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brokehorrorfan · 2 years

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4K Ultra HD Review: Flatliners

While the 2017 Flatliners reboot proved to be dead on arrival, the 1990 original still has life in it. Director Joel Schumacher (The Lost Boys, Batman Forever, Batman & Robin) brings the candy-colored visuals with which he was synonymous to a medical school’s gothic architecture. He and cinematographer Jan de Bont (Die Hard, The Hunt for Red October) use neon blue lighting as a bad omen, while warm colors are reserved for more uplifting emotions; a stark contrast to the reboot's glossy, modern science fiction aesthetic.

In the film, ambitious-to-a-fault medical student Nelson Wright (Kiefer Sutherland, The Lost Boys) convinces four of his brightest classmates - pragmatic atheist David Laccio (Kevin Bacon, Tremors), the brooding Rachel Mannus (Julia Roberts, Pretty Woman), womanizer Joe Hurley (William Baldwin, Backdraft), and the humorously bookish Randy Steckle (Oliver Platt, Lake Placid) - to assist him in a reckless experiment in the pursuit of scientific advancement and fame.

With the aid of his friends, Nelson is clinically dead for one minute “to see if there’s anything out there beyond death” before being resuscitated. It miraculously works, leading them to attempt to outdo one another by going longer and longer before being revived. Although they return in fine physical health, they begin to suffer from nightmarish visions in which physical manifestations of those they wronged in the past come back to haunt them - literally.

Flatliners never quite achieves the full potential of its ingeniously simple premise, although it's not difficult to understand why Peter Filardi’s (The Craft) well-researched spec script caused a bidding war before selling to Columbia Pictures for $450,000. It becomes a tad redundant, but like the characters in the film, a desire to glimpse at the afterlife sustains viewers' intrigue. The compelling story is bolstered by the star-studded cast, kinetic direction, and hyper-stylized visuals.

To make the film more dynamic, Schumacher and de Bont smartly opted to shoot it as if it was an action movie. Schumacher also moved the story from its original setting of Boston to Chicago. On-location filming lent the city's baroque architecture and gritty aesthetic, while Eugenio Zanetti (Last Action Hero, What Dreams May Come) adds salient production design.

Although more of a thriller than a horror movie, Flatliners' genre elements are strong in the visions that the characters experience once revived, occasionally bringing to mind the likes of A Nightmare on Elm Street. But at the core of the story is drama - exploring themes of karma, atonement, and redemption - with a rather life-affirming message. The emotionally resonant score, composed by James Newton Howard (The Hunger Games, The Sixth Sense), traverses between the film’s exploration of beauty and horror in the afterlife.

With all five actors electrifying the screen in the primes of their careers, the ensemble cast feels like an extension of the brat pack. (Sutherland jokingly referred to the film as The Breakfast Club Dies and St. Elmo's Funeral.) Sutherland is as perfectly arrogant as he was in his previous Schumacher collaboration, The Lost Boys. Roberts had already filmed her breakout role in Pretty Woman but it hadn't come out yet (it would release five months prior to Flatliners). Bacon credits the film with reviving his career, as he had a string of underperformers following the success of Footloose.

The supporting players include child actor Joshua Rudoy (Harry and the Hendersons) as the boy who haunts Nelson and Hope Davis (About Schmidt) in her film debut as Joe's fiance, along with Kimberly Scott (The Abyss), Patricia Belcher (Jeepers Creepers), and Beth Grant (Donnie Darko) in small roles. Although not on camera, screen icon Michael Douglas served as a producer on the project; the first effort from his Stonebridge Entertainment.

Flatliners has been newly resuscitated in 4K from the original negative, approved by de Bont, for Arrow Video's new 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray editions. The 4K UHD disc features Dolby Vision and Lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and 2.0 surround audio options. Schumacher and de Bont were already a perfect pairing, but Arrow's flawless restoration allows their bold visual palette to really shine.

Critics Bryan Reesman and Max Evry contribute a new audio commentary in which they dissect Schumacher's work and examine Flatliners in the context of its contemporaries (which made me eager to double-feature it with Jacob's Ladder). Schumacher passed away in 2020 and the cast members were not available for interviews, but Arrow tracked down a variety of crew members for new, in-depth interviews, offering several rare perspectives that are likely to give viewers a new appreciation for the production.

Filardi details the experience of selling his first movie, being on set during the production, and seeing the final product. De Bont and chief lighting technician Edward Ayer provide a fascinating breakdown of the visuals, with De Bont discussing his approach while Ayer explains how they pulled it off. Howard, orchestrator Chris Boardman, Zanetti, art director Larry Lundy, costume designer Susan Becker (True Romance, The Lost Boys), and first assistant director John Kretchmer each give their unique insight into how they added to the tapestry of the film as well.

The theatrical trailer and an image gallery are also included, alongside a 35-page booklet (exclusive to the first pressing) featuring new writing on the film by historians Amanda Reyes and Peter Tonguette. Reyes provides a historical overview of near-death experiences and how they compare to Flatliners, while Tonguette explores the film's surprising spirituality. The release carries new artwork by Gary Pullin, with the original poster on the reverse side.

Flatliners is available now on 4K UHD and Blu-ray via Arrow Video.

#flatliners #keifer sutherland #kevin bacon #julia roberts #oliver platt #william baldwin #arrow video #dvd #gift #review #article #gary pullin #horror #joel schumacher #peter filardi

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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The Craft: How a Teenage Weirdo Based on a Real Person Became an Icon

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“We Are The Weirdos, Mister.” A phrase you’ll find printed over t-shirts, pin badges, mugs, earrings, tote bags, necklaces, and more all over the internet. It’s the most iconic line from The Craft, a film released 25 years ago that still has a rabid following today. For anyone unfamiliar with The Craft, it’s a line spoken by Fairuza Balk’s Nancy, an inferno in black lippy and sunglasses, the de facto leader of a homemade coven made up of outsiders who have taken the raw deal the world has given them and rejected it by learning to harness the power of nature. This line is everything. We are no longer going to be victims, it says. We will no longer be afraid. We reclaim our space, our power. That we are four teenaged girls will no longer mean we have to watch out for ‘weirdos’ – because it is us who are the weirdos. Mister.

“Nancy is the one everybody wants to be,” says Peter Filardi, the man who created Nancy, Rochelle, Bonnie, and Sarah all those years ago, chatting to Den of Geek from his home, an original poster for The Craft peaking out from behind him on the wall. Next to it is a poster for Chapelwaite, the series Filardi is currently showrunning with his brother Jason, based on Stephen King’s short story, “Jerusalem’s Lot,” a prequel to Salem’s Lot.

“Nancy is the one who is particularly put upon and who finds the power to get revenge or get justice and is going to do that with no apologies. I think it’s how we all envision ourselves or would want to see ourselves, I guess. Here we are 25 years later. Why do you think we’re still talking about it?”

It’s an interesting question because we very much still are talking about The Craft. With Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, A Discovery of Witches, His Dark Materials, and of course last year’s remake of The Craft, we appear to very much still be in the season of the witch, but none is quite as resonant and impactful as the original The Craft. Watching it back 25 years after its release, it’s still just as relevant.

The very first script that Filardi sold was Flatliners, the story of arrogant, hot-shot medical students who plan to discover what happens after you die by “flatlining” for increasing lengths of time. Filardi’s script prompted a bidding war and the movie became a big hit, starring Hollywood’s hottest: Kiefer Sutherland, Julia Roberts, and William Baldwin.

After Flatliners, Filardi had been working on a script about real life teenage Satanist Ricky Kasso, (“He was one of the first to really put the hallucinogenics together with the music and the theology and then sort of brew them all up into this really volatile cocktail,” Filardi explains), so when producer Doug Wick approached him about another supernatural project, Filardi was game.

“He said he would like to either do a haunted house story or something to do with teenage witches. And because I happened to be working on what I was working on I was pretty well-schooled in earth magic and natural magic and Satanism and all sorts of stuff. And we just started talking, and we hit it off, and we decided to develop and create The Craft together,” Filardi recalls.

At the time Wick had just two full producer credits to his name – for Working Girl and Wolf – but he would go on to produce swathes of heavy hitters including Hollow Man, Jarhead, The Great Gatsby, and win the best picture Oscar for Gladiator. Meanwhile, Andrew Fleming, director of The Craft and co-writer of the screenplay, had made horror thriller Bad Dreams and comedy Threesome, and would go on to make several comedy movies as well as many hit TV shows – he’s currently working on season two of Netflix’s popular Emily in Paris.

Filardi’s story was always going to be about women, and it was always going to be about outsiders, the memories of high school still fresh enough for him to remember the pain. “I’m sure it’s like this for every kid. You have memories from those high school years of horrible things that happened to people around you, or were said or done and just the petty cruelties,” he says. “I’m glad I’m an old man now!” (He’s not, he’s 59).

Rewatching and it’s certainly striking how much empathy you feel for the girls. Sarah (Robin Tunney), who is the audience’s way in to the movie, lost her mother during childbirth and has battled mental health problems, even attempting suicide. Recently moved to a new neighborhood with her dad and step mother, she is instantly the outsider at her new school, and is immediately treated abhorrently by popular boy Chris (a pre-Scream Skeet Ulrich), who dates her and then spreads rumors that they slept together. Rochelle (Rachel True) is a keen diver, subjected to overt racist bullying by a girl on the swim team, while Bonnie (Neve Campbell) hides away because of extreme scarring she has all over her body. Before Sarah arrives, the three dabble in magic and protect themselves as best they can from the horrors of high school by telling people they are witches and keeping them at arm’s length. It’s the arrival of Sarah, though, a “natural” witch with some serious power, that turns things around.

“I think that maybe traditionally Hollywood would have done a version where the women were witches like Lost Boys,” Filardi says. “The women were witches, and they had this power, and they’re the dark overlords of their school or something like that. And that’s exactly the opposite of what worked for me and how I thought magic works in general.

“Magic has always historically been a weapon of the underclass, for poor people… Think of England. People of the heath, who lived out in the country… The heathens, they didn’t have a king or an army or the church even behind them. They would turn to magic. And that’s kind of what I saw for our girls. For real magic to work, you have the three cornerstones of need and emotion and knowledge. And I hate magic movies where somebody has a power and they just do this and the magic happens. I think it’s much more interesting if the magic comes from an emotional need, a situation that really riles up the power within.”

These witches aren’t evil and they aren’t even anti-heroes. Instead, this is pure wish fulfilment for anyone who’s ever been bullied, or overlooked, or been dealt a particularly tough hand, and this level of empathy comes across hard in the film. Watching now and so many of the themes are so current with reference to issues of racism and the emergence of the #MeToo movement.

“I did not write it as a feminist piece per se,” says Filardi. “I really just wrote it as an empathetic human being, I think.”

There’s extreme empathy dripping throughout the script, but don’t mistake that for pity. The Craft deals in female empowerment and just plain fun. It’s here that one of The Craft’s enduring conflicts arises. Are you Team Sarah or are you Team Nancy?

The correct answer of course, is Team Nancy…

“It’s always harder to be the good guy or the good girl,” laughs Filardi.

After all, before Sarah shows up, the other three are doing fine – surviving, doing minor spells, and looking out for each other. The influx of power Sarah brings allows the group to up their game and together they each ask for a gift from “Manon,” the (fictional) deity who represents all of nature that they worship in the film. Bonnie wants to heal her scars, Rochelle wants the racism to stop, Nancy wants the power of Manon, but Sarah casts a love spell on Chris. Sarah is either taking revenge on Chris, or she’s forging a relationship without consent, and it’s a move which eventually leads to Chris’s death.

Meanwhile, Nancy is someone who just refuses to be a victim, despite the fact that of the four she’s clearly had the toughest life, living in a trailer with her mum and her abusive stepdad. Nancy won’t allow the audience to pity her. Nancy doesn’t let things happen to her, she makes her own choices, whether they are good ones or not. When newly empowered Nancy is running red lights, with Rochelle and Bonnie whooping in the back, and Sarah telling her it’s all gone a bit far, “Oh shut up, Sarah” feels like the right response. While Sarah might be technically correct, we are rooting for these girls to be allowed the pure joy of something they have created between them.

Nancy is an amazing creation, and Filardi says he couldn’t have anticipated how much the character would resonate.

“I did not envision the great look that Andy Fleming brought to her,” he smiles. “But Nancy was inspired by a real girl, whose older brother lived in a trailer in their backyard, and just had a hard go of it. She’s true to the one I wrote. She always embodied the earth element of fire. Each of the girls is their own earth element. There’s earth, wind, water, fire. And you can pretty much guess who’s who…”

We could speculate but it’s perhaps more fun to let the audience decide for themselves.

“Nancy in the beginning was always the constructive aspect of that element. She’s the light in the fire in the dark woods that draws the girls together,” he explains. “When she’s all passion and raw nerve, she’s very much like fire, but then when she crosses Sarah and gets overwhelmed with the power of her new abilities, she becomes the destructive side of that same element and burns the whole thing up. But she’s a fantastic character. I think that Fairuza Balk just elevated Nancy to a whole other level. I guess that’s what happens when you’re blessed with the right actor for the right part.”

Exactly who the true protagonist of The Craft is is something Filardi still contemplates. What is notable is that though, yes, Nancy, Bonnie, and Rochelle do at one point try to, um, kill Sarah and make it look like suicide, which isn’t a very sisterly thing to do, they never really become true villains. By the end, the only fatalities are sex pest Chris and Nancy’s abusive step father, and both deaths could reasonably be considered accidental. While Bonnie and Rochelle are stripped of their powers, they aren’t further punished, it’s only Nancy who gets a raw deal. Driven to distraction by her surfeit of power, we find her ranting in a mental hospital strapped to a bed.

Filardi’s ending was different, though he won’t be drawn on details.

“The original ending was different. I’ve never really gone into the detail of what the original ending was. Well, the original ending was just different…” he says, mulling over what he might say. “So, let’s see. Well, Chris always died… and it was just very different,” he hesitates. “I don’t really get into it because there’s no real sense. It is what it is. I always like in a movie… Having two different children and you love them both for different reasons, but I would have never wanted to be hard on the girls in the final analysis in any way thematically.”

One element of the script that saw slight changes was the motivation of Rochelle, after the casting of Rachel True.

“To be honest, I think she was the exact same character. She was picked on by the swimmers. There was an added element that she had an eating disorder. She used to vomit into a mayonnaise jar and hide it on the top shelf of a bedroom closet. But other than that, she was really the same character,” he says. “Andy Fleming and Doug Wick, I don’t know who came up with the idea, but they cast Rachel and she added this whole other element to it, the racial element, which I think it was great and I think totally appropriate.”

Though Filardi didn’t work on the remake and hasn’t actually seen it, he’s able to see for himself, first hand, how well the film has aged and how it continues to endure for young women – he has teenage daughters of his own.

“I see them going through all the same stuff that I watched girlfriends going through. And it hasn’t changed all that much,” he says ruefully.

“It’s funny. For years, they had no idea what I did for a living. I think they just thought I hung around in the basement. And one daughter was like… She was going to school with somebody whose father was in a rock band or something, ‘Nobody in this house does anything interesting. Everything’s boring.’ And it was around Halloween and they were showing The Craft at the Hollywood Forever cemetery. I took them to the cemetery and it was great. There were boys dressed in Catholic high school uniforms and women all in black and with blankets and candles and wine and snacks. Amidst the tombstones, they set up a huge screen and showed the film. So, that’s when they first saw it. And it was really fun. A really nice thing to share with my daughters.”

Things don’t change that much. High school is still horrible. Magic is still tantalizing. The outfits are still fabulous. And Nancy is still a stone cold legend. The Craft is an enduring celebration of outsider culture that we’ll probably still be talking about in 25 years to come. After all, most of us, at one time or another, feel like the weirdos.

“I think of it as the story about the power of adolescent pain and self-empowerment. I think of beautiful young people who are just picked upon or put in positions they shouldn’t be or don’t deserve to be, and having the ability to fight back and weather it and survive,” says Filardi when we ask him what he’s most proud of.

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“I’m also proud of all the great contributions that the other talented people brought to the script. All I did was a script, but you have actors and directors and producers and art directors and production designers who just… Everybody seems to me to have brought their A-game. I didn’t come up with Nancy’s great look. Other people get all that credit. Like you said, you see her on t-shirts. So, so many people just brought so many things. I guess I’m just proudest to think that a bunch of strangers come together and connect to the message of the piece, and together just make something memorable all these 25 years later.”

The post The Craft: How a Teenage Weirdo Based on a Real Person Became an Icon appeared first on Den of Geek.

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hadarlaskey · 3 years

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The Craft at 25 – A dark rite of passage for teenage covens

With 1996 horror The Craft, director and co-writer Andrew Fleming brought a supernatural tale of girlhood to the big screen, presenting audiences with something they had rarely seen before: young women drunk on power.

The power explored in The Craft is conferred by magic, a mix of authentic pagan rituals and made-up incantations incorporated with the help of a Wiccan consultant, Pat Devin. Neither black nor white, this neutral force relies on the four elements and is heightened by the strong ties of female friendship.

In the film, occult-curious outcasts Nancy (Fairuza Balk), Bonnie (Neve Campbell) and Rochelle (Rachel True) practise magic and are regulars at their local esoteric bookshop. Despite their best efforts, their devotion to the all-knowing spirit Manon is short of a crucial component. In need of a fourth member to complement their Catholic school coven, they find a natural witch in new student Sarah (Robin Tunney).

The film delves into the protagonists’ traumas, addressing subjects like racism, sexism and toxic masculinity in a frank, forward-looking manner. Fleming and Peter Filardi’s script gives room to each central character while also centring on the intricacies of the group dynamic. As The Craft progresses, the chasm between a morally challenged Sarah and an unhinged Nancy threatens to tear the coven apart, setting up an explosive finale.

The Craft earned an R-rating for its graphic depictions of self-harm and for utilising both practical effects and CGI to deliver spine-chilling moments. This prevented the film from being seen by younger viewers who were expected to connect with it, but instantly sealed its cult status for generations to come.

Years after its initial theatrical release, The Craft became a rite of passage for young girls interested in magic and enthralled by the four central characters’ chaotic but ultimately liberating conduct.

This was certainly my experience when I first watched the film as a 12-year-old. A girl in my class had invited me over for a movie night with her older female cousins. Candles had been lit, incense sticks were burning and I had the feeling that something momentous was about to happen.

I had never heard of The Craft and wasn’t fully aware of the bigger issues it touches upon. Still, I felt instinctively drawn to these witches trading pointy black hats for a femme-goth aesthetic that would inspire me well into my high school years. My fascination with the film partly revolved around its sublime, polarising villain, played with frenzied energy by Balk.

By the time the end credits were rolling, I was on board with the tarot readings my classmate’s aunt had offered to give us. I can’t remember what she saw in my tween self’s future, but it was definitely not a lifelong friendship with her niece. She and I drifted apart before the end of the school year and never got to summon Manon together. Nonetheless, I think of that movie night fondly whenever I read tarot for my friends, imagining the card spread as a form of storytelling unfolding before my eyes.

That night informed my rather skeptical relationship with witchcraft in mainstream film and television. If The Craft succeeded in depicting magic in a dark, complex fashion that was also grounded in reality, why settle for sanitised portrayals of witches who never cave to their most sinister impulses?

Take the scene where the girls are hanging out while an episode of Bewitched plays in the background. In the popular ’60s sitcom, protagonist Samantha uses her non-threatening magic within a strictly patriarchal system, often to benefit her marriage and reinforce traditional gender roles; 1990s sitcom Sabrina the Teenage Witch wasn’t all that different. By contrast, the young women of The Craft don’t serve any master, and actively gang up against misogynist men and their micro and macro aggressions.

When Chris (Skeet Ulrich) attempts to rape Sarah, Nancy takes it upon herself to avenge her friend. She seduces Chris before forcing him to reconsider his actions. It’s a reckoning filled with pathos, enhanced by a magnetic Balk channelling her character’s history of neglect and abuse. Nancy takes it a step too far and kills Chris, drawing a line in the sand between her and Sarah, who defends her would-be assailant.

Nancy’s increasingly unhealthy relationship with Manon becomes her primary source of self-validation. Sarah, meanwhile, learns to invoke the divine being but never lets her abilities or his power define her. This dichotomy seemingly frames The Craft as a cautionary tale, punishing Nancy for her inconsiderate use of magic and rewarding Sarah, who is the only one to retain her powers after her former friends try to kill her. Yet Nancy is far from the only villain in the film.

While not all characters are equally fleshed-out – specifically, Rochelle’s Blackness seems to be her only conflict – it is safe to say that all four witches are flawed. Just like Nancy, the others are interested in gaining something out of their gifts, be it self-esteem, acceptance or love. In the end, Sarah strips Nancy of her power and commits her to a psychiatric hospital. As Sarah walks away from the coven, the camera lingers on Balk.

The final close-ups of a delirious, restrained Nancy terrified me during that first watch, but now I view them as a moving testament to the character’s rebellious, non-conforming nature.

The post The Craft at 25 – A dark rite of passage for teenage covens appeared first on Little White Lies.

source https://lwlies.com/articles/the-craft-at-25-teenage-witches/

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nowshowingnz · 4 years

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Movie Review - The Craft: Legacy (2020)

Movie Review – The Craft: Legacy (2020)

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IMDb Rating: 3.9/10

PG-13 | 1h 37min | Drama, Fantasy | 8 Oct 2020 (New Zealand) | Movie

Metacritic: 56/100

Rotten Tomatoes Rating: 48% Rotten (Critic reviews) | 40% Rotten (Audience reviews)

Director: Zoe Lister-Jones

Writer: Zoe Lister-Jones, Peter Filardi

Stars: Cailee Spaeny, Zoey Luna, Gideon Adlon

Movie Tagline: “Let the ritual begin.“

IMDb summary:

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#cinema #featured #Film #horror movies #movie review #movies #postaday

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therogerclarkfanclub · 1 year

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Roger's short film, Hazardous, just won the award for Best Short at the Crimson Screen Horror Film Festival! 🎉

The award itself looks very... interesting... To say the least .

And in case you haven't seen Hazardous yet, you can check it out on Roger's YouTube channel.

youtube

#roger clark #short film: hazardous #director: peter filardi #Film festivals #film awards #indie films #independent directors #independent movies #Wow Roger's sneakers are wild #His feet got lost in the carpet 😂#YouTube videos #Youtube

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bmjnews-blog · 4 years

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Joel Schumacher, Director of Batman Films and ‘Lost Boys,’ Dies at 80

Joel Schumacher, costume designer-turned-director of films including “St. Elmo’s Fire,” “The Lost Boys” and “Falling Down,” as well as two “Batman” films, died in New York City on Monday morning after a year-long battle with cancer. He was 80. Schumacher brought his fashion background to directing a run of stylish films throughout the 1980s and 1990s that were not always critically acclaimed, but continue to be well-loved by audiences for capturing the feel of the era. Schumacher was handed the reins of the “Batman” franchise when Tim Burton exited Warner Bros.’ Caped Crusader series after two enormously successful films. The first movie by Schumacher, “Batman Forever,” starring Val Kilmer, Tommy Lee Jones, Jim Carrey and Nicole Kidman, grossed more than $300 million worldwide. Schumacher’s second and last film in the franchise was 1997’s “Batman and Robin,” with George Clooney as Batman and Arnold Schwarzenegger as villain Mr. Freeze. For “Batman Forever,” the openly gay Schumacher introduced nipples to the costumes worn by Batman and Robin, leaning into the longstanding latent homoeroticism between the two characters. (In 2006, Clooney told Barbara Walters that he had played Batman as gay.) Several years after the Batman debacle, Schumacher directed the feature adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical “The Phantom of the Opera.” Despite tepid reviews, it received three Oscar noms. In 1985 Schumacher struck gold with his third feature film, “St. Elmo’s Fire,” which he directed and co-wrote. Brat Packers including Rob Lowe, Emilio Estevez and Ally Sheedy as well as a young Demi Moore starred in the story of a bunch of Georgetown grads making their way through life and love. Even the theme song was a hit and is still played to evoke the era. The film offered a pretty smart take on the complexities of post-college life. His next film was a big hit as well: horror comedy “The Lost Boys,” about a group of young vampires who dominate a small California town, starred Jason Patric, Kiefer Sutherland, Corey Feldman and Corey Haim. It became a cult favorite, and a TV series adaptation has long been in the works. Schumacher had a high-concept screenplay by Peter Filardi and an A-list cast — Julia Roberts, Kiefer Sutherland, Kevin Bacon, William Baldwin — for the 1990 horror thriller “Flatliners,” about arrogant medical students experimenting with life and death, and the director hit it fairly big again, with a domestic cume of $61 million. While those hits captured the era well, others during that period were misfires, such as the 1989 remake of the French hit “Cousin/Cousine” called “Cousins” and starring Ted Danson and Isabella Rossellini and the sentimental “Dying Young,” starring Roberts and Campbell Scott. But in 1993 he showed what he was capable of with the critically hailed “Falling Down,” starring Michael Douglas as a defense worker who’s lost it all and decides to take it out on whomever he comes across. The film played in competition at the Cannes Film Festival. The New York Times said the film “exemplifies a quintessentially American kind of pop movie making that, with skill and wit, sends up stereotypical attitudes while also exploiting them with insidious effect. ‘Falling Down’ is glitzy, casually cruel, hip and grim. It’s sometimes very funny, and often nasty in the way it manipulates one’s darkest feelings.” Schumacher’s next film was also a solid hit. “The Client,” based on a John Grisham novel, was a highly effective legal thriller that also boasted terrific rapport between Susan Sarandon’s lawyer and her 11-year-old client, a boy played by Brad Renfro who has witnessed a murder. Between the two “Batman” films, Schumacher directed another Grisham adaptation, “A Time to Kill,” which sported a terrific cast (including Samuel L. Jackson, Kevin Spacey, Sandra Bullock, Ashley Judd and a career jump-starting turn by a young Matthew McConaughey) and, while not without its own weaknesses, asked important questions about race. After the second “Batman” he made the much darker, smaller-scale thriller “8MM,” which followed a miscast Nicolas Cage as a family-man private detective in pursuit of those who made what appears to be a snuff film. His next film, 1999’s “Flawless,” about a homophobic cop who’s suffered a stroke, played by Robert De Niro, and a drag-wearing Philip Seymour Hoffman, was formulaic — the odd couple who couldn’t be more different find out they have a lot in common — but it sported excellent performances by the leads and certainly had heart. Switching gears dramatically, Schumacher made “Tigerland,” starring a young Colin Farrell in the story of young recruits preparing to go off to Vietnam. It had a gritty look, but while some critics saw an earnest quality, others saw cynicism. Schumacher’s 2002 thriller “Phone Booth,” which reunited the director with Colin Farrell and Kiefer Sutherland — and intriguingly trapped Farrell’s antihero in the title New York City phone booth for almost all of the film’s running time — had critics and audiences alike talking, even if the ending was a cop-out. His other films included actioner “Bad Company,” starring Anthony Hopkins and Chris Rock; “Veronica Guerin,” starring Cate Blanchett as a journalist crusading rather recklessly against the Irish drug trade; and Jim Carrey thriller “The Number 23” and “Trespass,” starring Nicolas Cage and Nicole Kidman. Schumacher started out in showbiz as a costume designer, earning credits on 1972’s “Play It as It Lays,” Herbert Ross’ “The Last of Sheila” (1973), Paul Mazursky’s “Blume in Love (1973), Woody Allen’s “Sleeper” (1973) and “Interiors” (1978) and 1975 Neil Simon adaptation “The Prisoner of Second Avenue.” He was also credited as the production designer on the 1974 TV horror film “Killer Bees.” He also started to write screenplays, including 1976’s “Sparkle,” 1978 hit “Car Wash” and the adaptation for 1978 musical “The Wiz.” Schumacher’s first directing assignments came in television: the 1974 telepic “Virginia Hill,” which he also co-wrote and starred Dyan Cannon, and the 1979 telepic “Amateur Night at the Dixie Bar and Grill,” which he also penned. He stepped into the feature arena with the 1981 sci-fi comedy “The Incredible Shrinking Woman,” starring Lily Tomlin, followed in 1983 by “D.C. Cab,” an action-comedy vehicle for Mr. T that Schumacher also wrote. Born in New York City, he studied at Parsons the New School for Design and the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York. He worked in the fashion industry, but decided to instead pursue a career in filmmaking. After moving to Los Angeles, he applied his fashion background to working first as a costume designer and worked in TV while earning an MFA from UCLA. Schumacher directed a couple of episodes of “House of Cards” in 2013, and in 2015 he exec produced the series “Do Not Disturb: Hotel Horrors.” Camerimage, the International Film Festival of the Art of Cinematography, awarded Schumacher a special award in 2010. He also received the Distinguished Collaborator Award at the Costume Designers Guild Awards in 2011. Click here to view original web page at variety.com Read the full article

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brokehorrorfan · 3 years

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The Craft will be released on 4K Ultra HD (with Blu-ray) on May 17 via Scream Factory. The 1996 supernatural horror film is directed by Andrew Fleming (Hamlet 2).

Fairuza Balk, Robin Tunney, Neve Campbell, Rachel True, Skeet Ulrich, and Christine Taylor star. Fleming co-wrote the script with Peter Filardi (Flatliners).

The Craft has been newly restored in 4K by Sony. Special features from Scream Factory’s Collector’s Edition Blu-ray, listed below, will be included.

Disc 1: 4K Ultra HD:

Audio commentary by director/co-writer Andrew Fleming

Disc 2: Blu-ray:

Audio commentary by director/co-writer Andrew Fleming

Interview with director/co-writer Andrew Fleming

Interview with co-writer Peter Filardi

Interview with producer Douglas Wick

Interview with makeup effects supervisor Tony Gardner

Conjuring The Craft vintage featurette

The Making of The Craft vintage featurette

Deleted scenes with optional audio commentary by director Andrew Fleming

Theatrical trailer

Sarah has always been different. So as the newcomer at St. Benedict’s Academy, she immediately falls in with high school outsiders. But there’s something different about her new friends, and it’s not just that they won’t settle for being a group of powerless misfits. They have discovered The Craft … and they are going to use it.

Pre-order The Craft.

#the craft #fairuza balk #robin tunney #neve campbell #rachel true #skeet ulrich #christine taylor #horror #90s horror #1990s horror #scream factory #dvd #gift #andrew fleming #peter filardi

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aion-rsa · 4 years

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The Craft: Legacy Trailer Promises Blumhouse Fun and Release Date

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For alternative kids of a certain age, 1996’s The Craft was more than a touchstone horror movie; it was an aspirational tale of independence. Maybe even more than the original’s director Andrew Fleming and writer Peter Filardi fully realized, a movie about four female friends using their witching powers to rise above (or is that levitate over?) the rigors of high school life and literally walk on water was intoxicating to Gen-Xers and older millennials who liked to paint it black. It appears that the quite on-the-nose legacy sequel of The Craft: Legacy is picking up on those witchy vibes of empowerment too.

Originally titled The Craft, this renamed The Craft: Legacy does everything a legacy sequel is supposed to: It remakes the original film from a modern perspective while reverently existing in the pre-established universe of the original movie(s). Thus enters Hannah (Cailee Spaeny), the new girl in school whose non-conforming appearance is making her the victim of bullying by some. But to others, she shows potential.

Soon Hannah is being recruited by three other girls (Gideon Adlon, Lovie Simone, Zoey Luna) who have a book of spells that’s called “The Craft.” It warns of the danger of needing to bind witches who become a threat to themselves or others, and it apparently includes a photo of Fairuza Balk, who played bad witch Nancy Downs in the original movie. Thus the trailer acknowledges we are existing in the same universe, and that this tale might go a little differently.

Indeed, with the film being written and directed by Zoe Lister-Jones, The Craft: Legacy promises to bring a new perspective on this archetypal story with perhaps a greater emphasis on the complexities of female friendships than the original devolving into a rivalry where one witch tries to steal (and kill) the other’s crush.

The Craft: Legacy is filled with evocative images like glowing pools of water, and a welcome cast of character actors as the parents, including Michelle Monaghan and David Duchovny.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

With its trailer and new title announcement, it was also revealed The Craft: Legacy is premiering on VOD soon with a release slated for Oct. 28, 2020. Obviously being just in time for Halloween will be welcome news for many. And the key emphasis on the word “Blumhouse” in the trailer suggests the mostly horror-focused production company has fully established its brand and can likely market it well for those looking for late night rentals—during the witching hour.

The post The Craft: Legacy Trailer Promises Blumhouse Fun and Release Date appeared first on Den of Geek.

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#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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brooklynhudson · 5 years

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Adrien Brody To Star In ‘Jerusalem’s Lot’ Epix Series Based On Stephen King Short Story From Epix Prods. Epix has given a 10-episode straight-to-series order to #JerusalemsLot, a drama based on the short story by #StephenKing to star Oscar winner #AdrienBrody. The series is the first from Epix Productions as Epix becomes the latest cable/premium network to launch an in-house production arm. Jerusalem’s Lot hails from writers Peter and Jason Filardi and producer Donald De Line (Ready Player One, Wayward Pines). Production is slated to begin in May 2020 in Halifax, Nova Scotia with an eye towards a fall 2020 premiere. #Filmmaking #Directing #Filmmakers #FilmmakersLife #Screenwriting #Actors #ActorsLife #Film #MovieMaking #Directors #Screenwriters #Author #Hollywood #Movies #Love #SetLife #DirectorLife #Instagood #TV #Television #IndieFilm #IndependentFilms #IndieMovies #EntertainmentNews #behindthescenes https://www.instagram.com/p/B6RU9mSJdkc/?igshid=10y9quiq8748s

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saturdaynightmatinee · 5 years

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CALIFICACIÓN PERSONAL: 6 / 10

Título Original: The Craft

Año: 1996

Duración: 101 min.

País: Estados Unidos

Director: Andrew Fleming

Guion: Peter Filardi, Andrew Fleming

Música: Graeme Revell

Fotografía: Alexander Gruszynski

Reparto: Robin Tunney, Fairuza Balk, Neve Campbell, Rachel True, Skeet Ulrich,Christine Taylor, Breckin Meyer, Assumpta Serna, Nathaniel Marston, Cliff De Young,Helen Shaver, Jeanine Jackson, Brenda Strong, Arthur Senzy

Productora: Columbia Pictures / Red Wagon Productions

Género: Drama, Fantasy, Horror

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115963/

TRAILER: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxEqB--5ToI

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deltamovies · 7 years

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Flatliners Free Full HD watch online & movie trailer

Release Year: 2017

Critic's Score: /100

Director: Niels Arden Oplev

Stars: Nina Dobrev, Ellen Page, Kiefer Sutherland

Storyline Medical students experiment on “near death” experiences that involve past tragedies until the dark consequences begin to jeopardize their lives.

Writers: Peter Filardi, Ben Ripley, Nina Dobrev, Ellen Page, Kiefer Sutherland, Nina Dobrev, Ellen Page, Kiefer Sutherland, Diego Luna, Kiersey Clemons, Charlotte McKinney, James Norton, Tyler Hynes, Beau Mirchoff, Steve Byers, Elena Khan, Daniela Barbosa, Ellie Patrikios, Madison Brydges, Jenny Raven, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Cast: Nina Dobrev –

Marlo

Ellen Page –

Courtney

Kiefer Sutherland –

Nelson

Diego Luna –

Ray

Kiersey Clemons –

Sophia

Charlotte McKinney –

James Norton –

Jamie

Tyler Hynes –

Lane

Beau Mirchoff –

Brad

Steve Byers –

Sam

Elena Khan –

Medical faculty

Daniela Barbosa –

Haley

Ellie Patrikios –

Medical Student

Madison Brydges –

Tessa

Jenny Raven –

Irina Wong

Details

Official Website: Official Facebook |

Official Twitter

Country: USA

Language: English

Release Date: 3 Jan 2017

Filming Locations: Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Did You Know?

Trivia: Avery Bederman, the daughter of one of the executive producers of the film; Michael Bederman has a small role in this movie. See more »

The post Flatliners appeared first on The Movie Entertainment of the 21st Century!.

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#Flatliners #Drama #Movies

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therogerclarkfanclub · 1 year

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Roger promoting his short film, Hazardous, at the Crimson Screen Horror Film Festival in South Carolina.

Y'all can watch Hazardous on Roger's YouTube channel (free!)

youtube

#roger clark #short film: hazardous #film festivals #indie films #thrillers & suspense #��#director: peter filardi #Youtube

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bmjnews-blog · 4 years

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Joel Schumacher, Director of Batman Films and ‘Lost Boys,’ Dies at 80

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