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Filmmaker Catherine Hardwicke is underway in Los Angeles on Street Smart, an indie drama said to mark a return to the gritty, immersive storytelling of her films Lords of Dogtown and Thirteen. Cast for the ensemble piece includes Isabelle Fuhrman (Orphan), Yara Shahidi (Sitting in Bars with Cake), Michael Cimino (Never Have I Ever), Daniel Zovatto (Woman of the Hour), Sylvester Powell (All American: Homecoming), Kaitlyn Kemp (The Razor’s Edge), Miles McKenna (Goosebumps), and pro skateboarder Isiah Hilt.

Co-written by Hardwicke and 13 Reasons Why‘s Nic Sheff, Street Smart offers a look into the lives of a lively group of unhoused young adults in the iconic beach town, who come together with humor and a bit of Robin Hood-style larceny, forging unbreakable bonds and redefining what it means to be a family.

Poster Child Pictures’ Natalie Marciano is producing alongside...

On the second night of this year’s Cannes Film Festival, Judith Godrèche told the mostly female crowd assembled on a beach next to the Palais, “This film is for you!” The French actor-director was presenting her short “Moi Aussi,” a last-minute addition to the festival lineup that covers sexual misconduct in the French film industry. Godrèche has become something of an ambassador to the fledgling movement after she came forward in February with claims that she was preyed upon and groomed as a minor by directors Benoît Jacquot and Jacques Doillon, allegations they both deny. The beach screening kicked off what many hope will be a sweeping French #MeToo reckoning.

But the festival and its accompanying film market also will feature several men who have been the subject of #MeToo allegations that range from sexual harassment, sexual assault and domestic violence. The awkward presence of such actors as Shia Labeouf and James Franco,...

Exclusive: We can tell you that James Franco and Oscar winner Tommy Lee Jones are leading the action thriller The Razor’s Edge from producer Corey Large and filmmaker Demian Lichtenstein (3000 Miles to Graceland).

Red Sea Media is handling international sales and will debut the film for buyers at the upcoming Marche du Film in Cannes. Cameras roll June 25 in Georgia.

Lichenstein is helming off a screenplay he wrote with Vance Duplechin. After a mob hitman vows to leave his deadly past behind, he faces an impossible choice when his daughter is kidnapped and the woman he loves becomes a target of the syndicate. He is forced to undertake one final, perilous mission while being pursued by an assassin even more lethal.

Pic is executive produced by Kirk Shaw. BondIt Media Capital is financing with Matthew Helderman, Luke Taylor and Jordan Nott also executive producing.

“I’m excited that we have signed the superbly talented actors James, Suki and Tommy Lee to bring The Razor’s Edge to the big screen. They are perfectly suited to embody the protagonists in director Demian’s script,” said Large. “We cannot wait to begin filming this taut thriller next month with an assist from our seasoned executive producer Kirk,” he added.

“We’ve worked with Corey on over a dozen projects throughout the years and always appreciate his ability to get projects made in many different industry climates. We’re excited for another adventure here with Corey and his team,” commented Bond It Capital co-founder CEO Matthew Helderman.

Large is producing through his 308 Enterprises. His other feature production, Assassination directed by Rain Man Oscar winner Barry Levinson and starring Academy Award-winner Al Pacino and BAFTA winning Shia Labeouf is shooting this fall.

Franco was Oscar nominated for Best Actor for 127 Hours and is a 2x Golden Globe winner for James Dean, in which he played the title role, and took home Best Actor in Miniseries, and for The Disaster Artist which he won Best Actor Feature Comedy/Musical. He starred in Sony’s original Spider-Man trilogy from Sam Rami.

Oscar, Emmy, SAG, Golden Globe, and Palme d’Or winner Jones counts an Oscar and Golden Globe supporting actor win for The Fugitive and starred in Sony’s Men in Black trilogy. Jones won a Lead Actor Emmy for NBC’s The Executioners’ Song, and a Cannes Palme D’Or for Best Actor for Sony Pictures Classics’ The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada which he also directed. He also directed The Homesman which starred Hilary Swank.

Franco is represented by UTA and Anonymous Content, Jones is represented by CAA and Jacobson, Russell, Saltz, Nassim & De La Torre.

AC/DC are continuing their 50th anniversary celebration with a new batch of reissues of their classic albums on gold vinyl.

A total of nine LPs are a part of the “AC/DC 50” collection, which arrives March 15th: High Voltage (1975), Dirty Deeds Done Dirty Cheap (1976), Powerage (1978), Highway to Hell (1979), Back in Black (1980), For Those About to Rock (1981), Who Made Who (1986), The Razor’s Edge (1990), and the 2-lp Live (1992).

The gold vinyl variants are available individually ($26.97 each) and as a complete bundle ($239.97) exclusively via Walmart in the US. Each individual LP comes with an album-specific 12-inch print featuring the new “AC/DC 50” artwork that’s suitable for framing.

In addition, the band’s official online store has separate non-gold “AC/DC 50” colored variants of both Highway to Hell and Back in Black ($34.98 each).

Earlier this month, AC/DC surprised fans with the announcement of their first tour in over eight years. The...

Machine Gun Kelly has done it again, folks. And by “it,” we mean managed to annoy people with an arguably not-very-well-thought-out artistic statement. In this case, a signature guitar shaped like a razor blade.

As Stereogum notes, Mgk recently launched a new line of guitars with Schecter. Most of them look like normal guitars, including a pink one similar to the one featured on the cover of Mgk’s 2020 album, Tickets to My Downfall. The one shaped like a razor blade, though, has unsurprisingly garnered controversy for potentially glorifying self-harm and cutting.

I​t’s hard to imagine now, but there was a time when a sequel to a highly popular and profitable movie wasn’t a done deal. Each was film renegotiated just before they were made. Actors signing multi-film deals was very rare. Now if you decide to do a Marvel film, you may be asked to sign a nine-movie contract. By why didn’t Ghostbusters 3, or rather Ghostbusters: Hellbent, never get made?

While Ghostbusters II wasn’t a critical darling, it did make its budget back ten times over. Surely another film had to be in the works. S​ome of the cast and creative team were ready to give it another go, but some holdouts stalled a third Ghostbusters film for decades. It took some of them literally dying before another film could finally grace movie screens. What kept this film from getting made sooner? Let’s...

Bill Murray is a man with an illustrious acting career. He's done everything from taking on the role of the gopher-obsessed groundskeeper Carl Spackler in "Caddyshack" to decidedly more serious roles like washed up movie star Bob Harris in "Lost in Translation." He's got the range and the talent to deliver his quintessential deadpan humor one minute, only to pivot to a more raw, vulnerable side the next. 

One of Murray's most serious roles is that of Larry Darrell in the 1984 adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham's story, "The Razor's Edge." In the film, Murray plays a World War I veteran whose life is considerably altered...

The post Bill Murray Had an Ulterior Motive For Taking His Ghostbusters Role appeared first on /Film.

In just a week's time the next Supporting Actress Smackdown and its companion podcast arrives. We'll be discussing the films and performances of 1946 so hurry up and finish watching Anna and the King of Siam, Duel in the Sun, The Razor's Edge, Saratoga Trunk, and The Spiral Staircase. Your votes count. Let's meet your fellow panelists, shall we?

Please Welcome New Guests...

Guillermo del Toro takes a walk on the noir side in his first film since winning the Oscar for directing the 2017 best picture winner “The Shape of Things.” “Nightmare Alley,’ based on the uncompromising 1946 novel by William Lindsay Gresham, offers a bleak depiction of humanity including low-rent carnivals filled with has-beens, geeks and “rum-dums.” Searchlight Pictures is giving “Nightmare Alley,” which had to shut down production during the height of Covid in 2020, the “A” treatment, opening the film on Dec. 3 just in time for awards consideration.

The innovative Mexican filmmaker best known for his acclaimed fantasy, horror (“The Devil’s Backbone”) and sci-fi (‘Hellboy”) productions, co-wrote the screenplay with Kim Morgan. Bradley Cooper plays Stan Carlisle, a handsome manipulative carny worker who has a massive chip on his shoulder. Stan wants to hit the big time and with the help of carnival headliner Zeena (Toni Collette) resurrects her old mentalist act.

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“Geek Love”

By Raymond Benson

One of the more unique entries in the film noir movement of the 1940s and 50s is the 1947 melodrama, Nightmare Alley. Based on a novel by William Lindsay Gresham, the picture was made only because Tyrone Power expressed the desire to star in it after reading the grim tale of a carnival barker who rises to the top of the charlatan world, only to ultimately fall hard to rock bottom.

While classified as film noir, the picture has little of the usual trappings of the movement. There is no central crime in the story, there are no cynical detectives, and one can argue that there are no femmes fatale. It is only in the visual presentation that one can consider Nightmare Alley an item of film noir—the high contrast black and white photography, the heavy light and shadows,...

While the summer movie season will kick off shortly––and we’ll be sharing a comprehensive preview on the arthouse, foreign, indie, and (few) studio films worth checking out––on the streaming side, The Criterion Channel and Mubi have unveiled their May 2021 lineups and there’s a treasure trove of highlights to dive into.

Timed with Satyajit Ray’s centenary, The Criterion Channel will have a retrospective of the Indian master, along with series on Gena Rowlands, Robert Ryan, Mitchell Leisen, Michael Almereyda, Josephine Decker, and more. In terms of recent releases, they’ll also feature Fire Will Come, The Booksellers, and the new restoration of Tom Noonan’s directorial debut What Happened Was….

On Mubi, in anticipation of Undine, they’ll feature two essential early features by Christian Petzold, Jerichow and The State That I Am In, along with his 1990 short documentary Süden. Also amongst the lineup is Sophy Romvari’s Still Processing,...

The Supporting Actress Smackdown will resume in March 2021. Final Season! 

Happy Smackdown to you Happy Smackdown to you

Happy Smackdown you actressexuals,

Happy Smackdown to youuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!

After StinkyLulu graciously let us continue/revive the series here seven or eight years ago (eep!) we've done 35 episodes: 1938, 1941, 1943, 1944, 1947, 1948, 1952, 1954, 1957, 1960, 1963, 1964, 1965, 1968, 1970, 1972, 1973, 1977, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1984, 1985, 1987, 1989, 1991, 1994, 1995, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2005, and concurrently with Oscar races as they happened 2016, 2017, and 2018. 

So, where to now? 

The Remaining Years

1937- Brady  (In Old Chicago) | Leeds (Stage Door) | Shirley (Stella Dallas) | Trevor (Dead End) | Whitty (Night Must Fall)

1946 - Baxter (The Razor's Edge) | Barrymore  (The Spiral Staircase) | Gish (Duel in the Sun) | Robson (Saratoga Trunk) | Sondegaard (Anna and the King of Siam)

1951 Joan Blondell (The Blue Veil) | Dunnock (Death of a Salesman) | Grant (Detective Story) | Hunter (A Streetcar Named Desire) | Ritter (The Mating Season)

1986 - Harper (Crimes of the Heart) | Laurie (Children of a Lesser God) | Mastrantonio (The Color of Money) | Smith (A Room With a View) | Weist (Hannah and Her Sisters...

Turner Classic Movies continues with its Gay Hollywood presentations tonight and tomorrow morning, June 8–9. Seven movies will be shown about, featuring, directed, or produced by the following: Cole Porter, Lorenz Hart, Farley Granger, John Dall, Edmund Goulding, W. Somerset Maughan, Clifton Webb, Montgomery Clift, Raymond Burr, Charles Walters, DeWitt Bodeen, and Harriet Parsons. (One assumes that it's a mere coincidence that gay rumor subjects Cary Grant and Tyrone Power are also featured.) Night and Day (1946), which could also be considered part of TCM's homage to birthday girl Alexis Smith, who would have turned 96 today, is a Cole Porter biopic starring Cary Grant as a posh, heterosexualized version of Porter. As the warning goes, any similaries to real-life people and/or events found in Night and Day are a mere coincidence. The same goes for Words and Music (1948), a highly fictionalized version of the Richard Rodgers-Lorenz Hart musical partnership.

Hissable villain Bela Lugosi is in denial --- no, it's actually star Edmund Lowe who is in the Nile, deep-sixed in a sunken sarcophagus. Lugosi's up top trying to get his art deco death ray in running order -- opposed only by some nubile babes and a Great White Hypnotist from the Swami school of mind control. Chandu the Magician Blu-ray Kl Studio Classics 1932 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 71 min. / Street Date August 23, 2016 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95 Starring Edmund Lowe, Irene Ware, Bela Lugosi, Herbert Mundin, Henry B. Walthall, Weldon Heyburn, June Lang, Michael Stuart, Virginia Hammond. Cinematography James Wong Howe Art Direction Max Parker Written by Barry Conners, Philip Klein, Guy Bolton, Bradley King, Harry Segall from a radio drama by Harry A. Earnshaw, Vera M. Oldham, R.R. Morgan Directed by William Cameron Menzies, Marcel Varnel

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Around 2008 Fox Home Video made a last big push with genre releases on DVD,...

Cad, bounder, dastard... look those words up in an old casting directory and you'll probably find a picture of George Sanders. Albert Lewin's best movie is a class-act period piece with terrific acting from Sanders, Angela Lansbury, Ann Dvorak, John Carradine, Warren William and many more, and a powerful '40s picture that most people haven't discovered, now handsomely restored. The Private Affairs of Bel Ami Blu-ray Olive Films 1947 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 112 min. / Street Date May 24, 2016 / available through the Olive Films website / 29.95 Starring George Sanders, Angela Lansbury, Ann Dvorak, John Carradine, Warren William, Susan Douglas, Albert Bassermann, Frances Dee, Marie Wilson, Katherine Emery, Richard Fraser. Cinematography Russell Metty Film Editor Joseph Albrecht Original Music Darius Milhaud Assistant Director Robert Aldrich Production Design Gordon Wiles Written by from the novel by Guy de Maupassant Produced by David L. Loew Written Directed by Albert Lewin

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson...

Margaret Pomeranz will front the first Hollywood Retro Film Festival, which will screen 22 Hollywood classic across the country from November 26..

The classic films, many rarely seen on the big screen will be presented in digital format and will screen from November 26 to December 13 at premium cinemas in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth and Canberra.

Pomeranz, who is patron and co-curator, said she was excited to announce the first Hollywood Retro Film Festival.

"Many of these films haven.t been seen in a cinema in decades and will look terrific in HD digital., she said.

.There.s no substitute for seeing these wonderful films on the big screen with an audience..

"I.m delighted people will have the opportunity to enjoy these classic films in this first season celebration of Hollywood classics from the 1930s to the 1960s.

Some highlights include digitally remastered icons Gone with the Wind, Casablanca and Citizen Kane.

Coleen Gray actress ca. 1950. Coleen Gray: Actress in early Stanley Kubrick film noir, destroyer of men in cult horror 'classic' Actress Coleen Gray, best known as the leading lady in Stanley Kubrick's film noir The Killing and – as far as B horror movie aficionados are concerned – for playing the title role in The Leech Woman, died at age 92 in Aug. 2015. This two-part article, which focuses on Gray's film career, is a revised and expanded version of the original post published at the time of her death. Born Doris Bernice Jensen on Oct. 23, 1922, in Staplehurst, Nebraska, at a young age she moved with her parents, strict Lutheran Danish farmers, to Minnesota. After getting a degree from St. Paul's Hamline University, she relocated to Southern California to be with her then fiancé, an army private. At first, she eked out a living as a waitress at a La Jolla hotel...

Coleen Gray actress ca. 1950. Coleen Gray: Actress in early Stanley Kubrick film noir, destroyer of men in cult horror 'classic' Actress Coleen Gray, best known as the leading lady in Stanley Kubrick's film noir The Killing and – as far as B horror movie aficionados are concerned – for playing the title role in The Leech Woman, died at age 92 in Aug. 2015. This two-part article, which focuses on Gray's film career, is a revised and expanded version of the original post published at the time of her death. Born Doris Bernice Jensen on Oct. 23, 1922, in Staplehurst, Nebraska, at a young age she moved with her parents, strict Lutheran Danish farmers, to Minnesota. After getting a degree from St. Paul's Hamline University, she relocated to Southern California to be with her then fiancé, an army private. At first, she eked out a living as a waitress at a La Jolla hotel...

The Oscars are less than 96 hours away, so you only have a limited amount of time to brag about your insane knowledge of Academy Awards history. Ready for a brutal 21-question foray into Oscar's grisly past? Let's roll. (We give you the questions on the first page. Jot down your responses, then check the answers, along with the accompanying questions, on the next page. The videos embedded here aren't related to the questions. They're just fun!) 1. What ‘90s Best Actor winner gave the shortest onscreen performance ever nominated (and therefore awarded) in that category? This is measured by total minutes and seconds spent onscreen. 2. The first (and so far only) black female nominee in the Best Original Screenplay category was a co-writer of what biopic released in the 1970s? 3. From 1937 to 1945, the Academy guaranteed nominations in one particular category to any studio that submitted a qualifiable entry. What was the category?...

StreamFix has gotten your latest updates on new Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, and Crackle streams. Check out these titles before they inevitably go back into the endless interweb secret vault.    Netflix "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" (Season 9) I'd hate to burden you with a reminder about injustice during this Election Day, but it must be noted: It is insane that Kaitlin Olson has gone eight seasons without garnering an Emmy nomination for this show. Have you heard this woman dry-heave? It is sensational.  "Total Recall" Did you know? Arnold Schwarzenegger > Colin Farrell, at least in terms of dystopian thriller heroism. I wouldn't want to see Arnold attempt Farrell's role in "Saving Mr. Banks" or anything like that though. "Altman" This documentary gives an incisive, insightful look at Robert Altman, whose best movie is not "Nashville" or "Gosford Park" or "Mash" or even "The Player." Nope. It is "McCabe and Mrs. Miller,...

Bill Murray became a movie star 35 years ago this week, upon the release of "Meatballs" on June 29, 1979. His lead role as the head counselor at a sub-par summer camp marked a number of firsts: his first of four movies with director Ivan Reitman (the others were "Stripes" and the two "Ghostbusters"), his first of six movies with writer Harold Ramis (the four Reitman films, plus "Caddyshack" and "Groundhog Day"), and his first taste of mega-stardom beyond his TV fame on "Saturday Night Live."

Since then, his career has taken on a trajectory unique in the history of film, one in which he's gone from comic goofball to dramatic thespian, from universally beloved to acquired taste, and from manic cynic to soft-spoken spiritual seeker. Through it all, however, there have been a few constants; no matter whether he's a grubby groundskeeper or a morose mogul: Murray's character is always the coolest...

With the release of "Lost in Translation" ten years ago, everyone was finally forced to take Bill Murray seriously. Even the Academy finally noticed him and gave him a Best Actor nomination, the only one he's received so far.

By this time, he'd been paring down his craft for 30 years until, with the help of directors like "Translation"'s Sofia Coppola and "Rushmore"'s Wes Anderson, he'd achieved a kind of Zen purity. After that, he could choose to play the smartass clown (as in his early roles) or the serious thespian, or somewhere in between. With no agent and plenty of savings, he could pick and choose projects at whim and do only what he felt like doing. So even his lesser movies seemed like labors of love; after all, there must have been something personally appealing to him in those roles to coax him off the golf course.

A world-weary Somerset Maugham began his last major novel, The Razor's Edge, with the lapidary comment: "Death ends all things and so is the comprehensive conclusion of a story, but marriage finishes it very properly too and the sophisticated are ill-advised to sneer at what is by convention termed a happy ending." Tell that to the would-be sophisticated authors of the endless cycle of dreadful marriage comedies currently filling our screens and don't be afraid to sneer.

Written and directed by Dan Mazer, Sacha Baron Cohen's chief collaborator, I Give It a Year opens with the most embarrassing wedding sequence ever contrived, including the worst best-man's speech in movie history, and proceeds to look at the first year in the ill-considered marriage of a blocked novelist and his wife, a supposedly successful PR person. Made by people desperately bent on putting the "lewd" into "ludic" and featuring a collection...

Toronto — Most stars shun the "O word" – Oscar – when they might be in the running for an Academy Award, not wanting to jinx their chances or look too eager.

Bill Murray has no problem dissecting Hollywood's highest honors.

A best actor nominee for 2003's "Lost in Translation," Murray could have Oscar prospects again as Franklin Delano Roosevelt in "Hyde Park on the Hudson," a comic drama that played the ongoing Toronto International Film Festival.

Murray won a string of key prizes for "Lost in Translation" leading up to the Oscars, including a Golden Globe, an Independent Spirit Award and honors from many critics groups.

When he lost on Oscar night, it was a lesson not to get your hopes up too high, Murray said in an interview.

"You can't get all ramped up and amped up about this thing all the time," Murray said. "I mean, I got excited about it once,...

The Letter (1929) Direction: Jean de Limur Cast: Jeanne Eagels, O.P. Heggie, Reginald Owen, Herbert Marshall, Irene Browne, Lady Tsen Mei, Tamaki Yoshiwara Screenplay: Garrett Fort; from W. Somerset Maugham's 1927 play, itself based on a Maugham story found in the 1924 collection The Casuarina Tree Oscar Movies, Pre-Code Movies Jeanne Eagels, Herbert Marshall, The Letter Having watched William Wyler's masterful 1940 film adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham's 1927 play The Letter and having read quite a bit about Broadway star Jeanne Eagels' remarkable talent, I was expecting to find at least a modicum of interest in Jean de Limur's 1929 version of Maugham's crime-of-passion melodrama. I'm sorry to report I was greatly disappointed, even though Garrett Fort's screenplay is quite similar to the one used in the Wyler version. Stuck on a Malayan rubber plantation with her aloof older husband (Reginald Owen), British subject Leslie Crosbie (Eagels) finds affection...

The real value of Bill Murray is to let us see that few movie jobs are more worthwhile than a stupid round of pro-celebrity golf

The most endearing thing about Bill Murray is how he seems to have survived by ignoring so many of the structures and strategies of the movie business. He is 61, and while it would be unfair to say he has looked it for some 20 years, still he has had an air of indifference toward age (or looks) that is not common in pictures. For example, people are now asking themselves, "Can you believe George Clooney is 50?" and getting that serene, knowing smile back from the actor himself. But Murray has wandered around for decades, gloomy but unbowed by the drab certainty of getting to 61.

I used the word "survived" in my first sentence, and it seemed appropriate then, but there is something portentous and unMurray-like in being a survivor.

This cleverly told story of a doomed marriage is underpinned by two outstanding central performances

Somerset Maugham began his novel The Razor's Edge by remarking that "death ends all things and so is the comprehensive conclusion of a story, but marriage finishes it very properly and the sophisticated are ill-advised to sneer at what is by convention termed a happy ending". As with quite a few things, that wise old cynic was wrong; many of the great dramas truly begin after the curtain has come down on a wedding. Nearly all of Jack Lemmon's films, for instance, concern disastrous marriages, and his second picture was called Phffft!, an onomatopoeia for the sound of a marriage expiring like a dying match. Derek Cianfrance's Blue Valentine, which he co-scripted with Joey Curtis and Cami Delavigne, is an account of the passionate, protracted Phffft! that concludes the marriage between Dean (Ryan Gosling...

I appreciate it as much as the next guy when a director sees something no one else does in an actor, and attempts to cast him against type, often with brilliant results. John Candy in JFK, Jamie Foxx and Tom Cruise in Collateral, Robin Williams in One Hour Photo, or Adam Sandler in Punch Drunk Love. Sometimes it works to brilliant effect; sometimes it completely fucking backfires. Sometimes, it's just plain weird.

A reader, Bruce, suggesting this idea for an Srl, offering up number three below as a fine example of insanely random casting. I think the other nine entries here fit the spirit of that category: Some of the casting decisions are just plain awful, but -- in my opinion -- they're all also insanely random.

The 10 Most Randomly Insane Casting Decisions

10. Kelsey Grammer as Beast in X-Men: The Last Stand

9. Vince Vaughn as Norman Bates in the Psycho...

Tyrone Power, who died 50 years ago at 44, has more of his movies available on DVD than practically any of his peers from Hollywood's Golden Age.

Partly, it's because he worked almost exclusively from 1937 to 1952 for 20th Century Fox, which has already released his classics, including "The Mark of Zorro," "Jesse James," "The Black Swan" and "In Old Chicago."

It's also because Power is more respected today - because of more ambitious roles in darker films like "Nightmare Alley" and "The Razor's Edge" -...