Tyrone Power VII: Popularity If there is a failing in name recognition, I blame Turner Classic Movies for not licensing more Fox films. People who watch Turner think that the only stars worked for MGM, WB, and RKO. In point of fact, Tyrone Power was #5 in the world — above Gable — for the Gone with the Wind year, 1939, and #2 in 1940, and unlike Errol Flynn, who only made a top box-office list once, Power stayed a mega movie star until his death, demanding a percentage of his films’ gross. If one looks at the Top Ten Reviews list, which lists actors according to box office and reviews, Power is listed as the #151st most popular actor. That [...]

Among the romantic leading men of the studio era, Tyrone Power, 20th Century Fox’s top male star from the mid-’30s to the late ’40s, is my favorite. He wasn’t the best actor of the bunch — I’d say that honor belongs to Gregory Peck. He wasn’t the sexiest, either — I’d say that honor belongs to Errol Flynn. Yet, in my view Power was the one who, more than anyone else, from Clark Gable to John Payne, from Laurence Olivier to John Garfield, from John Gilbert to John Wayne, came across as genuinely warm, sensitive, and unaffected. (Ramon Novarro, of whom I’ve written a biography, also possessed most of those qualities; Novarro, however, sometimes failed in the [...]

Well. I suppose that I could always say, "How about one-hundred-and-twenty-five, then?" or some such thing, but at a certain point the list-making has got to stop. And so now to answer the commenters asking "But what about...?" Terrence Malick's...

By Simon Abrams Nimród Antal may not be an innovative director but he is a canny creator of endearingly sincere B-movies. Vacancy in that sense is an important though not a huge step forward from the clunky sentimentality and cloying cliches of his debut film Kontroll...

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced the 10 semi-finalists in the live action short film category of the 2010 Academy Awards. Seventy-one pictures had originally qualified. The 10 films are listed below in alphabetical order: The Door, Juanita Wilson, director, and James Flynn, producer (Octagon Films Ltd.) The Ground Beneath, Rene Hernandez, director, and Kristina Ceyton, producer (Passion Pictures) Hotel, Tim Conrad, director-producer (Oyster Films) Instead of Abracadabra, Patrik Eklund, director, and Mathias Fjellstrom, producer (Direktorn & Fabrikorn) Kavi, Gregg Helvey, director-producer (Gregg Helvey) Miracle Fish, Luke Doolan, director, and Drew Bailey...

Hey London, come out and ask Spike questions tomorrow! It’s going to be a blast! Saturday, December 5 Apple Store Filmmaker Q and A 5.15pm – 6.00pm Regent St, London W1 Hosted by Adam Buxton

The appeal of zines, mini-monographs and small books is hard to explain. There’s something about the intimacy and concreteness of a handheld object that can’t be replicated by art that hangs on the wall or books that roll off the presses in editions of ten thousand. Anyone who’s traded zines...

A perhaps shocking admission awaits you in this week's Topics/Questions/Exercises, only at The Auteurs'.

by Ryland Walker Knight [The Resnais series playing at the PFA this month and next is part of a broader, traveling retrospective with a concurrent run in Chicago at the Gene Siskel Film Center and a proposed stop at the newly renovated Museum of the Moving Image in early 2010.] Parts of...