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April 30 marks the 50th anniversary of the fall of Saigon, the capture of the capital of South Vietnam by the Communist North Vietnamese army that marked the official end of the Vietnam War — a conflict that stretched two long decades and cost millions of lives. Approximately 60,000 of them were U.S. soldiers. Among the survivors was director Oliver Stone, whose combat injuries earned him multiple decorations, including a Bronze Star with “V” Device for valor, Purple Heart with Oak Leaf Cluster (to denote two wounds), an Air Medal and the Combat Infantryman Badge. Stone — who through landmark films like 1986’s Platoon and 1989’s Born on the Fourth of July allowed the country to process the trauma of war — reflected on his time in Vietnam, his conversion to pacifism upon his return to the U.S. and his thoughts on similar endless and deadly conflicts currently plaguing the planet.

I went...

Tom Cruise was nominated for four Oscars and three of the nods were for his acting performances. It is sad to see his losing streak at the Academy Awards, especially since he bagged the Golden Globes for these three roles.

There were also a couple of other performances from the actor that truly deserved all the recognition in the world.

Tom Cruise as Les Grossman in Tropic Thunder | Credits: DreamWorks/Paramount Pictures

There was an accusation that Cruise was intentionally pushed out of the competition one time. Fans hope that his upcoming project with Alejandro G. Iñárritu will finally break his losing streak. Iñárritu had a hand in Leonardo DiCaprio’s first Oscar win after he was snubbed of the award for years.

5. Born on the Fourth of July (1989)

Oliver Stone, who is often associated with controversial films centered around American politics, directed this masterpiece starring Tom Cruise. The Jack...

Quick Links Tommy Lee Jones Was Co-Leading Bigger Studio Films The Late '90s Were Tommy Lee Jones' Heyday

Starting as a scene-stealing supporting actor in the 1970s, Tommy Lee Jones has been an asset to the film industry for a long time now. And, when 1980's Coal Miner's Daughter was released, it became clear that the gruff southerner had what it took to be a leading man. Yet, most of his movies throughout the '80s failed to truly take off, whether he was playing someone kindhearted or nefarious, as seen in the underrated Stormy Monday (1988).

Equally adept at playing heroes and villains, Jones started to really see his profile expand throughout the '90s. For instance, his role in the ensemble piece JFK was one of the film's most notable, and he even managed to steal a Steven Seagal movie in 1992 with Under Siege. In other words, he wasn't leading those films,...

Lydia Deetz, her stepmother Delia Deetz, and her daughter Astrid stand over a casket, the burial services in progress. We can barely make out who the funeral is for but there he is on the headstone: Charles Deetz. While Charles was once part of the Beetlejuice sequel when the ghost with the most was to “go Hawaiian”, he was written entirely out of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice…for reasons that will soon be obvious.

Despite the original’s and sequel’s dalliances with the afterlife, Jeffrey Jones will not be in the Beetlejuice sequel– or pretty much any other legitimate movie – following his disgraceful tumble from his small but reliable spotlight. Perfectly fitting into prestigious period pieces and goofball funny flicks. Jones is a Golden Globe nominee with consistent work – a mix of villain, comedic and at times patriarchal roles, Jeffrey Jones went from Ferris Bueller baddie to Who’s Your Caddy?...

An American filmmaker, Steven Spielberg has several high-quality and well-known films under his belt, like Jaws (1975) and Jurassic Park (1993). He's dabbled in various genres throughout the years, making several historical dramas and even a few fantasy films. He's arguably the greatest director to ever work in science fiction, thanks to movies like Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), Minority Report (2002), and more.

But from 1941 (1979) and Empire of the Sun (1987) to Saving Private Ryan (1998) and War Horse (2011), this director has also mastered the art of war films. And while he's the most popular name to do so — he's arguably the most famous filmmaker, in general — plenty of other directors throughout cinema history have perfected the war genre. Their work is entirely worth noting before delving into the greatness of Steven Spielberg.

Other Directors Known for Their War Films

Off the bat, there's one name most prominently worth...

Until the 1980’s, Hollywood had a strange relationship with the Vietnam War. While the war was actually being fought, movies, typically, did not depict the war unless they were something like John Wayne’s The Green Berets. If the war was dealt with, usually it was done metaphorically, or by using another war as a stand-in, such as what happened with 1970’s Mash. This started to change after the war finally ended, with the late seventies seeing the release of three major films – The Deer Hunter, Apocalypse Now and Coming Home, Despite their popularity, during the first half of the eighties, when the war was dealt with on-screen it was typically as wish fulfillment, where action stars such as Chuck Norris and Sylvester Stallone single-handedly refought the war, and won, to the delight of audiences.

That all changed when Oliver Stone made Platoon. For the first time, a Vietnam War...

Platoon and Natural Born Killers director Oliver Stone has slammed the action featured in John Wick: Chapter 4, citing his distaste for its excessive use of video game-like violence. An often controversial figure in Hollywood circles, the multiple Academy Award-winning director, producer, and screenwriter has spent much of his career focusing on contentious American political issues. A former infantry soldier who served during the Vietnam War, many of his own wartime experiences would go on to inform his films Platoon, Born of the Fourth of July and Heaven & Earth.

During a recent interview with Variety, Stone expressed his frustration with many of cinema’s pop-culture-driven franchises, zeroing in on the recent John Wick 4 as an example. Calling the film “disgusting beyond belief,” the veteran filmmaker went on to deride the Keanu Reeves-led action movies as being out of touch with reality. Check out his comments below:

“I...

The 1990s were a different time in Hollywood, and it’s worth wondering how one of the most controversial movies ever made became both a box office hit and cultural touchstone. Indeed, the lurid American crime spree depicted in Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers has remained a haunting fever dream lodged firmly in the collective consciousness over the past three decades despite public outcries and attempts to ban the film. The themes of Americans’ obsession with violence as magnified through mass media have only gotten more topical since the movie’s release, but the production itself was grueling and the movie elicited major post-release outrage.

Let’s get all riled up and find out Wtf Happened to this Movie!

Natural Born Killers came from a screenplay written by Quentin Tarantino, with a story focusing on a man and woman who get married and go on a cross-country killing spree.

Juliette Lewis recalls the initial backlash she faced due to her role in Natural Born Killers, pointing out a hypocritical double standard. Based on an original screenplay written by Quentin Tarantino, the 1994 Oliver Stone film features Woody Harrelson and Lewis as Mickey and Mallory Knox, a pair of mass murderers whose killing spree becomes glorified by the media. Upon its original release, Natural Born Killers became a source of significant controversy, with many pundits arguing the film encouraged and inspired acts of real-life violence.

Lewis spoke with The Wrap during the Yellowjackets season 2 premiere about her time on the controversial film. Lewis revealed that she is “floored” by the positive reception she is experiencing in her latest role because of the negative feedback she got from playing Mallory in the ‘90s. She also suggested that while critics largely accepted that her co-star Harrelson was playing a role, she was viewed differently.

David Brenner, the Oscar-winning film editor who worked on a string of blockbusters as well as nine films for director Oliver Stone, died on Thursday. He was 59. The news was confirmed by Avatar producer Jon Landau, with whom Brenner had been working on the sequels.

Landau called Brenner’s editing skills “extraordinary,” but said what was most impressive about him was “his remarkable compassion for others and the love and commitment he had for his family.”

Over three decades in the film business, Brenner worked with top directors on a remarkable number of big-budget hits, including Independence Day, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, Transformers: Age of Extinction, Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, Justice League (both versions) and the Avatar sequels.

He first worked with Stone on 1986’s Salvador as an assistant editor. That relationship grew through Platoon and Wall Street until Brenner moved up to co-editor — with Joe Hutshing — on Talk Radio.

David Brenner, an Oscar-winning film editor who worked on dozens of films including “Justice League,” “Independence Day” and “Born on the Fourth of July,” died on Thursday, Variety has confirmed. He was 59.

“He was an extraordinary editor and a loving, compassionate family man,” the American Cinema Editors, of which Brenner was a member, said in a statement. “In an effort to support David’s family during this terrible time, Lightstorm Entertainment has created this GoFundMe account. More important than any financial assistance this may provide, it’s an opportunity to let his wife Amber and his children Annie, Haider, and Sasha know how many other lives David touched.”

In 1990, Brenner won the Academy Award for film editing with director Oliver Stone’s “Born on the Fourth of July,” starring Tom Cruise. He shared the award with editor John Hutshing. Stone recruited Brenner to edit nine of his films, including “Platoon,...

I did a double take when I saw the headline myself. Despite only launching a week ago, a not inconsiderable number of titles will be leaving HBO Max at the end of June. Logically, distribution contracts that were already running out weren’t going to stop running out just because Warner launched their new service, so you best get on these quick.

Here’s the list of all the movies leaving HBO Max on June 30th:

The Abyss

Akeelah and the Bee

American Wedding

An Ideal Husband

Arthur

Asylum

The Beverly Hillbillies

The Big Green

Blindspotting

Bye Bye, Love

Empire of the Sun

Glengarry Glen Ross

Grandma’s Boy

Great Expectations

A Handful of Dust

Head Full of Honey

Heaven & Earth

Hellboy

The Hoax

I Love You Phillip Morris

Indignation

Jiminy Glick in Lalawood

Jobs

Johnny English

Keeping Up with the Steins

Kin

Les Miserables

Hellboy Gallery 1 of 6

Click to...

“Natural Born Killers” arrived in multiplexes in 1994 like a molotov cocktail. Despite being dropped by Warner Bros. into the late-August graveyard of release dates, Oliver Stone’s serial-killer satire ended up at number one at the U.S. box office, and has remained a cult favorite since debuting 25 years ago.

As part of Los Angeles’ Beyond Fest, the film will screen in 35mm, in its unrated version, Tuesday night, with director Oliver Stone in attendance at the Egyptian Theatre. In a recent telephone interview with IndieWire, the notoriously prickly director insisted on keeping the Q&a on topic with “Natural Born Killers.” With regards to his upcoming Hollywood memoir slated for 2020, ill-received comments about anti-gay propaganda in Putin’s Russia, or Stone’s relationship to Putin as evinced by his 2017 documentary “The Putin Interviews”: Stone’s answer? “I don’t want to talk about that.”

Okay, then. Shocking to...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSRip TornThe great American actor and comedian Rip Torn has died. The New York Times gathers his eclectic accomplishments as a performer with his many personal and artistic eccentricities in their obit. The first poster for Hirokazu Kore-eda's The Truth, starring Catherine Deneuve as a pioneering French actress, set to publish her confessional memoir, and Juliette Binoche as her screenwriter daughter. Recommended VIEWINGAn ominous teaser for Akira director Katsuhiro Otomo's forthcoming third feature, Orbital Era. The film follows a group of young boys surviving in a space colony as it undergoes construction. The Royal Ocean Film Society analyzes the design philosophy of filmmaker and graphic designer Saul Bass in this guided visual tour of his landmark film posters.The divisive, baroque Italian auteur Paolo Sorrentino is back with a crime epic concerning the inner...

At a press event in London on Saturday, King Crimson manager David Singleton announced that the band’s entire studio-album catalog will soon launch on Spotify. Describing the move as part of an “outreach year” for the band, Singleton said the albums are set to begin streaming in time for the avant-rock legends’ upcoming 50th anniversary tour.

Streaming holdouts for years, King Crimson began launching select titles on Spotify in 2017. In June of that year, they posted two live releases by their current three-drummer incarnation: multi-disc set Radical Action to...

Mark A. Livolsi, a respected film editor who collaborated with filmmakers including Cameron Crowe and Oliver Stone and edited “The Devil Wears Prada” and “The Blind Side” died September 23 in Pasadena, Calif. He was 56. The cause of death is not yet known.

Livolsi’s most recent project was editing the upcoming 2019 live-action remake of “The Lion King,” starring Donald Glover. He had also worked with director Jon Favreau on the remake of animated film “The Jungle Book” in 2016.

He worked several times with Crowe, editing “Vanilla Sky,” “We Bought a Zoo” and “Elizabethtown” in addition to cult classic “Almost Famous,” and worked on “Heaven & Earth” and “Wall Street” for Stone.

In addition to “The Devil Wears Prada,” he worked with director David Frankel on “Marley and Me” and “The Big Year.”

Livolsi was born in Mt. Lebanon, New Jersey. He graduated from Penn State University with a degree in...

Mark Livolsi, the in-demand film editor who worked on features that included Wedding Crashers, The Devil Wears Prada, The Blind Side and the upcoming reimagining of The Lion King, has died. He was 56.

Livolsi died unexpectedly in his Pasadena apartment on Sept. 23, his wife, Maria, told The Hollywood Reporter. The cause of death is not yet known.

Livolsi collaborated with directors Cameron Crowe on Almost Famous (2000), Vanilla Sky (2001), Elizabethtown (2005) and We Bought a Zoo (2011) and with Oliver Stone on Wall Street (1987) and Heaven & Earth (1993).

A four-time Eddie Award nominee, Livolsi edited the remake of The Jungle Book (2016) and The Lion King (2019) for ...

Mark Livolsi, the in-demand film editor who worked on features that included Wedding Crashers, The Devil Wears Prada, The Blind Side and the upcoming reimagining of The Lion King, has died. He was 56.

Livolsi died unexpectedly in his Pasadena apartment on Sept. 23, his wife, Maria, told The Hollywood Reporter. The cause of death is not yet known.

Livolsi collaborated with directors Cameron Crowe on Almost Famous (2000), Vanilla Sky (2001), Elizabethtown (2005) and We Bought a Zoo (2011) and with Oliver Stone on Wall Street (1987) and Heaven & Earth (1993).

A four-time Eddie Award nominee, Livolsi edited the remake of The Jungle Book (2016) and The Lion King (2019) for ...

Hiep Thi Le, the actress known for her acclaimed role in Oliver Stone’s 1994 film Heaven and Earth opposite Tommy Lee Jones, died December 19 of complications from stomach cancer, Deadline has learned. She was 46. Born in Da Nang, Vietnam, an 8-year-old Le and her younger sister were put on a fishing boat by her mother in 1979 to try and reunite with their father in Hong Kong. After a difficult journey, they eventually met him in there and ultimately reunited with her…...