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Cinecittà and Film at Lincoln Center’s Sophia Loren: La Signora Di Napoli

Edoardo Ponti’s The Life Ahead; Mario Mattoli’s Poverty And Nobility opposite Totò and Enzo Turco; Alessandro Blasetti’s Too Bad She’s Bad with Marcello Mastroianni and Vittorio De Sica; Dino Risi’s The Sign Of Venus (Il Segno Di Venere) with Franca Valeri and Raf Vallone; Vittorio De Sica’s Two Women with Jean-Paul Belmondo and Eleanora Brown, plus De Sica’s 1963 and Marriage Italian Style (Matrimonio All’Italiana) with Mastroianni, and The Voyage (Il Viaggio) with Richard Burton; Stanley Donen’s Arabesque with Gregory Peck; Francesco Rosi’s More Than A Miracle (C’era Una Volta) with Omar Sharif; Charlie Chaplin’s A Countess From Hong Kong with Marlon Brando; Ettore Scola’s A Special Day (Una......

Stanley Donen was one of the most celebrated directors of Hollywood's Golden Age, particularly famous for his musicals. He started out as a dancer and choreographer before transitioning to directing in the late 1940s. Early hits included his collaborations with Gene Kelly, like On the Town, Singin' in the Rain, and It's Always Fair Weather. After significant box office success as a studio filmmaker, Donen went independent in the late '50s, producing further gems like Charade, Arabesque, and Bedazzled.

Melanie, the chart-topping folk singer of “Brand New Key” and “Lay Down (Candles in the Rain)” who performed at the Woodstock festival in 1969, died on Tuesday. She was 76.

Billy James, the singer’s rep, confirmed her death to Rolling Stone, but did not provide a cause of death. “We are heartbroken, but want to thank each and every one of you for the affection you have for our Mother, and to tell you that she loved all of you so much!,” the children of the singer born Melania Safka wrote in a statement.

"Raiders of the Lost Ark" starts with Harrison Ford's Indiana Jones venturing into a booby-trapped tomb, defying death at every turn and escaping with the golden idol. Throughout the 1981 adventure epic, Indy finds himself in similarly precarious situations, managing to narrowly escape with his life in each instance. Frankly, filming "Raiders" itself sounds about as perilous.

There's a reason director Steven Spielberg was amazed Ford and his stunt team survived the shoot. He and his crew took several risks when it came to filming the action that could have easily resulted in tragedy, like making Ford run in front of a real 300-pound boulder for his dramatic tomb escape. The star even got his right leg trapped under a plane during the flying-wing fight scene. But Spielberg did have his limits. Ford was prohibited from doing the stunts that were more likely to lead to actual death. Those were reserved for the stunt team,...

The directors of hit Turkish biopic “Bergen,” Mehmet Binay and M. Caner Alper, have signed with CAA for representation.

“Bergen” tells the story of 1980s Turkish pop singer Bergen, who grappled with a violent husband that hired someone to pour nitric acid on her face and later shot and killed her. The film follows the singer’s meteoric rise from cello player to becoming Turkey’s “Queen of Arabesque,” all while struggling with a partner hellbent on sabotaging her career.

As previously reported by Variety, the film has become a sleeper box office hit across West Asia where it has resonated with audiences for its potent message about domestic violence. In Turkey, the film sparked controversy and heightened awareness of the government’s lenience towards perpetrators of femicide after the country last year formally left the Istanbul Convention, a Council of Europe treaty that requires signatories to fight violence against women.

Coldplay stopped by BBC Radio 1 to perform a selection of old and new songs, as well as a cover of Crystal Waters’ pop hit “Gypsy Woman.” The band played two new tracks, “Orphans” and “Arabesque,” off their recent album Everyday Life. The musicians also took on older number “Lovers in Japan.”

The low-key performances, recorded at the BBC studios in Maida Vale, London, showcase a more stripped-down version of the band, with “Gypsy Woman” getting an acoustic touch. Waters responded to the cover on Instagram, writing, “Coldplay doing Gypsy...

After their platinum 2015 pop-pivot A Head Full of Dreams, an all-star Super Bowl halftime show and a two-year big-box tour that shifted $523 million in tickets, easy-listening rock champs Coldplay release an album that aspires to more than stadium-packing. This is positive: when Ed Sheeran becomes your gold standard, it would seem time for a rethink. Signifying ambition as in days of yore, Everyday Life is a double studio LP; it’s Coldplay’s rangiest and deepest release by orders of magnitude, maybe even their best.

Divided into halves titled (wait for it) “Sunrise” and “Sunset,...

Coldplay announced Friday that they will be performing Everyday Life, their upcoming eighth studio album, in a livestream concert event in Amman, Jordan.

Coldplay: Everyday Life – Live in Jordan will air live on YouTube (as part of YouTube Originals) in two parts, mirroring the halves of the Everyday Life double album, “Sunrise” and “Sunset.” The “Sunrise” portion will begin on November 21st at 11:00 p.m. Est, just before the album is released worldwide at midnight; local time in Jordan will be November 22nd at 6:00 a.m. GMT, or around sunrise.

One day after announcing their upcoming double album, Everyday Life, and releasing two tracks from the project, Coldplay have shared their video for one of the songs, “Orphans.”

The clip, directed by Mat Whitecross, takes a behind-the-scenes look at the songwriting and recording process for “Orphans.” We hear audio of Coldplay frontman Chris Martin and a kid (presumably one of his children) working out the drum rhythm for the song, followed by footage of Martin performing the melody of “Orphans” on acoustic guitar outside of Penn Station.

The video gives...

After teasing the announcement in newspaper ads around the world and in cryptic posters and social media posts, Coldplay officially confirmed that they would release a double album, Everyday Life, on November 22nd. To accompany the news, they’re sharing two tracks from the project, “Orphans” and “Arabesque.”

Both tracks were produced by the Dream Team, with Stromae providing vocals and Femi Kuti and his band playing horns on “Arabesque.” A video for “Orphans” will arrives Friday.

In addition to digital streaming services, “Orphans” and “Arabesque” are also available as...

Frank Zappa’s estate will mark the 50th anniversary of the guitarist and composer’s Hot Rats — released on this date in 1969 — with a six-disc reissue that offers a deep dive into the sessions that yielded the jazz-rock masterpiece.

The Hot Rats Sessions, due out December 20th via UMe and Zappa Records, compiles every composition recorded during the July 1969 studio sessions, including an “abundance of rare and unedited mixes, work mixes, relevant Vault nuggets and complete basic tracks mixed from the original multi-track master tapes,” according to a release.

The...

It is interesting this Oscar weekend to reflect on the life and career of the great Stanley Donen who died today at the age of 94. For those nominated tomorrow night who end up losing, don’t despair and just think of Stanley Donen , the director behind the camera on Singin’ In The Rain, Seven Brides For Seven Brothers, On The Town, Damn Yankees, The Pajama Game, It’s Always Fair Weather, Royal Wedding, Indiscreet, Charade , Arabesque, Two For The Road, Funny Face, and so many more. He never got a single Academy Award nomination in his career, not one, yet he made so many movies that are the epitome of style , and virtually (with mentors like Gene Kelly in particular) helped to reinvent the movie musical before passing the baton to Bob Fosse ,Rob Marshall, and Damien Chazelle among others all clearly influenced by him in one way or another.

By Lee Pfeiffer

Stanley Donen, the legendary director of musicals and romantic comedies, has died at age 94. He started as a choreographer and dance director before being elevated to director status at MGM, where he brought to the screen some of cinema's greatest musicals. Among his achievements: "On the Town", "Royal Wedding", "Singin' in the Rain", "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers", "Kismet", "Funny Face" and "Damn Yankees". As the traditional musical genre started to decline, Donen concentrated on comedies such as "Once More with Feeling", "The Grass is Greener", "Two for the Road" and "Bedazzled". One of his biggest hits was the 1963 comedy thriller "Charade" starring Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn, which can be described as the best Hitchcock movie not directed by Hitchcock. A similarly-themed spy thriller, "Arabesque" starring Gregory Peck and Sophia Loren, was not as well received. Donen had other artistic misfires in the course of his...

By Todd Garbarini

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The 1980s were a decade of many cultural phenomenon such as the teen angst film, the splatter horror film, the zombie films, and of course the teen sex comedy. Bob Clark’s Porky’s (1981) was a huge success both financially and artistically. To this day it’s still one of the funniest movies ever made. Many of today’s best-known actors cut their teeth in such fare: Tom Hanks attended an out-of-control Bachelor Party (1984) and even Johnny Depp and Rob Morrow checked into a Private Resort (1985). Stanley Donen, best known for directing Singin’ in the Rain (1952), Funny Face (1957), Charade (1963), and Arabesque (1966), followed up the boring and disastrous Saturn 3 (1980) with Blame It on Rio, a peculiar entry in his otherwise illustrious career. Jennifer (Michelle Johnson) is a pulchritudinous seventeen-year-old who lusts after her father Victor’s (Joseph Bologna) best friend...

In a sense, Arabesque (1966) is a sort of warmed-over rehash of Donen's earlier Charade (1963), which was a really nifty mock-Hitchcockian comedy thriller with Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant. The later film stars Gregory Peck, who's no Grant, and Sophia Loren, who isn't Hepburn but is Loren—which ain't nothing.Donen was reputedly highly unhappy with the script, despite being the movie's producer, and his cinematographer Christopher Challis records him saying that their only hope was to present the story in as stylish and eccentric a manner as possible: this, for the most part, they do. (A pretty-well identical tale is told of Sidney J. Furie and The Ipcress File, and the result is similar in each case: a pop-art expressionist fairyland London in which everyone is or might be a spy or double or treble agent.)The opening scene, in which George Coulouris is murdered at the optician with poisoned eyedrops,...

One of the best international thrillers ever has almost become an obscurity, for reasons unknown – this Blu-ray comes from Australia. Edward Fox’s wily assassin for hire goes up against the combined police and security establishments of three nations as he sets up the killing of a head of state – France’s president Charles de Gaulle. The terrific cast features Michel Lonsdale, Delphine Seyrig and Cyril Cusack; director Fred Zinnemann’s excellent direction reaches a high pitch of tension – even though the outcome is known from the start.

The Day of the Jackal

Region B+A Blu-ray

Shock Entertainment / Universal

1973 / Color / 1:78 widescreen / 143 min. / Street Date ? / Available from Amazon UK / Pounds 19.99

Starring: Edward Fox, Michel Lonsdale, Delphine Seyrig, Cyril Cusack, Eric Porter, Tony Britton, Alan Badel, Michel Auclair, Tony Britton, Maurice Denham, Vernon Dobtcheff, Olga Georges-Picot, Timothy West, Derek Jacobi, Jean Martin, Ronald Pickup, Jean Sorel, Philippe Léotard, Jean Champion,...

Martin Balsam: Oscar winner has ‘Summer Under the Stars’ Day on Turner Classic Movies Best Supporting Actor Academy Award winner Martin Balsam (A Thousand Clowns) is Turner Classic Movies’ unusual (and welcome) "Summer Under the Stars" featured player today, August 27, 2013. Right now, TCM is showing Sidney Lumet’s The Anderson Tapes (1971), a box-office flop starring Sean Connery in his (just about) post-James Bond, pre-movie legend days. (Photo: Martin Balsam ca. early ’60s.) Next, is Joseph Sargent’s thriller The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974). Written by Peter Stone (Father Goose, Arabesque) from John Godey’s novel, the film revolves around the hijacking of a subway car in New York City. Passengers are held for ransom while police lieutenant Walter Matthau tries to handle the situation. Now considered a classic (just about every pre-1999 movie is considered a "classic" these days), The Taking of Pelham One Two Three was...

She isn't listening to her husband, film producer Carlo Ponti, glimpsed in the mirror, yet the casual way she is seated on the floor suggests an intimacy

Her expression – fixed gaze, mid-cigarette puff, idly picking her thumbnail – says she's taking the wardrobe advice she's hearing seriously. But then Sophia Loren isn't listening to her husband, film producer Carlo Ponti, glimpsed in the mirror. She's taking advice from the couturier Christian Dior, in whose studio she sits during a fitting in 1960. The casual way she is seated on the floor suggests an intimacy. Unsurprising, given that the designer dressed her and countless other Hollywood stars for screenings, society events and general movie star gadding around. Dior also dressed the cinematic elite in their films: "Miss Sophia Loren's wardrobe specially created by Christian Dior" announce the credits for Stanley Donen's 1966 film Arabesque.

This image is taken from the book Stars In Dior,...

Creative cinematographer and a key member of the Powell-Pressburger movie production team

Although the cinematographer Christopher Challis, who has died aged 93, was an essential member of the Archers production company of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, he joined them as director of photography at the time of their decline. However, he worked on more of the great British writing-directing team's films than any other cinematographer. These eccentric, extravagant, intelligent and witty fantasies went against the British realist tradition, allowing more scope for a creative cinematographer such as Challis. The sensuous use of Technicolor and flamboyant sets and designs made them closer to the MGM world of Vincente Minnelli and of Stanley Donen, who used Challis on six of his films.

Perhaps Challis's finest achievement was on Powell and Pressburger's The Tales of Hoffmann (1951) which, as he explained, had "no optical effects or tricks. It was all edited in...

Anyone that knows anything about the world of movie stuntmen surely knows the name Vic Armstrong. He's been working in the biz for nearly 50 years, first doing all the dangerous leaps, falls, shimmies and fights that actors can't (or won't) do in front of the camera. The movies that he's worked on, and the heroes that he's stunt-doubled for, are icons of cinema, like James Bond, Indiana Jones and Superman. He's moved up from being a stuntman to a competent second unit director to a stunt coordinator. Can you imagine the stories this guy could tell you about working with Sean Connery or Harrison Ford or Christopher Reeve?

This is why I was looking forward to reading Armstrong's memoir of his professional career. The True Adventures of the World's Greatest Stuntman: My Life as Indiana Jones, James Bond, Superman and Other Movie Heroes is a helluva wordy title but it's...

On May 4, The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences hosted a gala tribute to Sophia Loren, who will be 77 this September. The revelation in the film clips was not her beauty, range, bravura dramatic acting in such films as Vittorio De Sica's Two Women (the first Oscar win for a non-English speaking role) or iconic American roles, dancing in gold lame with Cary Grant in Houseboat (1958) or making Gregory Peck's jaw drop in Arabesque (1966)--both men were clearly besotted--but her comic sexy romps with Marcello Mastroianni in movies like De Sica's 1964 Marriage Italian Style, for which she was also nominated. Her strip scene with Mastroianni sent temperatures soaring in the theatre. They made 12 films together. Video clips of this ...

Leading up to one of the most well-known stunts in cinema history, Indiana Jones –- galloping atop a stolen horse –- flies alongside a Nazi tank in an attempt to rescue his kidnapped father. As the tank descends into a canyon, Indy detours up the ridge alongside it, rises to his feet and leaps off of the horse onto the speeding tank below, proceeding to shoot, stab and fistfight a whole bunch of Nazis atop two moving vehicles.

That leap, a highlight from "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade," is widely considered one of the greatest stunts ever. But Harrison Ford didn't do it. It was Vic Armstrong, the most prolific stuntman of all time, according to the "Guinness Book of World Records."

(Scroll Down For Photos)

Armstrong planned the stunt for weeks, scouting the scene's desert location in Almeria, Spain, laying rocks along the ridge to keep the horse...

Sophia Loren, along with Myrna Loy, an Honorary Oscar recipient at the 1991 Oscar ceremony Sophia Loren will be honored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences at 8 p.m. on Wednesday, May 4, at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills. The Sophia Loren Academy tribute will feature film clips and reminiscences from friends and colleagues, concluding with an onstage chat with the 1961 Best Actress Oscar winner. Among Loren's international leading men were Marcello Mastroianni (in a number of films), Cary Grant (The Pride and the Passion, Houseboat, 1958), Frank Sinatra (The Pride and the Passion), Alan Ladd (Boy on a Dolphin, 1958), Clark Gable (It Started in Naples, 1960), Charlton Heston (El Cid, 1961), Gregory Peck (Arabesque, 1966), Marlon Brando (A Countess from Hong Kong, 1967, directed by Charles Chaplin), Omar Sharif (More Than a Miracle, 1968), Peter O'Toole (Man of La Mancha, 1972), and Richard Burton [...]...

Hitting movie theaters this weekend:

Arthur – Russell Brand, Helen Mirren, Jennifer Garner

Hanna – Saoirse Ronan, Cate Blanchett, Eric Bana

Soul Surfer – AnnaSophia Robb, Dennis Quaid, Helen Hunt

Your Highness – Danny McBride, James Franco, Natalie Portman

Movie of the Week

Hanna

The Stars: Saoirse Ronan, Cate Blanchett, Eric Bana

The Plot: A 16-year-old (Ronan) who was raised by her father to be the perfect assassin is dispatched on a mission across Europe, tracked by a ruthless intelligence agent and her operatives.

The Buzz: I’m moderately excited to see Your Highness, but Hanna wins ‘movie of the week’ here, as it looks to be a better film to see on the big screen. Director David Gordon Green (Pineapple Express) looks to have another great comedy on his hands in Your Highness, but if I had to pick just one to see in the theater, Hanna would be it. The premise...

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Taxi Driver (35th Anniversary Edition) I could have sworn I requested a copy of this one, but it would seem I did not. Too bad, because I hear it is an excellent transfer, which tells me it's meaty and chewy with every texture of film you would want and expect from a high definition transfer of this classic. This is a film I didn't immediately like when I first saw it, but I discussed all this before when I reviewed the 2007 edition of this flick. I'm not sure if it's a film I necessarily need to own on Blu-ray, but at $12.99 at Amazon I am seriously considering buying this one right now and suggest if you are thinking the same thing you hit the Buy Now button before the price goes up. I Love You Phillip Morris This is...

HollywoodNews.com: The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences will celebrate the life and career of Sophia Loren with a gala evening of film clips and personal remarks from her friends and colleagues, concluding with an onstage conversation with the Oscar®-winning actress on Wednesday, May 4, 2011, at 8 p.m. at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills.

In 1961 Loren earned the first Academy Award® presented to a lead performer in a non-English speaking role, for “Two Women,” directed by Vittorio De Sica. Prior to her win, Loren had already made an indelible impression on film audiences both in her native Italy and throughout the world.

De Sica directed Loren to another Oscar nomination in “Marriage Italian Style” (1964) opposite her most frequent co-star, Marcello Mastroianni. The two starred in “Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow” (1964), the winner of that year’s Foreign Language Film Academy Award for Italy, and “A Special Day...

By Pete Hammond

HollywoodNews.com: Jolie. Depp. Narnia. Brand names all that led the pre-holiday boxoffice with a whimper , not a bang this weekend. So what’s the deal with “The Tourist?” I mean Jolie is arguably the biggest female box office star in the world right now, particularly in something as commercial as this light thriller set in Paris and Venice. Depp had a billion dollar grosser in his most recent, “Alice In Wonderland” earlier this year. Producer Graham King won a Best Picture Oscar for the hit “The Departed.” It marks the Hollywood major studio debut of director Florian Henckel VonDonnersmarck who won an Oscar for his critically acclaimed Foreign Language film winner, “The Lives Of Others” and was co-written by him with Oscar winning screenwriters Julian Fellowes (“Gosford Park”) and Christopher Quarrie (“The Usual Suspects”). The reviews though were universally dismal, only 7% positive among top critics at Rotten Tomatoes and 21% fresh overall.

On Saturday afternoon, I had the immense privilege of speaking by phone for 45 minutes with the legendary choregorapher/director Stanley Donen, 86, to whom the Film Society of Lincoln Center will pay tribute throughout the coming week by screening a number of his classic films — including “On the Town” (1949), “Singin’ in the Rain” (1952), and “It’s Always Fair Weather” (1955), which he co-directed with Gene Kelly, and “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers” (1954), “Funny Face” (1957), “Charade” (1963), “Arabesque” (1966), and “Two for the Road” (1967), which he directed independently, among many others — and by hosting a Q&A with the man himself (to be moderated by Mike Nichols, no slouch of a filmmaker himself) tonight at 6pm. (I’m advised that tickets are still available and are priced incredibly reasonably, so I’d urge any of you who are in the New York area to check it out!)

Following are audio excerpts of my conversation with...

Movie Line: Mike Ryan reacted to the news that “Saturday Night Live” will be hosted by best actress hopeful Anne Hathaway (“Love and Other Drugs”) on November 20 and best actor hopeful Jeff Bridges (“True Grit”) on December 18 by asking, “Can the added buzz from hosting ‘SNL’ actually help the chances of a win or even a nomination?” Seeking the answer, he “dug back through 35 years of Oscar nominees and ‘SNL’ hosts to see how often a nominee or winner hosted that same year,” and found that “27 future Oscar nominees have hosted ['SNL'] during the same season that they were nominated or won. (Nine more… hosted during the season, but after the ceremony — call those a victory lap.) Of that 27, seven have gone on to win the award he or she was nominated for — most recently Forest Whitaker.”

OscarWatch: Dave Karger reports that Disney has released this awards season’s first “For Your Consideration” trade ad,...