News

Gene Roddenberry created the Star Trek franchise with the original series taking flight in 1966. Given its popularity, several iterations have continued to follow keeping Roddenberry’s vision and passion for sci-fi alive. As a result, almost every entry in the franchise has featured one classic Roddenberry element that the creator popularized in the franchise’s early days.

Gene Roddenberry created the Star Trek franchise (Credit: Paramount TV).

In the Star Trek shows, a common visual of the ship’s crew playing a game of poker can be seen. During an interview, Roddenberry reflected on making poker one of the go-to board games for the Starfleet crews while traversing space there was a deeper significance behind its addition. Here is why Gene Roddenberry added poker to almost every Star Trek series.

Star Trek creator revealed why almost every series in the franchise features poker

Created by Gene Roddenberry, the Star Trek...

We may receive a commission on purchases made from links.

In 1934, the inimitable Bette Davis appeared in a film adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham's "Of Human Bondage," a semi-autobiographical novel about the unfortunate loves of one Philip Carey. The 1934 film was directed by the prolific John Cromwell and starred Leslie Howard as Philip. Davis played Mildred Rogers, a tearoom waitress that Philip falls in love with, but who treats him with the utmost cruelty. It was a great role for Davis, who was only 26 at the time. 

An article in Collider points out that Davis was under contract with Warner Bros. at the time, but really, really wanted to play the part of Mildred, knowing that it was a juicy role. "Of Human Bondage" was being produced by Rko, and Davis would need WB's Jack Warner to loan her talents to Rko to work on the project. Davis...

Miguel Gomes does not consider himself a genius like Alfred Hitchcock.

The 52-year-old Portuguese director’s ravishing, cross-continental, mostly B&W feature “Grand Tour” — a mix of drama and ethnology — won him the Best Director award at Cannes back in May and is now Portugal’s Oscar submission to the 2025 Oscars. According to Gomes, unlike Hitchcock, he cannot sit around a room and dictate innovative ideas for story arcs and shots.

Speaking with IndieWire at the Sunset Marquis in West Hollywood, in his first time in L.A. and on the first stop of his Oscars press tour amid the film’s upcoming release in France and Italy, the gracious, soft-voiced, sharp-eared Gomes said, “I have, in my case, to open the window, let the world come in, and react to it.” Cigarette puffs later, he said, “I have to catch butterflies.”

It’s fascinating to hear a modern master...

Mubi’s “Grand Tour” is Portugal’s 2025 Oscars entry for Best International Feature. Although this is director Miguel Gomes‘ third film selected (he was also chosen in 2008 for “Our Beloved Month of August” and in 2015 for “Arabian Nights: Volume 2 — The Desolate One”), he has never truly campaigned, until now.

Gomes says he’s “playing the game” this time, and he kicked off his American promotion for “Grand Tour” with a special screening and Q & A hosted by Gold Derby at The Aster in Los Angeles on Dec. 3.

“Jesus, it’s a high responsibility,” the Best Director winner from this year’s Cannes Film Festival said about representing Portugal at the Oscars.

“Grand Tour” is about a man named Edward, a civil servant who flees his fiancee Molly on their wedding day in Rangoon, 1918. His travels replace panic with melancholy. Molly, set on marriage, amused by his escape, trails him across Asia.

Grand Tour.Grand Tour (2024), director Miguel Gomes’s sixth feature and first to play in competition at Cannes, is a return to the globe-trotting style of his pre-pandemic work. In this follow-up to his remarkably resourceful Covid comedy The Tsugua Diaries (2021), which he codirected with his wife and frequent collaborator Maureen Fazendeiro, the Portuguese filmmaker exhibits an equal but opposite kind of inventiveness as he turns a two-page passage from W. Somerset Maugham’s The Gentleman in the Parlour, a 1930 collection of the English author’s travel writing, into a peripatetic odyssey across Southeast Asia. In 1918, Edward (Gonçalo Waddington), a civil servant for the British government, spontaneously flees Rangoon the day his fiancée, Molly (Crista Alfaiate), arrives to be married. As Edward sets off by boat to Singapore, and from there to Bangkok, Saigon, Manila, Osaka, and Shanghai, telegrams from Molly inexplicably arriving all the while, the story blossoms into a surreal,...

Even those who have never seen a single Bette Davis film know her name and that her legacy represented movie stardom in its purest form. With eyes so striking there were songs written about them, Davis burst into Hollywood as an uncompromising actress, unafraid to look brash and aggressive in the name of playing compelling, sardonic, and occasionally unlikable characters. With an ability to capture the highs and lows of heartbreak and sorrow while having a nuanced understanding of when to play it big for the cameras and when to pull back, Davis was truly an icon of cinema.

While the best Bette Davis movies rank among the greatest films ever produced, her career also featured plenty of ups and downs as her relationship with stardom was complex and inconsistent. Davis achieved widespread recognition through Oscar-winning roles in the 1930s, had an all-time career high with All About Eve in...

After the extraordinary triple whammy of Emelia Perez, The Substance and Anora, here comes Portuguese auteur Miguel Gomes with a blast of cinematic chloroform to calm the Cannes Competition down a touch.

A talky, experimental odyssey through the Far East, it deals with issues of colonialism and gender, but in such an oblique way that it’s hard to fathom without referring to the rather cryptic press notes that come with it. Fans of Gomes’ deadpan style — with which he broke out in 2012 when his film Tabu became an arthouse favorite on the festival circuit — no doubt will respond to its eccentricity, its wry irony and its undeniably striking monochrome cinematography. Less enlightened viewers may wish to take a pillow.

The film takes place in two timeframes. The fictional narrative takes place in 1918 and begins with British civil servant Edward Abbot (Gonçalo Waddington) arriving at Mandalay station in Burma. Although...

Cannes film festival

Miguel Gomes’s beguiling and bewildering story follows a jittery fiance fleeing his intended across the British empire, and her hot pursuit

Once again, Portuguese auteur Miguel Gomes delivers a film in which the most complex sophistication coexists with innocence and charm. It is at once very worldly and yet unworldly – in fact almost childlike at times. It is elegant, eccentric and needs some time to be indulged. The British characters are played by Portuguese actors speaking Portuguese, except for a few rousing choruses of the Eton Boating Song, which is in English. (There is more literal casting for other nationalities.) And yes, it is six parts beguiling to one part exasperating. But quite unlike any other film in the Cannes competition, it leaves you with a gentle, bemused smile on your face.

The story, co-written by Gomes, could be adapted from something by Somerset Maugham, but...

‘Camomile Lawn’ Novelist’s Estate Snapped Up By Ilp

International Literary Properties has acquired the estate of British The Camomile Lawn novelist Mary Wesley. Channel 4’s adaptation of The Camomile Lawn is Channel 4’s second most successful drama series of all time, according to Ilp, and the deal will see Ilp manage the rights to Wesley’s work. Having famously published her first novel aged 70, she also wrote the likes of Jumping the Queue, Harnessing Peacocks and The Vacillations of Poppy Carew, all of which have previously been adapted for film and TV. “Mary was an incredible woman, an extraordinary author and a very close member of my family,” said Wesley’s daughter in law, the author Xinran Xue. Deadline revealed last year that Ilp, which holds rights to the literary estates of Langston Hughes and Evelyn Waugh, had headed on a West Coast charm offensive and snapped up the estate of Somerset Maugham.

The dust still hasn’t settled on the 96th annual Academy Award nominations due to the uproar over the “Barbie” snubs for Best Actress for Margot Robbie and Greta Gerwig for Best Director. They still earned Oscar nominations for the cultural phenomena that was the No. 1 film of 2023 with an international box office of $1.4 billion. Robbie and Gerwig received noms as producer for the Best Picture nominee and Gerwig also was garnered a nomination for co-writing the adapted screenplay. But the film is about female empowerment, so it’s beyond ironic it was Ken (Ryan Gosling), not Barbie, who received Oscar recognition.

Gosling wasn’t happy: “Against all odds with nothing but a couple of soulless, scantily clad, and thankfully crotchless dolls, made us laugh, they broke our hearts, they pushed the culture and made history. Their work should be recognized along with the other very deserving nominees.”

America Ferrera,...

Machine Gun Kelly has done it again, folks. And by “it,” we mean managed to annoy people with an arguably not-very-well-thought-out artistic statement. In this case, a signature guitar shaped like a razor blade.

As Stereogum notes, Mgk recently launched a new line of guitars with Schecter. Most of them look like normal guitars, including a pink one similar to the one featured on the cover of Mgk’s 2020 album, Tickets to My Downfall. The one shaped like a razor blade, though, has unsurprisingly garnered controversy for potentially glorifying self-harm and cutting.

Glynis Johns, the upbeat leading lady with the British charm who starred as the spirited feminist mother Winifred Banks in Mary Poppins, has died. She was 100.

Johns lived in West Hollywood and died Thursday of natural causes at an assisted living facility in the area, her manager, Mitch Clem, told The Hollywood Reporter.

A multitalented actress, dancer, pianist and singer, Johns earned a best supporting actress Oscar nomination for playing the widowed saloon and hotel owner Mrs. Firth in Fred Zinnemann’s Australia-set The Sundowners (1960).

Plus, she memorably sang “Send in the Clowns,” which Stephen Sondheim wrote just for her, in her Tony Award-winning performance as Desiree Armfeldt in the original 1973 production of A Little Night Music.

The husky voiced Johns was nominated for a Golden Globe for portraying a daffy older socialite who is stirred by the young stud she meets on the beach in a then-controversial film about sex,...

Leonard Bernstein — the composer of West Side Story and considered one of the world’s greatest conductors — has lived rent-free in Bradley Cooper’s head since 2018, when Steven Spielberg met with him about what was going to be a straightforward biopic of a musical genius. Somehow, Spielberg knew that Cooper had been obsessed with conducting since he was a child. Not because he was some kind of musical prodigy, but because of an episode of The Bugs Bunny Show in which the hero conducts the London Philharmonic Orchestra at the Hollywood Bowl, arms flailing wildly.

“Growing up, there was always classical music playing in the house,” Cooper recalls. “So, because of the cartoons I was watching, I used to wave my hands about and pretend that I was creating the music that I was hearing. One Christmas I asked Santa, and all of a sudden I had a baton that I was able to wield.

Exclusive: The company that holds rights to the literary estates of Langston Hughes and Evelyn Waugh is heading on a West Coast charm offensive and has snapped up the estate of Somerset Maugham.

International Literary Properties (Ilp) launched in 2019 but has so far focused on the UK and East Coast. Over the coming weeks, however, UK and Europe CEO Hilary Strong has numerous meetings in the diary with LA producers as Ilp looks to strike deals for adaptations of books from its 50-author roster across TV, film and in other areas.

“As we continue to buy considerable assets we need to broaden our relationships with the U.S. production community and showrunners,” Strong told Deadline. “We are going out to make sure people understand the message so we can start to develop producer networks in Hollywood akin to what we have on the East Coast and in the UK.”

Hilary...

I​t’s hard to imagine now, but there was a time when a sequel to a highly popular and profitable movie wasn’t a done deal. Each was film renegotiated just before they were made. Actors signing multi-film deals was very rare. Now if you decide to do a Marvel film, you may be asked to sign a nine-movie contract. By why didn’t Ghostbusters 3, or rather Ghostbusters: Hellbent, never get made?

While Ghostbusters II wasn’t a critical darling, it did make its budget back ten times over. Surely another film had to be in the works. S​ome of the cast and creative team were ready to give it another go, but some holdouts stalled a third Ghostbusters film for decades. It took some of them literally dying before another film could finally grace movie screens. What kept this film from getting made sooner? Let’s...

The effort to restore neglected films doesn’t get more rewarding than this 4K rebirth of Lewis Milestone’s version of the acclaimed Somerset Maugham story. Loaned from MGM, Joan Crawford tries on the role of Sadie Thompson and holds her own opposite Walter Huston’s fire & brimstone preacher. It’s still a major achievement of the pre-Code era, an adult story that doesn’t water down its ‘dangerous’ themes: it’s exactly the kind of show that the censors didn’t want made.

Rain

Blu-ray

Mary Pickford Foundation / Vci

1932 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 94 + 76 min. / Street Date September 27, 2022 / Available from Mvd / 29.95

Starring: Joan Crawford, Walter Huston, Fred Howard, Ben Hendricks Jr., William Gargan, Mary Shaw, Guy Kibbee, Kendall Lee, Beulah Bondi, Matt Moore, Walter Catlett.

Cinematography: Oliver Marsh

Art Director: Richard Day

Film Editor: W. Duncan Mansfield

Original Music: Alfred Newman

Screen adaptation by Maxwell Anderson from the play by John Colton,...

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels: Bedos Takes the Grift Shift in French Riviera Crime Caper

For a film opening with W. Somerset Maugham’s line, “The French Riviera is a sunny place for shady people,” Masquerade falls quite short of its literary aspirations. The third feature from Nicolas Bedos featuring a ravishing cast of actors (once again formulating the juiciest bits for women who are more impressive than their male counterparts) has a lot going for it, especially if you’ve never seen droll crime comedies with double and triple crosses amongst a cadre of cads. The trouble is, most people have, thus casting a deathly derivative pallor over the film, which is also neither as smart or as witheringly written as it should be.…...

Bill Murray is a man with an illustrious acting career. He's done everything from taking on the role of the gopher-obsessed groundskeeper Carl Spackler in "Caddyshack" to decidedly more serious roles like washed up movie star Bob Harris in "Lost in Translation." He's got the range and the talent to deliver his quintessential deadpan humor one minute, only to pivot to a more raw, vulnerable side the next. 

One of Murray's most serious roles is that of Larry Darrell in the 1984 adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham's story, "The Razor's Edge." In the film, Murray plays a World War I veteran whose life is considerably altered...

The post Bill Murray Had an Ulterior Motive For Taking His Ghostbusters Role appeared first on /Film.

In film history, the anthology genre is the most challenging. Episodic films often have several directors and screenwriters which gives them an inconsistent tone and quality. But the genre’s pitfalls haven’t stopped such filmmakers including Akira Kurosawa (“Dreams”), the Coens (“The Ballad of Buster Scruggs”), Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez (“Sin City”); Woody Allen, Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese (“New York Stories”); and Joe Dante, John Landis, George Miller and Steven Spielberg (“Twilight Zone: The Movie”).

Wes Anderson joined them with his latest film “The French Dispatch,” which received a nine-minute standing ovation at the Cannes Film Festival. The comedy brings to life three stories from an American magazine published in a fictional French city and features his stock company of actors including Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman, Adrien Brody and Owen Wilson.

If you are a fan of the genre, here are the best anthology movies that...

Though it was heavily rumored beforehand, the final reveal that Zendaya’s character Michelle Jones was a revamped version of Mary Jane Watson was one of the coolest moments in Spider-Man: Homecoming. Once you know the twist though, there are a few hidden references to the fact that Mj will go on to be integral to Peter Parker’s life, and one fan has just pointed us in the direction of a pretty neat one.

Reddit user u/MrBubbles9039 shared a screenshot on the Marvel Studios subreddit taken from the scene where Mj is staring up at the Washington Monument, during the section of the film where the Midtown Academic Triathlon team have travelled to D.C. The character is wearing a shirt with a picture of famed poet and writer Sylvia Plath on it. The Redittor notes that Plath once wrote a poem called “The Spider.”

On the one hand,...

It’s the formidable Bette Davis once again, in yet another superior William Wyler picture. The Somerset Maugham play is a classy vehicle for a star performance — the nagging legal ‘difficulty’ of plantation wife Leslie Crosbie is intertwined with colonial politics but remains entirely personal. Leslie isn’t exactly a poster girl for the feminist movement. Is she the victim of social pressures or just a petty, selfish monster? Screenwriter Howard Koch had to invent a twisted new ‘yellow peril’ finish to appease the Production Code … you know, the Code that some people say made Hollywood movies better.

The Letter

Blu-ray

The Warner Archive Collection

1940 / B&w / 1:37 flat Academy / 95 min. / Street Date September 24, 2019 / available through the WBshop / 21.99

Starring: Bette Davis, Herbert Marshall, James Stephenson, Frieda Inescort, Gale Sondergaard.

Cinematography: Tony Gaudio

Art Direction: Carl Jules Weyl

Film Editor: George Amy, Warren Low

Original Music: Max Steiner

Written by Howard...

She starred with Humphrey Bogart and James Stewart. But Gloria Grahame refused to bow to Hollywood sexism and was driven out. Frank Cottrell-Boyce on a new film about her finding love and a second life with a chaotic Liverpool family

In the late 1970s, Peter Turner was a young actor living in digs in Primrose Hill. One of his fellow lodgers in the London flat was Gloria Grahame – you know, the girl who couldn’t say no in Oklahoma!, the wayward small-town floozy in It’s a Wonderful Life.

By the time she met Peter, she was playing Sadie in a production of Somerset Maugham’s Rain at the Watford Palace. “She asked to borrow a shirt,” he says. “Then she needed a fiver. It escalated from there.” The couple began an on-off affair that seemed to dwindle to nothing – until late 1981. “Tuesday 29 September,” says Peter, embarking on a tale...

on this day in history as it relates to showbiz

30 BC Cleopatra commits suicide, allegedly by purposeful snake bite. I don't remember that scene in Liz Taylor's Cleopatra but it might have been at the four hour mark and t'was possibly asleep

How to honor this day: play with someone's snake. In the absence of a suitable one, wink at someone as saucily as Liz

← 1915 "Of Human Bondage" by W Somerset Maugham published. 19 years later it becomes a movie and marks Bette Davis's ascent to superstar actress

How to honor this day: Let it all out like Bette in that performance that's pure...

Mike Cecchini Mar 29, 2017

We unpacked Spider-Man: Homecoming's new trailer, and find lots of nerdy details...

Spider-Man: Homecoming arrives on July 7th. So far, Marvel and Sony have been careful about not revealing too much about the movie. We got our first trailer way back in December, and it's taken them until now to unveil new footage.

Before we get going, here's the new trailer, that was released yesterday. And then we're going to break it down...

Video of Spider-Man: Homecoming - Trailer 2

I don't go shot by shot in order. Instead I try and connect the dots in the trailer based on what I think is happening. I'm probably wrong, of course, but that's the way it goes.

Let's get to work...

Forget About the Origin Story!

This doesn't look like the same apartment that Peter and Aunt May were living in when we met them in Captain America: Civil War,...

Yesterday was a tough one for the Newell family. Actually, the past few months haven’t been easy; my dad is – well, the best way to describe the situation is that my father is a soul trapped in the shell of what was once a healthy, vibrant human being. To be honest, I don’t know why he isn’t dead. And my mom had a stroke about a month ago – and although she’s up and walking around (with the aid of a walker), the energetic and vivacious woman with whom I laughed and fought and loved is gone, too, leaving behind an old lady who is dip-shit batty – though I must admit that some of what she says is pretty funny.

And at least they both are in the same nursing home.

We have spent the last few weeks cleaning out their apartment – especially my brother, who has...

Rita Hayworth in 3-D, in a hot story that was acceptable for 1925 and 1932, but too racy for repressed 1953. On a tropical island, a prostitute cabaret singer battles a fiery preacher missionary inspector for her freedom. Hayworth is dynamite, and it takes all of her talent to keep the show afloat, with so much interference from the equally repressed censors. Miss Sadie Thompson 3-D 3-D Blu-ray Twilight Time 1953 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 91 min. / Street Date July 12, 2016 / Available from Twilight Time Movies Store29.95 Starring Rita Hayworth, José Ferrer, Aldo Ray, Russell Collins, Diosa Costello, Harry Bellaver, Wilton Graff, Peggy Converse, Henry Slate, Rudy Bond, Charles Bronson, Jo Ann Greer. Cinematography Charles Lawton Jr. Original Music George Duning, Morris Stoloff, Ned Washington, Lester Lee Written by Harry Kleiner from a story by W. Somerset Maugham Produced by Jerry Wald Directed by Curtis Bernhardt

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Yes!  3-D on Blu-ray shows no sign of going away,...

Cad, bounder, dastard... look those words up in an old casting directory and you'll probably find a picture of George Sanders. Albert Lewin's best movie is a class-act period piece with terrific acting from Sanders, Angela Lansbury, Ann Dvorak, John Carradine, Warren William and many more, and a powerful '40s picture that most people haven't discovered, now handsomely restored. The Private Affairs of Bel Ami Blu-ray Olive Films 1947 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 112 min. / Street Date May 24, 2016 / available through the Olive Films website / 29.95 Starring George Sanders, Angela Lansbury, Ann Dvorak, John Carradine, Warren William, Susan Douglas, Albert Bassermann, Frances Dee, Marie Wilson, Katherine Emery, Richard Fraser. Cinematography Russell Metty Film Editor Joseph Albrecht Original Music Darius Milhaud Assistant Director Robert Aldrich Production Design Gordon Wiles Written by from the novel by Guy de Maupassant Produced by David L. Loew Written Directed by Albert Lewin

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson...

The Old Globe welcomes Globe Artistic Director Barry Edelstein, making his musical directing debut with Rain, a sumptuous world premiere musical by one of the most significant teams working in theatre today composer and lyricist Michael John Lachiusa and book writer Sybille Pearson. Based on the short story by Somerset Maugham, Rain will play now through May 1, 2016 on the Donald and Darlene Shiley Stage in the Old Globe Theatre, part of theConrad Prebys Theatre Center. BroadwayWorld has a first look at Eden Espinosaand the company in action below...

The Old Globe welcomes Globe Artistic Director Barry Edelstein, making his musical directing debut with Rain, a sumptuous world premiere musical by one of the most significant teams working in theatre today composer and lyricist Michael John Lachiusa and book writer Sybille Pearson.Based on the short story by Somerset Maugham, Rain will play now through May 1, 2016 on the Donald and Darlene Shiley Stage in the Old Globe Theatre, part of the Conrad Prebys Theatre Center. Opening night is this Friday, April 1. BroadwayWorld has a first look at Eden Espinosa and the company in action below...

The Old Globe welcomes Globe Artistic Director Barry Edelstein, making his musical directing debut with Rain, a sumptuous world premiere musical by one of the most significant teams working in theatre today composer and lyricist Michael John Lachiusa The Wild Party, Giant and book writer Sybille Pearson Giant. Based on the short story by Somerset Maugham, Rain will play tonight, March 24, through May 1, 2016 on the Donald and Darlene Shiley Stage in the Old Globe Theatre, part of the Conrad Prebys Theatre Center. Opening night is Friday, April 1 at 800 p.m. BroadwayWorld has a sneak peek at the stars in character, plus the full company, below...

The Old Globe welcomes Globe Artistic Director Barry Edelstein, making his musical directing debut with Rain, a sumptuous world premiere musical by one of the most significant teams working in theatre today composer and lyricist Michael John Lachiusa The Wild Party, Giant and book writer Sybille Pearson Giant. Based on the short story by Somerset Maugham, Rain will play March 24 - May 1, 2016 on the Donald and Darlene Shiley Stage in the Old Globe Theatre, part of the Conrad Prebys Theatre Center. Previews run March 24 - 31. Opening night is Friday, April 1 at 800 p.m. BroadwayWorld has a sneak peek at the stars in character, plus the full company, below...

Ahead of this year’s Academy Awards ceremony, we look at the most infamous Oscars oversights

Davis’s vicious performance in the pre-code adaptation of W Somerset Maugham’s Of Human Bondage was critically hailed as a landmark – yet Warner Bros studio politics (she broke contract to make the picture) cost her a best actress nomination. The outcry prompted a (since-revoked) rule change: voters could overrule the nominees by writing in an alternative on the ballot paper. Davis’s “write in” hype actually saw her enter the ceremony as the favourite, though she lost to the official nominee, Claudette Colbert, for It Happened One Night; later, voting tallies revealed Davis only placed third. She won the next year for negligible work in the hoary melodrama Dangerous – a transparent makeup award if ever there was one.

Continue reading...

The brassy confidence of Robert Siodmak’s twisted 1944 tale – starring Gene Kelly cast against type as a charming murderer – deserves to win it more plaudits during the annual Frank Capra love-in

Maybe in some far-off galaxy there’s a planet that is a complete replica of Earth, with one exception. No one knows or cares much about Frank Capra’s 1946 movie It’s a Wonderful Life, but every Christmas all the TV stations and cinemas show Christmas Holiday, made a couple of years before. This entirely bizarre but captivating noir melodrama, which takes place over one Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, is directed by Robert Siodmak and written by Herman Mankiewicz, adapted from the novel by Somerset Maugham.

Audiences expecting feelgood yuletide entertainment reeled out of the cinemas, alienated by this weird, obsessive story

Continue reading...

Constance Cummings: Stage and film actress ca. early 1940s. Constance Cummings on stage: From Sacha Guitry to Clifford Odets (See previous post: “Constance Cummings: Flawless 'Blithe Spirit,' Supporter of Political Refugees.”) In the post-World War II years, Constance Cummings' stage reputation continued to grow on the English stage, in plays as diverse as: Stephen Powys (pseudonym for P.G. Wodehouse) and Guy Bolton's English-language adaptation of Sacha Guitry's Don't Listen, Ladies! (1948), with Cummings as one of shop clerk Denholm Elliott's mistresses (the other one was Betty Marsden). “Miss Cummings and Miss Marsden act as fetchingly as they look,” commented The Spectator. Rodney Ackland's Before the Party (1949), delivering “a superb performance of controlled hysteria” according to theater director and Michael Redgrave biographer Alan Strachan, writing for The Independent at the time of Cummings' death. Clifford Odets' Winter Journey / The Country Girl (1952), as...

facebook

twitter

google+

From Quatermass to The Year Of The Sex Olympics, the voice of classic British screenwriter Nigel Kneale is still resonant and exciting...

Conflict drives drama. What people want and how they set out to get it makes for the best entertainment: Chief Brody wants to make Amity Island a safe place for his kids; Indiana Jones wants to find the Ark of the Covenant; Mark Watney wants to survive on Mars, A giant shark, a bunch of Nazis, and a planet without an atmosphere respectively stand in their way.

But conflict isn't only a device from which to hang big action sequences. The tension between ideas can make for brilliant drama - the kind of film and television that you think about for years afterwards - and one of the best screenwriters for this conflict of ideas was Nigel Kneale.

Kneale was born in 1922 in Barrow-in-Furness and,...

Two decades later, we're still totally creeped out by "Seven."

The seven-deadly-sins-inspired serial killer thriller, which opened 20 years ago this week (on September 22, 1995), helped put director David Fincher on the map and marked a career milestone for stars Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, and Kevin Spacey. What's more, from its jittery opening credits to its grim shocker of an ending, "Seven" has become a template for how to make a dark, suspenseful crime drama.

Despite its many imitators, however, "Seven" maintains its secrets, from who almost starred in it to how it accomplished its unsettling effects to the softened ending that was almost tacked on. Here are some of those secrets. (Warning: Spoilers follow, though, c'mon, the movie's 20 years old.)

1. "Seven" screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker has a cameo. He's the corpse seen at the beginning of the movie.

2. Walker wrote the screenplay, his first, while living in New York City and...

'Being Julia' movie: Annette Bening and Shaun Evans 'Being Julia' movie review: Annette Bening showcase tells us a little about Avice A little Being Julia movie background: In Joseph L. Mankiewicz's 1950 Oscar-winning classic All About Eve, Bette Davis plays Margo Channing, a major Broadway star who, despite her talent, wit, and some forty-odd years on this planet, falls prey to the youthful, ambitious wannabe Eve Harrington: sweet, soft-spoken Anne Baxter on the outside; ruthless, poisonous gargoyle on the inside.* More than a decade earlier, in 1937 to be exact, W. Somerset Maugham had written Theatre, a novel about West End diva Julia Lambert. In Maugham's tale, Julia, despite her talent, wit, and some forty-odd years on this planet, succumbs to her vanity when she falls madly in love with Tom Fennel, a handsome – and deceptively innocent-looking – American half her age. Through Tom's "special friendship" with the renowned Julia, an ambitious young actress,...

'The Letter' 1940, with Bette Davis 'The Letter' 1940 movie: Bette Davis superb in masterful studio era production Directed by William Wyler and adapted by Howard Koch from W. Somerset Maugham's 1927 play, The Letter is one of the very best films made during the Golden Age of the Hollywood studios. Wyler's unsparing, tough-as-nails handling of the potentially melodramatic proceedings; Bette Davis' complex portrayal of a passionate woman who also happens to be a self-absorbed, calculating murderess; and Tony Gaudio's atmospheric black-and-white cinematography are only a few of the flawless elements found in this classic tale of deceit. 'The Letter': 'U' for 'Unfaithful' The Letter begins in the dark of night, as a series of gunshots are heard in a Malayan rubber plantation. Leslie Crosbie (Bette Davis) walks out the door of her house firing shots at (barely seen on camera) local playboy Jeff Hammond, who falls dead on the ground.

Nightmare Alley

Written by Jules Furthman

Directed by Edmund Goulding

U.S.A., 1947

A carny cons his way up to high society through cold-reading and (un)timely circumstance. Based on that one-liner, who would you cast? If you say Tyrone Power, I’d say that my friend Stan Carlisle is on his way (The name Stan Carlisle being a con-industry handshake of sorts, informing one con-artist that he’s stepping in on another man’s con, or at least according to Eddie “The Czar of Noir” Muller’s introduction of this film at Tcmff). In Nightmare Alley, Tyrone Power, the 20th Century Fox matinee idol, plays a lowlife con man, who lies and cheats his way from a podunk carnival to becoming a spiritualist amongst the more gullible of Chicago’s upper crust. His character is also the namesake of the above con slang.

And any which way, yes, Tyrone Power...

There are a million big reasons that On the Twentieth Century, the 1978 musical by Cy Coleman and Comden and Green, shouldn’t work today: It’s profoundly silly, tonally tricky, too big for the market, and a very hard sing. Indeed, the Roundabout’s delicious revival at the American Airlines crashes intermittently into most of those problems. But there’s nevertheless one small reason — about four-foot-eleven — it works anyway: Kristin Chenoweth. She is a comic genius in a role ideally suited to her gifts.The role is Lily Garland, née Mildred Plotka, a spoiled, insecure 1930s Hollywood star with a tough girl’s moxie and an almost erotic attachment to histrionics. She’s aboard the title luxury train, heading to New York, to make a triumphant return to Broadway, where the lead in a new Somerset Maugham play called Babette awaits her. Attempting to waylay her is Oscar Jaffee, the...

The Oscars are less than 96 hours away, so you only have a limited amount of time to brag about your insane knowledge of Academy Awards history. Ready for a brutal 21-question foray into Oscar's grisly past? Let's roll. (We give you the questions on the first page. Jot down your responses, then check the answers, along with the accompanying questions, on the next page. The videos embedded here aren't related to the questions. They're just fun!) 1. What ‘90s Best Actor winner gave the shortest onscreen performance ever nominated (and therefore awarded) in that category? This is measured by total minutes and seconds spent onscreen. 2. The first (and so far only) black female nominee in the Best Original Screenplay category was a co-writer of what biopic released in the 1970s? 3. From 1937 to 1945, the Academy guaranteed nominations in one particular category to any studio that submitted a qualifiable entry. What was the category?...

StreamFix has gotten your latest updates on new Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, and Crackle streams. Check out these titles before they inevitably go back into the endless interweb secret vault.    Netflix "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" (Season 9) I'd hate to burden you with a reminder about injustice during this Election Day, but it must be noted: It is insane that Kaitlin Olson has gone eight seasons without garnering an Emmy nomination for this show. Have you heard this woman dry-heave? It is sensational.  "Total Recall" Did you know? Arnold Schwarzenegger > Colin Farrell, at least in terms of dystopian thriller heroism. I wouldn't want to see Arnold attempt Farrell's role in "Saving Mr. Banks" or anything like that though. "Altman" This documentary gives an incisive, insightful look at Robert Altman, whose best movie is not "Nashville" or "Gosford Park" or "Mash" or even "The Player." Nope. It is "McCabe and Mrs. Miller,...

Bill Murray became a movie star 35 years ago this week, upon the release of "Meatballs" on June 29, 1979. His lead role as the head counselor at a sub-par summer camp marked a number of firsts: his first of four movies with director Ivan Reitman (the others were "Stripes" and the two "Ghostbusters"), his first of six movies with writer Harold Ramis (the four Reitman films, plus "Caddyshack" and "Groundhog Day"), and his first taste of mega-stardom beyond his TV fame on "Saturday Night Live."

Since then, his career has taken on a trajectory unique in the history of film, one in which he's gone from comic goofball to dramatic thespian, from universally beloved to acquired taste, and from manic cynic to soft-spoken spiritual seeker. Through it all, however, there have been a few constants; no matter whether he's a grubby groundskeeper or a morose mogul: Murray's character is always the coolest...

Multi-tasking again. Herewith a new episode of three recurring series: Seasons of Bette, "Introducing..." and Hit Me With Your Best Shot in which I, Nathaniel, refuse to show you Bette Davis's face. For here's a perverse truth: none of my three favorite shots of The Letter (1940) include it.

honorable mention: Leslie recounts her crime

Pt. 1 "Introducing..."

Meet Leslie Crosbee, murderess. We're only one minute into the movie when she unloads six shots purposefully nto the back of one Geoff Hammond who is attempting to escape her house. He doesn't make it beyond the foot of her steps. Her face is a frozen severe mask as she drops the gun. It's Bette Davis's most potent entrance into a movie yet.

Where the hell do you go after your protagonist makes an entrance like that? To her confession, as it turns out. William Wyler, here adapting a play by W. Somerset Maugham,...

Bill Murray is missing. The 63-year-old actor has, very politely, walked out of the press junket for Wes Anderson’s new movie, The Grand Budapest Hotel, which opened the Berlin Film Festival the night before we meet. “He said he’d be back,” says the rather helpless-looking PR. Interview or not, this is almost what you’d hope for from everyone’s favourite Hollywood eccentric. Think of the career-making, anti-authoritarian persona he developed in Eighties films such as Stripes and Ghostbusters. Or the way he took time out of Hollywood, after the failure of his 1984 Somerset Maugham adaptation The Razor’s Edge, to study philosophy and history at the Sorbonne.

Turner Classic Movies (TCM) will open the 2014 edition of the TCM Classic Film Festival with the world premiere of a brand new restoration of the beloved Rodgers & Hammerstein musical Oklahoma! (1955). TCM’s own Robert Osborne, who serves as official host for the festival, will introduce Oklahoma!, with the film’s star, Academy Award®-winner Shirley Jones, in attendance. Vanity Fair will also return for the fifth year as a festival partner and co-presenter of the opening night after-party. Marking its fifth year, the TCM Classic Film Festival will take place April 10-13, 2014, in Hollywood. The gathering will coincide withTCM’s 20th anniversary as a leading authority in classic film.

In addition, the festival has added several high-profile guests to this year’s lineup, including Oscar®-winning director William Friedkin, who will attend for the screening of the U.S. premiere restoration of his suspenseful cult classic Sorcerer (1977); Kim Novak, who...

How do you fill a nearly two-minute-long teaser for a movie you’re not ready to show much footage from? Pad it with archival material, of course. The first look at Christopher Nolan‘s highly anticipated new sci-fi film Interstellar has arrived online, and at first we could mistake it for a documentary with its clips from the Great Depression and the history of the U.S. space program plus some celebrity voiceover narration by Matthew McConaughey. This is a nonfiction propaganda film about why we must support a return to space exploration, isn’t it? After all, the concept is nearly identical to that of the Peter Cullen-narrated “We Are the Explorers” Nasa PSA that played ahead of Star Trek Into Darkness earlier this year. Oh, but wait, there’s McConaughey actually on screen. And crying, which indicates this is a dramatic narrative picture. About what? A man driving away from his farmhouse (it’d...

Versatile actor best known for her roles in The Sound of Music and Of Human Bondage

In the Hollywood of the 1940s and 50s, when typecasting was an essential constituent of stardom, Eleanor Parker, who has died aged 91, never gained the recognition she deserved, because she refused to be pigeonholed. "It means I've been successful in creating the characters that I've portrayed – that I'm not just a personality who is seen in a variety of roles." Dana Andrews, her co-star in Madison Avenue (1962), called her "the least heralded great actress".

The 1957 film Lizzie is almost a reflection of her career. Parker plays three separate and distinct characters harboured inside one woman – the shy, self-effacing Elizabeth; the wanton, raunchy Lizzie; and the "normal" Beth – and switches brilliantly from one to the other. Parker was always able to be convincing in these three sorts of characters. She was naive as the girl...

Jessica Herndon, AP Film Writer

Los Angeles (AP) - Eleanor Parker, who was nominated for Academy Awards three times for her portrayals of strong-willed women and played a scheming baroness in "The Sound of Music," has died at 91.

Family friend Richard Gale said Parker died Monday morning due to complications from pneumonia. "She passed away peacefully, surrounded by her children at a medical facility near her home in Palm Springs," Gale added.

Parker was nominated for Oscars in 1950, 1951 and 1955, but then saw her career begin to wane in the early 1960s. Her last memorable role came in 1965's "The Sound of Music," in which she played the scheming baroness who loses Christopher Plummer to Julie Andrews.

"Eleanor Parker was and is one of the most beautiful ladies I have ever known," said Plummer in a statement. "Both as a person and as a beauty. I hardly believe the sad news...

Bette Davis. No doubt the name instantly brings to mind Kim Carnes’ earworm ‘Bette Davis Eyes’, which has been covered by artists ranging from Gwyneth Paltrow to Brandon Flowers and Taylor Swift. Ah yes, those spellbinding, haunting heavy-cast eyes. They bewitched countless men and are part of our cultural zeitgeist. Bette Davis was so much more than the sum of her parts though. Her tenacity, independence, unique idiosyncrasies, and artistic instincts had and have no equal, even today. She has been labeled a diva and an outright bitch, but she is unquestionably a trailblazer and an icon in every sense.

This “Noirvember” Tiff Cinematheque’s senior programmer James Quandt has curated a divine tribute to the classy dame (labeled The Hard Way:The Films of Bette Davis), highlighting fifteen of her most memorable roles.

Some crowning films of the tribute include (In chronological order):

Three on a Match (1932)-Now...