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Few other shows did drama, romance, and heart-pounding twists as well as The Vampire Diaries, and the CW drama kept it riveting for years. With over 20 episodes in most of its eight seasons, Tvd has delivered some of the most unforgettable season finales that have kept fans on the edge of their seats. Whether it was an emotional goodbye or a heart-stopping cliffhanger, these season finales were always masterfully executed, resolving overarching storylines while also setting the stage for fresh ones for the next season.

Each finale was a pivotal point in every character's life, often becoming turning points that would change their arcs completely. While each season finale of The Vampire Diaries was a memorable one, some stood out more than the rest. They left a lasting impact on the Tvd universe and gave viewers moments that ended up defining the legacy of the show.

"Gods & Monsters" Saw...

Since romance dominated The Vampire Diaries, it is possible to forget that it was actually a dark fantasy show. With vampires, Originals, witches, and werewolves roaming the streets of Mystic Falls, there was a big element of horror that kept the show interesting. The first season, especially, had some chilling moments where the supernatural were at their most terrifying.

Whether it was Klaus creating terror or Bonnie discovering her witch powers and heritage, Tvd had some genuinely creepy supernatural moments that fans shuddered to watch. Beyond the romance, The Vampire Diaries was filled with eerie moments where the line between the living and the dead blurred, leaving viewers on edge about what lay in the shadows of the little supernatural town.

Stefan's Compulsions Coming Undone Was Unexpected Image via Warner Bros.

The Vampire Diaries was known to break its own lore often, and this one instance became creepy quickly.

The Vampire Diaries endures as a modern classic because it makes audiences feel deeply. It showcased almost every emotion, from romance to excitement to even fear, as the Mystic Falls gang was faced with challenges of the supernatural kind. As villains of all kinds were fought and vanquished, nearly everyone in the town had to make great sacrifices for each other.

Sometimes, these were smaller sacrifices like injuries, but most of the time, characters like Stefan, Elena, Bonnie, and Lexi gave up their lives to save their friends and Mystic Falls. While some of them came back from these moments, others did not. As a result, some of the most heartbreaking sacrifices still haven't left the minds of fans.

Elena Stabs Herself So That Elijah Can Protect Her Friends Image via Warner Bros.

Elena had a rich character arc, but self-sacrifice was one of her most consistent qualities. She always...

Guitarist Phil Sgrosso has quit As I Lay Dying, following in the footsteps of three other band members who exited last week. That leaves the veteran metalcore band with just one member remaining: frontman Tim Lambesis.

While the other three musicians who quit had only been in the band since 2022, Sgrosso was a longtime member of As I Lay Dying, having joined in 2003. Sgrosso, along with other classic members of As I Lay Dying, returned in 2018 when Lambesis re-formed the band following his prison stint for attempting to hire a hitman to murder his then-wife.

Sgrosso stuck with Lambesis and As I Lay Dying even after fellow longtime members Nick Hipa (guitar), Jordan Mancino (drums), and Josh Gilbert (bass) all quit by 2022. They were replaced respectively by Ken Susi, Nick Pierce, and Ryan Neff, the three musicians who exited the band last week.

Now, Sgrosso has departed as well, explaining...

This article contains discussions of sexual assault.

If there's one thing Stephen King knows pretty well, it's villains. The prolific horror author has been writing basically nonstop since he released "Carrie," his debut novel, back in 1974, and his work has been endlessly adapted for both the big and small screen. In 2009, he even compiled a list of his favorite villains that he didn't create, and it's a pretty solid rundown — which certainly isn't surprising.

From literary icons to on-screen favorites to a villain with a confusingly familiar name — I'll clarify that whole thing when we arrive at that point — here are Stephen King's top ten villains of all time, whom he ranked for Entertainment Weekly at the close of the aughts. King ranked his top 10 from "least villainous" to "most villainous," apparently, so we've preserved that order here.

Read more: The 50 Scariest Horror Movie Monsters Ranked

Max Cady From Cape Fear...

Just as Max had a major addition in May with Dune: Part Two, it has a major attention-grabber in June with House of the Dragon's second season. And that's not to mention the docuseries Taylor Swift vs. Scooter Braun: Bad Blood hitting the streamer on the 21st, which is sure to attract a ton of viewers. But what about movies?

As usual, most new movies hitting Max do so on the first of the month. But, there are a few extra additions peppered throughout the remainder. From a classic vampire movie and a Chronicles of Narnia sequel to the Open Water and Paul Blart movies, there's a wide assortment hitting Max in June 2024. Let's start with a few big ones.

The Disaster Artist (2017) June 1 Your browser does not support the video tag.

James Franco hasn't worked in the industry for about five years now, and for good reason.

The New England Metal & Hardcore Fest has announced its 2024 lineup, headlined by Killswitch Engage and Slaughter to Prevail.

The two-day gathering is set for the weekend of September 21st and 22nd and will be held at The Palladium Outdoors in Worcester, Massachusetts. Tickets and VIP passes are available via the festival’s website. If the fest sells out, fans can look for tickets via StubHub, where your purchase is 100% guaranteed through StubHub’s Fan Protect program.

The rest of the bill is stacked and includes notable names such as Suicidal Tendencies, Converge, Machine Head, As I Lay Dying, Overkill, Nails, Better Lovers, and more.

“I think this lineup is one of the top five best in the festival’s history,” said festival founder Scott Lee via a press release. “It will appeal to all fans of all genres of extreme music.”

The first New England Metal & Hardcore Fest was held...

The lineup for the 2024 edition of the Inkcarceration Music & Tattoo Festival has been announced, with Shinedown, Godsmack, and Breaking Benjamin serving as headliners. The three-day event takes place July 19th-21st at the Ohio State Reformatory in Mansfield, Ohio, where the Oscar-winning movie The Shawshank Redemption was filmed.

Single-day and weekend passes are currently available via the official Inkcarceration website, starting at $199.99 plus fees for a three-day pass. A discounted four-pack can be purchased for $719.96 plus fees. If passes sell out, fans can check StubHub, where your purchase is 100% guaranteed through StubHub’s Fan Protect program.

The Friday (July 19th) lineup will feature Breaking Benjamin along with The Offspring, Chevelle, Machine Head, Chimaira, Poison the Well, Bad Wolves, Biohazard, Veil of Maya, Mushroomhead, and more.

On Saturday (July 20th), Godsmack will be joined on the bill by Halestorm, I Prevail, Killswitch Engage, Hollywood Undead, Sevendust, As I Lay Dying, Filter,...

Stefan and Elena had a love at first sight kind of romance, with major ups and downs, but their initial attraction led to a strong bond and deep connection. Throughout different seasons, Stefan and Elena faced obstacles, including saving each other and dealing with the arrival of the Originals, which tested their relationship but also showed their commitment. Despite their breakup and Elena choosing Damon, Stefan and Elena remained important friends in each other's lives and were there for each other in times of need, showing their enduring care and support.

From questions of "When do Elena and Stefan get back together" to "When did Elena and Stefan first date in The Vampire Diaries," there are a lot of important milestones to look back on for the iconic couple. Both Stefan and Damon have good and bad qualities, but their romances with Elena are nothing alike. In fact, the only...

Exclusive: Oscar nominee and 2x Golden Globe winner James Franco will play Cuban leader Fidel Castro in Miguel Bardem’s Aline of Cuba with Imagen Award winner Mía Maestro set to play Natalia “Naty” Revuelta, the Cuban-born socialite he has a passionate love affair with.

They join previously announced actress Ana Villafañe who is portraying Alina Fernandez aka Castro’s Daughter. The screenplay from Oscar-nominated scribe Jose Rivera (The Motorcycle Diaries) and Pulitzer Prize winner Nilo Cruz, follows the true-life story of Cuban exile turned social advocate, Fernandez, whose birth was the result of the tryst between Revuelta and Castro. Revuelta sacrificed her and her physician husband’s personal belongings and finances to help fund the start of the communist revolution. Fernandez learned that she was Fidel Castro’s daughter at the age of 10 when after years of secret visits to her home, her mother finally revealed that “El Comandante” was her biological father.

An apt alternate title for Bebia, à mon seul désir could well be Grandma, which of course was also the name of a Lily Tomlin-starring comedy from 2015. Indeed, ‘bebia,’ in its transliterated form, is Georgian for the word ‘grandmother.’ And if little else, amidst all the virtues and frustrations of this debut from Russian author and painter Juja Dobrachkous, there is no doubt that this is grandma-oriented filmmaking par excellence.

The slightly bathetic title Grandma rings true for another reason. Bebia, à mon seul désir is a film that treats a routine family obligation for a diffident, stroppy teenager––her grandmother’s funeral––as a mythopoeic battle of will. It’s not that the funeral is a formality––of course, it is an irreplaceable mourning ritual for her wider family. The issue is with Dobrachkous’ choice to frame it through this focalizing figure of the daughter, and the slightly opaque,...

The dedication at the end of The Plastic House is short and sweet: “For Mum & Dad.” Like the rest of writer-director Allison Chhorn’s documentary, that dedication is presented in subtle, quiet fashion. The Plastic House is a largely quiet film, one drenched in emotion but never outwardly melodramatic. Often dialogue-free, plotless, and running just 46 minutes, Plastic is a uniquely involving sensory experience.

Despite the absence of any real “plot” and its reliance on visuals over dialogue, watching The Plastic House is not highly demanding. Unlike fellow NYFF58 entries—Tsai Ming-liang’s breathtakingly slow, wondrously moving Days, or even Frederick Wiseman’s four-hour-plus City Hall—Plastic is not a rigorous viewing experience. Rather, it is a film that moves briskly, at times even effortlessly, between nostalgic memory and a new reality.

Chhorn is an immensely talented Australian filmmaker, as adept at sound design and cinematography as she is at writing.

I’m tired of hearing how some novels are “impossible to adapt.” Balderdash! Just because some books don’t lend themselves to being translated from page to screen doesn’t mean that the attempt ought not to be made. Just ask James Franco, who’s shown a speed freak’s determination to tackle some of the unlikeliest literary adaptations of the last decade, from William Faulkner to John Steinbeck (“In Dubious Battle”) to Cormac McCarthy (“Child of God”). Frankly, he’s not very good at it, but that doesn’t stop him. Nor should it. Even Franco’s failures are fascinating, like asymmetrical pottery-wheel mishaps that wouldn’t passs for a vase, but wind up looking like modern art.

From the moment of its publication in 2007, Steve Erickson’s postmodern showbiz satire “Zeroville” was widely described as “unfilmable” — which was like waving a red flag in front of Franco. Truth be told,...

The long-time coming Zeroville has finally released a trailer. The James Franco (The Disaster Artist) directed film was originally picked up by Alchemy for distribution in 2014, but after the company went under, Zeroville's fate was left up in the air. Now, under the online-based myCinema, the comedy-drama is getting a theatrical release in September 2019.

Based on Steve Eirckson's novel by the same name, Zeroville follows Vikar (James Franco), a wide-eyed innocent in love with the movies. The film follows his trip to the heart of a transitioning Hollywood in 1969 where the studio system is in decay, and a new generation of brash filmmakers are on the rise.

Vikar is a na&#239ve newcomer with nothing but his 'outsider' past and a huge tattoo of Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor from his favorite film, 1951's A Place in the Sun tattoo on his shaved skull. He is driven by the "allure...

Four of the most renowned genre filmmakers in the Southeast Asian region – Eric Khoo from Singapore, Joko Anwar from Indonesia, Pen-Ek Ratanaruang from Thailand, and Ho Yuhang from Malaysia – come together in this session to discuss the creation and their involvement in the HBO Asia series “Folklore“. How does folklore inspire and inform horror in each of the directors’ works? What are the research processes and responsibilities of representing their cultures in an internationalised genre film market?

Description

A Fear of Monsters: Folklore and Horror in Cinema

9 June 2019

3 – 4.30pm

Oldham Theatre. Free admission with registration

Speakers:

Eric Khoo (Singapore), director of “Folklore: Nobody“

Joko Anwar (Indonesia), director of “Folklore: A Mother’s Love“

Pen-Ek Ratanaruang (Thailand), director of “Folklore: Pob“

Ho Yuhang (Malaysia), director of “Folklore: Toyol“

Moderator:

Wardah Mohammad, Management Assistant Officer (Outreach) at Nus Museum

Wardah Mohamad (b. 1991) graduated from Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts in 2011. Since then...

You may recall, dear reader, that in the years preceding “The Disaster Artist” James Franco was writing and directing films at a breakneck pace — “As I Lay Dying,” “Child of God,” “The Sound and the Fury,” and “In Dubious Battle” all premiered within a three-year span. So did “Zeroville,” a comedy based on Steve Erickson’s novel of the same name, but because it was acquired by Alchemy — the ill-fated distributor that went out of business mere months after picking up the film — it has yet to receive a theatrical release.

Until now, that is, as myCinema appears to have saved “Zeroville” from limbo. The company is based online but partners with some 500 theaters that have the option of licensing its films — like “The Chaperone,” written by “Downton Abbey” creator Julian Fellowes — for traditional brick-and-mortar releases.

Here’s the (rather lengthy) synopsis:

Join Vikar (James Franco), a wide-eyed innocent in love with the movies,...

Chicago – Day Five of the 54th Chicago International Film Festival (Ciff) on Sunday, October 14th, 2018, is a day to introduce yourself to a new side of Melissa McCarthy in “Can You Forgive Me?, to make a date with “Watergate,” the remarkable four hour documentary about that American history, to hop on “The Band Wagon” and to remember a magazine-era icon, Chicago’s own Art Paul.

’Can You Ever Forgive Me’ on Day Fiveof the 54th Chicago International Film Festival

Photo credit: Chicago International Film Festival/Fox Searchlight Pictures

Events A Chicago-centric vibe will be in the house on Sunday, as Ciff celebrates Windy City’s own Art Paul, one of the most influential graphic designers of the late 20th Century. The new documentary of his life, “Art Paul of Playboy: The Man Behind the Bunny” explains it all, as Art Paul was the man – in collaboration with Hugh Hefner – who...

In William Faulkner’s elegiac southern gothic tale As I Lay Dying there’s an oft-cited passage that resonates with the novel’s core theme of radical subjectivity: “Sometimes I think it ain’t none of us pure crazy and ain’t none of us pure sane until the balance of us talks him that-a-way.” It’s uttered by Cash, the eldest son of the Bundren family, about his brother Darl following his committal to a mental institution upon suspicion of burning down a barn. It’s wistful insight into a troubled mind that struggles to articulate his feelings, although the novel splays them out in thorough detail.

Moments such as this echo throughout, penned in captivating stream of consciousness prose that lend each character’s distinct perspective to the reader, often reflective of Faulkner’s fevered state of mind, having written the entirety of the story’s published, unedited...

In a surprise twist no one saw coming The Coen Brothers’ initial anthology series, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, will be featuring at the 2018 Venice Film Festival as a full-length feature in the competition.

The film, which was declared a Netflix original, is made up of 6 of chaptered stories revolving around the American Frontier. As for chapter plot details, information is hard to find. Tim Blake Nelson stars as Scruggs alongside a cast that features names like Zoe Kazan, Liam Neeson and Tom Waits.

“We’ve always loved anthology movies, especially those films made in Italy in the Sixties which set side-by-side the work of different directors on a common theme,” the Coens said in a statement. “Having written an anthology of Western stories we attempted to do the same, hoping to enlist the best directors working today. It was our great fortune that they both agreed to participate.”

The...

James Franco is in negotiations to direct the movie “Those Guys Have All the Fun: Inside the World of ESPN” for Focus Features.

The project is based on the 2011 book of the same name by James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales, which recapped the formation of the sports network, based on interviews with more than 500 people. ESPN was launched in 1979 by Bill Rasmussen and his son Scott as the world’s first 24-hour cable TV network. It saw success by telecasting the early rounds of the Ncaa basketball tournament and the NFL Draft.

“Halt and Catch Fire” co-creator Christopher C. Rogers has been hired to re-write the script. Miller was tapped to adapt the script in 2015. Michael De Luca, Jamie Patricof, and Julie Yorn are producing the film.

Franco produced, directed, and starred in “The Disaster Artist,” which received strong reviews and earned one Academy Award nomination for adapted screenplay...

Non-FictionThe programme for the 2018 edition of the Venice Film Festival has been unveiled, and includes new films from Tsai Ming-liang, Frederick Wiseman, Sergei Loznitsa, Olivier Assayas, the Coen Brothers, and many more.COMPETITIONFirst Man (Damien Chazelle)The Mountain (Rick Alverson)Non-Fiction (Olivier Assayas)The Sisters Brothers (Jacques Audiard)The Ballad of Buster ScruggsVox Lux (Brady Corbet)Roma (Alfonso Cuarón)22 July (Paul Greengrass)Suspiria (Luca Guadagnino)Werk ohne autor (Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck)The Nightingale (Jennifer Kent)The Favourite (Yorgos Lanthimos)Peterloo (Mike Leigh)Capri-revolution (Mario Martone)What You Gonna Do When the World's On Fire? (Roberto Minervini)Sunset (László Nemes)Frères ennemis (David Oeloffen)Where Life is Born (Carlos Reygadas)At Eternity's Gate (Julian Schnabel)Acusada (Gonzalo Tobal)Killing (Shinya Tsukamoto)Out Of COMPETITIONFeaturesThe Other Side of the Wind (Orson Welles)They'll Love Me When I'm Dead (Morgan Neville)L'amica geniale (Saverio Costanzo)Il diario di angela - noi...

The Venice Film Festival is celebrating its 75th year in 2018 with a star-studded lineup that includes world premieres from Damien Chazelle, Bradley Cooper, Luca Guadagnino, and Alfonso Cuarón. The festival takes place August 29 to September 8 and marks the official kickoff of the 2018 fall awards season.

As has been previously announced, Damien Chazelle will open the festival with the world premiere of “First Man.” The space race drama stars Chazelle’s “La La Land” Oscar nominee Ryan Gosling as Neil Armstrong and recounts the Apollo 11 mission to the moon. The world premiere will be Chazelle’s second Venice opener after “La La Land.” Also confirmed prior to the announcement lineup was Bradley Cooper’s “A Star Is Born,” which marks the actor’s directorial debut.

Check out the full lineup for the 2018 Venice Film Festival below. This year’s competition jury is led by Guillermo del Toro, who won the...

Dee Rees is a tall woman of fierce charisma. She’s the kind of director who talks fast, ideas coming so quickly that those less inclined can barely keep up. And yet her output has been slow: After Focus Features snapped up her breakout 2011 feature debut “Pariah” at Sundance, it was four years before HBO Film’s Emmy and DGA-award-winning 2015 biopic “Bessie.”

“There’s an assumption that men who do small personal movies can leap to deliver larger things,” said “Bessie” producer Shelby Stone. “It’s much harder for women.”

Finally, we get to see Rees fulfill her promise with “Mudbound,” a Sundance triumph that set the 2017 festival sales record with its $12.5 million sale to Netflix, and opened AFI Fest November 9 after wowing crowds at seven film festivals.

When Rees received the Sundance Next Fest Vanguard Award in August, her presenter, “Pariah” star Kim Wayans, said it best: “The introverted,...

Dee Rees is a tall woman of fierce charisma. She’s the kind of director who talks fast, ideas coming so quickly that those less inclined can barely keep up. And yet her output has been slow: After Focus Features snapped up her breakout 2011 feature debut “Pariah” at Sundance, it was four years before HBO Film’s Emmy and DGA-award-winning 2015 biopic “Bessie.”

“There’s an assumption that men who do small personal movies can leap to deliver larger things,” said “Bessie” producer Shelby Stone. “It’s much harder for women.”

Finally, we get to see Rees fulfill her promise with “Mudbound,” a Sundance triumph that set the 2017 festival sales record with its $12.5 million sale to Netflix, and opened AFI Fest November 9 after wowing crowds at seven film festivals.

When Rees received the Sundance Next Fest Vanguard Award in August, her presenter, “Pariah” star Kim Wayans, said it best: “The introverted,...

James Franco is one of the six names in entertainment being celebrated at the inaugural IndieWire Honors on Nov. 2. Franco is recognized here for his transformative portrayal of the star and director of “The Room” in A24’s upcoming “The Disaster Artist” (In theaters nationwide December 8), which Franco also produced and directed. He will receive the IndieWire’s Vanguard Award (Film).

For a few years, James Franco was everywhere: Hosting the Oscars. Getting college degrees. Teaching college courses. Directing movies. Acting in movies. Writing about movies. Making art. Writing novels. Starting a band. Every now and then, he would penetrate the mainstream, with commercial releases like “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” and “The Interview.” By and large, however, the affable face from “Freaks and Geeks,” Sam Raimi’s “Spider-Man” movies, and “127 Hrs” had grown so ubiquitous it had become difficult to discern the big picture.

Now, he’s...

“Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough said Thursday that President Donald Trump’s rambling, stream of consciousness interview with the New York Times sounds like “William Faulkner on acid.” Also Read: 'Morning Joe' Rips Trump While Praising John McCain (Video) “I mean the sentences just keep going on, but they’re garbled and make absolutely no sense,” the host said, referring to the Nobel Prize laureate’s distinctive writing style. Faulkner is known for novels like “As I Lay Dying” and “The Sound and the Fury,” and known for his frequent use of “stream of consciousness” — a character’s...

A extensive look at all those movies James Franco directed.

James Franco has done a lot of things, we’ve heard. Following a successful turn on Judd Apatow’s Freaks and Geeks and a well-received starring spot on a TNT biopic on James Dean, he turned immediately to a litany of pursuits: from playwriting and English degrees to painting and directing no less than ten feature-lengths. The latter project interested me. Were they any good? In Franco’s Rolling Stone profile last year, Jonah Weiner ran around a thesaurus of words like “dizzying,” “indefatigable“ and, wait for it, “multihyphenate” to describe his subject but none of those words mean very much. Paul Klee painted over a thousand paintings in the penultimate last year of his life. So could I. So what?

“What did we do to deserve James Franco?,” asked Rex Reed in a slightly different era. Back then, even the The Guardian agreed with Jared Kushner...

“In Dubious Battle” is not the first movie about a labor strike with Robert Duvall as the antagonizing boss man; that honor goes to the 1992 Disney musical starring Christian Bale, “Newsies,” in which Duvall portrayed Joseph Pulitzer. “Newsies” went on to receive five Golden Raspberry Award nominations, but it contained more drama and gusto than this humorless dirge from director-star James Franco.

This smug period drama follows the conventional narrative of an idealistic revolutionary and his fearless leader as they incite a strike among apple pickers in California’s fictional Torgas Valley. Matt Rager adapted the script from John Steinbeck’s 1936 novel, and the film is largely based on events that occurred during the California labor strikes of 1933.

Read More: ‘In Dubious Battle’ Trailer: James Franco Takes on John Steinbeck in His Latest Literary Adaptation

Franco is Mac, a spirited labor rights activist (some say Communist) who takes young Jim...

Let it be known that I genuinely like James Franco. Given the choice between ‘yer average pretty boy movie star and a ludicrous avant-garde polymath jester, I’ll pick the latter every time. Problem is, while the self-titled Mayor of Gay Town gleefully smashes through cultural/social/artistic boundaries like a steam train, the art that’s produced at the end of it is… not great.

And so to In Dubious Battle, an adaptation of John Steinbeck’s 1936 novel of the same name and the latest in Franco’s quest to put his favorite books on screen. This weighty literary project has, thus far, borne little of value. His adaptations of Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury and As I Lay Dying were “nearly unwatchable” and “stale and jumbled,” and his take on Cormac McCarthy’s Child of God “tedious and meandering”. Sadly, this trend remains unbroken.

Set during the Great Depression,...

As I Lay Dying frontman Tim Lambesis has been released from prison two years after he unsuccessfully tried to have his estranged wife killed by a hitman. As I Lay Dying Frontman Tim Lambesis Released From Prison Lambesis was arrested in May 2013 for trying to hire a hitman to murder his wife, Meggan Lambesis, for $1,000. As […]

Source: uInterview

The post Tim Lambesis, As I Lay Dying Frontman, Released From Prison appeared first on uInterview.

James Franco’s death march through the American literary canon continues with In Dubious Battle, a John Steinbeck adaptation so conventionally dismal that it makes one better appreciate the artsy, dawdling garbage that is the actor turned dilettante’s usual stock in trade. Every Franco personal project—from his unintelligible, low-budget adaptations of William Faulkner (As I Lay Dying, The Sound And The Fury) and Cormac McCarthy (Child Of God) to his novels and assorted experiments in self-fellatio—is born with a “Kick Me” sign on its back, begging critics to punt it in the keister for making artistic ambition look lame. This one even comes with a freebie: It’s got “dubious” right there in the title. But instead of being sloppily miscalculated (the “Franco touch”), this attempt at a Depression-era labor drama in the vein of John Sayles just bores its way through almost two hours of screen...

James Franco is adding a new project under his directing tab. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the filmmaker will be helming “The Pretenders,” a film set in New York in the ‘80s.

The movie will star Jane Levy, Jack Kilmer and Shameik Moore, and follow two college friends who fall in love with the same girl. The love triangle creates a decade spanning, unique relationship between the threesome. “Horns” actress Juno Temple and Brian Cox (“Morgan”) will also co-star.

The script, written by “The Fault in Our Stars” director Josh Boone, has been circulating since 2013, with various actors previously attached.

Read More: James Franco’s Movie Column: ‘The Love Witch’ Is a Feminist B-Movie

The project is a co-production between Rabbit Bandini Productions, Sss Entertainment and Yale Productions. Producers for the film include Vince Jolivette and Jay Davis at Rabbit Bandini, Shaun Sanghani at Sss Entertainment, Jordan Yale Levine and Scott Levenson from Yale Productions,...

James Franco is currently working on a few upcoming films that he will star in and direct, including “Zeroville,” based on Steve Erickson’s 2007 book by the same name, and “The Masterpiece” about the making of Tommy Wiseau’s “The Room.” Though busy with many projects, Franco also directed a black-and-white short film entitled “Do It Right” starring fashion model Gigi Hadid. The film promotes a collaboration between Hadid and fashion designer Stuart Weitzman on new footwear “The Gigi Boot,” which is featured prominently in the video. Watch it below.

Read More: James Franco Endorses ‘Most Interesting Woman in the World’ Hillary Clinton in Funny Video

In the video, Hadid stars as a boxer who strikes poses as well as she spars against her masked opponents in the ring. All the while, she’s wearing The Gigi Boot while she’s taking down the men who enter into battle with her.

This admirably-intentioned adaptation of the 1936 industrial strife novel suffers from a tin ear, flat feet and overweening vanity

There’s something worryingly stolid and self-congratulatory about this new movie directed by James Franco: a drama about a (fictional) Californian apple-pickers’ strike in the Depression-hit Us, adapted by Franco’s longtime screenwriting partner Matt Rager from the 1936 novel by John Steinbeck. High-mindedness, ambition and seriousness are things to cherish, and I admired a good deal in Franco’s recent Faulkner adaptation, As I Lay Dying. But this is ultimately just so heavy-footed and stodgy, with each performance punched out on a single, earnest, unvarying note. The dialogue lands with a heavy thud, and the rhetoric is often a matter of shouting at deafening volume “They’re treatin’ us like pigs, the sonsabitches, the pigs are crackin’ our heads with clubs, the sonsabitches and we’re gonna fight back! Aren’t we?...

Continuing his brave effort to ensure that future students of American literature can just buy the VOD equivalent of a box set instead of ever having to read another Great American Novel again, actor-director James Franco has moved from adapting Faulkner (As I Lay Dying, The Sound and the Fury) and McCarthy (Child of God) to Steinbeck with In Dubious Battle. The author's novel is the first of what would become Steinbeck’s Dustbowl trilogy (which also includes Of Mice and Men and Grapes of Wrath) and recounts a Great Depression-era strike that apple pickers in California organized to get

read more...

James Franco may or may not be a promising filmmaker, but he’s not afraid of failure. You’ve got to give him that. Twice, the 38-year-old multi-hyphenate has attempted to rope the byzantine narratives of William Faulkner into a cinematic structure—2013’s As I Lay Dying and 2014’s The Sound And The Fury—and both times he came up short. So, he’s doing the only logical thing and moving laterally over to Faulkner’s contemporary in bleak Americana, John Steinbeck, with an adaptation of In Dubious Battle.

The 1936 novel gives a fictionalized account of an apple pickers’ strike in central California three years earlier. Along with his supremely impressive cast, including Robert Duvall, Bryan Cranston, Selena Gomez, Sam Shepard, Ed Harris, and Vincent D’Onofrio, Franco seems to be gunning for an epic. The cinematography, by newcomer Bruce Thierry Cheung, is certainly holding up its ...

When he’s not having fun with Seth Rogen and company, James Franco is spending part of his time adapting classic novels. After directing adaptations of Cormac McCarthy and William Faulkner landmarks, he’s now turned his sights to John Steinbeck with his take on the 1936 novel In Dubious Battle. Ahead of screenings at Venice and Tiff, the first trailer has now arrived for the drama which follows a pair of labour organizers attempting to unionize neglected California fruit pickers.

Featuring the eclectic cast of Nat Wolff, Selena Gomez, Vincent D’Onofrio, Robert Duvall, Ed Harris, Sam Shepard, Josh Hutcherson, John Savage, Ashley Greene, Zach Braff, Bryan Cranston and, of course, Franco in the lead, this looks to be his most polished directorial work thus far. Check out the trailer, extended synopsis and poster below ahead of the premiere soon.

Tiff synopsis:

Where does James Franco find the time? Between...

James Franco is set to star in another Stephen King project! It will be a feature film adaptation of a short story called "Drunken Fireworks." There’s also a chance that Franco could direct it, but he hasn’t decided if he wants to do that or not yet.

Franco most recently worked on Hulu’s Stephen King and J.J. Abrams series 11.22.63, which was incredible! That series was just a perfect storm of awesomeness, and it’s great to see that Franco is taking on another of King’s creations. This sounds like it will be a great project for him.

Drunken Fireworks is a darkly comic tale of a blue-collar mechanic and a retired mob boss who go head to head in an increasingly antagonistic annual Fourth of July fireworks competition. The tale is set in small-town rural Maine, where local good ol’ boy Alden McCausland (Franco) strikes up...

James Franco is one of those actors smart enough to know a good thing when he’s got it – the star’s seen massive returns on his comedies with Seth Rogen, and so there’s no reason to expect that he’ll stop making them, and he’s been met with significant acclaim for playing nastier characters in smaller, darker indie fare, which might explain his recent roles in everything from Spring Breakers to True Story.

Recently, the star is also excelling in an unusual capacity: starring in adaptations of works by the horror great Stephen King. He was uniformly terrific in Hulu’s 11.22.63, a sprawling miniseries adaptation of King’s tome about a time-traveler trying to prevent the JFK assassination, and now he’s lining up another feature gig collaborating with the author: Drunken Fireworks, an adaptation of a short story by King.

Franco will star as a mechanic...

Following the success of "11.22.63" on Hulu, actor James Franco is set to star in and produce another Stephen King adaptation - this time a film take on King's short story "Drunken Fireworks" for Rabbit Bandini Productions and Rubicon Entertainment.

Matt Rager, who penned the script for several Franco-directed films including his "The Sound and the Fury" and "As I Lay Dying" adaptations, will write the project. No director is attached yet.

The story is set in a small town in Maine and centers on a mechanic (Franco) and a retired mob boss who compete in the town's annual Fourth of July fireworks competition. Franco, Vince Jolivette, Doug McKay, Robert Kaplan, Marc Senter and Nathan Grubbs will produce.

Source: Deadline...

Exclusive: Add the short story Drunken Fireworks to the number of Stephen King-penned fictions making their way to the big screen. Rabbit Bandini Productions and Rubicon Entertainment have teamed on the drama, and James Franco is set to star. He possibly could direct as well, but that hasn’t yet been decided. The script is being written by Matt Rager, a frequent Franco collaborator whose credits include As I Lay Dying, The Sound And The Fury and the upcoming John…...

Tim Blake Nelson’s last film, Leaves of Grass, was released five years ago. Since then, the award-winning actor, writer and director has been busy acting in indies such as James Franco’s take on As I Lay Dying, big-budget films such as Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln and on Netflix with an ongoing role in Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. Anesthesia, Blake Nelson’s latest film as writer-director, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival earlier this year and was later picked up by IFC Films. The drama, starring Kristen Stewart and Sam Waterston, alongside Blake Nelson, Glenn Close, Gretchen Mol, Corey Stoll and Michael K. Williams, will hit theaters and on demand on January […]...

Tim Blake Nelson’s last film, Leaves of Grass, was released five years ago. Since then, the award-winning actor, writer and director has been busy acting in indies such as James Franco’s take on As I Lay Dying, big-budget films such as Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln and on Netflix with an ongoing role in Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. Anesthesia, Blake Nelson’s latest film as writer-director, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival earlier this year and was later picked up by IFC Films. The drama, starring Kristen Stewart and Sam Waterston, alongside Blake Nelson, Glenn Close, Gretchen Mol, Corey Stoll and Michael K. Williams, will hit theaters and on demand on January […]...

Yes, James Franco, Seth Rogen, and Danny McBride are in a new movie together. However, for those expecting another Pineapple Express or This is the End, you may leave disappointed. The Franco-directed adaptation of William Faulkner‘s The Sound and the Fury premiered at Venice Film Festival last year and now it’s finally getting a theatrical release.

Also starring Jacob Loeb, Ahna O’Reilly, Tim Blake Nelson, Joey King and Loretta Devine, the film follows the lives and passions of the Compsons, a once proud Southern family caught in a tragic spiral of loss and misfortune. While it’s already been in limited release for a little bit, the first trailer has now dropped, which gives us a glimpse at Franco’s passion project and his second Faulkner adaptation following As I Lay Dying, as well as a heavy dose of the Beasts of the Southern Wild score.

Check it out below,...

But a Walking Shadow: Franco’s Faulkner Redux Merely Serviceable

Continuing to thumb his nose at naysayers, James Franco plunges onward into his own particular directorial abyss with his second William Faulkner adaptation, The Sound and the Fury. Much like its predecessor, 2013’s As I Lay Dying, the actor-filmmaker manages a troubled synopsis of Faulkner’s enigmatic text but still remains unable to strike a visual resonance necessitating his undertaking.

Ambitious and a bit pretentious, Franco’s cinematic hubris may know no bounds, though it’s still refreshing to see him shirk the limiting lasso of mainstream sensibility in his personal crusade to create something meaningful. That said, there are several moments reaching a certain poetic pitch, collapsing a quartet of perspectives into a simplified triptych. Complex characterizations and the narrative resonance of Faulkner aren’t quite intact with this otherwise faithful transplant, but its first and third acts maintain a watchable melodramatic energy.

The 14 finalists for the latest round San Francisco Film Society / Kenneth Ranin Foundation Filmmaking Grants include "A Ciambra," writer/director Jonas Carpignano's follow-up to Cannes sensation and AFI Fest selection "Mediterranea," and "As I Lay Dying" editor Ian Olds' portrait of an Afghan journalist in Northern California, "The Fixer." Winners will be announced in November. Read More: "Introducing the New Auteurs and American Independents of AFI Fest 2015" Up to $300,000 will be awarded to one or more of the finalists, part of more than $3 million awarded through the grant program since its inception in 2009. Winners also receive customized benefits through Filmmaker360, the San Francisco Film Society’s filmmaker services program, including one-on-one project consultations, project feedback, fundraising assistance, resource and service recommendations, and networking opportunities. Awarded twice annually to narrative features...

Read More: Venice Review: James Franco’s ‘The Sound And The Fury’ With Tim Blake Nelson, Seth Rogen & Danny McBride James Franco is about to complete his quest to make the Great American Novel adaptation with "The Sound and the Fury," his second adaptation of a William Faulkner novel after "As I Lay Dying" in 2013. The film, which stars himself as Benjy Compson opposite Ahna O'Reilly as Caddy Compson, premiered way back at the 2014 Venice Film Festival and will finally be released this Friday. The film is an adaptation by screenwriter Matt Rager of Faulkner's classic novel. It centers around the trials and tribulations of the Compsons, a formerly aristocratic southern family whose wealth and status have dried up. New Films International will release the film in theaters and VOD on October 23. James Franco's Movie Column: Guy Maddin's 'The Forbidden Room' is Crazy With Purpose...

There isn’t an authentic human motivation or emotion to be found here. The bar has been raised too high on comic-book movies for us to accept junk like this. I’m “biast” (pro): nothing

I’m “biast” (con): nothing

(what is this about? see my critic’s minifesto)

I knew from the opening moments of this 187,874th reboot of Fantastic Four that it would be getting everything wrong in most shiftless ways. Because that’s when it suggests that Oyster Bay, on Long Island, is across the East River from Manhattan and has a lovely view of the Empire State Building. Which it isn’t, and which it doesn’t. That may seem like a really nitpicky sort of nitpick, but this is only the first example of the appalling laziness of this all-origin, no-story superhero origin story. Director Josh Trank (Chronicle), who cowrote the script with...

Of the hundreds of films screened at festivals across the nation only a handful will wind up at your local theaters, and that goes for those lucky enough to have been viewed at the growingly prestigious Tribeca Film Festival (Tff).

A month has passed, and the media has already unremembered the 14th edition of Tribeca, which had an overall attendance of 467,000 -- and now it's beginning to forget Cannes and its offerings, such as Todd Haynes' Carol, which already has a 2016 Oscar buzz surrounding it. And by tomorrow, anticipation will start growing for the Telluride, Toronto, and New York Film Festivals, and so forth. A sisyphean cycle if there ever was one. But thanks to some wise studios distributing several of Tribeca's offerings, this year's Fest's imprint might last a little longer.

There's the hauntingly exuberant documentary The Wolfpack (opening June 12th) that, pre-tff, started garnering plaudits at Sundance.

When you think about Jonah Hill and James Franco starring in a movie together, there are certain expectations that come to mind: insult humor, dick jokes, maybe a bromance or two. True Story throws all of that out the window and casts the two Apatow alums in dramatic roles without a joke to be heard in the entire film. While each man has previously dipped his toe in dramatic waters independently from one another (Moneyball, The Wolf of Wall Street, 127 Hours, As I Lay Dying), this is the first time they've been cast as leads in a serious project opposite each other, and they both dive in with conviction.

In the early 2000s, New York Times reporter Mike Finkel (Jonah Hill) is fired for misrepresenting the truth in one of his articles. Meanwhile, a man named Christian Longo is arrested for the murder of his wife and three children, and when he is apprehended,...