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David Cronenberg, also known as the King of Venereal Horror or the Baron of Blood, was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, in 1943. His father, Milton Cronenberg, was a journalist and editor, and his mother, Esther (Sumberg), was a piano player. After showing an inclination for literature at an early age (he wrote and published eerie short stories, thus following his father's path) and for music (playing classical guitar until he was 12), Cronenberg graduated from the University of Toronto with a degree in Literature after switching from the science department. He reached the cult status of horror-meister with the gore-filled, modern-vampire variations of Shivers (1975) and Rabid (1977), following an experimental apprenticeship in independent film-making and in Canadian television programs.
Cronenberg gained popularity with the head-exploding, telepathy-based Scanners (1981) after the release of the much underrated, controversial, and autobiographical The Brood (1979). Cronenberg become a sort of a mass media guru with Videodrome (1983), a shocking investigation of the hazards of reality-morphing television and a prophetic critique of contemporary aesthetics. The issues of tech-induced mutation of the human body and topics of the prominent dichotomy between body and mind were back again in The Dead Zone (1983) and The Fly (1986), both bright examples of a personal film-making identity, even if both films are based on mass-entertainment materials: the first being a rendition of a Stephen King best-seller, the latter a remake of a famous American horror movie.
With Dead Ringers (1988) and Naked Lunch (1991), the Canadian director, no more a mere genre movie-maker but a fully realized auteur, got the acclaim of international critics. Such profound statements on modern humanity and ever-changing society are prominent in the provocative Crash (1996) and in the virtual reality essay of eXistenZ (1999), both of which well fared at the Cannes and Berlin Film Festivals. In the last two film projects Spider (2002) and A History of Violence (2005), Cronenberg avoids expressing his teratologic and oneiric expressionism in favor of a more psychological exploration of human contradictions and idiosyncrasies.- Writer
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Wes Craven has become synonymous with genre bending and innovative horror, challenging audiences with his bold vision.
Wesley Earl Craven was born in Cleveland, Ohio, to Caroline (Miller) and Paul Eugene Craven. He had a midwestern suburban upbringing. His first feature film was The Last House on the Left (1972), which he wrote, directed, and edited. Craven reinvented the youth horror genre again in 1984 with the classic A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), a film he wrote and directed. And though he did not direct any of its five sequels, he deconstructed the genre a decade later, writing and directing the audacious New Nightmare (1994), which was nominated as Best Feature at the 1995 Independent Spirit Awards, and introduced the concept of self-reflexive genre films to the world.
In 1996 Craven reached a new level of success with the release of Scream (1996). The film, which sparked the phenomenal trilogy, was the winner of MTV's 1996 Best Movie Award and grossed more than $100 million domestically, as did Scream 2 (1997). Between Scream 2 and Scream 3 (2000), Craven, offered the opportunity to direct a non-genre film for Miramax, helmed Music of the Heart (1999), a film that earned Meryl Streep an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. That same year, in the midst of directing, Craven completed his first novel, "The Fountain Society," published by Simon & Shuster. Recent works include the 2005 psychological thriller Red Eye (2005), and a short rom-com segment for the ensemble product, Paris, I Love You (2006).
In later years, Craven also produced remakes of two of his earlier films for his genre fans, The Hills Have Eyes (2006) and The Last House on the Left (2009). Craven has always had an eye for discovering fresh talent, something that contributes to the success of his films. While casting A Nightmare on Elm Street, Craven discovered the then unknown Johnny Depp. Craven later cast Sharon Stone in her first starring role for his film Deadly Blessing. He even gave Bruce Willis his first featured role in an episode of TV's mid-80's edition of The Twilight Zone. In My Soul to Take (2010), Craven once again brought together a cast of up-and-coming young teens, including Max Thieriot, in whom he saw the spark of stardom. The film marked Craven's first collaboration with wife and producer Iya Labunka, who also produced with him the highly anticipated production of Scream 4.
Craven's Scream 4 (2011) reunited the director with Dimension Films and Kevin Williamson, as well as with stars Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox and David Arquette, to re-boot the beloved franchise. Craven again exhibited his knack for spotting important talent, with a cast of young actors bringing us a totally new breed of Woodsboro high schoolers, including Emma Robert and Hayden Pannetierre.- Director
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Paul Verhoeven graduated from the University of Leiden, with a degree in math and physics. He entered the Royal Netherlands Navy, where he began his film career by making documentaries for the Navy and later for TV. In 1969, he directed the popular Dutch TV series, Floris (1969), about a medieval knight. This featured actor Rutger Hauer, who has appeared in many of Verhoeven's later films. Verhoeven's first feature, Wat zien ik (1971) (trans. "What do I See?"), was released in 1971. However, it was his second, Turkish Delight (1973), with its combination of raw sexuality and a poignant story-line, that gained him great popularity in the Netherlands, especially with male audiences. When his films, especially Soldier of Orange (1977) and The 4th Man (1983), received international recognition, Verhoeven moved to the US. His first US film was Flesh+Blood (1985) in 1985, but it was RoboCop (1987) and, especially, Total Recall (1990) that made him a big box office success. Sometimes accused of portraying excessive violence in his films, Verhoeven replies that he is only recording the violence of society. Verhoeven has co-scripted two of his films: Soldier of Orange (1977) and Flesh+Blood (1985). He also directed an episode of the HBO The Hitchhiker (1983) TV series. Several of his films have been photographed by Jost Vacano, including the hit cult film, Starship Troopers (1997), starring Casper Van Dien.- Producer
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Tsui Hark recently became the fourth Chinese film director to join the board of judges for the 57th Cannes Film Festival in the feature films category this year.
An internationally acclaimed visionary director, Tsui started making experimental movies with 8mm film when he was only 13. After graduating from the University of Texas in Austin, majoring in film, he returned to Hong Kong in 1977 and landed a job working in television. In 1979 he directed his film debut, The Butterfly Murders (1979). It raised a lot of attention, and was hailed by many as the start of a new wave in Hong Kong cinema. After making numerous critically and successful films, he co-founded his own production house, Film Workshop, with his wife, Nansun Shi, in 1984. Although the company was intended to be contemporary, it went on to become one of the most successful production companies in Hong Kong, having produced such classics of Hong Kong cinema as _Sinnui yauwan (1987)_ and A Better Tomorrow (1986), which was directed by John Woo and starred the amazing Chow Yun-Fat.
Considered the master of kung-fu action films, Tsui Hark's The Swordsman (1990), _Xiao ao jiang hu zhi dong fang bu bai (1991)_, Dragon Inn (1992) and Once Upon a Time in China (1991) created a new era and standard for the "wuxia" genre that has now become a trend in filmmaking.- Director
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Ringo Lam was born on 8 December 1955 in Hong Kong. He was a director and writer, known for City on Fire (1987), Full Alert (1997) and Wild City (2015). He died on 29 December 2018 in Hong Kong, China.- Writer
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Sergio Corbucci was born on December 6, 1926, in Rome, Italy. He entered grade school with thoughts of becoming a businessman, but after earning a college degree in economics he took an abrupt detour into the world of cinema. Corbucci began his career as a film critic, first for the Italian film journal magazine "Schermi del Mondo" and later for the US Army newspaper "Stars and Stripes" during World War II.
Corbucci made his directorial debut with Salvate mia figlia (1951) and quickly made a name for himself as a capable and efficient filmmaker. His ability to make large-scale action sequences with a minimal budget kept him in demand as an assistant director as well. It was on one such assignment, while filming with a second unit in Spain for friend and director Sergio Leone on The Last Days of Pompeii (1959), that Corbucci claims that the idea for the so-called "spaghetti western" was born. Seeing the landscape of Spain with its wild horses, extraordinary canyons and semi-desert landscapes--which looked a lot like Mexico or Texas--Corbucci suggested making an American Wild West-themed film in Spain. He then directed his first western in Spain just before Leone completed the ground-breaking A Fistful of Dollars (1964).
Corbucci found early success in Italy by directing films in a number of different genres, as disparate as Totò, Peppino e... la dolce vita (1961)--a slapstick comedy spoof of Federico Fellini's box-office hit La Dolce Vita (1960)--as well as Duel of the Titans (1961) (aka "Duel of the Titans") and Goliath and the Vampires (1961). He also wrote screenplays for a few seminal horror films, such as Castle of Blood (1964) starring Barbara Steele, which he also co-directed. However, it was his Massacre at Grand Canyon (1964) that began a new path to his career to direct more spaghetti westerns. "Massacre at Grand Canyon"--which Corbucci co-directed, under the pseudonym Stanley Corbett. with Albert Band--differed little from the American westerns of that time, but his subsequent films would set a new and bold standard for on-screen violence and establish him as one of the most influential Italian directors of the Spaghetti Western.
Minnesota Clay (1964), starring Cameron Mitchell, was Corbucci's next film in the genre and and his first Spaghetti Western to be distributed in the US under the director's own name. It was a moderate success, but Corbucci's next Spaghetti Western would break box-office records worldwide and brand his name in Western history alongside Sergio Leone. "A Fistful of Dollars' may have sparked the international popularity of the Spaghetti Western, but Corbucci's Django (1966) brought an entirely new level of style to the genre. The ultra-violent masterpiece not only signaled a move toward an even grittier and more nihilistic brand of Western, but it picture established a lasting relationship between Corbucci and the film's star, Franco Nero.
After the success of "Django", Corbucci embarked on a trail of directing more Italian Western films and quickly became one of the more prolific filmmakers in the genre. His subsequent Spaghetti Westerns, Ringo and His Golden Pistol (1966) (Johnny Oro), The Hellbenders (1967) (Hellbenders) and Navajo Joe (1966) were filmed and released in quick succession to great success in Italy. His next Western was The Great Silence (1968), which referred to Django as an "anti-Western" with the hero moving through cold rather than heat and fighting in the mud and snow rather than sweat and dust. It starred Jean-Louis Trintignant as a mute gunslinger and Klaus Kinski as a sadistic bounty hunter. The innovative script, which was co-written by Corbucci, makes great use of mountain locations (it was filmed in northern Italy in the snow-covered area of Cortina), and showed Corbucci edging close to the new type of political Westerns he is best known for.
His next Western film was The Mercenary (1968), which would began his semi-genre with what he called the "Zapata-Spaghetti Westerns" or proletarian fables, where the bad guys are on the right and the good guys are on the left. By setting the story in Mexico and fleshing out his characters with political awareness, Corbucci's intent became more clear and his left-wing political statements became more explicit. After directing the semi-successful The Specialists (1969), Corbucci re-teamed up with Franco Nero again with Compañeros (1970), which was his last box-office success and stands as one of the most accomplished Spaghetti Westerns, with a combination of humor, pathos, comic book-style action, and political commentary.
During the 1970s Corbucci made three more Spaghetti Westerns, but the popularity of the genre began to die out. Of the three, only Sonny and Jed (1972) stands out as one of the best in the late series genre Italian Westerns as a Bonnie & Clyde type fable. What Am I Doing in the Middle of a Revolution? (1972) is almost a parody of his Zapata-Spaghetti Westerns, while The White, the Yellow, and the Black (1975) is married by racial stereotypes of Japanese characters and was not well received.
By the late 1970s, with the era of Spaghetti Westerns over, Corbucci turned his film making career to comedy and found some success with, The Con Artists (1976) and Super Fuzz (1980). He continued to work off and on during the 1980s with comedies, until his death from a sudden heart attack on the late evening of December 1, 1990 at age 63. His last film was the made-for-Italian-TV-movie Donne armate (1991), which was completed a few months before his death as his health was starting to fail. Sergio Corbucci is remembered for revolutionizing the Spaghetti Western genre which was popularized by his friend Sergio Leone, who passed away a little over a year before Corbucci.- Writer
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Lucio Fulci, born in Rome in 1927, remains as controversial in death as he was in life. A gifted craftsman with a sharp tongue and a wicked sense of dark humor, Fulci achieved some measure of notoriety for his gore epics of the late 1970s and early 1980s, but respect was long in coming.
Abandoning his early career as a med student, Fulci entered the film industry as a screenwriter and assistant director, working alongside such directors as Steno and Riccardo Freda. Granted his debut feature in 1959, with a seldom seen comedy called I ladri (1959) (The Thieves), Fulci quickly established himself as a prolific craftsman adept at musicals, comedies and westerns.
In 1968, Fulci made his first mystery thriller, One on Top of the Other (1969), and its success was sufficient to garner the backing for his pet project The Conspiracy of Torture (1969). Based on a true story, the film details the trial of a young woman accused of murdering her sexually abusive father amid fear and superstition in 16th Century Italy. A scathing commentary on church and state, the film was the first to give voice to its director's passionate hatred of the Catholic Church. Predictably, the film was misunderstood, and Fulci's career was thrown into jeopardy. Deciding it would be best to leave his political feelings on the back burner, Fulci pressed on with a series of slickly commercial ventures.
In 1971 and 1972, Fulci re-established himself in the thriller arena, directing two excellent giallos: the haunting A Lizard in a Woman's Skin (1971) and the disturbing Don't Torture a Duckling (1972). The former, with its vivid hallucinations involving murderous hippies and vivisected canines, and the latter, with its psychotic religious zealots and brutal child killings, were -- to say the least -- controversial. In particular, Don't Torture a Duckling (1972), despite a huge box-office success, painted too graphic a portrait of perverted Catholicism, and Fulci's career was derailed... some would say, permanently. Blacklisted (albeit briefly) and despised in his homeland, Fulci at least found work in television and with the adventure genre with two financially successful Jack London 'White Fang' adventure movies in 1973 and 1974 which were Zanna Bianca, and Il ritorno di Zanna Bianca. Also during the mid and late 1970s, Fulci also directed two 'Spaghetti Westerns'; The Four of the Apocalypse... (1975) and Silver Saddle (1978), (Silver Saddle) and another 'giallo'; The Psychic (1977), as well as a few sex-comedies which include the political spoof The Eroticist (1972) (aka: The Eroticist), and the vampire spoof Dracula in the Provinces (1975) (aka: Young Dracula), and the violent Mafia crime-drama Contraband (1980).
In 1979, Fulci's film making career hit another high point with him breaking into the international market with Zombie (1979), an in-name-only sequel to George A. Romero's Dawn of the Dead (1978), which had been released in Italy as 'Zombi'. With its flamboyant imagery, graphic gore and moody atmospherics, the film established Fulci as a gore director par excellence. It was a role he accepted, but with some reservations.
Over the next three years, Fulci plied his trade with finesse and flair, rivaling even the popularity of his "opponent" Dario Argento, with such sanguine classics as City of the Living Dead (1980) and The Beyond (1981). Frequently derided as sheer sensationalism, these films, as well as the reviled The New York Ripper (1982) are actually intelligently crafted, with sound commentaries on everything from American life to religion. High on vivid imagery and pure cinematic style, Fulci's films from this period of the early 1980s represent some of his most popular work in America and abroad, even if they do pale in comparison to his 1972 masterpiece and personal favorite Don't Torture a Duckling (1972) (an impossible act to follow, as it happens).
In the mid-1980s, at the peak of his most prolific period, Fulci became beset with personal problems and worsening health. Much of his work from the mid-1980s onward is disappointing, to say the least, but flashes of his brilliance can be seen in works like Murder-Rock: Dancing Death (1984) and The Devil's Honey (1986). A Cat in the Brain (1990), one of Fulci's last works, remains one of his most original. Though strapped by budgetary restraints and marred by mediocre photography, the film is wickedly subversive and comical. With Fulci playing the lead role (as more or less himself, no less -- a harried horror director who fears that his obsession with sex and violence is a sign of mental disease), Fulci also proves to be an endearing and competent actor (he also has cameos in many of his films, frequently as a detective or doctor figure).
By the 1990s, Fulci went on a hiatus with film making for further health and personal reasons as the Italian cinema market went into a further decline. While in pre-production for the Dario Argento-produced The Wax Mask (1997), Lucio Fulci passed away at his home on March 13, 1996 at the age of 68. A serious diabetic most of his adult life, he inexplicably forgot to take his insulin before retiring to bed; some consider his death a suicide, others consider it an accident, but his many fans all consider it to be a tragedy. Whether one considers him to be a hack or a genius, there's no denying that he was unique.- Writer
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Born in Lvov, Ukraine; then he moved with his father Miroslaw Zulawski to Czechoslovakia and later to Poland. In the late 1950s, he studied cinema in France. In the 1960s, he was an assistant of the famous Polish film director Andrzej Wajda. His feature debut The Third Part of the Night (1971) was an adaptation of his father's novel. His second feature The Devil (1972) was prohibited in Poland, and Zulawski went to France. After the success of his French debut That Most Important Thing: Love (1975) in 1975, he returned to Poland where he spent two years in making On the Silver Globe (1988). The work on this film was brutally interrupted by the authorities. After that, Zulawski moved to France where became known for his highly artistic, controversial, and very violent films. Zulawski is well known for his ability to discover and "rediscover" actresses: Romy Schneider, Isabelle Adjani, Valérie Kaprisky and Sophie Marceau played their best roles in his films.- Producer
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Roger William Corman was born April 5, 1926, in Detroit, Michigan. Initially following in his father's footsteps, Corman studied engineering at Stanford University, but, while in school, he began to lose interest in the profession and developed a growing passion for film. Upon graduation, he worked a total of three days as an engineer at US Electrical Motors, which cemented his growing realization that engineering wasn't for him. He quit and took a job as a messenger for 20th Century Fox, eventually rising to the position of story analyst.
After a term spent studying modern English literature at England's Oxford University and a year spent bopping around Europe, Corman returned to the US, intent on becoming a screenwriter/producer. He sold his first script in 1953, "The House in the Sea," which was eventually filmed and released as Highway Dragnet (1954).
Horrified by the disconnect between his vision for the project and the film that eventually emerged, Corman took his salary from the picture, scraped together a little capital and set himself up as a producer, turning out Monster from the Ocean Floor (1954). Corman used his next picture, The Fast and the Furious (1954), to finagle a multi-picture deal with a fledgling company called American Releasing Corp. (ARC). It would soon change its name to American-International Pictures (AIP) and with Corman as its major talent behind the camera, would become one of the most successful independent studios in cinema history.
With no formal training, Corman first took to the director's chair with Five Guns West (1955) and over the next 15 years directed 53 films, mostly for AIP. He proved himself a master of quick, inexpensive productions, turning out several movies as director and/or producer in each of those years--nine movies in 1957, and nine again in 1958. His personal speed record was set with The Little Shop of Horrors (1960), which he shot in two days and a night.
In the early 1960s, he began to take on more ambitious projects, gaining a great deal of critical praise (and commercial success) from a series of adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe stories, most of them starring Vincent Price. His film The Intruder (1962) was a serious look at racial integration in the South, starring a very young William Shatner. Critically praised and winning a prize at the Venice Film Festival, the movie became Corman's first--and, for many years, only--commercial flop. He called its failure "the greatest disappointment in my career." As a consequence of the experience, Corman opted to avoid such direct "message" films in the future and resolved to express his social and political concerns beneath the surface of overt entertainments.
Those messages became more radical as the 1960s wound to a close and after AIP began re-editing his films without his knowledge or consent, he left the company, retiring from directing to concentrate on production and distribution through his own newly formed company, New World Pictures. In addition to low-budget exploitation flicks, New World also distributed distinguished art cinema from around the world, becoming the American distributor for the films of Ingmar Bergman, Akira Kurosawa, Federico Fellini, François Truffaut and others. Selling off New World in the 1980s, Corman has continued his work through various companies in the years since--Concorde Pictures, New Horizons, Millenium Pictures, New Concorde. In 1990, after the publication of his biography "How I Made A Hundred Movies in Hollywood And Never Lost A Dime"--one of the all-time great books on filmmaking--he returned to directing but only for a single film, Frankenstein Unbound (1990)
With hundreds of movies to his credit, Roger Corman is one of the most prolific producers in the history of the film medium and one of the most successful--in his nearly six decades in the business, only about a dozen of his films have failed to turn a profit. Corman has been dubbed, among other things, "The King of the Cult Film" and "The Pope of Pop Cinema" and his filmography is packed with hundreds of remarkably entertaining films in addition to dozens of genuine cult classics. Corman has displayed an unrivaled eye for talent over the years--it could almost be said that it would be easier to name the top directors, actors, writers and creators in Hollywood who DIDN'T get their start with him than those who did. Among those he mentored are Francis Ford Coppola, Ron Howard, Martin Scorsese, Jack Nicholson, James Cameron, Robert De Niro, Peter Bogdanovich, Joe Dante and Sandra Bullock. His influence on modern American cinema is almost incalculable. In 2009, he was honored with an Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement.- Director
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Russell Albion Meyer was born in San Leandro, California, to Lydia Lucinda (Hauck), a nurse, and William Arthur Meyer, a police officer, who divorced during his childhood. His parents were both of German descent. Meyer began winning prizes at 15 with his amateur films. He spent World War II in Europe as a combat cameraman. After the war, he became a professional photographer, shooting some of the earliest Playboy centerfolds. He made his film directorial debut with Mr. Tease and His Playthings (1959), the first nudie (softcore sex) film to make a profit over a million dollars, which led to a string of self-financed films that gradually became more bizarre, violent, and cartoonish. In the mid-1960s, he established his style with his Gothic period, a quartet of black-and-white films: Russ Meyer's Lorna (1964), Mudhoney (1965), Motorpsycho! (1965), and Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965) that many consider to be his best work. After the blockbusting Vixen! (1968), he was hired by 20th-Century Fox to make studio pictures. The first of these, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970), was an enormous hit, but after the lukewarm reception of the uncharacteristically serious The Seven Minutes (1971), Meyer returned to the sex-and-violence films that made his name, culminating in the delirious Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens (1979). He spent the 1980s working on various autobiographies, both in film (Breast of Russ Meyer) and print ("A Clean Breast").- Director
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Kenji Misumi was born on March 2, 1921 in Kyoto, Japan. Misumi was the illegitimate child of a geisha mother and originally wanted to be a painter, but his father disapproved. Kenji attended Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, Japan. During this time Misumi met future Daiei studio head Kan Kikuchi, who gave Misumi a business card for a prominent studio executive. Kenji began his career at Daiei as a gofer before going on to become an assistant director. Moreover, after World War II Misumi spent about four years as an inmate at a prison of war camp in Siberia. Kenji directed his first film for Daiei in 1956 and worked profusely as a contract director for Daiei until the studio went bankrupt in 1971. In the wake of Daiei's collapse Misumi went on to direct several more movies that include four out of six entries in the hugely popular and successful "Lone Wolf and Cub" series. He died at age 54 on September 24, 1975.- Writer
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Jack Hill, sometimes referred to as a legendary cult film director, grew up around films - his father was a set designer for Warner Bros. since 1925 and later for Walt Disney Studios, where he eventually designed Disneyland's Cinderella's Castle. Jack went to the University of California to study film, where he was a classmate of Francis Ford Coppola - they worked together on student productions and later both apprenticed with Roger Corman, working on The Terror (1963), among other films. While Coppola went on to Oscardom, Jack continued with low budget exploitation films, several of which were highly profitable, especially The Big Doll House (1971), which started the short-lived women-in-prison film genre. His so-called "blaxploitaton" films, Coffy (1973) and Foxy Brown (1974), were both major hit films. Nowadays his films are hailed as cult classics, thanks primarily to Quentin Tarantino who saw Jack's work as it made its way to video, with almost all of his films now available for viewing on various streaming channels, as well as on DVD releases.- Actor
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Throughout his years in the industry, Alex Cox, an English writer-director, has not only proven his loyalty and integrity to cult cinema, but also his love for it. This all began in 1977, when Cox dropped out of Oxford University to study Radio, Film & TV at Bristol until graduating in 1977. Seeing difficulties in the British film scene at the time, Cox first went to Los Angeles to attend film school at UCLA in 1977. Here he produced his first film, Edge City/Sleep is for Sissies.. The same year, Cox wrote a screenplay for Repo Man, which he hoped to produce for a budget of $70,000, and began seeking funding.
Sometime after, Monkees member Michael Nesmith agreed to produce Repo Man, and convinced Universal Studios to back the project with a budget of over a million dollars. The initial cinema release was limited to Chicago, followed by Los Angeles, and was short-lived. After the success of the soundtrack album, there was enough interest in the film to earn a re-release in a single cinema in New York City, but only after becoming available on video and cable. Nevertheless, it ran for 18 months, and eventually earned $4,000,000.
Continuing his fascination with punk music, Cox's next film was an independent feature shot in London and Los Angeles, following the career and death of bassist Sid Vicious and his girlfriend Nancy Spungen, initially titled Love Kills and later renamed Sid and Nancy. It was met warmly by critics and fans, though heavily criticized by some, including Pistols' frontman John Lydon, for its inaccuracies.
After this, Cox wrote and directed Straight To Hell, a neo-western starring Joe Strummer of The Clash. The film was widely panned critically, but was successful in Japan and retains a cult following.
On his next film, Cox's "Walker" followed the life of William Walker, set against a back drop of anachronisms that drew parallels between the story and modern American intervention in the area. The $6,000,000 production was backed by Universal, but the completed film was too political and too violent for the studio's tastes, and the film went without promotion. When Walker failed to perform at the box office, it ended the director's involvement with Hollywood studios, and led to a period of several years in which Cox would not direct a single film. Despite this, Cox and some critics maintain that it is his best film.
After this, Alex struggled to find work in America, and stopped writing/directing big budget films. Since then, he has written+directed many internationally funded films including Highway Patrolman, Searchers 2.0, Death And The Compass, Repo Chick and the cult classic Three Buisnessmen. Although, In 1998, Cox co-wrote "Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas" with Terry Gilliam, who also directed the film.- Director
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Gaspar Noé is an Argentinian filmmaker and screenwriter who lives in France. He is the son of Luis Felipe Noé, an Argentinian artist. He directed I Stand Alone, Irréversible, Enter the Void, Love, Climax, Carne, Lux Æterna, Sodomites and Vortex. His films are known for having a sensory overload style, most notably in Enter the Void. He is married to Lucile Hadzihalilovic.- Director
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Peter Greenaway trained as a painter and began working as a film editor for the Central Office of Information in 1965. Shortly afterwards he started to make his own films. He has produced a wealth of short and feature-length films, but also paintings, novels and other books. He has held several one-man shows and curated exhibitions at museums world-wide.- Director
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Kinji Fukasaku was born on 3 July 1930 in Mito, Japan. He was a director and writer, known for Battle Royale (2000), Fall Guy (1982) and Crest of Betrayal (1994). He was married to Sanae Nakahara. He died on 12 January 2003 in Tokyo, Japan.- Director
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The pre-eminent American photojournalist of sub-Saharan descent. An acclaimed photographer for Life magazine from the late 40s through late 60s, he turned to directing films, his second of which, the blaxploitation movie Shaft (1971), achieved success at the box office. In 1989 his first film effort, The Learning Tree (1969), was selected among the first 25 films so honored, by the U.S. Library of Congress to be preserved in the National Film Registry for all time.- Director
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Born in Vicksburg, Mississippi on April 13, 1944, Charles Burnett moved with his family to the Watts area of Los Angeles at an early age. He describes the community of having a robust mythical connection with the South as a result of having so many Southern transplants, an atmosphere which has informed much of his work. Burnett went to UCLA, where he earned his Masters of Fine Arts in Filmmaking. There, he was greatly influenced by professors Elyseo Taylor-creator of the Ethno-Communications department-and Basil Wright-the English documentarian famous for Night Mail and Songs of Ceylon. He became fast friends with fellow future greats like Haile Gerima (Sankofa), and Julie Dash (Daughters of the Dust), collaborating with them and others on many projects. Burnett cites Jean Renoir, Satyajit Ray, and Sidney Lumet (The Pawnbroker) as important influences. In 1988, Burnett received the prestigious John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellowship (also known as the "genius grant"), which helped him support his young family and concentrate on his then, newest script. With Danny Glover parlaying his success in Lethal Weapon, they wrangled funding for the production of Burnett's To Sleep With Anger. Glover, playing a vaguely supernatural Southern trickster overstaying his welcome while visiting family, found perhaps his most critically acclaimed role. It won the 1991 Independent Spirit Awards for Best Director and Best Screenplay for Burnett and Best Actor for Glover. The Library of Congress selected Killer of Sheep and To Sleep With Anger to be inducted into the National Film Registry. The National Society of Film Critics honored Burnett for best screenplay for To Sleep With Anger, making him the first African-American to win in this category in the group's 25year history. While the Los Angeles Times reported that Burnett's movie reminded viewers of Anton Chekov, Time magazine wrote: "If Spike Lee's films are the equivalent of rap music - urgent, explosive, profane, then Burnett's movie is good, old urban blues." The film also received a Special Jury Recognition Award at the 1990 Sundance Film Festival and a Special Award from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. Both Burnett and Glover were nominated for New York Film Critics Circle Awards. In 1997, the Film Society of Lincoln Center and the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival honored Burnett with a retrospective, Witnessing For Everyday Heroes, presented at New York's Walter Reade Theater of Lincoln Center. Burnett has been awarded grants from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts and the J. P. Getty Foundation. He is also the winner of the American Film Institute's Maya Deren Award, and one of the very few people ever to be honored with Howard University's Paul Robeson Award for achievement in cinema. The Chicago Tribune has called him "one of America's very best filmmakers" and the New York Times named him "the nation's least known great filmmaker and most gifted black director." Burnett has even had a day named after him - the mayor of Seattle declared February 20, 1997, as Charles Burnett Day. Burnett directed a documentary on Nat Turner and one chapter (Warming by The Devil's Fire) of the six part documentary, The Blues, a production of Martin Scorsese's CPA Productions with OffLine Entertainment and in November of 2017 Charles Burnett received an Academy Award for his life's work. His latest film is entitled, "The Power To Heal", a documentary about the integration of hospitals during the Civil Rights Era.- Producer
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Tony Scott was a British-born film director and producer. He was the youngest of three brothers, one of whom is fellow film director Ridley Scott. He was born in North Shields, Northumberland, England to parents Jean and Colonel Francis Percy Scott. As a result of his father's career in the British military, his family moved around a lot. Their mother loved the going to the movies and instilled a love of cinema in her children. At age 16, Tony made his first appearance on screen as 'the boy' in his brother's directorial debut, the short film Boy and Bicycle (1965). In 1969, Tony directed his own short film One of the Missing (1969) about a soldier in the American civil war.
Tony had a talent for art and painting. He spent a year in Leeds College of Art and Design and went on to study for a fine arts degree at the School of Art at the University of Sunderland. He won a scholarship to study for his Masters of fine arts at the Royal College of Art. Following university, he spent several years as a painter. But life as a painter proved a struggle, so he decided to forge a different career path and partnered with Ridley in advertising at Ridley Scott Associates. It was there that he began shooting commercials. In 1971 he wrote, produced and directed Loving Memory however his vampire movie The Hunger (1983) starring Susan Sarandon, David Bowie and Catherine Deneuve wasn't a critical success but it attracted attention from Hollywood. He was asked by producers Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer to direct Top Gun (1986) starring Tom Cruise. He would work again with Cruise on another high adrenaline film Days of Thunder (1990), which proved less successful. He followed the success of Top Gun with the sequel Beverly Hills Cop II (1987) with Eddie Murphy, which was well received.
In 1993, he directed True Romance (1993), which was written by emerging director Quentin Tarantino. Scott had a lot of control over the film and received some great reviews.
Tony has worked five times with actor Denzel Washington with Crimson Tide (1995), The Taking of Pelham 123 (2009), Deja Vu (2006), Man on Fire (2004) and Scott's final film in the director's chair Unstoppable (2010).
Tony Scott passed away at age 68 on August 19, 2012 in California, USA.- Director
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Julia Ducournau is a French film director and screenwriter. She attended film school at La Fémis in Paris, where she studied screenwriting. In 2011, her short film JUNIOR won the Petit Rail d'Or at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival. Her first feature, the horror movie Raw (2016), won the coveted FIPRESCI prize at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival.- Director
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Leos Carax made several short films and also wrote film criticism, then at the age of 24 years made a very strong first feature Boy Meets Girl (1984). The film played at the 1984 Cannes film festival and was a critical triumph. It paved the way for Carax's second feature Bad Blood (1986) (Bad Blood). That film was a giant step forward in the same direction that he was going in with his first film. Both films were visually stunning and focused on young love and also alienation. With his reputation and talent at its peak, he set out to make what seemed it seemed like would be another triumph. The Lovers on the Bridge (1991) (The Lovers on the Bridge) was the result of three long years of very difficult production; Carax spent a fortune building some of the sets and filming some mind-blowing sequences. Unfortunately, neither critics nor audiences favored what was a truly grand vision of the themes he dealt with in his first two films. Carax went into an a 8 year long exile, but finally returned with Pola X (1999). It was a departure from his other films and another critical flop.- Writer
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John Hughes was an American film director, film producer, and screenwriter. He was credited for creating some of the most memorable comedy films of the 1980s and the 1990s, when he was at the height of his career. He had a talent for writing coming-of-age stories, and for depicting fairly realistic adolescent characters.
In 1950, Hughes was born in Lansing, Michigan. The city's main employers for much of the 20th century were manufacturing plants for automobiles. Lansing housed the headquarters of companies such as Oldsmobile and the REO Motor Car Company. Hughes' father John Hughes Sr. was a salesman, while Hughes' mother Marion Crawford worked as a volunteer for charity organizations.
Hughes had three sisters and no brothers. His family moved often. For most of his childhood, the Hughes family lived in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, a commuter suburb of Metro Detroit. According to an interview of Hughes, he was the only boy in his neighborhood while growing up. He was surrounded by girls and "old people," and there was no boys around for him to befriend. He spend a lot of time alone, and used his active imagination to keep himself entertained.
In 1963, the Hughes family moved to Northbrook, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. Hughes attended first the Grove Middle School, and then the Glenbrook North High School. His high school experiences reportedly provided inspiration for his teen-themed films of his career. According to interviews with Hughes' friends, Hughes had a poor relationship with his parents who often criticized him.
As an adolescent, Hughes felt the need to escape his problems. He became an avid film fan, as he found that films satisfied his need for escapism. He was a fan of both the Rat Pack (an informal group of actors and singers), and the music group The Beatles.
After graduating high school, Hughes enrolled in the University of Arizona. He eventually dropped out of the University, and tried to make a living as a comedy writer. He wrote jokes for professional comedians, such as Rodney Dangerfield (1921 - 2004) and Joan Rivers (1933 - 2014).
In 1970, Hughes was hired by the advertising company Needham Harper & Steers (1925-1986). That same year, Hughes married his former high school classmate Nancy Ludwig. Hughes worked in the advertising industry for several years. In 1974, Hughes was hired by the advertising agency Leo Burnett Worldwide. This company's most notable clients included the Pillsbury Company, StarKist, Heinz, Green Giant, and Philip Morris.
As a marketing agent, Hughes was assigned to handle Virginia Slims, a brand of cigarettes produced by Philip Morris. The assignment required him to regularly travel to New York City, where Philip Morris' headquarters were located. Hughes took the opportunity to visit the offices of the popular humor magazine "National Lampoon" (1970-1998) in New York City. He successfully negotiated a new position as a regular contributor to the magazine.
Hughes reportedly impressed the magazine's editors by producing quality work at a fast pace. Among his first short stories was "Vacation '58," based on his recollections of his family's vacations during his childhood. The story was eventually adapted into the road comedy film "National Lampoon's Vacation" (1983).
"National Lampoon" co-produced films written by their staff writers. Hughes provided the script for the black comedy "National Lampoon's Class Reunion" (1982), depicting a serial killer who targets his former classmates. The film was poorly received and under-performed at the box office, but it inspired Hughes to try to make a career as a screenwriter.
Hughes subsequently wrote the scripts for both "National Lampoon's Vacation" (1983) and "Mr. Mom" (1983), comedy films which were box office hits. He then signed a contract for three films with the studio Universal Pictures. He made his directing debut in the coming-of-age comedy film "Sixteen Candles" (1984). The film depicted the misadventures of high school sophomore Samantha "Sam" Baker (played by Molly Ringwald). It performed well at the box office, and was well-received by critics.
Hughes quickly established himself as a leading director of teen films. His films "The Breakfast Club" (1985), "Weird Science" (1985), and "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" (1986) are considered classics of the genre. To cover new ground, he then directed "Planes, Trains and Automobiles" (1987), featuring a duo of adult protagonists. The stars of the film were experienced comic actors Steve Martin and John Candy. The film was a hit. More importantly, Hughes and Candy became close friends. They would often work together in subsequent films.
Hughes' next film as a director was "She's Having a Baby" (1988), about the life of a newlywed couple. The film fared poorly financially and was considered rather "blasé" by critics. Hughes made a comeback with "Uncle Buck" (1989), about a lifelong bachelor who has to take care of his two nieces and a nephew. The film was a box office hit, earning about 80 million dollars at the box office.
Hughes' final film as a director was the comedy-drama "Curly Sue" (1991), about homeless con artist Bill Dancer (played by Jim Belushi) who desperately tries to keep the custody of his surrogate daughter. While moderately successful at the box office at the box office, the film was widely ridiculed for being overly sentimental.
In the 1990s, Hughes found success as a screenwriter, scripting several box office hits. Among his most notable films in this period were "Home Alone" (1990) and "Beethoven" (1992), with both films starting lucrative media franchises. Hughes also wrote the scripts of the sequels "Home Alone 2: Lost in New York" (1992) and "Home Alone 3" (1997). He also scripted a notable comic strip adaptation, "Dennis the Menace" (1993). It was based on the long-running comic strip "Dennis the Menace" (1951-) by Hank Ketcham (1920-2001).
In 1994, Hughes moved to the Chicago metropolitan area. At about that time, he started actively avoiding publicity. He rarely gave any interviews until the end of his life. In 1995, Hughes co-founded the production company Great Oaks Entertainment, which mainly handled co-production of Disney produced films. Hughes handled the scripting of two of the company's films: "101 Dalmatians" (1996) and "Flubber" (1997). Both were remakes of older films.
In 1997, Hughes severed his partnership with Ricardo Mestres. A year later, their final co-production, "Reach the Rock," was released. The film was scripted by Hughes, though it was uncharacteristically dramatic for a Hughes film. The film depicted the conflict between an alienated young man and a police chief.
In the 2000s, Hughes only scripted three more films. The most notable among them the romantic drama "Maid in Manhattan" (2002), a hit for protagonist Jennifer Lopez. It earned about 164 million dollars.
In August 2009, Hughes visited New York City with his wife. He wanted to visit one of his sons who lived there, and to meet his new grandson. On August 6, Hughes suffered a heart attack while walking in Manhattan. He was transported to Roosevelt Hospital, but died shortly after. He was fifty-nine years old.
Hughes was buried in Lake Forest Cemetery, a rural cemetery located in Lake Forest, Illinois. He was survived by his wife, their two children, and several grandchildren.- Director
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Takashi Miike was born in the small town of Yao on the outskirts of Osaka, Japan. His main interest growing up was motorbikes, and for a while he harbored ambitions to race professionally. At the age of 18 he went to study at the film school in Yokohama founded by renowned director Shôhei Imamura, primarily because there were no entrance exams. By his own account Miike was an undisciplined student and attended few classes, but when a local TV company came scouting for unpaid production assistants, the school nominated the one pupil who never showed up: Miike. He spent almost a decade working in television, in many different roles, before becoming an assistant director in film to, amongst others, his old mentor Imamura. The "V-Cinema" (Direct to Video) boom of the early 1990s was to be Miike's break into directing his own films, as newly formed companies hired eager young filmmakers willing to work cheap and crank out low-budget action movies. Miike's first theatrically distributed film was Shinjuku Triad Society (1995) (Shinjuku Triad Society), and from then on he alternated V-Cinema films with higher-budgeted pictures. His international breakthrough came with Audition (1999) (Audition), and since then he has an ever expanding cult following in the west. A prolific director, Miike has directed (at the time of this writing) 60+ films in his 13 years as director, his films being known for their explicit and taboo representations of violence and sex, as seen in such works as Visitor Q (2001) (Visitor Q), Ichi the Killer (2001) (Ichi The Killer) and the Dead or Alive Trilogy: Dead or Alive (1999), Dead or Alive 2: Birds (2000) and Dead or Alive: Final (2002).- Actor
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Mel Brooks was born Melvin Kaminsky on June 28, 1926 in Brooklyn, New York. He served in WWII, and afterwards got a job playing the drums at nightclubs in the Catskills. Brooks eventually started a comedy act and also worked in radio and as Master Entertainer at Grossinger's Resort before going to television.
He was a writer for, Your Show of Shows (1950) Caesar's Hour (1954) and wrote the Broadway show Shinbone Alley. He also worked in the creation of The 2000 Year Old Man (1975) and Get Smart (1965) before embarking on a highly successful film career in writing, acting, producing and directing.
Brooks is famous for the spoofs of different film genres that he made such as Blazing Saddles (1974), History of the World: Part I (1981), Silent Movie (1976), Young Frankenstein (1974), Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993), High Anxiety (1977), Dracula: Dead and Loving It (1995), and Spaceballs (1987).- Director
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Honored with many awards for his films and achievement in the horror genre, Tobe Hooper is truly one of the Masters of Horror (2005).
Tobe Hooper was born in Austin, Texas, to Lois Belle (Crosby) and Norman William Ray Hooper, who owned a theater in San Angelo. He spent the 1960s as a college professor and documentary cameraman. In 1974, he organized a small cast that was made up of college teachers and students, and then he and Kim Henkel made The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), featuring the maniacal chainsaw-wielder Leatherface (Gunnar Hansen). This film changed the horror film industry and became an instant classic, remaining on many lists of top horror films of all time. Hooper based it upon the real-life killings of Ed Gein, a cannibalistic killer responsible for the grisly murders of several people in 1950s Wisconsin. Rex Reed said, "It's the scariest film I have ever seen." Leonard Maltin wrote, "While not nearly as gory as its title suggests, 'Massacre' is a genuinely terrifying film made even more unsettling by its twisted but undeniably hilarious black comedy." It is in the Permanent Collection of the Museum of Modern Art, and was officially selected at the Cannes Film Festival of 1975 for Directors Fortnight.
Hooper's success with "Chainsaw" landed him in Hollywood. Hooper rejoined the cast of "Texas" and with Kim Henkle again for Eaten Alive (1976), a gory horror film with Mel Ferrer, Carolyn Jones, William Finley, and Marilyn Burns (who played the lead in "Chainsaw"). The film centered around a caretaker of a motel who feeds his guests to his pet alligator. Also in the film was Robert Englund, whom Hooper helped advance his career and worked with him again in the future. "Eaten Alive" also won many awards at Horror Film Festivals, receiving the first Saturn Award. Also in the film, making his debut, was Robert Englund.
Hooper was assigned to the Film Ventures International production of The Dark (1979), a science-fiction thriller. After only three day, he was fired from the film and replaced with John 'Bud' Cardos. Instead, Hooper had greater success with Stephen King's 1979 mini series Salem's Lot (1979). In 1981, Hooper directed the teen slasher film The Funhouse (1981) for Universal Pictures. Despite its success, "The Funhouse" was a minor disappointment. In 1982, Hooper found greater success when Steven Spielberg hired him to direct his production, haunted house shocker Poltergeist (1982), for MGM. It quickly became a top-ranking major motion picture, but Hooper's reputation was waylaid by uncorroborated and spurious rumors spread throughout the film's press coverage that Spielberg had largely directed the film.
"Poltergeist" was perhaps a greater success than "Texas Chainsaw Massacre," but it was three years until Hooper found work again. He signed a three-year contract with Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus's Cannon Group, and directed more films, including Lifeforce (1985), with Patrick Stewart for TriStar; the minor remake Invaders from Mars (1986); and the disappointing sequel The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986), with Dennis Hopper. During the mid-1980s, Hooper also directed several television projects, including episodes of Amazing Stories (1985), The Equalizer (1985), Freddy's Nightmares (1988) and Tales from the Crypt (1989) with Whoopi Goldberg.
In the 1990s, Hooper continued working in both film and television: I'm Dangerous Tonight (1990), Nowhere Man (1995), Dark Skies (1996), Perversions of Science (1997) with Jamie Kennedy and Jason Lee, The Apartment Complex (1999) with Amanda Plummer for Showtime, Night Terrors (1993) and The Mangler (1995) for New Line, the latter two with Robert Englund. In the new century Hooper's career grew stronger, with Night Visions (2001), Shadow Realm (2002) and the pilot episode for Steven Spielberg's award-winning miniseries Taken (2002).
In 2003, Hooper co-produced the successful remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003) for New Line. His final three films as director were Toolbox Murders (2004), with Angela Bettis, released through Lions Gate; Mortuary (2005), a zombie film with Dan Byrd; and evil genie tale Djinn (2013).
Tobe Hooper died on August 26, 2017, in Sherman Oaks, Los Angeles.
Leatherface (2017), technically the eighth film in Hooper's Chainsaw franchise, was slated for release just weeks after his death.