Filmmaker Quentin Tarantino is one of the most acclaimed directors of the generation. He is known for his gory action dramas that have sprinkles of dark humor and act as tributes to all the films he has loved. He is known for films such as Pulp Fiction, Django Unchained, Kill Bill, and more. He has also written books about cinema.
Tarantino has always appreciated brilliant pieces of art and has also criticized films that he felt did not meet the mark. He reportedly loved Takashi Miike’s cult horror film Audition. He especially commented on the much-talked-about final scenes in the Japanese horror film and spoke about how Miike took the audience on a ride.
Quentin Tarantino Loved The Ending Of Takashi Miike’s Audition A still from Audition | Credits: Omega Project/Creators Company Connection/Film Face/Afdf Korea/Bodysonic
Japanese filmmaker Takashi Miike has been one of the most...
Tarantino has always appreciated brilliant pieces of art and has also criticized films that he felt did not meet the mark. He reportedly loved Takashi Miike’s cult horror film Audition. He especially commented on the much-talked-about final scenes in the Japanese horror film and spoke about how Miike took the audience on a ride.
Quentin Tarantino Loved The Ending Of Takashi Miike’s Audition A still from Audition | Credits: Omega Project/Creators Company Connection/Film Face/Afdf Korea/Bodysonic
Japanese filmmaker Takashi Miike has been one of the most...
- 6/3/2024
- by Nishanth A
- FandomWire
Mark Damon, who starred in the Vincent Price horror classic House of Usher and spaghetti Westerns before revolutionizing the foreign sales and distribution film business and producing features including 9 1/2 Weeks, Monster and Lone Survivor, has died. He was 91.
Damon died Sunday of natural causes in Los Angeles, his daughter, Alexis Damon Ribaut, told The Hollywood Reporter.
Damon spent the first 20 years of his career as an actor, including about a dozen as a leading man in Italian action movies, before he transitioned to the business side.
He had early success as an executive producer with two movies written and directed by Wolfgang Petersen: the German-language World War II drama Das Boot (1981), which received six Oscar nominations, and The NeverEnding Story (1984), a big-budget fantasy film that featured a Damon-commissioned score by Giorgio Moroder for non-German audiences.
He shared an Independent Spirit Award with director Patty Jenkins and others...
Damon died Sunday of natural causes in Los Angeles, his daughter, Alexis Damon Ribaut, told The Hollywood Reporter.
Damon spent the first 20 years of his career as an actor, including about a dozen as a leading man in Italian action movies, before he transitioned to the business side.
He had early success as an executive producer with two movies written and directed by Wolfgang Petersen: the German-language World War II drama Das Boot (1981), which received six Oscar nominations, and The NeverEnding Story (1984), a big-budget fantasy film that featured a Damon-commissioned score by Giorgio Moroder for non-German audiences.
He shared an Independent Spirit Award with director Patty Jenkins and others...
- 5/13/2024
- by Mike Barnes
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Veteran filmmaker Quentin Tarantino does not care what reviewers say about his 2012 film Django Unchained, much more to the dismay of many Black critics. The movie proved to be a popular box office hit despite its mixed reviews.
Jamie Foxx in Django Unchained
The spaghetti western drama starred Jamie Foxx as a freed slave who worked with Christoph Waltz’s Dr. King Schultz, a German bounty hunter, to liberate Django’s wife.
Quentin Tarantino Remains Nonchalant About Black Critics’ Remarks On Django Unchained
In a candid interview with the New York Times, director Quentin Tarantino addressed the backlash that Django Unchained received from fans, particularly the Black critics.
“If you’ve made money being a critic in black culture in the last 20 years you have to deal with me. You must have an opinion of me. You must deal with what I’m saying and deal with the consequences. If you sift through the criticism,...
Jamie Foxx in Django Unchained
The spaghetti western drama starred Jamie Foxx as a freed slave who worked with Christoph Waltz’s Dr. King Schultz, a German bounty hunter, to liberate Django’s wife.
Quentin Tarantino Remains Nonchalant About Black Critics’ Remarks On Django Unchained
In a candid interview with the New York Times, director Quentin Tarantino addressed the backlash that Django Unchained received from fans, particularly the Black critics.
“If you’ve made money being a critic in black culture in the last 20 years you have to deal with me. You must have an opinion of me. You must deal with what I’m saying and deal with the consequences. If you sift through the criticism,...
- 3/19/2024
- by Ariane Cruz
- FandomWire
Following up on their excellent Blood Money box set from last year, the folks at Arrow Video now offer the four-film collection Savage Guns, another deep dive into the vaults of the Italian western. With each of these releases, Arrow gives viewers the opportunity to form a richer and broader notion of the genre, to examine the way these films work the warp and weft of similarity and difference, providing audiences with expected payoffs of sex and violence while also playing variations (subtle or otherwise) on familiar generic themes.
Featuring sparkling new restorations based on original film elements, Savage Guns comes in another lavishly appointed package from Arrow Video, complete with hours of bonus materials, like cast and crew interviews, commentary tracks, introductions to each of the films by critic Fabio Melelli, and appreciations of two of the film scores by audiophile Lovely Jon. Also included in the slipcase are...
Featuring sparkling new restorations based on original film elements, Savage Guns comes in another lavishly appointed package from Arrow Video, complete with hours of bonus materials, like cast and crew interviews, commentary tracks, introductions to each of the films by critic Fabio Melelli, and appreciations of two of the film scores by audiophile Lovely Jon. Also included in the slipcase are...
- 1/22/2024
- by Budd Wilkins
- Slant Magazine
The first installment in a loose trilogy that includes 1967’s Entranced Earth and 1969’s Antonio das Mortes, Glauber Rocha’s Black God, White Devil nonetheless stands alone as a benchmark for the difference between polemic and propaganda. If Rocha’s Italian contemporaries Sergio Corbucci and Damiano Damiani devised the Zapata western to turn the traditional western inside out—critiquing rather than valorizing imperialism—then Black God, White Devil might be called a Lampião western, after the folk hero of Brazilian social banditry who casts a long shadow over the film. More than allegorizing third-world revolutionary and decolonial struggles, Rocha stages a mythmaking intervention into Brazilian history.
As its English title suggests, Black God, White Devil is a film of two halves, each of which slots into a separate western subgenre, and could probably satisfy as a film in its own right. Taken as a whole, though, the film incites a...
As its English title suggests, Black God, White Devil is a film of two halves, each of which slots into a separate western subgenre, and could probably satisfy as a film in its own right. Taken as a whole, though, the film incites a...
- 11/13/2023
- by William Repass
- Slant Magazine
In 2012, one of the most critically acclaimed and successful directors of all time, Quentin Tarantino brought to our screens the American revisionist Western film Django Unchained. The film is set in the Old West and Antebellum South. Tarantino drew inspiration from iconic Spaghetti Westerns in particular Sergio Corbucci’s 1966 Italian film Django. The film features an all-star cast including actors such as Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio, Samuel L. Jackson, Kerry Washington, and Walton Goggins. Before Foxx was cast to play Django American actor Will Smith was considered for the role, but he turned down the offer. Django Unchained...
- 10/23/2023
- by Nkem
- TVovermind.com
Many of Quentin Tarantino’s most iconic characters sit firmly in the morally gray areas of humanity, but the filmmaker steered into reprehensible villainy with Calvin Candie in Django Unchained. Despite DiCaprio’s discomfort with the role, the actor fully committed to depicting this sadistic slave owner with palpable intensity. In one of his standout scenes, DiCaprio got some inside the role that he injured himself while delivering a monologue.
The actor got so worked up during a climactic scene that he cut his hand open Leonardo DiCaprio | Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images
The full depth of Calvin’s performative charm and underlying menace is at its most apparent during a dinner party scene at his home.
What begins as an amicable discussion quickly curdles into something more sinister when Calvin brings out the skull of a dead slave, spouts some racist phrenology about black people’s brains, and reveals...
The actor got so worked up during a climactic scene that he cut his hand open Leonardo DiCaprio | Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images
The full depth of Calvin’s performative charm and underlying menace is at its most apparent during a dinner party scene at his home.
What begins as an amicable discussion quickly curdles into something more sinister when Calvin brings out the skull of a dead slave, spouts some racist phrenology about black people’s brains, and reveals...
- 8/30/2023
- by Suse Forrest
- Showbiz Cheat Sheet
You can approach old classics just like new films, argued participants during Locarno’s Heritage Monday panel.
“I talked to an exhibitor in Paris and they don’t consider repertory cinema to be different from contemporary cinema. They are collapsing both models into one and it’s very interesting,” said K.J. Relth-Miller of the Academy Museum.
Swiss Film Archive director Frédéric Maire noted that they also mix “fresh” films with older titles. “This idea of separating them can be useful for communication, but we try to avoid it. Yesterday, I was watching [Daniel Schmid’s 1974 film] ‘La Paloma’ [at the festival] and it felt modern and new. I don’t want to make these distinctions in terms of cultural perspective,” he said.
Such an approach can be beneficial also when it comes to raising audience’s awareness, argued Film Movement’s Erin Farrell.
“When we talk about ‘heritage films’ in the same breath as our new releases,...
“I talked to an exhibitor in Paris and they don’t consider repertory cinema to be different from contemporary cinema. They are collapsing both models into one and it’s very interesting,” said K.J. Relth-Miller of the Academy Museum.
Swiss Film Archive director Frédéric Maire noted that they also mix “fresh” films with older titles. “This idea of separating them can be useful for communication, but we try to avoid it. Yesterday, I was watching [Daniel Schmid’s 1974 film] ‘La Paloma’ [at the festival] and it felt modern and new. I don’t want to make these distinctions in terms of cultural perspective,” he said.
Such an approach can be beneficial also when it comes to raising audience’s awareness, argued Film Movement’s Erin Farrell.
“When we talk about ‘heritage films’ in the same breath as our new releases,...
- 8/8/2023
- by Marta Balaga
- Variety Film + TV
Ask most cinephiles about the spaghetti western and Sergio Leone’s name will most likely be invoked. As for those who’ve delved a little deeper into the genre, chances are that they’ll name-drop one or both of the other Sergios: Sergio Corbucci (Django) and Sergio Sollima (The Big Gundown).
Back in 2021, Arrow Video’s Vengeance Trails box set aimed to broaden viewers’ horizons of the spaghetti western by spotlighting works by directors like Lucio Fulci, Massimo Dallamano, and Antonio Margheriti, whose names are more often associated with other genres. Now along comes Blood Money, which unveils several lesser-known yet excellent examples of the genre. The thematic through line this time out concerns the value placed on human life. As the grizzled protagonist of Find a Place to Die puts it: “Madness and greed were in men’s hearts a long time before you came along.”
Romolo Guerrieri’s...
Back in 2021, Arrow Video’s Vengeance Trails box set aimed to broaden viewers’ horizons of the spaghetti western by spotlighting works by directors like Lucio Fulci, Massimo Dallamano, and Antonio Margheriti, whose names are more often associated with other genres. Now along comes Blood Money, which unveils several lesser-known yet excellent examples of the genre. The thematic through line this time out concerns the value placed on human life. As the grizzled protagonist of Find a Place to Die puts it: “Madness and greed were in men’s hearts a long time before you came along.”
Romolo Guerrieri’s...
- 8/2/2023
- by Budd Wilkins
- Slant Magazine
Romania’s culture minister Lucian Romașcanu is confident that the country’s beleaguered cash rebate system is back on track, insisting in Cannes on Sunday that the government is committed to “repairing” a scheme that has ground to a halt in recent years.
“Everyone in politics, starting with the future Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu, understands the importance of that,” said Romașcanu, outlining plans to rebuild confidence in an incentive program that faces stiff competition in the region. “There is definitely a ‘yes’ from the political world.”
According to Romașcanu, the administration is now determined to clear a backlog of roughly €100 million ($108.2 million) owed to foreign productions that have lensed in the Eastern European nation since the rebate was introduced, after a host of lawsuits over outstanding payments pushed the cashback program to a breaking point.
He was also optimistic that those payments will begin to flow by this fall, and...
“Everyone in politics, starting with the future Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu, understands the importance of that,” said Romașcanu, outlining plans to rebuild confidence in an incentive program that faces stiff competition in the region. “There is definitely a ‘yes’ from the political world.”
According to Romașcanu, the administration is now determined to clear a backlog of roughly €100 million ($108.2 million) owed to foreign productions that have lensed in the Eastern European nation since the rebate was introduced, after a host of lawsuits over outstanding payments pushed the cashback program to a breaking point.
He was also optimistic that those payments will begin to flow by this fall, and...
- 5/21/2023
- by Christopher Vourlias
- Variety Film + TV
It’s a sad day for “Bounty Law” fans. Rick Dalton, the actor who rose to prominence for playing Jake Cahill on the popular Western series, died at the age of 90 today. If you believe Quentin Tarantino, that is.
The official Twitter account for Tarantino and Roger Avary’s Video Archives Podcast announced the news that the fictional actor, who was played by Leonardo DiCaprio in “Once Upon a Time… In Hollywood” is no longer alive in the universe of Tarantino films.
We are saddened by the news of the passing of actor Rick Dalton, best known for his roles in the hit TV series Bounty Law and The Fireman trilogy.
Rick passed away peacefully in his home in Hawaii and is survived by his wife Francesca.
Rip Rick Dalton 1933-2023 pic.twitter.com/j51sNEh7AP
— The Video Archives Podcast (@VideoArchives) May 19, 2023
“Once Upon a Time… In Hollywood” covered...
The official Twitter account for Tarantino and Roger Avary’s Video Archives Podcast announced the news that the fictional actor, who was played by Leonardo DiCaprio in “Once Upon a Time… In Hollywood” is no longer alive in the universe of Tarantino films.
We are saddened by the news of the passing of actor Rick Dalton, best known for his roles in the hit TV series Bounty Law and The Fireman trilogy.
Rick passed away peacefully in his home in Hawaii and is survived by his wife Francesca.
Rip Rick Dalton 1933-2023 pic.twitter.com/j51sNEh7AP
— The Video Archives Podcast (@VideoArchives) May 19, 2023
“Once Upon a Time… In Hollywood” covered...
- 5/20/2023
- by Christian Zilko
- Indiewire
"Django Unchained", the eighth movie by Quentin Tarantino, wouldn't have been a hit with a different writer-director attached. By that point, Tarantino had become a trusted brand all to himself, and his name alone was enough to sell a film; like a movie about a freed enslaved person set in the 1850s. Sold as an homage to the Spaghetti Westerns of the 1960s and Sergio Corbucci's "Django," in particular, Tarantino himself didn't necessarily think "Django Unchained" fell into quite the same category as those films. "I don't know if 'Django' is a Western proper," he told the New York Times. "It's a Southern. I'm playing western stories in the genre, but with a southern backdrop."
Will Smith was famously in line to play the lead before eventually passing on the role because it wasn't enough of a star vehicle. Smith would have given a fine performance, but there's one problem.
Will Smith was famously in line to play the lead before eventually passing on the role because it wasn't enough of a star vehicle. Smith would have given a fine performance, but there's one problem.
- 5/3/2023
- by Drew Tinnin
- Slash Film
Why did the western become arguably the most important genre in post-war filmmaking? From John Ford to Sam Peckinpah, the sweeping vistas and amoral politics lit up the big screen, gifting America a new creation myth. Now, the western is back in a more compact form – and with a transatlantic hue. After Hugo Blix’s excellent The English, Sky Atlantic is rebooting Sergio Corbucci’s Django film franchise as a brooding 10-part stampede through the dawn of the United States.
It’s the Old West, 1872. From the wreckage of the American civil war, John Ellis (Nicholas Pinnock), an almost messianic figure, is building a utopia: New Babylon. His city will be a home to all, regardless of colour or creed, gender or sexuality. Except there’s one man who is apparently unwelcome in this false-front Xanadu. Django (Matthias Schoenaerts) arrives as a drifter, offering himself to the bearpit in a fight to the death.
It’s the Old West, 1872. From the wreckage of the American civil war, John Ellis (Nicholas Pinnock), an almost messianic figure, is building a utopia: New Babylon. His city will be a home to all, regardless of colour or creed, gender or sexuality. Except there’s one man who is apparently unwelcome in this false-front Xanadu. Django (Matthias Schoenaerts) arrives as a drifter, offering himself to the bearpit in a fight to the death.
- 3/1/2023
- by Nick Hilton
- The Independent - TV
Quentin Tarantino crowned Sergio Corbucci as the second-best director of Italian westerns, but our vote goes to Sergio Sollima — this is the most satisfying Spaghetti oater outside of the Leone corral. In his first starring role, Lee Van Cleef is lawman Jonathan Corbett, who pursues Tomas Milian’s killer into Mexico for an American millionaire. Political screenwriter Franco Solinas helped cook up the story, which pitches frontier ethics against ‘establishment’ corruption. The two-disc special edition presents the show in 4 versions, if we count a clever English-Italian language hybrid.
The Big Gundown
Region B Blu-ray
Powerhouse Indicator
1967 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 110, 90, 95 min. / La resa dei conti / Street Date February 13, 2023 / available from Powerhouse Films UK / £22.99
Starring: Lee Van Cleef, Tomas Milian, Walter Barnes, Nieves Navarro, Gérard Herter, Manolita Barroso, Robert Camardiel, Ángel del Pozo, Luisa Rivelli, Luis Barboo, Benito Stefanelli.
Cinematography: Carlo Carlini
Set decorators: Carlo Leva, Carlo Simi, Nicola Tamburo
Costumes: Carlo...
The Big Gundown
Region B Blu-ray
Powerhouse Indicator
1967 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 110, 90, 95 min. / La resa dei conti / Street Date February 13, 2023 / available from Powerhouse Films UK / £22.99
Starring: Lee Van Cleef, Tomas Milian, Walter Barnes, Nieves Navarro, Gérard Herter, Manolita Barroso, Robert Camardiel, Ángel del Pozo, Luisa Rivelli, Luis Barboo, Benito Stefanelli.
Cinematography: Carlo Carlini
Set decorators: Carlo Leva, Carlo Simi, Nicola Tamburo
Costumes: Carlo...
- 2/7/2023
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Sky has revealed the full trailer for the Sky Original series of a reimagining of the classic western ‘Django.’
Set in Texas in the late 1800s, Django is a jaded cowboy in search of the daughter he thought he’d lost. In following her trail, he comes upon New Babylon, a town at the bottom of a crater, where all outcasts are welcome and where everyone is equal and free. Here, Django discovers that his 20-year-old daughter Sarah is alive and set to marry John Ellis, the founder of New Babylon. Sarah – who blames her father for the death of their family, massacred many years earlier while he was at war – wants Django to leave. But he refuses to give up and does everything in his power to get a second chance with her, becoming a valuable ally for Ellis, who must defend the town from Elizabeth Thurman’s attacks.
Set in Texas in the late 1800s, Django is a jaded cowboy in search of the daughter he thought he’d lost. In following her trail, he comes upon New Babylon, a town at the bottom of a crater, where all outcasts are welcome and where everyone is equal and free. Here, Django discovers that his 20-year-old daughter Sarah is alive and set to marry John Ellis, the founder of New Babylon. Sarah – who blames her father for the death of their family, massacred many years earlier while he was at war – wants Django to leave. But he refuses to give up and does everything in his power to get a second chance with her, becoming a valuable ally for Ellis, who must defend the town from Elizabeth Thurman’s attacks.
- 1/18/2023
- by Zehra Phelan
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI, and sign up for our weekly email newsletter by clicking here.News*Corpus Callosum (Michael Snow, 2002).Michael Snow, Canadian artist and avant-garde filmmaker best known for Wavelength and La Région Centrale, has died at the age of 94. Via Sabzian, Snow’s 2020 email exchange with Brandon Kaufman is a worthy read; the artist reflects on a life of filmmaking, painting, and playing jazz piano. “Though I’ve had an interesting life, I don’t think I’m particularly nostalgic,” he types. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Francis Ford Coppola's long-gestating, self-funded passion project Megalopolis is in mid-production peril, with a number of key collaborators departing as the budget expands.Recommended Viewinga new restoration for Hou Hsiao-hsien’s turn-of-the-century classic Millennium Mambo (2001) is in US cinemas now. Metrograph have shared a trailer for the 4K...
- 1/10/2023
- MUBI
This Region-Free import gives us both versions of Gillo Pontecorvo’s fictional tale of colonial misdeeds that sums up old Europe’s attitude toward the New World. Marlon Brando’s agent provocateur and freebooting soldier of fortune foments revolution against the Portuguese and then hires out to reverse everything he’s done for English interests. The big scale production was filmed in several locations across the globe; it has a standout performance from Evaristo Márquez as a charismatic peasant eager to become a conqueror.
Burn!
Region Free Blu-ray
Viavision [Imprint] 194
1969 / Color / 1:66 widescreen / 129, 112 min. / Street Date December 28, 2022 / Available from Viavision / au 79.95
Starring: Marlon Brando, Evaristo Márquez, Norman Hill, Renato Salvatori.
Cinematography: Marcello Gatti, Giuseppe Ruzzolini
Production Designer: Sergio Canevari
Art Director: Piero Gherardi
Film Editor: Mario Morra
Original Music: Ennio Morricone
Written by Franco Solinas, Giorgio Arlorio
Produced by Alberto Grimaldi
Directed by Gillo Pontecorvo
The enterprising Italian producer Alberto...
Burn!
Region Free Blu-ray
Viavision [Imprint] 194
1969 / Color / 1:66 widescreen / 129, 112 min. / Street Date December 28, 2022 / Available from Viavision / au 79.95
Starring: Marlon Brando, Evaristo Márquez, Norman Hill, Renato Salvatori.
Cinematography: Marcello Gatti, Giuseppe Ruzzolini
Production Designer: Sergio Canevari
Art Director: Piero Gherardi
Film Editor: Mario Morra
Original Music: Ennio Morricone
Written by Franco Solinas, Giorgio Arlorio
Produced by Alberto Grimaldi
Directed by Gillo Pontecorvo
The enterprising Italian producer Alberto...
- 12/31/2022
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Click here to read the full article.
Ruggero Deodato, the Italian director behind the gruesome and controversial 1980 film Cannibal Holocaust, died Thursday in Rome, the Il Messaggero newspaper reported. He was 83.
Made in the style of a documentary and shot in Colombia, Cannibal Holocaust starred Robert Kerman and employed purported “found footage” taken by a sadistic American film crew during an expedition into the Amazon jungle to locate indigenous tribes.
It depicted murder, mutilation, torture, gang rape and animal slaughter and was banned in several countries including Deodato’s own, with Italian authorities seizing his film and destroying prints shortly after it hit theaters.
Deodato was put on trial for murdering actors and faced 30 years in prison, but he produced the supposedly dead men in court, and the charges were dropped (the actors had signed contracts to disappear for a year). He was fined for obscenity, however.
Deodato said he...
Ruggero Deodato, the Italian director behind the gruesome and controversial 1980 film Cannibal Holocaust, died Thursday in Rome, the Il Messaggero newspaper reported. He was 83.
Made in the style of a documentary and shot in Colombia, Cannibal Holocaust starred Robert Kerman and employed purported “found footage” taken by a sadistic American film crew during an expedition into the Amazon jungle to locate indigenous tribes.
It depicted murder, mutilation, torture, gang rape and animal slaughter and was banned in several countries including Deodato’s own, with Italian authorities seizing his film and destroying prints shortly after it hit theaters.
Deodato was put on trial for murdering actors and faced 30 years in prison, but he produced the supposedly dead men in court, and the charges were dropped (the actors had signed contracts to disappear for a year). He was fined for obscenity, however.
Deodato said he...
- 12/29/2022
- by Mike Barnes
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Ruggero Deodato, director of the infamous 1980 film "Cannibal Holocaust" and one of the most boundary-pushing filmmakers in cinema history, has died at the age of 83. The Italian media reported that he died on Thursday (via The Guardian). Deodato was a prolific director with numerous credits, though he will perhaps forever be known for "Cannibal Holocaust," in large part because of the controversy he courted while promoting the film. He was so successful in convincing people that his found-footage horror film was actually created with real found footage that he ended up on trial for the murders of his actors, who had to come to court and prove they were still alive. Now that's a marketing scheme.
The brutal horror film has gone down in history as one of the most difficult to watch, because while the footage of humans dying is all faked, there are real animal deaths depicted. The onscreen deaths of a monkey,...
The brutal horror film has gone down in history as one of the most difficult to watch, because while the footage of humans dying is all faked, there are real animal deaths depicted. The onscreen deaths of a monkey,...
- 12/29/2022
- by Danielle Ryan
- Slash Film
Ruggero Deodato, director of the shocking horror movie “Cannibal Holocaust,” which was so controversial it was banned in some countries, died Thursday, the Italian newspaper Il Messaggero reported. He was 83.
The 1980 film “Cannibal Holocaust” is considered one of the goriest movies of all time and cited as the first movie to use found footage. It was banned in several countries due to its graphic depictions of violence, sexual assault and animal cruelty, and it even resulted in Deodato being arrested on obscenity charges. He was accused of murdering several actors on camera to achieve the level of realistic brutality, but he was later cleared and the charges were dropped. He directed other films throughout his career, but “Cannibal Holocaust” was his most famous and reached cult-classic status in the horror community. It also granted him the nickname “Monsieur Cannibal” in France.
Born in Potenza, Italy, on May 7, 1929, Deodato studied under...
The 1980 film “Cannibal Holocaust” is considered one of the goriest movies of all time and cited as the first movie to use found footage. It was banned in several countries due to its graphic depictions of violence, sexual assault and animal cruelty, and it even resulted in Deodato being arrested on obscenity charges. He was accused of murdering several actors on camera to achieve the level of realistic brutality, but he was later cleared and the charges were dropped. He directed other films throughout his career, but “Cannibal Holocaust” was his most famous and reached cult-classic status in the horror community. It also granted him the nickname “Monsieur Cannibal” in France.
Born in Potenza, Italy, on May 7, 1929, Deodato studied under...
- 12/29/2022
- by Jordan Moreau
- Variety Film + TV
You barely have to look at the DNA of Quentin Tarantino's filmography to see that he has an affinity for paying tribute to his favorite subgenres, whether it be samurai cinema ("Kill Bill") or grindhouse thrills ("Death Proof"). In the case of "Django Unchained," however, he gets to cover both Blaxploitation and the spaghetti western, with Jamie Foxx playing the titular slave turned gunslinger. Although the character originated in Sergio Corbucci's controversial 1966 film "Django," with Franco Nero in the lead role, it's safe to assume most folks know about him through Tarantino's adaptation.
It can be argued where the film falls in Tarantino's oeuvre in terms of quality, but "Django Unchained" is still a bloody good time that fits alongside the filmmaker's revenge flicks quite nicely. It largely comes down to the incredible chemistry between Django and Schultz (Christoph Waltz), the unassuming bounty hunter who helps his...
It can be argued where the film falls in Tarantino's oeuvre in terms of quality, but "Django Unchained" is still a bloody good time that fits alongside the filmmaker's revenge flicks quite nicely. It largely comes down to the incredible chemistry between Django and Schultz (Christoph Waltz), the unassuming bounty hunter who helps his...
- 12/28/2022
- by Matthew Bilodeau
- Slash Film
Many consider Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained one of the best contemporary Westerns in recent memory. Featuring Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio, Kerry Washington, and Samuel L. Jackson, Tarantino’s tribute to Spaghetti Westerns is a revenge tale as stylish as it is satisfying. The film’s final cut results from a complicated development cycle, with rewrites, an exhaustive casting search, and dealings with the once-lauded Weinstein Company.
In our latest entry to the Wtf Happened to This Movie series, we’ll travel back to 2007, when Tarantino was busy writing a book about Sergio Corbucci and was inspired to explore America during the preamble to Civil War in the Deep South. The project took several years to write and arrange, with some collaborations falling by the wayside throughout development. Controversial, slick, and inspiring, Django Unchained helps push the boundaries of Tarantino’s craft, and we’re here to share...
In our latest entry to the Wtf Happened to This Movie series, we’ll travel back to 2007, when Tarantino was busy writing a book about Sergio Corbucci and was inspired to explore America during the preamble to Civil War in the Deep South. The project took several years to write and arrange, with some collaborations falling by the wayside throughout development. Controversial, slick, and inspiring, Django Unchained helps push the boundaries of Tarantino’s craft, and we’re here to share...
- 12/28/2022
- by Steve Seigh
- JoBlo.com
(Welcome to Tales from the Box Office, our column that examines box office miracles, disasters, and everything in between, as well as what we can learn from them.)
There are few directors quite like Quentin Tarantino. Particularly in the modern era of Hollywood where intellectual property and pre-existing franchises are king, the director of hits like "Pulp Fiction" and "Kill Bill" has essentially become a franchise of sorts unto himself. Similar to Christopher Nolan or perhaps Jordan Peele at this point, audiences have proven time and time again that they will turn up in droves just because his name is attached to the movie in question. It's a relative rarity in the history of cinema but these days? It feels downright alien.
But for all of Tarantino's successes over the years, one movie stands above the rest as his crowning achievement — in terms of ticket sales anyhow. That movie...
There are few directors quite like Quentin Tarantino. Particularly in the modern era of Hollywood where intellectual property and pre-existing franchises are king, the director of hits like "Pulp Fiction" and "Kill Bill" has essentially become a franchise of sorts unto himself. Similar to Christopher Nolan or perhaps Jordan Peele at this point, audiences have proven time and time again that they will turn up in droves just because his name is attached to the movie in question. It's a relative rarity in the history of cinema but these days? It feels downright alien.
But for all of Tarantino's successes over the years, one movie stands above the rest as his crowning achievement — in terms of ticket sales anyhow. That movie...
- 12/24/2022
- by Ryan Scott
- Slash Film
Holidays loom, but don’t fear TBS marathons of A Christmas Story. If, like me, you once enacted some good and let studio classics stream on Criterion during family Christmas, you know the trip home will be easier with December’s additions. (People at Criterion: please don’t report me for logging into multiple devices.) As family arrives, drinks are downed, and questions about what you’ve been up to are stumbled through it’ll be nice to stream their “Screwball Comedy Classics” series—25 titles meeting some deep cuts (10 via Venmo if you’ve recently watched It Happens Every Spring).
Personally I’m most excited about the 11 movies in “Snow Westerns,” going as far back as The Secret of Convict Lake, as recently as Ravenous, with the likes of Wellman, Peckinpah, and Corbucci in-between. I personally cannot stand soccer but I appreciate the World Cup giving occasion for a series...
Personally I’m most excited about the 11 movies in “Snow Westerns,” going as far back as The Secret of Convict Lake, as recently as Ravenous, with the likes of Wellman, Peckinpah, and Corbucci in-between. I personally cannot stand soccer but I appreciate the World Cup giving occasion for a series...
- 11/22/2022
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
Quentin Tarantino continues his revisionist history of the world with this kinetic revenge saga which is on track to become the highest-grossing western ever made. While working on a book about Italian director Sergio Corbucci, Tarantino was inspired to embark on a spaghetti-western influenced project of his own, which he regarded as more of a “southern”. His usual bravura cinematics and eclectic musical choices are on display in abundance, resulting in one more operatic, pop-culture infused instant classic.
The post Django Unchained appeared first on Trailers From Hell.
The post Django Unchained appeared first on Trailers From Hell.
- 11/16/2022
- by TFH Team
- Trailers from Hell
Asking a filmmaker to name their favorite movie tends to be a dead-end line of inquiry. Directors don't see their films the same way we do. They can't. They spent months to a year or more piecing the work together. They've seen it in fragments, as a rough assemblage, and in various other incarnations. Some directors don't even watch their movies with an audience. They finish and move on to the next one.
Quentin Tarantino, however, is a different breed. When he's not making a movie, he's watching movies. When he's making a movie, he's watching movies. He is acutely aware of where his movies land in the continuum of film history and loves to pontificate as to how his run measures up to the oeuvres of greats like Howard Hawks and Brian De Palma. So when you ask him to name his favorite movie, you can rest assured that...
Quentin Tarantino, however, is a different breed. When he's not making a movie, he's watching movies. When he's making a movie, he's watching movies. He is acutely aware of where his movies land in the continuum of film history and loves to pontificate as to how his run measures up to the oeuvres of greats like Howard Hawks and Brian De Palma. So when you ask him to name his favorite movie, you can rest assured that...
- 11/16/2022
- by Jeremy Smith
- Slash Film
Before he was a superstar auteur, a Royale-with-Cheese rock star, the divisive and worshiped motormouth who launched a thousand dissertations and 10 times as many Film Twitter flame wars, Quentin Tarantino was a movie fanatic.
It pays to remember this fact — not that the raconteur would ever let you forget it. Read those early interviews, right as Reservoir Dogs was beginning to establish him as one of the exciting (and the most excitable) filmmakers of the 1990s, and you’ll hear him wax poetic about John Woo and Jean-Pierre Melville, Rio Bravo...
It pays to remember this fact — not that the raconteur would ever let you forget it. Read those early interviews, right as Reservoir Dogs was beginning to establish him as one of the exciting (and the most excitable) filmmakers of the 1990s, and you’ll hear him wax poetic about John Woo and Jean-Pierre Melville, Rio Bravo...
- 11/6/2022
- by David Fear
- Rollingstone.com
There isn’t a typical co-production model when it comes to international drama, said panelists at Mipcom.
“I wish there was. That’s our struggle now: finding the model that would make everyone happy,” noted Fremantle’s Christian Vesper.
“It all starts with the passion of the writer or creator, who really wants to make the show, and the supporting platform. Let’s be honest: They are all streamers now,” said Lisa Perrin, ITV Studios.
“The budgets are getting tougher but expectations are as high. There will be different funding models, outside money coming in. Private equity money, which can complicate things.”
However, private equity coming into series could be “interesting,” added Matt Brodlie of Upgrade Production.
“That is the indie film model. Without private equity, you wouldn’t have Sundance, just Marvel over and over again. Which we have anyway.”
While the budgets are changing, so are the tastes.
“I wish there was. That’s our struggle now: finding the model that would make everyone happy,” noted Fremantle’s Christian Vesper.
“It all starts with the passion of the writer or creator, who really wants to make the show, and the supporting platform. Let’s be honest: They are all streamers now,” said Lisa Perrin, ITV Studios.
“The budgets are getting tougher but expectations are as high. There will be different funding models, outside money coming in. Private equity money, which can complicate things.”
However, private equity coming into series could be “interesting,” added Matt Brodlie of Upgrade Production.
“That is the indie film model. Without private equity, you wouldn’t have Sundance, just Marvel over and over again. Which we have anyway.”
While the budgets are changing, so are the tastes.
- 10/21/2022
- by Marta Balaga
- Variety Film + TV
Click here to read the full article.
Django is back.
The coffin-dragging, quick-draw gunslinger character introduced in Sergio Corbucci’s 1966 Spaghetti Western classic, which inspired dozens of sequels, spinoffs and tributes, most famously Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained, has finally arrived on the small screen.
Sky’s 10-episode Django, which has its world premiere at the Rome Film Festival on Sunday, Oct. 16, is billed as a reimagining not just of Django, but of the Western genre itself.
Set, like the original film, in the period after the American Civil War, the series combines plot elements from both Django and its official 1987 sequel Django Strikes Again, themes from Tarantino’s film — particularly the role of Black people and freed slaves in old West — as well as adding several original ideas of its own. Even Django’s famous weapons-packed coffin makes an appearance, though in a very different setting than the original.
Django is back.
The coffin-dragging, quick-draw gunslinger character introduced in Sergio Corbucci’s 1966 Spaghetti Western classic, which inspired dozens of sequels, spinoffs and tributes, most famously Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained, has finally arrived on the small screen.
Sky’s 10-episode Django, which has its world premiere at the Rome Film Festival on Sunday, Oct. 16, is billed as a reimagining not just of Django, but of the Western genre itself.
Set, like the original film, in the period after the American Civil War, the series combines plot elements from both Django and its official 1987 sequel Django Strikes Again, themes from Tarantino’s film — particularly the role of Black people and freed slaves in old West — as well as adding several original ideas of its own. Even Django’s famous weapons-packed coffin makes an appearance, though in a very different setting than the original.
- 10/11/2022
- by Gianmaria Tammaro
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Sky has revealed the first look teaser for Sky Original Django, following the announcement that it will make its world premiere at the Rome Film Festival on October 16.
Set in Texas in the late 1800s, Django is a jaded cowboy in search of the daughter he thought he’d lost. In following her trail, he comes upon New Babylon, a town at the bottom of a crater, where all outcasts are welcome and where everyone is equal and free. Here, Django discovers that his 20-year-old daughter Sarah is alive and set to marry John Ellis, the founder of New Babylon. Sarah – who blames her father for the death of their family, massacred many years earlier while he was at war – wants Django to leave. But he refuses to give up and does everything in his power to get a second chance with her, becoming a valuable ally for Ellis, who...
Set in Texas in the late 1800s, Django is a jaded cowboy in search of the daughter he thought he’d lost. In following her trail, he comes upon New Babylon, a town at the bottom of a crater, where all outcasts are welcome and where everyone is equal and free. Here, Django discovers that his 20-year-old daughter Sarah is alive and set to marry John Ellis, the founder of New Babylon. Sarah – who blames her father for the death of their family, massacred many years earlier while he was at war – wants Django to leave. But he refuses to give up and does everything in his power to get a second chance with her, becoming a valuable ally for Ellis, who...
- 9/22/2022
- by Zehra Phelan
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
An English-language reimagining of the world of Sergio Corbucci’s cult 1966 spaghetti western “Django,” which launched the career of Italian icon Franco Nero, is set to launch from the Rome Film Festival in October.
The high–concept TV series, titled “Django,” will play in 2023 exclusively on Sky and its streaming service Now in all countries where Sky operates, including the U.K., Ireland, Italy, Germany and Austria. It will also air on Canal+ in France, Switzerland, Benelux and Africa. The Rome Film Festival runs from Oct. 13-23.
The 10-episode “Django” show stars Matthias Schoenaerts as the iconic gunman who is the title character, alongside Nicholas Pinnock (“For Life”) as John Ellis, described as the “visionary founder” of the town of New Babylon. Lisa Vicari (“Dark”) plays Django’s daughter Sarah and Noomi Rapace (Millennium Trilogy) has the adversarial role of John’s powerful and ruthless enemy Elizabeth Thurman.
In a...
The high–concept TV series, titled “Django,” will play in 2023 exclusively on Sky and its streaming service Now in all countries where Sky operates, including the U.K., Ireland, Italy, Germany and Austria. It will also air on Canal+ in France, Switzerland, Benelux and Africa. The Rome Film Festival runs from Oct. 13-23.
The 10-episode “Django” show stars Matthias Schoenaerts as the iconic gunman who is the title character, alongside Nicholas Pinnock (“For Life”) as John Ellis, described as the “visionary founder” of the town of New Babylon. Lisa Vicari (“Dark”) plays Django’s daughter Sarah and Noomi Rapace (Millennium Trilogy) has the adversarial role of John’s powerful and ruthless enemy Elizabeth Thurman.
In a...
- 9/22/2022
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
For many years now Venice has been a respectful platform for those big-name directors of the 1970s and early ’80s who are happy to go back into the fray long after those juicy studio budgets dried up: Brian De Palma, William Friedkin, Paul Verhoeven, John Carpenter and — to a lesser extent — George Romero all found a home here for their late-period passion projects. Walter Hill, now 80, joins their ranks with an improbably youthful horse opera, and while it shows up the limitations of both writing and shooting a Western in the modern age, it’s nevertheless a wickedly enjoyable genre romp and full of violent surprises.
Hill dedicates his film to Budd Boetticher, which is a shame as it has already given critics permission not to think any harder...
Hill dedicates his film to Budd Boetticher, which is a shame as it has already given critics permission not to think any harder...
- 9/8/2022
- by Damon Wise
- Deadline Film + TV
On a recent visit to Serbia, actor John Malkovich announced plans to team up with fellow leading men D.W. Moffett and Matt Dillon to build a state-of-the-art film, music and media production facility in neighboring North Macedonia, a small, mountainous country of just two million inhabitants.
It might seem a risky gambit for a country with a modest domestic film industry that services few foreign shoots. But Malkovich – a self-described “son of the Balkans” whose father is of Croatian descent – insisted that the studios have the potential to transform film and television production in the region. Dubbed Stonebridge Studios, the project now awaits approval from the government of the ex-Yugoslavian republic, which according to the studio’s backers stands to gain €1.6 billion (1.6 billion) in Gdp as international productions flock to the country.
While the backing of an A-list celeb ensured the announcement would raise hopes – and eyebrows – across the region,...
It might seem a risky gambit for a country with a modest domestic film industry that services few foreign shoots. But Malkovich – a self-described “son of the Balkans” whose father is of Croatian descent – insisted that the studios have the potential to transform film and television production in the region. Dubbed Stonebridge Studios, the project now awaits approval from the government of the ex-Yugoslavian republic, which according to the studio’s backers stands to gain €1.6 billion (1.6 billion) in Gdp as international productions flock to the country.
While the backing of an A-list celeb ensured the announcement would raise hopes – and eyebrows – across the region,...
- 8/20/2022
- by Christopher Vourlias
- Variety Film + TV
Fifty years on, this crime drama of a headstrong singer shooting for his chance of success is as raw and energetic as its reggae soundtrack
Perry Henzell’s visceral 1972 Jamaican crime drama exists between the two moods of its two most famous tracks: the aspirational lesson of You Can Get It If You Really Want and the disillusioned downfall-premonition of the title song. The desperado here really wants it, really gets it, comes hard and falls hard. It’s a movie with Arthur Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde in its DNA, as well as Sergio Corbucci’s spaghetti western Django, which in one scene is shown getting a rowdy screening at a Kingston cinema.
Singer Jimmy Cliff plays Ivan, a gawky country boy who comes to the Jamaican capital Kingston yearning to be a famous reggae star, having lived with his grandmother who has just died; he is virtually penniless...
Perry Henzell’s visceral 1972 Jamaican crime drama exists between the two moods of its two most famous tracks: the aspirational lesson of You Can Get It If You Really Want and the disillusioned downfall-premonition of the title song. The desperado here really wants it, really gets it, comes hard and falls hard. It’s a movie with Arthur Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde in its DNA, as well as Sergio Corbucci’s spaghetti western Django, which in one scene is shown getting a rowdy screening at a Kingston cinema.
Singer Jimmy Cliff plays Ivan, a gawky country boy who comes to the Jamaican capital Kingston yearning to be a famous reggae star, having lived with his grandmother who has just died; he is virtually penniless...
- 8/3/2022
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
Amid a host of lawsuits by foreign productions looking to recoup money from Romania’s beleaguered cash rebate system, industry insiders say the situation has reached a crisis point, with one leading U.K. financier and executive producer warning that the government runs the risk of “obliterating foreign direct investment” into Romania if a resolution isn’t reached in the coming weeks.
Nearly a dozen lawsuits are currently active in the Romanian court system, which last month ordered the government to pay roughly 642,000 plus legal fees to the producers of “The World to Come” (pictured), writer-director Mona Fastvold’s romantic frontier drama starring Vanessa Kirby and Katherine Waterston, which filmed in Romania in 2019. The government has appealed the ruling.
The U.K. financier, who has two decades of experience in the country, says that an impasse now dragging into its third year has caused “immense reputational damage” to both the government and the industry.
Nearly a dozen lawsuits are currently active in the Romanian court system, which last month ordered the government to pay roughly 642,000 plus legal fees to the producers of “The World to Come” (pictured), writer-director Mona Fastvold’s romantic frontier drama starring Vanessa Kirby and Katherine Waterston, which filmed in Romania in 2019. The government has appealed the ruling.
The U.K. financier, who has two decades of experience in the country, says that an impasse now dragging into its third year has caused “immense reputational damage” to both the government and the industry.
- 6/27/2022
- by Christopher Vourlias
- Variety Film + TV
Jean-Louis Trintignant is dead at 91. The French actor assembled as diverse a career as any film performer of the second half of the 20th century, with a 60-year output that all but came to define arthouse cinema.
Just in the past decade, he broke cinephiles’ hearts with his devastating turn in Michael Haneke’s 2012 film “Amour,” in which he played a husband caring for his Alzheimer’s-suffering wife. Playing his spouse in that film was Emmanuelle Riva, herself one of the pioneering actors of the French New Wave. Their collaboration was perhaps the last truly great one of Trintignant’s career, in which so many partnerships resulted in deeply emotional artistry. Trintignant followed up “Amour” with another Haneke film, 2017’s “Happy End.”
Trintignant was an actor with matinee idol looks in his youth, but he always put the work before his own vanity. Just look at a fraction of the...
Just in the past decade, he broke cinephiles’ hearts with his devastating turn in Michael Haneke’s 2012 film “Amour,” in which he played a husband caring for his Alzheimer’s-suffering wife. Playing his spouse in that film was Emmanuelle Riva, herself one of the pioneering actors of the French New Wave. Their collaboration was perhaps the last truly great one of Trintignant’s career, in which so many partnerships resulted in deeply emotional artistry. Trintignant followed up “Amour” with another Haneke film, 2017’s “Happy End.”
Trintignant was an actor with matinee idol looks in his youth, but he always put the work before his own vanity. Just look at a fraction of the...
- 6/17/2022
- by Christian Blauvelt
- Indiewire
A decade before Quentin Tarantino and screenwriter Roger Avary collaborated on Pulp Fiction, they were a couple of clerks renting out Betamax tapes at Video Archives in Manhattan Beach, California. Now the pair will be looking back on their video store days in The Video Archives Podcast, which will launch via SiriusXM’s Stitcher platform on July 19. It will be available on major podcasting platforms.
Tarantino purchased Video Archives’ library when the store closed in 1995 and used it to rebuild the shop in his home. For each episode of the podcast,...
Tarantino purchased Video Archives’ library when the store closed in 1995 and used it to rebuild the shop in his home. For each episode of the podcast,...
- 6/2/2022
- by Kory Grow
- Rollingstone.com
Writer, director and actor Michael Showalter joins hosts Josh Olson and Joe Dante to discuss his favorite movies.
Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode
Wet Hot American Summer (2001)
The Eyes of Tammy Faye (2021)
The Baxter (2005)
Hello, My Name Is Doris (2015)
Runaway Daughters (1994)
Clueless (1995)
Bagdad Cafe (1987)
Coda (2021)
The Long Goodbye (1973) – Josh Olson’s trailer commentary, Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review
Jaws (1975) – Josh Olson’s trailer commentary
Do The Right Thing (1989)
Sugarbaby (1985)
City Slickers (1991)
Attack! (1956) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review
Paris, Texas (1984) – Karyn Kusama’s trailer commentary
Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure (1985)
Pretty In Pink (1986)
Escape From New York (1981) – Neil Marshall’s trailer commentary
Hamburger: The Motion Picture (1986)
The Warriors (1979)
The Thing (1982) – Jesus Treviño’s trailer commentary, Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review
Innerspace (1987) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review
Christine (1983)
Crossing Delancey (1988)
Annie Hall (1977) – Robert Weide’s trailer commentary
When Harry Met Sally… (1989)
The Fugitive (1993)
The Big Sick (2017) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review
Between The Lines...
Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode
Wet Hot American Summer (2001)
The Eyes of Tammy Faye (2021)
The Baxter (2005)
Hello, My Name Is Doris (2015)
Runaway Daughters (1994)
Clueless (1995)
Bagdad Cafe (1987)
Coda (2021)
The Long Goodbye (1973) – Josh Olson’s trailer commentary, Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review
Jaws (1975) – Josh Olson’s trailer commentary
Do The Right Thing (1989)
Sugarbaby (1985)
City Slickers (1991)
Attack! (1956) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review
Paris, Texas (1984) – Karyn Kusama’s trailer commentary
Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure (1985)
Pretty In Pink (1986)
Escape From New York (1981) – Neil Marshall’s trailer commentary
Hamburger: The Motion Picture (1986)
The Warriors (1979)
The Thing (1982) – Jesus Treviño’s trailer commentary, Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review
Innerspace (1987) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review
Christine (1983)
Crossing Delancey (1988)
Annie Hall (1977) – Robert Weide’s trailer commentary
When Harry Met Sally… (1989)
The Fugitive (1993)
The Big Sick (2017) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review
Between The Lines...
- 4/5/2022
- by Kris Millsap
- Trailers from Hell
Sporting a powerful slate of new shows at MipTV, Studiocanal, owned by Vivendi’s Canal Plus, has announced what it describes as a “substantial” distribution deal with U.S. streaming service MHz Networks.
The deal features banner Canal Plus Creation Originale series “UFOs” and “Paris Police” as well as a modern classic, the pay TV’s groundbreaking premium crime drama “Spiral.”
Covering VOD and home entertainment rights, the licensing agreement takes in Season 1 and the brand new Season 2 of “UFOs,” which is part of Studiocanal’s MipTV’s sales slate, led by “Django,” starring Matthias Schoenaerts and Noomi Rapace and Canneseries official selection title “Infiniti.”
The sales also include Season 1 and Season 2, now in production, of large-scale period crime drama “Paris Police” and the renewal of the entire eight seasons of the multiple award-winning “Spiral.” Series will be made available to MHz Networks’ viewers across North America.
A retro French...
The deal features banner Canal Plus Creation Originale series “UFOs” and “Paris Police” as well as a modern classic, the pay TV’s groundbreaking premium crime drama “Spiral.”
Covering VOD and home entertainment rights, the licensing agreement takes in Season 1 and the brand new Season 2 of “UFOs,” which is part of Studiocanal’s MipTV’s sales slate, led by “Django,” starring Matthias Schoenaerts and Noomi Rapace and Canneseries official selection title “Infiniti.”
The sales also include Season 1 and Season 2, now in production, of large-scale period crime drama “Paris Police” and the renewal of the entire eight seasons of the multiple award-winning “Spiral.” Series will be made available to MHz Networks’ viewers across North America.
A retro French...
- 4/5/2022
- by John Hopewell
- Variety Film + TV
The latest batch of Italian TV series for the international market is a mix of genres spanning from a new Elena Ferrante adaptation made for Netflix, to two Rai reconstructions of the country’s terrorism-plagued past and Sky’s spaghetti Western “Django.”
Django
This English-language reimagining of the world of “Django,” the cult 1966 Sergio Corbucci spaghetti Western that launched the career of Italian icon Franco Nero, is a Sky Studios and Canal Plus original. The show’s cast includes Noomi Rapace, Nicholas Pinnock and Matthias Schoenaerts. Director Francesca Comencini has called it “a universal story with a narrative that celebrates diversity and minorities.”
Esterno Notte
Marco Bellocchi is in post on this limited TV series from Rai Fiction about the 1978 kidnapping and assassination of former Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro by Red Brigades terrorists. The veteran helmer previously recounted Moro’s still-mysterious abduction from the viewpoint of one of his...
Django
This English-language reimagining of the world of “Django,” the cult 1966 Sergio Corbucci spaghetti Western that launched the career of Italian icon Franco Nero, is a Sky Studios and Canal Plus original. The show’s cast includes Noomi Rapace, Nicholas Pinnock and Matthias Schoenaerts. Director Francesca Comencini has called it “a universal story with a narrative that celebrates diversity and minorities.”
Esterno Notte
Marco Bellocchi is in post on this limited TV series from Rai Fiction about the 1978 kidnapping and assassination of former Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro by Red Brigades terrorists. The veteran helmer previously recounted Moro’s still-mysterious abduction from the viewpoint of one of his...
- 4/2/2022
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
The Italian TV industry is chugging along seemingly undeterred by the pandemic’s impact, with local producers expected to churn out an estimated €500 million ($585 million) worth of scripted content in 2021 compared with $409 million in 2018.
Italy’s mini-boom, which is largely due to a rise in commissions from streamers, is happening just as the country’s production companies are snapped up by larger non-Italian groups amid a wave of media and entertainment industry consolidation in Europe.
In September, production and distribution giant Fremantle, owned by German group Rtl, entered exclusive negotiations to gain control of Italy’s Lux Vide, the TV production company behind the “Medici,” “Devils” and “Leonardo” skeins, which have travelled widely. Fremantle already owns two other top Italian production companies: Wildside and the Apartment, which are behind Paolo Sorrentino’s “The Young Pope” skein and Luca Guadagnino’s “We Are Who We Are.”
Lux is now poised to...
Italy’s mini-boom, which is largely due to a rise in commissions from streamers, is happening just as the country’s production companies are snapped up by larger non-Italian groups amid a wave of media and entertainment industry consolidation in Europe.
In September, production and distribution giant Fremantle, owned by German group Rtl, entered exclusive negotiations to gain control of Italy’s Lux Vide, the TV production company behind the “Medici,” “Devils” and “Leonardo” skeins, which have travelled widely. Fremantle already owns two other top Italian production companies: Wildside and the Apartment, which are behind Paolo Sorrentino’s “The Young Pope” skein and Luca Guadagnino’s “We Are Who We Are.”
Lux is now poised to...
- 10/11/2021
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
Italian pop culture expert, programmer and director Luca Rea first became acquainted personally with Quentin Tarantino in 2004 when he curated the “Italian Kings of the B’s” retrospective at the Venice Film Festival that Tarantino “godfathered.” They hit it off and stayed in touch. So when Rea was approached by producer Nicoletta Ercole about a year ago to make a Sergio Corbucci doc, he immediately hoped to be able to tap into Tarantino’s insight about the late great Italian director whose Spaghetti Westerns they both love. But, of course, Rea wasn’t sure he would get Tarantino on board for his doc “Django & Django,” which launched at Venice out-of-competition. He spoke to Variety about how he pulled off that coup and what Tarantino’s insight revealed. Excerpts.
I hear Tarantino is pretty reclusive these days. Was it tough to get him on board?
The first time I met with the producer,...
I hear Tarantino is pretty reclusive these days. Was it tough to get him on board?
The first time I met with the producer,...
- 9/11/2021
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
Sergio Corbucci, described by Quentin Tarantino in “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” as the second-best director of Italian westerns, sure knew how to end a movie. He could serve up thrillingly bloody catharsis in the original “Django,” his 1966 breakout that proved the global commercial viability of spaghetti westerns extended beyond the films of Sergio Leone. He could do an operatically sprawling three-way shootout on Leone’s level, as with the ending of “The Mercenary.” He could end his films with a punchline, like the comedic Mexican Revolution tale “Compañeros.” Or he could serve up the most grim, depressing denouement you’ve ever seen for any “hero’s journey” tale, like he did with the “The Great Silence.”
But knowing how to end a movie is not a skill demonstrated in “Django & Django,” a new documentary about the spaghetti auteur by Luca Rea at its best when Quentin Tarantino gives...
But knowing how to end a movie is not a skill demonstrated in “Django & Django,” a new documentary about the spaghetti auteur by Luca Rea at its best when Quentin Tarantino gives...
- 9/8/2021
- by Christian Blauvelt
- Indiewire
A doc with its heart in the right place but very little polish, Luca Rea’s Django & Django wants to carve out space in the cine-pantheon for Sergio Corbucci, said to be the best director of spaghetti Westerns except for that other Sergio. Reliant to a surprising extent on a single casual, rambling interview with superfan Quentin Tarantino, the movie is not nearly as interested in his Django Unchained as its title suggests. (That film’s presence here amounts to a single scene, albeit one with a point to make.)
Though likely to inspire a viewer who’s seen only one or two Corbuccis to dig ...
Though likely to inspire a viewer who’s seen only one or two Corbuccis to dig ...
A doc with its heart in the right place but very little polish, Luca Rea’s Django & Django wants to carve out space in the cine-pantheon for Sergio Corbucci, said to be the best director of spaghetti Westerns except for that other Sergio. Reliant to a surprising extent on a single casual, rambling interview with superfan Quentin Tarantino, the movie is not nearly as interested in his Django Unchained as its title suggests. (That film’s presence here amounts to a single scene, albeit one with a point to make.)
Though likely to inspire a viewer who’s seen only one or two Corbuccis to dig ...
Though likely to inspire a viewer who’s seen only one or two Corbuccis to dig ...
An awaited English-language reimagining of Sergio Corbucci’s classic 1966 Western, a favorite of Quentin Tarantino, major European series “Django” has released first-look images as its six-month shoot continues in Romania.
Studiocanal, which has worldwide distribution rights, has also drilled down on key creative talent, announcing Friday that David Evans (“Downton Abbey”) and Enrico Maria Artale (“Romulus”) are joining Francesca Comencini (“Gomorrah The Series”) in the directors’ team, with Comencini helming first episodes.
First look images show Matthias Schoenaerts – who has sparked consistently strong notices for his performances in “The Danish Girl,” “The Mustang,” “Bullhead” and “Rust and Bone” – as the eponymous Django.
Famed for “Prometheus” and “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” Noomi Rapace, seen mounted on a horse, plays Elizabeth who is described as a “powerful and merciless enemy” of John Ellis (Nicholas Pinnock), caught in a Wild West bar, who founds with fiancee Sarah New Babylon, a city of outcasts which welcomes everyone,...
Studiocanal, which has worldwide distribution rights, has also drilled down on key creative talent, announcing Friday that David Evans (“Downton Abbey”) and Enrico Maria Artale (“Romulus”) are joining Francesca Comencini (“Gomorrah The Series”) in the directors’ team, with Comencini helming first episodes.
First look images show Matthias Schoenaerts – who has sparked consistently strong notices for his performances in “The Danish Girl,” “The Mustang,” “Bullhead” and “Rust and Bone” – as the eponymous Django.
Famed for “Prometheus” and “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” Noomi Rapace, seen mounted on a horse, plays Elizabeth who is described as a “powerful and merciless enemy” of John Ellis (Nicholas Pinnock), caught in a Wild West bar, who founds with fiancee Sarah New Babylon, a city of outcasts which welcomes everyone,...
- 8/27/2021
- by John Hopewell
- Variety Film + TV
First-look images from Django, the “high-concept reimagining” of the classic Spaghetti Western for European TV giants Sky Studios and Canal+, give a peek into the 10-episode TV series and show Matthias Schoenaerts (The Danish Girl), Noomi Rapace (Prometheus) and their fellow cast members in action.
Sky Studios released the images Friday as production continues in Romania. Schoenaerts stars as the eponymous Django, joined by Nicholas Pinnock (Fortitude, Top Boy) as antagonist John Ellis, Rapace as Ellis’ enemy Elizabeth and Lisa Vicari (Dark) as Django’s long-lost daughter Sarah.
Noomi Rapace in ‘Django’ Courtesy of Sky Studios/Cos Aelenei
Loosely based on the Sergio Corbucci feature ...
Sky Studios released the images Friday as production continues in Romania. Schoenaerts stars as the eponymous Django, joined by Nicholas Pinnock (Fortitude, Top Boy) as antagonist John Ellis, Rapace as Ellis’ enemy Elizabeth and Lisa Vicari (Dark) as Django’s long-lost daughter Sarah.
Noomi Rapace in ‘Django’ Courtesy of Sky Studios/Cos Aelenei
Loosely based on the Sergio Corbucci feature ...
- 8/27/2021
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Quentin Tarantino still plans to retire from feature filmmaking after his next directorial effort, and he revealed at the end of June that he briefly considered making his last movie a “Reservoir Dogs” reboot. All the director added at the time was: “I won’t do it, internet. But I considered it.” In a new interview on the ReelBlend podcast, Tarantino expanded on his axed “Reservoir Dogs” reboot idea. The film would’ve potentially starred an all Black cast, while the canceled movie could find a second life on the stage.
“I’ve decided if I wanted to do something like [a ‘Reservoir Dogs’ reboot], I would do it more on stage. I think that would be cool,” Tarantino said. “It’d be a great stage play. My thought process was, ‘Well, if it’s a strong piece of material, it would work doing it any time.’ It does seem timeless. And then just...
“I’ve decided if I wanted to do something like [a ‘Reservoir Dogs’ reboot], I would do it more on stage. I think that would be cool,” Tarantino said. “It’d be a great stage play. My thought process was, ‘Well, if it’s a strong piece of material, it would work doing it any time.’ It does seem timeless. And then just...
- 7/9/2021
- by Zack Sharf
- Indiewire
Quentin Tarantino’s last directorial effort isn’t going to happen for a while as he continues to expand his Oscar winner “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” into other mediums. The director’s “Hollywood” novelization is now available for purchase (and an instant bestseller on the Amazon book charts), and he confirmed during an interview on “The Big Picture” podcast (via /Film) that next up for “Hollywood” is a stage play adaptation.
“Believe it or not, I’ve written a play version of [‘Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’],” Tarantino said. “I wanted to write a play, and stuff that’s not in the book…I wanted it to exist as a play. And again, I’m able to explore stuff that’s not in the [movie]. The play deals with Italy.”
Tarantino wrote the stage play adaptation in the “six or seven months” after he wrote the first draft of the movie.
“Believe it or not, I’ve written a play version of [‘Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’],” Tarantino said. “I wanted to write a play, and stuff that’s not in the book…I wanted it to exist as a play. And again, I’m able to explore stuff that’s not in the [movie]. The play deals with Italy.”
Tarantino wrote the stage play adaptation in the “six or seven months” after he wrote the first draft of the movie.
- 6/29/2021
- by Zack Sharf
- Indiewire
Academy Award nominee Antonio Banderas (“Pain and Glory”) is set to star in Studiocanal’s ”The Monster of Florence,” a six-hour limited series based on The New York Times bestseller “The Monster Of Florence: A True Story” by Douglas Preston and Mario Spezi.
“The Monster of Florence” relates the extraordinary real life investigation carried out by American fiction writer Preston and Italian crime reporter Spezi into what Studiocanal describes as “one of the most riveting and notorious serial murder cases in European history. Banderas will play Spezi.
Denmark’s Nikolaj Arcel, Academy Award nominated for “A Royal Affair,” will direct from scripts written by Arcel and Anders Thomas Jensen, who penned the screenplay for Susanne Bier’s Oscar winner “In a Better World.” Arcel also co-wrote the original “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” starring Noomi Rapace. Banderas and Emanuel Nuñez will serve as executive producers.
Delivering an original twist...
“The Monster of Florence” relates the extraordinary real life investigation carried out by American fiction writer Preston and Italian crime reporter Spezi into what Studiocanal describes as “one of the most riveting and notorious serial murder cases in European history. Banderas will play Spezi.
Denmark’s Nikolaj Arcel, Academy Award nominated for “A Royal Affair,” will direct from scripts written by Arcel and Anders Thomas Jensen, who penned the screenplay for Susanne Bier’s Oscar winner “In a Better World.” Arcel also co-wrote the original “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” starring Noomi Rapace. Banderas and Emanuel Nuñez will serve as executive producers.
Delivering an original twist...
- 6/28/2021
- by John Hopewell and Elsa Keslassy
- Variety Film + TV
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