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Henry Fonda for President. From Fail Safe.“What America needs is a kind of self-demystification,” muses Alexander Horwath in his new documentary, Henry Fonda for President (2024). Horwath, an Austrian film historian and curator, believes this can be accomplished through the medium of Henry Fonda. He sees Fonda, in a decidedly concrete and nonmystical way, as America itself. To prove that thesis, Horwath has filmed an essay, not a biography, and his approach is deliberately eccentric. His own feelings about the US—what its history, principles, and delusions look like to an outsider’s eyes—are at least as much a part of this three-hour film as Fonda is.Horwath, though a deep admirer of Fonda, is not a conventional “fan.” He has no use for “TCM Remembers”–type tropes, even the ones audiences most expect, such as identifying costars; either you recognize John Carradine, Vera Miles, or young Anthony Quinn,...

Global entertainment studio Mff & Co has unveiled two major projects at this year’s Series Mania Festival, further expanding its slate of ambitious, socially conscious storytelling. The studio announced the development of “Pegasus,” based on the best-selling nonfiction book by Laurent Richard and Sandrine Rigaud, and “Lusus,” a psychological horror series inspired by a critically acclaimed BBC drama podcast.

The announcement marks a significant step in Mff & Co’s mission to create compelling content with a global impact. Co-founder and chief creative officer Estela Renner emphasized the studio’s commitment to meaningful storytelling, stating, “At Mff & Co, we’re driven by the power of great storytelling, stories that entertain boldly and resonate deeply, inspiring audiences everywhere. Our diverse slate of projects is intentionally built to connect locally while delivering universal appeal, sparking conversations that move culture forward and foster social innovation.”

Created by Amit Cohen and Ron Leshem, “Pegasus...

The Criterion Collection has unveiled their June 2025 releases, and it is an absolutely stacked one, with unnerving suspense, bureaucratic domination and whatever Sidney Lumet was going for with The Wiz.

One of the most anticipated releases in Criterion’s June slate is William Friedkin’s Sorcerer, a stellar remake of The Wages of Fear that flopped upon initial release but has since gone on to be considered one of the finest thrillers of the 1970s. Surprisingly, it is Friedkin’s first film ever in The Criterion Collection. The release, set as spine #1267, has a new 4K digital restoration, and has special features that include a feature-length documentary on Friedkin from 2018, numerous archival interviews, behind-the-scenes footage, and more. Sorcerer arrives on June 24th.

Another new title coming from Criterion this June is The Wiz, an adaptation of the Broadway show which was a reimagining of The Wizard of Oz. Nominated for...

A chilling throwback to cautionary Cold War-era fables like Fail Safe and Seven Days in May, the timely and taut six-part political conspiracy thriller Zero Day (from Narcos showrunner Eric Newman and NBC News alum Noah Oppenheim) juggles enough worst-case scenarios to turn the viewer into a basket case. In a rare TV role, Robert De Niro projects the necessary authority and gravitas to try to calm a frantic and fractured nation as former president George Mullen, a one-term leader who stepped down in the wake of a family tragedy. He’s called out of retirement by the current president (the formidable Angela Bassett) to head a commission to root out the unknown terrorists who paralyzed the U.S. with a sudden and devastating, though mercifully brief, cyberattack that hijacked American infrastructure and transportation, resulting in thousands of casualties. Netflix Causing alarm with the widespread warning, “This will happen again,...

Even though ER is credited as George Clooney’s breakout role, it’s surprisingly easy to forget his career started with a '90s television juggernaut. In 2000, two years after he departed the medical drama for Hollywood, Clooney and his ER co-star Noah Wyle reunited for Fail Safe, a made-for-tv film based on the book of the same name by Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler, as well as the 1964 movie adaptation directed by Sidney Lumet. Set in the early 1960s, Fail Safe supposes mutually assured destruction between the U.S. and Russia not solely because of existing Cold War paranoia, but also because of a technological error that spirals out of control.

Released in 1964, Dr. Strangelove is still considered a classic comedy, one of the most influential films of all time, and one of Stanley Kubrick's best movies. Filmed during the Cold War, it offered a darkly comic and satirical take on the political conflict and the very real possibility of nuclear war. Exploring how the world could end due to the actions of one unstable individual, it was terrifying in its implications, even as it laughed at them. What many fans of the movie don't know, is that another movie released the very same year that examined the same themes, but from a dark and realistic perspective.

Premiering less than nine months later, Fail Safe began with an electrical malfunction instead of orders from a madman but otherwise followed the same narrative. However, unlike Dr. Strangelove, this film took the idea of nuclear war seriously and delivered a chilling drama.

Stanley Kubrick wasn’t exactly known for being a laugh riot — although he did originally intend Eyes Wide Shut to be a Steve Martin farce. Nevertheless, the legendary filmmaking genius did happen to make one of the greatest comedies of all time: Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb starring Peter Sellers, Peter Sellers, George C. Scott and Peter Sellers.

Famously, Dr. Strangelove was originally going to be a very serious drama about the existential threat posed by nuclear weapons, based on the novel Red Alert by Peter George. That is, until Kubrick and his co-writer began cracking jokes during the writing process, at which point it morphed into a “nightmare comedy.”

But despite the fact that it was reworked into a satire starring Inspector Clouseau, it was still viewed as a potentially incendiary film by the American government.

Dr. Strangelove was released in...

Documentary filmmaker Joe Berlinger is reportedly going to direct a remake of nuclear war thriller Fail Safe, the 1964 film that lost out to Dr Strangelove.

Remakes are usually chosen based on brand recognition, so it’s a little surprising to wake up to the news that the 1964 nuclear war thriller Fail Safe might be getting a remake. The film will be directed by Joe Berlinger, previously better known as documentary filmmaker, though he’s also made a couple of narrative features, too, including 2019’s Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil And Vile, about the murderer Ted Bundy.

The original Fail Safe was directed by Sidney Lumet and featured a starry cast, including Henry Fonda, Walther Matthau and Fritz Weaver. It wasn’t long, though, before it became more widely remembered as the other nuclear war film released in 1964, since it was beaten to cinemas by the thematically similar Dr Strangelove, directed by...

Joe Berlinger, the groundbreaking U.S. director known for HBO’s Emmy-winning true crime docuseries “Paradise Lost,” is set to direct a feature film that will reimagine the cold war thriller “Fail-Safe.”

The 1962 novel by Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler, which was originally adapted for the big screen by Sidney Lumet, depicts a harrowing scenario in which a “fail-safe” mechanical failure jams the United States military’s chain of command and sends the country hurtling toward nuclear war with the Soviet Union.

According to a statement, Berlinger’s take on the novel will use a “faux-cinéma vérité approach” to “reimagine what the world would look like today had the events in the book really happened in 1967, with the total nuclear annihilation of New York and Moscow.” The film “will combine high-stakes international drama and classic documentary-style storytelling to reinvent the Cold War political thriller for new audiences.”

Lumet’s successful...

Jonathan Frakes' guest spot as Lieutenant Thomas Riker in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine season 3 is effectively a remake and Star Trek's version of the first Jack Ryan movie, The Hunt for Red October. Posing as Commander William Riker from Star Trek: The Next Generation, Thomas charms his way into Deep Space Nine with a nefarious agenda: Will Riker's transporter clone steals the USS Defiant to use as a weapon against the Cardassians, with Major Kira Nerys (Nana Visitor) aboard as Tom's prisoner. What's more, Riker reveals he quit Starfleet and joined the Maquis.

1990's The Hunt for Red October was the first big-screen blockbuster adapted from Tom Clancy's series of novels centering on CIA analyst Jack Ryan. In Red October, Captain Marko Ramius (Sean Connery) steals the Red October, the Soviet Union's most advanced nuclear submarine. As the United States and Soviet navies mobilize to hunt the Red October,...

The late, great Larry Hagman had an extensive filmography, but he's by far best known for playing J.R. Ewing in the primetime soap opera, Dallas (1978-1991), which is responsible for much of his net worth. The actor began his career on stage in summer stock productions. As he made his way to Broadway, Hagman also picked up small television parts. He got his big break when he was cast as Captain Anthony Nelson, Barbara Eden's love interest, in I Dream of Jeannie (1965-1970). But it was his role as Dallas' villainous oil baron J.R. Ewing that made him a star.

Hagman was born in Fort, Worth Texas to district attorney Benjamin Hagman and Mary Martin, who would go on to become a Broadway actress after Hagman's birth. Upon graduating high school in Texas, Hagman followed in his mother's footsteps and pursued acting. He enrolled in Bard College...

Born in 1920, Walter Matthau was a celebrated performer on both the stage and screen, known for his gruff, rumpled persona. Let’s take a look back at 15 of his greatest films, ranked worst to best.

Matthau turned to acting after serving in the United States Army Air Force during WWII. He became a frequent presence on the small screen with appearances in “Alfred Hitchcock Presents,” “Goodyear Playhouse,” and “The Du Pont Show of the Week” (which brought him an Emmy bid in 1963), to name a few. During this period he also appeared in several films, few of them comedies, including “A Face in the Crowd” (1957) and “Fail Safe” (1964).

At the same time, he gained increasing respect as a stage actor with Tony Award-winning performances in “A Shot in the Dark” (Featured Actor in a Play in 1962) and “The Odd Couple” (Actor in a Play in 1965). It was in the latter role of Oscar Madison,...

Election season is in the air and Turner Classic Movies is here to celebrate. Starting on September 6 and continuing every Friday up until this year’s general election, TCM will be running a nine-week limited series entitled “Making Change: The Most Significant Political Films of All Time.” This cinematic showcase is inspired by The New Republic rankings released in June 2023 and includes selections such as “All the King’s Men,” “Germany, Year Zero,” and “High and Low.”

To introduce the upcoming series, TCM host Ben Mankiewicz took to Washington D.C. for a trailer highlighting some of the films featured, as well as special guests like Stacey Abrams, Steven Spielberg, Spike Lee, and John Turturro.

“I grew up here in Washington D.C.,” Mankiewicz said, the Capitol Building behind him. “My father’s life was politics — capital P politics. Though I went in a different direction, I understood at an early age,...

In the run-up to Election Day, TCM is going after the movie lovers’ popular vote by showing 50 films over nine successive Fridays under the banner Making Change: The Most Significant Political Films of All Time.

The series runs Sept. 6 to Nov. 1 — four days before America votes for its next president — and features TCM host Ben Mankiewicz in conversation with the likes of Steven Spielberg, Spike Lee, Lee Grant, Sally Field, Andy Garcia, Melissa Etheridge, John Turturro, Bill Maher, Alexander Payne, Diane Lane, Josh Mankiewicz, Barry Levinson, Maureen Dowd, Stacey Abrams and former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.

Watch the trailer here.

Making Change showcases half of the movies unveiled by The New Republic in the rankings it released in June 2023. The films on TCM span the years 1915 to 2016 (from D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation to Raoul Peck’s I Am Not Your Negro); the whole thing kicks off with the No.

The TV war movie genre holds hidden gems like The Day After, delivering chilling realism and high-quality visuals. Fail Safe's live TV adaptation is a suspenseful masterpiece, exploring a no-win scenario with intense performances. The Pentagon Papers sheds light on historical events with strong performances, making it a must-watch war movie.

When thinking about the best war movies of all time, people tend to imagine the obvious Saving Private Ryan, Apocalypse Now, The Bridge Over the River Kwai, and many others. However, while these were all released in theaters, there are several war movies that will have slipped under most audiences radars. This isn't for lack of quality, but because they were released on TV and not in theaters.

The TV war movie is almost a genre in itself, with directors pressured into fitting a complex narrative into usually a shorter time frame and budget than the theatrical movies would have.

Hearing that Jesse Moss and Tony Gerber’s documentary concerns a war game conducted to test the country’s readiness for a national security crisis, it was easy to imagine a scenario involving an international threat posed by, say, China or Russia. No such luck. It turns out that War Game chronicles an exercise revolving around a threat from within, namely the sort of insurrection that occurred on Jan. 6, 2021. The film, receiving its U.S. theatrical premiere at NYC’s Film Forum, serves as a bracing reminder that such an event could occur again, and indeed seems even more likely should a certain Republican nominee for president decide to incite more violence.

The filmmakers have experience dealing with such concepts. Moss co-directed the acclaimed Boys State and Girls State, in which groups of young people attempted to form democratic governments; and Gerber and Moss made Full Battle Rattle, about the...

It's always fun when audiences experience the twin film phenomenon, the circumstance when two different movies with similar plots are released and produced by two different studios. Hollywood is like a small town in that everyone's connected and gossip runs amok. Scripts and ideas will get leaked to rival studios, and they attempt to capitalize on the same premise. Two romantic comedies about non-romantic sexual relationships, No Strings Attached and Friends With Benefits, were released in 2011. 1998 had an influx of disaster epics, Deep Impact and Armageddon, about an impact event threatening to destroy all life on Earth. Oddly enough, there were two magician-based movies set in the 19th century released in 2006, The Prestige and The Illusionist. No case of the twin movie phenomenon spoke to the cultural moment quite like the 1964 release of Dr. Strangelove, and its serious counterpart, Fail Safe, the gripping and unflinching Cold War drama that caused...

Sidney Lumet was the Oscar-nominated director who proved incredibly prolific during his career, directing over 40 movies in 50 years, from his feature debut “12 Angry Men” (1957) through his cinematic farewell “Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead” (2007). But how many of those titles remain classics? Let’s take a look back at 20 of his greatest films, ranked worst to best.

Born on June 25, 1924, Lumet got his start as a child actor, appearing in “One Third of a Nation” (1939) when he was 15 years old. After serving during WWII, he quickly began directing Off-Broadway plays before moving into the burgeoning medium of television, where he helmed hundreds of live teleplays. While working on episodes of “Playhouse 90,” “Kraft Theater” and many more, he honed his abilities to shoot quickly and economically.

His turned to movies with “12 Angry Men,” an adaptation of Reginald Rose‘s TV drama about a lone juror (Henry Fonda) holding out during a murder trial.

The terror in "The Twilight Zone" always comes from "What if?" What if there was a little boy with way too much power for anyone to tell him "no"? What if what you thought of as Heaven turned out to be more like Hell? What if man-eating aliens arrived and made humans as docile as lambs to the slaughter?

These questions may be outrageous fantasy, but the terror of them is timeless. We still watch "The Twilight Zone" decades later, and the best episodes can still leave you chilled -- all thanks to the imagination of series creator Rod Serling.

Serling is synonymous with "The Twilight Zone" even for casual viewers; one could call him TV's first auteur. His reputation was as much thanks to his on-camera work as his writing. Serling was the narrator of "The Twilight Zone," introducing and closing out each episode. (He got the job after...

Rochelle Oliver, who starred on Broadway in Lillian Hellman’s Toys in the Attic and Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and taught acting at New York’s respected Hb Studio since the 1970s, has died. She was 86.

Oliver died April 13, the Hb Studio announced. “Those who knew Rochelle will know what a luminous artist, sensitive and passionate teacher she was,” it said in an Instagram post. She died two days shy of her birthday.

For the big screen, Oliver starred in the Horton Foote-written 1918 (1985) and Courtship (1987) and appeared in such other films as The Happy Hooker (1975), Paul Mazursky‘s Next Stop, Greenwich Village (1976), John Sayles’ Lianna (1983), An Unremarkable Life (1989), Martin Brest’s Scent of a Woman (1992) and Woody Allen’s Hollywood Ending (2002).

She also recurred as Judge Grace Larkin on Law & Order from 1993-03.

A protégé of Uta Hagen — who also taught for decades at Hb and...

Ron Nyswaner will soon be traveling to New York to reunite with his Writers Guild of America East fellows for a grand occasion. The Oscar-nominated screenwriter, producer and showrunner has been selected to receive the Walter Bernstein Award at the 76th Writers Guild Awards at New York’s Edison Ballroom on April 14.

The honor — named after the late screenwriter who was blacklisted for his political views only to persevere and get his career back on track with such credits as Fail-Safe, Semi-Tough and Yanks — is presented to writers “who have demonstrated with creativity, grace and bravery a willingness to confront social injustice in the face of adversity,” per the organization.

Nyswaner has been doing that for pretty much his entire career. A prime example is Jonathan Demme’s 1993 film Philadelphia. Penned by Nyswaner, the Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington-starrer was the first major Hollywood film to dramatize the real-world...

Ron Nyswaner, the Oscar-nominated screenwriter behind films including Philadelphia and The Painted Veil and most recently the Matt Bomer-starring Showtime miniseries Fellow Travelers, is receiving this year’s Walter Bernstein Award from the Writers Guild of America East.

The honor will be bestowed April 14 at the WGA Awards’ East Coast ceremony in New York, which takes place concurrently with the WGA’s West Coast ceremony in Los Angeles.

The Bernstein award goes to writers “who have demonstrated with creativity, grace and bravery a willingness to confront social injustice in the face of adversity.” Nyswaner becomes the second person to win the award, after Jelani Cobb won in 2017 for his Frontline documentary Policing the Police.

Nyswaner penned the original screenplay for Philadelphia, which was groundbreaking when the Jonathan Demme-directed film starring Tom Hanks debuted in 1993; it was the first major motion picture to focus on the discrimination suffered by people with AIDS,...

On Jan. 29, 1964, a triple premiere — in New York, London and Toronto — launched one of Stanley Kubrick’s signature masterpieces into the chilly Cold War atmosphere: Dr. Strangelove, with the marquee-challenging subtitle Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. Kubrick described it as a “nightmare comedy.” Sixty years later, the comedy still works, but the immediacy of the nightmare may be missed.

Shot in Shepperton Studios outside of London from February through November 1963, Dr. Strangelove was conceived and realized in the shadow of a real-life nightmare scenario that no one laughed at: the Cuban Missile Crisis, which unfolded over 13 terrifying days in October 1962.

On Oct. 14, 1962, a U-2 spy plane detected facilities for the launching of nuclear ballistic missiles from Cuba, a Soviet client state since 1959. President John F. Kennedy convened an executive committee of the National Security Council to consider options. The consensus from the Joint Chiefs...

Stanley Kubrick’s sharp and persuasive comedy about nuclear war remains a hilarious act of provocation

Sixty years ago, Columbia Pictures released the first of two black-and-white movies with the exact same premise: what if American planes with hydrogen bombs were inadvertently ordered to drop their payload on targets in the Soviet Union, potentially triggering an all-out nuclear war that wipe out humanity? The Cuban missile crisis had pushed the superpowers to the brink of conflict less than two years earlier, and film-makers were unusually eager to face their cold war nightmares head on.

The release dates were like a reversal of Karl Marx’s famous line about how history repeats itself, “first as a tragedy, second as a farce”. The farce, Stanley Kubrick’s Dr Strangelove, came first. Then the tragedy, Sidney Lumet’s Fail Safe, arrived in October. There was a lot of messy legal fallout over the...

"Jaws" is an immortal classic, but decades on from its 1975 release, several of the movie's principal players have left us. Peter Benchley, the source novel's author and the film's co-writer turned shark conservationist, passed in 2006. Robert Shaw, who played the shark-hating fisherman Quint, died in 1978, a mere three years after the premiere of "Jaws." Shaw still left his mark on film history thanks to his masterful monologue about Quint's experience during the sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis.

Of course, the biggest winner of "Jaws" was director Steven Spielberg, who entered the production of "Jaws" as a scrappy young upstart and turned it into his first rung while climbing the Hollywood lader. Spielberg is the most influential American filmmaker of his generation and the ones that have followed. He's never lost his magic touch either, so we can only hope and pray he stays with us even longer.

In the years since then,...

Ever since movies began, filmmakers have depicted the end of the world of the world on screen whether it be from floods, asteroids, comets, alien invasion and even Zombies. But cinema went nuclear after the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August, 1945. The arrival of the nuclear age heralded the introduction of a new sub-genre: destruction by atomic bomb. And with the release July 21 of Christopher Nolan’s lauded “Oppenheimer,” which domestically earned some $70 million in its opening weekend, let’s look at some of the vintage flicks of the genre.

Nuclear destruction of London is stopped at the last moment in the taut 1950 British film “Seven Days to Noon,” directed by John and Roy Boulting and winners of the original story Oscar, stars veteran character actor Barry Jones as a brilliant scientist working at an atomic research center in London who steals an A-bomb that...

Warning! Spoilers ahead for Batman #133!It looks like the newest enemy of the Dark Knight has a power that may give him a terrifying edge over Batman. Red Mask reveals a hidden ability that is certain to give Bruce Wayne trouble down the line.

In Batman #133 by Chip Zdarsky and Mike Hawthorne, Bruce is now fighting back against the corrupt forces that occupy a variant of Gotham City. Donning a new Batsuit, he tracks down a disturbing version of the Riddler, who is in the middle of playing twisted mind games with terrified children. Thankfully, Batman saves the day and sends the demented Riddler straight into the infirmary.

Unfortunately, the person tasked with relaying this information is Selina Kyle, who is working for the mysterious warden of Arkham Asylum, Red Mask. As Selina begins to question Red Mask's motives and his use of children in his experiments, the man strikes at Selina.

David Chiang was a child actor before he joined the Shaw Brothers Studio as a stuntman and fight instructor; after seeing potential in him, director Chang Chen started to groom him. After the sudden departure of their biggest star, Jimmy Wang Yu, Shaw was looking for a replacement which led to the pairing of Chiang and Ti Lung in films like “Dead End” and “Have Sword, Will Travel” in 1969. However, with “The Wandering Swordsman” Chiang had a chance to shine as a solo leading star without Ti Lung hanging around him.

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The film kicks off with a happy-go-lucky nameless young man (David Chiang) who prefers people to call him the “Wandering Swordsman”, quietly trailing two bandits who plan to rob a rich family. He shows up later and takes the loot from one of them during their getaway and...

Warning! Spoilers for Batman #132 ahead!

His new arc has placed him a long way from any of the Robins, but in their place, Batman gets a brand-new partner: Jewel. At the conclusion of the recent "Failsafe" arc, the title villain eliminates Batman with one last fatal blast, but rather than killing him, the bast shoots Batman into an alternate reality. In this universe, Alfred is still alive, Bruce Wayne is dead, and an Orwellian Gotham City is overrun by militarized police officers juiced with Venom who will send the average citizen to Arkham at the drop of a hat. Now a fish out of water, the displaced Bruce Wayne has few allies he can turn to, besides one pedestrian who he meets on his new journey. Her name is Julie, but she goes by the name Jewel.

Two issues into Jewel's debut thus far, very little is known about Batman's latest sidekick yet.

Warning! Spoilers ahead for Batman #132!Batman's iconic foe Two-Face has just gotten a terrifying makeover that has turned him into a new Bane-like villain. Batman #132 reveals how a variant of Harvey Dent has become an even more tragic version of his Prime Earth counterpart.

Of all of the Dark Knight's villains, few have as tragic a story as Two-Face. Once, he was the most promising District Attorney that Gotham had ever seen. But a splash of acid across half his face unlocked the darkest side of Harvey Dent, bringing the villain known as Two-Face to life. For years, Dent has gone up against Batman in his mission to seize control of Gotham's underground, but Bruce Wayne continuously fights to try and save his friend. However, a trip to an alternate version of Gotham has revealed an even darker form of Batman's enemy: A hulking attack dog who is...

Warning: Spoilers for Batman, Gotham Knights, and various Batman ComicsMore than any other DC character or property, 2022 was Batman's year. With flagship titles like Batman and Detective Comics, Elseworlds tales with Dark Knights of Steel and DC vs. Vampires, limited series such as Batman/Catwoman and Batman: The Knight alongside a major cinematic outing to boot, the Caped Crusader has had no shortage of opportunities to shine both in and out of comics.

2022 saw a number of major moments for Batman and Bat-fans alike. Some intrigued readers, pushing the Dark Knight mythos in new and interesting directions. Some emotionally resonated, reaffirming Bruce Wayne as one of DC's most complex characters. And some were simply fist-pumping, action-packed pieces of spectacle, reminding audiences that Batman can accomplish essentially anything he puts his mind to because... he's Batman. Here are some of the biggest and best Batman moments of 2022.

Related: The Greatest DC...

Al Pacino created an urban legend with Tony Montana, and Brian De Palma’s Scarface (1983) is an icon of the gangster film genre; one of an unholy trinity alongside The Godfather (1972) and Goodfellas (1990). But when it premiered in New York, Steven Bauer, who played Manny Ribera in the film, remembers Martin Scorsese turning around halfway through the movie to warn: “You guys are great, but be prepared, because they’re going to hate it in Hollywood. Because it’s about them.”

The same could be said about the original Scarface. Studio filmmakers saw producer Howard Hughes as a rich interloper, bullying his way onto the lot with too many guns blazing. Conversely, Brian De Palma’s Scarface is about excess, and how success depends on it. Oliver Stone’s screenplay for the ‘80s movie used a gangster as an allegory for the Reagan administration’s war on drugs and the capitalistic greed of the era.

Giant ants! Gargantuan tarantulas! Colossal radioactive women! In 1945, the first nuclear bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, ending World War II and ushering in the Atomic Age. Americans' fears shifted from the threat of communism to the threat of nuclear annihilation. Families began building bomb shelters in their backyards while school children participated in "duck and cover" drills. Hollywood, never missing an opportunity to exploit the public's greatest panics and anxieties, began churning out nuclear annihilation-themed movies. Some of them were serious pictures with somber themes, like 1959's On the Beach and 1964's Fail Safe. Some were biting satires like 1964's Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. Most, however, were low budget schlock fests, produced on the cheap and churned out as B-sides of movie house double features. The plots followed the same basic structure - a nuclear blast or radioactive meteor...

Every year, it's almost inevitable that two movies with a similar premise will go head to head, whether it be a siege on the white house, an asteroid heading towards Earth, or a story about animated bugs fighting fascism. It's bound to keep on happening since it's been going on for so long — with 1964 as the year in which two competing movies told us how close we were to nuclear annihilation.

Stanley Kubrick's "Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb" was released in January, while Sidney Lumet's "Fail Safe" came out in October. Each featured their own idiosyncrasies, but the one thing they did share was the looming nuclear threat bound to manifest itself. Kubrick's film took on a satirist tone with a paranoid Air Force commander sending out B-52 bombers to attack the Soviets, all while a group of disconcerted buffoons argue,...

A new era begins for Batman and DC Comics in July. Comic Book has revealed that beloved Marvel writer Chip Zdarsky and Jorge Jimenez, one of the best artists working at DC Comics today, are teaming up as the new creative team of the main Batman series. Their run begins with Batman #125, an oversized issue that kicks off the “Failsafe” arc, which Zdarsky described in his newsletter as “Batman’s Doomsday. It’s non-stop action and puts Batman in a very different place by the end of it.”

According to Comic Book, “Failsafe” begins with Bruce suffering from nightmares of a future he thinks may come to pass, and he may not live long enough to stop it. The arc will feature a “startling enemy from Batman’s past” who intends to kill Batman once and for all.

“When DC approached me to write Batman, I immediately thought about things...

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...

Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond’s comeback comedy performed decently enough at the box office, but its real accomplishment is vaulting Walter Matthau into mainline stardom. Matthau embodies the most venal ambulance chaser alive: Whiplash Willie Gingrich. His sad insurance scam scramble for unearned, undeserved loot is more of an exposé of sagging American values than anything particularly satirical. Jack Lemmon is the straight man this time around. He spends much of the movie in a medical collar, being victimized to make a fast buck. But Matthau hits the laughs out of the park — it’s an inspired performance that won him a Best Supporting Oscar. “You know Willie. He could find a loophole in the Ten Commandments.”

The Fortune Cookie

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1966 / B&w / 2:35 widescreen / 125 min. / Meet Whiplash Willie / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95

Starring: Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, Ron Rich, Judi West, Cliff Osmond, Lurene Tuttle.

Cinematography:...

This article contains Superman & Lois spoilers

Superman & Lois Episode 13

Superman & Lois has done so many things right in its first season, deftly paying homage to the classic origins of the Man of Steel even as it explores an entirely new corner of the Superman mythos, introducing intriguing comics heroes like John Henry Irons, and reinventing the story of the final days of Krypton in ways that give Clark Kent a new connection to the home he left behind.

Thankfully, Lois Lane has been given just as much emotional and narrative weight in this series’ story as her superpowered husband – juggling stories that encompass her roles as a mother, a wife, and a daughter. But despite the fact that she’s essentially the most famous journalist in the world, we haven’t actually gotten to see Lois do a ton of reporting, and her job at the local Smallville...

Six String Samurai writer/director Lance Mungia discusses the movies that made an impact on him with hosts Josh Olson and Joe Dante.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Six-String Samurai (1998)

The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

Big Trouble In Little China (1986)

Seven Samurai (1954)

It Happened One Night (1934)

Frankenstein (1931)

King Kong (1933)

One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)

Little Fugitive (1953)

The Wizard Of Oz (1939)

Lawrence Of Arabia (1962)

A Fistful Of Dollars (1964)

The Good, The Bad And The Ugly (1966)

The Searchers (1956)

She Wore A Yellow Ribbon (1949)

Once Upon A Time In The West (1969)

Wrath Of Man (2021)

Yojimbo (1961)

Last Man Standing (1996)

Ikiru (1952)

Oldboy (2003)

Schindler’s List (1993)

Gremlins (1984)

Jaws (1975)

Psycho (1960)

Dances With Wolves (1990)

The Postman (1997)

Waterworld (1995)

Dr. Strangelove (1964)

The Day After (1983)

Fail Safe (1964)

Behind The Green Door (1972)

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001)

The Irishman (2019)

Other Notable Items

The Vinegar Syndrome 4K Blu-ray of Six-String Samurai

Flicker Alley

Elijah Drenner

Kristian Bernier

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

Martin Scorsese

Frank Capra...

Nobody director Ilya Naishuller joins Josh and Joe to talk about his favorite movies.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Nobody (2021)

Hardcore Henry (2016)

Billy Jack (1971)

My Winnipeg (2007)

The Usual Suspects (1995)

Top Gun (1986)

The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)

Seven (1995)

Bill Hicks: Revelations (1993)

The Mission (1986)

The Killing Fields (1984)

Captivity (2007)

The Killing (1956)

The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou (2004)

Once Upon A Time In America (1984)

You And I (2008)

Infested (2002)

No Country For Old Men (2007)

The Hudsucker Proxy (1994)

Goodfellas (1990)

Goldfinger (1964)

Pulp Fiction (1994)

Reservoir Dogs (1992)

Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (2019)

From Dusk Till Dawn (1996)

Papillon (1973)

Papillon (2017)

Midnight Run (1988)

Planet of the Apes (1968)

Oldboy (2003)

Parasite (2019)

Assassins (1995)

Ladder 49 (2004)

Waterworld (1995)

Heathers (1989)

Mad Max (1979)

A History Of Violence (2005)

The ’Burbs (1989)

Punishment Park (1971)

The War Game (1966)

The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)

Uncut Gems (2019)

Culloden (1964)

Bonnie Prince Charlie (1948)

Dr. Strangelove (1964)

Fail Safe (1964)

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)

Let The Right One In (2008)

Patton (1970)

Hardcore (1979)

Mr. Nobody (2009)

District 9 (2009)

Paths of Glory (1957)

A Clockwork Orange...

Walter Bernstein, who was blacklisted by Hollywood in the 1950s but returned to writing on many films, including the Oscar-nominated script for The Front, has died at 101.

Bernstein died Friday night, according to former WGA West president Howard Rodman, who reported it on Twitter.

Bernstein’s credits included the films Fail-Safe (1964), Semi-Tough (1977), Yanks (1979) and The Front, (1976), the latter which starring Woody Allen as Howard Prince, who was hired by three blacklisted TV writers to become the face of their work. It was a ruse Bernstein knew well, having employed the tactic himself when he was blacklisted.

The Brooklyn, NY-born Bernstein joined the Communist Party while attending Dartmouth College, then served in the US Army during World War II.

Upon his discharge, he became a television writer, but he was blacklisted in 1950. He was not credited with any work until 1958, but used pseudonyms and hired fronts who passed off the work...

Walter Bernstein, the Oscar-nominated screenwriter of “The Front” who had spent years on the blacklist in Hollywood, has died. He was 101.

Bernstein died on Friday night, according to former WGA West President Howard Rodman.

In the 1950s, Bernstein was blacklisted from Hollywood after he was suspected to be a communist working in the entertainment industry.

“There was a little booklet called ‘Red Channels,’ which was a collection of about 150 names of people in the entertainment business, with a listing of their so-called ‘communist’ or ‘communist front’ associations, and if you were named you were automatically blacklisted,” Bernstein told the San Francisco Chronicle in 2005. “There were about eight designations for me — all true, all things I’d done. I’d written for communist magazines, I’d supported Russian war relief, I’d supported the loyalists in Spain.”

As a result, Bernstein said he needed to rely on multiple “fronts” to get...

Oscar-nominated screenwriter and producer Walter Bernstein, who survived the blacklist era by writing pseudonymous scripts for television and later wrote films including “Fail-Safe,” “The Front” and “Semi-Tough,” died on Jan. 22. He was 101.

Bernstein’s longtime friend and former WGA West president Howard Rodman shared the news of his death on Twitter Saturday. “Truly saddened to hear that Walter Bernstein – legendary screenwriter, and one of the great humans – died last night. He was 101. I feel so damn fortunate that three generations of our family got to know him.”

Truly saddened to hear that Walter Bernstein — legendary screenwriter, and one of the great humans — died last night. He was 101. I feel so damn fortunate that three generations of our family got to know him.

Here's Walter from 10 years ago, when he was a young man of 91. pic.twitter.com/yLGvTb3mJY

— Howard A. Rodman (@howardrodman) January 23, 2021

Bernstein’s promising writing career was...

Walter Bernstein, the resilient screenwriter who drew upon his ignominious experience on the blacklist in 1950s Hollywood to pen the Oscar-nominated script for The Front, has died. He was 101.

Bernstein died Friday night, screenwriter, former WGA West president and longtime family friend Howard Rodman reported on Twitter.

Bernstein also adapted Eugene Burdick’s novel for Sidney Lumet’s nuclear-disaster film Fail-Safe (1964) and Dan Jenkins’ book for the Burt Reynolds football romp Semi-Tough (1977), and he wrote the John Schlesinger war drama Yanks (1979), starring Richard Gere. Another three films he worked on starred Sophia Loren.

Born in Brooklyn, Bernstein formally joined the Communist ...

Walter Bernstein, the resilient screenwriter who drew upon his ignominious experience on the blacklist in 1950s Hollywood to pen the Oscar-nominated script for The Front, has died. He was 101.

Bernstein died Friday night, screenwriter, former WGA West president and longtime family friend Howard Rodman reported on Twitter.

Bernstein also adapted Eugene Burdick’s novel for Sidney Lumet’s nuclear-disaster film Fail-Safe (1964) and Dan Jenkins’ book for the Burt Reynolds football romp Semi-Tough (1977), and he wrote the John Schlesinger war drama Yanks (1979), starring Richard Gere. Another three films he worked on starred Sophia Loren.

Born in Brooklyn, Bernstein formally joined the Communist ...

Devo’s Gerald Casale joins us for a discussion of the movies that made Devo!

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

The Truth About De-Evolution (1976)

Island Of Lost Souls (1932)

Akran (1969)

Dr. Strangelove (1964)

Fail Safe (1964)

Valley Of The Dolls (1967)

Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls (1970)

The President’s Analyst (1967)

The Atomic Cafe (1982)

The Day The Earth Stood Still (1951)

Village Of The Damned (1960)

Children Of The Damned (1964)

20,000 Leagues Under The Sea (1954)

Planet Of The Apes (1968)

A Clockwork Orange (1971)

The Parallax View (1974)

Soylent Green (1973)

Sweet Smell Of Success (1957)

Rocky (1976)

A Face In The Crowd (1957)

Whisky Galore! (1949)

No Time For Sergeants (1958)

Network (1976)

JFK (1991)

Natural Born Killers (1994)

Lost Highway (1997)

Mulholland Drive (2001)

Expresso Bongo (1959)

Gremlins (1984)

I Was A Teenage Werewolf (1957)

Other Notable Items

Paul McCartney

Slash

Willie Nelson

Devo

Elliot Roberts

Lorne Michaels

Saturday Night Live TV series (1975- )

Michael O’Donoghue

The Muppets

Neil Young

Walter Williams

Mr. Bill

Richard Myers

George Kuchar

Mike Kuchar

John F.

Albert Hughes takes us on a wild journey through the movies that made him, then explains why he’s not a cinephile (Spoiler: He is). Heads up – you’re going to hear some words you’ve never heard on our show before, and only one of them is Metropolis.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Gremlins (1984)

A Christmas Story (1983)

The Candidate (1972)

Menace II Society (1993)

Die Hard (1988)

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

Scarface (1983)

Goodfellas (1990)

Full Metal Jacket (1987)

A Clockwork Orange (1971)

Midnight Cowboy (1969)

Raging Bull (1980)

Taxi Driver (1976)

Alpha (2018)

Battleship Potemkin (1925)

Metropolis (1927)

True Romance (1993)

Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1988)

The Matrix (1999)

Man Bites Dog (1992)

Looney Tunes: Back In Action (2003)

A Serbian Film (2010)

Scarface (1932)

The Book of Eli (2010)

The Departed (2006)

Infernal Affairs (2002)

The Godfather (1972)

Casino (1995)

JFK (1991)

Dead Presidents (1996)

Eve’s Bayou (1997)

Basic Instinct (1992)

Psycho (1960)

The Cremator (1969)

The Firemen’s Ball (1967)

Halloween (2018)

From Hell (2001)

Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992)

Hoffa (1992)

V For Vendetta (2005)

Spartacus (1960)

You Were Never Really Here...

George Clooney directed and acts in this period drama that documents newsman Edward R. Murrow’s nightly clashes with Wisconsin’s demagogic senator Joe McCarthy. Set in 1953, Robert Elswit’s potent black and white cinematography recalls 60’s political thrillers like Seven Days in May and Fail Safe.

The post Good Night, and Good Luck. appeared first on Trailers From Hell.

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...

In 1964, Fail Safe was released. It was directed by the very influential and prolific director Sidney Lumet, an American master of cinema and television, who helmed films such as Network, 12 Angry Men, Serpico, and Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, to name a few. Lumet was also well-known for getting excellent performances out of his actors, and Fail Safe is no different. The war room drama stars Dan O'Herlihy, Henry Fonda, Walter Matthau and many other players with varying roles of weight. Some tidbits: Fail Safe was adapted from a novel of the same title by Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler. (Originally, the story was published in 1962 during the Cuban...

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