I mean, DAME Helen Mirren.  (Photo via Associated Press.  Joke via Oscar co-host, Steve Martin.) Very happy for Kat B and The Hurt Locker. Worst Award of the Evening -  The Best Cinematography Award to Avatar.  It should have gone to the great Robert Richardson (Inglourious Basterds), or if not to him, to Christian Berger who was ... read more »

According the U.K. Guardian (via GreenCine Daily): “Anthony Hopkins and Academy Award front-runner Helen Mirren are in talks to star in an upcoming drama about the life of Alfred Hitchcock. Alfred Hitchcock Presents chronicles the obstacles that the celebrated film-maker had to overcome while making Psycho. Mirren would play Hitchcock’s wife and artistic collaborator.” It ... read more »

English-born Michael Powell, like the American John Ford, was a master at creating idealized filmic universes. A Canterbury Tale (1944), discussed by Erich Kuersten below, shows one such idealized world. Powell’s last feature film, Age of Consent (1969), depicts another, similar in many ways to Donovan’s Reef (1963), one of Ford’s last films. Creating idealized ... read more »