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Benji Gregory, the actor best known for playing Alf‘s Brian Tanner, died on June 13 at the age of 46. Now, an Arizona medical examiner has released his cause of death.

Gregory, who was found dead in his parked car at a Chase Bank in Peoria, Ariz., reportedly died from “heat exposure in the setting of hepatic cirrhosis,” TMZ reports. Essentially this means it was a combination of prolonged exposure to the Arizona sun as well as extensive scarring of the liver.

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When Alf star Benji Gregory was found dead in his car on June 13, his service dog Hans was found lying next to him - an animal many people wonder why he had.

Gregory was best known by audiences for his work as a child actor on the hit Alf TV series. He appeared in all four seasons of the beloved 1980s comedy as Brian Tanner, the middle child of the central Tanner family. 

He would later appear in titles like the Back to the Future animated series and Once Upon a Forest before moving away from the spotlight and living a life of relative anonymity in the early '90s. 

Read full article on The Direct.

Benji Gregory, the former child star known for his role on the 1980s sitcom Alf, has died. He was 46.

Gregory’s sister, Rebecca Hertzberg-Pfaffinger, told The New York Times that the actor and his service dog, Hans, were both found dead in his car on June 13 in a parking lot in Peoria, Arizona. Though the cause of death is pending, Hertzberg-Pfaffinger wrote in a Facebook post she believes her brother fell asleep in the car and died of heatstroke.

Alf, which ran for four seasons from 1986-90, saw Gregory as one of two children in the Tanner family who became best friends with Alf, an Alien Life Form who crash-landed through their garage. Max Wright and Anne Schedeen played the boy’s parents, and Andrea Elson was his sister.

Benjamin Gregory Hertzberg was born in Encino on May 26, 1978. Per IMDb, his father, uncle and sister were all actors, and his grandmother was his agent.

Actor Benji Gregory, who rose to fame as a child star in the 1980s, has passed away. He was 46 years old.

Per TMZ, Gregory was found deceased on June 13, though word of his passing is just now starting to hit the press. His death was confirmed by his sister, Rebecca, who shared that Gregory was discovered dead in car parked at a Chase Bank parking lot in Peoria, Arizona. Also found dead in the car was Gregory's service dog, Hans. The actor's cause of death is still pending, according to the Maricopa County Medical Examiner's Office.

While the cause of Gregory's death hasn't been confirmed, those close to him have offered a theory to TMZ. Rebecca said that Gregory suffered from depression, bipolar disorder, and a sleep disorder that would sometimes keep him awake for days at a time. It is believed that Gregory traveled to the bank to deposit...

Benji Gregory, who starred as young Brian Tanner in the 1980s sitcom Alf, has passed away. He was 46.

The actor was found dead on June 13 in his car parked at a Chase Bank in Peoria, Ariz., according to TMZ. It is believed that he visited the bank the previous day and fell sleep, possibly dying from vehicular heatstroke caused by Arizona’s blistering summer heat. Gregory’s service dog Hans, who was with him, also perished.

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Oscar-winning French director Luc Jacquet (“March of the Penguins”) will be honored by the Locarno Film Festival with its Locarno Kids Award celebrating a film personality who has brought the magic of movies to younger audiences.

“Luc Jacquet’s gaze has followed the perspective of the plant and animal kingdoms through his many voyages to the Antarctic or into forests both remote and close to home,” the Swiss festival dedicated to indie cinema said in a statement. It pointed out that this year’s prize “goes to a filmmaker who has consistently conveyed a powerful ecological message to younger generations of cinema lovers.”

The French biologist and filmmaker has made hugely popular nature documentaries such as “Penguins,” watched by more than 25 million people worldwide since its 2006 release, and “Once Upon a Forest” in 2013 and “Ice and the Sky” (2015). He also helmed a fiction feature “The Fox & the Child” (2007).

Jacquet...

Luc Jacquet, the Oscar-winning French director of March of the Penguins, will be honored with the 2023 Locarno Kids Award, an honor celebrating a film personality who has brought cinema to younger audiences, giving them “a sense of discovery about the big screen.”

Jacquet will receive his award in Locarno on Aug. 7, ahead of an open-air screening of March of the Penguins on Locarno’s legendary Piazza Grande. Jacquet will also take part in a panel discussion on Aug. 8. Locarno will screen a selection of Jacquet’s other films, which include documentaries Once Upon a Forest, 2015’s Ice and the Sky and Penguins sequel Penguins 2: The Next Step (2017), as well as the 2007 feature The Fox & the Child.

“Luc Jacquet is a director who has masterfully woven together the magical charm of observation and the pure poetry of storytelling, taking our gaze to dimensions of the planet never before explored,...

Dave Michener, a veteran Disney animator, story artist, and director from 1956 up until his retirement from The Walt Disney Studios in 1987, has died at 85. He passed away on February 15 at his home in Los Angeles from complications due to a virus, according to his wife.

Over the course of his 31-year career with Disney, Michener contributed his artistic talents to such Disney classics as Sleeping Beauty, One Hundred and One Dalmatians, Mary Poppins, The Jungle Book, Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day, The Aristocats, Robin Hood, The Rescuers, The Fox and the Hound, and finally The Great Mouse Detective (for which he received a co-directing credit alongside John Musker and Ron Clements).

Michener was born in Los Angeles on November 5, 1932. His father was a famous architect who helped design many of the iconic buildings in the Miracle Mile district of the city. His uncle was the best-selling author James Michener.

Documentary revolves around actor’s 2014 return to the boxing ring in Moscow.

Paris-based sales company Versatile has acquired world sales rights to French photographer and director Richard Aujard’s bio-doc Guapo Siempre, a portrait of Mickey Rourke’s return to the boxing ring in Moscow in 2014.

The film, which is in post-production, follows actor and retired boxer Rourke as he prepares at the age of 62 to take on a fighter half his age in a special boxing exhibition in the Russian capital, after a 20-year absence from the ring.

A few days before the fight, Rourke’s beloved dog Guapo dies, plunging the boxer into a mystical state for his comeback fight.

Aujard, who is a long-time acquaintance of Rourke, captures the actor-boxer as he looks back over his life and career.

“The film will be ready for this summer,” said Versatile co-chief Pape Boye. “It’s very cinematic but one of the things that makes it particularly...

Trailers are an under-appreciated art form insofar that many times they’re seen as vehicles for showing footage, explaining films away, or showing their hand about what moviegoers can expect. Foreign, domestic, independent, big budget: What better way to hone your skills as a thoughtful moviegoer than by deconstructing these little pieces of advertising? This […]

The post This Week In Trailers: Before I Go To Sleep, Once Upon A Forest, The Tribe, Coherence, Level Five appeared first on /Film.

The Hollywood Reporter's first daily from 2014's Hong Kong filmart includes news, interviews and reviews from the festival. Titles reviewed are Second Coming 3D, The Midnight After, Blind Massage, Out of Inferno 3D, Mea Culpa, Once Upon a Forest, and Miss Granny. THR's daily features include:  Q&A With Director Vivian Qu The Beijing-based producer talks about becoming a director, her triumph at the Berlinale and changing Chinese filmmaking one movie at a time. -- Clifford Coonan Malaysia Makes Its Big Move Perhaps more so than anywhere else in the upwardly mobile markets of Southeast Asia, Malaysia is a film territory on the move.

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Before Elisabeth Moss returns to Manhattan, she’s making a pit stop in Springfield: The actress who stars as Peggy Olson on Mad Men is lending her voice to Sunday’s episode of The Simpsons (Fox, Nov. 17, 8 p.m.). Moss will play a pregnant woman named Gretchen whose baby Homer winds up delivering in an elevator. (Spoiler: It’s not Pete’s.) But when she names the baby Homer Jr. to recognize his good deed, Homer gets a little too attached to the little tyke. EW asked this unabashed Simpsons fan all about her big guest spot — and tossed in...

Everyone's thoughts are turning towards the 66th edition of the Cannes Film Festival (from May 15th to 26th, 2013) and predictions abound about which films might be chosen by Thierry Frémaux. Overview of the main contenders for a selection on the Croisette, with an opening that would look good with The Great Gatsby by Australian director Baz Lurhmann, for example.

On the European side, where exceptionally Lars Von Trier and Pedro Almodóvar will be absent, the most widely expected contenders are Only God Forgives by Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn, Twelve Years a Slave (an American production) by British director Steve McQueen, La grande belleza by Italian director Paolo Sorrentino, and the French favourites: Un indien des plaines (Jimmy P.) by Arnaud Desplechin, Blue is the Warmest Colour by Abdellatif Kechiche, Bird People by Pascale Ferran, and possibly Venus in Fur by Roman Polanski if editing is speeded up. Amongst the outsiders, it is worth mentioning Nine Minutes Interval by Romanian director Corneliu Porumboiu, Michael Kohlhaas by Arnaud des Pallières (starring Mads Mikkelsen), Un château en Italie by Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi, Jeune et jolie by François Ozon, Abus de faiblesse by Catherine Breillat and Bastards by Claire Denis.

Amongst the Old Continent’s other potential candidates for a trip to the Croisette are We Come As Friends by Austrian director Hubert Sauper, The Invisible Woman by British director Ralph Fiennes, A Field in England by Ben Wheatley, the German film Happy Birthday by French director Denis Dercourt, Nude Area by Urszula Antoniak, a Dutch director of Polish origin, the mysterious Dau by Russian director Ilya Khrzhanovsky, The Gambler by Hungarian director Szabolcs Hajdu, Oktober November by Austrian director Götz Spielmann, Histoire de la Meva Mort by Portuguese director Albert Serra, Open Windows by Spanish director Nacho Vigalondo and Goodbye to Language by Jean-Luc Godard.

The selection is not short of American possibilities this year, with notably The Nightingale by James Gray, Inside Llewyn Davies by the Coen brothers, The Bling Ring by Sofia Coppola, Nebraska by Alexander Payne, Her by Spike Jonze, Night Moves by Kelly Reichardt, and maybe Only Lovers Left Alive by Jim Jarmusch and The Butler by Lee Daniels. We can also dream about the out-of-competition screenings of The Wolf of Wall Street by Martin Scorsese, Blue Jasmin by Woody Allen and Pacific Rim by Guillermo del Toro. As for Canada, it will be placing its bets on Tom à la ferme by Xavier Dolan and An Enemy by Denis Villeneuve.

Asia could be in the running with, amongst others, Le Passé by Iranian director Asghar Farhadi, The Congress by Israeli director Ari Folman, Snowpiercer by Korean director Bong Joon-ho, Diary of a Young Boyby Taiwanese director Tsai Ming-Liang, Blind Detective by Chinese director Johnnie To and three Japanese movies: A Perfect Day for Plesiosaur by Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Like Father, Like Sonby Hirokazu Kore-Eda and Dog Eat Dog by Shinji Aoyama

While Africa will set its hopes on Grisgris by Chadian director Mahamat-Saleh Haroun,surprisescould come from Latin America where only Mexican productions appear in the predictions so far, with Manto Acuifero by Michael Rowe, Chavez by Diego Luna and A los ojos by Vicky and Michel Franco.

Finally, it is worth mentioning on the French side (probably out of competition), possibilities like Once Upon a Forest by Luc Jacquet, Mood Indigo by Michel Gondry(even if its release in April seems incompatible for the moment with the selection process), L’extravagant voyage du jeune et prodigieux T.S Spivet by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Blood Ties by Guillaume Canet, Grace de Monaco by Olivier Dahan and Malavita by Luc Besson. Also aiming for selection are Grand Central by Rebecca Zlotowki, Suzanne by Katell Quillevéré, Jacky in Women’s Kingdom by Riad Sattouf, Une autre vie by Emmanuel Mouret, Eastern Boys by Robin Campillo, Gare du Nord by Claire Simon,Tip Top by Serge Bozon, Tirez la langue mademoiselle by Axelle Ropert, L’inconnu du lac by Alain Guiraudie, Réalité by Quentin Dupieux and Dark Touch by Marina de Van. So many enticing titles for a hypothetical panorama, which is not exhaustive and that only Thierry Frémaux will clarify at the press conference on April 18th.

This article was written by Fabien Lemercier and also appeared in Cineuropa.org.

#72. Luc Jacquet’s Once Upon a Forest

Gist: With Once Upon a Forest, Luc Jacquet invites the spectator into a never-before-seen world of natural wonder and staggering beauty. “For the first time, we will be able to watch a rain forest growing before our eyes…Only cinema can offer this unique voyage into a completely untamed universe, a world of perfect balance in which each living thing – from the smallest to the largest – plays an essential role. The film will deliver a complete sensory immersion in the primaeval splendor of one of nature’s richest mysteries, inviting the audience to enter, discover and marvel at a universe of untold treasures while joining its voice to the ever-growing awareness of the need to preserve our world.” So, basically, Jacquet got tired of waiting on Terry to finish Voyage of Time and went ahead and did it himself.

Prediction: Sounds like the...

It’s Halloween season, the time of year when we watch all of those super scary movies that guarantee we sleep with the light on until Thanksgiving. But not all horror flicks have blood and guts. Some of them are right there in the kid’s section next to the Yo Gabba Gabba DVDs! Yes, the most terrifying things we have ever seen have come directly from movies we saw as little kids. No matter how many decades go by, we will never be ready for these G-rated terrors!

We’re older now and more mature, and finally able to come out from under our blankeys and stand up for ourselves. So now we’d like to say what we’ve been meaning to say to the makers of these films for years: What the f–, you guys!? We were kids for god’s sake, and we trusted you to...