Everybody knows that the The Jazz Singer was the first ever sound film in history. In the almost eighty years that have passed since then, many jazz singers, jazz musicians and jazz orchestras appeared and or were the theme of many films. Here you can read about three of the top movies on jazz for jazz fans and fans of good cinema. Bird 1988 Bird was the nickname of the great jazz saxophonist Charlie Parker. Bird is also the title of the biopic that was directed by Clint Eastwood on Bird who has been struggling for wide recognition of his music as well as fighting with his self destructive tendencies until his death in the early age of 34. However, the movie avoids depicting the cliche of the rise and fall of the drug addict musician. Mainly thanks to Eastwood whose love of jazz is evident in every scene of the 160 minutes feature. Talented Forest Whitaker plays an excellent leading role of Bird. Charlie Parker fans do not need this recommendation, but they would probably apprecia

The wealthy and film stars have often proclaimed their love for Europe, and France in particular. Now, Hollywood super-couple Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt are looking to set up a holiday haven on the French Riviera. They were recently spotted strolling the beaches while reportedly shopping for a private villa. Jolie and Pitt have become more than entertainers. In fact, Time Magazine's recent 100 Most Influential List describes them as heroes and pioneers. On a recent trip to Monaco, they met up with fellow humanitarian The Edge while hunting for a holiday home. While they were looking in Monaco at the time, Jolie and Pitt have often expressed their love for France. Jolie wants to have a permanent French base, so the couple is looking for the perfect place to raise their children. Their twins were born in mid-July in Nice, in the south of France, just twenty minutes from Monaco. The twins weighed around five pounds each and were delivered by Caesarean section. Pitt stayed by his partn

In my last article I spread the word a little about Vizumi, which for those who don’t know is a reputable UK film download site. In this piece I wanted to go a bit further and see how Vizumi works – to investigate it for users before moving on to compare Vizumi against the competition – Lovefilm, Blinkbox and the rest. First of all – the homepage. You’ll see if you visit often that Vizumi tend to move the homepage titles around – so that they are regularly refreshed. While this works in the sense that they get to push titles that you might not otherwise hear about (eg. Fools Gold), it also means that you might not necessarily pick up at first glance the quantity of big films available to download here. Let’s say for example you want to have a look at Batman. You have two options: first, you can type it in to the search box, and you’ll get a list of the relevant films. But let’s say, like me, you prefer to browse by category until something catches your eye, then the route to finding

Downloads are the way forward. If you’ve nothing to do for the night, get a movie. If you can’t be bothered to leave the sofa, download. If you feel like you’re unwilling to part with cash for something so ephemeral, remember that nowadays you can OWN downloads. Until recently, I was a movie-through-the-post DVD subscriber. It was brilliant – you could browse and add titles at will, collect pools of favourite directors and actors and wade through them methodically. I did it with Godard, Bergman, and Haneke. I’ve been doing it with Bale, Crowe and Grant. Until recently, it hadn’t grated that the rental service were also offering downloads – it seemed silly to pay for downloads when I was getting 3 movies at once through the post as often as I could watch them for only £15 a month. But then it occurred to me that my £15 was a waste. I was throwing money at the rental firm, and they were reaping the rewards. Sometimes the discs came through scratched. Sometimes I forgot to send them b

The 3 Ocean’s movies - simply named Ocean’s 11, Ocean’s 12 and Ocean’s 13 – have been very popular amongst movie-goers and the long-awaited third instalment did not disappoint the avid fan-base that the franchise has compiled over the years. For anyone who has yet to see the films, here is a quick run-down of the plots to set you on your way. In the first movie, Ocean’s 11, Daniel Ocean (played by George Clooney) is released on parole after a four year jail sentence for theft and immediately starts planning the robbery of a high security vault shared by three Las Vegas casinos. He tracks down his right hand man, Rusty (Brad Pitt) and together they assemble a team of eleven guys including an explosives expert, a pickpocket par excellence, two getaway drivers, a card sharp, a geeky electronics genius and a Chinese acrobat. It soon transpires that Danny's real goal is to win back his ex-wife and bankrupt the man she's currently dating (who just happens to own the three casinos at the cen

Interested in seeing a movie in Austin? If you're not going to see it at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, you are truly missing out. One of the city's beloved Austin originals, the Alamo Drafthouse Cinemas (or simply the Drafthouse, as many Austinite's call it) have been around since the late 1990s, when the first opened downtown on Colorado Street, as a second-run theater. To date, there are nine Drafthouses in all, with four in Austin (the newest having just opened at the historic Ritz Theater on 6th Street), one each in Houston, Katy, San Antonio, and Rio Grande, Texas and even one in Winchester, Virginia. While only nine Drafthouses have permanent addresses, the theater's Rolling Roadshow takes their signature films and fun to locations worldwide. But what's so special about the Drafthouse, you ask? What makes it any different than your run-of-the-mill theater franchise? Well, for one (as the name implies), they serve beer. Not just beer, though the Drafthouse offers a full menu of

Spanish-born actress Penelope Cruz was recently photographed arriving on the island of Lanzarote. This sun-soaked tourism paradise will provide the backdrop for Cruz's latest movie. Few details have been released about "Los Abrazos Rotos" ("The Broken Embrace"). In fact, exact locations for filming had not even been finalized upon the crew's arrival in Lanzarote. It is tentatively set for release in Spain in 2009. The movie is written and directed by Spain's own Pedro Almodovar. Almodovar seems to be smitten with Penelope Cruz, at least for her talent. Almodovar is openly gay, but maintains a close friendship with Cruz. The two are often seen together in public, especially when working together. He has directed Cruz in a number of other films, including "All About My Mother" (1999) and "Volver" (2006). Her portrayal of a mother dealing with a teenage daughter's crisis in "Volver" led to Cruz's nomination for a "Best Actress" Oscar. Cruz was the first Spanish actress ever to receive su

It’s got to be easy. Or at least work, in an easy sort of way. I’m fed up with fiddling about with new technology. But I know (or guess by the reviews I often read!) that Sony pride themselves on functional yet quality design and ease of use rather more than most other companies. Most of the time, when I say I want technology to be easy and functional yet also look nice, I’m talking about all technology that I am going to want to use, but right now I’m talking about downloading movies on the Playstation 3 – and that’s what everyone else is talking about. It’s a big thing for Sony, the PS3. I suppose because each time a new games console is developed, it costs millions more than the last version, and the competition gets more intense. Maybe. Maybe that’s just the hype. But I did get a PS3. I didn’t queue up at midnight or whatever it was people did when it was launched. I just waited for a bit, read some stuff about the PS3 online, reviews about movie downloads, or free downloads, or

Making films in Malta began in the 1970s. One of the earliest movies filmed in Malta is "Orca: Killer Whale." The 1977 film starred Richard Harris as Captain Nolan and Charlotte Rampling as Rachel Bedford. The movie brought attention to the plight of the killer whale and introduced movie viewers to the beautiful Mediterranean Sea and parts of Malta. Popeye Village In 1980, Sweethaven Village was created on Malta. The Robin Williams movie was filmed in Malta, and the Sweethaven Village still stands today. Though it is not being used to film movies, it still serves the island well as a tourist attraction. The village is open to tourists seven days per week and offers a variety of family activities. A Previous Engagement The latest movie to be filmed entirely on the island of Malta was "A Previous Engagement" starring Juliet Stevenson and Daniel Stern. The Canadian-Maltese co-production was released in the U.S. in May 2008. In conjunction with the movie's opening, a contest has been o

If box-office sales are any indication, the much-anticipated latest installment in the massively popular Indiana Jones movie series suggests that fervour for the series hasn't waned in the almost 20-year span since the release of the last chapter. In the first two days of its North America-wide release, the film managed to gross a not-too-shabby $56-million. But the premier at Cannes wasn't exactly explosive. The sequel managed to survive its most critical eyes after its premier at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival in France. "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" garnered appreciative applause from the jam packed 2,300-seat cinema full of critics. The film stars 65-year-old Harrison Ford in the title role and is set in the 1950s. In this chapter, the archaeologist finds himself battling Soviet agents in an attempt to recover a pre-Columbian skull from the Peruvian jungle. Starring alongside Ford as his sidekick is Shia LaBoeuf and Cate Blanchett as a Russian agent.