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No fees, no ads… no-brainer! Requiring only a public library card (check that your local library participates), Kanopy provides free streaming to any device without the hassle of intrusive commercials or entering your credit card info. The platform, which is also free to students and educators with the proper ID, boasts thoughtfully curated collections of titles for viewers of all ages, with clever categories including “Funny Stuff,” “The Criterion Collection,” “Myths & Fables,” “Tales From History” and “Starring Roles,” featuring favorites like 1984’s All of Me, with Lily Tomlin’s soul accidentally transferred into the body of Steve Martin. Learn more about what Kanopy has to offer below. Guy Pearce in Memento (Credit: Everett Collection) It’s Noirvember This month, Kanopy runs a roster of hard-boiled crime dramas to celebrate film noir’s classic atmospheric style. Among the top entries are 1952’s Sudden Fear, with Jack Palance and Joan Crawford as...

Happy Centennial to the composer Elmer Bernstein. Bernstein was born 100 years ago today in NYC to Ukrainian immigrant parents. As a teenager he hoped to become a concert pianist. Fate had different plans; He became a legendary film composer instead. His A list breakthrough came in the mid 50s with the back-to-back success of The Man with the Golden Arm (his first Oscar nomination) and Cecil B DeMille's The Ten Commandments. A year before his death in 2004 he was Oscar nominated for a 14th time for Far From Heaven (2002).  So many classic films on his resume. Consider...

Sudden Fear (1952) The Man With the Golden Arm (1955) The Ten Commandments (1956) The Magnificent Seven (1960) To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967) - Oscar win An American Werewolf in London (1981) The Grifters (1991) The Age of Innocence (1993) Far From Heaven (2002)

Do you have a favourite score from his work?...

With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options—not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves–each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit platforms. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

Creepy (Kiyoshi Kurosawa)

One has to appreciate Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s winking self-awareness in calling his new feature Creepy. It’s as if the Coen brothers released a film entitled Snarky, or Eli Roth named his next stomach-churner Gory. Kurosawa, who’s still best known for Cure (1997) and Pulse (2001), two rare outstanding examples of the highly variable J-Horror genre, instills a sense of creepiness into virtually anything he does, regardless of subject matter. His latest, which sees him return to the realm of horror after excursions into more arthouse territory, certainly lives up to its name and has a lot of fun doing so. – Giovanni M.C. (full review)

Where...

The writer/director of The Love Witch talks about her favorite classic women’s pictures.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

The Love Witch (2016)

Baby Face (1933)

Stromboli (1950)

Europa ’51 (1951)

Fear (1951)

Duel In The Sun (1946)

The Scarlet Empress (1934)

Blonde Venus (1932)

Nora Prentiss (1947)

Woman On The Run (1950)

Wait Until Dark (1967)

Rosemary’s Baby (1968)

Imitation of Life (1969)

Little Women (2019)

Emma (2020)

My Cousin Rachel (2017)

Sex and the City (2008)

Mamma Mia! (2008)

Mildred Pierce (1945)

The Reckless Moment (1949)

Sudden Fear (1952)

Torch Song (1953)

Captain Marvel (2019)

Other Notable Items

The Captain Trips virus in Stephen King’s novel The Stand (1978)

Marlene Dietrich

Mae West

Jennifer Jones

Joan Crawford

Joan Bennett

Gene Tierney

Barbara Stanwyck

The Hays Code

Cary Grant

Marilyn Monroe

Ingrid Bergman

Roberto Rossellini

The Academy Awards

Bette Davis

Jennifer Jones

Gregory Peck

Joseph Cotten

Travis Banton

Josef von Sternberg

Catherine the Great

The Criterion Collection

Kent Smith

Dan Duryea

Douglas Sirk

Jane Austen

Mildred Pierce TV miniseries...

Joan Crawford would’ve celebrated her 114th birthday on March 23, 2020. Though she’s probably best remembered for the portrayals of her by other actresses, the Oscar-winning performer starred in a number of classics before her death in 1977 at the age of 71. In honor of her birthday, let’s take a look back at 15 of her greatest films, ranked worst to best.

Born in 1906, Crawford made her debut as a body double for Norma Shearer in “Ladies of the Night” (1925). She worked her way up into starring roles in several MGM titles, most notably the ensemble drama “Grand Hotel” (1932). Yet a dip in audience enthusiasm led to her being labeled “box office poison,” which would haunt her for several years.

Crawford moved to Warner Bros. in 1943, and just two years later, she was re-igniting the box office and scooping up a Best Actress Oscar for “Mildred Pierce” (1945). The role of an...

Noir City: Hollywood — The 21st Annual Los Angeles Festival of Film NoirBy Alex Divine DeleonThe Noir City Festival has now come of age and the 21st edition which opened at the venerable Hollywood landmark Egyptian Theatre on Friday, March 29, 2019, will this year display twenty uncut gems on ten consecutive nights running in strict chronological order from ‘Trapped’ (1949) to ‘Cry Tough’ (1959). In essence a cannily selected survey of the Hollywood decade of the fifties from an underbelly angle such as only the Film Noir Foundation has the guts and integrity to reveal. Many of these old pictures have been rescued from oblivion by the cutting edge preservation skills of the UCLA film department.

Think the 1950s were buttoned-down and conservative? Think again.

In the 2019 edition of Noir City: Hollywood you will experience the rush — through a lens, darkly — of a turbulent and transitional time in American history, culture, and cinema. Nothing would ever be the same.

Joan Crawford would’ve celebrated her 113th birthday on March 23, 2019. Though she’s probably best remembered for the portrayals of her by other actresses, the Oscar-winning performer starred in a number of classics before her death in 1977 at the age of 71. In honor of her birthday, let’s take a look back at 15 of her greatest films, ranked worst to best.

Born in 1906, Crawford made her debut as a body double for Norma Shearer in “Ladies of the Night” (1925). She worked her way up into starring roles in several MGM titles, most notably the ensemble drama “Grand Hotel” (1932). Yet a dip in audience enthusiasm led to her being labeled “box office poison,” which would haunt her for several years.

SEEOscar Best Actress Gallery: Every Winner in Academy Award History

Crawford moved to Warner Bros. in 1943, and just two years later, she was re-igniting the box office and scooping up a...

The Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in the 1990s went to many long overdue veterans of the industry. Actors like James Coburn, Jack Palance and Martin Landau finally earned Oscars in this decade, alongside then-newer stars like Cuba Gooding Jr and Kevin Spacey. What is your favorite Best Supporting Actor performance of the 1990s?

Read through a recap of their performances and vote in our poll below. (See 2018 Oscar predictions for Best Supporting Actor.)

Joe Pesci, “Goodfellas” (1990) — Joe Pesci won his Oscar with the most iconic role of his career. In “Goodfellas” Pesci plays Tommy DeVito, a blustering gangster who provides some of the funniest lines in the film. Pesci was previously nominated in Best Supporting Actor for “Raging Bull” (1980).

SEEWho’s your favorite Best Director Oscar winner of the 1990s: Steven Spielberg, James Cameron, Jonathan Demme … ? [Poll]

Jack Palance, “City Slickers” (1991) — Jack Palance finally won his Oscar thanks to “City Slickers,...

“Let mystery have its place in you; do not be always turning up your whole soil with the plowshare of self-examination, but leave a little fallow corner in your heart ready for any seed the winds may bring, and reserve a nook of shadow for the passing bird; keep a place in your heart for the unexpected guests, an altar for the unknown God.”

― Henri-Frédéric Amiel

Jack Palance recites the previous quote in Sudden Fear and it’s the manifesto for Guy Maddin and Evan and Galen Johnson’s new project, The Green Fog. The quote is one of a few lines of dialogue to appear in the film. It’s mostly ‘narrated’ with gestures, the breath between words and a score composed by Jacob Garchik and performed by Kronos Quartet. You hear nods to Bernard Hermann’s score of Hitchcock’s Vertigo throughout.

Commissioned by Noah Cowan for the...

let's catch up on news stories...

• Tracking Board ABC developing a live-action sitcom remake of The Jetsons

• Vulture a tribute to the bungled non-release of Tulip Fever

• Criterion a Joan Crawford double feature Daisy Kenyon and Sudden Fear on filmstruck

• Cinema Enthusiast polled cinephiles on the best films of 1969. Lots of opinions though it's beyond troubling that They Shoot Horses, Don't They? which runs laps around almost everything produced in 1969, just barely squeezes into the top ten

more after the jump including but not limited to Wonder Woman 2, Obi Wan Kenobi, mother!, Frozen, and The Conjuring.

With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options — not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves — we’ve taken it upon ourselves to highlight the titles that have recently hit platforms. Every week, one will be able to see the cream of the crop (or perhaps some simply interesting picks) of streaming titles (new and old) across platforms such as Netflix, iTunes, Amazon, and more (note: U.S. only). Check out our rundown for this week’s selections below.

All These Sleepless Nights (Michal Marczak)

Blurring the line between documentary and fiction like few films before it, Michal Marczak‘s All These Sleepless Nights is a music-filled ode to the ever-shifting bliss and angst of youth set mostly in the wee hours of the day in Warsaw, Poland. Marczak himself, who also plays cinematographer, is wary to delineate the line between narrative and nonfiction, and part of the...

Each month, the fine folks at FilmStruck and the Criterion Collection spend countless hours crafting their channels to highlight the many different types of films that they have in their streaming library. This August will feature an exciting assortment of films, as noted below.

To sign up for a free two-week trial here.

Tuesday, August 1

Tuesday’s Short + Feature: These Boots and Mystery Train

Music is at the heart of this program, which pairs a zany music video by Finnish master Aki Kaurismäki with a tune-filled career highlight from American independent-film pioneer Jim Jarmusch. In the 1993 These Boots, Kaurismäki’s band of pompadoured “Finnish Elvis” rockers, the Leningrad Cowboys, cover a Nancy Sinatra classic in their signature deadpan style. It’s the perfect prelude to Jarmusch’s 1989 Mystery Train, a homage to the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll and the musical legacy of Memphis, featuring appearances by Screamin’ Jay Hawkins and Joe Strummer.

In the annals of rich men who look to Hollywood to build a secondary empire, real estate billionaire Charles S. Cohen (Forbes net worth: $2.2 billion) is their Don Quixote. His Cohen Media Group is staking its claim in spaces renowned for their allergies to profit: He’s restoring classic films, releasing foreign-language titles, and moving into specialty exhibition.

One Oscar campaigner calls Cohen’s taste “older middle-of-the-road arthouse,” and that’s exactly the audience he wants. Three of Cohen’s French imports — “Outside the Law” (2010), “Timbuktu” (2014) and “Mustang” (2015) — received foreign-language Academy Award nominations. This year, Cohen (with partner Amazon Studios) took Iranian Cannes-prize-winner Asghar Farhadi’s “The Salesman” all the way to the Oscar, much to the chagrin of established competitors Sony Pictures Classics (“Toni Erdmann”) and Music Box (“A Man Called Ove”).

However, where other billionaire businessmen have wanted to be studio moguls, or Harvey Weinstein, what Cohen really...

In the annals of rich men who look to Hollywood to build a secondary empire, real estate billionaire Charles S. Cohen (Forbes net worth: $2.2 billion) is their Don Quixote. His Cohen Media Group is staking its claim in spaces renowned for their allergies to profit: He’s restoring classic films, releasing foreign-language titles, and moving into specialty exhibition.

One Oscar campaigner calls Cohen’s taste “older middle-of-the-road arthouse,” and that’s exactly the audience he wants. Three of Cohen’s French imports — “Outside the Law” (2010), “Timbuktu” (2014) and “Mustang” (2015) — received foreign-language Academy Award nominations. This year, Cohen (with partner Amazon Studios) took Iranian Cannes-prize-winner Asghar Farhadi’s “The Salesman” all the way to the Oscar, much to the chagrin of established competitors Sony Pictures Classics (“Toni Erdmann”) and Music Box (“A Man Called Ove”).

However, where other billionaire businessmen have wanted to be studio moguls, or Harvey Weinstein, what Cohen really...

Hell hath no fury like two Hollywood actresses scorned!

That's the exact premise behind season one of FX's newest anthology series, Feud: Bette and Joan, which premieres this Sunday, March 5. The limited series, which heralds from the mind of executive producer Ryan Murphy, stars A-list actresses Jessica Lange and Susan Sarandon as Joan Crawford and Bette Davis, respectively, and fixates on the bitter, lifelong rivalry between them.

But before you tune in, we've crafted the ultimate Feud cheat sheet to break down all the real-life drama!

Watch: Susan Sarandon & Jessica Lange in Character as Bette Davis & Joan Crawford

Getty Images

Who Is Joan Crawford? Born Lucille Fay LeSueur in 1904, Crawford (Lange) became one of Hollywood's most prominent movie stars and one of the highest paid women in the United States during the late 1920s and early 1930s. However, by the end of the 1930s, her films began losing money and she was labeled "Box Office Poison." She made...

Twenty-five days is not much. Are you ready? For today's special number, I thought we'd look back at the 25th annual Oscars, the first televised Academy Awards ever, but then I realized we'd already written a huge post about it with actresses falling on stairs and everything! So let's keep this simple. What's your choice for Best of 1952 (beyond Singin' in the Rain)?

The nominees were:

The Greatest Show on Earth High Noon Ivanhoe Moulin Rouge The Quiet Man

...and if there'd been three to five more nominees they would surely have included The Bad and the Beautiful which won 5 Oscars, the most ever won by a non Best Picture nominee), and Viva Zapata! which had 5 nominations, 3 of them major categories. If it had extended beyond 7 perhaps a combo of less loved or more divisive pictures like My Cousin Rachel (the remake is coming out this very year starring Rachel Weisz...

Turner Classic Movies and Robert Osborne are getting some healthy competition as Cohen Media Group launches ‘Cohen Film Classics,’ a new classic film series, hosted and curated by Cmg CEO and consummate cinephile Charles Cohen. The series premieres Friday night, with Academy Award winning filmmaker Chuck Workman’s 2013 documentary, “What is Cinema?”

Workman’s documentary combines archival interviews with film visionaries such as Chantal Akerman, Robert Bresson, Robert Altman, and Akira Kurosawa, along with newly conducted ones with Mike Leigh, David Lynch, and Jonas Mekas. In their own words, the filmmakers explore the meaning of the art to which they have devoted their lives.

Read More: ‘Downton Abbey’ Creator Julian Fellowes Reveals He’s Working on a Film Version

Following the premiere of “What Is Cinema?,” the series will show these four films every Friday in February: “Sudden Fear,” from 1952, featuring Joan Crawford and Jack Palance, “Hangmen Also Die,” Fritz Lang...

Joan Crawford controls every aspect of this glamorous, Oscar nominated noir about a murderous marriage double-cross. Good acting enlivens a by-the-book, gimmick-laden plot, with every moment designed to flatter the star.

Sudden Fear

Blu-ray

The Cohen Film Collection

1952 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 110 min. / Street Date December 13, 2016 / 34.99

Starring Joan Crawford, Jack Palance, Gloria Grahame, Bruce Bennett, Virginia Huston, Touch Connors, Bess Flowers, Taylor Holmes, Lewis Martin, Arthur Space.

Cinematography Charles Lang

Film Editor Leon Barsha

Art Director Boris Leven

Original Music Elmer Bernstein

Written by Lenore Coffee, Robert Smith from a novel by Edna Sherry

Produced by Joseph Kaufman

Directed by David Miller

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

The Joan Crawford movie Sudden Fear is an efficient and stylish thriller. Although it’s technically film noir, its story of a two-way murder frame-up is sublimated to the actress’s overpowering personality. It’s the first movie where Crawford was able to...

Since any New York City cinephile has a nearly suffocating wealth of theatrical options, we figured it’d be best to compile some of the more worthwhile repertory showings into one handy list. Displayed below are a few of the city’s most reliable theaters and links to screenings of their weekend offerings — films you’re not likely to see in a theater again anytime soon, and many of which are, also, on 35mm. If you have a chance to attend any of these, we’re of the mind that it’s time extremely well-spent.

Metrograph

Explore video games onscreen with “Shall We Play a Game?” Showings include Mortal Kombat, Tron, and eXistenZ.

King of New York plays on 35mm this Friday.

BAMcinématek

“Joe Dante at the Movies” continues with the likes of a Looney Tunes–Artists and Models double-bill on Saturday, The ‘Burbs playing with It’s a Gift this Friday,...

From September 16 through 29, the Film Society of Lincoln Center will be screening new restorations of all six films that make up Eric Rohmer's Moral Tales: The Bakery Girl of Monceau, Suzanne’s Career, My Night at Maud's, La collectionneuse, Claire's Knee and Love in the Afternoon. More goings on: Work by Curt McDowell and Tom Rubnitz, Derek Jarman's Will You Dance With Me?, David Miller's Sudden Fear with Joan Crawford in New York; The Monkees and Guillermo del Toro in Los Angeles; Rouben Mamoulian at Harvard; art inspired by Wes Anderson's films in San Francisco; remembering Abbas Kiarostami in Toronto; and a Mohsen Makhmalbaf series in London. » - David Hudson...

From September 16 through 29, the Film Society of Lincoln Center will be screening new restorations of all six films that make up Eric Rohmer's Moral Tales: The Bakery Girl of Monceau, Suzanne’s Career, My Night at Maud's, La collectionneuse, Claire's Knee and Love in the Afternoon. More goings on: Work by Curt McDowell and Tom Rubnitz, Derek Jarman's Will You Dance With Me?, David Miller's Sudden Fear with Joan Crawford in New York; The Monkees and Guillermo del Toro in Los Angeles; Rouben Mamoulian at Harvard; art inspired by Wes Anderson's films in San Francisco; remembering Abbas Kiarostami in Toronto; and a Mohsen Makhmalbaf series in London. » - David Hudson...

Maureen O'Hara: Queen of Technicolor. Maureen O'Hara movies: TCM tribute Veteran actress and Honorary Oscar recipient Maureen O'Hara, who died at age 95 on Oct. 24, '15, in Boise, Idaho, will be remembered by Turner Classic Movies with a 24-hour film tribute on Friday, Nov. 20. At one point known as “The Queen of Technicolor” – alongside “Eastern” star Maria Montez – the red-headed O'Hara (born Maureen FitzSimons on Aug. 17, 1920, in Ranelagh, County Dublin) was featured in more than 50 movies from 1938 to 1971 – in addition to one brief 1991 comeback (Chris Columbus' Only the Lonely). Maureen O'Hara and John Wayne Setting any hint of modesty aside, Maureen O'Hara wrote in her 2004 autobiography (with John Nicoletti), 'Tis Herself, that “I was the only leading lady big enough and tough enough for John Wayne.” Wayne, for his part, once said (as quoted in 'Tis Herself): There's only one woman who has been my friend over the...

Joan Crawford Movie Star Joan Crawford movies on TCM: Underrated actress, top star in several of her greatest roles If there was ever a professional who was utterly, completely, wholeheartedly dedicated to her work, Joan Crawford was it. Ambitious, driven, talented, smart, obsessive, calculating, she had whatever it took – and more – to reach the top and stay there. Nearly four decades after her death, Crawford, the star to end all stars, remains one of the iconic performers of the 20th century. Deservedly so, once you choose to bypass the Mommie Dearest inanity and focus on her film work. From the get-go, she was a capable actress; look for the hard-to-find silents The Understanding Heart (1927) and The Taxi Dancer (1927), and check her out in the more easily accessible The Unknown (1927) and Our Dancing Daughters (1928). By the early '30s, Joan Crawford had become a first-rate film actress, far more naturalistic than...

During the editing (which is when I really start to see the film), I saw that it was Hitchcock who had guided us through the writing and Lang who guided us through the shooting: especially his last films, the ones where he leads the spectator in one direction before he pushes them in another completely different direction, in a very brutal, abrupt way.

—Jacques Rivette on his Secret défense (1998), fro http://www.jacques-rivette.com/

Long before the much-vaunted, high-concept ‘mind-game movies’ like Memento (2000), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) or Inception (2010), there was Fritz Lang’s Secret Beyond the Door… (1947). The film is like a broken puzzle at every level, virtually begging us to rearrange its pieces and find its key. Indeed, one almost needs to formulate a ‘hypothesis of the stolen film,’ Ruiz-style, since the movie we have before us is not quite the one Lang and his talented writer Silvia Richards (Possessed,...

Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: May 6, 2014

Price: DVD $24.95, Blu-ray $29.95

Studio: Olive Films

The 1949 music-filled comedy Love Happy was the final film starring the legendary Marx Brothers (Duck Soup, Animal Crackers).

In the film, Harpo Marx is a true patron of the arts, taking from the rich to help feed a group of poor actors struggling to open a new musical without financial backers. He unknowingly makes off with the missing Romanoff diamonds when he shoplifts a tin of sardines from a classy Manhattan market. The diamonds have been smuggled into the country by a sinful yet sizzlingly beautiful jewel thief, Madame Egelichi (Ilona Massey). The Madame traces the tin back to the theater and becomes the show’s financial backer. Hoping to recover the missing diamonds, she and her henchmen nearly bring the whole house down in a madcap race to retrieve the jewels on opening night.

In addition to Harpo,...

Presenting the Return of Stinky Lulu's Supporting Actress Smackdown now in its new home at The Film Experience. The Year is... 1952 and our panelists are allowed 52 words per actress!

The Nominees

Gloria Grahame, Jean Hagen, Colette Marchand, Terry Moore, and the perennial Thelma Ritter!

The Panelists

Matt Mazur (Pop Matters) is a New York-based publicist who works on campaigns for independent, foreign language, and documentary films. His vast archive of actress interviews (including Sissy Spacek and Courtney Love) can be found here. Follow him @Matt_Mazur

Nathaniel R (The Film Experience) is the founder of The Film Experience, a Gurus of Gold and CNN International Oscar pundit, and the internet's actressexual ringleader. Also loves cats. Follow him @NathanielR

Nick Davis (Nicks Flick Picks) tweets, blogs, and writes reviews and is a professor of film, literature, and gender studies at Northwestern University. His first book "The Desiring Image" was recently published.

Julie Harris: Best Actress Oscar nominee, multiple Tony winner dead at 87 (photo: James Dean and Julie Harris in ‘East of Eden’) Film, stage, and television actress Julie Harris, a Best Actress Academy Award nominee for the psychological drama The Member of the Wedding and James Dean’s leading lady in East of Eden, died of congestive heart failure at her home in West Chatham, Massachusetts, on August 24, 2013. Harris, born in Grosse Pointe Park, Michigan, on December 2, 1925, was 87. Throughout her career, Julie Harris collected ten Tony Award nominations, more than any other performer. She won five times — a record matched only by that of Angela Lansbury. Harris’ Tony Award wins were for I Am a Camera (1952), The Lark (1956), Forty Carats (1969), The Last of Mrs. Lincoln (1973), and The Belle of Amherst (1977). Harris’ tenth and final Tony nomination was for The Gin Game (1997). In 2002, she was honored with a Special Lifetime Achievement Tony Award.

The saying goes: If Hollywood is really the movie capital of the world, then Oscar night is the world’s biggest wrap party, and like all parties, each event comes with unwelcome guests, embarrassing situations, strange fashions and controversial moments. In fact, controversy and the Oscars seem to go hand in hand and despite the fact that the Academy Awards are, for the most part, an elegant and tightly controlled affair, some very strange things do occur. Let’s take a look back through the history of the Academy Awards, and some of it’s strangest and more controversial moments – which sadly were also the most memorable.

Shadow Dancers

For the 2007 ceremony, producers hired the dance troop Pilobolus to recreate famous images from that year’s most popular films.

Political Rants

Richard Gere was last asked to present in 1993 when he interrupted the ceremony to give a long speech attacking...

Tonight at the Museum of the Moving Image in New York: The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus (1968), featuring the Stones, of course, but also The Who, John and Yoko, Jethro Tull, Marianne Faithfull and Taj Mahal. Director Michael Lindsay-Hogg will be on hand "for a post-screening discussion and book signing of his captivating new memoir Luck and Circumstance: A Coming of Age in Hollywood, New York, and Points Beyond. Lindsay-Hogg takes us through an extraordinary life including boyhood encounters with Marion Davies, William Randolph Hearst, Olivia De Havilland, Humphrey Bogart, Henry Miller, and a prolific career in the worlds of film, television, and music."

Through February 12, the Whitney Museum is presenting Three Landscapes, "a little-known triple screen film installation by Roy Lichtenstein, unseen since its showing at the Los Angeles County Museum in 1971 as part of the groundbreaking exhibition Art and Technology. The result of a short residency at Universal Studios in Hollywood,...

Meredith Brody wraps up Sfiff 54 and the many films of days thirteen, fourteen and fifteen: After the San Francisco International Film Festival’s second weekend, I feel like the toboggan is slowing down before it crosses the finish line. Day Thirteen, for example: joining Creative Director Miguel Pendas’ Sf Film Noir locations tour, which he puts on (along with a tour devoted exclusively to locations for Vertigo) for guests and press, is irresistible to me, but effectively knocks out most of the day. Miguel totes ten companions around Sf’s hills and valleys in a van (with an indefatigable driver who manages to pull over where there’s no place to pull over). We see sites for The Maltese Falcon, Sudden Fear, The Sniper, The Lady from ...

Strange Acceptance Speeches

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Cuba Gooding Jr.’s acceptance speech at the 1997 Academy Awards has topped a list naming the most dramatic, outrageous and unexpected moments in Oscar history. Gooding Jr. was so overjoyed to collect his Best Supporting Actor prize for Jerry Maguire that the actor continued to speak even when the orchestra began playing, yelling “I love you!” to a long list of Hollywood stars, while jumping up and down in excitement.

Jack Palance had been nominated for an Oscar twice, both for best supporting actor, for 1952′s Sudden Fear and 1953′s Shane. Four decades later, he finally won the award for the comedy City Slickers, at the age of 72. In the middle of a rather raunchy acceptance speech, Palance decided to drop down to do a series of one-armed push-ups, proving that age is just a number.

Perhaps not so much a strange nor controversial moment, but...

Jack Palance, the legendary character actor who received Oscar nominations for his villainous roles in Sudden Fear and Shane, and won an Oscar for his comedy role in City Slickers, died Friday of natural causes in California; he was 87. Notorious for playing heavies throughout his career, Palance did a 180-degree career turn at the age of 72 by playing (for laughs) the crusty, menacing trail boss Curly in the Billy Crystal comedy City Slickers. The role won him an Oscar and a place in Hollywood history books when, after accepting his Best Supporting Actor award, he dropped to the stage for a series of one-armed push-ups; the stunt became a running gag for show host Crystal that year. Born Volodymyr Palanyuk in Pennsylvania, Palance was the son of a coal miner, and embarked on a boxing career in the 1930s under the name Jack Brazzo. Enlisting in World War II, Palance suffered extensive facial damage when he was pulled from the burning wreckage of a B-24, and the resulting surgery left him with his distinctive facial features, chiseled and gaunt and, as would prove throughout his career, sometimes extremely menacing. After being discharged, Palance embarked on his acting career, starting on Broadway (where he studied Method acting and was understudy to Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire) and moving to films in 1950, making his screen debut as Walter Jack Palance in Panic in the Streets. Just two years later, he received his first Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor for Sudden Fear, in which he starred alongside Joan Crawford (as her diabolical husband) and Gloria Grahame (as his girlfriend and co-conspirator). The next year, he played the evil gunfighter Jack Wilson opposite Alan Ladd in the classic Western Shane; another Oscar nomination followed. Innumerable film and television roles followed, most often in Westerns, but he turned in yet another indelible performance in the Playhouse 90 production of Requiem for a Heavyweight (1957), which won him an Emmy Award. Palance worked non-stop through the '60s and '70s in a variety of films and TV shows (he co-hosted the show Ripley's Believe It Or Not with his daughter, Holly Palance), and began to enjoy a career renaissance of sorts in the late '80s with parts in Young Guns and Batman. After his success in City Slickers and City Slickers II: The Legend of Curly's Gold (in which he played Curly's twin brother), Palance made sporadic film and TV appearances, most recently in 2004's Back When We Were Grownups; he also painted extensively, mostly landscapes, each with a poem inscribed on the back. Palance was married to actress Virginia Baker from 1949-1966, with whom he had three children: daughters Holly and Brooke Palance, and son Cody Palance; he is also survived by his second wife, Elaine Rogers, whom he married in 1987. --Mark Englehart, IMDb staff...

Jack Palance, the legendary character actor who received Oscar nominations for his villainous roles in Sudden Fear and Shane, and won an Oscar for his comedy role in City Slickers, died Friday of natural causes in California; he was 87. Notorious for playing heavies throughout his career, Palance did a 180-degree career turn at the age of 72 by playing (for laughs) the crusty, menacing trail boss Curly in the Billy Crystal comedy City Slickers. The role won him an Oscar and a place in Hollywood history books when, after accepting his Best Supporting Actor award, he dropped to the stage for a series of one-armed push-ups; the stunt became a running gag for show host Crystal that year. Born Volodymyr Palanyuk in Pennsylvania, Palance was the son of a coal miner, and embarked on a boxing career in the 1930s under the name Jack Brazzo. Enlisting in World War II, Palance suffered extensive facial damage when he was pulled from the burning wreckage of a B-24, and the resulting surgery left him with his distinctive facial features, chiseled and gaunt and, as would prove throughout his career, sometimes extremely menacing. After being discharged, Palance embarked on his acting career, starting on Broadway (where he studied Method acting and was understudy to Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire) and moving to films in 1950, making his screen debut as Walter Jack Palance in Panic in the Streets. Just two years later, he received his first Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor for Sudden Fear, in which he starred alongside Joan Crawford (as her diabolical husband) and Gloria Grahame (as his girlfriend and co-conspirator). The next year, he played the evil gunfighter Jack Wilson opposite Alan Ladd in the classic Western Shane; another Oscar nomination followed. Innumerable film and television roles followed, most often in Westerns, but he turned in yet another indelible performance in the Playhouse 90 production of Requiem for a Heavyweight (1957), which won him an Emmy Award. Palance worked non-stop through the '60s and '70s in a variety of films and TV shows (he co-hosted the show Ripley's Believe It Or Not with his daughter, Holly Palance), and began to enjoy a career renaissance of sorts in the late '80s with parts in Young Guns and Batman. After his success in City Slickers and City Slickers II: The Legend of Curly's Gold (in which he played Curly's twin brother), Palance made sporadic film and TV appearances, most recently in 2004's Back When We Were Grownups; he also painted extensively, mostly landscapes, each with a poem inscribed on the back. Palance was married to actress Virginia Baker from 1949-1966, with whom he had three children: daughters Holly and Brooke Palance, and son Cody Palance; he is also survived by his second wife, Elaine Rogers, whom he married in 1987. --Mark Englehart, IMDb staff...

Jack Palance, the legendary character actor who received Oscar nominations for his villainous roles in Sudden Fear and Shane, and won an Oscar for his comedy role in City Slickers, died Friday of natural causes in California; he was 87. Notorious for playing heavies throughout his career, Palance did a 180-degree career turn at the age of 72 by playing (for laughs) the crusty, menacing trail boss Curly in the Billy Crystal comedy City Slickers. The role won him an Oscar and a place in Hollywood history books when, after accepting his Best Supporting Actor award, he dropped to the stage for a series of one-armed push-ups; the stunt became a running gag for show host Crystal that year. Born Volodymyr Palanyuk in Pennsylvania, Palance was the son of a coal miner, and embarked on a boxing career in the 1930s under the name Jack Brazzo. Enlisting in World War II, Palance suffered extensive facial damage when he was pulled from the burning wreckage of a B-24, and the resulting surgery left him with his distinctive facial features, chiseled and gaunt and, as would prove throughout his career, sometimes extremely menacing. After being discharged, Palance embarked on his acting career, starting on Broadway (where he studied Method acting and was understudy to Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire) and moving to films in 1950, making his screen debut as Walter Jack Palance in Panic in the Streets. Just two years later, he received his first Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor for Sudden Fear, in which he starred alongside Joan Crawford (as her diabolical husband) and Gloria Grahame (as his girlfriend and co-conspirator). The next year, he played the evil gunfighter Jack Wilson opposite Alan Ladd in the classic Western Shane; another Oscar nomination followed. Innumerable film and television roles followed, most often in Westerns, but he turned in yet another indelible performance in the Playhouse 90 production of Requiem for a Heavyweight (1957), which won him an Emmy Award. Palance worked non-stop through the '60s and '70s in a variety of films and TV shows (he co-hosted the show Ripley's Believe It Or Not with his daughter, Holly Palance), and began to enjoy a career renaissance of sorts in the late '80s with parts in Young Guns and Batman. After his success in City Slickers and City Slickers II: The Legend of Curly's Gold (in which he played Curly's twin brother), Palance made sporadic film and TV appearances, most recently in 2004's Back When We Were Grownups; he also painted extensively, mostly landscapes, each with a poem inscribed on the back. Palance was married to actress Virginia Baker from 1949-1966, with whom he had three children: daughters Holly and Brooke Palance, and son Cody Palance; he is also survived by his second wife, Elaine Rogers, whom he married in 1987. --Mark Englehart, IMDb staff...