News

I always look forward to Severin's summer sale, since not only are they discounting previous releases, but they have announced Ten new titles that will be available, including the 4K Uhd release of Opera. The sale kicks off on Friday, July 12th and we have the details:

"Severin Films today announced full details of their 2024 Severin Summer Sale, the most ambitious and eclectic in company history. Leading the mid-year event is the Worldwide Uhd Premiere of Dario Argento’s masterwork Opera, newly restored by Severin and featuring 5 discs, 12 hours of Special Features and the CD soundtrack; the North American Disc Premiere of Dario Argento’S Deep Cuts, a 4-Disc Collection featuring 10 hours from his Rai TV shows; The Worldwide Uhd Premiere of Joe D’Amato’s Penne Post-Apocalypse epic 2020 Texas Gladiators, a 3-disc collection that includes a CD of the never-before-released soundtrack; and Bert I. Gordon’s politically incorrect crime...

Mafia-related murders. An improbable constellation of 20th-century icons. Belated accessibility to the public after decades of obscurity. Are we talking about the JFK assassination or Winter Kills, William Richert’s 1979 film inspired by it?

Adapted from Richard Condon’s 1974 novel, the film flamed out on its initial release for many of the usual reasons: a troubled production, the short-sightedness of critics, and a willingness on the part of the filmmakers to potentially confuse, alienate, or offend audiences of the day. But even if you don’t go in with a conspiratorial mindset, one viewing of this riotously entertaining, chillingly perceptive film could leave you wondering if some larger force is at play, protecting the targets of this should-be New Hollywood classic by keeping it in the dark after all this time.

The history of Winter Kills is nearly as lurid and tangled as the conspiracy it depicts. Unable to secure...

The Primetime Emmys are not necessarily known for honoring projects featuring casts that are primarily minority/people of color. The TV academy has never, for instance, given the Best Drama Series trophy to such a show. The statuette for Best Comedy Series has been won by a series featuring a largely minority cast precisely once: “The Cosby Show” in 1985. But the category of top limited/anthology/miniseries has paid golden tribute to programs with mostly minority casts a handful of times before, helping give Netflix’s “Beef” with its predominantly Asian American lineup a genuine shot to take home the biggest prize.

“Beef” tied with “Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story” for the most nominations among all non-regular series programs with 13. It’s presently in the lead among Gold Derby voters in the limited series race with 16/5 combined odds. Its star Ali Wong is also in first place among limited lead actresses,...

Plex is up to its usual tricks in adding more free ad-supported TV (Fast) channels to its programming lineup. This time the additions have a decidedly international flair, as the service has rolled out channels featuring Italian cinema, as well as musical selections from around the world.

Watch Now $0+ / month plex.tv

Plex serves as a platform for Fast channels, but also offers ad-supported video-on-demand with more than 50,000 titles. It’s free to use, but customers can upgrade to the Plex Pass for $4.99 per month which allows them to record live TV using an antenna, and much more. Both paid and non-paid subscribers can add all the other streamers they’re subscribed to on their Plex account and see what titles are available to stream on all their services in one place.

The new channels now available on Plex include:

Bizzarro Movies (Italian Language) Absurd, grotesque, crazy. Bizzarro Movies are non-ordinary worlds,...

Quentin Tarantino crowned Sergio Corbucci as the second-best director of Italian westerns, but our vote goes to Sergio Sollima — this is the most satisfying Spaghetti oater outside of the Leone corral. In his first starring role, Lee Van Cleef is lawman Jonathan Corbett, who pursues Tomas Milian’s killer into Mexico for an American millionaire. Political screenwriter Franco Solinas helped cook up the story, which pitches frontier ethics against ‘establishment’ corruption. The two-disc special edition presents the show in 4 versions, if we count a clever English-Italian language hybrid.

The Big Gundown

Region B Blu-ray

Powerhouse Indicator

1967 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 110, 90, 95 min. / La resa dei conti / Street Date February 13, 2023 / available from Powerhouse Films UK / £22.99

Starring: Lee Van Cleef, Tomas Milian, Walter Barnes, Nieves Navarro, Gérard Herter, Manolita Barroso, Robert Camardiel, Ángel del Pozo, Luisa Rivelli, Luis Barboo, Benito Stefanelli.

Cinematography: Carlo Carlini

Set decorators: Carlo Leva, Carlo Simi, Nicola Tamburo

Costumes: Carlo...

Severin Films is bringing out the big guns and starting 2023 with a bang, exclusively telling Bloody Disgusting this afternoon about the first two releases they’re bringing to the new year.

On January 31st, Severin Films unleashes two definitive action releases: Violent Streets: The Umberto Lenzi/Tomas Milian Collection includes Almost Human, Syndicate Sadists, Free Hand For A Tough Cop, The Cynic, The Rat And The Fist and Brothers Till We Die. January also brings the North American debut of the 1981 Australian action classic Attack Force Z, starring Mel Gibson, Sam Neill and John Phillip Law.

Violent Streets: The Umberto Lenzi / Tomas Milian Collection: Italian director Umberto Lenzi had recently completed a landmark string of kinky gialli with Hollywood outcast Carroll Baker. Cuban-born/Actor’s Studio-trained Tomas Milian had become one of Spaghetti Westerns’ most popular stars. But when these two notoriously mercurial talents came together for a series of...

Rarovideo is back, with an excellent Italo war drama that finds humanist values in an appalling situation: a young Italian lieutenant is tasked with distributing 12 Athenian prostitutes to garrisons on the road back to Italy, to ‘service’ the troops. It’s a mixed group — a couple of the women have signed up to avoid starvation. The trek takes them directly into partisan conflict. Sympathetic director Valerio Zurlini assembles a terrific international cast: Mario Adorf, Anna Karina, Tomas Milian, Marie Laforêt, Lea Massari, Valeria Moriconi and Milena Dravic.

Le Soldatesse

Blu-ray

Rarovideo / Kino Lorber

1965 / B&w / 1:85 widescreen / 118 min. / Street Date October 25, 2022 / The Camp Followers / Available from Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Mario Adorf, Anna Karina, Marie Laforêt, Lea Massari, Tomas Milian, Valeria Moriconi, Milena Dravic, Aleksandar Gavric, Dusan Vujisic, Jovan Rancic, Dragomir Felba, Jelena Zigon, Alenka Rancic, Milica Preradovic, Rossana Di Rocco, Mila Cortini, Guido Alberti.

Cinematography: Tonino Delli Colli

Production Designer:...

For many years now Venice has been a respectful platform for those big-name directors of the 1970s and early ’80s who are happy to go back into the fray long after those juicy studio budgets dried up: Brian De Palma, William Friedkin, Paul Verhoeven, John Carpenter and — to a lesser extent — George Romero all found a home here for their late-period passion projects. Walter Hill, now 80, joins their ranks with an improbably youthful horse opera, and while it shows up the limitations of both writing and shooting a Western in the modern age, it’s nevertheless a wickedly enjoyable genre romp and full of violent surprises.

Hill dedicates his film to Budd Boetticher, which is a shame as it has already given critics permission not to think any harder...

The Oscar-winner’s sprawling ensemble drama was rightfully awarded and praised for its difficult and dour look at an unwinnable war

There’s a scene in the middle of Steven Soderbergh’s Traffic where Robert Wakefield (Michael Douglas), a conservative judge recently appointed to “drug czar” by the president, meets with Gen Arturo Salazar (Tomas Milian), who he’s been led to believe is his Mexican equivalent. They talk about efforts to disrupt the Tijuana cartel, led by the Obregón brothers, but at this point we know that Salazar is aligned with the Juarez cartel and wants to use whatever resources he can to wipe out the competition. Wakefield then asks Salazar about the treatment of addiction, and the mask slips a little.

Related: Requiem for a Dream at 20: Aronofsky's nightmare still haunts...

Giulio Questi's Django Kill... If You Live, Shoot! (1967) and Death Laid an Egg (1968) are playing October and November 2019 on Mubi in the United States.Django Kill... If You Live, Shoot!In December 2014, Giulio Questi died, and the cinema lost an unflappable renegade of the arts. His name does not get dropped as often as that of his contemporaries, but those that know his films speak of them with open-eyed reverence, as much in awe of their existence as of their quality. Marked with a crazy energy, a surreal visual style, and an eccentricity in narrative that can leave a viewer baffled, his work has that experiential cult quality akin to that of Alejandro Jodorowsky: you have to see it to believe it. His career was marked with notable lapses and absences. “My movies have always been appreciated and admired by cinema insiders but they did not get a lot of money,...

By Todd Garbarini

Umberto Lenzi was one of the most prolific Italian genre directors working in Italy, but he is virtually unknown here in the States outside of the circles of the most die-hard of genre fans. In fact, his work is so obscure at times that even adherents to his most extreme horror movies don't even follow the other dramatic work for which he is also known despite his roster of titles on the IMDb. Much of International Cinema is “inspired” by American filmmaking (i.e. outright ripped off from) and following the Oscar-winning success of William Friedkin’s masterful 1971 crime drama The French Connection, with its astounding subway/car chase, Italy dove head-first into the Eurocrime, or poliziotteschi, genre headfirst making a slew of action films where the camera’s point-of-view is inspired by Owen Roizman’s work on the aforementioned real-life-inspired crime film. Filmed in late 1975 in...

Dennis Hopper’s legendary follow-up to Easy Rider ended his Hollywood directing career for at least fifteen years. Barely seen again after brief premiere bookings, it hasn’t built up a reputation as a suppressed masterpiece. So what is it exactly? A new spotless restoration gives a dazzling rebirth to Hopper’s Perú- filmed deconstruction of Hollywood. The astonishing number of notables in the cast list may in itself demand a viewing.

The Last Movie

Blu-ray

Arbelos

1971 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 108 min. / Street Date November 13, 2018 / 39.99

Starring: Dennis Hopper, Stella García, Tomas Milian, Don Gordon, Julie Adams, Donna Baccala, Sylvia Miles, Rod Cameron, Severn Darden, Sam Fuller, Peter Fonda, Henry Jaglom, Michelle Phillips, Kris Kristofferson, Dean Stockwell, Russ Tamblyn, Clint Kimbrough, John Phillip Law, James Mitchum, Richard Rust, Toni Basil, Michael Anderson Jr.

Cinematography: László Kovács

Production design: Leon Ericksen

Film Editors: David Berlatsky, Antranig Mahakian, Dennis Hopper, [Alejandro Jodorowsky]

Original Music: Severn Darden,...

Review by Roger Carpenter

While Lucio Fulci made his reputation with a series of graphically violent horror movies like Zombie (Aka Zombi 2), City of the Living Dead (Aka The Gates of Hell), The House by the Cemetery, The Beyond, and The New York Ripper, his early career was a hodgepodge of film genres including comedies, spaghetti westerns, and poliziotteschi. However, many critics argue that his greatest films were his early gialli films like A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin and Don’t Torture a Duckling. Fulci was handicapped by terribly low budgets for most of his career but some of his earlier works were actually well-funded, allowing his cinematic craftsmanship to be on full display. Such was the case with Don’t Torture a Duckling.

As was the case with many gialli of the time period, the film titles were influenced by Argento’s first three gialli, collectively known as the “Animal Trilogy.

Guest Reviewer Lee Broughton is back, with another Italo Western double bill DVD review. Wild East’s ongoing Spaghetti Western Collection continues to grow and this double bill release is particularly welcome since it features two obscure and wholly idiosyncratic genre entries from 1969. Italian Western directors had found it relatively easy to appropriate key plot points and ideas from Sergio Leone’s Dollars films during the genre’s early years but when Leone’s sprawling, mega-budgeted, meta-Western Once Upon a Time in the West was released in 1968 it was clear that this was one genre entry that local filmmakers would not be able to easily emulate.

With scriptwriters and directors now essentially being forced to come up with their own ideas and generic trends, a new wave of Spaghetti Westerns were produced that effectively took the genre in a multitude of new directions. The two films featured here were part of that wave.

If I haven’t made it clear in previous articles or on social media, let me do so now: I’m a firm believer that Lucio Fulci is one of, if not the, greatest horror directors to ever live. While dismissed as a schlock artist by critics in his time, Fulci’s unique brand of horror, borne from a holy fusion of market-friendly gore and surrealist pure cinema, has aged remarkably well. But before he mingled among zombies or cracked open the gates of hell, Fulci directed a few violent giallo films, including the incredibly depressing Don’t Torture a Duckling, which recently received a new restoration and Blu-ray release from Arrow Video.

Don’t Torture a Duckling isn’t your usual giallo. While it has all of the signatures of the sub-genre—red herrings, black gloves, sexuality—the conventions and tropes are slightly skewed. Instead of taking place in...

Don’t Torture a Duckling

Blu-ray

Arrow Films

1972 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / Street Date October 2, 2017

Starring Barbara Bouchet, Florinda Bolkan, Tomas Milian, Irene Papas

Cinematography by Sergio D’Offizi

Written by Lucio Fulci, Roberto Gianviti, Gianfranco Clerici

Film Edited by Ornella Micheli

Produced by Renato Jaboni

Music by Riz Ortolani

Directed by Lucio Fulci

Lucio Fulci’s most consistent trait might have been his instability. In fact it may have been the Italian director’s defining quality; lingering throughout his films is the inescapable notion that, no matter how stylish or finely-tuned his mise en scene, he will surely find a way to fly off the rails and take everyone with him. He’s the crazy ex-girlfriend of filmmakers.

Fulci made his rep in the late 70’s and early 80’s with a series of crassly exploitative horror films, high on gore and low on logic. Nevertheless he began his career on...

Lucio Fulci’s Don’T Torture A Duckling (1972) will be available on Blu-ray September 12th from Arrow Video

From Lucio Fulci, the godfather of gore (The Psychic, The Beyond), comes one of the most powerful and unsettling giallo thrillers ever produced: his 1972 masterpiece Don’t Torture a Duckling.

When the sleepy rural village of Accendura is rocked by a series of murders of young boys, the superstitious locals are quick to apportion blame, with the suspects including the local “witch”, Maciara (Florinda Bolkan, A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin). With the bodies piling up and the community gripped by panic and a thirst for bloody vengeance, two outsiders – city journalist Andrea (Tomas Milian, The Four of the Apocalypse) and spoilt rich girl Patrizia (Barbara Bouchet, The Red Queen Kills Seven Times) – team up to crack the case. But before the mystery is solved, more blood will have been spilled,...

Featuring: John Saxon, Franco Nero, Henry Silva, Ottaviano Dell’Acqua, Leonard Mann, Richard Harrison | Written and Directed by Mike Malloy

Eurocrime! The Italian Cop and Gangster Films That Ruled the ’70s, to give the film it’s full title, is a welcome and affectionate look at the Italian poliziotteschi films of the 1970s, films such as High Crime, Milano Calibro 9, Street Law and Napoli Violenta which, whilst heavily influenced by 70s Us cop and gangster films like Dirty Harry and The Godfather, also touched upon real Italian issues – the Sicilian Mafia and the Red Brigade – and amped up the sex and violence to often ridiculous levels.

Those film fans familiar with Italian genre cinema will know that Italian cinema has a reputation of hitching itself to the nearest bandwagon and bleeding it dry. If Italian filmmakers could find a fad that people liked they’d stick with it. From...

Unsung actress Beverly Garland becomes TV’s first lady cop, in what’s claimed to be the first TV show filmed on the streets of New York City. This one-season wonder from 1957 has vintage locations, fairly tough-minded storylines and solid performances, from Bev and a vast gallery of stage and TV actors on the way up.

Decoy

(Policewoman Decoy)

TV Series

DVD

Film Chest Media

1957-’58 / B&W / 1:33 flat full frame (TV) / 39 x 30 min. / Street Date May 30, 2017 / 19.98

Starring: Beverly Garland

Art Direction (some episodes): Mel Bourne

Original Music: Wladimir Selinsky

Written by Lillian Andrews, Nicholas E. Baehr, Cy Chermak, Jerome Coopersmith, Don Ettlinger, Frances Frankel, Steven Gardner, Abram S. Ginnes, Mel Goldberg, Saul Levitt, Leon Tokatyan

Produced by Arthur H. Singer, David Alexander, Stuart Rosenberg, Everett Rosenthal

Directed by Teddy Sills, Stuart Rosenberg, David Alexander, Michael Gordon, Don Medford, Arthur H. Singer, Marc Daniels

How did I experience...

Arrow Video has a treat in store for both slasher and giallo fans this summer, as their August Us Blu-ray / DVD releases will include The Slayer and Don't Torture a Duckling.

From Arrow Video: "New UK/Us Title: The Slayer (Dual Format Blu-ray & DVD)

The Slayer finally rises from the ashes of obscurity in a brand new 4K transfer courtesy of Arrow Video.

Pre-order in the UK via Arrow: http://bit.ly/2r9t2Ab

Pre-order in the UK via Amazon: http://amzn.to/2r9sZnZ

Pre-order in the Us: http://bit.ly/2r9yYsP

Release dates: 21/22 August

Is It A Nightmare? Or Is It… The Slayer?

One of the most sought-after titles for slasher fans everywhere, The Slayer finally rises from the ashes of obscurity in a brand new 4K transfer courtesy of Arrow Video.

Two young couples set off to a secluded island for what promises to be a restful retreat.

Lucio Fulci is known to most horror fans for his work in the fantastical, through his late career success with Zombie (1979), City of The Living Dead (1980), and The Beyond (1981). Certainly these are his most widely seen and cherished films, and for good reason – they blast through the screen in a feast of color, magic, and grue; short on logic, sure, but long on imagination and dread. But before he untethered his heart in a quest for purity, he engaged in his homeland’s horror sub-genre of giallo, including Don’t Torture a Duckling (1972), incredible, subversive proof that he could create something just as effective and decidedly much more earth bound.

Released late September back home in his native Italy, Duckling never received its due (or much attention at all, truthfully) on these shores until Fulci’s death in 1996 offered a re-evaluation of his body of work. Thanks to the internet,...

Tomas Milian, the Cuban-born actor who made a name for himself in Italian genre movies in the 1960s and ‘70s, has died, Deadline reports. Outside of his starring roles in a number of spaghetti Westerns, Milian worked with big-name Italian directors like Michelangelo Antonioni, Pier Paolo Pasolini, and Bernardo Bertolucci. In his later years, he had notable roles with American directors Steven Soderbergh and Steven Spielberg as well. The Italian news agency Ansa broke the news of Milian’s death, reporting that he had died of a stroke at home in Miami. He was 84.

Milian was born Tomás Quintín Rodríguez Milián in 1933 in Havana, the son of a general who was imprisoned during the Cuban revolution. Soon after, he moved to New York City to study acting under Lee Strasberg; he found his niche in Italy, though, where he made his big-screen debut in the Pasolini-penned The Big ...

Tomas Milian, the Cuban-American-Italian actor best known for his work in Italian genre films and Spaghetti Westerns, has died at the age of 84. Italian news agency Ansa reported that he died of a stroke in his Miami home on Wednesday. Milian, whose real name was Tomas Quintin Rodriguez Milian, worked with a host of top-notch directors such as Steven Soderbergh, Bernardo Bertolucci and Steven Spielberg, and was recognized for the emotional intensity and humor he brought…...

I saw Sergio Corbucci's 1970 western Compañeros during the video-boom of the early eighties, when suddenly an immense wealth of titles became available for home viewing, and renting a stack of videotapes was a part of each weekend's routine. Not being into westerns, I initially skipped out, but the group of friends and family which had seen Compañeros wanted to see it again the next day, because it was such a fun film and "the music was so good". Huh? So I decided to join the second viewing, and ended up loving the film. Franco Nero and Tomas Milian made an excellent couple of anti-heroes, and indeed the soundtrack rocked. Fast forward to more than thirty years later, with me vividly remembering the film (and...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

Writer-director Sergio Sollima gives us one of the best 'political' Italo westerns from the pre- May '68 era... with two top stars in great form, Gian Maria Volontè and Tomas Milian. This two-disc German import has both the long and short versions of the movie in HD, with full language options for each. Face to Face (Faccia a faccia; Von Angesicht zu Angesicht) Region A+B Blu-ray Explosive Media (Alive) 1967 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 93, 112 min. / Street Date April 29, 2016 / available at Amazon.de / E 21,93 Starring Gian Maria Volontè, Tomas Milian, William Berger, Jolanda Modio, Gianni Rizzo, Carole André Ángel del Pozo, Aldo Sambrell, Antonio Casas, Lidia Alfonsi, John Karlsen, Gastone Moschin, G&eacutge;rard Tichy. Cinematography Raphael Pacheco Film Editor Eugenio Alabiso Original Music Ennio Morricone Art Direction and sets Carlo Simi Written by Sergio Donati, Sergio Sollima Produced by Arturo González, Alberto Grimaldi <Directed by Sergio Sollima

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Wow,...

Kino Lorber brings the 1967 spaghetti Western Face to Face to Blu-ray this month, one of director Sergio Sollima’s most notable titles, previously released on DVD as a box-set with the two other titles in Sollima’s trilogy The Big Gundown (1966) and Run, Man, Run (1968). Noted for imbuing his work with a bit of actual social and historical context, there’s a bit more substance than usual for a film relegated to the periphery of a movement dominated by a mere handful of notable names. Though it’s ultimately not at the same level as iconic works by Sergio Leone and hasn’t reached the same level of reappraisal as several other retroactively recuperated directors, it features more nuanced characterizations in its complex narrative structure than is usually evident in other titles of the era.

Boston professor Brad Fletcher (Gian Maria Volonte) is suffering from poor health, and is forced...

'JFK' movie with Kevin Costner as Jim Garrison 'JFK' assassination movie: Gripping political drama gives added meaning to 'Rewriting History' If it's an Oliver Stone film, it must be bombastic, sentimental, clunky, and controversial. With the exception of "clunky," JFK is all of the above. It is also riveting, earnest, dishonest, moving, irritating, paranoid, and, more frequently than one might expect, outright brilliant. In sum, Oliver Stone's 1991 political thriller about a determined district attorney's investigation of the assassination of U.S. president John F. Kennedy is a slick piece of propaganda that mostly works both dramatically and cinematically. If only some of the facts hadn't gotten trampled on the way to film illustriousness. With the exception of John Williams' overemphatic score – Oliver Stone films need anything but overemphasis – JFK's technical and artistic details are put in place to extraordinary effect. Joe Hutshing and Pietro Scalia's editing...

Those groovy exploitation dealers at Grindhouse Releasing are finally releasing Duke Mitchell’s Gone With The Pope. I have been waiting to see this film for some time and missed the only theatrical showing in St. Louis because it was shown at a different theater on the same nights I did a Late Nite Grindhouse show 5 years ago. This is awesome news for fans coupled with the release of Duke Mitchell’s later film, Massacre Mafia Style, hitting Blu-Ray later this month.

Trailer From Grindhouse Releasing’s website:

Lost for over 30 years, Gone With The Pope stars famed nightclub performer Duke Mitchell as Paul, a paroled gangster with an unholy scheme: to kidnap the Pope and charge “a dollar from every Catholic in the world” as the ransom.

Shot in 1975, Gone With The Pope was unfinished at the time of Duke Mitchell’s death in 1981. Sage Stallone and Bob Murawski...

When Spaghetti Western aficionados recommend their favorite films, they will usually introduce people to The “Three Sergios,” that consists of Sergio Leone, Sergio Sollima and Sergio Corbucci. Even those unfamiliar the genre would surely be familiar with the masterworks of Leone, who created two of the greatest Western films of all time. Neither Sollima or Corbucci ever came close to the fame or acclaim of Leone, but stylistic and talented Sollima’s underrated The Big Gundown was politically ambitious and ahead of the curve, while Corbucci embraced a strong pulp sensibility in his ultra violent Django that featured the iconic coffin hauling gunslinger. Later, he showed his political ambitions in his Mexican Revolution trilogy that features Companeros between The Mercenary and What Am I Doing in the Middle of the Revolution?

Companeros came along during a transitional period of Italian genre cinema and Westerns specifically started shifting towards humor. Companeros...

Traffic

Written by Stephen Gaghan

Directed by Steven Soderbergh

USA, 2000

In his review of King of the Hill, Zach Lewis skewers Steven Soderbergh’s fascination with political structures throughout the director’s filmography and reading the 1993 film’s Depression-era survivalism as a “residual effect of those outside any political sphere.” Seven years after King of the Hill, Soderbergh’s fixation on politics would reach its peak in Traffic, an endlessly complex examination of America’s War on Drugs.

Traffic‘s genesis is simple enough, beginning with a pair of cops. Having run down a Mexican drug courier mid-transport, officer Javier Rodriguez (Benicio Del Toro) and his partner find their score short-lived when high-ranking General Salazar (Tomas Milian) pulls rank and takes over the drug bust. Here, the simplicity of Traffic dissipates with the monochrome yellows of the Tijuana desert. Though Rodriguez’s would-be arrest implies it, smuggling cocaine from Mexico...

We previously reported that Sergio Sollima’s The Big Gundown would be released by the good folks at Grindhouse Releasing. Now, we have the fine details. DVDActive reports that Grindhouse Releasing (by the way, it’s great to have them back after a long hiatus) is releasing The Big Gundown starring Lee Van Cleef and Tomas Milian in a 4 disc Blu-Ray & DVD Combo. Read on for the official press release. Can’t wait to see this since it has been a hard film to find.

From DVDActive.com

Sergio Sollima’s Run, Man, Run! has been available on remastered DVD for years, but its superior prequel, The Big Gundown has been missing from the digital home video landscape in the Us…until now. Grindhouse Releasing continues their comeback trail with the first even Us Blu-ray release of this classic film. Alongside Damiano Damiani’s A Bullet for the General, The Big Gundown...

Following are some supplemental sections featuring notable director & actor teams that did not meet the criteria for the main body of the article. Some will argue that a number of these should have been included in the primary section but keep in mind that film writing on any level, from the casual to the academic, is a game of knowledge and perception filtered through personal taste.

****

Other Notable Director & Actor Teams

This section is devoted to pairings where the duo worked together at least 3 times with the actor in a major role in each feature film, resulting in 1 must-see film.

Terence Young & Sean Connery

Must-See Collaboration: From Russia with Love (1962).

Other Collaborations: Action of the Tiger (1957), Dr. No (1962), Thunderball (1965).

Director Young and actor Connery teamed up to create one of the very best Connery-era James Bond films with From Russia with Love which features a great villainous performance by Robert Shaw...

Don’t Torture A Duckling is one of the most intricately woven, original giallo films ever made, and definitely one of my favorite Italian giallo films of all time. Numerous interviews credit Don’t Torture A Duckling (1972) as Lucio Fulci’s personal favorite, and it firmly established him as a major talent in the suspense genre in Italy. Don’t Torture A Duckling never saw a theatrical release in North America in the 1970s, and the film wasn’t released on VHS until 1999 when it was released in both VHS and DVD format by Anchor Bay Entertainment. Even though the time of VHS had come and gone by 1999, Anchor Bay released the film on VHS to appease horror video fans like myself. Blue Underground released the same version of the film again in 2007, but only on DVD and Blu-Ray. Currently, you can buy Don’t Torture A Duckling on VHS...

108 Media has acquired U.S. theatrical rights to "Fugly!," an autobiographical comedy written by and starring John Leguizamo. The film is a fictional adaptation of his one-man Broadway show, "Ghetto Klown," which follows Leguizamo's journey to fame. The film stars Rosie Perez, Radha Mitchell, Griffin Dunne, Yul Vasquez, Tomas Milian and Ally Sheedy. "I'm very honored to be working with 108 Media's honcho Mark Urman, who I have always looked up to in the independent scene," the actor said in a statement. "This was my first foray into screenwriting and in trying to up-end a format by making an anti-romantic comedy." 108 Media plans to open it this summer.

Further flexing the muscles of its worldwide sales and distribution operation at this year’s European Film Market, 108 Media has just sealed a deal on Fugly!, an autobiographical comedy written by and starring John Leguizamo, it was announced by 108 CEO Abhi Rastogi. With foreign sales commencing immediately in Berlin, the film will also see a theatrical release in North America via 108 Media and it’s distribution partner, Paladin. Fugly! Is slated to open in the third quarter of this year. A fictionalized rendering of his acclaimed one-man show, “Ghetto Klown,” (which played on Broadway prior to an extensive international tour), Fugly! casts Leguizamo as Jesse Sanchez, a Latino comic who has a near-death experience that forces him to revisit his personal and professional highs and lows. Told in a style that befits the envelope-pushing Jesse–and Leguizamo–the film blends past, present, fantasy, and reality to tell of one man’s hilarious quest for fame,...

Giallo: An Italian adjective describing the thriller genre, primarily in Italian books and films. Translated as simply “yellow,” giallo takes its name from the distinctive yellow covers commonly seen on Italian pulp thriller novels dating back to the late '20s. Giallo Fever: A condition afflicting fans of European horror cinema after prolonged exposure to giallo films. Symptoms include an increased fondness for '60s and '70s music and fashion, an enhanced sense of color, and occasionally intense sex appeal. So that's the short version... and here's where we're going with it: on a regular basis we'll be picking a film from the giallo genre, be it an esteemed classic, a weird obscurity or a modern spin on the formula, and bringing it to your attention. No heavy analysis, no film school mumbo-jumbo; just an overview, some highlights, and why you should see it... or in some cases, avoid it.

Keeping up with his career plan of paying homage to every film genre going, Quentin Tarantino has moved onto the spaghetti western with Django Unchained (2012). It’s not a remake of the pasta classic Django (1966), or indeed a spaghetti western, but it has clearly taken its inspiration from those violent Italian productions that swamped the late sixties.

Hollywood may have dominated the field since the beginning of motion pictures but European westerns are not exactly new; the earliest known one was filmed in 1910. Sixties German cinema made good use of Kay May’s western heroes Shatterhand and Winnetou, and the British produced The Savage Guns (1961), Hannie Caulder (1971), A Town Called Bastard (1971), Catlow (1971), Chato’s Land (1972) and Eagle’s Wing (1979). When the genre showed signs of flagging in the mid-sixties, a clever Italian director named Sergio Leone took it upon himself to reinvent the western – spaghetti style!

What made the spaghettis...

by Nick Schager

[This week's "Retro Active" pick is inspired by Quentin Tarantino's slavery-themed revisionist Spaghetti Western Django Unchained.]

Unrelated to Sergio Corbucci's Django (1966) save for its title, which was tacked on at the last second for marketing purposes, Django Kill... If You Live, Shoot! takes the Spaghetti Western into the realm of the grotesque and surreal—and, in the process, proves to be one of the genre's all-time unsung gems. Giulio Questi's saga is a mishmash of the biblical, the Shakespearean, and the outright peculiar, tracking an unnamed Stranger (Tomas Milian)—ostensibly the story's Django, though he never drags around a coffin—as he rises from the dead to chase down the bandit comrades who double-crossed him out of his share of gold and then shot him and his Mexican mates. The Stranger's Christ-like resurrection will be followed much later by his crucifixion at the hands of a crime boss named Sorrow (Roberto Camardiel). Such continuity screwiness, however, is part and parcel of...

What is a ‘giallo’? – Giallo is Italian for yellow; a term which came from crime/mystery paperbacks with the yellow toned covers. In turn, highly stylized films of the same genre with elements of eroticism became known as ‘giallo’ films themselves.

Why did you pick this film? – This was on my 31 Days Of Horror list for 2011 and due to illness I wasn’t able to watch it. So I figured for 2012’s 31 Days I would put this to watch early on so I could finally watch this one, plus who wouldn’t want to watch a film with such a cool title?

Who is behind this one? – The film was written and directed by Italian horror legend Lucio Fulci. He is best known for films such as The Beyond, Zombi 2 and City Of The Living Dead. The man was really great at his craft, and I really wanted to explore his giallo films.

The Spaghetti Western craze of the 1960's produced hundreds of films, the vast majority of which I haven't seen. However, even among those in the know, Giulio Questi's Django Kill (...If You Live Shoot!, ...Se Sei Vivo Spara!) is among the craziest, most violent, and balls out insane of the bunch. This film shares nothing with Sergio Corbucci's Django, apart from a distributor applied moniker, and manages to out crazy that film at every turn. If you've never seen Django, Kill, you owe yourself the pleasure, and Blue Underground's Blu-ray (out July 3rd), is the best way to do it!The Stranger (Tomas Milian) is killed after having been double crossed for stolen gold, but he won't be gone for long. Where there's gold, there...

By Allen Gardner

Harold And Maude (Criterion) Hal Ashby’s masterpiece of black humor centers on a wealthy young man (Bud Cort) who’s obsessed with death and the septuagenarian (Ruth Gordon) with whom he finds true love. As unabashedly romantic as it is quirky, with Cat Stevens supplying one of the great film scores of all-time. Fine support from Vivian Pickles, Cyril Cusack, Charles Tyner, and Ellen Geer. Fine screenplay by Colin Higgins. Also available on Blu-ray disc. Bonuses: Commentary by Hal Ashby biographer Nick Dawson, producer Charles Mulvehill; Illustrated audio excerpts from seminars by Ashby and Higgins; Interview with Cat Stevens. Widescreen. Dolby 2.0 stereo.

In Darkness (Sony) Agnieszka Holland’s Ww II epic tells the true story of a sewer worker and petty thief in Nazi-occupied Poland who single-handedly helped hide a group of Jews in the city’s labyrinthine sewer system for the duration of the war.

by Vadim Rizov

Overviews of the spaghetti western inevitably begin with Sergio Leone, whose presentation of Clint Eastwood as the ultimate laconic Westerner grows more iconic throughout the genre-codifying trilogy of A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More and The Good, The Bad and the Ugly. Time progressively slows to a mythic crawl, as mundane quick-draw showdowns and bounty hunter pursuits become epic set pieces through sheer duration.

Westerns had been made in Italy and Spain before Leone (largely by non-Italians), but his worldwide success was unavoidably influential. Segments of Sergio Sollima's 1966 The Big Gundown anticipate 1968's Once Upon a Time in the West, with another swoony Ennio Morricone score emphasizing similar slow visual coups. A showy tracking shot through an obscure Mexican village starts with two women at market and stops at a criminal's face being lathered in an open-air barber's chair. The man in pursuit...

In conjunction with La Furia Umana, Notebook is very happy to present Ted Fendt's original English translation of Luc Moullet's "Rockefeller's Melancholy," on Michelangelo Antonioni. Moullet's original French version can be found at La Furia Umana. Our special thanks to Mr. Moullet, La Furia Umana and Ted Fendt for making this possible.

Above: "John D. Rockefeller" (1917) by John Singer Sargent.

Drifting is the fundamental subject of Antonioni’s films. They are about beings who don’t know where they are going, who constantly contradict themselves, and are guided by their momentary impulses. We don’t understand what they feel or why they act as they do.

Psychological cinema could be defined in this way: it is psychological when you don’t understand the motivation of emotions and behaviors. If you understand, it means it’s easy, immediately, at a very superficial level... The filmmaker must therefore let it be...

Giulio Questi’s Euro western If You Live, Shoot was retitled Django Kill to cash in on the overseas popularity of the numerous Django “sequels”, only one of which was actually connected with Sergio Corbucci’s original entry. Under any title, this is one weird movie. Half-breed Tomas Milian is out for revenge on the bandits who double-crossed him after a train robbery, but the treatment is more experimental than conventional. Surreal, gender-bending, psychedelic, gothic, political, S&M, you name it, this is one of the odder movies of the genre.

DVD Playhouse—November 2011

By Allen Gardner

Tree Of Life (20th Century Fox) Terrence Malick’s latest effort is both the best film of 2011 and the finest work of his (arguably) mixed, but often masterly canon. A series of vignettes, mostly set in 1950s Texas, capture the memory of a man (Sean Penn) in present-day New York who looks back on his life, and his parents’ (Brad Pitt, Jessica Chastain) troubled marriage, when word of his younger brother’s suicide reaches him. Almost indescribable beyond that, except to say no other film in history so perfectly evokes the magic and mystery of the human memory, which both crystalizes (and sometimes idealizes) the past. Like Stanley Kubrick’s 2001, this is a challenging, polarizing work that you must let wash over you. If you go along for the ride, you’re in for a unique, rewarding cinematic experience. Also available on Blu-ray disc.

Chicago – “Framing a shot?” asks Ida (Christine Boisson), the latest photogenic lover of Italian filmmaker Niccolò (Tomas Milian), in Michelangelo Antonioni’s hypnotic 1982 effort, “Identification of a Woman.” Like Guidio, the hero of Federico Fellini’s 1963 masterpiece, “8 1/2,” Niccolò has the desire to create but has no story to tell, just “an idea of the female form” that perpetually haunts his imagination.

Regardless of his efforts to move on, Niccolò’s past threatens to consume him. The alarm systems left by his paranoid ex-wife are still present in his apartment, forcing him to dodge cameras and sirens while entering his own residence. This sequence takes place at the top of the picture, and is rather amusing but also terribly sad. The same could be said about much of what follows in this voyeuristic meditation on sexual and artistic obsession.

Blu-ray Rating: 3.5/5.0

Moviegoers frustrated with Antonioni’s enigmatic explorations of ennui among...

Hitting movie theaters this weekend:

Anonymous - Rhys Ifans, Vanessa Redgrave, David Thewlis

In Time - Justin Timberlake, Amanda Seyfried, Cillian Murphy

Puss in Boots - Antonio Banderas, Salma Hayek, Zach Galifianakis

The Rum Diary - Johnny Depp, Giovanni Ribisi, Aaron Eckhart

Movie of the Week

The Rum Diary

The Stars: Johnny Depp, Giovanni Ribisi, Aaron Eckhart

The Plot: American journalist Paul Kemp (Depp) takes on a freelance job in Puerto Rico for a local newspaper during the 1950s and struggles to find a balance between island culture and the ex-patriots who live there.

The Buzz: Where to begin? Have you seen the trailer? There’s a lot to digest in there.

In all honesty, I’d be a lot more excited than I am, (presently my excito-meter is at about a 6/10) if I’d never caught wind of the many negative rumblings about this film (I have a close...

Release Date: Oct. 25, 2011

Price: DVD $19.95, Blu-ray $29.95

Studio: Criterion

Christine Boisson reflects in Identification of a Woman.

Written and directed by the great Michelangelo Antonioni (I Vinti), Identification of a Woman takes a soul-baring voyage into one man’s artistic and erotic consciousness.

After his wife leaves him, a film director (Tomas Milian) finds himself drawn into affairs with two enigmatic women (Daniela Silverio and Christine Boisson), while at the same time searching for the right subject and actress for his next film.

A kind of “anti-romance” erotic drama, the 1982 movie was a late-career coup for the legendary Italian filmmaker, and it’s still renowned for its sexual explicitness and an extended scene on a fog-enshrouded highway that stands with the director’s greatest set pieces.

Unlike most Criterion releases, which are known for being packed with bonus features, the DVD and Blu-ray for Identification of a Woman have only a...

It’s another jam-packed week of DVD and Blu-ray releases, here’s the rundown of what’s available to buy from today, July 18th 2011.

Pick Of The Week

Psych: Season 4 (DVD)

Smart. Scientific. Psychic? The decidedly distinctive team of Shawn Spencer (James Roday) and Burton Guster (Dulé Hill) From Psych P.I. are back for more laughs, more mystery, and more highly unusual cases in every wildly entertaining episode of Season Four. They might disagree, but they can always depend on each other. In this captivating season of whimsical and wonderful whodunits, their friendship and their business will be put to the test by a slew of potential culprits that include werewolves, ghosts, a shark, and those they trust the most. Guest-starring Sendhil Ramamurthy (Heroes), James Brolin (Catch Me If You Can), Rachael Leigh Cook (She’s All That) and Ally Sheedy (The Breakfast Club), Psych continues to captivate viewers...

Franco Nero has been around. Since his star turn in the iconic Spaghetti Western Django, the Parma born movie star has appeared in more than 150 films, spanning all four corners of the globe. He’s been in musicals like Camelot (with his future wife Vanessa Redgrave), pumped up 80s action films like Die Hard 2, cop thrillers (The Marseille Connection), comedies (Cippola Colt) and even Bruce Lee inspired martial arts movies like Enter the Ninja.

“I did everything,” he explains,

“I think I’m the only actor who’s worked with the cinematography of all nations. I’ve done movies with a Brazilian director, an Australian director, films in Russia, Spain, Germany, Sweden, from all over the world. So I’ve had a lot of fun. Why not?”

Nero is in town to attend this year’s Cine Excess Film Festival, a three day conference on global cult cinema where...