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Apartment 7A is a psychological horror thriller film directed by Natalie Erika James who also co-wrote the film with Christian White and Skylar James. Based on the 1967 novel titled Rosemary’s Baby by author Ira Levin, the Paramount+ film serves as a prequel to the iconic 1968 film by Roman Polanski. Apartment 7A is set in 1965 in New York City and it follows the story of a young dancer who rents a room from an elderly couple after suffering from a serious injury that ends her career. Apartment 7A stars Julia Garner, Dianne West, Kevin McNally, Jim Sturgess, Marli Siu, Rosy McEwen, Amy Leeson, Scott Hume, and Andrew Buchan. So, if you loved the psychological horror, edge-of-the-seat thrills, and compelling characters in Apartment 7A here are some similar movies you should check out next.

Rosemary’s Baby Credit – Paramount Pictures

Rosemary’s Baby...

If you are a horror fan then there is a big chance that you might have heard about the horror streaming service Shudder, and if you have its subscription you might be wondering what’s in store for you in September 2024. Don’t worry there is a host of new and old horror movies coming to the service in the upcoming month and we have listed the 10 best movies coming to Shudder in September 2024.

Candyman (September 1)

Candyman is a gothic supernatural horror film written and directed by Bernard Rose. Based on a short story titled The Forbidden by Clive Barker, the 1992 film follows the story of Helen as she investigates a local legend of the Candyman but her investigation takes a dark turn when a series of brutal murders start happening. Candyman stars Tony Todd, Virginia Madsen, Bernard Rose, Kasi Lemmons, Vanessa Estelle Williams, Xander Berkeley, Stanley DeSantis, and Ted Raimi.

Zackary Drucker will direct the upcoming biopic about Andy Warhol superstar Candy Darling starring Hari Nef. John Cameron Mitchell also joins the untitled film about the transgender icon as executive producer.

It was previously announced that Nef (“Barbie”) will star in the movie.

The film traces Darling’s childhood in Long Island through her years alongside underground icons Holly Woodlawn and Jackie Curtis in Warhol’s Factory scene, and her influence on musicians including Lou Reed, the Velvet Underground and Patti Smith. She was immortalized in popular songs including Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side” and The Velvet Underground’s “Candy Says.”

Darling also starred in Warhol’s cult film “Women In Revolt” before she died of leukemia in 1974 at age 29.

“I’ve dedicated my life and career to amplifying the history of trans and queer icons, and their impact in shaping art and culture for everyone,” Drucker said in a statement.

Born and raised in Byculla, Bombay, daughter of a cop who used to be responsible for Mahatma Gandhi’s security bandobast, and adopted for life by Calcutta, Usha Uthup is the voice and spirit of the Swinging Sixties that the eastern metropolis was synonymous with till the Bangladesh War and the red shadow of Naxalism changed it forever.

Now, honoured with the Padma Bhushan, along with her ‘Disco Dancer’ star Mithun Chakraborty, 12 years after she was conferred the Padma Shri, Usha Uthup (formerly Iyer), the Queen of Indian Pop famous for her husky voice, boundless energy, distinctive red bindi and tastefully selected Kanjivarams, sang herself into popular imagination with two anthemic numbers of Hindi cinema’s disco era — Hari Om Hari and Aha Nache Nache.

Not formally trained in music, Uthup got her first singing break in a nightclub in Madras before she moved to Trincas, the Mecca of Park...

There’s no shortage of brilliant detectives in novels, film and television, but one of the greatest — or at least the one with the fanciest facial hair — is Hercule Poirot. The Belgian investigator, created by Agatha Christie, has appeared 33 novels, more than 50 short stories, and has been played by a variety of iconic actors.

But for whatever reason, Poirot has only sporadically appeared on the big screen, with many of his earliest movie appearances being lost to time, while some of his other noteworthy adventures were rewritten as vehicles for Christie’s other beloved creation, Miss Marple.

Here we take a look at the various theatrically-released adventures of Hercule Poirot, from the 1930s to today, and see which of his mysteries were truly worth solving.

Photo credit: Columbia

Honorable Mention: “Murder By Death” (1976)

Neil Simon’s wacky spoof of the supersleuth genre, directed by Robert Moore, features an all-star cast...

Joe Buck (Jon Voight) with Ratso Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman) in John Schlesinger’s Midnight Cowboy

In the second instalment with Nancy Buirski on Desperate Souls, Dark City And The Legend Of Midnight Cowboy (special advisor Martin Scorsese) we discuss Jon Voight as Joe Buck with the little girl reading a Wonder Woman comic, Jennifer Salt’s Crazy Annie and Sylvia Miles’s Cass in Midnight Cowboy. John Schlesinger with Dp Adam Holender showing New York the way it really was, a Roberta Flack song and William Wyler’s adaption of Lilian Hellman’s The Children’s Hour, starring Shirley MacLaine and Audrey Hepburn, Nancy’s longtime cinematographer Rex Miller, Far From The Madding Crowd and Vietnam, Brian De Palma on Dennis Hopper and the “international invasion”, and screenwriter Waldo Salt also came up.

Nancy Buirski on Crazy Annie (Jennifer Salt) with Joe Buck (Jon Voight): “Many of the women in...

Footage of late Sixties New York City seamlessly sways into Dustin Hoffman’s Ratso Rizzo in Midnight Cowboy stealing a handful of plum tomatoes and a coconut from a fruit stand with help from his new sidekick Joe Buck (Jon Voight). “These Eyes” sing Guess Who, and Lucy Sante comments that the film “could be an advertisement for anti-glamour and yet by doing this it manages to express the zeitgeist.”

Nancy Buirski’s masterful Desperate Souls, Dark City And The Legend Of Midnight Cowboy, edited with Anthony Ripoli is much more than a documentary on John Schlesinger’s multiple Oscar-winning film. Based on James Leo Herlihy’s novel, adapted by Waldo Salt, shot by Adam Holender, with costumes by Ann Roth, Midnight Cowboy features an impressive supporting cast, including Sylvia Miles, Brenda Vaccaro, Jennifer Salt, and...

Desperate Souls, Dark City and The Legend Of Midnight Cowboy director Nancy Buirski on Joe Buck and Ratso Rizzo: “They become appealing because of these wonderful performances by Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman.”

Nancy Buirski’s masterpiece is much more than a documentary on John Schlesinger’s Midnight Cowboy, screenplay by Waldo Salt, shot by Adam Holender, costumes by Ann Roth, and starring Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman with Sylvia Miles, Brenda Vaccaro, Jennifer Salt, and Bob Balaban. Desperate Souls, Dark City And The Legend Of Midnight Cowboy, edited by Anthony Ripoli, features on-camera interviews shot by Rex Miller with Lucy Sante, Brian De Palma, Edmund White, Michael Childers, Charles Kaiser, Jim Hoberman, Ian Buruma, Voight, Vaccaro, Balaban, Holender, and Jennifer Salt.

Brenda Vaccaro with John Schlesinger: “Ann Roth saved my life,” says Vaccaro, “by putting me in that fur coat.”

The evocative, wide-ranging, and evermore timely documentary drops us...

A movie, good, bad or indifferent, is always “about” something. But some movies are about more things than others, and as you watch “Desperate Souls, Dark City and the Legend of Midnight Cowboy,” Nancy Buirski’s rapt, incisive, and beautifully exploratory making-of-a-movie documentary, what comes into focus is that “Midnight Cowboy” was about so many things that audiences could sink into the film as if it were a piece of their own lives.

The movie was about loneliness. It was about dreams, sunny yet broken. It was about gay male sexuality and the shock of really seeing it, for the first time, in a major motion picture. It was about the crush and alienation of New York City: the godless concrete carnival wasteland, which had never been captured onscreen with the telephoto authenticity it had here. The movie was also about the larger sexual revolution — what the scuzziness of “free love” really looked like,...

The folly of youth!

When Goldie Hawn won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1970, for the 1969 comedy “Cactus Flower,” the 24-year-old was so sure she wouldn’t win she didn’t even go to the ceremony. What’s more, she didn’t even bother watching it on television. She had no idea she won until she got a phone call in the middle of the night.

At the time, she was filming “There’s A Girl In My Soup,” opposite Peter Sellers in London, but to fly back for the big night would not have been unheard of, even at a time when “Awards Season” was not yet quite the thing it is today.

But here’s where it gets weirder. According to a recent interview with Variety, Hawn had never even seen the moment from the telecast where her name was called. She didn’t even know it...

Goldie Hawn has revealed how the Oscars led to her biggest-ever career regret.

The actor has been nominated twice – once for Best Supporting Actress in 1970, following her early role in Cactus Flower, and again in the Best Actress category for Private Benjamin in 1981.

She won the former trophy, beating out Catherine Burns (Last Summer), Dyan Cannon (Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice) Sylvia Miles (Midnight Cowboy) and Susannah York.

However, the award was picked up by Racquel Welch on Hawn’s behalf as she didn’t make it to the ceremony – something the actor wishes she could go back and change.

“I never got dressed up – I never got to pick up the award,” she said in a new Variety interview, adding: “I regret it.”

She continued: “It’s something that I look back on now and think, ‘It would have been so great to be able to have done that.’”

Hawn...

It’s time for a new episode of The Manson Brothers Show, the video series hosted by the writers/stars of the horror comedy The Manson Brothers Midnight Zombie Massacre – Chris Margetis (Stone Manson) and Mike Carey (Skull Manson)! In this one, the Boys take in a viewing of the 1981 slasher The Funhouse (watch it Here), which was directed by the legendary Tobe Hooper To find out what they had to say about the film, check out the video embedded above!

Scripted by Larry Block, The Funhouse has the following synopsis: Rebellious teen Amy defies her parents by going to a trashy carnival that has pulled into town. In tow are her boyfriend, Buzz, and their friends Liz, and Richie. Thinking it would be fun to spend the night in the campy “Funhouse” horror ride, the teens witness a murder by a deformed worker wearing a mask. Locked in, Amy...

With her large, limpid brown eyes, statuesque figure, and seductively deep voice, she was one of the world’s best-known actresses and sex symbols in the 1950s and 1960s, especially in evergreen classics like “Come September” – but Gina Lollobrigida, who passed away at 95 on Monday, made waves beyond her onscreen prowess in other fields too, and figured in the headlines long after she walked off-stage.

And she had an Indian connection too.

Termed the “Mona Lisa of the 20th Century” and “The Most Beautiful Woman in the World”, Gina Lollobrigida was also more informally called “La Lollo” – a nickname also later adopted by Indian actress Karisma Kapoor.

And while the theme of one of her most famous films continues to strike a chord with Indians of the right age and can still be heard at weddings, Gina nearly became part of Bollywood’s first attempt at an international hit.

Tipped...

And she had an Indian connection too.

Termed the "Mona Lisa of the 20th Century" and "The Most Beautiful Woman in the World", Gina Lollobrigida was also more informally called "La Lollo" – a nickname also later adopted by Indian actress Karisma Kapoor.

And while the theme of one of her most famous films continues to strike a chord with Indians of the right age and can still be heard at weddings, Gina nearly became part of Bollywood’s first attempt at an international hit.

Tipped for the role of an aristocratic, acrobatic thief in Krishna Shah’s "Shalimar" (1977), she walked out, after being royally upstaged by a younger and more daring Zeenat Aman at the "muhurat" in Bombay’s Turf Club.. Replaced by American actress Sylvia Miles, she missed being part of a colossal financial and critical flop.

But there were other, better films she can be seen in. Gina...

A new episode of the Real Slashers video series has just been released, and in this one we’re looking at one of the more underrated films on director Tobe Hooper‘s list of classics: the 1981 release The Funhouse (watch it Here). To find out all about The Funhouse, check out the video embedded above!

Scripted by Larry Block, The Funhouse has the following synopsis: Rebellious teen Amy defies her parents by going to a trashy carnival that has pulled into town. In tow are her boyfriend, Buzz, and their friends Liz and Richie. Thinking it would be fun to spend the night in the campy “Funhouse” horror ride, the teens witness a murder by a deformed worker wearing a mask. Locked in, Amy and her friends must evade the murderous carnival workers and escape before it leaves town the next day.

The film stars Elizabeth Berridge, Cooper Huckabee, Largo Woodruff,...

Retro-active: The Best From The Cinema Retro Archives

Review – Naked City: The Complete Series

Rlj Entertainment / 6,063 minutes

By Harvey F. Chartrand

Naked City was like no other TV series before or since – Michel Moriarty, star of Law and Order, once told this reviewer.

Inspired by Jules Dassin's 1948 film of the same name, Naked City centers on the detectives of the NYPD’s 65th Precinct, but the criminals and New York City itself often played as prominent a role in the dramas as the series regulars. Like the film it was based on, Naked City (1958- 1963) was shot almost entirely on location. The first season ran as a half-hour show under the title The Naked City, starring James Franciscus and John McIntire playing, respectively, Detective Jimmy Halloran and Lieutenant Dan Muldoon—the same roles essayed by Don Taylor and Barry Fitzgerald in the film.

The Naked City also starred Harry Bellaver as Det.

Anyone who has read any of my writing on Daily Dead or listened to me on the Corpse Club podcast probably already knows what a Tobe Hooper fan I am, and it’s his 1981 slasher The Funhouse that first started me down the path of reassessing his work and made me fall completely in love with him as a filmmaker. It’s rarely talked about as one of his greater efforts and is too often dismissed as a generic slasher, a characterization with which I could not disagree more. Not only is it a great horror film, but it’s also my favorite film from my favorite filmmaker.

Though he's something of a brand name and considered a "Master of Horror," Tobe Hooper has made only two movies that get much love and respect. The first, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, is rightfully considered a classic, albeit one that appeals primarily to diehard horror fans.

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By Tim McGlynn

“If you were a man, I’d divorce you!”

Myra Gardener (Sylvia Miles) insults her stage producer husband, Odell (James Mason), with this line in the 1982 adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Evil Under the Sun during a spat while vacationing on a fictional Italian island in the Adriatic Sea. They are attempting to entice Broadway legend Arlena Stuart Marshall (Diana Rigg) to appear in their next musical, despite her reputation as a spoiled diva. Evil Under the Sun has recently been released on Blu-ray by the good people at Kino Lorber, who have also seen fit to issue new editions of The Mirror Crack’d and Death on the Nile.

The screenplay, by Anthony Shaffer, is loaded with witty and sometimes randy putdowns that help breathe a bit of life into this rather formulaic whodunit from director Guy Hamilton. When Arlena...

Although Ned Beatty’s six-minute performance in “Network” is the shortest to ever be nominated for Best Supporting Actor, eight Best Supporting Actress nominees have boasted even lower screen times. While only 17 performances under 10 minutes have been recognized in the male category, there have been 36 on the female side, from the first ceremony to Laura Dern’s first supporting bid for “Wild” in 2015. Here is a list of the 10 shortest, which has remained unchanged since 1999 (and here are the 10 shortest winners):

10. Geraldine Page (“The Pope of Greenwich Village”)

6 minutes, 6 seconds (5.06% of the film)

Page’s seventh acting nomination and fourth in the supporting category came for her small role as Mrs. Ritter, the mother of a slain police officer. Though she created a memorable character, she lost to first-time nominee Peggy Ashcroft, whose performance in 1984’s “A Passage to India” clocks in at 32 minutes and 16 seconds. The loss made...

Joan Micklin Silver, who forged her own way as a female director in the 1970s and ’80s and helmed seven features including “Crossing Delancey” and “Hester Street,” died Thursday in Manhattan. She was 85.

Her daughter, Claudia Silver, told the New York Times the cause was vascular dementia.

The 1975 independent film “Hester Street” was the story of a Jewish immigrant couple in the 1890s. The low-budget black and white film, in Yiddish with English subtitles, proved a hard sell to studios, and was eventually financed by her husband, real estate developer Raphael D. Silver. It won rave reviews and earned $5 million at the box office, an impressive amount at the time. The 21-year old Carol Kane was nominated for a best actress Oscar for her role as the wife, Gitl.

The 1988 romantic comedy “Crossing Delancey” was also set in Manhattan’s Lower East Side Jewish community. Starring Amy Irving, Sylvia Miles and Peter Riegert,...

While it is rare for a long performance to win a Best Supporting Actress Oscar, a fair amount of them have. The average screen time for winners in the category is 28 minutes and five seconds, with over one third of them surpassing 30 minutes. Here is a look at the 10 longest winners of all time. (And here’s the list of the 10 shortest winning performances for Best Supporting Actress.)

10. Katina Paxinou (“For Whom the Bell Tolls”)

43 minutes, 41 seconds (26.46% of the film)

The Greek theatre actress made history in 1944 with her debut film role as anti-fascist guerrilla fighter Pilar. She triumphed at the first ever Golden Globes ceremony and set a new record for longest performance to win in the Best Supporting Actress Oscar category, which she went on to hold for eight years.

9. Kim Hunter (“A Streetcar Named Desire”)

44 minutes, 52 seconds (35.97% of the film)

While Hunter’s role as abused wife...

“The Last Movie,” Dennis Hopper’s infamous directorial follow-up to “Easy Rider,” is a counterculture touchstone in its own right, even though it wasn’t given a national release for decades after its short-lived 1971 bow. Even longer in coming: a soundtrack album. This Saturday, nearly five decades after the movie first touched screens, a companion LP is arriving. The vinyl on the label Earth Recordings, distributed by Light in the Attic in the U.S., will be released for Record Store Day on August 29, in a limited edition of 1000. A CD version will be forthcoming.

Variety invited the album’s two producers to weigh in on “The Last Movie” and its music, then and now. Jessica Hundley, who knew Hopper, shares firsthand memories of the filmmaker and how the movie’s shelving affected him. Pat Thomas, one of the music industry’s foremost archival producers, tells what to expect from...

Even those who consider themselves experts in the subject will find a provocative treasure trove of images and anecdotes in “Skin: A History of Nudity in the Movies.” Danny Wolf’s documentary is a breezy, open-eyed, and often encyclopedic compendium of all the ways the cinema has celebrated, exploited, and negotiated the power of the naked body. The film opens with a montage of actors and directors recalling the first movie they ever saw that had nudity in it, and that allows the film, in its early moments, to leap through some of Nudity’s Greatest Hits.

As it moves back in time, one of the documentary’s fascinations is the way it’s constantly juxtaposing big Hollywood movies and European art movies and softcore exploitation films and everything in between. That, of course, is just as it should be. Aesthetically, there’s a world of difference between “Vixen” and “The Virgin Spring,...

The director of Over The Edge and The Accused takes us on a journey through some of his favorite movies.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

The Student Teachers (1973)

Night Call Nurses (1972)

White Line Fever (1975)

Truck Turner (1974)

Heart Like A Wheel (1983)

The Accused (1988)

Over The Edge (1979)

Modern Times (1936)

City Lights (1931)

Manhattan (1979)

Some Like It Hot (1959)

The Apartment (1960)

North By Northwest (1959)

Moon Pilot (1962)

Mr. Billion (1977)

White Heat (1949)

The Wizard of Oz (1939)

The Three Musketeers (1973)

The Four Musketeers (1974)

Superman (1978)

Superman II (1980)

The Three Musketeers (1948)

Shane (1953)

The 400 Blows (1959)

8 ½ (1963)

Fellini Satyricon (1969)

Richard (1972)

Millhouse (1971)

The Projectionist (1970)

El Dorado (1966)

The Shootist (1976)

Woodstock (1970)

Payback (1999)

A Hard Day’s Night (1964)

The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962)

Billy Liar (1963)

Ford Vs Ferrari (2019)

The Wild Bunch (1969)

The Ballad of Cable Hogue (1970)

Bad Girls (1994)

Masters of the Universe (1987)

Giant (1956)

The More The Merrier (1943)

The Graduate (1967)

The Victors (1963)

…And Justice For All (1979)

Citizen Kane (1941)

An Alan Smithee Film: Burn Hollywood Burn...

The Academy Awards paid tribute to the actors, actresses, icons and industry stalwarts that have died in 2019 and earlier this year.

Steven Spielberg introduced the in memoriam segment of Sunday’s Oscars ceremony, saying, “This evening, as we celebrate the artistic highlights of the past year, we also pause to remember those from our community who we lost. Legends and icons, our friends and fellow artists. All who inspired and touched us.”

“They have left an indelible imprint on our industry, our imaginations and our understanding of the world,” he said, before Billie Eilish and her brother, Finneas O’Connell, launched...

For Sunday’s Oscars 2020 ceremony on ABC, producers had a difficult decision of which film industry people would make the cut and who would unfortunately be left out of the “In Memoriam.” For the segment, for the song “Yesterday” performed by Grammy champ Billie Eilish.

Visit our own Gold Derby memoriam gallery for the year of 2019 and the just launched gallery for 2020.

SEE2020 Oscars: Full list of winners (and losers) at the 92nd Academy Awards

Over 100 people in the film industry, many of them academy members, have passed away in the past 12 months. Here is a list of the some of the names included in the tribute:

Danny Aiello (actor)

Jim Alexander (sound)

Bibi Andersson (actor)

Ben Barenholtz (executive)

Kobe Bryant (producer)

Diahann Carroll (actor)

Seymour Cassel (actor)

William J. Creber (production designer)

Doris Day (actress)

Stanley Donen (director)

Kirk Douglas (actor/producer)

Robert Evans (executive)

Peter Fonda (actor)

Robert Forster (actor)

Harriet Frank,...

One of the most significant additions to the Academy Awards ceremony around 30 years ago has been the In Memoriam segment. Producers find the perfect blend of music, photos and clips for the short annual presentation.

Which of the past Oscar winners and nominees from many different branches will be featured this Sunday, February 9, on the Oscars 2020 ceremony for ABC? Some of the most likely to be included will be acting nominees Danny Aiello, Diahann Carroll, Doris Day, Kirk Douglas, Peter Fonda, Robert Forster, Sylvia Miles, Michael J. Pollard and Rip Torn. How about major creatives such as Stanley Donen, Robert Evans, Buck Henry, Andre Previn and John Singleton?

Visit our own Gold Derby memoriam gallery for the year of 2019 and the just launched gallery for 2020.

SEEWho is Performing at the Oscars 2020?: Full List of Presenters and Performers

Over 100 people in the film industry, many of them academy members, have...

Sunday’s telecast of the 2020 Screen Actors Guild Awards will feature a special In Memoriam segment devoted to many of the actors and actresses who have died since last year’s ceremony in late January. Sure to be among those saluted include Oscar-nominated actresses Diahann Carroll and Doris Day, plus nominated “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” actor Luke Perry. Visit our own Gold Derby memoriam gallery for the year of 2019.

The 26th annual ceremony will be live on TNT and TBS on Sunday, January 19, at 8:00 p.m. Et; 5:00 p.m. Pt. The SAG life achievement award will be presented to Robert De Niro.

SEE2020 SAG Awards nominations: Full list of Screen Actors Guild Awards nominees

Over 100 people in SAG/AFTRA have passed away in the past 12 months. Which of the following 50+ names will also be featured in the televised tribute?

Julie Adams

Danny Aiello

Jed Allan

Bibi Andersson...

The man inside the yellow Big Bird suit; TV’s Rhoda; and a “Beverly Hills 90210” heartthrob are just a few of the beloved entertainment figures who died in 2019. Here are some of the unforgettable stars and creators of movies, TV and music who we lost this year.

Movies

Several notable directors died in 2019, including pioneering French New Wave director Agnes Varda, who died March 29 at 90. “Singin’ in the Rain” director Stanley Donen died Feb. 21 at 94, while cult movie director Larry Cohen, who helmed “It’s Alive,” died March 23 at 77. “Boyz N the Hood” director John Singleton suffered a stroke and died April 29 at 51, and renowned documentarian D.A. Pennebaker, who made “Don’t Look Back,” died Aug. 1 at 94. “Romeo and Juliet” director Franco Zeffirelli died June 15 at 96. The colorful studio executive and producer of “Chinatown” and many other films, Robert Evans, died Oct. 26 at 89.

Movie stars who died in 2019 included Doris Day,...

John Simon, whose biting, sometimes personal New York Magazine theater reviews drew devoted readers and withering criticism of their own, died yesterday at a hospital in Valhalla, New York. He was 94.

Simon’s death was announced on the Facebook page of his wife, Patricia Hoag Simon.

“My husband John Simon died last evening at Westchester Medical Center,” Hoag Simon wrote in part. “We were having lunch at the local dinner theatre when he was stricken. He was 94 years old and had an extraordinary life.” ”

Simon was New York Magazine‘s theater critic from 1969 to 2005, with his eloquently caustic reviews drawing admirers while provoking anger and charges of racism, homophobia, anti-Semitism and sexism from both readers and many of those he critiqued.

After leaving the magazine, Simon wrote theater reviews for Bloomberg News until 2010, and wrote a column for Broadway.com from 2006-2008. Over the years, his arts writing was published in Esquire,...

David Weisman, an Academy Award nominee as producer of Kiss of the Spider Woman and an accomplished graphic artist, died on October 9 from complications from neuroinvasive West Nile virus. He died in Los Angeles at Cedars Sinai at age 77, according to his publicist.

Born in Binghamton, New York, in March 1942, Weisman attended Syracuse University’s School of Fine Arts in the early 1960’s. Inspired by the classic Italian film La Dolce Vita and armed with a gift for languages, Weisman dropped out of college to design film-posters in Rome. There he met Federico Fellini, for whom he created a poster for 8 1/2 (Otto e mezzo).

Returning to New York, he collaborated with Otto Preminger, who asked him to create the title sequence for Hurry Sundown. He then became Preminger’s assistant on the film. Weisman also designed the key art for The Boys in the Band, among many others.

In 1967, with...

“Who will dare to face the challenge of the Funhouse? Who is mad enough to enter that world of darkness? How about you, sir?”

Destroy the Brain‘s monthly ‘Late Nite Grindhouse’ film series is back in a new location! Head to the Marcus Des Peres Cinema this Friday and Saturday (October 11th and 12th) at 10pm for Tobe Hooper’s The Funhouse. Since this is a Marcus Theater, you’ll need to reserve your seats ahead of time Here. There may (or may not be) Tickets available the nights of the screenings, but they may be going fast! Tickets are $8. A Facebook invite for the event can be found Here

Looking for cheap thrills, four teenagers decide to stay overnight in a sleazy traveling carnival fun-house. While engaging in the standard teenage antics of getting high, making out and showing off, they witness one of the carnival workers, wearing a ‘Frankenstein mask,...

“Well, sir, I ain’t a f’or real cowboy. But I am one helluva stud!”

Golden Anniversaries: Films of 1969 features 6 classic films celebrating their 50th anniversaries. This second edition focuses on 1969 and features a half-dozen films, all screening for free at the St. Louis Public Library (1301 Olive Street St. Louis) over 3 weekends in late summer. This series kicks off this Saturday August 31st at 1pm with Midnight Cowboy. There will be an intro and post-film Q&a with Andrew Wyatt, editor and film critic for Cinema St. Louis‘ The Lens. Admission is Free. A Facebook invite can be found Here

The superb and sad Midnight Cowboy deserved the Oscar for Best Picture in 1969 and was the first and only “X” rated movie to get the prize. Jon Voight’s performance as the naive Joe Buck made you believe that he believes he can go anywhere. But Dustin Hoffman’s performance as Ratzo Rizzo,...

Denise Nickerson, who played the bratty, bloated Violet Beauregarde in 1971’s Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory and a sweet-natured orphan bedeviled by ghosts and werewolves on the classic ’60s supernatural soap Dark Shadows, died Wednesday night at a hospital near her home in Colorado. In declining health since suffering a stroke last year, Nickerson was removed from life support by her family earlier that day. She was 62.

Nickerson’s son Josh Nickerson posted news of his mother’s death on Facebook after keeping friends and fans apprised of her health issues. Denise Nickerson was a longtime attendee at fan conventions for both Wonka and Dark Shadows.

“She’s gone,” Nickerson’s family posted on Facebook.

Born in New York City in 1957, Nickerson began acting on shows including The Doctors and Flipper before landing her breakthrough role in 1968 as little Amy Jennings on Dan Curtis’ gothic soap opera Dark Shadows. Teamed with young David Henesy,...

Timothy Greenfield-Sanders on direct-to-camera for Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am: "It really conveys how much Toni is controlling the narrative." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

In the first instalment of my conversation with photographer Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, director of Lou Reed: Rock and Roll Heart and Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am, which took place on the day we heard that Sylvia Miles died, Timothy goes into the direct-to-camera of Shirley Clarke, Andy Warhol's Screen Tests, Warren Beatty's "slightly off camera" Reds, and Errol Morris. Raoul Peck's brilliant I Am Not Your Negro on James Baldwin, Kirk Simon's The Pulitzer At 100, Joanna Hogg's The Souvenir, being seated where Toni Morrison sat for The Black List, and what's in a gaze came up.

Timothy Greenfield-Sanders on Toni Morrison: "I felt it was my portraiture coming to life." Photo: Timothy Greenfield-Sanders

Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am...

Oscar-nominated stage and screen actor best known for her roles in Midnight Cowboy and Farewell, My Lovely

A mere six minutes of screen-time in John Schlesinger’s 1969 counter-cultural hit Midnight Cowboy was all it took to land Sylvia Miles her first Oscar nomination. For the 1975 adaptation of Raymond Chandler’s Farewell, My Lovely, which brought her second Oscar nod, she still failed to clock up more than 10 minutes on screen. But then Miles, who has died aged 94, knew how to make every second count, filling her life as well as her performances with incident and vitality.

Midnight Cowboy demonstrated her extraordinary way with character, conveying the depth of a complex life in a handful of concentrated gestures. Briskly applying her lipstick in the mirror, she is oblivious to the awkward attempts by the greenhorn hustler Joe (Jon Voight) to broach the subject of payment after sex.

by Nathaniel R

Two time Best Supporting Actress Oscar nominee and party fixture Sylvia Miles died yesterday, three months shy of her 95th birthday. The NYC native rose to fame as a cult figure, a pioneer of Off Broadway plays, part of the Studio 54 scene, and a rather daring actress. She was often seen with Andy Warhol never quite going mainstream. Both of her Oscar nominations, for example, came from very brief gritty performances, at least in Oscar terms...

Tony Sokol Jun 12, 2019

Sylvia Miles was the original Sally on the Dick van Dyke Show, and a fixture of New York's entertainment world.

Iconic New York stage and screen scene-stealer Sylvia Miles died at age 94, according to Variety. Miles created a string of incredibly memorable, very New York characters, often with very little screen time. She was on the screen for six minutes in Midnight Cowboy (1969), about five and a half minutes in Farewell, My Lovely (1975), and she was nominated as Best Supporting Actress for both. She only sold two apartments in Wall Street and its sequel Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps. Miles had three short scenes selling Amy Irving to the pickle guy in Crossing Delancey.

Her starring role in Andy Warhol's Heat, is no less memorable, though criminally under-watched. A take on the classic Sunset Boulevard, as if any of Warhol's movies weren't, Miles played the Gloria Swanson...

Sylvia Miles, the lively actress in Midnight Cowboy and Farewell, My Lovely, has died. She was 94.

Miles passed away on Wednesday in Manhattan in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, her publicist Mauricio Padilha told The New York Times.

She began her career in off-Broadway plays in 1947 and later segued into TV and film. She played the role of Sally Rogers in the pilot episode of what became The Dick Van Dyke Show, but the role was taken over by Rose Marie.

The actress earned her first Oscar nomination for her brief performance as Cass, a hooker,...

Sylvia Miles -- who rose to fame for her role in "Midnight Cowboy" -- has died. TMZ has confirmed the two-time Academy Award nominee passed away Wednesday in New York ... and she reportedly died in the back of an ambulance on the way to a hospital.  Sylvia was in her mid-40s when she acted alongside Jon Voight in the 1969 movie, "Midnight Cowboy" ... and she played an Upper East Side hooker trying to out-hustle Voight's character,...

Sylvia Miles, a scene-stealing, two-time Oscar nominee for supporting roles in the Best Picture winner “Midnight Cowboy” and “Farewell, My Lovely,” died on Wednesday. She was 94.

Her friend of 25 years, publicist Mauricio Padilha, confirmed her passing to TheWrap, saying Miles died Wednesday while in an ambulance to the hospital on her way from her Manhattan home due to “complications of age.” Padilha described her as “wonderful” and lived “surrounded by everything she loved.”

Miles made a name for herself in “Midnight Cowboy” as a sharp-tongued New York prostitute who manages to hustle Jon Voight’s character as he’s trying to make his own living as an aspiring prostitute and con man. In the brief scene, only about six minutes of screen time in all, she goes from pleasantries to explosive, sobbing histrionics in seconds.

Also Read: Mary Duggar, 'Counting On' Grandmother, Dies at 73

She managed a second Oscar nomination...

Sylvia Miles, who earned two Oscar nominations – one for her memorable role as a poodle-owning Upper East Side matron who hooks up with Jon Voight’s hustler in Midnight Cowboy and one for a five and a-half minute scene with Robert Mitchum in Farewell My Lovely – has died.

Her friend, publicist Mauricio Padilha, confirmed to The New York Times that Miles died Wednesday in Manhattan. Padilha said she died in an ambulance on the way to a hospital. She was 94.

Miles was nominated for Best Supporting Actress Oscars for her roles in Midnight Cowboy and in 1975’s Farewell My Love She also appeared in Wall Street and its sequel Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, among numerous other movies, plays and TV series.

Miles was also a long-time fixture on the New York party scene, often carousing with Andy Warhol and his Factory crowd. She was notable for her continuing appearances...

Actress Sylvia Miles, who was Oscar-nominated for “Midnight Cowboy” and “Farewell, My Lovely,” died Wednesday at her home in New York. Her friends, journalist Michael Musto and actress Geraldine Smith, confirmed her death. She was reportedly 94, although she gave various accounts of her age.

Celebrity journalist Musto, who was about to appear with Smith and Miles in an indie film, said, “She was one of my first celebrity interviews (in the 1970s) and was charismatic and career driven. She’d run up to directors at Studio 54 and say ‘Hire me!’ She was very proud of her two Oscar nominations.”

Smith said “Her family was her New York friends,” and related how she had been excited to get back to acting.

Miles’ first major role came in the 1969 film “Midnight Cowboy” alongside Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman. Despite only appearing on screen for about six minutes, her role as Cass earned her an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actress.

Sylvia Miles, the uninhibited actress whose 14 minutes of screen time as a poodle-owning hooker in Midnight Cowboy and a boozy broad in Farewell, My Lovely was enough to land her a pair of supporting Oscar nominations, died Wednesday. She was 94.

Publicist Mauricio Padilha told The New York Times that Miles died in an ambulance on the way to a hospital in Manhattan. Her friend Geraldine Smith told the New York Post that she had been in declining health and had recently left a nursing home because "she didn’t want to die there."

In one of her most notorious ...

Sylvia Miles, the uninhibited actress whose 14 minutes of screen time as a poodle-owning hooker in Midnight Cowboy and a boozy broad in Farewell, My Lovely was enough to land her a pair of supporting Oscar nominations, died Wednesday. She was 94.

Publicist Mauricio Padilha told The New York Times that Miles died in an ambulance on the way to a hospital in Manhattan. Her friend Geraldine Smith told the New York Post that she had been in declining health and had recently left a nursing home because "she didn’t want to die there."

In one of her most notorious ...

Dennis Hopper’s legendary follow-up to Easy Rider ended his Hollywood directing career for at least fifteen years. Barely seen again after brief premiere bookings, it hasn’t built up a reputation as a suppressed masterpiece. So what is it exactly? A new spotless restoration gives a dazzling rebirth to Hopper’s Perú- filmed deconstruction of Hollywood. The astonishing number of notables in the cast list may in itself demand a viewing.

The Last Movie

Blu-ray

Arbelos

1971 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 108 min. / Street Date November 13, 2018 / 39.99

Starring: Dennis Hopper, Stella García, Tomas Milian, Don Gordon, Julie Adams, Donna Baccala, Sylvia Miles, Rod Cameron, Severn Darden, Sam Fuller, Peter Fonda, Henry Jaglom, Michelle Phillips, Kris Kristofferson, Dean Stockwell, Russ Tamblyn, Clint Kimbrough, John Phillip Law, James Mitchum, Richard Rust, Toni Basil, Michael Anderson Jr.

Cinematography: László Kovács

Production design: Leon Ericksen

Film Editors: David Berlatsky, Antranig Mahakian, Dennis Hopper, [Alejandro Jodorowsky]

Original Music: Severn Darden,...

Pictures like Midnight Cowboy pulled everyone my age group into the movies, while the entire older generation likely stopped going to movies altogether. John Schlesinger’s masterpiece can boast a number of firsts, and deserves the high praise it receives from every angle — this was the epitome of progressive filmmaking circa 1969.

Midnight Cowboy

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 925

1969 / Color / 1:85 widescreen/ 113 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date May 29, 2018 / 39.95

Starring: Dustin Hoffman, Jon Voight, Sylvia Miles, John McGiver, Brenda Vaccaro, Barnard Hughes, Ruth White, Jennifer Salt, Anthony Holland, Bob Balaban, Viva, Ultra Violet, Taylor Mead, Paul Morrissey, Pat Ast, Marlene Clark, Sandy Duncan, M. Emmet Walsh.

Cinematography: Adam Holender

Film Editor: Hugh A. Robertson

Production Design: John Robert Lloyd

Original Music: John Barry

Written by Waldo Salt, based on the novel by James Leo Herlihy

Produced by Jerome Hellman, Kenneth Utt

Directed by John Schlesigner

Midnight Cowboy is perhaps the...

Stars: Dustin Hoffman, Jon Voight, Sylvia Miles, John McGiver, Georgann Johnson | Written by Waldo Salt | Directed by John Schlesinger

“Where’s that Joe Buck?” the Texan locals ask. Here he is: it’s Jon Voight, a New Yorker playing a Deep Southern wannabe gigolo in flamboyant cowboy getup. Voight looks as pretty as his daughter playing the doe-eyed Joe, who ditches his grimy cafe job and sets off for the Big Apple to make a living sleeping with wealthy older women, while Fred Neil’s insufferably catchy “Everybody’s Talkin’” hums on the soundtrack.

Joe is confident and fearless, simple and childlike, but NYC isn’t all he hoped. Nothing of what he hoped. He’s a fish out of water. Shot from low angles, Manhattan appears more vertical and dwarfing than ever (Joe was the tallest structure back in Texas). This is Manhattan from a much scuzzier era: all neon vice and deviancy,...

“The Shape of Water” is one of two Best Picture Oscar nominees with three acting nominations — the other being “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” — but star Sally Hawkins and supporting players Octavia Spencer and Richard Jenkins are not predicted to win any of them. If they indeed go 0-3 on Sunday and “The Shape of Water” takes the top prize, the fantasy drama will join eight other Best Picture champs that did not convert any of its three-plus acting nominations into wins.

“Birdman” (2014) was the most recent Best Picture winner not to carry an acting award from at least three nominations, as Michael Keaton, Emma Stone and Edward Norton fell to Eddie Redmayne (“The Theory of Everything”), Patricia Arquette (“Boyhood”) and J.K. Simmons (“Whiplash”), respectively. Arquette and Simmons were the supporting frontrunners all season, but Keaton was locked in a tight Best Actor race with Redmayne until the SAG Awards...

“The Shape of Water” numbers three acting bids among its leading 13 Academy Awards nominations for lead Sally Hawkins and supporting players Richard Jenkins and Octavia Spencer. According to our exclusive Oscar odds none of them is predicted to win on March 4. Should that scenario play out, does that mean that their film won’t win Best Picture?

Not so fast.

While 53 of the 89 Best Picture champs to date include an Oscar-winning performance, 36 of them (40%) did not win any acting awards. And among those three dozen winners are four of the eight films — “The Hurt Locker” (2009), “Argo” (2012), “Birdman” (2015) and “Spotlight” (2016) — decided by preferential ballot under the newly expanded slate of Best Picture nominees.

Surprisingly, an even dozen of the Best Picture winners did not even reap any acting nominations. That is welcome news for “Arrival,” which does not number an acting bid among its eight nominations. However, four of those films...