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Award-winning country singer and actor Kris Kristofferson, star of films such as Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid and A Star Is Born, has sadly died at the age of 88, it has been confirmed. The news was announced by Kristofferson's family on his official Instagram account last night, with a statement reading as follows: “It is with a heavy heart that we share the news our husband/father/grandfather, Kris Kristofferson, passed away peacefully on Saturday, September 28 at home. We’re all so blessed for our time with him. Thank you for loving him all these many years, and when you see a rainbow, know he’s smiling down at us all.”

Born to Mary Ann and Lars Henry Kristofferson in Brownsville, Texas on 22 June, 1936, Kristoffer Kristofferson's pursuit of the creative arts began at a young age. Whilst his father's service in the U.S. Air Force seemed certain to push Kristofferson into a military career,...

Kris Kristofferson — the tough yet weary country music singer/songwriter behind “Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down” and “Help Me Make It Through the Night,” as well as the rugged leading man featured in romances like “A Star is Born” (1976) and westerns like “Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid” — has died at 88. He passed away in his home in Maui, Hawaii.

A statement released by his family reads, “We’re all so blessed for our time with him. Thank you for loving him all these many years, and when you see a rainbow, know he’s smiling down at us all.”

A proud son of South Texas, Kristofferson was also a military brat who often hopped around before finally settling in San Mateo, California. He went on to attend Pomona College where he excelled in rugby, American football, and track and field. At one point, he was even featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated.

Kris Kristofferson, the legendary country star turned superstar actor, has passed away at 88. No cause of death has yet been revealed, but Kristofferson retired from public life in 2021. While some of you reading this may know him best for playing Whistler in the Blade trilogy, his career goes much deeper than that, making him one of the most fascinating pop culture icons of his time.

Before he ever became an actor, Kristofferson was famous as a writer of country hits, including the immortal “Me and Bobby McGee,” later launching his own recording career, which included multiple Grammy wins and Gold records. But, even before that, he was quite accomplished, being a former Rhodes Scholar and captain in the U.S. Army. He famously turned down a teaching job (in English Lit) at West Point to focus on his musical career. He was seen as one of the leading figures in the Outlaw Country movement,...

The majority of Stephen King's novels (and many of his short stories) have been adapted into films or TV projects over the years, but there a few outliers that have yet to make the leap from page to screen. While it seems inevitable that sooner or later, every King work (with one notable exception) will be adapted, you have to wonder why some books have yet to materialize as movies. In 2016, King was asked by Deadline if there were any books he was surprised hadn't been adapted yet, and he had an answer: "The Regulators." If you came of age in the 1990s, as I did, and were a Stephen King nerd, as I was (and still am), you know all about "The Regulators," because it wasn't a normal Stephen King release. In fact, it technically wasn't even a Stephen King book — it was attributed to King's pseudonym, Richard Bachman.

We here at IndieWire love watching films on actual film — and cities like New York and Los Angeles, where repertory cinema is thriving, provide no shortage of opportunities to do just that. Scoping out selections in both major metropolises, we’ve compiled a list of the best screening options for the upcoming month, which include retrospectives on beloved auteurs featuring multiple 35mm prints, as well as 4K restorations of classic films that shouldn’t be missed.

In keeping with our appreciation for the theatrical experience throughout the country and world, IndieWire also gives a special shoutout to The Brattle Theatre of Cambridge, Massachusetts, as well as some of its stellar curation over the next month. Keep reading for our picks.

New York Film Forum ‘Blacula,’ William Marshall Courtesy Everett Collection

In anticipation of the new 4K restoration of Jean-Pierre Melville’s WWII French resistance drama “Army of Shadows,” which will...

Toro Loco is a re-run to the classic adventure films like ‘Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia’ & ‘El Mariachi’, and is directed by Patricio Valladares. The Toro Loco Blu-ray is available now from MegaCity Media. The son of a notorious mob lord hires the most ruthless hitman to kill his own wife and …

The post The cult-classic Toro Loco, a film by Patricio Valladares, returns in an all new exclusive release from Megacity Media! appeared first on Horror News | Hnn.

Toro Loco is a re-run to the classic adventure films like ‘Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia’ & ‘El Mariachi’, and is directed by Patricio Valladares. The Toro Loco Blu-ray is available now from MegaCity Media.

The son of a notorious mob lord hires the most ruthless hitman to kill his own wife and son. He hires Toro Loco. A cold, eccentric assassin, who brings Hell, always under his own twisted rules.

Patricio Valladares is a Chilean director, screenwriter, editor and producer. Known for his work in genre cinema Valladares has directed numerous features throughout the years.

Purchase Toro Loco:

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The post The cult-classic Toro Loco, a film by Patricio Valladares, returns in an all new exclusive release from Megacity Media! appeared first on Horror Asylum.

Garth Craven, the British-born sound and film editor and second-unit director whose credits included six Sam Peckinpah features, as well as Turner and Hooch, My Best Friend’s Wedding and Legally Blonde, has died. He was 84.

A resident of Malibu, Craven died May 20 after he suffered a medical emergency while flying back to Los Angeles from a safari in Namibia, his daughter, Willow Kalatchi, told The Hollywood Reporter.

Craven collaborated with the maverick director Peckinpah on Straw Dogs (1971), The Getaway (1972), Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (1973), Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974), The Killer Elite (1975) and Convoy (1978).

He worked with fellow editor Roger Spottiswoode on the first three of those films, and when Spottiswoode graduated to director, they partnered on the features Shoot to Kill (1988), Turner and Hooch (1989) and Air America (1990) and on two HBO telefilms: 1989’s Third Degree Burn and 1993’s And the Band Played On.

Craven also cut Gaby: A True Story...

Film and sound editor Garth Craven, who edited films including “Legally Blonde” and got his start in film editing with Sam Peckinpah’s “Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid,” died May 20 in Barcelona. He was 84.

His death was only recently announced by his daughter Willow.

Craven not only worked in the cutting room but also in sound departments and served as second unit director on several films. At the beginning of his career, Craven worked on Federico Fellini’s fantasy drama “Satyricon” (1969) in the sound editing department, which served as his introduction to filmmaking.

Back in England, he continued working on films in London. Resuming his work in the sound department, Craven received a BAFTA for the critically acclaimed romantic drama “The Go-Between” (1971) directed by Joseph Losey.

He eventually became a frequent collaborator and friend of Peckinpah. Craven worked as a sound consultant on “The Getaway,” a sound editor on “Straw Dogs,...

Nothing can look pretty gorgeous in widescreen, and there was quite a lot of it in the Australian New Wave of the '70s. The daunting expanse of the Outback provided the canvas for several classic films of the period, such as two masterpieces that were roughly analogous to the folk horror genre emerging in Britain around the same time: Nicholas Roeg's "Walkabout" and Ted Kotcheff's controversial "Wake in Fright." In these movies, the stark setting created a dislocating sense that white settlers don't belong in such a harsh and humbling environment, adding to their aura of unease.

Most of the notable films of the Aussie New Wave were set in the past or present but, as the '80s beckoned, the biggest hit of the bunch looked to the future in George Miller's "Mad Max." Unlike "Walkabout" and "Wake in Fright," which were both shot in the heart of the Outback,...

Gordon T. Dawson, known for his work on television series “Walker, Texas Ranger” and “Bret Maverick,” and his long association with Sam Peckinpah, has died. He was 84.

Dawson died in hospice in West Hills on March 6 due to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

His work in the industry spanned many facets, from child actor and wardrobe supervisor to script writer and producer. In his last television series, “Walker, Texas Ranger” starring Chuck Norris, Dawson worked as a writer, supervising producer and co-executive producer, writing 32 of the series episodes.

Dawson joined the Army at age 17, serving as a marksman and sharpshooter. Post-service, he became a fireman before landing a job at Columbia Pictures where he spent three months in the studio basement aging soldier uniforms for the film “Major Dundee.” When director Sam Peckinpah noticed that some of the extras did not have properly-aged uniforms, he shut down production and called Dawson...

Gordon T. Dawson, a costume designer-turned-screenwriter who worked on multiple movies with Sam Peckinpah and wrote on TV hits The Rockford Files and Walker, Texas Ranger among other films and series, died March 6 of pulmonary disease in West Hills, CA, his family announced. He was 84.

Related Story Hollywood & Media Deaths In 2023: Photo Gallery & Obituaries Related Story Stuart Margolin Dies: 'The Rockford Files' Two-Time Emmy Winner Was 82 Related Story Clarence Gilyard Jr Dies: 'Walker, Texas Ranger,' 'Matlock' & 'Die Hard' Actor Was 66

Dawson had worked as a fireman and had moved to working with costumes when Peckinpah used him to age costumes for his 1965 film Major Dundee. He would reteam with the director as wardrobe supervisor on 1969’s The Wild Bunch, then as associate producer (and uncredited writer) on 1970’s The Ballad of Cable Hogue and 1972’s The Getaway, and co-writer with Peckinpah on 1974’s...

Gordon T. Dawson, who parlayed a stint as a costumer for Sam Peckinpah into a career as a writer and producer with credits including The Ballad of Cable Hogue, The Rockford Files, Bret Maverick and Walker, Texas Ranger, has died. He was 84.

Dawson died March 6 in West Hills Hospital of complications from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, his family announced.

A former firefighter, Dawson spent three months in a Columbia Pictures basement using a blowtorch, paraffin and glue to age the principal soldier uniforms for the Peckinpah-directed Major Dundee (1965). When the extras’ costumes did not match the ones Dawson had prepared, Peckinpah shut down production on the first day of shooting.

Dawson was summoned to the set in Mexico to age the other costumes, noting in the 1993 documentary Sam Peckinpah: Man of Iron that he was “terrified” to meet the intimidating director. He needn’t have worried, though; Dawson fixed the other costumes,...

Legendary screenwriter and director Shane Black discusses some of his favorite movies with hosts Josh Olson and Joe Dante.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

The Last Boy Scout (1991)

Sweet Smell of Success (1957) – John Landis’s trailer commentary

High and Low (1963)

Hard Times (1975) – Josh Olson’s trailer commentary

The Good, The Bad And The Ugly (1966) – Ernest Dickerson’s trailer commentary, Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review, Glenn Erickson’s 4K Blu-ray review

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review

The Beguiled (1971) – John Landis’s trailer commentary

Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia (1974) – Josh Olson’s trailer commentary, Glenn Erickson’s Kino Lorber Blu-ray review, Glenn Erickson’s Twilight Time Blu-ray review

Convoy (1978) – Dennis Cozzalio’s review

8 Heads In A Duffel Bag (1997)

Diner (1982)

The Bodyguard (1992)

12 Angry Men (1957)

Godzilla vs. Kong (2021)

Fist of Fury a.k.a. The Chinese Connection (1972) – Larry Karaszewski’s trailer commentary...

A special two-part episode. From the movie Werewolves Within, director Josh Ruben discusses a few of his favorite movies. Then, Werewolves Within writer Mishna Wolff plays a game of “find the woman” in some of her favorite movies.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode Josh Ruben:

Werewolves Within (2021)

Werewolves On Wheels (1971) – Adam Rifkin’s trailer commentary

Wrath of Man (2021)

Trapped Ashes (2006)

The ’Burbs (1989) – Ti West’s trailer commentary

The Fly (1986)

To My Great Chagrin: The Unbelievable Story of Brother Theodore (2007)

Road To Perdition (2002)

Stephen King’s Cat’s Eye (1985)

Nightmare On Elm Street Part III: Dream Warriors (1987)

Flight of the Navigator (1986)

Grease (1978)

Honey I Blew Up The Kid (1992)

Big Top Pee-Wee (1988)

A History of Violence (2005)

The Dead (1987)

The Peanut Butter Solution (1985)

Irreversible (2002)

Hunter Hunter (2020)

Man Bites Dog (1992)

The Human Centipede: The First Sequence (2009)

A Serbian Film (2010)

Planes Trains And Automobiles (1987)

Lost In Translation (2003)

JFK (1991)

Home Alone (1990)

The Second Civil War (1997) – Glenn...

It’s oddly appropriate that grief-stricken widower Ted (David Sullivan) spends most of Jack C. Newell’s “Monuments” schlepping his wife’s ashes around the geographical midpoint of the continental U.S.A. This dippily surreal existential comedy — imagine Quentin Dupieux engineering a head-on collision between “Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia” and “Little Miss Sunshine” — feels like it’s born of the exact middle ground between the big-budget escapist mainstream and the hardcore arthouse “coasts” of American cinematic output. It’s in a flyover state of mind.

Any other year, no big deal — there has traditionally been no shortage of Sundance-y, SXSW-y low-budget American filmmaking to which the awful adjective “quirky” can be applied. But right now “Monuments” — which at least has no smirk in its quirk — getting a theatrical release makes a hopeful, daffy case for the U.S. indie still having a role to play in the polarized post-pandemic movie landscape.

No matter how many streaming platforms seem to pop up and demand your attention and subscription dollars, there are incredibly still movies that are just…missing. Not for streaming, not for rental, not for digital purchase, nothing. These movies are simply unavailable digitally. Maybe you can catch a cable broadcast or can find a DVD lying around, because chances are you’re not seeing a repertory screening of these either right now.

For years there were Disney movies, Studio Ghibli films, art house classics and James Cameron blockbusters that had no home, though that’s changed even within the last few months as HBO Max, Disney+. Criterion Channel and Peacock have all emerged, but there are still plenty that are not available at the push of a button. It can do with how Hollywood treats its film history, legal puzzles in terms of who owns what or the financial reality...

The Notebook Primer introduces readers to some of the most important figures, films, genres, and movements in film history.Above: The Great Train RobberyThe western has been around since nearly the advent of cinema. Some of Thomas Edison’s earliest films incorporated standard conventions of the genre, established in preceding works of popular fiction, and other key tropes were solidified in Edwin S. Porter’s pioneering The Great Train Robbery (1903). Primarily originating on the East Coast, American motion picture production soon made its general migration west where the geographic consequences only amplified the form, enticing the likes of producers and directors including Thomas Ince and Cecil B. DeMille. The western swiftly flourished as an exuberant, manifold survey of idealized, often exaggerated themes concerning heroism, progress, and the myth of the American dream. The genre became a beloved compendium of cultural dichotomies, iconic symbols, locations, and character types, evincing countless variations alongside the tried and true.

Gonzalo “Chalo” Gonzalez-Rubio died March 20 at Verdugo Hospital in Glendale of complications from a bacterial infection. He was 95.

The close associate of Sam Peckinpah worked as a prop master and graduated to film roles, including in 2006’s Sundance award-winning “Quinceanera.”

Producer Katy Haber, a Peckinpah associate from 1970 to 1977 used a military term to say: “Wherever Sam was, so was Chalo. Chalo had Sam’s 6 as they say.”

David Weddle, author of “If They Move… Kill ‘Em! The Life and Times of Sam Peckinpah,” writes: “Chalo Gonzalez played a pivotal role in the making of an American masterpiece, ‘The Wild Bunch.’ He was involved in all aspects of the production and was trusted implicitly by the film’s director, Sam Peckinpah. It was Chalo who advocated that the movie should be shot in Parras, Mexico, near the sites of several pivotal battles of the Mexican Revolution. This was one of the...

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...

Kleber Mendonça Filho and Juliano Dornelles on the first shot in Bacarau: “It’s also kind of an homage to John Carpenter’s opening for two of his films, Starman and The Thing.” Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Kleber Mendonça Filho and Juliano Dornelles' Bacurau, shot by Pedro Sotero, edited by Eduardo Serrano, costumes by Rita Azevedo, and starring Sônia Braga, Udo Kier and Bárbara Colen, had its world première at the Cannes Film Film Festival, where it won the jury prize (shared with Ladj Ly's Les Misérables). It was a highlight of the New York Film Festival. Bacurau is breathtaking from the start with Gal Costa singing Não Identificado by Caetano Veloso.

Sônia Braga is Domingas in Bacurau, not in Boyhood or Exit Through The Gift Shop Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

In the first instalment of my conversation with the directors, they make a connection to François Truffaut’s Fahrenheit 451...

“Deliver me from evil,” murmurs fisherman José (Arley De Jesús Carvallido Lobo) into clasped hands before he puts on his hat, steps into his canoe and sets off down the Magdalena River, delivering himself directly into evil. The placid waterway that is the thematic and geographical spine of writer-director Nicolás Rincón Gille’s unfeasibly gripping, slow-scorching feature debut flows through Colombia’s Bolivar region, and back in 2002, when “Valley of Souls” is set, it bore witness to untold barbarism as part of the nation’s drawn-out internal conflict. Gille imagines one such instance of arbitrary violence — tiny in the grand scheme of things — and creates from it a film of astonishing power, as the simple story of José’s quest to find the bodies of his murdered sons quietly floods its banks to become a mythic act of memorialization.

José, having hidden out for the night rather than cross...

Alabama musician, songwriter, and actor Donnie Fritts, an architect of Southern soul music whose songs were covered by dozens of artists from Waylon Jennings to Dusty Springfield, died Tuesday night. His publicist confirmed Fritts’ death at the age of 76.

Fritts’ friend and fellow songwriter Gary Nicholson posted a tribute to Fritts on Facebook early Wednesday morning, writing in part, “There aren’t words to describe what his loving friendship has meant to me through the years, so many songs and stories, it’s gonna take awhile to process this one.

In the mid-1980s, a common complaint among studio film distribution executives claimed there were just too many movies. What those moguls meant was that upstart independents, fueled by easy bank lending, junk bonds, and a seemingly bottomless well of home video revenue, were crowding screens with a sudden flush of, say, 450 films annually.

They didn’t like the squeeze. When Warner Communications acquired Lorimar-Telepictures in 1989 and closed its prolific movie division, I can even remember one Warner film executive explaining: “It was our turn to take one down.”

At the time, such thinking crossed my free-market, libertarian streak. Let a thousand flowers bloom, I said. The more the merrier! If all those companies (many of which quickly went broke) made too many movies, that meant more money for talent, and more entertainment for the rest of us.

But I’m beginning to wonder if the studio types didn’t have a point.

The 1977 New Zealand thriller Sleeping Dogs Starring Sam Neill and Warren Oates will be available on Blu-ray from Arrow Academy on April 17th

Adapted from C.K. Stead s novel Smith s Dream, Sleeping Dogs almost single-handedly kickstarted the New Zealand New Wave, demonstrating that homegrown feature films could resonate with both local and international audiences, and launching the big-screen careers of director Roger Donaldson (No Way Out, Species) and Sam Neill (Jurassic Park, Possession).

Neill in his first lead role in a feature plays Smith, a man escaping the break-up of his marriage by finding isolation on an island off the Coromandel Peninsula. As he settles into his new life, the country is experiencing its own turmoil: an oil embargo has led to martial law and civil war, into which Smith reluctantly finds himself increasingly involved.

Co-starring Warren Oates (Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia) as the commander...

‘Things Blowing Up Good’ has been surefire entertainment since the beginning of cinema, but this ill-fated Cinerama extravaganza about the biggest explosion in recorded human history limps along despite some pretty darned impressive volcanic effects. It’s quite an entertaining spectacle, with various good performers in three soap opera plots, either overacting or loitering about with nothing to do. And don’t forget the from-left-field musical striptease.

Krakatoa East of Java

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1969 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 131 min. / Street Date September 12, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Maximilian Schell, Diane Baker, Brian Keith, Barbara Werle, Sal Mineo, Rossano Brazzi, John Leyton, J.D. Cannon, Jacqueline (Jacqui) Chan, Victoria Young, Marc Lawrence, Geoffrey Holder, Niall MacGinnis, Sumi Haru.

Cinematography: Manuel Berenguer

Film Editors: Walter Hannemann, Warren Low, Maurice Rootes

Production Design: Eugèné Lourié

Costumes: Laure Lourié

Special Effects: Eugèné Lourié, Alex Weldon, Francisco Prósper

Original Music: Frank De Vol

Written by Clifford Newton Gould,...

“All the films in this book share an air of disreputability… I have tried to avoid using the word art about the movies in this book, not just because I didn’t want to inflate my claims for them, but because the word is used far too often to shut down discussion rather than open it up. If something has been acclaimed as art, it’s not just beyond criticism but often seen as above the mere mortals for whom its presumably been made. It’s a sealed artifact that offers no way in. It is as much a lie to claim we can be moved only by what has been given the imprimatur of art as it would be to deny that there are, in these scruffy movies, the very things we expect from art: avenues into human emotion and psychology, or into the character and texture of the time the films were made,...

We are knee-deep into a summer of dreary sequels, kids’ fare, and a few whip-smart outliers. If you’ve already seen the likes of The Beguiled and Baby Driver, perhaps staying home with a book is a better idea than trekking to the cinema. Let’s dive into some worthy film-centric reads.

Wonder Woman: The Art and Making of the Film by Sharon Gosling (Titan Books)

Patty Jenkins’ Wonder Woman is one of the biggest superhero success stories, and it deserves that designation. The classification makes reading a book like Wonder Woman: The Art and Making of the Film feel like a celebratory affair. After a brief account of the character’s comics history, we delve into designs for Themyscira, concept art of Dr. Maru’s laboratory, and somber depictions of battle. What stands out, however, are drawings and photographs showing the film’s winning costume designs. It is illuminating,...

The United States is “my country, right or wrong,” of course, and I consider myself a patriotic person, but I’ve never felt that patriotism meant blind fealty to the idea of America’s rightful dominance over global politics or culture, and certainly not to its alleged preferred status on God’s short list of favored nations, or that allegiance to said country was a license to justify or rationalize every instance of misguided, foolish, narrow-minded domestic or foreign policy.

In 2012, when this piece was first posted, it seemed like a good moment to throw the country’s history and contradictions into some sort of quick relief, and the most expedient way of doing that for me was to look at the way the United States (and the philosophies at its core) were reflected in the movies, and not just the ones which approached the country head-on as a subject.

Stop us if you've heard this one before: A group of criminals meet up for a gun deal. It goes bad – very bad. And the rest of the story, you ask? "Doesn't matter!" Martin Scorsese exclaims, laughing. "You don't need it. We're beyond that now." The burly, bearded man sitting next to him – British director Ben Wheatley – wholeheartedly agrees. "There's only, like, 12 characters in this movie anyway," he adds. "There are no twists, because it's either going to be that one or that one or that one. So what's the point?...

By Darren Allison

Attending a film festival in the mid-seventies, Sam Peckinpah was once questioned about how the studios regularly bastardised his vision, his intension and more specifically, if he would ever be able to make a ''pure Peckinpah'' picture. He replied, '’I did 'Alfredo Garcia' and I did it exactly the way I wanted to. Good or bad, like it or not, that was my film.''

The overall narrative for Alfredo Garcia is neither complicated nor convoluted. Warren Oates plays Bennie, a simple pianist residing in a squalid barroom in Mexico. He is approached by two no-nonsense Americans (Robert Webber and Gig Young) who are attempting to track down Alfredo Garcia. The womanising Garcia is the man responsible for the pregnancy of Theresa (Janine Maldonado) the teenage daughter of a powerful Mexican boss El Jefe (Emilio Fernández). In a display of power, El Jefe offers...

American cinema in the Seventies through to the early Nighties was populated with the kind of leading characters you don’t see enough of any more – no nonsense, amoral tough guys, often on the wrong side of the law, rugged complexions lines with life, who start off mean and don’t get any nicer by the closing credits.

Director Sam Peckinpah’s brilliantly brutal and bloody Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974) features a prime example of this. Bennie, played by Warren Oates (pictured above), is a down on his luck bartender whose ears prick up when $1 million dollars is offered for the titular, potentially suicidal deed – but as Bennie says, ‘nobody loses all the time’. It’s possibly Oates’s finest performance as the tequila-soaked bounty hunter who, the more outgunned he is, the more savage his becomes. It’s also one of Peckinpah’s greatest films, and nicely encapsulates the violent,...

To celebrate the release of Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia – out 23rd January on Blu-ray – we are giving away a copy courtesy of Arrow Video!

Sam Peckinpah’s most personal movie, Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia is often regarded as his last great masterpiece, concluding the period in which he also made The Wild Bunch and Straw Dogs.

Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia is a beautiful and heartbreaking film with astonishing performances from its two leads, Warren Oates and Isela Vega. Their love story plays out against Peckinpah’s trademark violence as they embark on a manhunt in order to make their fortune. Their commitment to their roles never wavers and they bring their characters to life extraordinarily, giving us a glimpse of the underbelly of humanity.

This gripping film is released with a brand new 4K restoration created exclusively for this limited edition Blu-ray,...

By John M. Whalen

Back in the 1950s, before he became a legend, filmmaker Sam Peckinpah (“The Wild Bunch,” “Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia,” and “The Killer Elite”) wrote scripts for TV westerns, including “Gunsmoke,” “The Rifleman,” and “Tombstone Territory.” His reputation grew and in 1957 he wrote his first screenplay entitled “The Glory Guys” which was based on Hoffman Birney’s novel, “The Dice of God.” The book was a fictional account of Custer and the Battle of the Little Big Horn, with all names changed. The script went unproduced for almost eight years, and in the meantime Sam had moved on, directing features including “The Deadly Companions” (1960), “Ride the High Country” (1962) and “Major Dundee” (1965).

You would think that with that growing resume, Peckinpah would have been able to direct anything he wanted to, but such was far from the case. “Bloody Sam,” as he was called, affectionately by his fans,...

An Encore Edition. Peckinpah's macabre South of the border shoot 'em up is back for a second limited edition, with a new commentary. It's still a picture sure to separate the Peckinpah lovers from the auteur tourists - it's grisly, grim and resolutely exploitative, but also has about it a streak of grimy honesty. Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia Blu-ray Twilight Time Encore Edition 1974 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 112 min. / Street Date September, 2016 / available through Screen Archives Entertainment / 29.95 Starring Warren Oates, Isela Vega, Robert Webber, Gig Young, Helmut Dantine, Emilio Fernández, Kris Kristofferson, Chano Urueta, Jorge Russek, Enrique Lucero, Janine Maldonado, Richard Bright, Sharon Peckinpah, Garner Simmons. Cinematography Álex Phillips Jr. Art Direction Agustín Ituarte Film Editors Garth Craven, Dennis E. Dolan, Sergio Ortega, Robbe Roberts Original Music Jerry Fielding Written by Sam Peckinpah, Gordon T. Dawson, Frank Kowalski Produced by Martin Baum, Helmut Dantine, Gordon T. Dawson Directed by...

We change things up by focusing on a boutique label, Twilight Time, that has found success through a unique business model. Mark and Aaron happen to be big fans, and feel that we have directly contributed towards some of their profits. We talk about the company, their business model, why they have succeeded, and we address some common critiques. We also review a few discs each, and finally count down our favorite Twilight Time titles.

About Nick Redman:

London-born Nick Redman, one of Hollywood’s leading producers of movie music, is also an award-winning documentary filmmaker. An Academy Award nominee as producer of the 1996 Warner Brothers documentary, The Wild Bunch: An Album in Montage, he went on to write, produce, and direct A Turning of the Earth: John Ford, John Wayne and The Searchers (1998), which became a prize-winner at multiple film festivals.

As a consultant to the Fox Music...

Frank Ocean: musician, visual-album releaser, list-making cinephile. Following on the heels of his latest album finally being made available to the eager public, Ocean has revealed his 100 favorite films. Originally posted on Genius, which has a breakdown of how movies like “The Little Mermaid” and “Eyes Wide Shut” made their way into his lyrics (“I’m feeling like Stanley Kubrick, this is some visionary shit/Been tryna film pleasure with my eyes wide shut but it keeps on moving”), the list contains a mix of familiar favorites (“Annie Hall,” “The Royal Tenenbaums”) and comparatively obscure arthouse fare (“Woyzeck,” “Sonatine”). Avail yourself of all 100 below.

“Atl”

“Un Chien Andalou”

“Blue Velvet”

“Barry Lyndon”

“Battleship Potemkin”

“Eraserhead”

“Chungking Express”

“Raging Bull”

“The Conformist”

“Bicycle Thieves”

“Taxi Driver”

“A Clockwork Orange”

“Mean Streets”

“Gods of the Plague”

“Persona”

“Mulholland Drive”

“Happy Together”

“Fallen Angels”

“Apocalypse Now”

“The Last Laugh”

“Pi”

“Full Metal Jacket...

After a few delays, Frank Ocean‘s Channel Orange follow-up, Blond, has now arrived and, with it, not only an additional visual album, but Boys Don’t Cry, a magazine that only a select few were able to get their hands on. (Although, if you believe the artist’s mom, we can expect a wider release soon.) In between a personal statement about his new work and a Kanye West poem about McDonalds, Ocean also listed his favorite films of all-time and we have the full list today.

Clocking at 207.23 hours, as Ocean notes, his list includes classics from Andrei Tarkovsky, David Lynch, Ingmar Bergman, Stanley Kubrick, Martin Scorsese, Orson Welles, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Jean Cocteau, Alfred Hitchcock, Francis Ford Coppola, Fritz Lang, Werner Herzog, Akira Kurosawa, Ridley Scott, Bernardo Bertolucci, Sergei Eisenstein, F. W. Murnau, Luis Buñuel, and more.

As for some more recent titles, it looks like The Royal Tenenbaums...

Nothing gets the blood flowing quite like a solid filmmaker retrospective, and this weekend, the Film Society at Lincoln Center in New York City is kicking off a doozy. Starting on Thursday, March 31, and running through the following Thursday, genre fans will be treated to a complete retrospective of the films of Sam Peckinpah. This series draws on previous programs at the Locarno Film Festival and in Parisian arthouses and will take a complete look at Peckinpah’s career, ranging from the director’s well-known pictures like The Wild Bunch to the less-screened cult hits like Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia. All told, twenty-two films will show in the next seven days, and I cannot wait to tell people how close I was to attending any of them. I pride myself on my ability to almost attend screenings. Since I live in New York, I’m on the email lists for all the major arthouses...

Since any New York cinephile has a nearly suffocating wealth of theatrical options, we figured it’d be best to compile some of the more worthwhile repertory showings into one handy list. Displayed below are a few of the city’s most reliable theaters and links to screenings of their weekend offerings — films you’re not likely to see in a theater again anytime soon, and many of which are, also, on 35mm. If you have a chance to attend any of these, we’re of the mind that it’s time extremely well-spent.

Metrograph

“Welcome to Metrograph: A-z” brings George A. Romero‘s greatest zombie picture, Day of the Dead, on Friday. Saturday includes Abbas Kiarostami‘s Close-Up, Robert Bresson‘s The Devil, Probably (also playing on Sunday), and Coming Apart; Sunday, see the Maggie Cheung-led Comrades: Almost a Love Story.

“Three Wiseman” offers two Wisemans: High School and Titicut Follies.

"She's a camp event and a celebrity and that's all and the last thing anybody needs is to make a giant bomb with her that any fool could see coming." —Scott Rudin, lover of many women. Akhmatova has a great poem, one of her Northern Elegies, which starts like this: I, like a river,Have been turned aside by this harsh age.I am a substitute. My life has flowedInto another channelAnd I do not recognize my shores. The poet uses the power of imagination to do a mild perversion of Proust’s Madeleine. Or not Proust, a realization of Heisenberg. To conjure an entire dead-cat life, another conditional mood persona, the ahistoric Akhmatova, who would have been. If this By the Sea, with all its creaky dollhouse dust, had been made by Rainer Werner Fassbinder or by Todd Haynes I bet you all $10 everybody (and Scott Rudin in particular) would be creaming their jeans.

Jinxed!I am leaving the Locarno Film Festival with two final movies in my heart, wonderful, punched-around old films that felt sunshine fresh. Sam Peckinpah's effortless, laconic rodeo family drama, Junior Bonner (1971), and Don Siegel's brash, one-of-a-kind comedy of Reno luck and murder, Jinxed! (1981), embodied for me the relaxed ease of this festival that allows its attendees to avoid the bullshit of the red carpet, of the film industry, of the all-pervasive hype machine, and embrace the too often unseen, unsung corners of cinema: the madcap, the modest, the experimental, the cracked-and-scratched old and the still-wet young.Floating in the placid center of Lake Maggiore or lifted high by funicular, gondola and ski lift to the top of Locarno's highest point, the over-lapped peaks of Swiss mountains completely ensconce this festival with nuzzling immensity, but also give the sense of an unusual isolation and remoteness to such a culturally essential event.

Above: Jerzy Flisak’s 1972 poster for The Ballad of Cable Hogue (Sam Peckinpah, USA, 1970)To coincide with the complete retrospective of the films of Sam Peckinpah currently running at the Locarno Film Festival, I thought I might try to select the best posters of one of my favorite directors. But when I looked at all the posters for Peckinpah’s films it was clear that the best Peckinpah posters were made in Poland. There are a couple of great American one sheets from the 1970s—those stark black and white photographs for Straw Dogs and The Getaway—but nothing quite matches these six Polish designs for visual panache. Jerzy Flisak’s typically witty and playful poster for the most light-hearted of Peckinpah Westerns, The Ballad of Cable Hogue, is one of Flisak’s greatest designs and one that beautifully encapsulates the story of an old prospector exploiting a well in the Arizona desert.

This article by Fernando Ganzo is an excerpt from Capricci's monograph Sam Peckinpah, edited by Ganzo, which accompanies this year's retrospective at the Locarno Film Festival.Warren Oates in Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia. © Park Circus / MGM“Don’t ever ruin your career as a loser with a shitty success.”—Jorge OteizaThere is only one thing that can be said about a person as erratic, contradictory, mythomaniac, complex and profound as Sam Peckinpah: here is a director who was made in the image of his characters, those men who belong to a different era, born too late, in a world that opposed all freedom and eccentricity. We like to describe Peckinpah as one of the fathers of New Hollywood, of the baroque aesthetic of the 1970s, as someone who had a primordial and often regrettable influence on that particular style. This is not completely false. However, this...

The United States is “my country, right or wrong,” of course, and I consider myself a patriotic person, but I’ve never felt that patriotism meant blind fealty to the idea of America’s rightful dominance over global politics or culture, and certainly not to its alleged preferred status on God’s short list of favored nations, or that allegiance to said country was a license to justify or rationalize every instance of misguided, foolish, narrow-minded domestic or foreign policy.

And now more than ever we seem to be living in a country poised at the edge of some sort of transition, with all the attendant tension and conflict and intense conviction that can be expected on either side of the chasm that prevents us from a true state of national togetherness. Just last week we celebrated a Supreme Court decision that finally offered legality (and legal protection) to the...

All week our writers will debate: Which was the greatest film year of the past half century. Click here for a complete list of our essays. It’s perhaps a little quaint to choose a year that I wasn’t even alive during to represent the best year of cinema. I was not there to observe how any of these films conversed with the culture around them when they were first screened. So, although I am choosing the glorious year of 1973, I am choosing not just due to a perusal of top ten lists that year—but because the films that were released that year greatly influenced how I engage with movies now, in 2015. Films speak to more than just the audiences that watch them—they speak to each other. Filmmakers inspire each other. Allusions are made. A patchwork begins. These are the movies of our lives. Having grown up with cinema in the 90s,...

All week long our writers will debate: Which was the greatest film year of the past half century.  Click here for a complete list of our essays. I was one of the first to select years for this particular exercise, which probably allowed me to select the correct year. The answer is, of course, 1974 and all other answers are wrong. No matter what your criteria happens to be, 1974 is going to come out on top. Again, this is not ambiguous or open to debate. We have to start, of course, with the best of the best. "Chinatown" is one of the greatest movies ever made. You can't structure a thriller better than Robert Towne and Roman Polanski do, nor shoot a Los Angeles movie better than John Alonzo has done. Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway give the best performances of their careers, which is no small achievement. If you ask...

Editor's Note: We're proud to announce that we are now the North American home for Locarno Film Festival Artistic Director Carlo Chatrian's blog. Chatrian has been writing thoughtful blog entries in Italian on Locarno's website since he took over as Director in late 2012, and now you can find the English translations here on Notebook as they're published. To kick things off, we're posting his piece on Sam Peckinpah, who was recently announced to be the subject of the festival's epic retrospective this year. The Locarno Film Festival will be taking place August 5th to 15th. ***The life of Sam Peckinpah sits like a splendid diamond set between two glorious eras for American cinema, one already on the decline and the other still to come. Retracing his career means looking as much at the great classical tradition that preceded him as at the new directors currently leaving their mark on the imagination.

Mandingo, a 1975 movie based on the best-selling period potboiler by Kyle Onstott about sexual shenanigans between masters and slaves on the Falconhurst slave-breeding plantation, was savaged by critics who saw it as nothing but degrading, big-budget exploitation. Roger Ebert called it “racist trash”, a “piece of manure”, and “excruciating to sit through”. Mandingo certainly had it all; brutal violence, interracial sex, rape, infanticide, lynchings, and abundant nudity including full-frontal shots of it’s male star, boxer Ken Norton. But of course it was a huge hit and inspired a brief run of “slaverysploitation” films such as Passion Plantation (1975 aka Black Emmanuelle, White Emmanuelle ) and the cleverly titled Mandiga (1976). Mandingo was overwrought melodrama to be sure, but it’s a model of subtlety compared to its official sequel, the more lascivious Drum, a mean-spirited trash epic from 1976 that would never fly in today’s politically correct climate. Despite its spaghetti western trappings,...

Peter Bart and Mike Fleming Jr. worked together for two decades at Daily Variety. In this occasional column, two old friends get together and grind their axes, mostly on the movie business.

Fleming: Birdman director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu told me he sees superhero movies as right-wing poison and cultural genocide for their simplistic values that stamp out human truths. Warner Bros’ Kevin Tsujihara told Wall Street his slumping film studio will turn around via a full program of 10 DC Comics tent poles to be released 2016-2020.

Will Smith and Tom Hardy are in talks to star in Fury director David Ayer’s Suicide Squad, and 2016 also brings Batman V Superman; 2017 brings Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman and Justice League; 2018 brings Ezra Miller as The Flash and Jason Momoa as Aquaman; 2019 brings Shazam and Justice League 2; Ray Fisher stars in Cyborg and a Green Lantern reboot arrives for 2020.

Besides the...