Zoe Kazan, Meryl Streep, Steve Martin, Caitlin Fitzgerald, Hunter Parrish in It’s Complicated Synopsis and film information from the It’s Complicated press release: Jane Adler (two-time Academy Award winner Meryl Streep) is the mother of three grown kids, owns a thriving Santa Barbara bakery/restaurant and has — after a decade of divorce — an amicable relationship with her ex-husband, attorney Jake (Alec Baldwin). But when Jane and Jake find themselves out of town for their son’s college graduation, things start to get complicated. An innocent meal together leads to several bottles of wine, which in turn becomes a laugh-filled evening of memories about their 19-year marriage… and then to an...

Meryl Streep, Steve Martin, Alec Baldwin, Lake Bell in It’s Complicated Written and directed by Nancy Meyers (Something’s Gotta Give, The Holiday), It’s Complicated is an upcoming romantic comedy starring Meryl Streep as a divorced mother of three kids who unexpectedly finds herself torn between an attorney ex-husband (Alec Baldwin) and an architect paramour (Steve Martin). Something’s Gotta Give earned Diane Keaton an Oscar nomination, but Meryl Streep’s all-but-inevitable Oscar nod will most likely come by way of her Julia Child in Julie & Julia. Co-stars Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin, however, if properly pushed in the best supporting actor category, have a better chance of being...

by Ryland Walker Knight —Don't look back.

Joan Bennett, Spring Buyington, Frances Dee, Jean Parker, Katharine Hepburn in Little Women (top); Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck in Remember the Night (bottom) The digitally remastered Remember the Night (1940), written by Preston Sturges, directed by Mitchell Leisen, and starring Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray, is the highlight of Turner Classic Movies‘ Christmas movie series this month. But there are other goodies — or potential goodies — as well. One such is It Happened on 5th Avenue (1947), a minor Allied Artists (ex-Monogram) comedy directed by former WB contractee Roy Del Ruth, and featuring Don DeFore, former RKO star Ann Harding, and Gale Storm. The story centers on a hobo...

by Ryland Walker Knight —Quick, before we think.

Omid Abtahi in Ocean of Pearls Sarab Singh Neelam’s Ocean of Pearls, a drama about traditional (Sikh) values coming into conflict with life in 21st-century North America, opens exclusively in the Los Angeles area on Friday, December 18, at the Laemmle Sunset 5 in West Hollywood. Director Neelam will take part in a q&a following the 7pm shows on Friday, December 18, and Saturday, December 19. According to the Ocean of Pearls press release, Neelam is the first Sikh director in American Cinema to make a film with Sikh lead actors. Written by Neelam and V. Prasad, Ocean of Pearls follows a young Toronto-based Sikh doctor — turban and long hair and all — whose life is upended following [...]

Julie Harris, Claire Bloom in The Haunting (top); The Village People in Can’t Stop the Music (bottom) "Out at the Pictures" at London’s bfi Southbank: Robert Wise’s horror-house classic The Haunting (1963), starring Julie Harris, Claire Bloom, Richard Johnson, and Russ Tamblyn Nancy Walker’s costly box-office disaster Can’t Stop the Music (1980), starring a rollerblading Steve Guttenberg (in some tight, tight shorts that would get him arrested today for indecent underexposure), Valerie Perrine, and The Village People The Haunting is one the best horror movies ever made. Julie Harris is sensational, and Claire Bloom is almost as good in a less showy role — a Lesbian. Now, who’s that knocking...

A digitally restored version of Remember the Night, the 1940 classic written by Preston Sturges, directed by Mitchell Leisen, and starring Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray, is one of Turner Classic Movies‘ Christmas presentations this December. Remember the Night will air several times throughout the month, including on Christmas Eve at 5 p.m. (PT). “It’s one of those quirky twists of fate that a film as exceptional as Remember the Night has been so overlooked when it comes to great Christmas movies,” TCM host Robert Osborne was quoted as saying. “It’s our hope at TCM that our special Christmas Eve showing of this holiday gem, now fully remastered, will help give it a much-deserved new...

Sandra Bullock, the star of the year-end sleeper hit The Blind Side, will receive the Santa Barbara Film Festival’s American Riviera Award on Friday, February 5, 2010. Among Bullock’s credits are Love Potion No. 9, While You Were Sleeping, Practical Magic, Miss Congeniality, The Net, A Time to Kill, 28 Days, Murder By Numbers, The Lake House, the Academy Award winner Crash, the recent hit The Proposal, and the recent flop All About Steve. As per the SBFF’s website, the American Riviera Award, sponsored by Chopin Vodka, "was established to recognize an actor who has had a strong influence on American Cinema." Past recipients include: Mickey Rourke (09), Tommy Lee Jones (08), Forest Whitaker...