News

15-60-75 (Numbers Band) Jimmy Bell's Still in Town (Exit Stencil)

Haven't heard of this oddly named band? You're probably not from Ohio, and you're definitely not from Kent. Formed there in 1969 by lead vocalist Robert Kidney and saxophonist Terry Hynde (brother of Pretenders vocalist Chrissie), it created a strange and compelling amalgam of styles. Kidney doesn't sing so much as chant, or emphatically recite. There are not really any melodies, and the horn section, so often in other bands a sweetener, only adds acrid commentary. There's an obvious blues influence, but this is not tidy 12-bar blues, it's a primal drone that pulsates with dark energy, not least because of drummer David Robinson's angular beats.

This album, recorded in concert on June 16, 1975 at the Agora in Cleveland when they opened for Bob Marley, was their debut, released the following year. It was too weird -- even by...

About two years ago I started watching Charlie Chaplin films for the first time. I watched City Lights, The Great Dictator, The Kid, The Gold Rush and, of course, Modern Times. I didn't instantly take to his style of comedy or commentary, not the same as I instantly fell in love with Buster Keaton's work in The General, but as I watched each film my appreciation began to grow.

With only a few films under my belt when it comes to Chaplin and Keaton, I would probably still place myself more in Keaton's camp than Chaplin's. But with the thought of Criterion potentially adding the rest of Chaplin's classic features to their collection, and if the Blu-ray releases are as spectacular as their treatment of Modern Times, that won't stop me from wanting more, more, more.

Modern Times is the first Chaplin feature Criterion has added to their collection,...

Issue-based shows always have it tough. When revolving around one subject repeatedly, how do you expect to keep an audience interested in the interim between episodes? World Full of Nothing as a web series pretty much did everything it could to make their lives more difficult. First, this was a film, originally, which won a few film festival awards for director Jesse Pomeroy. Now it’s been re-edited and broken up into episodes to try and have a life on the web. Then, the issue this show revolves completely around is that of teenage suicide, specifically creating a secenario in which a teenager’s suicide broadcast on the web sparked a trail of copycats. Supposedly, the trailer seems to suggest, we will be having an FBI profiler and a web predator both racing to find another one daring people to find some reason for her to continue living, with talking...

Casting directors came out from behind the curtain to be honored by their peers last night at the 25th Annual Artios Awards. The bi-coastal awards, which were held simultaneously at the new Times Center in New York City and the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles, are presented yearly for outstanding achievement in casting in theater, film, and television categories on the criteria of originality, creativity, and contribution of casting to the overall quality of a project.Celebrity awards presenters in New York were Patrick Wilson ("Little Children," "Angels in America"), Carrie Preston ("True Blood"), Michael Shannon ("Revolutionary Road"), Jennifer Morrison ("House"), Bill Pullman ("Oleanna"), Christine Ebersole ("Grey Gardens"), Vincent Kartheiser ("Mad Men"), and Elizabeth Reaser ("Twilight"). Stanley Tucci and producer Daryl Roth presented the New York Big Apple Award to Nora Ephron and Delia Ephron, whose "Love, Loss and What I Wore" recently opened Off-Broadway to rave reviews.

Relativity is partnering with Atlas Entertainment to develop Rubicon, a revenge thriller project created by stuntman Ric Roman Waugh (seen above) and Michael A. Lerner (of French Exit and Deadlines). Plot details are being kept under wraps at the moment, but the thriller is supposedly female-driven and set in a Mexican border town. Ric Roman Waugh, who has directed films like Exit, In the Shadows, and Felon, will be directing Rubicon. The project is being funneled through Relativity and Atlas' three-year, six-picture financing deal. I'm hoping with a title like Rubicon this will be a complex thriller, but it's hard to tell early. The reason why the title of this project captured my attention today is because Rubicon is the same working title that Bryan Singer's Valkyrie used when it was shooting. That turned out to be a thriller with a detailed and complex assassination plot. I doubt that...

Producer Laura Ziskin, writer-director Nora Ephron, writer Delia Ephron and casting director John Frank Levey will be honored at the Casting Society of America's 24th annual Artios Awards.

Simultaneous awards ceremonies will be held in at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza in Los Angeles and the New York Times Building in New York on Nov. 2.

Ziskin is set to receive the group's Career Achievement Award. The New York Apple Award will be presented to Nora and Delia Ephron. Levy is this year's recipient of the Hoyt Bowers Award.

Representing 425 members in the United States, Canada, England and Australia, Cas also announced its nominees in film TV and theater on Thursday.

In the category of big budget feature drama, Ellen Chenoweth scored two noms for "Changeling" and "Duplicity." The category nominees are John Papsidera for "The Dark Knight"; April Webster and Alyssa Weisberg for "Star Trek" and Avy Kaufman for "State of Play.