Jean-Paul Vignon, the romantic French vocalist and actor who impressed audiences on both sides of the Atlantic during an eight-decade career, died March 22 of liver cancer in Beverly Hills, his family announced. He was 89.
Performing a repertoire of contemporary pop and American standards, Vignon debuted in the U.S. in 1963 at the famed New York supper club The Blue Angel, where he opened for stand-up comic Woody Allen.
Ed Sullivan would soon showcase him on his Sunday night CBS variety show in eight appearances — including one in which he sang a duet with young Liza Minnelli — and he became a regular guest on Johnny Carson and Merv Griffin’s programs.
Signed to Columbia Records, Vignon released his first U.S. album, Because I Love You, in 1964. Three years later, he had a supporting role opposite William Holden and Cliff Robertson in the World War II film The Devil’s Brigade.
In...
Performing a repertoire of contemporary pop and American standards, Vignon debuted in the U.S. in 1963 at the famed New York supper club The Blue Angel, where he opened for stand-up comic Woody Allen.
Ed Sullivan would soon showcase him on his Sunday night CBS variety show in eight appearances — including one in which he sang a duet with young Liza Minnelli — and he became a regular guest on Johnny Carson and Merv Griffin’s programs.
Signed to Columbia Records, Vignon released his first U.S. album, Because I Love You, in 1964. Three years later, he had a supporting role opposite William Holden and Cliff Robertson in the World War II film The Devil’s Brigade.
In...
- 4/3/2024
- by Mike Barnes
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
If zombies weren’t so fixated on eating our brains, perhaps they’d be poignant to have around: semi-living, semi-breathing semblances of people we’ve loved, there to be seen and held and talked to, not truly present but not absent either. Whether that’s preferable to the void of death is the question underpinning “Handling the Undead” for much of its running time, even as the threat of the undead reverting to their usual habits gives this soft, sorrowful bereavement drama a core of cold-blooded horror. Thea Hvistendahl’s impressively restrained debut feature may keep its genre intentions just up its sleeve until the final act, but it never feels like a trick or a compromise: It’s a living-dead nightmare with a brain and a heart and, most importantly and inedibly, a soul.
The film’s somewhat liminal genre identity presents marketing challenges for U.S. distributor Neon...
The film’s somewhat liminal genre identity presents marketing challenges for U.S. distributor Neon...
- 1/20/2024
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
This article contains spoilers for season 6 of Black Mirror.
The long-awaited return of Black Mirror has finally arrived, and with it a soundtrack of songs as varied as the stories this show tells. Season 6 features the return of an Irma Thomas classic, a Muse song known for its ties to the best baseball scene in cinema, Art Garfunkel’s emotional Watership Down tune, and so many others.
Here are all of the songs featured throughout this season of Black Mirror:
Episode 1 – Joan is Awful “Anyone Who Knows What Love Is (Will Understand)” – Irma Thomas
The Irma Thomas song “Anyone Who Knows What Love Is (Will Understand)” has become a sort of easter egg in Black Mirror, with the song appearing at least once per season. In the first episode of season six “Joan is Awful,” the song can be heard playing when Joan (Annie Murphy) first walks into the...
The long-awaited return of Black Mirror has finally arrived, and with it a soundtrack of songs as varied as the stories this show tells. Season 6 features the return of an Irma Thomas classic, a Muse song known for its ties to the best baseball scene in cinema, Art Garfunkel’s emotional Watership Down tune, and so many others.
Here are all of the songs featured throughout this season of Black Mirror:
Episode 1 – Joan is Awful “Anyone Who Knows What Love Is (Will Understand)” – Irma Thomas
The Irma Thomas song “Anyone Who Knows What Love Is (Will Understand)” has become a sort of easter egg in Black Mirror, with the song appearing at least once per season. In the first episode of season six “Joan is Awful,” the song can be heard playing when Joan (Annie Murphy) first walks into the...
- 6/16/2023
- by Brynnaarens
- Den of Geek
Studiocanal has signed a deal with Metropolitan Filmexport for worldwide rights to the entire film catalog of acclaimed French director Claude Lelouch.
The deal, announced at the Cannes Film Market on Saturday, includes more than 40 films, among them such French classics as A Man and a Woman (1966) — winner of the 1966 Palme d’Or, as well as two Oscars, for best international film and best original screenplay — Live for Life (1967), Love Is a Funny Thing (1969), The Crook (1970), Money Money Money (1972), Happy New Year (1973), Bolero (1981), Itinerary of a Spoilt Child (1988) and Les Misérables (1995).
Studiocanal has been handling French TV rights for the Lelouch catalog for the past seven years. The new deal will give the group exclusive worldwide distribution rights to the director’s vast catalog, as well as SVOD, free-on-demand and AVOD rights in France. Metropolitan will continue to distribute Lelouch’s films in theaters, on video and through transactional video-on-demand (Tvod) in France.
The deal, announced at the Cannes Film Market on Saturday, includes more than 40 films, among them such French classics as A Man and a Woman (1966) — winner of the 1966 Palme d’Or, as well as two Oscars, for best international film and best original screenplay — Live for Life (1967), Love Is a Funny Thing (1969), The Crook (1970), Money Money Money (1972), Happy New Year (1973), Bolero (1981), Itinerary of a Spoilt Child (1988) and Les Misérables (1995).
Studiocanal has been handling French TV rights for the Lelouch catalog for the past seven years. The new deal will give the group exclusive worldwide distribution rights to the director’s vast catalog, as well as SVOD, free-on-demand and AVOD rights in France. Metropolitan will continue to distribute Lelouch’s films in theaters, on video and through transactional video-on-demand (Tvod) in France.
- 5/20/2023
- by Scott Roxborough
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Paris-based Playtime has unveiled a strong Cannes film market sales slate, which includes competition titles “About Dry Grasses” and “Homecoming.”
“About Dry Grasses” is by Turkish auteur Nuri Bilge Ceylan, who won the Palme d’Or in 2014 for “Winter Sleep.” The film follows Samet, a young art teacher, who is finishing his fourth year of compulsory service in a remote village in Anatolia. After a turn of events he can hardly make sense of, he loses his hopes of escaping the grim life he seems to be stuck in, and hopes that his encounter with fellow teacher Nuray will help him overcome his angst. Deniz Celiloğlu, Merve Dizdar and Musab Ekici are among the cast.
“Homecoming,” by French director Catherine Corsini who won the 2021 Queer Palm for “The Divide,” follows Khédidja, who minds a wealthy Parisian family’s children for a summer in Corsica. She brings along her own two...
“About Dry Grasses” is by Turkish auteur Nuri Bilge Ceylan, who won the Palme d’Or in 2014 for “Winter Sleep.” The film follows Samet, a young art teacher, who is finishing his fourth year of compulsory service in a remote village in Anatolia. After a turn of events he can hardly make sense of, he loses his hopes of escaping the grim life he seems to be stuck in, and hopes that his encounter with fellow teacher Nuray will help him overcome his angst. Deniz Celiloğlu, Merve Dizdar and Musab Ekici are among the cast.
“Homecoming,” by French director Catherine Corsini who won the 2021 Queer Palm for “The Divide,” follows Khédidja, who minds a wealthy Parisian family’s children for a summer in Corsica. She brings along her own two...
- 5/2/2023
- by Naman Ramachandran and Elsa Keslassy
- Variety Film + TV
Trends in documentary-making have shifted radically since Nicolas Philibert’s “Être et Avoir” was a surprise arthouse hit two decades ago: That sweetly observational little film, following the ins and outs of a village elementary school over the course of a year, seems a quaintly modest proposition beside today’s more slickly immersive and narrativized nonfiction breakouts. If times have changed, however, Philibert has not. His latest, “On the Adamant,” finds him once more examining the human workings of a care-based institution from a reserved but compassionate distance, avoiding commentary and editorialization in favor of real-life character portraiture.
It turns out to be the right approach for the institution under scrutiny: The Adamant, a day-care center in central Paris for adults with a variety of mental disorders, offering its visitors a range of therapy, education and cultural activity. The human subjects here are both expressive and highly vulnerable, open to the low-key,...
It turns out to be the right approach for the institution under scrutiny: The Adamant, a day-care center in central Paris for adults with a variety of mental disorders, offering its visitors a range of therapy, education and cultural activity. The human subjects here are both expressive and highly vulnerable, open to the low-key,...
- 2/24/2023
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
Five years after the release of David Bowie’s first masterpiece, Hunky Dory — which replaced the perception of Bowie as a one-hit space oddity with the idea Bowie as an ever-ch-ch-changing moon-age messiah — he offered up some characteristic mythmaking. In a 1976 Melody Maker interview, Bowie claimed Hunky Dory‘s “Song for Bob Dylan,” a piss-take extraordinaire that Bowie had shrugged off by saying it was how “some” people saw Dylan, in fact, “laid out what I wanted to do in rock.” “It was at that period that I said, ‘Ok,...
- 11/22/2022
- by Kory Grow
- Rollingstone.com
Rita Gardner, an original cast member of the long-running Off Broadway phenomenon The Fantasticks, died Saturday of leukemia at Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York. She was 87.
Gardner’s death was announced by her friend and colleague Alex Rybeck on Facebook.
In 1960, Gardner, who had recently appeared Off Broadway in the Jerry Herman musical review Nightcap, was cast in what would be her signature role: Luisa, or “The Girl,” in the Harvey Schmidt-Tom Jones musical The Fantasticks. Based loosely on Edmond Rostand’s 1894 play The Romancers, the musical told the allegorical story of two fathers who trick their children – The Girl, Luisa, and The Boy, Matt – into falling in love by pretending to oppose the union.
The production, at a tiny Off Broadway venue in Greenwich Village called the Sullivan Street Playhouse, became a huge success, spawning a hit song (“Try To Remember”), running 42 years and boosting the careers of...
Gardner’s death was announced by her friend and colleague Alex Rybeck on Facebook.
In 1960, Gardner, who had recently appeared Off Broadway in the Jerry Herman musical review Nightcap, was cast in what would be her signature role: Luisa, or “The Girl,” in the Harvey Schmidt-Tom Jones musical The Fantasticks. Based loosely on Edmond Rostand’s 1894 play The Romancers, the musical told the allegorical story of two fathers who trick their children – The Girl, Luisa, and The Boy, Matt – into falling in love by pretending to oppose the union.
The production, at a tiny Off Broadway venue in Greenwich Village called the Sullivan Street Playhouse, became a huge success, spawning a hit song (“Try To Remember”), running 42 years and boosting the careers of...
- 9/26/2022
- by Greg Evans
- Deadline Film + TV
Blaze star and executive producer Simon Baker (in front of a Rosemary’s Baby poster) with Anne-Katrin Titze on Del Kathryn Barton: “She’s quite a celebrated artist in Australia. I got sent the script and it was unlike any script I have ever read before.”
Del Kathryn Barton’s Blaze, co-written with Huna Amweero, and a highlight of the 21st edition of the Tribeca Film Festival, stars Julia Savage and Simon Baker (The Mentalist and director of Breath) with Yael Stone, Josh Lawson, and Sofia Hampson with Jacques Brel’s Ne Me Quitte Pas and a poignant song by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis in the soundtrack.
Simon Baker on Nick Cave and Warren Ellis: “I obviously know of them and love their stuff, but I don’t know them.” Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
The opening shots of Blaze (cinematography by ) are as mysterious and alluring as those of Simon’s film Breath.
Del Kathryn Barton’s Blaze, co-written with Huna Amweero, and a highlight of the 21st edition of the Tribeca Film Festival, stars Julia Savage and Simon Baker (The Mentalist and director of Breath) with Yael Stone, Josh Lawson, and Sofia Hampson with Jacques Brel’s Ne Me Quitte Pas and a poignant song by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis in the soundtrack.
Simon Baker on Nick Cave and Warren Ellis: “I obviously know of them and love their stuff, but I don’t know them.” Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
The opening shots of Blaze (cinematography by ) are as mysterious and alluring as those of Simon’s film Breath.
- 6/17/2022
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Stromae has released a video for “Fils de Joie,” which comes off the Belgian artist’s recent album, Multitude. The video is a creative collaboration between Henry Scholfield, Luc Van Haver, Coralie Barbier and Paul Van Haver.
The cinematic clip, which takes place in a fictional country, centers around a funeral for a sex worker who has been elevated to the status of heroine. Stromae pays tribute to the deceased woman from a podium as the ceremonial event takes place.
“The idea for ‘Fils de Joie’ came from watching Faustine Bollaert...
The cinematic clip, which takes place in a fictional country, centers around a funeral for a sex worker who has been elevated to the status of heroine. Stromae pays tribute to the deceased woman from a podium as the ceremonial event takes place.
“The idea for ‘Fils de Joie’ came from watching Faustine Bollaert...
- 3/8/2022
- by Emily Zemler
- Rollingstone.com
For the last seven years, fans around the world have had one question on their minds: “Stromae, où t’es?“
That’s how long it’s been since the Belgian singer was last seen making waves around the world with his honest lyrics and electropop sound. In the U.S., many encountered Stromae’s music in high school. (“Were you really ever in French class if you never had to translate a Stromae song?” read one tweet.) For others, it was the way his songs provided commentary on gender equality...
That’s how long it’s been since the Belgian singer was last seen making waves around the world with his honest lyrics and electropop sound. In the U.S., many encountered Stromae’s music in high school. (“Were you really ever in French class if you never had to translate a Stromae song?” read one tweet.) For others, it was the way his songs provided commentary on gender equality...
- 2/28/2022
- by Tomás Mier
- Rollingstone.com
Filmmaker Boaz Yakin discusses some of his favorite films with hosts Josh Olson and Joe Dante.
Show Notes:
Movies Referenced In This Episode
Aviva (2020)
The Harder They Fall (2021)
The Harder They Come (1972)
Reservoir Dogs (1992)
Pulp Fiction (1994)
Fresh (1994)
Mo’ Better Blues (1990)
Safe (2012)
Scream (2022)
The Punisher (1989)
The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)
Kagemusha (1980) – Bernard Rose’s trailer commentary
Mean Streets (1973)
Jaws (1975) – Josh Olson’s trailer commentary
The 400 Blows (1959) – Robert Weide’s trailer commentary
Yojimbo (1961)
Dodes’ka-den (1970)
Short Cuts (1993) – Glenn Erickson’s Criterion Blu-ray commentary
Casablanca (1942) – John Landis’s trailer commentary
Coonskin (1975) – Larry Karaszewski’s trailer commentary
Fritz The Cat (1972) – Mick Garris’s trailer commentary, Charlie Largent’s Blu-ray review
The Lord of the Rings (1978)
Wizards (1977)
Heavy Traffic (1973) – Larry Karaszewski’s trailer commentary, Randy Fuller’s wine pairing
The Warriors (1979)
Quintet (1979)
Brewster McCloud (1970) – Larry Karaszewski’s trailer commentary, Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review
Mash (1970)
Nashville (1975) – Larry Karaszewski’s trailer commentary, Dan Perri’s trailer commentary,...
Show Notes:
Movies Referenced In This Episode
Aviva (2020)
The Harder They Fall (2021)
The Harder They Come (1972)
Reservoir Dogs (1992)
Pulp Fiction (1994)
Fresh (1994)
Mo’ Better Blues (1990)
Safe (2012)
Scream (2022)
The Punisher (1989)
The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)
Kagemusha (1980) – Bernard Rose’s trailer commentary
Mean Streets (1973)
Jaws (1975) – Josh Olson’s trailer commentary
The 400 Blows (1959) – Robert Weide’s trailer commentary
Yojimbo (1961)
Dodes’ka-den (1970)
Short Cuts (1993) – Glenn Erickson’s Criterion Blu-ray commentary
Casablanca (1942) – John Landis’s trailer commentary
Coonskin (1975) – Larry Karaszewski’s trailer commentary
Fritz The Cat (1972) – Mick Garris’s trailer commentary, Charlie Largent’s Blu-ray review
The Lord of the Rings (1978)
Wizards (1977)
Heavy Traffic (1973) – Larry Karaszewski’s trailer commentary, Randy Fuller’s wine pairing
The Warriors (1979)
Quintet (1979)
Brewster McCloud (1970) – Larry Karaszewski’s trailer commentary, Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review
Mash (1970)
Nashville (1975) – Larry Karaszewski’s trailer commentary, Dan Perri’s trailer commentary,...
- 2/22/2022
- by Kris Millsap
- Trailers from Hell
An unlikely musical hero whose songs criticised Italian politics and society (one inspired by a Guardian story), appears in a lovingly constructed doc
Pietro Marcello is the director who recently gave us the much-praised drama Martin Eden, transposing the Jack London novel to Italy. Now he has made this documentary, a labour-of-love tribute to one of Bologna’s most favoured sons: the musician and singer-songwriter Lucio Dalla. It’s probably addressed to Dalla’s existing fanbase, rather than newcomers (which I admit includes me) but this is an engaging study, opening a window into the heart of postwar Italy, and incidentally gives a cameo role to this newspaper.
Dalla emerges from the film somewhere between America’s Bob Dylan and Belgium’s Jacques Brel, but otherwise completely in a genre of his own. He was a former cherubic child star who acted, sang and played instruments and grew up to...
Pietro Marcello is the director who recently gave us the much-praised drama Martin Eden, transposing the Jack London novel to Italy. Now he has made this documentary, a labour-of-love tribute to one of Bologna’s most favoured sons: the musician and singer-songwriter Lucio Dalla. It’s probably addressed to Dalla’s existing fanbase, rather than newcomers (which I admit includes me) but this is an engaging study, opening a window into the heart of postwar Italy, and incidentally gives a cameo role to this newspaper.
Dalla emerges from the film somewhere between America’s Bob Dylan and Belgium’s Jacques Brel, but otherwise completely in a genre of his own. He was a former cherubic child star who acted, sang and played instruments and grew up to...
- 3/4/2021
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
This month marks both the 74th anniversary of David Bowie’s birth and the fifth anniversary of his death. In honor of the occasion, the Bowie camp released previously unheard covers of Bob Dylan’s “Tryin’ to Get to Heaven” and John Lennon’s “Mother” that were cut in 1998 for projects that never came to fruition. The Dylan song was just months old at the time, but Bowie already flagged it as a classic worthy of a reinterpretation.
Bowie recorded many covers throughout his long career. Sometimes he was putting...
Bowie recorded many covers throughout his long career. Sometimes he was putting...
- 1/12/2021
- by Andy Greene
- Rollingstone.com
Many have attempted to bring Ziggy’s story to the screen. But there are ways of working around copyright restrictions
Credit to new film Stardust for even attempting to recount how David Bowie became Ziggy Stardust without using any of his music, including, er, Ziggy Stardust. Denied access to the Bowie back catalogue, most film-makers would have given up. Danny Boyle did, ditching his “wonderful” biopic in 2012 after Bowie turned him down.
Stardust finds some creative workarounds. Such as framing the story round a trip to the US where the struggling singer (a miscast Johnny Flynn) is forbidden from performing (he doesn’t have the right paperwork). On the rare occasions this Bowie does sing, it is strictly cover versions. He goes to a Velvet Underground gig and listens to the Stooges on the radio, but we don’t hear their music, either. As a result, Stardust resembles a bizarre...
Credit to new film Stardust for even attempting to recount how David Bowie became Ziggy Stardust without using any of his music, including, er, Ziggy Stardust. Denied access to the Bowie back catalogue, most film-makers would have given up. Danny Boyle did, ditching his “wonderful” biopic in 2012 after Bowie turned him down.
Stardust finds some creative workarounds. Such as framing the story round a trip to the US where the struggling singer (a miscast Johnny Flynn) is forbidden from performing (he doesn’t have the right paperwork). On the rare occasions this Bowie does sing, it is strictly cover versions. He goes to a Velvet Underground gig and listens to the Stooges on the radio, but we don’t hear their music, either. As a result, Stardust resembles a bizarre...
- 1/11/2021
- by Steve Rose
- The Guardian - Film News
The movie “Stardust,” a David Bowie “origin story” of sorts that was finally released seven months after its scheduled premiere at the canceled Tribeca Film Festival, raises several intriguing questions:
Can a movie about a really famous person work if the actor playing that person doesn’t really look like him?
Can a movie about a famous musician work if it doesn’t actually include any of the music that made them famous?
And can a movie get to some kind of truth about its subject if it begins with the disclaimer, “What follows is (mostly) fiction?”
For better and for worse, “Stardust” grapples with those issues as it follows a 24-year-old Bowie on a promotional tour through the United States in 1971, accompanied by a long-suffering Mercury Records publicist named Ron Oberman.
Johnny Flynn plays Bowie, Marc Maron plays Oberman, and the point of director and cowriter Gabriel Range’s...
Can a movie about a really famous person work if the actor playing that person doesn’t really look like him?
Can a movie about a famous musician work if it doesn’t actually include any of the music that made them famous?
And can a movie get to some kind of truth about its subject if it begins with the disclaimer, “What follows is (mostly) fiction?”
For better and for worse, “Stardust” grapples with those issues as it follows a 24-year-old Bowie on a promotional tour through the United States in 1971, accompanied by a long-suffering Mercury Records publicist named Ron Oberman.
Johnny Flynn plays Bowie, Marc Maron plays Oberman, and the point of director and cowriter Gabriel Range’s...
- 11/25/2020
- by Steve Pond
- The Wrap
Tyler Perry is Variety‘s 2020 Showman of the Year. For the full cover story, click here.
Music supervisor Joel C. High distinctly remembers meeting Tyler Perry for the first time in 2004 on “Diary of a Mad Black Woman.” “It changed my life,” says High of what was the beginning of a beautiful filmmaker-music supervisor partnership that continues to this day.
The secret to their harmony is simple. As Perry divulges, he doesn’t “change partners once at the dance.” Says Variety’s Showman of the Year: “[Joel] gets the exact tone and feel of what I was thinking.”
High, who now serves as president of the Guild of Music Supervisors, was head of music at Lionsgate overseeing film and television when Michael Paseornek, the studio’s then president of production, brought Perry to High’s attention. On deck was Perry’s first movie, based on one of his stage plays.
No stranger to soundtracks,...
Music supervisor Joel C. High distinctly remembers meeting Tyler Perry for the first time in 2004 on “Diary of a Mad Black Woman.” “It changed my life,” says High of what was the beginning of a beautiful filmmaker-music supervisor partnership that continues to this day.
The secret to their harmony is simple. As Perry divulges, he doesn’t “change partners once at the dance.” Says Variety’s Showman of the Year: “[Joel] gets the exact tone and feel of what I was thinking.”
High, who now serves as president of the Guild of Music Supervisors, was head of music at Lionsgate overseeing film and television when Michael Paseornek, the studio’s then president of production, brought Perry to High’s attention. On deck was Perry’s first movie, based on one of his stage plays.
No stranger to soundtracks,...
- 10/23/2020
- by Jazz Tangcay
- Variety Film + TV
In a warm ceremony on the last evening before a nightly curfew comes into force in France’s major cities, the Dardenne Brothers were awarded the Lumière Award for lifetime achievement at the Lumière Festival in Lyon.
The pair were given a standing ovation as they were welcomed to the stage, to the tune of fellow Belgian Jacques Brel’s “Valse à Mille Temps,” by festival director Thierry Frémaux and actress Emilie Dequenne (“Rosetta”). A host of celebrities attended the ceremony including Abel Ferrera, Stéphane Audiard, the grandson of Michel Audiard and San Sebastian Festival’s revelation Dea Kulumbegashvili, whose debut “Beginning” took four of the jury’s seven prizes including best film.
Earlier on Friday, the brothers had opened up about their career, with characteristic modesty and humor, at a masterclass in the city’s historic Théâtre des Célestins.
Before answering the questions put to them by Frémaux, they...
The pair were given a standing ovation as they were welcomed to the stage, to the tune of fellow Belgian Jacques Brel’s “Valse à Mille Temps,” by festival director Thierry Frémaux and actress Emilie Dequenne (“Rosetta”). A host of celebrities attended the ceremony including Abel Ferrera, Stéphane Audiard, the grandson of Michel Audiard and San Sebastian Festival’s revelation Dea Kulumbegashvili, whose debut “Beginning” took four of the jury’s seven prizes including best film.
Earlier on Friday, the brothers had opened up about their career, with characteristic modesty and humor, at a masterclass in the city’s historic Théâtre des Célestins.
Before answering the questions put to them by Frémaux, they...
- 10/16/2020
- by Lise Pedersen
- Variety Film + TV
Close-Up is a feature that spotlights films now playing on Mubi. Jeanne Balibar's Wonders in the Suburbs, which is receiving an exclusive global online premiere on Mubi, is showing from August 19 2020 in Mubi's Debuts series.
In 2009, Pedro Costa took a brief detour from his haunted, incantatory studies of Lisbon’s Fontainhas district to produce Ne change rien, a stark black-and-white documentary profile of actress Jeanne Balibar’s performances as a singer. A self-styled jazz chanteuse in the Jacques Brel mold, Balibar perhaps gave us a deeper insight into her art-pop origins when she starred in Barbara (2017), Mathieu Amalric’s biopic of the legendary singer-songwriter and French cultural icon. All of this, together with her work with such Cannes / Cahiers mainstays as Jacques Rivette, Arnaud Desplechin, Guillaume Nicloux, and (in the upcoming Memoria) Apichatpong Weerasethakul, would suggest that Balibar epitomizes effortless urban sophistication.So the last thing one might expect...
In 2009, Pedro Costa took a brief detour from his haunted, incantatory studies of Lisbon’s Fontainhas district to produce Ne change rien, a stark black-and-white documentary profile of actress Jeanne Balibar’s performances as a singer. A self-styled jazz chanteuse in the Jacques Brel mold, Balibar perhaps gave us a deeper insight into her art-pop origins when she starred in Barbara (2017), Mathieu Amalric’s biopic of the legendary singer-songwriter and French cultural icon. All of this, together with her work with such Cannes / Cahiers mainstays as Jacques Rivette, Arnaud Desplechin, Guillaume Nicloux, and (in the upcoming Memoria) Apichatpong Weerasethakul, would suggest that Balibar epitomizes effortless urban sophistication.So the last thing one might expect...
- 8/19/2020
- MUBI
Brent Carver, a stage and screen actor who won the 1993 Tony Award for his performance in Broadway’s The Kiss of the Spider Woman, died Tuesday at his home in Cranbrook, British Columbia, his family has reported. He was 68.
A cause of death was not specified.
“Our family is sharing news of Brent Carver’s passing on Aug 4 at home in Cranbrook, BC, his birthplace and favourite place on Earth,” read a family statement. “Blessed with many talents and a natural love of theatre, Brent was always known as a first-class performer, unique in the presentation of his craft, delighting audiences through film, TV, stage and concert performances.”
Chita Rivera, Carver’s Kiss of the Spider Woman co-star who also won a Tony that year, said today, “My heart is broken at the loss of my great friend and amazing artist, Brent Carver. I shall miss him more than I can say.
A cause of death was not specified.
“Our family is sharing news of Brent Carver’s passing on Aug 4 at home in Cranbrook, BC, his birthplace and favourite place on Earth,” read a family statement. “Blessed with many talents and a natural love of theatre, Brent was always known as a first-class performer, unique in the presentation of his craft, delighting audiences through film, TV, stage and concert performances.”
Chita Rivera, Carver’s Kiss of the Spider Woman co-star who also won a Tony that year, said today, “My heart is broken at the loss of my great friend and amazing artist, Brent Carver. I shall miss him more than I can say.
- 8/6/2020
- by Greg Evans
- Deadline Film + TV
This review of all six episodes is spoiler-free.
If proof were needed that TV drama can be anything it wants these days, Little Birds is it. The Sky Atlantic series is a confection of wild ingredients – glamour, satire, feminist fantasy, postcolonial politics, espionage noir, sex, violence and comedy. It’s a heady mix, not all of which coheres but which leaves you with unforgettable images and a distinct sense of having been transported.
Set in 1955 Tangier, the six-part series is inspired by a collection of erotic short stories written in the 1940s by Cuban-French author Anais Nin. It’s not strictly an adaptation, as the characters, setting and the plot – such as it is – are largely the invention of writer and artist Sophia Al-Maria. The characters’ experiences and stories are drawn from Nin’s pages and translated to the screen in vibrant style by director Stacie Passon whose previous TV...
If proof were needed that TV drama can be anything it wants these days, Little Birds is it. The Sky Atlantic series is a confection of wild ingredients – glamour, satire, feminist fantasy, postcolonial politics, espionage noir, sex, violence and comedy. It’s a heady mix, not all of which coheres but which leaves you with unforgettable images and a distinct sense of having been transported.
Set in 1955 Tangier, the six-part series is inspired by a collection of erotic short stories written in the 1940s by Cuban-French author Anais Nin. It’s not strictly an adaptation, as the characters, setting and the plot – such as it is – are largely the invention of writer and artist Sophia Al-Maria. The characters’ experiences and stories are drawn from Nin’s pages and translated to the screen in vibrant style by director Stacie Passon whose previous TV...
- 8/5/2020
- by Louisa Mellor
- Den of Geek
'This episode of Broadway Rewind is a look at a legend, a classic and a musical poet,' says BroadwayWorlds' own Richard Ridge. 'I got to chat with Cyndi Lauper who was making her Broadway debut in Roundabout's production of The Threepenny Opera, than I dropped by the opening of the new production of Jacques Brel starring Robert Cuccioli, but it started off downtown at the now defunct Actors Playhouse to catch up with an icon I had always wanted to meet, T.V. and cult film star Adrianne Barbeau, who was starring as the legendary Judy Garland in a one woman show 'The Property Known as Garland' written by her husband Billy Van Sant.
- 4/16/2020
- by BroadwayWorld TV
- BroadwayWorld.com
Martin Scorsese’s eagerly awaited Netflix movie “The Irishman” wasn’t completed on time to be shown at the Cannes Film Festival, but Thierry Fremaux, Cannes’s topper, managed to pin down the high-profile movie and Scorsese himself for the upcoming Lumiere festival in Lyon next month. Dedicated to heritage movies, the Lumiere festival was created 10 years ago by Fremaux and French helmer Bertrand Tavernier.
Following its world premiere at the New York Film Festival and its international premiere at the BFI fest in London, “The Irishman” will screen at the Lumiere fest. Scorsese previously received a sprawling career tribute at this French festival in 2015 and was celebrated by an impressive delegation, including the late Abbas Kiarostami, Matteo Garrone, Elia Suleiman, Pablo Trapero Gaspard Noe and Alice Rohrwacher.
The French premiere of “The Irishman” will take place on Oct.15; it will mark one of rare opportunities to see “The Irishman...
Following its world premiere at the New York Film Festival and its international premiere at the BFI fest in London, “The Irishman” will screen at the Lumiere fest. Scorsese previously received a sprawling career tribute at this French festival in 2015 and was celebrated by an impressive delegation, including the late Abbas Kiarostami, Matteo Garrone, Elia Suleiman, Pablo Trapero Gaspard Noe and Alice Rohrwacher.
The French premiere of “The Irishman” will take place on Oct.15; it will mark one of rare opportunities to see “The Irishman...
- 9/20/2019
- by Elsa Keslassy
- Variety Film + TV
Hey, "So You Think You Can Dance" fans. Tonight, September 16, 2019, the season finale did indeed air and a new champion was crowned! All the judges: Laurieann Gibson, Dominic “D-Trix” Sandoval, Mary Murphy and Nigel Lythgoe were, of course, on hand. The final four contestants: Gino Cosculluela, Bailey Munoz, Sophie Pittman and Mariah Russell joined the other six contestants that were eliminated to do a top 10 group number that was choreographed by Mandy Moore. Next, it was revealed that the judges and Top 4 got to choose their favorite dances of this season. After that, Laurieann picked her favorite dance, which was choreographed by Luther Brown. It featured Mariah and Bailey dancing hip hop to Lizzo by Missy Elliot. Next,Nigel picked his favorite dance. It was a jazz routine by choreographer Ray Leeper to the song, “You Can Keep Your Hat On” by Joe Cocker. It featured dancers Ezra and Madison.
- 9/17/2019
- by Andre Braddox
- OnTheFlix
Mathieu Amalric's Barbara is showing exclusively from February 24 – March 25, 2019 on Mubi in the United States. There’s a tricky subtitling dilemma about an hour into Mathieu Amalric’s splendidly loopy and abstract film about the French singer Barbara that tells you a lot about his project. For context, you need to know that the film isn’t a straight-up biopic, focusing as it does on an actor, Brigitte (played by Jeanne Balibar) preparing to play Barbara in a film directed by Yves Zand, played by Amalric himself. The movie alternates scenes from Barbara’s life with rehearsal scenes for the film and archival footage of the real Barbara, becoming in the process an almost dizzying whirl of true or false, legend and rumor, homage and performance. At this stage of the film, then, just after a scene taken from the film within the film, where Barbara has learnt of the death of Jacques Brel,...
- 2/26/2019
- MUBI
Mathieu Amalric on directing Barbara: "There would be immediately a presence. It was the spirit we were waiting for." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
At the Regency Hotel on Park Avenue over breakfast, Mathieu Amalric discussed with me Pierre Léon's initial involvement with Barbara, Jeanne Balibar's performance, a clip from Jacques Brel's film Franz, an Orson Welles' The Lady From Shanghai moment, and filming sensations.
Mathieu Amalric will soon be seen as Dr. Paul Gachet in Julian Schnabel’s At Eternity’s Gate (Closing Night film of the 56th New York Film Festival), co-written with Jean-Claude Carrière and Louise Kugelberg, shot by Benoît Delhomme, and starring Willem Dafoe as Vincent van Gogh, with Oscar Isaac as Paul Gauguin, Rupert Friend as Theo, Emmanuelle Seigner, Mads Mikkelsen, and Niels Arestrup.
Carlotta (Marion Cotillard) with Ismael (Mathieu Amalric) in Arnaud Desplechin's Ismael's Ghosts (Les Fantômes D'Ismaël)
Mathieu is also the...
At the Regency Hotel on Park Avenue over breakfast, Mathieu Amalric discussed with me Pierre Léon's initial involvement with Barbara, Jeanne Balibar's performance, a clip from Jacques Brel's film Franz, an Orson Welles' The Lady From Shanghai moment, and filming sensations.
Mathieu Amalric will soon be seen as Dr. Paul Gachet in Julian Schnabel’s At Eternity’s Gate (Closing Night film of the 56th New York Film Festival), co-written with Jean-Claude Carrière and Louise Kugelberg, shot by Benoît Delhomme, and starring Willem Dafoe as Vincent van Gogh, with Oscar Isaac as Paul Gauguin, Rupert Friend as Theo, Emmanuelle Seigner, Mads Mikkelsen, and Niels Arestrup.
Carlotta (Marion Cotillard) with Ismael (Mathieu Amalric) in Arnaud Desplechin's Ismael's Ghosts (Les Fantômes D'Ismaël)
Mathieu is also the...
- 8/14/2018
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Audiences at the figure skating competitions in the 2018 Winter Olympics have been treated to the usual mix of Beethoven, Chopin and Tchaikovsky — but, for the first time at a Games, the song selections here are mixed with Beyoncé, Celine Dion, Coldplay and Madonna.
A change in the rules that kicked in after the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, Russia, now allows athletes to skate to music with lyrics and many have embraced the opportunity.
(Ice dancing’s rules vary slightly compared to the other three Olympic skating disciplines, as it has allowed music with lyrics for years but restricts the available options...
A change in the rules that kicked in after the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, Russia, now allows athletes to skate to music with lyrics and many have embraced the opportunity.
(Ice dancing’s rules vary slightly compared to the other three Olympic skating disciplines, as it has allowed music with lyrics for years but restricts the available options...
- 2/23/2018
- by Adam Carlson
- PEOPLE.com
French singer Barbara Weldens died unexpectedly while performing onstage during a concert in her native France Wednesday night. She was 35. The cause of her death remains unknown and is speculated to be electrocution, as she performed barefoot, or cardiac arrest. An investigation has been opened and an autopsy will be performed, according to La Parisien. She was performing in a church in the French village of Goudron as part of the Léo Ferré Festival when she collapsed onstage, local reports stated. Paramedics rushed to her aid but were unable to revive her. Weldens won the first prize in the Jacques Brel Festival's Young Talents 2016 contest and the Pic D'Or...
- 7/20/2017
- E! Online
Jeanne Balibar is cast in the double role of the celebrated singer and an actor playing her in a haunting performance that harks back to Amalric’s burlesque study On Tour
To fans of the mononymous Barbara – the delicate-voiced, emotionally acute French chanteuse adored by everyone from Jacques Brel to François Mitterand – Mathieu Amalric’s mega-meta, dreamily blurred biopic-within-a-film may seem a bemusing tribute to a national icon. To those unfamiliar with the singer and her work – which is to say the vast majority of people outside Francophone territory – this film is likely to be a more perplexing experience still: an elusive ghost of a celebrity portrait, a meditation on likeness and impersonation in which the subject, the actor and the performance become difficult to prise apart on screen.
Once you settle into your bewilderment, however, Barbara an oddly alluring film that does a double backflip on hokey showbiz-bio convention:...
To fans of the mononymous Barbara – the delicate-voiced, emotionally acute French chanteuse adored by everyone from Jacques Brel to François Mitterand – Mathieu Amalric’s mega-meta, dreamily blurred biopic-within-a-film may seem a bemusing tribute to a national icon. To those unfamiliar with the singer and her work – which is to say the vast majority of people outside Francophone territory – this film is likely to be a more perplexing experience still: an elusive ghost of a celebrity portrait, a meditation on likeness and impersonation in which the subject, the actor and the performance become difficult to prise apart on screen.
Once you settle into your bewilderment, however, Barbara an oddly alluring film that does a double backflip on hokey showbiz-bio convention:...
- 5/19/2017
- by Guy Lodge
- The Guardian - Film News
Author: Stefan Pape
When Eric Summer and Éric Warin’s animation Ballerina begins, you wouldn’t be blamed for wanting to get up and leave after five minutes. A cheaply devised opening act that introduces what appears to be the most infuriatingly optimistic of protagonists should set the precedence for a film that continues in such an unbearable fashion, but as we progress the unwavering enthusiasm of the lead role becomes somewhat infectious, and as she grows on us, in turn so does the movie, and by the end it’s hard not to be caught up in the charm of this enchanting piece of cinema.
Set in 1879, the aforementioned character is Félicie Milliner (Elle Fanning), an orphan who wants nothing more than to escape to Paris and fulfil her dreams of becoming a ballerina. Alongside her best friend Victor (Dane DeHaan), the pair find themselves in the capital, and...
When Eric Summer and Éric Warin’s animation Ballerina begins, you wouldn’t be blamed for wanting to get up and leave after five minutes. A cheaply devised opening act that introduces what appears to be the most infuriatingly optimistic of protagonists should set the precedence for a film that continues in such an unbearable fashion, but as we progress the unwavering enthusiasm of the lead role becomes somewhat infectious, and as she grows on us, in turn so does the movie, and by the end it’s hard not to be caught up in the charm of this enchanting piece of cinema.
Set in 1879, the aforementioned character is Félicie Milliner (Elle Fanning), an orphan who wants nothing more than to escape to Paris and fulfil her dreams of becoming a ballerina. Alongside her best friend Victor (Dane DeHaan), the pair find themselves in the capital, and...
- 12/16/2016
- by Stefan Pape
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
TV’s best comedy/drama/tragedy, Transparent, is back for Season 3 in all of its sexual/pansexual/transsexual glory as creator Jill Soloway brings us back into the tumultuous lives of the fallible Pfefferman family. Here’s a look at Episodes 1-3…
Episode One: Elizah
It’s a bummer that the first show out of the gate is probably the weakest episode of Transparent we’ve seen. While the show starts promisingly with Rabbi Raquel (the magical Kathryn Hahn, promoted to full-time cast member this season) jogging through misty woods to a soundtrack of Jacques Brel’s “Ne Me Quitte Pas”…this episode is devoted almost entirely to one storyline. While Maura (Jeffrey Tambor) works one of her first shifts at the Lgbt community center hotline, she receives a call from a confused young trans girl named Elizah. When Elizah hangs up on her, Maura is so moved and involved...
Episode One: Elizah
It’s a bummer that the first show out of the gate is probably the weakest episode of Transparent we’ve seen. While the show starts promisingly with Rabbi Raquel (the magical Kathryn Hahn, promoted to full-time cast member this season) jogging through misty woods to a soundtrack of Jacques Brel’s “Ne Me Quitte Pas”…this episode is devoted almost entirely to one storyline. While Maura (Jeffrey Tambor) works one of her first shifts at the Lgbt community center hotline, she receives a call from a confused young trans girl named Elizah. When Elizah hangs up on her, Maura is so moved and involved...
- 10/1/2016
- by Eric Blume
- FilmExperience
If actor-turned-director Brady Corbet’s post-World-War-i saga, The Childhood of a Leader, did little more than send American readers to Jean-Paul Sartre’s lesser known short story of the same name, one would be thanking the cinematic gods for its appearance.
The final story in his Sartre’s 1939 collection, The Wall, “The Childhood of a Leader” chronicles the life of Lucien from his rebellious potty training days as a lovely, long-haired tot, son of a rich industrialist, to his transformation into anti-Semitic murderer. There goes Holden Caulfield but for the grace of God.
When we first meet Lucien, with his lustrous blond curls and attired in a blue angel’s costume, he is mistaken by his mother’s consorts as a girl.
“What’s your name? Jacqueline, Lucienne, Margot?”
The embarrassed boy blushes and sets the record right, but “[h]e was no longer quite sure about not being a little...
The final story in his Sartre’s 1939 collection, The Wall, “The Childhood of a Leader” chronicles the life of Lucien from his rebellious potty training days as a lovely, long-haired tot, son of a rich industrialist, to his transformation into anti-Semitic murderer. There goes Holden Caulfield but for the grace of God.
When we first meet Lucien, with his lustrous blond curls and attired in a blue angel’s costume, he is mistaken by his mother’s consorts as a girl.
“What’s your name? Jacqueline, Lucienne, Margot?”
The embarrassed boy blushes and sets the record right, but “[h]e was no longer quite sure about not being a little...
- 8/14/2016
- by Brandon Judell
- www.culturecatch.com
Amanda McBroom -- American international theater and cabaret performer and writer of the hit song, 'The Rose' -- will return to 54 Below tonight, September 30th and October 1st at 7pm with her new show, Up Close And Personal, featuring unheard songs from her own songwriter's trunk, plus music by some of her favorite writers including Leonard Cohen, Judy Collins, Fran Landesman, John Bucchino, Jacques Brel and more.
- 9/30/2015
- by BWW News Desk
- BroadwayWorld.com
Happy Birthday, Constantine Maroulis 'American Idol' finalist Maroulis earned a 2009 Best Actor Tony Award nomination for portraying Drew, an aspiring musician with pipes of steel in the Tony-nominated musical Rock of Ages. He originated the role in the Off-Broadway production at New World Stages in 2008. He has also appeared on Broadway in The Wedding Singer, Off-Broadway in Jacques Brel..., and the national tour of Rent. He is starring in the Broadway-bound national tour of Frank Wildhorn's Jekyll amp Hyde in the dual title role of Dr. Henry Jekyll and Edward Hyde with recording artist Deborah Cox Broadway's Aida as Lucy.
- 9/17/2015
- by Stage Tube
- BroadwayWorld.com
Amanda McBroom --American international theater and cabaret performer and writer of the hit song, The Rose --will return to 54 Below on September 30th and October 1st at 7pm with her new show, Up Close and Personal, featuring unheard songs from her own songwriter's trunk, plus music by some of her favorite writers including Leonard Cohen, Judy Collins, Fran Landesman, John Bucchino, Jacques Brel and more.
- 8/17/2015
- by BWW News Desk
- BroadwayWorld.com
Broadway's 40 theatres aren't the only places to catch performances from your favorite stars Well after Broadway orchestra's begin their overtures, ensemble members take their dance breaks, and performers belt out their eleven- o'clock numbers, the party continues at various cabaret venues throughout New York City. Below, BroadwayWorld brings you some cabaret highlights for this week as picked by our theatre editors, including Scott Alan and Friends Livin' La Vida Grande Christine Ebersole in Big Noise from Winnetka Mitchell Jarvis in Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living Everywhere and The Songs of F. Michael Haynie.
- 1/18/2015
- by Louisa Brady
- BroadwayWorld.com
Sabine Lubbe Bakker and Niels van Koeverden’s Ne Me Quitte Pas (Don’t Forget Me) takes its name from a Jacques Brel song whose fervid tone fits its disheveled subjects well. Marcel and Bob are best friends: deep in rural Belgium, they wile away their hours in a drunken haze, footage that straddles a productively uncomfortable tragic-comic line. Marcel’s wife leaves him at the beginning, which gives him more time to spend with older, more grizzled, seemingly more resigned Bob: their epic drinking bouts regularly punctuate the film, getting into more and more dangerous territory as spiral downward and, unnervingly, take […]...
- 4/18/2014
- by Vadim Rizov
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
Sabine Lubbe Bakker and Niels van Koeverden’s Ne Me Quitte Pas (Don’t Forget Me) takes its name from a Jacques Brel song whose fervid tone fits its disheveled subjects well. Marcel and Bob are best friends: deep in rural Belgium, they wile away their hours in a drunken haze, footage that straddles a productively uncomfortable tragic-comic line. Marcel’s wife leaves him at the beginning, which gives him more time to spend with older, more grizzled, seemingly more resigned Bob: their epic drinking bouts regularly punctuate the film, getting into more and more dangerous territory as spiral downward and, unnervingly, take […]...
- 4/18/2014
- by Vadim Rizov
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
Film-maker behind ground-breaking international smash hit that brought domestic gay relationships to the mainstream
Édouard Molinaro, the French film director behind the pioneering gay farce La Cage aux Folles, has died at the age of 85 from lung failure.
La Cage aux Folles, itself based on a play by Jean Poiret, starred Michel Serrault and Ugo Tognazzi as a long-term gay couple, one of whose children plans to get married to a stuffy politician's daughter. The pair must conceal their relationship when the prospective in-laws come for dinner. The film was released in 1978 to considerable box office success, in the Us as well as Europe, and broke new ground in the mainstream acceptance of a screen portrayal of domestic gay relationship. It was remade in 1990 as The Birdcage with Nathan Lane and Robin Williams in the lead roles.
Molinaro's feature debut was 1958's Back to the Wall, a blackmail yarn starring Jeanne Moreau and Gérard Oury,...
Édouard Molinaro, the French film director behind the pioneering gay farce La Cage aux Folles, has died at the age of 85 from lung failure.
La Cage aux Folles, itself based on a play by Jean Poiret, starred Michel Serrault and Ugo Tognazzi as a long-term gay couple, one of whose children plans to get married to a stuffy politician's daughter. The pair must conceal their relationship when the prospective in-laws come for dinner. The film was released in 1978 to considerable box office success, in the Us as well as Europe, and broke new ground in the mainstream acceptance of a screen portrayal of domestic gay relationship. It was remade in 1990 as The Birdcage with Nathan Lane and Robin Williams in the lead roles.
Molinaro's feature debut was 1958's Back to the Wall, a blackmail yarn starring Jeanne Moreau and Gérard Oury,...
- 12/9/2013
- by Andrew Pulver
- The Guardian - Film News
‘La Cage aux Folles’ director Edouard Molinaro, who collaborated with Catherine Deneuve, Jeanne Moreau, Orson Welles, dead at 85 Edouard Molinaro, best known internationally for the late ’70s box office comedy hit La Cage aux Folles, which earned him a Best Director Academy Award nomination, died of lung failure on December 7, 2013, at a Paris hospital. Molinaro was 85. Born on May 31, 1928, in Bordeaux, in southwestern France, to a middle-class family, Molinaro began his six-decade-long film and television career in the mid-’40s, directing narrative and industrial shorts such as Evasion (1946), the Death parable Un monsieur très chic ("A Very Elegant Gentleman," 1948), and Le verbe en chair / The Word in the Flesh (1950), in which a poet realizes that greed is everywhere — including his own heart. At the time, Molinaro also worked as an assistant director, collaborating with, among others, Robert Vernay (the 1954 version of The Count of Monte Cristo, starring Jean Marais) and...
- 12/8/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
From the use of Jacques Brel's "Ne Me Quitte Pas" (twice) to choice morsels of quotes such as, "Wherever you are, death will find you, even if you hide yourselves in firmly constructed towers" (from the Koran), the specter of death haunts "Diana." While that's not a surprise, given that the story tracks her life in the two years leading up (and including) her passing, it's just one of many elements the script by Stephen Jeffreys ("The Libertine") isn't quite sure how to handle. Set against a chronicle of Princess Diana's last and most meaningful relationship with heart surgeon Hasnat Khan, it's a fine balance between tragedy and ghoulishness, and sadly, the film never finds it. Graceless, clumsy and uncertain, "Diana" is the result of what happens in trying to honor the late Princess by engaging in the very tabloid speculation that marred her life. In the slight defense of the film,...
- 10/31/2013
- by Kevin Jagernauth
- The Playlist
Actor and singer of The Windmills of Your Mind, a huge 1960s hit that won an Oscar
Noel Harrison, who has died aged 79 following a heart attack, was the son of the actor Sir Rex Harrison and followed his famous father into show business. He pursued a varied career on stage and in film and television, but it was as a musician that he achieved his moment in the spotlight. In 1968 he recorded the song The Windmills of Your Mind for the soundtrack of the Steve McQueen/Faye Dunaway film The Thomas Crown Affair and it became a top 10 hit in the UK the following year.
"Recording Windmills wasn't a very significant moment," he recalled. "It was just a job that I got paid $500 for, no big deal. The composer, Michel Legrand, came to my home and helped me learn it, then we went into the studio and recorded it,...
Noel Harrison, who has died aged 79 following a heart attack, was the son of the actor Sir Rex Harrison and followed his famous father into show business. He pursued a varied career on stage and in film and television, but it was as a musician that he achieved his moment in the spotlight. In 1968 he recorded the song The Windmills of Your Mind for the soundtrack of the Steve McQueen/Faye Dunaway film The Thomas Crown Affair and it became a top 10 hit in the UK the following year.
"Recording Windmills wasn't a very significant moment," he recalled. "It was just a job that I got paid $500 for, no big deal. The composer, Michel Legrand, came to my home and helped me learn it, then we went into the studio and recorded it,...
- 10/22/2013
- by Adam Sweeting
- The Guardian - Film News
Paris, May 24 (Ians/Efe) Singer-songwriter Georges Moustaki died Thursday in the French Mediterranean city of Nice, his family said. He was 79.
A Greek native, Moustaki grew up in Alexandria, Egypt, and arrived in Paris in 1951.
He began performing at nightclubs and came to know masters of the "chanson française" such as Georges Brassens, Jacques Brel and Serge Gainsbourg.
Moustaki met Edith Piaf in the late 1950s and was soon writing songs for the legendary singer, including "Milord".
By the late 1960s, Moustaki was an established singer with hits such as "Le Meteque" and "Ma Liberte", even as he continued to write for other vocalists, among them, Yves Montand.
Suffering from a lung ailment, Moustaki.
A Greek native, Moustaki grew up in Alexandria, Egypt, and arrived in Paris in 1951.
He began performing at nightclubs and came to know masters of the "chanson française" such as Georges Brassens, Jacques Brel and Serge Gainsbourg.
Moustaki met Edith Piaf in the late 1950s and was soon writing songs for the legendary singer, including "Milord".
By the late 1960s, Moustaki was an established singer with hits such as "Le Meteque" and "Ma Liberte", even as he continued to write for other vocalists, among them, Yves Montand.
Suffering from a lung ailment, Moustaki.
- 5/24/2013
- by Leon David
- RealBollywood.com
To most people, falling in love with France's future president and becoming a first lady would mean settling into a life of Lanvin flats and pains au chocolat. Not Carla Bruni.
Since her tenure at Élysée Palace came to an end last year, she's jumped back into modeling and dabbled in magazine editing. Now, to further prove she's no longer held back by the restraints of a political wife, the 45-year-old has upped the ante on her music career by leaving Naive Records, her former indie label, for Barclay Logo, part of the multinational record company Universal Music.
"Little French Songs," Carla's first album in five years, is set to be released in April, so this announcement adds an extra level of buzz and shows that the former première dame is ready to get back to her life as a chanteuse. Universal Music reps everyone from Jacques Brel to U...
Since her tenure at Élysée Palace came to an end last year, she's jumped back into modeling and dabbled in magazine editing. Now, to further prove she's no longer held back by the restraints of a political wife, the 45-year-old has upped the ante on her music career by leaving Naive Records, her former indie label, for Barclay Logo, part of the multinational record company Universal Music.
"Little French Songs," Carla's first album in five years, is set to be released in April, so this announcement adds an extra level of buzz and shows that the former première dame is ready to get back to her life as a chanteuse. Universal Music reps everyone from Jacques Brel to U...
- 1/23/2013
- by The Huffington Post
- Huffington Post
Working (at 59E59 Street Theatres through December 30)Warning: Since Working opened in the late seventies, you may have noticed a few small changes to the American economy. You'll notice changes to Working, too: After years of trims and revisions (beginning in the immediate wake of the show's ’78 flop on Broadway), the docu-musical based on Chicago chronicler Studs Terkel's interviews with ordinary Americans on the job emerges here in streamlined and updated form, thanks to the efforts of original director and co-composer Stephen Schwartz and current director Gordon Greenberg (Jacques Brel …) . Past and present mingle, sometimes harmoniously, sometimes dissonantly: Tales of cubicle life burble beneath the anthems of ironworkers, bleary-eyed brother-truckers complain to subcontinental call centers, the aria of the mason has to compete with stories of fund-raising, food service, prostitution, publicity. ("Neat to be a Newsboy," I regret to inform you, has been laid off, a victim...
- 12/13/2012
- by Scott Brown
- Vulture
Happy Birthday, Constantine Maroulis American Idol finalist Maroulis earned a 2009 Best Actor Tony Award nomination for portraying Drew, an aspiring musician with pipes of steel in the Tony-nominated musical Rock of Ages. He originated the role in the Off-Broadway production at New World Stages in 2008. He has also appeared on Broadway in The Wedding Singer, Off-Broadway in Jacques Brel..., and the national tour of Rent. He is starring in the Broadway-bound national tour of Frank Wildhorn's Jekyll amp Hyde in the dual title role of Dr. Henry Jekyll and Edward Hyde with recording artist Deborah Cox Broadway's Aida as Lucy.
- 9/17/2012
- by Stage Tube
- BroadwayWorld.com
Regina Spektor released today a new single from her forthcoming album, What We Saw From The Cheap Seats, Consequence of Sound reported. The song—“Don’t Leave Me (Ne Me Quitte Pas)”, which was written by Belgian songwriter Jacques Brel— was first covered by Spektor on 2002’s Songs. This is Spektor’s second single from Cheap Seats, which is set for a May 29 release. Check out the song and her first single from the album titled “All the Rowboats” below. ...
- 3/26/2012
- Pastemagazine.com
The producers of Peter and the Starcatcher, a new play by Tony Award-nominee Rick Elice Jersey Boys, just announced that the cast of the acclaimed Off-Broadway production will reunite for the shows Broadway Premiere. Christian Borle, a Lucille Lortel winner last year for his performance and star of NBCs Smash, will return as Black Stache Adam Chanler-Berat Next to Normal, who recently departed the Off Broadway production of Rent, returns as Boy and Drama Desk Award-winner Celia Keenan-Bolger 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee will reprise her role as Molly, the titular Starcatcher. Returning cast members also include Teddy Bergman Seven Minutes in Heaven, Arnie Burton The 39 Steps, Matt DAmico Fizz, Kevin Del Aguila Jacques Brel..., Carson Elrod Reckless, Greg Hildreth Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson and David Rossmer Dont Quit Your Night Job.
- 2/16/2012
- by BWW News Desk
- BroadwayWorld.com
Sometimes I forget about former Third Rock-er and current twee heartthrob Joseph Gordon-Levitt. I get so caught up with the Ryan Goslings, Michael Fassbenders, Ryan Gosling abs, and Michael Fassbender penises of the world that poor Gor-Lev just fades from my overly-hormonal mind. But then, he does something like join YouTube stars the Gregory Brothers ("Bed Intruder") in Auto-Tuning the news and all of a sudden, I'm Anthony Michael Hall in Sixteen Candles, dreaming up ways of getting Jgl in the auto shop and then, consequently, my arms. I mean, listen to the way he says "strat" at 0:09! He might as well be saying, "Hey Colette, how about you stop working so hard and let me hum Jacques Brel songs in your ear while cooking pancakes, babe?" In the video, Gordon-Levitt helps the Gregory Brothers do what they do best — make outlandish [...]...
- 1/24/2012
- Nerve
Trailers are an under-appreciated art form insofar that many times they’re seen as vehicles for showing footage, explaining films away, or showing their hand about what moviegoers can expect. Foreign, domestic, independent, big budget: I celebrate all levels of trailers and hopefully this column will satisfactorily give you a baseline of what beta wave I’m operating on, because what better way to hone your skills as a thoughtful moviegoer than by deconstructing these little pieces of advertising? Some of the best authors will tell you that writing a short story is a lot harder than writing a long one, that you have to weigh every sentence. What better medium to see how this theory plays itself out beyond that than with movie trailers? I'll get this out of the way now: Harry Potter is not on this list. I only mention this as I was excoriated back in...
- 12/30/2011
- by Christopher Stipp
- Slash Film
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.