News

The Young And The Restless Spoilers reveal that Nick Newman (Joshua Morrow) has never believed that Sharon Newman (Sharon Case) is responsible for the attack that took Heather Stevens (Vail Bloom) away. Nick knows something else is going on with Sharon and he is determined to get to the bottom of things.

The Young And The Restless Spoilers – Nick Newman Gets Too Nosey

The Young And The Restless Spoilers indicate that Nick knows that someone has been messing with Sharon’s medication.

Nick also knows that someone stole Sharon’s phone and text Phyllis Summers (Michelle Stafford) from it just before she was run off the road and almost killed. Nick may find himself caught in a trap of his own.

Nick will reach out to Chance Chancellor (Connor Floyd) and update him on what is going on with the texts. Of course, Chance didn’t believe Sharon was guilty either.

The Bold and the Beautiful spoilers for the week of September 30, 2024, are here! Next week, fans can expect Hope Logan (Annika Noelle) to rebel.

That will provide some complications for Steffy Forrester Finnegan (Jacqueline MacInnes Wood). Plus, Taylor Hayes (Rebecca Budig) suffers two heartbreaks. Keep reading to find out what is coming up next week in the CBS soap opera.

The Bold And The Beautiful Spoilers – Brooke’s Bedroom Concert Fallout

B&b spoilers for the week of September 30 reveal that fans will see the fallout from the concert at the Brooke’s Bedroom photoshoot. Icelandic musician Jökull Júliusson appeared and performed at the photoshoot.

It turns out that both Hope and John “Finn” Finnegan (Tanner Novlan) are huge fans of the musician and his band, Kaleo. So, Steffy will stand back and watch as Finn and Hope bond over their fandom.

B&b Spoilers – Hope Logan Rebels

Gushing with...

Sideshow and Janus Films have acquired all U.S. rights to The Shrouds, written and directed by David Cronenberg and are planning a spring 2025 theatrical release.

The film world premiered at the Cannes Film Festival where it screened In Competition. It played the Toronto International Film Festival as part of the Gala program and is set for its U.S. premiere in the Main Slate at the New York Film Festival next month.

The deal was negotiated by Sideshow and Janus Films with Sbs International. Producers are Saïd Ben Saïd, Martin Katz and Anthony Vaccarello for Saint Laurent. It’s an Sbs, Prospero Pictures & Saint Laurent Productions Film with the participation of Telefilm Canada, Eurimages, Ontario Creates in association with Sphere Films, Crave & CBC Films with the support of Canal +, Ocs & the Centre National du Cinema et de L’image Animée.

“Building on a...

Ang Lee is once again looking back at Brokeback Mountain‘s memorable best picture loss to Crash at the 2006 Academy Awards.

Speaking with IndieWire, the filmmaker shared that after he won best director for the queer, modern-day Western, he was told by a stage manager to stick around backstage, as the film was expected to also take home an Oscar for best picture.

“I got my award, which was [second to] last to the big one, and I was walking off the stage, they called me down, and said, ‘Stay here. That’s your mark. Everybody assumes you will win, so stay at that mark,'” he recalled.

Lee continued, “Right next to the stage was the curtain. The next was best picture. ‘Stay here, just stay here.’ I saw Jack Nicholson, his profile, he opened the envelope, and I go, ‘Oh my God, oh my God.’ It took like 10 seconds before he announced,...

Brendan Fraser revealed that he “nearly” died while filming one particular scene in The Mummy.

In the first installment of the franchise, there’s a hanging sequence, and the rope around his neck tightened too much during the shot.

“I was standing on my toes like this, with the rope [around my neck], and you only got so far to go,” Fraser said on The Kelly Clarkson Show. “And [director] Stephen [Sommers] ran over, and he said, ‘Hey, it doesn’t really look like you’re, you know, choking — can you sell it?’ And I was like, ‘All right, fine.’ So I thought, ‘One more take, man.'”

When the director went in for the last take, Fraser stood on his toes, and the crew member holding the rope above him pulled it a little higher.

“I was stuck on my toes — I had nowhere to go but down,” The Whale actor told the host.

On-set still photographer Lorey Sebastian, who worked on such movies as Crash, Twilight, Wild Hogs, Blow, St. Elmo’s Fire, I Am Sam, In the Valley of Elah and A Million Ways to Die in the West died May 9 in New Mexico after a brief illness. She was 78.

Sebastian was born in 1944 in New York City where she lived until she moved to Los Angeles. She started her career in 1977 when she was the still photographer on the set of Joan Micklin Silver’s film Between The Lines. With over 100 credits to her name, she worked with the likes of Sam Mendes, Joel and Ethan Coen, and Taylor Sheridan–the latter is documented as her last known photography job.

Sebastian was briefly married to John Sebastian of the Loving Spoonful and spent her last years in Truchas, Nm where she moved for retirement.

It’s time yet again to check in with the dwindling world of physical media. This week’s look at what’s new on Blu-ray includes Christopher Nolan‘s sci-fi action flick Tenet, David Cronenberg‘s subversive Crash, the creepy horror flick The Dark and the Wicked, and the curious horror-comedy The Wolf of Snow Hollow. Tenet Tenet has come home. Christopher Nolan‘s latest […]

The post New on Blu-ray: ‘Tenet’, ‘Crash’, ‘The Dark and the Wicked’, and ‘The Wolf of Snow Hollow’ appeared first on /Film.

To mark the release of Crash on 14th December, we’ve been given 1 copy to give away on 4K Ultra HD.

Technology and sexuality meet in a head-on collision in Crash – director David Cronenberg’s controversial adaptation of writer J.G. Ballard’s hugely transgressive 1973 novel starring James Spader and Holly Hunter.

Spader stars as James Ballard, an advertising executive whose deviant sexual desires are awakened by a near fatal automobile accident with Dr Helen Remington (Hunter). Soon the pair, alongside Ballard’s wife Catherine (Deborah Kara Unger), are drawn into an underground world of car crash fetishism presided over by renegade scientist Vaughan (Elias Koteas). Danger, sex and death become entwined as eroticism and technology join together in a disturbing, deadly union.

Please note: This competition is open to UK residents only

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The Small Print

Open to UK residents only The competition will close 28th December 2020 at...

“Love Mooning,” a drama by veteran Japanese director Manda Kunitoshi, has been set as the opening film of Tokyo Filmex. The festival announced the line-up for its 21st edition on Thursday.

Filmex, which has long specialized in Asian art films and usually starts in late November, will be held Oct. 30-Nov. 7 this year. It will be operated in partnership with the Tokyo International Film Festival, whose dates are Oct.31-Nov. 9.

“Love Mooning,” charts the troubled romance between the head of a mental health clinic and one of his patients. Manda also chairs the festival’s five-person jury.

The closing film will be Elia Suleiman’s “It Must Be Heaven,” a 2019 Cannes selection about a director, played by Suleiman himself, who finds himself comically trapped in Palestine even when he is in New York and Paris. Suleiman is also the subject of the festival’s Filmmaker in Focus section, which will...

Welcome back to Let’s Scare Bryan to Death! This month, we’re talking to Joe Lipsett, who you probably best know as co-host on Horror Queers, a podcast that explores horror movies through an LGBTQ lens. But of course, Lipsett also has bylines all over the place, including Bloody Disgusting, Anatomy of a Scream, Grim Magazine, and more (your best bet to keep up with all of it is probably at his website).

As you may already know, in addition to being a proud horror fan, Lipsett is also a very proud Canadian, so of course this month’s movie comes from none other than David Cronenberg, as we dig into his 1999 sci-fi thriller eXistenZ. The film takes place in a near-future where video game technology has blended biology and technology for a virtual reality experience that, in true Cronenberg fashion, involves vaguely sexual game ports that plug directly into people’s spinal cords.

“The Trial of the Chicago 7” from writer and director Aaron Sorkin, a project that has circled Hollywood for more than a decade, has landed in the awards race. The film screened virtually on Tuesday evening before a group of critics, journalists and bloggers.

Featuring a hardy ensemble with some of the industry’s most gifted actors — Sacha Baron Cohen, Eddie Redmayne, Mark Rylance, Jeremy Strong, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Frank Langella, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, John Carroll Lynch, Michael Keaton and Kelvin Harrison, Jr. — the historical drama has been at the top of minds of Oscar prospects for months. With an upcoming presidential election and an impending Scotus battle on the horizon, it could be one of the rare cases in which a film’s awards chances could tie closely to the mood of the country.

Distributed by Netflix, the film tells the story of the “Chicago 7,” a group of seven individuals...

Today, Activision and Toys for Bob revealed a fascinating new part of Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time. Being that this is a time-traveling game, the developers are allowing players to rewind time all the way back to 90s. While in the 90s, players will be able to uncover Crash and Coco’s origin story and […]

The post ‘Crash Bandicoot 4’ Takes Players Back to the 90s in Challenging ‘Flashback’ Levels appeared first on Cinelinx | Movies. Games. Geek Culture..

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSWith the eyebrow-raising working title of Soggy Bottom, Paul Thomas Anderson's new 70s-set project has quietly begun shooting in Los Angeles with Bradley Cooper, and possibly Alana Haim of the band Haim. Speaking of new projects, the next feature by Hirokazu Kore-eda will be a Korean production starring Bae Doona (who previously starred in his film Air Doll) and Song Kang-ho. Entitled Broker, the film is about characters linked by a "baby box," a place where parents may anonymously drop off babies they are unable to raise. Berlinale has announced plans for its 2021 edition, which will be a physical festival. For the first time, performance awards will be gender neutral, replacing the awards for the Best Actor and the Best Actress with a Silver Bear for Best Leading Performance and a Silver Bear for Best Supporting Performance.

Matt Dillon will join the upcoming Venice Film Festival’s main jury, replacing Romanian director Cristi Puiu, who has bowed out for reasons that are unclear.

Dillon will have no trouble traveling to Venice since he is currently in Italy.

The U.S. actor/director was praised as “one of the most diverse actors of his generation” in a Venice statement, which noted that over three decades Dillon “has showcased his wide range of dramatic and comedic talents.” As standout performances the fest cited Dillon’s breakthrough role in Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Outsiders” in 1983, his role as a racist cop in Paul Haggis’ “Crash,” and his turn as a private investigator in “There’s Something About Mary,” by Peter and Bobby Farrelly.

Dillon in 2002 debuted as a director with the thriller “City of Ghosts,” in which he also starred with Gerard Depardieu, Stellan Skarsgard, and James Caan. Dillon more...

Festival cites “unexpected difficulties” behind replacement.

US actor Matt Dillion is replacing Romanian director Cristi Puiu on the main competition jury at the 77th Venice Film Festival next month.

Puiu was selected to join the jury, presided over by actress Cate Blanchett, in July. But the filmmaker behind recent Berlinale award-winner Malmkrog has now been replaced, with the festival citing “unexpected difficulties”.

No further details were revealed but a statement from the festival said: “The Venice Film Festival thanks Cristi Puiu for having accepted the appointment when it was offered, and for the sensibility he demonstrated in attempting to honour his commitment,...

Chemical Hearts premieres on Amazon Prime August 21st

Review by Stephen Tronicek

The characters are far too mature in Chemical Hearts and that is both good and bad. It is the type of film that young people, including my twenty-one year old self, can step into to watch people our age philosophize and make better decisions than we ever could. On one hand, this is a little condescending. On the other hand, isn’t all wish-fulfillment. As far as these films go, Chemical Hearts manages itself better than most and calls to mind some strange intertextual connections and could prove interesting to both its target audience and the adults around them.

Chemical Hearts follows the budding romance of Henry and Grace, two students who are part of their school’s journalism program.While their romance is initially easy, past traumas start to separate them.

The plot elements of Chemical Hearts...

Rachel Weisz will star in a TV series re-imagining of Dead Ringers, director David Cronenberg’s classic 1988 film, according to The Wrap.

Amazon Studios and Annapurna TV are backing the project, which Weisz will also be an executive producer on, along with Normal People lead writer Alice Birch. The series will mark the Oscar-winning actress’ first role for TV.

In the original film, Jeremy Irons played successful twin gynecologists named Elliot and Beverly Mantle, who share some of their patients sexually without the women knowing which man is which. But when Beverly becomes emotionally attached to an actress (Genevieve Bujold), the co-dependent twins descend into depression, sexual depravity and drug addiction with harrowing results.

The new version, described as a gender-swapped “modern take” on the material, will feature Weisz as the identical Mantle sisters, who “share everything: drugs, lovers, and an unapologetic desire to do whatever it takes, including pushing...

In her first major foray into TV series, Rachel Weisz is set to headline and executive produce Dead Ringers, a reimagining with a gender swap of David Cronenberg’s cult classic 1980s film. Amazon has given a straight-to-series order to the project, from Weisz, Alice Birch, lead writer of Hulu’s acclaimed Normal People series, Annapurna Television and Morgan Creek Entertainment, the company behind the original movie.

In Dead Ringers, written by Birch, The Mantle twins, played by Weisz, are the most successful, brilliant and extraordinary people you’ve never met. Identical from head to toe, these two Ob-gyn’s are on a mission to change the way women birth, starting with Manhattan. Drugs, pioneering but very much illegal medical research, sex and falling in love, this drama based on the David Cronenberg 80s cult classic, takes us to darker and stranger territory than we could have possibly imagined.

The...

There are 3.7 million Google results for Robert Pattinson looking "yummy." But on Tuesday, that description could be taken quite literally. The Twilight star was photographed in Toronto filming scenes for his upcoming drama Cosmopolis in which he gets ambushed, hit in the face with a pie, and then chases off photographers. Cosmopolis, directed by David Cronenberg [History of Violence, Crash], follows multimillionaire Eric Parker, played by Pattinson, 25, who intially sets out to get a haircut, but ends up on a 24-hour odyssey across Manhattan. The film, due out in 2012, also stars Jay Baruchel and Paul Giamatti. - Caroline Slutsky...

Written and Directed by Evan Glodell

Featuring Evan Glodell, Rebekah Brandes, Jessie Wiseman, Tyler Dawson, Vincent Grashaw, Zack Kraus, Keghan Hurst, Alexandra Boylan

Bellflower is a movie aimed at dudes. Not just any old dudes, but, you know, really cool dudes, who like setting things on fire and fucking unhappy blondes and buying stuff at the hardware store.

And the movie was actually made by really cool dudes who like constructing incendiary devices, casting themselves opposite blonde actresses and negotiating a substantial line of credit at their local Home Depot. Wait… that’s Art imitating Life imitating Art, right? How cool is that?

The narrative revolves around two dudes – let’s refer to them as Main Dude and Other Dude - who think they are actually really cool because they build flamethrowers, prematurely ejaculate and drop litter while riding a tricycle and looking sad. They justify this anti-social behavior by...

David Cronenberg has his cast pretty much set for his adaptation of Don DeLillo's novel Cosmopolis. Robert Pattinson plays the lead role, and we've been waiting for the final word on an actress to play his character's estranged wife. Marion Cotillard was originally set to play the part, but dropped out due to her pregnancy. And now David Cronenberg has tapped Sarah Gadon, who had a small part in the director's yet to be released film A Dangerous Method. Entertainment One, the Canadian distributor of Cosmopolis, announced the casting via press release. So Sarah Gadon will play Elise Shifrin, the wife of Robert Pattinson's character Eric Packer, a 28-year old billionaire who spends almost all of the source novel in his limo crossing Manhattan, making deals and bad business decisions, cheating on his wife and dealing with protesters and a couple of guys who might be seeking revenge...

Organisers of the Tribeca Film Festival have announced this year's line-up of 60 short films, 22 of which are world premieres.

The international festival was founded in 2002 by Robert De Niro, producer Jane Rosenthal and real-estate investor Craig Hatkoff to help revitalise Manhattan's Tribeca neighbourhood following the 9/11 terrorist attack.

The 2011 event - presented by founding sponsor American Express - will run from April 20 to May 1. The 60 shorts represent 21 countries, including the UK, and feature stars from around the globe.

In a new development this year, the recipient of the Tff Best Narrative Short award will qualify for consideration in the Short Films category of the Oscars without the standard theatrical run, provided the film otherwise complies with Academy rules.

The short film program, drawn from 2,862 submissions, will be presented in eight thematic programs, which are detailed below.

There is a broad spectrum of styles and storytelling, from zombies taking over Manhattan to the humanitarian effort in Haiti.

The 2011 Tribeca Film Festival on Wednesday announced its lineup of 60 short films, 22 of which are world premieres.

A new wrinkle at this year’s festival is the recipient of the Tff Best Narrative Short award will qualify for consideration in the Short Films category of the annual Academy Awards without the standard theatrical run, provided the film otherwise complies with the Academy rules.

Drawn from 2,862 submissions, the short-film program represents 21 countries, including Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Haiti, Iceland, India, Ireland, Israel, Netherlands, New Zealand, Peru, Scotland, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, United Kingdom and the United States.

The following is a listing of the selected short films in the eight programs in which they will be presented, with descriptions provided by the festival.

2011 Tribeca Film Festival Short Film Program

Off the Grid (Documentary)

Sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll are a few of the topics explored in these thought-provoking short documentaries.

The 2011 Tribeca Film Festival on Wednesday announced its lineup of 60 short films, 22 of which are world premieres.

A new wrinkle at this year’s festival is the recipient of the Tff Best Narrative Short award will qualify for consideration in the Short Films category of the annual Academy Awards without the standard theatrical run, provided the film otherwise complies with the Academy rules.

Drawn from 2,862 submissions, the short-film program represents 21 countries, including Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Haiti, Iceland, India, Ireland, Israel, Netherlands, New Zealand, Peru, Scotland, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, United Kingdom and the United States.

The following is a listing of the selected short films in the eight programs in which they will be presented, with descriptions provided by the festival.

2011 Tribeca Film Festival Short Film Program

Off the Grid (Documentary)

Sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll are a few of the topics explored in these thought-provoking short documentaries.

Constantly overlooked at awards ceremonies, the varied films of David Cronenberg often benefit from some remarkable performances. Here are 10 of the very best…

David Cronenberg's films are frequently noted for their existentialist themes and startlingly imaginative flashes of violence, but there's one aspect of his movie making that's often overlooked. Almost every film he's made since the late-70s has featured at least one stand-out performance, and I'd even go so far as to say that some actors have never bettered their Cronenberg-driven turns.

With but one exception, most of these performances have been overlooked by major award-giving organisations. To redress the balance a little, here's our list of career-best performances in Cronenberg's films...

Samantha Eggar

The Brood

Cronenberg's fourth feature, The Brood benefited from a great cast, including Oliver Reed as a glowering psychologist and Art Hindle as a young father struggling through the divorce from hell. It's...

Director Xavier Gens (Frontier(s), Hitman) starts off his next film with a bang. The Divide will premiere at SXSW festival this weekend and Twitch has provided us with the opening scene. We already showed you the teaser, and now you can check out the first scene below from the film starring Milo Ventimiglia (Heroes, Gamer, Rocky Balboa), Michael Biehn, and Rosanna Arquette (Crash, Pulp Fiction).

Synopsis:

When a cataclysmic explosion devastates New York, eight strangers take refuge in the basement of their apartment building, a converted fallout shelter designed by their paranoid superintendent Mickey. With just three connecting rooms it’s barely big enough, but with stockpiles of food and water, the group are at least safe from the horrors outside, and they settle in and attempt to fathom the catastrophe that has ended the lives of so many of their loved ones.With twists and turns throughout, and...

Serious Film's Michael C. here to ask an inconvenient question. As predictions are being finalized around the web it becomes clear that a large bloc, if not a majority, of pundits are predicting a picture/director split with The King’s Speech taking picture but David Fincher claiming the director trophy.

No doubt there is some wishful thinking at play by those still stinging from The Social Network’s flame out at the guilds awards. “Okay, maybe those Philistine voters will deny Social Network the big prize but how could they bypass an established master like Fincher in favor of Tom What’s-His-Name?”

The King Speaks. (The king being Fincher. His movies do rule.

I don’t mean to throw cold water on a plausible scenario that I would much prefer to a Speech sweep, but the burning question is this: When has a picture/director split ever been predicted?...

The movies have some valuable lessons to teach us about bedroom shenanigans. For here are 15 films that might just put you off sex altogether…

It might be the week where romance is supposed to be prevalent, but you’re playing hanky-panky roulette if you’re looking for the movies to get you in the mood.

Because whilst a good romance may lead to you settling down for an evening of memorable, passionate how’s-your-father, if you pop the wrong film in, you’re more likely to be reaching for a cardigan and a good book than a post-coital cigarette and a big grin.

Here, then, are 15 films you might want to avoid popping in your DVD player when it’s a night of nudge-nudge-wink-wink that you’re craving…

Note: We’re leaving the nasty films out of the list. To be included, every scene depicted had to be consensual.

Avatar: Extended Edition

Genuinely,...

Since filming wrapped on Vanishing On 7th Street in September, Brad Anderson has been trying to decide where to go next. And though the director has several ideas currently in development, one in particular should excite fans of his 2004 work, The Machinist. Anderson plans to film an adaptation of J.G. Ballard’s psychological mind-warper, Concrete Island, starring Christian Bale.

Speaking about the project to ShockTillYouDrop, Anderson summarised the project as follows:

The best way to describe it is it’s like an urban Robinson Crusoe story. A guy crashes a car into a highway interchange and is marooned in this weedy lot, injured, and can’t escape. He’s basically trying to survive in the middle of the big urban Metropolis. It’s sort of a crazy, cool Ballard-esque type story, but Christian’s on board to do that – when we can fit it into his schedule, of course.

Colour us intrigued!

**Read all the posts in our ‘Love Theatrically’ series here**

#8 – “Secretary” (2002)

Directed by Steven Shainberg

Dispensing with the customary flowers, chocolates and warm sentiments so prevalent in modern romances in favour of earthworms, red marker pens, harnesses and plenty of healthy spankings “Secretary” is certainly not your average romantic comedy. But though the pre-publicity veered towards the more salacious aspects of the narrative (especially with the iconically memorable “teaser” poster) the film ultimately delights with its quirky screenplay, stunning cast and, above all, the warmth and heart that beats beneath its sadomasochistically sexy exterior.

This was the film that not only allowed the divine Maggie Gyllenhaal to step out from the shadow of her younger sibling Jake but, perhaps more importantly, instigated my current love, admiration and part time obsession for her. In the role of Lee Holloway she delivers a truly outstanding performance that is in equal parts brave,...

To celebrate the upcoming release of Drive Angry 3D, we look back at cinema’s most dangerous road users, and why you definitely wouldn’t want to get in a car with them…

It's a familiar horror scenario: you're hitching a lift, and against your better judgement, you get in a car with someone you gradually realise isn't entirely stable. Too late, you notice the huge black bin bags on the back seat, and as the driver skitters off down the road as though the forces of hell are at his tyres, you quietly pray that those bin bags aren't full of dismembered body parts.

This actually happened to me about a dozen years ago (I was the hitcher, not the drive), and while I never discovered the contents of those sinister bin bags, I was eventually deposited safely at my destination by the kind, yet terrifying driver.

Get in...

Black Swan (2010) is a work of chilling beauty. Its excellent cinematography, dance, and music - all accompanied by the performance of an exciting cast - makes it a delicacy for the eyes and ears. But much like any other Darren Aronofsky film, it requires some unravelling and consideration.

Black Swan has a narrative that works on a number of levels. Firstly it is about Nina (Natalie Portman), an aspiring young ballet dancer and the desire that she has to perform the role of the ‘Swan Queen’ in the Tchaikovsky ballet Swan Lake, but as she fights for the part the narrative becomes more intricate. Her innocent and sweet demeanour give her the qualities required to perform the ‘White Swan’ aspect of the character, but to perform the role of the 'Black Swan' to full affect she must embrace a much darker side of her personality.

Embracing such inner...

In the comments of A Layperson's Guide to the Baldwins the other day, a few people requested that the Arquettes receive similar treatment. My first question is: Are you blind? I mean, at least the Baldwins are all boys and there is a similarity about their facial appearances - but the Arquettes? Some are clearly boys, and some girls; some had a hard time deciding and their faces are all fairly different. Maybe you just don't know how many of them are out there? I do like to be accommodating though (sometimes), so I figured since I already have that Godtopus-damned song stuck in my head, may as well do it.

Now, another difference between Baldwins and Arquettes is that unlike Alec, there is no true original Arquette upon which all others can be based or with which all others can be confused. It's more like a birth order thing...

Who likes cars? I don’t. But I know lots of people that do. I did like David Cronenberg’s Crash but that turned the term ‘auto erotica’ into a whole new genre. Any-hoo, Universal have ‘pimped their ride’ for the fifth time with Fast Five – the latest instalment in their ‘crimes n’ fast cars’ saga. Vin Diesel returns and Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson joins the cast too. Take a look at the staring competition going off between them in this first look official image. Who wins?

Justin Lin is directing again and Universal bumped The Thing prequel to make way for this title in the April 29th slot in the Us and we Brits will see it from 10th June, 2011. Lin told Us Today all about the joy of casting Johnson:

“People thought it would be impossible to get Dwayne. But he didn’t show up looking to cash a paycheck.

As the only literate Reject, it’s my duty to find the latest, the greatest and the untouched classics that would make great source material for film adaptations. I read so you don’t have to. This week, Print to Projector presents the story of a man buried alive buried alive in his car trapped in space stuck between two boulders stranded in between two highways on a small grass island where his survival and sanity depend on a few cases of wine and the sheer will to live. Concrete Island By J.G. Ballard “Soon after three o’clock on the afternoon of April 22nd 1973, a 35-year-old architect named Robert Maitland was driving down the high-speed exit lane of the Westway interchange in central London.” Print The fad of placing a singular actor in a small space and yelling, “Act!” at them has bubbled up recently with Buried, 127 Hours, Wrecked and a few other proposed projects. For...

Jeremy Thomas, Oscar-winning producer of The Last Emperor, says successive governments' policies force UK film-makers abroad while Us projects use top British studios

One of Britain's leading film producers has lashed out at successive governments for neglecting homegrown talent while encouraging American film-makers to dominate the country's state-of-the-art Pinewood production studios.

"These places are full up with films from the United States," said Jeremy Thomas, the Oscar-winning, London-based producer of The Last Emperor, Crash and Sexy Beast.

"Films made with American studio finance are given a 20% tax break," said Thomas. "But if a British film has to go into partnership with, say, a French company, in order to get made, it immediately becomes ineligible for any tax breaks here. So you have to go abroad."

The industry veteran recently produced the David Cronenberg film A Dangerous Method, starring Keira Knightley as a disturbed patient treated by psychoanalysts Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung.

At a time when the UK film industry seems increasingly inward-looking, a recurring theme of the 46 films which Jeremy Thomas has produced has been cross-cultural -- whether it’s Japanese director Takeshi Kitano looking at America in Brother (2000) or Bernardo Bertolucci retelling Chinese history in the Best Picture Oscar-winner The Last Emperor (1987). He also exec-produced Takeshi Miike’s 13 Assassins, which competed at Venice last month and will work on Miike's next pic. Thomas specialises in filming the un-filmable, whether William S Burrough's novel Naked Lunch or Jg Ballard’s notorious Crash or his latest plan: a pic about North Korean dictator Kim-Jong il. Currently in post on David Cronenberg’s A Dangerous Method, Thomas gave the keynote interview at Wednesday’s Film London Production Finance Market as part of the BFI London Film Festival which is where I interviewed him. As the former chairman of the British Film institute, he...

David Cronenberg’s been shooting his latest film – A Dangerous Method – for a while now and three new stills have emerged showing off Viggo Mortensen has Sigmund Fraud, I mean, Freud.

We also get to look at the lovely Keira Knightley being all demure and a bit ‘hysterical’ (it’s what Freud’s diagnosis would have said… probably).

Dave Deprave’s film is based on a Christopher Hampton play entitled The Talking Cure and focuses on the friendship and subsequent breaking away of two psychoanalyst titans, Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. Yeah, a woman is involved. Ikea Knightley (as Mark Kermode calls her) plays a troubled temptress named Sabina Spielrein.

So what is a dangerous method? Probably shagging your patient would be it. A big no-no in the profession but bound to happen if your patient is a hottie (just sayin’). Viggo Mortensen replaced Christoph Waltz early on in the...

Craig with this week's Take Three

Today: Deborah Kara Unger

Take One: (Fear) X marks the...Game

‘A lone man searching for answers to a troubling mystery – assisted by a mysterious and wilfully tricksy woman – whilst on the run from a seemingly shadowy organisation’. This could well describe, in loose terms, the basic plot of two higher profile Unger films: The Game (1997) and, to a lesser extent, Fear X (2003). Both feature Unger as everyday femme fatales. She’s mysterious and ordinary at the same time: unheimlich with a handbag. Both characters – waitress Christine in the former, housewife Kate in the latter – are channelled via Unger’s almost otherworldly ability to remain glacially poised on demand.

Two-player game: Unger desperately tries to ignore Douglas in The Game

In The Game – straight after Crash playing another strange woman for another strange David (Fincher) – she accompanied Michael Douglas on his mad dash around...

Deadline Hollywood: Mike Fleming details Harvey Weinstein’s game-plan for awards hopeful “Blue Valentine” in the aftermath of the MPAA’s decision to rate it Nc-17 (including hiring super-attorney David Boies, who represented Al Gore before the U.S. Supreme Court in Gore v. Bush, to represent his claim before the MPAA) and passes along a statement about the matter that Weinstein issued yesterday: “We respect the work of the MPAA and we hope, after having a chance to sit down with them, they will see that our appeal is reasonable, and the film, which is an honest and personal portrait of a relationship, would be significantly harmed by such a rating.”

Movie Line: S.T. VanAirsdale looks back at the history of the Nc-17 rating, which was first awarded 20 years ago to Phil Kaufman’s “Henry and June” (1990). Among the other films that have received the dreaded “black spot”:...

What makes Canadian-born actor Elias Koteas so fascinating, is that he doesn't like to play it safe. In his latest film the vampiric Let Me In, he plays the policeman who discovers the true nature of the mysterious 12-year-old killer Abby (Chloë Moretz) and pays for it. In the process, he shows a humanity that's needed to charge this dark and chilly film. This 51-year-old handles gritty roles full of dark and light mixtures from the auto/erotic-obsessed Vaughan in David Cronenberg's Crash to the stalwart Captain James Staros in Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line. Though Koteas first got known by playing Casey Jones in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies he moved onto a number of genre films such as as the horror thriller Skinwalkers (2006), David Fincher's Zodiac, Shooter (both released in 2007), the Denzel Washington starring Fallen (as...

A remake of the recent Swedish classic Let the Right One In, director Matt Reeves' Let Me In is the tale of a sleepy New Mexico town, circa 1983, that happens to be he new home of a predatory vampire stuck in the body of a 12-year old. For those not familiar with the original, certainly don't expect the sexy version of the vampire legend that audiences have grown accustomed to over the last few years. For starters, veteran actor Elias Koteas means business as The Policeman, the only authority figure assigned to investigate the film's series of brutal killings. Movieline caught up with Koteas today to talk over the remake, what is was like revisiting 1983, and why he still can't believe there's another movie called Crash following his own, similarly titled 1996 film with David Cronenberg.

So, I’ve been doing these links posts for awhile now and it’s been very encouraging that they’re some of the most viewed articles on the site every week. However, even more exciting and inspiring is that I’ve had several bloggers/writers contact me lately to tell me that my linking to them provides a bit of a bump in readers for them. It really makes me happy that my readers are actually clicking through and reading these fantastic articles on other people’s websites. I mean, obviously that’s the whole point of this project, but I didn’t know the actual result until recently. It’s nice to hear. That said, on with the show:

This week’s Must Read is an oldie, but a goodie. And by “oldie” I mean almost 50 years old. It’s Stan Vanderbeek’s 1961 manifesto “The Cinema Delimina” (careful: that...

By the time the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards wrap up late Sunday night, a total of 16 awards will be handed out to the various winners at the show. The most coveted Moonman is, of course, the prize for Video of the Year, the clip that personifies the height of music video greatness for the past 12 months. This year's crop includes six well-deserving nominees, including B.o.B's "Airplanes," 30 Seconds to Mars' "Kings and Queens," Florence and the Machine's "Dog Days Are Over," Eminem's "Not Afraid" and a pair of clips from Lady Gaga ("Bad Romance" and "Telephone"). No matter who wins, the victor will join an exclusive club that contains some of the biggest artists of the past three decades (including Madonna, Britney Spears, Eminem, Aerosmith, Green Day, Van Halen and Sinéad O'Connor).

But no awards show is perfect. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has handed...

Censorship has reared its ugly head at the Film 4 FrightFest 2010. Srdjan Spasojevic’s A Serbian Film has been pulled from its scheduled screening slot on Sunday due to a ban imposed by Westminster Council.

The film was supposed to be shown in its uncut form before the powers that be; meaning people who probably haven’t even seen the film and want to dictate to the rest of us, imposed a ban. Like Hitler from Inglourious Basterds shouting “nien, nien, nien, nien, nien”.

It recalls the dark years of James Ferman who lorded it over the BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) telling us all what we could and couldn’t see.

Ian Jones, the co-director of FrightFest 2010 has said:

“FrightFest has decided not to show A Serbian Film in a heavily cut version because, as a festival with a global integrity, we think a film of this nature should...

Often disguised as somewhere else, Toronto has been a popular filming location for years, as Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World points out. Here’s Jeff’s tribute to the geekiest location in cinema...

"They film movies in Toronto?" one character says, rather incredulously, in the recent Edgar Wright extravaganza, Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World. They certainly do.

Toronto is the cinematic equivalent of Cinderella: although it hosts one of the world's biggest film festivals and is often seen in movies and TV, it's usually dolled up to look like some other North American metropolis, say New York or Chicago, a fact the recent Scott Pilgrim makes sure to satirise.

The city's most iconic piece of architecture, the Cn Tower (formerly the world's tallest freestanding structure) is often hidden away, lest cinemagoers ever identify the city's skyline by its giant phallus.

Toronto so often represents other cities, or any city, that...

A pinch of Terry Gilliam’s “Brazil”, a dash of David Fincher’s “Fight Club”, and some sprinklings of David Cronenberg’s “Crash”, and you have Miguel Sapochnik’s “Repo Men”. Made for $30-plus million (though the film looks much more expensive) and dumped into theaters without a whole lot of studio confidence earlier this year, you’ll be hard-pressed to know the film even exists unless you were looking for it. Co-written by Eric Garcia from his novel “The Repossession Mambo”, first-time feature film director Miguel Sapochnik offers up a near-future world where human organs can easily be replaced by artificial versions if you have the money. Or heck, even if you don’t, you can still get one and pay the obscene interests later. Using what can generously be described as predatorial practices, The Union Corporation has such a thriving, lucrative business that it’s able to send out repo men,...

In honor of Canada Day, we are republishing this post -- Ranylt's first on the site -- from Canada Day 2007.

July 1 is Canada Day, so while my compatriots are busy painting themselves red and perfecting their Maenadic howls in time for tonight's fireworks, I've been tasked with offering up a list of ten nifty Canadian films that are mostly off the radar outside of this country (and I throw my arms around you in delight if you're a foreigner who's actually seen any of these--French kisses for anyone who appreciates them, to boot).

Many readers seem familiar with Atom Egoyan's The Sweet Hereafter and Denys Arcand's The Decline of the American Empire. And David Cronenberg's body of work needs no introduction thanks to The Fly, Naked Lunch, Scanners, Crash (the other Crash!) and Videodrome. As unnatural as it is to omit Egoyan, Arcand and Cronenberg from a Canadian film overview,...

With two films already on his plate, it looks like David Cronenberg (Videodrome, Naked Lunch, Dead Ringers), one to never take much of a break, is looking to fill his schedule out for a while.

According to Pajiba, the filmmaker is set to not only return to sci-fi, but also the romance genre, with an adaptation of the 1997 hit Jonathan Lethem novel, As She Climbed Across The Table.

The story follows a scientist whose relationship with a fellow physicist falls apart after he, Phillip, becomes infatuated with a vacuum of nothingness known as Lack. The film sounds completely and utterly Cronenbergian, not only in its sci-fi tones, but as seen with films like Crash, director Cronenberg seems to have a dark view of romance.

In the Cronenberg universe, romance is nothing more than justified obsession, which this film definitely follows. It will be interesting to see if his other neo-romance,...

Cronenberg returns to The Fly territory with strange tale of a man who loses his love to a shapeless void

In recent years, he's successfully moved into more mainstream, if indubitably classy, fare but David Cronenberg's latest project looks like a return to the peculiar world of The Fly or Crash. The Canadian filmmaker is planning a big-screen adaptation of Jonathan Lethem's 1997 novel As She Climbed Across the Table, the tale of a man who loses the love of his life to a shapeless void.

According to the Pajiba blog, Cronenberg is attached to direct, though there are as yet no casting details. Lethem's novel features two main characters: Philip, a man who is obsessed with a woman, and Alice (the woman), a physicist who is obsessed with a hole, or doorway to nothingness, which she has created in the laboratory where they both work. According to the website,...