They say that conflict is the essence of drama, and in this handsome but impossibly somber biopic there is almost nothing but conflict. Following up last year’s surprise hit Sound of Freedom, director Alejandro Monteverde neatly sidesteps a repeat of that film’s controversy with a story that cannot remotely be interpreted as a QAnon allegory. Based on the true story of Frances Xavier Cabrini — literally the first American saint — this takes a most un-maga viewpoint on immigration, painting an unvarnished portrait of racism in a country that is supposed to embrace the tired and the poor.
Right from the start, Cabrini impresses with its set design, giving Martin Scorsese’s studio work a run for its money and taking place shortly after the latter’s atmospheric brace of 19th century movies The Age of Innocence and Gangs of New York. A title card informs us that between 1899 and...
Right from the start, Cabrini impresses with its set design, giving Martin Scorsese’s studio work a run for its money and taking place shortly after the latter’s atmospheric brace of 19th century movies The Age of Innocence and Gangs of New York. A title card informs us that between 1899 and...
- 3/8/2024
- by Damon Wise
- Deadline Film + TV
Filmmakers Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw wore multiple hats to capture the lives of truffle hunters in Italy’s Piedmont region, acting as directors, writers, producers and cinematographers.
Dweck and Kershaw’s Oscar-shortlisted documentary “The Truffle Hunters,” which opens Friday in theaters, follows several elderly men who have devoted their lives to searching out the increasingly rare fungi. It took three years to capture the 107 shots that feature in the movie. Dweck and Kershaw wanted to present the documentary “like a storybook” which was influenced by Italian Renaissance painters. Their goal was to immerse themselves in the world of the truffle hunters in order to for viewers to be equally captivated by that world.
The filmmakers break down how they used a very small crew and honed in on sound and lighting as their way in.
Inside the Lives of the Truffle Hunters
Michael Dweck: For us to immerse ourselves in this world took time,...
Dweck and Kershaw’s Oscar-shortlisted documentary “The Truffle Hunters,” which opens Friday in theaters, follows several elderly men who have devoted their lives to searching out the increasingly rare fungi. It took three years to capture the 107 shots that feature in the movie. Dweck and Kershaw wanted to present the documentary “like a storybook” which was influenced by Italian Renaissance painters. Their goal was to immerse themselves in the world of the truffle hunters in order to for viewers to be equally captivated by that world.
The filmmakers break down how they used a very small crew and honed in on sound and lighting as their way in.
Inside the Lives of the Truffle Hunters
Michael Dweck: For us to immerse ourselves in this world took time,...
- 3/5/2021
- by Jazz Tangcay
- Variety Film + TV
Gary Catona isn’t your garden-variety vocal coach. The man who helped Renée Zellweger channel Judy Garland’s singing style calls himself a “voice builder,” adopting tenor Enrico Caruso’s model of strengthening the muscles that surround the vocal cords. The Philadelphia native’s clients have included Whitney Houston, Andrea Bocelli, Brian Wilson, Steven Tyler, Lenny Kravitz, Liza Minnelli and Shirley MacLaine. He also helped strengthen physically damaged vocal cords for the late Muhammad Ali, who suffered from Parkinson’s, and Jack Klugman, who died of throat cancer. Even Milli Vanilli’s Fab Morvan, famously ostracized by the music industry for lip-synching on the group’s debut album, came to Catona to learn how to sing.
For Zellweger, starring in “Judy” went beyond the complexities of portraying Garland in the last six months of her melodramatic life, a performance that has affirmed the actress’ place on the Oscar front-runner list.
For Zellweger, starring in “Judy” went beyond the complexities of portraying Garland in the last six months of her melodramatic life, a performance that has affirmed the actress’ place on the Oscar front-runner list.
- 1/2/2020
- by Roy Trakin
- Variety Film + TV
Watching a documentary about a famous and beloved artist, I’ll sometimes be suffused with a childlike desire to see his or her life flow forward in one long uninterrupted river of happiness and achievement, with no slumps or setbacks, no peccadilloes, no dark side. It never works out that way, of course. If it did, the subject wouldn’t be human.
Yet for a great long stretch of “Pavarotti,” Ron Howard’s ebullient and elegantly straightforward documentary about the most celebrated operatic singer of the second half of the 20th century, it’s easy to get swept up into the fantasy that Luciano Pavarotti, in his robust and rotund smiling-tenor-of-the-masses way, was at once a supreme performer and an exemplary person, relatively simple in his success. The son of a baker in the Italian comune of Modena (capital city of sports-car makers and balsamic vinegar), Pavarotti liked to describe himself as a “peasant.
Yet for a great long stretch of “Pavarotti,” Ron Howard’s ebullient and elegantly straightforward documentary about the most celebrated operatic singer of the second half of the 20th century, it’s easy to get swept up into the fantasy that Luciano Pavarotti, in his robust and rotund smiling-tenor-of-the-masses way, was at once a supreme performer and an exemplary person, relatively simple in his success. The son of a baker in the Italian comune of Modena (capital city of sports-car makers and balsamic vinegar), Pavarotti liked to describe himself as a “peasant.
- 5/31/2019
- by Owen Gleiberman
- Variety Film + TV
Two years ago, the Monkees stunned a lot of people — especially themselves — when their 50th anniversary album Good Times! hit Number 14 on the Billboard 200 and earned them some of the best reviews of their entire career. There was a lot of talk about a followup, but nobody could agree on what direction to take. “We really caught lightning in a bottle with Good Times!,” says singer Micky Dolenz. “I remember people asking about a Good Times! 2, but that didn’t fire me up. It felt too risky to try doing that again.
- 10/10/2018
- by Andy Greene
- Rollingstone.com
Warning: Spoiler alert.
Meryl Streep’s performance in Florence Foster Jenkins is shaping up to be yet another highlight of the incredible actress’s long career. The irony that one of America’s greatest living actresses would wind up playing a woman known as one of its worst singers seems staggering, which is why Jenkins’ incredible life deserves a closer look.
Jenkins was born — appropriately — Narcissa Florence Foster on July 19, 1868, in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. The city’s population and industry were booming after the discovery of coal in the region; Woolworth’s, Planter’s Peanuts, Bell Telephone and Luzerne National Bank...
Meryl Streep’s performance in Florence Foster Jenkins is shaping up to be yet another highlight of the incredible actress’s long career. The irony that one of America’s greatest living actresses would wind up playing a woman known as one of its worst singers seems staggering, which is why Jenkins’ incredible life deserves a closer look.
Jenkins was born — appropriately — Narcissa Florence Foster on July 19, 1868, in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. The city’s population and industry were booming after the discovery of coal in the region; Woolworth’s, Planter’s Peanuts, Bell Telephone and Luzerne National Bank...
- 1/23/2017
- by alexheigl
- PEOPLE.com
Ten years after they first worked together on Aguirre, the Wrath of God, writer/director Werner Herzog would reteam with star Klaus Kinski for the fourth time, though it wasn't originally envisioned that way. In fact, I doubt Herzog would say much of Fitzcarraldo was how he originally envisioned it. This ambitious piece of genius cinema would take he and Kinski back into the Peruvian jungle for a film that seems to have been cursed from the start, but even curses are meant to be broken given the proper enchantment. Kinski came aboard the project, replacing original star Jason Robards, playing the lead role of Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald (aka Fitzcarraldo), an opera-loving Irishman determined to bring the opera to the jungles of Peru. Alongside him was to be his assistant Wilbur (Mick Jagger), but as production was delayed and Robards fell ill with dysentery, the production almost fell to pieces.
- 5/6/2014
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
Rome, March 2 (Ians/Aki) Italian singer Lucio Dalla died of a heart attack Thursday while on tour in Montreaux, Switzerland. He would have turned 69 Sunday.
"He died this morning after last night's (Montreaux) concert," the singer-song writer's publicity agency Midas Promotion said in a statement Thursday.
The Bologna, Italy, native's 1986 sad love song "Caruso" about late 19th century Italian opera legend Enrico Caruso brought Dalla international fame.
The song about the agony of love of a man dying as he looks into the eyes of the object of his affection was separately covered by superstar tenors Luciano Pavarotti and Andrea Bocelli.
"He was a writer and original voice that contributed to the renewed.
"He died this morning after last night's (Montreaux) concert," the singer-song writer's publicity agency Midas Promotion said in a statement Thursday.
The Bologna, Italy, native's 1986 sad love song "Caruso" about late 19th century Italian opera legend Enrico Caruso brought Dalla international fame.
The song about the agony of love of a man dying as he looks into the eyes of the object of his affection was separately covered by superstar tenors Luciano Pavarotti and Andrea Bocelli.
"He was a writer and original voice that contributed to the renewed.
- 3/2/2012
- by Lohit Reddy
- RealBollywood.com
New York -- Character singer Charles Anthony, who set the record for most appearances at the Metropolitan Opera – 2,928 – during a career that spanned from 1954 to 2010, died Wednesday. He was 82.
Anthony, a tenor, died at his home in Tampa, Fla., from kidney failure following a long illness, Met spokesman Peter Clark said.
"Your talent, demeanor, joy and heart will be missed," mezzo-soprano Susanne Mentzer wrote on Twitter. "What a loss."
Beginning his career at the old Met on Broadway and moving uptown with the company to its new home at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in 1966, Anthony was a "comprimario," or supporting singer.
He shared the stage with the greatest classical artists of several eras, performing in the Met debuts of Marian Anderson, Birgit Nilsson, Jon Vickers, Leontyne Price, Franco Corelli, Joan Sutherland, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and Jose Carreras.
"It's no exaggeration to say that Charlie Anthony is the soul of the Metropolitan Opera,...
Anthony, a tenor, died at his home in Tampa, Fla., from kidney failure following a long illness, Met spokesman Peter Clark said.
"Your talent, demeanor, joy and heart will be missed," mezzo-soprano Susanne Mentzer wrote on Twitter. "What a loss."
Beginning his career at the old Met on Broadway and moving uptown with the company to its new home at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in 1966, Anthony was a "comprimario," or supporting singer.
He shared the stage with the greatest classical artists of several eras, performing in the Met debuts of Marian Anderson, Birgit Nilsson, Jon Vickers, Leontyne Price, Franco Corelli, Joan Sutherland, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and Jose Carreras.
"It's no exaggeration to say that Charlie Anthony is the soul of the Metropolitan Opera,...
- 2/16/2012
- by AP
- Huffington Post
"Openly, contentedly delighted with how our own dreams can appall us, and how close movies are to that appalling dreaminess," Luis Buñuel "may have been the greatest filmmaker of the medium's first century," suggests Michael Atkinson in the Boston Phoenix. "Had any filmmaker realized so acutely the unconscious torque inherent in cinema? Certainly among the 12 or so unassailable masters of the medium, he is the wittiest, the most philosophically imaginative, and the most formally unceremonious. His career stretched nearly 50 years, culminating amid what could be thought of as the death throes of international art cinema; his last masterpiece That Obscure Object of Desire hitting the open air the same year Star Wars forever wrecked the popular market and turned moviegoing into a experience of childish spinal emergency…. It's just as well: from the beginning Buñuel stood outside of fashion, and just as his flirtation with Surrealist dogma quickly became an...
- 6/22/2011
- MUBI
I've been following Brad Bird's live-action 1906 film project since it was first announced, but it seems like one of those films that unfortunately may never going to happen. He's been talking about it for years, but it's never gone beyond anything but talk. At one point the movie was said to be dead. But, if you recall, Steven Spielberg's Lincoln film project was in the pipeline for several years, and now it's finally actually being made which is great! So there's still hope for 1906.
The film will tell the story about the great earthquake that hit the city of San Francisco in 1906 and absolutely demolished the city beyond all recognition. The film is based on the novel by James Dalessandro. This was supposed to have been his first live-action film, but now that he's directing Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, 1906 could potentially be his second.
In a recently...
The film will tell the story about the great earthquake that hit the city of San Francisco in 1906 and absolutely demolished the city beyond all recognition. The film is based on the novel by James Dalessandro. This was supposed to have been his first live-action film, but now that he's directing Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, 1906 could potentially be his second.
In a recently...
- 4/19/2011
- by Venkman
- GeekTyrant
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