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Sometimes great movies and TV shows have the most unlikely sources of inspiration. Nick Park and Aardman Animations' masterpiece "Chicken Run" was based on John Sturges' classic Pow adventure "The Great Escape," while "Logan" director James Mangold pitched the film as "'Little Miss Sunshine" with Wolverine and Charles Xavier (via Empire). When it came time to screen episodes of his iconic and wildly influential HBO series "The Sopranos" at the Museum of Modern Art, creator David Chase paired it with an unlikely inspiration: the 1940 Laurel and Hardy classic "Saps at Sea."

You might think that "Goodfellas" or "Public Enemy" or "Carlito's Way" might have been a more appropriate pick, but Chase has a good explanation for his choice (via Vanity Fair):

"I really like comedy. There's always a choice, when you're writing: you can either go for the joke or you can go for the story, the important stuff.

Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds will release a greatest hits compilation, Back The Way We Came: Vol 1 (2011-2021), on June 11th. The album will include two new songs, including single “We’re On Our Way Now,” which dropped today.

“10 years of Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds?? Blimey!” Gallagher wrote on Twitter. “Just think of all the things I Could have done in that time!!”

“10 years of Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds?? Blimey! … Just think of all the things I Could have done in that time!!” (Ng)

‘Back...

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Pop the champagne and take a shot anytime someone thanks their agent in an acceptance speech!

Welcome to drinking at the Oscars. Here, Variety gives you a look at what you’ll find behind the bar at the 93rd Academy Awards and how you can enjoy the same drink as your favorite stars while watching the big show from the comfort of your own home.

Champagne

For the seventh year, Piper-Heidsieck is the official bubbly of the Academy Awards. The French champagne house’s history with Hollywood dates back to 1933 when a bottle of Piper appeared in Laurel and Hardy’s debut film “Sons of the Desert” in 1933. This year, the stars will...

Despite the proliferation of streaming services, it’s becoming increasingly clear that any cinephile only needs subscriptions to a few to survive. Among the top of our list are The Criterion Channel and Mubi and now they’ve each unveiled their stellar April line-ups.

Over at The Criterion Channel, highlights include spotlights on Ennio Morricone, the Marx Brothers, Isabel Sandoval, and Ramin Bahrani, plus Luchino Visconti’s The Leopard, Frank Borzage’s Moonrise, the brand-new restoration of Joyce Chopra’s Smooth Talk, and one of last year’s best films, David Osit’s Mayor.

At Mubi (where we’re offering a 30-day trial), they’ll have the exclusive streaming premiere of two of the finest festival films from last year’s circuit, Cristi Puiu’s Malmkrog and Nobuhiko Obayashi’s Labyrinth of Cinema, plus Philippe Garrel’s latest The Salt of Tears, along with films from Terry Gilliam, George A. Romero,...

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“A Gorgeous Nice Mess”

By Raymond Benson and Doug Gerbino

Nobody wants the legacy of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy to disappear. Young people may have heard of the comic duo, but few have seen them these days. This is understandably disturbing to cinephiles or those of us of an older generation who have admired since childhood the genius on display when the pair performed in front of the camera. While Rhi Entertainment issued a fabulous DVD set in 2011 (10 disks in the U.S.) that contained most of Laurel and Hardy’s output for Hal Roach after sound kicked in, a new Blu-ray treasure chest has just been released by MVDvisual that contains stunning restorations in high definition of a respectable number of titles.

Laurel and Hardy—The Definitive Restorations could be a holy grail for members of Sons of the Desert, the...

” Well, here’s another nice mess you’ve gotten me into.”

The comedy films of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy have been beloved around the world since they were first released between 1927 and 1940. So beloved that many of the available copies are blurred dupes printed from worn-out negatives. Now, the best of their short comedies and two of their finest features have been fully restored. They look and sound as spectacular as when they were first released..

Features

* New! 2K and 4K transfers from the finest original 35mm materials in the world.

* World Premieres! Laurel and Hardy’s legendary 1927 silent “pie fight” film The Battle Of The Century makes its video debut after being “lost” for 90 years! The only reel of L&h bloopers and out-takes, That’S That!

* Classic short comedies Berth Marks, Brats, Hog Wild, Come Clean, One Good Turn, Helpmates, The Music Box (the legendary Academy Award...

The closing gala of this year's Hippodrome Silent Film Festival, held in in Scotland's oldest purpose-built cinema in the sleepy town of Bo'ness, was a real highlight. Hindle Wakes (1927) is not only a smart adaptation of a celebrated 1910 stage play (from the "Manchester school" of socially committed Northern realism that also gave us the source for David Lean's Hobson's Choice), it's proof positive that there was more to British silent cinema than Hitchcock—though there are strong connections, since the movie features character actress Marie Ault, the landlady from The Lodger, John Stuart, the staunch detective from Number 17, and was photographed in part by Jack Cox, Hitchcock's regular cinematographer at this time. The story is set among the cotton mills of Lancashire in what was the U.K.'s industrial heartland. The young mill workers depart for their annual week's holiday in Blackpool, a sort of combination of...

Oliver Hardy would’ve celebrated his 127th birthday on January 18, 2019. The actor became a Hollywood legend after pairing up with Stan Laurel to form the comedic duo Laurel and Hardy. Together, the pair produced 79 shorts and 27 features. Yet how many of those titles are classics? In honor of his birthday, let’s take a look back at 10 of Laurel and Hardy’s best feature films, ranked worst to best.

SEEJohn C. Reilly Interview: ‘Stan and Ollie’

Laurel and Hardy were already established comedians in their own right before they teamed up for a series of shorts produced by Hal Roach (of “The Little Rascals” fame). One of their most famous, “The Music Box” (1934), won the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short (Comedy).

Their first official foray into features was a cameo appearance in “The Hollywood Revue of 1929” (1929), a musical variety meant to introduce MGM’s silent movie stars to sound.

During the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Patrick Stewart – who played the show's dramatically serious, almost Shakespearean Captain Jean-Luc Picard – said something he has always regretted. A veteran of serious theater, the actor projected a grave sobriety off-camera as well as on, so when fellow cast member Denise Crosby attempted to crack his exterior, saying, "Come on, Patrick, we've got to have fun sometimes," he blew up. "'We're not here to have fun,' that was my line," the actor says. "I yelled it. What an asshole.

The Sons of the Desert, the international organization founded to celebrate the works of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, will hold a 50th anniversary banquet at the famed Lambs Club in New York City on August 8. The Sons of the Desert (named after one of Laurel and Hardy's classic feature film comedies) was founded in 1965 with the blessing of Stan Laurel shortly before his death. Since then the organization's local chapters (known as  "tents" ) meet regularly in various locations around the globe. This 50th anniversary celebration is not only open to members of the Sons of the Desert but to the general public as well. Guests will include legendary horror show host John Zacherle ("The Cool Ghoul"), famed comedic actor Larry Storch as well as Jerry Tucker, the last surviving member of the Our Gang comedies. The emcee will be Cinema Retro's own Doug Gerbino, a lifelong historian of Laurel and Hardy.

The founding “tent” of the international Laurel and Hardy organization Sons of the Desert is about to celebrate its 50th anniversary with a banquet in New York City on August 8th—but only if enough people sign up to attend. That’s the message that Grand Sheik Jack Roth has asked me to spread. You can learn more at www.sonsofthedesertnyc.org. I’m sorry I can’t travel back East that weekend, but the mere thought of this event makes me nostalgic, as I did attend the 2nd banquet forty-nine years ago; it was one of the greatest nights of my life. I still have some snapshots, overflashed with my parents’ Brownie camera, but they do provide some memories of having met Stan Laurel’s...

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The National Film Registry has added 25 more films that will be preserved in the Library of Congress. To be included in the registry the film needs to be “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.” They have to be at least ten years old and are chosen from a list of films nominated by the public.

There's some great films that have been added this year. We've got the original 3:10 to Yuma, The Matrix, A Christmas Story, A League of Their Own, Breakfast at Tiffany's, Dirty Harry, Uncle Tom's Cabin, and several more.

Check out the full list of films that were added this year below, and you can head over to the Registry website to nominate films that you think should be added in 2013!

3:10 to Yuma (1957)

Considered to be one of the best westerns of the 1950s, “3:10 to Yuma” has gained in stature since its original release as...

We’ve lost something close to 3/4 of black and white films. It’s easy to imagine that we have all of them at our fingertips, and that they’ll be there forever, but that’s simply not the reality, and it’s a good reminder of what can happen if we’re not careful. That’s part of why the work of the National Film Registry is so vital. They ensure that a large number of time-tested films survive to test even more time. This year, as usual, they’ve selected 25 flicks to preserve including The Matrix, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Dirty Harry, and A Christmas Story (which will also be preserved 24-hours a day as long as TBS still exists). The Library of Congress has also saved Delmer Daves’ 3:10 to Yuma (1957); Otto Preminger’s Anatomy of a Murder; George Cukor’s Born Yesterday; Penny Marshall’s A League of Their Own; Richard Linklater’s Slacker...

A movie collectible doesn’t have to be old to appeal to me: it simply has to evoke happy thoughts of a film I care about. I never dreamed anyone would reproduce the fezzes worn by Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy in their classic 1933 comedy Sons of the Desert…but that’s just what Fez-o-Rama has done, along with a model that bears the symbol of Freedonia, the mythical kingdom depicted in the Marx Brothers comedy gem Duck Soup, also from 1933. (I don’t think anyone actually wears such a hat in the film, to the best of my recollection, but let’s not split hairs—pun intended. The fez looks great and so does the Freedonia emblem.) Apparently, the folks at...

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Part of a series by David Cairns on forgotten pre-Code films.

"Crime must not pay" is one of the most debilitating rules the Hays Code imposed on Hollywood. It's relatively easy for a filmmaker to work around crazy bans on words ("pregnant"), body parts (gone, all those extreme-longshot buttocks) or gestures (Frank McHugh raises a finger in Parachute Jumper), but when a philosophical ideal is given the weight of narrative law, cinema is forced back into the nursery. The filmmakers operating under this draconian blue pencil developed devious skills to bypass rulings and imply rather than say the unsayable, and it arguably helped their craft, but at the same time, certain kinds of stories just become impossible to tell honestly.

And certain kinds of fun were ruled out too, like much of what happens in Sing and Like It, directed by the lightly likable William A. Seiter, who clocked up well over a hundred films,...

Comedy is very subjective, so this list may not represent your favorite comedic moments in cinema. Time Out London has compiled their list of the 100 Best Comedies Of All Time, and did it in a unique manner. 200 people that work in, with, or around comedy were surveyed to find out their top ten comedies. Then those lists were averaged to get the top 100.

The cool thing about the list is that the mag also included thet top ten of each person surveyed, including Edgar Wright, Dan Aykroyd and The Office creator, Steven Merchant. Below is the top 100 and a few other top ten lists. To check out all the lists visit Time Out London.

100. Sister Act (1992)

99. Carry on Screaming (1966)

98. Brazil (1985)

97. Swingers (1996)

96. BASEketball (1998)

95. The Pink Panther Strikes Again (1976)

94. Midnight Run (1988)

93. Arsenic and Old Lace (1944)

92. Nuts in May (1976)

91. Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story (2004)

90. Mean Girls (2004)

89. The Great Dictator (1940)

88. Arthur (1981)

87. A Fish Called Wanda...

From time to time, major organizations such as the AFI give us lists of the best movies of all time. There's some kind of grand countdown from 100 to 1 and then we debate for a few days over how low this one was ranked or why was another ranked too high. And most of the time, we rarely get a glimpse behind the process. Time Out London has just released their list of the 100 Best Comedies Of All Time but have done it in a fun and uniquely transparent way. They surveyed over 200 people who work in, with, or around comedy and asked them for their top tens. Then they averaged all those lists together to come up with the top 100. The best part, though, is that all the lists are public. So instead of just listing the 100 best comedies of all time, we can also find out which ten comedies...

Originally published in the Guardian on 15 August 1977

Twelve years after his death, Stan Laurel has somehow managed to get the little Cumbria town of Ulverston into another fine mess. Stanley Arthur Jefferson didn't know what he was letting the place in for when he was born there in 1890. The comedian who found fame as the skinny, snivelling half of Laurel and Hardy was brought up by his maternal grandmother at 3 Argyll Street for the first six years of his life.

And last week Ulverston decided to put on a Grand Stan Laurel Exhibition. Ulverston's Most Famous Son, trumpeted the hoardings – until somebody pointed out that Councillor So-and-so, of fragrant memory, who introduced Belisha beacons to the town in 1952, or perhaps did something else even worthier, was more relevant to Ulverston than a dead film comic who disappeared off to America and, moreover, was married several times and was reputed to drink.

Two days ago, David Phelps and I had the privilege to sit down and talk to Dave Kehr, who we consider to be one of America's best film critics.  Luckily for us all, Kehr is still writing criticism; he currently writes regularly for the New York Times and casually hosts a small and impassioned film discussion community on his website, davekehr.com.  He is now publishing a wonderful book of his criticism from the 1970s and 1980s in a collection called "When Movies Mattered: Reviews from a Transformative Decade", which includes terrific pieces on City of Pirates, Raoul Walsh (re-printed here), Risky Business, Carl Th. Dreyer, When a Woman Ascends the Stairs, and many more.  It is essential reading: crisp, clear prose that leads the reader through a film or a filmmaker's work, characterizing and encapsulating, providing evidence simply, accurately, and expressively.  On the occasion of the book's publication, the...

In honor of the 83rd Academy Awards, Extra" brings you AFI's 100 Best Movie Quotes of all time! From "The Wizard of Oz" to "Taxi Driver," see if your favorites made the list.

AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie QuotesGone with the Wind (1939)

"Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn." — Clark Gable as Rhett Butler to Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O'Hara

The Godfather (1972)

"I'm going to make him an offer he can't refuse." — Marlon Brando as Don Corleone...

Wot, no Happiness?! And where's Preston Sturges? Have your say on our critics' list of the 25 greatest comedy films of all time

• Datablog: download the full list

Preston Sturges's Sullivan's Travels spun the tale a successful comedy director who wants to make big, serious pictures about the issues that matter. With this in mind, he sets out to "know trouble" first-hand, venturing off on a Depression-era odyssey that takes him from hobo to criminal. Alongside his fellow convicts, our hero is finally ushered into a prison screening of the Playful Pluto cartoon and belatedly understands why comedy matters, and why there are few professions more worthwhile than making people laugh.

This is an argument that was picked up by Woody Allen in Hannah and Her Sisters (in which our hero is saved from an existential crisis after visiting a Marx brothers movie) and again by Peter Bradshaw in his...

Cary Grant, Irene Dunne, Alida Valli, Angela Lansbury, The Man Who Laughs: Packard Campus Oct. 2010 Packard Campus schedule and film synopses (via press release): Friday, October 1 (7:30 p.m.) BBC Sunday Night Play: Colombe (BBC-tv, 1960) Library of Congress Discovers Lost British TV Treasures Based on the original Broadway production of the play "Mademoiselle Colombe" by Jean Anouilh. Directed by Naomi Capon. With Sean Connery & Dorothy Tutin.  Black & White, 102 min.   Saturday, October 2 (7:30 p.m.) Sons Of The Desert (Hal Roach-MGM, 1933) When Stan and Ollie trick their wives into thinking that they are taking a medicinal cruise while they're actually going to a convention, the wives find out the truth the hard way. Comedy.  Directed by William A. Seiter. With Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy and Charley Chase.  Black & White, 68 min.   Also on the program: Maids ala Mode (Hal Roach, 1933) starring Zasu Pitts [...]...

 

If you're anywhere near the Redford Theatre in Detroit this weekend, August 27-28, don't miss the big Laurel and Hardy film festival. Showing on the big screen: Sons of the Desert, Liberty, Second 100 Years, Two Tars and Soup to Nuts. On Friday night, the Dancing Cuckoos "tent" of the Laurel and Hardy appreciation society, The Sons of the Desert, will be staging a pie fight in the parking lot! Bring plenty of paper towels...Click here for details (Click here for info on joining The Sons of the Desert)...

"Extra" brings you AFI's 100 Best Movie Quotes of all time! From "The Wizard of Oz" to "Taxi Driver," see if your favorites made the list!

AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie QuotesGone with the Wind (1939)

"Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn." --Said by Clark Gable as Rhett Butler to Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O'Hara.

The Godfather (1972)

"I'm going to make him an offer he can't refuse." --Marlon Brando as Don Corleone.

On the Waterfront (1954)

"You don't understand!

"Extra" brings you AFI's 100 Best Movie Quotes of all time! From "The Wizard of Oz" to "Taxi Driver," see if your favorites made the list!

AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie QuotesGone with the Wind (1939)

“Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.” —Said by Clark Gable as Rhett Butler to Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O’Hara.

The Godfather (1972)

“I’m going to make him an offer he can’t refuse.” —Marlon Brando as Don Corleone.

On the Waterfront (1954)

“You don’t understand!