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Eagle-eyed “Saturday Night Live” fans immediately spotted something was amiss before the show’s musical guest Stevie Nicks’ second performance. After a landslide of internet comments, it turns out there was indeed a technical issue that was resolved quickly.

The seemingly smooth episode for the 50th anniversary season (which featured Oasis impersonations and a fantastic monologue from host Ariana Grande) hit a speed bump right before Grande was set to re-introduce Nicks for her next song. The issue caused the show to put up a Nicks billboard for around 50 seconds while the emergency was attended to and then leapfrogged into an ad break.

When things were fixed, Grande appeared and introduced the legend again. Shortly after the iconic guitar intro from “Edge of Seventeen” begins, you can see Nick fiddling with her mic pack on her right side, but ultimately didn’t affect the singer’s performance.

This was not...

by Chad Kennerk

K.J. Relth-Miller, Director of Film Programs.

All images courtesy the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures.

When Michael Powell combined his dynamic directing powers with the percipient writing of Emeric Pressburger, the production company known as The Archers was born. Pressburger focused on story, while Powell played the key role of directing each piece. The Archers brought their collective talents together to create some of the most colourful, quintessential, and controversial films ever made. Following Cinema Unbound: The Creative Worlds of Powell and Pressburger – the BFI’s retrospective and celebration at BFI Southbank and across the UK last fall – the films of Powell and Pressburger have made their way west from New York’s Museum of Modern Art to The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures.

Featuring restorations and screenings of archival prints, Tellers of Tales: The Films of Powell & Pressburger highlights the dazzling imagery and inventive designs of Britain’s foremost filmmaking duo.

There’s an argument to be made that the single image which best exemplifies pure cinematic wonder is the Archers logo. The introductory title reel belonged to the production company of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, a guarantee that whatever film followed would whisk the viewer away to a world of ecstatic imagination. The British filmmaking duo delivered sweeping, epic tales on a vibrant cinematic canvas painted with a style uniquely their own, and often found themselves on the periphery of their country’s popular cinema during their careers. While they came to be appreciated in the decades that followed the peak of their creative output, they have long passed, so David Hinton’s riveting new documentary Made in England: The Films of Powell & Pressburger brings the most qualified voice possible to speak on their contributions to the medium: Martin Scorsese.

Considering Scorsese’s close connection to their work, from...

"What they offer is a vision of love... of longing and loss, hope and expectation of wonder... I've watched these movies so many times, they've become part of my life." Cohen Media Group has also released their own official trailer for the wondrous documentary film titled Made in England: The Films of Powell & Pressburger, set for a run this summer in limited theaters. The doc is a cinema history look back at the iconic Powell & Pressburger filmmakers. Narrated and presented by Martin Scorsese, this explores the history of the two famous filmmakers Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger, known for their beloved films including Black Narcissus, The Red Shoes, A Matter of Life and Death, A Canterbury Tale, and Gone to Earth. It is "a love letter to one of cinema's greatest partnerships" with Scorsese taking us through his own admiration for their creations. Drawing on a rich array of archive material,...

"A valentine to British cinema's greatest dreamers." This one is for all the die-hard cinephiles! Mubi has unveiled the official trailer for the cinema history documentary film called Made in England: The Films of Powell & Pressburger, made by filmmaker David Hinton. This originally premiered at the 2024 Berlin Film Festival earlier this year, and it's next screening at the 2024 Tribeca Film Festival in NYC coming up this June. The doc is narrated and presented by Martin Scorsese, who explores the history of these two famous filmmakers: Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, known for their beloved films including Black Narcissus, The Red Shoes, A Matter of Life and Death, A Canterbury Tale, and Gone to Earth. It is "a love letter to one of cinema's greatest partnerships." Drawing on a rich array of archive material, Scorsese explores in full the collaboration between the Englishman Powell and Hungarian Pressburger who thrived in...

Fleetwood Mac is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the musical prowess of Stevie Nicks. The musician’s entire solo discography will be compiled on a gargantuan upcoming box set, due out July 28th via Rhino. As a preview, you can hear the new remastered version of her 1998 track “One More Big Time Rock and Roll Star” now.

Stevie Nicks: Complete Studio Albums & Rarities will include all eight of Nicks’ solo LPs: Bella Donna (1981), The Wild Heart (1983), Rock a Little (1985), The Other Side of the Mirror (1989), Street Angel (1994), Trouble in Shangri-La (2001), In Your Dreams (2011), and 24 Karat Gold: Songs from the Vault (2014), a few of which are getting pressed to vinyl for the very first time. The 10-cd, 16-lp collection also boasts Rarities, a compilation of hard-to-find tracks that have never had a proper release.

Complete Studio Albums & Rarities is topped off with plenty of remasters, all...

Two animated children’s projects and two live-action series will share in $3.2 million of production funding from Screen Australia.

Northern Pictures’ Tom Weekly Versus… and Werner Film Productions’ Surviving Summer are being made for ViacomCBS and Netflix, respectively, while animation offerings 100% Wolf: The Book of Hath from Flying Bark Productions and Kangaroo Beach Summer Special from Cheeky Little Media will both appear on the ABC.

Screen Australia’s head of content Sally Caplan said the funding reflected Screen Australia’s commitment to supporting quality Australian screen stories for young audiences.

“It’s important that Australian kids can see their stories and experiences reflected on screen and families around the country will be in for a treat with these new projects,” she said.

“Northern Pictures are going from strength to strength – building on the success of Hardball, they are now set to bring popular book series Tom Weekly to the screen.

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“The Archers Vs. Selznick = 2 Movies In 1”

By Raymond Benson

Here’s an interesting lesson in filmmaking. Students of the art might learn something by watching the two different cuts of this motion picture to see what happens when a movie is edited down—especially when the original was made by bona fide artists as opposed to a slick Hollywood producer who, albeit successful, might not know everything.

David O. Selznick was a powerhouse producer and head of his own personal studio. “The Archers” were a unique British directing/writing/producing team and production company that consisted of the brilliant Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, who, for a solid decade, delivered some of the most engaging and beautifully-rendered works of cinematic art in the 20th Century. It is true that Powell and Pressburger were perhaps not as appreciated during their time as they should have been,...

Joseph Baxter Feb 10, 2020

Netflix's Sex Education Season 3 was confirmed by the streaming giant less than a month after Season 2 arrived.

Sex Education is officially scheduled for a third seasonal semester on Netflix!

The caustic Netflix comedy focused on levity-laced adolescent libidinous – a production of U.K. company Eleven Films – has quietly established itself as a breath of fresh air, and has enjoyed widespread critical acclaim, thus making the renewal for Sex Education Season 3 – less than a month after the January 17 release of Season 2 – unsurprising but nevertheless welcome news.

Netflix made the third season renewal announcement with a tracking-shot-centric promo in which cast member Alistair Petrie (Principal Groff) – seemingly tapped into a Rod Serling/Night Gallery mode – walks through a Moordale High art exhibition filled with framed portraits of Sex Education’s primary players such as Otis (Asa Butterfield), Eric (Ncuti Gatwa), Lily (Tanya Reynolds) and resident therapeutic matriarch Dr.

Toot Toot! The Little Engine that Could becomes a tale of the little town that could, when their tiny rail service is discontinued. A crackerjack cast of Ealing regulars — Stanley Holloway, Naunton Wayne, John Gregson — band together to take over the little spur line and keep it running. We get to see a vintage locomotive from the early 1800s in action, but the appeal isn’t limited to lovers of trains — Ealing’s knack for inspired, understated comedy is all over this show. Plus, it’s the company’s first feature in Technicolor, and is beautifully remastered.

The Titfield Thunderbolt

Blu-ray

Film Movement Classics

1953 / Color / 1:37 Academy / 84 min. / Street Date , 2020 /

Starring: Stanley Holloway, George Relph, Naunton Wayne, John Gregson, Godfrey Tearle, Hugh Griffith, Gabrielle Brune, Sidney James, Reginald Beckwith, Edie Martin, Michael Trubshawe, Jack MacGowran, Ewan Roberts.

Cinematography: Douglas Slocombe

Film Editor: Seth Holt

Original Music: Georges Auric

Written by...

Classic cinematics from first-rank filmmakers. No ballet or heroism, so not a crowd pleaser, but Michael Powell’s original version of Gone to Earth is another unique Archers creation. Jennifer Jones finally gets to chew on a character role with grit, as a natural virgin/vixen misunderstood by contrasting suitors. David O. Selznick’s revision The Wild Heart is a classic too — of unnecessary meddling.

Gone to Earth / The Wild Heart

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1950 / Color / 1:37 flat Academy / 110, 86 min. / Street Date June 25, 2019 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Jennifer Jones, David Farrar, Cyril Cusack, Sybil Thorndike, Edward Chapman, Esmond Knight, Hugh Griffith.

Cinematography: Christopher Challis

Film Editor: Reginald Mills

From the novel by: Mary Webb

Music by Brian Easdale

Written, Produced and Directed by Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger

This is one beautiful production, one that will thrill Powell & Pressburger fans eager to see all of his films. With his typical cinematic simplicity,...

Prepare to let your jaw drop: Jennifer Jones and Charlton Heston’s sleazy bucolic ‘romance’ comes off as two-way sex harassment, with suggestive one-liners that make us cringe. Are there other pictures like this? Is this where dolts came to believe that women wanted to be treated like stupid squeeze toys? The great King Vidor directed, with no sign of intentional satire — the bizarre, eventually violent Southern-set melodrama is a one-of-a-kind grotesque spectacle.

Ruby Gentry

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1952 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 82 min. / Street Date April 24, 2018 / available through Kino Lorber / 24.96

Starring: Jennifer Jones, Charlton Heston, Karl Malden, Tom Tully, James Anderson, Josephine Hutchinson, Phyllis Avery, Barney Phillips.

Cinematography: Russell Harlan

Film Editor: Terry Morse

Original Music: Heinz Roemheld

Written by Silvia Richards from a story by Arthur Fitz-Richard

Produced by Joseph Bernhard, King Vidor

Directed by King Vidor

I have two basic thoughts on 1952’s Ruby Gentry. First,...

David O. Selznick’s marvelous romantic fantasy ode to Jennifer Jones was almost wholly unappreciated back in 1948. It’s one of those peculiar pictures that either melts one’s heart or doesn’t. Backed by a music score adapted from Debussy, just one breathy “Oh Eben . . . “ will turn average romantics into mush.

Portrait of Jennie

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1948 / B&W w/ Color Insert / 1:37 flat Academy / 86 min. / Street Date October 24, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Jennifer Jones, Joseph Cotten, Ethel Barrymore, Lillian Gish, Cecil Kellaway, David Wayne, Albert Sharpe.

Cinematography: Joseph H. August

Production Designers: J. MacMillan Johnson, Joseph B. Platt

Original Music: Dimitri Tiomkin, also adapting themes from Claude Debussy; Bernard Herrmann

Written by Leonardo Bercovici, Peter Berneis, Paul Osborn, from the novella by Robert Nathan

Produced by David O. Selznick

Directed by William Dieterle

Once upon a time David O. Selznick’s Portrait of Jennie was an...

This remake of a pre-Code classic adds amazing European locations, glorious Technicolor and entire armies on the move, yet doesn’t improve on the original. Producer David O. Selznick secured Rock Hudson to play opposite Jennifer Jones, but the chemistry is lacking. Why did the man spend twenty years trying to top Gone With the Wind?

A Farewell to Arms

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1957 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 152 min. / Street Date April 18, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Jennifer Jones, Rock Hudson, Vittorio De Sica, Mercedes McCambridge, Elaine Stritch.

Cinematography: Oswald Morris, Piero Portalupi

Production Designer: Alfred Junge

Art Direction: Mario Garbuglia

Film Editors: John M. Foley, Gerard J. Wilson

Original Music: Mario Nascimbene

Written by Ben Hecht from a play by Laurence Stallings from a novel by Ernest Hemingway

Produced by David O. Selznick

Directed by Charles Vidor

What happens when a major Hollywood producer thinks he has all the answers?...

Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger officially become ‘The Archers’ for this sterling morale-propaganda picture lauding the help of the valiant Dutch resistance. It’s a joyful show of spirit, terrific casting (with a couple of surprises) and first-class English filmmaking.

One of Our Aircraft is Missing

Blu-ray

Olive Films

1942 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy /103 82 min. / Street Date November 15, 2016 / available through the Olive Films website / 29.98

Starring Godfrey Tearle, Eric Portman, Hugh Williams, Bernard Miles, Hugh Burden, Emrys Jones, Pamela Brown, Joyce Redman, Googie Withers, Hay Petrie, Arnold Marlé, Robert Helpmann, Peter Ustinov, Roland Culver, Robert Beatty, Michael Powell.

Cinematography Ronald Neame

Film Editor David Lean

Camera Crew Robert Krasker, Guy Green

Written by Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger

Produced by The Archers

Directed by Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

There are still a few more key Powell-Pressburger ‘Archer’ films waiting for a quality disc release, Contraband and Gone to Earth for just two.

Marc Allégret: From André Gide lover to Simone Simon mentor (photo: Marc Allégret) (See previous post: "Simone Simon Remembered: Sex Kitten and Femme Fatale.") Simone Simon became a film star following the international critical and financial success of the 1934 romantic drama Lac aux Dames, directed by her self-appointed mentor – and alleged lover – Marc Allégret.[1] The son of an evangelical missionary, Marc Allégret (born on December 22, 1900, in Basel, Switzerland) was to have become a lawyer. At age 16, his life took a different path as a result of his romantic involvement – and elopement to London – with his mentor and later "adoptive uncle" André Gide (1947 Nobel Prize winner in Literature), more than 30 years his senior and married to Madeleine Rondeaux for more than two decades. In various forms – including a threesome with painter Théo Van Rysselberghe's daughter Elisabeth – the Allégret-Gide relationship remained steady until the late '20s and their trip to...

“Don’t listen to her … listen through her.”

Stevie Nicks is the undisputed Goddess Of Rock, and has influenced a generation of female artists with her style, her music, and the fact that she’s a survivor.

For forty years, she’s seen firsthand the ups and downs of the rock star life, and she’s managed to emerge and thrive, and is more respected and beloved now more than ever.

Today is her 66th birthday, so let’s attempt the impossible. Let’s rank her 66 greatest songs, both solo and with Fleetwood Mac. If you don’t agree with the rankings, well, tomorrow they might be totally different, but this is a good place to start to begin your Essential Stevie Collection.

66. Crying In The Night – The opening track from Buckingham Nicks, it introduced The Goddess to the world.

65. Long Way To Go – Urgent rocker from The Other Side Of The Mirror,...

Birthday shoutouts go to hot horror himbo Joe Zaso (above), who is 42, and Sean Young is 53.Attention! Please join me on Sunday night at 9 Pm Et, when I Liveblog the Lifetime original movie Liz and Dick. From what i've heard, it could be the White Diamonds of camp classics. Let's experience it together!Allen West has finally conceded. Of course he didn't give Patrick Murphy a concession call ... but at least he's gone. But that means ... he's still out there somewhere. I don't know what's funnier: The actual column, or the editor's note that now precedes it.Starz! has canceled Boss after two seasons, but may wrap things up with a two-hour TV movie. Even though Jonathan Groff joined this season, II still couldn't muster the enthusiasm to watch.Orlando Cruz on adversaries who may not like his sexuality: "Oh, you know, there will be people like that, I’m sure.

There was nothing "partial" about the restoration in the early 1980s of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's great wartime film masterpiece, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (Good fellows, Arts, G2, 29 October). This was a thorough, comprehensive and state-of-the-art photochemical restoration carried out by the British Film Institute's National Film Archive (now the BFI National Archive) – of which I was then the deputy curator – working from original materials and supervised by experienced laboratory veterans.

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp was part of an ambitious project, generously supported by the BBC and the UK's National Heritage Memorial Fund – their first recognition of film as art and heritage – to restore British Technicolor classics, including The Red Shoes, Black Narcissus, A Matter of Life and Death, Gone to Earth, The Thief of Baghdad, and Alexander Korda's The Divorce of Lady X.

On occasion, Martin Scorsese – campaigning at the...

Creative cinematographer and a key member of the Powell-Pressburger movie production team

Although the cinematographer Christopher Challis, who has died aged 93, was an essential member of the Archers production company of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, he joined them as director of photography at the time of their decline. However, he worked on more of the great British writing-directing team's films than any other cinematographer. These eccentric, extravagant, intelligent and witty fantasies went against the British realist tradition, allowing more scope for a creative cinematographer such as Challis. The sensuous use of Technicolor and flamboyant sets and designs made them closer to the MGM world of Vincente Minnelli and of Stanley Donen, who used Challis on six of his films.

Perhaps Challis's finest achievement was on Powell and Pressburger's The Tales of Hoffmann (1951) which, as he explained, had "no optical effects or tricks. It was all edited in...

Stevie Nicks is many things: Goddess Of Rock, style icon, survivor, and today is her 64th Birthday. We could never hope to give her all of the proper respect she deserves, but here's a small tribute to her legacy of cryptic lyrics, ethereal stage presence, and shawls.

So many shawls ...

1. - "Landslide." The greatest song ever written. Timeless, and one of the most covered songs of all time, from The Dixie Chicks to anyone learning the guitar ... or performing drunken karaoke.

2. "Sisters Of The Moon" - Hands down the best track from Tusk, the chances that Stevie would write a song named "Sisters Of The Moon" were always pretty good.

3. "Gypsy" - One of the definitive Fleetwood Mac songs, and one of the greatest music videos ever made.

4.

5."Silver Spring" Such a beautiful song, it was originally supposed to be included on Rumours but was left off because there just...

The new Film Quarterly is out and, of the four pieces online, the standout for me is Caetlin Benson-Allott's: "Since Marey's motion studies at the end of the 19th century, film has been a tool for providing visible evidence, a record of things seen. The development of digital imaging technology over the past twenty years has transformed that original empirical function. Advancements in CGI enable convincing depictions of things impossible to see in everyday life: dinosaurs, hobbits, viruses. It has become necessary to speak of 'hypervisibility' to describe the way movies can realistically render such previously hard-to-envision phenomena. Steven Soderbergh's Contagion tries to contest this prevailing logic by insisting on the limits of visibility."

Also: Editor Rob White talks with Göran Hugo Olsson about The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975, Joshua Clover on Contagion, Justin Lin's Fast Five and Rupert Wyatt's Rise of the Planet of the Apes...

Everyone's favorite bit of news of the past 24 hours or so has to be the casting of Werner Herzog as the bad guy in Christopher McQuarrie's upcoming Tom Cruise vehicle, One Shot. Also on board: Robert Duvall, Rosamund Pike, David Oyelowo, Richard Jenkins, Alexia Fast and Jai Courtney. At this point, there are only a few more details to know, but the Playlist's Kevin Jagernauth's got them.

Fox has greenlit an hour-long single-camera comedy by Joel and Ethan Coen and screenwriter Phil Johnston (Cedar Rapids). Lesley Goldberg in the Hollywood Reporter: "The Imagine TV project, the brothers' first foray into television, revolves around a touchy Los Angeles private investigator — and his deadbeat friends in El Segundo — whose cases frequently force him to cross paths with a who's who of Hollywood."

"Paramount is on board to co-finance Darren Aronofsky's Noah with New Regency, and shooting is set to kick...

Hollywood star who won an Oscar for her role as a saintly peasant girl in the 1943 film The Song of Bernardette

On the day of her 25th birthday, 2 March 1944, a fresh-faced, hitherto unknown performer stepped on to the stage of Grauman's Chinese Theatre, in Los Angeles, to receive her best actress Oscar for her performance in the title role of The Song of Bernadette. It was officially the debut of Jennifer Jones, who has died aged 90. She had appeared four years earlier under her real name of Phyllis Isley, but only in a Dick Tracy serial and a B-western. (Actually, she had been born Phylis, but had added an "l".)

Ingrid Bergman, nominated for her performance in For Whom the Bell Tolls, said of The Song of Bernadette: "I cried all the way through, because Jennifer was so moving and because I realised I had lost the award." Jones,...