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Mikey Madison may be having her star-making moment, with recognition from multiple critics groups for her performance in Sean Baker’s “Anora,” as well as a nomination for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture — Musical or Comedy at tonight’s Golden Globe Awards, but rather than revel, she’s taking time to pay homage to those who helped shape her own abilities. Taking a visit to New York’s Criterion Collection offices, Madison spent some time inside the Criterion Closet not only selecting goodies to take home, but acknowledging multiple performances that have stuck with her through the years, from Jackie Coogan in Charlie Chaplin’s “The Kid” to Jack Nicholson in Bob Rafelson’s “Five Easy Pieces.”

“I really think it’s my favorite Nicholson performance,” said Madison of Rafelson’s film. “There’s just something about how he approaches this character, such a morally gray character,...

It's absurd to consider, but early in his career Jack Nicholson had a difficult decision to make. The New Jersey son of a showgirl had a shot at being an animator for Joseph Hanna and William Barbera in the 1950s, but the then teenager had his heart set on acting. This was not the difficult decision. That would come years later when, after a string of prominent roles in Roger Corman-produced B-movies, Nicholson wrote a well-regarded screenplay called "The Trip." It was so good that it left burgeoning movie star Peter Fonda in tears. This reception was ecstatic enough to convince Corman to direct it himself. And while Fonda was ultimately displeased with the final result, Nicholson immediately landed another screenwriting assignment collaborating with Bob Rafelson on the script for the absurdist Monkees comedy "Head."

In a 1985 interview with Film Comment, Nicholson revealed that his success as a writer...

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Entertainment lost one of its most vivacious talents today with the passing of Teri Garr at the age of 79. Though she'd been gone from our screens since 2011 due to her complications from multiple sclerosis, Garr shined so brightly in the '70s and '80s that she was never far from our thoughts. I was born in 1973, and grew up considering Garr to be the epitome of a movie star from watching her in classic films like "Young Frankenstein," "Oh, God!," "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," "The Black Stallion," and "Tootsie." Note that she was a supporting actor in these movies, and marvel at how little that mattered. She was so spirited that she could overwhelm the scenery-munching likes of Gene Wilder, Richard Dreyfuss, and Dustin Hoffman.

This mirrored Garr's strength in real life. Having broken into acting as...

by Cláudio Alves

No matter how respected or prolific a thespian may be, the glow of Oscar gold isn't guaranteed. Just ask Lois Smith, a titan of the contemporary American stage with nearly 150 screen credits to her name. The closest she ever came to the Academy's good graces was at the start of the 70s and the New Hollywood craze, when playing Jack Nicholson's pianist sister in Five Easy Pieces. Bob Rafelson's film is something of a classic for those interested in this era of American cinema, but its legend tends to circle around the leading man and, maybe, Karen Black. Still, Smith delivers a performance worth considering and, as the title of this post suggests, she was almost there…...

September marks Marcello Mastroianni’s centennial, and the Criterion Channel pays respect with a retrospective that puts the expected alongside some lesser-knowns: Monicelli’s The Organizer, Jacques Demy’s A Slightly Pregnant Man, and two by Ettore Scola. There’s also the welcome return of “Adventures In Moviegoing” with Rachel Kushner’s formidable selections, among them Fassbinder’s Mother Küsters Goes to Heaven, Pialat’s L’enfance nue, and Jean Eustache’s Le cochon. In the lead-up to His Three Daughters, a four-film Azazel Jacobs program arrives.

Theme-wise, a set of courtroom dramas runs from 12 Angry Men and Anatomy of a Murder to My Cousin Vinny and Philadelphia; a look at ’30s female screenwriters includes Fritz Lang’s You and Me, McCarey’s Make Way for Tomorrow, and Cukor’s What Price Hollywood? There’s also a giallo series if you want to watch an Argento movie and ask yourself,...

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,...

Fred Roos, the casting director turned producer who jump-started the career of Jack Nicholson and collaborated often with Francis Ford Coppola, sharing a best picture Oscar with the filmmaker for The Godfather Part II, has died. He was 89.

Roos died Saturday at his home in Beverly Hills, a publicist announced.

It’s part of Hollywood lore that before Harrison Ford became a famous actor, he was laboring as a carpenter to make ends meet. What some might not know is that it was at Roos’ house where Ford was woodworking when the casting director befriended him, eventually pushing him for roles in George Lucas’ American Graffiti (1973) and Star Wars (1977) and Coppola’s The Conversation (1974).

And it was Roos who convinced Lucas — who had been leaning toward Amy Irving — that Carrie Fisher should portray Princess Leia in Star Wars. (Roos did not have an official role on that film.)

Roos, however,...

Fred Roos, the Oscar-winning The Godfather Part II producer and longtime executive producer for Francis Ford Coppola and Sofia Coppola, died Saturday in Beverly Hills at 89, four days shy of his 90th birthday.

The news about Roos, who won his Godfather Part II Oscar and later was nominated for Coppola’s Apocalypse Now, comes as Francis Ford Coppola is here at the Cannes Film Festival, 45 years after winning the Palme d’Or for Apocalypse Now. Coppola is in town with his $120 million passion project Megalopolis, which had its world premiere last week. Roos is billed as producer on Megalopolis.

The news also comes after Coppola’s wife of 61 years, Eleanor, died April 12. Roos was an executive producer on Hearts of Darkness, her famed documentary about the making of Apocalypse Now that won them both an Emmy in 1992.

Roos was Francis Coppola’s co-producer on The Conversation, The Godfather Part II and Apocalypse Now,...

The Big Cigar, a new limited series on Apple TV+ that debuts on May 17, dramatizes a wild true story from the New Hollywood period of the 1970s.

Huey P. Newton, the co-founder of The Black Panther Party, had befriended a group of countercultural figures ruling Tinseltown at the time.

Bert Schneider and Steve Blauner were part of the generation that brought the values of the 1960s counterculture to the movie business through films such as Easy Rider and Five Easy Pieces, as well as the work of The Monkees.

This also entailed bankrolling and supporting left-wing political causes, including the Black Panthers' work.

But that approach had its limits.

The series, which consists of six episodes lasting about 40 minutes each, was produced by Jim Hecht, an executive producer of Winning Time.

Don Cheadle is among the episode directors.

Revolution and cocaine

Early on in the Big Cigar, Schneider exclaims, “I want to finance the revolution!

Much is open-ended about this realist yet dreamlike exploration of midlife crisis and regret set in Vietnam

The question of what the title means, or what the movie means, remain open; even so, this is a quietly amazing feature debut from 34-year-old Thien An Pham, born in Vietnam and based in Houston, Texas. It’s a jewel of slow cinema set initially in Saigon and then the mountainous, lush central highlands far from the city; it is a zero-gravity epic quest, floating towards its strange narrative destiny and then maybe floating up over that to something else. It’s compassionate, intimate, spiritual and mysterious in ways that reminded me of Tsai Ming-liang or Edward Yang.

Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell is presented in a calm, unforced realist style with many long, unbroken middle-distance shots, with closeups a rarity. There is a flashback and a dream-sequence presented in exactly the same way,...

Eli Roth's 2023 slasher film "Thanksgiving" famously started its life back in 2007 in the form of a fake trailer sandwiched in between Robert Rodriguez's "Planet Terror" and Quentin Tarantino's "Death Proof," two movies released as a single mega-feature called "Grindhouse." The goal of "Grindhouse" was to recreate the experience of seeing a cheap exploitation double-feature in a run-down New York theater in the early 1980s, complete with film scratches, missing reels, and several previews for upcoming ultra-salacious genre movies. The trailers were all fake at the time, but since 2007, the trailers for "Machete," "Hobo with a Shotgun," and "Thanksgiving" have been made into real movies.

Roth, as the director's fans know, is a voracious cineaste, and has likely spent more time watching movies than most people. He also wears his influences on his sleeve; in the credits for Roth's 2013 cannibal film "The Green Inferno," he includes a list...

Alexander Payne's story of a cantankerous teacher holed up for Christmas with a wayward teen and the school cook is expertly told with gentle, grownup comedy

The year’s best Christmas movie arrives in the UK a bit late for Christmas: it is a genial, gentle, redemptive dramedy from Alexander Payne which hits the happy/sad sweet spot with Payne’s sure aim. It is taken from TV writer David Hemingson’s impeccably crafted screenplay, a masterclass in incremental, indirect character revelations and plot transitions. The Holdovers is set in 1970, consciously (or maybe self-consciously) crafted to look like a film which its characters could have gone to see at the time, with the funny, rueful dialogue and melancholy sense of place that you might find in something by Hal Ashby or Bob Rafelson, and a madeleine soundtrack from Cat Stevens, Labi Siffre and more.

But of course it also...

For my money, the Monkees are way, way more interesting than the Beatles. 

According to Andrew Sandoval's thorough and invaluable book "The Monkees: The Day-By-Day Story of the '60s TV Pop Sensation," an ad was put in Variety and the Hollywood Reporter on September 8, 1965, looking for "four insane boys" to be the members of a new pre-fabricated pop band. The band would also star in a TV series -- deliberately meant to evoke Richard Lester's 1964 Beatles film "A Hard Day's Night" -- that would use their real names, but present their lives as a fictional merry-go-round of kooky shenanigans. 

The producers zeroed in on former child actor Micky Dolenz, a friend of musician Stephen Stills named Peter Tork, a British, boyish heartthrob named Davy Jones, and heir to the Liquid Paper fortune, Mike Nesmith. Their TV series debuted on September 12, 1966, the week after "Star Trek" debuted, and...

October is usually thought of as the prime time for horror, but the best horror movie of 2023 — for that matter, the most deliriously entertaining horror movie since Wes Craven‘s original “Scream” — arrives not for Halloween but for Thanksgiving. It’s a movie horror fans have been eagerly anticipating ever since director Eli Roth created a fake “Thanksgiving” trailer for Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez’s “Grindhouse” in 2007, and the feature version that Roth and writer Jeff Rendell have extrapolated from that hilarious and gory short is well worth the wait. Their “Thanksgiving” is an ingeniously structured, elegantly composed thrill machine. It’s also a gleeful assault on good taste; it’s what you get when a 1970s or ’80s Canadian tax shelter thriller like “Prom Night” or “My Bloody Valentine” is directed by a true artist.

“Thanksgiving” riffs on dozens of slasher favorites from “Black Christmas” and John Carpenter...

Filmmaker Alexander Payne doesn’t exactly have the corner on curmudgeonly Paul Giamatti performances, or unexpected road trip movies that result in deeply emotional bonds, or stories about found families, or even tales about high school teachers who really, really need to get their lives in order. Still, those do tend to be his most recognizable hallmarks.

They’re all on display in his latest, the Christmastime dramedy “The Holdovers,” which stars Paul Giamatti as, yes, a curmudgeonly high school teacher who needs to get his life in order, and ends up (sort of) doing that by way of an unexpected road trip and the forging of a found family (including Da’Vine Joy Randolph and newbie Dominic Sessa).

“The Holdovers” sounds like pure Payne, right? It is, but it’s also a David Hemingson effort, with the longtime television writer picking up his first film credit with the script, which...

Alexander Payne is holding out over calling “The Holdovers” a “cozy” film.

The director, who recently told IndieWire‘s Anne Thompson that the film’s holiday-set premise is in part based on the fact that a “very large percentage of suicides happen between Christmas and New Years,” examined why the label “cozy” has been applied to the period piece.

Set in 1970 with the Vietnam War looming over Christmas, “The Holdovers” is centered around people who remain at a boarding school over the winter break without homes to go to. Paul Giamatti portrays a professor in the period piece from “Sideways” helmer Payne, marking the director’s first film in six years.

In a new interview with Vanity Fair, Payne said he is “always a little surprised” about the word “cozy” being applied to the film in reviews and marketing materials.

“‘Oh, it’s like a cozy movie, or a warm hug,...

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It was only a few days ago that the Criterion Collection had a surprise flash sale. The home video company’s entire catalog was slashed down to 50% off list prices. While that sale only lasted for 24 hours, there are a number of titles that are still on sale for half-off at Amazon.

We rounded up the best deals on Criterion Collection releases, including Spike Lee’s “Do The Right Thing,” Dennis Hopper’s “Easy Rider,” Whit Stillman’s “The Last Days of Disco” and much more. In fact, even a few boxed sets are half off, such as Krzysztof Kieślowski’s “The Dekalog” and Steve McQueen’s “Small Axe” anthology.

Ahead, check out the best Criterion Blu-ray discs currently on sale for 50% off at Amazon:

‘Do the Right Thing...

Jessica Lange is thinking about retirement. In a candid interview with The Telegraph, the two-time Oscar-winner revealed that she is thinking of “phasing out of filmmaking” and offered some blunt criticism for the entertainment industry’s direction over the past few years.

“Creativity is secondary now to corporate profits,” Lange said. “The emphasis becomes not on the art or the artist or the storytelling. It becomes about satisfying your stockholders. It diminishes the artist and the art of filmmaking.”

Lange, who has worked with heralded directors like Bob Fosse, Sydney Pollack, Bob Rafelson and Martin Scorsese since her big screen debut starring in the 1976 remake of “King Kong,” also shared that she “has no desire to see 90 percent” of contemporary releases. The actor cited “big comic-book franchise films,” “frantic editing” and ageism as particularly disagreeable elements of the modern business.

“They’ve sacrificed this art that we’ve been involved in…...

Every Christmas movie has to have its scrooge. In Alexander Payne’s holiday-set dramedy The Holdovers, the curmudgeon is Paul Hunham (Paul Giamatti), a long-time teacher at Barton Academy, an elite Massachusetts boarding school. Paul treats the affluent students in his ancient history class with contempt, gleefully terrorizing them with poor grades in order to trip up their otherwise smooth rides to fancy colleges. He’s the kind of teacher who flunks almost everyone on their end-of-semester exam and then assigns the class extra homework over the holidays as prep for yet another exam as soon as they get back. Bah humbug, indeed.

It’s not just the students at Barton who loathe Paul. So does the school’s administration. Hence Paul being saddled with holdover duty over the winter break—that is, to supervise any students who, for whatever reason, can’t go on lavish vacations like the rest of their peers,...

The very first episode of The Monkees, “Royal Flush,” won the series‘ director an Emmy Award in 1967. The Monkees‘ creators, Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider won their own golden statuettes in the Best Comedy Series category that same legendary evening.

Davy Jones is seated on the sand in front of fellow ‘The Monkees’ co-stars Mike Nesmith, Peter Tork, and Micky Dolenz in ‘Royal Flush’ | Keystone Features/Getty Images The first episode of ‘The Monkees’ was ‘Royal Flush’

The Monkees episodes may not have been the first to feature slapstick on television. However, the series was one of the first to include music shorts within each 30-minute episode.

Viewers were treated to a new music montage each week, driving The Monkees‘ record sales to number one on the Billboard Charts. However, the series also found a home with viewers who enjoyed its light humor.

In the series very first episode, “Royal Flush,...

Despite starring in The Monkees‘ first and only feature film, Head, in 1968, Peter Tork still didn’t understand its premise. He admits he had to watch the edgy movie upwards of 80 times before he realized what bothered him about it.

Peter Tork in a photoshoot while on the set of The Monkees | Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images Peter Tork admits it took almost 80 viewings of ‘Head’ before he got it

The 1968 film Head was a watershed moment in The Monkees’ career. The film depicted a series of vignettes amounting to a loosely interpretive message by the band signaling the end of their pop star personas.

The film included scenes of Micky Dolenz, Mike Nesmith, Peter Tork, and Davy Jones chanting, “Hey hey, we are the Monkees, you know we like to please/A manufactured image, with no philosophies” over a series of TV screens playing first clips from the film.

Mike Nesmith always had a soft spot for The Monkees‘ only feature film, Head. The 1968 film was misunderstood by many critics and fans of the band who were used to the casual hijinks of the quartet’s NBC series. However, Nesmith discussed how the film had a hidden meaning missed by many. He claimed the film poked “a lot of fun at The Monkees’ expense.”

The Monkees in a scene from the feature film ‘Head’ | Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images Mike Nesmith shared in a rare interview the intentions of the movie ‘Head’

Mike Nesmith shared the purposes of the group’s first feature film in a rare interview with Monkees bandmates Micky Dolenz, Davy Jones, and Peter Tork for the Hy Lit Show. Head, he explained, poked “a lot of fun” at the expense of its stars.

“The most fun was the character assassination,” Nesmith said of the darker...

On April 28, 2023, the sports and entertainment worlds lit up with joy at the sight of Jack Nicholson taking his courtside seat at Crypto.com Arena for the Los Angeles Lakers' semifinals-clinching game against the Memphis Grizzlies. This was the 86-year-old star's first appearance at a game since the home opener of the 2021-22 season, and it dispelled rumors of ill-health that had flitted about due to his absence from the public eye.

Ever since his career took off in the late 1960s, Nicholson exemplified Hollywood stardom. He played the celebrity game with devilish glee, donning his Ray-Ban sunglasses and strutting down red carpets to the delight of shutterbugs and fans. He was a near-constant presence at the Academy Awards, where he typically sat in the front row because, well, he's Jack. And no Lakers home game felt official without him sitting just to the right of the visiting team's bench...

Sally Struthers has a screen acting career that goes back more than fifty years, with one of her earliest appearances being in the 1970 Bob Rafelson / Jack Nicholson classic Five Easy Pieces. As the decades have gone by, she has racked up more than seventy more credits, including a memorable role in Gilmore Girls, a role in the 1972 version of The Getaway, and of course the gig she’s best known for, playing Gloria Bunker-Stivic in 184 episodes of the sitcom All in the Family. A character she also played in 5 episodes of the follow-up Archie Bunker’s Place and 22 episodes of her own spin-off, Gloria. But while Struthers has done a lot of work, one genre she never ventured into was horror… Until now. She has worked on a few thrillers, but her first all-out horror movie is called Evil Sublet – and Deadline reports that Lion Heart Distribution has acquired North American rights to the film.

Just in time for Succession‘s end, let’s look at method acting. The Criterion Channel are highlighting the controversial practice in a 27-film series centered on Brando, Newman, Nicholson, and many other’s embodiment of “an intensely personal, internalized, and naturalistic approach to performance.” That series makes mention of Marilyn Monroe, who gets her own, 11-title highlight––the iconic commingling with deeper cuts.

Pride Month offers “Masc,” a consideration of “trans men, butch lesbians, and gender-nonconforming heroes” onscreen; the Michael Koresky-curated Queersighted returning with a study of the gay best friend; and the 20-film “LGBTQ+ Favorites.” Louis Garrel’s delightful The Innocent (about which I talked to him here), the director’s cut of Gregg Araki’s The Doom Generation, and Stanley Kwan’s hugely underseen Lan Yu make streaming premieres, while Araki’s Totally F***ed Up and Mysterious Skin also get a run. Criterion Editions include Five Easy Pieces,...

Michael Lerner, the busy Oscar-nominated character actor who had memorable turns as bombastic types in Barton Fink, Harlem Nights, Eight Men Out and so much more, has died. He was 81.

Lerner died Saturday night, according to an Instagram post from his nephew, Sam Lerner, who is also an actor (ABC’s The Goldbergs). The cause of death was not immediately known.

“It’s hard to put into words how brilliant my uncle Michael was, and how influential he was to me,” Sam wrote. “His stories always inspired me and made me fall in love with acting. He was the coolest, most confident, talented guy, and the fact that he was my blood will always make me feel special. Everyone that knows him knows how insane he was — in the best way.”

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Raised in a Brooklyn housing project as...

By the time The Monkees began production of their first and only feature film, Head, they had undergone a metamorphosis as both performers and a music group. Mike Nesmith, Peter Tork, Davy Jones, and Micky Dolenz evolved from hired actors to pop music phenomena over the course of three years. Therefore, to depict this, the music for Head was just as pivotal as the script itself. Subsequently, Monkees producer Bob Rafelson said one song was “critical” to the soundtrack. Here are all the details.

Mike Nesmith, Peter Tork, Davy Jones, and Mike Nesmith of The Monkees | Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images How did The Monkees get involved with ‘Head’?

The last episode of The Monkees Emmy-winning television show aired in March 1968, during its second and final filming season. Moreover, the world’s cultural climate appeared to be in upheaval. The series seemed out of step with the times.

The Monkees...

Jack Nicholson has had one of the more varied careers in Hollywood. He has appeared in smaller, intense independent dramas, broad comedies, Oscar-bait films, surreal experimental movies, and several well-moneyed Hollywood blockbusters. Indeed, Nicholson was involved in one of the more notable blockbusters of all time, Tim Burton's 1989 film "Batman," where he played the Joker. Famously, Nicholson managed to negotiate a cut of the film's merchandising profits into his salary, making him a very, very rich man.

Nicholson has a talent for playing intense types of characters. He can be friendly or threatening, but he is an expert in taking up a room. In a way, his performance in Alexander Payne's 2002 dramedy "About Schmidt" might be his best, as it's the one notable time he's played a deliberately dull, buttoned-down character.

Given Nicholson's stature as a celebrity, one might think the actor had free reign to select whatever projects he wanted.

One of The Monkees‘ most prolific singalong hits, “Pleasant Valley Sunday,” appeared on their classic album Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn, and Jones Ltd. Written by Carole King and Gerry Goffin, the song was inspired by a street near the couple’s suburban New Jersey home. However, the song’s lyrics had a darker edge than fans realized.

Peter Tork, Micky Dolenz, Davy Jones, and Mike Nesmith are the cast of ‘The Monkees’ | Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images ‘Pleasant Valley Sunday’ was a Monkees smash

The single peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 in August 1967. At the number one position was Bobbie Gentry’s “Ode to Billie Joe,” followed by The Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.”

The Monkees held steady at number three. In addition, rounding out the top five in the first week of August 1967 was The Doors’ “Light My Fire” and Aretha Franklin’s “Baby I Love You.

Four-time Grammy winner Lenny Kravitz will perform for Sunday’s emotional “In Memoriam” segment on the Oscars 2023 ceremony. While only 40-50 people are generally remembered for the television ceremony hosted by Jimmy Kimmel on ABC, over 200 people will be recognized on the Academy’s webpage starting that evening.

SEEWho is Performing at the Oscars 2023?: Full List of Presenters and Performers

Here is a lengthy list of many contributors to film who died since last year’s Academy Awards ceremony:

Mary Alice (actor)

Gil Alkabetz (animator)

Kirstie Alley (actor)

Burt Bacharach (composer)

Angelo Badalamenti (composer)

Simone Bär (casting director)

Joanna Barnes (actor)

Carl A. Bell (animator)

Jeff Berlin (sound)

David Birney (actor)

Bruce Bisenz (sound)

Robert Blake (actor)

Eliot Bliss (sound)

Nick Bosustow (shorts)

Albert Brenner (production designer)

Tom Bronson (costume designer)

James Caan (actor)

Michael Callan (actor)

Donn Cambern (editor)

Irene Cara (songwriter)

Gary W. Carlson (sound)

Marvin Chomsky...

Melvil Poupaud with Anne-Katrin Titze on Arnaud Desplechin: “For me he is one of the best metteurs en scène that I’ve worked with because of where he puts the camera, the choice of the lens, everything means something.”

In the second instalment with Melvil Poupaud on Arnaud Desplechin’s Brother And Sister, screenplay with Julie Peyr we discuss inspiration from Forest Whitaker in Clint Eastwood’s Bird and Jack Nicholson In Bob Rafelson’s Five Easy Pieces, Grégoire Hetzel’s score, a very particular smile shared by him and Marion Cotillard, a cowboy movie showdown in the supermarket, contradictions, and hungry ghosts.

Melvil Poupaud on Arnaud Desplechin: “He doesn’t want to be realistic or naturalistic. ” Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Magnetic Melvil Poupaud opens on Tuesday, March 7 with a screening of Carine Tardieu’s The Young Lovers (Les Jeunes Amants) at 7:30pm followed by a Q&a with Melvil inside Florence Gould.

“I didn’t happen on the scene as a purebred,” says Sally Field. “I was the runt of the litter.” Having led three sitcoms by the time she was 28, she first gained notice as a dramatic actor in 1976’s Sybil, for which she earned her first Emmy and, she says, her first chance to put her talent to good use. An accomplished film career ensued, one that saw Field balancing dramas (she won Oscars for lead roles in 1979’s Norma Rae and 1984’s Places in the Heart, plus a nom for her supporting turn in 2012’s Lincoln) and comedies (Smokey and the Bandit, Steel Magnolias, Soapdish, Mrs. Doubtfire and this year’s 80 for Brady). She has also returned to TV multiple times, winning Emmys for a guest spot on ER and a lead role on Brothers & Sisters, the latter also earning her a SAG Award. This year, she will...

Tl;Dr:

The Monkees’ creator said Davy Jones was perhaps the biggest rock star of the 1960s.He explained why Jones was part of The Monkees.Jones only released one solo single that charted on the Billboard Hot 100. The Monkees’ Davy Jones | Express / Stringer

The Monkees‘ co-creator, Bob Rafelson, said Davy Jones might’ve been the most famous rock star of the 1960s. He was worried Jones might be wrong for The Monkees’ show. Subsequently, he changed his mind.

The Monkees’ co-creator explained why Davy Jones made the cut

Rafelson co-created The Monkees with Bert Schneider. Rafelson discussed Jones in a 2012 Los Angeles Times interview following the singer’s death. “Davy Jones deserves a lot of credit, let me tell you,” Rafelson said. “He may not have lived as long as we wanted him to, but he survived about seven lifetimes, including being perhaps the biggest rock star of his time.

Tl;Dr:

The Lovin’ Spoonful tried out for The Monkees’ show.The Monkees’ creators chose not to cast The Lovin’ Spoonful in the program.The Lovin’ Spoonful had many hit singles in the United States. The Monkees | Michael Ochs Archives / Stringer

The Lovin’ Spoonful tried out for the television program that became The Monkees‘ show. The Monkees’ creators had a strong reaction to their audition. Despite this, they decided not to cast The Lovin’ Spoonful.

The Monkees’ co-creator said the Prefab Four’s show was inspired by his time as a teenage musician

Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider were the co-creators of The Monkees. The band has long been compared to The Beatles. During a 2012 interview with the Los Angeles Times, Rafelson discussed how the premise of the show came together.

“This was a show I had written six years before The Beatles existed, and the pilot was based on...

Mike Nesmith and his green wool hat became synonymous with The Monkees from the series’ first episode in Sept. 1966. The head topper, which Mike wore in his screen test, became such an essential talisman to Mike that it became part of his on-screen persona. However, Mike’s hat has a deeper meaning, and the mysterious story comes directly from his first wife, Phyllis.

Peter Tork, Davy Jones, Mike Nesmith and Micky Dolenz in a scene still from the television series ‘The Monkees’ | NBCUniversal via Getty Images Why did Mike Nesmith wear a wool hat?

Mike Nesmith originally wore a wool hat to his Monkees television audition in 1966. Although the audition was held in California, Nesmith wore the topper to keep his hair from blowing in his face as he rode his motorcycle to the audition, reported MeTV.

During his original audition for The Monkees, Nesmith clowned around with producers Bob Rafelson...

In 1967, no band in the world was bigger than The Monkees. In the year that brought us the Summer of Love, The Monkees outsold the Beach Boys and even The Beatles, helped by a hit TV show that brought their music into millions of households each week. After the show had run its course, the band tried to extend their reach onto the big screen with Head, an indie-style film that left a lot of people scratching their own heads — including The Monkees themselves. Speaking at a fan event, Micky Dolenz admitted that it’s taken him a lot of time to figure out what the film’s soon-to-be-famous producers, including Jack Nicholson and Bob Rafelson, were trying to do in the film … because, at the time, he was just as confused as everybody else. (Click on the media bar below to hear Micky Dolenz) https://www.hollywoodoutbreak.com/wp-content...

Donn Cambern, the film editor who used his musical background to help make Easy Rider a masterpiece and 15 years later shared an Oscar nomination for cutting Romancing the Stone, has died. He was 93.

Cambern died Wednesday at Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank of complications from a fall three weeks ago, a family spokesperson told The Hollywood Reporter.

The Los Angeles native edited Blume in Love (1973), Willie & Phil (1980) and Tempest (1982) for Paul Mazursky, Twins (1988) and Ghostbusters II (1989) for Ivan Reitman and worked on five Burt Reynolds starrers, including Smokey and the Bandit II (1980) and The Cannonball Run (1981).

Cambern also received an editing credit on The Last Picture Show (1971), though Peter Bogdanovich insisted that he was the editor on that.

He was honored with a career achievement award from the American Cinema Editors in 2004, and three years later, he became the first recipient of the Motion Picture Editors Guild’s Fellowship and Service Award.

The story of the Monkees is well known to any fan of 1960s pop music. Producers Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider, inspired by the freewheeling antics they witnessed in Richard Lester's celebrated 1964 Beatles film "A Hard Day's Night," wanted to capture a similar energy on the small screen. Widespread auditions were held to form a new band that possessed musical talent, but, more importantly, screen chemistry and maybe some acting acumen. The production team was lucky to land one Micky Dolenz, a former child star who appeared on the long-forgotten sitcom "Circus Boy." Davy Jones and Mike Nesmith followed. Peter Tork was suggested by his friend Stephen Stills. While the Monkees did not form organically, they did have chemistry, and possessed humor and acting talent that their less interesting Liverpudlian counterparts never did. Yes, it is now written. The Monkees are, in their way, more interesting than the Beatles.

It goes without saying that Harrison Ford has enjoyed a long and relatively varied career. Still, the "Star Wars" and "Indiana Jones" films have made such a big mark on pop culture that it's easy to simply associate Harrison Ford with his larger than life, adventurer-type characters in those franchises (be they curious like Indy or reluctant like Han Solo). Yet, as much as Ford tends to be thought of as a big-budget star first and a character actor second, Peter Weir's "The Mosquito Coast" (not to be confused with the Apple TV+ series of the same name) flipped the script.

Keeping with the theme of adventurous characters, Ford starred in the 1986 drama as Allie Fox, a patriarch that moves his American family to the Caribbean with dreams of building civilization anew. In comparison to the "Indiana Jones" and "Star Wars" franchises, the film was relatively grounded in reality,...

Above: French grande for Love in the Afternoon (aka Chloé in the Afternoon) which was the opening night film of the 10th New York Film Festival. Designer tbd.In the catalogue for the 10th New York Film Festival in 1972, festival director Richard Roud looked back on the first decade of the NYFF, musing on the changes in cinema of the previous 10 years: “a greater freedom of subject matter,” “an accompanying new freedom of form,” the obsolescence of “the tightly plotted film,” the rise of personal filmmaking and the inroads of political cinema and documentary techniques into narrative film. He also muses on international movements: the snuffing out of the Czech Renaissance (there were no Czech films in the 1972 festival), the rise of New Hollywood and American independent cinema, and the ebbing of the movement that had in many ways defined the festival to that point, the French New Wave:Some of...

Producers of this Monday’s Primetime Emmy Awards ceremony have some difficult decisions to make about who to honor during the emotional In Memoriam segment. John Legend will perform “Pieces,” a new song he has written for the tribute. Kenan Thompson will host the 2022 Emmys for NBC at 8 p.m. Et; 5 p.m. Pt.

Our list below includes almost 100 people who made a strong contribution to television and have died since mid-September of 2021 following the previous Emmys ceremony. Only about 40-45 of these people will probably be in the video segment. Certain to be featured will be TV Academy Hall of Fame members actress Betty White and director Jay Sandrich.Other prominent names almost certainly chosen are: Mary Alice (acting winner), Louie Anderson (acting winner), James Caan (acting nominee), Anne Heche (acting winner), Howard Hesseman (acting nominee), William Hurt (acting nominee), Gregory Itzin (acting nominee), Ray Liotta (acting winner), Burt Metcalfe...

Micky Dolenz has filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit to obtain FBI records related to The Monkees.

The 77-year-old singer and guitarist is the lone survivor of the four-piece 1960s band, which also comprised of the late Peter Tork, Davy Jones, and Michael Nesmith, who passed away at the start of 2022.

When The Monkees kicked off their debut tour in 1967, at least one FBI informant was present.

“During the concert, subliminal messages were depicted on the screen which, in the opinion of [informant’s name redacted], constituted ‘left wing intervention of a political nature,’” reads a document in the band’s file.

“These messages and pictures were flashed of riots, in Berkley, anti-us messages on the war in Vietnam, racial riots in Selma, Alabama, and similar messages which had unfavourable response[s] from the audience.”

While this snippet from the FBI’s file on the band was publicly released over a decade ago, Dolenz’s lawyer,...

Jack Nicholson received the first of his 12 Academy Award nominations for his supporting role in "Easy Rider," a film that tapped into the '60s counterculture to become a watershed for the New Hollywood era. Yet despite its cultural significance and impact on Nicholson's career, "Easy Rider" had a notoriously troubled production, much of which was documented in Peter Biskind's book, "Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-and-Rock 'N Roll Generation Saved Hollywood."

Among other things, "Easy Rider" director and star Dennis Hopper famously pulled a steak knife on actor Rip Torn, who was originally supposed to play lawyer George Hanson, the role that went to Nicholson. Hopper and his costar Peter Fonda also got into a dispute over the film's writing credits, which they shared with Terry Southern. In a 1974 interview with Sight and Sound magazine, Nicholson explained that he only stepped in to act after getting involved...

This may sound a little strange, but I think we may underrate Jack Nicholson as an actor. Yes, he is obviously one of the most beloved actors in the history of cinema and has won three Academy Awards, but I feel like when we think about Jack Nicholson these days, we boil him down to one thing: He's the devilish scamp you do not want to be on the bad side of. He'll take on a role in "Batman" or "The Departed," and a lot of people would describe the performance as "Jack being Jack." While there's certainly an utterly unique energy present in all of his performances, his range of characters and tones sometimes gets overlooked or even forgotten by modern audiences.

For example, take the film for which he won his second Oscar: "Terms of Endearment." If you were to ask anyone to list Nicholson's signature performances, very few,...

As Hollywood mourns the death of Bob Rafelson, the director of “Five Easy Pieces” and an essential member of the New Hollywood movement who helped launch the careers of Jack Nicholson and Peter Bogdanovich, one of the world’s greatest filmmakers (and film historians) has paid his respects. In a new statement, Martin Scorsese spoke about the impact that Rafelson had on the world of cinema, both through the art he created and the way he helped usher in a new business model for artistic filmmaking.

“Bob Rafelson was a pivotal figure in the history of cinema, American cinema most of all, and he was a bridge between two eras in Hollywood moviemaking,” Scorsese wrote. “He was literally born into the old Hollywood — his cousin was the great screenwriter Samson Raphaelson, one of Lubitsch’s key collaborators — and he was one of the people who made the New Hollywood possible,...

No movie better captures the maverick spirit of Bob Rafelson and the impact he had on the New Hollywood movement of the 1970s than “Five Easy Pieces.” The film follows Jack Nicholson’s Bobby Dupea, a former piano prodigy who has turned his back on his privileged lifestyle to embrace the life of a blue collar drifter. Dupea’s rejection of his upbringing struck a cord with the counterculture and turned “Five Easy Pieces” into a critical and commercial sensation, making it a rare film that tapped into and reflected the zeitgeist.

Rafelson, who also directed “The King of Marvin Gardens” and helped create “The Monkees” television series, died on July 23 at the age of 89. Lois Smith, a Tony-winning character actress who would later work with the filmmaker on his 1987 thriller “Black Widow,” played Partita Dupea, the sister of Bobby Dupea, in “Pieces,’ who helps set the plot in motion...

Though regarded by cinephiles as one of the architects of the “New Hollywood” largely because of moody character studies like 1970’s “Five Easy Pieces,” filmmaker Bob Rafelson — who died Saturday at 89 — will also always be adored for his co-creation and production of the decidedly less moody, madcap television series “The Monkees,” and for further directing that makeshift band in the comically avant-garde 1968 film “Head.”

Rafelson is very fondly remembered by vocalist and drummer Micky Dolenz, the final surviving member of the Monkees, who shared his thoughts about Rafelson’s role in the creation and development of the group with Variety.

A wildly silly sitcom about a faux teeny-bop band meant that its producer-showrunners, Rafelson and Bert Schneider (who died in 2011), had to find a willing quartet of actor-musicians. Enter Davy Jones, Peter Tork, Michael Nesmith and Dolenz, who became the Monkees, recorded a dozen hits selling over 75 million records worldwide,...

Paul Sorvino, veteran actor and father to actor Michael Sorvino and actress and activist Mira Sorvino, best known as the stoic mobster “Paulie” from Martin Scorsese’s “Goodfellas,” has died. He was 83.

Sorvino’s wife Dee Dee announced his death, saying that he had died Monday of natural causes, though he had also suffered from Type 2 diabetes.

“Our hearts are broken, there will never be another Paul Sorvino, he was the love of my life, and one of the greatest performers to ever grace the screen and stage,” Dee Dee Sorvino said in a statement to the press.

I am completely devastated

The love of my life & the most wonderful man who has ever lived is gone . I am heartbroken ❤️❤️❤️ pic.twitter.com/0wBSG3uTgD

— Dee Dee Sorvino (@deedeegop) July 25, 2022

Sorvino was a veteran actor of TV and film with over 160 credits to his name. He’s starred in films such as “Reds,...

The Monkees drummer Micky Dolenz, the last surviving member of the music group, has paid tribute to Bob Rafelson, the musical show’s co-creator, who passed away Saturday, July 23, at 89. “One day in the spring of 1966, I cut my classes in architecture at LA Trade Tech to take an audition for a new TV show called The Monkees. The co-creator/producer of the show was Bob Rafelson,” said Dolenz. “At first, I mistook him for another actor there for the audition. Needless-to-say, I got the part and it completely altered my life.” 1) One day in the spring of 1966, I cut my classes in architecture at LA Trade Tech to take an audition for a new TV show called, “The Monkees”.The co-creator/producer of the show was Bob Rafelson. At first I mistook him for another actor there for the audition. pic.twitter.com/X5XKxATqPt — Micky Dolenz (@TheMickyDolenz1) July...

Rafelson was a director who got era-defining performances out of Jack Nicholson in Five Easy Pieces and The King of Marvin Gardens, as well as co-creating the Monkees

Bob Rafelson dies aged 89

Of all the creative energies and commercial synergies that swirled around Hollywood at the end of the 1960s, surely the strangest was the one between the Monkees, actor Jack Nicholson and the producer-director who was to become a presiding genius of the American new wave: Bob Rafelson. Yet if Rafelson had not co-created pop music’s great boyband in his capacity as a TV producer, his company would not have been as madly successful as it was: he would not have been able to produce Dennis Hopper’s countercultural classic Easy Rider in 1969 (co-starring Nicholson) and Peter Bogdanovich’s cinephile gem The Last Picture Show in 1971. And it all allowed Rafelson to become a key director of the time,...