unfinished business is a 2015 american comedy film directed by ken scott and written by steven conrad .

the film stars vince vaughn , tom wilkinson , dave franco , sienna miller , nick frost , and james marsden .

it was released on march 6 , 2015 .

the film received negative reviews and was a box office bomb .

unfinished business ( 2015 film )

unfinished business ( 2015 film ) <EOT> title unfinished business year 2015 distributor ( s ) 20th century fox film co . ltd classified date ( s ) 17 / 02 / 2015 main language english submitted run time 90m 49s approved footage 8173 + 8 bbfc reference aff321861 registration number cfj34996

dave franco stages a boardroom presentation in one of several stock photos promoting his film " unfinished business . "

unfinished business is a comedy about three unsuccessful salesmen on a business trip that could turn everything around for them .

2015 “the golden rose , ” presented as street installation at the site of the famous destroyed synagogue , lviv , ukraine , from february 2015 .

summary unfinished business is a us comedy about three unsuccessful salesmen on a business trip that could turn everything around for them .

" unfinished business " opens march 6 , but appreciation for these stock photos should last a lifetime .

looking for movie tickets ? enter your location to see which movie theaters are playing unfinished business near you .

to put it another way , " unfinished business " is hoping you ' re buying what franco is selling .

as a genius promotion for his upcoming film unfinished business , vaughn and his co - stars , including dave franco , released a series of their own clichéd , ridiculous stock photos that plague business pamphlets and powerpoint presentations worldwide .

tom wilkinson , second from left , joins dave franco , far right , in this business - oriented celebration stock photo to promote their movie , " unfinished business . "

‘i know people are surprised’ … ryan gosling in london , 9 april 2015 . photograph : ian west / pa

actors dave franco , center , and vince vaughn , right , play mike pancake and dan trunkman in the film " unfinished business . " this image is part of a free , limited edition series of stock images promoting the film .

unfinished business , a comedy about vaughn and his colleagues attempting to land a deal in europe , opens in theaters friday .

actors vince vaughn , dave franco and tom wilkinson are here for " unfinished business " — and all your stock photo needs .

there ' s plenty to like in unfinished business , even though viewers expecting the debauchery of a wedding crashers will likely leave disappointed .

so unfinished business is what i’ll describe as “you get what you pay for” in the vince vaughn comedy wheelbarrow . rambly jokes ? …

jay burleson collection + unfinished business collector dvd . all four films : anathema arienette , the nobodies , the lonely , and unfinished business in one collection . will also include " making - of " behind the scenes of unfinished business and filmmaker commentary track for unfinished business . commentary will be only for our backers and not official release version of commentary . aka , the non politically correct ramblings of me and my friends with special guest aberdeen the cat . also includes digital " production bible " as well as shout - out and online screeners , ultimate digital .

reviewed at 20th century fox studios , los angeles , march 2 , 2015 . mpaa rating : r . running time : 90 min .

while unfinished business is not good and i do not recommend it , it also didn ' t make me want to pour bleach in my eyes .

the only apparent " unfinished business " at hand in vince vaughn ' s latest is torpedoing the last remains of the actor ' s comedy career .

2015 “an unifinished memory : jewish heritage and the holocaust in eastern galicia , ” lviv palace of arts , lviv , ukraine , august - september .

and the film may still turn out to be horrible . rotten tomatoes doesn ' t have any reviews up yet . but today fox pulled a genius marketing stunt . it released a series of stock photo featuring the cast of unfinished business .

scathing reviews of the new vince vaughn comedy unfinished business are being offset by a nifty marketing idea . but do the studios’ clever stunts and viral campaigns really work ?

to promote the new movie " unfinished business , " vince vaughn and other members of the cast posed for stock photos . this one is captioned , " portrait of a handsome business leader crossing his arms with his team standing behind him . "

‘business trip’ , starring vince vaughn , transforms boston’s logan airport into st . louis

vince vaughn and sienna miller — in her crazy outfit — get the vip umbrella treatment on the soggy boston set of ‘unfinished business . ’ the weather is reportedly making vince cranky .

eric d . snider is a freelance film journalist and comedy writer . he tweets here .

this quote is just one example of how uninspired the screenwriter was at the moment of writing the script for unfinished business . of course he followed it up by making several breakfast references , but none of the jokes were actually funny . it’s a shame because ken scott had a stronger cast to work with here than in his previous collaboration with vince vaughn , delivery man , a film i didn’t really like but that i didn’t dislike either . i’d rather sit through that movie than watch unfinished business because this was incredibly dull , the jokes were lame , and the story was completely unfocused and all over the place . delivery man is a masterpiece next to unfinished business . …

2014 an unfinished memory : jewish heritage and the holocaust in eastern galicia , galicia jewish museum , kraków .

the ultimate digital : digital downloads of final release versions of anathema arienette , the nobodies , the lonely , and unfinished business . plus the digital " production bible " and online shout - out .

the stakes could not be lower in " unfinished business , " the second collaboration between director ken scott and vince vaughn . watching a film with non - existent stakes is a depressing experience , especially when " unfinished business " also wants to tug on your heart - strings . heart - strings refuse to be tugged sans stakes . the characters are not people , but rough drafts of simplistic character - traits , and the actors ( game as they all are ) cannot create something out of nothing . screenwriter steve conrad has written some very good films about middle - aged male panic , most memorably " the weatherman , " but in " unfinished business " , scenes just sit there . nothing happens .

sadly , no one behind “unfinished business” decided that audiences would get even a cursory explanation about the business part : three salesmen form their own company and spend most of the film trying to close a deal that has something to do with swarf , a metal residue left over in the creation of large steel objects . are they buying it ? selling it ? the movie can’t be bothered to tell us .

studio exec # 2 : that & apos ; s what it says on his business card .

feature your artwork or movies in unfinished business . you will get the other perks plus we will feature your artwork or your movie in our film . artwork will be placed in the bedroom of a character and your movie will be in a small stack of dvds spread out on a counter or table , etc .

by then the movie didn’t just belong to gosling . it was also the property of warner brothers , the american rights bought for $ 3m when the film was unfinished . after cannes , the studio tried selling them .

get a copy of unfinished business on dvd . special crowd - funder edition for our supporters only . will have it ' s own custom artwork and as many bonus features ( aimed at our contributors ) as possible .

unfinished business is heartfelt , has some laughs and a talented cast , but it ' s still inconsistently funny with a shortage of laughs , tonal inconsistencies and dramatic beats that just don ' t work . skip this one .

at the end of the day , jupiter ascending was a unique , individual film that took a chance .

still , “unfinished business” isn’t a laugh - free experience — nick frost steals every scene as a business underling with a kinky side — and some of the comic set pieces actually work . it’s certainly the best thing vaughn has done in the decade since “wedding crashers , ” which makes it less of a raw deal than usual .

jay burleson is an independent filmmaker currently living in north alabama . he has been described as the most prolific filmmaker in the state of alabama by sidewalk film festival programmer rachel morgan , and his faux trailer for a lost installment of the halloween movie franchise has screened in front of the original texas chainsaw massacre and won the " best fake trailer " award at the 2014 lost episode fest in toronto . his first feature film , the vhs inspired horror / comedy feast of the vampires , won the audience choice award for best film at an athens , al . film festival in 2009 . anathema arienette , one of three feature films burleson is currently adding finishing touches to , is set to premiere at the 17th annual sidewalk film festival in august of 2015 .

but in a fit of marketing genius , the promotional team behind the movie " unfinished business " decided it was time to give a little star power to those images , which often come across as goofy , stilted and random .

business trip spent several days filming at drumlin farm in lincoln , ma before moving to framingham last week .

in this red - band trailer for ken scott’s upcoming comedy unfinished business , we find vaughn in vintage deadpan mode as a salesman trying to out - maneuver his old company , which is run by a savvy sienna miller . drama !

studio exec # 1 : it & apos ; s the best film i & apos ; ve ever seen .

when reporters and gossipmongers combed through the documents leaked by the sony hackers late last year , one of the things they found was an audio recording of the meeting where the vince vaughn film unfinished business was pitched to three studio executives . ( how a meeting for a non - sony film came to be included in the sony leak is a question best ignored , shut up . ) in the interest of public service , here is a transcript of the recording .

the unfinished business photos are almost a little too on the nose . you can see them all here . while vaughn is quietly mugging it up , he costars are taking their photos a bit more seriously . and that ' s pretty funny .

if you spot business trip filming in massachusetts , let us know about it at olv @ onlocationvacations . com !

with “unfinished business , ” vaughn will be trying to break a recent box - office losing streak . his last hit was 2009’s “couples retreat , ” and misfires “the internship , ” “the watch” and “the dilemma” have come since . dave franco and tom wilkinson co - star in the r - rated tale of a european business trip gone that goes very wrong .

a comedy with its heart in the right place and everything else bizarrely out of joint , “unfinished business” finds director ken scott following 2013’s “delivery man” with another dubious attempt to sell audiences on vince vaughn’s sensitive side . playing a down - on - his - luck family man who takes an ill - advised business trip to berlin with two unfunny sidekicks [ … ]

fox had a hit last summer with a somewhat similar comedy , “let’s be cops . ” but that one skewed younger and cost less to make than “unfinished business , ” which has a $ 35 million production budget and was financed by new regency .

enter the new vince vaughn movie unfinished business , which comes out friday . twentieth century fox has teamed up with istock by getty images to create a set of stock photos featuring vaughn along with co - stars tom wilkinson , dave franco and others .

studio exec # 1 : gentlemen , we don & apos ; t have time to come up with a title today . we & apos ; ll leave all of this unfinished business for tomorrow . for now : it & apos ; s cocaine time !

as for the actual movie , " unfinished business " follows dan truckman ( vaughn ) and his misfit employees timothy mcwinters ( wilkinson ) and mike pancake ( franco ) as they try to close on an international deal that would save them from going bankrupt .

at the same time , however , the film keeps attempting to tug at our heartstrings , with dan’s facetime attempts to be a good husband ( a terribly underused june diane raphael plays the wife ) and dad . part of what drives dan to close this deal is his desire to afford private school for his kids , which “unfinished business” unquestioningly presents as a solution for bullying .

a hard - working small business owner and his two associates travel to europe to close the most important deal of their lives . but what began as a routine business trip goes off the rails in every way imaginable - and unimaginable .

the film ' s synopsis sounds right up vince ' s alley : " what began as a routine business trip goes off the rails in every imaginable—and unimaginable—way , including unplanned stops at a massive sex fetish event and a global economic summit . "

the tomatometer score — based on the opinions of hundreds of film and television critics — is a trusted measurement of critical recommendation for millions of fans . it represents the percentage of professional critic reviews that are positive for a given film or television show .

this is your chance to have your name , or company name , in front of our film . we ' ll put it on all the posters we make , and it ' ll be in the opening and closing credits of the film as well .

there ' s one sequence in " unfinished business " that is not given enough room to breathe , but it has a lot of weird possibilities . because he can ' t find a hotel room , trunkman ends up staying in a museum art - installation called american businessman 42 : an all - white hotel room , with an entire wall of windows , where passersby can look in and watch him as though he is an elephant in a zoo . it ' s the only moment when " unfinished business " feels in any way original .

vince vaughn’s familiar comic everyman is a bit sweeter and a bit less edgy than usual in unfinished business , a mostly flat , occasionally raunchy comedy - drama that packages its star with canadian director ken scott , an underused anglo - american supporting cast and quirky berlin settings .

though it does not have a highbrow bone in its cinematic body , ken scott’s “unfinished business” has enough heart , goofiness , and raunch to make it an appealing comedy . following three misfit businessmen as they travel to germany to close the biggest deal of their careers , the film combines economic stresses , domestic drama , and underdog shenanigans for a piece of work that is silly , ribald , and entertaining .

he has recently performed at the asian art museum in san francisco and received a 2015 artist fellowship in music from the alabama state council on the arts . he is committed to supporting progressive arts in the south and is glad to be involved in the production of

studio exec # 1 : ken , with this premise and these actors , the film will write , produce , and distribute itself .

studio exec # 2 : i & apos ; m not quite sold . on this business trip , do things go awry ?

mostly “unfinished business” is a tale of unfinished jokes : hey , what if timothy mcwinters ( wilkinson ) kept talking dirty , getting high on ectasy and smoking weed ? all of those ideas could lead somewhere . none does . he hires a “sex maid” to come to his hotel room , but then the hooker - cleaner goes to the vaughn character’s room to clean it instead . he’s happily married and wasn’t expecting that . ha ha .

2014 “an unfinished memory : jewish heritage and the holocaust in eastern galicia , ” ( solo ) , permanent exhibition for the galicia jewish museum , kraków .

vaughn’s r - rated comedy “ unfinished business , ” distributed by 20th century fox , is projected to see a dismal $ 5 million opening from 2 , 777 locations . the actor’s previous career - low was earned by 2013’s “delivery man , ” which opened to $ 7 million domestically .

producer : you ' ll get a producer credit in credits of unfinished business + on imdb ( as early as october / nov this year for imdb credit ) at this perk level . also includes digital " production bible " as well as shout - out and online screeners , ultimate digital .

that “unfinished business” thinks it’s a really fun idea to have a leading character named mike pancake tells you all you need to know . so , someone asks mike in a meeting , your boss’ name is , what , steve toast ? ho , ho . stop , my ribs are cracking .

executive producer / all access ( aka so much of me it ' ll make you sick ) : same as other producer credits only this time you get the name of an executive . because that ' s as good as it gets , right ? imdb version available as soon as imdb page is launched and the campaign ends and we hit our goal , obviously . so , oct / nov 2015 ! plus : your choice of either the dvd collection set or the blu - ray collection set ( including unfinished business ) and you can name a character in the film . naming a character is limited to 1 name per person and 3 names total . also limited to first name only in most cases .

but you ' ve got to hand it to a good marketing campaign . anything that helps a film stand out these days and ignites some kind of discussion is a job well done . prometheus had a similarly outside - the - box promotional campaign with its ted talk from the future . in my opinion , that stunt was better than the movie and i suspect it will be the same case here . unfinished business hits theaters friday .

ken scott : this is the great part . it really is a killer premise . you & apos ; ve got this guy , see , and he has two business partners , one older and one younger , and the three of them go on a business trip .

even as star wars : the force awakens shatters records across the globe , it wasn’t all glory for the 2015 box office . there were plenty of films – some highly anticipated , others dead on arrival – that didn’t quite justify their worth in the eyes of movie - goers .

little contained in this misfire of a film works and the few successful things are dragged out to the point where they die a lingering death .

2014 an unfinished memory : jewish heritage and the holocaust in eastern galicia . conceived , designed , photographed and wrote new permanent exhibition for the galicia jewish museum , kraków .

directed by ken scott , the movie co - stars dave franco and tells the story of a business trip to europe that goes disastrously awry .

studio exec # 1 : " three businessmen go on a business trip . " that premise has everything : men , trips—the whole nine yards !

5 . the spongebob movie : sponger out of water – $ 7 million [ 5th week ; $ 148 million total ] as the lone family - oriented film out in theaters these days , “spongebob” has coasted to a sizable profit and doubling its $ 74 million budget . “spongebob” is trailing “fifty shades of grey” for 2015’s top grosser by about $ 8 million right now and could catch it to claim the top spot until “furious 7” hits theaters .

the sony pictures release will come in with a little more than $ 15 million and beat out the weekend’s other two openers , say the analysts . the vince vaughn comedy “unfinished business” from twentieth century fox will finish in the $ 10 million range and “the second best exotic marigold hotel” from fox searchlight should trail that .

associate producer credit : you ' ll get an associate producer credit in credits of unfinished business + on imdb ( as early as october / early nov this year for the imdb credit ) for this contribution amount . also includes digital " production bible " as well as shout - out and online screeners , ultimate digital .

heading to the cinema this weekend ? off to see neill blomkamp’s sci - fi adventure chappie ? or perhaps julianne moore’s oscar - winning performance in still alice ? ok , well how about unfinished business , the vince vaughn - tom wilkinson comedy you didn’t even know was coming out ? yeah . . . thought not .

a hard - working small business owner ( vince vaughn ) and his two associates ( tom wilkinson , dave franco ) travel to europe to close the most important deal of their lives . but what began as a routine business trip goes off the rails in every way imaginable - and unimaginable .

" the ballad of narayama " is a japanese film of great beauty and elegant artifice , telling a story of startling cruelty . what a space it opens…

anne - marie slaughter , president and chief executive officer of the new america foundation , gestures as she speaks during a session on the opening day of the world economic forum ( wef ) in davos , switzerland , on wednesday , jan . 21 , 2015 . ( chris ratcliffe / bloomberg - - getty images

but still , there’s something oddly memorable about these often quite smart stunts , and since generic products like devil’s due or unfinished business might disappear from cinemas and memories with speed , you can’t blame the studios for trying to add some value to the campaigns . publicity departments work best when they’re being realistic , and if there’s no positive word of mouth for a film , they’ll decide to focus conversation on something else . and as you’ve just read this article , apparently it works rather well .

already have a christmas wish for this year : erase this film from my memory . oh wait . . . it ' s already been done . thanks .

where are the razzies for these movies ? jupiter ascending ’s rotten tomatoes score is pretty crappy , but it’s not as dismal as survivor ’s meagre 7 % approval rating , or even the transporter ’s 17 % . unfinished business got an “honourable mention” by the razzie committee at 11 % , so why is jupiter ascending the one being nominated ?

let’s ignore 50 shades of grey for the moment because it ties in with a point i’m going to make later on – just bear in mind that both it and jupiter ascending have the highest rotten tomatoes score in that list . now , let’s take a look at the rotten tomatoes scores of some different 2015 movies .

studio exec # 1 : [ on intercom ] sharon , let & apos ; s get a marketing campaign started for ken scott & apos ; s new film .

a few weeks ago , i saw the first trailer for an upcoming vince vaughn comedy called unfinished business . i ' m pretty plugged in to the movie world and i had never heard of this film before . the trailer looked pretty god awful . while i ' m excited to see vaughn in the upcoming second season of true detectives , his comedy career is on the rocks and with an early march release , i figured even the presence of the ever - charming dave franco couldn ' t save this stinker .

a hard - working small business owner and his two associates travel to europe to close the most important deal of their lives . but what began as a routine business trip goes off the rails in every imaginable – and unimaginable – way , including unplanned stops at a massive sex fetish event and a global economic summit .

richard gere joins the cast for the sequel , which sees director john madden , judi dench , maggie smith , dev patel and bill nighy return from the first film .

starring vince vaughn , tom wilkinson , and dave franco , the comedy follows their struggling white - collar men as they lay the groundwork for a business enterprise . the business is less important than the struggle , of course , and the struggle provides ample room for comedy . each character has his share of personal obstacles which lead to plenty…

on the one hand , “unfinished business” wants to be a hard - r comedy , with sojourns to a co - ed sauna ( an uncomfortable sniggery scene ) and the backroom of a berlin gay leather bar ( which admittedly pushes visible - penis - related humor pretty far for a mainstream hollywood movie ) , in addition to a riot outside the g - 8 summit .

the comedy has requested a permit to film in boston’s north end / waterfront on friday , november 22th and monday , november 25th . a scene will be filmed at the fairmont battery wharf with vaughn jogging up the street while another will be shot at commercial wharf . t he crew will film night scenes on the waterfront marina at long wharf , too .

dan : the first rule is : show the client a good time . i like vince vaughn and have tried to support his efforts over the years , but what are we doing here ? at some point in the scripting of this film about three men going on a business trip to germany , the creative decision was to have a character named mike pancake , because silly last names equal laughs . later on , that same character ( who we come to learn is mentally challenged ) slips and falls face first into an exposed penis . maybe you weren ' t expecting me to explain a penis gag in the opening paragraph of a review for unfinished business , but hey , i was not really expecting to see so many in the film as a whole either . this is just one of many haphazardly assembled ' jokes ' thrown at the wall in this aggressively unfunny comedy . read the whole review at urltoken

the raunch – which has earned the film an r rating in the us – comes mostly in a pretty mild ‘glory - holing’ scene in the bathroom of a berlin gay bar .

there were critics who had plenty of good things to say about jupiter ascending . in cinemascore polls conducted during the opening weekend , audiences gave jupiter ascending an average grade of “b - ” on an a + to f scale . polygon named jupiter ascending number 8 on the staff’s list of the top 10 films of 2015 . even the lukewarm comments conceded the film’s grandiose risk - taking , with david blaustein for abc news radio stating that “ jupiter ascending is a campy visual sci - fi spectacle that could very well become a cult classic . ”

eric foner is a professor of history at columbia university and the author of “gateway to freedom : the hidden history of the underground railroad , ” “reconstruction : america’s unfinished revolution” and “a short history of reconstruction . ”

sony’s sci - fier “chappie” is marching toward a soft debut at the u . s . box office while vince vaughn is having the worst opening weekend of his career . vaughn’s r - rated comedy “unfinished business , ” distributed by 20th century fox , is projected to see a dismal $ 5 million opening from 2 , 777 locations . the actor’s previous career - low was earned by [ … ]

studio exec # 1 : roger , i wouldn & apos ; t have called it the best film i & apos ; ve ever seen if i didn & apos ; t mean it .

“ unfinished business , ” made for $ 35 million and financed by new regency , is the latest in a string of downbeat results for vaughn following “the dilemma , ” “the watch , ” “the internship” and “delivery man . ” he had five comedies top $ 100 million between 2004 and 2009 with “dodgeball , ” “wedding crashers , ” “the break - up , ” “four christmases” and “couples retreat . ”

the more you watch a movie , the easier it becomes by the facile nature of trailers to determine if something ' s going to be good . you get that buzz , that instinctual sense , that river of anticipation . at times you ' re let down , at times the promise isn ' t fulfilled , but most often you ' re rewarded . equally , as in everything with balance , you know when a film will be bad - indeed it ' s perhaps easier to spot , despite trying to approach everything with an open mind . then you watch unfinished business and you realise sometimes , even as an amateur film critic , these things are impossible to predict . because even by the awful , cringe making standards of the trailer for ken scott ' s movie , nothing could have…

© copyright 2018 variety media , llc , a subsidiary of penske business media , llc . variety and the flying v logos are trademarks of variety media , llc . powered by urltoken vip

the film , which has been called “misbegotten” by variety and “woefully familiar” by the hollywood reporter , stars vaughn as a sales exec who encounters mayhem while on a business trip to europe . given his recent track record ( flops including delivery man , the watch and the internship ) , it’s unlikely to set the box office alight , and analysts predict an underwhelming $ 6m opening stateside .

a hard - working small business owner ( vince vaughn ) and his two associates ( tom wilkinson , dave franco ) travel to europe to close the most important deal of their lives . but what began as a routine business trip goes off the rails in every imaginable – and unimaginable – way , including unplanned stops at a massive sex fetish event and a global economic summit .

other than that , the film limps along , with no sense of comic timing , slapstick reality , or even spontaneity . it ' s so airless , and yet it feels heavy as lead .

ken scott : vince vaughn worked for me in delivery man . i & apos ; m confident he & apos ; d make another film with me , or literally anyone else who asked him .

there’s plenty to like in unfinished business , even though viewers expecting the debauchery of a wedding crashers will likely leave disappointed . i feel for vince vaughn , i really do . he clearly wants to explore this more serious vein , but he keeps having to sell his former high - concept persona . it’s a fascinating existential dilemma for a movie star to find himself in ; if only it resulted in better movies .

2015’s fantastic four is a classic case of the making of the film being far more interesting than the film itself . the troubled production suffered its share of problems , from director josh trank’s reported erratic behavior on set , to painfully obvious reshoots , to the blame game that followed in the wake of its dismal reception . standing at a truly rotten 10 % on rotten tomatoes , the intended reinvigoration of the fantastic four wound up only souring the fox franchise further . our own review stated : “aesthetically drab and dramatically inert , this reboot of fantastic four manages to actually make the previous two ff movies seem better in hindsight . ” fantastic four did manage to make back its production budget , but when marketing is thrown into the cost , its losses stand at around $ 80 million .

this brand of underdog / misfit dramedy is familiar enough territory for screenwriter steve conrad , whose scripts have largely centered around the funny - sad spectacle of an ordinary guy trying to transcend his glum material circumstances — most recently in “the secret life of walter mitty , ” and before that in “the weather man” and “the pursuit of happyness , ” still the best film produced from his work . if “ unfinished business ” feels like the worst , it’s because unlike its predecessors , it’s been forced to operate like an overly broad sex farce , a genre for which neither conrad nor director scott demonstrates any particular flair or conviction .

alonso duralde , thewrap ' s lead movie critic , has written about film for movieline , salon , msnbc . com . he also co - hosts the linoleum knife podcast and regularly appears on what the flick ? ! ( the young turks network ) . senior programmer for the outfest film festival in los angeles and a pre - screener for the sundance film festival , he is also a consultant for the usa film festival / dallas , where he spent five years as artistic director . a former arts and entertainment editor at the advocate , he was a regular contributor to " the rotten tomatoes show " on current . he is the author of two books : " have yourself a movie little christmas " ( limelight editions ) and " 101 must - see movies for gay men " ( advocate books ) .

in unfinished business , out this month , slaughter lays out why she disagrees with some parts of the lean in philosophy , but respects the facebook coo as a leader . the two women have often been held up as opposing voices in the debate about why exactly women can’t rise to the top professionally . in slaughter’s 2012 atlantic article “ why women still can’t have it all , ” she argued that american workplace structures are inherently hostile to women ; unfinished business is basically a follow - up , expanding on the argument that society needs to implement fundamental structural changes if women are ever going to be able to succeed equally at work . sheryl sandberg’s 2013 blockbuster lean in argued that internal cultural and psychological pressures allow women to hold themselves back . it’s the classic case of structure vs . agency , and each woman’s arguments have often been used to refute the other’s .

the two - week slump in the u . s . box office came after a 10 % surge in moviegoing this year , with the industry hoping that disney’s “cinderella” can reignite business next weekend .

vince vaughn’s latest , “ unfinished business ” couldn’t even crack the top 5 in its debut week , managing a terrible $ 4 . 8 million . vaughn’s comedic star power has taken some major hits with bombs like “the dilemma , ” “the watch” and “delivery man” and this career worse was exactly the opposite of what he needed . thankfully for him , he’ll be starring in the second season of “true detective” so he’ll be just fine .

screen international is the essential resource for the international film industry . subscribe now for monthly editions , awards season weeklies , access to the screen international archive and supplements including stars of tomorrow and world of locations .

a hard - working small business owner ( vince vaughn ) and his two associates ( tom wilkinson , dave franco ) travel to europe to close the most important deal of their lives . but what began as a routine business trip goes off the rails in every imaginable - and unimaginable - way , including unplanned stops at a massive sex fetish event and a global economic summit . ( c ) fox

david o . russell and jennifer lawrence are back together once again , which means it ' s time for another wacky , outlandish , probably oscar - nominated film , this time about the inventor of miracle mop .

it’s no secret that jupiter ascending received a critical response that was below lukewarm at best – it’s current rotten tomatoes score is 26 % . the film shares its razzie nomination for worst picture with four other movies .

now he’s taken the logical next step and left the screen completely . in his new film lost river , gosling is , for the first time , the director . this spares him delivering dialogue , but at a price . on this side of the process , the director is obliged to keep talking – especially when , as gosling is , they are also the writer and producer . and especially when the film is lost river .

also there’s a long , long setup for a business meeting that gets conducted in the nude , in a sauna . the payoff ? nothing much , except franco’s character mutters , “boobs” and “butt crack . ”

the fact that a movie called hot tub time machine – starring john cusack , no less – made enough money to warrant a sequel is amazing in and of itself . the fact that the original movie was actually pretty good is even crazier . unfortunately , httm 2 is a failure on all accounts , its lack of cusack removing the cohesiveness of the first film and its general lack of laughs and innovation making it insufferable . while not as big a flop as some other movies on this list , httm 2 still lost money and – as one of ign’s worst - reviewed movies of 2015 – lost two hours we can never get back .

" we’re all familiar with classic stock photos of the corporate world - the smiley - faced boardroom presentation , the friendly handshake , the high achiever climbing up the corporate ladder , briefcase in hand , " a getty representative tells mashable . they’re all timeless classics . joining forces with new regency twentieth century fox presented a brilliant opportunity to have some fun with these stereotypes that play directly into the business storyline of the film . "

neill blomkamp ’s new sci - fi movie “chappie” opens friday as the favorite to knock off the reigning no . 1 film , will smith caper comedy “focus” and top what looks like a slow weekend at the box office .

not quite vaughns worst film but god damn that franco is so . . . annoying . why can ' t someone just write a funny script without all the idiotic naked and gay jokes ? should ' ve been much better

the character mike pancake deserved to be in a much better movie . thank you dave franco from saving this film from being a total disaster . because it really is quite poor whenever he isn ' t on - screen .

( and the less said on the dopey subplot about tim’s unhappy marriage and his desire to have sex in new and interesting positions , the better , except that it leads to some of the film’s clumsiest , most leaden gags . )

michael mann’s tech - crime thriller starring chris hemsworth was one of 2015’s first box office flops , debuting against american sniper and landing at a measly # 10 on its opening weekend . pretty much dead on arrival , the story of an imprisoned hacker released to help the authorities stop a global tech catastrophe didn’t fare well with critics either . our 5 . 4 / 10 review said “if there’s one thing that blackhat demonstrates it’s that michael mann has nothing left to say . ”

vaughn’s box office pull isn’t what it used to be - he last starred in the scott - directed delivery man , which topped out at $ 30 . 7m in the us and canada – so expectations won’t be huge when the fox - distributed unfinished business opens in the us , uk and other international markets over the weekend beginning march 6 . the cast ( including tom wilkinson and sienna miller ) and european locations ( berlin ) might be marginal selling points outside the us ( where delivery man managed $ 20 . 5m ) .

but although studios continue to distract attention from the movies themselves with such trickery , the proof is in the rather deflated pudding . in the summer of 2006 , the most talked about film by far was new line’s high - concept thriller snakes on a plane . as soon as it was announced , the film became online catnip , and fake trailers , artwork and fan fiction flooded the web . the official campaign capitalised on this outpouring with reshoots to include fan - created dialogue , a competition for bands to send in music for the end credits , and prerecorded messages from star samuel l jackson that you could send to your friends’ phones . but the buzz failed to turn into box office , and the film opened to a disappointing $ 14m in the us .

the dramatic beats don ' t work and the plot isn ' t a very appealing one , but " unfinished business " is a comedy that had me consistently laughing throughout . the three leads all have great chemistry and deliver on a lot of laughs . vince vaughn and tom wilkinson are both solid but it ' s dave franco who stole all of his scenes and had me laughing the hardest . besides that , it moves at a great pace , the characters were entertaining , and as i said , i was laughing consistently throughout .

in the summer of 2005 , the horror remake house of wax wasn’t at the top of anyone’s must - see list , until a rather smart stunt involving its star , paris hilton , suddenly made the film’s release seem like a genuine event . turning public hatred of the socialite to their benefit , warner bros heavily publicised her gruesome death in the film and even released “see paris die” t - shirts . however , an opening weekend of just $ 12m stateside suggested that it wasn’t quite enough of an incentive .

how about his father ? a voice cuts in behind me : “can we stick to film questions ? ” the publicist , i realise , is sitting there , bandaged . gosling looks a little awkward . “yeah . . . he wasn’t so involved . ”

despite an impressive cast boasting sean penn , idris elba , and javier bardem , the gunman – directed by taken’s pierre morel – failed to make an impression in 2015 . penn stars as a retired black - ops merc that finds himself the target of a hit squad seeking retribution for an assassination he performed years earlier . while we thought the movie was “okay” with a score of 6 . 8 , the gunman lost big at the box office , falling short of its $ 40 million budget by more than half .

the critics have yet to weigh in , but it is ahead of where blomkamp’s last film “elysium” was on twitter , though trailing it on facebook . that one starred matt damon and opened to $ 29 million in august 2013 and topped out at $ 93 million domestically .

inside the cinema , gosling and smith enter to warm applause from an audience fresh from the film . some of the crowd bought £50 curzon memberships just to be able to get a ticket . he explains how the idea for the film took hold when he was in detroit making political thriller the ides of march . the place had always fascinated him , the home of motown and the auto industry . having found the modern reality was “40 miles of abandoned neighbourhoods , ” he bought a camera and began to shoot . a story started percolating .

the jay burleson collection . my three feature films : anathema arienette , the nobodies , and the lonely in a 3 - case dvd set with one - of - a - kind artwork designed to tie all three films together in one nifty package . each film will include as many bonus features as i can possibly fit on the discs . signed by various cast and crew ( by request ) and numbered with 1 35mm film still taken from the set of each individual production . also includes digital " production bible " , shout - out , online screener links , ultimate digital .

while adding some colour to a mediocre film’s campaign helps to increase awareness and online conversation , it’s failed to translate into an increase in box office . a study last year by nielsen showed that the younger , more digitally aware consumers who would be the core audience for online stunts are losing interest in the cinema , with a 15 % decline in their attendance year on year . it’s also worth remembering the importance of simplicity . google conducted a survey which found that a film’s official trailer is three times more important than any other information source when it comes to influencing moviegoing decisions .

the nobodies on vhs - just for my friends jason od and jeffrey parker , and anyone else that wants to check out our shot on vhs horror film , on an actual vhs tape ! stars lane hughes from you ' re next . trailer to be released as part of this campaign .

his mother , donna , has seen the film . “she liked it , i think . ” she was “involved in the process , ” visiting him in detroit . ( in high spirits at the curzon , he will expand on her opinion : “she thinks i could be funnier . ” )

sienna miller pops up every now and then in the role of dan’s vile former boss , to remind us just how awful successful women are , while nick frost plays some kind of business advisor ( again , the specifics are unclear ) whom the boys catch cottaging in a nightclub .

despite hits like christopher nolan’s “interstellar” and “inception” and the top - grossing film of all time “avatar , ” there have been many more recent misses . lana and andy wachowski ’s “jupiter ascending , ” “after earth , ” guillermo del toro’s “pacific rim” and tom cruise’s “oblivion” all came up short domestically .

even the captions seem to be in on the joke . vaughn is described in one stock photo as a " handsome business leader crossing his arms with his team standing behind him . " another features wilkinson and franco among a group of workers " enjoying victory on a white background . "

nfinished business certainly lives up to the promise of its title : the film looks as though it needs another six months’ work . vince vaughn stars – and for many , that will be all the review required – as dan trunkman , a hard - pressed father whose job takes him and two dunderheaded colleagues ( tom wilkinson , dave franco ) to europe in pursuit of a life - changing contract . the job itself has something to do with the disposal of metal shavings , although we never find out exactly what : given how toweringly stupid all three men are , perhaps they eat them .

with a $ 49 million production budget , “chappie” cost about half of what those films did , so it will have an easier path to profitability . it stars hugh jackman and deals with a robot ( voiced by sharlto copley ) that is captured by criminals , and the film has its share of laughs .

audiences are able to distinguish a fun viral video from a film that’s actually worth seeing , and filmgoing decisions still appear to be based on more substantial factors . this year’s biggest hits , fifty shades of grey and american sniper , benefited from an inbuilt audience , and controversy that wasn’t carefully orchestrated by studios .

– $ 13 . 3 million [ debut week ] neill blomkamp will no doubt be happy to move on to the “alien” franchise after his latest failed to match expectations , which in some cases were as high as $ 20 million . “chappie” seemed more of a family film , but its “r” rating likely kept its more viable audience home . that proved to be a common theme this weekend . budgeted at $ 49 million , “chappie” may be able to scrape through to profitability , but it will have to overcome negative critical response ( 30 % freshness on rottentomatoes ) and modest audience interest ( the film has a b

2 . focus – $ 10 million [ 2nd week ; $ 34 . 6 million in total ] – will smith’s latest tumbled down to second place after a somewhat lackluster opening last weekend . it was another film , like “chappie” that met with middling critical acceptance and audience interest – mirroring “chappie’s” b cinemascore .

the result ending up at cannes still troubles him . “a lot of people worked very hard on the film , and it was a chance to showcase their work . . . ” he frowns . “but this movie was basically homemade . and to be there in tuxedos . . . it felt incongruous . ”


night games is a 1966 swedish movie directed by mai zetterling and starring ingrid thulin .

the film premiered at the 27th venice international film festival where it was considered so controversial that it was shown to the jury in private .

the film was also the cause of former child-star shirley temple 's resignation from the san francisco international film festival .

temple denounced the film as “ pornography for profit ” and was against it being shown at the festival .

night games ( 1966 film )

night games ( 1966 film ) <EOT> what " night games " is is not pornographic , nor shocking , but for 1966 , it certainly wasn ' t everyday viewing . …

former child star shirley temple black quit the board of the san fransisco film festival to protest its decision to show nattlek ( night games ) . she regarded it as pornography .

with the headline : screen : ' night games ' on view at festival theater ; mai zetterling ' s movie a deliberate shocker licentious and explicit scenes stressed .

unrelated to the persona video games , although jungian psychology is a major theme in both .

in a sense , " night games " provides a measure of the permissiveness explosion , or whatever newsweek is calling it this week . when the film was first exhibited at the venice film festival in 1966 , it was considered the most daring ever made . the police closed the theater to the public , and the judges saw it at a private screening .

the joker ( cesar romero ) - 19 episodes with a cameo appearance and the 1966 movie .

the penguin ( burgess meredith ) - 19 episodes with a cameo appearance and the 1966 movie .

though " night games " , directed by mai zetterling had been on my watchlist for about two years as i worked to find a copy anywhere , i never bothered to try and find a review , i ' d rather go into a film as blind as possible .

nearly three years later , with " i am curious ( yellow ) " on the horizon , " night games " can be seen for what it is : not a sexploitation film in any sense , but a serious attempt to get inside the mind of this character .

night games has patience and an eye for detail . it lets moments arrive organically , and faces are framed in a way to emphasize their uniqueness . it ' s often gorgeously shots , and certain moments are incredible . the newspaper castle sequence should be taught in film classes .

was a thirty - minute prime time , live - action television series broadcast by the abc network between 1966 and 1968 .

mai zetterling ' s " night games , " which opened at the festival yesterday , is the swedish film that the directors of this year ' s venice film festival considered too raw for public showing in their urbane festival hall . ( it was shown to the jury in private , and did not win an award . ) view full article in timesmachine »

mai zetterling ' s " night games " is an absorbing , even brilliant film , but it fails to evoke much of an emotional response . it is a film made entirely in the mind , as if the heart were no concern , and it can be seen that way - - as a cold , aloof study of human neurosis . but not for a moment did i care about any of the characters .

so , i was unaware of its " notorious " past of having been " banned " at the venice film festival in 1966 , only being seen by the judges and made available to the press , and that shirley temple - yes , she of the good - ship lollipop - walked away from the sf film fest over the inclusion of the film , feeling it was pornographic .

" night games " - jan fights impotence ( literal and symbolic ) and anguished childhood memories in a decadent swedish castle where risqué parties and daring scenes defy 1960s ' movie censorship , reaffirming the ground - breaking role of swedish films in helping advance adult , sexually concerned themes in international cinema .

the riddler ( frank gorshin and john astin ) - 11 episodes with a cameo appearance and the 1966 movie . astin plays the role for a single season 2 storyline .

message body ( your name ) thought you would like to see the film quarterly web site .

this film is not currently playing on mubi but 30 other great films are . see what’s now showing

the searing film exhibited a fine sense of pacing , comic timing , and gripping buildup in a series of emotional climaxes . the film follows the structure of albee ' s play , delineated by three acts :

nattlek , or night games , is a 1966 film by swedish director mai zetterling , based on her own novel . zetterling ' s background was peculiar for the time : she had actually been an established actress and continued to act throughout her directing career , which isn ' t that common even today . i had actually meant to watch her aristophanes ' adaptation , the girls , but my computer decided to quit on me , so i went with this controversial work instead . jan ( keve hjelm , who had just appeared in bo widerberg ' s love 65 ) brings his fiancée mariane ( lena brundin ) to his old family mansion and , once there , starts having flashbacks or dreams — or maybe a little bit of both — about his childhood ; the film then unfolds…

clinically moody arthouse thats so aesthetically sumptuous and beguilingly structured . ' nattlek ' aka ' night games ' directed by swedish mai zetterling ( who sadly made more films as an actress than she ever got to do as a director ) , shares the iconoclast sensibilities of luis bunuel with the craftsmanship and eye for detail of jean cocteau . its an extremely cold tale of a man…

so begins , without further preamble , the romantic comedy our souls as night , adapted from kent haruf’s quiet , deeply thoughtful final novel . it could have been made as a very different film for festival and art house audiences . here the casting dominates the story , sacrificing some of the novel’s density and depth for the much wider appeal of reuniting robert redford and jane fonda onscreen since the chase ( 1966 ) , barefoot in the park ( 1967 ) and the electric horseman ( 1979 ) .

a 1966 psychological drama by ingmar bergman , starring bibi andersson and liv ullmann . as with much of bergman ' s filmography , the movie rides heavily on symbolism and philosophy . its plot is . . . hard to explain .

the black - and - white film , masterfully directed by mike nichols ( in his directorial screen debut ) , captured probably the greatest performance ever of elizabeth taylor ' s career ( she won her second academy award as well as best actress praises from the new york film critics , the nat ' l board of review and the british film academy ) .

in 1967 a one minute film was created for the central office of information . the information film was filmed kenning , london and showed batman played adam west taking a break from fighting crime and helping children with their technique of road safety .

her work in this film led to a notorious libel suit involving the future novelist graham greene , then employed as a film critic by the magazine night and day . at a cocktail party , after what he later described as “a dangerous third martini” greene dreamt up the idea of deflating the temple balloon , but he peppered his review of her performance in wee willie winkie with such litigious terms as “dubious coquetry” , “dimpled depravity” and “mature suggestiveness” .

as for " night games , " it is a movie based almost entirely on technique and intellectual calculation . miss zetterling seems to be influenced by fellini ; we get orgies attended by grotesque people who play themselves as if they were trapped inside . and we get the hero , grimly picking his way through this maze , trying to figure out what went wrong . but his problem is the movie ' s problem : no heart .

premiering on january 12 , 1966 , as a mid - season replacement , the series featured actor adam west as the perennial character of batman , while burt ward donned nylon stockings and fairy boots for his portrayal of the erstwhile sidekick , robin .

the shocking content - the dramatic portrayal of the destructive , sado - masochistic , and cruel battles in one couple ' s tempestuous , love - hate relationship during a late night ( 2 am ) to dawn brawling encounter while victimizing another young couple - was thought to be too vitriolic , frank , explicitly blasphemous and foul - mouthed for the film screen . [ note : it was the first american film to use the expletive ' goddamn ' and ' bugger ' . ] the mpaa ratings board gave the film a seal of approval after warner bros . appealed and made a few cuts of the most extreme profanity ( such as " screw you " ) . it was the first film to be released with a " suggested for mature audiences " warning .

male frontal nudity : the montage of surreal imagery that starts the film includes a brief shot—less than a second , but still recognizable—of an erect penis .

melting film effect : trope codifier at the least , as this is just one of the ways bergman reminds you his movie is only a movie .

and that is a fairly good argument , i suppose , for the freedom filmmakers are currently enjoying films like " night games " or " i am curious ( yellow ) , " by expanding the limits of allowable subject matter , open up large areas behind them where serious filmmakers can seriously consider the way we live . eventually this freedom trickles down into the mainstream product , and you get " goodbye , columbus " or last year ' s " the graduate , " playing to enormous audiences who hardly care about the pioneers .

" the ballad of narayama " is a japanese film of great beauty and elegant artifice , telling a story of startling cruelty . what a space it opens…

born in the theater : the famous moment in which the film appears to crack and melt right after elisabet and alma are about to have a confrontation .

what will people say , after all , when they get wind of their unusual arrangement ? addie is articulate and daring ; louis is tongue - tied , formal and a bit boring , not as prepared as she is to make a leap into the unknown . the first night that he shows up at her house , he brings his pjs in a brown paper bag and discreetly comes round the back . that night their mutual nervousness isn’t very conducive to conversation or companionship , yet there is a delicious sense that these two weathered souls are boldly breaking a worthless taboo as they climb into addie’s big bed together , in full night clothes . by the time louis finally settles down to make a few remarks , she is already fast asleep .

as a result , for years , only the 1966 batman film represented the tv series on vhs , laserdisc , dvd and , later , blu - ray formats . in the 2000s , a two - dvd set called holy batmania was released featuring archival interview footage , rare promotional items , and also never - before - released screen test footage from pre - production of the series . in the late 2000s , adam west also released a special dvd in which he discussed each episode of the series . bootleg dvd versions of the series itself , featuring episodes recorded off tv broadcasts and of wildly varying quality , became common place at science fiction conventions . return to the batcave : the misadventures of adam and burt was also released on dvd , though as noted above the film was only able to utilize 1966 movie footage ( including a sequence paying tribute to julie newmar ' s catwoman that only features footage of lee meriwether ) .

impaled palm : one of the surreal inserts that opens and closes the film is a shot of a palm getting a nail pounded through it jesus - style .

catwoman ( julie newmar and eartha kitt ) - 15 episodes with two cameo appearances and the 1966 movie . newmar plays the character for season 1 and 2 , but due to film commitments was unavailable for the movie and season 3 and was replaced by lee meriwether for the movie , and kitt for season 3 . the casting of african - american kitt as catwoman marked the first time in american television that two actors of different race were cast as the same ongoing character .

minimalist cast : there ' s only four or five ( if you think the boy from the prologue is meaningful ) characters in the whole film . it ' s only alma and elisabet who are onscreen for the great majority of the film , with the head doctor and elisabet ' s husband being in it very briefly .

on the night before his marriage , a young man and his fiancee return to the castle where he grew up to find out why he is impotent . in flashbacks , it is shown that his aristocratic mother indulged in nearly every sexual perversion known to man .

as a ingrid thulin fan , thanks for the superior picture quality of this decadent film , and your swift mailing ! now i am your fan too . . .

in 2013 , dc began publication of batman ' 66 , a comic book series telling all - new stories set in the world of the 1966 - 1968 tv series . jeff parker writes the series , which features cover art by mike allred and interior art by different artists each issue . [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ]

la story . . . lauren bacall and humphrey bogart in the film version of the big sleep . photograph : allstar collection / cinetext / warn / sportsphoto ltd . / allstar

all psychology is freudian : averted — as the title suggests , psychology in this film is primarily based on jung ' s ideas , which the viewer is apparently expected to know all about .

i ' m starting to think bergman ' s single largest contribution to swedish film was to mess up its critical economy . can we talk about zetterling , sjöström and stiller , too , please ?

the film ' s title refers to virginia woolf ( 1882 - 1941 ) , an influential british feminist writer who pioneered the ' stream of consciousness ' literary style while examining the psychological and emotional motives of her characters . [ note : perhaps the ' fear ' of vw refers to the film ' s characters who are suffering marital discord in the emotionally - draining film , and who may have ' known ' that she suffered from mental illness and ultimately went insane and committed suicide . ] the title is also a parody of who ' s afraid of the big bad wolf ? , a tune sung in disney ' s three little pigs ( 1933 ) animated short film . the names of the two major characters , george and martha , are those of the first us president and his wealthy wife - a marriage of convenience .

in addition to the fantastic sets and costumes , the series also featured a number of james bond - inspired gadget - filled vehicles : batmobile ( which had originated in the comics ) , batcycle , batboat , and the batcopter . the batmobile donor car was a 1955 lincoln futura that george barris customized in only three weeks . two batcycles appeared on the show ; the first was a barely modified harley davidson , and the second was a highly modified yamaha . the batboat was built by glastron . some of the specialty vehicles - in particular the batboat and batcopter - were constructed under the budget for the 1966 film .

george won ' t allow martha to play " blue games for the guests " when they kiss and she moves his hand down onto her breast : " everything in its place martha , everything in its own good time . " honey asks again about the most sensitive subject of the evening - their son . the feuding couple use the imaginary son as a weapon in most of their arguments :

now we sec his head , now hers , and over and over they turn , rolling and writhing in bed . have the movies invented a new position ? or has the phrase " a roll in the hay " been taken literally ? kids who learn about sex at the movies are in for a miserable time if they try the roll . and that seems to be the trouble with the hero of night games , one of a number of movies in which the rotating slows down enough for us to see anguished faces . then we know that although the lovers have certainly been trying their calisthenic best , they have not succeeded . as these are all too likely to he serious movies , we can ' t very well…

who ' s afraid of virginia woolf ? ( 1966 ) , a famous and shocking black comedy , was based on edward albee ' s scandalous play ( ernest lehman ' s screenplay left the dialogue of the play virtually intact ) . it was first performed in new york in october of 1962 , and it captured the new york drama critics circle award and the tony award for the 1962 - 63 season .

although its elements point towards nailbiting tension , this isn ' t so much what lift to the scaffold is about ; it draws more on the blanket fatalism of film noir rather than the savage irony so often associated with the genre . key to this is jeanne moreau as tavernier ' s lover , florence ; in the film ' s signature sequence her man fails to turn up , so she walks the streets trying vainly to find him . filmed on the fly without professional lighting , accompanied only by miles davis ' s brilliant , melancholy score , these few minutes capture the bleak and beautiful essence of malle ' s film . dw

woolf won five academy awards from its thirteen nominations : best actress ( elizabeth taylor ) , best supporting actress ( sandy dennis ) , best b / w cinematography ( haskell wexler ) , best art direction and best costume design . the other eight nominations included best picture , best actor ( richard burton ) , best supporting actor ( george segal ) , best director ( mike nichols ) , best screenplay ( ernest lehman ) , best sound , best original music score , and best film editing . [ note : the film became noted as the only one in academy history up to that point to be nominated in every eligible category . it was also the first film to have every member of its cast receive an acting nomination . ] as compensation for his defeat this year , director mike nichols won the best director oscar the next year for the graduate ( 1967 ) over norman jewison , the director of the best picture victor in the heat of the night ( 1967 ) .

they have returned at two o ' clock early on a sunday morning from one of her father ' s " goddamn saturday night orgies , " according to george . as they bicker at each other , it is revealed that george is a tired , defeated teacher , married for twenty years to the daughter of the president of the college .

she alternated these performances with small parts in now forgotten feature movies such as the red - haired alibi ( 1932 ) and to the last man ( 1933 ) , opposite randolph scott . while filming a second series of shorts for educational under the title frolics of youth , she and her mother were approached by the much bigger fox film corporation ( later twentieth century - fox ) with a view to shirley featuring in the film stand up and cheer ( 1934 ) . she passed the audition and was signed up for $ 150 a week . when the film opened , she stole the show with the song and dance routine baby take a bow .

the series spun - off a motion picture in 1966 featuring most of the tv cast . after its cancellation , west and ward continued to portray batman and robin in voice only for several saturday morning - cartoon versions of batman , and appeared on screen once more as the dynamic duo in the two - part comedy special " legends of the superheroes " which aired in 1979 and also featured frank gorshin returning as the riddler .

on the other hand , it’s hard to imagine two better - matched people sharing pillow talk . she says she always thought of him as a good man — a judgment that not all the townspeople share when it comes out , on their third night together , that he once left his wife and daughter for a brief affair with a fellow teacher .

double vision . . . a still from the coen brothers ' film blood simple , set to be remade by zhang yimou as a woman , a gun and a noodle shop . photograph : sportsphoto / allstar / cinetext collection

in the sloppy kitchen in a famous sequence in which she munches on a fried chicken leg and puffs on a cigarette , she repeatedly - with a deep whiskey voice - berates her husband for not remembering the film the line is from : " what ' s it from , for christ ' s sake ? . . . some damn bette davis picture , some god - damned warner bros epic . " exasperated at her criticism of his cocktail - party behavior , he inquires : " do you want me to go around braying at everyone all night the way you do ? "

the voiceless : elisabet has been sent to recuperate after suddenly deciding to stop speaking ; the number of times she speaks during the film can be counted on one hand and all of them may just be imagined by the characters .

the plaintiffs won ; $ 5 , 250 punitive damages were awarded to fox , $ 7 , 000 to the actress and night and day folded . but as a postscript to the episode , the mature shirley temple bore the novelist no grudge . in 1989 , she sent him an inscribed copy of her autobiography , child star , and invited him to tea .

she was acting in pictures from the age of four and rapidly captivated filmgoers with her blonde ringlets and dimpled charm . dolls , books and games were named after her in a merchandising campaign matched only by walt disney and mickey mouse . yet her talent was modest . she sang off - key and cynics dismissed her dancing as “mere jigging up and down” . she liked to do impersonations but her acting was generally regarded as cute rather than compelling .

mai zetterling ' s night games is reminscent of joyce ' s _ ulysses _ wherein is to be found the memorable line , " history is the nightmare from which i am trying to awake . " this is a nightmare from an unusual perspective , a nightmare of unbridled female psychic destruction . zetterling ' s courageous look at what happens to a woman who has none of the usual economic constraints on her psychic development in a context of european spiritual decline is compelling to say the least . unfortunately , this print seems to be one in which the infamous orgy sequence which was purported to contain actual sex is truncated or cut entirely . ( imdb lists the original running time at 105 minutes and this one comes in at 101 . ) but the transfer to dvd is pretty good and the strange and even shocking turn of events is otherwise preserved .

but the film is essentially the story of a jerky guy recalling how his mom was kind of crappy and how that ' s the reason why he is shitty to women these days ( but he ' s trying to change ) . not interested .

suddenly voiced : elisabet , who spends most of the film in silence , speaks in three instances , though it may not have happened . it ' s interesting to note that the camera avoids showing elisabet ' s mouth moving in the first two instances .

in 2016 , an animated feature film named batman : return of the caped crusaders was released to celebrate the show ' s 50th anniversary with adam , burt and julie reprising their classic roles , as well as a sequel ; batman vs . two - face .

juxtaposed halves shot : alma and elisabet in the climax of the film . their faces are juxtaposed to show that their individual identities have become indistinguishable from each other ( or they ' ve melded , or they were each other all along , or something ) .

she had the child star’s built - in self - destruct mechanism — what had seemed peachy in a moppet became arch in adolescence . attempts to extend her career into young womanhood were unsuccessful and she made her last film in 1949 — washed up in hollywood at 21 .

nicholas ray ' s astonishingly self - assured , lyrical directorial debut opens with title cards and lush orchestrations over shots of a boy and a girl in rapturous mutual absorption : " this boy … and this gir … were never properly introduced … to the world we live in … " a shriek of horns suddenly obliterates all other sound – their shocked faces both turn toward the camera , and the title appears : they live by night .

the film opens under a moonlit sky in the middle of the night on a small new england college campus ( in the town of new carthage - an allegorical name ) . under the credits , an academic couple walk through the deserted campus - george ( richard burton ) , a 46 year old , bespectacled history professor , and his 52 year old wife martha ( elizabeth taylor ) , a large , boisterous , blowsy woman with heavy wrinkles . martha ' s drunken laugh acutely punctuates the title " who ' s afraid of virginia woolf ? " after drunkenly weaving their way home , they enter their home and switch the lights on . martha looks around the living room discontentedly and parodies bette davis ' mannerisms , exclaiming :

mr . freeze ( george sanders , otto preminger , and eli wallach ) - featured in 6 episodes . he is very different from the way he is in the comics , though the later batman and robin film based the arnold schwarzenegger version of the character on the tv show .

kiss me deadly is the black - hearted apotheosis of film noir , and a key film of the 50s , embodying the profoundest anxieties of eisenhower ' s america : it ends with the detonation of a nuclear device on malibu beach and , presumably thereafter , the end of the world itself . robert aldrich ' s moral universe is so violently out of kilter that even his opening credits run upside down . his hero , mike hammer , is an amoral , proto - fascist bedroom detective and 1 , 000 % scumbag , but the villains he encounters are far , far worse .

two - face / harvey dent ( william shatner ) - eastwood was cast to play two - face in 1968 , however the show was cancelled before any appearances . he is the main villain of " batman ' 66 : the lost episode " as well as the feature film batman vs . two - face .

jamie ( well sketched by young iain armitage ) is a quiet boy glued to the games on his cell phone . ( the fact that the oldsters don’t own these new - fangled contraptions is a bit unlikely , but becomes a plot point later on . ) his stay with grandma while gene tries to get his life together introduces the first real challenge to addie and louis’ arrangement , and their way around it is both sensible and amusing . the dynamics between the three characters is gently engaging rather than dramatic , and you can feel the energy shifting as rom - com is put on the back burner to family life , train sets , a new dog . opening the film up beyond the sleepy neighborhood and the house on cedar and 12th street , batra sends the trio on an idyllic camping trip in the colorado mountains , beside a breath - taking river . jamie and the dog in one tent . addie and louis in another .

cameron crowe called double indemnity " flawless film - making " . woody allen declared it " the greatest movie ever made " . even if you can ' t go along with that , there can be no disputing that it is the finest film noir of all time , though it was made in 1944 , before the term film noir was even coined . adapting james m cain ' s 1935 novella about a straight - arrow insurance salesman tempted into murder by a duplicitous housewife , genre - hopping director billy wilder recruited raymond chandler as co - writer . chandler , said wilder , " was a mess , but he could write a beautiful sentence " . noir ' s visual style , which had its roots in german expressionism , was forged here , though wilder insisted that he was going for a " newsreel " effect . " we had to be realistic , " he said . " you had to believe the situation and the characters , or all was lost . "

parental neglect : one of the reasons for elisabet ' s condition , recounted by alma in the film ' s climax , is having a son she didn ' t want and who she can ' t bring herself to love . it ' s said the son lives with relatives and elisabet only sees him sporadically and unwillingly .

unlike the earlier movie serials of the 1940s , this was the first batman project to feature batman ' s rogues gallery of villains . cesar romero made numerous appearances as the joker , while burgess meredith reinvented the image of the penguin , with his crooked smile and trademark " squawk " . julie newmar provided catwoman ' s rolling " r " s , only to be replaced later by lee meriwether for the 1966 movie , and again in the final season by eartha kitt . two men provided their talents to the role of the riddler - frank gorshin ( in the first and third seasons ) and john astin ( in a one - off second - season appearance ) .

louis malle ' s first fiction feature , based on noel calef ' s 1956 novel , occupies a very interesting space . it qualifies as film noir for its appropriation of us postwar cinema in its tale of lovers gone bad , but also heralds the imminent arrival of the french new wave . the director was in his mid - 20s at the time and clearly using the crime - thriller genre ( something he never returned to ) as a testing ground and not a strict template . perhaps that explains why his film is such a melting pot of influences , drawing not only on hitchcock but also the master of suspense ' s overseas admirers , including henri - georges clouzot and his les diaboliques .

one of the most dramatic , riveting moments of the film blurs fantasy and reality . martha brings up another embarrassing wound from the past , questioning george ' s manliness . she describes a public boxing match incident which her daddy orchestrated in his back yard . when george told his father - in - law that he didn ' t want to box , martha got into the pair of gloves herself and punched george pow right in the jaw , sending him crashing into a huckleberry bush . during her story telling , george finds a shotgun in another room , stalks his prey , and takes aim at the back of martha ' s head . when honey notices the gun , she screams in fright . martha turns her head to face him as he pulls the trigger - out blossoms a brightly - striped umbrella , a symbolic display of his weakness and sexual impotency in another of his games . he adds sound effects : " pow . you ' re dead ! " they laugh , mostly from relief and confusion .

" one of the amazing things about the third man , " steven soderbergh once wrote , " is that it really is a great film , in spite of all the people who say it ' s a great film . " he ' s right . it ' s one of the greatest , in fact : a witty , elegantly shot and steadfastly compassionate thriller suffused with the dreadful melancholia of the finest noir . it ' s set in allied - occupied vienna , where writer holly martins ( joseph cotten ) pitches up at the invitation of his old chum harry lime . except that when martins arrives , lime turns out to be dead . at least that ' s the prevailing wisdom at his funeral .

it’s fascinating as well as heartening to see that their chemistry and sex appeal are still intact as they circle 80 , and one imagines this netflix original film will prove irresistible to the older demographic . premiering on the big screen in venice , it made an appropriate , historic salute to the ageless pair who are being awarded twin gold lions for their career achievements .

when they get back , trouble is waiting in the shape of gene . schoenaerts brings deep - rooted resentment and brooding to the film’s sole dramatic role , creating some much - needed motivation for the final scenes and the choice addie makes between louis and her family . given the lightness that has preceded it , the thoughtful ending feels like reality has brusquely broken in .

the robert e . parilla performing arts center is the hub of cultural activity at the montgomery college rockville campus . for the 2018 – 2019 season , patrons can select from a wide variety of performances including music , drama , dance , and art - house films . discover the guest artist series , children’s series , college performing arts series , music series and film series .

in his screenplay , robert towne develops two dominant metaphors ; the first centres on water . during a period of drought someone is dumping water from local reservoirs , and it becomes clear that this most precious of human resources is being manipulated by land speculators in their own interests . the name of evelyn ' s husband , hollis mulwray , evokes william mullholland , the los angeles engineer responsible in the 20s for the deals that , in the old western phrase , " made water flow uphill in search of the money " . the name noah cross suggests the protective old testament patriarch played in the 1966 blockbuster the bible by john huston , but here reprised in a less benevolent mode as a self - righteous plutocrat who has harnessed the flood in his own interests .

gainax ending : alma and elisabet packing up to leave , a ghostly elisabet caressing alma in the mirror , alma leaving alone as elisabet seems to have disappeared , brief shots showing alma seemingly acting out the memory of a stage play that was elisabet ' s . then a shot of ingmar bergman filming the movie , and a shot of film running out of the camera and the arc light going out .

perhaps that was because the film ' s hero does not care for himself . the story concerns a young man who brings his fiancée back to live in the gloomy manor where he spent his own childhood . the house is saturated with the presence of his late mother , a domineering woman who smothered his emotional development . his idea is to return to the scene of his crippling and try to break through his hang - ups .

atmosphere from bergman , psychology from freud , pictures from fellini , and politics from marx coalesce into this , a piercing psychological drama about confronting your past as the only way to reinvent your future . zetterling pushes her film forward like a mad symphony , simultaneously dissecting both the oedipus complex and the decadent upper class . and the clever one - liners ( which , by the sheer number of them , seem to have been shot onto the manuscript page through the barrel of a shotgun ) !

kiss me deadly opens with a woman , naked under a raincoat , fleeing headlong and barefoot down a highway at night . rescued by hammer , then un - rescued by her faceless original captors , she dies screaming under gruesome torture with pliers ( aldrich was always at the vanguard in his use of violence ) . thereafter , hammer finds himself on a terrifying hunt through the criminal underworld of los angeles , from his gleamingly modern office in posh brentwood to the dilapidated flophouses of bunker hill , as he bludgeons , browbeats , blackmails and brutalises his way inch by inch towards a resolution that will destroy everyone and everything , all in search of the elusive " great whatsit " – a deadly , molten , much sought - after package that ' s grandfather to the suitcase in pulp fiction and the chevy nova in repo man .

somehow all the planets aligned for ray , a novice director with an achingly poetic - realist vision of depression - era texas and the determination to implement it wholesale : a perfect source novel , edward anderson ' s thieves like us ; and exactly the right combination of producer ( john houseman ) , studio ( rko ) and sympathetic studio head ( dore schary ) . the result is luminous in its imagery , highly sophisticated in its musical choices ( the folk song i know where i ' m going succinctly and repeatedly stresses that they don ' t know anything at all ) suffused with romantic fatalism – they ' ll die by night , too ; you know it from the start – and enriched by ray ' s total identification with his characters ' doomed trajectory . ray ' s first masterpiece , and a pinnacle of poetic noir . john patterson

it ' s set in a castle in sweden and it features the kind of depraved upper - class partying at which the question " don ' t you wish you were dead ? " is answered by " i ' m dead already . " a jazz ensemble plays as ingrid thulin gives birth ( to a dead child , of course ) , and at a wedding - night party the groom ( keve hjelm ) , who can ' t make it , gets up from bed , lets the birds out of their fancy cage and puts the cage on himself . and he vomits great gushing torrents - - i . e . , his whole past life . at a final party , he dynamites the castle which , because it is where his childhood took place , is presumably the block to his potency . he literally blasts through . it all seems like…

the near perfection of roman polanski ' s chinatown starts with diener / hauser / bates ' s haunting art nouveau poster for the film : an emblematic hokusai wave breaks against jack nicholson ' s silhouette as the smoke from his cigarette floats up to merge with faye dunaway ' s medusa - like hair . the movie ends equally unforgettably with the line , " forget it jake , it ' s chinatown ! " , as lapidary a pay - off as scarlett o ' hara ' s , " after all , tomorrow is another day . "

the last four years of her screen career were an anticlimax . her infant precocity gave way to mere pertness ( of which there is no shortage in hollywood ) in such films as the bachelor and the bobby soxer ( 1947 ) , that hagen girl ( 1947 ) , with ronald reagan , and a kiss for corliss ( 1949 ) , her screen swansong , opposite david niven . this period also included the first film in john ford’s cavalry trilogy , fort apache ( 1948 ) , in which she co - starred , aged 20 , with her husband .

metaphorically and cinematically , it ' s a picture about crossing over – in one sumptuous camera setup we track the characters over the border . that shot is famous , but it ' s no richer than the single setup in a cramped motel suite that proves how hank quinlan ( welles himself ) plants dynamite on the man he intends to frame . these scenes were a way for welles to say , " i ' m as good as ever " , but they are also crucial to the uneasiness that runs through the picture and the gloating panorama of an unwholesome society . the aura of crime has seeped into every cell of ordinary behaviour : the city officials are corrupt , the night man ( dennis weaver ) needs a rest home , and the gang that come to the motel to get susie are one of the first warnings of drugs in american movies . not least , of course , quinlan – a sheriff gone to hell on candy bars .

she was born on april 23 1928 in santa monica , california , the daughter of a bank teller . like many a proud mother , gertrude temple enrolled her child in dancing classes at the age of three and promoted her vigorously . a talent scout from educational pictures , a small company specialising in shorts , spotted shirley and invited her for a screen test , which led to her appearance in 1932 - 33 in a string of film spoofs known as baby burlesks . among them were the incomparable more legs sweetrick ( as marlene dietrich ) , the pie - covered wagon and polly - tix in washington .

however , with studio boss jack warner ' s insistence on keeping the integrity of the play , and the teaming of real - life husband and wife mega - stars elizabeth taylor and richard burton , the film was guaranteed success . the two portrayed an on - screen couple : a sharp - tongued but ineffectual professor ( burton ) and his complaining wife ( taylor ) , in the company of a new professor ( segal ) and his mousy wife ( dennis ) . [ note : the couple had originally been teamed in the mega - flop cleopatra ( 1963 ) . robert redford rejected the role played by george segal . ]

as in so much film noir , the crux of the story is a case of cherchez la femme . in this case la femme is abby marty ( frances mcdormand ) , wife of texas bar owner julian ( dan hedaya ) . julian suspects abby of having an affair with one of his staff , and when private eye loren visser ( m emmet walsh ) confirms this to be the case , julian sets a murder plan in motion . for most directors this would be enough , but the coens embrace the full - on complications of the genre to create a genuine sense of an " easy " crime spiralling out of control .

as in that film , the story concerns a conspiracy to murder . ex - foreign legion soldier julien tavernier ( maurice ronet ) , a veteran of french military misadventures in algeria and indochina , is planning to kill his boss , who is also his lover ' s husband . on paper , the plan is seamless – tavernier secures his alibis and enters his victim ' s office unseen , by means of a rope – but things soon get messy . on returning to the crime scene to retrieve a key piece of evidence , tavernier finds himself trapped in the elevator , leaving his car parked outside with the keys in the ignition .

taking its atmospheric title from a line in dashiell hammett ' s hard - boiled novel red harvest ( an allusion never explained ) , blood simple is perhaps the coen brothers ' most straightforward movie , even though it is , ironically , not at all simple . in a manner that would come to be their stock - in - trade , the film is a cacophony of cross - purposes , in some ways a rehearsal for their breakout effort fargo , which also depicts a nefarious plan gone wrong . it also marks the use of literary genre elements in the " real " world , a formula that would later be refined by quentin tarantino .

but its gorgeous form makes it worth a watch nonetheless . the beautiful tones of the film , the playful shot compositions and the way jan slides from one time into another , going seemlessly from the present into the past and vice versa , solely changing his form from adult to child . it reminded me of juraj herz’s the cremator where kopfrkingl is sometimes like a hinge of two different spaces that pass around him in such a quiet manner that the viewer takes notice of it only after a while . with jan , on the other hand , the time change is obvious right away as he becomes a child again , while the space stays the same .

the screenplay was adapted by daniel mainwaring from his own novel , build my gallows high ( the film ' s uk title ) . but the sharpened splinters of dialogue also bear the mark of cain — james m cain , that is , the legendary author of noir landmarks the postman always rings twice and double indemnity , who performed vital but uncredited rewrites . according to mitchum ' s biographer , lee server , it was cain who expunged kathie of any traces of lovability . " she can ' t be all bad — no one is , " one character remarks of her . to which jeff shoots back : " she comes the closest . " rg

a netflix presentation of a wildwood enterprises , wildgaze films production cast : jane fonda , robert redford , bruce dern , matthias schoenaerts , iain armitage , judy greer director : ritesh batra screenwriters : scott neustadter , michael h . weber , based on the novel by kent haruf producers : robert redford , finola dwyer , ted sarandos , erin simms coroducer : scott robertson executive producer : pauline fischer , sarah bremner , ben ormand director of photography : stephen goldblatt production designer : jane ann stewart costume designer : wendy chuck editor : john f . lyons music : elliot goldenthal casting director : avy kaufman venue : venice film festival ( out of competition ) 101 minutes

one of the first films to cement the nascent sundance film festival ' s reputation , blood simple isn ' t so much neo - noir as neo - neo - noir , using postmodern flourishes that still seem bold today . the most vivid is walsh as visser , presented more like a cold - blooded universal studios monster than a gumshoe , and the non - naturalistic lighting is often at odds with noir tradition , with the brothers allowing brilliant shafts of bright light to puncture the neon - lit dark . best of all is the use of the four tops ' it ' s the same old song as a motif – a neat touch that expresses genre familiarity with affection rather than cynicism . damon wise

swedish oddity , because 20th century swedish cinema has to be more than just bergman . when a boy is looking for his mother he visits the numerous rooms of a large mansion and finds odd groups and individuals ; it is as if fellini was here . and of course the sequence , basically the first scene ( well , second ) segues into a celebratory birth watched by all those weird and numerous party guests . we’re off to a good start . the boy becomes a man and our male protagonist who brings a woman – dead ringer to his mother - to the mansion to show her his childhood . for he is , so he claims , still a child . and so much of the film is a…

martha : george ' s biggest problem about the little . . . about our son , about our great big son , is that deep down in the private - most pit of his gut , he ' s not completely sure that it ' s his own kid . george : my god , you ' re a wicked woman . martha : and i ' ve told you a million times , baby . . . i wouldn ' t conceive with anyone else , you know that baby . george : a deeply wicked person . honey ( grieving and drunk ) : oh my , my , my , my , my . . . nick : i ' m not sure that this is a subject for . . . george : martha ' s lying . i want you to know that right now . martha is lying . there are very few things that i am certain of anymore , but the one thing , the one thing in this whole sinking world that i am sure of is my partnership , my chromosomological partnership in the . . . creation of our . . . blond - eyed , blue - haired . . . son . . . martha : . . . george , our son does not have blue hair or blue eyes , for that matter . he has green eyes , like me . beautiful , beautiful green eyes . [ note : the black and white film didn ' t betray the fact that elizabeth taylor ' s eyes are in fact purple . ] george : he has blue eyes , martha . martha : green . george : blue , martha . martha : green you bastard .

html public " - / / w3c / / dtd xhtml 1 . 0 transitional / / en " " urltoken "

shirley temple , who has died aged 85 , was the screen’s most popular child star of the 1930s , receiving at the age of eight 135 , 000 birthday gifts from fans the world over .

throughout the depression years , her sunny disposition helped audiences forget their woes and a special oscar was presented to her for “bringing more happiness to millions of children and millions of grown - ups than any other child of her years in the history of the world” . it might have turned many a tiny tot’s head , but shirley had her mother constantly at her side to ensure she was kept on an even keel .