News

Exclusive: Two-time Emmy nominee and SAG Award winner Matt Walsh has boarded the Apple Original limited series Manhunt about the Lincoln assassination and aftermath.

Walsh will play Dr. Samuel Mudd, who treated John Wilkes Booth’s broken leg the night President Abraham Lincoln was shot. Mudd did not report Booth to the authorities until days later and later was imprisoned for conspiring with the assassin.

2022 Apple TV+ Pilots & Series Orders

Manhunt is created by Emmy-nominated writer-producer Monica Beletsky, who also is the showrunner and an EP. The historical-fiction conspiracy thriller is based on the best-selling book by James Swanson. Manhunt features Black historical figures whose lives intertwined with the escape, manhunt and subsequent high-crimes investigation, including Mary Simms (Lovie Simone), a former slave of Mudd’s. Anthony Boyle plays Booth.

Walsh joins recently announced Tobias Menzies who stars as Edwin Stanton, Lincoln’s War Secretary and friend,...

Exclusive: Principal photography has completed on under-the-radar comedy feature Not An Artist, whose ensemble cast we can reveal as Ciara Bravo (Cherry), Rosalind Chao (Mulan), Cleopatra Coleman (The Last Man On Earth), Clark Moore (Crazy Ex Girlfriend), GaTa (Dave), Haley Joel Osment (The Sixth Sense), Alexi Pappas (Olympic Dreams), Horatio Sanz (Black Monday), Robert Schwartzman (The Princess Diaries), Matt Walsh (Veep), and rapper/actor/filmmaker Bobby “RZA” Diggs (Californication).

The movie follows a young woman (Pappas) who is accepted into a residency program created by the wealthy enigmatic benefactor known only as “The Abbott” (RZA) for high-potential artists suffering from creative constipation. The artists sign a legally binding agreement to complete a creative project of choice during their one-month stay – or quit the arts forever.

Meanwhile, the woman’s father, (Walsh) a physician, is drifting through America’s National Parks, practicing telemedicine from an Rv. Following a series of mistakes,...

Lobbyists against onscreen smoking could have a friend in comedic actor Andrew Daly (Comedy Central’s Review), or at least his persnickety neighbor character who is trying to clean up the streets in Matt Walsh’s second directorial comedy A Better You. The film follows Dr. Ron (Brian Huskey), a Hollywood quack hypnotherapist. The only thing worse than Dr. Ron’s methods are his disrespectful patients who loiter around the neighborhood as seen in this clip. The film, which was co-written by Huskey and Walsh, makes its world premiere today at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival at 4:40pm at the Metro 4, with screenings tomorrow at 8:10am and Monday, Feb. 2, at 10:20pm. The film is produced by Kirk Roos (The Brass Teapot, High Road, Painkillers) and his Badlands Features label. Joe Lo Truglio, Erinn Hayes, Rob Huebel, Morgan Walsh, Natasha Leggero, Reid Scott and Mo Gaffney also star.

The Santa Barbara International Film Festival has unveiled its 2015 line-up which includes films representing 54 countries, 23 world premieres and 53 U.S. premieres. The U.S. premiere of Niki Caro’s McFarland USA will close out the 30th fest. Based on the 1987 true story and starring Kevin Costner and Maria Bello, the film follows novice runners from McFarland, an economically challenged town in California’s farm-rich Central Valley, as they give their all to build a cross-country team under the direction of Coach Jim White (Costner), a newcomer to their predominantly Latino high school. The unlikely band of runners overcomes the odds to forge not only a championship cross-country team but an enduring legacy as well.

The festival runs from January 27-February 7.

Below is the list of World and U.S. Premiere films followed by the list of titles by sidebar categories.

World Premieres

A Better You, USA

Directed by Matt Walsh

Cast: Brian Huskey,...

A self-acknowledged "showcase for Academy Award frontrunners," the Santa Barbara International Film Festival is often overlooked for the actual films that earn it festival status. An amalgamation of international discoveries and ’merica’s circuit highlights, the Sbiff curates a week of best-of-the-best to pair with their star-praising. The 2015 edition offers another expansive selection, bookended by two films that aren’t on any radars just yet. Sbiff will open with "Desert Dancer," producer Richard Raymond’s directorial debut. Starring Reece Ritchie and Frieda Pinto, the drama follows a group of friends who wave off the harsh political climate of Iran’s 2009 presidential election in favor of forming a dance team, picking up moves from Michael Jackson, Gene Kelly and Rudolf Nureyev thanks to the magic of YouTube. The festival will close with "McFarland, USA," starring Kevin Costner and Maria Bello. Telling the 1987 true story of a Latino high school’s underdog cross-country team,...

Ken Marino (Childrens Hospital) is starring in Yahoo's latest original: mock-reality series Burning Love, which is slated to premiere on the Yahoo! Comedy Channel June 4th. One part The Bachelor, one part Horrible People, Burning Love follows hunky fireman Mark Orlando (Marino) in his search for the perfect partner in a faux elimination-style reality show. Teeming with irony, Burning Love features all the accoutrements you'd expect from a network reality series: from champagne toasts, candles, heartbreak, bubble baths, chocolate, choreography, hair extensions, roller skating, betrayal, and spray-tans. "Mark Orlando is used to feeling the heat of fire," says the narrator in the series trailer. "But now he's looking for someone to ignite the flames of love." The trailer features Ben Stiller, the series' executive producer along with fellow Red Hour producers Stuart Cornfeld and Mike Rosenstein, as well as Abominable Pictures’ Jonathan Stern, Marino, and Erica Oyama. The series will...

Comediennes Mo Gaffney, Nancy Lee Grahn and Morgan Walsh are encouraging a cat fight. The actresses are set to launch Back Talk, a new web series for UCBcomedy.com, the Upright Citizens Brigade online comedy channel. The show will poke fun at what happens behind the scenes at women's talk shows such as The View and The Talk. Photos: 'The Talk's' Memorable Guest Hosts “It’s everything you’ve always wanted to see behind the scenes at a women’s talk show … except the topless parts,” Gaffney said of the series, which is set to begin filming in March with a

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