One of the key strands of this year’s Santa Barbara Film Festival is a focus on contemporary Quebecois cinema, of which the big title is J’ai tué ma mère, one of the best examples of a young person’s nakedly autobiographical art that I can recall and a popular festival hit last year. Almost as popular (best debut at Toronto, audience award at Slamdance) is Alexandre Franchi’s (English language) The Wild Hunt, an attempt to conjure the resonance of Norse myth through the weekend games of a large group of live medieval role-players.

Continue Reading

Passion Play, written and directed by Mitch Glazer stars the always lovely Megan Fox and unpredictable Mickey Rourke. Here is the first look at the photo released of the stars. According to slashfilm.com. the drama/thriller has been described as being a “romance about a troubled trumpet player and a winged beauty who rescue each other from dire circumstances.” Rourke says, “she has wings, so she was sort of an oddity trapped in a carnival act. She’s been a prisoner her whole life, and she has no understanding of trust. She’s very vulnerable and delicate.” Fox as an angel and Rourke as a trumpet player! If anything, this film is going to be interesting.

Read more about the film after the jump…

Continue Reading

Walt Disney has just put Miramax up for sale allegedly because its library of mostly small, independent films does not mesh with the media giant’s plan to overhaul its movie operations. Even though they no longer want the smaller company, they’re not willing to part with it for cheap! Disney is asking between $650 million to $800 million for Miramax. Only big shot contenders who haven’t been crushed by the recession stand a chance at purchasing Disney’s independent film division.

Continue Reading

From the award winning novel by critically acclaimed author Nicholas Sparks, comes the current box office champ, (breaking Avatar’s record) Dear John. Following in the footsteps of A Walk to Remember and The Notebook, director Lasse Hallstrom plays off that love lorn history to captivate a new audience. The film stars everyone’s favorite heartthrob, Channing Tatum as a soldier who falls in love with a college student while on leave. The always refreshing Amanda Seyfried plays the object of his affection, and adds a breath of fresh air to this 21st century love story.

Here’s what happened when we got the opportunity to speak with Tatum, Seyfried, and the creator of it all, Nicholas Sparks…

Continue Reading

Why did Un prophète win the Grand Jury prize at Cannes last year? Because it’s an absorbing, gritty prison drama following the unsentimental education of a quietly appealing young man as he learns, struggles and triumphs, executed with a high degree of skill and clear-eyed unsentimentality, and boasting a satisfyingly dense texture and enough stylistic flourishes to give the film its own distinctive character.

Continue Reading

Steven Soderbergh is currently gathering a group of acting “super friends” to star in his next feature film. No, we’re not talking about Knockout, or even the big screen bio-pic Liberace, we’re referring to Contagion. If the name doesn’t ring a bell, it’s because Soderbergh’s known for quietly putting together amazing films that no one ever hears about until he’s ready for them to.

Continue Reading

Where the hell has Christopher Lloyd been? The legendary funny man who’s worked steadily on film and television for years, is bringing his eccentric persona to NBC’s “Chuck.” The news recently broke that he’ll have a guest spot on the action comedy this spring before its highly anticipated finale in May.

Continue Reading

HBO’s “Entourage” will be on its seventh season when it returns to the cable network this year, and a lot of things have changed during its run. Over at MTV, they had an opportunity to speak to Adrian Grenier, the actor alter ego of Vinnie Chase and he explained that this season his character will finally go off the deep end.

Continue Reading

Now that the final season of “Lost” has begun, the end is becoming more real. We’ll be saying goodbye to our favorite castaways this May, and some of the show’s actors have already lined up their next gigs. According to THR, Daniel Dae Kim, who plays Jin Kwon on the series has booked a role on the CBS revamp of “Hawaii Five-O.”

Continue Reading