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Al Ruddy, two-time Oscar winner for producing “The Godfather” and “Million Dollar Baby,” died May 25 at UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles. Ruddy was also co-creator of “Hogan’s Heroes” and of “Walker, Texas Ranger.” He was 94.

After the success of sitcom “Hogan’s Heroes,” Ruddy went on to produce “Little Fauss and Big Halsy” and “Making It” before coming on to Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Godfather,” which was nominated for 11 Academy Awards.

Al Pacino said in a statement, “Al Ruddy was absolutely beautiful to me the whole time on ‘The Godfather’; even when they didn’t want me, he wanted me. He gave me the gift of encouragement when I needed it most and I’ll never forget it.”

After “The Godfather,” he produced his own story treatment for “The Longest Yard.”

Ruddy went on to produce notable films including “The Cannonball Run.” Other features he produced included “Matilda,” “Coonskin,...

Albert S. Ruddy, who earned two Best Picture Oscars for producing The Godfather and Million Dollar Baby and co-created TV shows including Walker, Texas Ranger and Hogan’s Heroes, died May 25 at UCLA Ronald Reagan Medical Center after a brief illness, a family spokesman said. He was 94.

Ruddy is one of nine producers ever to earn two or more Best Picture Oscars, and has the distinction of winning them with the largest interval in between — 32 years.

He recently was portrayed by Miles Teller in the Paramount+ miniseries The Offer, which chronicles Ruddy’s experience making the 1972 film that Coppola directed and adapted with Mario Puzo from the latter’s bestselling novel.

Related: Peter Bart: ‘The Offer’ Spins A Mafia Tale About ‘The Godfather’ That’s Really More Fiction Than Fact

“Al was truly one of the great Hollywood mavericks,” The Offer director Dexter Fletcher said in a statement. “One of...

Friday was comedy production veteran Joel Hornstock’s last day at 20th Century Fox TV, and the studio threw the beloved executive a going-away party, completed with a Farewell to the King banner. Hornstock, a 29-year studio veteran and its most senior comedy production executive, took the voluntary buyout package last spring but remained as a consultant for the past several months to train his successors. On Friday afternoon, more than 100 executives, producers, actors…...

Premium channel Epix acquired the rights to "Milius," Joey Figueroa and Zak Knutson's film about screenwriter, director and controversial Hollywood personality John Milius, ahead of its screening at the 2013 Telluride Film Festival. Today, Epix announced that it will be premiering the film on Saturday, January 11 at 8pm, alongside a day's worth of films written or directed by Milius, including "Apocalypse Now," "Dillinger" and "Red Dawn." The schedule, all times eastern: 9am - Apocalypse Now 11:30am - Red Dawn (1984) 1:30pm - Flight of the Intruder 3:30pm - Dillinger 5:25pm - Apocalypse Now 8pm - Milius 9:45pm - Red Dawn (1984) 11:45pm - Farewell to the King 1:45am - Milius 3:35am - Flight of the Intruder 5:35am - Dillinger "Milius" follows the title filmmaker from his childhood aspirations to join the military to his formative years at the USC Film School and on...

All those who complain about the liberal domination of Hollywood have never come across John Milius. A film school pal of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, Milius had tried to join the Marine Corp, but was turned away due to his asthma. Instead, he channeled his frustrations into both a life-long obsession with firearms (he was paid for "Jeremiah Johnson" in antique weaponry, and has served on the NRA Board of Directors) and making some of the most masculine, testosterone-filled movies of all time, both as an acclaimed writer and as a director. The basis for both Paul Le Mat's character in "American Graffiti" and Walter in "The Big Lebowski" -- the Coens are friends of Milius, and offered him the part of Jack Lipnick in "Barton Fink" -- he's one of film history's most singular, colorful characters.

He might not have had the overwhelming success of Lucas or Spielberg,...

He was one of the few directors of war movies with first-hand experience of conflict

Pierre Schoendoerffer, who has died aged 83, was one of the few directors of war films who had actually lived out the adventures of his soldier heroes. The American film-makers William Wellman, Sam Fuller and Oliver Stone did so, but no other director explored the same subject as single-mindedly and doggedly as Schoendoerffer.

His experiences of combat as a military cameraman and as a prisoner of war during the conflict in Indochina marked his output, most directly La 317ème Section (The 317th Platoon, 1965), about a doomed French unit; Le Crabe-Tambour (The Drummer Crab, 1977), about French officers involved in the fall of the French empire after the second world war; his Oscar-winning television documentary La Section Anderson (The Anderson Platoon, 1967), which followed the lives of Us soldiers in Vietnam; and Diên Biên Phú (1992), about a Us war...

Conan. James Bond. Tarzan. Terence looks at these, and other literary characters who were changed by movie-makers on their way to the big screen...

Adapting literary heroes to the screen is a tough dilemma for filmmakers. With the possible exception of the Harry Potter phenomenon, the vast majority of a potential movie audience often has little or no familiarity with any given character's literary exploits. The end result can often be frustrating for fans of the original stories, especially when movies make too many arbitrary changes, or even do away with the spirit and intentions of the books entirely.

Conan The Barbarian, the latest rendering of Robert E Howard's pulp fantasy hero, swung its way into cinemas last week. While critics and fans are divided over its merits, most agree that it's at least more faithful and better made than such Howard adaptations as Conan The Destroyer or Kull The Conqueror.

A man who works with his hands is a laborer;

a man who works with his hands and his brain is a craftsman;

but a man who works with his hands and his brain and his heart is an artist.

Louis Nizer

In his indispensable film study text, Understanding Movies, Louis Gianetti held forth on what separated craftsmanlike directors from those who rise above the norm:

“…what differentiates a great director from one who is merely competent is not so much a matter of what happens, but how things happen…”

In other words, Gianetti continued, the difference was in how effectively the director used form – visual style, composition, editing, mise en scene, and the rest of the directorial toolbox – to “…embody (a film’s) content.”

But with the rise of big budget blockbusters in the 70s and 80s, there came the ascendancy of a breed of director for whom content mattered less than form.

Now this will be interesting to see! Actor Mickey Rourke revealed to the Orlando Sentinel recently (via The Wrap) that he will be playing Genghis Khan in a new biopic movie being directed by John Milius. "I’m playing Genghis," Rourke said. "John wrote [the] piece [as] told from the son and grandson’s point of view, how they saw this mythic figure from their family. You see him in flashbacks, back when he was in his mid-40s." Interesting concept and bold to cast Rourke in the role. I'll say that he has the potential to knock it out of the park with this one, although Milius hasn't directed anything since Rough Riders on TV in 1997. Milius is mainly a screenwriter, known for his scripts for Dirty Harry, Magnum Force, Apocalypse Now, Conan the Barbarian, and Red Dawn. He also directed Dillinger, Conan, Red Dawn, Farewell to the King, and Flight...