Drive Hard, Brian Trenchard-Smith’s latest ‘Crime Against Cinema’ is all over VOD this week (see the links at the end of this post) and to commemorate the release, Entertainment Weekly talked with BTS about all things car and crime-related, including a run-down of Brian’s favorite heist films. You can see the EW interview here. And…

Our Fearless Leader’s new film, Burying The Ex, premieres today at the Venice Film Festival. The touching story of “Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, girl becomes flesh-eating zombie” showcases four terrific young actors, Anton Yelchin (Star Trek, Fright Night), Ashley Greene (The Twilight Saga), Oliver Cooper (Project X) and True Detective‘s Alexandra Daddario. Here‘s an interview with…

Brian Trenchard-Smith has, by his own estimation, directed “42 crimes against cinema”… which brings us to his latest filmmaking infraction, Drive Hard starring John Cusack and Thomas Jane. From RLJ/Image Entertainment, Drive Hard will be available via VOD this week on September 4 and in theaters and on iTunes on October 3. The action/adventure film was written by Brian…

Here’s another installment featuring Joe Dante’s reviews from his stint as a critic for Film Bulletin circa 1969-1974. Our thanks to Video Watchdog and Tim Lucas for his editorial embellishments!   Which one is the werewolf? Finding the answer makes a neat gimmick, smart promotion of which should make this otherwise tame British import a…

A friend passed on these pieces of moviemaking memorabilia. They’re call sheets for Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments starring, naturally, Charlton Heston and a cast of thousands. These sheets are are directed to just a few of those thousands but the production minutiae gives us some insight into the backbreaking attention to detail that went into…

Our friends at Maxam Inc. (a dvd and film distributor in Japan) have just released a brand new compilation of their favorite commentaries from TFH. While we wait for our own copies, here’s a message straight from our tomodachi in Tokyo: The filmmakers of Trailers From Hell, whose movies we’re so addicted to, talk about…

If you are in the mood for an unhinged parody of the beach-blanket-teen-flesh movies of the early to mid-’60s – and when are you not in the mood for that? –  “Lord Love A Duck” is where you should go.  Duck pairs wonderfully with wine and the movie gives flight to the “groovy” part of…

Here’s another installment featuring Joe Dante’s reviews from his stint as a critic for Film Bulletin circa 1969-1974. Our thanks to Video Watchdog and Tim Lucas for his editorial embellishments!   Four horror tales centering on haunted house. Well made and acted, an exploitable entry for general dualler markets, but rather mild for more bloodthirsty…

Next week at TFH we’re featuring a modest tribute to Bela! … Lugosi, of course. The films include Invisible Ghost (helmed by Gun Crazy‘s Joseph H. Lewis), 1947’s Scared To Death, and the subject of today’s Saturday Matinee,  Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla.   The sole reason for the existence of Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla…

Orson Welles wrote, directed and co-starred in “Touch of Evil” in 1958, at the end of what might be considered film noir’s golden era.  It was right at the end of Welles’ golden era, too.  He had been packing on the pounds by this point in his career, and was also drinking too much.  In…

No home theater can contain Zulu, director Cy Endfield’s panoramic adventure tale pitting a small band of British soldiers against a swarm of Zulu warriors at Rorke’s Drift in 1879. Endfield’s South African canvas is vast… and to see a mile-wide line of 4,000 threatening Zulus emerge over the horizon in Super Technirama 70 inspires the kind of…

Next week at TFH features a trio of trippy films gathered together under the banner “Just Say No”. They include Requiem for a Dream, The Trip, and the subject of today’s Saturday Matinee, Confessions of an Opium Eater.   Producer Albert Zugsmith was a consummate exploitationist, launching his career in 1952 with the berserk red-scare screed,…

The Curiosity rover has begun snooping about for evidence of life on Mars.  I’ll be watching those pictures closely for evidence of wine on Mars.  Paul Mantee’s character in Robinson Crusoe on Mars could have used a little martian vino, be it red or white.Had Daniel Defoe’s earthbound Crusoe known he would be marooned for 28 years,…

In all of Frank Tashlin’s work, there is nothing quite so boldly staged as the delirious sequence in 1961′s THE LADIES MAN, in which Jerry Lewis, the film’s director and Tashlin’s nominal pupil, deconstructs a panic attack in twenty five seconds. Framed inside an enormous set that resembles the interior of a gargantuan and painstakingly detailed dollhouse, Lewis’…

Here’s another installment featuring Joe Dante’s reviews from his stint as a critic for Film Bulletin circa 1969-1974. Our thanks to Video Watchdog and Tim Lucas for his editorial embellishments! Fairish collection of mini‑chillers has Kim Novak and class cast for marquee plus routine horror angles. Title may prove a hindrance, otherwise a passable ballyhoo…

For the dog days of summer, what could be better than a movie with some canine teeth?  And some claws.  And a loud bark.  And a nice wine for a dog day afternoon. “The Howling” is a great 1980s werewolf film – there were a few of them back in the day.  This one boasts…

Warning; this post is long… if you watch all the links, you’ll have an hour of entertainment. When I was 10, my school screened a 16 mm print of the The Mark of Zorro – 1940 version, starring the dashing Tyrone Power. The clash of steel, the dynamic yet graceful athleticism of the hero as he righted…

Legendary Special Effects Make-Up master Dick Smith created the primordial transformations for 1981’s Altered States and Altered States would  be a fitting job title for the visionary craftsman who died this week at 92. Smith was responsible for the look of so many movie characters, from Brando’s grizzled mob boss in The Godfather to The Exorcist‘s demon child to Taxi Driver‘s mohawked sociopath that…

Roger Corman sat down with Conan O’Brien last week for a spirited interview (promoting his latest Sy-Fy spectacular, Sharktopus Vs. Pteracuda) turning in a charismatic performance that provoked a reaction not unlike Dennis Hopper’s besotted appraisal of Dean Stockwell’s spaced-out lounge lizard in Blue Velvet: “Suave? Goddamn, you are one suave fucker”. Suave? Yep, that’s Roger. O’Brien’s wide-ranging conversation with Corman proved that this…

With last week’s news about a federal judge in California declaring the state’s death penalty “cruel and unusual punishment” and therefore unconstitutional along with this week’s horror story about a bungled execution in Arizona, Brian Trenchard-Smith’s recent trio of capital punishment-themed films proved particularly prescient. With that, we’d like to re-introduce Brian’s commentaries, ripped, as they say, from today’s headlines….

Since we’re running Allan Arkush’s commentary on Oliver Stone’s The Doors this week,  I thought it might be fun to share a story with you. I loved the Doors’ music from the moment I first heard it as a teenager growing up in LA.  It seemed to capture the ethos of the 60s, a time of rule-breaking and rebellion,…

Over the years whenever I revisit this film at festivals or retrospectives I’m always amazed how prescient it was. The issues it deals with have never dated (unfortunately). It’s usually just a matter of which ones are outstanding at the moment. And right now the TV images of Americans turning away buses full of immigrant…

Andrew Sarris called it the Citizen Kane of  jukebox musicals but A Hard Day’s Night long ago broke free from the constraints of being “just” a great musical. Director Richard Lester’s most remarkable accomplishment was making the movie equivalent of a great Beatles song, a soaring, occasionally heartbreaking, ode to joy played out in 87 minutes. Appropriately, the…

By David S. Schow Hall:  “Where’s the library?” Dutton:  “No need for books — everything’s in the computer.” One of the few regrets of my adult life is that I never got to meet Michael Crichton, who died too young, November 2008.  Eminently emulatable, he had conquered publishing, film and television and remains a personal…

Thoughts occasioned by the release of Adieu au langage Godard and the Permanently New One “It has to face the men of the time and to meet/The women of the time. It has to think about war  And it has to find what will suffice. It has/To construct a new stage. It has to be on…

To mark the 30th Anniversary of Gremlins, Warner Bros. has released Joe Dante’s (first) subversive masterpiece on DVD and VOD today. Here’s a round-up from around the web celebrating the little green guys’ special day. Pop Sugar‘s 30 Fun Facts about Gremlins Zach Galligan talks about the scaly critters’ lasting impression on pop culture here. Gremlins Online (your…