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Peter Renaday, a longtime and prolific voice actor best known as the voice of rat sensei Master Splinter in the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles TV series, died Sunday, September 8, at his home in Burbank, California. He was 89.

News of his death was shared on social media by friend and Turtles costar Townsend Coleman, who voiced the character of Michaelangelo on the immensely popular generational touchstone animated series of the 1980s-’90s.

A cause of death has not been determined, but TMZ cites law enforcement sources as having discovered an unresponsive Renaday during a welfare check at his home on Sunday. Natural causes are suspected.

“Pete was one of the most genuine, salt of the earth people I have ever known and I will miss him dearly,” Coleman wrote on social media (see the post below). “I had the privilege of visiting with him a month ago and he was as vibrant as ever,...

March 17, 1951 was a great day in history, because that’s the day Kurt Vogel Russell entered the world. And while he would go on to become one of the biggest icons of the eighties and nineties, many folks don’t know that Russell started as a child star for The Walt Disney Company, even acting opposite his future life partner Goldie Hawn in The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band (1968) – although they wouldn’t get together until Russell ended up in another movie starring Goldie Hawn, Swing Shift (1984). From the sixties into the seventies, he starred in Disney flicks like The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes (1969), but as the studio’s movies started to flop and Russell got older, a change of pace was needed. Arguably, Russell’s career took off when he began working with director John Carpenter, with the first movie being 1979’s TV movie Elvis, but what...

New Zealand’s Ant Timpson has been quietly but confidently carving out quite a niche in the genre film circuit. As a writer and producer he helped birth the ABCs Of Death project, and shepherded the likes of cult classic Turbo Kid by the Rkss team and Jason Lei Howden’s wild Deathgasm.

Kurt Russell's first acting gig was in the 1963 Elvis Presley vehicle "It Happened at the World's Fair," wherein he played an unnamed young boy hired to kick Elvis in the shin. Elvis, you see, wanted to romance a nurse at the Fair, and wanted to approach her with an injury as a way of breaking the ice. Russell was 12.

This early gig was parlayed into a successful career as a teen actor, and throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Russell appeared in multiple high-concept comedies for Disney. He was in three of the Medfield College movies — "Now You See Him, Now You Don't," "The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes," and "The Strongest Man in the World" — as well as "Superdad," "Charley and the Angel," and "The Barefoot Executive." It wouldn't be until Robert Zemecki's 1980 comedy "Used Cars" that Russell would begin to shed his squeaky-clean teen image and begin appearing in more mature films,...

For cinephiles who came of moviegoing age during the 1970s and/or '80s, there is a shortlist of movie stars that, if you were talented and fortunate enough to become a filmmaker of some renown, you'd give anything to direct. And if you grew up with a hankering for horror and science-fiction flicks, the name Kurt Russell was probably at or near the top of that list.

Russell wasn't always one of the cool kids. In fact, he was a literally uncool kid for Disney as the teenage star of family comedies like "The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes." Indeed, no one viewed Russell as a grown-up actor until he impressed in the title role of Carpenter's 1979 TV movie "Elvis." This did the trick. Two years later, Russell slipped under the scaly skin of laconic scoundrel Snake Plissken in Carpenter's dystopian actioner "Escape from New York." Then he went the...

Imagine watching Nick at Nite back when shows from the 1950s through to the '70s dominated the programming block. It just so happens that "Gilligan's Island" season 1, episode 19, "Gilligan Meets Jungle Boy," is on. By and large, you know what to expect: Gilligan (Bob Denver) getting up to slapstick mayhem; Jonas Grumby, aka "The Skipper" (Alan Hale Jr.), on the verge of blowing a fuse over his first mate's antics; and the shipwrecked passengers of the SS Minnow staging yet another comically failed attempt in their Sisyphean quest to escape the titular island. Sherwood Schwartz's supremely silly sitcom series was nothing if not consistent in its formula.

It's at this point that a 13-year-old Kurt Russell shows up with no shirt and a leopard loincloth on.

"Jungle Boy" does indeed hit all the anticipated beats for an episode of "Gilligan's Island." It also, in true to form fashion,...

Is there any actor who casually oozes coolness like Kurt Russell? 

As with anyone in Hollywood, the young Russell had to earn his stripes. Upon signing a contract with the Mouse House, he started out anchoring a collection of zany Disney comedies in the '60s and '70s, including "The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes," "The Strongest Man in the World," and "The Barefoot Executive," a movie that paired him opposite a chimpanzee. Beginning with their 1979 made-for-tv "Elvis" biopic, however, Russell and director John Carpenter collaborated on a series of highly efficient yet firmly modest genre films, many of which became cult hits and cemented their too-cool-for-school reputation.

Russell has only continued to evolve his legacy in the 21st century, starring in everything from cult favorites as worlds apart as "Sky High" and "Bone Tomahawk" to Quentin Tarantino joints and blockbuster franchises like the Marvel Cinematic Universe and The Fast...

We all know that Kurt Russell is a true acting legend. The legendary actor made a name for himself as Dexter Riley in films such as The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes (1969), Now You See Him, Now You Don’t (1972), and The Strongest Man in the World (1975), and later continued the success by starring in John Carpenter’s films as hero-turned-robber Snake Plissken in Escape from New York (1981), its sequel Escape from L.A. (1996), the horror film The Thing (1982), and the kung-fu comedy action film Big Trouble in Little China (1986). And while this is just a fraction of Russell’s amazing roles, it is a good indication of how big of a star he was in the 1970s and 1980s.

But, another member of his family, his son Wyatt Russell, is also becoming a popular acting name since his appearance as John Walker / U.S. Agent in the The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (2021) series.

Kurt Russell was born on March 17, 1951, in the Los Angeles suburb of Thousand Oaks. He started acting at the age of 12 on various television programs. In the 1960s he was signed to a 10-year contract with Walt Disney, which led to his appearance in many of the Disney films of the era. According to the late Robert Osborne of TCM (via Wikipedia), he became the studio’s top star of the 1970s.

Those Disney appearances did typecast Russell a bit and he would be stuck playing many roles that were somewhat wholesome in nature. He would turn that image around when director John Carpenter (fresh from the surprise blockbuster success of “Halloween”) cast him in the lead role of Elvis Presley in a TV movie called “Elvis!” That television film was really the first time Russell was taken seriously as an actor and it earned him an Emmy nomination. Carpenter...

Updated: There has been another round of content removal from Disney+, this time in the Emea region, which consists of Europe, the Middle East and Africa. More than 120 titles have been taken off this week, primarily Disney Channel original movies and vintage Disney live-action films, as well as a few series, including Zeke and Luther, Pepper Ann, So Random and the first three seasons of Nat Geo’s Genius and ESPN/Nat Geo docs.

According to sources, the takedowns were a result of a library title review. There have been several content purges at Disney+ over the last year amid cost-cutting, most notably the removal of a slew of original series last May.

Here is a list of movie titles that are said to be gone from Disney+ in Emea, compiled by Drew Ryan.

A Tale of Two Critters

America’s Heart and Soul

Angry Sky (ESPN)

Babes in Toyland...

Robert Butler, a television director for the pilot shows for Star Trek, Batman, Hill Street Blues, and Moonlighting, has died. He was 95.

Butler’s family announced that the Emmy award-winning director died on Nov. 3 in Los Angeles.

Graduating from UCLA where he majored in English, Butler started his career in entertainment as an usher at CBS. His first credit as a director would come in 1959 when he directed an episode for the military comedy-drama Hennesey which starred Jackie Cooper and Abby Dalton.

Over the years, Butler was sought out to direct pilots for shows like Hogan’s Heroes (1965), the original Star Trek (1966), Batman (1966), the first mini-series on television The Blue Knight (1973), Hill Street Blues (1978), Moonlighting (1985), Sisters (1991) and Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman (1993).

Butler won two Emmy Awards, the first one for The Blue Knight pilot in 1973 and the second one in 1981 for Hill Street Blues. In 2015 he was...

Robert Butler, the co-creator of “Remington Steele” and a veteran television director who worked on such series as “Hill Street Blues,” “Star Trek” and “Batman,” died Nov. 3 in Los Angeles. He was 95.

Butler’s career spanned nearly five decades, during which he directed many notable series, including “Hennesey,” “Star Trek,” “Batman,” “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” “Bonanza,” “The Twilight Zone,” “Gunsmoke,” “Hawaii Five-o” and more. He won three Primetime Emmy Awards: two for “The Blue Knight” in 1974 and the other for “Hill Street Blues” in 1981. He also received Emmy nominations for episodes of “Moonlighting,” “Sirens” and “Lois & Clark The Adventures of Superman.”

Butler and Michael Gleason co-created “Remington Steele,” starring Pierce Brosnan and Stephanie Zimbalist, which ran from 1982 to 1987 on NBC. Butler directed five episodes of the detective procedural series between 1982 and 1983, including the pilot.

He also directed several feature films and TV movies, including “Now You See Him, Now You Don’t,...

With both Disney and Warner Bros. turning 100 this year, it’s a great time to remember the Golden Age of moviemaking. The business is changing at a precipitous rate, and recent studio mergers have forever altered the longtime map of Hollywood production.

Actors and crew members, like armies, march on their stomachs, and since the dawn of the industry, it’s been up to the studios where they’re shooting to keep them well fortified. Studio executives and office workers, too, needed a convenient place to eat on the lots.

While researching the recent Culinary Historians presentation “Lunching on the Lot,” a 1997 quote from Variety story turned up which deftly explained what studio commissaries meant to the business. “After a gourmet tour of studio eateries, however, one thing is clear — It ain’t the chow that’s important. When the tribe hunkers down for its daily repast, ritual and symbolism are the rule.

Long ago, the 1950s ended and Disney never really got over it.

With the right kind of eyes, a casual viewer can look at the early days of Walt Disney Studios as their heyday. Walt himself was still alive and using his aggressive business acumen to produce visually innovative and award-winning animated shorts that were helping put the studio on the map. Without the Silly Symphonies, animation would not be the same. Warner Bros. outstripped Disney's fare with their cheekier, funnier shorts in the 1940s and 1950s, but the folks at Warner's Termite Terrace were very open about the fact that Merrie Melodies and Looney Tunes were ripping off Disney's Silly Symphonies name. Disney Animation broke onto the scene in 1937 with the release of "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," still celebrated as one of the best of all animated films to this day.

The reason early Disney was...

In casting films and television shows that are set in the recent past, there exists a tacit understanding that the actors and characters are separate entities. For instance, "Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood" doesn't have to go out of its way to explain a resemblance between Kurt Russell's character of Randy and a kid named Kurt Russell starring in a little film called "The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes," which was released in 1969, the year "Hollywood" is set.

Yet when a movie or show involves characters who are not only pop-culture obsessed but whose actors became major movie stars via major blockbusters, that suspension of disbelief can be...

The post How Beetlejuice Created an Unusual Situation For Stranger Things Season 4 appeared first on /Film.

Disney has shared a new trailer for their upcoming Disney+ streaming service and it’s over 3-hours long! I don’t know if you want to spend over three hours seeing what Disney+ has to offer when it launches, but you have the option!

Disney+ also posted all of the films and TV shows coming to the streaming service on a super long Twitter thread, which I included below the trailer. As you’ll see there’s a ton of stuff that will be available that will make Disney fans happy. Gargoyles and several other classic 90s animated series are among them along with a lot of old weird films that have been pulled out of the Disney vault.

If you don’t want to watch the trailer or scroll through the Twitter feed, I shared the full list of titles for you. Check everything out below and let us...

For those of you who have signed up or plan on signing up for Disney+, we now have a full list of TV shows and films that will be available to watch on the day the service launches. While there’s not as much here as the services like Netflix or Hulu, there’s still a lot here that I’m excited about watching!

This is the list of shows and films that were included in the trial run for the streaming service that’s currently available in The Netherlands. So, you’ll notice that that upcoming titles such as The Mandalorian, Lady and the Tramp, Noelle and The World According to Jeff Goldblum aren’t on this list. But, they will be available when the service launches on November 12th.

I’ve already signed up for Disney+. I’m locked in for three years and with all of the...

Kurt Russell was born on March 17, 1951, in the Los Angeles suburb of Thousand Oaks. He will celebrate his 68th birthday this year, so Gold Derby is taking a look back at his film career.

Russell started acting at the age of 12 on various television programs. In the 1960s he was signed to a 10-year contract with Walt Disney, which led to his appearance in many of the Disney films of the era. According to the late Robert Osborne of TCM (via Wikipedia), he became the studio’s top star of the 1970s.

SEEGoldie Hawn movies: 10 greatest films

Those Disney appearances did typecast Russell a bit and he would be stuck playing many roles that were somewhat wholesome in nature. He would turn that image around when director John Carpenter (fresh from the surprise blockbuster success of “Halloween”) cast him in the lead role of Elvis Presley in a TV movie called “Elvis!

Perhaps the best way to approach “Ant-Man and the Wasp,” the sequel to the 2015 Marvel Cinematic Universe adventure that introduced the shrinking superhero, is as a Disney movie rather than a Marvel one. And when I say “Disney movie,” I mean a very specific kind: the goofy Dexter Riley comedies.

From 1969 to 1975, Kurt Russell played affable college student Dexter, who kept running afoul of science experiments that rendered him strong, super-smart or even invisible. Substitute Paul Rudd’s amiable ex-con Scott Lang for Dexter — with Michael Douglas subbing for scientist William Schallert, and Walton Goggins taking the Keenan Wynn/Cesar Romero role of the nefarious mobster — and “Ant-Man and the Wasp” is basically “The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes” for the 21st century.

Mind you, I mean this as a compliment; after a rough start in the previous entry, director Peyton Reed (“Down With Love”) seems much more comfortable balancing wacky antics,...

From the director of The Iron Giant and The Incredibles comes the sci-fi adventure, Tomorrowland. Here's Ryan's review...

Director Brad Bird has an almost immaculate run of form when it comes to bringing larger-than-life entertainments to the screen. The Iron Giant was one of the most acclaimed animated films of the 1990s. The Incredibles and Ratatouille are among Pixar's best films so far. His live-action debut Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, while not perfect, was perhaps the most entertaining movie entry since the first.

Bird brings his blue-sky storytelling to bear on Tomorrowland: A World Beyond, a eyed sci-fi fairytale with elements taken straight from classic pulp magazine stories. It’s The Wizard Of Oz retold by Ray Bradbury or Hugo Gernsback, with bits of The Terminator and Buck Rogers thrown in for good measure. It’s an entertaining yet sometimes befuddling bag of intricately moving parts, not all of which fit together too well.

Never mind The Terminator and Ed-209, what about Eve, Hector or Warbeast? Here's a pick of 15 less famous killer robots from the movies...

"They say Zapp Brannigan single-handedly saved the Octillion system from a horde of rampaging killbots!" enthused Leela in classic the Futurama episode, Love's Labour's Lost In Space.

It was, reflected the alcoholic, cigar-smoking robot Bender, "A grim day for Robotkind", before adding as an afterthought, "Eh, but we can always build more killbots."

Killer robots are a longstanding staple of science fiction cinema, and if we were to compile the list of the best and most celebrated, it would probably read pretty much like everyone else's - The Terminator, 2001: A Space Odyssey and the Sentinels from X-Men: Days Of Future Past would all get a mention.

But what about the less famous killer robots from film history - the ones that have been largely eclipsed by...

Warner Bros.

This week sees the UK release of Transcendence, the debut directorial effort from Wally Pfister. The man who shot Christopher Nolan’s Gotham trilogy and won an Oscar for his work on Inception is now calling the shots himself, following in the footsteps of other talented cinematographers like Nicolas Roeg, Barry Sonnenfeld and Jan de Bont. Critical reaction over in the States (and from our very own Ed Owen) has been lukewarm at best, but if you’re a fan of old-school sci-fi like Brainstorm, Westworld and The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes, you should still give it a chance.

But beneath the hubbub over whether Pfister has succeeded or failed, Transcendence also gives us an opportunity to reassess the career of Paul Bettany. He may never have quite ascended to the heights enjoyed by his co-star Johnny Depp, and there have been a handful of bad performances along the way.

The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes: Pfister’s Debut Oversteps Limited Reach

Hopes were perhaps set a bit too high for the directorial debut of Wally Pfister, whose work as cinematographer for Christopher Nolan’s three Batman films and a cast headlined by Johnny Depp made Transcendence seem promising, at the very least. But to say that Pfister’s debut is merely disappointing would be a polite euphemism, for it fails on every conceivable level, unsure of whether it wants to be a romantic drama, a hi-tech thriller, or a lesson in the dangers of advancement and dependence on artificial intelligence. Worse, the film’s shockingly lackluster visual artistry can’t even awe or distract us away from the empty headedness transpiring on screen.

Opening with a mournful Max Waters (Paul Bettany), we hear his omniscient narration about a horrible fusion of mankind and technology that seems to have returned the world,...

Kurt Russell Teaches Us The Art Of The Steal

By Alex Simon

If you’re a guy of a certain age (think Gen X), Kurt Russell was that actor you discovered as a child who wasn’t just a familiar face on the big and small screen, he was your buddy you grew up with. Not a peer, necessarily, but the cool, slightly older kid who lived next door who you just knew, if you played your cards right, you might grow up to be: handsome, self-assured in sports, with girls and in your place on the planet. Especially if you could hang out with him on a regular basis and learn the tricks to his magic, and magic was something Kurt Russell had from the beginning.

The son of the late actor Bing Russell, best remembered as Deputy Sheriff Clem Foster on Bonanza, Kurt literally grew up on a soundstage,...

You know you’re among some true horror fans when below-the-line filmmakers get eager cheers.

At the Entertainment Weekly CapeTown Film Festival on Thursday, the mention of frequent Carpenter collaborators cinematographer Dean Cundey and special makeup effects designer Rob Bottin got lots of applause and cheers. But a standing ovation was reserved for the man of the hour, horror master John Carpenter. The celebrated director of all things gross and creepy participated in a Q&A moderated by American Cinematheque programmer Grant Moninger before Antarctica-set sci-fi horror flick The Thing screened at the packed Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood. The event...

Happy birthday to Kurt Russell! We would have sent him a card or an Elvis Presley bobble-head, but we seem to have lost his address. So instead we’ve decided to honor the day and the man by highlighting twelve of his greatest performances and films. Why twelve? Why the hell not. Russell is one of those actors whose presence in a film immediately elevates its level of awesome. This is fact. Also true is the unfortunate reality that he isn’t in nearly enough movies these days. His early career found him working within the Walt Disney machine, but he broke out in the early eighties to become a star across a wide variety of films. He excelled in romantic comedies, action films and the occasional straight-up dramatic role, but the last several years have seen a slow down in his output. Sure it’s depressing for those of us who consider ourselves fans, but...

It was Disney’s earliest attempt to replicate the success of Star Wars. Here’s our look back at the rather weird sci-fi odyssey, The Black Hole...

Before The Black Hole, Disney’s live-action output consisted of breezy stuff like Freaky Friday, The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes and Herbie Goes To Monte Carlo - the kind of flicks you could take your grandma to see without fear of scaring her to death. The arrival of Star Wars in 1977, with its motion-control special effects, colourful characters and sprawling universe, suddenly made Disney’s family fantasies look somewhat quaint.

Released a little over two years after Star Wars, The Black Hole was Disney’s attempt to try something new; it was an epic space opera which rode the crest of George Lucas’ astral wave. In the final analysis, though, The Black Hole is a strange fusion of 2001: A Space Odyssey’s metaphysical ponderings and cute robots,...

Whether they’re male or female, old or young, they’ve illuminated some classic movies. Here’s our top 50 list of sci-fi heroes and heroines…

On the face of it, compiling a list of truly great sci-fi protagonists should be easy. Pick a load of familiar names from a hat, write some breathlessly adoring drivel beneath them, and head off to the pub to reward a job well done.

Except it was never going to be as simple as that – and compiling lists seldom is. For every character making an appearance in the list below, there were at least two other possible candidates who didn't quite make the cut. Some sci-fi heroes were removed, then quickly reinstated. The order was jiggled around, then reordered again.

At one point, your humble writer realised there were more than 50 entries, and then had the unenviable task of hunting back through to decide which poor soul to eliminate.

With a third version of The Thing out in cinemas on Friday, Terence examines why a story originally written in 1938 is so enduringly popular…

Note: this article discusses the 1951 and 1982 Thing movies in depth, but we have been careful not to mention specific details about the new film.

There is now a third movie in what could now be referred to as The Thing franchise. Like the titular shape-shifting creature, the story and basic premise of The Thing has mutated and adapted to the themes, issues and even fears of the various times in which the films were made.

There has consistently been a new movie version of The Thing every 30 years or so since 1951. The original novella, Who Goes There?, written by legendary sci-fi writer John W Campbell Jr under the pseudonym Don A Stuart, was first published in the 1930s. If you take into account the underlying archetypal themes of the story,...

After months of courting, Quentin Tarantino has finally roped Don Johnson for Django Unchained, the director's next romp in the genre sandbox.

The former star of TV's Miami Vice will join Tarantino's upcoming spaghetti western as wealthy, vile plantation owner Spencer Bennett, who may or may not force his female slaves into prostitution and his male slaves into Mandingo-style death matches as Leonardo DiCaprio's character does — but, if we're lucky, Johnson's Bennett will definitely bedeck himself in pastel leisure suits with rolled-up sleeves. (Editor's note: Young people, that's funny because those are the clothes that Johnson wore as Sonny Crockett on Miami Vice when you were just a toddler playing in your standard-issue sandbox.)

Boy, Johnson is making quite a name for himself these days playing hateful character roles. He was last seen on the big screen starring as a loathsome, racist sheriff in Machete, Robert Rodriguez's grindhouse homage.

With The Sorcerer’s Apprentice on Blu-ray and DVD (here) in stores now, Killer Film catches up with the film’s director, Jon Turteltaub to talk about the film. Read on!

With the success of the “National Treasure” films, how was it like to work with Nicholas Cage in a different type of film, especially with a film that is very visual effect driven?

Jon Turteltaub: Nic and I had a great conversation before starting this film. Basically, we talked about how he let me take the reins in a lot of ways on National Treasure. That was such a buttoned-up character with a lot of intellectual and historical mumbo-jumbo to say. Balthazar, however, is a renegade… an outsider… a rock-and-roll-style hero. So this time, I let Nic take me on the ride… and I loved it.

Is there any special content made for the Blu-ray version? And are...

You asked us to shine the spotlight on DVD commentaries that enhance the viewer's enjoyment of films, good or bad

There are plenty of bad DVD commentaries out there but some really do add to the enjoyment of a film, often in surprising ways, as Haigin88 points out. Here are five of my favourites, each one taking a different slant on the act of commenting. Feel free to suggest your own faves.

The Matrix Trilogy

Commentary by Todd McCarthy, John Powers and David Thomson

The first film is great, but the sequels display the same lack of understanding about what made it great that George Lucas showed with his Star Wars prequels. Unlike Lucas, though, the Wachowskis (or Warners) are good enough sports to let the critics have their say. The commenters here are three well-respected critics who make smart, incisive remarks about the first film, then just tear the...

Great Scott! Will Zac Efron just leave the 80’s alone?

Speaking to Teen Hollywood, the High School Musical and 17 Again star was all jazzed up about playing the role made classic by Michael J. Fox. Much of his enthusiasm seems to come from his childhood, as he told the website: “Growing up, my favorite thing was to go into the car and play Back to the Future. I would pretend I was Marty McFly.”

On top of this, Efron even has his own DeLorean, which was reportedly given to him by his grandfather.

As concerned as I may be, I’m also confused. Did this mean Efron used to play with the car radio or obtain plutonium illegally?

For the record, there has indeed been talk of another Back to the Future - but not in a good way. Writer/producer of the trilogy Bob Gale said last year said that there are no plans.