Get ready for movies, pasta and gelato…The Rome Film Festival is coming! Running from Oct 13th-23rd, The fest will host 130 titles on 28 screens across the city. Under new management and with top tier talent attending, the fest is boosting their profile to join the prestigious European film festival circuit.

James Ivory will be lauded with a career honor and the debut of his new documentary, “A Cooler Climate.” There will be a retrospective of his films, included “Mr. and Mrs. Bridge” starring Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. And Melissa Newman, their daughter, is coming to the fest for the Ethan Hawke directed “The Last Movie Stars” on HBO Max. Hawke is also in the Rodrigo Garcia’s Road trip film “Raymond & Ray” co-starring with Ewan McGregor. James Gray will be there for his” Armageddon Time.”

Russell Crowe will be going again to Rome, (not as a gladiator) to promote his second directorial effort “Poker Face.” Crowe plays a tech gambler billionaire in the world of high stakes betting, Liam Hemsworth co-stars. The film will debut at the Fest’s ‘Alice in the City’ section.

This is Italy after all, so the fest will open with an Italian film that premiered in Toronto, “The Hummingbird,” which won the Premio Strega 2020, Italy’s top literally prize. Other films are Stephen Frears “The Lost King” Abel Ferrara’s “Padre Pio” and fest fave “Bros.” The Fest is also inaugurating the launch of an international competition as well as their jury awards prizes for best director and screenplay, as well as the Monica Vitta award for best actress and the Vittorio Gassman award for best actor.

The Rome fest is now run by noted RAI Cinema executive Paola Malanga as the artistic director and Gian Luca Farinelli as president. Farinelli recently said in a press conference that “We tried to bring recognition to the festival on the international scene guided by a simple polar star. The festival is not Cannes, Venice or Berlin. So what is it? It’s a pluralist, international festival, which is also a party for Rome. The title of the competition is not by chance. The committee has looked for independent, international cinema, by new auteurs, who tomorrow will perhaps be at Cannes, Venice and Berlin.”

The Rome Fest has captured the cinematic attention of Hollywood and the beyond. Bravo!

Michelle Williams has been moved up to the Lead Actress category for Steven Spielberg’s “The Fabelmans.”

For my money, she’s a cinch to win. As more and more people see this wonderful memoir of Spielberg’s, Williams’ portrayal of the mother, Mitzi, will become the talk of the town.

Williams has an advantage over some of the other possible candidates for Best Actress. Both Cate Blanchett and Viola Davis are loaded with awards. Williams, however, has been slowly building a strong career. She’s already been nominated for four Oscars, two as lead, two as supporting. Her time has definitely come.

In the movie, Mitzi is the stand in for Spielberg’s real mother the late Leah Spielberg Adler. Like many people around the film business, I knew her. Some even went to her dairy restaurant on Pico Boulevard, the Milky Way. She died at 97 just five years ago. Leah Adler was a spitfire. It’s amazing that Williams, who is certainly not Jewish, looks like her and ‘gets’ her strength and determination just right.

My guess is that Universal will take it slow because “The Fabelmans” isn’t released until the end of the year. And the Oscars aren’t until March, six months from now. But no matter how good the other actresses are this season, it’s the year of Michelle Williams. As it should be.

I don’t know where people got the strange idea that James Earl Jones gave the rights to Darth Vader’s voice to anyone.

Darth Vader is owned by LucasFilms. So is Jones’s memorable performance as the character.

In a Vanity Fair article posted by the excellent Star Wars expert Anthony Breznican, the word “rights” does not appear once. Yet, this erroneous idea has replicated like Star Trek Tribbles all over the internet.

Breznican’s story is about how a Ukrainian AI company takes pieces of Jones’s old speeches from “Star Wars” movies and remixes them to make new dialogue for Star Wars spin offs set a the time.

Jones, Breznican says, “signed off” this idea, meaning he gave his blessing. He bequeathed no rights. He didn’t own any to begin with.

The story is actually about how the Ukrainian firm, Respeecher, is able to operate during wartime and still fulfill its work for Skywalker Sound and Lucas Films. It’s pretty interesting.

Jones is 91, and not really appearing in public anymore. He didn’t attend the renaming of a Broadway theater recently in his name. He remains one of the greats of all time, even if he never owned the rights to Darth Vader. He also doesn’t own the rights to his CNN announcements. If he did, he might considered retrieving them.

Also, Woody Allen did not announce his retirement last week. Are there any fact checkers left out there?