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The star of La Dolce Vita and A Man and a Woman, who has died aged 92, had a unique screen presence that was at once alluring and forbidding

The superbly aquiline beauty and patrician style of Anouk Aimée made her a 60s movie icon in France, Italy and everywhere else with a presence at once alluring and forbidding. She had something of the young Joan Crawford, or Marlene Dietrich, or her contemporary, the French model and actress Capucine. Aimée radiated an enigmatic sexual aura flavoured with melancholy, sophistication and worldly reserve. Hers was not a face that could simper or pout: it was the entranced men around her who were more likely to be doing that. Hirokazu Kore-eda once wrote an amusing line that all the great French movie actresses have surnames that begin with the same letter as their first names: Danielle Darrieux, Simone Signoret, Brigitte Bardot … and of...

Anouk Aimée, the French actress known for her elegance and cool sophistication in films including Claude Lelouch’s “A Man and a Woman” (1966), Fellini classics “La Dolce Vita” (1960) and “8½” (1963) and Jacques Demy’s “Lola” (1961), died on Tuesday. She was 92.

Aimée’s daughter, Manuela Papatakis, confirmed her death in a post on Instagram.

“With my daughter, Galaad, and my granddaughter, Mila, we have great sadness to announce the departure of my mother Anouk Aimée,” she wrote. “I was right by her side when she passed away this morning at her home in Paris.”

Fairly described in one encyclopedia as an “an aloof but alluring presence on the screen,” Aimée was frequently described as ““regal,” “intelligent” and “enigmatic,” giving the actress, according to journalist Sandy Flitterman-Lewis, “an aura of disturbing and mysterious beauty that has earned her the status of one of the hundred sexiest stars in film history (in a...

At the Cannes world premiere for “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” Disney CEO Bob Iger watched the film for the fifth time. Before the Lumière theater screening, 80-year-old Harrison Ford received an honorary Palme d’Or from the festival and received the loudest applause of the night. However, in his introduction to the tribute before the movie, Cannes artistic director Fremaux singled out Iger for applause of his own. “The CEO, or whatever,” Fremaux said, stopping himself. “The legendary Bob Iger!”

Fremaux’s awkward wording may reflect Iger’s unusual path to this moment. One year ago, when the big American studio chief at Cannes was newly minted WarnerMedia Discovery head David Zaslav in attendance for “Elvis,” Iger was a retired Disney executive whose next move was unclear.

In November, he made a surprise return to the role with the sudden outing of successor Bob Chapek, whose disinterest...

Agnes Varda is most celebrated as the lovable storyteller of “Faces/Places” and the New Wave auteur behind “Cleo from 5 to 7,” but in 1968, her career took a detour. While husband Jacques Demy was shooting “Model Shop” in Los Angeles, Varda hung around the Bay Area to make two half-hour documentaries about the Black Panther Party and its efforts to free Huey P. Newton from prison.

“Huey” provides a dramatic collection of footage surrounding the campaign to free Newton after he was jailed for allegedly shooting police office James Frey. However, “Black Panthers” digs deeper into the circumstances surrounding the rallies to explore the nature of the Black Panther Party itself.

The result is a sobering account of the group’s activist intent, delivered almost entirely in its own words. Beyond the striking contrast to the vilification of the Black Panther Party in American media at the time, Varda’s absorbing...

Fred Willard, best known for his roles in Best in Show, This Is Spinal Tap, Everybody Loves Raymond, and Modern Family, died of natural causes at the age of 86, according to Variety.

“It is with a heavy heart that I share the news my father passed away very peacefully last night at the fantastic age of 86 years old,” his daughter Hope Willard tweeted on Saturday. “He kept moving, working and making us happy until the very end. We loved him so very much! We will miss him forever.”

Willard first came into national consciousness as the sidekick to Martin Mull’s host on the nightly Fernwood 2 Night. He is well known as part of the revolving troupe of actors – including Michael McKean, Harry Shearer, Catherine O’Hara and Eugene Levy – assembled by director Christopher Guest.

“How lucky that we all got to enjoy Fred Willard’s gifts,” Guest’s wife,...

Fred Willard, the iconic comic actor best known for his turns in the cult mockumentaries of Christopher Guest, has died at the age of 86. The news was first shared by Jamie Lee Curtis, wife of Christopher Guest, on Twitter. “How lucky that we all got to enjoy Fred Willard’s gifts. He is with his missed Mary now,” Curtis wrote, referring to his wife who passed in 2018. “Thanks for the deep belly laughs Mr. Willard.”

ABC7 entertainment news reporter George Pennacchio shared on his own Twitter account a statement from Willard’s daughter Hope Mulbarger, who said, “He kept moving, working and making us happy until the very end. We loved him so very much. We will miss him forever.” Mulbarger’s mother and Willard’s wife of 40 years, Mary, died in 2018. No other details as to the cause of death are currently available.

Willard’s unique charm is perhaps...

Beyond the theater marquees, Hollywood landmarks and throwback fashion, Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood” is loaded with “an absurd amount of cars” all meant to capture the period feel of Los Angeles in 1969, according to the film’s picture car coordinator Steven Butcher.

Butcher said he located over 2,000 classic, vintage cars for the production, filling up city streets and parking lots in order to get the look just right. Butcher was 11-years-old growing up in La in 1969 and has been working on cars on films for 30 years, and he says the average film that uses somewhere between 300-500 films doesn’t come close to the challenge he faced on Tarantino’s latest, but Butcher was still up to the challenge.

“I remember La vividly. I grew up right outside of Culver City. I knew what the streets were like. I’m passionate about cars,” Butcher said.

To fully appreciate some of the allusions and inspirations that propel Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” you should consider doing some homework — or streaming some other movies.

Of course, you don’t have to be familiar with any of the following titles to enjoy Tarantino’s 1969-set fact-and-fiction mashup about Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio), an actor flailing in professional limbo after the cancellation of his TV Western “Bounty Law”; Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt), Dalton’s long-time stunt double and close confidant; and Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie), a rising star and Dalton’s next-door neighbor. But you can enhance your enjoyment by having some knowledge of the stories behind the story.

“The Bandit” (2016)

Jesse Moss’ entertaining and insightful documentary is putatively about the making of 1977’s “Smokey and the Bandit,” but more interestingly concerned with the personal and professional bonds between superstar Burt Reynolds and stuntman-turned-filmmaker Hal Needham.

Quentin Tarantino is curating a film series inspired by his new movie “Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood” that will air later this month on the Sony Movie Channel, Sony Pictures Television announced Monday.

The film series is titled “Swinging Sixties, a Movie Marathon,” which will include nine films from the Columbia Pictures library that were released from 1958 to 1970. All of the movies were handpicked by Tarantino, and each film served as a specific influence on his latest movie, which follows an actor during a changing Hollywood in 1969.

Films such as “Easy Rider,” “Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice,” “Hammerhead” and more will begin airing on the Sony Movie Channel starting July 21, with two films airing each night until July 25.

Also Read: Critics Love 'Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood' - but Saying Why Might Spoil Everything

Tarantino will also hold conversations with film writer and historian Kim...

Exclusive: Quentin Tarantino has teamed with Sony Pictures Television on Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and Quentin Tarantino Present the Swinging Sixties. It’s a series of 10 films personally curated by Tarantino, including Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice and Easy Rider — all of which served as a specific influence in the creation of his upcoming 1969-set film.

The 10 films from the Columbia Pictures library, dating from 1958-70, will air over consecutive nights in more than 80 territories worldwide beginning about one week before Sony’s July 26 theatrical release of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood in each market. Interstitial segments featuring specially created conversations between Tarantino and film writer and historian Kim Morgan will accompany each film, along with a first look at scenes from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

The film series will premiere in the U.S. on Sony Movie Channel from July 21-25, with two films airing...

Tony Sokol May 28, 2019

Andrew Slater's documentary Echo in the Canyon twiddles the knobs in the Laurel Canyon studios that gave birth to the California Sound.

Before forming the Byrds, Roger McGuinn backed up Bobby Darin, the "Dream Lover" who let "Mack the Knife" swing. The Bronx-born rock and roll legend was adding folk and protest music into his live shows and saw McGuinn playing guitar and making faces behind the Chad Mitchell Trio when they were opening for Lenny Bruce at the Crescendo night club on Hollywood's Sunset Strip. By the time The Beatles hit, McGuinn played, sang harmonies and trained as a professional songwriter under the rock and roll innovator. After the British Invasion, McGuinn consolidated the folk rock sound, first by playing Beatles' songs on solo guitar in folk clubs and then by plugging a 12-string guitar onto a Bob Dylan song. Andrew Slater's loving documentary...

There are probably four or five documentaries’ worth of material to pull from the Laurel Canyon music scene and the cultural movements of late 1960s Los Angeles, but even if “Echo in the Canyon” feels slightly anemic at 85 minutes or so, there are worse ways to revisit this epochal artistic moment than via Andrew Slater’s affectionate, intimate documentary.

Though Wallflowers frontman Jakob Dylan is not an especially warm or generous interviewer, anecdotes and observations from musical luminaries past and present help paint a vivid portrait of the impact of that time and place upon the sound of popular music and the industry as a whole.

Combining reminiscences from the likes of Stephen Stills, Brian Wilson, Eric Clapton and the late Tom Petty with insights, opinions, and eventually, performances from contemporary figures such as Cat Power, Beck and Fiona Apple, “Echo in the Canyon” offers a halcyon survey of the...

Arguably the most sturdily crafted and entertainingly anecdotal documentary of its kind since Denny Tedesco’s “The Wrecking Crew,” a similarly nostalgic celebration of artists who generously contributed to the soundtrack of the baby boomer generation, Andrew Slater’s “Echo in the Canyon” offers a richly evocative and star-studded overview of the 1960s Laurel Canyon music scene.

Audiences old enough to have many of the epochal LPs referenced here stashed in their closets will know they’re in good hands right from the start, as the iconic first chords of the Byrds’ “Turn! Turn! Turn!” resound during the darkness of the film’s opening moments. But wait, there’s more: The songs of Buffalo Springfield, the Mamas and the Papas, the Beach Boys and other L.A.-based hitmakers of the era are also featured in a doc that shows how music that defined the California Sound of a half-century...

Many filmmakers have taught me how to look at the world, but Agnès Varda is teaching me how to age. She died this week at the age of 90, leaving behind an example we should all strive to meet as we get on in years.

One of the legendary filmmakers who made up the Nouvelle Vague, France’s influential cinematic New Wave of the 1960s, she continually embraced life and a changing world, even after losing her beloved husband and fellow New Wave icon, Jacques Demy, in 1990. In the years when one might have expected her to grow more home-bound, perhaps venturing forth to publish a memoir or pick up the occasional award, she instead continued to plunge into the ever-changing technology of cinema.

As a filmmaker, she constantly experimented with digital cameras and editing, never afraid to step into the arena of the young and always open to completely upending...

Varda passed away following a short battle with cancer.

Agnès Varda, the Belgian-born director whose work played a pivotal part in the French New Wave, has died aged 90.

She died shortly after being diagnosed with cancer, according to a statement from her family given to French news agency Afp. It said: ”The director and artist Agnès Varda died at home on Thursday night due to cancer, with her family and loved ones surrounding her.”

Her death comes just weeks after Varda put in a fitting final appearance at the Berlin International Film Festival with the documentary Varda By Agnès.

An extended filmed masterclass of sorts,...

A loving tribute through the eyes of Jakob Dylan and friends, Echo in the Canyon offers a behind the scenes approach to recapturing the magic of the mid-60s era Laurel Canyon music scene, which provided a friendly incubator to bands like The Byrds, The Mamas & the Papas, Buffalo Springfield, and The Beach Boys. Directed by Andrew Slater, the former president of Capital Records, the film crisscrosses between a casual conversation in Dylan’s living room–between himself, Beck, Regina Spektor, and Cat Power–and Dylan’s interviews with stars of the era like Brian Wilson, Graham Nash, Ringo Starr, and Eric Clapton. In between the gossip and insight we see Dylan and popular musicians of the late 90s like Fiona Apple and Norah Jones working on–and later performing before a live crowd–these Laurel Canyon tunes.

The resulting documentary is quite similar to Dave Grohl’s 2013 film Sound City,...

Coming in the shadow of the big Oscar season-opening fall festival trifecta of Venice, Telluride and Toronto, September squeezes in a new contender on the circuit as the Los Angeles Film Festival takes a big roll of the dice and moves from its longtime June date to the heart of the awards season. It kicked off last night with the sensational 1960s music documentary, Echo in the Canyon and runs through September 28, when it will close with the world premiere of David Raymond’s Nomis starring Henry Cavill, Ben Kingsley and Nathan Fillion.

Thursday night’s opener (there will be an encore showing tonight at the Annenberg in Beverly Hills), which was executive produced by its star and interviewer Jakob Dylan, focuses on the Laurel Canyon sound developed in the mid-’60s and features interviews with the likes of Brian Wilson, Stephen Stills, David Crosby, Graham Nash, Roger McGuinn, Beck,...

Columbia sets Jacques Demy loose on the streets of Los Angeles in the pivotal year of 1968. Although it puts a coda on the French director’s bundle of romantic films, with his special philosophical approach to Love, this starring picture for Anouk Aimée and Gary Lockwood doesn’t quite catch fire in the same way. If our City of the Angels indeed defeated Demy’s unstoppable knack for romantic delirium, we owe him an apology.

Model Shop

Blu-ray

Twilight Time

1969 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 97 min. / Street Date April 17, 2018 / Available from the Twilight Time Movies Store / 29.95

Starring: Anouk Aimée, Gary Lockwood, Alexandra Hay, Carol Cole, Tom Holland, Severn Darden, Neil Elliot, Mille, Duke Hobbie, Anne Randall, Craig Littler, Hilarie Thompson, Jeanne Sorel, Fred Willard.

Cinematography: Michel Hugo

Film Editor: Walter Thompson

Shirley Ulmer: Script Supervisor!

Original Music: Spirit

Written by Jacques Demy, Carole Eastman

Produced and Directed by Jacques Demy

The...

A forgotten oddity from the early 1970s is Jacques Demy’s English language mounting of The Pied Piper, a rather bleak but mostly unequivocal version of the famed Grimm Bros. fairy tale about a titular piper who infamously lured the children of Hamelin to their assumed deaths after being rebuffed by the townsfolk when he similarly rid the town of plague carrying rats.

Set in the 1300s of northern Germany, this UK production blends bits of Robert Browning’s famed poem of the legend into the film, but the end result is unusually straightforward and unfussy, considering Demy’s predilection for inventive, colorful musicals, such as the classic confections The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and The Young Girls of Rochefort. The stunt casting of Donovan as the piper generates a certain amount of interest, although he’s whittled down to a supporting character amongst a cast of master character actors like Donald Pleasence, John Hurt, Peter Vaughan, and child star Jack Wild.

Notably, The Pied Piper is one of the few Demy films not to be built around a strong, beautiful female lead, which may also explain why there’s no center point in the film. Cathryn Harrison (daughter of Rex, who starred in Louis Malle’s Black Moon) and a gone-to-seed Diana Dors (though not featured as memorably as her swarthy turn in Skolimowski’s Deep End) are the tiny flecks of feminine representation. It was also not Demy’s first English language production, as he’d made a sequel to his New Wave entry Lola (1961) with 1969’s Los Angeles set Model Shop. So what compelled him to make this departure, which premiered in-between two of his most whimsical Catherine Deneuve titles (Donkey Skin; A Slightly Pregnant Man) is perhaps the film’s greatest mystery.

Cultural familiarity with the material tends to work against our expectations. At best, Donovan is a mere supporting accent, popping up to supply mellow, anachronistic music at odd moments before the dramatic catalyst involving his ability to conjure rats with music arrives. Prior to his demeaning, Demy’s focus is mostly on the omnipotent and aggressive power of the corrupting church (Peter Vaughan’s Bishop) and Donald Pleasence’s greedy town leader, whose son (a sniveling John Hurt) is more intent on starting wars and making counterfeit gold to pay his gullible minions than stopping the encroaching plague. Taking the brunt of their violence is the Jewish alchemist, Melius (Michael Hordern), who is wise enough to know the rats have something to do with the spread of the disease. Demy uses his tragic demise to juxtapose the piper’s designs on the children.

While Hurt and Pleasance are entertaining as a toxic father and son, Demy seems estranged from anyone resembling a protagonist. Donovan is instantly forgettable, and the H.R. Pufnstuf and Oliver! child star Jack Wild gets upstaged by a wild mop of hair and a pronounced limp (which explains why he isn’t entranced along with the other children), and the film plays as if Donovan’s role might have been edited down in post. The script was the debut of screenwriters Andrew Birkin (Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, 2006) and Mark Peploe (The Passenger, 1975; The Last Emperor, 1987) who would both go on to write a number of offbeat auteur entries.

Disc Review:

Kino Lorber releases this obscurity as part of their Studio Classics label, presented in 1.66:1. Picture and sound quality are serviceable, however, the title would have greatly benefitted from a restoration. Dp Peter Suschitzky’s frames rightly capture the period, including some awesomely creepy frescoes housing Pleasence and son, but the color sometimes seems faded or stripped from some sequences. Kino doesn’t include any extra features.

Final Thoughts:

More of a curio piece for fans of Demy, The Pied Piper mostly seems a missed opportunity of the creepy legend.

Film Review: ★★½/☆☆☆☆☆

Disc Review: ★★★/☆☆☆☆☆

The post The Pied Piper | Blu-ray Review appeared first on Ioncinema.com.

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

Metrograph

The Magnificent Ambersons, Demy‘s Model Shop, and Mad Max play as part of “Welcome to Metrograph: A to Z.”

The Kurosawa series comes to an end with The Hidden Fortress this Saturday.

Chan Is Missing returns to theaters on a 35mm print; Visconti‘s Sandra screens on Sunday, as does the Disney documentary Bears.

Above: Franciszek Starowieyski’s 1970 poster for Mademoiselle (Tony Richardson, UK/France, 1966).In Christopher Nolan’s new short film about the Quay Brothers (titled—with Nolan’s predilection for mono-nomenclature—simply Quay) he gives us a clue to some of the twin animators’ influences in the film’s opening shots. After drawing back the curtains in their curiosity shop of a studio, Timothy Quay opens a glass cupboard to remove a book. Blink and you’ll miss it, but on the shelves are books on Marcel Duchamp, Spanish sculptor Juan Muñoz, Czech artists Jan Zrzavy, Vlastislav Hofman and Jindrich Heisler, and—most prominently—a book on Polish artist Franciszek Starowieyski.I wrote a few years ago about the Quays’ love of Polish film posters and Franciszek Starowieyski (1930-2009) is one of the indisputable later masters of the Polish school. From the mid 50s until the late 80s he produced some 100 film...

In the wake of the wild success of Jacques Demy’s The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, the idiosyncratic French filmmaker was lured by Hollywood move to southern California to produce what would become Model Shop. With his wife and fellow cinematic genius Agnès Varda in tow, they moved to Los Angeles in 1967 where Varda would dive headlong into a series of expressively free form personal projects that would be begin with an adventure North to Sausalito where she would meet a distant relative and the subject of her first film included in Criterion’s wonderful new Agnès Varda in California Eclipse set, Uncle Yanco.

Fitting right in line with the personal essay films that would become somewhat of a signature in her late period output with works like The Gleaners and I and The Beaches of Agnès, Uncle Yanco is an invigorating sun-kissed introduction to the progressive, hippy lifestyle that her...

When, in 1967, Jacques Demy asked his wife, Agnès Varda to join him in California, where he was working on his first American feature (Model Shop, released in 1969), she agreed. Turns out, she was surprised to find herself falling in love with Los Angeles the moment she arrived. And she got to work, making three of the films collected in Criterion's box set Eclipse Series 43: Agnès Varda in California; she'd return in the early 80s to make the two others. We're collecting reviews of Uncle Yanco (1967), Black Panthers (1968), Lions Love (…And Lies) (1969), Murs Murs (1980) and Documenteur (1981). » - David Hudson...

When, in 1967, Jacques Demy asked his wife, Agnès Varda to join him in California, where he was working on his first American feature (Model Shop, released in 1969), she agreed. Turns out, she was surprised to find herself falling in love with Los Angeles the moment she arrived. And she got to work, making three of the films collected in Criterion's box set Eclipse Series 43: Agnès Varda in California; she'd return in the early 80s to make the two others. We're collecting reviews of Uncle Yanco (1967), Black Panthers (1968), Lions Love (…And Lies) (1969), Murs Murs (1980) and Documenteur (1981). » - David Hudson...

Skidoo

Written by Doran William Cannon

Directed by Otto Preminger

USA, 1968

Of the nearly 70 films I’ve written about in this column, I would whole-heartedly recommend each without reservation, to not only watch, but to spend good money on. With 1968′s Skidoo, out now on a new Olive Films Blu-ray, I’m breaking that tradition. I wouldn’t suggest anyone purchase this film, though everyone should see it. This is a most unusual, absolutely indefinable, wholly unique motion picture.

I initially viewed Skidoo on the sole basis of its starring Alexandra Hay, who I’ve been smitten with since first seeing her in Jacques Demy’s Model Shop, released the following year. On this point, Skidoo succeeds. Hay is a delightful beauty, charming in a way that is very much of the era. Admittedly unfamiliar with her biography, I can’t imagine why she didn’t have more of a career.

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg

Written and directed by Jacques Demy

France, 1964

Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Busby Berkeley, Vincente Minnelli, Arthur Freed: names synonymous with the movie musical. Missing from this standard list is a key contributor to the form, the French director Jacques Demy. Perhaps part of the reason for his widespread unfamiliarity, even to those who adore the genre, is that Demy only directed a handful of musicals in his entire career. It’s also likely that the musical is simply thought of as an American type of movie, and therefore, “foreign” practitioners don’t quite warrant similar attention. In either case, Demy did amplify the genre with at least two major works, one of them the recipient of the Palme d’Or at the 1964 Cannes Film Festival. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, which also received four Academy Award nominations (at least some American love there), is not just an exceptional musical,...

French filmmaker Jacques Demy hit it big with his 1964 musical, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, garnering a Palme’ d’Or, a handful of Oscar noms, and even a name-drop on Mad Men a few years back. And because Hollywood was poaching foreign talent even back in the ’60s, Demy was brought stateside to make his first (and only) American film: Model Shop. It did not do well. Demy’s mainstream success came from French people breaking out into sudden song and dance, and Model Shop contained precisely none of those things. Instead, it was about a young man named George (Gary Lockwood) on the brink of physical and existential disaster. He soon loses his car to a couple of repo men, and he loses his freedom to a Vietnam draft notice that’s just arrived in the mail. And so George floats around La when he stumbles upon Lola (Anouk Aimée), a French model and the protagonist of...

A review of tonight's "Mad Men" coming up just as soon as I milk the wrong udder... "I wish it was yesterday." -Bobby Though it's Betty who goes on the field trip that provides this week's title, Don has time to take two different trips over the course of the episode. And none of the three journeys end up the way the traveler envisioned them. In the first, Don goes to Los Angeles — mid-week, because what else does he have going on? — at the behest of Megan's agent to get her to stop badgering directors while they're trying to enjoy lunch with Rod Serling. He thinks he's going to rescue her career, and instead he ends up almost killing his marriage. In the second, Betty — having recently told her old pal Francine that she still believes, in her old-fashioned way, that the reward for raising kids should be the kids themselves,...

Mad Men opened Sunday night with Don Draper filling up time during his unemployment watching 1969 movie Model Shop in which a man dating an aspiring actress falls for another woman in Los Angeles.

Mad Men Recap

After watching the movie, Don (Jon Hamm) gets Dawn (Teyonah Parris) on the phone so that he can ask her to get him typewriter ribbon and to catch him up on what’s going on at Sterling Cooper & Partners. He then takes a phone call from Megan’s (Jessica Pare) agent, who informs him that his wife had a meltdown following a recent poor audition. She ended up stalking the director during his brunch on Sunday and making a scene that included some crying hysterics.

Dutifully taking up the task of damage control, Don flies out to Los Angeles. During their chat, Megan gripes to Don about her lack of immediate success. Don continues...

To Live and Shake and Die in La! kicks off this week at Trailers from Hell, with screenwriter Larry Karaszewski introducing Jacques Demy's first American production, "Model Shop."Shot a year after his homage to Hollywood musicals, "The Young Girls of Rochefort," "Model Shop" stars Gary Lockwood, just coming off of 2001: A Space Odyssey. But the real star of Model Shop is La itself; the film is a veritable time capsule of the city in the late sixties (Demy had wanted to title the film “Los Angeles-1968″). As Lockwood’s star-crossed lover, Anouk Aimée reprises her title role from Demy’s bittersweet romance, 1961′s Lola.

Notwithstanding era and country of origin, it would be imprudent to associate Jacques Demy with the French New Wave. Unlike Godard's or Resnais's interest in innovation, Demy's traditionalism never bothers to subvert or transgress cinematic convention. The tenderness he felt—and inspires—for his characters situates Demy best within established systems, be it the Hollywood musical genre from which he most popularly borrowed in The Young Girls of Rochefort and The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, or the resplendent Technicolor saturation that became one of his signatures, most lushly in Model Shop. His appeal, often underappreciated, lies primarily in his romantic sensibilities, with the onscreen result being a world that is at once fantastic yet relatable. Tho...

Los Angeles Plays Itself

Written and directed by Thom Andersen

USA, 2003

It comes as no surprise that film sets and locations have been reused throughout the history of the movies. The fact that many of these locations are within or around Los Angeles, a city whose very ontology includes Hollywood and film business, is equally predictable. Yet these locations, distorted to us through the magic of movie production and narrative engagement, hold significant value to the residents of Los Angeles, particularly California Institute of the Arts film instructor Thom Andersen, using what he saw as the denigration of his beloved city on screen to begin a lecture and, ultimately, a film: Los Angeles Plays Itself. “I live here,” he begins his narration through Encke King over a series of establishing shots of the city from various films. “Sometimes I think this gives me the right to criticize the ways movies depict my city.

Jacques Demy

October 4–17

Starry-eyed dreamer of the French New Wave, Demy's frothy, seductive fairy tales may not have been as political or naturalistic as the work of his peers, but their exuberant sense of mise-en-scène still offers timeless appeal. Leading up to a revival of Demy's newly restored, all-sung Catherine Deneuve rhapsody The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (October 18–24), Film Forum's unmissable two-week series includes many more restorations, from his 1961 debut, Lola (starring Anouk Aimée as a yearning cabaret singer), through his final 1988 feature, Three Seats for the 26th, an Yves Montand vehicle by way of MGM song-and-dance homage. Los Angeles plays itself in Demy's only American stint, Model Shop...

The Force will be strong in Times Square this week. To celebrate the premiere of the new Cartoon Network special Lego Star Wars: The Yoda Chronicles, Lego and Lucasfilm have teamed up to bring a massive recreation of a X-wing Starfighter to New York City.

Made of 5,335,200 Lego bricks, the model — based on the iconic ship Luke Skywalker & Co. fly in the Star Wars movies — was transported to the United States from the Lego Model Shop in Kladno, Czech Republic, where it was constructed by a team of 32 builders. It is an exact replica — at 42 times the size — of the Lego Star Wars set No. 9493. It will be parked in Times Square Thursday through Saturday, May 23-25.

Read More >...

The Cinémathèque Française is currently running a major exhibition titled Le monde enchanté de Jacques Demy (through August 4) devoted to the great romantic fantasist who brought us such candy-colored musical reveries as The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, The Young Girls of Rochefort and Donkey Skin. What caught my eye was a video on their website (unsubtitled, unfortunately) in which the head of the poster department, Jacques Ayroles, takes us into the Cinémathèque’s vaults (which contain some 25,000 posters) and talks about the various posters for Demy’s films.

The exhibition seems to place particular emphasis on Peau d’Âne or Donkey Skin, Demy’s beloved Cocteau-esque fantasy which, in 1970, was his greatest success (with over 2 million admissions in France) and which came hot on the heels of one of his most disappointing flops, the L.A.-set Model Shop. Based on the 17th-century fairytale by Charles Perrault (famously illustrated by Gustave Doré...

Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: Oct. 30, 2012

Price: DVD $24.98, Blu-ray $29.98

Studio: Mpi

Her name was Lola, she was a stripper: Salma Hayek stars in Americano.

Salma Hayek (Savages) stars as a stripper who helps a man uncover secrets about his late mother in the 2011 drama film Americano, directed and written by and starring Mathieu Demy (The Girl on the Train).

After receiving news of his mother’s death, Martin (Demy) leaves his girlfriend (Chiara Mastroianni, Park Benches) and home in Paris and sets off for his childhood home in Los Angeles to tie up the loose ends of his rocky maternal relationship. Arriving in the U.S., Martin digs into his mother’s past and discovers she had a hidden relationship with a beautiful woman named Lola (Hayek), who he finds at a seedy strip club in Tijuana called “The Americano.” While Lola recounts her affair with his mother, Martin realizes there...

We fell in love, but not in court: Demy References Parent’s Filmography

Americano, the directorial debut of actor Mathieu Demy, (son of two legendary cinematic directors from the French New Wave, Jacques Demy and Agnes Varda), is a fruit rife with cinematic incest and nepotistic subtexts. On it’s own, this is a film about coming to grips with the past, familial relationships, and being a stranger in a strange land, but Demy has really created a cinematic wormhole, an intertwining device that unites themes from some of his parents’ own obscure works, as well as autobiographical details, and a rich subtext heavily informed by the spectrum of cinema past.

Demy stars as Martin, a real estate broker in Paris, seemingly at the end of a relationship with his live-in girlfriend, Claire (Matroianni), who wants a baby. Suddenly, Martin learns that his estranged mother has died in Los Angeles,...

Americano

Written by Mathieu Demy

Directed by Mathieu Demy

France, 2011

As a first-time director, the last thing you want to be is forgettable. One way to avoid that is to emulate Orson Welles by taking on the additional roles of writer and star. A slice of Tarantino-style auricular torture always gets an audience’s attention, too. In his feature debut, the partly autobiographical drama Americano, Mathieu Demy does both. He also throws in Salma Hayek in a fishnet bodystocking for good measure. This isn’t Citizen Kane or Reservoir Dogs – but it does have its moments.

Demy, the son of directors Jacques Demy and Agnès Varda, uses clips here from his appearance in his mother’s 1981 film Documenteur. Fortunately this is less pretentious than it sounds. The 9-year-old boy he played then, is now grown up and living in Paris with girlfriend Claire (Chiara Mastroianni). But Martin and Claire have...

No surprise there.  It goes without saying that James Cameron's sci-fi spectacle Avatar has the potential to clean house at the 8th Annual Ves Awards for its breath taking visuals by the acclaimed Weta Digital. Cameron will also be picking up a well-deserved Lifetime Achievement Award.  In the outstanding animated feature category, the nominees include Up, 9, Coraline, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs. 

The official press release is as followed:

3-D Films Dominate With Most Noms as Avatar grabs 11, Coraline 4, and Visual Effects Company Weta Digital Snags Most Company Noms with 9

Los Angeles, January 19, 2010 - The Visual Effects Society (Ves) today announced the nominees for the 8th Annual Ves Awards ceremony recognizing outstanding visual effects artistry in over twenty categories of film, animation, television, commercials and video games.  Nominees were chosen Saturday, January 16, 2010, by numerous blue ribbon panels of Ves members who...

Filmmaker Agnès Varda and friend.

Editor's note: "The Beaches of Agnes" opens in a limited run in New York and L.A. this week for Academy Award consideration. If you reside on either coast, do yourself a favor and run, don't walk, to "Beaches."

Agnès Varda Hits the Beach

By

Alex Simon

Born in Belgium in 1928, Agnès Varda is renowned for being the only female member of France’s legendary “Nouvelle Vague” (which also includes such luminaries as Francois Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, and Varda’s late husband, Jacques Demy) school of filmmaking when, in 1954, she formed a film company called Cine-Tamaris for her first feature, La Pointe Courte. It earned her the title of “Grand Mother of the French New Wave,” at the tender age of 26.

Varda has made 33 films since then, alternating between shorts and features, fiction and documentaries. Some of her most famous titles include Cleo from 5 to 7...

Following in my ongoing, loving analysis of one of my all time favorite films Fright Night (see my original, personal essay here and my interview with musc supervisor David Chackler here), I present part one of a lengthy conversation I had with Fn's creator, writer/director Tom Holland.

Holland spent the early part of his professional life as an actor under the name Tom Fielding. starring in soap opera's, various TV programs and - my favorite - director Jacques Demy's Model Shop. Then, into the 1970's the struggling thesp decided to take back his given surname and pursue a career as a screenwriter.

His breakthrough theatrical release was Phillipe Mora's bizarre exploitation shocker The Beast Within, a picture that nailed the psychosexual tone of Holland's words but opted to veer into more visceral, bladder FX driven shlock. He followed that with the ultra violent screenplay for Mark Lester's cult classic Class Of 1984.

Whether positive or negative in outlook—and whether helmed by insiders or outsiders—most of the late-’60s/early-’70s movies that dealt with the American counterculture tended to adopt a tourist’s point of view, treating the long hair, music, drugs, and revolutionary rhetoric as curiosities, to be feared or forgiven. Whatever the failings of Jacques Demy’s lone American film, Model Shop—which is far from perfect—it’s one of the few movies about life in 1969 Los Angeles that feels like a documentary, not a re-enactment. Demy follows unemployed architecture student Gary Lockwood as he drives ...