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When Warner Bros. Discovery pulled its catalog of original “Looney Tunes” cartoons from Max on March 16 in a reported effort to make the streaming service more “adult,” cinephiles were understandably upset. By removing all of the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts that were produced between 1930 and 1969, Warners made hundreds of the funniest and most influential cartoons in the history of animation — the work of masters like Tex Avery, Bob Clampett, and Frank Tashlin — vanish from streaming in an instant.

Yet the Looney Tunes classics are still available and hiding in plain sight, thanks to Warner Archive, a boutique physical media label nestled inside Warner Bros. that has been quietly preserving, restoring, and celebrating the studio’s artistic legacy for over 16 years.

A few months ago, Warner Archive released the 4-disc, 642-minute “Looney Tunes: Collector’s Choice – Vol. 1-4” collection on Blu-ray, and it’s only the latest example of...

Film historian Karina Longworth‘s “You Must Remember This” podcast has been beloved by cinephiles ever since it launched 11 years ago to explore “the secret and/or forgotten histories of Hollywood’s first century.” The latest season, “The Old Man Is Still Alive,” is Longworth’s most enlightening and entertaining to date. A deep dive into the late-career transformations of Hollywood legends, including Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock, and Otto Preminger, “The Old Man Is Still Alive” explores how veteran directors met the challenges of an evolving industry and changing tastes with varying degrees of artistic and commercial success.

The idea for the season began with a 2023 trip to the Cinémathèque Française, where Longworth saw Vincente Minnelli’s “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse” for the first time. “I thought of myself as a big Minnelli fan, and I had not even known this movie existed,” Longworth told IndieWire. “I went...

Out of all the great Westerns produced by Hollywood during John Wayne's time in the industry, both with and without the actor, one stands out as his all-time favorite. The Searchers, one of several Westerns John Wayne made in the 1950s, has been recognized as one of the actor's biggest and best contributions to the genre. And apparently, this is a notion shared by Wayne himself.

The Searchers was among the products of John Wayne's long and storied working relationship with John Ford. With Wayne as the star and Ford as the director, the pair collaborated on several movies, beginning with Stagecoach in 1939 and ending with Donovan's Reef in 1963. The two films bookended an impressive list of films, mostly Westerns. Their partnership seemed to peak in the 1950s, which was when they had multiple hits together. A tremendous part of that success stemmed from The Searchers.

John Wayne Thought...

John Wayne is an American institution, and that's kind of a pity. The films he made from the 1930s through the 1970s all presented what many consider the most persistent cinematic archetypes of old-world machismo. Wayne was a symbol of stalwart, unbending manliness, a testament to the power of being gruff and insoluble. It is, however, hard to accept him as a positive role model when one recalls how bigoted he was in life. Every few years, his 1971 interview with Playboy Magazine resurfaces and a new crowd discovers Wayne vaunting the values of white supremacy and flippantly excoriating minorities.

He also, in that interview, talked about the moral righteousness of his old Westerns, saying that Europeans were in the right for stealing American land from the First Nation people. He was pretty despicable.

But he was also one of the biggest movie stars of all time, and cinema lovers have...

NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.

Paris Theater

The Paris has reopened with a new Dolby Atmos screen and a 70mm series featuring The Wild Bunch, Baraka, Playtime, and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, as well as Blade Runner and Apocalypse Now in surround sound.

Roxy Cinema

Ahead of The Zone of Interest, Jonathan Glazer’s feature debut Sexy Beast plays on 35mm; Jean Eustache’s My Little Loves screens.

Museum of the Moving Image

Lost in Translation, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and House Party all show on 35mm; Ida Lupino’s Hard, Fast and Beautiful plays on 16mm.

Film Forum

An essential retrospective of Ousmane Sembène, featuring 35mm prints and new restorations, has begun, Michael Roemer’s great The Plot Against Harry screens on 35mm; Contempt continues in a 4K restoration; Billy Elliot plays on Sunday

Bam

The Battle of Chile, newly restored,...

Actress Yvette Mimieux, who starred in movies including “Where the Boys Are,” “The Time Machine,” “Light in the Piazza,” “Toys in the Attic,” “Dark of the Sun” and “The Picasso Summer,” died Tuesday. She was 80.

The beautiful blonde Mimieux made most of her films in the 1960s, but she was also among the stars of Disney’s 1979 sci-fi film “The Black Hole.”

Among the films Mimieux made in 1960 were MGM’s glossy teen movie “Where the Boys Are,” in which four coeds including Mimieux’s Melanie head to Fort Lauderdale for spring break in search of fun and the “right” boy, and George Pal’s adaptation of H.G. Wells’ “The Time Machine,” starring Rod Taylor and with Mimieux third billed as Weena, Taylor’s romantic interest, who lives among the Eloi, a peaceful race living in the year 802,701.

In 1962 she appeared in four films, including the big-budget critical and...

Considering the esteemed level of curation at the New York Film Festival, which begins this Friday at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, a comprehensive preview could mostly consist of the entire schedule.

There’s the gala slots, Main Slate selections, two films from Film Twitter phenom Hong Sang-soo, and much more, as well as a delectable line-up of restorations.

So rather than single all of these out for our preview, we’re looking at a handful of under-the-radar highlights from across the festival. Check them out below and return for our coverage.

Asako I & II (Ryûsuke Hamaguchi)

Best known for his five-hour drama Happy Hour, Ryûsuke Hamaguchi returned this year with the more palatable Asako I & II, clocking in at a mere 120 minutes. Following its bow in competition at Cannes Film Festival, the film will make its U.S. premiere at the New York Film Festival. Based on Tomoka Shibasaki’s novel,...

Morgan Neville's documentary on the making of Orson Welles's The Other Side Of The Wind is a 56th New York Film Festival Special Event Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

The Film Society of Lincoln Center has announced the 56th New York Film Festival Special Events program: Orson Welles's The Other Side Of The Wind with John Huston, Peter Bogdanovich, Oja Kodar, Edmund O’Brien, Susan Strasberg, Lilli Palmer, Paul Stewart, Mercedes McCambridge, Cameron Mitchell, Paul Mazursky, Henry Jaglom, Claude Chabrol, and Norman Foster plus Morgan Neville's They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead documentary on the making of The Other Side Of The Wind, and Rex Ingram's The Four Horsemen Of The Apocalypse, courtesy of Martin Scorsese, with a score written and performed by Matthew Nolan, Barry Adamson, Seán Mac Erlaine, Adrian Crowley, and Kevin Murphy.

Film Comment Presents: Nuri Bilge Ceylan's The Wild Pear Tree starring...

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

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

Was just saying to myself, ya know what we need? Another Dracula franchise. One that's meaty and filled with teeth, gore, supernatural beasts, and a good storyline that could carry the Og vampire for years to come. What we're getting is ... well .... oh, just read on.

According to THR, Crystal Sky will go into production this summer on Dracula: The 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse, to be shot on location in Romania. Pearry Reginald Teo (Necromentia) is directing with producer Steven Paul looking to cast a star in the lead.

“It’s the first installment in a franchise about a young, romantic Prince of Darkness, his Army of the Undead, and a series of events that shake Transylvania to its core,” said Paul, who calls the vampires “the bad boys” of their time. He said the intent is to create a Twilight-type franchise, which will spin off movie after movie in years to come.

The Hollywood Reporter spoke to Crystal Sky CEO Steven Paul, who revealed that the company is planning on making Tekken: Rise of the Tournament , based on the popular video games and a prequel to the 2010 movie Tekken . "Paul is hoping the prequel, directed by Prachya Pinkaew (Ong Bak), will get a domestic theatrical release although no deal is in place as yet. The movie will not have stars but will have actors who look like the characters in the video games," said the trade. Crystal Sky will also start filming Dracula: The 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse this summer in Romania under the direction of Pearry Reginald Teo ( Necromentia ). .It's the first installment in a franchise about a young, romantic Prince of Darkness, his Army of the Undead and a series...

Because you can never have too many movies about Dracula, Crystal Sky is currently prepping a new horror franchise called “Dracula: The 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse”, a film that they hope will spawn (of course) a potential movie franchise. If a new Dracula movie isn’t enough, Crystal Sky is also prepping a prequel to the live-action “Tekken” movie, to be called “Tekken: Rise of the Tournament”. And get this — they already have “Ong Bak” director Prachya Pinkaew attached to direct. In a chat with THR while selling their wares over at Cannes, Crystal Sky CEO Steven Paul revealed plans for their upcoming slate. There is a children’s dog movie, but I’m going to take a stab that you guys don’t care too much about that. But I bet you’re wondering what this “Dracula” movie of theirs is all about, huh? Well, glad you...

Crystal Sky, the production company whose names sounds more like a diet soft drink, has just announced plans for a Dracula film whose name sounds more like a Left Behind novel: The 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse. More after the jump. The last big-budget blockbuster Dracula film was Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula (pictured above). Now, according to The Hollywood Reporter, "Crystal Sky will go into production this summer on Dracula: The 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse, to be shot on location in Romania. Pearry Reginald Teo (Necromentia) is directing. [CEO Steven] Paul is looking to cast a star in the lead." "'It's the first installment in a franchise about a young, romantic Prince...

C. Thomas Howell, Tom Arnold and Brooke Langton are starring in Chilly Christmas, a family comedy centered around a boy and his gigantic dog that is part of an expanded slate of movies being offered for the first time at Cannes by Crystal Sky, according to CEO Steven Paul. Crystal Sky will go into production this summer on Dracula: The 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse, to be shot on location in Romania. Pearry Reginald Teo (Necromentia) is directing. Paul is looking to cast a star in the lead. “It’s the first installment in a franchise about a young, romantic Prince

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"At least you can see they're really trying to make a good festival," commented, with typical dry wit, one of the (very) few international colleagues the Brigade considers at least something of a crypto-Ferronian. Hard to argue with that, as Locarno's program still shows the signs of having to battle back and forth with the two heaviest lifters on the festival calendar, Cannes and Venice—yet mostly, the Ferroni Brigade had a grand time this year.

Of course, more often then not, when dispirited acquaintances met a merry Brigadier in between screenings, the answer to their inevitable question would be: "Coming from (and returning to) a retrospective, of course!"—but also among new films, we ended up with more truly interesting stuff than in the previous year. Not all of it true donkey material, for different reasons. Nevertheless, there were quite a few Ferronian pleasures out there, some of them more touching than others,...