News

Variety veteran Steven Gaydos was hailed as a “Renaissance man” of movies and journalism as he received career achievement honors from the Filming Italy Los Angeles festival, supported by the Italian Cultural Institute arm of Italy’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation.

Gaydos, who is Variety‘s VP and executive editor of features, was feted Feb. 21 at the closing night of the 10th annual Filming Italy Los Angeles gathering. Actor Alessandro Nivola was on hand to present the laurel to Gaydos, whose career has blended journalism and screenwriting over the years. He’s long been a booster of international film in general and European filmmakers in particular through his work at Variety and association with numerous festivals, including Filming Italy Los Angeles and its founder, Tiziana Rocca.

Nivola introduced Gaydos to the crowd at the Harmony Gold theater in Hollywood as “a Renaissance man.”

“Few people have straddled...

The actor Michael Madsen, best known for his roles in Quentin Tarantino films such as Reservoir Dogs (1992) and Kill Bill Vols 1 and 2 (2003 and 2004), was arrested in Malibu early on Saturday for domestic battery after a fight with his wife, DeAnna Madsen.

Incident Details

Deputies with the Malibu/Lost Hill Sheriff’s Station responded to a domestic incident call at the residence shortly after midnight on August 17.

The 66-year-old actor was arrested at around 12:15 am for misdemeanor domestic battery under California Penal Code 243(e)(1): ‘Beating, wounding, torturing, or otherwise injuring a cohabitant or engaged to a cohabitant; placing a cohabitant in reasonable apprehension of imminent serious bodily injury.’

He was booked at the station at 1:40 am and released after posting a $20,000 bond.

According to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, the incident occurred Friday afternoon on Broad Beach Road in Malibu, when deputies were dispatched regarding a disturbance...

Michael Madsen was arrested in Malibu on Saturday morning on charges of domestic battery following “a disagreement between” the actor and his wife, DeAnna Madsen.

Authorities based at the Malibu/Lost Hill Sheriff’s Station responded to a call shortly after midnight on Aug. 17. The 66-year-old actor was arrested for a domestic battery misdemeanor under Penal Code 243(e)(1), meaning force or violence was allegedly used against a cohabitant. The actor was booked at the Station at 1:40 a.m.

“It was a disagreement between Michael and his wife, which we hope resolves positively for them both,” a representative for Madsen said in a statement to Variety. Madsen is no longer in custody after posting a $20,000 bond.

Madsen is best known as a regular star in the films of Quentin Tarantino. The actor made a splash in the director’s 1992 debut thriller “Reservoir Dogs,” which featured Madsen as Mr. Blonde, the...

Indie musical “Heart Strings” will have its Los Angeles premiere June 30 at American Cinematheque’s Loz Feliz Theater. Director Ate de Jong (“Drop Dead Fred”) co-wrote the film with Steven Gaydos, Variety executive VP, Global Content, who is also co-producing.

“It’s a great honor to screen at the American Cinematheque. And especially to play the film at their Los Feliz location where ‘Heart Strings’ first began as a screenplay decades ago when I lived there after working on a Roger Corman film in Georgia,” Gaydos said. “Fans of 1970s American indie cinema might be surprised to find that Ate de Jong has just made an audience-engaging film with the subversive spirit and maverick attitude of that time. It only took 50 years to get the job done, which I hope makes Francis Coppola feel better about ‘Megalopolis!’”

“Heart Strings” follows phony lovebirds Lucky (Sam Varga) and Billie (Maggie Koerner) who...

Prepare for an evening filled with laughter and outrageous antics as “Ridiculousness” returns with a brand new episode from Season 38. Tune in to MTV at 8:00 Pm on Sunday, March 24, 2024, for “Sterling and Lolo Wood Xxix,” where hosts Rob and Steelo are joined by the hilarious Lolo Wood for a wild ride through the world of absurdity.

In this episode, get ready for some serious “Iguana Drama” as the crew explores the unexpected antics of these reptilian creatures. But that’s not all – brace yourselves for some chaotic “Kid Collisions” as Rob and Steelo navigate through the unpredictable world of children’s shenanigans.

Plus, keep your hands out of harm’s way as they delve into the realm of “Vehicular Hand Slaughter,” where every move is a potential danger zone.

Don’t miss out on the fun and mayhem of “Ridiculousness” as Rob, Steelo, and Lolo Wood deliver another round...

While Italian genre cinema generated its fair share of classics throughout the ’70s and ’80s, filmmakers during that period were also quick to exploit successful trends. Lax copyright protections gave way to Italian rip-offs of such hits as The Exorcist, Jaws, Dawn of the Dead, Alien, The Evil Dead, and Mad Max, to name a few.

Not even Italy’s own productions were safe from imitation, as the cannibal subgenre proved. While 1972’s Man from Deep River is often cited as the originator, the international notoriety of Cannibal Holocaust ushered in the cannibal boom in 1980. Man from Deep River director Umberto Lenzi helmed another one of the subgenre’s highlights, Cannibal Ferox (originally released in the US as Make Them Die Slowly), in 1981.

Shot on location in the Amazon, the film follows three Americans to the Colombian jungles in search of an alleged cannibal village. Unfortunately for them, they find...

Revisiting last year's introduction when putting together 2021's favorites, it is with a shock to realize how little has changed in the wildly disrupted world of cinema under the shroud of the pandemic. The urge to copy-and-paste the whole shebang is quite tempting indeed.What can we say about this year, 2021? We got a little more used to long-term instability. Cinemas and festivals re-opened, only for some to close again. We, like many, ventured carefully out into the world to finally see films again with audiences, all kinds: nervous ones, uproarious ones, spartan ones, and delighted ones. It was an experience both anxious and joyous. We also doubled down on the challenges, but also the pleasures, of home viewing: of virtual cinemas and virtual festivals, of straight to streaming premieres, of trying to capture a social joy in semi-isolation by connecting with others over experiences shared and disparate.The long...

On the release of what was to be the late Monte Hellman’s final feature film in 2011, critic Steve Erickson noted “Monte Hellman is the ultimate outlaw filmmaker.”

A decade earlier, filmmaker-critic Kent Jones wrote that “anything written in America about Monte Hellman … cinema’s most under-appreciated great director … must be a defense.”

Decades before Jones’ astute assessment, film critic David Thomson had noted, “No system could digest the willful arbitrariness of Monte Hellman’s best films,” which is probably as clear an explanation of why Hellman made only one Hollywood Studio film in a directing career that stretched from 1959 to 2011 and included stints as Jack Nicholson’s filmmaking partner and Quentin Tarantino’s directorial debut enabler-producer.

That assessment of Hellman’s importance, that notion that a defensive posture is the inevitable position of the Hellman fan and the idea that Hellman’s Hollywood Failure was his greatest success, all...

Influential instead of famous, brilliant in a way for which his medium has little remaining use, Monte Hellman died yesterday at 91. It was heartening, if not a bit surprising all the same, to see my Twitter feed instantly and unanimously alight with praise for the director, whose filmography is often distilled to one sui generis classic and considered an object of intense interest for true believers otherwise.

Whatever that implies, it’s hard to recommend a filmography with less reservation—Hellman’s cinema is immediately identifiable for its vision of rugged, roughshod masculinity, accessible with its use of iconic figures, and (at the risk of underlining this point too sharply) always invigorates in its sense of discovering some well-kept secret.

Some cursory searches reveal a good number readily streaming. So long as you don’t mind the occasional ad break, your first step is Tubi, which hosts his Jack Nicholson...

Get ready to see some of the most insanely creative costumes yet, from a banana to a robot, on this season of “The Masked Singer” on Fox.

The reality singing competition just teased 13 costumes for Season 3, which premieres Feb. 2 right after the Super Bowl. The new season will have 18 contestants (two more competitors than last season), each of whom will wear a costume hiding their identify until they are eliminated from the show. Once they are eliminated, they are also unmasked and then go on to perform a song baring their face, as well as their soul.

The costumes this season include food inspired wardrobe, as well as unique animal fashion, and you can see the first look images below.

Season 2 of “The Masked Singer” saw actor and singer Wayne Brady, the Fox, take home the golden mask trophy. He beat out the Flamingo (Adrienne Bailon) and the Rottweiler (Chris Daughtry...

The Iguana With The Tongue Of Fire will be available on Blu-ray April 9th From Arrow Video

One of several animal-in-the-title cash-ins released in the wake of Dario Argento s box-office smash The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, The Iguana with the Tongue of Fire is a gloriously excessive giallo that boasts a rogues gallery of perverse characters; violent, fetishized murders, and one of the genre s most nonsensical, red-herring laden plots (which sees almost every incidental character hinted at potentially being the killer).

Set in Dublin (a rather surprising giallo setting), Iguana opens audaciously with an acid-throwing, razor-wielding maniac brutally slaying a woman in her own home. The victim s mangled corpse is discovered in a limousine owned by Swiss Ambassador Sobiesky and a police investigation is launched, but when the murdering continues and the ambassador claims diplomatic immunity, tough ex-cop John Norton is brought in to find the killer…...

Pop is now officially a global mishmash: K-pop groups collaborate with Latin artists; American rappers add verses to Brazilian baile funk hits; the electronic producer Marshmello made an entire video honoring Shah Rukh Khan, the Indian film star known as the “King of Bollywood.” In that context, it’s not as surprising that Inna, a star in Romania who lives half the year in Barcelona, is recording an entire Spanish-language album, Yo, that will subsequently be released by Roc Nation’s Latin division later this year.

The latest single from Yo is “Tu Manera,...

"The Night Of The Iguana: Close Encounters In The Jungle"

By Eve Goldberg

The Night of the Iguana, Tennessee Williams’s last great play, was turned into a 1964 movie which, in its day, was as famous for its behind-the-scenes spectacle as for what actually appeared on screen.

Today, Iguana is rarely mentioned alongside the other classic Tennessee Williams film adaptations: Streetcar Named Desire, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and Suddenly, Last Summer. Despite a tremendously talented cast, compelling characters, and a can’t-look-away examination of our anguished, redeemable humanity, Iguana is often neglected.

So, it’s high time for a fresh look at this movie — with a focus on its journey from stage to screen.

The Play

"Shannon!" shouts Maxine Faulk from the veranda of her run-down hotel on the coast of Mexico. Thus opens Tennessee Williams’ 1961 play. The setting is 1940. Recently widowed Maxine greets her old friend, Reverend Shannon,...

"The Night Of The Iguana: Close Encounters In The Jungle"

By Eve Goldberg

The Night of the Iguana, Tennessee Williams’s last great play, was turned into a 1964 movie which, in its day, was as famous for its behind-the-scenes spectacle as for what actually appeared on screen.

Today, Iguana is rarely mentioned alongside the other classic Tennessee Williams film adaptations: Streetcar Named Desire, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and Suddenly, Last Summer. Despite a tremendously talented cast, compelling characters, and a can’t-look-away examination of our anguished, redeemable humanity, Iguana is often neglected.

So, it’s high time for a fresh look at this movie — with a focus on its journey from stage to screen.

The Play

"Shannon!" shouts Maxine Faulk from the veranda of her run-down hotel on the coast of Mexico. Thus opens Tennessee Williams’ 1961 play. The setting is 1940. Recently widowed Maxine greets her old friend, Reverend Shannon,...

Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: Oct. 7, 2014

Price: DVD $24.95, Blu-ray $29.95

Studio: Raro Video/Kino

Everett McGill is the 19th Century sailor known as Iguana

Everett McGill (TV’s Twin Peaks) stars in Monte Hellman’s (Road to Nowhere, The Shooting) strange, rarely-seen 1988 adventure film Iguana.

McGill portrays a grotesquely disfigured harpooner known as “Iguana,” who is severely mistreated by his fellow sailors on a whaling ship in the 19th century. One night, Iguana escapes and takes up residence on a remote island, where he makes himself the absolute ruler declares war on mankind. Anyone unfortunate enough to wind up on the island with Iguana is then subjected to his cruel tyranny….

Awarded the Filmcritica “Bastone Bianco” Award (Special Mention) at the Venice Film Festival, Iguana also features Michael Madsen (The Brazen Bull), Fabio Testi (Letters to Juliet) and Maru Valdivieso in its cast.

Bonus features on the Blu-ray and DVD include a...

For a self-described "reactionary" filmmaker, Monte Hellman is remarkably forward-thinking. Road to Nowhere (reviewed here), his first feature since 1989, is a film shot digitally that's partly about cinema in the digital age; from its very first shot—where a character pops a DVD-r with the film's title on it into a laptop—on, Road to Nowhere is a film about the slipperiness of digitally created, manipulated and viewed images. Written by longtime Hellman collaborator Steve Gaydos, it stars Shannyn Sossammon as Laurel, an inexperienced actress who is cast in a true crime drama also called Road to Nowhere (directed by one “Mitchell Haven” and written by one “Stephen Gates”); in this film-within-a-film, Laurel plays femme-fatale-ish Velma Duran, though the whole thing is ambiguous enough (in terms of structure, characterization, aesthetics, etc.) that at least one character begins to suspect that Laurel and Duran are in fact the same person.

Hellman is erudite and easygoing.

Monte Hellman's best films begin by pretending to tell a story. Take your pick: Ride in the Whirlwind, Two-Lane Blacktop, Cockfighter, Iguana—every of them establishes a good punchy premise (often aided by a startling opening shot or scene) and then, without ever fully abandoning "plot," inches towards an earthy, unshowy, existential bleakness with each scene. In an odd (and ironic) interplay of inertia and impermanence, his frequently stubborn characters become metaphors while their all-consuming goals fade away into the landscape. Road to Nowhere ups the ante by pretending to tell several stories at once: one about the production of a film (also called Road to Nowhere), another about the crime the film is based on, and a third involving a mysterious video-recorded conversation between the film's director and the blogger whose reporting formed the basis for the film. However, the various strands, which are intentionally not differentiated, don't...

There’s little better at restoring one’s faith in cinema then when a great director returns from the wilderness. Terrence Malick was Mia for 20 years between Days of Heaven and The Thin Red Line, but Monte Hellman’s time away from feature filmmaking has been even more prolonged. It was as far back as 1988 when Hellman made Iguana, his last “proper” film, but now the director of such cult classics as Two Lane Blacktop and Cockfighter has happily returned to filmmaking.

Last fall, Hellman unveiled Road to Nowhere at the Venice Film Festival – where he won a Jury Award Special Lion for Career Achievement – and declared the movie his first truly personal work. It’s a deliriously enjoyable film about filmmaking, centering on a director, Mitchell Haven (Tygh Runyan) and screenwriter, Steven Gates (Rob Kolar), who set out to make a movie based on a recent crime story involving murder,...

By Sean O’Connell

Hollywoodnews.com: “Road to Nowhere” already has led Steven Gaydos to some pretty special places. He’s hoping the journey has just begun.

Gaydos, who serves as Variety’s executive editor, recently penned a film-noir script that centered around a young director embroiled in a true-crime mystery. He pitched the idea to his friend and former colleague, acclaimed director Monte Hellman. To Gaydos’ surprise, Hellman bit on the idea, and the two were in business. They hired a cast that included Shannyn Sossamon and Dominique Swain. They filmed around the world, shooting in California, North Carolina, England and Italy. Earlier this fall, they unveiled the picture at the Venice Film Festival and received raves.

“Monte only knows one way to make a movie, which is ahead of the pack,” Gaydos said. “He does not tether himself to popular taste. But I think he has made a...

As Cinema Retro 'regulars' know, we have occasionally been able to find unpublished or rarely-seen interviews with legendary film personalities and provide them for our readers. In issue #1 of the magazine, Steve Mori provided an unseen interview Steve McQueen from 1968 and in issue #15, Steve did the same with a fascinating 1974 discussion with Lee Marvin. Now contributing writer Kris Gilpin has been kind enough to share with us with a 1988 interview with director Monte Hellman, whose work is revered by some of the great directors of our time. Please keep in mind that the text and events that are discussed in this interview took place in 1988 and have not been amended. (This is part one of a two-part interview.)

Interview With Monte Hellman

By Kris Gilpin

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Born July 12th, 1932 in New York City, writer-director Monte Hellman’s work is miles above typical American...