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To mark the 50th anniversary of Francis Ford Coppola’s, The Conversation, Studiocanal is thrilled to announce a brand-new 4K restoration of the film is available to own via a special 2-disc 4K Uhd Collector’s edition and on digital now. To celebrate we are giving away a The Conversation bundle including a Uhd signed by Walter Murch!

Included in this awesome bundle is the 2-disc 4K Uhd Collector’s Edition signed by Walter Murch, a 64-page booklet with new essays, Exclusive tape cassette soundtrack, 2x posters of original artwork and a t-shirt, phone charger and key ring.

Of the new restoration, Francis Ford Coppola says: “As you will notice, I have never offered a new version of The Conversation, which is a film I have always been proud of, I’ve never felt the need to improve. It also features my wonderful collaboration with its editor (along with Richard Chew) and sound designer,...

"Don't get involved in this, Mr. Caul." Don't get involved in what?! Who is after him?! Studiocanal UK has revealed a new re-release trailer for Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation, for its 50th anniversary this year. The film initially opened in 1974 and premiered at the 1974 Cannes Film Festival, meaning he is back again premiering his newest film (Megalopolis) at Cannes 2024 a full 50 years later. "To mark the 50th anniversary of Francis Ford Coppola’s seminal neo-noir thriller, The Conversation, we are is thrilled to announce a brand-new 4K restoration of the film to UK cinemas on July 5th." This paranoia masterpiece stars Gene Hackman as sound surveillance expert Harry Caul, who hears something while taping a couple. A paranoid, secretive surveillance expert has a crisis of conscience when he suspects that the couple he is spying on will be murdered. The ensemble cast also includes John Cazale, Allen Garfield,...

Jean Allison, the familiar character actress who appeared on dozens of TV shows, from Have Gun — Will Travel, Bonanza, Hawaiian Eye and The Rifleman to McCloud, Adam-12, The Waltons and Highway to Heaven, has died. She was 94.

Allison, a resident of Rancho Palos Verdes, died Feb. 28, her family announced.

Allison made her big-screen debut as a woman menaced by a psychopath (Michael Higgins) in the United Artists drama Edge of Fury (1958), and her film résumé also included The Devil’s Partner (1960), Paul Sylbert’s The Steagle (1971), Robert Benton’s Bad Company (1972) and Paul Schrader’s Hardcore (1979).

Born in New York on Oct. 24, 1929, Allison attended Marymount High School in Tarrytown, New York, and Adelphi College, also in New York.

While appearing on stage in the Patricia Joudry drama Teach Me How to Cry, she was spotted and signed by agent Doovid Barskin. Her first TV gig came in 1957 on CBS’ General Electric Theater.

Pogues lead singer Shane MacGowan died of complications from pneumonia, his wife Victoria Mary Clarke revealed to the New York Times. The musician was 65 at the time of his death.

A funeral service for McGowan is set for Friday. The service will be open to the public and reportedly features a procession that will travel to Dublin from the town of Nenagh in MacGowan’s home county of Tipperary in Ireland. According to Rte, the funeral will be held at St. Mary of the Rosary Church and led by JJ Ryan’s Undertakers.

Pogues frontman Shane MacGowan died from compilations of viral encephalitis and pneumonia, his wife, Victoria Mary Clarke, has revealed.

The 65-year-old musician had been receiving treatment at a Dublin hospital for the last several months. He was discharged on November 22nd so he could spend his remaining days at home with family and friends. He ultimately passed away on November 30th.

“He wasn’t ready to give up. He wasn’t ready to stop fighting – but his body did it for him,” Clarke told RTÉ Radio 1.

A funeral for MacGowan is set for Friday, December 8th, and is open to the public. The procession will begin in Nenagh and travel to Dublin, where a funeral will be held at St. Mary of the Rosary church. Ireland’s president, Michael Higgins, is expected to attend the funeral. Other reported guests include Bono and the surviving members of the Pogues.

MacGowan’s...

U2 paid tribute to the late Shane MacGowan with a rendition of the Pogues’ “A Rainy Night in Soho” Friday at the band’s latest gig at Las Vegas’ Sphere.

“Sing with us, for Shane MacGowan,” Bono told the audience as the band delivered the somber, acoustic take on one of the Pogues frontman’s most essential songs.

Bono then altered the lyrics to acknowledge the passing of the Irish songwriting legend and punk singer. “MacGowan’s song is never over, but we may never find out what it means,...

Shane MacGowan’s passing has led to an outpouring of tributes from fellow musicians.

“Every time I heard him sing I heard the truth, and my heart filled up with humanity,” wrote Flea of Red Hot Chili Peppers. He proceeded to share an anecdote about the time he met the Pogues singer: “I once saw him sing with the Pogues at a festival in the late 80’s. It was so beautiful and I was reduced to tears. I approached him, and gushed “Man that was so beautiful, thank you etc…” He looked at me and burst into laughter, accidentally spitting beer in my face, and it was not thoughtless or mean at all, he was just so humble and being a dude singing it seemed absurd to him to be elevated, like I was doing to him. I have never been a church going man or a religious man, but if I ever felt baptised,...

Shane MacGowan, the sandpapery-voiced former Pogues frontman who served as the bridge between traditional Irish folk music and punk rock, died on Thursday at the age of 65. MacGowan’s wife, Victoria Clarke, confirmed the musician’s death in a statement. The BBC wrote that MacGowan “died peacefully at 3.30am this morning (30 November) with his wife and and sister by his side.”

“There’s no way to describe the loss that I am feeling and the longing for just one more of his smiles that lit up my world,” Clarke wrote.

Raj Kapoor and Katy Mullan (Photo Credit: Michael Higgins)

Emmy Award winner Raj Kapoor will make his Oscars showrunner debut with the 2024 show. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced that Oscars veteran Kapoor will step up into the showrunner job with the 96th Academy Awards after seven years working on the broadcast.

Kapoor will also executive produce along with Katy Mullan, and Hamish Hamilton will return for his fourth time to direct the awards show. 2023’s Oscars creative director Kenny Gravillis, production designers Misty Buckley and Alana Billingsley, red carpet show executive producer David Chamberlin, and red carpet creative consultants Lisa Love and Raúl Àvila join Kapoor, Hamish, and Mullan for the 2024 Oscars.

“Raj and Hamish have been incredible Oscars collaborators, and we are delighted to welcome them and Katy to lead the 96th Oscars,” stated Academy CEO Bill Kramer and Academy President Janet Yang. “Their deep love of cinema,...

Even before she married into the royal family, Meghan Markle was no stranger to high-profile events and red carpets to showcase her fashion sense. But after she joined Britain’s most famous family just about everything she wore was discussed and dissected.

Like her sister-in-law the Princess of Wales (formerly known as Kate Middleton), Meghan was praised for her many of her outfit choices. But there were also a few occasions where some felt the duchess got it wrong. Now a style expert is revealing what mistakes Meghan made with a couple of her fashion selections.

Meghan Markle is seen arriving to the Woman Of Vision Awards with Prince Harry and her mother Doria Ragland | Raymond Hall/Gc Images The engagement where Meghan had a fashion faux pas according to a stylist

Stylist and fashion expert Melissa Lund talked about one engagement in particular where she thinks Meghan really missed...

It was a winner right out of the starting gate, an instant classic that's still a pleasure for the eyes and ears. Carroll Ballard and Caleb Deschanel's marvel of a storybook movie has yet to be surpassed, with a boy-horse story that seems to be taking place in The Garden of Eden. The Black Stallion Blu-ray The Criterion Collection 765 1979 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 117 min. / Street Date July 14, 2015 / 39.95 Starring Kelly Reno, Mickey Rooney, Teri Garr, Clarence Muse, Hoyt Axton, Michael Higgins, Ed McNamara, Doghmi Larbi, John Karlsen, Leopoldo Trieste, Marne Maitland, Cass-Olé. Cinematography Caleb Deschanel Film Editor Robert Dalva Supervising Sound Editor Alan Splet Original Music Carmine Coppola Written by Melissa Mathison, Jeanne Rosenberg, William D. Wittliff from the novel by Walter Farley Produced by Fred Roos, Tom Sternberg Directed by Carroll Ballard

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Francis Coppola divided audiences with his war epic Apocalypse Now, but in the same...

Eli Wallach and Anne Jackson on the Oscars' Red Carpet Eli Wallach and Anne Jackson at the Academy Awards Eli Wallach and wife Anne Jackson are seen above arriving at the 2011 Academy Awards ceremony, held on Sunday, Feb. 27, at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood. The 95-year-old Wallach had received an Honorary Oscar at the Governors Awards in November 2010. See also: "Doris Day Inexplicably Snubbed by Academy," "Maureen O'Hara Honorary Oscar," "Honorary Oscars: Mary Pickford, Greta Garbo Among Rare Women Recipients," and "Hayao Miyazaki Getting Honorary Oscar." Delayed film debut The Actors Studio-trained Eli Wallach was to have made his film debut in Fred Zinnemann's Academy Award-winning 1953 blockbuster From Here to Eternity. Ultimately, however, Frank Sinatra – then a has-been following a string of box office duds – was cast for a pittance, getting beaten to a pulp by a pre-stardom Ernest Borgnine. For his bloodied efforts, Sinatra went on...

In 2013, I attended an introduction of Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver by writer/director Paul Schrader at The Royal Theatre in Toronto. In his opening remarks Schrader explained the process of writing a ‘lonely man’ film during a paranoid depressive state he was going through. Since then, I’ve realized that I have a fondness for ‘lonely man’ character films. Films like Nicolas Winding Refn’s Only God Forgives, David Fincher’s Fight Club, Spike Jonze’s Her, andthe Coen brothers’ A Serious Man fit neatly into this category. Each of these movies has their own version of a disenfranchised soul searching for an identity in the world. They resent society because of their isolation from it and they try various ways of connecting with to find a purpose in it. I am also highly aware of the lack of ‘lonely woman’ films or rather a good enough variety of...

The star of David Lean’s Lawrence Of Arabia who earned eight Oscar nominations has died at Wellington hospital in London following a long illness. He was 81.

O’Toole was reportedly born in Ireland – there is some dispute over this and it is said his birthplace may in fact be Leeds – and despite his global fame and London residency remained very much a son of the country.

The Irish president Michael Higgins, a personal friend for several decades, led a list of tributes and called O’Toole “one of the giants of film and theatre.”

O’Toole served two years in the Navy before attending the Royal Academy Of Dramatic Art in the early 1950s. He cut his teeth with a series of major roles in regional theatre for several years and eventually landed his cinematic breakthrough as Te Lawrence in Lean’s 1962 classic Lawrence of Arabia, which earned him one of eight Academy Award nominations.

The...

The star of David Lean’s Lawrence Of Arabia who earned eight Oscar nominations has died at Wellington hospital in London following a long illness. He was 81.

O’Toole was reportedly born in Ireland – there is some dispute over this and it is said his birthplace may in fact be Leeds – and despite his global fame and London residency remained very much a son of the country.

The Irish president Michael Higgins, a personal friend for several decades, led a list of tributes and called O’Toole “one of the giants of film and theatre.”

O’Toole served two years in the Navy before attending the Royal Academy Of Dramatic Art in the early 1950s. He cut his teeth with a series of major roles in regional theatre for several years and eventually landed his cinematic breakthrough as Te Lawrence in Lean’s 1962 classic Lawrence of Arabia, which earned him one of eight Academy Award nominations.

The...

Here's our guide to using the Star technique when answering questions in competency-based job interviews

There are many types of interviews, from the free flowing to the formal, but one that you are likely to come up against at some point is the competency-based interview.

They're designed to make the job application process as objective as possible, removing any conscious or subconscious bias by the interviewer by asking each candidate the same questions. Some people feel this type of interview is more stilted – there can be less opportunity to build rapport. However, they are very common, especially in large organisations and the public sector, so it's worth refining your technique.

The questions will be driven by a competency framework that's required for the job. For example, a marketing executive may require problem-solving skills, or a job in customer services may require conflict management skills.

The interview questions tend to start with a variation of,...

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The life of surveillance expert, Harry Caul (Gene Hackman) in The Conversation (1974, directed by Francis Ford Coppola) is one of ritual, fear and obsession. This man of many facets is identifiable by the clothes he wears, specifically because of their bland anonymity and repetition. His plastic raincoat in particular, a rudimentary raglan slip-on, provides recognisable iconography for the character. With exclusive insight from The Conversation costume designer, Aggie Guerard Rodgers, we analyse just why this coat is so important to Harry’s journey.

Stumbling on a murder plot during a routine, if technically accomplished clandestine recording, Harry becomes obsessed with subduing his Catholic guilt over past deeds. Harry lives alone with little furniture and barely any personal possessions, his saxophone and a small statue of the...

The Conversation (1974) Direction and Screenplay: Francis Ford Coppola Cast: Gene Hackman, Robert Duvall, Frederic Forrest, Allen Garfield, John Cazale, Cindy Williams, Michael Higgins, Elizabeth MacRae, Teri Garr, Harrison Ford Oscar Movies Gene Hackman, The Conversation By Dan Schneider of Cosmoetica There are some works of art that are both obviously derivative and just as obviously inferior to the originals. Those simply ape the earlier work, tweak a few minor things, and try to pass off their theft as an "homage." The Conversation (1974), written and directed by Francis Ford Coppola and winner of the Cannes Film Festival's Palme d'Or, is not one of those minor works. Though it has an indebtedness to Michelangelo Antonioni's brilliant Blowup (1966), The Conversation does not merely ape that film's existential dilemma of an accidental photograph possibly cluing its lead character into murder. Instead, Coppola's film probes far more deeply into the mind of Harry Caul...

Now here's something you don't see everyday, and it's very strange to think that this actually existed! Back in 1979 The Amazing Spider-Man and The Incredible Hulk were featured in an original, never-before-reprinted comic book story called Gamma Gambit on a roll of novelty Toilet Paper. Yes, toilet paper.

Presenting an all-new, action-packed confrontation between Marvel’s mightiest super-stars!

The comic was penned by Jim Salicrup and Michael Higgins and illustrated by Marie Severin. This is just so weirdly awesome. You could wipe your butt and read a Spider-Man comic at the same time! If your interested you can read some of this incredibly odd comic below. Who thinks of this stuff! There's also a video of it below, and no, it's not of people wiping there butts with it.

And here's the video.

American stage actor Michael Higgins has died of heart failure at the age of 88.

Higgins passed away on 5 November at Beth Israel Hospital in his home of Manhattan, New York.

Best known for his role in the 1974 original Broadway production of Equus, Higgins played Frank Strang, the father of the disturbed youth who blinds horses, alongside Anthony Hopkins in the show.

Before rising to stardom as a stage actor, Higgins served in World War II, with the Army in Italy, earning a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart.

After the war, he made his Broadway debut in the 1946 production of Antigone.

His other Broadway credits include the 1951 production of Romeo and Juliet, The Lark in 1955, and 1973's The Iceman Cometh, co-starring James Earl Jones.

He also received two Obie Awards - the Off Broadway theatre award presented annually by New York newspaper The Village Voice - for his roles in The Crucible by Arthur Miller, and David Mamet's Reunion.

His film credits include 1975's The Stepford Wives, The Seduction of Joe Tynan, in 1979, and 1981 movie Fort Apache, the Bronx.

He is survived by his wife, the former Elizabeth Lee Goodwin, a daughter named Deirdre, two sons Sean and Christopher, two brothers, two sisters and four grandchildren.