News

Lifetime Movie Network’s The Past Comes Knocking is airing Friday September 13, at 8pm Et and we sat down with stars, Karl E. Landler and Marem Hassler to discuss the movie, the chemistry between the two of them and Karl’s fabulous wardrobe choices. The Past Comes Knocking is a tense thriller that sees Marem playing […]

Marem Hassler & Karl E. Landler Talk Lifetime Thriller The Past Comes Knocking...

We’ve discussed several times in these Lifetime reviews that the mystery is often the most superfluous element. The films are very rarely trying to surprise or fool the audience. In fact, the reveal is often right there in the title (see: She’s Obsessed With My Husband).

Much like Stepmom from Hell, however, co-writers Geoffrey D. Calhoun and David Y. Chung’s The Past Comes Knocking is presented as a genuine mystery. Following the usual cold open in which teaching assistant Jane (Bella Chadwick) is attacked and bludgeoned with a shovel in the woods, the rest of the film follows her College professor Dr. Susan Shaw (Marem Hassler) as she tries to unravel what happened.

The problem is that the mystery is so obvious to anyone paying even casual attention that The Past Comes Knocking contains very few surprises.

Dr. Shaw is a renowned journalist-turned-teacher who became famous after writing...

In today’s TV news roundup, “Stumptown” books three guest stars and Bet announced new premiere dates for two new Tyler Perry projects.

Dates

Bet Networks and Tyler Perry Studios have pushed back the premiere of their original dramas “The Oval” and “Sistas” to Oct. 23. “The Oval,” which has the 9 p.m. time slot, follows the inner-workings of the White House as it follows an unassuming family who finds themselves living in the iconic residence. The series stars Ed Quinn, Kron Moore, Javon Johnson, Ptosha Storey, Vaughn Hebron, Teesha Renee, Paige Hurd and Daniel Croix Henderson. “Sistas,” at 10 p.m., follows a group of single black females as they navigate their love lives, and stars Kj Smith, Mignon Von, Ebony Obsidian and Novi Brown. Both series are written by Perry with Michelle Sneed serving as executive producer.

Programming

UPtv announced its full “Christmas Movie Christmas” lineup, featuring 10 new original movies.

Stars: Scott Adkins, Michael Jai White, Michelle Lee, John Rhys-Davies, Karl E. Landler, Dominique Pinon, James Marsters, Jimmy Jean-Louis | Directed by Guillaume Lubrano | Series created by Guillaume Lubrano

Heavy Metal, aka Metal Hurlant, has long been considered one of the definitive anthology comics of all time – telling some of the most fascinating sci-fi and fantasy stories ever comitted to print and inspiring writers and artists alike. Created by Jean Giraud (better known under his legendary moniker, Mœbius) and Philippe Druillet, Metal Hurlant was one of the first examples of the “mature” comic as we known it today. Debuting in 1974 and spanning 146 issues, the anthology book inspired both the animated Heavy Metal in 1981 and its sequel in 2000 – a sequel which was a star vehicle for iconic scream queen and Penthouse Pet Julie Strain (who would reprise her role in the video game Heavy Metal F.A.K.K.2). However it was...

This time of year most everyone in the film world is talking about Oscar contenders, movies like Boyhood, Birdman, and Selma, which get more press each week as awards season marches on. However, I'm here today to provide a recommendation for a film you likely haven't heard of, which you can check out right now on VOD. The film is called Layover, and it is an impressive high-concept drama that took me completely by surprise. The first outing from writer-director Joshua Caldwell, Layover is very much in the vein of Richard Linklater's Before trilogy. Driven not by traditional plot mechanics but by the characters we see on screen and the way they interact with the world around them, Caldwell's primarily French-language film centers on a Parisian woman named Simone (Nathalie Fay) as she navigates the city of Los Angeles for a night after her connecting flight to Singapore is cancelled.

The prevailing optimism tells us that whenever the Hollywood studio system is underserving an audience or an entire genre, indie filmmakers will appear like the cavalry to fill the gaps. If that’s true (and it probably is), it’s fitting that Joshua Caldwell‘s Layover was released the same week Warner Bros. announced its next thousand years of DC superhero movies. It’s an antidote to spandex, a movie that won’t set the world on fire that comes at a time when we should be questioning the virtue of movies that set the world on fire. What it is, is a beautifully mature work from a promising young director that calmly and confidently explores themes like the inevitability of life’s pattern and the unnecessary transformative effect of random experiences. It also does all this while being far less pretentious than that sentence is. Simone (Nathalie Fay) lands in Los Angeles after flying from Paris...

As Richard Linklater has perhaps most famously shown, a lot can happen in one night. The hours between sunset and sunrise have inspired numerous filmmakers to tell stories about the drama, comedy, and romance that can unfold, and another tale of a nighttime connection has arrived with writer/director Joshua Caldwell's "Layover." Starring Nathalie Fay, Karl E. Landler, Bella Dayne, and Hal Ozsan, the story follows Simone, a young Parisian on the way to her wedding in Singapore, whose connecting flight in cancelled, forcing her to spend the night in Los Angeles. She heads into the city to meet a friend, but is soon left on her own downtown without a ride, where she meets a motorcyclist who takes her on an adventure that makes her question the future she has waiting for her. In the clip below, you witness the encounter that takes Simone through the streets of L.