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When it comes to cringey musical tributes, nobody does it better than the Oscars. And while that chorus line of tuxedoed 007s pirouetting around the stage during the Academy’s James Bond extravaganza wasn’t quite as jaw-droppingly awkward as some previous song-and-dance fiascos — at least Rob Lowe didn’t turn up to tango with Snow White — there was one small but uncomfortable moment you might have missed.

That’d be when the camera panned into the audience to Bond producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson.

The whole reason the Academy decided to devote six full minutes of the ceremony to Bond music was that Broccoli and Wilson were the recipients of this year’s honorary Irving G. Thalberg Oscar, an accolade bestowed upon them in November at the Governors Awards to celebrate the half-siblings’ 30 years of unwavering stewardship over the spy franchise they inherited in 1995 from their father,...

I’ve always avoided New Year’s resolutions, but this week I happened to recall one that was brief but resolute: I resolved to quit Hollywood.

And I did. Almost.

That decision seems relevant today for reasons that require a bit of history. Consider January 1975, 50 years ago: It was a Hollywood moment that was the opposite of the present, both in numbers and nuance. It was a great time to be around – and not to be.

The audience was expanding and was determined to get scared: Jaws was a smash. But millions also were welcoming the weirdities of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. TV fans were puzzled over something new called SNL, and music fans continued to discover Elton John (still are).

As box office kept growing, opportunity was abundant. Words like “downsizing” or “contracting” were still unknown.

There were hints of quantum change, but just hints: The Hollywood...

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"Men in Black" is a brisk summer blockbuster that does the unthinkable, especially in today's over-explicative superhero movie wasteland: it doesn't repeat information. It moves from plot point to plot point cleanly and clearly in a way that, judging from the box office, plays for all four commercial quadrants. It flatters the viewer by treating them as smart and perceptive, and rewards them with a tremendously satisfying finale. I can't think of too many studio tentpoles that pull this off with such glee.

Of course, no movie goes through production without its share of hiccups, and very few are shot exactly as written on the page. Sometimes, when you begin screening your movie for test audiences, you notice that seemingly can't-miss laugh lines don't get laughs, or a major action set piece feels out of place, or, worst of all,...

Vanessa Redgrave with Madeleine Potter in Ruth Prawer Jhabvala’s adaptation of Henry James’s The Bostonians, directed by James Ivory

Stephen Soucy’s Merchant Ivory (co-written with Jon Hart) takes us into the extraordinary world of the creative quartet of producer Ismail Merchant, filmmaker James Ivory, screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, and composer Richard Robbins through film clips and on-camera interviews with Ivory and Robbins, actors Emma Thompson, Vanessa Redgrave, Helena Bonham Carter,...

JoBlo’s own Chris Bumbray has made it clear that he’s a big fan of the 1994 sci-fi action film No Escape, so when he had the chance to speak with legendary producer Gale Anne Hurd recently, he couldn’t let the opportunity to talk to her about the movie go by – and as it turns out, by mentioning No Escape, he opened the door to also discussing how director Martin Campbell got the job to direct the James Bond film GoldenEye, the 1991 made-for-hbo horror noir Cast a Deadly Spell, and the possibility of a Cast a Deadly Spell TV series!

When Bumbray told Hurd that he’s a big fan of No Escape, she confirmed that she loves the movie as well and said, “It was actually my second collaboration with (director) Martin Campbell; the first one was an HBO movie called Cast a Deadly Spell. … I’ve just worked with some amazing people.

“A fart joke is easy.”

This may be, but executed by Mel Brooks, it can get a crowd going more than anything on view at this summer’s Paris Olympics. So was the case this past weekend at a 50th anniversary screening of his western comedy classic, “Blazing Saddles,” which played at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles and was followed by a Q&a with the 98 year-old filmmaker himself. Moderated by Brooksfilms producer Kevin Salter, Brooks dazzled and enraptured the audience with tidbits on the making of the film and stories from his colorful past. One such story involved his hard-to-believe Oscar win for his first film, “The Producers.”

“I didn’t have a speech because Stanley Kubrick was in the same category for ‘2001,’” Brooks said of being nominated for Best Original Screenplay. “There was a brilliant director called Pontecorvo who did ‘The Battle of Algiers,’ a great picture...

Anthea Sylbert, the two-time Oscar-nominated costume designer who worked on Rosemary’s Baby, Chinatown, Carnal Knowledge, Shampoo and Julia before becoming a studio executive and producer, has died. She was 84.

Sylbert died Tuesday in Skiathos, Greece, director Sakis Lalas told The Hollywood Reporter. Lalas just finished a documentary about Sylbert titled, My Life in 3 Acts.

Sylbert partnered with two-time Oscar-winning production Richard Sylbert on eight films and with his twin brother, Paul Sylbert — her first husband and another Oscar-winning production designer — on another three.

“Paul is the more bitter, more angry of the two,” she told Peter Biskind in 1993. “Someone once put it this way: Dick is more of a diplomat. He will put the ice pick somewhere in your back, you’re not quite sure, and you sort of feel tickled; Paul, while facing you, sticks it in your gut. I always used to think that if you put them together,...

When it comes to the horror genre, few films have been as iconic and chilling as Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. Based on Stephen King’s novel of the same name, it has become one of the best horror films of all time, since its initial release in 1980.

A still from The Shining | Credit: Warner Bros.

However, long before his visionary adaptation of King’s novel graced the silver screen, his audacious and bold advertising plans in his quest to make the world’s scariest movie, almost cost him the iconic psychological horror film.

Stanley Kubrick’s Risky Pitch For Making World’s Scariest Film

After exploring several genres in the early stages of his career, Stanley Kubrick became intrigued by the idea of delving into horror with an ambition to make the ultimate spine-chilling experience for audiences, a film so terrifying it would send them fleeing from theaters in fear.

Director William Friedkin and producer/screenwriter William Peter Blatty enjoyed having fun with Warner Bros. executives during the production of “The Exorcist.” The Oscar-winning horror masterpiece celebrates its 50th anniversary Dec. 26 “We always put them on,” Friedkin told me in a 2018 L.A. Times interview “They were always concerned that we were both crazy and would eventually implode the movie. So, we staged blowups in front of them, where it looked like we were fiercely arguing over the most minute, meaningless details.”

“The Exorcist” was shot in Iraq, New York City and Georgetown in Washington, D.C. But Warners wanted the film to be made at the studio in Burbank and to “shoot day for night, so we didn’t get into night shooting,” said Friedkin, who died this past August at 87.”I I said ‘no’ to everything, I said things like ‘Why shoot day for night? Why don’t we...

Will the Hollywood studio become extinct?

One hundred years ago, Louis B. Mayer unfurled his grand idea to mobilize “all the stars in heaven” for his filmmaking adventure. His dream factory, once prolific, now seems adrift amid the economic debris of streamerville and linear TV.

The studio system still has its advocates, one of whom, Francis Coppola, attempted to re-invent the studio on three occasions. He’s still trying.

His intriguing, if bizarre adventure, is told in a gripping new book by Sam Wasson titled Path to Paradise, vividly chronicling how the director leveraged his two great movies into an assembly line of cinema.

Well, almost. Coppola’s effort to orchestrate the genius of The Godfather and Apocalypse Now into an enduring filmmaking enterprise was defeated by two realities: The eccentricity of his management style and the frailty of his infrastructure.

Zoetrope was to be owned and run by creatives...

Directors interested in important, ambitious subject matter didn’t all go extinct with the rise of the Star Wars Generation. Roland Joffé’s first four features are powerful pictures that tell truths that we ought not to forget, with a couple of Award-winning gems right up front. The star power is here as well — Robert De Niro, Paul Newman, Patrick Swayze. The deluxe collector’s box caps a presentation with new extras for each title: The Killing Fields, The Mission, Fat Man and Little Boy and City of Joy.

Directed by Roland Joffé

Region-Free Blu-ray

Powerhouse Indicator 194, 185, 186, 187

1984 – 1992 / Color / Street Date December 7, 2022 / 525 minutes cumulative / Available from / au 179.95

Starring: Sam Waterston, Dr. Haing S. Ngor, John Malkovich; Robert De Niro, Jeremy Irons; Paul Newman, Dwight Schultz, Bonnie Bedelia, John Cusack; Patrick Swayze, Om Puri, Pauline Collins.

Cinematography: Chris Menges (2); Vilmos Zsigmond, Peter Biziou

Original Music: Mike Oldfield, Ennio Morricone (3)

Written by Bruce Robinson; Robert Bolt; Bruce Robinson,...

Over four decades before the current wave of superhero blockbusters, Richard Donner's "Superman" made audiences believe a man could fly in a way no other movie had before. At the time of its release, "Superman" was the most expensive film ever made. With a runtime pushing two and a half hours, the movie took its time telling the origin story of the Last Son of Krypton and his time in Smallville before his arrival as bumbling newspaper reporter Clark Kent on the streets of Metropolis. Among other things, "Superman" managed to parlay the spot-on casting of Christopher Reeve and an Oscar-nominated John Williams score into critical and commercial success, paving the way for your all your favorite DC and Marvel movies in the new millennium.

The film was not without its share of production problems, however. Tensions between Donner and executive producers Alexander and Ilya Salkind spilled over into his departure from "Superman II,...

In the fall of 1999, Sam Raimi stepped into the offices of Sony Pictures in an impeccable black suit to pitch himself to direct “Spider-Man.” He had no reason to expect he would get the job.

“My agent, Josh Donen, said, ‘They want to be honest with you. There’s about 18 directors they’d rather have than you on a list,'” Raimi recalls. “And I said, ‘Ok, well, tell them I’m number 19.'”

When Raimi finally did get a meeting, he found himself in a room that included Sony Pictures CEO John Calley, Columbia Pictures chair Amy Pascal, Marvel Studios chief Avi Arad, Sony film executive Matt Tolmach and the film’s producer, Laura Ziskin. (Calley and Ziskin died in 2011.) To break the ice, Raimi started talking about why he loves Spider-Man so much. He talked about the painting of the web-slinger that hung on his childhood bedroom wall.

The great director discusses some of his favorite movies with host Josh Olson.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

The Alzheimer Case a.k.a. Memory of a Killer (2003)

Memory (Tbd)

The Protégé (2021)

You Only Live Twice (1967)

Cast A Deadly Spell (1991)

The Mask Of Zorro (1998)

GoldenEye (1995)

Casino Royale (2006)

Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid (1969)

Slap Shot (1977) – Josh Olson’s trailer commentary

Salt (2010)

Atomic Blonde (2017) – Brian Trenchard-Smith’s trailer commentary, Randy Fuller’s wine pairing

The Manchurian Candidate (1962) – John Landis’s trailer commentary, Glenn Erickson’s Criterion Blu-ray review, Randy Fuller’s wine pairing

The Manchurian Candidate (2004)

Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

The Bridge On The River Kwai (1957) – John Landis’s trailer commentary

Oliver Twist (1948)

Dr. No (1962) – Brian Trenchard-Smith’s trailer commentary

The Guns Of Navarone (1962)

The Dirty Dozen (1967) – Ed Neumeier’s trailer commentary

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) – John Landis’s trailer commentary, Dennis Cozzalio’s 70mm reissue review

The Spy Who Loved Me...

The Oscars was only two months ago, but the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences already was working on the next recipients of the most desired award in the motion picture industry. At Tuesday night’s Board meeting, Danny Glover, Samuel L. Jackson, Elaine May and Liv Ullmann became the latest chosen to receive Honorary Oscars, which will be presented at the long-delayed 12th annual Governors Awards now set for Saturday, January 15, at the Ray Dolby Ballroom in Hollywood.

Glover will receive the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award.

“We are thrilled to present this year’s Governors Awards to four honorees who have had a profound impact on both film and society,” said Academy President David Rubin. “Sam Jackson is a cultural icon whose dynamic work has resonated across genres and generations and audiences worldwide, while Elaine May’s bold, uncompromising approach to filmmaking, as a writer, director and actress,...

With six Oscar nominations (and one win), seven Globe film nominations, eight Emmy nods (and two wins), Burstyn knows how to pick her roles. If she likes a script, she asks about the director. Only when she watched Darren Aronofsky’s “Pi” did she get why she should take the role of the drug-addicted mother in “Requiem for Dream.” “Ok, I get it, the guy’s a poet,” she said. “Twice in my life at the end of a screening there was a 10-minute standing ovation,” she said, “‘Spitfire Grill’ at Sundance and ‘Requiem for a Dream’ at Cannes.” It yielded another Oscar nod.

With Kornél Mundruczó’s “Pieces of a Woman,” she read the script by Hungarian playwright/screenwriter Kata Wéber, who drew upon her own silent reaction to a miscarriage. Burstyn watched Mundruczó’s Oscar submission “White God.” “I liked the script, investigated Kornél’s work,” Burstyn said.

With six Oscar nominations (and one win), seven Globe film nominations, eight Emmy nods (and two wins), Burstyn knows how to pick her roles. If she likes a script, she asks about the director. Only when she watched Darren Aronofsky’s “Pi” did she get why she should take the role of the drug-addicted mother in “Requiem for Dream.” “Ok, I get it, the guy’s a poet,” she said. “Twice in my life at the end of a screening there was a 10-minute standing ovation,” she said, “‘Spitfire Grill’ at Sundance and ‘Requiem for a Dream’ at Cannes.” It yielded another Oscar nod.

With Kornél Mundruczó’s “Pieces of a Woman,” she read the script by Hungarian playwright/screenwriter Kata Wéber, who drew upon her own silent reaction to a miscarriage. Burstyn watched Mundruczó’s Oscar submission “White God.” “I liked the script, investigated Kornél’s work,” Burstyn said.

At Sunday’s Emmys Tyler Perry was honored with the Governors Award. It was presented by his pal Oprah Winfrey and Perry delivered a powerful acceptance speech that was a highlight of the virtual ceremony. The Oscars used to include honorary awards most years and these too were often the most memorable moments of the evening. In 2009, the academy moved these de facto lifetime achievement awards off of the Oscars and staged separate Governor Awards.

The ceremony in mid November has become a key date in awards season, with contenders getting to schmooze with academy members. When this year’s Oscars were postponed for several months back in June so too were the Governor Awards. But we haven’t heard an update on the status of these honorary Oscars since then.

By not being part of the televised Academy Awards, this has meant more people could be honored each year...

Roland Emmerich has made some of the biggest movies in history. He blew up the White House in “Independence Day,” blanketed New York in ice in “The Day After Tomorrow” and had mega-tsunamis wipe out most of humanity in “2012.” In the process, his films have grossed $1.2 billion globally, making hundreds of millions of dollars in profits for the studios that greenlit them.

And yet, Emmerich found himself hustling to get his latest action epic, “Midway,” to the screen. The World War II drama, which Lionsgate will release in the U.S. on Nov. 8, boasts a $100 million budget, but one that was pulled together outside the studio system, making it one of the costliest independent films in history. It’s a sign that even A-list directors like Emmerich are facing an uphill climb to get movies made in a Hollywood that’s become obsessed with comic book movies and resurrected franchises.

Honorary Oscars for 2019 will be presented this Sunday, October 27. That’s earlier than ever due to a much short Academy Awards season this year. Trophies will be presented at the Governors Awards in Hollywood to actress Geena Davis, director David Lynch, actor Wes Studi and director Lina Wertmuller. Members of the Academy board of governors chose and announced these four recipients back in the early summer.

Davis is receiving the Jean Hersholt Award for her humanitarian work. She won the Best Supporting Actress trophy for “The Accidental Tourist” (1988) and was also nominated for “Thelma and Louise” (1991). Other films in her career have included “The Fly,” “Beetlejuice,” “A League of Their Own” and “Speechless.”

SEEGeena Davis movies: 15 greatest films ranked from worst to best

Lynch has received three directing nominations in his career for “The Elephant Man” (1980), “Blue Velvet” (1986) and “Mulholland Drive” (2001). He was also nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay for “The Elephant Man.

In 1993, Jeff Kleeman, then an executive at United Artists, was summoned to the office of his boss, John Calley, and invited to listen in on a phone call between Calley and one of his closest friends, Stanley Kubrick.

Calley had worked with the director on such pictures as 1971's A Clockwork Orange. Now that he was running UA, he wanted to know about a long-rumored project Kubrick was believed to have written for the studio: a biopic of Napoleon, purportedly designed with Jack Nicholson as the French emperor.

"So Calley called Kubrick and lets me listen in ...

In 1993, Jeff Kleeman, then an executive at United Artists, was summoned to the office of his boss, John Calley, and invited to listen in on a phone call between Calley and one of his closest friends, Stanley Kubrick.

Calley had worked with the director on such pictures as 1971's A Clockwork Orange. Now that he was running UA, he wanted to know about a long-rumored project Kubrick was believed to have written for the studio: a biopic of Napoleon, purportedly designed with Jack Nicholson as the French emperor.

"So Calley called Kubrick and lets me listen in ...

Honorary Oscars for 2019 will be going to actress Geena Davis, director David Lynch, actor Wes Studi and director Lina Wertmuller. Members of the Academy board of governors have chosen these four people over the weekend for Academy Awards that will be given out a special Governors Awards ceremony in October.

Davis is receiving the Jean Hersholt Award for her humanitarian work. She won the Best Supporting Actress trophy for “The Accidental Tourist” (1988) and was also nominated for “Thelma and Louise” (1991). Other films in her career have included “The Fly,” “Beetlejuice,” “A League of Their Own” and “Speechless.”

SEEGeena Davis movies: 15 greatest films ranked from worst to best

Lynch has received three directing nominations in his career for “The Elephant Man” (1980), “Blue Velvet” (1986) and “Mulholland Drive” (2001). He was also nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay for “The Elephant Man.” Other films have included “Eraserhead,” “Dune,” “Wild at Heart,” “Lost Highway” and “The Straight Story.

Studio heads tend to move around, but in the last 30 years, several have been closely linked to one brand. To this day, Sherry Lansing is Paramount, Ron Meyer is Universal. And until the announcement Wednesday, Amy Pascal was Sony. But now, the former chairman of Sony Motion Pictures is finally leaving Culver City, after 30 years, to continue building her own identity, at Universal.

Pascal rose through the ranks in Hollywood as what was once termed a “d-girl,” someone who developed scripts. She worked as a production executive alongside old chum Scott Rudin at Twentieth Century Fox before landing at Columbia in 1988, where she developed “Awakenings,” “Groundhog Day,” and “Little Women.” In 1994 she took on President of Production for Turner Pictures, then rejoined Columbia in 1996. Working closely with mentors Gareth Wigan, John Calley and finally, Michael Lynton, Pascal took over the chairman role in 2006.

She was known for promoting women filmmakers,...

Studio heads tend to move around, but in the last 30 years, several have been closely linked to one brand. To this day, Sherry Lansing is Paramount, Ron Meyer is Universal. And until the announcement Wednesday, Amy Pascal was Sony. But now, the former chairman of Sony Motion Pictures is finally leaving Culver City, after 30 years, to continue building her own identity, at Universal.

Pascal rose through the ranks in Hollywood as what was once termed a “d-girl,” someone who developed scripts. She worked as a production executive alongside old chum Scott Rudin at Twentieth Century Fox before landing at Columbia in 1988, where she developed “Awakenings,” “Groundhog Day,” and “Little Women.” In 1994 she took on President of Production for Turner Pictures, then rejoined Columbia in 1996. Working closely with mentors Gareth Wigan, John Calley and finally, Michael Lynton, Pascal took over the chairman role in 2006.

She was known for promoting women filmmakers,...

Honorary Oscars for 2018 will be going to actress Cicely Tyson, producers Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall, publicist Marvin Levy and composer Lalo Schifrin. Academy board of governors have chosen these five people for awards that will be given out a special ceremony on November 18. Kennedy and Marshall are being honored with the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award.

Tyson was nominated for an Oscar as Best Actress for “Sounder” (1972). Schifrin has received six nominations for “Cool Hand Luke” (1967), “The Fox” (1968), “Voyage of the Damned” (1976), “The Amityville Horror” (1979), “The Competition” (1980) and “The Sting II” (1983). Levy is the first publicist to receive an honorary Oscar and has worked for MGM, Columbia, Amblin and DreamWorks.

SEECicely Tyson movies: 10 greatest films ranked from worst to best

Kennedy is the first woman to receive the Thalberg. She and Marshall have received Best Picture nominations for “The Sixth Sense” (1999), “Seabiscuit” (2003), “Munich” (2005) and “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button...

The academy announced that it had extended invitations to join to a record 928 new members. While this incoming class of 2018 will get to vote for the next Oscars, they didn’t cast ballots in the recent elections to the board of governors. It is those 54 academy members who will decide in August the three or four recipients of this year’s honorary Oscars.

Who do you think among our top 10 of past Academy Award nominees is most overdue to be recognized at the Governors Awards in November? Vote in the poll below and then sound off in the comments section.

The selection process is very straightforward. Members of the board of governors put forth suggestions, with each of the top choices then voted on individually. Honorees must receive support from at least half of those on the board. The usual limit is three honorees. For a fourth to be named,...

Exclusive: It finally happened.

Sony’s Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle is officially the studio’s highest-grossing film ever at the domestic box office, overtaking Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man ($403.7 million) which has owned the title for the past 16 years.

Heading into the holiday season, executives across distribution and film finance had a strong feeling that this reboot of Jumanji directed by Jake Kasdan would serve as strong counter-programming to Disney’s Star Wars: The Last Jedi. The pic opened to $71.9 million over the six-day holiday and by the first weekend of January stole the No. 1 spot from the Rian Johnson sequel for four weekends out of its run.

But really, nobody was expecting a near billion-dollar global haul (No. 2 worldwide for Sony at $951M after Skyfall‘s $1.1 billion) nor a domestic take this high in the end. As Deadline already reported, our finance sources informed us that Jumanji will bring...

The Loved One

Blu-ray

Warner Archives

1965 / B&W / 1:85 / / 122 min. / Street Date May 9, 2017

Starring: Robert Morse, Jonathan Winters, Anjanette Comer.

Cinematography: Haskell Wexler

Film Editor: Hal Ashby, Brian Smedley-Aston

Written by Terry Southern, Christopher Isherwood

Produced by Martin Ransohoff (uncredited), John Calley, Haskell Wexler

Directed by Tony Richardson

Funeral Director: Before you go, I was just wondering… would you be interested in some extras for the loved one?

Next Of Kin: What kind of extras?

Funeral Director: Well, how about a casket?

Mike Nichols and Elaine May – The $65 Dollar Funeral

That routine, a classic example of what was known in the early 60’s as “sick humor”, was nevertheless ubiquitous across mainstream variety shows like Ed Sullivan and Jack Paar. It also popularized the notion of a new boutique industry, the vanity funeral. The novelist Evelyn Waugh, decidedly less mainstream, documented the beginning of that phenomenon over a decade earlier with The Loved One,...

One week after the election of Donald Trump, Paul Verhoeven was at the Film Society of Lincoln Center presenting “Starship Troopers,” a 1997 film that highlighted the fascist possibilities of American society. It was a connection that wasn’t lost on the provocative 77 year-old filmmaker, who the Film Society is honoring this month with a two-week retrospective.

In discussing the recent news that Sony and producer Neal H. Moritz (“Fast & Furious” franchise) were going to reboot “Starship Troopers,” Verhoeven didn’t pull any punches during a Q&A.

Read More: ‘Starship Troopers’ Reboot in Development at Columbia Pictures

According to the Dutch filmmaker, the reason Hollywood’s remakes (“Total Recall,” “Robocop”) and sequels (“Basic Instinct,” “Robocop,” “Starship Troopers) of his films fail is “the studios always wanted not to have a layer of lightness, a layer of irony, sarcasm, satire.”

Referring to the announcement that the new “Starship Troopers” reboot would...

Every year, industry folks lobby the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences with their candidates for honorary Oscar winners at the annual Governors Awards. And sometimes they get their way. Over the years Mike Kaplan, a publicists branch Academy member, has successfully lobbied for Lillian Gish, Robert Altman and John Ford’s favorite actress Maureen O’Hara, who happily collected her gold man the year before she died.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences Board of Governors voted Tuesday night on the 2016 (un-televised) Governors Awards, which often including the coveted producer’s award, the Thalberg, and the Hersholt humanitarian award. You know what they’re looking for: someone who is still respected — if not revered. Francis Ford Coppola, John Calley and Dino DeLaurentiis have collected the Thalberg in recent years; Harry Belafonte, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Oprah Winfrey and Angelina Jolie have accepted the Hersholt.

Every year, industry folks lobby the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences with their candidates for honorary Oscar winners at the annual Governors Awards. And sometimes they get their way. Over the years Mike Kaplan, a publicists branch Academy member, has successfully lobbied for Lillian Gish, Robert Altman and John Ford’s favorite actress Maureen O’Hara, who happily collected her gold man the year before she died.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences Board of Governors voted Tuesday night on the 2016 (un-televised) Governors Awards, which often including the coveted producer’s award, the Thalberg, and the Hersholt humanitarian award. You know what they’re looking for: someone who is still respected — if not revered. Francis Ford Coppola, John Calley and Dino DeLaurentiis have collected the Thalberg in recent years; Harry Belafonte, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Oprah Winfrey and Angelina Jolie have accepted the Hersholt.

"It's a good thing you're in New York and I'm in Los Angeles then," Mel Brooks says, before howling with laughter. He's just been informed that, as preparation for getting the 90-year-old filmmaker on the phone, the interviewer he's speaking to has consumed a large amount of black coffee and baked beans — the same combination that fuels the notorious, and extremely noisy campfire sequence in Blazing Saddles. "Actually, three thousand miles between us might not be enough — it depends on the coffee. There are easier ways to get in the mood to talk to me,...

Throughout the 1960s-early 1970s, a combination of financial desperation, creative daring, and an adventurous movie-going public had produced a creative detonation in mainstream American movies not seen before or since. Each year of the period seemed to bring at least one mightily ambitious visual experiment by a new contributor to the commercial movie scene, the “look” of that effort being as much a part of its identity as its characters and story. One could pick no better representative of the trend than Stanley Kubrick, for no director of the time so extended the boundaries of mainstream commercial filmmaking, or what it meant to be a mainstream commercial filmmaker.

For the most part, Kubrick’s professional ascent was built on the taking of standard genres – the war story, science fiction tale, sword-and-sandal epic – and twisting them into shapes so singular that each Kubrick outing became an acknowledged one-of-a-kind classic. Paths of Glory...

Though Amy Pascal is beginning her transition from Sony Pictures co-chair to on-the-lot producer, her new office space plans might be up in smoke, at least temporarily. Sources say Pascal is unable to move into her new suite that Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg most recently occupied because the stench of marijuana cannot be easily removed. The offices — a plum spot that once housed Pascal's late boss, John Calley — will be repainted in an effort to eradicate the smell. Once Pascal moves from her current offices in the Irving Thalberg Building to make way for incoming

read more...

With the last-minute brouhaha over The Interview’s play in an estimated 300+ indie engagements, it would seem that the Christmas Day box office is all about the Sony political comedy and nothing less. While rival studios expressed alarm last week about The Interview’s presence in the market, they’re rather apathetic about its return. Will The Interview cut into other major titles’ showtimes in major markets such as Los Angeles, New York and Dallas? “No, not really. First, people have to figure out that it’s out there,” says one studio chief, while another observed, “The Interview is playing a bunch of little art house and sub-run theaters. If they were in the circuit first run houses it would be a different story.”

Since The Interview fell off tracking, there’s no barometer for insiders to project what it could actually rake up over four-days. And the film’s...

Maureen O’Hara, now 94, took time to fondly remember the Hollywood greats from her past such as John Wayne and John Ford. Legendary Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki said he was just happy to be in the same room as Maureen O’Hara. Masterful screenwriter Jean-Claude Carriere gave a moving tribute to Hollywood’s “forgotten” writers. And Harry Belafonte, winner of the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, galvanized the industry crowd by asking them to aim higher.

Yes, it was quite a night for the four honorees of the Sixth Annual Governors Awards of the Academy Of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. Quite a night. And the Academy got this awards season off to a roaring start with this blessedly non-televised celebration of the greats in this business who may not have always been given their due. It has also become a night for major schmoozing and networking among Academy voters and the huge numbers of Oscar hopefuls.

Exclusive: In a move that takes her patronage of auteur filmmakers to another level, Megan Ellison and her Annapurna Pictures have made a deal to finance two pictures directed by David O Russell. This is an outgrowth of their experience on American Hustle, the ensemble drama that got 10 Oscar nominations and grossed $250 million worldwide. Ellison earlier this year pledged to back Page 1, the development shingle of Zero Dark Thirty writer and producer Mark Boal. But she usually finances auteur pictures piecemeal and this is the first deal of its kind for her. She just signed on to finance Richard Linklater’s Boyhood follow-up That’s What I’m Talking About, with Paramount distributing. Her latest film is Foxcatcher, the Bennett Miller-directed drama that is smack in the center of the Oscar race, with the performances by Channing Tatum, Steve Carell and Mark Ruffalo.

It will become clear soon...

In a deal that follows Roma Downey and Mark Burnett coming aboard the MGM/Paramount epic Ben-Hur that Timur Bekmambetov will direct with Jack Huston in the title role, MGM has acquired a 55% interest in Downey, Burnett and Hearst Entertainment’s One Three Media and LightWorkers Media, including all of their interests in such hit shows as Survivor, The Voice, Shark Tank, The Bible and The Apprentice. All this will be consolidated into a new media venture called United Artists Media Group. MGM chairman and CEO Gary Barber made the deal with Burnett, Downey and Steven Swartz, Hearst Corp’s president and CEO. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Uamg will primarily focus on developing, producing and financing premium content across all platforms, including scripted and non-scripted television programs, motion pictures and digital content. Burnett will serve as the CEO of Uamg. Downey will serve as president of LightWorkers Media, the...

Honorary Oscars 2014: Hayao Miyazaki, Jean-Claude Carrière, and Maureen O’Hara; Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award goes to Harry Belafonte One good thing about the creation of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Governors Awards — an expedient way to remove the time-consuming presentation of the (nearly) annual Honorary Oscar from the TV ratings-obsessed, increasingly youth-oriented Oscar show — is that each year up to four individuals can be named Honorary Oscar recipients, thus giving a better chance for the Academy to honor film industry veterans while they’re still on Planet Earth. (See at the bottom of this post a partial list of those who have gone to the Great Beyond, without having ever received a single Oscar statuette.) In 2014, the Academy’s Board of Governors has selected a formidable trio of honorees: Japanese artist and filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki, 73; French screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière, 82; and Irish-born Hollywood actress Maureen O’Hara,...

For the first two or three years of the now six-year-old Governors Awards, I regularly wrote a column “suggesting” who I considered to be a deserving choice for Honorary Oscars, people who have been overlooked in their fields over the years.

Related: Big Names, Deserving Recipients For 2013 Governors Awards

On every one of those lists, three names would appear: Angela Lansbury, Maureen O’Hara and screenwriter Jean-Claude Carriere. Last year, thankfully, the Academy finally got around to recognizing Lansbury with an Honorary Oscar, and now with today’s earlier announcement the AMPAS Board Of Governors has wisely chosen Carriere and O’Hara along with the great (but already Oscar-winning) Japanese animation director Hayao Miyazaki and Harry Belafonte, the way-overdue Jean Hersholt Humanitarian honoree this year. This is an excellent list for an award that is given for an entire career. Some might quibble about Miyazaki because he actually won an...

The news that Jeff Blake is departing his position as Chairman of Sony Pictures and Vice-Chairman of Worldwide Marketing and Distribution for the company after 22 years leaves the film industry, at least until his future plans are announced, without one its most revered and honorable executives. Tough, smart, a workhorse even by the standards of Hollywood, he remained true to the values and talents I first saw when we first knew each other at Northwestern University in the early 1970s. In a brief phone call today, Blake seems in a good place. "It seemed like the right time," he told me. "I'm not unhappy. Amy Pascal and Michael Lynton have treated me very well." He said his health is fine--when I met with him at his office a few months ago, he seemed vigorous and far from retiring. He credits previous Sony head John Calley with giving him the chance to maximize his talents.

On Wednesday, veteran actor Eli Wallach died at the ripe old age of 98. Although he had never been nominated for an Oscar in his fifty-plus year film career, the academy bestowed an honorary one on him in 2010. We are just a few weeks away from learning who will be receiving honorary Oscars this year. Who do you think is most overdue to be added to this honor roll? Vote in the poll below and add your thoughts to the lively debate in our forums here.  -Break- Join in the fierce debate about the early Oscar contenders going on right now in our red-hot forums Since the academy shifted these honorary kudos from the telecast to a separate non-televised ceremony four years ago, they have feted 19 people.    In 2009, honorary Oscars went to actress Lauren Bacall, cinematographer Gordon Willis and producer Roger Corman while studio executive John Calley received the Thalberg Award.

At 87, Mel Brooks has lost none of his edge.

The legendary comic provocateur has phoned me from his Los Angeles office to promote the just-released 40th anniversary Blu-ray of his magnum opus, "Blazing Saddles," but before he submits to an interview, he quizzes me about Moviefone's unique pageviews and other Web traffic statistics, about which he knows more than I do. Having concluded that Moviefone is well-trafficked enough for him to talk to, he says, "Ask away, Susman!"

"Blazing Saddles," which made serious satirical points about racism while also making cinema safe for fart jokes, is certainly one of the most influential comedies ever made. Brooks believes it's the funniest film of all time (followed closely by his own "Young Frankenstein"), and he's still upset with the American Film Institute for disagreeing with him. He's making his case for the film with the Blu-ray (which contains a new making-of documentary,...

Throughout the 1960s-early 1970s, a combination of financial desperation, creative daring, and an adventurous movie-going public had produced a creative detonation in mainstream American movies not seen before or since. Each year of the period seemed to bring at least one mightily ambitious visual experiment by a new contributor to the commercial movie scene, the “look” of that effort being as much a part of its identity as its characters and story. One could pick no better representative of the trend than Stanley Kubrick, for no director of the time so extended the boundaries of mainstream commercial filmmaking, or what it meant to be a mainstream commercial filmmaker.

For the most part, Kubrick’s professional ascent was built on the taking of standard genres – the war story, science fiction tale, sword-and-sandal epic – and twisting them into shapes so singular that each Kubrick outing became an acknowledged one-of-a-kind classic. Paths of Glory...

Feature Sarah Dobbs 12 Jul 2013 - 05:39

With his latest film, Trap For Cinderella, out in UK cinemas now, director Iain Softley talks about film locations, Hackers and more...

Iain Softley is a filmmaker who’s hard to categorise. His career is pretty fascinating, because it’s almost impossible to predict what kind of film he’ll make next. His first film was a drama about the early career of the Beatles, which he followed with an unconventional action movie about computer hackers. Then he made a period drama. Then a weird sci-fi movie set in a mental hospital. Then a spooky horror film, and followed it up with a fantasy movie for kids. How many directors can you name who’ve made a series of films that diverse?

His new film, Trap For Cinderella, is yet another different kind of movie, and maybe one of the most difficult to categorise...

We are just a few weeks away from learning who will be receiving honorary Oscars this year. Who do you think is most overdue to be added to this honor roll? Vote in the poll below and add your thoughts to the lively debate in our forums here.  Since the academy shifted these honorary kudos from the telecast to a separate non-televised ceremony four years ago, they have feted 15 people.  In 2009, honorary Oscars went to actress Lauren Bacall, cinematographer Gordon Willis and producer Roger Corman while studio executive John Calley received the Thalberg Award. In 2010, honorary Oscars were bestowed on actor Eli Wallach, filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard and film historian Kevin Brownlow while Francis Ford Coppola was given the Thalberg. In 2011, honorary Oscars were awarded to actor James Earl Jones and makeup pioneer Dick Smith while TV personaility Oprah W...

There’s publishing news on two timely novels that have feature film ramifications. The Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown revealed that his new novel will be titled Inferno, coming from Doubleday on May 14. The book’s set in Europe and inspired by Dante, author of the 14th century poem The Divine Comedy, the author’s journey through hell, purgatory and heaven. The movie crowd won’t care much because the protagonist is once again the Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon, which means that if anybody turns this into a film, it will be Sony. That deal made right on the ground floor by late former Sony Pictures chairman John Calley continues to give and give. Brown himself wrote a draft of the Angels & Demons follow-up The Lost Symbol, and Tom Hanks is still attached and Brian Grazer is the producer. Last time I wrote about it, Game Change scribe Danny Strong...

We are just a few weeks away from learning who will be receiving honorary Oscars this year. Who do you think is most overdue to be added to this honor roll? Vote in the poll below and add your thoughts to the lively debate in our forums here.  Since the academy shifted these honorary kudos from the telecast to a separate non-televised ceremony three years ago, they have feted 11 people.  In 2009, honorary Oscars went to actress Lauren Bacall, cinematographer Gordon Willis and producer Roger Corman while studio executive John Calley received the Thalberg Award. In 2010, honorary Oscars were bestowed on actor Eli Wallach, filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard and film historian Kevin Brownlow while Francis Ford Coppola was given the Thalberg. Last year, honorary Oscars were awarded to actor James Earl Jones and makeup pioneer Dick Smith while TV per...

Marvin B. Meyer, who co-founded what eventually became the influential entertainment law firm Rosenfeld, Meyer & Susman, died Monday of pancreatic cancer. He was 88. After working in legal affairs at MGM and business affairs at McA, Larry Beilenson recruited Meyer and they co-founded Bielenson & Meyer in 1953, which evolved into Rosenfeld, Meyer & Susman. During his career, Meyer represented a who’s who list of industry bigwigs, including Gregory Peck, Billy Wilder, Grace Kelly, Jodie Foster, Mike Nichols, John Calley, Janet Leigh, Ronald Reagan, Jane Wyman, Tony Curtis, Anthony Quinn, Julie Andrews, Montgomery Clift, the Marx Brothers, Sharon Stone, Loretta Young, Marlon Brando, George Peppard, Marilyn Monroe, Jack Benny, Jerry Lewis, Henry Fonda, Cliff Robertson, Pierre Cossette, Yvonne DeCarlo, John Sturges, Janet Jackson, William Morris, Mike Medavoy, Lynn Stalmaster, Joan Rivers, Muhammad Ali, Jeff Berg, Jon Peters, Matthew Broderick, Bill Cosby, and Ed Limato. Born in Brooklyn, Meyer moved with his family in...