Movies

Arts

Casting Call: Hollywood Needs More Women

7:35pm June 30, 2013

by NPR Staff

Women make up half of movie viewers, and yet they are underrepresented on the big screen. Many more films are made by, for and star men, according to surveys by the Annenberg School. So as Hollywood changes and evolves, can this disparity be fixed?

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Arts

The Movie Paul Feig Has 'Seen A Million Times'

7:07pm June 29, 2013

by Lily Percy

Writer-director Paul Feig could watch the James Bond film Casino Royale a million times. "Daniel Craig really embodies Ian Fleming's James Bond," he says.

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Carl Brisson stars as sideshow boxer "One Round Jack" in Alfred Hitchcock's 1927 film The Ring. That and eight more of the master's early silent features have restored by the British Film Institute.

Arts

Rescued, Hitchcock's Silent Films Flicker Anew

7:07pm June 29, 2013

by Pat Dowell

Alfred Hitchcock is best known for suspense films like Psycho and Vertigo, but the British director actually began his filmmaking career during the silent era. The Hitchcock 9 is a collection of his silent films, and the only way to see them is the old way — going to the theater.

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'Heat' Stroke: The genius of this buddy-cop comedy is in its pairing of Sandra Bullock (left, as a by-the-book process nerd of an FBI suit) with Melissa McCarthy, who plays a sloppy Boston detective with no patience for procedure.

Arts

Bullock And McCarthy, Packing 'Heat' (And Laughs) In Boston

9:22pm June 28, 2013

by Bob Mondello

Director Paul Feig and writer Katie Dippold have found a perfect pair of leads for their cop comedy. Critic Bob Mondello says Oscar winner Sandra Bullock and Oscar nominee Melissa McCarthy turn out to have enviable comic chemistry.

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Saoirse Ronan plays Eleanor, an ancient (and uncharacteristically ethical) vampire in Neil Jordan's Byzantium.

Arts

Two Master Moviemakers, Two Singularly Fine Films

3:01pm June 27, 2013

by David Edelstein

Pedro Almodovar's ensemble comedy I'm So Excited is set on an airplane with mechanical problems; Neil Jordan's Byzantium centers on a pair of itinerant English vampires. The two films couldn't be more different, but the two filmmakers are very much in command of their craft.

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Throughout the '70s and '80s, the radical African-American MOVE organization had several dramatic encounters with police.

'Let The Fire Burn': A Philadelphia Community Forever Changed

2:05pm June 26, 2013

by NPR Staff

On May 13, 1985, after a long standoff, Philadelphia municipal authorities dropped a bomb on the headquarters of the African-American radical group MOVE. In the documentary Let the Fire Burn, director Jason Osder uses archival footage to chronicle the years of tension that ended in tragedy.

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Jason Holliday, born Aaron Payne, is demanding audiences' attention again in a new theatrical release of Shirley Clarke's Portrait of Jason, restored by Milestone Film and the Academy Film Archive.

Arts

A Revealing '60s 'Portrait,' Opening Eyes In Theaters Again

6:05pm June 25, 2013

by Howie Movshovitz

Shirley Clarke's 1967 film Portrait of Jason has returned to theaters after a meticulous restoration. As a historian and a documentarian tell reporter Howie Movshovitz, it's as remarkable in many ways today as it ever was.

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In Sofia Coppola's film The Bling Ring, about the excesses of Los Angeles materialism, Emma Watson plays narcissistic party girl Nicki.

Arts

'The Bling Ring': Celebrity Culture And Its Little Monsters

2:19pm June 25, 2013

by John Powers

A new film from Sofia Coppola, who made Lost in Translation and Marie Antoinette, is based on the real-life story of a group of Southern California teens who, in 2008 and 2009, began breaking into the homes of celebrities and stealing everything from designer clothing to watches and jewelry.

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Spanish director Pedro Almodovar's new film is called I'm So Excited.

World News

'I'm So Excited': Pedro Almodovar's Spanish Metaphor

8:29am June 23, 2013

by Jasmine Garsd

The legendary film director's new film is about a group of passengers stuck on an airplane. It's a comedy: In between panicking, the passengers find time to fall in love, make love — and come out of the closet. It's also a return to the filmmaker's Spanish roots.

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Emma Watson, who shot to global fame as the level-headed, resourceful Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter films, admits there's a certain irony in her playing a teenager who burgles the homes of celebrities.

Arts

Coppola And Watson On Teens, Fame And 'Bling'

7:30pm June 22, 2013

by NPR Staff

NPR's Scott Simon talks to writer-director Sofia Coppola and actress Emma Watson about their film The Bling Ring, in which a group of celebrity-mad teens rob the homes of Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan and others. It's based on a true story.

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