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John Cassavetes’ magnificent swan song, Love Streams receives the Criterion treatment this month, an addendum to the previously released five-title collection from the auteur. The film was surrounded and conceived amidst its own set of peculiar circumstances, and thus exhibits its own frenetic energy that sets it apart even within Cassavetes’ own oeuvre. After filming commenced, the director famously receiving a diagnosis that he would only live another six months due to cirrhosis of the liver. Unquestionably, this imbued his strange, wonderful, and reverential exploration of love’s complicated facets with a sharp melancholy. An adaptation of Ted Allan’s stage play, the film won the Golden Bear at the 1984 Berlin Film Festival, but wasn’t marketed properly and received a drowned out theatrical release. The film concerns the reunion of an estranged brother and sister, a pop writer Robert Harmon (John Cassavetes) and recent divorcee, Sarah Lawson (Gena Rowlands...

Love Streams

Directed by John Cassavetes

Written by Ted Allan and John Cassavetes

USA, 1984

Love Streams, John Cassavetes’ final film as an actor and penultimate film as director, is also one of his most unusual features. While his distinctive work can oftentimes be divisive, it’s easy to see how this film more than most others could be rather off-putting to those not appreciative of, or even accustomed to, his filmmaking technique.

Cassavetes adapted the film with Ted Allan, based on the latter’s play, and the film’s structure is one of the more vexing of its attributes. Dropped into two parallel lives, with little to no backstory, only gradually are we able to piece together certain details. First, there is Robert Harmon (a worn and weary Cassavetes, his failing health evident). Harmon is a writer, a drunk, and a womanizer, and he is supposedly working on a book about nightlife,...

The 1980s proved a difficult time for many notable American directors of the 1960s and 70s. Sure, filmmakers like Altman and Coppola came out on the other side of the decade with renewed vigor, and at least one – Scorsese – even managed to arguably realize some of the most interesting work of his career. But for others, the 1980s were a lost and endless horizon of work that was hard to come by compounded by life circumstances that were even harder to endure. Difficult men who lived hard and felt deeply now found themselves confronted with their most profound personal and professional limitations. After trying to reform himself in the wake of drug addiction and a damaged reputation, Hal Ashby died of pancreatic cancer in December 1988. Just over a month later, renowned independent filmmaker, theater director, writer, and actor John Cassavetes passed away of cirrhosis of the liver. Cassavetes was supposed to die five years earlier, when...

Next to Stan Lee, directing legend John Carpenter was most likely the biggest guest to grace Toronto’s FanExpo convention in 2012 and was certainly the guest that every horror fan wanted to see.

John Carpenter has always been one of those genre-bending directors that is equally comfortable jumping from horror film (Halloween, The Fog, Vampires) to science fiction films (Escape from New York, They Live, The Thing) but deep down has always been a filmmaker of westerns.

During the Q&A hosted by Rue Morgue Magazine editor Dave Alexander at FanExpo, John Carpenter touched on all areas of his career and why he Really loves the sequels and remakes of his movies.

Here are a few highlights…

Q: On being influenced by Hitchcock…..

John Carpenter: Well I was drawn to all types of movies when I was young. I saw Alfred Hitchcock films but I didn’t understand Alfred Hitchcock films.

Character actor John Finnegan has passed away. Known for his film work, as well as numerous appearances in the Peter Falk starring Columbio, the actor died last weekend at the age of 85. The Hollywood Reporter shared the news, stating that Finnegan died in his home on Sunday, from pneumonia and complications of old age. Finnegan may not have achieved superstardom in film and television, but his contributions to the industry were plentiful over his multi-decade career, and his participation in various television and film projects attest to that. In addition to playing the recurring role of Barney in Columbo, Finnegan's credits include The Natural, JFK and Big Trouble. He also voiced the role of the villainous conman - or technically, cat - Warren T. Rat in the 1986 animated film An American Tail. And among his relatively more recent credits, he was the dam tour guide giving the dam tour in...

What do you think of immediately when you think "exploding head"? Scanners, yes? Well, that film and many more are represented in a newly discovered "exploding head video montage" that culls many of our favorite scenes involving cranial damage.

From The Running Man to Chopping Mall, From Dusk Till Dawn to Dawn of the Dead, this is one video you may want to watch after setting aside your breakfast this morning. Kudos to the editing team for this wet, gruesome and loving display of carnage.

The films:

1. Hott Fuzz

2. Scanners

3. Dawn of the Dead (1978)

4. Dawn of the Dead (2004)

5. The Hills Have Eyes (2006)

6. The Prowler

7. Maniac

8. Tokyo Gore Police

9. The Last House on the Left (2009)

10. Inside

11. Spy Hard

12. Deadly Friend

13. The Proposition

14. Wild at Heart

15. Terror Firmer

16. Planet Terror

17. Bad Taste

18. Dead Alive / Braindead

19. Chopping Mall

20. From Dusk Till Dawn

21. Running Man

22. The Beyond

23. Pulp Fiction

24. The Frighteners

25. Men in Black

26. Mars Attacks!

There's nothin' better than seeing a head explode on the big screen. Head explosions are always a dementedly fun little movie shock. YouTube user iiAFX has created a video montage showing off 61 head explosions from 61 different films. It's safe to say that this video is Nsfw and if you have kids I would suggest not watching it in front of them because exploding heads are considered extremely bloody and violent. This video is just ridiculous, but if exploding heads is your thing then you're sure to enjoy it! Check it out and tell us what you think!

Movie List (in order with video):

1. Hott Fuzz

2. Scanners

3. Dawn of the Dead (1978)

4. Dawn of the Dead (2004)

5. The Hills Have Eyes (2006)

6. The Prowler

7. Maniac

8. Tokyo Gore Police

9. The Last House on the Left (2009)

10. Inside

11. Spy Hard

12. Deadly Friend

13. The Proposition

14. Wild at Heart

15. Terror Firmer

16. Planet Terror

17. Bad Taste

18. Dead Alive / Braindead...

Us actor whose success as the scruffy TV detective Columbo was complemented by a wide range of stage and screen roles

Show-business history records that the American actor Peter Falk, who has died aged 83, made his stage debut the year before he left high school, presciently cast as a detective. Despite the 17-year-old's fleeting success, he had no thoughts of pursuing acting as a career – if only because tough kids from the Bronx considered it an unsuitable job for a man. Just 24 years later, Falk made his first television appearance as the scruffy detective, Columbo, not only becoming the highest paid actor on television – commanding $500,000 an episode during the 1970s – but also the most famous.

Inevitably the lieutenant dedicated to unravelling the villainy of the wealthy and glamorous dominated his career, although – unlike some actors – he escaped the straitjacket, or in his case shabby raincoat, of typecasting. In addition to stage work,...

Stephen K Amos, Wallace and Gromit, Armstrong and Miller, Brimstone and the Psychoville Halloween Special. Plus great movies too in the coming week on UK TV!

This week, naturally, it's all about the scares and there are plenty of films and shows to provide the shivers for Halloween and the next seven days or so.

But the scheduling genies have also managed to squeeze in the laughs among the shrieks this week, for those too squeamish for the scream-inducing telly treats.

We start off with a newcomer to the eponymously named stand-up comedian sketch show club with The Stephen K Amos Show airing tonight, Friday, October 29th at 10:00pm on BBC2. There's plenty of room for series of this sort and we look forward, with a warm welcome, to Mr Amos' particular brand of funny stuff.

Those UK fans of the world's first loveable serial killer who managed to...

If there's only one thing John Cassavetes' films are known for, it's for the performances of his actors. The loose realism of the acting, filmed in his often bare cinema-verite style, is something that's become a signature of Cassavetes work, especially in heavily performance-centric films like Husbands and A Woman Under the Influence. Maybe because of this, he's often misconstrued as the master of improvisation, when in truth his works are often heavily scripted. His method, instead, was to let his actors bring their own take to the characters and improvise during rehearsals, some of which would then be incorporated into the shooting script..

This is why Cassavetes is probably the most interesting director to study on the set. Michael Ventura's great documentary I'm Almost Not Crazy is a good place to start, but it was only ever released in 1989 on a long out-of-print VHS. Luckily, it's available...