Latest news with #ScentofaWoman
Hindustan Times
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Hindustan Times
Spike Lee believes Denzel Washington, not Al Pacino, deserved an Oscar in 1993: ‘No disrespect to my brother'
Filmmaker Spike Lee, who premiered his new film Highest 2 Lowest at the Cannes Film Festival, believes his friend and frequent collaborator Denzel Washington deserved an Oscar for his role in Malcolm X over Al Pacino for Scent of a Woman. (Also Read: 'Don't put your hands on me': Furious Denzel Washington lashes out at photographer on Cannes red carpet in ugly spat) Directed by Lee, Malcolm X was released in 1992 and featured Denzel as African-American activist Malcolm X, an influential civil rights activist who was assassinated at the age of 39 in 1965. Lee said the actor deserved an Academy Award for his performance in 1993 than Al Pacino, who won the Best Actor award for his role in the film Scent of a Woman. "Malcolm X, what he did with that film was amazing. And no disrespect to my brother Al Pacino, I love him. But Denzel, in my opinion, should have won," Lee said at the Cannes press conference. Washington eventually won the Best Actor Oscar for his role in Training Day (2001). The 68-year-old filmmaker, however, said he doesn't measure success in awards. "With these awards, it's like basketball, where the ref blows a call and you have to make a call. So the make a call I think was Training Day, which he won an Oscar for. But we don't do our work for awards, which are nice, but it's the work that is going to stand above all awards," he said. Lee's Highest 2 Lowest is a modern take on Akira Kurosawa's High and Low and stars Denzel as a music executive, and has generated a lot of buzz at the Cannes Film Festival, where it screened out of competition. Highest 2 Lowest marks the fifth collaboration between Lee and Denzel. They have previously collaborated on Mo' Better Blues (1990), Malcom X, He Got Game (1998) and Inside Man (2006).
Hindustan Times
02-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Hindustan Times
Hollywood's most prolific director, with 50 films, doesn't even exist; yet directed Brad Pitt, got Al Pacino an Oscar
'Who is Alan Smithee' can be an interesting trivia question for film buffs. The name has been used in the credits of Hollywood films as a director more time than any other. Even prolific filmmakers like Alfred Hitchcock and Steven Spielberg do not have as many credits as a director as dear old Alan. However, what complicates matters for Alan's legacy is the small matter that he does not exist. Alan Smithee, also spelt Allen Smithee, is the official pseudonym used by film directors, largely in America, when they want to disown their projects. The name was coined by the Directors Guild of America (DGA) in 1968. Since then, it has been used by several directors in 50 films. Whenever a director feels they haven't had the desired creative control over the film and they would not want their name associated with the final product, they can request DGA to allow the use of Alan Smithee. The DGA reserves the final decision once the filmmaker can prove to the satisfaction of a guild panel that they had not been able to exercise creative control over a film. The director is not allowed to discuss in public why they disowned their film. The pseudonym was originally created for a Western titled Death of a Gunfighter. The lead actor replaced director Robert Totten with Don Siegel mid-shoot. Siegel argued that he had only shot one-fourth of the film and that the star had had creative control. Since he did not want the credit, DGA invented Alan Smithee. Surprisingly, the film received rave reviews with Roger Ebert writing, "Director Allen Smithee, a name I'm not familiar with, allows his story to unfold naturally." The name was then retroactively added to Burt Reynolds' 1968 hit Fade In. The DGA then decided to use the name in similar situations thereafter. In the 70s and 80s, Alan Smithee stepped in for disgruntled directors several times. In 1984, David Lynch disowned the extended TV version of his classic, Dune, and Alan Smithee's name was featured as the director. In 1992, Martin Brest disowned a cut in-flight version of his acclaimed film, Scent of a Woman, and again, Smithee stepped up. Al Pacino won the Best Actor Oscar for his role in the film. Three years later, Michael Mann disowned the TV cut of his Pacino and Robert de Niro-starrer Heat, and Alan Smithee took over. Over the years, Smithee 'directed' several other big stars like Brad Pitt in Meet Joe Black, Russell Crowe in The Insider, and Jeremy Renner in National Lampoon's Senior Trip. Smithee also filled in for dissatisfied directors in episodes of many TV shows and music videos. After the turn of the century, as internet proliferation made it impossible to keep a director's involvement secret, Alan Smithee's 'career' slowed down and then halted. The last film that made use of the pseudonym was the 2015 horror film Old 37.
Daily Mirror
25-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
Al Pacino admits 'it's a miracle' he's still alive after gang pals died at 30 from heroin
Legendary Hollywood icon Al Pacino shared an indepth look into his life where he opened up about his chilhood struggles and death of his close friends growing up After a career spanning 50 years, legendary Godfather actor Al Pacino will be thanking his lucky stars at turning 85 today. The kid from the wrong side of the tracks calls his entire life a "moon shot" – having survived a tough childhood in the Bronx, where three of his closest gang friends ended up "dead by 30 from heroin". After he began drinking at nine, he says even surviving the 1940s was a miracle - crediting his mum for his longevity, after she banned him from roaming the streets after dark with hoods. He says: "I loathed her at the time. But I'm still here because of my mother. I never thanked her for… keeping me away from the path that led to delinquency, danger and violence, to the needle that killed Petey, Cliffy and Bruce." The method actor's awards shelf boasts an Oscar for Scent of a Woman in 1992, four Golden Globes, three Tonys and two Emmys, but his path to success from street kid to one of the greatest actors of all time is the very stuff of Hollywood epics. The star, who has never married, shares daughter Julie Marie, 34, with acting coach Jan Tarrant, and twins Anton and Olivia, 22, with Beverly D'Angelo. Then, in 2023, Pacino shocked Hollywood by becoming a father for the fourth time to son, Roman, with ex partner Noor Alfallah, 31. Calling parenthood a "mini miracle", the doting father says he wrote his memoir, Sonny Boy, to share his extraordinary life story with his brood. Alfredo James Pacino was born the only child of Italian immigrants in New York's East Harlem ghetto, on April 25, 1940. Abandoned by his dad Salvatore Pacino, when he was just two-years-old, Pacino - nicknamed Sonny Boy after an Al Jolson song - and his mum, Rose, lived in a series of cheap furnished rooms, before moving into her parents' tiny South Bronx tenement apartment. "I slept between my grandparents," says Pacino, recalling the poverty. "I never had playmates in our apartment and we didn't have television." Instead, his pretty factory worker mum smuggled him into the movies, where they found a bit of glamour to lift their bleak lives. "I learned at an early age to make friends with my imagination," he recalls. His father barely paid any support and went off to war – not coming back into his son's life until he'd remarried, going on to have three daughters. Too late to save their relationship. Pacino says, simply: "He was absent." But a chance conversation with his father's relatives revealed a family secret about his mother's fragile mental health which left him reeling. "When I was a young actor, the Pacinos came backstage to see me," he recalls. "It came out that I had been taken away from my mother for eight months while my father was at war and sent to live with my father's mother." Pacino called his grandmother Josephine "a gift from God" and one the "first of the lifesavers" for saving him from the care system and keeping him out of the gutters. His mother's father, James, a plasterer, had come, possibly illegally, to New York from a Sicilian town, Corleone. "He was the first real father figure I had," says Pacino. His granny, Kate, was a great storyteller, and he would sit with her and listen as she peeled potatoes. "I'd eat the skins raw – I loved the way they tasted." One day, aged six, while out playing in the street, he saw an ambulance pull up. "Coming out of the doors on a stretcher was my mother. She had attempted suicide," he says. While his mother was in a psychiatric hospital, Pacino climbed tenement rooftops and smoked cigarettes in alleys with his street gang. "Every day was an adventure with Cliffy, Bruce and Petey," he says. But the love he received at home saved him from a downward spiral. "I think that made the difference. I made it out alive, they didn't," he reflects. As a 10-year-old toughie, Pacino says he was like 'a cat with many more than nine lives' the way he cheated death – from falling through ice in the freezing Bronx river to impaling his groin on a fence. "I remember my mother, aunt and grandmother poking my penis in a panic," he says. "But it remained attached, along with the trauma." Recalling the wild freedom of opening hydrants on hot summer days and fishing for lost dimes in street grates, he says: "If we wanted food, we'd steal it. We never paid for anything." Athletic Pacino got into sport. "It was like I lived two lives – my life with the gang, and the guys I played baseball with," he writes. Meanwhile, his mother got engaged again, but was crushed after being dumped. "Doctors said she had anxiety neurosis, and she needed costly electroshock treatment and barbiturates," the actor shares. At New York's High School of Performing Arts, Pacino's talent was being noticed. "A guy came up to me after a show and said, "Hey kid, you're going to be the next Marlon Brando." He had to leave at 16 and took odd jobs as an errand boy, removals and even bus boy. "They caught me eating leftovers off the tables – that's how hungry I was," he admits. Seeing acting as an escape route from poverty, he enrolled in acting classes, where he met fellow student Martin Sheen. Dreaming of being a stage actor, Pacino would recite Shakespeare aloud in vacant lots. "Marty moved in with me so we could split the rent," he says, adding they both worked cleaning toilets. Aged 22, Pacino was performing in off-Broadway productions to mixed reviews. Then the news came that his mother was sick and he rushed to see her. "I was too late. She had died choking on her own pills." Within a year, he also lost his beloved grandfather and used alcohol and pills to dull the pain. "It was my lowest point," he admits. "But drinking saved my life. I was able to self-medicate." At 26, he learned his famous method acting skills from Lee Strasberg's Actors' Studio in New York, before going to Boston to do rep theatre and appeared in his screen debut in TV cop drama N.Y.P.D. with first love Jill Clayburgh. "My relationship with the director who would change my life began oddly," he writes. "Frances Ford Coppola offered me a part in a film that never got made. "Months later, I got a call from Francis who was going to be directing The Godfather. He offered me the role of Michael Corleone. This was a hundred-to-million-to-one-shot." Coppola got his way and Pacino met the love of his life, Diane Keaton, on the set of The Godfather. "We just hit it off," he says. "She was easy to talk to and funny." He would also go on to have love affairs with Tuesday Weld while working on his next film Serpico, and Kathleen Quinlan during Scarface in the 1980s. When Pacino finally met Marlon Brando - the man he'd been compared to years earlier - he was mesmerised. "When I had lunch with Marlon Brando he was eating chicken cacciatore with his hands. His hands were full of red sauce," he says. The first time Pacino ever visited his home country Sicily was to shoot the wedding scene in the gangster epic. "Francis asked me to speak to extras in the scene, dance the waltz with my bride, then drive off with her," he says. "I told him, 'I don't speak Italian, I don't know how to waltz… and I can't drive'!" But the time the film hit cinemas in 1972, directors were falling over themselves to have Pacino play their leading tough guys. The stratospheric rise to fame sent him hurtling for the drink and drugs again. But having seen what happened to his childhood friends, the star has been sober since 1977. After making over 70 films, including critically acclaimed crime movies like Serpico (1973) and Scarface (1983), two Godfather sequels,Carlito's Way (1993), Heat (1995) and Donnie Brasco (1997), still a stage actor at heart, Pacino will be back next year starring in the film adaptation of King Lear. Miraculously surviving his brush with death with Covid in 2020, he tells how he remembers waking up. "I didn't have a pulse. Everybody thought I was dead. I opened my eyes and they said, "He's back. He's here'" he says. Those "lifesavers" from childhood must still be looking out for their kid from the Bronx.
Forbes
08-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
After Nearly A Century, New York's Pierre Hotel Gets The Restaurant It Deserves
New York is in the throes of a hotel restaurant renaissance, with the opening of Café Carmellini in the Fifth Avenue Hotel, The Otter in The Manner, Brass in The Evelyn, Vestry in the Dominick and others. By a renaissance I mean that hotel dining rooms of the 19th and early 20th centuries like the original Ritz- Carlton, The Plaza, the Waldorf-Astoria and the St. Regis were once held in the highest esteem. But by the 1950s, the explosion of exciting, free-standing restaurants of individual excellence helped put the kibosh on impersonal hotel dining rooms as dreary alternatives. So, I'm delighted to find so many new hotels are opening so many wonderful restaurants run by top chefs all over town, as I am with the revivification of others that have brought in new chefs and new concepts. The Pierre Hotel is an exemplar of the latter, with has long been one of the city's most historic and elegant spots, opening in 1930 on Fifth Avenue across from Central Park. For decades its Café Pierre, with its trompe l'oeuil cloudy sky ceiling by Valerian Rybar, was a major watering hole for New York society; Al Pacino's tango scene in the film Scent of a Woman was shot in The Pierre's Cotillion Room. Since 2005 under the control of the Taj Group, the space that is now Perrine has had what seems like a shift of focus every few years or so, none successful: at one point it was a snooty offshoot of London's Le Caprice, then an Italian trattoria named Sirio managed by the Maccioni family, who hired Vincent Garofalo as executive chef. There was a brief tilt towards modern Indian cuisine. Now, with Garofalo back in the kitchen, the menu reflects a balance of contemporary American, French and Italian dishes. You enter through shining brass doors into a long dining room as sleek as ever, with a classy bar up front, and done in tones of gray, black, white and silver to give it a sophisticated ambiance that is very much New York in spirit, like the white bow on a Tiffany box. The fine lighting, thick tablecloths, settings and stemware are first class, and the waitstaff, since my last visit a few years back, is now measurably improved in its amiable professionalism. The wine list, which is quite modest, has not. Lobster bisque at Perrine Perrine Perrine's clientele ranges widely, from Upper East Siders, hotel guests and tourists who include stylish young Japanese women toting designer bags from the high-fashion shops along the nexus of Madison, 57th Street and Fifth Avenue. Chef Garofalo's menu is clearly composed to please all of them, full of classic dishes like French onion soup and salade Niçoise along with American favorites like lobster rolls as well as steak au poivre and the Pierre burger. Given his background, the chef also makes four main course pastas. I was especially pleased by two appetizers found in abundance around Manhattan, because Garofalo's lobster bisque has the deep, briny flavor of the shellfish, enriched with a citrus-laced crème fraîche and a pretty green swirl of tarragon oil; tuna tartare is impeccably balanced between very flavorful, dark red tuna chunks and the subtlety of many seasonings and Dijon mustard, along with thin haricot verts, olives and basil-scented pistou. 'Coronation Chicken' takes its name from a retro dish created in 1952 for the newly crowned Queen Elizabeth II, made of tender poached chicken with a curry mayonnaise, raisins, apple, cilantro and a dash of chili oil. It was unexpectedly delicious and deserves a wider audience. The warm lobster roll came with plenty of butter-poached meat in am equally buttery brioche roll with crisp French fries, and at $34 it's a refined match for lobster rolls sold for an equal price out of seafood shacks up and down Long Island. Among the pastas I tried, I thoroughly enjoyed the ravioli stuffed with ricotta and spinach dressed with a creamy Alfredo-style sauce. House-made tagliatelle with some of that lobster bisque and fava beans livened with tarragon is as sumptuous as it sounds. The Pierre Burger Perrine The 'Pierre Burger' toes the current line of overstuffed, overwrought, adequate burgers in fine dining rooms in New York, but the roasted half chicken with baby potatoes, mushrooms and salsa verde was a textbook example of how this bird can be ennobled with finesse. Half a dozen fat scallops are arrayed with a highly complementary sweet and sour puree sweet corn springtime's asparagus and a lemon-saffron sauce. Hotels, which must cater to weddings and anniversaries, usually excel at desserts, and at the Perrine they most certainly do with items like Pavlova (now having something of its own renaissance), the pretty pink meringue confection made to honor the prima Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova, as well as a peach Melba similarly honoring Dame Nellie Melba, and a rum-soaked baba with citrus cream. For nearly a century now The Pierre has never lost its cosmopolitan luster, and Perrine, now re-incarnated with Chef Garofalo, matches that appeal as a restaurant of convincing posh and good taste. And a good lunch spot in which to show off your shopping bags. Perrine 2 East 61st Street 212-940-8195 Open for breakfast daily, lunch Mon.-Sat., Brunch Sun., dinner nightly.
Los Angeles Times
27-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
‘Due' for an Oscar? Take a number
Does the best performance ever win the Oscar? Sometimes. Let's not be too cynical. But even the most detached fan knows that getting to the podium requires a narrative, a story behind the story. So-and-so Worked So Hard. It was a Total Transformation. This was a Life that Needed to Be Told. And then, one of the oldest narratives: They Were Due. After so many nominations and brilliant performances, how could they not have won yet? But does that logic hold water? Columnist Glenn Whipp and film editor Joshua Rothkopf sat down to discuss the substance of 'dueness.' Does it work? Is it fair? And how is it playing out this year? Joshua Rothkopf: I must admit that, for me, the concept of 'due' took hold early, during the mid-to-late '80s and early '90s, when it was a good time to be a revered performer who had never quite gone all the way: Paul Newman, Geraldine Page, Al Pacino — the latter, especially. His momentum grew inexorably, inevitably, even as that 'hoo-ah' became a joke almost immediately after 'Scent of a Woman' was released. But how could the star of the 'Godfather' movies, 'Serpico' and 'Dog Day Afternoon' remain unrewarded? I think I prefer every other actor he was nominated against: Denzel Washington for 'Malcolm X,' Stephen Rea for 'The Crying Game,' Robert Downey Jr. for 'Chaplin' and Clint Eastwood, doing a majestic inversion of his own iconography in 'Unforgiven.' At root, I think there's something unfair about an actor winning for being due. It turns the achievement into more of a career nod and there are honorary awards for that. It steals focus from the confident work of preternaturally talented younger nominees who suddenly have to 'wait their turn.' (As if there's any justice in that? Ask Glenn Close.) And it implies that an Oscar is something that an actor of a certain status inevitably should have, which I think is simply wrong. Glenn, has there ever been a case, historically speaking, in which you can justify an actor being due? Or is this just part of how the game is played? Glenn Whipp: Forget it, Josh — it's the Oscars. Ideally, actors would win for their signature roles: Pacino for Michael Corleone, Jeff Bridges for the Dude (or el Duderino, if you're not into the whole brevity thing) or Elizabeth Taylor for Maggie in 'Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.' But Oscar voters are rarely prescient enough to see what's in front of their faces, or they're distracted by another performance from an actor who's 'due' or has a sentimental narrative, such as when Art Carney won for the sweet 'Harry and Tonto,' beating both Pacino ('The Godfather Part II') and Jack Nicholson ('Chinatown'). Occasionally the stars align and an actor perceived as due also wins for giving the year's best performance — or at least one that's in the ballpark. There's half a dozen Leonardo DiCaprio movies I'd watch before 'The Revenant,' but his primal, immersive turn as a frontiersman in that movie deserved the Oscar, even if much of the narrative surrounding his work revolved around him eating raw bison liver and almost freezing to death. And, yes, Washington should have won for 'Malcolm X,' but that first lead actor Oscar for 'Training Day' still looks pretty good. I voted for him. What I'd ask you, Josh, is: Do you really want to live in a world where Pacino doesn't have an Oscar? Say the academy gave that 'Scent of a Woman' prize to another actor. You'd be OK with an untelevised career achievement for him? A pat on the back because two wrongs don't make a right? Rothkopf: Ah, see? You clearly come from the 'Don't ever take sides against the family' school, whereas I come from the 'It's not personal, it's strictly business' one. We should always stick to the movie in question. Meanwhile, what kind of a cosmic wrong was created when, every time we think about 'Scent of a Woman,' we groan? The irony is that Pacino did several worthier turns after his Oscar win: 'The Insider,' 'Donnie Brasco,' even 'Glengarry Glen Ross' from the same year, 1992, is better: the definitive Ricky Roma. Does it bother me that Saoirse Ronan doesn't have an Oscar? Yes. But I'm not her agent. I know she'll always get work. She should have won for 'Brooklyn,' 'Lady Bird,' 'Little Women,' all three of them, epochal. But I worry more that she'll win for something less astounding. And Ronan continues to do amazing work, as proven in this year's 'The Outrun.' Also, ridiculously, she's only 30. That's another thing: The 'due' argument is ageist in reverse. When Pacino won for 'Scent,' he was a tad over 50. The prime of life! Isn't that premature for a pat on the back? This really gets at the heart of what we're talking about, as of last weekend's SAGs and the surging Timothée Chalamet. He's been dogged by the notion that he's somehow too young for the big enchilada. Never mind that he's carried two 'Dune' films, adding unusual depth to a messiah role that could have been a disaster. Add in 'Call Me by Your Name' and his shattering turn in 'Beautiful Boy' and I say Chalamet is due, in a weird way. He's that good. What did you think of his speech at the SAGs, calling out to the 'greats,' hoping to earn a spot with them? I think that's what the Oscars should be: electric. Whipp: Electric? Like the standing ovation that grew like a wave when Pacino took the stage for winning his Oscar? 'You broke my streak,' he joked, before ending his speech with a beautiful note of gratitude. Maybe it feels like I'm being a contrarian because, as a critic, when I'm voting on awards, I adhere to the 'strictly business' stance that you champion, Josh. But these are the Oscars, possessing a near-100-year tradition of 'cosmic wrongs,' from Mary Pickford winning, in just the show's second year, for her connections (definitely not her over-the-top work in 'Coquette') to Brendan Fraser prevailing for the shameful, exploitative 'The Whale.' I love Chalamet, but can't fully get behind him winning because 'Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story' ruined me for music biopics. He should have won the Oscar for 'Call Me by Your Name,' but lost to the great Gary Oldman, who had the advantages of playing Churchill and being, yes, 'due.' Chalamet could win this year or the Oscar could go to previous winner Adrien Brody ('The Pianist'), not due in any sense for 'The Brutalist.' What's curious about the category is how little traction Ralph Fiennes received. He's sensational in 'Conclave,' conveying both spiritual doubt and turmoil and, on lighter notes, leaning into the movie's campy fun. This is only his third nomination, marking Fiennes as criminally overlooked. But Fiennes needed a platform to make his case, which is what Demi Moore did when she won the Golden Globe for 'The Substance.' In her speech, Moore recalled a producer telling her that she was a 'popcorn actress' and how she bought into that idea, narrowing her belief in what she could do. Then she got 'The Substance,' and, as she put it, 'the universe told me that 'you're not done.' ' No one is making the case that Moore is due — except for that voter who told me she should have won for 'Ghost' — but her narrative of perseverance has resonated with many in this town. That and a career-best performance that was raw, honest and vulnerable could win her an Oscar. Rothkopf: One day, Fiennes will unleash another dazzling 'The Grand Budapest Hotel,' another 'A Bigger Splash,' and I hope AMPAS, in all its questionable wisdom, will honor him for his Sturges-worthy speed and humor, which are unparalleled. And yes, all the attention Moore is getting this season for 'The Substance' is deserved — her performance is of a caliber she's never had the chance to build until now. When she wins, people can and should applaud her for being a survivor, but mainly, I hope, for creating an avatar of Hollywood self-destruction that's right up there with 'Sunset Boulevard' and Gloria Swanson (who never won an Oscar). It's worth noting, perversely, that Moore's Elisabeth Sparkle is supposed to be an Oscar winner. ('What, for 'King Kong?' ' snipes Dennis Quaid as her backstabbing producer.) We never do learn what kind of movie it was and maybe that's the point: You can win for something great or something awful, but ultimately, as we learn at the end of 'Barry Lyndon,' they are all equal now. All rationales of 'dueness' are destined to be forgotten in time. And when it comes to some of my favorite performances — Faye Dunaway's unhinged TV producer in 'Network,' say, or Daniel Day-Lewis in 'There Will Be Blood' — the skill level is so high that their Oscars are almost incidental. It's just self-evident. Whipp: Oh, this is the Oscars, Josh. We never forget. Though you're right: Once you win the trophy, it doesn't matter if it was deserved. The words 'Oscar winner' will be placed before your name in every story written about you all the way to your obituary and beyond. It's the lure that entices most actors to spend several months chatting up voters at receptions and film festivals, enduring endless, repetitive Q&As ('So, what attracted you to the role?') and pushing aside plates of overcooked chicken at awards shows. They want to be an 'Oscar-winning' actor. And as tired as the 'due' narrative can be, it also seems to be a reason some people watch the show. For them, here's a teaser: Glenn Close has a choice part in the next 'Knives Out' movie. She's already called it 'truly one of the best experiences of my life.' Who knows? Maybe she'll finally win that 'overdue' Oscar next year. It feels like she has already started her campaign.
