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Banijay Entertainment is set to impress at the upcoming London TV Screenings with one of the most extensive and diverse lineups in global TV in terms of both quality and quantity. This year’s showcase, Banijay @ BAFTA 195 Piccadilly, open exclusively to buyers, will spotlight 13 scripted titles, 15 factual series, nine new unscripted formats, and six third-party shows featuring some of the most anticipated new programming on the market.

The event will take place on Wednesday, Feb. 26, across three sessions and is expected to attract a record number of global buyers eager to explore Banijay’s diverse offerings.

Leading the charge for Banijay is “Maigret,” the first contemporary TV adaptation of the iconic detective novels by Georges Simenon, heading for PBS Masterpiece. Written by Patrick Harbinson, the market debut – produced by Playground, behind “Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light” – introduces a fresh take on the legendary Parisian Chief Inspector Jules Maigret.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 is now finally released. As the Modern Warfare trilogy is done and dusted, it was now time for Treyarch to pick Cod up from where it was left off in Black Ops Cold War. As the previous Black Ops title was not highly acclaimed by the fans, honors will be on the shoulders of BO6.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 has been launched on October 25, 2024. | Credit: Activision.

The game has already started showing signs of redefining the Black Ops franchise and taking it to the same heights as the Modern Warfare series. The recently launched game has featured overhauled movement mechanics along with 16 brand-new maps. However, fans didn’t like either of them, and all this hate started arising from Modern Warfare 2019.

The Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Maps Are Facing Heavy Backlash Which Blasted Modern Warfare (2019) As Well Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019) was...

The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures today announced its schedule of inaugural in-person screenings and public programs, which will begin on September 30 when the museum opens. The Academy Museum is the largest institution in the United States devoted to exploring the art and science of movies and moviemaking.

During the first three months of the Academy Museum’s opening, the museum will offer the public a robust, dynamic, and diverse slate of over 115 film screenings, discussions, and programs for film lovers of all ages, beginning with two special presentations of The Wizard of Oz (USA, 1939) featuring live musical accompaniment by the American Youth Symphony conducted by Academy Award®-nominated composer David Newman.

Other highlights of the museum’s first few months of in-person programming include the launch of ongoing series:

Stories of Cinema: featuring screenings of films highlighted in the museum’s core exhibition, including Real Women Have Curves (USA,...

Finally, after years of delays, some caused by the pandemic, some not, the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures on La Brea and Wilshire has revealed its launch schedule of live screenings and public programs to begin on opening day, September 30. The first three months brings over 115 film programs, panels, and events, beginning with two screenings of MGM musical “The Wizard of Oz” (1939) with live musical accompaniment by the American Youth Symphony conducted by Oscar perennial David Newman.

Among the continuing virtual programs leading up to the museum’s opening are a conversation with Oscar-winner Spike Lee and writer-director-producer Shaka King, and a 20th anniversary screening of “Y tu mamá también”. Clearly, the Academy Museum is launching at a time when inclusion and diversity are front and center for curators and programmers. “As with all of our exhibitions and initiatives,” stated Bill Kramer, Director and President of the Academy Museum, “we...

Finally, after years of delays, some caused by the pandemic, some not, the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures on La Brea and Wilshire has revealed its launch schedule of live screenings and public programs to begin on opening day, September 30. The first three months brings over 115 film programs, panels, and events, beginning with two screenings of MGM musical “The Wizard of Oz” (1939) with live musical accompaniment by the American Youth Symphony conducted by Oscar perennial David Newman.

Among the continuing virtual programs leading up to the museum’s opening are a conversation with Oscar-winner Spike Lee and writer-director-producer Shaka King, and a 20th anniversary screening of “Y tu mamá también”. Clearly, the Academy Museum is launching at a time when inclusion and diversity are front and center for curators and programmers. “As with all of our exhibitions and initiatives,” stated Bill Kramer, Director and President of the Academy Museum, “we...

The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures has announced its inaugural in-person programming schedule, which features two screenings of “The Wizard of Oz” with a live accompaniment by the American Youth Symphony, conducted by composer David Newman, on opening day.

During the first three months of the museum’s opening, it will offer a diverse and robust slate of over 115 screenings, discussions and programs, along with ongoing special and standalone series

Special series and standalone screenings include:

“Malcolm X“ in 70mm: a screening for Academy Museum Members of the seminal film, with special guests Spike Lee and Denzel Washington. Oscar Frights: featuring screenings of Oscar-winning and nominated horror films, including “Get Out” (2017) and “Psycho” (1960). Hayao Miyazaki: in conjunction with the Academy Museum’s landmark exhibition on Hayao Miyazaki, the Academy Museum will screen the filmmaker’s complete body of work as a feature director, including “My Neighbor Totoro” (1988) and “Spirited Away...

Appropriately, considering one of the key attractions of the new Academy Museum of Motion Pictures are Dorothy’s infamous ruby-red shoes, the museum’s official opening screening September 30 will be The Wizard of Oz accompanied by the American Youth Symphony conducted by David Newman.

But there is much more both before and after the museum’s public unveiling at the end of September. The Academy has unveiled a slew of discussions, programs and 115 screenings over the course of the first three months after the doors open on the Los Angeles venue. Other movie-oriented events will include Oscar Sundays featuring Oscar-honored films, and “Oscar Frights” with movies like Get Out and Psycho. Spike Lee and Denzel Washington will be on hand for a 70Mm screening of Malcolm X. A program of movies featuring women composers is also on tap, and are retrospectives of filmmakers Jane Campion and Satyajit Ray among many others.

The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures‘ inaugural in-person schedule for its first three months will begin on its Sept. 30 opening day with two special presentations of the 1939 classic “The Wizard of Oz.” Those will feature live musical accompaniment by the American Youth Symphony conducted by composer David Newman, the museum said Wednesday.

MGM

The museum will offer more than 115 film screenings, discussions and programs. According to a museum statement other highlights include the launch of these ongoing series:

Stories of Cinema: featuring screenings of films highlighted in the museum’s core exhibition, including Real Women Have Curves and The Way of the Dragon.Oscar® Sundays: held every Sunday evening in the David Geffen Theater, this series celebrates films that have been honored at the Academy Awards®. For the series’ first iteration, we are celebrating the work of women directors, including Harlan County, U.S.A. and Seven Beauties.Family Matinees:...

With readers turning to their home viewing options more than ever, this daily feature provides one new movie each day worth checking out on a major streaming platform.

[Editor’s note: This post contains some spoilers for the Netflix series “Hollywood.”]

At the conclusion of Ryan Murphy’s latest limited series, the fluffy revisionist history “Hollywood,” one of its central stars gets her due, ascending to the highest echelon of movie stardom and getting a permanent title to match: Oscar winner. In reality, actress Anna May Wong never won an Oscar, despite being hailed as Hollywood’s first Chinese American movie star and appearing in a variety of productions (from silent films to even television) over the span of her decades-long career.

For viewers interested in the true histories of the Hollywood stars and industry brass portrayed in Murphy’s discomfitting and often immature rose-colored glasses, the reality of Wong and her career is a bitter pill to swallow. At the same time,...

Joop van den Berg's 1929 poster for AtlanticE.A. Dupont achieved early fame for Varieté (1925), a grimly saucy slice of Weimar doom and spiciness, and followed it up with prestigious British productions Moulin Rouge (1928) and Piccadilly (1929), the latter starring Anna May Wong—but just as his career was on the upswing he fell prey to the advent of sound, producing a big-budget version of the Titanic disaster in English and German versions.Atlantic, or Atlantik, became something of a laughing-stock in Britain, owing to Dupont's unfortunate combination of Teutonic tendencies and technical trepidation. The actors were directed to communicate as slowly as possible, perhaps so that Dupont could follow what they were saying. His desire to inflect each syllable with suitable weight and portent robbed the film of any sense of urgency, despite it being set on a ship that starts sinking around twenty minutes in (none of the ninety-minute time-wasting...

The San Francisco Silent Film Festival presents "A Day of Silents" tomorrow featuring The Black Pirate with Douglas Fairbanks, a long lost Harry Houdini film (The Grim Game), Marcel L'Herbier's L'Inhumaine, Anna May Wong in Piccadilly and more. Meantime, Ben Rivers will be presenting work in Los Angeles, there's an Antonio Pietrangeli retrospective on in New York, the Notebook reviews an exhibition of installation work by Chantal Akerman in London and, in Gateshead, in the UK, there's an exhibition devoted to Bill Murray. » - David Hudson...

The San Francisco Silent Film Festival presents "A Day of Silents" tomorrow featuring The Black Pirate with Douglas Fairbanks, a long lost Harry Houdini film (The Grim Game), Marcel L'Herbier's L'Inhumaine, Anna May Wong in Piccadilly and more. Meantime, Ben Rivers will be presenting work in Los Angeles, there's an Antonio Pietrangeli retrospective on in New York, the Notebook reviews an exhibition of installation work by Chantal Akerman in London and, in Gateshead, in the UK, there's an exhibition devoted to Bill Murray. » - David Hudson...

This is a tale of chance encounters.1) René Clair is in London, making The Ghost Goes West (1935). Something of a flaneur, he has strolled down to the East End, and his noctivagation leads him to a Limehouse pub which strikes him with an intense but mysterious feeling of déjà vu."Of course!" he suddenly thinks. "D.W. Griffith: Broken Blossoms!" The pub is the very image of Griffith's Hollywood recreation of Victorian London from his 1919 film.And there, at the bar, sits D.W. Griffith himself. Clair approaches this mirage and learns that Griffith is in London to direct a remake of Broken Blossoms at Twickenham Studios. Drink is taken.2) All this comes from screenwriter Rodney Ackland's bittersweet memoir of his work in British cinema, The Celluloid Mistress, co-written with Elspeth Grant. He further explains that his idolisation of Griffith prompted him to volunteer his services in any capacity as...

There’s little love lost for Kim Longinotto’s slapdash documentary montage

Valentine’s Day is upon us, but the release of this film by Kim Longinotto is a disappointing and uninteresting way of marking that fact. It is a miscellaneous montage of film clips from the past century, accompanied by music from Richard Hawley, on the vague subject of … love. There are archive fragments from documentaries, romances, and grisly and puritanical sex-education films (of the kind anthologised by the BFI in its boxset The Joy of Sex Education). There are bits from the 1929 silent movie Piccadilly starring Anna May Wong, and from My Beautiful Laundrette. It seems as if anything and everything could have been included. But the selections and juxtapositions are neither interesting nor insightful – certainly not compared to, say, Julien Temple’s recent essay London: The Modern Babylon or Charlie Lyne’s study of teen movies, Beyond Clueless.

E.A. Dupont had perhaps the most precipitous career trajectory of any German filmmaker of the silent years, plunging from the pinnacle of his native industry to the stinky depths of The Neanderthal Man (1953) in Hollywood. Supposedly the secret of his lack of success was an incident in 1939 when he was fired for slapping a bit player on the set of a Dead End Kids picture, and he spent a decade working as a talent agent (helped no doubt by his obvious sympathy for performers, ahem). It might be observed that if you're directing a Dead End Kids picture your career has already descended a few notches since your Ufa heyday.

Varieté (1925) was Dupont's breakthrough film, and today it's remembered more in film histories than it is actually seen: there's never been a DVD to my knowledge, and the copies drifting about in cyberspace are patchy and aged off-air recordings with...

There are a bunch of large-scale British pictures of the late silent era, like E.A. Dupont's Moulin Rouge and Piccadilly, and they all have dazzling surfaces but don't quite captivate as melodrama. It can seem as if the popular conception that British silent cinema consisted of Hitchcock standing alone and portly in a cultural wasteland is kind of true. But Anthony Asquith's A Cottage on Dartmoor (1929), which channels German expressionist lighting, composition and intensity, is an honorable exception: it's actually more Germanic than any of Hitchcock's films (even including The Pleasure Garden, which he shot in Germany).

Underground (1928), which was Asquith's very first feature, is not quite as good as that, but I'd wanted to see it for ages and was very glad I did: it's available, beautifully restored, from the BFI.

The movie wears its Germanic aspects more lightly than Cottage, with some giddy-making angles and sharp...

Vivacious Irish actor best known for her role opposite Albert Finney in Tom Jones

The red-haired, vivacious and provocative Irish actor Joyce Redman, who has died aged 93, will for ever be remembered for her lubricious meal-time munching and swallowing opposite Albert Finney in Tony Richardson's 1963 film of Tom Jones. Eyes locked, lips smacked and jaws rotated as the two of them tucked into a succulent feast while eyeing up the afters. Sinking one's teeth into a role is one thing. This was quite another, and deliciously naughty, the mother of all modern mastication scenes.

Redman and Finney were renewing a friendship forged five years earlier when both appeared with Charles Laughton in Jane Arden's The Party at the New (now the Noël Coward) theatre. Redman was not blamed by the critic Kenneth Tynan for making nothing of her role as Laughton's wife. "Nothing," he said, "after all, will come of nothing.

Martin Scorsese's Hugo (period film), David Yates' Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (fantasy film), and David Fincher's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (contemporary film) were the feature-film winners at the Art Directors Guild's 16th Excellence in Production Design Awards, held this evening at the International Ballroom of the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills. The respective production design winners were Dante Ferretti (photo), Stuart Craig, and Donald Graham Burt. [Full list of 2012 Art Directors Guild winners and nominees.] Both Ferretti (with frequent collaborator/set decorator Francesca Lo Schiavo) and Craig (with set decorator Stephenie McMillan ) are in the running for the Best Art Direction Academy Award. Their competitors are Laurence Bennett and set decorator Robert Gould for Michel Hazanavicius' The Artist, Anne Seibel and set decorator Hélène Dubreuil for Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris, and Rick Carter and set decorator Lee Sandales for Steven Spielberg's War Horse. Among the...

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Throughout summer it has been difficult to ignore the recent Chinoiserie trend in stores and magazines, kick-started by the opulent Louis Vuitton show in Paris and merged effortlessly into autumn by Paul Smith. Cheongsam collars and qipao slits aside, this new-found interest in the East may have been partly triggered by China’s growing appetite for high-end goods, which despite recent economic setbacks, has left Western luxury brands competing for a share of this very sizable market.

This obsession with the ‘Orient’ has also seen a proliferation of Asian models on catwalks and throughout editorial spreads, which has courted controversy for some publications and raises all manner of questions regarding ethnicity and standards of beauty. Whilst researching this trend it becomes impossible not to contemplate the...