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This Week In DVD & Blu-Ray: Avatar, The Lovely Bones, Crazy Heart, And More By Adam Quigley/April 20, 2010 6:30 am EST We may receive a commission on purchases made from links. Avatar’s crowning achievement is that it could not have been made at any time prior to right now. Put that into perspective: it took over 100 years of film history transpiring to allow for this movie’s existence. And in utilizing that century’s worth of technological progress, James Cameron managed to create one of cinema’s most awe-inspiring spectacles: the world of Pandora....

Tour ‘The LAIKA Experience’ With Our Gorgeous Photo Gallery [Comic-Con 2017] By Jacob Hall/July 19, 2017 9:30 am EST Comic-Con doesn’t officially kick off until tomorrow (although it unofficially kicks off tonight with all kinds of previews and off-site presentations), but everyone in San Diego can already get a little taste of some cinematic magic. LAIKA, the stop-motion animation studio behind films like Coraline, ParaNorman, The Boxtrolls, and Kubo and the Two Strings has set up shop in the Gaslamp District, offering a walkthrough mini-museum showing off puppets and sets from their movies....

TV Bits: ‘Shameless’ And ‘Magic City’ Trailers, Plus: ‘Person Of Interest’, ‘Homeland’, ‘Damages’, ‘Boss’, ‘Pan Am’, ‘2 Broke Girls’ By Angie Han/Oct. 28, 2011 12:30 pm EST There’s some bad and some good in today’s TV Bits, but I’d say there’s more of the latter — more Shameless, more Homeland, more Jennifer Coolidge, and Olga Kurylenko in late ’50s Miami all count as pluses, right? After the jump: Showtime’s Shameless get a Season 2 trailer — and invites fans to play Truth or Dare with one of the characters Starz debuts a trailer for Magic City, starring Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Olga Kurylenko, and Danny Huston CBS gives full season orders to Unforgettable and Person of Interest Showtime renews freshman series Homeland Jennifer Coolidge signs on for CBS’ 2 Broke Girls Jenna Elfman boards the fifth season of DirecTV’s Damages Starz’ Boss loses its two showrunners ABC’s Pan Am gets a new showrunner It’s been seven long months for fans of Shameless, Showtime’s series about the out-of-control Gallagher family, but their patience will be rewarded soon(ish)....

We’re Not Like Everyone Else: Ranking The Films Of Sam Mendes By Jack Giroux/Nov. 12, 2015 8:00 am EST Director Sam Mendes had plenty of experience in theater before directing his first film. The skills he acquired from the stage, like his eye for performances, was evident even in his debut feature American Beauty, which won him his first Oscar. Even when a film from the director doesn’t fully come together, the performances are still worth talking about....

Why The 2017 Summer Movie Season Is The Best One We’ve Seen In Decades By Hoai-Tran Bui/Aug. 10, 2017 9:00 am EST At the beginning of the season, 2017’s summer movie prospects looked bleak. Though Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 kicked things off in May with a strong start, it was followed by a string of generic tentpole movies — more symptoms of the bloated franchise-crazy studio system. It seems like a distant memory now, but we were once inundated with another Transformers movie, another Pirates of the Caribbean, an unfunny Baywatch reboot, and Guy Ritchie’s misguided King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (Just give us The Man from U....

‘13 Hours’ Posters Tease Intense Dramatic Patriotic Thriller By Peter Sciretta/Dec. 9, 2015 8:00 am EST On Veterans Day, I was invited to Paramount Pictures to preview 25 minutes of footage from Michael Bay’s new film 13 Hours, followed by a post-screening reception with Bay, producer Erwin Stiff, and the real-life heroes portrayed in the film: Mark ‘Oz’ Geist and John ‘Tig’ Tiegan. What I saw from the film was unlike any Michael Bay film I’ve seen before....

‘Batman V Superman’ Ultimate Edition Early Buzz, Plus Watch The First 10 Minutes Right Now By Ethan Anderton/June 28, 2016 3:00 pm EST Today brings Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice - Ultimate Edition to Digital HD, so you can finally see if the 30 extra minutes of footage does anything to improve Zack Snyder’s superhero battle. For those who liked the movie, it will probably just give you more footage to sink your teeth into....

‘Dunkirk’ Review: Christopher Nolan Has Made Another Great Film By Karen Han/July 21, 2017 7:30 am EST The sheer amount of space in Dunkirk is overwhelming. There are three vast swaths of it: air, land, and sea, rendered in stark whites and blacks, and blues in-between. Men and boats alike come across as matchstick figures, just as dominated by negative space as any J.M.W. Turner painting. Warmer colors come in the form of the soldiers and civilians whose fight to stay alive forms the backbone of the film’s narrative, and as the tick-tick-tick of Hans Zimmer’s score kicks in and the three main storylines intercut, it becomes apparent that we’re not just looking at empty space; we’re seeing triple forces, slowly threatening to crush the men stranded at Dunkirk....

‘Fast And Furious’ Franchise To Shift Focus From Car Culture To Heist Action By Adam Quigley/April 26, 2011 11:00 am EST Universal is preemptively prepping the sixth entry in the [The] Fast and/or [the] Furious saga — having already hired on the series’ go-to writer to tackle the screenplay — and based on how well Fast Five is performing in the territories it’s already been released, their hubris will likely pay off....

‘Legion’ Will Be Back To Awe And Confuse Us In 2019 [Comic-Con 2018] By Vanessa Armstrong/July 23, 2018 7:30 am EST The Legion panel, the last Hall H panel at San Diego Comic-Con this year, had several panelists including producer and writer Nathaniel Halpern, executive producer and director John Cameron, Marvel Television’s Jeph Loeb, and cast members Dan Stevens, Rachel Keller, Aubrey Plaza, Bill Irwin, Amber Midthunder, Jeremie Harris, Jean Smart, and Farouk himself, Navid Negahban....

‘Need For Speed’ Screening In 100 Theaters For Free Wednesday Night By Germain Lussier/Feb. 18, 2014 11:00 am EST Briefly: The action-packed video game adaptation Need For Speed doesn’t open until March 14, but DreamWorks is hosting 100 free screenings of the film February 19 across the United States. Tickets are available now; find out how to get them below. To find out where the film is screening in your area and to get tickets, visit theneedforspeedmovie....

Alex Proyas Answers Questions From /Film Readers By Peter Sciretta/March 23, 2009 10:17 am EST Last week, we asked /Film readers to provide questions for a special question and answer blog with director Alex Proyas (Dark City, The Crow, I, Robot, Knowing). We sent Alex the submissions, and he has personally picked nine of the questions to respond to. Read the answers below. TerrenceV: “Mr. Proyas when you are developing the visual style of your films with the various camera angles, framings, and lighting do you storyboard heavily with your cinematographer so that you reach your vision, or do you find that you improvise more?...

Box Office: Hollywood’s October Blues; 30 Days Of Night Dips 13% On Saturday By Steve Mason/Oct. 21, 2007 2:05 pm EST The estimated combined weekend gross of the top 12 movies is only $78.64M. That’s the 4th-softest October weekend since 2002. The dismal overall performance comes on the heels of October 5-7, which was the worst October weekend since 1999. Year-over-year, the first 3 weekends of October 2007 are down 20% from the same period a year ago....

Ethan Hawke Has ‘24 Hours To Live’, May Reprise ‘Training Day’ Role For TV Series By Ethan Anderton/Feb. 5, 2016 3:30 pm EST Just a few days ago, the folks over at The AV Club wrote some more than kind words about Ethan Hawke, proclaiming him to be our greatest genre star right now, simply because he puts in admirable work into every performance. When you look at his body of work, it’s hard to argue with that....

Everything We Saw At Fantastic Fest 2016 By Jacob Hall/Oct. 3, 2016 8:00 am EST When the smoke cleared, I ended up seeing 27 movies over eight days at Fantastic Fest 2016. The Austin-based genre film festival always has a strong line-up of odd, unusual, and unique movies from around the world, but this year was truly exceptional – I saw very few movies I wouldn’t recommend in some capacity. I even saw a handful of movies that are in serious contention for my end-of-the-year top 10....

G.I. Joe: George Clooney As Duke? Screenwriting Rumors And Hasbro’s Official Statement By Peter Sciretta/Oct. 30, 2007 6:13 pm EST Casting Rumors, Screenwriting rumors and official statements, a lot has been happening with the big screen adaptation of G.I. Joe. First up is a rumor from our friends at IESB: Paramount Pictures has offered the role of Duke to George Clooney. Apparently the big screen star walked away from Joe Carnahan’s White Jazz not only due to scheduling conflicts, but because Clooney is looking for a big blockbuster....

How ‘Finding Dory’ Is About Dory Coming To Embrace Her Disability By Peter Sciretta/April 8, 2016 8:00 am EST When a Finding Nemo sequel was announced, many people, including myself, were skeptical of the motivations behind the announcement. Yesterday you learned how director Andrew Stanton came to find that a Finding Nemo sequel was necessary. And now we reveal why he felt Dory’s story was not over. On a trip to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, I got to preview 30 minutes of Finding Dory....

How Pixar’s ‘Coco’ Tears Down Cultural Walls To Tell A Universal Story [Set Visit] By Hoai-Tran Bui/Aug. 28, 2017 9:00 am EST Is it possible to “Pixar-ify” an entire cultural tradition and transform it into a family-friendly, merchandise-ready movie? Those are the fears that some might have about Coco, Pixar’s upcoming film centers around Mexico’s beloved Day of the Dead or Día de los Muertos. But those fears can be put to rest, as Coco is as respectful in its treatment of Día de los Muertos as it is eager to share the joyous Mexican holiday with the rest of the world....

Judd Apatow Talks ‘Love’, ‘Freaks And Geeks’, And The Freedom Of Working With Netflix By Fred Topel/Jan. 19, 2016 10:30 am EST Netflix presented its new Judd Apatow-produced series Love to the Television Critics Association on Sunday. The show stars Paul Rust (who created the series) and Gillian Jacobs as single people working in the entertainment industry who meet awkwardly and develop a relationship. After the panel Apatow spoke with reporters further, and praised the new television climate that allows shows to blend comedy and drama more commonly....

Legendary Comedian And ‘Toy Story’ Star Don Rickles Has Died At 90 By Ethan Anderton/April 6, 2017 11:42 am EST Don Rickles has been dubbed the king of insult comedy, known the world round for being able to throw jabs at some of the biggest names in entertainment. You’d be hard pressed to find a comedian working today who wasn’t influenced by the long-running career of the comedian who turned roasting celebrities into an art form....