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Christopher Plummer, the Canadian-born Shakespearean actor who starred in films including “The Sound of Music” and “Beginners,” died on Friday morning at his home in Connecticut. He was 91.

“Chris was an extraordinary man who deeply loved and respected his profession with great old fashion manners, self deprecating humor and the music of words,” said Lou Pitt, his longtime friend and manager of 46 years. “He was a national treasure who deeply relished his Canadian roots. Through his art and humanity, he touched all of our hearts and his legendary life will endure for all generations to come. He will forever be with us.”

An imposing theatrical presence with a well-cultivated, resonant voice, that critic John Simon once observed, “in its chamois mode, can polish mirrors,” Plummer was best known for playing Captain von Trapp in the Oscar-winning musical “The Sound of Music.” He also won an Oscar in 2012 for his supporting turn in the film “Beginners,...

By Darren Allison

Is Paris Burning? Composed by Maurice Jarre, The 50th Anniversary Recording of the Complete Score. A Special Collectors 2 CD Edition featuring a brand new recording by The City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra Conducted by Nic Raine. Released by Tadlow Music, Price: £16.95 TADLOW023, Date: August 25th 2016 Anniversary of the Liberation of Paris.

It’s always exciting to receive the latest release from Tadlow music. When award winning producer James Fitzpatrick and respected conductor Nic Raine join forces and combine their talents, you know the result is always going to be good. Maurice Jarre’s music is, of course, nothing new to the long standing partnership. Together in recent years, they have overseen triumphant new recordings of Jarre’s Lawrence of Arabia (1962) and Villa Rides (1968).

Is Paris Burning? (1966) is their latest collaboration and features the complete 69 minute film score including previously unrecorded cues. A great deal of Jarre’s patriotic score is heavily militaristic,...

Decidedly weird but not altogether enthralling is the 1962 title Five Miles to Midnight, a melodramatic thriller with noir elements and one of the last films by the accomplished Anatole Litvak (who would only direct two more features after, including The Night of the Generals and the currently unavailable 1970 version of The Lady in the Car with Glasses and a Gun).

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A haunted house film is a tough sell. No masked stalker, no creatures that eviscerate and certainly no zombies lurching down those shadowed halls. A single setting, a dark secret, a group of people terrified by something is usually your standard template, and even the best haunted house flick doth not stray from the formula. So the trick is to convince the viewers once you get them inside – something that the low on budget, high on conviction, and seldom talked about The Evil (1978) accomplishes admirably.

Barely distributed in May of ‘78 by Roger Corman’s New World Pictures, The Evil was made for $700,000 Us and came and went very quickly. The filmmakers complained about the paltry distribution, but I’m sure Corman turned a profit somewhere down the line – he usually did. So from the modest budget, to the generic sounding title (why not just call it Horror Movie?) to the not exactly topical sub genre,...

Actor best known for roles in Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago.

Actor Omar Sharif has died aged 83. The Egypt-born actor, who had stepped away from acting since being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, died following a heart attack this afternoon in a hospital in Cairo.

Sharif won two Golden Globes and an Oscar nomination for his role as Sherif Ali in David Lean’s 1962 epic Lawrence of Arabia.

He won a further Golden Globe three years later for Doctor Zhivago.

Sharif was born Michel Demetri Chalhoub in Alexandria on April 10, 1932, and studied acting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London.

Sharif began his acting career in 1953 with a role in romantic drama Sira` Fi al-Wadi before appearing in more than 20 Egyptian productions, including Ayyamna el helwa with singer Abdel Halim Hafez, La anam (1958), Sayedat el kasr (1959) and Anna Karenina adaptation Nahr el hub (1961). He also starred with his wife, Egyptian actress...

Omar Sharif, the Egyptian actor who broke through barriers to become a major international star, has died in Cairo from a heart attack at age 83. In recent months, he had been battling the onset of Alzheimer's Disease. Sharif and Peter O'Toole were virtual unknowns when they were cast as the leads by director David Lean in his 1962 masterpiece "Lawrence of Arabia". Both received Oscar nominations for the film and went on to become two of the biggest stars to emerge in the 1960s. Sharif reunited with Lean for another blockbuster, the 1965 production of "Doctor Zhivago" in which Sharif played the title role. He also co-starred with Barbra Streisand in her Oscar-winning 1968 film "Funny Girl" and appeared with her in the 1975 sequel "Funny Lady". Other prominent films Sharif appeared in during the 1960s include Samuel Bronston's ill-fated but underrated "The Fall of the Roman Empire", "Behold a Pale Horse", the...

Omar Sharif, star of Doctor Zhivago and Lawrence of Arabia, has passed away at the age of 83.

The Egyptian-born actor rose to fame in the '60s thanks to his roles in director David Lean's sweeping epics and continued to work across TV and film for a further five decades. Digital Spy takes a look back at some of Sharif's greatest roles below.

David Lean cast Sharif as Arab revolutionary Sherif Ali in 1962's Lawrence of Arabia - the film was his English language debut and earned him an Oscar nomination.

Sharif reunited with Lawrence director David Lean to take on the lead role in Doctor Zhivago in 1965.

World War II drama The Night of the Generals (1967) saw Sharif star alongside Peter O'Toole once more, with Donald Pleasence, Tom Courtenay and Christopher Plummer in the supporting cast."

Sharif starred opposite Barbra Streisand in 1968's Funny Girl, playing a smooth gambler to her Vaudeville performer.

Legendary Egyptian-born, British trained actor Omar Sharif has died at the age of 83.

Though studying maths and physics at University, and working in the family business of precious woods, Sharif felt the lure of performing and ended up appearing in more than twenty productions in Egypt from 1953.

His big international break came in 1962 when he joined David Lean's "Lawrence of Arabia" and scored both a Golden Globe award and an Oscar nomination for his work as Sherif Ali Ben El Kharish. He went on to roles in various major movies including "Doctor Zhivago," "Funny Girl," "Behold a Pale Horse," "Che!," "Top Secret," "Hidalgo," "The Fall of the Roman Empire ," "The Pink Panther Strikes Again," "The Mysterious Island," "The Last Valley," "The Baltimore Bullet," "Mayerling," "The Night of the Generals," "Genghis Khan," "Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna," "One Night with the King " and "Monsieur Ibrahim".

Surprisingly he also became famous...

This week on Off The Shelf, Ryan is joined by Brian Saur to take a look at the new DVD and Blu-ray releases for the week of May 26th, 2015, and chat about some follow-up and home video news.

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News

Masters Of Cinema & Eureka in August: Cruel Story Of Youth, Medium Cool, the Town That Dreaded Sundown

Screen Archives Entertainment have some new and exclusive Code Red Blu-ray titles, available now. Guy Magar’s Retribution, Tobe Hooper’s Spontaneous Combustion and Shakma.

Twilight Time new releases for June will go live for pre-order Wednesday, May 27the st 4 Pm Eastern: Absolute Beginners (1986), State Of Grace (1990) , Mississippi Mermaid (1969), The Young Lions (1958) , The Night Of The Generals (1967) the approximate street date is June 9th.

New Releases

Ballet 422 Cannibal Ferox The Confession Da Sweet Blood of Jesus Double Indemnity Empire Of The Ants / Jaws Of Satan...

Specialty Blu-ray label Twilight Time continues to show their deep love for film with a continually growing and constantly eclectic selection of releases. The next few months will see Blu-ray titles as varied as To Sir With Love, U-Turn, The Night of the Generals and Zardoz. There were five titles on last month’s slate (released on 1/20) including a great American underdog tale in Breaking Away, an Indian biopic of uprising and war with Bandit Queen, Francois Truffaut’s female-driven revenge film The Bride Wore Black, Woody Allen’s surreal ode to the cinema in The Purple Rose of Cairo and a 30th Anniversary release of Fright Night. That last title — the only one not covered below — was actually released by the label once before with a far slimmer selection of special features. It immediately became a collector’s item, and now, barely three weeks after its re-release, this anniversary edition is already fetching ridiculous sums from...

Peter O’Toole: ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ actor, eight-time Oscar nominee dead at 81 (photo: Peter O’Toole as T.E. Lawrence in David Lean’s ‘Lawrence of Arabia’) Stage, film, and television actor Peter O’Toole, an eight-time Best Actor Academy Award nominee best remembered for his performance as T.E. Lawrence in David Lean’s epic blockbuster Lawrence of Arabia, died on Saturday, December 14, 2013, at a London hospital following "a long illness." Peter O’Toole was 81. The Irish-born O’Toole (on August 2, 1932, in Connemara, County Galway) began his film career with three supporting roles in 1960 releases: Robert Stevenson’s Disney version of Kidnapped; John Guillermin’s The Day They Robbed the Bank of England; and Nicholas Ray’s The Savage Innocents, starring Anthony Quinn as an Inuit man accused of murder. Two years later, O’Toole became a star following the release of Lawrence of Arabia, which grossed an astounding $44.82 million in North America back in 1962 (approx.

As part of the war movie genre, the heroic exploits of the Resistance have been a popular form of cinematic entertainment since the end of World War Two. The bane of the invading German forces, the Resistance always represented the ordinary man picking up arms against the dreaded Hun to defend their country. Whether it was booby-trapping panzers or smuggling escaped POWs and Jewish refugees to safety, many films emphasized their heroism to great effect. Exploits of the Greek, Norwegian and French Resistance have been put to good use in The Guns of Navarone (1961), 633 Squadron (1964) and The Night of the Generals (1967).

As great as these films were, the exploits of the Resistance has been pretty much romanticized and even parodied (for those who remember ‘Allo ‘Allo!). The reality was very different. They were ruthless killers who took no prisoners and treated those who had in any way collaborated with the enemy with cold-blooded hostility.

A look at what's new on DVD and Blu-ray today:

"Taxi Driver" (1976)

Directed by Martin Scorsese

Released by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment

One can read about the extensive restoration of what many consider to be Martin Scorsese's finest film at The Digital Bits, but if you're a film fan, you might not need convincing to pick up the latest edition of the film about the disillusioned cabbie, which includes all the special features from the previous DVDs of the film (a feature-length making of doc, a score of shorter featurettes) while adding the commentary track between Scorsese and writer Paul Schrader that originally appeared on the 1986 Criterion laser disc. All in all, it's the definitive edition that the film deserves.

"Casino Jack" (2010)

Directed by George Hickenlooper

Released by Fox Home Entertainment

Even at the height of his powers, disgraced Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff might not have been able to...

Your Weekly Source for Blu-Ray and DVD Release News Blu-Ray for Tuesday, April 5th, 2011 Steven Spielberg’s A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001) An early Al Pacino in …And Justice For All (1979) Dudley Moore is a happy drunk in Arthur/Arthur 2: On The Rocks (1981/1988) Cute pork for kids… Babe (1995) Another dose of the villainous Mark Hamill in Batman: Return Of The Joker (2000) Forgotten good rom-com with Johnny Depp… Benny & Joon (1993) From the late George Hickenlooper, Kevin Spacey is Casino Jack (2010) Shocking dolphin documentary The Cove (2009) Kevin Kline & Ashley Judd star in De-lovely (2004) Fiddler On The Roof: 40th Anniversary Edition, Blu-Ray/DVD Combo (1971) Jim Carrey & Ewan McGregor star in I Love You Phillip Morris (2010) Rose McGoawn stars in the dark high school comedy Jawbreaker (1999) Ryan Gosling stars in Lars And The Real Girl (2007) Robert DeNiro & Ben Stiller star in Little Fockers (2010) Romantic comedy, Shakespeare-style with Much Ado About Nothing (1993) Julia Roberts...

This Oscar-winning Argentinian thriller packs emotional punch and a dazzlingly virtuosic narrative

There is usually, and often with justification, serious criticism of the movie voted by the American Film Academy to receive its Oscar for best film in a foreign language. It happened again this year when the international critics' anointed contenders – Michael Haneke's The White Ribbon and Jacques Audiard's A Prophet – were ignored in favour of Juan José Campanella's The Secret in Their Eyes. Well, Haneke's picture is certainly more original and Audiard's altogether harsher, but Campanella's Argentinian thriller is a film of subtlety, distinction and depth that in most other years would have made it appear a very worthy recipient. Moreover, it seems an apt choice to mark what Sight & Sound celebrates on the front page of its September edition as "The Rise and Rise of Latin American Cinema" over the past decade.

The film's...