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Celebrate Halloween all weekend long with “Phish Radio’s Musical Costume Marathon”! Hear the band play live album cover sets from some of their favorite artists exclusively on Phish Radio (Ch. 29) from October 31 through November 3.

In addition, fans can keep the celebration going with “Phish’s Halloween History,” a new special featuring all the band members introducing highlights from their illustrious musical costume tradition and sharing exclusive insight into their iconic album cover sets. Listen exclusively on the SiriusXM app now.

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Phish Radio’s Musical Costume Marathon Broadcast Schedule (all times Et) Thursday, October 31

12am The Bunny’s Halloween Freakout

4am 10.31.94 Glens Falls, NY (Beatles’ White Album)

6am 10.31.21 Las Vegas, Nv (Sci-Fi Soldier)

8am 10.31.95 Rosemont, Il (The Who’S Quadrophenia)

12pm 10.31.10 Atlantic City, NJ (Little Feat’S Waiting For Columbus)

2pm 10.31.96 Atlanta, Ga (Talking Heads’ Remain In Light)

4pm 10.31.16 Las Vegas,...

The 2024 Tribeca Festival has officially unveiled its shorts lineup.

Presented by Okx, the festival includes short narrative, documentary, and animated films, as well as music videos. This year’s festival takes place June 5 through 16, and boasts 12 short film sections, including 87 total shorts from 101 filmmakers with 65 films in competition and 10 music videos.

The 2024 lineup has a record-breaking number of countries represented ranging from Saudi Arabia, Côte D’Ivoire, Martinique, Chile, Qatar, and more for a total of 27 nations. For the first time, the majority of the program is directed by female filmmakers. The lineup includes 50 world premieres, seven international premieres, six North American premieres, two U.S. premieres, and 22 New York premieres. Seven directors return to Tribeca with their latest projects.

Highlights include the world premieres of “Motorcycle Mary,” directed by Haley Watson and produced by two-time Oscar winner Ben Proudfoot, Rachel Greenwald, seven-time Formula One world champion Lewis Hamilton; queer romance “Ripe!

Actress Carrie Coon joins Josh and Joe to discuss the Best of what she’s been watching during the pandemic.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

The Nest (2020)

Gone Girl (2014)

The Philadelphia Story (1940)

Sabrina (1954)

The Bridge On The River Kwai (1957)

Apocalypse Now (1979)

Opening Night (1977)

Husbands (1971)

Too Late Blues (1961)

Rosemary’s Baby (1968)

Faces (1968)

The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976)

Gloria (1980)

Mephisto (1981)

The Cremator (1969)

Zama (2017)

Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts (2017)

Wanda (1970)

Blue Collar (1978)

The Lunchbox (2013)

63 Up (2019)

To Sleep With Anger (1990)

Killer of Sheep (1978)

The Glass Shield (1994)

My Brother’s Wedding (1983)

Rita, Sue and Bob Too (1987)

Rio Bravo (1959)

Chilly Scenes of Winter (1979)

Cutter’s Way (1981)

Scenes From A Marriage (1973)

The Magician (1958)

The Silence (1963)

The Magic Flute (1975)

The Last House on the Left (1972)

The Virgin Spring (1963)

Summer with Monika (1953)

The Seventh Seal (1957)

Wings of Desire (1987)

Black Girl (1966)

Fat Girl (2001)

The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974)

Parasite (2019)

Jesus of Montreal (1989)

Other Notable Items...

The following contains major spoilers from the Season 1 finale of DC’s Stargirl.

The Jsa and the Isa faced off in the DC’s Stargirl Season 1 finale, all as the clock ticked down to Brainwave fully brainwashing millions.

More from TVLinePaul Wesley and Ian Somerhalder Respond to Fan's Viral Reaction to Vampire Diaries Series Finale DeathTV Ratings: Stargirl Finale Hits 5-Week Audience High, World of Dance DipsRuby Rose: Demanding Batwoman Role Became More Difficult After Back Injury

With all the gr’ups in a trance and Pat being commanded to strike out as S.T.R.I.P.E. against stepdaughter Courtney,...

Exclusive: CAA has inked Australian filmmaker and the creator and star of FX’s Mr. Inbetween, Scott Ryan.

Ryan plays Ray Shoesmith on Mr. Inbetween, a guy who’s a dad, ex-husband, boyfriend, best friend — and hitman.

The series was based on Ryan’s mockumentary indie The Magician, which played the Melbourne Film Festival and was discovered by Nash Edgerton who is an EP and director on Mr. Inbetween. Ryan had originally shot The Magician as a feature, but had cut it down to 30 minutes. When Edgerton wanted to see more, Ryan handed him a copy of the entire film. With producer Michele Bennett’s help, the feature version of The Magician received a release, and soon after Ryan’s concept found its way to FX. The Magician was nominated for a Film Critics Circle of Australia Award.

Ryan won the 2019 Logie Award for Most Outstanding Actor for his work on Mr.

The failure of Disney’s adaptation of Artemis Fowl came from the movie’s decision to not trust the audience to handle the original premise.

“Making an adaptation of a popular book series is hard. Changes are necessary, and you can’t always do everything that was in the books. I get that. Yet, when a company spends money on the rights for a book series, you would assume that they believe in the premise of the book—that they want to adapt at least 75-80% of the book, not ‘Let’s just make an entirely new movie and just slap a familiar title on it.’ Sadly, that is exactly what Disney did in their adaptation of Artemis Fowl.”

Read more at The Mary Sue.

The Mandalorian season 2 director knows Baby Yoda’s real name, but apparently he’s not telling.

“Ever since The Mandalorian dropped last fall and introduced...

Scott Ryan in ‘Mr Inbetween.’

In the heart-wrenching climactic scene of the last episode of Mr Inbetween, Scott Ryan’s Ray Shoesmith carried out the mercy killing of his brother then torched the house.

So what is next for the troubled hit man and single father as Ryan maps out the third season of the FX/Fox Showcase drama laced with dark humour?

Without spoilers, the show’s star, creator and writer tells If: “Season three will probably be more like season one in tone; it won’t be as dark as season two. But there will also be room for some pretty dark stuff.”

Justin Rosniak as Ray’s gormless best friend Gary will be even more prominent in the new season. Also returning are Chika Yasumura as his daughter Brittany and, he hopes, Damon Herriman as his boss, nightclub owner Freddy.

Ryan is still weighing up whether there...

‘Mr Inbetween’.

FX has renewed hitman comedy/drama Mr Inbetween for a third season, due to air locally on Foxtel’s Fox Showcase.

Created, written by and starring Scott Ryan, the Sydney-shot series follows charismatic yet volatile hitman Ray Shoesmith.

Ray “takes care of people” — collecting debts, relieving them of drugs and guns, and often taking care of them on a more permanent basis. Ray demands respect and does not tolerate it when someone disregards his very clear code of ethics.

Ryan won the Aacta Award for Best Lead Actor in a TV drama for his portrayal of Shoesmith last year. It’s a character he first introduced to the world via 2005 mockumentary The Magician.

Other members of the cast include Brooke Satchwell, Justin Rosniak, Chika Yasumura, Nicholas Cassim and Damon Herriman.

Both season one and two were directed by Nash Edgerton and produced by Michele Bennett for Jungle Entertainment,...

It all stated with at Melbourne Film Festival that filmmaker/actor Nash Edgerton was attending. He caught Scott Ryan’s half hour mockumentary The Magician about a working-class hitman, Ray Shoesmith, with a sweet family side.

“I thought my brother (Joel) would get a kick out of it; my brother and I have a dark sense of humor,” said Edgerton who has frequently collaborated with his bro on such pics as Gringo, which he directed, and acting in Joel’s Blumhouse/Stx horror pic The Gift.

Ryan had originally shot The Magician as a feature, but had cut it down to 30 minutes. When Edgerton wanted to see more, Ryan handed him a copy of the entire film. With producer Michele Bennett’s help, the feature version of The Magician received a release, and soon after Ryan’s concept found its way to FX.

“There was never any pressure from FX...

Max von Sydow turned 90 this month, which is a milestone for most people, but age has always seemed incidental to the actor. When he played the elderly, frail Father Merrin in “The Exorcist,” von Sydow was 44 — meaning he was the same age Bradley Cooper is today.

In the 1950s, von Sydow had his big breakthrough in a trio of Ingmar Bergman films — “The Seventh Seal,” “Wild Strawberries” and “The Magician” — while still in his 20s, but with the wisdom and sadness of the world in his eyes. Von Sydow has appeared in such fan favorites as “Game of Thrones,” “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” “Rush Hour 3” and David Lynch’s “Dune.” But to most, he’s synonymous with his 11 films for Bergman and “The Exorcist.” In A.D. Murphy’s enthusiastic Variety review of the latter on Dec. 24, 1973, he said of von Sydow, “His performance is one of controlled dedication.

Kayti Burt Apr 17, 2019

We have a lot of questions after The Magicians Season 4 finale. Here are the biggest ones we hope Season 5 addresses.

Warning: This The Magicians article contains Major spoilers for the Season 4 finale.

The Magicians Season 4 finale was arguably the most devastating season-ender in the show's history. The only thing that is keeping me going at this point is the knowledge that the writers' room is already hard at work on The Magicians Season 5, spinning out the most emotionally-affecting, unpredictably truthful answers to the following questions...

Is Quentin really dead?

If Quentin is coming back to the show, then The Magicians creative team is playing very coy about it—as in straight-up lying. The executive producers released this statement in regards to Quentin's death, following the airing of the season finale:

“Before we began this season, we entered into a creative conversation that included the writers, executive producer and director Chris Fisher,...

In good news for fans of Ingmar Bergman and Bruno Dumont, the Criterion Collection has announced its June titles. Three from the Swedish master are making the upgrade from DVD to Blu-ray, with Dumont’s “La vie de Jésus” and “L’humanité” making their Criterion debut. Also joining the collection are John Cameron Mitchell’s “Hedwig and the Angry Inch,” George Stevens’ “Swing Time,” and Sergei Bondarchuk’s epic adaptation of “War and Peace.”

More information below, as well as the ever-alluring cover art:

A Film Trilogy by Ingmar Bergman

In 1960, Swedish director Ingmar Bergman began work on three of his most powerful and representative films, eventually recognized as a trilogy. Already a figure of international acclaim for such masterpieces as The Seventh Seal and The Magician, Bergman turned his back on the expressionism of his fifties work to focus on a series of chamber dramas exploring belief and alienation in the modern age.

Scott Ryan, creator and star of FX’s new Mr Inbetween, already has won TCA’s award for Most Low Key Panelist.

In May, FX announced it had ordered a six-episode first season of Mr Inbetween, a half-hour drama series from Ryan and Nash Edgerton, inspired by Ryan’s 2005 cult film The Magician, for premiere on FX and Foxtel in Australia this fall.

Created by and starring Ryan, and directed by Edgerton, Mr Inbetween centers on Ray Shoesmith, a father, ex-husband, boyfriend, best friend, hit-man.

Ryan, who is Australian, got asked the inevitable America-centric question, wanting him to weigh in on a what a big deal it is to get a U.S. pickup. “I was a little surprised,” he said, refreshingly hype-free.

“It was great to get picked up for sure,” he added, taking the prize.

Another TV critic wanted Ryan to explain the difference between American and Australian crime shows.

Tomorrow is the centenary of the birth of one of cinema’s greatest directors, Ingmar Bergman, and to celebrate, The Criterion Collection has announced of their most expansive releases ever. This November, they will release Ingmar Bergman’s Cinema, a 39-film box set comprising nearly all of his work, including 18 films never before released by Criterion. Curated akin to a film festival, the set features Opening, Centerpiece, and Closing Films, with many double features in between. The set also features 11 introductions and over five hours of interviews with the director himself, six making-of documentaries, a 248-page book, and much more.

As we await for its November 20 release, check out an overview from Criterion below, as well as the box art, the trailer, and the full list of films, in curated order. One can also see much more about each release and the special features on the official site.

With the...

The Fool & the Magician by The Hills and the Rivers Band: The Hills & The Rivers; Members: Isaac Hill-vocals and Octave Mandolin; Heidi Hill-vocals and tambourine; Ian Hill-vocals and mandolin; Colin Hill-vocals, washboard and wurlizter on ‘The Magician; Faith Hersey-djembe; James Bristol-upright bass; Chris Fazio-violin and wurlizter on ‘The Leap’; and Joey Schuller-banjo Album: […]

The post The Hills & The Rivers’ The Fool & The Magician Album Review appeared first on Shockya.com.

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In 1932’s Chandu The Magician, Edmund Lowe plays the titular wizard. What famous boogie man plays his adversary?

Bela Lugosi Boris Karloff Peter Lorre Correct

Lugosi is a lot of fun but the real star of this movie is director William Cameron Menzies whose distinctive visual style graces every scene.

Incorrect

Question 2 of 10 2. Question

1953’s Houdini...

Newish on DVD/BluRay

• The 33 Antonio Banderas / Chilean miner rescue story

• 99 Homes the other acclaimed housing crisis movie

• Black Mass the gangster movie with Johnny Depp, buried under alien makeup, plays a gangster. Watch out for great performances on the periphery from Peter Sarsgaard and Julianne Nicholson

• Crimson Peak from Guillermo Del Toro. Critics were divided or had many reservations but those who loved it really loved it. Here's a rabidly pro piece nicely titled "Ghosts are Movies".

Lunchtime Poll:

Would you rather...

- Be seduced by Tom Hiddleston?

- Gain access to all of Mia Wasikowska's money?

- Marry into Jessica Chastain's family?

• Girls S4 -I've definitely lost track of this show. Weirdly I quit with an episode I couldn't have loved more (S3E7 "Beach House")

• Grandma - Lily Tomlin gets her own well deserved star vehicle and drives it superbly

• Love the Coopers -...

'Star Wars: The Force Awakens' Premiere: Lupita Nyong'o. 'Star Wars: The Force Awakens' premiere in Hollywood: A few images The most anticipated event since Nostradamus prophesied World War I, World War II, Climate Change Calamity, and Reality TV, Star Wars: The Force Awakens – brought to you not by George Lucas, but by Walt Disney (not the man, but the marketing & merchandising team) – is having its Milky Way premiere this evening right in the heart of Hollywood. If only the Paris Climate Talks had received this much media scrutiny and at least half – one tenth? – as much interest from the stormtrooping masses. So, tell us, how many pounds did Carrie Fisher really have to lose to fit into Princess Leia's costumes? 'Star Wars: The Force Awakens' Premiere: Mark Hamill. Boycott? What boycott? Shocking, but it seems like Star Wars: The Force Awakens will actually manage to...

It all started with Exposed. I’m not sure what brought this 1971 Swedish sexploitation film to the suggestion portion of my Netflix account (presumably the roster of Jess Franco films recently added), but after reading the description, I figured it was worth a shot: “A pretty young teen finds her innocence lost when an unguarded night of revelry yields shameful secrets, and a stack of nude pictures that could ruin her life. But to get her hands on the negatives, she’ll have to expose herself even further.” That is indeed the basic plot of the film, which plays out exactly as one would expect for such fare. But what was unexpected while watching Exposed (also known as the much less enticing Diary of a Rape), was the 21-year-old star of the film. Her name is Christina Lindberg.

Exposed, for lack of a better phrase, is what it is. It...

Editor's Note: RogerEbert.com is proud to reprint Roger Ebert's 1978 entry from the Encyclopedia Britannica publication "The Great Ideas Today," part of "The Great Books of the Western World." Reprinted with permission from The Great Ideas Today ©1978 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

It's a measure of how completely the Internet has transformed communication that I need to explain, for the benefit of some younger readers, what encyclopedias were: bound editions summing up all available knowledge, delivered to one's home in handsome bound editions. The "Great Books" series zeroed in on books about history, poetry, natural science, math and other fields of study; the "Great Ideas" series was meant to tie all the ideas together, and that was the mission given to Roger when he undertook this piece about film.

Given the venue he was writing for, it's probably wisest to look at Roger's long, wide-ranging piece as a snapshot of the...

DVD Release Date: June 17, 2014

Price: DVD $19.95

Studio: Hen’s Tooth

Gene Hackman is a Major in the French Foreign Legion in March or Die.

In the tradition of Beau Gest, the 1977 action-adventure film March or Die stars Gene Hackman (The Conversation) and Ian Holm (Brazil).

It’s 1918 and a war-weary American Major (Hackman) in the French Foreign Legion, with a ragtag squadron of young legionnaires, is assigned to a remote Moroccan outpost. Their mission is to secure a French government archaeological dig that is looting an ancient tomb of its Arab treasure. The troops’ presence is not at all welcome by the Arab chieftain El Krim (Holm), who vows to expel the French intruders at any cost. But the French steadfastly refuse to leave. After a series of skirmishes, the film concludes with an epic battle between the two forces.

Directed by Dick Richards, produced by a young Jerry Bruckheimer,...

Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: March 25, 2014

Price: Blu-ray/DVD Combo $39.95

Studio: Criterion

Liv Ullmann (l.) and Bibi Andersson get into each other's heads in Ingmar Bergman's Persona.

By the mid-sixties, Ingmar Bergman (The Magician) had already conjured many of the cinema’s most unforgettable images. But with 1966’s radical psychological drama Persona, this supreme artist attained new levels of visual poetry.

In the first of a series of legendary performances for Bergman, Liv Ullmann (Face to Face) plays an actress who has inexplicably gone mute; an equally mesmerizing Bibi Andersson (Wild Strawberries) is the garrulous young nurse caring for her in a remote island cottage. While isolated together there, the women perform a mysterious spiritual and emotional transference that would prove to be one of cinema’s most influential ideas.

Acted with astonishing nuance and shot in stark shadows and soft light by the great Sven Nykvist (Fanny and Alexander), Persona is a penetrating,...

3. Eyes Without a Face

Written by Georges Franju, Jean Redon, Pierre Boileau, Thomas Narcejac, and Claude Sautet

Directed by Georges Franju

France and Italy, 1960

The idea of what a quintessential French horror film might be, especially in the middle of the last century, would be a conflicting concept, the French being culturally revered as the custodians of the high-brow, the poetically human, and the avant-garde (we even import the word in its French form); horror is a genre maintained to provoke the base and primal, better left to B-movie thrills. Enter Georges Franju, a co-founder of the Cinémathèque Française, to helm Eyes Without a Face, a work to arrive with scorn from both French and Anglophone audiences as it had not been crafted to either of their palettes, but rather an amalgamation of tastes and something completely new.

When Dr. Génessier (Pierre Brasseur) identifies the body of his daughter Christiane...

When I really began digging into classic cinema, one of the films I started with was Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal, and it wasn't that long ago. According to Netflix, I returned the disc on January 8, 2008 after returning Bergman's Wild Strawberries about a month earlier (I wrote about them both briefly right here). I'd actually received both discs at the same time, but kept Seventh Seal a little longer because it had so truly captured my imagination. I've written about it a few times since, including a review of the Criterion Blu-ray a little over four years ago. I've found Bergman's work captivating ever since, several as a result of the Criterion Collection including reviewing Smiles of a Summer Night, Summer Interlude and Summer with Monica, Fanny and Alexander and The Magician along with my discovery of Persona two years ago, whose two-shot imagery is repeated in a highly...

Above: Salvatore Giuliano (Francesco Rosi, Italy, 1962)

About a month ago I came across a stunning piece of decorative art masquerading as a 1960s East German poster for the 1940 Thief of Bagdad (see below) which soon became one of the most popular posters on my daily Tumblr. I’d seen the artist’s signature “Gottsmann” before on a poster for Tarkovsky’s Ivan’s Childhood and so I dug a little deeper and came up with a small treasure trove of little-known posters.

I discovered that the artist, Werner Gottsmann, died nine years ago at the age of 79. He was born in 1924 in the Ore Mountains on the border of Czechoslovakia, which, after WWII, became part of the German Democratic Republic or East Germany. After the war (during which he was a P.O.W.) he studied painting at the Robert-Schumann-Akademie Zwickau, and graphic design at the Meisterschule für Grafik Berlin...

Blu-ray Release Date: Jan. 15, 2013

Price: Blu-ray $24.99 each

Studio: MGM/Fox

Woody Allen goes robot in 1973's Sleeper.

The 1986 romantic comedy-drama Hannah and Her Sisters and the 1973 comedy Sleeper are generally considered to be two of filmmaker Woody Allen’s (You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger) finer efforts of the 40-plus movies he’s made over the past four decades.

The winner of three Academy Awards (including Michael Caine for Best Supporting Actor, Dianne Wiest for Best Supporting Actress and Woody himself for Best Screenplay), Hannah and Her Sisters spins a delicious tale about the lives and loves of three sisters in New York City. Woody also co-stars in the ensemble, along with Mia Farrow (Rosemary’s Baby), Max Von Sydow (The Magician), Barbara Hershey (Black Swan) and Carrie Fisher (Wishful Drinking).

Sleeper stars Woody as Mile Monroe, a health food store owner from 1970s New York who is cryogenically...

Known for creating some of the most important films in French history, and during Nazi Occupation, no less, Criterion issues two of Marcel Carne’s most widely acclaimed masterpieces, his crowning achievement, Children of Paradise (1945), which, if you haven’t seen, you need to, and a noteworthy work that directly precedes it, Les Visiteurs du Soir (1942), which has long since been popularly interpreted as an allegory of the hostile occupation. While this interpretation is hardly surprising and seems rather fitting, Carne’s film is much more universal than that, instead conveying the unbreakable spirit of pure love. Presented like the dark, harsh fairy tale it is, Carne managed to create a sumptuously poetic, luxurious film about how love does not indeed conquer all, but can perhaps endure.

Pages flipped by a dark gloved hand inform us that our tale is set in the Middle Ages, May of 1485. Two of the devil’s envoys,...

Alexa here.  Max von Sydow turns 83 today, and I plan on celebrating by watching a recently-gifted Criterion copy of The Magician. His presence always makes me happy, in everything from heavy fare (Pelle The Conqueror) to silly (Needful Things is a guilty pleasure).  Even he couldn't save Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close for me, though.  Here are some fan creations I've spied that celebrate some highlights from his oeuvre.

The Magician by Petur Nagy and Miklos Foldi.As Frederick in Hannah and Her Sisters, drawn by Peter Mack.

Click for Max-centric posters for The Exorcist and The Seventh Seal...

Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: May 22, 2012

Price: DVD $29.95, Blu-ray $39.95

Studio: Criterion

Harriet Andersson and Lars Ekborg are young and in love in Bergman's 1953 Summer with Monika.

Inspired by the earthy eroticism of his muse Harriet Andersson (Smiles of a Summer Night), in the first of her many film roles for him, Ingmar Bergman (Face to Face) had a major international breakthrough with his 1953 drama-romance Summer with Monika.

Set in Stockholm, the sensual tale of young love tells of a girl (Andersson) and boy (Lars Ekborg, The Magician) from working-class families who run away from home to spend a secluded, romantic summer at the beach, far from parents and responsibilities. Inevitably, it’s not long before the pair is forced to return to reality.

The version of the classic film originally released in the U.S. was re-edited by its distributor into notably more salacious kind of film, but the original Summer with Monika...

"Swedish actor Erland Josephson, who collaborated with legendary film director Ingmar Bergman in more than 40 films and plays, has died," reports the AP. He was 88. "Josephson was born in Stockholm in 1923 and met Bergman while training as an amateur actor at 16. He appeared in several Bergman plays and films. He shot to international stardom with the role of Johan in Berman's film Scenes from a Marriage, in 1973. Josephson also starred in Andrey Tarkovskiy's films Nostalghia [1983] and The Sacrifice [1986]."

"It is Josephson's face which makes him so effective on film," reads his entry in the International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, "that bearlike aspect, his ability to look lost and forlorn, to convey a sense of suffering and bewilderment, in spite of his bluff exterior. Were one to repeat Kuleshov's famous experiment of the 1920s and to intercut the same shot of Josephson with images of joy, of sadness, of anger,...

Erland Josephson in 2006.

Erland Josephson, a sturdy and distinguished Swedish actor best known for his frequent collaborations with legendary film and theater director Ingmar Bergman (Smiles of a Summer Night), passed away on Saturday, February 25, at the age of 88.

Josephson, who died at a Stockholm hospital, had long been suffering from Parkinson’s disease, according to a spokeswoman from Sweden’s Royal Dramatic Theatre, where he had been the managing director from 1966 to 1975.

Born in 1923 in Stockhoom to a family deeply involved in the arts (his relatives included composers, painters and a theater director who had worked with playwright August Strinberg), Josephson never had any formal acting education. But that didn’t stop him from embarking on an frequent “dramatic” collaborations with Bergman, which began in the late 1930s when Bergman directed him in a municipal stage production of The Merchant of Venice in Gothenburg. Several years later, Josephson’s...

Swedish actor known for his roles in Ingmar Bergman's films and television dramas

Although the actors who comprised Ingmar Bergman's repertory company all went on to make their own prestigious careers, they will for ever be associated with the great Swedish film and stage director. Erland Josephson, who has died aged 88 after suffering from Parkinson's disease, was artistically linked with Bergman even more than Max Von Sydow, Liv Ullmann and Ingrid Thulin. Josephson appeared in more than a dozen of Bergman's films, and played a Bergman surrogate in Ullmann's Faithless (2000).

In middle and old age, he was chosen by directors such as Andrei Tarkovsky and Theo Angelopoulos for the qualities he revealed in the Bergman films – a certain self-centred introspection and a deep melancholy, etched on his lined and grizzled features. Because he became a leading film actor in his 50s, he seems never to have been young.

Stockholm -- Swedish actor Erland Josephson, who collaborated with legendary film director Ingmar Bergman in more than 40 films and plays, has died. He was 88.

The award-winning actor died at a Stockholm hospital on Saturday following a long battle against Parkinson's disease, said Royal Dramatic Theatre spokeswoman Christina Bjerkander.

Josephson was born into a family of artists and culture workers in Stockholm in 1923 and would become the actor who had the longest-running collaboration with Bergman. The two first met when Josephson was just 16 and participated as an amateur actor in the play "The Merchant of Venice," directed by Bergman.

Although he never had any formal acting education, Josephson continued to appear in several Bergman stage plays in the 1940s and 50s, and received a minor part in 1946 film "It Rains on Our Love." In the late 50s he played larger roles in Bergman's films "The Magician" and "Brink of Life," but...

Martin Scorsese Max von Sydow Martin Scorsese and Max von Sydow at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Oscar Nominees Luncheon in Beverly Hills on Monday, February 6, 2012. Scorsese is in the running for Best Director for the period fantasy Hugo, starring Asa Butterfield, Chloë Grace Moretz, Ben Kingsley, and Sacha Baron Cohen. Von Sydow is a Best Supporting Actor nominee for Stephen Daldry's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, which also features Sandra Bullock and Tom Hanks. (Photo: Greg Harbaugh / © A.M.P.A.S.) Scorsese's competition for the Best Director Academy Award consists of Alexander Payne for The Descendants, starring George Clooney and Shailene Woodley; Terrence Malick for The Tree of Life, starring Brad Pitt, Jessica Chastain, and Sean Penn; Woody Allen for Midnight in Paris, starring Owen Wilson, Rachel McAdams, and Marion Cotillard; and Michel Hazanavicius for The Artist, starring Jean Dujardin and Bérénice Bejo. Von...

George Clooney, Max von Sydow George Clooney and Max Von Sydow chat away at the Oscar Nominees Luncheon in Beverly Hills held on Monday, February 6, 2012. Clooney is a Best Actor nominee for Alexander Payne's The Descendants. Von Sydow is a Best Supporting Actor nominee for Stephen Daldry's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. (Photo: Todd Wawrychuk / © A.M.P.A.S.) Clooney's competition for the Best Actor Academy Award consists of Demián Bichir for Chris Weitz's A Better Life, Brad Pitt for Bennett Miller's Moneyball, Gary Oldman for Tomas Alfredson's Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, and Jean Dujardin for Michel Hazanavicius' The Artist. In the acting categories, Clooney has three previous Oscar nominations: he won as Best Supporting Actor for Stephen Gaghan's Syriana (2005), and was nominated as Best Actor for Tony Gilroy's Michael Clayton (2007) and Jason Reitman's Up in the Air (2009). Here's wondering...

31 – Rosemary’s Baby

Directed by Roman Polanski

USA, 1968

Roman Polanski’s brilliant horror-thriller was nominated for two Oscars, winning Best Supporting Actress for Ruth Gordon. The director’s first American film, adapted from Ira Levin’s horror bestseller, is a spellbinding and twisted tale of Satanism and pregnancy. Supremely mounted, the film benefits from it’s strong atmosphere, apartment setting, eerie childlike score and polished production values by cinematographer William Fraker. The cast is brilliant, with Mia Farrow and John Cassavetes as the young couple playing opposite Ruth Gordon and Sidney Blackmer, the elderly neighbors. There is ominous tension in the film from first frame to last – the climax makes for one of the greatest endings of all time. Rarely has a film displayed such an uncompromising portrait of betrayal as this one. Career or marriage – which would you choose?

30 – Eraserhead

Directed by David Lynch

USA, 1977

Filmed intermittently over the course of a five-year period,...

Release Date: Nov. 8, 2011

Price: Blu-ray $59.95

Studio: Criterion

The wonders of a family are illuminated for Bertil Guve in Fanny and Alexander.

Ingmar Bergman’s (The Magician) 1982 film Fanny and Alexander weaves its lengthy tale of the loves, dramas and passions of an extended family through the eyes of 10-year-old Alexander (Bertil Guve), one of the youngest members of the sprawling bourgeois Ekdahl clan of early 20th century Sweden.

Bergman intended the fantasy-mystery movie as his swan song, and it is the legendary director’s warmest and most autobiographical film, a four-time Academy Award-winning triumph that combines his trademark melancholy and emotional intensity with immense joy and sensuality.

Like Criterion’s previously released DVD version of Fanny and Alexander, the three-disc Blu-ray edition presents both the theatrical release and the original five-hour television version of this work. Also included in the box set is Bergman’s own feature-length documentary The Making of Fanny and Alexander,...

Craig (from Dark Eye Socket) here with another Take Three. Today: Max von Sydow

Take One: Hour of the Wolf (1968)

It goes without saying, of course, that a von Sydow Take Three wouldn’t feel right unless one of them was an Ingmar Bergman film. All three could’ve been, but the aim is to err on the side of variety whenever possible. They made 11 films together: The Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries, The Magician, The Virgin Spring, Through a Glass Darkly, Winter Light, Shame and The Passion of Anna are all classics. But Hour of the Wolf, in which von Sydow plays a painter losing his grip on his sanity, doesn’t always get the high mention it deserves. It contains some of von Sydow’s best work in any film, for any director.

With his handsomely regal face, von Sydow boldly dominates the film. His sinisterly unhinged stillness and...

Erland Josephson and Liv Ullmann star in Bergman's Face to Face.

Olive Films will release 1976’s Face To Face, one of the great psychological dramas from the Swedish giant filmmaker Ingmar Bergman (The Magician), on DVDon Aug. 30 for a list price of $29.95.

The disc marks the first time the movie has ever been issued to the home market in the U.S. in any format. It was released in theaters in the U.S. by Paramount Pictures back in 1976.

Written, directed and produced by Bergman, Face to Face stars frequent Bergman muse Liv Ullmann (Cries and Whispers) as successful psychiatrist Dr. Jenny Isaksson, who, despite her professional prowess, suffers from profound depression and mental illness. On the brink of a nervous breakdown and desperately in search of an escape from her doldrums, Jenny has an affair with a fellow doctor (Erland Josephson, The Sacrifice), which only worsens her hysteria as...

Sad news tonight folks. Longtime Ingmar Bergman collaborator, Gunnar Fischer, has passed away earlier today at the ripe old age of 100. I just saw the Masters Of Cinema twitter feed posting a link to this Swedish web site (HD.se), announcing that he had died earlier today in Sweden.

From the translated story:

Gunnar Fischer out of time

The photographer and film director Gunnar Fischer died on Saturday, 100 years old.

Stockholm. He worked closely with Ingmar Bergman in the 50′s in classic films such as Summer with Monika, The Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries and The Magician.

- He passed away in the afternoon. This fall, he would have turned 101 years, says his son and cinematographer Jens Fischer said.

Gunnar Fischer was employed by the Swedish Film Industry 1935-1970 and the 1970-75 Svt.

Fischer‘s cinematography is well represented in the Criterion Collection. You can find him working with Bergman early...

As most readers of this site have probably heard by now, the late and great Swedish director Ingmar Bergman unexpectedly stirred up chatter on the web when doubts were cast on the circumstances of his birth. Recently released DNA tests apparently show that he was given birth by Hedvig Sjöberg, a different woman than the mother who raised him, Karin Bergman, about whom her son Ingmar has written extensively and who served as a major source of inspiration for the films he made over the course of a lifetime. This article is the most extensive (and presumably fact-based) summary of the controversy, and my purpose here is not to engage in any extended speculation or gossip about what the allegations mean or how it changes our assessment of Bergman’s work.

But given the significance of Bergman’s childhood and family life as it directly informed some of his most important films,...

A little late this week, mainly because of my own random b.s. that one goes through when attempting to juggle too many things at once. Try not to do it kids, because it means a Hulu article gets sidetracked a bit. A ton of stuff was added since I last was here, but unlike last week’s where I focused on 10 specific films that weren’t in the Collection, this time it’s a bunch of familiar (and not so) faces, be it in their great Eclipse sets or in Criterion’s own pantheon.

A huge thanks to who have already used this link to enjoy their own Hulu Plus and in turn keeping this series of articles up and running. We can always use the help, so please sign up using that specific link. Every little bit does keep this nice and polished. But enough about that. You...

The Criterion Collection will release Louis Malle’s (Atlantic City) bizarre and seldom-seen 1975 sci-fi fantasy Black Moon on Blu-ray and DVD on June 28.

Exotic animals abound in the post-apocalyptic fantasy Black Moon.

After skirting the horrors of an unidentified war being waged in an anonymous countryside, a beautiful young woman (Cathryn Harrison, The Dresser) takes refuge in a remote farmhouse, where she becomes embroiled in the surreal domestic odyssey of a mysterious family. Evocatively shot by Ingmar Bergman’s (The Magician) go-to cinematographer Sven Nykvist (Cries and Whispers), the foreign film is reportedly a Freudian tale of adolescent sexuality set in a post-apocalyptic world of shifting identities, talking animals and general weirdness.

We’ve never seen this cult movie, but the good people of Criterion describe it as “one of Malle’s most experimental films and a cinematic daydream like no other,” and that definitely works for us!

The Blu-ray and DVD editions,...

Photo: MGM Home Entertainment I referenced a quote from director Ingmar Bergman talking about Persona recently from an interview included on Criterion's latest Blu-ray release of Bergman's The Magician. In the interview he said: If I've really managed to make a film that has sparked a debate it would be very tactless of me to barge in on that debate and talk about what I really meant by the film.

It would be tactless toward the audience, because I'm sure they all have their own interpretations, and tactless towards those commenting on it in the media, who might feel hurt if they found they'd misinterpreted the film.

Therefore I prefer not to say anything at all.

I played my part in this debate when I made the film. Roger Ebert lists Persona has one of his greatest movies writing, "Persona (1966) is a film we return to over the years, for...

Ingmar Bergman’s 1958 drama The Magician has never had the vaunted reputation of his ’50s classics Smiles Of A Summer Night, Wild Strawberries, or The Seventh Seal, but it’s of a piece with those early films, in that it comes from an era when Bergman’s wit and whimsy were as central to his style as his preoccupation with pain, death, and the piteousness of religious faith. Set in 1846, The Magician stars Max von Sydow as a grim-looking performing hypnotist who rides into Stockholm with his usual entourage: a palm-reading/potion-selling tout, an old lady, and a ...

Reviewer:Steve Dollar

Rating (out of 5): *****

When I was in college during the retroactively wondrous 1970s, every budding sophomore movie buff got introduced to the giants of world cinema through 10-week retrospectives that accompanied each quarter's film classes, unspooling in a creaky auditorium with a leaking roof. These crash courses were fairly amazing, since even VHS barely seemed to exist at the time, and the closest art house was a day's drive away. One semester, I watched tons of Ingmar Bergman, supplemented by various textbooks and histories, including the near-Biblical Four Screenplays of Bergman, which featured his treatments for The Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries, Smiles of a Summer Night and The Magician (aka Ansiktet or The Face).

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By Raymond Benson

Once again The Criterion Collection digs into master director Ingmar Bergman’s vault and brings us his exquisite, enigmatic film from 1958, The Magician (originally titled The Face in the UK; in fact, the Swedish title, Ansiktet, means “Face”).

Set sometime in the 1800s, the story concerns a traveling magic and medicine show called “Vogler’s Magnetic Health Theater.” The troupe consists of Vogler (Max von Sydow), the mute magician of the picture’s title, his “ward,” Mr. Aman (Ingrid Thulin in disguise, although it’s no surprise that the character is a woman), Tubal (Ake Fridell), who acts as manager/spokesman, and the inscrutable Granny (Naima Wifstrand), an old witch who dabbles in love potions. Picked up along the road is an alcoholic actor, Spegel (Bengt Ekerot, who was memorable as Death in The Seventh Seal).

Before the company...

The weekend’s here. You’ve just been paid, and it’s burning a hole in your pocket. What’s a pop culture geek to do? In hopes of steering you in the right direction to blow some of that hard-earned cash, it’s time for the Fred Weekend Shopping Guide - your spotlight on the things you didn’t even know you wanted…

(Please support Fred by using the links below to make any impulse purchases - it helps to keep us going…)

It ended before its time, but fans can now pick up the 3rd and final volume of John Byrne’s Next Men: The Premiere Collection (Idw, $50.00 Srp), which collects issues 21-30 in an oversized, hardbound presentation. Oh, and that whole “ended before its time” thing? Idw has convinced Byrne to bring the series back. Huzzah!

Nobody does fantasy drinking quite like the inhabitants of Middle Earth,...

Another week gone by, another round of Blu-ray buying and trying, avoiding and really avoiding here at Reject HQ. The release slate is slim and for the most part, it would appear as if home video distributors are afraid of the direct to video level junk they are throwing out there this week, as many a title didn’t arrive at our doorstep. Stuff like Jonah Hex and The Lost Boys: The Thirst are probably best left unreviewed by yours truly. Similar to the way a 30-year old man dominates a toddler tee-ball league, I was looking forward to busting some heads. Sadly, we’ll stick with a more intimate collection of releases this week, including a few nice surprises as we go through This Week in Blu-ray. The Magician (Criterion) You hear the name Ingmar Bergman and if you’ve never studied the world of international cinema, it feels like something so far away. That...

A look at what's new on DVD today:

"The Darjeeling Limited" (2007)

Directed by Wes Anderson

Released by Criterion Collection

Anderson's underappreciated trip to India on the backs of three brothers (Adrien Brody, Jason Schwartzman and Owen Wilson) who take a train the country to honor their late father gets a reexamination with this Criterion Collection edition that includes a new documentary, an audio commentary from Anderson, Schwartzman and Roman Coppola, audition footage, a video essay from Matt Zoller Seitz, a chichat between Anderson and the late James Ivory about the film's music and Anderson's ad for American Express and the short "Hotel Chevalier" with Natalie Portman.

"As Good As Dead" (2010)

Directed by Jonathan Mossek

Released by First Look Entertainment

Andie MacDowell, Frank Whaley and Matt Dallas star as spurned cult members from the South who take a New Yorker (Cary Elwes) hostage years after they believe he's killed their leader in this thriller.