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In the early days, before movies became talkies, it was easy to show foreign films in the USA. Just insert new title cards in English, and film fans in St. Louis could watch and understand the latest offering from France or Germany. But then sound came and changed everything.

Of course, distributors in the United States could add subtitles or dub in new voices, but if they really wanted to sell the movie to an American audience, they could also just go ahead and make a new, English-language version.

Whether it is repurposing the Japanese classic Rashomon as The Outrage or taking Spain’s Abre los ojos and turning it into Vanilla Sky, producers in the USA are constantly scouring the globe for some hot property to acquire, rewrite, recast, and in so doing, capture a whole new audience.

Netflix viewers are running out of time to check out Cold Pursuit

Usually,...

Is Marvel combatting superhero fatigue by incorporating aspects of classic cinema? Not yet apparently, but Ryan Reynolds seemed very interested in doing so at one point. Speaking to Empire for a cover feature on “Deadpool & Wolverine” in next week’s issue, Reynolds told them his first pitch to Kevin Feige for the film was a “‘Rashomon’ story about Wolverine and Deadpool and something that they got into together, but told from three completely different perspectives.”

For context, “Rashomon” is a 1950 Jidaigeki drama from Akira Kurosawa that was the first Japanese film to receive international acclaim, winning the Golden Lion at the 1951 Venice Film Festival, as well as an Honorary Oscar in 1952. The film tells the story of how a samurai was murdered, multiple times through multiple vantage points. Its plot has been repurposed in a number of films and television series over the decades including “The Outrage,” “Courage Under Fire,...

The cast of Season 3 of the popular award-winning streaming show ‘The White Lotus’ is growing, reports ‘Variety’.

The hit HBO series has added six new cast members and they are: Leslie Bibb, Dom Hetrakul, Jason Isaacs, Michelle Monaghan, Parker Posey, and Tayme Thapthimthong.

The new additions join returning actress Natasha Rothwell, whom ‘Variety’ had exclusively reported would reprise the role of Belinda in Season 3.

The show is set to begin production in Thailand — around Koh Samui, Phuket and Bangkok — in February. Exact plot details are being kept under wraps aside from the fact that it will follow a new group of guests at a White Lotus resort property, adds ‘Variety’.

Mike White created ‘The White Lotus’ and serves as executive producer and director.

‘The White Lotus’ proved to be an immediate hit for HBO when it debuted in 2021. The first season, set in Hawaii, received 20 Emmy nominations and ten wins,...

The cast of “The White Lotus” Season 3 is growing.

The third season of the hit HBO series has added six new cast members, Variety has learned. Joining the new season are: Leslie Bibb, Dom Hetrakul, Jason Isaacs, Michelle Monaghan, Parker Posey, and Tayme Thapthimthong.

The new additions join returning actress Natasha Rothwell, whom Variety exclusively reported would reprise the role of Belinda in Season 3 back in April 2023.

Bibb is repped by CAA and Narrative. Isaacs is repped by Independent Talent Group, The Gersh Agency, Silver Lining Entertainment, and Cld Communications. Monaghan repped by CAA, Anonymous Content, Narrative, and Sloane Offer. Posey is repped by CAA and Independent PR. Thapthimthong is repped by Artist International Group.

The show is set to begin production in and around Koh Samui, Phuket, and Bangkok, Thailand, in February. Exact plot details are being kept under wraps aside from the fact it will follow a new...

Organised by the Busan, Hong Kong and Tokyo International Film Festivals, and supported by Create HongKong and the Film Development Fund, the Asian Film Awards Academy (Academy or Afaa) has spearheaded efforts to promote Asian cinema around the world year-round. As part of the Asian Film Awards (Afa), its flagship event and the largest celebration of Asian cinema in the world, the Academy appoints an emerging Asian star every year as Youth Ambassador to act as the face of the awards and to take part in outreach activities. For the first time in its history, the Academy has appointed not one, but four celebrated Asian stars as the Youth Ambassadors of the 17th Afa: (in alphabetical order) Liu Kuan-Ting, Mario Maurer, Miyazawa Hio and Will Or.

Embodying numerous countries and cultures, Asia is a region that is rich in diversity, and that diversity has always been reflected in its films,...

Catch a young Keanu Reeve in “Point Break” next month on Plex. A few bank robbers in California are notable for their disguises: They wear masks of modern ex-Presidents Reagan, Carton, Nixon, and Johnson. A suspicious FBI thinks they are actually surfers and sends an agent (Reeves) to investigate. Patrick Swayze and Gary Busey co-star. Kathryn Bigelow, who won the Oscar for “The Hurt Locker” directs.

Watch the “Point Break” trailer

Also the neo-noir “L.A. Confidential” stars Russell Crowe and Guy Pearce as detectives in 1950s Los Angeles investigating a murder case. Based on the James Ellroy novel, the film explores corruption, racism, and sexual obsession. Plus, the production value is first-rate.

Catch the “L.A. Confidential” trailer Watch Now $0+ / month plex.tv Coming in July: all coming July 1 unless otherwise noted Black Death Blade Of The Immortal Boys On The Side Breaking Up Ceremony Date Movie Deck The...

(Region B)   Akira Kurosawa's unquestioned top rank classic remains a fascinating study of truth and justice. A forest encounter left a man murdered and his wife raped. Or did something entirely different happen? The witnesses Toshiro Mifune, Takashi Shimura and Machiko Kyo give radically differing testimony. This UK edition offers a full commentary by Japanese film expert Stuart Galbraith IV. Rashômon Region B UK Blu-ray BFI 1950 / B&W / 1.33:1 / 88 min. / Street Date September 21, 2015 / Available at Amazon UK / £15.99 Starring Toshiro Mifune, Machiko Kyo, Masayuki Mori, Takashi Shimura, Minoru Chiaki, Kichijiro Ueda, Fumiko Honma. Cinematography Kazuo Miyagawa Art Direction So Matsuyama Film Editor Akira Kurosawa Original Music Fumio Hayasaka Written by Shinobu Hashimoto, Akira Kurosawa from stories by Ryunosuke Akutagawa Produced by Minoru Jingo, Masaichi Nagata Directed by Akira Kurosawa

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

This reviewer doesn't review most foreign discs, but with major studios licensing out their libraries, there are...

Following are some supplemental sections featuring notable director & actor teams that did not meet the criteria for the main body of the article. Some will argue that a number of these should have been included in the primary section but keep in mind that film writing on any level, from the casual to the academic, is a game of knowledge and perception filtered through personal taste.

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Other Notable Director & Actor Teams

This section is devoted to pairings where the duo worked together at least 3 times with the actor in a major role in each feature film, resulting in 1 must-see film.

Terence Young & Sean Connery

Must-See Collaboration: From Russia with Love (1962).

Other Collaborations: Action of the Tiger (1957), Dr. No (1962), Thunderball (1965).

Director Young and actor Connery teamed up to create one of the very best Connery-era James Bond films with From Russia with Love which features a great villainous performance by Robert Shaw...

Blacklisted screenwriter and president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

The screenwriter Fay Kanin, who has died aged 95, was the only female president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in its 86-year history (apart from Bette Davis, who resigned after two months in 1941). She served as president from 1979 to 1983, for the maximum of four consecutive one-year terms. Kanin, who committed herself to the preservation of early Hollywood movies, was first elected president by a board consisting of 34 men and one woman.

"I'm a big feminist," she declared at the time that her play Goodbye, My Fancy opened on Broadway in 1948. "I've put into my play my feeling that women should never back away from life." The serious comedy, with Madeleine Carroll as a powerful congresswoman revisiting her alma mater to receive an honorary degree, ran for more than a year and was made into a 1951 film starring Joan Crawford.

It seems to be the nature of the Hollywood beast: classic films will eventually get remade, under the guise of 'introducing them to a new audience'. Not only the fun, cheesy remakes like Fright Night, or Conan the Barbarian: the rights to several classic Akira Kurosawa films are now on the market.

According to Variety, Splendent Media will represent worldwide rights (outside of Japan) for 69 Kurosawa titles, including films directed by Kurosawa (26 titles), films written by Kurosawa (24 titles) and unproduced screenplays (19 titles). For a full list you can check out Splendent's website: suffice it to say that the list includes Yojimbo, Rashomon, Idiot, and my personal favorite Ran, Kurosawa's 1985 adaptation of King Lear.

For some fans, this news is disheartening. Why not just let a classic film stand, as-is? There are plenty of ways of introducing a classic film to a new audience without remaking it entirely. Theaters have special showings of classic films,...

In news relating to the foreign-to-English remake department, Deadline (via THR) writer and director Paul Haggis has been selected by CBS Films to pen their remake of the Spanish thriller Cell 211. The film was the big winner at the Goya Awards recently, making a sweep at what is considered to be the Spanish equivalent of the Oscars. So it’s fair to say that it’s a movie worth checking out, but if the prospect of reading scares you enough, now you can just watch the American version!

While he’s been set to write the script, there hasn’t been any word on whether or not that he’ll be directing, although I wouldn’t be completely surprise either way. The plot is the “story of two men on different sides of a prison riot — the inmate leading the rebellion and the young guard trapped in the revolt, who...

Warner Home Video has recently released a series of Paul Newman titles that have not previously been available on DVD. We'll be taking a look at some of these titles, beginning with the 1964 western The Outrage.

By Lee Pfeiffer

Paul Newman and director Martin Ritt collaborated on six films of varying quality between the years 1958 and 1967, when both men were at the prime of the careers. One of their most notable misfires was The Outrage, an ambitious 1964 remake of Akira Kurosawa's classic Rashomon redefined as a western. Kurasawa's film told of the kidnapping of an innocent couple by a bandit. The woman is raped and the husband is murdered. However, as various people recall the incident, it becomes clear there are radically different versions of what happened and who was responsible for the death. The premise of remaking the story as a Hollywood production starring Newman probably seemed like a winning proposal for MGM,...

Paul Newman, who combined Method training with matinee idol looks to become the personification of the cool '60s rebel in such iconic roles as the reckless Hud, the defiant Cool Hand Luke and the hotshot Butch Cassidy, died Friday. Surrounded by friends and family, including his wife, Joanne Woodward, the actor and philanthropist passed away at his farmhouse home near Wesport, Conn., after a long battle with cancer. He was 83.

In a film career that spanned nearly six decades, Newman received seven Oscar nominations before he was finally presented with an Honorary Oscar in 1986 "in recognition of his many and memorable and compelling screen performances and for his personal integrity and dedication to his craft."

But then he pulled out a trump card of his own, winning the best actor Academy Award the following year for "The Color of Money," in which he reprised the role of pool shark Fast Eddie Felsen,...