A LOOK AT 2017 FILMS NOMINATED FOR PROMINENT OSCARS

BY LEE PFEIFFER

Who would have imagined that amid the debris of over-produced super hero movies, Winston Churchill would emerge as a major figure in films released in 2017? The woefully underrated "Churchill" (click here for review) was first out of the box, chronicling the British Prime minister's tumultuous inner-grappling with the pending D-Day invasion, which he supported but dissented from Eisenhower and Montgomery as to where and when the great armada should land. (History happily proved his instincts wrong.) Brian Cox gave a magnificent portrayal of Churchill that was largely overlooked by critics and the public. Churchill's specter also looms largely over Best Picture nominee "Dunkirk", as it was he who ordered the evacuation of stranded British troops by an improvised "fleet" of private vessels, small and large. The second Churchill biopic, "Darkest Hour", has won raves for Joe Wright's direction, Anthony McCarten's script and the towering performance of Gary Oldman as Churchill. The role is one that any fine actor would relish but there are dangers in portraying the man, as the line between accuracy and playing a cartoon version is a thin one. Oldman succeeds brilliantly, capturing Churchill's many character flaws as well as his strengths. The movie confines itself to Churchill's uneasy ascension to being Prime Minister, a lifelong dream achieved under less-than-optimum circumstances. His successor, Neville Chamberlain (a superb Ronald Pickup, who bears an astonishing resemblance to the man) has been removed from office for failing to adequately stand up to Hitler's advances through Europe. (It was Chamberlain who had met with Hitler and proudly waved a meaningless treaty that promised "Peace in our time.) Churchill is no one's first choice to lead the nation in the coming struggle. He's regarded by his peers as temperamental, eccentric and questionable in terms of wisdom, with his disastrous WWI campaign at Gallipoli still haunting the nation. Furthermore, King George VI had little confidence in the decision to elevate Churchill to PM, but relented and gave approval only when it became clear that there was little choice.

The film traces Churchill's dilemma in those early days of the war. Things looked grim, indeed. Churchill knew it was essential for America to enter the conflict but, prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor, the nation was in isolationist mode. In one of the most poignant scenes in "Darkest Hour", Churchill pleads over the phone with FDR for assistance, but the president explains his hands are tied by a congress that wants to remain neutral. The biggest crisis he faces is that France is rapidly falling to advancing German forces, leaving the cream of the British army stranded on the beaches of Dunkirk and awaiting annihilation. The movie painstakingly chronicles Churchill's inner struggles in dealing with the crisis. His first instincts are to resist until the end, giving his famous speech that the British people will fight on no matter where the enemy confronts them. However, he is under severe pressure from Chamberlain and Halifax to negotiate a peace treaty with Hitler, an alternative that disgusts him but which seems practical to Parliament. The film gains tension even though we know how it all played out in the end. Churchill comes up with a desperate plan to enlist every available ship in the private sector to form a mini armada across the Channel to rescue the stranded troops. Before the operation can be completed, however, Churchill begins to cave and consider the option of a peace plan. This is where the script goes off kilter with a completely fictional scene in which Churchill gets a sudden desire to read the will of the people about their resolve to fight on. He jumps out of his limousine and makes an impromptu ride on the London Underground, chatting with astonished passengers and being reassured they support his strategy not to negotiate with Hitler. The scene is emotionally moving, but preposterous and more than a bit corny. Making matters worse, Churchill is only supposed to be on the train for a single stop but the journey seems longer than the one experienced by the people traveling to Siberia in "Doctor Zhivago". Bolstered by the resolve of the public, Churchill walks straight in to Parliament and gives an impassioned speech that rallies friends and foes alike. His judgment is ratified by the ultimate success of the Dunkirk operation, which turned a bitter defeat into a triumph.

The historical hokum presented in "Darkest Hour" is frustrating because it undermines the entire film. Why create a scene that so simplifies history when the real life scenario was even more dramatic? Nevertheless, there is much to admire in the film aside from Oldman's superb performance. Every supporting actor delivers the goods, with Ben Mendelsohn particularly good as King George. Unfortunately, Kristin Scott Thomas is largely reduced to a figurehead as Churchill's wife Clemmie. In "Churchill', the character, played by Miranda Richardson, engaged in constant contentious situations with her husband, which mirrored their real-life marriage. In "Darkest Hour", Clemmie simply smiles a lot and reassures ol' Winnie that things will be just fine. Despite the film's flaws, "Darkest Hour" is an engaging and admirable effort that should be seen. It has many virtues aside from the fact that it's probably sent the sale of cigars soaring.

("Darkest Hour" is nominated for six Oscars including Best Picture).

BY MARK MAWSTON

Our friends at Park Circus invited us to a preview of The Shining, which is returning to the big screen this Halloween for limited screening in 100 theatres. This is where the film really should be seen.

I first saw The Shining, under age, in my local cinema where the kindly staff used to let us watch X Cert films from the stalls which were closed to the public. At the time The Shining really didn’t have the impact of Friday The 13^th to my 13 year old self. Certain images did stay with me obviously, this was Kubrick after all, but the one thing I do remember was that the image from the poster of Jack Nicholson’s “Here’s Johnny” moment terrified my younger sister and I used to put the poster up just to scare her. Boys, eh? Over the years I’ve re-watched The Shining several times and each time it’s become more and more of a favourite. This is an adult film, dealing with adult themes and it’s a lot different watching the terror of the young boy Doc as a parent, rather than being closer in age to the character, as I was then. What I also gleaned from this screening was how important sound is in this film and this new print really does justice to the look and aural experience Kubrick strove to achieve.

There were many points that stood out that I’d missed on TV and DVD viewings, such as the aforementioned use of sound when one of the protagonists is “Shining” or indeed the use of mirrors throughout the film; whole scenes where the character’s reflections address the camera, T shirt logo’s in reverse, which pre- empt the famous use of the words REDRUM later in the film.

The film was trailered by the short but interesting new documentary Work & Play. This accompanying film concentrates on the stories of the actual people involved with the production, whereas other documentaries have concentrated of the enigma of Kubrick and the film itself, such as Room  247. Here we have interviews with the film’s iconic twins who are just as fascinating to look at today and still talk in unison- obviously even off the camera, as well as those who rightly intone that “95% of films are forgotten but the ones that fall into that 5% are the great ones, the ones that remain”. So does The Shining fall into that 5%? As far as horror movies go, yes. Like a great wine, The Shining gets better with age, both in look and standing. Although Jack Nicholson’s performance has been pastiched many times, it still stands up as one of the best examples of a man falling into madness ever to cross the silver screen. Although Steadycam camera shots had been used in horror a couple of years earlier (i.e John Carpenter’s Halloween), they have never been utilized better than the scenes of Danny or “Doc”, the boy who can shine, as he races through the Overlook Hotel’s corridors. Again, this is another example of the use of soundscape, as the child’s bike wheels jar from hard floor to carpet in the same way a heartbeat quickens when you approach something dreadful.

The wonderful touches such as Doc wearing an Apollo NASA T shirt alluding to the fact that Kubrick was supposed to have been the director of the “faked” moon landings just add to the fascination of this film. The documentary shows that the working title was “The Shine” and that is exactly what this film will continue to do. I’d be interested to see what Stephen King thinks of the movie now after famously disliking it for so many years. Whatever the case, this is a landmark work and whatever one thinks of the finished product, it’s clear that King wrote a timeless source novel and Kubrick developed it into a classic film. This is the perfect time of year to see for yourself, thanks to Park Circus. Let it Shine. 

CLICK HERE FOR LIST OF INTERNATIONAL CINEMAS SHOWING THE FILM

BY MARK MAWSTON

It’s taken 35 years for the often talked about sequel to one of sci-fi cinema’s finest moments- Blade Runner- to actually appear in the form of Blade Runner 2049. Most fans were against the idea of a sequel, pondering how you could improve on perfection. Well, like the Replicants of the first film, although perfect in many eyes, the original version underwent its own various modifications to improve significant flaws over the years. We had the original “noir” version, the “director’s” and the “final” cut before director Ridley Scott and most fans were happy. This final cut also seemed to answer the conundrum relating to Deckard (Harrison Ford) being a Replicant himself. Or so we thought. If, as I and many thought pre-screening, Deckard was indeed a Replicant, how has he lived so long and aged? Did this mean that the Replicants were given skin that would age, yet their strength would remain? If so, then Harrison Ford is still the perfect choice but I’m afraid I can’t tell you anything as director Denis Villeneuve asked for reviewers to refrain from giving away any key aspects from this special preview in London on Oct 2^nd. Not only that, I’m still not sure of the answer after seeing this incredible continuation of the Blade Runner mythos. What I am sure about is that this is, along with The Godfather Part II, one of the greatest sequels in movie history.

The premise is thus: LAPD Officer K (Ryan Gosling) is a Blade Runner in 2049. During an investigation, he unearths a long hidden secret that, if true, would lead society into chaos. Once begun, his quest leads to him tracking down the long missing Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) to find out the truth; but will he and, indeed, Deckard, like what they find?

Everything about Blade Runner 2049 works. From the perfect casting to the sets which rise from the dust bowls of a radioactive Vegas and the sodden Los Angeles like glistening tiers in the rain. The cinematography by Roger Deakins is stunning while the screenplay by Hampton Fancher and Michael Green is as subtle as the music by Hans Zimmer and Benjamin Wallfisch in complementing, yet adding to, the mythos of the original. As a viewer, you are like a feather on the breeze and have no choice but to  be blown in whichever direction Villeneuve and producer Scott decide to take you. The film is like a spiral interior of a sea shell; whether it’s leading you out or into its centre is the question you have to try and work out for yourself.

With a running time just short of three hours, this film, like the beloved “spinners” which have replaced cars, simply flies by and the fact that this screening took place on the eve of director Villeneuve’s 50^th birthday led me to think that this is a movie will still be talked about 50 years from now. We may not have flying cars by then but I’m sure we’ll still have neon advertising dominating our cities and climate change affecting our lives.

This is a modern masterpiece that you really need to see on the big screen, although I left there thinking I’d love to see it in the “Elvis” room Deckard has. See it and you’ll know what I mean.

BY LEE PFEIFFER

Until it goes off the rails, writer/director Taylor Sheridan's "Wind River" shapes up to be a compelling murder mystery. The film's opening scene shows a young woman desperately running through a remote, snowy landscapes, obviously trying to outpace whoever or whatever is pursuing her.  Ultimately, we learn her fate when Cory Lambert (Jeremy Renner), a tracker who is assisting the police in the search for the missing girl, stumbles upon her body. Turns out she had been sexually abused prior to her death, which took place on the barren Wind River reservation for Native Americans in Wyoming. Cory has to deliver the bad news to the girl's father (Gil Birmingham), whose wife is already suffering from a mental disorder. Ironically, the victim, Natalie (Kelsey Asbille), was the best friend of Cory's own daughter, who died under tragic and unsolved circumstances a few years prior. Both men are now forced to cope with staggering grief even as Cory continues to assist police in pursuing whoever killed Natalie. The FBI sends a single agent, Jane Banner (Elizabeth Olsen) to head the investigation. She is given an arms-length reception by the local constable on the reservation (Graham Greene in an excellent performance) because she seems like an ill-equipped city slicker. It will come as no surprise to anyone that she proves to be a quick learner and earns everyone's respect with her courage and brainpower. 

"Wind River"  is an indie film getting an unusually wide release (it credits twenty-five people as producers/co-producers). It boasts outstanding cinematography by Ben Richardson, who makes the bleakness of the Wyoming winter landscape a truly foreboding place. Taylor Sheridan, who specializes in films about rugged individualism, has considerable skill with his actors, and gets top-notch performances from Renner, Olsen and every actor who appears even in the smallest role (kudos to casting directors Lauren and Jordan Bass.) In terms of acting and atmosphere, the film is commendable on every level. However, Sheridan the screenwriter lets down Sheridan the director with a script that meanders half-way through. Just as I was crediting him for avoiding gun battles and concentrating on character development, it devolves into a shocking act of violence that leads to a flashback sequence that depicts another despicable act of violence that brutally depicts the sexual abuse of a young woman.  While the scene is designed to shock, it also becomes somewhat prurient and difficult to view. The script falls off a cliff as Cory gets closer to resolving the murder largely because there is no "Aha!" moment that every good mystery commands.  Sheridan provides plenty of red herrings but an expected link to two key elements of the story that never materializes (I can't say more without issuing a "Spoiler Alert!") What's left is an ambitious and impressive effort that falls short of its possibilities. Renner makes a stalwart leading man but Olsen's character seems like needless window dressing; someone tossed into the mix to mitigate the otherwise all-male dominance of the story line. The film has its heart in the right place, demonstrating the shame of having Native Americans still living on remote reservations, but Sheridan can't make up his mind about whether he wants to tell a compelling mystery story or make a social commentary. The result is a mishmash of intelligent dialogue mingled with needlessly exploitive violence. 

BY LEE PFEIFFER

Winston Churchill may be the  famous figure of the 20th century to be most-portrayed on film. Indeed, it's hard to sell a historically-themed British film or TV series that touches upon the WWII years without making Churchill a central character. For actors the role must seem irresistible. After all, Churchill's real-life mannerisms and eccentricities remain the stuff of legend. In an age when most people are seemingly uninterested and uninformed about history, Churchill Mania is very much in vogue in some quarters. In the new film independent film "Churchill", Brian Cox becomes the latest thespian to portray the larger-than-life statesman. He does a brilliant job of it, too, having gained over twenty pounds in the process. It may seem that Churchill is one of the easiest legends to be imitated. As with John Wayne, it seems any drunk with a lampshade on his head can knock out a reasonably effective impersonation. However, Cox delivers one of the more effective interpretations of the man, playing up his physical and emotional frailties. The film concerns itself only with the period of timing leading up to the D-Day invasion- and there lies the rub. It is known that Churchill had strong reservations about the audacity of the Allies launching an "all-or-nothing-at-all" gamble to liberate Occupied France. However, the extent of those reservations has long been debated by historians. Churchill apologists have argued that his concerns were relatively minor and that he ended up being an enthusiastic proponent of the plan. His critics say that he whitewashed history in his memoirs and believe that he was reluctantly dragged into supporting the invasion only when it became clear that his objections were being overruled. The screenplay for the film is firmly in the second camp, making Churchill a man who was vehemently opposed to D-Day to the point of making himself a nuisance to Generals Eisenhower and Montgomery, who were hell-bent on taking the gamble. I don't proclaim to be an expert in Churchillian history so I can't address concerns cited by some other critics that the film exaggerates his objections to the invasion and the impact it had on the military and his wife Clementine (Miranda Richardson). She is portrayed as a long-suffering spouse who must endure her husband's constant temper tantrums and self-centeredness. This isn't a minor point. The entire plot is basically centered on Churchill's position on the D-Day invasion. The film does acknowledge a known fact: Churchill did favor a massive invasion of Europe but wanted the Allies to land in Italy, where they already had a foothold. His ideas were dismissed by Eisenhower in favor of using Normandy as the landing point. Although the film doesn't specify why Eisenhower rejected Churchill's plan, historians say it was because the fighting going on in Italy was proving to be far worse than anyone had predicted and the feat of getting an entire invasion force over so many geographical obstacles would have greatly slowed or diminished the effort. Although some critics have said that "Churchill" is a bastardization of history, there are scholars who back up the representation that Churchill was vigorously opposed to Eisenhower's plans for the Normandy invasion. As indicated in the film, he was haunted by the battle at Gallipoli in WWI, which he had planned. It resulted in massive Allied losses and Churchill was obsessed with not having another major invasion result in such casualties. What the film undeniably presents in an accurate setting is Eisenhower's momentous decision to trust his weatherman and approve the launch of the D-Day invasion, taking advantage of a sliver of barely acceptable conditions at sea. Half of his advisers told him not to do it while the other half told him he must. It's a scene filled with drama and tension- and one in which Churchill finds himself relegated to the status of bystander.  

Eastwood may give acting another shot.

BY LEE PFEIFFER

At a packed symposium in Cannes where he received a three-minute standing ovation, Clint Eastwood discussed his philosophies of filmmaking along with the personal experience of growing up in the Depression. Eastwood said that he views movie-making as an emotional experience not an intellectual one and warns that when an emphasis on intellectual aspects of a film overrides trying to move the audience emotionally directors can find themselves in trouble. Eastwood addressed his long-standing complaints about what he perceives as political correctness in the film industry and warns that "We've lost our sense of humor."  Ironically it was Eastwood's sense of humor that earned him rare bad press concerning his personal life.  Traditionally Eastwood stayed out of commenting on national politics but in 2012 he appeared at the Republican convention to endorse Mitt Romney with a bit of improvised comedy that earned him a good deal of criticism because of  barbs aimed at President Obama that many felt crossed the line in terms of being too distasteful. Eastwood was not overtly active in the 2016 presidential campaign and he did not address the current political situation in his appearance at Cannes. During his chat at Cannes he did acknowledge that he sometimes misses acting on screen. (He has not starred in a film since "Trouble with the Curve" in 2012). He says he will return to acting "someday", a vow that might seem overly-optimistic for a man of 86 years of age- but we wouldn't want to bet against him. For more click here. 

BY MARK CERULLI 

Even among discriminating CR readers, there is NO doubt that Alien, Ridley Scott’s 1979 sci-fi masterpiece is truly terrifying. Jump forward to 2017: technology is light years ahead and the world is counting down towards Scott’s latest directing effort, Alien: Covenant. One of the many new technologies to emerge in the 38 years since the franchise chest-burst onto the scene is Virtual Reality. VR vastly expands the experience of a visual work by immersing the viewer in it. Like feature films a century ago, VR content is starting out as short films, being consumed by a growing audience. Kudos to Twentieth Century Fox and RSA for giving their iconic franchise the VR treatment with Alien: Covenant In Utero, A Virtual Reality Experience. The two-minute feature was unveiled at a special event held at Technicolor’s Experience Center, the company’s VR incubator in Culver City.

Who can forget John Hurt curiously peering into the strange pod and getting attacked by a face-hugger in the original Alien? Now you can be inside one of those very pods. “Consumers are being part of the story, not just watching the story,” says Matthais Wittmann, VFX Supervisor for MPC, the Technicolor company that worked on the project with Ridley Scott Associates, Twentieth Century Fox and a host of other partners.

“Our goal was to scare you,” said Ted Schilowitz, Futurist at 20^th Century Fox. Mission accomplished: The In Utero experience immerses the viewer inside the birthing pod, complete with sights (like blood or whatever alien fluids transverse the veins) and sounds (heartbeats, a screaming victim outside the pod) as the Alien Neomorph finishes developing and bursts out, fully lethal, towards its next victim.

“We hit the ground running,” says the project’s director, David Karlak, who rode the buzz from his brilliant futuristic short Rise straight into Ridley Scott’s office. “It’s an example of how you take all the different disciplines that make films look as good as they do today and recalibrating them to deliver a VR experience that is unparalleled,” the director adds. Obviously any young filmmaker would jump at the chance to work with a legend like Ridley Scott, but for Karlak, the project’s unique universe also had its attractions: “For me the inspiration was the concept… since this was told from the point of view of a Neomorph, how would a creature that’s designed to hunt perceive the world?” Well, like the old saying goes, if all you have is a hammer, pretty soon everything starts to look like a nail.

Director David Karlak

Jen Dennis, RSA’s Executive Producer of Branded Content & VR watched how her boss immediately took to VR when a similar project was created for his 2015 hit, The Martian. “It’s very important to Ridley that these pieces have a real filmic essence to them, they have to feel ‘filmic.’” In a nod to Karlak’s talent she said, “When we saw Rise, we knew he was the right person for this.”

Achieving the proper 360° look fell to Technicolor’s MPC VFX Supervisor, Matthais Wittmann who had his hands full from the very first frame: “You need a really high frame rate or you get sick,” he pointed out. Since there are no cuts in VR, “You can’t save yourself with edits.”

The fact that MPC was also handling visual effects for Alien: Covenant was a huge plus. “We knew very early on that there would be a VR component so our crew went over to the sets to take photographs so we’d have them…” Wittmann says, adding, “our team was there, they knew about the lighting, they’ve worked on other Alien movies already so all this information we can leverage.” And then, of course, there was The Master: “Since this was a point of view that has never been done before,” Wittmann continues, “it was also very helpful to have Ridley Scott close by so we could ask him, ‘Is that how it would be?’” Director Karlak echoed how invaluable Scott’s guidance was – suggesting he watch videos of baby crocodiles hatching and endoscopic footage of a human womb, just to keep the team on the right track. Now after over five months of intense work, this alien baby has arrived, fangs and all…

Intrepid Cinema Retro scribe Mark Cerulli gets the full "Alien" VR treatment.

Alien: Covenant In Utero, A Virtual Reality Experience, is available on the Oculus platform on “Alien Day”, April 26^th and then on all mobile and tethered platforms like Samsung Gear VR, Google Daydream View, HTC Vice and PlayStation VR starting May 10.

Alien: Covenant arrives in theaters on May 19^th from Twentieth Century Fox.

BY MARK CERULLI

The trailer tells you everything you need to know about “The Belko Experiment”, writer James Gunn’s bloody trip to the dark side of the corporate workspace. You know there’s going to be a serious body count… you know there’s going to be some wicked humor… and you know that somewhere you’re going to see Michael Rooker. But HOW things unfold is what makes Belko such an entertaining ride. Think “Office Space” meets “Texas Chainsaw Massacre”…

Aptly directed by Greg McLean (“Wolf Creek”), “The Belko Experiment” chronicles a (final) day in the life of the staff of a rather bland American company set up on the outskirts of Bogota, Colombia. It’s a typical workday until an anonymous intercom voice tells them they have two hours to kill thirty of their co-workers or sixty of them will be “sacrificed”. The execs laugh it off as a prank - until the back of a staffer’s head explodes, thanks to an “anti-kidnapping” locator they’ve all had implanted. Soon Belko descends into “Lord of the Flies”, for real. Factions form, alliances are made and friendships are erased by the basic urge to survive. The movie is helped along by a terrific cast which blends relative newcomers with seasoned pros: John Gallagher, Jr. plays a workplace everyman trying to stop the carnage and protect his colleague/girlfriend (lovely Adria Arjona). Tony Goldwyn is outstanding as Belko’s COO who morphs from cool boss to killing machine so he can make it home to his wife and kids. He doesn’t want to kill his direct reports… he just has to. John C. McGinly is deliciously evil as a leering workplace creep who methodically tries to raise his “body count” using a meat cleaver. And yes, Michael Rooker is short but sweet as Belko’s stoic maintenance man trying to find a way out of the hermetically sealed building.

It’s a testament to writer/producer James Gunn’s growing power in Hollywood that this film is getting a wide theatrical release in today’s megabuck franchise landscape. “The Belko Experiment “feels like a 1990s action/horror film, which is a good thing: in the 1980s and 90s, small, entertaining genre films routinely got theatrical releases – great movies like “Surviving The Game”, “Trespass” and “Southern Comfort” all delivered the thrills audiences wanted without costing tens of millions to produce. Most of them actually made a profit, unlike today when almost every big budget release is a huge gamble - James Bond, Star Wars and Guardians franchises excepted! Today those small 1980s/90s movies would be relegated to streaming or other platforms if they found a distributor at all.

After the special “Employee Appreciation Day” screening Cinema Retro attended in Santa Monica, key cast and crewmembers talked about making the film. Fanboy favorite James Gunn said he wrote the script in a “two week fugue state” of 18-hour days. John C. McGinley commented that what drew him to the script was the fact that “the choices each character made determined their survival.” He drew a parallel to 9-11 as his brother worked in the Twin Towers and when an anonymous PA voice told his floor to stay put after the first plane hit, he and other colleagues knew enough to immediately take the stairs to safety. On a lighter note, Tony Goldwyn admitted that, as an actor, he wanted in after reading a script that featured exploding heads!

In person, Gunn is amiable and funny and managed to carve out a little time for fans, many of who showed up with bits of “Guardians of the Galaxy” memorabilia to be signed. Other cast members posed with attendees and all the actors seemed genuinely happy to see each other for the first time since their Bogota shoot. It made for a surprisingly happy ending after 90 minutes of onscreen carnage.

The Belko Experiment opens nationwide on March 17^th. Be prepared to never look at a tape dispenser the same way…

By Mark Cerulli

Hard to believe it’s been five years since America’s worst environmental disaster, the Deepwater Horizon explosion, which claimed 11 lives and allowed 50,000 barrels of oil per day to spew from the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico for 87 heartbreaking days until the well was finally capped. Since then the world has moved on and the event remains relevant only for those who lived through it. Director Peter Berg’s riveting new film “Deepwater Horizon”, should snap people back to attention.

“Deepwater Horizon” is told through the eyes of blue-collar worker, Chief Electrician Mike Williams, played by Mark Wahlberg, who leaves his loving wife (Kate Hudson) and arrives on the massive rig, 41 miles off the Louisiana coast. Costing $500,000 a day to run, the rig is weeks behind schedule – which means a team of BP managers led by a creepy John Malkovitch is breathing down the crew’s thick necks. In fact, they’ve just cut short some important safety inspections to save time. When seasoned rig manager Mr. Jimmy, wonderfully played by Kurt Russell, demands a pressure test, the results are troubling… and then all hell breaks loose! Flammable gas leaks from the well and the failsafe mechanisms – including slicing through the main drilling pipe – fail and the rig explodes. From then on it’s a white-knuckle fight for survival.

As good as the actors are, and Wahlberg is at his best playing a workin’ man, the real stars of “Deepwater Horizon” are the visual effects. The film takes you 5000 feet below the surface to spot the beginnings of trouble – tiny gas pockets leaking out, then inside the well as the toxic gas races up, turning the rig into a raging fireball. To recreate the maritime disaster, the filmmakers built one of the largest sets ever constructed – using over 3.2 million pounds of steel. Real life oil workers (including Mike Williams) acted as technical advisers to give it all an authentic look and feel right down to the control panels. The set even features a working helipad, used onscreen. (Shades of “You Only Live Twice”!)

While the movie shows the sheer terror facing the crew, it also spotlights true acts of bravery as Wahlberg’s character rescues their beloved crew chief, Mr. Jimmy from the burning bowels of the rig. When he and the platform’s young Dynamic Positioning Operator (sort of like a pilot) played by Gina Rodriguez find themselves trapped, with seemingly no way out, he gets her to take a (real) leap of faith into the burning waters far below.

Most illuminating is the film’s ending crawl where we see the faces of the 11 lost crewmembers and learn the fates of the survivors - several quit the oil industry for good and the BP managers got off with a legal smack on the wrist (although the company was forced to pay a massive $20 billionin fines.) “Deepwater Horizon” is a stark and thrilling example of what happens when human greed and hubris meet Mother Nature.

BY JOHN LEMAY

Dazed and Confused, the first major feature from director/writer Richard Linklater, was released in 1993. The story, set in 1976, concerned one day in the life of a group of Texas high school students on their last day of classes. The proceedings were so high on nostalgia the film could very nearly be mistaken for a documentary. The movie (which included the likes of Ben Affleck and Mathew McConaughey) was ignored in theaters, but soon began flying off of video rental store shelves. Quickly it achieved cult-hit status, and for the last twenty-some years fans have begged for a sequel. Though Linklater had no desire to revisit that film’s characters, he did occasionally remark about doing a quasi-follow-up set in college in the 1980s. Finally in 2015 the long gestating “sequel” began filming.

However, when Linklater shot Dazed and Confused he was in his early thirties, with high school still fresh in his memory. It could even be said he caught the perennial lightning in a bottle in capturing the film’s perfect atmosphere. In his mid-fifties by 2015 when filming on Everybody Wants Some!! commenced, could Linklater accomplish the same feat twice?

Surprisingly the answer is a resounding yes. However, to call Everybody Wants Some!! a sequel to Dazed and Confused isn’t 100% correct, as there are no continuity ties to that film—at least none that anyone has spotted yet—though it’s still reasonable to assume they take place in the same little world. And though some call this the “1980s Dazed and Confused,” it should be noted this movie only takes place in the late summer of 1980, well before the decade of excess had managed to establish itself, so really the period’s not too terribly different from the late 1970s. That being said, this film doesn’t attempt to imitate its predecessor as much as one would expect. For instance, in Dazed it’s difficult to say just who the main character really is due to its large ensemble, whereas Blake Jenner’s lead character Jake, a freshman college baseball player, is the singular point of view in Everybody Wants Some!! Nor does this story take place over the course of only one day, which would have been a disservice to the character’s relationships. In the case of Dazed, most of the characters had established friendships/relationships as they had several years of high school under their belt. But in Everybody Wants Some!! Jake has no prior existing relationships with any of his new roommates/teammates whom he is moving into a frat house with. As such the storyline more or less chronicles Jake adapting to living on his own and bonding with his new roommates over the course of one party-filled weekend, the film ending with him starting his first day of college classes.

As one can tell from the brief synopsis above, Everybody Wants Some!! is not a high-concept film by any means. Like Boyhood and other Linklater films, the focal point is human interaction itself, with a heavy dose of philosophizing—some of which is naturally fueled by marijuana. Actually, aside from the “getting high and having a strange conversation scene” Everybody Wants Some!! really isn’t too heavy on call-backs to Dazed and Confused. Other than the aforementioned scene, only the hazing of the new players on a baseball field and the climax involving an all-night party strongly harken back to Dazed. And like its predecessor, the final scenes don’t consist of the typical movie deaths, explosions, fist fights or first kisses. As a coming of age film, it naturally ends on the note of the lead character firmly realizing he has entered a new phase of his life. (Beware of spoilers) The final scene, where Jake attends his first class after having pulled off an all-nighter, sees him tiredly watching his history teacher writing “Frontiers are where you find them” on the chalkboard. Jake closes his eyes to sleep, and then smiles.

Naturally, the joy of the film is found in the nostalgia factor in remembering back to one’s college days and early youth. Much of this joy is found in the lengthy conversations/interactions as Linklater proves he still reigns supreme as the king of realistic movie dialogue. Ever watch a movie with bad dialogue? Of course you have, and there’s absolutely nothing more distracting than bad dialogue. Simply put, Linklater gets how people—specifically in this case college guys—actually interact with each other. Every scene felt completely natural, including Jake’s introduction to his roommates. For other writers/directors these scenes can often come across as clunky or heavy on exposition, but Linklater perfectly captured the awkward “first day of school” feeling for Jake walking into the frat house for the first time. Credit also goes to Jenner’s wide-eyed acting, taking in his new surroundings in believable fashion. Likewise, all of his roommates are well balanced in that they manage to entice plenty of laughter without losing their believability. The only exception is the character of Jay, an arrogant loud mouthed pitcher portrayed by Juston Street. While Street is hilarious in his part, his character is the only one that’s perhaps too much of a caricature and upsets the near perfect illusion of realism. Granted, wacky people like that do exist, but they’re fairly rare in the real world.

And speaking of humor, in a day and age where all the funniest bits are in the trailers more often than not, Everybody Wants Some!! is the exact opposite. There’s nothing particularly funny in the trailers (at least not as far as this writer is concerned) but in the context of the actual film the witty dialogue and gags are hilarious. Nor are they set-up to the point that they feel forced, and they come quickly enough that the viewer can’t see the punchline coming before it lands.

In summary, Everybody Wants Some!! may come from the same mold as Dazed and Confused but still manages to be its own film, and is far more than just “Dazed and Confused 2.” Its run in theaters is currently over, but it has just been released on DVD/Blu-ray and is available for digital download now.

CLICK HERE TO ORDER BLU-RAY FROM AMAZON

John LeMay is the author of several western non-fiction titles, among them Tall Tales and Half Truths of Billy the Kid. Click here to order from Amazon.

BY JOHN LEMAY

Over the years I’ve noticed an interesting phenomena among Star Trek fans which is that most of them love the television series but seem only to tolerate the films. Maybe my perception is off, seeing as how I fall into the category of a non-fan who greatly enjoys the films—namely the ones from the 1980s starring the original cast—but not the TV series from which they were based. For whatever reason, there seems to be a strange sort of disconnect between fans of the TV series and mainstream audiences. Take for example the films that deviated greatly from the series, such as the overly comical Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986) which soared at the box office, while films that most resembled episodes of the TV series—namely the awful Star Trek: Insurrection (1998)—performed below expectations. The rebooted Star Trek of 2009 was also pretty far flung from the Original Series to a degree with its blaring of “Sabotage” on the soundtrack among other elements, but was a big hit with mainstream audiences. Now with this year’s Star Trek Beyond (which also blares the Beastie Boys on the soundtrack) many critics say this is finally the Star Trek film that fans of the TV series and mainstream audiences can finally mutually enjoy.

Unlike Star Trek Into Darkness (2013) which was perhaps too reverential of Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan (1982), Star Trek Beyond is a completely original tale that, if condensed, could almost seem like an episode from the Original Series. Perhaps this is why I didn’t enjoy this one as much as 2009’s reboot, but that being said, it’s still a highly enjoyable film with some excellent character moments and set-pieces. I can’t say much more without getting into SPOILERS, so if you prefer not to know about certain surprise elements (like the identity of the “new” ship seen in the trailers) quit reading now.

Overall, the biggest difference between this film and its two predecessors is the character dynamics. Mostly audiences had seen the crew together on the bridge of the Enterprise, while in this film the characters are spilt into pairs on an unexplored planet after the Enterprise gets destroyed by the new villain Krall (Idris Elba). Kirk and Chekov have an excellent action scene amidst the ruins of the Enterprise; Uhura and Sulu try to discover the villainous motivations behind Krall in captivity; Scotty teams with an intriguing new alien warrior named Jaylah, and McCoy must do his best to stabilize a wounded Spock. Not surprisingly, the McCoy/Spock pairing makes for the film’s best character moments and one-liners, with Scotty (Simon Pegg who also co-wrote the screenplay) and Jaylah’s scenes in a fairly close second. And while on the subject of Jaylah, portrayed by Sofia Boutella (Kingsman: The Secret Service), the alien warrior makes for an excellent addition to the cast who will hopefully return for future installments.

That all being said, for me Star Trek Beyond didn’t really take off until the third act when the cast regroups on a long-lost federation ship that had crashed on the planet’s surface (this would be the “new” ship spotted by eagle-eyed fans in trailers). Those hoping that this ship is the NX-01 Enterprise from the 2001 prequel TV series Enterprise will be disappointed though. While the new creation is the same class of ship from the same era, it is a heretofore unknown ship called the Franklin. While it would have been fun to see the new cast commandeer the Enterprise from the 2001 TV series, from a writer’s standpoint the Franklin makes more sense for reasons I will soon reveal.

The climax, wherein the crew utilizes the Franklin to save a massive space station named Yorktown, actually reminded me of the climax for Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. Just like in that film, it’s great fun seeing the cast adapt to and use a rickety unfamiliar ship to save the day and then come crashing into the water with it. It was after said crash that the film had me fooled into thinking that it was headed towards the obligatory face-to-face showdown between Kirk and Krall. It instead took me by surprise when it is revealed after the watery crash that Krall isn’t actually an alien, but used to be a human—specifically the original captain of the Franklin. This slightly resolved one issue I had with Krall in that he seemed to be too much of a cookie-cutter alien menace. As to both his evil motivations and how he went from a human Federation Captain to an alien menace, the explanation relies perhaps a bit too much on last minute exposition but still works for the most part. On top of the surprise reveal, the hand to hand duel between Krall and Kirk—which I expected to be a boring paint-by-the-numbers fist fight—is made fresh and exciting due to the fact that it took place in a zero gravity atmosphere, allowing them both to the fly about the gigantic Yorktown space station as they trade blows.

One thing I found interesting in the marketing of the film was that the Limited Edition poster for Star Trek Beyond is a callback to the original Star Trek: The Motion Picture poster. That film finds Kirk now an Admiral and Spock having left Starfleet to return to Vulcan. Perhaps not coincidentally this film seems to be setting up the same story elements for the “future” film as Kirk is applying for an Admiral position and Spock is pondering leaving Star Fleet to better serve his race. For Kirk, life in space is becoming monotonous, and he laments that he is now older than his father ever lived to be over a birthday drink with McCoy. Spock is likewise saddened to hear of the loss of his future self, Ambassador Spock. This makes him question his relationship with Uhura, as any children he has with her will only be 1/4^th Vulcan leading him to the conclusion that he should procreate with a full Vulcan to better further his species. In the end both Kirk and Spock decide to stay with Star Fleet as they witness the building of a new Enterprise. Spock’s reason for staying is actually a touching tribute to Leonard Nimoy. The scene, and I would say this is a big spoiler, has Zachary Quinto’s Spock discovering a certain photograph amongst the deceased Ambassador Spock’s belongings. The photo is of Nimoy, William Shatner, and the rest of the original cast (which looks to have been taken for Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country) on the bridge of the Enterprise. The realization dawns upon Spock that he is meant to grow old with these people, and his place is on the bridge of the Enterprise. It’s also obvious that Kirk’s toast “to absent friends” during the end scene was initially meant as a nod to Nimoy, but sadly ended up encompassing the late Anton Yelchin as well. Yelchin, who played Chekov in the new series, was tragically killed in a car accident shortly before the film’s release.

Star Trek Beyond is projected by analysts to have healthy grosses at the box office, and a sequel (which will see Chris Hemsworth return as George Kirk) has already been announced.

BY JOHN LEMAY

For many years Tarzan was a staple of cinema—in fact from its very onset. The first Tarzan feature, Tarzan of the Apes, came out in 1918 and was followed by close to 50 other adaptations in the last century. His star started to fade in the late 1960s and there were no Tarzan features in the 1970s save for one. The 1980s somewhat provided his last gasp on the big screen with movies like the Bo Derek vehicle Tarzan, the Ape Man (1981) and- more impressively- the well-received Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes.  The 1990s saw only 1998’s Tarzan and the Lost City and the 1999 Disney animated version. In fact, for all many “youngsters” know Tarzan may as well have originated with the Disney cartoon. For the first time in many years, we finally have a new big-budget live-action iteration of one of the screen’s oldest icons in The Legend of Tarzan from Warner Bros. Can it strike a balance between lovers of vintage cinema who grew up on Tarzan and the new “iPhone generation”? Or will it suffer the fate of that other recent Edgar Rice Burroughs adaptation John Carter?

Naturally, there is a lot of CGI vine swinging which will put some viewers off, but I for one say it makes for very exciting action (and less risk for the stuntmen). And secondly, would Tarzan’s journey through cinematic history be complete without a little CGI? I think not. Though there is a lot of appreciation in watching well-done stunt work, the CGI enabled Tarzan could well be the “purist” representation of Burrough’s vision ever put on the screen. In fact, certain shots of Tarzan swinging through the jungle with the apes look like a Frank Frazetta painting come to life. A CGI-enable animal stampede unleashed during the climax is also a scene straight from classic Burroughs, and would have been impossible to pull off with real animals, as is Tarzan’s fight with a gorilla midway through the picture.

Though he’s probably a little too far on the blonde side for Burroughs purists, Alexander Skarsgard is pretty perfectly cast as Tarzan; and for more than just his lithe physique. Playing Tarzan was usually a tough act to balance for most actors. Mike Henry played him as though he were James Bond in Tarzan and the Valley of Gold (1966), while Miles O’Keefe never even spoke in Tarzan, the Ape Man opposite Bo Derek. Perhaps this is why the writers chose to set this film ten years after he has left Africa for England, and Tarzan has become acclimated to modern society as Lord Greystoke, John Clayton. Naturally in this civilized period of his life the character is much easier to write and to portray for Skarsgard. Therefore, this is probably one of the more relatable on screen Tarzans, though I’d say Johnny Weissmuller is still safe as the all-time favorite.

As for the rest of the cast, Margot Robbie is a knockout and does great as Jane. However, it feels as though the production team felt a bit guilty about making her a damsel in distress for most of the film and it shows in some of her scenes in captivity. That being said, Jane’s kidnapping was a necessary plot-device for this film’s story, not to mention something of a Tarzan tradition, but perhaps in the future she can get a better subplot. As the heavy, Christoph Waltz is his usual very watchable self. Though the story sets up Waltz to look like a weakling in his first scene, he quickly proves to be anything but in a nice twist. He even comes complete with a unique way of killing his enemies that would be right at home in one of the older Bond pictures. Samuel L. Jackson portrays Tarzan’s ally from the civilized world who has to acclimate to the jungle, another Tarzan tradition of sorts. Rounding out the rest of the big name actors is Djimon Hounsou who plays the leader of a viscous tribe who has a vendetta with Tarzan, yet another series staple which makes the film round all the usual bases (and I mean this in a positive sense).

In some respects, were I to ignore the CGI, I almost felt as though I was watching some vintage cinema from a bygone era. Perhaps part of this feeling is due to the period setting, since there are so few period piece blockbusters these days. The film is also simply plotted, and is true to the Tarzan formula. An evil white man is out to get the lost diamonds of Opar, and Jane naturally gets kidnapped by him. Much like a Burroughs book, the action cuts back in forth between Tarzan’s trek through the jungle and Jane’s efforts to escape captivity from the villains. Coupled with this are flashback scenes to Tarzan’s origin and first meetings with Jane, as this is more of a “sequel” than an origin story. For purists who dislike CGI, have no fear at least when it comes to the on-location shots of Africa, which are beautiful up on the big screen. Naturally, there are of traces of the 21^st Century filmmaking trends too. In the wake of Marvel Studio’s success it seems every action film these days tries to be a comedian, so to speak. The Legend of Tarzan doesn’t try too hard, but I found most of its jokes fell flat enough they should have been left on the cutting room floor.

Though overall I wouldn’t call it a fantastic film, in this day and age of obligatory reboots I’d have to say The Legend of Tarzan has more merit than most. As to how the new generations just being introduced to Tarzan will react, who can say, but I have a feeling this film will end up being embraced more so by the older crowd than the younger. But just so long as it makes enough to produce a sequel, myself and many others will be happy.

BY LEE PFEIFFER

Bruce Willis will top-line a remake of the urban crime thriller "Death Wish", to be directed by Eli Roth. The original film was a sensation in 1974 and helped elevate Charles Bronson to major stardom in his native America, after having found success in European productions. In that film, Bronson played Paul Kersey, a liberal New York businessman whose wife and daughter are brutally raped. His wife dies in the incident and his daughter ends up brain-dead. Enraged by the inability of the police to catch the culprits, Kersey gradually takes the law into his own hands,making himself an easy target and then killing those who intend to do him harm. Within weeks, his anonymous vigilante becomes a populist hero in a city in which the citizenry is fed up with the break down in law and order. The film, directed by Michael Winner, spawned some sequels, all of which were repellent and cartoonish at the same time, but the original movie still retains its power. Director William Friedkin once told this writer that the audience reaction to Bronson's on-screen killings was visceral and frightening as people cheered with every pull of the trigger.

The new version of "Death Wish" may find an audience, but we're willing to bet it doesn't. Chances are it will fall into the realm of other remakes designed simply to make a fast buck. For one thing, history is against the concept. America's urban areas are in far better condition than they were in 1974. Although high profile mass killings are on the rise, everyday crime is generally far lower than it was back in the Seventies. New York City has routinely posted crime rates that are as low as they were in the early 1960s. It's doubtful that the film will resonate with audiences in the same way that Winner's original version did.  It was made during a period when emerging from certain New York subway lines with your wallet intact was considered reason to celebrate. That no longer is the case.  Winner was trying as much to make a social statement as he was making a profit. He succeeded with both goals. However, the new "Death Wish" has the odds stacked against it. Charles Bronson was a leading man on the rise at the time of the first version, whereas Bruce Willis works is arguably over-exposed. He will apparently appear in your home movies if the pay check was large enough. He also hasn't had a major hit as the leading man in quite some time and it seems doubtful that this would be the vehicle to reverse that trend.  He and Eli Roth deserve the benefit of a doubt, but I'm betting the studio will mostly be counting on profits from the video and Netflix rights. 

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BY GIACOMO SELLONI

Let's get it out of the way - 11:55 is derivative. It's a showdown film. Showdown films have a simple plot device and story line: the protagonist is threatened and driven by angst, "Should I stay or should I go?" The antagonist is driven by rage and revenge and has clear intentions. The characters' reasons vary from film to film but the premise is the same. You've seen films like that hundreds of times. Welcome to 11:55.

There's no shame in dragging out an old chestnut. William Shakespeare never came up with an original story line either. Co-director Ben Snyder admitted to the fact that the film's title was inspired by High Noon. But this film, which had its world premiere recently at the Los Angeles Film Festival, is the first directorial effort of Ari Issler and Snyder.

Nelson Sanchez (co-screenwriter Victor Almanzar) is a returning Afghan War veteran. We first meet him as we silently ride the bus home to Newburgh, New York. His earlier- than -expected arrival threatens to throw big sister Angie's party plans awry. Chased out of the house, he surprises his long time girlfriend Livvy for some quality time before acting dutifully surprised at the party. There we meet many of Nelson's friends, some of whom are guys he ran drugs with before entering the service. Nelson is a troubled man with a troubled past. He escaped the mean streets where he grew up by joining the military - after he accidentally killed a dealer from rival gang. His former protégé on the streets, Teyo, breaks the news to him at the party: Nicky Quinn is coming. Quinn is the older brother of the gangbanger killed by Nelson and he is out for revenge. He arrives in town on the, you know it, 11:55 bus.

Nelson’s happy homecoming day suddenly turns sour. His plans did not include dealing with actions from his distant past. Whatever he experienced in the war has changed him. His sister and girlfriend convince him to run, make a new life in Boston. But when Nelson and Livvy run into a couple of Quinn's goons at the bus station, Nelson takes a stand - he's not going to run away this time; he's going to stay and face what's in store.

The city of Newburgh, for Nelson Sanchez, turns out to be a lot like Gary Cooper's Hadleyville. Although he has an abundance of friends, like Cooper’s beleaguered sheriff of High Noon, none will commit to stand with him in his hour of need. His efforts exhausted, he does what any knowledgeable sacrificial lamb would do: he gets a haircut. This is a gritty, moving film filled with a terrific supporting cast. Newburgh should get credit as well. It once ranked in the 20 most dangerous communities in the US and has been plagued by gang violence and drugs for years. It provides a solid backdrop for the film's authenticity.

Victor Almanzar shines as Nelson Sanchez. There's not a doubt in the viewer's mind as to what Sanchez is thinking at any given time and Almanzar makes the viewer empathize with his plight. He is soulful and deep and you care about what he's been through and where he's going. Hopefully, Almanzar has a promising future in film. Elizabeth Rodriguez is scary and soft, sexy and tough as Angie, especially when she threatens the "Greek chorus" of Nelson's cowardly friends in the barbershop with a razor.  Livvy, as portrayed by Shirley Rumierk, is the dutiful girlfriend. She's torn between supporting her man's choice and saving his life.

Some veteran actors lend some great turns in character roles. David Zayas is Maurice, Nelson's former "Godfather" from his drug dealing days who'd rather feed his pigeons than lend a hand. John Leguizamo, as Nelson's wheelchair-bound, former marine buddy, is the only one willing to stand with him. Yes, pun intended. He and Julia Stiles, as Nicky Quinn's pregnant wife bring some terrific comic relief into the film. Her brief rant at Quinn as he ignores her wishes and resumes his gang persona in order to avenge his brother is hysterical. It also teaches us the differences caused by the effects of serotonin and dopamine on the human brain. Mike Carlsen in his brief screen time as Nicky Quinn is a threatening presence, a subtle villain whose motivation may not be what it seems. And I can't leave out Smarlin Hernandez. As Daiza, Nelson's niece and Angie's daughter, she portrays, with honesty, the warring emotions teenagers feel about the person they both love and hate the most in their life.

"11:55" is a modern-day, East-coast Western. I expect to see more great things from those involved in this production. Film history tells us that America won the West a long time ago but it is in our smaller cities, those impoverished, under-employed, landscapes and vistas where today's stories lie. There, real battles continue to be fought on a daily basis by residents who wish little more than to live safely, securely and in peace. This film tells just one of those stories.

'11:55' — Exclusive Trailer from The Playlist on Vimeo.

The British Film Institute is currently showing the Director’s Cut of “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” as part of its on-going celebration of Steven Spielberg’s films. Here is the official press release:  

Sony Pictures Entertainment's Close Encounters of the Third Kind (Director's Cut) will receive an exclusive extended run at BFI Southbank from 27 May, screening from a new 35mm print. This special presentation will lead the BFI's two month season dedicated to Steven Spielberg - a celebration of one of the most influential and successful filmmakers in the history of cinema that will screen more than 30 of the director's films throughout June and July. Combining elements of both the 1977 original version and the 1980 Special Edition, Close Encounters of the Third Kind (Director's Cut) represents Steven Spielberg's definitive edit of his sci-fi masterpiece.

An extended theatrical run of The Director's Cut from 35mm will form a fitting tribute to a filmmaker now synonymous with the magic of film and the ritual of cinema-going; returning his version of the story to its intended format and setting.

Screening from a new 35mm print, Sony Pictures Entertainment's Close Encounters of the Third Kind (Director's Cut) will receive an exclusive extended run at BFI Southbank from 27 May.

Cinema Retro’s Mark Mawston reflects on the personal impact the film had on him.

By Mark Mawston

Of all of Steven Spielberg’s classic films, probably the most truly magical, the one that really lifts your spirits is Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Although this is an incredibly important film, I consider it slightly down the pecking order in the master’s great works although I, rather controversially I’m sure, would always place it above Jaws in the auteur’s body of impressive films. The reason is simple; whereas Jaws terrified me on my 10^th birthday, Close Encounters filled me with a sense of wonder. This may have had something to do with the venue I first saw it in- The Queens in Newcastle, which, when the film was released, was one of the few surviving Cinerama theatres left. Its huge curved screen made any film shown seem like an event but this one was simply made for it and had the most impact on me. I’ll never forget the thrill of seeing twinkling stars begin to suddenly move from the top left of the huge screen towards the events unfolding, especially in the scene where the alien ships pay a visit to the remote farmhouse of the small boy Barry and his terrified mother. The sheer impact that scene had on me will never be forgotten and was one of the main reasons why I wanted to see this film on the big screen again. I was not to be disappointed. I spotted many new things that I’d missed when screening it on Blu-ray for my enraptured daughter and from TV screenings and realised that the moving stars weren’t just limited to this scene but appear specifically when Roy (Richard Dreyfuss- never better) is sitting in his van at a remote crossing. It’s now easy to see so many things that Spielberg drew upon, from shot for shot from North By Northwest to the fact that When You Wish Upon a Star is playing when Barry’s toys “come alive”. The one thing I hadn’t previously spotted that really stood out was that when the alien visitor at the end of the film smiles after giving the famous hand gestures, his smile and face are those of Barry’s. This is the kind of thing that you can really notice on the big screen. Science fiction is the one of the genres most suited to the big screen, with titles such as Blade Runner, Star Wars and 2001 made for this experience. However, it is Close Encounters that benefits from it most and shows the sheer sense of scope that the young director brought to this tale. Along with The Searchers, is there a more famous shot of a silhouette in a doorway in movie history? To see this scene alone is worth the admission fee and I urge you to see it on its BFI/Park Circus re-release. To paraphrase a classic of the genre; For space, no one can beat a screen.

Spielberg always said that the added the scene of the inside of the spaceship for the Special Edition of the film in 1980 was always a disappointment and I agree. What was on screen would always pale in comparison to what you imagined and also took away for of the wonder. Spielberg rightly exorcised this scene for this version of the film, which is easily the best. This is still essential viewing to those who still watch the skies rather than the “stars” of reality TV.

BY LEE PFEIFFER

Variety reports that the family of the late director Sergio Leone is developing a six-episode Western TV series titled "Colt" based upon a concept that Leone had planned with his collaborators but which was never realized. His goal was to present the American West in a more realistic manner than had been seen in his classic "spaghetti Westerns". The focus would be on the handgun used by The Man With No Name, portrayed by Clint Eastwood in the classic "A Fistful of Dollars". The episodes would follow the trail of that gun as it passes from owner to owner. The first two episodes will be directed by Stefano Sollima, the high profile Italian filmmaker and son of Sergio Sollima, who directed Lee Van Cleef in the cult Italian Western "The Big Gundown".  Stefano will also be writing the scripts for the series. Unlike Sergio Leone's Westerns, which were set in America but filmed in Spain, the Leone Film Group intends to shoot the series on location in the USA. Click here for more. 

BY LEE PFEIFFER

While doing press interviews at Cannes for his latest film "Cafe Society", Woody Allen was asked about his biggest boxoffice hit, "Midnight in Paris". Beyond confirming that the film's success surprised him greatly, Allen tells a fascinating tale about the origins of the story. Decades ago he was told by legendary Hollywood agent Swfity Lazar that Cary Grant, who was in self-imposed retirement, would return to films if he could be directed by Allen. Adding substance to the tale, Grant showed up one night at Michael's Pub, the New York jazz venue where Allen still plays with his band. Grant apparently loved the music and Allen was enthused about developing a film project for him. He devised a scenario in which Allen would play his usual nebbish character who, one night, finds himself whisked off in a limousine with Cary Grant. The two end up in the 1920s. However, when Allen approached Grant's office with the idea, he was told flat out that Grant would never return to making movies. He later learned that Swifty Lazar often passed around inaccurate rumors. Nevertheless, Allen kept the story concept tucked away until he used it as the basis for "Midnight in Paris". By then, Allen was too old to play the male lead so he cast Owen Wilson. Allen fashioned a superb film but the mind still reels at what could have been....For more click here. 

BY FRED BLOSSER

French gangster movies about mobs, molls, and ingenious but ill-fated heists enjoyed a big vogue in Europe in the 1950s and early 1960s, especially after the success of Jules Dassin’s stylish “Du Rififi chez Les Hommes” in 1955.  Opening here a year later in an edited, subtitled print as “Rififi,” Dassin’s picture drew a small but appreciative audience of critics and foreign-film fans, and became a perennial favorite in American art houses, repertory theaters, and film schools.    

This was a rare example of a “policier,” as French audiences called them, gaining any critical and commercial notice on these shores even remotely comparable to their popularity abroad.  Although the genre owed a clear debt to classic American crime films, it fell victim here, like nearly every other cinema import from abroad, to a homegrown bias against dubbed or subtitled foreign films in that more insular era of American popular culture. The vast demographic of moviegoers in small-town America tended to be wary of movies that they had to read as well as watch, or those in which stilted dialogue came out of unfamiliar actors’ mouths in interchangeable voices that didn’t match the movements of their lips. If you were a crime-movie enthusiast, you already had plenty of domestic product to choose from, anyway, thanks to a wave of violent, “fact-based” programmers like “The Bonnie Parker Story” (1958) and “Al Capone” (1959) that U.S. studios released in the wake of high ratings for TV’s “The Untouchables.”

The policiers that crossed the Atlantic, if they made it at all, were likely to be relegated to marginal, second-run theaters, alongside nudies and exploitation pictures. Newspaper ads and posters played up the sexier, grittier aspects of the films as lurid entertainment “for adults only.” For example, the blurbs on the posters for “Doulos, the Finger Man,” a subtitled 1964 edit of Jean-Pierre Melville’s “Le Doulos” (1963), proclaimed: “Raw, Savage, Shocking” -- “So ruthless, untamed women would do anything for him . . . and did!”  In these days of graphic internet porn, what may have been “shocking” 50 years ago now looks quaintly tame. Actual nude scenes in the original European prints, which were modest to begin with by today’s standards, were trimmed out of the American versions in deference to anti-obscenity laws. The sensual content that remained would hardly cause a stir in today’s climate, but it was provocative for its era, when married couples on TV had to be shown sleeping in modest PJs in twin beds, if they were shown in the bedroom at all.

The advertising strategy of implied sex turned a quick buck for distributors who had little chance of seeing the policiers accepted by mainstream ticket-buyers. However, the films’ reputation suffered in the larger court of public opinion. Middlebrow critics snubbed them as sordid trash, almost beneath their notice. The New York Times’ Bosley Crowther, for example, dismissed the Melville film as “talkative and tiresome,” and seemed personally offended by the “mean and disagreeable” title character portrayed by Jean-Paul Belmondo.

Things have changed greatly since then. Younger generations of critics, less bothered by disagreeable characters than Crowther was, have revisited the policiers and found them worthy of serious discussion. Thanks to DVD, Blu-ray, streaming video, and cable movie networks, a wider audience in middle America has a chance to see the films in their original form, and they’re more likely to be receptive to foreign productions than their grandparents in the Ike era. Several policiers, including “Le Doulos” and nearly all of Melville’s other pictures, are available in restored DVD and Blu-ray editions with classy packaging. However, other policiers of arguably equal merit remain missing in action on U.S. home video, even on the collector’s market, notably Alex Joffé’s 1959 production, “Du Rififi Chez Les Femmes” (1959).

As the title suggests, Joffé’s film shares a bloodline with Jules Dassin’s better known classic. Both were based on novels by French crime writer Auguste Le Breton, who claimed that “rififi” was criminal slang that he had picked up from real underworld acquaintances in the hangouts of Montmartre and Pigalle, meaning something like “melee” or “rumble.” Le Breton co-authored the script for the Joffé movie.

Some critics have questioned whether Le Breton was telling the truth about his gangland connections, and suspect that he coined the term “rififi” himself. Dassin said he was disturbed by racist implications in the word, since Le Breton asserted that it referred to the violent characteristics of Parisian gangs made up of North African immigrants from the Rif area of Morocco. Accordingly, in the film version of “Du Rififi chez Les Hommes,” Dassin downplayed the ethnicity of his characters. Sort of a Mickey Spillane of France, Le Breton became a popular celebrity after the success of “Du Rififi chez Les Hommes” and made a lot of money writing about hoods and tough guys. Many of his novels were branded with “rififi” in their titles, but aside from certain shared themes and plot elements, the books were unrelated to each other.

In “Du Rififi Chez Les Femmes” (in my rough English translation, “The Girls Mix It Up”), underworld entrepreneur Vicky de Berlin (Nadja Tiller) owns a popular floating nightclub, the “Ration K,” on the Senne River in Brussels. Characteristically for Le Breton’s criminal figures, Vicky’s surname isn’t necessarily her real family name, just a nickname referring to the city where she came from. (In “Du Rififi chez Les Hommes,” the ringleader of the story’s audacious jewel robbery, played by Jean Servais in the movie, was Tony Le Stéphanois: “Stéphanois” being a colloquialism for someone from the French town of Saint Etienne.) Vicky’s troubled past as a displaced Berliner is suggested by a photograph of her father on the desk in her private office, a German officer wearing the Iron Cross. The name of her club implies that she might have made her first money dealing surplus or stolen U.S. Army rations on the black market after World War II.

With this column we begin a new feature: showcasing original reviews from industry trade magazines from many years ago. It is interesting to see how classic and cult movies were received on the basis of these reviews which were presented to the movie theater trade prior to their general release. First up: Hammer Films' "Dracula A.D. 1972" starring Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. This review appeared in the October/November 1972 issue of Film Bulletin. 

BY FRED BLOSSER

The conventions of the gangster movie are rigidly defined, critic Robert Warshow observed in a famous 1948 essay.  At heart is the character arc of the socially deviant protagonist, whether Rico Bandello, Tony Montana, or Michael Corleone: “a steady upward progress followed by a very precipitate fall.”

In Brian Helgeland’s excellent biopic “Legend” (2015), currently playing in limited theatrical release, the twin brothers Reggie and Ronnie Kray (Tom Hardy, in a dual role) are already on the upward curve of Warshow’s character arc in the 1960s London underworld as the film begins. “Reggie was a gangster prince of the East End,” Reggie’s future wife Frances (Emily Browning) muses in voiceover. “Ronnie was a one-man mob.” In the first scene, the dapper Reggie derisively brings tea to two rumpled detectives who are staking him out, the senior of whom, Inspector Nipper Read (Christopher Eccleston), is determined to bring him down. The mentally disturbed Ronnie is behind bars, but a prison psychiatrist is intimidated into clearing his early release. The doctor’s honest assessment when Reggie comes to escort his brother home: “Your brother Ron is violent and psychopathic, and I suspect he’s paranoid schizophrenic. To put it simply, he’s off his fucking rocker.”

The Krays control the run-down East End and wage sporadic turf battles with their rivals, the Richardson brothers’ “Torture Gang” in South London. When the Richardsons are sent up the river, the Krays’ extortion-based empire expands to swallow their territory. Reggie opens a posh nightclub, Esmeralda’s Barn, whose clientele of slumming celebrities impresses sheltered teenager Frances on their first date: “Oh look, is that Joan Collins?” she asks breathlessly. It is. Reggie’s financial advisor Leslie Payne (David Thewlis) tries to convince him to move into legitimate business, but the big money from the rackets is a powerful inducement to remain on the other side of the law, especially when the twins seal a trans-Atlantic partnership with Meyer Lansky through a Mafia intermediary (Chazz Palminteri). The homosexual Ronnie hosts orgies that attract a varied following, including a politically powerful Peer, Lord Boothby (John Sessions). Scotland Yard begins to close in, but the vested establishment pulls strings all the way up through the Prime Minister to protect Boothby from public scandal, and Read’s superiors order him to curtail his investigation. Ronnie murders a rival mobster in a pub, and Read thinks he’s finally got a case, but the key witness refuses to identify Kray in a lineup for fear of her family’s safety.

Hardy’s performance is a remarkable, Academy Award-worthy achievement. Part of the credit goes to the superior facial prosthetics that transform Hardy into the thuggish, bespectacled Ronnie, but even more credit goes to Hardy’s own talent and physicality. The actor gives each brother a distinctive posture, gait, and voice. The tricks used to put both characters on the screen simultaneously are seamless, notably in a long fight scene where the twins slug each other to a pulp with fists and champagne bottles. At the same time, with one actor in the dual roles, Hardy and Helgeland underscore the fact that beneath the surface, both brothers are very much alike in their propensity for violence. Reggie is simply better able to control himself. This shared volatility becomes more apparent in the second part of the movie, the downward curve of Warshow’s arc, as Reggie becomes increasingly unhinged because of a personal tragedy. When he bloodily stabs an underling, Jack “the Hat” McVitie (Sam Spruell), to death, the murder unravels the Krays’ enterprise. As the closing credits note, the brothers were sent to prison in 1968. The real-life Ronnie died in 1995, Reggie in 2000.

Cinema Retro fans are likely to get a charge out of the movie’s 1960s costumes and cars, the stream of oldie hits on the soundtrack (when’s the last time you heard “Soulful Strut” or “The ‘In’ Crowd”?), and the scenes of music divas Timi Yuro (Duffy) and Shirley Bassey (Samantha Pearl) performing at Reggie’s club. Pearl doesn’t sing “Goldfinger” in her cameo as Bassey, but there’s still a one-degree association between “Legend” and 007 that should interest Bond fans: Helgeland’s script was based on a 1973 biography of the Krays by John Pearson, who also wrote two superlative books in the Bond canon, “The Life of Ian Fleming” and “James Bond: The Authorized Biography.” The film’s supporting performances are outstanding, with Thewlis and Spruell in particular nearly giving Hardy a run for his money. The movie suggests a host of comparisons with other gangland classics, including the British productions “The Criminal” (Joseph Losey, 1960) and “Get Carter” (Mike Hodges, 1971), which bookended the actual Kray era; Martin Scorsese’s “Goodfellas” (1989), from which Helgeland clearly draws inspiration; and Helgeland’s own “Payback” (1999); in that film, Mel Gibson’s character Porter and Gregg Henry’s manic Val seem like early foreshadowings of the Reg/Ron duality. If “Legend” inspires you to watch or re-watch those pictures, all the better.

If I have a quibble with the film, it’s with the title “Legend,” which isn’t very evocative of a gangster saga. Worse, it poses the risk of confusion with a very different movie, Ridley Scott’s 1986 fantasy-adventure with Tom Cruise and Mia Sara. “The Krays” might have better done as a title, except that -- in fairness to Helgeland, I should point out -- it was already taken as the title of a 1990 movie by Peter Medak, with Gary and Martin Kemp as Ronnie and Reggie. The Medak version filled out the details about the twins’ early lives more thoroughly than Helgeland does, and it’s not a bad film itself, if not as riveting and stylish as “Legend.” It’s currently streaming on Netflix.

BY LEE PFEIFFER

Winston Churchill once said of the Soviet Union "It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma". The same could be said of Marlon Brando, that most rebellious and unpredictable of acting legends. He could be selfish, nasty, charming, seductive and completely dismissive. If you have even a modicum of interest in Brando's life and career, don't miss director Stevan Riley's new documentary feature "Listen to Me Marlon". The offbeat title is meant to suggest  the stream of consciousness that is based on the main premise of the film: audio tapes of Brando engaging in self-analysis. Ironically his intention was to use these recordings, which were made over decades, as the basis of an autobiographical documentary that was obviously designed to give his side of the story as it related to his life and career. As with many quixotic projects Brando became involved with, the film never became reality. However, director Riley (who helmed the acclaimed James Bond documentary "Everything or Nothing") received cooperation from the Brando estate to fulfill the actor's quest to refute certain urban legends about his life through his own words. The film is laid out in a fascinating manner. It is non-linear in the sense that it doesn't strictly adhere to the timetable of the momentous events of Brando's life. The movie zig-zags through the decades with photos and footage of his younger years with those from his final tortured days, beset by personal family tragedies. There was always a sense that Brando was consistently aloof and unconcerned about the public's perception of him. This proves not to be true. In the audio tape segments that define the premise of the movie (there is no narrator, only Brando himself), we find that this was a man who cared very much about being the target of bad press, especially when he was convinced the stories were not true. However, there is also an introspective admission that he considered himself to have major failings as a father and family man, a fact evidenced by the dramatic events in the latter part of his life that saw one of his sons, Christian,  incarcerated for shooting to death his daughter Cheyenne's boyfriend and the subsequent suicide of Cheyenne several years later. It becomes clear through are photos and home movie footage that one aspect of Brando was that he truly loved his family, yet he was too self-absorbed with his own life and career to have been anything other than an occasional presence in their lives. In heartbreaking public trial footage, we see Brando, that most private of men, break down in tears as he bemoans his failings as a father. The movie shows that Brando himself was subjected to a strained relationship with his own father, a cold and unfeeling man who could never praise his son even after he had achieved international fame. In one awkward on-camera interview from the 1950s, the father is almost dismissive of his son's achievements. Brando later reflects compassion for his father, however, pointing out that he, too, had lived a very difficult life and was a product of those experiences. 

Brando on the set of Last Tango in Paris with director Bernardo Bertolucci and co-star Maria Schneider, 1972.

The film provides no interviews with critics or colleaguesbut does present riveting vintage interviews in which we see Brando at his most playful. On a press junket (perhaps the only one he did in the 1960s) for the underrated WWII spy thriller "Morituri", Brando is far more concerned about seducing the attractive female journalists than he is in extolling the virtues of the film. The audio segments also indicate his bitterness over his experience on the 1962 remake of "Mutiny on the Bounty" which almost sank MGM. Brando took the lion's share of the blame for the film's enormous cost over-runs and was publicly chastised for selfish and irrational behavior on the set. His side of of the story is that they needed a scapegoat and he was it, pointing out he felt the film had major script problems from the beginning.  The film also addresses the strained relationship between Brando and director Francis Ford Coppola, who resuscitated his career with "The Godfather". Brando laments that fact that Coppola bad-mouthed him for being unprepared on the set of "Apocalypse Now" and says he was hurt by this public flogging by a man he considered a friend. The documentary is peppered with film clips from key Brando movies, all of which are presented in gorgeous transfers, indicating Riley had a sizable budget for this film. (Many documentary film makers use VHS transfers of movie clips in order to get free usage under U.S. copyright laws.) There is also some truly rare color, on-set footage from "On the Waterfront" that left this viewer clamoring to see more.  Brando's classics are represented and so are his bombs, so as the infamous "A Countess From Hong Kong",  Charlie Chaplin's big screen comeback that landed with a thud.  There are also the late career artistic triumphs such as "The Godfather" and "Last Tango in Paris", though on the latter Brando clearly resents his relationship with director Bernardo Bertolucci who he felt manipulated him into unveiling too many of his personal inner demons. Throughout the film, we see Brando represented by a digital 3D  image of his head which he posed for in the 1980s and which fascinated him. He predicted that the future of film making would be revolutionized by digital technology- a predication that has come true. The statue-like, free-floating head of Brando serves as an anchor for his narration and perhaps, fittingly, reminds one of his appearance as Jor-El in "Superman". The movie also covers his social activism beginning with the civil rights movement of the 1960s. We see him among a Hollywood contingent in Washington D.C. as part of Martin Luther King's landmark protest. The film also traces his well-known devotion to equal rights for Native Americans.  The movie includes the legendary Oscar ceremony footage of a mystery woman named Sacheen Littlefeather, in full tribal dress, refusing Brando's Best Actor statuette for "The Godfather"  in protest of Hollywood's treatment of Indians on screen, much to the incredulity or perhaps amusement of presenters Liv Ullmann and Roger Moore. It was the kind of bold, in-your-face move that epitomized Brando as a rebel but it was also a missed opportunity. Why didn't he appear himself to make the speech? Laziness? Cowardliness? We'll never know.  Like many of Brando's causes, however, these seemed to burn brightly but briefly. 

The movie covers Brando's failed marriages and tempestuous relationships with women, none of which ended satisfactorily. Despite his late career fun appearances on Larry King's chat show, we get the feeling that he died feeling lonely and frustrated, haunted by what he perceived to be his own failures. If "Listen to Me Marlon"  has a flaw is that it leaves us hungry for even more. Some key films and events are glossed over or ignored, perhaps for reasons of running time. Brando's "One Eyed Jacks", the only film he ever directed, is tantalizingly glimpsed in clips but not even identified by name. He created a fine movie after taking over from director Stanley Kubrick, who found he could not work with Brando. The film went far over-budget and caused angst at Paramount, adding to the growing belief that Brando might be more trouble than he was worth. However, we never hear a word about his views on directing or what happened on the set of the film. Perhaps he never addressed this in the audio recordings that Riley was given access to, but it will frustrate Brandophiles to not have the film covered in any detail. There are other snippets that also leave us desiring more: his dismissal of the first "Superman" movie, which he concedes he did strictly for money (but did he really think it was a bad movie?) Brando bragging that he rewrote the script for "Apocalypse Now", whereas others said he was just fudging because he was too lazy to read the script. The movie also covers Brando's increasing reliance on cue cards and other devices to remind him of his lines. Over clips from "The Formula", we hear him brag that he insisted that his character wear a hearing aid so that his lines could be fed to him.  We see that the only place Brando truly feels at piece was in his beloved atoll in Tahiti. Home movies indicate this was a place where he could find peace and solace, away from studio executives, fawning fans and intrusive journalists.

"Listen to Me Marlon" is a remarkable film and is a fitting analysis of a man who personifies the old cliche "They don't make stars like that any more".

(The film opens July 29 for a two week run at the Film Forum in New York City.) 

Cinema Retro has received the following press release:  

Here's a rundown of the theaters first in line to present Joe Dante's new film. 

Atlanta   Plaza Atlanta

Tampa   Spring Hills Cinema

New York   AMC Empire

Los Angeles   AMC Citywalk Stadium 19

Phoenix   Harkins Valley Art

Kansas City   Cinetopia Overland Park 18

Minneapolis   Willow Creek 12 Theatre

Denver   AMC Highlands Ranch

Miami   AMC Aventura Mall 24

Houston   AMC Studio 30

You can purchase tickets through Fandango here. 

Available June 19th at Amazon Instant Video

Available June 19th on Apple iTunes

By Daniel D’Arpe

As a cult favorite, actress Edwige Fenech  has numerous movie moments that are ingrained into the minds of many Italian men who came of age in the 1970’s. Yet there is one particular moment, running topless in slow-motion through a field of flowers, that is probably more memorable then the rest. Many words come to mind when trying to describe this scene: Crude. Low-brow. Gratuitous. All of these are excellent adjectives to use when trying to sum up 1973’s Ubalda, All Naked and Warm. Besides giving audiences an (extremely) intimate look at Ms. Fenech, this was the film that famously (or infamously) proved that the Italian “sexy comedies” could be commercially viable. Although not a for everyone, Ubalda is perfect for fans who wish to delve more deeply into the overlooked cult titles of Italy’s yesteryear.

Olimpio (Pippo Franco) is a hapless knight who has just returned home after a long and brutal war. As can be expected, he wants nothing more than to eat fresh food, have a nice bath, and find comfort in the arms of his beautiful wife Fiamma (Karin Schubert). Before he had left, Olimpio had his wife fitted with a chastity built in order to ensure that she remained faithful. Yet when he returns home, he finds that Fiamma is less then eager to return his affections (even with the chastity belt, she has numerous other suitors lined up). After she steals the key to the belt (a fact which delights her suitors), she informs Olimpio that she has taken a vow of “chastity”, and suggests that her husband focus his energies toward making peace with their neighbor instead of making love. Discouraged, Olimpio accepts his wife’s words and heads over to the home of Master Oderisi (Umberto D’Orsi) in order to make amends. Yet as soon as he sees Oderisi’s new wife, he quickly has other ideas.

As it turns out, Lady Ubalda (Edwige Fenech), is as equally unhappy in her marriage as Fiamma is in hers. Initially, she is only too happy to add Olimpio to her list of secret lovers, but quickly loses interest after his plan to bed her fails. Frustrated at home, both Olimpio and Oderisi eventually agree to swap wives. Yet their plan sets in motion a chain of events that will forever change their lives in a very unexpected way. By the time the film is over, neither man has to worry about the other ever trying to bed their wife again.

Original soundtrack.

Made with a budget of roughly $50,000, the film grossed more than $400,000 at the box office, making it a huge success. (Although people under the age of 18 were not admitted into the theaters, it is interesting to think of all the creative ways that teenagers concocted in their attempts to sneak in). After Ubalda’s stunning success, the Italian sex comedies (known in Italy as “commedia sexy all’italiana”) became a huge sensation. Aside from the medieval setting, these films tended to center around numerous other cliched subjects, such as: nurses, policewomen, and lady medics. Unsurprisingly, many of these films would follow Ubalda’s example and give top billing to Edwige Fenech.

Fenech was, beyond a doubt, the break-out star of the movie. Already known for her roles in the giallos, Ubalda made Fenech an instant sex siren. It is little wonder; gifted with natural beauty, she could light up any screen, regardless of her role. (The fact that the film featured her disrobing probably made the screen shine even brighter for many in attendance). On top of her more obvious attributes, Edwige Fenech also possessed a natural flair for comedy. Throughout Ubalda, her wry humor proves to be the perfect compliment to Franco's over the top antics. Although her glamor and comedy would never grant her universal recognition, Fenech would still make a decent career for herself.

BY LEE PFEIFFER

Those of us of a certain age will recall that, while kooky religious cults have always been part of the American experience, in the mid-to-late 1970s there seemed to go through a boom period. Seemingly every week a new fringe fad movement would emerge, many of which were steeped in inexplicable psycho-babble about helping adherents "find oneself" and enrich their "inner beings". During this period I was approached in a Jersey City bowling alley, of all places, by a card-carrying member of one such cult/religion, the name of which I have happily forgotten. Upon being asked to sign up for the movement, I decided to conduct a bit of an experiment to prove a point to my girlfriend (now wife): that the gullible people associated with these groups are just vulnerable souls who can be easily manipulated by virtually any person possessed with a modicum of self-assurance, charisma and determination. I responded to my would-be savior that I could not join her movement because I was a devoted Hestonite. I made the term up on the spot because the evening before, ABC-TV had shown their annual telecast of "The Ten Commandments". I explained that Charlton Heston was my Lord and Savior because I had seen him perform so many miracles. The baffled young lady logically pointed out that he was simply an actor, but in the course of a five-minute conversation I had somehow to get her to take my position seriously and to discuss in some detail why I believed Charlton Heston was my Lord and Savior. I was thoroughly enjoying the experience and wanted to see if I could go "all the way" with her and make her convert to my new-found religion. However, my girlfriend was getting fidgety and felt I had already proven my point. Besides, I guess there were people waiting for us to bowl with them, which seemed to be the priority at the moment. I still believe to this day that, had I been graced with another fifteen minutes of time, I would have signed up the first member of the Hestonite religious movement. 

With each succeeding generation, unquestioning belief in established religions declines. (A recent poll shows that one third of Americans under the age of 30 are not affiliated with any specific religion.) Yet, there is still no shortage of 70's style "self-help" religions, all eager, if not desperate, to attract new adherents. It's easy to ridicule adherents to these causes as naive whack-jobs but in my own experience, those who buy into them tend to be sympathetic souls who are often trying to overcome some kind of personal crisis. They find solace in being accepted among other true believers. Without a doubt, the most controversial non-mainstream religion is Scientology, which is very much in the news of late because of director Alex Gibney's high profile new documentary, "Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief", based on the best-selling book by Lawrence Wright. The film premieres on March 29 on HBO and has been the subject of countless news stories. I saw the "Going Clear"  several weeks ago at an advance screening at the HBO building in New York. To say it's a powerful, thought-provoking experience would be an understatement. 

The film traces the origins of the Scientology movement, which  was started by successful science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard. The movement was originally known as a self-help program called Dianetics  and it caught on in the post-WWII era. The "bible" of this movement was Hubbard's own best-selling book.  Hubbard enjoyed the fruits of his success, charging devotees to attend self-help seminars. However, over time, Dianetics, like most such groups, began to fade in popularity. Always one to improvise, Hubbard reinvented the movement under the name Scientology. Instead of concentrating entirely on lost souls, Hubbard implemented a plan to appeal as well to the well-heeled and financially successful - with a very special effort to attract celebrities. Hubbard must have been astounded by his own success. By the 1970s, Scientology had taken off and continued to grow, attracting influential movie and TV stars along the way. Hubbard's books- works of inspiration to some, the ravings of a con man/mad man to others, topped the bestseller lists. But there were still problems. Hubbard, who is alleged to have started the movement as a tax dodge, never remitted payments to the IRS. For years, the agency dogged him to the extent that he literally took off to sea as part of a newly-found division of Scientology known as the Sea Org (which is characterized in "Going Clear" as a virtual slave labor operation.) Presumably, those who chose to sail with him and indulge in manual labor along the way, were primarily on a mission to sail the globe and extol the virtues of Scientology. Gibney's documentary  says his goal was a bit less lofty: he put to see because the IRS was after him to pay back up to a billion in back taxes. In an audacious move, Hubbard took on the IRS by having his disciples file thousands of frivolous law suits against the agency. Eventually, they prevailed and the IRS- simply to get out of the legal quagmire- granted Hubbard what he always desired: protection from taxes by declaring Scientology as a genuine religion. With that key  controversial ruling, Scientology kicked into high gear. The church invested heavily in properties around the world and its current wealth  (largely in real estate) is estimated to be over $3 billion. Hubbard was  secretive man who rarely gave interviews. The film presents an extremely rare exception, with a vintage interview Hubbard gave for a British documentary. He comes across as  likable, avuncular and perpetually smiling and jolly. However, critics say he was attracting troubled people to his movement and systematically isolating them from the world outside of Scientology. According to "Going Clear", Hubbard became like a real-life Bond villain: living in seclusion amid  palatial splendor and enjoying unquestioning loyalty from his followers. When he died in 1986, so great was the Scientology cult of personality, that his successor as leader of the church, David Miscavige, could not bring himself to admit to Scientologists that he was actually dead. In one of many fascinating video clips that Gibney secured, Miscavige spins Hubbard's death as a personal choice, saying that he succeeded in reaching such a higher form of life that he felt compelled to shed his now useless human form. The assembled masses cheer in support of their leader's "transition" to a higher plane. 

BY DANIEL D'ARPE

Throughout his career, director Marco Bellocchio has been no stranger to controversy. A former supporter of militant left wing politics, many of his films have strong socialistic and violent themes woven throughout them. Although he has somewhat mellowed with age, his younger years were still quite radical. Few of his films demonstrate this better than 1986’s Devil in the Flesh (Il Diavolo in Corpo), a sexually charged film set during the terrorism and turmoil of Italy’s “Years of Lead”. Loosely based on Raymond Radiguet’s novel, this Italian-French production stars Maruschka Detmers and Federico Pitzalis as two lovers entrapped by the passion they have for one another. As they soon discover, though, passion alone cannot sustain a healthy relationship, especially when one person is engaged to a jailed terrorist. Although the plot a bit clichéd, Devil stands out for being one of the first X rated films to not only feature a mainstream actress, but also be released in the U.S. by a major distributor.

Andrea (Pitzalis) is an eighteen year old student who, like many people in their final years of high school, is quite bored with all the monotonous lectures in the classroom. One day class is interrupted by a commotion from a nearby rooftop. Looking around, the class discovers that a young woman is threatening to jump, drawing a crowd of onlookers. One of these onlookers is Giulia (Detmers), an older woman that Andrea sees and immediately becomes infatuated with. Pursuing her, Andrea and Giulia eventually develop a friendship which quickly becomes sexual and transforms into a torrid affair. Yet, complicating this affair is the fact that Giulia is engaged to a man who is in prison for charges of terrorism. Also, Giulia’s soon to be mother-in-law becomes quite suspicious and endeavors to find out who is sleeping with her son’s fiancé. As if all this is not enough, Andrea discovers that Giulia is a rather unstable woman who shows hints at the capacity of violence. All in all, these factors make all the problems Romeo and Juliet faced seem quite tame in comparison.

Credit must be given to Pitzalis, who depicts the detached, devil-may-care attitude of a disaffected teenager with great conviction. As the film progresses, it is clear that Andrea really has no ambitions, no dreams, and no real concerns in the world. The only thing he actually cares about is Giulia, and the lust he feels towards her. While his performance is admirable, it is still undoubtedly Maruschka Detmers who steals the show with her own dazzling skill. She doesn’t simply portray a woman who is controlled by passion, but rather a woman who is trapped by passion. It is readily apparent that for Giulia, passion is both her savior and tormentor. The longer her relationship with Andrea continues, the closer she is to being pushed over the edge into outright madness. Happiness and misery come together hand and hand. Between Giulia’s hysterical laughs, longings for Andrea, and sudden bursts of energy followed by crashing lows, the film begs audiences to answer a specific question. Does Giulia truly love Andrea, or does she simply need/use him? Either way, it seems unlikely that “ happily ever after” is in the cards for these two.

Devil is sexually explicit, and as such it may make some viewers uncomfortable to watch. In today’s day and age, relations between high school students and older adults are gravely serious matters. While numerous similar films have been made, there still may be some viewers who may find the vivid subject matter in poor taste, especially in a scene roughly halfway through the film. In one of the more infamous moments in Bellocchio’s film career, Devil in the Flesh features a scene of un-simulated sex between Pitzalis and Detmers. Although brief and done (for lack of a better word) tastefully, it is still unusual to see outside adult films (although to be fair, many contemporary TV shows such as Game of Thrones have come pretty close to approaching, and breaking down, that same taboo). Understandably, Italian producers wanted the scene to be cut, yet Bellocchio refused. Eventually, Italian Courts ruled in his favor, and he was able to complete the film with his cinematic vision fully intact.

Detmers made a bold career choice by agreeing to the scene, because she became one of the first mainstream actresses to participate in an act of un-simulated sex. Initially, she did defend her choice, saying that the scene had not been done or portrayed in a vulgar manner. While she may be right, it became something that would stand out in her resume and overshadow many of her other accomplishments.

To this day, critics are still divided about this infamous scene, although the majority of opinions seem to be unfavorable. While some will argue that it captures the raw passion that exists between Andrea and Giulia, many others argue that it trivializes the passion by trading in for shock value. Even with the relaxation in standards today for media (again, here’s looking at you Game of Thrones; Blue is the Warmest Color) there is a fine that can’t be crossed without penalty. When Devil premiered in the United States, it received an X rating and was confined to art house theaters. Still, the fact that any major distributor (Orion Pictures) even chose to showcase the film was pretty remarkable: it shows how times were changing, albeit slowly.

Devil in the Flesh was made in the 1980s, during a period where the Italian film industry was in crisis. While in previous decades the industry had been one of the most world renown, the 80s saw a widening gap between mainstream and art house cinema. To this day many people, including Quentin Tarantino, lament over the current state of Italian cinema. They feel that the industry has lost that magic touch that helped produce some of the most iconic movies in years past. Agree or disagree, this particular movie is clearly different from something that would have normally been shown in theaters.

Both NoShame Films and MYA Communications released fully restored versions of Devil in the Flesh. Although both labels are defunct, the DVDs are still readily available on sites such as Amazon for decent prices. The NoShame edition does have more special features, but both editions are uncut and feature gorgeously re-mastered colors and crisp audio. Overall, lovers of Bellocchio and art house films might just want to check this one out; highly recommended.

By Brandon Engel  

George A. Romero didn’t invent the concept of zombies. They’ve had a spot in Haitian folklore for years (as explored in older films like White Zombie [1932] and more contemporary films like Wes Craven’s The Serpent and the Rainbow [1988]). There was also the French World War I reactionary J’Accuse (1919) by Abel Gance, which featured actual footage from the battleground. Some horror enthusiasts might even argue that Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and H.P Lovecraft’s story Herbert West: Re-Animator were also significant early entries in the zombie canon.

What Romero can be credited with, however, as the recent documentary Birth of the Living Dead examines, is the mainstream popularity of zombies. It all began when he made the film Night of the Living Dead (1968). It features a group of wayward strangers who’ve found themselves stuck in an old farmhouse in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. The film is remembered for its poignant critique of the 60s, when the Vietnam war was raging, home televisions were still new, and race relations were tenuous at best (the film was notable for featuring African-American actor Duane Jones as the male lead). The movie was filmed on a shoestring budget but didn’t stop it from becoming a cult success that’s still beloved by countless legions of dedicated fans today.

A decade later, he came back and made Dawn of the Dead in 1978. It had a similarly modest budget as his first movie. This film takes place during a zombie outbreak and centers on a group of survivors who’ve taken up shelter in the town’s shopping mall. Like the first, it’s full of a ton of symbolism and was a timely commentary on the day’s rampant consumerism. Despite its highly graphic content, it became a humongous success both financially and critically, as it’s almost universally praised by all major movie critics, and it saw its own re-make in 2004.

Day of the Dead came seven years later in 1985 and featured a battle between the United States military and a horde of zombies. Viewers weren’t sure exactly which side to take, as this installment was pretty ambiguous and caused some watchers to root for the zombies rather than their very military. Unfortunately, this wasn’t as big of a commercial success as Dawn was, but it’s a much beloved cult film that has become a staple of “Grindhouse Fridays” on El Rey Network, is streamable through some websites, and not only was it remade a few decades later on, but there is yet another remake in the works.

The trilogy garnered a humongous fan base and inspired many subsequent movies, but George Romero himself kept quiet on the zombie front for the rest of the 80s and all throughout the 90s. It was a bit of shock when he released another zombie flick in the 2000s.

Land of the Dead was released in 2005 in the midst of the Bush administration and featured an opportunistic politician who tries to use the zombie crisis outlined in the movie as a means to achieve his own agenda. It was a modern day commentary on war and xenophobia. Land of the Dead became a great success and grossed over $46,000,000. It wasn’t considered as good as the movies Night or Dawn, but critics thought it was an overall decent addition to the Romero library.

Diary of the Dead was the next step for Romero in 2007. It’s a fictional documentary similar to other cult-hits like Cannibal Holocaust or The Blair Witch Project. The film was made to look like amateur footage and makes liberal use of the shaky-cam technique. This movie strayed rather far from the original trilogy through its heavy use of CGI but still enjoyed some positive reviews, although it wasn’t quite as well received as Land.

The final Romero zombie-film was Survival of the Dead, released in 2010. It took place on a zombie-infested island just off the coast of North America. This film was both a box-office bust and a critical failure. It was panned by critics and hardcore Romero fans alike as being stale and an overall disappointment. This movie alone has likely caused Romero to lose any future financial investments for a new zombie film down the road, but luckily it wasn’t bad enough to tarnish the reputation that Romero gained for his work in the original trilogy.

Apart from his own directorial work, Romero has had a positive and lasting impact on today’s culture and has inspired a new generation of directors and filmmakers who grow up enchanted by his work. Zombies have infected every level of pop-culture from books, to television shows, to movies, to art, and even to real world events like zombie walks and horror conventions. He’s inspired many directors to create their own vision of the zombie apocalypse in new and interesting ways. Danny Boyle, the creator of 28 Days Later, is one of the most critically acclaimed new director of zombie flicks, and there have been a ton of other successful zombie stories made that have spanned multiple genres and media.

George Romero is very much like a modern day Bram Stoker, who took the old myth of vampires and turned it into a modern day cultural success, and, like Stoker, his legacy will live on as his movies continues to inspire legions of fans and newer work based on his original films.

("Casting By", the acclaimed documentary by director Tom Donahue, has been released on DVD by First Run Features. Below is our original review from November 2013 of the film's theatrical release.)  

By Lee Pfeiffer 

"Casting By" is an extraordinary new documentary by filmmaker Tom Donahue who spent years accumulating interviews and archival materials for this look at the contributions of casting directors to the motion picture business. Most people are well aware of the important roles that composers, costume designers, editors and production designers play in the creation of movies-- but if you say "casting directors", the average person's eyes glaze over. Sounds boring, doesn't it? Donahue's film sets the record straight, pointing out that casting directors are often responsible for bringing to life some of the film industry's most memorable characters. So important is their contributions that Donohue found enthusiasm among esteemed filmmakers and actors to participate in his documentary even among those individuals who are not prone to generally giving interviews. In the film Woody Allen, Clint Eastwood, Robert De Niro, Martin Scorsese, John Travolta, David V. Picker, Robert Redford, Al Pacino, Norman Jewison, Norman Lear, Peter Bogdanovich, Robert Duvall and Robert Redford, to name just a few, all extol the virtues of casting directors. Woody Allen readily admits that he hates the process of casting because he can't bring himself to choose one actor over another...and that his instincts are often wrong. He credits his long-time casting director, Juliet Taylor, with force-feeding certain actors like Meryl Streep into Allen's films when he didn't see the wisdom of casting them. The film's genesis was as a tribute to Marion Dougherty, a woman whose name won't ring bells with most movie fans, but who was a legend in the industry. It was Dougherty who elevated the status of casting directors when she first went into the profession in 1949. Her keen eye and insightful instincts quickly made her the "go to" person for top directors and studio executives. Dougherty soon became indispensable and set up an office in New York City where she often nurtured talent such as "up and comers" Christopher Walken and Al Pacino. Soon, she had a virtual monopoly on high profile casting assignments for films. She acted as mentor for young women who would go on to become successful casting directors and inspired another legendary person in the profession, Lynn Stalmaster. It was Dougherty who fought to get Jon Voight the role of Joe Buck in Midnight Cowboy after it had been decided that the role should go to Michael Sarrazin. She gave many other future superstars their first major break when she was casting director for the hit TV show The Naked City in the early 1960s. These actors have never forgotten what they owed her. Dougherty is seen throughout the documentary through interviews Tom Donahue conducted with her in 2007. She passed away in 2011, not having seen the completed film- but her sassy nature and independent outlook on the role of women in the film industry come through loud and clear despite her advanced age.

The film is peppered with relevant film clips throughout and countless other prominent talking heads. The movie has set off a bit of a firestorm in the film industry because of its outright advocacy for the position that casting directors should receive recognition from the Academy at Oscar time. (It is the only single-card credit in the film industry to not have an Oscar category.) Clearly, the filmmakers seen here support such a move but there are some exceptions. Oscar winning director Taylor Hackford, who is President of the Directors Guild of America, vehemently argues against Academy recognition for casting directors because they are not really "directing" anything and that the final casting decisions always rest with the director themselves. Others argue that this in an invalid justification for his position because, in the end, every aspect of a movie needs the director's approval...so why give Oscars for editing, cinematography, costumes, etc? The film points out that casting directors are recognized by the Emmys so there is precedence for this idea. Yet, as far back as 1991, esteemed actors and directors pleaded with the Academy to at least grant a special Oscar to Marion Dougherty, but their efforts failed. As for Ms. Dougherty, she was elevated to VP levels at major studios only to be fired for the crime of having aged in a business in which seniority is frowned up. Other veteran casting directors lament the present state of the industry, saying that too many roles are awarded to flash-in-the-pan celebrities who are ill-suited to play the parts. There are exceptions, of course, and most of them can be found in acclaimed TV series where casting directors are proving to make all the difference when it comes to finding the right actor for the right role. 

Casting By is a very unique look at the aspects of the film industry that are not widely discussed and it blows the lid off the dirty little battles that have been going on in terms of trying suppress a key branch of the business from receiving appropriate recognition. No matter where you stand on the subject, you'll be fascinated by this look at film history. The movie is superbly edited by Tom Donahue's wife Jill Schweitzer, who had the unenviable task of culling through 250 interviews with prominent people (only about 50 ended up in the final cut.) The movie is justifiably being touted for a nomination for Best Documentary. It deserves the honor- but one hopes that the criticisms of the very Academy that would make that decision won't render yet another shameless snub, this time because director Donahue has dared to go after some sacred cows. 

For the film's official web site click here

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