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Jim Sheridan and David Merriman’s real crime re-imagination “Re-Creation,” Alberto Rodríguez’s big-scale “Los Tigres,” Paz Vega’s directorial debut “Rita” feature in Spain’s lineup at this year’s AFM.

They are joined at the Spanish Screenings on Tour by “Nightfall,” a Federico García Lorca focused real life horror film from “Wounded” director Fernando Franco, and “Wolf Night,” the latest from Guillem Morales.

Rich on crime thrillers, this year’s Spanish slate also plays to two of Spain’s strengths, the subject of Spanish Screenings showcases, which luckily enough are also proved to be of general market demand: animation and genre/fantasy. The Screenings also highlight just a few of the Spanish companies which have scored recent market hits. Very few were around before 2010 – a sign of Spain’s relatively recent dramatic growth.

Spanish Screenings on Tour

Animation Showcase

“Ages of Madness,” (Miguel Miranda, 3Doubles Producciones, Spain)

From go-ahead Tenerife-based 3 Doubles,...

November 2024, Criterion Channel is set to deliver an exceptional lineup of films that will excite cinephiles and casual viewers alike. The month promises a rich exploration of genres, featuring a strong selection of Coen Brothers classics such as Blood Simple (1984) and The Big Lebowski (1998), along with their more recent works like A Serious Man (2009) and Inside Llewyn Davis (2013). Noir and crime enthusiasts will revel in an array of titles, including The Maltese Falcon (1941), Gilda (1946), and The Big Heat (1953), showcasing the genre’s iconic narratives and stylistic depth. International cinema also shines through with compelling French dramas like Fat Girl (2001) and Dheepan (2015), highlighting diverse storytelling from around the globe.

The lineup doesn’t shy away from classic drama, featuring timeless films like On the Waterfront (1954) and Seven Samurai (1954), which continue to resonate with contemporary audiences. Additionally, viewers can look forward to a variety of documentary and experimental films, including Wild Wheels...

With Janus possessing the much-needed restorations, Catherine Breillat is getting her biggest-ever spotlight in November’s Criterion Channel series spanning 1976’s A Real Young Girl to 2004’s Anatomy of Hell––just one of numerous retrospectives arriving next month. They’re also spotlighting Ida Lupino, directorial efforts of John Turturro (who also gets an “Adventures In Moviegoing”), the Coen brothers, and Jacques Audiard.

In a slightly more macroscopic view, Columbia Noir and a new edition of “Queersighting” ring in Noirvember. Gregg Araki’s Teen Apocalypse trilogy and Miller’s Crossing get Criterion Editions, while restorations of David Bowie-starrer The Linguini Incident, Med Hondo’s West Indies, and Dennis Hopper’s Out of the Blue make streaming debuts; and Kevin Jerome Everson’s Tonsler Park arrives just in time for another grim election day.

See the full list of titles arriving in November below:

36 fillette, Catherine Breillat, 1988

Anatomy of Hell, Catherine Breillat,...

A story that keeps the fans hooked is all they want when it comes to Call of Duty video games, even with Black Ops 6. Many think it was with Modern Warfare 3 that the popular military shooter saw a downfall. So, they thought of relying on a different aspect until the next game arrives.

They entered some twisted realms to kill unholy creatures, and Zombies. First introduced with the fifth installment of the video game, World at War, it was fun. But instead of growing into a phenomenon, it has become another of the Activision’s aspects that aren’t worth the time.

Activision Should Now Stop Focusing on the ‘Dead’ Story

Call of Duty‘s Zombies mode is bad. Period. There was a time when it felt good shooting the undead and sealing those openings to prevent zombies from entering a building. But Activision isn’t really about zombies. It should’ve buried right there.

It’s not quite the definitive date fans were hoping for, but we’ll take it. Tripwire Interactive has announced that Killing Floor 3, which was announced last year for PC and consoles, will be arriving for fans “early 2025.”Accompanying the announcement is the first official gameplay trailer, which reveals a deeper look at the game in “gruesome, glorious action.”

The new gameplay trailer for Killing Floor 3 introduces the first three new playable Nightfall specialists, including the highly-anticipated return of fan-favorite commando, Mr. Foster. Each specialist comes complete with their own unique set of skills and proficiencies giving them and their team an edge in combat, including an arsenal of fully customizable weapons and deadly cutting-edge military gadgets.

Maps in Killing Floor 3 come to life with new levels of verticality and traversability and, when combined with advancements in player movement such as dashing and climbing, and the addition of deadly environmental traps,...

The first "Halo" video game, "Halo: Combat Evolved," was released in 2001 and its lore was so involved and complicated, it was accompanied by the publication of Eric Nylud's novel "Halo: The Fall of Reach." The plot reaches back into ancient times where it involves wars between long-forgotten alien species, then reaches into the year 2525 where elite supersoldiers, part of the Spartan II project, keep the peace. The game's action surrounds the invasion of a new alien species called the Covenant, a race waging a galaxy-wide holy war. The main character is Master Chief John-177, a masked Spartan equipped with high-tech guns and a holographic helper/girlfriend named Cortana. 

"Halo" has been a mainstay in the medium ever since, having spawned multiple sequels in 2004, 2007, 2012, and most recently in 2021. There are also 10 additional spin-off games, many novelizations, comics, an animated series, and a high-profile Paramount+ TV series. Neill Blomkamp once announced his...

Exclusive: Emelia Hartford, actor and well-known figure in the automotive industry, has signed with CAA for representation.

As an actor, Hartford can be seen in Columbia Pictures’ Gran Turismo, directed by Neill Blomkamp, also a CAA client. She also has appeared in films such as HBO Max’s Hollywood Christmas, That’s Amor, A California Christmas: City Lights, and Nightfall, written by client Alison Greenberg.

Hartford can also be seen on screen with appearances in the Netflix documentary Fastest Car, Redbull TV’s Drift Queen, and she co-hosts MotorTrend’s new adult animated series Super Turbo Story Time alongside Rob Corddry and client Zoe Bell, featuring untold stories from the automotive world.

One of the leading forces in the automotive industry, Hartford is a record-breaking custom car builder and race car driver. She has emerged as a leading figure in a traditionally male-dominated space and has appeared alongside Phoenix Suns shooting guard Devin Booker,...

Tripwire Interactive are finally counting to three with the announcement that Killing Floor 3 is currently in development for PC via Steam and Epic Games Store, the PlayStation 5 and the Xbox Series. The announcement accompanies a slick new trailer for the game, which you can keep track of via the official site.

Harnessing the power of Unreal Engine 5, Tripwire will build upon the legacy of the series that began way back in 2009, realizing its gruesome graphical vision and “embracing its dark dystopian tone to deliver the next terrifying evolution in action and horror”.

“As a lifelong horror fan, it’s been an honor to lead our passionate development team as we create Killing Floor 3,” said Bryan Wynia, Studio Creative Director at Tripwire Interactive. “We’re extremely excited for fans to finally experience the world we’ve been building.”

The year is 2091, 70 years after the events in Killing Floor 2, and megacorp Horzine...

It may be hard to believe now after nine "Fast & Furious" movies and guff like "The Last Witcher" and "Bloodshot," but there was a time when Vin Diesel was an interesting actor. With that gravelly voice and a smooth aura of self-assurance, he was a natural, even when playing a small but neatly drawn character in "Saving Private Ryan," a slick senior broker in "Boiler Room," or voicing a big metal fella with a heart of gold in "The Iron Giant." In another world, he might have even gone on to become a writer-director — after all, Diesel got his start starring in his own low-budget indie films.

It would have been really interesting to see how his career might have developed if he'd followed that route instead of becoming an action star. But he was set on that path with "Pitch Black," the sci-fi sleeper hit that gave him the juicy role of Riddick,...

Miranda Lambert’s mud-soaked romp in “It All Comes Out in the Wash,” Tyler Childers’ psychedelic reverie in “All Your’n,” and Lil Nas X’s delightful Wild West-goes-to-Cali saga for “Old Town Road” are among the clips that stood out in a year full of great visuals. Here are the 10 best country videos of 2019.

The Cadillac Three, “Slow Rollin'”

This ain’t no Fast & Furious soundtrack. “Slow Rollin'” preaches the fuzz-guitar gospel of inching down the asphalt at a cool, confident crawl, with Foghat on the radio and...

Little Big Town’s heartbreaking new ballad “Sugar Coat” is accompanied by a gripping video in which the lead character, a Sixties housewife played with steely resolve by Kate Bosworth (The Long Road Home, Superman Returns) comes to grips with the artificial veneer in which she’s wrapped herself as protection from her husband’s wandering eye.

“Sometimes I wish I liked drinking, sometimes I wish I liked pills/ Wish I could sleep with a stranger but someone like me never will,” the group’s Karen Fairchild sings, acknowledging the...

Little Big Town detailed their ninth studio LP Nightfall, which will be released January 17th. The new album, which follows 2017’s The Breaker, features the quartet’s Grammy-nominated “The Daughters” as well as their current single “Over Drinking,” both of which will be available with pre-orders starting Friday, November 22nd.

Nightfall preorders will also include the new track, “Sugar Coat,” penned by “Girl Crush” co-writer (and frequent Little Big Town contributor) Lori McKenna with Josh Kerr and Jordyn Shellart. Additional writers contributing to the Nightfall include Daniel Tashian, Foy Vance,...

Little Big Town eschew the traditional dramatic video treatment in favor of actual musical drama in their engaging new live-performance video for the twangy “Over Drinking.”

Nestled into a compact gray room, the foursome — Karen Fairchild, Kimberly Schlapman, Phillip Sweet, and Jimi Westbrook — are joined by a keyboard player and guitarist to perform their latest single. Without any video storyline, the song itself becomes the star, with Fairchild handling the verses with accompaniment from Schlapman, before all four join in to harmonize on the chorus. The performance emphasizes the old-school country wordplay of the song,...

Little Big Town will welcome in the new year with Nightfall, the multi-award-winning quartet’s ninth studio album and the follow-up to 2017’s The Breaker. In advance of the forthcoming LP, the group has unveiled “Over Drinking,” a delightfully woozy and defiant honky-tonk number that aims to redirect the narrator’s alcohol consumption, making it more about celebrating camaraderie than drowning one’s sorrows in the hard stuff.

“I ain’t on the wagon, these wheels are still turnin’ but I’m tired of you draggin’ my heart through the...

S. Craig Zahler is a filmmaker with a flare for violence but more interestingly is going beyond this with his intriguing characters and stories.

With only three films to date he is an eclectic director with a western (Bone Tomahawk), prison thriller (Brawl in Cell Block 99) as well as cop drama under his belt already.

In his third film, Dragged Across Concrete sees the director delve into the cop genre that showed at the Glasgow Film Festival this year. Read our glowing review of the film here.

We once again see Vince Vaughn, currently enjoying a ‘Vaugn-aissance’ (?) of sorts, team up with Zahler as well as Mel Gibson who knows a thing a two about playing a law enforcer.

We catch up with Zahler to talk all things Dragged Across Concrete and more.

Congrats on Dragged Across Concrete. Where did the idea or inspiration come from for this film?...

The Criterion Channel launches Monday, replacing that void left in cinephile hearts everywhere after the shuttering of FilmStruck just four months ago.

Subscribers can expect very little difference on the new service that wasn’t previously available on the Criterion Collection’s home at FilmStruck.

The service’s core, permanent library available on launch day is the over 1,000 movies, 350 shorts and 3500 supplemental materials that make up the Janus Film library. These are the classic arthouse films that for decades have been a mainstay in DVD restorations as part of the Criterion Collection.

Also Read: Why the New Criterion Channel Streaming Service Won't Be a 'Netflix Killer'

Criterion President Peter Becker referred to The Criterion Channel as “an art house at your house,” adding that the library is made up of the “last name” filmmakers that any movie buff should know well: (Michelangelo) Antonioni, (Jean-Luc) Godard, (François) Truffaut, (Akira) Kurosawa,...

“The Daughters,” the first taste of Little Big Town’s forthcoming ninth studio album, is a deeply evocative ballad built around razor-sharp lyrics tinged with irony and, ultimately, a message of empowerment. The incisive tune, penned by the group’s Karen Fairchild with Sean McConnell and Ashley Ray, highlights both the mixed messages frequently received by young women and the ongoing search for strong female role models in a patriarchal society.

In a newly released music video, the quartet, with Fairchild on lead vocal, performs the song in an empty gymnasium,...

In just two weeks, a cinematic haven will launch. After the demise of FilmStruck left cinephiles in a dark depression, The Criterion Channel has stepped up to the plate to launch their own separate service coming to the U.S. and Canada on Apple TV, Amazon Fire, Roku, iOS, and Android and Android TV devices. Now, after giving us a taste of what is to come with their Movies of the Week, they’ve unveiled the staggeringly great lineup for their first month.

Along with the Criterion Collection and Janus Films’ library of 1,000 feature films, 350 shorts, and 3,500 supplementary features–including trailers, introductions, behind-the-scenes documentaries, interviews, video essays, commentary tracks, and rare archival footage–the service will also house films from Sony Pictures, Warner Bros., Paramount Pictures, Metro Goldwyn Mayer (MGM), Lionsgate, IFC Films, Kino Lorber, Cohen Media, Milestone Film and Video, Oscilloscope, Cinema Guild, Strand Releasing, Shout Factory, Film Movement,...

Out of the ashes of FilmStruck comes the Criterion Channel, which is launching April 8 and has announced an exciting first slate of new programming being added onto the streaming platform throughout its first month. When the service goes live next month it will be the exclusive streaming home for the Criterion Collection and Janus Films’ library of more than 1,000 classic and contemporary films. Original series that aired on FilmStruck will be back on the Criterion Channel, including “Adventures in Moviegoing,” “Meet the Filmmakers,” and “Observations on Film Art.”

In addition to its extensive library, Criterion Channel will be adding new films daily. The first new addition to the service on April 8 will be a spotlight on Columbia Pictures’ history of film noir through 11 movies: “My Name Is Julia Ross”; “So Dark the Night” (Joseph H. Lewis, 1946); “The Big Heat” (Fritz Lang, 1953); “Human Desire” (Fritz Lang, 1954); “Drive a Crooked Road” (Richard Quine,...

He is the Master of Mood. Once you’ve seen a few films by Jacques Tourneur, you see how meticulously this extraordinary filmmaker could create a sense of atmosphere, no matter the setting. The Film Society of Lincoln Center is now set to host the largest New York retrospective of the French-born genre director’s work in decades. The exhaustive program, titled “Jacques Tourneur, Fearmaker,” runs from December 14 to January 3 and includes nearly every film he ever made.

The lineup includes his extraordinary horror films for Rko produced by Val Lewton, to the creepy Gothic mystery “Experiment Perilous” and the all-time noir classic “Out of the Past” to later work such as the twisty British frightfest “Curse of the Demon” (sometimes titled “Night of the Demon”) and the unique crime thriller “Nightfall” which answers the question every cinephile didn’t even know they need to ask: What happens when you...

The “Destiny 2: Forsaken” expansion will have four new strikes when it launches on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on Sept. 4, according to a large leak posted on Reddit last Friday. There’s also info on the new raid, the new Gambit game mode, and more.

The leak comes from Reddit user Ginsor, who is responsible for digging up credible datamined information in the past like the return of the Crimson Days event. But, as always with these types of leaks, take it all with a fist-sized grain of salt.

That said, the four new strikes are apparently called Warden of Nothing, The Hollowed Lair, The Corrupted, and The Broodhold. Like other “Destiny” strikes, they will all have Nightfall versions.

Bungie has already talked about a new raid called The Dreaming City, but Ginsor’s leak mentions another raid reportedly called Last Wish. It will possibly feature a boss called Dul Incaru,...

For its 24th edition, Film Independent’s newly configured Los Angeles Film Festival has revealed its first fall lineup (September 20 – 28), the second under the leadership of Festival Director Jennifer Cochis. The date moves Laff into awards season and direct competition with AFI Fest (November 8 – 15), the last of the fall festivals. This year’s Laff program includes 40 feature films, 41 short films, and 10 short episodic works representing 26 countries. Across the competition categories 42 percent of the films are directed by women and 39 percent are directed by people of color.

The festival remains committed to a diverse lineup of feature films, shorts and episodic series for its U.S. Fiction (“original voices with distinct visions from emerging and established American independent filmmakers”), Documentary (“character-driven non-fiction films from the U.S. and around the world”), World Fiction (“unique fiction films from around the world by emerging and established filmmakers”), La Muse (“fiction and documentary films...

For its 24th edition, Film Independent’s newly configured Los Angeles Film Festival has revealed its first fall lineup (September 20 – 28), the second under the leadership of Festival Director Jennifer Cochis. The date moves Laff into awards season and direct competition with AFI Fest (November 8 – 15), the last of the fall festivals. This year’s Laff program includes 40 feature films, 41 short films, and 10 short episodic works representing 26 countries. Across the competition categories 42 percent of the films are directed by women and 39 percent are directed by people of color.

The festival remains committed to a diverse lineup of feature films, shorts and episodic series for its U.S. Fiction (“original voices with distinct visions from emerging and established American independent filmmakers”), Documentary (“character-driven non-fiction films from the U.S. and around the world”), World Fiction (“unique fiction films from around the world by emerging and established filmmakers”), La Muse (“fiction and documentary films...

Iran, Australia and Poland among countries represented in Competition.

Cannes Film Festival has revealed the selection for its short film Competition and Cinéfondation sections at the 2018 event, ahead of the Official Competition press conference tomorrow (April 12) at 10am BST.

The Short Films Competition comprises eight films (seven fiction and one animation) chosen from 3,943 submissions, including titles from Iran (Umbra), Australia (All These Creatures) and Poland (III).

In the Cinéfondation Selection, 17 films (14 live action and three animations) have been chosen from 2,426 submissions from film schools worldwide. Among those represented are Israel’s Steve Tisch School of Film & Television, Italy’s...

Witness the ‘fifties transformation of the femme fatale, from scheming murderess to self-deluding social climber. Barbara Stanwyck redefines herself once again in Gerd Oswald’s best-directed picture, a searing portrayal of needs and anxieties in the nervous decade. With fine support from Raymond Burr, Virginia Grey and Royal Dano.

Crime of Passion

Blu-ray

ClassicFlix

1957 / B&W / 1:85 widescreen / 84 min. / Street Date September 5, 2017 /

Starring: Barbara Stanwyck, Sterling Hayden, Raymond Burr, Fay Wray, Virginia Grey, Royal Dano.

Cinematography: Joseph Lashelle

Art Direction: Leslie Thomas

Original Music: Paul Dunlap

Original Story and Screenplay by Jo Eisinger

Produced by Herman Cohen, Robert Goldstein

Directed by Gerd Oswald

A key title in the development of the Film Noir, 1957’s Crime of Passion shows how much the style had departed from the dark romanticism and expressive visuals of the previous decade. The best mid-’50s noirs strike a marvelously cynical and existentially bleak attitude regarding crime and society.

A killer book (Dog Soldiers) must hide behind a Credence Clearwater tune. Karel Reisz’s killer movie about the moral residue of Vietnam scores as both drama and action, as disillusioned counterculture smugglers versus corrupt narcotics cops. Just don’t expect it to really have much to say about the Vietnam experience. But hey, the cast is tops — Nick Nolte, Richard Masur, Anthony Zerbe — and the marvelous Tuesday Weld is even better as a pill-soaked involuntary initiate into the pre- War On Drugs smuggling scene.

Who’ll Stop the Rain

Blu-ray

Twilight Time

1978 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 126 min. / Street Date May 16, 2017 / Available from the Twilight Time Movies Store 29.95

Starring: Nick Nolte, Tuesday Weld, Michael Moriarty, Anthony Zerbe, Richard Masur, Ray Sharkey, Gail Strickland, Charles Haid, David Opatoshu, Joaquín Martínez, James Cranna, Timothy Blake.

Cinematography: Richard H. Kiline

Supervising Film Editor: John Bloom

Original Music: Laurence Rosenthal

Written by Judith Rascoe, Robert Stone...

TV stalwart Paul Wendkos' biggest success in movies was as the director of the Gidget series. I'm Scottish so I don't know what that was. But it turns out he had a real gift for expressionistic noir, as demonstrated in his debut film The Burglar, which was scripted by pulp noir icon David Goodis, whose novels provided source material for Delmer Daves' Dark Passage, Jacques Tourneur's Nightfall, Truffaut's Shoot the Piano Player, René Clément's And Hope to Die, Beineix's Moon in the Gutter (the author was big in France) and Sam Fuller's Street of No Return.The movie, a low-budget affair, substitutes flair and vigor for production values, and stars lifelong noir patsy/creep Dan Duryea and up-and-coming sex bomb Jayne Mansfield, with the result that it always seems to be in the wrong aspect ratio. Duryea's cranium seems to have an extra story built...

In today's roundup of special events, we note that Richard Linklater will introduce and then discuss Robert Bresson's Pickpocket (1959) in Austin on Tuesday. The other goings on are in New York: screenings of Jean-Luc Godard's Pierrot le Fou with Jean-Paul Belmondo and Anna Karina, Nicholas Ray's On Dangerous Ground with Robert Ryan and Ida Lupino, Jacques Tourneur's Nightfall, Jonas Mekas's Scenes from the Life of Raimund Abraham, Simone Rapisarda Casanova's The Creation of Meaning, Dreams Rewired, narrated by Tilda Swinton, and the ongoing series pairing films by David Lynch and Jacques Rivette. » - David Hudson...

In today's roundup of special events, we note that Richard Linklater will introduce and then discuss Robert Bresson's Pickpocket (1959) in Austin on Tuesday. The other goings on are in New York: screenings of Jean-Luc Godard's Pierrot le Fou with Jean-Paul Belmondo and Anna Karina, Nicholas Ray's On Dangerous Ground with Robert Ryan and Ida Lupino, Jacques Tourneur's Nightfall, Jonas Mekas's Scenes from the Life of Raimund Abraham, Simone Rapisarda Casanova's The Creation of Meaning, Dreams Rewired, narrated by Tilda Swinton, and the ongoing series pairing films by David Lynch and Jacques Rivette. » - David Hudson...

Even when based on actual events, classical Hollywood movies never strive for painstaking factual accuracy. This is best exemplified by the ever-present legal disclaimer “The characters and incidents portrayed and the names used in this work are fictitious, and any resemblance to the name, character and history of any real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental,” which appears not only in horror, sci-fi or musical extravaganzas, but also in biopics and historical reconstructions. In the latter two cases, the contradiction is only apparent. While using the above disclaimer (or variations thereof) to protect themselves from defamation lawsuits, the studios openly acknowledge what any person of common sense knows already: in the filmmaking business, dramatization and other poetic licenses are essential to tell and sell exciting stories to an audience, since reality is too boring and complex for an evening's entertainment. In other words, a commercial film is not a...

Welcome to another horror/thriller round-up! This time around we have details on Backstreet Boy Nick Carter’s in-the-works zombie western movie, release details for Arrow Video’s UK Blu-ray / DVD of the Vincent Price-starring The Comedy of Terrors, and an update on Warner Bros.’ and Team Downey’s in-development film based on the real-life sinking of the USS Indianapolis and the subsequent shark attacks on the surviving crew members.

In an interview with Noisey, Backstreet Boy Nick Carter revealed that he will be directing and starring in a zombie western called Dead West (not to be confused with Joe R. Lansdale’s 1986 zombie western novel, Dead in the West) for Asylum this March. Carter also co-wrote the script and has a couple of potential cast members in mind (excerpts from Noisey via Shock Till You Drop):

“It’s called Dead West. [Laughs.] It’s a zombie horror western movie.

Busan, South Korea -- Hong Kong-based Edko Films and Irresistible Films unveiled two action projects at the Asian Film Market, Nightfall and Cold War, produced by Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon producer Bill Kong. 

Starring award-winning actors Nick Cheung and Simon Yam as an ex-con and a detective, respectively, on the trail of a brutal murder, the $7 million Nightfall is the second collaboration of the helmer-writer team Roy Chow and Christine To (Murderer). Now in post-production, the film is scheduled for March 2012.

Cold War, a $9 million police action drama with an undisclosed cast is produced by Kong, Matthew Tang, and Ivy Ho. Set amidst a hostage crisis,...

Busan, South Korea -- Hong Kong-based Edko Films and Irresistible Films unveiled two action projects at the Asian Film Market, Nightfall and Cold War, produced by Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon producer Bill Kong. 

Starring award-winning actors Nick Cheung and Simon Yam as an ex-con and a detective, respectively, on the trail of a brutal murder, the $7 million Nightfall is the second collaboration of the helmer-writer team Roy Chow and Christine To (Murderer). Now in post-production, the film is scheduled for March 2012.

Cold War, a $9 million police action drama with an undisclosed cast is produced by Kong, Matthew Tang, and Ivy Ho. Set amidst a hostage crisis,...

According to a title card at the end of Laissez-Passer, Bertrand Tavernier's fact-based drama of the French film industry in wartime, Maurice Tourneur hated the scripts of the few movies he made post-wwii. So there's that.

But his last film, Impasse des Deux Anges (1948), fascinates. If the script has a flaw, it's that it takes a very simple, predictable story (actress runs away from groom the night before her marriage, with an old lover who's also a jewel thief—pursued through the night by gangsters, they conclude their relationship so she can move on) and attempts to reinvigorate it at regular intervals with dizzying tonal shifts, implausible new characters and sub-plots, and ghostly, somnambular flashbacks. But the flaw is also a strength, since it makes the film jazzy, offbeat and strange.

As the "two angels" (though the title really refers to a dead-end street where they made love in...

Many thanks to Matthew Flanagan for pointing out the fifth issue of the multi-lingual journal La Furia Umana with its rapporto confidenziale devoted to Jacques Tourneur. It opens with a conversation on the filmmaker, and the talkers here are none other than Pedro Costa and Chris Fujiwara (author of Jacques Tourneur: The Cinema of Nightfall; see, too, Michael Guillén's recent interview with him). Tag Gallagher and Gwenda Young and Marco Grosoli have contributions in English as well.

Chris Fujiwara is a writer, film critic, journalist, and editor. He is the author of Jerry Lewis (University of Illinois Press, 2009), The World and Its Double: The Life and Work of Otto Preminger (Faber & Faber, 2007) and Jacques Tourneur: The Cinema of Nightfall (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000) and the editor of Defining Moments in Movies (Cassell, 2007) and Peter Watkins (Jeonju International Film Festival, 2008). He is also the editor of Undercurrent, Fipresci's bimonthly publication.

With last week's release of Columbia Pictures Film Noir Classics, Vol. 2 (Human Desire, The Brothers Rico, Nightfall, City of Fear and Pushover), do yourself a favor. Trust me (and you'll thank me later). It will only take a few hours. Stop thinking about/reading all of the various tabloid drama screaming in your face every morning, stop spending too much money on disappointing movies in the theaters, and settle into a bonafide great movie, a movie not enough people have ever seen -- Jacques Tourneur's Nightfall. "Mixing fear and the ridiculous can be very exciting." -- Jacques Tourneur Nightfall is a work of striking juxtapositions and tones that by picture end, come off like an unforgettably disarming person -- you're charmed, discombobulated, even slightly disturbed, and you're not sure what to make of it all. You just know you...

In the grand scheme of father and son/daughter directors, Jacques Tourneur is the one clear case of offspring surpassing his parent. It may not have seemed so at the time, since father Maurice Tourneur had been in charge of big movies like The Last of the Mohicans (1920), while Jacques was "merely" the director of "B" horrors like Cat People (1942). But now it's fairly obvious that Jacques was much more than his "B" movie budgets. Of the major second-stringers, he was the only one who never seemed to be scrounging, digging to discover art within trash. Rather, he elevated his films to some kind of new level of ethereal, mysterious, shadowy beauty.

One of his many hard-to-find movies, Nightfall (1957), gets a released on DVD this week as part of Columbia Pictures Film Noir Classics II. It has a particularly wretched little plot, from a David Goodis story: Aldo Ray stars...

Mubarak Ali

Everything That Rises Must Converge: Some Notes on "Trees of Syntax, Leaves of Axis"

David Cairns

The Forgotten: Night and Fog

The Forgotten: Hey, Pluto!

Ce n'est pas une pipe: "The Illusionist" (Sylvain Chomet, UK)

The Forgotten: Messing About in Boats

Johnny Got His Gun: "Caterpillar" (Koji Wakamatsu, Japan)

Life's Work: "And Everything is Going Fine" (Steven Soderbergh, Us)

The Forgotten: Bad Words

Taking Fire: "Restrepo" (Tim Hetherington & Sebastian Junger, Us)

Adrian Curry

Movie Posters of the Week: The Films of Agnès Varda

Movie Posters of the Week: Early Dreyer

Movie Poster of the Week: "The American"

Movie Poster of the Week: "Dogtooth"

Doug Dibbern

Mann Power: The Director as Worker

The Ferroni Brigade

The Golden Donkey Cannes 2010: The French Connection

Jean-Luc Godard

Quote of the Day

Daniel Kasman

Now on DVD: Shapeshifting Songs of Sex

At the Cinematheque: "Nightfall" (Jacques Tourneur, 1957)

Video Sundays: Cinema...

Above: L.A. noir—Rudy Bond, a .45, Aldo Ray, and an oil derrick.

Jacques Tourneur, one of old Hollywood's last poets, seems forever known, when know at all, for pairing his nebulous, poetic clashes between rationality and irrationality with the inspired clouds of unease of producer Val Lewton's wartime productions in such films as Cat People (1942), The Leopard Man (1943), and I Walked With a Zombie (also 43), and for one of the most unsusal and foggy noirs—and canonical films—ever produced, Out of the Past (1947). In the 1950s Tourneur's products grew more erratic, though masterpieces were frequent—ranging frmo the beginning of the decade with the genuine warmth of his good-hearted Western, Stars in My Crown (1950), to the end, with a return to scientific-materialist horror in the British production Night of the Demon (1957)—and frequently uncanny and haunting in that way so specific to Tourneur, where memories of his...

Pfa curator Steve Seid reiterated that David Goodis—in the wake of the 1947 film adaptation of his novel Dark Passage—quickly secured a contract as a studio writer in Hollywood; but, had a rapid downfall and by 1950 moved back to Philadelphia. “The irony is that you can see in a single double-bill the entire output from his time in Los Angeles,” Seid quipped. Other filmic adaptations like Jacques Tourneur’s Nightfall eventually lead Goodis’s work back to Hollywood; but, not the author himself.

Seid then introduced Dan Hodges, a San Franciscan author specializing in film noir, whose work will be included in the forthcoming 4th Edition of Film Noir: An Encyclopedic Reference to the American Style. Hodges is also a key figure in the San Franciscan film noir salon The Danger & Despair Knitting Circle.

“It’s surprising that pulp writer David Goodis never named a novel Cul-de-Sac,” ponders Pacific Film Archives curator Steve Seid, “His stories conjure a dead end, littered with the wreckage of lonely losers and lowlifes. An ill fate befalls the typical Goodis fall guy, who often glimpses the high life, however fleetingly, but then through some irascible compulsion or sinister defect must stumble back to the seamy streets. Goodis’s own life follows the same pattern: at age thirty, he saw his novel Dark Passage adapted for the screen and parlayed that into a contract at Warner Bros., but his questionable proclivities made him an outcast even in Hollywood. Back in his hometown of Philadelphia, he churned out paperback originals while prowling the seedy saloons with unguarded desire. At age forty-nine, he was dead of cirrhosis. Though Goodis persisted in relative obscurity, his works falling in and out of print,...