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If you want to know the contours of someone’s psyche, there’s no better question to ask than “What’s your TikTok algorithm like?” Margaret Sohn, the Queens-based musician who makes futuristic alt-rock as Miss Grit, gets a lot of dog videos and food videos. But the most telling videos they keep getting recommended are the ones full of stupid, captivating home-goods gadgets.

“Usually it’s a Chinese woman coming home and using all these different devices,” Sohn says, before laughing. “This is where I’m such a sucker for capitalism sometimes.

The Pokémon Trading Card Game introduced a potentially interesting hook with its Imposter Professor Oak card that the games - both tabletop and video - have never followed up on. While the Tcg and video games have many differences, this is one situation where the games would have benefited from tying in with the cards. Impostor Professor Oak's unexplained nature only makes it a more bizarre presence in the card game.

Imposter Professor Oak was released in the Base Set of the Pokémon Trading Card Game, making it one of the oldest cards in the game. This places it among other classics such as the famous Base Set Charizard, although Imposter Professor Oak is far less famous. Part of this is likely due to it being a Trainer card rather than a Pokémon, which while important, does not garner the same attention as the Pokémon themselves, so players just getting...

Margaret Sohn, the inventive, incisive singer-songwriter who performs as Miss Grit, is the kind of guitarist you might affectionately call a “tone nerd.” Sohn (they/she) studied music technology at New York University, and while doing press for Miss Grit’s excellent 2021 EP, Impostor, spoke often about building effects pedals and how, as they put it to Guitar World, a big part of their songwriting process is “just plugging into effects pedals and making weird sounds.”

“Like You,” Miss Grit’s first new music since Impostor (and first since signing...

Co-written by producer Bernardo Pérez and director Santiago Aguirre, “Together” scooped the Cinecolor México & Shalala Estudios Award at the Filmarket Hub’s first ever Cdmx Film Pitchbox, which unspooled on Friday at the installations in Mexico City of Cinecolor, the event’s principal partner in the Mexican capitol.

The award is worth Pesos 500,000 of post-production image and sound-design services to the winning title. The Cdmx Film Pitchbox focused on local fiction feature projects. In all, seven movie projects were given seven minutes to pitch to an industry audience of producers, platforms and distributors.

“Without doubt we are experiencing a boom of original content and series in Latin America, where Mexico is leading in terms of production volume,” Filmarket Hub co-founder Bernardo Gómez told Variety from Mexico City.

“The demand from platforms and networks is immense, forcing producers to be in constant search for talent and to have ample slates of...

When Variety unveiled the Cdmx Film Pitchbox, a new movie project pitching forum that will take place in Mexico City on Nov. 29, organizer Filmarket Hub announced that executives from Alazraki Entertainment, Cinema 226, Cinépolis, Lemon Studios, Perro Azul and Vcs Capital had already confirmed they would attend.

Since then, Dynamo, Endemol Shine Boomdog, Exile Content Studio, Fox Networks Group Latam, Piano, Sony Pictures International Productions, Traziende Films, Turner and Videocine have all confirmed they will be sending executives as well. The lineup is noteworthy in both quality and quantity for a first-time event, although Filmarket Hub has established itself as a major force in finding and promoting promising independent film and TV projects in Europe. and in 2019 has made a significant push into Latin America with first-time events at Guadalajara, and now, Mexico City.

Following the same format as its events in Madrid, London, Sitges and Guadalajara, each participating project...

There’s no question Hulu wants to get its viewers in the Halloween mood — the streaming service will add a fresh slate of horror movies to its collection once October hits. In addition to watching Jigsaw psychologically torture victims in “Saw,” “Saw 2” and “Saw 6,” audiences will also be able to see the original Hill House in the 1963 thriller “The Haunting.” For those in the mood for a classic, horror favorites from Alfred Hitchcock will also become available come Oct. 1, including “Rear Window,” “Psycho” and “The Birds.”

Anticipated Hulu Originals will also premiere this coming month. Season 2 of “Light as a Feather” will launch on the streamer on Oct. 4, while “Looking for Alaska,” based on John Green’s best-selling novel of the same name, will premiere on Oct. 18.

Scroll through the list below:

Oct. 1

60 Days In: Season 5

Alien Encounters: Season 2-3

American Pickers: Season 19

Basketball Wives La: Seasons 1-5

Biography: The...

Spooky season is upon us, and Hulu is getting into the spirit with a number of horror or Halloween-themed offerings on its October line-up.

Along with Hulu originals like the horror anthology “Into the Dark” and the second season of Stephen King’s “Castle Rock,” the streamer is also offering films from the “Saw,” “Blade” and “Hellraiser” franchises beginning next month. For the more faint of heart, Hulu is also offering three seasons of Food Network’s “Halloween Wars” and the surely adorable “Kids Halloween Baking Championship.”

Not specifically Halloween-themed, but potentially haunting: All six seasons of the original run of “The Hills” will be available to stream on Oct. 1 for those looking to revisit the halcyon days of reality television and questionable late-aughts fashion.

Also Read: Lizzy Caplan's Annie Wilkes Arrives, Causes Mayhem in Hulu's 'Castle Rock' Season 2 Teaser (Video)

Hulu is also debuting all seven...

As 2019 marches along, Hulu has a couple original series that binge watchers will not want to miss in March. “Shrill,” starring “Saturday Night Live’s” Aidy Bryant, is a body-positive comedy that critiques society’s beauty standards and millennial culture. The entire season drops on March 15.

On March 20, fans of true crime will be able to relive the 2015 murder of Dee Dee Blanchard by her daughter, Gypsy, with “The Act.” Starring Patricia Arquette and Joey King as the mother and daughter pair, viewers will surely believe that truth can be stranger than fiction with the new crime anthology series.

Documentary buffs who are scared of heights may need to hold on to something because “Free Solo,” the Oscar winner for best documentary feature, will premiere on March 13. “Shoplifters,” an Academy Award-nominated foreign language film, offers a harrowing look at poverty in Japan, and debuts on March 14.

March will also be...

Ryan Lambie Jan 31, 2017

Shot well over 18 years ago, Danny Boyle's sci-fi short film Alien Love Triangle has never been released - despite a starry cast...

In the late 90s, two very different filmmakers were still in the (relatively) early stages of their careers. Mexican director Guillermo del Toro had released his first feature, Cronos (1993) to widespread acclaim. The UK's Danny Boyle had captured the zeitgeist with his second movie, Trainspotting, and was about to embark on his next film, A Life Less Ordinary (1997).

See related A closer look at Jodorowsky's Dune The fall and rise of Alejandro Jodorowsky's Dune Looking back at David Lynch’s Blue Velvet

Had everything gone to plan, del Toro and Boyle could have wound up directing their own chapters of a three-part anthology movie - the sci-fi equivalent of, say, Amicus Productions' portmanteau horror films of the 60s and 70s, such as The House That Dripped Blood...

Back in August, Sony Pictures issued release dates for a number of high-profile projects, all set to hit theaters between 2016 and 2017. One of those movies is their Jumanji remake, which has been in development for several years, with Zach Helm coming aboard to write the script back in 2012. Today, Deadline reports that the studio has hired screenwriter Scott Rosenberg (Con Air) to rewrite the script in hopes that it makes its announced holiday release next year.

The remake is said to be a high priority for the studio, described as a "re-imagination" of the original 1995 blockbuster Jumanji, which starred Robin Williams, Kirsten Dunst, Bonnie Hunt and Bebe Neuwirth. The original movie was spawned from the board game and book by writer Chris Van Allsburg (The Polar Express, Zathura). The movie earned a whopping $262.7 million worldwide at the box office, from a $65 million production budget.

Jumanji will hit theaters on Christmas...

Odd List Ryan Lambie Simon Brew 12 Dec 2013 - 05:49

The year of Baggins, Potter and Spider-Man also had a wealth of lesser-known movies. Here’s our pick of 2002's underappreciated films...

At the top of the box office tree, 2002 was dominated by fantasy and special effects. Peter Jackson's The Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers made almost a billion dollars all by itself, with Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets taking second place and Sam Raimi's Spider-Man not too far behind.

In many ways, 2002 set the tempo for the Hollywood blockbuster landscape, which has changed relatively little in the decade since. A quick look at 2013‘s top 10, for example, reveals a markedly similar mix of superhero movies, with Iron Man 3 still ruling the roost at the time of writing, followed by effects-heavy action flicks and family-friendly animated features.

As usual in these lists, we're looking...

U.S. Senator Mark Pryor is adamant ... he did Not agree to auction off the 4-week congressional internship allegedly purchased by Joe Francis ... and has told the FBI an Impostor is to blame. Here's the back story -- Francis sent out a press release Tuesday claiming he won an internship in a charity auction ... and plans to gift the internship to the winner of his HDNet reality series, "The Search for the Hottest Girl in...

To mark the Blu-ray and DVD release of Matt Damon and Emily Blunt’s new thriller The Adjustment Bureau, on July 4th, we’ve taken a look at the films influenced by sci-fi writer Phillip K. Dick, whose short story Adjustment Team inspired this film. Dick, for those that don’t know, is a legendary cult short story writer and novelist whose imaginative and unique narratives have inspired numerous feature films and attracted some of Hollywood’s most prominent directors including Ridley Scott, Steven Spielberg and John Woo…

The Adjustment Bureau

David Norris (Matt Damon) is a young charismatic politician who is destined for greatness but when he has a chance encounter with dancer Elise Sellas (Emily Blunt) he instantly falls for her and veers off his pre-determined path. The adjustment team must step in to make a “correction“ and put David back on a course that will mean he...

Universal A scene from “The Adjustment Bureau.”

Philip K. Dick is certainly among the most clearly philosophical of all science-fiction writers, but his convoluted metaphysics, troubling ambiguity, and existential paranoia seem inevitably to get transmuted by the camera’s lens into guns, chases, and dashing leading men. So be it: the movies based on his writing still have enough of his philosophical explorations to be thought-provoking and enough of his uncertainty and dread to put some depth beneath the Hollywood veneer.

With The Adjustment Bureau about to arrive in cinemas, we take a look at Philip K Dick’s other adapted work, and those yet to come…

Paranoid, mind-bending, unpredictable and surreal, the writings of Philip K Dick may have been keyed in to the counterculture, trippy era of the 60s and 70s, but decades after his untimely death in 1982, his best stories seem more relevant now than ever before. This perhaps explains why the author's books and novels are so often a source of inspiration to filmmakers and other writers, in spite of their frequently bewildering nature.

Movies based on Philip K Dick's work have regularly appeared on the big screen since Ridley Scott brought Blade Runner to the screen in 1982, and more adaptations have been announced for the future. Dick passed away before Blade Runner's premiere, and never had the opportunity to enjoy the huge following his work has gradually acquired,...

It's no secret that Philip K. Dick is my favourite American writer. I've said it here many times before. I think the themes he tackled time and time again have had a profound influence on what we know as modern science fiction today. So, with the latest Dick adaptation, Adjustment Bureau, premiering this Friday, March 4, and Ubik announced to finally have a director, I thought I'd take a look back at all the films that have been adapted from his massive repertoire of short stories and novels over the years and see how they all stack up.

I've put the films in order of my own personal preference. Obviously many of you will probably disagree with my order, but I think because I tend to enjoy Dick's earlier writing which tends to lean towards high concept, fast paced scifi weirdness I tend to go for the more hard scifi,...

Back for its third year (see the 2010 edition) and bigger than ever, today kicks off the first in a fifteen-part look at the various cinematic releases hitting the U.S. in 2011. Each 'part' contains brief descriptions and editorial opinion/analysis of varying length covering twenty films. Expect the remaining ones to go up between now and the first major releases in mid-January.

Like all cinematic lists set within a timeframe, there's some overlap. Some films here have already opened worldwide but have yet to hit the U.S., some upcoming films you'd expect to be here aren't because they're either still in development or have already announced 2012 release dates, some were on last year's list but got delayed so have been included again (but with all new analysis).

I confined my list to films that have either set 2011 release dates or had begun/completed production, and only films that have...

Back for its third year (see the 2010 edition) and bigger than ever, today kicks off the first in a fifteen-part look at the various cinematic releases hitting the U.S. in 2011. Each 'part' contains brief descriptions and editorial opinion/analysis of varying length covering twenty films. Expect the remaining ones to go up between now and the first major releases in mid-January.

Like all cinematic lists set within a timeframe, there's some overlap. Some films here have already opened worldwide but have yet to hit the U.S., some upcoming films you'd expect to be here aren't because they're either still in development or have already announced 2012 release dates, some were on last year's list but got delayed so have been included again (but with all new analysis).

I confined my list to films that have either set 2011 release dates or had begun/completed production, and only films that have...

Philip K. Dick wrote some of the most impenetrable and brilliant science fiction of the last century, short but dense novels packed with beautiful prose and sublime ideas. Born six weeks premature, Dick barely survived the first month of life, though his twin sister did not. He was plagued with questions of sanity for the last decade of his life, and died far too young at age 53. He never saw mainstream success in his lifetime, so short of money that Robert Heinlein helped him out every once and a while, though they were diametrically opposed in any element of philosophy. Said Dick:

"Several years ago, when I was ill, Heinlein offered his help, anything he could do, and we had never met; he would phone me to cheer me up and see how I was doing. He wanted to buy me an electric typewriter, God bless him -- one of...

After such success with this last year, today comes the first in a multi-chapter look at the various cinematic releases hitting the U.S. in 2010.

Each 'Volume' contains brief descriptions and editorial opinion/analysis of around 25-30 films, and at present it's looking to run around nine volumes in length.

Expect the remaining ones to go up between now and the first official weekend of releases on January 8th.

13

Opens: 2010

Cast: Jason Statham, Alexander Skarsgard, Mickey Rourke, Ray Winstone, 50 Cent

Director: Géla Babluani

Summary: A remake of 2005 French thriller "13 (Tzameti)". A naive young man assumes a dead man's identity and finds himself embroiled in an underground world of power, violence, and chance where men gamble behind closed doors on the lives of other men.

Analysis: Remakes are very common, the same director remaking his own film in English is rarer but still not unheard of ("Funny Games," "Bangkok Dangerous," "The...

After such success with this last year, today comes the first in a multi-chapter look at the various cinematic releases hitting the U.S. in 2010.

Each 'Volume' contains brief descriptions and editorial opinion/analysis of around 25-30 films, and at present it's looking to run around nine volumes in length.

Expect the remaining ones to go up between now and the first official weekend of releases on January 8th.

13

Opens: 2010

Cast: Jason Statham, Alexander Skarsgard, Mickey Rourke, Ray Winstone, 50 Cent

Director: Géla Babluani

Summary: A remake of 2005 French thriller "13 (Tzameti)". A naive young man assumes a dead man's identity and finds himself embroiled in an underground world of power, violence, and chance where men gamble behind closed doors on the lives of other men.

Analysis: Remakes are very common, the same director remaking his own film in English is rarer but still not unheard of ("Funny Games," "Bangkok Dangerous," "The...

After such success with this last year, today comes the first in a multi-chapter look at the various cinematic releases hitting the U.S. in 2010.

Each 'Volume' contains brief descriptions and editorial opinion/analysis of around 25-30 films, and at present it's looking to run around nine volumes in length.

Expect the remaining ones to go up between now and the first official weekend of releases on January 8th.

13

Opens: 2010

Cast: Jason Statham, Alexander Skarsgard, Mickey Rourke, Ray Winstone, 50 Cent

Director: Géla Babluani

Summary: A remake of 2005 French thriller "13 (Tzameti)". A naive young man assumes a dead man's identity and finds himself embroiled in an underground world of power, violence, and chance where men gamble behind closed doors on the lives of other men.

Analysis: Remakes are very common, the same director remaking his own film in English is rarer but still not unheard of ("Funny Games," "Bangkok Dangerous," "The...

Philip K. Dick has an impressive legacy in both science-fiction literature and film. To this day Blade Runner receives mention as one the best sci-fi films of all time, and then when you account for Total Recall and Minority Report – the man is a sci-fi writing god. Unfortunately, the sum of a man’s success can’t be divined without taking into account some of his clunkers. And there do seem to be quite a few, though it’s no real fault of his own. Impostor, Next, Paycheck and A Scanner Darkly put Philip K. Dick on the map in ways less than flattering. Among those, Paycheck may be the most mixed in terms of quality. While Impostor and Next are just awful in every respect and A Scanner Darkly is trippy as hell, Paycheck took John Woo, a legendary action director, and combined his efforts with those of Dean Georgaris...

Universal Pictures has picked up the thriller spec script Skeleton Key from screenwriter Ehren Kruger, with helmer Iain Softley attached to direct. The deal was made late Friday evening, the same day DreamWorks Pictures released The Ring, a remake of a Japanese horror feature that Kruger adapted. The film went on to open in the top slot with a $15 million domestic gross. Although a deal for Softley is not yet in place, Skeleton would reunite him with Universal, for whom he directed last year's K-PAX. Skeleton is described as The Ring meets The Sixth Sense. It's about a caretaker working with an elderly couple in their New Orleans home, which happens to have mysterious goings-on. Daniel Bobker is producing the project. Universal executive vp Holly Bario is overseeing with production president Scott Stuber. Kruger, repped by Paradigm, has written such projects as Impostor, Reindeer Games Scream 3 and Arlington Road. Skeleton reunites him with Bobker as the latter is producing the The Brothers Grimm, in development at MGM, which Kruger wrote. Helmer Terry Gilliam is expected to come aboard that project later this week. U.K.-born Softley, repped by ICM, directed The Wings of the Dove, Hackers and Backbeat.