News

Any kid who ever dreamed of striding the boards, meticulously prepping for their glamorous on-camera close-up, or adorning the walls of teenagers all over the world as the most fetching heartthrob on the planet, did not entertain for a second that steady work as less-than-studly screen presence like M Emmet Walsh could be its own gloriously gruff reward. If you were born with a face that looked like it went 12 rounds with Sonny Liston before exiting the birth canal, or walked in heels like they were a pair of Carhartts, you're probably destined to be a working stiff like the rest of us for the remainder of your life.

And there is dignity in this. There is meaning. And not to get your hopes up too high, but if you can strut across the stage like you were born to it, hold the gaze of a camera, or fire off one-liners with buffoonish aplomb,...

Very sad news today as it’s been reported that M. Emmet Walsh has died at the age of 88. No matter the size of the role, the prolific character actor always made a unique impression throughout his long career, which spanned six decades.

M. Emmet Walsh is best known for playing Bryant in Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, the captain of the Los Angeles Police Department who tasks Deckard with tracking down the replicants at the beginning of the film. He told THR that the cast and crew weren’t quite sure what the make of the movie when they first saw it. “I don’t know if I really understood what in the hell it was all about,” Walsh said. “We all sat there and it ended. And nothing. We didn’t know what to say or to think or do! We didn’t know what in the hell we had done!

As far as conspiracy theories go, very few have had as much of a life as the notion that NASA faked the Apollo moon landing. In some ways, one can understand why people felt this way, as it was one of the most critical events in human history, and the only witness was a TV camera. Back then, people distrusted anything they couldn’t see with their own eyes. In the seventies, conspiracy theories started to get famous, especially as far as the government went, with this the era of Watergate. People no longer trusted authority, and into this fraught environment came Capricorn One, a sci-fi-tinged conspiracy thriller that was one of the most popular films of 1977 but has since been largely forgotten – save for a small cult of devoted fans.

The film is directed by Best Movie You Never Saw favorite Peter Hyams, who also made Outland, 2010, Running Scared,...

Last weekend, we saw the end of the Indiana Jones franchise as Harrison Ford has stated that The Dial Of Destiny is the last time he’ll don the fedora and whip. Well, it will be the franchise’s end unless Disney decides to squeeze every last drop they can out of it, which is never out of the question. When the film hits screens, we’ll be seeing Indy for the last time. Film fans always need something else to fill in their viewing void, so what are the best movies like Indiana Jones?

U​ncharted (2022)

T​his is oddly a full-circle film when it comes to Indiana Jones. Uncharted is based on the video game of the same name, which was admittedly based on the Indiana Jones films. Nathan Drake (played by Tom Holland) teams up with a seasoned treasure hunter in Sully (Mark Wahlberg) to find a...

There’s sad news to report this evening, as it has been announced that Ricou Browning – who was the last surviving actor to have played a classic Universal Monster, since he portrayed the Gill-Man in the underwater scenes in all three entries of the Creature from the Black Lagoon trilogy; Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954), Revenge of the Creature (1955), and The Creature Walks Among Us (1956) – has passed away at the age of 93. The Hollywood Reporter notes that his daughter Kim confirmed he passed away yesterday, just eleven days after his birthday.

Born in Fort Pierce, Florida on February 16, 1930, Browning started his career in the entertainment industry by working in water shows at tourist attractions and performing in underwater newsreels. When Gill-Man scenes were being filmed for Creature from the Black Lagoon in Florida, the crew chose Browning to play the swimming creature because he was a strong swimmer and could...

Bo Brundin, a Swedish actor who was best known for starring as a German war pilot opposite Robert Redford in “The Great Waldo Pepper” in 1975, died on Sept. 4 in his hometown of Uppsala, Sweden, Variety has confirmed. He was 85.

In “The Great Waldo Pepper,” Burdin played Ernst Kessler, a famous German pilot who is hired by film producers as a flying consultant. Toward the end of the film as Redford’s Waldo Pepper and Brundin’s Kessler are filming a wartime duel, the two begin actually dogfighting with sincerity and Kessler surrenders as the two salute each other and fly their separate ways. Brundin previously recalled the danger of filming those scenes because a stuntman had just crashed an hour before and suffered injuries to his forehead.

Elsewhere in his career, Burdin appeared in films such as “Around the World With Fanny Hill,” “Shoot the Sun Down” and “Raise the Titanic.

Click here to read the full article.

Bo Brundin, the Swedish actor best known for his turn as a demoralized German World War I pilot opposite Robert Redford in the aerial adventure film The Great Waldo Pepper, has died. He was 85.

Brundin died Sunday in his hometown of Uppsala in Sweden, a spokesperson for Paar Productions told The Hollywood Reporter. The company worked with the actor on one of his last projects, the 2011 short film Starlight, in which he played God.

Brundin appeared in an early stage production of Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal — his role would be taken by Max Von Sydow in the classic 1957 feature — and he had a small role as a political prisoner in The Day the Clown Cried (1972), the infamous never-released film from Jerry Lewis.

Brundin, who played lots of Germans and Russians during his career, also appeared on the big screen in the...

You’re going to have to steel yourself for this monster of a content update. Between them, Netflix, HBO Max, Hulu, Disney Plus and Amazon Prime have an obscene number of quality titles debuting this weekend.

Be it films or television shows, new releases or old classics, there’s a ton to dig into here. So if you’re ready, let’s dive right in…

Netflix

July 31st

Get Even — Netflix Original

Latte and the Magic Waterstone — Netflix Family

Seriously Single — Netflix Film

The Speed Cubers — Netflix Documentary

Sugar Rush: Extra Sweet — Netflix Original

The Umbrella Academy: Season 2 — Netflix Original

Vis a vis: El Oasis (Locked Up) — Netflix Original

August 1st

A Knight’s Tale

Acts of Violence

The Addams Family (1991)

An Education

Being John Malkovich

Death at a Funeral

Dennis the Menace

Elizabeth Harvest

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Hardcore Henry

Iron Man: Armored Adventures: Season 1-2

Jurassic Park...

HBO Max has a lot to offer in August, with titles to look forward to including the premiere of a brand new Seth Rogen movie called “An American Pickle” on Aug. 6, and Christopher Nolan’s 2008 Batman film “The Dark Knight” out Aug. 1.

The nascent streaming service also shares content with HBO, with new films coming like “Jojo Rabbit” out Aug. 1, “Birds of Prey” out Aug. 15, “Richard Jewell” out Aug. 8, and “Queen & Slim,” out Aug. 22. The upcoming series “Lovecraft County,” which mixes fact and fantasy and takes place in 1950s Jim Crow America, arrives Aug. 16.

Leaving throughout the month include, tragically, all eight “Harry Potter” films, which will be gone after Aug. 25. Other absolute classics like “Good Will Hunting,” “You’ve Got Mail,” and both “Kill Bill” movies will be gone after Aug. 31, so watch them while you can.

Below is the full list of everything coming and going in August.

With the end of the month ahead of us, we now have a full list of everything that’s coming to Netflix and the various other streaming services across August. The sites will continue to do their best to keep you from straying out into the sun for the rest of the summer, too, as each of them has got a whole heap of new movies and TV shows coming to their libraries that you’ll want to check out. Mostly classic films you’ll enjoy sticking on again, but also a few much-anticipated originals, too.

See below for the full line-up of titles coming to Netflix, Disney Plus, HBO Max, Hulu and Prime Video, as well as our own picks for what should be on your radar.

August 1

Netflix

A Knight’s Tale

Acts of Violence

The Addams Family (1991)

An Education

Being John Malkovich

Death at a Funeral

Dennis the Menace...

HBO Max is continuing to pull from Warner Bros.’ incredible back catalogue of movies, with August bringing a huge number of new titles to the streaming service. With over 130 new pieces of content, the list of upcoming arrivals encompasses classic films of all kinds, from Oscar winners to comedies, horrors to family pics and, of course, tons of blockbusters.

A highlight for many users will probably be the glut of Batman films coming to HBO Max at the start of the month. Every cinematic outing for the Caped Crusader from 1989’s Batman starring Michael Keaton to 2008’s The Dark Knight with Christian Bale (which just celebrated its 12th anniversary this weekend) are going up on the site. Sticking in Gotham, both seasons of Harley Quinn are also coming to HBO Max, following their original release on DC Universe.

Elsewhere on August 1st, some of the more notable new titles include Before Sunrise and its sequel,...

It’s August 2020 and that can only mean one thing: HBO Max is about to enter Lovecraft Country.

Over the years HBO (and by the transitive property its new HBO Max streaming offshoot) has grown accustomed to debuting a buzzworthy new TV show or limited series every couple of months. For August 2020 that will almost certainly be Southern Gothic horror series Lovecraft Country. The J.J. Abrams and Jordan Peele-produced thriller arrives on August 14 on HBO and HBO Max.

Other strong HBO Max originals arriving in August include the documentary Class Action Park (release date Tbd), Seth Rogen-starring comedy An American Pickle (Aug. 6), and finales for I’ll Be Gone in the Dark, Doom Patrol, and Perry Mason.

Of course, HBO Max is designed to house much of WarnerMedia’s content across many mediums. That means some recent movies on note like Jojo Rabbit (Aug. 1), Richard Jewell (Aug. 8), and Birds of Prey (Aug.

Bill Gavin, the former Goldcrest executive and general manager of Australia’s Hoyts Theatres, has died at the age of 83 at his home in Auckland, New Zealand, after a short illness.

Gavin moved to the UK in the early 1960s after securing a contract to cover New Zealand’s then highly successful Formula One drivers, going on to write a biography of UK driver Jim Clark. He segued initially into the music business and established Gto Films to promote glam rock acts, the company then branched into distribution and worked on the UK release of Weir’s classic Picnic At Hanging Rock and the original version of Swept Away.

In 1978 he moved to Australia to become general manager of Hoyts Theatres and spearheaded the company’s entry into distribution. His down under success distributing the first Muppet Movie caught the eye of Lew Grade, who invited him to join Itc Films’ sales team in London.

Gavin worked on films including ‘Gandhi’ and ‘Whale Rider’.

Bill Gavin, a former executive at the UK’s Goldcrest Films who worked on films including Gandhi and Whale Rider, has died aged 83 at his home in Auckland, New Zealand after a short illness.

The industry veteran worked on several award-winning features throughout his career as an independent sales agent, distributor, exhibitor and producer.

Born in Wellington, New Zealand, Gavin began his career as a motor racing journalist and moved to the UK in the early 1960s after securing a contract to report on successful Kiwi Formula One drivers competing overseas.

Clive Cussler, the bestselling author whose novels Raise the Titanic! and, much to his greater disappointment, Sahara, were made into movies, died Monday at his home in Scottsdale, Az. He was 88.

His death was announced by his wife, Janet Horvath, on the author’s official Twitter page. No cause of death was given.

“It is with a heavy heart that I share the sad news that my husband Clive passed away Mon.,” Horvath wrote. “It has been a privilege to share in his life. I want to thank you his fans & friends for all the support. He was the kindest most gentle man I ever met.I know, his adventures will continue.”

Although he wrote more than 80 books — with a specialty in action, adventure and undersea stories — Cussler is best known in Hollywood for the two novels that didn’t make particularly good movies. The 2005 film Sahara starring Matthew McConaughey...

Dr. John Beck finds himself turning into a literal Bat-Man (sans Gotham) in 1974's The Bat People, and with the horror thriller now out on a new Blu-ray from Scream Factory, we've been provided with three Blu-ray copies to give away to lucky Daily Dead readers.

---------

Prize Details: (3) Winners will receive (1) Blu-ray copy of The Bat People.

How to Enter: We're giving Daily Dead readers multiple chances to enter and win:

1. Instagram: Following us on Instagram during the contest period will give you an automatic contest entry. Make sure to follow us at:

https://www.instagram.com/dailydead/

2. Email: For a chance to win via email, send an email to [email protected] with the subject “The Bat People Contest”. Be sure to include your name and mailing address.

Entry Details: The contest will end at 12:01am Est on July 25th. This contest is only open to those...

For the brand new Blu-ray and DVD offerings coming out on Tuesday, July 18th, we have an eclectic assortment of titles, both new and old. As far as cult classics go, The Bat People, Freeway, Stalker, and Stormy Monday are all making their HD debuts on Blu this week, and if you missed Kong: Skull Island, Free Fire or Buster’s Mal Heart during their theatrical runs, now you’ll have a chance to catch up with these films on their home entertainment releases.

Other notable release for July 18th include Resident Evil: Vendetta, Another Evil, Lake Alice, and The Expanse: Season Two.

The Bat People (Scream Factory, Blu-ray)

Half Man, Half Bat, All Terror!

From director Jerry Jameson (Airport 77, Raise The Titanic) comes a high-flying horror from the darkest corner of the drive-in: The Bat People!

When Dr. John Beck and his wife Cathy fall into an underground cave,...

Ryan Lambie Jul 24, 2017

It was a legendarily expensive action vehicle for Kevin Costner in 1995, but Waterworld originally began life as a subtly different story...

Tales of Waterworld's making have long since passed into legend. You've probably read about the long and difficult shoot on the open seas around Hawaii, about the soaring costs, the sinking sets and the increasingly fractious relationship between the two Kevins - director Kevin Reynolds and star Kevin Costner. You've probably heard about a pre-Buffy Joss Whedon being flown in to revise the script, and how, getting wind of all this, the Hollywood press started calling Waterworld names like "Fishtar and "Kevin's Gate".

See related Vikings renewed for season 5

What's less commonly discussed is just where Waterworld came from. It's often reported that the screenplay was written by Peter Rader and later reworked by David Twohy; what's less widely known is that Waterworld could...

The Yakuza

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1975 / Color / 2:40 widescreen / 112 & 123 min. / Street Date February 14, 2017 / available through the WBshop / 21.99

Starring Robert Mitchum, Takakura Ken, Brian Keith, Eiji Okada, Richard Jordan, Keiko Kishi, James Shigeta, Herb Edelman.

Cinematography: Kozo Okazaki, Duke Callaghan

Production Design: Stephen Grimes

Art Direction: Yoshiyuki Ishida

Film Editor: Don Guidice, Thomas Stanford

Original Music: Dave Grusin

Written by: Leonard Schrader, Paul Schrader, Robert Towne

Produced by: Michael Hamilburg, Sydney Pollack, Koji Shundo

Directed by Sydney Pollack

The Warner Archive Collection is on a roll with a 2017 schedule that has so far released one much-desired library Blu-ray per week. Coming shortly are Vincente Minnelli’s Bells are Ringing, Billy Wilder’s Love in the Afternoon Ken Russell’s The Boy Friend and Val Guest’s When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth, and that only takes us through February. First up is a piercing action drama from 1975.

There are favorite movies around Savant central,...

facebook

twitter

google+

A killer robot powered by baby brains. Kirk Douglas wrestling in the nude. Ryan revisits the very weird 80s sci-fi movie, Saturn 3...

Some movies aspire to strangeness. Other movies have strangeness thrust upon them.

Saturn 3, released in 1980, was an intensely strange film. But unlike, say, Altered States (also released in 1980) it wasn’t made by a filmmaker with a taste for the oblique or the outre. Unlike Luigi Cozzi’s Contamination (1980 again), Saturn 3 wasn’t a low-budget shocker made in a hurry, but a relatively expensive exercise created by some of the most seasoned filmmakers in the business at that time. (For frame of reference, Saturn 3's budget was broadly the same as Alien’s, released less than one year earlier.)

On the surface, Saturn 3 sounds like a perfectly reasonable recipe for an intense sci-fi horror flick. It’s about a pair...

facebook

twitter

google+

The thriller Raise The Titanic was a $40m flop in 1980, its model Titanic alone costing millions. Ryan charts the replica's sad history...

By autumn 1977, author Clive Cussler was the toast of the publishing world. Following a decade of writing and two moderately successful novels, his third book, Raise The Titanic! was a runaway bestseller. Its popularity was a contrast to Cussler's earlier books, which had earned him a relatively meagre $5,000. But those earlier adventures - The Mediterranean Caper and Iceberg - helped establish the daring hero Dirk Pitt, a practical, earthy hero designed as a counterpoint to the suave, refined James Bond.

For Raise The Titanic!, Cussler dreamed up a scenario in which Pitt headed up a multi-billion-dollar operation to find and recover the doomed luxury liner, which sank in 1912. Their goal: to recover a mysterious, incredibly rare substance called byzantium from the ship's belly - a...

We’ve reviewed every summer movie season since 1980 to find out which are the best, and which are the worst. Last week we posted our picks for the worst, and here we post our picks for the best.

2015 and 2016 may just be the most overthetop summer movie seasons yet. It seems like nearly every movie slated for a summer 2015 or 2016 release is heavily anticipated. Because of these impending summers of movie awesomeness, we’ve decided to take a look back at summer movie seasons of years past. The idea of the summer movie season is currently in full swing, but it didn’t catch on immediately. Hollywood had to do its fair share of experimenting to determine what types of films would be most successful. As a result, some summer movie seasons have been better than others. We’ve reviewed them all for you and ranked them from worst to best.

Captain Phillips The wave of love and appreciation for movies today is interesting. When Captain Phillips was released you would have thought Tom Hanks was the greatest living actor and now today most everyone has dialed it back to "well, it was a pretty good final 15 minutes." Perhaps maybe once people watch it again at home they'll finally come around to agreeing with me that Danielle Albert also delivers a great performance. Maybe, but I'm not holding my breath.

It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (Criterion Collection) I've never seen Stanley Kramer's It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World and Criterion calls it "the most grandly harebrained movie ever made" and a "sobering investigation of American greed". This Criterion release includes a new 197-minute extended version of the film making it sound like anyone that has yet to see it finally has a reason to do so along...

Both David Oyelowo and Kate Mara have been on a promising rise to leading man and woman status. Oyelowo is coming off a solid performance in Lee Daniels' The Butler with Christopher Nolan's Interstellar in his future while Kate Mara has "House of Cards" on her resumé and Wally Pfister's Transcendence lined up. Now the two rising stars will team up for a real-life thriller called Captive from director Jerry Jameson, who's known better for his TV work on shows like "Murder, She Wrote" and "Dallas" but has also directed films like Raise the Titanic. This new feature sounds like it could raise a lot of acclaim with an engaging story straight from the headlines that seems fit for the film festival circuit. So what's the story? In Atlanta, Georgia, on March 11th, 2005, Brian Nichols (Oyelowo) broke out of a courthouse jail and killed the judge assigned to...

David Oyelowo and House of Cards star Kate Mara are toplining Captive, a true-life thriller being made by Bn Films. Veteran Jerry Jameson (1980's Raise the Titanic) is directing the feature, which is also being produced with Brightside Entertainment, 1019 Entertainment and Oyelowo’s Yoruba Saxon Productions. The story is based on the true events that occurred in Atlanta, Ga., on March 11, 2005. That’s when Brian Nichols, who will be played by Oyelowo in the movie, broke out of a courthouse jail and shot dead the judge assigned to his case as well as a court reporter,

read more...

You know what really stinks? When an average movie – or even a dreadful one – gets great box office returns and spawns a sequel. You know what’s even worse? When that sequel gets great box office returns, and spawns another sequel. Before you know it, it’s become a full-fledged franchise, with film after film after film.

But you know what’s even worse than those above options? When there’s a really great movie that gets almost completely ignored, either in the form of bad critical reviews or low box office. Sometimes it just doesn’t make sense… some of the best movies ever made get shafted, and mentioning them to your friends results in nothing but blank stares.

Of course, there’s also some that were flawed, but could have fixed those flaws with sequels. Well, it’s time to fix that. It’s time for us to...

To have one giant money-losing tentpole is unfortunate. To have two starts to look careless, and that's what's happened to Taylor Kitsch. The actor, who broke out on TV's "Friday Night Lights," was seen as Hollywood's next great hope, picked out to star in two great big blockbusters with a combined cost of half-a-billion dollars. But when "John Carter" arrived in March, the film wildly underperformed, with Disney taking a hit of at least $100 million on the project. And after this weekend, it looks that his other film, "Battleship," is going to lose similar amounts.

The film, Universal & Hasbro's adaptation of the board game, directed by "Hancock" helmer Peter Berg, had taken the unusual step of opening everywhere else in the world six weeks ahead of the U.S, in the hope of bagging lucrative foreign coin and building buzz for the U.S. release. But while the film did ok abroad,...

With James Cameron’s Titanic sailing back into cinemas towing an extra dimension author David Kowalski gives his thought on the hold Titanic has in popular culture, with particular reference to the depictions of the disaster in movies and in fiction.

You can visit David’s website here for details on his work and inspirations and there’s a link to find out more about his book at the end of this post.

The earliest recollection I have of the Titanic in fiction was Clive Cussler’s Raise the Titanic.

The title alone was enough to excite me. It’s one of the early Dirk Pitt novels and a lot of fun. I remember seeing the film, and dated as it seems by today’s standards, there is something stirring about seeing the ship rising from the depths.

A Night to Remember is probably my favorite retelling of the story.

Washington — Navy SEALs never expected the film "Act of Valor," starring real, active-duty Navy SEALs, to be this big.

Five years ago, commanders allowed a small, independent film company into their elite ranks to turn real-life training exercises into a feature-length movie in hopes of drumming up recruits fast.

Seal officers thought the film would open in a couple of theaters in military towns, then quietly move to cable television, where re-runs would draw likeminded youths to join the special operations world.

Then came the Navy SEALs raid that killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan last year, and a high-profile hostage rescue in Somalia last month. President Barack Obama delivered his State of the Union address and gave a shout out to SEALs, with Adm. Bill McRaven, the Seal and bin Laden raid commander, sitting quietly in Obama's box.

Now, the once modest recruiting project is set to open Feb.

Let’s face it. We can’t hide it. We all have those movies that we like that others would shun. These are guilty pleasures: the ones that aren’t that great but we love for some reason or another. Here are mine. Be sure to list yours in the comments, if you’d like.

Last Action Hero (1993)

Rotten Tomatoes: 38%

Actors: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Austin O’Brien, F. Murray Abraham, Art Carney, Charles Dance

Director: John McTiernan/Writers: Shane Black and David Arnott

Here’s the thing: I will defend this movie’s concept till Doomsday. A movie about a kid with a magic ticket that gets pulled into an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie? Genius concept. Yes, the kid is annoying. Yes, the movie doesn’t reach the heights of a McTiernan/Black team-up as well as one might think. It’s interesting to note that McTiernan isn’t working as much...

The following list of box-office bombs is based on the amount of money the film lost. The worldwide box-office grosses are subtracted from the production cost, distribution, and marketing costs, where available.

The numbers in parenthesis indicate how much money the films lost in 2011 dollars.

25. Hudson Hawk ($78 million)

24. Beloved ($79 million)

23. Ishtar ($80.4 million)

22. Around the World in 80 Days (2004) ($80.7 million)

21. Gigli ($81 million)

20. The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle ($83.1 million)

19. Soldier ($83.6 million)

18. Monkeybone ($86.6 million)

17. Red Planet ($86.9 million)

16. The Postman ($87 million)

15. Treasure Planet (2002) ($86 million)

14. Raise the Titanic (1980) ($90 million)

13. Inchon ($95 million)

12. Battlefield Earth ($96 million)

11. Supernova ($98 million)

10. Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (c$104 million)

9. Heaven's Gate ($110 million)

8. Speed Racer ($110 million)

7. Town and Country ($120 million)

6. The 13th Warrior ($132 million)

5. Mars Needs Moms ($136 million)

4. Sahara ($140 million)

3. The Adventures of Pluto Nash ($141.1 million)

2. The Alamo (2004) ($141.8 million)

1. Cutthroat Island ($142 million)...

Composer most closely associated with the golden age of James Bond but whose scores ranged from Midnight Cowboy to Dances With Wolves

John Barry, who has died aged 77 following a heart attack, will always be associated with the golden age of James Bond, but though much of his most famous music was written to accompany the outlandish adventures of 007, his work covered a huge variety of moods and styles. Barry wrote epic, sweeping film scores for Zulu (1964), Born Free (1966) and Out of Africa (1985), introduced blues and jazz themes into The Chase (1966) and The Cotton Club (1984), and conceived the shivery, sinister music for The Ipcress File (1965). He even became something of a pop star in his own right.

He was born Jonathan Barry Prender- gast in York, where his father ran a chain of cinemas. His mother was a talented musician, but had abandoned the attempt to establish herself as a concert pianist.

In 1962 the producers of a spy movie needed help. The man who they had hired to write the score for their movie was struggling in finding the music for it. Reaching out for assistance, they were turned to a career musician who was employed conducting the orchestras for the background music heard on singers under the Emi recording label. That man was John Barry, and the movie that went on to score became the first James Bond movie, Dr. No. And so began the history of one of modern day cinema's greatest composers of film scores.

Barry went on to record the next 11 Bond movies, ending his relationship with the secret agent on the first Timothy Dalton picture, The Living Daylights. Although Barry was never credited on-screen for the James Bond Theme (Monty Norman is given that distinction), there has always been a question of doubt about how much both...

2005’s Sahara was an epic flop, but it's not, Ti argues, a film without merit. Here's our look back at the action franchise that could have been...

Recently, I wrote an article about how Hollywood was constantly looking for the next Indiana Jones franchise, and that they may have found it in the recently green-lit Uncharted film. However, I also wrote that they had attempted it in the Dirk Pitt franchise, notably with the 2005 flop Sahara, which I had enjoyed.

One comment on the article noted that for liking this film, I was a “moronic malcontent”, so I thought I'd explain why I thought this film was not just underrated, but a decent franchise starter that should have been allowed to continue.

Now, I grew up on action adventure films like Raiders Of The Lost Ark, Romancing The Stone and The Mummy, and love high-octane action, exotic locales, and heroes...

Michael Pataki was a leading character actor from the 1960s, who was best known for his roles in cult horror films. Pataki starred as Caleb Croft, a vicious vampire rapist whose offspring (William Smith) seeks his destruction in 1974’s Grave of the Vampire, and was Count Dracula and his modern-day descendant Michael Drake in Albert Band’s cult classic Dracula’s Dog (aka Zoltan, Hound of Dracula).

Pataki was born in Youngstown, Ohio, on January 16, 1938. He studied drama and political science at the University of Southern California. He made his film debut in the late 1950s, and appeared frequently on television, often in villainous roles. He was featured in episodes of The Twilight Zone, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, My Favorite Martian, Batman as bat-villain King Tut’s henchman Amenophis Tewfik, Mission: Impossible, and Mr. Terrific. He starred as Korax, the Klingon, in the classic Star Trek episode “The Trouble with Tribbles,...

There's no escaping the remake epidemic, but is one of its most eager proponents a remake himself? John Patterson tracks the Eisner dynasty

Poor old George Romero. He's entering his sunset years now, and every other summer, it seems, somebody takes one of his children away and shoots it. Or rather, reshoots it, which is almost worse. First, it was all those comedy-style remakes of Night Of The Living Dead in the 1980s, then it was Dawn Of The Dead, decently remade, but shorn of its anti-consumerist satire, and now it's The Crazies, his so-so apocalyptic germ-warfare thriller from 1973.

It's happening everywhere these days, and particularly in the career of the man directing this new version of The Crazies. Breck Eisner's next two movies will also be remakes. First up is Flash Gordon, which was remade niftily enough three decades ago by Mike Hodges. I'm willing to concede that...

Although I enjoy reading lists and countdowns as much as the next guy, I've never been a big fan of "Worst Movie" lists, because they only tend to focus on big budget Hollywood screw-ups and not the low budget amateur crap. I obviously understand why; there's an infinite amount of the amateur stuff out there, and it's a lot easier to forgive. However, it's also probably about a thousand times worse. There's also the fact that most people tend to avoid movies that are really bad, and if you haven't seen them, you can't really include them on your list. At any rate, I suppose it's fun to argue over what's bad just as much as what's good, and Empire Magazine recently polled their readers to create a comprehensive tally of the 50 Worst Movies Ever. Just like the Razzies, most of the choices are pretty predictable, and sadly a lot...

Many people have wondered what the worst movie of all time is. According to Empire Online's list of the 50 Worst Movies Ever, the top spot doesn't go to Gigli, From Justin to Kelly, or Disaster Movie. Instead, it's Joel Schumacher's crappy stab at Bruce Wayne. Yes, Batman & Robin. Bad movie, indeed. But worst ever? It might make more sense this way: This was a voter's poll, and the nipply Batman and Robin got almost three times as many votes as the second film on the list -- Battlefield Earth.

Rounding out the top five, there's The Love Guru, Raise the Titanic, and Epic Movie. You've surely heard of most of them, but have you caught Raise the Titanic? It was a terribly expensive flop from 1980 where they, obviously, raise the Titanic. Empire notes that the film's one redeeming feature was the raised ship finally making its way to its final destination in New York,...

George Clooney's stint as the caped crusader has been named the worst film of all time by readers of Empire magazine

With its wooden performances and superhero nipples, Batman and Robin was the film that almost killed the DC Comics superhero franchise. Now readers of Empire magazine have voted the Joel Schumacher flick the worst film of all time in a new poll.

Featuring George Clooney as the caped crusader in one of his first major starring roles, and with Chris O'Donnell as his plucky sidekick, Empire said the comic-book movie had "become a byword for franchise-killing and bad movie-making". It garnered almost three times as many votes as the next placed film, the widely ridiculed Battlefield Earth, a John Travolta vehicle released in 2000, based on the book by Scientology founder L Ron Hubbard.

Third place went to Mike Myers's ill-conceived 2008 comedy The Love Guru, which saw the...

George Clooney's comic book caper Batman & Robin has been voted the worst film of all time in a new poll.

The Hollywood actor suited up to play the crime-fighting superhero in the 1997 blockbuster, which was universally panned by critics despite its box office success.

Now it's topped Empire magazine's Most Disastrous Movie poll, with fans complaining about the "overblown" script and cheesy acting.

The U.K. publication's editors rant, "It has become a byword for franchise-killing and bad movie-making."

Clooney's Batman & Robin racked up more than three times as many votes as the second place flop Battlefield Earth, which starred John Travolta as an alien leader.

Funnyman Mike Myers' slapstick comedy The Love Guru came in third, while 1980's Raise The Titanic and Epic Movie from 2007 rounded out the top five respectively.