News

Endless Dungeon is the latest release set in the Endless universe, serving as a spiritual successor to Dungeon of the Endless. The title comes from Endless franchise developer Amplitude Studios and is published by Sega, and is slated to release later this week. The game places players on an abandoned space station where they'll be able to utilize a diverse roster of characters in a unique new take on the tower defense and the roguelite genres.

Endless Dungeon centers around two key elements: exploration and protection. As players and their team explore the labyrinthian levels of an abandoned space station, opening doors and finding exit strategies, they'll also need to move a crystal across the map, the safety of which determines the outcome of a run. The crystal can be protected through both active combat and upgradeable technology like turrets to fend off hordes of monsters that want to destroy it.

World War, a solemn vow, and a promise betrayed lead to a ‘night of the living war dead’ – all cooked up by the director of Napoleon, Abel Gance. The early, famed pacifist fantasy is back in near-perfect condition and restored to its full length. It’s a reworking, not a remake, of Gance’s 1919 silent classic.

J’accuse

Blu-ray

Olive Films

1938 / B&W / 1:37 flat full frame / 120 min. / That They May Live; J’accuse: Fresque tragique des temps modernes vue et Réalisée par Abel Gance / Street Date November 15, 2016 / available through the Olive Films website / 29.98

Starring Victor Francen, Line Noro, Marie Lou, Jean-Max, Paul Amiot, Jean-Louis Barrault, Marcel Delaitre, Renée Devillers, Romuald Joubé, André Nox, Georges Rollin, Georges Saillard.

Cinematography Roger Hubert

Film Editor Madeleine Crétoile

Original Music Henri Verdun

Written by Abel Gance, Steve Passeur

Produced & Directed by Abel Gance

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Around 1973, UCLA film school professor Bob Epstein...

Marc Allégret: From André Gide lover to Simone Simon mentor (photo: Marc Allégret) (See previous post: "Simone Simon Remembered: Sex Kitten and Femme Fatale.") Simone Simon became a film star following the international critical and financial success of the 1934 romantic drama Lac aux Dames, directed by her self-appointed mentor – and alleged lover – Marc Allégret.[1] The son of an evangelical missionary, Marc Allégret (born on December 22, 1900, in Basel, Switzerland) was to have become a lawyer. At age 16, his life took a different path as a result of his romantic involvement – and elopement to London – with his mentor and later "adoptive uncle" André Gide (1947 Nobel Prize winner in Literature), more than 30 years his senior and married to Madeleine Rondeaux for more than two decades. In various forms – including a threesome with painter Théo Van Rysselberghe's daughter Elisabeth – the Allégret-Gide relationship remained steady until the late '20s and their trip to...

Simone Simon: Remembering the 'Cat People' and 'La Bête Humaine' star (photo: Simone Simon 'Cat People' publicity) Pert, pretty, pouty, and fiery-tempered Simone Simon – who died at age 94 ten years ago, on Feb. 22, 2005 – is best known for her starring role in Jacques Tourneur's cult horror movie classic Cat People (1942). Those aware of the existence of film industries outside Hollywood will also remember Simon for her button-nosed femme fatale in Jean Renoir's French film noir La Bête Humaine (1938).[1] In fact, long before Brigitte Bardot, Annette Stroyberg, Mamie Van Doren, Tuesday Weld, Ann-Margret, and Barbarella's Jane Fonda became known as cinema's Sex Kittens, Simone Simon exuded feline charm – with a tad of puppy dog wistfulness – in a film career that spanned two continents and a quarter of a century. From the early '30s to the mid-'50s, she seduced men young and old on both...