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Megalopolis director Francis Ford Coppola has joined Letterboxd, the social cataloguing service where members can rate and review films and keep track of what they’ve watched. I’m a little addicted. Coppola has shared a list of twenty films that he would recommend to any cinephile or aspiring filmmaker, which you can check out below.

French Cancan (Jean Renoir) The Bad Sleep Well (Akira Kurosawa) The Bitter Tea of General Yen (Frank Capra) Shanghai Express (Josef von Sternberg) The Awful Truth (Leo McCarey) The Ladies Man (Jerry Lewis) The Burmese Harp (Kon Ichikawa) Tokyo Story (Yasujirō Ozu) The Last Laugh (F.W. Murnau) The Blue Angel (Josef von Sternberg) Splendor in the Grass (Elia Kazan) Punch Drunk Love (Paul Thomas Anderson) Empire of the Sun (Steven Spielberg) Sunrise (F.W. Murnau) Joyless Street (G.W. Pabst) A Place in the Sun (George Stevens) The King of Comedy (Martin Scorsese) After...

Robert Weatherwax, a professional dog trainer for film and TV productions who took on the trade of his father, Rudd, the original owner of Lassie, died Thursday at a Veterans Affairs facility in Scranton, Pa. He was 83 years old.

Weatherwax was born June 4, 1941 in Burbank, Calif. — exactly one year before the birth of Pal, the dog that portrayed Lassie across seven MGM films and the pilot of the “Lassie” TV series. Growing up, Weatherwax and his sister, JoAnne, were tasked with assisting their father with his professional work, including teaching new routines to their pets. Their grandfather, W.S. Weatherwax, was an animal trainer during the silent era.

The Weatherwax family’s furry clientele included such seminal canines of the screen as Skippy a.k.a. Asta, who appeared in Golden Age comedies such as “The Thin Man” and “The Awful Truth”; Terry, who portrayed Toto in “The Wizard of Oz”; and Spike,...

by Cláudio Alves

Since last month, the Criterion Channel has hosted a curated collection of screwball comedies, spanning the subgenre's pre-Code genesis to its postwar decline. Among the many screwy delights, you'll find The Awful Truth, Leo McCarey's 1937 classic, and a Best Director Oscar winner to boot. Indeed, the movie was most beloved by the Academy, scoring five additional nominations, including for Picture, Actress, and Supporting Actor. According to contemporary publications, that last honor was a relative surprise, especially since the movie's leading man was left off the ballot altogether.

You would think a major star associated with such an awards juggernaut would have an easy time nabbing themselves a coattails nomination, but Cary Grant was out of luck in 1937. Well, when it comes to the AMPAS, he was often unfortunate, only ever getting their seal of approval in the early 40s with a couple of dips into melodrama-land.

When IndieWire recently ranked the 25 best films of Alfred Hitchcock, it was probably no surprise to anyone that “Mr. and Mrs. Smith,” the director’s sole attempt at a light romantic comedy, didn’t make the cut. Even Hitchcock himself tended to underrate the film, as when he told interviewer François Truffaut that “since I didn’t really understand the type of people who were portrayed in the film, all I did was photograph the scenes as written.” From a filmmaker who regularly dismissed movies he considered uncinematic as mere “photographs of people talking,” this was the ultimate self-directed insult.

Yet even a casual reappraisal of “Mr. and Mrs. Smith,” newly available in an exquisite Blu-ray special edition from Warner Archive, undermines Hitchcock’s claims about his own movie. While it would be a bridge too far to declare the film a masterpiece on a par with “Psycho” or “Rear Window,...

“Twister” was the second highest-grossing film at the box office in 1996, so its enduring popularity shouldn’t be a shock. But still, the profound nature of its impact over time — there’s a museum dedicated to the film in its shooting location of Wakita, Oklahoma; a noted uptick in meteorology majors in the late ’90s directly attributed to the film; and stormchasers paying tribute en masse to star Bill Paxton upon his death in 2017 — astounds even its director, Jan de Bont.

“It’s amazing how that happened,” the Dutch filmmaker told IndieWire in an interview timed to the release of the film on 4K Uhd Blu-ray. “And how quickly it happened. I think ‘Twister’ simply made people more interested in weather phenomena and it’s even why there are so many more weather shows on TV.”

Couple that with the increasing focus on climate change in the 28 years since the...

Amazon Prime Video is the place to go for movies this month, with a plethora of original films as well as new library additions for just about every movie fan. The Emma Roberts-led original Space Cadet hits the streaming service aptly on the Fourth of July, for anyone looking for a fish-out-of-water style comedy. My Spy the Eternal City, the newest film in the Dave Bautista-led family action series also drops on July 18.

Action film fans are also in for a treat with recent films The Beekeeper and Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning coming to Prime Video in July.

As far as TV shows go, the most notable addition this month is the adult animated series Sausage Party: Foodtopia, a continuation of the 2016 film Sausage Party.

Here’s everything coming to Prime Video and Freevee in July – Amazon originals are designated with an asterisk.

New on Amazon Prime Video...

How now, what news: the Criterion Channel’s July lineup is here. Eight pop renditions of Shakespeare are on the docket: from movies you forgot were inspired by the Bard (Abel Ferrara’s China Girl) to ones you’d wish to forget altogether (Joss Whedon’s Much Ado About Nothing), with maybe my single favorite interpretation (Michael Almereyda’s Hamlet) alongside Paul Mazursky, Gus Van Sant, Baz Luhrmann, Derek Jarman, and (of course) Kenneth Branagh. A neonoir collection arrives four months ahead of Noirvember: two Ellroy adaptations, two from De Palma that are not his neonoir Ellroy adaptation, two from the Coen brothers (i.e. the chance to see a DVD-stranded The Man Who Wasn’t There in HD), and––finally––a Michael Winner picture given Criterion’s seal of approval.

Columbia screwballs run between classics to lesser-seens while Nicolas Roeg and Heisei-era Godzilla face off. A Times Square collection brings The Gods of Times Square,...

The dogged pursuit of the relationship unicorn that is the good break-up informs the wit and winking wisdom of Jonás Trueba’s “The Other Way Around,” a delightful showcase for the Spanish director’s lithe, airy style, here accented with glistening strands of Madrileño meta-melancholy. A hip, popular twosome decide to call it quits after 14 years, cuing a very funny yet properly grown-up portrait of the ideal couple trying to smoothe, and even to celebrate, their transition into ideal exes. It’s the celebration aspect that will prove their undoing. If the good breakup is rare, the joyous breakup is completely mythical.

Filmmaker Ale (Itsaso Arana) and her actor boyfriend of 14 years Alex (Vito Sanz) have decided — mutually, they insist — to pack their bags for Splitsville. They lie in the dark in their still-shared bed with a poignant politeness recognizable to anyone who has similarly ended a longterm relationship prior to canceling a longterm lease.

“Twisters,” set to be released July 19 and one of IndieWire’s most anticipated movies of summer 2024, arrives a whopping 28 years after the original “Twister” landed in theaters. That was the perfect amount of time for a whole fandom to spring up around the 1996 movie, with devotees obsessed with its scrappy stormchasers in it for the science, all vying with evil meteorologists only in it for the money (because meteorology is such a lucrative field!), its windblown CGI cattle, Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton’s make-the-most-of-it line readings, and Philip Seymour Hoffman in one of his best early roles.

Glen Powell, the star of “Twisters,” alongside Daisy Edgar-Jones, shares that fandom. During a recent interview with Powell, this writer mentioned how much I love the original film and how unique it is as a “comedy of remarriage.” It’s the specific type of screwball comedy that’s about a separated couple...

Numerous actors aspire to stand on the illustrious stage and utter the iconic words, “I would like to thank The Academy,” as they receive the coveted Oscar. The Oscar is the pinnacle of achievement in the filmmaking industry, a dream for many. However, the reality is that not everyone can emerge victorious.

Many actors have come to understand that even multiple nominations don’t guarantee a win. The competition at the Academy Awards is fierce, and not everyone will have the honor of seeing their name engraved on the prestigious golden statue. We are now listing four deserving actors who finished their careers without ever winning an Oscar.

4 Actors Who Ended Their Careers Without An Oscar Win

As previously noted, securing an Oscar remains the pinnacle of acknowledgement for numerous actors, yet several top stars have not won the prestigious award. In fact, some actors concluded their careers without ever attaining an Academy Award.

“It Happened One Night,” which premiered at Radio City Music Hall on Feb. 22, 1934, helped usher in the screwball romantic comedy, changed the careers of stars Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert, director Frank Capra and screenwriter Robert Riskin and transformed the Poverty Row Columbia Pictures into a major player. And let’s not forget, “It Happened One Night” also made Oscar history winning five major Oscars: picture, director, adapted screenplay and both actor and actress. It would be 41 years before “One Flew of the Cuckoo’s Nest” would accomplish the same feat at the Academy Awards.

Based on the short story “Night Bus,” the smart, endearing road movie focuses on spoiled rotten Ellie Andrews (Colbert) who has gone against her wealthy father’s (Walter Connelly) wishes by marrying the gold-digging King Westley (Jameson Thomas). Before their wedding night, her father whisked her away to his yacht in Florida. She manages to...

Clockwise from top left: Notting Hill (Universal Pictures), Love & Basketball (New Line Cinema), Amelie (20th Century Fox),Say Anything (Ugc-Fox Distribution)Graphic: The A.V. Club

Running through the airport to stop a lover’s flight. Making a big speech in front of a crowd of strangers. Picking the perfect song for a serenade.

He was born Archibald Alec Leach in South West England on January 18, 1904. As a teen, he became attracted to show biz at an early age, becoming friends with a troupe of acrobats and doing odd jobs while hanging out backstage at theaters. At 16, he would travel by ship to the United States, where he would eventually change his name to Cary Grant after signing his first movie contract in 1931. He became one of the most admired and beloved leading men that Hollywood would ever produce.

Grant’s suave looks and elegant voice served him well when he started acting in films, but his artistry and nuance on screen matured considerably over the years. He would work with the master Alfred Hitchcock several times, including “North by Northwest,” “Notorious” and “To Catch a Thief.” Grant was also quite deft with comedy roles, including “His Girl Friday,” “The Awful Truth,” “Arsenic and Old Lace...

Alice Walker published her acclaimed novel “The Color Purple” in 1982. It sold five million copies; Walker became the first Black woman to win the Pulitzer Prize and she also received the National Book Club Award. Three years later, Steven Spielberg directed the lauded film version which made stars out of Whoopi Goldberg, Oprah Winfrey and Danny Glover. It earned 11 Oscar nominations. The story revolves around a young woman who suffers abuse from her father and husband for four decades until she finds her own identity. Not exactly the stuff of a Broadway musical.

But the 2005 tuner version received strong reviews, ran 910 performances and earned ten Tony nominations, winning best actress for Lachanze. The 2015 production picked up two Tonys for best revival and actress for Cynthia Erivo. The movie musical version opened strong Christmas Day with $18 million and is a strong contender in several Oscar categories especially for Fantasia Barrino and Danielle Brooks.

Following The Film Stage’s collective top 50 films of 2023, as part of our year-end coverage, our contributors are sharing their personal top 10 lists.

I love going to the movies every year, but I really loved going to the movies this year. I saw Knock at the Cabin in Providence, I saw May December in Tallinn. I saw Enys Men in a small theater at Village East where it felt like everyone in the audience turned against the film but me. Somehow I liked Equalizer 3 despite loathing the other two. The worst movie I saw in theaters was Fast X, which I watched on an edible that put me to sleep during a set piece. I missed out on seeing Magic Mike’s Last Dance with some friends who wound up running into Christopher Nolan going to see Skinamarink. I loved breaking Yom Kippur fast during The Beast (out next year—I...

Adam Bhala Lough and Sam Lipman-Stern’s new three-part HBO documentary Telemarketers occupies a space on the nonfiction continuum somewhere between the angry, journalistic interrogation of early Michael Moore and the more laid-back, observational curiosity of the Nathan Fielder/John Wilson school.

It’s a slightly precarious position. As a muckraking crusade, Telemarketers conveys and synthesizes less revelatory information than your typical Last Week Tonight With John Oliver main story — which is to say that anything you learn from the documentary you probably could have learned five years ago if you’d just wanted to know. As more personal storytelling, the series sometimes lacks introspection and sufficient autobiographical candor.

In the uneasy blending, though, Telemarketers finds something that’s frequently funny, unexpectedly poignant and occasionally rather special. It isn’t going to topple an industry, but its story of two unlikely friends who, after doing the wrong thing for a long time,...

The undisputed king of the screwball comedy is Cary Grant, and frankly, I don't think it's close. With classics of the genre like "His Girl Friday," "The Awful Truth," and "Holiday" under his belt, the most dapper man in Hollywood was also one of its funniest. Honestly, it's a little unfair that one person could be that handsome and that funny at the same time. Those two qualities should be at complete odds with one another. That's only fair.

If someone wanted to understand what the archetypical screwball comedy is, the film I would most likely show them is Howard Hawks' 1938 classic "Bringing Up Baby," starring Grant with his frequent screwball partner Katharine Hepburn. Its brand of antics is particularly wacky even by the standards of the best screwball comedies, and every single time I throw on the movie, whether I'm watching it in full or just looking at individual scenes,...

Any belief that the Oscars award the right films, directors and performances has faded over the years.

While every ceremony has a smattering of correct decisions – trophies handed to the right people for the right films – more often than not, the pervading feeling is one of pessimism caused by a deluge of undeserving recipients.

The Oscars are a far cry from what they claim to be – a celebration of the previous year’s cinematic offerings. But his does not stop people from trawling the internet the following morning in the hope that maybe, just maybe, the winners list impresses rather than disappoints.

With the 2023 ceremony taking place in March, we have highlighted 17 films that really should not have been awarded Oscars.

A Beautiful Mind (2001)

A Beautiful Mind is one of the mustier Best Pictures winners of the century so far. While its win was a coup for DreamWorks – the film...

Any belief that the Oscars award the right films, directors and performances has faded over the years.

While every ceremony has a smattering of correct decisions – trophies handed to the right people for the right films – more often than not, the pervading feeling is one of pessimism caused by a deluge of undeserving recipients.

The Oscars are a far cry from what they claim to be – a celebration of the previous year’s cinematic offerings. But his does not stop people from trawling the internet the following morning in the hope that maybe, just maybe, the winners list impresses rather than disappoints.

With the 2023 ceremony taking place in March, we have highlighted 17 films that really should not have been awarded Oscars.

A Beautiful Mind (2001)

A Beautiful Mind is one of the mustier Best Pictures winners of the century so far. While its win was a coup for DreamWorks – the film...

Any belief that the Oscars award the right films, directors and performances has faded over the years.

While every ceremony has a smattering of correct decisions – trophies handed to the right people for the right films – more often than not, the pervading feeling is one of pessimism caused by a deluge of undeserving recipients.

The Oscars are a far cry from what they claim to be – a celebration of the previous year’s cinematic offerings. But his does not stop people from trawling the internet the following morning in the hope that maybe, just maybe, the winners list impresses rather than disappoints.

With the 2023 ceremony taking place in March, we have highlighted 17 films that really should not have been awarded Oscars.

A Beautiful Mind (2001)

A Beautiful Mind is one of the mustier Best Pictures winners of the century so far. While its win was a coup for DreamWorks – the film...

Any belief that the Oscars award the right films, directors and performances has faded over the years.

While every ceremony has a smattering of correct decisions – trophies handed to the right people for the right films – more often than not, the pervading feeling is one of pessimism caused by a deluge of undeserving recipients.

The Oscars are a far cry from what they claim to be – a celebration of the previous year’s cinematic offerings. But his does not stop people from trawling the internet the following morning in the hope that maybe, just maybe, the winners list impresses rather than disappoints.

With the 2023 ceremony taking place in March, we have highlighted 17 films that really should not have been awarded Oscars.

A Beautiful Mind (2001)

A Beautiful Mind is one of the mustier Best Pictures winners of the century so far. While its win was a coup for DreamWorks – the film...

Director/Tfh Guru Allan Arkush discusses his favorite year in film, 1975, with Josh Olson and Joe Dante.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Rules of the Game (1939)

Le Boucher (1970)

Last Year At Marienbad (1961)

Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid (1982)

Topaz (1969)

Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022)

Hollywood Boulevard (1976) – Jon Davison’s trailer commentary

The Innocents (1961) – Joe Dante’s trailer commentary

The Earrings of Madame De… (1953)

Rope (1948) – Darren Bousman’s trailer commentary

Make Way For Tomorrow (1937)

The Awful Truth (1937) – Charlie Largent’s Criterion Blu-ray review

Duck Soup (1933) – John Landis’s trailer commentary

Going My Way (1944)

Nashville (1975) – Larry Karaszewski’s trailer commentary, Dan Perri’s trailer commentary

M*A*S*H (1970)

Shampoo (1975) – Allan Arkush’s trailer commentary, Glenn Erickson’s Criterion Blu-ray review

Bonnie And Clyde (1967) – John Landis’s trailer commentary

The Nada Gang (1975)

Get Crazy (1983) – Allan Arkush’s trailer commentary

Night Moves (1975) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review

Dog Day Afternoon (1975) – Katt Shea’s trailer...

Despite the increase in pop-culture amnesia, there are actually a lot of great rom-coms that predate the Reagan era

For many pop-culture websites, which we will not name here, the history of cinema apparently begins somewhere around the release of “Star Wars” (1977), with almost everything that preceded it to the big screen being sloughed off as quaint, forgettable and irrelevant.

It’s the sort of thing that people who love movies and movie history can often ignore with the roll of an eye, but when one site recently trumpeted its list of the 50 Best Rom-Coms of All Time — which featured exactly one movie made before 1980 and zero prior to 1970 — we could sit by no longer.

Here is an alphabetical list of 50 classic romantic comedies that merely scratches the surface of great movies made during ye olden times of 1979 and earlier:

“The Awful Truth” (1937): Cary Grant and Irene Dunne star...

Before the academy expanded the Best Picture race in 2010, the winner of that award almost always picked up the Best Director prize as well. But since then, these two awards have aligned at only seven of the dozen ceremonies. We thought that we’d see another case of double-dipping this year with Jane Campion winning for both directing and producing “The Power of the Dog.” But now it looks like “Coda” will claim the top prize of Best Picture, with Campion consoling herself with being the third woman to win Best Director.

Why the change?

When the decision was made to increase the number of nominees for Best Picture, it was also decided to bring back the preferential ballot that had been used by the academy until the mid 1940s. The rationale was that by ranking the nominees, the winner would be the film that had the broadest level of support.

Any belief that the Oscars award the right films, directors and performances has faded over the years.

While every ceremony has a smattering of correct decisions – trophies handed to the right people for the right films – more often than not, the pervading feeling is one of pessimism caused by a deluge of undeserving recipients.

Despite the recent victories of Parasite and Nomadland, the Oscars are a far cry from what they claim to be – a celebration of the previous year’s cinematic offerings. But his does not stop people from trawling the internet the following morning in the hope that maybe, just maybe, the winners list impresses rather than disappoints.

With the 2022 ceremony arriving this weekend, we have highlighted 17 films that really should not have been awarded Oscars.

A Beautiful Mind (2001)

A Beautiful Mind is one of the mustier Best Pictures winners of the century so far. While its win...

I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for Leo McCarey’s beloved 1939 romance “Love Affair” starring Irene Dunne and Charles Boyer as star-crossed lovers who meet cute on a luxury liner. Since they are both attached to others — Dunne is actually a “kept” woman — they agree to meet six months after they land in New York at the Empire State Building. For years, “Love Affair” was near impossible to see after the rights of the Rko production had been sold to 20th Century Fox for Carey’s scene-by-scene 1957 remake “An Affair to Remember” with Deborah Kerr and Cary Grant.

But in 1977, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s film department lead by the late great Ron Haver presented a months’ long Rko festival featuring every film from the studio that still existed including “Love Affair,” which had earned six Oscar nominations including Best Picture and Best...

The Notebook Primer introduces readers to some of the most important figures, films, genres, and movements in film history.Twentieth CenturyA common misconception about 1930s Hollywood cinema is that escapism was the trend du jour. The ubiquity of genres like historical melodramas and musicals indicates that rationale may be true to an extent, but even the most fantastic films were grounded in some semblance of social realism. And how could they not be? With nearly one in four Americans out of work by 1933 and a slow-but-stable economic recovery stimulated by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal program, the bleakness of the Great Depression and the disparity between the haves and have-nots was an omnipresent thread throughout the decade’s popular culture. Like any major American industry, Hollywood was formative to the public’s perception of culture and politics, and the movies were a temperature gauge of the decade’s cultural climate.

In 2001, Will Smith headlined “Ali,” which brought him his first Oscar nomination. He lost the Best Actor prize to Denzel Washington for “Training Day,” but now, 20 years later, Smith can avenge that loss with “King Richard” against Washington’s turn in “The Tragedy of Macbeth.” And if he doesn’t, he would be the latest performer who has lost to the same person twice.

There have been four people with an 0-2 record agains the same actor. They are:

1. Irene Dunne lost Best Actress for “Theodora Goes Wild” (1936) and “The Awful Truth” (1937) to Luise Rainer for “The Great Ziegfeld” (1936) and “The Good Earth” (1937)

2. Charles Boyer lost Best Actor for “Conquest” (1937) and “Algiers” (1938) to Spencer Tracy for “Captains Courageous” (1937) and “Boys Town” (1938) over

3. Basil Rathbone lost Best Supporting Actor for “Romeo and Juliet” (1936) and “If I Were King” (1938) to Walter Brennan for “Come and Get It” (1936) and “Kentucky” (1938)

4. Annette Bening lost...

Exclusive: SallyAnn Salsano’s Emmy-nominated 495 Productions is expanding its executive team, with two high-level hires and promotions for two longtime execs. The company has added Dave Hamilton as EVP of Content, along with Kirk Anderson, who joined 495 Prods. as Head of Production in January, and has elevated Josh Peters to Head of Development and Megan Pickett to VP of Development.

“I’m psyched to have a great team with me to tackle our returning shows, our new shows and whatever we whip up next.” said Salsano, “I have known Dave since we made shows together at VH1 in the 2000’s and I’ve always admired his skillset as an executive who can also go into the field to produce. Kirk and I met years ago working at The Bachelor and his can-do attitude was always there, he brought that same attitude to 495 six months ago. His experience has been...

9 random things that happened on this day, March 10th, in showbiz history...

1938 The 10th annual Academy Awards are held honoring the films of 1937. The Life of Emile Zola wins Best Picture, the second consecutive biopic to win, cementing the agonizing fact that Oscar then and now obsesses over the snooziest of all film genres, the biopic, more than any of its far more interesting cousins. It beat screwball classic The Awful Truth, the actressexual bliss of Stage Door, the non-musical Janet Gaynor version of A Star is Born, and other superior films. Meanwhile Luise Rainer became the first actor in movie history to pull off a two consecutive year Oscar coup with her second win for her yellowface performance in The Good Earth...

In three of the last five years, there has been a divide between the winners of Best Picture at the Oscars. Before the academy reintroduced the preferential ballot for Best Picture in 2010, such splits were fairly rare. Since then, they are almost the rule rather than the exception at the Academy Awards having occurred in five of the last 11 years. Why the change? (Scroll down for the most up-to-date 2021 Oscars predictions for Best Director.)

The winner of Best Picture is now determined by a weighted ballot while the other 23 races, including Best Director, are decided by a popular vote. While voters simply check one nominee in those other races, when it comes to Best Picture they are asked to rank all the nominees. If one contender garners more than 50% of the first-place votes, it wins. If, however, no nominee crosses that threshold, the film with the fewest first-place votes is eliminated,...

What a difference two days makes. Before last Wednesday’s Golden Globe nominations, “Hillbilly Elegy’s” Glenn Close was in sixth place in Gold Derby’s Best Supporting Actress Oscar odds, but after she accrued a bid there and at the Screen Actors Guild Awards the next day, she has rocketed to fourth place. Another post-Globe and -SAG change is Olivia Colman (“The Father”) usurping the SAG-snubbed Amanda Seyfried (“Mank”) for the top spot. You know what that means: if both Close and Colman make the final five, Colman could beat Close again, which would make her the the fifth performer to defeat the same person twice.

The first four were:

1. Luise Rainer won Best Actress for “The Great Ziegfeld” (1936) and “The Good Earth” (1937) over Irene Dunne for “Theodora Goes Wild” (1936) and “The Awful Truth” (1937)

2. Spencer Tracy won Best Actor for “Captains Courageous” (1937) and “Boys Town” (1938) over Charles Boyer...

With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options—not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves–each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit platforms. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

Ak vs Ak (Vikramaditya Motwane)

Over the 21st century, Bollywood cinema has entered into a completely different era of filmmaking and storytelling than was being made in the decades prior. Actors and directors who started their careers in the ‘80s and ‘90s have experienced such a drastic shift from their beginnings to what they are doing now that their older works seem almost archaic and unrecognizable. This has led, expectedly, to many of Bollywood’s artists making self-reflexive work that also reflects on the industry in general––Fan, Sanju, The Dirty Picture, Luck By Chance, and Shamitabh are just a few examples. Vikramaditya Motwane’s Ak vs Ak is...

To celebrate Variety’s 115th anniversary, we went to the archives to see how some of Hollywood’s biggest stars first landed in the pages of our magazine. Read more from the archives here.

In 1929, Variety hated the musical comedy “A Wonderful Night” at Broadway’s Majestic Theater (“remarkably dull … the outlook for this one is dreary”). However, there was praise for one of the stars, Archie Leach — who in a few years would change his name to Cary Grant and conquer Hollywood and the world. “Archie Leach makes a handsome leading man, but some of the lines of fearsome insipidity that he has to utter discounted most of his natural grace.”

Handsome, natural grace: Those words offer a hint of Leach/Grant’s appeal. Three years later, in 1932, Variety ran a two-sentence item: “Cary Grant, new leading man on the Paramount contract list, hails from vaudeville where his monicker was Archie Leach.

by Cláudio Alves

"Thanks, but you gave it to me for the wrong picture."

Those were Leo McCarey's words upon winning the Best Director Oscar of 1937. His victory was for the screwball classic The Awful Truth, though the filmmaker would have preferred if the honor had been bestowed upon another of his films. In 1937, McCarey not only directed one of Old Hollywood's most beloved comedies, but he also helmed one of its most devastating tearjerkers. According to Orson Welles, Make Way for Tomorrow could make a stone cry…...

Closing out a year in which we’ve needed The Criterion Channel more than ever, they’ve now announced their impressive December lineup. Topping the highlights is a trio of Terrence Malick films––Badlands, Days of Heaven, and The New World––along with interviews featuring actors Richard Gere, Sissy Spacek, and Martin Sheen; production designer Jack Fisk; costume designer Jacqueline West; cinematographers Haskell Wexler and John Bailey; and more.

Also in the lineup is an Afrofuturism series, featuring an introduction by programmer Ashley Clark, with work by Lizzie Borden, Shirley Clarke, Souleymane Cissé, John Akomfrah, Terence Nance, and more. There’s also Mariano Llinás’s 14-hour epic La flor, Bill Morrison’s Dawson City: Frozen Time, Ken Loach’s Sorry We Missed You, Jennie Livingston’s Paris Is Burning, plus retrospectives dedicated to Mae West, Cary Grant, Barbra Streisand, and more.

Check out the lineup below and return every Friday for our weekly streaming picks.

The Notebook Primer introduces readers to some of the most important figures, films, genres, and movements in film history.It was often said that women wanted to be with Cary Grant and men wanted to be Cary Grant, but perhaps no one was more consumed by the perception of Cary Grant—the handsome, unremittingly suave and stylish movie star—than Grant himself. “Even I want to be Cary Grant,” the actor once mused. Indeed, Grant’s public and on-screen persona was a carefully crafted, meticulously honed, and ultimately triumphant development, as much to suit the needs of his ascending celebrity as it was to shroud an unhappy childhood, a series of romantic passions and disappointments, and a latent dark side fostered by uncertainty and doubt. It was, however, and in any and all cases, resoundingly successful. Grant was the epitome of the movie star, a Hollywood icon and one of its most entertaining,...

Who is your favourite from each year in the 1930s? My current votes go like so though there are always more films to see so one must always reserve the right to change one's mind.

1930 Norma Shearer, The Divorcee 1931 Marie Dressler, Min & Bill 1932 Marlene Dietrich, Blonde Venus 1933 Greta Garbo, Queen Christina 1934 Claudette Colbert, It Happened One Night 1935 Katharine Hepburn, Alice Adams 1936 Carole Lombard, My Man Godfrey 1937 Irene Dunne, The Awful Truth 1938 Bette Davis, Jezebel 1939 Vivien Leigh, Gone With the Wind (though I'll admit to being somewhat torn because Dark Victory is my favourite pre 1950s Bette Davis performance)...

Don’t call them Bad Movies — when something’s this enjoyable, other verbal put-downs are more appropriate. This low-grade German sexploitation horror pic spent its full budget on its roster of frisky Berlin showgirls. After years of study, experts have finally proven that it was filmed with a camera. Severin’s special edition does justice to a cult non-classic with an uncut original German version, plus a second American version and extra alternate scenes. Alexander D’Arcy’s scary horror-face is a childhood monster magazine memory. The creepy title critter looks like a land crab morphed with a really pissed-off Woody Woodpecker.

Horrors of Spider Island

Blu-ray

Severin Films

1960 / B&w / 1:665 widescreen / 84, 79 min. / Ein Toter hing im Netz, It’s Hot in Paradise / Street Date June 16, 2020 /

Starring: Harald Maresch (Temple Foster), Helga Franck, Alexander D’Arcy, Helga Neuner, Rainer Brandt, Dorothee Parker, Gerry Sammer, Eva Schauland, Helma Vandenberg (Helma van den...

After last week’s home media offerings were rather meager, this Tuesday’s releases have come back with a vengeance, as we have a ton of fun titles to get excited about that are coming our way tomorrow.

In honor of its 40th anniversary, the original Friday the 13th is getting a Limited Edition Steelbook release this week, and in terms of modern slashers, you’ll definitely want to pick up The Hills Run Red from Scream Factory. The fine fiends at Scream Factory also have the next Universal Horror Collection on tap this Tuesday, and if you happen to dig exploitation movies, you’ll definitely want to check out Horrors of Spider Island from Severin Films.

Other releases for June 16th include Wrestlemassacre, The Marshes, Kill Mode, The Mermaid’s Curse, Deadly Crush, Primal Scream, and Voodoo.

Friday the 13th: 40th Anniversary Limited Edition Steelbook

Rip into a chilling...

“The Irishman” co-stars Al Pacino and Joe Pesci are up for Best Supporting Actor at the Oscars, but this is not the first time the duo has gone head to head. They last clashed 29 years ago in the same category, and one came out on top.

Pesci prevailed for his iconic role as Tommy DeVito in “Goodfellas” (1990), defeating Pacino (“Dick Tracy”), Bruce Davison (“Longtime Companion”), Andy Garcia (“The Godfather Part III”) and Graham Greene (“Dances with Wolves”). And who can forget his equally iconic speech (watch above): “It was my privilege. Thank you.” Brevity is the soul of wit and acceptance speeches (see also: Merritt Wever‘s 2013 Emmy speech).

This was Pesci’s second and most recent nomination until now. Pacino was on his sixth bid and seeking his first win, which would come two years later in the lead category for 1922’s “Scent of a Woman” (he was...

One of the great actresses nominated for the Academy Award multiple times (five) without a win and one of the best screwball comediennes of the Golden Age of Hollywood, Irene Dunne is considered one of the foremost performers of that era, known for her versatility, style and sophistication.

Dunne was born December 20, 1898, in Louisville, Kentucky. The daughter of a music teacher, she was raised around music and had a natural talent for it. She won a scholarship to the Chicago Musical College, and hoped to become an opera singer, but did not pass her audition with the Metropolitan Opera Company. However, she found success in musical theater, eventually appearing in several Broadway productions. While playing the lead in a road company of “Show Boat,” Dunne was discovered by Hollywood and was soon on her way to a varied and prosperous acting career.

SEECary Grant movies: 15 greatest films ranked from worst...

One of the great actresses nominated for the Academy Award multiple times (five) without a win and one of the best screwball comediennes of the Golden Age of Hollywood, Irene Dunne is considered one of the foremost performers of that era, known for her versatility, style and sophistication.

Dunne was born December 20, 1898, in Louisville, Kentucky. The daughter of a music teacher, she was raised around music and had a natural talent for it. She won a scholarship to the Chicago Musical College, and hoped to become an opera singer, but did not pass her audition with the Metropolitan Opera Company. However, she found success in musical theater, eventually appearing in several Broadway productions. While playing the lead in a road company of “Show Boat,” Dunne was discovered by Hollywood and was soon on her way to a varied and prosperous acting career.

Dunne displayed her impressive acting abilities almost immediately,...

Sam Mendes really knows how to end a decade on a high note. Twenty years ago, he made his feature film directorial debut with “American Beauty” (1999), which went on to win the Best Picture Oscar, along with Best Director for Mendes — the most recent director to prevail for a debut. Now, he’s back with his World War I epic “1917” and is a massive contender to take home a bookend Best Director statuette, which would give him the longest gap between two wins.

Twenty-one people have scored multiple Best Director Oscars — 18 with two, two with three and one with four — but most have typically won two of them within a period of 10 years. Five have a gap of more than 10 years between two victories. The record is currently held by Billy Wilder, who won his two awards 15 years apart for “The Lost Weekend” (1945) and “The Apartment” (1960).

Two have a gap of 13 years: Fred Zinnemann,...

Mubi's series Screwball Now & Then is showing November 21–December 21, 2019 in the United Kingdom.Preston Sturges was a writer and director who could pass muster as a percussionist; his deliciously black-hearted screwball comedies of the forties moved at a clip that would tongue-tie most screen performers today. Rhythm is integral to Sturges’ comedies and his characters move and speak so quickly they can get away with all kinds of things. In his beloved series of films of that decade—The Lady Eve (1941), The Palm Beach Story (1942), The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek and Hail the Conquering Hero (both 1944), among others—Sturges would help to perfect a very particular form of romantic comedy. That venerated form, known as screwball, reached its apotheosis in the late 1930s and early ‘40s, characterized by sharp verbal sparring, chaotic plot twists, and snappy pacing that veered from witticism to pratfalling as it pleased. In The Palm Beach Story,...

One of the big questions about the 2020 Oscars is whether or not there will be a split between the winners of Best Picture and Best Director, as we’ve seen in three of the last four years. Before the academy reintroduced the preferential ballot for Best Picture in 2010, such divides were fairly rare. Now, they are the rule rather than the exception at the Academy Awards. (Scroll down for the most up-to-date 2020 Oscars predictions for Best Director.)

Why is this?

Unlike every other Oscar category, which are decided by a popular vote, the winner of the Best Picture award is determined by a weighted ballot. Voters rank their choices from first to last. If one nominee garners more than 50% of the first place vote, it automatically wins. If, however, no nominee can meet that threshold, the film with the fewest first place votes gets eliminated, with its ballot getting reapportioned to the second place choice.

Since any New York City cinephile has a nearly suffocating wealth of theatrical options, we figured it’d be best to compile some of the more worthwhile repertory showings into one handy list. Displayed below are a few of the city’s most reliable theaters and links to screenings of their weekend offerings — films you’re not likely to see in a theater again anytime soon, and many of which are, also, on 35mm. If you have a chance to attend any of these, we’re of the mind that it’s time extremely well-spent.

Metrograph

A series of New York-set films from 1981 begins with work by Abel Ferrara, Frederick Wiseman and more.

Alain Corneau’s Série noire has been restored and brought to screens. See the trailer here.

“Welcome to Metrograph: A to Z” continues with The Awful Truth.

House, Mulholland Dr., Ms. 45, and Fantastic Planet play late-night, while Edward Scissorhands screens early.

Viacom’s Music Group has added two new players. The unit that comprises MTV, VH1, Cmt and Logo has named Mala Chapple as Svp Content Strategy, Operations and Media Partnerships and Todd Radnitz as Svp Original Series.

Emmy-nommed and Peabody-winning producer Chapple will be instrumental in growing MTV Studios, working with Nina L. Diaz, President of Entertainment for Viacom’s Music Group, and Group President Chris McCarthy to identify marketplace opportunities and form partnerships with streaming, direct-to-consumer and Svod platforms.

Radnitz, an Emmy-nominated producer, showrunner and network executive based in Los Angeles, will be working with Diaz and Head of Development Lily Neumeyer to shepherd several new and returning series.

“Mala and Todd are at the top of their game, with long track records of proven success,” Diaz said. “As we develop more original hours on linear than ever before and build on that momentum to deliver content across every platform,...

We weren’t surprised that Bradley Cooper‘s remake of “A Star is Born” lost seven of its eight races at the Academy Awards. After all, there is an Oscar curse on this classic tale of Hollywood. The first three versions of “A Star is Born” earned 17 nominations but won just two. The original 1937 film claimed the screenplay award while the 1976 musical remake won Best Original Song (“Evergreen”) for its leading lady, Barbra Streisand. She was the first female composer to win this Oscar; Lady Gaga became the 11th when she won for “Shallow.”

Let’s take a closer look to see how each of the four films fared at the Oscars.

2018 version

Cooper cast Lady Gaga in her first starring role. Reviews for the film were ecstatic praising the first-time helmer and his leading lady. It was the early frontrunner to sweep the Oscars and earned bids from 12 of...

Alfonso Cuaron just added another Best Director Oscar to his shelf with his victory for “Roma,” a personal story about growing up in Mexico City in the 1970s. The win came just five years after his first one for “Gravity” (2013). He became the 92nd person in history to clinch that prize, beating out Yorgos Lanthimos (“The Favourite”), Spike Lee (“BlacKkKlansman”), Adam McKay (“Vice”), and Pawel Pawlikowski (“Cold War”). Tour our photo gallery above of every Academy Award winner for Best Director, from the most recent winner to the very first one.

SEE2019 Oscars: Full list of winners (and losers) at the 91st Academy Awards

At the first Academy Awards ceremony in 1927, two awards were given for directing: one for comedy (Lewis Milestone for “Two Arabian Nights”), the other for drama (Frank Borzage for “7th Heaven”). The next year, only one prize was given.

Since 1927, only 21 directors have won this category more than once.