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By the time they announced their first break-up in 2013, New Jersey rockers My Chemical Romance had established themselves as one of the biggest and most influential emo bands on the planet. Indeed, if you're not into the whole emo thing, it's probably their name that springs to mind if the genre ever comes up. For a group who positioned themselves as outsiders, they made a pretty big impact on the mainstream, too; the anthemic "Welcome to the Black Parade" reached Number 2 in the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 and topped the charts in the U.K. and New Zealand. With their gothic stylings and dark topics including cancer and suicide, My Chemical Romance came to define the gloomy look and attitude of emo culture for a new generation, even though the guys themselves rejected the "emo" label. In short, they didn't seem like the kind of people who would sit around watching old Clint Eastwood movies,...

Stories about treasure hunting are awesome. Way before I was introduced to the world of movies, I was reading Treasure Island, Sinbad the Sailor, and the purposefully anticlimactic Sonar Kella. Then there were the Tintin comics and the amazing 2011 film, The Adventures of Tintin, that absolutely enthralled me. Mackenna’s Gold and King Solomon’s Mines were brought up in every conversation with my parents so many times that I have lost count at this point. Despite the tacky nature of the franchises, the Lara Croft and The Mummy movies were hugely influential. Animated feature films like Treasure Planet, The Road to El Dorado and Atlantis: The Lost Empire were on repeat in my household. Despite the problematic nature of its lead, there’s no denying the effect that the first 3 Pirates of the Caribbean films had on me. One Piece, the manga and the anime, is another great example. And even...

George Lucas's background in making documentaries influenced his approach to filming Star Wars, giving it a distinct personal feel. Lucas intentionally used a documentary style in shooting the scenes, adding a sense of authenticity and capturing the "now" quality of the story. Filming in a documentary style was a key factor in the success of Star Wars, creating a balance between a fantastical setting and a relatable human element.

George Lucas has proven that Star Wars is perfectly suited to the documentary style of filmmaking. When thinking of Star Wars, the last thing that comes to mind is documentary. Set a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, the franchise falls under the genres of science fiction and space fantasy. These are not genres typically associated with documentaries. However, the documentary style had more of an impact on Star Wars than it appears at first glance.

A...

Before Clint Eastwood took on his first Hollywood leading man role in Hang 'Em High, he passed on a much bigger Western. Eastwood considered quitting the film business entirely towards the end of the '50s, but landing the part of Rowdy Yates on Rawhide convinced him to stay the course. It was during his run on the show that he was offered a low-budget Italian Western that was eventually released as A Fistful Of Dollars. The film was a shock success and revitalized the ailing genre.

Sergio Leone's Dollars trilogy made Eastwood a screen icon, but he had to be careful making his transition to lead roles in American films. He co-starred with Richard Burton in World War 2 adventure Where Eagle's Dare and lead several other films, but it was the success of Dirty Harry that truly made him a movie star. Nestled in between this period was Eastwood's first Hollywood lead,...

Wayne “Buddy” Van Horn, longtime stunt double for Clint Eastwood and director of Eastwood’s films Any Which Way You Can, The Dead Pool and Pink Cadillac, died May 11, The Los Angeles Times reported. He was 92.

Van Horn was credited as the stunt coordinator on Eastwood’s films from 1972 to 2011, including 1976’s The Enforcer, 1977’s The Gauntlet and 1983’s Sudden Impact. He also served as second unit director on Eastwood’s Magnum Force and The Rookie. As an actor, Van Horn’s most prominent onscreen appeareance was as Marshal Jim Duncan in 1973’s High Plains Drifter. The film stars Eastwood as a mysterious Stranger who metes out justice in a corrupt frontier mining town. As Eastwood’s stunt double, Duncan was cast in the role to suggest that he and the Stranger could be the same person. Van Horn is the murdered Marshal who was planning to report a gold...

Veteran actress and Will & Grace breakout star and fan-favorite Shelley Morrison died Sunday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. She was 83.

Morrison’s publicist Lori DeWaal told the Associated Press that Morrison died from heart failure after a brief illness.

The actress’s career spans 50 years but is best known as the sharp-tongued maid Rosario Salazar from NBC’s Will & Grace who would go head to head with Megan Mullally’s Karen Walker, trading verbal jabs and insults. She played the character for eight seasons from 1999 to 2006 and won a Screen Actors Guild award for best ensemble in a comedy series.

Morrison was born in the Bronx, New York as Rachel Mitrani in 1936. She primarily spoke Spanish and was cast in many Latinx roles. In addition to Will & Grace, Morrison’s resume includes a lengthy list of TV series and films. From 1967 to 1970 She played Sister...

The first issue of Cinema Retro's 15th season (#43) has now been mailed to subscribers around the globe. Thanks to our loyal readers, the world's most unique film magazine is entering another exciting year with every issue packed with the kind of coverage of classic cinema that you've come to expect. (Issue #44 will ship in April/May and issue #45 ships in September/October.)  Our kickoff issue for the new season features the following:

Tribute to the 50th anniversary of the James Bond classic "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" starring George Lazenby: a five-page photo feature packed with rare images, some never published before.

"Mackenna's Gold"- a look back fifty years on at the much-hyped big budget fiasco that has a fascinating back story.. This major article by Dave Worrall and Lee Pfeiffer is the most comprehensive ever written about the troubled production that starred Gregory Peck, Omar Sharif, Telly Savalas...

A rare 35mm print of the 1969 epic western "Mackenna's Gold" will be shown as part of the annual film festival at the Schauberg Cinerama Theatre in Karlsruhe, Germany on October 8. The three day festival will present an astonishing eleven screenings of film in the 70mm format. The "Mackenna's Gold" print will be the German dubbed version in Technicolor with 4-track magnetic stereo. The movie was a boxoffice bomb in America despite a high profile cast that included Gregory Peck, Omar Sharif and Telly Savalas. However, as the www.in70mm.com  web site points out, it did well in certain international venues. The film has developed a cult following over the decades with retro movie lovers, though almost all are critical of the abundance of poor rear screen projection techniques utilized. Nevertheless, "Mackenna's Gold" features some of the most sweeping vistas ever seen in a Hollywood production and the story is highly entertaining.

Omar Sharif, who received an Oscar nomination for his towering performance in the 1962 classic Lawrence of Arabia, passed away earlier today at the age of 83. His agent, Steve Kenis, revealed earlier this year that the actor had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease. Steve Kenis confirmed that Omar Sharif died after suffering a heart attack in Cairo, Egypt.

The actor was born as Michel Shalhoub in Alexandria, Egypt in April 1932, to a lumber merchant. After graduating from Victoria College in Alexandria, and later from Cairo University, he entered his family's lumber business, before moving to London to study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (Rada). In the 1950s, he became a rising star in Egyptian cinema, starring in films such as The Blazing Sun, Our Best Days and The Lebanese Mission before making his English-language debut with Lawrence of Arabia, for which he won a Golden Globe Award for and received an Oscar nomination.

Omar Sharif, the Egyptian actor who broke through barriers to become a major international star, has died in Cairo from a heart attack at age 83. In recent months, he had been battling the onset of Alzheimer's Disease. Sharif and Peter O'Toole were virtual unknowns when they were cast as the leads by director David Lean in his 1962 masterpiece "Lawrence of Arabia". Both received Oscar nominations for the film and went on to become two of the biggest stars to emerge in the 1960s. Sharif reunited with Lean for another blockbuster, the 1965 production of "Doctor Zhivago" in which Sharif played the title role. He also co-starred with Barbra Streisand in her Oscar-winning 1968 film "Funny Girl" and appeared with her in the 1975 sequel "Funny Lady". Other prominent films Sharif appeared in during the 1960s include Samuel Bronston's ill-fated but underrated "The Fall of the Roman Empire", "Behold a Pale Horse", the...

You call yourself a blockbuster director. That's what all the posters of your recent film, Himmatwala, scream. But I think now it is safe to say that this film is a blockbuster disaster!What I would like to point out is how film-directors go about town, tom-tomming about their film as though it is the next Gone With The Wind or MacKenna's Gold, or closer home Sholay!What I fail to understand is why go to extreme lengths for such obscene promotions and tall claims? Agreed,...

[1] What if Walt Disney Pictures produced Pixar's Up in the 1960s as a live-action feature film? YouTube user whoiseyevan has created an amazing faux "premakes" trailer which imagines this exact possibility. Watch the video now, embedded after the jump. Here is a note from the video editor: Ah, the swinging 60s. It was a time when films were dominated by flying automobiles and flying nannies. It was also a time when live-action Disney films flourished and spawned such hits as "The Love Bug", "The Absent-Minded Professor", and "The Monkey's Uncle". In an alternate reality, this era also saw the production of the high-flying adventure-comedy, "Up!". Starring Spencer Tracy and Kirk Douglas, "Up!" followed the oddball escapades of the elderly widower, Carl Fredricksen, and his earnest band of misfits as they traveled through the wilds of South America. Produced two decades after "Saludos Amigos" and "The Three Caballeros", the film continued...