News

Following The Film Stage’s collective top 50 films of 2024, as part of our year-end coverage, our contributors are sharing their personal top 10 lists.

As the decade crosses its halfway point, I can already sense the hastily assembled lists soon appearing, attempting to provide definitive word on the best in cinema over the last five years. I’d rather heed the wisdom of the great J. Rosenbaum and give some distance, but in the spirit of annual year-end extravaganza, I’ll join the crowd in looking back at least the last twelve months of releases. A peculiar year in I saw almost half the films on my list upon their festival premieres in 2023––and furthermore, my top three picks haven’t shifted since January. The eleven preceding months thankfully brought no shortage of illuminating experiences as detailed in my top 15 picks, including a few of the most noteworthy studio offerings failing...

When Humphrey Bogart appeared in the 1939 horror film “The Return of Doctor X” as a scientifically engineered vampire, he already had a couple of dozen movies behind him but was still two years away from becoming a true star with John Huston‘s “The Maltese Falcon.” As a contract player at Warner Bros., the studio that signed Bogart when he came there to reprise his stage role as Duke Mantee in “The Petrified Forest,” the actor was largely subject to the idiosyncratic whims of his bosses, and it was clear that they didn’t quite know what to do with Bogart before Huston got a hold of him.

In 1939 alone, he appeared in a Western “The Oklahoma Kid,” a tearjerking melodrama, and multiple gangster films. Several of these films are better remembered than “The Return of Doctor X,” but as Bogart’s only horror film, “X” is a fascinating curiosity,...

December 2024 won’t have a lot of Christmas movies on Max, but there are still some exciting releases to look forward to. Dcu is finally starting with Creature Commandos, coming out on December 5. DC fans will also enjoy the documentary Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story. And to top it off, the classic favorite The Goonies will also be available!

Here is the list of every movie & TV show arriving on Max this December!

Arriving on December 1

Cedar Rapids (movie)

Clash of the Titans (movie)

Cop Out (movie)

Death Race (movie)

Glee The 3D Concert Movie (movie)

Hamlet 2 (movie)

How I Live Now (movie)

Invisible Stripes (movie)

It All Came True (movie)

Jupiter Ascending (movie)

Key Largo (movie)

Kid Galahad (movie)

King of the Underworld (movie)

Lightning Strikes Twice (movie)

Lord of the Rings (movie)

Man from God’s Country (movie)

Marine Raiders (movie)

Marked Woman (movie)

Meet Me in St. Louis...

December 2024 won’t bring that many Christmas titles to Max. Still, there are some interesting titles we can look forward to. Dcu finally kicks off with the release of Creature Commandos on December 5.

Furthermore, DC fans will also be pleased with the release of the documentary Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story. To spice things up, fan-favorite The Goonies also arrives on the platform!

Here is the list of every movie & TV show arriving on Max this December!

Arriving on December 1

Cedar Rapids (movie)

Clash of the Titans (movie)

Cop Out (movie)

Death Race (movie)

Glee The 3D Concert Movie (movie)

Hamlet 2 (movie)

How I Live Now (movie)

Invisible Stripes (movie)

It All Came True (movie)

Jupiter Ascending (movie)

Key Largo (movie)

Kid Galahad (movie)

King of the Underworld (movie)

Lightning Strikes Twice (movie)

Lord of the Rings (movie)

Man from God’s Country (movie)

Marine Raiders (movie)

Marked Woman (movie)

Meet Me in St.

The holidays are upon us, so whether you’re looking for film-related gifts or simply want to get for yourself some of the finest this year had to offer, we have a gift guide for you. Including must-have books on filmmaking, the best from the Criterion Collection and other home-video lines, subscriptions, magazines, music, and more, dive in below.

4K & Blu-ray Box Sets

There’s no better gift than an epic film collection, and 2024 was an embarrassment of riches thanks to a number of box sets. The king of them all, especially if you’re looking for a gift for a burgeoning cinephile, is Criterion’s massive CC40, collecting 40 landmark films form their 40-year history. It’s not the only stellar set from the company, of course, as I adored the essential Chantal Akerman Masterpieces, 1968–1978, Éric Rohmer’s Tales of the Four Seasons, Gregg Araki’s Teen Apocalypse Trilogy, Three Revolutionary Films by Ousmane Sembène,...

There’s been a lot of talk lately about how the studios have lost interest in physical media, with Disney outsourcing its discs to Sony and questions over where the business is going in the wake of Redbox’s demise and Best Buy’s decision to stop selling Blu-rays and DVDs. Yet not only have the rumors of physical media’s death been greatly exaggerated as boutique labels step in to pick up the slack, but even at the studio level, praiseworthy efforts to showcase archival treasures are alive and well. Take, for example, the new Warner Archive Blu-ray of Raoul Walsh’s 1946 classic “The Man I Love.”

“The Man I Love” is a film beloved by cinephiles but hardly famous — among Warners’ 1940s releases, it’s a long way down from “Casablanca” and “The Maltese Falcon” when it comes to widespread popularity. It’s the kind of movie that...

Ya know that feeling when you watch something dumb, and even though you know it’s stupid, you can’t help but laugh and enjoy yourself? The 1980s are full of comedies like that. Yeah, we know they’re dumb and not especially clever, but whatever, man, every now and then, you’re in a bad mood, and you want to turn your brain off. That’s why they made seven Police Academy movies. No one thought they were good, but we watched them anyway because they were stupid in a pleasing way.

This brings me to this rare comedy-focused episode of The Best Movie You Never Saw, about a movie I loved as a kid that doesn’t super hold up forty years later, but it is still kinda fun – Johnny Dangerously. A gangster comedy in the vein of Airplane, Johnny Dangerously is probably a movie many younger viewers...

John Wilkes Booth was desperate to be famous. Instead, he became infamous as the man who assassinated President Abraham Lincoln. He had been born in 1838 as the ninth of ten children of the famed actor Junius Brutus Booth. Though he had shown talent, his career was often derailed by his emotional instability. His older brother Edwin Booth was considered one of the top actors of the day.

The handsome younger Booth had received strong reviews in a New York production of “Richard III” with the New York Herald declaring him a “veritable sensation.” Booth even told the paper “I’m determined to be the villain.” A staunch supporter of the Confederacy, by 1864 he had recruited several co-conspirators in his plan to kidnap Honest Abe. Their attempts failed, but on April 14, 1865, he learned Lincoln would attend the comedy “Our American Cousin” at Ford’s Theater that evening, During the third act...

An epochal rise-and-fall epic of the gangster cycle, Raoul Walsh’s skittering, impetuous The Roaring Twenties hits the ground running but a couple lengths further back on the track than one would expect. It bookends the glorious ascent of James Cagney’s bootlegger with a cold reception for soldiers returning from overseas following World War I on one side and the 1929 stock market crash on the other.

The plot, based on Mark Hellinger’s short story “The World Moves On,” defies genre conventions right out of the gate, beginning not with Cagney’s spry neophyte chump Eddie Bartlett traipsing his way into, say, the stage door of a hotbox revue but with him stumbling his way into a blown-out crater in Europe during the war. The role of Bartlett, a principled soldier who blossoms into a hoodlum with a conscience, found Cagney at a peculiar point in his career as a uniquely physical being,...

In February 2024, The Criterion Collection will release The Heroic Trio and Executioners in 4K and Blu-ray. Yes, they will also release films by Michael Roemer's Nothing But a Man, Raoul Walsh's The Roaring Twenties, Eric Rohmer's Tales of the Four Seasons, and Robert Altman's McCabe and Mrs. Miller in 4K (?!). You can read more about at the official Criterion site. But my personal takeaway is The Heroic Trio and Executioners in 4K and Blu-ray will be released. I'll just quote from Criterion's official verbiage: "The star power of cinema icons Maggie Cheung, Anita Mui, and Michelle Yeoh fuels these gloriously unrestrained action joyrides from auteur Johnnie To and action choreographer Ching Siu-tung. "The Heroic Trio and its sequel, Executioners, follow a new kind...

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

Congratulations to Johnnie To, whose achievements are such that almost anything else is pat. Yet he now has one of the best films in the Criterion Collection: his action-fantasy masterpiece The Heroic Trio––starring Maggie Cheung, Michelle Yeoh, and Anita Mui––will retire its hard-subbed laserdisc rip for a 4K Uhd arriving in February, its sequel Executioners (perhaps not one of the best films in the Criterion Collection but welcome all the same) included as a two-feature set. (With appreciable credit given to co-director Ching Siu-tung.) Raoul Walsh’s The Roaring Twenties is likewise joining the collection in 4K, while 2016’s McCabe & Mrs. Miller disc gets an upgrade.

Arguably most eventful, though, is the long-awaited release of Rohmer’s Tales of the Four Seasons, which Janus toured virtually and physically throughout 2021. And not to be discounted even slightly is Michael Roemer’s Nothing But a Man––arguably, it so happens,...

Gangsters, mobsters, thugs, and mugs. Organized crime holds the upper tier of the international cinematic commission. “Crime pays,” Edward G. Robinson, who played Rico Bandello in the seminal gangster film Little Caesar (1931), is famous for saying. “But only in the movies.” When a good mob movie is on the table, it is an offer no filmmaker can refuse. There is more intrigue, suspense, violence, mayhem, and madness to be found in the criminal element than any other genre.

“Gone are the days of the gangsters,” audiences heard for years, usually in movies about mobsters. They always rise up, even if they are splattered across the ornate fountains of their gangland mansions in the last frame, like Al Pacino’s Tony Montana in Brian DePalma’s Scarface (1983), or rolling down the steps of a church, dead from a hail of bullets. That’s how James Cagney’s Eddie Bartlett went out in The Roaring Twenties (1939). Now,...

Spring has sprung. The weather is nice; you can go outside again without a coat; and the days have literally grown sunnier. All things considered, it’s perhaps less a “Netflix and chill” month than others over the long winter. Even so, every once in a while, it’s nice to kick up your feet and watch or discover an old favorite.

For that reason, Netflix has (lightly) updated its content for the month with a small string of new releases, and we’re here to tell you which are the best ones. Enjoy.

Crazy, Stupid, Love (2011)

May 1

In real-life, would an out-and-about player like Ryan Gosling’s Jacob take a sad, lonely, middle aged divorcee like Cal (Steve Carell) under his wing? Probably not. But it makes for a hell of a movie!

That movie is Glenn Ficarra and John Requa’s chilled vibes rom-com, Crazy, Stupid, Love. Written...

This article contains spoilers for Ghosts season 1.

The entire season of Ghosts leading up to the finale rests on a foundation of carefully adapting a successful BBC sitcom for American audiences. For readers who haven’t been able to see the UK series on HBO Max, the basic premise is the same: a city dwelling couple inherit a massive old mansion called Button House from a distant relative of the wife. An accident enables the wife to see the ghosts who have died in the house or on the grounds. These ghosts represent various eras of British history from the Stone Age to the 1990’s.

The shows’ creators Joe Wiseman and Joe Port have worked on several previous CBS sitcom series. This background made their creative partnership the right choice to adapt Ghosts.

“One of the things we wrote four or five years ago was an unproduced pilot about vampires...

No two ways about it: April’s a great month for the Criterion Channel, which (among other things; more in a second) adds two recent favorites. We’re thrilled at the SVOD premiere of Hamaguchi’s entrancing Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy, our #3 of 2021, and Bruno Dumont’s lacerating France, featuring Léa Seydoux’s finest performance yet.

Ethan Hawke’s Adventures in Moviegoing runs the gamut from Eagle Pennell’s Last Night at the Alamo to 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, while a 14-film John Ford retro (mostly) skips westerns altogether. And no notes on the Delphine Seyrig retro—multiple by Akerman, Ulrike Ottinger, Duras, a smattering of Buñuel, and Seyrig’s own film Be Pretty and Shut Up! That of all things might be the crown jewl.

See the full list of April titles below and more on the Criterion Channel.

—

3 Bad Men, John Ford, 1926

Aar paar, Guru Dutt,...

This article contains Once Upon a Time in America spoilers.

The Godfather is a great movie, possibly the best ever made. Its sequel, The Godfather, Part II, often follows it in the pantheon of classic cinema, some critics even believe it is the better film. Robert Evans, head of production at Paramount in the early 1970s, wanted The Godfather to be directed by an Italian American. Francis Ford Coppola was very much a last resort. The studio’s first choice was Sergio Leone, but he was getting ready to make his own gangster epic, Once Upon a Time in America. Though less known, it is equally magnificent.

Robert De Niro, as David “Noodles” Aaronson, and James Woods, as Maximillian “Max” Bercovicz, make up a dream gangster film pairing in Once Upon a Time in America, on par with late 1930s audiences seeing Humphrey Bogart and James Cagney team for The Roaring Twenties...

“The Circle,” “Indian Matchmaking,” and “The American Barbecue Showdown” have all been renewed at Netflix.

“The Circle” has been renewed for both Seasons 4 and 5, with Season 3 of that series due to debut this fall. “Indian Matchmaking” and “The American Barbecue Showdown” have both been renewed for Season 2. In addition, Netflix has ordered the unscripted series “The Roaring Twenties,” which will follow eight twenty-somethings living together in Austin, TX.

Netflix has also announced that it is launching the largest ever open reality series casting call. Fans will be able to submit a video of themselves across a wide variety of reality genres at the new NetflixReality.com site.

“Whether you love competition or cooking, dating or decor, style or a social experiment, we might have a show for you — either now or someday soon,” said Brandon Riegg, vice president of unscripted and documentary series. “Just select a category and submit your...

This Perry Mason review contains spoilers.

Perry Mason Episode 2

Perry Mason, episode 2, “Chapter Two,” continues to differentiate itself from the classic TV series while taking notes from the Erle Stanley Gardner books. The novelized Perry Mason wasn’t above making up evidence, and Della Street (Juliet Rylance) was more than just an enabler. She actively misled the cops while the attorney at large pushed legal limits to get his clients off. Matthew Rhys’ Mason continues this ambiguity. He is both reluctant and determined, and it all seems to stem from his military duty.

The episode opens with a particularly nasty battle flashback, World War I trench fighting. The soldier Perry Mason has to move forward, actually push men forward, to almost certain death. In his very first step out of the trench he already has to step over a fallen comrade at arms. He’s going to have to make tougher decisions,...

Spoken today, such a statement might arouse contention and debate, but it is far from unthinkable or even impertinent—as it might have been, say, in 1954, the year that Truffaut penned his politique; or in 1966, when Jean-Pierre Léaud played a man named “Donald Siegel” in Godard’s Made in U.S.A.; or even in 1968, when Siegel was the subject of a career retrospective at London’s National Film Theatre and an entry in the “Expressive Esoterica” section of Andrew Sarris’ landmark The American Cinema. In a 1971 issue of Film Comment, film critic Jim Kitses was still able to dismiss Siegel as “a good commercial director, no more and no less,” relegating the “subversive idea—that the French... consider Siegel to be Hollywood’s most gifted filmmaker” to the purview of gossip columnist Joyce Haber (“nobody really believes that kind of thing in this town”). But the filmmaker’s reputation in the U.

Acclaimed stuntman and action director extraordinaire Jesse V. Johnson joins us to discuss the U.S. based action films and filmmakers that have influenced him the most.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

On The Waterfront (1954)

Fultah Fisher’s Boarding House (1922)

Undisputed (2002)

Undisputed II: Last Man Standing (2006)

Undisputed III: Redemption (2010)

Boyka: Undisputed (2016)

The Killer Elite (1975)

Convoy (1978)

The Osterman Weekend (1983)

Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia (1974)

Le Cercle Rouge (1970)

Straw Dogs (1971)

The Wild Bunch (1969)

Mr. Holland’s Opus (1995)

The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

The Birdcage (1996)

Cross of Iron (1977)

Electra Glide in Blue (1973)

Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry (1974)

Easy Rider (1969)

Fail Safe (1964)

The Cincinnati Kid (1965)

Ride The High Country (1962)

Major Dundee (1965)

Jinxed! (1982)

Beowulf (2007)

Kiss Me Deadly (1955)

Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (2019)

The Girl Hunters (1963)

Los Angeles Plays Itself (2003)

Point Blank (1967)

Falling Down (1993)

M (1951)

M (1931)

The Black Vampire (1953)

The Roaring Twenties (1939)

Scum (1979)

Elephant (1989)

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962), possibly Joe’s favorite John Ford...

Back in the early 1970s I was crazy about Depression-Era Warner Bros. movies, that weren’t being shown on TV or anywhere else. In that climate of deprivation, a documentary that used movie film clips from the period felt extremely fresh and new. Philippe Mora’s picture sees 1930s America through the movies, through music, and the evasions of official newsreels. Franklin Delano Roosevelt preaches prosperity while James Cagney slugs his way through the decade as a smart-tongued everyman — in a dozen different roles. This was a new kind of documentary info-tainment formula: applying old film footage to new purposes.

Brother Can You Spare a Dime

Blu-ray

The Sprocket Vault / Vci

1975 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 106 min.

Street Date October 1, 2019 / 24.95

Film Editor: Jeremy Thomas

Research by Michael Barlow, Jennifer E. Ryan, Susan Winslow

Produced by Sanford Lieberson, David Puttnam

Directed by Philippe Mora

Philippe Mora was an accomplished artist and documentary...

Francis Ford Coppola had already cemented his Hollywood legacy after a string of critical and commercial successes in the 1970s, but discussion of his filmography seems reluctant to consider the vast body of work that proceeded. Whereas films such as The Godfather, Apocalypse Now, and The Conversation heralded his expertise in transforming more conventional narrative structures and filmmaking practices, it is in his later work where one finds more revealing signs of his visionary talent.

The Cotton Club, Coppola’s sprawling tapestry of the Harlem Prohibition-era jazz scene, titled after the legendary club at its center, is simultaneously a prime example of both the filmmaker’s prowess with visual and narrative experimentation later on in his career, and of the tragic circumstances that brought about his fall from mainstream celebration. Perhaps unfairly maligned as a result of both its chaotic production and box office failings (and in spite of its...

Peaky Blinders' season five sees Irish actor Emmett J. Scanlan play Billy Grade, an ex-professional footballer and budding singer who reluctantly gets drafted into the Peaky Blinders gang. Having starred in numerous TV shows and movies, including Guardians of the Galaxy and The Fall, Scanlan is no stranger to our screens, but many of you probably know him best from his tenure on Hollyoaks. His résumé continues to impress with an upcoming role in the British crime drama Gangs of London. You can currently catch him on Treadstone, USA's Jason Bourne TV spinoff.

If you've been watching Peaky Blinders and wanted to know more about this scene-stealing star, read on for all the details.

Related: The Shelby Family May Be Fictional, but Peaky Blinders Definitely Isn't Just a TV Drama Emmett J. Scanlan was born on Jan. 31, 1979, in Dublin, Ireland. He studied history and sociology at Maynooth University before...

So much time, so few movies to see. Scratch that. Reverse it.

Running a little later than usual this year, the 2018 Turner Classic Movies Film Festival gets under way this coming Thursday, screening approximately 88 films and special programs over the course of the festival’s three-and-a-half days, beginning Thursday evening, and no doubt about it, this year’s schedule, no less than any other year, will lay out a banquet for classic film buffs, casual film fans and harder-core cinephiles looking for the opportunity to see long-time favorites as well as rare and unusual treats on the big screen. I’ve attended every festival since its inaugural run back in 2010, and since then if I have not reined in my enthusiasm for the festival and being given the opportunity to attend it every year, then I have at least managed to lasso my verbiage. That first year I wrote about...

I tell you it’s rough out there on Frisco Bay, especially when you say the word ‘Frisco’ within earshot of a proud San Francisco native. This Alan Ladd racketeering tale could have been written twenty years earlier, but it has Warner Color and the early, extra-wide iteration of the new movie attraction CinemaScope.

Hell on Frisco Bay

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1955 / Color / 2:55 widescreen Academy / 98 min. / Street Date , 2017 / available through the WBshop / 21.99

Starring: Alan Ladd, Edward G. Robinson, Joanne Dru, William Demarest, Paul Stewart, Perry Lopez, Fay Wray, Nestor Paiva, Willis Bouchey, Anthony Caruso, Tina Carver, Rod(ney) Taylor, Jayne Mansfield, Mae Marsh, Tito Vuolo.

Cinematography: John F. Seitz

Film Editor: Folmar Blangsted

Stunts: Paul Baxley

Original Music: Max Steiner

Written by Martin Rackin, Sydney Boehm from a book by William P. McGivern

Produced by George C. Berttholon, Alan Ladd

Directed by Frank Tuttle

Alan Ladd had always been...

It’s 1930s America as seen in the movies, through music, and the evasions of newsreels. Franklin Delano Roosevelt preaches prosperity while James Cagney slugs out the decade as a smart-tongued everyman — in a dozen different roles. Director Philippe Mora investigates what was then a new kind of revisionist info-tainment formula: applying old film footage to new purposes.

Brother Can You Spare a Dime

DVD

The Sprocket Vault

1975 / B&W / 1:33 flat full frame / 106 min. / Street Date ?, 2017 / available through The Sprocket Vault / 14.99 (also available in Blu-ray)

Film Editor: Jeremy Thomas

Research by Michael Barlow, Jennifer E. Ryan, Susan Winslow

Produced by Sanford Lieberson, David Puttnam

Directed by Philippe Mora

Years before he was briefly sidetracked into sequels for The Howling, Philippe Mora was an accomplished artist and documentary filmmaker. Backed by producers Sanford Lieberson and David Puttnam, his 1974 documentary Swastika pulled a controversial switch on the usual historical fare about...

Author: Dave Roper

So, we come to the end of this particular series. We’ve covered a number of aspects of the creative input into film-making, including actors, actresses, writers composers, and directors (in two parts). We’ve stopped short of costume, make-up, special effects, art design and others, however our final stop is Cinematography. The Dop exerts plenty of influence over the look of the film. Yes, lighting, production design and the director’s vision are key too, but the consistency and persistence with which certain directors stick with and return to a trusted Dop shows just how much they contribute.

Darius Khondji – Seven

Seven has a unique visual aesthetic. Plenty of films have gone for the “always raining, always dark” approach, but contrast Seven with something like AvP: Requiem for a shining example of how hard it is to pull off effectively. And contrast is the word. Seven...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveriesNEWSRadley Metzger's The Lickerish QuartetRadley Metzger, whose groundbreaking erotic films helped set standards of style for both mainstream and arthouse cinema, has died at 88. His classics Camille 2000 (1969) and The Lickerish Quartet (1970) were featured on Mubi last year. Critic and programmer Steve Macfarlane interviewed the director at Slant Magazine for the Film Society of Lincoln Center's 2014 retrospective devoted to Metzger.Recommended VIEWINGThe Cinémathèque française has been on a roll uploading video discussions that have taken place at their Paris cinema. This 34 minute talk is between Wes Anderson and director/producer Barbet Schroeder.The Criterion Collection has recently released a new edition of Michelangelo Antonioni's masterpiece Blow-Up, and has uploaded this stellar clip of actor David Hemmings speaking on a talk show about making the film.Recommended READINGHoward Hawks' ScarfaceHow does Chicago intertwine itself with crime and the culture created in the mix of the two?...

They say sex sells, but it never flew off the shelves quite like it did in the heyday of the studio system. Back then a guy didn’t need a six-pack to get us melting, though it didn’t hurt — just try to resist the swaggering muscularity of Brando, busting out of that white T-shirt in "A Streetcar Named Desire" (1951). What the stars had then was energy, suavity, glamour. Clark Gable drove us mad with the glint in his eye. Errol Flynn swashbuckled his way into our hearts. Cary Grant smooth-talked his way into our dreams. Humphrey Bogart was not this type of star. Read More: "How Turner Classic Movies and Fathom Events Bring Classics to Your Local Theater" Even in his early days playing second-tier gangsters in movies like "The Roaring Twenties" (1939), his face was slightly drawn, his voice as gritty as a gravel trap. Though he was the...

They say sex sells, but it never flew off the shelves quite like it did in the heyday of the studio system. Back then a guy didn’t need a six-pack to get us melting, though it didn’t hurt — just try to resist the swaggering muscularity of Brando, busting out of that white T-shirt in "A Streetcar Named Desire" (1951). What the stars had then was energy, suavity, glamour. Clark Gable drove us mad with the glint in his eye. Errol Flynn swashbuckled his way into our hearts. Cary Grant smooth-talked his way into our dreams. Humphrey Bogart was not this type of star. Read More: "How Turner Classic Movies and Fathom Events Bring Classics to Your Local Theater" Even in his early days playing second-tier gangsters in movies like "The Roaring Twenties" (1939), his face was slightly drawn, his voice as gritty as a gravel trap. Though he was the...

Gone With The Wink

By Subhash K Jha

Bombay Velvet

Starring Ranbir Kapoor, Anushka Sharma, Karan Johar, Satyadeep Mishra, Manish Choudhary, K K Menon

Directed by Anurag Kashyap

Smoke-filled hazy but hectic frames jostle for supremacy in Anurag Kashyap’s most stylish film to date.

So far all his gangland gaathas were fiercely homespun. Unkempt unwashed immoral sods firing their desi guns in the sugarcane fields of the Indian hinterland. In Bombay Velvet Kashyap jazzes up his gangland theme, spruces up his act, sharpens his claws and emerges with a story of q hustler’s rise to notoriety in the Mumbai …sorry, Bombay, of the 1960s.

The power of the gun is palpable. The ambience of smokey nightclubs and messy shootouts on darkly-lit sinister nights is impeccable. We can almost touch the terror.

Feel the fear, then, as Johnny Balraj (Ranbir Kapoor) sets out to become a ‘big-shot’ in Mumbai...

Author Matt Zoller Seitz has published a continuation of his superb book The Wes Anderson Collection (2013), entitled (deep breath) The Wes Anderson Collection: The Grand Budapest Hotel. The former is a detailed look at Anderson’s output so far, influences, meaning and interpretation of his work; the latter covers exclusively Anderson’s latest, The Grand Budapest Hotel. This is far more than a bolted on sequel, however, and one of the reasons we know this is because Clothes on Film editor Christopher Laverty was asked to contribute a chapter. More than that, it has recently joined The New York Times bestseller list.

A pretty, candy-coloured slab of hardback, Seitz’s follow up is meticulous, painstaking even; leaving no stone unturned on Wes Anderson’s most complete film yet. It features interviews with key members of cast and crew, including Anderson himself, and most exciting for readers of this website, a...

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel The Great Gatsby was published to great acclaim at the height of The Roaring Twenties. Today the book is still regarded as a literary classic and has been widely adapted into films, ballets and even computer games.

The novel paints a vivid picture of 1920’s New York, a world inhabited by flappers, moonshine and wild parties. A central part of the book’s plot revolves around the extravagant parties thrown every weekend by Jay Gatsby in which people from all areas of society went to drink, dance and ‘mingle’. The character of Gatsby is an eccentric and mysterious man whose obsession for his lost love, Daisy, drove him to become a self made millionaire in a strategically orchestrated bid to impress her. Gatsby’s parties were all thrown in the hopes that Daisy would one day walk through the door.

The parties were wild and decadent and all were welcome.

Cinema Retro has received the following press release:

Revisit 1939, Hollywood’s Greatest Year, with 4 New Blu-ray™ Debuts

The Golden Year Collection June 9

Features Newly Restored Blu-ray Debut of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Starring Charles Laughton, and Blu-ray Debuts of – Bette Davis’ Dark Victory, Errol Flynn’s Dodge City and Greta Garbo’s Ninotchka. Collection also includes Gone With the Wind.

Burbank, Calif. March 10, 2015 – On June 9, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment will celebrate one of the most prolific twelve months in Hollywood’s history with the 6-disc The Golden Year Collection. Leading the five-film set will be the Blu-ray debut of

The Hunchback of Notre Dame, in a new restoration which will have its world premiere at TCM’s Classic Film Festival beginning March 26 in Los Angeles. Charles Laughton and Maureen O’Hara star in Victor Hugo’s tragic tale which William Dieterle directed.

The other films featured in the Wbhe...

In his latest delightful entry, the Austrian Film Museum's Christoph Huber considers a couple of unconventional editing techniques born of necessity. Under consideration here are Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless (1960) and, by way of Raoul Walsh's The Roaring Twenties (1939), Robert Rossen’s All the King’s Men (1949). Also in today's roundup of news and views: Books on Zhang Yimou and Alfred Hitchcock, Marcel Carné’s Les Enfants du paradis at 70, interviews with Jacques Doillon, Peter Strickland, Veronika Lisková, Jan Soldat, Stine Marie Jacobsen, Adam Curtis, Chuck Palahniuk, Desiree Akhavan, Ira Sachs, Ben Stiller and more. » - David Hudson...

In his latest delightful entry, the Austrian Film Museum's Christoph Huber considers a couple of unconventional editing techniques born of necessity. Under consideration here are Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless (1960) and, by way of Raoul Walsh's The Roaring Twenties (1939), Robert Rossen’s All the King’s Men (1949). Also in today's roundup of news and views: Books on Zhang Yimou and Alfred Hitchcock, Marcel Carné’s Les Enfants du paradis at 70, interviews with Jacques Doillon, Peter Strickland, Veronika Lisková, Jan Soldat, Stine Marie Jacobsen, Adam Curtis, Chuck Palahniuk, Desiree Akhavan, Ira Sachs, Ben Stiller and more. » - David Hudson...

In his latest delightful entry, the Austrian Film Museum's Christoph Huber considers a couple of unconventional editing techniques born of necessity. Under consideration here are Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless (1960) and, by way of Raoul Walsh's The Roaring Twenties (1939), Robert Rossen’s All the King’s Men (1949). Also in today's roundup of news and views: Books on Zhang Yimou and Alfred Hitchcock, Marcel Carné’s Les Enfants du paradis at 70, interviews with Jacques Doillon, Peter Strickland, Veronika Lisková, Jan Soldat, Stine Marie Jacobsen, Adam Curtis, Chuck Palahniuk, Desiree Akhavan, Ira Sachs, Ben Stiller and more. » - David Hudson...

In his latest delightful entry, the Austrian Film Museum's Christoph Huber considers a couple of unconventional editing techniques born of necessity. Under consideration here are Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless (1960) and, by way of Raoul Walsh's The Roaring Twenties (1939), Robert Rossen’s All the King’s Men (1949). Also in today's roundup of news and views: Books on Zhang Yimou and Alfred Hitchcock, Marcel Carné’s Les Enfants du paradis at 70, interviews with Jacques Doillon, Peter Strickland, Veronika Lisková, Jan Soldat, Stine Marie Jacobsen, Adam Curtis, Chuck Palahniuk, Desiree Akhavan, Ira Sachs, Ben Stiller and more. » - David Hudson...

We examine the real story behind The French Connection, and look at how police procedural flicks were never the same afterward.

facebook

twitter

tumblr

The French Connection is a seminal work in cop movies. It was that first sniff that hooked the moviegoing public on Hollywood’s war on drugs. It changed the look and the dynamic of law enforcement on film by focusing on the worn heels and tires of street-level surveillance. The movie should be boring with all that waiting around and stealthy shadowing, but the pacing and the performances keep it moving at a breakneck pace comparable to chasing a subway. The French Connection is probably the closest Hollywood has come to a true on-the-street crime procedural in a blockbuster. Things that are cliché in cop movies now were invented here.

The French Connection screeched into theaters in 1971. It was directed by William Friedkin, produced by Philip D'Antoni,...

We examine the real story behind The French Connection, and look at how police procedural flicks were never the same afterwards...

Culture

The French Connection is a seminal work in cop movies. It was that first sniff that hooked the moviegoing public on Hollywood’s war on drugs. It changed the look and the dynamic of law enforcement on film by focusing on the worn heels and tires of street-level surveillance. The movie should be boring with all that waiting around and stealthy shadowing, but the pacing and the performances keep it moving at a breakneck pace comparable to chasing a subway. The French Connection is probably the closest Hollywood has come to a true on-the-street crime procedural in a blockbuster. Things that are clichés in cop movies now were invented here.

The French Connection screeched into theaters in 1971. It was directed by William Friedkin, produced by Philip D'Antoni and...

Tony Sokol Nov 28, 2019

You think your family is crazy? There are no families like mob families, and food scenes in gangster movies will kill you before they do.

Everybody knows the importance of food in mafia movies. The spread they lay out in The Godfather alone is enough to get your mouth watering. Sarah Vowell wrote an entire book deliciously entitled Take the Cannoli and she doesn’t even have a vowel at the end of her name. On TV, HBO’s The Sopranos put so much effort into the simple act of pouring wine that the very sound made me reach for peasant red.

These stories come out of real life. Mob bosses and captains did actually cook for and feed, not only their men, but the cops who were keeping surveillance outside. Not all of them, but enough. I happen to read a lot of true crime books,...

Veterans Day movies on TCM: From 'The Sullivans' to 'Patton' (photo: George C. Scott in 'Patton') This evening, Turner Classic Movies is presenting five war or war-related films in celebration of Veterans Day. For those outside the United States, Veterans Day is not to be confused with Memorial Day, which takes place in late May. (Scroll down to check out TCM's Veterans Day movie schedule.) It's good to be aware that in the last century alone, the U.S. has been involved in more than a dozen armed conflicts, from World War I to the invasion of Iraq, not including direct or indirect military interventions in countries as disparate as Iran, Guatemala, and Chile. As to be expected in a society that reveres people in uniform, American war movies have almost invariably glorified American soldiers even in those rare instances when they have dared to criticize the military establishment.

The Roaring Twenties screens this Friday night, October 17th at 7:30 at Webster University’s Winifred Moore Auditorium

The Roaring Twenties is at heart a swansong to a decade and one of the greatest of all gangster flicks. James Cagney and Raoul Walsh, the star and director team behind 1949’s masterpiece White Heat teamed up here for the first time. Cagney’s trademark persona is expertly captured by Walsh’s camera, and the story ties in all the classic gangster film elements including love, business, gunfights, rivalry and the male ego. The plot follows three Wwi veterans; one of which becomes a lawyer, another a bootlegger and the third (Cagney) the owner of a Taxi firm. The latter finds a lucrative business, which involves him brewing and selling alcohol, which was illegal at the time under the prohibition act.

James Cagney is definitely the star of The Roaring Twenties, but...

Boardwalk Empire, Season 5, Episode 1: “Golden Days for Boys & Girls”

Written by Howard Korder

Directed by Tim Van Patten

Airs Sundays at 9pm Est on HBO

There is an air of finality to even this first episode of Boardwalk Empire‘s final season. From the opening scene to the final moments, “Golden Days for Boys & Girls” has the distinct feeling of a ticking clock. Ironically while the episode takes its sweet time, from skipping out on several of the shows most notable characters to adding in recurring flashbacks of the childhood of the Thompsons, it only further solidifies the fact that this is the end. Like the last ruminating drink of a dying man, the simplest of things only matters more with the end in sight.

The shocking time jump from 1924 to 1931 establishes this with a sharp and quick brutality. The roaring twenties are long gone, and in their wake,...

Jim Knipfel Jul 3, 2019

Happy 4th of July! You know how "patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel?" These movies may seem patriotic, but have darker messages.

Patriotism is a funny animal, if only because no one can ever agree on what it means, exactly. Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin felt those citizens who questioned and rebeled against an intrusive government were the truest of patriots, while only a few years later John Adams outlawed badmouthing the government. Was Joe McCarthy a patriot for trying to defend the democracy against subversive encroaching communism, or a sweaty, paranoid, power-mad psychotic? Is Edward Snowden a patriot for letting the American people know what their government was up to, or history’s greatest traitor for revealing Us intelligence secrets to the whole world?

Well, you get the idea.

Still, for filmmakers patriotism has always been an easy card to play, and a sure-fire crowd pleaser.

Men in War

Written by Philip Yordan

Directed by Anthony Mann

USA, 1957

Director Anthony Mann was a specialist at genre filmmaking. From early crime dramas like T-Men and Raw Deal, to historical epics like El Cid and The Fall of the Roman Empire, he seemed to have a knack for working within — and working with — the conventions of a given generic formula. His Westerns, especially, are among the best that that particular type of movie has to offer. And when he set his sights on the war film, his natural aptitude for genre would be as prominent as it was anywhere. Men in War, from 1957, his second war film of the decade (released two years after Strategic Air Command), contains much of what makes Mann a distinct filmmaker, and reveals much of what makes the war film its own unique form of motion picture.

Set in Korea, 1950, Men in War...

Nobody wants to rock the boat when it comes to reassessing the classics, but face facts: Gregory's Girl is clunky, 2001: A Space Odyssey is never-ending, while Dirty Dancing is still brilliant

A few weeks ago I watched The Searchers, the 1956 John Ford horse opera that is routinely described by critics as one of the greatest films of all time. In 2008 the American Film Institute named it the finest western ever, as well as the 12th best American movie, while the British Film Institute slotted it in at number seven on the all-time greatest list.

Are these guys serious? The Searchers, which deals with a mysterious, morally ambivalent Johnny Reb's relentless quest to find – and perhaps kill – a niece abducted by marauding Comanches, is padded out to epic length with all sorts of daffy comedy. The gags and slapstick fistfights undercut the serious message of the film: that most white...

The years come and go but trends stay forever. This couldn't be more true for celebrity hairstyles. Like fashion, film and music, hair has a definitive stake in pop culture. Feeling nostalgic? Turn back the clock with celebrity hair that defined decades past and present.

1. 1920s: The Roaring Twenties was characterized by a national economic boom and extravagant urban living. Building on the glitz and gold was silent film star Clara Bow. The "It" actress was plagued by malicious rumors but became synonymous with the era's flapper style, especially her cropped curls. The iconic look is cited as a red carpet beauty inspiration even today.

2. 1930s: Jean Harlow was the face of the '30s. The MGM movie darling's features were similar to Bow's (thin eyebrows, perfect textural waves), however it was her shocking shade of blonde that set her apart. Her hairdresser Alfred Pagano admitted to coloring the 'blond bombshell's' locks with peroxide,...

The Wasteland:

Television is a gold goose that lays scrambled eggs;

and it is futile and probably fatal to beat it for not laying caviar.

Lee Loevinger

When people argue over the quality of television programming, both sides — it’s addictive crap v. underappreciated populist art — seem to forget one of the essentials about commercial TV. By definition, it is not a public service. It is not commercial TV’s job to enlighten, inform, educate, elevate, inspire, or offer insight. Frankly, it’s not even commercial TV’s job to entertain. Bottom line: its purpose is simply to deliver as many sets of eyes to advertisers as possible. As it happens, it tends to do this by offering various forms of entertainment, and occasionally by offering content that does enlighten, inform, etc., but a cynic would make the point that if TV could do the same job televising fish aimlessly swimming around an aquarium,...

I was able to watch quite a bit this week, finally finishing the last of Pierre Etaix's films -- As Long as You've Got Your Health and Land of Milk and Honey -- on Criterion's recent Blu-ray release, though I must admit, Land of Milk and Honey did nothing for me and it was the only one of the five features on the release I didn't finish, while I did watch all three of the included shorts. Also, the night after watching The Great Gatsby, I returned to the twenties with the 1939 James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart film The Roaring Twenties. While the title may suggest a shoot 'em up gangster flick, it does have those elements, but it was much slower than I expected, which isn't to say it was bad, simply it wasn't what I was necessarily craving at that moment. I'm sure I'll return to it,...