News

The nominations for the 76th annual Emmys have dropped. There were some records broken, a lot of surprises including 36 first-time nominees and some major snubs. And a lot of fun facts and trivia about this year’s nominees. FX’s period drama series “Shogun” earning 25 Emmy nominations this year, the most of any dramatic series this year. The original NBC miniseries adaptation of the James Clavell best-seller which starred Richard Chamberlain and the legendary Toshiro Mifune received 14 nominations and won for limited series, costume design, graphic design and title sequences. Hulu’s “The Bear” broke the record for most nominations for a comedy series earning 23 nominations. NBC’s “30 Rock” had held the record with 22 nominations since 2009. Native Americans finally have some representation in this year’s nomination with Lily Gladstone and Kali Reis earning outstanding supporting actress nominations for Hulu’s “Under the Bridge” and HBO’s “True Detective: Night Country.

Dale Dickey (A Love Song), Margot Bingham (The Walking Dead), Mo Brings Plenty (Yellowstone) and Tosin Morohunfola (Run The World) have been tapped for recurring roles in Taylor Sheridan’s anthology series Lawmen: Bass Reeves (fka Bass Reeves), exec produced by and starring David Oyelowo. Lawmen: Bass Reeves is created for television by Chad Feehan who also serves as showrunner.

The Paramount+ series, which is currently filming in Texas, will bring the legendary lawmen and outlaws of the wild west to life. Reeves, known as the greatest frontier hero in American history, worked in the post-Reconstruction era as a federal peace officer in the Indian Territory, capturing over 3,000 of the most dangerous criminals without ever being wounded.

Dickey will play Widow Dolliver, an old woman who has seen it all, and who does not waste time suffering fools.

Bingham will play Sara Jumper, a black Seminole Native American whom Bass...

Amazon Studios has partnered with IllumiNative to create the IllumiNative Episodic Directors Program.

Over the next year, the inaugural cohort of early- and mid-career Indigenous filmmakers will shadow directors on the upcoming second season of the streamer’s neo-Western series Outer Range, which includes an Indigenous character among its main cast. The participants will be paid for their work, with travel and accommodations covered. Although the filmmakers will not be hired to direct an episode as part of their program participation (a component first introduced by NBCU Launch and subsequently adopted by other studios such as Disney), Amazon says that it will consider program alumni for future gigs.

“Amazon Studios is intentional in developing accurate stories and characters by and about Native peoples, and IllumiNative has been an invaluable resource in this work,” Amazon Studios and Prime Video global head of Deia Latasha Gillespie said in a statement. “We are...

There are few movie genres with as close a relationship with the concept of “Americana” as the Western. This is a genre deeply steeped in the history of American cinema, but one rife with as many highs as it has problematic lows. For every revolutionary and complex idea, there is a racist trope that has been intricately connected to the genre for decades; for every nuanced character, there is a broad and problematic one.

It is this legacy, the good and the bad, that writer and director Tony Tost wrestles with in “Americana,” , while never feeling derivative of either of the filmmakers. Tost’s film is charming, gritty, and all-round entertaining one that boasts gallows humor, compelling performances, and a big heart (plus lots of actual hearts being shot at and stabbed). Tost’s feature directorial debut shows confidence and an ability to weave the personal with the universal.

Like “Pulp Fiction,...

Exclusive: Julia Butters (The Fabelmans), Jacob Tremblay (Room), Martin Freeman (Fargo) and Taylor Schilling (Pam & Tommy) have been tapped as the leads for the folk horror film Queen of Bones, from Appian Way, Lumanity Productions and Productivity Media, which has entered production in Canada.

Queen of Bones follows twin siblings Lily (Butters) and Sam (Tremblay) who live at a remote homestead with their widowed father, Malcolm (Freeman), a violinmaker in 1931 Oregon. When Lily and Sam find an Icelandic spell book in the cellar, they begin to suspect a connection between their mother’s death and dark forces in the woods. They then embark on a dangerous mission to force their father and his friend, Ida May (Schilling), to reveal the truth.

Robert Budreau (Delia’s Gone) is directing from a script by Michael Burgner (The Darkest Corner of Paradise).

Queen of Bones is the latest project to reteam Budreau with Productivity Media,...

We’re in the dog days of summer, and if you’re looking for refuge from the heat, consider cozying up on the couch with the air conditioning blasting and Plex TV streaming on your home entertainment system! Plex’s collection, The Cinephiles — A24 on Plex, is still ongoing, but there are a plethora of films from distributors big and small streaming on Plex. With Plex, you can explore both crowd-pleasing blockbusters or hidden gems you may have missed.

Plex offers a one-stop-shop streaming service offering 50,000+ free titles and 200+ of free-to-stream live TV channels, from the biggest names in entertainment, including Metro Goldwyn Mayer (MGM), Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution, Lionsgate, Legendary, AMC, A+E, Crackle, and Reuters. Plex is always overflowing with thousands of new and old familiar favorites on its platform and we’re here to happily select the cream of the crop.

This month our picks include...

The History Channel has teamed up with a slew of A-listers on its latest slate of docuseries and non-scripted series.

The A+E Networks cable network has ordered six series from Leonardo DiCaprio, Ray Liotta, Pierce Brosnan, Peyton Manning and Robin Roberts ahead of its latest Upfront ad event.

DiCaprio, who has previously worked with the network on miniseries Grant, is behind docuseries Sitting Bull, Good Morning America’s Roberts is behind WWI series Harlem Hellfighters, NFL legend Manning is behind The Einstein Challenge and History’s Greatest of All-Time with Peyton Manning and Liotta is behind Five Families.

Four-part series Sitting Bull traces the life of the legendary Hunkpapa Lakota chief, a fierce warrior, loving father, and holy man. It will detail seminal moments and key figures in Native American history including the Battle of Little Big Horn, Washita Massacre, Crazy Horse, Battle of Cedar Creek and the Wounded Knee Massacre.

Do audiences ever ask for a History Lesson? Robert Altman gives them a smart, if diffuse, image of America as a showbiz invention, commercialized and packaged. Paul Newman is the prepackaged white hero surrounded by a jolly circus; Buffalo Bill’s trick seems to be to get his colleagues, the dispossessed minorities and especially the vanquished Native Americans to cooperate with his self-aggrandizing fantasy. One of Altman’s better scattershot ensembles sketches an amusingly hollow Buffalo Bill in Paul Newman, but the director’s style keeps emotional involvement at arm’s length… make that telephoto lens’ length.

Buffalo Bill and the Indians

Region B Blu-ray

Powerhouse Indicator

1976 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 124, 105 min. / Buffalo Bill and the Indians or Sitting Bull’s History Lesson / Street Date December 14, 2020 / available from Powerhouse Films UK / £15.99

Starring: Paul Newman, Joel Grey, Burt Lancaster, Kevin McCarthy, Harvey Keitel, Will Sampson, Allan F. Nicholls, Geraldine Chaplin, John Considine,...

A comiXology Originals digital comic book series, Ask for Mercy Season Two: The Heart of the Earth takes readers into the Black Hills circa 1876, where Sitting Bull receives a premonition that could forever alter the course of history, and ahead of the second issue's release, we've been provided with exclusive preview pages to share with Daily Dead readers.

Written by Richard Starkings with artwork by Abigail Jill Harding, Ask for Mercy Season Two: The Heart of the Earth #2 (of 5) will be released on August 28th. You can check out official details and exclusive preview pages from the second issue below, and visit comiXology Originals' online for more information!

"The Center Of Everything That Is

Five issues by creators Richard Starkings (writer) and Abigail Jill Harding (artist). Kasa takes Mercy, Ratmir and Budgie into the Black Hills of North America, 1876 where the course of history is at stake!

Summoned by Lakota shaman,...

Sam Rockwell isn’t slowing down. A few months after winning every award under the sun for his performance in “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri,” the actor is back in theaters with another distinctly American film: “Woman Walks Ahead,” which required him to saddle up as a cowboy and learn the Lakota language alongside Jessica Chastain. The recent Oscar winner isn’t stateside for the release of Susanna White’s 1890’s period piece about Sitting Bull and the woman who traveled across the country to paint his portrait, however — he’s in Prague, where production on “Hunt for the Wilderpeople” and “Thor: Ragnarok” director Taika Waiti’s outrageous-sounding “Jojo Rabbit” is underway.

“It is the greatest script I’ve read in so long,” Rockwell said over the phone of the dark comedy that Waititi hopes will “piss off a lot of racists.” Asked about his character, Captain Klenzendorf, the actor...

Jessica Chastain is known for playing strong, bold, determined women in her films, and her character in the upcoming Woman Walks Ahead is no exception. In the film she plays Catherine Weldon, a painter who travels to the American frontier to paint the legendary Sitting Bull. This was at a time when tensions the Lakota tribe and the U.S. Army are at an all-time high.  The new trailer for the movie is here, teasing a luxuriously shot biopic that doesn.t stray away from the darker elements of... Read More...

A24 has released the Woman Walks Ahead trailer. Based on true events, the story follows widowed artist Catherine Weldon (Jessica Chastain) who travels alone to North Dakota to paint a portrait of Chief Sitting Bull (Michael Greyeyes), but finds herself in the middle of a conflict between the Lakota tribe and the Us Army. Judging by the trailer, the film doesn’t look bad as much as it looks kind of tired and done. It has talented actors, but I’m left wondering why we don’t just get a Sitting Bull movie and why this story has to be …...

Taciturn hero of film and television westerns

In Hollywood, in the days when men were men, Dale Robertson, who has died aged 89, was considered the epitome of masculinity. In the Clarion Call episode from O Henry's Full House (1952), a giggling, snivelling crook, played by Richard Widmark, whom Robertson, a cop, has come to arrest, keeps calling him "the beeg man". Robertson, an ex-prize fighter, was indeed "beeg" – tall, well-built and ruggedly handsome, with a gravelly voice. He was tough but fair to men, and courteous to ladies, particularly in the many westerns in which he starred in the 1950s, and in his most famous role, that of special investigator Jim Hardie in the TV series Tales of Wells Fargo.

He was born Dayle Lymoine Robertson, in Harrah, Oklahoma, and attended Oklahoma Military Academy, Claremore, where he was named "all around outstanding athlete". During the second world war, he served with Patton's Third Army,...

Director Robert Altman.

Robert Altman: Eclectic Maverick

By

Alex Simon

Editor’s note: This article originally appeared in the April 1999 issue of Venice Magazine.

It's the Fall of 1977 and I'm a bored and rebellious ten year old in search of a new movie to occupy my underworked and creativity-starved brain, feeling far too mature for previous favorites Wily Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971) and Return of the Pink Panther (1975), and wanting something more up-to-date and edgy than Chaplin's City Lights (1931). I needed a movie to call my favorite that would be symbolic of my own new-found manhood (and something that would really piss off my parents and teachers). Mom and Dad were going out for the evening, leaving me with whatever unfortunate baby-sitter happened to need the $10 badly enough to play mother hen to an obnoxiously precocious only child like myself. I scanned the TV Guide for what...

Hollywood actor who shot to fame as Marlon Brando's girlfriend in The Wild One

Co-starring with Marlon Brando in his prime is a bonus for any actor's filmography. The fame of Mary Murphy, who has died aged 80, was boosted considerably when she played his love interest in The Wild One (1953). Tame by today's standards, it was the film in which the brooding, rebellious, black-leather-clad Brando, as the leader of a motorcycle gang, emerged fully as a sex symbol.

The pretty, clean-cut Murphy, never considered a sex symbol herself, served as an excellent foil to Brando who, when asked what he is rebelling against, replies: "What've you got?" As the sheriff's daughter, she immediately attracts the attention of Brando when he comes in for a beer at the diner where she works. Gradually, the attraction becomes mutual as he rides his large, phallic motorcycle with her clutching his waist, her...

Mary Murphy -- who was famously discovered at a coffee shop and cast opposite Marlon Brando in " The Wild One " -- died of heart disease in her Beverly Hills home on May 4. Murphy was working as a package wrapper at Saks Fifth Avenue in Beverly Hills when a talent scout from Paramount Pictures spotted her in a coffee shop. She went on to star in several films during the 1950's -- including "The Desperate Hours,...