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The New Hollywood revolution was raging in 1971, and studios were rapidly transitioning from old-school leadership to boat-rocking up-and-comers who seemed to have the pulse of the Baby Boomer-driven counterculture. The age of star-studded mega-musicals and old-fashioned oaters was over; movies didn't necessarily need a serrated edge to slash into the zeitgeist, but even a weepie like Arthur Hiller's "Love Story" boasted a lived-in verisimilitude. These films, shorn of backlot artifice, were happening in the real world.

Young moviegoers weren't the only ones craving authenticity. John Schlesinger's "Midnight Cowboy" couldn't have been voted Best Picture of 1969 without significant support from gray-haired Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences members. This was a film that plunged viewers into the seamiest iteration of New York City ever captured by a studio movie, that dealt with issues of sex work and homosexuality so unflinchingly that the MPAA (now known as MPA) gave it an X-rating.

Following up on their excellent Blood Money box set from last year, the folks at Arrow Video now offer the four-film collection Savage Guns, another deep dive into the vaults of the Italian western. With each of these releases, Arrow gives viewers the opportunity to form a richer and broader notion of the genre, to examine the way these films work the warp and weft of similarity and difference, providing audiences with expected payoffs of sex and violence while also playing variations (subtle or otherwise) on familiar generic themes.

Featuring sparkling new restorations based on original film elements, Savage Guns comes in another lavishly appointed package from Arrow Video, complete with hours of bonus materials, like cast and crew interviews, commentary tracks, introductions to each of the films by critic Fabio Melelli, and appreciations of two of the film scores by audiophile Lovely Jon. Also included in the slipcase are...

Italian film legend Gina Lollobrigida, who achieved international stardom during the 1950s and was dubbed “the most beautiful woman in the world” after the title of one of her movies, died in Rome on Monday, her agent said. She was 95.

The agent, Paola Comin, didn’t provide details. Lollobrigida had surgery in September to repair a thigh bone broken in a fall. She returned home and said she had quickly resumed walking.

A drawn portrait of the diva graced a 1954 cover of Time magazine, which likened her to a “goddess” in an article about Italian movie-making. More than a half-century later, Lollobrigida still turned heads with her brown, curly hair and statuesque figure, and preferred to be called an actress instead of the gender-neutral term actor.

Read More: Evel Knievel’s Son Robbie Dies At Age 60 After Pancreatic Cancer Battle

“Lollo,” as she was lovingly nicknamed by Italians, began making...

To mark the release of the restoration of The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie on 20th June, we’ve been given 2 copies to give away on Blu-ray.

This virtually plotless tale of six middle-class guests and their interrupted attempts to have a meal together stars Fernando Rey, Paul Frankeur (The Phantom Of Liberty), Delphine Seyrig, Bulle Ogier (L’Amour Fou), Stéphane Audran and Jean-Pierre Cassel (Murder On The Orient Express) and was the recipient of the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar as well as two BAFTA awards on its release in 1972.

Buñuel’s humorous satire depicts a group of friends – the Thévenots, the Sénéchals, Madame Thévenot’s younger sister Florence and Latin American ambassador Don Rafael Acosta – make repeated attempts to dine together, but are constantly frustrated by bizarre interruptions, including a series of dreams.

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The Small...

From The Dirty Dozen to John Wick, via Enzo G. Castellari’s Inglorious Bastards, the man, or men, on a perilous mission movie is a staple of action thriller cinema, wherein our heroes embark on a seriously against-the-odds undertaking for revenge, to right a wrong, or simply to get hold of a huge amount of loot! They usually go up against a massive, well-protected organisation, a seriously ruthless crime lord, or a well protected bank – and will need the luck of the gods on their side to succeed! Three mayhem-filled mission classics – High Crime, Kill Them All And Come Back Alone, and Extreme Prejudice are being released on DVD and Blu-ray on 6 June, on the new Cult Classics label from Studiocanal, with beautiful restorations of beloved genre films, packed with extras. Here’s a breakdown of the three films, the heroes and their foolhardy undertakings.

Kill Them All And Come...

"I don't think I belong here." The Film Forum in NYC has revealed an official 4K restoration trailer for the iconic, surrealist masterpiece The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, one of the great Luis Buñuel's final films. It originally premiered in 1972, which means it's celebrating its 50th anniversary this year in 2022. It's highly regarded as a cerebral classic dealing with time travel and the bourgeoisie and their never-ending appetite. The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie follows a group of dinner guests attempting to dine together, despite continual interruptions involving dreams and repeating scenes. The film is described as Bunuel's "most frivolously witty movie, directed (at the age of 72) with exhilarating ease." The French film stars Fernando Rey, Stéphane Audran, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Paul Frankeur, Delphine Seyrig, Bulle Ogier, Julien Bertheau, and Milena Vukotic. It's one of the most confusing films you'll ever see, but that's also part of the "discreet charm" of figuring it out,...

This week marks the 50th anniversary of director William Friedkin's 1971 crime thriller "The French Connection." It is considered to be one of the best films ever made and won multiple Oscars including Best Picture, Best Actor (Gene Hackman), Best Director, Best Film Editing, and Best Adapted Screenplay (Ernest Tidyman). The story follows NYPD detectives Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle (Hackman) and Buddy "Cloudy" Russo (Roy Scheider) in pursuit of a wealthy French heroin smuggler named Alain "Frog One" Charnier (played by Fernando Rey). In an interview with The New York Post, Hackman and Friedkin detail the iconic guerrilla filmmaking and the car chase scene...

The post William Friedkin Admits the Famous French Connection Car Chase 'Put People's Lives in Danger' appeared first on /Film.

Two-time Oscar winner Gene Hackman retired from acting after starring in the 2004 comedy “Welcome to Mooseport” opposite Ray Romano, and he’s kept a reclusive profile in the 17 years since. However, Hackman made a surprise emergence this week to mark the 50th anniversary of William Friedkin’s “The French Connection.” The 1971 crime thriller won Hackman his only Oscar for Best Actor, although he was nominated in the category again for “Mississippi Burning.” Hackman’s second Oscar came in the Best Supporting Actor category for his work in “Unforgiven.” Speaking to the New York Post via email, Hackman revealed he has only watched “The French Connection” one time.

“ haven’t seen the film since the first screening in a dark, tiny viewing room in a post-production company’s facility 50 years ago,” Hackman said, adding, “If the film has a legacy, I am not sure what that would be. At the time,...

Though there were vestiges of traditional Hollywood in 1971 with the releases of big musical “Fiddler on the Roof” and “Bedknobs and Broomsticks” and an extravagant, albeit old-fashioned, historical epic “Nicholas & Alexander,” it was the untraditional fare that dominated the year with such films as Stanley Kubrick’s “A Clockwork Orange,” Alan J. Pakula’s “Klute,” Gordon Parks’ “Shaft” and John Schlesinger’s “Sunday Bloody Sunday.”

Two of the most lauded and influential films of the 1970s made their debuts 50 years ago and earned places in Oscars history: Peter Bogdanovich’s black-and-white study of a dying Texas town “The Last Picture Show” and William Friedkin’s pulsating crime thriller “The French Connection.”

Both directors had made movies before, but these productions made them critics darlings and each film changed the careers of their stars. “The French Connection’ won five Academy Awards including Best Picture, director, and actor for Gene Hackman. “The Last Picture Show...

It’s yet another masterpiece from the Italian director Francesco Rosi, adapting a fiction novel about a political murder conspiracy that is altogether too much of a good fit for the troubled Italy of 1975. Crime star Lino Ventura is the incorruptible detective investigating a series of killings of high-level judges, who begins to intuit that his superiors want the murders to continue. Dark and moody, Rosi’s picture is impeccably directed for a kind of nagging, uneasy suspense, with frightening hints that Ventura is being drawn into a bigger, more sinister frame. With Charles Vanel, Max von Sydow and Fernando Rey, and music by Piero Piccioni. The insightful audio commentary is by Alex Cox. The original Italian title is even more blood-curdling: Cadaveri eccelenti.

Illustrious Corpses

Blu-ray

Kino Classics

1976 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 121 min. / Cadaveri eccellenti; The Context / Street Date September 28, 2021 / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95

Starring: Lino Ventura, Tino Carraro, Marcel Bozzuffi,...

All hail the cinematic delights of Luis Buñuel, a world-class directing genius whose work ranges from insightfully impish to point-blank outrageous. Driven from Spain by Fascists and from New York by commie hunters, he found a cinematic haven in Mexico, adapting his surreal mindset to popular film forms. These final three French features embrace the surrealist ethos, where a coherent narrative is optional. We definitely recognize our ‘rational’ world; Buñuel’s high art simply tells the truth.

Three Films by Luis Buñuel

The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, The Phantom of Liberty, That Obscure Object of Desire

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 102. 290, 143

1972-1977 / Color / 1:66 widescreen / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date January 5, 2021 / 99.95

Cinematography: Edmond Richard

Production Designer: Pierre Guffroy

Film Editor: Hélène Plemiannikov

Written by Luis Buñuel, Jean-Claude Carrière

Produced by Serge Silberman

Directed by Luis Buñuel

Tracking down the films of Luis Buñuel has been an ongoing effort.

If you like Euro-crime and haven’t seen this one you’re in for a real treat. English killers are on the road in Spain, executing a hit on a ‘Supergrass’ who’s spent ten years in protective custody. The brilliant cast — Terence Stamp, John Hurt, Tim Roth and Laura Del Sol give the criminal twists extra credibility. The suspenseful show is one of Stephen Frears’ best, and it builds to a highly satisfying conclusion. It’s also the feature debut of Tim Roth, and as such shouldn’t be missed.

The Hit

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 469

1984 / Color / 1:78 widescreen / 98 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date October 20, 2020 / 39.95

Starring: Terence Stamp, John Hurt, Tim Roth, Laura Del Sol, Fernando Rey, Bill Hunter, Jim Broadbent.

Cinematography: Mike Molloy

Film Editor: Mick Audsley

Original Music: Paco de Lucía

Written by Peter Prince

Produced by Jeremy Thomas

Directed by Stephan Frears

Class-act...

The Criterion Collection will be heralding in 2021 with a mix of new and old. First up, Bing Liu’s stellar documentary Minding the Gap will be joining the collection, as will another documentary, Martin Scorsese’s playful Rolling Thunder Revue. Also arriving is a three-film Luis Buñuel box set focusing on his late career, featuring The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, The Phantom of Liberty, and That Obscure Object of Desire. Larisa Shepitko’s final, harrowing feature The Ascent will also be getting a release.

Check out the cover art and special features below, and see more on Criterion’s website.

New high-definition digital master, approved by director Bing Liu, with 5.1 surround DTS-hd Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-rayNew audio commentary featuring Liu and documentary subjects Keire Johnson and Zack MulliganNew follow-up conversation between Liu and documentary subject Nina BowgrenNew programs featuring interviews with professional skateboarder Tony Hawk and with Liu,...

“The King of the Whole World” (“El Rey de Todo el Mundo”), a musical drama directed by “Carmen’s” Carlos Saura and lit by “Apocalypse Now” cinematographer Vittorio Storaro, has been snapped up for world sales by Latido Films.

The deal was sealed as the Toronto Festival hit its full stride on Friday. Spanish distribution rights have been acquired by distribution house Syldavia.

Starring Ana de la Reguera, Manuel García Rulfo, “The King of All the World” is fiction – so more in line with Saura’s Cannes and Bafta winning “Carmen” (1983) as well as “Tango” (1998), for which Saura has won international fame and Oscar nominations, than his latter-day, more informative documentaries.

Damián Alcazar and Enrique Arce co-star.

The plot is hallmark Saura: World-famous choreographer Sara (De la Reguera) is asked by her former boyfriend Manuel, a stage director (García Rulfo), to help him prepare a new play.

A highly competitive...

Guest reviewer Lee Broughton tackles Tonino Valerii’s Spaghetti Western-cum-political conspiracy thriller. By brazenly transposing key aspects of John F. Kennedy’s assassination onto the assassination of James A. Garfield in 1881, Valerii gives both western and conspiracy film fans much food for thought. A career best performance by Giuliano Gemma, repurposed sets from Once Upon a Time in the West and great turns by a plethora of Sergio Leone’s regular supporting actors bring a sense of gravitas to this intriguing show.

A Bullet for the President

Region Free Blu-ray

Wild East

1969 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 112 min. / Il prezzo del potere, The Price of Power / Street Date November 25, 2019 / 18.45

Starring: Giuliano Gemma, Warren Vanders, Van Johnson, Maria Cuadra, Ray Saunders, Fernando Rey, Antonio Casas, Benito Stefanelli, Jose Suarez, Jose Calvo, Manuel Zarzo, Michael Harvey, Norma Jordan, Angel Alvarez.

Cinematography: Stelvio Massi

Film Editor: Franco Fraticelli

Original Music: Luis Bacalov

Production Designer: Carlo Leva...

“Lighthouse Kirk And Pirate Yul”

By Raymond Benson

Spend eleven million dollars (that was a lot of money in 1970-1971), cast classic Hollywood stars like Kirk Douglas and Yul Brynner, hire an international production crew from Spain, Italy, and France, appoint Alexander and Ilya Salkind as producers (with Douglas himself credited as producer), and adapt a little-known public domain novel by Jules Verne about pirates in the Cape Horn area in 1865, and you’ve got the ingredients for a rousing, epic action/adventure flick to rival Journey to the Center of the Earth or 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, right?

Unfortunately, something went wrong. The Light at the Edge of the World flopped at the box office, and, while the picture has its fans—who will welcome this impressive new Blu-ray restoration from Kino Lorber—the movie is a dud.

Douglas plays Will Denton, a lighthouse keeper on an isolated island.

Jules Verne’s version of ‘Die Hard’ takes place not on Christmas Eve in Century City, but 160 years ago at a lonely lighthouse in Tierra Del Fuego. The mini-moguls the Salkinds rounded up a great cast — Kirk Douglas! Samantha Eggar! Yul Brynner! — but let them down severely in production details and particularly the edit. Most everything is here for a classic adventure-suspense picture, but somebody thought it had to be ultra-violent and nihilistic. The new Blu-ray restores it to good color and an uncut state.

The Light at the Edge of the World

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1971 / Color / 2:35 anamorphic 16:9 / 126 min. / La Luz del fin del mundo / 129 min. / Street Date February 18, 2020 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Kirk Douglas, Yul Brynner, Samantha Eggar, Jean-Claude Drouot,

Fernando Rey, Renato Salvatori.

Cinematography: Henri Decae

Film Editor: Bert Bates

Original Music: Piero Piccioni

Written by Tom Rowe, Rachel Billington from a book by...

David Weisman, an Academy Award nominee as producer of Kiss of the Spider Woman and an accomplished graphic artist, died on October 9 from complications from neuroinvasive West Nile virus. He died in Los Angeles at Cedars Sinai at age 77, according to his publicist.

Born in Binghamton, New York, in March 1942, Weisman attended Syracuse University’s School of Fine Arts in the early 1960’s. Inspired by the classic Italian film La Dolce Vita and armed with a gift for languages, Weisman dropped out of college to design film-posters in Rome. There he met Federico Fellini, for whom he created a poster for 8 1/2 (Otto e mezzo).

Returning to New York, he collaborated with Otto Preminger, who asked him to create the title sequence for Hurry Sundown. He then became Preminger’s assistant on the film. Weisman also designed the key art for The Boys in the Band, among many others.

In 1967, with...

Sir Carol Reed takes on a movie about insurance fraud in sunny Spain — with a great trio of actors for 1963. Laurence Harvey scams an insurance company and looks forward to continuing to beat the system in a happy life of chicanery; Lee Remick finds her affections turning to Alan Bates, an insurance man who might also be on vacation, or might have come to uncover Harvey’s crime. How does Harvey hide out while waiting for the big payoff in Málaga? He buys a huge white convertible too big to fit through the streets!

The Running Man

Blu-ray

Arrow Academy

1963 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 103 min. / Street Date June 18, 2019 / 39.95

Starring: Laurence Harvey, Lee Remick, Alan Bates, Felix Aylmer, Allan Cuthbertson, Noel Purcell, Ramsay Ames, Fernando Rey, Eddie Byrne, John Meillon, Roger Delgado.

Cinematography: Robert Krasker

Film Editor: Bert Bates

Original Music: William Alwyn

Continuity: Angela Allen

Written by John Mortimer from the...

Close-Up is a column that spotlights films now playing on Mubi. Luis Buñuel's Viridiana (1961) is showing June 17 - July 17 and The Exterminating Angel (1962) is showing June 18 - July 18, 2017 in the United Kingdom.ViridianaIt’s impossible to avoid describing the films of Spanish director Luis Buñuel as “surreal,” and yet to do so is woefully insufficient. This is for two reasons. In the first place, Buñuel never made one kind of film. In the second place, even his strangest films deal with social reality.Early in his career Buñuel did associate himself with the Surrealist art movement. Among his first productions were the infamous Un chien Andalou (1929) and L'âge d'or (1930), experimental narratives co-written by Salvador Dali in which bizarre and violent psychosexual incidents connect via absurd dream logic. It’s worth bearing in mind that the Surrealists never meant “surreal” to act as a mere label for the uniquely strange.

By Jeremy Carr

It’s easy to see why Orson Welles’ Chimes at Midnight is generally regarded as his finest post-Touch of Evil achievement. This Shakespearean mélange is a dazzling showcase for Welles’ ingenuity, his evident appreciation for the film’s literary foundation, and his relentless aptitude for stylistic inventiveness. However, its haphazard production and its rocky release comprise a backstory as complicated as the movie’s multi-source construction (the script, based on the lengthy play “Five Kings,” written and first performed by Welles in the 1930s, samples scenes and dialogue from at least five of Shakespeare’s works, primarily “Henry IV,” parts one and two, “Richard II,” “Henry V,” and “The Merry Wives of Windsor”). Plagued by what were at this point familiar budgetary constraints, Welles shot Chimes at Midnight over the course of about seven months in Spain, with a break when the financial well went dry.

When the Stooges split up in 1974, they had every reason to think they'd be completely forgotten by history. Their debut LP peaked at Number 106 in 1969 – and that was their best seller. They spent their final shows dodging beer bottles hurtled by angry bikers that had little interest in seeing a wild, shirtless singer named Iggy Pop screaming out songs like "Your Pretty Face Is Going to Hell" and "Open Up and Bleed." Soon after splitting, guitarist Ron Asheton and his brother, drummer Scott Asheton, moved back in with their parents.

Fans that lament Orson Welles' many career frustrations will flip over this Spanish-filmed masterpiece. Not well distributed when new and Mia for decades, its serious audio problems have now mostly been cleared up. It's great -- right up there with Kane and Touch of Evil, and it features what is probably Welles' best acting. Chimes at Midnight Blu-ray The Criterion Collection 830 1966 / B&W / 1:66 widescreen / 116 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Falstaff, Campanadas a medianoche / Street Date August 30, 2016 / 39.95 Starring Orson Welles, Keith Baxter, Jeanne Moreau, Margaret Rutherford, John Gielgud, Norman Rodway, Marina Vlady, Walter Chiari, Michael Aldridge, Tony Beckley, Alan Webb, José Nieto, Fernando Rey, Beatrice Welles, Ralph Richardson. Cinematography Edmond Richard Film Editor Fritz Mueller Original Music Angelo Francesco Lavagnino Produced by Alessandro Tasca Directed by Orson Welles

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

It's even better than I remembered. Sometime during film school I went with UCLA friends Clark...

Orson Welles' French TV show with Jeanne Moreau is a near-masterpiece, directed with assurance and style. It's the filmmaker's first color feature, and his last completed fictional feature. The Immortal Story Blu-ray The Criterion Collection 831 1968 / Color / 1:66 widescreen / 58 min. / Histoire immortelle / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date August 30, 2016 / 39.95 Starring Jeanne Moreau, Orson Welles, Roger Coggio, Norman Eshley, Fernando Rey. Cinematography Willy Kurant Film Editors Yolande Maurette, Marcelle Pluet, Françoise Garnault, Claude Farny Music selections Eric Satie Based on a novel by Isak Dinesen Produced by Micheline Rozan Written and Directed by Orson Welles

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

The Criterion Collection's Blu-ray of The Immortal Story took me completely by surprise. I bailed out of a viewing long ago on Los Angeles' 'Z' Channel cable station, mainly because it looked terrible -- grainy and washed out. I thought I was watching a faded print that had been blown up from 16mm.

The French Connection 45th Anniversary Screening in Los Angeles

By Todd Garbarini

The Ahrya Fine Arts Theatre in Los Angeles will be presenting a 45th anniversary screening of William Friedkin’s Oscar-winning 1971 crime drama The French Connection. The 102-minute film will be screened on Saturday, June 18, 2016 at 7:30 pm. Starring Gene Hackman, Roy Scheider, Tony Lo Bianco, Fernando Rey, Marcel Bozuffi, and the two real-life detectives who broke the actual case: the late Eddie Eagen and Salvatore “Sonny” Grosso, The French Connection is a New York movie of the first order and paved the way for gritty crime dramas like The Seven-Ups and The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3.

Director Friedkin is scheduled to appear at a Q&A session following the film.

From the press release:

Part of our Anniversary Classics series. For details, visit: laemmle.com/ac.

45th Anniversary Screening

This gritty and gripping police thriller won five...

Chicago – Another wondrous pleasure about director Orson Welles – as if he needed something else on his resume – is the discovery of his film career after the “Citizen Kane”/studio system/boy wonder period of the 1940s. Facing difficulties cobbling together financing for his evolving vision, he resorted to overseas money, international casts and more-for-less. One of the prime examples is “Chimes at Midnight” (1965), a Shakespeare amalgamation that is just another example of Wellesian audacity and yes, genius.

Rating: 5.0/5.0

The script takes the text from five Shakespeare plays and is narrated by British actor Ralph Richardson. Orson Welles plays the scalawag John Falstaff, an entourage member of the Prince of Wales, and the focus of the story. The film has a kinetic energy that is exciting, it always seems in motion. Welles is at the top of his game portraying one of his favorite characters (he had previously mounted a similar...

Let's give a cheer for the lowly sword 'n' sandal epic. This persecution and torture spectacle also takes in the martyrdom of Saint Sebastian. The impressively mounted Italian-Spanish production stars Rhonda Fleming, Fernando Rey, Wandisa Guida, and as the slimy villain, none other than Serge Gainsbourg. Revolt of the Slaves MGM Limited Edition Collection 1960 / Color / 2:35 enhanced widescreen (Totalscope) / 103 min. / La rivolta degli schiavi / Street Date February 16, 2016 / available through Screen Archives Entertainment / 19.98 Starring Rhonda Fleming, Lang Jeffries, Darío Moreno, Ettore Manni, Wandisa Guida, Gino Cervi, Fernando Rey, Serge Gainsbourg, José Nieto, Benno Hoffmann, Rainer Penkert, Antonio Casas, Vanoye Aikens, Dolores Francine, Burt Nelson, Julio Peña . Cinematography Cecilio Paniagua Film Editor Eraldo Da Roma Original Music Angelo Francesco Lavagnino Written by Stefano Strucchi, Duccio Tessari, Daniel Mainwearing from the novel 'Fabiola' by Nicholas Patrick Wiseman Produced by Paolo Moffa Directed by Nunzio Malasomma

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Make all...

Triple 9 is in theaters now, and to celebrate, I thought I’d share some of my favorite cop flicks with you! Directed by John Hillcoat, Triple 9 is an action-packed thriller starring Oscar®-nominees Woody Harrelson, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Kate Winslet and Casey Affleck, along with Aaron Paul, Norman Reedus, Gal Gadot and Anthony Mackie, and is in theaters now!

Below are some of my favorite cop films. You can tell that I’m heavily influenced by the 80’s. What are some of your favorite old-school cop movies? Be sure to comment below!

Police Academy

Whenever I think of cop films, the first thing that pops into my head is this. Steve Guttenberg, Kim Cattrall, and Michael Winslow (you know, the one who makes all of the crazy noises with his mouth) came into our lives in 1984 as recruits after the newly elected mayor banishes all former fitness, education, and...

We all have predisposed notions about the infamous “romantic comedy.” As with other genres, there’s a large subsection of offerings, giving it a bad name. But, for every tired, cliché-driven comedy, there is another impressive offering that redefines the genre, garners plenty of laughs, and tells an honest story about love and relationships, however warped they may be. In the coming weeks, we’ll take a look at the fifty romantic comedy films that should be seen. These may not all be classic films, but they certainly put a stamp on the industry and the genre we affectionately call “rom-coms.”

#50. Moonrise Kingdom (2012)

Most of Wes Anderson’s films could be described as romantic comedies, but his 2012 effort stands out, as its central story focuses on young love and the need to find acceptance. In Anderson’s world, while quirks abound, true connections between characters are commonplace. With Moonrise Kingdom,...

Janus Films' new restoration of Orson Welles's Chimes at Midnight (1965), drawing on several plays by William Shakespeare and starring himself, Jeanne Moreau, Margaret Rutherford, John Gielgud, Marina Vlady, Keith Baxter and Fernando Rey, opens in New York and Los Angeles today and screens tomorrow in Portland before rolling out across North America and eventually seeing a Criterion release on DVD and Blu-ray. Ignatiy Vishnevetsky at the Av Club: "A big chunk of Welles’s body of work could be divided up into movies about power (e.g. Citizen Kane, Macbeth) and movies about powerlessness (e.g. The Lady from Shanghai, The Trial), and Chimes at Midnight fits squarely into the latter category." » - David Hudson...

Janus Films' new restoration of Orson Welles's Chimes at Midnight (1965), drawing on several plays by William Shakespeare and starring himself, Jeanne Moreau, Margaret Rutherford, John Gielgud, Marina Vlady, Keith Baxter and Fernando Rey, opens in New York and Los Angeles today and screens tomorrow in Portland before rolling out across North America and eventually seeing a Criterion release on DVD and Blu-ray. Ignatiy Vishnevetsky at the Av Club: "A big chunk of Welles’s body of work could be divided up into movies about power (e.g. Citizen Kane, Macbeth) and movies about powerlessness (e.g. The Lady from Shanghai, The Trial), and Chimes at Midnight fits squarely into the latter category." » - David Hudson...

Sweet Creature of Bombast: Welles’ Restored Homage to Shakespeare’s Ultimate Clown

Before the world finally gets a chance to see Orson Welles’ last uncompleted film The Other Side of the Wind, which had been intended to be the troubled auteur’s return to American filmmaking following a decade in Europe, audiences can feast on a restored version of his final narrative masterpiece, Chimes at Midnight. For decades, the 1965 title has been unavailable and now arrives restored on behalf of Janus Films. Playing in competition at the 1966 Cannes Film Festival, Welles homage to one of Shakespeare’s most beloved comic characters, Sir John Falstaff, initially received a chilly reception and stilted marketing campaign upon hitting Us theaters. Despite a throng of critics attempting to recuperate its reputation since then, it has remained an obscure classic.

Taking place from the years 1400 to 1408 in England, a narrator explains King Henry IV (John Gielgud...

Germany's Explosive Media company has a serious itch for American westerns, and they have a trio of new releases. One is a minor Hollywood classic with major graces, from the late 1950s. A second sees an American producer based in England filming in Italy with a rising international star, and for the third an established American star goes European  to stay in the game. The best thing for Yankee buyers? The discs are Region-free.

Gunman's Walk, Land Raiders, A Man Called Sledge Three Westerns from Explosive Media Blu-ray Separate Releases 1958-1970 / Color Starring Van Heflin, Tab Hunter; George Maharis, Telly Savalas; James Garner

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

The majority of American studios now choose not to market their libraries for digital disc, and license them out instead. Collectors unwilling to settle for whatever's on Netflix or concerned about the permanence of Cloud Cinema, find themselves increasingly tempted by discs from Europe,...

Kino Lorber brings the infamous 1967 Spaghetti western Navajo Joe to Blu-ray, an overlooked gem of the genre that’s long been shadowed by its troubled reputation and the continual disparagement of its lead star, Burt Reynolds. In retrospect, this Italian/Spanish co-production promises to be a bit too politically incorrect to be taken seriously considering the casting of American star Reynolds as a Navajo Indian (he is, in fact, partly of Cherokee descent, though not enough to avoid the necessity of bronzer and a black wig).

It’s hardly the first or last time we’ve seen whitewashed casting of Native Americans (Audrey Hepburn in John Huston’s 1960 western The Unforgiven comes to mind), and to many the casting seems to compromise the integrity of the title. Instantly reviled and dismissed by Reynolds in his second starring role during his transition from television to film, it is, nevertheless, a very...

(Orson Welles, 1965; Mr Bongo Films, PG)

Throughout his life, Orson Welles was fascinated by Shakespeare – studying and editing the texts (usually pretty drastically), directing them and performing them on the stage and in the cinema. His third and final Shakespeare film, Chimes at Midnight, was the completion of a project first embarked on when a schoolboy in 1930 as Five Kings, a conflation of plays about the Wars of the Roses. It was eventually shot over a year in Spain with money conned out of a Spanish producer, who believed that Welles was simultaneously directing on the same sets and location the Shakespearean Chimes at Midnight (a potentially unprofitable venture) and a new version of Stevenson’s Treasure Island (a far more commercial prospect) with himself as Long John Silver. In fact, not a foot of the adventure movie was made, though Welles did play Long John in 1972 in a rarely seen Spanish-Italian production.

By Alex Simon

Stress kills, goes the old saying, and can cause a host of maladies before it does. Hypertension, heart disease and even Bruxism, otherwise known as grinding of the teeth, can be its unfortunate products. In that spirit, here are ten examples of stress in on-screen, and its most masterful portraits.

1. Jack Lemmon—Save the Tiger (1973)

Jack Lemmon took home a Best Actor Academy Award for his incendiary turn as Harry Stoner, a once-prosperous businessman who finds his carefully-tailored life crashing down around him. His garment business in downtown La is going bust, his marriage is dead in the water, and the crazy hippies who hitchhike on the Sunset Strip just don’t match his Ww II era sensibilities. When Harry decides to have his business “torched” for the insurance money, he goes on a self-destructive odyssey through early ‘70s La. His word association game with a cute...

Since that Oscar win for The Artist, Jean Dujardin hasn't become as ubiquitous in Hollywood movies as we might have expected. Maybe Funny Or Die's sketch played out for real and he found himself pigeoned-holed and offered unappetising roles; maybe he was happy to stay local and moonlight in the likes of The Wolf Of Wall Street and The Monuments Men. Either way, he'll be back on our screens soon in The Connection, a taut Gallic policier that has a new trailer below. brightcove.createExperiences();There's a hint of Mesrine's stylised moodiness in there, underlined by the presence of Gilles Lellouche as the Fernando Rey to Dujardin's Gene Hackman. Lellouche is Neapolitan heroin trafficker Tony Zampa; Dujardin is Pierre Michel, the Marseilles magistrate trying to bring him down.It's the same tense terrain - and the same real-life case - that was tapped by John Frankenheimer's The French Connection...

We examine the real story behind The French Connection, and look at how police procedural flicks were never the same afterward.

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The French Connection is a seminal work in cop movies. It was that first sniff that hooked the moviegoing public on Hollywood’s war on drugs. It changed the look and the dynamic of law enforcement on film by focusing on the worn heels and tires of street-level surveillance. The movie should be boring with all that waiting around and stealthy shadowing, but the pacing and the performances keep it moving at a breakneck pace comparable to chasing a subway. The French Connection is probably the closest Hollywood has come to a true on-the-street crime procedural in a blockbuster. Things that are cliché in cop movies now were invented here.

The French Connection screeched into theaters in 1971. It was directed by William Friedkin, produced by Philip D'Antoni,...

We examine the real story behind The French Connection, and look at how police procedural flicks were never the same afterwards...

Culture

The French Connection is a seminal work in cop movies. It was that first sniff that hooked the moviegoing public on Hollywood’s war on drugs. It changed the look and the dynamic of law enforcement on film by focusing on the worn heels and tires of street-level surveillance. The movie should be boring with all that waiting around and stealthy shadowing, but the pacing and the performances keep it moving at a breakneck pace comparable to chasing a subway. The French Connection is probably the closest Hollywood has come to a true on-the-street crime procedural in a blockbuster. Things that are clichés in cop movies now were invented here.

The French Connection screeched into theaters in 1971. It was directed by William Friedkin, produced by Philip D'Antoni and...

Luis Buñuel movies on TCM tonight (photo: Catherine Deneuve in 'Belle de Jour') The city of Paris and iconoclastic writer-director Luis Buñuel are Turner Classic Movies' themes today and later this evening. TCM's focus on Luis Buñuel is particularly welcome, as he remains one of the most daring and most challenging filmmakers since the invention of film. Luis Buñuel is so remarkable, in fact, that you won't find any Hollywood hipster paying homage to him in his/her movies. Nor will you hear his name mentioned at the Academy Awards – no matter the Academy in question. And rest assured that most film critics working today have never even heard of him, let alone seen any of his movies. So, nowadays Luis Buñuel is un-hip, un-cool, and unfashionable. He's also unquestionably brilliant. These days everyone is worried about freedom of expression. The clash of civilizations. The West vs. The Other.

10. Altered States (1980)

Directed by: Ken Russell

Is it a horror film? Many of Ken Russell’s films could be argued as such, but there’s enough in Altered States that makes it less horror and more science fiction/psychological thriller. Based on the novel by Paddy Chayefsky, Altered States introduced the world to William Hurt (and also featured the film debut of Drew Barrymore). Edward Jessup (Hurt) is studying schizophrenia, but branches out into sensory deprivation experimentation with a floating tank. Eventually, he travels to Mexico to visit a tribe that provides him with an extract which he begins to take before his trips into the flotation tank, resulting in bizarre imagery and eventual physical devolution, once to a primitive man and to a near primordial blob. Side effects start to occur, causing Edward to suffer from episodes of partial regression even without the hallucinogenic drug. Russell’s direction shifts...

That Obscure Object Of Desire screens tonight at Bam as part of their Buñuel retrospective, July 11 - August 14).

Pauline Kael may have dubbed David Lynch “the first popular surrealist,” but the honor is more accurately bestowed upon Spanish maestro Luis Buñuel. Though his Salvador Dalí collaboration, Un chien andalou (1929), is regarded as a touchstone of the movement, it was not until later in his career that Buñuel would exploit the very meaning of the surreal, brashly straying from his contemporaries’ aesthetically driven impulses. With the respectively never-ending and never-beginning dinner parties of his elliptical masterpieces The Exterminating Angel (1962) and The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972), Buñuel’s breed of Surrealism drew itself so close to the upper middle-class quotidian, it became far more subversive than any old melting clock. The conceptual hysteria of his films is in turn grounded by a simplified mise-en-scène; the surroundings are such that any outlandish yarn appears rooted in reality.

Viridiana

Written by Julio Alejandro and Luis Buñuel

Directed by Luis Buñuel

Spain/Mexico, 1961

The Cannes Film Festival has long been a venue to court controversy, and filmmaker Luis Buñuel was likewise one who consistently reveled in the divisive. At the 1961 festival, Buñuel brought his latest release, Viridiana, and the results were spectacular, and spectacularly contentious. The film, which shared Palme d’Or honors with Henri Colpi’s The Long Absence, was subsequently met with charges of blasphemy from the Vatican’s newspaper, and it was promptly banned in Buñuel ‘s native Spain.

The Spanish reaction was particularly critical. Viridiana’s production in Buñuel’s place of birth was already a hot topic. Having left for America and Mexico in 1939, Spain’s surrealist native son was back home, the adamantly leftist filmmaker now working amidst Francisco Franco’s fascist dictatorship. What’s the worst that could happen?

Viridiana is what happened,...

And here we are. The day after Easter and we’ve reached the top of the mountain. While compiling this list, it’s become evident that true religious films just aren’t made anymore (and if they are, they are widely panned). That being said, religious themes exist in more mainstream movies than ever, despite there being no deliberate attempts to dub the films “religious.” Faith, God, whatever you want to call it – it’s influenced the history of nations, of politics, of culture, and of film. And these are the most important films in that wheelhouse. There are only two American films in the top 10, and only one of them is in English.

courtesy of hilobrow.com

10. Andrei Rublev (1966)

Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky

A brutally expansive biopic about the Russian iconographer divided into nine chapters. Andrei Rublev (Anatoly Solonitsyn) is portrayed not as a silent monk, but a motivated artist working against social ruin,...

We all have predisposed notions about the infamous “romantic comedy.” As with other genres, there’s a large subsection of offerings, giving it a bad name. But, for every tired, cliché-driven comedy, there is another impressive offering that redefines the genre, garners plenty of laughs, and tells an honest story about love and relationships, however warped they may be. In the coming weeks, we’ll take a look at the fifty romantic comedy films that should be seen. These may not all be classic films, but they certainly put a stamp on the industry and the genre we affectionately call “rom-coms.”

#50. Moonrise Kingdom (2012)

Most of Wes Anderson’s films could be described as romantic comedies, but his 2012 effort stands out, as its central story focuses on young love and the need to find acceptance. In Anderson’s world, while quirks abound, true connections between characters are commonplace. With Moonrise Kingdom,...

By Lee Pfeiffer

When it opened in 1970, director Lewis Gilbert's film version of Harold Robbins' best-seller The Adventurers was reviewed by New York Times, which referred to the production as "a spectacular blast-furnace lulu of human waste". Indeed, Gilbert himself said of the film a few years ago that it was "terrible" and that he regretted having been involved with it. With such a reputation, it's no wonder that even retro movie lovers such as myself have never made the effort to watch the movie. However, the Warner Archive has just re-issued Paramounts original DVD release of the film and, upon receiving the screener, I had enough morbid curiosity to give it a try. How, after all, could a film by a major director and featuring a big all-star cast go so completely wrong? The answer is: it didn't. The Adventurers is not high art, but it doesn't...

These days you can watch any movie you desire online. Yet there's still one thing the magical wonders of instant streaming haven't solved for indecisive movie-lovers: what the heck to watch! Moviefone is here to recommend the best streaming movies from Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Instant each week in the Moviefone Stream.

This week's Moviefone Stream picks range from drugged narcotic officers and horror movie spoofs, to Algerian revolutions and Tokyo excursions. Check out our suggestions below and happy streaming!

Comedy: 'Scary Movie' (2000)

The "Scary Movie" series quickly turned from crude and clever to inane and desperate with each additional film. However the first film is still the funniest with the most clever movie spoofs and parodied the horror genre better than any other satire movie. From Anna Farris' goof on "The Matrix" to the many ridiculous jokes on "Scream," "Scary Movie" is that perfect non-scary movie to...

Catherine Deneuve: Style, beauty, and talent on TCM tonight A day to rejoice on Turner Classic Movies: Catherine Deneuve, one of the few true Living Film Legends, is TCM’s "Summer Under the Stars" star today, August 12, 2013. Catherine Deneuve is not only one of the most beautiful film actresses ever, she’s also one of the very best. In fact, the more mature her looks, the more fascinating she has become. Though, admittedly, Deneuve has always been great to look at, and she has been a mesmerizing screen presence since at least the early ’80s. ‘The Umbrellas of Cherbourg’: One of the greatest movie musicals ever Right now, TCM is showing one of the greatest movie musicals ever made, Jacques Demy’s Palme d’Or winner The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964), in which a very blonde, very young, very pretty, and very dubbed Catherine Deneuve (singing voice by Danielle Licari...

One of the last films ever directed by Spain's prolific auteur filmmaker Luis Bunuel, Tristana follows a similar vein as That Obscure Object of Desire in its portrayal of an older man pursuing a younger woman, but this time all sympathy goes to the fairer sex. Played by Catherine Deneuve, the titular protagonist deals her elder caretaker, played by Fernando Rey, whose obligations to provide for her and carnal desires to consume her drive her into the arms of another man. Deneuve plays her part beautifully in the game of lecherous cat and youthful mouse and for all of Rey's charisma and charm, the darker side of humanity shines through and creates the disturbing relationship that sets Tristana apart from other films like it.

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The late Jesús Franco was, we are told, once named by the Vatican as being, along with Luis Buñuel, "the most dangerous filmmaker in the world." There's little evidence of that in early spy caper Cartes sur table (Cards on the Table, a.k.a. Attack of the Robots, 1966), but there is, by pleasing coincidence, a Buñuel connection or two. Franco's co-writer on this and other early productions was none other than the great Jean-Claude Carrière, the collaborator's collaborator, who worked with Buñuel on all his later French movies (as well as ghosting Don Luis's autobiography My Last Breath). The movie also features regular Buñuel star Fernando Rey among its seamy rogue's gallery of villains.

The movie stars craggy Yank abroad Eddie Constantine as a former Interpol agent lured back for one last job, but betrayed by his bosses who see him as a pawn in the game. Although the movie is light,...