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We are sad to report that legendary African-American actor Louis Gossett Jr. passed away on March 28, 2024 in Santa Monica, CA. He was 87 years old at the time of death, and was on his way to celebrate his 88th birthday in May this year. No official cause of death has been given, but Gosset has had health issues in the recent decade, being diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2010 and being hospitalized for Covid-19 during the pandemic. The news was confirmed by Gossett’s first cousin Neal L. Gossett.

A true acting legend, Louis Gossett Jr. was born in New York on May 27, 1936. His mother was a nurse, and his father was a porter. Although he was proficient in sports as well, after his stage debut at the age of 17, his teacher encouraged him to pursue an acting career. Although he obtained a sports scholarship at the NYU and was offered to play basketball,...

Coproducer James Garner channels his winning Maverick persona as a pre-Civil War con man whose partner Louis Gossett Jr. poses as his slave. The two travel around “selling” Gossett to various slaveholders, then spring him and move on to the next mark. It’s a comedy, but a fairly serious-minded one. The familiar backlot and supporting cast mark this as a typical Warner Bros. product of the time, rather flatly directed by TV vet Paul Bogart. This trailer is pan-&-scan, but the Warner Home Video disc is available in anamorphic Panavision.

The post Skin Game appeared first on Trailers From Hell.

The Criterion Channel has unveiled their March 2021 lineup, which includes no shortage of remarkable programming. Highlights from the slate include eight gems from Preston Sturges, Elaine May’s brilliant A New Leaf, a series featuring Black Westerns, Ann Hui’s Boat People, the new restoration of Ousmane Sembène’s Mandabi.

They will also add films from their Essential Fellini boxset, series on Dirk Bogarde and Nelly Kaplan, and Luchino Visconti’s The Damned and Death in Venice, and more. In terms of recent releases, there’s also Matthew Rankin’s The Twentieth Century and Claire Denis’ Let the Sunshine In.

Check out the lineup below, along with the teaser for the Black Westerns series. For weekly streaming updates across all services, bookmark this page.

The Adventurer, Charles Chaplin, 1917

Bandini, Bimal Roy, 1963

Behind the Screen, Charles Chaplin, 1916

Black Jack, Ken Loach, 1979

Black Rodeo, Jeff Kanew, 1972

Blood Simple, Joel and Ethan Coen,...

Bill Hader, uh, made his mark last year when he won the Directors Guild of America Award for comedy series for helming the “Barry” pilot “Chapter One: Make Your Mark.” He’s back in the running again and is the overwhelming favorite to defend his title, which would make him the ninth person to win this award twice.

Hader has a commanding lead in our predictions with 31/10 odds for the breakout Season 2 episode “ronny/lily.” The next closest is the series finale of “Veep,” by David Mandel, at 39/10, followed by three episodes of “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”: “Marvelous Radio” by Daniel Palladino, “It’s the Sixties, Man!” by Dan Attias, and “It’s Comedy or Cabbage” by Amy Sherman-Palladino.

The former “Saturday Night Live” star would join a two-time winners club that includes Andy Ackerman (“Seinfeld”), Hy Averback (“M*A*S*H”), Paul Bogart (“All in the Family”), Beth McCarthy-Miller,...

To fully appreciate some of the allusions and inspirations that propel Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” you should consider doing some homework — or streaming some other movies.

Of course, you don’t have to be familiar with any of the following titles to enjoy Tarantino’s 1969-set fact-and-fiction mashup about Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio), an actor flailing in professional limbo after the cancellation of his TV Western “Bounty Law”; Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt), Dalton’s long-time stunt double and close confidant; and Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie), a rising star and Dalton’s next-door neighbor. But you can enhance your enjoyment by having some knowledge of the stories behind the story.

“The Bandit” (2016)

Jesse Moss’ entertaining and insightful documentary is putatively about the making of 1977’s “Smokey and the Bandit,” but more interestingly concerned with the personal and professional bonds between superstar Burt Reynolds and stuntman-turned-filmmaker Hal Needham.

(See previous post: “Gay Pride Movie Series Comes to a Close: From Heterosexual Angst to Indonesian Coup.”) Ken Russell's Valentino (1977) is notable for starring ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev as silent era icon Rudolph Valentino, whose sexual orientation, despite countless gay rumors, seems to have been, according to the available evidence, heterosexual. (Valentino's supposed affair with fellow “Latin Lover” Ramon Novarro has no basis in reality.) The female cast is also impressive: Veteran Leslie Caron (Lili, Gigi) as stage and screen star Alla Nazimova, ex-The Mamas & the Papas singer Michelle Phillips as Valentino wife and Nazimova protégée Natacha Rambova, Felicity Kendal as screenwriter/producer June Mathis (The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse), and Carol Kane – lately of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt fame. Bob Fosse's Cabaret (1972) is notable as one of the greatest musicals ever made. As a 1930s Cabaret presenter – and the Spirit of Germany – Joel Grey was the year's Best Supporting Actor Oscar winner. Liza Minnelli...

Turner Classic Movies' 2017 Gay Pride film series comes to a close this evening and tomorrow morning, Thursday–Friday, June 29–30, with the presentation of seven movies, hosted by TV interviewer Dave Karger and author William J. Mann, whose books include Wisecracker: The Life and Times of William Haines and Behind the Screen: How Gays and Lesbians Shaped Hollywood, 1910-1969. Among tonight's movies' Lgbt connections: Edward Albee, Tony Richardson, Evelyn Waugh, Tab Hunter, John Gielgud, Roddy McDowall, Linda Hunt, Harvey Fierstein, Rudolf Nureyev, Christopher Isherwood, Joel Grey, and Tommy Kirk. Update: Coincidentally, TCM's final 2017 Gay Pride celebration turned out to be held the evening before a couple of international events – and one non-event – demonstrated that despite noticeable progress in the last three decades, gay rights, even in the so-called “West,” still have a long way to go. In Texas, the state's – all-Republican – Supreme Court decided that married gays should be treated as separate and unequal. In...

Hollywood is not exactly a warm and fuzzy place where everyone gets along like best friends. That’s why so many film sets are hotbeds for drama. But no drama is more intense than the art-infused feuds between actor and director, because Art!

Here are some of the biggest and best actor-director fights in film history.

Mo’Nique and Lee Daniels

Let’s start with the most recent. After Mo’Nique won an Oscar for her role in Precious, she says Daniels told her she was blackballed for not playing the Hollywood game. Then recently she announced that she’d been offered roles in both The Butler and Empire, but never heard anything more until she learned Oprah and Taraji P. Henson were respectively playing what she’d been led to believe were her roles. Despite the struggles, Mo’Nique says she “could work with Lee Daniels tomorrow.”

David O. Russell...

Hollywood is not exactly a warm and fuzzy place where everyone gets along like best friends. That’s why so many film sets are hotbeds for drama. But no drama is more intense than the art-infused feuds between actor and director, because Art!

Here are some of the biggest and best actor-director fights in film history.

Mo’Nique and Lee Daniels

Let’s start with the most recent. After Mo’Nique won an Oscar for her role in Precious, she says Daniels told her she was blackballed for not playing the Hollywood game. Then recently she announced that she’d been offered roles in both The Butler and Empire, but never heard anything more until she learned Oprah and Taraji P. Henson were respectively playing what she’d been led to believe were her roles. Despite the struggles, Mo’Nique says she “could work with Lee Daniels tomorrow.”

David O. Russell...

James Garner movies on TCM: ‘Grand Prix,’ ‘Victor Victoria’ among highlights (photo: James Garner ca. 1960) James Garner, whose film and television career spanned more than five decades, died of "natural causes" at age 86 on July 19, 2014, in the Los Angeles suburb of Brentwood. On Monday, July 28, Turner Classic Movies will present an all-day marathon of James Garner movies (see below) as a tribute to the Oscar-nominated star of Murphy’s Romance and Emmy-winning star of the television series The Rockford Files. Among the highlights in TCM’s James Garner film lineup is John Frankenheimer’s Monaco-set Grand Prix (1966), an all-star, race-car drama featuring Garner as a Formula One driver who has an affair with the wife (Jessica Walter) of his former teammate (Brian Bedford). Among the other Grand Prix drivers facing their own personal issues are Yves Montand and Antonio Sabato, while Akira Kurosawa’s (male) muse Toshiro Mifune plays a...

Kerr in the 1958 box-office blockbuster musical South Pacific (seen above with love interest France Nuyen) and his (few) other post-Tea and Sympathy efforts [Please check out the previous article: "The Two Kerrs in the stage and film versions of Tea and Sympathy."] Director Curtis Bernhardt's Gaby (1956) was a generally disliked remake of Waterloo Bridge, with Kerr and leading lady Leslie Caron in the old Robert Taylor and Vivien Leigh roles (1940 movie version -- and even older Douglass Montgomery and Mae Clarke roles in the 1931 film version). Jeffrey Hayden's The Vintage (1957), starring Kerr and Mel Ferrer absurdly cast as Italian brothers, also failed to generate much box-office or critical interest. MGM leading lady Pier Angeli played Ferrer's love interest in the film, while the more mature and married French star Michèle Morgan (a plot element similar to that found in Tea and Sympathy) is Kerr's object of desire. (Pictured above: South Pacific cast members John Kerr and France Nuyen embracing.) Also in the mid-'50s, John Kerr...

In just barely over a week since its Christmas release, Quentin Tarantino’s eighth feature film, Django Unchained, has exhaustively become a source of public controversy for its setting amongst southern, pre-Civil War plantations where the height of the black man’s plight in the United States was the accepted norm. Not the least of the film’s detractors, the also ever-increasingly controversial auteur Spike Lee has openly refused to patronize his notorious rival’s latest, fairly stating he cannot comment much further due to this position but adding that the piece appears to be a disgrace to his ancestors.

As talked to death as the subject already feels, my own leanings would leave me remiss not to weigh in after what feels like much more than seven days digesting and discussing the new work of one of my – and just about everyone else’s – favorite filmmakers, and the decidedly preemptive reaction to it from,...

"That Guy Dick Miller!" week continues at Trailers from Hell, today with writer-director Larry Karaszewski introducing "serious-minded" pre-Civil War comedy "Skin Game." Coproducer James Garner channels his winning Maverick persona as a pre-Civil War con man whose partner Louis Gossett Jr. poses as his slave. The two travel around "selling" Gossett to various slaveholders, then spring him and move on to the next mark. It's a comedy, but a fairly serious-minded one. The familiar backlot and supporting cast mark this as a typical Warner Bros. product of the time, rather flatly directed by TV vet Paul Bogart. This trailer is pan-&-scan, but the Warner Home Video disc is available in anamorphic Panavision.

Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Paul Bogart has died at the age of 92.

He passed away on Sunday in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

Bogart, who was born in New York City, first took a job as a travelling puppeteer before signing up to serve in the Army in World War II.

Immediately after, he began work at U.S. TV network NBC, rising up through the ranks until be became a director of hit shows like The Defenders and All in the Family, both of which earned him Emmy Awards.

Bogart additionally received two trophies for his work on CBS Playhouse and another as a co-producer of classic sitcom The Golden Girls.

The star's directing credits also include Bob Hope's last film Cancel My Reservation, Marlowe, Torch Song Trilogy and Oh, God! You Devil.

There are private detectives, and then there is Philip Marlowe. The iconic investigator created by Raymond Chandler has existed in the form of the written word since 1939, and on the big screen since 1942’s The Falcon Takes Over.

Embodied on the silver screen by such icons as Humphrey Bogart and Robert Mitchum (both of whom starred in respective adaptations of The Big Sleep, Chandler’s most famous, and first true, Marlow piece), The Warner Archive has given the world the chance to see one of the lesser talked about Marlowe films. The company has released the 1969 film, Marlowe, starring James Garner.

Directed by Paul Bogart, Marlowe follows the titular literary legend, as he worms his way through cases ranging from missing people and the occasional murder-by-ice-pick. Based on Chandler’s “The Little Sister,” the film is an odd bit of noir filmmaking that is not quite as engaging as Bogart...

We have an exclusive clip from the brand new Warner Archive title Marlowe, which is available on DVD starting today. Click below to watch a scene where James Garner tries to give Sharon Farrell a shoulder to cry on.

Click to watch Exclusive: Shoulder to Cry On!

clickHere for more information on how to order Marlowe from the Warner Archive.

Five-hundred bucks doesn't come easily for private eye Philip Marlowe (James Garner). But when it comes by way of a bribe, it might as well be five cents. He rejects Winslow Wong (Bruce Lee) and his offer of cash...and Wong promptly karates the detective's office into a junkpile. In a colorful whodunit based on Raymond Chandler's The Little Sister, Garner's easygoing style contrasts agreeably with the grim task of sleuthing a case of missing persons, blackmail and ice-pick murders. Carroll O'Connor, Rita Moreno, William Daniels, Sharon Farrell and...

<p><img src="http://www.justpressplay.net/images/stories/theothershelf.jpg" alt="theothershelf" width="590" height="150" /></p> <p>Witness the origin of Santa Claus, spend a night in a department store with a psycho and let some frogs teach you how to count, while Sam Rockwell teaches high school girls how to handle balls. Here are some titles you may have missed recently.</p> <p style="text-align: center;">• • •</p> <p> </p> <p><strong><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><img class="Image-Left" src="http://www.justpressplay.net/images/stories/DVDcovers/santaclaus.jpg" alt="santaclaus" width="150" height="205" />Santa Claus</span></strong><br />by Marissa Quenqua</p> <p>{amazon}B003YCIE68{/amazon}</p> <p>In <em>Santa Claus</em>, we are privy to the process in which an elderly man who was beloved by his neighborhood for going out every Christmas Eve in snow, sleet, or blizzard with a sleigh full of toys eventually becomes <em>Santa Claus</em>. Hundreds of years ago, this man and his wife went out in a particularly severe blizzard, claiming that their reindeer can "handle anything," only to be blown off course and nearly freeze to death before being rescued by immortal elves. They are taken miraculously to the North Pole, where he is given immortality and bestowed...

DVD Playhouse—November 2010

By Allen Gardner

Paths Of Glory (Criterion) Stanley Kubrick’s 1957 antiwar classic put him on the map as a major filmmaker. Kirk Douglas stars in a true story about a French officer in Ww I who locks horns with the military’s top brass after his men are court-martialed for failing to carry out an obvious suicide mission. A perfect film, across the board, with fine support from George Macready as one of the most despicable martinet’s ever captured on film, Ralph Meeker, and Adolphe Menjou, all oily charm as a conniving General. Also available on Blu-ray disc. Bonuses: Audio commentary by critic Gary Giddins; Excerpt from 1966 audio interview with Kubrick; 1979 interview with Douglas; New interviews with Jan Harlan, Christiane Kubrick, and producer James B. Harris; French television documentary on real-life case which inspired the film; Trailer. Widescreen. Dolby 1.0 mono.

Winter’S Bone (Lionsgate) After her deadbeat father disappears,...

Simon Brew Aug 14, 2017

Is the named director of a film the one who's actually been calling the shots? Here are 11 where a 'ghost director' may have been involved.

It's not that uncommon for a director to take their name off a film, and to leave the moniker Alan Smithee or whatever the current equivalent is behind. However, what's considerably rarer is when a film is released under the name of one director, but it's later revealed or rumoured that, actually, other hands were at work, either for a solid chunk or even the entirety of a production. That a film was, for want of a better phrase, 'ghost directed'.

See related Gotham season 4: Barbara is set to form an all-female "power base"

Granted, some of these stories that we're about to tell have little chance of ever being fully confirmed, but here are some examples of where the helmer...