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VistaVision is back. Brady Corbet’s “The Brutalist” not only earned Lol Crawley the Best Cinematography Oscar but has sparked a renewed interest in the format — one that is now being further fanned by unconfirmed reports of the 35mm horizontal format also being used in Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another,” Yorgos Lanthimos’ “Bugonia,” Alejandro González Iñárritu’s untitled 2026 film, and Emerald Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights.”

The timing is perfect, therefore, for the TCM Classic Film Festival to screen two rare Paramount VistaVision prints of “We’re No Angels” (1955) and “Gunfight at the O.K. Corral” (1957) on April 26 at the Tcl Chinese Theater. What’s more, the movies will be projected with special horizontal projectors, which haven’t been used since the 1950s.

Crawley will introduce “Gunfight,” the Western from director John Sturges (“The Magnificent Seven”), which teams Burt Lancaster as Wyatt Earp and Kirk Douglas as Doc Holliday, and Charlotte Barker,...

No film so perfectly encapsulates the generation gap in America in the '60s than John Wayne's corny Vietnam War epic, The Green Berets. The genre has reached such a level of ubiquity and cliché that soon it birthed its own parody in the form of Tropic Thunder. There’s no shortage of productions exploring the political nuances and the social ramifications of the war today, but that was a different story in 1968.

Adapting the 1965 best-selling novel of the same name to theaters, it boasted John Wayne in the lead, with The Fugitive star David Janssen, Jim Hutton, and George Takei in supporting roles. The Vietnam War was a travesty in many respects. Blame US Defense Secretary Robert McNamara. For the movie, that is. Come to think of it, blame him for the war too. Reactions to the action flick were unkind. For screenwriters, journalists, and directors, it only...

Related Images invites readers behind the scenes and into the sketchbooks of working filmmakers to learn more about their creative processes.Djiby Kebe’s L’avance is now showing exclusively on Mubi.L'argent.Money has always been really important to me. I grew up listening to rap music, and I learned English by studying the lyrics. I noticed that the rappers I was a fan of talked about money as if it were an end in itself. This philosophy had a huge impact on me throughout my life. Thanks to movies, I also realized that money can be dangerous and destroy you. I’ve always been a huge fan of American cinema, and at some point, I noticed that all the characters I loved shared one particular trait: they all wanted to be financially free no matter what, because that’s how the country is built. One of the things...

When 1980’s Airplane! proved to be a massive hit, becoming one of the highest-grossing films of the year – up there with The Empire Strikes Back and Best Picture winner Kramer vs. Kramer – it was inevitable that it would get a sequel. But how often are comedy sequels good anyway? When have they ever really recaptured the magic and the laughter of the original? Well, Airplane II: The Sequel gave it a go…by basically being the same movie. Except this time around, Zaz wisely opted out, leaving the production without the strong leaders who reinvented the spoof genre. Instead, they got the guy who wrote Grease 2, one of the most notoriously awful sequels ever! So, strap in – no, not to an airplane but a space shuttle – as we find out: Wtf Happened to This Movie?!…The Sequel!

1980’s Airplane! did incredibly well upon release, making just under $85 million on a $3.5 million budget,...

It may be a mystery to famed director David Lynch that Patrick Stewart was an acclaimed actor when the latter showed up on the set of his 1984 adaptation of Frank Herbert’s Dune.

Well, sometimes directors have a clear vision of the ideal actor for a role, while other times, a happy accident can result in unexpected greatness. Such was the case with Lynch’s original 1984 Dune adaptation, in which he erroneously cast Patrick Stewart in a role that was meant for someone else.

Yes, Stewart, 83, inadvertently obtained the role of Gurney Halleck. In the process of replacing Aldo Ray at the eleventh hour, the director erroneously cast another Patrick Stewart.

David Lynch’s Dune 1984

Aside from being a financial disaster and receiving negative reviews, the film has developed a cult following over the years, and this intriguing casting mishap is just one of the many oddball tales surrounding its creation.

Alice Walker published her acclaimed novel “The Color Purple” in 1982. It sold five million copies; Walker became the first Black woman to win the Pulitzer Prize and she also received the National Book Club Award. Three years later, Steven Spielberg directed the lauded film version which made stars out of Whoopi Goldberg, Oprah Winfrey and Danny Glover. It earned 11 Oscar nominations. The story revolves around a young woman who suffers abuse from her father and husband for four decades until she finds her own identity. Not exactly the stuff of a Broadway musical.

But the 2005 tuner version received strong reviews, ran 910 performances and earned ten Tony nominations, winning best actress for Lachanze. The 2015 production picked up two Tonys for best revival and actress for Cynthia Erivo. The movie musical version opened strong Christmas Day with $18 million and is a strong contender in several Oscar categories especially for Fantasia Barrino and Danielle Brooks.

Last year, legendary filmmaker John Carpenter teamed up with Shout! Factory to host a kaiju movie marathon called Masters of Monsters, which consisted of the original Godzilla film, Rodan; Ghidorah, The Three-Headed Monster, and The War of the Gargantuas. That marathon was re-run earlier this month. Now the folks at Far Out magazine have dug up a 1996 article from Film Comment magazine in which Carpenter named The War of the Gargantuas as “the ultimate Japanese monster movie” – and included it on a list of his seventeen favorite “guilty pleasure” movies. It’s a fun list, so we have it included below, with thanks to this site.

Carpenter started out the Film Comment guilty pleasures article by saying, “I wasn’t raised a Catholic, so guilt never played much of a role in my life. We Methodists don’t worry about guilt all that much. In terms of cinema, however, guilt has always been very important.

If you’re a film nerd putting together a late summer reading list, look no further. There are a number of books here that could qualify as “beach reads,” chief among them a new novel from Quentin Tarantino. Others might be a tad heavy to lug to the beach, but they will be just as enticing at home. So let’s go swimming in a deep roundup of new books on filmmaking.

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood by Quentin Tarantino (Harper Perennial)

Only Quentin Tarantino could return to a film just two years later and radically change the order of things, remove numerous noteworthy scenes while expanding others, devote a shocking number of pages to Lancer plot summaries, embark on a headline-grabbing press tour, and still emerge with a book as successful as Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. As with any creation from Tarantino, there are moments of real reader discomfort here,...

Quentin Tarantino always has been the ultimate alpha director – a man who often likes to do things ass backwards. He depicts historic events in his movies, deliberately scrambling the dates. While many cinemas now stand empty, this week he defiantly purchased his second movie theater in Los Angeles.

He also has published a new novel, rewriting his hit movie in a way that might surprise, even distress, its star cast. The novel bears the same title, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, but if I were Brad Pitt or Leonardo DiCaprio, I would chat with my agents about character assassination.

Some spoiler alerts: In the 2019 movie, they played empathetic “has beens” trapped in the daunting downdraft of past celebrity. In the novel, however, Cliff (Pitt) brutally murders his wife, along with other hapless victims, with Tarantino’s prose wallowing in the gory details. Rick (DiCaprio) doesn’t seem fazed because...

“A love letter to cinema” was the tired-but-true trope that everyone trotted out when Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” the movie, hit theaters two years ago. But it’s now clear just how insufficient a mere mash note to the movies was for Tarantino. This week saw the arrival of “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” the 400-page book, as his epic Penthouse Forum Letter to cinema. You’ll know this trade-paperback novelization is cineaste-populist porn when you see it.

The end result is not so much like reliving the movie on the page — although the book does have a few scenes in which the dialogue and descriptive beats are transcribed note-for-note from the screenplay — as much as a catalog of constant diversions that’s like being locked inside the New Beverly for a week with Pauline Kael, Harry Knowles and Leonard Maltin. Let that intrigue...

By Lee Pfeiffer

The Warner Archive has released a Blu-ray edition of the beloved 1952 Spencer Tracy/Katharine Hepburn romantic comedy "Pat and Mike". Tracy and Hepburn had gelled with critics and audiences in their previous teamings. The film was directed by the estimable George Cukor, who Tracy and Hepburn had teamed with previously with great success. The screenplay is by Ruth Gordon and her husband Garson Kanin, who also provided the script for the earlier movie. Gordon and Kanin were close friends of Tracy and Hepburn and were inspired by the offbeat nature of their relationship. (Tracy remained married throughout his lifelong romance with Hepburn and he was noted for being short-tempered but charismatic.) They were also impressed by Hepburn's athletic abilities, especially in golf and tennis, and this formed the basis of the screenplay for "Pat and Mike". Indeed, Hepburn performs all of the sometimes incredible athletic feats seen onscreen.

Director René Clément brings an entertainingly eccentric David Goodis crime story to the screen in high style. A big score is being prepped by an odd gang, played by a terrific lineup of talent: Jean-Louis Trintignant, Robert Ryan, Aldo Ray, Lea Massari and the elusive Tisa Farrow. Only partly an action thriller, this one is weird but good — lovers of hardboiled crime stories can’t go wrong. Studiocanal has restored the original version, a full forty minutes longer than what was briefly shown here.

And Hope to Die

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1972 / Color / 1:66 widescreen / 141 min. / Street Date February 25, 2020 / La course du lièvre à travers les champs / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Jean-Louis Trintignant, Robert Ryan, Aldo Ray, Lea Massari, Tisa Farrow, Jean Gaven, André Lawrence, Nadine Nabokov, Jean Coutu, Daniel Breton, Emmanuelle Béart.

Cinematography: Edmond Richard

Film Editor: Roger Dwyre

Original Music: Francis Lai

Written by Sébastien Japrisot from...

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By Doug Oswald

An all star cast features in the adaptation of Leon Uris’ “Battle Cry,” available on Blu-ray via the Warner Archive Collection. The granddaddy of contemporary WWII melodramas like “The Winds of War” and “Band of Brothers,” “Battle Cry” was one of the first big dramatic war stories which followed multiple characters through boot camp, romance, heartbreak, the battlefield, death and homecoming. One of my favorite movies in this genre is Otto Preminger’s “In Harms Way” from 1965 which teamed John Wayne and Kirk Douglas. “Battle Cry” was first a best selling novel released in 1953 and quickly adapted to the big screen. Some people criticize these types of military themed melodramas as being light on action and heavy on romance, but there’s certainly a place for both.

“Battle Cry” begins with the narrator setting the stage. It’s...

Still one of Tracy and Hepburn’s best, this follow-up to Adam’s Rib works on all levels. It rings the feminist rights gong just hard enough, and drums the notion that women deserve a chance to achieve their potential without sex discrimination getting in the way. Katharine Hepburn is at her most attractive when being athletic. Some fine star-making supporting action adds to the fun, especially the contribution of a young Aldo Ray.

Pat and Mike

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1952 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 95 min. / Street Date August 25, 2020 / available through the WBshop / 21.99

Starring: Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Aldo Ray, William Ching, Sammy White, George Mathews, Gussie Moran, Babe Didrikson Zaharias, Don Budge, Alice Marble, Frank Andrew Parker, Betty Hicks, Beverly Hanson, Helen Dettweiler, Loring Smith, Phyllis Povah, Charles Bronson, Frank Richards, Jim Backus, Chuck Connors, Joseph E. Bernard, Owen McGiveney, Lou Lubin, Carl ‘Alfalfa’ Switzer, William Self, Frankie Darro.

“That’s all, honey, that’s all, say no more. Of course, there’s always a chance you could be an escaped fruitcake.”

Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn in Pat And Mike (1952) is aailable on Blu-ray From Warner Archive. Ordering information can be found Here

The sun will sneak by a rooster before sports promoter Mike Conovan (Spencer Tracy) lets opportunity pass him by. So the first time he sees genteel Pat Pemberton (Katharine Hepburn) swing a five-iron, he decides to ink her to a pro contract. “Not much meat on her ,” Mike later says, “but what’s there is cherce.” For this chercest of romantic comedies, George Cukor directs, Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin provide the Oscar®-nominated screenplay, and a deft cast plays various Damon Runyonesque types, including Aldo Ray as a dim-bulb palooka and Charles (Bronson) Buchinski as a tough guy who finds Pat tougher. Sports stars...

Pairing wine with movies! See the trailers and hear the fascinating commentary for these movies and many more at Trailers From Hell. You’ve probably never heard of these films, but the upside is that watching them alone at home won’t require a mask.

According to the one-sheet, in 1965’s Nightmare in the Sun, Ursula Andress was old enough to know better but too beautiful to care. She’s cheating on her older husband with the town sheriff, then takes up with a hitchhiker. It turns out the husband knows better than to kill people, but was too drunk to care.

The soap opera that accompanied the production reads like an early draft of Blake Edwards’ S.O.B. The story goes that Andress’s real-life husband, John Derek, agreed to let his wife do a nude scene with Aldo Ray, but reportedly reneged on the deal just before shooting started.

A topsy-turvy take on The Postman Always Rings Twice, Ursula Andress, John Derek and Aldo Ray engage in some murderous fun and games in this 1965 potboiler directed by Hollywood stalwart Marc Lawrence. Shot in a little over two weeks in Calabasas, California, Lawrence co-wrote the steamy screenplay with his wife Fanya.

The post Nightmare in the Sun appeared first on Trailers From Hell.

Stars: Steffani Brass, Brooke Mackenzie, Tina Cole, Chantelle Albers, Dabier, Charlie Ian, Malcolm Matthews, Ann Tomberlin, Gets Old, Masha Mendieta, Tom Ohmer, Rich Redmond, Carrie Aquino, Wilson Davis, Traveis Lee Eller | Written by Jose Altonaga, Remy MacKenzie | Directed by Jose Altonaga

Evil Town… Evils of the Night… Reawakened. Three films seemingly with nothing in common, separated by decades. However they have one key thread, Remy MacKenzie.

A casting director on both Evil Town (1977) and Evils of the Night (1985), MacKenzie co-scripted And produced this film alongside Jose Altonaga – who worked with MacKenzie back in 1989 on Hot Times at Montclair High; directing that teen sex comedy, whilst McKenzie would once again take on the casting role. Since then the pair have made a short together, Five Days in June, back in 2009; and now comes this, a film that feels very reminiscent of 80s shot on video horror And features a trademark of...

A never ending mission to save the world featuring Ron Perlman, Peter Ramsey, James Adomian, Will Menaker, and Blaire Bercy from the Hollywood Food Coalition.

Please support the Hollywood Food Coalition. Text “Give” to 323.402.5704 or visit https://hofoco.org/donate!

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Karado: The Kung Fu Flash a.k.a. Karado: The Kung Fu Cat a.k.a. The Super Kung Fu Kid (1974)

Sullivan’s Travels (1941)

The Best Years Of Our Lives (1946)

Mr. Smith Goes To Washington (1939)

Nobody’s Fool (1994)

The Hustler (1961)

Elmer Gantry (1960)

Mean Dog Blues (1978)

Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse (2018)

Mona Lisa (1986)

The Crying Game (1992)

The Hairdresser’s Husband (1990)

Ridicule (1996)

Man on the Train (2002)

The Girl on the Bridge (1999)

Pale Flower (1964)

Out of the Past (1947)

The Lunchbox (2013)

Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace (1999)

The Last Boy Scout (1991)

Raw Deal (1986)

Commando (1985)

The Masque of the Red Death (1964)

The Last Man On Earth (1964)

Invasion of the Body Snatchers...

He is the Master of Mood. Once you’ve seen a few films by Jacques Tourneur, you see how meticulously this extraordinary filmmaker could create a sense of atmosphere, no matter the setting. The Film Society of Lincoln Center is now set to host the largest New York retrospective of the French-born genre director’s work in decades. The exhaustive program, titled “Jacques Tourneur, Fearmaker,” runs from December 14 to January 3 and includes nearly every film he ever made.

The lineup includes his extraordinary horror films for Rko produced by Val Lewton, to the creepy Gothic mystery “Experiment Perilous” and the all-time noir classic “Out of the Past” to later work such as the twisty British frightfest “Curse of the Demon” (sometimes titled “Night of the Demon”) and the unique crime thriller “Nightfall” which answers the question every cinephile didn’t even know they need to ask: What happens when you...

One of the splashier WW2 combat sagas adapts Norman Mailer’s respected book but ends up a bona fide mess. Aldo Ray, Cliff Robertson and Raymond Massey flail about in a compromised screen story, augmented with side-dish appearances by sultry Barbara Nichols and — even though she’s allowed to contribute almost nothing — famous ecdysiast Lili St. Cyr. Let the search for outtakes begin.

The Naked and the Dead

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1958 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 131 min. / Street Date August 28, 2018 / available through the WBshop / 21.99

Starring: Aldo Ray, Cliff Robertson, Raymond Massey, Lili St. Cyr, Barbara Nichols, William Campbell, Richard Jaeckel, James Best, Joey Bishop, Jerry Paris, Robert Gist, L.Q. Jones, Max Showalter, John Beradino, Saundra Edwards, Lydia Goya, Val Hidey, Taffy O’Neil, Liz Renay, Grace Lee Whitney.

Cinematography: Joseph Lashelle

Film Editor: Arthur P. Schmidt

Original Music: Bernard Herrmann

Written by Denis Sanders & Terry Sanders from the novel by Norman...

J.J. Abrams is teaming up with his Star Trek and Star Trek Into Darkness star Zachary Quinto to develop a new biopic entitled Tab & Tony, about the secret gay love affair between actors Anthony Perkins and Tab Hunter. The project has no director or actors attached at this time, with both Abrams and Quinto only currently attached as producers, with Abrams producing through his Bad Robot company along with Zachary Quinto, Neil Koeningsberg and Hunter's long-time partner Allan Glaser. Playwright Doug Wright, who won a Pulitzer for his play "I Am My Own Wife," has been hired to write the screenplay.

The movie will be adapted from Hunter's own 2005 biography "Tab Hunter Confidential: The Making of a Movie Star," which chronicled his struggles as a gay actor in the 1950s, while detailing his rise to stardom where he was being marketed as a Hollywood heartthrob and the ideal leading man.

Move over James Jones — Leon Uris clobbers the big screen with a sprawling adaptation of his WW2 combat novel, loaded down with roles for promising young actors. This is the one where twice as much time is spent on love affairs than fighting. War may be hell, but if Mona Freeman, Nancy Olson, Dorothy Malone and Allyn McLerie are going to be there for comfort, sign me up.

Battle Cry

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1955 / Color / 2:55 widescreen / 148 min. / Street Date , 2017 / available through the WBshop / 21.99

Starring: Van Heflin, Aldo Ray, Mona Freeman, Nancy Olson, James Whitmore, Raymond Massey, Tab Hunter, Dorothy Malone, Anne Francis, William Campbell, Fess Parker, Justus E. McQueen (L.Q. Jones), Perry Lopez, Jonas Applegarth, Tommy Cook, Felix Noriego, Susan Morrow, Carleton Young, Rhys Williams, Allyn Ann McLerie, Gregory Walcott, Frank Ferguson, Sarah Selby, Willis Bouchey, Victor Milian.

Cinematography: Sidney Hickox

Film Editor: William H. Zeigler

Original Music: Max Steiner...

We’ve covered plenty of obscure films available on iTunes in previous From VHS to VOD columns but Apple’s digital service is not the only VOD service making waves into the strange and obscure – there’s plenty of odd, unseen and unreleased (well unreleased on disc formats) films available on Amazon Video.

Unlike iTunes, a lot of the more obscure titles are only available for streaming rather than purchase, though the wide variety of films you don’t, and probably won’t see elsewhere makes up for that. Like iTunes there are some truly obscure films hidden away in the depths of Amazon’s vast collection of movies. Some of which have been made available in the UK for the first time since VHS and a Lot that have been added to the service in their original uncut form!

So, with that said here’s highlight some of the best (well,...

Revenge films have been around for a very long time; one can look to The Virgin Spring (1960), Straw Dogs (1971), or Death Wish (1974) for their rise from serious drama to movies of a more exploitive nature. Psychic Killer (1975) adds a unique twist to the tale by having astral projection as a means to the violent ends. Quirky and laden with creative deaths, it very much embraces its weirdness, providing a fun carpet ride for the whole family (at least according to its mind-boggling PG rating).

Released stateside in December by Avco Embassy Pictures, Psychic Killer, aka The Kirlian Force, only cost $250,000 and came and went like a phantom in the night. Critics paid it no mind either, and it was relegated to video store shelves and gas station rentals. On the surface, that’s understandable; a B cast with a former actor turned fairly unproven B director (Ray Danton – Deathmaster), and...

All sing the praises of Frank Borzage, a gentle director fully committed to the idea of romance in an imperfect world. Sally Eilers and James Dunn make a go of marriage, despite their personal flaws and difficulties with communication. It’s hard to believe that films of this vintage portray behaviors as sensitive as this.

Bad Girl

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1931 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 90 min. / Street Date December 13, 2016 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring James Dunn, Sally Eilers, Minna Gombell, Sarah Padden, William Pawley, Billy Watson.

Cinematography Chester A. Lyons

Film Editor Margaret Clancey

Written by Viña Delmar, Brian Marlow, Edwin J. Burke

Directed by Frank Borzage

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Directors don’t come any more romantic than Frank Borzage. It is said that he was one of several Fox directors, including John Ford, who were heavily influenced by F.W. Murnau, whose Sunrise was a massive hit in...

By Lee Pfeiffer

The Warner Archive has released the highly enjoyable 1975 caper film Inside Out and it should appeal to fans of both The Italian Job (the good version from '69!) and Kelly's Heroes. The wisecracking cast of old pros is topped by Telly Savalas, Robert Culp and James Mason. The latter plays the commandant of a German Pow camp in which Savalas was interred. He tracks Savalas down thirty years later and finds him as a high-living con-man in London whose luck has run out. He entices him to participate in an audacious scheme to infiltrate a maximum security prison in Berlin to locate its sole inhabitant: a former high ranking Nazi who has knowledge of where a stolen shipment of German army gold has been hidden for decades. The elaborate plan involves drugging the prisoner, smuggling him out of jail, convincing him he is back in WWII (complete with Hitler impersonator!

We’Re No Angels (1955) plays on the big screen at St. Louis’ fabulous Hi-Pointe Theater this weekend as part of their Classic Film Series. It’s Saturday, December 3rd at 10:30am at the Hi-Pointe located at 1005 McCausland Ave., St. Louis, Mo 63117. Admission is only $5. Other Christmas films in December are It’S A Wonderful Life at 10:30am 12/10 and White Christmas at 10:30am 12/17 and Die Hard at midnight 12/23.

“We came here to rob them and that’s what we’re gonna do – beat their heads in, gouge their eyes out, slash their throats. Soon as we wash the dishes.”

Humphrey Bogart, Peter Ustinov and Aldo Ray are the motley trio of convicts who escape from Devil’s Island prison just before Christmas in the festive 1955 comedy We’Re No Angels. They look for places to steal from and stumble across a store run by kindly but bumbling Felix...

While horror is riding high theatrically side this week, August 30th’s genre home entertainment releases are a bit on the quieter side, with only a handful of titles coming our way. Scream Factory is releasing the sword and sorcery movies Deathstalker and Deathstalker II on a double feature Blu-ray, and for you cult film fans out there, Vinegar Syndrome has given Evils of the Night an HD overhaul.

Other notable home entertainment titles for the week of August 3oth include Blood Redd, Dreadtime Stories, Walking Dead in the West, and a serial killer themed three-movie combo pack from Rlj Entertainment.

Deathstalker / Deathstalker II (Double feature Blu-ray available exclusively on Shout! Factory’s website)

Deathstalker (1983)

Deathstalker (Richard Hill) is a mighty warrior chosen to battle the evil forces of a medieval kingdom who sets off on a journey to the most challenging tournament in the land. To the...

Rita Hayworth in 3-D, in a hot story that was acceptable for 1925 and 1932, but too racy for repressed 1953. On a tropical island, a prostitute cabaret singer battles a fiery preacher missionary inspector for her freedom. Hayworth is dynamite, and it takes all of her talent to keep the show afloat, with so much interference from the equally repressed censors. Miss Sadie Thompson 3-D 3-D Blu-ray Twilight Time 1953 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 91 min. / Street Date July 12, 2016 / Available from Twilight Time Movies Store29.95 Starring Rita Hayworth, José Ferrer, Aldo Ray, Russell Collins, Diosa Costello, Harry Bellaver, Wilton Graff, Peggy Converse, Henry Slate, Rudy Bond, Charles Bronson, Jo Ann Greer. Cinematography Charles Lawton Jr. Original Music George Duning, Morris Stoloff, Ned Washington, Lester Lee Written by Harry Kleiner from a story by W. Somerset Maugham Produced by Jerry Wald Directed by Curtis Bernhardt

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Yes!  3-D on Blu-ray shows no sign of going away,...

Well, genre fans, we only have four home entertainment releases coming our way this Tuesday, but as the saying goes, they are quality over quantity.

Scream Factory is releasing the ’90s thriller The Crush on Blu-ray this week and we also have two great recent films to look forward to as well: The Wave and Midnight Special. Rounding out this Tuesday’s Blu-ray and DVD offerings is Bayview Entertainment’s DVD release of the ’80s cult classic, Biohazard.

Biohazard (Bayview Entertainment, DVD)

The cult classic returns featuring an all-new 2K 16×9 widescreen film transfer from the original 35mm negative! A group of scientists, army types and a buxom psychic use a variety of methods to suck a bloodthirsty alien out of another dimension. Upon arriving, the little devil blasts his way loose, taking part of a soldiers face along the way. The psychic and her network of friends chase the beast,...

Quentin Tarantino's "The Hateful Eight" is headed to the horizon of its theatrical run, but there's still some great stuff we're catching up with from the director's extensive press rounds for the movie, the juiciest perhaps being a lengthy interview in Sight & Sound. Read More: Ranked: Quentin Tarantino's 50 Best Characters Over at Sunset Gun, Kim Morgan excerpted a generous portion of her talk with the director, which goes enjoyably deep about the politics of westerns, the films of Robert Aldrich (with Morgan comparing Tarantino to the filmmaker), and '70s films including "Deliverance." And another fascinating tidbit emerges when Tarantino is asked which actors he's been wanting to work with.  "Obviously, Ralph Meeker and Aldo Ray are two of them. Michael Parks, in his day. I worked with him but in his day would have been nice. Robert Blake in his day. I would work with Robert Blake tomorrow,...

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.

Rex Ingram in 'The Thief of Bagdad' 1940 with tiny Sabu. Actor Rex Ingram movies on TCM: Early black film performer in 'Cabin in the Sky,' 'Anna Lucasta' It's somewhat unusual for two well-known film celebrities, whether past or present, to share the same name.* One such rarity is – or rather, are – the two movie people known as Rex Ingram;† one an Irish-born white director, the other an Illinois-born black actor. Turner Classic Movies' “Summer Under the Stars” continues today, Aug. 11, '15, with a day dedicated to the latter. Right now, TCM is showing Cabin in the Sky (1943), an all-black musical adaptation of the Faust tale that is notable as the first full-fledged feature film directed by another Illinois-born movie person, Vincente Minnelli. Also worth mentioning, the movie marked Lena Horne's first important appearance in a mainstream motion picture.§ A financial disappointment on the...

Raymond Massey ca. 1940. Raymond Massey movies: From Lincoln to Boris Karloff Though hardly remembered today, the Toronto-born Raymond Massey was a top supporting player – and sometime lead – in both British and American movies from the early '30s all the way to the early '60s. During that period, Massey was featured in nearly 50 films. Turner Classic Movies generally selects the same old MGM / Rko / Warner Bros. stars for its annual “Summer Under the Stars” series. For that reason, it's great to see someone like Raymond Massey – who was with Warners in the '40s – be the focus of a whole day: Sat., Aug. 8, '15. (See TCM's Raymond Massey movie schedule further below.) Admittedly, despite his prestige – his stage credits included the title role in the short-lived 1931 Broadway production of Hamlet – the quality of Massey's performances varied wildly. Sometimes he could be quite effective; most of the time, however, he was an unabashed scenery chewer,...

Katharine Hepburn movies. Katharine Hepburn movies: Woman in drag, in love, in danger In case you're suffering from insomnia, you might want to spend your night and early morning watching Turner Classic Movies' "Summer Under the Stars" series. Four-time Best Actress Academy Award winner Katharine Hepburn is TCM's star today, Aug. 7, '15. (See TCM's Katharine Hepburn movie schedule further below.) Whether you find Hepburn's voice as melodious as a singing nightingale or as grating as nails on a chalkboard, you may want to check out the 1933 version of Little Women. Directed by George Cukor, this cozy – and more than a bit schmaltzy – version of Louisa May Alcott's novel was a major box office success, helping to solidify Hepburn's Hollywood stardom the year after her film debut opposite John Barrymore and David Manners in Cukor's A Bill of Divorcement. They don't make 'em like they used to Also, the 1933 Little Women...

Slasher // Video and Olive Films recently gave ’80s horror fans something to celebrate by announcing their upcoming Blu-ray releases of Killer Workout, Shock ’Em Dead and DVDs of Death Nurse, Boardinghouse, and more. Now the companies have announced the special features for the anticipated horror home media releases.

Blu-ray.com reports the numerous special features for the nine upcoming September 29th horror releases from Slasher // Video and Olive Films. One highlight in particular is the Director's Cut of Boardinghouse, which will include over 50 minutes of additional footage on the DVD.

"Killer Workout (Blu-ray / DVD)

Killer Workout is presented using the best available elements provided by Slasher // Video. Not sourced from an HD Master; remastered from from Pal Beta Sp and upconverted to Blu-ray and DVD specifications.

Slasher // Video presents Killer Workout, directed by David A. Prior (Deadly Prey, The Deadliest Prey) and starring Ted Prior (Deadly Prey), Marcia Karr (Maniac Cop...

Full of sex, lasers, synth-pop, feathered hair, bikinis and axe wounds, Evils Of The Night is a pivotal example of Reagan-era teen fantasy fodder. Genre favorites John Carradine, Julie Newmar (TV’s Catwoman) and Tina Louise (Gilligan’s Island) star as a gang of alien scientists who want the life-giving blood supply of horny teens camping out near their secret lab. Veteran Hollywood stars Aldo Ray and Neville Brand (in his final film role) play a … Continue reading →

Horrornews.net...

Gorgon Video announced that they’re bringing 1985’s sci-fi cult classic Evils of the Night to DVD on October 14th:

“Full of sex, lasers, synth-pop, feathered hair, bikinis and axe wounds, Evils Of The Night is a pivotal example of Reagan-era teen fantasy fodder. Genre favorites John Carradine, Julie Newmar (TV’s Catwoman) and Tina Louise (Gilligan’s Island) star as a gang of alien scientists who want the life-giving blood supply of horny teens camping out near their secret lab. Veteran Hollywood stars Aldo Ray and Neville Brand (in his final film role) play a pair of bumbling mechanics hired by the extraterrestrials to kidnap the teens for experimentation – with botched and bloody results. Co-starring adult film legends Amber Lynn and Crystal Breeze, and directed by Mardi Rustam (producer of The Psychic Killer and Tobe Hooper’s Eaten Alive), this 1985 sci-fi horror classic features some of the most gruesome...

Men in War

Written by Philip Yordan

Directed by Anthony Mann

USA, 1957

Director Anthony Mann was a specialist at genre filmmaking. From early crime dramas like T-Men and Raw Deal, to historical epics like El Cid and The Fall of the Roman Empire, he seemed to have a knack for working within — and working with — the conventions of a given generic formula. His Westerns, especially, are among the best that that particular type of movie has to offer. And when he set his sights on the war film, his natural aptitude for genre would be as prominent as it was anywhere. Men in War, from 1957, his second war film of the decade (released two years after Strategic Air Command), contains much of what makes Mann a distinct filmmaker, and reveals much of what makes the war film its own unique form of motion picture.

Set in Korea, 1950, Men in War...

Violence, torture, voyeurism, gang-rape, murder, nudity, and epic levels of misogyny…..it must be time for another Late Night Grindhouse!!!

At The Hi-Pointe Theater (1005 McCausland Ave, St. Louis) this Friday and Saturday nights (February 7th and 8th) at Midnight, the guys at Destroy the Brain are presenting a 35mm print of Centerfold Girls, a remarkably skanky gem from 1974. Andrew Prine, decked in saddle-shoes, a hideous leisure suit, and a shag haircut, stars in Centerfold Girls as Clement Dunne, a kooky puritanical nerd who sets out to murder a year’s worth of centerfold girls from a nudie mag. His motive is altruistic: He wants to save them from a life of posing naked, but his method, ‘saving’ them by slicing them to ribbons with a straight razor, won’t get him into heaven. The film itself is kind of an anthology, divided into three acts, each concerning one of the...

The most beautiful girls in the world… Some are for loving… Some are for killing!

Banned In Iceland! 35Mm Film Print!

Synopsis

A reedy man wearing saddle shoes and an ill-fitting suit drags the nude body of a young woman—her throat slit– along an otherwise empty beach. Soon a number of other beautiful women turn up dead, their throats also cut open. Nurses, students, stewardesses… what’s the common thread? All were centerfold models for a popular men’s magazine, prey to a bloodthirsty psychotic with a straight razor!

Framed by an unusual three-story arc and jam-packed with delectable nudity and grim violence, The Centerfold Girls is an exploitation masterpiece, a depraved hell-ride through the skuzzy Seventies grindhouse circuit where sleaze and mean-spiritedness prevailed. Starring Tiffany Bolling (The Candy Snatchers), Aldo Ray (The Psychic Killer), Ray Danton (The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond), Francine York (The Doll Squad...

’Iron Man’ 2008: The Air Force as ’rock stars’ (See previous post: "The American Military at the Movies: The Pentagon-Hollywood Complex.") Gwyneth Paltrow and Robert Downey Jr. are connected to the Pentagon by way of the Air Force-aided Iron Man (2008), and so is Dakota Fanning "at the side of top-gunner Tom Cruise" in Steven Spielberg’s Army-aided 2005 remake of War of the Worlds. (Image: Iron Man 2008.) Oscar winners and/or nominees Jennifer Jones, Paul Newman, Fred Astaire, Faye Dunaway, Steve McQueen, Robert Vaughn, and once again William Holden (not to mention O.J. Simpson, Susan Blakely, Richard Chamberlain, and Robert Wagner) are all in thanks to John Guillermin’s 1974 blockbuster and Best Picture Academy Award nominee The Towering Inferno. "The Navy lent helicopters," Nick Turse explains, "and the studio [20th Century Fox and Warner Bros.] said thanks in the form of an acknowledgment in the credits." Regarding Paramount’s Jon Favreau-directed Iron Man, Air Force master...

Science fiction author and inspiration to Stephen King whose novels, such as I Am Legend, were adapted for film and TV

Richard Matheson, the prolific American writer of fantasy, horror and science fiction, much of whose work has been adapted for TV and cinema, has died aged 87. Cited by Stephen King as the biggest influence on his own work, Matheson sent shivers down the spines of readers and viewers for decades, with such unusual novels and stories as The Incredible Shrinking Man and the much-filmed I Am Legend.

He turned his hand to pacy adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe stories for the film director Roger Corman, to the story and screenplay for one of Steven Spielberg's most effective films, Duel (1971), and 16 instalments of the popular and ingenious television series The Twilight Zone. For Matheson, horror was potentially everywhere: battlefields, suburban streets, a cellar, an aircraft cabin – even a library.

La course du lièvre à travers les champs (The Race of the Hare Across the Fields a.k.a. ...and Hope to Die, 1972) is an interesting late entry in the career of French crime specialist René Clément, a kind of smorgasbord of his favorite stuff: hardboiled crime, knotty sexual triangles, a hero on the run, convoluted crime schemes, with a harkening back to childhood sins that suggests his classic Jeux interdits (Forbidden Games, 1952). This might suggest desperation to recapture past glories, but the film is also stuffed with experimentation and up-to-the-minute influences (a train station confrontation early on suggests Leone) which confirm the filmmaker as alert to new possibilities.

But the film could just as easily be approached through the sensibility of its writer, Sébastien Japrisot, a key figure in French cinema and crime cinema, or even through that of the author of the source novel, David Goodis.

Barbra Streisand 2012 news: Streisand is reportedly going to direct her first film in 17 years. Skinny and Cat, about the romance between writer Erskine Caldwell (Tobacco Road, God’s Little Acre) and photojournalist Margaret Bourke-White, should commence filming in January 2013 with director Barbra Streisand guiding Oscar winners Colin Firth (The King’s Speech) and Cate Blanchett (The Aviator). The source for this information is showbiz411.com, which adds that Linda Yellen wrote the Skinny and Cat screenplay and will also produce the independently financed film. Barbra Streisand: ‘controversial’ director Barbra Streisand’s last film as a director was The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996), a (in my view quite enjoyable) romantic comedy-melodrama that was widely panned at the time. Streisand co-starred with Jeff Bridges, but veteran Lauren Bacall was the one who stole the notices and received a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination for her efforts. [Lauren Bacall Best Supporting Actress loss.] Prior to The Mirror Has Two Faces,...

I’ve always been a war film buff, maybe because I grew up with them at a time when they were a regular part of the cinema landscape. That’s why I read, with particular interest, my Sound on Sight colleague Edgar Chaput’s recent pieces on The Flowers of War (“The Flowers of War Is an Uneven but Interesting Chinese Ww II Film” – posted 2/20/12) and The Front Line (The Front Line Rises to the Occasion to Overcome Its Familiarity” – 2/16/12) with such interest. An even more fun read was the back-and-forth between Edgar and Sos’s Michael Ryan over the latter (“The Sound on Sight Debate on Korea’s The Front Line” – 2/12/12), with Michael unimpressed because the movie had “…nothing new to add to the war genre,” and Edgar coming back with “…‘new’ is not always what a film must strive for. So long as it does well what it set out to do…...

Throughout the month of December, TV Editor Kate Kulzick and Film Editor Ricky D will review classic Christmas adaptions, posting a total of 13 each, one a day, until the 25th of December.

The catch: They will swap roles as Rick takes on reviews of television Christmas specials and Kate takes on Christmas movies. Today is day 14.

We’re No Angels (1955)

Written by Ranald MacDougall

Directed by Michael Curtiz

What’s it about?

A trio of escaped convicts on the lam, Joseph (Humphrey Bogart), Albert (Aldo Ray), and Jules (Peter Ustinov), duck into a shop run by the Ducotels (Leo G. Carroll as Felix and Joan Bennett as Amelie) planning to lay low on the roof ‘til dark, when they’ll rob the place blind and head to their getaway ship. Over the course of the day, however, they become invested in the Ducotels’ struggles and wind up cooking Christmas dinner...

 

Last year Brad listed his list of Top Ten Christmas Movies and in 2007 David listed the ten films he considered the Top Ten Deranged Christmas Flicks. Well, I had to throw my hat in the ring with a completely different list... a list for the holiday softies. So light the fire, warm the coco and grab a blanket... What follows is my list of the twelve best Christmas/Holiday movies to warm your heart. When you compare the twelve films that follow to the two lists I just mentioned, three of them can be found on Brad's top ten and two on David's list of Deranged Christmas Flicks, but perhaps the most interesting fact of them all is that all three lists share the exact same film in the #1 slot. Weird... right? So browse through these three pages where I say a few words about each film, offer up some clips and trailers and,...

DVD Playhouse—December 2011

By Allen Gardner

The Rules Of The Game (Criterion) Jean Renoir’s classic from 1939 was met with a riot at its premiere and was severely cut by its distributor, available only in truncated form for two decades until it was restored to the grandeur for which it is celebrated today. A biting comedy of manners set in the upstairs and downstairs of a French country estate, the film bitterly vivisects the bourgeoisie with a gentle ferocity that will tickle the laughter in your throat. Renoir co-stars as Octave. Also available on Blu-ray disc. Bonuses: Introduction to the film by Renoir; Commentary written by scholar Alexander Sesonske and read by Peter Bogdanovich; Comparison of the film’s two endings; Selected scene analysis by Renoir scholar Chris Faulkner; Featurettes and vintage film clips; Part one of David Thomson’s “Jean Renoir” BBC documentary; Video essay; Interviews with Renoir, crew members,...