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“Oppenheimer” wins Best Picture at the Oscars, ending an Academy Awards season that gave many hope that blockbusters for adults were actually back.

The Christopher Nolan epic about the creation of the atomic bomb took seven Oscars March 10 at the Dolby Theatre, the most of any film in contention. It also ended its theatrical run with $957 million worldwide, making it the highest-grossing Best Picture winner since “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King,” and its $1.1 billion, claimed the top prize exactly 20 years ago.

“Oppenheimer” won Best Supporting Actor for Robert Downey, Jr., Best Film Editing, Best Cinematography, Best Original Score, Best Actor for Cillian Murphy, Best Director for Nolan, and Best Picture.

“Oppenheimer” represents the biggest success Nolan has ever had at the Academy Awards. Its 13 nominations outclasses the three films of his that previously tied for the most noms in his filmography: “The Dark Knight,” “Inception,...

Ahead of Christopher Nolan’s biopic of ‘father of the atomic bomb’ J Robert Oppenheimer, in cinemas next week, we explore the bomb’s legacy on film, from Hiroshima Mon Amour to Dr Strangelove

Two new documentaries available to stream this week are riding the wave of anticipation for Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, out in cinemas next Friday. Lest Nolan’s Cillian Murphy-starring biopic of atomic bomb creator J Robert Oppenheimer not serve the facts diligently enough, then Oppenheimer: The Real Story (from 17 July) and To End All War: Oppenheimer and the Atomic Bomb (Now TV) are on hand to fill in any gaps. They join a long line of documentaries on the subject and its adjacent concerns; the surprise is that it’s taken this long for Oppenheimer himself to be the protagonist of a major Hollywood drama.

But the legacy of the atom bomb, from its development...

Both a landmark and a source of much controversy, “Hiroshima” is one of those films where the background is as significant as the picture itself. Let us take things from the beginning, by quoting Joseph Anderson and Donald Richie’s “The Japanese Film”. “In 1953, the Japan Teachers Union decided to go in with Kaneto Shindo and make a film version of the bestselling “Children of the Atom Bomb” (Genbaku no Ko) by Arata Osada. Shindo made a faithful film version, using the name of the book, and showed the aftermath of the bomb without any vicious polemic. (…) The Union was not at all satisfied, saying that he had “made [the story] into a tear-jerker and destroyed its political orintation.” They decided to back another version which would this time “genuinely to help to fight to preserve peace.” They found their man in Hideo Sekigawa, who turned out “Hiroshima”. (…) The picture was financially...

France has selected Emmanuel Finkiel’s Memoir of War as its official selection for the Oscars’ Foreign Language film race. The pic, which Finkiel adapted from Marguerite Duras’ semi-autobiographical 1944 novel set in Nazi-occupied Paris, stars Mélanie Thierry in a story of love, loss, and perseverance against the backdrop of war.

Music Box Films holds U.S. rights to Memoir of War and released it in theaters last month.

The film came out on top on a shortlist that included Gaspar Noé’s Cannes buzz title Climax, the late Claude Lanzmann’s Les Quatre Sœurs, Mademoiselle De Joncquières by Emmanuel Mouret, and Xavier Legrand’s Jusqu’à La Garde. The choice was finalized today by France’s National Film Center (Cnc), which said the film, known in France as La Douleur (The Pain), has seen 350,00 submissions in French theaters.

The plot centers on Duras (Thierry) who is is an active...

Scores on Screen is a column by Clare Nina Norelli on film soundtracks.When French documentarian Alain Resnais was commissioned to produce a short film about the 1945 bombing of Hiroshima, it initially seemed to him an impossible and daunting task. How does one convey onscreen the sheer magnitude of the horrific atomic attack and its devastating effects; how to reproduce on celluloid the ongoing trauma of that fateful August morning as experienced by the Japanese people? Resnais ultimately decided to focus his film on the “impossibility” of talking about, or fully knowing, the tragedy of Hiroshima. Eschewing the documentary form he was familiar with, the director instead embarked on his first narrative film, Hiroshima, mon amour (1959), enlisting the help of the celebrated French writer Marguerite Duras to write the film’s scenario and dialogue. Resnais still retained documentary-style images of the ruins of Hiroshima and the city’s survivors, but...

Alain Resnais' deceptively conventional drama is really about interpersonal dynamics: lives lived in the here and now are really anchored in events and concerns from the past, that bleed into the present. Delphine Seyrig's antique dealer invites an old beau to visit, but instead of clarity and direction finds just more personal confusion. Muriel, ou Le temps d'un retour Blu-ray The Criterion Collection 824 1963 / Color / 1:66 widescreen / 116 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date July 19, 2016 / 39.95 Starring Delphine Seyrig, Jean-Pierre Kérien, Nita Klein, Jean-Baptiste Thiérrée, Claude Sainval, Laurence Badie, Jean Champion Cinematography Sacha Vierny Production Design Jacques Saulnier Film Editor Claudine Merlin, Kenout Peltier, Eric Pluet Original Music Paul Colline Written by Jean Cayrol Produced by Anatole Dauman Directed by Alain Resnais

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Back in film school we'd make pronouncements like, why do all movies have to have such structured plots, with organized conflicts and resolutions?...

Beating Schrader’s Hardcore to the punch by a matter of months, Robin Spry’s grim and gritty gutter-level drama is driven by a not-dissimilar premise, that of a man searching the seedy urban underbelly for his drug-addicted prostitute daughter. Rather astonishing that it was made for TV – the remarkably bleak opening indicates that no punches are going to be pulled, as we first see Peter Brennan (Don Francks), before the credits have even finished rolling, nodding out in a grimy cafe toilet, the needle still sticking out of his arm. This is followed by howling hospital cold turkey, as a borderline sadistic cop plays Peter a slide show of a drug-addicted girl forced into sex work, before revealing that said girl is Peter’s own daughter. We then get to see said slide show again in harrowing close-up, while Peter wails ever louder. So, once recovered, and with regular...

Kiss Me Deadly

Directed by Robert Aldrich

Written by A.I. Bezzerides

U.S.A., 1955

Fear and danger frequently go hand in hand all to easily, be it in the world of the movies or in real life, the latter which serves a superb inspiration on the former as many already know. One person can be fearful of what danger lurks about. Fear can cause them to behave dangerously. Their dangerous behaviour can cause fear in others. Both the fear and the danger can be the offspring of yet another factor that commonly complicates matters: the unknown. Man’s fear might emerge from a physical thing he fails to comprehend, or it can also explode out of a situation which is beyond his simply control, for which he has no answer, to ripost. Kiss Me Deadly, from 1955, arrived on the silver screen just as the Cold War was, figuratively speaking, heating up,...

The official website for Shunichi Nagasaki’s Shojotachi no Rashinban has been relaunched with a new trailer.

Based on an award-winning mystery novel by Hiromi Mizuki, the film involves an up-and-coming young actress who returns to her hometown for a film shoot. Although she doesn’t mention it to anyone, her director (Ken Maeda) knows that she was a member of the legendary theater troupe “Rashinban” (compass) back in her high school years.

Four years earlier, Rumi (Riko Narumi), Ririko (Ayaka Morita), and Kaname (Mayuu Kusakari) invited a girl from a different school, Ran (Shiori Kutsuna), into their new theater group. Eventually, one member winds up dead, but the person responsible had set up the perfect alibi.

In the present day, the actress is presented with shocking evidence as the details of what seemed like the perfect crime are slowly revealed and a plan for revenge is enacted.

“Shojotachi no...

Director Roger Spottiswoode.

Neglected Gems of the 1980’s: Roger Spottiswoode Remembers Under Fire

by Jon Zelazny

Editor's Note: The following article appeared on EightMillionStories.com in 2008.

The name may not ring a bell, but Roger Spottiswoode has been directing feature films for nearly thirty years, including popular hits like Turner and Hooch (1989), Air America (1990), and the James Bond adventure Tomorrow Never Dies (1997), as well as outstanding made-for-cable dramas like And the Band Played On (1993), Hiroshima (1995), and Noriega (2000).

2008 marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of his remarkable third feature Under Fire, which starred Nick Nolte and Gene Hackman as journalists covering the 1979 revolution in Nicaragua.

It’s generally a given that every Hollywood movie endures a long, tortuous road to find financing, but not Under Fire. It had a long, hard road as well… but only after the film had been completed. Roger Spottiswoode and I spoke by phone:

You began your career as an editor,...

Veteran editors John Soh and Frank J. Urioste will be honored with the American Cinema Editors' Lifetime Career Achievement Award on Feb. 18 at the 57th annual ACE Eddie Awards at the Beverly Hilton.

The honorees were announced by ACE president Alan Heim.

Soh's credits include The Hellstrom Chronicle, which won the Oscar for best documentary in 1971, and the miniseries Hiroshima, which received the Humanitas Prize in 1996 and earned him one of two Emmys.

He also edited episodes of the television series "The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau" and The Cousteau Odyssey, for which he received an Emmy nomination in 1980. He has been nominated for the ACE Eddie Award seven times, winning for 1988's Infinite Voyage: Unseen Worlds and 1996's Hiroshima.

Urioste has been nominated for three Oscars for Robocop, Die Hard and Basic Instinct. He also has served on the board of governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and serves on the advisory board of the Academy's film editors branch. Since 1998 Urioste has served as senior vp in the feature development department at Warner Bros. Pictures.

TORONTO -- Veteran Canadian filmmaker and producer Robin Spry died Monday in a car crash in Montreal. Spry, 65, was best known for running Montreal-based Telescene Film Group as CEO and president during the 1980s and 1990s. Before that, he worked at the National Film Board for 14 years, where he shot the acclaimed 1974 film Action: The October Crisis of 1970, a documentary account of Quebec FLQ terrorists kidnapping a British diplomat and murdering a Quebec cabinet minister. Eventually, Spry moved into more commercially driven fare at Telescene. His TV credits included such syndicated series as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World, Student Bodies and The Hunger, and the 1995 miniseries Hiroshima.