News

Harper's Island was canceled after one season, but its unique approach to a slasher series still resonates 15 years later. The series thrived on suspense and red herrings, boasting a large cast of suspects and engaging plot twists. Despite being ahead of its time, Harper's Island could have been a massive hit with better marketing and a different network placement.

CBS canceled beloved slasher series Harper's Island after a single season, but it still holds a special place in my heart 15 years later because it deserves a resurrection. Slasher series rarely work because sustaining viewer interest week-to-week is tough when answers aren't forthcoming. A slasher series needs convincing kills and plots that can be told over a longer arc and offer insight into the characters and their machinations. This particular series excelled because it had 25 suspects from the get-go, meaning there was no shortage of drama.

The series benefited from a picturesque setting,...

After a string of hits in the 80s and 90s, director Rob Reiner has struggled to achieve the same success. Some of his projects post-2000 have made money and some have provided laughs, but none found staying power. It’s not all his fault. The best film during this period didn’t even garner a wide release and it was a real shame because Flipped held a worthwhile kinship to the likes of Stand By Me. So it comes as no shock to discover his latest worthwhile feature also harkens back to the coming-of-age drama with the trials and tribulations of youth. The difference is that this one isn’t about nostalgia. Being Charlie is instead about pain, family, and survival. It’s also about him.

Yes, it isn’t a coincidence that co-screenwriter Nick Reiner shares Rob’s last name — he is his son. Unlike growing up in the...

In Being Charlie, Charlie Mills (Jurassic World's Nick Robinson) finds love in the wrong place - and People has your exclusive first look at the trailer. Directed by The Princess Bride's Rob Reiner, Being Charlie follows Charlie, a privileged and reckless 18-year-old with an addiction problem who breaks out of a rehab center. His father (Cary Elwes), worried about how his son's issues will affect his campaign for governor, gives him an ultimatum: "You can either head back to treatment or live on the streets." So, Charlie accepts the offer and enters a new program run by Travis...

In Being Charlie, Charlie Mills (Jurassic World's Nick Robinson) finds love in the wrong place - and People has your exclusive first look at the trailer. Directed by The Princess Bride's Rob Reiner, Being Charlie follows Charlie, a privileged and reckless 18-year-old with an addiction problem who breaks out of a rehab center. His father (Cary Elwes), worried about how his son's issues will affect his campaign for governor, gives him an ultimatum: "You can either head back to treatment or live on the streets." So, Charlie accepts the offer and enters a new program run by Travis...

facebook

twitter

google+

We salute Terry Brain and Charlie Mills, creators of 1980s children’s stop-motion animated TV series, The Trap Door…

Somewhere in the dark and nasty regions where nobody goes stands an ancient castle. Deep within this dank and uninviting place lives Berk, overworked servant of The Thing Upstairs. But that’s nothing compared to the horrors that lurk beneath the trap door. For there is always something down there, in the dark, waiting to come out…

What was under the trap door? In 1986, a three inch stack of film reel cans forming a makeshift plinth for whatever Plasticine monster was due to spill out of it in that episode. Over the course of forty mini-episodes in the mid-eighties, a legion of skittering demons and tentacled beasts slithered off those reel cans and into the psychedelic polka-dotted castle dungeons where they caused havoc for servant Berk and his disembodied skull companion Boni.

After the initial slate for the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival was announced last month there were many observers, including this pundit, who wondered of the annual September event had once again lost the battle of premieres to its Fall festival cousins. While debuting Ridley Scott's "The Martian," Jean Marc Valle's "Demolition" and Michael Moore's "Where Do We Invade Next" is nothing to sneeze at the fact some of the most anticipated films of the year are heading to Venice and Telluride first has to be a bit disheartening. Especially when it's your 40th anniversary. Never fear fans of the Great White North, Toronto always seems to land some eyebrow raising last minute additions and this year is no different. Today Tiff announced that David Gordon Green's "Our Brand Is Crisis" with Sandra Bullock, Marc Abraham's "I Saw The Light" with Tom Hiddleston, Catherine Hardwicke's "Miss You Already...

While the Toronto International Film Festival showcases, among its lineups, genre films, Canadian films, and features from notable underseen filmmakers and countries, the festival has also become a premier destination for high-profile features, features that often go on to become major contenders during the awards circuit that follows after a few months. These films are often found in the Gala and Special Presentations Programme, with the Gala Programme focusing on films that garner interest among the festival goers. Special Presentations, on the other hand, showcases key premieres.

Following the first wave lineup announcement, the festival has now announced additions to both Programmes. Pace Cabezas’ Mr. Right will be the closing night film for the 2015 Festival. The full list of additions, along with the official synopsis of each film, can be seen below.

Gala

Disorder, directed by Alice Winocour, making its North American Premiere

In this masterfully engineered thriller, a young...

The Toronto International Film Festival has added 5 Galas and 19 Special Presentations to its huge and highly anticipated international lineup including the Closing Night Film, Paco Cabezas’s Mr. Right.

In July, it was announced that Jean-Marc Vallée’s Demolition will open the 2015 Festival. Starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Naomi Watts, Chris Cooper and Judah Lewis, Demolition will have its world premiere on September 10 at Roy Thomson Hall.

Toronto audiences will be among the first to screen films by directors Ridley Scott, Deepa Mehta, Lenny Abrahamson, Brian Helgeland, Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson, Jason Bateman, Cary Fukunaga, Catherine Corsini, Stephen Frears, Tom Hooper, Hany Abu-Assad, Meghna Gulzar, Terence Davies, Jonás Cuarón, Julie Delpy, Rebecca Miller, Rob Reiner, Catherine Hardwicke, Pan Nalin, Lorene Scafaria, David Gordon Green, Matthew Cullen, Gaby Dellal, James Vanderbilt and Marc Abraham.

The various films listed below star Kate Winslet, Helen Mirren, Susan Sarandon, Gary Oldman, Toni Collette, Drew Barrymore,...