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Nicolas Winding Refn is an icon of neon noir, Ryan Gosling quiet man fan fictions, and bisexual lighting, whether the auteur knows it or not.

The “Only God Forgives” writer-director revisits the legacy of the controversial 2013 film in honor of its 10-year anniversary. From laughing about being booed at 2013 Cannes, where “Only God Forgives” competed for the Palme d’Or, to defending Gosling only having 17 lines of dialogue onscreen, Refn seemingly has discussed every aspect of the hotly debated film for years. Now, though, “Only God Forgives” has slithered from being a Cannes bomb to a beloved classic by some, a beacon of beautiful cinematography, and a pivotal showcase for Gosling — and renegade filmmaker Refn isn’t surprised at all.

“Drive” and “Barbie” actor Gosling portrays Julian, a drug smuggler running in the criminal underworld of Bangkok, whose mother (Kristin Scott Thomas) forces him to avenge his brother Billy’s...

Patrick Lussier, whose credits include Drive Angry, My Bloody Valentine and Dracula 2000, directs.

Voltage Pictures will commence sales in Cannes on the morgue-set thriller Play Dead co-written by genre aces Adam Mason and Simon Boyes and starring Bailee Madison, the fast-rising talent whose credits include Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin and The Strangers: Prey At Night.

Patrick Lussier, whose credits include Drive Angry, My Bloody Valentine and Dracula 2000, directs from the screenplay by Mason and Boye, the writers behind Blood River, Song Bird and Hangman.

Play Dead is currently in post-production and centres on criminology student Chloe (Madison), who...

“When will you know if the song’s been sung?” Gavin Rossdale sings obliviously on The Kingdom’s “Quicksand.” It’s a question he apparently didn’t take too seriously when writing that tune or the other 11 modern warhorses on the long-running band’s eighth album, which trudge through the same monochromatic grunge he first peddled a quarter of a century ago.

As with the Bush of yore, Rossdale’s pained, scruffy vocals remain the focus throughout the record but too often it’s sound and fury amounting to nothing.

“It’s very much a movie in the Michael Bay mould but it’s also a love story.”

Production on pandemic thriller Songbird began in Los Angeles on Wednesday (July 8), marking the first shoot in the city since the lockdown as British director Adam Mason hailed “a real spirit of camaraderie” among his cast and crew.

In full compliance with health guidelines, Mason told Screen he and producers Michael Bay and Adam Goodman were raring to go after overcoming administrative hurdles including a temporary stop by the Screen Actors Guild that was resolved swiftly.

Songbird is expected to shoot for...

Michael Bay will produce a pandemic thriller called Songbird, a pandemic thriller that plans to shoot in Los Angeles during the Covid-19 lockdown.

The film will be directed by Adam Mason (Blood River), who wrote the script with Simon Boyes (Misconduct).

The film is ostensibly a taut thriller in the spirit of Paranormal Activity and Cloverfield. It takes place two years in the future. The pandemic has not gone away. Lockdowns have been rolled back and then reinstated and it becomes even more serious as the virus continues to mutate. Add a governmental conspiracy and paranoia and how i...

Can a pirate be a substitute monster? Hammer Films gives yet another genre a spin with this box-office winner that launched a sideline in costume adventures. The Hammer crew makes it work: Christopher Lee, Marla Landi, Marie Devereaux, Michael Ripper, Oliver Reed and Andrew Keir, plus yank assistance from Kerwin Mathews and Glenn Corbett.

The Pirates of Blood River

Blu-ray

Twilight Time

1962 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 87 min. / Street Date October 17, 2017 / Available from the Twilight Time Movies Store / 29.95

Starring: Kerwin Mathews, Christopher Lee, Andrew Keir, Glenn Corbett, Marla Landi, Michael Ripper, Peter Arne, Oliver Reed, Marie Devereux.

Cinematography: Arthur Grant

Production Design: Bernard Robinson

Art Direction: Don Mingaye

Film Editor: Eric Boyd-Perkins

Original Music: Gary Hughes

Written by John Hunter, John Gilling, Jimmy Sangster

Produced by Michael Carreras, Anthony Nelson-Keys

Directed by John Gilling

Hammer Films didn’t start out as a horror studio, but after their big Technicolor successes in 1957-...

A classic film noir is getting a remake and modern update.

Silver Plane Films and Kingfisher Media announced that the production for D.O.A. Blood River will start shooting this month in Louisiana.

The noir thriller is inspired by director Rudolph Mate’s 1950 thriller D.O.A.

D.O.A Blood River will follow Sam Collins as a pharmaceutical sales rep, who visits a small town in Louisiana to close a business deal of a lifetime. Collins enters a world of sex, corruption and murder—as he is poisoned with no antidote. In a search for answers, he turns to a local girl named Jesse, in which their path leads to a voodoo priestess that confirms Sam’s fate. With nowhere to go and no others to trust, Sam and Jesse are on the run from police detectives, the Mob and a corrupt sheriff who wants him dead.

The studio also announced Billy Flynn...

It was a matter of time before someone invented Sollywood, but making only positive films is an artistic straitjacket

There's Hollywood, and Bollywood, and Nollywood (Nigeria's nascent film industry), so perhaps it was only a matter of time before someone invented Sollywood. This is the name of what aspires to be a new movement in film-making in South Africa.

The Sollywood website sets out an agenda that includes: making films on topics important to the South African community, making movies that end on a positive note for the community and the African people and, in capital letters, "Make Africans Feel Good About Being Africans".

Last week I caught the first Sollywood offering, Ingxoxo: The Negotiation – a romantic comedy but not as Richard Curtis would know it. The plot turns on the African custom of lobola, in which the family of a bride is compensated for her loss with a payment,...

Just a few days ago we learned that Stephen Dorff has joined the cast of Tarsem Singh's War of Gods, and now comes word that the project has been renamed and added another actor to its already fairly impressive roster: two-time Oscar nominee John Hurt.

Box Office Mojo reports that going forward War of Gods will be known simply as Immortals. Hurt joins the previously announced Dorff along with Luke Evans (the underutilized Apollo in Clash of the Titans) as Zeus, Mickey Rourke as King Hyperion, Henry Cavill (Blood River) as Theseus, and Slumdog Millionaire's Freida Pinto as Phaedra. Kellan Lutz (The Twilight Saga) and Alan Van Sprang (Survival of the Dead) are rumored to be portraying Poseidon and Draco, respectively.

Synopsis:

A purported bastard who retains an allegiance to his mother despite the fact that he longs to join the quest of a king who is battling...

A Work In Progress: Halls and the lobby of Loews remained bare and quiet until Monday when the final day approaches and buyers began congregating in final deals. Surprisingly to all multiple sales had already been made by day 2 and sales for some, if not all were better than expected even if prices were lower. At the Thursday evening European Film Promotion reception, where all friends in the biz meet with welcoming smiles, Marcus Hu of Strand said he was already packing up to go as he had made his purchases..they were already screening Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday before AFM began he said. One sales agent remarked that Toronto was the zero level and AFM looked like level 1 had been reached. One sales agent said only theatrical films were selling. Jonathan Wolf says AFM has are 10% fewer sellers (369 vs. 412 in 2008) but 4% more buyers with 13 new buyers from South Korea,...