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James McEachin, who wrote and produced songs for Otis Redding before turning to acting to portray cops on his own NBC Mystery Movie series and in 18 of the popular Perry Mason telefilms, has died. He was 94.

McEachin died Jan. 11 and was interred last month at Los Angeles National Cemetery.

The familiar character actor also appeared in four films opposite Clint Eastwood: Coogan’s Bluff (1968), Play Misty for Me (1971) — as the deejay Sweet Al Monte — Every Which Way But Loose (1978) and Sudden Impact (1983).

All in the Family aficionados know him for his turns as the IRS tax examiner who won’t be bribed on the 1972 episode “Archie’s Fraud” and as Solomon Jackson, a Black Jew whom Carroll O’Connor’s character invites into his lodge to check off some diversity boxes, on the 1977 installment “Archie the Liberal.”

A onetime contract player at Universal, McEachin starred as family man Harry Tenafly, a...

Raoul Peck’s life is as fascinating as his films, filled with unexpected twists and turns. From his early stints as a cab driver and journalist, to a minister of culture post in his native Haiti, to teaching, to founding his Velvet Film production shingle to his breakthrough when he earned an Oscar nomination as producer/director with the James Baldwin doc, “I Am Not Your Negro,” the common denominator is Peck’s drive to make life better through his work. “I went into film because there were things I wanted to say, to express or deconstruct,” he explained. “And there is a fight to be had about the state of the world and wherever I’m living.”

On May 20, Peck will have his third Cannes premiere with the Special Screenings doc “Ernest Cole: Lost and Found.” It chronicles the life of a South African photographer — another of Peck’s...

Gary Kent, an actor, director and, most notably, stuntman whose career is thought to have been an inspiration for Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, died Thursday at an assisted care facility in Austin, Texas. He was 89.

Born on June 7, 1933, in Walla Walla, Washington, Kent’s early film credits include 1959’s Battle Flame, and roles in other low-budget films of the 1960s including The Black Klansman (1966) and biker film The Savage Seven (1968). In 1969, he served as a stunt double for Bruce Dern in the now-cult-classic Richard Rush-directed exploitation film Psych-Out.

Among his other credits were such drive-in movie favorites as Peter Bogdanovich’s first film Targets (1968), featuring Boris Karloff, 1970’s Hell’s Bloody Devils and, the following year, The Incredible 2-Headed Transplant and Angels’ Wild Women.

Though he had numerous small acting parts through the era, his most endurable contributions to Hollywood would come as a...

Gary Kent, the actor, director and stunt performer who also served as one of the inspirations for Brad Pitt’s Cliff Booth character in Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” died on May 25 in Austin, Texas, The Austin Chronicle confirmed. He was 89.

Kent began his career as a seasoned stunt performer after to traveling to Los Angeles in 1958. Ahead of doubling for Jack Nicholson in Monte Hellman’s “Ride in the Whirlwind” and “The Shooting,” Kent worked in film production offices and acted on the side, appearing in “Legion of the Doomed,” “King of the Wild Stallions,” “Battle Flame,” “The Thrill Killers” and “The Black Klansman.”

Soon after his stuntman debut in 1965, Kent appeared as a gas tank worker in Peter Bogdanovich’s debut feature film “Targets,” then worked on “Hell’s Bloody Devils,” “The Incredible 2-Headed Transplant” “Angels’ Wild Women” and Richard Rush’s “Psych-Out,” racking up injuries along the way.

Gary Kent, the iconic B-movie stunt performer, actor and director who worked with Peter Bogdanovich, Richard Rush and Monte Hellman and served as an inspiration for Brad Pitt’s character in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, has died. He was 89.

Kent died Thursday evening at an assisted care facility in Austin, his son Chris Kent told The Hollywood Reporter.

Kent suffered two of his most painful injuries as a stunt performer in Rush films. He sliced up his arm on broken glass during a barfight fracas in Hells Angels on Wheels (1967) and was run over by an out-of-control motorcycle in The Savage Seven (1968), where he shared scenes with Penny Marshall.

His half-century stunt career came to an end on the set of Bubba Ho-Tep (2002) when he tumbled down a hill and damaged his leg, but he kept at it as a stunt coordinator, working as recently...

Cleopatra Jones

Blu ray

Warner Archive

1973 / 2:35:1 / 89 Min. / Street Date – March 19, 2019

Starring Tamara Dobson, Bernie Casey

Written by Max Julien, Sheldon Keller

Cinematography by David M. Walsh

Directed by Jack Starrett

A good-natured if rickety assemblage of action movie cliches, Cleopatra Jones is dominated by two bigger than life actresses, Tamara Dobson and Shelley Winters. The movie’s trailer promoted Dobson as the “soul sister’s answer” to James Bond but you can count Bruce Lee, Emma Peel, Shaft and The Girl from U.N.C.L.E. among Cleo’s many relevant role models.

Winters plays “Mommy”, a foulmouthed mob boss who depends on the thriving Poppy fields of Turkey for her cash flow and Dobson is Cleopatra, an Amazonian fashion plate whose special agent skills range from karate to high speed car chases – her plan to wipe out Mommy’s syndicate leads to a high octane race through ‘70’s era L.

Ted V. Mikels, a grindhouse legend and B-movie mainstay for decades, passed away in his Las Vegas home on October 16, reports the Las Vegas Review-Journal. The cause of death hasn’t been specified beyond mention of a “long illness,” but it is known that the 87-year-old filmmaker known for such films as “Girl in Gold Boots,” “The Astro-Zombies” and “The Doll Squad” will leave a lasting legacy in his corner of the film world.

Read More: Herschell Gordon Lewis, Horror’s ‘Godfather of Gore,’ Dies at 87

Born Theodore Mikacevich on April 29, 1929 in St. Paul, Minnesota, Mikels had an interest in everything from photography to fire-eating in his younger years. He began producing educational documentaries and short films in the 1950s, by which time he lived in Bend, Oregon, before making his first film, “Strike Me Deadly,” in 1963. He became highly prolific thereafter, staking a claim for himself in the realm...

American independent filmmaker Ted V. Mikels died yesterday at his home in Las Vegas after an unspecified “long illness,” according to The Las Vegas Review-Journal. While Mikels filmed a Brylcreem commercial with Joe Dimaggio and a promo reel for Chris Rock, he will be best remembered by fans of cult cinema, sci-fi and horror thanks to films such as The Black Klansman, Girl In Gold Boots, and The Astro-Zombies. He was 87.

Mikels was born Theodore Mikacevich in St. Paul Minnesota. As a youth, Mikels dabbled in photography and acting, as well as performing magic, acrobatics, and fire-eating. He discovered filmmaking when he began shooting his own performances. “I figured out that you have to move the camera around to get different angles, and then you have to edit the film when you’re done,” the director told Unitshifter in 2008.

Mikels moved to Bend, Oregon in the 1950s ...

Rumor had it that the DVD company was in financial trouble and was ready to go the way of the Dodo bird, but their latest blog proves that they are going stronger than ever and have a number of obscure films in the pipeline.

On 1/25, Code Red presents God’S Bloody Acre. Three brothers fanatically devoted to nature (one even has an afro!) attack a construction worker clearing nearby land for a natural park, only for them to cut him in half by accident with a bulldozer! Now that they’ve shed blood, there’s no turning back as these brothers are willing to risk their lives to protect their natural lifestyle from the ravages of civilization. Two unsuspecting couples camping in the area become their targets in an ultimate hunt that pits man against man and leads to rape and violence! It’s a Hick Rampage and Florida will...

Those of you of the Star Wars generation missed a hell of a lot. One thing for sure is that you’ve never experienced the thrill of watching low-budget exploitation movies at the local neighborhood movie theater. Hard to imagine today, but there used to be a time when you could just walk a few blocks to a movie theater. (When I was growing there were five theaters all within a short walking distance)

No subject was too crass, lowdown and offensive enough, and no budget was too low enough to make an exploitation B movie. Somehow I missed The Black Klansman when it was released in 1966, but fortunately it’s just been released on DVD from Code Red Video.

The story deals with a light skinned black man played by white actor Richard Gilden (let me get this straight – a white guy plays a black guy passing for a white guy?...

You know, if I was a famous French film critic I would be in a position to use big fancy words to describe why a film like The Undertaker And His Pals should be reconsidered as an American classic. Why it should be considered a not-so-subtle satire on our obsessions with food and death, and how it breathes new life into the hardboiled detective genre. Of course no one would read it for say 20 years, and by then I would have found some other obscure gem to rave over.

Fortunately I have a different platform from which I can shout my views, and one of them, for better or worse, is The Undertaker And His Pals should be viewed by anyone who seriously is interested in dark satire or who has a interest in the “cannibal cuisine” movies that carve up victims and then serve them to their customers or guests.

Veteran actor Whitman Mayo, star of Sanford And Son, has died aged 70. The New Yorker, who made his screen debut in The Black Klansman in 1966, passed away on Tuesday. His family have not disclosed the cause of death. He will best remembered for his role as Grady Wilson in the junk- dealer show which proved so popular, and was given his own spin-off show Grady.