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Amid the shocking news of a sequel, one of Bad Boys star Martin Lawrences most beloved action outings is all set to stream for free. Released back in 1999, the action-comedy Blue Streak sees Lawrence leading as a master thief who finds himself double-crossed, stashing the diamond hes just stolen on a construction site, and sent to prison. When hes released, he discovers that what was once a construction site is now a police station...and the diamond is buried somewhere inside.

You may not know this, but Blue Streak was, in fact, inspired by a British comedy from 1965 titled The Big Job. Taking its cues from that 60s caper, the action-comedy is directed by Les Mayfield and stars Martin Lawrence alongside Luke Wilson, Dave Chappelle, Peter Greene, Nicole Ari Parker, and William Forsythe. While Blue Streak was met with severely mixed reviews at the time, it saw success at the box office,...

Norman Spencer, the British producer, production manager and screenwriter who worked alongside famed director David Lean on films including Blithe Spirit, Great Expectations, The Bridge on the River Kwai and Lawrence of Arabia, has died. He was 110.

Spencer died Aug. 16 in Wimbledon three days after his birthday, the European Supercentenarian Organisation announced.

Apart from Lean, Spencer produced Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s Suddenly, Last Summer (1959), starring Elizabeth Taylor, Montgomery Clift and Katharine Hepburn; Richard C. Sarafian’s Vanishing Point (1971), the car chase movie that starred Barry Newman; and Richard Attenborough’s Cry Freedom (1987), starring Denzel Washington.

Spencer was Lean’s unit manager on the ghost comedy Blithe Spirit (1945), based on the Noël Coward play, and served as his production manager on his adaptations of Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations (1946) and Oliver Twist (1948).

He produced Lean’s The Passionate Friends (1949) and the Hepburn-starring, Venice-set Summertime (1955); worked on a rewrite of the script for...

Alexander Payne teased post-The Holdovers projects to an audience at the Sarajevo Film Festival on Sunday (August 18), providing an update on the Election sequel and saying he wants to make “a car chase movie.”

“Jim Taylor and I are conceiving what the sequel would look like now,” said Payne of the Election sequel, which is in the works at Paramount+. Taylor is a regular collaborator with Payne, including as co-writer on Downsizing and Sideways.

The film will be based on the 2022 sequel novel Tracy Flick Can’t Win by Tom Perrotta, who wrote the first book Election on which...

Along with being one of the finest shows in the history of television, the original run of Rod Serling's "The Twilight Zone" could function as a laboratory for advancements in visual effects. The often fantastical nature of the series, and Serling's desire to push the envelope of the still-developing medium's potential, was something of a creative sandbox for directors. As such, the show attracted not just aspiring young filmmakers like Richard Donner, Jack Smight, and Richard C. Sarafian, but established masters on the level of Jacques Tourneur, Don Siegel, and Norman Z. McLeod.

Douglas Heyes was more of a journeyman director when entered "The Twilight Zone." His experience and skill were highly valuable to Serling, who assigned him a total of nine episodes – the second most over the show's five seasons next to John Brahm's 12. Heyes' most celebrated episode is probably "Eye of the Beholder," the creepy tale...

Cars, it’s often been observed, offer a sort of contradiction of motion: They allow us to move around while sitting still. It only makes sense, then, that the movies have for so long been attracted to the allure of the automobile, for surely the appeal of the cinema lies in its capacity to take us from the comfort of the theater or living room to adventures around the world. The greatest car movies—movies about cars, largely set in cars, or otherwise significantly concerned with them—understand that our affection for our vehicles has as much to do with the possible freedoms they promise as the routines they let us uphold. Cars drive us to and from work every day, keeping our lives precisely ordered. But they also suggest escape: We’re always aware, faintly, that we could drive away from it all at any moment, out and off...

Lelia Goldoni, who sparkled as the lead in John Cassavettes’ Shadows and played a friend of Ellen Burstyn’s character in Martin Scorsese’s Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, has died. She was 86.

Goldoni died Saturday at The Actors Fund Home in Englewood, New Jersey, her friend Jd Sobol announced.

Goldoni also appeared in the original The Italian Job (1969), in John Schlesinger’s The Day of the Locust (1975), in Philip Kaufman’s remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) and in Robert Mulligan’s Bloodbrothers (1978).

A second cousin of famed New York Yankees shortstop Phil Rizzuto, Lelia Vita Goldoni was born in New York on Oct. 1, 1936. She was raised in Los Angeles, where she was one of the Lester Horton Dancers alongside Alvin Ailey and Carmen de Lavallade.

Goldoni studied acting with Jeff Corey and at age 19 moved back to New York, where she became a student at a drama...

Barry Newman alongside the iconic white Dodge Challenger in Vanishing Point

52 years after he became a cult icon by starring in Richard C Sarafian's Vanishing Point, Barry Newman has passed away. According to The Hollywood Reporter, he died of natural causes at NewYork-Presbyterian Columbia University Irving Medical Center.

The Boston-born actor, who originally trained as an anthropologist, appeared on Broadway and had small roles in a number of films and TV series before Vanishing Point made him a star, first in Europe and then in the US. He remained in the industry well into old age, retiring just eight years ago, and his career included appearances in Bowfinger, The Limey and, more recently, What The Bleep Do We Know!? He got back behind the wheel in 1972's Fear Is The Key, and continued to choose thrillers in his later years.

He is survived by his wife Angela....

Barry Newman, best known for starring in the action-thriller “Vanishing Point”, has died. He was 92.

Newman’s wife, Angela, confirmed the news of Newman’s death to The Hollywood Reporter on Sunday. The actor died of natural causes on May 11 at the NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center.

Newman had a number of smaller screen roles and performed on Broadway until he was cast in the 1971 car chase classic “Vanishing Point”, by director Richard C. Sarafian. He starred as a former race car driver named Kowalski who drives a Dodge Challenger across the US while avoiding cops and getting entangled in a deadly criminal conspiracy.

The film went on to be a cult classic and genre-defining epic that went on to be revered for its action set-pieces and proved to be influential on the next generation of blockbuster filmmakers.

Newman later went on to play defence lawyer Anthony J. Petrocelli...

Barry Newman, who was behind the wheel of a “super-charged” Dodge Challenger in Vanishing Point, a 1971 film featuring several breakneck police chases, and later starred as a defense attorney on the NBC series Petrocelli, has died. He was 92.

He died May 11 in a New York hospital, with his death confirmed by social media posts from friends. No cause has been established.

Newman had appeared on Broadway and the film The Lawyer (1970) (which later spun off into the TV series Petrocelli) when he was offered Vanishing Point. In the film, his drug-addicted character was tasked with delivering a car from Colorado to California, with the stipulation that if he could do it in 15 hours, his meth purchase would be free.

The film was directed by Richard C. Sarafian and became a cult classic, as Cleavon Little kept up a steady stream of radio chatter on the epic journey. No less than...

Actor Barry Newman, star of the 1971 hot rod classic “Vanishing Point”, has died at age 92.

Newman’s wife, Angela, told The Hollywood Reporter that Newman died May 11 at New York-Presbyterian Columbia University Irving Medical Center.

After appearing in Broadway, Newman was cast in 1970 feature “The Lawyer”. That led to a starring role in director Richard C. Sarafian’s 1971 “Vanishing Point”, which went on to become a cult classic that has influenced the likes of Steven Spielberg.

Read More: Canadian Actor Gordon Pinsent, Who Starred In ‘Away From Her’, Has Died At 92

Newman then reprised his role in “The Lawyer” — brash young attorney Anthony Petrocelli — in the 1974 made-for-tv movie “Night Games”, which was spun off as the series “Petrocelli”, which ran from 1974 until 1976.

Among Newman’s extensive list of credits are the TV movies “King Crab”, “City on Fire”, “Amy” and “Good Advice”, and TV series including “L.A. Law”, “Murder, She Wrote...

Barry Newman, who propelled a supercharged Dodge Challenger across the American West in Vanishing Point and portrayed a defense attorney on the NBC series Petrocelli, has died. He was 92.

Newman died May 11 of natural causes at NewYork-Presbyterian Columbia University Irving Medical Center, his wife, Angela, told The Hollywood Reporter.

After appearing on Broadway and starring in The Lawyer (1970), the Boston-born actor was up for a change of pace when he was offered the role of a man tasked with transporting a car from Denver to San Francisco in the action-packed Fox film Vanishing Point (1971), directed by Richard C. Sarafian.

“This was very unique,” he said. “I had just done this film about a lawyer, a Harvard graduate, and I thought this is a different kind of thing. The guy was the rebel, the antihero. I enjoyed doing that very much.”

Newman’s taciturn character, Kowalski, was a Vietnam veteran, former...

Nothing beats a good car chase in a movie. These wacky stunts are a hallmark of modern Hollywood blockbusters, but they've been around since silent films. Nowadays, car-centric flicks conjure images of "The Fast & Furious" and "Mad Max" franchises. However, action doesn't always have to be the focus.

Cars playing an integral part in developing a main character always hold more weight for me than a gonzo chase scene. We see a sense of isolation from society in movies like "Taxi Driver" and "Drive." Meanwhile, in John Carpenter's 1983 horror, "Christine," the auto becomes a ruthless death machine. The Stephen King adaptation makes for a clever metaphor about bullying, acceptance, and toxic masculinity in teens.

It would be unfair to say that a car movie can't be enjoyed without the profound social commentary of a Martin Scorsese film or the brooding touches of Nicolas Winding Refn. Sometimes, we crave high-octane...

There are times when something that’s almost human is more terrifying than an actual monster. After all, uneasiness often stems from things that come eerily close to resembling humanity. Roboticist Masahiro Mori explained why people feel this way with his 1970 essay about the “uncanny valley” effect, and ever since, society has better understood why they feel uncomfortable around things such as lifelike dolls.

The living doll shows up infrequently in the horror genre, but when it does, people take notice. They’re ultimately torn between curiosity and repulsion as these puppets gain sentience and carry out their sinister missions. Chucky and others have all skittered across the big screen, but these stories, from five different anthology series, are a reminder of how toy terror also lives on television.

The Twilight Zone (1959-1964)

Living Doll

Even on its last legs, Twilight Zone — by then, the series had already dropped the...

Ghostbusters: Afterlife director Jason Reitman takes hosts Joe Dante and Josh Olson on a journey through some of his favorite cinematic tonal shifts.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021)

Thank You For Smoking (2006)

Up In The Air (2009)

Juno (2007)

Young Adult (2011)

Citizen Kane (1941) – John Landis’s trailer commentary

Seven Samurai (1954) Brian Trenchard-Smith’s trailer commentary

Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

Rififi (1955)

Titane (2021)

Cannibal Girls (1973)

Raw (2016)

Hellraiser (1987)

A Serbian Film (2010)

Cast Away (2000)

What Lies Beneath (2000)

Million Dollar Baby (2004)

Downhill Racer (1968) – Glenn Erickson’s Criterion Blu-ray review

Breaking Away (1979)

Boys Don’t Cry (1999)

From Dusk Till Dawn (1996)

The Great Waldo Pepper (1975)

Psycho (1960) – John Landis’s trailer commentary, Randy Fuller’s wine pairings

Psycho (1998) – Ti West’s trailer commentary

Last Night In Soho (2021)

Funny Games (1997)

Funny Games (2008)

The Piano Teacher (2001) – Charlie Largent’s Criterion Blu-ray

I, The Jury (1982)

Mother! (2017)

Mulholland Drive (2001)

Tully (2018)

Gremlins (1984) – Glenn Erickson’s 4K Blu-ray review, Tfh’s 30th anniversary links...

There’s nothing like a good car chase in a movie. Maybe it’s the daring-do of the stunt drivers that makes you feel you’re in danger even though you’re comfortably in your seat, or the high stakes of the moment in which the characters we’re rooting for will either get out of the situation or have a gruesome finale, but an impressive car-chase scene can make even a mediocre movie a beloved classic. What makes a car chase legendary, you ask? They’re the ones that keep you at the edge of your seat and actually fit in with the rest of the plot. While the “Fast and Furious” movies have collectively taken the car chase to the next level, they don’t count. They’re far too CGI-enhanced. The 1970’s may have marked a new age in American cinema, but it was also a decade...

By John M. Whalen

In the opening scene of Republic Pictures “The Man Who Died Twice,” (1950) a car drives along a mountain road and two cops in a patrol car remark that it’s nightclub owner T. J. Brennon (Don Megowan) passing by. Next thing you know the car goes off a cliff and explodes in flames. Then a woman (Vera Ralston) gets out of a cab in front of her apartment building and looks up at the balcony where two men are fighting. She shrieks in horror as one of the men comes plummeting down and lands on the sidewalk at her feet. Splat! She watches as the other man climbs up a fire escape ladder to the roof. But not before a third man appears on the balcony and the guy on the fire escape shoots him. Vera Ralston faints from all the excitement and falls on the...

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.

There’s nothing like a good car chase in a movie. Maybe it’s the daring-do of the stunt drivers that makes you feel you’re in danger even though you’re comfortably in your seat, or the high stakes of the moment in which the characters we’re rooting for will either get out of the situation or have a gruesome finale, but an impressive car-chase scene can make even a mediocre movie a beloved classic. What makes a car chase legendary, you ask? They’re the ones that keep you at the edge of your seat and actually fit in with the rest of the plot.

Edgar Wright’s Baby Driver opens Wednesday, June 28th. Baby (Ansel Elgort), is an innocent-looking getaway driver who gets hardened criminals from point A to point B, with daredevil flair and a personal soundtrack running through his head. That’s because he...

Shock talks to veteran 70s action movie star Paul Koslo about his role in 1971’s The Omega Man. In 1971, actor Paul Koslo starred in director Richard Sarafian’s existential 1971 automobile thriller Vanishing Point. But that same year, Koslo also starred in the second adaptation of Richard Matheson’s influential novella I Am Legend, The Omega…

The post Interview: Actor Paul Koslo on the Making of The Omega Man appeared first on Shock Till You Drop.

By Alex Simon

Cars have been a staple of motion pictures since the earliest Keystone Kops two-reel comedies a century ago, usually providing fodder for chase scenes and general mayhem. Whether they’re breaking land-speed records, flying through the air defying laws of aerodynamics, or driven by intrepid heroes pursuing bad guys, cars and movies go together like…well, like movies and popcorn.Like movies and tickets. Like cars and tickets. Wait…let’s just get on with the list, shall we?

Here are the ten coolest cars in movie history, in no particular order:

1. Rendezvous: 1976 Mercedes-Benz 450Sel 6.9

Director Claude Lelouch mounted a camera on his 1976 Mercedes and tore through the early morning streets of Paris at breakneck speeds, cheating only slightly in post-production by overdubbing the sound of a Ferrari 275 Gtb engine with that of his Benz’s. Three people were in the car, with Lelouch at the wheel,...

Cinema’s Hidden Pearls – Part II

By Alex Simon

One of nature’s rarest items, a pearl is produced within the soft tissue (specifically the mantle) of a living shelled mollusk. Just like the shell of a clam, a pearl is composed of calcium carbonate in minute crystalline form, which has been deposited in concentric layers. Truly flawless pearls are infrequently produced in nature, and as a result, the pearl has become a metaphor for something rare, fine, admirable and valuable.

Hidden pearls exist in the world of movies, as well: films that, in spite of being brilliantly crafted and executed, never got the audience they deserved beyond a cult following.

Here are a few more of our favorite hidden pearls in the world of film:

1. Massacre at Central High (1976)

Dutch director, and former cameraman for the legendary Russ Meyer, Rene Daalder was hired by producers to direct an exploitation...

Stars: Gina Gershon, Jennifer Tilly, Joe Pantoliano, John P. Ryan, Christopher Meloni, Richard C. Sarafian, Mary Mara, Susie Bright | Written and Directed by The Wachowski Brothers

Watching Bound you can’t help but be impressed with its style and understand why people cite its importance to the Matrix movies which were the Wachowski next movies to work on. Then you realise that this was their first movie and see just why it is so impressive and brave. Bound is a modern noir that takes two female leads and puts them in the place of power and most importantly a realistic love affair. This may sound nothing surprising now, but at the time it had never been done in this style, especially by two writer/directors who wanted to make an impact in Hollywood. Now that it’s getting the Arrow Video treatment, it’s time for Bound to get the attention it definitely deserves.

By Lee Pfeiffer

Cinema Retro mourns the passing of director Richard C. Sarafian, who has passed away at age 83. Sarafian may not be a household name but in the film industry he was held in great regard, especially by maverick younger directors like Quentin Tarantino who emulated his work and style. Crusty, outspoken and often littering his sentences with curses that would make a longshoreman blush, Sarafian was an uncompromising man when it came to his personal visions of how his movies should be constructed. He started off directing episodes of classic TV series including I Spy and Batman and his best known work from the 1960s is the eerie "Living Doll" episode of The Twilight Zone in which Telly Savalas as a cruel stepfather gets his comeuppance at the hands of possessed toy doll. Sarafian graduated into feature films and directed the movie which gained him fame, if not fortune: Vanishing Point,...

Richard Sarafian, an influential film director whose 1971 countercultural car-chase thriller Vanishing Point brought him a decades-long cult following, has died in Southern California, his son said Saturday night.

Richard Sarafian died at a Santa Monica hospital on Wednesday of pneumonia contracted while he was recovering from a fall, Deran Sarafian told The Associated Press. He was 83.

Sarafian worked primarily in television in his early career, directing episodes of 60s shows like Gunsmoke, I Spy, and 77 Sunset Strip.

He also directed 1963′s “Living Doll” episode of The Twilight Zone, a chilling tale whose demonic main character Talky Tina terrified children for decades.

Richard Sarafian, who directed the 1971 thriller "Vanishing Point," as well as the 1963 "Living Doll" episode of "The Twilight Zone," has died at a Santa Monica hospital of pneumonia contracted while he was recovering from a fall. He was 83 years old. Sarafian worked primarily in television in his early career, directing episodes of 60s shows like "Gunsmoke," "I Spy," and "77 Sunset Strip." He went on to direct "Living Doll," a famous "Twilight Zone" episode about a killer doll named Talky Tina. The episode frightened children for decades, including Sarafian's own kids. His son, Deran Sarafian said that asa boy he thought "Living Doll" was one of the scariest things he's ever seen. It was only later that he learned that his father made it. But Sarafian was better known for "Vanishing Point," which inspired such filmmakers and actors as Warren Beatty and Sean Penn. Beatty cast the helmer as an actor in two of his films,...

Los Angeles (AP) — Richard Sarafian, an influential film director whose 1971 countercultural car-chase thriller Vanishing Point brought him a decades-long cult following, has died in Southern California, his son said Saturday night. Richard Sarafian died at a Santa Monica hospital on Wednesday of pneumonia contracted while he was recovering from a fall, son Deran Sarafian told The Associated Press. He was 83. Sarafian worked primarily in television in his early career, directing episodes of 60s shows like Gunsmoke, I Spy, and 77 Sunset Strip. He also directed 1963's "Living Doll" episode of The Twilight Zone, a chilling

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Richard C. Sarafian, best known as the director of the existential drive-in classic Vanishing Point, has died at the age of 83. Sarafian entered the art of film as a student at Nyu, where he took a screenwriting course as a lark while crashing and burning as a pre-med/pre-law student. After quitting college and enlisting in the military, Sarafian was sent to Kansas City as an Army reporter, where he met the then-unknown Robert Altman. The two soon became drinking buddies, and Altman cast Sarafian in a play he was directing. They eventually became family when Sarafian married Altman ...

Vanishing Point director Richard C. Sarafian died early this morning in Santa Monica of complications from pneumonia. He was 83. The New York City-born Sarafian had suffered a fall recently where he broke several ribs and his back. He contracted the infection while recovering from that incident, according to his son Daran Sarafian, also a helmer. Richard Sarafian’s direction of the iconic 1971 car pic was an inspiration to Quentin Tarantino, who gave the director a Special Thanks in the credits of 2007’s car-themed Death Proof. The director was also behind the camera of several early iconic TV series like Batman, I Spy, 77 Sunset Strip and Westerns including Gunsmoke. His last directing job was a 2011 episode of Zorro: The Legend Continues. Sarafian was a presence in front of the camera too: Among his acting gigs, his good friend Warren Beatty cast him in both Bullworth and Bugsy, and he also was...

I don’t know exactly what it was that I was looking for when I stumbled across IanHendry.com, a website for the British character actor who died too young in 1984, but in the site’s gallery I was knocked for six by this poster. I had no idea what the film was (George Segal, Orson Welles and Ursula Andress together at last?) and had never heard of the director Sidney Hayers, but a quick IMDb check revealed the film to be the 1969 British film The Southern Star, a “comedy adventure based on a Jules Verne novel about the ups and downs of jewel thieves in the wilds of Africa circa 1900,” and a film with a very different English-language poster as you can see here here. A search on the title on the Polish poster database CinemaPoster.com, revealed the designer to be one Andrzej Bertrandt, born 1938.

And then skimming...

Vanishing Point

Directed by Richard C. Sarafian

Written by Guillermo Cabrera Infante from a story outline by Malcom Hart

1971, USA

Belonging to countless late-sixties, early-Seventies American counterculture road films, Vanishing Point quickly became a cult classic of the car-movie genre. Richard Sarafian directed this minimalist chase film, starring Barry Newman as Kowalski, an ex-marine, ex-race car driver and ex-cop behind the wheel of a Dodge Charger – who must deliver the automobile from Colorado to San Francisco in less than 15 hours. After a run-in with highway patrol, a state-wide chase ensues. Along the way, Kowalski is aided by Super Soul – a blind, radio DJ who guides his journey using a police radio scanner. Much like Dennis Hopper’s Easy Rider (1969) and Monte Hellman’s Two-Lane Blacktop (1971), Vanishing Point sought to illustrate the tensions between the counterculture and the establishment, and in this case, across four states

Credit to script writer Guillermo Cain...

Veteran character actor Norman Alden, who appeared in numerous TV shows and movies over a career spanning five decades, has died. Alden was 87 and died July 27th in a Los Angeles nursing home, his longtime partner Linda Thieben said. His movie work included a role as a soda jerk in Back To The Future and he played a cameraman in Tim Burton’s Ed Wood. He also had parts in Tora! Tora! Tora!, I Never Promised You A Rose Garden and played the title character in Richard Sarafian’s Andy. Alden also provided voices for animated movies such as Walt Disney’s The Sword In The Stone and the 1986 Transformers: The Movie as well as multiple voice roles in animated TV series. His first TV appearance was on The Bob Cummings Show. Other TV work included The Life And Legend Of Wyatt Earp, Gunsmoke, The Untouchables, My Three Sons, Mary Hartman,...

I don't know how much real world demand there is for wheelmen, but it's a burgeoning field in the movies. It seems like there's someone always in the movies who needs a dangerous package transported or a steady-nerved getaway driver for a heist. That's certainly true this week, thanks to a movie featuring a new, and excellent movie wheelman: Ryan Gosling's Driver from Nicolas Winding Refn's "Drive."

In honor of Gosling's hammer-wielding, tire-squealing performance, we decided this was the perfect time to pick our five favorite wheelmen in movie history. Our qualifications for potential candidates were simple. They had to make their living as a driver -- so car thieves were out. They had to be willing to take dirty or illegal jobs -- so professional truckers were gone too. And they couldn't actually participate in the heists themselves. As Gosling's Driver says, "I don't sit in while...

No woman in her right mind can resist William Shatner's invitation for a drink in the club car.  No One!

Today's "Now That's ShActing" clip comes to us from a 1979 made-for-tv disaster pic called Disaster on the Coastliner.  Co-Starring Lloyd Bridges, Raymond Burr and my favorite Latin grammar actor E.G. Marshall, DotC was directed by Richard Sarafian, whose other work includes a TV remake of Splendor in the Grass with Melissa Gilbert and something called Lolly-Madonna XXX.

Check out the moment when Shat looks directly in the camera lens! What a bold choice.

This clip is part of the continuint Shatnerpalooza!

What is Shatnerpalooza, you ask?  It is a time where we step back and honor the sweetest thing to drip down from Canada since maple syrup.

The good people at Epix are counting down to their debut of The Captains, a documentary about the different men and women...

A man who works with his hands is a laborer;

a man who works with his hands and his brain is a craftsman;

but a man who works with his hands and his brain and his heart is an artist.

Louis Nizer

In his indispensable film study text, Understanding Movies, Louis Gianetti held forth on what separated craftsmanlike directors from those who rise above the norm:

“…what differentiates a great director from one who is merely competent is not so much a matter of what happens, but how things happen…”

In other words, Gianetti continued, the difference was in how effectively the director used form – visual style, composition, editing, mise en scene, and the rest of the directorial toolbox – to “…embody (a film’s) content.”

But with the rise of big budget blockbusters in the 70s and 80s, there came the ascendancy of a breed of director for whom content mattered less than form.

While it skews a bit more toward mystery/thriller than pure horror, this week's installment of Motion Picture Purgatory, Fragment of Fear, deals with themes of paranoia and alternate reality so well, we figured why not share it with our readers, especially those who may never have heard of this sweet slice of 1970s cinema before.

Directed by Richard C. Sarafian (Vanishing Point) and starring David Hemmings (Blow-Up, Gladiator), Gayle Hunnicutt (The Spiral Staircase, The Legend of Hell House), and Wilfrid Hyde-White (Chamber of Horrors, The Cat and the Canary), Fragment of Fear tells the tale of a young author who is plunged into a nightmare as he tries to solve his aunt's murder. When threats of violence, mysterious notes, and deadly phone calls shatter his life, the police and his girlfriend doubt the story due to his past as a drug addict - even though his life is in danger.

I have a bone to pick with many of today's films critics. Every time a director shows up at a film festival with a slow paced, meandering film critics of all stripes immediately compare that filmmaker to the legendary Terrence Malick, a filmmaker who is perhaps the most misunderstood of the last 50 years.

Sometimes the comparisons are obvious and actually make sense. Andrew Dominik's The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford did seem to be the bastard child of Badlands and Days of Heaven, but most of the time, as with recent efforts by New York filmmaker Kelly Reichardt and this year's Sundance film Little Birds, the Malick reference seems tangential at best. It seems to simply be shorthand for a movie that is meandering in narrative and lugubriously paced.

This makes me wonder which Terrence Malick these critics are referencing. It certainly can't be the...

"Like a bat out of Hell" is an appropriate way to describe how Drive Angry 3D, the latest bit of insanity from My Bloody Valentine director/editor Patrick Lussier, plays. It's loud. It's vicious. It knows precisely its place in the world of cinema, and for that alone, it becomes a recommendable piece of trashy and violent film. With Nicolas Cage at the wheel, Drive Angry delivers its entertainment with a Grindhouse mentality, a film that could just as easily have been directed by the likes of Jack Hill or Richard C. Sarafian had it found release in the 70s instead of today. Cage plays Milton, a man who has recently busted his way out of the prison that is Hell. His daughter and her husband have been killed and their baby taken by a cult of Satanists. With the aid of Piper, a tough-as-nails waitress played by Amber Heard,...

Thank you to all of our readers who have taken the time to write to us regarding their enthusiasm for Cinema Retro Movie Classics' tribute issue to Sergio Leone and Clint Eastwood's Dollar movie trilogy. Director Richard C. Sarafian (Vanishing Point, Man in the Wildnerness) knew Leone and relates that the great director once told him he had been inspired in part by episodes of Western TV series that Sarafian had directed early in his career. Sarafian said of the tribute issue, "It's brilliant. I devoured every single page." We then heard from David V. Picker, who was head of production at United Artists and is the man who put together the deal to release the trilogy in America. Picker said, "This issue is an astonishing tribute...the photos are literally jaw-dropping. It's a major achievement on every level."

If you already read Cinema Retro, then why not part...

I wrote in my last neo-noir retrospective review of The Long Goodbye (1973) that neo-noir films take "a self-reflexive approach to the narrative and stylistic tropes of the classical era." This was true of most of the films in this series thus far: The Long Goodbye (1973) in its 1970s interpretation of Philip Marlowe and Devil in a Blue Dress (1995) in its subversive infusion of race into the period milieu. The odd man out, as already mentioned in The Long Goodbye piece, was our kick-off film, P.T. Anderson's Hard Eight (1996), a film that is more classical in its approach to story and theme than its contemporary setting would suggest. Today's film, the Wachowski Brothers' debut Bound (1996), similar to The Crying Game (1992) before it, meets my definition of a neo-noir thanks to the simplicity inherent in subverting a standard generic convention: the depiction of the femme fatale's sexuality is inverted. In Bound,...

DVD Playhouse—March 2009

By

Allen Gardner

Let The Right One In (Magnolia) An awkward 12 year-old boy, ignored by his mother and the target of bullies, finds himself drawn to his new neighbor: a girl his own age who only appears at night, and seems herself to be as lonely an outcast as he. Haunting film from Sweden is best described as The 400 Blows meets Nosferatu, and contains some of the most haunting imagery of any film in recent memory. Truly a unique and memorable work. Bonuses: Deleted scenes; Featurette; Photo and poster gallery. Widescreen. Dolby 5.1 surround.

Paramount Centennial Collection Paramount offers two more classic titles, restored, remastered and loaded with extras. Alfred Hitchcock’s To Catch A Thief stars Cary Grant as a retired jewel thief trying to enjoy his sunset years on the French Riviera with a minimum of drama, until he catches the eye of a high-maintenance heiress (Grace Kelly,...

Chicago – Still trying to get over an Oscar hangover? There’s no better way to deflate the pomposity of awards season than with a wicked car chase. Of course, one of the best of all time hit Blu-Ray this week in the controversial Blu-Ray release of “The French Connection,” but the same studio also released another pair of movies dedicated to automobile aficionados and an animated sci-fi comedy when all the metal destruction gets too much to take.

Two of the best car movies of all time - 1971’s “Vanishing Point” and 1998’s “Ronin” - hit Blu-Ray for the first time this week and the final “Futurama” movie, “Into the Wild Green Yonder” also hit the format. All three of these titles were released on February 24th, 2009.

“Futurama: Into the Wild Green Yonder”

Photo credit: Fox I was as excited about the “Futurama” movies as much as anyone, but now...

By Neil Pedley

This week sees the opening of "The Dark Knight." Advance marketing and coverage might have you believe that that, apparently, is all, but there are other films coming out this week well worth your time. (Besides, "The Dark Knight" is totally going to be sold out.)

"A Very British Gangster"

With Britain in the midst of a youth crime epidemic, Irish investigative reporter Donald McIntyre takes an unflinching look at Dominic Noonan, a granddad of the English gangland who's spent over half his life behind bars. Having legally changed his name to Lattlay Fottfoy (an acronym of the Noonan motto . "Look After Those That Look After You; Fuck Off Those That Fuck Off You"), the openly gay head of Manchester's most notorious crime family shows off his gentler side as a man who uses his reputation to position himself as a "problem solver" more concerned with the...