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Guest reviewer Lee Broughton tackles Tonino Valerii’s Spaghetti Western-cum-political conspiracy thriller. By brazenly transposing key aspects of John F. Kennedy’s assassination onto the assassination of James A. Garfield in 1881, Valerii gives both western and conspiracy film fans much food for thought. A career best performance by Giuliano Gemma, repurposed sets from Once Upon a Time in the West and great turns by a plethora of Sergio Leone’s regular supporting actors bring a sense of gravitas to this intriguing show.

A Bullet for the President

Region Free Blu-ray

Wild East

1969 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 112 min. / Il prezzo del potere, The Price of Power / Street Date November 25, 2019 / 18.45

Starring: Giuliano Gemma, Warren Vanders, Van Johnson, Maria Cuadra, Ray Saunders, Fernando Rey, Antonio Casas, Benito Stefanelli, Jose Suarez, Jose Calvo, Manuel Zarzo, Michael Harvey, Norma Jordan, Angel Alvarez.

Cinematography: Stelvio Massi

Film Editor: Franco Fraticelli

Original Music: Luis Bacalov

Production Designer: Carlo Leva...

Jill Soloway hopes, of course, that feminists, radicals and fans of her work tune in to her latest Amazon series, “I Love Dick.”

“But I also have a secret dream, that some red state daughters will turn it on, just wanting to see Kevin Bacon,” she said Monday at the Sundance Film Festival, “and they’re like, ‘I Love Dick,’ what is this? And little by little they grow this radical feminist sleeper cell.”

The series, which premiered to a packed house at the Marc Theater in Park City, stars Bacon as the title character, the prickly (and somewhat mysterious) leader of an artists’ enclave in the tiny town of Marfa, Texas. Kathryn Hahn plays Chris, a filmmaker who comes to town with her husband, author Sylvere (Griffin Dunne).

Read More: Kevin Bacon on How His ‘I Love Dick’ Character Is Much More Than Just a Dick

“I Love Dick...

We pay tribute to the film stars and directors from around the world who sadly passed away in 2016.Hector BabencoArgentine-born Brazilian director Hector Babenco died on July 13 at 70-years-old.He found international success with Brazilian slum drama Pixote (1981), going on to make Kiss Of

We pay tribute to the film stars and directors from around the world who sadly passed away in 2016.

Hector Babenco

Argentine-born Brazilian director Hector Babenco died on July 13 at 70-years-old.

He found international success with Brazilian slum drama Pixote (1981), going on to make Kiss Of The Spider Woman (1985), for which he earned a best director Oscar nominee and William Hurt earned an Oscar win for best actor.

Babenco went on to direct Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson in Ironweed (1987) and Tom Berenger and John Lithgow in At Play In The Fields Of The Lord (1991).

After undergoing cancer treatment in the 1990s, he returned to the director’s chair for films including Brazilian prison...

Ryan Lambie Dec 27, 2016

Thrilling, timely and often very funny, Hell Or High Water has made it into our list of the 10 best films of 2016...

As is tradition at this time of the year, our writers have been voting for their favourite movies. Number three of 2016? Hell Or High Water...

See related Amazon Prime UK: what’s new in January 2017?

3. Hell Or High Water

Behind every crime, there's some kind of human story. In director David Mackenzie's spectacular thriller Hell Or High Water, the series of bank heists pulled off by Texan brothers Toby (Chris Pine and Tanner (Ben Foster) are driven by their disintegrating way of life.

As depicted by Mackenzie and screenwriter Taylor Sheridan (Sicario), America's Old West is a dusty, lonely place, emptied out by the financial crisis and generations of stagnating wages. Towns are quiet and empty; farms are falling apart; the oil industry is shrinking.

Writer-director Sergio Sollima gives us one of the best 'political' Italo westerns from the pre- May '68 era... with two top stars in great form, Gian Maria Volontè and Tomas Milian. This two-disc German import has both the long and short versions of the movie in HD, with full language options for each. Face to Face (Faccia a faccia; Von Angesicht zu Angesicht) Region A+B Blu-ray Explosive Media (Alive) 1967 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 93, 112 min. / Street Date April 29, 2016 / available at Amazon.de / E 21,93 Starring Gian Maria Volontè, Tomas Milian, William Berger, Jolanda Modio, Gianni Rizzo, Carole André Ángel del Pozo, Aldo Sambrell, Antonio Casas, Lidia Alfonsi, John Karlsen, Gastone Moschin, G&eacutge;rard Tichy. Cinematography Raphael Pacheco Film Editor Eugenio Alabiso Original Music Ennio Morricone Art Direction and sets Carlo Simi Written by Sergio Donati, Sergio Sollima Produced by Arturo González, Alberto Grimaldi <Directed by Sergio Sollima

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Wow,...

Ryan Lambie Sep 6, 2016

Director David Mackenzie talks about making Hell Or High Water with Chris Pine, and the state of modern cinema...

A blend of western and heist thriller, Hell Or High Water has one foot in the present and one in the past. Its rugged atmosphere recalls classic thrillers and dramas of the 1970s, yet its setting - among shuttered towns of a post-recession east Texas - is unmistakably modern. Its big skies and Stetsons recall classic westerns, yet its story, brilliantly written by Taylor Sheridan (Sicario) feels like a eulogy for a vanishing way of life.

Even the casting feels like a nod to both 70s and contemporary cinema. There are plenty of parallels between Hell Or High Water and Michael Cimino's 1974 thriller Thunderbolt And Lightfoot, not least the casting of Jeff Bridges. In Cimino's film, Bridges stole just about every scene as a live-wire outlaw...

The already-incredible line-up for the 2016 New York Film Festival just got even more promising. Ang Lee‘s Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk will hold its world premiere at the festival on October 14th, the NY Times confirmed today. The adaptation of Ben Fountain‘s Iraq War novel, with a script by Simon Beaufoy (Slumdog Millionaire), follows a teenage soldier who survives a battle in Iraq and then is brought home for a victory lap before returning.

Lee has shot the film at 120 frames per second in 4K and native 3D, giving it unprecedented clarity for a feature film, which also means the screening will be held in a relatively small 300-seat theater at AMC Lincoln Square, one of the few with the technology to present it that way. While it’s expected that this Lincoln Square theater will play the film when it arrives in theaters, it may be...

Amazon is getting into the superhero business, having set an Aug. 19 premiere date for its pilot reboot of The Tick.

Two other comedy pilots premiering that day on the streaming service star Kevin Bacon and Jean-Claude Van Damme… as himself-ish?

RelatedAmazon’s Catastrophe Renewed for Seasons 3 and 4

Here’s a summary of the three new pilots coming Amazon’s way:

The Tick | In a world where superheroes have been real for decades, an underdog accountant (Vinyl‘s Griffin Newman) with zero powers comes to realize his city is owned by a global super villain long-thought dead. As he struggles to uncover this conspiracy,...

Have you ever wondered what are the films that inspire the next generation of visionary filmmakers? As part of our monthly Ioncinephile profile, we ask the filmmaker the incredibly arduous task of identifying their top ten favorite films of all time. As is the case with some of our previous profiled folks, sometimes we don’t receive a set ten, in this case, Lance Edmands‘ (his feature debut Bluebird gets released theatrically today via the Factory 25 Folks) delivered a hard eight. Here are Lance’s top eight, in his own words…

Making a list of my top ten films of all time is a next-to-impossible task for me. That list is constantly growing, shifting, evolving, and is probably closer to a hundred films than to ten. For me, it’s probably more relevant to list the films that inspired Bluebird specifically. That said, many of these films are also on my list of all-time favorites,...

• Sandra Bullock is circling the role of Brownie Wise in an untitled pic about the rise of Tupperware. Wise was the saleswoman who helped the airtight containers succeed in the ’50s thanks to her innovative “party plan” marketing scheme. The Help’s Tate Taylor is attached to direct the movie, which will be based on Bob Kealing’s non-fiction book Tupperware Unsealed. [THR]

• Eddie Redmayne is set to re-team with his Les Misérables director Tom Hooper for The Danish Girl, about the painter Einar Wegener — the first man to have a sex-change operation. The script, penned by Lucinda Coxon, will be...

Odd List Ivan Radford 7 Jan 2014 - 06:37

Last year may only be a memory, but its film themes linger in the mind. Here's Ivan's pick of 2013's best soundtracks...

Just a quick scan down the list below reveals an extraordinary breadth of genres and subject matters, from imposing, expensive science fiction films to quiet, intimate stories about men at sea on boats or outlaws breaking out of prison to be with their wives. Disparate though the films are, they're all linked by at least one common motif: their music is utterly brilliant.

So with 2014 already well underway, and an entire new wave of films with great music in them beckoning, join us as we look back to the movies of last year, their finest soundtracks, and the must-listen pieces of music you can dig out on each one.

1. Gravity (Steven Price)

Must-listen track: Don't Let Go

When does sound...

Handsome star of spaghetti westerns including A Pistol for Ringo

When the spaghetti western was born in the early 1960s, some of the Italian lead actors disguised their names under American-sounding ones (though nobody was fooled). Among those competing successfully with bona fide Yanks such as Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef were Terence Hill (born Mario Girotti), Bud Spencer (Carlo Pedersoli) and Montgomery Wood, a temporary pseudonym taken by Giuliano Gemma, who has died in a car accident aged 75.

The strikingly handsome Gemma was one of the brightest stars of the once deprecated, now revered, genre. After five years in sword-and-sandal epics (also known as peplum films), usually supporting muscle men, Gemma made a name for himself (even if, initially, it wasn't his own) in two westerns directed by Duccio Tessari: A Pistol for Ringo (1965) and The Return of Ringo (1965). Their big box-office success granted Gemma stardom and...

The key to a great sequel is a really great subtitle. Just ask Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo, which is widely regarded as the best sequel title and also the best sequel of all time. Movies that didn’t have great subtitles: The Godfather Part II, Aliens, and even Spider-Man 2. They’re all garbage and everybody hates them, right?. It’s a good thing, then, that Sony Pictures is batting around a few choice subtitles for the upcoming The Amazing Spider-Man 2.

The rumored subtitles come courtesy of a tipster at a screening for Sony’s Captain Phillips, during which the audience was supposedly asked their opinions on some potential choices. Two of the titles bandied about: The Amazing Spider-Man: The Price of Power and The Amazing Spider-Man: With Great Power. There was a third title in there as well, but the source claims to have forgotten it.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 may release with a subtitle, according to a report.

Studio Sony is considering basing the name of the upcoming sequel to 2012's The Amazing Spider-Man on Peter Parker's mantra "With great power comes great responsibility".

According to Screen Rant, two possibilities are The Amazing Spider-Man 2: The Price of Power and The Amazing Spider Man 2: With Great Power.

It is thought that the studio wants to distinguish the Andrew Garfield series from Tobey Maguire's Spider-Man 1, 2 and 3.

Meanwhile, the writers of The Amazing Spider-Man 2 - Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci and Jeff Pinkner - are returning for the upcoming third film.

Willem Dafoe, who played Norman Osborn in Sam Raimi's original Spider-Man trilogy, recently called The Amazing Spider-Man a "cynical" attempt to reboot the Marvel franchise.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 - which stars Garfield, Emma Stone, Jamie Foxx and Paul Giamatti - opens...

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is due out in theaters next May, and it has yet to receive a full title, which leaves us to speculate over what that title will be. Of course, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is always an option. A simple title for the sequel worked well enough for Spider-Man 2, after all. However it's just as likely that some sub-title will be tacked onto the sequel, and there are two rumored options for it making the rounds right now. The Amazing Spider-Man: The Price of Power and The Amazing Spider-Man: With Great Power. File both of those under "rumor" and "possible titles," as they were shared by a ComicBookMovie.com fan who says Sony was surveying people on their preference for mentioned titles outside a screening of Captain Phillips at the Mall of America. The fan says there were actually three titles mentioned in the survey,...

Legendary director William Friedkin has just been given a lifetime achievement award at the Venice film festival, but he is still making big, critically acclaimed movies, such as last year's Killer Joe. He looks back on his career, and the film he considers his best, 1977's Sorcerer

On a hot, sticky Tuesday in Venice, the American film director William Friedkin sauntered from his hotel to see an exhibition of paintings at the nearby Doge's Palace. There, he stood in front of Manet's L'Evasion de Rochefort, which depicts the flight of the man who challenged Napoleon III. He saw the little boat packed with indistinguishable figures and the mighty sea churning all around. It struck him that the painting summed up what he thinks of the world: that we're stuck on a boat, at the mercy of nature. Possibly it has something to say about his own career too.

Friedkin is...

Elton John to honor Hillary Clinton, Bryan Fischer compares gays to Nazis again, Tom Hiddleston teaches Cookie Monster a lesson

Betty White is in the record books! The actress was just honored as the “Longest TV Career For An Entertainer (Female).” The title used to be unisex, but now she shares the distinction with British actor Bruce Forsyth, who also has 74 years in the business.

Alan Cumming and Michelle Williams are set to headline the Sam Mendes Broadway production of Cabaret, directed by Rob Marshall.

The Department of Justice has released guidance that same-sex partners will be receiving Veteran’s benefits, despite Title 38 having gender specific language prohibiting it. The Justice Department has declined to defend the law, and the House Bipartisan Legal Group dropped out of defending it in a lawsuit after the Doma decision.

The titles and track lists are out for the two part Glee Beatles tribute,...

If Cleopatra signalled the demise of Hollywood epics, Heaven's Gate ended the reign of the all-powerful director. Should these films' reputations be rescued? And has the film industry lost its kamikaze tendency?

Sexual intercourse must have been invented earlier in New York than in Yorkshire because all that Robert Benton could think about in 1963 was movies. One movie in particular. But it was not Hollywood's current grandest offering, Cleopatra, which Joseph L Mankiewicz directed for 20th Century Fox, with Elizabeth Taylor in the leading role. Benton was thinking about another love story – another portrayal of a woman loved by two very different men. The director was François Truffaut. The star was Jeanne Moreau. Benton saw Jules et Jim 12 times after it was released in the Us, and his obsession was crucial to what happened next.

"You cannot see a movie that often without beginning to notice certain things about structure and form and character,...

The price of power sits heavy on the shaggy head of Jax Teller (Charlie Hunnam), the prince-turned-leader of a troubled biker kingdom on FX's Sons of Anarchy, wrapping its fifth and best-yet season tonight with a super-sized 90-minute finale (10/9c). A few weeks ago, in a moment worthy of this series' Shakespearian ambitions, Jax told his disgraced, dethroned evil stepfather Clay (Ron Perlman): "I'm tired of being crushed under the weight of greedy men who believe in nothing."

Read More >...

Impressive retrospective of Judy Garland.s films will feature 31 titles including a presentation of seldom seen short films and rarities as well as a special .sing-along. screening of The Wizard Of Oz.

On the occasion of what would have been Judy Garland.s 89th birthday, the Film Society of Lincoln Center and The Paley Center have announced the details today for Fslc.s comprehensive retrospective of the peerless film icon.s work, All Singin., All Dancin., All Judy! which will screen at the Walter Reade Theater July 26 . August 9 and The Paley Center.s comprehensive retrospective of Garland.s television work,Judy Garland: The Television Years which will be presented July 20 . August 18.

With autumn marking the 75th anniversary of Judy Garland’s feature film debut (Pigskin Parade, 1936), the Film Society of Lincoln Center will screen 31 titles from July 26 . August 9, including each of her big-screen acting performances, to pay tribute to...

Is the director's cut just one big self-indulgence, or the chance for an auteur to get his vision across to the public untrammelled by the money men?

First 18 minutes had to be cut for length. Then another eight minutes went at the insistence of the studio. Six months later, the director was allowed to reinstate a minute of original footage. That was followed, 19 years later, by another seven minutes, one minute of which was – on second thoughts – removed again a few years after that.

Since it premiered in 1971, The Last Picture Show, Peter Bogdanovich's nostalgic masterpiece about lust and loss in smalltown Texas, has been through three official edits and several unofficial ones. Bogdanovich now says the version to be released on 15 April finally represents his perfect vision. Almost. "Well, it's as close as it's going to get."

It was in 1974 that the term "director's cut" began to acquire...

But as Spider-Man must stop a seemingly insurmountable super powered crime wave, he must also find out just who’s responsible for mutating Manhattan…and the truth will irrevocably alter his world. Fans will get their first full-length lead in to Spider-Island in Marvel’s special issue of Amazing Spider-Man, available for free at all participating comic shops on May 7th, Free Comic Book Day. “Back when Slott launched Spider-Man into the ‘Big Time’ last year, he started laying the groundwork for possibly the biggest Spider-Man story you’ve ever seen,” said Stephen Wacker, Marvel Senior Editor. “The price of power is high for heroes and villains. The Avengers, the Ff, Venom, Spider-Girl, Spider-Woman, the Sinister Six and even You are connected to ol’ Web-Head in new ways. By the end of this story, we’re going to see what Spider-Man means to Marvel Universe and just how far he...

Director Richard Kelly followed up the cult success of Donnie Darko with the oft-derided Southland Tales. Ryan looks back at a flawed film worthy of reassessment…

Cinema history is filled with directors who never quite lived up to the promise of their first film. Despite a glittering career as a director, writer and actor, popular opinion dictates that Orson Welles never made another movie quite as good as his debut, Citizen Kane, and Michael Cimino followed up the Oscar-winning The Deer Hunter with Heaven’s Gate, a film whose financial failure not only brought down a Hollywood studio (United Artists, Rip), but also prompted one critic to famously write “You might suspect Mr. Cimino sold his soul to the Devil to obtain the success of The Deer Hunter, and the Devil has just come around to collect.”

When a rough cut of Richard Kelly’s second movie, the lengthy sci-fi satire Southland Tales,...

The 2010 Los Angeles Film Festival is set to run June 17-27 in a brand new location. Oh, it’s still in L.A, but it’s moving across town, from Westwood — where it’s been held the past few years — all the way over to Downtown.

The main “hub” for the fest will be the new L.A. Live complex, but there will also be screenings at other locations, such as the Downtown Independent and Redcat theaters. The city is really trying to build downtown up into a major arts and culture hub, so the festival moving there fits in with that agenda. Film Independent, the organization that runs Laff, also runs the annual Independent Spirit Awards, an event that also moved downtown — from Santa Monica — this year.

On Bad Lit, I tend to like to put up festival lineups that include days and times of screenings. However, since I...

We won't see another new episode of The Office until March, so "Manager and Salesman" will have to be enough Scranton for the next few weeks. I'm just not convinced it was quite up to the task. Yeah, it was good in parts, with a few sublime moments thanks to Meredith, but Kathy Bates is too famous for a guest role on a show all about pathetic realism. Too many of the moving parts -- Jim and Michael, Erin and Andy, Dwight and Ryan, Jo and everyone -- just never quite synced up with each other. Bates' Jo Bennett came to Dmhq with two massive,...

We have another great TA Follows the Stars for you this morning. First we have word that Taylor Lautner is going to be picking up a great action role as Max Steel. Then we have Kristen Stewart Dakota Fanning and Ashley Greene all with movies headed to the Sundance Film Festival. Check out more belowFirst Taylor Lautner is said to be taking the lead as Max SteelParamount has confirmed to me exclusively that its hired 8packabs Taylor Lautner for the lead in Max Steel instantly creating perhaps the next young big action star. The Twilight Saga phenom is only 17 years old and the Summit Entertainment folks predicted to me a year ago that hed end up in demand for this kind of role after he bulked up for New Moon. This is the Joe Rothproduced project based on the hugely successful Mattel property thats an international bestseller. The movie will...

Pieces was the first “No One Under 17 Admitted” movie I ever saw back in my burgeoning horror-lovin’ youth without an older friend to help me through the doors. The additional sign over the box office reading “If You’re Not 17, You’re Not Getting In!” seemed to pose an additional challenge to my friend and I—neither one of us close to that magic age—but we paid our admissions and made it inside easily.

Then the box-office guy called out, “Hold on, you two!” and we were sure we were busted. It turned out, though, that he just wanted to be sure we had our tickets; we acknowledged that we did, he told us thanks and we scurried up the escalator before he could think again about it. So happy were we to have broached the domain of the age-forbidden that we each bought a huge tub of popcorn...