Nobody's going to commit to that, and,...

Daniel Radcliffe has admitted to finding the early Harry Potter films "hard to watch".

The actor - who played the young wizard in all eight films - said that his performances in earlier instalments of the series lacked "nuance".

Speaking to Melvyn Bragg on The South Bank Show, Radcliffe said: "If we had a singing scene, we had a singing teacher come in. If we had a dance scene, a dance coach would come in.

"We never had an acting coach in all the time we were there and there were times we could have done with one. I know I could have.

"There wasn't a lot of nuance to my performance when we were young and I find those early films very hard to watch personally.

"There were certain things I just didn't know. There were certain things like how to break down a script, or even certain questions...

Generally, The Playlist offices don't care much for sports, but there are definitely more than a few of us watching the World Cup. And it has been a helluva tournament so far, with defending champions Spain out of the contest already, along with England, who just couldn't get it together. So for all of you in the U.K. mourning your early exit from the World Cup, here's a little cinephile treat. Back in 1982, ITV focused an entire episode of "The South Bank Show" to Werner Herzog, and as usual, you should probably watch it. Across 60 minutes, it jumps around with the director, highlighting his films to date, talking with him about his work with Klaus Kinski, showing him reading dramatically on a train and ... talking about soccer. In fact, you'll see Herzog play soccer, as he talks about his fave English footballer Glenn Hoddle. We wonder what he thinks of English football now?...

Tess

Written by Gérard Brach, Roman Polanski, and John Brownjohn

Directed by Roman Polanski

France/UK, 1979

Roman Polanski revealed an exceptional eye for gripping visual design in his earliest films. In those works, like Knife in the Water, Cul-de-sac, Repulsion, Rosemary’s Baby and, somewhat later, The Tenant, most of this pictorial construction was derivative of themes, and subsequent depictions of, confinement, claustrophobic paranoia, and severely taut antagonism. In terms of visual and narrative scope, Chinatown opened things up somewhat, but it was with Tess, his 1979 adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s “Tess of the d’Urbervilles,” that Polanski significantly broadened his canvas to encompass the sweeping tale of the Victorian era loves and conflicts of this eponymous peasant girl.

Polanski speaks to this distinction during an interview in the newly released Criterion Collection Blu-ray/DVD of Tess. In discussing the film for the French TV program Cine regards, the director...

Two European Gems

By Raymond Benson

February is a good month for The Criterion Collection. Last week we reviewed the company’s restored Blu-ray/DVD dual format release of Foreign Correspondent. Coming quickly on its heels are two more excellent releases on this red carpet of home video labels.

First up—Tess, directed by Roman Polanski. This 1979 picture—released in the U.S. in 1980 and nominated for Academy Awards (Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Score) and winner of three (Art Direction, Cinematography, and Costumes) is a scrumptious, beautiful depiction of Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles. It is a very faithful adaptation, although several scenes from the book are left out or shortened. Still, the film is nearly three hours long—but don’t let that scare you, it’s never dull. I have to confess that I fell in love with Nastassja Kinski when I first...

What do you remember of your childhood? Other than major events, the majority of your memories are probably vaguely defined and few films have more deftly captured that hazy recollection of youth than Terence Davies’ riveting “The Long Day Closes.” More of an art piece than a traditional narrative, the film, recently added to The Criterion Collection, may first seem slow but becomes transfixing in the deliberate way that its creator doesn’t seek to replicate history but his memory of it.

Rating: 4.5/5.0

With dozens of songs, many of them in their entirety (we hear three before a line of dialogue), and some still shots that have the beauty of an artist’s eye, “The Long Day Closes” is a beautifully conceived and executed. A mother singing quietly to herself as she makes tea, the reflection of rain on a boy’s ceiling, the escape of the cinema — “The Long Day Closes...

The inimitable Terence Davies gets his first Criterion treatment this month with his 1992 title, The Long Day Closes, a superb memory poem drenched in melancholy nostalgia. A follow-up to the much more dark and brutal Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988), Davies returns once more to the memoirs of a ravaged childhood, further expanded upon from his first three short films which comprised The Terence Davies Trilogy (1976-1984). Swimming freely between quiet fantasy sequences and recollections of free associations as we drift in and out of abandoned ramshackle buildings of the past like a restless spirit, there is a delicate and fragile longing in Davies’ second feature, a ruminative exploration absent from the pained dirge of his previous film.

Bud (Leigh McCormack) is a bright and lonely 11 year old boy growing up in 1950’s Liverpool. Absent a father figure, Bud spends most of his time at home with his mother (Marjorie Yates...

Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: Feb. 25, 2014

Price: Blu-ray/DVD $39.95

Studio: Criterion

Nastassja Kinski is Tess

This multiple-Oscar-winning 1979 period film drama Tess by the great Roman Polanski (Carnage, The Ghost Writer) is an exquisite, richly layered adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles.

A strong-willed peasant girl (Cat People’s Nastassja Kinski, in a star-making breakthrough performance) is sent by her father to the estate of some local aristocrats to capitalize on a rumor that their families are from the same line. This fateful visit commences an epic narrative of sex, class, betrayal, and revenge, which Polanski unfolds with deliberation and finesse.

With its earthy visual textures, achieved by two world-class cinematographers—Geoffrey Unsworth (Cabaret) and Ghislain Cloquet (Au hasard Balthazar)—Tess is a work of great pastoral beauty and vivid storytelling.

Criterion’s Blu-ray/DVD Combo release of the film includes the following features:

• New 4K digital restoration,...

Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: Jan. 28, 2014

Price: Blu-ray/DVD Combo $39.95

Studio: Criterion

Leigh McCormack stars in 1992's The Long Day Closes.

The 1992 family drama The Long Day Closes is generally regarded as one of the finest works by the British writer/director Terence Davies (The Deep Blue Sea), one of Britain’s most respected filmmakers.

This autobiographical film takes on the perspective of a quiet, movie-loving boy named Bud (Leigh McCormack, in his one and only film role) growing up lonely in Liverpool in the 1950s. Rather than employ a straightforward narrative, Davies jumps in and out of time, swoops into fantasies and fears, summons memories and dreams.

An evocative, movie-and-music–besotted portrait of the artist as a young man, The Long Day Closes fuses clips and audio from classic movies into Bud’s childhood and brings it all to elegant life.

Criterion’s Blu-ray/DVD Combo release of the PG-...

It's fascinating to listen to the production woes Peter Brook's Lord of the Flies (1963) faced in the early stages as he teamed with Hollywood producer (and family friend) Sam Spiegel to create, what he wanted to be, a low budget adaptation of William Golding's novel. Instead, as time went on, Spiegel took it upon himself to change the story. As a producer of films such as Lawrence of Arabia and The Bridge on the River Kwai, it was simply not in Spiegel's nature to make a cheap film. The budget began to balloon, art directors were flown around the world to look at islands and even girls were introduced into script rewrites done behind Brook's back as Columbia (whom were initially set to distribute the film) felt the budget had gotten too big for a film about kids. In essence, it was no longer "Lord of the Flies...

Chicago – Nearly every student has to read William Golding’s “Lord of the Flies” at some point and film goers of the right age might remember Harry Hook’s 1990 version of the classic tale with Balthazar Getty, but the best adaptation of the timeless allegory is Peter Brook’s 1963 version, recently upgraded to Criterion Blu-ray and re-released on Criterion DVD with a new, restored 4K digital transfer.

Peter Brook’s theatre-crafted style of natural acting and improvisational character-building make for a film that’s devastatingly genuine, as if we’re on the island with these boys as their mini society collapses in flames. The Criterion version is loaded with special features and the film remains remarkably engaging.

Rating: 4.0/5.0

Everyone knows the story of “Lord of the Flies.” If they don’t, they know one of the many narratives that ripped it off over the years. Lost boys with no structure...

Sherlock series three is set to start shooting next Monday, March 18, which is pretty exciting news - but reporters at The Radio Times have learnt there's even more to look forward to with Benedict Cumberbatch confirming that a fourth series is also in the pipeline.Series three of the BBC's critically-acclaimed and much-loved modern adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's detective stories has been eagerly anticipated since the second series hit the air back in January 2012, with the final episode, The Reichenbach Fall, leaving fans on tenterhooks as to what was next for the famous Baker Street resident.That general Sherlocky sensation of how-the-what-the-is-he-alive-or-dead-and-huh was back in business at The South Bank Show Awards this afternoon, where the Rt noted down a few juicy quotes about both the third and fourth series."We've agreed to two more series but I could get into trouble for saying that. All I...

Why do you deliberately set out to shock your audience?", a film critic once asked my father. "I believe in mass therapy!" he answered. On this occasion, it was my mother, Vivian, acting the role of a critic and I, at four years old, playing the role of my father (who had written the lines and dubbed his voice over mine). Shot in our garden, with me wearing clothes from our fancy-dress box and the local party store, it could have been just anyone's home movie. In a sense, it was. But it was more than that, too. It was an autobiographical documentary for The South Bank Show. When it aired in 1990 it was billed as A British Picture: A Portrait of an Enfant Terrible. If the world saw him as a terrible child he'd get his own terrible child to play him – me.

The South Bank Show is returning to television after a two-year hiatus. The arts magazine show - which was well-known for blending high art and popular culture - originally ran on ITV1 between 1978 and 2009. It will return with an initial series of six shows on Sky Arts. Lord Melvyn Bragg said in a statement: "I'm chuffed to bits that The South Bank Show is back in town... I worked with them earlier in the year for the South Bank Sky Arts Awards and the winners' films, and it was a very enjoyable partnership. "I greatly look forward to working with (more)...

British director Ken Russell has died peacefully in his sleep at the age of 84. Best known for dramas like Women In Love, which secured him an Oscar nomination, and rock musical Tommy, he was known for his flamboyant style and delight in controversial themes and presentations.

Russell began his career as a photographer, before moving into TV documentary and short films. His first film was a comedy called French Dressing in 1963, but it wasn't until 1967's Billion Dollar Brain, with Michael Caine and Karl Malden, that he had a major success. His reputation was cemented two years later with Women In Love, the adaptation of Dh Lawrence's novel, which received four Oscar nominations, including one for Russell himself, and landed Glenda Jackson her win for Best Actress - all this despite inviting controversy for a naked wrestling scene between Oliver Reed and Alan Bates.

Russell continued to invite controversy with The Devils,...

They win awards and critical acclaim – but are in-depth documentaries under threat? Mark Lawson talks to film-makers about risk-taking, total immersion and the cult of celebrity

Is this a good time for factual film-making? It depends on your definitions of fact and film. There are executives and directors who complain that there are too few documentaries on television these days; and yet programmes from Brian Cox's The Wonders of the Universe to My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding have large and enthusiastic audiences. The problem is that what traditionalists mean by documentary (Adam Curtis's new series) is quite different from the star vehicles and "constructed reality" shows (Made in Chelsea, The Only Way is Essex) that are currently popular.

The past decade has also seen a big increase in the number of documentaries made for cinema. The success of Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine (2002) and Morgan Spurlock's...

By the time Samuel Fuller had made his first film, he'd been a copy boy, fought in the second world war, written a number of pulp novels and screenplays and worked as a crime reporter. His directorial debut, I Shot Jesse James [1] (1949), was already informed by a lifetime's worth of real world experience. His films are personal -- even autobiographical -- and his storytelling is aggressive. His themes are often presented in an austere nature and his imagery can be heavy handed (White Dog [2]), but his earnestness leaves me smiling rather than cringing. It makes sense that Criterion would re-release two Samuel Fuller classics, The Naked Kiss and Shock Corridor, on the same day with matching cover artwork (provided by Ghost World author/illustrator Daniel Clowes). The films share a deep rooted pulp narrative that examines two of cinema's most prototypical social outcasts: hookers and schitzos. The Naked Kiss Directed...

DVD Playhouse: January 2011

By

Allen Gardner

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (20th Century Fox) Sequel to the seminal 1980s film catches up with a weathered, but still determined Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas, who seems to savor every syllable of Allan Loeb and Stephen Schiff’s screenplay) just out of jail and back on the comeback trail. In attempting to repair his relationship with his estranged daughter (Carey Mulligan), Gekko forges a reluctant alliance with her fiancé (Shia Labeouf), himself an ambitious young turk who finds himself seduced by Gekko’s silver tongue and promise of riches. Lifeless film is further evidence of director Oliver Stone’s decline. Once America’s most exciting filmmaker, Stone hasn’t delivered a film with any teeth since 1995’s Nixon. Labeouf and Mulligan generate no sparks on-screen, and the story feels forced from the protracted opening to the final, Disney-esque denouement. Only a brief cameo by Charlie Sheen,...

Updated through 1/20.

"Criterion's new editions of Shock Corridor (1963) and The Naked Kiss (64) form a sort diptych portrait of Fuller's transition from a career forged partly within the studios to one of arduous independence," writes Josef Braun. "Low-budget, sparely furnished, continuity-negligent and starkly illuminated — with photography from the great Stanley Cortez, who shot The Magnificent Ambersons (42) and The Night of the Hunter (55) — these movies prowled the greasy peripheries of American life for tales of murder and prostitution, corrupt public services and pedophilia, incest and repressed rage. The discs feature numerous terrific supplements, including an episode of The South Bank Show that finds its featured guest Fuller in top-form, but their most inspired elements are the illustrations that adorn their packaging and screen menus, courtesy of Daniel Clowes, author of the graphic novels Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron (93), Ghost World (97), and David Boring (00). Enveloping these movies in Clowes's art enables...

I have had my introduction to the films of Samuel Fuller... and I want more. However, the wanting I'm experiencing has little to do with the films on Criterion's two recently released Blu-rays for Fuller's Shock Corridor and The Naked Kiss as much as it has to do with the selection of special features available on these two discs. Limited as they may be, the selection of interviews, short films and documentaries available across these two discs paint the picture of an artist of a bygone era. As director Wim Wenders (Paris, Texas) says in one of them (from a 1983 interview), "The B-picture is finished. For ten, fifteen years already. It doesn't exist anymore, and Sam's whole work was inside that genre. Sam never made a film that took more than four weeks to shoot and cost more than a million-and-a-half."

I've chosen to review these two releases together because...

As an actor, curating a feast of factual film-making showed me the beauty of the subjective truth, says Diana Quick

Aldeburgh cinema in Suffolk is not all it seems. From the outside, it looks like a half-timbered shop at the end of the high street. Within, it's an independent picture house that's been screening films for nearly a century. It's a proper community staple: to save it from shutting in the 1960s, a group of locals, including Benjamin Britten, clubbed together to buy it and then run it themselves. Year after year I've gone there to see mainstream releases, international arthouse films and special treats – I still remember introducing a bunch of teenagers to White Christmas at the cinema, one wintry day. I think it's ambitiously programmed every day of the year, but especially so for the three days its annual documentary festival comes around.

Molly Dineen had the brainwave...

A representative for Will Young has dismissed rumors the British singer is dating a TV producer who worked on a fly-on-the-wall documentary of the star. The "Leave Right Now" hitmaker was filmed for a special episode of "The South Bank Show" in 2009, which saw cameras follow him as he recorded and promoted his 2008 album "Let It Go".

He grew close to TV executive Matthew Cain, but his spokesperson has brushed off speculation they are dating. Young's rep tells Britain's Sunday Telegraph, "Matt did 'The South Bank Show' on Will and they are friends outside of work. They are just friends though, not a couple."

Will young went public about his sexuality in 2002. He told News of the World, "I feel it's time to tell my fans I'm gay. It's totally no big deal, just part of who I am. For me it's normal and nothing to be ashamed about.

Every film geek's favorite distributor The Criterion Collection have announced three new releases for January! On January 18th, the studio will release two films by director Samuel Fuller: Shock Corridor and The Naked Kiss on DVD/Blu-ray. On January 25th, Broadcast News will hit DVD/Blu-ray. Can't wait to check out these editions.

Shock Corridor

Extras include:

New video interview with star Constance Towers by film historian and filmmaker Charles DennisThe Typewriter, the Rifle and the Movie Camera, Adam Simon's 1996 documentary on director Samuel FullerOriginal theatrical trailerIllustrations by cartoonist Daniel Clowes (Eightball, Ghost World) and a booklet featuring an essay by critic and poet Robert Polito and excerpts from Fuller's autobiography, A Third Face: My Tale of Writing, Fighting, and Filmmaking

The Naked Kiss

Extras include:

New video interview with star Constance Towers by film historian and filmmaker Charles DennisExcerpts from a 1983 episode of the BBC's The South Bank Show...

The pay-tv giant has struck an exclusive output deal to be the only place to watch HBO shows from now on. Boardwalk Empire, Martin Scorsese’s series about Atlantic City gangsters, will be the first show to air through the deal in the autumn. Future HBO shows airing exclusively will include Game of Thrones and Luck, executive produced by Michael Mann and starring Dustin Hoffman. The next series of HBO shows such as Entourage and Big Love will also air exclusively on the channel. The output deal also gives Sky on-demand rights to hit HBO shows such as The Sopranos and Six Feet Under. Sky is throwing huge amounts of money at programming. It wants to get away from the downmarket image it’s saddled with. Many early adopters lived on council estates – think housing projects – peppering the skyline with satellite dishes. Sky is pulling strenuously upmarket. It’s just...

We bring you all the top stories in our TV round up. Today's top stories: Melvyn Bragg takes The South Bank Show to Sky Arts and Frank Bruno is linked to Strictly Come Dancing. Sky Arts Relaunches The South Bank Show Sky Arts Melvyn Bragg is taking the institution that is The South Bank Show over to Sky Arts, after ITV shelved the arts programme last year.

Billy Connolly has admitted that he suffers with stage fright. The comedian told The South Bank Show Revisited that he eventually had therapy to help him cope with his nerves. "It suddenly dawns on you when you've had a career for a few years that you are actually going out there and saying you are the funniest man in the room," he said. "Well, in my personal case you get used to it and there is a natural flow to it and then it comes back twice as hard as before. You know the fear and the angst. Just recently it came back with thunder when I did the Irish tour. I thought, 'Oh my God, I (more)...

Britain's Prince Charles has criticised ITV for killing off 'The South Bank Show'. The Prince of Wales - who made a video tribute to Lord Melvyn Bragg after he received an outstanding achievement award for presenting the arts show at the programme's awards ceremony yesterday (26.01.10) - admitted he was shocked the series had been killed off, describing it as a "sad loss". He said: "I cannot say I am encouraged as mainstream TV abandons such a unique and special commitment. The programme remains without rival. Truly breathtaking - it is a sad loss." He went on to describe the series as "one of the beacons of the arts". Lord Bragg, 70, the show's host for more...

The Prince of Wales has bemoaned the axe of long-running arts programme The South Bank Show. Guests at today's South Bank Show Awards in London included ITV's director of television Peter Fincham, who culled the 31-year-old series, according to The Guardian. Former host Melvyn Bragg has since rejoined BBC Two in order to front a new factual programme on class. Speaking via a video message at the ceremony, Prince Charles said that the show was "still without rival" and dwelled on "the very end of one of the most important beacons of the arts in this country". He continued: "The programme remains without rival and a long time ago it rightly became an important contribution to the vibrancy of the country's culture. "Now oblivion is not the place for the arts and I cannot say I am encouraged as mainstream television abandons (more)...

The South Bank Show has aired its last ever edition, as the 31-year-old vintage arts programme comes to an end. The show, which debuted in 1978, is the longest-running arts series around and has been broadcast in over 60 countries. Presenter Melvyn Bragg had already decided to quit ITV before the programme was axed, saying: "They've killed the show, so I thought I'll go as well." The final episode visited the Royal Shakespeare Company for a second time, following director Michael Boyd as he researched the Ukrainian famine of the early 1930s. In the voiceover for the final scenes, Bragg noted: "The brave work is continuing, keeping this now-well established British institution full of new life (more)...

ITV has decided to axe the South Bank Show according to The Mirror. Yesterday, it was announced that Melvyn Bragg had quit as series editor and presenter of the show. He also confirmed that he is retiring as controller of arts for ITV studios. "I've decided to leave ITV at the end of my contract," said Bragg. "The South Bank Show will not continue past the middle of next year. "I have had (more)...

The Last Emperor. (The Criterion Collection, 2008).

Red-carpet DVD producer Criterion does it again with its lavish, four-disk box set release of this Oscar winner from 1987. Directed by Bernardo Bertolucci, the film is one of two films in Academy history that won all of its nominations in nine categories (Gigi being the other; only one other film won a higher number of nominations without a loss, and that was The Lord of the Rings—the Return of the King). Emperor is a magnificent and intelligent epic about Pu Yi, the last reigning emperor of Imperial China. While full of spectacle on a grand scale, the picture also manages to be an intimate human drama about a young man trapped by historical events out of his control. After all, this was a person who became the emperor of a country at the age of three. Of particular historical cinematic importance is the...