12th International Uranium Film Festival of Rio de Janeiro Highlighted Nuclear Risks & Disasters. The three top awards go to Sweden, USA and Serbia.  „It's always difficult to determine the festival winners. But this year it was especially difficult. Each of the selected films, dealing with the different aspects of nuclear industry and nuclear war, was of good quality or of great importance and moved the audience," said festival executive director Márcia G...

Book Club, Review: Life begins at sexty With a combined age of 563 and an average age of 70.4, there’s no way these eight fuddy-duddies are going to do a Fifty Shades of Grey. Well, they did set out to go along that road, but never mind—how about ‘hundred hues of shocking pink’? Just for the record, Fifty Shades of Grey is a 2015 American erotic drama film, directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson, with a screenplay by Kelly Marcel. It was banned in India, for its explicit sex s...

Intro by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent Sometimes a film comes along that is so unusual you have to sit up and take note. Such is the case with TAKE MY NOSE... PLEASE! It's a debut documentary by Joan Kron, an 89-years-young journalist and comedian who took up filmmaking in her mid-80's. It opens Oct. 6 at Village East in NY and Oct. 13 at Laemmle Santa Monica. I've picked up the interview below from Screenmancer.tv for you, and you'll notice they discuss the Ja...

by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent Raise your hand if you saw Al Pacino in "Danny Collins." Raise your hand if you saw Al Pacino in "Danny Collins" and actually liked it. Okay, kidding aside, The Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) announced their nominations today at 5:15 am PST, which left a few of us critics cranky. But not without the usual clear-eyed objections to the Golden Globes' mash-up of categories. Is "Joy" a comedy? Is "T...

by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent What a gift when three of your favorite on-screen presences turn out to be three of your favorite off-screen presences; that’s what happened last night in Santa Barbara as the stunning Jane Fonda received the Kirk Douglas Award for Excellence in Film from The Santa Barbara International Film Festival (SBIFF). To set the scene, and this rarely happens, Jane Fonda and one of her star presenters Elizabeth Banks (“Pitch Perfect 2,”...

SPOTLIGHT MEDIA PRODUCTIONS   Cannes Festival Insider, 2015    By Adrienne Papp  Since 1978, Un Certain Regard composes the heart of the Official Selection with the Competition.  Presided over by Isabella Rossellini, the Un Certain Regard Jury is this year exclusively composed of film-makers, directors and actors. President Isabella Rossellini, film-maker (United States, Italy) Members of the Jury Haifa...

Paolo Sorrentino's 'Youth' presents paradoxes of aging at Cannes by Moira Sullivan Paul Dano, Jane Fonda, Harvey Keitel , Rachel Weisz, Paolo Sorrentino, Michael Caine and Madalina Ghenea at Cannes photoshoot Courtesy of Festival de Cannes used with permission The premise of Paolo Sorrentino’s film “Youth” which debuted at the Cannes Film Festivalon May 20 is paradoxical. In the end it feels that...