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In 2025, there is no excuse for a film set to be anything other than fully safe and secure. Obviously, accidents will happen. Just as sure as you might take a stumble while out for a walk, or put a foot wrong while walking up the stairs, people will get hurt performing stunts. What should never, ever occur, however, is a miscue that leaves someone seriously injured or, god forbid, dead. When there is a fatal accident on set, it is almost certainly due to gross negligence, as was the case when Alec Baldwin shot and killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins with a live round from a prop gun during the filming of "Rust."

Fortunately, there have been relatively few instances of such incompetence over the last couple of decades, but during the silent and early talkies eras, fatal accidents were much more frequent. Airplane stunts went awry, fires got wildly out of control,...

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, legendary film critic Pauline Kael grouped together a new generation of filmmakers by calling them The Movie Brats. Her grouping of young and influential filmmakers like Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, George Lucas, Francis Ford Coppola and Brian De Palma would come to define the shift in the movie-making sensibilities of Hollywood and herald the birth of the modern blockbuster with movies like Jaws and The Godfather.

One of the most impactful directors of the Movie Brats generation, Martin Scorsese, has been making complicated and entertaining films for more than 50 years. Many of his movies are considered the best of all time, and his most flawless movies are the ones that are able to beautifully and tragically capture the darkest sides of the human condition.

The Aviator Cemented Scorsese's Relationship With Leonardo DiCaprio

Many of Martin Scorsese's best works are based on real stories about tragic historical figures,...

These aren’t fun times for billionaires, even though their number keeps proliferating along with their numbers — there are now at least 17 documented “super billionaires” with assets of more than $100 billion. Still, Elon Musk’s Tesla dealerships are being torched, Jeff Bezos’ newspaper is under siege, and Mark Zuckerberg is trying to suppress a new book titled Careless People.

Even Larry Ellison and his son David are having trouble closing their Paramount deal as new interlopers and random Trump bureaucrats intrude. It’s no wonder that Billions, the TV series, ended its run.

Walt Disney, for one, would have been exasperated by the issues overtaking the mega-rich today and, given the environment, might never have greenlighted Snow White — details below.

Whenever Hollywood hit troubled times in the past, two or three Medici-like billionaires would start writing checks and be warmly welcomed into the community. Even flakey Howard Hughes won applause...

It's time to return to Shutter Island. The acclaimed 2010 psychological thriller starring Leonardo DiCaprio is now available to stream on Paramount+.

Directed by legendary filmmaker Martin Scorsese, Shutter Island stars DiCaprio as Deputy U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels, who is investigating the mysterious disappearance of a patient from a remote psychiatric hospital. Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley, Max von Sydow, and Michelle Williams co-star in the neo-noir psychological thriller, which was a commercial success upon its release in theaters in 2010, grossing $295 million at the worldwide box office. Shutter Island also received generally positive reviews from critics, with Rotten Tomatoes noting an approval rating of 69 percent.

RelatedMartin Scorsese Recruits Patrick Wilson to Star in Reboot of His Oscar-Nominated 34-Year-Old Film

Martin Scorsese's executive producing a new adaptation of his acclaimed 34-year-old film.

Shutter Island marked the fourth collaboration between Scorsese and DiCaprio, who have developed one of the most successful and enduring director-actor partnerships of the century.

Sons of Anarchy brought audiences a particular exploration of organized crime through the lens of biker culture. While biker gangs are common knowledge among many, Sons of Anarchy was the greatest and deepest portrayal of that type of criminality. Fans got to know the rules, traditions and dynamics of bikers in a completely different way that mirrored other iconic movie and TV archetypes like the mobster and drug kingpin. Jax Teller and Samcro (Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club Redwood Originals) became everyone's favorite new crime family on television.

With a specific hierarchy, business strategy and code of conduct, biker gangs are their own kind of found family. Based in part on the Hell's Angels, the Sons of Anarchy became empathetic and energizing for fans. One of the key aspects of biker culture is a club's interactions and relationships with other clubs and with their own regional charters. Throughout the course of Sons of Anarchy,...

Sons of Anarchy is one of the most popular biker TV shows of all time, running for seven seasons and making a significant impact on the genre. One of the most important pieces of the series is Charlie Hunnman's performance as Jax Teller, a member of a fictionalized outlaw biker gang in California. Influenced by the real-life Hell's Angels, Sons of Anarchy doesn't rely on its action and inherent drama to propel the plot forward, as it grapples with the realities of rival gangs and the role the organization plays in larger social issues.

Katey Sagal's turn as Gemma, Jax's mother, is also notable. It's hard to find other TV shows like Sons of Anarchy, as the series evolved so much across its many seasons. However, there are many movies like Sons of Anarchy that feature biker gangs and clearly serve as inspiration for the show. Biker films often...

Some TV shows are needed more than others. In today’s world, a medical drama like Brilliant Minds is 100% needed.

This is a series that offers more than just entertainment. It is a look at people and life. It brings us topics of empathy, seeing patients as people, and going above and beyond to get answers. DeMane Davis is both a director and EP on the series, and we talked with her about why this show right now.

Davis directed episode 3, “The Lost Biker,” and the finale “The Man Who Can’t See Faces.” We talked about the directorial decisions made in the third episode, which allowed us a chance to see what a patient could be experiencing, adding more empathy to the show.

Why Brilliant Minds as the next project?

Hidden Remote: What was it about Brilliant Minds that made you decide this was the next project you wanted to work on?...

Danielle Staub's controversial past and aggressive behavior made her one of the most disliked Housewives in franchise history. Despite once being a welcomed addition for her rawness, Danielle's involvement with the Hell's Angels and physical altercations led to her downfall. With no support from fans and a falling out with Andy Cohen, Danielle Staub vowed to never return as a Housewife again.

The former Housewife from The Real Housewives of New Jersey, Danielle Staub, is widely known as one of the most notorious and disliked Housewives in franchise history. While entertaining to watch, Danielle proved to be too much of a threat on reality TV.

An original Housewife from Seasons 1 and 2, Danielle surprised many by rejoining the series as a friend for Seasons 8 through 10 especially since she didn't have much of a connection to the cast anymore. After a dramatic Season 10, however, Danielle vowed to never come back as a Housewife again.

They were the original One-Percenters — not the richest of the richest, the elite within the elite, but “the one percent who don’t fit and don’t care… We’ve punched our way out of a hundred rumbles, stayed alive with our boots and our fists.” That first-hand quotes opens Hunter S. Thompson’s Hell’s Angels, the definitive account of the motorcycle gang that was both the emblem of pure, uncut postwar freedom and a nightmare for “respectable” society. They’re coming to your town, they’re gonna party it down,...

Among the myriad reasons we could call the Criterion Channel the single greatest streaming service is its leveling of cinematic snobbery. Where a new World Cinema Project restoration plays, so too does Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight. I think about this looking at November’s lineup and being happiest about two new additions: a nine-film Robert Bresson retro including L’argent and The Devil, Probably; and a one-film Hype Williams retro including Belly and only Belly, but bringing as a bonus the direct-to-video Belly 2: Millionaire Boyz Club. Until recently such curation seemed impossible.

November will also feature a 20-film noir series boasting the obvious and the not. Maybe the single tightest collection is “Women of the West,” with Johnny Guitar and The Beguiled and Rancho Notorious and The Furies only half of it. Lynch/Oz, Irradiated, and My Two Voices make streaming premieres; Drylongso gets a Criterion Edition; and joining...

Don’t let the word “bike” fool you. In Jeff Nichols’ “The Bikeriders,” the wheels in question are choppers — good, all-American motorcycles, built from the ground up by tough guys in leather jackets — and the “club” they’re a part of is really more of a gang. Nichols hails from the Heartland and has a better handle on the life and attitudes one finds in so-called flyover country than nearly all the directors working at his level. You’ve probably seen a few of his films, most of which take place down dirt roads in rural areas. Movies like “Shotgun Stories,” “Loving” and “Mud.”

With “The Bikeriders,” Nichols brings us into the big city — or the outskirts, at least — and then zeroes in on a social microcosm all of us recognize, but few have penetrated: a Chicago-area motorcycle club that calls itself the Vandals. The Vandals don’t really exist,...

There are many aspects that led to Top Gun: Maverick becoming a Best Picture contender at the Oscars, but it cannot be denied that it is one of the best movies about aerial warfare. Seeing Tom Cruise's Maverick and the other characters engaged in thrilling midair battles is unlike most any other action sequences in movies. Strangely enough, these types of combat movies seem to be rarer than others, however, there are still enough examples of movies that can be named as the best movies about aerial combat.

Understandably, most movies in this limited genre deal with wartime battles and even draw from real events. These movies stretch back to the earliest days of the moviemaking industry to as recent as 2022's Top Gun Maverick. Given such a wide time period covered in the genre, audiences can see a lot of different techniques used for the aerial combat sequence...

Tubi has greenlit “Breaking Bear,” an adult animated series created by Julien Nitzberg and produced by Cartel Entertainment and Tom DeLonge’s To the Stars Media.

Described as a parody of mobster dramas, combining elements of Yogi Bear with “The Sopranos,” “Breaking Bear” Breaking Bear follows the escapades of three bear siblings who decide they have to start selling drugs in order to raise money and save their home after gas companies start fracking next to their cave. The bears soon enlist other forest animals in a scheme that will pit them against oil companies, the Russian mafia, local Hell’s Angels and polar bears who hate anything that isn’t white.

“When The Cartel pitched a series with cartoon animals as mobsters, I knew it was an offer I couldn’t refuse,” said Adam Lewinson, chief content officer at Tubi. “This is the perfect project to expand our adult animation...

This Evil review contains spoilers.

Evil Season 3 Episode 8

Evil, season 3 episode 8 “The Demon of Parenthood” is a mother of an episode. It goes so far over the top in its conspiratorial suspense the entire proceedings veer dangerously close to spoof. The opening scene between Father David (Mike Colter) and Victor LeConte (Brian d’Arcy James) would have worked on Get Smart. The circuitous language is as audaciously audible in the private confessional as the Cone of Silence at the Chief’s office at Control. The week’s case comes off as a self-parody even before the monster-of-the-week gives Ben (Aasif Mandvi) the finger.

Say what you want about Evil, it never loses its entertainment value. We may stretch imaginations or roll eyes, but we don’t look away. Some of the gore effects may be tempting, but the payoffs are always worth the effort. It is because it plays so close to comedy the fears work,...

“Rodeo” might have had a clearer (and catchier) title if it had been called “Wheelie.” It’s a drama set among French motocross riders, who are a bit like the outlaw bikers of the ’60s except that they wear cropped hair and athletic logo T-shirts instead of hippie manes and satanic leather jackets. And in this movie, at least, they don’t rove. They’re rooted in a desolate suburb of Paris, where they gather to zoom along the road and pop up on one wheel, which the movie describes to us as a feeling of intense liberation. It sure looks that way.

But it’s only in fits and starts, mostly during the first 20 minutes, that “Rodeo” gets off on those stunts. Julia (Julie Ledru), the feral but untrained biker who joins the gravity-tweaking competitors, is the only female on hand, and she never does learn how to pop...

Most people can’t wait to take a day off work. Tom Cruise isn’t most people. The actor recently told Bella magazine (via Uproxx) while on his “Top Gun: Maverick” press tour that he never takes a day off work, which somehow makes sense considering he’s often always filming a movie, promoting a movie and/or prepping for a movie. The way Cruise sees it, heading out on a press tour for one of his films is his time off.

“This is a day off for me, because I am not shooting!” Cruise said when asked how he spends his time off from work. “I’m just chillin’ now. I don’t have days off. Look, I’m fortunate, I’m lucky. I’ve spent my life on movie sets and traveling the world, which is what I always wanted to do. So this is not work – I’m living the dream.

Howard Hughes has had a long and fascinating relationship with Hollywood. He directed two feature films ("Hell's Angels" in 1930 and "The Outlaw" in 1943), and produced over 25 besides (usually going uncredited). Hughes' company owned a major stake in the Rko film and media studio, and eventually became the sole owner of Rko's film division following the landmark United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc. antitrust lawsuit that prevented vertical integration in entertainment. Hughes eventually changed focus from entertainment to real estate, as well as the air and space industries, but showbiz was always close to his heart. Thanks to a severe case of obsessive-compulsive...

The post Christopher Nolan and Jim Carrey Almost Made a Howard Hughes Biopic Together appeared first on /Film.

The lasting horror of war is the blight it leaves on the lives of those left behind. Early sound pictures tried to deal with the guilt and pain of WW1, and the great Ernst Lubitsch took time out from romantic comedies and musicals for this very grim rumination on lies and responsibility. A French soldier decides to contact the family of a German he killed in the trenches; with no clear purpose or plan, he’s apt to make things worse for everybody. Lionel Barrymore and Nancy Carroll are wonderful, but you’ll choke up in the scenes with the German mother, played by Louise Carter. The film is best known for its opening montage, in which Lubitsch openly attacks the hypocrisy of militarist patriotism. It’s an exceedingly effective, non-hysterical piece of anti-war filmmaking.

Broken Lullaby

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1932 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 76 min. / The Man I Killed / Street...

Hunter S. Thompson is a confounding figure. Though he didn’t invent Gonzo journalism, he is the most identifiable face of it. His first-person narrative style of news gathering makes him partially accountable for the overriding trends of internet journalism, on both sides of the aisle and all the cleanup calls which go along with them. Thompson’s 1970 attempt to run for sheriff of Pitkin County, Colorado, marked the beginning of baby boomer politicking. Writer-director Bobby Kennedy III’s Fear and Loathing in Aspen tells that story with wit, wisdom and weirdness.

Set just before Thomson, played by Jay Bulger, caught his stride with his 1971 novel Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream, the film conjures the energy of strange, new beginnings. Much of it is shot on vintage grade, grainy film stock, and it looks like the actors were free...

Although the book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is a firm classic and doesn’t take long to read – the film had a shaky start. If you have yet to see the film, then you’re in for a wild ride.

What is Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas about?

It is a drug and alcohol-infusedbook about corruption and hippies and casinos – which sounds easy, but it isn’t. In a red convertible, Raoul Duke and Dr Gonzo, take you on a bizarre trip to the live casino capital of the world.

The dialogue is quick and sharp. While autobiographical in nature, it has some moments that you hope were real – just as much as you wish they weren’t. Various confrontations, police interactions, and a lot of kicking back at ‘the establishment/the man’. Fact and fiction become interwoven, and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is Hunter.

Apple TV+’s 1971: The Year That Music Changed Everything is immersive and fairly ambitious. The eight-part documentary series wants to run 33 revolutions per minute, and only comes up about a third short. It captures how musicians’ fingers were on the pulse of the day’s headlines and the laid the tracks for the nights’ rhythms.

Artists sang the news, sometimes causing it, other times reacting. Rock and roll had grown up and rock musicians took on responsibilities. Rhythm and blues got loose and soul musicians took to the streets. A former University of California philosophy professor named Angela Davis was charged with aiding and abetting the murder of a judge and Aretha Franklin personally offered to post bail.

The documentary series points out how The Beatles took the lead on youth culture movement during the 1960s, and how the elder society tried to beat it down in the 1970s,...

2020 in British TV comedy brought us Maisie Williams as a kickass survivalist in a pickle, and a new parenting comedy from the hugely talented Simon Blackwell and Chris Addison starring Martin Freeman.

To add to that, there was also a fresh batch of comedians playing exaggerated versions of themselves in self-penned sitcoms, including Katherine Ryan, Mae Martin, Sara Pascoe, Kayleigh Llewellyn, Lucy Beaumont and Jon Richardson.

Here’s the skinny on all those new shows and more. Here’s what arrived in 2019, and here are the new British TV dramas that arrived in 2020.

Breeders

After their excellent 2014 relationship comedy Trying Again, Chris Addison and Simon Blackwell teamed up on a new series, this time about the trials of parenthood. Martin Freeman and Daisy Haggard played parents in this ten-part half-hour comedy, a co-production between Sky in the UK and FX in the US. Watch the first trailer here.

Bumps

Available...

Fifty years ago this Sunday, the Rolling Stones released Gimme Shelter, the infamous documentary that started as a look at the final days of the British bad boys’ legendary 1969 tour, leading up to the disastrous free concert at Altamont Speedway. It ended up becoming the ultimate rock & roll horror movie. Directors Albert Maysles, David Maysles and Charlotte Zwerin’s time capsule is always a trip to revisit, but especially now — after nine months without live music, even Altamont looks tantalizing. It’s tough to watch the film in 2020 without musing,...

John Wayne, Robert Ryan and some thrilling color combat footage grace this Howard Hughes WW2 aviation epic, that’s famous for being the odd-title-out in the filmography of Nicholas Ray. Just how did the politically diverging Ray and Hughes get along so well? The Wac’s sensational Technicolor restoration does the real combat footage a big favor: minus scratches and dirt, it looks better than ever.

Flying Leathernecks

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1951 / Color / 1:37 Academy / 102 min. / Street Date September 15, 2020 / available through the WBshop / 21.99

Starring: John Wayne, Robert Ryan, Don Taylor, Janis Carter, Jay C. Flippen, James Bell, Adam Williams, Barry Kelley, Gordon Gebert, Lynn Stalmaster, Mona Knox.

Cinematography: William E. Snyder

Film Editor: Sherman Todd

Original Music: Roy Webb

Written by James Edward Grant, Beirne Lay Jr. story by Kenneth Gamet

Produced by Edmund Grainger, Howard Hughes

Directed by Nicholas Ray

This by-the-numbers Naval aviation epic — more precisely the Marine Corps.

John Wayne, Robert Ryan and some thrilling color combat footage grace this Howard Hughes WW2 aviation epic, that’s famous for being the odd-title-out in the filmography of Nicholas Ray. Just how did the politically diverging Ray and Hughes get along so well? The Wac’s sensational Technicolor restoration does the real combat footage a big favor: minus scratches and dirt, it looks better than ever.

Flying Leathernecks

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1951 / Color / 1:37 Academy / 102 min. / Street Date September 15, 2020 / available through the WBshop / 21.99

Starring: John Wayne, Robert Ryan, Don Taylor, Janis Carter, Jay C. Flippen, James Bell, Adam Williams, Barry Kelley, Gordon Gebert, Lynn Stalmaster, Mona Knox.

Cinematography: William E. Snyder

Film Editor: Sherman Todd

Original Music: Roy Webb

Written by James Edward Grant, Beirne Lay Jr. story by Kenneth Gamet

Produced by Edmund Grainger, Howard Hughes

Directed by Nicholas Ray

This by-the-numbers Naval aviation epic — more precisely the Marine Corps.

It was the mid-1960s, the beginnings of the counterculture, and I had decided to make a movie about Hell's Angels. They were in the headlines and to me they were something new and different in American society. I talked to a number of people for the part, but I chose Peter for two reasons. One, he was a very good actor. And two, he could ride a motorcycle. I wanted all the actors who played Angels to be able to ride the bike. I wanted to be able to photograph the actors while they were riding with a camera ...

It was the mid-1960s, the beginnings of the counterculture, and I had decided to make a movie about Hell's Angels. They were in the headlines and to me they were something new and different in American society. I talked to a number of people for the part, but I chose Peter for two reasons. One, he was a very good actor. And two, he could ride a motorcycle. I wanted all the actors who played Angels to be able to ride the bike. I wanted to be able to photograph the actors while they were riding with a camera ...

Razzia is a rather snazzy German police thriller from the post-war years, covering comparable territory to Billy Wilder's A Foreign Affair and Carol Reed's The Third Man: it deals with the then-current European crime wave known as the black market.The director Werner Klingler's career might well repay study, as it leaps around so oddly. In 1929 he was in America and acted in Von Sternberg's Viennese-set melodrama The Case of Lena Smith, now seemingly a lost film apart from one ten-minute fragment. He also played Germans for James Whale in Journey's End and Hell's Angels. Returning to Germany he became an assistant director (S.O.S. Iceberg) and then a director, mainly of lightweight thrillers, passing from the Hitler era through to the post-war denazification seemingly without a hitch.Klingler would make Eddie Constantine vehicles and a Mabuse sequel (when the once-feared embodiment of the zeitgeist...

Hells Angels On Wheels La Screening with Richard Rush and Sabrina Scharf in Person

By Todd Garbarini

Richard Rush’s 1967 film Hells Angels on Wheels celebrates its 50th anniversary with a special screening at the Noho 7 Theatre in Los Angeles. Starring Adam Roarke, Jack Nicholson, Sabrina Scharf, Jana Taylor and Jack Starrett, the film runs 95 minutes and is one of several films that Mr. Rush directed Mr. Nicholson in, the others being Too Soon to Love (1960) and Psycho-Out (1968). This is a rare opportunity to see this film on the big screen.

Please Note: Director Richard Rush and actress Sabrina Scharf are scheduled to appear in person for a Q & A following the screening.

From the press release:

Hells Angels On Wheels (1967)

Thursday, August 3, 2017 at 7:30 Pm

A bunch of hairy guys on Harleys are causing trouble again in this, one of the best-remembered examples of the biker flicks of the 1960's.

John Monk Saunders is a good example of the screenwriter-as-auteur in the sense that he had a tone (mordant, tragic) and a set of concerns (Wwi aerial combat and its effects) that were consistent throughout his work, almost to the point of claustrophobia. Saunders was an airman himself, and like his characters, he just couldn't leave it behind. A recurring theme of his work is that war is not only traumatic, but addictive. Ace of Aces is a typical work: Saunders would achieve greater glory with William A. Wellman (Wings, 1927), Howard Hawks (The Dawn Patrol, 1930) and, best of all, with William Dieterle and The Last Flight in 1931. Ace of Aces is a relatively minor-league outing. Though director J. Walter Ruben delivers a few elaborate tracking shots, the film belongs mainly to the writer and the Rko effects team—Vernon L. Walker, who worked on Citizen Kane and King Kong, stitches...

Long Strange Trip (Amazon Video)

I was stoked have scored a ticket for the limited-run (one week) theatrical screening of the new Grateful Dead documentary at IFC Cinema in the West Village. A four-hour love fest for Deadheads young and old, and more importantly for those music fans and the curious who just never got "it" and what it means to be a Deadhead. Expertly handled by director Amir Bar-Lev, there is so much to mine here that I can't imagine how much was left on the cutting room floor. (Props to executive producer Martin Scorsese, too.) Jerry's Frankenstein story frames the movie in a way that initially seems odd but by the end of the film makes perfect sense. After all, like the Monster, the band was "assembled" by the various parts (members, friends, fans, staff) that comprised it. Messy, joyous entropy in action; seemingly random, but actually spiritually...

Warren Beatty's new film, Rules Don't Apply, quietly snuck into UK cinemas last weekend. Here's our review...

Not unreasonably, Howard Hughes is a figure of fascination in cinema. From Leonardo DiCaprio in The Aviator to Terry O'Quinn in The Rocketeer, to characters who were inspired by him, like Willard Whyte in Diamonds Are Forever or Howard Stark in the Marvel cinematic universe, the billionaire businessman's on-screen influence feels fitting for his early status as a movie tycoon.

Now, Warren Beatty directs, produces, writes and stars in Rules Don't Apply, whose convention-busting title reflects the way in which it runs counter to other cinematic treatments by putting the spotlight on two of Hughes' many employees. Set during the tumultuous years of 1958 to 1964, the film focuses on virginal Virginia beauty queen Marla Mabrey (Lily Collins), an actress who's new to Hollywood, and Frank Forbes (Alden Ehrenreich), a chauffeur who drives her around.

On this day (April 21st) in history as it relates to showbiz...

Anthony Quinn

1904 Oscar winning cinematographer Daniel L Fapp (West Side Story and Desire Under the Elms, among many films) born in Kansas City

1914 Cinematographer Gilbert Taylor born in England. Though he was BAFTA nominated Oscar never bit despite high profile films and collaborations with famous directors. Credits include: Repulsion, The Omen, Dr Strangelove, Star Wars, Frenzy, Dracula (1979) and MacBeth 

1915 Oscar's all time favorite Mexican actor Anthony Quinn born (Lust for Life, Viva Zapata, Wild is the Wind, Zorba the Greek, La Strada, etcetera)

1918 "The Red Baron," the famous German fighter pilot, shot down in World War I. Snoopy in Peanuts fantasizes about him repeatedly and he's also been a character in many films including Wings, Hell's Angels, and Darling Lili ...

England is viewed by the wider world as a nation of eccentrics. This is considered a genetic characteristic, and something to be celebrated. Like most assumptions, the truth lies somewhat wide of the remark. Quentin Crisp, one such "National Treasure," is now rightly revered as one, but his journey from pariah nuisance to that of sage-like venerability was a long and winding affair. He migrated to New York, remaining vital till the end, an amalgam of defiance and disappointment worn as wit.

Some considered him a latter-day Oscar Wilde, a comparison he didn't much value, remarking that he'd known many who'd been sent to prison for crimes of the flesh like Wilde's, without being broken or penning such bad verse.

Unkind maybe, but Wilde had it all and lost it largely because of his own arrogance. He could have fled to Paris, had the chance to but didn't take it.

Jenny Morrill Dec 9, 2016

The cast of Saved By The Bell have made a lot of Christmas films. And we've just watched them all...

Some people collect stamps. I wish I collected stamps, that would be infinitely easier than my hobby, which is collecting Saved By The Bell cast members in Christmas movies. Think of it as Panini stickers on ultra hard mode.

Sadly, my collection depends on the whims and careers of the various Bayside alumni. I'm not doing too badly; so far I have five of the six main cast members, and a few supporting characters. But the hunt for the missing actors takes up far too much of my time, time that could be spent watching Homes Under The Hammer and crying.

Here are the actors I have in my strange, fictional sticker album so far...

Mark Paul Gosselaar (Zack): 12 Dates Of Christmas

Plot: A newly single...

'The Aviator' movie with Leonardo DiCaprio as bizarre billionaire Howard Hughes: Bloated biopic. 'The Aviator' movie review: What's not good for the Spruce Goose… Imagine Citizen Kane directed by the Steven Spielberg of The Color Purple, Schindler's List, Amistad, and Saving Private Ryan. The final result would look something like a Barry Levinson film – for instance, the superficial and phony Bugsy. Or, an even more appropriate example, the superficial, phony, and bloated The Aviator. Except, of course, that Levinson is not the man responsible for the 2004 mega-production starring Leonardo DiCaprio as the eccentric, billionaire ladies' man Howard Hughes. Strangely enough, that man is Martin Scorsese, the director of hard-hitting films such as Taxi Driver, Goodfellas, and Gangs of New York. Scorsese, a fan of Old Hollywood, apparently wanted to have some fun with the reported $110 million budget (approx. $138 million in 2016) made available to him. The director no doubt had a ball while making The Aviator,...

It's the final Hollywood film by the legendary Ziegfeld star Marilyn Miller, and it's also a terrific talkie feature debut for W.C. Fields -- with one of his dazzling juggling bits. But the real star is director William Dieterle, whose moving camera and creative edits rescue the talkie musical from dreary operetta staging. Her Majesty, Love DVD-r The Warner Archive Collection 1931 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 75 min. / Street Date January 19, 2016 / available through the WBshop / 21.99 Starring Marilyn Miller, Ben Lyon, W.C. Fields, Leon Errol, Ford Sterling, Chester Conklin, Clarence Wilson, Ruth Hall, Virginia Sale, Oscar Apfel. Cinematography Robert Kurrie Film Editor Ralph Dawson Songs Walter Jurmann, Al Dubin Written by Robert Lord, Arthur Caesar from story by Rudolph Bernauer, Rudolf Österreicher Directed by William Dieterle

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

The Warner Archive Collection has been kind to fans of early talkies. We've been able to discover dramatic actresses like Jeanne Eagels...

Our countdown of the 100 best films of the 21st century continues. This is Part 2 #75 through 51.

Click here for Part 1 (#100-76)!

The first decade and a half of the 21st century has brought a lot of changes to the landscape of film. The advancement and sophistication of computers has made realistic computer generated effects a mainstay in both big-budget and small-budget films. The internet and streaming technologies have given big Hollywood new competition in films produced independently and by non-traditional means. We went from purchasing films on yards of tape to plastic disks, and now we can simply upload them to the cloud. Advertisements for films have reached a higher, more ruthless level where generating hype through trailers and teasers is crucial for a film’s commercial success. Movie attendance has fluctuated along with the economy, but that hasn’t stopped films from breaking box office records, including having films gross...

Ramon Novarro: 'Ben-Hur' 1925 star. 'Ben-Hur' on TCM: Ramon Novarro in most satisfying version of the semi-biblical epic Christmas 2015 is just around the corner. That's surely the reason Turner Classic Movies presented Fred Niblo's Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ last night, Dec. 20, '15, featuring Carl Davis' magnificent score. Starring Ramon Novarro, the 1925 version of Ben-Hur became not only the most expensive movie production,[1] but also the biggest worldwide box office hit up to that time.[2] Equally important, that was probably the first instance when the international market came to the rescue of a Hollywood mega-production,[3] saving not only Ben-Hur from a fate worse than getting trampled by a runaway chariot, but also the newly formed Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, which could have been financially strangled at birth had the epic based on Gen. Lew Wallace's bestseller been a commercial bomb. The convoluted making of 'Ben-Hur,' as described...

In the mid-Sixties, gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson spent about a year with the world's most notorious biker gang to write the book Hell's Angels, which came out in 1967. He spoke with radio broadcaster Studs Terkel that year for an interview that PBS has now animated whimsically for its Blank on Blank series.

"The Angels claim that they don't look for trouble," Thompson said in the interview. "They just try to live peaceful lives and be left alone, but on the other hand they go out and put themselves into...

George Lucas didn't just create the "Star Wars" universe. The filmmaker, who turns 71 on May 14, pretty much created the cinematic universe we live in now, the ones whose cornerstones include the Thx sound system at your multiplex, the Pixar movies that have dominated animation for the past 20 years, and the Industrial Light & Magic special-effects house, whose aesthetic has ruled the Hollywood blockbuster for nearly four decades. He's the pioneer of the effects-driven action spectacle and the conversion from celluloid to digital, the two trends that, for better and worse, have defined Hollywood's output for nearly 20 years.

As ubiquitous as Lucas and his creations loom in our cinematic dreamscapes, there's still a lot that most people don't know about him, from how he got his start to the famous folks who mentored him or were mentored by him, from the size of his fortune to what he plans to do now...

The anticipation for Mad Max: Fury Road keeps growing and growing, following the third trailer that debuted this week, making it easily one of this summer's most awaited movies. Warner Bros. has yet to announce plans for any sequels, but, during an interview with Esquire, star Tom Hardy, who steps into the iconic Max Rockatansky role originally played by Mel Gibson, revealed that he is actually locked in for three sequels. However, whether or not those move forward all depends on how Mad Max: Fury Road fares at the box office next month.

"I've never been more excited and out of my comfort zone. Everything's based on figures and how things are perceived. Inevitably it's a business."

The actor added that he has seen the final cut, calling it "f---ing unbelievable," while adding details about the bizarre production process.

"We were in the middle of nowhere, so far away from...

We've had some amazing trailers, including the recent and stunning full one, but the real promotional push for "Mad Max: Fury Road" is about to begin. UK copies of "Furious 7" will get a six minute clip in front of screenings, and now the first long lead interviews with the cast and crew are going online.

Today, Esquire has posted an interview with star Tom Hardy who confirms that his contract means he's signed up for three more "Mad Max" films on top of 'Fury Road' should it be a major success.

While Hardy has played key supporting roles in blockbusters, and leads in various arthouse and mid-budget dramas, this is technically the first studio action tentpole where he's the lead star. Hardy says he feels the weight of it, saying:

"I've never been more excited and out of my comfort zone... we were in the middle of nowhere, so...

One of the titans of the documentary world has passed today. There are many filmmakers whose work can be said to have influenced other artists, and certainly one of the ways we weigh the worth of an artistic legacy is by the way it seeps into the larger culture. By that standard, Albert Maysles was enormously important, and the mark he leaves on the definition of a documentary is immeasurable. "Grey Gardens" is perhaps the most famous of his films, and one of the things I realized when I first saw it was that documentaries can be about anything. The point of the process is truth, and Maysles was ferociously dedicated to capturing moments of almost breathtaking truth. One of the first pieces of his work that I saw was "Gimme Shelter," the documentary about the 1969 Altamont concert where Hell's Angels stabbed a concertgoer to death, an event which was recorded on film.

Harrison Ford injured in plane accident (image: Harrison Ford as Colonel Graff in 'Ender's Game') Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark actor Harrison Ford was supposed to be in critical condition – later reports have upgraded that to "fair" or "stable" condition – following an accident with a small airplane on Los Angeles' Westside. Earlier this afternoon (March 5, 2015), a vintage, one-engine two-seater crash landed at the Penmar Golf Course, located in the Los Angeles suburb of Venice, not far from the Pacific Ocean and just west of Santa Monica Airport. Its pilot, 72-year-old Harrison Ford, was found "seriously" injured. He was alone on the plane. There were no injuries on the ground. As explained in the Los Angeles Times, "fire officials would not identify the victim of the crash but said he was conscious and breathing when paramedics arrived." Ford was later transported to an unidentified hospital. Eleven...

Howard Hughes movies (photo: Leonardo DiCaprio as Howard Hughes in 'The Aviator') Turner Classic Movies will be showing the Howard Hughes-produced, John Farrow-directed, Baja California-set gangster drama His Kind of Woman, starring Robert Mitchum, Hughes discovery Jane Russell, and Vincent Price, at 3 a.m. Pt / 6 a.m. Et on Saturday, November 8, 2014. Hughes produced a couple of dozen movies. (More on that below.) But what about "Howard Hughes movies"? Or rather, movies -- whether big-screen or made-for-television efforts -- featuring the visionary, eccentric, hypochondriac, compulsive-obsessive, all-American billionaire as a character? Besides Leonardo DiCaprio, who plays a dashing if somewhat unbalanced Hughes in Martin Scorsese's 2004 Best Picture Academy Award-nominated The Aviator, other actors who have played Howard Hughes on film include the following: Tommy Lee Jones in William A. Graham's television movie The Amazing Howard Hughes (1977), with Lee Purcell as silent film star Billie Dove, Tovah Feldshuh as Katharine Hepburn,...

By Lee Pfeiffer

Probably no genre illustrates the rapid advance of cinematic screen freedoms than the biker movie. The genre debuted in 1953 with Marlon Brando in "The Wild One". The film, which chronicled the virtual takeover of a small California town by a wild motorcycle gang, was considered extremely controversial at the time. The biker film remained largely dormant until the release of Roger Corman's "The Wild Angels" in 1966, which became a surprising boxoffice and media sensation. Only a year or two before, teenage audiences were being fed a steady diet of white bread rock 'n roll films that bore little resemblance to real life. Suddenly, the biker film blatantly presented raging hormones, gang wars, drug use and group sex without apology. Young people patronized these films in droves. With social constraints falling by the minute, the biker films- cheaply made as they were- spoke to the emerging generation...

This story was originally published in the February 21st, 1991 issue of Rolling Stone.

Mr. and Mrs. Robin Williams are slow dancing. The time: a winter afternoon. The place: a photographer's studio in the Chelsea section of New York. The music: high-decibel funk. Everybody else in the studio is abuzz — adjusting lights, fussing with props, running back and forth from the kitchen with sushi. Still, Williams and his wife, Marsha, keep coming together in these quick, sweet tableaux. It's strange to see the thirty-nine-year-old actor and comedian with his guard down...

 

The Austin Film Society continues its "Rebel Rebel" series this weekend with a brand new 35mm print of Jamaa Fanaka's 1976 film Emma Mae. Tonight's screening at the Marchesa is free to Afs members, and the movie will play again on Sunday afternoon. Afs is also sponsoring a screening of The Three Burials Of Melquiades Estrada, starring Tommy Lee Jones, on Wednesday night at the Texas Spirit Theater (inside the Bullock Texas State History Museum). It's free for Afs members, as well as Aff, Cine Las Americas and Bullock Museum members. Julio Cedillo and producer Eric Williams will be there for a post-screening Q&A. Head back to the Marchesa on Thursday night for a 35mm print of Truffaut's Jules And Jim. The film is part of this month's Essential Cinema series on films Of World War I. 

Alamo Drafthouse Ritz has programmed a weekend of classic biker flicks to...

"Film or art?" was the first question I was greeted with upon arrival at the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, a question essentially inquiring whether I was attending to watch "films" or "art" (i.e. video art) at the festival. But since no such demarcation really exists in the program, the question therefore expanded beyond its modest confines to provoke all kinds of immediately doubting self-inquiry such as: (1) Oh God, what if I'm here just for film?; (2) Wait, who says film isn't art?; (3) Is this person picking a fight?; and (4) How come no one asks me this in Cannes?

Still, it was a question I should have expected, since a festival dedicated to short moving image media—now; it had "just" films to consider—implicitly posits a number of questions about its chosen subject. As someone with a cinephile background in, let's say, traditional cinema, it is both frightening and...