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  • RIP: Leonard Kastle, Writer and Director of “The Honeymoon Killers”

    [caption id="attachment_1407" align="alignnone" width="560"]Leonard Kastle stands in front of a poster of The Honeymoon Killers[/caption]

    One-hit writer and director, Leonard Kastle, of his first and only film, “The Honeymoon Killers,” reportedly died May 18 at his home in Westerlo, N.Y., after a brief illness, said Tina Sisson, a friend. He was 82.

    “The Honeymoon Killers,” released in 1970, is described as a “grimly realistic, low-budget, black-and-white crime drama about a lowlife lothario and his overweight nurse lover whose partnership in conning lonely women leads to murder.”

    “The Honeymoon Killers” was based on the true-life story of Martha Beck and Raymond Fernandez, the so-called Lonely Hearts Killers who were executed at New York’s Sing Sing prison in 1951.

    The film’s original director was reportedly a young Martin Scorsese. But Scorsese’s filmmaking pace was too slow and he was soon removed. Industrial filmmaker Donald Volkman then stepped in for a time before Kastle took over as the credited director.

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  • Actress Jane Seymour ‘beyond sorry and appalled’ for Schwarzenegger comment

    Actress Jane Seymour reportedly said to CNN at the red carpet premiere of her new IFC movie “Love Marriage Wedding” on May 17 that she believed “there will be lots of information coming people’s way…I heard about two more [out of wedlock kids] somebody else knows about. I even met someone who knows him well.”

    Yesterday on “The View” Friday, Seymour regretted her remarks, saying, “I’m so beyond sorry and appalled that I found myself even talking on the subject at all.”

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    Love Marriage Wedding is directed by Dermot Mulroney and stars Mandy Moore, Kellan Lutz, James Brolin, Jane Seymour, Jessica Szohr, Michael Weston, Sarah Lieving, Joe Chrest. In the film, Mandy Moore is a marriage counselor whose life as a newly wed married to Kellan Lutz is turned upside down when she discovers her parents’ happy marriage is unexpectedly headed for divorce. Determined to reconcile her parents for their 30th anniversary surprise party she stops at nothing plunging from one compromising situation to another.

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  • RIP: documentary filmmaker Bruce Ricker

    [caption id="attachment_1382" align="alignnone" width="560"]Bruce Ricker (that’s him on the left, with Clint Eastwood and Quentin Tarantino) [/caption]

    Bruce Ricker — a Cambridge, Massachusetts -based director and producer of documentaries whose best-known film, “The Last of the Blue Devils’’ (1979), is a jazz classic — died of pneumonia Friday in Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge.

    He was 68.

    Mr. Ricker specialized in documentaries about jazz, popular music, and film history.

    Read more in Boston Globe

    image via Boston Globe

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  • RIP: Donald Krim, president of’ film distribution company, Kino International

    Donald Krim, a film distributor, president of’ Kino International, a company founded in 1977 and acquired by Mr. Krim in 1978, died on Friday at his home in Manhattan. He was 65.

    Among the films imported by Kino as a result of Mr. Krim’s festival explorations were Percy Adlon’s “Zuckerbaby” (1985), Mitsuo Yanagimachi’s “Himatsuri” (1986) and Michel Khleifi’s “Wedding in Galilee” (1988). Mr. Krim also helped to introduce the work of such art-house stalwarts as the Hong Kong director Wong Kar-wai (“Days of Being Wild,” 1990), the Austrian Michael Haneke (“The Piano Teacher,” 2001) and the Israeli Amos Gitai (“Kadosh,” 1999).

    Three Kino releases received Academy Award nominations in the best foreign-language film category: Joseph Cedar’s “Beaufort” (2007), Scandar Copti’s “Ajami” (2009) and Giorgos Lanthimos’s “Dogtooth” (2010).

    Read more in the NY Times

    image via NYTimes

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  • RIP: Jackie Cooper, Film and Television Actor

    [caption id="attachment_1311" align="alignnone" width="533"] Jackie Cooper in SUPERMAN III (1983)[/caption]

    Jackie Cooper, Emmy-winning director of “M*A*S*H” and other hits, plus known to moviegoers as Perry White, editor of The Daily Planet, in four “Superman” films died on Tuesday in Los Angeles. He was 88.

    His agent, Ronnie Leif, said Mr. Cooper died in a hospital after a short illness.

    Read more in NY Times

     

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  • RIP: Yvette Vickers; B-Movie Actress and Playboy Playmate

    Yvette Vickers, an actress best known as the femme fatale in two late 1950s cult horror films, “Attack of the 50 Foot Woman” and “Attack of the Giant Leeches,” was found dead Wednesday at her Benedict Canyon home. She was 82.

    The body’s mummified state suggests that she could have been dead for close to a year, police said.

    Read more in the LA Times

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  • Filmmaker Zhu Rikun Flees Chinese Capital After Cancellation of Film Festival

    Zhu Rikun filming in Fan Hall

    After announcing that the 8th Beijing Independent Documentary Film Festival has been cancelled, the festival’s artistic director, Zhu Rikun, has reportedly resigned from the festival’s foundation, closed his production house, Fanhall Studio, and fled the Chinese capital.

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  • RIP: ‘Restrepo’ Director and Producer, Tim Hetherington, Killed in Libya

    Tim Hetherington, the director and producer of the Oscar-nominated Afghan war documentary “Restrepo,” was killed while covering the Libyan conflict in the city of Misurata on Wednesday, and three photographers working beside him were wounded, one fatally, when they came under fire. He was 40 years.

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  • Catherine Zeta Jones Quits As Patron of Swansea Bay Film Festival

    Oscar winning actress Catherine Zeta-Jones has quit as patron of the Swansea Bay Film Festival and her image has been removed from the festival’s website. This follows the resignation of actor Michael Sheen, who quit as vice president of the festival last month

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  • RIP: Director, Sidney Lumet

    Sidney Lumet, director of American film classics such as “12 Angry Men,” “Serpico,” “Dog Day Afternoon,” “The Verdict,” “Network” died Saturday morning at his home in Manhattan. He was 86. His stepdaughter, Leslie Gimbel, said the cause was lymphoma.

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  • [UPDATED] Filmmaker, Alan Arkin, to be honored at Florida Film Festival’s 20th Anniversary event

    Academy Award®-winning filmmaker, Alan Arkin, will be honored at the Florida Film Festival’s 20th anniversary event, “An Evening with Alan Arkin,” on April 15. The Oscar® winning, three-time Academy Award® nominated filmmaker will receive the John M. Tiedtke Lifetime Achievement Award and the evening’s event will also include the 45th anniversary screening of The Russians are Coming! The Russians are Coming!, the film that earned Arkin his first Oscar® nomination in 1966.

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  • Spirit Award-winner Patty Jenkins to direct Lifetime TV Project with Jennifer Aniston, Alicia Keys, and Demi Moore

    Patty Jenkins

    Film Independent Spirit Award-winner Patty Jenkins (Monster) along with Jennifer Aniston, Alicia Keys, and Demi Moore have been signed to direct the Lifetime Original Movie Project Five, an anthology of five short films exploring the impact of breast cancer on people’s lives. The film’s fifth director will be announced in the coming weeks.

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