News

Whether you're a James Bond purist who likes to see the secret agent take his missions seriously or someone who has a soft spot for the series' campier elements, there's a lot to talk about regarding the legacy of "Moonraker" It's a bizarre entry in the franchise's legacy and the only one in which 007 goes to space. The Lewis Gilbert-directed film also happens to be the only Bond adventure to feature a returning evil henchman in Richard Kiel's Jaws.

The mute baddie with a mouth full of metal made his screen debut in 1975's "The Spy Who Loved Me." Since then, he's been rightfully remembered as one of the best Bond adversaries. Kiel's towering 7ft stature and that quietly sinister smile made the character such an imposing figure without saying a single word. He's also one of the only henchmen to have a redemptive arc in another film.

Following The Film Stage’s collective top 50 films of 2024, as part of our year-end coverage, our contributors are sharing their personal top 10 lists.

Among the many problems with movie lists is the lack of a common starting point. No one can watch the hundreds of domestic and international titles released every year. We don’t even try.

I’m suspicious of writers who claim to screen 250+ films a year. Sure, stuff’s playing in the background while you’re cooking, checking email, God forbid writing reviews, but at some point all those films bleed together into an endless montage of repetitive imagery and plot points. Ultimately everything looks and feels the same. Nothing matters.

With access to screenings, festivals, links, etc., critics start from an apparent position of privilege. In reality, that means they see what studios and their publicists want them to see. Or will let them see. There...

From the early stages of film history, two broadly contrasting factions of filmmakers can be identified based on their approach to film aesthetics. The first group, which placed their faith in montage, can be classified as formalists, while the second group, which emphasized a more realistic representation of the world, can be classified as realists. Early film theorists sought to establish cinema as a legitimate art form by emphasizing its capacity to deviate from the real world. They argued that cinema had the right to diverge from reality in order to distinguish itself as an art form that evokes a subjective sense of the real.

Early filmmakers like Georges Méliès can be seen as one of the proponents of this notion, as their films delve into fantasy worlds that have little in common with the real world, often structured in an episodic manner, with separate images stitched together through editing.

My Friend Ivan LapshinImage: International Film Exchange

When I was an undergrad in film school, one of the pillar courses was a two-semester film history class that would act as a broad survey to give us a foundation as aspiring filmmakers and workers. Naturally, this course was also about its...

After James Cameron cast Leonardo DiCaprio as Jack in "Titanic," the young actor approached Cameron and wanted to make some changes to the script. Specifically, he thought his character should have "some affliction," which would allow him to really get stuck into the role. Cameron's response was characteristically curt: "You gotta learn how to hold the center and not have all that stuff, this isn't 'Richard III.' When you can do what Jimmy Stewart did or Gregory Peck did, they just f****** stood there. They didn't have a limp or a lisp or whatever. Then you'll be ready for this, but I'm thinking you're not ready."

There's a lot of debate these days about what makes a movie star — and whether that's even a thing anymore. For whatever reason, it's not enough to just be an actor in a starring role. You have to have some ineffable quality that...

The Notebook Primer introduces readers to some of the most important figures, films, genres, and movements in film history. Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein, born January 23, 1898, in Latvia, was, for better and worse, a distinct product of his time. At the turn of the century, the Russian Empire was a vast, volatile region of intense sociopolitical upheaval, technological innovation, and artistic inspiration, cultural facets that would define and dramatically impact Eisenstein’s subsequently tremulous life and career. Intending to follow in the footsteps of his father, Eisenstein was admitted to the Petrograd Institute of Civil Engineering in 1915. But with the outbreak of the Russian Revolution in 1917, he enlisted in the Red Army and became a designer for its theatrical unit. Enamored by the heady influence of the Bolshevik uprising, Eisenstein was also inspired by assorted manner of creative expression, including Kabuki theater, opera, and comic strips. After joining the Proletkult Theatre in Moscow,...

by Sharofat Arabova, a film historian, member of Netpac (Tajikistan)

The first film shootings on the territory of modern Tajikistan were carried out by visiting cinematographers, amateur photographers and travelers during the first decades of 20th century and were mostly ethnographic by nature. Similar to other former Soviet republics, the development of the cinema in Tajikistan was associated with the State Tajikfilm Studio from its foundation up to 1990s.

The Tajikfilm studio was founded on the premises of a small film-processing lab that initially produced newsreels assembled monthly under the title Soviet Tajikistan. The founders of this lab—Artem Shevich, Nikolay Gezulin and Vasiliy Kuzin—would go down in history as the pioneers of Tajik cinema when their memorable footage of the arrival of the first train in Dushanbe (1929) was exhibited during the proclamation of the Tajik Ssr on 16 October 1929. The following year, the Soviet Government subsidized the renovation of the lab and established Tajikkino,...

Today’s Google Doodle shines a light on one of the seminal figures in film history: Sergei Eisenstein, whose career is most commonly boiled down in World Cinema 101 classes as being the pioneer behind the Soviet Union’s use of montage in propaganda movies following the October Revolution. Eisenstein, who would have turned 120 years old today, was a true believer in the Bolshevik Revolution — and only 20 years old when he left his architecture and engineering studies to join Vladimir Lenin’s Red Army. Just seven years later he would become the genius young filmmaker and theorist behind Soviet montage, creating historical propaganda films that promoted the tenets of Communism and celebrate the Revolution in films like “Strike,” “October,” and, most famously, “Battleship Potemkin.”

From the beginning of film history, there had been exploration of how the new medium’s unique ability to cut through space with the edit could be...

Exploring a few possibilities.

According to a new New York Daily News interview with Carrie Fisher’s brother Todd, he and Fisher’s daughter Billie Lourd, “have granted the studio rights to use recent footage [of Fisher] for the finale.” Since the actress’s sudden death last December, fans have wondered about how the Star Wars franchise will handle the loss of such a central figure — especially considering that some sources have claimed that Carrie Fisher was originally to have a larger role in Episode IX than in Episode VIII: The Last Jedi, scheduled for release this December. Taken in conjunction with other statements released by Disney thus far, including that The Last Jedi will not be modified to reflect Fisher’s death and that Disney and Lucasfilm seem to be standing by their January statement that CGI will not be used to “resurrect” Fisher as it was to re-create Peter Cushing’s likeness in Rogue One, one...

Russian editing whizzes Sergei Eisenstein, Vsevolod Pudovkin, and Lev Kuleshov proved it in the earliest days of silent film: Truth rests in the eye of the beholder. In Fred Schepisi’s 1988 true drama, “A Cry in the Dark,” Meryl Streep starred as the woman who famously cried “a dingo took my baby!” to resounding disbelief in Australia. Police and others looked at her inexpressive face, surrounded by a cowl of dark hair, and decided she was guilty of murdering her child.

Similarly, the court of public opinion — as well as the courts of Italy — declared that 20-year-old party girl Amanda Knox, studying abroad in Perugia, murdered her roommate, Meredith Kercher. It took eight years, but in 2015 the Italian Supreme Court finally declared her innocent, and that she had no motive.

Who supplied her motives? According to Brian McGinn and Rod Blackhurst’s documentary “Amanda Knox” (Netflix, September 30), which took five...

Russian editing whizzes Sergei Eisenstein, Vsevolod Pudovkin, and Lev Kuleshov proved it in the earliest days of silent film: Truth rests in the eye of the beholder. In Fred Schepisi’s 1988 true drama, “A Cry in the Dark,” Meryl Streep starred as the woman who famously cried “a dingo took my baby!” to resounding disbelief in Australia. Police and others looked at her inexpressive face, surrounded by a cowl of dark hair, and decided she was guilty of murdering her child.

Similarly, the court of public opinion — as well as the courts of Italy — declared that 20-year-old party girl Amanda Knox, studying abroad in Perugia, murdered her roommate, Meredith Kercher. It took eight years, but in 2015 the Italian Supreme Court finally declared her innocent, and that she had no motive.

Who supplied her motives? According to Brian McGinn and Rod Blackhurst’s documentary “Amanda Knox” (Netflix, September 30), which took five...

Fede Alvarez’s simple housebound horror film is sparse on dialogue but its editing and sound design lend to a slow roll of dread that makes it a triumph

“If you go back down there, I’m gonna get up and kill you myself!” That was one of many hilarious lines the ebullient crowd shouted during a preview screening of Don’t Breathe for notoriously tough-to-please New Yorkers. Normally I’d tsk movie talkers, but Fede Alvarez’s simple housebound horror show is practically dialogue-free. These spaces beg to be filled with interaction, and by the end even I (the so-called “professional”) joined with yelps, whoops and even an “Oh, God, not that, that’s so gross!”

Importantly, the type of “gross” found in Don’t Breathe is of the “I’m laughing and shouting ewwww!” kind, not the brutal torture porn that, despite the R rating, this movie rejects.

The Conformist

Written and directed by Bernardo Bertolucci

Italy, 1970

When first introduced to the improved quality of Blu-ray technology, there were about a dozen films I couldn’t wait to see in the format. These were movies of extraordinary beauty that I knew would surely benefit from the enhanced visual resolution. Now, with the arrival of Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Conformist on a stunning new Raro Video edition, another one of those titles can be scratched off the list. What makes this an exciting release, however, goes beyond the look of the picture (though that is paramount). This is, in every regard, one of the greatest films ever made.

The Conformist is a complex chronicle of the tormented, ruthless, and devious Marcello Clerici (Jean-Louis Trintignant), a rising-through-the-ranks Fascist enforcer. The film is a fascinating look at the extent to which one will go to escape the past, fit in with the present,...

★★★☆☆ Names like Sergei Eisenstein, Dziga Vertov and Lev Kuleshov understandably dominate the column inches when it comes to the pioneering Soviet filmmakers of the early 20th century. This means that it can be easy for other revered cinematic artists of the time, such as Boris Barnet, to be overlooked. To help make sure that doesn’t happen, two of Barnet's most celebrated works, Outskirts (1933) and By the Bluest of Seas (1936) this week receive a DVD rerelease in the UK courtesy of Mr. Bongo Films. Taking place in a village on the Russo-German border, Outskirts tells of a community infected by nationalism at the outbreak of the First World War.

Read more »...

Turner Classic Movies (TCM) has unveiled its list of 10 Most Influential Silent Films in celebration of Michel Hazanavicius’ ode to the silent era, The Artist, which won three Golden Globes® Sunday night, including Best Picture . Musical or Comedy, Best Actor . Musical or Comedy for Jean Dujardin and Best Original Score. The Artist also picked up 12 British Academy Film Award nominations. The Weinstein Company will expand its release of The Artist nationwide on Friday.

TCM’s list of 10 Most Influential Silent Films spans from the years 1915 to 1928 and features such remarkable films as D.W. Griffith’s groundbreaking (and controversial) The Birth of a Nation (1915), which revolutionized filmmaking techniques; Nanook of the North (1922), a film frequently cited as the first feature-length documentary; Cecil B. DeMille’s epic silent version of The Ten Commandments (1923); Sergei Eisenstein’s oft-imitated Battleship Potemkin (1925), which took montage techniques to an entirely new level; and Fritz Lang’s...

Georges Méliès' A Trip to the Moon Melancholia, A Separation Screenplay, Runner-Up Jeannie Berlin: National Society of Film Critics' Surprises Two interesting omissions from the Nsfc roster: critics' fave Michelle Williams (for portraying Marilyn Monroe in Simon Curtis' My Week with Marilyn) and George Clooney (for his stressed out father in Alexander Payne's The Descendants) weren't among the critics' top three actresses/actors. Dunst and Yun were followed by New York Film Critics winner Meryl Streep for her Margaret Thatcher in Phyllida Lloyd's The Iron Lady; Brad Pitt was followed by Gary Oldman in Tomas Alfredson's Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and Jean Dujardin in Michel Hazanavicius' The Artist. Dujardin, in fact, was The Artist's sole representative in the Nsfc 2011 roster. For the record the other runners-up were Christopher Plummer (Mike Mills' Beginners) and Patton Oswalt (Jason Reitman's Young Adult...

Film theory arose from the scientific and philosophical doctrine of Marxism. It is not a coincidence that the early and most important film theorists and filmmakers were active Marxists who emerged in the newly formed Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

The Odessa Step Sequence in Battleship Potemkin

In the academic realm of blood-stricken Pakistan, film studies have begun to emerge slowly. Partly because of the rising trend of private media (which proudly calls itself a ‘revolution’), partly because of the efforts of many old art academics and partly because of our film-going culture, film studies are becoming a part of our educational curriculum. The institutions offering film courses are usually equipped with latest high-definition equipment for production and post-production. They’ve got outstanding technicians to train students and many young kids – who can afford these film schools – are realizing that they wanted to become ‘directors since childhood’.

Artistic ambiance, updates on latest technology,...

Soviet state-run cinema was fast, furious and fun before the dead hand of Stalin called time on experimentation and entertainment

A fast and furious chase, full of physical gags and gangsters, with jokes at the expense of American imperialism. A hallucinatory horror, where ordinary objects take on a life of their own, scripted by a literary theorist. A bed-hopping love triangle, simmering in a cramped flat. A big-budget science fiction spectacular, full of futuristic sets and bizarre, revealing costumes. A workers' strike, depicted via special effects and pratfalls. A film about film-making itself, with no plot, no words, no narrative, which is somehow the most thrilling film you'll ever see. A film about collective farming with full-frontal nudity and inscrutable, poetic metaphors. A film about mutinous sailors that manages to accidentally invent the action film as we know it.

This is Soviet cinema in the 1920s. An almost entirely state-run cinema,...

MOSCOW -- The 13th edition of the Cottbus Film Festival, the world's leading festival of Eastern European film, will concentrate on young, emerging filmmakers. Organizers on Monday announced this year's lineup of competition films, professional events and sidebars. The festival, which is set for Nov. 4-8 and takes place in the town to the southeast of Berlin near the Polish border, will screen 10 competition feature films from across the region, with its annual allied professional event -- Connecting Cottbus -- running in conjunction. Cottbus opens with an early Soviet silent movie rarely, if ever, seen in the West: Lev Kuleschov's 1924 The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr. West in the Land of Bolsheviks, for which a new score has been written that will be performed live for the first time by the German Film Orchestra Babelsberg.