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Nihilism has always had a place in horror.

As Stephen King himself once said, “Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win.” For every triumphant final girl waving the chainsaw of her attacker in the bright morning light, another beloved protagonist falls to the monsters that lurk in the night. Sometimes the story is just too dark and the cinematic world just a little too hopeless. But for those who’ve felt the sting of life’s bitter disappointments, that’s precisely what we want in a film. For it’s only in confronting our pain that we can find our way through to the other side. We dive headfirst into an open wound hoping to find the infection and clean it out.

Joshua Erkman’s A Desert takes this nihilistic path in a gritty story centering human monsters. On a road trip through the American Southwest,...

Since its original publication in the 1950s, J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings has become one of the best-selling works in literary history. Although there were countless fantasy stories before The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien's work has become a keystone of the fantasy genre due to its incredible popularity and immense detail.

Almost every work of Western fantasy since finds itself in conversation with stories of Middle-earth. Following, subverting, or even deepening the many tropes and conventions Tolkien codified in his work. Tolkien borrowed many of these long-standing ideas from old myths and legends, but their execution in The Lord of the Rings has become synonymous with modern fantasy.

Updated January 29, 2025, by Anthony Jeanetta. After 70 years, The Lord of the Rings remains one of the predominant fantasy stories. This list is updated to include more fantasy tropes The Lord of the Rings popularized and to...

The Chinese “Year of the (Wood) Snake” starts January 29, 2025, kicking off more than two weeks of parties, customs and copious feasts:

“…the holiday, also known as the ‘Spring Festival’, celebrates the arrival of spring and the start of a new year based on the Chinese lunisolar calendar…

“…in a year expected to be one of positive transformation with the shedding of the ego, letting go of the past, letting go of anger, letting go of love lost.

“The snake matches up with the years of people born in 1941, 1953, 1965, 1977, 1989 and 2001…

“…with famous snakes in pop culture including Robert Downey Jr., Bob Dylan, Buzz Aldrin, Jack Kirby…

“…Audrey Hepburn, John F. Kennedy, Abraham Lincoln, Tom Brady, J.K. Rowling, Linda McCartney, Tim Allen, Liv Tyler, Howard Hughes, Grace Kelly, Paul Simon, Dean Martin, Brooke Shields, Arthur C. Clarke, Elizabeth Olsen, Brie Larson…

“…Joan Crawford, Carole King, Elizabeth Hurley, Kim Basinger, Ernest Borgnine, Henry Fonda,...

It has been a full couple of weeks for Robert Eggers. Nosferatu, his Gothic remake of the 1922 classic, is leading the box office with $156 million so far. A few days ago, cinephiles got word that he's staying in the Universal monster motif with Werwulf coming next. (No relation with the foible-ridden "Dark Universe.")

Now comes the announcement that the cerebral moviemaker is going to make a sequel to the 1986 cult classic Labyrinth. The film starred the wit and whimsy of Jim Henson, who created a compelling story and fascinating puppets for a fantasy world featuring Ziggy Stardust himself, David Bowie.

Eggers signed on to direct and co-write with his creative partner Sjón, with whom he collaborated on The Northman. Variety reported Chris and Eleanor Columbus are slated to produce the film with Lisa Henson. Also along for the ride is Jim's son, Brian Henson, who will be executive producing.

ComicBook.com...

Heath Ledger's performance in 2008's "The Dark Knight" was quite possibly the best Joker performance ever put to screen. It was a performance that both inspired millions of people's Halloween costumes in the years since, and it even inspired Timothee Chalamet to get into acting. PLus, it's also the #1 pick on /Film's list of best Heath Ledger performances, a feat made more impressive by how stacked Ledger's filmography already was. Even people who hated the movie can agree that Ledger nailed it here, and in the 17 years since, Hollywood has been trying in vain to capture what made Ledger's version so special. 

One element among many that contributed to Ledger's take on the character was the book "A Clockwork Orange," by Anthony Burgess. Much like the 1972 Kubrick movie of the same name, this book is about an evil, chaotic young man who simply seems to want to watch the world burn.

Recently, I had the great pleasure of talking with the legendary Ron Perlman, who has two movies open at the moment – Absolution with Liam Neeson and Day of the Fight, co-starring Michael Pitt and Joe Pesci. While teasing his new films, Perlman, a great guy, was thrilled when I brought up the fact that, when I was in high school here in Montreal, our history teacher used to show us Quest for Fire to teach us about early man.

Made in 1981, this movie happened to be Perlman’s first, and in it he plays Amoukar, one of a tribe of cavemen sent to find fire, as they do not have the knowledge needed to create fire themselves. Shot entirely without conventional dialogue, Quest for Fire is an amazing movie that’s ripe for rediscovery, and Perlman was happy to give us a little insight in to the making of the film.

Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece A Clockwork Orange has polarized audiences since its 1971 release, as viewers wrestle with its unapologetic portrayal of violence, mind control, and moral decay. Today, it’s seen as a daring piece of cinema and a powerful social commentary. However, at the time, legendary film critic Roger Ebert saw something deeply troubling in it. Unlike Kubrick’s other works, which Ebert often praised, A Clockwork Orange struck him as little more than a “paranoid right-wing fantasy masquerading as an Orwellian warning.” He gave it two stars, baffling fans of Kubrick and shocking readers accustomed to his thoughtful critiques.

Ebert’s issues with the film began with its central character, Alex DeLarge. Alex, a teen delinquent who revels in “ultraviolence,” is violent to a point few characters on film had ever been, committing brutal acts of assault and sadism, only to later become a victim of government reprogramming.

Nicolas Cage is one of our most impressive living actors, and a big part of that is because of his intense love of cinema. He's a true student of the craft, with an obsession for older films that has led him to an extensive knowledge of all the medium has to offer. Cage's passion for his projects has led to him becoming the subject of many memes, mostly using his most over-the-top performances, but the man really knows his stuff. So, when Rotten Tomatoes asked Cage for his five favorite films of all time, he came a little over-prepared, offering his top 13 favorite films instead. He said that he simply couldn't narrow it down to five because "there's different movies for different reasons in different lifetimes," which is the most Nicolas Cage thing he could have said.

The actor often looks back to older cinema for inspiration and compares...

‘1984’ by George Orwell (Photo Credit: Penguin Random House)

The American Library Association (Ala) runs the Office for Intellectual Freedom (Oif) to track attempts to ban or restrict access to books across the United States, and then to inform the public about censorship efforts in our libraries and schools. The last week of September is usually the time it sets aside for its annual Banned Books Week, which celebrates the freedom to read whatever you want. And what better way to celebrate that than by watching 10 films based on banned books that also ran into censorship issues? Celebrate the freedom to watch!

From the Ala website: “In 2023, Oif documented 1,269 demands to censor library books and resources, the highest number of attempted book bans since Ala began compiling data about censorship in libraries more than 20 years ago. 4,240 unique book titles were targeted for censorship in 2023, a 65% increase compared to 2022 numbers. A...

In the history of cinema, there have been actors who have taken extreme measures to completely immerse themselves in their roles. As evidenced by Christian Bale’s 62-pound weight loss to play an emaciated insomniac in The Machinist and Shia Labeouf extracting his own tooth for Fury. However, Jeremy Strong may have elevated his method of acting to a whole new level.

Jeremy Strong in Succession (2018) || HBO

Strong portrays the role of Kendall Roy in Succession, a well-acclaimed comedy-drama series. Although the actor’s performance on the show has received positive reviews, Bowen Yang on the other hand believes that Strong may have taken his method acting a bit too seriously.

Jeremy Strong takes method acting to an absurd degree

The tale of Jeremy Strong‘s extreme commitment to his roles is known to many. Given that during the filming of a protest scene in The Trial of the Chicago 7,...

Like Terry Gilliam’s Brazil, Georgiy Daneliya’s 1986 film Kin-dza-dza! is, at bottom, biting social satire disguised as dystopian science fiction. Deploying unabashedly absurdist humor, both films decry the alienating effects of bureaucracy, abhor the arbitrary terrors imposed by an authoritarian regime, and exhibit a fascination with the makeshift nature of technology in their respective brave new worlds. While taking cues from contemporary events in the Soviet Union, Kin-dza-dza! nevertheless expands the scope of its satire to include not only Western capitalism, but, more importantly for its staying power, the follies and failings of our shared humanity.

Kin-dza-dza! also reveals a certain kinship with Douglas Adams’s Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series since both feature clueless humans being whisked off on interplanetary adventures that force them to confront bizarre and often byzantine customs and regulations. At the start of Kin-dza-dza!, construction manager Vladiimir “Uncle Vova” Mashkov (Stanislav Lyubshin) and...

Fans are buzzing as a new poster makes the rounds online, supposedly revealing Tom Holland is working on a Clockwork Orange remake for 2024. 

Stanley Kubrick's 1971 original Clockwork Orange has cemented itself as a cult classic among cinephiles, earning a level of infamy very few films ever reach. 

Based on the 1962 Anthony Burgess novel of the same name, the film centers on a young man living in near-future Britain, as his delinquencies come back to bite him after a particularly deadly night of stirring up mayhem. 

Read full article on The Direct.

Ledger's portrayal of The Joker in The Dark Knight transcended his untimely death and achieved legendary status. Ledger's Joker reinvented the character with a psychological focus and a grimy appearance. Ledger's performance as The Joker made a powerful statement, redefining the superhero film genre and earning universal acclaim.

Heath Ledger was only 28 when he died on January 22, 2008, approximately three months after Ledger had completed work on the 2008 superhero film The Dark Knight, in which he plays the iconic role of The Joker. Ledger’s death came approximately six months prior to the film’s theatrical release and exactly 13 months before Ledger was posthumously awarded the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his memorable performance.

However, while the specter of Ledger’s untimely death certainly elevated the level of anticipation and emotion that surrounded Ledger’s posthumous Oscar victory and the release of The Dark Knight, his brilliant performance nonetheless transcended his death.

The late film auteur Stanley Kubrick, heralded as one of Hollywood's greatest filmmakers, directed only thirteen feature films during his career. Somewhat surprisingly, all but two of his films were adaptations of novels or short stories. What is not surprising is the tempestuous relationship he had with the authors of those novels and short stories. One of those authors was Anthony Burgess, who penned A Clockwork Orange in 1962. Kubrick released his adaptation of the novel, also titled A Clockwork Orange, in 1971, and Burgess hated it. Kinda, sorta. Like Kubrick himself, the truth is complicated.

Based on the novel by Anthony Burgess, Stanley Kubrick's 1971 film "A Clockwork Orange" is set in the not-too-distant future when roving British teenage gangs have mutated into bizarre, ultra-violent, morals-free hedonists who commit crimes to their hearts' content. The protagonist is Alex DeLarge (Malcolm McDowell) a 15-year-old punk who drinks drug-laced milk before taking to the street with his gang of droogs to savagely and gleefully beat and assault anyone who passes into their field of vision. Alex is eventually arrested and put into prison where the government subjects him to bizarre new rehabilitation techniques in an attempt to turn his mind away from violence. 

Throughout, Alex is depicted as clearly beyond redemption. He has no compassion and will never have compassion. When he reads about Jesus Christ being crucified, he imagines himself to be the Roman soldier whipping him. The government's brainwashing techniques only instill in him a...

Sound of Freedom has become a huge box office hit, yet the action movie is also extremely controversial due to its real-life inspiration. Sound of Freedom sees The Passion of the Christ star Jim Caviezel portray Tim Ballard, the founder and CEO of Operation Underground Railroad. Ballard is an anti-human-trafficking activist who, along with Operation Underground Railroad, has claimed credit for rescuing thousands of human trafficking victims. Sound of Freedom depicts Ballard traveling to Colombia to rescue children from sex trafficking. Despite its intense subject matter, Sound of Freedom has proven to be very popular in its theatrical release.

With an opening weekend gross of over $40 million, Sound of Freedom’s box office success is undeniably impressive. However, the movie has also courted a lot of controversy since its release. Sound of Freedom’s creators have been linked to the far-right conspiracy theory QAnon, while Ballard has been the subject of numerous critical investigations.

Since the dawn of the 21st century, Hollywood has predominantly been in the business of remakes, reboots, and sequels. The 2010s saw an egregious number of classic Hollywood films remade, including Ben-Hur, Carrie, and Straw Dogs.

Despite the vast majority of these films being epic flops, Hollywood shows no signs of slowing down its production of remakes of classic films. Slated for release in the near future are remakes of classics such as Scarface, Vertigo, and The Wizard of Oz. Hollywood has no sanctity for its seminal works. There are, however, certain Hollywood classics that would truly be criminal to remake.

Related: 10 Most Disappointing Sci-Fi Movie Remakes

Taxi Driver (1976)

Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver is a landmark film of New Hollywood cinema that challenged audiences with its grim narrative, complex anti-hero protagonist, and graphic violence. Taxi Driver was not only highly controversial upon its initial release, but years later, it...

Though he's known for his symmetrical compositions and that infamous stare, Stanley Kubrick was always chiefly concerned with story. If it wasn't for good stories there would be no great Kubrick films — as evidenced by the fact the celebrated auteur never made a movie that he hadn't adapted from someone else's work (barring an early noir effort he co-wrote). From "Lolita" to "Eyes Wide Shut," Kubrick would scour the cultural landscape for stories worth adapting, usually finding them in novels. And in the case of 1971's "A Clockwork Orange," the director would adhere to Anthony Burgess's 1962 work of fiction arguably more closely than with any of his later films.

Kubrick respected Burgess' novel greatly, calling it "brilliant and original." That's not to say he didn't feel similarly about other source material he worked with, but the director also had a knack for disappointing the originators of that material. Gus Hasford,...

Many filmmakers yearn for their work to be at the centre of a public conversation. But it’s not always a good thing.

Sometimes, movies – even great ones – are put under the microscope for problematic characters, plotlines or moments.

Often, this is a result of changing social standards. Films like The Jazz Singer utilised blackface at a time when it was more or less completely socially acceptable. Watch it now, however, and you’ll likely be mortified.

Other films, of course, are problematic the moment they hit cinemas – such as Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

In some cases, the question of whether or not a film is offensive can provoke strong debate among fans and even those involved in making the film. This week, Michael Caine was in the news after hitting back at claims that the 1964 film Zulu was a “key text” for white supremecists.

Many filmmakers yearn for their work to be at the centre of a public conversation. But it’s not always a good thing.

Sometimes, movies – even great ones – are put under the microscope for problematic characters, plotlines or moments.

Often, this is a result of changing social standards. Films like The Jazz Singer utilised blackface at a time when it was more or less completely socially acceptable. Watch it now, however, and you’ll likely be mortified.

Other films, of course, are problematic the moment they hit cinemas – such as Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

In some cases, the question of whether or not a film is offensive can provoke strong debate among fans and even those involved in making the film. This week, Michael Caine was in the news after hitting back at claims that the 1964 film Zulu was a “key text” for white supremecists.

From The Video Archives Podcast, writer/director Roger Avary and writer/producer Gala Avary discuss a few of their favorite movies with Josh Olson and Joe Dante.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Taxi Driver (1976)

Star Wars (1977)

Matinee (1993)

Dune (1984)

Terror On A Train a.k.a. Time Bomb (1953)

Licorice Pizza (2021)

Batman (1989)

Yentl (1983)

Nuts (1987)

Spaceballs (1987)

Die Hard (1988)

Top Gun (1986)

Cocksucker Blues (1972)

Mijn nachten met Susan, Olga, Albert, Julie, Piet & Sandra (1975)

Straw Dogs (1971)

The Godfather (1972)

A History Of Violence (2005)

Day Of The Dolphin (1973)

Babylon (2022)

Puss In Boots: The Last Wish (2022)

Sonic The Hedgehog 2 (2022)

Top Gun: Maverick (2022)

Rock ‘n’ Roll High School (1979)

Carrie (1976)

Indictment: The McMartin Trial (1995)

Blow Out (1981)

The Matrix (1999)

Pulp Fiction (1994)

Killing Zoe (1993)

A Clockwork Orange (1971)

The Tenant (1976)

Dr. Strangelove (1964)

Bugsy Malone (1976)

Phantom Of The Paradise (1974)

The Muppet Movie (1979)

The Rules Of Attraction (2002)

The Sound Of Music (1965)

Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory (1971)

Giant (1956)

The Andromeda Strain (1971)

Babe (1995)

Time Bandits...

In his 1962 dystopian satire novel "A Clockwork Orange," writer Anthony Burgess positions a teenager as a perpetrator of extreme violence. This teenager in question, Alex, is a product of a youth subculture that views violent acts such as murder and assault as thrilling pastimes. Although an inevitable product of his society, Alex chooses this specific brand of "ultraviolence" over any functional moral compass, the same way he chooses to blast Beethoven when fantasizing about aggressive acts that culminate in violent rapture. But what happens when this choice to be a morally-vacuous delinquent is forcibly taken away? Burgess addresses this essential conflict between innate choice and free will in his brilliant novel, which Stanley Kubrick brings to life in his vividly profound adaptation of the same name.

Although Kubrick mostly took an auteurist approach to most of his adaptations, he was surprisingly faithful to the essence of Burgess' layered text. However,...

Si Litvinoff, the executive producer of Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange and Nicolas Roeg’s The Man Who Fell To Earth, died Dec. 26 in Los Angeles. He was 93.

His death was confirmed to Deadline by his friend Shade Rupe. A cause of death has not been announced.

Litvinoff was a practicing lawyer for more than a decade before pivoting to film production. He acquired the rights to the now-classic 1962 Anthony Burgess dystopian sci-fi novel A Clockwork Orange and developed the project with Burgess and writer Terry Southern. Litvinoff eventually recruited director Kubrick, who signed on as both producer and director.

The film, starring Malcolm McDowell as the leader of an “ultra-violence” gang in a futuristic Britain, was released by Warner Bros. in 1971 and would be nominated for four Oscars, including best picture, the following year.

Also in ’71, Litvinoff produced the drama Walkabout, set in the Australian Outback and directed by Roeg.

Now that Oscar season has once again arrived, theaters will be filled with the types of prestige films that are almost guaranteed to garner nominations from the Academy. Many of these are, as a rule, rather “serious” affairs, designed to appeal to a mass audience.

Cinemagoers might be surprised to realize just how frequently films that were rated Nc-17 or X at some point in their release have also been granted the prestige of being nominated for an Oscar. Regardless of which category in which they were nominated, these were the kinds of movies which pushed the boundaries of what was acceptable and what would see and accept.

Boys Don’t Cry (1999) Stream On Prime Video

There’s no question that Boys Don’t Cry is one of the most notable movies about the LGBTQ+ community. Telling the achingly tragic story of Brandon Teena, the young trans man who was brutally murdered by his own friends.

Before "A Clockwork Orange" was a visually stimulating, textually fascinating dystopian crime film by Stanley Kubrick, it was a nearly puzzling novel by Anthony Burgess published in 1962. It's such a unique story that it's hard to fathom exactly how it must've come about in the author's mind, but the birth of "A Clockwork Orange" came from two places, one more simplistic-seeming than the last.

The film's star, Malcolm McDowell, previously spoke about the origins of the original story in the movie's Blu-ray commentary. He said:

"He told me, Burgess, [...] that he got the idea for this film from being in Moscow in the early 60s in a coffee shop. The windows were all steamed up and he was sitting by the window talking to one of his compatriots and these thugs would press their faces up to the window. He was obviously a foreigner because he was dressed differently and it was obviously threatening.

Actor / Filmmaker Alex Winter joins Josh Olson and Joe Dante to discuss movies featuring a cog in the machine – the individual struggling to exist within the system.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Bill And Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989) – Alex Kirschenbaum’s Bill and Ted character power rankings

Bill And Ted’s Bogus Journey (1991)

Bill And Ted Face The Music (2020)

The Game (1997)

Showbiz Kids (2020)

The Panama Papers (2018)

Zappa (2020)

200 Motels (1971)

Modern Times (1936)

Metropolis (1927) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review

Avatar (2009)

Things To Come (1936) – Jesus Trevino’s trailer commentary

M (1931)

M (1951)

The Last Laugh (1924) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review

Brazil (1985)

Gremlins (1984) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review, Tfh’s Mogwai Madness

City Lights (1931)

Goin’ Down The Road (1970)

The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review

The Young And The Damned (1950)

Shock Corridor (1963) – Katt Shea’s trailer commentary

The Naked Kiss (1964)

Stroszek (1977)

Even Dwarves Started Small (1970)

Ikiru (1952) – Glenn Erickson’s trailer...

It's hard to argue that there are any huge changes that need to be made to "A Clockwork Orange." It's not a perfect movie, but it's damn close. Stanley Kubrick does an excellent job bringing Anthony Burgess' novel to life. He made use of creative filmmaking techniques to achieve unique shots, the sort of practice that made Kubrick a legend among directors. The film looks fantastic and elicits strong emotions from the viewer, as a movie should.

Along with Kubrick, another vital piece of the film was Malcolm McDowell, who portrayed Alex. McDowell's turn as Alex is a career-making, if not at least money-making, performance, starting from a place of a lot of confidence and evil and slowly transitioning into the pathetic husk Alex is at the end of the film.

But what happens if you remove the two most vital men from the production? How does the film...

“I was cured all right,” Alex DeLarge (Malcolm McDowell) asserts at the end of Stanley Kubrick’s 1971 cautionary science fiction classic, A Clockwork Orange, and audiences cheered. We left theaters relieved the teenaged thug who’d been beating and attacking his way through the future suburbs of London escaped government brainwashing, conformity, and supplication with his mind, and baser instincts, intact. Good for him. He is free to brutalize and pillage another day. This may be problematic as a working social application in real life, but it is the better cinematic choice.

The film ends on a classically framed shot of Alex (in his mind) happily performing the old in-out in-out with a pleased partner surrounded by an appreciative audience of privileged-class voyeurs. Literally looks like Heaven. It is one of the most memorable and powerful closing scenes in motion picture history. It seems a no-brainer whether it is the perfect conclusion.

Showrunner Eric Kripke joins podcast hosts Josh Olson and Joe Dante to discuss a few of his favorite films.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

The Howling (1981) – Josh Olson’s trailer commentary, Randy Fuller’s wine pairings

Piranha (1978) – Jon Davison’s trailer commentary, Randy Fuller’s wine pairings, Charlie Largent’s Blu-ray review

Gremlins (1984) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review, Tfh’s Mogwai Madness

Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990)

My Octopus Teacher (2020)

The Evil Dead (1983) – Fede Alvarez’s trailer commentary

Evil Dead II (1987) – Mike Mendez’s trailer commentary, Alex Kirschenbaum’s review

Meet The Feebles (1989) – Mike Mendez’s trailer commentary

Dead Alive a.k.a. Braindead (1992) – Mike Mendez’s trailer commentary

Bad Taste (1987) – Ti West’s trailer commentary

Infested (2002)

Super (2010)

Forrest Gump (1994)

The Hidden (1987) – Mike Mendez’s trailer commentary, Charlie Largent’s Blu-ray review

Uhf (1989)

Fat Guy Goes Nutzoid (1986)

The Dead Pit (1989)

Batgirl (2022) – Unreleased film

The Fantastic Four (1994) – Unreleased film...

While many films lose some of their effect over the decades, "A Clockwork Orange" remains one of the most visually arresting movies ever made. At the time of its release, the controversial 1971 Stanley Kubrick film elicited mixed feelings from audiences and — and Anthony Burgess, who wrote the 1962 novel of the same name. The film famously leaves out the novel's final chapter (which was also omitted from American printings at that point in time), thus completely altering the core message Burgess was trying to convey. Interestingly, Burgess himself was initially unsure if the novel's final chapter was necessary or not, which is why he authorized...

The post How A Clockwork Orange Changed Malcolm McDowell Forever appeared first on /Film.

The controversial 1971 adaptation of Anthony Burgess’s button-pushing novel remains both utterly repellent and utterly compelling

Throughout his career, Stanley Kubrick never cared much about ingratiating himself to the audience, so it’s an achievement that A Clockwork Orange, his controversial adaptation of Anthony Burgess’ 1962 novel, is the most repellent film of his career. That’s not to say it isn’t an audacious and frequently brilliant film, but watching it can feel like getting into a 136-minute argument – with Kubrick, with yourself, and with a society that wrestles imperfectly (and often unjustly and tragically) with issues of law-and-order and individual rights. There’s something here to infuriate people on both ends of the political spectrum, and even if you accept it as a satire that has no ideological allegiances, that can be infuriating, too. And this is to say nothing of its extreme unpleasantness.

Yet we should neither run...

This week marks the 30th anniversary of U2’s Achtung Baby, though the Edge is having some trouble processing the fact that it’s truly been that long. “When you get into the quantum physics of time and the expanding universe and black-hole theory, there is a theory that time is speeding up,” he tells Rolling Stone on a Zoom call from Dublin. “So within a lifetime, you might actually start to notice the difference. I genuinely feel like time is flying past now in a way that it didn’t years ago.

Anderson’s latest is a romance about a teen boy wooing an older woman, starring two extraordinary newcomers and stuffed with fabulously hammy A-list cameos

As a title for this California pastoral from the sunlit west coast 1970s, Licorice Pizza is whimsically inspired. According to writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson, it’s actually the name of a now defunct SoCal record store chain. I was hoping he was making that up, like Anthony Burgess’s supposed cockney phrase “Queer as a clockwork orange”. But no. It really did exist, though the movie itself teeters between reality and nostalgist-hallucination.

This is a love story set in 1973 (Erich Segal’s novel is in fact slyly positioned in one shot), and far too interesting and complicated to be called “coming-of-age”. A grinningly fast-talking 15-year-old boy meets a bored 25-year-old woman who works as assistant to a photographer taking pictures for the high-school yearbook. She is in equal parts amused,...

“I think I’ve always been my own kind of person, and you know sometimes to my detriment,” says Malcolm McDowell, chatting to Den of Geek via Zoom, 50 years after the release of A Clockwork Orange.

“I’ve never really played the Hollywood card, I’m not really an insider, that’s just not my thing. And I like to be able to say no. And that’s it.That’s not probably a politically correct thing to do. However, too bad. I’m still here 50 years later.”

McDowell is talking to us from LA, his accent a soft mix of Yorkshire, where he grew up, and California where he has resided for much of his professional life. He is funny and charismatic, with a hint of the mischievous, he says people still find him “a little intimidating” – traits which he brought out in spades for his breakout roles, first...

Above: 1981 French grande for Stalker. Art by Bougrine.It’s been six months since I last did one of these round-ups of the most popular posters featured on my Movie Poster of the Day Instagram (previously Tumblr).With some 3,349 likes to date, this rare French poster for Tarkovsky’s Stalker, posted just last month, outstripped the pack and is in fact the second most “liked” poster I’ve ever posted, just a couple of hundred likes shy of Andrew Bannister’s UK poster for Parasite which I posted over a Pandemic ago. With art signed by one “Bougrine” the poster is currently offered for sale at Posteritati. Though the style and signature don’t quite look right, there was a Vladimir Bougrine (1938-2001) who was a prominent Soviet dissident painter who ended up in Paris in 1977 where, according to Wikipedia, “the French Ministry of Culture introduced him to...a community of writers,...

Burbank, CA – Warner Bros. Home Entertainment announced today that A Clockwork Orange, Stanley Kubrick’s 1971 classic dystopian film, will be released on Ultra HD Blu-ray and Digital on September 21. Adapted from Anthony Burgess’s 1962 decline-of-civilization novel, A Clockwork Orange received four Academy Award® nominations; Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay (Based on Material from Another Medium) and Best Film Editing.

Directed, written and produced by Kubrick, the film stars Malcolm McDowell as Alex DeLarge, Warren Clarke, James Marcus and Michael Tarn as his droogs, Patrick Magee and Michael Bates.

In 2020, the United States Library of Congress selected A Clockwork Orange for preservation in the National Film Registry, finding it “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”

The 4K restoration was conducted by Warner Bros.’ Motion Picture Imaging (MPI). Kubrick’s former right-hand man Leon Vitali and the Kubrick Estate worked closely with the team at Warner Bros. during the mastering process.

Ultra...

A Clockwork Orange, Stanley Kubrick’s dark 1971 masterpiece, is coming to 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray and Digital this September. Warner Bros. Home Entertainment has announced the release of A Clockwork Orange on 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray and Digital on September 21. It can be ordered from Amazon by clicking right here. Adapted from Anthony Burgess’s […]

The post ‘A Clockwork Orange’ is Finally Coming to 4K appeared first on Cinelinx | Movies. Games. Geek Culture..

“Ho, ho, ho! Well, if it isn’t fat stinking billy goat Billy Boy in poison! How art thou, thou globby bottle of cheap, stinking chip oil? Come and get one in the yarbles, if ya have any yarbles, you eunuch jelly thou! “

Warner Bros. Home Entertainment announced today that A Clockwork Orange, Stanley Kubrick’s 1971 classic dystopian film, will be released on Ultra HD Blu-ray and Digital on September 21. Adapted from Anthony Burgess’s 1962 decline-of-civilization novel, A Clockwork Orange received four Academy Award® nominations; Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay (Based on Material from Another Medium) and Best Film Editing.

Directed, written and produced by Kubrick, the film stars Malcolm McDowell as Alex DeLarge, Warren Clarke, James Marcus and Michael Tarn as his droogs, Patrick Magee and Michael Bates.

In 2020, the United States Library of Congress selected A Clockwork Orange for preservation in the National Film Registry, finding it “culturally,...

Photo: 'A Clockwork Orange'/Warner Bros. “There is a tyranny in the womb of every Utopia.” ― Bertrand De Jouvenel The chase for a “perfect” society is what colors all of our pursuits. Democracy, constitution, and civil rights are all elements of our efforts to create a society where we have eradicated all evil and undesirable elements. Nevertheless, immoral impulses are an inherent part of the human psyche. Is it ethical to take away something that is a fundamental part of every human, albeit in varying degrees? A Clockwork Orange (1971) is a cult-classic sci-fi movie about an especially heinous gang leader who agrees to participate in an experimental government program intended to fully rehabilitate societal misfits who exhibit criminal behavior. It is based on the 1962 novel by Anthony Burgess, and written and directed by the great Stanley Kubrick. It stars Malcolm McDowell as Alex, who is an extreme version...

It’s true that Netflix is losing some great movies soon, and it goes without saying that no one is particularly happy when that happens. But for everything the service gets rid of at the beginning of the month, it typically makes up for in amazing new content to watch. And as usual, the first drop of November brings along with it a heap of fresh stuff you’ll want to check out, such as comedies like Paul Blart: Mall Cop and Yes Man, popular heist flick Ocean’s Eleven, emotional coming-of-age drama Boyz in the Hood and lots more.

In case it wasn’t apparent, you’ll have plenty to dig into next month, and there’s even more to come after that. But one flick you may not want to miss later this week when it arrives on November 1st is a 1971 classic that was extraordinarily controversial for...

Stanely Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange is one of the most highly acclaimed controversial movies ever made. Adapted from the popular Anthony Burgess novel, the startling science fiction tale concerns a British rascal named Alex (Malcolm McDowell), who along with his gang of street-hoods called Droogs, terrorizes Londoners with reckless abandon.

Related: Viddy Well: 10 Behind-The-Scenes Facts About A Clockwork Orange

Despite its disturbing subject matter, A Clockwork Orange became one of the most popular movies of 1971. Yet, because it inspired instances of real-life violence in Kubrick's adopted homeland of England, the fastidious auteur pulled the film from cinemas in the U.K., where it remained out of circulation until a year after Kubrick's untimely death in 1999. For more, here are 10 Things You Never Knew About the Making of A Clockwork Orange.

The great Larry Wilmore joins us to share some very personal double features.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

1917 (2019)

Animal Crackers (1930)

Duck Soup (1933)

My Little Chickadee (1940)

A Night At The Opera (1935)

A Hard Day’s Night (1964)

The Manchurian Candidate (1962)

The Manchurian Candidate (2004)

The Parallax View (1974)

Singin’ In The Rain (1952)

A Clockwork Orange (1971)

Planet of the Apes (1968)

Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972)

Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)

E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)

Jaws (1975)

The Stepford Wives (1975)

The Party (1968)

The Return of the Pink Panther (1975)

The Pink Panther Strikes Again (1976)

Richard Pryor: Live In Concert (1979)

Richard Pryor: Live And Smokin’ (1971)

Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling (1986)

Dolemite Is My Name (2019)

Lenny (1974)

The Human Centipede (First Sequence) (2009)

Lolita (1962)

Caligula (1979)

The Night of the Iguana (1964)

The Elephant Man (1980)

What Would Jack Do? (2020)

Blue Velvet (1986)

The Apartment (1960)

Some Like It Hot (1959)

Double Indemnity (1944)

The Sting (1973)

Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid...

Netflix has built up such an extensive library that it’s not too hard to find a movie to suit your mood. Want to watch a raunchy comedy like “Caddyshack” or sci-fi thriller like “Snowpierecer”? It’s got those. If you’re in the mood for a best picture-winner, you can stream “Schindler’s List” and “No Country for Old Men.” There’s films for kids with “Hercules” and “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” and films that are definitely not for kids like “Taxi Driver” and “A Clockwork Orange.”

Great directors made the cut, such as Steven Spielberg, Quentin Tarantino, Joel and Ethan Coen, Alfonso Cuaron, Stanley Kubrick, Charlie Kaufman and Bong Joon-Ho. There’s also adaptations of great authors, such as Anthony Burgess, James Dickey, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein and Cormac McCarthy.

With summer coming to a close, the streaming platform affords you the opportunity from the comfort of...

Tony Sokol Jul 25, 2019

Art heist film The Burnt Orange Heresy features Donald Sutherland catching rye and a Rolling Stone gathering moss.

Mick Jagger is making his movie comeback.

The lead singer of the Rolling Stones hasn't acted since 2001's The Man from Elysian Fields. He turned down the booty from a part in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise but couldn't turn away from an erotic neo-noir art heist thriller. The Burnt Orange Heresy, which also stars Donald Sutherland as a reclusive artist in the Jd Salinger mold, will have its world premiere at the Venice International Film Festival on September 7, 2019, according to Variety. The film will close out the festival in with an out-of-competition screening in the Sala Grande after the awards ceremony.

Based on Charles Willeford's 1971 novel The Burnt Orange Heresy, the film was directed by Giuseppe Capotondi. When the movie was first announced, Christopher Walken was...

A manuscript by Anthony Burgess, author of "A Clockwork Orange", has been discovered and it can be considered at least a quasi-sequel to his classic 1962 novel. The 200 page manuscript, titled "A Clockwork Condition",  offers Burgess's reflections on society as well as his thoughts about Stanley Kubrick's notorious and highly acclaimed 1971 film version of "A Clockwork Orange" that was removed from exhibition in the UK until after the director's death in 1999. Burgess, who died in 1993, also explains in the manuscript how the bizarre title "A Clockwork Orange" came about. Click here to read BBC report. 

(For Cinema Retro's exclusive interview with Malcolm McDowell about the making of the film, see issue #21.)...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSDirector John Singleton on the set of his Boyz in the HoodJohn Singleton has died at the age of 51 after suffering a stroke. In an essential overview of the filmmaker's groundbreaking career, K. Austin Collins writes "[Singleton's] black characters were flawed, often failures; his films detailed the extent to which these failures were personal, and made clear when they were systemic. Singleton’s black people were human." I was discovered by a master filmmaker by the name of John Singleton. He not only made me a movie star but made me a filmmaker. There are no words to express how sad I am to lose my brother, friend & mentor. He loved bring the black experience to the world. ..Us at Cannes ‘90 pic.twitter.com/CaRKjZtjgB— Ice Cube (@icecube) April 29, 2019A newly discovered sequel to A Clockwork Orange...

An unpublished manuscript serving as the sequel to “A Clockwork Orange” was discovered this week in author Anthony Burgess’ house in Bracciano, Italy. The discovery was confirmed by BBC News. Entitled “A Clockwork Condition,” the nearly 200-page script is “a collection of Burgess’ thoughts on the human condition and develops the themes from his 1962 book.” The novel was the inspiration for Stanley Kubrick’s 1971 film of the same name, starring Malcolm McDowell, as well as Andy Warhol’s earlier adaptation, “Vinyl,” from 1965. The non-fiction sequel is described as “part philosophical reflection and part autobiography.”

“A Clockwork Condition” expands on many of the themes Burgess tackled in the fictional story of “A Clockwork Orange.” The book follows a sociopath named Alex as he carries out acts of ultra-violence with his gang of thugs, named the droogs. The story follows Alex’s crime spree and eventual capture, as society attempts to rehabilitate...

Clumsy and insensitive translations can ruin the enjoyment of a foreign-language film. Don’t blame us, say the subtitlers pressing film-makers for more appreciation of their art

The perfect subtitle is one you don’t notice. Occasionally, you might thrill to Anthony Burgess’s English subtitles in alexandrine form for Cyrano de Bergerac (1990), or marvel at the bravura way Timur Bekmambetov threads animated subtitles into Night Watch (2004), or chuckle at the gaffes on old Hong Kong movies (“I have captured you by the short rabbits”). But mostly you just speed-read and move on.

This year, however, subtitles have been attracting more attention than usual. In January, Alfonso Cuarón condemned Netflix’s decision to add Castilian-Spanish subs to his film Roma as “parochial, ignorant and offensive to Spaniards”, who presumably couldn’t be trusted to understand the Mexican accent. Two days later, the Castilian subtitles were removed.

Looking to do more than just betting your hearts out with Betway on th.betway88.com?

Don’t worry – you also have a great many Netflix movies to watch. Yes, Netflix can be yet another way to spend your weekend than just trying out your luck on Betway.

Netflix has an amazing collection of movies, originals as well as those by other companies. Here are some of the most highly recommended movies you can watch right now!

1. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)

Based on the Chinese novel by Wang Dulu and directed by Ang Lee, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is known to be one of the most impactful and successful martial arts movies. Its story, cinematography, and fight sequences are totally worth watching, as it is the highest-grossing foreign language movie in the history of the United States.

2. Apollo 13 (1995)

It stars Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, and Bill Paxton and is...

This outlandish tale of dystopian delinquency remains deeply thought-provoking – but is not without troublesome elements

The souring of the swinging 60s got properly under way with this radioactively outrageous film, now rereleased as part of the Stanley Kubrick season at London’s BFI Southbank; this was Kubrick’s sensationally scabrous, declamatory, epically indulgent and mad adaptation of the 1962 Anthony Burgess novella about ultra-violent youth gangs in a dystopian future Britain speaking cod-Russian mixed with a weird version of Cockney rhyming slang. (Burgess cheekily trolled the public by claiming his title was taken from a certain Cockney phrase – “queer as a clockwork orange” – apparently known only to him.)

Related: Stanley Kubrick's best films – ranked!