News

Sally Ann Howes, who began her acting career as a child and was best known for starring in “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” opposite Dick Van Dyke, died on Dec. 19. She was 91.

Her death was confirmed by her nephew, Toby Howes, who tweeted: “I can also confirm the passing of my beloved Aunty Sally Ann Howes who died peacefully in her sleep yesterday. My brother & I thought Sally Ann might hold on until the Christmas screening of ‘Chitty Chitty Bang Bang’ as this would have greatly appealed to her mischievous side.”

“Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” is often broadcast on Christmas Day in the U.K.

In a career that spanned five decades, Howes racked up 40 film and television credits, having spent the latter half of her career focusing on the theater, including a part in Stephen Sondheim’s “A Little Night Music” at the New York City Opera in 1990.

Born in...

With fears our winter travel will need a, let’s say, reconsideration, the Criterion Channel’s monthly programming could hardly come at a better moment. High on list of highlights is Louis Feuillade’s delightful Les Vampires, which I suggest soundtracking to Coil, instrumental Nine Inch Nails, and Jóhann Jóhannson’s Mandy score. Notable too is a Sundance ’92 retrospective running the gamut from Paul Schrader to Derek Jarman to Jean-Pierre Gorin, and I’m especially excited for their look at one of America’s greatest actors, Sterling Hayden.

Special notice to Criterion editions of The Killing, The Last Days of Disco, All About Eve, and The Asphalt Jungle, and programming of Ognjen Glavonić’s The Load, among the better debuts in recent years.

See the full list of January titles below and more on the Criterion Channel.

-Ship: A Visual Poem, Terrance Day, 2020

5 Fingers, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1952

After Migration: Calabria,...

Scottish actor John Fraser has died at the age of 89 after a battle with cancer, his family has said.

Richard E. Grant was among those to pay tribute to The Dam Busters and El Cid actor today, posting on twitter:

My friend John Fraser has died at 89. All of us, lucky enough to know him, have benefitted from his Life enhancing generosity, kindness and gift for finding humour in every situation. pic.twitter.com/DPBjWH6cYB

— Richard E. Grant (@RichardEGrant) November 11, 2020

Mark Gatiss also posted a tribute:

A very fine actor, a blistering Bosie, an outrageous memoirist and a beautiful, beautiful man. Rip John Fraser pic.twitter.com/8z4COAAQpY

— Mark Gatiss (@Markgatiss) November 7, 2020

Born in Glasgow in 1931, Fraser broke into film in the early 1950s, playing Flight Lieutenant John Hopgood in the 1955 British classic The Dam Busters, and appearing in the 1957 film adaptation of J. B. Priestley’s The Good Companions,...

Mill Creek and Kit Parker have raided the Columbia vault once again in search of Noir Gold from the ‘fifties. Their selection this time around has a couple of prime gems, several straight crime thrillers and domestic jeopardy tales, and also a couple of interesting Brit imports. They aren’t really ‘Noir’ either, but they’re still unexpected and different. The top title is Don Siegel’s incomparable The Lineup, but also on board is a snappy anti-commie epic by André De Toth. Get set for a lineup of impressive leading ladies: Diana Dors, Arlene Dahl, Anita Ekberg — and the great Colleen Dewhurst as a card-carrying Red!

Noir Archive 9-Film Collection Volume 3

The Shadow on the Window, The Long Haul, Pickup Alley, The Tijuana Story, She Played with Fire, The Case Against Brooklyn, The Lineup, The Crimson Kimono, Man on a String

Blu-ray

Mill Creek / Kit Parker

1957 -1960 / B&w...

Ken Hughes was an interesting character. The closest thing I have to a personal anecdote came from an old friend who was an assistant director: "Ken Hughes was the dirtiest man I ever met." I don't really know what he meant by that, and it may be unfair. But you can see little hints in his work.Hughes is best-remembered today for Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968), and he did some of the better work in the astonishing sixties farrago Casino Royale (1967), but none of that really typifies him. His best film may be The Small World of Sammy Lee (1963), which he wrote as well as directed, and which brought to a kind of climax his early thriller period.Hughes' first film, in 1952, was Wide Boy, about a lowlife blackmailer, not a distinguished work but an unusual one for its frankness about the anti-hero's Jewishness. Sammy Lee is a much more...

It has become a cliché to quote the age-old maxim that you should never meet your heroes. I am also of the belief that you should never write about meeting them either. But I am going to make an exception for Nicolas Roeg, who passed away aged 90 on November 26, 2018. It’s commonly accepted, and certainly in the tributes that have flowed since his death, that Roeg was a genius of the cinema. In his lifetime he was not always held in such lofty regard, as his longtime friend and producing associate Jeremy Thomas was swift to point out when he chastised the U.K. film establishment for its neglect of one of its most visionary talents. “Roeg was one of the major figures but he wasn’t supported by the British Film Industry. There is something about our culture that we don’t revere our greatest filmmakers, especially if they...

With Halloween only a week away now (how in the heck did that happen?), of course there are a ton of horror and sci-fi home entertainment offerings arriving on Tuesday, ready to get you primed for all your spooky shenanigans leading up to October 31st. In terms of new titles, both War of the Planet of the Apes and Annabelle: Creation hit various formats, and Criterion has put together a stellar release for Olivier Assayas’ Personal Shopper as well.

On the cult side of the genre spectrum, we have a myriad of movies to look forward to, including a quartet of titles from Vinegar Syndrome: The Corpse Grinders, Demon Wind, Blood Beat, and the double feature of Prime Evil and Lurkers. Arrow Video has assembled a special edition set for Herschell Gordon Lewis’ Blood Feast that’s a must-own for any splatter fans out there, and the Warner Archive Collection...

The Internecine Project

Blu-ray

Kino Lorber Classics

1974 / Color / 1:78 widescreen / 89 min. / Street Date January 3, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: James Coburn, Lee Grant, Harry Andrews, Ian Hendry, Michael Jayston, Christiane Krüger, Keenan Wynn, Julian Glover.

Cinematography: Geoffrey Unsworth

Film Editor: John Shirley

Original Music: Roy Budd

Written by: Barry Levinson, Jonathan Lynn from a book by Mort W. Elkind

Produced by: Barry Levinson

Directed by Ken Hughes

Don’t let the ugly Italian poster art on the disc box throw you — The Internecine Project is a clever plot-driven murder tale in an espionage vein that gathers a string of B+ stars from the early 1970s for ninety minutes of suspense. It’s not the kind of suspense that makes you wonder what’s going to happen next, but the kind that points to a finish that we know will employ a big surprise, a killer-diller last-minute twist. Or three.

The...

Ken Hughes’ beat-influenced portrait of 1960s London life was forgotten for years, but has just been restored. Full of weaselly charm, low-rent hipness and rare depictions of Jewish family life, it is well worth rediscovering

There’s lots to like about The Small World of Sammy Lee: Anthony Newley’s weaselly charm in the title role; the seedy 1960s Soho streets; the Night-and-the-City flourishes; the rare glimpse of the bickering family life of British Jews; the haunting soundtrack. Having lurked for several decades in the shadows of British cinema, the 1963 film is finally emerging into the sunlight of 4K restoration, festival screenings and Blu-ray release.

It’s a genuine curiosity: the last knockings of black-and-white, beat-influenced hipster cinema before a tide of gaudily-coloured, new wave-inspired, pop art films. Ken Hughes, its director, reached back to the prewar working-class bohemianism so perfectly captured by Graham Greene and Gerald Kersh.

Continue reading.

Set in the grimy streets of early-60s Soho, The Small World of Sammy Lee is a lost gem of British cinema. Starring Anthony Newley as a strip-club compere who owes a large amount of money to a local villain, it was written and directed by Ken Hughes (best known for Chitty Chitty Bang Bang) and was photographed by the renowned Wolfgang Suschitzky. It also features a host of recognisable faces in smaller roles, including Steptoe’s Wilfrid Brambell, The Rag Trade’s Miriam Karlin, and Till Death Us Do Part’s Warren Mitchell.

•The Small World of Sammy Lee is released on Blu-ray on 14 November

Continue reading...

Now in its 15th year, Sci-Fi London is an annual international film festival that enjoys an unrivalled reputation as a launchpad for genre film. Always keen to challenge stereotypes and push the definition of what ‘sci-fi’ means, the festival has a reputation for programming a variety of exciting and independent films, bringing together the best science fiction and fantastic film from around the world.

And whilst we can’t cover every film shown at this years event, we can bring you a small selection of filmic highlights. First up: Einstein’s God Model and Teleios…

Einstein’S God Model

Stars: Aaron Graham, Kirby O’Connell, Kenneth Hughes, Brad Norman, Darryl Warren, Karol Kent, Tiffany Scott, Andy Hannon, Mallory Bordonaro | Written and Directed by Philip T. Johnson

Using the science of Quantum Physics and String Theory, Einstein’s God Model takes the audience on a journey beyond the known universe. Director Philip T.

Like a lot of folks, my movie watching is heading more towards a digital future rather than a physical one – and that’s despite my love of Blu-ray and all the cult movies the format has brought us thanks to the likes of Olive Films, Kino Lorber/Scorpion Releasing, Scream Factory, Vinegar Syndrome et al.

Whilst many will decry abandoning discs for digital files there are some bonuses, especially for genre fans here in the UK. The advent of iTunes has brought with it, in a lot of cases, a dropping of the borders. Movies are hitting Apple’s stores that haven’t seen the light of day since the VHS era – there’s even some films available digitally that have never previously been made available to rent or buy on these shores. Ever.

With that in mind, I’ve been trawling iTunes to find some hidden gems, the real...

Casino Royale

Directed by John Huston, Val Guest and co.

Written by Wolf Mankowitz, John Law and co.

U.S.A., 1967

With the mad success of the James Bond films as produced by partners Albert ‘Cubby’ Broccoli and (Canadian) Harry Saltzman, which had run from 1962’s Dr. No to 1965 Thunderball, it was only natural for the Hollywood system to create a great number of other spy genre pictures. After all, like it or not, copycats make for good business, oftentimes regardless of the quality of the films themselves. Without the shadow of a doubt, the most curious imitator of them all, one that has earned, for both right and wrong reasons, a cult status throughout the decades, was the brainchild of producer Charles K. Feldman. Determined to cash in on the 007 craze, Feldman did not just make a copycat of Bond, he tried to make a Bond film, albeit one...

Ron Moody as Fagin in 'Oliver!' based on Charles Dickens' 'Oliver Twist.' Ron Moody as Fagin in Dickens musical 'Oliver!': Box office and critical hit (See previous post: "Ron Moody: 'Oliver!' Actor, Academy Award Nominee Dead at 91.") Although British made, Oliver! turned out to be an elephantine release along the lines of – exclamation point or no – Gypsy, Star!, Hello Dolly!, and other Hollywood mega-musicals from the mid'-50s to the early '70s.[1] But however bloated and conventional the final result, and a cast whose best-known name was that of director Carol Reed's nephew, Oliver Reed, Oliver! found countless fans.[2] The mostly British production became a huge financial and critical success in the U.S. at a time when star-studded mega-musicals had become perilous – at times downright disastrous – ventures.[3] Upon the American release of Oliver! in Dec. 1968, frequently acerbic The...

By Tim Greaves

As British noir crime dramas of the Fifties go, The House Across the Lake (1954) is probably as good an example as you could hope to dip into. The tale unfolds in flashback, related by our main protagonist to another character (precisely who is not revealed until the final reel), is embroidered with expositional narration and, though clichéd and not in the least unpredictable, delivers atmosphere by the barrel.

The film is an early entry on the CV of writer-director Ken Hughes (the arguable highpoints of whose career, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Cromwell, remain perennial favourites, whilst his latter-day offerings, Night School and Sextette, are best brushed under the proverbial carpet). Hughes scripted The House Across the Lake from his own source novel, “High Wray”, and also commandeered the director’s chair. Nowadays understandably marketed as a Hammer film, it’s actually the fruit of the company’s earlier incarnation Exclusive Films.

Mark Harrison Sep 13, 2016

From James Bond to Willy Wonka, Matilda to The Witches, we chart the big screen work of Roald Dahl...

Roald Dahl has often been referred to as one of the greatest storytellers for children in the 20th century. His books have delighted children for generations, with their dark and inventive sense of humour and their eccentric, dastardly adult characters.

Likewise, his written work for adults has just as much wit and creativity, and over the years, he also worked as a screenwriter on a number of projects, including TV work on Alfred Hitchcock Presents and his own anthology series, Roald Dahl's Tales Of The Unexpected.

Given how it doesn't even take the likes of J.K. Rowling and Stephanie Meyer five years to have their popular works adapted by Hollywood, there has inevitably been an extensive crossover between Dahl's written work and the big screen. His work...

Feature Mark Harrison 3 Mar 2014 - 07:02

From James Bond to Willy Wonka, Matilda to The Witches, we chart the big screen work of Roald Dahl...

Roald Dahl has often been referred to as one of the greatest storytellers for children in the 20th century. His books have delighted children for generations, with their dark and inventive sense of humour and their eccentric, dastardly adult characters.

Likewise, his written work for adults has just as much wit and creativity, and over the years, he also worked as a screenwriter on a number of projects, including TV work on Alfred Hitchcock Presents and his own anthology series, Roald Dahl's Tales Of The Unexpected.

Given how it doesn't even take the likes of J.K. Rowling and Stephanie Meyer five years to have their popular works adapted by Hollywood, there has inevitably been an extensive crossover between Dahl's written work and the big screen.

Prolific comedy actor who worked with Peter Sellers, Tony Hancock, Spike Milligan and Hattie Jacques

The stony-faced, beaky comedy actor Graham Stark, who has died aged 91, is best remembered for his appearances alongside Peter Sellers, notably in the Pink Panther movies. His familiar face and voice, on television and radio, were part of the essential furniture in the sitting room of our popular culture for more than half a century. A stalwart in the national postwar comedy boom led by Sellers, Tony Hancock, Spike Milligan, Dick Emery, Eric Sykes and Benny Hill, he worked with them all in a sort of unofficial supporting repertory company that also included Hattie Jacques, Deryck Guyler, Patricia Hayes and Arthur Mullard. He was also a man of surprising and various parts: child actor, trained dancer, film-maker, occasional writer, and dedicated and critically acclaimed photographer.

Like Gypsy Rose Lee, he had a resourceful and determined...

These days you can watch any movie you desire online. Yet there's still one thing the magical wonders of instant streaming haven't solved for indecisive movie-lovers: what the heck to watch! Moviefone is here to recommend the best streaming movies from Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Instant and new digital releases from iTunes and Vudu each week in Moviefone's Digital Download.

This week's Digital Download picks range from goofy '90s rom-coms and tongue-in-cheek cabin scares, to martial arts flicks and outlaws on the run. Check out our suggestions below, and happy streaming!

Comedy: 'Clueless' (1995)

Revisiting the high school misadventures of Cher and Dionne, including their impeccable driving (not) and boy hunting, may be the best time you'll have this weekend (but we sorta hope not). Starring Alicia Silverstone, Stacey Dash, Paul Rudd, and the late Brittany Murphy, "Clueless" is everything you love and miss about the '90s.

Actor who played many major Shakespearean roles on the stage

Few actors played as many major Shakespearean roles as did Paul Rogers, a largely forgotten and seriously underrated performer, who has died aged 96. It was as though he was barnacled in those parts, undertaken at the Old Vic in the 1950s, by the time he played his most famous role, the vicious paterfamilias Max in Harold Pinter's The Homecoming at the Aldwych theatre in 1965 (and filmed in 1973).

Staunch, stolid and thuggish, with eyes that drilled through any opposition, Rogers's Max was a grumpy old block of granite, hewn on an epic scale, despite the flat cap and plimsolls – horribly real. Peter Hall's production for the Royal Shakespeare Company was monumental; everything was grey, chill and cheerless in John Bury's design, set off firstly by a piquant bowl of green apples and then by the savage acting.

The Homecoming...

With the words, "I never play over twenty-eight," Mae West supposedly ruled herself out of consideration for the role of Norma Desmond in Billy Wilder's Sunset Blvd. It's hard to work out why she was considered, since she had no associating with silent cinema, but perhaps at that stage the character was pre-Code rather than pre-sound. At any rate, Gloria Swanson took the role and enjoyed a renaissance, in the process obscuring the fact that she had enjoyed some brief success in early talkies (including one co-written by Wilder).

Maybe West just seemed like someone who wouldn't be shy about playing love scenes with a younger man. Much, much younger. She got her chance to prove this in Myra Breckinridge (1970), at the age of at least seventy-six. It's a moronic adaptation of Gore Vidal, directed by a British actor whose big idea was to make the whole thing a dream sequence.

By Lee Pfeiffer

Remember that scene in Mel Brooks' The Producers when the first performance of Springtime for Hitler has just been performed for an opening night crowd on Broadway? The camera pans around the silent audience to show people sitting slack-jawed, mouths agape at the travesty they have just witnessed. I had a similar experience watching Sextette for the first time. Mind you, as a long time retro movie analyst, I was well-aware of the film's reputation as a notorious misfire. However, no criticism can quite prepare anyone for the experience of actually watching this bizarre spectacle unfold before your eyes. Scorpion Video has made that possible with a special edition DVD release of the 1978 musical comedy that was to be Mae West's second attempt to make a big screen comeback. (The first, the notorious 1970 bomb Myra Breckenridge, outraged her when she saw the final cut.) Sextette...

Casino Royale

Directed by John Huston, Val Guest and co.

Written by Wolf Mankowitz, John Law and co.

U.S.A., 1967

With the mad success of the James Bond films as produced by partners Albert ‘Cubby’ Broccoli and (Canadian) Harry Saltzman, which had run from 1962’s Dr. No to 1965 Thunderball, it was only natural for the Hollywood system to create a great number of other spy genre pictures. After all, like it or not, copycats make for good business, oftentimes regardless of the quality of the films themselves. Without the shadow of a doubt, the most curious imitator of them all, one that has earned, for both right and wrong reasons, a cult status throughout the decades, was the brainchild of producer Charles K. Feldman. Determined to cash in on the 007 craze, Feldman did not just make a copycat of Bond, he tried to make a Bond film, albeit one...

Sixteen years ago the Us-educated Dane Nicolas Winding Refn directed Pusher, a highly efficient, low-budget thriller about eight days in the life of an increasingly desperate small-time drug dealer in hock to vicious Balkan gangsters. It was the first film in a trilogy that made a star of Mads Mikkelsen, an actor now best known for playing Le Chiffre in Casino Royale. This plot has now been transposed to south London and directed by a Us-educated Spanish film-maker, Luis Prieto, with Refn as one of the producers. The pusher, Frank (Richard Coyle), only slightly less dislikable than most of the other characters, now has less than 48 hours to put together £55,000 or be kneecapped by the sadistic, smiling Serbian drug lord Milo (played by the same frightening actor, Zlatko Buric, as in the Danish original).

It's well enough made, but the plot is overly familiar. Indeed the very first film I...

My father, John Harris, who has died aged 87, had a 53-year career in films, working on movies such as Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968), The Man With the Golden Gun (1974), Superman (1978) and The Running Man (1987).

He was born in Wimbledon, south-west London, the second son of a solicitor, and educated at King's College school, Wimbledon. From an early age he was fascinated by cameras and he asked for a Zeiss Ikon for his 14th birthday. In 1941, he started work in the camera department at Gainsborough Pictures at "the Bush", their studio in Lime Grove, west London, as a clapper boy and focus puller.

He served in the navy during the second world war, and was an official naval photographer at the Japanese surrender in Hong Kong in 1945. He became a freelance camera operator in 1949 when "the Bush" studio was taken over by the BBC and Gainsborough closed soon afterwards.

Early in his career,...

The Warner Archive Collection is a manufacture-on-demand (Mod) DVD series that specializes in putting previously unreleased films on DVD for the first time. Recently they dug deep into their vast history of classic horror and selected some winners to resurrect.

The Warner Archive Collection can make a wide array of films available because they don't actually create the DVD until it is ordered by a customer. This way, they are not taking a chance of getting stuck with a large amount of inventory if a selected title doesn't sell. You'll certainly recognize some of the horror films the Warner Archive Collection has added to its library, but there are a couple of really obscure ones in there as well. Take a look at the list of what's been made available and plan your shopping list now.

Don't Be Afraid of the Dark (1973)

Although the recent remake featuring the suddenly single...

1981 was, of course, relatively early in the "slasher craze" that would soon run rampant throughout the decade, but less than a year after Friday the 13th (and about three years after Halloween), everyone with a camera, a cast, and a check would be banging out their own piece of stalker cinema. This year offered Halloween 2, Hell Night, The Funhouse, The Prowler, My Bloody Valentine, Happy Birthday to Me, The Final Terror, The Burning, Final Exam, and ... Night School, a patently generic knock-off that has a few noteworthy aspects -- although none of them are what you'd call "assets." The final feature from respected British director Ken Hughes (Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Of Human Bondage, several others) and...

More long hidden horrors are now available as part of Warner's made-to-order Archive Collection. Oh, the classic terrors that await you, dearest reader! Dig it!

Head on over to the Warner Archives and order yours today!

The Awakening

Director: Mike Newell

Cast: Charlton Heston, Susannah York, Jill Townsend, Stephanie Zimbalist

Synopsis

Mention Bram Stoker’s name, and literature and movie buffs will conjure up Count Dracula. But there was more blood in Stoker’s pen. He also wrote The Jewel of the Seven Stars, later filmed with chilling effect as The Awakening, grippingly directed by Mike Newell (Dance with a Stranger, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) and sensuously shot on Egyptian locations by veteran cinematographer Jack Cardiff. Charlton Heston stars as an Egyptologist with a passion that will trigger several mysterious deaths. He’s obsessed with a sorceress whose return has been prophesied – and whose tomb he opened...

"Two decades ago everything tasted better when drizzled with the special chocolate sauce of 'postmodernism,' and Twin Peaks was the most ironic cherry pie vehicle for that addictive popular culture had yet baked up," writes Dennis Harvey in the San Francisco Bay Guardian. "It was so cool you could hardly believe it was actually being watched." Tonight, the Roxie and MIDNiTES For MANiACS present a "20th Anniversary Celebration for David Lynch's Twin Peaks" that kicks off with Otto Preminger's Laura (1944), the inspiration for Lynch and Mark Frost's series, followed by the pilot and Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1922). "Plus, pie on sale all night courtesy of Three Babes Bakeshop!"

How to Be a Retronaut points us to a fine set of photos at Welcome to Twin Peaks: "When Twin Peaks' in-house photographer had quit and no further promotional shots were needed since the show was cancelled,...

Oh, Warner Archives. How much do we love thee? You specialize in doling out obscure classics that haven't seen the light of day in ages, and as a result you make us want to shrink ourselves to infant size so that we may roll around playfully on your naked bosom. Happy sigh!

Next up from their vaults? Two Eighties slashers that we've been dying to see again - Ken Hughes' 1981 bloodbath Night School and William Fruet's 1986 flick Killer Party.

Here are some quick synopses for those who don't remember or have never heard of these goodies via IMDb -

Night School

A Boston police detective investigates a series of gruesome decapitations of various college coeds committed by a helmeted, black-leather clad serial killer, which leads him to suspect a well known anthropology professor as well as his female live-in assistant.

Killer Party

Three gorgeous babes decide to join a sorority,...

You might say it’s a good month to be a fan of British cult filmmaker Nicolas Roeg. Just last week the Criterion Collection released the director’s 1985 oddball picture, “Insignificance,” and this week, his landmark science-fiction film “The Man Who Fell to Earth” starring David Bowie is being given a limited U.S. theatrical re-release to mark its 35th anniversary. Roeg began his career as a member of the British film establishment, acting as a camera operator on Fred Zinneman’s “The Sundowners” (1960) and Ken Hughes’ “The Trials of Oscar Wilde” (1960), shooting as second unit photographer on sequences of “Lawrence…...

A look at what's new on DVD this week:

"Fubar: Balls to the Wall"

Directed by Michael Dowse

Released by Screen Media Films

Following up the 2002 cult comedy about lifelong metalhead pals Terry and Dean, this sequel, which recently premiered to much acclaim at SXSW, finds the duo down on their luck when they decide to head up north to work in the oil industry, but when their best laid plans go awry, Dean attempts to get on worker's comp, leading to the kind of exploits best enjoyed with a cold beer.

"Born to Raise Hell" (2011)

Directed by Darren Shahlavi

Released by Paramount

Steven Seagal not only stars as an Interpol agent named Samuel Axel in this Dtv thriller, but also wrote the script, so you know it has to be good. In it, Axel must bring down a gun trafficking ring in the Balkans where the stakes become personal...

When I was offered to review one of my all-time favourite movies from my youth, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, I jumped at the chance. The movie has been completely remastered and is released today on Blu ray. Me and my sister must have watched this movie 100 times and never got bored of it. How can a car that flies get boring?!

Chitty Chity Bang Bangs stars Dick Van Dyke, Lionel Jeffries, Adrian Hall and Hether Ripley in a film adaption of Ian Fleming’s book. The film was adapted for the sc reen by Roald Dahl and is directed by Ken Hughes and also stars Sally Ann Howes, and James Robert Justice.

Synopsis: Award-winning Dick Van Dyke (Mary Poppins, Dick Tracy, Night at the Museum) stars as eccentric widowed inventor Caractacus Potts in this magical tale set in early twentieth century England. Caractacus is poor but happy, living with his...

Sky Movies HD have got quite a good season coming up called ‘Movies You Never Got Around To Watching But Always Wanted To See’ and this sort of thing is perfect for people who aren’t sure what movies they should watch.

Their week of films starts Monday 11th Oct – Sunday 17th Oct and includes classic and groundbreaking movies like Jurassic Park, Jaws, Cool Hand Luke and Dead Poets Society.

Have a look at the list below including the date and time it will air and I’ve given trailers for each movie, when it’s on TV and some of my favourite clips for some of the movies too.

———————————–

Mon 11th 5.45pm Dead Poets Society

Director: Peter Weir

Cast: Robin Williams, Ethan Hawke, Welker White, Robert Sean Leonard, Josh Charles

Synopsis: Set in an exclusive boys preparatory school in 1959, a newly appointed English teacher uses unconventional techniques to inspire his students in classic poetry.

For those who don’t know, in addition to Bad Lit, since 1999 I’ve made a living creating content for a number of other media websites. Some of them were run by big media corporations, some were small start-ups and one is a non-profit. Although each website had different creative goals, they — as well as Bad Lit — all share one common über-goal:

Get More Pageviews!!

The reason why is obvious: More pageviews means more revenue. Yes, I am concerned with such things with Bad Lit even though the site focuses on non-commercial and artistic cinema. When I fire up the ol’ computer every morning, pageviews are the third thing I check on. (First is email, second is ad revenue.)

However, generating revenue isn’t the only reason I’m so obsessed with Bad Lit’s pageviews. I am genuinely concerned and devoted to bringing underground film to a larger audience.