Host Stuart Wright talks to author and screenwriter Ian Cooper about his new book Family Values: The Manson Family on Film and TV (McFarland) – out August 2018.
Ian Cooper will be speaking in more detail on this topic at his lecture “No Sense Makes Sense: Gurus, Cults, Murder And Movies” on May 17th 2018 at The Miskatonic Institute Of Horror Studies. Ticket details are here www.miskatonic-london.com/events/no-se…-and-movies/
This class will examine the rise of alternative religious movements/cults in California in the 1960s and 70s which spawned an ongoing sub-genre of the horror film. The focus will be on the Manson Family, not only the most notorious of these groups but also the one with the greatest cultural impact.
Ian’s other books include Devil´s Advocates: Witchfinder General (Auteur 2011), Cultographies: Bring me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (Wallflower Press 2012) and Frightmares: A History of British Horror (2016). He...
Ian Cooper will be speaking in more detail on this topic at his lecture “No Sense Makes Sense: Gurus, Cults, Murder And Movies” on May 17th 2018 at The Miskatonic Institute Of Horror Studies. Ticket details are here www.miskatonic-london.com/events/no-se…-and-movies/
This class will examine the rise of alternative religious movements/cults in California in the 1960s and 70s which spawned an ongoing sub-genre of the horror film. The focus will be on the Manson Family, not only the most notorious of these groups but also the one with the greatest cultural impact.
Ian’s other books include Devil´s Advocates: Witchfinder General (Auteur 2011), Cultographies: Bring me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (Wallflower Press 2012) and Frightmares: A History of British Horror (2016). He...
- 5/11/2018
- by Stuart Wright
- Nerdly
“All the films in this book share an air of disreputability… I have tried to avoid using the word art about the movies in this book, not just because I didn’t want to inflate my claims for them, but because the word is used far too often to shut down discussion rather than open it up. If something has been acclaimed as art, it’s not just beyond criticism but often seen as above the mere mortals for whom its presumably been made. It’s a sealed artifact that offers no way in. It is as much a lie to claim we can be moved only by what has been given the imprimatur of art as it would be to deny that there are, in these scruffy movies, the very things we expect from art: avenues into human emotion and psychology, or into the character and texture of the time the films were made,...
- 8/6/2017
- by Dennis Cozzalio
- Trailers from Hell
By Darren Allison
Attending a film festival in the mid-seventies, Sam Peckinpah was once questioned about how the studios regularly bastardised his vision, his intension and more specifically, if he would ever be able to make a ''pure Peckinpah'' picture. He replied, '’I did 'Alfredo Garcia' and I did it exactly the way I wanted to. Good or bad, like it or not, that was my film.''
The overall narrative for Alfredo Garcia is neither complicated nor convoluted. Warren Oates plays Bennie, a simple pianist residing in a squalid barroom in Mexico. He is approached by two no-nonsense Americans (Robert Webber and Gig Young) who are attempting to track down Alfredo Garcia. The womanising Garcia is the man responsible for the pregnancy of Theresa (Janine Maldonado) the teenage daughter of a powerful Mexican boss El Jefe (Emilio Fernández). In a display of power, El Jefe offers...
Attending a film festival in the mid-seventies, Sam Peckinpah was once questioned about how the studios regularly bastardised his vision, his intension and more specifically, if he would ever be able to make a ''pure Peckinpah'' picture. He replied, '’I did 'Alfredo Garcia' and I did it exactly the way I wanted to. Good or bad, like it or not, that was my film.''
The overall narrative for Alfredo Garcia is neither complicated nor convoluted. Warren Oates plays Bennie, a simple pianist residing in a squalid barroom in Mexico. He is approached by two no-nonsense Americans (Robert Webber and Gig Young) who are attempting to track down Alfredo Garcia. The womanising Garcia is the man responsible for the pregnancy of Theresa (Janine Maldonado) the teenage daughter of a powerful Mexican boss El Jefe (Emilio Fernández). In a display of power, El Jefe offers...
- 3/8/2017
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
An Encore Edition. Peckinpah's macabre South of the border shoot 'em up is back for a second limited edition, with a new commentary. It's still a picture sure to separate the Peckinpah lovers from the auteur tourists - it's grisly, grim and resolutely exploitative, but also has about it a streak of grimy honesty. Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia Blu-ray Twilight Time Encore Edition 1974 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 112 min. / Street Date September, 2016 / available through Screen Archives Entertainment / 29.95 Starring Warren Oates, Isela Vega, Robert Webber, Gig Young, Helmut Dantine, Emilio Fernández, Kris Kristofferson, Chano Urueta, Jorge Russek, Enrique Lucero, Janine Maldonado, Richard Bright, Sharon Peckinpah, Garner Simmons. Cinematography Álex Phillips Jr. Art Direction Agustín Ituarte Film Editors Garth Craven, Dennis E. Dolan, Sergio Ortega, Robbe Roberts Original Music Jerry Fielding Written by Sam Peckinpah, Gordon T. Dawson, Frank Kowalski Produced by Martin Baum, Helmut Dantine, Gordon T. Dawson Directed by...
- 10/4/2016
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Justin Bieber's Instagram has started looking a lot like it belongs to Ali Larter in Obsessed. It seems a week can't go by without him posting a random picture of Selena Gomez from when they were dating, or going on a talk show to discuss wanting to get back together with her. Bieber told everyone to "calm down" when he posted this throwback, even though he knew people wouldn't: Not to mention this recent one, simply captioned, "Crazy throwback." Like, yeah. It is crazy. Chill, bro. Or captioning a photo "Omg who is this!!" and sending his followers to track down this Selena Gomez look-alike, as if she were the head of Alfredo Garcia: Maybe it's because he didn't put out a rape-culture anthem like "Blurred Lines," but Bieber hasn't really been called out on this behavior, despite him cribbing from the Robin Thicke Book of Bothering Somebody...
- 12/9/2015
- by Ira Madison III
- Vulture
Hong Sang-soo's Right Now, Wrong Then.The lineup for the 2015 festival has been revealed, including new films by Hong Sang-soo, Andrzej Zulawski, Chantal Akerman, Athina Rachel Tsangari, and others, alongside retrospectives and tributes dedicated to Sam Peckinpah, Michael Cimino, Bulle Ogier, and much more.Piazza GRANDERicki and the Flash (Jonathan Demme, USA)La belle saison (Catherine Corsini, France)Le dernier passage (Pascal Magontier, France)Der staat gegen Fritz Bauer (Lars Kraume, Germany)Southpaw (Antoine Fuqua, USA)Trainwreck (Judd Apatow, USA)Jack (Elisabeth Scharang, Austria)Floride (Philippe Le Guay, France)The Deer Hunter (Michael Cimino, UK/USA)Erlkönig (Georges Schwizgebel, Switzerland)Guibord s'en va-t-en guerre (Philippe Falardeau, Canada)Bombay Velvet (Anurag Kashyap, India)Pastorale cilentana (Mario Martone, Italy)La vanite (Lionel Baier, Switzerland/France)The Laundryman (Lee Chung, Taiwan)Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (Alfonso Gomez-Rejon, USA) I pugni ni tasca (Marco Bellocchio, Italy)Heliopolis (Sérgio Machado, Brazil)Amnesia (Barbet Schroeder,...
- 7/20/2015
- by Notebook
- MUBI
Blu-ray Release Date: March 11, 2014
Price: Blu-ray $29.95
Studio: Twilight Time
Warren Oates goes for broke in Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia.
Reviled on its release in 1974, Sam Peckinpah’s (The Wild Bunch) nihilistic yet poetic action-accented crime drama Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia is today considered to be a masterwork of the filmmaker and leading man Warren Oates (Badlands).
Oates portrays Bennie, a wastrel sometime piano player lost in the wilds of Mexico. He and his beautiful, tragic lover Elita (Isela Vega) stumble across one last, perilous chance at happiness: in order to claim more money than they’ve ever dreamed of, all they have to do is retrieve the head of a wanted man. But the path to their ultimate escape is littered with dangers—some, of course, of the fatal variety.
Special features on the Blu-ray release of this cult favorite include an isolated soundtrack...
Price: Blu-ray $29.95
Studio: Twilight Time
Warren Oates goes for broke in Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia.
Reviled on its release in 1974, Sam Peckinpah’s (The Wild Bunch) nihilistic yet poetic action-accented crime drama Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia is today considered to be a masterwork of the filmmaker and leading man Warren Oates (Badlands).
Oates portrays Bennie, a wastrel sometime piano player lost in the wilds of Mexico. He and his beautiful, tragic lover Elita (Isela Vega) stumble across one last, perilous chance at happiness: in order to claim more money than they’ve ever dreamed of, all they have to do is retrieve the head of a wanted man. But the path to their ultimate escape is littered with dangers—some, of course, of the fatal variety.
Special features on the Blu-ray release of this cult favorite include an isolated soundtrack...
- 3/13/2014
- by Laurence
- Disc Dish
The French gave us the word “demimonde” – literally, half the world. But what it has come to mean in English, or so says Webster, is “a distinct circle or world that is often an isolated part of a larger world.”
Storytellers have always held a fascination with the dark side of human nature; that part of the psyche which is normally restrained and leashed, taught to be obedient, held in check – as Conrad wrote in Heart of Darkness – by the reproving looks of our neighbors. After all, what was Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde but a probing of that other, id-driven half and the entrancing appeal of doing what one wants instead of what one should.
Film is no different than literature, and from its beginning the movies have produced a rich vein of stories about society’s fringe dwellers, those who operate by necessity,...
Storytellers have always held a fascination with the dark side of human nature; that part of the psyche which is normally restrained and leashed, taught to be obedient, held in check – as Conrad wrote in Heart of Darkness – by the reproving looks of our neighbors. After all, what was Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde but a probing of that other, id-driven half and the entrancing appeal of doing what one wants instead of what one should.
Film is no different than literature, and from its beginning the movies have produced a rich vein of stories about society’s fringe dwellers, those who operate by necessity,...
- 5/27/2012
- by Bill Mesce
- SoundOnSight
Get the Gringo may be the gamiest south-of-the-border film excursion since Sam Peckinpah went rummaging around Mexico for Alfredo Garcia's head. An odd project in every respect -- not least for the fact that it will bypass theatrical release in the U.S. to go the VOD route on DirectTV beginning May 1 -- this maverick Icon production is almost invigorating in its disreputability; it's both cheesy and striking, corny and bold, dismissible and yet strangely appealing for its singularity. After the disappointment of Edge of Darkness and the complete bust of The Beaver in the wake of waves
read more...
read more...
- 4/20/2012
- by Todd McCarthy
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Tuesday marked thirty years since the untimely passing of Warren Oates. The great, grizzled actor's work has fallen somewhat out of fashion these days -- few, bar perhaps Quentin Tarantino, name Sam Peckinpah or Monte Hellman, Oates' closest and most frequent collaborators, as influences. If you're familiar with him at all, it's likely from his parts as outlaw Lyle Gorch in "The Wild Bunch" or as Sgt. Hulka in Bill Murray comedy "Stripes." But for a time in the 1970s, Oates was Hollywood's go-to badass character actor, a man who everyone from Norman Jewison and William Friedkin to Steven Spielberg and Terrence Malick wanted to work with.
Born in Depoy, Kentucky in 1928, Oates discovered acting at the University of Louisville, and soon headed west to L.A. where he swiftly became a regular face in the golden era of TV westerns, including parts on "Rawhide," "Wanted: Dead or Alive," "Have Gun - Will Travel...
Born in Depoy, Kentucky in 1928, Oates discovered acting at the University of Louisville, and soon headed west to L.A. where he swiftly became a regular face in the golden era of TV westerns, including parts on "Rawhide," "Wanted: Dead or Alive," "Have Gun - Will Travel...
- 4/6/2012
- by Oliver Lyttelton
- The Playlist
If one movie is never enough for you and you're looking for a flick to get you in the mood for this week's new release, Double Feature Friday is here to help. Every week we break down the new releases and pair them with older movies that you should catch before heading out to the theater. Or just skip the new movie and check out the classic we recommend.
"21 Jump Street" & "Point Break"
If there's any group that's more difficult to infiltrate than high school students, it's definitely surfers. Just as Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum have to blend in while trying to make the big bust in "21 Jump Street," Keanu Reeves has to convince Patrick Swayze that he's a bona fide surfer dude. There are two possible scenarios when it comes to the Katherine Bigelow masterpiece of 90s action: either you haven't seen it and suck or you have...
"21 Jump Street" & "Point Break"
If there's any group that's more difficult to infiltrate than high school students, it's definitely surfers. Just as Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum have to blend in while trying to make the big bust in "21 Jump Street," Keanu Reeves has to convince Patrick Swayze that he's a bona fide surfer dude. There are two possible scenarios when it comes to the Katherine Bigelow masterpiece of 90s action: either you haven't seen it and suck or you have...
- 3/16/2012
- by Kevin P. Sullivan
- MTV Movies Blog
Not even Moneyball could beat The Lion King 3D at the box office this weekend, as Anthony D'Alessandro reports, but it's for Moneyball that we've got a roundup rolling on and on beyond all reason. IndieWIRE's Peter Knegt notes that "the specialty box office had a clear winner in Weekend," and we've got a roundup on that one as well.
"Wholly unrelated to the 1975 Sam Peckinpah film of the same name, Killer Elite is distinguished by one no-mercy, eye-gouging, testicle-punching brawl, and one whoppingly indifferent screenplay," writes Nick Pinkerton in the Voice. A quick sketch from Time Out Chicago's AA Dowd: Jason Statham "plays an ex-special-ops agent yanked out of retirement when someone kidnaps his mentor (Robert De Niro, in the Liam Neeson role). The guilty party, a deposed dictator with a chip on his shoulder, wants our erstwhile Transporter to knock off a trio of British mercenaries. 'I'm done with killing,...
"Wholly unrelated to the 1975 Sam Peckinpah film of the same name, Killer Elite is distinguished by one no-mercy, eye-gouging, testicle-punching brawl, and one whoppingly indifferent screenplay," writes Nick Pinkerton in the Voice. A quick sketch from Time Out Chicago's AA Dowd: Jason Statham "plays an ex-special-ops agent yanked out of retirement when someone kidnaps his mentor (Robert De Niro, in the Liam Neeson role). The guilty party, a deposed dictator with a chip on his shoulder, wants our erstwhile Transporter to knock off a trio of British mercenaries. 'I'm done with killing,...
- 9/25/2011
- MUBI
by Nick Schager
What's new is always old, and in this recurring column, Nick will be taking a look at the classic genre movies that have influenced today's new releases. In honor of the Jason Statham-headlined film of the same name, this week it's Sam Peckinpah's 1975 The Killer Elite.
Following the brutally honest and financially unprofitable Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, legendary tough-guy director Sam Peckinpah turned to The Killer Elite as a means of reestablishing his box-office clout, an attempt that—as a result of his disdain for studio interference and mounting substance abuse issues—was more or less doomed from the outset. Pressured to toe the line by United Artists (the studio that had taken a bath on Alfredo Garcia), Peckinpah rebelled through sheer, unadulterated disinterest, tackling his adaptation of Robert Rostand's novel "Monkey in the Middle" with a who-cares attitude that permeates...
What's new is always old, and in this recurring column, Nick will be taking a look at the classic genre movies that have influenced today's new releases. In honor of the Jason Statham-headlined film of the same name, this week it's Sam Peckinpah's 1975 The Killer Elite.
Following the brutally honest and financially unprofitable Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, legendary tough-guy director Sam Peckinpah turned to The Killer Elite as a means of reestablishing his box-office clout, an attempt that—as a result of his disdain for studio interference and mounting substance abuse issues—was more or less doomed from the outset. Pressured to toe the line by United Artists (the studio that had taken a bath on Alfredo Garcia), Peckinpah rebelled through sheer, unadulterated disinterest, tackling his adaptation of Robert Rostand's novel "Monkey in the Middle" with a who-cares attitude that permeates...
- 9/20/2011
- GreenCine Daily
Remember when this tall, goofy dude named Chevy Chase was a major movie star? No? Then congratulations, you were born after 1987 and missed out on the 80′s. Good for you. Before he was the guy on Community and the mysterious repairman from Hot Tub Time Machine, Chevy Chase was a big deal.
One of his biggest franchises was the Fletch movies, about a journalist named I. M. Fletcher who dons a series of wacky disguises, spits out hilarious one-liners and deals with a plot no one can remember. Warner Brothers has been trying to reboot this thing for a long time. Kevin Smith and Jason Lee were attached to write and star at one point, and a parade of names have come and gone since – Zach Braff, Bill Lawrence, producers Steve Golin, Michael Sugar, and David List. And still nothing. Now, Cinema Blend reports that a screenwriter has finally been found.
One of his biggest franchises was the Fletch movies, about a journalist named I. M. Fletcher who dons a series of wacky disguises, spits out hilarious one-liners and deals with a plot no one can remember. Warner Brothers has been trying to reboot this thing for a long time. Kevin Smith and Jason Lee were attached to write and star at one point, and a parade of names have come and gone since – Zach Braff, Bill Lawrence, producers Steve Golin, Michael Sugar, and David List. And still nothing. Now, Cinema Blend reports that a screenwriter has finally been found.
- 5/21/2011
- by Anthony Vieira
- The Film Stage
It really could have been a contender: a down and dirty seventies-homaging action drama channelling The Getaway and Alfredo Garcia (or at least Way of the Gun). Cartel, a refit of the 1993 Italian gangster flick La Scorta, was once set to star Sean Penn but picked up Josh Brolin along the way instead: a man who, more than anyone currently in Hollywood, is fit to wear the scuffed trousers of Warren Oates.But no more. Cartel, like Moneyball before it, has hit the skids, five weeks before Asger Leth was due to start shooting Peter Craig's script in Mexico.Universal's official statement runs thusly: "Universal Pictures and Imagine Entertainment ceased pre-production of Cartel today. As much as we had hoped to begin filming this spring in Mexico City, the studio and its producing partners did not feel it was creatively ready to move forward under the timetable and budget we had established.
- 4/8/2010
- EmpireOnline
Weird Wednesday: Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia
Midnight Tonight At The Ritz Only $1
Buy Tickets Here
“You two guys are definitely on my shit list” – Warren Oates.
Sometime around the time this film was made, director Sam Peckinpah went completely insane, making this one of the few examples of that fleeting and wonderful thing – a truly psychotic work of art. The great Warren Oates stars as an American pianist wasting away in a Mexican whorehouse bar. When two leisure-suited bounty killers approach him looking for a pimp named Alfredo Garcia who has impregnated the teenage daughter of a powerful man, Benny asks around, finds out that Garcia is already dead and concocts a plan to dig up the corpse, remove the head and collect the reward. Along with his prostitute girlfriend, he hits the road on his doom-laden journey. As you might guess, all hopes are shattered and Oates ends up alone,...
Midnight Tonight At The Ritz Only $1
Buy Tickets Here
“You two guys are definitely on my shit list” – Warren Oates.
Sometime around the time this film was made, director Sam Peckinpah went completely insane, making this one of the few examples of that fleeting and wonderful thing – a truly psychotic work of art. The great Warren Oates stars as an American pianist wasting away in a Mexican whorehouse bar. When two leisure-suited bounty killers approach him looking for a pimp named Alfredo Garcia who has impregnated the teenage daughter of a powerful man, Benny asks around, finds out that Garcia is already dead and concocts a plan to dig up the corpse, remove the head and collect the reward. Along with his prostitute girlfriend, he hits the road on his doom-laden journey. As you might guess, all hopes are shattered and Oates ends up alone,...
- 11/18/2009
- by lars
- OriginalAlamo.com
Welcome back to another edition of Insert Caption -- the online game that says 'yes' to everything! Last week we asked you to cough up some witty captions for an image from the new animated flick The Tale of Despereaux, and you rats gave us more than enough cheese to chew on. Congrats to our three winners below!
1. "I bring you the head of Fettuccine Alfredo Garcia!" -- Harry J.
2."And then, when the fat man reaches for the cheese....Wham! The bar comes down and snaps his neck! And all the mice dine for the winter!"-- Charles P.
3. "Fortunately for Despereaux, he had enlarged ears. His brother, Squeaker, with his enlarged nose, did not survive the 'cheese cutting.' -- Dan N.
See full image and all captions
Yes! This week we're letting ourselves go and introducing our souls to new experiences by saying 'yes' to everything -- and,...
1. "I bring you the head of Fettuccine Alfredo Garcia!" -- Harry J.
2."And then, when the fat man reaches for the cheese....Wham! The bar comes down and snaps his neck! And all the mice dine for the winter!"-- Charles P.
3. "Fortunately for Despereaux, he had enlarged ears. His brother, Squeaker, with his enlarged nose, did not survive the 'cheese cutting.' -- Dan N.
See full image and all captions
Yes! This week we're letting ourselves go and introducing our souls to new experiences by saying 'yes' to everything -- and,...
- 12/19/2008
- by Erik Davis
- Cinematical
The British Film Institute's South Bank Theatre will host an exciting tribute to the films and career of Sam Peckinpah, commencing in January. The following is from the official press release:
Recoil: The Films of Sam Peckinpah
We mark the 25th anniversary of the death of Sam Peckinpah (1925 - 1984) with a complete season of his films, including an extended run of Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974). Peckinpah was the West’s great elegist, a screen poet whose name became synonymous with violence. But there was much more to him than slow-motion carnage.
We’re perilously numb to the word ‘violence’ these days – and that’s the very last thing Sam Peckinpah was after. When he started shooting pictures in 1961 with The Deadly Companions (rarely screened since the ‘70s in the UK), Hollywood still had qualms about showing blood. The Wild Bunch (1969) changed everything; it was probably changing anyway...
Recoil: The Films of Sam Peckinpah
We mark the 25th anniversary of the death of Sam Peckinpah (1925 - 1984) with a complete season of his films, including an extended run of Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974). Peckinpah was the West’s great elegist, a screen poet whose name became synonymous with violence. But there was much more to him than slow-motion carnage.
We’re perilously numb to the word ‘violence’ these days – and that’s the very last thing Sam Peckinpah was after. When he started shooting pictures in 1961 with The Deadly Companions (rarely screened since the ‘70s in the UK), Hollywood still had qualms about showing blood. The Wild Bunch (1969) changed everything; it was probably changing anyway...
- 12/3/2008
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.