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Glynis Johns, remembered by movie audiences as Mrs. Banks from Mary Poppins and by Broadway devotees as the first person to sing Stephen Sondheim’s “Send in the Clowns” on a national stage, died Thursday of natural causes at an assisted living home in Los Angeles. She was 100.

Her death was announced by her manager and publicist Mitch Clem. “Today’s a sad day for Hollywood,” Clem said in a statement. “She is the last of the last of old Hollywood.”

A Tony winner (Best Actress/Musical) for her performance as Desiree Armfeldt in the original 1973 Broadway cast of the Sondheim-Hugh Wheeler A Little Night Music, Johns both debuted and, due to her widespread acclaim, helped popularize what would become perhaps Sondheim’s most beloved and well-known songs with “Send in the Clowns.”

Born in Pretoria, South Africa, the Welsh Johns made her West End debut in 1931 at age...

A simple listing, duplicated from the dvd/blu/vod UK and Ireland page, of new releases and other stuff currently available, for the benefit of those playing along by RSS or keeping up via the Weekly Digest emails (sign up here).

The most up-to-date version of this listing is always here.

new from Sep 12–16

Good Luck to You, Leo Grande Nope (premium VOD) Where Is Anne Frank (Curzon Home Cinema)

I’m planning to watch…

Big Gold Brick Blind Ambition (premium VOD) Goodnight Mommy (Prime) Her Way Strawberry Mansion

(films on regular VOD and/or DVD unless otherwise noted)

Stop endlessly scrolling Netflix, Amazon, and other VOD services! Get the Weekend Watchlist newsletter in your in-box every Friday with the best new films and hidden gems to stream. Only for paid Patreon and Substack subscribers.

recent releases

Ali & Ava (Netflix/VOD) The Bad Guys The Batman Belfast Benedetta (DVD/VOD...

A simple listing, duplicated from the dvd/blu/vod UK and Ireland page, of new releases and other stuff currently available, for the benefit of those playing along by RSS or keeping up via the Weekly Digest emails (sign up here).

The most up-to-date version of this listing is always here.

new from Aug 22–26

Good Luck to You, Leo Grande (premium VOD) Men

I’m planning to watch…

A Chiara (Mubi) Notre-Dame on Fire (premium VOD) Official Competition (Curzon Home Cinema) Potato Dreams of America Samaritan (Prime) Wayfinder Wolf

(films on regular VOD and/or DVD unless otherwise noted)

Stop endlessly scrolling Netflix, Amazon, and other VOD services! Get the Weekend Watchlist newsletter in your in-box every Friday with the best new films and hidden gems to stream. Only for paid Patreon and Substack subscribers.

recent releases

Ali & Ava (Netflix/VOD) The Audition The Bad Guys The Batman Belfast Benedetta...

Exclusive: In an eye-catching independent deal, Charles S. Cohen’s Cohen Media Group, owner of Landmark Theatres and UK cinema group Curzon, has added to his arthouse fleet with the acquisition of blue-chip international sales company HanWay Films, co-owned by stalwart Brit producer Jeremy Thomas and his partner Peter Watson.

HanWay will continue to be branded as an independent label selling independent features and Peter Watson will continue to serve as president of the company together with Gabrielle Stewart as CEO. All other staff will remain in tact, we’re told.

Philip Knatchbull, CEO of Curzon, negotiated the transaction on behalf of Cohen Media Group. Financial details weren’t disclosed.

Based in London, a sale of HanWay has been discussed for a number of years. HanWay execs said today the deal would allow growth and the ability to get involved in projects earlier. The company’s current slate comprises a...

A simple listing, duplicated from the dvd/blu/vod UK and Ireland page, of new releases and other stuff currently available, for the benefit of those playing along by RSS or keeping up via the Weekly Digest emails (sign up here).

The most up-to-date version of this listing is always here.

new from Aug 08–14

Elvis (premium VOD) The Princess (documentary) (Sky/Now) Benediction Infinite Storm (premium VOD)

I’m planning to watch…

The Good Boss Stowaway

(films on regular VOD and/or DVD unless otherwise noted)

Stop endlessly scrolling Netflix, Amazon, and other VOD services! Get the Weekend Watchlist newsletter in your in-box every Friday with the best new films and hidden gems to stream. Only for paid Patreon and Substack subscribers.

recent releases

Ali & Ava (Netflix; also regular VOD) The Audition The Bad Guys The Batman Belfast Benedetta (Mubi) The Burning Sea The Card Counter The Cave Cop...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSAbove: Drive My Car (2021)List-making season has fully started. Film Comment released both the top twenty films as well as the top twenty undistributed films of the year, and IndieWire published the results of a massive poll of 187 critics. Vulture's critics have each written about their top tens, and Drive My Car tops both Barack Obama and Screen Slate's annual list. Screen Slate has also included individual ballots from "contributors, friends, critics, and filmmakers," which gave Paul Schrader the opportunity to rank The Card Counter as his pick for the best film of the year. Due to a nationwide lockdown in the Netherlands, the International Film Festival Rotterdam will be taking place online, cancelling its previous plans for an in-person event. There are two weeks left to submit to the Sundance Film Festival's 2022 Native Lab,...

Paramount will continue to experiment with a theatrical day-and-date release model during the pandemic with eOne’s Clifford the Big Red Dog, a live-action CGI hybrid take of the 1963 Scholastic children’s book classic which hit theaters today at 1:30Pm, goes wide tomorrow at 3,695 theaters and also drops on Paramount+. The movie is expected to do between $15M-$17M over its five days, which includes Veterans Day when close to half K-12 schools are off for the holiday. The kids film, directed by Walt Becker, will be on a pure theatrical window up in Canada where it’s distributed by eOne.

Paramount decided to go day-and-date with Clifford the Big Red Dog in response to the rising Covid cases a few months ago, and kids under 12 not being able to get vaccinated at the time. It’s the second movie from the Melrose Ave. lot to go theatrical and...

When the late Michael Been of The Call was working on the soundtrack to the 1992 film “Light Sleeper,” his then-teenage son, Robert Levon Been, later of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, would hide when the film’s director, Paul Schrader, came to Been’s home to check on the music’s progress.

“Everything was recorded in our house, DIY style, on analog, in the living room,” recalls Been, speaking from Vienna, Austria. “I was a snob and obnoxious and would say, ‘This is shit, this is good.’ I’d play a guitar or bass part and say, ‘Try this, try that.’ Sometimes my dad would use it. I was caught out a few times by [Schrader] who asked my dad if he was not paying him enough to bring in real musicians. But it stuck in his head enough where he might give me a call someday.”

Almost 20 years later, Schrader returns...

The Hi-Pointe Theater, at 1005 McCausland Ave in St. Louis, is the best place to see movies. Oscar Isaac in Paul Schrader’s The Card Counter opens this Friday September 10th at The Hi-Pointe. The Hi-Pointe’s site can be found Here

The Card Counter, written and directed by Schrader, follows William Tell (Isaac), a gambler and former serviceman who sets out to reform a young man seeking revenge on a mutual enemy from their past. Tell just wants to play cards. His spartan existence on the casino trail is shattered when he is approached by Cirk, a vulnerable and angry young man seeking help to execute his plan for revenge on a military colonel. Tell sees a chance at redemption through his relationship with Cirk. Gaining backing from mysterious gambling financier La Linda, Tell takes Cirk with him on the road, going from casino to casino until the unlikely trio...

The BBC, in collaboration with the British government, has delayed plans to begin charging over 75 year olds for the licence fee because of the coronavirus crisis.

British pensioners were due to start paying the £157.50 ($193.95) fee from June 1, but the controversial charge has now been pushed back to August 1 amid fears that vulnerable people could be cut off from vital information.

More from DeadlineCoronavirus Halts Dominican Republic Shoot On Agc's Andrea Riseborough Thriller 'Geechee'Paul Schrader's 'The Card Counter' Shutters Five Days From Finish Over A Positive Coronavirus TestIHeartRadio Music Awards Postponed Due To Coronavirus

BBC chairman Sir David Clementi said: “The BBC board has decided to delay changes to over 75s licence fees. We are in exceptional circumstances. Now is not the right time. We are fully focussed on delivering our services to the public at this difficult time.”

In a joint statement with the Department for Digital, Culture,...

Oscar-winning British cinematographer who worked on a wide range of film classics

The Oscar-winning British cinematographer Oswald Morris, who has died aged 98, will be remembered for many classics, including Moulin Rouge, Fiddler on the Roof, Moby Dick and Lolita. He worked with some of the great directors, John Huston, Sidney Lumet, Carol Reed, Stanley Kubrick and Franco Zeffirelli. Many of Morris's films are landmarks in the history of colour cinematography. For Moulin Rouge (1952) he used filters to create a style reminiscent of paintings by Toulouse-Lautrec. For Fiddler on the Roof (1971), which won him an Oscar, he filmed with a silk stocking over the lens to give a sepia effect.

Morris also shot popular favourites such as The Guns of Navarone (1961), Oliver! (1968), The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965) and The Man Who Would Be King (1975), and photographed acting luminaries: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Gregory Peck and Humphrey Bogart.

Director who captured swinging London's zeitgeist and remade classics for television

For a few years in the 1960s, Clive Donner, who has died aged 84 after suffering from Alzheimer's disease, was among the leading film directors of swinging London. Unfortunately, when London stopped swinging, so did Donner. The four films that made his name were a low-budget adaptation of Harold Pinter's play The Caretaker (1963); Nothing But the Best (1964), a wicked satire on the British class structure; the farcical What's New Pussycat? (1965); and the coming-of-age comedy Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush (1968).

Already in his 30s when he started directing, Donner gained a reputation for being tuned in to "youth". His debut movie, The Secret Place (1957), a heist drama shot on location in the East End, had David McCallum as a Brandoesque leather-jacketed "crazy mixed-up kid".

The Heart of a Child (1958) concerned a boy and his St Bernard dog, Rudi,...

Producer, director and cinematographer of many well-loved British film classics, including Oliver Twist, Tunes of Glory and The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

The producer, director, writer and cinematographer Ronald Neame, who has died aged 99, played an important role in British cinema for more than half a century. The critic Matthew Sweet once called him "a living embodiment of cinema, a sort of one-man world heritage site". Neame was assistant director to Alfred Hitchcock on Blackmail (1929), the first British talkie; he was the cinematographer on In Which We Serve (1942), Noël Coward's moving tribute to the Royal Navy during the second world war; he co-produced and co-wrote David Lean's Brief Encounter (1945) and Great Expectations (1946); and he directed Alec Guinness in two of his best roles, in The Horse's Mouth (1958) and Tunes of Glory (1960). As if this wasn't enough, Neame also conquered Hollywoo d with one of the first and most successful disaster movies,...

British director Ronald Neame has died at the age of 99 after failing to recover from a fall.

The Poseidon Adventure filmmaker passed away at a Los Angeles hospital on Wednesday, his friend Peter Bowes has confirmed.

Born in London to photographer Elwin Neame and actress Ivy Close, Neame began his career in the film industry as a messenger boy at the U.K.'s famous Elstree Studios, where he first met acclaimed director Alfred Hitchcock.

He became an assistant cameraman on Hitchcock's 1929 movie Blackmail, before working as a cinematographer on 1933 musical comedy Happy.

He turned to directing in 1947 with Take My Life, and he worked with acting legend Alec Guinness on three of his films, The Card (1952), The Horse's Mouth (1958) and Tunes of Glory (1960).

But Neame will perhaps be best remembered for 1972's The Poseidon Adventure, which earned three Academy Award nominations, including Best Supporting Actress for Shelley Winters. The disaster movie, which also starred Gene Hackman and Ernest Borgnine, won in the two other categories it was nominated for - Best Song for The Song from The Poseidon Adventure, also known as The Morning After, and Special Achievement in Visual Effects.

During his lengthy career, Neame also worked with Judy Garland, Dirk Bogarde and Dame Maggie Smith, who won the Best Actress Oscar in 1969 for her role in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.

He is survived by his third wife Donna Friedberg, who he wed in 1993; his son Christopher, a writer/producer, from his first marriage to Beryl Heanly; and his grandson Gareth, who works as a TV producer.

British filmmaker Ronald Neame, whose career dates back to serving as assistant cameraman on the first feature film made with sound in Great Britain, Alfred Hitchcock's "Blackmail," has died, according to reports. He was 99.

No details were available.

His directing credits ranged from "The Poseidon Adventure" (1972) to "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" (1969), for which Maggie Smith won the Oscar for best actress.

As a producer, Neame was involved with three British classics: "Brief Encounter" (1945), "Great Expectations" (1946) and "Oliver Twist" (1948). "Brief Encounter" and "Great Expectations" were the fruition of a production partnership called Cineguild that Neame had formed with David Lean and Anthony Havelock-Allan.

As a screenwriter, Neame earned Oscar nominations for the screenplays of "Brief," adapted from a Noel Coward play, and "Expectations," from Charles Dickens' novel. He shared those distinctions with Lean and Havelock-Allan.

Cineguild broke up in 1947 with a fall-out between Neame and Lean when...