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Edgar Nito, whose debut feature “The Gasoline Thieves’’ won the Best New Narrative Director award at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival, is taking his second feature, “A Fisherman’s Tale,” to world premiere at Spain’s most prominent genre festival, Sitges, and have its Mexican debut at the Morelia film fest, both in October.

Produced by Pablo Cruz and Enrique Lavigne of El Estudio, Nito’s Pirotecnia Films, L.A.-based 4 Ways Entertainment and associate produced by Grupo Morbido’s Pablo Guisa, the fantasy tale turns on a legend when nature once flourished peacefully around a lake and its islands. Men, consumed by dark desires, spread fear, hatred, and death. The fishermen speak of “La Miringua,” a vengeful mythical creature that pulls sinners into the lake’s depths, dragging them to their doom.

Co-written by Nito and Alfredo Mendoza, the film stars a solid cast led by Noé Hernández (“Miss...

Long before Martin Scorsese and Robert DeNiro, or Wes Anderson and Bill Murray, John Huston and Humphrey Bogart were one of the great director-actor combos of Hollywood's Golden Age. Their first collaboration, "The Maltese Falcon," gave the actor his big breakthrough and one of his defining roles as the cynical private eye, Sam Spade.

It made Bogart a star and five more films followed, with the partnership resulting in Bogie's only Oscar win, playing a booze-soaked riverboat captain in "The African Queen." In between, it was Huston's turn; he picked up the only Academy Awards of his long career for Best Director and Best Screenplay for "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre," often regarded as the duo's best film and Huston's masterpiece.

Adapted from the novel by B. Traven, "Sierre Madre" is a riveting study of greed, following three down-on-their-luck Americans in search of gold in Mexico. When they strike rich,...

In a flagship deal for the Spanish-speaking world’s ever more global industry, Gonzalo Maza, co-writer of Sebastián Lelio’s Academy Award-winning “A Fantastic Woman,” has been tapped by production powerhouse El Estudio to adapt “Macario,” a novella written by the legendary B. Traven.

Traven’s 1927 novel, “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre,” was given a big screen makeover by John Huston in the 1948 film of the same name, starring Humphrey Bogart, which won three Academy Awards and is often described as Huston and Bogart’s finest work.

The announcement of the new film project was made by El Estudio on the eve of Mexico’s Day of the Dead. That seems no coincidence when it comes to “Macario,” a title which is a Mexico-set literary classic reflecting the pervasive presence of death in Mexican culture.

Coming after El Estudio has acquired the rights to “Macario” from the Traven estate,...

The writer/director of Tigers Are Not Afraid takes us through some of her most formative cinematic experiences.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983)

The Innocents (1961)

Tigers Are Not Afraid (2017)

The Goonies (1985)

Gremlins (1984)

Ghostbusters (1984)

Ravenous (1999)

Raw (2016)

T2 Trainspotting (2017)

Macario (1960)

Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)

The Lady From Shanghai (1947)

Lake Mungo (2008)

The Witches of Eastwick (1987)

Happy Feet (2006)

Lorenzo’s Oil (1992)

Babe (1995)

Mad Max: Fury Road (2014)

Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983)

Blade Runner (1982)

Casablanca (1942)

Gone With The Wind (1939)

Fanny and Alexander (1982)

Terrified a.k.a. Aterrados (2017)

Terrified (1963)

Gates of the Night (1946)

Other Notable Items

Rome TV series (2005-2007)

Jack Clayton

Ray Bradbury

Jonathan Pryce

Walt Disney Pictures

Walt Disney

Shudder

Richard Donner

Steven Spielberg

The Donner Party

Antonia Bird

Guy Pearce

Robert Carlyle

Once Upon A Time TV series (2011-2018)

Julia Ducournau

Roberto Gavaldón

Gabriel Figueroa

The Criterion Channel

“The Third Guest” short story by B. Traven (1953)

The Haunting of Hill House...

Syria’s first ever submission in the Motion Picture Academy’s Foreign Language category, “Little Gandhi”, is one of a handful of documentaries submitted for Best Foreign Language Film nomination this year.

It comes to the Academy in a most unusual way. It was selected not by the country which is how submissions are always made, but by a committee of artists in exile. If any of these people had actually been in Syria they would likely have been imprisoned, tortured and executed, for this was the fate of Ghiyath Matar, the Syrian activist who became known for giving flowers and roses to army soldiers in his home town of Daraya, leader of the once peaceful Syrian revolution and the Little Gandhi of the title. It premiered at the ongoing Asian World Film Festival.

I have yet to see the documentary submission for Academy Award® nomination entitled Syria Hell on Earth: The Fall of Syria and the Rise of Isis...

Death doesn't take a holiday in this, the granddaddy of movies about the woeful duties of the Grim Reaper. Fritz Lang's heavy-duty Expressionist fable is as German as they get -- a morbid folk tale with an emotionally powerful finish. Destiny Blu-ray Kino Classics 1921 / B&W / 1:33 flat / 98 min. / Street Date August 30, 2016 / Der müde Tod / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95 Starring Lil Dagover, Walter Janssen, Bernhard Goetzke, Rudolf Klein-Rogge, Georg John. Cinematography Bruno Mondi, Erich Nitzschmann, Herrmann Saalfrank, Bruno Timm, Fritz Arno Wagner Film Editor Fritz Lang Written by Fritz Lang, Thea von Harbou Produced by Erich Pommer Directed by Fritz Lang

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari takes the prize for the most influential work of early German Expressionism, but coming in a close second is the film in which Fritz Lang first got his act (completely) together, 1921's Destiny (Der müde Tod). A wholly cinematic...

Macario, just screened in Edinburgh International Film Festival's Focus on Mexico season, is a relatively well-known film by the great and prolific Roberto Gavaldón, but that in itself means little, since even in cinephile circles many film-lovers have never heard of him.Gavaldón was one of the top directors of Mexican cinema's golden age, along with Emilio Fernández and Tito Davison (Buñuel was always something of an outsider). While his work includes the elements of melodrama, social realism and a tinge of film noir which characterise much of this period, he also incorporates a streak of what might be called magic realism. and this is at the forefront of Macario.The first Mexican film nominated for an Oscar, losing out to The Virgin Spring, which bizarrely also features a magic spring bubbling up under mysterious and perhaps divinely-inspired circumstances, Macario derives from a story by the mysterious B. Traven (Treasure...

Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall: From ‘To Have and Have Not’ to ‘Key Largo’ Humphrey Bogart (born on Christmas Day 1899, in New York City) is Turner Classic Movies’ first “Summer Under the Stars” star on Thursday, August 1, 2013. TCM will be showing several Bogart movies not made at Warner Bros., e.g., 20th Century Fox’s The Left Hand of God and Columbia’s In a Lonely Place, but nothing that the cable network hasn’t presented before. In other words, don’t expect anything along the lines of the 1934 crime drama Midnight or the 1931 Western A Holy Terror (assuming these two movies still exist). Now, the good news: No Casablanca — which was shown on Tuesday, as part of TCM’s Paul Henreid movie series. (See “Humphrey Bogart Movies — TCM schedule.) (Photo: Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall in To Have and Have Not.) Of TCM’s Humphrey Bogart movies I’ve seen,...

The Treasure of Sierra Madre

Directed John Huston

Written by John Huston

U.S.A., 1948

Gordon Gekko, the central figure of Oliver Stone’s famous Wall Street, once uttered the phrase ‘Greed is good.’ That same individual was, understandably, also that film’s antagonist. To willfully adhere to the aforementioned philosophy is one thing, yet the reality of human frailty tells an altogether different, more subtle tale of ill advised deeds and nefarious scheming despite people continuously arguing for humanity common decency. John Huston’s directorial filmography includes some entries which explore that very theme, his most recognized success being 1950′s The Asphalt Jungle. Yet another came two years before, The Treasure of Sierra Madre, his second collaboration with actor Humphrey Bogart.

Dobbs (Humphrey Boggart) is not only down in Mexico, but down on his luck as well. Without nary a red cent to call his own, this bum is relegated to the streets,...

Filed under: Columns, Cinematical

We're back in our time machine with the broken dial, and this time we land in 1927.

What Was the Story?

Calvin Coolidge was president, and enjoyed a good strong decade, doing a better job than his predecessor, and presiding over the "Roaring Twenties," before the Great Depression hit in 1929. Babe Ruth hit 60 home runs and the Yankees won the World Series. The first transatlantic telephone call was made, and the world population was a measly 2 billion. Popular music of that year included tunes by Duke Ellington's "Black and Tan Fantasy," Hoagy Carmichael's "Star Dust," and Blind Lemon Jefferson's "Matchbox Blues." Louis Armstrong's legendary Hot Five and Hot Seven bands were also recording during this time. People were reading things like Agatha Christie's 'The Big Four,' Virginia Woolf's 'To the Lighthouse,' Upton Sinclair's 'Oil!' and B. Traven's...

Filed under: Columns, Cinematical

We're back in our time machine with the broken dial, and this time we land in 1927.

What Was the Story?

Calvin Coolidge was president, and enjoyed a good strong decade, doing a better job than his predecessor, and presiding over the "Roaring Twenties," before the Great Depression hit in 1929. Babe Ruth hit 60 home runs and the Yankees won the World Series. The first transatlantic telephone call was made, and the world population was a measly 2 billion. Popular music of that year included tunes by Duke Ellington's "Black and Tan Fantasy," Hoagy Carmichael's "Star Dust," and Blind Lemon Jefferson's "Matchbox Blues." Louis Armstrong's legendary Hot Five and Hot Seven bands were also recording during this time. People were reading things like Agatha Christie's 'The Big Four,' Virginia Woolf's 'To the Lighthouse,' Upton Sinclair's 'Oil!' and B. Traven's...

By Lee Pfeiffer

John Huston's 1948 screen adaptation of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre has been released by Warner Home Video on Blu-ray. The presentation is stunning and the crisp black-and-white cinematography has never looked so entrancing. The film is regarded as one of the great triumphs of American cinema, but was a box-office flop at the time, despite winning Oscars for Huston and his father, Walter. Apparently, audiences didn't want to see Humphrey Bogart stray so far from his image as a lovable crook or detective. Yet, Bogart gives the greatest performance of his career in this film, though he was criminally denied a Best Actor nomination. The story of three men who virtually sell their souls in the quest to find gold in the mountains of Mexico is the ultimate cautionary tale. When they are impoverished, they would give their lives for one another. However, after striking it rich,...

Settle in, folks. Place your hand on your significant other's left breast. Grab some Ben & Jerry's, cause we got some Scoop.

(That was fun; I feel like a perverted E! Entertainment reporter)

I was doing some Internet sleuthing earlier today, and I typed into the little Google box "Mustache Rides" and "Broken Lizard" because obviously those are the two things that preoccupy my mind most of the day. I hit "get lucky" because I like a fortuitous Internet search, and lo and behold, I come across an electronic press kit from last year for Broken Lizard's Slammin Salmon'. And in that little press release, I discover that Broken Lizard member Paul Soter is developing a movie called Moustache Riders for Paramount, which is set to star Willie Nelson and Johnny Knoxville.

That's old news, I guess. So, I dial up my old friend, The Hollywood Cog, and I ask him/her about Moustache Rides,...