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By respectively receiving Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor Oscar nominations for “American Fiction,” Jeffrey Wright and Sterling K. Brown made history as the first two Black male cast mates to compete in separate categories for the same film. They are also the eighth pair of performers to earn academy recognition for playing brothers and constitute the 29th case of Oscar-nominated sibling characters overall. Check out our photo gallery of this and the previous 28 examples, which date as far back as 1948.

At this point, the only two people who have won Oscars for playing siblings in the same film are “A Streetcar Named Desire” cast mates Vivien Leigh (Best Actress) and Kim Hunter (Best Supporting Actress). Best Actor champ Lee Marvin can technically also be counted alongside them since he was honored for portraying twin brothers in “Cat Ballou.”

The other seven films on this list for which only one...

Courtesy of Kino Lorber

by Chad Kennerk

Set in the 1920s, Has Anybody Seen My Gal? gets its name from the once-popular jazz song recorded by the California Ramblers in 1925. Loosely based upon the Eleanor Porter novel Oh Money! Money! (she was also the author behind Pollyanna), the 1952 jukebox musical comedy was given the full Technicolor treatment – a visual bee’s knees in Kino Lorber’s sterling release.

The Universal Pictures title makes good use of Twenties tunes such as ‘Tiger Rag,’ ‘When the Red, Red Robin Comes Bob, Bob, Bobbin’ Along,’ ‘It Ain’t Gonna Rain No More,’ ‘Gimme a Little Kiss, Will Ya, Huh?’ - and of course, ‘Has Anybody Seen My Gal?’. It was directed by studio regular Douglas Sirk, who would go on to make his name with lush, slyly ironic melodramas such as Magnificent Obsession, All That Heaven Allows, Written on the Wind (all with Rock Hudson), There's Always Tomorrow,...

These last few years the Criterion Channel have made October viewing much easier to prioritize, and in the spirit of their ’70s and ’80s horror series we’ve graduated to––you guessed it––”’90s Horror.” A couple of obvious classics stand with cult favorites and more unknown entities (When a Stranger Calls Back and Def By Temptation are new to me). Three more series continue the trend: “Technothrillers” does what it says on the tin, courtesy the likes of eXistenZ and Demonlover; “Art-House Horror” is precisely the kind of place to host Cure, Suspiria, Onibaba; and “Pre-Code Horror” is a black-and-white dream. Phantom of the Paradise, Unfriended, and John Brahm’s The Lodger are added elsewhere.

James Gray is the latest with an “Adventures in Moviegoing” series populated by deep cuts and straight classics. Stonewalling and restorations of Trouble Every Day and The Devil, Probably make streaming debuts, while Flesh for Frankenstein,...

Rock Hudson was one of the biggest stars of the 1950’s and 60s: the most handsome leading man who romanced the likes of Elizabeth Taylor, Doris Day, Jane Wyman, Barbara Rush, Julie Andrews and Gina Lollobrigida on the silver screen. But he was living a secret life off-screen — he was gay.

The new Max/HBO documentary “Rock Hudson All That Heaven Allowed” examines his double life and the lengths that were taken to ensure his LGBTQ+ identity wasn’t revealed It wasn’t until 1985 did the truth make the headlines when he became the first famous Hollywood star to die of AIDs.

Barbara Rush, who appeared in three films with Hudson including 1954’s “Magnificent Obsession,” told me in a 2019 L.A. Times interview that it was no secret in Tinseltown that he was gay. “His agent [Henry Willson] decided that there had been enough about the rumors about Rock being gay.

In a missive sent around to 2022’s Oscar nominees, stars were told to “read the room” when delivering speeches at the Academy Awards this month. Translation: Get off the stage before the orchestra is forced to awkwardly play you out.

In 1943, Greer Garson set a Guinness World Record for Longest Oscars Acceptance Speech, with her address upon accepting her Best Actress award forMrs Miniver clocking in at five and a half minutes.

Garson isn’t the only winner guilty of indulgence though. Hilary Swank, Adrien Brody and Al Pacino have all ignored the 45-second limit and consequently found themselves at the receiving end of a passive aggressive “Will you wrap this up?” stare.

Some actors, however, know that not every story needs to be so long and that brevity is an undervalued quality. Franklin D Roosevelt’s adage – “Be sincere, be brief, be seated” – could very well be the tagline for this year’s ceremony.

In a missive sent around to 2022’s Oscar nominees, stars were told to “read the room” when delivering speeches at the Academy Awards this month. Translation: Get off the stage before the orchestra is forced to awkwardly play you out.

In 1943, Greer Garson set a Guinness World Record for Longest Oscars Acceptance Speech, with her address upon accepting her Best Actress award forMrs Miniver clocking in at five and a half minutes.

Garson isn’t the only winner guilty of indulgence though. Hilary Swank, Adrien Brody and Al Pacino have all ignored the 45-second limit and consequently found themselves at the receiving end of a passive aggressive “Will you wrap this up?” stare.

Some actors, however, know that not every story needs to be so long and that brevity is an undervalued quality. Franklin D Roosevelt’s adage – “Be sincere, be brief, be seated” – could very well be the tagline for this year’s ceremony.

In a missive sent around to last year’s Oscar nominees, stars were told to “read the room” when delivering speeches at the Academy Awards this month. Translation: Get off the stage before the orchestra is forced to awkwardly play you out.

In 1943, Greer Garson set a Guinness World Record for Longest Oscars Acceptance Speech, with her address upon accepting her Best Actress award forMrs Miniver clocking in at five and a half minutes.

Garson isn’t the only winner guilty of indulgence though. Hilary Swank, Adrien Brody and Al Pacino have all ignored the 45-second limit and consequently found themselves at the receiving end of a passive aggressive “Will you wrap this up?” stare.

Some actors, however, know that not every story needs to be so long and that brevity is an undervalued quality. Franklin D Roosevelt’s adage – “Be sincere, be brief, be seated” – could very well be...

In a missive sent around to this last year’s Oscar nominees, stars were told to “read the room” when delivering speeches at the Academy Awards this month. Translation: Get off the stage before the orchestra is forced to awkwardly play you out.

In 1943, Greer Garson set a Guinness World Record for Longest Oscars Acceptance Speech, with her address upon accepting her Best Actress award forMrs Miniver clocking in at five and a half minutes.

Garson isn’t the only winner guilty of indulgence though. Hilary Swank, Adrien Brody and Al Pacino have all ignored the 45-second limit and consequently found themselves at the receiving end of a passive aggressive “Will you wrap this up?” stare.

Some actors, however, know that not every story needs to be so long and that brevity is an undervalued quality. Franklin D Roosevelt’s adage – “Be sincere, be brief, be seated” – could very well...

By respectively receiving Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor Oscar nominations for “American Fiction,” Jeffrey Wright and Sterling K. Brown made history as the first two Black male cast mates to compete in separate categories for the same film. They are also the eighth pair of performers to earn academy recognition for playing brothers and constitute the 29th case of Oscar-nominated sibling characters overall. Check out our photo gallery of this and the previous 28 examples, which date as far back as 1948.

At this point, the only two people who have won Oscars for playing siblings in the same film are “A Streetcar Named Desire” cast mates Vivien Leigh (Best Actress) and Kim Hunter (Best Supporting Actress). Best Actor champ Lee Marvin can technically also be counted alongside them since he was honored for portraying twin brothers in “Cat Ballou.”

The other seven films on this list for which only one...

German film festival Filmfest Hamburg has scrapped its plan to give the Douglas Sirk Prize to the Austrian director Ulrich Seidl, following allegations of on-set impropriety and child exploitation against him and his film “Sparta.”

However, the festival has decided to continue with its plan to show “Sparta,” a statement released Tuesday by festival director Albert Wiederspiel and program director Kathrin Kohlstedde explained.

The statement read: “The accusations against the production around the working conditions during the making of the film came up after our [festival program] was already in print.

“We included the film in the program because of its outstanding quality. It is a very sensitive film about a particularly difficult and taboo subject. The accusations against Ulrich Seidl are directed against the conditions during the shooting and explicitly not against his film.

“We have therefore decided to leave the film in the program.”

The statement added: “Regarding the Douglas Sirk Prize,...

“These three films, they’re all masterful. They’re extraordinary films, and they’re actually quite different.” It’s mid-July in Switzerland and Todd Haynes is talking melodrama: “The three masterworks for me, and to see them at a festival like Locarno, which is very rare, are Written on The Wind, Imitation of Life, and All That Heaven Allows.” Perhaps more than even the cinema of Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Todd Haynes’ films have so often intertwined with those of the late Douglas Sirk, a director whose peerless studio work from the 1940s and 1950s have been a rich source of aesthetic and emotional inspiration, most clearly seen in Haynes’ 2002 masterpiece Far From Heaven.

“Imitation of Life is a film of such remarkable resonance,” Haynes explains on a warm summer morning in the Hotel Belvedere. “I think its themes of race and pretending, of passing, and misperceptions of what you are and who you are,...

When German director Douglas Sirk fled the Nazis in 1937 and planted his flag in Hollywood, he quickly became a reliable studio craftsman equally adept at war films, musicals (Slightly French), comedies and Westerns. Nevertheless, today his reputation rests almost entirely on the melodramas made in the last five years of his career: movies like Magnificent Obsession, All That Heaven Allows, and The Tarnished Angels, whose heightened emotions justify Sirk’s most delirious flights of visual fancy. A brilliant smuggler, Sirk had it […]

The post Written on the Wind, The Devil Strikes at Night, and Dexter: New Blood: Jim Hemphill’s Home Video Recommendations first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

When German director Douglas Sirk fled the Nazis in 1937 and planted his flag in Hollywood, he quickly became a reliable studio craftsman equally adept at war films, musicals (Slightly French), comedies and Westerns. Nevertheless, today his reputation rests almost entirely on the melodramas made in the last five years of his career: movies like Magnificent Obsession, All That Heaven Allows, and The Tarnished Angels, whose heightened emotions justify Sirk’s most delirious flights of visual fancy. A brilliant smuggler, Sirk had it […]

The post Written on the Wind, The Devil Strikes at Night, and Dexter: New Blood: Jim Hemphill’s Home Video Recommendations first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Watching Written on the Wind was my first introduction to the famous auteur of the melodramatic, Douglas Sirk. The 2K Blu-ray restoration is out now via the Criterion Collection. Sirk was a German filmmaker who fled the country when he was approached by the notorious Joseph Goebbels (Nazi war criminal and the German Minister of Propaganda) to make the films that Leni Riefenstahl ended up working on. There’s more to that story that’s both sad and tawdry; check it out if you have interest in this strange intersection with world history and cinema. Sirk became known for exploring the kind of daily ugly realities that bubbled beneath a bright, polished veneer, a gauntlet later picked up by fellow...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

You can find strange similarities between almost any two years for Oscar prognosticating. Just days away from the 28th Screen Actors Guild Awards and three weeks out from BAFTA and Critics Choice ceremonies, there are odd correlations between this year’s crop of nominees and the ceremony that rewarded the 1952 cinematic year.

Denis Villeneuve’s omission from best director for the sci-fi drama “Dune” was the most shocking when Oscar nominations were announced. Nevertheless, the film landed 10 nominations, including best picture, adapted screenplay and every technical category, the sixth film in history to achieve this feat.

In the current Oscar projections, the Warner Bros. adaptation of the famous series is projected to win anywhere between three and eight statuettes. However, if it manages to pick up more than five, it will surpass “The Bad and the Beautiful” (1952) as the most awarded film that was not nominated for best director.

Read...

“I’m filthy — period!” With an ideal cast — Rock Hudson, Lauren Bacall, Robert Stack and Dorothy Malone — director Douglas Sirk tells a tale with everything the ’50s wouldn’t allow — lust, nymphomania, impotence, the works. It’s perhaps Sirk’s most accomplished, self-contained masterpiece — a glamorous soap with absorbing characters caught in a cycle of unfulfilled desires. An oil dynasty comes tumbling down because the heir is “tortured by a secret that made him lash out at all he loved!” I keep expecting bathos, but this great show makes its world come alive.

Written on the Wind

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 96

1956 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 99 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date February 1, 2022 / 39.95

Starring: Rock Hudson, Lauren Bacall, Robert Stack, Dorothy Malone, Robert Keith, Grant Williams, Robert J. Wilke, Edward Platt, Harry Shannon, John Larch, Joseph Granby, Roy Glenn, Maidie Norman, William Schallert, Kevin Corcoran, Cynthia Patrick.

Cinematography: Russell Metty

Art Directors: Robert Clatworthy,...

The Locarno Film Festival recently announced a complete retro dedicated to Douglas Sirk, 35 years after the death of the director best known for melodramas made in Hollywood in the 1940s and 1950s, such as “Magnificent Obsession” and “Written on the Wind,” that aims to provide a fresh critical interpretation of his work.

Sirk, who was born in Denmark and worked in Germany, which he left for Hollywood during Hitler’s rise to power, later returned to Europe and eventually retired in Switzerland.

Among his most prominent fans were late great German filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Bernardo Bertolucci.

For the first time, Sirk’s filmography will be reviewed in the light of unpublished documents made available by the director’s family through the Douglas Sirk Foundation and preserved since 2012 at the Cinémathèque Suisse, broadening the perspective on this major auteur.

Variety spoke to Locarno’s artistic director Giona A. Nazzaro...

Another month, another Criterion Channel lineup. In accordance with Black History Month their selections are especially refreshing: seven by Melvin Van Peebles, five from Kevin Jerome Everson, and Criterion editions of The Harder They Come and The Learning Tree.

Regarding individual features I’m quite happy to see Abderrahmane Sissako’s fantastic Bamako, last year’s big Sundance winner (and Kosovo’s Oscar entry) Hive, and the remarkably beautiful Portuguese feature The Metamorphosis of Birds. Add a three-film Laura Dern collection (including the recently canonized Smooth Talk) and Pasolini’s rarely shown documentary Love Meetings to make this a fine smorgasboard.

See the full list of February titles below and more on the Criterion Channel.

Alan & Naomi, Sterling Van Wagenen, 1992

All That Heaven Allows, Douglas Sirk, 1955

The Angel Levine, Ján Kadár, 1970

Babylon, Franco Rosso, 1980

Babymother, Julian Henriques, 1998

Bamako, Abderrahmane Sissako, 2006

Beat Street, Stan Lathan, 1984

Blacks Britannica, David Koff, 1978

The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution,...

Celebration of German Hollywood legend promises a fresh perspective on his life and work.

Switzerland’s Locarno Film Festival is set to explore the life and work of legendary German Hollywood director Douglas Sirk for the retrospective of its 75th edition, running August 3-13 this year.

The celebration of his work will coincide with the 35th anniversary of the death of the filmmaker whose classic melodramas include Magnificent Obsession, All That Heaven Allows, There’s Always A Tomorrow, Written On The Wind, A Time To Love And Die and Imitation Of Life.

Born in Hamburg in 1897 as Hans Detlef Sierck,...

It’s that time of year again. While some directors annually share their favorite films of the year, Steven Soderbergh lists everything he consumed, media-wise. For 2021––another year in which he not only released a new film, but shot another (and produced the Oscars)––he still got plenty of watching in.

Along with catching up on 2021’s new releases, he took in plenty of classics, including Jaws, Citizen Kane, Metropolis, The French Connection, and Lubitsch’s Ninotchka and Design For Living. Early last year, he also saw a cut of Channing Tatum’s Dog, which doesn’t arrive until next month. He also, of course, screened his latest movies while in post-production, with three viewings of No Sudden Move and three viewings of Kimi, which arrives on February 10 on HBO Max and the first look of which can be seen below.

Check out the list below via his official site.

Potently blending long-awaited classics, new filmmakers, and a modern-ish American classic, Criterion’s February slate has arrived. No 4K discs, sadly, but we’re still awaiting Christmas in hopes the Dolby Vision-equipped player will be under our tree.

My personal recommendation is Ann Hui’s Boat People, an absolutely despair-inducing drama that raised waves of controversy upon release and marked a major (albeit long-neglected) moment in Hong Kong cinema. But we also want to have fun. So thank God for Leo McCarey’s Love Affair, Miller’s Crossing, and Written on the Wind, in which Douglas Sirk also induces despair but in astonishing Technicolor.

See artwork below and further details on all titles here:

The post Criterion’s February Lineup Includes Miller's Crossing, Written on the Wind & More first appeared on The Film Stage.

Criterion gives this classic its first exposure on Region A Blu-ray! A new 4K remaster puts the story of a guy too tiny to escape from his own cellar in its very best light — Scott Carey’s combat with the spider is still a scary delight, with a newly-fixed imperfection. Criterion’s extras lean toward fan-oriented fare: Tom Weaver tops the stack with a fine commentary and we get good input from Ben Burtt, Craig Barron, Richard Christian Matheson, Joe Dante and Dana Gould — plus thoughtful liner notes by Geoffrey O’Brien. And don’t forget those excellent movie trailers narrated by a breathless Orson Welles. Robert Scott Carey should have his own statue in Los Angeles, like Rocky Balboa in Philadelphia.

The Incredible Shrinking Man

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 1100

1957 / B&w / 1:85 widescreen / 81 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date October 19, 2021 / 39.95

Starring: Grant Williams, Randy Stuart, April Kent, Paul Langton,...

Decades before Prohibition agent Eliot Ness’s posthumous memoir, “The Untouchables,” was adapted into the successful feature film, it served as the basis for a 1959 “Desilu Playhouse” episode that led to a four-season series on ABC. 40-year-old Oscar nominee Robert Stack (“Written on the Wind”) was chosen to portray Ness, despite the fact that the agent was only 29 when the real Untouchables team was disbanded in 1932.

Stack’s performance in the inaugural season brought him a Best Drama Actor Emmy, making him the category’s second winner. At 41, he also ranked as the youngest among all dramatic lead winners for the following half-dozen years. Over half a century later, 26 younger performers have triumphed, but Stack still ranks among the 10 most youthful leading men.

Since 1959, a total of 40 actors have won for their lead roles on continuing drama programs, beginning with Raymond Burr (“Perry Mason”). Including Burr, 11 of the winners have bagged two or more trophies.

Writer, director and actress Rebecca Miller discusses a few of her favorite films with hosts Josh Olson and Joe Dante.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Personal Velocity: Three Portraits (2002)

The Ballad Of Jack And Rose (2005)

The Private Lives Of Pippa Lee (2009)

Maggie’s Plan (2015)

Explorers (1985)

The Way We Were (1973)

Battleship Potemkin (1925)

Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday (1953)

Annie Hall (1977)

Repulsion (1965)

Rosemary’s Baby (1968)

Knife In The Water (1962)

The Tenant (1976)

Cries and Whispers (1972)

Persona (1966)

The Magician (1958)

Hour Of The Wolf (1968)

The Virgin Spring (1960)

The Seventh Seal (1957)

Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)

The Exorcist (1973)

The Shining (1980)

La Dolce Vita (1960)

Regarding Henry (1991)

Angela (1995)

Badlands (1973)

Casino (1995)

On The Waterfront (1954)

My Dinner with Andre (1981)

Jules and Jim (1962)

The Bitter Tears Of Petra von Kant (1972)

Wings Of Desire (1987)

The Killer Inside Me (1976)

The Killer Inside Me (2010)

Married To The Mob (1988)

Blue Velvet (1986)

Dune (1984)

Imitation Of Life (1934)

Imitation Of Life (1959)

Written On The Wind (1956)

Magnificent Obsession (1954)

All That Heaven Allows...

With his Best Actor Oscar nomination for “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” Chadwick Boseman is the first actor posthumously nominated for an Academy Award since Heath Ledger.

Ledger was nominated and won Best Supporting Actor at the 2009 ceremony for “The Dark Knight.” It’s widely anticipated Boseman will also win an Oscar at the 93rd annual Academy Awards in April for his “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” performance.

See 2021 Oscars nominations full list

Throughout Oscars history, there have been multiple people nominated for an Academy Award after their death. Before Boseman, the most recent posthumous nominee was “Fences” playwright August Wilson, who received a nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay at the 2017 ceremony. Before Wilson, Walt Martin received a nomination for Best Sound Mixing for “American Sniper” at the 2015 ceremony.

The last posthumous Oscar winner was producer Gil Friesen, who won Best Documentary at the 2013 ceremony for “20 Feet From Stardom.”

Boseman almost...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSAbove: Joan Micklin Silver on the set of Chilly Scenes of Winter (1979). Trailblazing filmmaker Joan Micklin Silver, best known for films Hester Street (1975) and Crossing Delancey (1988), has died. In an interview with Film Comment in 2017, Silver described the will she possessed as a woman filmmaker who wished to spotlight stories about female relationships and women's labor: "I didn’t want to feel like the woman director. I wanted to feel like one of many women directors."The 71st edition of the Berlin Film Festival will be replacing this year's physical event with a virtual European Film Market in March, and a "mini-festival with a series of onsite world premieres" in June.The International Film Festival Rotterdam has also announced the lineup for this year's hybrid multi-part 50th edition, to be presented between February 1-...

As Disney quietly disappears huge swathes of film history into its vaults, I'm going to spend 2020 celebrating Twentieth Century Fox and the Fox Film Corporation's films, what one might call their output if only someone were putting it out.***As the great studios declined like mammoths sinking into tar pits, the films they produced started bifurcating: there were the stodgy, prestige pictures, like Cleopatra (1963) (which nearly sank Fox into the bitumen altogether), and there were trashy low-budget affairs farmed out to bottom-feeding indie producers, the sixties equivalent of the B pictures of yore. These were often more enjoyable than the respectable productions, even when they really were trash.Lauren Bacall counted Shock Treatment (1964) as the worst film of her career, and apart from her tendency to underrate Written on the Wind (1956), she had pretty sound judgement. Director Denis Sanders was among the first film school graduates to make films...

The Oscar winning co-writer and producer of Brokeback Mountain takes us on a cinematic journey through her life, and talks about the pleasures of writing with Larry McMurtry and Joe Bonnano, and what Ken Kesey’s favorite movie was.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Brokeback Mountain (2005)

Good Night, And Good Luck (2005)

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)

Red River (1948)

The Last Picture Show (1971)

Hud (1963)

Piranha (1978)

Battleship Potemkin (1925)

They Drive By Night (1940)

Kings Row (1942)

The Ox-Bow Incident (1942)

The Grapes of Wrath (1942)

Buffalo Bill (1944)

Laura (1944)

Where The Sidewalk Ends (1950)

The Day of the Triffids (1963)

Moby Dick (1956)

Village of the Damned (1960)

Written on the Wind (1956)

Magnificent Obsession (1954)

There’s Always Tomorrow (1956)

All That Heaven Allows (1955)

Twelve Monkeys (1995)

Brazil (1985)

Lost In La Mancha (2002)

The Hamster Factor and Other Tales of Twelve Monkeys (1996)

The Fisher King (1991)

Dr. Strangelove (1964)

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

The Deer Hunter (1978)

The Godfather (1972)

The Godfather Part II (1974)

A History of Violence...

Kino Lorber unleashes their second volume of forgotten film noir classics with Film Noir: The Dark Side of Cinema II which includes three distinctly different titles from the 1950s, including Thunder on the Hill (1951), The Price of Fear (1956) and The Female Animal (1958), each containing their own notable nuggets among their cast members and directors.

The gem of the collection is Thunder on the Hill, a 1951 melodrama from Douglas Sirk, which by comparison’s standards is noir-light. The German émigré is of course most noted for a string of 1950s melodramas which would set the inspirational standards for a host of future international auteurs, with items such as Magnificent Obsession (1954), All That Heaven Allows (1955), Written on the Wind (1956), and his 1959 swan song Imitation of Life (the first and last of those being remakes of John M.…...

The life and career of Rock Hudson gets a revisionist look in Ryan Murphy’s new limited series “Hollywood.” The Oscar-nominated actor made a name for himself as a hunky leading man in romantic comedies, melodramas and adventure flicks. While you’re binging Murphy’s newest show, let’s take a look back at 12 of his greatest films, ranked worst to best.

Hudson spent years as a supporting player and leading man in B-pictures before shooting to stardom in Douglas Sirk‘s soap opera satire “Magnificent Obsession” (1954). Shot in glossy Technicolor with a sweeping musical score, the film was the first of many the actor made with the German-born auteur, including “All That Heaven Allows” (1955), “Written on the Wind” (1956), and “The Tarnished Angels” (1957). Trashed by critics and adored by audiences in their time, these works have found a second life as clever subversions of American values, influencing filmmakers such as Pedro Almodovar and Todd Haynes.

Oscars, schmoscars. Unlike so many awards voters, I actually see the movies. And then I see them again on a DVD screener or a link. And I actually have taste. So, without further ado, here are my choices for the best and worst filmgoing experiences of 2019.

Best Actors

Antonio Banderas, “Pain & Glory”

Joaquin Phoenix, “Joker”

Jonathan Pryce, “The Two Popes”

Best Actresses

Scarlett Johansson, “Marriage Story”

Julianne Moore, “Gloria Bell”

Mary Kay Place, “Diane”

Alfre Woodard, “Clemency”

Best Supporting Actors

Alan Alda, “Marriage Story”

Al Pacino, “The Irishman”

Brad Pitt and Bruce Dern, “Once Upon A Time…in Hollywood”

Wesley Snipes, “Dolemite Is My Name”

Archie Yates, “Jojo Rabbit”

Best Supporting Actresses

Annette Bening, “The Report”

Laura Dern, “Marriage Story”

Whoever played Kimberly Guilfoyle in “Bombshell”

Sign Up for Gold Derby’s free newsletter with latest predictions

Worst Thriller: (tie) “Greta,” “Ma”

They were horrors all right.

Worst Movie I Walked Out Of: “Her Smell,...

The German actress is the recipinet of Hamburg FilmFest’s presitgious Douglas Sirk prize.

German actress Nina Hoss is optimistic about more female directors getting feature films off the ground.

This makes sense when you consider her two most recent movies – Katrin Gebbe’s Pelican Blood and Ina Weisse’s The Audition – were both directed by women. Her upcoming drama, Schwesterlein, was co-directed by Stéphanie Chuat and Véronique Reymond.

But her “hope” things are improving for female directors is tempered by a question about getting their movies into festivals. “At festivals, the eye is on the decision-making,” says Hoss. “If...

The German actress is the recipinet of Hamburg FilmFest’s presitgious Douglas Sirk prize.

German actress Nina Hoss is optimistic about more female directors getting feature films off the ground.

This makes sense when you consider her two most recent movies – Katrin Gebbe’s Pelican Blood and Ina Weisse’s The Audition – were both directed by women. Her upcoming drama, Schwesterlein, was co-directed by Stéphanie Chuat and Véronique Reymond.

But her “hope” things are improving for female directors is tempered by a question about getting their movies into festivals. “At festivals, the eye is on the decision-making,” says Hoss. “If...

One of the strangest ‘uplifting moral tales’ of the 1950s was a huge hit, and launched Rock Hudson as a major star. Criterion’s deluxe presentation puts it on a par with world cinema, mawkish Kitsch-o-Rama and all. Comes with a restored copy of the slightly less head-spinning 1935 version, too. Co-stars Jane Wyman, Barbara Rush, Agnes Moorehead, and Otto Kruger, whose moral guidance has something to do with ‘contacting one’s power source.’ Oh, it’s about recharging my iPhone!

Magnificent Obsession

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 457

1954 / Color / 2.00:1 anamorphic widescreen / 108 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date August 20, 2019 / 39.95

Starring: Jane Wyman, Rock Hudson, Barbara Rush, Agnes Moorehead, Otto Kruger.

Cinematography: Russell Metty

Film Editor: Milton Carruth

Original Music: Frank Skinner

Written by Robert Blees from an original screenplay by Victor Heerman, Sarah Y. Mason, George O’Neil from the novel by Lloyd C. Douglas

Produced by Ross Hunter

Directed...

There remains a dearth of unappreciated titles from German émigré Douglas Sirk’s lengthy filmography, which basically includes anything outside of his seminal Hollywood melodramas of the 1950s—films would influence the output of more contemporary international auteurs, from Rainer Werner Fassbinder to Todd Haynes. Sirk is now best renowned for a quartet of iconic titles, including Magnificent Obsession (1954), All That Heaven Allows (1955), Written on the Wind (1956) and his final masterpiece, Imitation of Life (1959), itself a remake of an earlier 1934 Claudette Colbert film directed by John M. Stahl. While some of his English language noirs of the 1940s have been recuperated, such as the Lucille Ball headlined Lured (1947), his German period remains neglected, and perhaps more surprisingly, several other 1950s works which starred his plethora of regular players.…...

Douglas Sirk took our heads off with this intense, thematically adult tale of love and obsession in a Depression-Era flying circus that’s the open air equivalent of the marathon dance craze — pilots die to thrill the crowd. The terrific-looking show provides career-best roles for some deserving actors: Robert Stack, Dorothy Malone, Jack Carson and Robert Middleton … but the newly-minted star Rock Hudson seems miscast.

The Tarnished Angels

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1957 / B&W / 2:35 widescreen / 91 min. / Street Date March 26, 2019 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Rock Hudson, Robert Stack, Dorothy Malone, Jack Carson, Robert Middleton, Alan Reed, Alexander Lockwood, Chris Olsen, Robert J. Wilke, Troy Donahue.

Cinematography: Irving Glassberg

Film Editor: Russell F. Schoengarth

Original Music: Frank Skinner

Written by George Zuckerman from a novel by William Faulkner

Produced by Albert Zugsmith

Directed by Douglas Sirk

Douglas Sirk made his name with big, glossy soap operas starring Jane Wyman and Rock Hudson,...

Halfway through the year, we’ve already lost a number of stars across Hollywood. Here’s a list of some of the notable celebrities and industry professionals in film, TV, music and sports who have passed away so far in 2018.

Jon Paul Steuer

Jon Paul Steuer, a former child actor who starred in “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” and most recently under the stage name Jonny Jewels for the rock band P.R.O.B.L.E.M.S., died on January 1. He was 33.

Mark Tenser

Mark Tenser, president and CEO of B-Movie studio Crown International Pictures, died on January 1. At his request, his age was not disclosed.

Frank Buxton

Frank Buxton, a writer and director best known for his work on “The Odd Couple” and “Happy Days,” died on January 2. He was 87.

Donnelly Rhodes

Donnelly Rhodes, a Canadian actor who played chief medical officer Dr. Sherman Cottle on the “Battlestar Galactica” reboot,...

Every year, the Oscars, Emmys and Grammys must choose which notable performers and creators to memorialize in their In Memoriam segments, and the three organizations will have many talented entertainers to remember at 2019’s ceremonies.

The past year saw the loss of celebrated stars of the big screen, such “Smokey and the Bandit” star Burt Reynolds, who died Sept. 6. Reynolds, who was 82, earned an Oscar nom for “Boogie Nights” and also appeared on television in “Evening Shade.”

Among the other notable movie performers lost this year were “Superman” and “Smallville” actress Margot Kidder, who died May 13; “The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter” star Sondra Locke, who was also a film director and died Nov. 3; and Susan Anspach, who starred in “Five Easy Pieces” and “Blume in Love” and died April 2.

Several stars known for their work in the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s passed away in 2018, including Dorothy Malone, who starred...

Rock Hudson would’ve celebrated his 93rd birthday on November 17, 2018. The Oscar-nominated actor made a name for himself as a hunky leading man in romantic comedies, melodramas, and adventure flicks. In honor of his birthday, let’s take a look back at 12 of his greatest films, ranked worst to best.

Hudson spent years as a supporting player and leading man in B-pictures before shooting to stardom in Douglas Sirk‘s soap opera satire “Magnificent Obsession” (1954). Shot in glossy Technicolor with a sweeping musical score, the film was the first of many the actor made with the German-born auteur, including “All That Heaven Allows” (1955), “Written on the Wind” (1956), and “The Tarnished Angels” (1957). Trashed by critics and adored by audiences in their time, these works have found a second life as clever subversions of American values, influencing filmmakers such as Pedro Almodovar and Todd Haynes.

He received his sole Oscar nomination for...

Xavier Dolan's Heartbeats (2010) is showing November 10 – December 9, 2018 on Mubi in the United States.Xavier Dolan is infatuated with image. The Louis Vuitton model makes films of meticulous composition, color, and sartorial specificity. The filmmaker’s life, as he completes a decade of making films, is well known: a wunderkind-cum-enfant terrible, Dolan made his first film at nineteen. The film, I Killed My Mother (2009), played at the Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes, where he’s become a house cat amongst toms, racking up prestigious awards and adulation while arrayed in the finest of fashion—the man has style. Somewhere along his ascent the critical discourse began to curdle. Flaws and weaknesses (excessive fealty to Wong Kar-wai and overly-simplistic character dynamics) in his first few films were absolved under the auspices of youthful promise. Critics and viewers were excited to discover a new cine-stylist, but around the time of Mommy (2014) the pools of disfavor began to form.

This article marks Part 7 of the Gold Derby series analyzing 84 years of Best Original Song at the Oscars. Join us as we look back at the timeless tunes recognized in this category, the results of each race and the overall rankings of the winners.

The 1955 Oscar nominees in Best Original Song were:

“Something’s Gotta Give” from “Daddy Long Legs”

“Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing” from “Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing”

“I’ll Never Stop Loving You” from “Love Me or Leave Me”

“(Love Is) The Tender Trap” from “The Tender Trap”

“Unchained Melody” from “Unchained”

Won: “Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing” from “Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing”

Should’ve won: “Something’s Gotta Give” from “Daddy Long Legs”

“Unchained Melody,” that timeless Righteous Brothers classic that’s been put to memorable use for decades across film and television, actually originated as an Oscar-nominated song in 1955. It’s briefly featured...

To honor Memorial Day with a tribute on Monday, Gold Derby takes a look back at celebrity and entertainment deaths so far in 2018. We are continuing to update our memoriam photo gallery above with major celebrity deaths from film, television, theater and music.

For this year, losses have included Oscar winners Milos Forman and Dorothy Malone, Emmy winners Steven Bochco, Reg E. Cathey and Olivia Cole, Emmy nominees Harry Anderson, John Mahoney and Jerry Van Dyke, Oscar-nominated composer Johann Johannsson, and legendary sports announcer Keith Jackson. Here is a brief summary of the careers of 14 people who have died in 2018:

See Over 100 video interviews with 2018 Emmy contenders

Actress Margot Kidder died at age 69 on May 13. She was best known for playing reporter Lois Lane opposite Christopher Reeve in “Superman: The Movie” (1978). She won a Daytime Emmy in 2015 for the children’s TV show “R.L. Stine’s The Haunting Hour.

Douglas Sirk at Universal-International is a two-part overview by Blake Lucas. Part 1 can be found here. Mubi's series, In the Realm of Melodrama: A Douglas Sirk Retrospective, is showing April 2 - June 20, 2018 in the United Kingdom and many other countries.Is a great director like Douglas Sirk apart from the world he is in, a subversive artist in social critique as well as in his engagement with studio aesthetics and intentions? In truth, that argument is both superficial in its view of filmmaking and patronizing toward audiences. The idea that anyone would actually set out to make a complacent film comfortably validating everything about its present world really doesn’t even make sense. Who would be engaged by seeing it, for one thing? I was around in the 1950s, and whatever repressions or suppressions there were, I can assure that people had plenty of tension, melancholy, alienation and even despair living with them,...

The “In Memoriam” segment of the Academy Awards is guaranteed to be two things: moving and frustrating. While we laud the academy for its efforts to be even more expansive at the 2018 Oscars with the number of people to whom it pays tribute (51), it is vexing that certain famous faces were excluded. Above, watch as Eddie Vedder sings the late Tom Petty‘s “Room at the Top” as the three minute video unspools.

Among those missing from this “In Memoriam” video, the most glaring omission is 1956 Best Supporting Actress winner Dorothy Malone (“Written on the Wind”). After more than a decade as a contract player at both Rko and Warner Bros., she changed her good girl image with her searing performance as an alcoholic in Douglas Sirk’s lush drama and took home an Oscar for her efforts. She went on to headline TV’s version of the Oscar-nominated “Peyton Place.

Each year, the Oscars ceremony includes a moving tribute to the film industry leaders who died in the past year — and each year, big names are left out of the prestigious lineup. This year, the Academy excluded multiple former Oscar winners — Dorothy Malone, who received best supporting actress honors for her portrayal of an alcoholic in Written on the Wind (1956), and Glen Campbell, who starred in True Grit (1969) and earned a best original song nomination.

Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder performed Tom Petty’s “Room at the Top” in a tribute to the singer, who died in...

Actress Dorothy Malone, who starred in the primetime soap opera Peyton Place, died Friday in her hometown of Dallas. She was age 93.

Malone died in an assisted living center from natural causes days before her 94th birthday, said her daughter, Mimi Vanderstraaten.

After 11 years of mostly roles as loving sweethearts and wives, the brunette actress decided she needed to gamble on her career instead of playing it safe. She fired her agent, hired a publicist, dyed her hair blonde and sought a new image.

"I came up with a conviction that most of the winners in this business became stars overnight by playing shady dames with sex appeal," she recalled in 1967. She welcomed the offer for Written on the Wind, in which she played an alcoholic nymphomaniac who tries to steal Rock Hudson from his wife, Lauren Bacall.

"And I've been unfaithful or drunk or oversexed almost ever since— on the screen,...

Hollywood star who won an Oscar for her role in Written on the Wind and appeared in the TV soap Peyton Place

Although the Hollywood star Dorothy Malone, who has died aged 92, appeared in only a handful of works of distinction in a fairly lengthy career, they were good enough to secure her place in film history. On those occasions when the role permitted, most notably in two flamboyant melodramas directed by Douglas Sirk, Written on the Wind (1956) and The Tarnished Angels (1957), Malone revealed what a talented performer she could be, one capable of projecting a potent blend of cynicism, sexuality and intelligence. However, she was probably most familiar to the general public as Constance MacKenzie in Peyton Place (1964-68), one of the first primetime TV soap operas.

In Written on the Wind, Malone played Marylee, an oil heiress, sister of an alcoholic playboy Kyle Hadley (Robert Stack). She’s...

Dorothy Malone, who won a best supporting actress Oscar for her performance in 1956’s Written on the Wind and starred as matriarch Constance MacKenzie on 1960s TV series Peyton Place, has died. Malone died Friday morning in Dallas of natural causes, her manager, Burt Shapiro confirmed to Deadline. She was 92. Malone began her decades-long career in 1943 with small roles in films such as Frank Sinatra musicals Higher and Higher (1943) and Step Lively (1944), and Show Busine…...

Dorothy Malone, who won a best supporting actress Oscar for her performance in 1956’s Written on the Wind and starred as matriarch Constance MacKenzie on 1960s TV series Peyton Place, has died. Malone died Friday morning in Dallas of natural causes, her manager, Burt Shapiro confirmed to Deadline. She was 92. Malone began her decades-long career in 1943 with small roles in films such as Frank Sinatra musicals Higher and Higher (1943) and Step Lively (1944), and Show Busine…...

Dorothy Malone, a Hollywood glamour queen who won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for 1956’s “Written on the Wind,” died Friday in Dallas at age 92. She died of natural causes, her manager Burt Shapiro told TheWrap. Malone, who moved to television in the 1960s with the primetime soap “Peyton Place,” may be best know to modern audiences for her showy final screen role in 1992’s “Basic Instinct” as an out-of-prison murderer who befriends Sharon Stone’s character. Also Read: Peter Wyngarde, Inspiration for Austin Powers, Dies at 90 Born in Chicago in 1925, she grew up in Dallas and attended Southern Methodist University...