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When the idea was first mooted at the back-end of the 20th century, making a big-screen adaptation of the hit 1966-73 show Mission: Impossible smacked of studio IP-grab desperation, the kind of lazy thinking that, at around the same time, gave us The Saint (1997), a film now best forgotten and humbly described on Rotten Tomatoes as merely “watchable,” mostly by fans of the late, great Val Kilmer. Production troubles on that first M:i were legendary, since it went into production without a script that anyone could agree on and, more perplexingly, starred Tom Cruise at a time when his stock was rising as a movie star in serious, glossy Oscar-winning movies, not pulpy American TV reboots.

Thirty years later and here we are: Tom Cruise is the biggest Hollywood movie star in the world bar none, the M:i franchise has beaten its primetime namesake’s seven-year winning streak three times over,...

After seven movies, nearly 30 years and more than $4 billion in global grosses, Tom Cruise looks set to retire his Ethan Hunt character with the eighth climactic installment, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning. And with a Cannes Film Festival premiere, the franchise’s farewell is set for plenty of fanfare — in contrast to the way its seventh movie, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, was stunted by the almost simultaneous Barbenheimer phenomenon two years ago.

Here, the five directors who helmed the eight Mission: Impossible films look back at their parts in the evolution of Ethan Hunt into America’s answer to James Bond. They recall shooting such missions impossible as breaking into the CIA and Kremlin headquarters, running alongside the exterior of the world’s tallest building in Dubai, hanging off the side of a cargo jet, and motorcycle sequences executed by Cruise that would have most actors calling for a stuntman,...

Jack Nicholson has had a long career playing brooding rebels, crazed villains and sneering charmers on screen. Soon he’ll star opposite Kristen Wiig in a remake of “Toni Erdmann.” He’s a fixture of American cinema and the Lakers courtside seating. For his 80th birthday, we aimed to rank all of Jack’s major, already iconic roles, from worst to best.

“Man Trouble” (1992)

“Man Trouble” is a ridiculous screwball crime comedy in which Nicholson and Ellen Barkin get upstaged by horny dogs. It seems impossible the same guy who did “Five Easy Pieces” made this.

“A Safe Place” (1971)

This bizarre, formless ’70s relic based on a play stars Tuesday Weld and Orson Welles opposite Nicholson about a girl living a fantasy in which she never grows up.

“The Terror” (1963)

Nicholson gives a stiff performance in this Roger Corman picture opposite Boris Karloff, but he gets to kiss a woman who transforms into a corpse.

Mumbai, Nov 1 (Ians) Nita Ambani, chairperson and founder of the Reliance Foundation, on Sunday announced her support for women's cricket in India. As the first step in this direction, Jio and Reliance Foundation Education and Sports For All (Rf Esa) have come in as sponsor for the upcoming Women's T20 Challenge.

In addition, Nita has offered the cricket facility at Jio Cricket Stadium, Navi Mumbai, for women cricketers. The state-of-the-art stadium can be availed to conduct trials, camps and host competitive matches, throughout the year - all free of cost for our national women team.

Furthermore, women cricketers can now benefit from the amenities for rehabilitation and sports science available at the reputed Sir Hn Reliance Foundation Hospital & Research Centre in Mumbai.

"My heartiest congratulations to Bcci for organising the Women's T20 Challenge. This is a progressive step towards the growth of women's cricket in India. I am delighted to...

This week on The Flash, Cisco and Cecile endeavored to exorcise Eobard from Nash, while Barry, Joe and Mirror-Iris encountered Black Hole’s sunny new assassin.

After Barry was outfitted with a Apple watch SpeedGauge with which to monitor his now-limited levels of exertion, he, Cisco and Caitlin paid a visit to the Pipeline, where they thought Nash had reclaimed control of his body. ‘Cept he hadn’t. Instead, Thawne tricked Cisco into overloading a gizmo that allowed him to escape his cell. Barry caught up to Thawne and was rarin’ to hand-vibe him to death, but he just barely...

This week on The Flash, Wally West resurfaced to tell fellow speedster Barry a thing or two, while Mirror-Iris struggled to cover her tracks and Nash asked Cisco to help bust a “ghost.”

After making the grandest of entrances — saving the passengers of a sabotaged helicopter by “multiplying” himself, whisking them to safety, and then disassembling the aircraft mid-air — Wally West reunited with Team Flash. During the resulting “Welcome home” party, Mirror-Iris spilled a lotta wine (always a crime!) because Eva’s own hand had gotten shaky inside the mirror realm, after she overtaxed her powers.

Doctor Sleep may be the sequel to The Shining, but it’s still very much its own book: The horrors aren’t just related to the Overlook Hotel and its ghosts, but also (spoiler alert) a roving pack of vampire-like creatures that feast on children who possess that psychic glimmer knowing as the shining. As such, the music for the upcoming film echoes the original Stanley Kubrick adaptation, but brings in its own special air of doom.

Consequence of Sound premiered two tracks scored by The Newton Brothers: “The Overlook,...

As a curious summer approaches, filled with superheroes and tentpoles that seem unable to deliver at the box office, the Logan Lucky trailer makes for a welcome retreat into comedic insanity.

The Steven Soderbergh film seemingly stars everyone and revolves around a heist that is undertaken by the unlikeliest of criminals. Jimmy and Clyde Logan (Channing Tatum and Adam Driver) are after robbing the take from stock car race and you aren’t going to easily run across two more bumbling potential thieves. Enlisting the aid of Joe Bang (Daniel Craig), who they apparently break out of prison, the duo set their scheme in motion, but it never quite seems that even they are all that interested in the effort.

Something of an anti-Ocean’s 11 meets the Coen brothers, the film looks to explore a dark, dry comedic take on the screwball, which just furthers Soderbergh’s effort at Isaac Asimov...

The wild ride that has been Orphan Black season 4 is coming to an end. The season began with a look back at Beth's days before her suicide and her relationship with Art, giving us a better understanding of why he's made some of the decisions he has.

BuddyTV spoke with Kevin Hanchard about playing Art, his relationship with the clones, leaving Detective Duko with Mrs. S and more. Read on for the first part of the interview.

The wild ride of the "Blurred Lines" plagiarism lawsuit has officially ended with Robin Thicke and Pharrell owing Marvin Gaye's family $7.3 million — after a jury decided that 2013's Song of the Summer did indeed borrow too much from Gaye's "Got to Give It Up." The whole mess started a year and a half ago, when Thicke and Pharrell filed a preemptive lawsuit against Gaye's family, which led to the Gayes filing their own lawsuit, which led to a deposition, which led to Thicke's Afroman Defense, which led to a trial, which led to today's decision. Go ahead and give them the money, Robin — you know they want it.

Exclusive: Relativity has acquired screen rights to Blood Aces: The Wild Ride Of Benny Binion and has set Cliff Dorfman to adapt the Doug Swanson book. Dorfman has a first look with Relativity. Binion’s résumé reads like this: cowboy, pioneering casino owner, gangster, killer and founder of the World Series of Poker. The book chronicles his role in shaping modern Las Vegas. From a Texas backwater, Binion rose to prominence on a combination of vision, determination and brutal expediency. His formula was simple: Run a good business, cultivate the big boys, kill your enemies, own the cops. While he controlled his competition through ruthless violence, his irresistible charm brought him the protection of the political elite. But one feud went too far, and a competitor he later would assassinate after 12 attempts ran him out of Dallas. Binion moved to Las Vegas, opening the Horseshoe Casino — where he legally operated despite continued gangster tactics,...

Charli Xcx may be a rising pop star, but she's still punk.

Charli Xcx may be an up-and-coming pop star who basks in the grimy spirit of punk rock, but she’s not too cool to still cuddle up to her parents whenever they can join her on tour.

At a recent concert at the Mayan Theatre in Los Angeles, she greeted her audience with a middle finger in the air and kicked off the show with the title track from Sucker, her upcoming album. That word was also branded across the chest of the cheerleader outfits she and her band wore, and it floated around the room on gold-colored balloons that proclaimed, "It’S Prom Suckers."

If you somehow missed all those clues, the tiara on Charli’s head made sure everyone knew who was queen of the night.

The same chaotic, honest energy seen in her video for "Break the Rules" was felt in the...

Boasting an all-star cast, the first teaser trailer for “Birdman” hit the web on Thursday (June 12).

Starring Michael Keaton, Emma Stone, Edward Norton, Zach Galifianakis, Naomi Watts and Amy Ryan, the film follows a once-famous actor who struggles to make a comeback in the industry.

Throughout the plot, Keaton’s character attempts to strike a romance with Stone’s character in an effort to move past an iconic superhero role. He also tries to start up a Broadway production.

The wild ride directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu is set to hit theaters on October 17. Check out the teaser trailer above!

Last week, conversations flared around the alleged retirement of Jack Nicholson. The jury is still out as to whether or not he has officially called it quits in his acting career, but even if the accomplished performer (nominated for Academy Awards 12 times – more than any other male actor) and notorious personality hung up his guns for good, he’d leave behind a rich 5-decade-long career. Magnetic but not conventionally handsome, brash but able to convey remarkable subtlety, Nicholson is as much a consummate actor’s actor as he is a movie star. Like other aging stars of the ‘60s and ‘70s, some of his later roles have found him exercising a form of self-parody, a send-up of the patented “Jack” persona. But when you look past the long list of Nicholson’s greatest hits, a rather complex performer emerges, one that any late-career parody can’t contain. Beyond the groundbreaking performances of The Last Detail and Cuckoo...

The second part of the first Reel Ink round-up of recent books on film includes the biography of a sometime Hollywood rebel, the history of a now forgotten British studio, a look at a film that remains one of the most controversial ever made in the UK, and a hugely compelling history of cinema by the great David Thomson.

Time was against me so I haven’t been able to get through all the reading goodness I’ve acquired in the past eight weeks or so, but I’ll catch up in January. Happy New Year!

It’s official: Dennis Hopper was an unrepentant douchebag off screen as well as on. The predominant impression that Peter L. Winkler’s Dennis Hopper: The Wild Ride of A Hollywood Rebel (The Robson Press) leaves one with is that Hopper was a deluded, misogynistic gasbag, a moderate talent who likely suffered from...

In his new book, "Dennis Hopper: The Wild Ride of a Hollywood Rebel," author Peter Winkler writes that during his childhood Dennis Hopper's love of the arts stemmed from staring at the flat horizon in Kansas. Hopper's first wife, Brooke Hayward. recalls, "His mother was a nightmare. She talked endlessly. You couldn't stop her." In 2004 CBS reported, "Dennis' mother was wild, very emotional, a screamer and a yeller." "I had total sexual fantasies about my mother," Hopper said. These fantasies remained fantasies. "Hopper viewed anything less than unconditional love and total compliance...

What's Jack Nicholson's secret? Maybe it's the eyebrows, hovering like ironic quotation marks over every line reading. Maybe it's the hooded eyes, which hold the threat of danger or the promise of joviality -- you're never sure which. Same with that sharklike grin. Or maybe it's the voice, which has evolved over the years from a thin sneer to a deep rumble, but is always precisely calibrated to provoke a reaction. Put them all together, and they say: "I am a man to be reckoned with. Ignore me at your peril." Nicholson, who turns 75 on April 22, is often criticized for relying on his bag of tricks, for just showing up and doing Jack Nicholson (though indeed, he often seems to have been hired precisely for that purpose). But he's also capable of burrowing deep into a character, finding his wounded heart, and revealing the ugly truth without fear or vanity.

The table-flipping "Real Housewives of New Jersey" are back!

Best Reality TV Moments!

Season three welcomes new housewives Melissa Gorga, Teresa's sister-in-law, and Kathy Wakile -- Teresa's cousin. The drama resumes where it left off -- during the holidays after their children left... and in, what else, a tense situation among the wives.

The wild ride begins Monday, May 16 at 9:00 Pm Et/Pt with an extended 90-minute episode.

Check out the preview for season...

Welcome to our weekly round-up of featured giveaways here at Fred. Every week, we’ll present a new clutch of DVDs, books, and other cool stuff you can take a shot at winning. All you have to do is click on the graphics below to be taken to their respective contest pages. And good luck!

In conjunction with Adult Swim, we’re giving away two (2) copies of Venture Bros: Season 4 on DVD.

In conjunction with Shout Factory, we’re giving away two (2) copies of The Larry Sanders Show: Season 2 on DVD.

In conjunction with Shout Factory, we’re giving away two (2) copies of Leave It To Beaver: Season 4 on DVD.

In conjunction with A&E Home Video, we’re giving away two (2) copies of Surviving The Holidays With Lewis Black on DVD.

In conjunction with A&E Home Video, we’re giving away two (2) copies of WWII 360 on Blu-Ray.

In conjunction with A&E Home Video, we’re giving away two (2) copies of Dog The Bounty Hunter: The Wild Ride Collection on DVD.

Contest ends at 11:59pm Est on Wednesday, November 24th.

Enter the contest! Email: First name: Last name: Street Address: Address Line 2 (if needed): City: State/Province/Whatever: Zip Code/Postal Code: Country: Birth Month: JanuaryFebruaryMarchAprilMayJuneJulyAugustSeptemberOctoberNovemberDecember Birth Day: 12345678910111213141516171819202122232425262728293031 Birth Year:

Official Rules

No member of Fred Entertainment or their immediate families may enter.

No Purchase necessary to win.

Must be 18 years of age or older to enter.

One entry per day, per person.

All submitted entries must be received by 11:59pm Est on Wednesday, November 24th.

The winner must allow 4-6 weeks after notification of win to receive the product.

The weekend’s here. You’ve just been paid, and it’s burning a hole in your pocket. What’s a pop culture geek to do? In hopes of steering you in the right direction to blow some of that hard-earned cash, it’s time for the Fred Weekend Shopping Guide - your spotlight on the things you didn’t even know you wanted…

(Please support Fred by using the links below to make any impulse purchases - it helps to keep us going…)

It’s been a long, long, Long wait, but the fine folks at Cinematic Titanic make a strong return with their road-tested riff of the awkward merging of both Kung-Fu And Blaxsploitation, all wrapped in a model of poor filmmaking and worse acting… I give you East Meets Watts (Cinema Titan, Not Rated, DVD-$14.99). Not only is the riffing tight, but this is also the first Cinematic Titanic Live release,...