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Larry Cohen: Mystery & Misdirection will be released on August 26 via Scream Factory.

The Blu-ray set collects three films from the exploitation trailblazer behind the likes of The Stuff and It’s Alive: The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover, Special Effects, and Wicked Stepmother.

1977’s The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover is a biographical drama starring Broderick Crawford, James Wainwright, Jose Ferrer, Celeste Holm, Ronee Blakely, John Marley, and Michael Sacks.

Special Features:

2k Restoration from the Original Camera Negative (new) Audio: DTS-hd Master Audio Mono “The Most Feared Man: Scoring The Private Files Of J. Edgar Hoover” – Interview With Film Music Historian Daniel Schweiger (new) Original Trailer

1984’s Special Effects is a horror-thriller starring Zoë Lund, Eric Bogosian, Brad Rijn, and Kevin O’Connor.

Special Features:

Audio: DTS-hd Master Audio Mono Trailer

1989’s Wicked Stepmother is a horror-comedy starring Bette Davis, Barbara Carrera, Colleen Camp, Lionel Stander, David Rasche,...

Many fans of the genre will vehemently argue that Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West is the greatest spaghetti western ever made. Audiences will soon have the opportunity to revisit the classic film on a free streaming platform.

Once Upon a Time in the West will arrive on Tubi on March 1. The legendary movie stars the iconic Charles Bronson opposite Henry Fonda's villain. The revenge-western follows Bronson's character, Harmonica (a role originally intended for Clint Eastwood), as he tracks down Fonda's outlaw Frank to right a past wrong. The movie's ensemble includes Claudia Cardinale, Jason Robards, Gabriele Ferzetti, Paolo Stoppa, Marco Zuanelli, Keenan Wynn, Frank Wolff, Lionel Stander, Woody Strode, Jack Elam, Al Mulock, Benito Stefanelli and Aldo Sambrell.

Related16 Years Later, John Cena's 31% Rotten Action Flick Has Aged Like Milk (But You Can Stream It for Free)

While Cena may be a popular franchise lead,...

One of Sergio Leone's spaghetti western masterpieces has hit a major streaming platform. Once Upon a Time in the West, starring Henry Fonda and Charles Bronson, has arrived on Prime Video as of December 1.

Directed and co-written by Leone, the revenge-western Once Upon a Time in the West follows Bronson's character, Harmonica (a role originally intended for Clint Eastwood), as he tracks down Fonda's outlaw Frank to right a past wrong. The film notably cast Fonda against type as the villain. The movie's ensemble includes Claudia Cardinale, Jason Robards, Gabriele Ferzetti, Paolo Stoppa, Marco Zuanelli, Keenan Wynn, Frank Wolff, Lionel Stander, Woody Strode, Jack Elam, Al Mulock, Benito Stefanelli and Aldo Sambrell.

Related December 1 Will Be a Sad Day for Stephen King Fans

Stephen King fans only have a few days left to watch a popular adaptation before it leaves Netflix at the start of December.

Once Upon a Time in the West...

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This December, Prime Video is bringing you a lot of entertainment, from the much-anticipated sequel film to My Fault to an exciting anthology series based on different video games titled Secret Level. However, for the purposes of this article, we are only including the films that are coming to Prime Video this month and have a 90% or higher Rotten Tomatoes score. So, check out the 7 best films that are coming to Prime Video in December 2024 with a 90% or higher Rotten Tomatoes score.

After Hours (December 1) Rotten Tomatoes Score: 90% Credit – Warner Bros.

After Hours is a dark comedy film directed by Martin Scorsese from a screenplay by Joseph Minion. The 1985 film follows Paul Hackett, an office worker with a set routine, but when one night he breaks that routine to meet a strange woman, he finds himself in several...

This year’s Transformers One takes the lore and explores how both Optimus Prime and Megatron went from practically brothers to becoming bitter enemies. But back in 1987, an epic movie version of the popular animated television show would bring their battle to the big screen for the first time. It’s Transformers: The Movie on this episode of Revisited.

The Background and the plot

The Transformers cartoon from 1984 was one of several children’s shows that was made explicitly to sell toys. It joined the likes of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, G.I. Joe and Voltron. However, this is a good example of “if you can make a product that’s cool enough, we won’t dwell on the shallow corporate reason for its existence.” Kids everywhere in the 80s loved the varied vehicles and characters and the creativity of unfolding and switching parts to turn it into a fighting soldier robot.

One of Sergio Leone's most beloved spaghetti westerns is coming to Paramount+ soon. The iconic filmmaker's Once Upon a Time in the West, considered one of the greatest movies ever, hits the service in August.

Directed and co-written by Leone, the legendary western debuted in 1968 with Paramount Pictures credited as one of the production companies that helped bring it to the big screen. Over half a century later, Once Upon a Time in the West will arrive on Paramount+ on August 1, 2024. The original 166-minute director's version of the movie premiered on December 21, 1968, in European territories, where it became a box-office success. Paramount cut Once Upon a Time in the West down to 145 minutes for its subsequent release in the United States on May 28 of the following year to more modest box office takings.

Related A Quiet Place: Day One Sets Digital Release After Impressive Box Office Run

The prequel...

John Regis, a comedian and entertainer who performed on talk shows and cruise ships and was a headliner on the Playboy Club circuit, died Aug. 19 in Los Angeles, magician Kerry Ross announced. He was 94.

As a “road comic” in the 1960s and ’70s, Regis was a regular at the Purple Onion and Hungry i nightclubs in San Francisco, toured Canada in a comedy show with Lyle Waggoner and opened for the likes of Bob Hope, Ray Charles, Rosemary Clooney, Stan Kenton, Woody Herman and Peter Marshall during his career.

He also showed up in the 1991 film Joey Takes a Cab, starring Lionel Stander; on talk shows hosted by Steve Allen, Della Reese, David Frost and Alan Thicke; and on stage in regional productions of Kiss Me Kate, Under the Yum Yum Tree, Sunday in New York and other plays.

Born John Ray and raised in the Ozarks, Regis produced “Tops...

The first film in Fernando Di Leo’s so-called Milieu trilogy, Caliber 9 explores the criminal underbelly of Milan, a city more typically associated with the modish institutions of high finance and haute couture. The film’s full Italian title, Milan Caliber 9, emphasizes the centrality of location, while also referring to a collection of stories by crime writer Giorgio Scerbanenco, several of which Di Leo loosely adapted for the film. Generically, Caliber 9 is a fascinating mashup of the gritty poliziotteschi genre and stylish neo-noirs in the vein of Jean-Pierre Melville. Its tight-lipped protagonist certainly seems patterned after Alain Delon’s buttoned-down hitman in Le Samouraï, right down to the brown trench coat.

Di Leo’s film opens with a brilliantly executed pre-credits sequence that details a laundered currency handoff gone wrong, as well as the mob’s violent reprisals, along the way providing a handy cross-section of Milan’s criminal demimonde,...

The three musical remakes of a “A Star is Born” have regretfully overshadowed William A. Wellman’s 1937 original version. But a new 4K restoration from the original nitrate three-strip Technicolor camera negative is a revelation vividly illustrating that the first version of the heartbreaking tale of the up-and-coming actress marrying a fading star losing his battle with alcoholism is a masterpiece. As exhilarating as the musical versions with Judy Garland, Barbra Streisand and Lady Gaga belting out such tunes as “The Man Who Got Away,” “Evergreen” and “Shallow,” the original proves that sometimes simpler is better.

Warner Archive recently released the Blu-ray of this new restoration and the TCM Classic Film Festival presents its theatrical premiere on April 21. Produced by David O. Selznick, who was the executive producer of an earlier version of the Hollywood story, 1932’s “What Price Hollywood?,” the 1937 drama was one of the first three-strip Technicolor films produced by Hollywood.

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“A Rise And A Fall In Technicolor”

By Raymond Benson

A Star is Born has been made many times—as four Hollywood feature films, one television movie, and one Bollywood picture. The 1937 original, produced by David O. Selznick, directed by William A. Wellman, is often forgotten amongst the more recent versions, such as the celebrated 2018 remake starring Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper.

For this reviewer’s money, the 1937 A Star is Born is superior to them all. Granted, it is obviously dated and one must place oneself within the context of the period in which the movie was released. It is also not a musical, as all the others are. The first version also deals exclusively with the motion picture industry. The second one, released in 1954 and starring Judy Garland and James Mason, did as well… but following adaptations went more into the...

They’ve hit us with three remakes of this one, one about another actress and two about music stars — maybe the next will be about a TikTok star. Thanks to an unexpected full digital restoration from original Technicolor elements, this 1937 original once again plays like a winner. Silent legend Janet Gaynor is Esther Blodgett, soon to become the famous Vicki Lester. Fredric March gives one of his best performances as a matinee idol running his career into the ground with drink. David O. Selznick’s classy production takes some cynical jabs at The Biz yet characterizes Adolph Menjou’s producer as an all-wise, all-forgiving saint. The Wac adds great extras in full HD — a swing musical short and a sarcastic Merrie Melodie cartoon that spoofs the main feature.

A Star is Born (1937)

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1937 / Color / 1:37 Academy / 111 min. / Available at Amazon.com / Street Date March 29, 2022 / 21.99

Starring: Janet Gaynor, Fredric March,...

Writer, director, producer, editor, cinematographer, and actor Larry Fessenden chats with hosts Joe Dante & Josh Olson about some of his favorite movies.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Habit (1995)

Jakob’s Wife (2021)

Phantom Thread (2017)

The Last Winter (2006)

Attack of the Crab Monsters (1957)

The Crawling Eye (1958)

The Reptile (1966)

Peeping Tom (1960)

Casablanca (1942)

Jaws (1975)

Man Of A Thousand Faces (1957)

Scarlet Street (1945)

Suspicion (1941)

Rope (1948)

The Lady Vanishes (1938)

Night Of The Living Dead (1968)

Frankenstein (1931)

The Wolf Man (1941)

Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954)

Dracula (1931)

Dawn of the Dead (1978)

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)

Taxi Driver (1976)

Mean Streets (1973)

One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)

Playtime (1973)

The Thing (1982)

The Howling (1981)

An American Werewolf In London (1981)

An American Werewolf In Paris (1997)

I Was A Teenage Werewolf (1957)

Ginger Snaps (2001)

The Terminator (1984)

The Wolfman (2010)

Van Helsing (2004)

The Mummy (2017)

Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992)

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1994)

The Invisible Man (1933)

The Invisible Man (2020)

Amazon Women On The Moon (1987)

Wendigo (2001)

Fargo (1996)

Raising Arizona (1987)

Seven (1995)

Man Bites Dog...

A significant subplot of Quentin Tarantino's ninth feature, Once Upon a Time in... Hollywood, involves the offer of work to fading movie stars from the Italian film business, where a few got lucky and reinvigorated their careers and others merely paid the rent or tarnished their reputations, if any.This notion is certainly not one of Q.T.'s notorious counter-historical plot turns: Italy had been offering opportunities to Hollywood and European flotsam since the fifties.In the era of Il Boom, the post-war economic miracle, filmmakers, including actors, were offered a great deal: they could live and work in Italy tax-free for a year. Projects were not only re-written to take advantage of this possibility, they were conceived for it: it's uncertain Roman Holiday would exist without the big tax break incentive.For actors, there was clearly another consideration, beyond the big, or at least tax-exempt, bucks and...

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,...

In their feature films, directors Josh and Ben Safdie have always walked a fine line between fact and fiction. Not quite documentaries and not quite traditional narratives, their work takes on an air of alarming spontaneity, threatening to jump off the screen at you. Between Daddy Longlegs and Heaven Knows What, the Safdies captured a gorgeously grainy snapshot of their home city of New York, both painfully truthful and deeply impacting.

Their latest, Good Time, returns to New York City, this time bringing a pulp edge to their naturalistic aesthetic. After a botched bank robbery lands his brother Nick (Ben Safdie) in jail, Constantine (Robert Pattinson) is forced out of Queens into the city to bring his brother home, at any cost.

Our review describes Good Time as “in parts a heist movie (iconic masks included) and a chase movie, but not an homage in any sense — more an evolution,...

Can radical theater make a good movie? Elio Petri continues his string of biting social comment movies with a black comedy about rich people, thieves, and the notion of ownership — it’s a caustic position paper but also a funny satire, with quirky yet believable characters. Ugo Tognazzi is terrific as scheming capitalist, as much a prisoner of his wealth as a poor clerk is of his poverty.

Property is No Longer a Theft

Blu-ray + DVD

Arrow Video USA

1973 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 126 min. / Street Date March 28, 2017 / La proprietà non è più un furto / Available from Arrow Video / 39.95

Starring: Ugo Tognazzi, Flavio Bucci, Daria Nicolodi, Mario Scaccia, Orazio Orlando, Julien Guiomar, Cecilia Polizzi, Jacques Herlin, Ada Pometti, Salvo Randone.

Cinematography: Luigi Kuveiller

Film Editor: Ruggero Mastroianni

Original Music: Ennio Morricone

Production design / Costume design: Gianni Polidori

Written by Elio Petri, Ugo Pirro

Produced by Claudio Mancini

Directed by Elio Petri

Essere o Avere?...

Stars: Donald Pleasence, Lionel Stander, Françoise Dorléac, Jack MacGowran, Iain Quarrier | Written by Roman Polanski, Gerard Brach | Directed by Roman Polanski

Roman Polanski’s taste for dark absurdist comedy is in full swing in 1966 comedy-thriller Cul-De-Sac. It’s his second English-language film, sandwiched between Repulsion and Fearless Vampire Killers. Compared with his towering classics (and there are a few) it is slight, but even minor Polanski is a joy to watch.

Especially with a setup like this. We open with Dickey (Lionel Stander, the spit of Ernest Borgnine) and Albie (Jack MacGowran), their car sputtering along the Northumberland coast. Albie is dying from a gunshot wound, so Dickey heads off for help, and finds himself on a coastal island, in a castle owned by George (Donald Pleasence) and his glamorous wife Teresa (Françoise Dorléac).

So begins a strange semi-hostage relationship between the very American gangsters and the gentle married couple.

Ryan Lambie Nov 30, 2016

With a 30th anniversary Blu-ray out soon, Ryan takes a timely look back at the quirky, dark, superbly animated Transformers: The Movie...

Nb: The following contains spoilers for Transformers: The Movie. Just thought we should mention it.

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The shadow of death hung like a black curtain over Transformers: The Movie. Thanks to an edict handed down by the powers that be at Hasbro, pretty much every toy in the original Transformers 1984 line was wiped out in the course of the film's events; and by the time the noble Autobot leader Optimus Prime died at the hands of Megatron towards the end of the first act, a generation of youngsters were scarred for life.

In retrospect, Hasbro's cold business decision - to wipe out one generation of toys...

Shout! Factory has granted The A.V. Club an exclusive look at its Transformers: The Movie 30th Anniversary Edition Blu-ray, hitting shelves this month. The clip is a favorite sequence amongst Transformers aficionados, and showcases new (for 1986) characters Hot Rod and Kup; Kup (Lionel Stander), is sort of an Obi-Wan type to Hot Rod’s (Judd Nelson) turbo-revvin’ young Luke Skywalker-by-proxy.

The two new toys—sorry, characters—discover an attempt by the Decepticons to invade Autobot City on Earth, after massacring most of the 1984-1985 toy line in a particularly gruesome fashion:

The clip also showcases the Blu-ray’s new 4k transfer of the film, which is crisp and full of detail while still retaining plenty of ‘80s grain. Utilizing a near-pristine print allowed the team behind the restoration to worry less about torn film sections and concentrate on smaller details, such as getting Hot Rod’s colors just ...

My guest for this month is West Anthony, and he’s joined me to discuss the film he chose for me, the 1976 comedy-drama film The Front. You can follow the show on Twitter @cinemagadfly.

Show notes:

Not sure what happened to the audio in the introduction, apologies! The Hollywood blacklist is a term for the treatment of people in the entertainment industry who refused to name names to the House Un-American Activities Committee from 1947 to 1960 For a more in depth take on the blacklist, check out the latest season of the phenomenal You Must Remember This podcast WonderCon is a comic book convention that was held annually in Sf until it was cruelly moved to the La area in 2012. Yes I’m still bitter about it. West also recommends the Gabrielle de Cuir directed Thirty Years of Treason by Eric Bentley Among the people famously blacklisted were Lillian Hellman, Lionel Stander,...

Aside from the obvious appeal of this smörgásbord of dirty movie delights, cult director Frank Henenlotter hosts a good history of soft-core film smut, in all its forms. Includes excellent clips and input from one of the 'greats' in this field, David F. Friedman. Remember, it's for educational purposes only. That's Sexploitation! Blu-ray Severin Films 2013 / Color / 1:37 full frame / 136 min. / Street Date April 26, 2016 / 24.95 Starring Albert Cadabra, Gal Friday, David F. Friedman, Frank Henenlotter. Cinematography Daniel Griffith, Brent Kerr, Anthony Sneed Produced by Jimmy Maslon, Mike Vraney Written and Directed and Edited by Frank Henenlotter

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Remember the beginning of the Paddy Chayefsky-Sidney Lumet film The Bachelor Party, where a group of men in a darkened room are watching a film, and we don't know what it is? That's Sexploitation! is a comprehensive documentary about a sleazy, yet strangely innocent, slice of prurient Americana. From VHS through the DVD days,...

Hitler's Madman, a WWII propaganda film, had a complex origin story: filmed shortly after the real events it depicts (the assassination of senior Nazi Reinhard Heydrich and the subsequent massacre of the Czech town of Lidice in reprisal), the appearance of Fritz Lang's similarly-themed Hangmen Also Die! caused its release to be delayed and it also suffered a title change from the catchier Hitler's Hangman. On the plus side, the tiny independent production, shot in just a week, was acquired by MGM and given a bigger budget for re-shoots to enhance its production values. But Sirk ruefully admitted the new scenes actually weakened the film's Poverty Row sensibility, which gave it a slight documentary flavor which was useful.The Lang film is, I think, superior all round, but the two make interesting companions and Sirk's is tougher, in a way. Lang's movie, originally written by Brecht, attempts to build in a small victory,...

'Trumbo' movie: Bryan Cranston as screenwriter Dalton Trumbo and Helen Mirren as gossip columnist Hedda Hopper. 'Trumbo' movie review: Highly entertaining 'history lesson' Full disclosure: on the wall in my study hangs a poster – the iconic photograph of blacklisted Hollywood screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, with black-horned rim glasses, handlebar mustache, a smoke dangling from the end of a dramatic cigarette holder. He's sitting – stark naked – in a tub surrounded by his particular writing apparatus. He's looking directly into the camera of the photographer, his daughter Mitzi. Dalton Trumbo's son, Christopher Trumbo, gave me the poster after my interview with him for the release of Peter Askin's 2007 documentary also titled Trumbo. That film combines archival footage, including family movies and photographs, with performances of the senior Trumbo's letters to his family during their many years of turmoil before and through the blacklist, including his time in prison. The letters are read by,...

Gary Cooper movies on TCM: Cooper at his best and at his weakest Gary Cooper is Turner Classic Movies' “Summer Under the Stars” star today, Aug. 30, '15. Unfortunately, TCM isn't showing any Cooper movie premiere – despite the fact that most of his Paramount movies of the '20s and '30s remain unavailable. This evening's features are Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936), Sergeant York (1941), and Love in the Afternoon (1957). Mr. Deeds Goes to Town solidified Gary Cooper's stardom and helped to make Jean Arthur Columbia's top female star. The film is a tad overlong and, like every Frank Capra movie, it's also highly sentimental. What saves it from the Hell of Good Intentions is the acting of the two leads – Cooper and Arthur are both excellent – and of several supporting players. Directed by Howard Hawks, the jingoistic, pro-war Sergeant York was a huge box office hit, eventually earning Academy Award nominations in several categories,...

Michael Caine young. Michael Caine movies: From Irwin Allen bombs to Woody Allen classic It's hard to believe that Michael Caine has been around making movies for nearly six decades. No wonder he's had time to appear – in roles big and small and tiny – in more than 120 films, ranging from unwatchable stuff like the Sylvester Stallone soccer flick Victory and Michael Ritchie's adventure flick The Island to Brian G. Hutton's X, Y and Zee, Joseph L. Mankiewicz's Sleuth (a duel of wits and acting styles with Laurence Olivier), and Alfonso Cuarón's Children of Men. (See TCM's Michael Caine movie schedule further below.) Throughout his long, long career, Caine has played heroes and villains and everything in between. Sometimes, in his worst vehicles, he has floundered along with everybody else. At other times, he was the best element in otherwise disappointing fare, e.g., Philip Kaufman's Quills.

Stars: Gastone Moschin, Mario Adorf, Barbara Bouchet, Frank Wolff, Luigi Pistilli, Ivo Garrani, Philippe Leroy, Lionel Stander, Mario Novelli, Giuseppe Castellano, Salvatore Arico, Fernando Cerulli | Written and Directed by Fernando Di Leo

One of the things I love about Arrow Video releases is the ability they give me to extend my exposure to movies that are harder to find, especially world cinema releases. Fernando Di Leo’s Milano Calibro 9 is the latest Italian gangster film to be released by the company and brings on the gritty ultra-violence to the gangster movie.

When Ugo Piazza (Gastone Moschin) is released from jail he looks to lead a straight, the last thing he wants is to return to his life of crime. This is soon out of the question though when psychopathic hoodlum Rocco (Mario Adorf) informs him his former boss wants to see him. With $300,000 missing from a previous job all...

Jean Arthur films on TCM include three Frank Capra classics Five Jean Arthur films will be shown this evening, Monday, January 5, 2015, on Turner Classic Movies, including three directed by Frank Capra, the man who helped to turn Arthur into a major Hollywood star. They are the following: Capra's Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, You Can't Take It with You, and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington; George Stevens' The More the Merrier; and Frank Borzage's History Is Made at Night. One the most effective performers of the studio era, Jean Arthur -- whose film career began inauspiciously in 1923 -- was Columbia Pictures' biggest female star from the mid-'30s to the mid-'40s, when Rita Hayworth came to prominence and, coincidentally, Arthur's Columbia contract expired. Today, she's best known for her trio of films directed by Frank Capra, Columbia's top director of the 1930s. Jean Arthur-Frank Capra...

Roughly forty-five minutes into William A. Wellman’s A Star is Born (1937), veteran press agent Matt Libby (Lionel Stander) is asked to fabricate a marketable biography for a certain Esther Victoria Blodgett (Janet Gaynor), his studio’s freshly signed ingenue. It all seems to be going quite smoothly—until Libby hears the new signee’s name. “Do you know," he asks his boss indignantly, “what her name is?” Oliver Niles (Adolphe Menjou), the studio’s head producer, is no less mortified. “We’ll have to do something about that right away," he concedes, and with that he launches into an impromptu brainstorm. Blodgett is out. Victoria is cut down to Vicki. And Esther? No: “Siesta, Besta, Sesta, Fester, Jester, Hester . . . Lester—Vicki Lester.” Niles chants the name like an incantation. He calls on his cronies for corroboration. The whole office starts crying it out: “Vicki Lester, Vicki Lester, Vicki Lester,...

Roughly forty-five minutes into William A. Wellman’s A Star is Born (1937), veteran press agent Matt Libby (Lionel Stander) is asked to fabricate a marketable biography for a certain Esther Victoria Blodgett (Janet Gaynor), his studio’s freshly signed ingenue. It all seems to be going quite smoothly—until Libby hears the new signee’s name. “Do you know," he asks his boss indignantly, “what her name is?” Oliver Niles (Adolphe Menjou), the studio’s head producer, is no less mortified. “We’ll have to do something about that right away," he concedes, and with that he launches into an impromptu brainstorm. Blodgett is out. Victoria is cut down to Vicki. And Esther? No: “Siesta, Besta, Sesta, Fester, Jester, Hester . . . Lester—Vicki Lester.” Niles chants the name like an incantation. He calls on his cronies for corroboration. The whole office starts crying it out: “Vicki Lester, Vicki Lester, Vicki Lester,...

Rex Harrison hat on TCM: ‘My Fair Lady,’ ‘Anna and the King of Siam’ Rex Harrison is Turner Classic Movies’ final "Summer Under the Stars" star today, August 31, 2013. TCM is currently showing George Cukor’s lavish My Fair Lady (1964), an Academy Award-winning musical that has (in my humble opinion) unfairly lost quite a bit of its prestige in the last several decades. Rex Harrison, invariably a major ham whether playing Saladin, the King of Siam, Julius Caesar, the ghost of a dead sea captain, or Richard Burton’s lover, is for once flawlessly cast as Professor Henry Higgins, who on stage transformed Julie Andrews from cockney duckling to diction-master swan and who in the movie version does the same for Audrey Hepburn. Harrison, by the way, was the year’s Best Actor Oscar winner. (See also: "Audrey Hepburn vs. Julie Andrews: Biggest Oscar Snubs.") Following My Fair Lady, Rex Harrison...

Mickey Rooney movie schedule (Pt): TCM on August 13 See previous post: “Mickey Rooney Movies: Music and Murder.” Photo: Mickey Rooney ca. 1940. 3:00 Am Death On The Diamond (1934). Director: Edward Sedgwick. Cast: Robert Young, Madge Evans, Nat Pendleton, Mickey Rooney. Bw-71 mins. 4:15 Am A Midsummer Night’S Dream (1935). Director: Max Reinhardt and William Dieterle. Cast: James Cagney, Dick Powell, Olivia de Havilland, Ross Alexander, Anita Louise, Mickey Rooney, Joe E. Brown, Victor Jory, Ian Hunter, Verree Teasdale, Jean Muir, Frank McHugh, Grant Mitchell, Hobart Cavanaugh, Dewey Robinson, Hugh Herbert, Arthur Treacher, Otis Harlan, Helen Westcott, Fred Sale, Billy Barty, Rags Ragland. Bw-143 mins. 6:45 Am A Family Affair (1936). Director: George B. Seitz. Cast: Mickey Rooney, Lionel Barrymore, Cecilia Parker, Eric Linden. Bw-69 mins. 8:00 Am Boys Town (1938). Director: Norman Taurog. Cast: Spencer Tracy, Mickey Rooney, Henry Hull, Leslie Fenton, Gene Reynolds, Edward Norris, Addison Richards, Minor Watson, Jonathan Hale,...

"The Greatest Event in Television History" is getting a sequel.

"Parks and Recreation" star Adam Scott teased the upcoming sequel during an appearance on "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon" Tuesday (April 9). He says that like the last one, which featured Jon Hamm and Scott as "Simon and Simon," it will be a faithful re-creation of the opening credits of a 1980s television show. The new installment will air June 6 on Adult Swim and also feature Scott's "Parks and Rec" co-star Amy Poehler and Horatio Sanz.

Scott wouldn't say which show they were doing this time, but it has to be "Hart to Hart," right? Scott and Poehler could easily step into the shoes of Robert Wagner and Stefanie Powers, and Sanz is a natural for Max (Lionel Stander), right down to the gravelly voice. You can watch the "Hart to Hart" opening here.

Scott also says he plans to do...

Roman Polanski is as famous for the events of his tumultuous life as he is for his often brilliant, highly influential body of work.

Born in Paris in 1933 to Polish parents who unfortunately returned to Poland in 1937, Polanski survived the Nazi extermination of the inhabitants of Krakow’s Jewish ghetto (although his mother died in Auschwitz). He roamed the countryside struggling to survive for the remainder of the war, at times being sheltered by sympathetic families but also witnessing atrocities that seem likely to have influenced his choice of material and portrayal of violence on screen.

Polanski met actress Sharon Tate while making The Fearless Vampire Killers, and they were married in January 1968. In August 1969, while Polanski was in Europe, the pregnant Tate and four of their friends were murdered at their La residence at 10050 Cielo Drive in Benedict Canyon by the followers of Charles Manson, a crime that has...

A Cul-de-sac is defined as a road that leads nowhere. And in Roman Polanski’s film of the same name, this is never made literal. It’s easy to imagine the simplified version that would have some visual metaphor for this road, but the title is more indicative of the narrative. Donald Pleasence and Francios Dorleac play a married couple whose home (a castle!) is invaded by a gangster (Lionel Stander). The film combines Polanski’s dark sense of humor with his fascination with claustrophobia, and though it doesn’t reach the heights of his best work, it’s must-see nonetheless. Our review of the Criterion Blu-ray of Cul-de-sac follows after the jump. Though originally a Polish filmmaker, Polanski – after received tremendous attention and acclaim for his first film Knife in the Water – quickly moved abroad to shoot his next three films in London. His sensibilities never changed though regardless of location,...

Cul-de-sac Directed by: Roman Polanski Written by: Roman Polanski and Gérard Brach Starring: Donald Pleasence, Françoise Dorléac, Lionel Stander Roman Polanski's darkly goofy Cul-de-sac is a defining moment in the filmmaker's career, dropping a style gauntlet that would shape his future filmography and define the term 'Polanski-esque'. He twists comedy and suspense into a fresh, thrilling, and manic cinematic experience that proves one thing; tough willed men eat eggs raw and weak willed men boil them. The film opens with a man pushing a car through rising waters, his arm in a sling. His bookish looking partner sits in the passenger side wincing in pain. His gut was shot out in what we assume was a botched robbery (maybe an influence on Reservoir Dogs?) Richard, the burlier of the two (played brilliantly by Lionel Stander, who kids of the 80's might recognize as the voice of Kup in Transformers: The Movie...

Chicago – Whatever you may think about Roman Polanski as a human being (or a criminal for that matter), it is simply undeniable that he is one of our best living filmmakers. From “Repulsion” to “Chinatown” to “The Pianist” to “The Ghost Writer” — he’s a master of the form, one of my absolute favorite directors of all time. One of his lesser-known works (that would be the best film of many other director’s entire careers but arguably doesn’t even rank top ten for Polanski) is the tense, taut “Cul-de-sac,” given the special edition treatment this week by The Criterion Collection.

Blu-Ray Rating: 4.0/5.0

Synopsis:

“Roman Polanski orchestrates a mental menage a trois in this slyly absurd tale of paranoia from the director’s golden 1960s period. Donald Pleasence and Francoise Dorleac star as a withdrawn couple whose isolated house is invaded by a rude, burly American gangster on the run,...

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The Killing (Criterion Collection) I tried hard to get all the features on this one watched before writing this up and I came close, the last thing I have is the inclusion of Stanley Kubrick's Killer's Kiss, which if you ask me, makes this one of the better releases of the year. Two Kubrick films in one package? Impressive, let alone the fact The Killing is a very good film, but I'll talk more about that in a full review that's coming down the line. The one extra thing I will mention here is this has a great little archival set of interviews with Sterling Hayden, who really can keep you entertained with his unique delivery. He can keep you fascinated in and out of his films. Cul-de-sac (Criterion Collection) I did not yet have a chance to watch Roman Polanski's Cul-de-sac.

It's been nearly two years since Swiss authorities, acting on a request from the Us, arrested Roman Polanski, jailed him for two months and then held him under house arrest for seven more. While incarcerated, Polanski managed to complete The Ghost Writer, which won him a Silver Bear at the 2010 edition of the Berlinale and then swept last year's European Film Awards. While we anxiously await Carnage — his adaptation of Yasmina Reza's play God of Carnage featuring Jodie Foster, Kate Winslet, Christoph Waltz and John C Reilly; it'll see its premiere in Venice before opening the New York Film Festival — MoMA has announced a month-long retrospective (September 7 through 30) and today Criterion releases Cul-de-sac (1966) on DVD and Blu-ray.

"Cul-de-sac remains a searing reminder that Roman Polanski's idiosyncratic grasp of the human mind was once evinced theatrically, rather than through narrative ferocity," writes Joseph Jon Lanthier in Slant. "Where Chinatown,...

Rank the week of August 16th’s Blu-ray and DVD new releases against the best films of all-time: New Releases Jane Eyre

(Blu-ray & DVD | PG13 | 2011)

Flickchart Ranking: #3143

Win Percentage: 55%

Times Ranked: 1594

Top-20 Rankings: 7

Directed By: Cary Fukunaga

Starring: Mia Wasikowska • Michael Fassbender • Jamie Bell • Judi Dench • Imogen Poots

Genres: Drama • Gothic Film • Mystery • Period Film • Romance • Romantic Drama • Romantic Mystery

Rank This Movie

Something Borrowed

(Blu-ray & DVD | PG13 | 2011)

Flickchart Ranking: #8753

Win Percentage: 40%

Times Ranked: 456

Top-20 Rankings: 3

Directed By: Luke Greenfield

Starring: Kate Hudson • Ginnifer Goodwin • John Krasinski • Colin Egglesfield • Steve Howey

Genres: Comedy • Comedy Drama • Drama • Romance • Romantic Comedy • Romantic Drama

Rank This Movie

Priest

(Blu-ray & DVD | PG13 | 2011)

Flickchart Ranking: #6278

Win Percentage: 43%

Times Ranked: 1274

Top-20 Rankings: 5

Directed By: Scott Charles Stewart

Starring: Paul Bettany • Karl Urban • Cam Gigandet • Maggie Q • Lily Collins

Genres: Action • Comic-Book Superhero Film • Horror • Monster Film • Religious Horror • Science Fiction • Sci-Fi Action • Sci-Fi Horror • Supernatural Horror...

Your Weekly Source for the Newest Releases to Blu-Ray Tuesday, August 16th, 2011

Agent 8 3/4 (1964)

Directed by: Ralph Thomas

Starring: Dirk Bogarde, Sylva Koscina, Robert Morley

Synopsis: Unemployed Czech-speaking writer Nicholas Whistler thinks he’s got a job visiting Prague for a bit of industrial espionage. In fact he is now in the employ of British Intelligence. His pretty chauffeuse on arrival behind the Iron Curtain, Comrade Simonova, is herself a Czech agent. Just as well she’s immediately attracted to 007′s unwitting replacement. [highdefdigest.com]

Special Features: Unknown.

Armed And Dangerous (1986)

Directed by: Mark L. Lester

Starring: John Candy, Eugene Levy, Meg Ryan, Robert Loggia

Synopsis: Dooley, a cop wrongly sacked for corruption, teams up with a useless defense lawyer in their new careers… as security guards. When the two are made fall guys for a robbery at a location they are guarding, the pair begin to investigate corruption within the company and their union.

DVD Playhouse—August 2011

By Allen Gardner

High And Low (Criterion) Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 adaptation of Ed McBain’s novel King’s Ransom is a multi-layered masterpiece of suspense and one of the best portraits ever of class warfare in post-ww II Japan. Toshiro Mifune stars as a wealthy businessman who finds himself in a moral quandary when his chauffer’s son is kidnapped by ruthless thugs who think the boy is Mifune’s. Beautifully realized on every level. Also available on Blu-ray disc. Bonuses: Commentary by Kurosawa scholar Stephen Prince; Documentary on film’s production; Interview with Mifune from 1984; Trailers and teaser. Widescreen. Dolby and DTS-hd 4.0 surround.

Leon Morin, Priest (Criterion) One of French maestro Jean-Pierre Melville’s rare non-crime-oriented films, starring Jean-Paul Belmondo as a devoted cleric who is lusted after by the women of a small village in Nazi-occupied France. When Fr. Morin finds himself drawn to a...

1977. The mention of that year warms the heart of many a film geek. For that was the year ( May 25 to be exact ) when the first “Star Wars” movie ( now referred to as Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope ) was released to theatres. Ah, but another major movie maker besides George Lucas put out a film that Summer. Just in time for July 4th weekend United Artists brought out Martin Scorsese’s New York, New York. It did not give Lucas’s movie a run for it’s money. Most Scorsese aficionados rate his other films much higher on their favorite lists. Now that it’s been issued on Blu-Ray, is it time for a re-evaluation? After all The King Of Comedy was a 1982 flop, but is now remembered fondly by many film buffs ( and stand-up comics ).

The action begins at the end of ( military ) action. World War II that is.

Cul-de-sac, Roman Polanski’s (The Ghost Writer) 1966 absurdist movie about over-the-top paranoia and bizarre sexuality (sound familiar?), comes to Blu-ray and DVD from Criterion on Aug. 16 for the list prices of $39.95 and $29.95, respectively.

Françoise Dorléac gives hubby Donald Pleasance a makeover in Roman Polanski's Cul-de-sac.

The film stars Donald Pleasance (Halloween) and Françoise Dorléac (The Soft Skin) as a cowardly eccentric and his slutty French wife, whose isolated beachfront castle is overrun by a burly American gangster (Lionel Stander, Unfaithfully Yours) on the lam. As the tide rises and flocks of chickens close in (!), the trio engages in a sly game of shifting identities, sexual challenges and emotional humiliations. It’s weird, weird stuff that’s both laugh out loud funny and quietly clever as a metaphor for a modern world in chaos.

As is usual for Criterion’s releases, the movie will have a digital restoration, approved by director Polanski,...

It’s so strange, writing this so long after the announcement yesterday. In today’s internet world of instant information, and twenty four second news cycles, yesterday’s August 2011 Criterion Collection new releases may as well have happened last week, or last month. I’m sure that the page views for this post will be markedly smaller than the usual, as I have tried consistently to have the new release post up within minutes of the pages going live on Criterion’s website. I know this all sounds like inside baseball stuff, but it’s on my mind, and darn it, this is my website.

I had a whole, several paragraph long, write up of the August titles, but since I’m finding myself writing this at 10pm on Tuesday evening, I think it’s better if I just scrap that whole thing and start over. I was going on...

Gary Cooper, Jean Arthur in Frank Capra's Mr. Deeds Goes to Town Mr. Deeds Goes To Town Review Part I The acting in Mr. Deeds Goes to Town is top notch. Cooper is, well, Gary Cooper — mixing strength and vulnerability in perfect amounts. Apart from his Lou Gehrig in Sam Wood's The Pride of the Yankees (1942), Mr. Deeds may be his best role. Jean Arthur, for her part, conveys both vulnerability and depth, something that a lesser actress would not have brought to the part. The rest of the cast, from Douglass Dumbrille's lawyer and Lionel Stander's gravelly voiced PR flack to the small-town nutty sisters played by Margaret Seddon and Margaret McWade, are all good. Even the actors playing Deeds' manservants are convincing. Joseph Walker's cinematography is solid, while Howard Jackson's musical score is standard screwball-comedy fare. But on a Frank Capra film,...

Mr. Deeds Goes To Town (1936) Direction: Frank Capra Cast: Gary Cooper, Jean Arthur, George Bancroft, Douglass Dumbrille, Lionel Stander, H. B. Warner, Ruth Donnelly, Raymond Walburn, Margaret Seddon, Margaret McWade Screenplay: Robert Riskin; from Clarence Budington Kelland "Opera Hat" Oscar Movies Gary Cooper, Jean Arthur, Frank Capra By Dan Schneider of Cosmoetica: There is a tendency among some to think that all the art produced by a great artist is great. This is false, but it gives cover for bad critics who just recycle old blurbs about said artist. Think of the fawning that goes on in discussions of Shakespeare. Although he could be a great writer, all but a dozen or so of his sonnets were mediocre tongue-twisters, and two-thirds of his thirty-seven known plays range from mediocre to terrible. In other words, by being uncritical one actually diminishes the great art that has been produced, for an uncritical...

70s Italian gangsters! It's a world where men speak with their glares and their fists and their bullets, and women do well to stay out of the way, preferably in bed, eager for sex. It's the world of Fernando Di Leo, and it's captured in a four-disc set coming to Region 1 DVD from Raro Video USA on Tuesday. Entitled Fernando Di Leo: The Italian Crime Collection, the set features fine-looking transfers of Caliber 9, The Italian Connection, The Boss, and Rulers of the City, all directed by Di Leo and starring a handful of American stars (Lionel Stander, Henry Silva, Woody Strode, Richard Conte, Jack Palance) alongside stalworth Italian actors (Mario Adorf, Gastone Moschin, Gianni Garko) and stark raving beauties (Barbara Bouchet, Antonia Santilli,...

Adolphe Menjou, Lionel Stander, Fredric March, Janet Gaynor in William A. Wellman's A Star Is Born (top); March in William Wyler's The Best Years of Our Lives (bottom) Fredric March, Turner Classic Movies' Star of the Month, can be seen tonight at his best in two films and at his very worst in one. March is excellent as the John Gilbert-John Barrymoreish soon-to-be has-been in William A. Wellman's A Star Is Born (1937), the tale of a small-town girl (Janet Gaynor) who, thanks to lots of luck and lots more screenplay contrivances, becomes a major Hollywood star. The fact that A Star Is Born actually works is a testament to the talent of those involved in this Technicolor David O. Selznick production, including versatile director Wellman (the man handled all sorts of movies), Fredric March as the tragipathetic alcoholic has-been, Gaynor as the newcomer, May Robson as Grandma,...

Now that the 2010 line-up for the Criterion Collection has finally been announced with last week’s December titles, we can begin speculating on what we’ll get in 2011. With over 50 spine numbers in 2010, will we see # 600 in 2011? At the rate that Criterion is churning out these discs, we have to assume so. Where will they get all of these upcoming titles from?

Well, over the past few months we’ve seen several titles from MGM’s catalog announced, and hinted at in their monthly newsletter. Most likely due to MGM’s current financial problems, it’s nice to see Criterion stepping up to rescue these films from the abyss of “out of print”. If you head over to the various forums (CriterionForum.org, Mubi, etc.) you’ll find many people speculating on the MGM titles that Criterion has acquired the rights to. While some are mostly speculation, I have had...

With the resurgence of movies based on toys in recent years, it was high time to reach into the past and dust off the hidden gem that started it all. Many people who grew up watching the “Transformers” television show will remember that in 1986 Hasbro released a full length animated feature film called “The Transformers: The Movie.” This film contains a fairly predictable “Transformers” plot, meaning it’s convoluted and features loads of meaningless action and prolonged fighting. Awesome.

The movie begins with a cold open: the “camera” casually flies us through the quiet beauties of outer space. Planets, stars, galaxies and celestial debris float peacefully and gracefully through the great black expanse. We gradually close in on a small Death Star-like planet bustling with all sorts of alien robotic life forms. Suddenly, a giant spherical machine, known as Unicron, targets the planet and without warning begins to suck it in like a vacuum,...