When you speak to Kevin Brownlow, you have a direct link to some of the greatest silent film directors who ever lived. The British film historian, now 80, interviewed and befriended many early film veterans when he was just in his twenties. He then spearheaded early efforts to preserve and restore silent films at a time when silent film was often derided. To say Brownlow has some stories about those early directors would be an understatement.
“King Vidor would say to me, ‘Every time I saw a Cecil B. DeMille picture, it made me want to quit the business,’” Brownlow said during a phone interview with IndieWire from his home in London — a sentiment about the “Ten Commandments” filmmaker Brownlow disagrees with. In the 1960s, he also encountered Josef von Sternberg, Allan Dwan, and Abel Gance, whose 1927 epic “Napoleon” Brownlow spent over 12 years restoring before debuting a reconstituted print of the...
“King Vidor would say to me, ‘Every time I saw a Cecil B. DeMille picture, it made me want to quit the business,’” Brownlow said during a phone interview with IndieWire from his home in London — a sentiment about the “Ten Commandments” filmmaker Brownlow disagrees with. In the 1960s, he also encountered Josef von Sternberg, Allan Dwan, and Abel Gance, whose 1927 epic “Napoleon” Brownlow spent over 12 years restoring before debuting a reconstituted print of the...
- 4/20/2019
- by Christian Blauvelt
- Indiewire
Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.Recommended Viewinga light and bright start: here's the first trailer for Andrew Bujalski's marvelous workplace comedy Support the Girls. We cannot recommend this movie enough.The ecstatic first trailer for writer-director Josephine Decker's avidly anticipated Sundance hit, Madeline's Madeline. Andrei Tarkovsky's sophomore masterpiece needs no further introduction—here's the trailer for the sublime restoration of Andrei Rublev (1966) by Janus Films. Finally, the long awaited restoration for one of the most seminal films of the 1970s is here: Barbara Loden's Wanda, which by our estimation is a zenith of independent cinema.Yet another restoration we're thrilled by: Kevin Brownlow & Andrew Mollo's sly alternate history It Happened Here (1965). Here's a refreshed version of the original trailer.Furthering the topic of restorations, here's Martin Scorsese in conversations with Italian filmmakers Jonas Carpignano,...
- 6/27/2018
- MUBI
Reelz is ringing in the new year with a lot of new shows. Today, the network announced their new and returning TV series for 2018.Returning series include Gangsters, The Shocking Truth, Autopsy, Murder Made Me Famous, and Real Story of... . Additionally, 2018 will see the debut of several new shows, including Stalker Files, The Price of Fame, It Happened Here, and Cashed Out.Read More…...
- 1/3/2018
- by TVSeriesFinale.com
- TVSeriesFinale.com
Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a precedent! Barbet Schroeder’s documentary gets up close and personal with a narcissistic dictator consumed by his own ego. Idi Amin rants and raves incoherently and demands to be the center of all attention while taking his country down a road to ruin. This is Africa in 1973, where Uganda has been converted into ‘The Idi Amin Reality Show’ — and where a minion in disfavor might be fed to the crocodiles.
General Idi Amin Dada: A Self-Portrait
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 153
1974 / Color / 1:37 flat Academy / 90 min. / Général Idi Amin Dada: Autoportrait / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date December 12, 2017 / 39.95
Starring: Idi Amin
Cinematography: Néstor Almendros
Film Editor: Denise de Casabianca
Original Music: Idi Amin
Produced by Jean-Francois Chauvel, Charles-Henri Favrod and Jean-Pierre Rassam
Written and Directed by Barbet Schroeder
Criterion’s decision to bump Barbet Schroeder’s daring 1970s documentary to Blu-ray at this...
General Idi Amin Dada: A Self-Portrait
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 153
1974 / Color / 1:37 flat Academy / 90 min. / Général Idi Amin Dada: Autoportrait / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date December 12, 2017 / 39.95
Starring: Idi Amin
Cinematography: Néstor Almendros
Film Editor: Denise de Casabianca
Original Music: Idi Amin
Produced by Jean-Francois Chauvel, Charles-Henri Favrod and Jean-Pierre Rassam
Written and Directed by Barbet Schroeder
Criterion’s decision to bump Barbet Schroeder’s daring 1970s documentary to Blu-ray at this...
- 12/5/2017
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Exclusive: Tomorrow Studios, Marty Adelstein’s co-venture with ITV Studios, has acquired the pilot and second episode scripts of Trump: It Happened Here — the ripped-from-the-headlines dramatization of Trump’s rise to the White House from political reporter Scott Conroy and Kaplan/Perrone Entertainment. Tomorrow Studios is eying the project as a potential ongoing series, which is expected to be pitched to broadcast, cable and streaming networks shortly. Adelstein is…...
- 3/13/2017
- Deadline TV
Donald Trump’s surprise victory in the 2016 election has inspired a wave of creativity in Hollywood, including a spate of shows and movies inspired by the real estate-magnate-turned-reality TV star-turned president of the United States. Law & Order: Svu Shortly before the November election, NBC decided to shelve a “Law & Order: Svu” episode inspired by Donald Trump. Titled “Unstoppable,” the episode stars Gary Cole as a presidential hopeful thwarted by multiple sexual assault allegations. Executive producer Dick Wolf recently said he “suspects” the episode will air in May, but it has yet to be scheduled. Trump: It Happened Here Political reporter Scott Conroy.
- 2/16/2017
- by Reid Nakamura
- The Wrap
British cinematographer Peter Suschitzky is known for his collaborations with David Cronenberg (Cosmopolis, A Dangerous Method, Eastern Promises, A History of Violence, Spider, eXistenZ, Crash, Naked Lunch and Dead Ringers). His eclectic career saw him start working in fantastical “what if” tales on It Happened Here (1966) and Privilege (1967). He worked with Peter Watkins, Albert Finney, Peter Watkins, John Boorman, Ken Russell and Warris Hussein in Britain, before Hollywood came calling. is first trip to Cannes, working on Charlie Bubbles by Albert Finney, was cancelled after the festival was stopped by the May ’68 protests led by Jean Luc-Godard. This year, I met him at the […]...
- 6/9/2016
- by Kaleem Aftab
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
At a loss for what to watch this week? From new DVDs and Blu-rays, to what's streaming on Netflix, we've got you covered.
New Video on Demand, Rental Streaming, and Digital Only
"Avengers: Age of Ultron"
One of the biggest blockbusters of the year is here! The "Avengers" sequel has its Digital HD release on September 8, with the 3D Blu-ray, Blu-ray, DVD, Digital Sd, and VOD release coming later on October 2. The Digital 3D, HD, & Sd, 3D Blu-ray Combo Pack, Blu-ray bonus materials include never-before-seen deleted scenes, making-of featurettes, a gag reel, and audio commentary.
"Ferrell Takes the Field"
HBO, and its streaming service HBO Now, will premiere this new comedy special from Funny or Die on September 12. Watch Will Ferrell play every position on 10 different baseball teams in one day. 'Cause, why not?
"The Awesomes"
Season 3 of the animated comedy from Seth Meyers and...
New Video on Demand, Rental Streaming, and Digital Only
"Avengers: Age of Ultron"
One of the biggest blockbusters of the year is here! The "Avengers" sequel has its Digital HD release on September 8, with the 3D Blu-ray, Blu-ray, DVD, Digital Sd, and VOD release coming later on October 2. The Digital 3D, HD, & Sd, 3D Blu-ray Combo Pack, Blu-ray bonus materials include never-before-seen deleted scenes, making-of featurettes, a gag reel, and audio commentary.
"Ferrell Takes the Field"
HBO, and its streaming service HBO Now, will premiere this new comedy special from Funny or Die on September 12. Watch Will Ferrell play every position on 10 different baseball teams in one day. 'Cause, why not?
"The Awesomes"
Season 3 of the animated comedy from Seth Meyers and...
- 9/8/2015
- by Gina Carbone
- Moviefone
It’s almost September and that means Netflix is about to refresh their content, for better or worse. Some of the notable titles leaving include: High Fidelity, Anchorman 2, and The Skeleton Twins. So if you haven’t seen some of these titles, plan your nights accordingly. We of course can look forward more than a few new titles including The Monster Squad, Moonrise Kingdom (pictured above), and The Walking Dead: Season 5.
Available 9/1
72 Dangerous Animals: Australia: Season 1
Arthur: Season 17
Avengers Confidential: Black Widow & Punisher (2014)
Battle Creek: Season 1
Blackbird (2014)
Capital C (2014)
Combustion (2013)
Da Jammies: Season 1
Divorce Corp. (2014)
Giggle and Hoot’s Best Ever! (2014)
Hamlet (1990)
Hardball (2001)
Heather McDonald: I Don’t Mean To Brag (2014)
Lawrence of Arabia: Restored Version (1962)
Los hombres también lloran: Season 1
Masters of the Universe (1987)
Mississippi Damned (2009)
Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood: Volume 1
Mouk: Season 1
Our Man in Tehran (2013)
Pandas: The Journey Home (2014)
Person of Interest:...
Available 9/1
72 Dangerous Animals: Australia: Season 1
Arthur: Season 17
Avengers Confidential: Black Widow & Punisher (2014)
Battle Creek: Season 1
Blackbird (2014)
Capital C (2014)
Combustion (2013)
Da Jammies: Season 1
Divorce Corp. (2014)
Giggle and Hoot’s Best Ever! (2014)
Hamlet (1990)
Hardball (2001)
Heather McDonald: I Don’t Mean To Brag (2014)
Lawrence of Arabia: Restored Version (1962)
Los hombres también lloran: Season 1
Masters of the Universe (1987)
Mississippi Damned (2009)
Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood: Volume 1
Mouk: Season 1
Our Man in Tehran (2013)
Pandas: The Journey Home (2014)
Person of Interest:...
- 9/2/2015
- by Graham McMorrow
- City of Films
New to Netflix in September are two kinds of undead: Season 5 of "The Walking Dead" and the revived-from-cancellation A&E series, "Longmire," which was saved by Netflix.
As far as movies, there's the restored version of the Oscar-winning 1962 epic "Lawrence of Arabia," Wes Anderson's "Moonrise Kingdom," the first three "Rambo" films, the terrific "The Bank Job" with Jason Statham and "Mandela: The Long Walk to Freedom" with Idris Elba.
There are also period dramas you might have missed from last year with Jessica Chastain ("Miss Julie") and Mia Wasikowska ("Madame Bovary") and hey, "The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl!"
Available September 1
"72 Dangerous Animals Australia": Season 1 (2014)
"Combustión" (2013)
"Da Jammies": Season 1
"Giggle and Hoot's Best Ever!" (2014)
"Hamlet" (1990)
"Hardball" (2001)
"Heather McDonald: I Don't Mean To Brag" (2014)
"Lawrence of Arabia: Restored Version" (1962)
"Los Hombres también lloran": Season 1
"Masters of the Universe" (1987)
"Mississippi Damned" (2009)
"Mister Rogers' Neighborhood": Volume 1
"Mouk...
As far as movies, there's the restored version of the Oscar-winning 1962 epic "Lawrence of Arabia," Wes Anderson's "Moonrise Kingdom," the first three "Rambo" films, the terrific "The Bank Job" with Jason Statham and "Mandela: The Long Walk to Freedom" with Idris Elba.
There are also period dramas you might have missed from last year with Jessica Chastain ("Miss Julie") and Mia Wasikowska ("Madame Bovary") and hey, "The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl!"
Available September 1
"72 Dangerous Animals Australia": Season 1 (2014)
"Combustión" (2013)
"Da Jammies": Season 1
"Giggle and Hoot's Best Ever!" (2014)
"Hamlet" (1990)
"Hardball" (2001)
"Heather McDonald: I Don't Mean To Brag" (2014)
"Lawrence of Arabia: Restored Version" (1962)
"Los Hombres también lloran": Season 1
"Masters of the Universe" (1987)
"Mississippi Damned" (2009)
"Mister Rogers' Neighborhood": Volume 1
"Mouk...
- 8/31/2015
- by Sharon Knolle
- Moviefone
Buyer beware: the sleeve shown here indicates Zero Mostel and Vanessa Redgrave are in the film. They are not.
By Lee Pfeiffer
The White Bus (aka Red, White and Zero) is an experimental film by future acclaimed director Lindsay Anderson. Running a scant 46 minutes, the movie was intended to be one third of a feature film that consisted of other offbeat stories by different directors. For various reasons, the other segments were never completed, thus leaving Anderson's work an orphan. MGM has released The White Bus as one of its burn-to-order DVD titles. The merits of the film are debatable. It's visually striking. Filmed primarily in B&W with occasional short sequences in color, the movie is a fairly incomprehensible critique of British society. Like Bryan Forbes' The Whisperers, the movie was largely photographed in and around Manchester and the city fairs equally bad in Anderson's work. The plot,...
By Lee Pfeiffer
The White Bus (aka Red, White and Zero) is an experimental film by future acclaimed director Lindsay Anderson. Running a scant 46 minutes, the movie was intended to be one third of a feature film that consisted of other offbeat stories by different directors. For various reasons, the other segments were never completed, thus leaving Anderson's work an orphan. MGM has released The White Bus as one of its burn-to-order DVD titles. The merits of the film are debatable. It's visually striking. Filmed primarily in B&W with occasional short sequences in color, the movie is a fairly incomprehensible critique of British society. Like Bryan Forbes' The Whisperers, the movie was largely photographed in and around Manchester and the city fairs equally bad in Anderson's work. The plot,...
- 11/27/2011
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
In 1964 Kevin Brownlow and Andrew Mollo completed, after seven years work and on a budget of £7,000, one of the most extraordinary pictures ever made in this country. In It Happened Here, they imagined and created in considerable detail a Britain that had been occupied by the Nazis in 1940. Brownlow later wrote How It Happened Here, a riveting account of its production. Based on a novel by Owen Sheers, Resistance turns on the strategically and logistically improbable notion that D-Day failed in 1944, the Germans counter-attacked, and Britain became part of the Nazi empire. The setting is a remote Welsh valley taken over by a German company tasked with a curious secret mission, and a predictable, somewhat muffled story of exchanges with the natives, resistance and collaboration ensues. Not bad, but it falls far short of It Happened Here.
War filmsSecond world warPhilip French
guardian.co.uk © 2011 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies.
War filmsSecond world warPhilip French
guardian.co.uk © 2011 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies.
- 11/27/2011
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
Having recently returned from London I was struck by the fact that three new posters on the main page of iTunes Trailers last week all featured that evergreen symbol of Britishness, Big Ben.
Big Ben, or, to be more precise, the Clock Tower that houses the Great Bell that was nicknamed Big Ben, has long been used as a shorthand cliché in movie posters to announce that a film is set in London, or, even more lazily, in England. Usually, as in many of the examples below, it is snuck into the background as a simple tip of the hat. However, two new posters—for The Iron Lady and Garbo: The Spy—feature it much more prominently. Of course, if ever a film had reason to feature of the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben, it would be a biopic of a British Prime Minister. But its useage in...
Big Ben, or, to be more precise, the Clock Tower that houses the Great Bell that was nicknamed Big Ben, has long been used as a shorthand cliché in movie posters to announce that a film is set in London, or, even more lazily, in England. Usually, as in many of the examples below, it is snuck into the background as a simple tip of the hat. However, two new posters—for The Iron Lady and Garbo: The Spy—feature it much more prominently. Of course, if ever a film had reason to feature of the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben, it would be a biopic of a British Prime Minister. But its useage in...
- 11/21/2011
- MUBI
Kevin Brownlow has won a lifetime-achievement Oscar and made superb films. So why isn't he better known?
On 13 November last year Kevin Brownlow received an honorary Academy Award for lifetime achievement, alongside Francis Ford Coppola (Jean-Luc Godard didn't turn up). In his letter of nomination, Martin Scorsese declared that "Mr Brownlow is a giant among film historians and preservationists, known and justifiably respected throughout the world for his multiple achievements: as the author of The Parade's Gone By, a definitive history of the silent era, and . . . a biography of David Lean . . . and as the director with Andrew Mollo of two absolutely unique fiction films, Winstanley (1975) and It Happened Here (1964) . . . On a broader level, you might say that Mr Brownlow is film history." This sums up pretty well the extraordinary record of a remarkable Englishman.
But while Brownlow's achievements – as a historian of film, in preserving and restoring silent-era classics, and...
On 13 November last year Kevin Brownlow received an honorary Academy Award for lifetime achievement, alongside Francis Ford Coppola (Jean-Luc Godard didn't turn up). In his letter of nomination, Martin Scorsese declared that "Mr Brownlow is a giant among film historians and preservationists, known and justifiably respected throughout the world for his multiple achievements: as the author of The Parade's Gone By, a definitive history of the silent era, and . . . a biography of David Lean . . . and as the director with Andrew Mollo of two absolutely unique fiction films, Winstanley (1975) and It Happened Here (1964) . . . On a broader level, you might say that Mr Brownlow is film history." This sums up pretty well the extraordinary record of a remarkable Englishman.
But while Brownlow's achievements – as a historian of film, in preserving and restoring silent-era classics, and...
- 7/22/2011
- The Guardian - Film News
Made in 1963, Kevin Brownlow and Andrew Mollo's classic "what if" movie, It Happened Here, was a serious fantasy for people who remembered the second world war about what life would have been like had the German invasion succeeded. Jackboots on Whitehall is a cheeky, pretty pointless yet oddly touching comedy for people for whom the last war belongs in the distant past, the audience for the 2004 comedy Churchill: The Hollywood Years or, at a slightly higher level, Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds. With movie references ranging from Braveheart to Zulu, it's a stop-action puppet film featuring some of the British cinema's most distinctive voices, in which Churchill (Timothy Spall) withdraws to Hadrian's Wall for a final showdown with the Nazis after defeat in the Battle of Britain. Some of the detail is remarkable; the puppets' costumes have the rough texture of clothes run up during wartime austerity. It's overlong, though, and...
- 10/9/2010
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
Tasteless plastic toy comedy offers an antidote to the grim tone struck by other paranoid alternate histories
I salute the makers of Jackboots On Whitehall for finding a fresh approach to the surprisingly rich genre of movies that ask that big and troubling question: Dude, What If Hitler Had Won? (or Invaded?) In their account, which marries the action-puppet idiocy of Team America: World Police to the demented historical revisionism of Inglourious Basterds, Hitler will invade, Panzers will thunder along the Strand, and Churchill himself will be seen brandishing a machine gun on the steps of No 10, ventilating wave upon wave of the Krautonic hordes.
It's about time someone took the piss out of all this again, because most of the work in this field has had a very grim tone over the years. And it's been years. I thought that downbeat fictional speculations on a Nazified Britain or America...
I salute the makers of Jackboots On Whitehall for finding a fresh approach to the surprisingly rich genre of movies that ask that big and troubling question: Dude, What If Hitler Had Won? (or Invaded?) In their account, which marries the action-puppet idiocy of Team America: World Police to the demented historical revisionism of Inglourious Basterds, Hitler will invade, Panzers will thunder along the Strand, and Churchill himself will be seen brandishing a machine gun on the steps of No 10, ventilating wave upon wave of the Krautonic hordes.
It's about time someone took the piss out of all this again, because most of the work in this field has had a very grim tone over the years. And it's been years. I thought that downbeat fictional speculations on a Nazified Britain or America...
- 10/1/2010
- by John Patterson
- The Guardian - Film News
Really, what's not to like about reissued rustic village shoot-'em-up, Went The Day Well?
Playing like some stiff-upper-lip, second world war, homefront version of John Milius's Red Dawn, it should delight us that Alberto Cavalcanti's Went The Day Well? is back in circulation once again. In its casting and its subversive storytelling, its 1942 setting offers a parallel universe wherein not only are the Nazis invading Britain and coldly massacring the Home Guard, but postwar TV battleaxes such as Thora Hird and Patricia Hayes are caught in cinematic amber as plucky young Land Girls vigorously sticking it to the filthy Boche (with axes, bayonets, rifles and household pepper). And the goose-stepping enemy are played by quintessentially English postwar actors, including Powell and Pressburger's phallocratic fave David Farrar and perpetual Pow Co James Donald, plus Alexander Korda's very own imperialist hero, Leslie Banks, as the head Nazi collaborator and local squire.
Playing like some stiff-upper-lip, second world war, homefront version of John Milius's Red Dawn, it should delight us that Alberto Cavalcanti's Went The Day Well? is back in circulation once again. In its casting and its subversive storytelling, its 1942 setting offers a parallel universe wherein not only are the Nazis invading Britain and coldly massacring the Home Guard, but postwar TV battleaxes such as Thora Hird and Patricia Hayes are caught in cinematic amber as plucky young Land Girls vigorously sticking it to the filthy Boche (with axes, bayonets, rifles and household pepper). And the goose-stepping enemy are played by quintessentially English postwar actors, including Powell and Pressburger's phallocratic fave David Farrar and perpetual Pow Co James Donald, plus Alexander Korda's very own imperialist hero, Leslie Banks, as the head Nazi collaborator and local squire.
- 7/3/2010
- by John Patterson
- The Guardian - Film News
I’m really excited about Austin Film Society’s newest series: A Summer of Restoration: Selections from Milestone Films.
From July 3rd to August 7, every Saturday at the Ritz the very good and creative people at Afs are bringing some of the highlights from Milestone Films, an organization that is responsible for distributing and restoring some of the greatest films throughout history.
From the Afs press announcement: “With an emphasis on the physical restoration of classic films and a spiritual restoration of our 21st century souls, Austin Film Society presents a wide selection of films, old and new, from the wonderful Milestone catalog.”
The line-up delivers on that promise of spiritual restoration, with a slew of titles that will renew your interest in the cinema’s power to inspire.
6/12: Village Of Dreams – A recent Japanese film offering insights on what it means to be a child.
6/19: The Edge Of The World...
From July 3rd to August 7, every Saturday at the Ritz the very good and creative people at Afs are bringing some of the highlights from Milestone Films, an organization that is responsible for distributing and restoring some of the greatest films throughout history.
From the Afs press announcement: “With an emphasis on the physical restoration of classic films and a spiritual restoration of our 21st century souls, Austin Film Society presents a wide selection of films, old and new, from the wonderful Milestone catalog.”
The line-up delivers on that promise of spiritual restoration, with a slew of titles that will renew your interest in the cinema’s power to inspire.
6/12: Village Of Dreams – A recent Japanese film offering insights on what it means to be a child.
6/19: The Edge Of The World...
- 6/7/2010
- by Daniel Metz
- OriginalAlamo.com
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