News

Cary Grant is one of Hollywood's greatest rags-to-riches stories. Born Archibald Leach in Bristol, UK, in 1904, he survived an impoverished and neglected childhood in which his mother was falsely declared dead (he would find out she was still alive until was in his 30s) and went on to become one of the greatest romantic leading men that Tinseltown has ever produced. Known for his distinctive and often-imitated mid-Atlantic accent, dashing good looks, and a faint air of aristocratic amusement, Grant appeared in over 70 movies during his career, ranging from Boys' Own adventures ("Gunga Din") and film noir ("Notorious") to slick espionage thrillers ("North by Northwest"). Yet his particular debonair charms were always better suited to light comedy, perhaps best demonstrated in one of his best screwball movies: Howard Hawks' 1940 classic "His Girl Friday," now streaming free on Pluto TV.

"His Girl Friday" was Grant's third collaboration with Howard Hawks after...

Shane, one of the greatest Western movies of all time, is finally coming to 4K Blu-ray. Kino Lorber is releasing the film in a two-disk 4K set this summer. A critical and commercial hit upon its release in 1953, Shane influenced many subsequent films, including the elegiac superhero Western Logan.

The disc features a brand new 4K transfer of the film, taken from a scan of its original 35mm camera negative. It also features the film's original theatrical trailer and two audio commentaries. That includes an all-new commentary by author and historian Alan K. Rode, who is writing a book on the film, and an archival commentary featuring George Stevens Jr. and associate producer Ivan Moffat. The set will also include a standard Blu-ray disc of the film. Shane will be released on July 14, 2025, and will retail for $29.89 Usd.

What Is 'Shane' About?

Shane stars Alan Ladd (This Gun for Hire) as the title character,...

Everyone assumed that the nominees for the Directors Guild of America’s top DGA Award would include, as they did in Wednesday morning’s nominations announcement, Emilia Pérez’s Jacques Audiard, Anora’s Sean Baker, Conclave’s Edward Berger and The Brutalist’s Brady Corbet.

The question was: Who was going to snag the fifth and final slot?

The aforementioned quartet was recently joined on the Golden Globe Awards’ nominations list by The Substance’s Coralie Fargeat and All We Imagine as Light’s Payal Kapadia; and on the Critics Choice Awards’ nominations list by Fargeat, Wicked’s Jon M. Chu, Nickel Boys’ RaMell Ross and Dune: Part Two’s Denis Villeneuve.

But as exciting and glamorous as those awards shows are, they are actually less reliable predictors of Oscar recognition than the picks of the DGA, which more closely mirrors the directors branch of the Academy, which, in turn,...

The Hawksian group dynamic at play in Hatari!—featuring a crew of game catchers working in Tanzania—is a familiar one, with macho gamesmanship, romantic entanglements, and personality clashes all occurring as each individual excels at their professional role, while also relying on the expertise of those around him or her. Yet, more so than any other Howard Hawks film, Hatari! plays not only like a new spin on the director’s pet themes and motifs, but also as a deliberate fusion of reconfigured moments and gestures from his greatest works.

There’s a mano-a-mano shooting competition between Kurt (Hardy Krüger) and Chips (Gérard Blain) that recalls the famous Red River sequence between Monty Clift and John Ireland, while the piano sing-along scene is much like the one in Only Angels Have Wings. The crew’s leader, Sean (John Wayne), who’s constantly flustered by the sophisticated Dallas (Elsa Martinelli...

Anything shot by Tony Scott and portrayed on screen by Tom Cruise is going to look way more exciting and fashionable than it really is in reality, and anyone who was motivated to enroll in the Navy after watching Top Gun or its legacy sequel Top Gun: Maverick is due for a rude awakening. Beyond the extreme difficulty of navigating a state-of-the-art aerial vehicle, flying at high speed is a harrowing experience that offers a potential fatal end. Aviation represents reckless abandonment of life at the highest level, and this lingering sense of doom is merely brushed upon in the Top Gun movies. For a sobering commentary on the fatalism of flying crossed with a romance between two dutiful but conflicted parties, check out an essential classic Hollywood classic, Only Angels Have Wings, directed by a filmmaking legend, Howard Hawks, and featuring two icons of the era in Cary Grant and Jean Arthur.

It hardly needs repeating, but director John Carpenter is known for making multiple horror classics, including "Halloween," "The Fog," "Christine," "The Thing," "Prince of Darkness," "In the Mouth of Madness" and "Vampires." Although Carpenter doesn't have a notable, recognizable style or motif in his filmography (apart from recurring actors) he does seem to possess a subtle, natural mastery of filmmaking craft that makes all his films, even the bad ones, imminently watchable.

Carpenter loves horror, of course, but oddly, he's not a horror guy at heart. He possesses an old-world workman's attitude when it comes to filmmaking, just sort of sussing out, by instinct, how to shoot a scene, regardless of genre. Carpenter has given multiple interviews where he's talked about monster movies and sci-fi flicks that inspired him, but moreso, Carpenter talks about the films of John Ford and Howard Hawks, two American filmmakers best known for their high-profile Westerns.

She was the first American actress to marry a prince, the first actress to dance with both Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly, one of the first pin-up girls of the 1940s and the first celebrity to bring awareness to Alzheimer’s Disease. She was the “Love Goddess,” Rita Hayworth.

Hayworth was born on October 17, 1918, in Brooklyn as Margarita Carmen Cansino, into a family of Spanish dancers. Although she later claimed she didn’t care for it, Hayworth started dancing at a young age to please her father. They performed together as the Dancing Cansinos from the time she was 12-years-old. She began landing small film roles in her teens under the name Rita Cansino, eventually earning a contract with Columbia Pictures. There she was “Americanized” by changing her last name to her Irish mother’s maiden name of Hayworth, dying her dark hair red and having electrolysis to raise her hairline.

A case could be made that Howard Hawks is one of the greatest American directors of all time. His career spanned from the silent era in the mid-1920s all the way to 1970, and along the way, he made some of the most memorable classics the film industry has ever seen. Hawks directed one of the first gangster movies, made two of the best screwball comedies of all time with "Bringing Up Baby" and "His Girl Friday," created two of the best Humphrey Bogart/Lauren Bacall films ever (and an influential noir classic) with "To Have and Have Not" and "The Big Sleep," and directed at least three classic John Wayne Westerns in the form of "Red River," "Rio Bravo," and "El Dorado." Not too shabby.

But everyone has to start somewhere, and Hawks got a job working as a propman during the summers in the earliest days of Hollywood.

For his tenth Cannes feature premiere, Arnaud Desplechin chose to present a docu-fictional love letter to cinema. Two years after Brother and Sister was in Competition, Spectateurs (or Filmlovers!) is one of the festival’s Special Screenings, an effervescent walk down memory lane with a director who has helped shape contemporary French cinema for the better. It’s not hard for a Frenchman to be a cinephile––almost everyone is trained in film knowledge, either formally or informally, as part of their cultural upbringing. But Filmlovers! manages to set itself apart from all the other meta-documentaries or essays about how cinema made their director the person they are today. Instead it is both an honest and highly poetic feature that quite naturally absorbs film and literary references to address the structural role cinema has played for both Desplechin himself and our way of viewing the world.

Filmlovers! is narrated by Paul Dédalus,...

One of the most legendary pieces of an iconic role almost going to a different actor is when Tom Selleck was initially offered the lead as Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark. He famously nailed his audition (which you can watch here) and was offered the part. However, he had just shot the pilot for Magnum P.I. and when that show was picked up, his opportunity to play the whip-wielding archeologist slipped through his fingers. He eventually got to star in his own period adventure movie in 1983, High Road to China, which is a bit of an unseen gem.

Selleck, who’s never had particularly sour grapes over the casting, writes about his shot at playing Indy in detail in his new memoir, “You Never Know:, lavishing praise on Spielberg, Lucas, Ford, and overall proving to be a good sport about the whole affair. Yet, one thing...

He may be the greatest horror director of all time (just ask Jordan Peele), but John Carpenter’s film taste skews farther away from the genre than you might expect.

Born in 1948 in Carthage, New York, Carpenter grew up with a love of cinema, watching Howard Hawks westerns an early age, and started making short films with an 8mm camera before he started high school. He studied at Western Kentucky University and University of Southern California, before dropping out of the latter after a short he made, “The Resurrection of Broncho Billy,” won an Oscar.

Now with a sudden amount of prestige, Carpenter made two little seen projects “Dark Star” and “Assault on Precinct 13,” both now critically acclaimed, before really breaking out with 1978’s “Halloween.” Starring a young Jamie Lee Curtis, the independent film became a massive hit, grossing $70 million, turning main villain Michael Myers into a horror icon,...

Howard Hawks was a versatile director who excelled in multiple genres, including westerns, film noirs, and screwball comedies. Hawks was known for his ability to create strong, independent female characters, leading to the term "Hawksian woman." Many of Hawks' films, such as Scarface, Red River, and The Big Sleep, are considered classics and have had a lasting impact on filmmaking.

With comedies, dramas, westerns, and war films to his name, Howard Hawks is one of the most versatile directors in Hollywood history. At a time when auteur filmmaking was on the rise, Hawks made a name for himself as a director who could spin any material into a great movie and didn’t allow himself to be pigeonholed. Hawks was a master of many genres who helmed some of the greatest westerns and film noirs ever made, helped to pioneer the screwball subgenre with his trailblazing comedy classics, and even...

The recent retrospective of Juliet Berto’s acting work at the Brooklyn Academy of Music presents an artist who occupied the forefront of both formal and ideological reimaginings of the medium during her lifetime. An icon of the French New Wave for her roles in landmark films by Jacques Rivette and Jean-Luc Godard, she also regularly lent her presence to works of radical leftist filmmaking from directors such as Robert Kramer and Marin Karmitz. Neige, Berto’s 1981 directorial debut made in collaboration with her partner Jean-Henri Roger, bears the influence of these artists and synthesizes them into something entirely its own, a playful and unpretentious work that nonetheless retains a fierce political anger.

The title of the film—which translates to Snow in English—refers to heroin, the drug around which much of the plot revolves. Berto stars as Anita, a bartender in Paris’s racy Pigalle district whose committed...

Howard Hawks was the Oscar-nominated director who has become a favorite among cinephiles, praised as a master of genre entertainments. But how many of his titles have remained classics? Let’s take a look back at 20 of Hawks’ greatest films, ranked worst to best.

Born in 1896, Hawks had a background in engineering and aviation before turning to filmmaking during the silent era. He proved himself to be a versatile talent, adapting his direct, fast-paced style to a variety of genres, including comedies, westerns, film noir, adventures (“Only Angels Have Wings”), gangster epics (“Scarface”) and war dramas.

Although Hawks often explored the codes of masculinity in films starring Humphrey Bogart, John Wayne and Cary Grant, he was noted for his strong-willed, fast talking female characters, coined the “Hawksian woman.” The battle of the sexes was never more evenhanded than it was in one of his films, thanks to the likes of Katharine Hepburn,...

While we’ve known the results of Jeanne Dielman Tops Sight and Sound‘s 2022 Greatest Films of All-Time List”>Sight & Sound’s once-in-a-decade greatest films of all-time poll for a few months now, the recent release of the individual ballots has given data-crunching cinephiles a new opportunity to dive deeper. We have Letterboxd lists detailing all 4,400+ films that received at least one vote and another expanding the directors poll, spreadsheets calculating every entry, and now a list ranking how many votes individual directors received for their films.

Tabulated by Genjuro, the list of 35 directors, with two pairs, puts Alfred Hitchcock back on top, while Chantal Akerman is at number two. Elsewhere in the top ten are David Lynch, Francis Ford Coppola, Jean-Luc Godard, Agnès Varda, Orson Welles, Yasujirō Ozu, and Stanley Kubrick, and tied for the tenth spot is Wong Kar Wai and Ingmar Bergman.

Check out the list below,...

No filmmaker loved ripping off their own work more than Howard Hawks. And if your oeuvre is riddled with all-timers like "Bringing Up Baby," "Only Angels Have Wings," "His Girl Friday" and "Ball of Fire," you might copy yourself, too.

Hawks' most egregious act of self-theft has its roots in "Rio Bravo," which is widely and correctly considered one of the finest Westerns ever made. The film that Quentin Tarantino calls the greatest "hangout" movie stars John Wayne as Sheriff John T. Chance, who teams up with his alcoholic former colleague (Dean Martin), a hotshot young gunfighter (Ricky Nelson), and Stumpy (Walter Brennan) to keep the outlaw brother of a wealthy local rancher in stir until the federal authorities can ride into town and take him into custody.

In an interview in the 1997 book, "Backstory 2: Interviews with Screenwriters of the 1940s and 1950s," scriptwriter Leigh Brackett shared that Hawks'...

Pairing‌ ‌wine‌ ‌with‌ ‌movies!‌ ‌See‌ ‌the‌ ‌trailers‌ ‌and‌ ‌hear‌ ‌the‌ ‌fascinating‌ ‌commentary‌ ‌for‌ ‌these‌ ‌movies‌ ‌and‌ ‌many‌ ‌more‌ ‌at‌ ‌Trailers‌ ‌From‌ ‌Hell.‌ This week, we look up, up and away for a trio of flying films. Of course, there are wine pairings for each.

Test Pilot, from 1938, stars Clark Gable, Myrna Loy and Spencer Tracy, who were three of Hollywood’s top box office draws of the day. The film was directed by Victor Fleming, who also directed another movie featuring flying, but in this one the house stays on the ground and there are no munchkins in the script. However, a farm in Kansas is involved.

The script, by the way, was based on a story by a real-life pilot who also served as a co-writer. The tale has Gable and Spencer as flyboy buddies with a woman between them. As you might expect, only one of the buddies makes it out alive.

Calling Baranca! Calling Baranca! Cary Grant followed up his successful role in Gunga Din with another signature performance, his edgiest to date, in one of the finest entries in the magical movie year of 1939. It was the second of five films he would make with director Howard Hawks. Famous as the supposed origin of the oft-quoted Cary Grant impersonation line “Judy, Judy, Judy”, one of the best-known lines never actually spoken in a movie.

The post Only Angels Have Wings appeared first on Trailers From Hell.

“Gone With the Wind,” “Birth of a Nation” and, more recently, Woody Allen’s “Manhattan,” are movies that should be explained rather than forgotten, a panel of top film critics said in TheWrap’s second in its series “Conversations on Cancel Culture.”

Washington Post critic Ann Hornaday said that a new generation of viewers see these films as problematic, and critics need to frame them appropriately. “Their expectations have fundamentally changed in terms of what they see as acceptable behavior, and this gets to their expectations as audiences,” Hornaday said. “They look at this stuff, and they’re wondering why we ever accepted it in the first place. It’s our job to the degree that we’re stewards of the culture and the patrimony to explain to them why this was valued and also to why it has problems.”

The panelists agreed that this is the job of the...

The Notebook Primer introduces readers to some of the most important figures, films, genres, and movements in film history.It was often said that women wanted to be with Cary Grant and men wanted to be Cary Grant, but perhaps no one was more consumed by the perception of Cary Grant—the handsome, unremittingly suave and stylish movie star—than Grant himself. “Even I want to be Cary Grant,” the actor once mused. Indeed, Grant’s public and on-screen persona was a carefully crafted, meticulously honed, and ultimately triumphant development, as much to suit the needs of his ascending celebrity as it was to shroud an unhappy childhood, a series of romantic passions and disappointments, and a latent dark side fostered by uncertainty and doubt. It was, however, and in any and all cases, resoundingly successful. Grant was the epitome of the movie star, a Hollywood icon and one of its most entertaining,...

If you’re looking to dive into the best of independent and foreign filmmaking, The Criterion Channel has announced their August 2020 lineup. The impressive slate includes retrospectives dedicated to Mia Hansen-Løve, Bill Gunn, Stephen Cone, Terry Gilliam, Wim Wenders, Alain Delon, Bill Plympton, Les Blank, and more.

In terms of new releases, they also have Kleber Mendonça Filho and Juliano Dornelles’ Bacurau, the fascinating documentary John McEnroe: In the Realm of Perfection, the Kenyan LGBTQ drama Rafiki, and more. There’s also a series on Australian New Wave with films by Gillian Armstrong, Bruce Beresford, David Gulpilil, and Peter Weir, as well as one on bad vacations with Joanna Hogg’s Unrelated, Ben Wheatley’s Sightseers, and more.

See the lineup below and explore more on their platform. One can also see our weekly streaming picks here.

25 Ways to Quit Smoking, Bill Plympton, 1989

The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T, Roy Rowland,...

Our reader's choice "streaming film club" is going weekly since we're all soon stuck at home in this brave new world of Covid-19. This week you selected the Howard Hawks adventure romance classic Only Angels Have Wings (1939) starring Cary Grant and Jean Arthur so we'll be discussing that on Monday March 23rd so queue it up on the Criterion Channel. In second place was Disney's Pollyanna (1960) so we'll also discuss that on Wednesday March 25th so watch that one on Disney+ if you'd like to play along. Okay? 

Last week's runner up film to Lady in a Cage was the romantic comedy Cactus Flower (1969) and Murtada and I decided to discuss it on the podcast (returning very soon) since it was such a close vote. So see, we're doing double duty to keep you thinking about movies when you're no longer allowed to go see them in theaters! *sniffle*

Stay...

She was the first American actress to marry a prince, the first actress to dance with both Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly, one of the first pin-up girls of the 1940s and the first celebrity to bring awareness to Alzheimer’s Disease. She was the “Love Goddess,” Rita Hayworth.

Hayworth was born on October 17, 1918, in Brooklyn as Margarita Carmen Cansino, into a family of Spanish dancers. Although she later claimed she didn’t care for it, Hayworth started dancing at a young age to please her father. They performed together as the Dancing Cansinos from the time she was 12-years-old. She began landing small film roles in her teens under the name Rita Cansino, eventually earning a contract with Columbia Pictures. There she was “Americanized” by changing her last name to her Irish mother’s maiden name of Hayworth, dying her dark hair red and having electrolysis to raise her hairline.

Pamplona, Spain — Actor-turned-producer Antonio Resines attended this year’s Conecta Fiction TV co-production and networking event with his proposed series “The Yellow Bird,” based on a true story.

In the 1920s aviation was in its infancy, and scores of pilots dedicated their lives to crashing through seemingly unbreakable barriers. Among them, Armand Lotti, a young French aviator who’s love for the activity cost him and eye, forced him to mortgage everything he owned and alienate his family in an attempt a completing a trans-Atlantic flight.

Standing in the ambitious pilot’s way were a French government who had prohibited such flights from taking off from French soil, logistical problems of weight and fuel consumption, and an influential businesswoman willing to do anything to sabotage the journey as she had backed another crew to make the voyage first.

Also, the odds were hardly in his favor. Between 1927 and 1929, 48 attempts to...

Howard Hawks would’ve celebrated his 123rd birthday on May 30, 2019. Underrated in his time, the Oscar-nominated director has become a favorite among cinephiles, praised as a master of genre entertainments. But how many of his titles have remained classics? In honor of his birthday, let’s take a look back at 20 of Hawks’ greatest films, ranked worst to best.

Born in 1896, Hawks had a background in engineering and aviation before turning to filmmaking during the silent era. He proved himself to be a versatile talent, adapting his direct, fast-paced style to a variety of genres, including comedies, westerns, film noir, adventures (“Only Angels Have Wings”), gangster epics (“Scarface”) and war dramas.

SEEJohn Wayne movies: 25 greatest films ranked worst to best

Although Hawks often explored the codes of masculinity in films starring Humphrey Bogart, John Wayne and Cary Grant, he was noted for his strong-willed, fast talking female characters, coined the “Hawksian woman.

'The Love Goddess' herself, Rita Hayworth, was born on this day 100 years ago in Brooklyn. Audiences first noticed her in a small role in Only Angels Have Wings (1939) and she seguewayed into profile boosters like Blood and Sand (1941) and Strawberry Blonde (1941). A natural dancer she made two pictures she obviously cherished with Fred Astaire in You'll Never Get Rich (1941) and You Were Never Lovelier (1942) -- Astaire went so far as calling her his favorite dancer partner -- and was one of the two ubiquitous pinups of World War II for American soldiers (the other being Betty Grable)...

The National Film Registry has made its selections of 25 classic movies for 2017. As usual, it's an eclectic list featuring films from the silent era up to relatively recent years.

Films Selected for the 2017 National Film Registry

(alphabetical order)

Ace in the Hole (aka Big Carnival) (1951)

Boulevard Nights (1979)

Die Hard (1988)

Dumbo (1941)

Field of Dreams (1989)

4 Little Girls (1997)

Fuentes Family Home Movies Collection (1920s and 1930s)

Gentleman’s Agreement (1947)

The Goonies (1985)

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967)

He Who Gets Slapped (1924)

Interior New York Subway, 14th Street to 42nd Street (1905)

La Bamba (1987)

Lives of Performers (1972)

Memento (2000)

Only Angels Have Wings (1939)

The Sinking of the Lusitania (1918)

Spartacus (1960)

Superman (1978)

Thelonious Monk: Straight, No Chaser (1988)

Time and Dreams (1976)

Titanic (1997)

To Sleep with Anger (1990)

Wanda (1971)

With the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in Spain (1937-1938

For More Click Here...

The Library of Congress has revealed the 25 films being add to the National Registry this year, which include fan favorites like Die Hard, along with culturally important titles like Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. Come inside to check out the full list of movies getting preserved.

While film preservation has progressed greatly over the last several years, getting into the Library of Congress is a great way to ensure a cultural preservation attached to our nation. Every year more films are added and this week we've learned which ones made the cut:

Ace in the Hole (aka Big Carnival) (1951)

Boulevard Nights (1979)

Die Hard (1988)

Dumbo (1941)

Field of Dreams (1989)

4 Little Girls (1997)

Fuentes Family Home Movies Collection (1920s and 1930s)

Gentleman’s Agreement (1947)

The Goonies (1985)

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967)

He Who Gets Slapped (1924)

Interior New York Subway, 14th Street to 42nd Street (1905)

La Bamba (1987)

Lives of Performers (1972)

Memento (2000)

Only Angels Have Wings...

As you know, at the end of every year, the Library of Congress adds 25 films to the National Film Registry. These are seen as “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant films” and they will be a protected and preserved part of American history.

There's a great list of films this year that includes a mix of several different kinds of films and it's cool to see there are some timeless classics that made the cut this year. Some of those films include The Goonies, Die Hard, Superman, Memento, Titanic, Dumbo, Spartacus, and more. I provided the full list below. I'm surprised that some of these weren't already added to the registry!

Here’s the full list of 2017 National Film Registry inductees:

Ace in the Hole (aka Big Carnival) (1951)Boulevard Nights (1979)Die Hard (1988)Dumbo (1941)Field of Dreams (1989)4 Little Girls (1997)Fuentes Family Home Movies Collection (1920s and 1930s)Gentleman’s Agreement (1947)The Goonies...

The Library of Congress has announced the 25 movies being added to the National Film Registry for 2017. The list this year is all over the place, which includes movies dating back to the early 1900s and modern classics. Movies like Die Hard, The Goonies, Titanic and Superman have all been selected this year and are considered worthy of preserving under the National Film Preservation Act. Yes, John McClane taking out terrorists at Nakatomi Plaza is worthy of being preserved by the government now.

Under the National Film Preservation Act, the Librarian of Congress names 25 movies to the National Film Registry every year. These movies are said to be "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant. Beyond that, the only other requirement is that the movies must be at least 10 years old. Here's what Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden had to say about 2017's additions to the National Film Registry.

"The selection of a...

Die Hard, Titanic, The Goonies and Field of Dreams are among the 25 films that have been added to the National Film Registry, the Library of Congress announced Wednesday.

Classic films like 1960's Spartacus, 1967's Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, 1947's Gentleman's Agreement and 1951's Ace in the Hole were also named to the registry, which "recognizes its importance to American cinema and the nation’s cultural and historical heritage."

"Our love affair with motion pictures is a testament to their enduring power to enlighten, inspire and inform us as individuals...

Die Hard, Titanic, The Goonies and Field of Dreams are among the 25 films that have been added to the National Film Registry, the Library of Congress announced Wednesday.

Classic films like 1960's Spartacus, 1967's Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, 1947's Gentleman's Agreement and 1951's Ace in the Hole were also named to the registry, which "recognizes its importance to American cinema and the nation’s cultural and historical heritage."

"Our love affair with motion pictures is a testament to their enduring power to enlighten, inspire and inform us as individuals...

As is annual tradition, Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden has announced this year’s 25 film set to join the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress. Selected for their “cultural, historic and/or aesthetic importance,” the films picked range from such beloved actioners as “Die Hard,” childhood classic “The Goonies,” the seminal “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner,” and the mind-bending “Memento,” with plenty of other genres and styles represented among the list.

The additions span 1905 to 2000, and includes Hollywood blockbusters, documentaries, silent movies, animation, shorts, independent, and even home movies. The 2017 selections bring the number of films in the registry to 725.

“The selection of a film to the National Film Registry recognizes its importance to American cinema and the nation’s cultural and historical heritage,” Hayden said in an official statement. “Our love affair with motion pictures is a testament to their enduring power to enlighten, inspire and...

Since 1989, the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress has been accomplishing the important task of preserving films that “represent important cultural, artistic and historic achievements in filmmaking.” From films way back in 1897 all the way up to 2004, they’ve now reached 725 films that celebrate our heritage and encapsulate our film history.

Today they’ve unveiled their 2017 list, which includes such Hollywood classics as Die Hard, Titanic, and Superman along with groundbreaking independent features like Yvonne Rainer’s Lives of Performers, Charles Burnett’s To Sleep with Anger, and Barbara Loden’s Wanda. Also making this list are a pair of Kirk Douglas-led features, Ace in the Hole and Spartacus, as well as Christopher Nolan’s Memento and more. Check out the full list below and you can watch some films on the registry for free here.

Ace in the Hole (aka Big Carnival) (1951)

Based on the infamous...

Forgotten amid Robert Aldrich’s more critic-friendly movies is this superb suspense picture, an against-all-odds thriller that pits an old-school pilot against a push-button young engineer with his own kind of male arrogance. Can a dozen oil workers and random passengers ‘invent’ their way out of an almost certain death trap? It’s a late-career triumph for James Stewart, at the head of a sterling ensemble cast. I review a UK disc in the hope of encouraging a new restoration.

The Flight of the Phoenix

Region B Blu-ray

(will not play in domestic U.S. players)

Masters of Cinema / Eureka Entertainment

1965 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 142 min. / Street Date September 12, 2016 / £12.95

Starring: James Stewart, Richard Attenborough, Peter Finch, Hardy Krüger, Ernest Borgnine, Ian Bannen, Ronald Fraser, Christian Marquand, Dan Duryea, George Kennedy, Gabriele Tinti, Alex Montoya, Peter Bravos, William Aldrich, Barrie Chase.

Cinematography: Joseph Biroc

Stunt Pilot: Paul Mantz

Art Direction: William Glasgow...

It’s finally here in all its glory, the Howard Hawks movie nobody loves. The epitome of clueless ’60s filmmaking by an auteur who left his thinking cap back with Bogie and Bacall, this show is a PC quagmire lacking the usual compensation of exploitative thrills. But hey, it has a hypnotic appeal all its own: we’ll not abandon any movie where Teri Garr dances.

Red Line 7000

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1965 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 110 min. / Street Date September 19, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: James Caan, Laura Devon, Gail Hire, Charlene Holt, John Robert Crawford, Marianna Hill, James (Skip) Ward, Norman Alden, George Takei, Diane Strom, Anthony Rogers, Robert Donner, Teri Garr.

Cinematography: Milton Krasner

Film Editors: Bill Brame, Stuart Gilmore

Original Music: Nelson Riddle

Written by George Kirgo story by Howard Hawks

Produced and Directed by Howard Hawks

Critics have been raking Howard Hawks’ stock car racing epic...

The history of the Muriel Awards stretches aaaalllll the way back to 2006, which means that this coming season will be a special anniversary, marking 10 years of observing the annual quality and achievement of the year in film. (If you don’t know about the Muriels, you can check up on that history here.) The voting group, of which I am a proud member, having participated since Year One, has also made its personal nod to film history by always having incorporated 10, 25 and 50-year anniversary awards, saluting what is agreed upon by ballot to be the best films from those anniversaries during each annual voting process.

But more recently, in 2013, Muriels founders Paul Clark and Steven Carlson decided to expand the Muriels purview and further acknowledge the great achievements in international film by instituting The Muriels Hall of Fame. Each year a new group of films of varying number would be voted upon and,...

Kong is back, transformed into a ‘MonsteVerse’ colossus suitable for combat with Kaiju-sized foes. The key inspiration is video games but the day is saved by capable performers in mostly amusing roles. Even though the show treats its fantasy halfway seriously, it’s still an infantile guns ‘n’ monsters romp, embellished with impressive visual effects.

Kong: Skull Island 3D

3-D Blu-ray + Digital

Warner Home Video

2017 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 118 min. / Street Date July 18, 2017 / 44.95

Starring: Tom Hiddleston, Samuel L. Jackson, John Goodman, John C. Reilly, Thomas Mann, Brie Larson, Tian Jing .

Cinematography: Larry Fong

Film Editor: Richard Pearson

Original Music: Henry Jackman

Written by Dan Gilroy, Max Borenstein, Derek Connolly, John Gatins

Produced by Mary Parent, Jon Jashni, Alex Garcia

Directed by Jordan Vogt-Roberts

Much of genre filmmaking is now being corporatized into interrelated ‘shared universes.’ Universal is struggling to shape its horror icons into a Marvel-like gallery of interchangeable ‘fun’ adventure figures.

The United States is “my country, right or wrong,” of course, and I consider myself a patriotic person, but I’ve never felt that patriotism meant blind fealty to the idea of America’s rightful dominance over global politics or culture, and certainly not to its alleged preferred status on God’s short list of favored nations, or that allegiance to said country was a license to justify or rationalize every instance of misguided, foolish, narrow-minded domestic or foreign policy.

In 2012, when this piece was first posted, it seemed like a good moment to throw the country’s history and contradictions into some sort of quick relief, and the most expedient way of doing that for me was to look at the way the United States (and the philosophies at its core) were reflected in the movies, and not just the ones which approached the country head-on as a subject.

Michel Piccoli and Romy Schneider in Max Et Les Ferrailleurs - Bertrand Tavernier: "I see Claude Sautet as the son of Jacques Becker."

In the third and final installment of my conversation with Bertrand Tavernier on his Journey Through French Cinema (Voyage À Travers Le Cinéma Français) he discusses his dedication to Jacques Becker (Casque D'Or, Édouard Et Caroline) and Claude Sautet (Max Et Les Ferrailleurs), Mireille Balin's dress in Jean Delannoy's Macao, l'Enfer Du Jeu (Gambling Hell), Jean Gabin, not forgetting Jean-Pierre Melville's Army Of Shadows (L'Armée Des Ombres), Léon Morin, Prêtre or Le Silence De La Mer, Jean Paul Gaultier and Falbalas (Paris Frills), Mila Parély in Coco Chanel, Jean Renoir's A Day In The Country (Partie De Campagne), Joseph Kosma, Sylvia Bataille and Jacques Lacan, Howard Hawks's Red River and Only Angels Have Wings, and not having to see Rio Bravo ever again.

A limp and lifeless historical melodrama that aspires to be the “Pearl Harbor” of the preamble to World War I and still falls well short of that ignoble goal, Joseph Ruben’s “The Ottoman Lieutenant” tries to snatch a love triangle from out beneath the Armenian Genocide but fails to get any of the angles right. Beginning in a Philadelphia hospital circa 1914 (Prague plays the city well), the film is tawdry from the very top, taking the same reckless approach to clichés that pre-war doctors took to general hygiene.

You can hear the trouble before you can see it, our wide-eyed heroine introducing herself via such startlingly trite voiceover that she’s a lost cause by the time she first appears on screen. “I thought I was going to change the world,” she says, “but of course it was the world that changed me.” Get comfortable, it’s going to be a bumpy night.

With the new release of Mildred Pierce, the Criterion Collection appears to be solidifying a trend over the past couple years of providing a showcase for some of the greatest female actors from Hollywood’s Golden Age. Since late 2014, stars like Claudette Colbert (It Happened One Night, The Palm Beach Story), Rita Hayworth (Gilda, Only Angels Have Wings) and Rosalind Russell (His Girl Friday) have made their first appearances in the Collection, in what can be considered career-defining roles. These additions seem to be addressing a notable blind spot for Criterion. As impressive as their reach has been in bringing many of the most iconic women from the past hundred years of world cinema to the forefront, the continuing absence of silver screen legends like Bette Davis, Olivia de Havilland, Greta Garbo and Elizabeth Taylor, just to name a few, seems like a lingering oversight, a problem yet to be...

Close-Up is a column that spotlights films now playing on Mubi. Leo McCarey's The Awful Truth (1937) is showing February 13 - March 15, 2017 in the United Kingdom in the series The Rom Com Variations.Leo McCarey’s 1937 screwball classic The Awful Truth is the epitome of a sub-genre dubbed by philosopher Stanley Cavell the “comedy of remarriage.” In the film, husband and wife Jerry and Lucy Warriner (Cary Grant and Irene Dunne) succumb to their marital suspicions and embark on an easier-said-than-done divorce. He returns home from an unspecified dalliance, complete with fake Florida tan (ever the gentleman, he bronzes so as to save Lucy the embarrassment of getting asked why her husband looks pale after spending time in the sun), but upon his arrival, Lucy herself is nowhere to be found. She must be with her Aunt Patsy, Jerry assures his guests, that is until Aunt Patsy (Cecil Cunningham) shows up sans niece.

Christmas has come a little early to anyone hoping to score some Criterion Collection deals on Amazon today. While Amazon has been running a pretty good sale on a handful of discs throughout December, they’ve lowered the prices on lots of Blu-rays today, including a few pre-orders for next year.

Amazon doesn’t usually announce when an impromptu sale like this will end, so don’t hesitate. And don’t forget that you can lock in the pre-order price for some of the upcoming titles as well, but Amazon won’t charge you until they ship.

You can currently pre-order The Before Trilogy for $52.47 (48% off)

The following Blu-rays are currently (as of December 23rd at 10:30pm Pacific) down below $21 each.

The Asphalt Jungle Boyhood The Complete Lady Snowblood The Devil’s Backbone Diabolique Easy Rider The Executioner F for Fake The Game Harakiri Harold and Maude Hidden Fortress...

Bogart finds Bacall and movie history is made; for once the make-believe romantic chemistry is abundantly real. Howard Hawks' wartime Caribbean adventure plays in grand style, with his patented mix of precision and casual cool. It's one of the most entertaining pictures of the 'forties. To Have and Have Not Blu-ray Warner Archive Collection 1944 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 100 min. / Street Date July 19, 2016 / available through the WBshop / 21.99 Starring Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Walter Brennan, Hoagy Carmichael,Dolores Moran, Sheldon Leonard, Walter Szurovy, Marcel Dalio, Walter Sande, Dan Seymour. Cinematography Sid Hickox Art Direction Charles Novi Film Editor Christian Nyby Original Music Hoagy Carmichael, William Lava, Franz Waxman Written by Jules Furthman, William Faulkner from the novel by Ernest Hemingway Produced by Howard Hawks, Jack L. Warner Directed by Howard Hawks

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Speaking for myself, I can't think of a more 'Hawksian' picture than To Have and Have Not.

As a supplement to our Recommended Discs weekly feature, Peter Labuza regularly highlights notable recent home-video releases with expanded reviews. See this week’s selections below.

A woman departs a steamer in Argentina and soon finds herself in the middle of a love triangle between two pilots vying for her attention. They carry her off to a bar, then gamble between taking out the mail and a juicy steak date. As the loser Joe takes off into the night, the fog sets in. The music stops, the sounds of the plane motor crinkle above the jungle air. The mist proves too thick, and a fiery mess consumes the ground, but only the woman screams. There’s no time for tears, something the Brooklyn lass has yet to understand. “Who’s Joe?” becomes a denial of existential fear, and the music crowds the air once again. The man fades into memory out of necessity.

Mark and Aaron fly back to 1939 to discuss Howard Hawks’ classic Only Angels Have Wings. We evaluate the special effects, how the film built suspense, the context of aviation in the late 1930s, and later films that embody a similar masculinity. We also reveal the winner of our Don Hertzfeldt contest and talk about region free players.

About the film:

Electrified by crackling dialogue and visual craftsmanship of the great Howard Hawks, Only Angels Have Wings stars Jean Arthur as a traveling entertainer who gets more than she bargained for during a stopover in a South American port town. There she meets a handsome and aloof daredevil pilot, played by Cary Grant, who runs an airmail company, staring down death while servicing towns in treacherous mountain terrain. Both attracted to and repelled by his romantic sense of danger, she decides to stay on, despite his protestations. This masterful and mysterious adventure,...

In this episode of CriterionCast Chronicles, Ryan is joined by David Blakeslee, Scott Nye, Aaron West, and Mark Hurne to discuss the Criterion Collection releases for April 2016.

Links The April 2016 Criterion Collection line-up The Newsstand – Episode 52 Only Angels Have Wings Only Angels Have Wings (1939) The Art of Francesco Francavilla Amazon.com: Only Angels Have Wings Blu-ray.com: Only Angels Have Wings Barcelona Barcelona (1994) Pierre Le-Tan Amazon.com: Barcelona Blu-ray.com: Barcelona A Whit Stillman Trilogy A Whit Stillman Trilogy: Metropolitan, Barcelona, The Last Days of Disco Amazon.com: A Whit Stillman Trilogy The Kennedy Films of Robert Drew and Associates The Kennedy Films of Robert Drew & Associates () F Ron Miller Design Blu-ray.com: The Kennedy Films of Robert Drew and Associates Amazon.com: The Kennedy Films of Robert Drew & Associates Phoenix Phoenix (2014) Nessim Higson Amazon.com: Phoenix Phoenix Blu-ray Brief Encounter Brief Encounter (1945) Brief Encounter on iTunes David Lean Directs Noël Coward Essential Art House,...

Stars: Jean Arthur, Cary Grant, Richard Barthelmess, Rita Hayworth, Thomas Mitchell, Allyn Joslyn, Sig Ruman, Victor Kilian | Screenplay by Jules Furthman | Directed by Howard Hawks

When thinking about the great flying pictures of Hollywood’s Golden Age, many would immediately turn to war films containing dogfights, high political drama and the sense that all the death we see onscreen is somehow noble because it’s for the causes of peace and freedom. But perhaps the greatest of these pictures, Only Angels Have Wings, isn’t a war movie and doesn’t contain a single dogfight. It’s an altogether smaller story than those sweeping dramas, and all the more powerful for it.

When Jean Arthur’s chorus girl, Bonnie, gets off a steamer at the fictional South American port of Barranca, she expects to see the sights (comprising a bustling market, a couple of dive bars and a rickety open-topped...

Mark and Aaron discuss Plain Archive, the South Korean Blu-Ray label, with input from Hyunhu Jang. He is a Producer and the Communications Manager for the label. In addition to talking about the label’s titles and their terrific packaging, we also delve into the global Blu-Ray economy and the challenges with streaming media. We discuss the 2016 Cannes lineup and share our favorite 1988 films.

Episode Links & Notes

0:00 – Intro and Welcome Ghost of Plain Archive

2:55 – Thanks & Feedback on New Formats

7:25 – Hertzfeldt Giveaway Update

9:10 – Mark on First Time Watchers

14:00 – Plain Archive Discussion

37:15 – Movie Lists, 1988 Films

46:40 – Cannes 2016

54:20 – Short Takes (Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2, Steve Jobs, Ex Machina, Shame, Carol, Star Wars: The Force Awakens)

Plain Archive Plain Archive International Facebook First Time Watchers 206: Sabotage Criterion Blues Lists Aaron’s 1988 List Mark’s 1988 List Aaron’s 1978 List Cannes 2016 Lineup Episode Credits Mark Hurne: Twitter | Letterboxd...