The official poster for the 65th Cannes Film Festival, featuring Marilyn Monroe.
Marty DiBergi interviews rock legend Nigel Tufnel.
Roman Polanski: Don’t Explain Everything
“Being Elmo” trailer
Robert Mitchum signs an autograph while on location in Boston filming The Friends of Eddie Coyle, autumn 1972. (via)
“There will be no more pills. There will be no more bad food. No more destroyers of my body. From now on it will be total organization. Every muscle must be tight.” — Robert De Niro as Travis Bickle, Taxi Driver (1976). (Via The Selvedge Yard.)
Trailer for the new restoration of Sergei Eisenstein’s “Battleship Potemkin.”
Sparrow Songs
“Sparrow Songs is a project in which filmmaker Alex Jablonski and cinematographer Michael Totten make and exhibit one short documentary per month, every month for one year.”
7,000 … students drop out of high school every school day, for a total of about 1.3 million students a year.
12% … of U.S. public high schools (about 2,000 schools) produce nearly half of the nation’s dropouts and 58% of African-American dropouts.
50% … of incoming ninth graders in urban, high-poverty schools read three or more years below grade level.
39% … of high school students reported spending one hour or less a week reading or studying for class in 2009.
23% …of new American teachers come from the top third of their graduating class.
14% … of new American teachers in high-poverty schools come from the top third of their college class.
100% … of teachers in Singapore, South Korea and Finland come from the top third of their college class.
Sources: Alliance for Excellent Education, High School Survey of Student Engagement, McKinsey & Co.
A note from screenwriter Budd Schulberg to a fan, jotted on the back of an index card, explaining the origin of the famous line from “On the Waterfront.” The note reads:
12/7/89
For Bobby Cotton —
From an old fight fan who actually heard a friend of his (an ex-pug) say, “I coulda been a contender…” A lot of writing is simply careful listening. Sincerely,
Budd Schulberg
Now, about that one-way ticket to Palookaville…
