TV / Film News

'Let's Get Lost' West Coast Cool Jazz of Chet Baker

Source: All About Jazz
March 26, 2009

In the center of the frame, very close to the camera, hangs a studio microphone that could be mistaken for a vintage Soviet communications satellite.

Chet Baker, 58, is recording Jimmy Van Heusen and Johnny Burke's “Imagination." His voice isn't quite as soft and papery as it used to be, but the image -- like every shot of Baker in Bruce Weber's Let's Get Lost -- is about the face, not so much the music.

That face -- gnarled and ...

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Behind the 'Looney Tunes': A Look at Chuck Jones' Life

Source: Michael Ricci
March 25, 2009

Most people can recall sitting in front of a television watching Bugs Bunny slyly outwit his would-be captors. Or perhaps, as a child, you were a fan of the trials and tribulations of Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote as they chased each other endlessly. (And maybe you still are.)

Whoever your favorite Looney Tunes is, without the direction of the late Charles Martin Chuck Jones, the characters as we know them would never have made it into our living ...

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For Warner Bros. Time is Changing

Source: Michael Ricci
March 25, 2009

Clock ticking on Warner Bros. succession drama

Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes must decide how to replace Barry Meyer and Alan Horn, who have jointly presided over the studio and are to step down in 2011.

With the heads of Warner Bros. signing only two-year contract extensions, Time Warner Inc. Chief Executive Jeff Bewkes will focus on succession and how the movie and television studio should be managed in the face of tectonic shifts in the entertainment industry and a ...

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Round Midnight Dexter Gordon Plays a Classic

Source: All About Jazz
March 25, 2009

In Dexter Gordon's voice in Round Midnight, there is a quality that at first sounds like a great weariness. As I listened more carefully, however, I realized that there were other notes present.

Here is a man (I speak of the character, not the actor) who has gone too far and seen too much, and who knows that in one way or another his death is near. Yet he is not impatient with those who still have long to live; ...

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Jonathan Demme Debuts “Neil Young Trunk Show” at SXSW

Source: All About Jazz
March 22, 2009

Director Jonathan Demme was on hand at SXSW for the world premiere of his concert film, Neil Young Trunk Show.

The film is an intimate look at Young’s stage show, recorded in a small theater in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, on mostly hand-held cameras. “We did a home movie in a way,” said Demme to a Saturday afternoon crowd in Austin’s Paramount Theatre. “We did it all ourselves.”

The Oscar-award winning director (Silence Of The Lambs, Philadelphia) said the film was ...

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David Carradine: Still Punchy After All These Years

Source: All About Jazz
March 21, 2009

It's still early, but it's pretty safe to say that the award for the “Craziest Post- Screening Panel Discussion of the Year".

It has to go to David Carradine and Haskell Wexler, who got to show everyone who stayed after an American Cinematheque screening of Hal Ashby's “Bound for Glory" just what it must've been like to have lived through the '60s.

It's not exactly a news flash that Carradine, best known for his many small and big screen roles ...

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IATSE Ratifies Three-Year Contract That Cuts Health Benefits

Source: Michael Ricci
March 21, 2009

The union, which represents more than 35,000 film and TV workers, fends off a campaign by dissidents who accused their leaders of selling them short at the bargaining table.

A union representing more than 35,000 film and TV workers has approved a new three- year contract, fending off a vigorous opposition campaign by dissidents who accused their leaders of selling them short at the bargaining table.

The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees said Friday that the contract, which was ...

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Martino Unstrung Premiere NY Screening Draws Overflow Crowd

Source: All About Jazz
March 20, 2009

The documentary Martino Unstrung offers an in-depth study of guitarist Pat Martino and the brain disorder that required life-saving emergency surgery which left him with total amnesia that would have ended his career were it not for his persistence and courage in relearning his craft anew.

In 2008, this writer reviewed the film and interviewed Martino, the director, Ian Knox, and the neurologist, Paul Broks for All About Jazz. The film was released on DVD and has been shown at ...

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