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Featuring: Peter Serafinowicz, Peter Jackson, Joe Dante, John Landis, Caroline Munro, Paul Maslansky, Jonathan Rigby, Harriet Walter, Juan Rodriguez | Written and Directed by Jon Spira

The Life and Deaths of Christopher Lee, written and directed by Jon Spira, is a look at one of the most iconic, versatile and conversely underrated actors in the genre.

Narrated by a marionette of the late actor, voiced quite convincingly by Peter Serafinowicz the film starts with a quick overview of Lee’s heritage and formative years that included he and his mother being abandoned by both his father and stepfather. Interviews with his niece, an award-winning actress in her own right, talk about how this influenced both his personality and the direction his life would take.

The part he played in World War II is covered as well. Although there are no new revelations of his still-classified work tracking down war criminals. Work...

Penelope Featherington and Colin Bridgerton entering into a unique arrangement, J.Lo fighting evil artificial intelligence, the roasting of an NFL legend, a retelling of the invention of the Pop Tart, Brooke Shields and Benjamin Bratt at war and John Mulaney’s six-night live comedy event from Los Angeles are some of the big titles hitting Netflix in May.

Debuting on May 3 is Jerry Seinfeld’s directorial debut, Unfrosted. The comedy legend works both sides of the camera for this humorous feature take on the birth of the Pop Tart. The movie is set in 1963 as breakfast cereal giants Kellogg’s and Post compete to become the first company to create a morning pastry. Melissa McCarthy, Jim Gaffigan and Amy Schumer also star, with Hugh Grant more than likely to steal the whole film with a turn as Tony the Tiger.

May is comedy month on Netflix and to coincide...

M. Emmet Walsh, the wily character actor who became an audience favorite for his deliciously despicable performances in such films as Blood Simple, Blade Runner, Brubaker and The Jerk, has died. He was 88.

Walsh died Tuesday in St. Albans, Vermont, his longtime manager, Sandy Joseph, told The Hollywood Reporter. The cause was cardiac arrest.

With his distinctive lumbering form and droll delivery, Walsh was an ideal supporting player. A master of off-kilter comic delivery and dogged edginess, he excelled at roles that dwelled in the darker corners of humanity. No matter whom he played, he made a colorful impact.

“A consummate old pro of the second-banana business, Walsh has left his mark on 109 movies and counting, with the grin of that big bastard who stands between you and something else — and knows it,” Nicolas Rapold wrote in a 2011 profile of the actor for L.A. Weekly.

In the same piece, Walsh...

Very sad news today as it’s been reported that M. Emmet Walsh has died at the age of 88. No matter the size of the role, the prolific character actor always made a unique impression throughout his long career, which spanned six decades.

M. Emmet Walsh is best known for playing Bryant in Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, the captain of the Los Angeles Police Department who tasks Deckard with tracking down the replicants at the beginning of the film. He told THR that the cast and crew weren’t quite sure what the make of the movie when they first saw it. “I don’t know if I really understood what in the hell it was all about,” Walsh said. “We all sat there and it ended. And nothing. We didn’t know what to say or to think or do! We didn’t know what in the hell we had done!

This past weekend, Wamg attended the annual TCM Film Festival (honestly this writer’s favorite event of the year) and as usual, it did not disappoint! There was a ton of great programming this year, with something for just about everyone.

Opening Night of the 14th annual TCM Classic Film Festival kicked off with a screening of Rio Bravo (1959) in celebration of Warner Bros.’ 100th anniversary, featuring a conversation with Wbd CEO David Zaslav and The Film Foundation Board members Steven Spielberg and Paul Thomas Anderson about the mission of The Film Foundation as well as Rio Bravo star Angie Dickinson.

Hollywood, California – April 13: (L-r) TCM host Ben Mankiewicz; General Manager, Turner Classic Movies Pola Changnon; Steven Spielberg; Angie Dickinson; and President and Chief Executive Officer of Warner Bros. Discovery David Zaslav attend the opening night gala and world premiere of the 4k restoration of “Rio Bravo” during the...

Arlene Golonka, best known for her portrayal of waitress Millie on the classic CBS sitcom The Andy Griffith Show and its spinoff Mayberry R.F.D., died Monday at a West Hollywood memory care facility following a battle with Alzheimer’s. She was 85.

Her death was announced by her friend, the literary agent Cary Kozlov.

Golonka, who made her Broadway debut in 1958’s short-lived The Night Circus before landing stage roles in 1962’s Come Blow Your Horn and 1963’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, already had made numerous appearances on television prior to her breakthrough role on The Andy Griffith Show in 1967, among them Car 54, Where Are You?, The Doctors, The Flying Nun and The Big Valley.

She made her first Griffith appearance on Oct. 16, 1967, in an episode that introduced her as Millie Hutchins, initially intended as a love interest for bookish bachelor Howard Sprague (played by Jack Dodson...

Arlene Golonka, a veteran character actor best known for playing Millie Swanson on “Mayberry R.F.D.,” died Monday in West Hollywood, Calif. She was 85.

Her niece Stephanie Morton, said she had been suffering from Alzheimer’s.

“She lived and breathed being an artist, being an actress was who she was born to be,” said her niece, “She was a very wise woman who I was lucky to call my aunt.”

“She loved to teach,” said Morton, who said her acting students over the years included Halle Berry.

With a career spanning over 45 years, Golonka played recurring roles on “The Doctors,” “Joe & Valerie” and “1st & 10” and appeared in episodes of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” “M*A*S*H” and “The King of Queens.” On “The Andy Griffith Show,” Golonka played Millie Hutchins, the girlfriend of Sam Jones (Ken Berry) on two episodes, and she reprised the role as Millie Swanson on “Mayberry R.F.D.” across 34 episodes.

Von Babasin had a memorable summer job in 1976.

The then 21-year old worked on craft services for “Airport ’77,” a disaster movie with a cast that included Oscar-winners and legends such as Jack Lemmon, Lee Grant, George Kennedy, and James Stewart. But the Grande Dame on set was Olivia de Havilland, who despite her stature, spent most of the production soldiering through one grueling scene after another.

“She spent long days, soaking wet, crashing around the plane as we emptied the dump tanks through the fuselage, got the shot, and set it all back to first position to do it all over again,” Babasin remembers. “And, she was a trooper through it all.”

“Airport ’77” was a big box office hit in its day, but it has largely faded from memory, as have many of de Havilland’s films, a consequence of being a centenarian in a business that is...

Olivia de Havilland, the two-time Oscar-winning actress who starred in films like Gone With the Wind and The Snake Pit, has died at the age of 104.

The actress’ publicist confirmed to the Hollywood Reporter that de Havilland died Sunday of natural causes in Paris, France, where she lived for the past 60 years.

The last surviving star of Hollywood’s Golden Age, de Havilland won Best Actress Academy Awards for her roles in 1946’s To Each His Own and 1949’s The Heiress. de Havilland was nominated for three other Oscars, including...

Kitty O'Neil, a deaf Hollywood stuntwoman, daredevil and protege of Hal Needham who doubled for Lynda Carter on Wonder Woman and set a land-speed record as the fastest woman driver ever, has died. She was 72.

O'Neil died Friday at Eureka Community Hospital in Eureka, South Dakota. Her longtime friend, former stuntman Ky Michaelson, told The Hollywood Reporter that she died of pneumonia and had recently suffered a heart attack.

Five-foot-2 and 97 pounds, O'Neil worked on such movies as Airport 1975, Two-Minute Warning (1976), Airport '77, Damien: Omen II (1978), Foul Play (1978), ...

Kitty O'Neil, a deaf Hollywood stuntwoman, daredevil and protege of Hal Needham who doubled for Lynda Carter on Wonder Woman and set a land-speed record as the fastest woman driver ever, has died. She was 72.

O'Neil died Friday at Eureka Community Hospital in Eureka, South Dakota. Her longtime friend, former stuntman Ky Michaelson, told The Hollywood Reporter that she died of pneumonia and had recently suffered a heart attack.

Five-foot-2 and 97 pounds, O'Neil worked on such movies as Airport 1975, Two-Minute Warning (1976), Airport '77, Damien: Omen II (1978), Foul Play (1978), ...

Dr. John Beck finds himself turning into a literal Bat-Man (sans Gotham) in 1974's The Bat People, and with the horror thriller now out on a new Blu-ray from Scream Factory, we've been provided 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 Bat 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 Bat People Contest”. Be sure to include your name and mailing address.

Entry Details: The contest will end at 12:01am Est on July 25th. This contest is only open to those...

We started the month off wishing Olivia de Havilland a happy centennial. She's now our oldest living Oscar winner! Then we completed our our "halfway mark" year in review which is like a warm up for the Film Bitch Awards at years end. We'll close the month tomorrow with the Supporting Actress Smackdown of 1977. Otherwise July has been the usual array of randomness. We like a good variety at The Film Experience as long as that variety includes lots of actressing and films from multiple genres and eras.

But about this era for a moment: the summer blockbusters have been a little rough this summer but find a smaller release to see this weekend: Miss Sharon Jones opened yesterday; do Not miss Viggo Mortensen in Captain Fantastic which added over 400 theaters yesterday (it's now probably somewhere near you) and lives up to its title; and you might also want an opinion on the new Woody,...

Olivia de Havilland picture U.S. labor history-making 'Gone with the Wind' star and two-time Best Actress winner Olivia de Havilland turns 99 (This Olivia de Havilland article is currently being revised and expanded.) Two-time Best Actress Academy Award winner Olivia de Havilland, the only surviving major Gone with the Wind cast member and oldest surviving Oscar winner, is turning 99 years old today, July 1.[1] Also known for her widely publicized feud with sister Joan Fontaine and for her eight movies with Errol Flynn, de Havilland should be remembered as well for having made Hollywood labor history. This particular history has nothing to do with de Havilland's films, her two Oscars, Gone with the Wind, Joan Fontaine, or Errol Flynn. Instead, history was made as a result of a legal fight: after winning a lawsuit against Warner Bros. in the mid-'40s, Olivia de Havilland put an end to treacherous...

Yesterday, I wrote about my first year in Los Angeles, which was all just a matter of settling in. Remember, when I moved to La, I knew a grand total of zero people who lived or worked here. I was not laden with contacts and strolling into a situation where everything was guaranteed to work out. Scott Swan and I took a huge chance when we packed up and moved out, and I am so horrified by how little money we had saved that I'm almost embarrassed to say the number. I was insanely naive when I arrived in town. I am still haunted by a choice we made in those early days, when we answered an ad in one of the trades that was looking for writers willing to work on a "per sketch" basis. I forget how much the rate was… $100 or so, but definitely not more than that…...

It's a shock to go back and watch "Midnight Cowboy" 45 years after its debut (on May 25, 1969) and see how raw and otherworldly it looks. After all, the X-rated Best Picture Oscar-winner has been so thoroughly assimilated into American pop culture that even kiddie entertainments like the Muppets have copied from it.

The tale of the unlikely friendship between naïve Texas gigolo Joe Buck (Jon Voight) and frail Bronx con man Enrico "Ratso" Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman), "Midnight Cowboy" was initially considered so risqué that it's the only X-rated movie ever to win the Academy's top prize (though after it won, the ratings board reconsidered and gave the film an R). Still, the film featured two lead performances and a few individual scenes that were so iconic that homages (and parodies) have popped up virtually everywhere. (Most often imitated is the scene where Ratso, limping across a busy Manhattan street, is nearly...

A nuclear-powered bus packed with misfit passengers and with a dodgy driver at the wheel is speeding across America ... It's going to be a bumpy ride in one of the best 70s spoofs

More from the My Guilty Pleasure series

When Airplane! stormed cinemas in 1980, it was hailed as the perfect spoof of transport disaster movies and a useful coda to a decade that had been obsessed with them: Airport, The Poseidon Adventure, The Hindenburg, Airport 1975, Airport '77, Airport 80 The Concorde etc.

But before Airplane! there was The Big Bus. I recall as a teenager watching Barry Norman review the film on what must have been Film 76 (note again the decade's zeitgeisty use of years in titles). It looked funny, but I was too young to see it at the cinema. So I put all childish thoughts of buses aside

Continue reading...

David Oyelowo ( Jack Reacher , Rise of the Planet of the Apes ) and Kate Mara ("House of Cards," 127 Hours ) are set to star in Bn Films' upcoming true crime thriller, Captive , says a story today at The Hollywood Reporter . To be directed by Jerry Jameson ( Airport '77 ), Captive is based on the true story of Brian Nichols who, in 2005, took several lives in his escape from Atlanta's Fulton County courthouse, launching a full-scale police manhunt. Oyelowo will play Nichols with Mara starring as Ashley Smith, a single mother who Nichols took hostage and who was able to reason with Nichols, ultimately to the point that she was able to call the police. Later, Smith wrote about her ordeal in the book "An Unlikely Angel," which is providing the basis for...

On May 27, British film icon Christopher Lee turns 90 years old. In his long and storied career, he's delivered countless fantastic performances in everything from medieval adventures to gothic scary stories. (You may know him as Saruman, Count Dooku, the Man with the Golden Gun or even Count Dracula.) And he has no plans to slow down, as indicated by recent roles in the Oscar-winning"Hugo" and this month's "Dark Shadows" -- not to mention an upcoming return to Middle Earth with this December's "Hobbit." Lee is not just an actor, but a decorated military man and bombastic heavy metal singer, with a crazy family lineage to boot. To celebrate the legend's 90th birthday, we present 90 reasons why Christopher Lee is awesome. 1. He's the step-cousin of "James Bond" creator Ian Fleming, and was the author's first choice to play Dr. No in the film adaptation. 2. He's in the Guinness Book of...

To have one giant money-losing tentpole is unfortunate. To have two starts to look careless, and that's what's happened to Taylor Kitsch. The actor, who broke out on TV's "Friday Night Lights," was seen as Hollywood's next great hope, picked out to star in two great big blockbusters with a combined cost of half-a-billion dollars. But when "John Carter" arrived in March, the film wildly underperformed, with Disney taking a hit of at least $100 million on the project. And after this weekend, it looks that his other film, "Battleship," is going to lose similar amounts.

The film, Universal & Hasbro's adaptation of the board game, directed by "Hancock" helmer Peter Berg, had taken the unusual step of opening everywhere else in the world six weeks ahead of the U.S, in the hope of bagging lucrative foreign coin and building buzz for the U.S. release. But while the film did ok abroad,...

In 1970, one movie invented the modern disaster film. After grossing more than $100 million at the domestic box office (adjusted for inflation, it made more than any of the "Lord of the Rings"), it spawned three sequels that stretched through the entire decade. But this landmark series is now almost totally forgotten, long eclipsed by the film that so brilliantly spoofed the genre tropes it helped define. In honor of its 40th anniversary, we're looking back at the "Airport" franchise this week, one film at a time. Today, "Airplane!" said brilliant spoofer of said genre tropes.

Airplane!

Directed by Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, and Jerry Zucker

Nature of Air Emergency: The passengers of Trans American Flight 209 from Los Angeles had a choice for dinner: steak or fish. Those who chose steak now have another choice: find someone to land their plane after everyone who had the fish, including the pilots,...

In 1970, one movie invented the modern disaster film. After grossing more than $100 million at the domestic box office (adjusted for inflation, it made more than any of the "Lord of the Rings"), it spawned three sequels that stretched through the entire decade. But this landmark series is now almost totally forgotten, long eclipsed by the film that so brilliantly spoofed the genre tropes it helped define. In honor of its 40th anniversary, we're looking back at the "Airport" franchise this week, one film at a time. Today, "The Concorde... Airport '79," the rare movie with an ellipsis in the title.

The Concorde... Airport '79

Directed by David Lowell Rich

Nature of Air Emergency: A journalist (Susan Blakely) boards Federation World Airlines' new Concorde plane with documents implicating weapons manufacturer Kevin Harrison (Robert Wagner) in illegal arms deals with America's enemies. He tries to shoot down the Concorde and fails.

In 1970, one movie invented the modern disaster film. After grossing more than $100 million at the domestic box office (adjusted for inflation, it made more than any of the "Lord of the Rings"), it spawned three sequels that stretched through the entire decade. But this landmark series is now almost totally forgotten, long eclipsed by the film that so brilliantly spoofed the genre tropes it helped define. In honor of its 40th anniversary, we're looking back at the "Airport" franchise this week, one film at a time. Today, "Airport '77" which is basically "The Poseidon Adventure" on a plane.

Airport '77 (1977)

Directed by Jerry Jameson

Nature of Air Emergency: The maiden voyage of an experimental aircraft from the Stevens Corporation in hijacked en route to an exclusive party. Because really, where better to put a priceless art collection than on the maiden voyage of an experimental airplane? The hijacking goes...

In 1970, one movie invented the modern disaster film. After grossing more than $100 million at the domestic box office (adjusted for inflation, it made more than any of the "Lord of the Rings"), it spawned three sequels that stretched through the entire decade. But this landmark series is now almost totally forgotten, long eclipsed by the film that so brilliantly spoofed the genre tropes it helped define. In honor of its 40th anniversary, we're looking back at the "Airport" franchise this week, one film at a time. Today, the first sequel, which is called "Airport 1975" even though it was released in 1974.

Airport 1975 (1974)

Directed by Jack Smight

Nature of Air Emergency: A pilot suffers a heart attack and loses control of his private plane, sending it into the path of Columbia Airlines Flight 409. The jet survives the collision, but the captain, co-pilot, and navigator are all killed or maimed.

In 1970, one movie invented the modern disaster film. After grossing more than $100 million at the domestic box office (adjusted for inflation, it made more than any of the "Lord of the Rings"), it spawned three sequels that stretched through the entire decade. But this landmark series is now almost totally forgotten, long eclipsed by the film that so brilliantly spoofed the genre tropes it helped define. In honor of its fortieth anniversary, we're looking back at the "Airport" franchise this week, one film at a time. Today, the movie that started it all, based on the novel by Arthur Hailey.

Airport (1970)

Directed by George Seaton

Nature of Air Emergency: A distraught man detonates a crude suicide bomb on a commercial jet in the hopes that his wife will collect his life insurance. Captain Vern Demerest (Dean Martin) has to land the damaged plan in the middle of a brutal...

Character actor Michael Pataki has lost his battle with cancer, aged 72.

Pataki, an accomplished voiceover actor, film and television star, died on 15 April. The type of cancer was not specified.

His film credits include Rocky IV, the villains in Grave of the Vampire and Airport '77, The Onion Field, The Dirt Gang, The Baby and The Bat People.

Pataki also made a guest appearance on the original Star Trek TV series, and enjoyed other small screen roles on shows including The Twilight Zone, My Favorite Martian, The Flying Nun, Bonanza, The Green Hornet and The Amazing Spider-Man series.

He also provided the voice of the Sewer King in an episode of Batman: The Animated Series and cartoon character, George Liquor for the Ren and Stimpy production house.