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UnPrisoned Season 2 follows the chaos of Season 1 with more messy moments, set to some great needle drops. Finn (Faly Raktohavana), particularly, has a moment with music this season. Edwin also loves records and jazz. A Doja Cat needledrop sets the season off as Paige confidently walks onto a news segment following her Ted Talk.

Certain Christmas songs feature in the later episodes of this season, and viewers may recognize The O’Jays, Billie Holiday, Run-dmc, Lenny Kravitz and more.

Here are all the songs in UnPrisoned Season 2:

Episode 1: Don’t Try Harder, Try Different

“Paint the Town Red” by Doja Cat “Sick Of It” by Jean Dawson “Dominate” by Derek Minor “See Through the Spell” by Spirit Playground

Episode 2: How To Be A Cat

“The Men All Pause (12” Version) by Klymaxx “Family” by Jordan Rakei

Ep 3 : How to Be Friends

“2016” by d4vd “Piñata” by City Girls “Win the War” (feat.

Legacy U.S. shows such as The Office and Friends remain popular in Asia, but interest in American content is on the wane in the region, a new study shows.

Media Partners Asia (MPA)’s latest report show U.S. content maintained a lead among SVOD users, with 60% viewing it in Q1 of 2024, ahead of Korean titles (56%) and Japanese originals (48%). However, the figure for U.S. content was 70% two years ago in the same period, highlighting how local content, especially in Korea and Japan, are driving viewing.

Notably, in Korea, engagement with U.S. content was just 9%. In Japan, it was 11%. Conversely, engagement was up at 69% in English-speaking Australia and relatively strong in Southeast Asia (32%). Despite the low engagement, MPA Lead Analyst Dhivya T said that “even in highly local markets such as Korea, Japan and Indonesia, U.S. content drove 15-30% of SVOD customer acquisition.”

The US Content In...

Even in challenged times, no national entertainment industry can flex quite like Hollywood. According to new research from regional advisory group Media Partners Asia, U.S. films and series remain the most important content category for global streamers when it comes to customer acquisition and engagement across the Asia Pacific region — regardless of the way platforms continue to ramp up their local-language offerings in these territories.

In the first quarter of 2024, U.S. content was viewed by 60 percent of subscription video users in nine major markets — Australia, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines and Thailand — outperforming Korean titles (at 56 percent) and Japanese content (48 percent), according to new research from regional analysts Media Partners Asia (MPA). The report’s authors noted, however, that U.S. content’s reach has begun to wane in recent years.

“While U.S. content’s reach has declined steadily to 70 percent to 60 percent over the past two years,...

U.S-produced film and TV content has maintained leadership in terms of reach among Subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) users in nine major markets in Asia-Pacific. And it remains important for acquiring and maintaining subscriptions, a new report finds.

New research from consultancy firm Media Partners Asia is based on passively-collected data from 40,000 digital users amassed by its Ampd sister company. Territories covered include Australia, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines and Thailand, from May 2023 to April 2024.

American content was viewed by 60% of the monitored users in the first quarter of this year. That put it ahead of Korean shows, watched by 56% in the region, and Japanese, watched by 48%.

But the U.S. content viewership number is down from 70% two years ago. And figures vary significantly, with 69% watching in Australia and Southeast Asia, where its viewership is 32%. But in the rich and populous East Asian markets of Japan and Korea, viewership...

Starz has announced the movie and TV titles coming to the service in June. The Starz June 2024 schedule includes the season four premiere of Power Book II: Ghost.

On the film front, Bros, Ticket to Paradise, How I Learned to Fly (featuring Cliff “Method Man” Smith), Get On Up, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Billy Madison, Carlito’s Way, How High, Jarhead, Law Abiding Citizen, and several other notable titles join the Starz app this month.

You can also celebrate The Karate Kid‘s 40th anniversary with a movie marathon on Starz Encore, beginning Saturday, June 22, at 2:50 p.m. with the classic The Karate Kid (1984) and The Karate Kid Part II.

Starz June 2024 Highlights

Power Book II: Ghost Season 4

The fourth and final season of “Power Book II: Ghost” debuts on Friday, June 7, at midnight Et on the Starz app, which also coincides with the 10th Anniversary of “Power’s” debut on Starz.

Warner Bros. Discovery is to significantly expand its investment and production of Japanese anime through its existing local studio in Japan.

“We have a Japanese anime studio, which has been producing five or ten anime series per year, over the last few years,” said James Gibbons, Wbd president of Asia-Pacific. “We’ve approved expansion to take that to more than ten series per year.”

The studio has been operational since 2011 and delivered over 80 titles in that span, a mix of high-quality anime, live action series and movies. These include “JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure,” which was originally serialized in a manga magazine starting in 1987 and became an animated series that launched in 2012, the “Record of Ragnarok” series and a “Batman Ninja” anime movie.

“We’ve sold them to third parties. That has been one of the metrics. And they are doing very well,” said Gibbons. “And, so, because we see the appeal of the category,...

German theater owners got some good news Thursday night with mini-major Constantin Film unveiling that it has greenlit a sequel to Manitou’s Shoe, the blockbuster comedy Western from Michael “Bully” Herbig and one of the most successful German movies of all time.

Herbig broke the news to an industry crowd at the Munich Filmweek Thursday night, confirming he was returning to direct and star in The Canoe of Manitou, the sequel to his 2001 hit. He also posted a confirmation on his Instagram feed, noting that the movie will hit theaters next year.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Michael Bully Herbig (@bullyherbig)

Herbig will reprise his role as Apache chief Abahachi, with the original co-stars from the first movie, Christian Tramitz and Rick Kavanian returning to play Ranger and Dimitri.

Manitou’s Shoe is a parody of the Winnetou Westerns of the 1960s, European-shot movies inspired by the writings of Karl May,...

Jim Gordon, a drummer who played on Derek and the Dominos’ Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs and the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds, died Monday at the age of 77. The musician, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia and was serving a prison sentence for killing his mother in 1983, died in a state-run medical facility in Vacaville, California. Publicist Bob Merlis confirmed Gordon’s death in a statement, adding that Gordon died of natural causes.

In addition to his incredible catalog of recordings, Gordon is also known for sharing a songwriting credit on “Layla” with Eric Clapton,...

Netflix is forecasted to grow its revenue in the Asia-Pacific region by 12 percent in 2023, hitting $4 billion, according to a new report from regional research and analysis firm Media Partners Asia. Performance in Asia’s major economies and population centers has become a vital metric for Netflix as subscriber growth and revenue per user has largely plateaued in North America and Western Europe.

The growth rate forecasted by MPA would represent a sizable uptick from Netflix’s 2022 Apac revenue increase of 9 percent. The research firm also projects that Netflix’s local content spending in the region will reach $1.9 billion, representing 47 percent of revenues.

Media Partners Asia’s analysts see three primary factors driving the gains in the East: A rebound in the lucrative but saturated Australia market, where Netflix’s recently launched ad-supported subscription tier will gradually bolster sales; robust levels of growth in the developed East Asian markets of Japan and Korea,...

Stars: Dustin Prince, Angelina Danielle Cama, Erika Hoveland, Scout Taylor-Compton, Keir Gilchrist, Billy Boyd, Sam Logan Khaleghi | Written and Directed by Nicholas Holland

As An Intrusion begins, Sam Hodges (Dustin Prince) has a secret, a recently ended affair with one of his co-workers. Almost immediately after he ended it bad stuff starts happening. His house and car are broken into, his daughter Rebecca stalked and his wife Joyce (Erika Hoveland) threatened. An obvious case of fatal attraction, right?

But as the incidents get more severe the police, including Detective Simpson, start digging deeper into the matter. And it begins to look like an affair may not be Sam’s only secret or even his darkest. Judging by the number of films like An Intrusion that Lifetime airs, there’s a big audience for these kinds of thrillers. Can it stand above the crowd and steal some of that audience.

Writer...

Today’s young adult books bring romance, adventure and social commentary. Take a look at our best bets for what to read this November.

The Seventh Queen by Greta Kelly

Type: Novel

Publisher: Harper Voyager

Release date: Nov. 2

Den of Geek says: This buzzy fantasy sequel is popular for a reason. Critics and readers praise the “gripping” story and female characters in the series, which started with The Frozen Crown.

Publisher’s summary: The Empire of Vishir has lost its ruler, and the fight to save Seravesh from the Roven Empire is looking bleak. Moreover, Askia has been captured by power-hungry Emperor Radovan, who plans on making her his wife simply so he can take her magic as his own, killing her in the process. Aware of his ex-wives’ fates, Askia must find a means of avoiding this doom, not only for the sake of Seravesh, but now for Vishir as well.

Pairing‌‌‌ ‌‌‌wine‌‌‌ ‌‌‌with‌‌‌ ‌‌‌movies!‌‌‌ ‌‌‌See‌‌‌ ‌‌‌the‌‌‌ ‌‌‌trailers‌‌‌ ‌‌‌and‌‌‌ ‌‌‌hear‌‌‌ ‌‌‌the‌‌‌ ‌‌‌fascinating‌‌‌ ‌‌‌commentary‌‌‌ ‌‌‌for‌‌‌ ‌‌‌these‌‌‌ ‌‌‌‌‌movies‌,‌‌ ‌‌‌and‌‌‌ ‌‌‌many‌‌‌ ‌‌‌more‌,‌‌ ‌‌‌at‌‌‌ ‌‌‌Trailers‌‌‌ ‌‌‌From‌‌‌ ‌‌‌Hell.‌‌‌ This week, the gurus have scoured their “What About This One?” lists for fine films forgotten.

1974’s noirish crime film, Buster and Billie, was directed by Daniel Petrie, who also helmed Fort Apache, the Bronx. This is notable to me only because in Las Vegas, out west of the Strip in the Summerlin area, there is a street named Fort Apache Road. Every time the wife and I are driving there and we pass the street sign, I always blurt out “Fort Apache the Bronx!” as if it is some kind of movie mantra. She puts up with it like a champ. I also have a tendency to answer her with fragments of song lyrics, which is a habit that is somewhat less entertaining to her.

Buster and...

Sony Pictures Television (Spt) has tapped Oscar-nominated scribe Guillermo Arriaga to be the creative lead on “Yo No Soy Mendoza,” an Spt project Colombian writer-creator Fernando Gaitan was developing before he died unexpectedly in January 2019.

Gaitan was best known for his Colombian aspirational telenovela “Yo Soy Betty La Fea” (“Ugly Betty”), deemed by the Guinness World Records as the most successful telenovela in history.

“Ugly Betty” aired in some 180 countries, was dubbed into 15 languages, and adapted in up to 28 territories, including China, India, South Africa, and the U.S.

Gaitan had just signed a landmark content development deal with Sony Pictures Television, when he was felled by a heart attack at age 58. It was the first such agreement for the writer who had worked exclusively for Colombia’s Rcn for most of his 30-year career.

Arriaga commented, “Fernando Gaitán, my Colombian brother, called me before he passed away. He wanted...

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By John M. Whalen

At the opening of “Taza, Son of Cochise,” (1954), it’s 1875 and the great Apache Chief Cochise (Jeff Chandler) is dying. At his side are his two sons, Taza (Rock Hudson) and Naiche. He asks them to continue the peace he made with the White Eyes after his death. Naturally, if the two sons were in agreement the movie would have ended right there. But in fact, they don’t agree. Taza wants to do as his father said. But Naiche hates the white man and intends to side up with Grey Eagle (Morris Ankrum) and Geronimo (Ian MacDonald) and start the war up again. If that isn’t enough complication to make a movie out of, writers George Drayson Adams and George Zuckerman add in a rivalry between the two brothers over the affections of Oona (Barbara Rush), Grey Eagle’s beautiful daughter.

In 2001 I wrote, ‘Someday I’ll get to see a good copy of Robert Aldrich’s great movie Apache.’ Kino’s excellent new Blu-ray of a recent MGM remaster brings back the color and the correct screen shape, and even cleans up some wicked frame damage that’s been there for sixty years. The athletic Burt Lancaster will make every man and boy feel like running across whatever landscape is available, leaping like a gymnast from rock to rock. Properly restored, the tale of the rebellious Massai plays better than a dozen politically revisionist westerns, even with Burt as a blue-eyed Apache. The movie solidified Lancaster’s producing career and Robert Aldrich earned his first box office hit.

Apache

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1954 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 91 min. / Street Date December 1, 2020 / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95

Starring: Burt Lancaster, Jean Peters, Charles Bronson, John McIntire, John Dehner, Walter Sande, Paul Guilfoyle.

Cinematography:...

As Christmas nears, Netflix will ring in this holiday season with new Kris Kringle-themed films including “A Cinderella Story: Christmas Wish,” “Home for Christmas” and “A Family Reunion Christmas.”

Tiffany Haddish, meanwhile, will be celebrating Hanukkah with her newest stand-up special “Black Mitzvah,” in which she shares how she’s embracing her roots after discovering her father’s Eritrean-Jewish heritage.

Kevin Hart’s new special also hits Netflix this month. His docu-series “Don’t F**k This Up” will highlight his Oscar hosting controversy, as well as his daily life.

Acclaimed movies like Noah Baumbach’s “Marriage Story” with Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver, along with “Two Popes,” are also joining the streamer in December. On the TV front, Season 2 of “You” starring Penn Badgley arrives on Netflix just after Christmas.

View the complete list below:

Dec. 1

Dead Kids

A Cinderella Story: Christmas Wish

The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl...

The coming months are going to be fascinating ones for Netflix, as the perennial streaming giant has to compete with Disney Plus and Apple TV+. As usual, though, the company’s releasing some new original content next month while also introducing a few Christmas titles into the mix ahead of December.

Some highlights for November include the third season of The Crown, and the streaming premiere of Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman. In addition, we’re getting new episodes of animated hits such as She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, and the second installment of the cult British series The End of the F***king World.

At present, though, there doesn’t seem to be a large number of recent movie additions outside of Netflix originals, perhaps owing to the service’s ongoing commitment to its own content in the face of Apple TV+ launching on November 1st and Disney...

Burt Lancaster in Frank and Eleanor Perry's The Swimmer (1968), based upon the John Cheever short story. Courtesy of Film Forum.For decades, film critics and academics interested in the classical Hollywood cinema have been dutifully studying the canonized big stars—Cary Grant, Garbo, the Hepburns, Bogart and Bacall, Dietrich and Crawford and Monroe—while downplaying one of the most highly varied and fascinating careers of any studio actor: Burt Lancaster. Now, New York’s Film Forum is giving us a great excuse to revisit this actor’s towering body of work—emphasis on “body.” From big-name classics like Louis Malle’s Atlantic City (1980) and John Frankenheimer’s Birdman of Alcatraz (1962) to little-known masterpieces like Carol Reed’s Trapeze (1956) and Luchino Visconti’s late decadent chamber drama Conversation Piece (1974), a meaty, healthy range of Burt is on display for the next four weeks, between July 19 to August 15.Serious film talk...

Blu-ray fans are now well aware that many great movies unavailable in the U.S., can be easily found in Europe. One of the best westerns of the ’70s is this jarringly realistic cavalry vs. Apaches drama from Robert Aldrich and Burt Lancaster, which used the ‘R’ rating to show savage details that Hollywood had once avoided. In this case it works — the genuinely scary movie is also a serious meditation on violent America.

Ulzana’s Raid

(Keine Gnade für Ulzana)

All-region Blu-ray + Pal DVD

Explosive Media

1972 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 103 min. / Street Date November 9, 2017 / available through the Amazon Germany website / Eur 17,99

Starring: Burt Lancaster, Richard Jaeckel, Bruce Davison, Jorge Luke, Joaquín Martínez, Lloyd Bochner, Karl Swenson, Douglass Watson, Dran Hamilton, Gladys Holland, Aimee Eccles, Tony Epper, Nick Cravat, Richard Farnsworth, Dean Smith.

Cinematography: Joseph Biroc

Film Editor: Michael Luciano

Original Music: Frank De Vol

Written by Alan Sharp

Produced by...

Close-Up is a feature that spotlights films now playing on Mubi. Robert Aldrich's Autumn Leaves (1956) is playing October 22 - November 21, 2017 on Mubi in the United Kingdom. Autumn Leaves is the story of what happens to a Robert Aldrich hero after the Robert Aldrich movie ends. Vicious, cynical, and borderline nihilistic, Aldrich’s movies churned idealistic characters through crucibles of violence and disillusionment. He adored stories of marginalized nobodies forced to face impossible odds: murderers-turned-World War Two commandos in The Dirty Dozen (1967); desperate Chiricahua Apache raiders in Ulzana’s Raid (1972); a football team of prison inmates in The Longest Yard (1974); escaped military prisoners in Twilight’s Last Gleaming (1977). For these men—and they were usually men—death was one of the kindest fates possible. Existential meaninglessness, the pointlessness of moral causes, the uselessness of idealism: these were the fates they truly feared. And for Aldrich, these were the just rewards...

Join us for some old-school 16mm Movie Madness! – It’s our monthly 16Mm Double Feature Night at The Way Out Club (2525 Jefferson Avenue in St. Louis)! Join Tom Stockman and Roger from “Roger’s Reels’ for complete films projected on 16mm film. The show is Tuesday March 7th and starts at 8pm.

Admission is Free though we will be setting out a jar to take donations for the National Children’s Cancer Society.

First up Is Arthur (1981)

Dudley Moore’s (Oscar-nominated) greatest performance carries the heart-warming romantic comedy Arthur (1981) about a ridiculously wealthy man who does what he wants whenever he wishes, but lacks the happiness he craves. Arthur’s life looks up though when he meets waitress Linda (Liza Minnelli), but he’s already engaged to the rich Susan (Jill Eikenberry) so that’s a major problem since his rich granny threatens to cut him out of the will.

Robert Mitchum all but snoozes through this promising war-espionage thriller that pits lazy Gestapo agents against clueless partisans in occupied Greece. It's got great locations and a good cast, but director Robert Aldrich seems off his feed -- there's not a lot of excitement to be had. The Angry Hills DVD-r The Warner Archive Collection 1959 / B&W / 2:35 enhanced widescreen / 106 min. / Street Date February 16, 2016 / available through the WBshop / 21.99 Starring Robert Mitchum, Stanley Baker, Elisabeth Mueller, Gia Scala, Theodore Bikel, Sebastian Cabot, Donald Wolfit, Marius Goring, Jocelyn Lane, Kieron Moore, George Pastell, Marita Constantinou, Alec Mango. Cinematography Stephen Dade Film Editor Peter Tanner Production Design Ken Adam Original Music Richard Rodney Bennett Written by A.I. Bezzerides from the novel by Leon Uris Produced by Raymond Stross Directed by Robert Aldrich

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Director Robert Aldrich had come through with successes for Burt Lancaster's production company (Apache, Vera Cruz...

We want to take a moment and welcome the DVD Savant himself, Glenn Erickson, to our guest blog. Glenn's critical and technical insights make him unique in the vast sea of movie reviewers and we couldn't be happier that he's sharing the wealth here at Tfh. Enjoy!

Mad Max: Fury Road 3-D Blu-ray, 2-D Blu-ray, DVD, Digital HD

Savant Review

Mad Max: Fury Road 3-D Blu-ray, 2-D Blu-ray, DVD, Digital HD Warner Home Video 2015 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 120 min. / Street Date March 24, 2015 / 44.95 Starring Tom Hardy, Charlize Theron, Nicholas Hoult, Hugh Keays-Byrne, Josh Helman, Nathan Jones, Zoöe Kravitz, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Riley Keough, Abbey Lee, Courtney Eaton, John Howard, Richard Carter, Iota, Angus Sampson, Jennifer Hagan, Megan Gale, Melissa Jaffer. Cinematography John Seale Editor Margaret Sixel Original Music Tom Holkenborg Written by George Miller, Brendan McCarthy, Nick Lathouris Produced by George Miller, Doug Mitchell, P.J. Voten Directed by...

Way Out Westerns! continues at Trailers from Hell, with John Landis introducing "Chato's Land," Michael Winner’s cynical, violent Vietnam-era western pits stoic lone Apache Charles Bronson against a colorful posse of rapists and murderers led by Jack Palance and a really good cast. “The scream of his victims is the only sound he makes!” was the ad line. Tfh Guru Landis was actually there on the set to provide belated reportage.

Cinema is a kind of uber-art form that’s made up of a multitude of other forms of art including writing, directing, acting, drawing, design, photography and fashion. As such, film is, as all cinema aficionados know, a highly collaborative venture.

One of the most consistently fascinating collaborations in cinema is that of the director and actor.

This article will examine some of the great director & actor teams. It’s important to note that this piece is not intended as a film history survey detailing all the generally revered collaborations.

There is a wealth of information and study available on such duos as John Ford & John Wayne, Howard Hawks & John Wayne, Elia Kazan & Marlon Brando, Akira Kurosawa & Toshiro Mifune, Alfred Hitchcock & James Stewart, Ingmar Bergman & Max Von Sydow, Federico Fellini & Giulietta Masina/Marcello Mastroianni, Billy Wilder & Jack Lemmon, Francis Ford Coppola & Al Pacino, Woody Allen & Diane Keaton, Martin Scorsese & Robert DeNiro...

This article is dedicated to Andrew Copp: filmmaker, film writer, artist and close friend who passed away on January 19, 2013. You are loved and missed, brother.

****

Looking at the Best Actor Academy Award nominations for the film year 2012, the one miss that clearly cries out for more attention is Liam Neeson’s powerful performance in Joe Carnahan’s excellent survival film The Grey, easily one of the best roles of Neeson’s career.

In Neeson’s case, his lack of a nomination was a case of neglect similar to the Albert Brooks snub in the Best Supporting Actor category for the film year 2011 for Drive(Nicolas Winding Refn, USA).

Along with negligence, other factors commonly prevent outstanding lead acting performances from getting the kind of critical attention they deserve. Sometimes it’s that the performance is in a film not considered “Oscar material” or even worthy of any substantial critical attention.

Swashbuckling screenwriter behind Rob Roy, Ulzana's Raid and Night Moves

Alan Sharp, who has died of brain cancer aged 79, once claimed that as a screenwriter he was most interested in "moral ambiguity, mixed motives and irony", all of which are applicable to two of his best movies, the western Ulzana's Raid (1972), directed by Robert Aldrich, and the thriller Night Moves (1975), directed by Arthur Penn. Most of his screenplays were written in the 1970s and reflect the era in which America was suffering the effects of the Vietnam war and post-Watergate paranoia. This goes some way to explaining the bleakness and cynical sense of destiny in Sharp's films, which he called "existential melodramas".

He was born in Alyth, near Dundee. Although the majority of his scripts were set in the Us, where he lived for many years, Scotland remained pre-eminent in his character and culture. His script for Rob Roy (1995), a...

Above: 1959 poster for Love in the Afternoon (Billy Wilder, USA, 1957).

I’ve always loved this Polish poster for Billy Wilder’s Love in the Afternoon, with its ethereal collage of photography and daubs of paint (not to mention perfectly tasteful type), and I knew that its designer, Wojciech Fangor, had designed a number of other posters in a similar style. But until I started looking into him for Movie Poster of the Week, I had no idea that he is one of Poland’s pre-eminent artists and is still alive and well at the age of 90. Not only that, but he is currently being fêted with a major exhibition, titled Space as a Game, at the National Museum in Krakow (it closes tomorrow if you’re lucky enough to be in the vicinity).

Born in 1922, Fangor was reared on the paintings of Picasso, Matisse and Léger that he would see...

Curiously, with all the bold, ambitious, fresh talent storming into Hollywood in the 1960s/1970s – directors who’d cut their teeth in TV like Sidney Lumet and John Frankenheimer; imports like Roman Polanski and Peter Yates; the first wave of film school “film brats” like Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese — one of the most popular genres during the period was one of Old Hollywood’s most traditional: the Western. But the Western often wrought at the hands of that new generation of moviemakers was rarely traditional.

During the Old Hollywood era, Westerns typically had been B-caliber productions, most of them favoring gunfights and barroom brawls over dramatic substance, and nearly all adhering to Western tropes which ran back to the pre-cinema days of dime novelist Ned Buntline. With the 1960s, however, the genre began to change; or, more accurately, expand, twist, and even invert.

To be sure, there would...

The Western was a movie staple for decades. It seemed the genre that would never die, feeding the fantasies of one generation after another of young boys who galloped around their backyards, playgrounds, and brick streets on broomsticks, banging away with their Mattel cap pistols. Something about a man on a horse set against the boundless wastes of Monument Valley, the crackle of saddle leather, two men facing off in a dusty street under the noon sun connected with the free spirit in every kid.

The American movie – a celluloid telling that was more than a skit – was born in a Western: Edwin S. Porter’s 11- minute The Great Train Robbery (1903). Thereafter, Westerns grew longer, they grew more complex. The West – hostile, endless, civilization barely maintaining a toehold against the elements, hostile natives, and robber barons – proved an infinitely plastic setting. In a place with no law, and where...

The following is a list of all comic books, graphic novels and special items that will be available this week and shipped to comic book stores who have placed orders for them.

12-gauge Comics

Anti #3 (Of 4), $3.99

Aam Markosia

Christmas Carol Gn, $12.99

All Star U Gn, $18.99

Amaze Ink (Slave Labor Graphics)

Malleus Maleficarum A Guide To Catching Witches Gn (resolicited), $12.95

Amryl Entertainment

Cavewoman 2012 Pittsburgh Comicon Signed Sketchbook, Ar

Andrews McMeel

Calvin And Hobbes Homicidal Psycho Jungle Cat Sc (New Printing), $16.99

Calvin And Hobbes Lazy Sunday Book Sc (New Printing), $12.99

Calvin And Hobbes Something Under The Bed Is Drooling Tp, $12.99

Calvin And Hobbes Sunday Pages 1985 -1995 Sc (New Printing), $16.99

Calvin And Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Book Tp (New Printing), $16.99

Calvin And Hobbes The Revenge Of The Baby-Sat Tp (New Printing), $12.99

Indispensable Calvin And Hobbes Sc (New Printing), $18.99

Antarctic Press

Gearhearts Steampunk Glamor Revue #5, $3.99

Gold Digger #145, $3.99

Ape Entertainment

Donarr Unyielding Tp, $7.99

Archaia Entertainment

Conspiracy...

"Was I dreaming or did I just see a bank held up?" asks Sterling Hayden during Nicholas Ray's sole Republic Studios directorial outing, "Johnny Guitar." The 1954 film, which arrives on blu-ray Tuesday as part of Olive Films' carefully curated home video cull of Paramount titles (Viacom absorbed the Republic catalog in the 90's) is paced with such unapologetic relentlessness that midway through the film its title character needs a reality check. The 1950's were the American western's greatest decade and 1954, which also included Robert Aldrich's "Apache" and "Vera Cruz," as well as Allen Dwan's "Silver Lode," was a banner year for revitalizing the genre with more accurate history, psychological nuance, cynicism and violence than had come before. On a superficial level the red dirt world of "Johnny Guitar" overlaps the plea for racial justice of "Apache," the treatise on mercenary...

Gregory La Cava and Irene Dunne

"An extraordinary movie is being screened at Anthology Film Archives [today] through Sunday," writes the New Yorker's Richard Brody: "Unfinished Business, a bitterly passionate romantic drama with a relentless comic tone, from 1941, starring Irene Dunne and Robert Montgomery and directed by Gregory La Cava. It's part of the ongoing series Stuck on the Second Tier: Underknown Auteurs, programmed by Miriam Bale, and you can't get it on home video." And it's "a minor masterwork of performance, direction, and screenwriting."

Unknown Auteurs is actually a set of series running at various locations in New York, with Anthology focusing on La Cava; the Film Society of Lincoln Center and the Museum of the Moving Image, for example, will have other editions soon, but for now, Michael Rawls has an overview of the La Cava selections in Cinespect and David Cairns wrote about Unfinished Business here in the Notebook yesterday.

Joaquin Martinez, a veteran actor best known for his performance as the Indian character Paints His Shirt Red in Sydney Pollack’s 1972 film Jeremiah Johnson, died Jan. 3 after a brief struggle with pancreatic cancer at his home in Everdingen, the Netherlands. He was 81. A native of Cozumel, Mexico, Martinez also played the Apache leader in Ulzana’s Raid (1972), which also starred Burt Lancaster. In its portrayal of the violent reaction by Apaches in the face of the destruction of their culture by European expansion of the North American West, Robert Aldrich’s film was seen as a revisionist tale

read more...

With a tag line claiming, “The Giants Battle in the Biggest Spectacle of Them All!,” director Robert Aldrich’s Vera Cruz first appeared in theaters in 1954 and now 56 years later, holds up well, especially in the new Blu-ray edition from MGM. The giants referred to were Burt Lancaster and Gary Cooper, two stars riding the top of the box-office at the time and actors with firmly established western credentials; Lancaster had just come off the hit Apache and Cooper the beloved High Noon. Vera Cruz, about a pair of post-Civil War mercenaries who travel to Mexico to fight in their revolution for money and hatch a scheme to steal three million dollars in gold, is sometimes called the “first spaghetti western,” because of its setting, excessive style, (for the time) graphic violence, and an antihero at the center of its action. Vera Cruz is an influential, action-packed adventure filled with...

DVD Playhouse: May 2011

By

Allen Gardner

Blow Out (Criterion) Brian De Palma’s greatest Hitchcock homage, with a dash of Antonioni thrown in for good measure. John Travolta gives one of his best turns as a sound-effects engineer who unwittingly records a political assassination, then finds himself hunted by a ruthless hitman (John Lithgow, a memorably creepy psycho) after saving the life of the kindly, albeit dim-witted call girl (Nancy Allen, excellent) who was with the deceased. Terrific blend of suspense and very black humor, perhaps De Palma’s finest hour as an auteur. Beautifully shot by Vilmos Zsigmond. Also available on Blu-ray disc. Bonuses: Interviews with De Palma, Allen, cameraman Garrett Brown; Photo gallery; De Palma’s 1967 feature Murder a la Mod; Trailer. Widescreen. Dolby and DTS-hd 2.0 surround.

Kes (Criterion) Ken Loach’s landmark 1970 film is both a heart-rending portrait of adolescence, and a pointed socio-political commentary on life in the North of England.

Two nights ago in Brooklyn, New York, the wonderful Bam cinematheque screened Gordon Douglas' 1951 film Only the Valiant in the series J. Hoberman: An Army of Phantoms, programmed by the Village Voice critic in honor of the publication of his new book.

The film, by a director with whom I have no familiarity, was quite a discovery: a dark, morose, low-budget Western (and crypto Korean War film) that stars Gregory Peck as a "valiant" cavalry officer who leads a ragtag group of miscreant soldiers and non-coms on a suicide mission to defend a strategic pass from the Apache. The story and atmosphere is absolutely post-WW2; there's both a nastiness of the soldiers (anticipating films by Robert Aldrich, including the somewhat similar The Dirty Dozen) which reflects the more cynical attitude towards war and violence of the era, as well as an abstraction to the cause and ideology of...

Today we have posters for the upcoming Daniel Craig's "Cowboys and Aliens" comic book adaptation and Jason Statham's "The Mechanic" remake. Check out both below. Cowboys and Aliens: In Silver City, Arizona, Apache Indians and Western settlers must lay their differences aside when an alien spaceship crash lands in their city. The movie stars Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford, Sam Rockwell and Olivia Wilde. It is scheduled to hit theaters on July 29th. The trailer is set to appear online on Wednesday (November 17th). The Mechanic: A remake of Charles Bronson's action film, the new movie Follows an elite hit man (Jason Statham) as he teaches his trade to an apprentice who has a connection to one of his previous victims. It is scheduled to hit theaters on January 28th. Watch trailer here. "Cowboys and Aliens" Poster: (click to enlarge) "The Mechanic" Poster: (click to enlarge)...

Oscar-nominated Us screenwriter known for his work on Norma Rae, Hud and Hombre

The husband-and-wife screenwriting team of Irving Ravetch, who has died aged 89, and Harriet Frank Jr specialised in adapting the work of writers as varied as William Faulkner, Larry McMurtry and Elmore Leonard. The pair enjoyed a particularly successful collaboration with the director Martin Ritt, with whom they made eight films notable for their acute concern with social justice. The screenplays for two of these, Hud (1963) and Norma Rae (1979), were nominated for Academy awards. The latter, for which Sally Field won an Oscar for best actress, had a pro-union theme that illustrated Ravetch's belief in film's ability to "seed ideas and wake up dormant minds".

He was born in Newark, New Jersey, to Jewish immigrant parents. His father, from Russia, was a pharmacist who became a rabbi. His mother, from what is now Israel, taught Hebrew. When Ravetch...

Once dismissed as 'Mr Muscles and Teeth', Burt Lancaster went on to become the ultimate action hero as well as an actor of great depth and versatility. In a week-long homage TCM screens five of his best movies. Apache Mon 23 Aug, 3pm When Geronimo and his braves surrender to the Us Calvary in New Mexico, the government decides they are so dangerous they must be transported hundreds of miles away to Florida.

Are you bored of the same old TV shows? Tired of the mainstream? Then check out this round-up of alternative movies and series showing on UK television tonight…

8.00pm White Collar (Bravo)

Brand new Us crime drama in which a cop and a conman team up for a cat and mouse chase of the world’s most notorious criminals. Neal is called on to help in a kidnapping case where the chief suspect is a major figure from his criminal past.

9.00pm Death Wish 5 (MGM HD)

When fashion designer Olivia Regent is murdered by her crime boss ex-husband’s henchmen, her fiance Paul Kersey (Charles Bronson) goes on a violent rampage to revenge her death.

10.00pm The Chaos Factor (Movies4Men +1)

An army security agent accidentally discovers the skeletal remains of three American soldiers, uncovering a web of conspiracy and injustice that had been hidden for years.

11.00pm Undead or Alive...

For a long time, a jar of bronze makeup was the crucial component in playing a Native American in the Wild West. Cross-racial turns by Burt Lancaster in Apache, Chuck Connors in Geronimo, and Anthony Quinn in They Died With Their Boots On are the most glaring examples -- not to mention the legions of hooting buckskins felled by the benevolent cinematic gunfire of the U.S. Calvary. In honor...

For a long time, a jar of bronze makeup was the crucial component in playing a Native American in the Wild West. Cross-racial turns by Burt Lancaster in Apache, Chuck Connors in Geronimo, and Anthony Quinn in They Died With Their Boots On are the most glaring examples -- not to mention the legions of hooting buckskins felled by the benevolent cinematic gunfire of the U.S. Calvary. In honor...

Director Walter Hill.

Kicking Ass with Walter Hill

by Jon Zelazny

Action flicks. Two-fisted tales. Guy movies. Whatever you want to call them, writer, producer, and director Walter Hill is one of the living masters, with a resume full of classics from The Getaway (1972), to the Alien series, and the definitive eighties action-comedy blockbuster, 48 Hrs. (1982).

2009 marks the 30th anniversary of The Warriors (1979), Hill’s surreal “street gang on the run” cult classic, and his breakout success as a director.

Jon: A couple years ago, you did an audio commentary and on-camera intro for a new DVD edition of The Warriors. It was the first time I’d ever seen you; is it my imagination, or have you kept a low profile over the years?

Walter Hill: I’d never done a commentary before on one of my films. I don’t like the idea of explaining a movie; I...