Paul Bullock Dec 16, 2016
Our salute to Steven Spielberg at 70 considers his most recent work, such as Lincoln, War Horse, Tintin, Bridge Of Spies and The Bfg.
There’s a scene early on in Lincoln where the film stops to listen to a man tell a story. This is made a little less remarkable for the fact that the man in question is Abraham Lincoln and the story is part of a wider point the President is making about the abolition of slavery. But regardless it’s a unique moment and one that sums up Steven Spielberg’s current cinema. Quiet and thoughtful, it’s a sequence that homes in on the power of words and the significance of storytelling, and Spielberg captures that weight with directorial reverence: three minute-plus long takes that draw us into the room and leave us captivated by Lincoln’s words. For Spielberg, one of the...
Our salute to Steven Spielberg at 70 considers his most recent work, such as Lincoln, War Horse, Tintin, Bridge Of Spies and The Bfg.
There’s a scene early on in Lincoln where the film stops to listen to a man tell a story. This is made a little less remarkable for the fact that the man in question is Abraham Lincoln and the story is part of a wider point the President is making about the abolition of slavery. But regardless it’s a unique moment and one that sums up Steven Spielberg’s current cinema. Quiet and thoughtful, it’s a sequence that homes in on the power of words and the significance of storytelling, and Spielberg captures that weight with directorial reverence: three minute-plus long takes that draw us into the room and leave us captivated by Lincoln’s words. For Spielberg, one of the...
- 12/10/2016
- Den of Geek
By Patrick Shanley
Managing Editor
This year’s best documentary feature nominees continues a long trend of music docs being recognized by the Academy, as two music-related films have earned nominations at this year’s Oscars.
Amy, which tells the story of late songstress Amy Winehouse in her own words through never-before-seen archival footage and unreleased tracks and is nominated for best doc this year, earned nominations for the Queer Palm and Golden Eye awards at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival for director Asif Kapadia.
Filmmaker Liz Garbus earned the second nomination of her career with the Netflix documentary, What Happened, Miss Simone? The film focuses on the life of iconic R&B singer Nina Simone and her life as a singer, mother, and civil rights activist. Garbus earned her first Oscar nomination in 1998 for her documentary The Farm: Angola, USA.
Music-related docs have been a hot topic for the Academy in years past,...
Managing Editor
This year’s best documentary feature nominees continues a long trend of music docs being recognized by the Academy, as two music-related films have earned nominations at this year’s Oscars.
Amy, which tells the story of late songstress Amy Winehouse in her own words through never-before-seen archival footage and unreleased tracks and is nominated for best doc this year, earned nominations for the Queer Palm and Golden Eye awards at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival for director Asif Kapadia.
Filmmaker Liz Garbus earned the second nomination of her career with the Netflix documentary, What Happened, Miss Simone? The film focuses on the life of iconic R&B singer Nina Simone and her life as a singer, mother, and civil rights activist. Garbus earned her first Oscar nomination in 1998 for her documentary The Farm: Angola, USA.
Music-related docs have been a hot topic for the Academy in years past,...
- 1/22/2016
- by Patrick Shanley
- Scott Feinberg
By Anjelica Oswald
Managing Editor
Keep on Keepin’ On, director Alan Hicks’ debut film, follows four years of the friendship and mentorship between jazz legend and trumpeter Clark Terry, who played with Count Basie and Duke Ellington and taught a young Quincy Jones how to play, and Justin Kauflin, a talented 23-year-old blind pianist. The two musicians support each other as Terry begins to lose his eyesight due to health issues and as Kauflin deals with stage fright as a semi-finalist in the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition. The film is one of 15 films on the Oscar documentary shortlist, five of which will be nominated on Jan. 15.
The Academy is particularly fond of music-related documentaries, nominating 17 since 1942, with eight winning. Keep on Keepin’ On could join the following Oscar-nominated films:
Festival (1967)
Director Murray Lerner’s black-and-white documentary offers a glimpse into three years (1963-1966) of the Newport Folk Festival, which...
Managing Editor
Keep on Keepin’ On, director Alan Hicks’ debut film, follows four years of the friendship and mentorship between jazz legend and trumpeter Clark Terry, who played with Count Basie and Duke Ellington and taught a young Quincy Jones how to play, and Justin Kauflin, a talented 23-year-old blind pianist. The two musicians support each other as Terry begins to lose his eyesight due to health issues and as Kauflin deals with stage fright as a semi-finalist in the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition. The film is one of 15 films on the Oscar documentary shortlist, five of which will be nominated on Jan. 15.
The Academy is particularly fond of music-related documentaries, nominating 17 since 1942, with eight winning. Keep on Keepin’ On could join the following Oscar-nominated films:
Festival (1967)
Director Murray Lerner’s black-and-white documentary offers a glimpse into three years (1963-1966) of the Newport Folk Festival, which...
- 1/8/2015
- by Anjelica Oswald
- Scott Feinberg
By Anjelica Oswald
Managing Editor
Directed by John Maloof and Charlie Siskel, Finding Vivian Maier documents Maloof’s journey to discover more about Vivian Maier after purchasing a box of her negatives in 2007. He began the search a few years later, after he realized the negatives consisted of some of the best undeveloped street photography of the 20th century. After some searching, it was revealed that Maier was a career-nanny who had died in 2009.
Since the documentary is in serious contention for a best documentary feature Oscar, we thought we’d check to see how many other photography-related films have managed to resonate with the Academy’s documentary branch and land a nomination in the same category. We found six.
The Naked Eye (1956)
Directed by two-time Oscar winner Louis Clyde Stoumen, this documentary celebrates photography through history by looking at pioneers in the field, such as Margaret Bourke-White. Though he covers works by multiple photographers,...
Managing Editor
Directed by John Maloof and Charlie Siskel, Finding Vivian Maier documents Maloof’s journey to discover more about Vivian Maier after purchasing a box of her negatives in 2007. He began the search a few years later, after he realized the negatives consisted of some of the best undeveloped street photography of the 20th century. After some searching, it was revealed that Maier was a career-nanny who had died in 2009.
Since the documentary is in serious contention for a best documentary feature Oscar, we thought we’d check to see how many other photography-related films have managed to resonate with the Academy’s documentary branch and land a nomination in the same category. We found six.
The Naked Eye (1956)
Directed by two-time Oscar winner Louis Clyde Stoumen, this documentary celebrates photography through history by looking at pioneers in the field, such as Margaret Bourke-White. Though he covers works by multiple photographers,...
- 11/7/2014
- by Anjelica Oswald
- Scott Feinberg
NYC's Stranger Than Fiction documentary series has announced their winter 2014 lineup, with a thematic focus of music documentaries. The season begins January 28 with a sneak preview of "Finding the Funk," Nelson George's film about the past, present, and future of funk. As always, Stranger Than Fiction screenings take place Tuesday nights at 8:00 p.m. at the IFC Center, with every session followed by a Q&A with the filmmakers. This year's series will combine classic docs such as D.A. Pennebaker's landmark "Monterey Pop" with previews of new documentaries. The one exception to the music focus of the series is "The Central Park Five," which will screen on January 30 with a Q&A with two of the film's subjects, Yusef Salaam and Korey Wise. Another highlight is a screening of "A Great Day in Harlem," whose Oscar-nominated director Jean Bach died last May. It will be the first...
- 1/17/2014
- by Max O'Connell
- Indiewire
It's a cultural travesty that the women of early jazz—not just singers, but instrumentalists of all kinds—have become a neglected footnote in music history, but Judy Chaikin's well-researched, buoyantly entertaining documentary portrait could be the corrective. Bookended with Art Kane's legendary brownstone-steps photo "A Great Day in Harlem," that summer-of-1958 who's who of prominent jazz musicians (only three of them women), the film offers an affectionate, anecdotal female perspective of the era from golden-age musicians now in their golden years. Fighting constant sexism, especially after their male counterparts returned from WWII service and took over their gigs, these strong-willed musicians had to band together as all-girl groups in order to avoid the cutesy, novelt...
- 5/15/2013
- Village Voice
From the bonkers Holy Motors to the disappointing On the Road, Cannes offered plenty of breadth, but only Michael Haneke's exquisite tale of an elderly man caring for his frail wife in their Paris apartment ticked all the boxes
Michael Haneke is too good. Whenever the Austrian director shows one of his films in Cannes, I always come out thinking the others might as well just pack up and go home because they'll never reach his awesome heights of control and precision. It's like the days when Beethoven was around and everyone else gave up composing. Haneke's Amour, about an elderly man looking after his frail wife (Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva, both utterly captivating) when a stroke confines her to their Paris apartment, was by some stretch the finest film at Cannes. It was the only piece to be exquisitely acted, composed, paced and pitched, as well as...
Michael Haneke is too good. Whenever the Austrian director shows one of his films in Cannes, I always come out thinking the others might as well just pack up and go home because they'll never reach his awesome heights of control and precision. It's like the days when Beethoven was around and everyone else gave up composing. Haneke's Amour, about an elderly man looking after his frail wife (Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva, both utterly captivating) when a stroke confines her to their Paris apartment, was by some stretch the finest film at Cannes. It was the only piece to be exquisitely acted, composed, paced and pitched, as well as...
- 5/26/2012
- by Jason Solomons
- The Guardian - Film News
Looks like no day this week is going to go by without a big announcement from Cannes. Today's is the lineup for Cannes Classics, a program created in 2004 "showcasing restored prints of classic films and masterpieces of film history." From May 16 through 27, the program will be featuring "13 feature films, two shorts, a mini-concert and four documentaries. All these films will be world premieres."
Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in America (1984). Running 245 minutes, this newly restored version with 25 minutes of additional scenes is based on Leone's original cut. "This restoration was requested by Martin Scorsese. The screening will be attended by Robert De Niro, Elizabeth McGovern, Jennifer Connelly, producer Arnon Milchan (which also has a small role in the film) and, of course, the Leone family."
Roman Polanski's Tess (1979). Polanski supervised the restoration and, with Nastassja Kinski, will attend the screening.
Steven Spielberg's Jaws (1975). Newly restored in...
Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in America (1984). Running 245 minutes, this newly restored version with 25 minutes of additional scenes is based on Leone's original cut. "This restoration was requested by Martin Scorsese. The screening will be attended by Robert De Niro, Elizabeth McGovern, Jennifer Connelly, producer Arnon Milchan (which also has a small role in the film) and, of course, the Leone family."
Roman Polanski's Tess (1979). Polanski supervised the restoration and, with Nastassja Kinski, will attend the screening.
Steven Spielberg's Jaws (1975). Newly restored in...
- 4/26/2012
- MUBI
I recall first seeing the lauded and multiply awarded jazz documentary A Great Day In Harlem a dozen or so years ago on PBS, and while not a jazz fan nor aficionado, it was a short film (only an hour) that seemed to compress much of jazz history into a convenient package. Later on, when PBS historian Ken Burns turned his formulaic eye on the art form, with a monstrous nineteen hour documentary series, I felt he could have learned alot from this film. Yes, like too many documentaries, especially on subjects like jazz, there is far too much hagiography of mediocrities going on, but the...
- 9/27/2010
- by Dan Schneider, Criterion Collection and Classic DVD Examiner
- Examiner Movies Channel
Every day a multitude of stars wander through the halls of MTV News to talk about their latest projects and goof around with our intrepid correspondents. But sometimes we catch stars elsewhere, and that's why we put together Spotted!, a daily compendium of stars in the wild.
John Legend may be from Ohio and is currently collaborating with Philadelphia hip-hoppers the Roots, but he could easily claim a status as an honorary New Yorker. The singer took to the stage at the Ulysses S. Grant Memorial Park for "A Great Day in Harlem: Concert Under the Stars," a celebration of the music, culture and people of one of New York City's most storied neighborhoods. The free concert was dubbed "The Sounds of Philadelphia" and also featured Keith Sweat, Harold Melvin's Blue Notes and Elizabeth Withers. It's part of the annual celebration of Harlem, which features a multitude of...
John Legend may be from Ohio and is currently collaborating with Philadelphia hip-hoppers the Roots, but he could easily claim a status as an honorary New Yorker. The singer took to the stage at the Ulysses S. Grant Memorial Park for "A Great Day in Harlem: Concert Under the Stars," a celebration of the music, culture and people of one of New York City's most storied neighborhoods. The free concert was dubbed "The Sounds of Philadelphia" and also featured Keith Sweat, Harold Melvin's Blue Notes and Elizabeth Withers. It's part of the annual celebration of Harlem, which features a multitude of...
- 7/26/2010
- by MTV News
- MTV Newsroom
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.