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Robert Picardo is an accomplished singer and actor whose career has lasted 45 years and shows no sign of slowing. He has been performing professionally since he was in college in the mid-1970s, appearing on stage in high-end productions like Leonard Bernstein's "Mass" and singing in his college a cappella choir. After college, he was recognized for his performance in a 1976 production of David Mamet's "Sexual Perversity in Chicago."

His movement to television was natural for a hard-working actor, starting with small roles in notable hit shows. He appeared on two episodes of "Kojak" in 1977 and has never had a "down" period since. He thereafter popped up in "Taxi," "Silver Spoons," "Alice," "Benson," "21 Jump Street," and 15 episodes of "The Wonder Years" as the hard-nosed Coach Cutlip, in addition to dozens of other TV shows that are too plentiful to list here. On the big screen, Picardo became...

In the article series Sound and Vision we take a look at music videos from notable directors. This week: The Resident's Floyd, directed by John McNaughton. John McNaughton has been working on the periphery of the mainstream with films like Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, Wild Things and Mad Dog and Glory, but I have the impression he rather would fly somewhat under the radar and be part of the counterculture. This impression harkens back partly to passion projects like the Rebel Highway-episode Girls in Prison, a deliciously raunchy romp in the exploitation-genre, like Wild Things is too. But it also is because of his film Condo Painting, a documentary about George Condo, the counterculture painter and artists whose style is immediately recognizable. Condo...

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Her boyfriend has just cheated on her, leaving her wronged and distraught. Now on her own for the first time in who-knows-how-long, the girl will commit every act of rebellion she can think of: tattoos, belly button piercings… But being the victim to nearly every man she has encountered is too much, and she soon takes to the edge of an overpass, ready to end it all. Then, as the asshole ex approaches, she jumps… only to reveal it as a prank on the man who jilted her. And this was how Alicia Silverstone was discovered: dangling from a bungee cord and flipping off the viewer. Let’s find out: What Happened to… Alicia Silverstone?

But to truly understand what happened to Alicia Silverstone, we go back to the beginning. And the beginning began when she was born on October 4th, 1976, in San Francisco, CA. Alicia Silverstone fell in love...

Plot: Two young women, fleeing heartbreak, embark on an impromptu road trip to Tallahassee. Unfortunately for them, the drive-away car they sign for happens to have some precious cargo being sought by deadly parties.

Review: As a lifelong fan of the Coen Bros, it’s a drag for me to say that Drive Away Dolls is a bit of a dud. Granted, it’s apparently “trying” to be bad, with it a gay-themed take on B-movies, but it’s so winking and self-aware that it feels more like an extended episode of Showtime’s cheesy Rebel Highway series from the nineties than a real movie. Running just a hair over eighty minutes, it feels like little more than a lark for one-half of one of the greatest directing duos ever. For some, that’s reason enough to make it worth seeing, but despite some inspired moments, it largely falls flat.

The legendary sibling directing duo of Joel and Ethan Coen went their separate directorial ways after the 2018 film The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, and while there’s talk they’re going to be reuniting to make a horror movie, in the meantime we’ve gotten Joel’s first solo directing effort with The Tragedy of Macbeth, and we’ll be seeing Ethan’s first solo directing effort when Focus Features brings the road trip comedy caper Drive Away Dolls to theatres on February 23rd. Some critics have already had a chance to see the movie, and with two weeks to go until its wide release, the first reactions have started showing up online. We have gathered some of them together below.

First, we have a reaction from JoBlo’s own Chris Bumbray:

Caught #DriveAwayDolls recently. Very much a loving homage to love on the run b-movies, with it having...

Debra Hill is best known for producing and co-writing the 1978 classic Halloween, but she went on to produce more than thirty more films after that one, including the first two Halloween sequels, The Fog, Escape from New York and Escape from L.A., The Dead Zone, Clue, Adventures in Babysitting, Big Top Pee-wee, The Fisher King, Crazy in Alabama, World Trade Center, and the films that made up the Rebel Highway series, among others. Now Hill’s career is being celebrated with the documentary Hollywood Trailblazer: The Debra Hill Story – and it’s being executive produced by Halloween (and Halloween II and The Fog) star Jamie Lee Curtis!

Deadline reports that Hollywood Trailblazer is coming our way from Causeway Pictures and is currently in production. Directed by Jim McMorrow and Margaret McGoldrick, the documentary is being produced by McGoldrick and Chris Patterson of Causeway Pictures. In addition to Curtis, the executive...

Critically acclaimed filmmaker Quentin Tarantino revealed his unrealized plans for a movie remake that would have broken his streak of original films. Launching his career as an independent filmmaker off the back of his 1992 crime drama Reservoir Dogs, Tarantino has risen to become one of the most unique and widely celebrated voices in modern Hollywood. While Tarantino is currently in the process of developing his tenth and possibly last movie, The Movie Critic, over the years, the filmmaker has also been linked to a string of other unrealized projects.

During a recent episode of the Video Archives Podcast (via Far Out Magazine) that Tarantino produces with fellow director Roger Avary, the former spoke about plans that almost would have seen him embark on his first and only movie remake as part of Showtime’s short-lived Rebel Highway. In a 10-week series that focused on remakes of famous 1950s B-movies, Tarantino...

After the success of Reservoir Dogs, Quentin Tarantino had his choice of pretty much any project he wanted…and he almost blew it by remaking a cheapo Roger Corman movie for Showtime.

Speaking on his Video Archives podcast, which he co-hosts with Roger Avary, Tarantino said he was approached by Showtime to take part in Rebel Highway, a 10-part tribute to B movies from the Aip catalog, all with a budget just over $1 million. “They wanted me to do one. Now, the thing is, every single person who did one–nobody did a remake, they just took the punchy title and then kind of did their own thing. I really liked Rock All Night…and so I would have done this remake.” For those unfamiliar with Rock All Night, it’s about two killers who take over a teen hangout spot and take them hostage.

Notably, Tarantino would have made...

Getting romantic dramas made in today’s cinematic landscape is becoming more and more challenging, yet veteran director Andy Fickman, who is currently in production on the buzzy indie “One True Loves,” remains cheerful and optimistic about the genre. “In general, and pretty much short of being a tentpole, it’s very hard to get things made. People aren’t making romantic dramedies that much anymore, but at the same time, there’s a real need for content because of the streaming outlets,” says Fickman, whose energy level remains high even after shooting an all-nighter. Highland Film Group is representing international rights to “One True Loves,” and is co-financing the picture alongside Blue Rider’s Walter Josten. Highland Film Group’s domestic arm, the Avenue, is distributing domestically.

Starring the red-hot Simu Liu, who currently stars in Marvel’s box office smash “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings,...

Director Robert Rodriguez's obscure exploitation film was part of Showtime's "Rebel Highway" series

The post Interview: David Arquette Remembers Roadracers appeared first on ComingSoon.net.

Viking Women & The Sea Serpent, The Brain Eaters, She-Creature, Teenage Caveman, The Undead, War of the Colossal Beast, and The Day the World Ended. These are a few of my favorite things, and they're now getting remade and more!

According to Deadline, Jeff Katz, Lou Arkoff, and Hal Sadoff plan to remake 10 titles in the Arkoff/Nicholson library of American International Pictures-produced 1950’s classics. Usually the mere idea of remakes sends shivers of woe down our spines, but given the talent involved and the love that I know they have for these projects, we couldn't be happier.

Getting the redux treatment are the following 1950's drive-in classics: Girls in Prison, Viking Women & The Sea Serpent, The Brain Eaters, She-Creature, Teenage Caveman, Runaway Daughters, The Undead, Cool & The Crazy, The Day the World Ended, and my personal favorite, The War of the Colossal Beast. Please.... please... Please... keep the same make-up design for that one!

Jeff Katz, Lou Arkoff, and Hal Sadoff plan to remake 10 titles in the Arkoff/Nicholson library of American International Pictures-produced 1950’s classics. That means a steady diet of antiheroes, monsters and naughty girls is back on the menu. They will start with these 1950’s drive-in classics: Girls In Prison, Viking Women & The Sea Serpent, The Brain Eaters, She-Creature, Teenage Caveman, Runaway Daughters, The Undead, War of The Colossal Beast, Cool & The Crazy and Day The World Ended. The plan is to shoot them all back to back, beginning this fall. The question will be how these films, distinguished more than anything by their titles, will play in the modern age. Aip was founded in 1954 by Samuel Z. Arkoff and James H. Nicholson, and churned out 500 low-budget, indies for teens that included the Beach Party series with Frankie Avalon and the late Annette Funicello, as well as the early films of director Roger Corman.

Great character actors like William Sadler are a rare breed. The Man (we can all agree he's earned that capital M) has had a long and busy career, and whether he's playing a domestic terrorist (Die Hard 2), the Grim Reaper (Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey and Tales From the Crypt), a prison inmate (The Shawshank Redemption), or a bemused father (Wonderfalls), he nails the part the every single time. He's one of the most reliable faces around as far as this writer is concerned, and today sees the release of one of his coolest and most underseen films on Blu-ray: Robert Rodriguez's Roadracers. Roadracers was the first film in a series of '50s-set movies that Showtime remade with a '90s grunge to them (the series was called Rebel Highway and featured other...

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While the future of home entertainment may be rapidly moving towards a digital streaming-led future, we can't be the only movie nerds who still love owning a physical copy of something. Sure, BluRay and DVD might be scratchable, easily lost and adorned by terrible box art, but there's something about the feeling of finding an undiscovered gem in the depths of a store, or getting a rarity in the post, that doesn't quite compare to clicking and watching something on Netflix.

As such, starting with this column, every month we're going to pick out five BluRays or DVDs new to the market that no self-respecting cinephile's shelves could do without. Some are shiny new versions of stone-cold classics, some are obscurities, some might even be brand new releases (although less often: those are covered pretty well elsewhere). Read on for more.

"Chinatown" (1974)

Why You Should Care: Simply put, it's one...