News

Tired of city life, Amy hopes for calm on a Wyoming getaway with fiancé Max. But sparks fly instead with a local, lighting her soul on fire. Peak Season’s gorgeous landscapes merely frame a meditation on life’s commitments—security or joy?

Consultant Amy and businessman Max escape New York for Jackson Hole’s towering peaks. Yet wedding planning strains as Max’s workaholism leaves little room for Amy. Alone one day, she meets outdoorsman Loren, a kindred spirit to her own adventurous side long stifled.

As their bond blossoms hiking and rodeoing, Amy glimpses a life of passion over convention. Loren lives freely between jobs, at home in nature despite car-sleeping. But nagging doubts remain: can she abandon plans and follow her heart’s wanderlust?

Flitting between platonic and romantic, their bond subtly deepens over days. Director duo Kanter and Loevner relax rigid romance tropes, sharpening Peak Season’s thought-provoking soul.

What is the perfect crime... and could you get away with it? That question lies at the core of Perfect Crime Story, a new comics anthology from Iron Circus Comics.

Edited by Kel McDonald, comprising 300+ pages, and spotlighting 25 lighthearted crime stories, Perfect Crime Story is now crowdfunding on BackerKit! Daily Dead previously revealed the creative teams for three of the anthology's stories, and to celebrate the launch of the new collection on BackerKit, we're now thrilled to exclusively unveil preview pages from those three stories:

The Crime Beat by Van Jensen & Neal Obermeyer – An underpaid journalist takes revenge on their boss. Psikotika Will Strike At Midnight by Illuminated – A detective tries their best to stop a grand theft they were warned was coming. Darling Doesn't Know by John Konrad – Two celebrities think murder is an easier solution to their problems than divorce.

You can check out the exclusive previews below,...

Chicago – Patrick McDonald of HollywoodChicago.com appears on “The Morning Mess” with Scott Thompson on Wbgr-fm on August 1st, reviewing “Peak Season,” set in Jackson, Wyoming, and involving a couple trying to negotiation “forbidden” feelings. In theaters beginning on August 2nd.

Rating: 3.5/5.0

Loren (Derrick Joseph DeBlasis), makes his living in Jackson mostly as a fly fishing instructor and guide, and lives in his car. When an engaged couple … Ben Coleman as Max and Claudia Restrepo as Amy … comes to town from New York for a vacation, Max’s business deals means that Amy takes fishing lessons alone, and develops a connection to the flighty and stoic Loren. When Max goes out of town for his business, Amy and Loren run into each other and spend time with each other in the beautiful and re-orienting town.

”Peak Season” opens in theaters on August 2nd. See local listings. Featuring Derrick Joseph DeBlasis,...

"I moved out here when I was 20, and sort of fell in love with it... I do what I want when I want, how I want." Ent. Squad has revealed an official trailer for an indie romantic comedy film titled Peak Season, which first premiered at the 2023 SXSW Film Festival last year. In a picturesque Wyoming town, burnt-out corporate consultant Amy and the free-spirited fishing guide Loren form an unexpected bond... Amy, a New Yorker struggling with her high-pressure career and her engagement to the work-obsessed Max, finds solace in Loren's simple, liberated lifestyle. As they spend time fishing, hiking, and exploring Jackson, Amy begins to question her life choices and yearn for the freedom Loren embodies. Their growing connection leads to romantic tension and deep conversations about life's true meaning. Starring Claudia Restrepo, Derrick Joseph DeBlasis, Ben Coleman, Fred Melamed, Stephanie Courtney, & Greg Coleman. Well this looks quite good!

Here’s a look at this week’s biggest premieres, parties and openings in Los Angeles and New York, including events for The Bikeriders, Kinds of Kindness and Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F.

The Bikeriders premiere

Austin Butler, Jodie Comer, Mike Faist and Norman Reedus joined writer-director Jeff Nichols at the L.A. premiere of their Focus Features film on Monday. Jason Momoa also showed his support at the premiere, rolling up on his own motorcycle with daughter Lola.

Jodie Comer, Austin Butler, Jeff Nichols and Norman Reedus Lola Iolani Momoa and Jason Momoa

I Am: Celine Dion special screening

Celine Dion made a rare red carpet appearance at the NYC premiere of her new Prime Video documentary on Monday, joining director Irene Taylor.

Director Irene Taylor and Celine Dion

Carol Burnett’s Hand and Footprint Ceremony

Carol Burnett had her hands and feet immortalized in cement in front...

Throughout the past three years, the Covid-19 pandemic has greatly affected the lives of billions. It became the catalyst for major changes in various industries, and the film industry was no exception. Movie productions had to be halted or postponed, release dates were shuffled around, movie theaters had to close or take immense precautions, and studios had to adapt by embracing the power of online streaming services.

Updated July 15, 2023: This article has been updated to add some more flavors of Covid Cinema to look back on those unprecedented experiences of life.

All of this chaos also birthed a new genre of film: Covid Cinema. It’s a whole subsection of films that put the pandemic as the basis of its story or, at the very least, acknowledge its existence. These films are the result of filmmakers needing to express themselves during these times using whatever resources they have at their disposal,...

The film Peak Season, which premiered at the South By Southwest festival, follows the story of lonely Amy (Claudia Restrepo) and her fiancé Max (Ben Coleman) as they take a summer trip to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where they meet the charming wilderness guide Loren (Derrick DeBlasis).

In an exclusive interview with uInterview founder Erik Meers, Restrepo, Coleman and DeBlasis revealed their favorite scenes to shoot.

“My was the rodeo scene, I guess it’s not really character development but it was very fun and it felt like a pinnacle of her and Loren’s relationship,” Restrepo said. “They’re really getting to experience if they were just out on a date and having fun and it’s like the highest form of this like the romanticism of Wyoming or the American West and we just got to hang out. There’s a lot of that because it was filmed sort of like a fairy tale,...

"As soon as I get this stimmy check, I'm bouncing." Saban Films + Well Go USA have revealed an official trailer for an indie romantic comedy titled The End of Us, another made-during-the-pandemic film about a couple who is forced to live together during the lockdown even though they're on the verge of breaking up. This first premiered at the 2021 SXSW Film Festival earlier this year, and it also played at the Philadelphia Film Festival. After a savage breakup, two exes must continue living together when California issues its stay-at-home order for Covid-19. Now they'll try to move on without moving out. Starring Ben Coleman, Ali Vingiano, Derrick DeBlasis, Gadiel Del Orbe, and Kate Peterman. As fun as this looks, I'm getting the feeling no one really wants to watch films about the time during the pandemic where we were all stuck at home with nothing to do. Even though they...

As we recently passed the one-year anniversary of the first coronavirus-dictated lockdown, the internet’s insatiable hunger for short-term nostalgia kicked into overdrive. Memories from March 2020 trended again as fodder for renewed memes and Twitter threads, feeling at once from just yesterday and eons ago. An early entry in the inevitable subgenre of lockdown chamber cinema, Henry Loevner and Steven Kanter’s debut feature “The End of Us” taps into that same throwback impulse, as it plausibly dramatizes the up-and-down tensions between a newly separated couple forced into prolonged cohabitation by the California stay-at-home order.

The film’s evocation of early pandemic panic, in that period where we bumbled cluelessly into practices and precautions that soon became standard, is at once bleak and rosily affectionate — largely relatable even to viewers who don’t identify with the film’s cute but exasperating pair of exes. It remains to be seen how...

Over this past year a lot of relationships have come under pressure as a result of people being confined together under lockdown conditions. This has led to some ugly situations, but even when those involved are lovely people and want the nest for each other, it can be tough. Steven Kanter and Henry Loevner's quirky indie comedy, which screened at South by Southwest, is among the first films to address this subject, and whilst some viewers will feel that it's too soon, others will doubtless jump at the chance to see experiences like their own reflected onscreen.

Nick (Ben Coleman) and Leah (Ali Vingiano) have been living together for four years. Leah wants to feel that she's going somewhere in life, however, and Nick is patently not. Like the hero of Lim Jung-eun's Our Midnight, also out this year, he's engaged in the long, slow game of trying to make.

Steven Kanter and Henry Loevner’s “The End of Us” might just be the single most obvious romantic-comedy that some opportunistic Hollywood up-and-comers could — and inevitably did — make about life during Covid-19. Here’s the premise: A couple in their late twenties suffers a rough, long overdue breakup mere hours before Tom Hanks gets sick and California issues a stay-at-home-order, forcing the exes to keep living together with little other human contact for an indefinite period of time. Grievances will be aired, drunken “we probably shouldn’t do that again” sex will be had, “Tiger King” will be watched. Ah, the good old days.

Eschewing the claustrophobic mania of “Locked Down,” the spiraling paranoia of “Songbird,” and the elemental folk horror of Ben Wheatley’s forthcoming “Into the Earth,” “The End of Us” is , and the first of this hopefully short-lived sub-genre to rely upon a certain degree of nostalgia...

Henry Loevner, Steven Kanter directed film about couple going through break-up during pandemic.

Jason Moring’s Ddi has come on board to launch worldwide sales at the EFM on BuzzFeed Studios’ pandemic comedy and upcoming SXSW selection The End Of Us.

Henry Loevner and Steven Kanter directed the film about a couple going through a break-up during a global pandemic.

It is the night of March 10, 2020 – the eve of the California lockdown – as out-of-work actor Nick and his type-a girlfriend Leah are in the throes of splitting up.

When the safer-at-home order ushers in a long period of quarantine, Leah...

Exclusive: BuzzFeed Studios has signed on to executive produce the Schlemiel Pictures pandemic comedy The End of Us which is set to make its world premiere in competition next month at the SXSW Film Festival. Directed by Henry Loevner and Steven Kanter, the film stars Ben Coleman and Ali Vingiano as a couple going through a break up during a — you guessed it — a global pandemic. To get a taste of the romantic dysfunction, BuzzFeed Studios and Schlemiel Pictures released an exclusive clip from the film which you can watch above.

“BuzzFeed is known for content featuring smart, socially relevant themes, and The End of Us speaks to the experiences we endured over the past year through a sharply funny and wryly observant lens,” said Richard Alan Reid, Head of BuzzFeed Studios. “We are excited about our new partnership with the filmmakers, and look forward to our debut at SXSW...