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Born in 1920, Walter Matthau was a celebrated performer on both the stage and screen, known for his gruff, rumpled persona. Let’s take a look back at 15 of his greatest films, ranked worst to best.

Matthau turned to acting after serving in the United States Army Air Force during WWII. He became a frequent presence on the small screen with appearances in “Alfred Hitchcock Presents,” “Goodyear Playhouse,” and “The Du Pont Show of the Week” (which brought him an Emmy bid in 1963), to name a few. During this period he also appeared in several films, few of them comedies, including “A Face in the Crowd” (1957) and “Fail Safe” (1964).

At the same time, he gained increasing respect as a stage actor with Tony Award-winning performances in “A Shot in the Dark” (Featured Actor in a Play in 1962) and “The Odd Couple” (Actor in a Play in 1965). It was in the latter role of Oscar Madison,...

Election season is in the air and Turner Classic Movies is here to celebrate. Starting on September 6 and continuing every Friday up until this year’s general election, TCM will be running a nine-week limited series entitled “Making Change: The Most Significant Political Films of All Time.” This cinematic showcase is inspired by The New Republic rankings released in June 2023 and includes selections such as “All the King’s Men,” “Germany, Year Zero,” and “High and Low.”

To introduce the upcoming series, TCM host Ben Mankiewicz took to Washington D.C. for a trailer highlighting some of the films featured, as well as special guests like Stacey Abrams, Steven Spielberg, Spike Lee, and John Turturro.

“I grew up here in Washington D.C.,” Mankiewicz said, the Capitol Building behind him. “My father’s life was politics — capital P politics. Though I went in a different direction, I understood at an early age,...

In the run-up to Election Day, TCM is going after the movie lovers’ popular vote by showing 50 films over nine successive Fridays under the banner Making Change: The Most Significant Political Films of All Time.

The series runs Sept. 6 to Nov. 1 — four days before America votes for its next president — and features TCM host Ben Mankiewicz in conversation with the likes of Steven Spielberg, Spike Lee, Lee Grant, Sally Field, Andy Garcia, Melissa Etheridge, John Turturro, Bill Maher, Alexander Payne, Diane Lane, Josh Mankiewicz, Barry Levinson, Maureen Dowd, Stacey Abrams and former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.

Watch the trailer here.

Making Change showcases half of the movies unveiled by The New Republic in the rankings it released in June 2023. The films on TCM span the years 1915 to 2016 (from D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation to Raoul Peck’s I Am Not Your Negro); the whole thing kicks off with the No.

Hearing that Jesse Moss and Tony Gerber’s documentary concerns a war game conducted to test the country’s readiness for a national security crisis, it was easy to imagine a scenario involving an international threat posed by, say, China or Russia. No such luck. It turns out that War Game chronicles an exercise revolving around a threat from within, namely the sort of insurrection that occurred on Jan. 6, 2021. The film, receiving its U.S. theatrical premiere at NYC’s Film Forum, serves as a bracing reminder that such an event could occur again, and indeed seems even more likely should a certain Republican nominee for president decide to incite more violence.

The filmmakers have experience dealing with such concepts. Moss co-directed the acclaimed Boys State and Girls State, in which groups of young people attempted to form democratic governments; and Gerber and Moss made Full Battle Rattle, about the...

Sidney Lumet was the Oscar-nominated director who proved incredibly prolific during his career, directing over 40 movies in 50 years, from his feature debut “12 Angry Men” (1957) through his cinematic farewell “Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead” (2007). But how many of those titles remain classics? Let’s take a look back at 20 of his greatest films, ranked worst to best.

Born on June 25, 1924, Lumet got his start as a child actor, appearing in “One Third of a Nation” (1939) when he was 15 years old. After serving during WWII, he quickly began directing Off-Broadway plays before moving into the burgeoning medium of television, where he helmed hundreds of live teleplays. While working on episodes of “Playhouse 90,” “Kraft Theater” and many more, he honed his abilities to shoot quickly and economically.

His turned to movies with “12 Angry Men,” an adaptation of Reginald Rose‘s TV drama about a lone juror (Henry Fonda) holding out during a murder trial.

The terror in "The Twilight Zone" always comes from "What if?" What if there was a little boy with way too much power for anyone to tell him "no"? What if what you thought of as Heaven turned out to be more like Hell? What if man-eating aliens arrived and made humans as docile as lambs to the slaughter?

These questions may be outrageous fantasy, but the terror of them is timeless. We still watch "The Twilight Zone" decades later, and the best episodes can still leave you chilled -- all thanks to the imagination of series creator Rod Serling.

Serling is synonymous with "The Twilight Zone" even for casual viewers; one could call him TV's first auteur. His reputation was as much thanks to his on-camera work as his writing. Serling was the narrator of "The Twilight Zone," introducing and closing out each episode. (He got the job after...

Rochelle Oliver, who starred on Broadway in Lillian Hellman’s Toys in the Attic and Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and taught acting at New York’s respected Hb Studio since the 1970s, has died. She was 86.

Oliver died April 13, the Hb Studio announced. “Those who knew Rochelle will know what a luminous artist, sensitive and passionate teacher she was,” it said in an Instagram post. She died two days shy of her birthday.

For the big screen, Oliver starred in the Horton Foote-written 1918 (1985) and Courtship (1987) and appeared in such other films as The Happy Hooker (1975), Paul Mazursky‘s Next Stop, Greenwich Village (1976), John Sayles’ Lianna (1983), An Unremarkable Life (1989), Martin Brest’s Scent of a Woman (1992) and Woody Allen’s Hollywood Ending (2002).

She also recurred as Judge Grace Larkin on Law & Order from 1993-03.

A protégé of Uta Hagen — who also taught for decades at Hb and...

Ron Nyswaner will soon be traveling to New York to reunite with his Writers Guild of America East fellows for a grand occasion. The Oscar-nominated screenwriter, producer and showrunner has been selected to receive the Walter Bernstein Award at the 76th Writers Guild Awards at New York’s Edison Ballroom on April 14.

The honor — named after the late screenwriter who was blacklisted for his political views only to persevere and get his career back on track with such credits as Fail-Safe, Semi-Tough and Yanks — is presented to writers “who have demonstrated with creativity, grace and bravery a willingness to confront social injustice in the face of adversity,” per the organization.

Nyswaner has been doing that for pretty much his entire career. A prime example is Jonathan Demme’s 1993 film Philadelphia. Penned by Nyswaner, the Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington-starrer was the first major Hollywood film to dramatize the real-world...

Ron Nyswaner, the Oscar-nominated screenwriter behind films including Philadelphia and The Painted Veil and most recently the Matt Bomer-starring Showtime miniseries Fellow Travelers, is receiving this year’s Walter Bernstein Award from the Writers Guild of America East.

The honor will be bestowed April 14 at the WGA Awards’ East Coast ceremony in New York, which takes place concurrently with the WGA’s West Coast ceremony in Los Angeles.

The Bernstein award goes to writers “who have demonstrated with creativity, grace and bravery a willingness to confront social injustice in the face of adversity.” Nyswaner becomes the second person to win the award, after Jelani Cobb won in 2017 for his Frontline documentary Policing the Police.

Nyswaner penned the original screenplay for Philadelphia, which was groundbreaking when the Jonathan Demme-directed film starring Tom Hanks debuted in 1993; it was the first major motion picture to focus on the discrimination suffered by people with AIDS,...

On Jan. 29, 1964, a triple premiere — in New York, London and Toronto — launched one of Stanley Kubrick’s signature masterpieces into the chilly Cold War atmosphere: Dr. Strangelove, with the marquee-challenging subtitle Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. Kubrick described it as a “nightmare comedy.” Sixty years later, the comedy still works, but the immediacy of the nightmare may be missed.

Shot in Shepperton Studios outside of London from February through November 1963, Dr. Strangelove was conceived and realized in the shadow of a real-life nightmare scenario that no one laughed at: the Cuban Missile Crisis, which unfolded over 13 terrifying days in October 1962.

On Oct. 14, 1962, a U-2 spy plane detected facilities for the launching of nuclear ballistic missiles from Cuba, a Soviet client state since 1959. President John F. Kennedy convened an executive committee of the National Security Council to consider options. The consensus from the Joint Chiefs...

Stanley Kubrick’s sharp and persuasive comedy about nuclear war remains a hilarious act of provocation

Sixty years ago, Columbia Pictures released the first of two black-and-white movies with the exact same premise: what if American planes with hydrogen bombs were inadvertently ordered to drop their payload on targets in the Soviet Union, potentially triggering an all-out nuclear war that wipe out humanity? The Cuban missile crisis had pushed the superpowers to the brink of conflict less than two years earlier, and film-makers were unusually eager to face their cold war nightmares head on.

The release dates were like a reversal of Karl Marx’s famous line about how history repeats itself, “first as a tragedy, second as a farce”. The farce, Stanley Kubrick’s Dr Strangelove, came first. Then the tragedy, Sidney Lumet’s Fail Safe, arrived in October. There was a lot of messy legal fallout over the...

"Jaws" is an immortal classic, but decades on from its 1975 release, several of the movie's principal players have left us. Peter Benchley, the source novel's author and the film's co-writer turned shark conservationist, passed in 2006. Robert Shaw, who played the shark-hating fisherman Quint, died in 1978, a mere three years after the premiere of "Jaws." Shaw still left his mark on film history thanks to his masterful monologue about Quint's experience during the sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis.

Of course, the biggest winner of "Jaws" was director Steven Spielberg, who entered the production of "Jaws" as a scrappy young upstart and turned it into his first rung while climbing the Hollywood lader. Spielberg is the most influential American filmmaker of his generation and the ones that have followed. He's never lost his magic touch either, so we can only hope and pray he stays with us even longer.

In the years since then,...

Ever since movies began, filmmakers have depicted the end of the world of the world on screen whether it be from floods, asteroids, comets, alien invasion and even Zombies. But cinema went nuclear after the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August, 1945. The arrival of the nuclear age heralded the introduction of a new sub-genre: destruction by atomic bomb. And with the release July 21 of Christopher Nolan’s lauded “Oppenheimer,” which domestically earned some $70 million in its opening weekend, let’s look at some of the vintage flicks of the genre.

Nuclear destruction of London is stopped at the last moment in the taut 1950 British film “Seven Days to Noon,” directed by John and Roy Boulting and winners of the original story Oscar, stars veteran character actor Barry Jones as a brilliant scientist working at an atomic research center in London who steals an A-bomb that...

David Chiang was a child actor before he joined the Shaw Brothers Studio as a stuntman and fight instructor; after seeing potential in him, director Chang Chen started to groom him. After the sudden departure of their biggest star, Jimmy Wang Yu, Shaw was looking for a replacement which led to the pairing of Chiang and Ti Lung in films like “Dead End” and “Have Sword, Will Travel” in 1969. However, with “The Wandering Swordsman” Chiang had a chance to shine as a solo leading star without Ti Lung hanging around him.

on Amazon by clicking on the image below

The film kicks off with a happy-go-lucky nameless young man (David Chiang) who prefers people to call him the “Wandering Swordsman”, quietly trailing two bandits who plan to rob a rich family. He shows up later and takes the loot from one of them during their getaway and...

Al Pacino created an urban legend with Tony Montana, and Brian De Palma’s Scarface (1983) is an icon of the gangster film genre; one of an unholy trinity alongside The Godfather (1972) and Goodfellas (1990). But when it premiered in New York, Steven Bauer, who played Manny Ribera in the film, remembers Martin Scorsese turning around halfway through the movie to warn: “You guys are great, but be prepared, because they’re going to hate it in Hollywood. Because it’s about them.”

The same could be said about the original Scarface. Studio filmmakers saw producer Howard Hughes as a rich interloper, bullying his way onto the lot with too many guns blazing. Conversely, Brian De Palma’s Scarface is about excess, and how success depends on it. Oliver Stone’s screenplay for the ‘80s movie used a gangster as an allegory for the Reagan administration’s war on drugs and the capitalistic greed of the era.

Every year, it's almost inevitable that two movies with a similar premise will go head to head, whether it be a siege on the white house, an asteroid heading towards Earth, or a story about animated bugs fighting fascism. It's bound to keep on happening since it's been going on for so long — with 1964 as the year in which two competing movies told us how close we were to nuclear annihilation.

Stanley Kubrick's "Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb" was released in January, while Sidney Lumet's "Fail Safe" came out in October. Each featured their own idiosyncrasies, but the one thing they did share was the looming nuclear threat bound to manifest itself. Kubrick's film took on a satirist tone with a paranoid Air Force commander sending out B-52 bombers to attack the Soviets, all while a group of disconcerted buffoons argue,...

A new era begins for Batman and DC Comics in July. Comic Book has revealed that beloved Marvel writer Chip Zdarsky and Jorge Jimenez, one of the best artists working at DC Comics today, are teaming up as the new creative team of the main Batman series. Their run begins with Batman #125, an oversized issue that kicks off the “Failsafe” arc, which Zdarsky described in his newsletter as “Batman’s Doomsday. It’s non-stop action and puts Batman in a very different place by the end of it.”

According to Comic Book, “Failsafe” begins with Bruce suffering from nightmares of a future he thinks may come to pass, and he may not live long enough to stop it. The arc will feature a “startling enemy from Batman’s past” who intends to kill Batman once and for all.

“When DC approached me to write Batman, I immediately thought about things...

Ghostbusters: Afterlife director Jason Reitman takes hosts Joe Dante and Josh Olson on a journey through some of his favorite cinematic tonal shifts.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021)

Thank You For Smoking (2006)

Up In The Air (2009)

Juno (2007)

Young Adult (2011)

Citizen Kane (1941) – John Landis’s trailer commentary

Seven Samurai (1954) Brian Trenchard-Smith’s trailer commentary

Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

Rififi (1955)

Titane (2021)

Cannibal Girls (1973)

Raw (2016)

Hellraiser (1987)

A Serbian Film (2010)

Cast Away (2000)

What Lies Beneath (2000)

Million Dollar Baby (2004)

Downhill Racer (1968) – Glenn Erickson’s Criterion Blu-ray review

Breaking Away (1979)

Boys Don’t Cry (1999)

From Dusk Till Dawn (1996)

The Great Waldo Pepper (1975)

Psycho (1960) – John Landis’s trailer commentary, Randy Fuller’s wine pairings

Psycho (1998) – Ti West’s trailer commentary

Last Night In Soho (2021)

Funny Games (1997)

Funny Games (2008)

The Piano Teacher (2001) – Charlie Largent’s Criterion Blu-ray

I, The Jury (1982)

Mother! (2017)

Mulholland Drive (2001)

Tully (2018)

Gremlins (1984) – Glenn Erickson’s 4K Blu-ray review, Tfh’s 30th anniversary links...

Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond’s comeback comedy performed decently enough at the box office, but its real accomplishment is vaulting Walter Matthau into mainline stardom. Matthau embodies the most venal ambulance chaser alive: Whiplash Willie Gingrich. His sad insurance scam scramble for unearned, undeserved loot is more of an exposé of sagging American values than anything particularly satirical. Jack Lemmon is the straight man this time around. He spends much of the movie in a medical collar, being victimized to make a fast buck. But Matthau hits the laughs out of the park — it’s an inspired performance that won him a Best Supporting Oscar. “You know Willie. He could find a loophole in the Ten Commandments.”

The Fortune Cookie

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1966 / B&w / 2:35 widescreen / 125 min. / Meet Whiplash Willie / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95

Starring: Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, Ron Rich, Judi West, Cliff Osmond, Lurene Tuttle.

Cinematography:...

This article contains Superman & Lois spoilers

Superman & Lois Episode 13

Superman & Lois has done so many things right in its first season, deftly paying homage to the classic origins of the Man of Steel even as it explores an entirely new corner of the Superman mythos, introducing intriguing comics heroes like John Henry Irons, and reinventing the story of the final days of Krypton in ways that give Clark Kent a new connection to the home he left behind.

Thankfully, Lois Lane has been given just as much emotional and narrative weight in this series’ story as her superpowered husband – juggling stories that encompass her roles as a mother, a wife, and a daughter. But despite the fact that she’s essentially the most famous journalist in the world, we haven’t actually gotten to see Lois do a ton of reporting, and her job at the local Smallville...

Six String Samurai writer/director Lance Mungia discusses the movies that made an impact on him with hosts Josh Olson and Joe Dante.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Six-String Samurai (1998)

The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

Big Trouble In Little China (1986)

Seven Samurai (1954)

It Happened One Night (1934)

Frankenstein (1931)

King Kong (1933)

One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)

Little Fugitive (1953)

The Wizard Of Oz (1939)

Lawrence Of Arabia (1962)

A Fistful Of Dollars (1964)

The Good, The Bad And The Ugly (1966)

The Searchers (1956)

She Wore A Yellow Ribbon (1949)

Once Upon A Time In The West (1969)

Wrath Of Man (2021)

Yojimbo (1961)

Last Man Standing (1996)

Ikiru (1952)

Oldboy (2003)

Schindler’s List (1993)

Gremlins (1984)

Jaws (1975)

Psycho (1960)

Dances With Wolves (1990)

The Postman (1997)

Waterworld (1995)

Dr. Strangelove (1964)

The Day After (1983)

Fail Safe (1964)

Behind The Green Door (1972)

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001)

The Irishman (2019)

Other Notable Items

The Vinegar Syndrome 4K Blu-ray of Six-String Samurai

Flicker Alley

Elijah Drenner

Kristian Bernier

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

Martin Scorsese

Frank Capra...

Nobody director Ilya Naishuller joins Josh and Joe to talk about his favorite movies.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Nobody (2021)

Hardcore Henry (2016)

Billy Jack (1971)

My Winnipeg (2007)

The Usual Suspects (1995)

Top Gun (1986)

The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)

Seven (1995)

Bill Hicks: Revelations (1993)

The Mission (1986)

The Killing Fields (1984)

Captivity (2007)

The Killing (1956)

The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou (2004)

Once Upon A Time In America (1984)

You And I (2008)

Infested (2002)

No Country For Old Men (2007)

The Hudsucker Proxy (1994)

Goodfellas (1990)

Goldfinger (1964)

Pulp Fiction (1994)

Reservoir Dogs (1992)

Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (2019)

From Dusk Till Dawn (1996)

Papillon (1973)

Papillon (2017)

Midnight Run (1988)

Planet of the Apes (1968)

Oldboy (2003)

Parasite (2019)

Assassins (1995)

Ladder 49 (2004)

Waterworld (1995)

Heathers (1989)

Mad Max (1979)

A History Of Violence (2005)

The ’Burbs (1989)

Punishment Park (1971)

The War Game (1966)

The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)

Uncut Gems (2019)

Culloden (1964)

Bonnie Prince Charlie (1948)

Dr. Strangelove (1964)

Fail Safe (1964)

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)

Let The Right One In (2008)

Patton (1970)

Hardcore (1979)

Mr. Nobody (2009)

District 9 (2009)

Paths of Glory (1957)

A Clockwork Orange...

Walter Bernstein, who was blacklisted by Hollywood in the 1950s but returned to writing on many films, including the Oscar-nominated script for The Front, has died at 101.

Bernstein died Friday night, according to former WGA West president Howard Rodman, who reported it on Twitter.

Bernstein’s credits included the films Fail-Safe (1964), Semi-Tough (1977), Yanks (1979) and The Front, (1976), the latter which starring Woody Allen as Howard Prince, who was hired by three blacklisted TV writers to become the face of their work. It was a ruse Bernstein knew well, having employed the tactic himself when he was blacklisted.

The Brooklyn, NY-born Bernstein joined the Communist Party while attending Dartmouth College, then served in the US Army during World War II.

Upon his discharge, he became a television writer, but he was blacklisted in 1950. He was not credited with any work until 1958, but used pseudonyms and hired fronts who passed off the work...

Walter Bernstein, the Oscar-nominated screenwriter of “The Front” who had spent years on the blacklist in Hollywood, has died. He was 101.

Bernstein died on Friday night, according to former WGA West President Howard Rodman.

In the 1950s, Bernstein was blacklisted from Hollywood after he was suspected to be a communist working in the entertainment industry.

“There was a little booklet called ‘Red Channels,’ which was a collection of about 150 names of people in the entertainment business, with a listing of their so-called ‘communist’ or ‘communist front’ associations, and if you were named you were automatically blacklisted,” Bernstein told the San Francisco Chronicle in 2005. “There were about eight designations for me — all true, all things I’d done. I’d written for communist magazines, I’d supported Russian war relief, I’d supported the loyalists in Spain.”

As a result, Bernstein said he needed to rely on multiple “fronts” to get...

Oscar-nominated screenwriter and producer Walter Bernstein, who survived the blacklist era by writing pseudonymous scripts for television and later wrote films including “Fail-Safe,” “The Front” and “Semi-Tough,” died on Jan. 22. He was 101.

Bernstein’s longtime friend and former WGA West president Howard Rodman shared the news of his death on Twitter Saturday. “Truly saddened to hear that Walter Bernstein – legendary screenwriter, and one of the great humans – died last night. He was 101. I feel so damn fortunate that three generations of our family got to know him.”

Truly saddened to hear that Walter Bernstein — legendary screenwriter, and one of the great humans — died last night. He was 101. I feel so damn fortunate that three generations of our family got to know him.

Here's Walter from 10 years ago, when he was a young man of 91. pic.twitter.com/yLGvTb3mJY

— Howard A. Rodman (@howardrodman) January 23, 2021

Bernstein’s promising writing career was...

Walter Bernstein, the resilient screenwriter who drew upon his ignominious experience on the blacklist in 1950s Hollywood to pen the Oscar-nominated script for The Front, has died. He was 101.

Bernstein died Friday night, screenwriter, former WGA West president and longtime family friend Howard Rodman reported on Twitter.

Bernstein also adapted Eugene Burdick’s novel for Sidney Lumet’s nuclear-disaster film Fail-Safe (1964) and Dan Jenkins’ book for the Burt Reynolds football romp Semi-Tough (1977), and he wrote the John Schlesinger war drama Yanks (1979), starring Richard Gere. Another three films he worked on starred Sophia Loren.

Born in Brooklyn, Bernstein formally joined the Communist ...

Walter Bernstein, the resilient screenwriter who drew upon his ignominious experience on the blacklist in 1950s Hollywood to pen the Oscar-nominated script for The Front, has died. He was 101.

Bernstein died Friday night, screenwriter, former WGA West president and longtime family friend Howard Rodman reported on Twitter.

Bernstein also adapted Eugene Burdick’s novel for Sidney Lumet’s nuclear-disaster film Fail-Safe (1964) and Dan Jenkins’ book for the Burt Reynolds football romp Semi-Tough (1977), and he wrote the John Schlesinger war drama Yanks (1979), starring Richard Gere. Another three films he worked on starred Sophia Loren.

Born in Brooklyn, Bernstein formally joined the Communist ...

Devo’s Gerald Casale joins us for a discussion of the movies that made Devo!

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

The Truth About De-Evolution (1976)

Island Of Lost Souls (1932)

Akran (1969)

Dr. Strangelove (1964)

Fail Safe (1964)

Valley Of The Dolls (1967)

Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls (1970)

The President’s Analyst (1967)

The Atomic Cafe (1982)

The Day The Earth Stood Still (1951)

Village Of The Damned (1960)

Children Of The Damned (1964)

20,000 Leagues Under The Sea (1954)

Planet Of The Apes (1968)

A Clockwork Orange (1971)

The Parallax View (1974)

Soylent Green (1973)

Sweet Smell Of Success (1957)

Rocky (1976)

A Face In The Crowd (1957)

Whisky Galore! (1949)

No Time For Sergeants (1958)

Network (1976)

JFK (1991)

Natural Born Killers (1994)

Lost Highway (1997)

Mulholland Drive (2001)

Expresso Bongo (1959)

Gremlins (1984)

I Was A Teenage Werewolf (1957)

Other Notable Items

Paul McCartney

Slash

Willie Nelson

Devo

Elliot Roberts

Lorne Michaels

Saturday Night Live TV series (1975- )

Michael O’Donoghue

The Muppets

Neil Young

Walter Williams

Mr. Bill

Richard Myers

George Kuchar

Mike Kuchar

John F.

Albert Hughes takes us on a wild journey through the movies that made him, then explains why he’s not a cinephile (Spoiler: He is). Heads up – you’re going to hear some words you’ve never heard on our show before, and only one of them is Metropolis.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Gremlins (1984)

A Christmas Story (1983)

The Candidate (1972)

Menace II Society (1993)

Die Hard (1988)

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

Scarface (1983)

Goodfellas (1990)

Full Metal Jacket (1987)

A Clockwork Orange (1971)

Midnight Cowboy (1969)

Raging Bull (1980)

Taxi Driver (1976)

Alpha (2018)

Battleship Potemkin (1925)

Metropolis (1927)

True Romance (1993)

Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1988)

The Matrix (1999)

Man Bites Dog (1992)

Looney Tunes: Back In Action (2003)

A Serbian Film (2010)

Scarface (1932)

The Book of Eli (2010)

The Departed (2006)

Infernal Affairs (2002)

The Godfather (1972)

Casino (1995)

JFK (1991)

Dead Presidents (1996)

Eve’s Bayou (1997)

Basic Instinct (1992)

Psycho (1960)

The Cremator (1969)

The Firemen’s Ball (1967)

Halloween (2018)

From Hell (2001)

Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992)

Hoffa (1992)

V For Vendetta (2005)

Spartacus (1960)

You Were Never Really Here...

George Clooney directed and acts in this period drama that documents newsman Edward R. Murrow’s nightly clashes with Wisconsin’s demagogic senator Joe McCarthy. Set in 1953, Robert Elswit’s potent black and white cinematography recalls 60’s political thrillers like Seven Days in May and Fail Safe.

The post Good Night, and Good Luck. appeared first on Trailers From Hell.

Acclaimed stuntman and action director extraordinaire Jesse V. Johnson joins us to discuss the U.S. based action films and filmmakers that have influenced him the most.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

On The Waterfront (1954)

Fultah Fisher’s Boarding House (1922)

Undisputed (2002)

Undisputed II: Last Man Standing (2006)

Undisputed III: Redemption (2010)

Boyka: Undisputed (2016)

The Killer Elite (1975)

Convoy (1978)

The Osterman Weekend (1983)

Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia (1974)

Le Cercle Rouge (1970)

Straw Dogs (1971)

The Wild Bunch (1969)

Mr. Holland’s Opus (1995)

The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

The Birdcage (1996)

Cross of Iron (1977)

Electra Glide in Blue (1973)

Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry (1974)

Easy Rider (1969)

Fail Safe (1964)

The Cincinnati Kid (1965)

Ride The High Country (1962)

Major Dundee (1965)

Jinxed! (1982)

Beowulf (2007)

Kiss Me Deadly (1955)

Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (2019)

The Girl Hunters (1963)

Los Angeles Plays Itself (2003)

Point Blank (1967)

Falling Down (1993)

M (1951)

M (1931)

The Black Vampire (1953)

The Roaring Twenties (1939)

Scum (1979)

Elephant (1989)

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962), possibly Joe’s favorite John Ford...

In 1964, Fail Safe was released. It was directed by the very influential and prolific director Sidney Lumet, an American master of cinema and television, who helmed films such as Network, 12 Angry Men, Serpico, and Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, to name a few. Lumet was also well-known for getting excellent performances out of his actors, and Fail Safe is no different. The war room drama stars Dan O'Herlihy, Henry Fonda, Walter Matthau and many other players with varying roles of weight. Some tidbits: Fail Safe was adapted from a novel of the same title by Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler. (Originally, the story was published in 1962 during the Cuban...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

The world trembles on the brink, and liberals are in charge! The nicest President you ever met gives the Soviet Premier an offer anybody could refuse, while technical glitches, not crazy people or radical politics, are blamed for starting WW3. Sidney Lumet’s taut, scary armageddon-outta-here thriller was weighed in the balance against a certain Stanley Kubrick film and found wanting, but unless you’re a stickler for technical details it really works up a buzz. The cast & crew list is a menu of committed liberal talent.

Fail Safe

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 1011

1964 / B&w / 1:85 widescreen / 112 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date January 28, 2020 / 39.95

Starring: Henry Fonda, Dan O’Herlihy, Walter Matthau, Frank Overton, Edward Binns, Fritz Weaver, Larry Hagman, William Hansen, Sorrell Booke, Hildy Parks, Janet Ward, Dom DeLuise, Dana Elcar.

Cinematography: Gerald Hirschfeld

Film Editor: Ralph Rosenblum

Written by Walter Bernstein from the book by Eugene Burdick,...

Which actors are the most "Presidential"? To find out, we assembled this exclusive list of actors who have portrayed the President of the United States more than once.

Getting the opportunity to portray a Us President in film is rare. It can be a dignified role, and many times the actor has to be able to exhibit certain qualities we would traditionally associate with the Us head of state. Us Presidents are also depicted in film in a variety of ways. Some of them are the main characters for their respective films, where others are simply bit parts designed to represent the figurehead. Other roles may be satires, caricatures, or played for comedic effect. Regardless of the purpose or the depth of the role, there have been a limited number of Us President roles in the last century+ of motion picture projection.

Of course, some actors are more Presidential than others.

So much time, so few movies to see. Scratch that. Reverse it.

Running a little later than usual this year, the 2018 Turner Classic Movies Film Festival gets under way this coming Thursday, screening approximately 88 films and special programs over the course of the festival’s three-and-a-half days, beginning Thursday evening, and no doubt about it, this year’s schedule, no less than any other year, will lay out a banquet for classic film buffs, casual film fans and harder-core cinephiles looking for the opportunity to see long-time favorites as well as rare and unusual treats on the big screen. I’ve attended every festival since its inaugural run back in 2010, and since then if I have not reined in my enthusiasm for the festival and being given the opportunity to attend it every year, then I have at least managed to lasso my verbiage. That first year I wrote about...

In this week’s edition of Canon Of Film, we take a look Sidney Lumet‘s hypnotic ‘Murder on the Orient Express‘ just in time for the release of Kenneth Branagh‘s remake of the same name. For the story behind the genesis of the Canon, you can click here.

Murder On The Orient Express (1974)

Director: Sidney Lumet

Screenplay: Paul Dehn based on the novel by Agatha Christie (uncredited)

Strangely, the detective story is actually a fairly newer genre when compared to others, in terms of literary history, it is, and the inventor of the genre is not who you’d think it’d be either, it was Edgar Allen Poe, with his trilogy of C. Auguste Dupin stories, ‘The Murder of the Rue Morgue‘, ‘The Mystery of Marie Roget,’ and my favorite, ‘The Purloined Letter‘ back in the 1840s. I’m not sure why this genre didn’t pick up until then,...

Bungie bit off a little more than they could chew three years ago when they unleashed the first Destiny game into the world. It was a franchise-in-the-making that made so many promises, that when gamers finally got their hands on it, it was impossible to not be a little disappointed. But Bungie wasn’t done. The famed developer of Halo set out to right the Destiny ship one expansion at a time, and by year three and the release of Rise of Iron, the franchise was on solid ground, both critically and commercially. Now, Bungie has left the first epic part of the story of the Traveler and the Guardians in the past, and has forged ahead with a brand new tale with Destiny 2.

Destiny 2 is a true rebirth of the franchise. Taking a page out of Nintendo’s playbook with Metroid’s Samus Aran, Destiny 2 opens with the player...

Arthur Penn’s detective movie is one of the best ever in the genre, one that rewards repeat viewings particularly well. Gumshoe Harry Moseby compartmentalizes his marriage, his job, his past and the greedy Hollywood has-beens he meets, not realizing that everything is interconnected, and fully capable of assembling a world-class conspiracy. Gene Hackman tops a sterling cast in the film that introduced most of us to Melanie Griffith.

Night Moves

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1975 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 100 min. / Street Date August 15, 2017 / available through the WBshop / 21.99

Starring: Gene Hackman, Jennifer Warren, Melanie Griffith, Susan Clark, Edward Binns, Harris Yulin, Kenneth Mars, Janet Ward, James Woods, Anthony Costello.

Cinematography: Bruce Surtees

Production Designer: George Jenkins

Film Editor: Dede Allen

Original Music: Michael Small

Written by Alan Sharp

Produced by Robert M. Sherman

Directed by Arthur Penn

Night Moves is a superb detective thriller that plays with profound ideas without getting its fingers burned.

Gerald Hirschfeld, the veteran cinematographer who shot the films Fail-Safe and Young Frankenstein in beautiful black and white, died Feb. 13 of natural causes at his home in Ashland, Ore., a family spokesman said. He was 95.

Hirschfeld was the American Society of Cinematographers' most senior member, having joined the organization in 1951, and he received its prestigious Presidents Award in 2007.

Hirschfeld's first major assignment came for director Sidney Lumet on the taut Cold War drama Fail-Safe (1964), and he brilliantly captured the look of the Universal monster movies of the 1930s with...

Gerald Hirschfeld, the man behind the camera for such classic films as Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein and Sidney Lumet’s Fail-Safe who was the American Society of Cinematographers’ most senior member, has died. He was 95. The Asc said he died February 13 but gave no other details. Born on April 25, 1921, in New York City, Hirschfeld was self-taught in his craft — mostly by watching movies. “There were no film schools in those days, so I was always looking for new…...

Gerald Hirschfeld, the man behind the camera for such classic films as Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein and Sidney Lumet’s Fail-Safe who was the American Society of Cinematographers’ most senior member, has died. He was 95. The Asc said he died February 13 but gave no other details. Born on April 25, 1921, in New York City, Hirschfeld was self-taught in his craft — mostly by watching movies. “There were no film schools in those days, so I was always looking for new…...

Yesterday was a tough one for the Newell family. Actually, the past few months haven’t been easy; my dad is – well, the best way to describe the situation is that my father is a soul trapped in the shell of what was once a healthy, vibrant human being. To be honest, I don’t know why he isn’t dead. And my mom had a stroke about a month ago – and although she’s up and walking around (with the aid of a walker), the energetic and vivacious woman with whom I laughed and fought and loved is gone, too, leaving behind an old lady who is dip-shit batty – though I must admit that some of what she says is pretty funny.

And at least they both are in the same nursing home.

We have spent the last few weeks cleaning out their apartment – especially my brother, who has...

There, on the mountain and the sky,

On all the tragic scene they stare.

One asks for mournful melodies;

Accomplished fingers begin to play.

Their eyes mid many wrinkles, their eyes,

Their ancient, glittering eyes, are gay.

— William Butler Yeats • Lapis Lazuli

Here we are, having our last visit before the big hokey pokey on the Potomac and I am being reminded of post-apocalyptic fiction. If you can’t guess why I’m suffering this brain scratch, maybe you can be excused.

Now, for those of you still with me, hey gang – let’s talk end of the world!

Time was when apocalypses were rare, if not nonexistent, on theater screens and – I’m taking a flyer here – utterly absent from video. Today, though, IMDb’s entry lists 50 films that qualify as post-apocalyptic and surely there are more on the way. Why the deluge?

I can think of only four...

Chicago – I’m not a gamer, but of course I’ve heard about “Assassin’s Creed.” The film based on the video game is a wild and undisciplined attempt to expand that particular universe, but does succeed in creating an oddball science fiction that has implications in geo-religious power and control.

Rating: 3.0/5.0

It is the combination of game and story that nearly does both sides in, but there is just enough to keep the intrigue intact. The high octane story from director Justin Kurzel – who used lead performers Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard in his adaptation of “Macbeth” in 2015 – manages a symbolic story about duality, technology and megalomania, while barely clinging to any of it making sense. There are crazy visuals, overwrought action and knocks on religion aplenty, which sets it apart both as a video game adaptation and creative use of a dystopian prophecy. Part Indiana Jones, part “Fail Safe” and all weird,...

Rebecca Clough Jan 13, 2017

Samuel L Jackson, Colin Farrell, Kirk Douglas, Denzel Washington and more, as we explore underrated political thrillers...

Ask someone for their favourite political thrillers and you’re likely to get a list of Oscar-winning classics, from JFK to The Day Of The Jackal, Blow Out to Argo. But what about those electrifying tales that have slipped under the radar, been largely forgotten or just didn’t get the love they deserved? Here are 25 political thrillers which are underappreciated but brilliant.

See related Star Wars: Episode IX lands Jurassic World director 25. The Amateur (1981)

Generally, the first hostage to get shot in a heist movie is considered insignificant; luckily this time the young woman killed by terrorists has a devoted boyfriend who vows to avenge her death. Charles Heller (John Savage) already works for the CIA, so he’s able to use secret information to blackmail his bosses into...

Fritz Weaver, the courtly veteran of Broadway and the big screen who won a Tony Award and stood out in such films as Fail-Safe and The Day of the Dolphin, has died. He was 90.

Weaver died Saturday at home in Manhattan, The New York Times reported.

His sister was Mary Weaver Dodson, a four-time Emmy-nominated art director known for her work on Murder, She Wrote. She died in February.

Weaver received his Tony in 1970 for his performance as strict Catholic boarding school teacher Jerome Malley in Robert Marasco's long-running thriller Child's Play.

The 6-foot-3 Pittsburgh native made his Broadway debut in 1955's The Chalk Garden, for which he...

Fritz Weaver, an actor who transmitted an air of patrician assurance in roles that took him from a regular presence in Golden Age television dramas to Broadway stardom, prominent characters in films including Fail-Safe in 1964, and an Emmy nomination for NBC’s acclaimed 1978 drama series Holocaust, died Saturday at home in Manhattan. He was 90. In that mini-series, Weaver played Dr. Josef Weiss, a Jewish doctor sent first to the Warsaw ghetto and then to the…...

Fritz Weaver, an actor who transmitted an air of patrician assurance in roles that took him from a regular presence in Golden Age television dramas to Broadway stardom, prominent characters in films including Fail-Safe in 1964, and an Emmy nomination for NBC’s acclaimed 1978 drama series Holocaust, died Saturday at home in Manhattan. He was 90. In that mini-series, Weaver played Dr. Josef Weiss, a Jewish doctor sent first to the Warsaw ghetto and then to the…...

Cinema Retro hosted Fritz Weaver at a screening of "Fail Safe" at the Players club in New York City. Here Editor-in-Chief Lee Pfeiffer (L) and contributor Paul Scrabo present Weaver with marketing materials for "To Trap a Spy", the feature film made from an extended version of the "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." TV show pilot, "The Vulcan Affair". Weaver discussed how surprised he was at the level of interest there was in the fact that he was the first U.N.C.L.E. villain. (Photo: GeorgeAnn Muller).

 

By Lee Pfeiffer

Fritz Weaver, who won acclaim for his work in film, TV and on the Broadway stage, has passed away at age 90. Weaver was primarily a character actor but sometimes top-lined in stage productions.He played Sherlock Holmes in the 1960s Broadway musical production of "Baker Street". He won a Tony in 1970 for his performance in "Child's Play". Weaver also...

From Fail Safe to Dr. Strangelove, Hollywood’s reaction to the atomic bomb has veered between grim horror and black comedy; Mickey Rooney’s The Atomic Kid considers our nuclear future with the gravitas of a Bowery Boys movie. Rooney plays an unlucky schmoe trapped in an atomic blast and, instead of gaining extraordinary powers or shooting up 50 feet, he’s merely coerced by the FBI to help trap a spy ring (to the disappointment of kids everywhere). Co-star Elaine Devry was the only female in the cast and, not so coincidentally, was married to Rooney at the time (a fact played up in the movie’s advertising).