News

Donald Trump? Hillary Clinton? Haven’t got a shot. In House of Cards, Frank Underwood is still president, and long may that dastardly master reign. On March 4, a whole new season of Washington machinations will premiere on Netflix. While we don’t know what exactly the new season will bring (hint: drama! Oh, and Neve Campbell and Colm Feore are joining the cast), we do know what the real people behind Frank and his frenemies of past seasons have been up to. Here’s your...

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“There are no crazy people, doctor; we’re all just on vacation.”

Jack Sholder’s Alone in the Dark (1982) builds its whole premise around this quote, a fun, underloved and winkingly perverse little beaut from the burgeoning minds at New Line Cinema, two years before Freddy stepped out of the shadows - and right around the time slashers were retreating into them.

Released in North America in November, Aitd was one of New Line’s first forays into film production, focusing on distribution only, up until the mid 70’s. Some decent notices were not enough to put audiences in seats, and that’s just cuckoo – Aitd succeeds in melding a couple of sub genres (slasher & siege) with a dollop of pop psychology guaranteed to etch a smile onto even the most disordered horror lover’s face.

Our tale opens with a dream sequence (nice practice for Sholder, whose next feature...

When Revenge returns for its fourth season next month, Victoria Grayson will find herself rubbing elbows with a certain spiky-haired saxophonist — sort of.

Yeardley Smith, who voices Lisa on The Simpsons, will guest-star on Revenge‘s season premiere, TVLine has learned exclusively. Yeardley will play Phyllis, a fellow patient at the mental institution where Victoria was admitted (against her will) in the Season 3 finale.

Also joining in Season 4 is Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.‘s Elena Satine, who will recur as the “black sheep” daughter of a wealthy southern family.

As I continually tell anyone who will listen, I had a great time representing SciFiMafia.com at the Syfy Digital Press Tour last fall. The two-day event included dinner with the stars of Being Human and Haven, and attending set tours and panels for Defiance and Warehouse 13.

Syfy has now released the video for the Warehouse 13 panel, in advance of the show’s return on April 29, and it’s a great fun watch for anyone who enjoys the show, and a must watch for all obsessive fans. They were a treat:

Check out this on set talk with Eddie McClintock, Joanna Kelly, Saul Rubinek, Aaron Ashmore and Allison Scagliotti from the Warehouse 13 Digital Press Tour.

Warehouse 13 – Digital Press Tour

Click here to view the embedded video.

In case you missed it, you can see all my pics from the Warehouse 13 tour and panel here. And,...

It's been difficult for plenty of our actors to single our their favorite behind-the-scenes moments on their respective shows, but what happens when you're one of the hottest TV directors in Hollywood? We asked Norman Buckley--who's directed for Gossip Girl, Pretty Little Liars, and The O.C., among many, many others--to play Three Scenes with us, and in his own words below, he explains the many joys of creating television magic by going off-script.

Most Challenging: Risky Business (From The O.C. Season 2, Episode 18 "The Risky Business")

Many scenes are challenging to shoot for various reasons, but this was from my very first TV directing experience. Josh Schwartz wrote a complicated action sequence for me; I guess he decided to throw me in the deep end to see if I could swim. In the episode, Ryan and Seth go to retrieve a stolen crystal egg from the movie Risky Business while...

As a relative newbie of the Downton Abbey phenomenon—which has only gotten stronger with season 3 currently airing in the U.S.—I was particularly excited to chat with the woman behind Mrs. Patmore. The lovely Lesley Nicol is not only just as funny as our favorite Downton cook, but she's the type of person you could talk to for hours. (And I mean, Hours.) And hey, she was nice enough to entertain my amateur status, which in itself is an admirable feat.

Check out our interview below!

You're in Vancouver, right? Have you ever been out there before?

I went to the Toronto Film Festival a few years ago, which was my first trip to Canada and this is my second.

I know you can't say much, but how's filming Once Upon a Time going so far?

I had my first day yesterday and you're right, I'm not supposed...

Craig (from Dark Eye Socket) here with Take Three. This week actress and director Ida Lupino

Ida Lupino a "sensation" circa 1941

Take One: The Bigamist (1953)

The Bigamist probes unseemly marital behaviour and stews on moral sorrows. At its centre is Edmond O’Brien toing and froing between two wives. But behind the camera as director, and in a supporting role as O’Brien’s second, San Francisco wife Phyllis Martin, is Ida Lupino. Her unfussy direction creates lean drama and her performance beautifully matches it, with nary an unnecessary furtive glance or superfluous line spoken. She’s a woman bored on a bus tour of Hollywood stars’ homes, chatted up by O’Brien’s depressed bigamist Harry Graham.

Edmond as Harry: Haven’t you any interest in how the other half lives?

Ida as Phyllis: No, not particularly. I’m just crazy about bus rides – gives me a chance to get off my feet.

The seemingly endless wait for the Syfy summer schedule is finally over! There is good news and bad, and one thing that is both good and bad. Let’s start with that: the Eureka Season Finale. We love Eureka, so every episode is good news; the fact that it’s a series finale, not so much. Mark your calendars – and have plenty of Kleenex in stock – for July 16 at 9/8c. Right after Comic-Con, which is early this year. We’ll see if that means a panel or not.

The good news: Warehouse 13 and Alphas return on July 23. The hmmm news is that Lost Girl will move to Fridays at 10 on July 20. Hey That’S Haven’S Spot. So Where The Heck Is Haven? Admittedly we had a head’s up that Haven would be pushed to fall when we learned that the DVDs for Season 2 weren’t being released until September but Argh.

It’s always a good time to read about director Alfred Hitchcock and expect a lot of attention on the Master of Suspense in the upcoming months as there are two films currently in production about him. Alfred Hitchcock And The Making Of Psycho (expect a title change on that one) based in the book by Steve Rebello, is in pre-production with Sacha Gervasi (Anvil! The Story Of Anvil) directing and an outstanding cast attached. Anthony Hopkins has signed on to play Hitch, Scarlett Johansson is cast as Janet Leigh, Jessica Biel will be playing Vera Miles, British actor James D’Arcy is Tony Perkins, and Helen Mirren will play Alma Reville (Mrs Hitchcock). The other Hitchcock film in the works is The Girl produced by The BBC that will premiere later this year on HBO. The Girl focuses on the love/hate relationship between Hitchcock (played by Toby Jones...

For Mark Rylance, it's Rooster in Jerusalem. For Alison Steadman, it's Bev in Abigail's Party … leading actors on the parts they will never escape

Mark Rylance

Plays Johnny "Rooster" Byron in Jerusalem by Jez Butterworth, which opened at the Royal Court in 2009 and travelled to Broadway. It has just returned to London, where it is showing at the Apollo theatre in the West End.

Jerusalem first came to me in 2003, when I was too busy running the Globe. Back then it was called St George's Day. The pages were written with an old typewriter and it was very raw, so different to anything else. Sometimes, instead of characters' names, there was just pages of dialogue. It reminded me of how much as a kid I had resonated with adults outside of society, how much I liked their language and stories.

I got busy with other projects and they saw other actors.

Comic-Con 2011 Movie Panels: Friday Schedule

11:00-12:00 Paramount: The Adventures of Tin-Tin — Tba Hall H

12:15-1:15 Relativity Media: Raven and Haywire— Two fantastic films from Relativity Media debut in this Hall H presentation. Hall H

Raven — The film is a gritty thriller in which Edgar Allan Poe joins forces with a young Baltimore detective to hunt down a mad serial killer who’s using Poe’s own works as the basis for a string of brutal murders. Ravenstars John Cusack as Edgar Allan Poe, Luke Evans, and Alice Eve and is directed by James McTeigue.

Haywire — An electrifying tale of espionage and betrayal. A female covert ops specialist who works in the deadly world of international operatives strikes back after discovering she’s been double-crossed by someone close to her in the agency. Mixed martial arts superstar Gina Carano makes her feature film — and Comic-Con — debut,...

DVD Playhouse June 2011

By

Allen Gardner

Kiss Me Deadly (Criterion) Robert Aldrich’s 1955 reinvention of the film noir detective story is one of cinema’s great genre mash-ups: part hardboiled noir; part cold war paranoid thriller; and part science- fiction. Ralph Meeker plays Mickey Spillane’s fascist detective Mike Hammer as a narcissistic simian thug, a sadist who would rather smash a suspect’s fingers than make love to the bevvy of beautiful dames that cross his path. In fact, the only time you see a smile cross Meeker’s sneering mug is when he’s doling out pain, with a vengeance. When a terrified young woman (Cloris Leachman, film debut) literally crossed Hammer’s path one night, and later turns up dead, he vows to get to the bottom of her brutal demise. One of the most influential films ever made, and perhaps the most-cited film by the architects...

God and the Devil have been fighting for souls since mankind first laid foot on earth. Their battle continues in Cell 213 over cocky young attorney Michael Gray. Last week we brought you some bloody first stills and a TV Spot for Stephen Kay's (Boogeyman) supernatural thriller Cell 213, which will open in Canadian theaters June 10, with a U.S. release slated for July (via Freestyle Releasing). Inside you'll now find the official trailer, with new imagery hiding on the Facebook. The film features an all star cast including Eric Balfour ("Six Feet Under," Stephen Kings "Haven," Skyline, Texas Chainsaw Massacre) Michael Rooker ( AMCs "The Walking Dead," Slither, Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer) and Bruce Greenwood.

Stephen Kay, who directed the godawful Boogeyman, is back with new horror with his supernatural thriller Cell 213, which will open in Canadian theaters June 10, with a U.S. release slated for July (via Freestyle Releasing). The film features an all star cast including Eric Balfour ("Six Feet Under," Stephen Kings "Haven," Skyline, Texas Chainsaw Massacre) Michael Rooker ( AMCs "The Walking Dead," Slither, Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer) and Bruce Greenwood. "Cell 213 becomes home to Michael Gray a cocky young attorney after a gruesome twist of circumstance lands him in the South River State Penitentiary, framed for the murder of an incarcerated client. Unnatural forces are causing prisoners to 'off' themselves at abnormal rates and Michael soon discovers that matters of guilt and innocence are not as cut and dry as he would like to believe trapped in this nightmarish cell."...

Tony Kaye didn't disappoint. In front of a packed house at the Bmcc Performing Arts Center during the Tribeca Film Festival, the British director that once wanted his name replaced with "Humpty Dumpty" on "American History X" came out onstage with the greying beard of a hermit, the glasses of Sigmund Freud, a black guitar and a Whole Foods shopping bag to mumble an introduction of his film "Detachment" before breaking out into a full-blown song that ended with the audience chanting, "I don't care." (A sample lyric: "Brainwash my confidence away...begging for peace of mind may seem selfish and unfair...I don't care.) Adrien Brody was there, too, saying some heartfelt words about how his father was a public school teacher, but all eyes were on Kaye, who implored the audience to look for the color red in the film by placing a piece of paper drenched in...

A man talks with a woman at a bar and they speak about music. Does she prefer classical or R'n'b. Does she believe in fate or freewill. He comments classical music is an "inevitable build to an end." Which is what this entire conversation will lead to. R'n'b takes you where you want to go. He excuses himself to shoot three men. Flack (Eddie Cahill) says this was the grand opening of the bar and each man was shot twice. Once in the chest and once in the head, execution style. No silencer was used. No one saw the shooter and was described as an Afro-American man of average height and build. Mac (Gary Sinise) says there's one more detail: "cold-blooded professional killer." Flack says two walked out, the shooter and a woman. The two Vics were George Parker (Chad Randall) and Julian Grace (Erik Stabenau) . Jo (Sela Ward) comments...

Sons of Anarchy returns tonight to FX (Tuesdays, 10 p.m. Et). Haven’t tuned in before? Catch up with the three-minute primer video below. You won’t regret it. Season 3 finds the motorcycle club, which runs the town of Charming, Calif., and guns, facing trouble in every direction. They’re looking for Abel, the eight-month-old son of emotionally-wrecked Jax (Charlie Hunnam) who was kidnapped in last year’s finale by a member of the Ira who believed Jax’s mother, Gemma (Katey Sagal), had killed his son. Gemma is on the lam after being framed for the murder by Atf...

Welcome to our Friday preview of Comic-Con 2010. Most of the day seems to be light on movie coverage so that means will be beefing up all the FusedTV stuff because we know your are TV lovers out there too. How about some Walking Dead? maybe some Bones? perhaps True Blood? I was thinking some Stargate Universe myself. All that and more on the TV front happens day 2 of Sdcc. On the movie front its all about The Green Hornet and The Other Guys.

Friday, July 23

10:30am – 11:30am - Stargate Universe at Ballroom 20

Follow your Destiny. Catch the Syfy Stargate Universe panel, featuring Robert Carlyle (Dr. Nicholas Rush), David Blue (Eli Wallace), Ming Na (Camile Wray), and Louis Ferreira (Colonel Everett Young), moderated by Robert Cooper (series co-creator). Speaker/Artist(s) - Robert Carlyle, David Blue, Ming Na, Louis Ferreira, Robert Cooper

10:30am – 11:30am - Summit Entertainment...

Survival of the Dead is releasing theatrically today across many cities today, with the Video-on-demand release last month (April 30th Xbox Live, Amazon, Playstation) and now Magnet Releasing is promoting the premiere with a contest here on 28Dla. Readers must answer two questions about the film below and submit their details to the link provided and winners will win one copy of either Donkey Punch or Toby Wilkins' Splinter. For those wanting to see Survival of the Dead in person all the theatre locations for the premiere are located below.

A recap of Survival of the Dead here:

"Off the coast of Delaware sits the cozy Plum Island where two families are locked in a struggle for power, as it has been for generations. The O'Flynn's, headed by patriarch Patrick O'Flynn (Kenneth Welsh) approach the zombie plague with a shoot-to-kill attitude. The Muldoons, headed by Shamus Muldoon (Richard Fitzpatrick...

Got a scoop request? An anonymous tip you’re dying to share? Just want to say hi? You can send any/all of the above to ausielloscoop@ew.com Question: Will Grey's Anatomy address Izzie's whereabouts at all? Or are they just going to pretend she never existed now that Katherine Heigl isn't returning? —Mickey Ausiello: They're definitely not going to pretend she never existed. In fact, I'm told the Izzie issue will be addressed during May sweeps. For her part, Katherine Heigl thinks her Jan. 21 farewell — while not originally intended to be her last episode — oddly works as a bookend to Izzie's story.

I know, I know, it's still SXSW but there are other movies out. And one coming out today just played SXSW. 

The Bounty Hunter -- Gerard Butler is another fractious rom-com, this time as a bounty hunter after his ex Jennifer Aniston. Yeah.  (Wide)

The Cry of the Owl -- Claude Chabrol's latest is a sexual revenge thriller based on a Patricia Highsmith novel.  (Arbor)

Diary of a Wimpy Kid -- Haven't seen it, but love the tagline: "I'll be famous one day, but for now I'm stuck in middle school with a bunch of morons." Chloe Moretz from Kick-Ass is in it, as is Steve Zahn. That makes it worth catching to me. (wide)

That Evening Sun -- SXSW 2009 selection about a southern man dealing with family betrayals and feuding with a neighbor. Starring Hal Holbrook.  (Arbor)

A Prophet -- How do you make a criminal kingpin?...

London - The Mutant Chronicles unleashes cannibalistic humanoids into a steam punk World War I world. The movie features Thomas Jane (Hung), Ron Perlman (Hellboy), Devon Aoki (Sin City), Sean Pertwee (Doomsday) and John Malkovich (Being John Malkovich) as the only defense against these ungodly creatures in the CGI enhanced environment. Can Aoki cut them all down with her cool sword?

Director Simon Hunter took nearly two years to adapt the role playing game into a cinematic universe. You can get great sense of what he undertook for his first major motion picture on the Two-disc Collector’s Edition DVD and the Blu-ray recently released by Magnolia Home Entertainment. I had a chance to swap questions via email with Hunter. Here’s the Q&A action:

Joe Corey: Have you played the game?

Simon Hunter: Yes I have played the game and enjoyed it very much - the...

Toronto -- A day after his documentary "She, a Chinese" picked up the Golden Leopard award at Locarno, the Toronto International Film Festival booked Guo Xiaolu's "Once Upon a Time Proletarian: 12 Tales of a Country" for a North American premiere.

The Chinese novelist-director's portrait of intersecting lives in post-Marxist contemporary China will unspool as part of Toronto's Real to Reel sidebar.

"She, a Chinese," Guo's English- and Chinese-language drama about a young girl's uneasy transition from a sleepy village to the nearest town, was earlier booked for Toronto.

Tiff on Tuesday also added to its September lineup documentaries on Disney animation's 1990s rebirth, Holocaust rescuer Ruth Gruber and stranded Algerian refugees.

Veteran Disney producer Don Hahn will receive a world premiere for "Waking Sleeping Beauty," an inside look at how Walt Disney animation produced a string of hits from "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" to "Aladdin" and "The Lion King."

The...

[Update: We've added the remaining 2 '9' posters to complete the set]

We posted up the posters numbered 7 and 8 for the upcoming adventure, titled 9, by Shane Acker (based on his Academy nominated short of the same name) earlier this weekend and now we have the rest of them to finish the series: posters numbered 1-6 and 9. In addition to that, we also have the newest poster from G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra which features Rachel Nichols as Scarlett

We’ll start with the animated adventure, 9. The voice cast for the film includes the talent of Christopher Plummer, Martin Landau, Crispin Glover, Jennifer Connelly, John C. Reilly and Elijah Wood as the protagonist, number 9 himself.

The posters for this movie that we’ve seen so far look pretty amazing and I love how each character and their respective role get to be featured in their own one-sheets. In order, here they are:

Christopher Plummer as 1

1 is the oldest of the dolls and their self-proclaimed leader.

If you’re a Screen Rant regular then you know we’ve been cheerleading pretty hard for a new movie called 9, which is a CGI animated sci-fi fantasy about a group of living rag dolls (numbered 1-9) who hold the key to life in a post-apocalyptic world overrun by machines.

Well, 9 now has its own viral site, which offers a lot of background information on the world the story is set in, and what events led up to the “birth” of the rag dolls and their mission to protect life.

The site is 9experiment.com and it was launched in conjunction with the facebook page for “The Scientist”, the…er, scientist who ultimately created the living rag doll characters of 9.

[Warning The Following Contains Spoilers About The '9' Viral Site!!!]

This viral site is pretty cool. It’s set up to look like The Scientist’s lab and has sketches of some of his early inventions. There are a bunch...

So far, what we’ve seen from the upcoming rag-doll filled world of the movie 9 has inspired nothing but confidence and excitement about the project. It looks equal parts weird and wonderful, with gorgeous visuals and a very welcome darker tone than most animated movies today.

Today we have a new poster for the film, a striking and intriguing one that only makes me look forward to the movie even more. The poster is in Russian, but fear not as it doesn’t really matter - the number 9 is still the same, and we don’t need to speak a foreign lingo to appreciate the fantastic looking characters. The producer of 9, Timur Bekmambetov (Wanted, Nightwatch and Daywatch), is Russian, so I guess we can count the poster being in Russian as very fitting .

Check it out the Russian poster for 9 (click for larger image):

9 looks to be one unique and dark animated movie.

For months now we here at Screen Rant have been cheerleading for director/animator/designer Shane Acker’s 9, the story of a dystopian future in which little rag dolls imbued with “the spark of life” try to defend themselves against a horde of tech-creatures which have all but extinguished life on the planet.

Up until now the only things we’ve really known about the world of 9 have been largely inferred from the the Oscar-nominated 9 animated short film and the first trailer for 9 the movie - both of which lacked any real dialogue or exposition explaining what the hell was up with the rag dolls and freaky tech creatures. Well, now we have the second trailer for 9 (thanks to G4 TV) and it does a little bit to fill in those plot details. Check it out:

So far I like everything about 9. It’s weird, original and best of all,...

Back in 2005, director/animator/designer Shane Acker released a silent animated short film called “9″, about a living rag doll trying to survive in a post-apocalyptic world. It was a pretty visionary work, full of gorgeous imagery and creatures as creepy as they were original. Personally speaking, the film never made it onto my radar, and for that I can say I am genuinely sorry.

The good news is that in discovering 9 at this late juncture, I’m just in time for the feature-length adaptation which hits theaters this September, and is being produced by Tim Burton (Alice In Wonderland) and Wanted director Timur Bekmambetov!

The full-length version of 9 will also be directed by creator Shane Acker. And, to give you an idea of what Mr. Acker is bringing to the world of animated films, Screen Rant is proud to present the animated short that started it all: We have the...

I’d be surprised if even 10 people reading this knew about 9, the upcoming feature film adaptation of Shane Acker’s animated short of the same name, which is being produced by Tim Burton (Alice In Wonderland), Timur Bekmambetov (Wanted) and Jim Lemley.

Thanks to the good tastes of Screen Rant contributor Ross Miller, we posted the first trailer for 9 back in January. The trailer didn’t grab that much attention, but those who did see it immediately fell under the a spell of wonder and anticipation for 9, a film that looks like an epic adventure acted out by a slum child’s homemade rag dolls.

In a second attempt to ramp up some excitement for 9, we have a brief clip from the film, an action scene where a troop of heroic rag dolls battle against a ragged, sock-puppet monster. You really have to see it to understand what that means…...

Since there hasn’t been any coverage of the new Tim Burton produced animated film 9 here on Screen Rant thus far, I thought an update was in order.

The film will be directed not by Burton himself (who’s serving as producer, alongside Wanteddirector Timur Bekmambetov) but by Shane Acker, who directed the same-titled short film that this is based on. It will be written by Pamela Petter, who wrote Monster House and Tim Burton’s own Corpse Bride, and will be voiced by Elijah Wood, Christopher Plummer, Martin Landau, Jennifer Connelly, Crispin Glover and John C. Reilly.

Here’s the synopsis:

When 9 (Wood) first comes to life, he finds himself in a post-apocalyptic world. All humans are gone, and it is only by chance that he discovers a small community of others like him taking refuge from fearsome machines that roam the earth intent on their extinction. Despite being the neophyte of the group,...