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Among the most acclaimed American artists in entertainment and highly recognized filmmakers for fans of cinema, Howard Hawks made several iconic films that helped emphasize the craft of moviemaking and revealed how the medium can enthrall an audience no matter the genre. Working in the classic Hollywood era, Howard Hawks made dozens of movies ranging from comedies, dramas, gangster features, sci-fi flicks, film noir, war films and Westerns. Moreover, whatever subject the director tackled, Howard Hawks made sure to infuse his distinct style that champions dynamic characters, emphasizes sharp wit and delivers recognizable thematic elements throughout his work, and in his Western films, the auteur knew how to connect with viewers.

As a staple of the American film language, the Western genre has been defined by many talented artists since its inception and, despite only making a handful of Westerns, Howard Hawks left an impression with each film that showcased...

Western movies have shaped American cinema since its earliest days, and no star looms larger over the genre than John Wayne. With a career spanning over 50 years and more than 80 Westerns, Wayne boasts a rewatchable filmography can seem daunting to modern viewers looking for a starting point. While his performances often carried similar traits including his distinctive drawl, 9-minute fist fights, and unwavering moral code each film offered something unique that helped define Wayne's career and the Western genre.

Certain films are perfect entry points for those exploring Wayne's extensive Western catalog. They combine accessible storytelling with the iconic elements that made The Duke a Hollywood legend. These movies showcase Wayne's evolution as an actor and the Western genre's ability to tackle complex themes, all while delivering compelling entertainment. From breakthrough roles to some of his most underrated, these films perfectly introduce John Wayne's Wild West.

Big Jake Wayne Adapts...

Hello, everyone! We’re back with the final round of horror and sci-fi home media releases for the month of August, and we’ve got quite a few killer titles headed home today. Scream Factory is giving Paul Schrader’s Cat People remake a 4K overhaul in a brand-new Collector’s Edition release, and Severin Films is keeping busy with several titles today as well, including All About Evil and Fearless, and if you haven’t had a chance to check it out for yourself yet, Jane Schoenbrun’s extremely unsettling We’re All Going to the World’s Fair is headed to Blu-ray this week as well.

Other titles being released on August 30th include Arrow Video’s Giallo Essentials: 3-Disc Limited Edition Collection, Lux Aeterna, Satan’s Children, Jack Be Nimble featuring Alexis Arquette, The Oregonian, Raw Nerve, and Shriek of the Mutilated.

All About Evil: 2-Disc Special Edition

It's...

Stars: Jocelyn Hudon, Grace Van Dien, Pauline Dyer, Alix Villaret, Sean Maguire, Christopher Russell, Graham Greene, Michael P. Northey | Written by Peter Moore Smith, Steven Paul | Directed by Kelly Halihan

A beautifully restored muscle car sits by the side of the road as V for Vengeance begins. The trunk pops open and Emma pops out, changes into a skimpy outfit and waits. It doesn’t take long before some fat redneck shows up and tries to take advantage of the situation. He gets sucked, but not in the way he wanted.

The next time she tries this she ends up getting picked up by Scarlett, her adoptive, and estranged, sister. The two are vampires who apparently aren’t bothered by the bright sunlight they’re fighting each other under, silver however is a problem for them.

After an extremely long and poorly staged fight, we find out why Scarlett was looking for her,...

At this point, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ governors election looks more like a round-up than a race; more than 180 members have declared their interest in filling 17 contested spots on the 54-member Board of Governors.

Voting in the run-off round starts on Monday and ends May 18. That will narrow the present field to a maximum of four nominees per branch in the final round, which follows.

For now, there are on average about 11 candidates in the running for each slot. In the casting directors and costume design branches, only three members have declared for each slot. But not so in the actors branch, where 17 members — including Brie Larson, Jacki Weaver and Meg Ryan — are vying for the spot being vacated by termed-out Tom Hanks; or the producers, executives, and public relations branches, all of which have a bumper crop of candidates. Marvin Levy, currently a governor in the public relations branch,...

Director and documentarian Mark Hartley scores both a film history and comedy success with this ‘wild, untold’ account of the 1980s film studio that was both revered and despised by everyone who had contact with it. The ‘cast list’ of interviewees is encyclopedic, everybody has a strong opinion, and some of them don’t need four-letter words to describe their experience!

Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films

On a double bill with

Machete Maidens Unleashed!

Blu-ray

Umbrella Entertainment (Au, all-region

2014 / Color / 1:77 widescreen / 106 min. / Street Date April 4, 2017 / Available from Umbrella Entertainment / 34.99

Starring: Menahem Golan, Yoram Globus, Al Ruban, Alain Jakubowicz, Albert Pyun, Alex Winter, Allen DeBevoise, Avi Lerner, Barbet Schroeder, Bo Derek, Boaz Davidson, Cassandra Peterson, Catherine Mary Stewart, Charles Matthau, Christopher C. Dewey, Christopher Pearce, Cynthia Hargrave, Dan Wolman, Daniel Loewenthal, David Del Valle, David Paulsen, David Sheehan, David Womark, Diane Franklin, Dolph Lundgren, Edward R. Pressman,...

Stars: Christopher Mitchum, Aldo Ray, Antoine John Mottet, Renee Harmon, Dan Bradley, Jim Dratfield, Sandra Sterling | Written by Renee Harmon | Directed by James Bryan

For years I, and many others, believed that James Bryan’s The Executioner Part II was one of those “hilarious” movies – like Leonard Part 6 and Surf II – that posits that it is a sequel, only it’s a sequel to a non-existent movie! Turns out that is Not the case here… Bryan’s film is in fact an in-name-only sequel to the 1970 George Peppard film The Executioner. How do I know this? Well it’s all thanks to the fascinating interview with James Bryan found on the new Blu-ray of the film from Vinegar Syndrome off-shoot Exploitation.TV – released as part of the Indiegogo campaign for the companies VOD service.

Hailed as one of the craziest, and most incomprehensible action movies Ever, The Executioner Part II is just that.

Cult movie classic ‘Pretty Poison’ filmmaker Noel Black dead at 77 (photo: Tuesday Weld and Anthony Perkins in ‘Pretty Poison’) Noel Black, best remembered for the 1968 cult movie classic Pretty Poison, died of pneumonia at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital on July 5, 2014. Black (born on June 30, 1937, in Chicago) was 77. Prior to Pretty Poison, Noel Black earned praise for the 18-minute short film Skaterdater (1965), the tale of a boy skateboarder who falls for a girl bike rider. Shot on the beaches of Los Angeles County, the dialogue-less Skaterdater went on to win the Palme d’Or for Best Short Film and tied with Orson Welles’ Falstaff - Chimes at Midnight for the Technical Grand Prize at the 1966 Cannes Film Festival. Besides, Skaterdater received an Academy Award nomination in the Best Short Subject, Live Action category. (The Oscar winner that year was Claude Berri’s Le Poulet.) ‘Pretty Poison’: Fun and games and...

The Day Time Ended

Stars: Jim Davis, Christopher Mitchum, Dorothy Malone, Marcy Lafferty, Natasha Ryan | Written by Wayne Schmidt, J. Larry Carroll & David Schmoeller | Directed by John ‘Bud’ Carlos

Sometimes you pick the films you’re going to review based entirely on how ridiculous the titles are. It works for a while: you get a few choice so-bad-they’re-good b-movies and the occasional left-field gem, and most of the time the title alone is worth the movie’s inevitable failure to live up to its own hype.

And then you come across a film like The Day Time Ended.

I’d tell you the plot, but I’m really not sure it has one. The opening narration is so badly mixed that I couldn’t tell if it was part of the story or just an old Shatner record played backwards. IMDb relays it thusly: “Aliens visit the solar-powered house of a middle-class family,...

Eurocrime! The Italian Cop And Gangster Films That Ruled The ’70S (2012) Directed by Mike Malloy, “Eurocrime! The Italian Cop and Gangster Films that Ruled the ’70s” is a documentary exploring the cop thrillers (or ‘poliziotteschi’ movies) which exploded from the Italian film industry during the 1970s. The film is usefully split into chapters charting the rise, fall and revival of the genre and providing some background into the faddist nature of the Italian business and its earlier Spaghetti Western and Giallo trends. All of this is illustrated by a pretty staggering array of clips and interviews with the likes of Italian stars Franco Nero, Luc Merenda and Maurizio Merli, as well as the Hollywood actors who also headed over to try their luck on the continent, including Richard Harrison, Christopher Mitchum and others. It’s a tribute to how effective “Eurocrime!” really is that the viewer genuinely needs no prior...

John Wayne holds a very dear place in my film fandom – it was his films, and his Westerns particularly that I remember most from my very early childhood. Watching them with grandfathers on a Sunday afternoon, I’d come to welcome films like The Searchers, Shane and True Grit as part of my life, and I still count The Quiet Man as one of my favourite of all time, and I continue to base my idealised vision of male heroism on his wide shoulders.

A lot of Wayne’s films will forever be cruelly classified as too similar, and I suppose there is a very pressing argument that you know what to expect from Wayne, especially in his Western work. But that isn’t to say they aren’t still great film experiences.

Two of the great man’s lesser known films – Rio Lobo and Big Jake – have just been released on blu-ray,...

Bigfoot (aka: Sasquatch), the elusive North American apeman whose alleged sightings sparked a craze that swept the nation in the 1970’s, inspired a string of cheap movies that were rushed into theatres then to cash in on the fad. The Legend Of Boggy Creek (1972), Shriek Of The Mutilated (1974), Curse Of Bigfoot (1976) Sasquatch, The Legend Of Bigfoot (1977) all made a quick buck and who can forget the ‘Bigfoot and Wildboy’ TV series and the Bigfoot episode of ‘The Six Million Dolar Man’ (and c’mon, tell me Chewbacca wasn’t inspired by the big hairy guy as well) but none were as gloriously goofy as the low-rent 1970 campfest Bigfoot. A low-budget quickie loaded with Indians, biker gangs, redneck cops, and a whole family of clumsy bigfeet, Bigfoot is about ten times more entertaining than it has any right to be, but it is Not available on DVD.

Bigfoot opens with Joi Lansing...

Remake rights to the 1952 classic Western High Noon, starring Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly, were acquired Monday at AFM by producer Mark Headley, actor Christopher Mitchum and their business partner, Toni Covington.

Rights were secured from actress Karen Sharp Kramer, wife of the late Stanley Kramer, producer of the iconic original about a town marshal forced to face a gang of killers by himself.

The newly formed Los Angeles-based High Noon Prods. is seeking a director and a star to play the lead and hopes to begin shooting early next year with a target budget of about $20 million, Headley said.

Mitchum, son of actor Robert Mitchum, worked on the Westerns The Last Hard Men with Charlton Heston and James Coburn in 1976 and Rio Lobo with John Wayne in 1970. He noted that he had wanted to remake High Noon for years.

Kramer confirmed the deal but declined to reveal its terms.

The original High Noon was written by John Cunningham and Carl Foreman and directed by Fred Zinnemann; it was based on pulp short story, The Tin Star.