With The Hangover Pt. II in the lead, the American box-office reached an all-time high for the crucial Memorial Day holiday weekend. Also scoring well: Pirates 4, Kung Fu Panda 2 and Bridesmaids. The sad news: there isn't an original idea in any of them, with three of the top four films being sequels. For more click here

The film won't be released until December but the teaser trailer for the highly-anticipated thriller The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo has been leaked on line. Click here to view the preview of the film starring Daniel Craig.

The notorious pirate Blackbeard has been portrayed as both hero and villain in countless films over the decades, right up to today's Pirates of the Caribbean films. Now there has been an interesting historical find concerning the real-life 18th century scoundral. The anchor from his shipwrecked vessel The Queen Anne's Revenge has been retrieved and salvaged off the North Carolina coast. The ship is believed to have sank in 1717. Blackbeard survived the sinking and returned to Bath, England under a full pardon from the governor, but was murdered several months later. There will be a major display of artifacts from the wreck, which was discovered in 1996, in North Carolina commencing in June. For more click here

Johnny Depp and director Rob Marshall will team for a remake of the classic mystery film The Thin Man. The original 1934 film starred William Powell and Myrna Loy as a married couple who dabble in solving murders and mysteries. The witty byplay between the two stars proved to be a sensation with audiences and spawned several sequels. It is not known who will be cast in the role of Nora Charles in the remake. 

Click here to view trailer for the original film

By Lee Pfeiffer

If you think there is an over-abundance of 3-D movies in release, you ain't seen nothing yet. Disney is now going into their library to convert existing blockbusters to 3-D format, despite evidence that audiences are quickly tiring of the hype. The studio will re-issue The Lion King as a 3-D theatrical title in September. The web site The Playlist also reports that Disney has made the bizarre decision to alter the title of their Edgar Rice Burroughs sci-fi flick John Carter of Mars to simply John Carter. Some industry analysts say the decision is strange, since the revised, bland title doesn't give any indication what the movie is about. Film titles based on character names are a decided gamble for studios. For every Annie Hall, there is a Michael Clayton, an outstanding movie that did disappointing business at the box-office largely because the title and poster campaign (the usual bland head shot of the star) didn't excite anyone. For more click here

Elaine will ABC radio film critic Bill Diehl. Click here to read Bill's tribute to Elaine.

It is quite an anomaly in the business world: a restaurant closing, despite the fact that it was doing turn-away business. However, Elaine's, the legendary Manhattan eatery that drew the rich and famous, has closed this week for good. The venue was so identified with the larger-than-life personality of its famed founder, Elaine Kaufman, that it could not survive her death last December. Kaufman was a constant presence at the place, jealously guarding the privacy of her famous diners, while simultaneously introducing them to each other. Woody Allen dined there every night for decades despite what he calls "the unrelentingly bad food". For more click here

Facing bad publicity and complaints from the U.S. Navy, Disney has dropped its plans to copyright the name SEAL Team 6, the military unit credited with killing Osama Bin Laden. Seems the Mouse House wanted to exploit the fighting men and turn their exploits into yet another cheesy action TV series. Almost immediately after the Bin Laden raid, the company filed paperwork trying to copyright the SEAL team name. That plan is now dead, but it's due to public criticism, not any sign of moral conscience on the part of Disney. Click here for more

Plans are going forward to bring The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein to the screen with a screenplay by Pulitzer Prize winning playwright David Auburn. The spin this time is that the story will incorporate Mary Shelley, the author of the legendary novel Frankenstein, as a character, along with certain other real-life figures from history. For more click here

Okay, this has gone far enough. The craze of adapting board games into major films might have hit its most absurd premise with the news that the evergreen game for pre-schoolers, Candy Land, is being made into an action film similar to The Lord of the Rings. Can a blood-and-guts film called Go Fish!  be too far behind? For more click here

MGM and Screen Gems have announced they will team to remake Brian De Palma's 1976 horror film Carrie, based on the Stephen King best-seller. The original was hardly a classic, but did earn a lot of money and scored Best Actress and Supporting Actress Oscar nominations for Sissy Spacek and Piper Laurie. The film is about a troubled, outcast high school student who possesses extraordinary powers to wreak destruction through telekinetic powers. The film also provided an early big screen role for John Travolta. The bad news is that the movie is being scripted by Robert Aguirre-Sacasa, who has earned critical scorn for writing the Broadway Spiderman special effects-laden production that has seemed cursed since the day it opened. Click here for more

A sequel to J.J. Abrams' highly successful relaunch of the Star Trek franchise is in the works. The script work has been moving at a glacial pace because Abrams has been preoccupied with Super 8. However, he has been contributing ideas and hopes to possibly direct the film as well. Paramount plans to have the movie in theaters next June. For more click here

By Lee Pfeiffer

Pundits and film critics always question why there are so many remakes of good movies. They generally ask the rhetorical question, "Why not remake bad movies?" The answer may be found in the fact that many bad movies have been remade into even worse productions. Case in point: the 1978 schlock scarefest The Amityville Horror was derided by all but made a ton money largely because naive members of the public actually believed the bestselling book that recounted "factual" hauntings in the New York home. The fact that there is more evidence of the Loch Ness Monster than these reputed happenings didn't deter Hollywood from churning out a seemingly endless string of Amity sequels and prequels. Now Miramax is getting on board with their own project. That's right, the prestigious company behind The King's Speech will be trawling for dollars by exhuming the oft-told tale. At least by this point, no one is pretending its based on fact. Not to be outdone, company called Hannibal Classics is launching their own Amityville pic. Is there an audience for this sludge? You bet. In fact, as I write this, there are thousands of Americans preparing for the end of the world, which apparently will come later today. They have based their actions on the divine word of a talk show host and religious zealot, so how could they possibly go wrong? With so many dummies running about, there is plenty of room for Amityville fllicks, many of whom believe they are watching documentaries. If I'm wrong and the world does end tonight, don't worry about hurrying up with your subscription renewals for Cinema Retro. For more click here

Among the best: Allen's 1979 film Manhattan

Film critic Jim Emerson has selected his personal choices for the five best and five worst Woody Allen movies. See if you agree.  Click here to read

In 1970, sisters Mary and Madeleine Collinson made history by both posing as Miss October.

Playboy, now back in control of founder Hugh Hefner, has created a new on-line service where readers can access every single issue of the iconic magazine for $8 per month or $60 a year. Every word (and those all-important photos) will be accessible for viewing. In days of old, kids would have to secretly read the issue with a flashlight under their blankets. Today, we suppose they do the same but use a Kindle. For more click here

As 94 year-old Zsa Zsa Gabor lies slowly dying  in a Los Angeles Hospital, her 9th husband and her only daughter are locked in a spiteful battle over who should have access to oversee Zsa Zsa in her final days. Her husband has the law on his side, as the famed actress signed over all legal guardianship to him years ago - and he refuses to let her daughter visit her mother on her death bed. Click here for more

Cinema Retro has received the following press release from Twentieth Century Fox:

PARAMOUNT PICTURES, TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX AND LIGHTSTORM ENTERTAINMENT TO SET SAIL AGAIN WITH JAMES CAMERON’S OSCARÒ-WINNING “TITANIC” WITH A WORLDWIDE 3D RE-RELEASE ON APRIL 6, 2012

Movie’s Re-Release to Coincide With the Centennial of the Ship’s Sailing

Corman photographed in London by Cinema Retro's Mark Mawston. (All rights reserved)

Ageless B movie producer Roger Corman is the subject of a new documentary. In Cannes, he gave a Master Class on how to ensure films make a profit saying, "I never had a failure. All my films were successes." However, he does make one exception: his only film to win critical acclaim was the only one to under-perform at the box-office. Click here to read Corman's comments on mentoring Ron Howard, Jack Nicholson, Francis Ford Coppola and many other Hollywood icons. (For Ian Brown's exclusive interview with Roger Corman, see Cinema Retro issue #18 in which he discusses his adaptations of the works of Edgar Allan Poe for American International)

The Running Man: Arnold continues to avoid the press since details of his sex scandal broke.

By Lee Pfeiffer

Arnold Schwarzenegger has announced that his return to the big screen in Cry Macho has been indefinitely postponed while he deals with the fallout of the sex scandal that has cost him his marriage - and his reputation as a devoted family man. It was also announced by his producing partners, including comic book titan Stan Lee, that his much-publicized forthcoming animated TV series The Governator has been put on ice before it even aired. It isn't known whether the show will be permanently canceled. However, as Schwarzenegger was represented as a superhero who fights crime with the aid of his wife and kids, it seems dubious the series will debut any time soon. Schwarzenegger's scandals with women date back years, but he deftly removed himself from being scrutinized too closely fodder by cleverly signing a business deal with the company that owns most of the major American tabloids. As a business partner with the company, the tabloids had an incentive to paint him in a favorable light. Click here for more.

Most of the actors who played the kids in the classic film Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory recently reunited on The Today Show. Click here to see what they've been up to.

By Lee Pfeiffer

Winston Churchill once observed that capitalism is the worst form of government - except for all the others. One wonders if the great man might have second thoughts about that caveat if he were around to see the shameful actions of the Disney organization, which just filed copyright claims on the name 'Seal Team 6'. President Obama had barely announced the daring raid by these top secret military men that resulted in the killing of Bin Laden, when some "go-getters" at Disney jumped in and filed to  copyright the name. Granted, Hollywood studios across the board are looking to bring the raid to the screen, but only Disney had the audacity to try to control the actual name of the team.  Disney is seeking to bring out a line of merchandise tied in to Navy Seal Team 6. Even better for the company, they won't have to share one penny in royalties with the anonymous team members who put their lives on the line. For more click here

Thor is the latest Marvel Comics hero to make the transition to the big screen, even though the cinematic version bares virtually no resemblance to the comic character.

Using the example of Thor, critic John Farr speculates that some movie critics often say kind things about bad films in order to appease studios whose advertisements help provide them job security. Farr says there is no other explanation for the kind words some critics have been heaping on mediocre films. He makes a glaring exception for New York Times reviewer A.O. Scott, who also uses Thor to exemplify everything that is wrong with today's action movies. For more click here

Reunited: Moore and Van Dyke

Actress Mary Tyler Moore has decided to proceed with an operation to remove a benign tumor from her brain. The 73 year-old actress's physicians call the surgery "routine". Meanwhile, Moore made a surprise appearance on a taping of the Rachel Ray Show to join her former co-star Dick Van Dyke, who is promoting his new memoir. Click here for more

Director Terrence Malick has made only a handful of films in a career that has spanned decades. Thus, any work by him generates immediate interest among critics and film fans who remain divided about whether he is an eccentric genius or a pretentious pseudo-intellectual. Malick's films are generally long on exquisite production values and short on human emotions. His latest movie, The Tree of Life, is no exception. It debuted at Cannes several days ago amidst boos from audience members and a fiercely divided critical establishment. The film stars Brad Pitt and Sean Penn and seeks to examine the origins of the universe through the eyes of a family in the 1950s. Malick certainly can't be accused of aiming low in terms of cinematic ambition. Critics agree the film looks gorgeous but evaluations of the end result ranged from being acclaimed as a bold success to being a pretentious bore. Click here for more

By Lee Pfeiffer

When former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and his wife Maria Shriver announced the end of their 25 year marriage last week, many people were left scratching their heads. The odd couple of American politics had seemed to enjoy a storybook romance despite the fact that is a Republican and Shriver comes from the arch-liberal Kennedy clan. Now the couple has acknowledged as fact a report in the Los Angeles Times that puts the split-up into context: Schwarzenegger had fathered a child with a long time member of the household staff a decade ago. This means that he was fully aware of the potential for scandal when he ran for governor in 2003. The one-time screen icon was elected and served two full terms as governor. Shriver only recently learned about the scandal and moved out of the house prior to the couple announcing their split. Shriver has had no comment on the situation and Schwarzenegger has made a statement acknowledging full responsibility for his actions and asked the press to respect the privacy of Shriver and their children. The woman who bore his child has not been identified except as a person who recently left the couple's employ after twenty years of service. Adding to the salacious aspects of the scandal, the woman was also married when she conceived the child and she identified her husband as the father.

This is but the latest in a seemingly endless series of bipartisan sex scandals that have plagued American politics in recent years. It specifically calls to mind the situation of one-time Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Edwards, whose career was derailed when he fathered a child with a staffer. Schwarzenegger has only one aspect in his favor: unlike most of the politicians who are caught up in sex scandals, he never adopted a "holier-than-thou" family values persona. His long-time womanizing posed a problem during his first campaign for governor, but Shriver was crucial in convincing the public he was now a changed man. Click here for more

Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft: was the success of Tomb Raider just a fluke?

There is a long-standing "conventional wisdom" in the film industry and among movie fans that, in general, audiences are reluctant to patronize action movies in which female characters have the lead. With few exceptions, the box-office seems to bare this out. However, writer Robert J. Elisberg begs to differ, using the recent failure of the female-themed action movie Sucker Punch as Exhibit A. Elisberg says that the film's flop is being pointed to as futher evidence that audiences don't want to see women in action movies. He says all it proves is that audiences don't want to see women in bad action movies. He supplies plenty of evidence that male stars have been allowed to keep their reputations as box-office kings despite strings of bad action movies that were also rejected by audiences. Click here to read

Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris screened in Cannes a couple of days ago and the general consensus is that it returns the complex director to his finest form in years. We saw the trailer and were hooked immediately by the glorious cinematography and typically convoluted Allenesque love story. Not only that, the film boasts that rarest of oddities in today's motion picture industry: a creative movie poster that doesn't look like it was thrown together on a scanner in five minutes. Click here for more

Jerry Seinfeld has launched a web site where he selects a trio of bits from his comedy routines and presents them on a daily basis. Curiously, the clips are not cached, so if you don't catch them on the day they are posted, you won't have an opportunity to see them. Click here to visit site

Quentin Tarantino has let it be known that he wants Will Smith to star in his forthcoming Western Django Unchained, as a former slave who hunts down an evil plantation owner in order to save his family. Smith has not been seen onscreen since Seven Pounds in 2008. Sources say Tarantino has sent him the script but there has been no official comment from Smith. Click here for more

L. Ron Hubbard: genius, madman or both?

Screenwriter Paul Thomas Anderson's battles with Scientology filled gossip columns a couple of years ago when he claimed he became disenchanted with the movement. Anderson had once been a convert to Scientology, but later made disparaging remarks about how the the movement operated and their strong-arm tactics to interfere in member's lives, particularly if it was suspected that a celebrity might denigrate Scientology in public. Scientology spokespeople fought back hard and said that Anderson's claims were false. However, the disgruntled screenwriter is taking his revenge- through the form of a feature film to star Philip Seymour Hoffman, who will play a thinly-veiled version of L. Ron Hubbard, the science fiction writer who created Scientology in the 1950s. Hubbard had long been a lightning rod for controversy, with converts looking upon him as a modern wise man who could unravel the secrets of the universe. Those more critical claim he was a certified crackpot who set up Scientology as a means to manipulate weak-willed individuals. The film will use fictitious situations to represent the movement and Hubbard, but there will be no doubt as to the real targets of Anderson's wrath. Click here for more.

Not too many years ago, Jim Caviezel was regarded as one of Hollywood's hot, rising new stars. After playing the lead role in Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, however, Caviezel's career dried up.  He says Gibson warned him this would be the inevtiable consequence of starring in the film but the actor's strong religious convictions persuaded him to accept the part of Jesus Christ. Gibson's film was a surprise box-office blockbuster, thanks mostly to his perceptive marketing campaign that targeted the Evangelical community who made it a virtual political statement to come out and support the movie to counter perceived anti-Christian bias in Hollywood. However, there may be more to it than that. Gibson has been embroiled in some unseemly high-profile scandals in recent years, at least one of which was tinged by anti-Semitic statements. His actions played into criticism of the film in some quarters that the movie was a thinly-disguised vehicle for anti-Jewish sentiment. Gibson has always denied this was the case. However, it may be that Caviezel is taking some of the heat from the backlash that Gibson has suffered. Click here for more.

Tony Dalton (left) and the legendary Ray Harryhausen with their Rondo Awards. (Photo: Mark Mawston. All rights reserved)

Cinema Retro writer and photographer Mark Mawston met with Ray Harryhausen and Tony Dalton this week to hand them their Rondo Award (named after legendary character actor Rondo Hatton)  for Best DVD commentary for Jason And The Argonauts (These prestigious awards also saw a nomination for Cinema Retro). Ray and Tony were very pleased with the award which will sit nicely alongside Ray’s many other awards including his Oscar and recent Bafta. On receiving the news that they had won Ray said “We always tried to make sure the films weren’t too HORRIFIC as we didn’t want to get an X rating and stop the kids seeing the films. I specifically wanted to use “clean” skeletons in Jason so they weren’t too frightening as in the original story they were rotten cadavers, which really WOULD have been horrific!! Thanks to whoever voted for us. What a good looking chap to have in my house”!! 

Mawston also dropped in some rare trailers from his collection to be used in the forthcoming release Ray Harryhausen: Effects Titan, which is in the final stages of post-production. Full details of future screenings and release details will be given to Retro once everyone is happy with the final cut.

The buzz had been building for months that Mel Gibson was set to make a comeback through an unlikely vehicle: director Jodie Foster's The Beaver, in which Gibson plays a psychologically disturbed executive who finds solace in life through a beaver puppet. The flick had been getting good pre-release buzz, but it has bombed at the box-office. The web site The Wrap says the grosses are embarrassing, even for a low-budget indie movie, and that Gibson "is no longer a viable movie star" thanks to his string of scandals. For more click here

Maltin at the recent TCM Film Festival in Hollywood. (Photo: Graham Hill)

Famed film critic Leonard Maltin warns of the old saying "Be careful what you wish for- you just may get it!" when it comes to the movie industry's embracement of digital projection. While the digital systems do guarantee virtually perfect pictures, Maltin warns that smaller theaters are being driven out of business because they can't afford the huge investment in digital projection equipment. If he's right, you can say goodbye to small, independent theaters as well as screenings in under-funded museums. The studios, however, are thrilled with digital because it greatly reduces their costs for making prints and the cumbersome process of delivering large reels to theaters. Click here for more

The original Django starred Franco Nero

Quentin Tarantino has unveiled some details about his next film, which will be titled Django Unchained,an homage to Italian director Sergio Corbucci, who directed the Sergio Leone-style original Western Django, which inspired a number of knock-offs. Tarantino said he was also inspired by Japanese director Takashi Miike's Western of recent vintage, Sukiyaki Western Django. The film will star German actor Christoph Waltz, who won an Oscar for his performance in Tarantino's last movie, Inglourious Basterds. In the new film, Waltz's character teams with a former slave to battle an evil plantation owner. Tarantino also confirmed that a new chapter of the Kill Bill is the works. For more click here

Curb Your Enthusiasm star and Seinfeld co-creator has been signed to play the role of Mother Mengele in the long-delayed,but now soon-to-shoot big screen Three Stooges feature film. By virtue of David's character's name- obviously inspired by the notorious Dr. Josef Mengele, the mass-murdering "physician" at Auschwitz- this treatment of the comedy legends seems certain to be pushing the envelope in terms of taste. Look for more than just three guys getting their heads caught in vises. Click here for more

Paramount has informed Will Ferrell that it will not finance his long-planned sequel to his hit 2004 comedy Anchorman,  a spoof of the American TV news business. Ferrell had planned to star in a stage version of the story,then transform it into a film. Ferrell probably hasn't helped change the minds of studio suits after calling them "idiots" for informing him they don't believe a sequel to the film is merited.Ferrell remains quite popular with audiences but is not a sure-fire box-office draw, as evidenced by the fact that a number of his films have under-performed against studio expectations. Paramount obviously thinks that the Anchorman gag can't be sustained throughout another film so many years after the original was released. For more click here

Bootleg uploads of films such as The King's Speech deprive studios of hundreds of millions of dollars in revenues annually.

By Lee Pfeiffer

A little-known supporting actor named Wes DeSoto has finally achieved fame  - but not in the way he desired. The FBI has raided DeSoto's apartment and seized evidence that they claim proves he was the first person to upload the Oscar-winning film The King's Speech to the notorious web site Pirate Bay. The FBI says DeSoto, a member of the Screen Actors Guild, uploaded the film in January, before it had been commercially available to consumers. Members of the various guilds relating to the motion picture industry routinely receive DVD screeners for purposes of voting for year-end movie awards. All members are given strict warnings that they could be prosecuted if the DVDs are traced to any form of piracy. Nevertheless, inevitably someone gets careless and lends a DVD to the wrong person, or perhaps seeks to anonymously upload the video themselves to a pirate web site. As a member of the Writer's Guild of America, I received DVDs from Paramount of The Fighter and True Grit before they even hit theaters. However, I received warnings that made it clear I could do the kind of time that was depicted in Papillon if the DVDs were linked to any form of piracy. Studios warn recipients that if they are too nervous to maintain security over these DVD screeners, they should destroy them, as they are ultimately held responsible for their safe-keeping. In the case of DeSoto, the FBI was able to trace him as the alleged source because each guild member's DVDs have codes embedded in them that are unique to that member. DeSoto claims he has no affiliation with pirate sites and says the FBI investigation is much ado about nothing. For more click here

Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford combine star power in one of the most off-beat action films ever. Cowboys & Aliens, based on a graphic novel, has Craig and Ford as warring men of the old West who combine forces to combat an alien invasion. Sound weird? Yes, but considering the fact that all alien invasion movies are the realm of science fiction, there's no reason why they must always be set in the present day or the future. If you can suspend enough belief to the degree that aliens would choose Bayonne, New Jersey as their primary base for invasion, as in the 2005 version of War of the Worlds, why not go totally over the top and imagine that they also took on cowboys? The film combines some considerable talents including red-hot director Jon Favreau and producers Steven Spielberg, Ron Howard and Brian Grazer. The trailer for the film has been released and it's weird beyond belief, starting off as a traditonal Western then morphing into epic battles with alien spaceships. Click here to watch

Acclaimed actor Ray Winstone reveals he's involved with bringing a follow up to The Long Good Friday to the screen. The original 1980 crime classic involves the falling empire of a British crime kingpin. The film starred Bob Hoskins, Helen Mirren and a young Pierce Brosnan. Winstone says the film is too good to remake, so the new project will attempt to carry on the story and the legacy of its characters. Click here for more and to view the original trailer.

Click here to order the DVD from Amazon

By Lee Pfeiffer

Elizabeth Taylor had been married so often, as the old joke goes, she had rice marks on her face. She'd been wed eight times to seven men (Richard Burton walked the aisle twice with her). It was Taylor's last husband, blue collar worker Larry Fortensky that raised eyebrows, however. The odd couple met in a rehab center. Fortensky, who was a construction worker, was a beefy, good looking guy twenty years years younger than La Liz. While May/December romances are all the norm when the man is older, the public still frowned on women taking up with younger men - at least in the "pre-cougar" era. The couple married in 1991 and the union lasted five years before the seemingly inevitable divorce. Fortensky, who has faced health and financial problems in the ensuing years, has kept mum about his relationship with Liz, but is now talking. He says he's speaking out to defend himself against rumors that he was always a gold-digger. He is adamant that he and Liz were in love and that, despite their divorce, they continued to have great affection for one another. Click here for more

Robert Vaughn, seen here at an evening in his honor at New York's Players Club, will return to the big screen in Excuse Me. (Photo copyright Tom Stroud)

Some big names from classic TV shows will be joining together for the new big screen comedy Excuse Me, now shooting in Manhattan. Among them: Man From U.N.C.L.E. Robert Vaughn, Seinfeld alumni Jerry Stiller and  Wayne Knight, and talk show legend Dick Cavett. Also in the cast: Christopher Lloyd. For more click here