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Arrow Video has unveiled their February Blu-ray lineup, hitting some major titles that will find viewers cruising the streets of New York City, dining with the Sawyer family and fending off space vampires.

Arriving on February 25th from Arrow will be William Friedkin’s Cruising, which is being featured in a limited edition 4K release, notably restored from the original camera negative. While you’ll see some previously available special features, the set has some new extras. They include:

Brand new commentary featuring original musicians involved with the soundtrack

I Want to Be the Curator, a brand-new interview with actress Karen Allen

Walking the Line, a brand-new interview with actor, film consultant, and former police detective Randy Jurgensen

Breaking the Codes, a brand-new visual essay surrounding the hanky-codes featuring actor and writer David McGillivray

Cruising also comes with a 120-page perfect-bound collector’s book with photos, articles and essays, as...

Al Pacino will cruise for a killer on 4K Ultra HD when Cruising is released by Arrow Video on February 25.

The 1980 serial killer thriller’s long-unavailable theatrical version has been newly restored in 4K from the original 35mm camera negative in Dolby Vision with original lossless English mono audio, 2.0 stereo, and 5.1 sound.

The Exorcist‘s William Friedkin writes and directs, loosely based on Gerald Walker’s 1970 novel of the same name. Pacino stars with Paul Sorvino, Karen Allen, Richard Cox, and Don Scardino.

Disc 1 – 4K Uhd:

Audio commentary by writer-director William Friedkin Audio commentary by writer-director William Friedkin, moderated by critic Mark Kermode Audio commentary with original musicians involved with the soundtrack (new) I Want to Be the Curator – Interview with actress Karen Allen (new) Deleted scenes and alternative footage On-set audio featuring the club scenes and protest coverage Censored material reels Theatrical trailer, teasers, and TV spots

Disc 2 – Blu-ray:...

The Sleepy Hollow International Film Festival (Shiff) is set to return to the historic towns of Sleepy Hollow and Tarrytown, New York, from October 10 to 13, 2024. Nestled in the heart of America’s supernatural folklore, the festival promises an eclectic mix of premieres, tributes, and exclusive screenings, all designed to celebrate genre cinema in the birthplace of Washington Irving’s legendary tales.

This year’s Shiff boasts a line-up that will appeal to both classic cinema enthusiasts and fans of the supernatural. Among the highlights is a celebration of the 75th anniversary of Disney’s The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad. To mark this occasion, D23—The Official Disney Fan Club—will guide festival-goers through an enchanting event filled with rare behind-the-scenes footage, special guests, and surprises that aim to bring Disney nostalgia to life.

Adding to the festivities is a tribute to iconic director Tim Burton, with a 30th-anniversary...

While looking for a project to follow the success of his films The French Connection and The Exorcist, director William Friedkin came across a book he found to be fascinating: Cruising by Gerald Walker, about “a series of murders in the gay bars of New York, and a detective assigned to go undercover to find the killer”. But Friedkin had already made a movie that centered on gay characters, The Boys in the Band, so he let the Cruising adaptation go by. For a while, Steven Spielberg was attached to direct the film, but wasn’t able to get it into production. In his memoir The Friedkin Connection, Friedkin revealed that it wasn’t until someone he worked with on The Exorcist turned out to be a real-life serial killer that he thought of the way to approach Cruising.

Friedkin wrote in The Friedkin Connection that in 1979 he started seeing...

Stars: Al Pacino, Paul Sorvino, Karen Allen, Richard Cox, Richard Cox, Don Scardino, Joe Spinelli, Jay Acovone, Randy Jurgensen, Barton Heyman, Gene Davis | Written by William Friedkin, Gerald Walker | Directed by William Friedkin

Within the filmography of the late William Friedkin, one of the most controversial works he delivered was Cruising. Set during a hot summer in New York City, the story sees a serial killer murdering and dismembering several gay men within the world of S&m and leather bars. Assigned to this case is Steve Burns (Al Pacino), an officer whose physical similarities to the victims makes him perfect to go undercover, with the prospect of rapidly advancing his career by doing so.

Poorly received upon release, this film was protested by New York’s gay community under the belief that it stigmatised them. This reviewer admittedly may not be the best judge as an outsider, although I...

Cinema Retro celebrated the 50th anniversary of this classic film in issue #50 with Todd Garbarini's exclusive interview with director William Friedkin, actor Tony LoBianco and technical advisor and actor Randy Jurgensen. The film won the Best Picture Oscar, Best Actor for Gene Hackman and Best Director for Friedkin. Time has been kind to the film...in fact it plays as effectively now as it did back in '71. ...

“This gun is my judge, my jury… and my executioner!”

Robert Forster and Fred Williamson in Vigilante is coming to 4K Uhd and Blu-ray December 15th from Blue Underground’s. Check out the retsoration trailer:

New York City factory worker Eddie Marino is a solid citizen and regular guy, until the day a sadistic street gang brutally assaults his wife and murders his child. But when a corrupt judge sets the thugs free, Eddie goes berserk and vows revenge. Now there’s a new breed of marauder loose on the city streets, enforcing his own kind of law. His justice is swift. His methods are violent. He is the Vigilante.

Fred Williamson (From Dusk Till Dawn), Richard Bright (The Godfather), Rutanya Alda (Amityville II: The Possession), Carol Lynley (The Poseidon Adventure), Woody Strode (Spartacus), Joe Spinell (Maniac) and Salsa legend Willie Colón co-star in this hard-hitting exploitation classic from director...

I guess there are plenty of adults now too young to remember when Christopher Reeve made his debut as The Man of Steel. It was a massive hit across the full spectrum of moviegoers. Warners is taking good care of everyone’s favorite undocumented visitor from Planet Krypton, and has assembled two separate cuts of his big-screen premiere.

Superman: The Movie

Blu-ray

2-Film Collection

Warner Bros.

1978 / Color / 2:40 widescreen / 188 min. Extended Cut + 151 min. Special Edition orig. 143 min. / Street Date October 10, 2017 / available through the WBshop / 21.99

Starring: Marlon Brando, Gene Hackman, Christopher Reeve, Ned Beatty, Jackie Cooper, Glenn Ford, Trevor Howard, Margot Kidder, Jack O’Halloran, Valerie Perrine, Maria Schell, Terence Stamp, Phyllis Thaxter, Susannah York, Jeff East, Marc McClure, Sarah Douglas, Harry Andrews, Diane Sherry, Randy Jurgensen, Larry Hagman, John Ratzenberger, Kirk Alyn, Noel Neill.

Cinematography: Geoffrey Unsworth

Film Editors: Stuart Baird, Michael Ellis

Production Design: John Barry

Assistant Director: Vincent Winter...

Back in the early 1970s, while George Lucas was immortalizing the “cruising” culture of teens and their cars in “American Graffiti,” his future frequent collaborator Steven Spielberg was exploring a different kind. Nearly a decade before director William Friedkin created a scandal with the Al Pacino-starring “Cruising” (released 37 years ago today), the wunderkind filmmaker—who has won over generations of audiences by evoking a childlike sense of wonder—almost made his leap from TV to features with the most adult-themed project imaginable.

It all started with producer Philip D’Antoni, who had won an Oscar for the 1971 drug-bust saga “The French Connection” and was looking for a filmmaker to helm another New York City-set crime project. He had just bought the rights to the novel “Cruising,” written by The New York Times feature writer Gerald Walker, in which an undercover cop descends into the leather bars of Greenwich Village as he tracks a homosexual murderer.

By

Alex Simon

Hollywood, like any place that is more about its lore than the actual sum of its parts, is full of unsung heroes who have given audiences some of their most cherished cinematic moments. Odds are if you’re a movie buff, you’ll remember the car chases in iconic films like Bullitt, The French Connection and The Seven-Ups. Stuntman, stunt driver and later, stunt coordinator Bill Hickman was one of those people who remained virtually anonymous during his lifetime, but is responsible for some of cinema’s most iconic, and hair-raising moments.

The Los Angeles native was born in 1921 and had been working in Hollywood for ten years before landing his first (visible) role in Stanley Kramer’s legendary The Wild One, the 1953 film that cemented star Marlon Brando’s status as an icon of post-war teen rebellion. Hickman can be seen as one of Brando’s...

Larry Cohen’s 1976 film God Told Me To will be screened at Brooklyn’s Nitehawk Cinema on Thursday, March 5, 2015 at 7:30 pm in Dcp format. Following the screening, actors Tony LoBianco and Randy Jurgensen will be on hand to discuss the film. From the press release:

Armed with nothing but a cheap mail order rifle, an everyday Joe turns expert sniper, randomly taking out over a dozen New Yorkers. Devout detective Peter Nicholas … Continue reading →

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"From the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made." —Immanuel Kant.

Even before I knew what a cinephilic sensibility was, mine was being shaped by the evolving filmic projects of William Friedkin and their focus on humanity's crooked timber. As a participatory member of the Gay Movement of the early 70s, I resisted the scriptural representation in Friedkin's The Boys In the Band (1970) and—a decade later—Cruising (1980), but was undeniably swept up in the Catholicized hysteria surrounding The Exorcist (1973), which I managed to catch at its Bible Belt premiere in Little Rock, Arkansas. The French Connection (1971) challenged Peter Yate's earlier Bullitt (1968) with its iconic car chase and Sorcerer (1977) dazzled me with its suspenseful virtuosity and has continued to intrigue me with its court battle over copyright. To Live And Die in L.A. (1985) introduced me to the talent of such actors as William Petersen and Willem DeFoe; but,...

Oscar-winning director William Friedkin.

In July of 1997, I conducted the first of two lengthy interviews with director William Friedkin, regarded by many as the "enfant terrible" of the so-called "Easy Riders and Raging Bulls" generation of filmmakers who, for one brief, shining moment, seemed to reinvent American cinema in the late '60s thru the late '70s. Meeting Friedkin was something of a milestone for me at the time: I was still in my 20s, had been writing for Venice Magazine less than a year, and "Billy," as he likes people to call him, was the first person I interviewed who was one of my childhood heroes--a filmmaker whose one-sheets hung on my bedroom walls when I was growing up.

Below are the two interviews, conducted a decade apart from one another, and posted in reverse chronology. In both, Billy reveals a cunning intellect, a sometimes abrasive personal style,...