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Steven Spielberg
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, Review: Eureka-boom
A whole new bunch of actors and three different time zones are what you get when you dial-up destiny and visit your chosen cinema-hall to watch Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. It is hard to believe that neither Steven Spielberg nor George Lucas wrote or directed the movie, which is the last hurrah for the whip-cracking archaeologist who was first dug-up by Hollywood in 1981. Spielberg directed the first four outings, based larg...
CANNES: Tom Cruise received a special award and his film, “Top Gun,” opened the festival to rave reviews. Movies are back in theaters in a big way and respect for American film at Cannes seemed to fly over the skies. It was a story of overcoming all odds after the Big Shutdown of the last several years.
VENICE: premiered “Tar,” and critical response to star Cate Blanchette’s performance has never wavered from the competition for Best Actress.&nb...
Previous award winners "The Shape of Water," and "The Green Book," went on to win the Academy Award. "The Fablemans" with Michelle Williams, Paul Dano, Seth Rogen, Gabriel LaBelle and Judd Hirsch is a worthy selection as it exemplifies the underlying them of this year's festival celebrating the Magic of Cinema.
That’s what movies do, elevate our perceptions, thrill our senses, perhaps revealing incites we might not see on the evening news....
PSIFF is back with Stars: Cate Blanchett, Colin Farrell, Austin Butler, Sarah Polley, and Steven Spielberg, with 35 contenders for Best International FIlm, & great documentaries like "The Grab."
I speak annually with Palm Springs Lead Programmer, and former Newsweek critic David Ansen about film.
This year he attended the New York film festival, and saw twenty-five films in Toronto—many narrative, and many wonderful document...
Karthikeya 2, Review: “Ptolemy told me”
A pilgrimage for followers of Lord Krishna, and a mosaic of breath-taking locales awaits those who venture into theatre territory and buy tickets to see Karthikeya 2. Add to that some impressive VFX and animation. That’s the good news. The bad news is that there is little else to justify making of the film per se. Combining religious events that occurred 5118 years ago, and much earlier, with a present day atheist doctor, it chronicles...
Vikrant Rona, Review: Ducking in 3D
Exotic, lush green locales and serial killing do not go together, but here they do. Vikrant Rona is the name of the protagonist (or is it?), the second part of which, ‘rona’, means ‘crying’ in Hindustani. The ‘n’ is pronounced more harshly in the film, so it is not exactly ‘rona’ but roȠa (approximation). The makers decided to retain this name from the original Kannada, although it could have easily been chan...
Minions-The Rise of Gru, Review: One in a minion
Minion and Villain don’t rhyme. They shouldn’t. After all, what is a primary school kid doing? Yes, he is almost a dwarf, and we would love to see his rise. But rise as what? An arch-villain? A super-villain? There are some movies in which good, clean, animation fun turns into adult stuff that can affect the mind-set of millions of viewers. Films need not preach or moralise, but they need not glorify villainy either. This is one suc...
by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent
Yes, you can still get tickets, and TCM Classic Film Festival 2022 has kind of outdone itself for movie fans with E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial's original cast kids, now grown up Drew Barrymore and Henry Thomas, plus Director Steven Spielberg and Producer Kathleen Kennedy for this year's red carpet opening ceremony. Not to mention the screening of ET is on the 40th anniversary of the seminal lovable alien film. Here's all the news ...
IFFI 51, 16-24 January, 38: Pierre Filmon’s Long Time No See was realised after ten years, but took only five days to shoot
They were meeting after nine long years of separation. They had eighty minutes to rewind their journey, re-evaluate their lives, to face their truth, regrets and memories. And, this is their last chance. In a nut-shell, the story of the French movie ‘Long Time No See (Entre Deux Trains)’ can be described like this.
Directed and scripted by Pierre...
by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent
Here's something fun for your WFH (work from home) and hunkered-down Coronavirus Life from Uncle Spielberg and AFI...
Curated by Screenmancer Staff from AFI - Los Angeles, CA (03/31/2020): The American Film Institute (AFI) announced today the launch of AFI Movie Club – a daily virtual gathering to leverage our collective love of film on behalf of optimism in this time of global uncertainty. AFI Trustee Steven Spie...
9th Jagran Film Festival, Mumbai: The Post, A Star is Born and Maassab make it worth the wake
Dainik Jagran, which means ‘daily wake’, is a leading Hindi language newspaper of India and the group also owns the popular tabloid, Mid-Day. Its 9th film festival was held across 18 cities and came to Mumbai on the 27th of September, playing through the 30th. Held at four screens of the suburban multiplex called Cinépolis (formerly Fun Republic), it suffered from many technical an...
by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent
If you’re old enough to remember when MIT had a virtual glove and Jaron Lanier threw together a little company called VPL, you’re probably ahead of the game. Suffice it to say, while READY PLAYER ONE (RP1) is the first big bang BO Hollywood VR blockbuster attempt, the weird road to virtual reality headsets and handsets began somewhere in the mid-80’s.
Or you could peg Thomas Zimmerman in 1982 with a ‘wired glove’ p...
The Black Prince who walked the Red Carpet at Cannes
Very little is known about Maharaja Duleep Singh, the last Maharaja of Punjab with his capital at Lahore, who is said to have gifted the invaluable Koh-i-Noor diamond to Queen Victoria, while a young boy. Time and again, a lobby is raised in India to try and get it back from Britain, only to fizzle out. Dalip Singh remains an enigmatic figure, a missing chapter from India’s colonial history. All that is set to change with oncoming rel...
The Zookeeper’s Wife, Review by Siraj Syed: Of animals, animal instincts and humanity above all
A wife, a husband their zoo and the Jews. Unlikely ingredients of a film seen by us critics on the eve of Hitler’s birthday. And yet, The Zookeeper’s Wife movie survives some uneven narrative and unimaginative camerawork to settle down into a compelling, if understated, holocaust tale that more than deserves a cursory viewing. It begins as The Life of Pi, moves on to join Schindle...
A Bridge of Spies, Review: Spyelberg on spy-swapping--one of theirs for two of ours
Old school film-making at its charming best is what Steven Spielberg delivers in this potential thriller, that is, instead, crafted as a compelling commentary--on the sordid business of spying, the acceptance of the hard truth that a foreign spy operating in your country is as loyal as your spies indulging in espionage abroad, and the sacred right of every accused in America to a fair trial, be it a US citizen...
Poltergeist, Review: Respect the dead, or…
Dictionary meaning of Poltergeist: A ghost or other supernatural being, believed to be responsible for physical disturbances, such as making loud noises and throwing objects about.
Mid 19th century: from German ‘Poltergeist’, from poltern= to 'create a disturbance' + geist 'ghost'.
Poltergeist 2015 is a reboot and remake of producer and co-writer Steven Spielberg's and director Tobe Hooper's 1982 film of t...
by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent
Lord of the Rings has it, Star Wars has it, Indiana Jones, Spider Man, Star Trek, even The Wild Bunch (1969) has it too. But you can find it in Disney movies, nearly from every studio, at least a few big projects. So what is it?
Known by insiders as “The Wilhelm Scream,” a term coined by George Lucas’ sound designer wizard Ben Burtt, this is that familiar toe-curling roar let out by dying Storm Troopers, bit players eate...
Interstellar, Review-- Gravity of the situation: Galactic Wormhole or Earthy Dust-bowl?
Mainly based on the scientific theories of Kip Thorne, Interstellar is a film that Steven Spielberg was to direct, and took about nine earthly years to land on planet IMAX (probably the last one to be shot on IMAX 15/70 format), courtesy spaceships Warner and Paramount. Thorne is an American Caltech physicist theoretical physicist who has written academic books on general relativity, colla...
What do you get when you take Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks, a script by the Coen Brothers, a musical score by John Williams, and a plot based on one of the most pivotal events of the Cold War? You get St. James Place, the director's latest production, which just wrapped its first leg of principal photography in New York.
St. James Place tells the story of what became the first spy prisoner exchange between the United States and the Soviet Union, following the shoot-down on May 1, 1960, ...
by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent
Last night LA Philharmonic opened the season with a Tribute to John Williams, featuring virtuoso violinist Itzhak Perlman and his greatest movie music moments from Indiana Jones to Star Wars, so this is a perfect time to examine the world of cinema’s renowned music composers.
While none can match the record-stealing 49 Oscar nominations of Williams, some credit should go to the amazing cast of characters (say 49, why not?) who have ...
The Hundred-Foot Journey: Worth going far to watch
Riots, destruction of his restaurant, and his wife (Juhi Chawla)’s death push Papa Kadam (Om Puri) and his four children out of India. The family moves to London, eventually settling in a quaint village in France. The village is both picturesque and elegant – the ideal place to settle down and open an Indian restaurant. And so, the Maison (house) Mumbai is born.
The cold and stiff chef-proprietress of Le Saule Pleureur, a M...
by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent
It took Oprah Winfrey "two hours to get ready" to receive the Montecito Award from the Santa Barbara International Film Festival last night, even though her house is just minutes away from the Arlington Theater.
"When I told my Gale, Gale called me this afternoon, she said, 'You're getting some kind of award? For the Oprah show?' No, for my body of work. 'Body of work?' I've done like...
FANTASTIC NEWS!!!
Jan Harlan just gave me his approval for me to post his praise for my work on my websites. For those of you who might not be familiar with him, here are some of his film credits:
Executive Producer: THE SHINING, FULL METAL JACKET, EYES WIDE SHUT, BARRY LYNDON, etc. (directed by Stanley Kubrick)
Executive Producer: ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (directed by Steven Spielberg).
Director: STANLEY KUBRICK: A LIFE IN PICTURES, etc.
Here are the links to my websites that contain his co...
"I started to shoot films at the age of 13 because nothing else was even half as fun for me. Now at the age of 65, I still get that same feeling of excitement. The day that feeling disappears, I'll stop making films. "
Jaws - 1975
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66th Cannes Film Festival Day 1 – The Great Gatsby and Opening Ceremonies
Leonardo DiCaprio at The Great Gatsby Cannes premiere - Photo courtesy of Anne-Christine Poujoulat (AFP)
Nearly 4,000 accredited journalists descend upon the city of Cannes for 11 days of cinema magic and what looks like heavy rain for the first few days.
The opening day of the 66th Cannes Film Festival surrounded festivities for the out of competition opening film – “The Great Gatsb...
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Total votes: 3978
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