Alain Robbe-Grillet, 1922 – 2008

French writer and director Alain Robbe-Grillet has died. Although he is perhaps best-known among cinephiles as the screenwriter for Alain Resnais’ masterpiece Last Year in Marienbad, he directed several films on his own, including Trans-Europe-Express (1963) and Eden and After (1970). Robbe-Grillet was also an influential literary theorist and writer, and the main proponent of the nouveau roman (”new novel”) in the 1950s. GreenCine Daily has a fine writeup here. He was 85.

Toshiba Corporation seems to be admitting that it is indeed over with for their HD-DVD format. Despite drastic cuts on players (which were rumored to cost Toshiba hundreds of dollars apiece), consumers went with the rival Blu-Ray in droves. The declaration of Warner Brothers last month that their titles would only be released on Blu-Ray pounded the last nail into the coffin — Warner Brothers controls some 40% of movie back titles. An announcement from Toshiba is expected Tuesday. This is good news, I think. (from the Hollywood Reporter)

Links I Like

• Kirby at Movie Dearest has a crush on Daniel-Day Lewis. I’m sure Day-Lewis hopes Oscar does as well.
• Jim Emerson at Scanners has an ode to the best-and-worst of big acting, in honor of you-know-who.
• Peter Nellhaus has fun facts about Disney’s The Gnome-Mobile I’ll bet you didn’t know.
• Dennis Cozzalio actually likes Martin Lawrence’s new flick. Go figure.
• Jonathan Lapper has a whole thing on commenting and blogging and lurking without commenting.