American Films

CANNES, France -- Cannes, the queen of the international film festivals, has not been very kind to American suitors this year. And some of them, including Miramax's Harvey Weinstein, are unhappy about it.This year, only two official U.S. entries are even in competition for the last Cannes Palme d'Or (or Grand Prize) of the 20th century. When the black-tie crowds gather for the competition screenings at the world's swankiest movie theater,the glittering Palais du Cinema, they'll have only a handful of Yanks to cheer on. After a stretch in the late '80s and early '90s when the U.S. regularly took home the top prize -- with winners such as 1989's "sex.

William E. Hewitt, the longtime Senator Theatre projectionist and movie house manager, who was a cinema technology expert, died of pneumonia Monday at the University of Maryland Medical Center. The Hamilton resident was 75. Born in Baltimore and raised in Walbrook and in Elkridge, he was a 1954 Howard County High School graduate. "His career in film began in high school," said his brother, John E. Hewitt of Glen Burnie. "He was the one who could run the 16-mm Bell and Howell projector.

The use of English subtitles in Jean-Pierre Melville's French masterpiece of film noir, "Le Samourai," is almost unnecessary. For vast stretches of this austere, flinty movie, no one speaks at ++ all. Small gestures, movements, even stillness propel the film forward and create its spellbinding suspense. Released in 1967, "Le Samourai" is the work of a filmmaker in complete command.The film's principal nonspeaker is the legendary French actor Alain Delon, a solitary, stone-cold contract killer.

"The Yankles" sounds like a ribald, adult hybrid of "The Bad News Bears" and "The Chosen. " The opening-night film of the Baltimore Jewish Film Festival, it features "a washed-up former pro player" who is "sentenced to mandatory community service for a drunken-driving conviction" and "finds redemption by coaching an upstart Orthodox Jewish baseball team. " Jews and sports have long been a source of ethnic comedy. Jon Stewart exploits this supposed mismatch every baseball season on "The Daily Show.

Laszlo Kovacs, the Hungarian-born cinematographer who found international fame after treating the American landscape as a character in the landmark 1969 movie Easy Rider, has died. He was 74. Mr. Kovacs, a Budapest film student who came to the United States as a political refugee in 1957, died in his sleep Sunday at his Beverly Hills, Calif., home. His work on Paper Moon was considered a masterpiece of black-and-white photography. In a career that spanned five decades and more than 70 feature films, he also put his stamp on Five Easy Pieces and Shampoo.

For five years, Michael Johnson, with his Heritage cinema house, has been the vagabond son of Baltimore's movie scene, moving from place to place, struggling to show movies on a regular basis, operating sporadically for two years out of a former nightclub on North Avenue that Johnson admits was woefully inadequate. This time, Johnson says, he's got it right. Tomorrow at Towson's old Hillendale Theatre, 1045 Taylor Ave., Johnson will open the latest incarnation of his dream for a theater dedicated to African- American films and filmmakers.

"The Yankles" sounds like a ribald, adult hybrid of "The Bad News Bears" and "The Chosen. " The opening-night film of the Baltimore Jewish Film Festival, it features "a washed-up former pro player" who is "sentenced to mandatory community service for a drunken-driving conviction" and "finds redemption by coaching an upstart Orthodox Jewish baseball team. " Jews and sports have long been a source of ethnic comedy. Jon Stewart exploits this supposed mismatch every baseball season on "The Daily Show.

Sixty-seven years later, and he's still King. The original 1933 "King Kong," which gets a rare big-screen showing this weekend as part of the Charles' celebration of monster films, is quite simply one of the greatest films ever made. It's a thrill ride that's equally exciting for children and adults, a showcase for the wonders of film animation, a monster flick that's never lost its edge, a source of inspiration for both film makers and film lovers, and a cultural icon that's part of the American vernacular.

Los Angeles. -- Where you stand depends on where you sit. In Hollywood, President Clinton told film and television producers that some of their work was dangerous to the mental health of poor Americans. In Brussels, his trade representative, Mickey Kantor, was telling Europeans they have no right to say those same movies and programs are dangerous to their national survival.After seven years of negotiations, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, the world's free-trade constitution, stalled last week because of what we called the small-minded and greedy concerns of the French and their neighbors in the European Community.

ComptrollersEditor: Regarding your front page article Feb. 10 on Comptroller Jacqueline F. McLean, not once in the last four years did you do a story on Hyman Pressman, who should have retired long ago due to his illness.Not once did you talk about the waste of salary taxpayers paid to him while he sat in the Board of Estimates and did and said nothing.Not once did you talk about the $75,000 paid last year to a driver for the president of the City Council.But you want to single out a woman who has been a role model and an outstanding financial supporter of our community, both black and white.

Laszlo Kovacs, the Hungarian-born cinematographer who found international fame after treating the American landscape as a character in the landmark 1969 movie Easy Rider, has died. He was 74. Mr. Kovacs, a Budapest film student who came to the United States as a political refugee in 1957, died in his sleep Sunday at his Beverly Hills, Calif., home. His work on Paper Moon was considered a masterpiece of black-and-white photography. In a career that spanned five decades and more than 70 feature films, he also put his stamp on Five Easy Pieces and Shampoo.

Joan Allen jumped onto movie-lovers' radar almost 20 years ago in one of the most sensuous and berserk scenes ever filmed. In Manhunter (1986), she played a blind woman stroking the fur, muzzle and fangs of a drugged but semiconscious tiger, feeling its warm breath on her flesh and pressing her ear to its pounding heart. Her wholesome, direct features lit up with excitement and delight. For seconds, she became a red-hot beauty. That didn't happen often for the next decade and a half. She began to get cast (and win acclaim)

On movie screens in 1939, a rube from a backwater burg took on Washington politicos, counting on the fundamental decency of the American people and their leaders to carry the day. Sixty-five years later, a bespectacled schlub from Flint, Mich., created a documentary in which he took on Washington politicos, and fundamental decency had a very small role. At first blush, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and Fahrenheit 9 / 11 seem worlds apart. Mr. Smith, in which James Stewart plays a mild-mannered boys' club leader-turned U.S. senator, offers an idealized view of the American political system.

Pick up the phone, and the American-sounding operator could be in India or the Philippines. In some states, we buy three times as many foreign cars as domestic ones. The all-American clothing of the Gap, Levi Strauss and Nike is produced mostly in Asia, and about 75 percent of the toys our children play with are made overseas. Americans live, these days, in an era of globalization. Money and goods, though, flow more rapidly into the United States than ideas and culture. As the country exports both Hollywood movies and occupying armies, it seems to be gradually closing its ears to foreign voices.

From silent film pioneer Oscar Micheaux to two-time Oscar winner Denzel Washington, the greatest names in black cinema will be showcased at a Towson theater this year as the Heritage Cinema unveils its list of the 100 greatest African-American films. Heritage founder Michael Johnson, who has been working on the list for some seven years, plans to reveal its secrets slowly over the course of the year. And to keep things interesting, he's not going to reveal the list's films in order. The series begins tonight at 7 with No. 47, Superfly, the 1972 film starring Ron O'Neal as a streetwise drug dealer trying to leave the trade.

Will bad blood between the French and American governments spill over into the world of movies, movie stars and plush beach parties on the Riviera? Not according to new Cannes Film Festival director Thierry Fremaux - but we'll soon know. This year's festival - the 56th edition in a line that goes back to 1946 and the end of World War II - opens today, with a gala screening of a Fanfan le Tulip, a comedy-adventure movie remade by director Gerard Krawczyk from the 1951 French Gerard Philipe classic.

Let's call this one Previews of Going-going-gone Attractions, a quick-cut trip through the year that's just about over.* Bad new trends of '93: The most disturbing, locally and nationally, is the collapse of the inner city art house movement, as exemplified by the recent closing of the venerable Charles. The usual suspects are cited -- rising downtown crime, competition from the national chains, the popularity of the VCR -- and so forth. But the old show-biz line, invoked by Red Skelton for Harry Cohn's funeral, still obtains: Give 'em what they want, and they'll stand in line.

Joan Allen jumped onto movie-lovers' radar almost 20 years ago in one of the most sensuous and berserk scenes ever filmed. In Manhunter (1986), she played a blind woman stroking the fur, muzzle and fangs of a drugged but semiconscious tiger, feeling its warm breath on her flesh and pressing her ear to its pounding heart. Her wholesome, direct features lit up with excitement and delight. For seconds, she became a red-hot beauty. That didn't happen often for the next decade and a half. She began to get cast (and win acclaim)

For five years, Michael Johnson, with his Heritage cinema house, has been the vagabond son of Baltimore's movie scene, moving from place to place, struggling to show movies on a regular basis, operating sporadically for two years out of a former nightclub on North Avenue that Johnson admits was woefully inadequate. This time, Johnson says, he's got it right. Tomorrow at Towson's old Hillendale Theatre, 1045 Taylor Ave., Johnson will open the latest incarnation of his dream for a theater dedicated to African- American films and filmmakers.