Ian McKellen is not holding back when it comes to talking about his least favorite filmmaking experience.
The “Lord of the Rings” and “X-Men” actor said in a Variety cover story that starring in Michael Mann’s 1983 horror film “The Keep” was among his worst memories as an actor. The film, which was critically panned upon release, follows a group of Nazi soldiers who unwittingly awaken an evil supernatural force in Romania during World War II.
“Michael Mann said to me, ‘You’re playing this Romanian,'” McKellen recalled. “So I went to Romania to scout it out, and I learned how to speak with a Romanian accent. Then on the first day of shooting, Michael told me he wanted me to speak with a Chicago accent. Well, I couldn’t do that, and it got worse from there.”
McKellen continued, “I would define a good director as an honest one who says,...
The “Lord of the Rings” and “X-Men” actor said in a Variety cover story that starring in Michael Mann’s 1983 horror film “The Keep” was among his worst memories as an actor. The film, which was critically panned upon release, follows a group of Nazi soldiers who unwittingly awaken an evil supernatural force in Romania during World War II.
“Michael Mann said to me, ‘You’re playing this Romanian,'” McKellen recalled. “So I went to Romania to scout it out, and I learned how to speak with a Romanian accent. Then on the first day of shooting, Michael told me he wanted me to speak with a Chicago accent. Well, I couldn’t do that, and it got worse from there.”
McKellen continued, “I would define a good director as an honest one who says,...
- 9/8/2023
- by Samantha Bergeson
- Indiewire
Maverick director Robert Aldrich’s one foray into grand-scale epic filmmaking is returned to crystal clarity in this fine import disc, a restoration from original Italian film elements. Stewart Granger’s Lot allies his Hebrew tribe with the notorious cities of evil, and almost loses his soul to Anouk Aimée’s wicked Queen Bera. Pier Angeli is the slave who becomes Lot’s wife, and Rossana Podestà is the daughter taken by Stanley Baker’s rapacious prince. Second unit director Sergio Leone whips up a terrific battle scene (maybe), Ken Adam provides the spectacular sets and Miklós Rózsa the powerful music score. And yes, the explosive finish involves hellfire, brimstone and the Biblical Pillar of Salt.
Sodom and Gomorrah
Explosive Media
All-region Blu-ray
1962 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 154 and 117 min. / Street Date December 9, 2021 / Available from Amazon.de /
Starring: Stewart Granger, Pier Angeli (Anna Maria Pierangeli), Anouk Aimée, Stanley Baker, Rossana Podestà, Rik Battaglia,...
Sodom and Gomorrah
Explosive Media
All-region Blu-ray
1962 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 154 and 117 min. / Street Date December 9, 2021 / Available from Amazon.de /
Starring: Stewart Granger, Pier Angeli (Anna Maria Pierangeli), Anouk Aimée, Stanley Baker, Rossana Podestà, Rik Battaglia,...
- 1/1/2022
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
TV’s 1979 Titanic movie comes to Blu in two versions. We liked it when new but didn’t care for the cut-down theatrical version that hit DVD in 2002. Kino’s disc completes a set of various film versions of the infamous 1912 disaster, and allows us the chance for a Titanic ‘battle of the bands’ — we’ll rate them from several criteria. The filmed-in-England production has a nicely-chosen soap opera cast: David Janssen, Cloris Leachman, Ian Holm, Helen Mirren, Anna Quayle, David Warner, Susan Saint James, Harry Andrews.
S.O.S. Titanic
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1979 / Color / 1:66 widescreen / 102 + 144 min. / Street Date October 13, 2020 / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95
Starring: David Janssen, Cloris Leachman, Ian Holm, Helen Mirren, Anna Quayle, David Warner, Timothy Spall, Susan Saint James, Harry Andrews, Ed Bishop, Jerry Hauser, Aubrey Morris, Norman Rossington, Catherine Byrne, Warren Clarke, Madge Ryan.
Cinematography: Christopher Challis
Film Editor: Rusty Coppleman
Original Music: Howard Blake
Special effects: Wally Veevers,...
S.O.S. Titanic
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1979 / Color / 1:66 widescreen / 102 + 144 min. / Street Date October 13, 2020 / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95
Starring: David Janssen, Cloris Leachman, Ian Holm, Helen Mirren, Anna Quayle, David Warner, Timothy Spall, Susan Saint James, Harry Andrews, Ed Bishop, Jerry Hauser, Aubrey Morris, Norman Rossington, Catherine Byrne, Warren Clarke, Madge Ryan.
Cinematography: Christopher Challis
Film Editor: Rusty Coppleman
Original Music: Howard Blake
Special effects: Wally Veevers,...
- 10/6/2020
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
This thinking man’s epic got left behind with the demise of Road Show movies, which is a shame. A beautifully made, uncompromised story of warring 17th century Germany, it plays like a fine epic, with great performances. Audiences didn’t want to see Michael Caine playing this kind of character in a costume drama that wasn’t glorious escapism. Everybody’s good — it’s a great picture for Omar Sharif and the underappreciated Florinda Bolkan. The (originally) 70mm cinematography looked incredibly good in 1971.
The Last Valley
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1971 / Color / 2:35 widescreen (in release) / 125 min. / Street Date June 23, 2020 / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95
Starring: Michael Caine, Omar Sharif, Florinda Bolkan, Nigel Davenport, Per Oscarsson, Madeline Hinde, Michael Gothard, Brian Blessed, Miguel Alejandro, Christian Roberts, Yorgo Voyagis, Ian Hogg, Vladek Sheybal.
Cinematography: Norman Warwick, John Wilcox
Film Editor: John Bloom
Original Music: John Barry
Visual Effects: Wally Veevers
From the...
The Last Valley
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1971 / Color / 2:35 widescreen (in release) / 125 min. / Street Date June 23, 2020 / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95
Starring: Michael Caine, Omar Sharif, Florinda Bolkan, Nigel Davenport, Per Oscarsson, Madeline Hinde, Michael Gothard, Brian Blessed, Miguel Alejandro, Christian Roberts, Yorgo Voyagis, Ian Hogg, Vladek Sheybal.
Cinematography: Norman Warwick, John Wilcox
Film Editor: John Bloom
Original Music: John Barry
Visual Effects: Wally Veevers
From the...
- 6/9/2020
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
A top horror title gets the Powerhouse Indicator treatment just in time for Halloween — it’s not a domestic release but it plays in our Region A players. You can shuffle the alternate versions like a deck of cards: one basic movie, but six separate encodings: by length, title sequence and aspect ratio. Plus fascinating extras and a killer versions comparison feature.
Night of the Demon / Curse of the Demon
Blu-ray
Powerhouse Indicator
1957 / B&W / 1:66 + 1:75 widescreen / 95 & 82 min. / Limited Edition / Street Date October 22, 2018 / available from Amazon UK / £47,42
Starring: Dana Andrews, Peggy Cummins, Niall MacGinnis, Maurice Denham,
Athene Seyler
Cinematography: Ted Scaife
Production Designer: Ken Adam
Special Effects: George Blackwell, S.D. Onions, Wally Veevers
Film Editor Michael Gordon
Original Music: Clifton Parker
Written by Charles Bennett and Hal E. Chester
from the story Casting the Runes by M. R. James
Produced by Frank Bevis, Hal E. Chester
Directed by Jacques Tourneur...
Night of the Demon / Curse of the Demon
Blu-ray
Powerhouse Indicator
1957 / B&W / 1:66 + 1:75 widescreen / 95 & 82 min. / Limited Edition / Street Date October 22, 2018 / available from Amazon UK / £47,42
Starring: Dana Andrews, Peggy Cummins, Niall MacGinnis, Maurice Denham,
Athene Seyler
Cinematography: Ted Scaife
Production Designer: Ken Adam
Special Effects: George Blackwell, S.D. Onions, Wally Veevers
Film Editor Michael Gordon
Original Music: Clifton Parker
Written by Charles Bennett and Hal E. Chester
from the story Casting the Runes by M. R. James
Produced by Frank Bevis, Hal E. Chester
Directed by Jacques Tourneur...
- 10/20/2018
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
When Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” opened in April 1968, few in the audience understood it, though most would never admit it. All they knew was they had just seen something like they had never seen before.
The Cannes Film Festival will celebrate the 50th anniversary of “2001: A Space Odyssey” with the world premiere of an unrestored 70mm print, introduced by Christopher Nolan, May 12.
Filmmaker James Cameron was no different. At age 14, he took the film in at the Castle Theatre in Toronto — where, as in many cities, it played continuously for two years. “The word used to describe it was ‘mindblowing,’” he recalls. “It was like no cinematic journey like I’d ever seen before.”
Kubrick’s space epic hurled science fiction films far beyond the edges of the galaxy that they had inhabited up to that time. It brought a massive shift in sci-fi storytelling, as...
The Cannes Film Festival will celebrate the 50th anniversary of “2001: A Space Odyssey” with the world premiere of an unrestored 70mm print, introduced by Christopher Nolan, May 12.
Filmmaker James Cameron was no different. At age 14, he took the film in at the Castle Theatre in Toronto — where, as in many cities, it played continuously for two years. “The word used to describe it was ‘mindblowing,’” he recalls. “It was like no cinematic journey like I’d ever seen before.”
Kubrick’s space epic hurled science fiction films far beyond the edges of the galaxy that they had inhabited up to that time. It brought a massive shift in sci-fi storytelling, as...
- 5/11/2018
- by Matt Hurwitz
- Variety Film + TV
This French disc release of the Jacques Tourneur classic gets everything right — including both versions in picture perfect transfers. Devil debunker Dana Andrews locks horns with Niall MacGinnis, a necromancer “who has decoded the Old Book” and can summon a fire & brimstone monster from Hell, no election fraud necessary. Even fans that hate ghost stories love this one — it’s a truly creepy, intelligent highlight of the horror genre.
Night of the Demon
Region A + B Blu-ray + Pal DVD
Wild Side (Fr)
1957 / B&W / 1:66 widescreen / 95 & 82 min. / Street Date November 27, 2013 / Curse of the Demon, Rendez-vous avec la peur / Available from Amazon UK or Foreign Exchange Blu-ray
Starring: Dana Andrews, Peggy Cummins, Niall MacGinnis, Maurice Denham,
Athene Seyler
Cinematography: Ted Scaife
Production Designer: Ken Adam
Special Effects: George Blackwell, S.D. Onions, Wally Veevers
Film Editor Michael Gordon
Original Music: Clifton Parker
Written by Charles Bennett and Hal E. Chester
from the...
Night of the Demon
Region A + B Blu-ray + Pal DVD
Wild Side (Fr)
1957 / B&W / 1:66 widescreen / 95 & 82 min. / Street Date November 27, 2013 / Curse of the Demon, Rendez-vous avec la peur / Available from Amazon UK or Foreign Exchange Blu-ray
Starring: Dana Andrews, Peggy Cummins, Niall MacGinnis, Maurice Denham,
Athene Seyler
Cinematography: Ted Scaife
Production Designer: Ken Adam
Special Effects: George Blackwell, S.D. Onions, Wally Veevers
Film Editor Michael Gordon
Original Music: Clifton Parker
Written by Charles Bennett and Hal E. Chester
from the...
- 5/20/2017
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Padraig Cotter Jan 5, 2017
Michael Mann has all-but-disowned The Keep. But why? And how has the fanbase kept it going?
Every auteur has a black sheep in their filmography. Something which doesn’t gel with their established style, and was rejected by critics and fans upon release. On this front Spielberg has 1941, Oliver Stone has The Hand, Brian De Palma has Wiseguys and so on.
See related Kevin Feige on Black Panther, female superhero movie Avengers: Infinity War – the first set picture Thor: Ragnarok: the first official synopsis released
Michael Mann has the crown jewel of them all. He's a director best known for his precise, beautifully shot thrillers like Heat, Manhunter or The Insider. So how a director famed for his commitment to realism and methodical research ended up crafting a gothic horror movie set during World War II is anyone’s guess.
That’s what happened with 1983’s The Keep,...
Michael Mann has all-but-disowned The Keep. But why? And how has the fanbase kept it going?
Every auteur has a black sheep in their filmography. Something which doesn’t gel with their established style, and was rejected by critics and fans upon release. On this front Spielberg has 1941, Oliver Stone has The Hand, Brian De Palma has Wiseguys and so on.
See related Kevin Feige on Black Panther, female superhero movie Avengers: Infinity War – the first set picture Thor: Ragnarok: the first official synopsis released
Michael Mann has the crown jewel of them all. He's a director best known for his precise, beautifully shot thrillers like Heat, Manhunter or The Insider. So how a director famed for his commitment to realism and methodical research ended up crafting a gothic horror movie set during World War II is anyone’s guess.
That’s what happened with 1983’s The Keep,...
- 11/2/2016
- Den of Geek
A few years ago the editors of Shadowlocked asked me to compile a list of what was initially to be, the ten greatest movie matte paintings of all time. A mere ten selections was too slim by a long shot, so my list stretched considerably to twenty, then thirty and finally a nice round fifty entries. Even with that number I found it wasn’t easy to narrow down a suitably wide ranging showcase of motion picture matte art that best represented the artform. So with that in mind, and due to the surprising popularity of that 2012 Shadowlocked list (which is well worth a visit, here Ed), I’ve assembled a further fifty wonderful examples of this vast, vital and more extensively utilised than you’d imagine – though now sadly ‘dead and buried’ – movie magic.
It would of course be so easy to simply concentrate on the well known, iconic,...
It would of course be so easy to simply concentrate on the well known, iconic,...
- 12/28/2015
- Shadowlocked
The art of the glass shot or matte painting is one which originated very much in the early ‘teens’ of the silent era. Pioneer film maker, director, cameraman and visual effects inventor Norman Dawn is generally acknowledged as the father of the painted matte composite, with other visionary film makers such as Ferdinand Pinney Earle, Walter Hall and Walter Percy Day being heralded as making vast contributions to the trick process in the early 1920’s.
Boiled down, the matte process is one whereby a limited film set may be extended to whatever, or wherever the director’s imagination dictates with the employment of a matte artist. In it’s most pure form, the artist would set up a large plate of clear glass in front of the motion picture camera upon which he would carefully paint in new scenery an ornate period ceiling, snow capped mountains, a Gothic castle or even an alien world.
Boiled down, the matte process is one whereby a limited film set may be extended to whatever, or wherever the director’s imagination dictates with the employment of a matte artist. In it’s most pure form, the artist would set up a large plate of clear glass in front of the motion picture camera upon which he would carefully paint in new scenery an ornate period ceiling, snow capped mountains, a Gothic castle or even an alien world.
- 5/27/2012
- Shadowlocked
The late, great Stanley Kubrick earned notoriety for many things over a nearly 50-year career, chief among them the sluggish pace at which he developed and, most importantly, completed projects. There are a few uncompleted efforts we all know of — Lunatic at Large, Napoleon, and Aryan Papers being the main three — but there are, in reality, any number of half-thought projects he threw around at one point or another. (Not a joke: I would kill your mother to see his Beatles-starring Lord of the Rings adaptation.)
But even us Kubrickphiles don’t have a full grip on just how many stray ideas were kept inside his giant brain. While merely a fun collection that would, in all likelihood, never lead to a feature film whose aspect ratio is debated to the point where you want to put a rattlesnake’s head in your mouth, a new, comprehensive volume on the...
But even us Kubrickphiles don’t have a full grip on just how many stray ideas were kept inside his giant brain. While merely a fun collection that would, in all likelihood, never lead to a feature film whose aspect ratio is debated to the point where you want to put a rattlesnake’s head in your mouth, a new, comprehensive volume on the...
- 2/21/2012
- by jpraup@gmail.com (thefilmstage.com)
- The Film Stage
Here's an interesting and fun list that was recently brought to my attention. Apparently, director Stanley Kubrick kept a list of movie titles that he would have liked to one day turn into a script and possible film. The list he kept was called "Titles In Search Of A Script", and it was revealed by Kubrick’s personal assistant Tony Frewin. There is a bit of added commentary that explains where the titles came from.
Check out the list, and let us know which ones you would like to see get turned into a movie.
I Married An Armenian: Said matter-of-factly to us by a woman publicist. Stanley thought it a great title for a 1940s-style Warner Bros. musical. If Only The FÜHRER Knew!: This was a common saying in Germany in the 1930s whenever something went wrong or somebody did something wrong. Used mockingly with the eyes looking upwards.
Check out the list, and let us know which ones you would like to see get turned into a movie.
I Married An Armenian: Said matter-of-factly to us by a woman publicist. Stanley thought it a great title for a 1940s-style Warner Bros. musical. If Only The FÜHRER Knew!: This was a common saying in Germany in the 1930s whenever something went wrong or somebody did something wrong. Used mockingly with the eyes looking upwards.
- 2/21/2012
- by Venkman
- GeekTyrant
We may think of Kubrick's 2001 as the great grown-up sci-fi film, but many beautiful, thoughtful cosmic adventures came out of the Eastern Bloc too
If we can begin with a sweeping generalisation, American science-fiction movies are usually distinguished by a fast pace that gets faster and ends with an enormous bang. Not all: George Lucas's Thx 1138 and Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey are different. But these are exceptional even within those directors' work: Lucas's other sci-fi films being fast-moving toy-operas, while Kubrick's Doctor Strangelove and Clockwork Orange are relentless in their irony and forward movement.
Partially, I think, this is because Us sci-fi films were born of very low budgets in the 1950s, in the hands of independents such as Jack Arnold. They were often parables about the danger of nuclear testing, which caused men to shrink, or ants to grow giant, or prehistoric sea-beasts to carry off swimsuited girls.
If we can begin with a sweeping generalisation, American science-fiction movies are usually distinguished by a fast pace that gets faster and ends with an enormous bang. Not all: George Lucas's Thx 1138 and Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey are different. But these are exceptional even within those directors' work: Lucas's other sci-fi films being fast-moving toy-operas, while Kubrick's Doctor Strangelove and Clockwork Orange are relentless in their irony and forward movement.
Partially, I think, this is because Us sci-fi films were born of very low budgets in the 1950s, in the hands of independents such as Jack Arnold. They were often parables about the danger of nuclear testing, which caused men to shrink, or ants to grow giant, or prehistoric sea-beasts to carry off swimsuited girls.
- 6/30/2011
- by Alex Cox
- The Guardian - Film News
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