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Gary Cooper movies on TCM: Cooper at his best and at his weakest Gary Cooper is Turner Classic Movies' “Summer Under the Stars” star today, Aug. 30, '15. Unfortunately, TCM isn't showing any Cooper movie premiere – despite the fact that most of his Paramount movies of the '20s and '30s remain unavailable. This evening's features are Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936), Sergeant York (1941), and Love in the Afternoon (1957). Mr. Deeds Goes to Town solidified Gary Cooper's stardom and helped to make Jean Arthur Columbia's top female star. The film is a tad overlong and, like every Frank Capra movie, it's also highly sentimental. What saves it from the Hell of Good Intentions is the acting of the two leads – Cooper and Arthur are both excellent – and of several supporting players. Directed by Howard Hawks, the jingoistic, pro-war Sergeant York was a huge box office hit, eventually earning Academy Award nominations in several categories,...

Jean Arthur films on TCM include three Frank Capra classics Five Jean Arthur films will be shown this evening, Monday, January 5, 2015, on Turner Classic Movies, including three directed by Frank Capra, the man who helped to turn Arthur into a major Hollywood star. They are the following: Capra's Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, You Can't Take It with You, and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington; George Stevens' The More the Merrier; and Frank Borzage's History Is Made at Night. One the most effective performers of the studio era, Jean Arthur -- whose film career began inauspiciously in 1923 -- was Columbia Pictures' biggest female star from the mid-'30s to the mid-'40s, when Rita Hayworth came to prominence and, coincidentally, Arthur's Columbia contract expired. Today, she's best known for her trio of films directed by Frank Capra, Columbia's top director of the 1930s. Jean Arthur-Frank Capra...

Acclaimed Winnipeg filmmaker Guy Maddin has won the Best Experimental Short award at the 2010 SXSW Film Festival for Night Mayor. The film is a fictional documentary about Bosnian inventor Nihad Ademi who, in 1939, built a machine that harnessed the power of the Aurora Borealis to transmit images of Canadians to themselves.

Created as a tribute to the National Film Board of Canada’s 70th anniversary, Night Mayor playfully twists concepts of fact and fiction. Maddin describes the film as a documentary, even though his subject never actually existed, since it was shot documentary style with no planned action or script. Maddin assembled his cast and crew to document Ademi’s story as it may have happened and captured the action in his uncanny style of recreating time periods.

To see the director at work and to hear him describe his process, embedded below is a making-of clip posted on the Nfb’s website.

SXSW Film Announces 2010 Award Winners

Complete Coverage of SXSW 2010

Austin, Texas – March 16, 2010 – The Jury and Audience Award-winners of the South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Conference and Festival were announced tonight at the Festival’s closing Awards Ceremony hosted by comedian Eugene Mirman in Austin, Texas. Feature Films receiving Jury Awards were selected from the Narrative Feature and Documentary Feature categories. Films in these categories, as well as the Spotlight Premieres, Emerging Visions, Midnighters, Lone Star States and 24 Beats Per Second categories were also eligible for the 2010 SXSW Film Festival Audience Awards. Only Narrative and Documentary Feature Audience Awards were announced tonight. Spotlight Premieres, Emerging Visions, Lone Star States, 24 Beats Per Second and Midnighters Audience Awards will be announced separately on Monday, March 22.

SXSW also announced the Jury Award-winners in Shorts Filmmaking, and Film Design Awards, and Special Awards, including the SXSW Chicken & Egg Emergent Narrative Woman Director Award and the SXSW Wholphin Award.

Austin, Texas – March 16, 2010 – The Jury and Audience Award-winners of the South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Conference and Festival were announced tonight at the Festival’s closing Awards Ceremony hosted by comedian Eugene Mirman in Austin, Texas. Feature Films receiving Jury Awards were selected from the Narrative Feature and Documentary Feature categories. Films in these categories, as well as the Spotlight Premieres, Emerging Visions, Midnighters, Lone Star States and 24 Beats Per Second categories were also eligible for the 2010 SXSW Film Festival Audience Awards. Only Narrative and Documentary Feature Audience Awards were announced tonight. Spotlight Premieres, Emerging Visions, Lone Star States, 24 Beats Per Second and Midnighters Audience Awards will be announced separately on Monday, March 22. SXSW also announced the Jury Award-winners in Shorts Filmmaking, and Film Design Awards, and Special Awards, including the SXSW Chicken & Egg Emergent Narrative Woman Director Award and the SXSW Wholphin Award. Details can be found at www.

The Jury and Audience Award-winners of the South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Conference and Festival were announced last night at the Festival’s closing Awards Ceremony hosted by comedian Eugene Mirman in Austin, Texas. Feature Films receiving Jury Awards were selected from the Narrative Feature and Documentary Feature categories.

Films in these categories, as well as the Spotlight Premieres, Emerging Visions, Midnighters, Lone Star States and 24 Beats Per Second categories were also eligible for the 2010 SXSW Film Festival Audience Awards. Only Narrative and Documentary Feature Audience Awards were announced tonight.

Spotlight Premieres, Emerging Visions, Lone Star States, 24 Beats Per Second and Midnighters Audience Awards will be announced separately on Monday, March 22.

SXSW also announced the Jury Award-winners in Shorts Filmmaking, and Film Design Awards, and Special Awards, including the SXSW Chicken & Egg Emergent Narrative Woman Director Award and the SXSW Wholphin Award.

Click through for the complete list of the...

Though SXSW 2010 is only at the halfway point, the music portion is about to kick into high gear and many film folks are leaving town. The awards ceremony was held last night, and Jeff Malmberg's Marwencol and Lena Dunham's Tiny Furniture won jury awards for best feature-length documentary and narrative, respectively.

Audience awards went to For Once in My Life (documentary) and Brotherhood (narrative). As if often the case, I haven't seen any of the winners, so can't comment further on them, but we do have a review for Marwencol up on the site, which is linked below.

Here's the announcement provided by the festival:

Austin, Texas - March 16, 2010 - The Jury and Audience Award-winners of the South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Conference and Festival were announced tonight at the Festival's closing Awards Ceremony hosted by comedian Eugene Mirman in Austin, Texas.  Feature Films receiving Jury Awards were...