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In a world where shows like Bridgerton serve romance with a side of pop songs and steamy stares, it’s easy to forget what true emotional depth looks like in period drama.

But back in 1993, Martin Scorsese gave us The Age of Innocence, a love story set in 1870s New York that feels more intense than anything we’re getting from today’s streaming hits.

It’s stylish, yes, (like c’mon it has to be the 1870s NY) but also sharp, quiet, and emotionally devastating. Where modern shows dress up drama in glitter, Scorsese gave us real heartbreak under the velvet and lace. And he did it all without breaking a sweat or a corset.

Why do modern period romances feel so empty next to this 1993 classic?

Netflix’s Bridgerton may look like the best chance of period drama romance on TV people will get these days, but it...

International rights to Antonia Campbell-Hughes’ thriller “Diamond Shitter,” which stars Raffey Cassidy, Eva Green, Ben Whishaw and Alessandro Nivola, have been picked up by Beta Cinema. The sales company will launch pre-sales at the European Film Market, with UTA Independent Film Group repping North American rights.

The film’s story unfolds against the backdrop of the affluent ex-pat community in Geneva. Young intern Nollaig ignites a darkly visceral shift within the privileged home of her host family when she steals their precious diamonds – absorbing them into her body – in the process unmasking the deeper truths beneath their glittering privilege.

Campbell-Hughes, who made her directorial debut with “It Is in Us All,” said, “In a time of emotional fatigue, we crave the beauty of justice. This film is a primal howl, a white-knuckle ride that explores the devastating fragility of the human condition. I wish to reinstate hope, to reassess what...

Exclusive: Eva Green, Ben Whishaw and Alessandro Nivola are set to join Raffey Cassidy in the cast of Antonia Campbell-Hughes upcoming thriller Diamond Shitter.

Beta Cinema unveiled the casting additions as it boarded the feature, for a pre-sales launch at the EFM.

Produced by London and Dublin-based Sleeper Films, Diamond Shitter is filmmaker and actor Campbell-Hughes’ second feature after her directorial debut It Is In Us All, which premiered to critical acclaim at SXSW in 2022. Campbell-Hughes will also take a supporting role.

Diamond Shitter unfolds against the backdrop of the affluent expat community in Geneva. Cassidy will star as young intern Nollaig who ignites a darkly visceral shift within the privileged home of her host family when she steals their precious diamonds, absorbing them into her body. In the process, she unmasks the deeper truths beneath their glittering privilege.

“In a time of emotional fatigue, we crave the beauty of justice.

Martin Scorsese is one of the greatest Hollywood directors of all time. Since the 1960s, Scorsese has worked tirelessly to direct some of the most iconic movies in history, movies known for their complex characters, moral ambiguity, and gritty depictions of life in America. Alongside his incredible storytelling, Scorsese has worked with some of the finest cinematographers the industry has to offer, such as Michael Ballhaus, Rodrigo Prieto, and Michael Chapman, to create incredible camera shots that have cemented their place in cinematic history.

What sets the direction of Scorsese and his various cinematographers apart is the emotional resonance of their shots. Fusing technical innovation with the ability to capture the complex feelings at play of his characters enhances the storyline of every movie he has directed. Scorsese's use of framing, lighting, Pov shots, and slow motion make these camera shots more than just a way to convey the narrative of his movies,...

Martin Scorsese was presented with the Berlin Film Festival’s Honorary Golden Bear for Lifetime Achievement on Tuesday evening, with old friend German director Wim Wenders paying a warm personal tribute.

Martin Scorsese received Berlin’s Honorary Golden Bear on stage alongside German filmmaker Wim Wenders pic.twitter.com/PgQyYZK8IP

— Deadline Hollywood (@Deadline) February 20, 2024

In his tribute speech, Wenders described his old friend as “the reigning king of cinema” and said that over half a century of directing, Scorsese had become a trademark, almost brand.

“You could safely go into a movie theatre, sit down and know that with this next Martin Scorsese Picture, that was your your credit formula Marty, you were going to see a masterful film that would markedly define its time, not more not less,” he said.

He recalled how he and Scorsese had first hooked up while attending the Telluride Film Festival in 1978.

Wenders...

In a career spanning over two decades, Jessica Simpson has navigated the relentless roller coaster of yo-yo dieting and excessive exercise in her quest to maintain her ever-changing figure. In reflecting upon her weight loss journey, the 42-year-old singer has emerged as a powerful advocate for body acceptance.

Simpson candidly acknowledged the impact of her role as Daisy Duke in the 2005 film Dukes of Hazzard and recognized the unrealistic beauty standards it imposed upon her as well as other women, both in the industry and out.

Following her portrayal of the iconic character, Simpson found herself trapped in a cycle where images from the movie were consistently used as the “before” picture in sexist discussions about her body’s fluctuations throughout her career.

At just 24 years old, when she made her Hollywood debut, she embarked on a rigorous fitness regime to ensure her physique lived up to the demanding expectations set by the character.

When Martin Scorsese strikes up a relationship with his cinematographer, the collaboration tends to last for more than one film. Throughout his legendary career, Scorsese has worked repeatedly with such top names in the art of cinematography as Michael Chapman, Michael Ballhaus, Robert Richardson, and now Rodrigo Prieto. The acclaimed cinematographer, who was an Oscar nominee for “Brokeback Mountain,” has been at Scorsese’s side for the last four of the master filmmaker’s projects. During that run, Prieto has received three Oscar nominations for his artistry.

“It is crazy to imagine that I could even one day in my career say, ‘Yeah, it’s my third nomination with Martin Scorsese for an Oscar.’ What are you talking about?” Prieto, who was nominated this year for “Killers of the Flower Moon,” tells Gold Derby in an exclusive video interview. “It’s thrilling and I feel very privileged to be in this position.

Forget “Annie Hall” or “Sex and the City.” For a certain generation of audiences, Martin Scorsese’s 1985 “After Hours” made you want to move to New York City.

“It’s like, wow, that place is so exciting and you never know what’s around the next corner and who I’m going to bump into and how I’m almost going to die and the subway fare will get raised in the middle of the night,” “After Hours” producer Amy Robinson said in a recent interview with IndieWire.

If you haven’t seen this existential screwball classic about paranoid android computer programmer Paul Hackett (Griffin Dunne) and his dark night of the soul in lower Manhattan, a more recent film serves as a useful retrospective primer: Ari Aster’s “Beau Is Afraid” and especially its Hieroynomous-Bosch-on-bath-salts first hour, set in a downtown hellscape spinning off the orbit of 40-something-year-old virgin...

Chicago – Patrick McDonald of HollywoodChicago.com audio film review for the newly released “Out of the Loop,” an overview of the Chicago stand up scene, with many notable names that began their career in the Windy City. Currently available through Video On Demand, since April 11th.

Rating: 4.5/5.0

“Out of the Loop” is a talking head documentary, but there are several twists in the story that occur that exposes the uniqueness of Chicago … one of the main ones being the great divide between Black and White comics, also divided geographically between South and North sides. The truth, in this case, sets several comics free and emphasizes the lost legend of the late Bernie Mac. Featuring well know and lesser known comic talents including goddess Judy Tenuda (who recently passed away), Jeff Garlin, T,J Miller, Megan Gailey, Hannibal Burress, Deon Cole, Dwayne Kennedy, Marsha Warfield, Lil Real Howery and SNL-er Chris Redd,...

Exclusive: Annette Bening has been tapped to narrate the documentary War Unfolding from Sypher Studios, with Eliza Bennett, Rachel Bloom, Gary Cole, Abigail Cowen, Laura Dern, Monique Edwards, Michael C. Hall, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Paul Walter Hauser, Thurn Hoffman, Richard T. Jones, Jay Lee, Erick Lopez, Sandra Seacat, Wes Studi and DeWanda Wise among those set to appear in the film from director John B. Benitz.

Based on three New York Times bestselling books by historian Andrew Carroll and inspired by the stage play If All the Sky Were Paper, the film tells the story of Carroll, who travels the world to seek out the greatest war letters ever written. Over the past 25 years, he has preserved more than 200,000 correspondences from troops, veterans and their families, dating from the American Revolution to the present day. The letters, performed in filmed readings by War Unfolding’s cast, capture unvarnished stories and...

A few months ago, Deskpop Entertainment gave a digital and VOD release to director Harley Wallen’s “raw and violent” urban legend thriller Ash and Bone. Now Deadline reports that Deskpop has also picked up the worldwide distribution rights to Wallen’s vampire film Beneath Us All, which stars Sean Whalen and Yan Birch. Back in 1991, Whalen and Birch played Roach and The Stairmaster, respectively, in the Wes Craven film The People Under the Stairs (watch it Here). Deskpop hasn’t announced a release date for Beneath Us All yet, but they’re planning to send it out into the world sometime in “early 2023“. So they’ll need to move fast to reach that goal.

Scripted by Bret Miller, Beneath Us All centers on Julie, a foster child heading for her 18th birthday. She finds an item buried in the woods with something unspeakable inside.

Julie is played by Angelina Danielle Cama...

Bram Stoker’s Dracula is a film that, much like its protagonist, crosses oceans of time. Director Francis Ford Coppola, one of the filmmakers at the leading edge of the “film school” generation of the seventies, tapped into the talents of the young up-and-coming stars, both in front of and behind the camera, to tell a familiar story using very old techniques. Opting to avoid the rising tide of digital effects, expensive location shooting, and elaborate artifices in favor of “naïve” in-camera effects, stage-bound shooting, and lavish costumes as “sets,” Coppola and his collaborators created a thoroughly unique retelling of Dracula. The look of the film is simultaneously timeless and on the cutting-edge of innovation. Though it celebrates its thirtieth anniversary this year, it still feels as modern and transgressive as the day it was released.

Though Coppola is cited as one of cinema’s great auteurs, he is first...

Time has been kind to Alfred Hitchcock's "Vertigo." Dismissed as dull and middling by the critics of 1958, "Vertigo" was named the greatest film of all time by Sight & Sound in 2012. Experimental films can take a while to receive due praise, and "Vertigo" is definitely one of Hitchcock's more experimental films. He even invented a whole new type of shot for it.

In the film's opening, Scottie Ferguson (James Stewart) is hanging off a skyscraper and glances stories down to the alleyway beneath. When he does, the shot distorts and the buildings on opposite sides of the alley seem to stretch. The effect was achieved by mounting a camera on a dolly track and then zooming in on the lens while moving the dolly backward. As a result, the subject of the shot remained in focus while the background of the frame distorts. While this camera trick is most accurately called a "dolly zoom,...

Wolfgang Petersen, the Oscar-nominated director of throwback epics like “Das Boot” and “The Perfect Storm,” has died at the age of 81. Deadline first reported the news of his passing.

In addition to the WWII submarine warfare film that earned six Academy Award nominations including Best Director, Petersen also directed 1984’s beloved family favorite “The NeverEnding Story,” “Enemy Mine” (1985), Clint Eastwood political thriller “In the Line of Fire” (1993), pandemic disaster movie “Outbreak” (1995), Harrison Ford presidential hijacking thriller “Air Force One” (1997), and swords-and-sandals tentpole “Troy” (2004).

Petersen was born in Germany in 1941, and it was in Hamburg in the 1960s that he started directing plays before moving into TV movies for German television, eventually gaining notices for his 1974 psychological thriller debut “One or the Other of Us.” But Petersen reached an international audience with the 1982 release of “Das Boot,” a nearly three-hour German-language underwater film about the men serving aboard German WWII U-boats.

The words offbeat, personal and edgy used to be a draw for movie fare — we’d check out a new relationship picture based only on an actor or two that we liked. Bobby Roth’s semi-autobiographical buddy story has a good stab at the early ’80s art + singles scene in Los Angeles, with a dash of macho clichés — pals Peter Coyote and Nick Mancuso fight in public and somehow suffer while bedding fantastic women. But the overall vibe is one of honest sensitivity, aided by fine performances from Carole Laure, Kathryn Harrold and Carol Wayne. Plus music by Tangerine Dream.

Heartbreakers

Blu-ray

Fun City Editions

1984 / Color / 1:85 / 99 min. / Street Date August 30, 2022 / Available from Amazon, Available from Vinegar Syndrome

Starring: Peter Coyote, Nick Mancuso, Carole Laure, Max Gail, James Laurenson, Carol Wayne, Jamie Rose, Kathryn Harrold, George Morfogen, Jerry Hardin, Henry Sanders, Walter Olkewicz.

Cinematography: Michael Ballhaus

Production Designer: David Nichols...

Martin Scorsese’s gangster epic Goodfellas is renowned as one of the greatest movies ever made. It’s also one of the most influential films of the past three decades. Goodfellas has been acclaimed for many aspects, from its fast-paced editing to its soundtrack needle-drops to the incredible performances by actors like Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, and the late, great Ray Liotta.

Like most of Scorsese’s films, it also has stunning cinematography. Shot by Michael Ballhaus, one of Scorsese’s go-to cinematographers, Goodfellas has some of the most iconic shots ever put on film, like the diner dolly zoom and the Copacabana tracking shot.

by Nathaniel R

Over the years The Film Experience has provided the Academy with brilliant ideas for Honorary Oscars that they've ignored until it was too late and the worthy recipient died. We're talking luminaries like movie stars Max Von Sydow, Albert Finney, and Doris Day, cinematographer Michael Ballhaus, and voice artist Marni Nixon.. So here we are again trying to sway them. They make such strange decisions. Why did Sophia Loren who was already a (deserving) Oscar winner, need an Honorary when she was only in her fifties? Why did they refuse to honor Doris Day because (the rumor is) they knew she wouldn't show but then went ahead and honored Jean Luc Godard who they also knew would never show? 

For our suggestions we're limiting ourselves to people over 70... though you could make valid cases for several late 50something or 60somethings if you wanted to like Michelle Pfeiffer,...

Coming off his Normandy-set gay drama Summer of 85, which will get a. U.S. release later this year, François Ozon already shot another new film titled Everything Went Fine that is awaiting a premiere. Now, he’s looking to a long-time influence for his next project. The French filmmaker will be loosely reworking the Rainer Werner Fassbinder masterpiece The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant for a new project titled Peter von Kant.

Cineuropa reports that the Cnc is helping to fund the film, though details are sparse on Ozon’s new approach, aside from having a male lead as the title indicates––quite different than the all-female cast of the 1972 original, based on Fassbinder’s own play. Set almost entirely inside an apartment, the film follows the evolving relationships between a fashion designer, stylist, and a newcomer to the world of modeling.

The film won’t mark the...

Webster University Film Series has become the location for many national tours of international cinema, often acting as the only such venue in Missouri. The Series is host to speakers and visiting artists who address the pertinent issues in films presented. In an effort to further integrate film with education, the Film Series provides workshops with artists and experts.

As part of the Film Series virtual Speaker Series, Fassbinder February focuses on the works of Rainer Werner Fassbinder, the prolific LGBTQ+ film director of 1970s West Germany. Once a week, all throughout February, a guest speaker will give a talk on a different film of the trailblazing director. Each film is available on popular streaming services like The Criterion Channel, HBO Max, and/or Amazon Prime. Watch each ahead of time and then join The Webster University University Film Series all month long for interesting and thought-provoking discussions on the...

German cinematographer Michael Ballhaus — who passed away at 81 in 2017 — was nominated for three Academy Awards for “Broadcast News,” “The Fabulous Baker Boys” and “Gangs of New York.” He never won, but the shot that defined his career didn’t even earn him a nomination: He’ll forever be best remembered for his legendary tracking shot in Martin Scorsese’s 1990 mob classic “Goodfellas.”

Known as the “Copa Shot,” the take is one of the few shots in the history of cinema readily identifiable by name. The three-minute scene boasts no memorable dialogue in one of the most quotable films of all time — yet it’s still regarded as the signature scene of “Goodfellas.”

In it, gangster Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) leads his wife, Karen (Lorraine Bracco), through the back entrance of New York’s Copacabana nightclub, as the pair walk through the kitchen to the their table for two. With the...

The Anthology Film Archives has delivered a treat to Martin Scorsese fans by making Jonas Mekas’ 2005 documentary “Notes on an American Film Director at Work: Martin Scorsese” available to stream for free on Vimeo. The late filmmaker Mekas was granted intimate access to record Scorsese behind the scenes as he directed “The Departed,” his crime thriller starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, and Jack Nicholson. “The Departed” is notable not only for winning Best Picture but for winning Scorsese his long overdue Oscar for Best Director.

“I was asked to make a five to ten minute film about Marty to introduce his retrospective. As it happened, Marty was shooting ‘The Departed’ at that time. I asked him if I could follow him for a week or two, and he said yes,” Mekas once said of the film. “So that’s how this film happened. Sebastian, my son, joined me with a second camera.

All below-the-line artists are tasked with interpreting a director’s vision through their craft, but the editor’s contribution is often the hardest to separate. As Stanley Kubrick said, “Editing is the only unique aspect of filmmaking which does not resemble any other art form.” That ability to jump through time and space, to show the viewer an image, cut, and connect it to something entirely different to create new meaning, rhythm, and emotion is at the core of how a director guides the audience.

Further complicating the ability to measure their contribution is how our favorite auteurs often rely on the same editors, forming professional marriages that span decades. Where does Steven Spielberg’s visual efficiency end, and Michael Kahn’s precision start? Could Spike Lee boldly shift tonal gears, if Barry Alexander Brown wasn’t there to preserve internal consistency? How much of Sofia Coppola’s distinct pace...

With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options—not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves–each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit platforms. Check out this week’s selections below and an archive of past round-ups here.

3 From Hell (Rob Zombie)

With 3 From Hell, Zombie is intent on ripping out those sutures, grabbing a hold of the blistered flaps made from that fresh incision, and waving a grisly tapestry that may as well have the red, white, and blue colored on the leathery skin of every casualty we’ve taken to make this country great. This is America let loose, with our violence, trauma, and psychopathy sweeping south of the border in a deluge, our arbiters wearing the indigenous garb of those we’ve already slaughtered to make bedrock. – Mike M. (full review)

Where to Stream: Amazon, iTunes, Google

La Ciénaga (Lucrecia Martel)

With only a few features,...

Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s national epic tells the story of Germany’s ‘economic miracle’ recovery through the experiences of three strong women, each resilient in a different way. The Marriage of Maria Braun takes us from the bombings to a postwar struggle for survival. Veronika Voss hangs on to her illusions of a glorious stardom that died with the Reich; she’s now the victim of opportunists. And Lola isn’t the only person corrupting an idealist come to bring fairness to the rebuilding of Coburg: even without a conspiracy, the legitimate town leaders are up to their necks in double-dealing. These are the top titles of the prolific writer-director Fassbinder, beautifully restored.

The Brd Trilogy

Blu-ray

The Marriage of Maria Braun, Veronika Voss, Lola

The Criterion Collection 203

1979-82 / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date July 9, 2019 / 79.95

Starring: Hanna Schygulla, Rosel Zech, Barbara Sukowa.

Written by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Pea Fröhlich,...

Liv Ullmann and Max von Sydow in "Shame"Pete Hammond at Deadline revealed this morning that with all the dates moving earlier next Oscar season, the Academy is actually choosing the next Honorary Oscar winners This Weekend. It's too late then for an Fyc but we feel the need to do one anyway. In the past we've made great suggestions like Albert Finney, Doris Day, Neil Simon, Michael Ballhaus, and Marni Nixon but they let all those people die without honoring them which is such bad form. At least they heard us on Maureen O'Hara, Harry Belafonte, and Angela Lansbury!

I have a suspicion that Caleb Deschanel, obviously a well-loved cinematographer given that surprise sixth nomination for the German film Never Look Away last season, will be named this year. He's 74 years old. For some reason I don't think they'll go with Glenn Close quite yet though she's a common prediction.

Stars: Willem Dafoe, Harvey Keitel, Barbara Hershey, Michael Been, Verna Bloom, Harry Dean Stanton | Written by Paul Schrader | Directed by Martin Scorsese

After The Color of Money had proven a box office hit, Martin Scorsese shifted his attention a couple of thousand years, to the life and death of Jesus Christ (Willem Dafoe). The ultimate superhero origin story, The Last Temptation of Christ focuses on the Nazarene as he moves from carpentry into public speaking, through a life of celebrity, and ultimately to his death and apotheosis on the cross.

This being Scorsese working from a Paul Schrader script, it is no straight-up Bible story. Based on Nikos Kazantzakis’ 1955 novel, the focus here is on the human aspects of the man: the doubt and desire; the rage and the covetousness. The psychological impact, if you will, of coming to terms with the revelation that you are the son of God.

In 2007, when Dieter Kosslick launched the Berlinale’s inventive Culinary Cinema section, it had been simmering in the back of his mind for decades.

A foodie since way before it became fashionable, Kosslick, who is a former film critic and journalist, in the early 1980s had a monthly column in German magazine Konkret in which he wrote about “the organic world” and “the terrible treatment of animals,” he recalls.

Kosslick is being honored at the Berlin festival with Variety‘s Achievement in International Film Award.

Kosslick says the two most formative experiences in his “food life” are being taken to Berkeley’s Chez Panisse by his then-girlfriend, Ifp founder Sandra Schulberg, who introduced him to eminent chef and activist Alice Waters, and going to restaurants with late great German food critic Wolfram Siebeck, whom met while at college in Munich.

Culinary Cinema, which tapped into the Slow Food movement zeitgeist,...

It occurred to me today, my first day here at the Iffr 2019, that the first time I attended the Rotterdam Film Festival was 1975 when I was just beginning my executive training for 20th Century International in international distribution in the Netherlands office.

My boss, Fred Denker, who was head of exhibition and distribution for the Netherlands at City Fox Films and Disney, encouraged me to go. I didn’t know it going in, but Radical was the brand of this festival.

I had barely heard of Rainer Werner Fassbinder and there I saw my first Fassbinder film, Fox and His Friends in its completely uncut original version. Wow! Not just “queer’cimema (which I had never seen before) but graphic, violent and so beautifully shot by Michael Ballhaus against the backdrop of Munich. What I recall was a violent rape scene in the Alexander Platz Ubahn station seared forever into...

With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options — not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves — we’re highlighting the noteworthy titles that have recently hit platforms. Check out this week’s selections below and an archive of past round-ups here.

City of God (Fernando Meirelles)

For any number of reasons, crime sagas that earn a Goodfellas comparison would not strike the average viewer as a prime candidate. Yet Fernando Meirelles, not nearly as good ever since, gives a story of Brazilian debauchery its human core in the form of a young, ambitious, wholly relatable boy evolving into manhood under what, we’re led to feel, are the worst conditions known to man. That we’ll likely never know many (or all) of the situations that play out herein makes City of God’s reverberations an even greater miracle. – Nick N.

Where to Stream: Netflix

The Departed (Martin Scorsese)

The Departed is,...

Delicatessen (1991)Growing up in the mid-to-late nineties, the pan-and-scan generation, I can remember the first time I saw a movie that was shot by Darius Khondji. Se7en, the cinematographer’s first American film and best-known work, looked scarier that any movie I’d seen other than The Shining; it was miasmic and biblically unclean, with deep shadows that seeped and stuck like gunk, rain pelting from a pre-apocalyptic sky. Then came The City of Lost Children, a dark storybook fantasy of Gilliam-esque camera angles, about a squalid port town lost in fog and a mad scientist’s lair built on piles out in a sludge-green sea. That one I watched maybe twenty times, always with sympathy for the disembodied brain Uncle Irvin and for Krank, the child-snatching villain who cannot dream.Later there was Alien: Resurrection, the video for Madonna’s “Frozen,” and The Ninth Gate, another movie I had...

As a follow-up to the sensual gay coming-of-age story “Call Me by Your Name,” Luca Guadagnino’s “Suspiria” — a bloody and relatively cold reimagining of Dario Argento’s 1977 horror movie, about a ballet school operated by a coven of witches — couldn’t be more different, but that doesn’t mean it’s any less personal. In fact, as the director told Variety, “I don’t know what I can do to be more connected to my roots as a filmmaker than going back to that film.”

What does the original “Suspiria” mean to you?

I saw the original movie when I was almost 14, but I had seen the poster when I was 11. Those two experiences marked me in my imagery very, very strongly, and I started to nurture a sense of obsession for the realm of this film.

Your version is equally inspired by German director Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Why is that?...

With Suspiria, it seems writer-director Luca Guadagnino is hoping to conjure up a “relentless experience” filled with “uncompromising darkness.” Yikes.

Over on The Hollywood Reporter, Guadagnino spoke at length about his approach to the 1977 film classic, and why his upcoming remake is much more muted in its design. So whereas we’re used to seeing splashes of blood and jump scares be woven into the fabric of any modern horror movie, Suspiria is more subtle in its nature, while the filmmaker also took the time to debunk that bizarre rumor claiming that Tilda Swinton was actually playing two characters.

But first, Luca Guadagnino reiterated his desire to leave viewers rooted to the edge of their seats.

I hope that the movie comes across as a relentless experience that’s going to go deep into your skin all the way down into your spine. I want the movie to perform as...

Movies about the blacklist aren’t common, probably because as Robert Vaughn wrote, the period produced no happy stories, ‘Only Victims.’ Robert de Niro, Annette Bening and George Wendt give a bite of immediacy to the way the blacklist upset careers and blighted lives. Few of us would like to be publicly branded an Enemy of the People, but doing so seems to be America’s number one spectator sport.

Guilty by Suspicion

DVD

The Warner Archive Collection

1991 / Color / 1:85 enhanced widescreen / 105 min. / Street Date May 12, 2015 / available through the WBshop / 17.99

Starring: Robert De Niro, Annette Bening, George Wendt, Patricia Wettig, Sam Wanamaker, Luke Edwards, Chris Cooper, Ben Piazza, Martin Scorsese, Barry Primus, Gailard Sartain, Robin Gammell, Brad Sullivan, Tom Sizemore, Stuart Margolin, Gene Kirkwood, Illeana Douglas, Adam Baldwin.

Cinematography: Michael Ballhaus

Film Editor: Priscilla Nedd

Original Music: James Newton Howard

Uncredited writer: Abraham Polonsky

Produced by Arnon Milchan

Written and...

With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options — not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves — we’ve taken it upon ourselves to highlight the titles that have recently hit platforms. Every week, one will be able to see the cream of the crop (or perhaps some simply interesting picks) of streaming titles (new and old) across platforms such as Netflix, iTunes, Amazon, and more (note: U.S. only). Check out our rundown for this week’s selections below.

3/4 (Ilian Metev)

The characters populating Ilian Metev’s 3/4 (read: Three Quarters) often walk and talk in pairs, but they are seldom framed together, the camera lingering on each as the separate halves of a whole that never quite comes into being. They are the three quarters of a family enjoying what is likely to be their last summer together: physics professor Todor (Todor Veltchev) and his two children, adolescent...

Martin Scorsese commands the screen without a single profane word or gunshot to the head. His adaptation of Edith Wharton’s 1920 novel is a marvel for its year, a highly entertaining, dramatically involving epic that takes us to a world lost to time, the high-toned society of New York in the 1870s. For adult viewers, Daniel Day-Lewis, Michelle Pfeiffer and Winona Ryder form a stunning romantic triangle.

The Age of Innocence

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 913

1993 / Color / 2:40 widescreen / 138 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date March 13, 2018 / 39.95

Starring: Daniel Day-Lewis, Michelle Pfeiffer, Winona Ryder, Richard E. Grant, Alec McCowen, Geraldine Chaplin, Mary Beth Hurt, Stuart Wilson, Miriam Margolyes, Siàn Phillips, Carolyn Farina, Michael Gough, Alexis Smith, Norman Lloyd, Jonathan Pryce, Robert Sean Leonard, Joanne Woodward.

Cinematography: Michael Ballhaus

Film Editor: Thelma Schoonmaker

Original Music: Elmer Bernstein

Written by Jay Cocks, Martin Scorsese

from the book by: Edith Wharton

Produced by...

The upcoming 90th Academy Awards will mark the 25th consecutive year that the Oscars will feature an “In Memoriam” segment. While it had been done on occasion before, the annual tribute to Academy members and other film legends started a regular tradition at the 1994 ceremony hosted by Oscar winner Whoopi Goldberg.

SEE2018 Oscars: Best Song performers include Mary J. Blige, Common, Andra Day, Keala Settle, Sufjan Stevens

We’ve assembled a list below of people who have died in the past 12 months who might be featured during the “In Memoriam” for the ceremony hosted by Jimmy Kimmel on March 4. Producers have not yet revealed who might be performing during the tribute. Sure to have prominent placements are previous Oscar champ Martin Landau (“Ed Wood,” 1994), honorary Oscar recipient Jerry Lewis and respected actor Bill Paxton (“Titanic,” “Apollo 13”). Paxton actually died on the weekend of last year’s ceremony and was mentioned on the broadcast,...

Film critic will be considered for TV awards.

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (Bafta) have explained why critic Barry Norman was omitted from the ’In Memoriam’ segment at last night’s Film Awards ceremony.

Norman passed away aged 83 in July 2017, and presented the BBC’s Film… show from 1972 to 1998. He was the programme’s longest running host.

Responding to a question from film critic Jason Solomons, the official Bafta Twitter account said: “Due to the limited time for the televised obits, unfortunately it isn’t possible to honour all those who have passed away. Barry Norman received a BAFTA Special Award for his contribution to TV & will be considered for inclusion in the Television Awards broadcast later this year.”

The full exchange is below.

Dreadful there was no mention of the late Barry Norman in the #eebaftas in memoriam section #baftafail #RIPBarryNorman #missedcritics

— Jason Solomons (@JasonCritic) February 18, 2018

Due to the limited time for the televised...

Bram Stoker’s Dracula is a modern horror masterpiece, and one that too often goes overlooked. A film that is horrifying, intriguing, and astoundingly beautiful, Francis Ford Coppola took Stoker’s masterwork and breathed new, undead life into it in 1992. It recently hit its 25th anniversary, and the film remains a classic piece of horror cinema.

The film opens in 1462, with Vlad Dracula (Gary Oldman) returning from war against the Turks to find that his beloved wife, Elisabeta (Winona Ryder) has killed herself upon receiving false news of his defeat and death. When the priest tells him that her soul cannot be saved and will be forever damned by her suicide, Vlad renounces God in a fit of rage. He desecrates his small chapel, stabbing a stone cross and drinking the blood that begins to ebb from it, embracing eternal life and damnation at the hands of a merciless god.

According to his New York Times obituary, Chuck Low died last month in a New Jersey nursing home at the age of 89. Low will be best remembered by movie fans as Morrie — the toupee salesman who gets in way too deep with the mob in Martin Scorsese’s “Goodfellas” — but his career and life stretched well beyond his memorable movie roles.

Born in New York City in 1928, Low was a military veteran who served in the U.S. Army, became an engineer who made marine instruments, and in the 1960s started a real estate partnership with Lehman Brothers. Low became a pioneer developer in Tribeca, playing a key role in the New York City neighborhood’s transformation into luxury lofts and high-end restaurants. It was in this capacity that he met Tribeca’s most famous resident Robert De Niro, who became both Low’s tenant and friend.

It was through...

From the start, Edyta Sliwinska learned that being a mom of two wasn’t for the faint of heart.

In an interview with Entertainment Tonight, the former Dancing with the Stars pro, who welcomed her second child, Leia Josephine, on June 18, reveals she nearly missed making it to the hospital for her daughter’s delivery.

“My husband brilliantly decided to fix a broken toilet in the upstairs bathroom. So he’s like, ‘Going to Home Depot, buying a toilet.’ And I’m like, ‘Okay, that’s fine’ – I didn’t have any contractions,” she recalls.

But soon after her husband,...

Congratulations are in order!  Dancing With the Stars professional dancers Edyta Sliwinska and Alec Mazo welcomed a baby girl named Leia Josephine on June 18, 2017, People reports. Their newborn daughter weighed 7 lbs. and measured in at 20 inches long.  A rep for Edyta told the magazine, "The new family of four are over the moon and absolutely in love with their little princess." This marks the married couple's second bundle of joy. Edyta and Alec's first son, 3-year-old Michael Alexander, can now officially consider himself a big brother! Michael's proud 'rents even let him decide upon the baby's name, with the rep adding, "He picked the...

Edyta Sliwinska is a mom again!

The former Dancing with the Stars pro gave birth to a baby girl named Leia Josephine Mazo — her second child with husband Alec Mazo — on Sunday, June 18, Sliwinska’s rep confirms to People exclusively. Born at 7:08 p.m., little Leia weighed in at 7 lbs. and measured 20 inches long.

“The new family of four are over the moon and absolutely in love with their little princess,” the rep tells People.

Sliwinska, 36, and Mazo are also parents to 3-year-old son Michael Alexander, whom they welcomed into the world in January 2014.

Turns out Michael is actually...

Set in a smoggy Pennsylvania mill town, the first film from director James Foley and screenwriter Chris Columbus sounds like the plot of a Springsteen song with Aidan Quinn in the role of a misunderstood dreamer from the wrong side of the tracks romancing a poor little rich girl played by Daryl Hannah. Beautifully photographed by Michael Ballhaus, the film is jam-packed with 80’s musical faves but no Bruce to be found (though his kid sister Pam has a bit part).

Reel-Important People is a monthly column that highlights those individuals in or related to the movies that have left us in recent weeks. Below you'll find names big and small and from all areas of the industry, though each was significant to the movies in his or her own way. Michael Ballhaus (1935-2017) - Cinematographer. He received Oscar nominations for his work on Broadcast News, The Fabulous Baker Boys and Gangs of New York. In addition to the last of those, he shot many other Martin Scorsese's movies, including Goodfellas, The Age of Innocence, After Hours, The Last Temptation of Christ, The Departed and The Color of Money. For Mike Nichols, he shot Working Girl, Postcards From the Edge, Primary...

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Aged just 37, the German director and relentless provocateur died too soon, but he left behind a biting body of work for us to remember him by

Related: Berlin 2015 review – To Love Without Demands: the torrid life and work of Rainer Werner Fassbinder

The 35th anniversary of the death of Rainer Werner Fassbinder this year was grimly presaged two weeks ago by the death of his longtime, long-suffering cameraman Michael Ballhaus. Ballhaus was 81 and had forged a second career in Hollywood. Fassbinder, had he lived, would be 71. Having knocked out 40 features, several TV series, countless plays and adaptations in a 13-year career, one can only wonder what he might have done with another 35.

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One would have a difficult time disputing the notion that Martin Scorsese’s two most notable onscreen collaborators are Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio. The three of them have made any number of classics together — “Taxi Driver,” “Raging Bull,” “Goodfellas,” “Gangs of New York,” “The Departed,” “The Wolf of Wall Street” — but, to date, the two leading men have never worked with ol’ Marty on the same picture together. (They did come close once, though.) Deadline reports that that could soon change with an adaptation of David Grann’s “Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI.”

Read More: Martin Scorsese Remembers His Cinematographer Michael Ballhaus: ‘He Changed My Way Of Thinking’

Imperative Entertainment purchased the rights to the book for $5 million last year and is now trying to assemble a high-profile team; they’ve got their hearts set on Scorsese, DiCaprio and De Niro,...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveriesNEWSKornél Mundruczó's Jupiter's Moon, competing in the 70th Cannes Film FestivalIn case you missed it, the Cannes Film Festival has announced its Official Selection (the separate but simultaneous festivals of Directors' Fortnight and Critics' Week should reveal their lineup this week). Arnaud's Desplechin's Les fantômes d'Ismaël will open the event, with films in competition by Michael Haneke, Sofia Coppola, Bong Joon-ho, and the Safdie brothers. Hong Sang-soo has two films at the festival, Mathieu Amalric's Barbara will open the Un Certain Regard section (where a Kiyoshi Kurosawa alien film will be premiered), and films by Takashi Miike, Claude Lanzmann and Agnès Varda are scattered through other sections.Across the divide of cinema, many films by the legendary but too often under-distributed and under-seen filmmaking team of Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet will soon be much more widely available in the United States,...

This week we get into the gutter with Dave Eves and James Hancock as we play a game about the biggest jerks on film. We also talk about the lineup from Cannes, Michael Ballhaus, John Ford, Sam Peckinpah, and the latest from FilmStruck.

Episode Notes

7:45 – Jerks in Film

22:30 – R.I.P. Michael Ballhaus

26:00 – Cannes 2017

34:30 – Wishlist and Predictions for July Releases

38:30 – Short Takes (Dry Summer, Straw Dogs, Stagecoach)

49:00 – FilmStruck

Episode Links Wrong Reel 230 – Dave Eves and His Criterion Top Five Wrong Reel 249 – Disaster Movies of the 1970s Eclipse Viewer 54 – Duvivier in the 1930s Part One Michael Ballhaus Dies at 81 Cannes 2017 Lineup All of the Films Joining FilmStruck this April Episode Credits Aaron West: Twitter | Website | Letterboxd Dave Eves: Twitter James Hancock: Twitter | Podcast Criterion Now: Twitter Criterion Cast: Facebook | Twitter

Music for the show is from Fatboy Roberts’ Geek Remixed project.

What Are You Watching? is a weekly space for The A.V Club’s film critics and readers to share their thoughts, observations, and opinions on movies new and old.

My crush on Michael Ballhaus’ camerawork started with the films of Rainer Werner Fassbinder. I love their fucked-up aesthetics: the funky typefaces and hairdos; the ugly German housing; the warbled theme songs; the mirror-window obsession; the severe, theatrical blocking; the physiognomies of his makeshift family of regular actors, who all look a little off in memorable ways, their faces painted over with too much make-up. Ballhaus was one of three Fassbinder cinematographers, the others being Dietrich Lohmann and Xavier Schwarzenberger. Really, the two didn’t have a lot in common. Fassbinder was a wunderkind—all of 25 and already on his 10th feature when he met Ballhaus—with a miserable postwar upbringing, two facts that seemed to have inspired both ...

by Nathaniel R

It is with great sadness that we share the news of the passing of German cinematographer Michael Ballhaus. The 81 year old artist was a crucial figure in making me the movie maniac that I am today. Michelle Pfeiffer on the piano top in The Fabulous Baker Boys (1989) -- hell the entire movie -- being a defining image in my life, after which I went from enthusiastic regular moviegoer to celluloid-devouring obsessive.

Ballhaus had retired after Martin Scorsese's The Departed (2006) making only one German movie in the last decade of his life and we had hoped each year that he'd be announced as an Honorary Oscar recipient. His three scant nominations -- The Fabulous Baker Boys, Broadcast News, and Gangs of New York -- do no justice to his long and gorgeous career. That's because they don't feel representative of his career as a whole and because,...