#film classics

[film-classics]

Joan Blondell - The Ultimate Dame

Rose Joan Blondell (born August 30, 1906 in New York City) was an American actress who had a very long career in Hollywood. With blonde hair, big blue eyes and a big smile, she was usually cast as the wisecracking working girl and dubbed as "The Ultimate Dame."

Born to a vaudeville family of Polish and Irish roots, Blondell had seen much of the world by the time her family stopped touring as the Bouncing Blondells when she was a teenager. She won several beauty pageants before returning to New York to work as a model and perform on Broadway.

n 1930, Blondell starred with James Cagney which caught the eye of Hollywood star Al Jolson who brought it to Warner Bros. Placed under contract with Warner, she moved to Hollywood the following year and became one of the highest-paid individuals in the United States during the Great Depression. She was well still received in her later films, despite being relegated to character and supporting roles after 1945; even being nominated for  Golden Globe Awards for The Cincinnati Kid (1965) and Opening Night (1977). In her older years, she steadily worked in television and films, her last film being posthumously released.

At 73 years old, Blondell died of leukemia in Santa Monica with her children and her sister at her bedside.

Legacy:

Won the 1926 Miss Dallas pageant

Placed fourth in the 1926 Miss America pageant and was a finalist at the 1926 International Pageant of Pulchritude, the precursor to the Miss Universe pageant

Crowned Queen of the A&M College Rodeo and Pageant in 1926

Named as one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars in 1931

Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for The Blue Veil (1951)

Nominated for the 1958 Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play for The Rope Dancers

Nominated for two Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress for The Cincinnati Kid (1965) and Opening Night (1977)

Nominated for a National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actress for The Cincinnati Kid (1965)

Nominated for two Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series (1969 and 1970) for Here Come the Brides

Wrote a novel titled Center Door Fancy, published in 1972, and heavily based on her own life and career

Featured in retrospective exhibits at the Museum of Modern Art, Joan Blondell: The Bombshell from Ninety-first Street, in 2007 and at the UCLA Film and Television Archive in 2016

Honored as Turner Classic Movies Star of the Month for December 2019

Has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6311 Hollywood Blvd for motion picture

[hannibal-or-maybe-just-rex]

1981: Heavy Metal. Animation Anthology. IMDb 6.6. Very cool soundtrack too.

[lonesomedreamereccentriclover]

Legendary game designer and film lover Hideo Kojima visits the Criterion closet and recommends some great Japanese cinema!

[applebees4prez]

film class is simple. i watch a boring old movie i don’t understand. i sit in the back with a friend and analyze it in a Gay Way. it becomes easier to watch. Movies: The Gay Way.

[schibborasso]

The Day Mars Invaded The Earth, 1963

[sapphire-imeo]

I have to make a short film about my school by Friday omggg

[ooaassiiss]

CANDYMAN (1992)

DIRECTOR(S): Bernard Rose

BRIEF SUMMARY: For decades, the housing projects of Chicago's Cabrini-Green were terrorized by a ghost story about a supernatural, hook-handed killer. In present day, an artist begins to explore the macabre history of Candyman, not knowing it would unravel his sanity and unleash a terrifying wave of violence that puts him on a collision course with destiny.

[talefoundryshow]

Great Scott, it’s a NEW VIDEO!

Time travel can be heavy… but we don’t think it has to be. Paradoxes can be pretty fun!

[universalhorrorblog]

[misscitcat]

film classics

[film-classics]

Carmen Miranda - The Brazilian Bombshell

Carmen Miranda (born Maria do Carmo Miranda da Cunha in Marco de Canaveses, Porto on February 9, 1909) was a Portuguese-born Brazilian singer. Nicknamed "The Brazilian Bombshell", she was known for her sass and signature fruit hat outfit that she wore in her American films.

Miranda was introduced to a composer while working at her family's inn and soon recorded her first single in 1929.  She then signed a two-year contract with Rádio Mayrink Veiga, the most popular Brazilian station of the 1930s. Her rise to stardom in Brazil was linked to the growth of a native style of music: the samba.

At the invitation of US show business impresario,��Lee Shubert, who saw her perform in Rio's Cassino da Urca, she came to Broadway and starred in hit musicals.

When news of Broadway's latest star reached Hollywood, Twentieth Century-Fox offered her a contract in 1941. Her most memorable film performances are in the musical numbers of films such as Week-End in Havana (1941) and The Gang's All Here (1943). After World War II, Miranda's films at Fox were produced in black-and-white, indicative of Hollywood's diminishing interest in her. As a result, she produced her own films to limited success. Although her film career was faltering, her musical career remained solid and she was still a popular nightclub attraction. She continued to tour the US, Europe, and Latin America.

After filming a segment for the NBC variety series The Jimmy Durante Show, where complained of feeling unwell, she died at home in Beverly Hills, California from a heart attack. She was 46 years old.

Legacy:

Was the first contract singer in Brazilian radio history; subsequently, the highest-paid radio singer in Brazil in the 1930s

Chosen by former Brazilian president Getúlio Vargas as a goodwill ambassador to the United States in 1939

Was the first Latin American star to have a block in the forecourt of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in 1941

Was Hollywood's highest-paid entertainer and the top female taxpayer in the US in 1945, earning more than $200,000 that year

Has a museum in Rio de Janeiro, Museu Carmen Miranda, established in her honor in 1976

Received the Ordem do Infante Dom Henrique Grande Oficial, a Portuguese order of knighthood, in 1995

Has a square in Hollywood named Carmen Miranda Square with a ceremony headed by honorary mayor of Hollywood Johnny Grant and attended by Brazilian consul general Jorió Gama in 1998

Was one of 500 stars nominated for the American Film Institute's 50 greatest screen legends in 1999

Honored by the Museum of Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro in 2005 and the Latin America Memorial in São Paulo in 2006 with a Carmen Miranda Forever exhibit to commemorate the 50th anniversary of her death

Bestowed the Ordem do Mérito Cultural by the Ministry of Culture of Brazil in 2009

Was a part of a set of commemorative US Postal Service Latin Music Legends stamps, painted by Rafael Lopez, in 2011

Commemorated in the 2016 Summer Olympics closing ceremony with a tribute

Honored with a Google Doodle on her 108th birthday in 2017

Was the first South American honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6262 Hollywood Blvd for motion picture

[the-watcher-in-the-sky]

[lonesomedreamereccentriclover]

On January 2nd 2024, the @criterioncollection will release a 4K uhd blu-ray upgrade of the Apu Trilogy with following extras:

SPECIAL FEATURES

4K digital restorations of all three films, undertaken in collaboration with the Academy Film Archive at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and L’Immagine Ritrovata, with uncompressed monaural soundtracks on the 4K UHD and Blu-ray editions

In the 4K UHD edition: Three 4K UHD discs of the films and three Blu-rays with the films and special features

Audio recordings from 1958 of director Satyajit Ray reading his essay “A Long Time on the Little Road” and in conversation with film historian Gideon Bachmann

Interviews with actors Soumitra Chatterjee, Shampa Srivastava, and Sharmila Tagore; camera assistant Soumendu Roy; and film writer Ujjal Chakraborty

Making “The Apu Trilogy”: Satyajit Ray’s Epic Debut, a video essay by Ray biographer Andrew Robinson

“The Apu Trilogy”: A Closer Look, a program featuring filmmaker, producer, and teacher Mamoun Hassan

Excerpts from the 2003 documentary The Song of the Little Road, featuring composer Ravi Shankar

The Creative Person: “Satyajit Ray,” a 1967 documentary short by James Beveridge, featuring interviews with Ray, several of his actors, members of his creative team, and film critic Chidananda Das Gupta

Footage of Ray receiving an honorary Oscar in 1992

Programs on the restorations by filmmaker Kogonada

PLUS: Essays by critics Terrence Rafferty and Girish Shambu, as well as a selection of Ray’s storyboards for Pather Panchali

Cover by F. Ron Miller

[inthedarktrees]

Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music (1965) dir. Robert Wise

[honkaigakuen]

romy schneider in ludwig (1973) x empress elizabeth of austria painted by franz winterhalter