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Al Pacino’s career has been one of legend, with the Oscar, Emmy and Tony winner widely considered to be one of the greatest actors of all time. But in his new memoir, “Sonny Boy,” Pacino admits that while he found success in Hollywood, he was paying the price with his personal life, writing openly about his battles with drugs and alcoholism, his troubled relationships, and his mother’s mental health.

Peter Marshall, the velvety-voiced host who presided over NBC’s celebrity-filled game show The Hollywood Squares for 16 years, died Thursday. He was 98.

Marshall, an accomplished singer who also was a leading man on Broadway and one-half of a popular comedy team before embarking on his game-show gig, died of kidney failure at his Encino home, his family announced.

The pride of West Virginia hosted some 6,000 episodes of The Hollywood Squares from 1966 through 1981, winning four Daytime Emmy Awards. Marshall often worked just one day a week, when he taped five shows. “It was the easiest job I ever had, and I never rehearsed,” he said.

Soon after starring in the Tony-nominated Broadway musical comedy Skyscraper opposite Julie Harris, Marshall was offered the job as host of The Hollywood Squares, created by Merrill Heatter and Bob Quigley. An earlier version of the show, hosted by Bert Parks, had been turned down.

Marshall...

Justin Simien’s Hollywood Black, an edifying if focus-challenged four-part docuseries about the central yet under-appreciated African American contributions to cinema history, comes with a couple of semi-contradictions.

The documentary’s entire premise is based on the inadequacy of how film schools address the topic, yet it’s inspired by the book by Donald Bogle, whose Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies and Bucks has been indispensable in cultural studies classes for 50 years. It presumably aims to bring its topic to the widest possible modern audience, but does so on a streaming service — MGM+ — whose footprint is rooted in the past and nearly negligible in the present.

Full of fascinating conversations with fascinating people and packed with interest-piquing clips, Hollywood Black nevertheless falls well short of resembling a definitive documentary on the subject. But even well-informed viewers are bound to come away with several insights and a few overlooked texts to seek out.

The Academy Museum has vowed to modify language in its new “Hollywoodland” exhibit dedicated to the Jewish founders of Hollywood amid outcry labeling the exhibit antisemitic.

“We have heard the concerns from members of the Jewish community regarding some components of our exhibition ‘Hollywoodland: Jewish Founders and the Making of a Movie Capital,’” the Academy Museum said on Monday in a statement obtained by IndieWire. “We take these concerns seriously and are committed to making changes to the exhibition to address them. We will be implementing the first set of changes immediately — they will allow us to tell these important stories without using phrasing that may unintentionally reinforce stereotypes. This will also help to eliminate any ambiguities. In addition to these updates, we are convening an advisory group of experts from leading museums focused on the Jewish community, civil rights, and the history of other marginalized groups to advise us...

Father Time comes for us all in different degrees. Now one sees countless ads for wrinkle creams, hair colouring, replacements or surgeries linked to boosting confidence. The most offensive is getting children as young as twelve to use skin rejuvenation products. Anubys Lopez’s film Aged (2023) takes a huge page of countless films where glands are harvested and injected more strongly. The film uses motifs of Countess Dracula (1971) and Cocoon (1985) to bring terror to the onset of gray hairs and fading memories. More importantly, it is what family members would do to make sure the clock is forcibly turned back.

Aged (2023) is oddly constructed and misdirected in places with some poor direction missing key plot moments. Bright scenes of rural landscapes and a meeting in an antiseptic stilted coffee shop with Charles Bloom (Dave McClain), meeting with Veronica Grey (Morgan Boss-Maltais) to interview as a caregiver for his ailing mother.

Those attending the 15th annual TCM Classic Film Festival in Hollywood next month will have an opportunity to engage with Mel Brooks and Vitaphone, both born in 1926. One’s extinct, the other’s still going strong.

While Brooks, 97, will be on hand for a closing-night screening of his 1987 comedy Spaceballs, six Vitaphone vaudeville shorts from the 1920s will be projected in 35mm, with sound played back from their original 16-inch discs on a turntable designed and engineered by Warner Bros.’ postproduction engineering department.

Also announced Thursday:

• Steven Spielberg will participate in a Q&a with Howard Suber — the UCLA faculty member at the center of the recent six-part TCM documentary The Power of Film — ahead of a director’s cut of Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977);

• Nancy Meyers and Alexander Payne, respectively, will introduce world premiere restorations of Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest (1959) and John Ford’s The Searchers...

Studio takeovers have been the talk of the town in Hollywood for some time. It’s been less a discussion of if control will be ceded to new companies and more a conversation about who is buying, and why. Will it be studios taking over other studios, or, perhaps, tech giants elbowing further into the industry?

This week the megadeal fever was kickstarted again as it was floated that Warner Bros. Discovery has expressed interest in a tie-up with Paramount Global, following a meeting between Warners CEO David Zaslav and Paramount CEO Bob Bakish in New York last Tuesday. Such a merger would be historic, especially since the rolling back of the 1948 consent decrees that ended in major studios divesting in their theater chains.

Given that such a merger would (once again) reshape the Hollywood landscape, it’s worth remembering the first time Warner Bros. was involved in a mega...

One of Elvis Presley‘s songs features a spoken word section. The tune is partly based on a famous quotation from William Shakespeare. Colonel Tom Parker had Elvis record the song for a very special reason — and Elvis went the extra mile to make sure the song sounded just right.

Elvis Presley’s song is based on ‘As You Like It’ by William Shakespeare

“Are You Lonesome Tonight?” is a highly atypical Elvis song, mostly because it features a long spoken word section. The spoken word bit begins “You know someone said that the world’s a stage and each of us must play a part / Fate had me playing in love with you as my sweetheart / Act one was where we met / I loved you at first glance / You read your lines so cleverly and never missed a cue / Then came act two, you seemed to change, you acted...

Long-time New York and Paris gallery Marian Goodman has opened in Los Angeles with a show of director and artist Steve McQueen’s short film, Sunshine State. Shown on two back-to-back screens in a capacious room, the work finds McQueen training his artistic vision on the history of blackface in Hollywood. The 30-minute piece includes footage of the late actor Al Jolson in blackface in the 1927 film The Jazz Singer, considered the first feature-length movie with synchronized dialogue and the winner of an Academy Award for best adapted screenplay.

McQueen included the scenes from The Jazz Singer in Sunshine State after the movie’s copyright expired on Jan. 1, 2023. “It’s been about 20 years that I’ve wanted to work with this material,” McQueen told AnOther Magazine at International Film Festival Rotterdam where Sunshine State premiered in January. “I wanted to work with it because I wanted to erase Al Jolson.

Imagine a time before 90 inch TV screens were sold at Walmart for $200 on Black Friday, a time when the family would gather around one rabbit eared black and white television to watch a show on one of the four channels they had available to them. Now imagine a world in the immediate aftermath of World War 2, when everyone needed a good laugh. In that time you may turned on your TV’s after enjoying your mother’s pot roast and carrot dinner to see young men such as Carl Reiner, Sid Caesar and Mel Brooks performing comedic routines that gave you truly guttural laughs. The premises seemed so simple, yet the genius that went into crafting these bits would soon shape the entire direction of comedy. These men would go on to become some of the most iconic figures in the history of entertainment. Sadly, as time does to us all,...

Clockwise from top left: A Trip To The Moon (Flicker Alley), 2001: A Space Odyssey (Warner Bros.), King Kong (Warner Bros.), Avatar (Disney), The Matrix (Warner Bros.)Graphic: AVClub

Though they may seem a recent phenomenon, special-effects driven movies have been with us since the dawn of cinema. From the...

Here’s looking at Warner Bros. which is celebrating its 100th anniversary. Earlier this year, Turner Classic Movies, which is a member of the Warner Bros. Discovery family, celebrated the centennial with a monthlong tribute to the studio that gave the world such landmark films as 1927’s “The Jazz Singer,” the first feature with synchronized recorded singing and some dialogue; the ultimate gangster flick 1931’s “Public Enemy,: the glorious 1938 swashbuckler “The Adventures of Robin Hood”; and the beloved 1942 “Casablanca.

And during its Golden Age, its roster of stars included such legends as Rin-Tin-Tin, John Barrymore, Edward G. Robinson, James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart, Bette Davis, Kay Francis, Joan Blondell, Ruby Keeler, Dick Powell, Paul Muni, John Garfield and Sydney Greenstreet.

Max is currently streaming the four-part documentary series “100 Years of Warner Bros.” (the first two episodes premiered at Cannes). And also arriving this week is the lavish coffee table book “Warner Bros.

Dan Harmon's "Community" is one of the best network sitcoms ever produced. Over six rocky seasons, during which the perennially low-rated series teetered on the brink of cancellation, Harmon and his phenomenal writing staff crafted a densely layered and wildly meta disquisition on what it means to be human. Seriously. A sitcom did this.

The show initially revolved around seven misfits who bond quickly as a study group at the fictional Greendale Community College. That the study group is formed under false pretenses (McHale's Jeff is trying to hook up with Jacobs' Britta) places all of the relationships on the shakiest of foundations. Before long, every character has their insecurities tattooed on their forehead, which leaves us wincing as hard as we laugh.

As the series segued into its second season, Harmon expanded the core to include disgraced Spanish teacher Ben Chang (Ken Jeong). Chang is the ultimate try-hard.

Michael Keaton in Batman Photo: Warner Bros. Pictures In a special series, The A.V. Club looks at the legacy of Warner Bros. 100 years after the studio was founded.Los Angeles had already established itself as the movie-making capital of the world by 1923. Construction had just finished on the Hollywood sign,...

David Zaslav went office-furniture shopping when he moved into the executive building on the Warner Bros. lot last year. The new CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery had Jack L. Warner’s large dark-wood desk pulled out of storage for his use. He also found a leather legal pad holder once clutched by another of his predecessors at the storied studio: Steven J. Ross.

Zaslav wanted these totems in his sunken workspace overlooking Olive Avenue in Burbank to show the formidable legacy, in business and in popular culture, he has inherited.

“I wanted them to remind me that we need to show as much courage now in leading this business as the Warner brothers did in launching it one hundred years ago,” Zaslav says. As the studio marks the centennial of its incorporation as Warner Bros. Pictures Inc., the company has never been more focused on using the wealth of intellectual property assets,...

Jack Warner and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover Photo: Bettmann In a special series, The A.V. Club looks at the legacy of Warner Bros. 100 years after the studio was founded.It’s sad to see the once mighty Warner Bros. studio celebrate its 100th anniversary in a state of chaos and disarray.

The Warner brothers — Harry, Sam, Albert and Jack — were different from Hollywood’s other movie moguls in the industry’s early years. They were shrewd, brash, outspoken and passionate in ways that deviated from the industry norm. The most publicly consistent brother was Harry, a stoic businessman and proud immigrant. Sam was the technical visionary who was gone too soon. Albert largely avoided the public eye, although he served as a loyal ambassador to the family brand. Jack was the wild child, the entertainer, the sometimes unpredictable one.

Those talents served them well during a transitional time for what would become the filmed entertainment industry. The year 1903 marked that transition, moving from what historian Tom Gunning calls a “cinema of attractions,” based on simple spectatorship of an event, to narrative storytelling, which allowed audiences to get lost in what they saw onscreen. There was only one way to test the...

Warner Bros. today celebrates its centennial milestone as April 4, 2023, marks 100 years of its iconic contribution to film and television.

Its rich heritage stretches back to the four brothers, Harry, Albert, Sam, and Jack Warner, born to Polish-Jewish immigrants, who founded the studio in 1923 and became mavericks of the film industry. They not only created some of Hollywood’s greatest movies and film stars, but they also were pioneers behind the innovative technology of the Vitaphone that synchronized sound and put them in the forefront as major players in Hollywood.

Related: Warner Bros. Top-Secret Archives: Treasure Trove Of Film Memorabilia From ‘The Matrix’, ‘Batman’, ‘My Fair Lady’ & Dozens More

Sam Warner spearheaded the movement by applying the technology with sound effects and music, but no dialogue, in the 1926 film Don Juan, and then in two scenes from one of the first “talkies,” 1927’s The Jazz Singer, starring Al Jolson, that featured...

Clockwise from bottom left: Wile E. Coyote, Tweety, Bugs Bunny, Yosemite Sam, Porky Pig, Daffy Duck, Roadrunner (Warner Bros.) Graphic: The A.V. Club In a special series, The A.V. Club looks at the legacy of Warner Bros. 100 years after the studio was founded.Imagine a world without the antics of Bugs Bunny,...

Many filmmakers yearn for their work to be at the centre of a public conversation. But it’s not always a good thing.

Sometimes, movies – even great ones – are put under the microscope for problematic characters, plotlines or moments.

Often, this is a result of changing social standards. Films like The Jazz Singer utilised blackface at a time when it was more or less completely socially acceptable. Watch it now, however, and you’ll likely be mortified.

Other films, of course, are problematic the moment they hit cinemas – such as Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

In some cases, the question of whether or not a film is offensive can provoke strong debate among fans and even those involved in making the film. This week, Michael Caine was in the news after hitting back at claims that the 1964 film Zulu was a “key text” for white supremecists.

Many filmmakers yearn for their work to be at the centre of a public conversation. But it’s not always a good thing.

Sometimes, movies – even great ones – are put under the microscope for problematic characters, plotlines or moments.

Often, this is a result of changing social standards. Films like The Jazz Singer utilised blackface at a time when it was more or less completely socially acceptable. Watch it now, however, and you’ll likely be mortified.

Other films, of course, are problematic the moment they hit cinemas – such as Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

In some cases, the question of whether or not a film is offensive can provoke strong debate among fans and even those involved in making the film. This week, Michael Caine was in the news after hitting back at claims that the 1964 film Zulu was a “key text” for white supremecists.

Steve McQueen’s Oscar-winning “12 Years a Slave” was released almost a century after D. W. Griffith’s “The Birth of a Nation,” the first film ever to be screened at the White House. McQueen’s film, however, was not shown at the U.S. President’s official residence. The British director spoke Saturday about this issue while at an in-conversation event at the International Film Festival Rotterdam.

“It was just after that situation with Skip Gates,” said McQueen, referring to the arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis “Skip” Gates by Sergeant James Crowley, a suspected case of racial profiling that stirred great controversy for then-President Barack Obama, who was alleged to have taken sides after publicly stating the local police department had acted “stupidly.” “So, at that time, everything Obama was doing was being scrutinized,” continued the director, “and that was the theory of why ‘12 Years a Slave’ was...

Mel Brooks was born in 1926, prior to the advent of talkies and television. He grew up worshiping the vaudevillian likes of Groucho Marx, Al Jolson, and George Jessel. Given the anarchic, anything-for-a-laugh quality of his best movies, you'd think Brooks' allegiances would be tightly aligned with Groucho. But while he's on the record with his affection for the Marx Brothers' work, he was especially enamored of Eddie Cantor.

For most people in this day and age, Cantor is a name more than a personality. The worst that can be said about him is that he was a song-and-dance man who, like Jolson, mimicked African-American entertainers in blackface to bolster his appeal. But Cantor was a born, trailblazing Jewish entertainer, and his comedic rambunctiousness kicked down the door for people like Brooks, who lacked the patience to craft a meticulously structured screwball masterpiece like Ernst Lubitsch's "Trouble in Paradise" or...

Plot: At the dawn of the sound era, a tawdry collection of people working in silent films must reckon with their rapidly changing fortunes as the talkies, and a new strict morality, become commonplace.

Review: Within the first ten minutes of Babylon, you get an anus-first view of an elephant having diarrhea and then, shortly after, a golden shower performed by a woman on a very content customer. This is all lovingly shot by director Damien Chazelle and his Dp Linus Sandgren, as if to announce, “hey – if you thought The Wolf of Wall Street was over the top, get a load of this!” As it turns out, the brown and the golden showers are only the beginning of Chazelle’s nightmarish descent into the seemingly depraved world of 1920s Hollywood. As Al Jolson said in The Jazz Singer, the movie that spells doom to many of the characters here,...

One of the most anticipated presumed Oscar contenders, and one of the very few remaining to debut before year-end, dropped last night with the first screening of Academy Award winning director Damien Chazelle’s Babylon. Paramount’s big Christmas release, and hopeful awards magnet chose the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Samuel Goldwyn Theatre for the unveiling in front of entertainment pundits, industry members, and most importantly guild and Oscar voters, a perfect venue with both sides of the massive screen bookended by those imposing large Oscar statues. In addition to the screening there was a post Q&a with Chazelle and stars Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Diego Calva, Jean Smart, Jovan Adepo, Li Jun Li, and Tobey Maguire followed by a dessert reception in the lobby.

Reviews of the December 23 wide release are embargoed for at least a month (Paramount has not chosen the exact date yet...

At the same time 'cancel culture' vultures are circling Disney's 'Mickey Mouse', comparing the original cartoon character to a 'Jim Crow' minstrel, the new documentary "Mickey : The Story of a Mouse", streams November 18, 2022 on Disney+:

"Commercial animation in the United States didn’t borrow from blackface minstrelsy, nor was it simply influenced by it, " writes author Nicholas Sammond in the book "Birth of an Industry: Blackface Minstrelsy and the Rise of American Animation".

"American animation is actually in many of its most enduring incarnations an integral part of the ongoing iconographic and performative traditions of 'blackface'. 'Mickey Mouse' isn't like a minstrel. He is a minstrel."

Sammond insists the cartoon short "Steamboat Willie", the debut of Mickey Mouse in 1928...

...is a classic example of the popular singing 'black minstrel' of the time.

In another cartoon short, "Mickey’s Mellerdrammer" (1933), 'Mickey' and girlfriend 'Minnie', wear the white gloves worn by black servants,...

'Cancel culture' vultures are now circling Disney cartoon character 'Mickey Mouse', that according to the book "Birth of an Industry: Blackface Minstrelsy and the Rise of American Animation" by Nicholas Sammond, was created to be the most popular ‘Jim Crow’ minstrel of all time:

"Commercial animation in the United States didn’t borrow from blackface minstrelsy, nor was it simply influenced by it, " writes Sammond.

"American animation is actually in many of its most enduring incarnations an integral part of the ongoing iconographic and performative traditions of 'blackface'.

"'Mickey Mouse' isn't like a minstrel; he is a minstrel."

Sammond insists the cartoon short "Steamboat Willie", the debut of Mickey Mouse in 1928...

...is a classic example of the popular singing 'black minstrel' of the time.

In another cartoon short, "Mickey’s Mellerdrammer" (1933), 'Mickey' and girlfriend 'Minnie', wear the white gloves worn by black servants, performing their version of "Uncle...

Photo: ‘Almost Famous’ A Brief Summary of Movie Musical History Movies and music have long been intertwined. Before Warner Bros.’ use of the Vitaphone turned “moving pictures” into “talkies,” the most upscale cinemas hosted orchestras to accompany the silent films they screened, and the first movie advertised as a talkie was a musical. ‘The Jazz Singer’ starring Al Jolson, only foretold things to come. Vincente Minnelli and Stanley Donen, along with many of their contemporaries, would go on to produce a wave of iconic movie musicals in the 30s, 40s, and 50s. With their huge sets and elaborate dance breaks, Golden Age movie musicals wowed their audiences and produced some of the era’s chart-topping radio hits. Related video: Full Commentary - Cast & Crew Spills Secrets on Making of ‘Elvis’ | In-Depth Scoop | Austin Butler Related video: Full Rendezvous At the Premiere of 'Elvis' with Reactions from Stars | Austin Butler, Baz Luhrmann...

Every now and then a new short film comes along and provides a different way of looking at the world. Not Black Enough is a great case-in-point, tackling the legacy of blackness in the USA head-on, unafraid to dive into musical pastiche, use epic long takes, build up repetitive elements and minimalist electronic music to get its message across, truly making one ‘feel’ the ideas that are being put on screen as opposed to simply observing them. At times courting controversy, but never losing sight of the bigger picture, this is a bold and exciting experimental short from New York Director Jermaine Manigault, one that demonstrates both a great amount of confidence and ambition. Released online to mark Juneteenth Dn talked to him about the potentially problematic use of blackface, the need to collaborate with white actors, finding the right housing project to shoot in and how he pulled off...

'Cancel Culture’ vultures are now circling Disney's 'Mickey Mouse', who according to the book "Birth of an Industry: Blackface Minstrelsy and the Rise of American Animation" by Nicholas Sammond, was created to be the most popular 'blackface' minstrel of all time:

"Commercial animation in the United States didn’t borrow from blackface minstrelsy, nor was it simply influenced by it, " said Sammond.

"American animation is actually in many of its most enduring incarnations....

"...an integral part of the ongoing iconographic and performative traditions of 'blackface'.

"'Mickey Mouse' isn't like a minstrel; he is a minstrel."

Sammond insists the cartoon short "Steamboat Willie", the debut of Mickey Mouse in 1928...

...is a classic example of the popular singing 'black minstrel' of the time.

In another cartoon short, "Mickey’s Mellerdrammer" (1933), 'Mickey' and girlfriend 'Minnie' wear white gloves worn by black servants, performing their version of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" with a cast of cartoon animals.

Brian Cox shudders to think what path his life would have taken had he not become an actor. “I think because I love traveling, I would’ve probably joined something like the Merchant Navy,” said the burly Scottish actor during a Washington Post Zoom conversation about his autobiography, “Putting the Rabbit in the Hat.” “I would’ve probably been an assistant cook or something and traveled around the world. I did actually think of the alternative [to acting] but then I put the alternative away because I knew I was going to do what I was going to do, come hell or high water.”

Thank goodness, he put the alternative away because the world would have been robbed of one of the most acclaimed actors who has triumphed on stage, screen and television. He was chilling as the first Hannibal Lecter in Michael Mann’s 1986 “Manhunter.” He was terrifying in his Emmy...

"The Wonderful Winter of Mickey Mouse", produced by Disney Television Animation, is the new original TV special, streaming February 18, 2022 on Disney+:

"...'The Wonderful Winter of Mickey Mouse' spotlights the adventurous and comedic antics of ‘Mickey Mouse' and his female friend 'Minnie', geared towards fans of all ages..."

Recently left-wing 'cancel culture' vultures have been attacking Disney's original 'Mickey Mouse' character, that according to the book "Birth of an Industry: Blackface Minstrelsy and the Rise of American Animation" by Nicholas Sammond, was created to be the most popular 'Jim Crow' minstrel of all time.

"Commercial animation in the United States didn’t borrow from blackface minstrelsy, nor was it simply influenced by it, " writes Sammond.

"American animation is actually in many of its most enduring incarnations an integral part of the ongoing iconographic and performative traditions of 'blackface'.

"'Mickey Mouse' isn't like a minstrel; he is a minstrel."

Sammond insists...

When the musical version of The Producers first began previews on Broadway in 2001, an incident made headlines after an irate audience member stood up and began pacing the aisles of the St. James Theatre. “Where is Mel Brooks?” he is reported to have shouted. “This is an outrage!”

Brooks—the composer, lyricist, writer, and actual producer of The Producers—was in the theater that night, and as one who never ignores a confrontation, he happily came out. The 75-year-old filmmaker and lifelong funnyman asked the stranger what was the problem. “This show is a disgrace!” cried the patron. “How could you sing about Hitler?! I was a soldier. I fought in World War II!”

At which point, Brooks fired back, “I also fought in World War II. I don’t remember seeing you there!” Depending on whose account you believe, the two either then came to blows or at least...

A.A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh, classic novels by Ernest Hemingway and Agatha Christie and hundreds of thousands of pre-1923 sound recordings are among the works that entered that public domain on New Year’s Day 2022.

Dorothy Parker’s first poetry collection Enough Rope, William Faulkner’s first novel Soldiers’ Pay, and books by Langston Hughes, Willa Cather, T.E. Lawrence and more also joined Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises and Christie’s The Murder of Roger Ackroyd in the public domain, the Associated Press reported.

“When works go into the public domain,...

Six years before his death in 1996, “Rent” composer Jonathan Larson began performing a solo semi-autobiographical musical “Tick, Tick…Boom!” about a young struggling composer named Jon who fears that he has made the wrong career choice. After his death, Larson’s show was expanded into a three-person piece by David Auburn that ran in London, off-Broadway, and as a national tour. Now it is an acclaimed new Netflix movie directed by Lin-Manuel Miranda (who appeared in a Encores production of the musical in 2014) and starring Andrew Garfield.

The composer bio movie genre has long been a favorite of Hollywood, especially during its Golden Age. But these bio-pics played fast and loose with the facts. The Production Code prevented these films from exploring the fact that Cole Porter and Lorenz Hart were gay. And some of these composers and/or their families were still alive and wanted a certain image presented on the big screen.

While some Americans are demanding Democrats pay reparations for the creation of historically racist 'Jim Crow' laws, 'cancel culture' vultures are also circling Disney's 'Mickey Mouse', following the takedown of “Uncle Remus” statues from Disney theme parks and according to the book "Birth of an Industry: Blackface Minstrelsy and the Rise of American Animation" by Nicholas Sammond, Mickey Mouse was created to be the most popular 'Jim Crow' minstrel of all time:

"Commercial animation in the United States didn’t borrow from blackface minstrelsy, nor was it simply influenced by it, " writes Sammond.

"American animation is actually in many of its most enduring incarnations an integral part of the ongoing iconographic and performative traditions of 'blackface'.

"'Mickey Mouse' isn't like a minstrel; he is a minstrel."

Sammond insists the cartoon short "Steamboat Willie", the debut of Mickey Mouse in 1928...

...is a classic example of the popular singing 'black minstrel' of the time.

The Notebook Primer introduces readers to some of the most important figures, films, genres, and movements in film history.Velvet Goldmine (1998)Todd Haynes’ Velvet Goldmine (1998) opens with a confession that swiftly becomes a command: “Although what you are about to see is a work of fiction, it should nevertheless be played at maximum volume.” Those words, mischievously repurposed from Martin Scorsese’s concert film The Last Waltz (1978), herald one of the great pop music fantasias: a cinema à clef that reimagines ’70s glam rock in an alternate dimension, where fictional versions of David Bowie, Iggy Pop and others perform a parallel version of history as we know it. Embracing the period’s mutable personae and camp energies, the film evokes the spirit of its patron saint, Oscar Wilde—depicted as the original pop star, descended to Earth from outer space—treating “art as the supreme reality and life as a mere mode of fiction,...

New York, New York is a helluva town. The Bronx is up. And the Battery is down. The people ride in a hole in the ground. New York, New York. It’s a helluva town. And it’s also a perfect backdrop for countless Broadway and movie musicals.

And for good reason. The metropolis is a melting pot of cultures and boroughs. Over the decades, the Great White Way has been home to burlesque, vaudeville, Broadway. The town always is brimming with the best writers and composers. Remember Tin Pan Alley?

There is also a romanticism of New York often depicted in these musicals: most of them were shot on sound stages and studio, so they offer an expressionistic, impressionistic, and even surreal look at NYC. Martin Scorsese tipped his out to these studio musicals with his classic 1977 “New York, New York,” starring Liza Minnelli and Robert De Niro.

The...

While some Americans are demanding the Democrat party pay reparations for the creation and implementation of the 1865 US 'Jim Crow' laws, as a legal way to put Black citizens into indentured servitude, taking away their voting rights, controlling where they lived, how they traveled and to seize their children for labor purposes, 'cancel culture' vultures are now circling Disney's 'Mickey Mouse', that according to the book "Birth of an Industry: Blackface Minstrelsy and the Rise of American Animation" by Nicholas Sammond, was created to be the most popular Jim Crow minstrel of all time:

"Commercial animation in the United States didn’t borrow from blackface minstrelsy, nor was it simply influenced by it, " writes Sammond.

"American animation is actually in many of its most enduring incarnations an integral part of the ongoing iconographic and performative traditions of 'blackface'.

"'Mickey Mouse' isn't like a minstrel; he is a minstrel."

Sammond insists...

“It’s just that jazz ain’t cool anymore,” the sexy saxophonist is told in the new Amazon Prime dramatic feature “Sylvie’s Love.”

But Viola Davis’ title character in Netflix’s “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” disagrees: “Blues helps you get out of bed in the morning.”

Who would have thought that one of the notable trends in filmed entertainment at this time would be an American art form born more than 120 years ago? Amid the stalled and rearranged film landscape of 2020, just as the Black Lives Matter movement re-emerged as a cultural force, numerous film and TV projects are celebrating jazz, blues and other music associated with the Black experience, and its historically challenging path to full respect.

“Sadly, these projects remain timelessly relevant,” said James Erskine, director of the new documentary, “Billie,” about legendary jazz and blues singer Billie Holiday.

Besides those “Sylvie’s Love” and “Ma Rainey,” consider “The Eddy,...

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“Double Keatons”

By Raymond Benson

At least three companies have been doing restorations of Buster Keaton’s silent comedy classics from the 1920s—Kino Video is one, The Criterion Collection is another. As the films are in public domain, the separate restorations can now be copyrighted. A third entity, Cohen Film Collection, has also been re-issuing the films in high definition. Cohen just released its fourth volume in their ongoing series, and to this reviewer, the company is doing an outstanding job.

Volume 4 of “The Buster Keaton Collection” contains 4K restorations of Go West (1925) and College (1927). Most critics and fans will agree that these two titles may be the lesser of Keaton’s outstanding output of the era. Nevertheless, there are moments of genius in both Go West and College, but also an eyebrow-raising instance of controversy in the latter title.

Go West...

The Notebook Primer introduces readers to some of the most important figures, films, genres, and movements in film history.Above: 42nd StreetWhile other genres undoubtedly advanced with the dawning of sound technology, the musical is likely the most indebted to the reverberations of this complementary process. More than that, though, the movie musical was fundamentally born with the surge of sound—it simply could not have existed otherwise. And since that time, the musical has indeed been a uniquely cinematic venture, less beholden to conventional narratives and often disposed to experimentations in color, location, camera mobility, production design, and special effects. Especially in its heyday, the so-called “Golden Age” lasting between the mid-1930s and late-‘50s, Hollywood musicals were an enrapturing experience, delighting audiences with spectacle, romance, athleticism, fine performances, and, of course, song and dance. Some of America’s brightest stars sparkled in the musical, while many of...

Historian and scholar Carter G. Woodson created Negro History Week in 1926, against the backdrop of Jim Crow America. A half-century later, it would become Black History Month when President Gerald Ford officially recognized it in 1976.

Woodson wanted Negro History Week to help correct a national narrative that barely included African Americans and allowed errors and blatantly racist perspectives to stand uncorrected. It was a time of great change for black people: Just 50 years removed from slavery, racial “uplift” dominated discourse and media and African Americans struggled to find a place in the country.

It was also the early days of cinema, 11 years after the release of D.W. Griffith’s racially incendiary “The Birth of a Nation” (1915), and a year before the first talkie, “The Jazz Singer” (1927), which featured Al Jolson in blackface. Meanwhile, the career of black cinema pioneer Oscar Micheaux was on the rise, as he and other black filmmakers,...

Tony Sokol Feb 18, 2020

The 2020 Tribeca Film Festival will open with Jimmy Carter Rock & Roll President. Willie Nelson and Nile Rodgers will hit the Beacon.

The 19th Tribeca Film Festival will open with the premiere of the rockumentary-style presidential portrait Jimmy Carter Rock & Roll President on April 15. The documentary catalogues how popular music helped replant a Georgia peanut farmer in the White House.

Sure, we remember Barack Obama breaking into an Al Green jam during his presidential press conferences, but there was a time the only kinds of music you associated with the White House were The Marine Marching Band, John Philip Sousa and Guy Lombardo. Abraham Lincoln went to the opera thirty times while he was president. President Nixon's barrelhouse piano intermittently backed up Pearl Bailey. But when Canadian rock band The Guess Who played the White House on July 17, 1970, they had to drop "American Woman," their newest and biggest single from the set list.

Back in the early 1970s I was crazy about Depression-Era Warner Bros. movies, that weren’t being shown on TV or anywhere else. In that climate of deprivation, a documentary that used movie film clips from the period felt extremely fresh and new. Philippe Mora’s picture sees 1930s America through the movies, through music, and the evasions of official newsreels. Franklin Delano Roosevelt preaches prosperity while James Cagney slugs his way through the decade as a smart-tongued everyman — in a dozen different roles. This was a new kind of documentary info-tainment formula: applying old film footage to new purposes.

Brother Can You Spare a Dime

Blu-ray

The Sprocket Vault / Vci

1975 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 106 min.

Street Date October 1, 2019 / 24.95

Film Editor: Jeremy Thomas

Research by Michael Barlow, Jennifer E. Ryan, Susan Winslow

Produced by Sanford Lieberson, David Puttnam

Directed by Philippe Mora

Philippe Mora was an accomplished artist and documentary...

I’ll bet you thought that when the two sides clashing in Mel Gibson’s movie “Braveheart,” or the sound of jet fighters blasting away in the sky came from, well, the two sides clashing and the sound of jet fighters blasting. This may have been the case in 1927 when Al Jolson starred, singing away in […]

The post Making Waves Review: Not only an education but quite an entertaining one appeared first on Shockya.com.

While accepting her Paley Honors Award in recognition of her groundbreaking achievements in television comedy, Carol Burnett took time to look back and share an anecdote with the audience about how she made it to this point in her storied career.

“It was television that gave me my opportunities, but as a woman in this business, it wasn’t always easy to do what the naysayers said couldn’t be done,” Burnett said. “When I exercised a clause in a contract that I had with CBS way back in 1967 that would allow me to do an hour comedy variety show, I was told by the network executives that comedy variety was a man’s game: Sid Caesar, Jackie Gleason, Milton Berle, Dean Martin. They said, and I quote, ‘It’s not for you gals.'”

Thanks to her contract, CBS had no choice but to put Burnett’s show on...

Twenty-five years after the popular character’s final appearance on “Saturday Night Live” — and the box office bomb feature film based on the character — Julia Sweeney has a lot to say about Pat. As part of her current one-woman show, “Older and Wider,” Sweeney tells stories of her time from 1990-1994 as a cast member on “SNL” and her experiences in Hollywood. Pat comes up naturally — though that hasn’t necessarily been a good thing in the three decades since the character’s mainstream debut.

Sweeney showed her teenage daughter an “It’s Pat” sketch, only to get the response: “It really feels like that character is just about making fun of someone where you can’t tell if it’s a man or a woman.” In the same show, Sweeney asked herself, “My God, what did I do? Was I the Al Jolson of androgyny?”

Dave Itzkoff of The...

The centerpiece of Scott Ora’s cluttered San Fernando Valley apartment is the 1939 Oscar his step-grandfather, the late lyricist Leo Robin, was presented for co-writing “Thanks for the Memory.” Sung by Bob Hope and Shirley Ross in the film “The Big Broadcast of 1938,” the trophy sits proudly on the piano where Robin worked on some of his biggest hits. The movie marked the comedian’s breakout role and Leo’s tune, co-written with frequent collaborator Ralph Rainger, soon became Hope’s theme song. It was Robin’s only Academy Award win out of a total of 10 nominations.

Over the course of 20 years, from 1934 (when the best original song category was introduced and he was nominated for “Love in Bloom”) through 1954, Robin, a member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame who died in 1984 at the age of 84, earned 10 Oscar nominations (two in 1949 alone). His impressive catalog includes signature tunes for Maurice Chevalier...

Hey hard-rockin’ film fans, better hope the sound system at your local multiplex goes well past eleven because it’s musical biography time once more. Sure popular musicians have been recreated on screen through the years, Surprisingly the lives of Al Jolson and Fanny Brice inspired two hit films and a couple of sequels (The Jolson Story begat Jolson Sings Again while the great Streisand starred in Funny Girl then Funny Lady). Ah, but late 2018, a little over six months ago rock and roll ruled the box office (and garnered 4 Oscars) with the story of Queen in Bohemian Rhapsody. And a fictional music flick, the fourth iteration of A Star Is Born, inspired by real performers and showcasing the acting debut of a current music superstar, grabbed a gold statue and lots of filmgoers. Plus earlier this year Netflix got into the act with a “biopic” of those heavy metal hellions,...