Stanley Donen RIP

In March 2014 when I started running the Cinemateca Patria Stanley Donen was 90 years old. So we did an homage , showing his films, from Funny Face and Arabesque, to The Grass is Greener, Two for the Road, Bedazzled, The Royal Wedding, The Little Prince and Chrarade, which is always a public favourite. We showed also Singin' in the Rain in the Love Story festival. Now five years later in the wake of Oscars mr. Donen is gone one month before getting to be 95. One of the greteast directors that ever were and the last surviving film director from Hollywood's Golden Age,  !
Here's what Steven Spielberg said about his early mentor 
and

Stanley Donen is one of the greatest film makers who ever lived, a fine man and an inspiration, whose work will live forever. William Friedkin

‏Verified account @WilliamFriedkin Feb 23

                         Stanley Donen (1924–2019)

Oscars 91

'Roma' is on track to make Oscar history twice: as the first foreign langauge film to win Best Picture and the first from a streaming service.
more than that, as Steven Spielberg explained, its a big NO No for cinemas and moviegoers. 
"I love television ... but there's nothing like going to a big, dark theater and having the experience wash over you," he told an audience at this weekend's Cinema Audio Society Awards. "I'm a firm believer that movie theaters need to be around forever."

predictions from Gold Derby 
at least Queen and Adam Lambert will play live,
and the show started witrh that -We Will Rock You & We Are the Champions !
best opening, rocking the house !
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predictability all over, with Cuaron winning over Cold War cinematography, tho my favourite would have been The Favourite's Robbie \Ryan.
Maharshala Ali got a second Oscar, I'm sorry for Richard E. Grant cos this was his choice
Bohemian Rhapsody for editing, John Ottman who did the music too, and both sound-mixing and editing
First Man for visual effects !
Bao-short animated
Free Solo-doc
Regina King -If Beale Street Could Talk, supporting actress
screenplay, original -Green Book -good
screenplay, adapted -BlacKkKlansman-Finally they did the Right Thing for Spike ! Lee
surpise-Black Panther for score, very young Ludwig Gorranson, also Black |Panther took production design and costume design.
for song, almost clear from the beginning, Shallow, Lady Gaga from A Star is Born !
Barbra Streisand got a standing ovation and Richard E. Grant was psyched, shouting WoW, his attraction towards that 1976 Star is Born being his major reason to be there ! Streisand presented Spike Lees's BlacKkKlansman calling it a masterpiece. Talk about flattery ! Last year there were jokes about her because she cloned her dog....

Best Actor: Rami Malek, -I think Freddie would be thrilled !!! Bohemian Rhapsody is the most unexpected global success of a biopic, putting Queen back on the map where it belongs, in spite of some major plot points being untrue. Malek, humble and touching speech !
Best actress-Olivia Coleman for The Favourite, big surprise in front of The Favourite (sic) Glen Close, seventh time nominee for The Wife !

Director-Curaon, given by his friend Del Toro, the three amigos mexicanos now rule the world ! Alejandro G. Iñárritu in 2014 and 2015, Curaon for Gravity and The Shape of Water last year. Viva Mexico directores !

Film-Green Book -what a good surprise, in the style of Moonlight vs. LalaLand !Roma -with this i uberdisagree. Esp cos its the 1st time best film and best foreign film is the same title ! Would you ever believe a Peter Farrely film would win best picture? Maybe the talk of tpwn against Netflix film worked -see Spielberg above-to be seen on small screens, even with the spening of 30 million in marketing, like thrice the budget of Roma

all winners here 
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This edition should be dedicated to Stanley Donen, who never won an award himself except the honorary one in 1998. The In Memoriam montage, on John Williams music conducted live by the LA Philarmonic in its 100 years Anniversary endeth with Albert Finney, of course it was all edited before Donen died. Though they should\ve/could've made an effort...

Black Belly of the Tarantula (1971)

The Black Belly of the Tarantula (La tarantola dal ventre nero) is considered one of the superior giallos. And it\s been staying in my Giallo B collection for at least ten years since I saw it now. And now I can concur. It is.
A film by Paulo Cavara who might be unknown now but he worked on the Mondo Cane movies.
Music by Ennio Morricone, conducted by Bruno Nicolai
Uncommon for the giallos of the perios the protagonist is a police inspector, played by an "unual suspect" of giallo genre, a very young Giancarlo Giannini.
The very hot blonde Barabara Bouchet is killed in the very beginning and the also very hot future Bond girl and mrs. Ringo Starr, Barbara Bach is killed later, and she shows up just a few minutes, enough to undress and..be of course stabbed to death...The real two female protagonists of the film are Claudine Auger, a deja Bond girl -in Thunderball- and Stefania Sandrelli (Il Conformista).
Shot with plenty of zooms by Marcello Gatti, who filmed Battle of Algiers, Quiemada/Burn and Ogro fpr Pontecuorvo, A\L'anonimo Veneziano, The Salamander and la Piovra for TV !
a great chase on the rooftops is the highlight except the MO of the murders which remind a Tarantula being killed by a black WASP !
format -1.85 :1

3 1/2 -7 out of 10 !

Bruno Ganz RIP

just as The House That Jack Built spins into romanian cinemas and for the third time at Cinemateca Patria (11 March) as a tribute to Bruno Ganz, the swiss actor, angel in Wings of Desire and Faraway So Close and Angel of Death for Lars Von Trier

The American Friend again for Wenders with Dennis Hopper in 1977 and of course Adolf Hitler in Der Untergang /Downfall . Ganz was 77. RIP. Engel im himmel jetzt....
obituary in The Hollywood Reporter   and ||Variety

Albert Finney RIP

One of the last of the Great ones, Albert Finney, gone at 82...5 times Oscar  nominee, no win :(
Tom Jones, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, Two for the Road, The Dresser
Hercule \Poirot in the definitive version of Murder in Orient Express. -1974
one of my faved=Wolfen and even a bad one, Looker
Under the Volcano...
Leo in Miller's Crossing.  Erin Brockovich, The Bourne films, Before The Devil\ Knows You\re Dead.   
last part- in Skyfall -2012                                               will pay him a tribute at Cinemateca Patria in March. RIP...