Nothing’s more fun than The Wildey’s Tuesday Night Film Series. Sam Peckinpah’s THE WILD BUNCH (1968) will be on the big screenwhen it plays at The Wildey Theater in Edwardsville, IL (252 N Main St, Edwardsville, IL 62025) at 7:00pm Tuesday February 15th. Tickets are only $3 Tickets available starting at 3pm day of movie at Wildey Theatre ticket office. Cash or check only. (cash, credit cards accepted for concessions) Lobby opens at 6pm.
THE WILD BUNCH was a ground-breaking, revisionist western from director Sam Peckinpah, Although violence existed in the cinema before this film, it was Peckinpah’s treatment of violence that opened the gates for every subsequent film-maker to show graphic gunshot wounds, throat-slashing, and the like, with shocking realism. THE WILD BUNCH was beautifully shot by Lucien Ballard and featured memorable performances from William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Warren Oates, and many others.
Sam Peckinpah’s film The Wild Bunch is the story of a gang of outlaws who are one big steal from retirement. When their attempted train robbery goes awry, the gang flees to Mexico and falls in with a brutal general of the Mexican Revolution, who offers them the job of a lifetime. Conceived by a stuntman, directed by a blacklisted director, and shot in the sand and heat of the Mexican desert, the movie seemed doomed. Instead, it became an instant classic with a dark, violent take on the Western movie tradition.
Shudder, AMC Networks’ premium streaming service for horror, thriller and the supernatural, announced that The Spine of Night will be available exclusively to stream on the platform starting on Thursday, March 24, 2022. As a Shudder exclusive, the platform will be the only subscription service that will carry the film in the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand.
Here’s The Spine of Night trailer:
The Spine of Night stars an all-star cast of Richard E. Grant (Can You Ever Forgive Me?),Lucy Lawless (“Xena: Warrior Princess”), Patton Oswalt (Young Adult), Betty Gabriel (Get Out) and Joe Manganiello (“True Blood”). The film was co-written and co-directed by Philip Gelatt and Morgan Galen King.
In The Spine of Night, an ultra-violent fantasy epic, ancient dark magic falls into sinister hands and unleashes ages of suffering onto mankind. A group of heroes from different eras and cultures must band together in order to defeat it at all costs.
There are two sides to the pro wrestling character coin: “faces” and “heels” — heroes vs villains. But what happens when real life and this fantasy world collide? Find out when Heels: The Complete First Season arrives on DVD February 15 from Lionsgate.
There are two sides to the pro wrestling character coin: “faces” and “heels” — heroes vs villains. But what happens when real life and this fantasy world collide? Find out when Heels: The Complete First Season arrives on DVD February 15 from Lionsgate. Executive produced by Primetime Emmy® nominee Mike O’Malley (2010, Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series, “Survivor’s Remorse”) and Academy Award® nominee Julie Yorn (2016, Best Picture, Hell or High Water), “Heels” is a bittersweet drama centered around the struggling family-owned Duffy Wrestling League, as two brothers and wrestling rivals grapple with their lives and the mistakes and decisions they’ve made in small-town Georgia. Heels: The Complete First Season DVD will be available for the suggested retail price of $34.98.
“Heels” is a story about the men and women who chase their dreams in the world of small town pro wrestling. Set in a close-knit Georgia community, it follows a family-owned wrestling promotion as two brothers and rivals, Jack Spade (Stephen Amell) and Ace Space (Alexander Ludwig), war over their late father’s legacy. In the ring, someone must play the good guy (Ludwig) and someone must play their nemesis, the heel (Amell). But in the real world, those characters can be hard to live up to — or hard to leave behind.
CAST Stephen Amell (The Green Arrow aka Oliver Queen and other names in all the “Arrow” DC universe series, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Code 8) Alexander Ludwig (TV’s “Vikings,” The Hunger Games, Bad Boys for Life) Mary McCormack (TV’s “In Plain Sight,” “The West Wing,” “ER”) Kelli Berglund (TV’s “The Goldbergs,” “Animal Kingdom,” “Now Apocalypse”) Allen Maldonado (TV’s “The Wonder Years,” “The Last O.G,” “Black-ish,” Straight Outta Compton)
“A high-spirited juggernaut of nasty fun”–The Hollywood News
After a warm reception from audiences and critics in the festival circuit, 101 Films announces the North American release of SWEETIE, YOU WON’T BELIEVE IT. Lauded as “gory and gleeful”, “a pure burst of energetic fun” and a film that “makes ‘The Hangover’ look boring,” SWEETIE will be available on Digital and VOD on February 8th. – Here’s the trailer:
hat begins as a fishing trip with the boys quickly spirals out of control when they witness a mob hit in the forest, and that’s just the beginning of this insane, violent, hilarious misadventure from Kazakhstan.
It begins with a couple quarreling about baby names, and it ends in gory revenge and slapstick splatter in a seemingly indestructible, one-eyed psychopath’s cabin in the woods. In between was supposed to be a calming fishing trip for three old friends to unwind in the wilds. If only they hadn’t witnessed a brutal murder by local mobsters. By the end, what is certain is they will all learn about life’s priorities.
I can’t exist by myself because I’m afraid of myself, because I’m the maker of my own evil.
Possession (1981)
Directed by Andrzej Zulawski
Shown from left: Isabelle Adjani, Sam Neill
Head to the Marcus Des Peres Cinema (12701 Manchester Rd, Des Peres, MO 63131) this Friday and Saturday (February 11th and 12th) at 10pm for Isabelle Adjani and Sam Neil in POSSESSION (1981). This is of course this month’s Destroy the Brain.com’s entry in their ‘Late Nite Grindhouse’ film series. Tickets are $10 each. A Facebook invite with advance ticket details can be found HERE
During a secretive business trip away, Mark learns that his wife Anna is growing restless in what he believed was their happy marriage. Upon his return home, he learns from her that she wants a divorce. They both go through a series of different emotions related to their situation, Mark’s which is generally obsessive about learning why Anna, who he still loves, wants the divorce, and Anna’s which is generally increasingly histrionic in getting away from Mark. Caught in the middle is their infant son Bob, who Mark uses as a gage to Anna’s mental state. Anna states that her want for the divorce is not because of another man, but Mark finds out that Anna has a lover named Heinrich. In the meantime, Mark also meets Bob’s teacher Helen, who looks exactly like Anna, but is her polar opposite in temperament. Starting a relationship with Helen lessens his obsession with Anna. But as Mark and Anna’s encounters together reach more emotional and violent levels, Mark, with help of a private investigative firm, learns that Anna’s love life is not all that it appears. Anna’s true obsession has a somewhat gruesome process and nothing will stop her from reaching her end goal.
RLJE Films, a business unit of AMC Networks, will release the sci-fi film SETTLERS on DVD and Blu-ray on February 15, 2022. Following its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival, IFC Midnight released SETTLERS in theaters, on Digital Rental & VOD on July 23, 2021.
Check out the Trailer:
Now you can win the Blu-rayof SETTLERS.We Are Movie Geeks has two to give away. Just leave a comment below telling us what your favorite Sci-Fi Thriller is (I’d say EVENT HORIZON. It’s so easy!)
1. YOU MUST BE A US RESIDENT. PRIZE WILL ONLY BE SHIPPED TO US ADDRESSES. NO P.O. BOXES. NO DUPLICATE ADDRESSES.
2. WINNER WILL BE CHOSEN FROM ALL QUALIFYING ENTRIES. NO PURCHASE NECESSARY
SETTLERS is written and directed by Wyatt Rockefeller (shorts “Groomed” and “Entropy”), and stars Sofia Boutella (Kingsman: The Secret Service, Atomic Blonde), Ismael Cruz Cordova (“Berlin Station,” Mary Queen of Scots), Brooklynn Prince (“Home Before Dark,” The Florida Project), Jonny Lee Miller (“Elementary,” Mindhunters), and Nell Tiger Free(“Game of Thrones,” “Servant”). RLJE Films will release SETTLERS on DVD for an SRP of $27.97 and on Blu-ray for an SRP of $28.96.
Mankind’s earliest settlers on the Martian frontier, llsa (Sofia Boutella) and Reza (Johnny Lee Miller) inhabit a desolate farmstead with their child Remmy (Brooklynn Prince and Nell Tiger Free). They work the land and shield their daughter from the dangers of the harsh surroundings. When hostile intruders threaten to expel them from the compound the family is forced to fight to survive in this science-fiction thrill ride. “Settlers presents an intense and distressing story made even more uncomfortable by the stellar performances of its cast.” — THN
Bethany Joy Lenz (“One Tree Hill”) stars in the thriller SO COLD THE RIVER, available in theaters March 25 and on digital and on demand March 29 from Saban Films. Written and directed by Paul Shoulberg, the film is a chilling, suspenseful adaption of the New York Times bestseller of the same name by Michael Koryta.
Check Out the trailer:
A chilling, suspenseful adaptation of The New York Times bestseller, SO COLD THE RIVER by Michael Koryta. Acclaimed documentary filmmaker Erica Shaw (Bethany Joy Lenz, “Dexter”) is hired by Alyssa Bradford-Cohen (Alysia Reiner, “Orange is the New Black”) to profile her dying father-in-law, the enigmatic millionaire Campbell Bradford. Erica is presented with a substantial sum of money and a relic, an antique bottle filled with water from a local spring, one of the few clues connecting Bradford to the town he once dominated. While researching Bradford as a guest of a massive, opulent resort with a dark past, Erica meets unofficial town historian Anne McKinney (Tony Award-winner Deanna Dunagan), fanatical intern Kellyn (Katie Sarife, Annabelle Comes Home) and hotel maintenance worker Josiah (Andrew J. West, “The Walking Dead”), a descendant of Bradford’s who reveals the familial curse of mysterious deaths and suicides. Seemingly possessed by the relic, Erica begins drinking from the antique bottle, experiencing terrifying visions and, ultimately, unleashing unspeakable evil. Can Erica make her way through the darkness or is Campbell’s evil undercurrent too strong?
Tim Roth as Neil Bennett in SUNDOWN. Property of TEOREMA. Courtesy of Bleecker Street
Things are not always as they appear. In Mexican writer/director Michel Franco’s SUNDOWN, Tim Roth and Charlotte Gainsbourg play members of a family on vacation in Acapulco, Mexico, in a suspenseful drama where things are not always what they seem.
While the Bennett family – Neil (Tim Roth), Alice (Charlotte Gainsbourg) and teens Alexa (Albertine Kotting McMillan) and Colin (Samuel Bottomley) – vacations at a posh beach side resort, their pleasant holiday is interrupted by a family emergency back home in London. Alice is distraught at the news, while Neil’s reaction is muted. At the airport, Neil tells the family he forgot his passport back at the hotel. But rather than delaying everyone, he says he will go to back to retrieve it and then catch the next flight, while the rest of the family boards their hastily-arranged flight back home to London. After they depart, Neil grabs a cab but instead tells the driver to take him to a hotel, any hotel, instead of going back to the resort.
So what is going on and what kind of person is Neil? Those are questions that intrigue us and keep us guessing in this mysterious, suspenseful drama. While he spins excuses to Alice on the phone, Neil extends his vacation, spending his days on the beach, drinking Dos Equis, eventually taking up with a woman at a nearby shop, Berenice (Iazua Larios).
Neil’s behavior is puzzling, even cold-hearted given that there is a funeral to arrange back in London. But we also sense sadness, maybe desperation, in his low-key demeanor. Not to give too much away, but director/writer Michel Franco is slyly playing on assumptions he knows we will make. More is going on here than it first seems, and as the film unfolds, more is revealed, along with some shocking events.
The director wrote the film specifically for Tim Roth, with whom he has worked before in 2015’s CHRONIC. Franco’s work has been compared to Michael Haneke’s and SUNDOWN is an understated film with unsettling undercurrents, with Roth playing a character who reactions are both puzzling and muted. At under an hour and a half, the film’s deliberate pace isn’t an issue but it also brings in some shocking twists and sudden violence, while weaving in issues of crime, violence, income inequality and class divides in contemporary Mexico.
Roth’s character Neil is the central puzzle of the film, a complicated, multi-layered one. As we wonder why he behaves as he does and what is really going on with him and his family, things make more sense as we learn more about the family. While we can see the family is clearly affluent, it is eventually revealed they are very wealthy and the owners of slaughterhouses.
That unconventional puzzle is set against a backdrop of some unsettling, sometime shocking events, although both the filmmaker and the character keep everything at arm’s length, which all feed into what is really going on with Neil. The reason, or at least the explanation, for Neil’s behavior becomes clearer by the film’s end, but as the story unfolds, the questions keep us involved and wondering about what is next and that seemingly passive, preoccupied guy at its center.
Roth gives a subtle, affecting performance, filled with a vague sense of sadness and distance, that on re-watching gives clues to what is happening with Neil from the start. At first, Neil appears to be sociopathic but even before we understand more about what is going on with him, it is hard to dislike him, because he projects an underlying despair and he is so mild and asks so little of those around him. We are infuriated and puzzled by his behavior towards his family but are shocked further when he hardly reacts when a man is shot next to him on the beach, showing neither fear nor concern, only surprise. Tensions are high when Neil draws the attention of some shady characters, who casually sit down uninvited at his table at a beach bar and grill, seeming to size him up for robbery or a con.
While Roth’s Neil is all passivity, Gainsbourg’s character is the opposite, verging on hysteria at the bad news from home, growing impatient and then angry at Neil’s behavior, demanding and constantly calling and texting him. The family lawyer, Richard (Henry Goodman), becomes a go-between and a source of insight on the family for us.
SUNDOWN constantly plays on our shifting assumptions while Roth slowly crafts the character, but unfolding events reveal the story, and insights on life in Mexico, the wealthy Bennett family, and what is driving Neil. Nothing is simple, as perceptions shift while we go down this mysterious, ultimately heartbreaking hole.
With its strange central character and willingness to unsettle its audience, SUNDOWN is a film that won’t appeal to every taste. SUNDOWN can be challenging but it is a brilliantly crafted film with much to say about people and the state of modern life in Mexico, and elsewhere for that matter, with a sparkling but subtle performance by Roth, which make this suspenseful mystery drama well worth the effort.
SUNDOWN opens Friday, Feb. 4, at Landmark’s Plaza Frontenac Cinema and other theaters nationally.
Hmmm, is 2022 turning out to be a twenty-year anniversary celebration for several beloved film franchises? Could be. After all. the year started a tad early for the still-formidable box-office juggernaut, SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME, which arrived with two weeks left of the previous year, and about six months ahead of that first web-head feature’s 20th this May. And just last weekend Disney+ hosted the latest animated outing, THE ICE AGE ADVENTURES OF BUCK WILD, the sixth in the series that started two months before Spidey. Now, these flicks are pretty “family-friendly”.Not one entry in this series could ever be trimmed to meet anything but an “R” rating (many would say a “hard R”). So, heed that “black-screened-backed disclaimer/warning” for the sake of yourself and your loved ones (and anybody nearby) because those deranged daredevil doofuses as back in JACKASS FOREVER.
Now, this is where I’d normally try to summarize the story and plot without giving too much away. That doesn’t work for this as it’s basically a collection of stunts and stupidity. It opens with a gleeful homage to the big monster movies that bombarded the TV airwaves on countless Saturday afternoons. Each member of the “merry band’ is introduced and spotlighted. Their “leader’. the “Moe” to these stooges is Phillip-John Clapp AKA Johnny Knoxville, the franchise’s genial host and “mastermind” (yeah, I guess we can say that). Many of his cohorts like Steve-O and Jason “Wee-Man” Acuna go all the way back to the 2000 MTV series. There are some newer faces as a “passing of the torch” (with fire extinguishers at the ready) occurs with the addition of new “cast members” like Zach Holmes and the African-American father/son “tag-team” of Jaspar Dolphin and Compton “Dark Shark” Wilson. And there’s a bit of “glass-ceiling shattering” when Rachel Wolfson joins in on the slapstick stunts. Plus they’ve packed in a few special celebrity “guest stars”. From the music world, you’ll see “Machine Gun” Kelly (no he didn’t bring his fiance) and Tyler the Creator, along with Eric Andre (who was inspired by the guys for last year’s BAD TRIP). Several of the best “bits” are inspired by the movies (a great send-up of the “pitch black” finale of SILENCE OF THE LAMBS), while many involve dangerous animals, who embody the whole idea of the “wild card” (though he’s got a wildlife name, “Dark Shark” is truly unnerved by them). It all builds to an “anything goes’ military-themed battle royale which pokes fun at the firepower of countless action blockbusters. And there are some tasty tidbits “off to the side’ while the end credits roll past.
As if a synopsis isn’t tough enough, a “yeah or nay” review is almost maddening. But then a flick like this is close to “review-proof”. It’s the old nugget that “if you like this sort of thing, then this is the sort of thing you’ll like”. Fans of the MTV show and the five (yup) other feature films, will have a rollicking good time. And I will admit to laughing hard (tear trickles rolling down) more than I should admit. Somehow these shenanigans unleash the ten-year-old boy inside us that chuckles at a pratfall (up to a certain age). These are almost live-action incarnations of the Looney Tunes gang (or Famous or Terrytoons), rubbery clowns who get smacked down, but who heals (enough) to reform in the next scene. Perhaps a better comparison may be to the silent cinema clowns, especially the “thrill comics” like Buster Keaton and particularly Harold Lloyd, who make you gasp in terror before turning it into a loud guffaw. What also stands out is the creativity of the “planners’ who form these sequences and then erect the Rube Goldberg devices of comedy “torture” (the engineering that goes into the perfect “groin gag”). We’re often shaking our heads thinking “How’d they come up with that?”. And the changing times have affected the stunts. There’s more concern for the safety of the animals involved (it seems) than the cast (hear that PETA). And when a deadly critter lands on the breast of Ms. Wolfson, the fellas frantically plead for her permission to brush it away. The photography is top-notch, getting in every bit of the agony (a wonder considering the weak “gag-reflex” of one of the cameramen) as is the editing using precise slow motion to pinpoint the punishment. But it’s not the abuse that really endures at the film’s end. It’s obvious that these guys (and lady), despite the teasing and grumbling, truly love each other. They share the cuts and bruises and a true affection as each “feat” bonds them as brothers (of the bandages). It’s goofy and silly, but a bit wistful as most of the originators, like Danny Glover’s Murtaugh, are “Getting too old for this s#*t” (we see Knoxville’s hair go from auburn to silver as he screams “Don’t shoot my bald spot!”). Yes, they don’t heal as quickly now, but each and everyone is a JACKASS FOREVER.
3 out of 4
JACKASS FOREVER is now playing in theatres everywhere
“Listen, whoever comes to you with this Barzini meeting, he’s the traitor. Don’t forget that.”
In celebration of The Godfather’s 50th anniversary, Paramount will re-release the Francis Ford Coppola classic in limited AMC Theatres locations in Dolby Vision starting on February 25, 2022. Here’s a trailer for the 50th Anniversary:
In advance of the 50th anniversary of the first film’s original release on March 24, 1972, Paramount and Coppola’s production company, American Zoetrope, restored all three Godfather films over the course of three years. The entire trilogy will be made available in 4K Ultra HD for the first time on March 22, 2022.
During the restoration process, which was overseen by Coppola, over 300 cartons of film were scrutinized to find the best possible resolution for each frame of all three movies. More than 4,000 hours were spent repairing film stains, tears and other anomalies in the negatives, while over 1,000 hours were spent on color correction to restore the films to Coppola and cinematographer Gordon Willis’ original vision. In addition to the 5.1 audio that was approved by the film’s sound designer, Walter Murch, during a 2007 restoration project, the original mono tracks of The Godfather and The Godfather: Part II have also been restored.
“I am very proud of The Godfather, which certainly defined the first third of my creative life,” said Coppola in a statement, adding that Mario Puzo’s The Godfather, Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone – the director’s new edit of the third film – is included in the restoration. He continued of Coda, “It captures Mario and my original vision in definitively concluding our epic trilogy.”
“We felt privileged to restore these films and a little in awe every day we worked on them,” said Andrea Kalas, senior vice president, Paramount Archives. “We were able to witness first-hand how the brilliant cinematography, score, production design, costume design, editing, performances, and, of course, screenwriting and direction became famously more than the sum of their parts. It was our commitment to honor all of the filmmakers’ exceptional work.”
