Prime Video has a fair amount in store for subscribers in November, as the uber-violent hit animated show Invincible returns for its highly anticipated second season. Based on the iconic comic book by Robert Kirkman, Cory Walker, and Ryan Ottley, season two will find super-powered protagonist Mark attempting to rebuild his life after finding out the truth about his father Nolan.

Elsewhere on the streamer, the producing team behind the James Bond movies are out to spin the franchise in a completely different direction by debuting their curious new globe-trotting adventure series, pitched somewhere between a quiz show and a treasure hunt. 007: Road To A Million features Brian Cox as the game’s “mastermind”, watching over the contestants as they try to win a million quid.

Here’s everything coming to Amazon Prime Video and Freevee this month. Amazon Originals are accompanied by an asterisk!

New on Amazon Prime...

J.A. Bayona’s Netflix drama “Society of the Snow” recounts the tragic story of the 1972 Uruguayan airplane crash high in the snow-covered Andes, of which 29 of the original 45 passengers initially survived, stranded on a glacier 4,000 meters above sea level aptly named the Valley of Tears.

Survivors of the doomed flight, which carried a rugby team and their friends and family members from Montevideo to Santiago, managed to stay alive for two and a half months by consuming the flesh of the deceased.

While it’s not the first cinematic re-telling of the harrowing ordeal, Bayona’s take and his source material — the book of the same name by Uruguayan writer and journalist Pablo Vierci — ensured that it would be unique not only in its authenticity, but also in giving voice not just to those who survived, but also to those who perished.

“We always intended to make the most realistic...

The second season of original series “Almost Paradise” is set to premiere on Freevee on July 21. When hypertension forces DEA agent Alex Walker (played by Christian Kane) into early retirement, he moves to the Philippines in hopes of a quieter life. But unfortunately for him, he can’t avoid danger. Soon, the local police ask him to help solve a series of serious crimes.

Watch the “Almost Paradise” Season 2 trailer:

Also coming to Amazon’s free streaming service in July is the incredibly meta action series “Ze Network.” In the show, David Hasselhoff plays himself as he takes a gig at an English-language theater in Germany — and we all know that Germans love David Hasselhoff. However, once there, he is recruited into an elite society of super-spies, who must work together to prevent a dangerous plot from striking the nation.

Check out the trailer for “Ze Network”:

The Coen Bros.

Fort Apache actor John Wayne had experience working with a wide array of his peers on sets over the years. His conservative political beliefs put him at odds with many co-stars over the years, but he still had a certain charm that enticed many of those around him. Wayne went out of his way to help those in need on his movie sets, which was exactly the case when a female co-star fainted while working on Fort Apache due to heat stroke.

John Wayne-collaborator John Ford became worried about Anna Lee John Wayne as Capt. Kirby York | Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty Images

Wayne had several collaborators that he was closely associated with over the course of his filmography. Director John Ford was one of those, who amplified the actor to movie star status with 1939’s Stagecoach. However, Wayne’s connection with the filmmaker ultimately gave him the unique opportunity...

John Wayne once described himself as "just the paint for the palettes" of directors like John Ford and Howard Hawks, the filmmakers who steered him in films such as "Stagecoach" and "Red River." Such modesty was characteristic of "The Duke," whom Orson Welles described as one of the best-mannered actors in Hollywood. Yet Wayne was doing himself a disservice, for while he did benefit from the tutelage of two great filmmakers, he also worked long and hard to create the persona of "John Wayne," a figure with a distinctive gait, an easy drawl, and tough morality.

To explore the career of John Wayne is to explore five decades of Hollywood history. Wayne acted opposite everyone from Barbara Stanwyck and Maureen O'Hara to Henry Fonda, James Stewart, and Kirk Douglas. The list of directors he worked with is just as impressive, too.

So, where does one start with John Wayne, both...

Despite its so-so critical reputation John Ford’s cavalry picture is still a superior Civil War drama, making excellent use of a real historical incident. The conflicts between John Wayne’s commander, William Holden’s doctor and Constance Ford’s unexpected prisoner play well — plus Ford manages scores of great images and a handful of classic scenes. Seeing it with the help of Joseph McBride’s commentary helps too — the story behind the movie is interesting in itself. And we’re told that Wayne never personally fires a shot in the film!

The Horse Soldiers

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1959 / Color / 1:85 / 120 min. / Street Date June 14, 2022 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: John Wayne, William Holden, Constance Towers, Ken Curtis, Willis Bouchey, O.Z. Whitehead, Althea Gibson, Anna Lee, Jack Pennick, Hoot Gibson, Hank Worden, Denver Pyle, Strother Martin, Carleton Young, Russell Simpson, William Wellman, Jr..

Cinematography: William H. Clothier

Art Director: Frank Hotaling...

So, “12 Strong: The Declassified True Story Of The Horse Soldiers” (my god, that title) is now billing itself as “The true story of the first victory in the war on terror.” Honestly, I’m not sure I’m ready to process of all that, but nonetheless, flag waving marketing probably finds an audience.

Chris Hemsworth, Michael Shannon, Michael Peña, Trevante Rhodes, Geoff Stults, Thad Luckinbill, Austin Stowell, Ben O’Toole, Austin Hebert, Kenneth Miller, Kenny Sheard, Jack Kesy, Navid Negahban, Laith Nakli, Fahim Fazli, Numan Acar, Elsa Pataky, William Fichtner and Rob Riggle, the war drama follows a U.S.

Continue reading ’12 Strong’ Trailer: Chris Hemsworth Wins The First Victory In The War On Terror at The Playlist.

The first trailer for director Nicolai Fuglsig's true story war film 12 Strong: The Declassified True Story Of The Horse Soldiers finally has its boots on the ground online. Based on the book Horse Soldiers by Doug Stanton, the film tells the story of how after the events of the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center in New York, a group of CIA... Read More...

"There's no playbook here..." Warner Bros has unveiled the first trailer for their movie called 12 Strong, formerly known as Horse Soldiers. The full title (which explains the plot) is: 12 Strong: The Declassified True Story Of The Horse Soldiers. It's about a team of Special Forces soldiers sent into Afghanistan at the beginning of the war after 9/11. They end up working with a local Afghani warlord in order to take down the Taliban, riding horses into battle (like they used to do hundreds of years ago). Chris Hemsworth stars, along with an ensemble cast including Taylor Sheridan, Michael Shannon, Austin Stowell, Michael Peña, Geoff Stults, and Elsa Pataky. This looks like pretty much every other modern war movie, but with a twist, though it's still about good ole American soldiers risking their lives to keep the country safe & free. Here's the first official trailer for Nicolai Fuglsig's 12 Strong, originally embedded...

Hollywood has not made many movies about America’s longest war, the one still taking place in Afghanistan, mostly because it’s hard to find a feel-good narrative in a sixteen-year morass of bloodshed and confusion. However, by looking back to the more naive early days of the conflict, Jerry Bruckheimer thinks he may have found one in Doug Stanton’s non-fiction book “Horse Soldiers.” Here’s the synopsis:

“12 Strong” is set in the harrowing days following 9/11 when a U.S.

Continue reading ’12 Strong: The Declassified True Story Of The Horse Soldiers’ Trailer: Chris Hemsworth Saddles Up For War at The Playlist.

Ten years ago I attended the Lone Pine Film Festival for the first time. It was the 17th annual celebration in 2006 of a festival dedicated to the heritage of movies (mostly westerns, but plenty of other genres as well) shot in or near the town of Lone Pine, California, located on the outer edges of the Mojave Desert and nestled up against the Eastern Sierra Mountains in the shadow of the magnificent Mt. Whitney. The multitude of films that could and have been celebrated there were most often shot at least partially in the Alabama Hills just outside of town, a spectacular array of geological beauty that springs out of the landscape like some sort of extra-planetary exhibit, a visitation of natural and very unusual formations that have lent themselves to the imaginations of filmmakers here ever since near the dawn of the Hollywood filmmaking industry.

In writing about the...

Some actors and directors go together like spaghetti and meatballs. They just gel together in a rare way that makes their collaborations special. Here is a list of the seven best parings of director and actor in film history.

7: Tim Burton & Johnny Depp:

Edward Scissorhands; Ed Wood; Sleepy Hollow; Charlie and the Chocolate Factory; Corpse Bride; Sweeney Todd; Alice in Wonderland; Dark Shadows

Of all the parings on this list, these two make the oddest films. (In a good way.) Tim Burton is one of the most visually imaginative filmmakers of his generation and Johnny Depp was once the polymorphous master of playing a wide variety of eccentric characters. They were a natural combo. Depp made most of his best films with Burton, before his current ‘Jack Sparrow’ period began. The duo had the knack for telling stories about misfits and freaks, yet making them seem sympathetic and likable.

The icon-establishing performances Marilyn Monroe gave in Howard Hawks’ Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) and in Billy Wilder’s Some Like It Hot (1959) are ones for the ages, touchstone works that endure because of the undeniable comic energy and desperation that sparked them from within even as the ravenous public became ever more enraptured by the surface of Monroe’s seductive image of beauty and glamour. Several generations now probably know her only from these films, or perhaps 1955’s The Seven-Year Itch, a more famous probably for the skirt-swirling pose it generated than anything in the movie itself, one of director Wilder’s sourest pictures, or her final completed film, The Misfits (1961), directed by John Huston, written by Arthur Miller and costarring Clark Gable and Montgomery Clift.

But in Don’t Bother to Knock (1952) she delivers a powerful dramatic performance as Nell, a psychologically devastated, delusional, perhaps psychotic young woman apparently on...

Westerns – the Great American Movie Genre. Yes, the Italian cinema has its Spaghetti Western - Cameriere, more Sangiovese, please! But we’re talking real, honest-to-John-Wayne American westerns here. The kind with a big, wide-open-spaces theme by somebody like Elmer Bernstein, Alfred Newman, orLerner and Loewe. Morricone magic is better served with the aforementioned grape of Chianti – and movies where the dubbed dialog doesn’t quite match up with the actors’ mouths.

The soundtrack of “The Horse Soldiers” rides in on the strains of “Dixie” and out to “When Johnny Comes Marching Home.” You not only get a western, you get a Civil War movie, too. And John Wayne’s in both of them.

Heck, you even get John Ford directing at no extra charge, and a story that was ripped from the headlines of the Vicksburg Post, circa 1863. A western? In Mississippi? That’s right, pilgrim. Mississippi was once The West.

The “adult” Western – as it would come to be called – was a long time coming. A Hollywood staple since the days of The Great Train Robbery (1903), the Western offered spectacle and action set against the uniquely American milieu of the Old West – a historical period which, at the dawn of the motion picture industry, was still fresh in the nation’s memory. What the genre rarely offered was dramatic substance.

Early Westerns often adopted the same traditions of the popular Wild West literature and dime novels of the 19th and early 20th centuries producing, as a consequence, highly romantic, almost purely mythic portraits the Old West. Through the early decades of the motion picture industry, the genre went through several creative cycles, alternately tilting from fanciful to realistic and back again. By the early sound era, and despite such serious efforts as The Big Trail (1930) and The Virginian (1929), Hollywood Westerns were,...

The first time I saw him, he was striding toward me out of the burning Georgia sun, as helicopters landed behind him. His face was tanned a deep brown. He was wearing a combat helmet, an ammo belt, carrying a rifle, had a canteen on his hip, stood six feet four inches. He stuck out his hand and said, "John Wayne." That was not necessary.

Wayne died on June 11, 1979. Stomach cancer. "The Big C," he called it. He had lived for quite a while on one lung, and then the Big C came back. He was near death and he knew it when he walked out on stage at the 1979 Academy Awards to present Best Picture to "The Deer Hunter," a film he wouldn't have made. He looked frail, but he planted himself there and sounded like John Wayne.

John Wayne. When I was a kid, we said it as one word: Johnwayne.

Randy rides west.

Westerns – the Great American Movie Genre. Yes, the Italian cinema has its Spaghetti Western - Cameriere, more Sangiovese, please! But we’re talking real, honest-to-John-Wayne American westerns here. The kind with a big, wide-open-spaces theme by somebody like Elmer Bernstein, Alfred Newman, or Lerner and Loewe. Morricone magic is better served with the aforementioned grape of Chianti – and movies where the dubbed dialog doesn’t quite match up with the actors’ mouths.

The soundtrack of “The Horse Soldiers” rides in on the strains of “Dixie” and out to “When Johnny Comes Marching Home.” You not only get a western, you get a Civil War movie, too. And John Wayne’s in both of them.

Heck, you even get John Ford directing at no extra charge, and a story that was ripped from the headlines of the Vicksburg Post, circa 1863. A western? In Mississippi? That’s right, pilgrim.

Before we get started here, I thought some of you may be interested in the fact you can buy the four film Coen Brothers' Blu-ray set from Fox for $24.99 right now, which includes Blood Simple, Fargo, Miller's Crossing and Raising Arizona. If you're interested, just click here to pick it up. There's also an interesting ten-film John Wayne DVD collection featured in the "Even More" section of today's post.

Underworld: Awakening I like this film and they sent me the Blu-ray, but I haven't yet had a chance to watch it. All the Underworld films starring Kate Beckinsale I find quite fun. It's big, loud and dumb fun as far as I'm concerned and I don't really know if I make a special exception for this franchise over others, but based on how this one ends I do hope they go forward with one more, but as Underworld: Rise of the Lycans proved,...

DVD Playhouse – May 2012

By Allen Gardner

Shame (20th Century Fox) Director Steve McQueen’s harrowing portrait of a Manhattan sex addict (Michael Fassbender, in the year’s most riveting performance) whose psyche goes into overload when his equally-troubled sister (Carey Mulligan) visits unexpectedly. Exquisitely-made on every level, save for the screenplay, which makes its point after about thirty minutes. While it tries hard to be a modern-day Last Tango in Paris, this fatal flaw makes it fall somewhat short. The much- ballyhooed sex scenes and frontal nudity are the least-interesting things about the film, incidentally, which is still a must-see for discriminating adults who seek out challenging material. Also available on Blu-ray disc. Bonuses: Featurettes. Widescreen. Dolby and DTS-hd 5.1 surround.

Being John Malkovich (Criterion) Spike Jonze’s madcap film of Charlie Kaufman’s script, regarding a socially-disenfranchised puppeteer (John Cusack) who finds a portal into the mind of actor...

John Wayne needs no introduction. One of the most iconic actors of all time, he dominated westerns his list of classic films and great directors he worked with we could talk about all day. But how about watching some of those famed films instead? 20th Century Fox is releasing the John Wayne Film Collection featuring 10 movies on May 8th and we've got a copy for one lucky reader.

Spanning 39 years of John Wayne’s legendary career, the boxset contains some of his most memorable and critically-acclaimed films including: Raoul Walsh's "The Big Trail," Howard Hawks' "Red River," Henry Hathaway's "Legend Of The Lost" and "North To Alaska," John Ford's "The Horse Soldiers," "The Alamo" which Wayne directed himself, Michael Curtiz's "The Comancheros," the WWII epic "The Longest Day," the Civil War era flick "The Undefeated" and, for the time on DVD, John Huston's "The Barbarian And The Geisha.

Katharine Hepburn, Rossano Brazzi in Oscar nominee (but not DGA nominee) David Lean's Summertime DGA Awards vs. Academy Awards 1948-1952: Odd Men Out George Cukor, John Huston, Vincente Minnelli 1953 DGA (12) Melvin Frank and Norman Panama, Above and Beyond Walter Lang, Call Me Madam Daniel Mann, Come Back, Little Sheba Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Julius Caesar Henry Koster, The Robe Jean Negulesco, Titanic George Sidney, Young Bess DGA/AMPAS George Stevens, Shane Charles Walters, Lili Billy Wilder, Stalag 17 William Wyler, Roman Holiday Fred Zinnemann, From Here to Eternity   1954 DGA (16) Edward Dmytryk, The Caine Mutiny Alfred Hitchcock, Dial M for Murder Robert Wise, Executive Suite Anthony Mann, The Glenn Miller Story Samuel Fuller, Hell and High Water Henry King, King of Khyber Rifles Melvin Frank and Norman Panama, Knock on Wood Don Siegel, Riot in Cell Block 11 Stanley Donen, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers George Cukor, A Star Is Born Jean Negulesco,...

The National Film Preservation Foundation announced today that the next volume in their invaluable series of DVD releases will be Treasures 5: The West, 1898-1938. The 10-hour, 3-disc box set celebrates "the dynamic, gender-bending, ethnically diverse West that flourished in early movies but has never before been seen on video."

The full lineup is here and today's announcement plucks out a few of the highlights: "Among the 40 selections are Mantrap (1926), the wilderness comedy starring Clara Bow in her favorite role; Ws Van Dyke's legendary The Lady of the Dugout (1918), featuring outlaw-turned-actor Al Jennings; Salomy Jane (1914), with America's first Latina screen celebrity Beatriz Michelena [image above]; Gregory La Cava's sparkling Old West–reversal Womanhandled (1925); Sessue Hayakawa in the cross-cultural drama Last of the Line (1914); one-reelers with Tom Mix and Broncho Billy, Mabel Normand in The Tourists (1912), and dozens of other rarities." The set is slated for a September release.

Speaking of the wild,...

The weekend’s here. You’ve just been paid, and it’s burning a hole in your pocket. What’s a pop culture geek to do? In hopes of steering you in the right direction to blow some of that hard-earned cash, it’s time for the Fred Weekend Shopping Guide - your spotlight on the things you didn’t even know you wanted…

(Please support Fred by using the links below to make any impulse purchases - it helps to keep us going…)

This really is a golden age for Doctor Who fans, as the DVD releases of classic storylines are coming fast & furious, with another quartet now available - the Peter Davison stories Snakedance and Kinda (BBC, Not Rated, DVD-$24.98 Srp each) and the Jon Pertwee stories Terror Of The Autons (BBC, Not Rated, DVD-$24.98 Srp) and Planet Of The Spiders (BBC, Not Rated, DVD-$34.98 Srp). All of...

Chicago – Twentieth Century Fox & MGM released an onslaught of catalog titles on Blu-ray, many for the first time, on May 10th, and most seem well-timed to the upcoming Father’s Day holiday. The company was kind enough to send us a sample of the ten titles and it seems like this will be an odd mix, from which you can surely choose at least one or two faves.

Blu-Ray Rating: 3.0/5.0

First, the titles we Didn’T get that may interest readers — “The Terminator,” “Hotel Rwanda,” “Leaving Las Vegas,” “Dead Man Walking,” “The Horse Soldiers,” and “Rocky.”

The Usual Suspects

Photo credit: Fox/MGM

We received a wonderful sampler pack of classics that included “The Usual Suspects,” “The Manchurian Candidate,” “The Misfits,” and “Some Like It Hot.” All four films are excellent and worth owning for any serious movie fan, but the quality of the Blu-ray releases differs.

The HD transfer...

Your Weekly Source for the Newest Releases to Blu-Ray Tuesday, May 10th, 2011

Alien (1979)

Synopsis: Ridley Scott’s sci-fi horror classic stars Sigourney Weaver as Ripley, a tough-as-nails warrant officer who stares down one of the most terrifying movie monsters of all time: a bloodthirsty alien that stalks and eviscerates its prey. As the deadly creature winds its way through the air shafts of the spacecraft Nostramo, the crew members consider deploying the ship’s escape shuttle… but there’s only room for four people.

Aliens (1986)

Synopsis: In this acclaimed sequel, the only survivor from the first film, Lt. Ripley, finds her horrific account of her crew’s fate is met with skepticism — until the disappearance of colonists on Lv-426 prompts a team of high-tech Marines to investigate. Ripley travels with the team as an advisor, only to find that her biggest fear has come true. Weaver was Oscar nominated for Best Actress.

"When South Carolina artillerymen opened fire on a small band of federal troops garrisoned in Ft Sumter exactly 150 years ago," writes Scott Collins in the Los Angeles Times, "the American Civil War officially began. Now Hollywood is getting ready to fight the nation's bloodiest conflict all over again with a passel of new sesquicentennial-ready film and TV projects from some of the biggest names in the entertainment industry, including directors Steven Spielberg, Ridley Scott and Robert Redford."

Spielberg is currently set to begin shooting Lincoln in the fall, with Daniel Day-Lewis in the title role; Scott and his brother Tony have created CGI-enhanced reenactments for the History Channel's two-hour documentary Gettysburg, airing next month; and Redford's The Conspirator, "with Robin Wright as Mary Surratt, the boarding house proprietor who was accused of aiding John Wilkes Booth in his plot to kill Abraham Lincoln in April 1865," opens on Friday.

You...

The first time I saw him, he was striding toward me out of the burning Georgia sun, as helicopters landed behind him. His face was tanned a deep brown. He was wearing a combat helmet, an ammo belt, carrying a rifle, had a canteen on his hip, stood six feet four inches. He stuck out his hand and said, "John Wayne." That was not necessary.

John Wayne died 30 years ago on June 11. Stomach cancer. "The Big C," he called it. He had lived for quite a while on one lung, and then the Big C came back. He was near death and he knew it when he walked out on stage at the 1979 Academy Awards to present Best Picture to "The Deer Hunter," a film he wouldn't have made. He looked frail, but he planted himself there and sounded like John Wayne.

John Wayne. When I was a kid, we...