The closing chapter of the original INDIANA JONES trilogy is as much the Joneses’ quest for themselves as their quest for the Holy Grail. Continue here
May 25th, 2019
May 24th, 1989: Indiana Jones was back on the big screen and this time he brought his dad. I remember that tagline on the movie posters and it stuck with me as I sat down in the theatre to watch the movie. I would go on to see it twice in a theatre that no longer exists and believed then and now that Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade is the greatest film in the series. Continue here
May 25th, 2019
Not a horror film, of course, but we figured King fans would like to know about this… Stanley Kubrick’s Stephen King adaptation The Shining is finally headed to 4K Ultra HD in October, and we’ve learned today that another King classic is getting a 4K restoration! Director Rob Reiner’s Stand By Me, an adaptation of King’s novella The Body, will be receiving a 4K Ultra HD release on August 27 from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.
The release will also feature never-before-seen deleted & alternate scenes!
The special features package will also include:
Picture-in-Picture Video Commentary with Director Rob Reiner and Actors Wil Wheaton & Corey Feldman
“Walking the Tracks: The Summer of “Stand By Me”
Commentary with Director Rob Reiner
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May 21st, 2019
“People Magazine Investigates: Cults” returns for a sophomore season on June 3 on Investigation Discovery. Each episode follows one infamous cult from the time of its creation, and tracks leaders as well as survivors. A team of People’s true-crime staff talks to survivors who escaped and are attempting to rebuild their lives after submerging themselves into cult-like organizations.
In the first episode of the new season, he spotlight falls on David Berg, who preaches in the late 1960s and gains gains followers, including actor River Phoenix’s famil. Eventually, Berg forms the “Children of God”. Two survivors, Christina Babin and Jemima Farris, air their experiences first-hand.
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May 19th, 2019
Examining the birth of cinema’s greatest adventurer as seen in the opening scene of ‘Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.’. Continue here
May 18th, 2019
19. I Love You to Death (1990)
This Lawrence Kasdan comedy — the first film after an incredible four-picture run of Body Heat, The Big Chill, Silverado, and The Accidental Tourist — is mostly forgotten today, and for good reason: It’s a farce that mostly features actors screaming at each other and calling it “comedy.” But Reeves hits the right notes as a stoned hit man, and it’s amusing just to watch him share the screen with partner William Hurt. This could have been the world’s strangest comedy team!
6. My Own Private Idaho (1991)
Gus Van Sant’s landmark drama is chiefly remembered for River Phoenix’s nakedly anguished performance as Mike, a spiritually adrift gay hustler. (Phoenix’s death two years after My Own Private Idaho’s release only makes the portrayal more heartbreaking.) But his performance doesn’t work without a doubles partner, which is where Reeves comes in. Playing Scott, a fellow hustler and Mike’s best friend, Reeves adeptly encapsulates the mind-set of a young man content to just float through life. Unlike Mike, he knows he has a fat inheritance in his future — and also unlike Mike, he’s not gay, unable to share his buddy’s romantic feelings. Phoenix deservedly earned most of the accolades, but Reeves is terrific as an unobtainable object of affection — inviting, enticing, but also unknowable.
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May 17th, 2019
Kiefer Sutherland is telling me a story. Pushing his silk scarf to one side while rearranging his heavy-framed glasses, he is recalling the making of one of his first films, 1986’s Stand By Me and how he unwittingly influenced its title. “I was teaching River [Phoenix] how to play the guitar,” he says, “and at that point the film was still called The Body [after the Stephen King short story on which it was based]. The first song I taught him was “Stand By Me”. [Director] Rob Reiner was walking over and went: ‘Oh man, I haven’t heard that for so long!’ Soon after, the film got retitled.” Sutherland is quite the storyteller. It’s the combination of his gravelly voice and the glint in his eye – or perhaps it’s his green velvet jacket, which lends an air of Jackanory to proceedings.
Read the full interview here
April 20th, 2019
He has worked with everyone from Andy Warhol to Lars von Trier – as well as gone underage drinking with Rainer Fassbinder and chatted up hustlers with River Phoenix
Kier moved to London to study English in 1965, hoping to find clerical work. Despite no acting aspirations, he was spotted and cast in a comedy short, 1966’s Road To Saint Tropez, then was discovered time and time again: Andy Warhol’s director Paul Morrissey met him on a plane and cast him as Frankenstein, and then Dracula; Van Sant, who had loved Kier in those roles, met him at the Berlin film festival in 1986 and offered him his first American role, in the street hustler drama My Own Private Idaho. Shooting it in Portland, Oregon, Kier immediately bonded with River Phoenix who, as the narcoleptic gigolo Mike, was method acting, referring to Kier as his character Hans, demanding he pay for everything.
One night, Phoenix asked Kier to come out with him and find some genuine gigolos on the streets, for research. Phoenix wore sunglasses, hanging back while Kier made contact; they had arranged that Phoenix would kick him when one piqued his interest. “We went to a group on a corner, where the real hustlers were. I talked to a few boys and River kicked me. So I said to the boy: ‘Look, I don’t want anything from you, but I’ll pay you some money, let’s just have a drink.’ And we went to a bar and River sat in the corner and I interviewed the boy: ‘What was the worst thing you had to do for money,’ etc. River wanted to know what was going on.”
Read the full interview here
April 20th, 2019
From first love to first heartbreak, and everything in-between.
Stand By Me (1986)
Four best friends head out into the woods, away from adults — is there a better template for a coming-of-age film? Stand By Me, based on a novella written by Stephen King, is equal parts suspenseful and bittersweet.
Read More here
April 20th, 2019