News

Back in 2000, I made the eight-hour journey to Red Bank, New Jersey to attend Kevin Smith‘s Vulgarthon film festival – and one of the movies I got to see at that festival was writer/director Brian Lynch’s sketch comedy Big Helium Dog, which Smith executive produced alongside his longtime producing partner Scott Mosier. I came out of that screening feeling that Big Helium Dog was one of the funniest movies I had ever seen, and I was looking forward to being able to add a copy of the film to my DVD collection… but the DVD release we were told was forthcoming never happened. Now, decades later, the movie is finally set to make its way out into the world on September 16th, when Big Choice Video brings it not just to DVD, but also to Blu-ray! Copies are available for pre-order at This Link.

Here’s the synopsis:...

When a film becomes a pop sensation like Todd Phillips’s The Hangover, it’s not uncommon for imitators hoping to latch onto its success to flood the marketplace. Frank Vain’s Mancation is one such wannabe that fails to deliver any laughs whatsoever thanks to a cast with little comedic timing and direction and editing with even less. Every joke hangs flaccid off a comedy whose very skeleton relies on obnoxiousness and second-hand punchlines that many films have done before and have executed better. It’s not clear what Vain saw in Matt Kawczynski, Jake Matthews, or Steven Medvidick, but it’s obvious he tossed in Joey Fatone and Danica McKellar for their recognizable faces that do little else to help the film.

Read more...

A while back I posted one of my favourite entries in the horror anthology competition, The ABCs of Death. That film, a Montreal production from the directing team of François Simard, Anouk Whissell and Yoann-Karl Whissell titled T Is For Turbo, is now in first place.

As much as I would love to see a local filmmaker win the competition, I still have to plug a few more of my favourite shorts. Next on the list is T is for Table, directed, written, edited and shot by Shayne Free. The premise is simple but the execution is excellent. The short stars Matt Kawczynski, Dan Homeijer and Whitney Wellner. Check it out below and don’t forget to vote if you are a fan.

The anthology will have “each director assigned a letter from the alphabet that represents a word to act as a springboard for a short. It will be...

Charlie Sheen's 'goddess' girlfriend Bree Olson has landed her first non-porn film role in a new movie opposite former N' Sync star Joey Fatone and The Wonder Years actress Danica McKellar.

Olson will play the wife of leading man Matt Kawczynski in new film Mancation. Fatone will play his best friend.

The film, which also features Goodfellas tough guy Mike Starr as the father of Olson's character, Cyndi, starts shooting next month.

The movie will be filmmaker Frank Vain's directorial debut. Vain isn't new to working with headline-grabbing stars - he recently produced Calendar Girl with disgraced comedian Gilbert Gottfried, who was heavily criticised for making light of the Japanese earthquake/tsunami disaster in a Twitter.com joke at the weekend.