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On the December 12 episode of The Young and the Restless, Lily filled Abby and Devon in on what her children, Mattie and Charlie, are up to now. It was nice to get the update, but even nicer would be for Lily and Cane’s twins to make their way back to Genoa City Asap. Here’s why they’re needed.

We’ve Got Restless, Where’s Young?

Genoa City is sorely missing a teen scenes. The youngest love story currently on the canvas is Kyle (Michael Mealor) and Claire (Hayley Erin). And they’re both out of college and working in the corporate world.

The youngest characters currently on the canvas are Dominic, who never says a word, the invisible Christian, and the often-seen Connor (Judah Mackey). Neither of them is ripe for a love story.

More: Find out what happens next on Y&R.

Lonely Hearts

Two young people...

Like their titular characters, Angel was Buffy’s older counterpart. The spin-off, which turns 25 this year, took its parent show’s supernatural lore out of a school setting and into the big, bad city. While bright, cheery Sunnydale provided an ironic contrast to the demonic action in its shadows, Los Angeles was its shadows. As Angel’s running joke goes, the city was a sordid hotbed of evil and monstrous behaviour even before the Satanic cults and vampires got a look-in.

There is, however, a line, and in its second ever episode, Angel crossed it.

After the pilot introduced the vision-afflicted Doyle, re-introduced Buffy character Cordelia, and set up Angel Investigations’ “We Help the Helpless” premise, it was time to set the show’s adult tone and shake off Buffy’s residual cheerleader vibes. How better to do that than with an episode about crack addiction and sex work?

“Corrupt...

Brazilian auteur Carolina Markowicz will head to Bucharest to hone her third feature, “The Funeral.” In development, the film was selected for the 2024 Pop Up Residency, pairing Markowicz with multi-prized Romanian producer Ada Solomon for a three-week consultancy.

“It’s truly a privilege to be able to dialogue with an industry professional like Ada, a producer who has made some films I truly admire. Daring, original and different. I love the artists who still dare to take risks, this is so rare nowadays. I’m looking forward to hearing her take on my film, and very honored to have it selected by her,” Markowicz told Variety.

The residency is part of an exclusive development initiative from Projeto Paradiso, which additionally awarded Markowicz a Paradiso Scholarship this year to attend the Tfl ScriptLab for the budding concept. It’s the fifth consecutive year that the partner program has offered the residency to a Brazilian filmmaker.

Paris-based outfit Luxbox – one of Europe’s biggest sales agents and sometimes producers – of higher-profile Spanish-language art house fare, has swooped on international rights to “Reas,” a prison musical in which ex female cons process their experiences, which was confirmed last week as one of the first eight films selected for Berlin’s Forum section.

The second film by Argentine playwright and writer Lola Arias (“Theater of War”), and winner of the Head Pitchings du Réel Award at Visions du Réel in 2020, “Reas” was also selected by San Sebastian Film Festival for its 2023 Wip Latam.

It will world premiere at the Forum, a section focusing on boundary-breaking titles that challenge aesthetic and narrative norms.

“We feel extremely honored to represent the second feature by artist and filmmaker Lola Arias, whom we discovered at San Sebastian Work In Progress,” Luxbox CEO Fiorella Moretti told Variety.

An international co-production between Gema Juárez and Clarisa Oliveri,...

“Lonely Hearts,” the highly-anticipated third feature from Brazil’s Berlinale-winner Caru Alves de Souza (“My Name Is Baghdad”), named among 10 Next Gen Talents to Track from the country by Variety in February, and a pair of additional homecoming narratives from burgeoning creatives, Uruguayan director Paula Botana’s“The Burned Women” and Dora Gomez’s “Blanca” out of Paraguay, are among the titles selected for Ventana Sur’s 2023 Punto Genero pitching sessions.

Histories unearthed and intimate interpersonal relationships are dominant themes in the remaining selections with films like Argentina-Spain co-production “Brücher. Unaudited Botanical Chronicle,” from Mariana Guzzante and Camila Menéndez,Natalia Solórzano title “She Was Covered In Sequins” and Marta María Borrás’s “The Passengers For The Last Trip.”

“This year, the juries wanted the projects to represent Latin America. We selected eight projects from Latin America, excluding the four projects from Argentina, and the juries decided on one project per country,...

Two older women, Bella and Sylvia, played by Bunny Levine and Allison McKay, appear in "You Are So Not Invited To My Bat Mitzvah" and offer advice to Stacy about her feud with Lydia. Bunny Levine has previously appeared in two other Adam Sandler movies, "You Don't Mess With the Zohan" and "Sandy Wexler," in minor roles. Allison McKay has a history of starring in various films and TV shows, including "The Beverly Hillbillies" and "Transparent." Her latest appearance is in Adam Sandler's "You Are So Not Invited To My Bat Mitzvah."

Adam Sandler's Netflix film You Are So Not Invited To My Bat Mitzvah briefly features two older women, one of whom has previously worked with the famous Hollywood star. The 2023 comedy-drama movie stars Sandler's daughter — Sunny Sandler — as a girl named Stacy Friedman who is in the midst of planning her bat mitzvah while her best friend, Lydia Rodriguez Katz,...

An Emmy-winning writer, producer and director, Todd Robinson has worked in film and television for nearly four decades — penning screenplays for White Squall, Lonely Hearts and The Last Full Measure. Prior to the current WGA strike, the second since he joined the guild, he’d been working on his next features Eldorado and Neponsit Circle, slated for production in 2024.

Nov. 24, 2007, I was asleep in my childhood bedroom in my hometown of Media, Pennsylvania. Crushed after a brutal red-eye, followed by my 30th high school reunion, I was wasted.

In L.A., it was day 18 of the 2007-08 writers strike, where I’d been picketing right up until Thanksgiving. It was a relief to get away from the sunburn, signs and honking cars. Back home, the gloom of a painful work stoppage seemed far away.

The strike had brought much into focus for my wife, Elizabeth, and me. I was a...

Projeto Paradiso has announced in Cannes that Daniel Bandeira has won the Pop Up Film Residency Paradiso. The program is created exclusively for Brazilian professionals.

Bandeira, currently developing “Red Express,” is also behind “Property”, which premiered at the Berlinale’s Panorama back in February. Born in Pernambuco, he has been a filmmaker since 2001, making his feature debut with “Peer Pressure.”

The three-week Pop Up Film Residency – carried out in partnership with Matthieu Darras of Tatino Films – will take place in the Faroe Islands in Denmark, with Jón Hammer of Kyk Pictures joining as local partner.

“In so many ways, this project will be a step up for me. In terms of production, but also creatively. It’s a complex story,” Bandeira told Variety.

“I really want to think about my potential audience this time. Who are they? It’s the kind of concern I didn’t have in the past,...

Breaking out of traditional, male, Rio de Janeiro/São Paulo strongholds to finally embrace regional, Black and Indigenous writer-directors, Brazil’s next generation of cinematic talent tackles a huge gamut of themes, styles and concern about social issues. Variety profiles 10 figures who look set to help shape the future of Brazilian filmmaking.

Caru Alves de Souza

Alves de Souza has such films as 2020 Berlin Generation winner “My Name Is Baghdad,” a plucky tale of adolescence on the fringes of society, and 2013’s San Sebastian Horizontes Latinos debut “Underage,” a riveting look at juvenile justice under her belt. She shreds ignorance with her belief “in the power of a cinema that questions established norms but also offers some alternative.”

At this year’s Berlin Co-Production Market, her “Lonely Hearts” deals with the fate of a family porn theater business, its characters “contradictory, flawed, idiosyncratic, and on the other hand, extremely empathetic,...

Brazilian writer-director Caru Alves de Souza, whose second feature, “My Name Is Baghdad,” won the Crystal Bear for best film at Berlin’s 2020 Generation 14plus sidebar, has been selected for the Pop Up Film Residency 2022 program.

Alves de Souza will use the Residency to develop “Lonely Hearts,” her new fiction feature.

The award was announced Saturday at Cannes Marché du Film by Josephine Bourgois and Rachel do Valle, executive director and program director at Brazil’s Projeto Paradiso, which is backing the prize, and former Cannes Critics’ Week programmer Matthieu Darras, creator of Pop Up.

Alves de Souza will participate in the mentoring program for the development of a fiction feature, which runs over three weeks, in August, in Vilnius, Lithuania. She will receive a Paradiso Scholarship and travel support in the amount of Reais 5,000, in addition to becoming part of the Paradiso Talent Network.

Alves de Souza impressed with “My Name is Baghdad,...

Exclusive: Following the premiere of his latest film, Inexorable, earlier this year at TIFF, Fabrice du Welz has inked with Verve for representation. The filmmaker continues to be managed by Grandview.

du Welz has directed a number of award-winning films that have premiered at festivals internationally, including his 2014 film, Alleluia, a dark lovesick horror film inspired by the real-life criminal duo, the Lonely Hearts Killers. Alleluia premiered at Cannes’ Directors Fortnight, as well as TIFF, and won both Best Picture and Best Director at Austin Fantastic Fest that year.

He then directed the 2016 Netflix film, Message for the King, starring the late Chadwick Boseman, which also premiered at TIFF. His 2019 movie Adoration premiered at Locarno Film Festival, where it was nominated for Variety Piazza Grande Award. It also premiered at Sitges, where it won the Special Jury Prize, before it went on to win the Andre Cavens Award for Best...

Laura Dern (Jurassic World Dominion) and Liam Hemsworth (Poker Face) have signed on to star in the film Lonely Planet, which Susannah Grant (Unbelievable) is writing and directing for Netflix.

Lonely Planet is billed as a love story set in Morocco. Specifics with regard to its plot are being kept under wraps. Grant is also producing alongside Sarah Timberman and Liza Chasin for 3dot Productions, with VP Studio Film Kira Goldberg serving as creative lead for Netflix.

The film continues the creative partnership between Netflix and 3dot, which has thus far produced the streamer’s upcoming thriller series, Anatomy of a Scandal, based on the book by Sarah Vaughan. 3dot entered into a multi-year, first-look film deal with Netflix in 2019, with adaptations of Taylor Jenkins Reid’s bestseller The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and Diane Cardwell’s memoir Rockaway also upcoming.

Grant is an Oscar- and three-time Emmy nominee...

Stars: Chloe Yarranton, Coralie Hudson, David Pearl, Thomas Lee Rutter, Martin Payne | Written by Bazz Hancher, Michael Walcott | Directed by Bazz Hancher

Hate Little Rabbit is the new film from director Bazz Hancher and co-writer Michael Walcott who has served as a producer on several of Hancher’s previous productions. The idea of an ultra gory English giallo certainly appealed to me, especially from someone who I know isn’t afraid to deal out the kind of nastiness the genre is known for, so I had some high expectations when I finally got a chance to sit down and watch it.

And Hancher certainly deals out the nastiness right from the start as a man, nude except for a gimp mask uses a teddy bear to rather explicitly pleasure himself before going into a young girl’s room. Thankfully we don’t see what happens next, but what we hear...

Dashboard Confessional have scheduled an unplugged tour of the United States this fall.

The tour will launch September 8th at the Orpheum Theater in New Orleans and wrap November 5th at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. The unplugged shows will find Dashboard Confessional frontman Chris Carrabba playing alongside a stripped-down backing band that also includes longtime guitarist Armon Jay, as well as Abby Kelly and Dane Poppin (this lineup performed on Dashboard Confessional’s recent Lonely Hearts and Lovers Valentine’s Day livestream show).

Dashboard Confessional will receive support from...

Chile’s Santiago International Film Festival (Sanfic), which is preparing for its rescheduled, entirely digital industry section which will run March 18-25, ahead of its traditional in-person festival, scheduled for August, has revealed the projects’ lineup for its Santiago Lab Fiction, Documentary and Series sections.

Sanfic’s brand new Series Lab, headed by Agustina Lumi and Alejandra Marano, has selected six Chilean productions or co-productions representative of the region’s impressive push into original TV production with the legs to travel to international broadcasters and platforms – see Fabula’s Amazon Prime Video pickup “La Jauria” or Germany-Chile co-production “Dignity” for German platform Joyn.

Santiago Series Lab is highlighted by Kathy Harder’s “Silver Bridges,” from “Invisible Heroes” producers Parox. The series was first announced at MipCancun 2018 and dramatizes the origins of Chile’s cocaine trade. Another standout can be found in International Emmy winner Hernán Caffiero’s “Anonymous Voices,” produced by Btf Media.

Intensely personal projects speak to socio-political situation in Latin America, forces that shaped the region.

Ventana Sur and San Sebastian Film Festival have announced this year’s slate of 17 Proyecta selections looking to promote co-production partnerships between Latin American and Europe.

The annual market in Buenos Aires has gone virtual this year due to the pandemic, and Proyecta participants have recorded video pitches that will be assessed by a panel of producers, programmers and sales agents from December 1-3.

The third annual Proyecta line-up comprises 12 Latin American projects chosen by Paulo Roberto de Carvalho (Autentika Films), Esperanza Luffiego (San Sebastian...

JoJo is having a moment. Nearly four months after good to know, her fourth studio album, debuted atop the Billboard R&b Albums Chart, the singer has returned with a deluxe reissue of the critically-acclaimed LP. This version sports a beefed-up tracklist that includes five brand-new songs that expand on the smooth R&b soundscape of the original while adding a pair of high-profile features including Demi Lovato jumping on a remix of "Lonely Hearts" and Tinashe making an appearance on new track "Love Reggae." (She also removed rapper Tory Lanez from the song "Comeback" following the allegations made against him by Megan Thee Stallion regarding his involvement in her shooting.) In a...

Salma Hayek has signed a two-year first-look deal with HBO Max. As part of the pact, the actress, producer, director and Oscar nominee will first bring projects to the WarnerMedia-owned streaming service for potential development via her Ventanarosa production company. Jose Tamez, President of Ventanarosa, serves as her producing partner and Siobhan Flynn is their Head of Production & Development.

Tamez and Hayek have worked together for the past 20 years on films such as Frida, nominated for six Oscars including a lead actress nom for Hayek, Annie Award-nominated Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet and Beatriz at Dinner. Together, they produced the Emmy, Golden Globe and Peabody Award-winning TV series Ugly Betty, as well as the TV movie In The Time Of The Butterflies.

“We are delighted to welcome the exceptionally multitalented powerhouse Salma Hayek and Ventanarosa into the HBO Max family,” said Sarah Aubrey, head of original content, HBO Max.

(L-r) Scott Murray, John B. Murray, his second wife Annie and daughter Sue.

John B. Murray, one of the pioneers of the modern Australian cinema, died yesterday in Melbourne after a massive stroke. He was 88.

The writer/producer/director and distributor was one of the guiding lights of the industry from the 1960s.

He was the first director of the Film, Radio and Television Board at the Australian Council for the Arts, which later became the Australia Council and subsequently was transferred to the Australian Film Commission when it was established in 1975.

Former Australian Film Commission CEO Kim Williams tells If: “He made a very substantial contribution and should be remembered especially for his courage in establishing the early video access centres around the country.

“He also got the the Chauvel and Longford cinemas going in Sydney and Melbourne under the then AFI, with their Australian programming and as venues...

The NCIS cast has a lot of guest stars for the February 11 episode. On Tuesday night, actress Desi Dennis-Dylan is also joining the new episode called Lonely Hearts. Dennis-Dylan is going to be playing a small part in her guest-starring appearance. She will take on the role of Sloane Jackston during the new episode. No, this isn’t the same […]...

The NCIS cast introduces Navy Commander Stacy Gordon on the next episode of the show. Gordon is played by actress Daphne Zuniga and this will be her first appearances as a guest star on NCIS. She’s not the only guest star for the episode called Lonely Hearts — Don Lake is returning to the show as Retired Navy Captain Phillip […]...

NCIS returns on Tuesday night with a Valentine’s Day episode. The new episode is called Lonely Hearts, and it has a theme that plays into the upcoming holiday. In the February 11 episode preview, which is shared below, even the death that the NCIS team has to investigate seems to be playing on the overall theme of Valentine’s Day. But […]...

Belgian director Fabrice du Welz is known for his extremely violent and gory films, which typically reach a fever-pitch of intensity if they do not start from an already nerve-wracking place. His aesthetic project is one of confrontation, and his interest lies in exploring limit-experiences of intense emotions and sensations, of the kind which produce both psychological and physical pain. Already in his phenomenal 1999 short film A Wonderful Love, he centers on an ordinary and unassuming woman, living in a disgusting apartment, who “falls in love” with the corpse of a male stripper she accidentally murdered. It is gruesome, funny, sweet, and disturbing all at the same time. His early feature films were part of a similar project and share this wonderful, productive collision of tones, Calvaire (2004) projecting the psychosexual hang-ups of its main character onto a brutish fight for survival in a rural hellscape, Vinyan (2008) following a grieving couple...

The Last Full Meausre Roadside Attractions Reviewed for Shockya.com & BigAppleReviews.net linked from Rotten Tomatoes by: Harvey Karten Director: Todd Robinson Screenwriter: Todd Robinson Cast: Sebastian Stan, Christopher Plummer, William Hurt, Ed Harris, Samuel L. Jackson Screened at: Critics’ link, NYC, 1/18/20 Opens: Opens January 24, 2020 Todd Robinson, whose “Lonely Hearts” dramatized the true […]

The post The Last Full Measure Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.

Kaarin Fairfax and Chris Haywood in ‘Skewwhiff.’

Chris Haywood is so committed to making a thriller based on the Australian novel The Crossing he has agreed to produce as well as star in the feature film.

First-time feature director James Khehtie sent the novel by B. Michael Radburn to the actor, who loved the premise: Taylor Bridges flees from Victoria to an isolated Tasmanian town to work as a park ranger after his daughter disappeared, triggering the breakdown of his marriage.

When a young girl who was the same age as his daughter vanishes, Bridges, a chronic sleepwalker, begins to wonder what happens when he sleepwalks.

“I did not want to produce but James insisted,” Haywood tells If, recalling that he has served as a producer only once before, on writer-director Peter Watkins’ 1991 feature doc The Media Project, which critiqued Australian media coverage of the first Gulf war.

Radburn has...

Exclusive: Chris and Jason Thornton's series pitch The Incorruptibles has pre-emptively been purchased by Germany's Zdf Enterprise. The series will be executive produced by Rosa Entertainment's Sidney Sherman (Lonely Hearts), Robert Franke at Zdf Enterprises, and the Thornton Brothers. The storyline is being kept under wraps for the hour-long English-language drama series but it is said to be a high concept, violent action-thriller with satirical black comedy…...

Fear doesn’t need subtitles, but some of the best horror films do. J-horror, the New French Extremity, and other foreign-language scary-movie movements have provided much in the way of terrified shrieks and heightened pulses. Although dialogue may get lost in translation, blood-curdling screams never do. Horror is an especially visual genre, and one of the most universal.

The world is dark and full of terrors, especially where the movies on this list are concerned. Here are our favorite foreign language horror flicks made since the year 2000.

20. “We Are What We Are” (2010)

Horror filmmakers ruthlessly mine for metaphor, often at the expense of credibility. The tricky balance in the Mexican cannibal drama “We Are What We Are” (“Somos lo que hay”) pairs a conventional family unit with the ludicrously grotesque to chilling and absurd effect. Writer-director Jorge Michel Grau’s feature debut has the goriest signifier for underclass strife this...

Michael Nesmith has done far more than just Monkee around. Famed as one-quarter of the legendary television/music/live performance project in the late 1960s, Nesmith shared highlights of his unusual life in a new memoir, Infinite Tuesday. In it, he talks of his high-flying days in the Monkees, personal and financial struggles following their dissolution, and the shocking mysterious illness that nearly left him paralyzed.

The Monkees were designed as television’s answer to the Beatles, and their instant success soon brought them into upper echelon of fame alongside the real Fab Four. Nesmith stuck up a friendship with John Lennon,...

Alison Sudol, the breakout star of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, has signed on to join Samuel L. Jackson, Sebastian Stan and Christopher Plummer in The Last Full Measure.

Todd Robinson (White Squall, Lonely Hearts) is directing the film, which also counts William Hurt, Bradley Whitford, Michael Imperioli, Linus Roache, John Savage, Grant Gustin and Diane Ladd among the cast.

Based on the true story of a present-day cover-up investigation, The Last Full Measure follows young Pentagon investigator Scott Huffman (Stan) as he battles the political machine in Washington. He reluctantly teams with veterans of Operation Abilene to convince...

Step one: Have money.

Step two: If step one was successful, skip all remaining steps.*

*Note: Step two applies to every single thing in life.

Step three: Have musician friends.

Step four: Like your musician friends. If they main Hanzo, skip to step six.

Step five: Like your musician friends’ music. If steps four and five are complete, skip to step nine.

Step six: Score your show with your friends’ music without telling them.

Step seven: No, don’t do that. That’s fucked up.

Step eight: Ok, really jumped the shark on this format. Let’s get back to it.

Step nine: Think of a song that matches tonally and thematically with a specific scene.

Step ten: Or think of a moody, ethereal love song and apply it to a masturbation scene – for irony, if such a thing exists post-Alanis Morissette.

Step eleven: Approach your musician friend with...

It seems that we're on the verge of a mini-Captain America reunion as it has been announced that Samuel L. Jackson is set to join the cast of The Last Full Measure alongside Sebastian Stan. Based on the true story of a present-day cover-up investigation, the Todd Robinson (White Squall, Lonely Hearts) written & directed flick will follow a "young... Read More...

It's an Avengers reunion: Samuel L. Jackson has signed on to join Sebastian Stan in The Last Full Measure.

Christopher Plummer, William Hurt, Bradley Whitford, Michael Imperioli and Linus Roache also star in the film from Todd Robinson (White Squall, Lonely Hearts).

Based on the true story of a present-day cover-up investigation, The Last Full Measure follows young Pentagon investigator Scott Huffman (Stan) as he battles the political machine in Washington. He reluctantly teams with veterans of Operation Abilene to convince Congress to award the Medal of Honor to a courageous Air Force medic, William Pitsenbarger, who is seen...

When was the last time you thought about The Iron Horse? Or The Time Tunnel? How about The Girl from U.N.C.L.E.? All are television shows that premiered the second week of September in 1966, and all have effectively faded from memory. Not so with The Monkees, the groundbreaking TV-music-performance project that ran amok across the late '60s pop cultural landscape like Frankenstein's multimedia monster. 50 years later, it's still very much alive.

Earlier this year, the three surviving Monkees reunited in the studio with producer Adam Schlesinger – a veteran of the uber-poppy Fountains of Wayne and the tunesmith behind the brilliant...

When was the last time you thought about The Iron Horse? Or The Time Tunnel? How about The Girl from U.N.C.L.E.? All are television shows that premiered the second week of September in 1966, and all have effectively faded from memory. Not so with The Monkees, the groundbreaking TV-music-performance project that ran amok across the late '60s pop cultural landscape like Frankenstein's multimedia monster. 50 years later, it's still very much alive. Earlier this year, the three surviving Monkees reunited in the studio with producer Adam Schlesinger - a veteran of the uber-poppy Fountains of Wayne and the tunesmith behind the...

Should be grim, bitter, and as horrifyingly alluring as Hannibal Lecter. But it’s nothing but a teen-friendly ad for toys, Ts, and other disposable merch. I’m “biast” (pro): nothing

I’m “biast” (con): nothing

(what is this about? see my critic’s minifesto)

Remember that review of Spinal Tap’s album” Shark Sandwich that so exasperated a music journalist that s/he let “Shit sandwich” suffice? I really was tempted to let “Shit squad” be the totality of my review of this pile of cinematic vomit. But that would be too kind to a movie that deserves to be slashed to ribbons, the ribbons burnt, and the ashes swept up into a vat of caustic industrial chemicals (where they will inevitably later spawn the hellish supervillain Fanboy Manbaby when a mildmannered comic-book geek tries to drown himself in his disappointment over how fundamentally terrible this movie...

Stars: Shirley Stoler, Tony Lo Bianco, Mary Jane Higby, Doris Roberts, Kip McArdle, Marilyn Chris, Dortha Duckworth, Barbara Cason, Ann Harris, Mary Breen | Written and Directed by Leonard Kastle

Based on the notorious “Lonely Hearts” killers Martha Beck (Shirley Stoler) and Raymond Fernandez (Tony Lo Bionco) it tells the tale of two lovers who made a living by conning lonely women out of their savings. At first Martha was to be one of his victims before Raymond fell in love with her instead. Agreeing to let Raymond continue his manipulation of other women, Martha’s only rule was that she had to be a part of the plots, which eventually led to murder when her jealousy became too strong.

The pairing of Martha and Raymond is interesting because and works on-screen because their characters seem to be a perfect match. Both selfish and impulsive they are almost like children in...

The advertising promised a surfeit of sleaze -- but the film is a superior thriller about a real-life, low-rent serial killers from back in the late 1940s. Tony Lo Bianco and the great Shirley Stoler are Ray and Martha, mixed-up lovers running a Merry Widow racket through the personals ads in romance magazines. Leonard Kastle's film is dramatically and psychologically sound, while the disc extras detail the true crime story, which is far, far, sleazier. The Honeymoon Killers Blu-ray The Criterion Collection 200 1969 / B&W / 1:85 widescreen / 107 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date September 29, 2015 / 39.95 Starring Shirley Stoler, Tony Lo Bianco, Mary Jane Higby, Doris Roberts, Kip McArdle, Marilyn Chris, Dortha Duckworth, Barbara Cason, Ann Harris Cinematography Oliver Wood Film Editor Richard Brophy, Stanley Warnow Music Gustav Mahler Produced by Warren Steibel Written and Directed by Leonard Kastle  

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

The ad campaign for this crime shocker...

CBS and "NCIS" star Mark Harmon are teaming to develop a TV series based on Brandon Webb and John David Mann's best-seller "The Red Circle" with a script commitment already handed out for the drama.

The story follows an experienced but newly promoted Navy Seal who has joined a troubled platoon and is inspired by Webb's experience serving with Seal Team 3.

The aim is to be about showcasing people accomplishing difficult, demanding and dangerous things while holding on to principles, values and integrity.

Webb will produce and Harmon will executive produce while Todd Robinson ("Lonely Hearts") will pen the script.

Source: The Live Feed...

Lonely Hearts: Sautet’s Elegant Final Film on Passionate Restraint

Winning Best Director as well as Best Actor for Michel Serrault at the 1995 Cesars, Nelly & Monsieur Arnaud would stand as the final film of director Claude Sautet. The achingly rendered central relationship makes for a curious case study in the deep emotional undercurrents exchanged between two people unable to properly communicate their actual feelings, and as is typical of many Sautet films, it’s a master class of finely attenuated performances. It was the second collaboration of Sautet and the beautiful Emmanuelle Beart (had he lived, she would have taken the muse role occupied by Romy Schneider in his earlier filmography), following 1991’s A Heart in Winter, a title many champion as the director’s masterpiece, and the one that tends to overshadow their second outing.

Nelly (Beart) is in a loveless marriage and has racked up considerable debt supporting her worthless,...

Fabrice du Welz, the Belgian filmmaker behind the captivating Calvaire and Vinyan returns this month with Alleluia. Loosely based on the exploits of the Lonely Hearts Killers, du Welz’s mystic, morbid love story is an incredible, mad portrait of devotion and murder. Shock Till You Drop presents an exclusive clip from the stunner, an intimate moment in which a…

The post Alleluia Exclusive Clip: A Warped Devotion is Born appeared first on Shock Till You Drop.

Ballad of the Sad Doublet: Mann’s Warm, Simplistic Tale of Lonely Hearts

Recalling an era of simple, but warmly rendered studio features fitted specifically for their romantic lead properties, Ami Canaan Mann’s sophomore film Jackie & Ryan is indeed as plain as its aseptic title would indicate. A portrait of Middle American woes that could have easily been set in the Depression era, Mann’s straight laced storytelling makes for a surprisingly pleasant venture, even as top lined by a pair of dubious leads. But as warmly rendered as the film happens to be, it’s doubtful whether anything will remain very memorable once the credits roll.

Modern day drifter Ryan (Ben Barnes) is an aspiring folk singer, hopping around the country by train, the happy-go-lucky sort who seems to be engaged with life exactly as he wants to be. He stops off in Ogden, Utah, and while performing one day,...

For July 2015, we’ve got another jam-packed month of genre-related titles arriving on VOD (and a few other digital platforms too) to help fans beat the summer heat by staying inside and catching up on tons of great new movies.

IFC Midnight’s got a zany new creature feature called Stung that’s kicking off the month and for those of you who may have missed it in theaters earlier this year, the acclaimed breakout indie film It Follows is finally making its way to homes on VOD beginning July 2nd. Some other notable July VOD releases include 3-Headed Shark Attack, Felt, Alleluia, The Stanford Prison Experiment, Dark Was the Night, and Extinction.

Also, Dude Bro Party Massacre III - which premiered earlier this month at the Los Angeles Film Festival - is gearing up for its release as well in July; it won’t be arriving on traditional VOD platforms,...

With my first Siff now in the books, I can say that I’ve learned some valuable lessons. The first being what a remarkable festival and diverse program the organizers came up with for the 41st edition. From the venues to the volunteers, everything was top notch. Like most festivals, it was a bit front-loaded with premieres, but there were also notable premieres later in the program, including Max Landis’ Me Him Her on the closing weekend. From top to bottom, this was a great line-up with very few thin spots.

The other major lesson I learned is that it’s impossible to adequately cover a film festival in the city in which you live. Family, friends, and full-time jobs don’t simply disappear just because you want to have some fun. I come away feeling disappointed that time constraints kept me from seeing a lot of great films, as...

Funko announced on Monday their first wave of exclusive San Diego Comic-Con 2015 items. Also in this round-up: details on Demi Lovato guest starring on From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series, as well as a trailer and release details for Alleluia.

Funko Sdcc 2015 Exclusives: "Funko is proud to announce our first batch of San Diego Comic-Con exclusives!

Our goal was to cover as many beloved licenses and characters as possible to remind every Comic-Con attendee why they fell in love with these stories in the first place.

In an effort to provide more of our products to Con-goers, we are Not offering a pre-buy option this year. Without further ado, here is the first installment of Funko’s San Diego Comic-Con exclusives list!"

Pop! Animation: Futurama - Gold Bender Pop! Disney/Pixar: Inside Out - Sparkle Hair Sadness Pop! Television: Doctor Who - Twelfth Doctor (Spacesuit) Pop! Rides: X-Force Deadpool's Chimichanga...

Arrow Video cleans up the obscure video nasty Island of Death this month, a rare representative of Greek exploitation cinema. A shameless cash-in on the success of Tobe Hooper’s 1974 classic The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, director Nico Mastorakis was inspired to outdo the gruesome violence of that title in order to secure his own fame and fortune. Of course, time has feted out a different trajectory for the title, though it started Mastorakis on his own wayward path as a director of various schlock. Though its infamous reputation precedes his debut, by today’s standards, the shock value of his troubled venture is mostly laughable in its desperately handled perversities. However, Mastorakis captures a sort of beautiful dread with his striking locale, and lovers of vintage genre will appreciate the odd juxtaposition of grindhouse quality antics filmed on an exotic island.

Christopher (Robert Behling) and Celia (Jane Lyle), a blond,...

Fabrice du Welz (Calvaire, Vinyan) returns with his best work yet: Alleluia. Loosely based on the Lonely Hearts Killers, this warped, horror romance is a mad depiction of psychotic and psychosexual devotion. It is one of the summer’s must-sees. Out July 17th in NY & La, as well as on VOD and iTunes from Music Box’s…

The post Official Trailer, Release: Alleluia, A Warped Love Story appeared first on Shock Till You Drop.

A radically beefed-up Jared Leto has proudly unveiled his Superman vest-clad, muscular physique for his forthcoming role as the Joker in Suicide Squad.

The Oscar-winning star has become renowned for taking on 'anti-vanity' parts which often render him unrecognisable in most of his adventurous acting roles to date.

Often going to unbelievable lengths for a part, we celebrate his constant movie metamorphosis with 6 incredible on-screen transformations.

1. Fight Club (1999)

"I feel like destroying something beautiful", Edward Norton's Tyler Durden reasons before pulverising Jared Leto's pretty face in David Fincher's dark drama Fight Club.

Leto played the platinum blonde Angel Face, whose handsome looks are transformed after he's left toothless and grotesquely deformed following Norton's brutal beating.

The actor toned up for the role and bleached his hair and eyebrows - aspects which bear some similarities to his recent transformation into the frightening, green-haired Joker.

2. American Psycho (2000)

Ok, so...

Shaq this out: Shaquille O’Neal will star in truTV’s comedy pilot Shaq Inq.

The workplace sitcom is loosely based on the wild and frenetic business empire of the former basketball player, who will serve as an executive producer alongside Mike Tollin (Smallville, Arli$$).

The half-hour project follows O’Neal and the team who manages his existing products and endorsements while implementing his latest batch of eccentric and oftentimes brilliant business ideas.

Ready for more of today’s newsy nuggets? Well…

* Get ready for a bloody good time. NBC has unveiled a trailer for Season 3 of Hannibal, premiering this summer.

Luise Rainer dies at age 104: Rainer was first consecutive Oscar winner, first two-time winner in acting categories and oldest surviving winner (photo: MGM star Luise Rainer in the mid-'30s.) The first consecutive Academy Award winner, the first two-time winner in the acting categories, and, at age 104, the oldest surviving Oscar winner as well, Luise Rainer (Best Actress for The Great Ziegfeld, 1936, and The Good Earth, 1937) died at her London apartment on December 30 -- nearly two weeks before her 105th birthday. Below is an article originally posted in January 2014, at the time Rainer turned 104. I'll be sharing more Luise Rainer news later on Tuesday. January 17, 2014: Inevitably, the Transformers movies' director Michael Bay (who recently had an on-camera "meltdown" after a teleprompter stopped working at the Consumer Electronics Show) and the Transformers movies' star Shia Labeouf (who was recently accused of plagiarism) were mentioned -- or rather, blasted, in...

Netflix giveth and Netflix taketh away.

While everyone's favorite subscription streaming service is adding a ton of awesome movies and TV shows in December, it's also yanking a huge list of popular titles from its library. Below is said list. I'm especially sad to see "Dirty Dancing" and "The Talented Mr. Ripley" go. Those movies are the sh...

Watch them while you can!

Movies Being Dropped by Netflix on December 1st

"1941" (1979)

"The Apostle" (1997)

"Audrey Rose" (1977)

"The Believers" (1987)

"Better than Chocolate" (1999)

"Blood & Chocolate" (2007)

"The Boy in the Striped Pajamas" (2008)

"Chaplin" (1992)

"The Choirboys" (1977)

"The Cockeyed Cowboys of Calico County" (1970)

"Coffee and Cigarettes" (2003)

"The Cold Light of Day" (1996)

"The Constant Gardener" (2005)

"Count Yorga, Vampire" (1970)

"Cry-Baby" (1990)

"Dirty Dancing" (1987)

"Double Indemnity" (1944)

"En la Cama" (2005)

"Event Horizon" (1997)

"Eye for an Eye" (1996)

"Fairy Tale: A True Story" (1997)

"First Knight" (1995)

"Five Easy Pieces" (1970)

"Foreign Student" (1994)

"Free Men" (2011)

"Funny Lady" (1975)

"The Ghost and Mrs Muir" (1947)

"The Girl from Petrovka...