So I guess this means Franco doesn’t have much of a chance in nabbing a nomination for 127 Hours…

(via NY Times)

Irvin Kershner, director of the only episode of Star Wars worth watching— Empire Strikes Back— has passed away at age 87 after a long illness.

(via Coming Soon and AFP)

Just a friendly reminder, Restrepo, the documentary film that won the Grand Jury prize at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, makes its television debut on The National Geographic Channel.

I urge everyone to see it. It might not have the same gut wrenching impact it did in the theaters, but it truly is one of the best documentaries made.

It’s also on the short list for the 2010 Best Documentary Oscar nominations.

Restrepo premieres tonight at 9PM on the National Geographic Channel.

Additionally, the filmmakers posted a fourteen minute video about Sergeant Sal Giunta, the only living solider to receive the Medal of Honor.

Leslie Nielsen has passed away, due to complications from pneumonia. He was 84.

For me, I will always remember him as Det. Frank Drebin from The Naked Gun films. Other people, much younger than I, will unfortunately remember him as Mr. Magoo… not one of his finest moments.

Anyway, here’s one of the funniest scene from the first Naked Gun movie. Enjoy.

When AMPAS announced that famed French New Wave director, Jean-Luc Godard was set to receive an honorary Oscar for his long and influential career, I certainly wasn’t expecting the choice to face any backlash.

Certainly, Godard is one of the most respected directors in all of film and his movies have greatly influenced an entire generation of film directors.

Turns out, Ol’ Jean-Luc is a bit of an anti-Semite:

In one of the more striking such statements, in a 1985 interview in Le Matin quoted in Richard Brody’s 2008 biography, Mr. Godard spoke of the film industry as being bound up in Jewish usury. “What I find interesting in the cinema is that, from the beginning, there is the idea of debt,” he is quoted as saying. “The real producer is, all the same, the image of the Central European Jew.”

Really, the old cliché that the Jews are running Hollywood is starting to get tired. But I digress— should the personal views of an artist prevent the artist from receiving an industry award? After all, the Oscar is honoring his body of work, not the personal views of Godard.

But then there is this bit:

…a much-discussed sequence in the 1976 documentary “Here and There,” about the lives of two families, one French and one Palestinian. In it, alternating images of Golda Meir and Adolf Hitler have suggested to some that Mr. Godard, the narrator and one of the directors of the film, sets them up as equivalents.

Whoops.

So the question you now have to ask yourself is this: How can you honor the body of work of Godard when “Here and There” is part of that body of work? You can give Godard the benefit of the doubt, and claim that his editing decision was strictly for visual effect. But given the images used, it’s hard to deny that Godard is attempting to make a political (and maybe even anti-Semitic) statement.

When the academy announced that Godard (as well as Coppola and actor Eli Wallach) will be receiving honorary Oscars, I was thrilled. While not a fan of French New Wave, I do consider the movement and its achievements important to film as a whole.

But after reading this article, I now view Godard in a different light and I’m on the fence on whether or not he should receive the award.

[via: NY Times]

Empire Magazine has grabbed an exclusive first look at Peter Jackson and Steven Spielberg’s newest film, “The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn.”

…and it looks AWESOME.

Produced and directed by Peter Jackson and Steven Spielberg with a script written by Doctor Who’s Steven Moffat.

Set to be released in October of 2011… the only question I have is, can I pre-order my tickets now?