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Early in Greta Gerwig’s coming-of-age charmer “Lady Bird,” eponymous leading lady Christine “Lady Bird” McPherson (Saoirse Ronan) is asked by a teacher if her preferred nickname is actually her given name (it is, of course, not). Chin set, shoulders back, she declares, “I gave it to myself. It’s given to me by me.” That’s Lady Bird’s entire ethos in a nutshell.

Gerwig’s film – her solo directorial debut, which she also wrote – follows Lady Bird through her senior year at the insular Immaculate Heart High School, a private Catholic institution in the suburbs of Sacramento that doesn’t really suit her sensibilities. As Lady Bird, Ronan is all energy and spirit and angst, an eye-rolling teen on the cusp of something new, something more, just something else. She doesn’t have it all figured out, and she doesn’t have to.

“She was this girl who was going to do something,...

Every week, IndieWire asks a select handful of film and TV critics two questions and publishes the results on Monday. (The answer to the second, “What is the best film in theaters right now?”, can be found at the end of this post.)

Last week, in the lead-up to the release of the new Zach Braff film “Going in Style,” a number of film critics were surprised to discover that the director had blocked them on Twitter. Some had exchanged tweets with him in the past, while others had never directly interacted with him before. Braff’s aggressively pro-active social media practices stand in stark contrast with how some other filmmakers choose to comport themselves on social media — from budding directors who are desperate for people to see their work, to the guy who’s directing the new “Star Wars” movie, many of Braff’s contemporaries are as accessible to...

Once in a blue moon you come upon a movie that is a complete surprise.

When I saw “Toni Erdmann” at Cannes, I was riveted by the father-daughter comedy, which was a hit with critics but was robbed of an award by an idiosyncratic competition jury. The film went on to wow festivalgoers and cinemas around the world, and Sony Pictures Classics opened it stateside on Christmas Day. It won the Cannes Screen International Critics’ poll, Best Foreign Language film from the New York Film Critics Circle and swept the European Film Awards, grabbing five including Best Picture; it’s nominated for the foreign-language Golden Globe and Indie Spirit awards and was shortlisted for the Oscar.

That doesn’t mean it will win. All the reasons why the movie is unconventional — organic, sprawling, shocking and hilarious — could weigh against it with more mainstream Academy voters, along with its 162-minute running time.

Once in a blue moon you come upon a movie that is a complete surprise.

When I saw “Toni Erdmann” at Cannes, I was riveted by the father-daughter comedy, which was a hit with critics but was robbed of an award by an idiosyncratic competition jury. The film went on to wow festivalgoers and cinemas around the world, and Sony Pictures Classics opened it stateside on Christmas Day. It won the Cannes Screen International Critics’ poll, Best Foreign Language film from the New York Film Critics Circle and swept the European Film Awards, grabbing five including Best Picture; it’s nominated for the foreign-language Golden Globe and Indie Spirit awards and was shortlisted for the Oscar.

That doesn’t mean it will win. All the reasons why the movie is unconventional — organic, sprawling, shocking and hilarious — could weigh against it with more mainstream Academy voters, along with its 162-minute running time.

Their collaboration probably wouldn’t be at the top of Angelina Jolie‘s viewing list, but Billy Bob Thornton thinks he and Brad Pitt would make a pretty great team onscreen.

“This might surprise people, but I’d love to do a movie with Brad Pitt. I think we’d be great together. We’d play a couple of Southern guys,” the Fargo star recently told Playboy.

Despite splitting up with Jolie over a decade ago, the actor recently told Entertainment Tonight that he and Jolie keep in touch from time to time. “She seems, you know, okay to me...

Billy Bob Thornton has nothing but positive things to say about his ex-wife, Angelina Jolie.

Et caught up with the 61-year-old actor at a press junket for his latest film, Bad Santa 2, at the Four Seasons Hotel Los Angeles on Friday, where he gave us an update on how Jolie's been doing following her split from Brad Pitt.

Watch: Billy Bob Thornton, Jonny Lee Miller and More: A Look Back at Angelina Jolie's Famous Exes

"She's seems, you know, Ok to me when I talk to [her]," Thornton told Et's Denny Directo. "I don't talk to her that often though. You know?"

"We're still very good friends," he added, "but she's got her world. I've got mine."

Thornton and Jolie, 41, tied the knot in Las Vegas on May 5, 2000, after starring together in the Mike Newll-directed comedy-drama, Pushing Tin. They separated in June 2002 and divorced the following year.

"Once in a blue moon we come together," Thornton...

★★★★☆ Once in a blue moon a film will come along that defies criticism, understanding and any conventional sense of logic. But left to percolate and ruminate in the back of one's mind for long enough it proves to be something quite brilliant. With Arabian Nights, a six-hour epic split into three distinct volumes, Portuguese director Miguel Gomes has created such a film. It is not undue praise to call it a work of art.

★★☆☆☆ Once in a blue moon, pop culture is delivered a figure cut from such a radical and innovative cloth that it hardly knows how to handle it. This figure achieves such a legendary status that they reach a cult-like standing in the consciousness of others. Such is the status of reggae producer and musician Lee Scratch Perry, who now lives in a rarefied state replete with mysticism, pontificating at length and at will to any willing listener on all he sees and believes and continuing to make some of the most intriguing and trippy music on either side of the Atlantic. Volker Schaner's documentary, Lee Scratch Perry's Vision of Paradise covers more than a decade of Perry's life.

I loved The Sixth Sense. I loved Unbreakable. As far as his directorial efforts go, I’d say that’s about the extent to which I enjoy M. Night Shyamalan. I did love Devil, which he wrote and produced, but he was not the one behind the lens on that one. Suffice it to say, when I learned that a found footage movie, directed by Shyamalan was on the horizon, I was skeptical to say the least. After all, the found footage style of horror has run its course. Once in a blue moon a solid one will come along, but for the most part, every new entry into the sub-genre comes across as little more than beating a dead Tauntaun. Imagine my surprise when a found footage movie, directed by someone I consider to be a notoriously bad director, turned out to be one of the funnest movies of...

Displaying a transparency that few filmmakers of his fame and / or caliber would even bother with, Steven Soderbergh has, for a couple of years, been keen on releasing lists of what he watched and read during the previous twelve months. If you’re at all interested in this sort of thing — and why not? what else are you even doing with your day? — the 2015 selection should be of strong interest, this being a time when he was fully enmeshed in the world of creating television.

He’s clearly observing the medium with a close eye, be it what’s on air or what his friends (specifically David Fincher and his stillborn projects) show him, and how that might relate to his apparent love of 48 Hours Mystery or approach to a comparatively light slate of cinematic assignments — specifically: it seems odd that the last time he watched Magic Mike Xxl, a...

Nicole Kidman's relationship with her two children with Tom Cruise has always a mysterious one. She rarely talks about them or her relationship with Tom and refuses to field questions about Scientology -- but, in a new interview with DuJour, she makes a reference to both Connor and Isabella. "I have four children, so to stay in touch with them is very important," she tells the publication when asked about her relationship with technology and the Internet. "I’m definitely engaged in it but I don’t let it rule my life," she continues. "My husband and I never text each other. We never do. Once in a blue moon, we’ll text. But mainly we say, ‘I want to hear your voice.’ That’s very unusual but we’ve been together for 10 years. We started like that and we haven’t changed it. We don’t email each other either.

"Once in a blue moon, you get to play somebody you really wish you could be. Sam Houston was a man for all seasons, and a real man's man," reveals Bill Paxton about his character in the new limited series "Texas Rising." During our recent webcam chat (watch below), he discussed playing this dream role of the legendary general who led the Texas volunteers in the 1836 battle for independence against the mighty Mexican army. "Great ethics, great integrity, great sense of humor, a great character." As Paxton explains, "He realizes he's up against a very capable foe in General Santa Anna." And, he adds, "He knows if he has any chance he's got one shot, and he's going to have to pick the battle." -Break- Watch dozens of video chats with 2015 Emmy contenders The series begins just after the fall of the Alamo and traces the rise of the Texas Rangers.

A lot of TV series based on movies are weak versions of their source material, and thankfully many of them disappear quickly and have no damaging effects. Once in a blue moon something like M*A*S*H or the second iteration of Parenthood comes along and is a good enough piece of pop culture in its own right. I’ve been expecting Syfy’s 12 Monkeys show to be the former, but after checking out the first nine minutes ahead of next week’s debut, I’m thinking it could at least be worth watching if not also another classic. Let it be known that I’m a humongous 12 Monkeys fan. It’s one of only a couple movies I ever went back and re-watched on the big screen immediately (as in very next showing, didn’t even leave my seat) following my first viewing. It works perfectly in the 127-minute time frame. But...

In life, as on The Voice, the accomplishment-to-praise threshhold is not always a balanced one.

Your three-year-old makes a wee-wee on the potty, and you treat him like he’s earned the Nobel Prize in toilet-training. You make it to the gym on a Monday morning (after failing to go even once the week prior), and you’re suddenly Rocky atop the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. It doesn’t matter that you had to crawl the last 10 feet to ascend the peak, you’re the heavyweight champ of your own feel-good movie.

NBC’s singing competition takes...

Hollywood got a touch of British class on Thursday night as Robert Downey Jr., Mike Leigh, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Mark Ruffalo, Emma Watson and Dame Judi Dench all were honored at the 2014 Britannia Awards. The event held at the Beverly Hilton was a lively affair put on annually by BAFTA-la. Hosted in fine style for the second year by British comedian/actor Rob Brydon (My Trip To Italy) who welcomed the crowd by claiming he was really Renee Zellweger, the awards show also served to be a nice stop early in the Oscar/BAFTA season for potential contenders like honorees Robert Downey Jr. (The Judge), Mark Ruffalo (Foxcatcher), and director Mike Leigh (Mr. Turner). If you’re in the race, it never hurts to turn up at these things already looking like a winner and getting to make an acceptance speech. And though they didn’t sport any winners of this...

Chicago – Character actor Djimon Hounsou (Jee-mahn Hahn-soo) is memorable in any role he takes on – whether it’s working with Steven Spielberg in “Amistad,” or being so indelibly subtle for “In America.” Hounsou has also forged a true character in his voiceover work as Drago Bludvist in “How to Train Your Dragon 2.”

Born in Africa in the country of Bénin, Djimon Hounsou emigrated in the 1970s to Lyon, France, at the tender age of 13. His hardscrabble existence there included some homelessness, but a chance meeting with a photographer began a hugely successful modeling career. He moved to the U.S. in 1990, at which time he landed roles in music videos, TV and film – his 1990 debut film was in Sandra Bernhard’s “Without You I’m Nothing.” Bigger roles came in 1997 (“Amistad”), 2000 (“Gladiator”) and his Oscar nominated supporting role in 2004 (“In America”). Since then he has worked steadily, and also...

Graham Norton has joked that he wants to hate his show before the public does.

The comedian, who will host the BAFTAs tonight, explained that he isn't sure how long he will keep making The Graham Norton Show.

"Well, it all depends when the BBC kick me off!" he said. "If they kick me off next year, then yes, I'll keep going until then.

"It's one of those weird things - I don't know. I always said I'd retire at 50, but now I'm 51 and I'm still doing it and we're doing it for the future, I guess. And I'm still enjoying it. It's not like a chore. It's not like this awful thing that I've got to force myself to do - I like doing it, I like going to work. So hopefully I will start to hate it before the public start to hate it, and so I'll step...

Mark your calendars, cinephiles. From a rarely seen John Cassavetes masterpiece to an iconic 1970s musical, The Criterion Collection's Summer lineup couldn't be sweeter. (Watch clips below.) First up on August 12 is Cassavetes' penultimate film "Love Streams." Once in a blue moon, this delirious psychodrama from 1984 pops up at repertory theaters, but over the years it has been something of an elusive treasure for film-lovers. It stars Cassavetes himself, and the always-operatic Gena Rowlands, as debauched siblings who reconvene over the course of a few days while Sarah (Rowlands) tries to broker custody of her daughter, and Robert (Cassavetes), a writer, drinks and smokes himself to near-death. Wrought with soul-crushingly good performances, it's one of Cassavetes' most dreamlike and, as it were, most personal films. On August 19, two films from Spanish-speaking masters hit shelves: Alfonso Cuaron's menage-a-trois travelogue "Y Tu Mama Tambien" (2002), and Pedro Almodovar's splashy...

Many shows have had absentees during their run. Hell, some shows pretty much have it in the cast members’ contracts that they will only feature in half the episodes of a given season. But there are few shows which ditch their main characters altogether. Once in a blue moon in television, there will be moments where the cast are given the day off, they can’t make it to filming, or they walk out of the show altogether. This list compiles 10 shows wherein their mainest of main characters didn’t take part in at least one episode. I’m also providing a few exceptions wherein the character appeared Very briefly or made an appearance as themselves at some point.

If the main actor has left a show and the show continues, it doesn’t count, however. For example, Charlie Sheen in Two And A Half Men? Doesn’t count. Zach Braff...

Once in a blue moon (or in this case, Jasmine), funnyman Woody Allen will throw a drama at us and it’ll either be really, really good (Interiors; Crimes and Misdemeanors) or flat-out crap (Cassandra’s Dream). It’s hard to tell which route his latest attempt, Blue Jasmine, will take based on its just-released trailer, which has Jasmine...Read more»...

Not all that long ago there was a pretty clear distinction between a theatre actor and a film actor. Once in a blue moon you’d see an A-lister getting back to their roots with a role at the National Theatre, but on the whole the closest you’d get to a well-known thesp on a West End stage was Jason Donovan in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dream Coat.

Recently, though, things have been changing. London theatre-goers can see Luke Treadaway, Brian Cox, John Simm, Roger Allam, Zoe Wanamaker, Rupert Everett and Helen Mirren. And that’s just the ones that immediately sprang to mind.

With this in mind, we’ve decided to do something a little different at HeyUGuys: an occasional column looking at the cross over between the worlds of stage and celluloid. We’re calling it ‘Film Geeks at the Theatre.

Last week the Trafalgar Studios production of Macbeth,...

Once in a blue moon a fighter arises from nowhere who really catches the eye of the Mma community. The cliché of the hype train is a term that best describes this. On occasion, they are very accurate and warranted – see Jon Jones, Lyoto Machida etc.

Sometimes fans like to claim that they saw fighters rise from obscurity to stardom, and the gargantuan rise of the aforementioned Jon Jones is hard to put into words; from a middle of the card scrap to short notice title fight in little over a month. Jones won the light heavyweight belt with an impressive victory against Shogun Rua, going on to defend his belt 5 times and clinching a Nike sponsorship deal in the process. Hype well and truly granted.

However, this article will look at those occasions when a fighter has a heap of potential and hype but has not been able to deliver.

Once in a blue moon a festival competition film comes along that’s a masterpiece, so flawless it’s inconceivable that it won’t take top prize. This year at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, that film was Alan Berliner’s First Cousin Once Removed (which I actually saw before this year’s 25th edition began), and it did indeed nabb the Vpro Idfa Award for Best Feature-Length Documentary, along with a nice sum of 12,500 euros. Fittingly, my reaction towards Berliner’s breathtaking portrait of his mentor and relative, the acclaimed poet and translator Edwin Honig, as he succumbs to Alzheimer’s disease, mirrors my …...

Abe Hiroshi returns as popular Japanese literary figure Detective Kaga Kyoichiro, appearing on the big screen for the first time after several popular television adaptations of the Higashino Keigo novels. “Wings of the Kirin” sees the thoughtful sleuth dealing with a stabbing case which is quickly revealed to be far more complicated than initially suspected, with series regulars Mizobata Junpei, Kuroki Meisa and Yamazaki Tsutomu all returning, joined by new cast members Aragaki Yui (“Hanamizuki”), Tanaka Rena (“The Tale of Genji”), and Nakai Kiichi (“Once in a Blue Moon”). The film starts in intriguing fashion, with businessman Takeaki Aouyagi (Nakai Kiichi) being found dead on the famous Nihonbashi Bridge in Tokyo, having staggered there after being stabbed, for some reason choosing to collapse beneath the Kirin statue rather than trying to reach a hospital. A young man called Yashima (Miura Takahiro) is discovered near the scene with some of the victim’s belongings,...

Mark Feuerstein is glad to know some doctors consider his "Royal Pains" character more than a MacGyver in the Hamptons.

The actor's medic character, Hank Lawson -- operator of HankMed, the elite and very personal service that typically caters to the area's wealthy -- often must improvise procedures on the seriocomic USA series, which has ended its fourth season but will return with the two-hour holiday movie "Off-Season Greetings" Sunday, Dec. 16.

"It fluctuates," the friendly Feuerstein tells Zap2it about "Royal Pains" reviews by medical pros. "The ones who don't really watch will make a comment like, 'Oh, everything gets better by the end of an episode.' We do have certain demands placed on us by being a blue-skies show on a blue-skies network, other than the very serious arc we had when Tom Cavanagh was on the show. His character died from lupus, and that was when the show said,...

Rian Johnson's thriller about hitmen who assassinate targets sent from the future opens the Toronto film festival in fine style and runs rings around most recent sci-fi releases

Kansas 2044. Time travel will be invented in 30 years' time and quickly made illegal. It will be used only by criminal gangs to send targets back to Loopers, cold-blooded killers employed to murder decades away from detection. The victim arrives out of thin air, hands tied, head covered. The Looper pulls the trigger, collects his cut of "silver" – brickettes of precious metal attached to the mark's back – and burns the body. Once in a blue moon the target arrives strapped in gold – the first sign that the Looper's contract has been terminated. He rolls the body over, takes off the mask and confirms that he's killed himself. His loop's been closed.

Rian Johnson's sharp, smart sci-fi thriller runs on such bizarre ritual.

May 4th has come and gone, but I don’t need to be confined to a specific date to talk about Star Wars. Much like a rogue Jedi, I’m breaking all the rules.

The Star Wars saga sits in a somewhat unique position in that the source material lends itself well to various genres, at least when it comes to video games. Want a flight sim? Sure thing. How about an Rts? You got it. So take note my padawans, as I present to you 12 Star Wars games that I feel best represent not only the licence, but its diversity and ability to push new boundaries.

12. Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back

What better way to kick things off than with a little history lesson. I present to you Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back which was released on both the Atari 2600 and the Intellivision in 1982. This was the...

Having been three episodes into a season that is simultaneously more surefooted but also more divergent than its predecessor, Marc N. Kleinhenz decided to call up some of the biggest fans – and critics? – of both HBO’s Game of Thrones and George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series to get out the microscope and examine what have already proven to be some of the show’s most controversial elements, changes, and improvisations. It’s a star-studded lineup to discuss what is turning out to be one of television’s biggest breakout hits.

Dramatis personae:

Marc N. Kleinhenz – freelancer, author of It Is Known: An Analysis of Thrones, Vol. I, and your humble host this evening. John Jasmin – co-founder and editor of Tower of the Hand. Amin Javadi – co-host of A Podcast of Ice and Fire. Marko Strbac – webmaster of Game of Thrones Books. David Barr Kirtley...

Japanese writer-director Koki Mitani is about to do for the courtroom what he has already done for the theater, the hotel and the movie set. Make it very, very funny.You see, Mitani is an absolute master of the ensemble comedy, a man who thrives on taking large group settings governed by a strict set of rules and then turning them on their ear to fabulous effect. He did it with his script for University of Laughs and as writer-director on The Magic Hour and Suite Dreams and he is very much up to his old tricks in Once In A Blue Moon.The story here revolves around a low grade lawyer who must rely on the testimony of a 421 year old ghost to clear...

Once in a blue moon, incredible true stories come along. “Room and Board” is a feature film based on a bloody tale that happened in real life. Cannibalism has long been a taboo, rarely spoken of and not so frequently included in the works of fiction. “Room and Board” has a stellar cast that includes Robert Forster of the famed "Jackie Brown", Tiny Lister "Zeus", Jr. from wrestler federation fame, venerable horror star Kane Hodder of “Friday the 13th”, whose book "Unmasked" recently hit the shelves to an overwhelming response of horror fans, as well as television star William Katt, who first graced the silver screen in the cult classic original "Carrie" with Academy Award winner Sissy Spacek.

Japanese writer-director Koki Mitani is about to do for the courtroom what he has already done for the theater, the hotel and the movie set. Make it very, very funny.You see, Mitani is an absolute master of the ensemble comedy, a man who thrives on taking large group settings governed by a strict set of rules and then turning them on their ear to fabulous effect. He did it with his script for University of Laughs and as writer-director on The Magic Hour and Suite Dreams and he is very much up to his old tricks in Once In A Blue Moon.The story here revolves around a low grade lawyer who must rely on the testimony of a 421 year old ghost to clear her...

Once in a blue moon, a movie comes along that provides like no other. It can contain in-depth analysis into the human psyche, a romantic tryst that inhibits the world from rotating on its axis, profound intellectual human emotions on galactic levels, and/or redemption that sustains your inner wisdom from feeling remorse or guilt.

Street Trash has None of these!!

Where other films deliver on the abovementioned goods (bads?), Street Trash emits a giant “Fuck You”, and then sodomizes you while simultaneously belittling you for contributing to the human race! Never has a film raped the corneas, as well as the silver screens, of the world with such gusto and abhorrent negligence. Okay Straw Dogs did a similar thing for its generation as well, but did Straw Dogs have derelict-melting “Thunderbird”, a crazed (yet Very funny!) Mafioso hell-bent on burying his (even more hilarious!) entrance usher, a junkyard Colonel...

There are times where I just want to be entertained. Forget the blood. Forget the nudity. Forget the exploitation. No, nobody hacked my column. I’m still here. My wife is not a big horror fan, and she only watches them with me because she knows I am addicted to them. Once in a blue moon, I come across a title in my collection that is right up both of our alleys. I bring to you My Boyfriend’s Back, or what would happen if R.L. Stine wrote a Rom-Com.

As he did with Jason Goes to Hell, writer Dean Lorey opens up on his experiences on this 1993 horror-comedy that has a bigger fanbase than you might think.

The question I get asked most often (right after “where do you get your ideas?”) is “how did you break into the business?” For me, it started with a little zombie named Johnny Dingle.

Koki Mitani’s already-big upcoming comedy Once in a Blue Moon (Suteki na Kanashibari) just got a little bigger.

It was previously announced that the film would star Eri Fukatsu as a third-rate lawyer who’s forced to depend on a 421-year-old ghost (Toshiyuki Nishida) as the sole witness to her client’s innocence.

Earlier today, a bunch of new names were added to the cast list, including Tsuyoshi Kusanagi (Smap), Masachika Ichimura, Takayuki Kinoshita (Tko). Fumiyo Kohinata, Takashi Kobayashi, Kan, Sen Yamamoto, Keiko Toda, Kazuyuki Asano, Katsuhisa Namase, Zen Kajihara, Kenji Anan, and Yoshimasa Kondo.

In addition to the casting update, Toho also revealed the theatrical release date: October 29, 2011.

Sources: Tokyograph, Cinema Today...

NBC’s The Event returns tonight and from the look of the promo’s, get ready for some monumental … events.

I talked to two of the stars, Blair Underwood and Zeljko Ivanek, in a conference call where they discussed working together, being typecast and how they still don’t know what the ‘event’ really is.

The Event airs on Mondays at 10pm on FX

For the full interview, click the audio link above or download from iTunes

What appealed to you about the premise of the Event? And as actors, did all the secrecy surrounding the plotlines make it more difficult for you to create your characters?

Blair Underwood: What intrigued me was the world itself and the fact that it was envisioned to be and has become a hybrid of certain genres. And many people have alluded to it being like Lost meets 24; a political thriller/science fiction even.

Once in a blue moon, Hollywood releases a film that forever changes the face of cinema. The Godfather. Gone With the Wind. Star Wars. Obviously, M. Night Shyamalan’s 2008 critical flop The Happening is not one of them. But it certainly changed my life. Two whole years after the film hit theaters — I had cast the thought of seeing it aside upon reading the approximately, oh, 537th bad review — a fellow bad-movie-loving friend convinced me to watch the Mark Wahlberg flick after a night of heavy drinking classy conversation about the intricacies of Proust’s work. And somewhere between listening...

“Overkill is underrated.” – Liam Neeson as Col. John “Hannibal” Smith in Joe Carnahan’s The A-Team.

My wife understands the need for the guys’ night out. Once in a blue moon some friends and I will sit in an underfurnished basement, play low-stakes poker, drink too much domestic beer and laugh til we ache from jokes made at one another’s expense. I am having a really rough time thinking of a movie that captures this particular, peculiar joy better than The A-Team.

The frenzied adolescent clay from which Joe Carnahan has always molded his films finds its perfect subject in the story of four Special Forces supermen who scoff at death, physics and common sense in order to get the job done. I would never call myself a devotee of the 1980s series, but I pity the fool who has no awareness of the vanned vigilantes who make elaborate plans with equal parts cunning,...

Koki Mitani, the comedy director behind box office hits like “The Uchoten Hotel” and “The Magic Hour” is hard at work on a new film called Suteki na Kanashibari: Once in a Blue Moon. According to Mitani, the film will of course be a comedy, but will also include elements of courtroom suspense, ghost fantasy, and drama. It’s a film he’s been planning for over 10 years, but only got the confidence to go ahead with it when he witnessed the positive reaction to “The Magic Hour”.

The cast includes Mitani regulars such as Eri Fukatsu, Kiichi Nakai, and Toshiyuki Nishida as well as actors he hasn’t previously worked with like Hiroshi Abe, Yuko Takeuchi, and Tadanobu Asano.

Fukatsu will play Emi, a third-rate attorney with zero prospects and Abe will play the boss of her law firm. Takeuchi will play both the wife of a murdered capitalist and her own twin sister.

Big Brother presenter Davina McCall has been at the helm of the show since it’s inception ten years ago. A decade later and with the show approaching its final series, she’s still at the helm, still looks youthful, and is, if anything, more enthusiastic than ever. The Big Brother story has also been the Davina McCall story, the two inextricably linked from first to last. If life without Big Brother will seem strange, Big Brother without Davina would have been unthinkable.

Here, Davina looks back at the rollercoaster ride that kept a nation transfixed, was never short of controversy, and changed the face of television forever.

The last Big Brother is upon us! Going back ten years, what do you remember about the opening night of the first ever Big Brother?

I’ve been doing a lot of reminiscing and looking back – I’m full of nostalgia this year,...

Stalking Following our favorite TV stars on Twitter usually gives us a laugh, a fun detail or a way to casually throw questions at them.

Once in a blue moon, they yield some interesting details into the plotlines they're involved in. Today (Tue. March 16), Rob Lowe gave us something from "Brothers & Sisters" that we can sink our teeth into.

"[Dave] Annable and I on set of 'Brothers & Sisters' this morning," Lowe tweeted. "Love him."

Wait, bromance aside, here's the good part - Lowe then attached a photo of the two of them on set and guess what they're standing in the middle of? A cemetery!

Check it out:

Previously, we reported that the producers were looking to kill someone off. While his days are numbered on the series, the word back then was Rob Lowe wouldn't exit the show by dying.

So, if that's still true, whose funeral are Justin and Robert attending?...

Neely Gurman is a great casting director (and person!) to get to know. If you’re in La, I highly recommended you take one of her workshops. She has great insight into the business and she always tries to call in former workshoppers for any of her projects.

She casts both union and non-union projects and and just wrapped a music video and a short film about the holocaust.

Keep an eye out for her breakdowns on Actors Access!

Here’s the interview:

You’ve been working on your own now for a while, how do you like it?

Well, I love it.

How long have you been on your own?

Like 3 years.

How do you get your jobs?

A lot of hustling. You have to hustle, know a lot of people and do a lot of networking. It’s like living a nomadic lifestyle. Its almost like an actors life.