Part I.
In 1963, Film Quarterly published an essay entitled “Circles and Squares.” It addressed the French auteur theory, introduced to America by The Village Voice’s Andrew Sarris. Auteurism holds that a film’s primary creator is its director; Sarris’s “Notes on the Auteur Theory” further distinguished auteurs as filmmakers with distinct, recurring styles. Challenging him was a California-based writer named Pauline Kael.
Kael attacked Sarris’s obsession with trivial links between filmmaker’s movies, whether repeated shots or thematic preoccupations. This led critics to overpraise directors’ lesser films, as when Jacques Rivette declared Howard Hawks’ Monkey Business a masterpiece. “It is an insult to an artist to praise his bad work along with his good; it indicates that you are incapable of judging either,” Kael wrote.
She criticized auteurist preoccupation with Hawks and Alfred Hitchcock, claiming critics “work embarrassingly hard trying to give some semblance of intellectual respectability to mindless,...
In 1963, Film Quarterly published an essay entitled “Circles and Squares.” It addressed the French auteur theory, introduced to America by The Village Voice’s Andrew Sarris. Auteurism holds that a film’s primary creator is its director; Sarris’s “Notes on the Auteur Theory” further distinguished auteurs as filmmakers with distinct, recurring styles. Challenging him was a California-based writer named Pauline Kael.
Kael attacked Sarris’s obsession with trivial links between filmmaker’s movies, whether repeated shots or thematic preoccupations. This led critics to overpraise directors’ lesser films, as when Jacques Rivette declared Howard Hawks’ Monkey Business a masterpiece. “It is an insult to an artist to praise his bad work along with his good; it indicates that you are incapable of judging either,” Kael wrote.
She criticized auteurist preoccupation with Hawks and Alfred Hitchcock, claiming critics “work embarrassingly hard trying to give some semblance of intellectual respectability to mindless,...
- 5/10/2015
- by Christopher Saunders
- SoundOnSight
If you thought Twitter couldn't get any more worked up than it did over If There Be Thorns, you were sorely mistaken.
Sunday saw the conclusion of Lifetime's on-screen adaptations of V.C. Andrews's Flowers in the Attic series, and, suffice it to say, fans freaked out.
Spoilers for those who haven't watched the previous three films: Seeds witnessed the inevitably twisted end to the Foxworth-Dollanganger-Sheffield-Winslow family's complicated saga. Sibling spouses Cathy and Chris Sheffield (Rachael Carpani and Jason Lewis) returned to their childhood home, Foxworth Hall, which had been taken over by Cathy's son Bart Winslow Jr. (James Maslow...
Sunday saw the conclusion of Lifetime's on-screen adaptations of V.C. Andrews's Flowers in the Attic series, and, suffice it to say, fans freaked out.
Spoilers for those who haven't watched the previous three films: Seeds witnessed the inevitably twisted end to the Foxworth-Dollanganger-Sheffield-Winslow family's complicated saga. Sibling spouses Cathy and Chris Sheffield (Rachael Carpani and Jason Lewis) returned to their childhood home, Foxworth Hall, which had been taken over by Cathy's son Bart Winslow Jr. (James Maslow...
- 4/13/2015
- by Lanford Beard, @lanfordbeard
- People.com - TV Watch
Lifetime aired the third and penultimate installment of V.C. Andrews's Flowers in the Attic saga on Sunday night, and the Internet naturally freaked out.
Thorns flashes forward on Flowers' incestuous (but deeply in love!) siblings Cathy and Christopher Dollanganger Sheffield (Rachael Carpani and Jason Lewis) to find them grown-up, married and stalked by their mother Corrine (Heather Graham), who vengefully begins to turn Cathy's youngest child Bart (Mason Cook) – who was conceived through an affair with Corrine's late husband Bart Winslow (Dylan Bruce) – against his parents. Only, Corrine doesn't realize her butler John Amos (Mackenzie Gray) has his own...
Thorns flashes forward on Flowers' incestuous (but deeply in love!) siblings Cathy and Christopher Dollanganger Sheffield (Rachael Carpani and Jason Lewis) to find them grown-up, married and stalked by their mother Corrine (Heather Graham), who vengefully begins to turn Cathy's youngest child Bart (Mason Cook) – who was conceived through an affair with Corrine's late husband Bart Winslow (Dylan Bruce) – against his parents. Only, Corrine doesn't realize her butler John Amos (Mackenzie Gray) has his own...
- 4/6/2015
- by Lanford Beard, @lanfordbeard
- People.com - TV Watch
Screenwriter for Don Siegel and writer/producer of classic TV series, he named many of his colleagues as communists
In 1951, when the screenwriter Richard Collins, who has died aged 98, testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee (Huac), he named more than 20 colleagues and friends in the film industry as belonging to or sympathising with the Communist party. Although by so doing he saved his Hollywood career, it was an action that cast a shadow over the rest of his life, regardless of his success in film and television as a writer and producer.
According to many, it was a cowardly act, which Collins later tried to justify, as did directors Elia Kazan and Edward Dmytryk, by saying that it was his patriotic duty, and that Huac knew the names anyway. However, in an interview in Victor Navasky's book Naming Names (1980), Collins called himself "a son of a bitch, a miserable little bastard.
In 1951, when the screenwriter Richard Collins, who has died aged 98, testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee (Huac), he named more than 20 colleagues and friends in the film industry as belonging to or sympathising with the Communist party. Although by so doing he saved his Hollywood career, it was an action that cast a shadow over the rest of his life, regardless of his success in film and television as a writer and producer.
According to many, it was a cowardly act, which Collins later tried to justify, as did directors Elia Kazan and Edward Dmytryk, by saying that it was his patriotic duty, and that Huac knew the names anyway. However, in an interview in Victor Navasky's book Naming Names (1980), Collins called himself "a son of a bitch, a miserable little bastard.
- 2/20/2013
- by Ronald Bergan
- The Guardian - Film News
Janice Watson/Dagmar Pecková/Peter Auty/Peter Rose/London Philharmonic Choir & Orchestra/Neeme Järvi Antonin Dvořák: Stabat Mater, Op. 58 (Lpo) Dvořák’s Stabat Mater was born out of personal tragedy; its inspiration, if that is really the right word in the circumstances, was the death of all three of the composer’s children. This beautiful, heartfelt masterpiece is not heard as frequently in concert as it should be, but has been very well served on recordings.
Before Järvi’s arrived, I had three: the classic 1976 Deutsche Grammophon recording by Rafael Kubelik, Giuseppe Sinopoli’s lush 2000 concert recording (also on Dg), and Telarc’s last recording of the choral conductor par excellence, Robert Shaw. All are superb, but Järvi offers such a different yet compelling take on the piece that this recording, from an October 9, 2010 concert at London’s Royal Festival Hall, can also be highly recommended.
One thing that sets it apart is that,...
Before Järvi’s arrived, I had three: the classic 1976 Deutsche Grammophon recording by Rafael Kubelik, Giuseppe Sinopoli’s lush 2000 concert recording (also on Dg), and Telarc’s last recording of the choral conductor par excellence, Robert Shaw. All are superb, but Järvi offers such a different yet compelling take on the piece that this recording, from an October 9, 2010 concert at London’s Royal Festival Hall, can also be highly recommended.
One thing that sets it apart is that,...
- 8/1/2012
- by SteveHoltje
- www.culturecatch.com
Screening of Welles' masterpiece at former home of William Randolph Hearst will lay to rest long-running feud
When Orson Welles' masterpiece Citizen Kane first hit cinemas in 1941, newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst was distinctly unimpressed: the similarities between himself and Welles' creation Charles Foster Kane were too strong to be ignored. The powerful press baron went out of his way to derail the movie. Now, more than 70 years later, it seems that the family of the pre-eminent Us media impresario of the early part of the last century has finally forgiven Welles after agreeing to a screening of Citizen Kane at the Hearst Castle visitor centre in California.
The screening on 9 March will be part of the San Luis Obispo international film festival, which takes place each year in the central Californian region where Hearst's ornate former home is located. The castle was donated to the state in 1957, six years after its owner's death,...
When Orson Welles' masterpiece Citizen Kane first hit cinemas in 1941, newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst was distinctly unimpressed: the similarities between himself and Welles' creation Charles Foster Kane were too strong to be ignored. The powerful press baron went out of his way to derail the movie. Now, more than 70 years later, it seems that the family of the pre-eminent Us media impresario of the early part of the last century has finally forgiven Welles after agreeing to a screening of Citizen Kane at the Hearst Castle visitor centre in California.
The screening on 9 March will be part of the San Luis Obispo international film festival, which takes place each year in the central Californian region where Hearst's ornate former home is located. The castle was donated to the state in 1957, six years after its owner's death,...
- 1/25/2012
- by Ben Child
- The Guardian - Film News
Okay. This is it. The big one. I don’t even know where to start. It’s like a giant sheet made of palaces and puzzles and toys—and there’s always a piece that’s new to be found, and a new mystery around every corner. The missing piece is the one thing that people always look for—that missing piece is what can make or break a review of this movie. Sometimes (yeah, y’know, on small occasions, now and then) called The Greatest Movie of All Time, Citizen Kane is considered to be so deep, so complex, so symbolic, so artful, so beautiful, so unimaginably fantastic, that a review of it can be a large undertaking. You’ve got a lot of competition, but sometimes numbers don’t really matter—like the value of the fortune of our movie’s central figure (neither a hero or villain...
- 9/17/2011
- by Adam Bezecny
- The Liberal Dead
Have a question about gay male entertainment? Contact me here (and be sure and include your city and state and/or country!
Q: What ever happened to Pia Zadora? Is she dead, alive, rich or poor? – Michael, New York NY
Pia Zadora then and now
A: For those who weren’t around or aware in the 1980’s, Pia Zadora was a young starlet who, in 1977, married a much older businessman, Meshulam Riklis, who decided to make her a star. He financed a soapy movie vehicle, 1982’s Butterfly, that ended up being one of the most reviled movies of the decade. But (allegedly) because Riklis had wined and dined the members of Hollywood Foreign Press, which give out the Golden Globe Awards, Zadora ended up winning the Golden Globe for “Best New Star of the Year” (over Kathleen Turner and Elizabeth McGovern).
Meanwhile, the movie racked up major Razzie Awards nominations...
Q: What ever happened to Pia Zadora? Is she dead, alive, rich or poor? – Michael, New York NY
Pia Zadora then and now
A: For those who weren’t around or aware in the 1980’s, Pia Zadora was a young starlet who, in 1977, married a much older businessman, Meshulam Riklis, who decided to make her a star. He financed a soapy movie vehicle, 1982’s Butterfly, that ended up being one of the most reviled movies of the decade. But (allegedly) because Riklis had wined and dined the members of Hollywood Foreign Press, which give out the Golden Globe Awards, Zadora ended up winning the Golden Globe for “Best New Star of the Year” (over Kathleen Turner and Elizabeth McGovern).
Meanwhile, the movie racked up major Razzie Awards nominations...
- 4/29/2011
- by Brent Hartinger
- The Backlot
What's most impressive about Christopher Welles Feder's memoir of her unconventional childhood in the shadow of the Hollywood titan is how gracefully she appears to have emerged from it
In summer 1947, Orson Welles took his 10-year-old daughter to lunch at the Brown Derby in Hollywood. She asked for a hamburger and a vanilla milkshake. "Again?" sighed Welles as he mulled the gazpacho and the lobster bisque. "Why don't you be more adventurous today? How about some oysters?" Dismissing the girl's objections, he ordered a dozen and coached her through the protocol required to knock a couple down the hatch before allowing her to proceed to her burger and shake, lesson learned. "You have to try things in life, Christopher."
Conventionality was hardly an option for Christopher Welles Feder. Even if she hadn't been given a male name – hard not to think of A Boy Named Sue – her father's monstrous fame...
In summer 1947, Orson Welles took his 10-year-old daughter to lunch at the Brown Derby in Hollywood. She asked for a hamburger and a vanilla milkshake. "Again?" sighed Welles as he mulled the gazpacho and the lobster bisque. "Why don't you be more adventurous today? How about some oysters?" Dismissing the girl's objections, he ordered a dozen and coached her through the protocol required to knock a couple down the hatch before allowing her to proceed to her burger and shake, lesson learned. "You have to try things in life, Christopher."
Conventionality was hardly an option for Christopher Welles Feder. Even if she hadn't been given a male name – hard not to think of A Boy Named Sue – her father's monstrous fame...
- 1/29/2010
- by Ben Walters
- The Guardian - Film News
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.