News

Phyllis de Picciotto, a co-founder of the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, has died. She was 84.

De Picciotto died April 14 of heart failure at a hospice care facility in Santa Barbara, her daughter Leonie de Picciotto told The Hollywood Reporter.

After moving from Los Angeles to Santa Barbara in 1983, de Picciotto programmed films at the Riviera Theatre for Metropolitan Theatres CEO Bruce Corwin to great success. That led to her holding a meeting in her living room to pitch the idea of a Santa Barbara-based film festival.

The event would, according to her husband, Stan Roden, offer “world and U.S. premieres along with celebrities, panels, Klieg lights, vintage cars, red carpet, long lines fostering conversation, lavish parties, a large, dedicated group of volunteers, free programs, artist retrospectives and awards.”

Corwin offered Metropolitan’s theaters and cash to the effort and helped persuade the City Council that such a festival...

Golden Age, Glory Days and Renaissance are terms that are thrown around on a whim nowadays. These buzzwords and phrases are weaponized by critics and audiences alike with the intention of tearing down the current fixtures. Everyone seems to think the era that they grew up with or were introduced to first is the greatest, but it isnt true. Its impossible to appreciate the best that film has to offer without giving each and every era a fair shake.

Fans will look back at years like 1994 or 1999 with rose-colored glasses, and rightfully so. Its no fault of the average viewer. With the hit parade that has been independent cinema in the past few decades, there were bound to be some classics of old that got forgotten.

Night on Earth Is an Anthology Movie That Has Something for Everyone

Sometimes, its hard to sell an anthology piece, and for good reason.

Image: Bleecker Street, Photo: David Apuzzo/Mainframe Pictures, The Criterion Collection, Vivien Killilea (Getty Images for TCM), Tristan Fewings/Getty Images for Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures UK (Getty Images), Apple, Melinda Sue Gordon (Universal Pictures), Graphic: The A.V. ClubI.S.S. review: Ariana DeBose’s sci-fi outing fails...

For some reason, the films in the Midnight strand at this year’s Sundance Film Festival haven’t actually been screening at midnight. This is probably good news for Greg Jardin’s ingenious horror-thriller It’s What’s Inside, which, while perfect for a late-night-crowd, has perhaps too much meat on it to digest past the witching hour.

But its complexity is also its allure, and there’s so much going on beneath its many surfaces that it could conceivably become a bona fide cult hit. A Sundance launch is a mixed blessing when it comes to this, so it’s hard to say right now whether It’s What’s Inside has the crossover immediacy of a Blair Witch Project, or the long-haul slow-burn of a Donnie Darko. Whichever way it turns out, this is first-class genre filmmaking and an impressive calling card for everyone involved.

It begins with what seems at first to be a misdirect,...

Welcome to The B-Side, from The Film Stage. Here we talk about movie directors! Not the movies that made them famous or kept them famous, but the ones that they made in between.

Today we’re honored to chat with iconic director John Sayles, whose essential crime epic Lone Star is now available from The Criterion Collection in both 4K Uhd + Blu-ray.

Our B-Sides today include Limbo, Amigo, and Go For Sisters. We also discuss Sayles’ parallel careers as a screenwriter and a novelist. He talks about the work he did on the Toshirô Mifune/Scott Glenn actioner The Challenge (director John Frankenheimer asking him to write new draft over a weekend before an impending strike); he discusses what he learned working for Roger Corman early in his career; which genre he’s still itching to direct; his love of the recent Godzilla Minus One; and the slew of scripts that never got made.

John Sayles has made a career out of writing and directing some of the finest ensemble films of all time, movies like “Matewan,” “Eight Men Out,” and “Sunshine State” that create rich tapestries of American life filled with intimate detail and epic sweep. One of his most entertaining and sophisticated works, the 1996 contemporary Western “Lone Star,” is newly available in 4K and Blu-ray editions from Criterion, and it has, like most of Sayles’ movies, only improved with age. As a Texas sheriff investigates an old murder, the film becomes timeless and specifically of its era (particularly in the border crossing scenes conceived and shot before the wall that eventually went up in Sayles’ location), a complex consideration of cultural conflicts and generational divides that seem hardwired into the American consciousness.

It’s a great American epic, yet like all of the director’s films it was shot on a modest...

Criterion Collection cover for Lone Star; John Sayles Photo: The Criterion Collection John Sayles has been a fixture of American independent cinema for nearly 50 years. Like many indie filmmakers, Sayles began his career making monster movies before directing his microbudget debut, Return Of The Secaucus 7. His shaggy, soulful, and...

Criterion Collection cover for Lone Star; John SaylesPhoto: The Criterion Collection, Vivien Killilea (Getty Images for TCM)

John Sayles has been a fixture of American independent cinema for nearly 50 years. Like many indie filmmakers, Sayles began his career making monster movies before directing his microbudget debut, Return Of The Secaucus 7.

Apologies to André Bazin, Pauline Kael, and Andrew Sarris, but Roger Ebert was unquestionably the most influential film critic of the cinema's first century. In fact, unless the media landscape is drastically altered over the next few years, he may also wind up being the last film critic who ever truly mattered.

I do not mean this as a put-down of my colleagues. If you actually read film criticism nowadays, you know that there's never been a more thrillingly diverse assortment of voices in this too-cluttered arena. Manohla Dargis, Justin Chang, Scott Tobias, Angelica Jade Bastién, and Bilge Ebiri are must-reads in this house, and I could name a few dozen more who are reliably incisive and original in their thinking. I don't have time to read all of the critics I respect, which is both a frustrating and good thing.

But be honest, do you actually read film criticism nowadays?...

The scene where Robert Shaw gets eaten in “Jaws” is one of the most thrilling moments in movie history. After all of Steven Spielberg’s virtuoso framing and cool ’70s Hitchcock scare tactics, the shark’s big-mouthed consumption of a man who fully deserves to be eaten had a shockingly raw “Look, there it is!” exploitation-film brazenness. (One not inaccurate way to describe “Jaws” would be to call it the greatest B-movie ever made.) “The Flood,” an alligator-attack movie that’s also a violent prison-break thriller, takes its cue from that scene. Set in a backwater Louisiana police station during a hurricane, the film isn’t shy about serving up its big, nasty human-torso-meets-jaws moments. It’s basically a slasher movie with teeth.

The alligator thriller, of course, was always a bargain-basement knockoff of “Jaws” — literally, since the alligators are inevitably slithering out of some basement somewhere. But it was...

In hindsight, it’s a story so simple a child could’ve come up with it. A story about a boy feeling lost and alone in the world. He befriends a small alien, similarly lost and alone in the world. Their bond is almost immediate, and in a few short days, they become the best of friends. But the alien doesn’t belong here, and the boy knows it. One day soon, that loveable creature will have to return home, and when he does, he won’t be coming back… The end.

It might not sound spectacular on paper, but with the right storyteller in charge, the result broke millions of hearts and earned hundreds of millions of dollars. When Steven Spielberg’s E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial came out in June of 1982, the world was not quite prepared for just how much of a phenomenon the movie – and its title character – would become.

Our 75th guest! The legendary filmmaker John Sayles joins Josh and Joe to explore some of his favorite movies.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Ulzana’s Raid (1972)

Django (1966)

The Birth Of A Nation (1915)

City Of Hope (1991)

Return of the Secaucus 7 (1980)

The Challenge (1982)

Avalanche (1978)

Eight Men Out (1988)

Piranha (1978)

The Howling (1981)

The Wizard Of Oz (1939)

The Killers (1964)

The King And I (1956)

Time Without Pity (1957)

The Incredible Mr. Limpet (1964)

Ben-Hur (1957)

The Ten Commandments (1956)

Two Women (1960)

Sunset Boulevard (1950)

Citizen Kane (1941)

Spartacus (1960)

Fixed Bayonets! (1951)

The Steel Helmet (1951)

Merrill’s Marauders (1962)

Targets (1968)

Touch Of Evil (1958)

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Woodstock (1970)

Crime In The Streets (1956)

The Bad Seed (1956)

The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971)

Fedora (1978)

Dune (1984)

The Cotton Club (1984)

Choose Me (1984)

Raising Arizona (1987)

El Norte (1983)

Yellow Sky (1948)

Apocalypse Now (1979)

The Irishman (2019)

A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood (2019)

The Thing (1982)

Chinatown (1974)

Manhattan (1979)

Duck Amuck (1953)

Goodfellas (1990)

Humanoids Of The Deep (1980)

Cockfighter (1974)

Dynamite Women a.k.a. The Great Texas Dynamite Chase...

When John Sayles wrote and directed Matewan in 1987, he was already a hero to those of us following American independent film, both for his witty, energetic genre screenplays and for his self-financed directorial efforts. His movies as writer-director, which also included a detour into studio filmmaking with the exquisite coming of age drama Baby It’s You, were major inspirations for an entire generation of aspiring filmmakers, because they gave us a high standard of excellence to reach for yet also seemed […]...

When John Sayles wrote and directed Matewan in 1987, he was already a hero to those of us following American independent film, both for his witty, energetic genre screenplays and for his self-financed directorial efforts. His movies as writer-director, which also included a detour into studio filmmaking with the exquisite coming of age drama Baby It’s You, were major inspirations for an entire generation of aspiring filmmakers, because they gave us a high standard of excellence to reach for yet also seemed […]...

When Ben Barenholtz, 83, died Wednesday at his new home in Prague, we lost one of the giants of American independent cinema. This vital and genial man has left a legacy behind few can equal. Many in the film community remember him as an entrepreneur, champion of new talent, mentor, cinephile and filmmaker. (Check out his many Facebook tributes here.) Others shared their thoughts in emails to IndieWire throughout the day.

“Ben’s passing is the end of an era,” said John Turturro. “I knew Ben first as a theater owner of the Elgin, which I used to frequent as a young man. Then I worked with him as a producer of ‘Miller’s Crossing’ and ‘Barton Fink.’ He introduced me to so many talented people. His great eye, his sense of humor and mischievous rebellious outlook masked a complicated and difficult early life. He was one of a kind and...

Independent film stalwart Ben Barenholtz, longtime supporter of David Lynch and the Coen brothers, died Wednesday in Prague after a brief illness. He was 83.

Barenholtz had been living in Prague at the time of his death, according to his friend Sony Pictures Classics executive Tom Prassis. He died in his sleep surrounded by friends, Prassis added.

Barenholtz was also a Holocaust survivor and blogged in 2010 about his experiences of escaping into the Polish countryside with 11 other people at the age of eight. He lived in the woods for two years before the war came to an end.

Barenholtz began his career in the 1960s in New York City running the now-defunct Village Theater and the Elgin Cinema. He’s credited with pioneering the concept of midnight-movie showings, including Alejandro Jodoworsky’s “El Topo,” John Waters’ “Pink Flamingos,” the six-hour Russian production of “War and Peace” and Ken Russell’s “The Devils.

Ben Barenholtz, a veteran of the distribution and exhibition world who plucked David Lynch from obscurity and invented the concept of the midnight movie, died last night in Prague after a brief illness. He was 83.

Over the course of more than 50 years, Barenholtz was a major figure in the independent film community who wore a lot of hats. He began his career in the late sixties running the now-defunct Village Theater (later the Filmore East) followed by a successful stint launching the Elgin Cinema. It was there that he pioneered the concept of buzzy midnight-movie sensations, including a six-month stint for Alejandro Jodoworsky’s “El Topo” and John Waters’ “Pink Flamingos.” He also took big gambles on daring cinematic achievements, such as the six-hour Russian production of “War and Peace” and Ken Russell’s “The Devils.”

Barenholtz then ventured into distribution with Libra Films, which boasted an adventurous slate throughout...

“Get Out” got a huge boost in its Oscar prospects when the Los Angeles Film Critics Assn. awarded writer/director Jordan Peele Best Screenplay on Sunday. Of the top Oscar categories previewed by these scribes, Best Screenplay has the highest percentage of recipients (91%) who go on to contend at the Academy Awards.

In the 43-year history of the Lafca Awards, 44 films have won the prize for Best Screenplay (there was a tie in 2005 between “Capote” and “The Squid and the Whale”). Of these, only four failed to reap an Oscar bid.

See Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards 2017: Full list of winners

The first of these was in the first year of the awards, 1975, when the prize went to Joan Tewkesbury for “Nashville.” The country music epic did pick up five Oscar bids including Best Picture and Best Director (Robert Altman) and won the prize for Best Original Song...

In a career that began with “sex lies and videotape” in 1989, “Logan Lucky” is Steven Soderbergh’s 26th theatrical release. It will extend his record as the top-grossing American director to come out of the independent scene in its formative years — a period we’ll define as 1975 (Joan Micklin Silver’s “Hester Street”) through 1992 (Quentin Tarantino’s debut, “Reservoir Dogs”).

To be clear, Soderbergh’s an outlier; his billion-dollar box office dwarfs every other indie filmmaker. However, looking at the performance of his contemporaries who got their start in that indie film movement, you may be surprised at who’s on the list. (Note: “Outside wide release” means less than 1,000 screens. Also, the list doesn’t include directors like Sam Raimi and Abel Ferrara, who have independent roots but were not discovered via the film festival/arthouse pathway, or Alan Rudolph, another significant ’80s figure; he started in horror films in the early ’70s.

Next month will mark the return of New York City’s Quad Cinema, a theater reshaped and rebranded as a proper theater via the resources of Charles S. Cohen, head of the distribution outfit Cohen Media Group. While we got a few hints of the line-up during the initial announcement, they’ve now unveiled their first full repertory calendar, running from April 14th through May 4th, and it’s an embarassment of cinematic riches.

Including the previously revealed Lina Wertmüller retrospective, one inventive series that catches our eye is First Encounters, in which an artist will get to experience a film they’ve always wanted to see, but never have, and in which you’re invited to take part. The first match-ups in the series include Kenneth Lonergan‘s first viewing Edward Yang‘s Yi Yi, Noah Baumbach‘s first viewing of Withnail and I, John Turturro‘s first viewing of Pather Panchali,...

1916 Happy Centennial to Best Actor winner Peter Finch (Network), one of only two posthumous acting winners in Oscar history. The other is Heath Ledger. (Curiously they were both Australian)

1924 Marcello Mastroianni (La Dolce Vita, 8½) is born in Italy. Becomes one of the all time great movie stars by his mid 30s. His career spans over 50 years of cinema.

1933 Greer Garson weds Edward Snelson, first of three husbands, though the cohabitation is brief. Ten years later she famously marries her screen son in Mrs Miniver.

1934 ...And God Created Brigitte Bardot in Paris

1945 Mildred Pierce opens. Joan Crawford will win Best Actress for this fabulous noir melodrama

1949 Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis first film together My Friend Irma

1950 American indie icon John Sayles is born in New York. Among his most famous films: Return of the Secaucus 7, Passion Fish, and Lone Star

1951 Franchot Tone marries Barbara Payton, his third wife, a disastrous marriage for both.

Still doing it his way: Sayles today.

By Mark Cerulli

The interview was set for 10:30 Am. Usually they run a few minutes late as the celebrity works his way through a call list. When the moment arrives an assistant handles the intros. Not this time. At precisely 10:30:00, the phone rang and iconic Indie filmmaker John Sayles introduced himself. And why not? A no-nonsense, get- it -done type of auteur, Sayles handles his own publicity calls and was keen to discuss his remarkable and varied career in advance of a weekend retrospective at La’s Cinefamily February 18 - 20.

Sayles broke into the business, like so many before him, by working with genre legend Roger Corman who figuratively and literally wrote the book on low budget filmmaking. “I got very lucky, didn’t realize it at the time, “Sayles recalls. “I wrote three screenplays (Piranha, The Lady in Red...

"Return of the Secaucus Seven"

 Cinema Retro has received the following press release from Cinefamily, 611 N Fairfax, Los Angeles

*** For Immediate Release ***

The Cinefamily and Cinespia present

Underground USA: Indie Cinema Of The 80's

February 18-April 16

Opening Event February 18-20: Weekend tribute to indie film pioneer John Sayles

40+ film, two month retrospective celebrating iconic independent cinema

Guest filmmakers attending in person include:

John Sayles, Penelope Spheeris, Wayne Wang, Alex Cox, Allison Anders, Lizzie Borden, Ross McElwee, Robert Townsend, Richard Kern, John McNaughton

Numerous brand new restorations, including Paydirt, Born In Flames, and Last Night at The Alamo

Los Angeles, CA, February 15, 2016-Kicking off on February 18th with a rare in-person three-day tribute to independent film pioneer and legend John Sayles-including a master class on screenwriting co-presented by the WGA Foundation-and continuing through mid-April, The Cinefamily is proud to announce Underground USA: Indie Cinema Of The 80s-a guest-filled, two month,...

Few directors in the history of American film have presented a perspective on the human condition as complex, varied, and compassionate as that of John Sayles. The quintessential independent filmmaker, he once said, “I’m interested in the stuff I do being seen as widely as possible but I’m not interested enough to lie.” He has remained true to that ethos from his directorial debut, The Return of the Secaucus Seven, to his most recent gem, Go For Sisters. No one tells the truth with as much humor, pain, sympathy, irony, or expansiveness as Sayles, a man to whom no aspect […]...

Few directors in the history of American film have presented a perspective on the human condition as complex, varied, and compassionate as that of John Sayles. The quintessential independent filmmaker, he once said, “I’m interested in the stuff I do being seen as widely as possible but I’m not interested enough to lie.” He has remained true to that ethos from his directorial debut, The Return of the Secaucus Seven, to his most recent gem, Go For Sisters. No one tells the truth with as much humor, pain, sympathy, irony, or expansiveness as Sayles, a man to whom no aspect […]...

Chris Lowell’s inaugural directorial effort opens with Ernest Hemingway’s quote about how “all generations are lost by something.” Judging by the largely uninspired film that follows, the “something” in question could be stale reunion movies.

Like Return of the Secaucus 7 and The Big Chill before it, Beside Still Waters catches up with a group of friends who’ve come back together after many years apart. Unlike those movies, the friends in question share no revolutionary past, unless it involved liberating kegs of beer from the package store. Their sole touchstone: the fact they used to hang out at Daniel’s (Ryan Eggold) parents’ lake house. The parents recently died, and none of them attended the f...

In a near frigid Driskill ballroom, the Austin Film Festival audience sat to listen to "A Conversation with Whit Stillman" on Sunday afternoon. The director of Barcelona, The Last Days of Disco and Damsels in Distress was suffering a cold from a trip to Poland and seemed to huddle in the chair he'd moved out of the way of an A/C vent. For the first ten minutes, the moderator asked about Stillman's entry into the world of film.

We learned that the first film Stillman saw was Bambi, and that at the age of 16, he wanted to be a novelist like F. Scott Fitzgerald.  In his twenties, he viewed journalism and writing short stories as his career option -- until he saw John Sayles' Return of the Secaucus Seven. That film showed Stillman "the way a short story writer could become a filmmaker." He worked on his script...

Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: July 29, 2014

Price: Blu-ray/DVD Combo $39.95

Studio: Criterion

A group of reunited college friends hear it through the grapevine in The Big Chill.

The 1983 comedy-drama The Big Chill focuses on a group of thirty-somethings who reunite for the funeral of one of their friends and end up spending a weekend together, reminiscing about their shared pasts as children of the sixties and confronting the uncertainty of their lives as adults of the eighties.

Poignant and warmly humorous in equal measure, this baby boomer milestone made a star of writer-director Lawrence Kasdan (Body Heat) and is perhaps the decade’s defining ensemble film, featuring memorable performances by Tom Berenger (Inception), Glenn Close (Fatal Attraction), Jeff Goldblum (Morning Glory), William Hurt (Broadcast News), Kevin Kline (Queen to Play), Mary Kay Place (Being John Malkovich), Meg Tilly (Agnes of God), and JoBeth Williams (Timer).

Co-opted a zillion times over the...

Retrospective of 10 Sayles films includes Go For Sisters and The Return of the Secaucus Seven.

John Sayles will be honoured with a retrospective at the 54th Cartagena Film Festival (Ficci) and he will also participate in a March 18 roundtable discussion at the festival.

The festival will screen 10 of his films, including the recent Go For Sisters, Lone Star, Casa de los Babies, Men With Guns, Sunshine State, City of Hope, SIlver City, Matewan, Eight Men Out and his directorial debut The Return of the Secaucus Seven.

Actor Clive Owen will be a Guest of Honour at the festival, which will show the Latin American premiere of his latest film, Guillaume Canet’s Blood Ties on March 14. Owen will be presented with the India Catalina prize and then will be publicly interviewed by Ficci director Monika Wagenberg.

Few filmmakers are more legitimately "independent" than John Sayles, who has now written and directed 18 features since 1979 (Return of the Secaucus Seven) without studio backing. His latest, the affable character drama Go for Sisters, while not an outstanding or distinctive achievement, is a perfectly good addition to the Sayles filmography, energized by three central performances that have a lived-in, likable vibe to them. Our heroine is Bernice Stokes (LisaGay Hamilton), a tough-minded but not unsympathetic Los Angeles parole officer with little patience for nonsense. "I listen to people sugarcoat their bulls*** all day," she tells her public-defender boyfriend as he tries to ease his way into a "we're breaking up" speech. The bulk of her job entails sitting behind a desk and hearing...

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

Go for Sisters, a new film by director/writer John Sayles, the godfather of American independent cinema (Return of the Secaucus Seven, Brother from Another Planet, Lone Star, Limbo), is just as I expect in a John Sayles film; beautifully written, beautifully acted, mature and always relevant -- the qualities so rare in mainstream American cinema these days. Recently I had a chance to talk to him briefly on the phone about his new film, Edward James Olmos and the country's immigration reform debate.Twitch: Can you tell me the origin of Go For Sisters?John Sayles: Chinese smugglers of illegal immigrants are called Snakeheads. There was a case in New York where the head of this organization got indicted for human trafficking. She was operating in...

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

In Go For Sisters, the new movie from legendary independent filmmaker John Sayles, two childhood friends cross paths again at fragile moments in each other’s adult lives. Fontayne (Yolonda Ross) is a recovering drug addict just out of jail; Bernice (LisaGay Hamilton) is her new parole officer. But while Bernice should immediately recuse herself from the renewed relationship, she comes to rely on Fontayne — and her underworld contacts — when her son goes missing near the Mexican border. Together, the women recruit a disgraced Lapd detective (Edward James Olmos) who they hope can help them navigate the underbelly of Tijuana and rescue the young man.

This week is Ben Barenholtz' birthday.

We'd like to celebrate by running 2 pieces on his amazing wonderful life.

This is his public bio, which in itself, tells of a rich wonderful career in film.

In the next days we'll publish his amazing memoir of his European childhood when he narrowly escaped from the hands of Jew killers during the War.

I personally owe Ben a lot. When I was producing some years back Ben was working for Almi and bought an indie film I produced 'Home Free All' by Director Stewart Bird for that company. The money from that deal paid our investors and took us out of a deep financial hole. I am always grateful to Ben for his vision and belief in us then.

Now for his professional bio -

Biography for Ben Barenholtz

Birth Name Benjamin Barenholtz

Mini Biography

As an exhibitor, distributor, and producer, Ben Barenholtz has been a key presence in the independent film scene since the late 1960s, when he opened the Elgin Cinema in New York City.

Barenholtz secured his first job in the film business when he became assistant manager of the Rko Bushwick Theater in Brooklyn in 1958. From 1966-68 he managed and lived in the Village Theater, which ultimately became the Filmore East. At the Village Theater Barenholtz provided a home for the counterculture, with appearances by Timothy Leary, Stokley Carmichael, Rap Brown, and Paul Krasner. Some of the first meetings of the anti-Vietnam War movement, including the Poets Against Vietnam, were held at the Village Theater. It was also a major music venue, with performances by The Who, Cream, Leonard Cohen, John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Nina Simone and many others.

In 1968 he opened the Elgin Cinema. The theater became the world's most innovative specialty and revival house, relaunching the films of Buster Keaton and D.W. Griffith, running a variety of independent films by young American directors, and screening cult, underground, and experimental films for the emerging countercultural audience. The films of Stan Brakhage, Jack Smith, Maya Deren, Kenneth Anger, Jonas Mekas, and Andy Warhol, as well as early works by Jonathan Demme and Martin Scorsese, all played at the Elgin.

Barenholtz also developed new ways of screening movies. He started screening dance and opera films on Saturday and Sunday mornings. He created the "All Night Show" - movies started at midnight and ended at dawn. Most notably, Barenholtz originated the "Midnight Movie" in 1970 with Alexander Jodorowsky's El Topo, which ran for 6 months, 7 days a week, to sold out audiences.

The film was eventually bought by John Lennon. El Topo was followed at midnight by John Waters' Pink Flamingoes and Perry Henzell's The Harder They Come. Barenholtz formed the specialty distributor Libra Films in 1972.

The first film Libra distributed was a revival of Jean-Pierre Melville's Les Enfants Terrible, followed by Claude Chabrol's Just Before Nightfall, and Jean-Charles Tacchella's Cousin, Cousine, which became one of the largest grossing foreign films in the Us and was nominated for 3 Academy Awards.

Libra also launched and distributed, among others, George Romero's Martin, John Sayles' first feature Return of the Secaucus Seven, David Lynch's first feature Eraserhead, Karen Arthur's first feature Legacy, Earl Mack's first feature Children of Theater Street, and Peter Gothar's first feature Time Stands Still.

Barenholtz sold Libra Films to the Almi Group in 1982, but stayed with the company to become the President of Libra-Cinema 5 Films. In 1984 he left Almi and joined with Ted and Jim Pedas to form Circle Releasing. Among the films released by Circle were Yoshimitsu Morita's The Family Game, Guy Maddin's first feature Tales From the Gimli Hospital, Vincent Ward's The Navigator, John Woo's The Killer, Catherine Breillat's 36 Fillette, DeWitt Sage's first feature Pavarotti In China, Alain Cavalier's Therese, and Blood Simple, the first film by Joel and Ethan Coen.

His involvement in film production began with Wynn Chamberlain's Brand X and George Romero's Martin. He continued working with the Coens on the production of Raising Arizona, and as executive producer of Miller's Crossing and Barton Fink, which won the Palme d'Or at the 1991 Cannes Film Festival, as well as awards for Best Director and Best Actor. This was the first and last time the three top honors have all gone to the same film at Cannes.

Barenholtz went on to produce George Romero's Bruiser, J Todd Anderson's The Naked Man, Adek Drabinski's Cheat, executive-produced Gregory Hines' directorial debut Bleeding Hearts and Ulu Grossbard's Georgia, which earned an Academy Award nomination for Mare Winningham. He served as co-executive producer of Darren Aronofsky's Requiem for a Dream, which earned Ellen Burstyn an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress in 2000.

Barenholtz appeared in the documentary The Hicks in Hollywood, had a bit role in Liquid Sky, and appeared as a zombie in Romero's classic Dawn of the Dead. He was the main subject of Stuart Samuels' 2005 documentary Midnight Movies: From the Margin to the Mainstream.

Barenholtz directed his first feature, Music Inn, a documentary about the famed jazz venue.

Barenholtz was the producer of Jamie Greenberg's feature film Stags.

In 2012, Barenholtz produced Suzuya Bobo's first feature Family Games.

Barenholtz has recently completed directing and post production on Wakaliwood the Documentary, which was shot entirely in Kampala, Uganda. The film will be released in 2013.

He is now developing two feature fiction films which begin production in 2013.

IMDb Mini Biography By: Ben Barenholtz...

In a scene in 2000's "High Fidelity," Jack Black and Todd Louiso's record store clerk characters are coming up with a list of the top five songs about death. Black mentions "You Can't Always Get What You Want," but Louiso reminds him that the song was used in "The Big Chill." "Oh, God, you're right," says Black, and the song is disqualified.

That's how toxic "The Big Chill" was to popular culture -- so much so that even unassailable items that preceded it, like the Rolling Stones classic, were tainted by association.

It's true, of course, that "The Big Chill," released 30 years ago this month (on September 28, 1983), touched a huge raw nerve in the culture and became an enormous mainstream hit as a result. It's also true that it's a very enjoyable movie, full of witty and truthful moments in well-wrought performances by a stellar ensemble of then-rising stars.

Title: Steve Chong Finds Out That Suicide Is a Bad Idea Director: Charlie Lavoy Starring: Stanley Wong, Joseph Sökmen, Owen Hornstein III, Tyler Russell, Jenn Foreman, Jennie Freeman A recent world premiere at the 16th annual Dances With Films, the evocatively titled micro-budget indie film “Steve Chong Finds Out That Suicide Is a Bad Idea” tries to put a bearded, decidedly fraternal spin on the whole “Return of the Secaucus 7″ sub-genre, wherein young adults grapple with changes in life and their relationships. If there’s a certain easygoing charm to the movie, there’s also a lack of forward-leaning momentum or insight to make these characters stick to the psyche. Mopey, [ Read More ]

The post Steve Chong Finds Out That Suicide Is a Bad Idea Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.

Few filmmakers are more legitimately "independent" than John Sayles, who has now written and directed 18 features since 1979 (Return of the Secaucus Seven) without studio backing. His latest, the affable character drama Go for Sisters, while not an outstanding or distinctive achievement, is a perfectly good addition to the Sayles filmography, energized by three central performances that have a lived-in, likable vibe to them. Our heroine is Bernice Stokes (LisaGay Hamilton), a tough-minded but not unsympathetic Los Angeles parole officer with little patience for nonsense. "I listen to people sugarcoat their bulls*** all day," she tells her public-defender boyfriend as he tries to ease his way into a "we're breaking up" speech. The bulk of her job entails sitting behind a desk and hearing...

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Screenwriter Jamie Linden (We Are Marshall, Dear John) says he was inspired to write and direct 10 Years by attending his own high school reunion. Fair enough. Reunions can be the spur for great storytelling, as witness such memorable movies as The Big Chill and John Sayles’ Return of the Secaucus 7. Linden also managed to round up an attractive, appealing cast and worked with them to develop their roles. The resulting film is certainly authentic, tracking friendships continued and rekindled, as well as awkward encounters and revelations. The ensemble is led by this year’s busiest new star, Channing Tatum (who also served as one of the producers), and his real-life wife,...

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“There’s a relaxed, unforced, melancholy sweetness and swing to this modest iteration of the Big Chill/Return of the Secaucus 7 formula, a pleasing directorial debut for screenwriter Jamie Linden (We Are Marshall). – Entertainment Weekly“

Check out these two brand new clips, “Welcome Home” and “Love Looking at You,” from Channing Tatum and Jenna Dewan-Tatum‘s new movie ‘10 Years‘, which hits theaters next week!

In addition to Chan (who plays Jake) and Jenna (who plays his girlfriend Jess), the film also stars Rosario Dawson, Anthony Mackie, Nick Zano, Lynn Collins, Chris Pratt, Justin Long, and Ron Livingston. Here’s the official synopsis, and in case you missed it, we’ve reposted the trailer below…

10 Years follows a group of friends on the night of their high school reunion who, a decade later, still haven’t quite grown up. Jake is deeply in love with his girlfriend and ready to...

Adopt Films has acquired all U.S. rights to Jeff Lipsky’s fifth feature film, “Molly’s Theory of Relativity.” “Molly’s Theory of Relativity” is a sexy, funny, surreal, and devastating portrait of a beautiful twenty-eight-year-old astronomer who, having unexpectedly lost her job, is poised to make perhaps the first reckless decision of her life. Her story unfolds during an eighteen hour period, on Halloween. Providing counsel on the fateful day are her husband, her father-in-law, three deceased relatives, a precocious nine-year-old trick-or-treater, her grandfather from Minot, North Dakota, and a six year old neighbor, who may or may not be imaginary. “Molly’s Theory of Relativity” is about the economy, how we value and measure the pride we take in what we choose to do for a living, the unbreakable bonds of family, and the notion that death is merely a relative thing. “Molly’s Theory of Relativity” stars Sophia Takal (“Green,...

John Sayles is still churning out films on a fairly regular basis, and his most recent effort “Amigo” got its limited release in theaters in August last year. Starring Chris Cooper, Garret Dillahunt and Dane DeHaan (“Chronicle”), the film was moderately well received, but grossed a tiny $184k from its release on a maximum of 10 screens. To say it was small would be an understatement. But such is the state of financing these days where guys like Sayles are left on the sidelines. But, keen to keep his fanbase updated with plans for his next film, Sayles has taken to his blog to speak about his upcoming 18th feature.

“Go For Sisters” is its name, and Sayles told readers of his site that he’ll be shooting it this summer and will be updating them with behind-the-scenes pictures and information throughout the process. So that’s what we can look forward to,...

For a while there, it looked like Whit Stillman might have been relegated to forced retirement, after nearly a decade and a half of false starts on various features, all looking to follow up his The Last Days of Disco, his third film in 10 years. There was his mini-epic film about youths growing up in Jamaica – one that he’s still hoping to make happen – as well as Red Azalea, an adaptation he tried to adapt with Killer Films in the early 2000s that fell apart and many, many others.

Now, finally and thankfully, he’s back with the delightful Damsels in Distress, telling a new story in the same, unique voice. The Film Stage sat down with the filmmaker about lessons learned from failure, fighting to not become too much of a screenwriter and this new world of micro-budget indie filmmaking, which feels eerily similar to indie filmmaking’s 1980s origins,...

Talks Demise Of The HBO Satchmo Miniseries, 'Girls Like Us,' And More John Sayles is a busy man, a prolific screenwriter and icon of the American independent film movement. Having made his name directing films such “Eight Men Out,” “Matewan,” “The Return of the Secaucus Seven,” "Lone Star," "Sunshine State," and a variety of small but frequently warmly received films, Sayles also made his mark as an occasional Hollywood scribe, most recently co-writing "The Spiderwick Chronicles". With his latest, "Amigo" (our reviewer at Tiff '10 called it "a complex and organically built work that coaxes meaning out of the situations…...

He's the director of some of America's finest independent films, but some critics say his "true calling" is as a writer. Does his new novel, A Moment in the Sun, prove them right?

John Sayles has directed films for over 30 years, but some critics suggest he'd be better off writing books. "I can't help feeling that the novel is Sayles' true calling," David Thomson once wrote. Sayles, whose credits include Return of the Secaucus Seven, Matewan, and Lone Star, swore off studio dollars early in his career in order to make films on his own. He succeeded thanks to his ear for dialogue, patient plotting, and what Thomson calls a "genuine feeling for untidy people." Those skills belong, however, as much to the novelist as they do the filmmaker.

Related story on The Daily Beast: Trent Reznor, Once Brooding, Turns Social

In fact, Sayles was a prize-winning fiction writer before...

John Sayles and producer Maggie Renzi tell Cari Beauchamp about their book tour for Sayles' A Moment in the Sun: Since Return of the Secaucus Seven in 1979, John Sayles, along side his long-time producer and partner Maggie Renzi, have been making independent films, telling the stories they want to tell (Lone Star, Matewan, Eight Men Out and more than a dozen others). In between, Sayles has supplemented his income with often uncredited studio writing jobs as well writing short stories and novels. It is exemplary of Sayles, who writes, directs and edits his own films, that he never uses the possessory credit and when speaking of his movies, always uses the word "we"... While he reveres the collaboration necessary for filmmaking (one of the ...

Canet's French success begins with an outstanding long take of a man driving away from a Parisian nightclub on his motorcycle. After crossing light after light, he has a sudden, horrendous collision with a speeding truck. His circle of well-heeled friends gather at his bedside and despite his critical condition decide to go off for their usual summer holiday together. Their destination is the idyllic Cap Ferret, west of Bordeaux, where their pompous leader (François Cluzet), a rich, autocratic hotelier and restaurateur, has a grand holiday home. It's a familiar enough reunion movie where groups gather for vacations, family get-togethers or funerals, to eat, drink, confess, let blood, and drag skeletons out of cupboards. Unfortunately it isn't in the same class as The Big Chill, Return of the Secaucus Seven, Four Seasons, Festen and Those Who Love Me Should Take the Train. The truths don't always ring true, the characters...

Meg Ryan will make her feature directorial debut on the dramatic comedy "Into the Beautiful."According to Variety, Ryan will not act in the film.Wendy Finerman of Wendy Finerman Productions ("Forrest Gump," "The Devil Wears Prada," "P.S. I Love You") will produce along with Natalie Marciano.Bcdf Productions will co-produce.Anne Meredith wrote the script.The film focuses, much like John Sayles' "Return of the Secaucus 7" and Lawrence Kasdan's "The Big Chill," on a group of longtime friends reuniting.Casting is underway with shooting set to begin in September in New York.Ryan was recently in "Serious Moonlight" and "The Women."...

The Brother From Another Planet

Directed by John Sayles

Written by John Sayles

USA, 1984

A black, mute extraterrestrial with three toes and a detachable eye, played by Joe Morton (Terminator 2 Judgment Day), crash lands in Harlem, and spends his days working at an arcade and hanging out at local pubs, while hiding out from a group of “Men In Black.”

The film was written and directed by John Sayles (Lonestar, Return of the Secaucus 7 ), who once made a career in writing genre movies including the original Piranha, Alligator and The Howling. Brother was the fourth film in the director’s canon, released just after E.T., only unlike Spielberg’s hit, Brother was the independent urban take on the alien movie. Replacing the suburbs with Harlem and special effects with social commentary, Sayles manages a lot with a brisk $400,000 budget. Most people would think I’m crazy for placing...

Today we're bringing back some of our favorite Superbowl Sunday posts. Here's one from Monika Bartyzel, originally published back in 2008.

I must have had too many cups of coffee when I agreed to take on a Cinematical Seven covering the hunks of sports films. (Erik had the easy job, picking the Hottest Sports Girls.) Trying to pick the studs is like having hundreds of 4-star, wonderful movies thrown on your desk and being asked to pick the 7 best. Yeah, right! No problem! To make the task easier, I decided to pick a range of sports, and never double up on one particular type. That cut out a whole slew of possibilities, and what I came up with is what you see below.

What have I learned from picking the Seven Sexy Sporting Studs from cinema? The best of the best (pun intended) were in the '80s and '90s.

(Filmmaker Susan Seidelman, above.)

by Jon Zelazny

In the early 80’s NYC cultural lull between Patti Smith’s retirement and Jay McInerney’s breakout, Nyu film school graduate Susan Seidelman did the scrappy shoestring indie film thing, resulting in her acclaimed feature debut Smithereens (1982).

Best known for her hit sophomore effort, Desperately Seeking Susan (1985), Seidelman continues to direct movies and TV shows featuring female protagonists… including the pilot for “Sex and the City” and her Oscar nominated short film The Dutch Master (1994), about a shy dental technician who ventures “into” a museum painting for flights of erotic fantasy.

Susan Seidelman: My husband Jonathan Brett—who co-wrote and produced The Dutch Master—and I had committed to living in Paris for a year because I was set to direct a feature for Polygram, a company that unfortunately went bankrupt. So we were kind of in a funk over there, and...

While not quite as massive as the thousands of films the Starz deal provided to Netflix’s “Watch Instantly” service last year, IFC Films has signed an exclusive streaming deal with Netflix for 53 of IFC’s films. Among the 53 films are John Sayles’ The Brother From Another Planet and Return of the Secaucus Seven; Christopher Nolan’s first film, Following; James Toback’s When Will I Be Loved?; the Errol Morris’ documentaries Gates of Heaven and The Thin Blue Line; Susanne Bier’s Brothers (which is the original version of the upcoming Tobey Maguire/Natalie Portman/Jake Gyllenhaal movie of the same name); and Alfonso Cuaron’s first feature film, Solo con tu pareja. The press release doesn’t say whether or not any IFC Films beyond the 53 they’re adding today will become available on “Watch Instantly”.

For those who don’t know, Netflix’s “Watch Instantly” service allows...