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As an actor, John Slattery has never appeared in a movie directed by the Coen brothers, but judging from his new film, he clearly aims to emulate their work. Maggie Moore(s), Slattery's second directorial feature, works so hard to be the next Fargo that the strain shows early, and oftentimes, to the movie's detriment. Screenwriter Paul Bernbaum doesn't have the Coens's wit or their way with unique characters, and Slattery doesn't quite have a handle on the movie's tone. Still, Maggie Moore(s) is a mostly pleasant, laid-back viewing experience, despite a plot that involves a pair of gruesome murders.

Slattery doesn't show up onscreen in Maggie Moore(s), instead giving the lead role to his Mad Men co-star Jon Hamm. Hamm plays Jordan Sanders, the chief of police in an Arizona town who's faced with two murder victims who inexplicably have the same name. Hamm gave a fantastic...

There are actors who direct films, and there are those who establish themselves as real-deal filmmakers. In the first category we find John Slattery, a fine actor who, after a respectable career as “that guy,” reached a new level at age 45 thanks to Mad Men. The AMC series was still on the air when Slattery directed his first film, God’s Pocket, in 2014, and he returns now, nearly 10 years on, with the dark comedy Maggie Moore(s). Following his on-screen reunion with Mad Men co-star Jon Hamm in last year’s Confess, Fletch, Slattery here casts the actor in the lead role as Jordan Sanders, a lonely police chief investigating the connection between the murders of two women, each named Maggie Moore.

The first Maggie to die (played by Emily Blunt) is married to Jay (Micah Stock), the owner of a restaurant franchise who plans to become the Howard Schultz of submarine sandwiches.

To many, Dante Basco is known as Rufio in Steven Spielberg’s “Hook.” Reality TV fans will remember him on “Hell’s Kitchen,” but over the years he has turned his hand to producing, directing and writing.

In “The Fabulous Filipino Brothers,” out now on-demand, he directs and stars, along with his brothers Derek Basco, Dionysio Basco, and Darion Basco, in the film structured as a series of vignettes following four brothers as their Filipino American family prepares for the ultimate Filipino event: a wedding.

As the narrative intercuts between the wedding celebration in Pittsburg, Calif., and the vignettes that focus individually on the four siblings during the buildup to the big event, Basco worked with fellow Filipino American cinematographer Andrea Walter to deliver his vision.

Says Walter, “Dante and I decided we wanted to give a different look for each brother. I also wanted a contrast between life here and life in the Philippines.

The title for “The Fabulous Filipino Brothers” makes it sound like a movie about a now-obscure troupe of singing-dancing siblings who once opened for Frank Sinatra in Las Vegas, and were audience favorites back in the day on “The Ed Sullivan Show.” As it turns out, however, this engagingly freeform comedy has an entirely different sort of showbiz pedigree, being the joint effort of four real-life Filipino-American brothers — Dante, Derek, Dionysio and Darion Basco — with scads of film and TV acting, writing and producing credits on their respective IMDb pages. And while one can only wonder just how autobiographical this enterprise may be for any of them, there can be no doubt that their family ties are a major reason why the interactions of the characters they portray resound with a solid ring of truth that greatly enhances all the funny business.

Working from a loosely knit episodic script he wrote with brother Darion,...

The awards season ended with a bang as Hollywood celebrated Lulu Wang’s The Farewell winning Best Feature and Zhao Shuzhen nabbing Best Supporting Actress at the Independent Spirit Awards while Bong Joon-ho’s peachy dark comedy masterpiece about social class made history at the Academy Awards, becoming the first non-English speaking film to win Best Picture. The South Korean film also made strides, winning Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best International Feature Film. The huge wins for The Farewell and Parasite were benchmarks for Asians and Asian Americans, but just a week prior, Birds of Prey was released in theaters. On the surface, the Warner Bros. pic may seem like an action-packed, candy-coated mind trip of comic book movie, but the movie is a nuanced touchstone of Asian American representation — and even though it focuses on Harley Quinn’s narrative, the story would be nothing without Cassandra Cain,...

Margot Robbie‘s Birds of Prey flies into theaters this Friday and breakout star Ella Jay Basco is already taking Hollywood by storm.

The 13-year-old actress stars as Cassandra Cain in the film, a talented pickpocket who swindles a valuable item away from the narcissistic crime boss Black Mask (Ewan McGregor) only to find herself as a team member of the all-female superhero group Birds of Prey, headed by Robbie’s Harley Quinn.

While Basco is just a teenager, she’s able to hold her own among older, more established costars such as Rosie Perez, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Jurnee Smollett-Bell,...

Liza Lapira (Unbelievable) has joined the cast of Dante Basco feature directorial debut The Fabulous Filipino Brothers.

Written by Basco and his brothers Darion Basco and Dionysio Basco, the feature is set in the brothers’ hometown of Pittsburg, Calif., a working-class suburb of Oakland. Starring Basco and his brothers (including Derek Basco), the dark romantic comedy weaves together four vignettes, narrated by their sister, Arianna Basco.

The story follows the brothers and their shenanigans. One of them ventures off to a cockfight for reciprocity while one flies to old Manila where an old flame is rekindled. Another brother delves into the hidden sensuality of Filipino cuisine, while the last brother, struggles to heal deep wounds and finds love in an unexpected package. All this, leading to a shotgun wedding in the backyard of the family house.

In addition to appearing in Lisa Cholodenko’s Netflix limited series Unbelievable with Toni Collette,...

Exclusive: Best known for his role as Rufio in Steven Spielberg’s classic Peter Pan feature Hook and his as Prince Zuko in Avatar: The Last Airbender, Dante Basco is stepping behind the camera and will make his directorial debut in The Fabulous Filipino Brothers.

Written by Basco and his brothers Darion Basco and Dionysio Basco, the feature is set in the brothers’ hometown of Pittsburg, Calif., a working class suburb of Oakland. Starring Basco and his brothers (including Derek Basco), the dark romantic comedy weaves together four vignettes, narrated by their sister, Arianna Basco. The story follows the brothers and their shenanigans. One of them ventures off to a cockfight for reciprocity while one flies to old Manila where an old flame is rekindled. Another brother delves into the hidden sensuality of Filipino cuisine, while the last brother, struggles to heal deep wounds and finds love in an unexpected package.

The stage is set for a frightful night in this sneak peek from tonight’s Hawaii Five-0 (CBS, 9/8c).

In the Halloween-themed episode “Nothing More For The Eyes To Search For,” Jerry (played by Jorge Garcia) and a quartet of friends search his childhood summer camp for evidence to a murder he witnessed as a boy.

In the sneak peek above, we see Jerry’s old friends Crystal (played by 24‘s Mary Lynn Rajskub) and Ano (Derek Basco), joined by Eric (Andrew Lawrence) and Dr. Noelani Cunha (Kimee Balmilero), get settled in at an old bunk. Or should we say they get unsettled in,...

Chicago – Oscar madness has left the Round Up a little weary of high profile, award-bait movies. We need a break from the Oscars and what better way to do that than with a few titles that might have slipped through the cracks while everyone was singing “Jai Ho”.

Catch up with some of your favorite characters from the cult hit “Dead Like Me,” watch the latest in Warner Brothers’ direct-to-dvd horror series known as “Raw Feed,” and check out a documentary that I think everyone thought would make bigger waves than it did, Bill Maher’s “Religulous”.

All three of these titles were released on February 17th, 2009.

“Alien Raiders”

Photo credit: Warner Bros. The “Raw Feed” series of Warner Bros. horror releases has been relatively disappointing. There hasn’t been a single real gem, although you’ll find some hardcore fans of “Rest Stop” and “Otis”. To this critic, they’re almost all near-misses,...

With the sci-fi genre really digging deep these days for cheap thrills and gore fest styles instead of interesting stories with decent quality, it's hard to find something worthwhile to put your money into. Considering most sci-fi flicks are so mediocre they end up on the sci-fi channel, you'd be hard pressed to say that the genre itself isn't in the crapper. The average sci-fi flick gives us aliens, mystical creatures or a giant ass snake coming to tear the world apart and only 5 soldiers, 1 reporter and an unlucky camera man standing in their way. I just gave you a premise to about 80% of the crappy sci-fi films of today. Example, Alien Abduction and Manticore. Boosh...

In the light of that, we have a new look at aliens and heroes in a somewhat typical setting in Alien Raiders. The question you must ask is "can it be pulled off?" I'm...

There’s something about grocery stores. They have a sort of charm that’s currently going three for three, as far as recent horror/sci-fi entries with that setting go. Both The Mist and last year’s Splinter were excellent examples of the “trapped in a market” theme, and now comes Warner’s Raw Feed DVD release Alien Raiders (out February 17)—which, while not overly original, is nonetheless pretty awesome.

The film opens with some shaky handheld insight into our protagonists, getting ready for their next mission. Intercut between video clips and the main titles are shots of hands preparing some seriously heavy firepower. This is a risky move; it basically promises, “This flick is going to have bad-ass written all over it.” And it works. The characters we’re following are a team of operatives/mercenaries/soldiers of some sort with rad names like Ritter (Carlos Bernard), Sterling (Courtney Ford...