RIP Robert Redford

Robert Redford gone where a River / rivers run through...

The Man was 89. Once ”The Golden Boy” of Hollywood...No liftings, just traces of life...

One of my top childhood heroes, he was an absolute star in that times "commie" Romania, together with Paul Newman, John Wayne and Burt Reynolds, the stars of those early 70's. RR, as a Rolls Royce of acting and old Hollywood grace and elegance. 

From early prats in Barefoot in the Park and The Chase, to stardom: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Sting, All the President's Men, Three Days of the Condor, to his activist years and Sundance, to the last parts in All is Lost (one of my favourite RR performances), The Old Man and the Gun and last in that Marvel film (2019)...

Never won an Oscar as an actor, but as a director, in 1980 for Ordinary People. That film is now quite forgotten, but at the time it helped build an Indie genre later on. A raw model for Brad Pitt and tons of others he helped more in the capacity of director, producer and festival founder (Sundance). Even though he directed 9 feature films he will be remembered more as a Classic Movie Star. 

Downhill Racer, The Candidate, The Hot Rock, The Great Waldo Pepper, The Great Gatsby, The Electric Horseman, Jeremiah Johnson, Brubaker, The Natural.

Liked him in lesser films like Sneakers, Legal Eagles, Havana, The Last Castle, The Clearing. 

One of my favorite later parts parts of RR is Nathan Muir in Tony Scott's Spy Game (2001). His pairing with Brad Pitt as his mentor in CIA was a very touching one. 

He made serious topics like grief and political corruption resonate with the masses, in no small part because of his own star power. (The NY Times)

Eddington (2025)

Eddington is one of the must-see of this year, Ari Aster's new film, his forth (after Hereditary, Midsmmmer, Beau in Afraid). via Cannes )in competition), it's imo his best. Dark, brutal, black comedy, western and thriller and political satire. It's craziness galore and one of the best performances of Joaquin Phoenix. Aster's second film with Phoenix after the werird, wild but pretentious (and over-long) Beau is Afraid in 2023.

best film about Pandemic and about America in a long time. Also starring Pedro Pascal & Emma Stone.

1st Aster film shot by legendary Darius Khondji (from Se7en to The Ninth Gate to recent Mickey 17). Great score by Daniel Pemberton. 

Unfortunately this A24 release is not in Romanian theaters. A pitty.

 8 out of 10 (a bit off steam at 2 h 28)! 4  out of 5 !

RIP Michael Madsen

Sad news just when I was to see Iron Maiden in Belfort, France. All the world was busted by the death of Diogo Jota , the footballer, at 28. And then I saw Michael Madsen died, at 67 (on July 3d 2025) !

Then next day I find out Julian McMahon died, he was56 and battling cancer...

I met Michel Madsen when he was shooting in Romania the infamous Uwe Boll bomb, BloodRayne in August 2004. He also shot here The Last Drop. I was at a day of shooting in Bragadiru palace, Madsen was bored to death and I should've taken him to Blues Cafe for a Jack but I got asked by my friend working on the picture Not to. Regretted still...

Of course I knew him from Reservoir Dogs and all the Tarantino fodder, he was the one who gave him most of his comebacks. He could've been a star leading man but his odd and wild habits pushed him to the B side of movies, he was in over 300 flicks. So much crappy stuff...With 5 children, it's hard to pay the bills, as he says. He was even in a James Bond movie, the crappiest Bond ever :(, Die Another Day, supporting CIA Falco !

(On the films he's proud of) Kill Bill, Species (1995), Free Willy (1993), Thelma & Louise (1991), Reservoir Dogs (1992) and Donnie Brasco (1997). Six, that's it. That's not a low number. I'm just hard to please. I've made some crap but you've got to pay the bills.

I guess that was before the Kill Bill's & The Hateful Eight. And he got a small cameo as the sherriff in TV's Bounty Law in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. 

The biggest mistake of his carrer was that he made Wyatt Earp. This made him lose the part of Vincent Vega in Pulp Fiction !!! Wyatt Earp was a flop and it's a bad film, Travolta played Vega and it's still his best around. 

He was a poet and an outlaw (by Hollywood standards), a maverick. Rest in peace, Michael...

“We’re not mourning a public figure. We’re not mourning a myth — but flesh and blood and ferocious heart,” Madsen’s sister, Virginia Madsen, said. “Who stormed through life loud, brilliant, and half on fire. Who leaves us echoes—gruff, brilliant, unrepeatable—half legend, half lullaby.”

Sinners (2025)

"Dance with the Devil"

Sinners is an unexpected mix of black Americana, Southern Gothic horror, vampire fare, legends and racial tale told on Blues rhythms and chords. With a twist of folk-lore, religion and superstition. And Blues. Did I say Blues ?

It's also an epic western (epic on scope and duration, 2hr. 17 min.), the deal with the devil, Robert Johnson's style, KKK and moonshine in 1932's Louisiana.

Shades of Walter Hill (stylistically lots of his films, his style -think Last Man Standing, and major plot point: Crossroads), Tarantino & Rodriguez (From Dusk' Til Dawn and Coogler says The Faculty was an inspiration), John Carpenter (The Thing, Vampires), Kathryn Bigelow (Near Dark), 

Beautfully shot in Super 70 Panavision by Autumn Durald Arkapaw (Wakanda Forever) and presented in IMAX (shot on a ratio of 2.76 : 1), Sinners is acted with intensity and seriousness (Michael B. Jordan in a dual role, Delroy Lindo as Delta Slim,  Hailee Steinfeld as the white hottie, brit Jack O'Connell as Remmick) and scored magnificently by  Ludwig Göransson in his 4th collaboration with Ryan Coogler (after Black Panther, BP: Wakanda Forever and Creed).

Miles Caton mesmerizes as Sammie Moore, the made-up kid musician played in his old age by none other than Mr. Legend, Buddy Guy. Reason enuff for any blues aficionado to see the film !!! On the BIG Screen, brother, and if you live close to an IMAX environment, pls. go there !

Add to this a grand soundtrack companion.

And a pulsating original score by  Ludwig Göransson-who admires the blues since a kid in Sweden, did his homework seriously and this represents a tribute to his father. His credits are on banjo / music / musician: banjo / musician: resonator guitar / resonator guitar / score producer.

The Sinners Band:

Cedric Burnside -drums

Lester Snell-piano

Lars Ulrich-drums

Eric Gales-guitar

Alvin Youngblood Hart-guitar

Christophe "Kingfish" Ingram -guitar

Bobby Rush-harmonica

Buddy Guy-resonator guitar

Miles Caton-resonator guitar

Rave reviews, powerful BO, makes this a rare bird. Act one is slow, so give it time to warm up, it'll stay with ya afterwards. 

4 out of 5, 8 out of 10 !!!

RIP Val Kilmer

First time I saw him in Top Secret back in the early 80's video days (& nights).

My favorite Val Kilmer part is in Mann's masterpeice of American Noir- Heat

with a soft spot for Mamet's Spartan.

He was blamed for the catastrophe that was Island of Dr. Moreau, with a mad Marlon Brando and a Mini me. Richard Stanley is over that one, John Frankenheimer is gone, like Marlon and Val now.

Val was cool in Ron Howard's Willow (sword & sorcery way before LOTR & epigons la GOT).

He was Iceman, "the wingman" in Tony Scott's seminal Top Gun. Also his last part on screen was in Top Gun 2, a cameo where he became Admiral Tom 'Iceman' Kazansky.

He was a beautiful crazed Jim Morrison in Oliver Stone's The Doors

Val did a Batman (Forever)

A Simon Templar-The Saint (in Moscow)

Doc Holiday (in Tombstone).

-also Kill Me Again & Thunderheart (thx, Andrei ;)

A great comeback film, with Robert Downey jr. was Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, that me and Andrei saw in the world premiere in Cannes in 2005. And we loved it !!!

and a great parodic part in McGruber (2010) as the evil baddie ;) Cunth. 

Long suffering from throat cancer he made a comeback in the headlights with the intense documentary VAL (2021) , in the official Selection in Cannes Film Festival. He died, age 65, on April 1st 2025.

RIP Gene Hackman

Gene Hackman, one of the greatest Actors there ever was, (it's said he could play Anyone and Antything), died on Tuesday Feb. 26th. He was 95. He died suddenly along his wife and their dog ! His wife (the 2nd, married in 1991), the pianist Betsy Arakawa, was 64 ! The Police of Santa Fe discovered all three of them....

During the last 3-4 years I re-saw /saw again some of his films with the fear he'll die any moment. So, there was him at his most funniest in Get Shorty, the neo-noir Heist, action mentoring channeling The Conversation part -Tony Scott's Enemy of the State (2 bad it had Will Smith as a lead, if could've been Denzel or Jamie Foxx it'll rock more today), more good action thriller-The Package and the comedy I caught up Heartbreakers. Forgot he had a cameo in The Mexican when I gave that film another shot (totally hated it when it came out), tried to see again The Royal Tenenbaums but remembered how he quarreled with Wes Anderson (which I find completely overrated) and paused it. It's a great part but not a lengthy on.  Also discovered some gems like The Hunting Party (1971), The Split (bit cop part) when Jim Brown died and recently, when Kris Kristofferson passed I saw Cisco Pike (1971). Brilliant wicked part for Gene Hackman, probably last seen by me. 

He was retired since 2004 after the lesser comedy Welcome to Moosesport. He was painting and writing thriller noir/ history fiction novels. 

Hackman received two Academy Awards (for William Friedkin's The French Connection & Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven), two British Academy Films Awards (BAFTA), and four Golden Globes.

My faves after the obvious characters of Popeye Doyle, Harry Caul, Little Bill Daggett and Lex Luthor are Crimson Tide, Prime Cut, The Scarecrow, French Connection II (he's better in Frankenheimer's sequel than in Friedkin's hit, it's harder bit too imo) , Bite the Bullet, Night Moves, Eureka, Under Fire, so on...

Most amusingly he played the blindman in Mel Brooks' parody Young Frankenstein, in 1974, uncredited. It's kind of a cameo but now every obit mentions it as an important part. Come on, you AI generation morons...

As a kid I saw him first in cinemas in Superman, The Poseidon Adventure, The Domino Principle, Marooned, Zandy's Bride, The Gypsy Moths (that on TV). Then later his breakthrough part in Bonnie & Clyde. 

He was a superb villain always, suave and smiling. Also he could play men in uniform, military authority at best. And grand in westerns. But his secret gift was comedy. He Is, was and will be one of my favorite Actors. And as far as I checked everyone says he  was the Best Actor that ever IS !

 "If you look at yourself as a star, you've already lost something in the portrayal of any human being."

                                                             Gene Hackman (1930-2025)

RIP Kris Kristofferson

Again gone one of the great ones...Mr. Kris K. is one of my personal favourite heroes, just for his look, I fell in love at first sight. He didn't have to be tough, he was in his own right, One of the Only Ones !!!

Mr. Kris Kristofferson was 88

I think the first film I saw with him was The Sailor who Fell in Grace with the Sea (1976), or maybe it was Convoy (1978) ?

in the early Nineties they brought a film in the cinemas called Flashpoint (1984), a curio that I dug. Tangerine Dream scored it too. Also that dud, Millennium (1989-oi), and Welcome Home (1989), the last film from Franklin J. Schaffner. Triple Kris bill :)

His 1st film was Dennis Hopper's aptly titled ;) The Last Movie (1971). But even if there is Pat Garret & Billy the Kid (1973- forSerban Celea :(, the best is for me is now & for a long time that infamous and immortal Heaven's Gate .

Trivia: Kristofferson turned down Sorcerer, him and Steve Mc Queen, all respect for Roy Scheider, I would've seen both Steve and Kris in it...God of Movies said no :(

Yep, he was in Blade and Blade two. And Blade: Trinity, resurrected ;) And what about that Albert Pyun's Knights (1993)? With Mister Lance...

Also: Alice doesn't Live here Anymore, Cisko Pike (wow, the whole flick is on youtube!), A Star is Born (the 1976 version), Trouble in Mind, Lone Star (4 Andrei ;), Payback (not in the director's cut that we dig ;), & a fierce cameo on Bring me the Head of Alfredo Garcia... 

I got one record on vinyl like over 30 years ago -I guess it was Repossessed from 1986- and was kinda disappointed cos it wasn't rock enough for me then ;) Too young & dumb & ...

posted here a song with his super band The Highwaymen, Desperados Waiting on a Train...

...now Kris is on the TRAIN, on the way to Heaven's Gate, to meet his old buddies, Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Sam the Man (Peckinpah), James Coburn, Michael Cimino too...Willie Nelson still Standing !!!

Kristofferson said that he would like the first three lines of Leonard Cohen's "Bird on a Wire" on his tombstone: 

Like a bird on the wire
Like a drunk in a midnight choir
I have tried in my way to be free

Top 5 series of 2023 (+2)

 Top films of 2023 here.

Top 5 SERIES/2023:

Fargo season 5 -fx -amazingly how this can be so good...though there is on more episode, it will end on Jan. 16 2024 ! Funf**k*ng fantastik Finale ! See the Biskuik post here...

Fargo series have been my favorite year by year (season 1 back in 2014 wow, ten years now !!!, season 2 in 2015, and also I watched again season 2 & 3 during the pandemic on prime (where they ain't anymore). My favourite it's still season Two. Season 3 was on #7 in 2017, and season 4 on #1 in 2020. Season 5 is an absolute rewatchable jewel, with Jon Hamm's career's best as sheriff Roy, "he's Gary Cooper", a freaky Tiger-Juno Temple and a mesmerizing Sam Spruell as Ole Munch.

"When i was a child freedom was a potato" (Munch), that reminded me of The Tin Drum. 

Succession (I saw it all this year) HBO max, greatness (see my thoughts here)

Justified: Primeval City -on A. Prime , a spin-off mostly but made me recoup the Justified series too.

Copenhagen Cowboy -miniseries, Netflix, I guess it wont be a series 2;) -NWR (see my thoughts here)

Barry -season 4 (final season) HBO Max -weirder than all before, but just to to put a coda on Bill Hader's odyssey. Barry was on my top 2022 too. 

*****

also saw older fares, but great stuff !!!

LOUDERMILK -3 seasons (2017-2020), with a great Ron Livingston (thanx, Doc ;) 

and 

Documentary Now! (2015-2019, 4 seasons x 6 eps.), the spoof by Bill Hader, Seth Meyers & Fred Armisen, hilarious mockumentary stuff. Loved especially the takes on Robert Evans (Mr. Runner Up), Herzog/Kinski (Soldier of Illusion) , Nanuk the Esqimo (Kanuk), The Talking Heads (Final Transmission), The Eagles (the Blue Jean Commitee). I guess it was too smart and sophisticated but I had a blast !!! Highly recommended. You just got to know the originals...it helps ;)

Rolling Stone named it:  Documentary Now!' Is Pure, 100-Percent Film-Nerd Catnip !!!

Bring me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974)

Starting this year with a question ;):

Why is the poster of Bring me the Head of Alfredo Garcia on the wall in True Detective season 2, episode 8, Omega Station, in still photographer Leonard/Lenny's room? Are there supposed to be influences on Nic Pizziolatto's work from the (then) infamous one-of-a-kind Peckinpah master work? At least is noticed on the wikipedia page of the film. 

                                                                          "Do I get paid?" 

Weird occurences made me to get to finally rewatch and revisit what is considered to be Sam Peckinpah's most personal film (and I agree with 'em). Oh, how I was looking for this in the 90's and it finally broadcasted on a shittiest copy on Acasa TV (!!!!), and we copied it on vhs. Then some muddy DVD came out. Now it's all restored beautifully in 4K. And available!!! Also on Critterion Collection. You can even watch the whole film on youtube here.

"NOBODY LOSES ALL THE TIME"

Warren Oates as washed-up piano player Bennie plays basically Bloody Sam, sunglasses included.

Also it's a great film about "that " Mexico, with shades of Los Olvidados, The Treasure of Sierra Madre and Under the Volcano.

******

During a career that was blighted by studio interference, Peckinpah would later say that Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia was the only which ended up exactly as he wanted: “I did it exactly the way I wanted to. Good or bad, like it or not, that was my film.” And it was. This is as close to ‘Pure Peckinpah’ as it gets – beautiful, violent, troubling, heartbreaking, astonishing.

(Arrow Video on their restored DVD)

RIP Ryan O'Neal

Ryan O'Neal is gone, he died on December 8th 2023 in Santa Monica. He was 82...

His only Oscar nomination was for Love Story (1970). 

Though all his other parts were better, this was what the audiences identified him with. His problem was he was too beautiful and charismatic and also maybe didn't improve in the acting domain (like Redford did, or go into directing, etc), Maybe he should've.

Wild Rovers

What's Up, Doc?

Paper Moon

Nickelodeon

The Driver

Barry Lyndon

A Bridge Too Far

All great parts and classics of the Seventies. Except maybe, The Thief Who came to Dinner (1973). The computer subject is too over dated 2day.  He ended his most brilliant decade with Oliver's Story, a maligned sequel to Love Story in 1979. 

I guess O'Neal was thinking, especially after the flops of Barry Lyndon, The Driver and Nickelodeon, "why bother?". A Bridge Too Far / Un pod prea indepartat (1977) was at the time the most expensive film ever made and when it came out, no one wanted to see it. Maybe it made its money back by today, great war flick anyway, I was too young when It played in theaters, or something, I missed it 'til DVD dayz (& nights). Well, Wild Rovers in 1971 a beautiful elegiac western by Blake Edwards, was also a flop, due to the downbeat ending, and the timing of the release. I was amazed when I finally saw in on TNT in gorgeous widescreen. You can see it all on youtube, great copy)

First time I saw him on the big screen in The Main Event (, 1979), which reunited him with Barbra Streisand for a minor comedy after their uber hit What's Up, Doc? (Peter Bogdanovich, 1972). Also ca$h in was the Romanian title, Love story pe ring !!! Ryan plays a washed-up boxer, and that's whht he was before he became an  Actor.

Also with Bogdanovich he did Paper Moon (1973), where he acted along his daughter, Tatum O'Neal, who won an Oscar for Supporting Actress, at 10 being the youngest person to do so in the history of films, and Nickelodeon (1976), a misfire at the time, but that today seems intimate arthouse fare compared to a film like Babylon (2022). And of course his part for Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon (1975), a flop then, and today considered one of the best films ever made. full point, and my soft spot, The Driver, the existentialist neo-noir by Walter Hill (1978).

Unfortunately the Eighties were not his decade, he had a troubled life and later career. Green Ice (Gheata verde), a minor film he did in 1981 was a recrudescent entry in Romanian Theaters in the Eighties. I mean, they played it all the time... and it was a mediocre film. Totally forgetabble. I rememeber it so well cos I had to see it too many times and even I wrote my first piece of published film critism on that (compared with Tarkovski's Stalker !!!, yep, published in the local newspaper, "Drum Nou" (New Road) in 1998, thanks dad, well, it was for mom, named in the piece as a lady who likes "nice films" and "nice scenery". My critique on her kalofilia....The Main Event also I saw with mom and dad at the Popular Cinema in Brasov, I remember, it was an after ski event, came from the ski directly to the theatre 'cos my dad knew the manager (Mrs. Nicolau, and she helped me 5-6 years later to start presenting films there, oh boy was I shy, but did it did me good....), and we left the skis and sticks in the cloak room, and afterwards left on Dupa Ziduri (after the Walls). I mean, we did that a lot (House Calls and Goodbye Girl were other Romantic comedies fares we saw there that way). 

--------------------------------------------------

But really, going back to Ryan, if you wanna see a UFO, i mean, outthere in the woods (lost), see Tough Guys Don't Dance (1987), A Cannon fodder entry, directed (?) by Norman Mailer, based on his novel. Well, I just saw it now again (it's also on youtube), and well, it's totally worth a new look.

More Ryan recent fares were mostly cameos, the producer in Burn, Hollywood, Burn: An Alan Smithee Film! (1987), oy, oy, the tycoon in Zero Effect (1998), whoever in People I Know (2002), yes, that was the name for all of that, played in theaters no less. The last time I saw him in The Knight of Cups (2015), Malick's maliquesque -read:[most self indulgent], where he is basically himeslf. If you wanna check his blink-and-miss scenes, the film is now on HBO Max.

LMA Martin Scorsese (81)

Marty is 81 today. And somehow he managed to make one of his best films this year, Killers of the Flower Moon, an grand epic piece of Americana, the closest to the westerns as he ever got. My (introductive) piece on the film here. And a great interview after a screening of the film at the DGA, where Marty is interviewed by his old pal, Steven Spielberg. Much more than a regular by the numbers on film, Scorsese talks about the human existence, the not so dark side of evil and life choices. 

And back to LMA (La multi ani as in Happy Birthday;),

Love this pic, taken on "Bobby" De Niro's 80th Birthday, August 17, this year. Coppola, Marty (with a white wine) and Lucas, three on a couch, and some guy in Lucas' ear. 

Sisu (2022)

Finnish director (& writer) Jalmari Helander did Rare Exports (2010, on my top of 2011 & here), based on his 2003 short film and the high-concept action Big Game (2014). Took him a while to do his third feature, Sisu (2022), his best to date. Sisu means in Finnish a form of crazy courage & determination against all odds. 

The main character is inspired by a real sniper from the "Winter War" in WW2, Simo Häyhä, aka The White Death. It's set in Lapland in 1944, and what better villains than the Nazis? It starts with a lonely man discovering the mother lode into the wilderness (the Ecstasy of Gold), like in the vignette of Coen's bros. 2018's The Ballad of Buster Scruggs with the Gold prospector played by a scrubby Tom Waits. Then he starts a journey western style until he meets the Nazis, here a convoy of bad, bad Nazis retreating (Sven Hassel's style). Nazis in Nordic cultish films were seen in Dead Snow and its sequel by Tommy Wirkola, but those were (Norwegian) Nazi zombies, and in Anders Banke's Frostbitten (Sweedish vampires nazis). 

Sisu premiered in Toronto Film Festival last Fall on Midnight Madness and picked by Lionsgate -US/ Sony (intl.) for distribution (Intercomfilm in Romania). Even though the film can now be found on the torrent sites I strongly advice those in for the ride to go and watch it on the BIG screen, it's absolutely worthy, due to the great cinematic compositions in widescreen by Kjell Lagerroos (2.39.1), glorious colors, the sound design, music (could've gone with a song on the End Credits-a bit of Morricone/Leone homage done a la Hans Zimmer in Broken Arrow) and spellbinding landscapes. 

Finn Jorma Tomilla is Aatami Korpi, surnamed by the Russians Koschei-"the immortal" . Tomilla was in Rare Exports the father hunter alongside his son, Onni Tomilla, who was in Big Game and here is the tank driver, Schutze. Norwegian actor Aksel Hennie (Headhunters, Max Manus, The Trip) is the very bad baddie, SS officer Bruno Helldorf, he reminded me of a cool younger Mads Mikkelsen, but he probably fares better than MM in the upcoming Indiana Jones V-th chapter. 

Korpi is like Rambo in the 1st film, First Blood, and like Mad Max ( a subplot is similar to Mad Max: Fury Road) and The Man with No Name. Surely a lot of spaghetti westerns went into the mix. Helander brings also John Woo into the inspiration for the film. 

The action sequences could be from Raiders and Indy 3 (the tank and under the car stunts) up to James Bond-esqe exploits (mostly the plane sequence).

People compare this with John Wick but there is no resemblances, the dog thing was part of Mad Max 2 and so many films way before the Keanu franchise. First Blood is the main ingredient here. Also Inglorious Basterds comes to mind, especially for the structure and lettering of the Seven Chapters (which are in fact classic 60's-70's film lettering).

But most of all the coolness comes from the fact it's Finnish (though I would've loved the nazis to speak German and not English...:( and to cut to the last scene before any lines...much better than any recent fare of this type. I hope Helander will keep on making his films and not become some gun-for-hire in the Hollywood up-and-down hills...So far it looks like it might be another Sisu film or maybe announced and postponed Jerry and Ms. Universe.

                                                                   The Red band trailer!

Check it out and see first if it's your kind of film ride, cos it's hyperviolent and kinda doomy/gloomy in its whole pulpy construction. With a lot of Finnish black humor. Perkele!

3 1/2 out of 5, 7 out of 10!

4 awards at Sitges Film Festival 2022, best film, best actor, cinematography and music !

RIP Rick Dalton

Tarantino posted on his Video Archives twitter account that Rick Dalton, his fictional actor, (anti) hero from Once Upon A Time in Hollywood had died. He would've been 90. 

He wrote a biography of the actor, entitled The Films of Rick Dalton. One of them, featuring Cliff Booth in the 80's is The Fireman (a trilogy, no less!!, produced of course by Cannon!), which sounds like a rip-off (homage?) of The Exterminator (1980) and its sequel, Exterminator 2 (1984), both with Robert Ginty,  ;). Is that where the flamethrower of McClusky came by, or was it from Le Vieux Fusil;) ?

Rest in peace, Rick...;)

more here

https://deadline.com/2023/05/once-upon-a-time-in-hollywood-star-rick-dalton-dead-quentin-tarantino-declares-1235373860/

Rick passed away peacefully in his home in Hawaii and is survived by his wife Francesca.

(so, that one was a keeper ;)

https://the-video-archives-podcast-with-quentin-tarantino-and-roger.simplecast.com/episodes/day-of-the-dalton-pt-1-the-marshal-of-madrid-manhunter-NJWVhg9w

RIP Jim Brown

First time I saw him on The Dirty Dozen (1966), part of that band of misfit bastards that 

Last time I saw him on 100 Rifles (1969), together with Raquel Welch in what was then a very risquee affair. 

100 Rifles can be seen on youtube here.

Now I caught-up with the heist film from 1968 The Split, one of his first leading roles. 

Jim Brown was a great NFL player, the first one to swap the field for Hollywood. He died on May 18th (same day as Helmut Berger) of natural causes. Jim Brown was 87. 

Acting highlights:

Dark of the Sun (1968) aka The Mercenaries

Ice Station Zebra (1968)

El Condor (1970) can be watched on youtube here. with Lee Van Cleef

Slaughter (1972) and its sequel Slaughter's Big Rip-off (1973)-blaxploitation

blaxploitation classic: Three the Hard Way (1974) with Fred Williamson and Jim Kelly

Take a Hard Ride (1975) one more time with Lee Van Cleef, Fred Williamson and Jim Kelly

Fingers (1978), James Toback's maligned underrated and still unknown masterpiece.

The Running Man, I'm Gonna Git You Sucka, Mars Attacks!, Any Given Sunday, Small Soldiers (voice).

RIP Raquel Welch

Also this day has come...(15 Feb. 2023) one of the most beautiful women that walked the planet into the screen is gone. A real Goddess! Unbelievable, Raquel Welch was 82 now...She as born Jo Raquel Tejada in Chicago on September 5th 1940, her father Bolivian, her mother Irish-American. Her first job was on TV as a weatherwoman! She had four husbands and two daughters. 

During the "pandemic" in 2020 I caught up with some of her films, the excellent Hannie Caulder (1971), a revenge western that has a touch s feminism in in. Then saw again the whodunnit The Last of Sheila (1973, a model for the new Glass Onion mystery). About her his co-star James Mason said infamously, that she was "the most selfish, ill-mannered, inconsiderate actress that I have ever had the displeasure of working with."..)  Why he said that, beats me. It's the only bad thing I heard about her really.

Then saw the spaghetti interracial western 100 Rifles (1969), where she made love with/to Jim Brown. Also I saw a lot of documentary stuff and interviews on youtube. I was still mesmerized by mrs. Welch.

And I still am. She is immortal, you know? 

But the first time I saw her on the big screen as a child was not as Luana in One Million Years B.C. (1966), that ran in Romania under her name title-Luana and that I caught up at Cinema Popular in the early Eighties. No, it was as Constance de Bonacieux in Richard Lester's Three Musketeers (part one & two 1973/74). She won a Golden Globe for that part. The film played around 1976/77 in Cluj, where I was in primary school. 

And she was in the posters of Romanian Cinema magazine, the Cinemas postcard and a lot of photos in the mag. The film I mostly wanted to see with her those days was Fantastic Voyage (1966), her breakthrough role, which I finally saw on TV only in the early 90's and I taped it on VHS...til the DVD...

Also in Romanian theaters was L'animal, the Claude Zidi comedy from 1977 with her and Jean-Paul Belmondo. Which was kinda her last important part. In 1982 she was fired from the set of Cannery Row (that was meant to be her comeback and her first nudity role!) and successfully sued the studio earning a reported 15 million $!!! She went on TV movies, Fitness and yoga programs, and playing herself (in Seinfeld in 1997).  Wrote her biography, "Beyond the Cleavage" in 2000. She was on Broadway, the lead on Victor/Victoria. She even danced with a fluffy spider in The Muppets Show!

Running the Cinemateca Patria in Brasov (2014-2020) I always showed her films on her anniversary (5 September ), Fantastic Voyage, Bedazzled and 100 Rifles. One of my favorites was Fathom (1967). Great cameo in The Magic Christian (1969) as "The Princess of the whip", and the title role in Myra Breckinridge (1970, based on a novel by Gore Vidal), where she plays a transsexual and she clashed with legendary Mae West on the set. Her bit in the far-out Bluebeard (1972) as a sexy nympho nun is also a cool one.

Well, here she is to be remembered singing the aptly titled "I am a Woman", with Cher in 1975, in a very tongue-in-cheek appearance. We'll miss you all, Raquel...

The Fabelmans (2022)

 The Fabelmans could've /should've been called The Spielbergs :)

A very personal account of Steven Spielberg childhood, from the age of seven to age 18, his family and his passion for cinema developing. More interesting than many of the new films (it's a cycle ,a series) that famous directors do recently about their childhood/coming-of-age (Branagh's Belfast, PTA's Licorice Pizza, Cuaron'sRoma, Linklater'sAppolo, James Gray's ArmageddonTime). 

Overlong sure (2h31)  and over-sentimental (Spielberg ?!, his own memories...) but a real treat for cinema lovers. One of the year's best films and what we expected from SS in aloong time...

To be seen in the movie theatre, especially for the visual qualities.

Variety called it `the Rare Great Movie About the Ecstasy of Making Movies`. 

Agreed!

TBC...

Gabriel LaBelle personifies a very motivated and ambitous SS (Sammy Fabelman). 

Also you gotta see who John Ford is;)

The English (2022)

Best thing on TV streaming right now. Not Yellowstone, nor Tulsa King, but The English. 

And with a lot of resemblances with 1883, the Yellowstone prequel from earlier this year on Paramount+.

It's a 6 episodes mini-series, like 5 hours movie, BBC with Amazon Prime but in Romania on HBO Max. 

Created and directed by Hugo Blick with a superb Emily Blunt and a majestic Chaske Spencer. A gritty revenge western, with one of the best bad guys in recent memory, Rafe Spall. A terrific supporting performances by Cieran Hinds. And a surprisingly low-key Stephen Rea. Shot in Spain, in Castilla-La Mancha and Almeria, where the legends were made...

As a good and old friend of mine wrote me: It's like Sergio Leone would make The Last of the Mohicans :)

LMA Clint @91 !!!

Once he was The Man with No Name, but he made a name for himself, and, what a nameee...Clint Eastwood is 91 today ! Still working and done with a new film, Cry Macho, and which he also acts! A modern western no less ! His fortieth feature (40th) ! Amazing ! LMA ! Happy Birthday !!!

And some sad news, Buddy Van Horn, Clint”s buddy, stuntman, double, second unit director and best friend died at 92 on May 11th 2021. The news came up just today, uncanny. Buddy also directed Clint in three of his features,Any Which Way You Can, Dead Pool and Pink Cadillac, a simillar case of Burt Reynolds/Hal Needham, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood best buddies friendship of a time golden, silver & gold, now gone bronze...RIP...

The Hunting Party (1971)

 The Hunting Party (1971) is a curio, in the vein of exploitation and with touches of Italo Western, that violence and cynicism. Read about it for a long time but unseen til now.  I mean, Oliver Reed is the star and Gene Hackman supporting, can you believe it ? Well, in 1971 it was possible, Hackman becoming a big star the next year, with The French Connection and Reed following this after Women in love and Oliver ! Candice Bergen is rich Hackman's wife who Reed the bandit kidnaps ! One of the three films Bergen did in the 70's with Hackman !

Supporting cast with veternas of westerns, and Peckinpah cohorts, L.Q. Jones, G.D. Spradlin, Simon Oakland. One of the two theatrical films of TV director Don Medford (together with the Tibbs vehicle The Organisation-1972).  Slo-mo action a la Peckinpah. Alec Mills was the cameraman and Riz Ortolani made the music, giving the film more flavour of spaghetti, it was also shot in Almeria, Spain. 

3 stars out of 5 / 6 out of 10 !

aka Caza implacable; De jagade; Il giorno dei lunghi fucili; Leise weht der Wind des Todes; Les charognards

RIP Ennio Morricone

July 6th 2020. A sad sad day for all film and music lovers !

Ennio, il maestro Morricone is no more...

He was 91 (born November 10th 1928). He even conducted a concert in Rome this January !

I wrote a LMA piece on his carrer and influence by the time of too long awaited Oscar and the score of The Hateful Eight  in the Sunete magazine! Time to republish soon.

I saw him with my buddies Andrei & Relu in 2004, live in Budapest.  The Arena Concerto series. 

Saw him again in 2012 in Cannes, at the anniversary projection of restored Once Upon a Time in America.  The best partnership ever, Sergio Leone and Ennio Morricone, unmatched even by the Prokofiev-Einsenstein collaboration, or the Bernard Herrmann-Hitchcock, or Nino Rota with Fellini. 

He did great scores for many directors, three for Brian De Palma (Untouchables, Casualties of War, Mission to Mars), three for Gillo Pontercorvo (Battle of Algiers, Burn/Chiemada, Ogro), for Polanski (Frantic), Joffe (the Mission), John Carpenter (The Thing), Warren Beatty (Bugsy), oh so many, and so many perfect brilliant ones. The giallos, starting with the first Argento films, to Spasmo and The Black Belly of Tarantula, gli polizioteschi, from Revolver to les  French -Le Clan des siciliens, to Peur sur la Ville, to Chi Mai in Le Profesionnel, Le Marginal. Last score of his I heard was in Jose Giovanni, Le Ruffian (1983), that I cought-up with last month.

Love his psychedelic score for The Exorcist II  (The Heretic) !!! Love the parodic score for Ochhio a la Pena ! (Buddy Goes West/ Atentie la pana de vultur!), which wierdly he did for Michele Lupo (ans Bud Spencer, and Amidou!). Or the original parodic My Name is Nobody/Mio nome e nessuno.  The beautiful Il Grande Silenzio for Sergio Corbucci. Pop-ish Danger Diabolik for Mario Bava ! And of course the dramatic TV series La Piovra !

Finally after forgiving him of using-remashing up -his music and themes he made some music for his fan, Quentin Tarantino in /for The Hateful Eight. That uncanilly got him his only Oscar of his career ! He got a Honorary one in 2007 after many nominations, first of which only in 1979 (!)  for Malick's Days of Heaven ! Last score for his friend, another T-as in Tornatore, for whom he was an attached composer, for La Corrispondenza, in 2016.  Unarguably he did some of his finest music for Tornatore, from Nuovo Cinama Paradiso to Malena to Legend of 1900.

The most influential film score composer of all time, over 500 films, my favourite film composer and one of the best musicians EVER ! 

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“If you scroll through all the movies I’ve worked on, you can understand how I was a specialist in westerns, love stories, political movies, action thrillers, horror movies and so on. So in other words, I’m no specialist, because I’ve done everything. I’m a specialist in music.” 

                                                                  Ennio Morricone

Here's a post from Film Stage which contains his best 20 scores -in their opinion -almost agreed

-and here's Rolling Stone Top Ten Morricone scores-even better !

“Ennio was an icon and icons just don’t go away, icons are forever. The first movie I ever saw was Once Upon A Time In The West. I heard the music and saw those images and I said, ‘That’s what I want to do’.”  Hans Zimmer

  

Metallica

@Metallica

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Metallica: R.I.P. Ennio Morricone

Your career was legendary, your compositions were timeless. Thank you for setting the mood for so many of our shows since 1983.

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John Carpenter

@TheHorrorMaster

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Brilliant composer Ennio Morricone has passed away. A friend and collaborator, his talent was inestimable. I will miss him