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It’s that time of year again. While some directors annually share their favorite films of the year, Steven Soderbergh lists everything he consumed, media-wise. For 2024––another year in which he not only premiered a new film, but shot another and is prepping another to begin production shortly––he still got plenty of watching in.

Along with catching up on 2024’s new releases, he took in plenty of classics, including Opening Night, Jaws, Casablanca, All About Eve, The Conversation, Alien, and nine viewings of various Star Wars films. He also got an early look at Andrew Patterson’s The Rivals of Amziah King and after beginning production on Black Bag on May 7, he had a first cut on June 23.

See the list below via his official site.

01/02 Blaming, Elizabeth Taylor

01/04 The Conversation

01/05 Predators, American Greed

01/06 The Curse

01/09 The Curse

01/10 Break Point (3)

01/11 Break Point (3), Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone,...

Kate Winslet will star in and executive produce a new crime drama series for Hulu, titled “The Spot.”

The new series, which hails from creator and showrunner Ed Solomon, received a straight-to-series order from the Disney-owned streamer in a competitive situation.

Solomon will serve as creator, showrunner and writer and will executive produce the series alongside Winslet, who EPs for Juggle Productions, and A24, which is the lead studio. “The Spot” is also a coproduction with 20th Television.

The official logline for “The Spot” is as follows: “When a successful surgeon and her schoolteacher husband begin to suspect that she may be responsible for a child’s hit-and-run death, their quest for truth spirals into a web of mounting suspicion and dark secrets, testing their resolve and their relationship as they confront the possibility of hidden guilt and betrayal.”

Winslet recently starred as Chancellor Elena Vernham in HBO’s “The Regime,...

The germ of the idea for the crime thriller “Skincare” came from a stranger-than-fiction criminal case: A Los Angeles-based aesthetician to the stars was accused of plotting the murder of a rival skincare expert. Yet director and co-writer Austin Peters wasn’t interested in creating a work of journalism or a documentary. Instead, he considered it the perfect jumping-off point for a Southern California Gothic tale.

“It’s inspired by lots of movies and books in this sunshine noir world of Los Angeles,” Peters, who wrote the film with Sam Freilich and Deering Regan, says. “We never set out to tell the true story — that was never our intention. The thing that called to us about the story is that it sounded like a James M. Cain-style noir. It felt new and true to the Los Angeles I know, the world I know.”

Although “Skincare” is Peters’ debut feature,...

One of the most exciting film projects we've heard about over the last year or so has to be Todd Haynes' untitled romantic drama starring Joaquin Phoenix. Little was known about the plot of the movie, but the notion of two supremely talented artists like Haynes and Phoenix hooking up for the first time was reason enough to get amped. That they'd worked together closely in developing the screenplay, and were committed to doing something "challenging" in an emotionally, sexually explicit manner, made it sound like the kind of risky adult filmmaking we rarely get at this level anymore.

And now, five days before it was to start shooting, Phoenix has walked away from the production, with Deadline now describing the movie as "completely dead."

It is extremely rare for a film to get completely scrapped this close to principal photography, and in this case it's particularly strange because Phoenix...

Todd Haynes has been set as writer and director of “Trust,” a limited series starring Kate Winslet that is currently in development at HBO. Jon Raymond will co-write the project, and both serve as executive producers.

The official logline reads, “In a story told from multiple, competing perspectives, a 1920s Wall Street tycoon amasses a sudden fortune but loses a beloved wife. Decades later, his attempts to control the narrative of his life are undone by a biographer who uncovers the ultimate secrets of the legendary marriage.

The series is based on the novel of the same name by Hernan Diaz, which in 2023 won a Pulitzer Prize. Diaz and Winslet both executive produce alongside Haynes and Raymond, as do Christine Vachon and Pamela Koffler for Killer Films.

Haynes is best known for directing films including “Safe” (1995) and “Velvet Goldmine” (1998), also writing both, as well as “Carol” (2015). Most recently, he directed...

Destiny Indemnity: Ainouz Retrofits a Noir Classic

“Love, when you get fear in it, it’s not love any more, it’s hate,” wrote James M. Cain in his indelible, eternal noir 1934 novel The Postman Always Rings Twice. Director Karim Aïnouz returns to his native Brazil to deliver a queer take on the text in Motel Destino. Ultimately, set almost entirely within the confines of an isolated ‘love motel’ in Ceara, little does the protagonist realize it’s the kind of place he can check out any time he likes but may not ever leave. A vibrant palette of deep hues courtesy of Dp Hélène Louvart enhances the brooding elements underneath the surface of an idyllic captivity, a sweaty, web gilded with dangerous desires, where death has a better chance of knocking than the postman.…...

"Batman: The Animated Series" has many artistic fathers. Tim Burton's 1989 "Batman" film, of course, but also the Fleischer Studios Superman cartoons of the 1940s, the Art Deco movement (which the skyscrapers of Gotham City are made in the visage of), and film noir.

Noir is a film genre characterized by dark high-contrast shadows ("noir" means "black" in French) shot in black-and-white, featuring urban settings, crime (whether the lead is on the wrong or right side of the law), beautiful but duplicitous women, and nefarious schemes gone awry. Noir sprouted up in the 1930s-40s, when most films were black-and-white and pulp novels, from thrillers and to detective stories, were easy fodder for Hollywood adaptations. The storytelling motifs of those books were thus intertwined with Hollywood's biting black-and-white style.

"Batman: The Animated Series" was made in color (the villains have costumes running the whole rainbow spectrum), but it was drawn...

If Valentine cards are too lame and saccharine for your taste, then maybe you need something a little more hard-boiled for this lovers’ holiday. Perhaps, “What do I call you besides stupid?” or “We go together like guns and ammunition” are more in line with the romantic sentiments you’d like to express to your gumshoe or femme fatale. If that’s the case, then here are some lethally attractive film noir romances with the cynical bite your cold heart craves.

Marriage vows state, “till death do us part.” But in noir, that death is very rarely of natural causes. I mean, there’s a reason women in noir are referred to as femme fatales – they can be deadly.

Here’s a list of the 10 best classic American films noir to celebrate with on Valentine’s Day.

Spoiler Alert: If you haven’t already figured it out, I will be...

The Janus-headed The Facts of Murder looks back to the earlier neorealist docudramas of director, co-writer, and star Pietro Germi, while also presaging the sharply observed satirical outlook of films like Divorce Italian Style and Seduced and Abandoned. In the film, the comedic elements are mostly limited to the broad, almost caricatural handling of bumbling secondary characters. The primary storyline, involving an investigation into two ostensibly related crimes, is handled more like a police procedural along the lines of Jules Dassin’s The Naked City, albeit without that film’s authoritative narration.

The Facts of Murder’s central location is an apartment block. Quickly sketching in a number of characters and their relationships in the aftermath of the opening burglary, the film codes the victim, Commendatore Anzaloni (Ildebrando Santafe), as gay, and it’s suggested that the criminal might’ve been one of his pickups. But the focus of...

Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray sizzled as the duplicitous lovers in Billy Wilder’s exceptional 1944 film noir “Double Indemnity.” But that classic based on James M. Cain’s novel wasn’t their first pairing. Four years earlier, they played very different lovers in “Remember the Night,” which was penned by the brilliant Preston Sturges and directed by Mitchell Leisen. The exquisite holiday film, ironically released in January of 1940, has become a Christmas favorite thanks to TCM, streaming services and DVDs.

MacMurray stars as Jack, a young New York City assistant district attorney. Stanwyck’s Lee has seen her share of bad breaks is on trial before Christmas for shoplifting a bracelet at a jewelry store. MacMurray decides to bail her out of jail for the holidays and ends up taking her back to his Indiana family farm where she is warmly welcomed by his mother and aunt. His mother (Beulah Bondi...

There’s a scene in the 2010 film Eat Pray Love where Julia Roberts’s character Liz basks in the experience of eating a guilt-free pizza. It was an important character moment for her–and for many audience members. And whatever your specific dietary preferences or requirements may be, we hope that you’ll enjoy whatever your guilt-free “pizza moment” is this Thanksgiving, surrounded by friends and family (chosen or otherwise.)

Food, of course, has played as major a role in cinema as any other basic human biological function, from the sprawling bowls of pasta in the works of Martin Scorsese, to the last decade’s trend of thoughtfully investigative health-leaning food docs such as Food Inc. and Forks Over Knives. Today, though, we’re leaving the scare-mongering at the kids’ table and indulging in some seriously calorie-dense, celebratory depictions of food on film.

So cinch up that lobster bib and...

Exclusive: The company that holds rights to the literary estates of Langston Hughes and Evelyn Waugh is heading on a West Coast charm offensive and has snapped up the estate of Somerset Maugham.

International Literary Properties (Ilp) launched in 2019 but has so far focused on the UK and East Coast. Over the coming weeks, however, UK and Europe CEO Hilary Strong has numerous meetings in the diary with LA producers as Ilp looks to strike deals for adaptations of books from its 50-author roster across TV, film and in other areas.

“As we continue to buy considerable assets we need to broaden our relationships with the U.S. production community and showrunners,” Strong told Deadline. “We are going out to make sure people understand the message so we can start to develop producer networks in Hollywood akin to what we have on the East Coast and in the UK.”

Hilary...

“Moonlighting” was more than a watercooler show. It was an obsession. Episodes were taped and rewatched. And for good reason. There had never been a anything on the small screen like the 1985-89 ABC romantic screwball comedy detective series. The rapid-fire dialogue recalled such Howard Hawks’ classics as 1938’s ‘Bringing Up Baby” and 1940’ “His Girl Friday.” Fourth walls were broken. There was a black-and-white episode and even and wild and crazy take on William Shakespeare’s “The Taming of the Shrew.” That was just the tip of the innovations.

Creator and executive producer Glenn Gordon Caron told me in a 2000 L.A. Times interview that ABC didn’t give him total freedom when it came to the episodes: “The truth is no one let me do everything. I just did it. Ignorance is bliss. There were rules and I chose not to listen to anybody. At a certain point, the network said- ‘This is working.

Exclusive: Film and TV adaptations of works by the likes of Evelyn Waugh and Langston Hughes could be incoming following a deal struck between Artists, Writers & Artisans (Awa) and International Literary Properties (Ilp).

Fremantle and Sister-backed Awa will collaborate with Ilp on the slate of projects, with a view to developing some into film and TV adaptations and others into graphic novel reimaginings. The first project from the deal has been set and will be unveiled shortly.

Ilp holds the rights to numerous literary estates including that of Waugh, Hughes, Ann Rule and James M. Cain, and it has struck deals for projects such as Playground and Red Arrow Studios International’s Inspector Maigret adaptation. The company has a first-look deal in place with BBC Studios.

Awa, meanwhile, launched in 2018 and publishes graphic novels along with producing TV and film, such as the upcoming Chariot from Top Gun: Maverick’s Joseph Kosinski,...

Kate Winslet and HBO are an electric combination. The Academy Award-winning actor first hooked up with the company in 2011 when she starred in Todd Haynes' sensational adaptation of James M. Cain's "Mildred Pierce," then returned 10 years later to produce and star in Brad Ingelsby's "Mare of Easttown." Now she's back in the fold with what appears to be her most ambitious series yet.

"The Regime" (formerly titled "The Palace") is an original show created by "Succession" writer-producer Will Tracy. According to a press release issued during Warner Bros. Discovery's April 12 introduction of its new Max streaming service, the show "tells the story of one year within the walls of the palace of a modern European regime as it begins to unravel." If you're in the mood for another pitch-black comedy from the gang that brought you the pathetically conniving Roy clan, you are apparently in luck. Judging from the trailer,...

Highest honors go to this stylish, cinematically refined adaptation of a George Simenon thriller. Michel Blanc becomes a person of interest for a murder investigation mainly because he’s disliked and anti-social; Sandrine Bonnaire is the neighbor that he peeps at nightly, to stir his secret passion. Director Patrice Leconte directs with almost perfect control, turning the show into an emotional workout.

Monsieur Hire

Blu-ray

Cohen Film Collection

1989 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 79 min. / Street Date October 25, 2022 / Available from / 29.95

Starring: Michel Blanc, Sandrine Bonnaire, Luc Thuillier, André Wilms, Eric Bérenger, Marielle Berthon, Philippe Dormoy, Marie Gaydu, Michel Morano, Nora Noël.

Cinematography: Denis Lenoir

Production Designer: Ivan Maussion

Costume designer: Elisabeth Tavernier

Film Editor: Joëlle Hache

Original Music: Michael Nyman

Scenario, adaptation and dialogue by Patrice Leconte, Patrick Dewolf from the book Les fiançailles de M. Hire by Georges Simenon

Produced by Philippe Carcassonne, René Cleitman

Directed by Patrice Leconte

We’re fond...

Back in June, when this series covered Wild Things, I introduced neo-noirs as a response in the 70s and 80s to the noirs of the 40s and 50s. Historical film buffs will know that the Hays Code, which censored Hollywood films based on moral grounds, dictated edits to plot and character until it was abolished in 1968. This is one of the main reasons why films of the 70s began to lean into more gory, salacious and, yes, sexy material.

The 70s and 80s were ripe with remakes of film noirs because the coded violence and sexuality could finally be brought to the fore instead of hiding it in metaphor and innuendo. We’ll talk about several of these films in later entries of this column, but since it is Noirvember, why not use this opportunity to explore a text that cemented several erotic thriller conventions and tropes?

The Noir film...

Hungry for those wet Parisian streets, the city lights, and cadavres en lambeaux in the pale moonlight? Enter three highly atmospheric, star-studded Crime Noirs, one of which is a stealth classic of Gallic Pulp. Stars Jean Gabin, Jeanne Moreau, Lino Ventura, Marcel Bozzuffi, Gérard Oury, Sandra Milo, and Annie Girardot bring the tales of à sang froid malice and mayhem to life. The films featured are Gilles Grangier’s Speaking of Murder (Le rouge est mis) and Édouard Molinaro’s Back to the Wall (Le dos au mur) and Witness in the City (Un Témoin dans la ville). Beware of French husbands when cucklolded — they show no pity. Bonne chance, victimes!

French Noir Collection

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1957-59 / B&w / 1:66 widescreen, 1:37 Academy / 265 minutes / Street Date November 29, 2022 / available through Kino Lorber / 49.95

Starring: Jean Gabin, Jeanne Moreau, Lino Ventura, Marcel Bozzuffi, Gérard Oury, Sandra Milo, Annie Girardot, Paul Frankeur,...

Early on in Neil Labute’s “Out of the Blue,” a pair of James M. Cain novels get checked out by Diane Kruger’s cool, composed seductress at an elegant old library.

Unfortunately, the writer-director’s bid to evoke the murderous lust of hard-boiled staples “The Postman Always Rings Twice” and “Double Indemnity” is itself plenty checked out, a zipless exercise about as noirish as a commercial for household cleaning products.

Few careers are as mystifying in their longevity as Labute’s, whose empty misanthropy and gotcha dramatics across theater and movies were once the epitome of soured-soul indie cachet. His film career of late — whether directing his own screenplays or for-hire gigs — has been divorced from any meaningful expectations or promise or acclaim, but it’s still trudging along. “Out of the Blue,” which only ever feels tossed off, conjures the same head-scratching about its existence: If an adulterous...

A new cinematic drinking game has arrived. It’s a doozy, too, when taking a shot every time writer-director Neil Labute uses an intertitle demarking time in Out of the Blue means you’ll probably pass out before Connor’s (Ray Nicholson) inevitable plan to kill Marilyn’s (Diane Kruger) abusive husband is floated, let alone put in motion. Many are arbitrary. Some are exacting. Few have narrative relevance beyond telling us something we already know. I’m thus unsure what the point of using so many is, beyond earning an incredulous laugh—some bookend thirty seconds of footage that provide nothing of consequence anyway. If a character mentions that an event will occur on Tuesday, we don’t need to see “Tuesday” before transitioning to said event. It’s implicit.

My guess is that Labute merely hopes to elicit mood. Film noir plays in the background of many scenes and Marilyn,...

The femme fatale is one of the most classic (and best) tropes in cinema. Although they existed in movies made before 1940, the character type was solidified during the noir boom of that decade. Birthed out of the pulpy detective novels of Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, and James M. Cain, the femme fatale was beautiful, duplicitous, dangerous, and would frequently cause the downfall of some poor dope who became entangled in her web. 

The fatale could be fatal in the deadly sense, of course, but also would frequently be the protagonist's fatal flaw, sometimes unwittingly; obsession is certainly a huge factor in the trope. The stereotype could often...

The post The 22 Greatest Femme Fatales In Movie History appeared first on /Film.

It’s back and Criterion’s got it, so be prepared for sharp-talking insights on Billy Wilder’s nearly flawless, cinema-changing ode to cold-blooded murder, Los Angeles style. Edward G. Robinson wants Fred MacMurray but Barbara Stanwyck has him wrapped around her trigger finger. James M. Cain tapped into our city’s domestic malaise — who doesn’t know somebody they’d like to trade in for some extra cash? What about the extras? The Big C has Noah Isenberg, Imogen Sara Smith, Eddie Muller, Angelica Jade Bastién. Plus, we get the legendary Wilder interviews with Volker Schlöndorff, uncut and völlig ungeklärt. Revolver under the sofa cushion, anyone?

Double Indemnity

4K Ultra-hd + Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 1126

1944 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 108 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date May 31, 2022 / 39.95

Starring: Barbara Stanwyck, Fred MacMurray, Edward G. Robinson, Porter Hall, Tom Powers, Jean Heather, Byron Barr, Richard Gaines, Fortunio Bonanova, Mona Freeman,...

On the April 12, 2022 episode of /Film Daily, /Film editor Ben Pearson is joined by /Film editor and chief film critic Chris Evangelista to gather around the virtual water cooler and talk about what they've been up to.

Opening Banter:

At The Water Cooler:

What we've been Doing: What we've been Reading:

Ben read The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain.

What we've been Watching:

Ben watched the Severance finale, wants to give another quick shout-out to Our Flag Means Death, saw the first episode of One Perfect Shot, and watched Strongroom.

Chris watched Russian Doll season 2, Everything Everywhere...

The post Daily Podcast: Mini-Water Cooler: The Northman, Russian Doll Season 2, Strongroom, and More appeared first on /Film.

Sometimes fact is so much stranger than fiction, fiction has no choice but to copy fact. "Double Indemnity," a 1943 novel by James M. Cain, was adapted into a film the following year by Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler. A classic noir, "Double Indemnity" stars Fred MacMurray as Walter Neff, an insurance salesman who conspires with his paramour Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck) to murder her husband (Tom Powers) and collect on a double indemnity policy in his name. However, the film's underlying inspiration is not Cain's novel, but a 1927 murder that dominated news coverage.

In 1925 Queens, homemaker Ruth Snyder began an affair with married corset salesman Henry Judd...

The post The Real-Life Murder That Inspired Double Indemnity appeared first on /Film.

Editors note: Deadline’s Read the Screenplay series debuts and celebrates the scripts of films that will be factors in this year’s movie awards race.

Inspired by his wife and longtime creative collaborator Frances McDormand’s blistering stage performance, writer-director Joel Coen wanted to find his own way into William Shakespeare’s enduring tragedy Macbeth with a key goal in mind for his film adaptation, Apple and A24’s The Tragedy of Macbeth.

“I tried to make a film as much for people who don’t go to see Shakespeare as for anybody,” Coen says.

Working independently from his usual filmmaking partner and brother Ethan, and absent any longstanding personal ambition to adapt Shakespeare to the screen, Coen instead first saw the cinematic possibilities in the four-century-old play while watching McDormand perform Lady Macbeth at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre in 2016 with her signature emotional honesty and intensity. “I kept...

[This post originally appeared as part of Recommendation Machine, IndieWire’s daily TV picks feature.]

Where to Watch “Mildred Pierce”: HBO Max

For me, the moment when “Mildred Pierce” really comes alive is when Mildred, after a shift as a waitress, takes stock of the kitchen. Changed back into her regular clothes, she surveys the pantry and the supply area, taking surreptitious notes on what it takes to put together a place where people want to eat.

Todd Haynes’ five-part HBO limited series is certainly about more than food. With Kate Winslet shining in the title role, there’s plenty of threaded ideas about obligations to family, the limits of trust, and the nature of being independent. Here, though, the kitchen becomes a stronghold, a place where Mildred can reclaim the parts of her life that are slipping away or have tragically disappeared altogether.

It starts with the pies. From the opening shot, as big band music bounces in the background,...

It’s low-rent Noir A Go-Go: Angela Lansbury is a double-crossing femme fatale in this independent cheapie with modest charms. You can’t trust anyone these days, especially real estate developers with plans to collect Your life insurance. Lansbury is the seductive ‘motivator’ with a preference for late-night rendezvous in the high mountains, where everything is a long drop, nudge nudge wink wink. She makes with the hotcha come-ons but rugged Keith Andes is the one who goes around topless for an entire reel. One of the most obscure ’50s films noir, this one gives us a peek at an evocative Hollywood location or two.

A Life at Stake

Blu-ray

The Film Detective

1955 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 76 min. / Street Date September 7, 2021 / 24.95

Starring: Angela Lansbury, Keith Andes, Douglass Dumbrille, Claudia Barrett, Jane Darwell, Gavin Gordon, Charles Maxwell, William Henry.

Cinematography: Ted Allan

Set Designer: Robert Haver

Film Editor: Frank Sullivan

Original...

Undine (Paula Beer) is a freelance urban development expert who regularly lectures on Berlin’s architecture and its relationship to that city’s troubled past. She also has a secret: She’s the Undine of European myth, a mermaid–water spirit whose own trouble necessarily involves facilitating the death of any man who betrays her love. In “Undine,” the latest from acclaimed German director Christian Petzold, that gendered myth and Berlin’s historical collective trauma become inextricably linked in mutual heartbreak.

We meet Undine as she confronts one of those men, Johannes (Jacob Matschenz). He’s breaking up with her and would like a clean exit. Tearfully, she informs him that he has to die in a very sorry-i-don’t-make-the-rules manner. He walks away, never having bought into her story. But before Undine can carry out her mythology-bound task, Christoph (Franz Rogowski) walks into the picture, flirting.

He’s an industrial diver,...

The series Phantoms Among Us: The Films of Christian Petzold starts on Mubi on May 13, 2021 in many countries.Sooner or later, most interviews with Christian Petzold recur to literature as a pool of inspiration, the visceral experience of books that he synthesizes into on screen narratives. Thickening his films with references, he carefully constructs audacious architectures of ideas and aesthetic impressions, so that a “great desire for cinema” fuses with the legacy of his teacher, Harun Farocki, well known for his documentaries and essay films. Petzold’s “Spielfilme” can thus have an intellectual bent that reflects on “concepts [...] in such a way that they support one another, that each becomes articulated through its configuration with the others,” as Adorno wrote about the Essay as Form. Disparate elements, he described enigmatically, “crystallize as a configuration of their motion,” but do not come across as rigidly discursive. However, the depth suggested by...

by Brent Calderwood

The Lana Turner / John Garfield classic The Postman Always Rings Twice opened 75 years ago in US theaters. Based on James M. Cain’s bestselling 1934 novel about a wife who colludes with her lover in an attempt to pull off the perfect murder, Postman had to gloss over the grime to get past the censors, but it remains one of the best-loved film noirs of all time, and its huge box office success has been credited with cementing Turner’s status as a top-billed star.

While The Film Experience isn't set to celebrate the movies of 1946 until June, Postman belongs to multiple years. Here's a rundown of the four most famous screen adaptations of Cain’s crime novel, listed more or less in order of their critical reputation today...

Hard Case Crime previously published two of my favorite Stephen King novels—The Colorado Kid and Joyland—so I'm thrilled that they've teamed up with King once again to publish his new book, Later. With the supernatural noir now available in paperback, audio, and digital (ahead of its limited edition hardcover release on March 30th), we've been provided with an excerpt to share with Daily Dead readers!

Click the cover art below to read an excerpt from Later, and to learn more about King's new novel, read the official press release and visit:

https://titanbooks.com/70537-later/

Press Release: Hard Case Crime, the award-winning line of pulp-styled crime novels published by Titan Books, will publish Later, a brand-new novel by Stephen King, on March 2, 2021.

Later tells the story of Jamie Conklin, a boy whose unusual abilities could aid his single mom and her police detective lover – but only at a terrible cost.

Viavision’s first deluxe Film Noir boxed set gives us four titles that emphasize star power — Glenn Ford, Ray Milland, Kirk Douglas and Lee J. Cobb. The Australian release includes three Columbia titles and the home video premiere of a rare Paramount picture. Which ones are core Noir and which are merely ‘noir adjacent?’ The special extras invest in a quartet of audio commentaries from the top experts and Film Noir Foundation creators Eddie Muller and Alan K. Rode. There’s nothing that pair doesn’t know about these pictures.

Essential Film Noir Collection 1

Blu-ray

Viavision [Imprint] 18, 19, 20, 21

1947-1957 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 366 min. / Street Date October 28, 2020 / Available from Viavision [Imprint] / 149.99

Starring: Glenn Ford, Janis Carter, Barry Sullivan; Ray Milland, Audrey Totter, Thomas Mitchell; Kirk Douglas, Eleanor Parker, Joseph Wiseman, Lee Grant; Lee J. Cobb, Richard Boone, Kerwin Mathews.

Directed by Richard Wallace, John Farrow, William Wyler, Vincent Sherman

The Australian disc boutique...

Director René Clément brings an entertainingly eccentric David Goodis crime story to the screen in high style. A big score is being prepped by an odd gang, played by a terrific lineup of talent: Jean-Louis Trintignant, Robert Ryan, Aldo Ray, Lea Massari and the elusive Tisa Farrow. Only partly an action thriller, this one is weird but good — lovers of hardboiled crime stories can’t go wrong. Studiocanal has restored the original version, a full forty minutes longer than what was briefly shown here.

And Hope to Die

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1972 / Color / 1:66 widescreen / 141 min. / Street Date February 25, 2020 / La course du lièvre à travers les champs / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Jean-Louis Trintignant, Robert Ryan, Aldo Ray, Lea Massari, Tisa Farrow, Jean Gaven, André Lawrence, Nadine Nabokov, Jean Coutu, Daniel Breton, Emmanuelle Béart.

Cinematography: Edmond Richard

Film Editor: Roger Dwyre

Original Music: Francis Lai

Written by Sébastien Japrisot from...

Billy Wilder’s first big Oscar winner holds up as fine work in every respect, and serves as evidence of the writer-director’s moviemaking instincts at a time when he could do no wrong. Starring Ray Milland as a self-destructive alcoholic, Wilder and Charles Brackett manage to retain much of the sordid truth and nightmarish horror of the ordeal of would-be writer Don Birnham, who ducks his guilty self-loathing by taking to the bottle. It’s still a harrowing experience, with a sharp emotional kick. This new remastered edition carries a commentary by Joseph McBride. Co-starring Jane Wyman, Howard Da Silva, Doris Dowling, Frank Faylen and Phillip Terry; the scary music is by Miklos Rozsa.

The Lost Weekend

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1945 / B&w / 1:37 flat Academy / 101 min. / Street Date November 24, 2020 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Ray Milland, Jane Wyman, Phillip Terry, Howard Da Silva, Doris Dowling, Frank Faylen, Douglas Spencer,...

If adultery was as drab and zestless a business as it’s made to look in “Lovers,” nobody would engage in it — in which case Nicole Garcia’s languid, boilerplate-stylish romantic melodrama would gain at least a measure of the novelty it so sorely lacks. Unspooling in competition at the Venice Film Festival, this French three-hander offers an old-fashioned blend of desire, betrayal, criminal activity and young, naked, attractively entwined bodies. So why is it so plodding and unsexy, and why do the lovers of the title generate nary a matchstick spark between them? A marginal effort for all involved, “Lovers” sees actor-turned-director Garcia failing to regain form after 2016’s turgid Marion Cotillard vehicle “From the Land of the Moon,” and while the star trio of Stacy Martin, Pierre Niney and Benoît Magimel will generate some interest on home turf, few distributors abroad will be seduced.

That Garcia and regular...

The Notebook Primer introduces readers to some of the most important figures, films, genres, and movements in film history. Above: Detour “The Americans made [film noir] and then the French invented it.”—Marc VernetIn a world of uncertainty, where the lines between good and bad are routinely blurred and peril lurks behind every hesitant corner, film noir had—and still has—a spellbinding way of cutting through the banalities of ordinary existence. Noir tarnishes the superficial sheen of domestic stability, peace and prosperity, and the naïve, sanguine euphoria of one’s best-laid plans. It revels in a realm of desperation, despair, and dread, leading audiences down long, lonely streets and engineering an entertaining and engaging descent into humanity’s dark side. While there remains some question about what defines film noir, and even more debate concerning whether or not the form is a genre or a movement (or something of the two...

Fans of Jean Renoir will rush to see something ‘new’ from the great director; this very different Renoir picture sees him filming in the South of France, among regional laborers that bring their Italian and Spanish customs with them. It’s a tragedy about a crime of passion, all shot outside of a film studio, without big stars or glamorous trappings.

Toni

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 1040

1935 / B&w / 1:37 flat Academy / 84 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date August 25, 2020 / 39.95

Starring: Charles Blavette, Celia Montalvan, Édouard Delmont, Max Dalban, Jenny Hélia, Michel Kovachevitch, Andrex.

Cinematography: Claude Renoir

Film Editors: Suzanne de Troeye, Marguerite Renoir

Original Music: Paul Bozzi

Written by Jean Renoir from material by Jacques Levert

Produced by Marcel Pagnol

Directed by Jean Renoir

We’re told that in 1933 Jean Renoir was stinging from some pictures that didn’t go over well with the public, including the classic comedy-drama Boudou Saved from Drowning.

James M. Cain’s 1935 Liberty Magazine novella was based on the celebrated 1927 Ruth Snyder murder case that Sam Fuller had always wanted to film. Billy Wilder’s 1944 hit is the quintessential LA noir, and many of its locations can still be visited today. Nominated for seven Academy Awards but won none. At 16 min, 12 seconds in, the only known footage of cowriter Raymond Chandler appears, looking up at Fred MacMurray walking past him. Remade for TV in 1973.

The post Double Indemnity appeared first on Trailers From Hell.

“How like a serpent’s tooth is a thankless child.” Few of them have been more thankless than Veda (16 year old Ann Blyth), Mildred’s ungrateful daughter in Michael Curtiz’s classic adaptation of James M. Cain’s best selling novel. Cain disliked the movie but thought Crawford was perfect in the role Bette Davis turned down. It was a huge hit and put Crawford back on top with an Oscar win for best actress. The recent mini-series cable remake with Kate Winslet was widely admired.

The post Mildred Pierce appeared first on Trailers From Hell.

John Doe doesn’t think often about Los Angeles, the landmark punk record his band X released 40 years ago this month. He estimates he hasn’t even played the LP — which ranks on several Rolling Stone lists, including the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time and the 40 Greatest Punk Albums — in 35 years. “We play all those songs all the time live,” he says. “Recordings are great, but if you’re in the middle of it, playing songs live is better.”

But even though he hasn’t put on the vinyl in decades,...

X will celebrate the 40th anniversary of their landmark debut LP, Los Angeles, with a special show this spring in, of course, the City of Angels. The concert, which features support from Cracker, will take place at the Wiltern on April 25th.

The group will also be joining the Violent Femmes for a co-headlining tour that kicks off on May 28th. The dates focus on the Midwest and the East Coast.

The members of X reflected on their history in an in-depth Rolling Stone article in 2017. Regarding the song “Los Angeles,...

Midway through Dare Me, a new USA drama set in the world of high school cheerleading, we see local cheer coach Colette French (Willa Fitzgerald) watching the classic Forties film noir Double Indemnity, based on the novel by James M. Cain. The scene is less interested in revealing something about the enigmatic Colette than it is in winking at the influences of Megan Abbott, who adapted her own novel for television. Abbott’s specialty has long been recreating the grimy, hopeless, and traditionally male experience of noir in unapologetically female contexts.

Todd Haynes is without a doubt one of America’s most cinema-literate filmmakers, whether interrogating the Douglas Sirk melodrama in “Far From Heaven,” B-horror movies in “Poison,” or silent films in “Wonderstruck.” However, as revealed in this week’s New Yorker profile with the Academy Award-nominated filmmaker, Haynes’ most formative moviegoing experience was the 1964 musical “Mary Poppins” — which he first saw at the age of three.

In the New Yorker story, Haynes described falling into a “total imaginative rapture” with the Julie Andrews-starring Disney classic, and that he immediately wanted to create a “fanatical, creative, obsession response where I had to replicate the experience.” Haynes said that he drew hundreds of “Poppins” pictures, sang the songs, and made his family dress up as the characters. “I could feel my parents behind me, worrying about what this might mean, or worrying whether they should be worried, and I always felt defiant of their concerns,...

Jean-Patrick ManchetteDepending on how one accounts for co-authored works, comic books, and the occasional raid on the bargain basements of the publishing industry—those literary stash houses that offer safe haven to titles such as Ice Criminals, Hunting Nazis in South America and the leanly pornish Aphrodite Hunt—the French crime writer Jean-Patrick Manchette put his name to something like eleven novels before his death in 1995, at the early age of 52. Though a legendary figure in certain circles in France, Manchette wasn’t widely known in the Anglophone world until 2002, when City Lights published both 3 to Kill and The Prone Gunman, the first of his novels to appear in English. Three more translations were fired off over the next decade and a half by New York Review Books, perhaps the most venerable publisher in North America. Nyrb, despite that high-brow status, is no shrinking violet when it comes to genre fiction,...

Everyday Noir in Prague: a one-of-a-kind Czech/Brit coproduction teams fine British actors with the home-grown star Rudolf HruSínský, and the result is neither murder nor mayhem, but a real everyday tragedy that might happen anywhere. The bright B&w images chart an unhappy illicit romance, and a petty crime with awful consequences.

90° in the Shade

All-region Blu-ray

Powerhouse Indicator

1965 / B&w / 2:39 widescreen / 91 min. / + second version Tricet jedna ve stínu 83 min. / Street Date September 23, 2019 / available from Powerhouse Films UK / £15.99

Starring: Anne Heywood, James Booth, Rudolf HruSínský, Ann Todd, Sir Donald Wolfit, Jirina Jirásková, Jorga Kotrbová, Vladimír Mensík.

Cinematography: Becrich Batka

Film Editors: Jan Chaloupek, Russell Lloyd

Original Music: Ludek Hulan

Written by David Mercer story by Jirí Mucha, Jirí Weiss

Produced by Raymond Stross

Directed by Jirí Weiss

(note: a Czech friend who long ago helped me with research for Ikarie Xb-1 advised me not to even Try spelling Czech with full diacritical remarks.

James M. Cain’s 1935 Liberty Magazine novella was based on the celebrated 1927 Ruth Snyder murder case that Sam Fuller had always wanted to film. Billy Wilder’s 1944 hit is the quintessential La noir, and many of its locations can still be visited today. Nominated for seven Academy Awards but won none. At 16 min, 12 seconds in, the only known footage of cowriter Raymond Chandler appears, looking up at Fred MacMurray walking past him. Remade for TV in 1973.

The post Double Indemnity appeared first on Trailers From Hell.

It is a time of turmoil for “a great walled city” (any resemblance to China is completely not coincidental) in some undefined long-ago era. Three clans fight for control of the territory; two team up to defeat the third. Then a warrior for one of these last dynasties standing, the Yan, severely wounds the Commander (Deng Chao) of their rivals, the Pei. They now own the city. The Pei military higher-ups want war. Their king (Ryan Zheng), who is definitely paranoid and may or may not also be batshit crazy,...

Another day and another limited-series from a premium cable network. Deadline has reported that Kate Winslet will be returning to HBO to take the lead in Mare of Easttown, a new dramatic limited-series which will find the actress playing a small-town detective. Close to a decade ago, Kate Winslet played the leading role in Mildred Pierce, a five-part mini-series based on James M. Cain's…...

For directing skill and sensual sophistication this psychologically intense murder tale equals or betters the most sophisticated American noirs. Julien Duvivier gives us Michel Simon as Monsieur Hire, a strange man loathed by his neighbors. Entranced by the woman he spies through his bedroom window, Hire doesn’t realize that she’s helping to frame him for murder, and then set him out like bait for a vengeful mob. The restored French classic is a beauty in every respect; the extras include a highly educational, must-see discussion of movie subtitling, by Bruce Goldstein.

Panique

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 955

1946 / B&W / 1:37 flat full frame / 98 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date December 18, 2018 / 39.95

Starring: Michel Simon, Viviane Romance, Paul Bernard, Charles Dorat, Lucas Gridoux.

Cinematography: Nicolas Hayer

Film Editor: Marthe Poncin

Special Effects: W. Percy Day

Original Music: Jean Weiner

Written by Julien Duvivier, Charles Spaak from a novel by...

The Coen brothers' Blood Simple (1984) is showing December 22 – January 20 and Zhang Yimou's A Woman, a Gun, and a Noodle Shop (2009) is showing December 23 – January 21, 2019 in the United Kingdom as part of the series Original Vs. Remake: Coen Brothers/Zhang Yimou.It’s the same old song: the wife, her lover, the husband and the hired killer. It’s true that most stories of lust, adultery and murder have the same, sad endings. But nothing is that simple: all crimes have their own pitfalls and false starts along the way—just to keep things interesting. In the cycle of abuse, too, the abused can’t help but notice patterns. Escaping a violent spouse is a feat on its own, but once you’ve gotten rid of them, little signs that they’re still with you start popping up everywhere. In Blood Simple, the Coen brothers’ debut feature from 1984, a classic noir narrative is updated and remixed,...