News

“Marcello Mastroianni was known, all around the world, as the Latin lover, the Italian seducer, especially after he starred in La Dolce Vita, Federico Fellini’s masterpiece,” says Fabrizio Corallo, the director of the new documentary Ciao Marcello, Mastroianni l’antidivo. “Mastroianni did not like this image. He didn’t want to be seen as an icon, as a sex symbol. He didn’t care much about his public persona; what did matter to him was his personal life. So, I tried to build an intimate portrait of this unique actor.”

Corallo is a journalist and an expert on the history of Italian cinema. For state broadcaster Rai he has made a number of documentaries about the great personalities of Italian cinema: Dino Risi, Vittorio Gassman, Virna Lisi, Ennio Flaiano and Giuliano Montaldo, among others.

Ciao Marcello, which was co-written with Silvia Scola, the daughter of Italian filmmaker Ettore Scola,...

Frank Sinatra went through phases like he went through wives. The legendary crooner and movie star could exhibit impeccable taste for what people wanted to see and hear, and then, in a few year's time, completely lose his grasp of the zeitgeist.

Sinatra was threatening to enter one of his down periods in the mid-1960s. The popular music scene was in the throes of Beatlemania, while moviegoers were tiring of the Rat Pack's antics. Who wanted to see Sinatra and the gang saunter their way through Western and gangster pastiches like "4 for Texas" and "Robin and the 7 Hoods" when they could watch Elvis Presley set the screen ablaze with Ann-Margret in "Viva Las Vegas"?

To be fair, Sinatra was still Sinatra, but after giving one of his finest performances in John Frankenheimer's "The Manchurian Candidate," he started playing it way too safe. Bud Yorkin and...

Influential Italian auteur Francesco “Citto” Maselli who worked with Lucia Bosé, Claudia Cardinale, Shelley Winters and Valeria Golino on films that combined his political passion with his bent for female-centered dramas, has died in Rome.

Maselli, who was known for making left-wing militant cinema, was 92.

The director’s death was announced to Italian news agency Ansa by Maurizio Acerbo, leader of Italy’s small Communist Refoundation Party, the group of die-hard Italian leftists that Maselli championed, and confirmed by the director’s wife. The exact cause of Maselli’s death was not revealed.

Born into a cultured family originally from Italy’s Southern Molise region and raised in an intellectually stimulating environment – his father was an art critic – Maselli participated at a very early age in Italy’s partisan Resistance movement against fascists and German occupiers and as a young man started asserting his belief in Communism.

After graduating from...

“I am going to commit murder. I am going to kill another human being. How easy it is to say, already I feel like a criminal. I’ve been thinking it over for weeks, but now that I’ve giving voice to my evil intention I feel comfortably relaxed. Perhaps the deed itself will be an anti-climax, but I think not.”

The box set Giallo Essentials featuring The Pyjama Girl Case (1978), The Fifth Cord (1971), and The Possessed (1965) set will be available November 30th from Arrow Video

Alongside the spaghetti western, the giallo is one of the most famous Italian export genres: films steeped in mystery and intrigue, delivered with stylised violence and unforgettable musical themes. The Possessed (1965) masterfully combines noir, mystery and giallo tropes in a proto-giallo based on one of Italy’s most notorious crimes. It tells the story of a depressed novelist (Peter Baldwin) in search of his...

Is Joseph Losey’s elusive, maudit masterpiece really a masterpiece? Stanley Baker’s foolish lout of a writer ruins his life pursuing the wanton Jeanne Moreau, and it’s hard to tell if she’s punishing him or he’s punishing himself. Losey’s directing skills are in top form on location in Venice and Rome for this absorbing art film. Pi’s overdue and very welcome disc sorts out the multiple release versions for the first time, and in so doing finally makes the show critically accessible. Co-starring (swoon) Virna Lisi and James Villiers.

Eve

Region B Blu-ray

Powerhouse Indicator

1962 / B&w / 1:85 widescreen / 126 109, 108 min. / Eva, The Devil’s Woman / Street Date October 19, 2020 / available from Powerhouse Films UK / £15.99

Starring: Jeanne Moreau, Stanley Baker, Virna Lisi, James Villiers, Riccardo Garrone, Lisa Gastoni, Checco Rissone, Enzo Fiermonte, Nona Medici, Roberto Paoletti, Alexis Revidis, Evi Rigano.

Cinematography: Gianni Di Venanzo, Henri Decaë

Film...

Review by Roger Carpenter

Originally entitled The Lady of the Lake—a much more accurate title then The Possessed—this is a unique genre film that is part noir, part art film, and is also considered a proto-giallo film.

Based on a hit book that was based itself on a notorious Italian murder, The Possessed tells the tale of Bernard, a lost and depressed author (played by Peter Baldwin) and a hotel maid, Tilde (Virna Lisi), whom Bernard has become obsessed with.

The film opens as Bernard makes his way to the isolated hotel where he first met Tilde, and where she still works. It is winter and the hotel is closed for the season. However, Bernard has had some success with his first novel so the proprietor welcomes him with open arms. Soon, though, Bernard discovers that Tilde has committed suicide since he was last at the hotel. Or perhaps it was murder.

Nearly a year after its surprising drop on Netflix after the Super Bowl, The Cloverfield Paradox arrives on both Blu-ray and DVD this week, making it just one of the highlights of this week’s batch of home media releases. The horror comedy You Might Be the Killer also arrives on both formats this Tuesday, and Scream Factory has Mermaid: Lake of the Dead on tap this week as well.

Other notable releases for February 5th include a Special Edition version of The Possessed from Arrow Video, Black Magic, Nazi Overlord, American Poltergeist: The Curse of Lilith Ratchet, and The Cloverfield 3-Movie Collection.

The Cloverfield Paradox

Producer J.J. Abrams takes you deeper into the Cloverfield universe than ever before with this mysterious sci-fi thriller. Orbiting Earth on the brink of a devastating energy war, scientists prepare to test a device that could provide unlimited power or trap them in a terrifying alternate reality.

The Possessed will be available on Blu-ray February 5th From Arrow Video

The Possessed is a wonderfully atmospheric proto-giallo based on one of Italy s most notorious crimes, the Alleghe killings, and adapted from the book on that case by acclaimed literary figure Giovanni Comisso.

Peter Baldwin stars as Bernard, a depressed novelist who sets off in search of his old flame Tilde, a beautiful maid who works at a remote lakeside hotel. Bernard is warmly greeted by the hotel owner Enrico and his daughter Irma, but Tilde has disappeared under suspicious circumstances. Bernard undertakes an investigation and is soon plunged into a disturbing drama of familial secrets, perversion, madness and murder…

Co-written by Giulio Questi and co-directed by Luigi Bazzoni, The Possessed masterfully combines film noir, mystery and giallo tropes, whilst also drawing on the formal innovations of 1960s art cinema (particularly the films of Michelangelo Antonioni). A uniquely dreamlike take on true crime,...

Monica Bellucci flew into Rome for one night to receive the Fondazione Cinema per Roma’s Virna Lisi Award, which honors an actress who has made an impact in Italian and global cinema.

Bellucci sat down with The Hollywood Reporter to speak about her career thus far, why the age conversation around her role as a Bond girl in Spectre was so important and why she thinks it’s so important now for women to come forward about harassment and assault.

On accepting the award, Bellucci said, “It means a lot because Virna Lisi is an actress that I respect very much. She...

Actress Monica Bellucci will be feted with the 2017 Virna Lisi award in Rome on Nov. 7 as part of the Fondazione per Roma's Cityfest series. 

The prize will be delivered by Lisi's son, Corrado Pesci, and presented by director Giuseppe Tornatore. 

Lisi was one of the rare Italian actresses who worked frequently across Italy and Hollywood. She gained fame in postwar Italian film, including starring in Casanova 70 opposite Marcello Mastroianni and later appearing with Jack Lemmon in How to Murder Your Wife and as Catherine de Medici in Queen Margot.

The Virna Lisi prize was started in 2015, first going to...

Winter is indeed upon us, as “Game of Thrones” has just wrapped its truncated seventh season with a jaw-dropping finale that moves plenty of pieces (most of them terrifying, ice-cold, and dragon-aided) into place for a game-changer of a final season…that won’t come until sometime in 2018. It’s the Long Night, all over again (and, if those gently falling snowflakes during some of the finale’s last moments are any indication, fans of the HBO series aren’t the only ones headed for a chilling, unforgiving few months).

In order to keep diehard viewers sated until its last episodes hit the small screen, here are some ideas for films that might help ease the pain, from classic Westerns to underseen historical dramas, all with that special “Thrones” touch (murderous, political, bloody, and at least partially beholden to mythical beasts).

Read More:‘Game of Thrones’ Review: Finale ‘The Dragon...

David O. Selznick’s absurdly over-cooked western epic is a great picture, even if much of it induces a kind of hypnotic, mouth-hanging-open disbelief. Is this monument to the sex appeal of Jennifer Jones, Kitsch in terrible taste, or have Selznick and his army of Hollywood talents found a new level of hyped melodramatic harmony? It certainly has the star-power, beginning with Gregory Peck as a cowboy rapist who learned his bedside manners from Popeye’s Bluto. It’s all hugely enjoyable.

Duel in the Sun

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1946 / Color / 1:37 flat Academy / 144 min. / Special Edition / Street Date August 15, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring Jennifer Jones, Gregory Peck, Joseph Cotten, Lionel Barrymore, Lillian Gish, Walter Huston, Butterfly McQueen, Charles Bickford, Tilly Losch.

Cinematography Lee Garmes, Ray Rennahan and Harold Rosson

Production Designer J. McMillan Johnson

Film Editor Hal C. Kern, John Saure and William H. Ziegler

Original Music Dimitri Tiomkin

Written by Niven Busch,...

On this day in history as it relates to showbiz

1519 Catherine de Medici, Queen consort, born. She's been played in movies and TV by Kerry Fox, Megan Follows, Françoise Rosay, Maria Palmer, and many more but none so brilliantly as Virna Lisi in her Cannes winning performance in the sensational French epic Queen Margot (1994)

1570 Guy Fawkes born in England. V for Vendetta's "V" wears his face as a mask.

1743 Founding Father Thomas Jefferson born in Virginia. He's been played in movies and TV by actors like Nick Nolte, Jerry O'Connell, Stephen Dillane, Sam Waterston, Ken Howard, and many more...

Hit Me With Your Best Shot: Queen Margot (1994)

Director: Patrice Chereau. Cinematography: Phillipe Rousselot. 

Starring: Isabelle Adjani, Daniel Auteuil, Vincent Perez, Jean-Hugues Anglade, and Virna Lisi 

Awards: 2 Cannes jury prizes, 5 César Awards, 1 Oscar nomination.

They say that death always takes your lovers..."

When I was young and extremely sexually naive, let's say hypothetically in High School French class, I was startled to discover that the French phrase "La petite mort," which translates literally to 'the little death' referred to a sexual orgasm. I had no idea why these two towers of Human Obsession, Sex and Death, would be linked up like twins. But the movies, ever the personal tutor for young cinephiles, kept forcing the connections.

Which brings us to the decadent, opulent, erotic, violent and visceral 16th century French epic Queen Margot, this week's Best Shot subject. (The shot choices are after the jump due to the graphic nature of the film.

'Here's what's coming up the rest of this month on Best Shot if you'd like to join us. It's easy. You...

1) watch the movie

2) pick a shot, post it and say why you love it

3) let us know you did via twitter, email or comments and we link up 

May 17th Queen Margot (1994)

Madwoman Isabelle Adjani stars in this blood-soaked, erotically-charged 16th century French epic which we figured is a great fit for a Cannes heavy week (the film won two prizes in its year including Best Actress for its unforgettable supporting actress Virna Lisi). Plus the last time we did an Adjani (The Story of Adele H) the articles were hot. Please join us if you haven't seen this one! [Streaming on Netflix]

May 24th Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)

We pushed this back a month since it wasn't yet available to rent but it's time to revisit future jedi Rey as...

By Howard Hughes

New to DVD in the UK is ‘Arabella’, an Italian period comedy set in that hotbed of hilarity, pre-wwii fascist Italy. Virna Lisi stars in the title role – known variously in the film as Arabella Danesi and Arabella Angeli – who determines to save her grandmother from destitution by finding ingenious ways to pay off her elderly relative’s crippling tax bill.

The film is structured rather like those 1960s Italian portmanteau comedy-dramas, such as ‘Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow’, ‘The Witches’ or ‘Woman Times Seven’. Such films were intended as vehicles for one female star, be they Sophia, Silvana or Shirley, to demonstrate their versatility in a variety of roles. But instead of separate stories, with different characters, ‘Arabella’ has one continuous story arc, with Lisi’s sexy heroine adopting various costumes, personas and wigs to seduce and blackmail her way through a string of lovers, who are then...

To all cinephiles! This one is for you!

What a surprise was in store for us when we went to see “We Weren’t Just Bicycle Thieves. Neorealism” on its opening night of its qualifying run for Oscar submission in the documentary category.

The footage!

It took two and a half years to clear it all! The best scenes of Neorealistic cinema illustrate points on how Neorealism changed the lexicon and language of film in the same way that the Renaissance changed the visual language of art with linear perspective and its humanistic point of view.

The commentary!

Speaking about the influence of the Italian post-war Neorealism upon their filmmaking choices are Bertolucci, the Taviani Brothers, Scorsese, Olmi, Umberto Eco, Gabriel Garcia Marquez… the only reason Antonioni and Fellini did not speak was because they were no longer living when the movie was made. The interviews were not “talking heads”; they were conversations in which the great directors expressed their connections with Neorealism as they spoke to Carlo Lizzani.

Carlo Lizzani, the narrator and host of this documentary is an elegant 91 year old man who worked as scriptwriter, assistant director to every Neorealistic director and director in his own right. He starred in movies 1939-1954.

I loved him dancing in "Bitter Rice" (which he cowrote) with the women workers. That was the first Neorealistic movie I saw, dubbed on TV, when I was about eight. It was so puzzling to me, seeing this woman in a rice field with her skirt hiked up in a very provocative way, calling to someone with her words not matching her lips.

I really did not understand what sort of movie I was seeing… Similar to the first time I saw Chantal Akerman’s "Jane Dielman" which was rather Neorealistic too, though a product of the early ‘70s.

The production value!

The room, a fascinating “study” filled with objects of Neorealistic movies where the Lizzani seemed to belong was actually a room built from scratch by production designer Maurizio di Clemente within the walls of the oldest film school in Italy, Centro Sperimentale de Cine. When Lizzani opened windows, they looked out upon landscapes of these great Neorealistic movies. The technology of today was used in service of high art. Opening windows itself was a Neorealistic device.

The book!

You will want to read it all and show it off on your coffee table. Interviews, philosophic discussions, pictures and detailed listings of all the Neorealistic movies are splendidly displayed.

The education!

My view of cinema — both post war Italian cinema and today’s cinema shifted into an informed appreciation of how much Neorealism changed our vision of what a film could be.

Neorealism came to fruition with the rebirth of Italy after the war and lasted to 1954. Actually as Carlo Lizzani explains, it began in 1939 “with the first rumblings of an anti-fascist rebellion… as well as among many intellectuals and cineastes, increasingly unanimous in their refusal of so-called “White Telephone” cinema.”

“Before Neorealism, films were called ‘Bianchi Telefono’ after the white telephones that Hollywood movies showed in the so-called ‘White Telephone’ cinema for the way they featured Hollywood-style living rooms where that status symbol was invariably set center stage. It may have been a typical object in certain Hollywood mansions or Middle-European villa, but hardly in the average Italian home,” says Lizzani.

The interview!

Gianni Bozzacchi, the film’s director, writer and producer is a Renaissance man and his stories are funny, deeply moving and extremely interesting! This is someone you want to talk to for hours.

Watching this labor of love was an experience I will always treasure.

Rarely do we see a film about the art of film…Todd McCarthy’s "Visions of Light" comes to mind but others fade into PBS TV memories. This is a cinematic, highly technological and artistic feat. The Dp was Fabio Olmi the son of Ermanno Olmi.

After the screening, Bozzacchi stayed for a Q+A and the next day I continued to question him in the home of producer Jay Kanter where he was staying. After two and a half hours, I still wanted more. But the issue of condensing it all to a blog was weighing on me.

“Everything was planned and laid out in great detail, scripted and planned to the second so that filming 91 year old Lizanni for two hours a day took exactly 8 days to complete.”

Bozzacchi had previously made movies and in the ‘70s and ‘80s. He worked in Los Angeles with Greg Bautzer, who, for nearly 50 years, was one of the premier entertainment attorneys in Hollywood and with Kirk Kerkorian who needs no introduction. He wrote, directed and produced “I Love N.Y.” which was sold internationally by Walter Manley. It presold widely including to Australia where it played six weeks. But for the U.S. release, Manley edited it, and Bozzacchi moved away from it and took the DGA pseudonym, the credited name Alan Smithee.

Why did you leave filmmaking for so long?

I still remember that film, starring Christopher Plummer, Virna Lisi, Scott Baio, Jennifer O’Neill, but that was my last until “Neorealism”.

In 1986 I saw the industry was changing and I chose to step out in order to watch it as an outsider. What was ‘Show Business” was becoming a 'Business Show’. Marketing led to creating a show which led to creating a sales industry. “

“I decided to change direction and do only what I really wanted to do. I took ten years developing a big project ‘Oh Brave New World: The Renaissance’ for TV. It is now in pre-production. I thought of the Neorealism project and of The Enzo Ferrari story for which I now have a deal with Tribeca and Robert De Niro.

What did you do before you were a filmmaker?

I quit school at 13. From 1966 to 1974, at 20 I entered the jet set and became a photographer.

Elizabeth Taylor was shooting ‘The Comedians’ in Africa by Graham Greene. In Dahomy (today it’s Benin) they rebuilt part of Haiti. In the photo agency I worked no one wanted to go there, so I went. I knew Elizabeth Taylor’s face very well so I photographed her with light; no retouching was needed. After seeing a photo I took of her, Richard Burton said to me, ‘You want to join our family? Elizabeth needs you.’ I only spoke Roman, no English. I worked with her for 14 years and her two kids were my assistants. I also worked on 162 films as a special photographer, reading the scripts and shooting scenes for magazine layouts, working with “the making of the film” format.

It was when I stopped as a photographer in ‘75 that I began to think of producing films like the cult film “ China 9, Liberty 37” directed by Monte Hellman and starring Sam Peckinpah, Warren Oates and Fabio Testi and I wrote a book ExpoXed Memory about my life.

There is a relationship of all my projects to Neorealism, and of Neorealism to the Renaissance. All our projects are ready to go.

What are you doing in L.A.?

We have formed a new company with producer Jay Kanter and other partners who love film rather than the business of film. “We Weren’t Just Bicycle Thieves: Neorealismo” is the first to come out of the gate.

“The Listener” is the next project I will direct. It is based on the semi-autobiographical book, Operation Appia Way, by the Italian politician Giulio Andreotti. Andreotti served as Prime Minister of Italy seven terms since the restoration of democracy in 1946.

Yes he was the subject of Paolo Sorrentino’s film “Il Divo”. The book is about phone tapping, abuse of power and violations of personal privacy as is so often employed in politic, spying, etc. Andreotti had studied to be a priest but became a politician and this is about the birth of wire tapping which took place in the Roman catacombs and tapped the phones of Pope Pius Xii in conversations with Churchill, Churchill and the King of Italy, Mussolini and Hitler, Roosevelt and the Pope. The scenarios alternate between New York and Rome today and flashbacks to past times.

The production coordinator of “Neorealismo”, Julia Eleanora Rei, also has a project on Eleanora Duse and Gabriel D’Annunzio. Known as ‘Duse’, this Italian actress is known for her words of wit and wisdom, ‘The weaker partner in a marriage is the one who loves the most’ and ‘When we grow old, there can only be one regret – not to have given enough of ourselves’. She is also known for her long romantic involvement with the poet and writer, the controversial Gabriele D’Annunzio. They are now targeting a star for the film, although, says Bozzacchi, ‘Today the script is the star’.

What films are most important to you?

Those shown in this documentary, especially "Open City" where the scene of shooting down Anna Magnani still makes me feel angry.

Every week the Neorealistic filmmakers met in a café or restaurant. They did not have lots of money, had only one camera and not much film. But they created a way to tell a story very realistically, hiding the camera and shooting the people as they are.

Cary Grant pleaded De Sica to star in ‘The Bicycle Thief’, but he would have disrupted the Neorealist aspect; he was too recognizable. In the scene where three men stop the thief , other citizens joined in thinking it was real. If they saw it was Cary Grant, the scene never could have happened. The little boy in the film, played by Enzo Staiola, was scared the mob would turn on him.”

It was surprising to see Enzo Staiola in conversation during the movie. He said that ‘De Sica invented this whole story about how he made me cry. When I looked at him in surprise, he said: ‘Don’t worry, it’s just cinema…you’ll understand later’.

They also changed the way to shoot in sequence, called ‘piano sequenza’. Before a film was done in steps, with a storyboard, with cuts, three camera povs. Actors and the camera depended on the director. Now the camera follows the actor as he or she moves. This went from Rossellini to Fellini who always used the system; but Fellini, who shows a new reborn Italy, did not want direct sound. Fellini directs saying, ‘pick up drink’ or ‘turn right’ or ‘look left’ and then afterward he would add the sound. He showed Italy out of war time in ‘La Dolce Vita’.

What happened after ‘Neorealism’?

Pontecorvo was born in the time of Neorealism and he brought it to Algiers (‘Battle of Algiers’). He was going to make a doc there but then decided on fiction. He wrote notes on his hand.

Who were the French, German and U.S. adherents to Neorealism?

Truffaut and Melville, Wim Wenders with ‘American Friend’ and ‘Paris, Texas’, Coppola with ‘Apocalypse Now’. Cassavetes was a producer of Neorealism; he took it to his era. Scorsese did with ‘Taxi Driver’ and ‘Mean Streets’.

What do we see about Neorealism today?

If you really love movies, with all of today’s technology, you must bring in realism. With the new technology there will be a new wave of new realism. New filmmakers are very straight. Honesty and realism on the screen will come out. We’re at the sea floor now, coming back. Tell me a story that I can feel and see emotion…that is the legacy of Neorealism.

The final scene was great ...

There was a great sense of collaboration on this film.

What made that so related to Neorealism?

Neorealism also had the full participation of everyone. Directors heard and listened to the community. Clint Eastwood does this too. He would be great directing the Ferrari movie…depending on the script of course.

I love you story about the dog being an actor who allowed for transitions and covered discontinuities in film.

What about catering Italian style?

Take a look at the film's trailer Here.

Eli Wallach and Anne Jackson on the Oscars' Red Carpet Eli Wallach and Anne Jackson at the Academy Awards Eli Wallach and wife Anne Jackson are seen above arriving at the 2011 Academy Awards ceremony, held on Sunday, Feb. 27, at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood. The 95-year-old Wallach had received an Honorary Oscar at the Governors Awards in November 2010. See also: "Doris Day Inexplicably Snubbed by Academy," "Maureen O'Hara Honorary Oscar," "Honorary Oscars: Mary Pickford, Greta Garbo Among Rare Women Recipients," and "Hayao Miyazaki Getting Honorary Oscar." Delayed film debut The Actors Studio-trained Eli Wallach was to have made his film debut in Fred Zinnemann's Academy Award-winning 1953 blockbuster From Here to Eternity. Ultimately, however, Frank Sinatra – then a has-been following a string of box office duds – was cast for a pittance, getting beaten to a pulp by a pre-stardom Ernest Borgnine. For his bloodied efforts, Sinatra went on...

Title: Latin Lover Director: Cristina Comencini Starring: Virna Lisi, Maria Paredes, Angela Finocchiaro, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Candela Peña, Pihla Viitala, Nadeah Miranda, Francesco Scianna, Neri Marcorè, Claudio Gioè, Lluís Homar, Toni Bertorelli, Jordi Mollà. Marcello Mastroianni, Ugo Toganzzi, Vittorio Gassman, Gian Maria Volonté – the Italian screen-womanisers of the golden age of Italian cinema – are all united in the character of Saverio Crispo, interpreted by the actor who has become known to the wide audience for playing in Giuseppe Tornatore’s ‘Baaria’: Francesco Scianna. The story begins with Saverio Crispo who has been dead for ten years and all his women are gathered to celebrate the anniversary of his death [ Read More ]

The post Latin Lover Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.

All the winners from Sunday’s 87th Academy Awards.

Show host Harris signs off with a chirpy, “Buenos noches!”

Sean Penn walks on. It’s time for the big one. Best film. Will it be Birdman or Boyhood? It’s Birdman! The movie ends the night tied with The Grand Budapest Hotel on four Oscars. Inarritu, referring to his pal Alfonso Cuaron who enjoyed success with Gravity at last year’s show, says, “Two Mexicans in a row. That’s suspicious, I guess.” Slightly more seriously, Agi also calls on his fellow Mexicans to help build a strong future for his beloved country. Wow, a good night for Birdman and a surprisingly barren one for Boyhood. Pirates indeed, Ethan Hawke, but glorious pirates.

And now Matthew McConaughey saunters on stage to announce best actress. Julianne Moore, five times a nominee at the Oscars is the favourite. Will she get it this time for Still Alice? Yes she’s got...

Catherine Deneuve: César Award Besst Actress Record-Tier (photo: Catherine Deneuve in 'In the Courtyard / Dans la cour') (See previous post: "Kristen Stewart and Catherine Deneuve Make César Award History.") Catherine Deneuve has received 12 Best Actress César nominations to date. Deneuve's nods were for the following movies (year of film's release): Pierre Salvadori's In the Courtyard / Dans la Cour (2014). Emmanuelle Bercot's On My Way / Elle s'en va (2013). François Ozon's Potiche (2010). Nicole Garcia's Place Vendôme (1998). André Téchiné's Thieves / Les voleurs (1996). André Téchiné's My Favorite Season / Ma saison préférée (1993). Régis Wargnier's Indochine (1992). François Dupeyron's Strange Place for an Encounter / Drôle d'endroit pour une rencontre (1988). Jean-Pierre Mocky's Agent trouble (1987). André Téchiné's Hotel America / Hôtel des Amériques (1981). François Truffaut's The Last Metro / Le dernier métro (1980). Jean-Paul Rappeneau's Le sauvage (1975). Additionally, Catherine Deneuve was nominated in the Best Supporting Actress category...

Virna Lisi, one of the most prominent European actresses to find success in Hollywood during the 1960s, has died at age 78. The exact cause of her death has not been revealed but the NY Times states that she was recently told she had an incurable disease. Lisi's stunning looks helped her find success in her native Italy before she followed the path taken by Ursula Andress, Sophia Loren, Anita Ekberg and other European beauties and moved to Hollywood. Here she made a sensational big screen impression opposite Jack Lemmon in the hit 1965 comedy "How to Murder Your Wife". Lisi never made any cinematic classics but during her years in the film industry she starred opposite such prominent leading men as Frank Sinatra, Tony Curtis, Richard Burton, George C. Scott, Marcello Mastroianni, Robert Vaughn and David Niven. She was recently widowed and said that she had gone into self-imposed retirement because...

We haven't done a link roundup in so long this one is super-duper-quadrupled size. Please to enjoy these articles or catch up with this news...

Farewell

Nyt, BBC, Variety remembers the great Italian actress Virna Lisi who has died at 78 years of age. Best known stateside for the Jack Lemmon comedy How To Murder Your Wife (1965), and maybe that iconic Esquire cover by George Lois (left) which has been homaged ever since, this baby cinephile right here writing to you first fell for her in the French film Queen Margot (1994). She was brilliant as the most ruthless of royals. She won the Cannes prize for Best Actress for her supporting role which probably didn't make Margot herself Isabelle Adjani too happy but they were at odds in the film, too.

Randomness

Guardian doesn't like the new Annie but what makes that little orphan so durable in pop culture?

Comics Alliance...

Virna Lisi, who won a best actress award in Cannes as well as a César and the Italian Silver Ribbon for her portrayal of Catherine de' Medici in Patrice Chéreau's Queen Margot (1994), has passed away at the age of 78. In a career that spanned over half a century, Lisi appeared in over 100 film and television productions. She worked with Jeanne Moreau in Joseph Losey's Eva (1962), with Jack Lemmon in in How to Murder Your Wife (1965), with Tony Curtis in Not with My Wife, You Don't! (1966), with Frank Sinatra in Assault on a Queen (1966), with Rod Steiger in The Girl and the General (1967) and with Anthony Quinn in The 25th Hour (1967) and Stanley Kramer's The Secret of Santa Vittoria (1969). For her performance in Alberto Lattuada's The Cricket (1980), she won her first David di Donatello award. » - David Hudson...

Virna Lisi, who won a best actress award in Cannes as well as a César and the Italian Silver Ribbon for her portrayal of Catherine de' Medici in Patrice Chéreau's Queen Margot (1994), has passed away at the age of 78. In a career that spanned over half a century, Lisi appeared in over 100 film and television productions. She worked with Jeanne Moreau in Joseph Losey's Eva (1962), with Jack Lemmon in in How to Murder Your Wife (1965), with Tony Curtis in Not with My Wife, You Don't! (1966), with Frank Sinatra in Assault on a Queen (1966), with Rod Steiger in The Girl and the General (1967) and with Anthony Quinn in The 25th Hour (1967) and Stanley Kramer's The Secret of Santa Vittoria (1969). For her performance in Alberto Lattuada's The Cricket (1980), she won her first David di Donatello award. » - David Hudson...

By Lee Pfeiffer 

Twilight Time has released Stanley Kramer's 1969 WWII era comedy "The Secret of Santa Vittoria" as a limited edition (3,000 units) Blu-ray. I hadn't seen the film since it was originally released and only had vague recollections of it. Watching it today, I found the movie to be an absolute delight thanks to a terrific script by Ben Maddow and William Rose (the latter co-wrote Kramer's "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World") and a sterling cast. The film is set in 1943 in the small Italian village of Santa Vittoria. The story opens with a young university studio, Fabio (Giancarlo Giannini in one of his first major roles) who hurries to his native town to breathtakingly inform the residents that Mussolini has just been deposed. The announcement is met with a collective yawn by the townspeople, who have remained largely immune from the effects of the war and their dictator's fascist police state.

Arguably the most prolific title in director Patrice Chereau’s three decades of filmmaking, Cohen Media Group releases a beautiful remastering of Queen Margot for its twentieth anniversary. Chereau, who died at the age of 68 in late 2013, participated in the restoration, which is the definitive director’s cut that includes an additional twenty minutes that had been cut out of the film’s 1994 theatrical release. Smack dab in the middle of his filmography, it’s his most lavish and ambitious production, recreating the savage beauty of 16th century France, based on Alexandre Dumas’ novel, concerning a passionate romance torn asunder by a people consumed with religious minded self-righteousness. The 2013 remastering played in Cannes Classics that year, while the film originally won the Jury Prize at Cannes in 1994, the Clint Eastwood presiding jury also awarding Virna Lisi the Best Actress prize.

In 1572 France, a break in the bloody war between Catholics...

Blu-ray Release Date: Aug. 12, 2014

Price: Blu-ray $29.95

Studio: Twilight Time

Anthony Quinn (l.) drinks to his health--not Hardy Kruger's--in The Secret of Santa Vittoria.

Producer-director Stanley Kramer’s 1969 wartime comedy The Secret of Santa Vittoria arrives on Blu-ray for the very first time from Twilight Time.

Set towards the close of World War II, the movie stars Anthony Quinn (Zorba the Greek) as the mayor of an Italian wine-making village that finds its age-old economy imperiled as the Nazis close in. Those nasty Germans are determined to plunder a million-bottle cache of valuable vino, while the villagers are just as determined to keep their treasure safe.

A warm-hearted comedy with dramatic touches, Santa Vittoria also features Anna Magnani (Bellisima), Virna Lisi (Queen Margot), Giancarlo Giannini (The Seduction of Mimi), and Hardy Kruger (Sundays and Cybèle) in the cast.

The film is supported by an Oscar-nominated score by Ernest Gold, which...

As Part 1 in our series of "Toh! Remembers" posts, we look back at some of the talent the film community lost in 2013. Who: Ray Harryhausen Born: June 29, 1920Known for: Pioneering work as creator of stop-motion special effectsCareer breakout: “Mighty Joe Young”High Point: The sword-fight of the skeletons in “Jason and the Argonauts”Low Point: CGIYes, it's true: Was referenced in the song “Worried About Ray’ by The Hoosiers. --John AndersonWho: Patrice Chéreau Born: 1944Known for: Prolific opera, theater, and movie director, who also actedCareer breakout: Appointed director of suburban Parisian theater at age of 22High point: In film, "La Reine Margot" ("Queen Margot") awarded the Jury Prize and Best Actress Award (for Virna Lisi) in Cannes in 1994, as well as three Cesar nominations; won Cesar for Best Director, "Those Who Love Me Can Take the Train," 1998.Low point: His now-beloved Marxist production of the Ring cycle at Bayreuth was booed at.

Patrice Chéreau dead at 68: French director best known for ‘Queen Margot,’ gay-related dramas (photo: Patrice Chéreau; Isabelle Adjani in ‘Queen Margot’) Screenwriter, sometime actor, and stage, opera, and film director Patrice Chéreau, whose clinically cool — some might say sterile — films were arthouse favorites in some quarters, has died of lung cancer in Paris. Chéreau was 68. Born on November 2, 1944, in Lézigné, in France’s Maine-et-Loire department, and raised in Paris, Patrice Chéreau began directing plays in his late teens. In the mid-’60s, he became the director of a theater in Sartrouville, northwest of Paris, where he staged plays with a strong left-wing bent. Later on he moved to Milan’s Piccolo Teatro, and in the ’80s became the director of the Théâtre des Amandiers in the Parisian suburb of Nanterre. His 1976 staging of Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen in the Bavarian town of Bayreuth was considered revolutionary. Patrice Chéreau...

Clint Eastwood Western persona co-creator dead at 87: Luciano Vincenzoni (photo: Clint Eastwood in ‘The Good, the Bad and the Ugly’) Screenwriter Luciano Vincenzoni, whose nearly five-decade career included collaborations with Mario Monicelli, Pietro Germi, and Sergio Leone, died of cancer on Sunday, September 22, 2013, in Rome. Vincenzoni (born on March 7, 1926, in Treviso, near Venice) was 87. In the late ’50s, Luciano Vincenzoni co-wrote Mario Monicelli’s The Great War / La Grande guerra (1959), a humorous (if overlong) World War I comedy-drama starring Vittorio Gassman and Alberto Sordi as reluctant conscripts that earned a Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award nomination and the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival (tied with Roberto Rossellini’s Il Generale della Rovere). Vincenzoni was also partly responsible for the screenplay of two well-regarded Pietro Germi movies: the omnibus comedy of manners The Birds, the Bees and the Italians / Signore & signori (1966), featuring Virna Lisi and Franco Fabrizi,...

Hotels are cinematic. First of all, they are perfect microcosms, whether of a nation or of the world. Also, they work as a metaphor for cinema itself: a space where individuals, couples and families check in briefly, abandoning their regular life to be somewhere else. In La donna del lago (The Woman in the Lake, 1965) writer-directors Luigi Bazzoni and Franco Rossellini set their mystery in a hotel by a lake, where the writer protagonist soon finds himself lost in a narrative labyrinth, unable to tell fantasy from reality. Here, the hotel is like a projector (a dark box full of dreams) with the lake as its screen, upon which crazy lies and imaginings are projected.

In other words, this film is a prototype both for the whole giallo genre, and for Antonioni's Blow-Up and its descendants. Yet Rossellini, nephew of the more famous Roberto, and Bazzoni, brother of the less famous Camillo,...

Red faces on the jury … Derek Malcolm explains why the jury got it all wrong in the piece originally published on 26 May 1994

The 47th Cannes Film Festival is likely to be remembered not for its films, though there were some genuinely good ones around in every section, nor for its bevy of attendant Hollywood superstars, including Mel Gibson, Robert De Niro, Bruce Willis and, of course, jury president Clint Eastwood, but for a series of decisions by its international jury that seemed to defy logical analysis. This was a pity, since Eastwood, the jury's president and Catherine Deneuve, its vice-president, made a glamorous couple, feted everywhere and adored by the crowds. Nobody could say that they lacked intelligence. Unfortunately, they seemed to carry the rest of the jury - an undistinguished lot in film terms - towards some very odd conclusions indeed.

It was not just that they gave the...

This Dumas adaptation drags French history kicking and screaming into the town square

Director: Patrice Chéreau

Entertainment grade: B+

History grade: D

Marguerite of Valois, known within her family as Margot, was queen of Navarre from 1572 and of France from 1589. She was famed as a poet, a leader of fashion and a political operator. After her death in 1615, she achieved further fame when her juicy memoirs were published.

Marriage

The film begins with the Catholic Margot (Isabelle Adjani) reluctantly marrying the Huguenot King Henri of Navarre (who should be 19, but is played by the 44-year-old Daniel Auteuil). In the film, as in real life, this causes trouble. The inter-faith match has been fixed by Margot's mother Catherine de'Medici (played brilliantly by Virna Lisi as the wicked queen from Snow White), who has thoughtfully murdered Henri's mother as a wedding gift. Historians generally regard the story that Catherine sent Jeanne of...

Your Weekly Source for the Newest Releases to Blu-Ray Tuesday, September 20th, 2011

Boccaccio ’70 (1962)

Synopsis: Four legendary filmmakers direct some of Europe’s biggest stars in Boccaccio ’70, a landmark anthology film. Mario Monicelli (Big Deal on Madonna Street), Federico Fellini (8½), Luchino Visconti (The Leopard) and Vittorio De Sica (Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow) direct Sophia Loren, Anita Ekberg, Romy Schneider and more through four stories of unashamed eros. Modeled on Boccaccio’s Decameron, they are comic moral tales about the hypocrisies surrounding sex in 1960s Italy. Monicelli’s “Renzo e Luciana” (cut out of the original American release) is a frothy tale of young love and office politics in the big city. Fellini’s notorious “Le tentazioni del dottor Antonio” features Ekberg as a busty model in a milk advertisement whose image begins to haunt an aging prude. Visconti’s “Il Lavoro” stars Romy Schneider as a trophy wife enduring her husband’s very public affairs,...

See Photos- Anne Hathaway photo gallery Jennifer Connelly and Anne Hathaway have been ranked among the top 20 in the “Los Angeles Times” Magazine’s 50 Most Beautiful Women in Film list, with Isabelle Adjani winning the top spot. Halle Berry, Kim Basinger and Penelope Cruz also make the top 20. They were joined by Hollywood legends Farrah Fawcett, Ava Gardner and Faye Dunaway, while Audrey Hepburn and Marilyn Monroe were voted in at number 22 and 32 respectively. 'Gossip Girl' actress Blake Lively was the youngest star on the list at the age of 23, while Oscar-nominated 'Black Swan' star Natalie Portman, 'Slumdog Millionaire' beauty Freida Pinto and Julia Roberts also made the top 50. However, 55-year-old French actress Isabelle Adjani, known for her roles in 'Queen Margot' and 'Possession,’ eclipsed all the other women in the poll by claiming the top spot. The Los Angeles Times...

A boxoffice hit in Italy when it opened in April, five months later The Best Day of My Life is the surprise winner of the Grand Prix of Americas, top prize at the Montreal World Film Festival. While a crowd-pleaser and obviously appealing to the jury, Life was one of three Italian films in competition and was hardly universally loved. Most likely its win here will not increase the drama's lackluster commercial destiny beyond southern Europe.

Centered around a family struggling to cope with itself, with much of the action taking place in the villa of the domineering widowed grandmother, Life is talky, overloaded with narration and mostly so overlit it's distracting. Three grown-up siblings are messily working through life issues, with lovers, hapless husbands and children caught in the shifting currents.

Alas, it's possible to not develop a burning interest in Rita (Sandra Ceccarelli), who hasn't had sex with her husband (Marco Baliani) since she had a second daughter. Rita starts to fall for a younger man (Jean Hughes Anglade). Then there's her older sister Sara (Margherita Buy), who compensates for being a depressed widow by fretting over her son (Francesco Scianna).

Of primary concern is whether the young man will turn out to be another Claudio Luigi Lo Cascio), Rita and Sara's gay brother, who has not come out to the entire family. The sisters are not heartless, just typically self-absorbed. There's one scene that vibrantly captures the milieu. In a dog-related case of kismet, Claudio's lover (Marco Quaglia) wanders onto the villa and is discovered by Irene (Virna Lisi), the aging matriarch who spends a lot of time remembering the glories of the past, when the family was together all the time.

Irene insists that the young man stay for dinner, with Claudio put in the awkward position of having to treat him like a stranger, until Irene's opinions about gays and just about everything else causes the meal to break up. From then on, things get better for Claudio, but there's little beyond good acting, some situational comedy and occasional snappy dialogue to keep one's attention focused.

Directed with minimal flair by Cristina Comencini, also a novelist, and co-written by her with Giulia Calenda and Lucilla Schiaffino, Life weirdly turns arty with several sex scenes near the conclusion that practically insert the camera between participants. It's hardly a joyful release.

Ultimately, the film becomes a predictable, heady melodrama fixated on Italian family values that tries to win approval with its universal themes. But for some, it will be a fruitless task to sit through.

THE BEST DAY OF MY LIFE

Cattleya, Rai Cinema

Credits:

Director: Cristina Comencini

Screenwriters: Cristina Comencini, Giulia Calenda, Lucilla Schiaffino

Producers: Riccardo Tozzi, Marco Chimenz, Giovanni Stabilini

Director of photography: Fabio Cianchetti

Production designer: Paola Comencini

Editor: Cecilia Zanuso

Costume designer: Antonella Berardi

Music: Franco Piersanti

Cast:

Irene: Virna Lisi

Sara: Margherita Buy

Carlo: Marco Baliani

Claudio: Luigi Lo Cascio

Rita: Sandra Ceccarelli

Marco: Francesco Scianna

Davide: Jean Hughes Anglade

Sandro: Ricky Tognazzi

Luca: Marco Quaglia

Running time -- 102 minutes

No MPAA rating...

A boxoffice hit in Italy when it opened in April, five months later "The Best Day of My Life" is the surprise winner of the Grand Prix of Americas, top prize at the Montreal World Film Festival. While a crowd-pleaser and obviously appealing to the jury, "Life" was one of three Italian films in competition and was hardly universally loved. Most likely its win here will not increase the drama's lackluster commercial destiny beyond southern Europe.

Centered around a family struggling to cope with itself, with much of the action taking place in the villa of the domineering widowed grandmother, "Life" is talky, overloaded with narration and mostly so overlit it's distracting. Three grown-up siblings are messily working through life issues, with lovers, hapless husbands and children caught in the shifting currents.

Alas, it's possible to not develop a burning interest in Rita (Sandra Ceccarelli), who hasn't had sex with her husband (Marco Baliani) since she had a second daughter. Rita starts to fall for a younger man (Jean Hughes Anglade). Then there's her older sister Sara (Margherita Buy), who compensates for being a depressed widow by fretting over her son (Francesco Scianna).

Of primary concern is whether the young man will turn out to be another Claudio Luigi Lo Cascio), Rita and Sara's gay brother, who has not come out to the entire family. The sisters are not heartless, just typically self-absorbed. There's one scene that vibrantly captures the milieu. In a dog-related case of kismet, Claudio's lover (Marco Quaglia) wanders onto the villa and is discovered by Irene (Virna Lisi), the aging matriarch who spends a lot of time remembering the glories of the past, when the family was together all the time.

Irene insists that the young man stay for dinner, with Claudio put in the awkward position of having to treat him like a stranger, until Irene's opinions about gays and just about everything else causes the meal to break up. From then on, things get better for Claudio, but there's little beyond good acting, some situational comedy and occasional snappy dialogue to keep one's attention focused.

Directed with minimal flair by Cristina Comencini, also a novelist, and co-written by her with Giulia Calenda and Lucilla Schiaffino, "Life" weirdly turns arty with several sex scenes near the conclusion that practically insert the camera between participants. It's hardly a joyful release.

Ultimately, the film becomes a predictable, heady melodrama fixated on Italian family values that tries to win approval with its universal themes. But for some, it will be a fruitless task to sit through.

THE BEST DAY OF MY LIFE

Cattleya, Rai Cinema

Credits:

Director: Cristina Comencini

Screenwriters: Cristina Comencini, Giulia Calenda, Lucilla Schiaffino

Producers: Riccardo Tozzi, Marco Chimenz, Giovanni Stabilini

Director of photography: Fabio Cianchetti

Production designer: Paola Comencini

Editor: Cecilia Zanuso

Costume designer: Antonella Berardi

Music: Franco Piersanti

Cast:

Irene: Virna Lisi

Sara: Margherita Buy

Carlo: Marco Baliani

Claudio: Luigi Lo Cascio

Rita: Sandra Ceccarelli

Marco: Francesco Scianna

Davide: Jean Hughes Anglade

Sandro: Ricky Tognazzi

Luca: Marco Quaglia

Running time -- 102 minutes

No MPAA rating...