News

Lambert Wilson Named President Of Locarno Jury

The Matrix franchise actor Lambert Wilson will be the President of the Jury at the 76th Locarno Film Festival this year. The French star will chair the panel, which will award the Pardo d’oro (Golden Leopard) to the winning film on the final night of the Switzerland fest. Wilson has worked with many top European directors, such as Claude Chabrol, Andrzej Żuławski and André Téchiné, and is best known in the U.S. for his role as the Merovingian in The Matrix Reloaded, The Matrix Revolutions and The Matrix Resurrections. His acting credits include Julia, La Boum 2 and Five Days One Summer. Recently he appeared in Prime Video series Totem and starred in Éric Besnard’s Les Choses Simples. The Locarno Film Festival will run from August 2-12.

Cineflix Launches First Fast Channels

UK-based Cineflix Rights is the latest distributor to...

For our latest dive into recent books on or related to cinema, we’re spending time with some icons––fictional (James Bond) and non. Let’s start with 50 color palettes and one beautifully unique new text.

Colors of Film: The Story of Cinema in 50 Palettes by Charles Bramesco (Frances Lincoln)

Colors of Film is an engrossing study of how filmmakers utilize color in complex, ingenious, emotionally impactful ways. Some of these examples (e.g. the red jacket in Schindler’s List) have inspired much discourse. What makes this book––by the always-entertaining and -intelligent critic Charles Bramesco––so special is its focus on less-obvious films. A noteworthy case: Hype Williams’ Belly and its “flights of stylistic fancy.” During its hyper-stylized opening, as gangsters Buns and Sin “prowl through the dance floor, ceiling-mounted blacklights make the men look extraterrestrial, their eyeballs glowstick-turquoise against deeper blue skin.” Other entries focus on everything...

Andrew Haigh’s quiet, two-person relationship tale won a lot of friends last year. A revelation from the past changes everything in the marriage of Charlotte Rampling and Tom Courtenay. We read the faces, read the gestures — just like we do in our own close relationships.

45 Years

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 861

2015/ Color / 1:85 widescreen / 95 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date March 7, 2017 / 39.95

Starring: Charlotte Rampling, Tom Courtenay, Geraldine James, Dolly Wells, David Sibley.

Cinematography: Lol Crawley

Film Editor: Jonathan Alberts

Production Designer: Sarah Finlay

From the short story by David Constantine

Produced by Tristan Goligher

Written and Directed by Andrew Haigh

Most filmmakers must find a way to chop down 800-page novels and still retain some semblance of the original. Others have the opposite problem, fleshing a short story to fill a feature length movie. The classic example is Ernest Hemingway’s The Killers, which is less than three thousand words in length.

The great Fred Zinnemann's last feature is a very personal story, a fairly uncomplicated drama with a mountain climbing backdrop. Sean Connery plays older than his age as a Scotsman on an Alpine vacation, toying with social disaster. With excellent, non- grandstanding performances from Betsy Brantley and Lambert Wilson. Five Days One Summer DVD-r The Warner Archive Collection 1982 / Color / 1:85 enhanced widescreen / 108 96 min. / Street Date July 12, 2016 / available through the WBshop / 21.99 Starring Sean Connery, Betsy Brantley, Lambert Wilson, Jennifer Hilary, Isabel Dean, Gérard Buhr, Anna Massey, Sheila Reid, Emilie Lihou. Cinematography Giuseppe Rotunno Film Editor Stuart Baird Original Music Elmer Bernstein Written by Michael Austin from the story 'Maiden Maiden' by Kay Boyle Produced and Directed by Fred Zinnemann

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Fred Zinnemann is a filmmaker that I've come to admire, as much for his personal integrity as for the movies he made. He could be inconsistent and...

Fred Zinnemann began his career during the studio era, but kept on going, however sporadically, long after most of his contemporaries had retired. Even so, today his name means little to most moviegoers and critics alike. But why? Quite possibly because, like William Wyler, Zinnemann covered just about every film genre there is. His relatively small oeuvre — 21 narrative feature films — encompasses the following: Western (High Noon, The Sundowners [sort of]), romance (From Here to Eternity), socially conscious drama (The Search, The Men, A Hatful of Rain), historical drama (A Man for All Seasons), adventure (The Seventh Cross, Five Days One Summer), religion (The Nun's Story), thriller (The Day of the Jackal), crime (Eyes in the Night, Kid Glove Killer, Act of Violence), war (Behold a Pale Horse), comedy (My Brother Talks to Horses), melodrama (Little Big Jim) psychological drama (Teresa, The Member of the Wedding), musical (Oklahoma), pseudo-"historical" drama (Julia, whose...