Film Foundation

A 20-year-old film foundation in Thousand Oaks has been awarded a $10,000 grant from the California Council for the Humanities to produce a film about an Armenian family's immigration to America. The Armenian Film Foundation is one of 18 nonprofit organizations throughout the state to share a total of $165,000 in grant money for public humanities projects, said Patrice Garrett, a council spokeswoman.

Paul Thomas Anderson's highly anticipated “The Master” screened for the second time publicly last night in Chicago at a hastily arranged benefit for the nonprofit Film Foundation. And the immediate reactions - rapture, admiration, befuddlement - mirrored those following the film's pop-up presentation at Santa Monica's Aero Theatre on Aug. 3. Then again, as A.V. Club film critic Scott Tobias, who saw the movie at Chicago's Music Box last night, tweeted: “One more thing about 'The Master:' It's comically resistant to instant reaction.

Thank you to Betsy Sharkey for her tribute to Patrick Swayze ["Dignity More Than a Role for Swayze," Sept. 15]. As we watched his personal struggle unfold in a very public way, the decency and dignity she so eloquently characterized gave meaning to the terrifying yet unifying fact of cancer. His journey is shared by so many others, and his dignity is reflected in the efforts of doctors, nurses, research scientists, fundraisers, activists, healers, families and patients who deal with cancer every day. My thanks to Patrick, his family and those who treated and loved him for maintaining a strong spirit.

Perhaps Ricky Gervais penned the script to the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn. 's installation luncheon Thursday afternoon at the Beverly Hilton because everyone seemed to be one-upping each other with quips and witty asides. Besides introducing the board of the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn., the organization behind the Golden Globe Awards, the main purpose of the gathering was for the HFPA to award $1.2 million in grants to 40 arts organizations. That money comes from the license fee the group receives from the NBC telecast of the Golden Globe Awards every January.

Eight top filmmakers--Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen, Francis Coppola, Stanley Kubrick, George Lucas, Sydney Pollack, Robert Redford and Steven Spielberg--announced Tuesday the creation of the Film Foundation, dedicated to ensuring the survival of the American film heritage.

A long-running Oscar-night charity gala suffered a blow last week when movie director Martin Scorsese's Film Foundation abruptly pulled out as the beneficiary after being questioned about the event by California law enforcement officials. The "Night of 100 Stars," in its 14th year, is set for Feb. 29 at the Beverly Hills Hotel. The black-tie gala, organized by former sports agent Norby Walters, has become a popular stop for second-tier celebrities.

Marty's kids were everywhere. Martin Scorsese called and they came to support his burgeoning campaign to save L.A.'s endangered species--classic films. "If Marty was having a slide show in malaria-infested swampland--and a bad slide show--I'd show up," said Michael Keaton, who emceed Thursday's gala dinner at the vintage El Rey Theater. The event to raise funds for film preservation was hosted by the American Movie Classics cable channel, which joined forces with Scorsese's Film Foundation.

The standard line on the career of Luchino Visconti is that he went from being one of the founding fathers of Italian neorealism to a master orchestrator of sumptuous historical melodramas. This shift is often viewed as a contradiction ? one of several that defined Visconti, a bisexual Marxist aristocrat ? and some even called it a betrayal, a turn from the present-day, working-class environments in which such early films as "La Terra Trema" were set to the titled, moneyed world of the past from which he came.

At the annual Golden Globe Awards, the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn. gives away gold-and-marble statuettes. At its annual summer luncheon Tuesday, the group gave away $1.2 million in grants to arts organizations nationwide. Warren Beatty, Rose McGowan, Eva Longoria Parker and Dylan McDermott were among the stars who joined association President Philip Berk at the Beverly Hills Hotel to present grants to 29 film schools and nonprofit groups. The private, untelevised luncheon drew scads of celebrities and industry execs, who schmoozed over Champagne and fine food.

Before Tuesday evening's premiere screening of the late Stanley Kubrick's final film, "Eyes Wide Shut," Warner Bros. Co-Chairmen Bob Daly and Terry Semel presented a check for $100,000 to the Film Foundation to directors Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola and Sydney Pollack, who, along with Kubrick, Woody Allen, George Lucas and Robert Redford, in 1990 co-founded the foundation, which is dedicated to film preservation.

The latest invaluable release from the National Film Preservation Foundation, the three-disc boxed set "Treasures 5: The West, 1898-1938," deals not just with the evolution of the western but also with the idea of the West, as it was reflected and shaped in the early years of cinema. The western is perhaps the most American of genres, a historic symbol of Hollywood supremacy and still among the most durable of narrative templates, as recent movies as different as "Meek's Cutoff" and "True Grit" have shown.

The standard line on the career of Luchino Visconti is that he went from being one of the founding fathers of Italian neorealism to a master orchestrator of sumptuous historical melodramas. This shift is often viewed as a contradiction ? one of several that defined Visconti, a bisexual Marxist aristocrat ? and some even called it a betrayal, a turn from the present-day, working-class environments in which such early films as "La Terra Trema" were set to the titled, moneyed world of the past from which he came.

The National Film Preservation Foundation and the New Zealand Film Archive on Monday plan to announce the formation of a partnership to preserve and make available a collection of 75 silent films that have been unavailable for decades. All of these rare films, made in the U.S., are on highly volatile, hazardous nitrate stock. The crown jewel of the collection is "Upstream," a "lost" John Ford silent from 1927 about a romance between a Shakespearean actor and a girl from a knife-throwing act. Only 15% of the silent films made by Ford, who won four Oscars, including for "The Grapes of Wrath" and "How Green Was My Valley," survive.

"Everyone Else," the second feature film written and directed by German filmmaker Maren Ade, is, among other things, a very apt demonstration of the fact that you can't judge a film by its synopsis. The particulars of said synopsis sound mighty familiar: The film is nominally about a young couple, seemingly secure in certain aspects of their compatibility (they have a few pet names for each other) but also relatively new to each other, and how their bond is tested on a vacation.

Samuel Fuller was a director with a signature style: blunt verging on brutal, partial to shock cuts and mega close-ups. As a screenwriter, this former crime reporter was no less distinctive, favoring hot-button issues and hard-boiled repartee. A superb new seven-disc set, "The Samuel Fuller Collection" ($79.95, Sony, out Tuesday), which contains two films written and directed by Fuller and five earlier efforts on which he has a writing or story credit, is an intriguing auteurist study that shows the Fuller personality both as the driving force of a film and as an (often powerful)

Thank you to Betsy Sharkey for her tribute to Patrick Swayze ["Dignity More Than a Role for Swayze," Sept. 15]. As we watched his personal struggle unfold in a very public way, the decency and dignity she so eloquently characterized gave meaning to the terrifying yet unifying fact of cancer. His journey is shared by so many others, and his dignity is reflected in the efforts of doctors, nurses, research scientists, fundraisers, activists, healers, families and patients who deal with cancer every day. My thanks to Patrick, his family and those who treated and loved him for maintaining a strong spirit.

Martin Scorsese is more than just an influential, Oscar-winning filmmaker with such credits as "The Departed," "The Aviator," "Raging Bull" and "Taxi Driver." He's also a cineaste with an encyclopedic knowledge of film and is perhaps among the most ardent and vocal advocates for film preservation and restoration. In 1990, Scorsese, along with the late Robert Altman, Sydney Pollack and Stanley Kubrick, as well as Woody Allen, Francis Ford Coppola, Clint Eastwood, George Lucas, Robert Redford and Steven Spielberg, created the nonprofit organization the Film Foundation.

These days, Larry Flynt is thanking his lucky porn stars for some of his best customers--feminists. "I think the greatest thing that came from the women's liberation movement was the idea that sex is OK," the hustler behind Hustler told us. The next greatest thing was the formation of armies of women buying Flynt's sex stuff. When he launched his hard-core magazine in the hard-line '70s, a mere 3% of his, ahem, readers were women. Now it's 20%.

Martin Scorsese is more than just an influential, Oscar-winning filmmaker with such credits as "The Departed," "The Aviator," "Raging Bull" and "Taxi Driver." He's also a cineaste with an encyclopedic knowledge of film and is perhaps among the most ardent and vocal advocates for film preservation and restoration. In 1990, Scorsese, along with the late Robert Altman, Sydney Pollack and Stanley Kubrick, as well as Woody Allen, Francis Ford Coppola, Clint Eastwood, George Lucas, Robert Redford and Steven Spielberg, created the nonprofit organization the Film Foundation.

At the annual Golden Globe Awards, the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn. gives away gold-and-marble statuettes. At its annual summer luncheon Tuesday, the group gave away $1.2 million in grants to arts organizations nationwide. Warren Beatty, Rose McGowan, Eva Longoria Parker and Dylan McDermott were among the stars who joined association President Philip Berk at the Beverly Hills Hotel to present grants to 29 film schools and nonprofit groups. The private, untelevised luncheon drew scads of celebrities and industry execs, who schmoozed over Champagne and fine food.