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[Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly identified Elie Samaha as once detained in a Lebanese prison over a family dispute. That dispute and detention concerned a different Elie Samaha, not the one eyeing the Dolby Theatre. We regret the error.]

The home of the Oscars telecast may soon be purchased by a producer and local venue owner with a checkered history in and around the entertainment business. The Hollywood Reporter has learned that Elie Samaha is in discussions to acquire the Dolby Theatre as a member in an investment consortium.

The 3,400-seat Dolby, part of the separately owned Ovation complex at Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue, is contracted with the Motion Picture Academy through 2028. Bloomberg reported in October 2023 that the venue could sell for $70 million. It’s currently owned by the California Public Employees’ Retirement System and managed by investment firm Canyon Partners. The theater and Samaha didn’t respond to initial requests for comment, although Samaha,...

The term ‘veteran’ sits easily and seamlessly on the shoulders of Michael Caine. The British thespian who has made a name for himself through many memorable roles in Hollywood, is also a role model for aspiring actors when it comes to presenting a character on the big screen. Interestingly, Caine who has won the Oscar twice for Best Supporting Actor, is yet to bag the golden statuette for a lead role.

Hollywood actor Michael Caine (image credit: Manfred Werner/Wikimedia Commons)

The celebrity was in with a big chance to change this fate with 2002’s The Quiet American but once again, this opportunity slipped by. The Dark Knight actor though, was more disappointed not about his loss, but about the film being snubbed for well-deserved nominations at the Academy Awards that year.

Michael Caine Had This Regret About One Of His Favorite Films

Michael Caine is a bonafide institution in...

Put on any action movie made between 1903’s The Great Train Robbery and 2017’s John Wick, pay attention to the risks playing out before you, and you’ll never stop asking why the hell aren’t stunt performers lauded for their efforts by the Academy Awards. In the 1970s, one of the greatest and most underrated decades for action movies, you could still see every danger to life and limb on screen. CGI wasn’t around yet, and the law was barely paying attention.

The result is an era where bloody martial arts imports and Blaxploitation commentary blended with tight-wire action and terrifyingly real stunts. The very best remain iconic, from the Dirty Harrys to 1979’s global phenomenon, Mad Max. But with the passage of time comes forgetting, and the ‘70s hide some of the best, wildest, and sometimes even edgiest movies waiting for fans to rediscover.

Get Carter (1971)

Once upon a time,...

Following up on their excellent Blood Money box set from last year, the folks at Arrow Video now offer the four-film collection Savage Guns, another deep dive into the vaults of the Italian western. With each of these releases, Arrow gives viewers the opportunity to form a richer and broader notion of the genre, to examine the way these films work the warp and weft of similarity and difference, providing audiences with expected payoffs of sex and violence while also playing variations (subtle or otherwise) on familiar generic themes.

Featuring sparkling new restorations based on original film elements, Savage Guns comes in another lavishly appointed package from Arrow Video, complete with hours of bonus materials, like cast and crew interviews, commentary tracks, introductions to each of the films by critic Fabio Melelli, and appreciations of two of the film scores by audiophile Lovely Jon. Also included in the slipcase are...

The stylish killer has long been a staple in crime films, and not just in Hollywood movies like “Collateral” and “Pulp Fiction.” The tradition spans the globe, from England (“Get Carter”) to Hong Kong (John Woo’s “The Killer“) and France (the revisionist noir films of Jean-Pierre Melville and Jean-Luc Godard). Yet for the new Netflix movie “The Killer” (no relation to the Woo film), director David Fincher wanted something different: a killer (Michael Fassbender) whose style was so nonexistent that he could just blend into the background of any city.

“In our initial conversations, David said that he didn’t want Fassbender to look cool, he wanted him to look dorky,” costume designer Cate Adams told IndieWire. “When he’s in Paris, we wanted him to look like a German tourist no one would want to go near.” That idea came from the guiding principle for the killer: Every...

The cinematic universe would be far less rich without Michael Caine. It may sound like a well-worn cliché, but he truly is an international treasure. An enduring icon with a seven-decade career. He’s appeared in such acclaimed films as

“Alfie,” “Get Carter,” Sleuth,” “The Man Who Would Be King,” “Educating Rita,” “Hannah and Her Sisters,” “The Cider House Rules,” “The Muppet Christmas Carol” and Christopher Nolan’s “Dark Knight” trilogy.

He’s received six Oscar nominations and won two Academy Awards, a BAFTA, three Golden Globes, a Screen Actors Guld Award and numerous critics’ honors. He’s made Cockney accents and oversized glasses sexy. He’s an accomplished writer, penning two memoirs: 1992’s “What’s It All about” and 2010’s ‘The Elephant to Hollywood.” And two days after the 95th Oscars, Caine will celebrate his 90th birthday. Though Caine walks with a cane due to a spine issues, he...

Decades before he carried Batman’s breakfast, grunted “bah-humbug” at the Muppets, and launched a thousand mediocre Cockney impersonations, Michael Caine mostly played transgressors.

Listen: Kasi Lemmons: The Power of Myth, History, And Black Love [Be Reel Podcast]

In films like “Alfie” (1966), “The Italian Job” (1969), “Get Carter” (1971), and “The Man Who Would Be King” (1975), Caine brought a streetwise intelligence to a gallery of anti-social rogues: philanderers, killers and colonialists.

Continue reading The Man Who Would Be Caine [Be Reel Podcast] at The Playlist.

Exclusive: Magic Mike and I Am Number Four star Alex Pettyfer is attached to star in The Chelsea Cowboy, based on the colorful life of Brit actor, tough guy and lothario, John Bindon.

The project will chart the rise and fall of underworld hard-man turned actor Bindon, who despite a successful acting career and passionate romantic liaisons with various socialites, was unable to leave his criminal past behind.

Ben Cookson (Waiting For Anya) is directing. World sales are being handled by Moviehouse Entertainment which is introducing the title to buyers at this week’s virtual European Film Market.

Bindon was frequently in trouble as a youth for getting into fights and spent time in borstal. He was spotted in a London pub by Ken Loach who asked him to star in his film Poor Cow in 1967 and went on to play a violent mobster alongside Mick Jagger in Performance (1970) and...

"You've been offered another fight?" "Unfortunately... it's against me." IFC Films has unveiled the official trailer for an indie Mma drama titled Embattled, from director Nick Sarkisov (Krasny) and screenwriter David McKenna. A high school judo prodigy steps into the Mma cage to face the ultimate rival in a battle for recognition and retribution – his father. A son aspires to follow in his famous Mma father's footsteps, but along his challenging journey must figure out how to break the abusive cycle, if possible, that his father has continued. Stephen Dorff stars as the father, and Darren Mann as the son, with a cast including Elizabeth Reaser, Donald Faison, Saïd Taghmaoui, Karrueche Tran, and Colin McKenna. This looks brutal in a seriously impressive way, a cinematic story about abusive fathers and stopping abusiveness by literally fighting your father. Intense. Fire it up below. Here's the official trailer (+ poster) for Nick Sarkisov's Embattled,...

Exclusive: APA has signed writer-producer and creator David McKenna.

McKenna’s feature writing credits include such notable pics as New Line’s Oscar-nominated American History X and Blow, the Warner Bros. Sylvester Stallone movie Get Carter, Sony’s 2003 reboot of Swat starring Samuel L. Jackson, Colin Farrell, Michelle Rodriguez and LL Cool J.

In television, McKenna’s credits also include writing and executive producing the biopic Cocaine Godmother starring Catherine Zeta-Jones, and creating the NBC series E-Ring starring Benjamin Bratt and the late Dennis Hopper.

IFC recently acquired McKenna’s new indie feature, the mixed martial arts drama Embattled starring Stephen Dorf, which is slated for release this November. In Embattled, a son aspires to follow in his famous Mma father’s footsteps, but along his journey must figure out how to break the abusive cycle that his father has continued.

Formerly with UTA, McKenna continues to be repped by Heroes & Villains Entertainment,...

“She’s All That” changed Rachael Leigh Cook’s life. The 1999 teen romantic comedy — a modern-day retelling of “Pygmalion” — starred Cook as Laney Boggs, a homely, artsy outcast who transforms, in late ’90s parlance, into a “total hottie” and captures the heart of the high school heartthrob, played by Freddie Prinze Jr.

When the movie opened in theaters, it grossed $103 million worldwide, birthed a chart-topping soundtrack (thanks to Sixpence None the Richer’s “Kiss Me”) and made both of its leads into sought-after commodities in Hollywood.

It’s an experience Cook, now 40, looks back on with nostalgic fondness.

“I’m just grateful every day that I didn’t come of age in the era of camera phones, and yet, that makes me sound way more scandalous than I actually was,” says Cook, who started acting professionally at age 14.

But Cook still grapples with how to describe the formative years of her career.

Flash Gordon still stands alone in the pantheon of comic book movies 40 years on. Colorful, vibrant, kinky, and often absurd, Mike Hodges’ gaudy tale of an all-American boy defeating a powerful villain from space and saving the Earth in the process had until recently felt far removed from the predominantly safe and CG-heavy comic book fare of the last few decades, despite its familiar themes and due in large part to its distinct refusal to take itself seriously. But the film we know and love is a world away from how it began.

Back in the 1970s, wealthy businessman and film producer Dino De Laurentiis held on to the Flash Gordon rights after George Lucas’ attempts to extricate them. A much-less-minted Lucas was forced to make his own space adventure movie instead, a little project called Star Wars. Its success indisputable, De Laurentiis was more determined than ever to make...

With echoes of The Wizard of Oz and Carry On movies, Mike Hodges’ vintage intergalactic fable delivers mayhem, madness and eye-frazzling colour

‘This place is a lunatic asylum!” says the square-jawed, peroxide-blond hero of Mike Hodges’ bizarre LSD pantomime Flash Gordon, adapted by Lorenzo Semple Jr and Michael Allin from the 1930s comic-strip serial – now rereleased on streaming platforms for its 40th anniversary. It now looks even madder and more expressionist than ever, with an operatic theme from Queen, bizarre 2D studio sets for alien planets and the kind of eyeball-frazzling colour scheme that generally only existed on old TVs of the era before you had to thump them.

Sam J Jones plays the Earthling American football star Flash Gordon who finds himself caught up in an intergalactic war when the evil Ming the Merciless launches an attack on Planet Earth. Swept along for this titanic battle is comely Dale Arden...

To celebrate the upcoming 40th anniversary of Flash Gordon, one of the most iconic sci-fi/comic-book adaptations in history, we sat down with stars Sam Jones & Melody Anderson – who played Flash Gordon and Dale Arden in the film – to chat about its enduring legacy and why nothing has matched it just yet.

Hoping to have come to the UK to celebrate before Covid-19 lockdown, Anderson says its the fan response and the film’s long-lasting legacy that keeps her excited and says the film was very ahead of its time for many reasons. At the time, many flocked to see Star Wars and Superman: The Movie and its campy, funnier tone may have put some people off but that over time, people have continuously flocked to it for those reasons. She also spoke to us about the difficult shoot, the sadly never-produced sequels, her memories of Max von Sydow and...

“Men lie with me, not to me!”

Rosanna Arquette and Jason Robards in Black Rainbow (1988) is currently avalable on Blu-ray From Arrow Video

Mike Hodges wrote and directed this supernatural chiller as a meditation on the human race’s ability to destroy the world, a gothic tale of suspense and the occult, guaranteed to send shivers down your spine.Martha Travis is a travelling clairvoyant on the road with her sceptic father. During a séance Martha communicates a message from a dead man to his wife in the audience. Shocked the wife insists her husband is still alive. Later that evening the husband is killed by a ruthless assassin. As Martha foresees more and more tragic events journalist Gary Wallace follows the pair in pursuit of a hot story with catastrophically eerie results.

Sent direct to cable by its struggling distributor on initial release, Black Rainbow unfairly never got the exposure it deserved,...

Vinnie Jones takes his crazy gang stateside – and bar a fun turn from Malcolm McDowell the result is not a pretty sight

Although technically an “eastern” rather than a western – it unfolds in the lush hills and shady honkytonks of West Virginia – this macho, contemporary-set crime thriller feels like something that got cooked up after a bender guzzling a Sam Peckinpah box set. Maybe chased with a few British gangster pics like Get Carter and The Long Good Friday. Indeed, it plays like several plots, genres and mood boards all mashed together, which makes the end result interesting but not entirely successful.

Few actors can boast a career quite like Malcolm McDowell, and he’s still working, prolifically, in the present day. His latest is the Anglo-American gangster flick The Big Ugly, written and director by Scott Wiper. We had the immense pleasure of speaking to them both, on seperate occasions, to discuss this collaboration.

“I’m only involved because of Vinnie,” McDowell said of co-star Vinnie Jones, when as asked what attracted him to this project. “I love Vinnie. He’s a great guy. I knew him a bit because of golf, and he came up to play in my tournament, and he’s such a fun character and I’ve always liked his work and I know that he’s the cockney heavy, the gangster, but when he explained to me that this was his chance to do something more interesting and not just be the heavy, I brought into...

As his supernatural thriller about murder and corruption in the Bible belt hits screens after three decades in limbo, the director talks about smash hits and on-set anarchy

‘If you make films that don’t fit into a particular slot, distributors and publicity people just don’t know what to do with them,” muses Mike Hodges from his Dorset farm. It’s the story of his career. Hodges, who turns 88 this month, made two of the best-known British movies ever: definitive gangster thriller Get Carter and sci-fi romp Flash Gordon. But many of his other films, through no fault of his own, barely saw the light of day. His 1974 sci-fi thriller The Terminal Man never got a UK release; he was fired from Damien: Omen II; Mickey Rourke Ira thriller A Prayer for the Dying was re-edited behind his back.

And then there’s supernatural thriller Black Rainbow, that Hodges...

I listen to a podcast called Pure Cinema in which two of my favorite movie buffs, Elric Kane and Brian Saur, deep dive into films of all shapes and sizes. The group introduced me to a great ice breaker when encountering movie fans in the world, the Handshake Five. Basically, you pick five movies that are descriptive of your individual love for cinema, it can be your favorites, but it doesn’t have to. It’s a great way to talk film with new and old friends.

What I’ve discerned from using the Handshake Five method is that every movie is someone’s favorite movie. From the agreed upon classics, which populate everyone’s list, to the much-vilified bad films that start arguments at dinner parties. It’s interesting to discuss why people get attached to certain films; like why one senior citizen held Howard the Duck in such high regard,...

To celebrate the release of Black Rainbow– available now from Arrow Video – we have a copy up for grabs!

Mike Hodges wrote and directed this supernatural chiller as a meditation on the human race’s ability to destroy the world, a gothic tale of suspense and the occult, guaranteed to send shivers down your spine.

Martha Travis is a travelling clairvoyant on the road with her sceptic father. During a séance Martha communicates a message from a dead man to his wife in the audience. Shocked, the wife insists her husband is still alive. Later that evening the husband is killed by a ruthless assassin. As Martha foresees more and more tragic events journalist Gary Wallace follows the pair in pursuit of a hot story… with catastrophically eerie results.

Sent direct-to-video by its struggling distributor on initial release, Black Rainbow unfairly never got the exposure it deserved, newly restored from...

After a few relatively quiet weeks to wrap up June’s home media releases, July comes roaring back with a slate of titles that genre fans will definitely want to add to their Blu-ray and DVD collections. Arrow Video has been staying extremely busy as of late, with three different releases coming out on Tuesday: Black Rainbow from Flash Gordon director Mike Hodges, Zombie for Sale, and Teruo Ishii’s Inferno of Torture. Criterion Collection is also celebrating an all-time sci-fi classic this Tuesday, The War of the Worlds, and if you haven’t had a chance to check it out on Shudder, Belzebuth is headed to both Blu-ray and DVD this week as well.

Leomark is showing some love to the Godfather of Gore, Herschell Gordon Lewis, with their Blu-ray presentation of Bloodmania, and Kino Lorber is resurrecting The Flesh and the Fiends for a Special Edition Blu this week,...

Bing produced The Polar Express and Rock The Kasbah.

Steve Bing, the property magnate and producer of The Polar Express and Rock The Kasbah, has died following a fall from a tower block in Los Angeles. He was 55.

The incident occurred on early Monday afternoon (June 22) in Century City. The Los Angeles Police Department confirmed a death and shortly after, friends including Bill Clinton took to Twitter to express condolences.

Bing founded Shangri-La Entertainment, and produced an eclectic roster of features ranging from Robert Zemeckis’ CGI dramas The Polar Express and Beowulf to the Get Carter remake starring Sylvester Stallone.

Steve Bing, a Hollywood producer, writer and financier who famously invested in the Tom Hanks movie “The Polar Express,” has died by suicide. He was 55.

A spokesperson for the L.A. County Coroner’s Office told TheWrap that the office responded to a death in the 10000 block of Santa Monica Boulevard in Los Angeles, and the man was pronounced dead at 1:10 p.m. According to TMZ, which was the first to report the news of Bing’s death, he jumped from the 27th floor of the building.

An individual at 10000 Santa Monica Boulevard confirmed to TheWrap that Bing had jumped from the tower.

The LAPD and L.A. County Coroner’s Office would not confirm the identification of the deceased or the cause of death. An individual who knew Bing said he had been depressed and acting bizarrely of late.

Also Read: Joel Schumacher, Director of 'St Elmo's Fire' and 'The Lost Boys,...

Steve Bing, a producer, philanthropist and screenwriter, has died by suicide in Los Angeles. He was 55.

Police and the coroner’s office said a man fitting his age jumped from a Century City apartment building on Monday. Sources told TMZ he had been suffering from depression.

Bing, who inherited a fortune of some $600 million from his grandfather, L.A. real estate developer Leo S. Bing, also contributed millions of dollars to Democratic political causes.

After receiving his inheritance at the age of 18, Bing dropped out of Stanford to try out the movie business. While he was still a high school student at Harvard-Westlake, he wrote the story for “Missing in Action” and later wrote an episode of “Married With Children.”

In 2003, he co-wrote the action comedy “Kangaroo Jack,” starring Anthony Anderson and Jerry O’Connell.

Bing invested some $80 million in “The Polar Express,” the Tom Hanks-voiced 2004 film directed by Robert Zemeckis.

Updated, with comment from former President Bill Clinton: Steve Bing, the film financier and philanthropist who backed hit movies from Robert Zemeckis’ The Polar Express and Beowulf to the Rolling Stones concert movie Shine a Light, has died.

According to law enforcement sources, Bing jumped from a Century City building at around 1 p.m. Monday. Following standard protocol, the Los Angeles Police Department would not confirm that the individual in question was Bing. However, the description of the man in his 50s who was found dead on the scene fits that of the producer.

Bing, also an influential political donor, was a real estate tycoon from a family with a rich history. In 2012, he pledged a $30 million legacy gift to the Motion Picture & Television Fund.

“For years Steve Bing has been one of the most philanthropic and generous people in our industry,” Jeffrey Katzenberg said at the time. “He has...

Graham Greene’s tense crime tale is as important as his classic The Third Man but nowhere near as well known. Down Brighton way the race-track boys have sharp ways of solving disputes and terrorizing the common folk — think ‘straight razor.’ Richard Attenborough’s breakthrough film is also a showcase for Hermoine Baddelely and a marvelous newcomer that every horror fan loves even if they don’t know her name, Carol Marsh. Kino’s disc has a Tim Lucas commentary; this review balances thoughts about mercy and damnation, with an extra insight about a piece of ‘stick candy’ unfamiliar to us Yanks.

Brighton Rock

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1948 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 92 min. / Street Date May 5, 2020 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Richard Attenborough, Carol Marsh, Hermione Baddeley, William Hartnell, Harcourt Williams, Wylie Watson, Nigel Stock, Virginia Winter, Reginald Purdell, George Carney, Charles Goldner, Alan Wheatley.

Cinematography: Harry Waxman

Camera operator:...

In his latest podcast/interview, host and screenwriter Stuart Wright talks to actor Craig Fairbrass about his latest film Villain and his Top 5 Great British Crime Films, including:

Get Carter(1971) The Long Good Friday (1980) Harry Brown (2009) London Heist (2017) Villain (2020)

A dark, brutal, gritty and violent tale of drugs, murder, loyalty and corruption, starring Craig Fairbrass, Izuka Hoyle (Mary Queen of Scots) and Nicholas Aaron, the story follows Eddie Franks, a former criminals release from prison and his attempts to help his family by reconnecting with his daughter and clearing his brother’s debt. Despite his efforts, he is drawn back into a criminal way of life, with devastating consequences.

The actor’s ruined handsomeness was perfect for his portrayal of a psychopathically violent gangster in this classic 1971 thriller

Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais are renowned for small-screen comic masterpieces such as Porridge and The Likely Lads, but in 1971 they scripted the deadly serious and horribly gripping London crime picture Villain, now rereleased on Blu-ray. It’s an extremely lairy and tasty piece of work in which Richard Burton gave one of his best, most lip-smackingly gruesome performances: this film’s easily as good as the far better known Get Carter with Michael Caine, released that same year.

Villain is based on the novel The Burden of Proof from pulp author James Barlow, reportedly an inspiration for Jake Arnott’s The Long Firm. Producer Elliot Krasner had originally commissioned a treatment from Hollywood actor-writer Al Lettieri, (who played the drug lord Virgil Sollozzo in The Godfather), but Clement and...

January’s home media releases are ending on a high note, as there are a bunch of great titles headed to Blu-ray and DVD this week. My very favorite film of 2019, Bong Joon Ho’s Parasite is making its debut on both formats, and if you missed it in theaters last year, Terminator: Dark Fate is hitting multiple formats as well.

For those of you who dig totally bananapants filmmaking, Tammy and the T-Rex is being released this week courtesy of Vinegar Syndrome. Vs is also keeping busy with Berserker, Beyond the Door 3, and Unmasked Part 25, and Scream Factory is bringing home Body Parts, Let’s Scare Jessica to Death, as well as a Steelbook Edition of The Slumber Party Massacre, too.

Arrow Video has put together a special edition release of Edge of the Axe, and the Warner Archive Collection is showing some love to the criminally underseen Two on a Guillotine.

Exclusive: Rachael Leigh Cook, who is fondly remembered for her role in the classic teen drama, She’s All That, is set to star alongside Damon Wayans Jr. in Love, Guaranteed, the Netflix original film which Cook is also producing. Mark Steven Johnson is directing from source material by Cook. The script is by Elizabeth Hackett and Hilary Galanoy, the screenwriters behind the recently released Netflix rom-com Falling Inn Love.

The story centers on an earnest, hard-working lawyer Susan (Cook) who has taken one too many pro bono cases. To save her small law firm, Susan begrudgingly takes a high-paying, high-profile case from Nick (Wayans Jr.), a charming new client who wants to sue a dating website that guarantees users will find love. But Susan and Nick soon find themselves in the middle of a media storm, and as the case heats up, so do their feelings for each other — which could jeopardize everything.

Ladies and gentlemen, please enjoy this new episode of The B-Side, from The Film Stage. Here we examine movies from established movie stars that have flopped at the box office, been forgotten by time, or remain hidden gems. These aren’t the films that made them famous or kept them famous. These are the other ones.

And, man oh man, does Sly have a bunch of other ones. We cover one movie from each decade of the movie star’s career: his directorial debut Paradise Alley in 1978, the prison drama Lock Up from 1989, James Mangold’s Cop Land (1997), the remake Get Carter and, finally, Bullet To The Head from 2013.

We get a bad impression from podcast producer Conor O’Donnell and some sharp insight from our guest Chadd Harbold, an accomplished filmmaker with two films in theaters right now: Depraved, directed by Larry Fessenden, and Villains, starring Bill Skarsgård and Maika Monroe.

Secret agent Michael Caine must take on both the kidnappers of his son and his own suspect Army Intelligence colleagues in Don Siegel’s efficiently filmed, curiously tame suspense thriller. Delphine Seyrig is enticing and Donald Pleasance an unlikeable security bureaucrat, while the capable Janet Suzman and John Vernon fill out a top-flight cast that performs well in thriller surprisingly lacking in dramatic impact.

The Black Windmill

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1974 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 106 min. / Street Date December 4, 2018 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Michael Caine, Donald Pleasence, Janet Suzman, Delphine Seyrig, John Vernon, Clive Revill, Joss Ackland, Catherine Schell, Joseph O’Conor, Hermoine Baddeley, John Rhys-Davies

Cinematography: Ousama Rawi

Film Editor: Antony Gibbs

Original Music: Roy Budd

Written by Leigh Vance, from the novel Five Days to a Killing by Clive Egleton

Produced and Directed by Don Siegel

Something seems wrong from the first with The Black Windmill: the...

When is a private eye parody not a parody? Stephen Frears’ first feature strikes a delicate balance — its nearly absurd hardboiled lingo outdoes the spoofs, but the story and characters are pitched 100% straight. Albert Finney Is Eddie Ginley, surrounded by a pack of exciting, imaginatively cast actors.

Gumshoe

Blu-ray

Powerhouse Indicator

1971 / Color / 1:66 widescreen / 88 min. / / Street Date March 19, 2018 / available from Powerhouse Films UK / £15.99

Starring: Albert Finney, Billie Whitelaw, Frank Finlay, Janice Rule, Carolyn Seymour, Fulton Mackay, George Innes, George Silver, Bill Dean, Wendy Richard, Maureen Lipman, Neville Smith, Oscar James.

Cinematography: Chris Menges

Film Editor: Charles Rees

Original Music: Andrew Lloyd Webber

Written by Neville Smith

Produced by Michael Medwin, Albert Finney

Directed by Stephen Frears

At first one thinks it’s a parody, and not a very good one. Then we wonder if Albert Finney is simply taking his Humphrey Bogart imitation out for a walk, as when he...

A spoof? A black comedy? Michael Hodges and Michael Caine’s hardboiled ‘foreign intrigue’ comedy lays on the movie references and clever dialogue, going the distance in the arcane, hipster-noir subgenre. Caine is always good in that mode, and Mickey Rooney gets a supporting role that can only be called bizarre.

Pulp

DVD

Arrow Video USA

1972 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 96 min. / Street Date , 2017 / Available from Arrow Video

Starring: Michael Caine, Mickey Rooney, Lionel Stander, Lizabeth Scott, Nadia Cassini, Leopoldo Trieste, Al Lettieri, Robert Sacchi, Luciano Pigozzi.

Cinematography: Ousama Rawi

Film Editor: Patrick Downing

Original Music: George Martin

Produced by Michael Klinger

Written and Directed by Mike Hodges

Mickey King writes Pulp, lives Pulp, very soon could be Pulp!

After their success with the brutal, now-classic gangster thriller Get Carter, the ‘three Michaels’ Caine, Hodges and Klinger came up with this precociously spoofy takeoff on cheap pulp mysteries, appropriately titled Pulp. Filmed in sunny Malta,...

“People can be good” seems like an oddly basic concept to celebrate, but given current events, “This Is Us” delivered the message audiences needed most Tuesday night: People can be good, and sometimes those people are Sylvester Stallone.

In Episode 3, “Déjà Vu,” the most inspirational action star of all-time guest-starred on TV’s most inspirational series and, well, things got emotional. Stallone was invited to join the series by his “Rocky Balboa” co-star Milo Ventimiglia, who played Rocky Jr. in the 2006 film, so it was doubly fitting to learn that Jack was a die-hard Stallone fan in the series. Clever work, Dan Fogelman.

But how much of the good vibes came from Stallone’s presence and how much came from the writing? Did the presence of a three-time Oscar nominee distract from the series’ central storyline or enhance it? And most importantly, how did viewers feel after each one of Stallone’s scenes?...

Author: Matt Rodgers

Growing up in the UK’s equivalent of The Shire meant that access to the escapism of video rentals was something as distant as The Misty Mountains. The arrival of a man who looked like Stanley Uris from Stephen King’s It, driving a van that was filled to the rafters with VHS, and which glowed like the Pulp Fiction briefcase when opened, introduced me to a roll-call of the 80s Action Heroes. Monosyllabic men, who quipped their way through bullets and bodies. The first plastic case to cross my sweaty palms featured a muscular fellow, holding a gun, against a colourful heatmap backdrop. It was Predator, and that was a long time ago.

About where things began to change for the real expendables is hard to pinpoint. Why did these one-time box-office giants; Schwarzenegger, Stallone, Van-Damme, and to a lesser degree Lundgren, suddenly find their powers diminishing?...

Boyhood and The Grand Budapest Hotel took the respective top prizes for drama and comedy tonight at the 65th American Cinema Editors Awards. Oscar snubee The Lego Movie continued to rack up awards-season wins, scoring the trophy for Best Edited Animated Feature Film, while Citizenfour added the Ace Eddie to its winning streak for documentary feature.

The ceremony, hosted by 24 actress Mary Lynn Rajskub at the Beverly Hilton, saw Grand Budapest check in with the upset win over Birdman, which was edited to look like it was shot in a single take and came into the Ace Eddies with strong momentum, having won top honors at both the PGAs and the SAG Awards last weekend. The category had the usual five nominees, but this year’s dramatic feature field was notable for a tie that resulted in six nominees — only the second time the American Cinema Editors has had to...

The Die Hard series may be alive and well, but there's a unique story behind the writing of each one…

As any action fanatic will tell you, Die Hard is among the best films of its type ever made. Tautly directed by John McTiernan, deceptively well shot by cinematographer Jan de Bont, and full of charismatic turns from Bruce Willis, Alan Rickman and Bonnie Bedelia, it’s seldom been bettered, even by its sequels.

The key to the first film's success, and the sequels in their best moments, is hero John McClane. Tough, sarcastic but ultimately human and relatable, he cuts a very different figure from the beefed-up, larger-than-life heroes of 1980s and 90s action cinema. When John McClane gets shot or injured, he actually feels pain. It's something we were keenly aware of in the 1988 original, but gradually ebbed away as the Die Hard franchise drifted from thriller territory...

From Stephen Kay, director of Boogeyman and Stallone’s flat Get Carter remake who went on to directing a plethora of good television, comes Cell 213, a supernatural film about a young, ambitious lawyer who finds himself on the other side of the law when he is incarcerated in the film’s titular cell. Hounded by the brute guard and the otherworldly forces of Good and Evil, a claustrophobic battle for his soul rages.

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TV funnyman Jonathan Ross will interview Sylvester Stallone during an eponymous ‘Evening with…’ event in central London. The chat will take place at the London Palladium on Saturday 11 January 2014. Stallone should have no shortage of industry stories, as having been an outspoken heavyweight since breaking out in the ‘70s. From his Oscar-nominated success with Rocky, through his ‘80s action heyday, his notable misfires (Get Carter, anyone?), his credible thesping (serious turns in Copland and Rocky Balboa), to his Expendables...

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Sorry, boys! Covert Affair star Piper Perabo is reportedly engaged to Get Carter director Stephen Kay. “They’re very happy,” a source tells People of Perabo and Kay, who’s a co-executive producer and frequent director on the actress’ USA Network series. The couple have been quietly dating since 2010. Previously, Perabo had been linked to actors Andrew Keegan and...Read more»...

"I don't trust anybody, that's how you stay in the game."

At 66, Sylvester Stallone is reaching that age when most action movie stars contemplate retirement or transition into playing kindly grandfathers, grumpy old men, and butlers (no offense, Sir Michael), yet 'Sly' continues to make the kind of movies that made him famous when he was a young man. After surprising everyone but his hardcore fans with the success of his throwback action movies The Expendables 1 & 2, Stallone stumbled a bit with his solo movie Bullet to the Head, but he's got the support of great co-stars in his upcoming action movie The Tomb with Arnold Schwarzenegger and the boxing comedy Grudge Match with Robert De Niro, currently in production. The Expendables had a bigger opening weekend than any of Stallone's previous movies, but is it also his best movie? Does Barney Ross deserve a spot alongside John Rambo and Rocky Balboa?...

Best known for his TV work on the likes of Sons Of Anarchy and The Shield, director Stephen Kay will next be applying his gritty aesthetic to a bigger canvas. He's signed on to direct the indie Mafia heist thriller 6 Bullets From Now, from a screenplay by Christian Darren.Not to be confused with the direct-to-video Van Damme epic Six Bullets (although Kay did direct the Stallone remake of Get Carter in 2000), 6 Bullets From Now is based on the notorious Pierre Hotel robbery of January 1, 1972."Professional thieves" Samuel Nalo and Robert Comfort enlisted a small team of Mafia goodfellas and contract killers to take advantage of the New Year celebrations at the hotel. Party-goers had left their valuable jewellery in the Pierre's lockboxes, pending return to proper bank vaults when they reopened. With the hotel running a skeleton crew for the holidays, it was therefore a relatively easy target, and...

Director Stephen Kay ("Sons of Anarchy," "Get Carter") has signed on to helm the indie heist thriller "6 Bullets From Now" at 13th Sign Pictures and Blue Collar Productions.

The film is based on the infamous true story of the robbery of New York City's Pierre Hotel on New Year’s Day 1972.

Five tuxedoed gunmen stole millions in cash and jewels, and it remains to this day the largest hotel robbery in history.

The film's story centers on a man whose life spirals out of control as he masterminds the perfect heist of the hotel vault.

Christian Darren penned the script, which is being done in the tone of a classic 1970s heist film. Tommy Alastra, Joe Mundo, Mark Rowen and Julie Rowen will produce.

Shooting aims to begin in the late Summer in New York City.

Source: THR...

Highlights Of Issue #24:

Major celebration of The Poseidon Adventure's 40th anniversary with articles by David Savage, Tom Lisanti, James Radford and Chris Poggiali. Includes many rare photos, international movie posters and interviews with Carol Lynley and Mort Kunstler, the legendary artist who created the movie poster. Kunstler also provides his original sketches for the ad campaign, reproduced in this issue for the first time.  40th anniversary tribute to Deliverance. John Exshaw visits director John Boorman at his home in Ireland for exclusive interview about working with author James Dickey on the landmark film. Gary Giblin takes an in-depth look at another classic film celebrating its 40th anniversary: Alfred Hitchcock's Frenzy, complete with rare stills from sequences that the Master cut from the final version of the movie. Matthew R. Bradley looks at one of the screen's legendary baddies, James Bond nemesis Blofeld in both literature and cinema.

Johnny Strong is one busy man, being an artist, actor, musician, martial artist and knife maker. As an actor, he has appeared in features films such as Black Hawk Down, The Fast and The Furious and Get Carter. Most recently, he played the lead character Detective Sean Riley in William Kaufman's Sinners and Saints, a role that won him the Breakout Action Star Award at the Action On Film International Film Festival. Johnny also composed and performed the music for the film. One of his upcoming projects is the sequel to Sinners and Saints, in which he will collaborate again with director William Kaufman. I had the pleasure of chatting with Johnny recently about his films, music, martial arts and knife making. Twitch: After The...

Certain members of the "Expendables" gang are pimping their other wares this week.

Earlier today, Arnold Schwarzenegger took "The Last Stand" in the first look at Kim Jee-woon's upcoming action thriller. Now, Arnold's pal Sylvester Stallone is out to prove that old dudes do it best in the trailer for "Bullet to the Head."

"Bullet" stars the Italian Stallion as a New Orleans hit man Jimmy Bobo, who seems to be the exact same character Sly played in "Get Carter" but a little less mopey (and with more tattoos). Jimmy teams up with a cop (Jason Momoa) to take down the creep who killed both their respective partners, gleefully pumping scumbags full of lead and blowing stuff up along the way — though things get more complicated (and even more personal) when Jimmy's daughter (Sarah Shahi) is kidnapped.

"Bullet" was originally set for release this past April but rumor hath it...

Remakes are a favourite source of inspiration for Hollywood films. Sometimes they work - as with The Italian Job - and sometimes they don’t - as with Sylvester Stallone’s defiling of Get Carter. Mark Wahlberg’s new film, Contraband is a big-budget remake of the 2008 Icelandic thriller, Reykjavik-Rotterdam. However, is it a hit or a miss?

In the remake, Wahlberg plays Chris Farraday who, after a successful career as the Harry Houdini of the smuggling game, is now on the straight and narrow. Having traded in a life of crime for his wife (Kate Beckinsale), kid, and a small security business, life is generally rosy.

However, all this comes crashing down when Kate’s young brother Andy becomes embroiled in a botched drug-smuggling run. In a bid to evade the police, Andy throws several kilos of cocaine overboard, resulting in a very angry gang boss and, presumably, some very chatty fish.

Somewhere between “Get Carter” and “Shade” it seemed as though Sylvester Stallone’s career was over. Then, in 2006, he decided to revitalize the “Rocky” franchise and guess what? People loved it. A year later, he did the same with “Rambo.” Lightning doesn’t strike three times, right? It did for Stallone. He wisely left nothing to chance for the third go-around, and cast every B-movie action star for the mega action film “The Expendables.” Well, it appears as though Stallone’s savvy mining of his old career has paid off: he is officially a movie star again. Stallone has a film coming out in April (“Bullet to the Head”), a big budget sequel (“The Expendables 2”) arriving in August and now, his soon to be shooting action picture “The Tomb” may have a new co-star: Arnold Schwarzenegger. AICN reports that according to their souce, Sly's pal Arnold Schwarzenegger...

The cast of "The Expendables 2" is so badass that they don't even have to be doing anything in recently released set pictures for us to go over the top in our excitement for the film. A whole slew of photos of the cast hanging out on set (shouldn't they be filming a movie or something?) have hit the web courtesy of Expendables Premiere and show a first look at Jean-Claude Van Damme as well as some shots of Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis and Terry Crews. They certainly are a nice accompaniment to the images of Chuck Norris on set that hit the web a couple of weeks ago.

If for whatever reason you were worried that "The Expendables 2" wouldn't have enough vehicles, guns or muscles to keep you satisfied, these new pictures should put your mind at ease. The cast certainly looks like they're having a blast while filming,...