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The traditional biopic is slowly becoming a relic of the cinematic past. By and large, films made about real life public figures tend to try and find a new angle in depicting someone’s life. That way, it can never feel recycled or stale. However, some movies are still taking the tried and true path. Occasionally, it still works, but most of the time, it ends up feeling a bit empty. Such is the case with Saint Judy, a well intentioned and undeniably timely biopic that never fully realizes its potential. The story being told is important, for sure. Unfortunately, its depiction leaves something to be desired. The film is a look at attorney Judy Wood (Michelle Monaghan), who would single-handedly changed the asylum laws in the United States, all in an effort to help save women’s lives. A public defender, Judy accepts a job out west in California...

The advertising promised a surfeit of sleaze -- but the film is a superior thriller about a real-life, low-rent serial killers from back in the late 1940s. Tony Lo Bianco and the great Shirley Stoler are Ray and Martha, mixed-up lovers running a Merry Widow racket through the personals ads in romance magazines. Leonard Kastle's film is dramatically and psychologically sound, while the disc extras detail the true crime story, which is far, far, sleazier. The Honeymoon Killers Blu-ray The Criterion Collection 200 1969 / B&W / 1:85 widescreen / 107 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date September 29, 2015 / 39.95 Starring Shirley Stoler, Tony Lo Bianco, Mary Jane Higby, Doris Roberts, Kip McArdle, Marilyn Chris, Dortha Duckworth, Barbara Cason, Ann Harris Cinematography Oliver Wood Film Editor Richard Brophy, Stanley Warnow Music Gustav Mahler Produced by Warren Steibel Written and Directed by Leonard Kastle  

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

The ad campaign for this crime shocker...

WWE.com

A lot of people have been talking about Benjamin Morris’ 538 piece, “Are Pro Wrestlers Dying at an Unusual Rate?”

Like Morris, I am neither an actuarial scientist nor a demographer. So, our interpretations of the data should be taken with a grain of salt. My results were somewhat different from Morris’ due to a difference data set and changes in how we calculated actuarial predictions.

Differences in methodology from Morris

I also used Social Security Actuarial Life Tables, but my “expected mortality rates” for the age groups were not the same as Morris’. For each wrestler, I calculated what their age would have been as of today. Then, based on gender, I looked up the number of lives (out of 100,000) that were expected to still be alive and converted that to a percentage. His analysis looked at wrestlers who were on 20+ WWF PPVs through 2002. I went with a...

Updated through 5/23.

"Leonard Kastle, writer-director of 1969 film The Honeymoon Killers, which became a cult classic, died May 18 in Westerlo, NY," reports Carmel Dagan in Variety. "He was 82. The Honeymoon Killers starred Shirley Stoler and Tony Lo Bianco in the true story of notorious 'lonely hearts killers' Martha Beck and Ray Hernandez, who lured a series of lovelorn women, robbed them and murdered them in the late 1940s." He also notes, as everyone must, that "François Truffaut called it 'his favorite American film.'"

"Leonard Kastle seized the tabloid case of plug-ugly criminals as a rebuke to Bonnie and Clyde's sham lyricism, and his vehement denunciation of 'beautiful' shots — more Frederick Wiseman than Diane Arbus — is bracing." Fernando F Croce: "Kastle is a born filmmaker with an uncanny feeling for the startling close-up and the excruciating long-take, Edgar G Ulmer would have applauded his mise en scène of light bulbs and cellar burials.

And the French horror invasion keeps right on going with the announcement of Fabrice du Welz's latest based on a true story psycho horror tale, Alleluia.

According to Screen Daily the Vinyan and Calvaire director will soon be bringing us Alleluia, which will be based on the true story of two of the Forties' most notorious serial killers -- Martha Beck and Raymond Fernandez, also known as The Lonely Hearts Killers.

Thus far the incredibly spooky Béatrice Dalle (pictured; Inside) is set to star along with Bouli Lanners and Virginie Efira. Du Welz has co-written the script with Vincent Tavier, and shooting is now set for early 2011.

Raymond Fernandez and his common-law wife Martha Beck became known as "The Lonely Hearts Killers" after their arrest and trial for serial murder in 1949. Between 1947 and 1949 they are believed to have killed as many as 20 women. - as per WikiPedia

Look for more soon!

Fabrice Du Welz has chosen the subject, or subjects, of his latest film: Serial killers Martha Beck and Raymond Fernandez, also known as The Lonely Hearts Killers. Du Welz will direct Alleluia , a true life/road film about Beck and Fernandez who killed an estimated 20 women during a two year span in the 1940s. The pair were at the center of the 1970 film The Honeymoon Killers . Starring in Alleluia is Béatrice Dalle of Inside . Du Welz previously directed the unnerving Calvaire and the slow-burn Vinyan .