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Reporting on the original 3-D outbreak in 1953, Manny Farber wrote of the technique’s visual potential: “Along with the sharpening of the outline of bodies, there is an effort to clarify the feeling of negative spaces—the spaces in a composition that are more or less unfilled.” Nearly five decades later, Martin Scorsese employs the technique to leave no space unfilled. In Hugo, he introduces the setting—Paris’ Montparnasse train station circa 1931—with an impossibly vertiginous, digitally-lubricated zoom that races past costumed passengers and smoky locomotives until it comes to rest on the retina of the eponymous orphan (Asa Butterfield). As sparrowish Hugo hides between the station’s meshing gears and tends to its many clocks, no chance is missed to endow images with a sense of depth: Diagonals and curves are the preferred forms, snow falls and pages flutter as if inches away from the 3-D glasses, a Doberman...

Director best known for the visually splendid and energetic Zorba the Greek

Although the first Greek films appeared in 1912, long periods of war and instability crippled any attempts at forming a national film industry. This meant that few features were produced until the 1950s, when the director Michael Cacoyannis, who has died aged 90, became the embodiment of Greek cinema, giving it an international reputation which reached a peak of popularity with his Zorba the Greek (1964).

Based on Nikos Kazantzakis's novel, the film burst on to the screen with extraordinary energy and visual splendour. It brilliantly combined the rhythmic music of Mikis Theodorakis and the Oscar-winning black-and-white cinematography of Walter Lassally with indelible performances by Anthony Quinn, Alan Bates, Irene Papas and Lila Kedrova (who won the Oscar for best supporting actress).

The film celebrated joie de vivre, yet there was an underlying pessimism and an echo of Greek tragedy...

Annabella in René Clair's Le Million Though best remembered as Tyrone Power's first wife, Annabella (1907-1996) was a major star in France before she came to Hollywood in 1938 to play opposite her future husband and Loretta Young in 20th Century Fox's Suez. Those unacquainted with Annabella's work will be able to rectify that matter this evening, as Turner Classic Movies will be showing four of her vehicles beginning at 5 p.m. Pt/8 p.m. Et: Wings of the Morning (1938), The Baroness and the Butler (1938), Le Million (1931), and Bridal Suite (1939). I haven't watched any of the four, but two of those are notable: Wings of the Morning and Le Million. Wings of the Morning is supposed to be mere fluff — but great-looking fluff. Shot by cinematographers Ray Rennahan (who'd later work on Gone with the Wind) and Jack Cardiff (The Red Shoes, The African Queen), Wings of the...

The Birthday Boys and Girls of 11/11

1821 Fyodor Dostoevsky, legendary Russian author of Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov fame. So many movies inspired by his work. But he's not the legendary Russian author that'll be getting all the press this next couple of months. That'd be Leo Tolstoy, soon to be chattered about when The Last Station emerges as an Oscar contender.

1887 Roland Young, popular 30s and 40s character actor (Topper, The Philadelphia Story, Ruggles of Red Gap)

1898 René Clair, (pictured left), wonderful French writer/director. If you've never seen Le Million I urge you to rent it maintenant. His Oscar nominated films include The Gates of Paris (1957) and À nous la liberté (1931)

1899 Pat O'Brien --Ewwww, not that one people -- the actor! whose film career stretches alllllll the way from the 1931 classic The Front Page to 1981's Ragtime.

1901 Sam Spiegel, powerful producer. Boy was he on fire in...