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“Anybody got a match?” When 19-year-old Lauren Bacall cast a smoldering glance toward Humphrey Bogart in the 1944 film noir “To Have and Have Not,” she stuck the landing of her Hollywood debut with a precision few stars have achieved before or since. Chin down, eyes lifted, she eclipsed one of the most seasoned leading men in the industry. Even before she uttered one of cinema’s greatest innuendos — “You know how to whistle, don’t you, Steve? You just put your lips together and…blow” — she had walked away with the film. Critics raved, hailing her as the next Marlene Dietrich and claiming she had better chemistry with Bogart than Ingrid Bergman had in “Casablanca.”

Director Howard Hawks had plucked the Brooklyn-born teenager from obscurity after seeing her in the pages of Harper’s Bazaar. After changing her name from Betty to Lauren and instructing her to keep her voice in its naturally low register,...

Hollywood icon Lauren Bacall made her feature debut with Howard Hawks‘ adventure yarn “To Have and Have Not” (1945). The film was a landmark for the actress in both her career and her life, since it was how she met her future husband Humphrey Bogart. The two would become a legendary couple off-screen and on, making three subsequent features together: “The Big Sleep” (1946), “Dark Passage” (1947) and “Key Largo” (1948).

Despite her hefty filmography, Bacall received just one Oscar nomination in her career: Best Supporting Actress for “The Mirror Has Two Faces” (1996), in which she played Barbra Streisand‘s domineering mother. After victories at the Golden Globes and SAG, Bacall looked like a shoo-in to finally clinch an Academy Award, yet lost to Juliette Binoche (“The English Patient”).

Bacall also had a successful stage career, winning two Tonys as Best Actress in a Musical (“Applause” in 1970 and “Woman of the Year” in 1981″). Her...

Trying to figure out what the watch on Max and can’t seem to find something that catches your eye? Well, don’t worry, as Max will be adding over 100 new titles across the month of September including dozens of movies and new original programming to enjoy!

The biggest new original series coming in September on Max is without a doubt The Penguin, which will see Colin Farrell reprising his role as Oz Cobb aka The Penguin from Matt Reeves’ The Batman. The new 8-episode limited series kicks off on Thursday, Sept. 19 at 9/8c with the series premiere with new episodes then released weekly on Sunday nights beginning on Sept. 29 (a rerun of the season premiere will stream on Sept. 22).

The Penguin will pick up following the events of The Batman, as Oz makes a play to seize the reins of the crime world in Gotham which will be no...

Diane Lane whips out her copy of the same Slim Keith book I’ve loved for years: “Slim: Memories of a Rich and Imperfect Life.” It details her love affair and marriage to Hollywood auteur Howard Hawks, how she befriended Ernest Hemingway when Hawks was wrangling the rights to “To Have and Have Not,” and her discovery of Harper’s Bazaar covergirl Lauren Bacall to play “Slim” in the movie, a character based on Keith.

An entire chapter is devoted to her deep and loving friendship, during and after her marriage to uber-agent Leland Hayward, with gay novelist Truman Capote, who eventually betrayed her with his infamous Esquire article, “La Cote Basque 1965.” At that moment, as dramatized in the FX series “Feud: Capote vs. The Swans,” Keith (Lane) and her best pal, New York socialite Barbara “Babe” Paley (Naomi Watts), angrily turned their backs on Capote (Tom Hollander), who had...

A case could be made that Howard Hawks is one of the greatest American directors of all time. His career spanned from the silent era in the mid-1920s all the way to 1970, and along the way, he made some of the most memorable classics the film industry has ever seen. Hawks directed one of the first gangster movies, made two of the best screwball comedies of all time with "Bringing Up Baby" and "His Girl Friday," created two of the best Humphrey Bogart/Lauren Bacall films ever (and an influential noir classic) with "To Have and Have Not" and "The Big Sleep," and directed at least three classic John Wayne Westerns in the form of "Red River," "Rio Bravo," and "El Dorado." Not too shabby.

But everyone has to start somewhere, and Hawks got a job working as a propman during the summers in the earliest days of Hollywood.

The Tribeca Festival on Tuesday announced its lineup of short narrative, documentary, and animated films, as well as music videos for 2024.

Across its 12 short film sections, the festival will showcase 87 works from 101 filmmakers in 27 countries, the most ever repped at Tribeca. World premieres include Motorcycle Mary, a profile on motorsports pioneer Mary McGee from director-producer Haley Watson, as well as producers Rachel Greenwald, Ben Proudfoot and Lewis Hamilton; the not-so-straightforward queer love story Ripe!, produced by two-time World Cup champion and Olympic gold medalist Kelley O’Hara; the Ptsd tale Bite starring Troian Bellisario; and Out of the Dark: Cal Calamia, an intimate look at Cal Calamia, a transgender marathon runner advocating for athletic inclusion. The New York narrative shorts lineup includes the world premieres of Happy to Help You starring Amy Sedaris and Jeremy Beiler, and Veo Veo A Family, a story of familial bonds starring Carla Gugino and Ko.

The 2024 Tribeca Festival has officially unveiled its shorts lineup.

Presented by Okx, the festival includes short narrative, documentary, and animated films, as well as music videos. This year’s festival takes place June 5 through 16, and boasts 12 short film sections, including 87 total shorts from 101 filmmakers with 65 films in competition and 10 music videos.

The 2024 lineup has a record-breaking number of countries represented ranging from Saudi Arabia, Côte D’Ivoire, Martinique, Chile, Qatar, and more for a total of 27 nations. For the first time, the majority of the program is directed by female filmmakers. The lineup includes 50 world premieres, seven international premieres, six North American premieres, two U.S. premieres, and 22 New York premieres. Seven directors return to Tribeca with their latest projects.

Highlights include the world premieres of “Motorcycle Mary,” directed by Haley Watson and produced by two-time Oscar winner Ben Proudfoot, Rachel Greenwald, seven-time Formula One world champion Lewis Hamilton; queer romance “Ripe!

Every now and then, you come across a celebrity video that has fallen into obscurity that is well worth (re)discovering. Well, dear reader, this week, we’d like to present to you a video of Steven Seagal selling you wine — straight from the depths of 1990. And yes, it is far better than that same year’s Hard to Kill.

The video, which was part of Celebrity Guide to Wine, also features Seagal’s then-wife Kelly LeBrock, who appears coming home late, apologizing for the traffic. She asks, “The usual?” to Steven Seagal before reaching for a bottle of wine that she continuously, uh, handles, like somebody who has never held a bottle of wine before. “This better be good,” he says – and you know just what he means…Hey, even now-washed-up actors could be subtle once in a while…

After opening the wine bottle between her legs and with a wink,...

Howard Hawks was the Oscar-nominated director who has become a favorite among cinephiles, praised as a master of genre entertainments. But how many of his titles have remained classics? Let’s take a look back at 20 of Hawks’ greatest films, ranked worst to best.

Born in 1896, Hawks had a background in engineering and aviation before turning to filmmaking during the silent era. He proved himself to be a versatile talent, adapting his direct, fast-paced style to a variety of genres, including comedies, westerns, film noir, adventures (“Only Angels Have Wings”), gangster epics (“Scarface”) and war dramas.

Although Hawks often explored the codes of masculinity in films starring Humphrey Bogart, John Wayne and Cary Grant, he was noted for his strong-willed, fast talking female characters, coined the “Hawksian woman.” The battle of the sexes was never more evenhanded than it was in one of his films, thanks to the likes of Katharine Hepburn,...

For those who haven’t visited Havana and traversed seafront promenade Avenida de Maceo from old Havana to the central business district of Vedado and then on to upscale Miramar, taking in the myriad stories of grandeur, genteel decay, resignation, resilience, and optimism, while hearing strains of rumba, jazz, and nueva trova, and seeing the murals of ‘Commandante’ (Fidel Castro) or ‘Che’, there is an alternative.

Books.

There is a wide array of books, both fiction and non-fiction, by authors new and old, known and unknown, that bring Havana, and Cuba, to life from the times of soldier-turned-dictator Fulgencio Batista to Castro and further.

The focus, though, is more on the days of Mafia dominance, Castro and his revolution, and the Cuban Missile Crisis – the first time the world was on the brink of a nuclear war.

And they span genres from gritty stories of life to crime noir and police procedurals,...

Ingrid Bergman was one of the most iconic actresses of the 20th century and a frequent collaborator with Humphrey Bogart. Born in 1915 in Stockholm, Sweden to a struggling family, her mother encouraged her to pursue acting at a young age and she made her film debut at 18 in the Swedish movie Munkbrogreven (1935).

Ingrid Bergman

Bergman rose to fame quickly due to her serene beauty, intelligence and strong acting skills. Her career reached new heights when she was cast opposite Charles Boyer in the romantic drama Gaslight (1944), for which she won her first Academy Award. Following this success, she found herself working with some of Hollywood’s biggest names — Cary Grant, Joseph Cotten and, most famously, Humphrey Bogart — with whom she starred alongside in movies like To Have And Have Not (1944), The Big Sleep (1946) and Casablanca (1942).

Despite being married three times during her life, Ingrid Bergman never stopped working on movies.

To have coffee or to not have coffee, that is the question answered by discontinued decaffeinated instant coffee brand High Point Coffee, who tapped Lauren Bacall as a spokesperson in the 1980s.

The resurfaced commercials put screen legend and “To Have and Have Not” actress Bacall in a new light: Hilariously slinging instant coffee as the easiest way to look refreshed on set. Bacall, who would have turned 98 on September 16, starred in iconic films like “How to Marry a Millionaire,” “Dark Passage,” and “The Big Sleep” before dying in August 2014.

The “Designing Woman” alum starred in “Misery,” “Dogville,” and “Ernest & Celestine” among her final roles. Bacall was married to Humphrey Bogart until his death in 1957; the couple met during the filming of “To Have and Have Not,” and co-starred in a series of films together.

Bacall lent her trademark voice and signature sultry charisma to the High Point Coffee campaign in the 1980s.

2Nd Update, 1:23 Pm: “I tend to be quite expressive in my writing,” a halting Johnny Depp said Tuesday on the stand of his 50 million defamation trial against ex-wife Amber Heard.

After previous testimony during the day detailing his dysfunctional childhood and rise to international stardom, Depp shifted focus in the Virginia courtroom to the vile texts and other communications that have come out of attacks on his Rum Diary co-star. The actor also addressed his reported deep-seated issues with drugs and drinks, laying a lot of the blame on his abusive mother and her “nerve pills.”

“It was self-medication,” the former Pirates of the Caribbean star claimed.

With the seven-member jury and Heard herself sitting close by, Depp explained that he started using his mother’s pills at the age of 11 to “take the edge off.” He also claimed that he never took drugs or drank to “party” but to dull “the pain.

Deck the halls with bows and arrows. It is a wonderful time of the year for Disney+, which dropped the first Hawkeye trailer down the chimney.

Marvel’s latest live-action series will be a Christmas show, and Clint Barton, a.k.a Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), is re-gifting his archery set to young hero Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld). Clint still has the vision to hit a target, but his hearing may not be so great anymore. We can plainly see Hawkeye’s hearing aid, which could end up being the result of an injury suffered on the show.

You can watch the trailer here:

The trailer features one of the most rousing fast-waltz celebrations ever crooned. “It’s The Most Wonderful Time of The Year” was written by the songwriting team of Eddie Pola and George Wyle. It is such a standard it’s been the theme song for Christmas Seals several times.

Film Forum

The huge Humphrey Bogart series continues, as do Le Cercle Rouge, La Piscine, and Blue Collar.

Museum of the Moving Image

2001 plays on Sunday.

Film at Lincoln Center

Jia Zhangke’s Xiao Wu and Raúl Ruiz’s The Tango of the Widower have screenings.

IFC Center

Working Girls and the World of Wong Kar-wai continue, while Miyazaki’s debut Lupin the 3rd begins its run.

Roxy Cinema

Céline and Julie has showings, while a print of Polyester returns.

The post NYC Weekend Watch: To Have and Have Not, Jia Zhangke, Céline and Julie & More first appeared on The Film Stage.

After exploring “The Civil War,” “Baseball” and “Country Music,” award-winning documentarian Ken Burns and his frequent collaborator Lynn Novick examined the importance of being Ernest Hemingway in their three-part PBS documentary “Hemingway.” Premiering in April to strong reviews and Emmys buzz, the series weaves Papa’s biography with excerpts from his fiction, non-fiction, and personal correspondence. The series also reviews the mythology around the larger-than-life Hemingway, who penned such classic novels as “The Sun Also Rises,” “A Farewell to Arms,” “For Whom the Bell Tolls” and “The Old Man and the Sea,” to reveal the truth behind the bravado.

Feature film adaptations of Hemingway’s works had mixed results. Hemingway Bff Gary Cooper excelled in 1932’s “A Farewell to Arms” and 1943’s “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” receiving an Oscar nomination for the latter. John Garfield gave one of his strongest performance in 1950’s superb noir “The Breaking Point,” based...

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“Geek Love”

By Raymond Benson

One of the more unique entries in the film noir movement of the 1940s and 50s is the 1947 melodrama, Nightmare Alley. Based on a novel by William Lindsay Gresham, the picture was made only because Tyrone Power expressed the desire to star in it after reading the grim tale of a carnival barker who rises to the top of the charlatan world, only to ultimately fall hard to rock bottom.

While classified as film noir, the picture has little of the usual trappings of the movement. There is no central crime in the story, there are no cynical detectives, and one can argue that there are no femmes fatale. It is only in the visual presentation that one can consider Nightmare Alley an item of film noir—the high contrast black and white photography, the heavy light and shadows,...

1. “In the Heat of the Night” (1967)

Why Should I Watch? Director Norman Jewison crafts one of the tautest crime dramas of the 1960s that, on top of the suspense, should have nabbed leading man Sidney Poitier an Oscar. The film follows detective Virgil Tibbs (Poitier) as he investigates a murder in a Southern town. The movie was groundbreaking, at the time, for its depiction of Poitier as a Black cop entering the South. One of the film’s most memorable moments sees Poitier slap a white man who hurls a racial slur at him. In 1967, that was the slap heard round the world. Alongside that, you have an Oscar-winning performance by Rod Steiger as Tibbs’ reluctant partner and a searing performance from Lee Grant. “In the Heat of the Night” airs February 4.

2. Dog Day Afternoon (1975)

Why Should I Watch? I’m jealous of those experiencing “Dog Day Afternoon” for the...

We told you. Remember the rules. You didn’t listen. Now we’re Back with an all new batch of guest recommendations featuring Blake Masters, Julien Nitzberg, Floyd Norman, Tuppence Middleton and Blaire Bercy.

Please support the Hollywood Food Coalition. Text “Give” to 323.402.5704 or visit https://hofoco.org/donate!

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

The Wild Angels (1966)

Spirits of the Dead (1966)

The Trip (1967)

Mooch Goes To Hollywood (1971)

Stalker (1979)

The Candidate (1972)

The Parallax View (1974)

Network (1976)

Sweet Smell of Success (1957)

Ace In The Hole (1951)

Margin Call (2011)

Death Wish (1974)

Death Wish (2018)

Seconds (1966)

Soylent Green (1973)

Rage (1972)

Assault on Wall Street (2013)

Repo Man (1984)

Elmer Gantry (1960)

The Train (1965)

Clouds of Sils Maria (2014)

Strange Brew (1983)

To Have And Have Not (1944)

Singin’ In The Rain (1952)

Easter Parade (1948)

The Band Wagon (1953)

Guys And Dolls (1955)

On The Town (1949)

Casablanca (1942)

The Dirt Gang (1972)

Back To The Future (1985)

The Maltese Falcon (1941)

The Big Sleep (1946)

Bomba, the Jungle Boy (1949)

My Man Godfrey...

Josh Braun, producer of some of the best documentaries in the world, joins Josh and Joe to discuss the movies that have influenced him throughout his life.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Man On Wire (2008)

The Cove (2009)

Cave of Forgotten Dreams (2010)

Encounters At The End of the World (2007)

Winnebago Man (2009)

Spellbound (2002)

Supersize Me (2004)

Tell Me Who I Am (2019)

Apollo 11 (2019)

The Edge of Democracy (2019)

Finding Vivian Maier (2013)

Searching For Sugarman (2012)

Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father (2008)

A History Of Violence (2005)

Frat House (1998)

Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex, Drugs and Rock ‘N’ Roll Generation Saved Hollywood (2003)

The Exorcist (1973)

Go West (1940)

A Night In Casablanca (1946)

Hello Down There (1974)

What’s Up Doc? (1972)

El Topo (1970)

Pink Flamingos (1972)

Female Trouble (1974)

The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)

Bambi Meets Godzilla (1969)

Gimme Shelter (1970)

Monterey Pop (1968)

Grey Gardens (1975)

Grey Gardens (2009)

Titicut Follies (1967)

To Have And Have Not (1944)

All About Eve...

With the Academy Awards just around the corner, it’s time to talk about the “who didn’ts” — the actors who never won an Oscas, let alone received a nomination-as well as classic films that never saw Oscar gold. And there are plenty of who didn’t filmmakers. Countless legendary directors didn’t win Oscars or even earn nominations.

Martin Scorsese, who is one of the most influential, acclaimed directors of the past 50 years has only won for directing 2006’s Best Picture winner “The Departed.” Though his 1976 masterpiece “Taxi Driver” was nominated for Best Picture, he didn’t earn an Oscar nomination for Best Director. He first got his first directing nomination for his 1980 masterwork “Raging Bull,” but lost to Robert Redford for “Ordinary People.”

Scorsese has received a lot of Oscar love. As far as producing, writing and directing, he’s received 14 nominations. And this year, he’s nominated...

There’s no place like home but sometimes it has unexpected shortcomings of its own. That was the lesson learned by the still-concussed Dorothy Gale (Kate McKinnon) in the black-and-white “alternate ending” to The Wizard of Oz, the celluloid artifact that was spotlighted tonight on an Saturday Night Live sketch.

It was framed as another installment of the fictional PBS show Cinema Classics, hosted by the feckless Reese De’What (Kenan Thompson), whose previous Old Hollywood targets have included Casablanca and To Have and Have Not.

McKinnon’s Dorothy is back in her bed Kansas with her head spinning and trying to set out her memories of the fantastical realm that she visited on the far side of the rainbow. Just like the familiar version of the MGM classic, Dorothy tells the farmhands that they were there in her dream as Scarecrow, the Tin Woodsman, and the Cowardly Lion. The scene veers,...

John Mulaney is on a roll, having now hosted two heavily praised episodes of “Saturday Night Live.” The former head writer of “SNL,” Mulaney proved to be an adept performer upon hosting his first episode in 2018, and his 2019 stint was no different. The comedian is now nominated at the Emmys for Best Comedy Guest Actor, his first bid as a performer. Before 2019, Mulaney had 12 nominations and two wins, and he just received four bids in multiple categories. In addition to Comedy Guest Actor he is competing in Best Original Music and Lyrics for “Documentary Now” and Best Variety Series Writing for both “Saturday Night Live” and “Documentary Now.” All this goodwill may just lead to the multi-hyphenate earning his first Emmy for acting.

See 2019 Emmy nominations complete list: All the nominees for the 71st Emmy Awards

Mulaney shows off every facet of his skills as a performer in his 2019 episode.

If you called the shots, then no one would host the upcoming 2019 Emmy Awards on Fox.

That option leads Gold Derby’s poll results with 23% of the vote. It would actually be the first time since 2003 — also a Fox year — that the ceremony didn’t have a host, but the Oscars just went host-less and that seemed to work out just fine for them as ratings were up 11% year-to-year. Of course, if 23% voted “no host” then that means a whopping 77% of poll respondents say they do want to see someone acting as ringleader on the big stage. We provided a wide range of options in our poll and the person with the most support was stand-up comedian John Mulaney at 15%.

SEEEmmy winning writer John Mulaney could win his first acting prize as ‘SNL’ guest host

Mulaney is already in the Emmy club, having won last year for writing his variety...

Mel Brooks celebrates his 93rd birthday on June 28, 2019. One of only 15 people to win the Egot, the legendary funnyman has excelled on the big screen, the stage and television. But it’s his movies that have made him a household name. In honor of his birthday, let’s take a look back at 12 of his greatest films, ranked worst to best.

SEEWhich 15 People Have the Egot?

Born in 1926 in Brooklyn, New York, Brooks got his start as a writer for Sid Caesar on “Your Show of Shows,” working alongside Carl Reiner, Neil Simon, Danny Simon and Mel Tolkin. He then moved onto “Caesar’s Hour,” which added Woody Allen and Larry Gelbart to the writing team. The show brought Brooks three consecutive Emmy nominations (1956-1958), and he won his first prize for co-writing the 1967 reunion special. In 1965, he co-created the spy comedy “Get Smart” with Buck Henry, which brought him...

Mel Brooks celebrates his 93rd birthday on June 28, 2019. One of only 15 people to win the Egot, the legendary funnyman has excelled on the big screen, the stage and television. But it’s his movies that have made him a household name. In honor of his birthday, let’s take a look back at 12 of his greatest films, ranked worst to best.

Born in 1926 in Brooklyn, New York, Brooks got his start as a writer for Sid Caesar on “Your Show of Shows,” working alongside Carl Reiner, Neil Simon, Danny Simon and Mel Tolkin. He then moved onto “Caesar’s Hour,” which added Woody Allen and Larry Gelbart to the writing team. The show brought Brooks three consecutive Emmy nominations (1956-1958), and he won his first prize for co-writing the 1967 reunion special. In 1965, he co-created the spy comedy “Get Smart” with Buck Henry, which brought him another Emmy bid for writing...

Each year “Saturday Night Live” does its best to only submit a handful of its guest stars on the Emmy ballot in an effort to try to focus voters’ attentions on select performances. NBC previously announced that they were entering a total of 12 such performers for Emmy consideration, but when the ballots were unveiled on Monday a whopping 16 guest stars had actually been submitted (11 men and five women). It’s possible NBC made adjustments before the entry deadline or that the new folks were submitted by their personal reps.

Of the 11 men vying for Emmy consideration this year, which ones do You think will receive nominations in Best Comedy Guest Actor? Jump into Gold Derby’s predictions center right now and start making your picks.

SEEEmmys 2019: Will Sandler finally win a major award thanks to hosting ‘Saturday Night Live’?

Season 44 of “Saturday Night Live” consisted of 21 episodes, with men...

Howard Hawks would’ve celebrated his 123rd birthday on May 30, 2019. Underrated in his time, the Oscar-nominated director has become a favorite among cinephiles, praised as a master of genre entertainments. But how many of his titles have remained classics? In honor of his birthday, let’s take a look back at 20 of Hawks’ greatest films, ranked worst to best.

Born in 1896, Hawks had a background in engineering and aviation before turning to filmmaking during the silent era. He proved himself to be a versatile talent, adapting his direct, fast-paced style to a variety of genres, including comedies, westerns, film noir, adventures (“Only Angels Have Wings”), gangster epics (“Scarface”) and war dramas.

SEEJohn Wayne movies: 25 greatest films ranked worst to best

Although Hawks often explored the codes of masculinity in films starring Humphrey Bogart, John Wayne and Cary Grant, he was noted for his strong-willed, fast talking female characters, coined the “Hawksian woman.

Kate McKinnon is an institution on the current version of “Saturday Night Live,” but as the show prepares for its annual summer hiatus, there are early indications that she might be nearing the end of her tenure as a regular.

Variety is reporting that the final episodes of Season 44 could be McKinnon’s last ones as a full-time cast member. As her film and TV career takes off, there are increasing demands on her time which may make a full-time commitment impossible.

One hope for the comedienne’s fans: given the elastic shooting schedule of “SNL,” there’s a chance that even without being part of the show’s opening credits, she could still swing by Studio 8H for the show’s now-regular political sketches. Prior to and since the 2016 presidential election, McKinnon has been one of the cast’s go-to players for headline-themed cold opens, playing everyone from Kellyanne Conway...

John Mulaney earned a great deal of critical praise for his first stint hosting “Saturday Night Live” last April. The memorable sketch “Diner Lobster” was a season highlight that alone warranted a return hosting gig. So when it was announced that Mulaney was coming back to host on Saturday, March 2, there were certainly high expectations to be met. Luckily, Mulaney, the cast, and the crew pulled off one of the best episodes of “SNL” in years, with arguably no weak sketches even among the riskiest of ideas.

The episode started off wonderfully for Mulaney, who was in his element performing a standup routine for his monologue. The set included hilarious bits about marrying a woman of a different faith, the voices heard on the New York subway, and the similarities between an old police siren and an old gay cat dying. Mulaney’s first proper sketch of the night, “What’s That Name,...

Sometimes “Saturday Night Live” works best when sketches get out of their own way and let insanely gifted comedians do what they do best. And sometimes that means letting Kate McKinnon contort herself in the more bizarre, entertaining ways possible. Turns out, the only to make that better is to pair those antics with a little bit of cinema history.

The 1944 Howard Hawks film “To Have and Have Not” is an undeniable classic for any number of reasons: Lauren Bacall’s debut screen performance, a screenplay based on an Ernest Hemingway novel punched up by William Faulkner himself. But that immortal “You know how to whistle, don’t you Steve?” line lives on for plenty of people not also named Steve.

If all this sketch had was McKinnon following through on that literal whistling technique, that would be enough. The second version of the joke is almost better than the first one.

Each episode of Saturday Night Live has its own rhythm, and this John Mulaney-hosted endeavor had that of a jam band that was locked in during a live concert. Most of the sketches were long. Like, really long. So long that the normal pattern of the 90-minute episode was essentially broken by the time the monologue ended more than 20 minutes into it. Still, one can forgive the overall small number of individual segments due to their overall quality, even as those segments often approached the ten-minute mark.

Other than “cold open,...

“You know you don’t have to act with me, Steve. You don’t have to say anything, and you don’t have to do anything. Not a thing. Oh, maybe just whistle. You know how to whistle, don’t you, Steve? You just put your lips together and… blow!”

Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall in To Have And Have Not screens at Webster University Tuesday February 5th. The screening will be at 7:30 at Webster University’s Moore Auditorium (470 East Lockwood). The film will be introduced by Cliff Froelich, Executive Director of Cinema St. Louis and Adjunct Professor of Film Studies at Webster University.A Facebook invite for the event can be found Here. This is the first of four Humphrey Bogart/Lauren Bacall collaborations that will be screening at Webster in February. The others are: The Big Sleep Feb 12th, Dark Passage Feb 19th, and Key Largo Feb 26th.

Here’s looking at you, Humphrey Bogart. The Oscar-winning leading man would’ve celebrated his 119th birthday on December 25, 2018. Best known for playing a tough guy with a heart of gold, Bogart made dozens of films before his untimely death in 1957. But how many of those titles are classics? In honor of his birthday, let’s take a look back at 20 of his greatest films, ranked worst to best.

Though it may sound like a bit of Hollywood lore, Bogart was indeed born on Christmas Day, 1899, in New York City. After a short stint in the Navy, he started acting onstage and in films, mostly in bit parts as gangsters who met the wrong end of a bullet.

SEEOscar Best Actor Gallery: Every Winner in Academy Award History

His big breakthrough came with the Broadway hit “The Petrified Forest,” in which he played a violent bank robber holed up at...

Here’s looking at you, Humphrey Bogart. The Oscar-winning leading man would’ve celebrated his 119th birthday on December 25, 2018. Best known for playing a tough guy with a heart of gold, Bogart made dozens of films before his untimely death in 1957. But how many of those titles are classics? In honor of his birthday, let’s take a look back at 20 of his greatest films, ranked worst to best.

Though it may sound like a bit of Hollywood lore, Bogart was indeed born on Christmas Day, 1899, in New York City. After a short stint in the Navy, he started acting onstage and in films, mostly in bit parts as gangsters who met the wrong end of a bullet.

His big breakthrough came with the Broadway hit “The Petrified Forest,” in which he played a violent bank robber holed up at an isolated diner with a hobo and a waitress. When...

Classic film fans share a passion much like those who adore Star Wars or Marvel — but instead, the obsession is focused on cinematic moments crafted before many were born. Such classic movie lovers want to dissect the greatness of Bringing Up Baby, His Girl Friday or To Have and Have Not. Like other film buffs, Ryan Reynolds is a fan of Howard Hawks and Cary Grant — he has said he plays Turner Classic Movies in his home pretty much 24/7.

Lovers of Hollywood’s golden era are also insanely easy to buy gifts for, from the latest crop of books and DVDs ...

Classic film fans share a passion much like those who adore Star Wars or Marvel — but instead, the obsession is focused on cinematic moments crafted before many were born. Such classic movie lovers want to dissect the greatness of Bringing Up Baby, His Girl Friday or To Have and Have Not. Like other film buffs, Ryan Reynolds is a fan of Howard Hawks and Cary Grant — he has said he plays Turner Classic Movies in his home pretty much 24/7.

Lovers of Hollywood’s golden era are also insanely easy to buy gifts for, from the latest crop of books and DVDs ...

Lauren Bacall would’ve celebrated her 94th birthday on September 16. The Hollywood icon showed no signs of slowing down, continuing to work until her death in 2014 at the age of 89. In honor of her birthday, let’s take a look back at 15 of her greatest films, ranked worst to best.

Bacall made her feature debut with Howard Hawks‘ adventure yarn “To Have and Have Not” (1945). The film was a landmark for the actress in both her career and her life, since it was how she met her future husband Humphrey Bogart. The two would become a legendary couple off-screen and on, making three subsequent features together: “The Big Sleep” (1946), “Dark Passage” (1947), and “Key Largo” (1948).

Despite her hefty filmography, Bacall received just one Oscar nomination in her career: Best Supporting Actress for “The Mirror Has Two Faces” (1996), in which she played Barbra Streisand‘s domineering mother. After victories at the Golden Globes and SAG,...

So much time, so few movies to see. Scratch that. Reverse it.

Running a little later than usual this year, the 2018 Turner Classic Movies Film Festival gets under way this coming Thursday, screening approximately 88 films and special programs over the course of the festival’s three-and-a-half days, beginning Thursday evening, and no doubt about it, this year’s schedule, no less than any other year, will lay out a banquet for classic film buffs, casual film fans and harder-core cinephiles looking for the opportunity to see long-time favorites as well as rare and unusual treats on the big screen. I’ve attended every festival since its inaugural run back in 2010, and since then if I have not reined in my enthusiasm for the festival and being given the opportunity to attend it every year, then I have at least managed to lasso my verbiage. That first year I wrote about...

In the late 1970s, an associate professor in the Philosophy department at Johns Hopkins (thesis title: "The Nature of the Natural Numbers") began publishing essays on Hollywood movies. George M. Wilson wasn't the first person to undergo this shift in specialism. At the start of the decade, Stanley Cavell had published The World Viewed, a series of "reflections on the ontology of film." But Cavell had always been concerned with how works of art enable us to think through philosophical themes such as knowledge and meaning, and he held a chair, at Harvard, in Aesthetics. Wilson differed in that he brought a range of analytic gifts to an ongoing revolution: the close reading of American cinema, conceived as part of the "auteur" policy of Truffaut and other writers at Cahiers du cinéma in the 1950s, and concertedly developed in the following decades by critics in England such as V. F.

They’re non-corporeal cut-ups, rich ghosts on the town with nothing better to do than spice up the love life of Roland Young’s harried, henpecked bank president. Hal Roach’s screwball hit did good things for everybody concerned, especially star Cary Grant and bit player Arthur Lake. But the show’s nostalgic heart is Billie Burke, of the tinkly-glass voice. Also starring platinum blonde Constance Bennett, Alan Mowbray and Eugene Pallette.

Topper

Blu-ray

Vci

1937 / B&W / 1:37 flat full frame / 97 min. / Street Date October, 2017 / 20.99

Starring: Constance Bennett, Cary Grant, Roland Young, Billie Burke, Alan Mowbray, Eugene Pallette, Arthur Lake, Hedda Hopper, Virginia Sale, Theodore von Eltz, J. Farrell MacDonald, Elaine Shepard, Ward Bond, Hoagy Carmichael, Lana Turner, Russell Wade, Claire Windsor.

Cinematography: Norbert Brodine

Film Editor: William Terhune

Art Director: William Stevens

Original Music: Marvin Hatley

Written by Jack Jevne, Eric Hatch, Eddie Moran from a novel by Thorne Smith...

Christian Petzold's The State I Am In (2000) and Christoph Hochhäusler's The City Below (2010) will be showing in September and October, 2017 on Mubi in most countries around the world.Christian Petzold (left) and Christoph Hochhäusler (right) on the set of Dreileben. Photo by Felix von Böhm.We meet in Christian Petzold’s office in Berlin-Kreuzberg. A giant wall of whispering books, almost like a Borgesian brain of fiction, encircles the table at which Christoph Hochhäusler, myself and the owner take place to discuss their films. The idea of the interview was to get Petzold’s take on Hochhäusler’s The City Below (2010) and Hochhäusler’s take on Petzold’s The State I Am In (2000). In the end, both filmmakers ended up talking about a lot more, as cinema for them has always been something that shines most brightly when remembering it, discussing it and loving it. The fictions proposed...

It’s finally here in all its glory, the Howard Hawks movie nobody loves. The epitome of clueless ’60s filmmaking by an auteur who left his thinking cap back with Bogie and Bacall, this show is a PC quagmire lacking the usual compensation of exploitative thrills. But hey, it has a hypnotic appeal all its own: we’ll not abandon any movie where Teri Garr dances.

Red Line 7000

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1965 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 110 min. / Street Date September 19, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: James Caan, Laura Devon, Gail Hire, Charlene Holt, John Robert Crawford, Marianna Hill, James (Skip) Ward, Norman Alden, George Takei, Diane Strom, Anthony Rogers, Robert Donner, Teri Garr.

Cinematography: Milton Krasner

Film Editors: Bill Brame, Stuart Gilmore

Original Music: Nelson Riddle

Written by George Kirgo story by Howard Hawks

Produced and Directed by Howard Hawks

Critics have been raking Howard Hawks’ stock car racing epic...

From the beginning of Michael Curtiz’s 1950 film The Breaking Point, things are dire for Captain Harry Morgan (John Garfield). Since serving in the military, Harry’s ambition has been to start a fleet of boats to escort sport-fishermen through the waters around Southern California and the Baja Peninsula, but that venture has failed to take off. He has one boat, the Sea Queen, and he’s the only captain in his fleet. When the film begins, Harry has a new client but has to spend the last of his cash to fill up his boat with fuel for the pending excursion. This particular job is a matter of survival, not prosperity.

But his own survival is only a part of this transaction. Curtiz quickly takes us into Harry’s modest seaside home, which, at first, looks as charming as any in an old sitcom. After spending the last of...

Remakes are not always bad things. Take, for example, The Breaking Point, based on a novel by Ernest Hemingway. First published in 1937, To Have and Have Not followed the adventures of Harry Morgan, a fishing boat captain in Key West, who is forced into the black market, ferrying contraband between Florida and Cuba. Seven years later, it was adapted for the big screen by director Howard Hawks, based on a screenplay credited to Jules Furthman and William Faulkner (?!). The film departed significantly from its source material, becoming a romantic, wartime thriller with comic elements, featuring the first screen appearance by Lauren Bacall, who famously fell in love with Humphrey Bogart during production. I've seen Hawks' version of To Have and Have Not so...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

Michael Curtiz's 1950 adaptation of Hemingway's To Have and Have Not, starring John Garfield and Patricia Neal, is coming from Criterion in August!

You can tell it’s film noir — even the cabin cruiser has Venetian blinds. Ernest Hemingway’s favorite film adaptation of his work is this uncompromised story of a good man taking a criminal course on the high seas. John Garfield is again ‘one man alone’ against the system, and the moral quicksand all but swallows up Patricia Neal, Phyllis Thaxter and Wallace Ford.

The Breaking Point

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 889

1950 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 97 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date August 8, 2017 / 39.95

Starring: John Garfield, Patricia Neal, Phyllis Thaxter, Juano Hernandez, Wallace Ford, Edmon Ryan, Ralph Dumke, Guy Thomajan, William Campbell, Sherry Jackson, Donna Jo Boyce, Victor Sen Yung, Peter Brocco, John Doucette.

Cinematography: Ted D. McCord

Film Editor: Alan Crosland Jr.

Original Music: Howard Jackson, Max Steiner

Written by Ranald MacDougall from a novel by Ernest Hemingway

Produced by Jerry Wald

Directed by Michael Curtiz

After...

God bless the Criterion Collection for their forthcoming Blu-ray of a nifty 2K restoration of The Breaking Point (1950), the second swipe at Ernest Hemingway’s novel To Have and Have Not, which is on the company’s release schedule for August 2017. You may have heard of the first version… Bogie, Bacall, Hawks, “You know how to whistle, don’t ya?” Remember that one? Well, this one, the story of a down-on-his-luck charter boat captain Harry Morgan (John Garfield) who gets manipulated into a deadly smuggling run to help make ends meet, is directed by Michael Curtiz, and it trades Hawks’ larky, Casablanca-derived vibe for something decidedly darker, a daylight-splashed noir that somehow ferrets out all the chiaroscuro shadows in Hemingway’s material nonetheless. Throughout The Breaking Point, but especially in the movie’s riveting second half when Morgan allows himself to get roped into a second, even more dangerous scheme,...

Late summer is all about reflection over at The Criterion Collection, as the library is spending August offering up a handful of unsung classics and new look at some longtime favorites.

Michael Curitz’s “The Breaking Point,” a mostly overlooked Hemingway adaptation, starring John Garfield and Patricia Neal, will be available on Blu-ray for the first time, while Sacha Guitry’s “La poison” arrives on home video for the first time ever. Elsewhere, Mike Leigh’s revelatory “Meantime” is getting a 2K restoration, all the better to enjoy the early work of Tim Roth and Gary Oldman. That’s not all for Oldman fans, however, as Alex Cox’s “Sid & Nancy” hits the collection with a brand new 4K digital restoration. Finally, Walter Matthau stars in the charming comedy “Hopscotch,” also available on Blu-ray in a 2K digital restoration.

Below is the complete list of August additions, with descriptions provided by Criterion.

A movie starring two famous actors who happen to be married in real-life: On paper, it sounds like it should be a sure-fire win. In reality? It’s not that simple.

It’s no wonder that famous couples might be hesitant to collaborate in a movie, even if it was guaranteed to smash the box office: Working with your spouse is hard, and it wouldn’t make it any easier to know that throngs of people would be examining the final product, looking for all possible glimpses into your personal life.

Occasionally, some famous couples have considered that possibility and decided,...