News

George Armitage, the director of Grosse Pointe Blank and Miami Blues, as well as a close collaborator of Roger Corman’s, has died. He was 82.

George Armitage entered the business in the ‘70s but it took a while to find his footing. That came with 1990’s Miami Blues, which starred Alec Baldwin as a criminal fresh out of prison posing as a cop with a stolen police badge. Armitage would develop his mixture of crime and comedy later that decade with 1997’s Grosse Pointe Blank with John Cusack and Minnie Driver.

Even though he was a buddy of Corman’s, it does feel like George Armitage is too rarely mentioned in the list of notable directors who got their start working under him. But we can’t ignore where he got his start. George Armitage met Roger Corman at just the right time in the 1960s. In 1971, Corman hired him to write Gas-s-s,...

George Armitage, who co-wrote and directed the Alec Baldwin-starring Miami Blues and helmed another 1990s black comedy, Grosse Pointe Blank, starring John Cusack, has died. He was 83.

Armitage died Feb. 15 in Playa del Rey, California, his son, Brent Armitage, announced.

As was the case with many others, Armitage got a big career boost in the early 1970s from legendary B-movie producer Roger Corman at New World Pictures.

Armitage also wrote and directed MGM’s Hit Man (1972), starring Bernie Casey and Pam Grier, and United Artists’ Vigilante Force (1976), starring Kris Kristofferson and Jan-Michael Vincent. Both those films were produced by Roger’s brother, Gene Corman.

Miami Blues (1990), based on the series of Hoke Moseley books by author Charles Willeford, featured Baldwin as Frederick J. Frenger Jr., who steals the badge and gun of a veteran cop (Fred Ward as Moseley) and embarks on an outrageous crime spree with a hooker...

John Aprea has died. An actor on screens big and small since the late ‘60s, Aprea died with family by his side at his home in Los Angeles on Monday, August 5, Deadline confirmed via Aprea’s manager, Will Levine. He was 83.Born on March 4, 1941, in Englewood, N.J., Jonathan Aprea...

John Aprea has sadly passed away.

The actor, who played young Salvatore Tessio in The Godfather Part II and the father of John Stamos’ character on Full House, has died at 83, his manager confirmed.

He died August 5 of natural causes in Los Angeles, Will Levine confirmed to THR.

Keep reading to find out more…

The New Jersey-bred star also starred in Caged Heat, Crazy Mama and The Manchurian Candidate, as well as The Idolmaker and New Jack City, among other notable roles.

On TV, he appeared on the NBC soap opera Another World over a course of a decade starting in 1989.

He starred on NBC’s The Montefuscos as well in 1975. Later in life, he reprised his Full House role for the 2017 Netflix reboot.

Survivors include his third wife of over 25 years, Betsy, his daughter, Nicole, from a previous marriage to actress Ninon Aprea, and stepchildren Marika and Valentino.

Our...

John Aprea, whose acting career landed him roles on “Godfather Part II” and “Full House,” died on Aug. 5 of natural causes in Los Angeles. He was 83.

His death was confirmed by Will Levine, Aprea’s manager.

Born in 1941 to Italian immigrants in Englewood, N.J., Aprea spent part of his early years in Italy before his family resettled back in the States. In the early 1960s, he set out to pursue his passion, acting, enrolling in Joshua Shelley’s acting classes (who also taught Mia Farrow and Jon Voight) in New York. Eventually, he would land a role in the 1968 Steve McQueen classic film Bullitt, playing Killer.

After his splashy debut, Aprea found acting work on sets for the 1970s TV series “Mannix,” the 1970s film “The Grasshopper,” and Jonathan Demme’s 1974 feature, “Caged Heat.”

John’s career took off when he was cast as the young Tessio in Francis Ford Coppola...

John Aprea, the charismatic character actor who portrayed the young Salvatore Tessio in The Godfather Part II and the father of John Stamos’ character on Full House, has died. He was 83.

Aprea died Aug. 5 of natural causes in Los Angeles, his manager, Will Levine, announced.

The New Jersey native appeared for director Jonathan Demme in Caged Heat (1974), Crazy Mama (1975) and The Manchurian Candidate (2004), played the brother of Ray Sharkey’s up-and-coming music promoter in Taylor Hackford’s The Idolmaker (1980) and was a mob guy in Mario Van Peebles’ New Jack City (1991).

Aprea also played another crook, Lucas Castigliano, as well as a multimillionaire shipping magnate, Alexander Nikos, during two stints on the NBC soap opera Another World over a course of a decade (1989-98). Both characters ended up getting shot to death by women.

He starred as the patriarch of a multi-generational Italian American family on NBC’s The Montefuscos,...

In a career that has spanned seven decades, Roger Corman is nothing short of a legend. His influence and impact are almost immeasurable, having mentored or introduced so many prominent filmmakers working today. That doesn’t even touch on how he changed independent cinema or wore multiple hats doing so: director, producer, writer, and actor, to name a few.

With the legend’s passing this weekend, it feels only appropriate to highlight just a handful of the essential Roger Corman horror movies on streaming. This week’s streaming picks celebrate some of the essential works of Roger Corman horror movies, whether he produced, directed, or appeared on screen.

Here’s where you can stream them this week.

For more Stay Home, Watch Horror picks, click here.

A Bucket of Blood – AMC+, Crackle, Fandor, Kanopy, MGM+, Midnight Pulp, Pluto TV, Prime Video, Screambox, Shudder, Tubi, Vudu

Roger Corman had a recurring interest in counterculture,...

Roger Corman, the legendary B-movie filmmaker who directed, produced, and starred in upwards of 500 films over the course of a staggering eight decade-spanning career, has died. He passed away aged 98 this past Thursday at his home in Santa Monica, California.

In a statement posted on Roger’s Instagram to announce his passing, Corman’s wife Julie and daughters Mary and Catherine shared the following: “It is with profound sadness, and boundless gratitude for his extraordinary life, that we remember our beloved husband and father, Roger Corman. He passed away on May 9th, at home in Santa Monica, California, surrounded by his family. He is survived by his wife Julie and his daughters Catherine and Mary. He was generous, open-hearted and kind to all those who knew him. A devoted and selfless father, he was deeply loved by his daughters. His films were revolutionary and iconoclastic, and captured the spirit of an age.

Roger Corman, a pioneer of low-cost independent filmmaking and the godfather of B-movies who produced hundreds of genre films in a career spanning eight decades, has died. He was 98.

During a prolific career that started in the 1950s and encompassed all genre, Corman directed the 1960 original The Little Shop Of Horrors – reportedly shot in two days – as well as The Man With The X-Ray Eyes, The Trip, The Wasp Woman, The Masque Of The Red Death, House Of Usher, and The Raven – the last three counting among a number of Edgar Allan Poe adaptations.

Dubbed ’the Pope of Pop Cinema...

Roger Corman, who directed and produced countless B-movies and championed future industry stalwarts Martin Scorsese, Robert De Niro, and Jack Nicholson, died at his home in Santa Monica, California on May 9, Variety reports. He was 98.

“His films were revolutionary and iconoclastic, and captured the spirit of an age. When asked how he would like to be remembered, he said, ‘I was a filmmaker, just that,’” the family said in a statement to the outlet.

For nearly five decades, he dominated the B-movie market, with films that ranged from his early work in the Fifties,...

Roger Corman, the fabled “King of the B’s” producer and director who churned out low-budget genre films with breakneck speed and provided career boosts to young, untested talents like Jack Nicholson, Ron Howard, Peter Bogdanovich, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Jonathan Demme, Gale Anne Hurd and James Cameron, has died. He was 98.

The filmmaker, who received an honorary Oscar in 2009 at the Governors Awards, died Thursday at his home in Santa Monica, his family told The Hollywood Reporter.

“He was generous, open-hearted and kind to all those who knew him,” they said in a statement. “When asked how he would like to be remembered, he said, ‘I was a filmmaker, just that.’”

Corman perhaps is best known for such horror fare as The Little Shop of Horrors (1960) and his series of Edgar Allan Poe adaptations starring Vincent Price, but he became celebrated for drugs-and-biker sagas like The Wild Angels...

Roger Corman, the maverick producer of B-movies and iconoclastic subjects whose innovative low-budget enterprises launched the careers of numerous major filmmakers, died on Thursday at his home in Santa Monica. He was 98.

Corman’s career encompassed seven decades and more than 500 producing credits, including early work that launched the careers of major Hollywood figures such as Jack Nicholson, Bruce Dern, Peter Fonda, Frances Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, James Cameron, Peter Bogdanovich, Gale Anne Hurd, John Sayles, Ron Howard and Jonathan Demme. Yet Corman resented the commercial studio system, and as both producer and as a director himself, he pursued his cheap, no-frills filmmaking style at all costs, while using lowbrow genre tropes as a Trojan horse for socially conscious themes.

Over the years, Corman’s name has been most closely associated with the zany escapist enterprises often referred to as exploitation films, a term he abhorred. With producing credits such...

In 1982, Jonathan Demme directed a lovely TV movie called “Who Am I This Time?” about a shy actor (Christopher Walken) who can only reveal himself on stage in a variety of disparate roles. It’s an emblematic title and idea for Demme himself, a director whose fascination for the viewer lies in the fact that he’s paradoxically both an auteur with a clear signature and a director who tried on different artistic personalities throughout his career. There’s the exploitation guerrilla of the early ’70s; the humanist drama specialist who made “Melvin and Howard,” “Philadelphia,” and “Rachel Getting Married”; the off-beat hipster comedian; the sensitive documentarian; the live performance specialist; and the steward of well resourced, star-driven literary adaptations and remakes that became Demme’s specialty after his blockbuster success with “The Silence of the Lambs” in 1991.

While the subject matter and scale may vary, the point of view...

Watching “Stop Making Sense” in 4K IMAX at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival was a transporting, immersive, joyous experience. Some of us also saw the 1983 Talking Heads concert tour promoting their fifth album, “Speaking in Tongues”; when Jonathan Demme saw the show, the director asked if he could document the concerts. The band, who admired Demme films such as “Caged Heat” and “Melvin and Howard,” loved the idea.

Demme shot the film over three performances in December 1983 at the Pantages Theater in Los Angeles. Four months later, it was in theaters and grossed $5 million. Forty years later, the band holds the film rights. They worked with A24 to release the restored 4K version for its exclusive IMAX run on September 22 before heading to conventional theaters September 29 around the world.

At the Toronto world premiere, even the band rose up in their vertiginous IMAX seats and danced — who could resist “Road to Nowhere,...

It usually starts around “Burning Down the House.” That’s six numbers into Stop Making Sense, the 1984 Talking Heads concert film, and the first number to feature not just the central quartet — David Byrne, Jerry Harrison, Tina Weymouth, and Chris Frantz — but the whole expanded band they were using during that tour. People get up and start dancing in their seats, in the aisles, in the front, and in the back of the theater. I’ve been to screenings where it starts a little earlier, around “Thank You for Sending Me an Angel,...

“The Silence of the Lambs” executive producer Gary Goetzman has been a major player in Hollywood for the last four decades (especially after he followed that Best Picture-winner by co-founding Playtone with Tom Hanks in 1998), but many in and around the film industry were unfamiliar with his story until Paul Thomas Anderson made a movie about it. “That was some version of my story, at least,” Goetzman chuckled when I asked him about “Licorice Pizza” during a recent Zoom interview from his office in Los Angeles, where he’s putting the finishing touches on “Masters of the Air,” a high-altitude Apple miniseries in the tradition of “Band of Brothers” and “The Pacific.” “So many events in ‘Licorice Pizza,’ are true, but everything around it is kind of not.”

Specifics notwithstanding, Anderson’s coming-of-age comedy — set in the San Fernando Valley circa 1973 and starring Cooper Hoffman as 15-year-old “Gary Valentine” — certainly...

Shout! Factory TV has announced its first original series! Created by Ashley and Robert Sidaway, the 13-part docuseries Cult-Tastic: Tales from the Trenches with Roger and Julie Corman will premiere on November 15th. Also in today's Horror Highlights: Big Top Evil teaser trailers and release details, Fearhouse360 release details, and a look at the Little VVomen sketch.

Shout! Factory's Cult-Tastic: Tales from the Trenches with Roger and Julie Corman Release Details: "Shout! Factory TV, the digital entertainment streaming service, is set to launch its first original digital docuseries Cult-tastic: Tales From The Trenches With Roger And Julie Corman. Created, written and co-produced by Ashley Sidaway and Robert Sidaway, the 13-part series about the life and work of Roger and Julie Corman, provides viewers an extraordinary look inside the Cormans’ cinematic universe and features extensive in-depth interviews. The series will premiere November 15th on Shout! Factory TV’s Amazon Prime Video...

Exclusive: Shout! Factory TV will launch a 13-part digital docuseries called Cult-Tastic: Tales from the Trenches with Roger and Julie Corman that premieres Nov. 15 on Shout Factory TV’s Amazon Prime Video Channel and via Roku Channel’s Premium Subscription.

Created, written and co-produced by Ashley Sidaway and Robert Sidaway, Cult-Tastic features new, extensive, and in-depth interviews and represents the first docuseries from Shout! Factory TV. The subject matter is a rich and vivid one: Roger and Julie Corman and their seven decades as trailblazing indie filmmakers.

One of the most prolific producers in cinema history, Roger Corman is known as the Pope of Pop Culture and the King of the Cult Film after producing more than 350 films and directing 60 more, among them Machine Gun Kelly, A Bucket of Blood, X: The Man with X-Ray Eyes, Bloody Mama and Frankenstein Unbound. Roger Corman was honored with the Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2009.

Julie Corman,...

Samuel Gelfman, a New York producer known for his work on Roger Corman’s “Caged Heat,” “Cockfighter” and “Cannonball!,” died Thursday morning at UCLA Hospital in Westwood following complications from heart and respiratory disease, his son Peter Gelfman confirmed. He was 88.

Gelfman was born in Brooklyn, New York and was raised in Caldwell New Jersey where he attended grade and high school, before graduating Princeton University in 1953 with a degree in architecture. Soon after, he returned to New York where he worked for the Candida Donadio talent agency and the Feuer and Martin company. It was the latter that got him his next job as an Off-Broadway producer for the improvisational theater The Premise.

From there, he became the Vice President of New York Production for United Artists, before leaving to buy film rights for the first video cassette company Cartrivision. At that time, he also began working with...

Samuel Gelfman, who produced the low-budget films Caged Heat, Cockfighter and Cannonball! for Roger Corman's New World Pictures in the 1970s, has died. He was 88.

Gelfman died Thursday at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles of complications from heart and respiratory disease, his son Peter Gelfman, a New York-based property master, told The Hollywood Reporter.

After serving as a vice president at United Artists and a film buyer for one of the first videocassette companies, Cartrivision, Gelfman joined ranks with Corman and produced Jonathan Demme's directorial debut, Caged Heat (1974), about women in prison; Cockfighter (1974), helmed by Monte Hellman and ...

Samuel Gelfman, who produced the low-budget films Caged Heat, Cockfighter and Cannonball! for Roger Corman's New World Pictures in the 1970s, has died. He was 88.

Gelfman died Thursday at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles of complications from heart and respiratory disease, his son Peter Gelfman, a New York-based property master, told The Hollywood Reporter.

After serving as a vice president at United Artists and a film buyer for one of the first videocassette companies, Cartrivision, Gelfman joined ranks with Corman and produced Jonathan Demme's directorial debut, Caged Heat (1974), about women in prison; Cockfighter (1974), helmed by Monte Hellman and ...

The American Genre Film Archive, the largest non-profit genre film archive and distributor in the world, has teamed up with Shout! Factory for a wide-ranging new theatrical partnership that will see a slew of cult classics heading back into theaters. Agfa will distribute 50 film classics from Shout! Factory’s movie library to theaters this year, following similar collaborations with home video labels like Arrow Films, Severin Films, and Vinegar Syndrome.

The Austin-based Afga has selected a number of shlock-tastic titles like “Black Christmas,” “Chopping Mall,” “Caged Heat,” and both “Slumber Party Massacre” and its sequel to release back into theaters. The deal also includes a number of bonafide classics as well, including John Ford’s “Stagecoach,” John Cassavetes’ “A Woman Under the Influence,” and Alfred Hitchcock’s “Foreign Correspondent.”

“We could not be more thrilled about this partnership,” said Agfa Head of Business Affairs Alicia Coombs in an official statement.

“Even for criminals you’re just a particularly poor reflection on womanhood.”

Caged Heat screens Friday, June 9th at Webster University’s Moore Auditorium (470 East Lockwood). This is the first film in their ‘Tribute to Jonathan Demme’ The movie starts at 8:00pm.

Who doesn’t love a good Women’s prison film? – Chained Heat, Hellhole, Ilsa She Wolf Of The SS, The Big Bird Cage, The Big Doll House, Reform School Girls, and The Concrete Jungle all sit proudly on my Wip (Women in Prison) DVD shelf. One of the very best of this beloved subgenre is Caged Heat (1974), a wonderful exploitation masterpiece and the directing debut of Oscar-winner Jonathan Demme, that has everything you could possibly hope for in a Women-In-Prison movie: nudity, shower catfights, lesbian coupling, race wars, murder, chain-swinging, switch-blade slashing, and shock therapy!

Chained Heat stars Erica Gavin (of Russ Meyer’s Vixen fame) as Jackie,...

We’re all still reeling from the death of Jonathan Demme, one of the most unpredictable, open-hearted and by all accounts best loved of American filmmakers. I was surprised to learn that he was 73 when he died because he, and his films, always seemed so youthful. The fact that his swansong was the beautifully exuberant Justin Timberlake + the Tennessee Kids only added to that impression of vitality.Many of the posters for Demme’s films are as well known as the films themselves: the Dali-esque death’s head moth for Silence of the Lambs; the cutout of Spalding Gray’s head bobbing in a flat plane of blue for Swimming to Cambodia; an upside-down Jeff Daniels on Something Wild; Pablo Ferro’s Strangelove-esque titles over the Big Suit for Stop Making Sense. And of his later films I particularly like the screen-print look of Man From Plains. But the posters for Demme’s early films,...

New York City – He was the helmsman of “The Silence of the Lambs,” which won him Best Director and took home Best Picture at the 1992 Academy Awards, and made numerous other late 20th Century movie classics. Director Jonathan Demme died in New York City on April 26, 2017, at the age of 73.

Film writer Dave Kehr called Demme “the last of the great humanists,” and the director followed through on that description with an incredible run of films in the 1980s and ‘90s, which included “Melvin and Howard” (1980), “Something Wild” (1986), “Swimming to Cambodia” (1987), “Married to the Mob” (1988), “Lambs” (1991) and “Philadelphia” (1993). He also created one of the greatest rock documentaries ever, “Stop Making Sense” (1984, featuring the Talking Heads) and worked extensively with Bruce Springsteen and Neil Young on other rock docs. He even directed an episode of the TV classic “Columbo” in 1978, among his other TV achievements.

Director Jonathan Demme on the Set...

Sad news today as Jonathan Demme, the Oscar-winning director of The Silence of the Lambs, has passed away at the age of 73 due to complications from esophageal cancer and heart disease. He is survived by his wife and three children. One glance at Demme's filmography and you'll see an incredibly versatile slate that ranged from B-movie roots, like his Roger Corman-produced directorial debut, Caged Heat, to comedy, like his 1988 hit Married to the Mob, to music, for his work with Bruce Springsteen over the years, to his dramas, like the Oscar-winning Philadelphia, and to his thrillers, like Silence of the Lambs, for which he won a Best Director Oscar. Demme was the kind of filmmaker who commanded whatever genre he was working in at the time, continually jumping...

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Jonathan Demme, dead of cancer at 73. It's hard to take in those words.

Or to stop feeling the gut punch of his loss. High praise will flow, deservedly, about Demme's virtuosity as a filmmaker; about the Oscars he won for The Silence of the Lambs; about his concert films, from Stop Making Sense to Justin Timberlake + The Tennessee Kids, that brought audiences closer than ever before to the sweaty intimacy and creative pulse of music. His influence is everywhere. Paul Thomas Anderson was once asked for a list of the...

Sad news today as Jonathan Demme, the Oscar-winning director of The Silence of the Lambs, has passed away at the age of 73 due to complications from esophageal cancer and heart disease. He is survived by his wife and three children. One glance at Demme's filmography and you'll see an incredibly versatile slate that ranged from B-movie roots, like his Roger Corman-produced directorial debut, Caged Heat, to comedy, like his 1988 hit Married to the Mob, to music, for his work with...

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Jonathan Demme, who won an Academy Award for directing The Silence of the Lambs, has died, according to Indiewire and other sources.  He was 73.  When he was making a film in England, Roger Corman hired Demme as a unit publicist, per Corman's book How I Made a Hundred Movies in Hollywood and Never Lost a Dime. Needing scripts, Corman offered Demme the chance to write a motorcycle movie, which Demme did with Joe Viola. The result was Angels Hard as They Come (1971), and Demme was off and running.  Corman gave him a chance to direct. Caged Heat and Crazy Mama were exploitation movies, but they had a little something extra, and as Demme continued to hone his talents, he applied them on a...

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

The Oscar-winning director Jonathan Demme died at age 73. “Melvin and Howard” (1980) Demme made his directorial debut on the 1974 Roger Corman flick “Caged Heat” but he really emerged with this road trip drama about a man claiming to be Howard Hughes’ heir. The film won two Oscars, for Bo Goldman’s script and Mary Steenburgen’s supporting performance. “Stop Making Sense” (1984) Demme made some of the finest music concert films in the modern era, including this gem of the ’80s legends the Talking Heads. “Something Wild” (1986) Melanie Griffith charms as a free spirit who “kidnaps” Jeff Daniels’ uptight yuppie. “Swimming to Cambodia” (1987) Demme continued.

Some awful news has arrived this morning with the announcement that the great director Jonathan Demme has passed away at the age of 73.

Demme began his career, like many of his generation, working for exploitation producer Roger Corman, writing and producing two movies before making his directorial debut with Corman’s prison movie “Caged Heat” in 1974. He broke through to the mainstream with Cb-radio comedy “Citizens Band,” before making Roy Scheider thriller “Last Embrace” and the beautiful comedy “Melvin And Howard” in 1980, a film that wasn’t a hit back then, but has grown in reputation over time, now cited as a favorite of Paul Thomas Anderson and others (Anderson’s been a consistent booster of Demme).

Continue reading R.I.P. Oscar-Winning ‘Silence Of The Lambs’ Director Jonathan Demme at The Playlist.

Every day, Watch This offers staff recommendations inspired by a new movie coming out that week. Because it’s Horror Week here at The A.V. Club, we’re highlighting some of the best unsung slasher movies.

The Slumber Party Massacre (1982)

Filmmakers like Martin Scorsese and Peter Bogdanovich, who got their start working for B-movie impresario Roger Corman, often talk about the creative freedom afforded by Corman’s commercial formula. So long as they stuck to the budget and delivered enough action, violence, and sex to satisfy the audience—or at least enough to cut into an exciting trailer—they could play around some with style and content. That’s how Joe Dante was able to turn the shameless Jaws rip-off Piranha into a sly parody, and how Jonathan Demme could make Caged Heat into a women’s prison picture that didn’t feel like sleazy exploitation. And that ...

Orange Is the New Black returns June 17. The show has rightly earned praise for its nuanced, moving portrayals of female inmates of all stripes, and serves as a reminder of how far things have come in terms of images of incarcerated women on screen. In appreciation of series creator Jenji Kohan and the cast and crew's elevated take on the subject matter, we're looking back at the bleak and often exploitative history of the strange "women's prison drama" film genre. The portrayal of women in prison can be split - as most of Hollywood can - into two periods: Pre- and Post-Code.

Orange Is the New Black returns June 17. The show has rightly earned praise for its nuanced, moving portrayals of female inmates of all stripes, and serves as a reminder of how far things have come in terms of images of incarcerated women on screen. In appreciation of series creator Jenji Kohan and the cast and crew's elevated take on the subject matter, we're looking back at the bleak and often exploitative history of the strange "women's prison drama" film genre. The portrayal of women in prison can be split - as most of Hollywood can - into two periods: Pre- and Post-Code.

Mvd Entertainment Group furthers the distribution of "Arrow Video" in the Us with several new home video titles available July 2016, including "The Swinging Cheerleaders" [Blu-ray + DVD] (July 5th),  "Crimes Of Passion [Blu-ray + DVD] (July 12th) and "Female Prisoner Scorpion: The Complete Collection" [Blu-ray + DVD] (July 26th):

"The Swinging Cheerleaders" [Blu-ray + DVD] (July 5th): 

"'Kate', an undergraduate at 'Mesa University', goes undercover as a cheerleader for her college newspaper in order to expose 'female exploitation in contemporary society'. But instead of oppression she finds love, friendship and a bigger fish to fry: namely corruption in the football team, headed up by the coach and his pals..."

Cast includes Colleen Camp ("Wayne's World"), Rainbeaux Smith ("Caged Heat") and Playboy Playmate Rosanne Katon.

Bonus Materials include : 

- Brand new 2K restoration from original film materials

- High Definition (1080p) and Standard Definition DVD Presentations

- Optional subtitles 

- Audio commentary

- Brand new interview with Jack Hill

-...

Can’t get enough looks at Independence Day: Resurgence before its release on June 24th? Four new behind-the-scenes videos have dropped, giving us a look at some pivotal scenes in the film as well as a profile of director Roland Emmerich. Also: a Ghoster concept trailer, details on three new Arrow Video Us releases, and info on the Dances with Films screening of Beacon Point.

Watch Four New Independence Day: Resurgence Videos: “We always knew they were coming back. After Independence Day redefined the event movie genre, the next epic chapter delivers global spectacle on an unimaginable scale. Using recovered alien technology, the nations of Earth have collaborated on an immense defense program to protect the planet. But nothing can prepare us for the aliens’ advanced and unprecedented force. Only the ingenuity of a few brave men and women can bring our world back from the brink of extinction.

Directed by Roland Emmerich,...

It’s often only following an IMDb visit that you identify a Jonathan Demme film, so dramatic are his shapeshifting abilities in genre, from documentary to crime comedy to political caper. Unlike Steven Soderbergh’s signature aesthetic touches to his output, Demme fashions a deep dive into characters and their complex dynamics instead. Since his schooling under Roger Corman and his first film “Caged Heat” in 1974, the director has helmed a string of classics --“Something Wild,” “Silence of the Lambs,” “Married To The Mob”–as well as remakes (“The Manchurian Candidate”), documentaries, and concert films (“Stop Making Sense”). Read More: Watch: 27-Minute Talk Between Paul Thomas Anderson And Jonathan Demme Those career peaks kept to the edges of Demme’s talk with fest curator Elvis Mitchell last week at this year’s La Film Festival, though. Rather, the occasion–titled “Jonathan Demme: American Iconoclast”--touched on Demme’s...

The film draws on ‘women in prison’ exploitation films, but its feminism and attitudes toward race are far less bold (Warning: spoilers)

Who would have thought that “women in prison” films, one of the most despised exploitation movie subgenres, would become so influential? And yet, stealthily, the films have permeated popular culture in recent years. Orange is the New Black has garnered widespread acclaim for both its storytelling and its diverse cast; the Australian series Wentworth set new standards for brutality on the small screen. And now, Mad Max: Fury Road is winning accolades from virtually everyone for its high-octane vision of feminist heroism and patriarchy upended.

Fury Road hasn’t generally been thought of as a Wip film. But much of it has been lifted directly from that genre. The whole movie is organised around a prison escape. Furiosa (Charlize Theron) is freeing a group of women from sex...

All week long our writers will debate: Which was the greatest film year of the past half century.  Click here for a complete list of our essays. I was one of the first to select years for this particular exercise, which probably allowed me to select the correct year. The answer is, of course, 1974 and all other answers are wrong. No matter what your criteria happens to be, 1974 is going to come out on top. Again, this is not ambiguous or open to debate. We have to start, of course, with the best of the best. "Chinatown" is one of the greatest movies ever made. You can't structure a thriller better than Robert Towne and Roman Polanski do, nor shoot a Los Angeles movie better than John Alonzo has done. Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway give the best performances of their careers, which is no small achievement. If you ask...

Mandingo, a 1975 movie based on the best-selling period potboiler by Kyle Onstott about sexual shenanigans between masters and slaves on the Falconhurst slave-breeding plantation, was savaged by critics who saw it as nothing but degrading, big-budget exploitation. Roger Ebert called it “racist trash”, a “piece of manure”, and “excruciating to sit through”. Mandingo certainly had it all; brutal violence, interracial sex, rape, infanticide, lynchings, and abundant nudity including full-frontal shots of it’s male star, boxer Ken Norton. But of course it was a huge hit and inspired a brief run of “slaverysploitation” films such as Passion Plantation (1975 aka Black Emmanuelle, White Emmanuelle ) and the cleverly titled Mandiga (1976). Mandingo was overwrought melodrama to be sure, but it’s a model of subtlety compared to its official sequel, the more lascivious Drum, a mean-spirited trash epic from 1976 that would never fly in today’s politically correct climate. Despite its spaghetti western trappings,...

Screen Syndicate, a side project of Southern Illinois-based Americana band Stace England and the Salt Kings, explores the fascinating history of Roger Corman’s New World Pictures and the exploitation films made by the company in the 1970s. The life of actress Roberta Collins — a Hollywood story of sadly unfulfilled promise — is the vehicle used to navigate the period. Collins lit up the screen in films like The Big Doll House, Women In Cages and Death Race 2000. But Collins was unable to break out of the B-movie grind, playing minor roles in increasingly poor productions before finally exiting the business. She died in obscurity in 2008. Screen Syndicate combines original songs, film clips, trailers, and other material into a unique live-music experience that pays tribute to Collins. The band has performed at numerous film festivals in the U.S. and Europe — appearing twice at Sliff — with shows about pioneering African-American filmmaker Oscar Micheaux and Cairo,...

Caged Heat screens Saturday November 22nd at 8pm as part of The St. Louis International Film Festival. There will also be a concert by Stace England and the Screen Syndicate, who play an album of songs inspired by Roberta Collins, one of the film’s stars. The Venue is Kdhx (3524 Washington Boulevard‎ St Louis, Mo 63103)

I love Women’s prison films – Chained Heat, Hellhole, Ilsa She Wolf Of The SS, The Big Bird Cage, The Big Doll House, Reform School Girls, and The Concrete Jungle all sit proudly on my Wip (Women in Prison) DVD shelf. One of the very best of this beloved subgenre is Caged Heat (1974), a wonderful exploitation masterpiece and the directing debut of Oscar-winner Jonathan Demme, that has everything you could possibly hope for in a Women-In-Prison movie: nudity, shower catfights, lesbian coupling, race wars, murder, chain-swinging, switch-blade slashing, and shock therapy!

Wow! You’re probably...

Caged Heat screens Saturday November 22nd at 8pm as part of The St. Louis International Film Festival. There will also be a concert by Stace England and the Screen Syndicate, who play an album of songs inspired by Roberta Collins, one of the film’s stars. The Venue is Kdhx (3524 Washington Boulevard‎ St Louis, Mo 63103)

I love Women’s prison films – Chained Heat, Hellhole, Ilsa She Wolf Of The SS, The Big Bird Cage, The Big Doll House, Reform School Girls, and The Concrete Jungle all sit proudly on my Wip (Women in Prison) DVD shelf. One of the very best of this beloved subgenre is Caged Heat (1974), a wonderful exploitation masterpiece and the directing debut of Oscar-winner Jonathan Demme, that has everything you could possibly hope for in a Women-In-Prison movie: nudity, shower catfights, lesbian coupling, race wars, murder, chain-swinging, switch-blade slashing, and shock therapy!

Wow! You’re probably...

Oscar bait performances by Reese Witherspoon, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Timothy Spall, a Tenacious Eats “Movies for Foodies” event, and a tribute to the St. Louis-born silent film star King Baggot are some of the many highlights of this year’s St. Louis International Film Festival. Cinema St. Louis announced the 2014 line-up today and it’s the usual hi-quality mix of independent films, foreign films, locally-made films, end-of-year studio awards product, and retro programming.

The 23rd Annual Whitaker St. Louis International Film Festival (Sliff) will be held Nov. 13-23. Sliff will screen 389 films: 89 narrative features, 76 documentary features, and 224 shorts. This year’s festival has 239 screenings/programs, with 69 countries represented. The fest will host more than 125 filmmakers and related guests, including honorees Doug Pray (Contemporary Cinema Award), Katie Mustard (Women in Film Award), and Timothy J. Sexton (Charles Guggenheim Cinema St. Louis Award).

The festival will open on Thursday, Nov. 13, with the...

Two of the most remarkable careers in today's Hollywood belong to Roger Corman and Jonathan Demme: the former the unimaginably influential director of over 50 films and driving force behind going on 400, most of them brilliant B-movies; the latter the difficult-to-pin-down helmer behind “Silence of the Lambs,” “Philadelphia” and “Stop Making Sense.” Corman is a Hollywood institution, still producing aged 88 (his next project is “Sharktopus vs Mermantula”), while Demme, startlingly, turned 70 this year, though he still works like a much younger, more contemporary man. Good for Interview magazine, then, for getting them together, in the form of Demme interviewing Corman. In fact, the two also have a history: Corman's producing role made possible Demme's first film, the semi-satirical, much-maligned “Caged Heat” (which, now that we think about it, feels a lot more like a Corman picture than a Demme picture). So when Demme phoned up Corman to talk old times,...

“I got the habit of drinking Lysol in Gainesville in ’49. You ever been to Florida? I never saw the beach.” Cresus (Lincoln Kilpatrick) tells this to Burke (Viggo Mortensen) in a rather sad confession of a lifer. The two are recently assigned cellmates at a newly reopened penitentiary, which looks like a set from an Aip film starring Vincent Price in the 1960’s.

The American directing debut of Renny Harlin tells the story of a prison haunted by the ghost of an executed inmate. This ghost however is as much of the psychological as it is the external; the men in this prison are haunted by their own past, present, and the horrors of the future.

Produced by Charles Band for Empire Pictures in the late 1980’s, Prison is one of the studio’s smartest films. C. Courtney Joyner contributes a surprisingly deep screenplay for a supernatural horror film. The large ensemble cast,...

Roger Corman is a Hollywood legend. The Oscar-winning producer might be the single-most prolific filmmaker ever with over 300 movies to his name. Along the way, he provided a big break to Martin Scorsese, James Cameron, Jack Nicholson and many others. His "cheap and fast" approach to sci-fi, horror and action has given us timeless cult classics like "The Little Shop of Horrors," "Death Race 2000," "Caged Heat" and "Galaxy of Terror." However, Corman is hoping to top himself yet again with his first 3D movie, "Attack of the 50 Foot Cheerleader." The film is about young cheerleading-hopeful Cassie Stratton (Jena Sims), who's so desperate to excel at the sport she subjects herself to a radical new drug that is supposed to increase her athletic abilities. Naturally, it all goes disastrously wrong and Cassie grows to gigantic proportions. If that wasn't bad enough, her mean girl rival, Brittany (Olivia Alexander), steals the formula,...

The Russ Meyer Show Featuring Kitten Natividad takes place in St. Louis this Friday, June 15th at The Way Out Club. Details at the end of this article.

Article by Jim Batts, Dana Jung, and Tom Stockman

Russell Albion “Russ” Meyer was born in California in 1922 and spent WWII as a combat photographer. In 1953 Playboy magazine debuted and Meyer was one of its first centerfold photographers. Meyer had a knack, and a passion, for photographing gorgeous, busty women and felt that the gals in the nudist camp movies that were popular in the ’50s were far too plain-looking for his tastes. In 1959, Meyer scraped together $24,000 and made The Immoral Mr. Teas, a quaint, colorful, and cartoonish movie about a nerdy fellow whose life is constantly interrupted by beautiful large-breasted women in various stages of undress. There was no sex in Meyer’s film and he made no pretense of presenting nudity as a lifestyle choice,...

With Joss Whedon's The Avengers spectacle signed, sealed, and delivered, Marvel Studios is gearing up for "phase two" of their cinematic universe, kicking off with the production of Iron Man 3. Under the working title Caged Heat, a casting call was recently held at the Crabtree Valley Mall of Raleigh, Nc, where thousands lined up from outside the mall and around the building. While the casting call previously called for extras of Chinese and Middle Eastern descents, additionally, the latest one is open to identical twins. Seeking: a set of identical twins (can be male or female) between the ages of 12-14 years of age, Artsy and/or eccentric types, computer geeks, Professor types, business professionals (Men & Women), upscale preppy types, those with unusual hair, piercing or facial hair. All Ethnic Backgrounds Needed. Please attend one of casting calls on either Sat. April 14th in Raleigh @ Crabtree Valley Mall...

When news broke that Schindler's List actor Ben Kingsley was in final negotiations to join Marvel Studios' anticipated Iron Man 3 as an undisclosed villain, the long-awaited inclusion of The Mandarin became more of a probability. And while reports suggest Kingsley will in fact portray the "Ten Rings Leader", with certain characteristics altered from the comics, a new casting call has been issued amplifying that possibility. Major Motion Picture Casting Call The Major Motion Picture "Caged Heat" is seeking those interested in working as Extras on the film. Filming on this this star studded movie will take place this summer in various areas of North Carolina. The Tona B. Dahlquist Casting Company (of The Hunger Games, Homeland, Leatherheads & Forrest Gump) will be holding a call on Saturday April 14, 2012 in the Raleigh area. All Types, All Ages & All Ethnic Descents Are Needed. In addition there is a special need for...