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They were the original One-Percenters — not the richest of the richest, the elite within the elite, but “the one percent who don’t fit and don’t care… We’ve punched our way out of a hundred rumbles, stayed alive with our boots and our fists.” That first-hand quotes opens Hunter S. Thompson’s Hell’s Angels, the definitive account of the motorcycle gang that was both the emblem of pure, uncut postwar freedom and a nightmare for “respectable” society. They’re coming to your town, they’re gonna party it down,...

Leonardo DiCaprio has starred in a variety of movies, from romance dramas like Titanic to sci-fi thrillers such as Inception. This has made his movie characters as diverse as his features. But there was one character DiCaprio played that he found especially difficult to separate from.

Leonardo DiCaprio once shared what it was like playing this historical figure Leonardo DiCaprio | Jon Kopaloff/FilmMagic

In 2004, audiences saw DiCaprio team up with filmmaker Martin Scorsese once again for the project The Aviator. DiCaprio famously played inventor and businessman Howard Hughes in the biopic, focusing on the man’s younger years. DiCaprio first conceived the project after receiving a book covering Hughes’ life.

“As an actor, you’re constantly searching for that great character. And, being a history buff and learning about people in our past and amazing things that they’ve done, I came across a book about Howard Hughes, and he was set up as,...

Among the myriad reasons we could call the Criterion Channel the single greatest streaming service is its leveling of cinematic snobbery. Where a new World Cinema Project restoration plays, so too does Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight. I think about this looking at November’s lineup and being happiest about two new additions: a nine-film Robert Bresson retro including L’argent and The Devil, Probably; and a one-film Hype Williams retro including Belly and only Belly, but bringing as a bonus the direct-to-video Belly 2: Millionaire Boyz Club. Until recently such curation seemed impossible.

November will also feature a 20-film noir series boasting the obvious and the not. Maybe the single tightest collection is “Women of the West,” with Johnny Guitar and The Beguiled and Rancho Notorious and The Furies only half of it. Lynch/Oz, Irradiated, and My Two Voices make streaming premieres; Drylongso gets a Criterion Edition; and joining...

Don’t let the word “bike” fool you. In Jeff Nichols’ “The Bikeriders,” the wheels in question are choppers — good, all-American motorcycles, built from the ground up by tough guys in leather jackets — and the “club” they’re a part of is really more of a gang. Nichols hails from the Heartland and has a better handle on the life and attitudes one finds in so-called flyover country than nearly all the directors working at his level. You’ve probably seen a few of his films, most of which take place down dirt roads in rural areas. Movies like “Shotgun Stories,” “Loving” and “Mud.”

With “The Bikeriders,” Nichols brings us into the big city — or the outskirts, at least — and then zeroes in on a social microcosm all of us recognize, but few have penetrated: a Chicago-area motorcycle club that calls itself the Vandals. The Vandals don’t really exist,...

Tubi has greenlit “Breaking Bear,” an adult animated series created by Julien Nitzberg and produced by Cartel Entertainment and Tom DeLonge’s To the Stars Media.

Described as a parody of mobster dramas, combining elements of Yogi Bear with “The Sopranos,” “Breaking Bear” Breaking Bear follows the escapades of three bear siblings who decide they have to start selling drugs in order to raise money and save their home after gas companies start fracking next to their cave. The bears soon enlist other forest animals in a scheme that will pit them against oil companies, the Russian mafia, local Hell’s Angels and polar bears who hate anything that isn’t white.

“When The Cartel pitched a series with cartoon animals as mobsters, I knew it was an offer I couldn’t refuse,” said Adam Lewinson, chief content officer at Tubi. “This is the perfect project to expand our adult animation...

This Evil review contains spoilers.

Evil Season 3 Episode 8

Evil, season 3 episode 8 “The Demon of Parenthood” is a mother of an episode. It goes so far over the top in its conspiratorial suspense the entire proceedings veer dangerously close to spoof. The opening scene between Father David (Mike Colter) and Victor LeConte (Brian d’Arcy James) would have worked on Get Smart. The circuitous language is as audaciously audible in the private confessional as the Cone of Silence at the Chief’s office at Control. The week’s case comes off as a self-parody even before the monster-of-the-week gives Ben (Aasif Mandvi) the finger.

Say what you want about Evil, it never loses its entertainment value. We may stretch imaginations or roll eyes, but we don’t look away. Some of the gore effects may be tempting, but the payoffs are always worth the effort. It is because it plays so close to comedy the fears work,...

“Rodeo” might have had a clearer (and catchier) title if it had been called “Wheelie.” It’s a drama set among French motocross riders, who are a bit like the outlaw bikers of the ’60s except that they wear cropped hair and athletic logo T-shirts instead of hippie manes and satanic leather jackets. And in this movie, at least, they don’t rove. They’re rooted in a desolate suburb of Paris, where they gather to zoom along the road and pop up on one wheel, which the movie describes to us as a feeling of intense liberation. It sure looks that way.

But it’s only in fits and starts, mostly during the first 20 minutes, that “Rodeo” gets off on those stunts. Julia (Julie Ledru), the feral but untrained biker who joins the gravity-tweaking competitors, is the only female on hand, and she never does learn how to pop...

Most people can’t wait to take a day off work. Tom Cruise isn’t most people. The actor recently told Bella magazine (via Uproxx) while on his “Top Gun: Maverick” press tour that he never takes a day off work, which somehow makes sense considering he’s often always filming a movie, promoting a movie and/or prepping for a movie. The way Cruise sees it, heading out on a press tour for one of his films is his time off.

“This is a day off for me, because I am not shooting!” Cruise said when asked how he spends his time off from work. “I’m just chillin’ now. I don’t have days off. Look, I’m fortunate, I’m lucky. I’ve spent my life on movie sets and traveling the world, which is what I always wanted to do. So this is not work – I’m living the dream.

Howard Hughes has had a long and fascinating relationship with Hollywood. He directed two feature films ("Hell's Angels" in 1930 and "The Outlaw" in 1943), and produced over 25 besides (usually going uncredited). Hughes' company owned a major stake in the Rko film and media studio, and eventually became the sole owner of Rko's film division following the landmark United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc. antitrust lawsuit that prevented vertical integration in entertainment. Hughes eventually changed focus from entertainment to real estate, as well as the air and space industries, but showbiz was always close to his heart. Thanks to a severe case of obsessive-compulsive...

The post Christopher Nolan and Jim Carrey Almost Made a Howard Hughes Biopic Together appeared first on /Film.

The lasting horror of war is the blight it leaves on the lives of those left behind. Early sound pictures tried to deal with the guilt and pain of WW1, and the great Ernst Lubitsch took time out from romantic comedies and musicals for this very grim rumination on lies and responsibility. A French soldier decides to contact the family of a German he killed in the trenches; with no clear purpose or plan, he’s apt to make things worse for everybody. Lionel Barrymore and Nancy Carroll are wonderful, but you’ll choke up in the scenes with the German mother, played by Louise Carter. The film is best known for its opening montage, in which Lubitsch openly attacks the hypocrisy of militarist patriotism. It’s an exceedingly effective, non-hysterical piece of anti-war filmmaking.

Broken Lullaby

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1932 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 76 min. / The Man I Killed / Street...

Hunter S. Thompson is a confounding figure. Though he didn’t invent Gonzo journalism, he is the most identifiable face of it. His first-person narrative style of news gathering makes him partially accountable for the overriding trends of internet journalism, on both sides of the aisle and all the cleanup calls which go along with them. Thompson’s 1970 attempt to run for sheriff of Pitkin County, Colorado, marked the beginning of baby boomer politicking. Writer-director Bobby Kennedy III’s Fear and Loathing in Aspen tells that story with wit, wisdom and weirdness.

Set just before Thomson, played by Jay Bulger, caught his stride with his 1971 novel Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream, the film conjures the energy of strange, new beginnings. Much of it is shot on vintage grade, grainy film stock, and it looks like the actors were free...

Although the book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is a firm classic and doesn’t take long to read – the film had a shaky start. If you have yet to see the film, then you’re in for a wild ride.

What is Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas about?

It is a drug and alcohol-infusedbook about corruption and hippies and casinos – which sounds easy, but it isn’t. In a red convertible, Raoul Duke and Dr Gonzo, take you on a bizarre trip to the live casino capital of the world.

The dialogue is quick and sharp. While autobiographical in nature, it has some moments that you hope were real – just as much as you wish they weren’t. Various confrontations, police interactions, and a lot of kicking back at ‘the establishment/the man’. Fact and fiction become interwoven, and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is Hunter.

Apple TV+’s 1971: The Year That Music Changed Everything is immersive and fairly ambitious. The eight-part documentary series wants to run 33 revolutions per minute, and only comes up about a third short. It captures how musicians’ fingers were on the pulse of the day’s headlines and the laid the tracks for the nights’ rhythms.

Artists sang the news, sometimes causing it, other times reacting. Rock and roll had grown up and rock musicians took on responsibilities. Rhythm and blues got loose and soul musicians took to the streets. A former University of California philosophy professor named Angela Davis was charged with aiding and abetting the murder of a judge and Aretha Franklin personally offered to post bail.

The documentary series points out how The Beatles took the lead on youth culture movement during the 1960s, and how the elder society tried to beat it down in the 1970s,...

2020 in British TV comedy brought us Maisie Williams as a kickass survivalist in a pickle, and a new parenting comedy from the hugely talented Simon Blackwell and Chris Addison starring Martin Freeman.

To add to that, there was also a fresh batch of comedians playing exaggerated versions of themselves in self-penned sitcoms, including Katherine Ryan, Mae Martin, Sara Pascoe, Kayleigh Llewellyn, Lucy Beaumont and Jon Richardson.

Here’s the skinny on all those new shows and more. Here’s what arrived in 2019, and here are the new British TV dramas that arrived in 2020.

Breeders

After their excellent 2014 relationship comedy Trying Again, Chris Addison and Simon Blackwell teamed up on a new series, this time about the trials of parenthood. Martin Freeman and Daisy Haggard played parents in this ten-part half-hour comedy, a co-production between Sky in the UK and FX in the US. Watch the first trailer here.

Bumps

Available...

Fifty years ago this Sunday, the Rolling Stones released Gimme Shelter, the infamous documentary that started as a look at the final days of the British bad boys’ legendary 1969 tour, leading up to the disastrous free concert at Altamont Speedway. It ended up becoming the ultimate rock & roll horror movie. Directors Albert Maysles, David Maysles and Charlotte Zwerin’s time capsule is always a trip to revisit, but especially now — after nine months without live music, even Altamont looks tantalizing. It’s tough to watch the film in 2020 without musing,...

John Wayne, Robert Ryan and some thrilling color combat footage grace this Howard Hughes WW2 aviation epic, that’s famous for being the odd-title-out in the filmography of Nicholas Ray. Just how did the politically diverging Ray and Hughes get along so well? The Wac’s sensational Technicolor restoration does the real combat footage a big favor: minus scratches and dirt, it looks better than ever.

Flying Leathernecks

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1951 / Color / 1:37 Academy / 102 min. / Street Date September 15, 2020 / available through the WBshop / 21.99

Starring: John Wayne, Robert Ryan, Don Taylor, Janis Carter, Jay C. Flippen, James Bell, Adam Williams, Barry Kelley, Gordon Gebert, Lynn Stalmaster, Mona Knox.

Cinematography: William E. Snyder

Film Editor: Sherman Todd

Original Music: Roy Webb

Written by James Edward Grant, Beirne Lay Jr. story by Kenneth Gamet

Produced by Edmund Grainger, Howard Hughes

Directed by Nicholas Ray

This by-the-numbers Naval aviation epic — more precisely the Marine Corps.

John Wayne, Robert Ryan and some thrilling color combat footage grace this Howard Hughes WW2 aviation epic, that’s famous for being the odd-title-out in the filmography of Nicholas Ray. Just how did the politically diverging Ray and Hughes get along so well? The Wac’s sensational Technicolor restoration does the real combat footage a big favor: minus scratches and dirt, it looks better than ever.

Flying Leathernecks

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1951 / Color / 1:37 Academy / 102 min. / Street Date September 15, 2020 / available through the WBshop / 21.99

Starring: John Wayne, Robert Ryan, Don Taylor, Janis Carter, Jay C. Flippen, James Bell, Adam Williams, Barry Kelley, Gordon Gebert, Lynn Stalmaster, Mona Knox.

Cinematography: William E. Snyder

Film Editor: Sherman Todd

Original Music: Roy Webb

Written by James Edward Grant, Beirne Lay Jr. story by Kenneth Gamet

Produced by Edmund Grainger, Howard Hughes

Directed by Nicholas Ray

This by-the-numbers Naval aviation epic — more precisely the Marine Corps.

It was the mid-1960s, the beginnings of the counterculture, and I had decided to make a movie about Hell's Angels. They were in the headlines and to me they were something new and different in American society. I talked to a number of people for the part, but I chose Peter for two reasons. One, he was a very good actor. And two, he could ride a motorcycle. I wanted all the actors who played Angels to be able to ride the bike. I wanted to be able to photograph the actors while they were riding with a camera ...

It was the mid-1960s, the beginnings of the counterculture, and I had decided to make a movie about Hell's Angels. They were in the headlines and to me they were something new and different in American society. I talked to a number of people for the part, but I chose Peter for two reasons. One, he was a very good actor. And two, he could ride a motorcycle. I wanted all the actors who played Angels to be able to ride the bike. I wanted to be able to photograph the actors while they were riding with a camera ...

Razzia is a rather snazzy German police thriller from the post-war years, covering comparable territory to Billy Wilder's A Foreign Affair and Carol Reed's The Third Man: it deals with the then-current European crime wave known as the black market.The director Werner Klingler's career might well repay study, as it leaps around so oddly. In 1929 he was in America and acted in Von Sternberg's Viennese-set melodrama The Case of Lena Smith, now seemingly a lost film apart from one ten-minute fragment. He also played Germans for James Whale in Journey's End and Hell's Angels. Returning to Germany he became an assistant director (S.O.S. Iceberg) and then a director, mainly of lightweight thrillers, passing from the Hitler era through to the post-war denazification seemingly without a hitch.Klingler would make Eddie Constantine vehicles and a Mabuse sequel (when the once-feared embodiment of the zeitgeist...

Hells Angels On Wheels La Screening with Richard Rush and Sabrina Scharf in Person

By Todd Garbarini

Richard Rush’s 1967 film Hells Angels on Wheels celebrates its 50th anniversary with a special screening at the Noho 7 Theatre in Los Angeles. Starring Adam Roarke, Jack Nicholson, Sabrina Scharf, Jana Taylor and Jack Starrett, the film runs 95 minutes and is one of several films that Mr. Rush directed Mr. Nicholson in, the others being Too Soon to Love (1960) and Psycho-Out (1968). This is a rare opportunity to see this film on the big screen.

Please Note: Director Richard Rush and actress Sabrina Scharf are scheduled to appear in person for a Q & A following the screening.

From the press release:

Hells Angels On Wheels (1967)

Thursday, August 3, 2017 at 7:30 Pm

A bunch of hairy guys on Harleys are causing trouble again in this, one of the best-remembered examples of the biker flicks of the 1960's.

John Monk Saunders is a good example of the screenwriter-as-auteur in the sense that he had a tone (mordant, tragic) and a set of concerns (Wwi aerial combat and its effects) that were consistent throughout his work, almost to the point of claustrophobia. Saunders was an airman himself, and like his characters, he just couldn't leave it behind. A recurring theme of his work is that war is not only traumatic, but addictive. Ace of Aces is a typical work: Saunders would achieve greater glory with William A. Wellman (Wings, 1927), Howard Hawks (The Dawn Patrol, 1930) and, best of all, with William Dieterle and The Last Flight in 1931. Ace of Aces is a relatively minor-league outing. Though director J. Walter Ruben delivers a few elaborate tracking shots, the film belongs mainly to the writer and the Rko effects team—Vernon L. Walker, who worked on Citizen Kane and King Kong, stitches...

Long Strange Trip (Amazon Video)

I was stoked have scored a ticket for the limited-run (one week) theatrical screening of the new Grateful Dead documentary at IFC Cinema in the West Village. A four-hour love fest for Deadheads young and old, and more importantly for those music fans and the curious who just never got "it" and what it means to be a Deadhead. Expertly handled by director Amir Bar-Lev, there is so much to mine here that I can't imagine how much was left on the cutting room floor. (Props to executive producer Martin Scorsese, too.) Jerry's Frankenstein story frames the movie in a way that initially seems odd but by the end of the film makes perfect sense. After all, like the Monster, the band was "assembled" by the various parts (members, friends, fans, staff) that comprised it. Messy, joyous entropy in action; seemingly random, but actually spiritually...

Warren Beatty's new film, Rules Don't Apply, quietly snuck into UK cinemas last weekend. Here's our review...

Not unreasonably, Howard Hughes is a figure of fascination in cinema. From Leonardo DiCaprio in The Aviator to Terry O'Quinn in The Rocketeer, to characters who were inspired by him, like Willard Whyte in Diamonds Are Forever or Howard Stark in the Marvel cinematic universe, the billionaire businessman's on-screen influence feels fitting for his early status as a movie tycoon.

Now, Warren Beatty directs, produces, writes and stars in Rules Don't Apply, whose convention-busting title reflects the way in which it runs counter to other cinematic treatments by putting the spotlight on two of Hughes' many employees. Set during the tumultuous years of 1958 to 1964, the film focuses on virginal Virginia beauty queen Marla Mabrey (Lily Collins), an actress who's new to Hollywood, and Frank Forbes (Alden Ehrenreich), a chauffeur who drives her around.

On this day (April 21st) in history as it relates to showbiz...

Anthony Quinn

1904 Oscar winning cinematographer Daniel L Fapp (West Side Story and Desire Under the Elms, among many films) born in Kansas City

1914 Cinematographer Gilbert Taylor born in England. Though he was BAFTA nominated Oscar never bit despite high profile films and collaborations with famous directors. Credits include: Repulsion, The Omen, Dr Strangelove, Star Wars, Frenzy, Dracula (1979) and MacBeth 

1915 Oscar's all time favorite Mexican actor Anthony Quinn born (Lust for Life, Viva Zapata, Wild is the Wind, Zorba the Greek, La Strada, etcetera)

1918 "The Red Baron," the famous German fighter pilot, shot down in World War I. Snoopy in Peanuts fantasizes about him repeatedly and he's also been a character in many films including Wings, Hell's Angels, and Darling Lili ...

England is viewed by the wider world as a nation of eccentrics. This is considered a genetic characteristic, and something to be celebrated. Like most assumptions, the truth lies somewhat wide of the remark. Quentin Crisp, one such "National Treasure," is now rightly revered as one, but his journey from pariah nuisance to that of sage-like venerability was a long and winding affair. He migrated to New York, remaining vital till the end, an amalgam of defiance and disappointment worn as wit.

Some considered him a latter-day Oscar Wilde, a comparison he didn't much value, remarking that he'd known many who'd been sent to prison for crimes of the flesh like Wilde's, without being broken or penning such bad verse.

Unkind maybe, but Wilde had it all and lost it largely because of his own arrogance. He could have fled to Paris, had the chance to but didn't take it.

Jenny Morrill Dec 9, 2016

The cast of Saved By The Bell have made a lot of Christmas films. And we've just watched them all...

Some people collect stamps. I wish I collected stamps, that would be infinitely easier than my hobby, which is collecting Saved By The Bell cast members in Christmas movies. Think of it as Panini stickers on ultra hard mode.

Sadly, my collection depends on the whims and careers of the various Bayside alumni. I'm not doing too badly; so far I have five of the six main cast members, and a few supporting characters. But the hunt for the missing actors takes up far too much of my time, time that could be spent watching Homes Under The Hammer and crying.

Here are the actors I have in my strange, fictional sticker album so far...

Mark Paul Gosselaar (Zack): 12 Dates Of Christmas

Plot: A newly single...

'The Aviator' movie with Leonardo DiCaprio as bizarre billionaire Howard Hughes: Bloated biopic. 'The Aviator' movie review: What's not good for the Spruce Goose… Imagine Citizen Kane directed by the Steven Spielberg of The Color Purple, Schindler's List, Amistad, and Saving Private Ryan. The final result would look something like a Barry Levinson film – for instance, the superficial and phony Bugsy. Or, an even more appropriate example, the superficial, phony, and bloated The Aviator. Except, of course, that Levinson is not the man responsible for the 2004 mega-production starring Leonardo DiCaprio as the eccentric, billionaire ladies' man Howard Hughes. Strangely enough, that man is Martin Scorsese, the director of hard-hitting films such as Taxi Driver, Goodfellas, and Gangs of New York. Scorsese, a fan of Old Hollywood, apparently wanted to have some fun with the reported $110 million budget (approx. $138 million in 2016) made available to him. The director no doubt had a ball while making The Aviator,...

It's the final Hollywood film by the legendary Ziegfeld star Marilyn Miller, and it's also a terrific talkie feature debut for W.C. Fields -- with one of his dazzling juggling bits. But the real star is director William Dieterle, whose moving camera and creative edits rescue the talkie musical from dreary operetta staging. Her Majesty, Love DVD-r The Warner Archive Collection 1931 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 75 min. / Street Date January 19, 2016 / available through the WBshop / 21.99 Starring Marilyn Miller, Ben Lyon, W.C. Fields, Leon Errol, Ford Sterling, Chester Conklin, Clarence Wilson, Ruth Hall, Virginia Sale, Oscar Apfel. Cinematography Robert Kurrie Film Editor Ralph Dawson Songs Walter Jurmann, Al Dubin Written by Robert Lord, Arthur Caesar from story by Rudolph Bernauer, Rudolf Österreicher Directed by William Dieterle

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

The Warner Archive Collection has been kind to fans of early talkies. We've been able to discover dramatic actresses like Jeanne Eagels...

Our countdown of the 100 best films of the 21st century continues. This is Part 2 #75 through 51.

Click here for Part 1 (#100-76)!

The first decade and a half of the 21st century has brought a lot of changes to the landscape of film. The advancement and sophistication of computers has made realistic computer generated effects a mainstay in both big-budget and small-budget films. The internet and streaming technologies have given big Hollywood new competition in films produced independently and by non-traditional means. We went from purchasing films on yards of tape to plastic disks, and now we can simply upload them to the cloud. Advertisements for films have reached a higher, more ruthless level where generating hype through trailers and teasers is crucial for a film’s commercial success. Movie attendance has fluctuated along with the economy, but that hasn’t stopped films from breaking box office records, including having films gross...

Ramon Novarro: 'Ben-Hur' 1925 star. 'Ben-Hur' on TCM: Ramon Novarro in most satisfying version of the semi-biblical epic Christmas 2015 is just around the corner. That's surely the reason Turner Classic Movies presented Fred Niblo's Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ last night, Dec. 20, '15, featuring Carl Davis' magnificent score. Starring Ramon Novarro, the 1925 version of Ben-Hur became not only the most expensive movie production,[1] but also the biggest worldwide box office hit up to that time.[2] Equally important, that was probably the first instance when the international market came to the rescue of a Hollywood mega-production,[3] saving not only Ben-Hur from a fate worse than getting trampled by a runaway chariot, but also the newly formed Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, which could have been financially strangled at birth had the epic based on Gen. Lew Wallace's bestseller been a commercial bomb. The convoluted making of 'Ben-Hur,' as described...

In the mid-Sixties, gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson spent about a year with the world's most notorious biker gang to write the book Hell's Angels, which came out in 1967. He spoke with radio broadcaster Studs Terkel that year for an interview that PBS has now animated whimsically for its Blank on Blank series.

"The Angels claim that they don't look for trouble," Thompson said in the interview. "They just try to live peaceful lives and be left alone, but on the other hand they go out and put themselves into...

George Lucas didn't just create the "Star Wars" universe. The filmmaker, who turns 71 on May 14, pretty much created the cinematic universe we live in now, the ones whose cornerstones include the Thx sound system at your multiplex, the Pixar movies that have dominated animation for the past 20 years, and the Industrial Light & Magic special-effects house, whose aesthetic has ruled the Hollywood blockbuster for nearly four decades. He's the pioneer of the effects-driven action spectacle and the conversion from celluloid to digital, the two trends that, for better and worse, have defined Hollywood's output for nearly 20 years.

As ubiquitous as Lucas and his creations loom in our cinematic dreamscapes, there's still a lot that most people don't know about him, from how he got his start to the famous folks who mentored him or were mentored by him, from the size of his fortune to what he plans to do now...

We've had some amazing trailers, including the recent and stunning full one, but the real promotional push for "Mad Max: Fury Road" is about to begin. UK copies of "Furious 7" will get a six minute clip in front of screenings, and now the first long lead interviews with the cast and crew are going online.

Today, Esquire has posted an interview with star Tom Hardy who confirms that his contract means he's signed up for three more "Mad Max" films on top of 'Fury Road' should it be a major success.

While Hardy has played key supporting roles in blockbusters, and leads in various arthouse and mid-budget dramas, this is technically the first studio action tentpole where he's the lead star. Hardy says he feels the weight of it, saying:

"I've never been more excited and out of my comfort zone... we were in the middle of nowhere, so...

One of the titans of the documentary world has passed today. There are many filmmakers whose work can be said to have influenced other artists, and certainly one of the ways we weigh the worth of an artistic legacy is by the way it seeps into the larger culture. By that standard, Albert Maysles was enormously important, and the mark he leaves on the definition of a documentary is immeasurable. "Grey Gardens" is perhaps the most famous of his films, and one of the things I realized when I first saw it was that documentaries can be about anything. The point of the process is truth, and Maysles was ferociously dedicated to capturing moments of almost breathtaking truth. One of the first pieces of his work that I saw was "Gimme Shelter," the documentary about the 1969 Altamont concert where Hell's Angels stabbed a concertgoer to death, an event which was recorded on film.

Harrison Ford injured in plane accident (image: Harrison Ford as Colonel Graff in 'Ender's Game') Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark actor Harrison Ford was supposed to be in critical condition – later reports have upgraded that to "fair" or "stable" condition – following an accident with a small airplane on Los Angeles' Westside. Earlier this afternoon (March 5, 2015), a vintage, one-engine two-seater crash landed at the Penmar Golf Course, located in the Los Angeles suburb of Venice, not far from the Pacific Ocean and just west of Santa Monica Airport. Its pilot, 72-year-old Harrison Ford, was found "seriously" injured. He was alone on the plane. There were no injuries on the ground. As explained in the Los Angeles Times, "fire officials would not identify the victim of the crash but said he was conscious and breathing when paramedics arrived." Ford was later transported to an unidentified hospital. Eleven...

Howard Hughes movies (photo: Leonardo DiCaprio as Howard Hughes in 'The Aviator') Turner Classic Movies will be showing the Howard Hughes-produced, John Farrow-directed, Baja California-set gangster drama His Kind of Woman, starring Robert Mitchum, Hughes discovery Jane Russell, and Vincent Price, at 3 a.m. Pt / 6 a.m. Et on Saturday, November 8, 2014. Hughes produced a couple of dozen movies. (More on that below.) But what about "Howard Hughes movies"? Or rather, movies -- whether big-screen or made-for-television efforts -- featuring the visionary, eccentric, hypochondriac, compulsive-obsessive, all-American billionaire as a character? Besides Leonardo DiCaprio, who plays a dashing if somewhat unbalanced Hughes in Martin Scorsese's 2004 Best Picture Academy Award-nominated The Aviator, other actors who have played Howard Hughes on film include the following: Tommy Lee Jones in William A. Graham's television movie The Amazing Howard Hughes (1977), with Lee Purcell as silent film star Billie Dove, Tovah Feldshuh as Katharine Hepburn,...

By Lee Pfeiffer

Probably no genre illustrates the rapid advance of cinematic screen freedoms than the biker movie. The genre debuted in 1953 with Marlon Brando in "The Wild One". The film, which chronicled the virtual takeover of a small California town by a wild motorcycle gang, was considered extremely controversial at the time. The biker film remained largely dormant until the release of Roger Corman's "The Wild Angels" in 1966, which became a surprising boxoffice and media sensation. Only a year or two before, teenage audiences were being fed a steady diet of white bread rock 'n roll films that bore little resemblance to real life. Suddenly, the biker film blatantly presented raging hormones, gang wars, drug use and group sex without apology. Young people patronized these films in droves. With social constraints falling by the minute, the biker films- cheaply made as they were- spoke to the emerging generation...

This story was originally published in the February 21st, 1991 issue of Rolling Stone.

Mr. and Mrs. Robin Williams are slow dancing. The time: a winter afternoon. The place: a photographer's studio in the Chelsea section of New York. The music: high-decibel funk. Everybody else in the studio is abuzz — adjusting lights, fussing with props, running back and forth from the kitchen with sushi. Still, Williams and his wife, Marsha, keep coming together in these quick, sweet tableaux. It's strange to see the thirty-nine-year-old actor and comedian with his guard down...

 

The Austin Film Society continues its "Rebel Rebel" series this weekend with a brand new 35mm print of Jamaa Fanaka's 1976 film Emma Mae. Tonight's screening at the Marchesa is free to Afs members, and the movie will play again on Sunday afternoon. Afs is also sponsoring a screening of The Three Burials Of Melquiades Estrada, starring Tommy Lee Jones, on Wednesday night at the Texas Spirit Theater (inside the Bullock Texas State History Museum). It's free for Afs members, as well as Aff, Cine Las Americas and Bullock Museum members. Julio Cedillo and producer Eric Williams will be there for a post-screening Q&A. Head back to the Marchesa on Thursday night for a 35mm print of Truffaut's Jules And Jim. The film is part of this month's Essential Cinema series on films Of World War I. 

Alamo Drafthouse Ritz has programmed a weekend of classic biker flicks to...

"Film or art?" was the first question I was greeted with upon arrival at the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, a question essentially inquiring whether I was attending to watch "films" or "art" (i.e. video art) at the festival. But since no such demarcation really exists in the program, the question therefore expanded beyond its modest confines to provoke all kinds of immediately doubting self-inquiry such as: (1) Oh God, what if I'm here just for film?; (2) Wait, who says film isn't art?; (3) Is this person picking a fight?; and (4) How come no one asks me this in Cannes?

Still, it was a question I should have expected, since a festival dedicated to short moving image media—now; it had "just" films to consider—implicitly posits a number of questions about its chosen subject. As someone with a cinephile background in, let's say, traditional cinema, it is both frightening and...

I've been on vacation for the last seven days, but before I left I did watch John Boorman's 1967 film Point Blank starring Lee Marvin as a man double-crossed by his partners and left for dead in an Alcatraz jail cell who returns to claim what is his, which may or may not include his wife. I'd never seen the film and was tipped off to it by the CinephilArchive and the video I included at the bottom of today's post titled "The 160 Angriest Steps in Cinema History", which just so happens to be a clip from the film and easily the film's best scene... montage... however you'd like to describe it. Other than that, this week I saw The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug and we all know how that turned out by now, and at home I watched Ernest & Celestine and O Apostolo. Oh, I also watched Lone Survivor for a second time,...

Any time a top ten list is made nowadays it is typically made by movie bloggers born in the late '70s / early '80s and therefore the span of time it covers is frequently limited to just a few years before their birth to modern day. As a result many great films are forgotten simply because it's damn near impossible to see everything. Thankfully, there are others out there to encourage us to see films before our time and expand our cinematic knowledge. Just yesterday I posted Spike Lee's list of 87 Essential Films (see that here) and I've always pointed out and referenced Roger Ebert's list of Great Movies, which you can see in its entirety right here. If you haven't seen these films, add them to a spreadsheet of your own and get to work as today I have ten more for you to consider. Born...

New Supernatural season 9 first set photo features Sam & Dean in motorcycle action. Recently, Guy Norman Bee, who is the camera man for CW's hit show, "Supernatural," released this new,first, "behind the scenes" set pic for season 9,episode 1, and it gives us a new look at actors ,Jensen Ackles aka Dean Winchester and Jared Padalecki aka Sam Winchester, in motorcycle action. Guy Norman Bee captioned the new pic with the following words: "Hell's Angels have invaded our set... #Spn #901." In related news, some recent spoilers have revealed that we're going to see Sam be very sick to start off the new season. Castiel and a couple of other angels will be in "fallen angel" status,human,and have no powers, which should be quite interesting. Dead Bobby will return again for some ,yet to be revealed, action. Also, a new enemy will be arriving on the scene,and it's going...

Now that Kristen Bell is a mom, she can't just walk the red carpet in any old look. It has to be a combination of appropriate and sexy, comfortably and edgy, fit for Sunday church...and a run-in with the Hell's Angels crew? We get that the House of Lies star wanted to feel a little bit country and a little bit rock 'n' roll for the Cmt Awards, but this Zuhair Murad Lbd makes her look a little bit PTA president, a little bit S&M dominatrix. Then again, all mommies have some secrets, right?...

Jean Harlow was the first bombshell. Sure, there were silent-era predecessors, but our 'modern day' notion of the siren really started with Harlow. Mostly because of the platinum hair, which led legions to the peroxide bottle. (We've since never recovered from blonde worship.) Before she glided onto the silver screen, clad in liquid satin with that perfect '30s look comprised of thin brows, pouty lips and shining waves, the sexbombs were usually dark-haired. Think: Clara Bow, Louise Brooks and Norma Shearer.

If Bow was the "It Girl" that defined the 20s, Harlow was quintessentially 1930s. She could bridge the giant gap between classes -- she looked like a socialite but had plenty of sass, which ensured mass appeal. Her blondeness became her legend, promoted as "rare" though the modern-day eye would call it "bizarrely unnatural." Howard Hughes, who directed Harlow in her breakthrough role in "Hell's Angels," christened the...

On Feb. 23, 1968 -- almost exactly 45 years ago -- in the midst of the Mardi Gras festivities in New Orleans, Dennis Hopper began shooting a low-budget film about two drug-dealing bikers who hit the road for the Big Easy and take an acid trip. "Easy Rider" promised to be a moneymaker. The producer and star, Peter Fonda, was fresh off of his turn in Roger Corman's breakaway hit, "The Wild Angels," about a Hell's Angels-type motorcycle gang leader who just wants to "get loaded." Fonda followed that up with "The Trip," Corman’s psychedelic LSD romp. The two films were megahits, making $16 million on a combined budget of around $700,000, and turning Fonda, the lanky scion of Hollywood royalty, into a bonafide countercultural icon. Combining both plots of these quintessential Corman flicks, "Easy Rider" promised to be B-movie gold. And who was attached as the screenwriter of this tale? The hippest scribe around,...

1.) Albert Brooks is returning to voice Nemo's father, Marlin, in Finding Nemo 2. Ellen DeGeneres is also expected to return as the forgetful Dory with Andrew Stanton set to direct. At this point there are no plot details, though a 2016 release date is expected. Deadline 2.) Safe House director Daniel Espinosa is attached to direct an adaptation of John Grisham's "The Racketeer" for Fox and New Regency. The book sees a federal judge murdered at a lakeside cabin and the contents of his safe emptied. The only man who knows the whos and whys is a former attorney serving time in federal prison who hopes to parlay that into getting revenge on the people who put him there. THR 3.) More Twilight fan fiction is targeting a big screen adaptation while Universal tries to figure out what they're going to do with Fifty Shades of Grey. Constantin Film has acquired movie...

Three years ago, Paramount bought a spec script called Hellified from writer Andy Burg, who wrote family film Alaska way back in the day. Now the studio is getting the film moving once again, with the news that Predators co-writer Michael Finch has been hired to rewrite the movie, which sees a strike force made up of criminals sent into hell to prevent the End Of Days.Now that's quite a cool notion, if you ask us. Heavily armed thugs vs. demons! Hellspawn vs. Hell's Angels! (Or whatever gangs one finds in jail these days) And an apocalypse to avert along the way. There are echoes of Jeff Long's book The Descent in that concept, which is no bad thing, but that involved a less mythological hell (at least until the sequel, Deeper).The original Hellified script was heavy on the CG and involved the traditional hordes of demons...

A film 'replete with the visual and linguistic trappings of imprisonment' is let down by its creaky special effects

The Birds starts out in a pet shop with birds in their cages; it ends with humans besieged in their home with windows and doors boarded up so that no birds (or light) can get in.

From the outset, the film is replete with the visual and linguistic trappings of imprisonment. In the pet shop where they meet, randy Rod Taylor tells mischievous Tippi Hedren she "should be behind bars". The man in the general store who gives her advice on how to get to Bodega Bay, where Rod lives with his sister and widowed mum (Jessica Tandy), works behind some kind of cage. The harbour from which Tippi sets sail is lined with lobster nets and traps. And the women are variously imprisoned by the feminine necessities of heels too high to run in,...