I wrote a few words in @thetimes about the incomparable @studiotstella VIVA Tony Stella! thetimes.com/article/81ca5f8…

I wrote a few words in @thetimes about the incomparable @studiotstella VIVA Tony Stella! thetimes.com/article/81ca5f8…

Ragassuoli, date un'occhiata a questo pezzo che @Sim_ONeill ha scritto per The Times in ricordo di Tony. ❤️‍🩹 "Tony Stella @studiotstella: Paint-splattered firebrand who revived art of film posters": — thetimes.com/article/81ca5f8…

Check out this beautifully written tribute by @Sim_ONeill about our mutual friend Tony Stella @studiotstella. Tony's poster for Simon's film 'Dispensary of Death' always puts a twisted smile on my face. thetimes.com/article/81ca5f8…

This account will continue. We are Tony's family and friends. You're used to hearing from Tony here. So are we. Like you, we are heartbroken. Tony left us unexpectedly, far too soon, on May 1st — peacefully, in his sleep. We have been reading every message, every tribute, every piece of art shared in his name. You loved him well. Thank you.

What work...

Absolutely gutted to hear about Tony Stella's passing. As well as being the maestro everyone is rightly praising him for, he also very kindly created the fantastic poster for my trashy, low-budget horror short because that's just the kind of gentleman he was.

And yay, as it is written, so let it come to pass…

Check out this interview by @WrongReel veteran @Sim_ONeill with cinematographer Robbie Ryan who frequently works with Yorgos Lanthimos; thetimes.com/article/266b878…

STATE OF GRACE (Joanou, 1990)

“I needed a drink, I needed a lot of life insurance, I needed a vacation, I needed a home in the country. What I had was a coat, a hat and a gun.” ― Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely

On this day, 52 years ago, John Cassavetes' "The Ki!!ing of a Chinese Bookie" (1974) was released in the USA. John Cassavetes explaining why he made the movie: "'A Woman Under the Influence' (1974) was the first picture I’ve had anything to do with that wasn’t made out of plain, simple feeling, but rather out of a real desire to do something in my profession. It was extremely frightening for me not to come to work out of enthusiasm and instead put myself up as something of a craftsman. Earlier films such as 'Shadows' (1958) and 'Husbands' (1970) grew out of personal experiences reaching all the way back to my childhood days. They were expressions of my innermost feelings, and now that I’ve dealt with all that, I feel obligated to view life in other terms. I want to explore other areas of human and artistic experience. I made 'The Ki!!ing of a Chinese Bookie' (1976) as an intellectual experiment– not because I am in love with it. I enjoy a more intellectual and less emotionally demanding view than in my previous work. If I can make, out of certain intellectual ideas, films that are complex in their nature, then I’m entering into new ground. And that is certainly something I look forward to. It is a film that has little to do with me and with how I feel about life. It’s interesting to me to see how other people live in our society, to look at them and ask myself, ‘Why do they do it? And how do they do it?’ Without trying to explain. The fun and challenge of the film was to imagine a self-contained world different from the one I live in: to move into it and live in it." ("Cassavetes on Cassavetes", edited by Ray Carney, 2001)

Ed Exley: A hooker cut to look like Lana Turner is still a hooker. Johnny Stompanato: Hey! Ed Exley: She just looks like Lana Turner. Jack Vincennes: She is Lana Turner. Ed Exley: What? Jack Vincennes: She is Lana Turner. L.A. Confidential (1997, dir by Curtis Hanson)

The Formosa has all the essential ingredients for the perfect bar…

Ya boy was just there in October - it's back! Formosa Nights. we gotta get a cocktail there.

I used to love having a drink at the Formosa when I lived in LA in the early 2000s.

Loved it back in the day. Movie lore was drenched into its bones.

Watch ‘Dispensary of Death’ as part of @PulpModern: Hand Of Doom for that old school @HorrorHammer1 @AmicusHorror vibe on @primevideouk @AppleTV @Tubi primevideo.com/detail/Pulp-M…

'Slow steps shuffled and the door opened and I was looking into dimness at a blowsy woman who was blowing her nose as she opened the door.' #RaymondChandler Murder, My Sweet (1944). No doorway scene in this other adaptation.