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There’s never been a book written about the sub-genre of the so-called “hangout” film. In fact, the earliest reference I’ve come across of the term was Quentin Tarantino describing his admiration for Howard Hawks’ “Rio Bravo” and Richard Linklater’s “Dazed and Confused.” Tarantino defined the sub-genre as being, “movies that you hang out with the characters so much that they actually become your friends.”

When director Carson Lund was on the Filmmaker Toolkit podcast he talked about setting out to make a hangout film with “Eephus.” The director, who used to write about movies for Slant, has become a student of the genre, and offered a more specific definition.

“[The hangout movie] is a film that prioritizes character interaction at the expense of forward plot momentum. It’s more about just enjoying, as a viewer, spending time with these people,” said Lund on the podcast. “ Howard Hawks is the master of this.

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...

With a 200-minute running time, Brady Corbet’s “The Brutalist” (A24) isn’t unique among wide-release English-language films. In fact, it’s somewhat shorter than some major releases in recent decades.

There’s no standard for intermissions, which can vary between presentations, technical issues, or even elevating a film’s prestige. “The Brutalist” qualifies on all counts, but its intermission could herald a comeback: Audience habits have changed, and directors would love to use them to defend longer movies.

“The Brutalist” becomes 215 minutes start to finish with its precisely timed 15-minute break. Without it, it would be nine minutes shorter than “The Irishman”; about the same as “Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King,” “The Godfather Part II,” and George Stevens’ 1956 “Giant”; and about five minutes longer than “Schindler’s List” and “Titanic.” All were released without intermissions. Among major titles, “Gone with the Wind” is still the longest...

Howard Hawks' 1948 Western Red River finally convinced John Ford that John Wayne was a great actor, even though they had made four movies together already. John Wayne and John Ford made nine great Westerns together, and both the director and the actor became known as legends of the genre. Ford and Wayne were even responsible for some of the best Western movies of all time, like Stagecoach, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, and The Searchers. Most of Ford's movies cast Wayne as a traditional, upstanding hero, but one of the first films that cast him against type surprised everyone.

Even though Wayne and Ford were an absolutely legendary pairing, Ford was still shocked by another movie Wayne made with a different director. Wayne's performance in Red River, directed by Howard Hawks, proved to Ford that the Duke was a great actor, even though their professional relationship was well under way by that point.

Hatari! (4Kuhd) (4K Uhd) Click Here To Buy Hatari! Available December 10th Legendary director Howard Hawks re-teams with “The Duke” John Wayne, who stars as the leader of a group of highly skilled professional game hunters in Africa. Only they don’t use bullets—they capture the ferocious big game with strong ropes and cameras for zoos and circus attractions. It is an exciting business that pits man against beast. “Hatari” is Swahili for “danger”—and also the word for action, adventure, romance and broad comedy in this two-fisted Hawks effort that provides rousing entertainment ... Read more...

John Wayne was a humbled man early in the 1960s. His passion project, "The Alamo," had fallen well short of box office expectations in 1961. An epic Western about the siege of the basement-less San Antonio mission, Wayne directed the film and took its failure personally. He didn't need a hit; even at his lowest point in the 1970s, a Wayne picture at a certain budget level was an automatic greenlight. Still, Wayne was a prideful man who actively tended to his legacy; he was mindful of his fan base, and sought their approval. So Wayne came charging out of his corner in 1962, and knocked out every last naysayer with Howard Hawks' "Hatari!," "How the West Was Won," "The Longest Day" and John Ford's "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance."

The Ford movie could've been Wayne's Western swan song, but a rifle-toting Wayne astride a horse still held commercial appeal,...

In Our Day.In the cinema, as elsewhere, the notion of “late style” has become a critical commonplace—shorthand for dealing with an artist’s “mature” work, particularly when said artists are dismissed or misunderstood after a period of acclaim. The problem with shorthand, of course, is that not everyone can read it, the result being that appeals to “late style” can come across as abdications of critical responsibility, promissory notes that have yet to be fulfilled. Such debts are in many cases eventually paid, obscure references to “late style” giving way to fuller, more perspicuous accounts of an artist’s achievement. Few would now dispute the considered analyses of how Howard Hawks, pivoting on the success of Rio Bravo (1959), made a deliberate move into the late-career languor of Hatari! (1962), Man’s Favorite Sport? (1964), and Red Line 7000 (1965). In the case of Hong Sang-soo, however, this critical due has yet to...

Founded in 1953, bought by Julio Fernández in 1987 and now run by his brother Carlos Fernandez and daughter Laura Fernández, Filmax is one of its biggest true-blue independent studios in Spain, involved in film and TV production, and movie distribution, international film and TV sales and exhibition.

How it got there is another question. “At Filmax, we’ve always bet on creative talent. In Spain, there’s always been creative talents that have revolutionized its sector: Architects, artists and designers,” says Laura Fernández, a Filmax executive producer. “Filmax has known how to find talent in all parts of film production: Composers, screenwriters, DPs, casting, VFX and directors.”

Jaume Balagueró’s “Nameless” gave Filmax its first experience of fulsome international pre-sales at 1999’s Mifed, helping to usher in a golden age of Spanish auteur genre that resonates to this day.

A director on “Polseres Vermelles,” the original Catalan version of “The Red Band Society...

Given the legacy of the actor, the best John Wayne movies rank among some of the most influential movies of all time. Known as “The Duke,” he was one of the top box office draws for three decades during Hollywood’s Golden Age of cinema. He appeared in over 150 movies during his career. He was iconic in countless roles. Whether he was playing a cowboy, a colonel, or a marshal, “The Duke” was always the hero. Wayne’s legacy continues today, even several decades since his death in 1979. Fans still love his films, and the best John Wayne movies continue to be heavily revisited.

Few actors in the history of movies have reached the kind of iconic status as Wayne. He helped define a certain type of hero in movies in his era and there is still a certain influence from Wayne that can be found in modern movies. Though...

The end was in sight for John Wayne when he took the part of aging gunfighter J.B. Books in Don Siegel's 1976 Western "The Shootist." He was only 69, but the quintessential American movie star hadn't been nice to his body. Decades of drinking and smoking had taken their toll. He'd lost a lung and a couple of ribs to cancer in the 1960s, but had evidently been in remission since. Still, his energy was flagging. He'd struggled throughout the filming of "Rooster Coburn," and was being asked to literally hop back on a horse in the elevated altitude of Carson City, Nevada. He had not been diagnosed with a return of the cancer that would kill him three years later, but The Duke looked a deathly shadow of his former, swaggering self.

Culturally, there was a sense that people should celebrate Wayne while he was still around (for those willing...

Cinema Retro has received the following press release:

Own 14 of John Wayne's Most Essential Films in One Collection for the First Time

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Relive some of the greatest performances by legendary actor John Wayne with the John Wayne Essential 14-movie Collection, arriving on DVD May 11, 2021 from Paramount Home Entertainment.

An American hero and icon, Wayne had an epic, 50-year film career in which he played the lead in over 140 films. He was nominated* for three Academy Awards®, winning the Best Actor award for his performance in True Grit.

Representing Paramount’s biggest John Wayne collection ever, this 14-movie set spans nearly 25 years of Wayne’s exceptional career and includes his only Oscar®-winning performance in True Grit and his final lead role in The Shootist. Encompassing epic stories of integrity and dramatic battles of will, these fan-favorites capture the virtue, courage, and humor of an American original.

Gérard Blain in Jusqu'au bout de la nuitPossibly the most exciting retrospective to hit Toronto so far this year, at least judging by the merits of rarity, “Rebel Without a Cause: The Cinema of Gérard Blain” will offer a glimpse into a still deeply mysterious figure of French cinema. Blain, who died in 2000, is an icon who’s near sixty-year long filmography began with being one of the nation’s most sought-after actors (going as far as to being dubbed “the French James Dean”) and soon pivoted to directing uncompromising dramas that drew comparisons to Robert Bresson. While his two best known directorial efforts, Le pélican (1974) and A Child in the Crown (1976), had been respective carte blanche programming choices of Olivier Assayas and Mia Hansen-Løve in previous Tiff seasons, Gérard Blain’s work as a director remains wholly underseen in North America and much of Europe. That’s why this series is definitely an event,...

Beloved US comedian Red Buttons has died following a vascular disease. He was 87. The red-headed funnyman, who won a 1957 Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role in Sayonara, died at his home, surrounded by family members, yesterday. After making his name as a vaudeville comedian, Buttons became a TV regular after he served in World War Two, eventually landing his own show, The Red Buttons Show in 1952. Three seasons after the show debuted, flagging ratings prompted Buttons to turn his attention to the movies and his Oscar-winning performance helped earn him movie acclaim. Film highlights included Hatari, The Poseidon Adventure and They Shoot Horses, Don't They? His final acting role came on medical drama ER in 2005, when he returned as recurring character Jules Rubadoux.