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Arnold Schwarzenegger made a whole slew of classic 80s action movies. Still, one remains totally obscure despite being released smack dab in the middle of his amazing The Terminator to Predator run of movies from 1984-87. That film in 1986’s Raw Deal. A formulaic 80s action flick, it’s the most modestly mounted Schwarzenegger action epic of the era, with Arnie coerced into starring in it to complete a long-standing contract he had with producer Dino De Laurentiis following Conan The Barbarian.

In it, Schwarzenegger is somewhat unconvincingly cast as a small-town sheriff named Kaminski, who used to be an FBI agent but was forced out of the bureau after roughing up a suspect. He’s recruited by his old mentor (The Night Stalker’s legendary Darren McGavin) whose son was killed by the Chicago mob. He wants Kaminski to go undercover in the mob and tear them apart from the inside.

Stephen Kandel, the prolific screenwriter whose work over four decades in television spanned Sea Hunt to Star Trek, Batman to Barnaby Jones and Mannix to MacGyver, has died. He was 96.

Kandel died Oct. 21 of natural causes in his Boston apartment, his daughter Elizabeth Englander told The Hollywood Reporter.

Kandel also wrote multiple episodes of such shows as The Millionaire, The Rogues, Gidget, I Spy, Ironside, The Wild Wild West, It Takes a Thief, Dan August, The New Mike Hammer, Mission: Impossible, Room 222, The Magician, Medical Center, Cannon, Hawaii Five-o and Hart to Hart.

Plus, he co-created Iron Horse, a 1966-68 drama from ABC and Screen Gems that starred Dale Robertson, as a gambler turned railroad baron, Gary Collins and Ellen Burstyn.

“His résumé reads like a Baby Boomer’s dream list of must-see TV,” Tom Weaver wrote in his 2005 book, Earth vs. the Sci-Fi Filmmakers.

Kandel had a hand...

On today’s The Arrow In The Head Show, Lance Vlcek and John “The Arrow” Fallon take on the little seen yet highly entertaining Raw Deal (1986) starring the inimitable Arnold Schwarzenegger at his smug best. After Conan, The Terminator, Red Sonja and Commando – Arnie took on a very different kind of role at this point in his career and showcased glimpses of the charm and gravitas that he would eventually fully display in films like True Lies and Kindergarden Cop.

The film stars Arnold Schwarzenegger, Kathryn Harrold, Robert Davi and Paul Shenar and is about:

A former FBI agent turned small-town sheriff agrees to help the FBI chief infiltrate the Chicago mafia when the FBI chief’s son is killed by them.

The M.O. of The Arrow in the Head Show is: After many years behind the scenes, we’ve decided to take our sarcastic, booze-influenced style into the...

To celebrate the brand-new 4K restoration of John Irvin’s 1986 action-thriller Raw Deal – released 24th October from Studiocanal – we have a Blu-ray up for grabs!

Dishonoured and forcibly retired from the FBI on grounds of excessive brutality, Mark Kaminski (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is demoted to being a Sheriff in a small town, where his wife heads straight for the bottle and his career goes nowhere. However, when the son of an old friend, Agent Harry Shannon (Darren McGavin), is killed whilst guarding a mob informant against the criminal outfit led by Luigi Patrovita (Sam Wanamaker), Kaminski is given a second chance.

Charged with infiltrating and single-handedly bringing down the mobsters from within without the protection of the FBI, Kaminski assumes a new identity and must resist the temptations of the mysterious Monique (Kathryn Harrold) and maintain his cover, with his eyes on the biggest prize of all – reinstatement and thus a...

To celebrate the brand-new 4K restoration of John Irvin’s 1986 action-thriller Raw Deal – out now from Studiocanal – we have a 4K Uhd Blu-ray up for grabs!

Dishonoured and forcibly retired from the FBI on grounds of excessive brutality, Mark Kaminski (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is demoted to being a Sheriff in a small town, where his wife heads straight for the bottle and his career goes nowhere. However, when the son of an old friend, Agent Harry Shannon (Darren McGavin), is killed whilst guarding a mob informant against the criminal outfit led by Luigi Patrovita (Sam Wanamaker), Kaminski is given a second chance.

Charged with infiltrating and single-handedly bringing down the mobsters from within without the protection of the FBI, Kaminski assumes a new identity and must resist the temptations of the mysterious Monique (Kathryn Harrold) and maintain his cover, with his eyes on the biggest prize of all – reinstatement and thus...

"This must be what they mean by 'poetic justice.'" Studiocanal UK has revealed a new official UK trailer for the 4K restoration of this action crime thriller called Raw Deal, which was originally produced by the one-and-only Dino De Laurentiis. The film was released in the summer of 1986, but end up flopping, which lead to De Laurentiis' going bankrupt and selling off the rights of Total Recall (both are with Arnold). Dismissed from the FBI, Arnold Schwarzenegger stars as Kaminsky, who's contacted by his old boss. Determined to find his son's killler, Shannon needs Kaminsky and offers to re-instate him if he is successful. Kaminsky assumes a new identity and moves to Chicago where he ingratiates in the underworld. To be successful, it is vital he's accepted by the gangsters. Also stars Kathryn Harrold, Darren McGavin, Sam Wanamaker, Paul Shenar, Steven Hill, and Ed Lauter. The new trailer also...

The words offbeat, personal and edgy used to be a draw for movie fare — we’d check out a new relationship picture based only on an actor or two that we liked. Bobby Roth’s semi-autobiographical buddy story has a good stab at the early ’80s art + singles scene in Los Angeles, with a dash of macho clichés — pals Peter Coyote and Nick Mancuso fight in public and somehow suffer while bedding fantastic women. But the overall vibe is one of honest sensitivity, aided by fine performances from Carole Laure, Kathryn Harrold and Carol Wayne. Plus music by Tangerine Dream.

Heartbreakers

Blu-ray

Fun City Editions

1984 / Color / 1:85 / 99 min. / Street Date August 30, 2022 / Available from Amazon, Available from Vinegar Syndrome

Starring: Peter Coyote, Nick Mancuso, Carole Laure, Max Gail, James Laurenson, Carol Wayne, Jamie Rose, Kathryn Harrold, George Morfogen, Jerry Hardin, Henry Sanders, Walter Olkewicz.

Cinematography: Michael Ballhaus

Production Designer: David Nichols...

Steve McQueen’s final film is an action-comedy compromise that will satisfy his fans even if it barely hangs together. The thrills are kinder & gentler, with plenty of hair-raising stunts but less gunplay and gore. McQueen’s eccentric bounty hunter collects toys and can barely drive a car, but he always gets his man. Kathryn Harrold is good; Eli Wallach, LeVar Burton, Ben Johnson, Richard Venture and Tracey Walter are along for the ride (and stay out of Steve’s spotlight). Steve’s in charge — he tailors everything to highlight his quirky star characterization, and the guiding principle is ‘low key.’

The Hunter

Region Free Blu-ray

Viavision [Imprint] 110

1980 / Color / 1:78 widescreen / 97 min. / Street Date April 6, 2022 / Available from Amazon Au

Starring: Steve McQueen, Eli Wallach, Kathryn Harrold, LeVar Burton, Ben Johnson, Richard Venture, Tracey Walter, Tom Rosales, Teddy Wilson, Ray Bickel, Bobby Bass, Karl Schueneman, Taurean Blacque, Al Ruscio, David Spielberg.

Please welcome new contributor Nick Taylor who is providing us with extra Supporting Actress supplemental pleasure inbetween the Smackdown events...

Modern Romance (1981) begins with its main couple breaking up in a diner. Or rather, Robert Cole (actor/writer/director Albert Brooks) has decided to break up with his girlfriend Mary Harvard (Kathryn Harrold), because something in his life has felt off lately. He thinks it’s their relationship. She’s justifiably annoyed with this, particularly since they spend a lot of time breaking up and getting back together, and barely believes him when he says they’re not coming back from this. The only time Robert seems hesitant about ending it (this time) is when she says something that reignites his paranoia, making him think she won’t mind them splitting and is already having an affair. Mary leaves the building so quickly she doesn’t even have the chance...

By Tim Greaves

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One of the most surprising things about director Roger Christian’s 1982 chiller The Sender, which screams America from almost every fibre, is that it’s British made. With a cast and crew of varied nationality and narratively set in America – location work took place in Georgia – all the studio work for the Paramount Pictures production was actually shot on stages at Shepperton in the UK.

British born Christian himself was a former Academy Award winning art director on the first Star Wars (and a nominee in the same category for Alien). On the other end of the ‘accomplishments to be proud of’ scale, however, he’s the man responsible for the woeful Battlefield Earth, so it’s fair to say his cinematic career was mixed. The Sender, his debut in the director’s chair, resides on the upper end of that scale.

Boy howdy, people were sure digging vampires by the end of the ‘70s, weren’t they? Back in vogue, 1979 alone brought Frank Langella as a very sensuous Dracula, George Hamilton with a humorous take in Love at First Bite, Werner Herzog’s retelling of Nosferatu, and Tobe Hooper’s bone-chilling Stephen King miniseries adaptation, Salem’s Lot. There was another small screen vamp to appear that year no one talks about however and that’s ABC’s Vampire, a generically branded thriller that works due to some heavy Richard Lynch lifting as the titular doomed creature.

Originally broadcast on October 7th as The ABC Sunday Night Movie, Vampire had to contend with Alice/The Jeffersons and Trapper John, M.D. on CBS, and NBC’s The Big Event, their dumping ground for specials and TV flicks. And while it doesn’t hold a cross to any of the above entries,...

Close-Up is a column that spotlights films now playing on Mubi. Albert Brooks' Modern Romance (1981) is showing February 17 - March 19, 2017 in the United Kingdom in the series The Rom Com Variations. She’s out of my lifeShe’s out of my lifeAnd I don’t know whether to laugh or cry—Michael Jackson, “She’s Out of My Life”“cras amet qui numquam amavitquique amavit cras amet”—The Magus (John Fowles) Life comes at you fast. As someone recently on the receiving end of an unexpected breakup, I was a little cool on the idea of watching Albert Brooks’ 1981 film Modern Romance—whose premise was summarized, on the one-sheets at the time, in the following terms: “Robert was madly in love with Mary. Mary was madly in love with Robert. Under the circumstances they did the only thing they could do… they broke up.” But then, in that brutal darkness of heartache,...

In the hierarchy of significance in what made news this past week, the sudden availability of the entirety of Albert Brooks’ output of feature films as a writer-director via Netflix Streaming may not carry the urgency of, say, the alarming continuance of African-American deaths under police fire, the attack on a peaceful protest against police violence by shooters who killed five law enforcement officers and wounded several more in Dallas, the ongoing partisan bloviating inspired by the FBI’s decision to not charge Hilary Clinton with federal crimes, or the frightening clown circus of offenses that characterizes the dawning of each new day in Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. But art can, among many other things, provide a momentary respite from pain, sometimes even while examining some of the more frustrating, self-centric and petty dissonances within our own, or someone’s else’s worldview, and in this Brooks’ films at...

"I have seen the future, and it is a bald-headed man from New York!" Has there even been a specially-produced commercial announcing that Netflix was adding the library of a specific writer/director? I think this might be the first, and it feels appropriate that it’s done in spectacular dry Albert Brooks fashion. Tomorrow, the streaming video service will add all seven of the feature films that were written and directed by Brooks, and that is reason to rejoice whether you’re intimately familiar with all of them or new to them completely. I would argue that he’s made three perfect comedies and four films that all feature work that is smart and personal and carefully-observed. Modern Romance is a terrific movie that flies in the face of everything we know about how romantic comedy works, charting the ups and (mostly) downs of a relationship between Brooks and Kathryn Harrold.

The Wrap reports that not long before his death on March 24, 2016, Garry Shandling and HBO had reached a deal to bring The Larry Sanders Show back to the premium channel. The report quotes Sony Pictures Television chairman Steve Mosko as saying, "I loved Garry. We were fulfilling his wishes to see the show move to HBO."

A comedy, The Larry Sanders show provided a peek behind the scenes at a late-night talk show. Shandling starred in the title role. The cast also includes: Jeffrey Tambor, Wallace Langham, Rip Torn, Penny Johnson Jerald, Janeane Garafalo, Linda Doucett, Megan Gallagher, Sid Newman, Bob Odenkirk, Scott Thompson, Jeremy Piven and Kathryn Harrold.

Read More…...

Made entirely with CG, Night of the Living Dead: Darkest Dawn will premiere at Walker Stalker Fan Fest in July. Also in this round-up: release details for Wave 7 of Funko's Comic-Con 2015 exclusive figures and The Sender and Student Bodies Blu-rays.

Night of the Living Dead: Darkest Dawn: "Night Of The Living Dead: Darkest Dawn is a new fully CG take on the 1968 classic, “Night of the Living Dead.” This is the story of a group of survivors fighting to stay alive when a mysterious plague unleashes the undead on New York City. Barricaded in an abandoned apartment building, the characters from the original film face new terror and question each other’s compassion and sense of humanity as they fight to stay alive against the army of the walking dead...It was directed by Krisztian Majdik, Zebediah Y. Desoto, and written by David Schwartz, Zebediah Y. De Soto, Jib Polhemus,...

After doing the rounds on VoD for a few weeks, where many of you will have seen it, Sarah Polley's "Take This Waltz" starts to roll out in theaters from tomorrow, and we can't recommend it enough; it's a messy, sometimes frustrating film, but a deeply felt, beautifully made and wonderfully acted one, and we named it last week as one of the best of the year so far. It is not, however, recommended as a date movie, fitting into a long cinematic tradition of painful examinations of broken, decaying, collapsing or dead relationships.

After all, it's one of the more universal human experiences; unless you get very lucky, everyone who falls in love will at some point have the wrenching experience of falling out of it, or being fallen out of love with. And when done best in film, it can be bruising and borderline torturous for a filmmaker and an audience,...

La-La Land Records has announced a new soundtrack release for the 1994 western Bad Girls. The album includes the expanded and remastered score fro the film composed by Jerry Goldsmith. The release is limited to 3000 copies and features more than 20 minutes of previously unreleased music. To listen to audio clips and to order the CD, visit La-La Land Records’ online store. Bad Girls is directed by Jonathan Kaplan and stars Madeleine Stowe, Mary Stuart Masterson, Andie MacDowell and Drew Barrymore.

Here’s the track list of the album:

1. The John (2:19)

2. The Hanging (2:06)

3. Which Way?* (:42)

4. The Snake (1:20)

5. The Saw Mill* (1:56)

6. Keep Moving* (:57)

7. Bank Job** (5:16)

8. The Gang/The Posse* (:56)

9. Return to the Fold* (4:06)

10. Don’t Hurt Me* (1:45)

11. Jail Break (3:27)

12. No Money (2:09)

13. The Guests* (:36)

14. Welcome to My Home* (1:20)

15. The Pleasure of Your Company* (:48)

16. Ambush (5:45)

17. What’s Your Name?...

Okay, back from its impromptu hiatus is The Basics. Drew McWeeny of HitFix and AICN fame is (still) contributing a series of columns about the essential films that any film fan ought to be familiar with, while I respond in kind. Links to your own blog posts on any of these films are not only welcomed, but encouraged. We first tackled "Duck Soup" (his take here, my take here) before moving on to "Manhattan" (his and mine). Now, it's time for us to take a look at "Modern Romance" (his here, mine... well, below).

When Drew had suggested that we bring things back with 1981's Modern Romance, I joked that it was great that we were changing things up after Manhattan with another neurotic romantic dramedy. He insisted that "they couldn't be more different," and I took his word on that. Several colleagues praised it as one of the funniest comedies ever made; others (okay,...

The 1979 killer-bat movie Nightwing, which has never been released to DVD, is making a rare return to the big screen in Los Angeles. A 35mm print of the film will be shown at midnight on Friday, February 27 at Landmark’s Nuart Theatre (11272 Santa Monica Boulevard).

Based on Martin Cruz Smith’s best-selling novel, Nightwing stars Nick Mancuso and Stephen Macht (both of whom will attend the screening, do a Q&A and sign autographs, along with more cast and filmmakers to be announced) as a tribal deputy and chairman combatting plague-ridden vampire bats terrorizing Arizona’s Painted Desert. The cast also includes David Warner, Kathryn Harrold and Strother Martin. Tickets for the show ($10.50 for adults, $7.50 for seniors and children) can be purchased here. In addition, the attending actors and crew will be recording a “pirate audio commentary” for the movie, which will be available as a free download at Icons of Fright,...