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Diana Muldaur joined the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation in season 2 as Dr. Katherine Pulaski, replacing Gates McFadden's Dr. Beverly Crusher. During Tng's first season, the writer's room gained a reputation in Hollywood because writers came and went with such frequency. This led to an inconsistent season as the show struggled to define its characters and find its footing. Still, Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) and his crew proved interesting enough to hold viewers' attention, and Tng went on to become one of the most beloved science fiction shows of all time.

Introduced in Star Trek: The Next Generation's feature-length premiere, Dr. Beverly Crusher was the Chief Medical Officer of the USS Enterprise-d. Beverly lived on the ship with her child-prodigy teenage son, Wesley Crusher (Wil Wheaton), and had an interesting past with Captain Picard. Tng season 1 hinted at romantic feelings between Crusher and Picard, but...

This Star Trek: Lower Decks article contains spoilers.

Okay, leaving aside the super-racist episode “Code of Honor,” we’re all agreed that “Shades of Gray” is the low point of Star Trek: The Next Generation, right? Sure, there’s still “Masks” and “Rascals” and I get why people don’t like “Sub Rosa” (I said what I said), but “Shades of Gray” is hardly an episode. Riker gets an alien infection, Dr. Pulaski sticks a doo-hickey on his head, and then he… rewatches highlights from the first two seasons. And that’s because “Shades of Gray” is that most dreaded product of 1980s syndicated television: a clip show.

Fortunately, clip shows have become a relic of the pop culture past rendered unnecessary in our always-on digital age. But Lower Decks never forgets, so it’s no surprise that the series would do its own version of a clip show. And...

Line-up includes new titles from Yosep Anggi Noen, Hussein Hassan, Ash Mayfair and Hu Jia.

Busan International Film Festival (Biff)’s Asian Project Market has unveiled the 29 projects selected for this year’s edition of the financing and co-production event (October 6-8).

The line-up includes Silah And The Man With Two Names, the new project from Indonesian director Yosep Anggi Noen, whose latest film The Science Of Fictions will premiere in competition at this year’s Locarno.

Other projects of note include Black And White Photo, from Nepali filmmaker Rajesh Prasad Khatri, which received development funding from Biff’s Asian Cinema Fund...

By Tim Greaves

It’s been three years since ‘American Horror Project’ was unleashed. Comprising an eclectic gathering of indie curios from the 1970s, the fact it was announced as Volume 1 led to much anticipation as to what future collections might serve up.

Well, Arrow Video has finally issued Volume 2. It’s been a long wait. Was it worth it? For those whose passions run to the sort of weird, otherworldly slices of 70s small-town America represented by the first, the answer would be a resounding yes. But, as before, for a more general audience it’s unlikely to harbour much appeal. Regardless, whether you think they’re deserving of Blu-ray resurrection or not, all power to Arrow – and ringmaster of this circus of the bizarre, film historian Stephen Thrower – for rescuing these micro-budget productions from the bowels of obscurity, giving them a wash and brush up and setting them...

Continuing its mission to unearth the very best in weird and wonderful horror obscura from the golden age of Us independent genre moviemaking, Arrow Video is proud to present the long-awaited second volume in its American Horror Project series co-curated by author Stephen Thrower (Nightmare USA: The Untold Story of the Exploitation Independents).

Starting off with a little-seen 1970 offering from underrated cult auteur John Hayes, Dream No Evil is a haunting, moving tale of a young woman’s desperate quest to be reunited with her long-lost father – only to find herself drawn into a fantasyland of homicidal madness. Meanwhile, 1976’s Dark August stars Academy Award-winner Kim Hunter (A Streetcar Named Desire) in a story of a man pursued by a terrifying and deadly curse in the wake of a hit-and-run accident. Lastly, 1977’s Harry Novak-produced The Child is a gloriously delirious slice of horror mayhem in which a young girl...

Shedding a light on forgotten films from the horror genre's hallowed past, Arrow Video's American Horror Project Volume 1 was one of the most essential and exciting Blu-ray releases in 2016, and this June, Arrow Video is bringing more under-seen fright flicks into the much-deserved spotlight with the American Horror Project Volume 2 Blu-ray box set.

Coming out on June 25th, the American Horror Project Volume 2 Blu-ray box set will include 1970's Dream No Evil, 1976's Dark August, and 1977's The Child. Full release details and cover art are below, and to learn more, visit Mvd Entertainment Group's website.

"Continuing its mission to unearth the very best in weird and wonderful horror obscura from the golden age of Us independent genre moviemaking, Arrow Video is proud to present the long-awaited second volume in its American Horror Project series co-curated by author Stephen Thrower (Nightmare USA: The Untold Story of the Exploitation Independents...

This coming weekend, the 2019 Cannes Film Festival will hand out its annual awards, capped by the cover Palme d’Or prize. Taking this award can sometimes set a movie off on a path towards Oscar love. To be fair, Academy Award attention is hardly guaranteed when it comes to feted Cannes titles. Still, some early hardware can never hurt a potential contender. With some high profile filmmakers at the festival this year like Pedro Almodovar, Bong Joon-ho, the Dardenne Brothers, Jim Jarmusch, Terrence Malick, and of course, Quentin Tarantino, A-listers could very well end up with some gold before the weekend is out. As a reminder, here is what is in competition this year at the Cannes Film Festival: In Competition “Pain and Glory,” Pedro Almodovar “The Traitor,” Marco Bellocchio “The Wild Goose Lake,” Diao Yinan “Parasite,” Bong Joon-ho “Young Ahmed,” Jean-Pierre Dardenne & Luc Dardenne “Oh Mercy!,” Arnaud Desplechin “Atlantique,...

The Dardenne brothers’ ‘Young Ahmed’ scored mid-range.

Céline Sciamma’s Portrait Of A Lady On Fire received impressive marks on Screen’s Cannes jury grid to move into second place, with the Dardenne brothers’ latest film Young Ahmed landing nearer the middle of the scores.

Sciamma’s first Cannes Competition title took an average of 3.1 from our ten critics, surpassed only by Pedro Almodóvar’s Pain And Gain so far this year. It took top mark fours (excellent) from La Times’ Justin Chang, The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw, and Die Zeit’s Katja Nicodemus, with no critic awarding it lower...

The style of filmmakers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne has shifted over the years, moving further away from the shattering realism that earned them Palme d’Ors for “Rosetta” and “The Child.” Fourteen years after the latter win, and in the running for their third Palme at the Cannes Film Festival, the Dardenne brothers turn their camera toward the world of Islamic fundamentalism with “Young Ahmed,” a compact, gripping return to the directors’ nonprofessional roots.

Continue reading ‘Young Ahmed’: Jean-Pierre And Luc Dardenne Deliver A Gripping Look At Religious Fundamentalism [Cannes Review] at The Playlist.

In “Young Ahmed,” a pubescent Ahmed is enamored with hardline Islam. He diligently prays five times a day. He criticizes his mother for drinking wine, his sister for showing cleavage, his female teacher for promoting Arabic in song.

But when Ahmed steps over the line toward violence, he finds himself in a youth detention center, nursing an extremist philosophy while being coached back toward Western society.

Going where a documentary cannot, directors Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, the Belgian brothers who are Cannes Film Festival favorites, explore the heart-wrenching allure of politicized Islam to some young Muslims in Europe. The film screened in the main competition on Monday.

Also Read: Cannes Report, Day 6: 'The Lighthouse' Shines, Tarantino Begs for No Spoilers

What draws these young (mostly) men to a philosophy of an exclusionary and violent Islam? The sweet-faced and smooth-cheeked Ahmed (Idir Ben Addi), betrays little emotion. But his father is gone,...

Belgian directors Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne excel at showing how the struggles of the underprivileged can lead them down morally questionable paths, but when “Young Ahmed” begins, that journey has started long ago. As 13-year-old Ahmed (Idir Ben Addi in a breakout turn) spends his days studying radical Islam with Imam Youssouf (Othmane Moumen), much to the consternation of his frantic mother Louise (Claire Bodson), the child has already committed himself to jihad. Within the first act of the movie, he has sworn himself to murdering his secular teacher Ines (Miriam Akheddiou), and the reckless act lands him in juvenile detention. The rest of the movie finds the kid struggling with his confused ideology, as various characters attempt to sway his beliefs.

In the pantheon of Dardenne brothers movies from the past three decades, “Young Ahmed” lies somewhere on the spectrum ahead of mediocre works like “The Unknown Girl” but...

This powerful film from the Dardenne brothers, about a Muslim boy living in a small Belgian town who is attracted to dangerous ideologies

Young Ahmed returns the Dardenne brothers to a keynote theme, expressed in movies such as The Child and The Son: the vulnerability of young people in trouble with the law – and also, paradoxically, their strength, their determination to survive. Theirs is a naive force derived from not caring or understanding how much they have to lose, or indeed how vulnerable are the adult figures placed in authority over them. This is a powerful movie on a contemporary issue with one very suspenseful “prison” scene – potentially suspenseful at any rate.

Another, more vulgarly commercial film-maker might have positioned this scene climactically later in the story and exploited its tension more brazenly; a more ruthless director in the Haneke mould might have done the same thing, but simply to produce a violent,...

The Cannes Film Festival is saluting director Agnès Varda with its official poster, which depicts the filmmaker, then in her mid-20s, shooting her first feature, 1955’s “La Pointe Courte.”

The announcement reflects the enormous respect the director-cum-visual-artist had earned from Cannes and the film community worldwide as a pioneering director — the woman whose independent debut paved the way for the French New Wave. Later, Varda went on to make “Cléo from 5 to 7,” which premiered in competition at Cannes in 1962 and featured a cameo from “Breathless” director Jean-Luc Godard, whose own film career was catalyzed in part by her example. Varda died at 90 last month.

Varda was a regular at Cannes, whether or not she had a film to screen there — and she presented many, including “Jacquot de Nantes,” “The Gleaners and I,” and, most recently, “Faces Places” — and served on the jury in 2005, the year Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne...

We are creeping up on the 14th annual Texas Frightmare Weekend, and it's time to reveal the amazing lineup of horror and exploitation features they've curated for conventions goers. Beyond the insane number of top shelf guests and vendors, Tfw has always had a really fun feature film lineup from which I've gathered several of my favorite horror films of the last decade.  This year's lineup looks really solid with films like the world premiere of The Dead Center, the fun sounding VelociPastor, Reborn starring Barbara Crampton, The Bray Road Beast featuring narrator Lyle Blackburn from the band Ghoultown, and a trio of upcoming films from Arrow Video making their big screen debuts in new restorations, The Child, The Prey, and Trapped Alive, and many more....

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

The unstoppable Arrow Video have announced their Us/UK/CA release line up for June 2019, and it's another set of killers for fans of horror and cult cinema. First up and most exciting is the long awaited second installment of their American Horror Project  (Us/UK/CA) series, a new box set with three new films that have slipped under the radar for years, Dream No Evil, Dark August, and The Child. They also continue excavating the deep mine of Italian horror with Riccardo Freda's Double Face (Us/UK/CA). Arrow also dip into nuclear/biological weapon scare cinema with Robert Wise's adaptation of The Andromeda Strain (Us/UK/CA) and Def-Con 4 (UK). Last up is psychic terror, The Sender (UK). Check out the full details in the gallery below....

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

Arriving in theaters this weekend is Andrey Zvyagintsev’s Leviathan follow-up Loveless, which is nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at this year’s Oscars. One of our top 50 films of last year, we said, “Filmed with icy precision in cold, anonymous Moscow, with some of the year’s best cinematography – by Zvyagintsev regular Mikhail Krichman – the film is upfront, provocative and, in its bitterly satirical testimony of the decay of Russian cultural life, according to some critics blunt. But it’s in that vein that Zvyagintsev so powerfully confronts the domestic terror of the central missing-child drama. Really, Loveless is the great horror film of the year.”

In anticipation of the release, today we’re featuring the director’s ten favorite films, which comes from his ballot in the latest Sight & Sound poll. Among his selections are films that also share strong religious symbolism, if more overt than the Russian director’s work,...

As most of you know, this weekend was the press junket for “The Twilight Saga: New Moon” here in Los Angeles. Since so many of the cast were in attendance, Summit Entertainment divided up the actors by who they played in the movie. Since Michael Sheen (Aro), Jamie Campbell Bower (Caius), Dakota Fanning (Jane), and Cameron Bright (Alec) played the Volturi in “New Moon”, it made sense they would share a press conference. So if you’d like to read or listen to what they had to say about their characters and being in “New Moon”, hit the jump.

As always, you can either read the transcript below or click here to listen to the audio. Finally, look for my one on one video interview with Michael Sheen in a few days. It was a great interview that you’ll really enjoy.

Question: Dakota, as such a fan of the series,...

We caught up with all the members of the Volturi and got to talk to them about their new film New Moon. Those who participated in the interview are as follows; Michael Sheen (Aro), Jamie Campbell Bower (Caius), Dakota Fanning (Jane) and Cameron Bright (Alec).

The Twilight Saga: New Moon marks the first appearance of the Volturi, the closest the vampire world has to royalty and a major force in the future of the saga. Centuries old and unimaginably powerful, they serve as lawmakers and enforcers for the community. The leader of the group is Aro, played by Michael Sheen. Sheen is no stranger to this world, having played a werewolf enslaved by the vampires in the Underworld series.

Q: Dakota, as such a fan of the series, you’ve said in many interviews before that you were really excited about this so what were the highlights of playing Jane...