Robert Benton’s Bad Company does for the western what Bonnie and Clyde, Benton’s earlier collaboration with screenwriter David Newman, did for the gangster movie, only without that film’s veneer of star-powered sex appeal. The scrappier Bad Company consistently undermines the romanticized notions of the frontier that underpinned several generations of genre filmmaking. The film especially takes direct aim at two of our nation’s dearest held myths: the Horatio Alger notion of economic self-sufficiency, and the destiny of political expansion manifest in Horace Greeley’s famous dictum: “Go west, young man!”
The film is also decidedly of a piece with the year of its release in 1972, evident from the very first scene, wherein we see a young man dragged kicking and screaming from his home by blue-clad Army soldiers to be conscripted into the Union cause. The moment is given a surreal punchline by the fact that...
The film is also decidedly of a piece with the year of its release in 1972, evident from the very first scene, wherein we see a young man dragged kicking and screaming from his home by blue-clad Army soldiers to be conscripted into the Union cause. The moment is given a surreal punchline by the fact that...
- 8/15/2024
- by Budd Wilkins
- Slant Magazine
Before Bertrand Bonello transformed The Beast in the Jungle into a time-hopping, existentialist sci-fi melodrama, the most radical cinematic treatment of the work of Henry James was Peter Bogdanovich’s 1974 film maudit Daisy Miller. The adaptation is certainly faithful, with dialogue lifted directly from the text and the core narrative and themes understood and preserved by Bogdanovich and writer Frederic Raphael. But the film also filters James’s tale of a scandalously flirtatious 19th-century American woman in Europe through a screwball prism.
Here, the novella’s cool-tempered Frederick Winterbourne (Barry Brown) is left completely befuddled by the rapid-fire, monopolizing chatter of Daisy Miller (Cybill Shepherd). It’s an oddly compelling approach, but it only intermittently succeeds. When the film premiered, critics and even many of Bogdanovich’s friends and colleagues derided the entire project as a vain folly devoted to the star, the director’s then-girlfriend. The blatant sexism of the reaction aside,...
Here, the novella’s cool-tempered Frederick Winterbourne (Barry Brown) is left completely befuddled by the rapid-fire, monopolizing chatter of Daisy Miller (Cybill Shepherd). It’s an oddly compelling approach, but it only intermittently succeeds. When the film premiered, critics and even many of Bogdanovich’s friends and colleagues derided the entire project as a vain folly devoted to the star, the director’s then-girlfriend. The blatant sexism of the reaction aside,...
- 5/30/2024
- by Jake Cole
- Slant Magazine
Despite a muted reception back in May 1994 — certainly compared to Spike Lee’s previous film “Malcolm X” — “Crooklyn” has endured for three decades as one of the director’s most treasured films.
At the time, Spike Lee was still in the first decade of his career as a director, and “Crookyln” marked his seventh film in nine years with his “brand” in the popular consciousness as a polemical artist at the vanguard of the ’90s Black New Wave that also featured filmmakers such as John Singleton, Mario Van Peebles, and the Hughes Brothers.
Crooklyn, while fitting within Spike’s collected body of work about the Black experience in America, took a detour in tone from his earlier, more overtly political films such as “Do the Right Thing” and “Jungle Fever.” Contemporary reactions to the film were mixed, and “Crooklyn,” like all of Spike’s post-”Malcolm X” films up to “Inside Man,...
At the time, Spike Lee was still in the first decade of his career as a director, and “Crookyln” marked his seventh film in nine years with his “brand” in the popular consciousness as a polemical artist at the vanguard of the ’90s Black New Wave that also featured filmmakers such as John Singleton, Mario Van Peebles, and the Hughes Brothers.
Crooklyn, while fitting within Spike’s collected body of work about the Black experience in America, took a detour in tone from his earlier, more overtly political films such as “Do the Right Thing” and “Jungle Fever.” Contemporary reactions to the film were mixed, and “Crooklyn,” like all of Spike’s post-”Malcolm X” films up to “Inside Man,...
- 5/28/2024
- by Sam Moore
- Indiewire
Reader, you have been lied to! Film history is littered with unfairly maligned classics, whether critics were too eager to review the making of rather than the finished product, or they suffered from underwhelming ad campaigns or general disinterest. Let’s revise our takes on some of these films from wrongheaded to the correct opinion.
In 1972, Peter Bogdanovich, Francis Coppola, and William Friedkin were three of the hottest directors in Hollywood thanks to finding the sweet spot between art and box office with “The Last Picture Show,” “The Godfather,” and “The French Connection,” respectively. With their newfound clout, the young auteurs formed The Directors Company, a partnership based at Paramount, where they were given complete creative freedom to make anything they wanted as long as they worked within modest budgets. The first movie the deal yielded, “Paper Moon,” was a hit, Bogdanovich’s third in a row after “Picture Show...
In 1972, Peter Bogdanovich, Francis Coppola, and William Friedkin were three of the hottest directors in Hollywood thanks to finding the sweet spot between art and box office with “The Last Picture Show,” “The Godfather,” and “The French Connection,” respectively. With their newfound clout, the young auteurs formed The Directors Company, a partnership based at Paramount, where they were given complete creative freedom to make anything they wanted as long as they worked within modest budgets. The first movie the deal yielded, “Paper Moon,” was a hit, Bogdanovich’s third in a row after “Picture Show...
- 5/15/2024
- by Jim Hemphill
- Indiewire
Virgin River fans know Annette O’Toole as Hope, the gossipy but good-hearted town mayor. Her part in the popular Netflix series is just the latest in a long string of memorable roles for the Texas-born actor, who has been performing since she was a child. One of her first real jobs was on the iconic TV western Gunsmoke.
One of Annette O’Toole’s first acting jobs was on ‘Gunsmoke’ ‘Gunsmoke’ | CBS Photo Archive. Frame Grab
O’Toole, who was born in 1952 in Houston, started taking dance classes as a toddler at her mother’s school. When she was a teen, her family moved to Los Angeles so that she could pursue a career in Hollywood. At 16, she landed a role as a dancer on The Danny Kaye Show. She also appeared in episodes of My Three Sons and the anthology series This Is the Life. But O’Toole’s...
One of Annette O’Toole’s first acting jobs was on ‘Gunsmoke’ ‘Gunsmoke’ | CBS Photo Archive. Frame Grab
O’Toole, who was born in 1952 in Houston, started taking dance classes as a toddler at her mother’s school. When she was a teen, her family moved to Los Angeles so that she could pursue a career in Hollywood. At 16, she landed a role as a dancer on The Danny Kaye Show. She also appeared in episodes of My Three Sons and the anthology series This Is the Life. But O’Toole’s...
- 9/9/2023
- by Megan Elliott
- Showbiz Cheat Sheet
Spike Lee has revealed the piece of advice he received from Michael Jackson that influenced his long and incredibly diverse career.
Lee was on stage Friday at Cannes Lions Festival, where he will tonight receive the inaugural Creative Maker of the Year award. He was reflecting on his long career, in which he has seemingly effortlessly balanced making independent feature films with mainstream commercial success, helming ad campaigns including the first Air Jordan spots for Nike, and a hit jeans campaign for Levi’s.
“It’s a combination of the commercials, the feature films, the documentaries, not music videos but short films.” The latter is how Lee chooses to describe his work with artists including Jackson, Prince, Miles Davis and Public Enemy, following a tip he received from Jackson.
And the celebrated auteur added that it was Jackson who first suggested he use the right language to describe his portfolio. Lee...
Lee was on stage Friday at Cannes Lions Festival, where he will tonight receive the inaugural Creative Maker of the Year award. He was reflecting on his long career, in which he has seemingly effortlessly balanced making independent feature films with mainstream commercial success, helming ad campaigns including the first Air Jordan spots for Nike, and a hit jeans campaign for Levi’s.
“It’s a combination of the commercials, the feature films, the documentaries, not music videos but short films.” The latter is how Lee chooses to describe his work with artists including Jackson, Prince, Miles Davis and Public Enemy, following a tip he received from Jackson.
And the celebrated auteur added that it was Jackson who first suggested he use the right language to describe his portfolio. Lee...
- 6/23/2023
- by Caroline Frost
- Deadline Film + TV
We have a lot to cover in this, our last roundup of new and recent books on film and pop culture before year’s end—high-profile memoirs, the coolest collection of crossword puzzles in history, a dash of Mac & Me. So, let’s get right to it. Happy holidays, and happy reading!
Cinema Speculation by Quentin Tarantino (Harper)
Quentin Tarantino wrote one of 2021’s most notable film-related books, a tremendous novelization of his own Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. He follows that success with what just might be 2022’s best film-related books, Cinema Speculation. It is a collection of essays built around films seen during his adolescence that impacted him greatly. Some, like Deliverance and Taxi Driver, are canon. Others, like 1973 crime drama The Outfit, are not. The experience of reading Speculation is akin to hearing Tarantino zip through his childhood movie habits—the text mostly focuses on films...
Cinema Speculation by Quentin Tarantino (Harper)
Quentin Tarantino wrote one of 2021’s most notable film-related books, a tremendous novelization of his own Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. He follows that success with what just might be 2022’s best film-related books, Cinema Speculation. It is a collection of essays built around films seen during his adolescence that impacted him greatly. Some, like Deliverance and Taxi Driver, are canon. Others, like 1973 crime drama The Outfit, are not. The experience of reading Speculation is akin to hearing Tarantino zip through his childhood movie habits—the text mostly focuses on films...
- 11/9/2022
- by Christopher Schobert
- The Film Stage
Writer, producer, and director Spike Lee came into the 1990s hot. After the critical and commercial triumph of his 1989 masterpiece “Do the Right Thing,” he started the decade with the exquisite jazz film “Mo’ Better Blues” (1990) and kept up the pace with 1991’s provocative, furious, and hilarious “Jungle Fever.” Those three films had all been made for Universal with modest budgets and were all successes relative to those budgets, but for his next movie Lee was ready to go to the mattresses. He took a break from Universal to make a movie at Warner Bros., the studio that held the rights to a project Lee had dreamed of directing since he was a film student: Alex Haley’s “The Autobiography of Malcolm X.”
Lee might not have been ready to take on a film of that scope and ambition when he was at NYU, but in the fall of 1991 he...
Lee might not have been ready to take on a film of that scope and ambition when he was at NYU, but in the fall of 1991 he...
- 8/18/2022
- by Jim Hemphill
- Indiewire
Lucas Till (MacGyver), Nafessa Williams (Black Lightning), Nathan Darrow (Preacher) and Tom Irwin (The Morning Show) have joined the cast of Lee Daniels’ FX pilot The Spook Who Sat by the Door.
They join previously announced cast members Y’lan Noel and Christina Jackson in the TV adaptation of Sam Greenlee’s spy novel. Production is underway.
The potential series will tell the fictional story of Dan Freeman (Noel), a patriot and Vietnam vet, who is recruited as the only Black operative in the CIA as part of an affirmative-action program in the late 1960s. After a very competitive selection process he trains in high-level combat and espionage. However, following this arduous training, this model recruit is rewarded with a post in the reprographics (aka photocopying) department, “left by the door” as a token of the CIA’s “racial equality.”
Till is set for the role of CIA agent Graham Renfroe,...
They join previously announced cast members Y’lan Noel and Christina Jackson in the TV adaptation of Sam Greenlee’s spy novel. Production is underway.
The potential series will tell the fictional story of Dan Freeman (Noel), a patriot and Vietnam vet, who is recruited as the only Black operative in the CIA as part of an affirmative-action program in the late 1960s. After a very competitive selection process he trains in high-level combat and espionage. However, following this arduous training, this model recruit is rewarded with a post in the reprographics (aka photocopying) department, “left by the door” as a token of the CIA’s “racial equality.”
Till is set for the role of CIA agent Graham Renfroe,...
- 5/27/2021
- by Matt Grobar
- Deadline Film + TV
It’s the hottest day of the summer. You can do nothing, you can do something, or you can…Do The Right Thing. In 1989, Academy Award® winner and visionary filmmaker Spike Lee mesmerized audiences with one of the most insightful and provocative films of its time, Do The Right Thing. Universal Pictures Home Entertainment continues to celebrate diversity and Black stories by bringing one of the most thought-provoking and groundbreaking films of its time, Do The Right Thing, to 4K Ultra HD for the first time on February 2, 2021. The controversial story centers around one scorching inner-city day, when racial tensions reach the boiling point in a tough Brooklyn neighborhood. Culturally significant and featuring over four hours of bonus features including a brand-new introduction by Director Spike Lee, a retrospective documentary with the original cast and crew, a feature commentary from Lee, deleted and extended scenes, Do The Right Thing captures...
- 1/28/2021
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Exclusive: When They See Us actor William Sadler and Mike C. Manning will stir up some scares in the forthcoming horror feature Slapface written and directed by Jeremiah Kipp. The film is set to shoot later this fall.
The pic follows Lucas (August Maturo from The Nun) who lives with his older brother (Manning) after the loss of their parents. Lucas befriends a Monster in the nearby woods, and trouble ensues. The town Sheriff (Sadler) tries to thwart the wrongdoings of Lucas and the Monster before it is too late. Bianca D’Ambrosio and Chiara D’Ambrosio (The Young and the Restless) will also star.
Shintaro Shimosawa is set to executive produce. Joe Benedetto (A Guy Named Rick) is producing while Nick Theurer (Deceit) is co-producer and Artisha Mann-Cooper (I Can I Will I Did) is line producer. The film will be produced by...
The pic follows Lucas (August Maturo from The Nun) who lives with his older brother (Manning) after the loss of their parents. Lucas befriends a Monster in the nearby woods, and trouble ensues. The town Sheriff (Sadler) tries to thwart the wrongdoings of Lucas and the Monster before it is too late. Bianca D’Ambrosio and Chiara D’Ambrosio (The Young and the Restless) will also star.
Shintaro Shimosawa is set to executive produce. Joe Benedetto (A Guy Named Rick) is producing while Nick Theurer (Deceit) is co-producer and Artisha Mann-Cooper (I Can I Will I Did) is line producer. The film will be produced by...
- 8/27/2019
- by Dino-Ray Ramos
- Deadline Film + TV
When curating the recent retrospective “NY Indie Guy: Ira Deutchman and the Rise of Independent Film” – a Columbia University exhibit honoring the 40-year career of a leading American independent film producer, marketer, and distributor – programmers Rob King and Jack Lechner made an upsetting discovery: Many of the films they picked to screen were unavailable in any form.
This sent Deutchman into detective mode, to discover what happened to many of the films he helped introduce to the world. He walked away from his initial examination shocked by the situation and with a grim assessment: We are in danger of losing many of the films that defined recent movements in American independent film.
“During the height of in the independent boom back in the ’80s and into the 90s, it was always considered the holy grail for independent filmmakers that to be truly independent they would eventually get back the rights or control the rights,...
This sent Deutchman into detective mode, to discover what happened to many of the films he helped introduce to the world. He walked away from his initial examination shocked by the situation and with a grim assessment: We are in danger of losing many of the films that defined recent movements in American independent film.
“During the height of in the independent boom back in the ’80s and into the 90s, it was always considered the holy grail for independent filmmakers that to be truly independent they would eventually get back the rights or control the rights,...
- 9/25/2018
- by Chris O'Falt
- Indiewire
If we could kiss, cuddle, and embrace Shout! Factory until we both weep, I think that we would. After reading the following news, we're fairly certain you'll want to join in on our video induced love fest.
From the Press Release
Just when you thought it was safe to take a dip in the water again…they’re baaaack! This summer rediscover two enduring Roger Corman underwater thrillers filled with unstoppable action and edge-of-your-seat suspense as Joe Dante’s Piranha and Humanoids from the Deep, directed by Barbara Peters, debut August 3, 2010 for the first time on Special Edition Blu-ray and DVD from Shout! Factory, in association with New Horizons Picture Corporation. These two definitive Special Edition home entertainment releases from Roger Corman’s Cult Classics are sure to cause a feeding frenzy among thrill seekers and loyal fans of Roger Corman and Joe Dante. Piranha Special Edition offers two highly...
From the Press Release
Just when you thought it was safe to take a dip in the water again…they’re baaaack! This summer rediscover two enduring Roger Corman underwater thrillers filled with unstoppable action and edge-of-your-seat suspense as Joe Dante’s Piranha and Humanoids from the Deep, directed by Barbara Peters, debut August 3, 2010 for the first time on Special Edition Blu-ray and DVD from Shout! Factory, in association with New Horizons Picture Corporation. These two definitive Special Edition home entertainment releases from Roger Corman’s Cult Classics are sure to cause a feeding frenzy among thrill seekers and loyal fans of Roger Corman and Joe Dante. Piranha Special Edition offers two highly...
- 5/26/2010
- by Uncle Creepy
- DreadCentral.com
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