Robert Altman Shares his Filmmaking Philosophy
From the vaults: Arriving at the 59th Annual Golden Globe Awards in 2002, Robert Altman explains his filmmaking philosophy.
Read More »Robert Altman Honored
“COME BACK TO THE FIVE & DIME, JIMMY DEAN, JIMMY DEAN” RESTORED WITH HFPA FUNDING
Cher always considered it her best work in film, still a trove full of her fondest memories as an actress. On March 3rd, 2011, 7:30 pm, at the Billy Wilder Theater in the Hammer Museum, UCLA Film & Television Archive will present the restored version of Robert Altman‘s 1982 classic “Come to the Five & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean”, his big screen adaptation of Ed Graczyk’s play. The film, beautifully polished and re-mastered thanks to the generous funding of Martin Scorsese‘s The Film Foundation and The Hollywood Foreign Press Association, is part of the 2011 UCLA Festival of Preservation. Kathryn Altman will attend the premiere along with Karen Black, who acted in the all-girls cast along with Cher, Sandy Dennis and Kathy Bates, among others.
The restoration of Altman’s ode to middle-aged women is just the first step in a longer and larger project to preserve Mr. Altman’s entire body of work and his artistic legacy. “Come Back to the Five & Dime” tells the reunion of a group of friends at the same five-and-dime store they use to hang out in a small Texas town 20 years back, at a time when the young, sexy and already legendary actor – Dean – was shooting “The Giant”, and they founded “The James Dean Fan Club”. The women are now melancholic and jaded about life, passions, aspirations, and Altman skillfully captures their insecurities, their rants for how things turned out, their anger for all the lost opportunities.
Cher, who came back as well after many years to the big screen with the musical “Burlesque”, played the same character on stage, before being cast by Altman in the movie adaptation of “Jimmy Dean”. “I loved doing the play and I loved doing the film,” Cher said at the time of release of the movie in her Hollywood Foreign Press conference, in 1982. “I realized that singing on stage is not that different than acting on stage, and very different from television because there is not a lot of depth in television and you don’t have to go very far into yourself. To do the play and to do the film was a lot more gratifying for me because I wanted to see if I could go any further than I had always gone.” More recently she said, in talking about “Come Back to the Five & Dime”: “Altman guided us through the plot and the vagaries of the various characters like a magician wearing a hat full of tricks. His quiet sensibility inspired me, making me wanting to work more in the movies, thus becoming a better actress – a more patient one for sure.”
Read More »Robert Altman’s 1982 Classic Restored
On March 3rd, 2011, 7:30 pm, at the Billy Wilder Theater in the Hammer Museum, UCLA Film & Television Archive will present the restored version of Robert Altman‘s 1982 classic “Come to the Five & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean”, his big screen adaptation of Ed Graczyk’s play. The film, beautifully polished and re-mastered thanks to the generous funding of Martin Scorsese‘s The Film Foundation and The Hollywood Foreign Press Association, is part of the 2011 UCLA Festival of Preservation.
HFPA Continues Supporting Film Preservation
“Movies touch our hearts and awaken our vision, and change the way we see things. They take us to other places, they open doors and minds. Movies are the memories of our life time, we need to keep them alive.”
—Martin Scorsese
With the premiere of the restored version of Robert Altman’s 1982 film “Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean” on March 3rd at the Billy Wilder Theater in the Hammer Museum in Westwood, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) continues its mission to help restore some of the greatest cinema classics of our time. The late director’s film has been meticulously restored with funding by The Film Foundation and the Hollywood Foreign Press and is part of the 2011 UCLA Festival of Preservation.
When you consider that half the American films made before 1950 and 90% of films made before 1929 have been lost forever, film preservation has never had a more urgent need.
The Film Foundation which director Martin Scorsese founded in 1990 has been at the forefront of film preservation. The nonprofit organization provides substantial annual support for restoration and preservation at the nation’s leading film archives. Instrumental in raising awareness of the urgent need to preserve films it has helped with generous donors such as the Hollywood Foreign Press to save more than 545 films. This “hands-on” preservation ensures that these great films which are not only works of art but historical records and essential representations of our culture will survive for future generations.
Since first contributing to The Film Foundation fifteen years ago, the Hollywood Foreign Press has become a major supporter donating 3 million dollars. The grant for 2010 alone amounted to $350,000. The donations by the HFPA have contributed to the preservation of more than 75 motion pictures by such noted directors as Stanley Kubrick, John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock, Jean Renoir and John Cassavetes.
“It means a great deal to us,” says Jennifer Ahn, the Managing Director of The Film Foundation. “The HFPA is so instrumental in preservation of film history. They put an enormous amount of effort and funds to this mission and it is a huge part of what The Film Foundation does. We highly value and praise the Hollywood Foreign Press Association for this invaluable public service”.
Donations from the HFPA in 2004 helped restore one of 1939’s Best Picture nominees, Lewis Milestone’s “Of Mice and Men”, as well as Jean Renoir’s 1951 classic, “The River.” In 2005 the HFPA grant contributed to the restoration of Orson Welles brooding 1948 version of “Macbeth”, Nicholas Ray’s “Born to be Bad” from 1950, Otto Preminger’s searing indictment of drug addiction in his 1955 film, “The Man with the Golden Arm” and Melvin van Peebles controversial blaxploitation 70’s film ,”Sweet Sweetback’s Baad Asssss Song”.
In 2006 the 1948 Technicolor masterpiece “The Red Shoes” by directors Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger was magnificently restored. Scorsese at the time expressed his gratitude to the input from the Hollywood Foreign Press. “There’s no question that its one of the most beautiful films ever made and those of us who love film owe the HFPA a deep debt of gratitude,” he said.
In 2007 HFPA contributions helped restore Lawrence Olivier’s 1955’s film version of “Richard III”, while in 2009 the focus turned to some of Robert Altman’s outstanding and genre bending work including his little known1969 film, “That Cold Day in the Park” and “Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean”.
The association between the HFPA and The Film Foundation continues with more recent preservation efforts dedicated to such landmark films as 1933’s “King Kong”, Elia Kazan’s “America America” and Michael Curtiz’s high-voltage 1950 drama “The Breaking Point”.
The grants to The Film Foundation were a significant part of the more than 12 million dollars which the Hollywood Foreign Press Association donated in the last fifteen years to entertainment related charities as well as founding scholarships and other programs for future film and television professionals. In the year 2010 the total donation was $ 1,541, 000, the largest ever in the organizations history.
Read More »COLOMBIAN PRESIDENT JUAN MANUEL SANTOS WELCOMES HFPA
Two Hollywood Foreign Press members were personally welcomed to the 51st Cartagena Film Festival by the president of Colombia, Juan Manual Santos.
President Santos told Daily Telegraph reporter John Hiscock and photographer Theo Kingma : “I hope you enjoy your stay in Cartagena. It’s a wonderful festival with more than 100 films. When it started in 1960 nobody dreamed it would become the preeminent festival in the region, as it has done. Some of our films have recently won awards at prestigious events like Sundance, Cannes and San Sebastian.”
The President, surrounded by security guards, was talking exclusively to the two members after speaking at the opening of a new school in the poverty-stricken San Francisco area of Cartagena. Education for Colombia’s children means a great deal to the President, who studied at the University of Kansas and later at the London School of Economics and was working on education and youth-related projects before he was elected.
The evening before the interview he had attended the outdoor screening of the festival’s opening movie, Los Colores de Montana which, he said, resonated with him because it dealt with the plight of children living in blighted areas of the country.
With Fox International and Sony Pictures Television having already based their Latin American operations in Colombia the President is developing a plan to attract directors, producers and investors, especially from the United States and India, to make movies in the country by turning it into a popular location for filming.
“We are a few hours away from the United States by plane, we have a strategic location in the Americas and our geography is ideal because we have diverse climates and landscape,” he said.
Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos talks film with HFPA member John Hiscock
PRESIDENTIAL OPENING OF CARTAGENA INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
The 51st Cartagena Film Festival opened last night with the open-air screening of a Colombian movie, a late night party and a V.I.P ceremony attended by Cartagena mayor Judith Pinedo Flórez and Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos.
Hollywood Foreign Press member Mike Goodridge is on the jury of the festival, the oldest in Latin America, which will be screening 102 films from Colombia, South America and around the world.
The opening night film, watched by hundreds in the plaza outside the city’s Centro de Convenciones, was Los Colores de Montana, a moving portrait of the conflict in Colombia seen through the eyes of three children.
Glee and Social Networking at The Golden Globes
By Husam “Sam” Asi
There was plenty of Glee in Hollywood where the TV show about a song-filled high school walked away with all the TV comedy awards at the Golden Globes – the first major awards ceremony of the year.
Glee team celeberate their Golden Globe
The British comedian and creator of The Office, Ricky Gervais, hosted an evening of glitz and glamour for a second successive year, opening with a nod to the increasing number of 3D films, and suggesting that the only film of the past year without 3D characters was The Tourist. This raised the question of how the film got three nominations – was it because the members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association just wanted to spend the evening with Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp? It certainly couldn’t be the fabled bribes, he suggested, because who would see tickets to a Cher concert as a bribe? “It’s not 1975,” he quipped.
After Gervais had started digging his comedic claws into more of Hollywood’s favorites, the evening launched with Christian Bale taking the Best Supporting Actor trophy for playing the drug-addicted brother of boxing champion Micky Ward in The Fighter. The film also picked up the prize for best supporting actress; Melissa Leo played the mother of the pair.
The top acting prizes went to Colin Firth for playing King George VI in the drama The King’s Speech, Natalie Portman for the ballet drama Black Swan, Paul Giamatti for the comedy Barney’s Version and Annette Bening for the lesbian comedy The Kids Are All Right, which also took the prize for best comedy. Best Drama went to The Social Network, which also took the prizes for best director, for David Fincher. Aaron Sorkin’s screenplay for the same film also won him a Golden Globe. And the film picked up the best score, for Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.
The HFPA’s annual awards ceremony also honors the best achievement in television, where, as in the film categories, the main prizes are handed separately to dramas and comedies. Katey Segal’s performance in Sons of Anarchy earned her the best actress award for drama. Steve Buscemi took the best acting award for Boardwalk Empire, which also won best TV drama. Glee took the prize for Best Comedy series, as well as best supporting actor in a comedy, for Chris Colfer, and Jane Lynch was the best supporting actress for the same show.
The best actress in a comedy series was Laura Linney, the star of The Big C. And Jim Parsons, from Big Bang Theory, was awarded the Golden Globe for best actor in a TV comedy.
Bridging the gap between television and films are categories for mini series and TV movies. Olivier Assayas’ biopic of the terrorist Carlos the Jackal, Carlos, won the main prize in this category, with Al Pacino taking the Golden Globe for best actor in a miniseries or TV movie for playing another real-life character, the euthanasia doctor Jack Kevorkian, in the TV movie You Don’t Know Jack. The best actress in this category went to Claire Danes for her portrayal of another real person, the Autistic Author-scientist Temple Grandin.
Other awards included Toy Story 3 for Best Animated Feature, the Danish film In A Better World took Best Foreign Language Film, Cher‘s song You Haven’t Seen The Last of Me was Best Song, for Burlesque.
The highest point of the ceremony, however, was when Robert De Niro got up on the stage to receive his Cecil B. DeMille award from Matt Damon, who said that he hadn’t heard of De Niro before he was recruited to work with him on The Good Shepherd.
The audience was treated to a three-minute montage of his best work. Subsequently, De Niro joked that this montage made him look as if he had made nothing but hits.
In their speeches, tonight’s winners expressed their gratitude to their collaborators and to The Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) for recognizing their work and their talent.
The Golden Globe Awards, which are considered by many in the industry as significant indicators for next month’s Oscars, are voted for by the 85 HFPA members, who also organise the ceremony and co-produce the show with Dick Clark Productions. More than 19 million tuned in to watch the show last year on NBC, and many expect the number to be even higher this year.
The Golden Globe Awards ceremony is the biggest and most glamorous event in the Hollywood calendar. Earlier, more than 200 stars from Hollywood and beyond marched along the red carpet, dressed in their finest gowns and dripping with diamond and other jewellery, as they were showered by camera flashes and their names were shouted by screaming fans.
Surrounded by so many of their peers, the stars seemed to be at ease, loitering around the ballroom or sipping drinks in the outdoor bar and chatting with colleagues and friends. In fact, the Golden Globes ceremony is one of those rare events where one bumps into stars more than into mortals. You become so used to it that I didn’t raise an eyebrow when I saw Robert De Niro in the mirror waiting behind me to wash his hands in the restroom.
Right after the ceremony, six parties, held by different studios, kick off in different venues inside the Beverly Hilton hotel, honoring their nominees and tonight’s winners.
The ceremony is over but the party has just begun. The Golden Globes event is undoubtedly the best party in town.
Read More »THE ONLY OSCAR AT THE GLOBES
Oscar Zuleta is a true Golden Globe Awards veteran.
As one of the Beverly Hilton’s longest working employees, Oscar has served the stars at 17 consecutive Golden Globe ceremonies.
“My favorite moment was when I served Sean Connery a glass of red wine,” recalls the Globe vet. “He told me it was custom in his country that those that serve a glass of wine always take the first sip. I told him I couldn’t because I was working.”
“Mr. Connery turned around, talked to my supervisor, came back and handed me a second glass saying, ‘Here’s a toast to both our health!’”
Golden Globe winner Mickey Rourke is responsible for his second most memorable Golden Globe moment. “He saw my name tag and acted in a very funny way upset, saying ‘What the heck are you doing at the Globes!’, to which I replied, ‘But Mickey, I am the only Oscar at the Globes!’”
Read More »BLEACHERS ARE GOING UP …
Bleachers are going up in the red carpet area. Over 300 guests will have the opportunity to witness the arrivals in person.
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