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Arguably just as interesting as the movies themselves are the behind-the-scenes stories about how the films we love were made. Then there are tales about the scripts that were never produced at all, which provide their own kind of delight for cinephiles. Just have a look at Leigh Brackett’s original script for a little movie called “Star Wars II” or the Roger Corman Fantastic Four movie that could have been or the George Miller-directed Justice League film that was just weeks away from shooting, but for every mythical script that makes the rounds on the internet, there are many more we’ve never heard about at all.

You’ll be hard-pressed to find a famous director who doesn’t have a few old screenplays collecting dust in a filing drawer somewhere. Even legendary director Stanley Kubrick still has a Napoleon movie waiting to be made. And let’s...

Special Agent in Charge of NCIS Pearl Harbor Jane Tennant (Vanessa Lachey) can switch from being off-duty and spending time with her two kids (Kian Talan’s Alex and Mahina Anna Maria Napoleon’s Julie) to taking charge in the time it takes you to snap your fingers. That’s exactly what she does in TV Insider’s exclusive sneak peek of the NCIS: Hawai’i series premiere (airing September 20). In the clip, Tennant catches a ride in a Black Hawk helicopter, waving goodbye to her kids. Watch the video above to see her take command of the crime scene — and stop Captain Milius (recurring guest star Enver Gjokaj) in his tracks. In the latest NCIS series — the first one in the franchise with a female lead — Tennant and her team of specialists balance duty, family and country while investigating high-stakes crimes involving military personnel and national security, just like the other spinoffs.

The auteur’s long-planned passion project is finally edging toward production, an audacious gambit that he plans to mostly fund himself

When it was announced that Francis Ford Coppola might finally make his long-gestating film Megalopolis, a jolt of electric excitement went through the bodies of cineastes around the world. Like the unrealized visions of Stanley Kubrick’s Napoleon and Alejandro Jodorowsky’s Dune, it seemed as if it would only be screened in the imaginary multiplexes of cinephile’s dreams. Yet, against all odds, Coppola seems to be dusting off the director’s beret.

Related: Francis Ford Coppola: ‘Life is a great screenwriter’...

"Gladiator" director Ridley Scott will team up again with "Joker" Oscar winner Joaquin Phoenix, to play French military leader and emperor 'Napoleon':

"...the new film  is an original and personal look at Napoleon's origins and his swift, ruthless climb to emperor, viewed through the prism of his addictive and often volatile relationship with his wife and one true love 'Josephine'...

"...against a backdrop of famous battles, relentless ambition and an astounding strategic mind as a military leader..."

Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) was a French military and political leader who rose to prominence during the latter stages of the 'French Revolution' and its associated wars in Europe. As 'Napoleon I', he was 'Emperor' of the French from 1804 to 1815. His legal reform, the 'Napoleonic Code', has been a major influence on many civil law jurisdictions worldwide, but he is best known for his role in wars led against France, by a series of coalitions,...

“The Square” was the big winner at the European Film Awards, taking nearly every top prize: Best Film, Director, Actor, Screenwriter, even Best Comedy for good measure. It continues a very good year for Ruben Östlund’s art-world satire, which won the Palme d’Or at Cannes and is considered a likely nominee for the Academy Award for Best Foreign-Language Film.

Also represented were “On Body and Soul,” which won the Golden Bear at Berlinale and earned Alexandra Borbely the Best Actress award, and “Communion,” which took the Documentary prize.

This year’s ceremony, the 30th, took place in Berlin. Avail yourself of the winner list below.

Read More:2017 European Film Awards Nominations: ‘The Square,’ ‘Bpm,’ ‘The Killing of a Sacred Deer,’ and More Lead the Way Best European Film

“Bpm (Beats per Minute),” (Robin Campillo, France)

“Loveless,” (Andrey Zvyagintsev, Russia, Belgium, Germany, France)

“On Body and Soul,” (Ildiko Enyedi,...

The European Film Awards nominations have been released, with a number of festival favorites landing high-profile nods. Among them are “The Square” and “Bpm,” which were both nominated for Best European Film, and “The Killing of a Sacred Deer,” which missed out on the top category but was recognized in the Director, Actor, and Screenwriter fields.

Read More:‘The Square’ Director Ruben Östlund Wants to Push Cultural Boundaries, But Won’t Read Any Scripts With Killing

This year’s ceremony, the 30th, takes place in Berlin on December 9. Here are all the nominees:

Best European Film

“Bpm (Beats per Minute),” (Robin Campillo, France)

“Loveless,” (Andrey Zvyagintsev, Russia, Belgium, Germany, France)

“On Body and Soul,” (Ildiko Enyedi, Hungary)

“The Other Side of Hope,” (Aki Kaurismaki, Finland, Germany)

“The Square,” (Ruben Ostlund, Sweden, Germany, France, Denmark)

Best European Director

Ildiko Enyedi, (“On Body and Soul”)

Aki Kaurismaki, (“The Other Side of Hope”)

Yorgos Lanthimos,...

In order to make accurate predictions about the potential Cannes Film Festival lineup, it’s first important to explore which films definitely won’t make the cut. The glamorous French gathering is notorious for waiting until the last minute before locking in every slot for its Official Selection. That includes competition titles, out of competition titles, a small midnight section and the Un Certain Regard sidebar. Cannes announces the bulk of its selections in Paris on April 13, but until then, there are plenty of ways to make educated guesses. Much of the reporting surrounding the upcoming festival selection is simply lists of films expected to come out this year. However, certain movies are definitely not going to the festival for various reasons.

That’s why our own list of potentials doesn’t include “Image Et Parole,” Jean-Luc Godard’s followup to “Goodbye to Language,” which sales agent Wild Bunch now anticipates as a 2018 title.

The great film historian Kevin Brownlow, who has devoted large sections of his life to restoring Abel Gance's 1927 epic Napoleon, takes a dim view of this one. And indeed Austerlitz, a.k.a. The Battle of Austerlitz, has several strikes against it, belongs to several categories of film maudit all at once. It's a late film by a seventy-one-year-old director whose best work, by universal consensus, was in the silent era; it's a kind of belated sequel, the further adventures of Napoleon Bonaparte; it's a Salkind production.Incidentally, viewing the lavish sets for this movie, we can see how the Salkinds, those roving multinational mountebanks, ran up the unpaid studio bills in Yugoslavia which kept Orson Welles from building the elaborate vanishing sets he had planned for The Trial (starting realistic, it would have ended up playing in a featureless void), necessitating the repurposing of a disused Parisian railway station.

DVD Playhouse December 2010

By

Allen Gardner

America Lost And Found: The Bbs Story (Criterion) Perhaps the best DVD box set released this year, this ultimate cinefile stocking stuffer offered up by Criterion, the Rolls-Royce of home video labels, features seven seminal works from the late ‘60s-early ‘70s that were brought to life by cutting edge producers Bert Schneider, Steve Blauner and director/producer Bob Rafelson, the principals of Bbs Productions. In chronological order: Head (1968) star the Monkees, the manufactured (by Rafelson, et al), American answer to the Beatles who, like it or not, did make an impact on popular culture, particularly in this utterly surreal piece of cinematic anarchy (co-written by Jack Nicholson, who has a cameo), which was largely dismissed upon its initial release, but is now regarded as a counterculture classic. Easy Rider (1969) is arguably regarded as the seminal ‘60s picture, about two hippie drug dealers (director Dennis Hopper...