Actualités

If you thought you’d seen the last of Roobla’s alphabetical rundowns with our Halloween effort, think again. With Christmas drawing ever closer, we couldn’t let the big one pass without the A-Z film treatment, so here we go…

A is for Alastair Sim. His performance in the 1951 version of A Christmas Carol still remains the definitive portrayal of Ebenezer Scrooge.

B is for Bruce Willis. You can even get Die Hard festive jumpers now – ho-ho-ho.

C is for Channel 5. This lot love to start early with the Yuletide flicks; in fact I’m sure I saw one during August Bank Holiday.

D is for Disney. From Snow White to Frozen, they’ve made family entertainment into an art form, especially at this time of year..

E is for elves. Played by Dudley Moore and Will Ferrell amongst others, they’ve served Santa well over the years.

Robert Pattinson and Fka Twigs have been keeping a low profile as of late, but on Sunday, the couple was spotted grabbing dinner in London. Robert, who is costarring in the upcoming Lost City of Z film alongside Charlie Hunnam, kept things casual in a beanie and Nike sneakers, while Twigs looked like her usual effortlessly cool self. Rob and Twigs have been dating since August 2014, but his relationship with ex-girlfriend Kristen Stewart still managed to make headlines over the weekend. Kristen hosted Saturday Night Live for the first time ever this week, and during her opening monologue, the Personal Shopper actress took a walk down memory lane and brought up the tweets Donald Trump sent out about her and Robert in 2012. The tweets in question encouraged Rob to leave her after she was caught cheating on him with her married Snow White and the Huntsman director, Rupert Sanders. Rob...

In Japan Leonard Schrader's docu about real-life American horrors was called Violent America. The decidedly unflattering picture couldn't find a U.S. distributor when new but accrued a reputation as the ultimate compilation of violent historical images. It's now filed with cannibal and zombie pictures in exploitation movie catalogs, yet it has more in common with Schrader's Taxi Driver. The Killing of America Blu-ray Severin Films 1981 / Color / 2:35 1:85 widescreen 1:37 flat full frame / 95, 115 min. / Street Date October 25, 2016 / 29.98 Starring Chuck Riley (narrator, English version), Ed Dorris, Thomas Noguchi, Sirhan Sirhan, Wayne Henley, Ed Kemper. Cinematography Robert Charlton, Tom Hurwitz, Willy Kurant, Peter Smokler Film Editor Lee Percy Original Music W. Michael Lewis, Mark Lindsay Written by Leonard Schrader, Chieko Schrader Produced by Mataichiro Yamamoto, Leonard Schrader Directed by Sheldon Renan

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

1980s censorship in Japan strongly limited violent images on TV. They didn't see the steady...