John Schlesinger: Celebs Rumors

Naman Ramachandran Revered Indian actor Shabana Azmi, who plays the pivotal role of Admiral Margaret Parangosky in hugely anticipated mega-budget Paramount Plus series “Halo,” describes her experience on the show as “completely different.”The series is based on Microsoft’s iconic video game “Halo,” a sprawling science fiction epic that involves multiple warring factions and far-flung alien species. Pablo Schreiber plays the central character Master Chief.

Dianne Crittenden, casting director on the original Star Wars who also worked on Pretty Woman, Spider-Man 2 and dozens of other films during a 40-year career, died March 19 at her home in Pacific Palisades. She was 82.

Martin Scorsese was at the Berlinale this week for the first time in a decade. His presence to collect an honorary Golden Bear was a reminder of the festival’s glories of yesteryear.

Wes Anderson‘s latest Roald Dahl adaptation has set a Netflix release date of September 27.Anderson writes and directs the short film, which is a retelling of Dahl’s 1977 story The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar. The director previously helmed Fantastic Mr. Fox, which earned Oscar nominations for Animated Feature and Original Score in 2010.Per the official synopsis, the 39-minute film tells the story of a rich man who, after learning about a guru who can see without using his eyes, attempts to use the skill to cheat at gambling.Ralph Fiennes, Benedict Cumberbatch, Dev Patel, Ben Kingsley, and Richard Ayoade all star in the short film, which will premiere at the Venice Film Festival before arriving on Netflix.“For years I wanted to do Henry Sugar,” Anderson told IndieWire earlier this year.

When Midnight Cowboy came out in 1969, Miami Herald critic John Huddy heralded its arrival with a string of superlatives: “Staggering, shattering, heartbreaking, hilarious, tragic, raw and absurd.”

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Wes Anderson announced in an interview with IndieWire that his upcoming Netflix movie “The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar,” based on Roald Dahl’s 1977 short story collection, will only be 37 minutes long. The film is Anderson’s second Dahl adaptation after “Fantastic Mr. Fox” and stars Benedict Cumberbatch, Ralph Fiennes, Dev Patel and Ben Kingsley. Notably, “Henry Sugar” marks Anderson’s first Netflix original. He told IndieWire that collaborating with the streamer was more out of necessity than personal preference. “In my case it’s a little bit of a weird thing,” Anderson said about partnering with Netflix. “I knew Roald Dahl since before we made ‘Fantastic Mr. Fox.’ I met Lindsay Dahl, his widow, when we were shooting ‘The Royal Tenenbaums’ like 20 years ago. For years I wanted to do ‘Henry Sugar.’ They set this story aside for me because I was friends with them. Lindsay kind of handed the torch to Luke, Dahl’s grandson. So I had this waiting for me. But I really couldn’t figure out the approach. I knew what I liked in the story was the writing of it, Dahl’s words. I couldn’t find the answer, and then suddenly I did. It’s not a feature film. It’s like 37 minutes or something. But by the time I was ready to do it, the Dahl family no longer had the rights at all. They had sold the whole deal to Netflix.”

EXCLUSIVE: Nancy Buirski, director of feature doc Desperate Souls, Dark City and the Legend of Midnight Cowboy, which just premiered at the Venice Film Festival, has signed a development deal with Cineflix Productions.

In the opening scene of Nancy Burski’s “Desperate Souls, Dark City, and the Legend of ‘Midnight Cowboy’,” Jon Voight tells a story. The actor recalls, with vivid intensity, the conclusion of principal photography for “Midnight Cowboy,” John Schlesinger’s 1969 film adaptation of James Leo Herlihy’s novel.

Though you might think Midnight Cowboy’s main claim to fame is one of the most famous improvised lines in screen history (“I’m walkin’ here!”), Nancy Buirski’s fascinating and really quite hypnotic documentary will introduce more thoughts and perspectives on a truly underrated Hollywood milestone. Directed by John Schlesinger in 1969, Buirski’s subject film has the rare distinction of being the only X-rated movie to win the Best Picture Oscar, although that claim is put to the test here, opening up a whole other can of worms in the process.

John Schlesinger decided not to attend the Academy Awards in 1970, even though his film “Midnight Cowboy”had been nominated for Best Picture and he was up for Best Director. On the evening of April 7, 1970, otherwise known as Oscar night, the British director remained in London with his American boyfriend, the photographer Michael Childers.

Deadline that he died on May 26, saying that “we will miss him terribly.” No cause of death was given. Hellman’s widow did not return TheWrap’s request for comment.

Jerome Hellman, the producer of landmark films such as Midnight Cowboy and Coming Home has died. The Oscar winner’s wife, Elizabeth Empleton Hellman, confirmed Hellman’s May 26 passing saying simply, “we will miss him terribly.” He was 92.

Hollywood’s great re-awakening seems at hand. Sort of.

“Midnight Cowboy” — the only X-rated movie to win Academy Awards (Best Picture, Adapted Screenplay and Director) — exposed the world to Manhattan’s underbelly.Michael Childers, who assisted his director boyfriend John Schlesinger on set, remembers the 1968 filming as “a colorful time in New York. There were junkies on doorsteps, and I saw one dead body in a garbage can.

In 1970, director John Schlesinger’s film Midnight Cowboytook home the Oscar for best picture at the 42ndAcademy Awards, beating bigbox office winner Butch Cassidy andbecoming the first X-rated film to win the covetedaward. Two years ago the film starring Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight celebrated its 50th anniversary andnowPulitzer Prize–winning journalist and New York Times-bestselling author Glenn Frankel is ready to examine "the story of a modern classic that, by all accounts, should never have become one in the first place" inhis new book, Shooting Midnight Cowboy:Art, Sex, Loneliness, Liberation, and the Making of a Dark Classic(Farrar, Straus and Giroux).

Walter Bernstein, the resilient screenwriter who drew upon his ignominious experience on the blacklist in 1950s Hollywood to pen the Oscar-nominated script for The Front, has died. He was 101.