Damien Chazelle’s “Babylon” captures 1920s Hollywood in all its decadence, debauchery and excess. Filming on dusty backlots and in sumptuous mansions, Chazelle creates a fever dream of vintage filmmaking through a contemporary lens. But before looking at history through his own lens, Chazelle started out by doing months of intensive research, finding inspiration in real-life Hollywood stars, powerbrokers and events. And in many cases, the early days of moviemaking were pretty scandalous.
“The reality is that these people were operating in a no-holds-barred kind of world where an entire industry and city were being built from the ground up, and that takes a certain kind of madness,” Chazelle has said.
The 1920s in particular were a freer time, says “Tinseltown” author William J. Mann. “There was an incredible freedom before the production code was established, and so people had a much freer sense of how they could live their lives.
“The reality is that these people were operating in a no-holds-barred kind of world where an entire industry and city were being built from the ground up, and that takes a certain kind of madness,” Chazelle has said.
The 1920s in particular were a freer time, says “Tinseltown” author William J. Mann. “There was an incredible freedom before the production code was established, and so people had a much freer sense of how they could live their lives.
- 12/23/2022
- by Pat Saperstein
- Variety Film + TV
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Based on New York Times reporters Megan Twohey and Jodi Kantor’s account of their harpooning of the powerhouse producer and loathsome sexual predator Harvey Weinstein, Maria Schrader’s She Said had a lot going for it: two congenial performers (Carey Mulligan as Twohey and Zoe Kazan as Kantor); a narrative fixation on the target of opportunity; and the cathartic satisfactions of justice served, eventually.
Yet She Said was also — not to bury the lede — a bit pedantic and procedural. Journalism here is serious business — akin to a sacred vocation, actually — and its practitioners are straitlaced and earnest.
This is not the way Hollywood traditionally portrayed members of the Fourth Estate. The ink-stained progenitors of today’s digital crusaders were crude, irreverent, and often inebriated. They didn’t want to change the world or give voice to the voiceless; they wanted to crush the competition by any sneaky,...
Based on New York Times reporters Megan Twohey and Jodi Kantor’s account of their harpooning of the powerhouse producer and loathsome sexual predator Harvey Weinstein, Maria Schrader’s She Said had a lot going for it: two congenial performers (Carey Mulligan as Twohey and Zoe Kazan as Kantor); a narrative fixation on the target of opportunity; and the cathartic satisfactions of justice served, eventually.
Yet She Said was also — not to bury the lede — a bit pedantic and procedural. Journalism here is serious business — akin to a sacred vocation, actually — and its practitioners are straitlaced and earnest.
This is not the way Hollywood traditionally portrayed members of the Fourth Estate. The ink-stained progenitors of today’s digital crusaders were crude, irreverent, and often inebriated. They didn’t want to change the world or give voice to the voiceless; they wanted to crush the competition by any sneaky,...
- 12/17/2022
- by Thomas Doherty
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Warren Beatty’s show is a beautiful, one of a kind epic. Never mind that it is sharply critical of John Reed, an American who was buried in the Kremlin — Hollywood never approached the title subject directly: (whisper) Commies. Beatty’s production idiosyncrasies raised eyebrows but his picture is quite an achievement in filmic storytelling, cleverly accessing a political scene sixty years gone through testimony by notables that lived it. Beatty and Diane Keaton provide the romantic fireworks that make the film commercially viable, amid all the revolutionary fervor and political chaos.
Reds 40th Anniversary
Blu-ray + Digital
Paramount Home Video
1981 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 195 min. / 40th Anniversary Edition / Street Date November 30, 2021 / 17.99
Starring: Warren Beatty, Diane Keaton, Edward Herrmann, Jerzy Kosiński, Jack Nicholson, Paul Sorvino, Maureen Stapleton, M. Emmet Walsh, Ian Wolfe, George Plimpton, Dolph Sweet, Ramon Bieri, Gene Hackman, Gerald Hiken, William Daniels, Oleg Kerensky, Shane Rimmer, Jerry Hardin, Jack Kehoe,...
Reds 40th Anniversary
Blu-ray + Digital
Paramount Home Video
1981 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 195 min. / 40th Anniversary Edition / Street Date November 30, 2021 / 17.99
Starring: Warren Beatty, Diane Keaton, Edward Herrmann, Jerzy Kosiński, Jack Nicholson, Paul Sorvino, Maureen Stapleton, M. Emmet Walsh, Ian Wolfe, George Plimpton, Dolph Sweet, Ramon Bieri, Gene Hackman, Gerald Hiken, William Daniels, Oleg Kerensky, Shane Rimmer, Jerry Hardin, Jack Kehoe,...
- 12/11/2021
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Constance Bennett movies on TCM: What Price Hollywood? Constance Bennett is Turner Classic Movies’ Star of the Month of November. TCM will be presenting six Constance Bennett movies tonight, including what is probably the actress’ best-known vehicle: What Price Hollywood? (1932). (Please see this evening’s schedule below. Photo: Constance Bennett publicity shot ca. early ’30s.) Based on an original story by Hollywood insider Adela Rogers St. Johns, the George Cukor-directed drama tells the story of a young waitress fast on the way up the Hollywood [...]...
- 11/14/2012
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
On Sunday's (April 29) upcoming episode of "Mad Men" -- titled "At the Codfish Ball" -- Don Draper (Jon Hamm) takes a break from his usual wardrobe of sharp suits to lounge in his pajamas and catch up on some light reading. Meanwhile, new wife Megan Draper (Jessica Paré) is opting to stick close to the TV.
So what does Don read in his spare time? In the picture, he's holding a copy of Bernard Malamud's 1966 novel, "The Fixer." The book -- about "a man who finds himself a stranger in his community and a victim of irrational prejudice as a wave of anti-Semitic hysteria engulfs a town after the murder of a boy" -- won that year's Pulitzer Prize for fiction and The National Book Award.
From the Wikipedia book synopsis: "[The main character] finally finds it in his heart to forgive his former wife, who left him just before the novel began.
So what does Don read in his spare time? In the picture, he's holding a copy of Bernard Malamud's 1966 novel, "The Fixer." The book -- about "a man who finds himself a stranger in his community and a victim of irrational prejudice as a wave of anti-Semitic hysteria engulfs a town after the murder of a boy" -- won that year's Pulitzer Prize for fiction and The National Book Award.
From the Wikipedia book synopsis: "[The main character] finally finds it in his heart to forgive his former wife, who left him just before the novel began.
- 4/27/2012
- by editorial@zap2it.com
- Zap2It - From Inside the Box
Screenwriter Frederica Sagor Dead at 111: Wrote Movies for Norma Shearer (photo), Clara Bow, Louise Brooks Now, whether Frederica Sagor's Hollywood Babylon-like tales bear any resemblance to what actually happened at studio parties and private soirees, I can't tell. But on the professional side, one problem with the information found in The Shocking Miss Pilgrim is that studios invariably used numerous writers, whether male or female, in their projects. Usually, in those pre-Writers Guild days, only two or three contributors received final credit, not because of the uncredited writer's gender but in large part because the final product oftentimes had little — if anything — in common with the original source. While doing research for my Ramon Novarro biography, I went through various drafts, written by various hands, of his movies. A Certain Young Man, for instance, went through so many changes (including director, cast, and title), that the final film...
- 1/7/2012
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
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