News

Alfred Hitchcock’s legacy is being reexamined by the best modern critics. IndieWire can exclusively share the list of esteemed journalists, including IndieWire’s own Kate Erbland, who will be moderating one of the highly-anticipated “Hitch! The Original Cinema Influencer” screening series panels.

As IndieWire previously announced, Netflix is hosting a theatrical re-release of Hitchcock’s most beloved features at the Paris Theater in New York City. Fittingly, the screening series is co-presented with the New York Film Critics Circle; members of the leading national critics group will be on hand to discuss the curated collection of Hitchcock films.

“Hitch! The Original Cinema Influencer” will be a six-week screening series that coincides with the iconic auteur’s features being available to stream on Netflix starting June 1. “Hitch! The Original Cinema Influencer” will run from May 16 through June 29, and is set to include more than 60 films, 36 of which are directed by...

These days, it’s rare to hear something cool about programming on the Netflix streaming service that involves older films rather than the next batch of “Netflix Original Films” they have in the works – but here’s something very cool: Netflix has announced that they’re teaming up with the New York Film Critics Circle to launch a screening series called Hitch! The Original Cinema Influencer at the Paris Theater, which is the longest-running arthouse cinema in New York City and is also Manhattan’s only remaining single-screen cinema, as well as the borough’s largest movie theater, with 535 seats. If you can’t make it to the Paris Theater for the screenings, you’ll be glad to hear that a collection of classic Hitchcock films will also be available to stream on Netflix as of June 1st.

Here’s the information that was provided by Netflix: Keep the lights...

Netflix is expanding its U.S. streaming library in June with a collection of films by Alfred Hitchcock, including The Birds, Vertigo, Rear Window, Family Plot, Frenzy, and The Man Who Knew Too Much. The lineup joins Psycho, which is already available on the service.

The platform will also present a six-week film series titled “Hitch! The Original Cinema Influencer” at the Paris Theater in New York City. The retrospective, running from May 16 through June 29, will include more than 50 films, 36 of which were directed by Hitchcock. Thirty-five of those titles will be screened in 35mm prints. The program is co-presented by the New York Film Critics Circle.

Screenings will include Rear Window, Vertigo, and North by Northwest, along with films that draw on Hitchcock’s style, such as François Truffaut’s The Bride Wore Black and Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Diabolique. Also featured is Hitchcock, the 2012 biopic directed by Sacha Gervasi.

Netflix will add seven Alfred Hitchcock classics to its U.S. streaming library beginning June 1. The catalog includes iconic suspense films such as Vertigo, Rear Window, and The Birds.

The Hitchcock catalog's streaming debut coincides with a major theatrical retrospective titled Hitch! The Original Cinema Influencer at New York's Paris Theater, co-presented with the New York Film Critics Circle. The film revival will span six weeks, from May 16 to June 29 at the historic single-screen cinema adjacent to Central Park. Netflix acquired the revered theater in 2019 and turned it into a flagship theatrical venue in New York.

The Hitchcock and Netflix team-up has plenty for cinephiles to enjoy. The Paris Theater program complements the legendary director's works, presenting restored classics and 35mm screenings of films inspired by Hitchcock's techniques alongside his filmography. Movies getting the showcase include The Bride Wore Black by François Truffaut and Diabolique by Henri-Georges Clouzot. Even contemporary...

Alfred Hitchcock enjoyed making his audiences suffer, and now that uneasy feeling is coming to Netflix in large doses. The streamer said today that it will add several of the horror-suspense master’s best loved films, including The Birds, Vertigo, Rear Window, his final film Family Plot and more.

They join the filmmaker’s beloved and dreaded masterpiece Psycho, which is streaming now on Netflix.

Also headed to the service are Frenzy, The Man Who Knew Too Much and others, along with Hitchcock, a narrative feature about the legend directed by Sacha Gervasi. The new online collection also features films inspired by Hitchcock’s mastery such as Us and Barbarian.

Also on the horizon is “Hitch! The Original Cinema Influencer,” a six-week screening series at the 90-year-old Paris Theatre in Manhattan featuring more than 50 films including three dozen by Hitchcock. Many will be shown in 35mm, including Hitchcock’s Rear Window,...

Get ready to scream: Netflix is bringing a collection of Alfred Hitchcock films to the streaming service this June — and, despite chief Ted Sarandos’ belief that the movie-theater biz is “outdated,” the company will showcase the legendary filmmaker’s work at its Paris Theater in New York City in a six-week series.

Starting June 1, a collection of classic Hitchcock films will be available to stream in the U.S. Those will include “Vertigo,” “Rear Window,” “Frenzy,” “The Man Who Knew Too Much,” “Family Plot” and “The Birds.” Currently, U.S. customers can stream Hitchcock’s genre-defining masterpiece “Psycho,” now available on Netflix in the country.

In addition, Netflix’s Hitchcock collection will include films inspired by the British-born director, such as Jordan Peele’s “Us” and Zach Cregger’s “Barbarian,” as well as narrative feature “Hitchcock” directed by Sacha Gervasi.

Meanwhile, Netflix’s Paris Theater will present “Hitch! The Original Cinema Influencer,...

Good evening. We welcome you to Netflix and Chill with one of the all-time greats.

A collection of Alfred Hitchcock movies will be available for streaming on Netflix starting June 1, and Netflix is also staging a massive, six-week screening series at its Paris Theater in New York City that will cover many of the master of suspense’s classics.

Available for streaming on Netflix in the U.S. beginning on June 1 will be “Vertigo,” “Rear Window,” “Frenzy,” “The Man Who Knew Too Much,” “Family Plot,” “The Birds,” and more. “Psycho” is already available on the streamer, as is the biopic “Hitchcock” as directed by Sacha Gervasi. All the films will be presented in a row of titles on Netflix, and they’ll also be accompanied by some other films that were inspired by Hitchcock, such as “Us” and “Barbarian,” which Netflix has also licensed.

Netflix in association with the New...

One of the most salient shortcomings of Netflix as a streaming service is that its film library at any given moment is frustratingly devoid of movies made before 1980. In the streamer's defense, their focus since 2013 (when they hit binge-viewing paydirt with "House of Cards") has been on generating a raft of original programming in order to cut back their need to license classic television shows and films they do not own. Additionally, the success of streaming services like The Criterion Channel and Tubi, which cater to cinephiles with an array of pre-1980 movies, suggests that this market has already voted with its dollars. This is somewhat understandable, but it also does a huge disservice to young film fans who, for example, might fall so hard for Mike Flannagan's "The Haunting of Hill House" that they desperately need to see Robert Wise's much-lauded 1963 take on Shirley Jackson's horror novel.

Netflix, the streaming service famous for not streaming older movies and not bringing movies to the big screen, is – in a surprise twist – bringing a bunch of old movies to the big screen!

The Hollywood Reporter has announced this afternoon that the Netflix-owned Paris Theater in New York will be celebrating Alfred Hitchcock with screenings of 36 of his movies.

“The series — Hitch! The Original Cinema Influencer — will run May 16 to June 29 at the Paris Theater, which Netflix purchased in 2019,” THR details. “The films range from Hitchcock’s early works such as Blackmail to enduring hits such as Psycho and The Birds.”

In addition to the big screen series, a collection of classic Alfred Hitchcock films will be available to stream on Netflix in the US featuring some of his most iconic works starting June 1.

Here’s everything you need to know, straight from the Paris Theater…

The Paris Theater is proud to present Hitch!

Paradox Effect follows Karina, a lady struggling to repair her life and reconnect with her daughter, Lucy, in the aftermath of addiction. Set against the backdrop of Italy’s criminal underground, the plot takes a violent turn when Karina sees a murder committed by Covek, a corrupt Interpol official motivated by his desperate desires.

What began as a casual encounter quickly becomes a difficult, high-stakes journey as Karina is forced into a dangerous partnership with Covek. Together, they must negotiate not only the immediate risks posed by crime boss Silvio but also their moral quandaries and personal conflicts.

At first look, the idea appears to follow several thriller genre conventions: a hesitant protagonist thrust into a life-or-death situation, a ticking time, and dark figures looming big. However, the plot hints at the possibility of character-driven storytelling, particularly Karina’s personal struggles and redemption arc.

Thrillers of this kind frequently tread...

For the longest time, movies featured men avenging women who were victims of crimes committed by men. As the times changed and that trope waned in terms of popularity, women finally got to avenge themselves on the big screen. But there was a small, teeny-weeny issue: stories about women were still being written by men. So, even though we started getting female-led action thrillers, due to the inequality of opportunities in the entertainment business, the extent of the awesomeness of women was still limited by the imagination of men. There were exceptions in the form of The Bride Wore Black, Kill Bill, Gone Girl, Audition, The Long Kiss Goodnight, La Llorona, The Invisible Man, and Saani Kaayidham. But you’ve to admit that women telling stories about women dismantling the patriarchal system with some righteous violence, like Revenge, Violation, and Jennifer’s Body, were a cut above the rest. Don’t Move...

François Truffaut is back with another Hitchcock-influenced adaptation of a Cornell Woolrich murder thriller, with stars Catherine Deneuve and Jean-Paul Belmondo as lovers – criminals – fugitives, and partly filmed in a remote French island in the Indian Ocean. It’s a tale of a mail-order bride, larcenous deception, and irrational amor fou run amuck. The things we do for love sometimes obey no logic. Also starring Michel Bouquet.

Mississippi Mermaid

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1969 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 123 110 min. / La Sirène du Mississippi / Street Date February 14, 2023 / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95

Starring: Jean-Paul Belmondo, Catherine Deneuve, Michel Bouquet, Nelly Borgeaud.

Cinematography: Denys Clerval

Production Designer: Claude Pignot

Deneuve dresses: Yves Saint-Laurent

Film Editor: Agnès Guillemot

Original Music: Antoine Duhamel

Screenplay by François Truffaut based upon the novel Waltz into Darkness by William Irish (Cornell Woolrich)

Produced by Marcel Berbert

Directed by François Truffaut

François Truffaut was the least radical of the official New Wave directors.

François Truffaut’s ode to Hitchcock and Cornell Woolrich is an ice-cold femme revenge tale. Jeanne Moreau exacts retribution from five men who made her a widow on her wedding day. Truffaut winds it as tightly as a mousetrap, leaving Ms. Moreau’s psychology a mystery — feminists can debate whether the film is misogynistic. Raoul Coutard’s color cinematography is deceptively warm and inviting; the film’s biggest boost comes from Bernard Herrmann’s powerful music score.

The Bride Wore Black

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1968 / Color / 1:66 widescreen / 107 min. / Street Date February 14, 2023 / La mariée était en noir / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95

Starring: Jeanne Moreau, Michel Bouquet, Jean-Claude Brialy, Charles Denner, Claude Rich, Michael Lonsdale, Daniel Boulanger, Alexandra Stewart, Sylvine Delannoy, Luce Fabiole, Michèle Montfort.

Cinematography: Raoul Coutard

Production Designer: Pierre Guffroy

Film Editor: Claudine Bouché

Original Music: Bernard Herrmann

Written by François Truffaut, Jean-Louis Richard from the novel by William Irish...

Michel Bouquet, an icon of French cinema and theater who had appeared in over 100 films throughout his career and worked with some of France’s great auteurs, has died. He was 96.

The Élysée Palace, the office of the French president, announced Bouquet’s death in a statement Wednesday but gave no other details about his passing.

“For seven decades, Michel Bouquet brought theater and cinema to the highest degree of incandescence and truth, showing man in all his contradictions, with an intensity that burned the boards and burst the screen. A sacred monster has left us,” French president Emmanuel Macron said in a tweet Wednesday.

In 1991, Bouquet won the European Film Award for Best Actor his film “Toto the Hero.” He also won two César Awards for “How I Killed My Father” (2001) and “The Last Mitterrand” (2005). His career on stage dates all the way back to the 1940s, and he...

Legendary French stage and screen actor Michel Bouquet has died. He was 96. The César Award winner passed away today at a Paris hospital, his spokesperson confirmed to Afp. A tribute on the official website of the Elysée Palace did not cite a cause of death.

Hollywood & Media Deaths In 2022: Photo Gallery

Born in 1925, Bouquet began his film career in 1947 and went on to appear in more than 100 movies. In the 1960s and ’70s, he collaborated with New Wave directors François Truffaut and Claude Chabrol in such films as Truffaut’s The Bride Wore Black and Mississippi Mermaid and Chabrol’s The Unfaithful Wife and Just Before Nightfall, among others.

Later in his career, Bouquet won a European Film Award for Jaco Van Dormael’s Toto Le Héros (1991) and took two Best Actor Césars for Anne Fontaine’s How I Killed My Father (2001) and Robert Guédiguian’s The Last Mitterand...

Movie director Quentin Tarantino is known for being a cinephile who makes no secret of his influences. As a result, his movies often feature unashamed homages to the great directors, actors, and composers of days gone by. But amongst all this, he brings a bunch of style and ideas that make his movies unique, and he has also had a big influence on popular culture himself.

Of all his films, the one that best represents his habit of honoring his heroes, is the Kill Bill duology released in 2003 and 2004. Originally planned as a single movie, the movie’s producers indulged Tarantino by suggesting he could split the films into two volumes to avoid cutting some crucial scenes – there is even talk of a third movie in the pipeline, as discussed by www.variety.com. The two movies were heavily influenced by Asian cinema (amongst other genres) and are widely regarded as modern classics.

KollywoodThere are two things that will haunt you hours after the film has ended - Sri Priya’s cool grey eyes and the extremely catchy ‘oooooooo’ bit that comes before the 'Orae jeevan ondre ullam’ theme song in the film.Anjana ShekarYoutube/iHeartTamilA lady in green saree rushes to the dial-up telephone placed near a slanted, glass-panelled wall. “This is Latha’s elder sister speaking. That cobra came, fought with Latha and then she (cobra) turned into a snake!” The person on the other end gasps “What?” The woman adds, “Latha who saw that has fainted!” to which the person responds, “I’m coming there immediately.” If you chuckled at the incredulity of this exchange, let us tell you that this takes place in a 1979 Tamil movie that has spurned a whole series of television dramas, films and other pop culture extensions. YouTube Screengrab iHeartTamil Neeya? (use your most surprised...

Film-score buffs had a bonanza of riches to choose from in 2018 — notwithstanding the fact that the soundtrack business is almost unrecognizable from what it was even a decade ago. Instead of farming out their new scores to the traditional soundtrack labels, most studios now retain them for their own in-house labels and generally release them digitally. Meanwhile, the labels that once relied on current films for their bread-and-butter releases are focusing more on the niche market for classic film scores: re-releasing old ones with new material, finding worthy titles that somehow never got released, and in some cases even re-recording classic scores.

It’s a complicated business, label executives say. Not only must they track down the best available audio (studios and production companies don’t always retain the elements or sometimes can’t find them), they have to clear the rights (and sometimes the music publishing details have changed). And,...

Phoenix Pictures and Renaissance Literary & Talent are teaming to develop a television anthology based on a series of short stories by prolific mystery writer Cornell Woolrich.

Some of the titles to be included in the potential anthology series are A Death Is Caused, After-Dinner Story, Death Sits In The Dentist’s Chair, For The Rest Of Her Life, The Moon Of Montezuma, Mystery In Room 913, The Murder Room, The Dancing Detective and The Death Rose.

Phoenix Pictures’ Chairman/CEO Mike Medavoy and Benjamin Anderson will executive produce the potential series, with Alan Nevins also attached to executive produce.

As a fan of the author, Medavoy had been tracking the Woolrich material for years. The Woolrich library has been a complicated rights issue with more than five owners controlling the nearly 300 properties in the Estate. Renaissance has spent years untangling the web of rights issues and, additionally, now represents all five proprietors.

French actor and filmmaker Jeanne Moreau, known for films such as Jules and Jim, The Trial, The Bride Wore Black, La Femme Nikita, died today at her home in Paris, at the age of 89, according to her agents. While French actors might have a reputation for perfecting the art of 'cool', it could be said that it was Moreau's work that began this. Daughter of a French restauranteur and an English dancer, she got into acting in the 1950s. Her first big break came when she appeared in Louis Malle's films Lift to the Scaffolding where she took a precarious walk to the sublime music of Miles Davis, and The Lovers (both 1958). But it was in Jules and Jim, about a woman caught...

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

Jeanne Moreau, a legend of French cinema and one of the French New Wave's leading actresses with roles in Jules & Jim and Elevator to the Gallows, died this weekend at the age of 89.

French authorities confirmed that the actress died at her Paris home; no cause of death was revealed, the BBC reports.

French president Emmanuel Macron tweeted of Moreau, "A legend of cinema and theater … an actress engaged in the whirlwind of life with an absolute freedom."

Pierre Lescure, president of the Cannes Film Festival, said in a statement,...

Jeanne Moreau, whose brooding beauty entranced international film audiences in such films as The Lovers, Jules et Jim and The Bride Wore Black, has died at the age of 89.

The French president's office announced her death without providing a cause.

Dubbed “Le Moreau” for her slithering sensuality, she was a femme fatale who was also one of the top stage actresses of her time. Off-screen, Moreau oozed romance and mystery: Moreau was likened to the free-spirited woman with two lovers whom she played in Francois Truffaut's “Jules et Jim. ”

She burst to international stardom in Louis Malle's “The...

Can’t get enough looks at Independence Day: Resurgence before its release on June 24th? Four new behind-the-scenes videos have dropped, giving us a look at some pivotal scenes in the film as well as a profile of director Roland Emmerich. Also: a Ghoster concept trailer, details on three new Arrow Video Us releases, and info on the Dances with Films screening of Beacon Point.

Watch Four New Independence Day: Resurgence Videos: “We always knew they were coming back. After Independence Day redefined the event movie genre, the next epic chapter delivers global spectacle on an unimaginable scale. Using recovered alien technology, the nations of Earth have collaborated on an immense defense program to protect the planet. But nothing can prepare us for the aliens’ advanced and unprecedented force. Only the ingenuity of a few brave men and women can bring our world back from the brink of extinction.

Directed by Roland Emmerich,...

By John M. Whalen

Cornell Woolrich is a writer whose work was much loved and cherished by fans of film noir. The Internet Movie Database lists 102 credits for him for both film and TV shows—titles including “Rear Window,” “The Bride Wore Black,” “The Night Has a Thousand Eyes,” “Black Angel,” “Fear in the Night,” and “Phantom Lady,” He didn’t write any screenplays that I know of. The films and TV shows were all adapted from a prolific output of stories written under his Woolrich and William Irish pseudonyms, and under his real name, George Hopley.

While Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, and James M. Cain make up the Big Three in noir fiction, Woolrich carved out a special niche for himself. Chandler, and Hammett wrote about tough guy heroes who usually overcame the web of evil they encountered. Cain’s heroes weren’t always so lucky, but at least...

Quentin Tarantino is possibly the most prolific writer/director working in film today. His first feature-length film, Reservoir Dogs, came out back in 1993, and yet the man still manages to surprise us with his hard-hitting dialogue, unconventional humor, and radical social and political commentary. This is a man who serves as a prime example of succeeding as a result of respecting one's elders, as he learns from those great filmmakers who came before him, while still managing to thread his own style through his intricately woven, homage-heavy film résumé.

While the rest of the world toned down its violence and opted for bigger box office, PG-13 sure-things, Tarantino stuck to his guns, consistently making movies for adults and constantly pushing the envelope as to what is allowed onscreen and how to go about displaying such graphic material. Tarantino doesn't give a damn what you think, and that's the reason why...

Above: Franciszek Starowieyski’s 1970 poster for Mademoiselle (Tony Richardson, UK/France, 1966).In Christopher Nolan’s new short film about the Quay Brothers (titled—with Nolan’s predilection for mono-nomenclature—simply Quay) he gives us a clue to some of the twin animators’ influences in the film’s opening shots. After drawing back the curtains in their curiosity shop of a studio, Timothy Quay opens a glass cupboard to remove a book. Blink and you’ll miss it, but on the shelves are books on Marcel Duchamp, Spanish sculptor Juan Muñoz, Czech artists Jan Zrzavy, Vlastislav Hofman and Jindrich Heisler, and—most prominently—a book on Polish artist Franciszek Starowieyski.I wrote a few years ago about the Quays’ love of Polish film posters and Franciszek Starowieyski (1930-2009) is one of the indisputable later masters of the Polish school. From the mid 50s until the late 80s he produced some 100 film...

Nearly two decades into a career that has since spanned nearly seven, Jeanne Moreau had already worked under the direction of Godard, Malle, Welles, Antonioni, Demy, Ophüls, Frankenheimer and Buñuel, among others, by the time she collaborated again with François Truffaut, who had previously helped make her a star with Jules and Jim. Their third collaboration (the first being 400 Blows), The Bride Wore Black, a psycho-thriller inspired by the work of his hero Alfred Hitchcock again put her in the spotlight, this time as a vengeful seductress to which Quentin Tarantino and Uma Thurman’s Bride of Kill Bill is much indebted to (though the homage crazed auteur claims to have never seen the film). With incredible bipolar turns, Moreau plays Julie Kohler, a widow on a mission to take revenge on the five men (including Claude Rich, Michel Bouquet, Michael Lonsdale, Daniel Boulanger and Charles Denner) responsible for the death of her husband.

Specialty Blu-ray label Twilight Time continues to show their deep love for film with a continually growing and constantly eclectic selection of releases. The next few months will see Blu-ray titles as varied as To Sir With Love, U-Turn, The Night of the Generals and Zardoz. There were five titles on last month’s slate (released on 1/20) including a great American underdog tale in Breaking Away, an Indian biopic of uprising and war with Bandit Queen, Francois Truffaut’s female-driven revenge film The Bride Wore Black, Woody Allen’s surreal ode to the cinema in The Purple Rose of Cairo and a 30th Anniversary release of Fright Night. That last title — the only one not covered below — was actually released by the label once before with a far slimmer selection of special features. It immediately became a collector’s item, and now, barely three weeks after its re-release, this anniversary edition is already fetching ridiculous sums from...

A Spoonful of Violence: Hopkins’ Unbalanced Sophomore Effort

Actress turned screenwriter turned director Karen Leigh Hopkins unleashes her sophomore feature Miss Meadows after its premiere at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival, where it was met with a middling response. After her first stint as director with 1998’s indie film The Rose Sisters and a 2001 Penelope Ann Miller television film, A Woman’s a Helluva Thing, her latest succeeds as her highest profile effort as director, though it’s nowhere near the level of success that some of her screenwriting efforts have attained, like 1998’s Stepmom or the majorly lambasted Because I Said So (2007). Tonally awkward and a bit too underwhelming to fully succeed as the black comedy cum violent thriller character study it is trying to be, Hopkins does manage to use the casting of Katie Holmes to her advantage (something not many directors have been able to do...

Marie Dubois, actress in French New Wave films, dead at 77 (image: Marie Dubois in the mammoth blockbuster 'La Grande Vadrouille') Actress Marie Dubois, a popular French New Wave personality of the '60s and the leading lady in one of France's biggest box-office hits in history, died Wednesday, October 15, 2014, at a nursing home in Lescar, a suburb of the southwestern French town of Pau, not far from the Spanish border. Dubois, who had been living in the Pau area since 2010, was 77. For decades she had been battling multiple sclerosis, which later in life had her confined to a wheelchair. Born Claudine Huzé (Claudine Lucie Pauline Huzé according to some online sources) on January 12, 1937, in Paris, the blue-eyed, blonde Marie Dubois began her show business career on stage, being featured in plays such as Molière's The Misanthrope and Arthur Miller's The Crucible. François Truffaut discovery: 'Shoot the...

Jules and Jim

Directed by François Truffaut

Written by François Truffaut and Jean Gruault

France, 1962

In François Truffaut’s debut feature, The 400 Blows, widely seen as the flagship production of the French Nouvelle Vague, or “New Wave,” he was able to convey a representation of youth in a very specific era and, at that time, in a very unique way. Autobiographical as the 1959 film was, it also featured a notable vitality and honesty, two traits that would distinguish several of these French films from the late 1950s and into the ’60s. While The 400 Blows was an earnest and refreshing portrayal of adolescence, in some ways, Truffaut’s 1962 feature, Jules and Jim, his third, feels even more youthful, in terms of stylistic daring and energetic exuberance. Though dealing with adults and serious adult situations, Jules and Jim exhibits a formal sense of unbridled glee, with brisk editing, amusing asides,...

by Blood Raven, MoreHorror.com

Think back to season one of American Horror Story. Remember Tate walking down the hallways of his high school just before his shooting spree? What was the song playing in the background?

If you know what I'm talking about, most of you are thinking it was the whistling song from Kill Bill when "nurse" Elle was on her way to poison Beatrix Kiddo with a syringe while she was still asleep in a coma. Your guess would be right, except it would also be wrong.

The whistling song is actually the main sound track of an old 1969 British Horror film, Twisted Nerve, composed by the talented Bernard Herrmann. That's Right! It didn't originate with Kill Bill.

After seeing Twisted Nerve, it makes sense why this song has been reused with other "unsuspecting" killers…

Twisted Nerve is the tale of a troubled young man named Martin...

Review Billy Grifter 3 Jul 2013 - 09:15

Defiance's penultimate episode leaves plenty to be covered in the finale. Here's Billy's review of Past Is Prologue...

This review contains spoilers.

1.11 Past Is Prologue

In general, penultimate episodes to show seasons fall into two categories. They're either a story that clears the way for a finale, or the first part of a double episode. Past Is Prologue falls neatly into the second of those options, because very little is resolved or defined, it's mostly setup for the season end next week.

That's not to say it was bad. There were some very interesting sequences in which we saw what the Tarr tribe is like when they smell an opportunity to advance themselves. The particular prize they're after is the mine, via Datak becoming Mayor and selling the good townsfolk out to the Earth Republic.

Earlier in the season we were sold the notion...

Defiance, Season 1: Episodes 9, 10 and 11 – “I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times,” “If I Ever Leave This World Alive” and “The Bride Wore Black”

Directed by Allan Kroeker (9 and 10) and Todd Slavkin (11)

Written by Clark Perry (9), Bryan Garcia (10) and Todd Slavkin and Darren Swimmer (11)

Airs Monday nights at 9 on SyFy

Apologies for major technical issues on my end that made me fall behind on these reviews. Coming back to watch and write about three episodes of Defiance as one unit, though, was a really interesting exercise. As this debut season has gone along, it has felt like Defiance episodes work perfectly fine in their own right as self-contained stories but that they lack that substance that lends itself to more meaningful examination or criticism. When I’ve addressed this in the past, I’ve pointed my finger at the fact that the show is more concerned with world-building than...

Review Billy Grifter 26 Jun 2013 - 10:15

Defiance finally begins to motor with this week's revealing, unpredictable, captivating story. Here's Billy's review...

This review contains spoilers.

1.10 The Bride Wore Black

To say that Defiance has been a slow burn is probably a major understatement, because what this show desperately needed was this type of story about five episodes back. In The Bride Wore Black we learned more about the history of Defiance, the major characters, and their motivations than we've been given all season. And, not a minute too soon for this reviewer.

The story was a basic whodunit, for the murder of Kenya's husband seven years previously. Though it was pretty obvious early on who was the most likely candidate, even if the writers very noticeably avoiding giving her a motive, while spreading them about to other characters so generously. The upside of this was that we got to see very different versions of Datak,...

Tags: DefianceDefiance recapstelevisionTV recapsJulie BenzJaime MurrayMia KirshnerWAPIMDb

Hi ya, Gayliens! I apologize for short-shifting you on the Defiance recap last week. There's so much lez/bi stuff happening on TV this summer — especially on Monday nights — that it's proving tricky to keep up. Luckily, we didn't miss any Sapphic shenanigans last week. The real crazytown bananapants stuff with Stahma and Kenya kicks off next week. So, please enjoy these two mini-caps of the last two weeks' episodes and let's meet back here next week to process all the feelings we feel.

1.09: If I Ever Leave This World Alive

There is a full plague consuming Defiance, and the townsfolk have started calling it Irath Flu because Irathients are carriers of it but are not affected by it. If you've seen one episode of this show, you know what's coming: The council — including frakkin Datak Tarr now — vote to quarantine the...

Defiance has fully recovered from its recent plague and "The Bride Wore Black" finally brought us to the nuptials of Romeo and Juliet, Christie McCawley and Alak Tarr.

Like their literary counterparts, Christie and Alak have had a rocky relationship due to family drama and racial/cultural differences. Thankfully, though, we were treated to a happy ending with a wedding instead of the story following William Shakespeare’s lead into tragedy.

There were a few surprises along the way. First and foremost was Rafe McCawley with a twofer. He figured out that Datak Tarr was using the wedding as a way to get access to the McCawley mines and took steps to prevent him from ever getting it.

The second shock was him accepting Alak as the person Christie loved and that being enough for him to be willing to take him in if Datak turned him away for marrying Christie.

Angelina Jolie's remarkable story about undergoing a preventative double mastectomy triggered an outpouring of empathy this week, as well as opened the door to the important discussion of women's health issues. At the other end of the spectrum, good fun was had over the gift Dean McDermott gave Tori Spelling for their seventh wedding anniversary. Here are the five stories that sparked the strongest reactions from readers over this past week - the news that made you happy, sad, laugh out loud, awestruck, even angry. In the meantime, please keep clicking on the emoticons at the bottom of every...

The bride wore black! 90210 actress Shenae Grimes married her fiancé, Josh Beech, a British model, in Vera Wang gown today outside of London. He alerted his Twitter followers about the news, writing, "Huge day!" And she confirmed that today was indeed special by posting a photo of themselves in their wedding finest a bit later with the comment, "I now pronounce us Mr. and Mrs. Beech!" Shenae wore a black Vera Wang gown for the backyard ceremony at an English Tudor home. Shenae and Josh got engaged in December. Congrats to the newlyweds! View Slideshow ›...

The bride wore black.Shenae Grimes and Josh Beech are officially man and wife, as the "90210" star tweeted a photo of the couple kissing with the message "I now pronounce us Mr. and Mrs. Beech!"It looks like the pic was taken during the ceremony itself -- and while her dress wasn't as unique as Mama June Shannon's camo gown, it was definitely an unusual choice.No white to be found here, as the 23-year-old sported a black and grey number for the ceremony.And that wasn't the only non-traditional part of the wedding. The two reportedly walked down the aisle to house music at a tudor manor outside of London.Congrats to the happy couple! What do you think about wearing a black wedding dress? Sound off below!  Read more...

Prolific Spanish film-maker who specialised in psychedelic gothic horror – often laced with sex and violence

According to the Internet Movie Database, the Spanish film-maker Jesús Franco, who has died aged 82, directed 199 films, from El árbol de España in 1957 to Al Pereira vs the Alligator Ladies in 2012, a record few can match in the era of talking pictures. Given that many Franco films exist in three or four variant versions, sometimes so radically different that alternative cuts qualify as separate movies, his overall tally might be considerably higher.

Born Jesús Franco Manera, he was most often credited – at least on international release prints – as Jess Frank or Jess Franco, though he used a host of pseudonyms, writing scripts as David Khune, composing music as Pablo Villa and co-directing pornographic films (with his long-term muse Lina Romay) as Rosa Almirall. He was a true man of the cinema, whose CV ranged from...

DVD Release Date: March 19, 2013

Price: DVD $29.95

Studio: Kino Lorber

Geraldine Chaplin (l.) and Jane Fonda set out to living communally in All Together.

Five aging friends decide to ditch assisted living and move in with each other in the 2012 French comedy All Together.

When elderly lothario Claude (Claude Rich, The Bride Wore Black) is put into an old folks home, his friends bust him out and start a cranky commune together, thinking they can care for each other better than anyone else. The hell with reduced autonomy, loss of memory, illness and, worset of all, separation from each other! The group is joined by a young graduate student (Daniel Brühl) who films their experiment for his research project, while also acting as a de facto caretaker. Everyone seems to enjoy communal living…at least until old jealousies and the infirmities of age begin to pull the group apart.

Written and directed by Stephane Robelin,...

DVD Release Date: Feb. 26, 2013

Price: DVD $29.95

Studio: Olive Films

Kim Rossi-Stuart (l.) and Inés Sastre enjoy each other's company in Beyond the Clouds.

Legendary filmmakers Michelangelo Antonioni (I Vinti) and Wim Wenders (Pina) teamed up to create the 1995 drama-romance film Beyond the Clouds.

Co-written by Antonioni, Wenders and Tonino Guerra and directed by Antonioni, Beyond the Clouds, told from the dreamlike perspective of a wandering film director (portrayed by Secretariat‘s John Malkovich), weaves together four stories of love and lust, inspired by Antonioni’s book about the enigmatic power of modern relationships.

Taking place in Ferrara, Portofino, Aix en Provence and Paris, each story–which always has a woman at its center–turns inwards in its examination of love. Or, as the late Antonioni put it, the stories turn “towards the true image of that absolute and mysterious reality that nobody will ever see.” Er, okay….

Featuring music from Van Morrison,...

The Bride Wore Black

Directed by François Truffaut

Written by François Truffaut and Jean-Louis Richard

France, 1968

The Bride Wore Black has a reputation that precedes it. It’s critically lauded, from the 1960’s, in French, by the legendary François Truffaut, a paean to Alfred Hitchcock, and the afflatus to Quentin Tarantino. This should be a great film by design, right?

Even though the film’s standing with critics seems to be universal, it’s not nearly as good as advertised, which makes the film’s shortcomings even more disappointing. Like it’s apocryphal prestige, The Bride Wore Black sets up an experience of high potential and intrigue, only to flounder in an anti-climatic misfire.

The bride in question is Julie Kohler (Jeanne Moreau). A recent widow, ‘widow’ being the impetus, Kohler leaves town following an unsuccessful suicide attempt.

Once out, she makes it her duty to track down five men who do not know her,...

Starting July 13th and running through September 2nd, prepare yourself to be transported to a summer vacation in France. All you have to do is check in at Tiff Cinematheque (350 King Street West, Toronto).

The 41-film sabbatical will make take you to popular and renowned destinations that include Jean-Luc Godard’s Pierrot le Fou (1965), Luis Buñuel’s Belle de Jour (1967), François Truffaut’s The 400 Blows (1959), and Jean Renoir’s La Grande Illusion (1937).

We’ll even be making stops at more remote, recherché locations, such as Jean Eustache’s The Mother and the Whore (1973) and Jean-Pierre Melville’s Army of Shadows (1969).

Remember to pack lightly, re-schedule accordingly, and prepare for the ultimate staycation. Bon voyage!

Screenings include:

La Grand Illusion (1937)

Friday July 13 at 6:00 Pm

Sunday July 22 at 7:30 Pm

117 minutes

Heralded as “one of the fifty best films in the history of cinema” by Time Out Film Guide, Jean Renoir...

Strange, how objects travel between films, across times, spaces and fictions. Here: An Econolite train motion lamp, with "General" engine. Apparently a prerequisite for European auteurs making post-modern, American-style Hitchcock pastiches. A way to simultaneously signify an intimate, cozy family atmosphere, fold contemporary-seeming references to American cinema further back to pre-cinema optical illusions, and, most movingly, take on a kind of parental cinephilia, directors not just referencing movies but creating family spaces imbued fictionally and meta-fictionally with a love for cinema, passing it down to children.

From François Truffaut's The Bride Wore Black (1968), featuring Jeanne Moreau and Christophe Bruno; cinematography by Raoul Coutard.

From Wim Wender's The American Friend (1977), featuring Bruno Ganz and Andreas Dedecke; cinematography by Robby Müller.

Loaded with recognizable tropes just begging to be tampered with, genre film is fertile spoof material, as can be evidence by obvious examples like the pointless Scary Movie franchise, or even within the same film as in those slasher film that knowingly straddle the line between terror and comedy, or B-Movies so tongue-in-cheek campy they function both as a good-humored critique of the genres the are playing against as well as a standalone narratives in their own right. Francois Truffaut’s sometimes goofy, sometimes chilling 1969 film The Bride Wore Black is genre lampoonery in the hands of a French auteur, not an unsurprising combo when considering the familiarity of the New Wave filmmakers with cinematic convention and their penchant for messing with it.

The Bride Wore Black was something of a critical failure when it opened, and Truffaut later disowned the film and derided it as one of his worst.

Movie Poster of the Week was on vacation last week and thus missed the opening of the re-release of The Bride Wore Black at New York’s Film Forum. But, before it closes this Thursday, I simply must celebrate the fact that Truffaut’s 1968 Hitchcockian revenge drama may have more great and varied original posters than any other film. I count eleven here, each one a winner. First there are two French posters for La mariée était en noir by the peerless René Ferracci, who must have been more than usually inspired by Jeanne Moreau in her widow’s garb. In the first, above, he contradicts the title by scribbling in white on a photograph of Moreau in her titular mourning robe to turn it back into a wedding dress. (The same design was used for the original American poster which Film Forum and distributor Film Desk are selling reproductions of.

"[T]he shadow of Alfred Hitchcock would loom heavily over the works of the young critics who took up cameras and formed the French New Wave," writes Fernando F Croce in Slant. "Whether direct or circuitous, traces of Hitch can be felt in Godard's insistence on filmic technique visibly and violently manifesting itself, Chabrol's fascination with human duality and repressed beastliness, Rohmer's Catholic examinations of private moralities, and even Rivette's view of a world precariously suspended over various trap doors. Curiously, the upstart who related most ardently to the older auteur was also the one with the least in common stylistically and spiritually: François Truffaut, whose freewheeling camera and affection for hypersensitive characters put him at the opposite side of the spectrum from the implacable visual exactitude and jaundiced worldview which characterized the Master of Suspense…. Think of Truffaut's The Bride Wore Black [1968] as the lumpiest fruit borne out of that union,...

Peter Lennon (obituary, 21 March) existed in a constant state of activity, always embarking upon new projects. I don't know of anybody else who, starting to write their first film script at the age of 77, and basing it on their own rich and varied life, would decide it could only be a diptych of paired feature films. I was asked to read the (excellent) first draft and advised Peter that maybe he should lower his sights a bit, to just one film. He politely ignored me and continued doing exactly what he had done all his life – whatever he thought was right.

In the period that I filmed Peter for my 2004 documentary about his groundbreaking 1968 film Rocky Road to Dublin, he never at any point seemed like somebody whose life was nearing its end. He didn't seem to think of things ending: he was always beginning something. In the nature of such endeavours,...