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Plot: In the future, Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson), who’s in debt to loan sharks, takes the one job no one could ever possibly want. He signs up to be an “expendable” on an off-world colony where he’s given hazardous tasks to perform that no one is expected to survive. Every time he dies, they “print” another copy of him. However, when his seventeenth iteration, Mickey 17, unexpectedly survives a mission, he discovers another version, Mickey 18, has already been printed, and in this society, multiples are expressly outlawed.

Review: One has to give Warner Bros some degree of credit for green-lighting Mickey 17. Easily the most lavish movie of director Bong Joon-Ho’s career, it’s the kind of original, audacious sci-fi we rarely see on the big screen anymore. The fact that it doesn’t entirely work is almost beside the point, as stuff like this so rarely...

The Screen Actors Guild has been presenting its annual life achievement award for many decades. The most recent recipient for 2025 was double Oscar winner Jane Fonda.

For the 2023 event, Sally Field was the latest veteran performer to receive the Screen Actor’s Guild life achievement award. Starting in 1995, audiences around the world have been able to enjoy this celebration of a beloved thespian’s work, crammed right in the middle of a nail-biting awards telecast. In honor of De Niro’s accomplishment, let’s take a look back at every person to be given this prize since the event was first televised. Our gallery includes Helen Mirren, Robert De Niro, Alan Alda, Morgan Freeman, Carol Burnett, Rita Moreno, Betty White, Shirley Temple, Barbra Streisand, and more.

SAG began handing out a career achievement prize to actors who left their mark on both the big screen and small in 1962. It wasn...

The 2025 stamp designs are out! There are the usual boring sets — American vistas? More U.S. flags? Vibrant leaves? — but one announcement has set comedy hearts aflutter: a commemorative stamp featuring the late sitcom superstar Betty White. Score!

“An icon of American television, Betty White (1922–2021) shared her wit and warmth with viewers for seven decades — including roles on The Golden Girls and The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” said the Usps in its announcement. “The comedic actor, who gained younger generations of fans as she entered her 90s, was also revered as a compassionate advocate for animals. Dale Stephanos created the digital illustration based on a 2010 photograph by Kwaku Alston. Greg Breeding, an art director for Usps, designed the stamp.”

In other words, Betty White was a badass.

White isn’t the first comedian honored by the Post Office, but she’s on a very short list. While you can’t...

When Sherwood Schwartz was creating "Gilligan's Island" back in 1964, he designed the series as one might an animated show. It was meant to be a broad, unrealistic farce, so Schwartz had no issues with making "Gilligan's Island" into something colorful and artificial. The characters, for the most part, wore the same clothes every day, allowing Schwartz to color-code them. Gilligan (Bob Denver) always wore a long-sleeve red shirt and sailor's cap. The Skipper (Alan Hale) always wore blue and wore a captain's hat. The Professor (Russell Johnson) always wore slacks and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Ginger (Tina Louise) may have changed often, but she always wore something glamorous, and her red hair was always highlighted. 

What's more, Schwartz seemingly kept a close eye on characters' silhouettes. One of the reasons why The Skipper and Gilligan emerged as such an effective comedy duo was that Gilligan was...

Courtesy of Eureka Entertainment

by James Cameron-wilson

It’s funny, you think you’ve seen everything that the golden age of Hollywood has to offer, and then along comes a gift-packaged treasure trove of fresh material from over a hundred years ago. Laurel & Hardy: The Silent Years is the culmination of painstaking research, detective work and artistry to bring us fifteen shorts from the Anglo-American comic duo made up of the Lancashire-born Stan Laurel and the Georgia-raised Oliver Hardy who, under the canny hand of the producer Hal Roach, became the most enduring comedy duo of all time. The least likely of partnerships, Laurel was the wimpish cry-baby who got into no end of scrapes alongside Hardy, the fastidious, overweight buffoon with the tight-fitting jackets, both of whom more often than not wore matching bowler hats. Having watched countless documentaries on the silent era, particularly the era of silent comedy,...

One needn't recount the premise of "Gilligan's Island." One only needs to listen to the theme song.

When Sherwood Schwartz was first casting his sitcom "Gilligan's Island" back in 1964, he knew that finding the right actor to play the Skipper -- Jonas Grumby, the captain of the S.S. Minnow -- was going to be a challenge. He had envisioned the title character as a shrimpy, thin man, and he knew that he wanted Bob Denver, previously the star of "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis," in the role. To provide a physical contrast, Shwartz wanted the Skipper to be large, imposing, and capable of yelling in rage. But, and this was key, the Skipper also had to be lovable. In an interview with the Television Academy Foundation, Schwartz was explicit in saying he wanted a teddy bear of a man. Someone who was big and round, but also imminently cuddly.

Oliver Hardy became a Hollywood legend after pairing up with Stan Laurel to form the comedic duo Laurel and Hardy. Together, the pair produced 79 shorts and 27 features. Yet how many of those titles are classics? Let’s take a look back at 10 of Laurel and Hardy’s best feature films, ranked worst to best.

Laurel and Hardy were already established comedians in their own right before they teamed up for a series of shorts produced by Hal Roach (of “The Little Rascals” fame). One of their most famous, “The Music Box” (1934), won the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short (Comedy).

Their first official foray into features was a cameo appearance in “The Hollywood Revue of 1929” (1929), a musical variety meant to introduce MGM’s silent movie stars to sound. (It’s a sign of the times that this plotless hodgepodge managed to snag an Oscar nomination for Best Picture.) Just two year later,...

An intersection in Silver Lake recently designated as historic for its connection with Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy’s classic 1932 film, The Music Box, will soon get its own sign.

The City Council on Wednesday voted unanimously to name the intersection of Vendome Street and Del Monte Drive as the “1932 site of the `The Music Box’ Starring Laurel and Hardy.”

Laurel and Hardy won an Academy Award for short comedy for the work, which was

filmed on the Music Box Steps in Silver Lake. The premise is simple: the lads have to deliver a huge piano to a house at the top of the steps.

There’s a surprise ending to their efforts. Watch the short above for it.

The steps are visited by fans from around the world.

“Silver Lake is home to so many historic outdoor staircases, contributing to the rich cultural fabric of our community,” L.A. City...

“The only reason we are talking right now,” director Pablo Berger says over Zoom, “is because I fell in love with Robot and Dog and the story.” The Spanish director is speaking from L.A., where he recently attended the Oscar nominees luncheon for his feted feature animated film Robot Dreams, but, as he explains, the project originated with Sara Varon’s 2007 graphic novel. “The characters are very simple, cartoonlike,” says Berger. “That was very attractive and at the same time something very good for animation.”

So Berger, working on his first animated project, along with his character designer Daniel Fernandez Casas, embarked on a little bit of a “makeover” for the central duo, a human-like dog and the robot pal he orders who becomes his best friend. Set in ’80s New York, the dialogue-free film — which will have a U.S. theatrical release in May — tracks the ups and...

In early January, comedian Katt Williams went on Shannon Sharpe’s Club Shay Shay podcast and took aim at Cedric the Entertainer for stealing “my very best joke.” The bit in question — which involved a pantomime of driving with music blasting — was first performed by Katt in a 1998 appearance on ComicView, then reproduced by Cedric (according to Katt) for his set in Spike Lee’s The Original Kings of Comedy. Cedric called the accusations “revisionist history” on Instagram.

We’ve been down this road many times before. For much of the 20th century, joke stealing was an open secret. “All comedians steal from all comedians,” the legend Stan Laurel once mused. Some of the biggest names in comedy did it. Milton Berle was so blatant in his joke stealing that he earned the nickname “The Thief of Bad Gags.” Richard Pryor admitted on The Tonight Show that he ripped off his comedy idols,...

The 2023 Hulu series, The Artful Dodger, offers a new insight into the fate of the character after the events of Oliver Twist. The series is set in Australia, 15 years after the original story, with Dodger working as a surgeon and facing old threats from his past. The Artful Dodger stars Thomas Brodie-Sangster in the titular role, and he joins a long list of acclaimed actors who have portrayed different variations of the iconic character in movies & TV.

The 2023 Hulu series, The Artful Dodger, puts a spin on a classic tale and looks at what happened to one of the popular Dickens characters. A supporting character in Charles Dickens's classic, Oliver Twist, Jack Dawkins, better known as the Artful Dodger, recruits the titular orphan Oliver into his gang of pickpockets and thieves, led by the sinister Fagin. His fate is left widely uncertain in the Dickens classic, but The Artful Dodger...

MK2 Films has acquired a collection of films and TV series directed by Bruno Dumont, the award-winning French director behind “Life of Jesus” and “Humanity.”

The acquisition, unveiled during Mipcom Cannes, covers the bulk of the director’s work, spanning eight films and TV series including “Li’l Quinquin,” which premiered at Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight. MK2 Films will represent rights to some of these titles, in France and/or international markets, apart from a few titles like “Slack Bay” whose global rights are still handled by Memento International.

“Bruno Dumont is, of course, a major figure of contemporary cinema,” said Nathanaël Karmitz, MK2’s chairman of the executive board. Karmitz praised Dumont for the “originality of his unusual, unpredictable [films], veering from gravitas to some unnerving, comedic tangents.” He continued, “Iconoclastic and consistently courageous in its form, his work perfectly represents the free and ambitious cinema that we are proud to promote.

Milt Larsen, who wrote for the game show Truth or Consequences for nearly two decades and co-founded The Magic Castle in Hollywood, died Sunday of natural causes in Los Angeles, his family announced. He was 92.

Larsen produced TV specials for ABC, CBS and NBC and wrote songs with Richard Sherman, the Oscar winner who partnered with his late brother, Robert, to create tunes for such Disney classics as Mary Poppins, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and The Jungle Book.

He also was the creator and consultant for the $50 million Caesars Magic Empire at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.

In 1963, Larsen and his late brother, Bill, founded The Magic Castle in a 1909 French Chateau mansion on Franklin Avenue. With its many stages, labyrinthine corridors and old-fashioned decor, the place would become a renowned private club for magicians.

Larsen wrote five joke books and three books involving The Magic Castle, penned a weekly...

Milt Larsen, the magician and TV writer who co-founded Hollywood’s famed Magic Castle night spot, died May 28 in Los Angeles. He was 92.

Larsen had deep roots in the world of magic and in Los Angeles. His father, William Larsen Sr., was a prominent local defense attorney and a performing magician. His mother, Geraldine, made early appearances on TV as “The Magic Lady.” Milt Larsen worked as a writer for TV game shows including “Truth or Consequences” during 18 years of Bob Barker’s tenure as host in the 1950s, ’60s and early ’70s.

Larsen teamed with his older brother, William Larsen Jr., and William’s wife, Irene, in the early 1960s to transform a Gothic renaissance mansion on Franklin Avenue in the heart of Hollywood into a clubhouse designed to cater to working magicians. The trio created the Academy of Magical Arts, but the venue became known as the Magic Castle.

Bryan Cranston is to star in 'Everything's Going to Be Great'.The 'Breaking Bad' actor is attached to feature in the movie alongside Allison Janney, Benjamin Evan Ainsworth and Jack Champion.The film is being directed by Jon S. Baird from a script by 'I, Tonya' writer Steven Rogers and production has started in Toronto.The movie tells the story of the Smart family as they cope with loss and struggle with identity as they move from one state to the next while performing in regional theatre.Baird's previous film credits include 'Stan and Ollie', the biopic starring Steve Coogan and John C. Reilly as comedy greats Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, and the recent Apple TV+ movie 'Tetris' that features Taron Egerton.Meanwhile, Bryan previously revealed that he will only eat a meal on set if a scene requires it.The...

Starting today you can play “Tetris.”

Not the game of colorful blocks falling from the sky, but the new feature film about how the rights to “Tetris” were maneuvered out of the former Soviet Union by an American programmer and game developer named Henk Rogers (Taron Egerton). It’s a wild and deeply compelling story, the kind of Cold War caper that is even more incredible because it really happened.

Produced by “Kingsman” mastermind Matthew Vaughn, the movie has a decidedly poppy tone and visual aesthetic (embroidered with 8-bit flourishes) that makes it even more fun to watch. And you can watch it right now, on Apple TV+.

TheWrap spoke to “Tetris” director Jon S. Baird (who previously brought the story of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy to the big screen in “Stan & Ollie”) about how the project came about, whether or not he was a “Tetris” die-hard and...

The Screen Actors Guild presented legendary comic actor Eddie Cantor with the first annual Life Achievement Award back in 1962. Over the past six decades, the award for ‘outstanding achievement in fostering ideals of the acting profession” has been given to such Hollywood icons as Stan Laurel, Bob Hope, Barbara Stanwyck, Gregory Peck, Jimmy Stewart, Frank Sinatra, James Cagney, Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. More recently, Mary Tyler Moore, Charles Durning, Debbie Reynolds, Rita Moreno, Carol Burnett, Helen Mirren and Robert De Niro have received the honor.

Two-time Oscar and three-time Emmy Award winning Sally Field is the latest recipient of the Life Achievement Award. The 76-year-old actress, who came to fame as the ultimate teenager “Gidget” in the 1965-66 ABC sitcom, is currently starring with Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and Rita Moreno in the hit feature comedy “80 for Brady.” She appeared with Jim Parsons last year in the drama...

In 1989 audiences were introduced to two of the most loveable dimwits the world had ever seen in the form of Bill S. Preston, Esq. (Alex Winter) and "Ted" Theodore Logan (Keanu Reeves). Along with them came some of the best catchphrases to ever hit the silver screen. The film was "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure," and it spawned two sequels; "Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey" in 1991 and "Bill & Ted Face the Music" in 2020.

The premise takes a little explanation if you haven't seen it. (Please remedy that right now.) High school students Bill and Ted are best buddies, and they're super dopey but sweet. One would assume these guys would grow up to do nothing but smoke weed in their parents' basements, but friends, they're going to save humanity. In the year 2688, the world became a utopia, based on the music from Bill and Ted's band Wyld Stallyns. To...

Fay Wray began her autobiography On the Other Hand with an open letter to her most famous co-star. In it she said, “for more than half a century, you have been the most dominant figure in my public life. To speak of me is to think of you. To speak to me is often a prelude to questions about you.” This most dominant figure was of course the mighty King Kong and the film they appeared in together is unquestionably the best remembered in Wray’s career. She went on to tell Kong, “I admire you because you made only one film—and that became famous, whereas I made seventy-five or eighty and only the one I made with you became really famous.” Despite this fact, which was true for many decades, other films in Wray’s filmography have found new life in the years since she wrote those words in 1988. Now,...

The "Pink Panther" film series reached its peak silliness in the 1970s and was all the better for it. Come "The Pink Panther Strikes Again," Blake Edwards and Peter Sellers had dropped the usual business of framing Inspector Clouseau's bumbling antics with a wider crime caper and just focused on him and his arch-nemesis, former Chief Inspector Charles Dreyfus (Herbert Lom). Dreyfus, having had it up to here after years of Clouseau's ineptitude, builds a vanishing ray and threatens the world with annihilation if the clueless detective isn't assassinated.

You can see the jokes coming from a mile away, but it hardly matters when you have a comic talent like Sellers delivering the gags. This is the period when all the elements of Clouseau that literally had me rolling on the floor laughing as a kid were cranked up to epic proportions; his penchant for zany disguises; the apartment-trashing fights...

Rather than a dark comedy, Owen Kline’s directorial debut Funny Pages is perhaps more akin to slowly unfolding tragedy with a number of gut-busting gags. The story follows Robert (Daniel Zolghadri), a 17-year-old aspiring cartoonist from an upper-middle-class background who drops out of high school to make his dream a reality. Moving into a damp New Jersey basement that’s basically a dungeon and crossing paths with Image Comics color-separator-turned-petty-criminal Wallace (Matthew Maher), Robert’s misguided journey may be painfully relatable for anyone who’s alienated loved ones through an intense dedication to niche interests.

With a very selective filmography after his breakout role in The Squid and the Whale as a 13-year-old, appearing only for friends the Safdie brothers (who returned the favor producing Funny Pages) and Michael Bilandic, Kline emerges an exciting new voice in cinema. Ahead of his film’s release, we were lucky enough to...

Cannes slates includes new restorations of David Lynch’s Lost Highway, Claire Denis’s Chocolat, and Olivier Assayas’s Irma Vep.

France’s mk2 films is ramping up its heritage film operation with the appointment of Frédérique Rouault as head of collections and the acquisition of a raft of catalogues by directors who have marked cinema history.

In one of its most significant heritage deals to date, the company has acquired the rights to the entire collection of films by the late writer and director Marcel Pagnol.

Until now, the catalogue has been managed by grandson Nicolas Pagnol under the...

MK2 Films, the company behind six films playing at Cannes including Leonor Serraille’s competition title “Mother and Son,” has acquired French and international rights on the Raoul Peck catalogue from Velvet Film.

MK2 Films will start selling the library of films during the Cannes Film Festival. The Raoul Peck collection comprises documentary and fiction, including the HBO documentary series “Exterminate All the Brutes” which earned Peck a DGA Awards nomination.

The collection also includes “I Am Not Your Negro,” the Oscar-nominated, BAFTA-winning documentary narrated by Samuel L. Jackson, as well as the powerful “Lumumba: Death of a Prophet,” the restored, 4K version of which played at Cannes Classics last year. The doc is a historical investigation weaving Peck’s childhood memories and a tribute to a leading figure of modern African heritage.

MK2 Films will also now represent Peck’s “Haitian films,” a mini-collection comprising three fiction films and a documentary,...

After skipping the virtual ceremony in 2021, the Screen Actors Guild once again presents its annual life achievement award in 2022. Oscar, Emmy and Tony winner Dame Helen Mirren receives the honorary SAG trophy.

For the 2020 event, Robert De Niro was the latest veteran performer to receive the Screen Actor’s Guild life achievement award. Starting in 1995, audiences around the world have been able to enjoy this celebration of a beloved thespian’s work, crammed right in the middle of a nail-biting awards telecast. In honor of De Niro’s accomplishment, let’s take a look back at every person to be given this prize since the event was first televised. Our gallery includes Alan Alda, Morgan Freeman, Carol Burnett, Rita Moreno, Betty White, Shirley Temple and more.

SEEHelen Mirren movies: 12 greatest films ranked from worst to best

SAG began handing out a career achievement prize to actors who left their mark...

SAG-AFTRA’s unclaimed residuals fund has grown to roughly $76 million – up 60% from $48 million six years ago. According to the union, the fund now contains 124,000 separate accounts for members and others, living and dead, that it can’t locate. That’s up from 96,000 accounts in 2016.

“The funds may be unclaimed for a variety of reasons including a bad address or as a result of mail returned for other reasons; unresolved estate issues, or the funds may be in trust for an inactive or dissolved loan out corporation,” a spokesperson for the union said. “Most often, residuals may be waiting for a recipient or their agent to formalize a change of address or submit the appropriate paperwork to claim the funds. The union uses a number of tools to locate and get money to those individuals due unclaimed residuals including mail, email and telephone outreach to last known address and telephone number,...

Sydney, Sep 26 (Ians) Former Australia captain Ian Chappell feels that cricket itself is to be blamed for the bloated and unworkable schedule due to the Covid-19 pandemic in the world. Chappell added that the re-evaluation of the schedule could be the only good for cricket to come from the pandemic. “Hollywood comedians Stan Laurel […]...

Exclusive: SAG-AFTRA won’t be handing out a SAG Life Achievement Award this year for the first time in 40 years. It’s not that no one was deserving – this year of all years – but because of the pandemic and a shortened TV timeslot for its awards show, the union decided that it would be better to skip a year and present the award live and in-person next year.

Going into this awards season, SAG-AFTRA had planned for its 27th annual SAG Awards to be a two-hour show, as it had been in years past. The home page for the Screen Actors Guild Awards noted initially that it would be a “fast moving two-hour show.” This year’s pre-taped, one-hour show, featuring 13 awards presentations, will air April 4 on TNT and TBS.

The SAG Life Achievement Award is the union’s most prestigious honor, presented for “outstanding achievement in fostering...

Cinema Retro has received the following press release from Flicker Alley:

Laurel or Hardy: Early Films of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy traces the roots of the legendary comedy duo by offering fans a two-disc set of 35 newly restored films starring either Stan Laurel or Oliver Hardy—all produced before the two genius talents ever joined forces.

Laurel and Hardy became cinematic legends together, but before they were ever hauling pianos or throwing pies as a hilarious and unforgettable comedic duo, each had to develop as an individual artist and performer. Laurel or Hardy: Early Films of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, as proudly presented by Flicker Alley, the Library of Congress, and Blackhawk Films®, offers fans new and old the rare opportunity to track the early solo careers of two comedy icons. Featuring all new 2K restorations sourced from materials contributed by archives and collectors around the world, this...

9 random things that happened on this day, September 28th, in showbiz history: 

1935 Comic actor Stan Laurel marries his second wife Virginia Ruth Rogers who will also become his fourth wife. Old Hollywood stars sure did get married and divorced and remarried a lot! The recent underseen biopic Stan & Ollie (2018) looked at Laurel & Hardy's final years after the heyday of their fame, with Steven Coogan as Stan Laurel and Nina Arianda giving yet another great supporting performance as Laurel's fifth and final wife Ida. When is Nina Arianda going to get her due in Hollywood? 

1945 Seventy-five years ago today, noir classic Mildred Pierce starring Joan Crawford opened, reviving her career and winning her the Oscar. (The movie was nominated for 5 additional Oscars including Best Picture). It's a must-see.

Gregg Toland, Martin & Lewis, and Olivia Newton-John after the jump...

Exclusive: The mystery of what happens to the items profiled on Wgbh’s Antiques Roadshow after the cameras leave town is set to be solved in a spin-off podcast.

The team behind the long-running quaint PBS format, which has been airing since 1997, is launching Detours on September 14.

The six-part series, produced by Wgbh and Prx, will pick up where the appraisals left off, revealing the stories, secrets, and surprises of TV treasures that go beyond the screen.

Longtime Antiques Roadshow producer Adam Monahan is creator and host of the podcast and will interview show guests, appraisers, historians, and experts, as well as discuss and analyze each story’s journey with Antiques Roadshow exec producer Marsha Bemko.

Some of the stories include a young man who claims his great-grandfather possessed the flag from JFK’s Navy boat, the Pt-109. With the help of a chemistry professor, a reporter, an author, and a museum curator,...

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“A Gorgeous Nice Mess”

By Raymond Benson and Doug Gerbino

Nobody wants the legacy of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy to disappear. Young people may have heard of the comic duo, but few have seen them these days. This is understandably disturbing to cinephiles or those of us of an older generation who have admired since childhood the genius on display when the pair performed in front of the camera. While Rhi Entertainment issued a fabulous DVD set in 2011 (10 disks in the U.S.) that contained most of Laurel and Hardy’s output for Hal Roach after sound kicked in, a new Blu-ray treasure chest has just been released by MVDvisual that contains stunning restorations in high definition of a respectable number of titles.

Laurel and Hardy—The Definitive Restorations could be a holy grail for members of Sons of the Desert, the...

Comedy buffs Carl Reiner and Dick Van Dyke re-teamed for this tribute to silent comedy centering on an egotistical star named Billy Bright. The plot juggles episodes culled from the careers of Langdon, Chaplin and Van Dyke’s friend Stan Laurel, but it actually hews closer to the life of Keaton than The Buster Keaton Story did! Some last-minute studio cutting didn’t help, and it failed at the box office. Mickey Rooney shines as a Ben Turpin-like sidekick with non-pc eyeball issues. And here’s Dick Van Dyke himself on The Comic

The post The Comic appeared first on Trailers From Hell.

“I do think as you get older, it’s inevitable that you repeat yourself,” says Rob Brydon. “This is the fourth time we’ve been on one of these jaunts.” His dining companion Steve Coogan, who’s been digging lustily into a plate of braised lamb, shakes his head. “Originality is overrated. Everything’s derivative.” Just look at The Aenid — it’s “the greatest poem of the Roman Empire, and that was a rip-off.” By the time these two comedians are served dessert, they’re bickering over Coogan’s level...

In the opening scene of “The Trip to Greece,” Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, seated (of course!) at an idyllic outdoor table at a to-die-for Mediterranean restaurant, take note of the fact that they’ve been going on their culinary road trips together for close to 10 years. Even for those who have followed them through “The Trip,” “The Trip to Italy,” “The Trip to Spain,” and now “The Trip to Greece,” that news may come as a slightly sobering surprise — a sign of how quickly time passes, and of how a delicate and hilarious series of small-scale semi-improvised British comedies, if they stick around long enough, can become…what? An institution? A franchise?

Maybe something better. The “Trip” films, to those of us who wouldn’t dream of missing one (though we know they’re not so much finely cut gems as casual sketches tricked up into movies — that’s...

Toward the end of “The Trip to Greece,” British comic Rob Brydon (playing a version of himself) is talking to his wife (played by an actress who is not his wife) about the trip he’s just taken with his old pal and sparring partner Steve Coogan.

“Is it all fun and games?” she asks.

“No,” he says. “It’s mostly fun and games.”

And that’s a good way to describe “The Trip to Greece,” as well as the three other movies that Brydon and Coogan have made with director Michael Winterbottom. In 2011’s “The Trip,” 2014’s “The Trip to Italy,” 2017’s “The Trip to Spain” and now “The Trip to Greece,” the two men drive around a beautiful location, eat fabulous meals, talk about stuff and try to make each other laugh, often with dueling impersonations. And yes, it’s mostly fun and games.

Also Read: 'The Trip to Greece...

Appointment comes hot on heels of mk2’s Netflix deal in France.

Paris-based film company mk2 Films has hired Rosalie Varda to oversee the exploitation and promotion of its vast 800-title catalogue of classic films.

Varda is the daughter of late filmmaker Agnès Varda and actor and theatre director Antoine Bourseiller and the step-daughter of late film director Jacques Demy.

She forged a career in the cinema, theatre and opera worlds as a costume designer, working on films of Jean-Luc Godard and Demy.

From 2006 onwards, she collaborated closely with her mother on her projects, taking a producer credit on Faces,...

Appointment comes hot on heels of mk2’s Netflix deal in France.

Paris-based film company mk2 Films has hired Rosalie Varda to oversee the exploitation and promotion of its vast 800-title catalogue of classic films.

Varda is the daughter of late filmmaker Agnès Varda and actor and theatre director Antoine Bourseiller and the step-daughter of late film director Jacques Demy.

She forged a career in the cinema, theatre and opera worlds as a costume designer, working on films of Jean-Luc Godard and Demy.

From 2006 onwards, she collaborated closely with her mother on her projects, taking a producer credit on Faces,...

” Well, here’s another nice mess you’ve gotten me into.”

The comedy films of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy have been beloved around the world since they were first released between 1927 and 1940. So beloved that many of the available copies are blurred dupes printed from worn-out negatives. Now, the best of their short comedies and two of their finest features have been fully restored. They look and sound as spectacular as when they were first released..

Features

* New! 2K and 4K transfers from the finest original 35mm materials in the world.

* World Premieres! Laurel and Hardy’s legendary 1927 silent “pie fight” film The Battle Of The Century makes its video debut after being “lost” for 90 years! The only reel of L&h bloopers and out-takes, That’S That!

* Classic short comedies Berth Marks, Brats, Hog Wild, Come Clean, One Good Turn, Helpmates, The Music Box (the legendary Academy Award...

Steve Coogan, who delivered a first rate performance last year as Stan Laurel (Stan & Ollie), plays a narcissistic British billionaire named Sir Richard McCreadie in Greed. For over 30 years, McCreadie was a retail fashion king, but times have changed and his reputation has taken a hit. To regain public favor, McCreadie organizes a [...]

The post Steve Coogan Is Living The Materialist Dream In Michael Winterbottom Satire ‘Greed’ appeared first on Hollywood Outbreak.

Two-time Oscar winner Robert De Niro is the latest veteran performer to receive the Screen Actor’s Guild life achievement award at this weekend’s 2020 ceremony. While not nominated individually, he is also competing for the top film ensemble prize as part of “The Irishman” cast alongside Al Pacino, Joe Pesci, Anna Paquin, Ray Romano and more.

SEE2020 SAG Awards nominations: Full list of Screen Actors Guild Awards nominees

Starting in 1995, audiences around the world have been able to enjoy this celebration of a beloved thespian’s work, crammed right in the middle of a nail-biting awards telecast. In honor of De Niro’s accomplishment, let’s take a look back at every person to be given this prize since the event was first televised. Our gallery includes Alan Alda, Morgan Freeman, Carol Burnett, Rita Moreno, Betty White, Shirley Temple and more.

SEEAlan Alda Interview: ‘Marriage Story’

SAG began handing...

Although many biopics are formulaic enterprises, hitting familiar beats as the subject rises and falls and falls in love and writes that really popular song, they’re a vital element of entertainment industry. Biopics allow filmmakers to humanize our myths, mythologize our contemporaries, re-evaluate history at a fundamentally human level, and catalogue our present so that future generations can understand what the hell we are going through. It’s been an entire decade full of great biopics, too many to fit in a conventional list, but when all is said and done, we have to call these the ten absolutely essential films in the genre from the 2010s.

Runners-Up: “127 Hours,” “Behind the Candelabra,” “A Dangerous Method,” “Dolemite is My Name,” “Jackie,” “Mr. Turner,” “Rocketman,” “Southside With You,” “Straight Outta Compton,” “The Wind Rises”

10. “Stan & Ollie” (2018)

Earnest, bittersweet and oh, so very funny, Jon S. Baird’s biopic about famed...

It’s always a joy to see Nina Arianda on screen, whether playing Stan Laurel’s wife in “Stan & Ollie” or the supportive and encouraging Agnes Stark in “Florence Foster Jenkins.” She’s a familiar face to theater crowds, having won a Tony Award for her stunning, take-no-prisoners performance in “Venus in Fur” in 2012. She also earned raves for starring opposite Sam Rockwell in Sam Shepard’s “Fool for Love,” first at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in 2014 and then on Broadway in 2015.

Arianda is reuinted with Rockwell in “Richard Jewell,” director Clint Eastwood’s new film about the security guard who went from hero to suspect in record time after discovering an explosive at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. The movie depicts the media scrutiny that badgered Jewell and his mother, Bobi. And in a time when it felt like no one was on their side, Rockwell’s lawyer...

In 1969, the movie business was starting to transition from old, proven formulas to more daring and original films that spoke to a younger demographic. Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon A Time…In Hollywood sets out capture the spirit of that year and the way the movies and their stars reflected the attitudes of the time.

Here’s a clip from The Jimmy Kimmel show where Quentin talks about the premiere of his new movie Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, attending a screening with Jimmy, shooting with Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt & Margot Robbie, Inglourious Basterds, naming his own Mad Magazine parody, asking actors to be in his movies, why he is close to ending his filmmaking career. Margot Robbie stops by with an announcement:

There were plenty of great movies made in 1969 celebrating their golden anniversaries this year. Here are 17 of them that the writers here at We Are Movie Geeks...

Exclusive: Stan & Ollie director Jon S. Baird has been hired to co-write and direct an as yet untitled Marv Films movie, taking him off recently announced Mel Gibson-Shia Labeouf starrer Rothchild.

Matthew Vaughn’s UK outfit, known for the Kingsman and Kick-Ass franchises, confirmed Baird’s hire for an “untitled Marv Films movie” but wouldn’t reveal more at this stage.

Rumor is that Baird is in line to direct ‘Kingsman 3’ (the project is still untitled), despite Vaughn having helmed the previous films in the series. All parties are keeping tight-lipped on this, however.

It was only a couple of months ago that Baird was announced as director on hot Cannes package Rothchild, which scored multiple pre-sales on the Croisette. At the time, Gibson’s involvement in a film whose title evokes a wealthy Jewish family caused some consternation on social media but this is not thought to...

In my review of Stan & Ollie, I wrote: “Stan And Ollie is a warm and clever look at the Hollywood that made Hollywood. I learned quite a bit about this seminal comedy pair, and I came away from it moved and happy. Stan And Ollie is a great movie, one of the 2018’s best. “ (read the entire review Here)

Stan & Ollie is currently available on Blu-ray and DVD from Sony Pictures Classics. The film stars Steve Coogan and John C. Reilly as Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy as well as Nina Arianda and Shirley Henderson as their respective wives.

Check out this exclusive clip on the amazing prosthetics and fat suit used in the film

Laurel & Hardy, one of the world s greatest comedy teams, set out on a variety hall tour of Britain in 1953. Diminished by age and with their golden era as the kings of Hollywood comedy now behind them,...

The closing gala of this year's Hippodrome Silent Film Festival, held in in Scotland's oldest purpose-built cinema in the sleepy town of Bo'ness, was a real highlight. Hindle Wakes (1927) is not only a smart adaptation of a celebrated 1910 stage play (from the "Manchester school" of socially committed Northern realism that also gave us the source for David Lean's Hobson's Choice), it's proof positive that there was more to British silent cinema than Hitchcock—though there are strong connections, since the movie features character actress Marie Ault, the landlady from The Lodger, John Stuart, the staunch detective from Number 17, and was photographed in part by Jack Cox, Hitchcock's regular cinematographer at this time. The story is set among the cotton mills of Lancashire in what was the U.K.'s industrial heartland. The young mill workers depart for their annual week's holiday in Blackpool, a sort of combination of...

Brie Larson in ‘Captain Marvel’ (Photo credit: Disney).

After a terrible start to the year with grosses down 12 per cent on the same period last year, Australian exhibitors had something to cheer about last weekend thanks to Disney/Marvel’s Captain Marvel.

Starring Brie Larson as the first female Marvel character to front her own movie, the sci-fi fantasy co-directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck notched the biggest debut of 2019 and an all-time record for March.

The estimated Us launch of $US153 million ranks as the third biggest in March behind Disney’s Beauty and the Beast and Warner Bros’ Batman v. Superman. The global total of $US455 million was the sixth highest ever and the second best for a superhero film behind Avengers : Infinity War.

It is a triumph for many women behind the camera including co-director and writer Boden, co-screenwriter Geneva Robertson-Dworet, story credits for Meg LeFauve and Nicole Perlman,...

‘Green Book.’

Three Academy Awards including best film and for supporting actor Mahershala Ali gave Green Book a sizable bounce in Australian cinemas last weekend while the best actor Oscar for Rami Malek has helped prolong Bohemian Rhapsody’s marathon run.

In other respects it was another bleak trading session as family adventure A Dog’s Way Home had a mediocre opening, well ahead of the other wide new releases, English heist caper King of Thieves and gory thriller Greta.

Flying the Nest, an animated family film which follows a young bird who sets off on a journey through a harsh and unrelenting winter in order to reunite with his true love, had minimal impact as an alternate content release.

Cinemas are marking time until the arrival this Thursday of Disney/Marvel’s Captain Marvel. The top 20 titles collectively generated $9.7 million, 6 per cent down on the previous weekend according to Numero.

‘Stan & Ollie’

British audiences embraced Stan & Ollie, not least because the charming biopic of comic duo Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy is set in the UK, while Us moviegoers were far less enthused.

Australians’ sentiments towards the comedic drama starring Steve Coogan and John C Reilly seem somewhere in the middle, judging by its fourth-ranked opening last weekend.

Fox’s Alita: Battle Angel easily retained top spot in its second weekend but is not performing at the level here or internationally which the studio needs to recoup the $US170 million production budget and hefty marketing costs.

Mindblowing Films’ Bollywood adventure comedy Total Dhamaal began brightly but there were minimal contributions from the other openers including Umbrella’s Lords of Chaos and Madman Entertainment’s Vox Lux.

Umbrella launched Nicholas Wrathall’s feature documentary Undermined: Tales From The Kimberley on limited sessions at eight cinemas, fetching a modest $19,000 including previews.

The second Steve Coogan and John C. Reilly appear onscreen in “Stan & Ollie,” there is no question that they are the legendary Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, respectively. The physical transformations masterminded by prosthetic makeup designer Mark Coulier and makeup and hair designer Jeremy Woodhead are that remarkable, enabling the actors to fully inhabit their roles.

Surprisingly, Coulier and Woodhead were not recognized with Oscar nominations for their standout work on the film, which explores the latter years of the comedy duo’s career, though they did nab two nominations from the Make-Up Artists and Hair Stylists Guild’s sixth annual awards —one for period and/or character make-up and another for special make-up effects.

A huge fan of Laurel and Hardy, Coulier, who has been honored with Academy Awards for his work on “The Iron Lady” and “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” tells Variety that he couldn’t turn...