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Although you won’t often hear his name mentioned among auteur theorists, four-time Oscar winner Robert Wise amassed an impressive filmography in his lifetime. Let’s take a look back at 20 of his greatest films, ranked worst to best.

Wise cut his teeth as a film editor, most notably working on Orson Welles‘ landmark film “Citizen Kane” (1941), for which he received an Oscar nomination. He made his directorial debut with “The Curse of the Cat People” (1944), the first of many successful collaborations with low-budget horror producer Val Lewton.

Throughout his career, Wise excelled at a number of genres, including science fiction (“The Day the Earth Stood Still”), film noir (“Odds Against Tomorrow”), horror (“The Haunting”), war (“The Desert Rats”), comedy (“Two for the Seesaw”), and drama (“Executive Suite”). Rather than imposing his own directorial fingerprint on each film, Wise instead tried to adapt his style to best suit the material.

These days, "Batman Returns" rightfully gets its due. But Tim Burton's sequel to his 1989 effort, "Batman," was assailed by critics upon its release, who felt that it was either too dark, too overcrowded with characters, lacking in plot, or just plain weird. Even many fans were ticked off by the Burton-ness of the whole thing and felt the director and screenwriter, Daniel Waters, had strayed too far from the core of the Dark Knight.

In a way, they were right. Burton had let his freak flag fly, making his own movie and not necessarily a Batman movie. Waters admitted as much after a recent screening of "Returns," saying (via IndieWire):

"It was a weird assignment in that I didn't need to please anyone but Tim Burton. Before the internet, you didn't have to go before a tribunal and say what you were doing — it was just two guys in a room riffing.

On the 8th day of Creepmas, we’re celebrating the Victorian holiday tradition of sharing ghost stories. Telling ghost stories during winter was a folk custom that dated back centuries but slowly faded over time. Any tradition that involves scaring each other with horror stories feels like one worth reviving, so today’s Creepmas festivities embrace holiday horror movies that center around ghosts and hauntings. The eight titles below run the gamut from inducing warm holiday feels to ghostly insanity to chilling terror.

The 12 Days of Creepmas continues on Bloody Disgusting, this time with 8 Christmas ghosts to haunt your holiday season.

Keep track of the 12 Days of Creepmas here.

Anything for Jackson

Sheila McCarthy and Julian Richings star as Audrey and Henry Walsh, a well-to-do couple mourning their young grandson’s tragic loss. Still deep in the denial stage of grief, they turn to Satanism. The couple kidnaps a pregnant...

“Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within…and whatever walked there, walked alone.” – Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House (1959).

Of all the subgenres of horror, the haunted house story has provided the most opportunities for slow and subtle terror that creeps and crawls its way under the skin and into the psyche. The Old Dark House (1932), The Uninvited (1944), The Innocents (1961), Burnt Offerings (1976), and The Changeling (1980) stand among the best that not only the haunted house film, but all of horror have to offer. For many, the absolute pinnacle of these films is Robert Wise’s 1963 masterpiece of suggestive horror The Haunting. Based on the novel The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, the film owes much to the influences of the past while still carving a way toward the future, is populated by rich and relatable characters, and is a deeply felt...

This Friday is the Final Friday the 13th of the year, and it’s all the more special because it’s taking place in October, mere weeks before Halloween. How are we celebrating?

By watching horror movies all day long, of course!

While streaming services like Shudder, Screambox, Netflix, Hulu, Max, Paramount+ and Prime Video are loaded with frights to stream for Friday the 13th, don’t forget that the nightmares aren’t limited to streaming. Good old fashioned cable television is always a great source of horror this time of the year, and that’s doubly true on a day like Friday the 13th.

We’ve scoured the schedules of channels like AMC, Syfy and Freeform to find all the horror airing on TV this Friday, putting together your official Friday the 13th TV Guide!

Highlights include a Friday the 13th marathon on AMC FearFest, the I Know What You Did...

Isle of the Dead

Blu ray

Warner Archive

1945 / 1.33:1 / 72 min.

Starring Boris Karloff, Ellen Drew, Katherine Emery

Cinematography by Jack MacKenzie

Directed by Mark Robson

The Swiss symbolist Arnold Böcklin produced several versions of Isle of the Dead in the late 1800’s—none of them suggested a typical tourist attraction but more than a few artists used that gloomy seascape as a port of inspiration; Rachmaninov composed a symphony, Dalí produced a surrealist tribute, and Strindberg sketched the fragments of a play, Toten-Insel. There’s even a hint of the painting’s portentous cliffs in Welles’ Xanadu. In 1945, Val Lewton, Mr. Dark Shadows himself, conceived an entire film built around Böcklin’s haunted island.

Directed by Mark Robson, Isle of the Dead is thematically rich, even for a Lewton project; set in Greece at the end of the Balkan wars, a plague joins forces with the supernatural to wreak havoc...

I don’t know about you, but this writer is more than ready to start looking forward to the Halloween season. And one of the staples of my own ongoing cinematic celebration every year is checking out all the wonderful classic horror movies that Turner Classic Movies airs on their channel. And considering the mess that 2020 has been over the last several months, I thought this year it might be helpful to also include all the genre films that will be playing on TCM throughout the month of September, as it’s never too early to get ready for Halloween.

Check out all the great classic horror movies playing on the small screen over the next two months on TCM, and be sure to set those DVRs so you don’t miss any of the classic films that are sure to get you into the Halloween spirit this year.

Thursday,...

Robert Mitchum intercedes in a range war in this ‘A’ western, and he’s got the pro team of director Robert Wise and cameraman Nicholas Musuraca on his side. All but one action scene plays out at night, which is why this is sometimes called a Noir Western. The dark visuals fit that mold but the story values are strictly traditional, starting with the hero’s laconic do-it-don’t-say-it sense of personal honor. Partly filmed in Arizona, the fine production further advanced the laid-back Mitchum persona, this time as an honest cowpoke, not a cool-dude hipster.

Blood on the Moon

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1948 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 88 min. / Street Date April 28, 2020 / available through the WBshop / 21.99

Starring: Robert Mitchum, Barbara Bel Geddes, Robert Preston, Walter Brennan, Phyllis Thaxter, Frank Faylen, Tom Tully, Charles McGraw, Clifton Young, Tom Tyler, George Cooper, Harry Carey Jr., Iron Eyes Cody, Chris-Pin Martin.

Cinematography: Nicholas...

You can tell that the Halloween season is getting closer, between various retailers already donning their shelves with tons of decorations, the days are getting shorter, and Turner Classic Movies has debuted their October schedule online, which features an abundance of genre awesomeness that will be hitting airwaves this fall. Without a doubt, TCM is one of the best resources for classic film, so for those of you looking to broaden your horizons this Halloween, definitely check out their calendar and set those DVRs.

Also, TCM has designated Godzilla as their “Monster of the Month” for October, so look for a bunch of classic films featuring the “King of the Monsters” and other beloved Kaiju throughout October as well.

**All Listings are in Est.**

Friday, September 27th

3:15pm – The Mummy’s Shroud

6:30pm – The Mummy (1959)

Saturday, September 28th

2:00am – Belladonna of Sadness

3:30am – House (1977)

Sunday, September...

Robert Wise would’ve celebrated his 104th birthday on September 10. Although you won’t often hear his name mentioned among auteur theorists, the four-time Oscar winner amassed an impressive filmography in his lifetime. In honor of his birthday, let’s take a look back at 20 of his greatest films, ranked worst to best.

Wise cut his teeth as a film editor, most notably working on Orson Welles‘ landmark film “Citizen Kane” (1941), for which he received an Oscar nomination. He made his directorial debut with “The Curse of the Cat People” (1944), the first of many successful collaborations with low-budget horror producer Val Lewton.

Throughout his career, Wise excelled at a number of genres, including science fiction (“The Day the Earth Stood Still”), film noir (“Odds Against Tomorrow”), horror (“The Haunting”), war (“The Desert Rats”), comedy (“Two for the Seesaw”), and drama (“Executive Suite”). Rather than imposing his own directorial fingerprint on each film,...

For this final week of home media releases, June is closing things out on a strong note, as we have plenty of horror and sci-fi offerings to get excited about. For those who may have missed it during its theatrical run earlier this year, Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead’s The Endless arrives on both formats (and is absolutely worth your time).

Arrow Video is keeping busy with a pair of Special Edition releases–The Addiction and Vigil–and Vinegar Syndrome is serving up a double dose of cult filmmaking with their multi-format presentations for Grave Robbers and their Blood Theatre/The Visitants double feature. Scream Factory has put together a stellar Blu for The Curse of the Cat People, and for those in the mood for more feline-themed horror, Cat Sick Blues arrives on DVD this Tuesday. And for those of you Puppet Master fans out there, you’re...

The feline frights of 1942's Cat People continue in the 1944 sequel The Curse of the Cat People, and to celebrate the film's new high-def home media release, Scream Factory has provided us with three Blu-ray copies to give away to lucky Daily Dead readers.

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Prize Details: (3) Winners will receive (1) Blu-ray copy of The Curse of the Cat People.

How to Enter: We're giving Daily Dead readers multiple chances to enter and win:

1. Instagram: Following us on Instagram during the contest period will give you an automatic contest entry. Make sure to follow us at:

https://www.instagram.com/dailydead/

2. Email: For a chance to win via email, send an email to contest@dailydead.com with the subject “The Curse of the Cat People Contest”. Be sure to include your name and mailing address.

Entry Details: The contest will end at 12:01am Est on July 3rd. This contest...

The Curse of the Cat People (1944) sees the return of Oliver (Kent Smith), who is remarried and living with his family in New York. Everything seems fine until his daughter Amy admits to being possessed by Oliver's first wife, Irena, a cat person. Witness the film on Blu-ray for the first time courtesy of Scream Factory on June 26th. In the meantime, check out two high-def clips and the trailer:

The Curse of the Cat People Blu-ray: "Filled with "wonderful atmosphere [and] fine, moody fantasy" (Leonard Maltin), this continuation of 1942's Cat People follows Oliver Reed (Kent Smith), now remarried, living in idyllic Tarrytown, New York, and the father of six-year-old Amy. When Amy becomes withdrawn and speaks of consorting with a new "friend," Oliver worries that she may be under the influence of the spirit of his first wife. Is it just Amy's imagination that has manifested the enigmatic Irena...

The Curse of the Cat People will be released on Blu-ray for the first time by Scream Factory on June 26. Originally released in 1944, the film was a sequel to Cat People, which was released two years prior, with Kent Smith returning as Oliver Reed, a father who thinks his daughter may have fallen […]

The post The Curse Of The Cat People Pouncing onto Blu-ray Next Month appeared first on Dread Central.

The Curse of the Cat People has been a featured film in Perry Ruhland's Crypt of Curiosities column, and we're excited to now share Scream Factory's full Blu-ray release details for the 1944 movie:

Press Release: Scream Factory has announced the June 26 release of The Curse of the Cat People, which will bow on Blu-ray for the very first time.

Filled with “wonderful atmosphere [and] fine, moody fantasy” (Leonard Maltin), this continuation of 1942’s Cat People follows Oliver Reed (Kent Smith), now remarried, living in idyllic Tarrytown, New York, and the father of six-year-old Amy. When Amy becomes withdrawn and speaks of consorting with a new “friend,” Oliver worries that she may be under the influence of the spirit of first wife. Is it just Amy’s imagination that has manifested the enigmatic Irena (Simone Simon), who long believed herself to be descended from a race of Cat People?

Directors Gunther V.

One of the many great things about Scream Factory's Blu-ray releases is that they often align with the movies of the past that we love to celebrate and discuss on Daily Dead, and their latest batch of Blu-ray announcements are no exception, including two films highlighted in our special features columns: The Curse of the Cat People (featured in Perry Ruhland's Crypt of Curiosities) and Night of the Lepus (spotlighted in Bryan Christopher's Catalog From the Beyond).

Alien Predators Blu-ray: "We are now taking pre-orders for our upcoming release of the 1985 sci-fi /horror film Alien Predators (also known as The Falling), which makes its Blu-ray format debut in the U.S. & Canada on June 19th!

Three American teens on a European holiday are about to experience their worst nightmare. They are about to be trapped in a quaint Spanish town infested with a parasitic alien virus that drives the...

Next to Universal, few studios have had such a big impact on horror than Rko Radio Pictures. Started in 1927, Rko was the first studio founded to make exclusively sound films, a then-brand-new invention that served as a major draw for the studio. Rko’s life was relatively short (it was killed just 30 years after forming), but during their time, they put out a seriously impressive number of classics, including Top Hat, It’s a Wonderful Life, The Informer, and most notably, Citizen Kane.

Of course, Rko didn’t shy away from horror. While their output wasn’t nearly as prolific as, say, Universal’s, it was still quite impressive, boasting some of the most formative and important horror films of old Hollywood. Rko saw the release of a few all-time classics, including I Walked With a Zombie, The Thing From Another World, King Kong, and the topic of today’s Crypt,...

(Aotn) Turner Classic Movies is bringing the horror next month. Starting on October 1st the channel will be bringing back movies such as the original Cat People and Dracula. Fan’s of classic movies will surely not want to miss this.

If you have ever wanted to know where the band White Zombie got there name be sure to tune in on Halloween morning at 8:30 Am. The Universal Monster’s are sprinkled throughout this marathon and will hopefully delight old school horror fans.

Complete Schedule Below:

Sunday October 1, 2017

8:00 Pm Dracula (1931) 9:30 Pm Dracula’s Daughter (1936) 11:00 Pm Son Of Dracula (1943)

Monday October 2, 2017

12:30 Am Nosferatu (1922)

Tuesday October 3, 2017

8:00 Pm Frankenstein (1931) 9:30 Pm Bride Of Frankenstein (1935) 11:00 Pm The Mummy (1932)

Wednesday October 4, 2017

12:30 Am The Wolf Man (1941) 2:00 Am Island Of Lost Souls (1933) 3:30 Am The Black Cat (1934) 4:45 Am The Invisible Man (1933)

Sunday October 8, 2017

2:00 Am Night...

Something very creepy is lurking the woods of the Norwegian countryside in “Valley of Shadows,” the feature debut from director Jonas Matzow Gulbrandsen set to premiere in Tiff’s Discovery section this month. The film unfolds from the perspective of six-year-old Asklak, who lives a lonely life with his single mother. Their quiet existence is complicated by the inexplicable death of sheep at the hands of an unseen presence that haunts the woods at night.

The first trailer for the film leaves the nature of that presence uncertain, although one theory about a werewolf seems to correlate with the evidence at hand.

Gulbrandsen, who also co-wrote the film with Clement Tuffreau, has said that he envisioned the story as “a nightmarish version of the fairy tale ‘Peter and the Wolf.’” In early press notes for the project, he describes the Scandinavian gothic project as “a reflection of a child’s mind and perspective.

By Dean Brierly

For a film director with such an iconic resume, there’s a surprising scarcity of scholarly books devoted to Robert Wise, the man who directed such classics as "West Side Story" (1961), "The Haunting" (1963), “The Sound of Music” (1965), “The Curse of the Cat People” (1944), “The Day the Earth Stood Still” (1951), “The Sand Pebbles” (1966) and many other critical and commercial successes. To say nothing of his stature as the man who edited “Citizen Kane” (1941) and “The Magnificent Ambersons” (1942) before taking up decades-long residence in the director’s chair.

Wise brought a self-effacing approach to directing, one that never drew attention to itself. He may have had the most “invisible” style of all the major directors from Hollywood’s Golden Era, which no doubt helps explain why he never had the auteur imprimatur conferred upon him by French critics who swooned over Welles’ baroque visuals, Douglas Sirk’s melodramatic excess,...

Making his move from editor (Citizen Kane, The Devil and Daniel Webster, and The Magnificent Ambersons) to director in the early 1940s, Robert Wise wasted little time jumping into a variety of arguably B-grade pictures (like the Val Lewton sequel The Curse of the Cat People, the Guy de Maupassant adaptation Mademoiselle Fifi, and back again to Lewton for the marvelous Robert Louis Stevenson tale The Body Snatchers).

Continue reading...

February 14th, a day to celebrate love and togetherness, a day to remember the beheaded Saint Vincent, who defied the orders of Emperor Claudius II in the third century and married young lovers in secret. Or, a day to dip the strips of sacrificed goat skin in blood and bless the town’s women with fertility with a “gentle” lashing. Red hearts, thorny roses, proclamations of undying love and sacrifice—indeed, it seems Valentine's Day is full of subtle (and not so subtle) cues leading us to horror, one drop of blood at a time. These cues are likely just one reason why people always ask me, “Is it really a good idea to bring a date to a scary movie?” And the answer, much to their frustration, is “it depends.”

Sex and horror have a long history, and the connection goes beyond filmmakers banking on viewers turning out to...

Rko's morale-building wartime thriller adds an element of sexual perversion to its story of Nazi crimes against children, thus creating one of the studio's all-time biggest hits. Bonita Granville is the victim Tim Holt her Nazi-youth heartthrob, and Otto Kruger provides the perverted sneers. Hitler's Children DVD-r The Warner Archive Collection 1943 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 82 min. / Street Date December 1, 2015 / available through the WBshop / 21.99 Starring Tim Holt, Bonita Granville, Kent Smith, Otto Kruger, H.B. Warner, Lloyd Corrigan, Erford Gage, Hans Conried, Gavin Muir, Nancy Gates, Egon Brecher, Peter van Eyck, Edward Van Sloan. Cinematography Russell Metty Film Editor Joseph Noriega Original Music Roy Webb Written by Emmet Lavery from the book Education for Death by Gregor Ziemer Produced by Edward A. Golden Directed by Edward Dmytryk

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Perhaps the most popular anti-Nazi info-propaganda thriller of the war, Hitler's Children is a very well made shocker that...

After The Seventh Victim‘s disappointing returns, Val Lewton and Rko clashed over their next project. Lewton wanted a comedy, provisionally titled The Amorous Ghost, as a change of pace; studio boss Sid Rogell, Lewton’s bete noir, insisted on a sequel to Cat People, which Lewton resisted. Then Rko suggested a Universal-style monster rally, They Creep By Night, reuniting villains from past Lewton pictures. Charles Koerner rescued Lewton from this absurd prospect by pitching a maritime thriller. “Call it The Ghost Ship,” Koerner ordered. Lewton also scored a big, though past-his-prime star in Richard Dix, an Oscar nominee for Cimarron (1931).

The result is equal parts The Sea Wolf and M, with a dash of Edgar Allan Poe. Tom Miriam signs on as third officer on the ill-starred freighter Altair, ruled by Captain Stone (Richard Dix). At first Stone merely seems strict, but his homilies about authority take on a...

'Cat People' 1942 actress Simone Simon Remembered: Starred in Jacques Tourneur's cult horror movie classic (photo: Simone Simon in 'Cat People') Pert, pouty, pretty Simone Simon is best remembered for her starring roles in Jacques Tourneur's cult horror movie Cat People (1942) and in Jean Renoir's French film noir La Bête Humaine (1938). Long before Brigitte Bardot, Mamie Van Doren, Ann-Margret, and (for a few years) Jane Fonda became known as cinema's Sex Kittens, Simone Simon exuded feline charm in a film career that spanned a quarter of a century. From the early '30s to the mid-'50s, she seduced men young and old on both sides of the Atlantic – at times, with fatal results. During that period, Simon was featured in nearly 40 movies in France, Italy, Germany, Britain, and Hollywood. Besides Jean Renoir, in her native country she worked for the likes of Jacqueline Audry...

It's Tim. September marks the centennial of famed director Robert Wise, winner of Oscars for the musicals West Side Story and The Sound of Music among several other classic films, and the members of Team Experience are going to spend the next several days revisiting work from the entire range of his career. And what better place to start than at the very beginning: 1944's The Curse of the Cat People, which was Wise's directorial debut, taking over from Gunther V. Fritsch, when the project fell behind schedule. It's part of the legendary run of movies produced by Val Lewton's horror-oriented B-unit at Rko, a studio where Wise had already logged time as an editor (cutting both Citizen Kane and The Magnificent Ambersons, no less). But it's not, itself, a horror movie, despite being the sequel to Cat People, one of the canonically great horror films in history. And...

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World’s Finest Heroes – in an Instant!

Warner Archive Instant Now Streaming The New Adventures of Batman & The New Adventures of Superman; Filmation’s AquamanComing in June

Warner Archive Instant (Wai) Now Available with Airplay on AppleTV; Free Two-Week Wai Trial Membership Open to Everyone

Continuing to make available rare and hard-to-find classic films, TV movies and TV series, Warner Archive Instant is now streaming 50 animated episodes of The New Adventures of Batman& The New Adventures of Superman, with the animated Aquaman series making its debut this June on the popular streaming service.

Warner Archive Instant (Wai) is now even easier to incorporate into your digital life through Airplay on AppleTV. Simply download the app and log in for access to hundreds of films and TV series episodes running the gamut from fanboy favorites and cult classics to some of the finest films...

Ann Carter, a former child actress who starred in the haunting 1940s fantasy The Curse of the Cat People before her career was curtailed by polio, has died. She was 77. Carter died Jan. 27 in North Bend, Wash., after a nine-year battle with ovarian cancer. Carter also appeared as Veronica Lake’s daughter in I Married a Witch (1942), as a young Norwegian girl opposite Paul Muni in the war movie Commandos Strike at Dawn (1942) and as Humphrey Bogart’s daughter in the murder thriller The Two Mrs. Carrolls (1947), also starring Barbara Stanwyck. At age 7, Carter starred as

read more...

Christmas is a time for feel-good movies. It’s a Wonderful Life, A Charlie Brown Christmas, and the usual Hallmark Hall of Fame drivel that hits the airwaves every December. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy the mainstream Christmas classics as much as the next guy. But at night, when my family is all snug in their beds, that’s when I drag out my sick and twisted Christmas collection…

Black Christmas, Christmas Evil, Silent Night Deadly Night, Don’t Open Till Christmas, those are the films I like to cuddle up to with a spiked eggnog. What is my favorite? That’s a difficult question. I love them all for different reasons, but if I had to pick one, I would have to pick a recent import from Finland called Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale. A modern mashup of The Thing and the Krampus mythology, it is...

Every year, we here at Sound On Sight celebrate the month of October with 31 Days of Horror; and every year, I update the list of my favourite horror films ever made. Last year, I released a list that included 150 picks. This year, I’ll be upgrading the list, making minor alterations, changing the rankings, adding new entries, and possibly removing a few titles. I’ve also decided to publish each post backwards this time for one reason: the new additions appear lower on my list, whereas my top 50 haven’t changed much, except for maybe in ranking. I am including documentaries, short films and mini series, only as special mentions – along with a few features that can qualify as horror, but barely do.

Come Back Tonight To See My List Of The 200 Best!

****

Special Mention:

Wait until Dark

Directed by Terence Young

Written by Robert Carrington

USA, 1967

Directed by Terence Young,...

Robert Wise’s The Haunting is headed to Blu-ray, courtesy of Warner Bros. This is one of multiple horror titles they’re giving the Blu-ray treatment to this year, including House of Wax and In the Mouth of Madness. We have no information on bonus features at this time, but we do know that it will be released on October 15th.

“No one lives in the 90-year-old Hill House. Or so it seems. But come in. Even if you don’t believe in ghosts, there’s no denying the terror of The Haunting. Robert Wise, whose started his directorial career with The Curse of the Cat People (1944), returned to psychological horror for this first screen adaptation of Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House. Four people (Julie Harris, Claire Bloom, Richard Johnson and Russ Tamblyn) come to the house to study its supernatural phenomena. Or has the house drawn...

This week at Trailers from Hell, Dan Ireland talks about the 1988 cult fantasy film "Paperhouse," on which Ireland also worked as executive producer. An ailing schoolgirl's sketches become disturbingly real in her dreams. Bernard Rose's debut film is an unnerving fantasy nightmare, based on Catherine Storr's juvenile novel "Marianne Dreams," that deserves to be better known. Its Lewtonesque dream psychology recalls "The Curse of the Cat People" as well as "Night of the Hunter," "Invaders from Mars," and even the more recent "The Hole."...

Throughout the month of October, Editor-in-Chief and resident Horror expert Ricky D, will be posting a list of his favorite Horror films of all time. The list will be posted in six parts. Click here to see every entry.

As with all lists, this is personal and nobody will agree with every choice – and if you do, that would be incredibly disturbing. It was almost impossible for me to rank them in order, but I tried and eventually gave up.

****

Special Mention:

American Psycho

Directed by Mary Harrron

Written by Mary Harron

2000, USA

Bret Easton Ellis’s dark and violent satire of America in the 1980s was brought to the big screen by director Mary Harron. Initially slapped with the MPAA’s kiss of death (an Nc-17 rating), American Psycho was later re-edited and reduced to a more commercially dependable “R”. Perhaps the film works best as a slick satire about misogyny,...

"Damn you, Spielberg, for getting me choked up with your Au Hasard Blockbuztar," tweets Aaron Hillis. Search for "War Horse" on Twitter and you could spend quite a while combing through the results before you'll find one that doesn't mention tears, weeping or outright blubbering. Though it doesn't open until Christmas Day, Steven Spielberg's War Horse is being shown to the media and industry now because, suggests Anne Thompson, the New York Film Critics Circle, like a state eager to draw early attention to its Republican primary, has moved its day of voting to this Tuesday. In other words, the Nyfcc will be announcing its awards for the best film of the year, performances and so on, with a full month of 2011 yet to go.

But at Deadline, Pete Hammond suggests that the "unusual strategy" Dreamworks and distributor Disney are pursuing isn't hinging on a single band of critics.

Sources tell Shock that Universal Home Entertainment is developing a new Cat People film with producer Aaron Ryder. Ravel Centeno-Rodgriguez ( The Thirteenth Floor ) penned one draft of the script before Todd Stein was called in to rewrite the project. The story follows the last two surviving "cat people" in the world who have been busy feasting off the male population in Miami. They seek a Cat Man to mate with to ensure the future of their kind. Cat People was first produced in 1942 by producer Val Lewton and director Jacques Tourneur (a sequel was also produced The Curse of the Cat People in 1944). Universal revisited the property 40 years later and kicked up the sex appeal with another interpretation by Paul Schrader ( Taxi Driver ).

The Moving Arts Film Journal has put together a list of the 100 Greatest Movies of All Time. Check it out below. Do you agree with this list of films? Every list is going to be spot on for some and piss others off. I personally am a fan of the list. Take a look and let us know your thoughts!

#1. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968, Kubrick)

#2. Citizen Kane (1941, Welles)

#3. The Godfather (1972, Coppola)

#4. Andrei Rublev (1966, Tarkovsky)

#5. The Rules of the Game (1939, Renoir)

#6. Casablanca (1942, Curtiz)

#7. Vertigo (1958, Hitchcock)

#8. La Dolce Vita (1960, Fellini)

#9. Seven Samurai (1954, Kurosawa)

#10. The Godfather Pt. II (1974, Coppola)

#11. The Third Man (1949, Reed)

#12. The Wizard of Oz (1939, Fleming)

#13. Dr. Strangelove (1964, Kubrick)

#14. Goodfellas (1990, Scorsese)

#15. Aguirre: The Wrath of God (1972, Herzog)

#16. 8½ (1963, Fellini)

#17. Singin’ In The Rain (1952, Donen, Kelly)

#18. Raging Bull (1980, Scorsese)

#19. Lawrence of Arabia (1962, Lean)

#20. Solaris (1972, Tarkovsky)

#21. The Night of the Hunter (1955, Laughton)

#22. On the Waterfront (1954, Kazan)

#23. Intolerance (1916, Griffith)

#24. L’Atalante (1934, Vigo)

#25. Apocalypse Now (1979, Coppola...

While sitting and thinking about the upcoming remake/sequel to Alice In Wonderland (trust me, it’s not something I do all that often), I couldn’t help but stumble upon one, key element about the film. It’s Tim Burton. It features Crispin Glover. One has never directed the other before, and this is a surprising notion to come across. Granted, Glover provided a voice in 9 last year, and Tim Burton was a producer on that film. Before that, though, there has never been a collaboration between these two giants of weird.

This got me thinking. What other obvious collaborations are there that, for whatever reasons the cinema Gods felt necessary, never came to fruition. What directors have such an identifiable style that coalesces with the style of an actor or actress that have just never merged together on any, one project?

Here are a few I’ve found:...

Reading about movies, you hear stories of some films shot in five days and other films shot over three years. Some of the poverty-row directors and B-movie makers cranked out as many movies as they could during a calendar year, while filmmakers like Charlie Chaplin and Stanley Kubrick waited years between projects (making each release a new "event"). Most filmmakers, I think, given the chance would probably release one film per year, keeping their toes in without burning out. But sometimes, whether it's a trick of the calendar, or some peculiar rhythms of timing, some of the greatest directors manage to release two films per year. And even less often, both of these films turn out great. The following is my not-exactly-extensive, but enthusiastic celebration of the one-two punch or the director's double-whammy.

1. Jacques Tourneur: I Walked with a Zombie and The Leopard Man (1943)

The world has frankly been...

How do I love The Curse of the Cat People (1944)? Let me count the ways. I love it because of the deceptive, dime-store title; the movie is really a clever and resounding study of child psychology. In the original film, Oliver (Kent Smith) marries the strange and alluring Irena (Simone Simon) before realizing that she's actually, sort of, a creature who turns into a cat and tears people to ribbons. In this sequel, Oliver is re-married, to Alice (Jane Randolph), and they have a little girl, Amy (Ann Carter). Amy has a very active imagination, and despite the best efforts of parents and teachers to get her to come back to reality, she likes the company of her imaginary friend, Irena! Yes, the ghost of Amy's father's first wife comes back to visit, and protect, the child.

Despite the title, there's no horror here, and just a bit of fantasy,...

Director Robert Wise, who won two Academy Awards for directing two of the most successful movie musicals of all time, West Side Story and The Sound of Music, died of heart failure yesterday; he was 91. Wise, who had just celebrated his birthday on Saturday, was rushed to the UCLA Medical Center after suddenly falling ill. Recently, the filmmaker had reportedly been in good health, and his wife, Millicent, was out of the country at the San Sebastian Film Festival, participating in a retrospective of her husband's work. An extremely versatile director whose films ranged from drama to horror to sci-fi to musicals, Wise got his start at RKO Studios as an assistant editor, a job he got thanks to his brother, who was in the studio's accounting department. Working his way up the ladder to full editor, Wise edited such films as The Hunchback of Notre Dame and My Favorite Wife before nabbing an Academy Award nomination for editing the legendary Citizen Kane. He also worked with filmmaker Orson Welles on The Magnificent Ambersons, and was involved in that movie's drastic re-editing, which was requested by RKO while Welles was out of the country; the missing footage from Ambersons, and Wise's falling-out with Welles over the final product, later became the stuff of legend. Two years after Ambersons, Wise was given his first job directing The Curse of the Cat People, which he co-directed with Gunther von Fritsch. Working on B pictures for RKO through the 40s, including the Boris Karloff vehicle The Body Snatcher, Wise came to the attention of critics with his prizefighter film The Set-Up (1949), which took place in real time. His films in the 50s were notably more high profile, starting with the sci-fi classic The Day the Earth Stood Still; he also helmed So Big, Somebody Up There Likes Me, and I Want to Live, which won him his first Oscar nomination and a Best Actress award for Susan Hayward. In 1961, Wise attempted his first musical, an adaptation of the Broadway hit West Side Story, on which he worked (and reportedly clashed) with choreographer and co-director Jerome Robbins. The film, starring Natalie Wood and Richard Beymer (neither of whom did their own singing), was a massive hit and won ten Academy Awards, including Best Picture and directing honors for Wise and Robbins - neither thanked the other in their acceptance speeches. After making the creepily effective black-and-white thriller The Haunting (1963), Wise went back to musical territory with The Sound of Music (1965), the small story of a governess (Julie Andrews) in Austria that turned into a very, very big hit. Critically lambasted but a fervent, almost rabid favorite with audiences, it went on to become the highest-grossing movie ever released at that time, saved 20th Century Fox from imminent bankruptcy in the wake of Cleopatra, and won Wise his second Oscar in addition to Best Picture. Wise's output after The Sound of Music was scattershot in quality, and as he grew older he worked less frequently, but he helmed a number of notable pictures in the 60s and 70s: The Sand Pebbles, his last Best Picture nominee; the ill-fated Julie Andrews vehicle Star!; modernistic sci-fi thriller The Andromeda Strain; possession horror flick Audrey Rose; and the first Star Trek movie, appropriately titled Star Trek: The Motion Picture. The director's last feature film was Rooftops (1989), an attempt at a contemporary urban musical. Wise went on to become the president of both the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences and the Directors Guild of America, and found a devoted fan in filmmaker Martin Scorsese, who was said to be instrumental in getting Wise the American Film Institute's lifetime achievement award in 1998. Wise is survived by his wife, Millicent, and a son from a previous marriage. --Prepared by IMDb staff...