News

Michael Myers and the Yautja are coming to Toronto. Every year, the Toronto International Film Festival's Midnight Madness program features some of the most anticipated genre projects on the release calendar, and this year is certainly no exception, as the world premieres of the new Halloween movie and The Predator will be showcased, with the latter serving as the opening film of the Midnight Madness program:

Press Release: Toronto — Midnight Madness has just announced its explosive lineup of films for the 43rd Toronto International Film Festival ® . Screening to an audience of die-hard film fans every evening at 11:59pm, this year’s programme features 10 quintessential genre movies that are guaranteed to either terrorize or mesmerize.

“This year’s Midnight Madness slate promises another idiosyncratic confluence of established and emerging genre filmmakers,” said Peter Kuplowsky, Midnight Madness Programmer. “To complement some of the buzziest provocations on the festival circuit, I have...

Shane’s Black’s “The Predator,” David Gordon Green’s “Halloween” reboot and Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 11/9” will all have world premieres at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival.

The titles were unveiled Thursday as part of the slates for the genre-centric Midnight Madness program and the Tiff Docs section.

“This year’s Midnight Madness slate promises another idiosyncratic confluence of established and emerging genre filmmakers,” said Peter Kuplowsky, Midnight Madness programmer. “To complement some of the buzziest provocations on the festival circuit, I have sought to curate an eccentric array of world premieres that demonstrate the dexterity of genre cinema as a canvas for both sublime satisfaction and stunning subversion. That includes the section’s two much-anticipated sequels, ‘The Predator’ and ‘Halloween,’ each of which boldly and brilliantly builds upon its mythic iconography to thrilling and surprising effect.”

Midnight Madness will open with the “The Predator” and...

Two of the Toronto International Film Festival’s signature programs have today unveiled their full slates, including both the genre-bending Midnight Madness program and the wide-ranging Tiff Docs section. Both slates will play home to highly anticipated world premieres, including David Gordon Green’s new spin on the “Halloween” mythos, Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 11/9,” Rashida Jones and Alan Hicks’ Quincy Jones doc, “Quincy,” and many more.

“This year’s Midnight Madness slate promises another idiosyncratic confluence of established and emerging genre filmmakers,” said Peter Kuplowsky, Midnight Madness Programmer, in an official statement. “To complement some of the buzziest provocations on the festival circuit, I have sought to curate an eccentric array of World Premieres that demonstrate the dexterity of genre cinema as a canvas for both sublime satisfaction and stunning subversion. That includes the section’s two much-anticipated sequels, ‘The Predator’ and ‘Halloween,’ each of which boldly and brilliantly...

Tiff Midnight Madness to feature first Indian entry, The Man Who Feels No Pain, and Peter Strickland’s In Fabric.

The world premiere of Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 11/9 exploring life in the United States under president Trump will open Tiff Docs at the Toronto International Film Festival, while David Gordon Green’s Halloween and Shane Black’s The Predator receive their world premeres in Midnight Madness.

Midnight Madness

The 10 Midnight Madness selections include the world premieres of Peter Strickland’s In Fabric, about a cursed dress, and the first Indian film ever to screen in the section, Vasan Bala’s...

Seijun Suzuki, The Early Years is now available on Blu-ray from Arrow Video

Youths On The Loose And Rebels Without Causes In The Unruly Seishun Eiga Youth Movies Of Japanese Iconoclast Seijun Suzuki

Making their home-video debuts outside Japan, this diverse selection of Nikkatsu youth movies (seishun eiga) charts the evolving style of the B-movie maverick best known for the cult classics Tokyo Drifter (1966) and Branded to Kill (1967).

The Boy Who Came Back (1958) marks the first appearances of Nikkatsu Diamond Guys and regular Suzuki collaborators Akira Kobayashi and Jo Shishido, with Kobayashi cast as the hot-headed hoodlum fresh out of reform school who struggles to make a clean break with his tearaway past.

The Wind-of-Youth Group Crosses the Mountain Pass (1961) is a carnivalesque tale of a young student who hooks up with a down-at-heels travelling circus troupe.

Teenage Yakuza (1962) stars Tamio Kawaji as the high-school vigilante protecting his...

After working on “Hugo” (based on Brian Selznick’s illustrated novel, “The Invention of Hugo Cabret”), costume designer Sandy Powell became the first champion of his follow-up, “Wonderstruck.” In fact, Powell was so taken with his parallel adventures of two deaf children in 1927 and 1977 New York, that she encouraged him to write a screenplay and then gave it to Todd Haynes, who read it and agreed to direct.

“I thought it would make a wonderful movie, and, after Brian finished the script, I joked that I would have to produce it,” said the three-time Oscar-winning Powell (“The Young Victoria,” “The Aviator,” and “Shakespeare in Love”).

“I immediately thought of Todd. He’s so visual and he takes risks, and I was interested in his take on younger people driving the story,” added Powell, who previously worked with the director on “Carol,” “Far From Heaven,” and “Velvet Goldmine.”

A Tale of...

Todd Haynes loves period films, and capturing the look of the eras’ movies, but he doesn’t stop there; he’s obsessed with the visual languages as well. And all of that would be impossible without Haynes’ longtime cinematographer Edward Lachman, who takes a forensic approach: If you want the look, it makes sense to use the tools and production modes that created it.

In “Far From Heaven,” Lachman figured out how to recreate the manufactured studio look of Douglas Sirk’s 1950s Universal melodramas, while shooting on real locations. For “Carol,” he mirrored the color palette and sense of composition of mid-century color photographers like Saul Leiter.

Read More: Cannes Review – With ‘Wonderstruck,’ Todd Haynes Returns With A Profoundly Moving Fable For All Ages

Lachman and Haynes’ latest collaboration on “Wonderstruck” – which just premiered at Cannes to rave reviews and is in the early poll position for the Palme...

Louis Feuillade’s Fantômas opens with a series of disguises, image overlays revealing to us Fantomas’ various personas.Often used by silent filmmakers attempting to conjure the supernatural, they conjure the abstract instead:“It’s a visual medium”–John Ford“[Erich von] Stroheim asked me personally to take on the assignment (after the studio removed him from the film), and I did so without any protest on his part…”– Josef von Sternberg***We move from dissolves to hard cuts:Later in The Wedding March:Counterpoints:And beyond:We call for help, mere seconds later our cries our answered: “We’ve got a trial ahead of us.”Time is meaningless: there is no difference between past and present.Impressionism becomes Expressionism:But we keep being reborn:Love exists:Love unites us all, re-engages us with the world:We cease being individuals:And become a collective--We become a crowd:None of us are alone:*** Sources:Fantômas (Louis Feuillade, 1913)India Matri Bhumi (Roberto Rossellini,...

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,...

Looking back over the year at what films moved and impressed us, it is clear that watching old films is a crucial part of making new films meaningful. Thus, the annual tradition of our end of year poll, which calls upon our writers to pick both a new and an old film: they were challenged to choose a new film they saw in 2013—in theaters or at a festival—and creatively pair it with an old film they also saw in 2013 to create a unique double feature.

All the contributors were given the option to write some text explaining their 2013 fantasy double feature. What's more, each writer was given the option to list more pairings, with or without explanation, as further imaginative film programming we'd be lucky to catch in that perfect world we know doesn't exist but can keep dreaming of every time we go to the movies.

How...

Think silent films reached a high point with The Artist? The pre-sound era produced some of the most beautiful, arresting films ever made. From City Lights to Metropolis, Guardian and Observer critics pick the 10 best

• Top 10 teen movies

• Top 10 superhero movies

• Top 10 westerns

• Top 10 documentaries

• Top 10 movie adaptations

• Top 10 animated movies

• More Guardian and Observer critics' top 10s

10. City Lights

City Lights was arguably the biggest risk of Charlie Chaplin's career: The Jazz Singer, released at the end of 1927, had seen sound take cinema by storm, but Chaplin resisted the change-up, preferring to continue in the silent tradition. In retrospect, this isn't so much the precious behaviour of a purist but the smart reaction of an experienced comedian; Chaplin's films rarely used intertitles anyway, and though it is technically "silent", City Lights is very mindful of it own self-composed score and keenly judged sound effects.

At its heart,...

Instituto Cervantes New York hosted a press conference with Pablo Berger, director/screenwriter of Blancanieves, and director/screenwriter Paula Ortiz of Chrysalis aka De tu ventana a la mía, moderated by Richard Peña for the Film Society of Lincoln Center's Spanish Cinema Now. Maribel Verdú, Leticia Dolera and Luisa Gavasa give masterful performances in Ortiz's feature debut as they weave in and out of narratives that could be reflections of Lillian Gish from Victor Sjöström's The Wind or Emmanuelle Riva from Alain Resnais' Hiroshima, Mon Amour.

Paula Ortiz, Richard Peña, Pablo Berger at the Spanish Cinema Now press conference. Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

In my conversation with Paula Ortiz we spoke about the telling of three women, three destinies and the history of Spain in the 20th century.

Fairy tales are present in her movie, as they are in Blancanieves by Berger, with whom I had a snow white...

Emir Baigazin’s Harmony Lessons won the 39th Seattle International Film Festival’s Best New Director grand jury prize on Sunday [9] as top brass handed out jury and audience awards.Scroll down for full list of winners

The Siff 2013 Best Documentary grand jury prize went to Penny Lane’s Our Nixon and Lucy Walker earned a special jury prize for The Crash Reel, while Kyle Patrick Alvarez took the Best New American Cinema grand jury prize for C.O.G.

In the audience awards, Henk Pretorius’ Fanie Fourie’s Lobola won the Best Film Golden Space Needle Award and Morgan Neville’s Twenty Feet From Stardom took the corresponding documentary prize.

The Best Director Golden Space Needle Award went to Nabil Ayouch for Horses Of God, while best actor was awarded to James Cromwell for Still Mine and best actress to Samantha Morton for Decoding Annie Parker.

The Best Short Film Golden Space Needle Award was presented to [link...

The Canadian (photo: Thomas Meighan in The Canadian) Thomas Meighan is The Star of William Beaudine’s The Canadian (1926), which screened at the 2012 San Francisco Silent Film Festival. The credits feature his name far above everyone else’s. The basic story of The Canadian, scenario by Arthur Stringer from the 1913 W. Somerset Maugham play The Land of Promise, is similar in theme to Victor Sjöström’s later film The Wind (1928), but without the wind tempest and the murder. Instead, The Canadian concentrates on characterizations. After her rich aunt dies, stuffy, uptight Nora (Mona Palma) travels from London to a wheat farm owned by her brother (Wyndham Standing) in Calgary. She looks down with disdain at the simple, rustic life he lives in the country, with his wife, Gertie (Dale Fuller), and farm hands — especially the independent-minded Frank Taylor (Thomas Meighan). The Canadian starts out as an unpredictable and engaging tale.

Looking back at 2012 on what films moved and impressed us, it is clear that watching old films is a crucial part of making new films meaningful. Thus, the annual tradition of our end of year poll, which calls upon our writers to pick both a new and an old film: they were challenged to choose a new film they saw in 2012—in theaters or at a festival—and creatively pair it with an old film they also saw in 2012 to create a unique double feature.

All the contributors were asked to write a paragraph explaining their 2012 fantasy double feature. What's more, each writer was given the option to list more pairings, with or without explanation, as further imaginative film programming we'd be lucky to catch in that perfect world we know doesn't exist but can keep dreaming of every time we go to the movies.

How would you program some...

Cinema's best examples of the fine art of chucking a table

This week's Clip joint is by James Rawson, a TV and web producer specialising in film journalism and based in Doha. Follow him on Twitter at @jrawson.

Think you can do better than James? If you've got an idea for a future Clip joint, pop and email over to adam.boult@guardian.co.uk

"Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the money changers." So reads Matthew 21:12, offering proof, if proof were needed, that sometimes you just need to grab the edge of a table and send it hurtling across a synagogue. Even Jesus couldn't resist.

Two thousand years and the table-flip phenomenon now boasts its own emoticon (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻) as well as some truly bizarre Japanese video games. However, the most glorious...

The 55-year-old Hungarian maestro Béla Tarr has announced that The Turin Horse will be his final film. The statement is in keeping with the austerity, solemnity and high seriousness of his work. The movie begins with an unseen narrator telling us, over a black screen, that in 1889 Friedrich Nietzsche went suddenly insane after throwing his arms around an abused horse in Turin. "Mother, I'm stupid," he said and never recovered. The narrator's statement ends: "Of the horse we know nothing."

This is followed by a starkly monochrome film in six chapters of life on a remote, impoverished farm occupied by an elderly man (bearded like an Old Testament prophet and called Ohlsdorfer by the intermittent narrator), his pretty, unnamed daughter and their spavined horse, for whom, unlike the British Black Beauty, the American Seabiscuit and Bresson's Christ-like donkey Balthazar, they don't appear to have a name. The dialogue is sparse,...

Screenwriter Frederica Sagor Dead at 111: Wrote Movies for Norma Shearer (photo), Clara Bow, Louise Brooks Now, whether Frederica Sagor's Hollywood Babylon-like tales bear any resemblance to what actually happened at studio parties and private soirees, I can't tell. But on the professional side, one problem with the information found in The Shocking Miss Pilgrim is that studios invariably used numerous writers, whether male or female, in their projects. Usually, in those pre-Writers Guild days, only two or three contributors received final credit, not because of the uncredited writer's gender but in large part because the final product oftentimes had little — if anything — in common with the original source. While doing research for my Ramon Novarro biography, I went through various drafts, written by various hands, of his movies. A Certain Young Man, for instance, went through so many changes (including director, cast, and title), that the final film...

The Phantom Carriage (1921)

Directed by Victor Sjostrom

Written by Selma Lagerlof and Victor Sjostrom

Cinematography by Julius Jaenzon

For many, the tired face and defeated body of Victor Sjostrom became synonymous with mortality in Ingmar Bergman’s pivotal film, Wild Strawberries. Few know that he was not only Bergman’s mentor but one of cinema’s greatest filmmakers. For Bergman, there was no greater film than Sjostrom’s The Phantom Carriage and he would revisit it yearly, often on a summer day, losing himself in it’s angst and plays of light.

There are many similarities between Wild Strawberries and The Phantom Carriage. The most obvious being the central force of Sjostrom, who not only directs The Phantom Carriage but stars in it as well. Both are about men hardened by life, forced to confront and reflect upon their empty existence. Sjostrom plays a much younger man in his own film,...

Director Victor Sjöström (The Wind) may be most famous for playing an old man reflecting on his past in Ingmar Bergman’s 1957 staple Wild Strawberries, but his impact on cinema history—and notably on Bergman himself—goes much deeper, particularly behind the camera. In fact, there are stark parallels between Wild Strawberries and Sjöström’s powerful 1921 silent film The Phantom Carriage, which also features Sjöström the actor taking stock of a life that fills his character with something worse than regret. Both films are wrenching journies of the soul, taken by men ...

Now that our new house is settling, we wanted to bring back our weekly DVD & Blu-Ray Releases posts. We are calling this weekly post “Home Invasion”. If you plan on purchasing these items via Amazon, all you need to do is click on the buttons provided or on the artwork and not only do you get the same price you normally would with Amazon, but you help us out a little bit as well – which is all we ask because this list does take some time to put together.

All Descriptions are from Amazon.com unless otherwise noted. We have excluded the Netflix code on this particular post. This is due to all of the changes with Netflix and their DVD mailing program. If you want us to include the code in future Home Invasion posts, where you just click a button to add it to your queue, leave us a comment below.

If Audrey Hepburn was the last virgin goddess of American films, Lillian Gish was the first. Often referred to at the time as "The First Lady of the Silent Screen," she was indeed movies' first truly great actress. From her debut at age 19 in founding father D.W. Griffith's two-reel An Unseen Enemy (1912) in what I calculate as the initial year of film's golden age (plus 25 other Griffith films in less than 24 months), to her final starring masterpiece, at age 35, in Victor Sjostrom's The Wind (1928), Lillian Gish was the central player in many of the enduring treasures of cinema's earliest flowering, that essential cornerstone of the art in its purest form. She is the key figure in most of Griffith's major work, from The Birth of a Nation (1915) and Broken Blossoms (1919) to Way Down East (1920) and Orphans of the Storm (1922), not to mention such beautiful lesser-known gems as Hearts of the World...

If Audrey Hepburn was the last virgin goddess of American films, Lillian Gish was the first. Often referred to at the time as "The First Lady of the Silent Screen," she was indeed movies' first truly great actress. From her debut at age 19 in founding father D.W. Griffith's two-reel An Unseen Enemy (1912) in what I calculate as the initial year of film's golden age (plus 25 other Griffith films in less than 24 months), to her final starring masterpiece, at age 35, in Victor Sjostrom's The Wind (1928), Lillian Gish was the central player in many of the…...

From Lillian Gish to Monty Python. From Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney to Harrison Ford and Rutger Hauer. From Audie Murphy in the Civil War to Elvis Presley in concert. All that — and more — is what's in store at the Library of Congress' Packard Campus in Culpeper, Va, in May 2011. [Full Packard Campus May 2011 schedule.] Highlights include Glenn Ford trying to tame dangerous savages, among them Sidney Poitier and Vic Morrow, in The Blackboard Jungle (1955), Richard Brooks' well-intentioned and quite sensational look at an inner-city school; Harrison Ford dueling it out with Rutger Hauer in Ridley Scott's Blade Runner (1982), set in a futuristic Los Angeles where the drab Santa Ana Winds never blow; and Victor Sjöström's The Wind (1928), one of the most remarkable silent films ever made, starring Lillian Gish, Lars Hanson, and the Santa Ana Winds (or equally arid, asthma-inducing facsimile). Also notable are [...]...

Exhibition of super-glamorous photographs will show big-name actors in the years when film studios ruled their lives

Nearly 70 super-glamorous photographs harking back to the days when film stars radiated, glowered and sizzled are to go on show this summer at the National Portrait Gallery.

Called Glamour of the Gods, the show will examine how Hollywood stars were created between 1920 and 1960, a period when studios controlled every aspect of their actors' lives.

The pictures are from the London-based John Kobal Foundation and include portraits of Marlon Brando, Rock Hudson, Marlene Dietrich, Elizabeth Taylor and Marilyn Monroe.

The photographers include George Hurrell, Laszlo Willinger, Bob Coburn, Ruth Harriet Louise and one of the few Britons working for the studios, Davis Boulton.

There will also be previously unseen studio portraits of actors including Clark Gable, Joan Crawford and Carole Lombard – and film stills including Lillian Gish in The Wind, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers...

The annual Bird’s Eye View Film Festival was held in London from 8th March to 17th. This year saw a major theme exploring women’s role in gothic and horror cinema with live accompaniments to silent classics, a screening of Kathryn Bigelow’s Near Dark and a specially commissioned score and live performance by Grammy award-winner Imogen Heap to Germaine Dulac’s The Seashell and the Clergyman (1928).

Bloody Women: From Gothic To Horror wasn’t the only thing going down with screenings, workshops, seminars and talks on the role women play in the medium we all know and love. In an art form still ruled largely by men it’s nice to see a film festival celebrate the female perspective, and not only that, deliver some downright brilliant films.

Below is a report on a collection of films and events we attended this great year.

Victor Sjostrom’s 1928 melodrama,...

Given the recent furore over certain Sky Sports presenters being a bunch of sexist bastards, it seems a relevant time to celebrate the female contribution to cinema – which is still largely unappreciated with women directors still making up a small percentage of directors and other creatives. But they’re awesome and they’ve now got their own festival to show off their work.

We’ve been sent over the press release and festival line up. The Bird’s Eye View Film Festival takes place in London from March 8th – 17th. The programme includes new films, documentaries, retrospectives and panel discussions.

From the press release:

The hotly anticipated Birds Eye View Film Festival 2011 (Bev) programme has been announced by Rosamund Pike at a private launch event on 25 January. The Festival returns for its seventh annual celebration of women filmmakers from 8-17 March at BFI Southbank, the Ica the Southbank Centre, with...

As Al Jolson jazz-handed in the new age of talkies, Metropolis proved that silent films were still valid. John Patterson enjoys some quiet time

The silent cinema that died in 1927 on the introduction of sound with The Jazz Singer always reminds me of the sunken city of Atlantis. Each was glorious, sophisticated, inventive, and each had reached the apogee of its greatness – until everything was pulled under by the deluge and an entire culture, a highly developed civilisation coherent unto itself, was lost forever in a single night.

When I say the apogee of its greatness, the proof is in the names of the myriad masterpieces released just at the moment when silence stopped being golden: Fritz Lang's Metropolis, the most expensive movie yet made, and Gw Pabst's Pandora's Box, from Germany's gigantic Ufa Studios; Fw Murnau's Sunrise, considered by many the poetic peak of silent cinema; Victor Seastrom's The Wind,...