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Jenna Fischer has raised a mean girl.

The Office vet will play Cady Heron’s mom in Paramount+’s movie musical Mean Girls, based off the 2017 Tony-nominated Broadway production, our sister site Deadline reports. The role was portrayed by Ana Gasteyer in the 2004 movie.

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Fischer will join Reneé Rapp (The Sex Lives of College Girls), Angourie Rice (Mare of Easttown...

Ramsay Street is gearing up to welcome a few more familiar faces.

Seven long-time characters are joining Amazon Freevee’s continuation of Australian soap “Neighbours.” The new additions include Annie Jones (as Jane Harris), Rebekah Elmaloglou (as Terese Willis), Georgie Stone (as Mackenzie Hargreaves) and Tim Kano (as Leo Tanaka). All cast members will return as series regulars.

Meanwhile, those returning in guest roles are Ian Smith (as Harold Bishop), April Rose Pengilly (as Chloe Brennan) and Melissa Bell (as Lucy Robinson). They will be joined by “Neighbours” stalwarts Stefan Dennis, Alan Fletcher, Ryan Moloney and Jackie Woodburne, who were previously announced.

The new chapter of the long-running soap series — which centers on the residents of Ramsay Street in a fictional suburb of Melbourne — follows the July 2022 series finale.

“Neighbours” ran for more than three decades and nearly 9,000 episodes before being canceled in early 2021 when the show’s primary funder,...

With his 1959 comedy "Some Like It Hot," director Billy Wilder crafted a Prohibition-era fantasia, telling a wild, exaggerated story of dangerous gangsters on the tail of witless witnesses. Those two male musicians (Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis in one of the great cinematic double acts) end up masquerading as women to evade being found out by the mob, and in the process fall in love with a fellow musician, a singer who sparks the interest of both men.

It's that wacky screwball cross-dressing comedy that makes "Some Like It Hot'' the classic that it is, but the movie's first act actually draws from a tragic and violent historical event. While the musical comedy comprises most of the meat of the movie (as well as what most viewers remember), the Prohibition-era backdrop of speakeasies and dirty dealings was very important for Wilder.

The movie's basic premise came from a French film from 1935, "Fanfare of Love,...

Looking back on his 35-year career at the Red Sea Film Festival, Andy Garcia noted how far things had changed since he started out as a Cuban American actor. “When I started there were no opportunities. Only gang members.” He would tell casting directors: “I didn’t study Latin acting 101, I studied Shakespeare and Tennessee Williams.” Has the situation improved? Garcia offered qualified optimism: “It’s gotten better, especially in the casting. Not so much in the stories.”

His career has included working alongside stars like Sean Connery, Al Pacino and George Clooney, and under the direction of top helmers such as Francis Ford Coppola, Brian De Palma and Steven Soderbergh.

“It was a dream for me to be an actor and work on films. I’ve really been blessed, but I’m still dreaming. There are a lot of things I want to do, but I’ve had a...

Georgie Stone has made headlines ever since she was 10, first in the courts and then becoming Neighbours’ first trans actor. She talks about her life ahead of a new Netflix documentary

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Georgie Stone is sat in front of her computer, lit by a desk lamp. “So, update: I’m gonna talk a little bit about boys,” she groans into the webcam, face contorting into a cartoonish cringe. “I’ve had a crush on this guy for about 10 months … and turns out he had a crush on my best friend.”

For a second, it feels like the tribulations of adolescent romance might be her only concern. In that footage – which comes from a new documentary short called The Dreamlife of Georgie Stone, spanning the first 19 years of her life – the trans advocate is just 16. And yet, by then she had already spent a significant...

"I've always known who I am." Netflix has revealed an official trailer for a documentary short film titled The Dreamlife of Georgie Stone, which initially premiered at the 2022 Tribeca Film Festival earlier this summer. Netflix is releasing this 27-minute film to watch worldwide starting in late September for anyone interested. Spanning 19 years, The Dreamlife of Georgie Stone reveals the elliptical memories of Georgie Stone, an Australian transgender teen, as she helps change laws, affirms her gender, finds her voice and emerges into adulthood. And, for the first time, gains control of her own story – the doc credits Georgia as the "Creative Producer", with Maya Newell directing. An important film in the fight for transgender rights and their place in society, this doc emphatically offers "an undeniable case for the agency of transgender children." It looks a beautiful, inspiring, empowering film about fighting for justice and equality. Get a look. ›››

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Sam Fuller turns from combat in Korea to cat ‘n mouse games in New York City, with America’s stand-up defenders being exactly one low-life pickpocket and one saucy woman of the sidewalks. Richard Widmark is a charming chiseler with a wicked grin, Jean Peters is the hot number who takes a knockdown as a love pat, and Thelma Ritter steals the show as a wholly endearing snitch trying to earn money for a nice burial plot. But Fuller’s directorial powers are going full tilt, with scenes of cinematic power to match any ‘auteur’ — you’ll be mesmerized by a sordid subway encounter that could be rated X for basic erotic chemistry.

Pickup on South Street

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 224

1953 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 80 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date June 29, 2021 / 39.95

Starring: Richard Widmark, Jean Peters, Thelma Ritter, Murvyn Vye, Richard Kiley, Willis Bouchey, Milburn Stone, Vic Perry,...

Is this a horror classic? I’d certainly says yes, just for the shrewd, sympathetic performance of Peter Lorre as an unlucky immigrant whose disfigurement in a fire turns him to life of crime and vengeance. An impossibly young Evelyn Keyes shines as the sweet love interest, but the performances and Robert Florey’s good direction keep the tone from going soft. And the ending is as bleak and chilling as they come. Whatever you may do, my recommendation is to Not double-cross Peter Lorre. The disc producers give experts Alan K. Rode and Kim Newman the podium, and they respond with three full extras on this highly unusual, seldom-seen gem of a horror film.

The Face Behind the Mask

Blu-ray (Plays on Region A players)

Viavision [Imprint] 44

1941 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 68 min. / Street Date May 21, May 26 or June 2, 2021 / Available from / 34.95 au

Starring: Peter Lorre, Evelyn Keyes, Don Beddoe, George E. Stone,...

Another impressive horror restoration! Majestic Pictures pulls together a great cast, including Fay Wray and Lionel Atwill, for a smart gothic horror outing complete with squeaky bats, a flipped-out village idiot (Dwight Frye!), a crazed mad scientist (the worst kind) and a lynch mob with torches that have been hand-tinted in color. Melvyn Douglas is the debonair flatfoot assigned to solve a series of vampire killings.

The Vampire Bat

Blu-ray

The Film Detective

1933 / B&W with part-tinted scene / 1:37 Academy / 83 min. / Street Date April 25, 2017 / 19.99

Starring: Lionel Atwill, Fay Wray, Melvyn Douglas, Maude Eburne, George E. Stone, Dwight Frye, Robert Frazer, Rita Carlyle, Lionel Belmore, William V. Mong, Stella Adams, Harrison Greene.

Cinematography: Ira H. Morgan

Film Editor: Otis Garrett

Written by Edward T. Lowe Jr.

Produced by Phil Goldstone

Directed by Frank Strayer

Hollywood horror was a hot trend in 1932: with the arrival of Frankenstein and Dracula the horror field boomed.

The restoration of a newly rediscovered director’s cut of the 1931 The Front Page prompts this two-feature comedy disc — Lewis Milestone’s early talkie plus the sublime Howard Hawks remake, which plays a major gender switch on the main characters of Hecht & MacArthur’s original play.

His Girl Friday / The Front Page

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 849

Available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date January 10, 2017 / 39.96

His Girl Friday:

1940 / B&W /1:37 flat Academy / 92 min.

Starring Cary Grant, Rosalind Russell, Ralph Bellamy, Gene Lockhart, Porter Hall, Ernest Truex, Cliff Edwards, Clarence Kolb, Roscoe Karns, Frank Jenks, Regis Toomey, Abner Biberman, Frank Orth, John Qualen, Helen Mack, Alma Kruger, Billy Gilbert, Marion Martin.

Cinematography Joseph Walker

Film Editor Gene Havelick

Original Music Sidney Cutner, Felix Mills

Written by Charles Lederer from the play The Front Page by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur

Produced and Directed by Howard Hawks

The Front Page:...

Brian De Palma has become the directorial litmus test of cinephiles everywhere. To supporters, he stands as a startling visual genius with a penchant for set pieces and lurid subject matter. To naysayers, he remains a lowbrow imitator who spends his studio budgets chasing the ghosts of Alfred Hitchcock and Jean-Luc Godard. Great director or high class hack? Inconsistent misogynist or Master of the Macabre? Much like his fractured narratives, the answer is never an easy one to attain.

Both sides provide ample support for their case. De Palma’s resume is riddled with enough hollow imitations (Sisters [1973], Raising Cain [1992]) and bloated commercial flops (The Bonfire of the Vanities [1990], The Black Dahlia [2006]) to sink any director. But even in misfires such as these, an undeniable attention to detail remains.

The split screen cover-up of Sisters or the heartbreaking screen tests of The Black Dahlia are breathtaking in scope and execution,...

Pat O'Brien movies on TCM: 'The Front Page,' 'Oil for the Lamps of China' Remember Pat O'Brien? In case you don't, you're not alone despite the fact that O'Brien was featured – in both large and small roles – in about 100 films, from the dawn of the sound era to 1981. That in addition to nearly 50 television appearances, from the early '50s to the early '80s. Never a top star or a critics' favorite, O'Brien was nevertheless one of the busiest Hollywood leading men – and second leads – of the 1930s. In that decade alone, mostly at Warner Bros., he was seen in nearly 60 films, from Bs (Hell's House, The Final Edition) to classics (American Madness, Angels with Dirty Faces). Turner Classic Movies is showing nine of those today, Nov. 11, '15, in honor of what would have been the Milwaukee-born O'Brien's 116th birthday. Pat O'Brien and James Cagney Spencer Tracy had Katharine Hepburn.

Douglas Fairbanks Jr. ca. 1935. Douglas Fairbanks Jr. was never as popular as his father, silent film superstar Douglas Fairbanks, who starred in one action-adventure blockbuster after another in the 1920s (The Mark of Zorro, Robin Hood, The Thief of Bagdad) and whose stardom dates back to the mid-1910s, when Fairbanks toplined a series of light, modern-day comedies in which he was cast as the embodiment of the enterprising, 20th century “all-American.” What this particular go-getter got was screen queen Mary Pickford as his wife and United Artists as his studio, which he co-founded with Pickford, D.W. Griffith, and Charles Chaplin. Now, although Jr. never had the following of Sr., he did enjoy a solid two-decade-plus movie career. In fact, he was one of the few children of major film stars – e.g., Jane Fonda, Liza Minnelli, Angelina Jolie, Michael Douglas, Jamie Lee Curtis – who had successful film careers of their own.

Groucho Marx in 'Duck Soup.' Groucho Marx movies: 'Duck Soup,' 'The Story of Mankind' and romancing Margaret Dumont on TCM Grouch Marx, the bespectacled, (painted) mustached, cigar-chomping Marx brother, is Turner Classic Movies' “Summer Under the Stars” star today, Aug. 14, '15. Marx Brothers fans will be delighted, as TCM is presenting no less than 11 of their comedies, in addition to a brotherly reunion in the 1957 all-star fantasy The Story of Mankind. Non-Marx Brothers fans should be delighted as well – as long as they're fans of Kay Francis, Thelma Todd, Ann Miller, Lucille Ball, Eve Arden, Allan Jones, affectionate, long-tongued giraffes, and/or that great, scene-stealing dowager, Margaret Dumont. Right now, TCM is showing Robert Florey and Joseph Santley's The Cocoanuts (1929), an early talkie notable as the first movie featuring the four Marx Brothers – Groucho, Chico, Harpo, and Zeppo. Based on their hit Broadway...

Sound on Sight undertook a massive project, compiling ranked lists of the most influential, unforgettable, and exciting action scenes in all of cinema. There were hundreds of nominees spread across ten different categories and a multi-week voting process from 11 of our writers. The results: 100 essential set pieces, sequences, and scenes from blockbusters to cult classics to arthouse obscurities.

Shootouts, unlike any other type of action scenes, put death in the forefront of the audience’s mind. Whereas a car chase draws the attention onto the race, or a fight scene onto the pursuit of victory, shootouts test the mortality of our protagonists and anti-heroes. It’s more than just a hail of bullets that matters on screen, it’s who those bullets are clipping down or propping up. Legends can be made in a flurry of lead. The last man standing after the fray isn’t always the best or...

Loretta Young films as TCM celebrates her 102nd birthday (photo: Loretta Young ca. 1935) Loretta Young would have turned 102 years old today. Turner Classic Movies is celebrating the birthday of the Salt Lake City-born, Academy Award-winning actress today, January 6, 2015, with no less than ten Loretta Young films, most of them released by Warner Bros. in the early '30s. Young, who began her film career in a bit part in the 1927 Colleen Moore star vehicle Her Wild Oat, remained a Warners contract player from the late '20s up until 1933. (See also: "Loretta Young Movies.") Now, ten Loretta Young films on one day may sound like a lot, but one should remember that most Warner Bros. -- in fact, most Hollywood -- releases of the late '20s and early '30s were either B Movies or programmers. The latter were relatively short (usually 60 to 75 minutes) feature films starring A (or B+) performers,...

Andy Garcia Finds Love At Middleton

By

Alex Simon

Since making a splash as crack shot George Stone in Brian De Palma’s The Untouchables, Andy Garcia has become one of the cinema’s most prolific and diverse actors. The Cuban-born Garcia boasts over 100 credits on his resume, with roles ranging from actor, director, producer and musical performer. At Middleton, which arrived on DVD and Blu-ray April 1 from Anchor Bay Entertainment, features Garcia as a slightly befuddled doctor who finds an unexpected love connection with another parent (Vera Farmiga) while accompanying their kids on a tour of a tony East Coast college. Andy Garcia spoke with us recently about this and other career highlights. Here’s what transpired:

I don’t think I’ve ever seen you play a guy who’s not cool, so it was a pleasant surprise to see you in At Middleton, which marks a change of pace.

Glenda Farrell: Actress has her ‘Summer Under the Stars’ day Scene-stealer Glenda Farrell is Turner Classic Movies’ "Summer Under the Stars" star today, August 29, 2013. A reliable — and very busy — Warner Bros. contract player in the ’30s, the sharp, energetic, fast-talking blonde actress was featured in more than fifty films at the studio from 1931 to 1939. Note: This particular Glenda Farrell has nothing in common with the One Tree Hill character played by Amber Wallace in the television series. The Glenda Farrell / One Tree Hill name connection seems to have been a mere coincidence. (Photo: Glenda Farrell as Torchy Blane in Smart Blonde.) Back to Warners’ Glenda Farrell: TCM is currently showing Torchy Runs for Mayor (1939), one of the seven B movies starring Farrell as intrepid reporter Torchy Blane. Major suspense: Will Torchy win the election? She should. No city would ever go bankrupt with Torchy at the helm. Glenda Farrell...

Wallace Beery from Pancho Villa to Long John Silver: TCM schedule (Pt) on August 17, 2013 (photo: Fay Wray, Wallace Beery as Pancho Villa in ‘Viva Villa!’) See previous post: “Wallace Beery: Best Actor Oscar Winner — and Runner-Up.” 3:00 Am The Last Of The Mohicans (1920). Director: Maurice Tourneur. Cast: Barbara Bedford, Albert Roscoe, Wallace Beery, Lillian Hall, Henry Woodward, James Gordon, George Hackathorne, Nelson McDowell, Harry Lorraine, Theodore Lorch, Jack McDonald, Sydney Deane, Boris Karloff. Bw-76 mins. 4:30 Am The Big House (1930). Director: George W. Hill. Cast: Chester Morris, Wallace Beery, Lewis Stone, Robert Montgomery, Leila Hyams, George F. Marion, J.C. Nugent, DeWitt Jennings, Matthew Betz, Claire McDowell, Robert Emmett O’Connor, Tom Wilson, Eddie Foyer, Roscoe Ates, Fletcher Norton, Noah Beery Jr, Chris-Pin Martin, Eddie Lambert, Harry Wilson. Bw-87 mins. 6:00 Am Bad Man Of Brimstone (1937). Director: J. Walter Ruben. Cast: Wallace Beery, Virginia Bruce, Dennis O’Keefe. Bw-89 mins.

Billy Wilder movies, Johnny Carson interviews tonight on TCM Billy Wilder is Turner Classic Movies’ Director of the Evening tonight, July 8, 2013. But before Wilder Evening begins, TCM will be presenting a series of brief interviews from The Tonight Show, back in the old Johnny Carson days — or rather, nights. The Carson interviewees this evening are Doris Day, Charlton Heston, Tony Curtis, Chevy Chase, and Steve Martin. (See also: Doris Day today.) (Photo: Billy Wilder.) As for Billy Wilder, TCM will be showing the following: Some Like It Hot (1959), The Fortune Cookie (1966), The Spirit of St. Louis (1958), and The Seven Year Itch (1955). Of course, all of those have been shown before and are widely available. Some Like It Hot vs. The Major and the Minor: Subversive and subversiver Some Like It Hot is perhaps Billy Wilder’s best-known film. This broad comedy featuring Marilyn Monroe, Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis...

Eleanor Parker 2013 movie series continues today (photo: Eleanor Parker in Detective Story) Palm Springs resident Eleanor Parker is Turner Classic Movies’ Star of the Month of June 2013. Thus, eight more Eleanor Parker movies will be shown this evening on TCM. Parker turns 91 on Wednesday, June 26. (See also: “Eleanor Parker Today.”) Eleanor Parker received her second Best Actress Academy Award nomination for William Wyler’s crime drama Detective Story (1951). The movie itself feels dated, partly because of several melodramatic plot developments, and partly because of Kirk Douglas’ excessive theatricality as the detective whose story is told. Parker, however, is excellent as Douglas’ wife, though her role is subordinate to his. Just about as good is Best Supporting Actress Oscar nominee Lee Grant, whose career would be derailed by the anti-Red hysteria of the ’50s. Grant would make her comeback in the ’70s, eventually winning a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her...

Guys and Dolls remake supposedly to star Channing Tatum, Joseph Gordon-Levitt (photo: Channing Tatum in Magic Mike) Guys and Dolls will be brought back to the big screen by way of 20th Century Fox, according to Deadline.com. Back in 1955, Joseph L. Mankiewicz directed for independent producer Samuel Goldwyn a highly successful movie version of the Broadway musical based on a Damon Runyon short story. Distributed by MGM, that particular Guys and Dolls starred Marlon Brando, Jean Simmons, Frank Sinatra, and Vivian Blaine. This time around, Fox supposedly wants Channing Tatum and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, whose singing prowess was amply displayed in, respectively, G.I. Joe: Retaliation and The Dark Knight Rises. And Tatum and Gordon-Levitt can dance, too, as proven at the 2013 Oscar show (and, in Tatum’s case, Magic Mike). But hey, Goldwyn didn’t care that neither Marlon Brando nor Jean Simmons could sing (or dance), either. And Brando...

I, Anna – based on the eponymous Elsa Lewin novel – is director Barnaby Southcombe’s debut feature film, as he collaborates with his very own mother Charlotte Rampling, who takes on the title role in what is a thrilling neo-noir that is both stylish and taut in its approach. Working alongside a close family relative certainly appears to have triumphed this time around, although it must have made the bath scene somewhat uncomfortable to shoot.

Rampling plays Anna, a lonely, single woman on the hunt for love, living in her London apartment with daughter Emmy (Hayley Atwell) and granddaughter. The divorcee decides to attend contrived singles’ nights with the blind faith that she may meet the man of her dreams. However, she finds herself back at the apartment of George Stone (Ralph Brown), who is brutally murdered later on that evening.

As Anna flees the crime scene – having woken from being...

Little Caesar (1931) Director: Mervyn LeRoy Cast: Edward G. Robinson, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Glenda Farrell, Sidney Blackmer, William Collier Jr., Ralph Ince, Stanley Fields, George E. Stone, Thomas E. Jackson Screenplay: Francis Edward Faragoh, Robert N. Lee; from a novel by W.R. Burnett Oscar Movies Edward G. Robinson, Little Caesar Little Caesar is a good example of a film that is historically important, but that has dated very poorly. Tony Gaudio's camera work is mediocre, Warner Bros. musical director Erno Rapee's spare soundtrack is garbled, and the acting is for the most part wooden. Even Edward G. Robinson, who became a star in this role, is good — but hardly great. What makes Little Caesar's pedestrianism all the more amazing is that just a few months later James Cagney would burst onto the screen with The Public Enemy, a film that holds up far better cinematically — both technically and aesthetically.

Brian De Palma directed one of the finest sequences of his career in The Untouchables. Ryan takes a look at its Union Station shoot-out…

Brian De Palma's talent often shines brightest in self-contained set-pieces. Think back to the gory fireworks of Carrie, the extraordinarily excessive concluding shoot-out in Scarface, the pool-room stand-off in Carlito’s Way, or even the spectacular exploding John Cassavetes in his seldom discussed 1978 thriller, The Fury. These sequences exemplify De Palma’s brilliance as a creator of suspense or shock – a master of composing, manipulating and assembling images for maximum effect.

For me, that mastery reached its peak in one specific (and obvious) moment in The Untouchables. The movie as a whole ranks alongside Scarface and Carlito’s Way as one of De Palma’s most satisfying mainstream thrillers. But in a film full of stand-out scenes, it’s the Union Station sequence that is inarguably the most memorable.

Silent All Quiet On The Western Front: TCM's Library of Congress Tribute [Photo: Kay Francis, Leslie Howard in British Agent.] Schedule (Et) and synopses from the TCM website: 8:00 Pm The Constant Nymph (1943). A composer finds inspiration in his wife's romantic cousin. Dir: Edmund Goulding. Cast: Charles Boyer, Joan Fontaine, Alexis Smith. Bw-112 mins. 10:00 Pm Baby Face (1933). A beautiful schemer sleeps her way to the top of a banking empire. Dir: Alfred E. Green. Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, George Brent, Donald Cook. Bw-76 mins. 11:30 Pm Two Heads On A Pillow (1934). Once-married attorneys face off during a heated divorce case. Dir: William Nigh. Cast: Neil Hamilton, Miriam Jordan, Henry Armetta. Bw-68 mins. 12:45 Am All Quiet On The Western Front (1930). Young German soldiers try to adjust to the horrors of World War I. Dir: Lewis Milestone. Cast: Lew Ayres, Louis Wolheim, John Wray. Bw-134 mins. 3:15 Am : Will Rogers Winging Around Europe (1927). Bw-0 mins. 3:30 Am...

Has cinema got its head in the fluffy clouds when it comes to depicting the afterlife? It's judgment day and you're playing God

Heaven opened in 1979 and is located beneath Charing Cross railway station in London. It seems a bit odd when one of the great perennial questions of life is whether there is an afterlife, that more people haven't heard about this place and gone down to sample its delights.

Culture has understandably been interested in life after death, from Milton's Paradise Lost to Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones, depictions of the beyond crop up all over the place. Normally the image of heaven runs parallel with that age-old archetype – lots of fluffy clouds and people wearing white robes, as well as the odd harp playing soothing music in the background. Now while this may seem wonderful to a lot of us, it seems cinema's depiction of heaven...