News

Mike White will be checking back in for The White Lotus season 4, which has now been given the greenlight. More here.

Writer, actor, producer and director Mike White has one of the most eclectic filmographies in Hollywood, and now here he is steering a hugely successful TV project with The White Lotus.

White began his career in the late 1990s when he penned films like the terrific Chuck And Buck, The Good Girl and Orange County. He wrote the screenplay for Richard Linklater’s School Of Rock, before returning to smaller fare like Year Of The Dog and Brad’s Status. After that? It was a move towards television, scripting two series of Enlightened starring Laura Dern.

In 2021, White created what has become his most acclaimed work, the aforementioned The White Lotus, which has amassed a plethora of Emmys across its run so far, both for White’s writing and Jennifer Coolidge...

Writer-director Mike White returns to the opulent world of The White Lotus for season 3. Here’s the trailer for the new series.

Writer, actor, producer and director Mike White has one of the most eclectic filmographies in Hollywood, and now here he is steering a hugely successful TV project with The White Lotus.

Remember, though, his days as an indie darling in the late 1990s when he penned films like the terrific Chuck And Buck, The Good Girl and Orange County. Then there was Richard Linklater’s School Of Rock, before returning to smaller fare like Year Of The Dog and Brad’s Status. He then turned to television, scripting two series of Enlightened starring Laura Dern.

In 2021, White created what has become his most acclaimed work, the aforementioned The White Lotus, which has amassed a plethora of Emmys across its run so far, both for White’s writing and Jennifer Coolidge...

Exclusive: Annette Bening is joining Maggie Gyllenhaal’s Frankenstein lore feature at Warner Bros; the studio making it official that this is a go-project. Cameras roll in Q1. This package with its attachments has been out there since it was at Netflix, and the deals have finally closed with everyone. Jessie Buckley is the star of the movie which follows Frankenstein’s pursuit of love.

There’s already been word out there about the cast, including Buckley, and it’s a murderers’ row with Christian Bale, Penélope Cruz, and Peter Sarsgaard. Bale and Buckley have been circling this project well before the strikes.

Logline: A lonely Frankenstein travels to 1930s Chicago to seek the aide of a Dr. Euphronius in creating a companion for himself. The two reinvigorate a murdered young woman and the Bride is born. She is beyond what either of them intended, igniting a combustible romance, the...

Mike White’s acclaimed comedy drama The White Lotus will soon commence production on season three, the cast has now been confirmed.

Mike White has one of the most eclectic filmographies in Hollywood. From his days as an indie darling in the late 1990s when he penned films like the terrific Chuck and Buck, The Good Girl and Orange County, to big budget blockbusters like Richard Linklater’s School Of Rock, before returning to smaller fare like Year Of The Dog and Brad’s Staus. He then turned to television, scripting two seasons of Enlightened starring Laura Dern.

In 2021, White created what has become his most acclaimed work, The White Lotus, which has amassed a plethora of Emmys across its run so far, both for White’s writing and Jennifer Coolidge’s performance as Tanya McQuoid.

It is a dark drama which follows the employees and guests at the titular high class resort,...

It seems there is nothing Molly Shannon cannot do. She can zing in a stylized satire like “The White Lotus” and a broad comedy like “The Other Two.” She also grounds her comedic sensibility with great emotional depth in intimate dramas, as she did in “Private Life” and “Other People.” And it’s no surprise that she brings her unique oddball sensibility to quirky indie comedies like “The Little Hours” and “Year of The Dog.” Her resume reads like a fairly comprehensive roster of interesting comedy and independent film over the last two decades.

Shannon’s latest dramatic outing is Zach Braff’s drama “A Good Person,” in which she plays opposite Florence Pugh in another heavy lift. Despite the loaded circumstances, Shannon finds a way to bring levity to the film’s darker moments.

In the film, she plays Diana, a wine-swilling New Jersey mother who finds herself at...

Ls Films’ slate also includes ’I Am Irvine Welsh’ about the ‘Trainspotting’ author.

Ls Films is expanding its Edinburgh International Film Festival (Eiff) world premiere short Little Warrior into a feature entitled Pequena Guerrera.

The story is about a young female boxer, Johana Gomez of Venezuela, who works remotely with Scottish boxing trainer Gary Young, to follow her dreams of Olympic glory. Screen Scotland is supporting the feature’s development.

Little Warrior, which was commissioned by Guardian Documentaries, premieres Saturday (August 20) at Eiff during a special event that will also include a discussion with director Paul Sng, producer Sarah Drummond,...

Click here to read the full article.

I first met Michael (that’s what he went by in college, so that’s what I still call him) White in an acting class during our freshman year at Wesleyan. There were two acting classes, and we were in the bad one — the B group, so to speak. Michael was already a little bit famous on campus, having done a scene that made a big splash in No Doze Theater, an all-night theater production that ran during finals. But what stuck out to me was that he wasn’t wearing socks — it was January in Connecticut. He still doesn’t really know how to dress for the winter.

We remained close friends for years before ever working together. When I was just starting out and would travel to Los Angeles for work, I would stay with him, frequently overstaying my welcome. I...

As resort manager Armond (Murray Bartlett) prepares to greet the latest VIPs at the Hawaiian hotel that gives the HBO miniseries The White Lotus its title, he explains to a new employee, “You don’t want to be too specific, as a presence, as an identity. You want to be more generic.”

This is advice the show’s creator, Mike White, has been able to follow at certain points in his career, as the writer of broadly commercial films like School of Rock. That’s an excellent movie, but one...

Fucked Up have released the third act in the Toronto hardcore band’s epic “Year of the Horse” series of songs, with the National’s Matt Berninger among the track’s guest vocalists.

The 22-minute, five-scene “Year of the Horse – Act Three” — penned and performed in the style of a hardcore play — features lyrics by Fucked Up’s Mike Haliechuk and follows the similarly lengthy “Act One” (19 minutes) and “Act Two” (26 minutes); the project will conclude later this year with “Act Four.”

Berninger appears during the fourth scene in Act...

Kiri Hart, Stephen Feder, Ben LeClair to oversee feature projects from inception to release.

As they gear up for the release of Knives Out later this month, Rian Johnson and Ram Bergman have hired three producers to their T-Street production label.

New arrivals Kiri Hart, Stephen Feder and Ben LeClair will oversee feature projects from inception to release.

Hart most recently served as Lucasfilm’s senior vice-president of development, where she established the Lucasfilm Story Group and oversaw creative development on all Star Wars content across film, animated television, publishing, gaming, immersive media, and theme parks.

She co-produced Johnson’s Star...

In the storied history of “Saturday Night Live,” Molly Shannon is one of the few performers whose characters are as famous as they are. You can trace a pretty straight line from Gilda Radner’s Roseanne Roseannadanna to Molly Shannon’s Mary Katherine Gallagher, and her intensely wacky characters paved the way for Kristen Wiig and Kate McKinnon.

While many former cast members go on to blockbuster comedy success, fewer have sought out — and secured — serious acting careers. “Barry” has made Bill Hader a peak-tv darling, nobody saw Will Forte’s “Nebraska” performance coming, and Wiig has worked with an enviable roster of directors. It’s far more common to go the way of Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, or Will Ferrell, who built empires on broad studio comedies.

Shannon, by contrast, didn’t follow any of those paths: Instead, she’s become the ultimate tragicomic actress. From working with her...

During the Golden Globe Awards, Regina King used her Best Supporting Actress acceptance speech as a public pledge. The actress vowed that she will hire “50 percent” women for all the projects she produces over the next two years. The promise, she said, was part of the broader Time’s Up movement, and she encouraged others to join her with specific goals to improve gender equality in Hollywood and elsewhere.

“I just want to say that I’m going to use my platform right now to say in the next two...

The prize was presented at an exhibition of the film’s craft in London.

Wes Anderson’s stop-motion animation Isle Of Dogs has been awarded the first ever Fi-Dogmanitarian award at the Fido Awards (For Incredible Dogs On Screen).

The film, which depicts a group of dogs fighting extermination on an island of trash in Japan, was recognised for its ‘celebration of the human bond with canines in the Year of the Dog’.

The award is modelled on the Palm DogManitarian Award at sister ceremony the Palm Dog awards, which take place during Cannes Film Festival.

Andy Gent, head of...

With awards season approaching it’s time to get serious at the multiplex, at least for some actors that may be best known for rowdy raunchy comedies. That may be the case for Ben Stiller who’s playing this flick’s title character. Mind you, there’s still some funny stuff in this story, we’re not in heavy, somber tragedy territory at all. It’s just that Ben is playing an “everyman”. a fellow that many of us know, or “down deep” the person staring back at us from the mirror. Oddly, this man is constantly reflecting on his past, his regrets, and choices. These concerns and worries make up the bulk of Brad’S Status.

The title Brad is played by Mr. Stiller. Brad Sloan is sliding toward the big “5-0” and shares a home in Sacramento, CA with his lovely wife Melanie (Jenna Fisher) and their eighteen...

Amazon Studios, which is releasing about a film a month, led the fall season specialized release barrage with Mike White college comedy “Brad’s Status,” starring Ben Stiller. Annapurna’s second release scored $25,000 per theater in two cities for a credible start.

“Brad’s Status” was one of four Toronto International Film Festival 2017 titles released while the festival is wrapping up (compared to only one last year). The others include Darren Aronofsky’s “mother!” (Paramount), which flopped in wide release with $7.5 million and a rare F Cinemascore (they poll mass-audience theaters and the scores don’t reflect all reactions). Frederick Wiseman’s library documentary “Ex Libris” (Zipporah) got a decent result in its exclusive New York run, and Angelina Jolie’s “First They Killed My Father” debuted on Netflix along with a smattering of theatrical dates (grosses hidden per usual).

Opening

Brad’s Status (Annapurna) – Metacritic: 70; Festivals include: Toronto 2017

$100,179 in...

So you think a typical teen worries about getting into the right college. Get a load of Brad's Status, a high-anxiety satire from writer-director Mike White that focuses on a parent who thinks the process is far more traumatic for him. Enter Ben Stiller in one of his best and most acutely observed performances as Brad Sloan, a father taking his musical genius son, Troy (a standout Austin Abrams), on a tour of east-coast colleges. Mom Melanie (Jenna Fischer) had to work. Troy has the props to make the grade,...

Ben Stiller is the kind of actor whose default expression is around 5 on the face pain scale, and that tenuous middle ground between hurt and happiness is the bittersweet spot in which writer-director Mike White’s masterfully handled seriocomic character study “Brad’s Status” operates. Recalling the wincingly funny neurotic rabbit holes of Albert Brooks’ best work, not to mention White’s own previous heartfelt gems about well-meaning fumblers (“Year of the Dog,” HBO’s “Enlightened”), this bitingly amusing, ultimately emotional story of a dad barely managing an envy-driven midlife crisis — as he shepherds his son on a tour of...

There’s a standout moment in “Brad’s Status” when Brad Sloan (Ben Stiller) sits down at a bar with a college-aged woman less than half his age who puts him in his place. After he spends hours drunkenly whining about his life’s work at a non-profit, expressing concerns that he never gets enough respect, she offers a succinct rejoinder that bursts his bubble in an instant. The scene epitomizes the movie’s appeal: Writer-director Mike White’s screenplay juggles warmth with a caustic edge that doesn’t only put Brad in his place; it sums up the essence of Stiller’s performances, giving a slew of solipsistic characters the medicine they deserve.

Read More:‘I, Tonya’ Review: Margot Robbie Sticks the Landing in this Sympathetically Bitter Tonya Harding Biopic

In the process, it also consolidates Stiller’s recurring motifs into a deeper, more melancholic version. Trapped in his...

Writer-director Mike White has dabbled in mainstream studio entertainment (his screenplays for The School of Rock and, less happily, The Emoji Movie), but his specialty is that slipperier, spikier sub-genre: the comedy of discomfort. His debut behind the camera, Year of the Dog, and his late, great HBO series Enlightened, as well as three films he wrote, Chuck & Buck, The Good Girl and Beatriz at Dinner, were all squirm-inducing portraits of people stumbling — and sometimes sliding toward madness — in their quest for meaning.

White's work is deadpan, with sharp stabs of satire, but what distinguishes him from a...

All this week, IndieWire is rolling out our annual Fall Preview, including the very best indie cinema has to offer, all the awards contenders you need to know about, and even blockbuster fare that seems poised to please the most discerning tastes, all with an eye towards introducing you to all the new movies you need to get through a jam-packed fall movie-going season. Check back every day for a new look at the best the season has to offer, and clear your schedule, because we’re going to fill it right up. First up: indie films and festival favorites.

“mother!” (September 15)

The return of Darren Aronofsky should be enough to get any cinephile back to the theater, but the fact that “mother!” has remained so secretive with just under a month to go has only made anticipation higher. Jennifer Lawrence and Javier Bardem play a couple whose lives are...

For most of his career, Ben Stiller has alternated between big studio comedies and smaller art house ones, but as he gets older he seems to be gravitating a little more towards the latter. His latest film finds him teaming up with writer-director Mike White (Year of the Dog), who has followed a similar path […]...

Ben Stiller has dabbled in the indie film world only twice this decade (three times if you count his small role as himself in Mike Birbiglia’s “Don’t Think Twice”), but both times have resulted in some of the best work of his career: Noah Baumbach’s “Greenberg” and “While We’re Young.” He’s reuniting with Baumbach for a third time in the well-reviewed Cannes family drama “The Meyerowitz Stories,” which is one of two high profile speciality releases that guarantee fall 2017 is the season Stiller officially becomes an indie movie star.

Read More: Ben Stiller Explains the Importance of Celebrating Human Stories

Stiller’s other indie project is “Brad’s Status,” from writer-director Mike White. The comedian plays a suburban husband and father whose comfortable life is thrown into disarray when a trip to Boston to look at colleges with his son triggers a crisis of confidence.

“Dunkirk” aside, deep summer looks like a fallow season for major films — but appearances are deceiving. This is perhaps their most-essential moment on the movie calendar, as it’s when distributors huddle, haggle, and negotiate to determine which movies will head for the almighty awards-season launch festivals of Venice, Telluride, Toronto, and New York.

From the festivals’ perspectives, they’re vying for the starriest red-carpet gala world premieres. (The exception is Telluride, which doesn’t have to vie; it gets to cherry pick its impeccably curated four-day Labor Day Weekend selection in secret.) Ahead of next week’s rollout of announcements, we called around for intel on what we can expect to see.

Read MoreRichard Linklater’s ‘The Last Detail’ Sequel ‘Last Flag Flying’ to Open New York Film Festival

Of course, some films either won’t be ready to screen until year’s end, or will skip festivals and go straight to audiences.

“Dunkirk” aside, deep summer looks like a fallow season for major films — but appearances are deceiving. This is perhaps their most-essential moment on the movie calendar, as it’s when distributors huddle, haggle, and negotiate to determine which movies will head for the almighty awards-season launch festivals of Venice, Telluride, Toronto, and New York.

From the festivals’ perspectives, they’re vying for the starriest red-carpet gala world premieres. (The exception is Telluride, which doesn’t have to vie; it gets to cherry pick its impeccably curated four-day Labor Day Weekend selection in secret.) Ahead of next week’s rollout of announcements, we called around for intel on what we can expect to see.

Read MoreRichard Linklater’s ‘The Last Detail’ Sequel ‘Last Flag Flying’ to Open New York Film Festival

Of course, some films either won’t be ready to screen until year’s end, or will skip festivals and go straight to audiences.

Arriving in theaters in New York and Los Angeles this Friday is Jeff Baena’s oddball religious comedy (with has a hint of witchcraft to it) The Little Hours. An official selection of the 2017 Sundance Film Festival, Baena’s film is an adaptation of The Decameron, and during a recent press day for the film, Daily Dead had the opportunity to speak with two of the co-stars of The Little Hours, Alison Brie (Mad Men, Community) and Molly Shannon (Saturday Night Live, Never Been Kissed).

During our interview, the actresses discussed what initially drew them into working on The Little Hours, being able to collaborate with such a strong cast of females, their characters, and more.

So what was the biggest appeal for you to come into this project and work with Jeff? Was it the fact that it was an opportunity to be a part of such an unusual film?...

A standout turn from the often under-utilized actor is one of the many joys of this carefully choreographed dinner party satire that acts as a cutting allegory of Trump’s America

It’s tempting, if rather tiresome, to look for social commentary on the current, fractured state of the Us in whatever piece of culture that comes our way. A cursory glance at any coverage of the small screen adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale, aka The Show We Need Right Now™, will have made you boringly aware of this. But given that we’re yet to truly see the effect that the newly elected president will have on the creative direction of screenwriters, it’s mostly redundant to grasp at straws this early on.

But Mike White, who has quietly been writing some of the sharpest films (and one of the most underrated TV shows) of the past 15 years,...

Brad Pitt (Courtesy: Marc Piasecki/WireImage)

By: Carson Blackwelder

Managing Editor

Brad Pitt is already a world-renowned actor, a silver screen heartthrob, and a tabloid rumor magnet, but perhaps the 52-year-old’s biggest impact on the entertainment industry will be his wildly successful production company: Plan B Entertainment Inc. — commonly called Plan B.

Plan B was established in November 2001 and, while having gone through a few behind-the-scenes changes throughout the years, it has kept a consistent track record when it comes to churning out movies and TV shows that garner critical, audience, and awards attention. Now, after about 15 years of existence, the company has a shot at earning its fifth best picture nomination at the Oscars on February 2017 with Moonlight.

In addition to the Oklahoma native, Plan B was founded with Brad Grey and Jennifer Aniston. In 2006, Aniston left the company after a high-profile divorce with Pitt and Grey exited...

It’s been almost a decade since we’ve seen Mike White direct a feature film. Of course, the screenwriter behind The Good Girl and School of Rock has been busy since Year of the Dog. Most notably, he created and wrote HBO’s Enlightened, a beautiful, often heartbreaking show that didn’t last long enough. He directed six episodes of the series, but now he […]

The post Ben Stiller Will Confront Past Failures in Mike White’s ‘Brad Status’ appeared first on /Film.

Molly Shannon’s post-“Saturday Night Live” career is a diverse one: supporting turns in festival favorites like “Me and Earl and the Dying Girl” and “Life After Beth,” memorable roles in studio comedies like “Talladega Nights” and “Evan Almighty” and plenty of off-beat television for small screen fans. Later this year, she’ll co-star in the much-hyped HBO comedy “Divorce,” starring Sarah Jessica Parker. If it seems like she’s casting her net all over the place, it’s at least partly by design. For Shannon, the key to both Hollywood success and creative fulfillment is simple: Working hard and always looking for something different.

Every now and then, the industry takes notice. At the recent Nantucket Film Festival, Shannon accepted the Compass Rose Acting Award. While there, she also supported first-time filmmaker’s Chris Kelly’s Audience Award winner, “Other People,” which opened the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year,...

It’s almost the start of a new month and that means Netflix is about to refresh their content by adding a lot of new titles and removing some as well. Some of the titles we’re losing include Fargo, Stand By Me, and Batman & Robin, oh no! But some of the highlights for November include the first season of Bob Odenkirk and David Cross’s new Netflix show With Bob and David; Marvel’s Jessica Jones, and The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie. Check out the full listings below:

All Title Dates are Subject to Change

Netflix U.S. Release Dates Only

Available 11/1

Beethoven’s Christmas Adventure (2011)

Girlfriends’ Guide to Divorce: Season 1

Idris Elba: Mandela, My Dad and Me (2015)

Last Days in Vietnam (2014)

Pasion de Gavilanes (2003)

Robot Overlords (2015)

Seven Deadly Sins: Season 1 — Netflix Original

Smithsonian Channel: The Day Kennedy Died (2013)

The Last Time You Had Fun (2014)

The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie...

Halloween is ending abruptly on Netflix: You only have until midnight on October 31st to stream "Scream" and several "Saw" installments as these horror films are all expiring on November 1.

And if you want to watch "Fargo" (1996), "Rudy" (1993), "Stand by Me," or "The Blues Brothers" (1980), they're also vanishing on November 1.

Here's the complete list of what's leaving Netflix streaming in November 2015.

Leaving November 1

"1492: Conquest of Paradise" (1992)

"America in Primetime" (2011)

"Bali": Season 1 (2006)

"Balto 3: Wings of Change" (2004)

"Batman & Robin" (1997)

"Best Kept Secret" (2013)

"Best Laid Plans" (1999)

"Changing Lanes" (2002)

"Cleopatra" (1963)

"Conspiracy Theory" (1997)

"Death Warrant" (1990)

"Fargo" (1996)

"Fela Kuti: Music Is the Weapon" (1982)

"Funny Games" (1997)

"Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide" (2012)

"Hero and Terror" (1988)

"House of Flying Daggers" (2004)

"Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie" (2002)

"Lunopolis" (2009)

"Move Over, Darling" (1963)

"Norman" (2010)

"Pajanimals": Season 1 (2010)

"Rudy" (1993)

"Saw" (2004)

"Saw II" (2005)

"Saw III" (2006)

"Saw IV" (2007)

"Saw V" (2008)

"Scream" (1996)

"Secrets of Mary Magdalene" (2006)

"Soul Plane" (2004)

"Stand by Me...

The most surprising thing about "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies"? That they actually ended up making it. After losing three directors and at least one major star (Natalie Portman), the adaptation of Seth Grahame-Smith's bestselling mashup novel is finally headed to the big screen, and EW has the exclusive on the first official images from the film, which director Burr Steers ("Igby Goes Down") says will be played without the tongue-in-cheek tone readers of the book may have been expecting: “The idea was that it was Pride and Prejudice set in this alternate world and then for everyone to play it straight,” Steers told EW. “The movie’s big wink is that there is no big wink.” Added star Lily James ("Cinderella"): “It’s definitely not camp.” You can view the images below. But first, here's a capsule history of the long-in-the-works production: April 2009: Seth Grahame-Smith's...

Film Music Reporter has news of two upcoming, high-profile scores and their composers.

Marco Beltrami will write the music for The Fantastic Four reboot, while Christophe Beck will compose the score for Marvel’s Ant-man.

Christophe Beck is behind the score to the Golden Globe- and Oscar-winning film Frozen. The Frozen soundtrack, certified platinum 11 weeks after its release, has sold more than one million copies, and spent five non-consecutive weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 album chart. Beck returned to the Muppets in Muppets Most Wanted after scoring The Muppets in 2011. He’s also scored the blockbuster Hangover trilogy, Tower Heist, Due Date, Date Night and Pitch Perfect. He staged the drama for such films as We Are Marshall, Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief, Elektra, The Sentinel, Under The Tuscan Sun, and indie films Year Of The Dog, Phoebe In Wonderland, Saved! and the award-winning documentary Waiting For Superman.

Filmmaker Mike White is in talks with Walt Disney Pictures to write and direct The One and Only Ivan.

We first reported on the project back in April, when Disney was in negotiations to acquire the screen rights for Katherine Applegate's 2011 novel, which won the Newberry Medal. The story follows a silverback gorilla named Ivan, who lives in captivity at a massive shopping center with an elephant named Stella and a stray dog named Bob. While Ivan previously couldn't remember any part of his life after he was brought to this shopping center, he begins to recall vivid memories after a baby elephant arrives. Ivan teams up with Stella and Bob to escape and return this baby elephant back to the wild.

Katherine Applegate based her story on a real life gorilla named Ivan, who spent 27 years in a Washington D.C. shopping mall before being transferred to the Atlanta zoo.

Award-winning composer Christophe Beck scores the action-drama Edge Of Tomorrow, directed by Doug Liman and starring Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt. The film follows a soldier (Cruise) who finds himself caught in a time loop while battling an alien invasion.

The Edge Of Tomorrow soundtrack will be released on Watertower Records. In theaters now, read Jim Batts’ review Here. Earlier this week I spoke with the composer about his latest film soundtrack.

Christophe Beck is behind the score to the Golden Globe- and Oscar-winning film Frozen. The Frozen soundtrack, certified platinum 11 weeks after its release, has sold more than one million copies, and spent five non-consecutive weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 album chart. Beck returned to the Muppets in Muppets Most Wanted after scoring The Muppets in 2011. He’s also scored the blockbuster Hangover trilogy, Tower Heist, Due Date, Date Night and Pitch Perfect. He staged the drama for...

What’s new, what’s hot, and what you may have missed, now available to stream on Netflix and Amazon Instant Video.

streaming now, while it’s still in theaters

Cold Comes the Night: a familiar-feeling crime thriller is enlivened by unexpectedly down-to-earth, hardbitten characters weighed down by the mundane weariness of life on the edge [my review] [at Amazon Instant Video]

streaming now, before it’s on dvd

In a World…: a fresh, funny slice-of-life about a woman in a man’s world, with a smart note about why it matters that women’s voices are heard [my review] [at Amazon Instant Video] Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2: moderately sweet and amusing, but nowhere near as clever or original as the first film [at Amazon Instant Video]

new to streaming

Enough Said: genuine, warm, messy, and human: a wonderfully realistic romance; features one of James Gandolfini’s final performances, and one of his best [at Amazon Instant Video] Fruitvale Station: low-key yet...

We are happy to debut the red-band trailer for the awesome-looking supernatural thriller, Skinwalker Ranch! For those of you not familiar with the film yet, it was inspired by an actual location in Utah known for its unexplained paranormal phenomena. I'm not the biggest fan of found footage films, but this one looks like it will deliver some intense entertainment.

I'm very familiar with Skinwalker Ranch, and I've heard and read a lot of stories about the location over the years. I was wondering when someone would actually get around to making a film based on it, and here it is! I've mentioned before that my brother actually snuck onto the grounds and saw some pretty crazy stuff. It's definitely a good setting for a movie, and some great concepts were used in this movie.

In 2010 “Skinwalker Ranch” gained media attention after experiencing a wide range of unexplained phenomena. Reports...

Check out this fun, full-length trailer for the supernatural thriller Skinwalker Ranch, which is based on an actual location in Utah known for its unexplained paranormal phenomena. This actually looks like a halfway decent found-footage film. There are some fun concepts and cool visuals that were used in the film that you'll see in the trailer. Here's the synopsis:

In 2010 “Skinwalker Ranch” gained media attention after experiencing a wide range of unexplained phenomena. Reports ranged from UFO sightings to livestock mutilation, but maybe most notable was the disappearance of ranch owner Hoyt Miller’s eight year old son, Cody on November 11, 2010. Close to a year later, Modern Defense Enterprises (Mde) has sent a team of experts to document and investigates the mysterious occurrences, which only escalate upon their arrival.The incidents continue to escalate and become more violent, causing tensions to rise as the team must decide how far they...

Here’s the trailer for the upcoming supernatural thriller, Skinwalker Ranch, directed by Devin McGinn and starring Jon Gries (Taken, Napoleon Dynamite), Kyle Davis (Friday The 13th-2009, The Hitcher), Steve Berg (Gentlemen Broncos, Year Of The Dog, Erin Cahill (ABC’s Red Widow), and Matthew Rocheleau (CBS’s How I Met Your Mother), which opens in theaters across the country and on VOD October 30th.

McGinn stars in the film, which he also produced alongside Murphy Michaels and executive producer and Deep Studios founder Ken Bretschneider, and it was written by Adam Ohler.

Spooky! And just in time for Halloween.

The film is inspired by true-events and unexplainable phenomena surrounding Skinwalker Ranch (www.skinwalkerranch.org) in Ne Utah, which was shown a few years ago on Jesse Ventura’s ‘Conspiracy Theory’ and most recently ‘Joe Rogan Questions Everything’ on SyFy.

In 2010 “Skinwalker Ranch” gained media attention after experiencing a wide range of unexplained phenomena.

Ironically enough, the movie adaption of Seth Grahame-Green's zombie/classic literature mash-up, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, refuses to die. It was first put in development in 2009, with David O. Russell (Silver Linings Playbook, The Fighter) set to write and direct, but he had to leave the project due to scheduling difficulties. Since then Mike White (Year Of The Dog) and Craig Gillespie (Lars and The Real Girl, Fright Night) were both attached, but they too had to drop out. The search for the lead role of Elizabeth Bennet didn't fare any better with Natalie Portman (who is signed on as producer), Anne Hathaway, Mia Wasikowska, Scarlett Johansson, Emma Stone, and Blake Lively all in the frame at one point or the other. In recent months, Panorama Media came on board to finance the project, and these new backers have already locked in Burr Steers (Igby Goes Down, Charlie St. Cloud) to direct,...

With the recent news that Mike White's "Enlightened" won't be picked up for a third season by HBO, the writer-director-actor has signed with DreamWorks to adapt "Silver Linings Playbook" author Matthew Quick's latest novel, "The Good Luck of Right Now." The story centers on four outsiders who form a makeshift family in the midst of grieving over the pain and loss in their lives.  While White co-created, executive produced, starred, wrote and directed several episodes of "Enlightened," his only big-screen helming gig thus far has been 2007's "Year of the Dog," from his own script. Among other things, he has penned Miguel Arteta's "The Good Girl," starring Jennifer Aniston, and Richard Linklater's "School of Rock," starring Jack Black. David O. Russell's adaptation of Quick's "Silver Linings" won Jennifer Lawrence an Oscar for Best Actress, while the film received an additional seven nominations.

Sunday night’s Season 2 finale of Enlightened (HBO, 9:30/8:30c) will see the ultimate showdown between protagonist Amy Jellicoe (Laura Dern) and the unscrupulous overlords at the corporation that employs her. But the outcome of Amy-vs.-Abaddon isn’t the only news that’s keeping the cult favorite’s fanbase in a state of suspense.

TVLine caught up with show creator, executive producer and star Mike White to find out whether Sunday’s installment might be a series finale and to determine if its motley band of characters are likely to get happy endings — or at least a close approximation.

A week after "Enlightened" premiered in 2011, a little show called "Homeland" debuted on Showtime. After a longer-than-usual break, "Enlightened" returned recently for its second second paired with a compatible show, "Girls," which, this year especially, seems to suck up every available molecule of media coverage.

All three shows hinge on the aspirations of difficult women and all three attract passionate positive and negative responses, but "Enlightened" is the only one that hasn't been renewed yet. And it's not as if "Enlightened" co-creator, Mike White, hasn't given these matters some thought.

"It’s like, there’s always something that’s sucking the air up from your moment," he said with a hearty laugh over a recent lunch in Los Angeles. "'Homeland' was such a phenomenon –- there was a critical consensus and an audience consensus. At the same time, I would look at that show and I’d be like, 'Well,...

That's one lucky piece of cardboard! Miley Cyrus Tweeted a photo of herself cuddling up to a cardboard cut-out of One Direction frontman - and the latest addition to the Taylor Swift ex-boyfriends club - Harry Styles on Tuesday. The photo comes after a series of One Direction-themed Tweets from the singer-turned-actress. Cyrus - whose 13-year-old sister Noah is a huge fan of the boy band - showed off a miniature Styles bobblehead, some of Noah's fan art and a photo of both girls puckering up to the cardboard likeness of Styles. Photos: Miley Cyrus's Year of the Dog...

Unified Pictures, Savage Bunny and Bron Studios have partnered to produce Trust Me, a dark comedy about the sordid world of child stars and the obsession with stardom.

Clark Gregg will direct from his screenplay the noir fable about a loser agent for young actors-and washed-up child star himself-who stumbles upon a brilliant 13-year-old prodigy (played by newcomer Saxon Sharbino) and then tries to close the mega-deal that will make her a star while managing her drunk volatile father, the poaching attempts of a more successful nemesis and a growing awareness that his innocent young starlet may not be at all what she seems.

Gregg (Marvel's The Avengers, Iron Man, The New Adventures of Old Christine) will lead an ensemble cast that includes Saxon Sharbino, Amanda Peet (Syriana, Please Give, Something's Gotta Give), Paul Sparks (Boardwalk Empire, Edge of Darkness, Rachel Getting Married), Felicity Huffman (Transamerica, Phoebe in Wonderland, Desperate Housewives), Allison Janney (The Help,...

Between now and June 28, the deadline for Emmy voters to return nomination ballots, EW.com is running a series called Emmy Watch, featuring highlight clips and interviews with actors, producers, and writers whom EW TV critic Ken Tucker has on his wish list for the nominations announcement on July 19.

Before it premiered last fall, many people knew Enlightened as “that HBO show starring Laura Dern and her smeared mascara.” Since then, this moving comedy—which follows corporate whistle-blower Amy Jellicoe (Dern) on her journey from scary, “I will Destroy you!” meltdown toward Zen-attaining enlightenment—has collected a very devoted group of superfans,...

Rapper talks to MTV News about his Weigh In Ep, which dropped as a free download on Tuesday (May 15).

By Rob Markman

Dmx

Photo: Tim Mosenfelder/ Getty Images

The Grand Champ is back. On Tuesday (May 15), Dmx returned to rap's arena with his free The Weigh In Ep as an online download. It's been six years since the Dog dropped his last album, Year of the Dog ... Again, and today the Yonkers, New York, rap great is happy that the focus is back on his music and not the legal drama that has plagued his career.

"It's a good thing. I wish it was always like that but you can't really worry about what people think, what they say. I just gotta do me," Dmx told MTV News over the phone on Tuesday. "The focus is on taking the music seriously, as a job, and less trouble."

When Dmx first...

X's Ep will feature Snoop Dogg, Lil Wayne and serves as a teaser for his next LP, Undisputed.

By Rob Markman

Dmx

Photo: Jerod Harris/ WireImage

Dmx is still fighting to prove that he's a champion in hip-hop. But like any formidable fighter, before the Dog steps back into ring for his comeback LP, he has to warm up. MTV News has learned exclusively that X will do just that in the form of a free Ep called The Weigh-In.

While fans will have to wait until June 26 for the Undisputed album, his 10-track Ep is scheduled to drop on May 15 X . Fredwreck, Rich Kidd and Dame Grease will produce on The Weigh-In, while Snoop Dogg and Tyrese will appear as featured guests. Lil Wayne is scheduled to appear on an unspecified interlude.

It's been six years since the multiplatinum rap star dropped his last album, Year of the Dog ... Again.

Seth Grahame-Smith is becoming the go-to guy for genre projects. After writing a number of tongue-in-cheek comedy books, Grahame-Smith broke big with his novel Pride and Prejudice and Zombies in which he mixed a zombie plot into Jane Austen’s classic novel. He followed that book up with another mash-up, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, and now both properties are getting the big screen treatment. Grahame-Smith wrote the screenplay for Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, and was tapped by Tim Burton to write his adaptation of the cult soap series Dark Shadows. Burton was so impressed with Grahame-Smith’s work that he hired him to write a sequel to the horror-comedy classic Beetlejuice (read Grahame-Smith's update on that project here). Steve recently got the chance to speak with Grahame-Smith at WonderCon where he was promoting the upcoming release of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. The scribe gave an update on the long-in-development feature...

Exclusive: Molly Shannon is reuniting with Mike White, signing on for a recurring role on the upcoming second season of White’s HBO series Enlightened. The single-camera comedy stars Laura Dern as Amy, a self-destructive woman who has a spiritual awakening and decides to live an enlightened life, which creates havoc at home and work. In a role written for her by White, Shannon will play Eileen, the loyal executive assistant to the CEO of Abaddonn. In Amy’s mission to blow the whistle on Abaddonn’s corporate malfeasance, Eileen is unwittingly duped into providing damning information about her boss. Eileen also becomes a romantic interest for Tyler, played by White. This marks the third collaboration between Shannon and White. She previously starred in his movie Year Of The Dog and his Fox series Cracking Up. Shannon has an existing relationship with HBO. The Saturday Night Live alumna recently was...