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From Best To Worst: Elmore Leonard Movie Adaptations

  • By Oliver Lyttelton
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  • May 14, 2013 11:57 AM
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  • 17 Comments
Elmore Leonard feature
Features
Today sees the release of a sparkling new Criterion version of "3:10 To Yuma," the perpetually-underrated 1957 Western that's somewhat overshadowed by the more recent 2007 remake. Even those who have seen the earlier version may not be entirely aware that it's based on a short story by a man that we consider not just one of America's finest crime novelists, but one of our finest writers full stop: Elmore Leonard.
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More: Features, Elmore Leonard, Quentin Tarantino, Steven Soderbergh, The Essentials

The Essentials: Douglas Sirk

  • By The Playlist Staff
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  • April 26, 2013 2:33 PM
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  • 5 Comments
The films of Douglas Sirk, feature
Features
German filmmaker Douglas Sirk (né Hans Detlef Sierck) directed almost 40 films in a career that spanned three decades. A late bloomer known for grand, gorgeously expressive and emotional melodramas in the 1950s, he took a third of his career to hit full stride. The early movies were comedies, glossy adventure stories and war dramas. During his days working in Germany the director was heavily censored and when he escaped to the United States in 1937 he found himself stifled once again, “A director in Hollywood in my time couldn't do what he wanted to do,” he once said. 1942’s vengeful, vehemently anti-Nazi “Hitler's Madman” only really existed because it was seen as patriotic, and films Sirk made as late as 1952, like “Has Anyone Seen My Gal?” featuring his broad-shouldered go-to male muse Rock Hudson, were insubstantial trifles compared to his mature work. That film, lightweight comedy though it is, does still possess hints of commentary on class, status, money and the sickening desire for it all -- themes Sirk would explore, and quietly explode, in his best work.
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More: Douglas Sirk, The Essentials, Features, Feature

The 6 Least Inessential Steven Seagal Movies

  • By Jessica Kiang
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  • April 10, 2013 12:04 PM
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  • 20 Comments
Features
It is not hard to imagine a world without Steven Seagal movies. Video store bargain bins would be that bit emptier, late night TV schedules would be spotted with sad 90-minute bursts of white noise, and the on-board entertainment industry that services 3rd-class long-distance South American buses would be hard hit, but otherwise, life would probably go on as normal.
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More: Steven Seagal, The Essentials, Features

10 Robert Altman Films You May Not Know

  • By The Playlist Staff
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  • March 21, 2013 1:05 PM
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  • 29 Comments
Features
It's easy to forget that Robert Altman didn't have his breakthrough until he was well into his 40s, with 1970's "M*A*S*H." The filmmaker proved to be so prolific -- and continued to be piled with acclaim and critical plaudits well into his '80s -- that it feels like his career in feature cinema lasted for much longer than the 35 years he's known for (Altman made a few features prior to "M*A*S*H," but mostly worked in TV during the 1950s and 1960s).
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More: Features, The Essentials, Robert Altman

Michael Caine: The 10 Best Performances

  • By The Playlist Staff
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  • March 14, 2013 3:54 PM
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  • 23 Comments
Features
When asked what he thought about "Jaws: The Revenge," Michael Caine (born Maurice Micklewhite in London on March 14, 1933) famously said, “I have never seen it, but by all accounts it is terrible. However, I have seen the house that it built, and it is terrific.” That would seem to give the impression that Michael Caine's career choices have often been driven by paychecks, but that would be a false one. While he's done his fair share of bill-paying, the prolific British actor has, across a fifty-year career, remained one of the best-loved and most enduring stars we have, as well as a wonderful -- and all too often underrated -- actor.
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More: Features, The Essentials, Michael Caine

The Essentials: Krzysztof Kieslowski

  • By Rodrigo Perez
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  • March 13, 2013 5:34 PM
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  • 9 Comments
Features
It’s perhaps comical to describe a filmmaker revered in some circles as underrated when they’ve been nominated for some of the biggest prizes in cinema -- the Palme d'Or, Venice’s Golden Lion, the Academy Awards, Berlin’s Golden Bear. But perhaps because Polish filmmaker Krzysztof Kieslowski never really took many of these major prizes home, and never gained global status until later in his career, we find that the filmmaker is not as revered as we’d like (though he tied for a Golden Lion in 1993). Perhaps this observation is very relative. Perhaps it’s because he didn’t enter the Criterion canon until 2006, perhaps because his career ended too abruptly just as it was truly ascending, or perhaps simply because he’s one of our most adored filmmakers: we routinely never give up an opportunity to celebrate Kieslowski’s work when we can.
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More: Krzysztof Kieslowski, The Essentials, Juliette Binoche, Irène Jacob, Julie Delpy, Three Colors trilogy, The Criterion Collection, Features, Feature

The Essentials: 5 Elia Kazan Films You May Not Know

  • By The Playlist Staff
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  • February 22, 2013 2:02 PM
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  • 3 Comments
Features
Elia Kazan famously once said, “The writer, when he is also an artist, is someone who admits what others don't dare reveal.” And one could easily argue Kazan’s raison d’être was to go to emotional and psychological places few men dared to tread. While Kazan’s films were often marked by social issues to the outsider, the filmmaker was much more drawn to the pathos of the human condition, the painfully vulnerable, complicated and emotional naked places of the human psyche. And he loved and nurtured the vanity-free actors who were willing and able to facilitate such ends and emotional complex truths. Marlon Brando, the ne plus ultra of tough but overly sensitive and vulnerable American male, was Kazan’s muse, and the filmmaker loved how he could arouse, cajole and release extraordinary feelings in the actor.
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More: Elia Kazan, On the Waterfront, Criterion Collection, The Criterion Collection, The Essentials

The Essentials: 5 Great Ernst Lubitsch Films

  • By The Playlist Staff
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  • November 30, 2012 2:20 PM
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  • 11 Comments
Features
Sadly, the name Ernst Lubitsch isn't one that's batted around much by the hip young gunslingers of the movie world. Given that he passed away in the 1940s, there are many whose grandparents were barely out of short trousers the last time a Lubitsch picture was in theaters, and only a few filmmakers (Wes Anderson the most recent) mention him as a touchstone these days. But we're firmly of the belief that cinema would be much improved if every screenwriter and director sat down for a weekend with the films of the much-missed director.
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More: Features, On This Day In Movie History, The Essentials, Ernst Lubitsch

The Essentials: 5 Great Max Von Sydow Performances

  • By Peter Labuza
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  • November 27, 2012 11:10 AM
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  • 10 Comments
Features
The most notable thing about Max von Sydow is that he has played them all. Strong heroes, existential figures, formidable villains—there are few actors in the history of film with the versatility of the Swedish star. With a career that began all the way back in the 1950s, von Sydow has continued to turn in unique performances throughout his career, working with celebrated auteurs like Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg and, most notably, Ingmar Bergman. Sure, there are a handful of dud performances ("Dune," "What Dreams May Come"), but the strong performances still reign over all, and the range of the actor's work is simply astonishing. This week in Brooklyn, BAMcinematek begins a career retrospective of the formidable actor (all in 35mm!), and here we salute five of von Sydow's most powerful performances.
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More: Features, The Essentials, Max von Sydow

Retrospective: The Films Of Ang Lee

  • By The Playlist Staff
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  • November 19, 2012 12:01 PM
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  • 15 Comments
Features
For a filmmaker who’s tackled a wide range of genres, from minor-key Chinese-language comedies to epic kung-fu action, from nuanced literary Americana to iconic CGI-driven superheroics, it’s actually relatively easy to spot an Ang Lee film if you know what you're looking for. Superficially, the Taiwanese-born, American-trained filmmaker has an deeply eclectic and diverse taste in subject matter, setting and even style (one could never imagine that “Sense & Sensibility” and “Hulk” came from the same director from the shooting techniques used alone), but all kinds of thematic links recur across the director’s work -- family, repression, duty, thwarted love or desire. Whether it’s 1940s Shanghai or Civil War-era Missouri, you can find the same humanistic concerns, even as the filmmaker finds new things to say about them.
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More: Features, Ang Lee, Life Of Pi, The Essentials

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