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Ken Jeong has always been a scene-stealer — even as a chorus member with no lines in a Duke University production of “Kiss Me Kate” when he was 18. “I still have the review in my office; it says, ‘Did I mention Ken Jeong, a puckish performer in the chorus who best watch his back if he keeps stealing scenes from the principals?’” recalls the actor. “So, I think it’s always been in my DNA.”

Jeong has never lost that playful quality as he moved from an actual doctor to stand-up comedian to film and TV doctor (“Knocked Up” and “Dr. Ken”) and into several of the most popular movies of the last 20 years. In addition, he’s managed to maintain a reputation as one of the most lovable and adored personalities on TV thanks to appearing as himself in hits like “The Masked Singer” and hosting “I Can See Your Voice.

Anna May Wong — born Wong Liu Tsong in Los Angeles on Jan. 3, 1905 — is widely recognized as Hollywood’s first Asian American movie star.

A year before she died in 1961 from a heart attack at age 56, she joked that her epitaph should be, “I died a thousand deaths.” During her career, she’d appeared in more than 60 films, TV series and theatrical shows, but many of her roles were stereotypical caricatures of Asian women as exotic temptresses, dragon ladies and China dolls who inevitably met their doom so the white leads could attain their happy ending.

Though Wong’s many deaths are well documented on film, her multifaceted life offscreen remained generally unacknowledged until now. For the next seven months, the exhibit Unmasking Anna May Wong at downtown L.A.’s Chinese American Museum (Cam) will shine a broader light on the actress, philanthropist and socialite, who was known variously as...

One of the world’s great true-life train heist stories is set to return to the big screen in China. Filmmaker DaMing Chen and veteran producer Chris Lee have partnered to develop a feature adaptation of James Zimmerman’s acclaimed nonfiction book, The Peking Express: The Bandits Who Stole a Train, Stunned the West, and Broke the Republic of China.

The new film, like the book, will recount the improbable saga of a 1923 incident once known as the “Lincheng Outrage,” which was sparked when Chinese bandits raided a luxury express train bound for Beijing and took over 300 international hostages — captivating the world and stirring up a six-week geopolitical showdown. A subject of popular fascination a century ago, the event inspired no less than Josef von Sternberg’s 1932 romance/adventure classic Shanghai Express, starring Marlene Dietrich and Anna May Wong, as well as two later Paramount Pictures remakes.

Zimmerman’s book...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For regular updates, sign up for our weekly email newsletter and follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSNotebook readers, rejoice—the Mubi Shop has launched anew in the US and UK, and you can finally broadcast your love for the world’s sharpest international film criticism via this stylish, crisply screen-printed Notebook tote bag, featuring a clapperboard calligram design. Also in the store is a Cannes Film Festival–themed print by Dutch artist and cartoonist Joost Swarte, which was commissioned for our limited-edition print broadsheet issue of Notebook, distributed in Cannes.Sundance announced its lineup last week, including new films from Jane Schoenbrun, Steven Soderbergh, Debra Granik, Yance Ford, Brett Story, and more. This will be the first Sundance under the directorship of Eugene Hernandez, formerly of Film at Lincoln Center.Keep that winter coat handy—the Berlinale has announced that Lupita Nyong’o will lead the jury.

A legend continues to make history. Celia Cruz — the late Afro-Latina salsa legend — is set to become one of five American Women Quarters Program honorees to be featured on the U.S. quarter next year.

Days ago, the United States Mint revealed the design of the new quarter, which captures the singer’s “dazzling smile while performing in a rumba style dress.” It also features her signature catchphrase, “Azucar!”

“Celia Cruz was a Cuban-American singer, cultural icon, and one of the most popular #Latin artists of the 20th century,” the Mint tweeted Friday.

André Holland (Passing) and Gemma Chan (Don’t Worry Darling) will top Neon‘s The Actor, the second feature (and first in live-action) from Oscar-nominated Anomalisa helmer Duke Johnson, which has wrapped production. Holland takes over the male lead from Ryan Gosling, who was forced to drop out due to scheduling conflicts but remains aboard the project as an executive producer.

André Holland behind the scenes of The Actor

The film scripted by Johnson and Stephen Cooney is based on the bestselling novel Memory by Donald E. Westlake and tells the story of actor Paul Cole (Holland), who finds himself stranded in 1950s Ohio, suffering from severe memory loss after a brutal attack, struggling to find his way back to his life in New York and reclaim what he has lost.

Additional cast set for the film includes Tracey Ullman (Curb Your Enthusiasm), Toby Jones (Empire of Light), Simon McBurney (Wolfwalkers...

Li Jun Li in Babylon Photo: Scott Garfield for Paramount Pictures Li Jun Li, or LiLi as she prefers to be called, knew she had to play Lady Fay Zhu in Babylon from the moment she first heard about the project. In a film packed with powerhouse performances, Lady Fay...

In “Babylon,” Damien Chazelle’s film about silent-era Hollywood stars who burned as brightly as they, sadly, did briefly, Li Jun Li plays Lady Fay Zhu, a singer, dancer, actor and sometime title card writer whose ability to make an entrance — even in the midst of the most decadent bacchanal you’ve ever seen — enables her to steal scenes from co-stars like Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie. Inspired by the real life and career of Chinese American actress Anna May Wong, Li worked closely with writer-director Chazelle to pay tribute to the Hollywood trailblazer while ensuring that she blazes a trail of her own; after watching her suck venom from the neck of Robbie’s unconscious Nellie Laroy, you’ll never think of a snakebite the same way again.

Your character is inspired by the career and life of Anna May Wong. What about her life principally informed your performance?...

Spike Jonze plays Otto Von Strassberger, Lukas Haas plays George Munn and Robert Clendenin (back) plays Otto’s Assistant Director in Babylon from Paramount Pictures.

LA LA Land director Damien Chazelle gives a different take on the movie industry with ‘s Babylon, focused on Hollywood pre- and post- the transition from silent films to sound, but as if that took place in an alternate reality partly in the 1920s and partly in the late 1970s, eras that share reputations for excess, partying and drugs, although the 1920s had much better clothes.

This tale of a wild silent-era Hollywood opens in 1926, according a title card, at the height of the Hollywood’s Babylon of partying excess and creative freedom and shortly before the debut of talking films brought the party to a halt. The opening sequence features an elephant as studio employee Manny Torres (Diego Calva) negotiating with someone hired to...

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Director Damien Chazelle’s mandate to his costume designer on Babylon was simple: “I don’t want this to look like another ’20s movie.”

That edict translated into no flapper dresses, no cloche hats (on the principals) and no feathered headbands in the Paramount film, set to hit theaters Dec. 23. As the movie’s three-time Oscar-nominated costume designer, Mary Zophres, notes, “Damien wanted authenticity but didn’t want it to be a trope; he was like, ‘Bring me fresh ideas!’ ” Creating costumes for the epic about Hollywood debauchery and decadence during the late 1920s was a larger-than-life game of numbers where Zophres and her team built close to 10,000 costumes, ranging from items for a Singin’ in the Rain number to a nod to 1916’s Intolerance battle scene.

Costumes for each of the principal characters were designed with a muse in mind, representing the highs and lows of Hollywood.

Before the Hays Code and censors came in—and honestly for long afterwards as well—Hollywood was considered to be a regular Sodom and Gomorrah by the heartland. There, out in the desert, a sinister den of iniquity had supplanted New Orleans as damnation made flesh. That reputation of course faded over the years by dint of time and the glossy sheen of fabulous studio publicists that went on to shape our nostalgia. They turned infamy into respectability. Decadence into a lost golden age.

Which is perhaps why that golden hue looks all the more sickly in Damien Chazelle’s seedy bacchanal of a movie: this Christmas’ Babylon. Named after the biggest film set ever assembled for a notorious box office flop, D.W. Griffith’s Intolerance, the new film’s title also doubles as a nod to the Biblical scale on which Chazelle is mounting his fourth feature.

Babylon is...

Working on set of “Babylon” was basically an “exhilarating” party every day, according to the film’s breakout star Li Jun Li.

“I have to give it to the background actors; they are the most uninhibited, most committed people. These parties felt so real, and I think people were genuinely having an amazing time on set,” the actress told People of Oscar-winning director Damien Chazelle’s new film, which she described as “wild”.

Set in 1920s Los Angeles, around the time Hollywood transitioned from silent films to talkies, the film features many lavish and extravagant party scenes, which came with the time period’s shift in film. Shooting the partying sequences often went on for several days and, as Li puts is, with each new day, the energy on set was just as infectious as the day before.

“Every single day people partied like it was the first time they were attending this party,...

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,...

First of all, I enjoyed Damien Chazelle’s “Babylon.” It’s a wildly entertaining look at Hollywood’s early days. The cast is fantastic and I specifically enjoyed Li Jun Li’s portrayal of Lady Fay Zhu, a thinly-veiled character based on Anna May Wong. I spoke with the actress to talk about the making of the film.

The post How Li Jun Li Channeled Anna May Wong in “Babylon” appeared first on Manny the Movie Guy.

Those seeking an insightful exploration of cinema history in Hollywood’s Golden Age or a nuanced, affecting character study on the lives within this early era will mostly like be disappointed by Damien Chazelle’s latest. Babylon is a brash, bombastic, unwieldy comic opera conveyed with enough bad taste and directorial panache that it—refreshingly—registers as a refutation of the well-mannered prestige drama to which these kinds of nostalgic odes often conform. And while there’s a touch of wistfulness in regards to the communal power of big-screen cinema, the film is more defined by an acidic unsentimentality, both when it comes to its characters and the precarious world they inhabit. Capturing the mad, violent clash of high and low art during a period of upheaval in a fledgling industry that has no consideration for basic morality (much less the safety of its workforce), Chazelle’s indulgent, rollicking vision...

After enormous success and Oscars for films ranging from Whiplash to La La Land to First Man, writer-director Damien Chazelle returned to an early dream project first envisioned 15 years ago — a no-holds-barred look at early Hollywood, a time when not only movies were transitioning from silent to sound but Los Angeles itself was booming from desert to bulging metropolis. People were caught up in a turbulent time of change, and it didn’t always work out for some. As witnessed in the resulting film and years of meticulous research, Babylon is a sight to behold, a decadent, freewheeling, at times even poignant look at a series of dreamers, stars, fringe players and all who wanted a piece of a world that felt out of control, uninhibited and full of promise — and downfall.

With more than 100 speaking roles and a widescreen full of extras, Chazelle has created a vision of Hollywood...

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When the dizzying trailer for Babylon dropped, its coke-fueled bacchanal of sex, partying, moviemaking and sleaze sold it as The Day of the Locust meets The Wolf of Wall Street. Marketing can be deceptive, but in this case, turns out that’s an accurate taste of what the whopping three hours and change of Damien Chazelle’s poison-pen letter to 1920s and ‘30s Hollywood delivers, with the freewheeling storytelling of Boogie Nights and a sticky dollop of Lynchian creepiness. No doubt plenty of cool kids will eagerly sign up to be pummeled by the film’s crazed excesses, though just as many will find it exhausting and sour. Even its technical virtuosity feels assaultive.

To all the folks who stomped out any chance of Chazelle’s soulful space-travel drama, First Man, finding an audience by whipping up a fake controversy charging that it was unpatriotic,...

“I remember a lot of naked people … like, a lot,” remembered actor Diego Calva about shooting a wild, debauched party scene in “Babylon,” the new film from writer-director Damien Chazelle who previously won an Oscar for directing “La La Land.” That was just one element of the outrageous film discussed by Chazelle, Calva, and co-stars Margot Robbie, Brad Pitt, Jean Smart, Jovan Adepo, and Li Jun Li at a special screening and Q&a for Screen Actors Guild members on November 16.

“Babylon” is a three-hour fictionalized account of the growing pains Hollywood underwent as it evolved from the silent film era to the talkies. Robbie plays Nellie Laroy, a party girl-turned-movie star who goes on a tumultuous journey to say the least. “I can’t tell you how out on a limb I felt,” explained Robbie about her character’s emotional extremes. But “you just have to fully commit and throw yourself into it.

Damien Chazelle’s manic vision of a wild, wild west Hollywood heyday, “Babylon,” screened for the very first time November 14 in Los Angeles for Academy members and select press. The collective reaction in a packed, mostly enthusiastic house was, “That was a lot of movie.” Responses on Twitter (social reactions were encouraged while reviews remain under embargo ahead of the film’s wide Christmas Day release) from the press corps ranged from marveling over the film’s druggy over-the-topness to bewilderment over its wildly swinging tones. See them rounded up below.

Indeed, set in a debaucherous mid-1920s when Los Angeles was still a half-formed desert town, “Babylon” is essentially a three-hour-plus bender of a movie that pummels the audience with Boschian-level set pieces of Jazz Era decadence — mountains of cocaine, graphic overdoses, scatological humor, projectile vomiting, horror-movie-style sex dungeons, murder, suicide, and rattlesnake wrestling. Other than breakout Diego Calva,...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSAnna May Wong in Piccadilly.Trailblazing film star Anna May Wong will be the first Asian American to appear on US currency. Wong, whose legacy is overviewed in this Guardian article by Pamela Hutchinson, will be the face of more than 300 million quarters.Alice Diop has won the Prix Jean Vigo, an award given to a French director each year since 1951, for her first fiction feature Saint Omer. Earlier this year, the film won won two awards at the Venice Film Festival and was selected as the French entry for Best International Film at the 2023 Oscars.Paweł Pawlikowski’s next feature—tentatively titled The Island—will be led by Joaquin Phoenix and Rooney Mara. Per Variety, they play an American couple who “turn their backs on civilization to build a secluded paradise,” until a...

Do you know when the first movie premiere in Hollywood history was held?

On Oct. 18. 1922 Sid Grauman opened his movie palace the Egyptian Theatre on Hollywood Blvd. with superstar Douglas Fairbank’s latest swashbuckler “Robin Hood.” The red carpet was rolled out for Fairbanks, his wife Mary Pickford and their good friend (and partner in United Artists) Charlie Chaplin. It cost 5 to attend the premiere. And the movie, which was the top box office draw, played there exclusively for several months. The Egyptian cost 800,000 to build and took 18 months to complete for Grauman and real estate developer Charles E. Toberman. It is currently being renovated by Netflix in cooperation with the American Cinematheque.

“Robin Hood,” directed by Allan Dwan, was one of the most expensive movies of the silent era, costing just under 1 million. The castle was the biggest set ever made for a silent movie. Some scenes feature over 1,200 extras.

The Chinese American actress Anna May Wong is going to be honored by being featured on a new quarter going into circulation on October 24, the U.S. Mint announced.

Wong’s career began in the silent film era, and she was synonymous with the “flapper” look for many years but also continued working in film and TV until her death in 1961 from a heart attack.

Wong will be featured on the “tails” side of the quarter, with the reverse being a classic George Washington carving first designed in the early 20th century.

The new design was made by Emily Danstra and carved by John P. McGraw.

“She is remembered as an international film star, fashion icon, television trailblazer, and a champion for greater representation of Asian Americans in film,” the statement from the U.S. Mint also said.

Wong’s first film acting role was in 1922 as an extra in The Red Lantern.

Anna May Wong was the first Chinese American movie star in Hollywood. Born Wong Liu Tsong on January 3, 1905, her career spanned both silent and sound film, appearing in more than 60 movies, including television, stage, and radio.

During the silent film era, she acted in The Toll of the Sea in 1922 at the age of just 14 and in The Thief of Bagdad in 1924 which thrust her into international stardom.

She was cast in stereotypical supporting roles in her early career and left Hollywood to further her talents in Europe starring in notable roles in Piccadilly; Chin Chin Chow; Daughter of the Dragon and Josef von Sternberg’s Shanghai Express in 1932 with Marlene Dietrich.

She would go on to portray Chinese Americans in a positive light in roles in the late 1930s and after WW2 would return to the spotlight in the 1950s with several television appearances. She died on February 3, 1961, leaving...

Silent era movie icon Anna May Wong is now a different kind of star. Starting Monday, her image will appear on new quarters, making her the first Asian American to appear on US currency.

Wong’s image on the currency is the fifth new face in the American Women Quarters Program, which spotlilghts pioneering women. The other four quarters put into production this year feature poet and activist Maya Angelou; Sally Ride, the first American woman in space; Wilma Mankiller, a Cherokee Nation leader; and suffragist Nina Otero-Warren. The latter two and Wong were selected with input from the public.

Wong, who died in 1961, had a four-decade career in film, theater, and radio. Her co-stars included Marlene Dietrich, Joan Crawford, and Laurence Olivier, while she made stage appearances in London and New York.

Born in Los Angeles, Wong started acting at 14, winning her first film lead role three years later...

As part of the American Women Quarters Program from the United States Mint, classic Hollywood star Anna May Wong is making history as the first Asian American woman ever featured on U.S. currency. The program launched earlier this year and will continue through 2025, releasing up to five new designs on the back of quarters. Wong joins Maya Angelou, Dr. Sally Ride, Wilma Mankiller, and Nina Otero-Warren as part of the first wave of releases. Production on the Anna May Wong quarters began on October 18, 2022, and will feature an image of Wong resting her face in her hands surrounded by the bulbs of a marquee sign. Wong is considered by many to be the first Chinese American movie star, starting her career in entertainment when she was only 14 years old as an extra in the film "The Red Lantern."

Born Wong Liu Tsong, her family gave her the English name "Anna May.

The actor will soon be featuring on quarter-dollar coins, an honour that reflects a vital yet difficult career in Hollywood’s golden age

The change in your pocket is about to become a little more glamorous. The international film star and fashion icon Anna May Wong has been named the first Asian American to be featured on US currency. As part of the Women Quarters program, which launched by honouring Maya Angelou earlier this year, Wong’s face will appear on quarters in circulation from Monday.

Wong’s career stretched from silent cinema through the talkies and the golden age of Hollywood, to TV. Her first lead role was in the 1922 Technicolor film The Toll of the Sea, and she went on to appear alongside Douglas Fairbanks and Marlene Dietrich. On the small screen she starred in the first US TV show to have an Asian American lead. She was...

Early movie star Anna May Wong will be the first Asian American to be featured on U.S. currency, nearly 100 years after her first film role.

The U.S. Mint will begin shipping quarter coins featuring her likeness Monday.

Dubbed the first Asian American Hollywood star, Wong overcame intense racism and discrimination to sustain her 40-year career in silent and sound film, theater and radio.

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Born in Los Angeles, Wong started acting at 14 and took a lead role in “The Toll of the Sea” in 1922. She struggled to land mainstream roles and break from negative typecasting, as early 20th century Hollywood was a time of “yellowface,” when white people wore makeup and clothes to “appear” Asian, so industry heads could avoid casting Asian actors. There were also anti-miscegenation laws, which criminalized interracial relationships, limiting the sorts...

The actor Anna May Wong will be the first Asian American featured on the US quarter.

Wong, born in Los Angeles, was considered the first Chinese-American film star. She is one of five women chosen to appear on the quarter as part of the the US Mint’s American Women Quarters Program, which honours American women who have made a contribution to a multitude of different fields.

Wong’s quarter, which will be released next Tuesday, is historic. Her coin, which like all others will feature George Washington on one side, will show her resting her head on her hand. It will also display her full name.

The actor was born Wong Liu Tsong in 1905, where her parents gave her the English name Anna May. She achieved widespread recognition during a barrier-breaking career that that saw her feature in numerous films and star in her own television show called The...

As part of a new initiative, the United States Mint will honor Anna May Wong, star of movies such as “Shanghai Express,” by making her the first Asian American featured on U.S. currency, placing her likeness on quarters with production starting Oct. 18.

The printed quarter shows an image of Wong resting on her hand, serving as a tribute to what most consider the first Chinese American movie star. She was born in 1905 in Chinatown, Los Angeles and died in 1961 of a heart attack in her Santa Monica home.

Wong started her career in the entertainment business at 14 years old, talking her way into her first movie role. In the following years, she rose to stardom as among the first Asian American stars in Hollywood and appeared in more than 50 films. Though the quarter seeks to pay tribute to her career in the film industry, it also acknowledges the difficulties...

In her return to her Spotify podcast, Archetypes, after the death of Queen Elizabeth II, Meghan Markle takes on one of the most prominent stereotypes of Asian women on screen: The Dragon Lady.

“Movies like Austin Powers and Kill Bill — they presented these caricatures of women of Asian descent as oversexualized or aggressive,” Markle said, referencing the hyper-sexualized characters Fook Yu and Fook Mi in Austin Powers in Goldmember and Lucy Liu’s hyper-violent O-Ren Ishii in Kill Bill. She noted that such characterizations go at least as far back as 1924, when Anna May Wong played a scheming Mongol slave opposite Douglas Fairbanks in The Thief of Bagdad.

Markle maintainted that, “This toxic stereotyping of women of Asian descent…this doesn’t just end once the credits roll.”

As a case in point, she introduces sociologist Nancy Wang Yuen who wrote about the Dragon Lady stereotype in her book Reel Inequality: Hollywood Actors and Racism.

Meghan Markle is back in her “Archetypes” hosting chair after the podcast went on hiatus following the death of Queen Elizabeth.

The new episode, which Spotify dropped on Tuesday, features actress, activist and comedian Margaret Cho and journalist Lisa Ling, who break down the archetype of the “Dragon Lady”, a prejudiced stigma many Asian women are forced to navigate — something that Markle admitted took her awhile to realize while growing up.

“Movies like ‘Austin Powers’ and ‘Kill Bill’ — they presented these caricatures of women of Asian descent as over-sexualized or aggressive,” Markle said, noting that both films are just two examples of “many” problematic portrayals.

“This toxic stereotyping of women of Asian descent… this doesn’t just end once the credits roll,” Markle added before welcoming Cho, who explained that the archetype stems from the “fantasy of Orientalism.”

Read More: Prince Harry And Meghan Markle Reportedly Looking To Edit And...

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In advance of the second half of Stranger Things season four premiering tomorrow, The Hollywood Reporter has learned that Netflix and 21 Laps are staying in the supernatural business.

As part of the production company’s overall deal with the streamer, the two have optioned The Moon Represents My Heart, the forthcoming debut novel from Pim Wangtechawat, in a competitive situation and will develop the project as a limited series. Grandview sold the option rights on behalf of Mushens Entertainment’s Liza DeBlock.

Executive producing alongside 21 Laps’ Shawn Levy and Josh Barry is Gemma Chan, who also is attached to star in the story about a British-Chinese family with the secret ability to time travel. After the parents vanish, their son and daughter search for them across time while coming of age as adults.

21 Laps senior vp Emily Morris, who brought the book to Netflix,...

Ella Purnell, star of the Oscar Fan Favorite flick Army of the Dead, has been cast in Prime Video’s upcoming Fallout series.

“Showing quite the penchant for survivalist roles, Ella Purnell (star of Showtime’s plane-crash drama Yellowjackets) has signed onto another with Amazon’s Fallout adaptation. And she’s no stranger to the genre: she was also in Zack Snyder’s Oscar’s fan-favorite zombie flick Army of the Dead and voices one of the kids on Star Trek: Prodigy.”

Read more at Gizmodo

Eternals star Gemma Chan is set to play Hollywood legend Anna May Wong in an upcoming biopic.

“Gemma Chan has signed on to play Hollywood legend Anna May Wong in a new biopic. Wong was Hollywood’s first Chinese American film star who broke barriers while still facing discrimination and racism. The Eternals star, who is producing the film as well, said ‘Anna May Wong was a trailblazer,...

The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures revealed the first round of exhibits for its 2022-2023 season on Monday, including a tribute to Francis Ford Coppola’s 1972 film “The Godfather” and its first permanent exhibit, “Hollywoodland,” dedicated to the founders of Hollywood.

Other newly announced additions to the museum include “Regeneration: Black Cinema 1898-1971,” a tribute to French filmmaker Agnès Varda and spaces dedicated to “Boyz n the Hood” (1991), “Casablanca” (1942) and the collaborations of production designer Sarah Greenwood and set decorator Katie Spencer.

“The history of film is endlessly rich and varied, which is why we envisioned the exhibitions of the Academy Museum as a continually evolving set of installations and virtual content,” said Bill Kramer, director and president of the Academy Museum. “We are delighted to present a new round of stories, explorations, moving images, props, and other objects that explore the many facets of moviemaking – from the founding of Hollywood to present day.

With Margot Robbie attached to a new "Pirates of the Caribbean" feature, there is now talk of updating Milton Caniff's "Terry and the Pirates" comic strip character 'Dragon Lady', based on 'Lai Choi San', a real woman pirate from the South China Sea :

Inspired by movie characters played by actress Anna May Wong, the 'Dragon Lady' term has since been applied to describe 'powerful women'.

Caniff's 'Dragon Lady', aka 'Madam Deal', debuted in in the first "Terry and The Pirates" Sunday strip story (1934), as a beautiful seductress, who fell in love with Terry's older sidekick 'Pat Ryan'.

In the years leading up to World War II, she became a force for good.

During the 1940's, actress Agnes Moorehead played the character on radio.

In the "Terry and the Pirates" film serial (1940), Dragon Lady was played by Sheila Darcy.

Click the images to enlarge... ...

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By Darren Allison

The Film Detective has released one of their most ambitious film sets to date with The Sherlock Holmes Vault Collection. The set features three of the five films made between the years 1931-1937 starring Arthur Wontner as world’s greatest super sleuth. Having been told he resembled Doyle's creation for years, Wontner was finally cast in the role for The Sleeping Cardinal (released under its American title as Sherlock Holmes' Fatal Hour in this box set) in 1931. Produced by Twickenham Studios, Fatal Hour was loosely based on "The Adventure of the Empty House" (a short story written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle) with the noticeable change that in the film version, Ronald Adair is a card cheat. Wontner was joined by Ian Fleming as Doctor Watson and Philip Hewland as Inspector Lestrade. Sherlock Holmes' Fatal Hour played rather well and was considered a success.

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSAbove: Pedro Almodóvar's Parallel Mothers (2021). The lineup for the 2021 Venice Film Festival has been unveiled, featuring the latest from Pedro Almodóvar, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Pablo Larraín, Paul Schrader, Ridley Scott, and more. Find the full lineup here. The New York Film Festival has announced that this year's Centerpiece Selection will be Jane Campion's Power of the Dog, an adaptation of Thomas Savage's novel starring Jesse Plemons, Kirsten Dunst, and Benedict Cumberbatch. New additions to the TIFF roster include Joachim Trier's The Worst Person In The World, Masaaki Yuasa's Inu-Oh, and Ho Wi Ding's Terrorizers. A24 has won the rights to Octavia E. Butler's science-fiction novel Parable of the Sower, and Time director Garrett Bradley is set to direct. The novel follows a girl with a unique gift who rises to...

The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures today announced its schedule of inaugural in-person screenings and public programs, which will begin on September 30 when the museum opens. The Academy Museum is the largest institution in the United States devoted to exploring the art and science of movies and moviemaking.

During the first three months of the Academy Museum’s opening, the museum will offer the public a robust, dynamic, and diverse slate of over 115 film screenings, discussions, and programs for film lovers of all ages, beginning with two special presentations of The Wizard of Oz (USA, 1939) featuring live musical accompaniment by the American Youth Symphony conducted by Academy Award®-nominated composer David Newman.

Other highlights of the museum’s first few months of in-person programming include the launch of ongoing series:

Stories of Cinema: featuring screenings of films highlighted in the museum’s core exhibition, including Real Women Have Curves (USA,...

Retrospectives and focuses planned for Jane Campion, Satyajit Ray, Hayao Miyazaki.

Opening day screenings of The Wizard of Oz, and ongoing series highlighting among other subjects Oscar films directed by women and live conversations are among the roster of more than 115 films and events set for the first three months of Academy Museum of Motion Pictures.

Two performances of the classic 1939 fantasy adaptation The Wizard of Oz starring Judy Garland will open the museum on September 30, with live musical accompaniment by American Youth Symphony conducted by David Newman.

The inaugural programming schedule of series include ’Stories Of Cinema’ selections from...

Finally, after years of delays, some caused by the pandemic, some not, the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures on La Brea and Wilshire has revealed its launch schedule of live screenings and public programs to begin on opening day, September 30. The first three months brings over 115 film programs, panels, and events, beginning with two screenings of MGM musical “The Wizard of Oz” (1939) with live musical accompaniment by the American Youth Symphony conducted by Oscar perennial David Newman.

Among the continuing virtual programs leading up to the museum’s opening are a conversation with Oscar-winner Spike Lee and writer-director-producer Shaka King, and a 20th anniversary screening of “Y tu mamá también”. Clearly, the Academy Museum is launching at a time when inclusion and diversity are front and center for curators and programmers. “As with all of our exhibitions and initiatives,” stated Bill Kramer, Director and President of the Academy Museum, “we...

Finally, after years of delays, some caused by the pandemic, some not, the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures on La Brea and Wilshire has revealed its launch schedule of live screenings and public programs to begin on opening day, September 30. The first three months brings over 115 film programs, panels, and events, beginning with two screenings of MGM musical “The Wizard of Oz” (1939) with live musical accompaniment by the American Youth Symphony conducted by Oscar perennial David Newman.

Among the continuing virtual programs leading up to the museum’s opening are a conversation with Oscar-winner Spike Lee and writer-director-producer Shaka King, and a 20th anniversary screening of “Y tu mamá también”. Clearly, the Academy Museum is launching at a time when inclusion and diversity are front and center for curators and programmers. “As with all of our exhibitions and initiatives,” stated Bill Kramer, Director and President of the Academy Museum, “we...

Appropriately, considering one of the key attractions of the new Academy Museum of Motion Pictures are Dorothy’s infamous ruby-red shoes, the museum’s official opening screening September 30 will be The Wizard of Oz accompanied by the American Youth Symphony conducted by David Newman.

But there is much more both before and after the museum’s public unveiling at the end of September. The Academy has unveiled a slew of discussions, programs and 115 screenings over the course of the first three months after the doors open on the Los Angeles venue. Other movie-oriented events will include Oscar Sundays featuring Oscar-honored films, and “Oscar Frights” with movies like Get Out and Psycho. Spike Lee and Denzel Washington will be on hand for a 70Mm screening of Malcolm X. A program of movies featuring women composers is also on tap, and are retrospectives of filmmakers Jane Campion and Satyajit Ray among many others.

Update (5/7): The Podcast Academy has tapped Cameron Esposito to host their inaugural ceremony, held on May 16th. Rainn Wilson, Hank Azaria, Este Haim, Kenan Thompson, Darren Criss, Neil Strauss, Whitney Cummings, Ashley Flowers, DeRay Mckesson, and others will present awards.

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The Podcast Academy has announced the nominees for their inaugural Awards for Excellence in Audio, a.k.a. the Ambies.

Matthew McConaughey, Tessa Thompson, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Malcolm Gladwell and Willem Dafoe, and Charlotte Gainsbourg are among the 164 nominees in 23 categories that include Best Performer in Audio Fiction, Best Podcast Host,...

Exclusive: From Quantico to Wu Assassins, actress Li Jun Li has played a variety of roles — but she’s just getting started. Li has joined the forthcoming season of the Sky Italia series Devils in a series regular role. This is in addition to her role in Damien Chazelle’s Babylon at Paramount where she will star alongside Margot Robbie, Brad Pitt and Jovan Adepo.

Sky declined to comment about the casting or the new season, but Li will join Alessandro Borghi and Patrick Dempsey. Devils is inspired by the financial crisis that swept global markets in 2008 and is best on the best-selling novel by Italian trader Guido Maria Brera. The first season was set in the London office of a major U.S. bank, where the ruthless Head of Trading, Massimo Ruggero (Borghi) from Italy, has been welcomed and introduced to the world of finance by Dominic Morgan (Dempsey), the bank’s CEO.

In trying to explain why 21-year-old Robert Aaron Long would walk into three Atlanta-area massage spas on March 16 and shoot eight people, including six women of Asian descent, law enforcement officials cited the shooter’s self-reported motivation as “sexual addiction,” not one of racial hatred. But amid a yearlong backdrop of anti-Asian sentiment fueled by the Covid-19 pandemic, on top of decades of fetishism of Asian women, skepticism quickly mounted in the Asian American community.

For Renee Tajima-Peña, one of the Academy Award-nominated filmmakers behind the documentary “Who Killed Vincent Chin?” — about the 1982 killing of a Chinese American by two white autoworkers who called Chin racial slurs and beat him to death with a baseball bat— the violence seemed inescapably entangled in the cultural objectification of Asians.

“I think when Asian Americans looked at this murder in Atlanta, [they see] he targeted three Asian American businesses, he killed six Asian American women,...

The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures has unveiled a robust series of programs in the run-up to its planned opening on Sept. 30, highlighting film artists including Spike Lee, Hayao Miyazaki and Satyajit Ray.

The museum held a virtual tour for media Wednesday to discuss the programming and museum’s progress, hosted by Academy governor Laura Dern.

Throughout the presentation, Academy spokespersons emphasized the inclusion of a diverse array of filmmakers and artisans from the U.S. and around the world. The museum will not ignore the industry’s blindspots, the presentation emphasized.

“We will not shy away from problematic moments,” said Dern, “The exhibition also showcases less-proud moments in the history of the cinema.”

Bill Kramer, director and president of the Academy Museum, explained how those moments will be integrated throughout the museum’s exhibits and programming. “We didn’t want these conversations to sit in a separate gallery. We...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSThe death of the great John le Carré reminds us of the power of secrets—the oldest of narrative devices. Thankfully, there’s a brand new festival launching, focused entirely on secrets. Spyflix will showcase stories from classic espionage and hacking adventures to thrillers, investigative documentaries, true crime, and detective stories. Spyflix is accepting submissions (for awards with cash prizes) now through February 28th, 2021, and will start screenings April 18th, 2021.The Sundance Film Festival has announced its 2021 lineup, which includes the latest Sion Sono, Theo Anthony, Christopher Makoto Yogi, and Ana Vatz.The country submissions for International Feature Film at the 2021 Academy Awards—currently scheduled for April next year—are keeping us on our toes. Beginning, which will be coming to Mubi next year, is Georgia's submission, and Jallikattu, a bold genre favorite from our Toronto coverage last year,...

An upcoming documentary following the early career of an aspiring Asian American actor unveiled a new trailer that features a conversation with Sandra Oh among other trailblazing actors of East Asian descent.

“Searching for Anna May Wong,” produced by Quentin Lee, traces the journey of actor Natasha Tina Liu, who raises the question, “If trailblazing actor Anna May Wong were still alive today, would she still face the same racism and challenges she experienced during her time in Hollywood?”

The half-hour film also features interviews with James Hong, Tzi Ma, Amy Hill, the late Elizabeth Sung, Jake Choi, Ludi Lin and Anna May Wong’s grandniece, Anna Wong. The interviewees remember the late Chinese American actor’s career and speak out on the challenges Asian American creatives still experience in the industry.

“Historic Asian American figures like Anna May Wong really came up despite all the odds,” Lin said. “They had to be rebels,...

With Margot Robbie attached to a new "Pirates of the Caribbean" feature, there is now talk of updating Milton Caniff's "Terry and the Pirates" comic strip character 'Dragon Lady', based on 'Lai Choi San', a real woman pirate from the South China Sea :

Inspired by movie characters played by actress Anna May Wong, the 'Dragon Lady' term has since been applied to describe 'powerful women'.

Caniff's 'Dragon Lady', aka 'Madam Deal', debuted in in the first "Terry and The Pirates" Sunday strip story (1934), as a beautiful seductress, who fell in love with Terry's older sidekick 'Pat Ryan'.

In the years leading up to World War II, she became a force for good.

During the 1940's, actress Agnes Moorehead played the character on radio.

In the "Terry and the Pirates" film serial (1940), Dragon Lady was played by Sheila Darcy.

Click the images to enlarge... ...

For Emmy-nominated production designer Matthew Flood Ferguson, working on Ryan Murphy’s “Hollywood” limited series was a labor of love. It’s a post-World War II ode to Tinseltown about aspiring actors and filmmakers with more at stake culturally than artistic success, which required authentic depictions of iconic locations along with fictional composites.

“For me it was a dream job because I had grown up loving the film industry and had been fascinated by it,” Ferguson said, who collaborated with art director Mark Robert Taylor and set decorator Melissa Licht. “So, with some of these locations, like the El Cabrillo [apartment complex], built by Cecil B. DeMille for out-of-state actors who came to work for him, I couldn’t help but feel extra special as we were making the show.”

Armed with volumes of historical photos as reference, Ferguson recreated such landmarks as Schwabs Pharmacy, the Beverly Hills Hotel bungalow, a Hancock Park mansion,...