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Negative E-Mails, Producer Bans, And Lawsuits: The Hurt Locker’s Tumultuous Path Towards The Oscar By David Chen/March 3, 2010 7:12 am EST So it’s come to this: Nicolas Chartier, one of The Hurt Locker’s four producers, has been banned from attending the Oscars this year due to remarks he made about his film in an e-mail, which violated Academy rules. If The Hurt Locker wins Best Picture, Chartier will have to collect his Oscar at a later date....

Simon Pegg Plays Against The Happy-Go-Lucky-Type In ‘Terminal’ [Interview] By Jack Giroux/May 14, 2018 10:00 am EST Simon Pegg is currently shooting a movie in Los Angeles, titled Lost Transmissions, so we recently had the opportunity to sit down with him to discuss Terminal, which co-stars Mike Myers in a similarly unexpected role. When Myers was cast after Pegg signed up, the Shaun of the Dead star thought, “This is like comedy people suddenly going very dark....

Sony Pictures To Make Movie Based On The Board Game Risk By Peter Sciretta/Nov. 4, 2009 1:27 pm EST Not all board game to movie adaptations are a completely bad idea. For instance, Battleship has the potential to be a very cool water-based war film, especially with Peter Berg at the helm. But when does a brand name hurt the adapted property? Would a Battleship movie be taken more seriously if it weren’t named after a board game?...

Spoiler-Free Early Buzz: ‘Harry Potter And The Cursed Child Part II’ Will Make You Cry By Peter Sciretta/June 10, 2016 12:30 pm EST A couple days ago we published the first reactions to JK Rowling’s Harry Potter sequel Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, a play which is currently in previews in London’s West End. But those reactions were just from Part I, the first night of a two-part story. Last night the first preview performance of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Part II took place and we’re going to attempt to “keep the secrets,” only presenting to your the spoiler-free reactions....

SXSW 2016 Midnighters, Short Films, And Festival Favorites Announced By Angie Han/Feb. 9, 2016 2:00 pm EST South by Southwest is just over a month away, and just in case you weren’t excited enough already, the festival has just unveiled this year’s Midnighters lineup. Highlights include Mike Flanagan’s Hush, a new Fede Alvarez thriller, and the remastered Phantasm. And if needed even more reasons to get pumped, they’ve also announced a new selection of Festival Favorites and short films to look forward to....

The Best & Worst Sketches From Jimmy Fallon’s ‘Saturday Night Live’ By Ethan Anderton/April 16, 2017 12:00 pm EST Last night, Saturday Night Live went live coast-to-coast for the first time in the show’s 42-year history with host Jimmy Fallon. The late night sketch series seems anxious to capitalize on all the buzz their political satire has been getting lately with all the Donald Trump presidency fueling the writers room for a couple sketches each week, and they want everyone to experience the show at the same time rather than having half the country on a tape delay....

The Best Best Picture Nominees You’ve Probably Never Seen By Rob Hunter/March 7, 2018 10:00 am EST (Welcome to The Best Movies You’ve Never Seen, a series that takes a look at slightly more obscure, under-the-radar, or simply under-appreciated movies. In this edition, we celebrate the Academy Awards with a look at six movies that were nominated for Best Picture over the years and then barely spoken of again!) The 90th Academy Awards were this past weekend, and without spoiling anything for those who haven’t watched it yet, some movies won and far more lost....

The Complete ‘Phantasm’ Series Is Getting A Fancy Blu-Ray Box Set By Jacob Hall/Jan. 20, 2017 3:00 pm EST Physical media may be slowly succumbing to the digital age, but you can pry my Blu-ray library from my cold, lifeless corpse…a corpse that will have a frozen smile on its bloodless face because I died watching movies that didn’t need to buffer at key moments and actually allowed me to watch the ending credits before smash cutting to a recommendation....

The Heroic Masculinity Of ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ By Angie Han/May 19, 2015 8:00 am EST In a typically testosterone-heavy summer movie season, Mad Max: Fury Road stands out for its unapologetic feminist streak. Most obviously, this is manifested in the compelling female characters, and the (apparently, distressingly) radical notion that women are not property. But the film has just as much to say about men — specifically what masculinity is, and what place it has in our society....

The Museum Of Modern Art Presents Spike Jonze: The First 80 Years By Peter Sciretta/Aug. 25, 2009 12:00 pm EST The Museum of Modern Art has announced the first-ever exhibition to focus on Spike Jonze, “celebrating his work as a director, producer, cinematographer, writer, actor, choreographer, and sometime stuntman.” I love the title of the exhibition, Spike Jonze: The First 80 Years. Apparently Jonze came up with the wry title for the early mid-career retrospective title himself....

The News Vacuum: Miscellanious Deals, Rumors, Casting News, Film Flotsam…and Rambo V By Hunter Stephenson/Feb. 6, 2008 6:15 pm EST Eric Bana says his villainy role as Nero in J.J. Abrams’s Star Trek is nothing more than a “cameo.” News to me. You? Here’s another quote from the Aussie actor about his role: “It’s just a great character, it’s J.J. Abrams. It’s a really well-written script, great part. Couldn’t say no....

The Universal Monsters Franchise Is Now ‘Dark Universe;’ Watch The Logo With Danny Elfman’s Score By Jacob Hall/May 22, 2017 11:00 am EST Universal Studios is going all-in on their new cinematic universe connecting all of their classic monsters. While The Mummy is set to kick things off next month, the studio has revealed that this franchise will be collected under a single banner called Dark Universe, which will have its own logo that will appear before each movie, complete with a musical theme composed by Danny Elfman....

This Is The Perfect Time To Bring Back ‘The Jetsons’ (And Here’s How They Should Do It) By Monique Jones/Aug. 23, 2017 1:30 pm EST After years of development for the big screen and the small screen, Hanna-Barbera’s futuristic cartoon The Jetsons will be reborn on ABC as a live-actino multi-camera comedy. Robert Zemeckis and Jack Rapke will act as executive producers, and Gary Janetti, whose writing and producing credits include Family Guy and Will and Grace, will also executive produce and write the show....

This Week In DVD: Role Models, Milk, South Park (Season 12), Transporter 3, And More By Adam Quigley/March 10, 2009 6:45 am EST We may receive a commission on purchases made from links. If you’re looking for a vampire movie to help wipe away the embarrassing display of inanity that came with last year’s Twilight, look no further. This bizarre Swedish horror tale of love and revenge ranked #6 on my top ten favorite films of 2008, and I’m clearly not the only one who believes it’s deserving of such praise....

This Week In Trailers: The Waiting Room, The Deflowering Of Eva Van End, The Land Of Eb, Lunarcy!, Eat Sleep Die (Äta Sova Dö), London: The Modern Babylon By Christopher Stipp/Sept. 1, 2012 8:00 am EST Trailers are an under-appreciated art form insofar that many times they’re seen as vehicles for showing footage, explaining films away, or showing their hand about what moviegoers can expect. Foreign, domestic, independent, big budget: I celebrate all levels of trailers and hopefully this column will satisfactorily give you a baseline of what beta wave I’m operating on, because what better way to hone your skills as a thoughtful moviegoer than by deconstructing these little pieces of advertising?...

By Christopher Stipp/May 14, 2010 2:00 pm EST I realize a lot of readers out there don’t have kids of their own and to them I will say this: the smart money is on the bet that the public school system where you live isn’t doing a very good job. Myself, I wish I could move as far away from Arizona as I could. We’re consistently one of the last states ranked with regard to quality of education and it consistently bothers me....

William Zabka Talks Trying To Do The ‘Cobra Kai’ Dojo Right After Bullying ‘The Karate Kid’ [Interview] By Fred Topel/May 2, 2018 8:00 am EST Avengers: Infinity War was the culmination of 10 years of Marvel movies. That’s nothing. How about 34 years of The Karate Kid? The YouTube Red original series Cobra Kai premieres today and reunites Ralph Macchio and William Zabka as Daniel LaRusso and Johnny Lawrence. Set 30 years after the All Valley Karate Tournament, in which amateur LaRusso won with a crane kick, Johnny’s not doing so well in this sequel series....

Wonder Woman Will Be Part Of ‘Flashpoint’, Which Could Be A Big Deal [Updated] By Ethan Anderton/Sept. 20, 2017 3:10 pm EST Update: Buried in a Deadline article about actress Gal Gadot being cast in a film called Deeper, the outlet says Gadot will reprise her role as Wonder Woman in the upcoming Wonder Woman 2, “the Justice League films and the spinoff for The Flash.” Our original article from August 6, 2017 follows....

‘American Horror Story: Cult’ Review: Election Night Triggers A New Series Of Nightmares By Aaron Pruner/Sept. 6, 2017 6:30 am EST (Every week, we’re going to get the discussion going about American Horror Story: Cult by answering one important question: who is the main villain of the episode?) In its seventh installment, American Horror Story switches things up a bit in both story and tone – focusing more on psychological and human terror than anything supernatural....

/Film Interview: Gary Ross, The Director Of ‘The Hunger Games’ By Germain Lussier/March 21, 2012 9:00 am EST After almost a decade away from the director’s chair, Gary Ross is back with a bang. He’s directed the highly-anticipated adaptation of Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games and he’s done it with the kind of vision and passion only a true fan could have accomplished. The film, which opens March 23 and stars Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Woody Harrelson and many others, is both a faithful adaptation of the book as well as a perfect movie version of the story....