Larry McMurtry, who won an Oscar for penning Brokeback Mountain, earned a nomination for The Last Picture Show and authored books that spawned Emmy winner Lonesome Dove and Best Picture Oscar winner Terms of Endearment, died Thursday of heart failure. He was 84. The news was confirmed to media outlets by family spokeswoman and 42West CEO Amanda Lundberg.
McMurtry — whose son is the singer-songwriter James McMurtry — won the Pulitzer Prize for writing Lonesome Done, which became a popular 1989 CBS miniseries and spawned a sequel and a syndicated series, and was awarded the 2014 National Humanities Medal by President Obama.
McMurtry’s 1975 book Terms of Endearment became the 1983 film from writer-director-producer James L. Brooks. Starring MacLaine, Debra Winger, Jack Nicholson, Danny DeVito, Jeff Daniels and John Lithgow, the pic was a commercial smash and led all films with 11 Oscar noms. Along with Best Pictrure, it earned Academy Awards for Shirley MacLaine, Nicholson and...
McMurtry — whose son is the singer-songwriter James McMurtry — won the Pulitzer Prize for writing Lonesome Done, which became a popular 1989 CBS miniseries and spawned a sequel and a syndicated series, and was awarded the 2014 National Humanities Medal by President Obama.
McMurtry’s 1975 book Terms of Endearment became the 1983 film from writer-director-producer James L. Brooks. Starring MacLaine, Debra Winger, Jack Nicholson, Danny DeVito, Jeff Daniels and John Lithgow, the pic was a commercial smash and led all films with 11 Oscar noms. Along with Best Pictrure, it earned Academy Awards for Shirley MacLaine, Nicholson and...
- 3/26/2021
- by Erik Pedersen
- Deadline Film + TV
Larry McMurtry, the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer whose novels, such as “The Last Picture Show,” “Terms of Endearment” and “Lonesome Dove,” were turned into award-winning films and who won an Oscar for co-adapting “Brokeback Mountain,” has died, according to The New York Times. He was 84.
A spokesperson for McMurtry’s family confirmed his death to The New York Times. No cause of death was given.
McMurtry and his frequent collaborator Diana Ossana penned “Brokeback Mountain” based on Annie Proulx’s short story, taking the Western genre in which McMurtry so frequently worked in a new direction: a gay love story. The film saw this theme welcomed by large mainstream audiences for the first time and also won the Oscar for best director and was nominated for best picture.
McMurtry also shared a 1973 Oscar nomination with Peter Bogdanovich for the adaptation of McMurtry’s novel “The Last Picture Show.”
With William D.
A spokesperson for McMurtry’s family confirmed his death to The New York Times. No cause of death was given.
McMurtry and his frequent collaborator Diana Ossana penned “Brokeback Mountain” based on Annie Proulx’s short story, taking the Western genre in which McMurtry so frequently worked in a new direction: a gay love story. The film saw this theme welcomed by large mainstream audiences for the first time and also won the Oscar for best director and was nominated for best picture.
McMurtry also shared a 1973 Oscar nomination with Peter Bogdanovich for the adaptation of McMurtry’s novel “The Last Picture Show.”
With William D.
- 3/26/2021
- by Carmel Dagan
- Variety Film + TV
Hey,Riverdale and Luke Perry fans. Today is a very sad day as we've just learned that the current Riverdale Fred Andrews and former Beverly Hills 90210 Dylan McKay star Luke Perry did not recover from the massive stroke that he suffered this past Wednesday morning, February 27, 2019. According to the folks over at TMZ, Luke sadly passed away earlier today, March 4, 2019 at St. Joseph's Hospital in Burbank, California. TMZ was able to get some information from Luke's rep. The rep told them that Luke was surrounded by his children Jack and Sophie, fiance Wendy Madison Bauer, ex-wife Minnie Sharp, mother Ann Bennett, step-father Steve Bennett, brother Tom Perry, sister Amy Coder, and other close family and friends. TMZ supplied some other details about what happened during Luke's stroke. He was responsive and talking when the EMTs arrived to take him to the hospital. However afterwards, his condition deteriorated. Luke's rep said...
- 3/4/2019
- by Andre Braddox
- OnTheFlix
With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options — not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves — we’ve taken it upon ourselves to highlight the titles that have recently hit platforms. Every week, one will be able to see the cream of the crop (or perhaps some simply interesting picks) of streaming titles (new and old) across platforms such as Netflix, iTunes, Amazon, and more (note: U.S. only). Check out our rundown for this week’s selections below.
The Blackcoat’s Daughter (Osgood Perkins)
Osgood Perkins’ debut feature, The Blackcoat’s Daughter – originally known as February at its premiere at Tiff last year – is a stylish exercise in dread, teasing out its slow-drip horrors with precision, and building a deliriously evil presence that hovers along the fringes. However, there’s a thin line between mystery and vagueness in storytelling, and it becomes difficult to decide where a...
The Blackcoat’s Daughter (Osgood Perkins)
Osgood Perkins’ debut feature, The Blackcoat’s Daughter – originally known as February at its premiere at Tiff last year – is a stylish exercise in dread, teasing out its slow-drip horrors with precision, and building a deliriously evil presence that hovers along the fringes. However, there’s a thin line between mystery and vagueness in storytelling, and it becomes difficult to decide where a...
- 3/31/2017
- by The Film Stage
- The Film Stage
Aliya tackles Steven Bach's account of the making of 1980 epic Western Heaven's Gate in this month's non-fiction film book club...
When I think of big business in the United States at the end of the 1970s I think of something out of Dallas or Dynasty: deals being brokered over chunky telephones or long lunches; penthouse offices with granite desks and shag-pile carpets; male executives with heart conditions, bleeding ulcers, and good-looking secretaries. This is absolutely the world you step into when you read Final Cut. The first thing to say about the book is that feeling of glee you get from that realisation that your mental image of Hollywood at that time turns out to be true.
Steven Bach was the Senior Vice President of United Artists at the moment when Michael Cimino became the hottest director in Hollywood. His film The Deer Hunter (1978) was proclaimed a masterpiece by many and won five Oscars,...
When I think of big business in the United States at the end of the 1970s I think of something out of Dallas or Dynasty: deals being brokered over chunky telephones or long lunches; penthouse offices with granite desks and shag-pile carpets; male executives with heart conditions, bleeding ulcers, and good-looking secretaries. This is absolutely the world you step into when you read Final Cut. The first thing to say about the book is that feeling of glee you get from that realisation that your mental image of Hollywood at that time turns out to be true.
Steven Bach was the Senior Vice President of United Artists at the moment when Michael Cimino became the hottest director in Hollywood. His film The Deer Hunter (1978) was proclaimed a masterpiece by many and won five Oscars,...
- 11/17/2014
- by louisamellor
- Den of Geek
Steven Soderbergh is retired. He's won an Oscar. He has made critically loved hits like Erin Brockovich, Ocean's Eleven and Magic Mike. He went out on top. So what's he up to now? Just re-cutting one of the worst films of all time for funsies. The Verge has discovered that Steven Soderbergh has not only watched writer-director Michael Cimino's 219-minute drama about the 1890 Johnson County War, Heaven's Gate, but also that he has re-edited the lengthy, loathed feature to be less than half it's original running time. Then he uploaded his cut so you can watch it for free. Soderbergh has titled his version Heaven's Gate: The Butcher's Cut, and posted it on his blog, Extension 765. Using one of his alternate names, Mary Ann Bernard, he explains his inspiration for this project as obsession, writing: " As a dedicated cinema fan, I was obsessed with Heaven's Gate from the...
- 4/29/2014
- cinemablend.com
Top 10 Ryan Lambie 27 Mar 2014 - 05:42
We look back at one of the most infamous film productions in history. Here are 10 stories of excess from Michael Cimino's Heaven's Gate...
In 1979, director Michael Cimino was at the height of his powers. Having just won five Oscars for his finely-honed, controversial Vietnam film The Deer Hunter, Cimino suddenly found himself in the enviable position of being able to make just about any project he wanted. The film he chose to pursue was based on the Johnson County War, a moment in 19th century American history where the conflict between settlers and wealthy landowners was at its height.
United Artists, with a reputation for fostering creativity and Oscar-winning films, eagerly agreed to make what would become Heaven's Gate, and set aside a generous budget of $11.6m to make it. Anxious to have the film in cinemas by the winter of 1979, making it legible...
We look back at one of the most infamous film productions in history. Here are 10 stories of excess from Michael Cimino's Heaven's Gate...
In 1979, director Michael Cimino was at the height of his powers. Having just won five Oscars for his finely-honed, controversial Vietnam film The Deer Hunter, Cimino suddenly found himself in the enviable position of being able to make just about any project he wanted. The film he chose to pursue was based on the Johnson County War, a moment in 19th century American history where the conflict between settlers and wealthy landowners was at its height.
United Artists, with a reputation for fostering creativity and Oscar-winning films, eagerly agreed to make what would become Heaven's Gate, and set aside a generous budget of $11.6m to make it. Anxious to have the film in cinemas by the winter of 1979, making it legible...
- 3/26/2014
- by ryanlambie
- Den of Geek
(Michael Cimino, 1980; Second Sight, 15)
This important double-disc set contains two essential films. This is the first time Michael Cimino's epic 216-minute western has been available for domestic viewing in Britain. The second disc contains a shortened version of Michael Epstein's documentary feature Final Cut: The Making and Unmaking of Heaven's Gate. Beautifully restored on DVD and Blu-ray, Heaven's Gate is one of the finest westerns ever made. It's a measured, magisterial account of the Johnson County War in 1892 Wyoming, when the powerful stock growers' association brought in a vast posse of assassins to destroy the wave of European immigrants they saw as threatening their monopoly of grazing land.
The film is seen largely through the eyes of an alcoholic aristocrat belonging to the stock growers (John Hurt) and two class enemies: a Harvard-educated sheriff who sides with the settlers (Kris Kristofferson) and an immigrant hired gun working for...
This important double-disc set contains two essential films. This is the first time Michael Cimino's epic 216-minute western has been available for domestic viewing in Britain. The second disc contains a shortened version of Michael Epstein's documentary feature Final Cut: The Making and Unmaking of Heaven's Gate. Beautifully restored on DVD and Blu-ray, Heaven's Gate is one of the finest westerns ever made. It's a measured, magisterial account of the Johnson County War in 1892 Wyoming, when the powerful stock growers' association brought in a vast posse of assassins to destroy the wave of European immigrants they saw as threatening their monopoly of grazing land.
The film is seen largely through the eyes of an alcoholic aristocrat belonging to the stock growers (John Hurt) and two class enemies: a Harvard-educated sheriff who sides with the settlers (Kris Kristofferson) and an immigrant hired gun working for...
- 12/8/2013
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
(Michael Cimino, 1980; Second Sight, 15)
This important double-disc set contains two essential films. This is the first time Michael Cimino's epic 216-minute western has been available for domestic viewing in Britain. The second disc contains a shortened version of Michael Epstein's documentary feature Final Cut: The Making and Unmaking of Heaven's Gate. Beautifully restored on DVD and Blu-ray, Heaven's Gate is one of the finest westerns ever made. It's a measured, magisterial account of the Johnson County War in 1892 Wyoming, when the powerful stock growers' association brought in a vast posse of assassins to destroy the wave of European immigrants they saw as threatening their monopoly of grazing land.
The film is seen largely through the eyes of an alcoholic aristocrat belonging to the stock growers (John Hurt) and two class enemies: a Harvard-educated sheriff who sides with the settlers (Kris Kristofferson) and an immigrant hired gun working for...
This important double-disc set contains two essential films. This is the first time Michael Cimino's epic 216-minute western has been available for domestic viewing in Britain. The second disc contains a shortened version of Michael Epstein's documentary feature Final Cut: The Making and Unmaking of Heaven's Gate. Beautifully restored on DVD and Blu-ray, Heaven's Gate is one of the finest westerns ever made. It's a measured, magisterial account of the Johnson County War in 1892 Wyoming, when the powerful stock growers' association brought in a vast posse of assassins to destroy the wave of European immigrants they saw as threatening their monopoly of grazing land.
The film is seen largely through the eyes of an alcoholic aristocrat belonging to the stock growers (John Hurt) and two class enemies: a Harvard-educated sheriff who sides with the settlers (Kris Kristofferson) and an immigrant hired gun working for...
- 12/8/2013
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
To mark the release of Heaven’s Gate on 25th November, we’ve been given 3 copies to give away on Blu-ray.
Based on the Johnson County War of 1892. Michael Cimino’s epic western is now hailed as a masterpiece of American cinema and is presented here in its newly restored and definitive director’s cut.
Harvard graduate James Averill has returned to Wyoming as a Marshall and sis facing growing divisions and escalating tensions in the local community The powerful, government-backed cattle barons are waging war on the immigrant settlers they brand ‘thieves and anarchists’ and are drawing up a ‘death list’ for their hired mercenaries to act upon. As hostilities mount, the inevitability of a full-scale and bloody war edges ever closer.
Please note: This competition is open to UK residents only
a Rafflecopter giveaway
The Small Print
Open to UK residents only The competition will close 6th December...
Based on the Johnson County War of 1892. Michael Cimino’s epic western is now hailed as a masterpiece of American cinema and is presented here in its newly restored and definitive director’s cut.
Harvard graduate James Averill has returned to Wyoming as a Marshall and sis facing growing divisions and escalating tensions in the local community The powerful, government-backed cattle barons are waging war on the immigrant settlers they brand ‘thieves and anarchists’ and are drawing up a ‘death list’ for their hired mercenaries to act upon. As hostilities mount, the inevitability of a full-scale and bloody war edges ever closer.
Please note: This competition is open to UK residents only
a Rafflecopter giveaway
The Small Print
Open to UK residents only The competition will close 6th December...
- 11/25/2013
- by Competitions
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
The word revisionism recurs in reassessments of Heaven's Gate. It rightly suggests a new look at American history. It's also used to imply that back in 1980 everyone went along with the viciously hostile reviews handed out to Cimino's liberal masterpiece by the American critics, a flock of sheep driven by a subconscious desire to apologise to Jane Fonda for having admired The Deer Hunter, a film she'd denounced as rightwing and racist. In fact, after the first European screening at Cannes in its truncated form, Positif's Michel Ciment, Nigel Andrews in the Financial Times and I in the Observer immediately recognised its importance. ("The truth is that Heaven's Gate is a damn good western in the politically disenchanted vein of McCabe and Mrs Miller", was my initial verdict.) We continued to champion it.
Like The Godfather, Heaven's Gate, now re-released in the director's cut, is deeply influenced in its stately...
Like The Godfather, Heaven's Gate, now re-released in the director's cut, is deeply influenced in its stately...
- 8/5/2013
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
Michael Cimino's three-and-a-half-hour western, now fully restored, puts the grandeur in folie de grandeur
This restored rerelease of Michael Cimino's spectacular western epic puts the grandeur into folie de grandeur. Brought back to its full three-and-a-half-hour-plus running time, it is colossally ambitious and mysteriously moving, with an unhurried, unforced pace, beautifully photographed by Vilmos Zsigmond. The subject is the Johnson county war in 1890s Wyoming: small homesteaders found themselves harassed into abandoning their plots of land to the big ranchers. Cimino's movie sees this as nothing other than an American agribusiness pogrom: these small farmers are migrant incomers from eastern and central Europe attacked by cattle barons and their Wasp Washington associates who have drawn up a "death list" of victims. Kris Kristofferson plays Jim Averell, a well-born lawyer, idealist and Harvard man who takes the farmsteaders' side; Christopher Walken is Nathan Champion, the ranchers' cynical hired gun.
This restored rerelease of Michael Cimino's spectacular western epic puts the grandeur into folie de grandeur. Brought back to its full three-and-a-half-hour-plus running time, it is colossally ambitious and mysteriously moving, with an unhurried, unforced pace, beautifully photographed by Vilmos Zsigmond. The subject is the Johnson county war in 1890s Wyoming: small homesteaders found themselves harassed into abandoning their plots of land to the big ranchers. Cimino's movie sees this as nothing other than an American agribusiness pogrom: these small farmers are migrant incomers from eastern and central Europe attacked by cattle barons and their Wasp Washington associates who have drawn up a "death list" of victims. Kris Kristofferson plays Jim Averell, a well-born lawyer, idealist and Harvard man who takes the farmsteaders' side; Christopher Walken is Nathan Champion, the ranchers' cynical hired gun.
- 8/1/2013
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
Michael Cimino's three-and-a-half-hour western, now fully restored, puts the grandeur in folie de grandeur
This restored rerelease of Michael Cimino's spectacular western epic puts the grandeur into folie de grandeur. Brought back to its full three-and-a-half-hour-plus running time, it is colossally ambitious and mysteriously moving, with an unhurried, unforced pace, beautifully photographed by Vilmos Zsigmond. The subject is the Johnson county war in 1890s Wyoming: small homesteaders found themselves harassed into abandoning their plots of land to the big ranchers. Cimino's movie sees this as nothing other than an American agribusiness pogrom: these small farmers are migrant incomers from eastern and central Europe attacked by cattle barons and their Wasp Washington associates who have drawn up a "death list" of victims. Kris Kristofferson plays Jim Averell, a well-born lawyer, idealist and Harvard man who takes the farmsteaders' side; Christopher Walken is Nathan Champion, the ranchers' cynical hired gun.
This restored rerelease of Michael Cimino's spectacular western epic puts the grandeur into folie de grandeur. Brought back to its full three-and-a-half-hour-plus running time, it is colossally ambitious and mysteriously moving, with an unhurried, unforced pace, beautifully photographed by Vilmos Zsigmond. The subject is the Johnson county war in 1890s Wyoming: small homesteaders found themselves harassed into abandoning their plots of land to the big ranchers. Cimino's movie sees this as nothing other than an American agribusiness pogrom: these small farmers are migrant incomers from eastern and central Europe attacked by cattle barons and their Wasp Washington associates who have drawn up a "death list" of victims. Kris Kristofferson plays Jim Averell, a well-born lawyer, idealist and Harvard man who takes the farmsteaders' side; Christopher Walken is Nathan Champion, the ranchers' cynical hired gun.
- 8/1/2013
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
"Vengeance would not be out of place. Not anymore."
The Civil War effectively ended in April 1865 when Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, but another civil war was already brewing out west. The "Western Civil War of Incorporation" found Americans at odds with one another yet again, only this time the battle lines were drawn between rich capitalists and settlers. In the spirit of such classic movies as The Virginian, Shane and True Grit, tonight's MovieMovie is based on one of the most notorious conflicts of this war, the Wyoming Range or Johnson County War of 1892 in which large corporate ranchers hired gunmen to intimidate and kill any independent ranchers or settlers that defied them.
A Hallmark original movie directed by David Cass (Uncorked), Johnson County War is based on the novel Riders of Judgment by Frederick Mandred, a fictionalized account of the conflict told...
The Civil War effectively ended in April 1865 when Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, but another civil war was already brewing out west. The "Western Civil War of Incorporation" found Americans at odds with one another yet again, only this time the battle lines were drawn between rich capitalists and settlers. In the spirit of such classic movies as The Virginian, Shane and True Grit, tonight's MovieMovie is based on one of the most notorious conflicts of this war, the Wyoming Range or Johnson County War of 1892 in which large corporate ranchers hired gunmen to intimidate and kill any independent ranchers or settlers that defied them.
A Hallmark original movie directed by David Cass (Uncorked), Johnson County War is based on the novel Riders of Judgment by Frederick Mandred, a fictionalized account of the conflict told...
- 1/19/2013
- by BrentJS Sprecher
- Reelzchannel.com
Chicago – Michael Cimino’s “Heaven’s Gate” remains one of the most controversial films of the modern age. Some would go as far as to say that the film’s financial failure in 1980 ushered in an era of studio control in that decade that killed the American auteur movement of the ’60s and ’70s that so redefined the form. It’s not much of a stretch given the historical reputation of a movie that got out of control in the hands of a director who couldn’t manage his own vision. Or is history wrong? Is it an underappreciated classic? Check out the gorgeous new Criterion Blu-ray and decide for yourself.
Rating: 4.5/5.0
The truth is that “Heaven’s Gate” is nowhere near the disaster that the history books would have you believe. It’s also not exactly the artistic success that its studio wanted in 1980 from the director of the Oscar-winning “The Deer Hunter.
Rating: 4.5/5.0
The truth is that “Heaven’s Gate” is nowhere near the disaster that the history books would have you believe. It’s also not exactly the artistic success that its studio wanted in 1980 from the director of the Oscar-winning “The Deer Hunter.
- 12/14/2012
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
News.
The Independent Spirit Awards have announced their nominations—check out the full list here. We're especially happy to see two Notebook favourites getting some love: The Color Wheel (read Ignatiy Vishnevetsky's piece from last year) Starlet (check out our recent review from Celluloid Liberation Front) and Leviathan (our interview with Verena Paravel).
New word from Robert De Niro on the Martin Scorsese dream project, The Irishman (based on Charles Brandt's I Heard You Paint Houses), that would star De Niro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci and Harvey Keitel, and there was a rumor at one point that Leonardo DiCaprio could be in the mix as well. According to De Niro, it sounds like the project could come to fruition sooner rather than later: "It has to or we all won't be around any more." News regarding the lawsuit surrounding Silence, the long delayed Scorsese project, has come out...
The Independent Spirit Awards have announced their nominations—check out the full list here. We're especially happy to see two Notebook favourites getting some love: The Color Wheel (read Ignatiy Vishnevetsky's piece from last year) Starlet (check out our recent review from Celluloid Liberation Front) and Leviathan (our interview with Verena Paravel).
New word from Robert De Niro on the Martin Scorsese dream project, The Irishman (based on Charles Brandt's I Heard You Paint Houses), that would star De Niro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci and Harvey Keitel, and there was a rumor at one point that Leonardo DiCaprio could be in the mix as well. According to De Niro, it sounds like the project could come to fruition sooner rather than later: "It has to or we all won't be around any more." News regarding the lawsuit surrounding Silence, the long delayed Scorsese project, has come out...
- 11/28/2012
- by Adam Cook
- MUBI
A Planet Fury-approved selection of notable genre releases for November.
Rites of Spring (2011) Mpi Home Video DVD Available Now
After abducting the daughter of a wealthy socialite, a group of kidnappers seek refuge in an abandoned school in the middle of a wooded nowhere. Little do they know that they’ve chosen the hunting grounds of a ravenous creature that can only be sated by ritualistic sacrifices every spring. Writer/director Padraig Reynolds’ crime thriller/slasher hybrid received mixed reviews during its short festival run, but it’s a solidly crafted piece with some good performances and impressive cinematography by Carl Herse. The one-sheet art is a thing of beauty.
Heaven’s Gate (1981) Criterion Blu-ray and DVD Available Now
Michael Cimino’s critically panned revisionist western has slowly gained a reputation as an overlooked gem. While it’s no masterpiece, his director’s cut is far better than the confusing...
Rites of Spring (2011) Mpi Home Video DVD Available Now
After abducting the daughter of a wealthy socialite, a group of kidnappers seek refuge in an abandoned school in the middle of a wooded nowhere. Little do they know that they’ve chosen the hunting grounds of a ravenous creature that can only be sated by ritualistic sacrifices every spring. Writer/director Padraig Reynolds’ crime thriller/slasher hybrid received mixed reviews during its short festival run, but it’s a solidly crafted piece with some good performances and impressive cinematography by Carl Herse. The one-sheet art is a thing of beauty.
Heaven’s Gate (1981) Criterion Blu-ray and DVD Available Now
Michael Cimino’s critically panned revisionist western has slowly gained a reputation as an overlooked gem. While it’s no masterpiece, his director’s cut is far better than the confusing...
- 11/28/2012
- by Bradley Harding
- Planet Fury
Sometimes the greater cinematic spectacle ends up not being the film itself, but the ability to watch the film crash and burn. And Hollywood history has arguably seen no greater spectacle of failure than Michael Cimino’s epic anti-western, Heaven’s Gate. Credited as the film that destroyed United Artists, the bloated-for-its-time production has come to represent for some the last hurrah for a New Hollywood whose challenging artistic visionaries eventually stumbled over their own escalating egos. But decades after the hype, damage, and demonization of the film faded away, audiences can finally see Heaven’s Gate’s depiction of the Johnson County War for what it really is: a gorgeously realized, largely misunderstood, admittedly far from perfect but heavily underrated film. The Criterion Collection’s addition of Heaven’s Gate is a significant step in complicating the story of the film’s overwhelmingly bad reputation. But unfortunately Criterion’s DVD and Blu-ray packages make for a...
- 11/28/2012
- by Landon Palmer
- FilmSchoolRejects.com
This week: Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Chuck Norris and more aging action heroes are back to blow things up in the explosive "The Expendables 2."
Also new this week is a collection of Quentin Tarantino movies handpicked by the filmmaker himself, the Blu-ray debut of 1975's "Zorro" starring Alain Delon and a Criterion Collection edition of the formerly maligned/recently praised 1980 Western "Heaven's Gate."
'The Expendables 2'
Box Office: $85 million
Rotten Tomatoes: 66% Fresh
Storyline: Barney Ross (Sylvester Stallone) and the rest of the Expendables (Jason Statham, Jet Li, Terry Crews, Randy Couture, Liam Hemsworth and Dolph Lundgren) are sent by Mr. Church (Bruce Willis) to Albania to retrieve an item from a downed plane only to lose one of their own in an ambush by an opposing group of mercenaries led by Jean Vilain (Jean-Claude Van Damme). The action then moves to Bulgaria where...
Also new this week is a collection of Quentin Tarantino movies handpicked by the filmmaker himself, the Blu-ray debut of 1975's "Zorro" starring Alain Delon and a Criterion Collection edition of the formerly maligned/recently praised 1980 Western "Heaven's Gate."
'The Expendables 2'
Box Office: $85 million
Rotten Tomatoes: 66% Fresh
Storyline: Barney Ross (Sylvester Stallone) and the rest of the Expendables (Jason Statham, Jet Li, Terry Crews, Randy Couture, Liam Hemsworth and Dolph Lundgren) are sent by Mr. Church (Bruce Willis) to Albania to retrieve an item from a downed plane only to lose one of their own in an ambush by an opposing group of mercenaries led by Jean Vilain (Jean-Claude Van Damme). The action then moves to Bulgaria where...
- 11/19/2012
- by Robert DeSalvo
- NextMovie
Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: Nov. 20, 2012
Price: DVD $39.95, Blu-ray $49.95
Studio: Criterion
Heaven’s Gate by writer/director Michael Cimino (The Deer Hunter), the 1980 western drama-romance whose unprecedented high cost ($44 million) and poor box office performance ($3 million in the U.S.) led to the demise of both its studio (United Artists) and its maker’s reputation, arrives on Criterion DVD and Blu-ray as a director’s cut for the first time.
Clocking in at 216 minutes, Cimino’s uncut film is praised by fans as a visionary critique of American expansionism and is rightfully considered one of Hollywood’s most ambitious and unorthodox epics.
Set in 1870, the film stars Kris Kristofferson (Dolphin Tale) as a Harvard graduate who has relocated all the way to Wyoming as a federal marshal, where he learns of a government-sanctioned plot by rich cattle barons to kill the area’s European settlers for their land. The resulting skirmish...
Price: DVD $39.95, Blu-ray $49.95
Studio: Criterion
Heaven’s Gate by writer/director Michael Cimino (The Deer Hunter), the 1980 western drama-romance whose unprecedented high cost ($44 million) and poor box office performance ($3 million in the U.S.) led to the demise of both its studio (United Artists) and its maker’s reputation, arrives on Criterion DVD and Blu-ray as a director’s cut for the first time.
Clocking in at 216 minutes, Cimino’s uncut film is praised by fans as a visionary critique of American expansionism and is rightfully considered one of Hollywood’s most ambitious and unorthodox epics.
Set in 1870, the film stars Kris Kristofferson (Dolphin Tale) as a Harvard graduate who has relocated all the way to Wyoming as a federal marshal, where he learns of a government-sanctioned plot by rich cattle barons to kill the area’s European settlers for their land. The resulting skirmish...
- 8/18/2012
- by Laurence
- Disc Dish
To have one giant money-losing tentpole is unfortunate. To have two starts to look careless, and that's what's happened to Taylor Kitsch. The actor, who broke out on TV's "Friday Night Lights," was seen as Hollywood's next great hope, picked out to star in two great big blockbusters with a combined cost of half-a-billion dollars. But when "John Carter" arrived in March, the film wildly underperformed, with Disney taking a hit of at least $100 million on the project. And after this weekend, it looks that his other film, "Battleship," is going to lose similar amounts.
The film, Universal & Hasbro's adaptation of the board game, directed by "Hancock" helmer Peter Berg, had taken the unusual step of opening everywhere else in the world six weeks ahead of the U.S, in the hope of bagging lucrative foreign coin and building buzz for the U.S. release. But while the film did ok abroad,...
The film, Universal & Hasbro's adaptation of the board game, directed by "Hancock" helmer Peter Berg, had taken the unusual step of opening everywhere else in the world six weeks ahead of the U.S, in the hope of bagging lucrative foreign coin and building buzz for the U.S. release. But while the film did ok abroad,...
- 5/21/2012
- by Oliver Lyttelton
- The Playlist
By Lee Pfeiffer
Turner Classic Movies (North America) will show Michael Cimino's uncut, 219 minute version of Heaven's Gate at 12:15 Am (Est) on Thursday, March 4. The notorious Western epic caused an industry-wide sensation in 1980 when it was roundly panned by critics and ignored by audiences. The film's disastrous box-office receipts paved the way for the decline of United Artists. Still, you can count me among the defenders of the movie (if not Cimino's inexcusable budget over-runs). The film is a highly politicized treatment of the Johnson County War between ranchers and cattlemen that definitely has socialist leanings. Cimino almost immediately withdrew the film from its reserve seat engagements and drastically cut it. The strategy didn't work. Despite the fact that critics were warmer to the new version, in reality it was a far inferior work. The original is flawed, but has many virtues including a good cast, magnificent production values and a great score.
Turner Classic Movies (North America) will show Michael Cimino's uncut, 219 minute version of Heaven's Gate at 12:15 Am (Est) on Thursday, March 4. The notorious Western epic caused an industry-wide sensation in 1980 when it was roundly panned by critics and ignored by audiences. The film's disastrous box-office receipts paved the way for the decline of United Artists. Still, you can count me among the defenders of the movie (if not Cimino's inexcusable budget over-runs). The film is a highly politicized treatment of the Johnson County War between ranchers and cattlemen that definitely has socialist leanings. Cimino almost immediately withdrew the film from its reserve seat engagements and drastically cut it. The strategy didn't work. Despite the fact that critics were warmer to the new version, in reality it was a far inferior work. The original is flawed, but has many virtues including a good cast, magnificent production values and a great score.
- 3/2/2010
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
Tom Berenger has been tapped to do a four-episode arc on NBC's drama Third Watch. He will play a famous, hard-living author/journalist who becomes romantically involved with Kim Zambrano (Kim Raver) in the series from John Wells Prods. and Warner Bros. Television. Berenger is replacing Tom Selleck, who was originally slated to do the arc but has pulled out, focusing his attention on his comedy pilot for NBC that was recently picked up. Berenger was nominated for an Oscar for his role in Platoon. His credits also include the feature Training Day, Hallmark Channel's miniseries Johnson County War and ESPN's telefilm Junction Boys. The actor, who stars in USA Network's pilot Peacemakers, is repped by CAA.
- 3/12/2003
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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