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Sarah Polley failed to crash the boys club to land a Golden Globe nomination for Best Director for her work on “Women Talking,” but she did manage to earn one for Best Screenplay for the same film. In the unlikely event she were to win — and we say unlikely because she is picked by few to take home the statuette in Gold Derby’s predictions where she has 4/1 odds, tying her for fourth place — Polley would be the first woman in 17 years to be so honored. It’s a rare enough event in Golden Globes annals that you barely need two hands to count the total number of women (seven) who have been victorious in the category since the Globes started handing them out 75 years ago.

SEEWill Sarah Polley (‘Women Talking’) be the 3rd woman in a row to win Best Director Oscar?

The last woman to win for her...

Mill Creek and Kit Parker package nine mid-range Columbia features from the 1940s and 1950s, not all of them strictly noir but all with dark themes — crime, creepy politics, etc. None have been on Blu-ray, and all but one are in fine condition.

Noir Archive 9-Film Collection

Address Unknown, Escape in the Fog, The Guilt of Janet Ames, The Black Book, Johnny Allegro, 711 Ocean Drive, The Killer That Stalked New York, Assignment: Paris, The Miami Story

Blu-ray

Mill Creek / Kit Parker

1944 -1954 / B&W / 8 x 1:37 Academy; 1 x 1:85 widescreen / 734 min. / Street Date April 23, 2019 / 49.95

Starring: Paul Lukas, Nina Foch, Rosalind Russell, Robert Cummings, George Raft, Edmond O’Brien, Evelyn Keyes, Dana Andrews, Barry Sullivan.

Cinematography: Rudolph Maté, George Meehan, Joseph Walker, John Alton, Joseph Biroc, Franz Planer, Joseph Biroc, Burnett Guffey, Henry Freulich.

Written by Herbert Dalmas, Aubrey Wisberg, Louella MacFarlane, Philip Yordan, Karen DeWolf, Richard English, Harry Essex, William Bowers,...

In today’s film news roundup, the “Just Dance” video game is in development as a movie; Capstone Entertainment hires a key exec; the Writers Guild Initiative promotes an exec; and Metrograph Pictures launches.

Project Launch

Sony’s Screen Gems has acquired the motion picture rights for a film based on Ubisoft’s video game “Just Dance.”

Ubisoft Film and Television and Olive Bridge Entertainment will develop and produce the project. Jason Altman and Margaret Boykin will produce for Ubisoft Film and Television alongside Jodi Hildebrand and Will Gluck for Olive Bridge Entertainment.

The “Just Dance” franchise is touted as the best-selling music video game of all time with more than 120 million players worldwide. The video game is celebrating its 10-year anniversary and includes songs by Shakira, Pharrell Williams, Alicia Keys, Camila Cabello, the Chainsmokers, Jennifer Lopez, and Calvin Harris.

Eric Paquette and Brian Dukes are overseeing for Screen Gems.

High camp or just plain trash? A cultural-cinematic swamp in perfectly rotten taste, this adaptation of Jacqueline Susann's supermarket 'dirty book' seeks out tawdry sleaze like no American movie had before. Junk beyond belief, and great entertainment if you're in a sick frame of mind. Valley of the Dolls Blu-ray The Criterion Collection 835 1967 / Color / 2:40 widescreen / 123 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date September 27, 2016 / 39.95 Starring Barbara Parkins, Patty Duke, Paul Burke, Sharon Tate, Susan Hayward, Tony Scotti, Martin Milner, Charles Drake, Alexander Davion, Lee Grant, Naomi Stevens, Robert H. Harris, Jacqueline Susann, Robert Viharo, Joey Bishop, George Jessel, Dionne Warwick, Sherry Alberoni, Margaret Whiting, Richard Angarola, Richard Dreyfuss, Marvin Hamlisch, Judith Lowry. Cinematography William H. Daniels Film Editor Dorothy Spencer Conductor / Music Adaptor John Williams Written by Helen Deutsch, Dorothy Kingsley Jacqueline Susann Produced by Mark Robson, David Weisbart Directed by Mark Robson

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

I...

New York City – The Writers Guild of America, East Foundation has changed its name — it is now called the Writers Guild Initiative (Wgi). The name change is part of a rebranding that recognizes the organization’s long time proactive and focused mission: “to perpetuate the art and craft of storytelling, either by professionals or amateurs, through education and practical experience, on local, national, and global levels.” The Initiative’s programs are designed to reach various populations and help them to find their unique voice as writers. “To grade schoolers, high school and college students, to the military, caregivers of the wounded, and even to medical personnel who treat them, we have volunteered our skills. We share our enthusiasm and knowledge. We encourage. We support. As our new name proudly acknowledges, we take the initiative,” explains Michael Weller, president of the Writers Guild Initiative. In addition to its rebranding, the Writers...

Samuel Fuller had one of the most fascinating of Hollywood careers -- a 50-plus-year self-mythologizing rampage that began with scriptsmith work in the mid 1930s at the age of 24, evolving into one of the most distinctive auteurs America has ever produced, writing/directing some 25 movies and having a hand in writing 25 more, helplessly manufacturing himself into a crusty man's-man Hollywood gadfly in the process, readily available for manic interviews and iconic appearances in young auteurs' self-conscious films.

There are always corners in his career that you, whomever you are, haven't yet explored (honestly, any single Fuller film remains half-experienced if you've only seen it once), and so the new Sony set of Fulleriania is a prize, beginning as it does with "It Happened in Hollywood" (1937), Fuller's first screenplay credit, and an utterly freakish, Charlie Kaufman-esque launch of meta-ness that centers on Hollywood's discomfiting transition from silents to talkies, barely...