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Just about every movie buff knows that Clint Eastwood shot to international fame after starring in Sergio Leone's "Dollars Trilogy," but what came next? It's a good pub quiz question because many people might leap straight to the year 1968 when a trio of hits cemented his status as one of Hollywood's top tough guys: "Hang 'Em High," "Coogan's Bluff," and "Where Eagles Dare." But tucked away in his filmography is a forgotten 1967 Italian movie called "The Witches," not to be confused with the Hammer production of the same name from the year before. Originally titled "Le streghe" in Italian, it's an offbeat anthology movie that isn't a horror film at all and has very little to do with witches, unless you squint really hard at its themes.

"The Witches" was the brainchild of legendary producer Dino De Laurentiis, who would later make an impact in Hollywood with the 1976 "King Kong" remake,...

When was the last time you were genuinely surprised by a movie and had a great time in the theater? You will with the thrilling new game-show drama The Luckiest Man in America, starring Paul Walter Hauser (The Fantastic Four), Walton Goggins (Fallout), and other big names. The recently released film is actually based on a true story, set in the 1980s around the game show Press Your Luck — and a conman who thought he could beat the system for an endless supply of cash. To say more about the juicy story of The Luckiest Man in America would be a disservice, but MovieWeb recently caught up with the film's director, Samir Oliveros, to learn more about his experience bringing the wild story to life — including how he stumbled upon the real-life craziness in the first place.

"I actually found a VHS tape in Goodwill. I go to thrift shops frequently when I'm writing,...

Swept Away marked a low point in Guy Ritchie's career, failing to match the success of his previous films and earning harsh criticism. The 2002 remake starring Madonna only earned a fraction of its budget back and received a dismal 6% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Critics felt the remake glossed over the original's political undertones and found Madonna's acting and character unlikeable, contributing to its failure.

Guy Ritchie is a prolific filmmaker who's made several great movies, with many of these being iconic crime and action capers. In fact, the 2000 movie Snatch is largely seen as one of his best and emblematic of his style. Unfortunately, the director has had his fair share of failures, with his third movie being a notable disappointment to many.

Swept Away was a remake of a similarly titled Italian movie from 1974, but it wasn't nearly as revered. In fact, the movie was a financial and...

Warning: Major Spoilers ahead for Mr. & Mrs. Smith.

The soundtrack in the Amazon series "Mr. & Mrs. Smith" is highly original and makes a significant impact on the overall tone of the show. The musical score composed by David Fleming enhances the series and contributes to its impressive 87% Certified Fresh score on Rotten Tomatoes. Each episode of "Mr. & Mrs. Smith" features carefully selected songs that reflect the story's themes and add depth to the characters' experiences.

Amazon's Mr. & Mrs. Smith season 1 features a great and highly original soundtrack. Starring Donald Glover and Maya Erskine, Mr. & Mrs. Smith is more of a remixed version of the original 2005 action comedy starring Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie than it is a close remake. Created by Glover and fellow Atlanta writer Francesca Sloane, the show is one of 2024's first must-watch television series, with a Mr. & Mrs. Smith's...

The Coen brothers’ quirky cult classic The Big Lebowski has one of the directing duo’s best soundtracks, featuring songs from an eclectic mix of artists. This offbeat take on the film noir revolves around Jeff “The Dude” Lebowski, a zen slacker whose carefree existence is disrupted by a case of mistaken identity and a convoluted kidnapping plot that may or may not have been faked. The soundtrack full of breezy blues tunes and chill rock ‘n’ roll hits is a big part of the relaxed, easygoing mood of the Coens’ uniquely zany neo-noir.

While it received mixed reviews upon its release and initially bombed at the box office (via Collider), today The Big Lebowski is considered a comedy masterpiece, with a widespread cult following and even a religion in its name. This is one of the rare movie soundtracks in which the main character comments on how much he likes the music being played.

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After making their relationship TikTok official on Sept. 12, JoJo Siwa surprised Avery Cyrus (no relation to Miley) with a picnic on the beach for their one-month anniversary. "Celebrating our 1 month in the most special way," Siwa captioned a sweet video of their date. "Happy 1 month to the happiest girl who makes me more happy than ever."

Speaking with Popsugar about her recent #JiggleWithUs partnership with Ocean Spray, Siwa says the moment was a "huge milestone" in their relationship. And it's leading up to even more firsts, including their first holiday season together as a couple.

As Thanksgiving approaches, Siwa says she and Cyrus will likely be spending the holiday separately with their families, but she has something special in mind for their celebration together. "We will definitely have a little Thanksgiving, a little Christmas special spectacular together," she says.

It’s yet another masterpiece from the Italian director Francesco Rosi, adapting a fiction novel about a political murder conspiracy that is altogether too much of a good fit for the troubled Italy of 1975. Crime star Lino Ventura is the incorruptible detective investigating a series of killings of high-level judges, who begins to intuit that his superiors want the murders to continue. Dark and moody, Rosi’s picture is impeccably directed for a kind of nagging, uneasy suspense, with frightening hints that Ventura is being drawn into a bigger, more sinister frame. With Charles Vanel, Max von Sydow and Fernando Rey, and music by Piero Piccioni. The insightful audio commentary is by Alex Cox. The original Italian title is even more blood-curdling: Cadaveri eccelenti.

Illustrious Corpses

Blu-ray

Kino Classics

1976 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 121 min. / Cadaveri eccellenti; The Context / Street Date September 28, 2021 / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95

Starring: Lino Ventura, Tino Carraro, Marcel Bozzuffi,...

All 2021 Academy Awards nominees for Best Original Song will be performed during the preshow, which begins at 6:30 p.m. Et — not during the main show, which begins 90 minutes later.

The pre-show and main ceremony will be broadcast on ABC, as well as available to stream on Hulu Live TV, YouTubeTV, AT&T TV, FuboTV and on ABC.com (with provider authentication). The awards for Best Song and Best Score will be given out during the main show.

Leslie Odom Jr., a double nominee for acting and songwriting for “One Night in Miami,” will perform the end-titles theme he co-penned for the film, “Speak Now.” Diane Warren and singer Laura Pausini will join forces again for “Io Si (Seen),” which they co-wrote for “The Life Ahead.” “Fight for You” will be performed by the singer/co-writer H.E.R., who performed the old-school-soul throwback anthem over the end credits for “Judas and the Black Messiah.

It’s a perfect movie for a dark time: Carlo Levi’s famed novel about a political undesirable became a major Italian miniseries by the great Francesco Rosi, starring the now-legendary Gian Maria Volontè. In Mussolini’s most popular years of make-Italy-great-again Fascism, a dissident is given an indefinite ‘time out,’ an exile to a small town in a corner of the country so remote and primitive that not even Christianity could fully change it. He expects nothing but receives revelations about his country, his life and one’s place in society. It’s meditative, it’s illuminating, it’s like a book one can’t put down. It’s also uncut, as opposed to the theatrical version that made a splash here in 1980, as simply Eboli.

Christ Stopped at Eboli

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 1043

1979 / Color / 1:33 flat / 220 150, 120 min. / Cristo si è fermato a Eboli / available through The Criterion Collection...

Jules Verne’s version of ‘Die Hard’ takes place not on Christmas Eve in Century City, but 160 years ago at a lonely lighthouse in Tierra Del Fuego. The mini-moguls the Salkinds rounded up a great cast — Kirk Douglas! Samantha Eggar! Yul Brynner! — but let them down severely in production details and particularly the edit. Most everything is here for a classic adventure-suspense picture, but somebody thought it had to be ultra-violent and nihilistic. The new Blu-ray restores it to good color and an uncut state.

The Light at the Edge of the World

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1971 / Color / 2:35 anamorphic 16:9 / 126 min. / La Luz del fin del mundo / 129 min. / Street Date February 18, 2020 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Kirk Douglas, Yul Brynner, Samantha Eggar, Jean-Claude Drouot,

Fernando Rey, Renato Salvatori.

Cinematography: Henri Decae

Film Editor: Bert Bates

Original Music: Piero Piccioni

Written by Tom Rowe, Rachel Billington from a book by...

Joel and Ethan Coen are back in theaters and on Netflix this year with their acclaimed Western anthology film “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs,” but that’s not the only reason 2018 is a great one for fans of the legendary directing duo. This year marks the 20th anniversary of “The Big Lebowski,” the 1998 crime comedy turned cult classic starring Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, Julianne Moore, Steve Buscemi, and John Turturro. Mondo is celebrating the anniversary by bringing the film’s incredible soundtrack to vinyl this month.

The Mondo “Big Lebowski” vinyl goes on sale Wednesday, December 5 (purchase a copy on the Mondo official website here) and features songs by Bob Dylan, Elvis Costello, Nina Simone, The Gipsy Kings, and Townes Van Zandt, among others. The most iconic song from the film, Kenny Rogers & The First Edition’s “Just Dropped In,” is included as well. The package features all new artwork by Paul Mann.

The strangest Italian portmanteau picture of the sixties features glorious Silvana Mangano in dozens of costume changes, directed by big names (Visconti, De Sica, Pasolini) and paired with a woefully miscast Clint Eastwood. The other major attraction is a delightful music score by Piero Piccioni, with an assist from Ennio Morricone.

The Witches

Special Edition Blu-ray

Arrow Academy

1967 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 120 (?) 111 105 min. / Le streghe / Street Date January 30, 2018 / 34.95

Starring: Silvana Mangano, Clint Eastwood, Annie Girardot, Francisco Rabal, Massimo Girotti, Véronique Vendell, Elsa Albani, Clara Calamai, Marilù Tolo, Nora Ricci, Dino Mele Dino Mele, Helmut Berger, Bruno Filippini, Leslie French, Alberto Sordi, Totò, Ciancicato Miao, Ninetto Davoli, Laura Betti, Luigi Leoni, Valentino Macchi, Corinne Fontaine, Armando Bottin, Gianni Gori, Paolo Gozlino, Franco Moruzzi, Angelo Santi, Pietro Torrisi.

Cinematography: Giuseppe Rotunno

Film Editors: Nino Baragli, Adriana Novelli, Mario Serandrei, Giorgio Serrallonga

Original Music: Ennio Morricone, Piero Piccioni

Written by Mauro Bolognini, Fabio Carpi,...

He’s fast on his feet, quick with a gun, and faster with the to-die-for beauties that only existed in the swinging ’60s. The superspy exploits of Oss 117 were too big for just one actor, so meet all three iterations of the man they called Hubert Bonisseur de La Bath . . . seriously.

Oss 117 Five Film Collection

Blu-ray

Oss 117 Is Unleashed; Oss 117: Panic in Bangkok; Oss 117: Mission For a Killer; Oss 117: Mission to Tokyo; Oss 117: Double Agent

Kl Studio Classics

1963-1968 / B&W and Color / 1:85 widescreen + 2:35 widescreen / 528 min. / Street Date September 26, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber / 59.95

Starring: Kerwin Matthews, Nadia Sanders, Irina Demick, Daniel Emilfork; Kerwin Matthews, Pier Angeli, Robert Hossein; Frederick Stafford, Mylène Demongeot, Perrette Pradier, Dominique Wilms, Raymond Pellegrin, Annie Anderson; Frederick Stafford, Marina Vlad, Jitsuko Yoshimura; John Gavin, Margaret Lee, Curd Jurgens, Luciana Paluzzi, Rosalba Neri, Robert Hossein, George Eastman.

Cinematography: Raymond Pierre Lemoigne...

Writer-director Elio Petri scores big in his first feature, the story of a heel suspected of murder. Is he a killer, or just an average guy trying to get ahead, who uses women to his advantage? Marcello Mastroianni impresses as well in a serious role, with Salvo Randone shining as the police inspector trying to pry a confession from him. Beautifully restored in HD; the show is from a time when Italian film was at its zenith.

The Assassin

Blu-ray + DVD

Arrow Video USA

1961 / B&W / 1:85 widescreen / 97 min. / Street Date April 18, 2017 / L’Assassino / Available from Arrow Video

Starring: Marcello Mastroianni, Micheline Presle, Cristina Gaioni, Salvo Randone, Andrea Checchi, Francesco Grandjacquet, Marco Mariani, Franco Ressel.

Cinematography: Carlo Di Palma

Film Editor: Ruggero Mastroianni

Original Music: Piero Piccione

Written by Tonino (Antonio) Guerra, Elio Petri, Pasquale Fest Campanile, Massimo Franciosa

Produced by Franco Cristaldi

Directed by Elio Petri

Fans of Elio Petri...

Franceso Rosi's warm, thoughtful tale sees a family gathering observe grievous modern problems -- after so much violence in Italian politics people are still looking for humanistic solutions. Philippe Noiret heads a great cast (with Charles Vanel) in this mellow reflection on 'the things of life.' Three Brothers Region B Blu-ray + Pal DVD Arrow Academy (UK) 1981 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 111 min. / Street Date April 4, 2016 / Tre fratelli / Available from Amazon UK  Starring Philippe Noiret, Michele Placido, Vittorio Mezzogiorno, Charles Vanel, Andréa Ferréol, Maddalena Crippa, Rosaria Tafuri, Marta Zoffoli, Simonetta Stefanelli. Cinematography Pasqualino De Santis Editor Ruggero Mastroianni Original Music Piero Piccioni Written by Tonino Guerra, Francesco Rosi from the book by A. Platonov Produced by Antonio Macri, Giorgio Nocella Directed by Francesco Rosi

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

So few of Francesco Rosi's films were released in the United States that until Criterion's disc of Salvatore Giuliano my only image of...

She's beautiful, desired and enjoys a social mobility in the improving Italian economy... but she's also a pawn of cruel materialist values. Stefania Sandrelli personifies a liberated spirit who lives for the moment, but who can't form the relationships we call 'living.' Antonio Pietrangeli and Ettore Scola slip an insightful drama into the young Sandrelli's lineup of comedy roles. I Knew Her Well Blu-ray The Criterion Collection 801 1965 / B&W / 1:85 widescreen / 115 min. / Io la conoscevo bene / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date February 23, 2016 / 39.95 Starring Stefania Sandrelli, Mario Adorf, Jean-Claude Brialy, Joachim Fuchsberger, Nino Manfredi, Enrico Maria Salerno, Ugo Tognazzi, Karin Dor, Franco Nero. Cinematography Armando Nannuzzi Production design Maurizio Chiari Film Editor Franco Fraticelli Original Music Piero Picconi Written by Antonio Pietrangeli, Ruggero Maccari, Etore Scola Produced by Turi Vasile Directed by Antonio Pietrangeli

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Did a new kind of woman emerge in the 1960s?...

If you have been living and routinely interacting with other human beings over the last month, you’ve probably heard one or two words involving this year’s Academy Awards and the heated controversy over the startling lack of both films and people of color among the nominees. Personally, I think that the real focus of concern ought to be less on the back end-- awards handed out for films which were financed and/or studio-approved, scheduled for production and filmed perhaps as much as two or three years ago-- and more on addressing the lack of cultural and intellectual and experiential diversity among those who have the power to make the decisions as to what films get made in the first place. This is no sure-fire way to ensure that there will be a richer and more consistent representation of diverse creative voices when it comes time for Hollywood...

Cinema Retro has received the following press release:

Death Waltz Recording Company and Paint It Black are proud to present Fabio Frizzi live for his first ever UK show to be held at The Union Chapel on October 31st. The perfect setting will play host to Frizzi, accompanied by his 7-piece band and with an additional string section (the F2F Orchestra), for what promises to be a very special evening’s performance and master-class in soundtrack composition. Rather than performing individual tracks from his catalogue, Frizzi will be presenting his works in newly commissioned suites, which he is currently finishing back in Rome with the F2F Orchestra.

Through the superb reissue work of labels like Death Waltz, Italian soundtracks are becoming extremely sought after and essential recordings to own, recognized for their incredible dimensions of sound. From the early 1960s through to the early 1980s, and helped by...

Camille 2000

Review by Pete of Mondo Squallido

Stars: Daniéle Gaubert, Nino Castelnuovo, Eleonora Rossi Drago, Roberto Biasco, Massimo Serato | Written by Michael DeForrest | Directed by Radley Metzger

Here in the UK another big moment in cult cinema history has fallen upon us. A trio of Radley Metzger’s highly influential and well loved erotic classics have finally been released in all their glory and packed full of features from Arrow Video on deluxe Blu-ray and DVD combo packages. The first film chronologically out of the three is Camille 2000 and that is the DVD I will look at first.

Camille 2000 is an adaptation of a French novel called The Lady Of The Camellias, written in 1848 by Alexandre Dumas. The film follows the tragic relationship between a stunningly beautiful, luxurious and premiscuous woman by the name of Marguerite (Gaubert) who meets a rich, handsome and charming man called Armand...

Chinese conglomerate The Dalian Wanda Group will complete its acquisition of AMC by the end of August, the companies announced on Wednesday. Wanda and AMC announced in May that they had agreed to a deal whereby the Dalian Wanda Group would pay $2.6 million for the United States' second-largest theater chain. AMC has been owned since 2004 by an investment group that includes the Apollo Investment Fund, J. P. Morgan Partners, Bain Capital Investors, the Carlyle Group and others. Also read: Chinese Film Power: Wanda Group Buys AMC Theater Chain  The deal is still...

Women are nicer than men. There are exceptions. Most people of both sexes are probably fairly nice, given the nature of their upbringing and opportunities. But in terms of their lifelong natures, women are kinder, more empathetic, more generous. And the sooner more of them take positions of power, the better our chances as a species. This occurred to me while watching a forthcoming movie named "Where Do We Go Now?" It could have occurred during dozens or hundreds of movies. It's set in a tiny village in Lebanon, where Christians and Muslims have lived peacefully side-by-side for generations. Now the local men have become worked up by strife they see on TV, and have decided that even in their village, without any provocation, they need to start hating and fighting each other.

The women are tired of burying their sons and husbands. They conspire to distract the men from their foolish chest-beating.

The BBC is producing a 12-episode series about the ship that launched DiCaprio and Winslet’s stardom. Titanic: Blood & Steel will cover the construction of the boat amidst the political unrest in England at the time. Neve Campbell is set to star as a reporter covering the ship’s first voyage and Chris Noth will star as financial magnate J. P. Morgan, who New York Magazine describes as the Mr. Big of his time. The show doesn’t have Us distribution yet. -ABC has signed up for a show from Seinfeld writer Jennifer Crittenden and and Scrubs writer Gabrielle Allan that will deliver some 90s nostalgia. The show will focus on a “super cool” all-girl band from the 90s who attempt a comeback after 20 years and ...

A fascinating book reveals the real-life scandal that lay behind Federico Fellini's La Dolca Vita

In glamorous Rome, Fellini's La Dolce Vita was the box-office hit of 1960, and launched Marcello Mastroianni as an international heart-throb. No film captured so vividly the flash-bulb glitz of Italy's postwar "economic miracle". After the drawn-out trauma of fascism, the nation was poised for a consumer boom of televisions, fridges and Fiat 500s. Daringly, Fellini disavowed the neo-realism of films such as Bicycle Thieves for the stylised fantasies of Hollywood. The Vatican not surprisingly objected to the scene in which Mastroianni makes love to Anita Ekberg in the waters of the Trevi fountain, and tried to have the film censored. Ever since, says the historian Stephen Gundle, Rome has endured as a fantasy of the "sweet life".

Yet all was not well behind the roseate flush of Italy's newfound prosperity. The miracolo italiano...

Grammy-winning singer R. Kelly may lose his multimillion-dollar home in Chicago. According to Crain's Chicago Business, the "I Believe I Can Fly" hitmaker is facing a $2.9-million foreclosure suit after J. P. Morgan Chase Bank N.A. filed a complaint in Cook County Circuit Court back in June.

In the complaint, J. P. Morgan stated that the 44-year-old singer has failed to make monthly mortgage payments on his Olympia Fields mansion since June 2010. Meanwhile, Crain's reported that the home's appraisal value dropped 26% in a year from $5.2 million in 2009 to $3.8 million in 2010.

According to the complaint, the original loan issued in 1999 was for $3.5 million. Currently, the principal balance on the loan was more than $2.9 million. It does not include unpaid interest, which accrues at a rate of $251 per day, and other charges.

Allan Mayer, a spokesman for Kelly, declined to comment about the foreclosure. Nonetheless, he did insist to The Associated...

I'll leave the commentary on poster design to the far more knowledgeable Adrian Curry, but in rounding up notes on events happening around the Us (outside of New York, which'll have its own roundup in a bit), a handful of posters caught my eye, starting with this one for Other Cinema's Fujiyama in Red, a live program aimed at raising funds for Japanese Tsunami Relief and named "after the 1990 Kurosawa movie that foresaw the catastrophe." Tomorrow night in San Francisco; scroll down for details.

Brian Darr: "It's hard to imagine a better time for a San Francisco movie lover to partake in the by-now almost subversive act of watching a great classic film in a cinema, than when our city's architectural pride and joy, the Castro Theatre, devotes its screen to a 70mm film series, as it will for eight days starting this Saturday night, when it plays West Side Story,...

Like many right-thinking people the world over, we here at The Daily Notebook have a documented fondness for Georges Delerue's score for Contempt.

But here's a little-known fact: the dubbed Italian and Spanish release of Contempt did not feature Delerue's score, but instead a completely different soundtrack by the prolific Piero Piccioni. Whereas Delerue's score consists of a handful of repeated themes (like most of the original soundtracks for Godard's 1960s films, it's very brief, amounting to about 10 minutes of music), Piccioni recorded a full-length score of the film.

I know of no version of Contempt currently circulating—whether official or bootleg—that includes this version of the soundtrack, though it's pretty easy to imagine the film being radically altered or re-focused by the inclusion of Piccioni's music. While his music for the main titles is essentially a romantic theme, much of Piccioni's score consists of cocktail jazz, occasionally dissonant.

81-year-old filmmaker and distributor Radley Metzger has never been an artist who chased cheap thrills. Until the sea change of the '70s, when theatrically-released erotica was rejected in favor of hardcore pornography like Deep Throat, Metzger gained international acclaim for directing sophisticated, literate and lavishly stylized erotic films like The Lickerish Quartet, Camille 2000 and Therese and Isabelle. This week, Metzger's 1972 milestone Score, a film that Interview once said "hilariously hits the bull's-eye of bisexual chic," has been made available and uncut for the first on DVD/Blu-ray from Cult Epics:

Score is based on a 1971 hit Off-Broadway play that follows the erotic exploits of a happily married swinging couple (Claire Wilbur and Gerald Grant) who make a bet that they can seduce a couple of naïve young newlyweds during a weekend get-together at their luxury Riviera Villa. The young couple is played by Lynn Lowry, who starred in...

The way Michael Douglas and Oliver Stone explained it to me, modern Hollywood is doing the same thing modern Wall Street is: Trading for its own benefit, and not for the good of its customers.

"Let put it this way," Stone said. "If you look at the figures at Goldman Sachs, 67% of their profit in 2008 came to their own house. They made most of their money for themselves and 11% for their customers. That's a huge difference from

my father's era when all these houses, were essentially agentary houses; they were agents. It's like our business; the agents took over."

His father was a stockbroker. Michael Douglas's father was a movie star. They grew up at about the same time in two company towns.

"For an analogy," Douglas said, picking up, "traditionally, your agent worked his ass off for you and got a 10% commission. Then the agents said, wait a minute,...

A daytime party at the Surf Lodge. From PatrickMcMullan.com. Is Montauk becoming the Miami Beach of the North? About 80 years ago, Carl Fisher, the entrepreneur who turned Miami Beach into the flashy resort town that it is today, set his sights on Montauk, the sleepy surfing community that sits about three hours east of New York City at the end of the Long Island Rail Road line. Hoping to turn Montauk into a power players’ playground, Fisher built Montauk Yacht Club in 1928, and the Jazz Age glitterati—Vincent Astor, J. P. Morgan, Harold S. Vanderbilt, and Nelson Doubleday, among others—jumped on board as founding members. Even Charles Lindbergh docked his seaplane at the marina. Then came the stock-market crash of 1929 and the Great Depression, which left Fisher penniless, and Montauk escaped virtually unscathed. Until last summer, when the Surf Lodge came to town. A hodgepodge of Big City partners—Rob McKinley,...