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The action cinema of John Wick, Havoc and John Woo’s The Killer has constantly evolved as it’s travelled between filmmakers and eras.

Now on Netflix, writer-director Gareth Evans’ Havoc is an ultra-violent stew of influences. It’s set in a benighted US city, but was shot in Wales; its bullet-strewn action is directly inspired by Hong Kong filmmaker John Woo.

Then again, action cinema has always been a particularly international genre, taking in disparate bits of American westerns, low-key French thrillers and more besides. When John Woo directed A Better Tomorrow, released in 1986, its contemporary gangland setting and ferocious shoot-outs changed the look and feel of action cinema forever. Widely credited with inventing what was later dubbed the ‘heroic bloodshed’ genre, it made a star out of its lead, Chow Yun-fat.

Woo continued to hone his signature style – slow-motion photography, close-quarters action, and his characters’ habit of holding...

The undisputed star director of French noir is Jean-Pierre Melville. The writer and director helmed some of cinema's coolest and most thrilling films that blended the best of Hollywood noir tropes with the boundary-pushing elements of the French New Wave. His best films include 1967's Le Samourai, as well as Army of Shadows and Le Cercle Rouge. He died while eating dinner, aged 55 in 1973, struck down in the prime of his career. Before he passed away, though, he managed to produce one final noir film that was intensely gripping and, once more, redefined the genre.

Alain Delon's iconic performance in Le Samourai tops his celebrated career, inspiring filmmakers worldwide. The classic hitman movie influenced a genre, inspiring directors like John Woo and Jim Jarmusch. Delon's cool, stoic portrayal of Jef Costello in Le Samourai became a symbol of French cinema worldwide.

Often hailed as one of France's finest film actors, the entertainment world suffered a significant blow with the passing of Alain Delon on August 18, 2024. Delon enjoyed an illustrious 60-year acting career, appearing in some of the most acclaimed French films on record. Whether playing infamous grifter Tom Ripley in Purple Noon, Corey in the classic crime film The Red Circle, Tancredi Falconeri in The Leopard, etc., Delon matched a smoldering intensity with handsome good looks each time out.

Yet, among his 107 screen credits since 1949, one movie starring Alain Delon tops them all. The classic 1967 neo-noir assassin movie Le Samourai features Delon's quintessential movie performance.

Alain Delon influenced Asian actors and directors, including Hong Kong directors John Woo (The Killer) and Johnnie To. These filmmakers admired Alain Delon when he played gangsters in Melville’s films.

Johnnie To wanted to work with Alain Delon. He offered him the lead role of Vengeance, that of Francis Costello in 1967, as an allusion to Jeff Costello in Le Samouraï, which was played by Alain Delon. After Alain Delon refused, Johnny Hallyday was chosen by Johnnie To. Vengeance made its international premiere at the Cannes Film Festival on 17 May 2009. It is screened at the Festival International des Cinémas d’Asie in Vesoul as part of a retrospective devoted to Asian films.

In the comedy You Shoot, I Shoot by Hong Kong director Pang Ho-Cheung, actor Eric Kot plays a hired gun who identified himself as Jef Costello. He dresses like him and talks to him through a poster of...

Alain Delon, the French actor who became a screen icon in Jean-Pierre Melville’s Le Samourai, has died aged 88.

Delon died “peacefully in his home in Douchy, surrounded by his three children and his family”, according to a statement released to the Afp news agency by his family.

As well as his famous role as professional hitman Jef Costello in Le Samourai, Delon collaborated with Melville in 1970 heist The Red Circle and 1975 crime thriller Flic Story.

Delon’s career began after he was spotted at Cannes Film Festival in 1957 by US talent agent Henry Willson, recruiting on behalf of David O. Selznick.

Alain Delon, the dark and dashing leading man from France who starred in some of the greatest European films of the 1960s and ’70s, has died. He was 88.

“Alain Fabien, Anouchka, Anthony, as well as (his dog) Loubo, are deeply saddened to announce the passing of their father. He passed away peacefully in his home in Douchy, surrounded by his three children and his family,” a statement from the family released to Afp news agency said.

Delon had been suffering from poor health in recent years and had a stroke in 2019.

With a filmography boasting such titles as Luchino Visconti’s Rocco and His Brothers (1960) and The Leopard (1963), René Clément’s Purple Noon (1960), Michelangelo Antonioni’s The Eclipse (1962), Joseph Losey’s Mr. Klein (1976) and Jean-Pierre Melville’s Le Samouraï (1967) and The Red Circle (1970), Delon graced several art house movies now considered classics.

His tense and stoical performances, often as...

International cinema offers a variety of films with unique storytelling techniques and genres, providing a different viewing experience from Hollywood movies. Foreign films have had a significant influence on American pop culture, with examples like the Japanese Jidaigeki genre inspiring Star Wars and French New Wave cinema influencing Martin Scorsese's crime films. There are many lesser-known international films beyond the popular ones like Parasite that Hollywood movie fans may enjoy.

International cinema has a great variety of films to explore, from different eras and genres, many of which American movie audiences might not be familiar with. Whether they be in subtitles or not, foreign films often follow different beats than American film viewers are used to. Without the massive budgets that go into Hollywood's film engine, filmmakers from other countries have relied on their own creative techniques to tell their stories, often being the ones to innovate cinema in ways Hollywood would later follow.

The heist film has long been a purveyor of cinematic cool, from Michael Mann's Heat, to Soderbergh's Ocean's Eleven. Yet, the champion of all heist films belongs to a film made decades before the heist genre reached its pinnacle in North America. Jean-Pierre Melville's 1970 classic Le Cercle Rouge stands as one of the most unique, yet influential films in one of cinema's most fruitful genres. In establishing what the modern heist film could be, Melville makes the climax of his film a 30-minute sequence filmed with surgical precision and barely any dialogue, yet the audience is stuck on the edge of their seat, in a way much more frenetic films could only dream of doing.

Jean-Pierre Melville in 4K? That’s an inviting idea. All of Melville crime pictures are memorable, and this is one of his best-remembered, a traditional caper drama with a wordless heist scene that lasts almost half an hour. The color production stars three big French actors and one Italian. Alain Delon and Gian Maria Volonté are the career thieves, joined by the conflicted Yves Montand as an alcoholic ex-cop. Comedian Bourvil is enlisted in a surprise role as the completely serious and less-than-ethical police inspector on their trail. We have to admire producer-writer-director Melville’s skill — he achieves a high-budget sheen with a minimum of production resources.

Le cercle rouge

4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 218

1970 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 140 min. / The Red Circle / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date March 15, 2022 / 49.95

Starring: Alain Delon, Bourvil, Gian Maria Volonté, Yves Montand, Francois Périer, Ana Douking, Paul Crauchet, Paul Amiot, Pierre Collet,...

Grounded in a profound sense of duty, Palestinian director Hany Abu-Assad has served as the premiere cinematic spokesperson for his people’s plight living under Israeli occupation for over half a century. Presenting a nuanced, yet piercing window into collective impotence in the face of injustice, his films “Paradise Now” and “Omar” received Academy Award nominations, prompting international attention on his inevitably political art.

But in the aftermath of Oscar recognition, the filmmaker tried his hand at a more inspirational tale with “The Idol” and eventually made his English-language debut with “The Mountain Between Us,” starring Kate Winslet and Idris Elba. Now, Abu-Assad has not only returned home, but also to his more tense and taut dramatic sensibilities with “Huda’s Salon,” a layered, edge-of-your-seat thriller about the many perils women face in Palestine. The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival last September, and is being released by IFC Films this week.

As 2021 reaches its merciful end we are only happy to look forward—towards March, mainly, and what Criterion’s planning as spring springs. The 4K stride continues with Jean-Pierre Melville’s Le Cercle Rouge, which screened this summer in (from what I’ve heard) a splendid restoration, and Scorsese’s The Last Waltz, my 2008 Blu-ray of which is perhaps no longer up to snuff. Will Neil Young’s coke snot come clearer in 2,160 pixels?

Aldrich’s Flight of the Phoenix joins while some pretty deep cuts are added to the collection: Hungarian filmmaker Márta Mészáros’s Adoption and Theodore Witcher’s Love Jones.

See artwork below and further details on all titles here:

The post Criterion's March Lineup Includes Le Cercle Rouge and The Last Waltz in 4K first appeared on The Film Stage.

In the past 20 months, we have all learned what an expression “herd immunity” means, for reasons well known. The Covid-19 pandemic has come even to the most remote places of the world, like the village of Karatas in Southern Kazakhstan which serves as the location and the source of inspiration (usually in the form of a metaphor for a hotbed of corruption) for most of the work by Kazakh filmmaker Adilkhan Yerzhanov. Oddly, this not Yerzhanov’s first “epidemic rodeo”, as some could remember “The Plague in Karatas Village” (2016), but “Herd Immunity” still comes at the right time. Like Yerzhanov’s previous film, “Ulbolsyn”, “Herd Immunity” premiered at Black Nights Film Festival where we had the chance to see it.

Our unlikely hero is Selkeu (Yerzhanov’s regular Daniyar Alshinov), one of the two Karatas sheriffs, the other being an ex-police officer Zhamzhysh (Nurbek Mukushev). Selkeu is from somewhere abroad...

Celebrating the release of his new memoir, multi-hyphenate Steven Van Zandt joins hosts Josh Olson and Joe Dante to discuss a few of his favorite movies.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Elevator To The Gallows (1958) – Glenn Erickson’s Criterion Blu-ray review

Breathless (1960) – Allan Arkush’s trailer commentary

Angels With Dirty Faces (1938)

The Fisher King (1991)

Tony Rome (1967)

Lady In Cement (1968)

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989)

The Killer (1989)

True Romance (1993)

True Lies (1994)

Get Shorty (1995) – Allan Arkush’s trailer commentary

Point Blank (1967) – John Landis’s trailer commentary

Catch Us If You Can a.k.a. Sweet Memories (1965)

Double Trouble (1967)

Performance (1970) – Mark Goldblatt’s trailer commentary

The Driver (1978)

A Hard Day’s Night (1964) – Allan Arkush’s trailer commentary, Tfh’s Don’t Knock The Rock piece

Help! (1965) – Allan Arkush’s trailer commentary, Charlie Largent’s review

Blue Collar (1978) – Josh Olson’s trailer commentary, Randy Fuller’s...

Hany Abu-Assad, the acclaimed Dutch-Palestinian director of Oscar-nominated “Paradise Now” and “Omar,” has broken new ground with “Huda’s Salon” which world premiered Sept. 9 at Toronto in the competitive Platform section.

The female-driven tense spy thriller is headlined by Maisa Abd Elhadi (“The Angel”) who stars as Reem, a young mother who falls into a trap during a visit at a hair salon run by Huda, a seemingly friendly woman working for the Israeli secret service. While being blackmailed by the Israeli secret service, Reem has to cope with her controlling husband and a Palestinian resistance agent who suspect she is a traitor.

“Huda’s Salon” marks the helmer’s follow up to Fox’s “The Mountains Between Us” with Kate Winslet and Idris Elba. Abu-Assad produced the film with his wife, Amira Diab, through their recently launched banner H&a Production, alongside Egyptian producer Mohamed Hefzy, who runs the Cairo Film Festival,...

If Jean-Paul Belmondo had gotten his way, he would have been a stage actor. He applied to the Conservatoire de Paris three times before the illustrious drama school accepted him and spent the 1950s trying to launch a theater career.

Lucky for world cinema, Belmondo had greater success on screen, thanks to his role in 1960’s “Breathless,” the movie that launched the French New Wave — and instantly rendered everything Hollywood had been doing old-fashioned. In “Breathless,” Belmondo wasn’t playing a gangster so much as someone who had seen too many gangster movies, a self-styled tough guy who took Humphrey Bogart as his model. His crime spree feels more improvised than scripted, while his doesn’t-care, screw-society attitude effectively thumbed its nose at all the good reasons on-screen criminals had used to justify their actions before.

Godard’s film made Belmondo the face of the New Wave — a handsome mug...

When John Wick came out in 2014, nobody could have predicted that it would spawn a globally successful franchise with multiple sequels and spinoffs. The film helped ex-stuntmen Chad Stahelski and David Leitch establish themselves as film directors to be reckoned with. In John Wick, Keanu played the eponymous hero, a former hitman mourning the loss of his wife who goes on a vengeance-fueled rampage after Russian gangsters break into his home, steal his vintage Ford Mustang, and kill his dog, the dog happened to be his wife's last gift. To make things more interesting, one of the gangsters, Iosef, turns out to be the son of Wick's former boss Viggo Tarasov, the head of the Russian mafia in New York City.

The plot is somewhat unremarkable. But the film is full of whip-smart dialogues and features some of the most astounding action scenes you'll ever see. The filmmakers took inspiration...

The Exchange takes place in the fictional small town of Hobart, in Ontario, Canada, during an economic recession in 1986. In snowy Hobart, "home of the white squirrel," teenager Tim Long (Ed Oxenbould) feels alone and misunderstood. Nobody else seems to be interested in literature, the music of bands like The Smiths, or French cinema (his favorite film is Jean-Pierre Melville’s Le cercle rouge). Tim applies for an exchange program that brings French students to Canada, with the desire for a friendship. The boy imagines spending time with someone as cultured as him, however, when he finally meets the visitor, his expectations aren’t met at all. The film's co-star is Parisian Stéphane (Avan Jogia), a charismatic and lively young man whose main interests are limited...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

First things first. At $70 million for its first weekend, “F9” (Universal) showed a terrific start. Not only is it the best opening for any film in 18 months, it beat “A Quiet Place Part II” (Paramount) by almost 50 percent for the top gross since the pandemic. And John Krasinski’s very impressive performer opened on a holiday weekend.

The total was ahead of the usually conservative projections. Though it did fall short of the previous two main series entries, even under normal conditions this might not have been seen as a horrific drop.

This is all part of a bigger picture. But two issues remain. First, is this total part of a steady improvement or is $70 million the new $100 million? Second, even if this established sequel release pulled this off, will all of them?

And that doesn’t include two other critical concerns. Is it possible for original titles to accomplish this,...

After a hiatus as theaters in New York City and beyond closed their doors during the pandemic, we’re delighted to announce the return of NYC Weekend Watch, our weekly round-up of repertory offerings. While many theaters are still focused on a selection of new releases, there’s a handful of worthwhile repertory screenings taking place.

Film Forum

Le Cercle Rouge has been given a new 4K restoration, while La Piscine and 8½ continue.

Film at Lincoln Center

As the new restoration of In the Mood for Love continues playing daily, Joyce Chopra’s Smooth Talk begins a week-long run.

Museum of the Moving Image

“See It Big” has a major weekend with Daughters of the Dust, Beau Travail, The Piano, and Do the Right Thing; meanwhile, 2001 plays on 70mm this Friday.

IFC Center

The restoration of Lizzie Borden’s Working Girls continues.

Roxy Cinema

Prints of John Waters’ Polyester and...

The star from Sid & Nancy, Terminator 2, Candyman, Gattaca, Leaving Las Vegas and the new chiller The Dark And The Wicked takes us on a journey through some of his favorite foreign films.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Candyman (1992)

Frankenstein (1931)

Sid and Nancy (1986)

The Dark And The Wicked (2020)

The Wall of Mexico (2019)

La Dolce Vita (1961)

Il Bidone (1955)

Day For Night (1973)

The Good, The Bad And The Ugly (1967)

8 ½ (1963)

Le Cercle Rouge (1970)

Daredevils of the Red Circle (1939)

Rififi (1955)

Reservoir Dogs (1992)

Z (1969)

The Sleeping Car Murders (1965)

The Battle of Algiers (1966)

Burn! (1969)

Dr. Strangelove (1964)

The Italian Job (1969)

The Italian Job (2003)

The Magician (1958)

Wild Strawberries (1957)

Fanny and Alexander (1982)

Persona (1966)

The Grapes of Wrath (1940)

The Last House On The Left (1972)

The Virgin Spring (1960)

Paperhouse (1988)

The Strangers (2008)

The Monster (2016)

Andrei Rublev (1966)

Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975)

Nostalghia (1983)

Son of Frankenstein (1939)

The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)

Zorba The Greek (1964)

Pollyanna (1960)

Other Notable Items

Lon...

Video Version of this Article Video: Hollywood Insider YouTube Channel Yes, I’m Talking To You, And I’m Ranking The Ten Best Gangster Movies At their best, gangster films act as fascinating, vicarious experiences of an incredibly high-stakes, lawless world. We as viewers are cautiously curious to see how such a violent, care-free environment works, partially because we know it often stems from real life. Films like Scarface work better as entertaining showcases of the excesses of the lifestyle, whilst works like Once Upon A Time In America lean more towards the grim reality and psychological repercussions. The best gangster films showcase both the allure and horrific truths in fairly equal measure. For this list films within the heist sub-genre such as Le Cercle Rouge and Reservoir Dogs were considered, as well as broader crime films such as Heat and Pulp Fiction. Still, I primarily focused on straight mob films,...

Leading producer-distributor Studiocanal, which boasts one of the biggest film libraries in the world with more than 5,500 movies, is gearing up for a slew of major theatrical and DVD releases sure to titillate fans of classic cinema, among them Jean-Luc Godard’s beloved 1960 film “Breathless.”

The company has enjoyed recent successes with re-releases of such classics as David Lynch’s 1980 Victorian drama “The Elephant Man,” Volker Schlöndorff’s 1979 Oscar-winning “The Tin Drum” and Mike Hodges’ 1980 sci-fi extravaganza “Flash Gordon.”

Studiocanal is expecting similar success with its newly restored reissues.

“Breathless” is “one of our biggest upcoming catalog releases,” said Juliette Hochart, Studiocanal’s executive VP of library.

The film will be released in theaters in France on Oct. 28, in Germany the following day and in the U.K. on Nov. 13. It will also be reissued in other territories, such as Italy and Japan, in 2021.

A new Uhd collector’s edition...

Italy’s Il Cinema Ritrovato Festival – which has long seen thousands of heritage film lovers and distributors flock to the city of Bologna in summer – officially kicked off Tuesday with a freshly restored version of Michelangelo Antonioni’s “Cronaca di un amore” (pictured). It’s an emblematic opener in various ways. The now freshly restored pic stars late great Italian actor Lucia Bosé who died last March, having contracted coronavirus. Antonioni’s 1950 drama is also among titles in the Venice Film Festival’s Venice Classics section, which has migrated to Bologna this year due to the impact of Covid-19 constraints on Lido screening space.

Variety spoke to Il Cinema Ritrovato chief Gian Luca Farinelli, who also heads the Bologna Film Archives and its globally renown film restoration lab, about this year’s collaboration with Venice and Cannes. Excerpts from the conversation.

How did it happen that you and Venice chief...

Wife of a SpyThe programme for the 2020 edition of the Venice Film Festival has been unveiled, and includes new films from Gia Coppola, Lav Diaz, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Alice Rohrwacher, Gianfranco Rosi, Frederick Wiseman, Chloé Zhao, and more.COMPETITIONIn Between Dying (Hilal Baydarov)Le sorelle Macluso (Emma Dante)The World to Come (Mona Fastvold)Nuevo Orden (Michel Franco)Lovers (Nicole Garcia)Laila in Haifa (Amos Gitai)Dear Comrades (Andrei Konchalovsky)Wife of a Spy (Kiyoshi Kurosawa)Sun Children (Majid Majidi)Pieces of a Woman (Kornél Mundruczó)Miss Marx (Susanna Nicchiarelli)Padrenostro (Claudio Noce)Notturno (Gianfranco Rosi)Never Gonna Snow AgainThe Disciple (Chaitanya Tamhane)And Tomorrow The Entire World (Julia Von Heinz)Quo Vadis, Aida? (Jasmila Zbanic)Nomadland (Chloé Zhao)Out Of COMPETITIONFeaturesThe Ties (Daniele Luchetti)Lasciami Andare (Stefano Mordini)Mandibules (Quentin Dupieux)Love After Love (Ann Hui)Assandria (Salvatore Mereu)The Duke (Roger Michell)Night in Paradise (Park Hoon-jung)Mosquito...

With Telluride Film Festival forced to cancel their yearly event, what is now the first of the major fall festivals, Venice, has announced their complete lineup. Along with Chloé Zhao’s Nomadland, which was revealed yesterday, the lineup includes more of our most-anticipated films of the year, including Frederick Wiseman’s City Hall, Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Wife of a Spy, Gia Coppola’s Mainstream, Abel Ferrara’s Sportin’ Life, Lav Diaz’s Genus Pan, Mona Fastvold’s The World to Come, Kornél Mundruczó’s Pieces of a Woman, Gianfranco Rosi’s Notturno, and more.

There were also a few surprises in the lineup. Luca Guadagnino has directed a new documentary titled Salvatore: Shoemaker of Dreams, while Alice Rohrwacher and Jr have teamed for the new short film, Omelia Contadina. Quentin Dupieux’s Mandibules will also premiere out of competition.

In perhaps the best surprise of all, a new, recently uncovered film by Orson Welles,...

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,...

There are not as many new films being made and some completed films are holding out until 2021 to make their festival premiere, but there’s no shortage of new restorations coming to film festivals soon. Cannes recently revealed their Classics lineup of titles screening this fall and hopefully coming to discs in the near future, and now it is Venice’s turn.

They’ve revealed the new restorations that will first screen at Cinema Ritrovato Festival in Bologna, Italy on August 25-31, followed by screenings at Venice Film Festival soon after. New restorations include work by Martin Scorsese, Souleymane Cissé, Michelangelo Antonioni, Shôhei Imamura, Fritz Lang, Sidney Lumet, Jean-Pierre Melville, Nikita Mikhalkov, and more. Some of these films already have forthcoming disc releases announced, including Claudine, coming to Criterion this fall.

Check out the lineup below (via Deadline) as well as the Venice Critics’ Week slate, which includes the Terrence Malick...

Restoration strand to take place outside of the city this year.

Films by Michelangelo Antonioni, Martin Scorsese and Sidney Lumet are among the lineup of the Venice Classics section at the 77th Venice Film Festival.

The 13 titles include Scorsese gangster drama Goodfellas, which has been restored by Warner Bros. and received its world premiere at Venice in 1990.

Others include Antonioni’s 1950 drama Chronicle Of A Love, which as been restored by Cineteca di Bologna; Sidney Lumet’s 1973 neo-noir thriller Serpico, restored by Studiocanal; and Souleymane Cissé’s 1975 Malian film The Young Girl, restored by Cinémathèque Française.

The strand, which comprises restored versions of classic films,...

The full lineup for the 77th Venice Film Festival will be announced on July 28. In the meantime, organizers have set the roster of restored titles that will make up the Venice Classics section which, unconventionally this year, will be hosted as part of the Cinema Ritrovato Festival in Bologna, Italy from August 25-31 in a show of solidarity between the events. The selection, which includes works by Michelangelo Antonioni, Shôhei Imamura, Fritz Lang, Sidney Lumet, Jean-Pierre Melville, Nikita Mikhalkov and Martin Scorsese will then be screened in Venice in the following months.

The Venice Film Festival, the first major international film event to take place since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, will be held from September 2-12 on the Lido. Certain changes owing to sanitary protocols imposed by the Covid-19 crisis were announced earlier this month, including the shifting of venues for the Classics section. The overall number of...

Martin Scorsese's 1990 gangster classic Goodfellas, Sidney Lumet's corrupt cops thriller Serpico from 1973 and newly restored gems from Jean-Pierre Melville, Michelangelo Antonioni and Souleymane Cissé are among the highlights of the Venice Film Festival's Classics lineup, which organizers unveiled Wednesday.

Antonioni's 1950 crime romance Story of a Love Affair, Cissé's groundbreaking Mali drama The Young Girl from 1975 and Melville's thriller Le Cercle Rouge (1970), starring Alain Delon, will be part of the Venice Classics section for the 77th Venice International Film Festival.

The lineup of films will first screen at the Italian festival Il Cinema Ritrovato,...

Martin Scorsese's 1990 gangster classic Goodfellas, Sidney Lumet's corrupt cops thriller Serpico from 1973 and newly restored gems from Jean-Pierre Melville, Michelangelo Antonioni and Souleymane Cissé are among the highlights of the Venice Film Festival's Classics lineup, which organizers unveiled Wednesday.

Antonioni's 1950 crime romance Story of a Love Affair, Cissé's groundbreaking Mali drama The Young Girl from 1975 and Melville's thriller Le Cercle Rouge (1970), starring Alain Delon, will be part of the Venice Classics section for the 77th Venice International Film Festival.

The lineup of films will first screen at the Italian festival Il Cinema Ritrovato,...

In a sea of online streaming services, Mubi’s stake in the field has been its carousel of films. 30 movies are available on any given day, all of which are part of a rotating selection. One leaves the library as another takes its place, giving you a constant conveyer belt of options that, even upon completing, guarantees something new by the next day. Now, they’ve expanded their offerings with the addition of a full library.

But if you’re like me and are into a strong gimmick, fear not: the rotating shelf mechanic is still there. Now in addition is a swath of other titles, including Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s epic Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, Jean-Pierre Melville’s crime classic Le Cercle Rouge, and Hong Sang-soo’s The Day He Arrives, plus retrospectives dedicated to Lav Diaz, Angela Schanelec, Philippe Garrel, and more. It even has Richard Kelly...

‘Portrait Of A Lady On Fire’ leads Mubi chart.

Safy Nebbou’s Who You Think I Am has topped UK streaming platform Curzon Home Cinema’s (Chc) most-watched films for a second week as audiences continue to seek home entertainment during the lockdown.

A month after all cinemas closed across the UK, in a bid to stem the spread of Covid-19, Curzon’s streaming platform reported a 211% revenue increase on the equivalent weekend in 2019.

However, income from April 17-19 was down 31% on the previous weekend, highlighting the importance of launching strong, new titles on a weekly basis.

Romantic drama Who You Think I Am,...

Jean-Pierre Melville’s most accomplished, most personal movie gets a new reissue. Ignored in 1969 and released in the United States only 37 years later, this somber, ultra-realistic look at the French resistance has never been equalled. Forget thrilling adventure tales with daring escapes, patriotic oaths and beautiful spies; Melville presents resistance activities in the Occupied territory as a fearful grind leading in one direction only. Criterion’s extras include an interview piece with historical operatives, who still argue points of strategy.

Army of Shadows

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 385

1969 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 145 min. / L’Armée des ombres / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date April 7, 2020 / 39.95

Starring: Lino Ventura, Paul Meurisse, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Simone Signoret, Claude Mann, Paul Crauchet, Christian Barbier, Serge Reggiani, André Dewavrin.

Cinematography: Pierre Lhomme, Walter Wottitz

Film Editor: Françoise Bonnot

Original Music: Eric De Marsan

Written by Jean-Pierre Melville from the novel by Joseph Kessel

Produced by Jacques Dorfmann

Directed...

Acclaimed stuntman and action director extraordinaire Jesse V. Johnson joins us to discuss the U.S. based action films and filmmakers that have influenced him the most.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

On The Waterfront (1954)

Fultah Fisher’s Boarding House (1922)

Undisputed (2002)

Undisputed II: Last Man Standing (2006)

Undisputed III: Redemption (2010)

Boyka: Undisputed (2016)

The Killer Elite (1975)

Convoy (1978)

The Osterman Weekend (1983)

Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia (1974)

Le Cercle Rouge (1970)

Straw Dogs (1971)

The Wild Bunch (1969)

Mr. Holland’s Opus (1995)

The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

The Birdcage (1996)

Cross of Iron (1977)

Electra Glide in Blue (1973)

Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry (1974)

Easy Rider (1969)

Fail Safe (1964)

The Cincinnati Kid (1965)

Ride The High Country (1962)

Major Dundee (1965)

Jinxed! (1982)

Beowulf (2007)

Kiss Me Deadly (1955)

Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (2019)

The Girl Hunters (1963)

Los Angeles Plays Itself (2003)

Point Blank (1967)

Falling Down (1993)

M (1951)

M (1931)

The Black Vampire (1953)

The Roaring Twenties (1939)

Scum (1979)

Elephant (1989)

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962), possibly Joe’s favorite John Ford...

The centennial celebration of Federico Fellini continues as another one of his classics has been restored and will be getting a theatrical run here in the United States. Following his first solo directorial effort The White Sheik, Film Forum will premiere the new 4K restoration of his masterpiece Nights of Cabiria, which follows Giulietta Masina as a prostitute in Rome looking for love.

Masina won Best Actress at Cannes Film Festival for the drama, which would go on to win the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1957, marking the second year in a row this would happen for Fellini, following La Strada. This new 4K restoration, by TF1 Studio in partnership with Studiocanal and with the support of the Cnc, also boasts a brand-new translation and subtitles.

Ahead of an April 17 release (and likely Criterion box set), see the restoration trailer below via IndieWire.

Streetwalker “Cabiria,” a seemingly tough cookie,...

Just one year after winning the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar (now known as the Best International Feature Film) in 1956 for his opus “La Strada,” iconic Italian filmmaker Federico Fellini repeated the win with “Nights of Cabiria,” also starring his wife and muse Giulietta Masina. Inspired by her brief appearance in his “The White Sheik,” the episodic drama follows Masina’s Cabiria through a series of interactions and incidents that highlight her search for true love.

When the star-studded film premiered at Cannes, Masina’s work was widely hailed as her best ever, and she went on to win the festival’s Best Actress award for her startling turn as the title heroine.

Over six decades since its release, New York City’s Film Forum is gearing up for a two-week run of the film, freshened up with a new 4K restoration, which also boasts a new translation and subtitles.

2017-10-26T06:49:30-07:00This Week's 'Riverdale' Answers a Few Questions

Last week's episode ended with a cliffhanger of sorts, and this week's episode resolved it. However, it also introduced a few questions of its own. Read on for Us Weekly's recap of "The Watcher in the Woods," but be careful of spoilers if you haven't yet caught up on the series.

Via Us Weekly.

Things were much calmer in the Wednesday, October 25, episode of Riverdale, but there were still some big revelations. Read our recap to find out what Archie and his friends were up to in “Chapter Sixteen: The Watcher in the Woods.”

The Red Circle

This episode picked up at the exact moment last week’s ended. Kevin (Casey Cott), who was in the woods for reasons we’ll get into later, heard gunshots and ran to see what was going on.

Born 1917, as Jean-Pierre Grumbach, son of Alsatian Jews, Jean-Pierre adopted the name Melville as his nom de guerre in 1940 when France fell to the German Nazis and he joined the French Resistance. He kept it as his stage name when he returned to France and began making films.

Melville at 100 at the American Cinematheque in Hollywood is showcasing eight of his films made from 1949 to to 1972 to honor the 100th year since his birth.

Americn Cinemtheque’s historic Egyptian Theater in Hollywood

The American Cinematheque has grown tremendously sophisticated since its early days creating the 1960 dream of “The Two Garys” (for those who remember). Still staffed by stalwarts Barbara Smith, Gwen Deglise, Margot Gerber and Tom Harris, and with a Board of Directors of Hollywood heavy hitters, it has also been renovated by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association which has spent more than $500,000 restoring its infrastructure and repainting its famous murals.

“Isn’t it like France here?”

By the late 1940’s, the cityscape of New York seemed to be solidified as a well-trodden noir trope in and of itself, if solely due to the fact that being the supposed ultimate symbol of the post-war Free World made it ripe for subversion; criminal networks and the misdeeds of average citizens crawling under the surface of the booming metropolis. The city’s cinematic presence came even greater by this period’s emergent trend of noir films shooting on-location as opposed to embracing the artifice of a Los Angeles soundstage simulacra of the Big Apple; realism imparted on Hollywood as if a way of making the escapist medium of the movies taken more seriously as an art form.

Yet even the burden of verisimilitude could be flipped on its head by an outsider looking in, as by the end of the 1950s, the metropolis...

We’ve seen one man versus an army and a man who wants to retire only to be dragged back to the fight. It’s a staple of storytelling and modern cinema so it all comes to down the execution. In fall 2014, audiences were introduced to the latest character in this celebrated model: John Wick. A surprise hit for Lionsgate, it was fairly quickly decided to make a sequel, hoping to turn this into a series which can be a challenge when the main character just wants to be left alone.

In January, Wick’s return came with John Wick Chapter 2 which offered more of the same high-octane stunts, fights, shooting, punching, and martial arts. With a stoic performance from Keanu Reeves we find ourselves rooting for the antihero as the relentless pace is sustained over two hours.

Out now from Lionsgate Home Entertainment, the film can be seen on Digital HD,...

Aaron and two new guests, Jason Beamish and Kyle Reardon, dig into 45 Years, Cannes 2017, David Lynch and a number of other topics. This ended up being an unpopular opinions episode, as we all took some shots against conventional wisdom. Since Kyle is the youngest guest on the podcast, we gave him a list of films to watch, but found that he had quite the art and classic film foundation.

Episode Notes

4:25 – Dumb Game

11:00 – 45 Years

22:45 – Matias Pineiro Closet Picks

29:00 – Cannes 2017

34:30 – Abbas Kiarostami

40:20 – David Lynch

50:00 – Short Takes (Tampopo, Day for Night, Le Cercle Rouge)

56:45 – FilmStruck

Episode Links Nowhere to Run – Kickstarter Film Ruminations – Tampopo MK2 Acquires 20 Abbas Kiarostami Films Matias Pineiro Closet Picks 2017 Cannes Winners Episode Credits Aaron West: Twitter | Website | Letterboxd Jason Beamish: Twitter | Website Kyle Reardon: Twitter | Run Nowhere Criterion Now: Twitter | Facebook Group Criterion Cast: Facebook | Twitter

Music for the show...

Above: French poster for Le silence de la mer (Jean-Pierre Melville, France, 1949). Design by Raymond Gid.Many great filmmakers never got the posters their films deserved. Some of my favorite filmmakers—I'm thinking Yasujiro Ozu, Jacques Rivette, Mike Leigh, and Jean-Marie Straub, to name just a few—for one reason or another, whether it be the vagaries of distribution, the particulars of time and the place, or just the fact that what is so extraordinary about their filmmaking doesn’t translate to still images, have very few posters worthy of their reputation. Jean-Pierre Melville is not one of those. Undoubtedly, the archetype of Melville’s cinema—the trench-coat and fedora sporting, pistol touting tough guy—lends himself beautifully to graphic invention. But Melville made other kinds of films too, and somehow the posters for his entire 13-film oeuvre are an embarrassment of riches. It didn’t hurt that the great French poster artist,...

Jean-Pierre Melville in his own film, Two Men in Manhattan“A man isn't tiny or giant enough to defeat anything”—Yukio MishimaA voracious cinephile in his early youth, Jean-Pierre Grumbach's daily intake of films was interrupted by the Second World War when he enlisted in the Ffl (Forces Français Libres) and adopted the nom de guerre by which he's still known to these days: Jean-Pierre Melville. A tribute to his literary hero, Hermann Melville, and his novel Pierre: or the Ambiguities, the director would have his name officially changed after the war. The latter was to shape and inform many of his films and arguably all of his world-view, characterized by a sort of ethical cynicism where anti-fascism is understood as a moral duty rather than an act of heroic courage. Profoundly anti-rhetoric and filled with a terse dignity, his films about the Resistance, Army of Shadows (1969) above all,...

Colcoa is keeping up with the times. Now in its twenty-first year, the lauded French film festival, sponsored by the Franco-American Cultural Fund, has added a pair of forward-thinking new categories for its newest edition. This year will include a virtual reality program and a web series competition, in addition to its Cinema, Television and Shorts competitions.

“These two new popular formats offer more opportunities to showcase the creativity of French producers and filmmakers as well as the diversity of French production,” said François Truffart, Colcoa Executive Producer and Artistic Director. “While entertainment is still the key word for the program, with a balanced mix of comedies and dramas, several topical issues will cover the program this year, including the environment, discrimination, racism, terrorism, and the role of the artist in society. More than ever, Colcoa will offer a unique opportunity to see these universal topics from different angles.”

Read...

Damien Chazelle given Carte Blanche to present influential French film.

Colcoa and the Franco-American Cultural Fund also announced the Focus on a Filmmaker programme in addition to a line up of French classics consisting of predominantly digitally restored films.

The programme will take place at the DGA in Hollywood from April 24-May 2 as part of Colcoa’s 21st anniversary.

Oscar contender and La La Land director Damien Chazelle [pictured] has selected Leo Carax’s The Lovers On The Bridge (1991) starring Juliette Binoche and Denis Lavant as an influential film.

This Carte Blanche screening will be presented in association with Rialto Pictures, with the support of the French Embassy in the Us and l’Institut Francais.

Colcoa will honour writer-director Stéphane Brizé on April 27, with a special presentation of Not Here To Be Loved (2005) starring Patrick Chesnais, Anne Consigny, and George Wilson.

The Festival will also host the West Coast premiere of Brizé’s new film A Woman’s Life...

Every week, IndieWire asks a select handful of film and TV critics two questions and publishes the results on Monday morning. (The answer to the second, “What is the best film in theaters right now?” can be found at the end of this post.)

At long last, the Alamo Drafthouse is finally opening in Brooklyn this Friday, complementing a new wave of New York City cinemas that already includes the Metrograph, the Nitehawk (which will soon open another location), and the iPic chain, and is scheduled to add several more exciting venues 2017. With that exciting news in mind, we’ve put forward the following question to our panel of critics: What is the best movie theater that you have ever been to, and what made it so special?

Miriam Bale (@mimbale), Freelance

The Castro Theater in San Francisco is obviously the best. See anything there and you’ll know why.

Studiocanal

To celebrate the release of L’Eclisse, available on Est 21 September 2015 and released on Blu-ray for the first time (as well as on DVD) 28 September 2015, we are giving 3 lucky WhatCulture readers the chance to win one of three copies on Blu-ray.

Filmed in sumptuous black and white, and full of scenes of lush, strange beauty, it tells the story of Vittoria (the beautiful Monica Vitti – L’Avventura, La Notte, Red Desert – Antonioni’s partner at the time), a young woman who leaves her older lover (Francisco Rabal – Viridiana, The Holy Innocents, Goya in Bordeaux), then drifts into a relationship with a confident, ambitious young stockbroker (Alain Delon – Le Samourai, Rocco and his Brothers, Le Cercle Rouge). But this base narrative is the starting point for much, much more, including an analysis of the city as a place of estrangement and alienation and an implicit critique of colonialism.

Using the...

Filmed during the height of the Euro Western craze of the late 60’s, Robert Hossein’s Cemetery Without Crosses is an obscure gem rejuvenated by Arrow Video. A French production, the title was actor/director Hossein’s first Western, obviously influenced by Sergio Leone, whom the film is dedicated to (Leone was in the midst of production on Once Upon a Time in the West when Hossein was underway with his feature). A simplistic and familiar narrative is enhanced by its inspired set designs and notable production value, featuring a winning score. Existing on the bleak end of the Spaghetti Western spectrum (or perhaps more aptly the ‘Baguette Western,” an Alex Cox coined term Ginette Vincendeau discusses in an included insert essay), it’s an entertaining bit of style over substance, and is an uncommon French entry in otherwise familiar climate. However, as much as Hossein pays homage to Leone,...

Crime and Punishment: Sautet’s Enthralling Policier an Obscure Neo-Noir

Following the international acclaim of his 1970 film The Things of Life, Claude Sautet re-teamed with his leads Michel Piccoli and Romy Schneider for a return to the criminal tendencies comprising his earlier filmography as a director. Less well known today than his 1960 classic Classe Tous Risques, Sautet’s 1971 devious psychological drama Max and the Junkmen is well worth reexamination in modern contexts. As has been pointed out before, Sautet’s genre efforts have long languished in the shadows of Jean-Pierre Meville’s filmography, with well-renowned crime sagas like Le Samourai (1967) and Le Cercle Rouge (1970) having already been released by the time Sautet hit his stride. But while Melville’s celebrated filmography focuses on precise elaboration, Sautet’s outings within genre tend to be character oriented, in particular lending this title a melancholy tint, doubled over in its final, dramatic climax.