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When done with a modicum of proficiency, action movies are pure cinema. They are kinetic, ecstatic, and occasionally balletic. Whether we're watching hand-to-hand brawls, bullet-whizzing shootouts, or tire-squealing car chases, action cinema holds the potential to leave us gasping and cheering as stunt people (or combat-trained actors) strut their fearless stuff. And if the director is skilled enough to inventively storyboard, shot-by-chaotic-shot, the mayhem unfolding on the screen, your reward is nothing short of bliss.

While the action films of maestros like John Woo, Jackie Chan, and Walter Hill make life worth living, a true movie junkie can get their daily fix from a down-and-dirty formula flick laden with crudely executed punch-ups and twisted-metal set pieces. There is a nobility to this kind of filmmaking. In her vital essay "Trash, Art and the Movies," legendary film critic Pauline Kael wrote,...

Clint Eastwood was one of the biggest movie stars of the 1970s and had several career-defining roles throughout this decade. Coming off his breakout success as The Man with No Name in Sergio Leones Dollars Trilogy during the 1960s, Eastwood would not slow down in the following decade as he branched out into action movies, comedies, dramas, and thrillers. With an unmatched onscreen charisma and a tough-guy reputation, Eastwoods 1970s filmography may just be the perfect encapsulation of his entire career.

In the 1970s, Eastwood continued to play tough Western gunslingers and even led a brand new franchise as Inspector Harry Callahan in the Dirty Harry series. While this decade saw some extraordinary highs, it also featured several low points as some comedies and action releases failed to make the same impact as his greatest works. A true icon of the 1970s and beyond, Eastwood even carved out a second...

Clint Eastwood may have been made by the western, but he has certainly not been defined solely by it. His work over the years has crossed multiple genres, from horror films like Play Misty For Me to romances like The Bridges Of Madison County. Despite his ability to play in a variety of different genres, Eastwood has proved time and time again that he is made for action movies. While Eastwood's Western movies may prove some of his best, they are certainly not all he has to offer.

Having worked with greats of the action genre such as Don Siegel and Wolfgang Peterson, Eastwood has had a style of action film practically built around him. It is not just his Western shootouts that are remarkable. Never one to rely on heavy stunts and choreography, the language of his action films is unique. His stern demeanor and large frame prove perfect as an immovable force,...

While plenty of movies from the 1970s have since built up cult followings, that does not mean they have not aged poorly in the subsequent decades. Whether due to outdated social and political content, poor special effects, or even outrageous concepts that dont hold up in todays modern cinema landscape, its interesting to notice how much time can ravage an audiences perspective on a particular film. While these movies may have aged poorly, that does not necessarily make them bad, and it's important to view them as products of the era in which they were made.

Some of the best films from the 1970s have their fair share of issues regarding being outdated, and this was especially the case for cult classics that already stood outside of normal cinematic expectations. From silly premises like an offbeat comedy casting Clint Eastwood opposite an ape to sci-fi classics whose special effects just didnt hold up,...

The Supreme Court decision Miranda v. Arizona came down in 1966, and served as a crackdown on sloppy or abusive police interrogations. Miranda noted that suspects, when being arrested, had certain rights afforded them, including the right to remain silent while in custody, and the right to have a state-appointed attorney to defend them. Thanks to its use in an endless stream of cop shows and "Law & Order" reruns, most Americans can recite the Miranda warning by heart. We all now know that, upon arrest, we have the right to remain silent.

Not everyone was pleased about the Miranda decision, however, and many conservative pundits at the time felt that it only hamstrung police officers. There was a fear that truly evil criminals would exploit the system to their benefit, keeping silent and protected, while street cops -- knowing them to be guilty -- would be helpless to, say, beat a confession out of them.

Road trips have served as the basis for some of Hollywood's best stories for decades, especially in the comedy genre. These movies often follow characters who, through shared adversity, become closer as friends. Everything from buddy-style dynamics to family trips makes the road trip one of the most enduring, successful formulas on film, merging elements of adventure with relatable situations as characters battle the odds to reach their destinations.

Road trips can take on a variety of forms, from tense modern Westerns to comedic adventures, but all of them share the same focus on character growth and overcoming adversity. There aren't nearly enough of these movies, but some stand out as a testament to the value of a good road-faring adventure. Whether through a modern cross-country story of self-discovery or an old-school crime tale, these films are the best road trip movies out there.

Every Which Way But Loose Is...

There are a lot of weird things that have happened in the history of the movies, but Clint Eastwood riding with an Orangutan named Clyde, resulting in one of his biggest hits as an actor is certainly in the pantheon of cinematic outlandishness. How can a man who has epitomized the Spaghetti Western, and has stood as the shining example of machismo, achieve great commercial success from a silly comedy? Well, that's immeasurable star power for you, and James Fargo's Every Which Way but Loose is a testament to Eastwood's versatility and innate magnetism with audiences.

Of the handful of movie franchises Clint Eastwood starred in, the Every Which Way But Loose films have aged the worst. Even at the height of movie stardom, Eastwood tended to avoid sequels in favor of working on original projects. Sergio Leone's Dollars trilogy acted as his screen breakthrough, and he returned for four sequels to Dirty Harry. Towards the end of the '70s, he wanted to shake up his image and make a full-on comedy. The result was Eastwood's most successful film, Every Which Way But Loose. This cast Clint as a down-on-his-luck bare-knuckle brawler who owns a pet orangutan named Clyde.

Eastwood has stated his agents strongly advised him against Every Which Way But Loose, and it was met with terrible reviews. Yet, audiences flocked to see the movie, with Clyde being a big part of its appeal. Eastwood returned shortly after for Any Which Way You Can,...

Clint Eastwood’s “Dirty Harry” series of films are some of the most iconic American action movies ever made. Spanning two decades and five films, the “Dirty Harry” franchise looks at America’s changing attitude toward law enforcement and justice.

The first film, “Dirty Harry,” was released in 1971 and was an instant classic, spawning four sequels over the next two decades. While each film is excellent in its own right, there is a clear progression in how America is depicted, from a place of hope and optimism in the first film to a much more cynical and jaded outlook by the fifth film.

The story of all the movies revolves around a San Francisco Police Department inspector, “Dirty” Harry Callahan, played by Clint Eastwood. If you are a fan of action-packed cinema, you should watch “Dirty Harry” movies.

So without wasting any more seconds, Join us as we take a...

Clint Eastwood is justifiably considered one of our greatest living directors. Over his nearly 70-year career, he has received 11 Academy Award nominations and won four times. His revisionist Western "Unforgiven" is widely hailed as the modern apotheosis of the genre. Few filmmakers have left a deeper impact on American cinema. Even fewer have opted to share the screen with a bird-flipping, beer-swilling orangutan that enjoys voiding its bowels in police cars.

It's telling that Eastwood handed off the directorial duties on "Every Which Way But Loose" to his frequent Ad James Fargo. You could also argue that Fargo, having done...

The post Every Which Way But Loose Was A Controversial Project For Clint Eastwood To Choose appeared first on /Film.

Wayne “Buddy” Van Horn, veteran stuntman who worked with Clint Eastwood on over 30 films and directed “Any Which Way You Can” and “The Dead Pool,” died May 11, according to an obituary notice in the Los Angeles Times. He was 92.

Sometimes credited as Wayne Van Horn, he started working with Eastwood as a stunt double in 1967, and continued working as a stunt coordinator on his films up until “J. Edgar” in 2011. He also directed three movies starring Eastwood: “Any Which Way You Can,” “The Dead Pool” and “Pink Cadillac.” 1980’s “Any Which Way You Can” was the sequel to James Fargo’s “Every Which Way but Loose,” and 1988’s “The Dead Pool” is the fifth and final film in the “Dirty Harry” series, also starring Patricia Clarkson, Liam Neeson and Jim Carrey in his first dramatic film role.

The longtime stuntman was “born on the back lot of Universal Studios,” according to his obit notice.

Gravitas Ventures has acquired North American rights to Undergods, a fantasy thriller anthology movie directed by Chino Moya in his feature directorial debut. A May 7 day-and-date release in theaters and on-demand is planned.

The pic is a collection of darkly humorous fantasy tales about failed societies and doomed fortune told via a pair of corpse collectors who roam the desolate streets of an unknown city chatting humorously about their dreams, in which a series of men see their worlds fall apart through a visit from an unexpected stranger.

Geza Rohrig, Johann Meyers, Ned Dennehy, Hayley Carmichael, Michael Gould, Khalid Abdalla, Jan Bijvoet, Eric Godon, Tanya Reynolds, Tadhg Murphy, Katariina Unt, Sam Louwyck, Kate Dickie, Adrian Rawlings and Burn Gorman star.

Gravitas’ VP Acquisitions Tony Piantedosi negotiated the deal with Kirk D’Amico of Myriad Pictures, which continues to handle worldwide sales.

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Veteran TV director Matthew Penn has been set to Badge of Trust,...

By Tim McGlynn

Every so often I come across a movie from years ago that I simply overlooked or didn’t have the opportunity to see. After viewing the Kino-Lorber Blu-ray release of Caravans, I have to say I’m rather sorry I missed this one.

Caravans, directed by James Fargo, had a brief release from Universal in 1978, after which it disappeared with only an ABC-TV airing and sporadic appearances on cable to mark its existence. The trailer promises that Caravans is the greatest desert adventure since Lawrence of Arabia, which clearly it is not. However, there is much to enjoy with this new video release.

The year is 1948 and American diplomat Mark Miller (Michael Sarrazin) is sent to the fictional Middle Eastern country of Zakharstan to search for Ellen Jasper(Jennifer O’ Neill), the daughter of a U.S. senator. Ellen has left her husband, Colonel Nazrullah (Behrouz...

Have you ever seen Every Which Way But Loose? The 1978 comedy starred Clint Eastwood at the top of his game, and fell right in the middle of a stint of badass roles as Man With No Name and Dirty Harry. Eastwood plays a truck driver who participates in bareknuckle boxing on the side to bring in some extra cash, and he's best friends with an orangutan named Clyde. Not only is this a 100% real film, but — you guessed it — Hollywood is remaking it.

According to Deadline, original director James Fargo is producing the remake and hand-picked its director, an up-and-coming filmmaker named Anthony G. Cohen who directed a little-seen movie called The Sex Trip. Filming starts this spring, but there's no word about casting yet. At this point, I'm no longer surprised with remake news. When Hollywood is remaking a movie about a guy and his orangutan fighting their way across the country,...

Tell someone that Every Which Way but Loose is getting remade and they may give you a bit of an "er, which movie is that again?" face. It is an odd, easily confused title for a movie, after all. It's not as distinct as, say, A Nightmare on Elm Street. Tell someone that they're remaking the movie where Clint Eastwood has a pet orangutan, though, and they'll know exactly what you're talking about. You can't really confuse that combination with any other movie (except, of course, the sequel, Any Which Way You Can). Original director James Fargo is producing the remake, which will be directed by Anthony G. Cohen who made last year's straight-to-vod body swap comedy The Sex Trip. They haven't cast anyone in the Eastwood role yet, so this project...

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Simon Brew Jan 24, 2017

The director of The Sex Trip is to helm a remake of the Clint Eastwood comedy, Every Which Way But Loose...

Most of the reporting we do on remakes tends to centre on Hollywood’s current obsession with films from the 1980s and 1990s. Appreciating that remakes tend to make people groan a little just at the mention of them, at least this one dates back to a film nearly 40 years old.

It’s the Clint Eastwood-headlined comedy Every Which Way But Loose, which in turn was followed by a follow-up, Any Which Way You Can. It’s the one where Eastwood plays a truck driver with a pet orangutan, and the new take on the movie is set to go into production this spring.

The director of the original film, James Fargo, is producing this time. And in the director’s chair will step Anthony G Cohen,...

Nearly 40 years after the Clint Eastwood comedy Every Which Way But Loose hit theaters, a remake is moving forward. James Fargo, who directed the original movie, has come aboard to produce this Every Which Way But Loose reboot, bringing Anthony Cohen on board to direct. The filmmaker made his feature directorial debut with last year's The Sex Trip, which stars Jim Hanks, Frank Stallone and Louis Mandylor, the younger brothers of Tom Hanks, Sylvester Stallone and Costas Mandylor.

Deadline reports that James Fargo has been quietly searching for a director for the past year, with production now set to begin in late spring. No cast members have been announced at this time, but James Cohen revealed in a statement to Deadline that he knew Anthony Cohen was right for Every Which Way But Loose after watching his film The Sex Trip. Here's what he had to say below.

"I have...

According to Deadline, a remake of the hit 1978 Clint Eastwood comedy Every Which Way But Loose is in the works, finally answering the prayers of America’s many orangutan actors. Original director James Fargo is on board as a producer, which means this should be reasonably faithful to the Which Way But Loose series’ canon (and may even include some elements from the Which Way But Loose expanded universe that we assume exists).

The remake will be directed by Anthony Cohen, who wrote, produced, and directed The Sex Trip, a 2015 comedy that Fargo was “very impressed” by according to a statement given to Deadline. No casting details for the Every Which Way But Loose remake have been announced, but seeing as how Scott Eastwood has been desperate for a breakout role that might convince people he’s as cool as his dad, maybe he should get in the ...

Exclusive: It was the 1978 Clint Eastwood comedy that everyone loved to hate and hated to love, but it ended up making $95M and spawned a sequel. Now Every Which Way but Loose is being remade, and James Fargo, who directed the first film, and is now producing. He just tapped Anthony G. Cohen to direct. Cohen wrote, produced and directed last year’s The Sex Trip last year, a comedy whose cast the younger brothers of Tom Hanks, Sylvester Stallone and Costas Mandylor (Jim…...

Clint Eastwood revisited Harry Callahan three more times, usually whenever his career was in the dumps. If Dirty Harry was a cultural phenomenon and Magnum Force a respectable follow-up, the rest are uninspired cash-ins. The main law Harry enforces in these sequels is the Law of Diminishing Returns.

Given Dirty Harry‘s San Francisco setting, something like The Enforcer (1976) was inevitable. After all, San Fran hosted Haight-Ashbury, hippie capital of the world; was a favored site for Black Panther and Sds protests; headquarters of the nascent gay rights movement; victim of Weathermen bombings and the racially-charged Zebra murders. Writers Gail Morgan Hickman and S.W. Schurr based their script, originally titled “Moving Target,” on the Symbionese Liberation Army which kidnapped Patty Hearst. Dean Riesner (who cowrote the original Harry) and Stirling Silliphant (In the Heat of the Night) polished the film.

Harry battles the People’s Revolutionary Strike Froce, led by...

"When I think of 'Jaws' I think about courage and stupidity. And I think of both of those things existing underwater." That's a quote from Steven Spielberg on his time directing the 1975 horror classic, which turns 40 this Saturday. Proving that sometimes greatness can spring from unimaginable misery, the film was famously a nightmare to shoot, with numerous production problems including the frequent malfunctioning of "Bruce," the collective name given to the film's trio of animatronic sharks. But don't take my word for it. Below are ten hellish behind-the-scenes straight from the mouths of those involved that will make you wonder how they managed to finish the film at all. 1. This is what happens when you hire a stuntman with no diving experience When husband-and-wife shark experts Ron and Valerie Taylor were commissioned to get footage of actual Great Whites attacking a cage (for the famous Richard Dreyfuss underwater sequence), the...

Oldest person in movies? (Photo: Manoel de Oliveira) Following the recent passing of 1931 Dracula actress Carla Laemmle at age 104, there is one less movie centenarian still around. So, in mid-June 2014, who is the oldest person in movies? Manoel de Oliveira Portuguese filmmaker Manoel de Oliveira will turn 106 next December 11; he’s surely the oldest person — at least the oldest well-known person — in movies today. De Oliveira’s film credits include the autobiographical docudrama Memories and Confessions / Visita ou Memórias e Confissões (1982), with de Oliveira as himself, and reportedly to be screened publicly only after his death; The Cannibals / Os Canibais (1988); The Convent / O Convento (1995); Porto of My Childhood / Porto da Minha Infância (2001); The Fifth Empire / O Quinto Império - Ontem Como Hoje (2004); and, currently in production, O Velho do Restelo ("The Old Man of Restelo"). Among the international stars who have been directed by de Oliveira are Catherine Deneuve, Pilar López de Ayala,...

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Based on the popular song of the same name by C. W. McCall (yes, really), Hollywood hell-raiser Sam Peckinpah's Convoy (1978) gets an unexpected DVD and Blu-ray rerelease this week through StudioCanal, presumably opening up this kitsch cult truck-a-long to a slightly wider - and younger - demographic. Starring Kris Kristofferson as the ridiculously monikered Martin 'Rubber Duck' Penwald, Ali MacGraw as his 'girl', Melissa, and the late Ernest Borgnine as pantomime villain Sheriff Lyle 'Cottonmouth' Wallace, there's more than a dusting of camp kudos to this throwaway guilty pleasure.

As foreshadowed in McCall's seventies pop hit, Convoy follows an enormous, snaking congregation of dust-raising truckers as they heads for the State line following a diner brawl with the dastardly Sheriff Lyle and his posse of slimy cronies. Led by legendary road warrior 'Rubber Duck' (a particularly blue-eyed Kristofferson), this vast mobile army gather together in protest against local police corruption and trucker persecution,...

Go Ahead, Make My Day! week concludes at Trailers from Hell with TV writer Alan Spencer introducing the third Dirty Harry film, "The Enforcer," starring Clint Eastwood.Although Clint Eastwood had intended to direct the third Dirty Harry movie himself, his replacement of Philip Kaufman during The Outlaw Josey Wales prevented him from taking the reins on The Enforcer, so his assistant director James Fargo was drafted to do the job. Tyne Daley’s tough female cop foreshadows her role in the hit Cagney and Lacey tv series. The music is by Jerry Fielding, making this the only Dirty Harry film without a score by Lalo Schifrin. By the way, the line “Go ahead, make my day” does not actually appear until the next film in the series, Sudden Impact.

This weekend Rock of Ages terrorizes theaters with 1980’s rock musical overload. This seems like as good a time as any to horrify you with a musical number from a Reagan era sci-fi rock musical. Sex is the least of Voyage of the Rock Aliens' problems.

How does one go from directing Clint Eastwood as “Dirty Harry” in The Enforcer and Chuck f’ing Norris in Forced Vengeance to directing Pia Zadora, Jermaine Jackson, Craig Sheffer, and Michael Berryman in something called Voyage of the Rock Aliens?

Pia Zadora began her acting career playing a green-skinned Martian child in the 1964 holiday bad movie classic Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. Who would have ever imagined that would be the pinnacle of her career?

Twenty years later, an all grown up Pia Zadora starred in an even worse out-of-this-world musical comedy titled Voyage of the Rock Aliens directed by James Fargo...

Title: Born To Ride Directed by: James Fargo Starring: Casper Van Dien, Patrick Muldoon, William Forsythe and Theresa Russell Running time: 90 minutes, Not Rated Mike and Alex are friends and motorcycle enthusiasts who decide to go on a road trip to Sturgis when they somehow get tangled in a plot involving political blackmail and corruption. After stopping to visit Mike’s mom and some fellow bikers, they are unknowingly slipped some evidence from the blackmailers that could possibly get them killed Casper Van Dien and Patrick Muldoon are back together again after 14 years since Starship Troopers. Their acting has shown improvement, but unfortunately they’re doing straight to DVD fare...