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 Official word is that Woody Allen’s world premiere venue for his latest film RIFKIN’S FESTIVAL, about a guy who goes to a film festival (imagine that), will unspool in Spain at the 68th edition of the San Sebastian Film Festival. This comes on the heels of the dismissal without prejudice of his four-year, $80 M USD legal tussle with Jeff Bezos and Amazon that was settled out of court for “an undisclosed sum,” as they say...

by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent Who writes a memoir in defense of marrying their step-daughter? You guessed it: Woody Allen. And with his new memoir - that was axed by Hachette and brought back to life elsewhere - we all get to wrestle with this Shakespearean dilemma… To buy, or not to buy? Whether ’tis nobler to read the slings and arrows pointed at Mia, or to take up arms against “Apropos of Nothing” and fling it against the wall. Yes, that is bad S...

New Year Greetings, 2018: Let’s begin with a few laughs from films & comedians Dialogue ֍ "Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room."      -Dr. Strangelove: Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) ֍ "Don't you find it a little bit (of a) coincidence that the body fell perfectly within the chalk       outline on the floor?"       - "I think...

by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent Woody Allen’s newest film Café Society just opened July 15, and it fits into a cinematic history of stories about Hollywood that audiences love. But Woody Allen himself has been a lightning rod for so long, the electricity generated off the attendant controversies could power a small town. That said, we’re talking about a movie, folks, not the personal life of the director. With that caveat, Café Soc...

  The 69th Festival International du Film de Cannes will launch with a screening of Woody Allen’s new film, Café Society, on Wednesday 11 May in the Palais des Festivals’s Grand Théâtre Lumière as an Official Selection Out of Competition title. It’s a record-breaking coup for the New York director who has already opened the Festival twice, in 2002 with Hollywood Ending, and again in 2011 with Midnight in Paris.   The...

  Regardless of opinions surrounding his controversial personal life, Woody Allen has strong philosophical views which he passes on through his work.   “The Irrational Man,” stars Joaquin Phoenix and Emma Stone, whom both turned in yet another powerful performance with stretched out and brutally honest conversations.    What made the movie so great was its directness. While the heavy dialog made for an uncomfortable movie, it was clearly the intention of th...

    Tomorrow is the day we’ve all been waiting for, or at least I have. The Irrational Man looks like yet another one of Woody Allen’s brutally honest and introspective films.    Regardless of opinions of him as a person, he is a beautiful artist who makes movies that really take you out of your every day perspective. Not to mention Joaquin Pheonix has been nearly as consistent as Leo ever since he decided to quit acting for rap. He not only gets into the mi...

Playing it Cool Justin Reardon’s debut film Convention started in 2011, but has yet to reach cinemas. His second effort, A Many Splintered Thing, began shooting in 2012, and we now have it released as Playing It Cool. If I were to choose between the two titles, I would find A Many Splintered Thing more interesting and cool, in spite of the obvious pun on Splendoured. Incidentally, the splintered line is actually used in the film. Playing it Cool is a drab title. Chris Evans’ char...

After the 2014 Amarcort Film Festival where Dawn Westlake's "Over A Cheever" series of four films inspired by the life and works of John Cheever were screened in an honorary session at Cineteca di Rimini on December 6th, Dawn was interviewed by Italian journalist Enrico Zoi, a guest of the festival from his native Florence. The interview was published online on January 5, 2015: http://www.esserciweb.it/cinema/dawn-westlake-vivo-sogno-cinema/ (Photo credit: Fabio Ceccarelli) For mo...

Adrienne Papp has been a known insider in the industry as a writer on current, true and essential entertainment topics. Adrienne Papp and Jason Isaacs Adrienne Papp, President of Spotlight Media Productions Adrienne Papp has been a known insider in the industry as a writer on current, true and essential entertainment topics along with contemporary messages such as quantum physics and neuroscience, which she publishes throughinterviews, online and printed magazines in ...

Adrienne Papp has been a known insider in the industry as a writer on current, true and essential entertainment topics.   Adrienne Papp and Jason Isaacs Adrienne Papp, President of Spotlight Media Productions Adrienne Papp has been a known insider in the industry as a writer on current, true and essential entertainment topics along with contemporary messages such as quantum physics and neuroscience, which she publishes throughinterviews, online and printed maga...

Adrienne Papp has been a known insider in the industry as a writer on current, true and essential entertainment topics.   Adrienne Papp and Jason Isaacs Adrienne Papp, President of Spotlight Media Productions Adrienne Papp has been a known insider in the industry as a writer on current, true and essential entertainment topics along with contemporary messages such as quantum physics and neuroscience, which she publishes throughinterviews, online and printed maga...

The first utterances you hear in Woody Allen's latest picture, Blue Jasmine, come from a manic First Class passenger who blabs on and on about herself. That passenger is title  character Jasmine, whose marriage to Madoff avatar Hal (Alec Baldwin) is now as finished as her 1% coffers, and who's going nowhere fast. She's also played by Cate Blanchett, which helps explain why we not only put up with her snobbish affectations, we can't g...

The Toronto International Film Festival has wrapped for another year. As always, film fans lined up in droves to watch movies from the morning to the wee hours of the night, while others clamored for a chance to catch a glimpse of their favorite celebrities on the red carpet or surreptitiously at local bars and restaurants. And among the 288 features presented from September 5 to 15, one of the first to sell out all of its screenings was Fading Gigolo written and directed by John Turturro, sta...

  by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent   When the mantle is passed, Hollywood usually makes a show of it. Consider Julia Roberts' crown going to Anne Hathaway, or Katharine Hepburn grudgingly making way for Meryl Streep. With Woody Allen's late career opus, Blue Jasmine, the mantle has just passed from Meryl Streep to Cate Blanchett, and she is phenomenal.  There are subtleties Blanchett taps into here that evoke a little bit of Vivien Leigh, Susan Hayward...

  Consider this proposition…..you are an aging film director whose last hit film occurred when Ronald Reagan was President; you were caught with your pants down  in a sexual scandal with a stepdaughter 35 years your junior; you have burned countless professional bridges with a reputation for being demanding, exhausting and off-putting. And yet…..you are still at the top of your game. Not many film directors (or lesser mortals) could suffer the sling and arrows of all these misfortunes....

Photographer - Roger Arpajou © 2011 Mediapro, Versátil, & Gravier Productions Midnight in Paris, the new film by Woody Allen will open the Festival de Cannes on May 11th in the LumièreTheatre, in the presence of the Jury presided by Robert De Niro. The romcom, which was shot last year in the French capital, brings together a broad international cast, including Owen Wilson, Rachel McAdams and Marion Cotillard, as well as Kathy Bates, Adrien Brody, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, Gad E...