The Santa Barbara International Film Festival (SBIFF) earlier this week announced the lineup for the 35th edition, which will run January 15 to 25, 2020. The festival will feature forty-seven world premieres and seventy-one U.S. premieres from fifty countries. During a press conference SBIFF’s executive director Roger Durling said, “for 35 years, SBIFF has been a reflection of the city that ... more >
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SUE LYON (she played Lolita in the Stanley Kubrick film) dead at 73
Sue Lyon was born in Davenport, Iowa. When she was ten months-old her family moved to L.A., hoping that Sue could help support them working as a child model. She got jobs modeling for J.C. Penney and shot a commercial that featured her bleached-blonde hair. Later, she got parts on "Dennis the Menace" (1959) and "The Loretta Young Show" (1953). Stanley Kubrick saw Sue on the show and suggested to ... more >
Céline Sciamma’s “Portrait of a lady on fire” enters the cannon
French film will be a part of the Criterion Collection
NEON and The Criterion Collection have announced the addition of Céline Sciamma’s "Portrait of a Lady on Fire" to The Criterion Collection library. The Cannes winner was recently nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for Best Foreign Language Film, nominated by the Hollywood Critics Association for Best Foreign Language Film and was awarded Best Cinematography by the New York Film ... more >
Almodovar delivers moving tribute to cinema and love with “Dolor y gloria”
Coming out this Friday
Here's me breathing a sigh of relief. Almodovar has made another masterpiece, a work of art. “Dolor y Gloria" is sublime. I’d become disillusioned with the El Deseo boss. “Broken embraces” and “La Piel que lo habito” were colorful, if shoddily-written, films that lacked substance and felt saturated with false emotion. Those were films, I could but only deduce, made by a filmmaker in professional ... more >
BFI London Film Festival lineup announced
Filmmaker Jessica Hausner to head First Feature Competition jury
The 63rd BFI London Film Festival has announced its jury line-up for this year’s Festival Awards. The Official Competition jury is led by acclaimed Colette (LFF 2018) and Still Alice director Wash Westmoreland, whose latest film Earthquake Bird screens in this year’s Festival; the First Feature Competition (Sutherland Award) jury will be headed up by Austrian director Jessica Hausner, whose ... more >
“BULL” (directed by Annie Silverstein)
How screwed up is America? In Annie Silverstein’s new film “Bull,” when young Kris (Amber Havard) gets arrested for breaking and entering and she’s offered a deal, she replies, “can’t you just send me to juvie?” The level of resignation that Kris, or other people like her in real life, must feel, is baffling. In Trump’s America, people like her who go through difficulties just shrug it off, hope ... more >
Peter Fonda, emblem of the sixties generation, dead at 79
Obit
1940-2019
Things sometimes don't go as planned. Peter Fonda, the handsome actor who most famously starred in 1969’s "Easy Rider," along with co-star Dennis Hopper, died on Friday at his home in Los Angeles, ahead of what would've been the fiftieth anniversary of the release of the film. Fonda was 79. The man who once said, "I feel like I'm about eight years old on most days" had boyish charm and a ... more >