Legendary film producer Dino De Laurentiis has passed away today aged 91. Born in Italy in 1919, Laurentiis served in World War II before establishing himself as a producer with Italian offerings such as Giuseppe De Santis’ 1949 classic Bitter Rice and later efforts such as Federico Fellini’s La Strada (1954) – which won the […]

Tom Jolliffe with a retrospective on the career of cult actor Rutger Hauer… In a career that has encompassed indie, cult, mainstream, and cinema from a range of different countries, Rutger Hauer has offered movie audiences a vast array of characters, in an eclectic grouping of genres. Born in Holland, Hauer was something of a […]

The 54th BFI London Film Festival drew to a close yesterday with the announcement of the festival’s award winners at a star-studded ceremony in London’s LSO St Luke’s. The festival jury – chaired by Patricia Clarkson and including Gabriel Byrne, Sandy Powell and Shekhar Kapur – presented Russian director Aleksei Popogrebsky with the Best Film […]

With Halloween just around the corner we run down the contenders in the ultimate dream match – a four-way-dance between a quartet of horror icons… Name: Ashley J. “Ash” Williams Hometown: Dearborn, Michigan Appearances: 3 Weapon of choice: Chainsaw, boomstick The hero of Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead series, S-MART employee Ash (Bruce Campbell) has to […]

James Ellis on the demise of the spoof… I wanted to start this article all contrived describing to all the uninformed masses what a spoof was. Literally what the spoof dictionary definition was. I was even going to add all the silly abbreviations one finds in a dictionary, make the start of the article look […]

Fans of J. R. R. Tolkien’s Middle-Earth will be breathing a sigh of relief this weekend with the news that the financially beleaguered MGM have finally reached a deal with New Line and Warner Bros. to cover the estimated $500m needed to bring The Hobbit to the big-screen, as reported by TheWrap last night. The […]

D.J. Haza presents the next entry in his series of films to watch before you die… The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, 2008. Directed by David Fincher. Starring Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Taraji P. Henson, Julia Ormond, Jason Flemyng, Tilda Swinton and Elias Koteas. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a fantasy-drama loosely based […]

DJ Haza talks Top Gun in more “Frustrated Ramblings Of An Aspiring Filmmaker”… Stinger: “Don’t screw around with me Maverick. You’re a hell of an instinctive pilot. Maybe too good. I’d like to bust your butt but I can’t. I got another problem here. I gotta send somebody from this squadron to Miramar. I gotta […]

D.J. Haza presents the next entry in his series of films to watch before you die… Se7en, 1995. Directed by David Fincher. Starring Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, Gwyneth Paltrow and Kevin Spacey. Se7en is the dark and chilling tale of two Police detectives, David Mills (Pitt) and William Somerset (Freeman), who take on a series […]

Hollywood legend Tony Curtis has passed away aged 85 after suffering cardiac arrest at his Nevada home late last night, as confirmed this morning by representatives of his daughter Jamie Lee Curtis. Born in New York in 1925, Curtis served in the United States Navy during WWII before studying acting at New York’s Dramatic Workshop […]