BEST ACTOR  2012 Jean Dujardin The Artist (2011) 2011 Colin Firth The King's Speech (2010) 2010 Jeff Bridges Crazy Heart (2009) 2009 Sean Penn Milk (2008) 2008 Daniel Day-Lewis There Will Be Blood (2007) 2007 Forest Whitaker The Last King of Scotland (2006) 2006 Philip Seymour Hoffman Capote (2005) 2005 Jamie Foxx Ray (2004) 2004 Sean Penn ...

FIFTH LOS ANGELES JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL"We don't select -- we Choose!" by Alex DeleonThe fifth edition of the Los Angeles Jewish Film Festival opened a six day run on Saturday, May 8, at the classy Writers Guild Theater in Beverly Hills with a very off-beat film from Israel, "A Matter of Size", about Hebrew speaking Sumo wrestlers (!) and an hour long Gala stars-of-yesteryear studded reception in the lobby preceding the screening. The film was exceptional and the array of celebrities at the recep...

Forty years ago Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas, Carroll Ballard, and Walter Murch moved to San Francisco from Los Angeles, and founded the film company American Zoetrope.  Three years later Coppola made ‘The Godfather.’ Accompanied by their wives, last night the men sat around on stage at the world-renowned Castro Theatre, telling the story of how it all began.   Zoetrope was $30,000 in dept before Coppola did ‘The Godfather.’  Worried about the debt and knowing that C...

Forty years ago Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas, Carroll Ballard, and Walter Murch moved to San Francisco from Los Angeles, and founded the film company American Zoetrope. Three years later Coppola made ‘The Godfather.’Accompanied by their wives, last night the men sat around on stage at the world-renowned Castro Theatre, telling the story of how it all began. Zoetrope was $30,000 in dept before Coppola did ‘The Godfather.’ Worried about the debt and knowing that Coppola was “the...

It’s hard not to feel some affection – even love – for the Oscars, the biggest film industry awards ceremony. And this year is no exception. The Oscars 2008 will go down in history as the most highly anticipated award ceremony of all time, if only for the drama surrounding whether the event would go ahead at all. And the Oscars wouldn’t be the Oscars without the stars’ dramatic acceptance speeches. With a 45 second deadline and an audience of more than a billion viewers, the pressure ...

 Thursday, August 23--------The Venice International Film Festival has announced that it will honor the filmmaker Bernardo Bertolucci with a special achievement award. Bertolucci will receive the 75th Anniversary Golden Lion at the Festival, which opens next week. One of the seminal filmmaker auteurs of the last 50 years, Bernardo Bertolucci was born in the Italian city of Parma. He was the second son of his father, a poet and art historian. Bertolucci began writing at the age of fifteen, and...

Friday, April 27-----Last evening, the audience at a packed screening theater at Pace University had a singular treat.....the world premiere screening of a documentary portrait of the most influential actor of the past century. BRANDO, directed by Leslie Greiff and Mimi Friedmann, is an exhaustive three-hour study of  Marlon Brando....the man, his talent and his demons. The film was produced by Turner Classic Movies, which will show the film in two parts next week, as part of its "star of ...

The Berlinale is paying homage and awarding an Honorary Golden Bear to the pioneering American director Arthur Penn. From his roots in New York theater and live television to his landmark films of the 1960s, Penn established himself as a leading icon of the New American Cinema, with such films as THE MIRACLE WORKER (1962), MICKEY ONE (1965), BONNIE AND CLYDE (1967), ALICE’S RESTAURANT (1969), LITTLE BIG MAN (1970) and THE MISSOURI BREAKS (1976). In his distinguished 40 year career, the respect...

Saturday, February 10----The Berlinale is paying homage and awarding an Honorary Golden Bear to the pioneering American director Arthur Penn. From his roots in New York theater and live television to his landmark films of the 1960s, Penn established himself as a leading icon of the New American Cinema, with such films as THE MIRACLE WORKER (1962), MICKEY ONE (1965), BONNIE AND CLYDE (1967), ALICE’S RESTAURANT (1969), LITTLE BIG MAN (1970) and THE MISSOURI BREAKS (1976). In his distinguished 4...

TRIBUTE TO MARLON BRANDOThe 57th edition of the Locarno International Film Festival will honour andcommemorate Marlon Brando on Saturday August 7. The film chosen toremind us of the tremendous actor who died recently is Queimada, made in1969 by Gillo Pontecorvo, who will be attending the festival in Locarno tocelebrate Brando’s extraordinary performance and to discuss their worktogether on a memorably turbulent production. Written by the director incollaboration with Franco Solinas and shot in...