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The premise of Sherwood Schwartz's popular 1964 sitcom "Gilligan's Island" is handily explained in its theme song: five passengers check into a three-hour boat tour, run by the skipper and first mate of a tiny tourist boat called the S.S. Minnow. The ship hits some bad weather and is thrown miles off course, landing on an uncharted desert isle. The seven tourists become seven stranded castaways. No phones, no lights, no motorcars, not a single luxury. Like "Robinson Crusoe," it's as primitive as can be. The septet have to learn to live together, usually to comedic effect. 

Gilligan (Bob Denver) was the above-mentioned first mate, and his innocent cluelessness and tendency to bumble often thwarted the castaways' ability to escape. He shared the island with his Skipper (Alan Hale), a professor (Russell Johnson), a pair of married millionaires (Natalie Schafer and Jim Backus), a farmer (Dawn Wells), and a...

While desert island games and tales of Robinson Crusoe have long held a special place in the cultural imagination, the reality of life on a deserted island is far more dangerous. Yet, for generations, young readers and moviegoers have found this setup unbelievably exciting. Kensuke’s Kingdom follows in this lineage, allowing audiences to imagine the world of a young boy and his dog finding survival in an unlikely source. The adaptation of Michael Morpurgo’s popular novel, Kensuke’s Kingdom, highlights a boy versus nature narrative while tapping into powerful human connection.

Related Probably the Greatest Animated Movie of All Time and It Has 0 Dialogue- Flow Can Truly Beat Pedro Pascal’s The Wild Robot Kensuke’s Kingdom Plot

Following the story from Morpurgo, Kensuke’s Kingdom follows a young boy named Michael (Aaron MacGregor) as his family takes a trip around the world. While he struggles to connect with his mother (Sally Hawkins...

Get the latest scoop on everything you need to know about today’s Jeopardy! episode airing on Friday, 4 October 2024 including the Final Jeopardy, contestants and today’s winner!

Today’s Final Jeopardy 10/4/2024 (Literary Characters) – Friday, 4 October 2024

A fragment from a nautical tool found on a Chilean island in 2005 was likely left by the Scot who partly inspired this character

Today’s Final Jeopardy Answer – Friday, 4 October 2024

The Final Jeopardy Answer is: Robinson Crusoe

Final Jeopardy Explanation – Friday, 4 October 2024

The character referred to in Today’s Final Jeopardy is Robinson Crusoe, inspired partly by the Scot, Alexander Selkirk. Selkirk was a mariner who was marooned in 1704 on an uninhabited island in the South Pacific Ocean, now part of Chile but then known as the Juan Fernández Islands. He lived there in solitude for over four years before being rescued. His experiences are believed to have inspired Daniel Defoe’s famous novel,...

With a re-release of the game now available, with some updates and additions, here’s a new look at the board game Robinson Crusoe in a brand-new Collectors Edition…

Whilst we love reviewing board games based on movies and TV series here at Nerdly, there are relatively few based on eighteenth-century literature like Robinson Crusoe: Collectors Edition. Aside from the out-of-print Fury of Dracula and Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective which are both based on later novels, I’m not even sure I can name another game based on a historical piece of writing. Clearly, I’m open to suggestion and there are probably hundreds, but as always it’s a matter of not knowing what you don’t know.

In any case, Robinson Crusoe: Collectors Edition is a new edition of what is now a relatively old game, having first been released back in 2012. Despite its age, Robinson Crusoe nonetheless...

"The Ballad of Gilligan's Isle" remains, even at this late date, one of the best TV theme songs of all time. It did its job in an exemplary fashion, explaining the premise of the series and introducing all the characters, all with one of the catchiest earworms ever conceived. The song was written by "Gilligan's Island" creator Sherwood Schwartz and composer George Wyle. The original idea for "The Ballad of Gilligan's Isle" was to give it a more upbeat, calypso sound, so a "tropical" theme was composed for the original "Gilligan's Island" pilot episode. However, Schwartz eventually changed gears on the song, feeling that a sea shanty would be better placed. It was a wise decision.

Additional verses for "The Ballad of Gilligan's Isle" can be heard over the show's closing credits, with one notable lyric having left fans speculating on the classical origins of the series for many years.

The tragic passing of Ray Chan recently made news around the world. A highly respected Hollywood artist, Chan was best known for being an art director in the production design department at Marvel Studios. Some of his most memorable credits include Guardians of the Galaxy, Avengers: Infinity War, and Doctor Strange.

A host of people who had worked with Chan in the past took to social media to express their sorrow at his passing. This includes Ryan Reynolds, who was collaborating with Chan on the upcoming Deadpool & Wolverine at the time of the latter’s passing. Reynolds took to X (formerly Twitter) to share his feelings over Chan’s demise in a heartfelt note that is being appreciated by fans of the actor and of the MCU.

Becoming A Part Of The MCU Chris Hemsworth and Anthony Hopkins in Thor: The Dark World

Born in Oldham, Greater Manchester, in...

Blaxploitation star broke the mould.

Richard Roundtree, the star of Shaft who was an icon of the Blaxploitation movement, has died in his Los Angeles home of pancreatic cancer. He was 81.

Roundtree was born in 1942 in Rochelle, New York, to parents John, a caterer and rubbish collector, and Kathryn, a maid and nurse.

He left Southern Illinois University when he chose to become a model and before long moved to New York City where he joined the Negro Ensemble Company.

Roundtree was acting in a play when he auditioned for Shaft, eventually landing the iconic role as the private detective...

I honestly never expected Steven Spielberg in a Criterion Channel series––certainly not one that pairs him with Kogonada, anime, and Johnny Mnemonic––but so’s the power of artificial intelligence. Perhaps his greatest film (at this point I don’t need to tell you the title) plays with After Yang, Ghost in the Shell, and pre-Matrix Keanu in July’s aptly titled “AI” boasting also Spike Jonze’s Her, Carpenter’s Dark Star, and Computer Chess. Much more analog is a British Noir collection obviously carrying the likes of Odd Man Out, Night and the City, and The Small Back Room, further filled by Joseph Losey’s Time Without Pity and Basil Dearden’s It Always Rains on Sunday. (No two ways about it: these movies have great titles.) An Elvis retrospective brings six features, and the consensus best (Don Siegel’s Flaming Star) comes September 1.

While Isabella Rossellini...

The frozen tundra, a desert island, the depths of a jungle, the middle of the ocean, the ends of the earth — these are the places where you normally set a survivalist thriller. Inside adds one more to that list of adapt-or-perish hot spots: New York real estate. Specifically, the kind of luxurious penthouse apartment favored by the one percent, coveted by most plebeian Gothamites, and considered a bona fide bonanza for an ambitious art thief. It just so happens that one of the latter has, along with a team of fellow criminals,...

Damian won Annecy’s top Crystal prize in 2012 for Crulic – The Path Beyond.

French distributor Eurozoom has acquired French rights to Romanian director Anca Damian’s The Island ahead of its screening in competition at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival (June13-18).

International sales of the film are handled by Brussels-based Best Friend Forever (Bff).

The Paris-based distributor has a long track record in theatrically releasing animated features in France. Past releases include award-winning Japanese titles Your Name by Makoto Shinkai and The Wolf Children by Mamoru Hosoda as well as Spanish director Salvador Simo’s Buñuel in the Labyrinth of the Turtles.

Welcome to The B-Side, from The Film Stage. Here we talk about movie stars! Not the movies that made them famous or kept them famous, but the ones they made in between.

Today we come to the end of our epic, two-part James Bond-inspired podcast mini-series! We are discussing one B-Side film from each actor who has played Bond, made during or right before (or after) their tenure as Agent 007. We are joined by esteemed guest and first person to appear Six Times On The Podcast, intrepid editor and Co-Host of The Mixed Reviews Podcast Gavin Mevius!!!

This second episode focuses on the most recent three Bonds: Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan, and Daniel Craig. Craig, of course, is currently starring in his final outing as Bond, No Time To Die. The B-Sides include Brenda Starr, Robinson Crusoe (1997), and Flashbacks of a Fool (2008). We contextualize each film within each actor’s...

The director says the animation’s topic is uncannily in sync with the state of the world today. The only Romanian director to have delivered animated features over the last decade, Anca Damian is currently in production with her newest project, The Island, which she describes as a musical comedy and “an upside-down Robinson Crusoe story”. The film is a co-production between Damian’s Aparte Film, Take Five (Belgium) and Komadoli (France). The screenplay, written by Damian and Augusto Zanovello, shares characters with Daniel Defoe’s novel Robinson Crusoe, but in the animation, Robinson is a doctor who isolates himself voluntarily on an island, his seclusion soon to be interrupted by migrants, guards and Ngo representatives. In Damian’s fourth animated feature, Friday is, for example, the sole survivor on a boat which had left Africa for Italy... The vocal cast comprises Alexandru Bălănescu, Ada Milea (both of whom are in charge of the.

Bordeaux-based animation event to showcase 66 international projects.

They Shot The Piano Player, the new animation from Spanish director Fernando Trueba and artist Javier Mariscal, who previously collaborated on the Oscar-nominated Chico & Rita, is one of the projects being showcased at Cartoon Movie 2020, the annual European feature animation co-production forum.

It will take place in Bordeaux, France, from March 3-5.

Cartoon Movie will showcase 66 animated feature films in the works to some 900 potential buyers and partners. They are comprised of six in production, 27 in development and 28 in concept. There will also be sneak previews of five completed films.

They Shot...

France animation event to showcase 66 features in Bordeaux.

Cartoon Movie has unveiled the 66 projects from 20 countries that will be pitched at Europe’s leading animation co-production event.

Highlights of this year’s event, which runs March 3-5 in Bordeaux for the fourth consecutive year, include They Shot the Piano Player, which marks the second collaboration of director Fernando Trueba and artist Javier Mariscal, who were Oscar-nominated for Chico & Rita in 2012.

It is expected to attract around 900 buyers and potential partners who will consider animation features in different stages of development, comprising five sneak previews, six in production, 27 in development and 28 in concept.

Barcelona – Rémi Chayé’s “Calamity, a Childhood of Martha Jane Cannary,” Anca Damian’s “The Island,” Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal’s “They Shot the Piano Player,” and Enrique Gato’s “Tad the Lost Explorer and the Curse of the Mummy” are among the sixty-six projects from twenty countries to be pitched at the 22nd Cartoon Movie, Europe’s leading animated movie co-production event. Cartoon Movie will take place in the French port city of Bordeaux, kicking off March 3rd.

Projects will be accessible for buyers and potential partners and will be pitched in different stages of production: 28 in concept, 27 in development, six in production and five sneak previews. The five projects at the sneak preview showcase and the six in production have previously been to Cartoon Movie in preliminary production stages. Twenty-three projects are co-productions.

A family adventure, Rémi Chayé’s (acclaimed “Long Way North”) sophomore feature depicts the...

Have you ever felt like you wanted to get a new tabletop game, but wasn’t sure which games would suit your tastes? I know that’s a struggle for me and my friends. We get that itch for a new game, but worry that a certain game won’t quite meet our standards and the friendly local game store (Flgs) doesn’t always have demos of games we want to play.

Well, the team at Board Game Finder aim to help relieve some of that stress. You simply enter a game title, game category, or even a game mechanic and it will populate a list of games that you may enjoy. You can combine several terms to really narrow things down, too. For instance, I searched for a cooperative, worker placement game similar to Pandemic and the top match is Robinson Crusoe: Adventures on the Cursed Island. It...

Back to the Future, Monster Trucks, and more headline our July Family Favourites!Back to the Future, Monster Trucks, and more headline our July Family Favourites!Jenny Bullough6/28/2017 10:06:00 Am

Summer's here and while we are overjoyed to finally welcome longer days and more sunshine, sometimes it's harder than pulling teeth to get the kids off the couch and away from their phones. One way to entice them out is with a movie on the big screen, whether it's a timeless classic, or a recent first-run movie. With the lineup of Family Favourites this month, there’s plenty to choose from!

If you have a free Saturday morning, check out one of this month’s Family Favourites! At only 2.99 per ticket, it’s a great deal and a fun way to spend some quality family time at the movies.

July 1 - Back to the Future

In this 1980s blockbuster...

Adam West, whose acting career began in the 1950s and remained busy right up to the present day, has died after a short battle with leukemia, according to The Hollywood Reporter. He was 88 years old.  Before he landed the role that would define his career, the actor began appearing on television in 1959 as a contract player for Warner Bros., making guest appearances on a variety of shows. He also started to score supporting roles in movies, such as the sci-fi adventure Robinson Crusoe...

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Pete Dillon-Trenchard Jun 10, 2017

Spoilers! We dig into the references and extra details in Doctor Who series 10 episode 9, Empress Of Mars...

This article contains spoilers - pretty much all of them - for Empress Of Mars.

See related Doctor Who: Moffat on budget issues, advice for Chibnall Doctor Who: Phoebe Waller-Bridge is now the joint favourite

The Ice Warriors’ tombs have melted, and so have our hearts. As the Doctor gives Missy a good telling-off for helping to save the day, we turn our attention to the references, callbacks and generally interesting things about tonight’s episode. If we’ve missed something, you know where the comments section is…

Alpha CentaurSQUEE

Usually I take these things roughly in order, but let’s take a moment to let out what the cool kids call a big ‘squee’, or a Russell T Davies-style ‘Hooray!’ for the return, after 43 years,...

Two lonely souls remind us what it is to be European, while a soothing tale of nature and humanity is told through a parable in the vein of Robinson Crusoe

Kaurismäki’s gorgeous alternative universe of 1950s retro stylings, eccentric characters, deadpan comedy and universal cigarette-smoking houses two escapees: a mournful Syrian asylum seeker and a dour, divorcing Finnish restaurateur; fellow lonely souls whose salvation reminds us what it is to be human, and European.

Continue reading...

04.27.17: This list is now final. While I may in the future see additional films that were released in the awards year of 2016, no more films will be added to this list. (I may add links to reviews of films listed here.)

This ranking includes only new theatrical releases viewed for the awards year of 2016 (for eligibility for the Academy Awards and the Ofcs and Awfj awards); some films released in the UK without Us releases (and so ineligible for those awards this year) may also be included, for my own bookkeeping purposes. Links go to my review. Numbers after each entry are Date First Viewed/NYC Release Date/London Release Date; year is 2016 unless otherwise noted.

worth paying multiplex prices for

[5 stars]

Arrival (10.10/11.11/11.10)

La La Land (10.07/12.09/01.13.17)

A Monster Calls (10.06/12.23/01.01.17)

The Lobster (07.16.15/05.13/10.16.15)

Zootropolis (aka Zootopia) (02.22/03.04/03.25)

A Bigger Splash (10.08.15/05.04/02.12)

Miss Sloane (11.20/11.25/05.12.17)

London Road (06.03.15/09.09/06.12.15)

The Girl with All the Gifts (07.26/02.24.17/09.23)

I, Daniel Blake...

“You don’t have to have a true story to make a true story movie.”

Noah Hawley’s acclaimed midwestern crime anthology Fargo returns to FX this week, along with my enthusiasm for saying oh yah and you betcha to anyone with the gall to speak to me when I would rather be watching Fargo. In my defence there are not one, but two, gloriously bad Ewan McGregor wigs. Truly, Hawley is doing the Lord’s work. Season three is set in the not too distant past of 2010, and follows the tried-and-true template of a ridiculously stacked ensemble of endearing (and woefully misguided) ne’er do wells gradually bungling their way into a shit show of their own design. As with each of the previous installments, least of all the Coen Brothers’ original 1996 film, the opening of this week’s episode features the following superimposed text:

This is a true story. The...

The latest movie to bring the super-sized simian Kong to the big screen, Kong: Skull Island, comes out today. Kong is a very well-known movie monster, but there are some things you probably don’t know about the Eighth Wonder of the World. Here are seven bits of trivia about King Kong.

1. Despite popular belief, the name “Skull Island” was never used in the original King Kong. For decades, people have used that name to describe Kong’s island home. The new movie uses “Skull Island” in its title. But the fact is, that name was never used in the classic first version. When the characters in that version reach the island, they know they’ve come to the right place because they see “Skull Mountain”, so-named because it’s shaped like a skull. However, the island itself is never named—only Skull Mountain is.

2. The very first Japanese Kaiju movie was a little-known,...

Brendon Connelly Apr 20, 2017

The complexity of modern board games lends itself to the big screen. Pandemic: The Movie, anyone?

In the last few years, two potential big-screen adaptions of board games seemed to get a little traction with the Hollywood studios. Several drafts of a Monopoly movie were prepared, and at one point, it even seemed like Ridley Scott might saddle up to shoot the thing. Meanwhile, Adam Sandler orbited around a comedy based upon the brain-curdlingly dull Candy Land.

Now, I can’t tell you how those films would have turned out, and I’m certainly not going to say Monopoly and Candy Land absolutely, definitely should not be movies. But I am happy to say, with 100% certainty and even a bit of simmering frustration, that Monopoly and Candy Land should not be board games.

At least not board games anybody ever plays. Just put the dang things in a museum already.

One of the most unusual, and unusually moving swansongs in cinema history, Josef Von Sternberg’s Anatahan (a.k.a. The Saga of Anatahan) returns to American screens this spring in a new restoration which seems destined not to only buff up the movie’s obvious visual splendor but also its standing as an essential and fully engaged work of a master Hollywood stylist rather than simply a curious end post to a remarkable career.

In the early ‘50s Sternberg was coming off two movies made for Howard Hughes—the gorgeously sublimated cold-war adventure Jet Pilot (finished in 1950 but cut extensively by Hughes and held up for release until 1957) and Macao (1952), on which Sternberg and Hughes clashed again, resulting in the director’s replacement by Nicholas Ray. Disillusioned by Hollywood, Sternberg, a long-time devotee of Japanese culture, capitalized on his separation from Hughes and began investigating the possibility, one he...

You won't meet the title character until almost a quarter of the way in – by which point in Dutch animator Michael Dudok de Wit's sublime, Studio Ghibli-sponsored survivalist story, you've watched the movie's unnamed shipwrecked hero endure crashing waves, hunger-induced hallucinations and other Man v. Nature trials. This minimalist Robinson Crusoe falls down cliffs and into crevasses, swim's underwater through a claustrophobe's nightmare of a tunnel and cracks open mangoes for sustenance, all without saying a word. (The movie is almost completely dialogue-less, unless you consider the occasional...

Simon Brew Jan 19, 2017

Phantom Boy is playing in a limited number of UK cinemas this weekend. It's just the kind of surprise that's hard to find in modern movies.

I’ve written before about my love of Saturday and Sunday morning kids' clubs at multiplexes, where you can take your anklebiters to see a film that’s a couple of months post-its release. Such screenings are a godsend to parents of fidgety children, or those of us trying to introduce our youngsters to the cinema. There’s a kinship in there. Nobody goes in expecting children to be perfectly quiet, and there’s usually a spirit of tolerance and some degree of shared film love. Plus, let’s be honest, it’s not a bad value couple of hours either, given that the price tends to be lowered too.

See related Split review M Night Shyamalan interview: Split, non-conformity, creative freedom

Most of the time,...

Part Robinson Crusoe, part All Is Lost, and part Heavy Metal, the animated feature The Red Turtle applies a distinctively European visual design to a primal tale of man against the elements. A collaboration between Oscar-winning Dutch-British animator Michael Dudok De Wit (who won for his 2000 short “Father And Daughter”) and the team at Japan’s Studio Ghibli, the film represents the medium at its most artful and entertaining. Though some may find its allusiveness and magical-realist turns to be overly fanciful, The Red Turtle nevertheless remains throughout a simple, gripping story of survival, deriving its sense of adventure from the most basic plot imaginable: Here’s a human being, stranded in a strange place, using his strength, intelligence, and courage to forge some kind of a life for himself.

Dudok De Wit (who also co-wrote the picture with Bird People writer-director Pascale Ferran) sets the tone right from ...

A simple listing, duplicated from the homepage, of new releases and other stuff currently available, for the benefit of those playing along by RSS or keeping up via the Daily Digest emails (sign up here).

new dvd+vod Us/Can Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie Don’t Breathe Fire Song Hell or High Water Kubo and the Two Strings War Dogs Mechanic: Resurrection I’m planning to watch… Indignation Morris from America Spaghettiman new dvd+vod UK Before the Flood Ghostbusters Little Men Zoom I’m planning to watch… Keanu Things to Come

recent releases Us/Can Bad Moms Before the Flood Blood Father Captain Fantastic The Divide Ghostbusters The Great Gilly Hopkins Into the Inferno Michael Moore in TrumpLand Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates Miss Sharon Jones! The Purge: Election Year Sausage Party Sherpa Star Trek Beyond 13th Time to Choose Under the Shadow Anthropoid Cafe Society Microbe & Gasoline...

Studio Ghibli’s The Red Turtle, their first international co-production (handled in conjunction with Wild Bunch), screened at this year’s Filmfest Hamburg, and we had the good fortune of sitting down with the its director, Michaël Dudok de Wit. The feat he’s achieved with this picture is significant. As we said in our review at Cannes, “De Wit excels at producing compelling drama from such extreme self-imposed limitations. Indeed, despite there being no dialogue and very few characters, the film consistently celebrates the excitement of exploration and invention while also keeping the audience aware of the man’s growing frustrations, like the awful finality of falling down whens there’s no rope or ladder or hand to help you up.”

For a look into the creation of 2016’s finest animated endeavor, read on below.

The Film Stage: This is Studio Ghibli’s first international co-production. How did it come about?...

A spaceship heads to a remote planet to answer an Sos. Upon arrival on the fog covered world, they discover an insidious alien race that needs warm bodies to propagate their species. Yeah, I love Alien (1979) too! However, the film I’m referring to is Mario Bava’s Planet of the Vampires (1965), an influential departure for the prolific horror auteur and a gorgeously rendered sci-fi/horror blend.

Now, by no means am I suggesting that Sir Ridley Scott borrowed from Mario Bava (he claimed he never saw Planet beforehand); but I will say that this film also has a giant alien skeleton at the helm of a ship. Regardless of influence (or lack thereof), Planet still plays today due to Bava’s magnificent brushstrokes that drip from every frame.

Planet of the Vampires was also released as (take a deep breath): Planet of Blood, Terror in Space, The Haunted Planet,...

With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options — not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves — we’ve taken it upon ourselves to highlight the titles that have recently hit platforms. Every week, one will be able to see the cream of the crop (or perhaps some simply interesting picks) of streaming titles (new and old) across platforms such as Netflix, iTunes, Amazon, and more (note: U.S. only). Check out our rundown for this week’s selections below.

Blood Simple (Joel and Ethan Coen)

For as accomplished as Joel and Ethan Coen’s debut Blood Simple comes across as to a viewer, like any director, they can’t help but recognize their flaws. That’s not to say their newly restored debut, now available on The Criterion Collection, doesn’t look and sound gorgeous — every bead of sweat dripping down M. Emmet Walsh’s face and every...

The English-language title of a new animated film from Belgium is a play on words that is only accurate in the most literal terms possible. Gentle and good-hearted as it is, The Wild Life is clearly targeted at patient young children; it quickly becomes tedious for adults to endure. The pace is slow and everything is repeated at least once, if not twice or thrice. The lighthearted tone occasionally inspires a clever quip to emerge, but The Wild Life is mostly a pleasantly arid version of Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, first published in 1719. The film begins with a flashback framing device that also establishes animals can talk, as long as humans aren't within hearing distance. The flashback picks up at that point in the...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

Not too long ago, we announced the slate of programming for San Diego's Horrible Imaginings Film Festival, which starts next week. Now the festival wants to entice you with a compelling event both gruesome and forbidden --- cannibalism. Explored in films and tales such as Alive, Ravenous, Moby Dick's Queequeg, Robinson Crusoe, Silence of the Lambs, and Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and even Looney Tunes cartoons, cannibalism is a topic that continues to shock and repel us. At 6:00 pm on Friday, September 9th, the festival will explore our society's fascination with the topic. Dr. Emily Anderson, the curator for the San Diego Museum of Man's "Cannibals: Myth & Reality" exhibit, will lead a panel on the phenomenon of cannibalism in pop culture and the real-world contexts that fuel it. Festival goers will learn...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

From the over-exuberant parrot Mak to the snack-obsessed tapir Rosie, from the persnickety echidna Epi to the acrobatic pangolin Pango, from the ditzy goat Scrubby to the commonsensical kingfisher Kiki and the always-cool chameleon Carmello, things are larger-than-life on a tropical isle that is pure wild animal paradise. Then Robinson Crusoe, a marooned human, arrives in the midst of a furious storm, and their lives are forever changed by this bewildering new “creature.” No matter their differences, castaway human and quirky animals embark on an hilarious new adventure, building the island’s first tree-house and surviving together. But when two conniving members of the animal kingdom — the savage cats Mal & May – pounce into a battle for control of the island, Crusoe and his animal posse must uncover the true power of friendship against all odds (even savage cats).

The Wild Life opens in theaters on September 9, 2016.

Wamg invites you to...

Mid-summer brings the biggest limited opening of 2016, with a return to form by Woody Allen as new distributor Amazon Studios and partner Lionsgate pushed “Café Society” to numbers unseen since last December. It’s not at Allen’s top level, but a huge leap above his last two films as well as anything else so far this year.

For a totally different market, Dinesh D’Souza doc “Hillary’s America: The Secret History of the Democratic Party” had a limited opening in Middle America with strong front-loaded initial numbers. The political doc goes wider this Friday and could see a better eventual total —via an entirely different audience—than Allen’s film.

“Hunt for the Wilderpeople” (The Orchard) from New Zealand leads the films in wider release as it continues to build word-of-mouth success. “Captain Fantastic” (Bleecker Street) boasted a decent second weekend expansion and could end up at a...

For many, Summer is a time to “get away from it all”. That’s been a theme for lots of movie characters over the years. Robert Redford in All Is Lost and James Franco in 127 Hours escaped the rat race to explore the world solo, but both getaways lead to disaster (we just saw that last weekend with Blake Lively in The Shallows). Of course, solitude is often not a choice, but the result of fate. It perhaps started with Robinson Crusoe (made into several films), the idea of one or two people (or the seven TV folks on a “three-hour tour”) stranded on a desolate island. Swept Away was an Italian flick and an American remake, but the recent epic adventure that most movie fans would recall might be 2000’s Cast Away, This new film explores similar themes, but while Tom Hanks had a volleyball named Wilson as company,...

When the raucous survival film Swiss Army Man set Sundance aflame this January – aided in no small part from some infamously inflammatory methane – the only tidbit more shocking than hearing secondhand strands from its preposterous plot was the news that indie dynamo distributer A24 picked up its check to jet ski it across cinemas nationwide. Prompting walkouts that don’t sound too dissimilar from recently announced Tribeca juror and enfant terrible Sebastian Silva’s 2015 submission Nasty Baby, Swiss Army Man was immediately accused of churlish, childish, and undeniably crass crimes against good taste – what else would one expect from a buddy film about Paul Dano enduring starvation and isolation on a desert isle thanks to the multipronged malleability of Daniel Radcliffe’s flatulent, tumescent corpse? Certainly not a Directing Award, which the film’s directors Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinhart scooped up nonetheless; together, they go by the monicker Daniels…...

Summit Entertainment has released a first look trailer for their animated film "The Wild Life," a more animal-centric take on Daniel Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe". The film is currently targeting a September 9th release.

The story follows several creatures - a snack-obsessed tapir, an acrobatic pangolin, a chilled chameleon, a commonsensical kingfisher, a ditzy goat and a persnickety echidna. All of them find their lives disrupted when a human washes up on their shore and befriends them.

Fans that missed Twilight Time's initial Blu-ray release of Ray Harryhausen's Jules Verne spectacle get a second chance with this Encore Edition reissue. It includes an improved transfer and new extras, including an excellent audio commentary with Steven C. Smith, C. Courtney Joyner and Randall William Cook. The show still sends us, and Bernard Herrmann's powerful music score shakes the rafters. Mysterious Island Blu-ray Twilight Time 1961 / Color / 1:66 widescreen / 101 min. / Encoire Limited Edition / available at the Screen Archives Entertainment website; Street Date December 8, 2015 / 29.95 Starring Michael Craig, Michael Callan, Beth Rogan, Gary Merrill, Herbert Lom, Joan Greenwood, Percy Herbert. Cinematography Wilkie Cooper Special visual effects Ray Harryhausen Art Direction Bill Andrews Film Editor Frederick Wilson Original Music Bernard Herrmann Written by John Prebble, Daniel B. Ullman and Crane Wilbur from the novel by Jules Verne Produced by Charles H. Schneer Directed by Cy Endfield

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson...

Warning: spoilers for The Martian below   For a movie about a man stranded alone on the desolate surface of Mars, Ridley Scott.s The Martian managed to maintain an incredible sense of humor. Matt Damon brought an offbeat sensibility to Mark Watney that made the botanist/astronaut endlessly watchable, allowing us to laugh with the character even in his darkest moments. In the end it all felt more like Robinson Crusoe in space than Interstellar. That being said, the film does take some very serious turns at times, which required Damon to go to a darker and more somber place. According to Damon, Scott very much helped him achieve those moments.   Variety reports that during a recent screening of the film at the Palm Springs International Film Festival, Damon opened up regarding Ridley Scott.s somewhat unorthodox way of filming the film.s climactic scene in which Mark Watney launches...

We got our first look at a buff Matt Damon in the fifth installment of the Bourne spy series back in September, shortly before his sci-fi thriller The Martian landed in theaters to great popular success. To date, The Martian has earned more than $600 million at the box office worldwide and is now under consideration for year-end awards. Taking a break from filming the latest Bourne, Damon talked with Variety about his current and past projects. Here are a few highlights. On The Martian: "When I first met Ridley [Scott] about this, he said he always wanted to do Robinson Crusoe,” and he felt like this was his chance." The actor continued: "As we got into it we realized the key distinction is that in Robinson Crusoe -- or in Cast Away, for that...

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Gian Maria Volonté has a big part in this prime quality Italo crime thriller blessed with a great score by Ennio Morricone. But the movie belongs to Robert Hoffman as the real-life public enemy who earned the alias 'The Machine Gun Soloist.' Director Carlo Lizzani's realistic treatment glamorizes nothing and implicates the police in shady policies as well. Award-winning co-star Lisa Gastoni is the woman who loves Hoffman, and is tempted to betray him. Wake Up and Kill Blu-ray + DVD Arrow Video (UK) 1966 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 124 98 min / Svegliati e uccidi; Lutring; Wake Up and Die / Street Date November 24, 2015 / 29.95 Starring Robert Hoffmann, Lisa Gastoni, Gian Maria Volonté, Claudio Camaso, Renato Niccolai, Ottavio Fanfani, Pupo De Luca, Corrado Olmi. Cinematography Armando Nannuzzi Film Editing Franco Fraticelli Original Music Ennio Morricone Written by Ugo Pirro, Carlo Lizzani Produced by Jacques Bar, Joseph Fryd, Carlo Lizzani Directed by Carlo Lizzani  

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On a February set visit to Bristol, a group of journalists chatted to Martin Freeman about Sherlock’s Victorian-set Christmas Special…

Read the Sherlock special set visit round-table interview with Benedict Cumberbatch, here.

Filming on Sherlock’s first Christmas Special, The Abominable Bride, took place at the beginning of this year. Back then, very little was known about the episode, and the BBC was naturally keen to keep it that way.

Prior to visiting the Bristol set in February, we'd been told that the Special was set in the Victorian era, and that was more or less where the certainties ended. The rest was a hotchpotch of rumour, deduction and inference.

If the following cast and creators round-table interviews seem to have a hint of courtroom interrogation or parlour game about them, then, that air of secrecy explains it. Regardless of the constraints on what could and couldn’t be confirmed,...

20 years later, Pierce Brosnan's first Bond movie is still his best.

After a six-year absence from the big screen, 007 returned with the very-90s, but very action-packed, "GoldenEye." Despite headlines in the press asking if the world needed James Bond anymore, audiences seemed to think it did -- they helped the film become a huge hit at the box office, spawning three more films for Brosnan and a popular Nintendo game.

In honor of the film's 20th (?!) anniversary on November 17, here are 20 things you may not know about one of 007's most popular missions.

1. Legal issues prevented MGM from getting a new Bond movie out after the tepid reaction to 1989's "License to Kill," grounding 007 for six years -- the longest wait in-between films in the franchise's history.

2. In 1990, before the title and plot were locked down, producer Michael G. Wilson contributed a treatment and "Wiseguy" writer Alphonse Ruggerio...

Us pact for StudioCanal’s 3D family adventure follows recent deal on The Commuter.

Lionsgate has picked up Us rights to 3D family adventure Robinson Crusoe from StudioCanal.

The film will be released wide in the Us by Lionsgate’s Summit Entertainment label in mid-2016 following StudioCanal’s European release.

The animated film brings to life the true story of Robinson Crusoe in 3D as seen through the eyes of his quirky companions, including his parrot Tuesday who dreams of exploring the world.

The film is directed by Ben Stassen and Vincent Kesteloot and produced by nWave Pictures.

The announcement comes on the heels of Lionsgate’s acquisition from StudioCanal of Us rights to the thrillers The Commuter, starring Liam Neeson, and Our Kind of Traitor, starring Ewan McGregor.

“Robinson Crusoe is a timeless adventure classic that has enthralled families since it was first published and the exceptional quality of Ben and Vincent’s 3D animation will help...

Us pact for StudioCanal family adventure follows recent deal on The Commuter.

Lionsgate has picked up Us rights to 3D family adventure Robinson Crusoe from StudioCanal.

The film will be released wide in the Us by Lionsgate’s Summit Entertainment label in mid-2016 following StudioCanal’s European release.

The animated film brings to life the true story of Robinson Crusoe in 3D as seen through the eyes of his quirky companions, including his parrot Tuesday who dreams of exploring the world.

The film is directed by Ben Stassen and Vincent Kesteloot and produced by nWave Pictures.

The announcement comes on the heels of Lionsgate’s acquisition from StudioCanal of Us rights to the thrillers The Commuter, starring Liam Neeson, and Our Kind of Traitor, starring Ewan McGregor.

“Robinson Crusoe is a timeless adventure classic that has enthralled families since it was first published and the exceptional quality of Ben and Vincent’s 3D animation will help introduce...

Exclusive: Lionsgate has acquired U.S. rights to StudioCanal’s animated 3-D family film Robinson Crusoe. Lionsgate's Summit Entertainment label will release the film wide in mid-2016 following StudioCanal’s European roll-out. The announcement comes on the heels of Lionsgate's acquisition of U.S. rights to the Liam Neeson thriller The Commuter and John Le Carré adaptation Our Kind Of Traitor, starring Ewan McGregor, as the two companies continue to expand their…...

Director Ridley Scott makes the most of an excellent script and a first-rate star for a scintillating sci-fi trip to the red planet

Proving conclusively that it really is all about the writing, Ridley Scott’s most enjoyable film in years reassures us that the creakiness of Prometheus, the cack-handed contrivance of The Counsellor and the sheer stodginess of Exodus: Gods and Kings were genetically rooted in their respective screenplays. Scott may not have the best eye for a decent script (he thought A Good Year read like a charming Russell Crowe vehicle), but when the right words are on the page he can visualise them like no other. From the creative back and forth of Hampton Fancher and David Peoples on Blade Runner, through the genius of Callie Khouri’s Thelma and Louise screenplay, to this terrifically crowd-pleasing adaptation of Andy Weir’s book by The Cabin in the Woods creator Drew Goddard,...

Ridley Scott's post-Gladiator output has been a decidedly mixed bag. The prolific director knows how to get audiences into cinemas, but many of his recent films have left fans grumbling - Prometheus, we're looking at you.

Fortunately it looks like Scott is back on form with The Martian, his Matt Damon-gets-stranded-on-the-Red-Planet sci-fi based on Andy Weir's best-selling book. Here's an overview of the critical consensus for this week's big blockbuster release.

Digital Spy - Ali Plumb

"The Martian is Ridley Scott's best film in nearly 15 years. Part science lesson, part Robinson Crusoe drama, this is exciting and engaging filmmaking that reminds you just how good the seminal sci-fi director can be with the right script and the right story."

Empire - Ian Freer

"It isn't perfect. The supporting cast feel under-served, the idea that Watney's plight draws crowds of people in Trafalgar Square waiting for the outcome feels forced,...