Ahead of this week’s Prague performance by jazz trumpeter Terence Blanchard, the Velvet Violin looks at a perhaps lesser known aspect of this jazzman’s career – movie scores.

The 46th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival kicks off today, with filmmakers and actors from across the world hoping to scoop one of its prestigious prizes.

This week’s Prague Post has already tipped you off on a few films. Here’s the stuff we couldn’t fit in the paper.

This week’s Prague Post review of Water for Elephants reports on the miscasting of gothic poster boy Robert Pattinson in the lead role of circus runaway Jacob Jankowski.

Here are a few more misadventures in casting.

Following last night’s set by British drum n’ bass veteran Goldie at Prague’s Matrix Music Club, the Velvet Violin was reminded of the Walsall gold-toothed DJ’s performance as Bad Boy Lincoln in 2000′s British gangster movie, Snatch. Here’s five more musicians that have successfully made the transfer to the big screen without coming off like [...]

In the week that Japan-inspired Gold Panda played a Prague gig, The Velvet Violin looks back on how the music of ‘Lost in Translation’ came about.

* A reader wrote in recently to request some  commentary regarding the varying quality of cinematic remakes. His note was inspired by the news that a new version of True Grit starring Jeff Bridges in the role originally played by John Wayne is coming to cinemas. Sacrilege, you say? Or welcome news? Some of the best [...]

* Guillaume Depardieu (son of French actor Gérard Depardieu) died in October 2008 at the age of 37 after contracting severe viral pneumonia while filming The Way Beyond (L’Enfance d’icare) in Romania. The film is screening at Světozor, Nov. 27 at 9 and Slovanský dům, Dec. 1 at 7:30. The disturbingly ironic subject of the [...]

* Veteran actor Eli Wallach will receive a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences in recognition for a long career of iconic turns in legendary films and television programs. Wallach made a name for himself in a series of ethnically diverse roles, including 1966’s The Good, the Bad and [...]

* Emir Kusturica’s film career spans most of four decades, beginning with a Golden Lion Award at Venice in 1981 for Do You Remember Dolly Bell? and 1995′s Underground, a.k.a. Once Upon a Time There Was a Country, which won him his second Palme d’Or at Cannes. After a 10-year absence, the controversial director has returned [...]

* The iconic director Oliver Stone is set to direct a big-screen adaptation of John D. MacDonald’s excellent genre classic, The Deep Blue Goodbye (the first in a series of 21 character-driven suspense novels). This is excellent news for your critic, as he is  currently hard at work on a biography of the author. It’s [...]