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The Popcorn Frights Film Festival is back with its eleventh this year, both in-person and virtually, from August 7-17. The Southeast’s largest genre celebration announces its second wave of programming this morning, from new premieres to repertory screening classics.

The final wave is a short film showcase, featuring seventy-four world premiere shorts. Look for notable entries including Andrew Bowser’s “Frankenbabes from Beyond the Grave” and Academy Award-winner Joel Harlow’s “The Specter of Christmas” featuring Paul Giamatti.

Catch up on the first and second waves here for a full rundown of the lineup.

Read on for the third wave:

Short Film Lineup

Animation Domination

The endless possibilities of genre animation are on dazzling display in this retina-reeling, round-the-world showcase of some of the medium’s most innovative, boundary-pushing, and mind-enhancing short films:

As I Was a Tree, dir. Jalal Maghout (Germany-Syrian Arab Republic); Bullet Time, dir. Eddie Alcazar; Burned Cans for Aluminum Children,...

Empire of Light is a drama movie written and directed by Sam Mendes starring Olivia Colman, Micheal Ward and Colin Firth.

Sam Mendes is the absolute star of a movie that is photographically marvelous and which is a tribute to film-making, a tribute to real movie making of a kind of movies we have all started to forget.

About the Movie Empire of Light (2022)

This is a love story in many senses, the physical, metaphorical, psychological, photographic… Empire of Light is a genuine delight…

Out of fashion, delightfully demodé.

Sam Mendes proves that not all stage directors are useless when it comes to the silver screen. This is a movie that knows how to perfectly combine “film making” perfectly, meticulous care of the scenes, elaboration of the scenes, the editing, sets… with that “theatrical” shot in interpretation and evolution of the characters.

A movie that knows how to take the best of both worlds,...

Searchlight Pictures just launched a gorgeous teaser trailer for Sam Mendes’ Empire of Light. The 2022 release marks Mendes’ first feature film solo screenwriting credit and is described as “a powerful and poignant story about human connection and the magic of cinema.”

Empire of Light‘s cast includes Oscar winner Olivia Colman (The Favourite) as Hilary, Oscar winner Colin Firth (The King’s Speech) as Mr. Ellis, Micheal Ward (Small Axe: Lovers Rock) as Stephen, Toby Jones (First Cow) as Norman, Tanya Moodie (A Discovery of Witches) as Delia, and Crystal Clark (The Electrical Life Of Louis Wain) as Ruby. Tom Brooke (The Crown) plays Neil and Hannah Onslow (Call the Midwife) is Janine.

“I’m really thrilled to be working with so many wonderful collaborators across both cast and crew on such a personal project,” said Sam Mendes when production on the film got underway in February 2022. “It’s a particular...

This week’s heart-stopping controversy revolves around the question “is it ever okay to punch a Nazi in the face?” Such an occurrence happened during the Trump Coronation in Washington last Friday and of course it was captured by news outlets and smartphoners alike. And of course the footage went viral – much as the Nazis themselves did in the 1930s.

Comic books have been beating on Nazis since the invention of the staple, so one might think there wouldn’t be much controversy within our particular donut shop. During WWII, there was no greater Nazi-beater than Captain America – it pretty much was his raison d’être – so it is slightly surprising that the current writer of Captain America (indeed, both Captains America), Nick Spencer, said beating on Nazis is wrong. “… cheering violence against speech, even of the most detestable, disgusting variety, is not a look that will age well.”

Hmmm.

The evil that lurks beneath the polished surface of Patrick Bateman in Bret Easton Ellis' 1991 novel, American Psycho, is skillfully depicted by artist Timothy Pittides in a new poster for the novel that served as the source material for the memorable 2000 film adaptation.

Limited to 60 copies and set to go on sale at Grey Matter Art's online shop this Thursday at 1:00pm Est, Pittides' American Psycho poster is priced at $35.00 and was authorized by Ellis:

"Artist: Timothy Pittides

Edition: 60/$35.00 (Signed & Numbered)

Size: 18" x 24"

Printed By: Vg Kids

Paper: four color screenprint Printed on 100lb French Speckletone Kraft.

This poster is going on sale on Thursday, May 7th at 1Pm Est in our website shop page.

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What Tim had to say about the project:

"American Psycho, the moment...

As if we didn't already know he was controversial. No, seriously, Bret Easton Ellis, we get it. You're controversial. Now maybe calm down a bit, eh? The screenwritier, best known for—wait for it—controversial films like American Psycho and The Rules of Attraction, took to Twitter to vent about Matt Bomer possibly being cast in the upcoming film adaptation of Fifty Shades of Grey, which, at this point, is just wishful thinking by fans. Perhaps Mr. Ellis is simply riding the bitter train after learning he won't be writing the screenplay for the raunchy romp, but today he had some very blunt opinions on Bomer stepping into Christian Grey's Red Room. But let's just let Bret take...

We already knew Ian Somerhalder was "absolutely" interested in taking on the role of Christian Grey in the raunchy Fifty Shades of Grey saga. While he had previous only said "hopefully that could pan out," it looks like he's now taking it in his own hands to secure the part. Ian hit up Twitter to continue his campaign for Christian. And it looks like he not only wants the part, but he's totally game to turn the controversial novel into an even more controversial movie. "@BretEastonEllis -Id so love to be ChristianGrey w/you&Angelina Jolie. Ive only waited 10 years to do a movie w/u.Im grown up now-no worries," Ian tweeted writer Bret Easton Ellis. In case Mr. Ellis'...

Special delivery! Oh, Arthur! The thrill of modern postism!

This seemed like the too good to be true theme for someone of Matt Kindt’s talents. Warren Ellis and Jon Cassady’s Planetary is not only one of my favorite comics ever, it’s one of my favorite genre experiences partaken. Rather fitting for a book that so sublimely experimented with, or rather, traversed genre. In doing so, Planetary collided with several familiar speculative fiction entities during its run, and I thought it would be great to have a commission depicting a scene of the team running into The Tick, a character that simultaneously played what quickly became the ideal adventures of a superhero while absurdly spoofing the genre. A meeting between a superhero comic book’s comic book and a panel of post-Human curiosity on them and their pulp heritage.

My first experience with The Tick was through the animated series,...

"(Notes on) Biology," winner of the best animation at this year's SXSW, is a clever take on one of the many distractions from classroom note taking: flip books. You remember -- making a mini-cartoon in your spiral notebook as soon as your teacher's droning turned into the Charlie Brown-like wamp, wamp, wamp.

"(Notes on) Biology" features the notes of student Mr. Ellis and the adventures of his superpower cartoon, "robot elephant." The eyepatch clad, jetpack-wearing beast zips through a town destroying cars in his path before he rockets into space and ultimately destroys Earth.

The five-minute film was created by Danny Madden, Will Madden and Jonathan Silva of Ornana Films.

Who knew high school note taking could be so cool?

Watch "(Notes on) Biology:"

(notes on) biology from ornana films on Vimeo.

Here's a rather interesting bit of news coming from American Psycho author Bret Easton Ellis regarding Lionsgate's upcoming remake of his tale of an investment banker gone batshit. It seems Mr. Ellis has some very specific casting choices in mind.

"I have warned Lionsgate that I will not approve a new version of "American Psycho" unless it stars Scott Disick or Miles Fisher," says Ellis on Twitter following it up with "I am waiting for Scott Disick to ask: "Who in the hell is Bret Easton Ellis?"

Whether he's serious or just joking remains to be seen though both actors pictured below (Miles Fisher (Final Destination 5) left and Scott Disick ("Keeping Up with the Kardashians") right) definitely look the part.

The project, which has not yet been greenlit at Lionsgate, is currently in the early stages of development at the studio.

Set in Manhattan during the Wall Street boom of the late 1980s,...

Earlier tonight I gave you a chat with the lovely Sara Paxton star of the this weekends big horror release Shark Night 3D and now I have none other than David R. Ellis, director extraordinaire. I’m a big fan of his work in the Final Destination franchise and curious to see what he brings to the shark sub genre. I’m sure it will be bloody, violent fun. Here’s Mr. Ellis talking about his film.

Related PostsTrailer: Interview – Sara Paxton – Shark Night 3DTrailer for Shark Night 3DNew poster for Shark Night 3D

… More...

In a rare case of Wild West re-enactments turned exciting, a tourist at a Wild West show in South Dakota was somehow shot with a real bullet this weekend: John Ellis, an optometrist from South Connellsville, and two other tourists attending a cowboy show in Hill City, S.D., Friday night apparently were shot by cowboys re-enacting a gunfight. “Obviously, they were supposed to be shooting blanks. But they weren’t,” Mr. Ellis said Sunday from his hotel room in South Dakota. He was discharged from a hospital Saturday. Mustttt…resistttttt…easy Brandon Lee joke………. whoops, doing this “must resist” sentence is basically just doing the easy Brandon Lee joke… mustttt… delete……. sentence……… “At first, I didn’t know what was going on. I’ve never been shot before. Then my fingers weren’t able to move and there was all the blood and I figured it out,” he said.

He'll do anything to get what he wants - but is what he wants part of this game?

When we first heard about Chuck Bass (Ed Westwick) kissing a guy on Gossip Girl, we called ratings stunt for sweeps. Whoops! We may have spoken a bit too soon there, because while it was certainly a stunt, it wasn’t for sweeps. And it fit the story completely.

For those of you who only tuned in to see Chuck Bass kiss a dude, you may have felt disappointed. For regular viewers, however, it was better writing than we’re used to seeing from the trashy little soap.

The plot's background is simple: star crossed lovers Blair Waldorf (Leighton Meester) and Chuck Bass are finally together and free of the restrictions of high school. But as always, they have the best sex when they’re screwing someone else over.

You see, Blair...