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The following story contains spoilers from Season 2 of The Diplomat — proceed at your own peril.

What The Diplomat‘s second season lacked in volume (just six episodes?) it more than made up for in killer cliffhanger twists. Actually, it was just one twist — but it packed a helluva punch.

More from TVLineOuter Banks Teens' Treasure Hunt Takes Them to Morocco in Part 2 Trailer (Wait, Why Is Rafe Coming Along?!)TVLine Items: Jason Bateman Replaces Pedro Pascal in HBO Series, Jamie Foxx Special Sets Netflix Date and MoreThe Diplomat Season 2: The Story Behind That 'Devastating' Twist

In the closing moments of the finale,...

HBO has given a series order to Dtf St. Louis, a seven-episode dark comedy “about a love triangle between three adults experiencing middle-age malaise, that leads to one of them ending up dead,” according to the cabler’s official logline.

Frazer Harrison/Getty Images

David Harbour and Jason Bateman — the latter of whom is replacing Pedro Pascal, who was originally on board when the project was first reported in 2022 — will star in and executive-produce the limited series. Writer, director and showrunner Steven Conrad will also executive-produce. Additional EPs include Jason Blumenthal, Steve Tisch, Molly Allen, Bruce Terris, Michael Costigan, Kristina Wenson and James Lasdun.

Is The Real Housewives: Ultimate Girls Trip Season 5 ever going to air? Will a new season ever happen?

In early 2023, we reported that Brandi Glanville was no longer filming Ultimate Girls Trip. After an alleged incident with Caroline Manzo, she’d departed from Morocco. So, too, had Caroline.

What has followed has been downright ugly. Caroline Manzo filed a lawsuit. The cast of Ugt has seemingly not been backing her account of events.

It really looks like NBCUniversal will never give us this season The Real Housewives Ultimate Girls Trip. Oh, Season 5 is likely in some form … but not with the Morocco cast.

The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills guest star Brandi Glanville in an episode from 2020. (Image Credit: Bravo) What’s going on with ‘The Real Housewives Ultimate Girls Trip’ Season 5?

According to an early 2024 The Daily Beast, NBCUniversal insiders shared that Peacock was still on the fence about...

Gary Cooper was a two-time Oscar winner who starred in dozens of movies before his death in 1961, but how many of those titles remain classics? Let’s take a look back at 15 of his greatest films, ranked worst to best.

Born in 1901, Cooper got his start in silent movies, most notably the aerial drama “Wings” (1927), which won the very first Academy Award as Best Picture. He would collect his own statuette as Best Actor for another WWI film: the biographical drama “Sergeant York” (1941). Directed by Howard Hawks, it helped create Cooper’s screen persona of an ordinary man capable of extraordinary courage in the face of adversity.

He won a second Best Actor trophy for playing a similar character in Fred Zinnemann‘s western “High Noon” (1952), which cast him as a retired marshal who must stand up to a gang of killers arriving on the noon train. Cooper earned additional nominations for similarly idealistic,...

This year’s Palm Springs Film Festival saw not one but two international feature panel discussions hosted by The Hollywood Reporter. The first, moderated by THR’s own Kevin Cassidy, highlighted some of the most exciting non-English-language films of the year.

Matteo Garrone’s Io Capitano is Italy’s submission for the Oscar this year and follows two boys on a fairytale-like adventure across continents. The Monk and the Gun, Bhutan’s official selection, is directed by Pawo Choyning Dorji and tells the story of an American treasure hunter who crosses paths with a monk in the Bhutanese mountains. Morocco’s The Mother of All Lies, from Asmae El Moudir, sees the director imaginatively exploring her own family history in tandem with the history of her nation via clay figurines standing in for the real people in her life, who also appear onscreen.

J.A. Bayona helms Society of the Snow,...

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences today announced shortlists in 10 categories for the 96th Academy Awards. 15 films from each of the categories below were shortlisted. There were no surprises when it came to most of the big film Oscar nominations like ‘Oppenheimer’, ‘Barbie’, ‘Poor Things’ and ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’. India’s Oscar entry ‘2018: Everyone is a Hero’ did not make the cut in a strong International feature film lineup. There were some surprises as well with Chilean film ‘The Settlers’, Argentinian film ‘The Delinquents’ and Turkish film ‘About Dry Grasses’ being snubbed.

Documentary Feature Film

“American Symphony”

“Apolonia, Apolonia”

“Beyond Utopia”

“Bobi Wine: The People’s President”

“Desperate Souls, Dark City and the Legend of Midnight Cowboy”

“The Eternal Memory”

“Four Daughters”

“Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project”

“In the Rearview”

“Stamped from the Beginning”

“Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie”

“A Still Small Voice...

Shortlists announced in 10 categories for 96th Academy Awards.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced shortlists in 10 categories for the 96th Academy Awards, with The Taste Of Things (France), The Zone Of Interest (UK), Fallen Leaves (Finland), The Mother Of All Lies (Morocco), and Totem (Mexico) among those to make the cut in the international feature film category.

Shortlists were also announced for documentary feature, documentary short film, makeup and hairstyling, music (original score), music (original song), animated short film, live action short film, sound and visual effects.

More to follow…

Documentary Feature Film

Fifteen films will...

Wim Wenders' Perfect Days has made the 96th Academy Awards Oscar Best International Feature Film shortlist Photo: Anne Katrin Titze

From Tunisia, Four Daughters (Les Filles d'Olfa), Kaouther Ben Hania director; United Kingdom, The Zone Of Interest, Jonathan Glazer director; Ukraine, 20 Days In Mariupol, Mstyslav Chernov director; Italy, Io Capitano, Matteo Garrone director; Japan, Perfect Days, Wim Wenders director; France, The Taste Of Things, Trần Anh Hùng director; Armenia, Amerikatsi, Michael A Goorjian, director; Germany, The Teachers’ Lounge, llker Çatak, director; Finland, Fallen Leaves, Aki Kaurismäki director; Spain, The Delinquents, Rodrigo Moreno director; Mexico, Tótem, Lila Avilés, director; Denmark, The Promised Land, Nikolaj Arcel, director; Morocco, The Mother of All Lies, Asmae El Moudir, director; Spain, Society Of The Snow, Ja Bayona, director; Iceland, Godland, Hlynur Pálmason; and Bhutan, The Monk And The Gun, Pawo Choyning Dorji director are the 15 films selected for the International Feature Film shortlist.

Kaouther...

Shortlist of 15 films to be announced December 21, nominations out on January 23, 2024.

The Academy has announced eligible features in the categories of international feature film, animation, and documentary for the 96th Academy Awards on March 10, 2024.

The shortlist of 15 films will be announced on December 21, and the nominations announcement is January 23, 2024.

International

Eighty-eight countries or regions have submitted films eligible for consideration in the international feature film category. An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (more than 40 minutes long) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track. Namibia is a first-time entrant.

Academy members...

Andy Cohen says there are no plans to pull the fifth season of “The Real Housewives: Ultimate Girls Trip,” despite reports suggesting the show — which was filmed in Morocco — would be shelved indefinitely.

“Morocco” was originally slated to be the fourth season of “Ultimate Girls Trip,” and a St. Bart’s trip, filmed after Morocco and titled “Rhony Legacy,” was supposed to be the fifth season.

But the shows have flipped spots on the release calendar, with “Rhony Legacy” coming out on Peacock in December and “Morocco” slated for 2024.

“There was a weird thing online that said it’s not airing,” Cohen said during the “Ask Andy” panel at BravoCon on Friday.

“We had two [shows] in the can and basically just decided to push ‘Rhony Legacy’ up because there was so much interest, and that’s the only thing that happened. ‘Rhony Legacy’ jumped that spot in line.”

Afterwards, Cohen told TheWrap,...

Gary Cooper, known for his Western films, also had a successful career in other genres, including romance, war, comedy, and adventure. Despite being primarily associated with Westerns, Cooper's best movies include a variety of genres, with Ball of Fire and Mr. Deeds Goes to Town being standout films. Cooper's performance as Lou Gehrig in The Pride of the Yankees showcases his ability to embody courage and humility, making it his best non-Western role.

Gary Cooper starred in a lot of Westerns, yet the two-time Oscar-winning actor's best movies also include a number of classics from other genres. Gary Cooper played many great hero characters in film, but he's probably best known for his role as the brave and noble Marshal Wil Kane in the 1952 Western High Noon. Decades earlier, he rose to fame in silent Westerns before cementing his status as a Hollywood star in his sound film debut, The Virginian.

Every year, the Cannes Film Festival program yields its riches. And every year, documentaries are kept to the selection sidebars, with the exception of just three over the years, two of which won the Palme d’Or: “The Silent World,” co-directed by Jacques Cousteau and Louis Malle in 1956, and Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11” in 2004.

This year, out of 16 documentaries in the Official Selection, two are in the Competition, the first time nonfiction titles have joined that storied roster since Moore’s inclusion.

This is progress, but a quick glance at the latest Palme d’Or predictions reveals that Wang Bing’s “Youth” (marking the first 3.5-hours of an eventual 10-hour triptych) and “Olfa’s Daughters” from Kaouther Ben Hania are not high on the list of likely winners. Both are recognized by critics as boundary-pushing examples of the form but seem unlikely to become consensus award picks from Ruben Östlund’s eclectic Competition jury.

NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.

Film at Lincoln Center

Béla Tarr’s Werckmeister Harmonies begins showing in a long-overdue restoration.

Roxy Cinema

A new 35mm print of Philippe Garrel’s Nico-scored The Inner Scar screens this weekend, as does a print of Cocteau’s Beauty and the Beast; The Heartbreak Kid and 4K restoration of Dogville play, while “City Dudes” returns on Saturday.

Museum of the Moving Image

A 35mm print of Blow Out leads the pack on “See It Big: Summer Movies,” while Morocco and The Fly play in a queer cinema series.

Anthology Film Archives

An Udo Kier retrospective continues; Dreyer plays in Essential Cinema.

IFC Center

The David Lynch retrospective continues; Party Girl plays in new 4K restorations, while A Clockwork Orange, They Live, and Aliens have late showings; João Pedro Rodrigues’ O Fantasma plays on Saturday.

Film Forum

A retrospective on New York movies is underway,...

There are few bad days that can’t be remedied by watching an episode of Would I Lie To You?

This award-winning BBC panel show has been making us laugh for over 15 years thanks to hilarious repeat performances from the likes of Bob Mortimer and Rhod Gilbert, and the top-tier chemistry between team captains Lee Mack and David Mitchell and host Rob Brydon.

It’s created so many legendary funny moments that picking a favourite is almost impossible, but here are the Would I Lie To You? stories that have gone down in TV history:

16. Henning Wehn Goes Missing in Morocco

Henning Wehn appears to have gone to the Kevin Bridges School of Storytelling (more on that later) – his yarns have a similarly scatter-brained approach that are pleasingly impossible to predict. Here he claims Interpol listed him as a missing person when he went on a bike ride in Spain...

It took Cameron Crowe and Tom Kitt a single word to hit off their friendship: “Yeah.” It was January 2018, and the filmmaker and the Broadway composer were co-writing songs for the musical adaptation of Crowe’s classic 2000 movie Almost Famous. “The conversation was like, ‘What are the great ‘yeahs’ in rock?'” Crowe recalls. “It just made me go home on a cloud every day after we would collaborate.”

Crowe cited some significant “yeah” moments from his heroes Tom Petty and Neil Young, while Kitt referenced “I Am the One,...

Armenia’s submission to the Oscars, animated feature “Aurora’s Sunrise,” took home the top Jury Award for best documentary at the MiradasDoc Festival, Spain’s foremost documentary film festival, which wrapped its 16th edition on Feb 4.

The festival closed on a strong note, reaffirming its relevance where interest in and demand for documentaries have only grown in strength, thanks largely to wider exposure and distribution on streamers.

Directed by Inna Sahakyan, the Armenian-German-Lithuanian co-production tells the true harrowing tale of Aurora, a survivor of the 1915 Armenian genocide who lost her family, fled slavery and later endured the grinding publicity machine of Hollywood. Doc had its world premiere at Annecy 2022.

Announcing their choice, the jury made up of Hicham Falah, Jane Mote and Ricardo Acosta, described “Aurora’s Sunrise” as “a convincing story elegantly told, through archives, animation and fiction, about a little-known genocide that sheds light and awareness on today’s political tensions and challenges.

Caroline Manzo of The Real Housewives of New Jersey has never been a woman to be messed with, and it seems that Brandi Glanville found that out quickly after picking on the Og. Caroline was the straight shooter from the Garden State who often stood up to Teresa Giudice. Fans were thrilled to hear Caroline had agreed to come back to star on Rhugt, but she didn't stick around long.

Bravo viewers first met Caroline during Rhonj season 1, as she starred alongside Dina Manzo, Teresa Giudice, Danielle Staub, and Jacqueline Laurita. Viewers quickly figured out that Caroline stood by her morals, and that her family was everything to her. Viewers enjoyed watching the Italian-American family on the small screen, as Caroline often bought a sense of trust and honesty to the show. Ultimately, Caroline chose to leave the Rhonj franchise after one too many personality clashes started to take a toll on her,...

Penny Lane’s Moroccan dream gets the full song treatment in the latest offering from the upcoming Almost Famous musical.

The tender tune is led by Solea Pfeiffer, who plays Penny in the upcoming adaptation, with a few contribution from Casey Likes, who plays William Miller. Over acoustic guitar and dreamy piano, Pfeiffer shares her desire to leave everything behind and venture to Morocco with William by her side: “Why be stuck when there’s motion/Gotta move before it’s too late/So fly yourself cross the ocean/And turn your good into great,...

Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort starred together in the 2014 drama “The Fault in Our Stars”, playing teenage cancer patients who meet each other at a support group and wind up falling in love.

Nearly a decade later, the actors reunited to practice some dance moves, with Elgort sharing a photo on Instagram in which he’s hoisting her in the air, recreating the iconic scene from “Dirty Dancing” in which Johnny (Patrick Swayze) lifts Baby (Jennifer Grey) in the same manner.

Read More: Shailene Woodley Injures Ankle After Suffering A Fall In Morocco

Judging by Elgort’s caption, the two reconnected somewhere in Italy.

“Clean dancing w Shai,” he wrote in the caption, along with an emoji of an Italian flag.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Ansel Elgort (@ansel)

As graceful as the pic appears, Woodley revealed the truth in a series of videos she posted to her Instagram Story.

Ellen DeGeneres is celebrating her wife Portia de Rossi on their 14th wedding anniversary.

DeGeneres, 64, posted a video on Instagram on Tuesday, August 16, showing a highlight reel of some heartwarming and silly moments the couple have shared over the years.

Titled “Best of Portia and Ellen”, the video comprises many clips of DeGeneres and de Rossi, 49, on DeGeneres’s daytime talk show “Ellen”.

Read More: Ellen DeGeneres Vacations In Morocco With Wife Portia De Rossi After Ending Talk Show

DeGeneres included segments in which the pair competed against each other in a hard-to-describe game involving a bungee cord and apples, discussed their height difference, and played a game in which de Rossi named which candy best described their love life.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Ellen DeGeneres (@theellenshow)

“It’s good to be loved. It’s profound to be understood,” the former daytime host captioned the post.

Andrew Ondrejcak's The Actress is showing exclusively on Mubi starting June 8, 2022 in the series Brief Encounters, as well as in the series Pride Unprejudiced: LGBTQ+ Cinema.The Actress confronts old ideals of art and beauty, reimagining some of Hollywood’s most cherished performances. To do this, I recreated six iconic scenes from Hollywood films and made a simple but radical change: I replaced the leading lady with my own muse, Isabel Sandoval. The earliest film we recreated is Morocco (1930), the seminal film during which Marlene Dietrich dressed in a men’s tuxedo and kissed a woman (!). The most recent film we included is The Tree of Life (2011) because Isabel and I wanted her to play a mother, and Terrence Malick’s ethereal idealization of Jessica Chastain was our starting point. I particularly liked shooting the fur-lined spaceship set from Barbarella (1968) because I was able to offer Isabel (channeling Jane Fonda...

EFM slate features four new sales acquisitions including Hicham Ayouch’s satirical comedy Abdelinho.

France-based, Brazilian-born sales executive Florencia Gil has joined Paris-based company Urban Distribution International (Udi) in the role of international sales and marketing executive.

She will handle key territories alongside head of sales Louise Ronzet and also look after marketing. She replaces Jennyfer Gautier who has moved to Luxbox.

Gil was previously head of sales and marketing at Indie Sales for three year years, having begun her international sales career at Loco Films.

Originally from Brazil, where she built an early career in theatre as a director and producer,...

If you wanted to name a winner from the Oscar international film shortlist right now, it would be the Cannes Film Festival. Nine of the 15 titles that made the cut came from the fest, even though the Palme d’Or winner, France’s submission “Titane,” did not. But then only those who were not paying attention to past trends in stage one voting assumed that it would be included.

Although a record 93 countries put forward an entry, only 15 are moving on. The ones selected for the shortlist come from almost every continent, although Africa, despite some exciting entries such as Somalia’s “The Gravedigger’s Wife,” Chad’s “Lingui: The Sacred Bonds” and Morocco’s “Casablanca Beats,” was ignored (all three titles premiered at Cannes).

Cannes players that are in the mix include Iran’s “A Hero,” helmed by previous Oscar-winner Asghar Farhadi; Norway’s “The Worst Person in the World...

After unveiling the discs that will be arriving in April, including Bong Joon Ho’s Memories of Murder, Olivier Assayas’ Irma Vep, and more, Criterion has now announced what will be coming to their streaming channel next month.

Highlights include retrospectives dedicated to Guy Maddin, Ruby Dee, Lana Turner, and Gordon Parks, plus selections from Marlene Dietrich & Josef von Sternberg’s stellar box set. They will also present the exclusive streaming premieres of Bill Duke’s The Killing Floor, William Greaves’s Nationtime, Kevin Jerome Everson’s Park Lanes, and more.

Jim Jarmusch’s Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, which recently arrived on the collection, will be landing on the channel as well, along with a special “Lovers on the Run” series including film noir (They Live by Night) to New Hollywood (Badlands) to the French New Wave (Pierrot le fou) to Blaxploitation (Thomasine & Bushrod) and beyond. Also...

How do you create original music for a stage show about the love of music? It’s a tall order for even the most seasoned theater producer, never mind a first-timer. But Cameron Crowe, as we’ve come to know, is nothing if not courageous. From his earliest magazine work in the 1970s to the era-defining script for “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” to documentaries on Pearl Jam and David Crosby and, yes, his 2000 film “Almost Famous,” Crowe has done a better job of articulating the sensation of sound, lyric and melody than most of his successors in rock criticism — defying the old adage, “writing about music is like dancing about architecture.”

But Broadway is new terrain for Crowe, and while plenty of pop culture’s greatest hits have been turned into jukebox musicals, “Almost Famous” — which opened Friday at the Old Globe Theater in San Diego, following two weeks...

Gary Cooper would’ve celebrated his 118th birthday on May 7, 2019. The two-time Oscar winner starred in dozens of movies before his death in 1961, but how many of those titles remain classics? In honor of his birthday, let’s take a look back at 15 of his greatest films, ranked worst to best.

Born in 1901, Cooper got his start in silent movies, most notably the aerial drama “Wings” (1927), which won the very first Academy Award as Best Picture. He would collect his own statuette as Best Actor for another Wwi film: the biographical drama “Sergeant York” (1941). Directed by Howard Hawks, it helped create Cooper’s screen persona of an ordinary man capable of extraordinary courage in the face of adversity.

SEEOscar Best Actor Gallery: Every Winner in Academy Award History

He won a second Best Actor trophy for playing a similar character in Fred Zinnemann‘s western “High Noon” (1952), which cast him...

Madrid — Dropped by sales agent Beta Film on Thursday, here is the first ever trailer for “El Embarcadero” (The Pier), the first series by Alex Pina, creator of “Money Heist” (La Casa de Papel) after that series became a worldwide phenomenon.

Pina and fellow “Money Heist” and “The Pier” creator Esther Martínez will be joined on stage at Mipcom on Tuesday Oct. 16 to present “Money Heist” by Spanish TV stars Álvaro Morte, the Professor in “Money Heist,” Verónica Sánchez (“Morocco”) and Irene Arcos, co-star of Pina and Martínez’s break-through series “Vis a Vis.”

A Movistar + original series, produced in association with Atresmedia Studios and Pina’s Vancouver Media, “The Pier,” described as a sensual romantic thriller, promises to be one highlight of this year’s Cannes Mipcom trade fair as many in the industry look to the likes of Pina to suggest where the international TV industry is going.

Moroccan villagers doing battle with a rapacious mining company, armed only with poems and songs. Four aging Sudanese filmmakers looking to inspire a love of cinema in their countrymen. A celebrated South African poet living out his final days on a mental journey into his own past after being diagnosed with terminal cancer.

Their stories of courage, determination and hope are among this year’s selections for Final Cut in Venice, the Venice Production Bridge workshop providing post-production support and networking opportunities to films from Africa and the Arab world.

Taking place from Sep. 1-3, the program awards prizes and financial assistance to six selected projects, while offering an opportunity for producers and directors to pitch their films to foreign buyers, distributors, producers and festival programmers in order to facilitate the post-production process, promote possible co-production opportunities and access the international distribution market.

Established in 2013 to provide completion funds for selected films from Africa,...

Film culture moves awfully fast sometimes. I had never even heard of The Saga of Anatahan when the New Beverly here in Los Angeles showed it (under the title Ana-ta-han) about a year and a half ago on 16mm. It being Josef von Sternberg’s final feature, it was paired with another not-on-dvd title of his, The King Steps Out (1936). Now here we are, Anatahan has toured in a full restoration and is now available on Blu-ray for all to see. The somewhat-superior The King Steps Out has not yet had its day, sadly, but I’m glad for any von Sternberg on Blu in general, and for the chance to revisit and further consider this sincerely odd film.

Von Sternberg was born to a Jewish family in Vienna, emigrated to the United States when he was seven, then back to Vienna three years later, and back to the United States three years after that.

The twentieth entry in an on-going series of audiovisual essays by Cristina Álvarez López and Adrian Martin. Mubi will be showing Josef von Sternberg's The Blue Angel (1930) from February 14 - March 16, 2017 in the United States.The Blue Angel (1930) is a film that stands at many, superimposed crossroads. It represents a transition between the expressive language of silent cinema and the new technology of sound cinema. Before the reign of dubbing took hold around the world, it was a heroic instance of a project shot in two different language versions (German and English) simultaneously. It juxtaposes two very different sorts of acting performance: the expressive histrionics of Emil Jannings, characteristic of the silent period, and the more understated naturalness of its rising star, Marlene Dietrich. In its drama, it plays out the clash, and the changeover, between an institutionalized form of high, literary culture (as transmitted in Professor Rath’s classroom), and the unruly,...

Kino Lorber is issuing a new 2K restoration of Josef von Sternberg’s final film “Anatahan“ in theaters next month. Von Sternberg was a prominent figure in the late silent-movie era of the ’20s and transitioned easily to sound pictures. In his 1930 film, “The Blue Angel,” he introduced Marlene Dietrich to the world; they would collaborate together on six more pictures, including “Morocco” (1930), “Blonde Venus” (1932) and “The Devil Is A Woman” (1935).

Continue reading The War Isn’t Over In Trailer For Josef von Sternberg’s Newly Restored ‘Anatahan’ at The Playlist.

The marvelous season of Leo McCarey films at New York's Museum of Modern Art features a few real rarities and a whole passel of acknowledged classics: features like Duck Soup and Make Way for Tomorrow and hilarious shorts programs featuring Laurel & Hardy, Charley Chase and others. Perhaps the rarest item is Part Time Wife, a 1930 rehearsal for the greatness of The Awful Truth, complete with Airedale, but only slightly less obscure is late-career entry Rally 'Round the Flag, Boys! (1958), a strange quasi-satire which folds together several late-fifties concerns without actually addressing them or working out what it is, or what it's for.Whether it's actually true that right-wingers can't do satirical comedy, McCarey certainly lost the fire that made Duck Soup so truly anarchic during the years when he moved away from comedy to make beloved, sentimental and sincere dramas. Returning to broad comedy is something many of his fan probably wished he would do,...

For this week's Best Shot episode we featured two Josef Von Sternberg & Marlene Dietrich pictures. The famous Director/Muse pair made seven films together but we asked Best Shot volunteers to do either Morocco (1930) or Blonde Venus (1932), their first two Hollywood pictures. Let's get right to the choices - click on the photos to enjoy the corresponding articles and participating blogs...

Morocco (1930)

Directed by Josef Von Sternberg. Cinematography by Lee Garmes

Nominated for 4 Oscars including Cinematography

What becomes a legend most?

-Dancin Dan on Film

It bizarrely holds together even when the seams look like they are going to burst apart at any second from being buffeted by sand...

-Scopophiliac at the Movies

She strikes quite a figure though throughout the film...

-Sorta That Guy 

Blonde Venus (1932)

Directed by Josef Von Sternberg. Cinematography by Bert Glennon

An impression she gives you in one moment she might take back with force in the very next.

For this week's Best Shot Episode: Marlene Dietrich. I asked participants to choose either Morocco (1930) or Blonde Venus (1932).

Her most fascinating scene in Blonde Venus: the confession.

Is Marlene Dietrich a good actress? This question haunted me while watching Blonde Venus, the fascinating Pre-Code movie in which Dietrich plays dozens of archetypes within a brisk 93 minutes: loving mother, drunk floozy, hot temptress, frigid lover, forest nymph, martyred saint, gold digger, confident androgyne, isolated immigrant, jaded bitch, dazzling entertainer. It's enough to give you whiplash if you're trying to get a bead on Helen Jones, her cabaret singer / struggling mother in Blonde Venus (1932).

On the one hand she does everything "wrong." She rarely modulates her voice. Her characterizations aren't especially cohesive -- an impression she gives you in one moment she might take back with force in the very next...

If you're just getting back from a long holiday weekend, catch up!

 

We looked back at Dorothy Dandridge in bondage in Tarzan's Peril...

Talked about the open director's chair for the 007 franchise...

Delivered not one but two new podcasts...

Investigated that cursed farm in The Witch in the latest "The Furniture"...

Reviewed the new X-Men film and looked at the career of Tye Sheridan thus far...

...and shared highlights of the month of May including Thelma & Louise, Oscar's Best Bad Girls, Sing Street, and more. If you've been away, there's lots to read.

P.S. And the Best Shot Episode starring Marlene Dietrich with Morocco (1930) and Blonde Venus (1932). ...

'Here's what's coming up the rest of this month on Best Shot if you'd like to join us. It's easy. You...

1) watch the movie

2) pick a shot, post it and say why you love it

3) let us know you did via twitter, email or comments and we link up 

May 17th Queen Margot (1994)

Madwoman Isabelle Adjani stars in this blood-soaked, erotically-charged 16th century French epic which we figured is a great fit for a Cannes heavy week (the film won two prizes in its year including Best Actress for its unforgettable supporting actress Virna Lisi). Plus the last time we did an Adjani (The Story of Adele H) the articles were hot. Please join us if you haven't seen this one! [Streaming on Netflix]

May 24th Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)

We pushed this back a month since it wasn't yet available to rent but it's time to revisit future jedi Rey as...

The icon-establishing performances Marilyn Monroe gave in Howard Hawks’ Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) and in Billy Wilder’s Some Like It Hot (1959) are ones for the ages, touchstone works that endure because of the undeniable comic energy and desperation that sparked them from within even as the ravenous public became ever more enraptured by the surface of Monroe’s seductive image of beauty and glamour. Several generations now probably know her only from these films, or perhaps 1955’s The Seven-Year Itch, a more famous probably for the skirt-swirling pose it generated than anything in the movie itself, one of director Wilder’s sourest pictures, or her final completed film, The Misfits (1961), directed by John Huston, written by Arthur Miller and costarring Clark Gable and Montgomery Clift.

But in Don’t Bother to Knock (1952) she delivers a powerful dramatic performance as Nell, a psychologically devastated, delusional, perhaps psychotic young woman apparently on...

Quentin Tarantino officially begins his tenure as film programmer of the New Beverly Cinema tonight when he re-opens the LA institution after a monthlong remodeling. On the docket is a Paul Mazursky double feature of Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice and Blume In Love, which kicks off three months of Tarantino-programmed films, as Deadline reported last month. Many of those films, screened on film either on 16mm or 35mm, will come from Tarantino’s personal vaults. Tonight’s Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice print is the best known print out there, according to Tarantino, who was gifted with the newly struck print after his Django Unchained opening.

After floating the beloved New Beverly business for years, Tarantino took over as manager and programmer last month from owner Michael Torgan with a renewed commitment to screening movies only on film. New features and upgrades inside the historic theater include the addition of mechanical masking,...

Quentin Tarantino officially begins his tenure as film programmer of the New Beverly Cinema tonight when he re-opens the La institution after a monthlong remodeling. On the docket is a Paul Mazursky double feature of Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice and Blume In Love, which kicks off three months of Tarantino-programmed films, as Deadline reported last month. Many of those films, screened on film either on 16mm or 35mm, will come from Tarantino’s personal vaults. Tonight’s Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice print is the best known print out there, according to Tarantino, who was gifted with the newly struck print after his Django Unchained opening.

After floating the beloved New Beverly business for years, Tarantino took over as manager and programmer last month from owner Michael Torgan with a renewed commitment to screening movies only on film. New features and upgrades inside the historic theater include the addition of mechanical masking,...

By Gary Salem and Michelle McCue

“What a costume designer does is a cross between magic and camouflage. We create the illusion of changing the actors into what they are not. We ask the public to believe that every time they see a performer on the screen he’s become a different person.”

– Edith Head

On Monday, Wamg attended the press preview for the Victoria and Albert Museum, London and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences groundbreaking multimedia exhibition Hollywood Costume in the historic Wilshire May Company building.

Taking five years to create, this exhibition is the kickoff for the whole Academy Museum of Motion Pictures.

Emphasizing how costumes are so important in creating characters, this one-of-a-kind exhibition comes with its own film score, enhanced with dazzling animations and screenplay excerpts.

Organized by the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (V&A), and sponsored by Swarovski, this ticketed exhibition...

This fall the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will present the final showing of the groundbreaking multimedia exhibition Hollywood Costume in the historic Wilshire May Company building, the future location of the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, at Wilshire Boulevard and Fairfax Avenue in Los Angeles. Organized by the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (V&A), this ticketed exhibition explores the central role of costume design – from the glamorous to the very subtle – as an essential tool of cinematic storytelling.

The Academy is enhancing the V&A’s exhibition and will include more than 145 costumes from over 60 lenders. The Academy’s presentation will add more than 30 costumes to this landmark show, including Jared Leto’s costume from Dallas Buyers Club (Kurt and Burt, 2013) – a recent acquisition to the Academy’s collection – as well as costumes from such recent releases as The Hunger Games (Judianna Makovsky, 2012), Django Unchained (Sharen Davis,...

So it looks like indie-minded producer Megan Ellison of Annapurna Pictures, who backed upcoming Cannes entry "Foxcatcher" as well as such Oscar contenders as "The Master," "American Hustle" and "Her," is now developing her first TV series to be sold to the networks. Set during Hollywood's Golden Age, the drama focuses on Nordic beauties Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich, who were known for their androgynous mystery. “The Swedish Sphinx” and “The Blonde Venus” could be both glamorous and alluring--and get away with wearing pants. Thus, much like one-time roommates Cary Grant and Randolph Scott, rumors swirled surrounded them. Based at MGM, Greta Garbo ("Grand Hotel," "Ninotchka," "Queen Christina") never starred in a movie with Paramount's reigning diva Dietrich ("Shanghai Express," "Morocco," "Catherine the Great"), and the two so-called studio rivals claimed to have never met. (Back in Europe, they reportedly each enjoyed an affair with elegant aristocrat Mercedes de...

In Marlene Dietrich's ABC, the actress's marvelous book of bon mots and observations for any and every occasion, under the heading "Josef von Sternberg" you'll find just one simple line: "The man I wanted to please most." Among women who think for themselves, or even just claim to, the idea of wanting to please a man is highly unfashionable. But what if Dietrich hadn't? There would be no Amy Jolly in a white tuxedo, wooing French foreign legionnaire Gary Cooper with a posy in Morocco; no Shanghai Lily in Shanghai Express, counting — or losing count of — the number of men who helped her earn that nickname; no Agent X-27 in Dishonored, ever so glamorously clutching her black Persian cat as she readies herself for the journey to...

Episode 9 of 52 wherein Anne Marie screens all of Katharine Hepburn's films in chronological order

In which Katharine Hepburn looks better in a suit than Cary Grant.

I will never turn down a movie about a lady in a suit. Two reasons: 1) Early exposure to As You Like It and 2) An experimental phase in college film studies during which I flirted heavily with the Hays Code.

What I’m saying is, I was predisposed to love Sylvia Scarlett no matter what. Still, it wasn’t what I expected. Kate in Sylvia Scarlett gets lumped in with Greta Garbo in Queen Christina and Marlene Dietrich in Morocco as a member of the Cinematic Sapphic Sisterhood. But after this week’s viewing, I actually think that’s reductive. Instead, Morocco, Queen Christina and Sylvia Scarlett all deal with different shades of androgyny, sex, and gender.

Too academic a subject? I will include pictures of ladies kissing.

Best Supporting Actor Oscar Predictions 2014 (photo: Jared Leto in ‘Dallas Buyers Club’) As explained in our previous Oscar 2014 predictions post, this year’s Academy Award nominations in the Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress categories initially looked impossible to predict. For Best Supporting Actor, Jared Leto was the front-runner for his performance as a transsexual with AIDS in Dallas Buyers Club, and Michael Fassbender was another strong possibility for his evil planter in 12 Years a Slave — but who else? (See also: "Oscar Predictions 2014 Best Actress: Meryl Streep Possibly to Break Another Record," "Oscar Predictions 2014 Best Actor: Robert Redford Possible Near-Record," "Best Supporting Actress 2014 Oscar Predictions: Jennifer Lawrence and/or Scarlett Johansson to Make Oscar History?" and "Oscar Predictions 2014: Best Picture, Best Director.") A couple of weeks ago, the SAG Award nominations helped to clarify things some, but, just as in the Best Supporting Actress category, there remains quite...

The Blue Angel

Written by Carl Zuckmayer, Karl Vollmöller, Robert Liebmann

Directed by Josef von Sternberg

Germany, 1930

It’s strange that the work of Josef von Sternberg has not been better represented in the realm of Blu-ray production. Aside from 1930’s The Blue Angel, available now on a new Kino Classics 2-Disc Ultimate Edition, not a single Sternberg film exists on the format. For such a stylish director, one who was expressly concerned with the ornate visual texture of his films, the enhanced images that go along with the standard digital restorations of Blu-ray titles would seemingly be ideal. That said, with at least The Blue Angel, it does become clear that this format and this filmmaker are indeed made for each other.

While not as deliberately composed to accentuate frames bursting to their edges with fore- and background elements (see The Scarlet Empress, for example), The Blue Angel nevertheless...

By Mark Pinkert

Contributor

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This is the third article in a three-part series.

Though many Academy Award Best Picture nominees contain—or are predominantly about—sex and relationships, very few have been about sex issues in law and politics. In recent years there has been Milk (2008), the biopic of Harvey Milk, a California politician and gay rights activist, and otherwise not much else. Even in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when the AIDS epidemic was a hot button issue, few films of this genre made it to the Best Picture ticket (remember, Philadelphia was snubbed from the category in 1993). Sexual issues topics, though, have been more popular within the documentary medium: there was Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt (1989), which won for Best Documentary, and which was the first AIDS-related film to win an Oscar, the The Times of Harvey Milk (1984), which also won Best Documentary, and How to Survive a Plague...

This incredible photograph appeared yesterday on a post on The Wire titled “The Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade Balloons Used to Be Extremely Creepy.” I immediately loved the photograph with its Frank Sidebottom-style floating heads but what caught my attention next is the sign just visible behind the head in the middle: a marquee for Josef von Sternberg’s Morocco. Now if there’s one thing I love more than bizarrely primitive helium-filled heads, it’s old photos of movie marquees. And if there’s one thing I love even more than that, it is examining the often-missed details of old photos and looking for clues to their place and time. (Anyone who’s a fan of Shorpy will know what I mean.)

The only specific detail on the original post is that the photo was taken in 1930, a fact that the Morocco marquee confirms. This means that it was...

All eyes were on Madonna at the screening for the Mdna Tour Documentary in New York City, when she showed up in a 1930′s getup! Madonna has never held back when it comes to expressing herself and we are totally in love with her latest look!

On June 18, Madonna, 54, went to the premiere of her Mdna Tour Documentary in NYC and looked fabulous in a black and white women’s tuxedo, in honor of her idol, the popular actress Marlene Dietrich. Madonna completed the classic look with a top hat and a white bow tie. Her hair is curled and pinned up at just above shoulder length. Madonna’s makeup artist Sammy H. Mourabit helped her achieve this glamorous look, inspired by Marlene’s iconic role in the 1930′s movie Morocco. Madonna’s look may have been inspired by Marlene, but we’re inspired by Madonna’s bold choice! Here...

London, Jun 20: Madonna transformed herself into 1920's German-American star Marlene Dietrich by sporting a black tuxedo and top hat at Paris Theatre in New York for the screening of 'Madonna: The Mdna Tour.'

The 52-year-old singer's outfit consisting of black suit with a white shirt, tie and vest with a white rose buttonhole, and bright red lipstick bore a striking resemblance to a tailcoat that Dietrich wore in her Oscar-nominated film 'Morocco,' the Sun reported.

The pop diva added a modern twist to the look by accessorising her outfit with a monogram ring and a chainmail-style jewelled glove. (Ani)...