It’s the summer of “Blaxploitation, Baby!,” the latest festival hosted by Film Forum.
The indie theater announced the upcoming festival which will take place August 16 through August 22. The program celebrates the early ‘70s genre of Black cinema, and features films wth iconic movie stars Pam Grier, Richard Roundtree, Ron O’Neal, Tamara Dobson, Jim Brown, Vonetta McGee, Fred Williamson, Isaac Hayes, and more.
“Blaxploitation, Baby!” is dedicated to author and pioneering film historian Donald Bogle, who collaborated on Film Forum’s first Blaxploitation festival in 1995. Bogle credited Melvin Van Peebles’ filmography for helping to establish the genre. “Blaxploitation, Baby!” additionally ranges from works from directors such as Ossie Davis, Gordon Parks, and Gordon Parks Jr.
As well as the screenings, the festival will include the sales of critic and historian Odie Henderson’s “Black Caesars and Foxy Cleopatras: A History of Blaxploitation” and Donald Bogle’s acclaimed TCM book “Hollywood Black” at concessions.
The indie theater announced the upcoming festival which will take place August 16 through August 22. The program celebrates the early ‘70s genre of Black cinema, and features films wth iconic movie stars Pam Grier, Richard Roundtree, Ron O’Neal, Tamara Dobson, Jim Brown, Vonetta McGee, Fred Williamson, Isaac Hayes, and more.
“Blaxploitation, Baby!” is dedicated to author and pioneering film historian Donald Bogle, who collaborated on Film Forum’s first Blaxploitation festival in 1995. Bogle credited Melvin Van Peebles’ filmography for helping to establish the genre. “Blaxploitation, Baby!” additionally ranges from works from directors such as Ossie Davis, Gordon Parks, and Gordon Parks Jr.
As well as the screenings, the festival will include the sales of critic and historian Odie Henderson’s “Black Caesars and Foxy Cleopatras: A History of Blaxploitation” and Donald Bogle’s acclaimed TCM book “Hollywood Black” at concessions.
- 7/12/2024
- by Samantha Bergeson
- Indiewire
Rose Gregorio, who received a Tony nomination for her performance as the browbeaten daughter of Geraldine Fitzgerald’s declining old woman in the Pulitzer Prize-winning drama The Shadow Box, has died. She was 97.
Gregorio died Aug. 17 of natural causes in her Greenwich Village home, her nephew Robert Grosbard told The Hollywood Reporter.
Gregorio was married to Belgium-born stage and film director Ulu Grosbard from 1965 until his death in 2012, and she appeared for him as the ex-wife of Dustin Hoffman’s character in Who Is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me? (1971); as a local madam in True Confessions (1981); and as the mother of Treat Williams’ character in The Deep End of the Ocean (1999).
On television, she had a recurring role on NBC’s ER as Nurse Carol Hathaway’s (Julianna Margulies) mom from 1996-99.
Gregorio also landed a Drama Desk nom and a Clarence Derwent...
Gregorio died Aug. 17 of natural causes in her Greenwich Village home, her nephew Robert Grosbard told The Hollywood Reporter.
Gregorio was married to Belgium-born stage and film director Ulu Grosbard from 1965 until his death in 2012, and she appeared for him as the ex-wife of Dustin Hoffman’s character in Who Is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me? (1971); as a local madam in True Confessions (1981); and as the mother of Treat Williams’ character in The Deep End of the Ocean (1999).
On television, she had a recurring role on NBC’s ER as Nurse Carol Hathaway’s (Julianna Margulies) mom from 1996-99.
Gregorio also landed a Drama Desk nom and a Clarence Derwent...
- 9/21/2023
- by Mike Barnes
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
The title of Elvis Mitchell’s documentary “Is That Black Enough for You?!?” is a rallying cry heard in Ossie Davis’ “Cotton Comes to Harlem,” and it reflects the exuberant tone of this very wide-ranging, essayistic tribute to the Black-centered movies of the 1970s.
Mitchell describes his intentions on the soundtrack and says that this film is an examination of how “one decade forever changed the movies and me.” Though we never see him on screen, it is Mitchell’s voice guiding us throughout, and that voice is never less than lively, witty and provocative.
Premiering at the New York Film Festival on its way to Netflix, “Is That Black Enough for You?!?” runs 135 minutes and takes in an enormous amount of material; Mitchell’s insights into any particular film or subject have to be both brief and acute, and this suits Mitchell perfectly, because he has always been a...
Mitchell describes his intentions on the soundtrack and says that this film is an examination of how “one decade forever changed the movies and me.” Though we never see him on screen, it is Mitchell’s voice guiding us throughout, and that voice is never less than lively, witty and provocative.
Premiering at the New York Film Festival on its way to Netflix, “Is That Black Enough for You?!?” runs 135 minutes and takes in an enormous amount of material; Mitchell’s insights into any particular film or subject have to be both brief and acute, and this suits Mitchell perfectly, because he has always been a...
- 10/10/2022
- by Dan Callahan
- The Wrap
Within a single week in April 1964, CBS’s “East Side/West Side” concluded its one-season run and racked up eight Primetime Emmy nominations. The show, which starred George C. Scott as a New York City social worker, was reportedly cancelled due to its sensitive subject matter making it non-advertiser-friendly. Nonetheless, it was recognized by Emmy voters as one of the best drama series of the year and snagged a prize for its direction. Scott was also nominated for his role, as were guest performers James Earl Jones and Diana Sands.
Jones (33) and Sands (29) appeared together on the episode “Who Do You Kill?” as a young Harlem couple struggling to support themselves and their baby girl. At the time, the two of them were some of the youngest actors to have contended for Emmys, with Jones having been the youngest male guest performer ever recognized. Nearly 60 years later, he ranks as the 10th youngest,...
Jones (33) and Sands (29) appeared together on the episode “Who Do You Kill?” as a young Harlem couple struggling to support themselves and their baby girl. At the time, the two of them were some of the youngest actors to have contended for Emmys, with Jones having been the youngest male guest performer ever recognized. Nearly 60 years later, he ranks as the 10th youngest,...
- 8/30/2022
- by Matthew Stewart
- Gold Derby
Within a single week in April 1964, CBS’s “East Side/West Side” concluded its one-season run and racked up eight Primetime Emmy nominations. The show, which starred George C. Scott as a New York City social worker, was reportedly cancelled due to its sensitive subject matter making it non-advertiser-friendly. Nonetheless, it was recognized by Emmy voters as one of the best drama series of the year and snagged a prize for its direction. Scott was also nominated for his role, as were guest performers James Earl Jones and Diana Sands.
Jones (33) and Sands (29) appeared together on the episode “Who Do You Kill?” as a young Harlem couple struggling to support themselves and their baby girl. At the time, the two of them were some of the youngest actors to have contended for Emmys, with Jones having been the youngest male guest performer ever recognized. Nearly 60 years later, he ranks as the 10th youngest,...
Jones (33) and Sands (29) appeared together on the episode “Who Do You Kill?” as a young Harlem couple struggling to support themselves and their baby girl. At the time, the two of them were some of the youngest actors to have contended for Emmys, with Jones having been the youngest male guest performer ever recognized. Nearly 60 years later, he ranks as the 10th youngest,...
- 8/30/2022
- by Matthew Stewart
- Gold Derby
(For nearly 30 years, Susan Haskins-Doloff was co-host and executive producer of the classic PBS TV show “Theater Talk,” featuring fascinating and witty interviews with the leading stars and other creators of Broadway’s greatest shows.)
As the 2022 Tony Awards approach, and I think about handicapping this year’s nominees, I am also remembering some of the more outstanding dramatic performance I have witnessed over the years. Long, long ago, my mother took me to see “A Raisin in The Sun.” Lorraine Hansberry’s ground-breaking play, which opened on Broadway in 1959, had already received due praise, winning the Pulitzer Prize and The New York Drama Critics’ Circle Awards. It didn’t get any Tony’s though. It was nominated in 4 categories, including Best Play, but lost that to The Miracle Worker. “A Raisin in The Sun” closed two months after the Tony Ceremony, with 530 performances.
It then went on the road...
As the 2022 Tony Awards approach, and I think about handicapping this year’s nominees, I am also remembering some of the more outstanding dramatic performance I have witnessed over the years. Long, long ago, my mother took me to see “A Raisin in The Sun.” Lorraine Hansberry’s ground-breaking play, which opened on Broadway in 1959, had already received due praise, winning the Pulitzer Prize and The New York Drama Critics’ Circle Awards. It didn’t get any Tony’s though. It was nominated in 4 categories, including Best Play, but lost that to The Miracle Worker. “A Raisin in The Sun” closed two months after the Tony Ceremony, with 530 performances.
It then went on the road...
- 6/3/2022
- by Susan Haskins-Doloff
- Gold Derby
By Susan King
Audra McDonald is the most lauded Broadway performer winning a whopping six Tony Awards in both musical and dramatic categories. And she may be receiving her seventh for the revival of “Frankie and Johnny in the Clair du Lune” when the 74th annual Tonys take place Sept. 26th at the venerable Winter Garden Theatre.
Despite that record, it took a long time for Black artists to be acknowledged by the Tonys, which were first handed out in 1947. It wasn’t until 2004 that a Black actress won for a lead performance in a play: Phylicia Rashad broke this barrier with her win for a revival of Lorraine Hansberry’s “A Raisin in the Sun.” Hansberry was the first Black artist to be nominated for Best Play in 1960 for the original production of “A Raisin in the Sun” as were its director Lloyd Richards and stars, Sidney Poitier and Claudia McNeil.
Audra McDonald is the most lauded Broadway performer winning a whopping six Tony Awards in both musical and dramatic categories. And she may be receiving her seventh for the revival of “Frankie and Johnny in the Clair du Lune” when the 74th annual Tonys take place Sept. 26th at the venerable Winter Garden Theatre.
Despite that record, it took a long time for Black artists to be acknowledged by the Tonys, which were first handed out in 1947. It wasn’t until 2004 that a Black actress won for a lead performance in a play: Phylicia Rashad broke this barrier with her win for a revival of Lorraine Hansberry’s “A Raisin in the Sun.” Hansberry was the first Black artist to be nominated for Best Play in 1960 for the original production of “A Raisin in the Sun” as were its director Lloyd Richards and stars, Sidney Poitier and Claudia McNeil.
- 9/3/2021
- by Susan King
- Gold Derby
Black Americans saw very little representation of their lives and culture on TV during the 1950s. The only mainstay was Eddie Anderson, who played Jack Benny’s sardonic valet Rochester on CBS’ “The Jack Benny Program.” In 1937, he’d became the first Black performer to be a regular on the radio version of the beloved comedy series and played Rochester on television from 1950-65. Terry Carter played Pvt. Sugie Sugerman for 98 episodes of CBS’ Emmy Award-winning “The Phil Silvers Show.’ And Black singers and performers would occasionally appear on various musical-variety series.
Pianist Hazel Scott was given her own summer series “The Hazel Scott Show” on DuMont in 1950. But she was soon named as a Communist by “Red Channels”. Though she denied the charges, the series couldn’t attract a sponsor and was history after four episodes. Likewise, NBC’s 1957-58 “The Nat King Cole Show” couldn’t find a...
Pianist Hazel Scott was given her own summer series “The Hazel Scott Show” on DuMont in 1950. But she was soon named as a Communist by “Red Channels”. Though she denied the charges, the series couldn’t attract a sponsor and was history after four episodes. Likewise, NBC’s 1957-58 “The Nat King Cole Show” couldn’t find a...
- 6/25/2020
- by Susan King
- Gold Derby
Coming to Film Forum in New York City is “Black Women,” a 70-film screening series that spotlights 81 years – 1920 to 2001 – of trailblazing African American actresses in American movies.
Scheduled to run from January 17 to February 13, the series is curated by film historian and professor Donald Bogle, author of six books concerning blacks in film and television, including the groundbreaking “Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, and Bucks: An Interpretive History of Blacks in American Films” (1973).
“Last year, Bruce Goldstein, the repertory programmer at Film Forum, asked me if there was something I was interested in doing, and this was a topic that I had been thinking about, because I recently updated my book on the subject, ‘Brown Sugar,’ which dealt with African American women in entertainment from the early years of the late 19th century to the present,” said Bogle. “That’s really the way it came about, and it just developed from there.
Scheduled to run from January 17 to February 13, the series is curated by film historian and professor Donald Bogle, author of six books concerning blacks in film and television, including the groundbreaking “Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, and Bucks: An Interpretive History of Blacks in American Films” (1973).
“Last year, Bruce Goldstein, the repertory programmer at Film Forum, asked me if there was something I was interested in doing, and this was a topic that I had been thinking about, because I recently updated my book on the subject, ‘Brown Sugar,’ which dealt with African American women in entertainment from the early years of the late 19th century to the present,” said Bogle. “That’s really the way it came about, and it just developed from there.
- 1/17/2020
- by Tambay Obenson
- Indiewire
With more than a combined 100 years in the business, Cicely Tyson and Glynn Turman have endured plenty; they launched their careers in an America that was still governed by Jim Crow laws, and have worked consistently since, both on stage and screen. And they certainly have a lifetime of fascinating stories to tell, having starred opposite screen legends including Sidney Poitier, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Harry Belafonte and more. They’ve worked together on several occasions, first in a 1974 staging of Eugene O’Neill’s “Desire Under The Elms,” to playing mother and son in the film “The River Niger” (1976), and co-starring in “A Hero Ain’t Nothin’ But a Sandwich” (1978). The beloved pair now find themselves in contention for Best Drama Guest Actress and Actor Emmy consideration for their roles in ABC’s Shondaland legal series “How to Get Away with Murder.”
Created by Peter Nowalk, the drama stars Viola Davis as Annalise Keating,...
Created by Peter Nowalk, the drama stars Viola Davis as Annalise Keating,...
- 8/27/2019
- by Tambay Obenson
- Indiewire
It’s the brightest debut feature of 1970, and perhaps the warmest movie ever about the American race divide. Hal Ashby and Bill Gunn’s work is inspired: rich boy Beau Bridges buys a slum tenement and launches a wonderful ensemble comedy-drama in confrontation with the fantastic quartet of actresses — Lee Grant, Diana Sands, Pearl Bailey and Marki Bey. The humanist picture doesn’t cheat on its subject matter. The cast list contains fresh debuts and and more best-of-career showings: Louis Gossett Jr., Melvin Stewart, Susan Anspach, Robert Klein.
The Landlord
Blu-ray
1970 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 110 min. / Street Date May 14, 2019 / 29.95
Starring: Beau Bridges, Lee Grant, Diana Sands, Pearl Bailey, Walter Brooke, Louis Gossett Jr., Marki Bey, Mel Stewart, Susan Anspach, Robert Klein, Will Mackenzie, Trish Van Devere, Hector Elizondo, Marlene Clark, Gloria Hendry, Bobby V. Garvin.
Cinematography: Gordon Willis
Film Editor: William A. Sawyer, Edward Warschilka
Original Music: Al Kooper
Written by...
The Landlord
Blu-ray
1970 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 110 min. / Street Date May 14, 2019 / 29.95
Starring: Beau Bridges, Lee Grant, Diana Sands, Pearl Bailey, Walter Brooke, Louis Gossett Jr., Marki Bey, Mel Stewart, Susan Anspach, Robert Klein, Will Mackenzie, Trish Van Devere, Hector Elizondo, Marlene Clark, Gloria Hendry, Bobby V. Garvin.
Cinematography: Gordon Willis
Film Editor: William A. Sawyer, Edward Warschilka
Original Music: Al Kooper
Written by...
- 5/11/2019
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Here’s something I never expected to see: I ran to the blaxploitation attraction Willie Dynamite because I like actress Diana Sands, and it’s her last picture in a too-short career. But the main character on view, a gaudy fur-wearing pimp, is played by none other than Roscoe Orman, well known to a couple of generations of kids as none other than ‘Gordon’ in the long-running TV show Sesame Street. It’s like watching MisterRogers play Hannibal Lecter!
Willie Dynamite
Blu-ray
Arrow Video
1974 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 102 min. / Street Date January 8, 2019 / Available from Arrow Video / 39.95
Starring: Roscoe Orman, Diana Sands, Thalmus Rasulala, Joyce Walker, Roger Robinson, George Murdock, Albert Hall, Norma Donaldson, Juanita Brown, Royce Wallace, Tol Avery, Robert DoQui, Slim Gaillard.
Cinematography: Frank Stanley
Film Editor: Aaron Stell
Original Music: J.J. Johnson
Written by Ron Cutler & Joe Keyes Jr.
Produced by Richard D. Zanuck, David Brown
Directed by Gilbert Moses...
Willie Dynamite
Blu-ray
Arrow Video
1974 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 102 min. / Street Date January 8, 2019 / Available from Arrow Video / 39.95
Starring: Roscoe Orman, Diana Sands, Thalmus Rasulala, Joyce Walker, Roger Robinson, George Murdock, Albert Hall, Norma Donaldson, Juanita Brown, Royce Wallace, Tol Avery, Robert DoQui, Slim Gaillard.
Cinematography: Frank Stanley
Film Editor: Aaron Stell
Original Music: J.J. Johnson
Written by Ron Cutler & Joe Keyes Jr.
Produced by Richard D. Zanuck, David Brown
Directed by Gilbert Moses...
- 1/8/2019
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Stars: Sidney Poitier, Claudia McNeil, Ruby Dee, Diana Sands, Louis Gossett Jr, Ivan Dixon | Written by Lorraine Hansberry | Directed by Daniel Petrie
In the early 1960s, in a Chicago ghetto apartment, a black family is on the cusp of great change. It’s all because of an insurance cheque that the grandmother is about to receive. Ten thousand dollars – but what to do with it? She wants to buy a bigger home to contain three generations of her family. Her son, Walt (Sidney Poitier), the passionate patriarch, is thinking bigger. He doesn’t want to hide in the suburbs; he wants to push forward the fate of the “coloured” man.
The arguments over the purpose of the windfall are the maguffin to the real regrets and resentments hiding just below the surface of this borderline impoverished family. Walt’s wife, Ruth (Ruby Dee), is caught between two worlds: the hope...
In the early 1960s, in a Chicago ghetto apartment, a black family is on the cusp of great change. It’s all because of an insurance cheque that the grandmother is about to receive. Ten thousand dollars – but what to do with it? She wants to buy a bigger home to contain three generations of her family. Her son, Walt (Sidney Poitier), the passionate patriarch, is thinking bigger. He doesn’t want to hide in the suburbs; he wants to push forward the fate of the “coloured” man.
The arguments over the purpose of the windfall are the maguffin to the real regrets and resentments hiding just below the surface of this borderline impoverished family. Walt’s wife, Ruth (Ruby Dee), is caught between two worlds: the hope...
- 10/2/2018
- by Rupert Harvey
- Nerdly
Lorraine Hansberry’s play has been given a masterful film adaptation, with the emotional truth of her words left intact. We’re told of some superficial compromises, but they do not diminish the play’s powerful clash between old and new ideas in a Southside Chicago family struggling to escape poverty. This may be Sidney Poitier’s best screen performance, but the honors are shared with a superlative cast.
A Raisin in the Sun
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 945
1961 / B&W / 1:85 widescreen / 128 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date September 25, 2018 / 39.95
Starring: Sidney Poitier, Claudia McNeil, Ruby Dee, Diana Sands, Ivan Dixon, John Fiedler, Louis Gossett Jr., Stephen Perry, Joel Fluellen, Louis Terrel, Roy Glenn.
Cinematography: Charles Lawton Jr.
Film Editors: William A. Lyon, Paul Weatherwax
Original Music: Laurence Rosenthal
Written by Lorraine Hansberry, from her play
Produced by David Susskind, Philip Rose
Directed by Daniel Petrie
In more than...
A Raisin in the Sun
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 945
1961 / B&W / 1:85 widescreen / 128 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date September 25, 2018 / 39.95
Starring: Sidney Poitier, Claudia McNeil, Ruby Dee, Diana Sands, Ivan Dixon, John Fiedler, Louis Gossett Jr., Stephen Perry, Joel Fluellen, Louis Terrel, Roy Glenn.
Cinematography: Charles Lawton Jr.
Film Editors: William A. Lyon, Paul Weatherwax
Original Music: Laurence Rosenthal
Written by Lorraine Hansberry, from her play
Produced by David Susskind, Philip Rose
Directed by Daniel Petrie
In more than...
- 9/29/2018
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Lorraine Hansberry is sometimes lost in the shuffle of famous playwrights, which is quite a shame considering she was the first African American writer to have work produced on Broadway. While only a few of her plays made it to the stage due to her young and untimely death, Hansberry utilized her writing to help the Civil Rights artistic movement, specifically with her hit Broadway show A Raisin in the Sun. Starring Ruby Dee, Sidney Poitier, Diana Sands (all three of whom reprised their roles on screen), among others, the play centers on an African American family struggling with being swallowed by racism in their everyday lives. The show became so popular that Columbia Pictures adapted it for the screen with Hansberry writing the script. Despite the issues that can often come when adapting from stage to screen, Hansberry and company manage to create a space for their actors to...
- 9/27/2018
- by The Film Stage
- The Film Stage
Like many people, Amy Scott first came to the work of iconoclastic director Hal Ashby through “Harold and Maude.” The singularly joyful and macabre love story has been a staple of repertory theaters and college video viewings since it was released in 1971. “It blew my mind, it shifted my personal narrative,” says Scott, who makes her feature documentary directing debut with “Hal,” which screened this weekend at the Telluride Film Festival and opens in selected theaters on Sept. 7.
After being introduced to Ashby through her friends in film school, Scott continued her career as an editor, and when she read the biography “Being Hal Ashby: The Life of a Hollywood Rebel,” she realized that there was still no documentary about the seminal filmmaker.
Despite creating so many distinctive films of the 1970s, including “Coming Home,” “The Last Detail,” “Shampoo,” “Bound for Glory,” and “Being There,” which Scott calls his masterpiece,...
After being introduced to Ashby through her friends in film school, Scott continued her career as an editor, and when she read the biography “Being Hal Ashby: The Life of a Hollywood Rebel,” she realized that there was still no documentary about the seminal filmmaker.
Despite creating so many distinctive films of the 1970s, including “Coming Home,” “The Last Detail,” “Shampoo,” “Bound for Glory,” and “Being There,” which Scott calls his masterpiece,...
- 9/5/2018
- by Pat Saperstein
- Variety Film + TV
Smackdown in 3 Parts
• The Write-Ups
• Podcast Companion Part 1
And now the conclusion!...
Pt 2 (39 minutes)
On the second half of the Supporting Actress Smackdown podcast we discuss Hal Ashby's debut film The Landlord (1970) starring Beau Bridges and Lee Grant. We theorize about why it's not more famous and what would have happened with the great African-American actress Diana Sands if she hadn't died so soon after the movie. We also make some time for the Best Picture nominee Five Easy Pieces and its abundance of actressing, not just Karen Black!
You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. Thanks again to the panelists: Mark Blankenship, Dan Callahan, Denise Grayson, Lena Houst, and Bobby Rivers . Continue the conversations in the comments, won't you?...
• The Write-Ups
• Podcast Companion Part 1
And now the conclusion!...
Pt 2 (39 minutes)
On the second half of the Supporting Actress Smackdown podcast we discuss Hal Ashby's debut film The Landlord (1970) starring Beau Bridges and Lee Grant. We theorize about why it's not more famous and what would have happened with the great African-American actress Diana Sands if she hadn't died so soon after the movie. We also make some time for the Best Picture nominee Five Easy Pieces and its abundance of actressing, not just Karen Black!
You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. Thanks again to the panelists: Mark Blankenship, Dan Callahan, Denise Grayson, Lena Houst, and Bobby Rivers . Continue the conversations in the comments, won't you?...
- 5/14/2018
- by NATHANIEL R
- FilmExperience
Hal Ashby’s The Landlord, made in 1970, is probably the best movie of the 1970s not to be widely known by younger audiences, and even by some older audiences whose appreciation of the last great era of American moviemaking needs to be expanded beyond go-to classics like The Godfather and Chinatown and Taxi Driver. It’s Ashby’s first directorial effort, after work as assistant editor and chief film editor on The Diary of Anne Frank, The Cincinnati Kid and In the Heat of the Night, and it finds Ashby delighting in the freedom of fashioning experimental rules of editorial and visual expression in the process of translating a script from Bill Gunn (Ganja and Hess), based on Kristin Hunter’s novel, into what stands today as one of the funniest, most honest, cogent and probing explorations of race and American race relations in movie history. We had it on...
- 12/4/2017
- by Dennis Cozzalio
- Trailers from Hell
In his new memoir, “Making Rent in Bed-Stuy: A Memoir of Trying to Make It in New York City,” filmmaker, author, and professor Brandon Harris explores his unique coming-of-age in the city — and community — that he loves. Incidentally and not at all accidentally, the book includes a reflections on a number of essential films that shaped Harris’ journey, from Spike Lee joints to underappreciated indies and even Hal Ashby’s “The Landlord.”
In celebration of the book, Harris has also curated a series at Brooklyn’s Alamo Drafthouse under the same title, featuring four films that speak directly to his novel and his experience, including tonight’s screening of “The Landlord.”
Read More: How Today’s ‘Nonsensical’ Blockbuster Filmmaking Can Learn a Lesson From American Movies of the ’70s
Check out our exclusive excerpt from “Making Rent in Bed-Stuy: A Memoir of Trying to Make It in New York City...
In celebration of the book, Harris has also curated a series at Brooklyn’s Alamo Drafthouse under the same title, featuring four films that speak directly to his novel and his experience, including tonight’s screening of “The Landlord.”
Read More: How Today’s ‘Nonsensical’ Blockbuster Filmmaking Can Learn a Lesson From American Movies of the ’70s
Check out our exclusive excerpt from “Making Rent in Bed-Stuy: A Memoir of Trying to Make It in New York City...
- 6/12/2017
- by Indiewire Staff
- Indiewire
Apr 28, 2017
Lucio Fulci, Frankenhooker and more in our round up of new horror Blu-rays and DVDs...
So, what’s your personal idea of hell? For this writer, it would almost certainly involve being chained down in the audience of an eternal live filming of Loose Women as Donald Trump waves a slice of tiger bread, forever just out of reach. Yours is likely to be similar, though it would have to be pretty grim indeed to come anywhere near Lucio Fulci’s 1981 career-best infernal vision and perhaps the definitive (obviously other than Little Nicky) cinematic depiction of eternal damnation, The Beyond.
See related Better Call Saul season 3 episode 3 review: Sunk Costs Better Call Saul season 3 episode 2 review: Witness Better Call Saul season 3 episode 1 review: Mabel
The Italian gore icon behind such genre classics as Zombie Flesh Eaters and The House By The Cemetery offers ostensibly a zombie film set in...
Lucio Fulci, Frankenhooker and more in our round up of new horror Blu-rays and DVDs...
So, what’s your personal idea of hell? For this writer, it would almost certainly involve being chained down in the audience of an eternal live filming of Loose Women as Donald Trump waves a slice of tiger bread, forever just out of reach. Yours is likely to be similar, though it would have to be pretty grim indeed to come anywhere near Lucio Fulci’s 1981 career-best infernal vision and perhaps the definitive (obviously other than Little Nicky) cinematic depiction of eternal damnation, The Beyond.
See related Better Call Saul season 3 episode 3 review: Sunk Costs Better Call Saul season 3 episode 2 review: Witness Better Call Saul season 3 episode 1 review: Mabel
The Italian gore icon behind such genre classics as Zombie Flesh Eaters and The House By The Cemetery offers ostensibly a zombie film set in...
- 3/20/2017
- Den of Geek
Stars: Roscoe Orman, Diana Sands, Thalmus Rasulala, Joyce Walker, Roger Robinson, George Murdock, Albert Hall, Norma Donaldson, Juanita Brown, Royce Wallace, Judith Brown | Written by Ron Cutler | Directed by Gilbert Moses
Blaxploitation movies have a strange place in movie history. Often nostalgically looked at as being cool and oozing in style, they also have an exploitative feel to them, hence the name. Willie Dynamite is a so-called Blaxploitation movie that looked to do something different, which in some regard puts it at conflict with itself…
Willie Dynamite (Roscoe Orman) is a pimp at the height of his success. Making money and having a successful group of ladies under his control he is living the dream. When crooked cops start to take down his empire and the other pimps start to steal his territory, is it time for him to change his ways?
When you think of good Blaxploitation movies you...
Blaxploitation movies have a strange place in movie history. Often nostalgically looked at as being cool and oozing in style, they also have an exploitative feel to them, hence the name. Willie Dynamite is a so-called Blaxploitation movie that looked to do something different, which in some regard puts it at conflict with itself…
Willie Dynamite (Roscoe Orman) is a pimp at the height of his success. Making money and having a successful group of ladies under his control he is living the dream. When crooked cops start to take down his empire and the other pimps start to steal his territory, is it time for him to change his ways?
When you think of good Blaxploitation movies you...
- 2/7/2017
- by Paul Metcalf
- Nerdly
Jack Nicholson found his personal favorite role in this fine road picture: Navy signalman Buddusky, charged with escorting sad-sack prisoner Randy Quaid to prison. Hal Ashby's direction and Robert Towne's script pitches the story at the human scale favored by '70s director-driven filmmaking. The Last Detail Blu-ray Twilight Time Limited Edition 1973 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 104 min. / Ship Date January 19, 2016 / available through Twilight Time Movies / 29.95 Starring Jack Nicholson, Otis Young, Randy Quaid, Clifton James, Carol Kane, Michael Moriarty, Luana Anders, Kathleen Miller, Nancy Allen, Gerry Salsberg, Don McGovern, Pat Hamilton, Michael Chapman, Jim Henshaw, Derek McGrath, Gilda Radner, Jim Horn, John Castellano. Cinematography Michael Chapman Film Editor Robert C. Jones Original Music Johnny Mandel Written by Robert Towne from the novel by Darryl Ponicsan Produced by Gerald Ayres Directed by Hal Ashby
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Bring up the 'golden age' of director-driven movies in the 1970s and the...
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Bring up the 'golden age' of director-driven movies in the 1970s and the...
- 1/30/2016
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Patricia Neal ca. 1950. Patricia Neal movies: 'The Day the Earth Stood Still,' 'A Face in the Crowd' Back in 1949, few would have predicted that Gary Cooper's leading lady in King Vidor's The Fountainhead would go on to win a Best Actress Academy Award 15 years later. Patricia Neal was one of those performers – e.g., Jean Arthur, Anne Bancroft – whose film career didn't start out all that well, but who, by way of Broadway, managed to both revive and magnify their Hollywood stardom. As part of its “Summer Under the Stars” series, Turner Classic Movies is dedicating Sunday, Aug. 16, '15, to Patricia Neal. This evening, TCM is showing three of her best-known films, in addition to one TCM premiere and an unusual latter-day entry. 'The Day the Earth Stood Still' Robert Wise was hardly a genre director. A former editor (Citizen Kane, The Magnificent Ambersons...
- 8/16/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Tab Hunter Confidential now screens Monday, April 27th at 7pm at Landmark’s Tivoli Theater (6350 Delmar) as part of this year’s QFest St. Louis. For ticket information, go Here
Hollywood can destroy people. For every survivor of the Hollywood system, whether from years ago or any current actors, there are dozens of actors and other artists who crashed and burned, had serious substance abuse issues, committed suicide or never made it at all.
Just from memory I can name Barbara Payton, Jayne Mansfield, Jeanne Eagles, Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, Diana Sands and Montgomery Clift. For a complete rundown you can’t do much better than Kenneth Anger’s incredible book Hollywood Babylon and it’s even more depressing sequel Hollywood Babylon Part Two. Vincent Price called Hollywood “the most evil place on Earth!” And Vincent Price would know something about evil!
A few short years ago I read Tab Hunter...
Hollywood can destroy people. For every survivor of the Hollywood system, whether from years ago or any current actors, there are dozens of actors and other artists who crashed and burned, had serious substance abuse issues, committed suicide or never made it at all.
Just from memory I can name Barbara Payton, Jayne Mansfield, Jeanne Eagles, Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, Diana Sands and Montgomery Clift. For a complete rundown you can’t do much better than Kenneth Anger’s incredible book Hollywood Babylon and it’s even more depressing sequel Hollywood Babylon Part Two. Vincent Price called Hollywood “the most evil place on Earth!” And Vincent Price would know something about evil!
A few short years ago I read Tab Hunter...
- 4/20/2015
- by Sam Moffitt
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Tab Hunter Confidential screens Monday, April 20th at 7pm at Landmark’s Tivoli Theater (6350 Delmar) as part if this year’s QFest St. Louis. For ticket information, go Here
Hollywood can destroy people. For every survivor of the Hollywood system, whether from years ago or any current actors, there are dozens of actors and other artists who crashed and burned, had serious substance abuse issues, committed suicide or never made it at all.
Just from memory I can name Barbara Payton, Jayne Mansfield, Jeanne Eagles, Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, Diana Sands and Montgomery Clift. For a complete rundown you can’t do much better than Kenneth Anger’s incredible book Hollywood Babylon and it’s even more depressing sequel Hollywood Babylon Part Two. Vincent Price called Hollywood “the most evil place on Earth!” And Vincent Price would know something about evil!
A few short years ago I read Tab Hunter...
Hollywood can destroy people. For every survivor of the Hollywood system, whether from years ago or any current actors, there are dozens of actors and other artists who crashed and burned, had serious substance abuse issues, committed suicide or never made it at all.
Just from memory I can name Barbara Payton, Jayne Mansfield, Jeanne Eagles, Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, Diana Sands and Montgomery Clift. For a complete rundown you can’t do much better than Kenneth Anger’s incredible book Hollywood Babylon and it’s even more depressing sequel Hollywood Babylon Part Two. Vincent Price called Hollywood “the most evil place on Earth!” And Vincent Price would know something about evil!
A few short years ago I read Tab Hunter...
- 4/20/2015
- by Sam Moffitt
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Last year, in May 2011, I reported that, for the first time on DVD, the 1972 film Georgia, Georgia with Diana Sands, would be coming out on DVD that year. Well, it turned out that, according to film historian and critic Steve Ryfle, that wasn't entirely correct. The film was definitely set to come out on DVD, but not as soon as I reported back then. Ryfle, who produced the DVD commentary for the film, informed us that the the original release date originallly reported in the press, was incorrect, and the film would be coming out on a later date. However, now I can report that Georgia, Georgia will indeed be finally coming out this fall, through speciality DVD label...
- 11/1/2012
- by Sergio
- ShadowAndAct
This is the Pure Movies review of The Landlord, directed by Hal Ashby and starring Beau Bridges, Lee Grant, Diana Sands, Pearl Bailey, Walter Brooke and Louis Gossett Jr. Reviewed by Suki Ferguson for @puremovies The Landlord is a real race-relations curio; a social comedy that atomizes racial tension in a post-Sixties Brooklyn neighbourhood. When the decade of youthful cultural and political awakening ends, tensions and readjustments soon follow, and here they are deftly exhibited through the prism of big city gentrification.
- 10/16/2012
- by Suki Ferguson
- Pure Movies
Ashby was born fully formed as a film-maker with this debut, a wise and exact meditation on race relations in New York at the end of the 1960s
Sometimes I imagine a scene of a time capsule opening years after its burial, and a noxious stink arises from the urn because its socio-temporal contents have lost all their context, and thus all their meaning. "Ew," says the crowd assembled, "why ever did we bury that?" Not so Hal Ashby's The Landlord, long unavailable despite being, to my mind at least, one of the most assured directorial debuts in Hollywood history, and also perhaps my favourite of all his work. I saw it as a teenager in the 70s, before it vanished out of circulation for decades. This particular time capsule is all madeleines and bitter almonds, its contents apparently not having aged a day in 42 years.
Ashby, one of...
Sometimes I imagine a scene of a time capsule opening years after its burial, and a noxious stink arises from the urn because its socio-temporal contents have lost all their context, and thus all their meaning. "Ew," says the crowd assembled, "why ever did we bury that?" Not so Hal Ashby's The Landlord, long unavailable despite being, to my mind at least, one of the most assured directorial debuts in Hollywood history, and also perhaps my favourite of all his work. I saw it as a teenager in the 70s, before it vanished out of circulation for decades. This particular time capsule is all madeleines and bitter almonds, its contents apparently not having aged a day in 42 years.
Ashby, one of...
- 10/4/2012
- by John Patterson
- The Guardian - Film News
The folks behind the St. Louis Black Film Festival Presents a Classic Black Film Double Feature for Black History Month at Landmark’s Tivoli Theater (6350 Delmar in St. Louis’ Loop) each Thursday in February. Last year the St. Louis Black Film Festival presented a series of new films by black filmmakers, but this year are going back into the vaults and digging out some vintage cinema for audiences with an interest in black history to enjoy on the big screen.
The final offerings for festival are screened this Thursday, February 23rd. The movies are A Raisin In The Sun at 5pm and Super Fly at 7pm.
A Raisin In The Sun (1961) is based on the first play on Broadway ever written by a black woman, Lorraine Hansberry and some of the events written in A Raisin In The Sun were experienced by her personally, most particularly her own family’s...
The final offerings for festival are screened this Thursday, February 23rd. The movies are A Raisin In The Sun at 5pm and Super Fly at 7pm.
A Raisin In The Sun (1961) is based on the first play on Broadway ever written by a black woman, Lorraine Hansberry and some of the events written in A Raisin In The Sun were experienced by her personally, most particularly her own family’s...
- 2/21/2012
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
In Part One of our interview with the unsinkable Jackée Harry, the Emmy-winning actress discussed her role on the exciting new Gmc network film The Ideal Husband, premiering tonight, February 26th, at 7 p.m. Et (and again at 9 p.m. and 11 p.m.), beginning on Another World, and regrets about her illustrious career. In Part Two below, Harry reveals her feelings about 227, how her religion has helped her reconcile her career choices, and offers insight for those who also have been targeted unfairly in their jobs.
We Love Soaps TV: When 227 came your way you had a choice to make. You wanted to do dramatic roles, yet you were presented with the opportunity to do a sitcom.
Jackée Harry: Yes, that messed me up.
We Love Soaps TV: How so?
Jackée Harry: I never got to be the person I thought I was going to be, which was this grand diva actress.
We Love Soaps TV: When 227 came your way you had a choice to make. You wanted to do dramatic roles, yet you were presented with the opportunity to do a sitcom.
Jackée Harry: Yes, that messed me up.
We Love Soaps TV: How so?
Jackée Harry: I never got to be the person I thought I was going to be, which was this grand diva actress.
- 3/3/2011
- by Damon L. Jacobs
- We Love Soaps
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