The Library of Congress has finally revealed their selections of the twenty-five movies added this year to the National Film Registry. Usually announced in December, which recognizes their artistic significance while helping to ensure their preservation for generations to come. These films, which must be at least ten years old, have been named because of their cultural, historic or aesthetic importance and with these selections brings the number of films in the registry to 925.
Some of the films selected include an animated adventure involving a family of super-heroes from Pixar, "The Incredibles"; two musicals that starred Bing Crosby, the holiday classic, "White Christmas" and "High Society", the musical remake of "The Philadelphia Story" with songs by Cole Porter and co-stars, Frank Sinatra and Grace Kelly; "The Big Chill", the comedy-drama about the reunion of college friends after the death of a classmate brings them together; an early silent film with an all-black cast, "Ten Nights in a Barroom"; two films that featured Denzel Washington: the Civil War drama, "Glory" which earned the actor his first Academy Award and "Philadelphia" which teamed him with Tom Hanks in a legal drama about an attorney suing his former law firm for discrimination over firing him for being a gay man with HIV; Amy Heckerling's quintessential coming-of-age comedy, "Clueless", loosely based on Jane Austen's novel, "Emma"; "Sparrows", a silent drama that starred one of the first movie stars, Mary Pickford that had become even more powerful at this point by moving into producing her films and "Inception", Christopher Nolan's twisty, sci-fi thriller that featured an all-star cast lead by Leonardo DiCaprio.
Turner Classic Movies will screen a selection of these inductees on March 19th with TCM host and film historian, Jacqueline Stewart, who also happens to be chair of the National Film Preservation Board, will introduce the films.
Here is the complete list of the recent entries into the 2025 National Film Registry:
"The Tramp and the Dog" (1896)
"The Oath of the Sword" (1914)
"The Maid of McMillan" (1916)
"The Lady" (1925)
"Sparrows" (1926)
"Ten Nights in a Barroom" (1926)
"White Christmas" (1954)
"High Society" (1956)
"Brooklyn Bridge" (1981)
"Say Amen, Somebody" (1982)
"The Thing" (1982)
"The Big Chill" (1983)
"The Karate Kid" (1984)
"Glory" (1989)
"Philadelphia" (1993)
"Before Sunrise" (1995)
"Clueless" (1995)
"The Truman Show" (1998)
"Frida" (2002)
"The Hours" (2002)
"The Incredibles" (2004)
"The Wrecking Crew" (2008)
"Inception" (2010)
"The Loving Story" (2011)
"The Grand Budapest Hotel" (2014)
Showing posts with label Christopher Nolan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Christopher Nolan. Show all posts
Friday, January 30, 2026
Friday, November 3, 2017
2017 AFI FILM FESTIVAL PRESENTED BY AUDI
This year marks the fiftieth anniversary since the creation of the American Film Institute which was designed to save America’s precious motion picture heritage. After it was discovered in 1967 that less than 10% of American films were being properly preserved for future generations, AFI teamed with the Library of Congress to archive and store these important films. To date, 37,000 motion pictures are now safely preserved in the AFI Collection at the Library of Congress.
The American Film Institute later created a film festival to showcase exciting new films and this year's AFI Film Fest presented by Audi is set to begin on November 9th and concluding on November 16th. The event will be held once again at the TCL Chinese Theatres and the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood.
"Mudbound", a historical period drama co-written and directed by Dee Rees, will open this year's AFI Fest at the TCL Chinese Theatre. The film tells the story of two families following the end of World War II living in the rural South who struggle against financial hardships and racial tensions of the day. Carey Mulligan, Garrett Hedlund, Jason Mitchell, Jason Clarke, Jonathan Banks, Mary J. Blige and Rob Morgan star.
There are three Centerpiece Screenings: "Call Me By Your Name" from Italian filmmaker, Luca Guadagnino, "The Disaster Artist" by star and director, James Franco and "Hostiles", the latest from director, Scott Cooper.
A tribute to the Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker, Errol Morris ("The Thin Blue Line", "The Fog of War", "A Brief History of Time") will be held on November 11th along with a screening of his latest, "Wormwood", a Netflix six-part drama series.
UPDATE: Due to the disturbing allegations against actor Kevin Spacey, "All The Money In The World" has been cancelled as the Closing Night film. As for the film, in a most unusual move Christopher Plummer has been hired to re-film Spacey's role as J. Paul Getty with the plan to still release the film theatrically on December 22nd.
"Molly's Game", the feature directing debut by writer, Aaron Sorkin has been selected for the Closing Night Gala on November 16th. Based on a true story, Jessica Chastain stars as Molly Bloom who ran exclusive poker games for power players for years before getting busted by the FBI due to her unknowingly having the Russian mob playing at her club. Idris Elba plays her defense lawyer and the cast also includes Kevin Costner, Michael Cera, Chris O’Dowd and Bill Camp.
Two Special Presentations include a conversation with British director Christopher Nolan who is hot right now following his surprise summer hit, the WWII drama, "Dunkirk" and the eighty-nine year old French filmmaker, Agnes Varda will discuss her impressive career following a screening of her latest film, "Faces Places". Ms Varda will also be receiving an honorary Oscar on November 11th.
And for the first time, AFI Fest will be holding an annual retrospective to spotlight an important filmmaker of global significance and this year will be Robert Altman. The late writer/director will have twelve of his most essential films screened: "M*A*S*H" (1970), "McCabe & Mrs. Miller" (1971), "The Long Goodbye" (1972), "California Split" (1973), "Nashville" (1975), "3 Women" (1977), "Vincent & Theo" (1990), "The Player" (1992), "Short Cuts" (1993), "Kansas City" (1996), "Godford Park" (2001) and "A Prairie Home Companion" (2006). There will be a discussion following each screening and talent in attendance will be later announced.
There is much more with the best of new features, documentaries, shorts and world cinema to be screened throughout the eight day fest. Tickets for most screenings are free and Express passes are available for purchase. For the complete list of films, to get tickets and additional information, please click below:
AFI Film Fest 2017
Tuesday, August 1, 2017
ALL TEN CHRISTOPHER NOLAN FILMS RANKED
"Dunkirk", the recent WW II drama from filmmaker, Christopher Nolan, has surprised everyone as it has unexpectedly managed to top the U.S. box-office chart for a second week in a row. This well-reviewed film has so far amassed over two hundred million dollars worldwide. I don't know why this is so shocking as I seem to recall twenty years ago there was another very expensive period drama about a couple falling in love on a doomed ocean liner that people said would never find a big audience.
An audience for this big-budgeted film did appear to be limited due to Americans having little knowledge of this event, the rescue of almost half a million trapped British and Allied soldiers on the shores of Dunkirk, a French fishing village, and that millennials have displayed little interest in movies set in the past. However, Mr Nolan had faith and a vision, using a non-linear narrative to create a tense, disturbing yet moving drama that covers three different locations and periods of time. It's a remarkable achievement and brilliant example of how cinema can be elevated to an art form.
While Nolan is best known for "The Dark Knight" trilogy, he began his career more modestly with the micro-budgeted, 1998 crime-drama, "Following" and his breakthrough hit, "Memento", a psychological thriller from 2000. The forty-seven year old director has surprisingly only made ten films to date and Vulture has decided to evaluate his impressive cinematic output so far (all receiving rave reviews and none have lost money), ranking them from not-as-successful to outstanding.
Click below to read:
The 10 Films of Christopher Nolan Ranked
Saturday, August 14, 2010
INCEPTION (2010)
Where & When: The Landmark, West Los Angeles, CA. August 2, 2010 7:05PM
"Inception" began as an idea that filmmaker, Christopher Nolan had been working on for a number of years. And following the worldwide success of "The Dark Knight", his highly entertaining yet slightly over praised Batman reboot, which earned Warner Bros. a crazy amount of cash, the studio was more than willing to take a chance (financially speaking) on Mr. Nolan's complicated story.
Leonardo DiCaprio plays Dom Cobb, who is on a mission to extract information from a person's mind by infiltrating their dreams. This is done by the extractors sleeping in close proximity to their target and using a device that will allow them to invade the victim's dream. Dom's partner, Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is with him as they try to steal information from Saito (Ken Wantanabe), a wealthy businessman.
They are caught but it turns out to be a test. Saito wants to hire these men for a job he wants them to try. He wants them to plant an idea deep inside the subconscious of someone while they sleep, which is called inception but he is doubtful it can be done. Dom tells him that inception can be implemented because he has done it. The mark is Robert Fischer (Cillian Murphy), the son of Saito's business rival, Maurice (Pete Postlethwaite) who is terminally ill. The plan is to plant the idea inside of Robert to break up his father's company so that it does not become a monopoly and threaten Saito's business.
Dom assembles a team to help him with this job: Yusef (Dileep Rao), a chemist who develops heavy sedatives, Eames (Tom Hardy) who has the ability to alter his appearance while in a dream and Ariadne (Ellen Page) a college student who is able to actively build a dream world during the actual dream. Although he has no prior experience, Saito insists on particiating on this job since he is paying for it.
After Maurice Fischer passes away in Sydney, the team arranges to get on Robert's flight back to Los Angeles. They begin the operation during the flight but things don't go according to plan. While in Robert's dream, they attempt to kidnap him but an unplanned armed battle with Robert's mental defenses occurs and Saito gets badly injured in the process. Normally, to end Saito's pain he would have to "die" in the dream to awaken but because of the power of the sedatives used, Saito might not wake up normally but may be put into a type of limbo.
To complicate things further, Dom has a secret involving his wife, Mal (Marion Cotillard) who he may or may not have been responsible for her death, whose ghost keeps appearing at inopportune times during the dream which could compromise the entire mission.
There is still much more that goes on in "Inception" that I won't reveal because I don't want to give too much away. But to be perfectly honest, I'm not so sure I could explain all of the plot anyway. I like to think of myself as a fairly intelligent person but I have to admit that I was having a little difficulty following this film. Now, I understood the main ideas of "Inception" but all of this dream, inside of a dream, inside another dream was just too much mumbo-jumbo for my taste.
I had read one idea somewhere that for older audience members (like myself), "Inception" was more of a challenge to understand than for younger ones because they are more easily able to understand this type of film with dream worlds and multiple storylines because of video games, which I completely agree with this theory. At times during the film, I felt completely lost. Perhaps, as many people have told me, I need to see "Inception" again to get a better idea of what is going on. That may probably be true but the problem is I just can't imagine sitting through this film again for another two and a half hours so that I might have a better grasp of what exactly is going on in this story.
Now, what I really loved about "Inception" were the visuals and this is the only reason why I didn't completely hate this film. The visual effects are done with a minimal amount of computer-generation as possible and are completely breathtaking and innovative. Mr. Nolan has used his long-time team that include cinematographer, Wally Pfister, visual effects supervisor, Paul J. Franklin and editor, Lee Smith who once again helped him create another stunning cinematic vision. I'm very sure you will see this film sweeping the technical awards at next year's Oscars.
I also enjoyed how Mr. Nolan populated "Inception" with actors who are not normally cast in this type of film like Page and Gordon-Levitt, who are more often elevating indie films than appearing in big-budget Hollywood movies. While "Inception" is very far from your typical summer fare, which in itself is cause for celebration, I think these actors certainly help in giving the film a sense of cool intelligence which maybe was Mr. Nolan's intent. But their presence wasn't enough to help me better understand what was going on. While the film's dazzling visuals made me hot, the convoluted plot left me cold, so I left the theater with an overall feeling of just lukewarm about "Inception".
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)