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New York’s greatest B-movie legend is coming back to the Big Apple. Prolific writer-director-producer Larry Cohen returns to his native New York this weekend to appear at a retrospective of his New York-set films at the newly-renovated Quad Cinema.

Read More: ‘Kill Switch’ Teaser Trailer: Dan Stevens Stars in Apocalyptic Sci-Fi Thriller — Watch

The writer behind 2002’s “Phone Booth” and director of “A Return to Salem’s Lot,” Cohen directed 20 movies and wrote dozens of screenplays for both film and television during his roughly 50 year career. Many of his most well-known films were set in New York.

“It was my favorite place to shoot,” Cohen said. “New York is the world’s greatest backlot.”

The retrospective, entitled “Larry Cohen’s New York,” will include the “Whisper” cut of Cohen’s 1976 horror-thriller “God Told Me To,” a version that has never been screened in New York before. The other films...

“In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes,” Andy Warhol famously said, but the legendary artist probably didn’t expect that such a sentiment would apply to his own screen tests, which have endured over the decades as a curious, intimate look at the inner workings of his creative process.

Filmed during the ’60s-era heyday of his Warhol Factory, the black and white screen tests feature a slew of Warhol regulars — from Ondine to Edie Sedgwick, Lou Reed to Bob Dylan — and other famous faces of the day, all lensed on Warhol’s own Bolex camera. Nearly 500 of the screen tests were filmed, though Warhol did not use or exhibit all of them. Favorites were arranged into various compilations that were then screened by Warhol for assorted audiences, though they’ve continued to inspire and delight fans for decades past their original filming.

Read More: Quad Cinema Reborn:...

Acclaimed Spanish filmmaker Bigas Luna has died aged 67. The Catalan director had been battling leukemia.Like his peer Pedro Almodóvar, Luna was a key voice in the new wave of Spanish filmmaking that emerged under the shadow of General Franco's repressive regime. He started out as a student of conceptual art and design, taking an early interest in visual technologies that would play into a lifelong passion for painting and photography. Luna's filmmaking career began with low-budget flick Bilbao in 1978, a typically unrestrained, psychosexual drama, before 1981's Reborn - his only English-language film - pitched Dennis Hopper, a phony televangelist, into a relationship with a real faith healer. Anguish (1987) saw Luna turn out a Lynchian horror set in a movie theatre that would go on to achieve cult status.Arguably, his purple patch stretched across a loose trilogy that began with 1981's Jamón, Jamón. That was followed by Golden Balls and,...

Spanish film director whose 'Iberian passion' trilogy began with Jamon Jamon

For 39 years, under General Francisco Franco's repressive regime, it was almost impossible for Spain to create a vibrant film industry and for talented film-makers to express themselves freely. However, after the death of the Generalissimo in 1975, there was a burst of creativity, with Pedro Almodóvar paving the way for directors such as Bigas Luna, who has died of cancer aged 67.

After some years as a conceptual artist who experimented with new audio-visual media, Luna became known internationally for his "Iberian passion" feature film trilogy: Jamon Jamon (1992), Golden Balls (1993) and The Tit and the Moon (1994), which explored the darkest depths of eroticism and stereotypical Spanish machismo. The first film introduced Penélope Cruz to audiences and launched Javier Bardem as the embodiment of the Spanish stud. "I owe my career to Bigas Luna," Bardem said in 2001.

In the trilogy, Luna,...

DVD Playhouse—November 2011

By Allen Gardner

Tree Of Life (20th Century Fox) Terrence Malick’s latest effort is both the best film of 2011 and the finest work of his (arguably) mixed, but often masterly canon. A series of vignettes, mostly set in 1950s Texas, capture the memory of a man (Sean Penn) in present-day New York who looks back on his life, and his parents’ (Brad Pitt, Jessica Chastain) troubled marriage, when word of his younger brother’s suicide reaches him. Almost indescribable beyond that, except to say no other film in history so perfectly evokes the magic and mystery of the human memory, which both crystalizes (and sometimes idealizes) the past. Like Stanley Kubrick’s 2001, this is a challenging, polarizing work that you must let wash over you. If you go along for the ride, you’re in for a unique, rewarding cinematic experience. Also available on Blu-ray disc.

From the pages of Deep Red in 1986, Joe Dante interviews a real monster’s monster.

It was 1986 and Godzilla had just made a comeback picture called Godzilla 85: The Legend Reborn.

He didn’t usually give interviews, due to his speech impediment, but the lure of a few drinks with an old pal (I directed him in my first picture, Hollywood Boulevard) got him to open up. I wouldn’t say he was bitter, exactly, but he’d been though a lot. I have no idea what he’s up to today, but I ran across this interview while cleaning out the garage, so here’s where his head was at 25 years ago…

I met with Godzilla at a Ginza sushi bar on a recent visit to Japan. Although in seemingly good health, he pretended not to remember me as the director of his only American picture of the past 30 years,...

Yonkers - Ernie Kovacs is the patron saint of innovative TV comedies. His impact can be felt on everything from Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In to Monty Python’s Flying Circus to Saturday Night Live. Shout! Factory’s The Ernie Kovacs Collection gives a survey of his short yet stellar career that ended in 1962 with his death. Over the course of six DVDs, you realize this guy truly revolutionized what you could do on TV.

The boxset doesn’t have any of the episodes from his original Three to Get Ready show that aired on Philly TV. But we get a healthy helping of his other shows that allowed him to bounce between NBC, CBS, ABC and even the legendary DuMont. Along with creating comedy shows, he hosted talkshows, gameshows and even variety shows. He even contributed to Mad Magazine. His famous mustache and cigar popped up all over the dial.

Sky Movies HD have got quite a good season coming up called ‘Movies You Never Got Around To Watching But Always Wanted To See’ and this sort of thing is perfect for people who aren’t sure what movies they should watch.

Their week of films starts Monday 11th Oct – Sunday 17th Oct and includes classic and groundbreaking movies like Jurassic Park, Jaws, Cool Hand Luke and Dead Poets Society.

Have a look at the list below including the date and time it will air and I’ve given trailers for each movie, when it’s on TV and some of my favourite clips for some of the movies too.

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Mon 11th 5.45pm Dead Poets Society

Director: Peter Weir

Cast: Robin Williams, Ethan Hawke, Welker White, Robert Sean Leonard, Josh Charles

Synopsis: Set in an exclusive boys preparatory school in 1959, a newly appointed English teacher uses unconventional techniques to inspire his students in classic poetry.

Dennis Hopper’s long film career began with the 1955 teen angst classic Rebel Without a Cause with James Dean, and he helped usher in Hollywood’s New Wave as director and star of the counterculture anthem Easy Rider in 1969. He later became a respected character actor, specializing in such off-beat villains as the drug-addicted, obscenity-spouting Frank Black in David Lynch’s Blue Velvet (1986), crazed bomber Howard Payne in the 1994 action-thriller Speed with Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock, and Deacon in Kevin Costner’s soggy post-apocalyptic saga Waterworld (1995).

Hopper was born in Dodge City, Kansas on May 17, 1936. He moved to San Diego, California with his family in the late 1940s, and began studying at the local Old Globe Theater while attending high school. He soon signed with Warner Brothers and was featured in a small role in 1955’s Rebel Without a Cause. He was later featured as Jordan Benedict III, the...

Just a day after the death of former child star Gary Coleman, legendary veteran actor Dennis Hopper has died at the age of 74 following a battle with prostate cancer which he was first diagnosed with last year reports The BBC.

The actor first came to notice with a small role in "Rebel Without a Cause" and went on to memorable roles in such films as "Easy Rider," "Apocalypse Now," "Blue Velvet," "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral," "Cool Hand Luke," "Hang 'Em High," "True Grit," "Mad Dog Morgan," "Reborn," "The Osterman Weekend," "Hoosiers," "Super Mario Bros.," "True Romance," "Speed," "Waterworld," "Basquiat," "EDtv," "Knockaround Guys," "Land of the Dead" and TV shows like "24," "Gunsmoke," "E-Ring," and "Crash".

Hopper died Saturday morning surrounded by friends and family at his home in Venice, California.