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In 1953, Roman Holiday won the Oscar for best screenplay. The statue went to Ian McLellan Hunter. The man who actually wrote it, Dalton Trumbo, was blacklisted and invisible. It would take decades for the Academy to correct the record and attach his name to the film he wrote in exile.

It wasn’t an isolated case.

In 1939, The Wizard of Oz opened with Victor Fleming’s name on the director’s slate. But at least two other directors, George Cukor and King Vidor, had shaped the film’s tone and look. They were reassigned, dismissed, or absorbed into the machinery of the studio system — their fingerprints all over the work but absent from the billing block.

Poltergeist (1982) was widely assumed to be directed by Tobe Hooper. But ask anyone who worked on it, and you’ll hear another name: Steven Spielberg. His uncredited influence shaped the film’s aesthetic and editorial decisions,...

David Letterman has launched “Letterman TV”, an 24/7 channel streaming all things Letterman, exclusively on Samsung TV Plus. Starting today in the United States and Canada, the channel will stream “The Late Show With David Letterman,” curated moments, interviews and never-before-seen commentary from Letterman.

“Dave’s show was the original viral video,” said Walter Kim, Executive Producer for digital at Letterman’s production company Worldwide Pants, Inc. “As someone who worked for the entirety of “The Late Show”, it’s a thrill to help assemble and create programming around some of our favorite moments from the show, and with more than 4000 hours from which to choose, the channel will continuously change.”

“Letterman TV” is available for free on Samsung TV Plus.

First Looks

Prime Video has announced that the biblical drama series, “House of David,” will premiere on Feb. 27 with three episodes before continuing to drop episodes weekly.

The series comes...

Scott Frank, a two-time Adapted Screenplay Oscar nominee for Logan and Out of Sight, will receive the WGA East’s Ian McLellan Hunter Award for Career Achievement Writers Guild Awards in February.

Frank, who marks his 40th year as a WGA member in 2025, will be honored during the New York portion of the 77th annual Writers Guild Awards on February 15 at the Edison Ballroom in Manhattan.

Hel also has two Emmys for The Queen’s Gambit on six nominations, including three for Godless, and two WGA Awards on nominations, alomg with a USC Scripter Award for Queen’s Gambit. Frank’s long list of film and TV credits also includes Out of Sight, Get Shorty, Minority Report, MArley & Me, The Wonder Years, Dead Again, and Little Man Tate.

Frank most recently teamed with three-time Emmy Winner Tom Fontana on Monsieur Spade, a Sam Spade limited series for AMC.

Related: 2024-...

It’s been said that American women of the 1950s admired Marilyn Monroe, but they wanted to be Audrey Hepburn, who projected an entirely different appeal. Hepburn had talent, grace, a dazzling smile and the strength to overcome any obstacle. Paramount now rounds up their Audrey Hepburn holdings to release this seven-picture ode to the great actress, the sentimental favorite. Several are near-perfect entertainments, great films everybody should see. All are handsomely remastered in HD, in their proper aspect ratios. I’d consider this definite holiday gift-giving material.

Audrey Hepburn 7 – Movie Collection

Roman Holiday, Sabrina, War and Peace, Funny Face, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Paris When It Sizzles, My Fair Lady

Blu-ray

Paramount Home Entertainment

1952-1964 / Color + B&w / Street Date October 5, 2021

Starring: Audrey Hepburn, Gregory Peck, Humphrey Bogart, Mel Ferrer, Fred Astaire, George Peppard, William Holden, Rex Harrison.

Directed by William Wyler, Billy Wilder, King Vidor, Stanley Donen, Blake Edwards,...

Perfection is a word used too frequently to describe a movie. But in the case of the 1953 romantic comedy “Roman Holiday,” perfection is not hyperbole. Directed by William Wyler and nominated for 10 Academy Awards, “Roman Holiday” is a gem of a fairy tale.

Audrey Hepburn plays Princess Ann, a young sheltered monarch from a European country bored to tears on a goodwill trip who decides to escape her guardians while in Rome. She ends up falling in love with a handsome American reporter (Gregory Peck). He recognizes the princess on the lam and initially befriends her to get her story only to fall for the winsome young woman. Eddie Albert plays Peck’s carefree, womanizing friend who is a photographer.

“Roman Holiday,” which just made its Blu-Ray debut, was a change of pace for Wyler, who was best known for his dramatic work, having already won Oscars for 1942’s “Mrs. Miniver...

Richard Price, the acclaimed screenwriter of The Color of Money and co-creator of HBO’s limited series The Night Of, will be the recipient of the WGA East’s Ian McLellan Hunter Award for Career Achievement. The award will be presented February 1 at the 72nd annual Writers Guild Awards at New York’s Edison Ballroom.

The author of nine novels, Price joined the guild in 1984 after writing the screenplay for The Color of Money, which was directed by Martin Scorsese, starred Paul Newman and Tom Cruise and earned Price an Oscar nomination. He worked with Scorsese again in 1987 for his segment in New York Stories, a three-part film that also featured contributions from Francis Ford Coppola and Sofia Coppola, and Woody Allen.

Widely acclaimed for writing some of the most thought-provoking crime dramas, Price ‘s film work throughout the 1990s continued to receive critical and box office success. He wrote...

The Writers Guild of America, East will present Tom Fontana, the creator of HBO’s “Oz,” with the Ian McLellan Hunter Award for Career Achievement at the 71st Annual WGA Awards. The awards ceremony will be held at New York’s Edison Ballroom on Feb. 17, 2019.

Fontana, who joined the guild in 1982 as a writer on the NBC medical drama “St. Elsewhere,” is the creator of several groundbreaking shows including “Oz,” “The Philanthropist,” “Copper” and Netflix’s “Borgia,” and was a writer on “Homicide: Life on the Street.” He is currently the showrunner for “City on a Hill,” a drama created by Chuck MacLean, which will premiere on Showtime in 2019.

“I’m extremely grateful to the men and women in our Guild for thinking me worthy of the award. Now, everything I write will have to be better than before,” Fontana said in a statement.

Also Read: WGA East 2018 Council Election...

The WGA East said today that Tom Fontana, who wrote for such classic TV dramas as Homicide: Life on the Street, Oz and St. Elsewhere and continues to be busy, will receive its Ian McLellan Hunter Award for Career Achievement. He will be feted February 17 during the 71st annual Writers Guild Awards at New York’s Edison Ballroom.

A winner of three Emmys and four Peabody Awards, Fontana joined the Writers Guild in 1982 when he was working on NBC’s quirky medical drama St. Elsewhere. He went to on write for the network’s acclaimed 1990s cop drama Homicide and later HBO’s Oz; all three made the WGA’s 2013 list of 101 Best Written TV Series of All Time. His numerous small-screen writing credits also include Borgia, Copper, The Philantropist, The Bedford Diaries, The Jury, Home Fires and Tattinger’s.

These days Fontana is showrunner on the upcoming Showtime crime...

Geoffrey C. Ward, whose 150 hours of documentary writing on PBS include on Ken Burns’ The Civil War, Baseball, The West, Jazz and most recently WGA-nominated The Vietnam War, will be awarded the WGA East’s Ian McLellan Hunter Award for Career Achievement. The honor will be bestowed February 11 at the New York ceremony for the WGA Awards at the Edison Ballroom. Burns will be on hand to present the award to Ward, who also has written extensively for PBS’ American Experience…...

One beloved Baltimore artist paid homage to another at the New York edition of the Writers Guild Awards ceremony last night. The Wire’s David Simon introduced John Waters, who was receiving the Ian McLellan Hunter Award for Career Achievement. Simon recounted how he “completely humiliated“ himself when he first met Waters as a reporter covering a memorial for Edith Massey, otherwise known as “the Egg Lady,” and was more interested in her “outrageousness” than her humanity.

The two eventually became close enough that Waters officiated Simon‘s wedding to his wife Laura Lippman. But Simon didn’t dwell on anecdotes about his friendship with the legendary writer-director. Instead, the crux of Simon’s speech was his eloquent articulation of Waters’ ”gift,” which is simply: “Fuck normal.” Here’s an excerpt:

Fuck normal. Fuck normal. There is no normal. Normal’s a lie. Normal’s a lock gate, a wall...

When you think about the Writers Guild of America, which hosted two award ceremonies on Sunday night in two Blue cities, New York and Los Angeles, it’s no surprise that the writers spoke out. (Check out videos of some of the best bits below.)

For example, while accepting his life achievement award, filmmaker Oliver Stone got two standing ovations. After conservative James Woods was targeted at the top of the evening by WGA West Awards show host Patton Oswalt, retaliating by going onstage to steal his shoe, Woods presented the WGA award to the ultra liberal Stone, who starred him in “Salvador,” won three Oscars for “Midnight Express,” “Born on the Fourth of July” and “Platoon,” and penned “greed is good.”

Stone thanked mentors Robert Bolt and Ernest Lehman as well as Wma agent Ron Mardigian. He reminded that when he told Billy Wilder about his “Nixon” running time of 3 hours 10 minutes,...

When you think about the Writers Guild of America, which hosted two award ceremonies on Sunday night in two Blue cities, New York and Los Angeles, it’s no surprise that the writers spoke out. (Check out videos of some of the best bits below.)

For example, while accepting his life achievement award, filmmaker Oliver Stone got two standing ovations. After conservative James Woods was targeted at the top of the evening by WGA West Awards show host Patton Oswalt, retaliating by going onstage to steal his shoe, Woods presented the WGA award to the ultra liberal Stone, who starred him in “Salvador,” won three Oscars for “Midnight Express,” “Born on the Fourth of July” and “Platoon,” and penned “greed is good.”

Stone thanked mentors Robert Bolt and Ernest Lehman as well as Wma agent Ron Mardigian. He reminded that when he told Billy Wilder about his “Nixon” running time of 3 hours 10 minutes,...

Keep up with the glitzy awards world with our weekly Awards Roundup column.

– Director Juan Antonio Bayona’s “A Monster Calls” will enter Spain’s annual Goya Awards on February 4, 2017 with more nominations than any other film. The fantasy-drama is nominated in 12 of the 28 categories, beating out Alberto Rodriguez’s “Smoke and Mirrors” and Raul Arevalo’s “The Fury of a Patient Man,” each of which received 11 nominations. Both films will compete with “A Monster Calls” in the best film category, as will Pedro Almodovar’s “Julieta.”

Read More: Awards Roundup: Megan Ellison to Receive PGA Visionary Award, Guillermo del Toro Honored and More

“A Monster Calls” is “a visually spectacular drama based on the award-winning children’s fantasy novel. 12-year-old Conor (Lewis MacDougall) attempts to deal with his mother’s (Felicity Jones) illness and the bullying of his classmates by escaping into a fantastical world of monsters and fairy tales that explore courage,...

John Waters is set to receive the Writers Guild of America, East's Ian McLellan Hunter Award, which recognizes a movie or TV writer's body of work, it was announced Wednesday.

The writer-director of Pink Flamingos, Hairspray, Serial Mom and Pecker, among other movies, will accept the award from David Simon at the WGA's New York ceremony on Sunday, Feb. 19.

Waters said of the honor, "Decades ago, a critic once wrote that my screenplays 'were merely clotheslines to hang out my dirty wash.' I'm glad the Wgae disagrees — or maybe they Do agree, who knows? Either way, I couldn't...

Hairspray and Pink Flamingos auteur John Waters will be honored February 19 with the Writers Guild of America East's Ian McLellan Hunter Award at the 2017 WGA Awards gala. The award was established in 1992 in memory of the longtime Wgae member and is presented to a WGA member in honor of his/her body of work as a writer in motion pictures or television. “Decades ago, a critic once wrote that my screenplays ‘were merely clothes lines to hang out my dirty wash.’ I’m glad…...

Screenwriter and director Richard Lagravenese will receive the Writers Guild of America East’s Ian McLellan Hunter Award for Career Achievement, the Wgae announced on Thursday. The award will be presented on Feb. 13, 2016 at the Wgae’s annual awards ceremony, which will take place simultaneously with the WGA, West’s ceremony in Los Angeles. Lagravenese’s screenplays include “The Fisher King,” for which he was nominated for an Oscar, as well as “A Little Princess,” “The Mirror Has Two Faces,” “The Bridges of Madison County,” “The Horse Whisperer” and the HBO movie “Behind the Candelabra.” His work as a writer-director includes “P.

Many of us think we know the history of the Hollywood blacklist, but given that hundreds of people in the '50s during the McCarthy era were targeted and prevented from working because of their leftist politics, there are multiple stories to tell. Screenwriter John McNamara (TV's "Lois and Clark") decided to focus on the Hollywood blacklist through the eyes of its most flamboyant and gifted victim: Oscar-winner Dalton Trumbo, whose drive to write and survive helped to break the work boycott—which lasted from November, 1947, when the Hollywood Ten were sent to prison, until 1960—with help from both German director Otto Preminger ("Exodus") and Kirk Douglas ("Spartacus"). McNamara first learned of Dalton Trumbo from his Nyu professor Ian McLellan Hunter 31 years ago, when he confessed that he had not written "Roman Holiday," and turned him on to the book about Dalton Trumbo by Bruce Cook. It only took 31 years...

Nominees for the 22nd Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards® for outstanding individual, cast and ensemble performances in film and television of 2015, as well as the nominees for outstanding action performances by film and television stunt ensembles were announced this morning at the Pacific Design Center’s SilverScreen Theater in West Hollywood.

SAG-aftra Executive Vice President Gabrielle Carteris introduced Anna Faris (Mom, The House Bunny) and Anthony Mackie (Captain America: The Winter Soldier, The Hurt Locker), who announced the nominees for this year’s Actors® live on TNT, TBS, truTV, sagawards.tntdrama.com and truTV.com. Prior to that, SAG Awards Committee Chair JoBeth Williams and Committee Member Jason George announced the stunt ensemble nominees during a live webcast on sagawards.tntdrama.com. A replay of both announcements is available for viewing on sagawards.tntdrama.com.

The 22nd Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards® presented by SAG-aftra with Screen Actors Guild Awards,...

Contributed by Michelle McCue and Melissa Thompson

A morning full of eye-opening surprises, the nominations for the 22nd Screen Actors Guild nominations were announced.

The standout nods were the inclusion of Straight Outta Compton, Beasts Of No Nation, Sarah Silverman, Amy Adams, Michael Shannon, Idris Elba and two for Dame Helen Mirren.

Not among the perceived hopefuls called were Sylvester Stallone, Charlotte Rampling, Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo, The Martian and The Hateful Eight.

Two nominating panels – one for television and one for film – each composed of 2,200 randomly selected union members from across the United States, chose this year’s nominees.

Some of the Sags choices were head-scratchers to be sure, but we’re thinking that the Oscar picks may be very different when The Academy announces their nominations next month live on Thursday, January 14, 2016, at 5:30 a.m. Pt at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills.

The 22nd Screen...

Idris Elba and Helen Mirren lead actor nominations with three nods each.Scroll down for full list of film and TV nominations

Hollywood blacklist drama Trumbo has led the nominations for the 22nd Screen Actors Guild Awards with three nods for lead actor Bryan Cranston, supporting actress Helen Mirren and the ensemble cast. The Martian and The Hateful Eight were shut out.

Set in 1947, the film centres on Dalton Trumbo (Cranston), who was Hollywood’s top screenwriter, until he and other artists were jailed and blacklisted for their political beliefs.

Cranston will go up against Johnny Depp for Black Mass, Leonardo DiCaprio for The Revenant, Michael Fassbender for Steve Jobs and Eddie Redmayne for The Danish Girl.

Films that secured two nominations included Beasts Of No Nation, The Big Short, Carol, The Danish Girl, Room, Spotlight - whose outstanding cast nod will only strengthen its status as best picture Oscar frontrunner — and Steve Jobs.

British actors...

The 22nd annual SAG Awards nominations were announced this morning and it's full of surprises! Sylvester Stallone, loved by critics and the National Board of Review for his performance in "Creed," was ignored. So was Kristen Stewart's supporting performance in "Clouds of Sils Maria." Matt Damon, who was so good and carried "The Martian" from start to finish, was also missing from the list.

But here's what I love about the SAG noms. First, Sarah Silverman's first dramatic performance in "I Smile Back" was embraced. And I'm also happy with the inclusion of "Room's" Brie Larson and the fantastic child actor, Jacob Tremblay. The endearing "Carol" also received noms for both Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara, and Saoirse Ronan's performance in the beautiful "Brooklyn" also received a nomination.

The big winner of the SAG noms is Bleecker Street's "Trumbo." Missing from earlier critics awards (see here...

The 22nd annual Screen Actors Guild Awards will be presented January 30, 2016 on TNT and TBS. So you have a little over a month to check out "Trumbo," "The Big Short," "Carol," and a bunch of other movies and TV shows that may not have been on your radar before awards season.

The 2016 SAG Awards nominations were just announced on Wednesday, December 9, 2015 (the day before the Golden Globe nominations). Here's the full list, including a crapload of cast names, since that's just how it works with the SAG Awards:

Movies

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role

Bryan Cranston / Dalton Trumbo – "Trumbo" (Bleecker Street)

Johnny Depp / James "Whitey" Bulger – "Black Mass" (Warner Bros. Pictures)

Leonardo DiCaprio / Hugh Glass – "The Revenant" (20th Century Fox)

Michael Fassbender / Steve Jobs – "Steve Jobs" (Universal Pictures)

Eddie Redmayne / Einar Wegener/Lili Elbe – "The Danish Girl" (Focus Features)

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor...

Nominees for the 22nd Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards were unveiled this morning in Hollywood, with a fair amount of surprises to be had. Leading the pack is Trumbo, which picked up three nominations, then a large batch of films behind it with two each: Beasts of No Nation, The Big Short, Carol, The Danish Girl, Room, Spotlight, and Steve Jobs.

Perhaps most surprising is no mention of The Hateful Eight, which has one of the year’s best ensembles. Also of questionable note is the inclusion of Helen Mirren for Woman in Gold, a film all but forgotten (we suppose Harvey Weinstein’s campaigning indeed worked). There’s also the welcome nods to Michael Shannon in 99 Homes and Sarah Silverman in I Smile Back, as well as an ensemble nod to Straight Outta Compton. Check out the full list of nominees below ahead of the ceremony on Saturday, Jan.

'Trumbo' movie: Bryan Cranston as screenwriter Dalton Trumbo and Helen Mirren as gossip columnist Hedda Hopper. 'Trumbo' movie review: Highly entertaining 'history lesson' Full disclosure: on the wall in my study hangs a poster – the iconic photograph of blacklisted Hollywood screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, with black-horned rim glasses, handlebar mustache, a smoke dangling from the end of a dramatic cigarette holder. He's sitting – stark naked – in a tub surrounded by his particular writing apparatus. He's looking directly into the camera of the photographer, his daughter Mitzi. Dalton Trumbo's son, Christopher Trumbo, gave me the poster after my interview with him for the release of Peter Askin's 2007 documentary also titled Trumbo. That film combines archival footage, including family movies and photographs, with performances of the senior Trumbo's letters to his family during their many years of turmoil before and through the blacklist, including his time in prison. The letters are read by,...

Bleeker Street

Rating: ★★★★

“If every scene is brilliant, your movie is going to be monotonous,” intones Dalton Trumbo to a high-reaching, self-aggrandising Otto Preminger. He’s damn right, and no movie shows it better than Trumbo.

Jay Roach’s biopic of the screenwriting genius blacklisted for his communist leanings isn’t perfect (although it is a damn sight more impressive than what you’d expect from the director of the Austin Powers trilogy). He falls into several of the traps of biopic filmmaking – background information is doled out in movie news reels, the world is full of references singularly to historically important events, images of the real life people play over the end-credits – and yet Trumbo rises above all that as an exciting, engaging, not-quite-brilliant-but-far-from-monotonous movie.

The key element that makes Trumbo stand out from other recent films in the genre, which seemed to be just dramatising Wikipedia (see: Selma,...

Oscar winner Dalton Trumbo (Bryan Cranston) spars with gossip columnist Hedda Hopper (Helen Mirren), the studios, and Congress itself in the new international trailer for "Trumbo," director Jay Roach's biopic of the "Roman Holiday" and "Spartacus" screenwriter, who was blacklisted during the Red Scare of the 1940s and 1950s. The film, which played Toronto last month and screens at the London Film Festival later this week, is slated for U.S. theatrical release Nov. 6. As with the new poster for the film (below), the trailer leans hard on Old Hollywood glamour—Mirren's costumes in particular are a scream—as it builds drama from Trumbo's refusal to name names before the House Un-American Activities Committee, his subsequent blacklisting, and his determination to pen new scripts anyway. (Trumbo's two Oscar-winning screenplays, for "Roman Holiday" and "The Brave One," were originally credited to front writer Ian McLellan Hunter and Trumbo.

Toronto – The damage the House Un-American Activities committee wrought between 1938 and 1975 was unconscionable. As the Cold War heated up thousands of innocent citizens were accused of being members of or sympathetic to the Communist Party and this committee was responsible for much of the hysteria. The witch-hunt hit Hollywood hard and after a number of hearings prompted the infamous blacklist, an unofficial designation that denied work to anyone in the industry with suspected communist ties. There was one man who is credited as bringing the blacklist down, screenwriter Dalton Trumbo and his story is chronicled in Jay Roach’s new biopic “Trumbo.” Something tells us if Trumbo were alive today he might pass along some script notes to Roach and writer John McNamara. In theory, “Trumbo” is an incredible true story that should be prime fodder for a great movie. Before the blacklist, Trumbo (Bryan Cranston) was one of the...

Olivia de Havilland on Turner Classic Movies: Your chance to watch 'The Adventures of Robin Hood' for the 384th time Olivia de Havilland is Turner Classic Movies' “Summer Under the Stars” star today, Aug. 2, '15. The two-time Best Actress Oscar winner (To Each His Own, 1946; The Heiress, 1949) whose steely determination helped to change the way studios handled their contract players turned 99 last July 1. Unfortunately, TCM isn't showing any de Havilland movie rarities, e.g., Universal's cool thriller The Dark Mirror (1946), the Paramount comedy The Well-Groomed Bride (1947), or Terence Young's British-made That Lady (1955), with de Havilland as eye-patch-wearing Spanish princess Ana de Mendoza. On the other hand, you'll be able to catch for the 384th time a demure Olivia de Havilland being romanced by a dashing Errol Flynn in The Adventures of Robin Hood, as TCM shows this 1938 period adventure classic just about every month. But who's complaining? One the...

One of the films making its world premiere at the 2015 Toronto Film Festival is Jay Roach's Trumbo starring Bryan Cranston as 1940s screenwriter Dalton Trumbo whose career came to a crashing end when he and other Hollywood figures are blacklisted for their political beliefs. Along with making the Toronto list, today Bleecker Street, who will release the film on Nov. 6, have released two new images, both of which can be seen below. In the pics are shots of Cranston as Trumbo along with Diane Lane as his wife Cleo and Helen Mirren as notorious gossip columnist Hedda Hopper. Additional members of the cast include Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje as Virgil Brooks, Louis C.K. as Arlen Hird, Elle Fanning as Nikola Trumbo, John Goodman as Frank King, Alan Tudyk as Ian McLellan Hunter and Michael Stuhlbarg as Edward G. Robinson. The likes of David James Elliott will play John Wayne, Dean O'Gorman...

Olivia de Havilland picture U.S. labor history-making 'Gone with the Wind' star and two-time Best Actress winner Olivia de Havilland turns 99 (This Olivia de Havilland article is currently being revised and expanded.) Two-time Best Actress Academy Award winner Olivia de Havilland, the only surviving major Gone with the Wind cast member and oldest surviving Oscar winner, is turning 99 years old today, July 1.[1] Also known for her widely publicized feud with sister Joan Fontaine and for her eight movies with Errol Flynn, de Havilland should be remembered as well for having made Hollywood labor history. This particular history has nothing to do with de Havilland's films, her two Oscars, Gone with the Wind, Joan Fontaine, or Errol Flynn. Instead, history was made as a result of a legal fight: after winning a lawsuit against Warner Bros. in the mid-'40s, Olivia de Havilland put an end to treacherous...

'San Andreas' movie with Dwayne Johnson. 'San Andreas' movie box office: $100 million domestic milestone today As the old saying (sort of) goes: If you build it, they will come. Warner Bros. built a gigantic video game, called it San Andreas, and They have come to check out Dwayne Johnson perform miraculous deeds not seen since ... George Miller's Mad Max: Fury Road, released two weeks earlier. Embraced by moviegoers, hungry for quality, original storylines and well-delineated characters – and with the assistance of 3D surcharges – the San Andreas movie debuted with $54.58 million from 3,777 theaters on its first weekend out (May 29-31) in North America. Down a perfectly acceptable 52 percent on its second weekend (June 5-7), the special effects-laden actioner collected an extra $25.83 million, trailing only the Melissa McCarthy-Jason Statham comedy Spy, (with $29.08 million) as found at Box Office Mojo.* And that's how this original movie – it's not officially a remake,...

'The Fixer' movie with Alan Bates, Dirk Bogarde and Ian Holm (background) 'The Fixer' movie review: 1968 anti-Semitism drama wrecked by cast, direction, and writing In 1969, director John Frankenheimer declared that he felt "better about The Fixer than anything I've ever done in my life." Considering Frankenheimer's previous output – Seven Days in May, the much admired The Manchurian Candidate – it is hard to believe that the director was being anything but a good P.R. man for his latest release. Adapted from Bernard Malamud's National Book Award- and Pulitzer Prize-winning novel (itself based on the real story of Jewish brick-factory worker Menahem Mendel Beilis), The Fixer is an overlong, overblown, and overwrought contrivance that, albeit well meaning, carelessly misuses most of the talent involved while sadistically abusing the patience – and at times the intelligence – of its viewers. John Frankenheimer overindulges in 1960s kitsch John Frankenheimer...

I know, I know... it's early in the year and the Oscars just ended and Oh my God what are you doingc Yet, the wheels keep turning and I like to be ahead of the game rather than playing catch up at the end of the year so I'm trying to make sure the database is locked and loaded for Oscar 2016 and I just got done adding a few contenders, contenders such as... Luca Guadagnino's A Bigger Splash, which Fox Searchlight just acquired for distribution starring Matthias Schoenaerts, Tilda Swinton, Ralph Fiennes, Dakota Johnson and Aurore Clement. The pic centers on a high profile couple, a famous rock star and a filmmaker (Schoenaerts and Swinton), vacationing and recovering on the idyllic sun-drenched and remote Italian island of Pantelleria are disrupted by the unexpected visit of an old friend and his daughter (Fiennes and Johnson) - creating a whirlwind of jealousy,...

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As Trumbo arrives on DVD and Blu-ray, we look back at the Oscar-winning screenwriter who couldn't get his award...

This article originally appeared in 2014. It has been reposted to blatantly attempt to cash in on the disc release of Trumbo in the UK, and to hope more people read it this time around. We figured the honest approach was worth a shot...

Back in 1953, Roman Holiday was a raging success. The Audrey Hepburn-headlined romantic comedy picked up seven Oscar nominations, and its box office run brought in $12m off a $1.5m budget (if you go by inflation-adjusted totals, that'd be receipts of well over $150m). Furthermore, come the night of the Academy Awards, further riches were to be bestowed on the film. Audrey Hepburn took home Oscar gold for Best Actress, whilst the costume designer, Edith Head, was rewarded for her work.

The film collected a third Oscar too,...

With just a couple episodes of AMC's his drama series "Breaking Bad" left to go, Bryan Cranston is poised to return to the big screen for director Jay Roach. Deadline has word that the Emmy-winning actor will take the lead in Trumbo, a film based on the true story of screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, who was blacklisted and sent to prison during the Red Scare when the House UnAmerican Activities Committee (Huac) was questioning Hollywood talents about Communist ties. Following his release, Trumbo continued to fight the power, and never fell out of the limelight in his quest against a fear-rattled Washington DC. More below! During his fight against Huac and the blacklist, Trumbo was still able to write films like Gun Crazy and Spartacus for the big screen, albeit under pseudonyms. Trumbo even won two Oscars, one which was given to him posthumously for his work on Roman Holiday, originally credited to Ian McLellan Hunter,...

In 1953, Dalton Trumbo won his first Oscar for writing Roman Holiday, but the man who went up to the podium (and whose name was on the film) was Trumbo’s friend Ian McLellan Hunter. Three years later, Trumbo won a second Oscar for The Brave One, but the name engraved on the statuette was “Robert Rich.” Why did he need a human stand-in and a pen name if he was doing such stellar work? Because he had been blacklisted after serving nearly a year in prison for contempt of Congress. You see, there was a hilarious time in American history that we all look back on and laugh at because it was dominated by members of the government being terrified of ideas that were different from their own. Although it’s difficult to imagine a United States Senator (and a Republican at that!) railing against a leftist agenda in Hollywood today, it...

Bryan Cranston has spent five seasons showing the world he knows what to do when it comes to slinging meth, but what about slinging illegal scripts? It can't be all that different, right? Well, we'll soon find out in "Trumbo." Walter White is set to play famed, blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo in an upcoming biopic about the man. Jay Roach ("Game Change," "Meet The Parents") is at the helm of the movie, penned by John McNamara, that will detail the life of the highly successful screenwriter, who was pulled in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee, where he refused to testify and was quickly banned from working in Hollywood. But that didn't stop him. He moved to Mexico City and kept working, with credits on "Exodus," "Gun Crazy" and "Spartacus," and he posthumously won the Academy Award for "Roman Holiday" in 1992 (it was originally credited to Ian McLellan Hunter,...

Lana Turner movies: Scandal and more scandal Lana Turner is Turner Classic Movies’ "Summer Under the Stars" star today, Saturday, August 10, 2013. I’m a little — or rather, a lot — late in the game posting this article, but there are still three Lana Turner movies left. You can see Turner get herself embroiled in scandal right now, in Douglas Sirk’s Imitation of Life (1959), both the director and the star’s biggest box-office hit. More scandal follows in Mark Robson’s Peyton Place (1957), the movie that earned Lana Turner her one and only Academy Award nomination. And wrapping things up is George Sidney’s lively The Three Musketeers (1948), with Turner as the ruthless, heartless, remorseless — but quite elegant — Lady de Winter. Based on Fannie Hurst’s novel and a remake of John M. Stahl’s 1934 melodrama about mother love, class disparities, racism, and good cooking, Imitation of Life was shown on...

★★★★☆ Now celebrating its 60th anniversary, director William Wyler's Roman Holiday (1953) - the romantic comedy starring the elfin Audrey Hepburn and debonair Gregory Peck - perfectly captures an innocent era sadly long forgotten. Anne (Hepburn, in the role that first brought her into the public eye), the princess of an obscure European country, is undertaking a highly publicised tour of the capitals of Europe. Frustrated by the strict protocol ruling her life Anne gives her courtiers the slip one night whilst in Rome. Hiding her identity she embarks on a tour of the city where she soon meets American journalist Joe Bradley (Peck).

Realising who Anne is, but saying nothing of his true intentions, Joe accompanies her around Rome in the hope that he can land an exclusive interview. William Wyler had a knack for spinning dramatic tension around strong female roles, as when he directed Greer Garson in Mrs. Miniver...

Kristen Wiig is to give her Bridesmaids producer Judd Apatow an honorary prize at the Writers Guild of America's East Coast Awards. Apatow will receive the Herb Sargent Award for Comedy Excellence in recognition of his career achievements at the WGA East's February 19 gala. His film Bridesmaids has been nominated in the 'Original Film' category against 50/50, Midnight in Paris, Win Win and Young Adult. Ryan's Hope creator Claire Labin will also be honored at the Writers Guild of America's East Coast Awards when she receives the Ian McLellan Hunter Award. The Writers Guild of America's East Coast Awards will be hosted by former Saturday Night Live star Rachel Dratch at Bb King (more)...

Kristen Wiig will honor her Bridesmaids producer Judd Apatow with the Herb Sargent Award for Comedy at the Writers Guild of America awards in New York City, the east coast wing of the WGA announced today. The award is named after the veteran TV writer (The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, Saturday Night Live, The Dennis Miller Show) who was president of the WGA, East for 14 years.

Daytime TV writer Claire Labine (General Hospital, One Life to Live, Guiding Light) will receive the Ian McLellan Hunter Award, given to a writer for their body of work.

The WGA Awards will be held on Feb.

Kristen Wiig will present Judd Apatow with an award for comedy writing at the 2012 Writers Guild of America's East Coast Awards show, the WGA East announced on Wednesday. Apatow will receive the Herb Sargent Award for Comedy Excellence, an honor named for the longtime television writer who also served as Wgae president for 14 years. Wiig wrote and stars in "Bridesmaids," which Apatow produced. The Wgae also announced that Claire Labine will receive the Ian McLellan Hunter Award, which goes to a member in honor of his or her entire body of...

Writers Guild of America has posthumously given Dalton Trumbo official recognition for writing the Oscar-winning screenplay for the Audrey Hepburn classic

The blacklisted Oscar-winning screenwriter Dalton Trumbo has finally received posthumous credit from the Us's most powerful screenwriters' body for the 1953 Audrey Hepburn classic Roman Holiday, 58 years after the film hit cinemas.

Trumbo, one of the original "Hollywood Ten" of blacklisted film industry workers, wrote the screenplay while living in exile in Mexico. He had been labelled an "unfriendly witness" by the anti-communist House Un-American Activities Committee in 1947. His friend Ian McLellan Hunter, who was later blacklisted himself, took credit for the work under an agreement between the two men, with Hunter later sending his fee for the film on to Trumbo.

The Writers Guild of America agreed to officially acknowledge Trumbo as the screenwriter of the film following a deposition from his son Christopher, who died earlier this year,...

In 1947 Oscar winner Dalton Trumbo and nine other filmmakers were brought in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee and were asked to testify about known communists in the Hollywood community. All 10 filmmakers, including Trumbo, refused. The result saw the Hollywood Ten convicted for contempt of court, jailed, and blacklisted from the Hollywood community. Now, 35 years after his death, Trumbo is finally getting credit for one of his greatest works. The Writers Guild of America has announced today, via The Los Angeles Times, that Dalton Trumbo's screenplay credit for Roman Holiday has been restored, nearly 60 years after the film was first released. This, however, isn't the first time that Trumbo's credit for the film has been changed. When the movie first came out, credit was given to Ian McLellan Hunter, who fronted for Trumbo's work. This became controversial when Roman Holiday took home the Oscar for Best...

Dalton Trumbo, one of the best-known figures from Hollywood's blacklist era, has received a posthumous vindication, the Writers Guide of America, West announced Monday. Also read: Consumer Groups Warn: Anti-Piracy Law Creates Destructive Blacklist The Oscar-winning writer's screenplay credit for "Roman Holiday," the 1953 romantic comedy that marked the big-screen debut of Audrey Hepburn, has been restored. The full credit to the film now reads: "Screenplay by Dalton Trumbo and Ian McLellan Hunter; Story by Dalton Trumbo." Hunter, who served as a front for Trumbo, originally received the Academy Award for the "Roman Holiday" screenplay.

The Writer’s Guild of America announced today that it has officially restored the late blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo’s credit to the 1953 movie Roman Holiday. He now shares a “screenplay by” credit with the other two writers; the “Story By” credit belongs to him.

In 1947, Trumbo was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee to testify about Communist influence in Hollywood. He refused to name names, was convicted for contempt of Congress, served 11 months in a federal penitentiary, and was blacklisted from working in Hollywood. He spent a decade living in Mexico with his family, writing screenplays under fake...

I guess this one goes under "Decades-long injustice finally righted." Dalton Trumbo, who some of you will probably recognize as having written Johnny Got His Gun, has finally been given credit for writing the 1953 Audrey Hepburn/Gregory Peck film Roman Holiday. Trumbo was one of the Hollywood Ten, a group of writers and directors hauled in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee, and he served eleven months in federal prison for refusing to testify to Congress. Blacklisted, he continued to write while living in exile in Mexico, under fake names and fronts. The screen credit and Academy Award for Roman Holiday were originally given to Ian McLellan Hunter, one of Trumbo's fronts. Trumbo was awarded his Academy Award for Roman Holiday posthumously in 1993, but his writer's credit has just officially been restored by the Writer's Guild of America, West. Wgaw President Chris Keyser: &[...]...

HollywoodNews.com: The Writers Guild of America, West (Wgaw) and the Writers Guild of America, East (Wgae) tonight announced the winners of the 2011 Writers Guild Awards for outstanding achievement in writing for screen, television, radio, news, promotional, videogame, and new media writing at simultaneous ceremonies at the Renaissance Hollywood Hotel-Grand Ballroom in Los Angeles and the Axa Equitable Center in New York City.

Screen Winners

Original Screenplay

Inception, Written by Christopher Nolan; Warner Bros.

Adapted Screenplay

The Social Network, Screenplay by Aaron Sorkin; Based on the book The Accidental Billionaires by Ben Mezrich; Sony Pictures

Documentary Screenplay

Inside Job, Written by Charles Ferguson; Co-written by Chad Beck, Adam Bolt; Sony Pictures Classic

Television Winners

Drama Series

Mad Men, Written by Jonathan Abrahams, Lisa Albert, Keith Huff, Jonathan Igla,Andre Jacquemetton, Maria Jacquemetton, Brett Johnson, Janet Leahy, Erin Levy,

Tracy McMillan, Dahvi Waller, Matthew Weiner; AMC

Comedy Series

Modern Family, Written by Jerry Collins,...

The IMDb250. A list of the top 250 films as ranked by the users of the biggest Internet movie site on the web. It is based upon the ratings provided by the users of the Internet Movie Database, which number into the millions. As such, it’s a perfect representation of the opinions of the movie masses, and arguably the most comprehensive ranking system on the Internet.

It’s because of this that we at HeyUGuys (and in this case we is myself and Barry) have decided to set ourselves a project. To watch and review all 250 movies on the list. We’ve frozen the list as of January 1st of this year. It’s not as simple as it sounds, we are watching them all in one year, 125 each.

This is our 34th update, my next five films watched for the project. You can find all our previous week’s updates here.

The 2010 Writers Guild of America Awards Winners The Writers Guild of America, East (Wgae) and the Writers Guild of America, West (Wgaw) tonight announced the winners of the 2010 Writers Guild Awards for outstanding achievement in writing for screen, television, radio, news, promotional, and videogame writing at simultaneous ceremonies at the Hudson Theatre at the Millennium Broadway Hotel in New York City and the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles. Susie Essman of Curb Your Enthusiasm hosted the East Coast show, which was executive produced by Craig Shemin, who was also the head writer. Seth MacFarlane (Family Guy) hosted the West Coast show, which was executive produced by Spike Jones, Jr.

The Writers Guild of America, East presented special honors to: Alan Zweibel - Ian McLellan Hunter Lifetime Achievement Award; Gary David Goldberg - Herb Sargent Award for Comedy Excellence; Edward Albee - Evelyn F. Burkey Award for contributions...