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"Musical legends help each other to make music!" Yes they do. Drafthouse Films has revealed an official trailer for Ebony & Ivory, a wacky fun spoof comedy from British filmmaker Jim Hosking. This initially premiered at Fantastic Fest 2024 last year, and it played at the 2024 Night Visions Film Festival in Finland, and the 2025 Glasgow Film Festival earlier this year. It's a new surreal comedy from The Greasy Strangler director Jim Hosking. Two musical legends gather at a Scottish Cottage on The Mull Of Kintyre for a tense summit to discuss a potential collaboration that will ultimately result in a Global Number One smash hit single. Starring Sky Elobar and Gil Gex. It seems like he's riffing on Milli Vanilli or any of these wonky music duos involving famous artists. Reviews are all over, but this is a fun one: "Don't go into this expecting anything more than a film made by...

Jim Hosking’s “Ebony and Ivory” is a weird twist on the musical biopic. It depicts a fabricated meeting between Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder in a Scottish cottage.

Instead of focusing on artistic creativity, the film delves into surreal absurdity. Two musical titans engage in frivolous shenanigans while ostensibly preparing to write a song. This concept serves as a platform for commentary, mocking the superficialities of celebrity culture.

“Ebony and Ivory,” which premiered at Fantastic Fest, has sparked interest for its acceptance of the ludicrous while dissecting the cultural moment it reflects. The 1982 original song has garnered both praise and scorn. Hosking’s film reduces creativity to meaningless exchanges—complete with a “nugget slide”—raising questions about the nature of collaboration. Is it a veneer of harmony, as implied by the song’s lyrics?

This absurdist approach reflects modern society’s alienation from authentic artistic expression. In a culture characterized by superficial participation,...

Before “Ebony and Ivory” premiered at Fantastic Fest, director Jim Hosking took the stage to offer a disclaimer about the weirdness his audience was about to see. “I feel like any time this movie screens anywhere, I have to be there to contextualize it,” he said with a laugh. “Because it’s hard enough to understand without the contextualization.”

Even at a festival that prides itself on programming unclassifiable cinema for an abnormally open-minded audience, Hosking’s comments were probably merited. His latest film is a feature-length practical joke that centers around a false origin story for a 42-year-old song whose relevance only fades with each passing year. In 1982, Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder duetted on “Ebony and Ivory” a pop ditty that espoused platitudes about racial harmony by calling on humans to behave more like piano keys. To some, the chorus — “Ebony and ivory live together in perfect harmony...

Exclusive: Drafthouse Films has acquired worldwide rights to Ebony and Ivory, the latest surreal comedy from writer-director Jim Hosking, ahead of its world premiere at Fantastic Fest.

The move puts Drafthouse back in business with the filmmaker following their collaboration on the darkly comedic cult favorite The Greasy Strangler, which premiered at Sundance. Pic will be released in theaters in 2025.

Continuing in the uncanny, deadpan tradition of Hosking’s past films like The Greasy Strangler and An Evening with Beverly Luff Linn, starring Aubrey Plaza and Jemaine Clement, Ebony and Ivory exists in a world where everything is more-than-slightly off, vision is blurred, time starts to melt, and world peace is possible. The Greasy Strangler alums Sky Elobar and Gil Gex star as two musical legends who convene at a remote Scottish cottage to discuss a potential collaboration that may unite an entire generation.

Hosking also produced alongside Denzil Monk,...

Stars: Michael St. Michaels, Sky Elobar, Elizabeth De Razzo, Gil Gex, Abdoulaye NGom, Holland MacFallister, Sam Dissanayake, Joe David Walters, Sal Koussa, Jesse Keen, Carl Solomon, Dana Haas | Written by Toby Harvard, Jim Hosking | Directed by Jim Hosking

While it is fair to say that some movies are just bad, there are others that are created to Be bad. While for some people, they stay that way, for others they become a self-aware gem of a film that has its own charm… The Greasy Strangler is definitely the latter.

The Greasy Strangler is a tale that follows the lives of Big Ronnie (Michael St. Michales) and his father Big Brayden (Sky Elobar). While taking a group of people on their Disco Walking tour, they encounter Janet (Elizabeth De Razzo) who Ronnie soon falls for. With attention movie away from his father to this new woman in their lives, it soon...

October is upon us. The leaves are changing. Sweaters are becoming more abundant. Awards contenders are popping up in theaters nationwide. But those are far from the only films opening throughout the coming weeks. Below, you’ll find every planned theatrical release for the month of October, separated out into films with wide runs and limited ones. (Synopses are provided by festivals and distributors.)

Each week, we’ll give you an update with more specific information on where these films are playing. In the meantime, be sure to check our calendar page, where we’ll update releases for the rest of the year. Stay warm and happy watching!

Week of October 7 Wide

The Birth of a Nation

Director: Nate Parker

Cast: Aja Naomi King, Armie Hammer, Gabrielle Union, Jackie Earle Haley, Mark Boone Junior, Nate Parker

Synopsis: Set against the antebellum South and based on a true story, “The Birth...

In typical fashion, 2016’s Sundance Film Festival rolled out a diverse range of cinematic experiences – the bankable crowd-pleasers, the breakout hits and the divisive pictures that, similar to Swiss Army Man, split attendees right down the middle.

One film to emerge from the latter bracket was Jim Hosking’s The Greasy Strangler, a vivid and downright surreal feature capable of intriguing and disgusting within the space of two minutes flat. Don’t believe us? A decidedly Nsfw trailer has found its way online today, which does at least offer up an inkling of the film’s core premise. You know, once you scrape aside the lard and mucous-like goop, not to mention braving the borderline gratuitous sex and nudity.

If nothing else, The Greasy Strangler is poised to go down as perhaps the most remarkable film of 2016 thus far purely because of its balls-to-the-wall style. It features Michael St. Michaels as Big Ronnie,...

"Kiss my cheeks, cherry lips." FilmRise has released a second trailer for the wacky horror film The Greasy Strangler, which premiered at Sundance this year to quite a bit of acclaim. The first teaser trailer for this was pretty messed up, focusing more on the gore and gross side of this film. This new trailer is packed full of sex and nudity, the kind you don't want to see, but that's what this film is all about. The surreal horror stars Michael St. Michaels as Big Ronnie, along with Sky Elobar as Big Brayden, plus Elizabeth De Razzo and Gil Gex. It's about an aging disco enthusiast who turns into a creepy, grease-covered strangler at night. The other story twist revealed in this trailer is the brutal father-son rivalry for the same woman. Get greasy. Here's the new highly-nsfw official trailer for Jim Hosking's The Greasy Strangler, from YouTube: The Los Angeles-set "surreal,...

It's time to get greasy. The first teaser trailer has been revealed for a film that premiered in the Midnight section at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, called The Greasy Strangler. It's a totally insane, surreal horror comedy produced by Drafthouse Films and Elijah Wood's SpectreVision and received mixed reviews, as it's just too much disgusting madness for some to handle. You'll see exactly what I mean with this trailer. The films stars Michael St. Michaels as Big Ronnie, along with Sky Elobar, Elizabeth De Razzo and Gil Gex. It's about an aging disco enthusiast who turns into a creepy, greasy strangler at night, and things get much, much weirder. Not everyone will be into this, but some of you... maybe. Dive right in. Here's the first highly-nsfw teaser trailer for Jim Hosking's The Greasy Strangler, from YouTube: The Los Angeles-set "surreal, midnight-horror comedy" follows Ronnie, a man who runs a Disco Walking tour along with his browbeaten son, Brayden. ...

Simply put, the SXSW Film, Music and Interactive Festival is one of the biggest, most prestigious events in the media calendar. Taking place annually in Austin, Texas, it is beloved by film fans and filmmakers from all over the world, and has reached such heights by building a reputation for showcasing excellent content. This results in a high level of competition, with the Narrative Feature category alone having received 1442 submissions this year, and the documentary feature category having received 1,013.

The 2016 event looks to be particularly exciting, with many world premieres and feature debuts already announced. The Narrative Feature category will include Julia Hart’s Miss Stevens, Debra Eisenstadt’s Before The Sun Explodes, Joey Klein’s The Other Half, and Musa Syeed’s A Stray, among others, while the Headliner category will feature Richard Linklater’s Everybody Wants Some.

The Narrative Spotlight category includes 9 Rides by Matthew A. Cherry; The Waiting...

Kate Plays ChristineThe lineup for the 2016 Sundance Film Festival, taking place between January 21 -31, has been announced.U.S. Dramatic COMPETITIONAs You Are (Miles Joris-Peyrafitte, USA): As You Are is the telling and retelling of a relationship between three teenagers as it traces the course of their friendship through a construction of disparate memories prompted by a police investigation. Cast: Owen Campbell, Charlie Heaton, Amandla Stenberg, John Scurti, Scott Cohen, Mary Stuart Masterson. World Premiere The Birth of a Nation (Nate Parker, USA): Set against the antebellum South, this story follows Nat Turner, a literate slave and preacher whose financially strained owner, Samuel Turner, accepts an offer to use Nat’s preaching to subdue unruly slaves. After witnessing countless atrocities against fellow slaves, Nat devises a plan to lead his people to freedom. Cast: Nate Parker, Armie Hammer, Aja Naomi King, Jackie Earle Haley, Gabrielle Union, Mark Boone Jr. World PremiereChristine (Antonio Campos,...

The Sundance Film institute has released the line-up of film for the 2016 Sundance Film Festival. Going to Sundance is one of my favorite events of the year. I love going because you never know what kind of movies you're going to see. Sometimes they are great films that amaze and entertain, other times they completely suck ass, but that's all part of the fun of going to the festival. It's an awesome experience for any hardcore movie geek, and if you ever get a chance to go, you need to.

The event takes place in Park City, Utah next year from January 21st to the 31st. It looks like there's a great line-up of movies at next year's event. My favorite portion of the event is the Midnight section because it deals more with geeky genre type movies, but I also enjoy the various sections of other line-ups.

Some of...

As we near the end of the calendar year, there is still plenty to look forward to in cinema – and not just the release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens in December. Yes, as we barrel down on the industry’s undisputed purple patch, our local theaters will soon become brimming with awards contenders each out to stake a claim for that coveted Oscar trophy.

Much like previous years, the Academy’s presentation will take place in February, and it’ll be preceded by the Sundance Film Festival one month prior. Returning for its 32nd year on the festival circuit, the Midnight selection has been formally revealed, confirming such entires as Rob Zombie’s horror 31 along with the Kevin Smith-directed college flick, Yoga Hosers.

Blending irreverent comedies with impassioned horror films, the Midnight slate of Sundance 2016 is once again jam-packed with notable release, and let’s not forget...

This January, Sundance Film Festival attendees will have the chance to witness the mania of Murder World, as the festival announced today that Rob Zombie's Halloween-set horror film 31 will be part of its special Midnight section, along with Kevin Smith's Yoga Hosers, The Greasy Strangler, and more.

To celebrate the Sundance screening announcement, a new image from 31 has been released, along with a video of Rob Zombie's on-the-go reaction to the news. For more details, we have the official press release:

Press Release: Park City, Ut — Adrenaline junkies and genre film-lovers know the real fun at the Sundance Film Festival starts at midnight. Sundance Institute tonight offers a first look at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival by announcing the nine feature films that will screen in its iconic Midnight section, which has launched films including The Blair Witch Project, Saw, Super Troopers, The Babadook, Black Dynamite, What We Do In The Shadows,...

A change of pace for Sundance Film Festival, before we get their competition films (and much more), they’ve first unveiled their midnight line-up for 2016. Among the notable titles are the latest films from Rob Zombie and Kevin Smith, 31 and Yoga Hosers, respectively. However, what keeps me coming back to Park City are the surprises, so there’s also a handful of features from relatively unknown directors that have caught our eye, including Carnage Park and Under the Shadow. Check out the line-up below, along with debut images, and return for our coverage in around two months.

31 / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Rob Zombie) — Five friends are kidnapped on the day before Halloween and are held hostage in a terrifying place named Murder World. While trapped, they must play a violent game called 31, in which the mission is to survive 12 hours against a gang of evil clowns. Cast: Sheri Moon Zombie,...

Is it really almost time for Sundance again? For the last few weeks, I've been discussing Sundance strategy with Richard Rushfield, my editor-in-chief. He and I are attending at least part of the festival together, and it's going to be a very different year for us. HitFix looks different than it did even a year ago, and the way we approach festivals in general is going to be different starting in 2016. That doesn't mean I'll abandon the things that I think are interesting about a fest. I've always been drawn to the midnight programming at the different festivals I attend, and I'm intrigued by the differences in the way each section is programmed. I think the king of the midnight sections is, without question, Colin Geddes. His Midnight Madness selections may not always work for me, but there is a personal touch to the way he curates the ten nights...

In an unusual move, the Sundance Film Festival revealed the nine-strong genre strand line-up late on Sunday night with little warning.

The section includes Rob Zombie’s 31, Kevin Smith’s Yoga Hosers (pictured) — the second in his True North trilogy that began with Toronto 2014 entry Tusk — featuring Johnny Depp and Babak Anvari’s Tehran-set Under The Shadow.

Midnight selections appear below with full synopses as provided by the festival. All films hail from the Us and are world premieres unless stated otherwise.

This year’s festival will include a programme of Midnight short films. Those and other Sundance selections will be announced in the weeks ahead. Sundance will run from January 21-31 2016.

31, Rob Zombie

Five friends are kidnapped on the day before Halloween and are held hostage in a terrifying place named Murder World. While trapped, they must play a violent game called 31, in which the mission is to survive 12 hours against a gang of evil clowns...

In an unusual move, the festival revealed the nine-strong genre strand line-up late on Sunday night with little warning.

The section includes Rob Zombie’s 31, Kevin Smith’s Yoga Hosers (pictured) — the second in his True North trilogy that began with Toronto 2014 entry Tusk — featuring Johnny Depp and Babak Anvari’s Tehran-set Under The Shadow.

Midnight selections appear below with full synopses as provided by the festival. All films hail from the Us and are world premieres unless stated otherwise.

This year’s festival will include a programme of Midnight short films. Those and other Sundance selections will be announced in the weeks ahead. Sundance will run from January 21-31 2016.

31, Rob Zombie

Five friends are kidnapped on the day before Halloween and are held hostage in a terrifying place named Murder World. While trapped, they must play a violent game called 31, in which the mission is to survive 12 hours against a gang of evil clowns.

Cast: [link...

In an unusual move, the festival revealed the nine-strong genre strand line-up late on Sunday night with little warning.

The section includes Rob Zombie’s 31, Kevin Smith’s Yoga Hosers — the second in his True North trilogy that began with Toronto 2014 entry Tusk — featuring Johnny Depp and Babak Anvari’s Tehran-set Under The Shadow.

Midnight selections appear below with full synopses as provided by the festival. All films hail from the Us and are world premieres unless stated otherwise.

This year’s festival will include a programme of Midnight short films. Those and other Sundance selections will be announced in the weeks ahead. Sundance will run from January 21-31 2016.

31 (USA), Rob Zombie)

Five friends are kidnapped on the day before Halloween and are held hostage in a terrifying place named Murder World. While trapped, they must play a violent game called 31, in which the mission is to survive 12 hours against a gang of evil clowns.

Cast: [link...