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Everything has to be a franchise these days, which means handing out prequels and sequels to stories that 100 percent don’t need them. Given that these are unholy abominations that shouldn’t exist, they have to be spiced up to have any chance of appealing to audiences, often in ways that misfire entirely.

[subtitle]5The Labyrinth [/subtitle]

The Labyrinth raised a lot of questions re: how a human glam rock icon became the king of the goblins, and Labyrinth: Coronation fails to answer those questions over the course of 12 comic books. It reveals that Jareth was born in 18th-century Venice to a maid and a nobleman who sacrificed him to the preceding Goblin King. What follows is a fairly faithful play-by-play of the story in The Labyrinth, only with Jareth’s mother forced to solve it and losing on a technicality. That’s all well and good, but it ends deliberately ambiguously...

The fantasy genre has come a long way in recent years, but the classic movies of the 1980s bring an unparalleled sense of magic and wonder. Of course, these films can't compete with modern Hollywood in the way of special effects. On-screen battle scenes didn't look as realistic as they do in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings, and animatronic dragons of the 1980s are nowhere near as convincing as Game of Thrones. Still, these campy and cheesy 1980s fantasy movies possess a certain flavor that modern technology could never duplicate.

Of course, nostalgia has a lot to do with why these fantasy movies of yore are still so appealing. Kids of the '80s and '90s didn't care that films like The NeverEnding Story or The Labyrinth used puppets to bring magical beasts to life or that The Secret of Nimh depended on cell animation. Now that...

The winners of the 2024 Ignatz Awards were revealed over the Small Press Expo weekend, and Saito Nazuna's Offshore Lightning manga came out on top of the Outstanding Collection category. The manga was up against Guido Buzzelli's Buzzelli Collected Works Vol. 1: The Labyrinth , November Garcia's Complete and Utter Malarkey and Gigi Murakami's Resenter . Winners this year include: Outstanding Anthology Pulping Jenn Woodall, Jon Iñaki, Jonathan Rotsztain, Mitch Lohmeier and Paterson Hodgson, ed. Pulping Collective Outstanding Artist "Night Fever" (from Gladiolus Magazine #1) Robyn Smith Black Josei Press Outstanding Collection Offshore Lightning Saito Nazuna, translated by Alexa Frank Drawn & Quarterly Outstanding Comic My Body Unspooling Leo Fox Silver Sprocket Outstanding Graphic Novel Roaming Jillian Tamaki & Mariko Tamaki Drawn & Quarterly Outstanding Minicomic Manga Cube Yuan Song Self-Published Outstanding Online Comic Buuza!! Shazleen Khan Outstanding Series CosmoKnights Hannah Templer Top Shelf Productions Outstanding Story "The Happy Art" (from Pulping ) Sami Alwani Pulping...

"Please Hold" blends futuristic technology with real-life injustices faced by prisoners in America. Mateo's nightmarish journey through an automated court system highlights the consequences of uncaring AI. The film serves as a chilling reflection of the harsh reality many people, especially in the Latino community, face in the criminal justice system.

Please Hold is a 2020 short film that combines the real injustices prisoners in America face with the almost surreal experience of trying to navigate modern society's technological "advances". Mexican American filmmaker K.D. Dvila made her directorial debut with Please Hold after spending the first part of her career as a writer, working on the 2017 movie The Labyrinth and writing 13 episodes of Salvation. Many major movie directors have made short films and if the success of Please Hold means anything, Dvila will likely have a feature film of her own soon.

The film was nominated for Best Live Action...

Today, we have the pleasure of interviewing Paulina Lule. We see that you identify as a non-binary, genderfluid, pansexual actor, filmmaker, and conservationist.

You are a multifaceted person, and before we delve into your career, we’d like to understand how identifying as non-binary has influenced your acting career. In a broad sense, how do you perceive roles for non-binary actors? Are there many roles for non-binary actors in the film industry? How do you envision the industry’s approach to non-binary actors within the world of cinema? What do you anticipate for the future?

How has identifying as non-binary influenced my acting career? I would say coming out as non-binary has given me such clarity of my own self-image, that I feel so much more capable of bringing my full self to my work. In turn, this has given me a great deal of self-confidence which any actor will tell you,...

Universally beloved figures are increasingly rare these days, with a distressing number of our former heroes having been outed as one kind of monster or another in recent years. Jim Henson is a notable exception. The creator of the Muppets remains as revered today as he was during his too-short life, an enduring icon of wholesomeness whose legend has only grown since he died in 1990 at the age of 53. Among his legion of admirers is Ron Howard, whose documentary “Jim Henson Idea Man” premiered at Cannes earlier this month and will be available to stream on Disney+ this Friday.

A multihyphenate if ever there were one, the puppeteer, filmmaker, animator and actor is described here as both a “boy genius” and “very rare creature” who was “so internal and quiet that his inner life must have been sparkling.” It’s certainly true that his life’s work sparkled, and not...

Labyrinth 2 will surpass the original movie in box office success, projected to make over $100 million adjusted for inflation. The biggest challenge for Labyrinth 2 is recasting Jareth after David Bowie's iconic performance in the first movie. Labyrinth 2 faces the difficulty of capturing the original movie's unique 1980s charm and avoiding a story too similar to the first one.

Labyrinth 2 has a couple of obstacles to overcome, but it’s already guaranteed to beat the original movie in one big and important way. Back in 1986, Muppets' creator, Jim Henson, brought Labyrinth to the big screen. Labyrinth is a musical fantasy movie mixing actors with puppets that has now become a cult classic thanks to its story, strange settings, and eccentric characters, particularly David Bowie’s Jareth. Labyrinth follows Sarah (Jennifer Connelly), a 16-year-old girl who, annoyed and frustrated over her infant half-brother Toby’s constant crying and more, angrily wishes he...

The fourth episode of this season of Encuentros features:Laura Huertas Millán (France-Colombia), a visual artist and filmmaker whose research has been mainly concerned with questioning colonial discourses, the ways in which ethnography has approached its subjects of study, and the relationship between human beings and nature.Her work, which bears a strong experimental imprint, includes video installations and short works such as The Labyrinth (El laberinto) and Black Sun (Sol negro), which have been presented at film festivals in Toronto, Berlin, Rotterdam, Locarno and Marseille. The Harvard Film Archive, the Cinemateca de Bogotá and festivals such as Mar del Plata and Ficunam have also organized retrospectives of his work.Luis López Carrasco (Spain), a director and producer of experimental cinema, with a special interest in the creation and reflection on archival material. In his filmography, which explores the idea of "fake found footage," he obliquely portrays stories and characters...

With the second season of "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" premiering on Paramount+ in mere weeks, now is a good time to rewatch the first season, including the memorable eighth episode, "The Elysian Kingdom," where the crew of the USS Enterprise finds themselves thrown into a literal fairy tale and embodying fantastical personas with no knowledge of their Starfleet selves.

The episode is enjoyable in large part because of the elaborate outfits the crew finds themselves wearing. The show's costume designer, Bernadette Croft, had a ton of fun creating new looks for the cast, including adding in a couple of Easter eggs to Pike's outfit.

"I chose a green fabric for his doublet, which was a subtle nod to the green-wrapped tunic," Croft told me in an interview about her work on the show. "He also wore a pin that represented that he was the king's advisor and First Hand.

Jason Ritter is an American actor and producer. He is best known for his roles in Joan of Arcadia and Gravity Falls.

Jason Ritter Biography: Age, Early Life, Family, Education

Jason Ritter was born on February 17, 1980 (Jason Ritter: age 42) in Los Angeles, California. His parents are actors Nancy Morgan and comic actor John Ritter, who was the star of hit 70s sitcom Three’s Company. He has three siblings.

Ritter went to high school at the Crossroads School in California. He graduated from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. Ritter also attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London.

Jason Ritter Biography: Career

Ritter started his career in 1990 as Harry Neal Baum in the television movie The Dreamer of Oz: The L. Frank Baum Story. He co-starred as Frank Baum’s son alongside his own father, John Ritter.

Some of Ritter’s other roles include the movies...

Image Source: Getty / Jemal Countess

Leona Lewis is officially a mom! On July 22, the "Bleeding Love" singer and her husband, Dennis Jauch, welcomed their first child, a baby girl. "And then there were three," Lewis captioned a photo of herself cradling the newborn on Instagram on Tuesday. In the photo, Lewis and Jauch join hands over their daughter's stomach as she snuggles up to her mom in a pink onesie. In the same post, Lewis also announced the baby's name. "Our little Carmel Allegra arrived 22.7.22," she wrote.

"What a beautiful exciting blessing!!!"

While most of the baby's face is obscured, Lewis did share a glimpse at her daughter's nose and mouth, sparking a flurry of excitement from friends and family in the comments section. "Beyond happy for you my wonderful friends @leonalewis @dennisjauch," Erika Marosi wrote. "What a beautiful exciting blessing!!! Love you guys! Congratulations." Celebrity friends of the couple...

“The Once and Future,” a hybrid project directed by Yeo Siew Hua winner of Locarno’s top prize in 2018 with “A Land Imagined,” will open at the upcoming Singapore Festival of Arts (Sifa).

Edson Sidonie’s Buenos Aires-based Bikini Films and Roger García’s General Film Services in the U:s: have teamed for this multi-platform project which will be made as a feature, opera and performance show.

Announced as an “expanded cinema experience,” the story is set in the near future, when the planet has become unsustainable and humankind prepares for a planetary exodus to escape extinction.

Unable to withstand the voyage, people must leave their bodies behind and upload the totality of human experiences into something called The Labyrinth. The human race is finally just one. All our memories have been preserved, but with no one to remember them.

Eugene Birman has scored the title. Live performances come courtesy...

Steve “Zumbi” Gaines, rapper in the Bay Area hip-hop group Zion I, has died at the age of 49.

Gaines’ family confirmed the rapper’s death to Kqed Friday; while they did not provide cause of death, All Hip Hop reports that it was from complications related to Covid-19.

“It is with utter disbelief and great sadness that the Gaines family shares the news of the passing of Steve ‘Zumbi’ Gaines on Friday, August 13, 2021. Gaines, 49 and the Mc of the critically acclaimed hip-hop group Zion I, passed away at Alta Bates...

"If this were to spiral out of control..." Saban Films has released an official US trailer for the indie horror Initiation, the latest from director John Berardo (also of The Labyrinth). This premiered at the Sitges & Screamfest Film Festivals last fall, and it will be arriving on VOD this May. Whiton University unravels the night a star-athlete is found murdered in his dorm during pledge week, kicking off a spree of social media slayings that force the students to uncover the truth behind the school's hidden secrets and the horrifying meaning of an exclamation point. What does it all mean, Basil?! Lindsay Lavanchy (who also co-wrote the script) co-stars with Jon Huertas, Isabella Gomez, Froy Gutierrez, Gattlin Griffith, Patrick Walker, Bart Johnson, Shireen Lai, Kent Faulcon, Yancy Butler and Lochlyn Munro. This looks like some crazy campus serial killer horror, not so much any commentary on university culture. Check it out.

Saban Films announced today that they have acquired North American rights to John Berardo’s (The Labyrinth) Initiation. Selected for a world premiere in the Midnighters section at SXSW under its original title Dembanger, the horror crime-thriller stars Lochlyn Munro, Isabella Gomez (“One Day at a Time”), Jon Huertas (“This is Us”), Froy …

The post Saban Films Acquires SXSW Horror Crime Thriller Initiation appeared first on Hnn | Horrornews.net.

Saban Films has acquired North American rights to horror crime-thriller “Initiation,” directed by John Berardo (“The Labyrinth”). Xyz Films is introducing the film to international distributors during the Cannes virtual market.

The movie, selected for a world premiere in the Midnighters section at SXSW under its original title “Dembanger,” stars Lochlyn Munro, Isabella Gomez (“One Day at a Time”), Jon Huertas (“This Is Us”), Froy Gutierrez (“Teen Wolf”), Bart Johnson (“High School Musical”), and Yancy Butler.

Inspired by his short film “Dembanger,” about the perils of posting on social media, Berardo penned the script alongside Brian Frager and Lindsay Lavanchy. Shatterproof Films’ Berardo and Frager produced along with Lavanchy, J.P. Castel, Jon Huertas, Stephanie Stanziano, Artisan Post Group and Malsons Media.

Teen horror is back with a vengeance in this edgy slasher about a cruel social media game that spins out of control. Whiton University unravels the night a star-athlete...

Jim Henson’s 1986 classic fantasy film, Labyrinth, has achieved something that its initial box office performance would never in a million years justify: a sequel.

TriStar Pictures is set to take moviegoers back to the world of fairies, goblins and baby-napping glam-rockers who put on random musical numbers within the confines of enormously ominous oubliettes, with a sequel to Labyrinth now officially in the works, according to Deadline. Additionally, the studio has already found a creative team to tackle the project, tapping a director who’s put in work exploring appropriately labyrinthine fantastical worlds in Doctor Strange director Scott Derrickson. He’ll work off a script by Maggie Levin, who’s put in genre work on Hulu series Into the Dark and My Valentine, along with Go90’s Miss 2059.

Coming from the creative dream team of director Jim Henson and writer Terry Jones, Labyrinth followed the fantastical exploits of...

Writer/director Tayarisha Poe’s feature debut “Selah and the Spades,” which made its world premiere as a Next selection at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival, is an assured first film, bolstered by persuasive performances, lavish production design, and beautiful cinematography. Serving up a fresh and surreal take on the teen drama, it’s more interested in how race, gender, and socioeconomic status influence the dynamics of power, even among high-school students. And it marks an exciting and utterly original debut for Poe, whose future looks bright.

On Poe’s website, she describes herself as “a storyteller from west Philly, born and raised, who believes that all stories are inherently multi-sensory and multi-dimensional, and should be told that way.” It’s a personal statement that she said was inspired by Chris Marker’s 1962 short, “La Jetée,” one of the most influential, radical science-fiction films ever made, a tale of time travel told in still images.

Jim Henson’s The Labyrinth combines stunning practical effects and puppetry, mesmerizing visuals, and a modern day fairytale story to create one of the most beloved fantasy movies of all time. Starring a young Jennifer Connelly and famed singer/actor David Bowie, it tells the story of impetuous teenager Sarah’s journey through the Labyrinth, to the castle of the Goblin King in the hopes of rescuing her stolen baby brother.

Since it debuted in 1986, it has dazzled fans of fantasy and cinema for decades, with new generations being introduced to its magic all the time. Having recently celebrated its 30th anniversary, here are some of the best Labyrinth gifts for fans who can’t get enough of Sarah, Jareth, and all the Labyrinth’s quirky inhabitants in Jim Henson’s enchanting vision.

A Room with a Coconut ViewThere’s always a pang of irony when noting the milestones accomplished by venerable avant-garde institutions. Some seem to hold fast to the idea that institutionality itself is the enemy of experimentation, and that a “true” avant-garde showcase or entity ought to burn hot, bright, and fast, and then fizzle out before it is invaded by the mundanes. This is the Jack Smith Theory of Art, and while I am certainly sympathetic, I am not a subscriber. I, alas, am much more of an Uncle Fishhook. I compile lists, hoard tapes and digital files, keep manila folders full of old program notes, and generally try to think both historically—noting what develops from the ongoing wreckage of the past—and geometrically—observing how forms and concepts can develop webs of connection through time and across culture and nation. Institutions, or at least archives of one sort or another,...

Bruno Dumont's CoinCoin et les Z'inhumainsThe lineup for the 2018 festival has been revealed, including new films by Hong Sang-soo, Radu Muntean, Mariano Llinás and others, alongside retrospectives and tributes, and much more.

Piazza GRANDEBlacKkKlansmanBlazeCoincoin et les Z'inhumainsI Feel GoodLe vent tourneLes Beaux EspritsLibertyL'ordre des medecinsL'ospiteManila in the Claws of LightBirds of PassageRuben Brandt, Collector (Milorad Krstic, Hungary)Se7enSearchingThe Equalizer 2Un nemico che ti vuole bene (Denis Rabaglia, Italy/Switzerland)What Doesn't Kill Us

Concorso INTERNAZIONALEGlaubenbergA Family TourDianeLa FlorYaraMenocchioToo Late To Die YoungRay & LizHotel By the RiverA Land ImaginedMSibelGenèseWintermärchenAlice T.

Concorso Cineasti Del PRESENTEAll GoodThose Who WorkChaosClosing TimeImmersed FamilyFaust The Dive Suburban BirdsYoung and AliveLikemebackDead Horse NebulaWe Are ThankfulSophia AntipolisHierLong Way HomeTrot

Signs Of Lifea Room with a Coconut ViewCommunion Los AngelesHow Fernando Pessoa Saved PortugalDulcineaGulyabaniThe Fragile HouseMan in the WellJulio Iglesias's HouseThe Glorious Acceptance of Nicolas ChauvinSedução da CarneAnything And AllThe Grand BizarreErased,...

Melissa McCarthy and Jim Henson’s son, Brain Henson, together? You’re right! An R-rated crime comedy! A new red band trailer for The Happytime Murders is here and rather than me try to explain it, why don’t you just watch it below.

No Sesame. All Street. The Happytime Murders is a filthy comedy set in the underbelly of Los Angeles where puppets and humans coexist. Two clashing detectives with a shared secret, one human (Melissa McCarthy) and one puppet, are forced to work together again to solve the brutal murders of the former cast of a beloved classic puppet television show.

This may be the most ridiculous idea, or it may be genius. Seeing that Brian Henson who has been involved in some of biggest films that involve puppetry such as The Muppet Christmas Carol, Muppets Treasure Island, The Great Muppet Caper, The Labyrinth and many more, and...

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The Screamfest Horror Film Festival is the longest running horror film festival in the United States, now in its 15th year. The festival has been responsible for premiering many now classic horror films such as Paranormal Activity and Feast, both of which are having anniversary screenings at this year's festival. Additionally, Screamfest will be screening the premiere of Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension.

The 2015 festival will run from October 13th through the 22nd in Hollywood, California at the Tcl Chinese 6 Theatres.

Screamfest has an amazing star-studded lineup this year, and if you live in Los Angeles, you owe it to yourself to check out a movie or two, or three or four or all of them. Many of the screenings include discussions with filmmakers such as John and Clu Gulager, James Franco, and more. You can check out the programming and purchase tickets at the festival website Screamfest.