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Spanish filmmaker F. Javier Gutiérrez (Before the Fall, Rings) is back with new movie The Wait (La Espera), described as a sinister folk horror tragedy that takes place in the dark, magic and forgotten Andalusian countryside, a place marked by ancestral traditions.

Film Movement is bringing The Wait to VOD & Digital platforms on October 4.

Exclusively watch the official trailer below, which is loaded with rave reviews.

Based on an original script written by Gutierrez, The Wait has been described to Bloody Disgusting as being a “love letter to the horror/fantasy genre,” as well as Gutiérrez’s “most intimate and brutal film” to date. The horror movie “portrays the macabre descent into hell of a man who suffered the tragic loss of his family.”

In the film, “Deep in the Andalusian countryside, Eladio (Victor Clavijo) works as the groundskeeper of a hunting estate owned by the powerful Don Francisco. After...

Javier Bardem is currently making headlines for his role of Stilgar in Dune: Part Two. The Denis Villeneuve directorial has been getting rave reviews with 94% on the Tomatometer. And one of the positives on the movie is how Bardem plays the fanatic leader of the Fremen, mentoring Timothée Chalamet’s Paul Atreides. But with as menacing and zealous his character is in the movie, he is quite the opposite in real life.

Javier Bardem in Dune: Part Two

Bardem broke into the silver screen early on when he was only six years old. Coming from a family that has long been part of the movie industry in Spain, and being the son of the popular Spanish actress, Pilar Bardem, the Skyfall actor initially did not want to become an actor. It wasn’t until his lead role Bigas Luna’s 1992 directorial film, Jamón Jamón, that he started taking acting more seriously.

Spanish filmmaker F. Javier Gutiérrez (Before the Fall, Rings) is back with new movie The Wait (La Espera), described as a sinister folk horror tragedy that takes place in the dark, magic and forgotten Andalusian countryside, a place marked by ancestral traditions. Exclusive to Bloody Disgusting, you can watch the upcoming horror movie’s official trailer below.

The Wait was premiered in Oldenburg Film Festival (Germany) last September 22nd, and it has been part of the Official Selection of Fantastic Fest (Austin), Sitges (Spain), Morbido (Mexico) and Vancouver Intl Film Festival (Canada).

The movie has won 14 awards so far including ‘Best Director’ in FilmQuest, ‘Best Actor’ in Screamfest, ‘Audience Award’ in Fancine Malaga Fantasy Film Festival, and the ‘Critics Award’ in San Sebastian Horror Film Festival.

The film is releasing in Spain on December 15, with US distribution news coming soon.

Based on an original script written by Gutierrez, The Wait...

Spanish filmmaker F. Javier Gutiérrez (Before the Fall, Rings) is back with new movie The Wait (La Espera), described as a sinister folk horror tragedy that takes place in the dark, magic and forgotten Andalusian countryside, a place marked by ancestral traditions. Exclusive to Bloody Disgusting, check out Creepy Duck’s official poster for the movie below!

Bloody Disgusting has also learned this morning that The Wait is an Official Selection of this year’s Sitges International Film Festival. Stay tuned for the trailer, coming soon.

Based on an original script written by Gutierrez, The Wait has been described to Bloody Disgusting as being a “love letter to the horror/fantasy genre,” as well as Gutiérrez’s “most intimate and brutal film” to date. The upcoming horror movie “portrays the macabre descent into hell of a man who suffered the tragic loss of his family.”

Produced by Spal Films (Before the Fall...

The San Sebastian Film Festival will fete Javier Bardem with its prestigious Donostia Award at its 71st edition, running 22 — 30 September.

The actor will receive the career achievement prize on Friday 22 September at the Kursaal Auditorium, thirty years after his first visit to the Festival for the competition screening of Bigas Luna’s film Golden Balls in 1993. An image of Bardem will also serve as the official poster of this year’s festival. Check out the poster down below.

Bardem is one of Spain’s most prominent cinematic names, with over 70 screen credits. He picked up an Academy Award, Golden Globe, and a BAFTA for his turn in the Coen Brothers’ neo-western No Country for Old Men. Bardem was last at San Sebastian in 2021 with the workplace comedy-drama The Good Boss from Fernando León de Aranoa. The pic was Spain’s submission for the international Oscar race. Later this year, Bardem...

Spanish filmmaker F. Javier Gutiérrez (Before the Fall, Rings) is back with new movie The Wait (La Espera), described as a sinister folk horror tragedy that takes place in the dark, magic and forgotten Andalusian countryside, a place marked by ancestral traditions.

Exclusive to Bloody Disgusting, check out two first-look images above and below.

Based on an original script written by Gutierrez, The Wait has been described to Bloody Disgusting as being a “love letter to the horror/fantasy genre,” as well as Gutiérrez’s “most intimate and brutal film” to date. The upcoming horror movie “portrays the macabre descent into hell of a man who suffered the tragic loss of his family.”

Produced by Spal Films (Before the Fall), Nostromo Pictures and Gutierrez’s production company Unfiled Films, the upcoming horror movie stars Victor Clavijo (Before the Fall), Ruth Diaz, Manuel Moron and Luis Callejo (Below Zero).

In the film,...

The Mediapro Studio is teaming with Spanish director Jorge Dorado and author Cuca Canals on detective thriller “The Young Poe” in a bid to build a second English-language international franchise on the heels and of the scale of “The Head,” sold to 90-plus territories and Tms’ biggest breakout hit to date.

Enrolling one of the biggest IPs in literary history, Edgar Allen Poe, the series adapts the hit novel saga of Spain’s Cuca Canals, co-screenwriter of Bigas Luna’s celebrated “Jamón Jamón” movie trilogy.

Canals’ novels imagine Poe as a precocious, irrepressible, neurotic and highly Gothic 11 or 12 year-old in 1820 Boston, grounding in true events of Poe’s childhood the extraordinarily analytical and morbid mind which Edgar Allen Poe brings to his fiction – whether 1841’s “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” commonly regarded as the first modern detective story, or the horror short stories such as “The Fall of the House of Usher.

After wowing a home crowd at the opening night of the San Sebastián Film Festival on Friday, looking dazzling at 48, Spain’s best-known actress, Penélope Cruz, spoke to a packed auditorium at the city’s Tabakalera culture center on Saturday when she was honored with Spain’s National Cinematography Prize.

“It is truly an honor for me to receive this National Cinematography Prize,” said Cruz speaking in Spanish.

“Cinema is and has been my passion since I was a child. Since I dreamed in the living room of my parents’ house of worlds to explore beyond our neighbourhood. The streets of my neighborhood sometimes became sets for incredible stories,” she went on. “My childhood was fantasizing about acting, living life so intensely to be able to encompass many lives through dozens of characters.”

Cruz received two standing ovations during the ceremony. Cruz was presented the award by Spain’s Minister of Culture and Sports,...

Bloody Disgusting has learned that Spanish filmmaker F. Javier Gutiérrez is currently shooting his new movie, The Wait (La Espera), in Seville, Spain.

Produced by Spal Films (Before the Fall), Nostromo Pictures and Gutierrez’s production company Unfiled Films, the upcoming horror movie stars Victor Clavijo (Before the Fall), Ruth Diaz, Manuel Moron and Luis Callejo (Below Zero).

Based on an original script written by Gutierrez, The Wait has been described to Bloody Disgusting as being a “love letter to the horror/fantasy genre”.

In the film, “Eladio (Victor Clavijo), an upright ranch caretaker, takes a bribe from a veteran hunter. Weeks later, his whole life falls apart. What looked like the opportunity of a lifetime, turns into a nightmare when he discovers that his bad fortune isn’t casual.”

Gutierrez has been working on this personal indie project under the radar while writing and financing his upcoming remake of Bigas Luna’s cult horror,...

Quad Cinema has announced that “Boundless Bardem,” a retrospective on Javier Bardem’s acting career tied to the release of his upcoming film “The Good Boss,” will run at The Quad in New York City from August 19th – 25th.

The films in the retrospective are Julian Schnabel’s “Before Night Falls“ (35mm); Bigas Luna’s “Golden Balls” (35mm) and “Jamón Jamón” (35mm); Pedro Almodóvar’s “Live Flesh” (35mm); Bond film “Skyfall” (4K); Asghar Farhadi’s “Everybody Knows”; Ethan and Joel Coen’s “No Country for Old Men,” Fernando León de Aranoa’s “Loving Pablo” and “Mondays in the Sun”; Álex de la Iglesia’s “Perdita Durango”, Darren Aronofsky’s “Mother!”; and Alejandro Amenábar’s “The Sea Inside.”

The screening series will be co-produced with the Consulate General of Spain in New York.

“One of the most exciting moments of my work as a Cultural Consul are the times when we...

10 exciting Spanish directors to track in 2022:

Gabriel AZORÍN

“I’m interested in films that move from intimacy to mystery exploring language without being solemn,” says shorts director Azorín (“Greyhounds”). Backed by Spain’s Dvein Films and Filmika Galaika, “Last Night I Conquered the City of Thebes,” his long-awaited first feature and a friendship tale straddling Roman and modern times, proved a buzz title at Locarno’s 2021 Match Me forum.

VERÓNICA Echegui

Launched as an actor by Bigas Luna in “My Name is La Juani,” the “Trust” and “Fortitude” thesp’s surprising first short “She Wolf Totem” earned her a director Goya. Now she’s writing her feature debut. “I love movies that focus on life aspects that may go unnoticed,” she says citing “Drive my Car,” Michel Gondry and Isabel Coixet.

Anna FERNÁNDEZ De Paco

A poetic depiction of a couple’s changing flats in Sarajevo, De Paco’s short,...

NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.

Film at Lincoln Center

A regular performer for Ozu, Mizoguchi, and Naruse, Kinuyo Tanaka is celebrated in a retrospective of films she directed, as restored by Janus, alongside work by her collaborators.

Bam

“Lynchian” mostly does what it says on the tin—and plenty on 35mm—but also includes those influenced: Perfect Blue, Trouble Every Day, and Uncle Boonmee.

Film Forum

Joseph Losey’s great Mr. Klein has been restored, while School of Rock screens this Sunday.

Roxy Cinema

Manhunter and Ikiru screen on 35mm this weekend.

Paris Theater

The all-35mm Jane Campion retrospective winds down with Holy Smoke and Bright Star.

Metrograph

Metrograph A to Z continues; two Muppet movies screen in Play Time; Eyes Without a Face, Vagabond, and The Young Girls of Rochefort lead “Left Bank Cinema“; South Park and Perfect Blue are in “Late Nights.

The Miami Film Festival has announced its opening and closing titles for its upcoming 39th edition.

The festival, which showcases works from filmmaker’s in the Ibero-American diaspora, will premiere and end with two films listed on the Oscar shortlist for international feature film. “The Good Boss” (El Buen Patrón), a comedy written and directed by Spain’s Fernando León de Aranoa, will open the festival, which will close with “Plaza Catedral,” the sophomore narrative feature of Panamanian director Abner Benaim.

“The Good Boss” stars Javier Bardem as Blanco, the owner of a family business up for consideration for a local award for business excellence. Determined to win the award, Blanco begins meddling in the lives of his employees, setting off a chain of events that leads to shocking repercussions. In Spain, the film was nominated for a record-breaking 20 Goya Awards, which will be held on Feb. 12. León de Aranoa...

Antonio Pérez‘ Seville-based Maestranza Films, producer of Benito Zambrano’s “Solas” and “The Sleeping Voice”), and Kiko Martinez Madrid-based Nadie Es Perfecto, the company behind Álex de la Iglesia’s “The Bar,” have teamed to co-produce a remake of Bigas Luna’s cult horror modern classic “Anguish” (1987).

Spain-born but based in Los Angeles, Spanish director F. Javier Gutiérrez is attached to direct. Gutiérrez’ second feature, horror “Rings” –part of the several remakes saga starting with Gore Verbinski’s “The Ring”­– nabbed $83 million worldwide.

Luna’s original “Anguish” followed an ophthalmologist with a bizarre hobby –collecting eyes– and a dominant mother. Following his mother’s orders, he goes to a movie-theater, where he meets two friends. The feature they are watching, however, didsrupts their perception of reality.

One of the greatest ever Spanish directors, who gave Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem their big break in “Jamón, Jamón,” Luna helmed some English-language...

One of the Spanish-speaking world’s biggest sales forces, Film Factory Entertainment has swooped on sales rights to thriller “Two” (“Duo”), directed by Mar Targarona and the latest production from top Spanish genre auteur producer Rodar y Rodar.

Producer of two milestone titles of Spain’s genre auteur scene – J.A Bayona’s “The Orphanage” and Guillem Morales’ “Julia’s Eyes,” Targarona has built her own directorial career on suspense thrillers that prove unexpected and unpredictable in tone and resolution, such as 2016’s “Boy Missing” and “The Photographer of Mauthausen” – part true-events inspired record, part edge-of-set entertainment – in particular drawing strong notices. “Two” looks no exception. Its singular premise sees two strangers, a man and a woman in their 30s, wake up in an unknown place, naked and glued to each other by their stomachs. They struggle to understand how and why they got there – becoming increasingly terrified as they discover clues and the truth emerges.

The Goyas were presented by Antonio Banderas from the theatre he owns in Malaga.

Pilar Palomero’s directorial debut Schoolgirls won the best film and best new director award at Spain’s Goya awards on Saturday March 6 in a pandemic-era ceremony that celebrated fresh voices and a strong female presence.

The hybrid ceremony - all the nominees were at home - was sober and started with a minute’s silence for the pandemic’s victims. It was also much shorter than usual. The socially-distanced red carpet was only for the celebrities in charge of giving the awards and Antonio Banderas,...

Madrid — Four years in the making, Agustí Villaronga’s “Born a King,” starring Ed Skrein (“Deadpool”) and Hermione Cornfield (“Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation”) and produced by Andrés Vicente Gómez, has caught box office fire in the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

Released wide on Sept. 26, the true events-based historical drama – framing the coming of age of Prince Faisal of Saudi Arabia, against the background of a diplomatic mission he led to London in 1919 at the tender age of 13 – has earned an exceptional first-four-day $972, 962 in UAE, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, according to figures from its distributor, Dubai’s-based Vox Film Distribution.

The lion’s share of that was made in UAE, where it grossed $547,725.

However execrating for an independent film, the results are not totally surprising. “Born a King” is a Spain-u.K. production, whose producers, director and crew pack huge experience: Gómez, producer of Fernando Trueba’s...

Barcelona – Soon set to be seen at Cannes’ in Pedro Almodóvar’s competition contender “Pain and Glory.” Penélope Cruz will receive the 2019 Donostia Award for career achievement at the 67th San Sebastian Festival, which runs Sept. 20-28 at the Basque resort city.

The Spanish actress will be honored doubly way, as she will also be the official image on this year’s festival poster.

No other Spanish actress has received the international recognition of Cruz, nor her number of top-echelon prizes and nominations as she has battled to broaden the roles open to Latin actresses.

She demonstrated a range most memorably perhaps winning a best supporting actress Academy Award and Bafta winner for her performance as Maria Elena in Woody Allen’s “Vicky Cristina Barcelona.”

“Cruz, who officially graduated from sex kitten to powerhouse melodramatic actress in ‘Volver,’ is in full Anna Magnani mode here, storming up and down mountain...

Lyon, France – Javier Bardem charmed his audience at a masterclass during the Lumière Film Festival on Monday, eliciting laughter with stories of his youth, learning English by way of AC/DC, his famous family and expounding on the talent, compassion and genius of the filmmakers with whom he has worked, among them Bigas Luna, Julian Schnabel, the Coen brothers and Woody Allen.

Bardem reiterated his support for Allen, who directed the Oscar-winning Spanish actor in 2008’s “Vicky Cristina Barcelona,” saying he would work with him again at a day’s notice.

“He’s a genius,” Bardem said, adding that in this time of the Me Too movement, “I would work with him tomorrow.” He stressed that Allen’s legal status today has not changed since the last they worked together in 2007 and noted that the director had never been found guilty of any crime. “Today, 11 years later, it is the same accusation.

Spanish star Javier Bardem at the Lumiere Festival in Lyon on Tuesday gave a rowdy and free-form master class, discussing his work in Hollywood and Spain, career game changers, why he would work again with Woody Allen and why he disagrees with the "public lynching" of the director.

Now in its 10th year, the Lumiere fest is the brainchild of Cannes topper Thierry Fremaux, who introduced the 49-year-old Bardem with a highlight reel covering the actor’s career: from recent hits like No Country for Old Men and Skyfall to early breakthroughs like Bigas Luna’s Jamon, Jamon and Pedro Almodovar’s ...

Spanish star Javier Bardem at the Lumiere Festival in Lyon on Tuesday gave a rowdy and free-form master class, discussing his work in Hollywood and Spain, career game changers, why he would work again with Woody Allen and why he disagrees with the "public lynching" of the director.

Now in its 10th year, the Lumiere fest is the brainchild of Cannes topper Thierry Fremaux, who introduced the 49-year-old Bardem with a highlight reel covering the actor’s career: from recent hits like No Country for Old Men and Skyfall to early breakthroughs like Bigas Luna’s Jamon, Jamon and Pedro Almodovar’s ...

Two-time Oscar-winning filmmaker Asghar Farhadi’s psychological thriller “Everybody Knows,” starring Javier Bardem, Penelope Cruz and Ricardo Darin, is set to open the 71st Cannes Film Festival, Variety has learned.

The festival will likely make an official announcement about the selection of “Everybody Knows” on opening night either later today or in the coming days.

“Everybody Knows” (“Todos Lo Saben”) will mark only the second Spanish-language film to open Cannes, following Pedro Almodovar’s “Bad Education,” which kicked off the festival in 2004. It is also one of the few openers in recent memory not in either English or French.

The choice clearly reflects the outlook of Cannes artistic director Thierry Fremaux, who has aimed in recent years at kicking off the festival with films that bring together a critically acclaimed auteur, including the likes of Wes Anderson and Arnaud Desplechin, with an attractive, glamorous cast.

Iranian director Farhadi has previously...

We are excited to partner this year with L.A. Ola, a showcase of the best contemporary independent cinema from Spain, to show several of their films on Mubi in May and June, 2017. Agata's FriendsFor the third consecutive year, the L..A. Ola showcase strives to bring the best of Spain’s current independent cinema to Los Angeles for a short but concise program. This year, the festival will take place in various L.A venues from May 18 - 21 and will later travel to the East Coast with four of the program’s feature films for a special New York edition, which will show from June 2 - 4 at Anthology Film Archives. Although some of the films showcased are already well into their international festival lifespan, some of the films might have their U.S. premier at L.A. Ola. But for us here in the U.S., L.A. Ola...

Ok, so it will never be mistaken for vintage Pedro Almodovar or Bigas Luna, but the feel-good satire How to Be a Latin Lover nevertheless gives you less cause to be a hater than you might have expected.

A tailor-made vehicle for Mexican comedy star Eugenio Derbez, the film — about an aging gigolo who's abruptly tossed out on his saggy behind after being a kept man for 25 years — admittedly has commitment issues in its desire to be both an outrageous comedy and a tender family romp. But first-time feature director Ken Marino and his game cast, also...

Mubi is showing Lamberto Bava's Demons (1985) from February 26 to March 28 and Demons 2 (1986) from February 27 to March 29, 2017 in the United States as part of the series Due Demoni.Horror movie viewing as societal disease in Lamberto Bava's Demons (left) and Demons 2 (right)The opening shots of Lamberto Bava’s Demons contrast the film’s adorably ingenuous protagonist with the ragged punk hordes of the subway car she’s riding. She stares at them with equal parts fascination and doe-in-headlights dread. It’s a concise visualization of the simple social commentary driving Bava the Younger’s trashterpiece diptych, Demons and Demons 2. The two make an excellent double feature of midnight flicks about the perils of daring to dip even passingly into the lower depths of subculture and the, well, demons that society risks releasing when willing to dabble in The Weird. But cautionary tales are rarely this batshit and never this fun,...

“We used to go to the movies. Now we want the movies to come to us, on our televisions, tablets and phones, as streams running into an increasingly unnavigable ocean of media. The dispersal of movie watching across technologies and contexts follows the multiplexing of movie theaters, itself a fragmenting of the single screen theater where movie love was first concentrated and consecrated. (But even in the “good old days,” movies were often only part of an evening’s entertainment that came complete with vaudeville acts and bank nights). For all this, moviegoing still means what it always meant, joining a community, forming an audience and participating in a collective dream.” –

From the UCLA Film and Television Archive’s programming notes for its current series, “Marquee Movies: Movies on Moviegoing”

Currently under way at the Billy Wilder Theater inside the Armand Hammer Museum in Westwood, the UCLA Film and Television Archive’s far-reaching and fascinating series “Marquee Movies: Movies on Moviegoing” takes sharp aim at an overview of how the movies themselves have portrayed the act of going out to see movies during these years of seismic change in the way we see them. What’s best about the collection of films curated for the series is its scope, which sweeps along from the anything-goes exhibition of the silent era, on through an examination of the opulent era of grandiose movie palaces and post-war audience predilection for exploitation pictures, and straight into an era—ours—of a certain nostalgia for the ways we used to exclusively gather in dark places to watch visions jump out at us from the big screen. (That nostalgia, as it turns out, is often colored by a rear-view perspective on the times which contextualizes it and sometimes gives it a bitter tinge.) As the program notes for the Marquee Movies series puts it, whether you’re an American moviegoer or one from France, Italy, Argentina or Taiwan, “the current sense of loss at the passing of an exhibition era takes its place in the ongoing history of cultural and industrial transformation reflected in these films.”

The series took its inaugural bow last Friday night with a rare 35mm screening of Matinee (1993), director Joe Dante and screenwriter Charlie Haas’s vividly imagined tribute to movie love during a time in Us history which lazy writers frequently like to describe as “the point when America lost its innocence” or some other such silliness. For Americans, and for a whole lot of other people the world over, those days in 1962 during what would come to be known as the Cuban Missile Crisis felt more like days when something a whole lot more tangible than “innocence” was about to be lost, what with the Us and Russia being on the brink of nuclear confrontation and all. The movie lays down this undercurrent of fear and uncertainty as the foundation which tints its main action, that of the arrival of exploitation movie impresario Laurence Woolsey (John Goodman, channeling producer and gimmick maestro William Castle) to Key West, Florida, to promote his latest shock show, Mant!, on the very weekend that American troops set to sea, ready to fire on Russian missile installments a mere 90 miles away in Cuba.

Woolsey’s hardly worried that his potential audience will be distracted the specter of annihilation; in fact, he’s energized by it, convinced that the free-floating anxiety will translate into box office dollars contributed by nervous kids and adults looking for a safe and scary good time, a disposal cinematic depository for all their worst fears. And it certainly doesn’t matter that Woolsey’s movie is a corny sci-fi absurdity-- all the better for his particular brand of enhancements. Mant!, a lovingly sculpted mash-up of 1950s hits like The Fly and Them!, benefits from “Atomo-vision,” which incorporates variants of Castle innovations like Emergo and Percepto, as well as “Rumble-rama,” a very crude precursor to Universal’s Oscar-winning Sensurround system. The movie’s Saturday afternoon screening is where Dante and Haas really let loose their tickled and twisted imaginations, with the help of Woolsey’s theatrical enhancements.

Leading up to the fearful and farcical unleashing of Mant!, Dante stages a beautifully understated sequence that moved me to tears when I saw it with my daughters last Friday night at the Billy Wilder Theater. Matinee is seen primarily through the eyes of young Gene Loomis (Simon Fenton), a military kid whose dad is among those waiting it out on nuclear-armed boats pointed in the direction of Cuba. Gene is a monster-movie nerd (and a clear stand-in for Dante, Haas and just about anybody—like me—whose primary biblical text was provided not by that fella in the burning bush but instead by Forrest J. Ackerman within the pages of Famous Monsters of Filmland), and he manages to worm his way into Woolsey’s good graces as the producer prepares the local theater to show his picture. At one point he walks down the street in the company of the larger-than-life producer, who starts talking about his inspirations and why he makes the sort of movies he does:

“A zillion years ago, a guy’s living in a cave,” Woolsey expounds. “He goes out one day—Bam! He gets chased by a mammoth. Now, he’s scared to death, but he gets away. And when it’s all over with, he feels great.”

Gene, eager to believe but also to understand, responds quizzically-- “Well, yeah, ‘cause he’s still living.”

“Yeah, but he knows he is, and he feels it,” Woolsey counters. “So he goes home, back to the cave. First thing he does, he does a drawing of a mammoth.” (At this point the brick wall which the two of them are passing becomes a blank screen onto which Woolsey conjures an animated behemoth that entrances Gene and us.) Woolsey continues:

“He thinks, ‘People are coming to see this. Let’s make it good. Let’s make the teeth real long and the eyes real mean.’ Boom! The first monster movie. That’s probably why I still do it. You make the teeth as big as you want, then you kill it off, everything’s okay, the lights come up,” Woolsey concludes, ending his illustrative fantasy with a sigh.

But that’s not all, folks. At this point, Dante cuts to a Steadicam shot as it moves into the lobby hall of that Key West theater, past posters of Hatari!, Lonely are the Brave, Six Black Horses and Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?. The tracking shot continues up the stairs, letting us get a really close look at the worn, perhaps pungent carpet, most likely the same rug that was laid down when the theater opened 30 or so years earlier, into the snack bar area, then glides over to the closed swinging doors leading into the auditorium, while Woolsey continues:

“You see, the people come into your cave with the 200-year-old carpet, the guy tears your ticket in half—it’s too late to turn back now. The water fountain’s all booby-trapped and ready, the stuff laid out on the candy counter. Then you come over here to where it’s dark-- there could be anything in there—and you say, ‘Here I am. What have you got for me?’”

Forget nostalgia for a style of moviegoing. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more compact, evocative and heartfelt tribute to the space in which we used to see movies than those couple of minutes in Matinee. The shot and the narration work so vividly together that I swear I could whiff the must underlying that carpet, papered over lovingly with the smell of popcorn wafting through the confined space of that tiny snack bar, just as if I was a kid again myself, wandering into the friendly confines of the Alger Theater in Lakeview, Oregon (More on that place next week.)

Dante’s movie is a romp, no doubt, but its nostalgia is a heartier variety than what we usually get, and it leaves us with an undercurrent of uneasiness that is unusual for a genre most enough content to look back through amber. Woolsey’s words resonate for every youngster who has searched for reasons to explain their attraction to the scary side of cinema and memories of the places where those images were first encountered, but in Matinee there’s another terror with which to contend, one not so easily held at bay.

Of course the real world monster of the movie— the bomb— was also, during that weekend in 1962 and in Matinee’s representation of the missile crisis, “killed off,” making “everything okay.” But Dante makes us understand that while calm has been momentarily restored, something deeper has been forever disturbed. The movie acknowledges the societal disarray which was already under way in Vietnam, and the American South, and only months away from spilling out from Dallas and onto the greater American landscape in a way so much less containable than even the radiative effects of a single cataclysmic event. That awareness leaves Matinee with a sorrowful aftertaste that is hard to shake. The movie’s last image, of our two main characters gathered on the beach, greeting helicopters that are flying home from having hovered at the precipice of nuclear destruction, is one of relief for familial unity restored—Gene is, after all, getting his dad back. But it’s also one of foreboding. Dante leaves us with an extreme close-up of a copter looming into frame, absent even the context of the sky, bearing down on us like a real-life mutant creature, an eerie bellwether of political and societal chaos yet to come as a stout companion to the movie’s general air of celebratory remembrance.

***************************************

The “Marquee Movies” series has already seen Matinee (last Friday night), Woody Allen’s The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985) paired with Polish director Wojciech Marczewski’s 1990 Escape from Liberty Island (last Saturday night), and Ettore Scola’s masterful Splendor (1989), which screened last Sunday night.

But there’s plenty more to come. Sunday, June 12, the archive series unveils a double bill of Lloyd Bacon’s Footlight Parade (1933) with the less well-known This Way, Please (1937), a terrific tale of a star-struck movie theater usherette with dreams of singing and dancing just like the stars she idolizes, starring Charles ‘Buddy’ Rogers, Betty Grable, Jim Jordan, Marian Jordan and the brilliantly grizzled Ned Sparks.

Wednesday, June 15, you can see Uruguay’s A Useful Life (2010), in which a movie theater manager in Montevideo faces up the fact that the days of his beloved movie theater are numbered, paired up with Luc Moullet’s droll account of the feud between the French film journals Cahiers du Cinema and Positif, entitled The Seats of the Alcazar (1989).

One of my favorites, Tsai Ming-liang’s haunting Goodbye, Dragon Inn (2003) gets a rare projection at the Wilder on Sunday, June 19, along with Lisandsro Alonzo’s Fantasma (2006), described by the archive as “a hypnotic commentary on cinematic rituals and presence.”

Friday, June 24, you can see, if you dare, Lamberto Bava’s gory meta-horror film Demons (1985) and then stay for Bigas Luna’s similarly twisted treatise on the movies and voyeurism, 1987’s Anguish.

Saturday afternoon, June 25, “Marquee Movies” presents a rare screening of Gregory La Cava’s hilarious slapstick spoof of rural moviegoing, His Nibs (1921), paired up with what I consider, alongside Matinee and Goodbye, Dragon Inn, one of the real jewels of the series, Basil Dearden’s marvelously funny The Smallest Show on Earth (1957), all about what happens when a newlywed couple inherits a rundown cinema populated by a staff of eccentrics that include Margaret Rutherford and Peter Sellers. (More on that one next week.)

And the series concludes on Sunday, June 26, with a screening of the original 174-minute director’s cut of Giuseppe Tornatore’s Cinema Paradiso (1988).

(Each program also features a variety of moviegoing-oriented shorts, trailers and other surprises. Click the individual links for details and show times.)

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(Next week: My review of The Smallest Show on Earth and a remembrance of my own hometown movie theater, which closed in 2015.)

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Later this year Matinee will be released by Universal in the U.S. (details to come) and by Arrow Films in the UK (with a nifty assortment of extras).

3 June 1993: Joel Schumacher tries for a Taxi Driver of the nineties, while Bigas Luna’s comedy suggests Spain is full of people unable to contain their appetites

Falling Down

Dir: Joel Schumacher

With Michael Douglas, Robert Duvall

112 mins, cert 18. Empire etc.

Jamon Jamon

Dir: Bigas Luna

With Penelope Cruz, Javier Bardem, Stefania Sandrelli

94 minutes, cert 18. Metro, Camden Plaza, MGM Tottenham Court Rd, Screen/Baker St etc.

Continue reading...

Sonny Mallhi’s non-scary thriller offers neither supernatural chills nor real-world psychological insights

A puzzle, a frustration and a disappointment … Sonny Mallhi’s non-scary movie Anguish is all this, and not much more. (No relation to Bigas Luna’s 1987 cult classic Anguish, incidentally.) Yet in technical terms it is not badly made by any stretch. It’s just that there is a fatal generic uncertainty about what the film is trying to do. It offers neither honest supernatural chills nor real-world psychological insights: just a muddle.

The film begins with that traditionally dodgy claim of being inspired by true events, which should really be tested by a documentary. Ryan Simpkins plays Tess, a moody teenager living with Jessica (Annika Marks), who is effectively a single mom, as her partner, Tess’s dad, is away in the army, so they communicate via Skype. Tess is on medication for depression, a condition...

Exclusive: Italian company picked up rights from Spanish outfit Deaplaneta.

Spanish outfit Deaplaneta has closed a deal for remake rights of its romcom Off Course (Perdiendo El Norte) with Cattleya for Italy.

Deaplaneta also confirmed sales on its youth comedy The Misfits Club to France (Family Films) and Italy (Mediaset).

Here at the Efm, the company has been holding its first market screenings of sic-fi drama, Second Origin, directed by the late Bigas Luna and Carles Porta.

In the waning days of 2015, we’ll be polling Shock’s stable of fantastic freelancers to see what horror flicks made them tick the loudest. We continue with Shock’s managing editor Chris Alexander 5. Anguish Not the kinky, weird 1987 Bigas Luna Spanish shocker of the same name, but writer/director Sonny Mallhi‘s contemporary ghost story/domestic drama;…

The post Top 5 Favorite Fright Flicks of 2015: Shock Editor Chris Alexander’s List appeared first on Shock Till You Drop.

Special Mention: The Bird with the Crystal Plumage

Directed by Dario Argento

Screenplay by Dario Argento

1970, Italy

Genre: Giallo

One of the most self-assured directorial debuts of the 70’s was Dario Argento’s The Bird with the Crystal Plumage. Not only was it a breakthrough film for the master of Giallo, but it was also a box office hit and had critics buzzing, regardless if they liked it or not. Although Argento would go on to perfect his craft in later films, The Bird With The Crystal Plumage went a long way in popularizing the Giallo genre and laid the groundwork for later classics like Deep Red. A difficult film to discuss without spoiling many of its most impressive and famous scenes, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage is a fairly straightforward murder mystery, albeit with many twists, turns and one of the best surprise endings of all time. But...

Spooky festival favorite Anguish locks distribution deal. Hot off its Fantasia Festival 2015 premier this past summer, La-based distributor Gravitas Ventures has secured North American rights to Anguish (not the Bigas Luna classic Anguish, though that one is brilliant!), writer/director Sonny Mallhi’s eerie thriller about a girl (Ryan Simpkins) who has to reconcile herself to…

The post Fantasia Fest Hit Anguish Locks Distribution appeared first on Shock Till You Drop.

If you haven't already heard of this adaptation of Manuel de Pedrolo's 1974 alien apocalypse novel, "Second Origin Typescript" (Mecanoscrit del segon origen), shame on you, because we've been writing about the film since 2009. There, now that you've been sufficiently scolded, we can get on with some background.

"Second Origin Typescript" is one of bestselling Catalan novels ever and is considered something of a masterpiece. The movie adaptation, called simply Second Origin, has obviously taken years to come to life and is directed by Carles Porta and was co-written by Bigas Luna and Ross Jameson.

Synopsis:

A white girl Alba (1 [Continued ...]...

Sci-fi romance was originally slated to be directed by the late Spanish director Bigas Luna.

Rising British actress Rachel Hurd-Wood (Peter Pan, Perfume: The Story Of A Murderer) is to star in Second Origin, the new film that maverick Spanish director Bigas Luna was originally slated to direct.

Here at the Efm, Manifest Film Sales today announced the imminent start of production on the project.

Bigas Luna who sadly died during the pre-production, is still being billed as co-director. His friend, co-writer and director Carles Porta is now helming.

A science-fiction romance about love and adventure set in a post-apocalyptic world, Second Origin tells the story of Alba and Dídac two young people struggling to survive in a world left in ruins.

Based on the bestselling Catalan novel Mecanoscrit del Segon Origen by Manuel de Pedrolo, which has sold over 2m copies worldwide, Second Origin is a Spanish/UK co-production, produced by [link...

Every year, we here at Sound On Sight celebrate the month of October with 31 Days of Horror; and every year, I update the list of my favourite horror films ever made. Last year, I released a list that included 150 picks. This year, I’ll be upgrading the list, making minor alterations, changing the rankings, adding new entries, and possibly removing a few titles. I’ve also decided to publish each post backwards this time for one reason: the new additions appear lower on my list, whereas my top 50 haven’t changed much, except for maybe in ranking. I am including documentaries, short films and mini series, only as special mentions – along with a few features that can qualify as horror, but barely do.

Come Back Tonight To See My List Of The 200 Best!

****

Special Mention:

Wait until Dark

Directed by Terence Young

Written by Robert Carrington

USA, 1967

Directed by Terence Young,...

Labouring under an oppressive fascist dictatorship for much of the 20th century, Spanish cinema took a while to flourish. During the dying days of General Franco’s far right government a series of interesting horror pictures, such as zombie classic The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue, were produced, primarily for the English market. After the regime fell, though, a wave of young directors, including Pedro Almodovar and Bigas Luna, revelled in their newfound freedom of expression to produce films that were exuberantly brash, camp, anything goes affairs. Bad taste and boundary pushing may have been the order of the day, but it was not in service of making scary movies.

The creepy and disturbing have always had a place in Spanish cinema, though. You need only look at the eyeball slicing early collaborations between Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali to see that. A more mature Spanish film industry has returned...

Spanish actor Jordi Molla plays Vin Diesel's nemesis in Riddick and the actor is comparing his role to Han Solo, but as a villain.

The multi-talented actor from Barcelona, Spain was personally picked to play a bounty hunter named Santana by Riddick star and producer Vin Diesel, and director David Twohy. You may recognize the actor from memorable roles as the bad buy in Bad Boys II (Will Smith),  Knight & Day (Tom Cruise, Cameron Diaz) and Colombiana (Zoe Saldana).  His breakthrough Hollywood film was with Blow starring Johnny Depp and another Spanish import, Penelope Cruz.  Aside from Hollywood, the painter and author has worked with highly acclaimed Spanish directors Bigas Luna, Montxo Armendáriz, Pedro Almodóvar, Ricardo Franco and Fernando Colomo.

Fernando Esquivel sat down with the Riddick star to chat about the band of Latinos in the Vin Diesel sequel

Read more...

Kevin Macdonald’s How I Live Now will close the festival, which has assembled it largest programme to date.

The 33rd Cambridge Film Festival (Sept 19-29) has unveiled its 2013 line-up, comprising 150 titles from 40 countries.

As previously announced, Professor Stephen Hawking will attend the opening night gala of documentary Hawking, which will be broadcast live to more than 60 screens across the UK.

The festival will close with Kevin Macdonald’s How I Live Now, an Orwellian vision of a post-apocalyptic future starring Saoirse Ronan and George MacKay.

Alongside Hawking, other special guests to the festival will include directors Lucy Walker (The Crash Reel), Roland Klick (Deadlock), Mark Levinson (Particle Fever), Julien Temple (Oil City Confidential), Ramon Zürcher (The Strange Little Cat), Małgośka Szumowska (In The Name Of), Marzin Malaszczak (Sieniawka), Matt Hulse (Dummy Jim) and Andrew Mudge (The Forgotten Kingdom), Bob Stanley, John Pearse and actress Stephanie Stremler (Dust On Our Heart).

Strands include Young Americans, aimed at showcasing...

Update: Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem have named their baby girl, Luna Encinas Cruz, according to the Spanish publication, Vanitatis. Javier reportedly registered the birth of his daughter during a visit to Madrid's registrar office on July 30. The name Luna translates to mean moon in Spanish, while Encinas is Javier's first surname. The moniker could also hold special meaning for the couple since the name also belongs to their late director, Juan Jose Bigas Luna, who passed away this past April. Penelope and Javier shared a close bond with Bigas Luna, who they credit for introducing them on the set of their first collaboration, Jamon, Jamon. Penélope and Javier welcomed their second child in Madrid two weeks ago on July 22. People magazine confirmed that Penélope Cruz gave birth to a daughter, but few other details have been revealed about the latest addition to the Cruz-Bardem family. Penélope showed no signs...

Mexico City, June 28 (Ians/Efe) The latest from Spanish director Pedro Almodovar, "Los amantes pasajeros" (I'm So Excited), will be the first offering at Mexico's Es.Cine festival of Ibero-American film, organizers said.

The film, which debuted in Spain three months ago, will have its Mexican premiere at the July 5-11 festival, which is to feature 13 pictures from Spain and Latin America.

Es.Cine will also pay homage to Spanish filmmaker Jose Juan Bigas Luna, who died in April at the age of 67, with screenings of four of his most important movies: "Las edades de Lulu", "Jamon, jamon", "Huevos de oro" and "La teta y la luna".

Bigas Luna helped launched the careers of international stars such Javier Bardem, Penelope.

Most recent film appearances, plus concert and television work Please check out our previous post: "Montiel La Violetera and Pedro Almodóvar Icon." Her last star vehicle of note was Juan Antonio Bardem's Varietés (1971), a melodrama about an aging actress who continues to dream of becoming a bona fide star. [Please scroll down to listen to Montiel's husky rendition of "Amado mío."] The forty-something hopeful eventually gets her chance at stardom, but it all turns out to be a flash in the pan. By then, following a whole array of formulaic romantic musical melodramas, Montiel's box-office allure had waned rather radically. She turned down roles in Spain's cine del destape -- post-Franco softcore comedies -- which eventually meant the demise of her movie career. Her last official star vehicle was Pedro Lazaga's comedy Cinco almohadas para una noche ("Five Cushions for One Night," 1974) -- though she would be seen in Eduardo Manzanos Brochero's That's Entertainment-like compilation feature Canciones de nuestra...

Showing some love to his Spanish fans, Javier Bardem showed up at a photocall for his new flick “Alacran Enamorado” in Madrid today (April 9).

Joined by Alvaro Longoria, Santiago Zannou, Carlos Bardem, and Alex Gonzalez, the “Skyfall” hunk looked handsome as he greeted the press at Princesa Cinema.

Bardem recently weighed in on the tragic death of Spanish filmmaker Bigas Luna, who passed away over the weekend.

He explained, "I don't know where to begin. (Luna gave me) the woman I love (and) a career that I never dreamed I could have."

Wife Penelope Cruz added, “The first thing he asked me was my age. I said I was 17 and he, always very gently and without making me feel too bad, laughed in my face and said, 'Well, you won't make this movie, but I'll call for another when you're older.'"...

It's almost time!

Penelope Cruz, 38, was seen out and about yesterday in Madrid, Spain, casually dressed in jeans, a leather jacket and wedge sneakers. The actress is seven months pregnant with her second child from husband Javier Bardem and from the looks of it, she's been keeping her famous curves in check and has barely put on any weight.

Just this weekend, legendary Spanish filmmaker Juan Jose Bigas Luna -- who shot Cruz and Bardem to fame -- died from cancer at 67 years of age. In a heartfelt statement, the Oscar-winning actress said "When I was with him I felt time stood still. He was truly special."

"I don't know where to begin," Cruz's Oscar-winning husband added, and said he owes Bigas Luna "the woman I love," and "a career that I never dreamed I could have."

Cruz's next film, Pedro Almodóvar's "I'm So Excited," is expected to hit theaters in June.

Penélope Cruz stepped out in Madrid, Spain, last night. The actress, who is seven months pregnant, looked stylish in a quilted leather jacket with jeans and wedge sneakers. Penélope is in her hometown after vacationing in Barbados with Javier Bardem and their son, Leo, last month. Penélope wore a bikini that showed off her baby bump on the trip, which came shortly after the news broke that she and Javier are expecting their second child. Penélope and Javier will welcome the baby this Summer, before their joint project The Counselor arrives in theaters in the Fall. That movie saw the married couple working with director Ridley Scott, but it isn't the first time Penelope and Javier made a picture together. In 1992, Penélope and Javier first met on the set of the film Jamon, Jamon. That film was Penélope's big break, and both she and Javier received the sad news over the weekend that its director,...

Bigas Luna, who is known to many for kick starting the careers of Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem, died after a long battle with cancer in his home in Spain.

Genre fans know Luna for his film Anguish, starring tiny terror Zelda Rubinstein and Michael Lerner. Luna’s extrememly meta Anguish intertwines a movie-within-a-movie. Viewers watch theatergoers watch another film called The Mommy, that features yet another film within it: the silent movie The Lost World.

In The Mommy, mother and son, John and Alice have a unique relationship that includes hypnosis and cutting out victims’ eyes. Alice can hear what John hears and control him telepathically, forcing him to do all sorts of atrocious things on a killing spree. The film preys upon viewers' public space paranoia, referencing classic genre films including Hitchcock’s The Birds and Psycho as well as Bunuel and Dali’s Un Chien Andalou.

Watch the trailer below.

Madrid - Acclaimed Spanish director, Josep Joan Bigas Luna, who discovered Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz and cast them opposite each other 20 years ago in Jamon, Jamon died over the weekend at age 67. Bigas Luna, who died of cancer, was recognized as having an unfailing eye for discovering fresh talent. He cast Bardem in 1990 in The Ages of Lulu, giving the future Oscar-winning actor his first break. "I don't know where to begin," Bardem said, adding that he owes Bigas Luna "the woman I love," and "a career that I never dreamed I could have.

read more...

Acclaimed Spanish filmmaker Bigas Luna has died aged 67. The Catalan director had been battling leukemia.Like his peer Pedro Almodóvar, Luna was a key voice in the new wave of Spanish filmmaking that emerged under the shadow of General Franco's repressive regime. He started out as a student of conceptual art and design, taking an early interest in visual technologies that would play into a lifelong passion for painting and photography. Luna's filmmaking career began with low-budget flick Bilbao in 1978, a typically unrestrained, psychosexual drama, before 1981's Reborn - his only English-language film - pitched Dennis Hopper, a phony televangelist, into a relationship with a real faith healer. Anguish (1987) saw Luna turn out a Lynchian horror set in a movie theatre that would go on to achieve cult status.Arguably, his purple patch stretched across a loose trilogy that began with 1981's Jamón, Jamón. That was followed by Golden Balls and,...

Spanish film director whose 'Iberian passion' trilogy began with Jamon Jamon

For 39 years, under General Francisco Franco's repressive regime, it was almost impossible for Spain to create a vibrant film industry and for talented film-makers to express themselves freely. However, after the death of the Generalissimo in 1975, there was a burst of creativity, with Pedro Almodóvar paving the way for directors such as Bigas Luna, who has died of cancer aged 67.

After some years as a conceptual artist who experimented with new audio-visual media, Luna became known internationally for his "Iberian passion" feature film trilogy: Jamon Jamon (1992), Golden Balls (1993) and The Tit and the Moon (1994), which explored the darkest depths of eroticism and stereotypical Spanish machismo. The first film introduced Penélope Cruz to audiences and launched Javier Bardem as the embodiment of the Spanish stud. "I owe my career to Bigas Luna," Bardem said in 2001.

In the trilogy, Luna,...

Madrid — Spaniard Josep Joan Bigas Luna was lauded as a brilliant and "truly special" filmmaker a day after his death, with some of the highest praise coming from actors Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz, two stars whose film careers he launched.

Bigas Luna, 67, died Saturday in northeast Spain after a long battle with cancer.

The filmmaker was regarded as having had an excellent eye for spotting talent and a knack for stimulating on-screen chemistry between actors. His 1992 film "Jamon, Jamon" received unanimous praise as "a classic" in the Spanish press on Sunday,

The director discovered Cruz and Bardem, who married in 2010, as well as a giving early boosts to a host of other now well-known film muses, including Leonor Watling, Angela Molina, Francesca Neri and Valeria Marini.

Many of the roles in his films were explosively steamy, even erotic. Yet they often explored with great insight aspects of modern Spain's quirkiness.

Jamon Jamon director Bigas Luna has died, aged 67.

The Spanish director died at home in Riera de Gaia in the north-east of the country today, after a long battle with cancer, Spanish state broadcaster Rtve reported.

Luna, whose directing career began in 1976 with Tattoo, launched the careers of celebrity couple Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem in his 1992 movie Jamon, Jamon, which won the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival and Jury Award at San Sebastian Film Festival.

Known for his erotically charged films, his Iberian Trilogy, which began with Jamon Jamon, also included Golden Balls and The Tit And The Moon. His film Second Origin was in pre-production a the time of his death....