John Frankenheimer’s 52 Pick-Up is one of the better of the willfully decadent American thrillers from the 1980s that are preoccupied with drugs, guns, strippers, prostitutes, money, and the men who kill each other attempting to obtain them. Though this film isn’t generally mentioned in discussions of the adaptations of Elmore Leonard’s work, the crime master’s imprint is felt on the scenes that routinely threaten to elevate 52 Pick-Up from a sleazy, well-paced time-killer to an authentically good movie. Leonard’s sense of humor is under-emphasized, but his satirical notion of crime as a business beholden to the same petty political trivialities as more “legitimate” enterprises is explicitly accounted for.
When self-made industrialist Harry Mitchell (Roy Scheider) is blackmailed by a couple of vicious hoods, he remains unflappable while amusingly entering into negotiations with them over the terms of his exploitation. Though this is never fully acknowledged in Frankenheimer’s film,...
When self-made industrialist Harry Mitchell (Roy Scheider) is blackmailed by a couple of vicious hoods, he remains unflappable while amusingly entering into negotiations with them over the terms of his exploitation. Though this is never fully acknowledged in Frankenheimer’s film,...
- 8/1/2023
- by Chuck Bowen
- Slant Magazine
In a bucolic setting in rural Sweden, a handcrafted log cabin nestles within a grove, home to a family of four. The surrounding forest supplied the wood, the amber beams fastened with dowels, not nails. But what’s most remarkable about the dwelling is something else—it’s built inside a greenhouse.
Sweden’s winters are frigid, but within the temperate space, plants, flowers, vegetables and even people thrive, cocooned in a Mediterranean climate.
“A special silence [reigns] inside,” an architect says of the home, “that’s very beneficial for the mind, for the soul.”
The Nature House, built by Anders Solvarm, is just one of the stunning and innovative dwellings explored in the Apple TV+ series Home, a contender for Emmy recognition as Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series.
“It’s pretty awesome to be living in a greenhouse,” comments filmmaker Doug Pray. He directed two of the episodes of Home,...
Sweden’s winters are frigid, but within the temperate space, plants, flowers, vegetables and even people thrive, cocooned in a Mediterranean climate.
“A special silence [reigns] inside,” an architect says of the home, “that’s very beneficial for the mind, for the soul.”
The Nature House, built by Anders Solvarm, is just one of the stunning and innovative dwellings explored in the Apple TV+ series Home, a contender for Emmy recognition as Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series.
“It’s pretty awesome to be living in a greenhouse,” comments filmmaker Doug Pray. He directed two of the episodes of Home,...
- 6/26/2020
- by Matthew Carey
- Deadline Film + TV
Smack dab in the middle of his fourth decade as a filmmaker, auteur John Frankenheimer would release what would stand as one of his last notable titles with 52 Pick-Up in 1986. The 80s were not really kind to the veteran director, having knocked out one of his silliest titles in 1979 with the environmental horror film Prophecy prior to helming some other oddities, like the Scott Glenn/Toshiro Mifune film The Challenge (1982), the Michael Caine thriller The Holcraft Experiment (1985) and then Dead Bang (1989) with Don Johnson. But it would be his adaptation of this Elmore Leonard novel, a black mail neo noir that really stands out amongst his later works.
Harry Mitchell (Roy Scheider) is a Los Angeles entrepreneur. He’s got a great life, lots of money, a beautiful wife (Ann-Margret) about to enter into the political arena, and a sprawling home. But when three criminals led by pornographer Alan Raimy...
Harry Mitchell (Roy Scheider) is a Los Angeles entrepreneur. He’s got a great life, lots of money, a beautiful wife (Ann-Margret) about to enter into the political arena, and a sprawling home. But when three criminals led by pornographer Alan Raimy...
- 3/10/2015
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
By Darren Allison, Soundtrack Editor
Perseverance Records to attend huge soundtrack signing event
Our friend Robin Esterhammer of Perseverance Records will be hosting a signing event at Dark Delicacies of Burbank at 2pm on July 28th. The list of composers is certainly looking impressive and names are still being added.
Confirmed already are: John Debney, Richard M. Sherman (Chitty Chitty Bang Bang), Elia Cmiral (The Deaths of Ian Stone, Journey to the End of the Night), Edwin Wendler (Escape), John Massari (The Puppet Master Soundtracks Box, 5 CD box), Brian Ralston (Crooked Arrows), Dennis Dreith (The Punisher, Gag, Creep Van), Craig Safan (Remo Williams, Fade to Black, Circus, Lesser Known Favorites), Donald Rubinstein (Martin, Pollock, Knightriders), Romina Arena (Morricone Uncovered), Peter Bernstein (The Puppet Master Soundtracks Box), Mader (The Wedding Banquet, Cinemusica), Phillip Lambro (Chinatown - The Rejected Score, Crypt of the Living Dead, Murph the Surf, The Film Music of Phillip Lambro), Richard Band (Mutant,...
Perseverance Records to attend huge soundtrack signing event
Our friend Robin Esterhammer of Perseverance Records will be hosting a signing event at Dark Delicacies of Burbank at 2pm on July 28th. The list of composers is certainly looking impressive and names are still being added.
Confirmed already are: John Debney, Richard M. Sherman (Chitty Chitty Bang Bang), Elia Cmiral (The Deaths of Ian Stone, Journey to the End of the Night), Edwin Wendler (Escape), John Massari (The Puppet Master Soundtracks Box, 5 CD box), Brian Ralston (Crooked Arrows), Dennis Dreith (The Punisher, Gag, Creep Van), Craig Safan (Remo Williams, Fade to Black, Circus, Lesser Known Favorites), Donald Rubinstein (Martin, Pollock, Knightriders), Romina Arena (Morricone Uncovered), Peter Bernstein (The Puppet Master Soundtracks Box), Mader (The Wedding Banquet, Cinemusica), Phillip Lambro (Chinatown - The Rejected Score, Crypt of the Living Dead, Murph the Surf, The Film Music of Phillip Lambro), Richard Band (Mutant,...
- 6/14/2013
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
If there are any filmmakers who’ve worked their way through record stores as much as folks like Quentin Tarantino or even Wes Anderson, it would have to be John Hughes and Allan Moyle. So perhaps it’s no real surprise that on annual Record Store Day, where you can come out and support your local independent record stores on April 21st this year, there will be soundtrack reissues from both filmmakers.
First is Hughes’ “The Breakfast Club,” which will surely find many record enthusiasts doing some Judd Hirsch-style fist pumping as they pick up their all-white 12-inch vinyl pressing of the album. It’s hard to capture an entire mood of a film with a single soundtrack, especially when that film lingers on a dreary Saturday spent in detention with a few high school students looking to find themselves like in “The Breakfast Club,” but between the seminal...
First is Hughes’ “The Breakfast Club,” which will surely find many record enthusiasts doing some Judd Hirsch-style fist pumping as they pick up their all-white 12-inch vinyl pressing of the album. It’s hard to capture an entire mood of a film with a single soundtrack, especially when that film lingers on a dreary Saturday spent in detention with a few high school students looking to find themselves like in “The Breakfast Club,” but between the seminal...
- 4/6/2012
- by Benjamin Wright
- The Playlist
Chicago – Back in 1993, Bullfrog Productions developed a game called “Syndicate”; an isometric real-time tactical game where the player is in charge of a corporation that sends cyborg agents on deadly missions. The player’s goal was to lead his agents on missions to benefit their own syndicate corporation and harm competing syndicates.
Video Game Rating: 4.0/5.0
Now, nearly 20 years later, Starbreeze Studio has reimagined the franchise with the new first-person shooter “Syndicate.” Putting you on the front lines of battle rather than ordering a team from a distance, Starbreeze took a major risk by recreating the franchise into a shooter. The first risk was alienating the players that were already fans of the franchise. The second risk was being able to create a shooter that could stand-out and compete with all the other big name shooters that are available currently in the gaming world. While it is not a monster success,...
Video Game Rating: 4.0/5.0
Now, nearly 20 years later, Starbreeze Studio has reimagined the franchise with the new first-person shooter “Syndicate.” Putting you on the front lines of battle rather than ordering a team from a distance, Starbreeze took a major risk by recreating the franchise into a shooter. The first risk was alienating the players that were already fans of the franchise. The second risk was being able to create a shooter that could stand-out and compete with all the other big name shooters that are available currently in the gaming world. While it is not a monster success,...
- 2/29/2012
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
Welcome to the second installment of Blogomatic3000′s soundtrack round-up, this time focusing on the scores of Chris Ridenhour and in particular his work with mockbuster kings The Asylum.
Chris Ridenhour moved to Los Angeles in the late 90’s to work for film composer/orchestrator Todd Hayen and his wife Janice. During his tenure with the Hayens, Chris worked on the scores of Mark Isham, Lalo Schifrin, Gary Chang, John Debney, Shirley Walker, and many others.
in 2007 Ridenhour began composing for the production company The Asylum — with things taking off after he composed the music for Journey to the Center of the Earth in 2008. Since that time he has worked on about twenty of their films, including the widely popular Megashark vs Giant Octopus, Princess of Mars, Mega Piranha, Dragonquest,The Hitchhiker, and Transmorphers.
Ridenhour’s Asylum oeuvre is chronicled on three CD’s from Moviescore Media: The Land That Time Forgot...
Chris Ridenhour moved to Los Angeles in the late 90’s to work for film composer/orchestrator Todd Hayen and his wife Janice. During his tenure with the Hayens, Chris worked on the scores of Mark Isham, Lalo Schifrin, Gary Chang, John Debney, Shirley Walker, and many others.
in 2007 Ridenhour began composing for the production company The Asylum — with things taking off after he composed the music for Journey to the Center of the Earth in 2008. Since that time he has worked on about twenty of their films, including the widely popular Megashark vs Giant Octopus, Princess of Mars, Mega Piranha, Dragonquest,The Hitchhiker, and Transmorphers.
Ridenhour’s Asylum oeuvre is chronicled on three CD’s from Moviescore Media: The Land That Time Forgot...
- 3/31/2011
- by Phil
- Nerdly
Sam's Lake is the directorial debut of Andrew C. Erin. Sam's Lake is a suspenseful horror film / slasher starring Sandrine Holt, William Gregory Lee, Fay Masterson and Stephen Bishop that incorporates elements of tall tales, urban legends, and atmospheric photography. Sam's Lake takes place at a lake in an isolated area where an escaped psychiatric patient makes his way through the surrounding wilderness, back to his childhood home, killing his family in their sleep, then runs into the woods never to be found. Many years later the horrifying massacre has turned legend as disappearances haunt the surrounding towns. Sam Fay Masterson, a young woman who, every summer, returns home to the secluded lakeside cottage where she grew up, reconnects with her traditions, old friends and memories of the past. Unfortunately for her and her old friends, this psychiatric patient has returned back to his childhood home. Here's what Andrew C. Erin...
- 11/5/2010
- by Big Daddy aka Brandon Sites
- Big Daddy Horror Reviews - Interviews
I’m extremely happy that the fine fiends at Fango have given me this tiny corner of the world weird web to rant about whatever slice of cinema shakes my creepy tree. Who else would allow me to throw down truth about director John Frankenheimer (The Manchurian Candidate)’s 1996 adaptation of H.G. Wells influential science fiction/horror shocker The Island Of Doctor Moreau, a movie loathed by most, forgotten by many, unseen by legions and only admired by a few filmy freaks like myself?
No one, I says.
So on that note, the picture I’ve opted to muse on this week is indeed that very same beast-man riddled oddity, one of iconic actor Marlon Brando and legendary director Frankenheimer’s final features . What a way to go…and I’m being only mildly ironic when I say that.
If you’ve read the book or seen any of the...
No one, I says.
So on that note, the picture I’ve opted to muse on this week is indeed that very same beast-man riddled oddity, one of iconic actor Marlon Brando and legendary director Frankenheimer’s final features . What a way to go…and I’m being only mildly ironic when I say that.
If you’ve read the book or seen any of the...
- 4/28/2009
- Fangoria
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