Search Results for: bert stern

Last March Steven Spielberg told a SXSW fanboy audience (is there any other kind?) that he was developing a “kick ass”, cliche-free western, etc. Except there’s truly nowhere fresh to go with an oater these days. Okay, there’s one idea that Billy Bob Thornton shared at a party a few years ago: The first-ever Old … Read more

In “The 100 Greatest Westerns of All Time,” a 6.25 article by IndieWire‘s Christiqn Blauvelt and Wilson Chapman, Kevin Costner‘s Open Range — easily one of the best westerns ever made — is listed in 94th place. And Nicholas Ray‘s Johnny Guitar (’54), a jaded, baroque, campy western that British critic Gavin Lambert called “one … Read more

A little less than three years ago I posted a roster of HE’s top 20 Henry Fonda films. There was some pushback over my placing Sergio Leone‘s Once Upon A Time In The West, in which Fonda played a blackhearted villain named Frank, in 15th place. I put it there because it wasn’t a “Henry … Read more

Hollywood Elsewhere salutes Robert Downey Sr., the once-legendary director of iconoclastic, guerilla-style, counter-culture stoner classics like Putney Swope (’69) — the deadpan Madison Ave. comedy that put Downey on the map — and Greaser’s Palace (’72), an absurdist western comedy about the second coming of Christ. [The entire film is embedded after the jump.] Not … Read more

Bert Stern‘s Jazz on a Summer’s Day is a warm, colorful capture of the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival. Not just a medley of performances but a portrait of an era and a cultural mood that was primarily defined by complacency and amber shadings and waiting for whatever the next thing might be. Stern’s 85-minute film … Read more

What a difference between this sophisticated digital map of the all-new, better-than-before Skull Island vs. the crude, hand-drawn map that Robert Armstrong had in his breast pocket in the original King Kong (’33). The shape of it, obviously, resembles a gorilla skull profile. I’m not finding a legend but I’m guessing it’s roughly 25 miles … Read more

I just paid $20 and change for a Masters of Cinema Bluray of Andre de Toth‘s Day of the Outlaw (’59), a black-and-white “snow western” in 2.35:1. I succumbed against my better judgment because I’m queer for ’50s and ’60s films shot in this all but vanished format. (A cruddy-looking version is watchable on YouTube.) … Read more

During last weekend’s Golden Globe awards a guy sitting near me opined that Quentin Tarantino‘s The Hateful Eight was more or less a box-office disaster. I knew it was underperforming (it dropped over 50% last weekend after the wide break on January 1st) but the word “disaster” startled me. I’m not much of a fan … Read more

Daniel Barber‘s The Keeping Room (Eagle/Lionsgate, 9.25) “is basically a cabin in the woods horror-violence flick about evil, almost-foaming-at-the-mouth Union soldiers trying to defile and murder three Southern women (Brit Marling, Hailee Steinfeld, Muna Otaru). Indiewire‘s Eric Kohn bought into it but I didn’t. There isn’t the slightest trace of half-sensible motivation or recognizable humanity … Read more

Famed fashion and portrait photographer Bert Stern, 83, died this morning at his home in New York City. His passing was announced by his wife, filmmaker Shannah Laumeister (Bert Stern: Original Madman), whom Stern married in 2009. I’m a huge fan of this doc — I went apeshit for it last March and April. A … Read more