Don Calfa, perhaps best known for his role as mortician Ernie Kaltenbrunner in 1985’s Return Of The Living Dead, has died. The news was made public on the actor’s Facebook page. He was 76.
According to his biography, the Brooklyn-born Calfa intended to pursue a career in fine arts before deciding on acting. After seeing Rebel Without A Cause, Calfa dropped out of high school to study at Irwin Piscotor’s The Dramatic Workshop. His first credited role is that of “Priest” in Robert Downey, Sr.’s No More Excuses in 1968. Calfa cut his teeth throughout the ‘70s, guest starring on Baretta, Kojak, The Streets Of San Francisco, and Barney Miller. “I have one record to my name,” Calfa revealed in a 2008 interview with Cult Radio A Go Go. “I did more guest appearances on Barney Miller than anyone. Never a recurring character, but a different ...
According to his biography, the Brooklyn-born Calfa intended to pursue a career in fine arts before deciding on acting. After seeing Rebel Without A Cause, Calfa dropped out of high school to study at Irwin Piscotor’s The Dramatic Workshop. His first credited role is that of “Priest” in Robert Downey, Sr.’s No More Excuses in 1968. Calfa cut his teeth throughout the ‘70s, guest starring on Baretta, Kojak, The Streets Of San Francisco, and Barney Miller. “I have one record to my name,” Calfa revealed in a 2008 interview with Cult Radio A Go Go. “I did more guest appearances on Barney Miller than anyone. Never a recurring character, but a different ...
- 12/2/2016
- by Mike Vanderbilt
- avclub.com
David’s Quick Take for the tl;dr Media Consumer:
In posting this review, I might be giving more time and thought to the merits of Beyond The Law, Norman Mailer’s second venture in pursuit of auteurist credibility, than went into the film’s original conception and construction. As the middle installment of three films that Mailer churned out in a brief dabble as a director, we have a companion piece, maybe even an evil twin, to his first effort Wild 90. That film, released in early 1967, records the imaginary, sloppily performed interplay of three seriously drunk gangsters evading the cops as they’re holed up in a dingy Brooklyn apartment. A few months later, over two nights in October ’67, Mailer and the same pals he recruited for Wild 90 (Buzz Farber and Mickey Knox) show up again for another foray into experiential improv performance art, this time as...
In posting this review, I might be giving more time and thought to the merits of Beyond The Law, Norman Mailer’s second venture in pursuit of auteurist credibility, than went into the film’s original conception and construction. As the middle installment of three films that Mailer churned out in a brief dabble as a director, we have a companion piece, maybe even an evil twin, to his first effort Wild 90. That film, released in early 1967, records the imaginary, sloppily performed interplay of three seriously drunk gangsters evading the cops as they’re holed up in a dingy Brooklyn apartment. A few months later, over two nights in October ’67, Mailer and the same pals he recruited for Wild 90 (Buzz Farber and Mickey Knox) show up again for another foray into experiential improv performance art, this time as...
- 9/11/2016
- by David Blakeslee
- CriterionCast
It really doesn't get more irreverent and outlandish than the cult films of Robert Downey Sr. and let's face it, every cinephile worth his salt loves an excuse to talk about the underground filmmaker's outré classic "Putney Swope."
And so one of the more strange and wonderfully offbeat box sets to come to DVD late last month was Criterion's Eclipse set dedicated to the unconventional works of Robert Downey Sr. titled, "Up All Night With Robert Downey Sr." The father of Robert Downey Jr. and a satirical, experimental and counter cultural filmmaker in New York in the late 1960s, many of Downey Sr.'s vehmently uncommercial and mischievous pictures have been virtually awol for decades outside of small, appreciative arthouses like New York's Anthology Film Archives.
Often featuring taboo and trangressive topics, shot on shoestring budgets (guerilla style without permits), utilizing non-actors, told with often whimsical aesthetics ("Chafed Elbows" is mostly visualized via 35 mm photographs,...
And so one of the more strange and wonderfully offbeat box sets to come to DVD late last month was Criterion's Eclipse set dedicated to the unconventional works of Robert Downey Sr. titled, "Up All Night With Robert Downey Sr." The father of Robert Downey Jr. and a satirical, experimental and counter cultural filmmaker in New York in the late 1960s, many of Downey Sr.'s vehmently uncommercial and mischievous pictures have been virtually awol for decades outside of small, appreciative arthouses like New York's Anthology Film Archives.
Often featuring taboo and trangressive topics, shot on shoestring budgets (guerilla style without permits), utilizing non-actors, told with often whimsical aesthetics ("Chafed Elbows" is mostly visualized via 35 mm photographs,...
- 6/4/2012
- by Edward Davis
- The Playlist
Well we're back again with the bumper crop of must-have DVDs and Blu-rays for the month of May – from historic Italian epics to underground American sensations to a chilly, expressionistic film noir to movies where Raquel Welch plays a Vegas showgirl fleeing a murderer – we’ve got them all hear for you. So look on below to see what's worth your money this month....
"1900" (1976) Blu-ray
Why You Should Care: At the time of its release, Bernardo Bertolucci's historical epic was said to be the most expensive (requiring the financial commitment of three major studios – 20th Century Fox, Paramount, and United Artists) and ambitious ever mounted in Italy. It's a tale of two friends (played by Robert De Niro and Gerard Depardieu), born on the same day at the dawn of the 20th century, and the way that their lives crisscross, intersect, and diverge wildly over the rocky course of history.
"1900" (1976) Blu-ray
Why You Should Care: At the time of its release, Bernardo Bertolucci's historical epic was said to be the most expensive (requiring the financial commitment of three major studios – 20th Century Fox, Paramount, and United Artists) and ambitious ever mounted in Italy. It's a tale of two friends (played by Robert De Niro and Gerard Depardieu), born on the same day at the dawn of the 20th century, and the way that their lives crisscross, intersect, and diverge wildly over the rocky course of history.
- 5/3/2012
- by Drew Taylor
- The Playlist
By Aaron Hillis
Lists are breezy reads, but there can be an unfortunate disposability to the data because arbitrarily numbered "Ten Best" somethings or "Five Things You Should Know About" whatevers literally demonstrate quantity's domination over quality. And now that I've sucked all the fun out of the room, here's a practical but otherwise unranked list of ten auteurist gems . nine of which are already on DVD . that deserve their layers of dust blown off. (Sorry, "Zero Effect" and "11 Harrowhouse," but the list dictates the rules!)
"One From the Heart" (1982)
Directed by Francis Ford Coppola
The fires of over-ambition still smoldering in his belly after "Apocalypse Now," Francis Ford Coppola's follow-up was a decadent fiasco that bankrupted him, and might have seemed at the time as if the director had returned half-mad from the Filipino jungles. Epically staged on the Zoetrope studio lot, Coppola's hypertheatrical Vegas romance-cum-musical fantasy stars...
Lists are breezy reads, but there can be an unfortunate disposability to the data because arbitrarily numbered "Ten Best" somethings or "Five Things You Should Know About" whatevers literally demonstrate quantity's domination over quality. And now that I've sucked all the fun out of the room, here's a practical but otherwise unranked list of ten auteurist gems . nine of which are already on DVD . that deserve their layers of dust blown off. (Sorry, "Zero Effect" and "11 Harrowhouse," but the list dictates the rules!)
"One From the Heart" (1982)
Directed by Francis Ford Coppola
The fires of over-ambition still smoldering in his belly after "Apocalypse Now," Francis Ford Coppola's follow-up was a decadent fiasco that bankrupted him, and might have seemed at the time as if the director had returned half-mad from the Filipino jungles. Epically staged on the Zoetrope studio lot, Coppola's hypertheatrical Vegas romance-cum-musical fantasy stars...
- 7/31/2008
- by Aaron Hillis
- ifc.com
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