News

Available On Demand on June 18th from Indican Pictures, we have an exclusive look at the new trailer for Scream Therapy, a horror comedy from writer / director Cassie Keet!

"Brace yourselves for a hilarious and spooky cinematic experience as the horror-comedy film, Scream Therapy, arrives On Demand from Indican Pictures on June 18. Combining spine-tingling scares with side-splitting humor, this genre-bending film delivers an unforgettable ride that will leave audiences entertained from beginning to end..

Scream Therapy follows Avery, a woman blindsided by a breakup, whose girlfriends take her on a weekend getaway in search of solace and restorative scream therapy. Their vacation takes a sharp turn when they cross paths with a cult of incels who are on a very pressing human sacrifice deadline, forcing the group of friends to make impossible choices in a deadly game of kill or be killed.

Writer and Director Cassie Keet brings her unique...

Exclusive: Jack Kilmer (Palo Alto), Paris Jackson (Gringo), and Eric Roberts (The Dark Knight) are in production in Atlanta on Open Wounds, an indie horror thriller from director Ronald Krauss (Gimme Shelter). Rounding out the cast of the pic are Lambert Houston (Resurrection Factor), Renata Notni (Zorro), Richie Radichi (My Best Friend’s Dead), and Jay Giannone (American Hustle).

Written by Ryan Leeder, Joshua Courtade, and Krauss, the film centers around a fading indie horror studio, its owner Jefferson (Roberts), and his nephew Caleb (Kilmer), a young horror movie obsessive and aspiring makeup f/x artist, who finally gets his “little break” when Jefferson assigns him to work on a B-list movie about a vampire (Notni). There, he encounters another makeup artist, Ginni (Jackson), with whom he feels he can share his vulnerabilities, as well as an unsupportive rival, Todd (Houston).

Caleb, insecure of his talent, and desperate to win Jefferson’s approval,...

Exclusive: Academy Award nominee Eric Roberts (Babylon) has been set to star opposite Hutch Dano and Christopher Livingston in Down Below, a psychological horror film from director Spyder Dobrofsky that is currently in production.

The plot of Down Below centers around a young sheriff and a criminal suspect who find their lives intertwined when both become haunted by a sinister force on Christmas Eve. Roberts portrays a highly intelligent police psychologist, who’s having a tough time with his current patient, a cop who was recently suspended for an act of violence on a civilian. Pic’s being produced by High Stake Entertainment.

Roberts was most recently seen playing Robert, the father of Margot Robbie’s Nellie Laroy, in Damien Chazelle’s Old Hollywood epic Babylon for Paramount Pictures, which scored three Oscar noms earlier this year. The always-busy actor is also known for turns in films like Hard Luck Love Song,...

Todd Snider celebrates playing in front of an audience again and pays tribute to dearly departed friends on his new album Live: Return of the Storyteller, a collection of tracks recorded during the singer’s first post-pandemic shows in 2021.

Ahead of the live LP’s Sept. 23 release, Snider has shared the new video for a live rendition of his 2006 fan favorite “Just Like Old Times,” a track that inspired the film Hard Luck Love Song:

“This album is dedicated to all the people who come to these shows whether...

Program Description

A spy thriller about a mission gone wrong set in the world of CIA renditions, Agent Game arrives May 24 on Blu-ray + DVD + Digital from Lionsgate. Directed by Grant S. Johnson (Nighthawks), the movie features Academy Award® winner Mel Gibson, Dermot Mulroney, Annie Ilonzeh, Jason Isaacs, Katie Cassidy, Academy Award® nominee Barkhad Abdi, Adan Canto and Rhys Coiro. Agent Game will be available on Blu-ray + DVD + Digital for the suggested retail price of 21.99.

Official Synopsis

In this riveting spy thriller, no one is safe. Harris (Dermot Mulroney), a CIA interrogator at an Agency black site, finds himself the target of a rendition operation after being scapegoated for an interrogation gone horribly wrong. As the team tasked to bring Harris in begins to question their orders — and each other — Olsen (Mel Gibson), a senior intelligence officer, and his subordinate, Visser (Annie Ilonzeh), raise the stakes. Now, it’s up to...

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on Thursday revealed the 276 feature films that are eligible for consideration at the 94rd Oscars, which are set to air live March 27 on ABC from the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood.

The number is 90 fewer than last year’s 366, but this year’s eligibility period was only 10 months.

To be eligible for Best Picture consideration, films must have submitted a confidential Academy Representation and Inclusion Standards entry as part of the submission requirements. Nominations voting begins January 27 and concludes on February 1. The Oscar nominations will be revealed on Tuesday, February 8.

Today’s news comes about a month after the Academy released its shortlists in the International Film, Documentary Feature, Original Score, Original Song, Makeup & Hairstyling, Visual Effects, Sound and the Live-Action, Documentary and Animated Shorts categories.

Here is the full list of films eligible for Best Picture at the 94rd annual Academy Awards,...

Exclusive: Spike Einbinder (Los Espookys), Greta Lee (The Morning Show), Laith Nakli (Ramy), Larry Owens (High Maintenance), Isabella Rossellini (Blue Velvet), RZA (Wu-Tang: An American Saga), James Scully (You), and Greta Titelman (Search Party) have joined the cast of the untitled film that four-time Emmy nominee Julio Torres is directing for A24, in his feature debut.

The film’s plot is being kept under wraps. Torres is directing from his own screenplay and also co-stars with Oscar winner Tilda Swinton.

Emma Stone and Dave McCary’s Fruit Tree is producing alongside A24, with the latter handling the film’s worldwide distribution.

Einbinder has appeared on the TV side in Los Espookys (the HBO series Torres created with Fred Armisen and Ana Fabrega), High Maintenance and Horace and Pete. They’ll next appear in the final season of HBO Max’s Search Party.

Lee’s TV credits include HouseBroken,...

A24’s Lamb hit the top ten for the second week running (No. 8) at the North American box office, surging past $2 million. The Rescue expanded to 552 theaters, the widest documentary screen count since Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain, said distributor Greenwich Entertainment, anticipating it will ultimately top $1M. Holdovers outperformed newcomers this weekend, including IFC’s Cannes selection Bergman Island.

For the three days, Lamb grossed an estimated $534,000 in 865 theater with a per screen average of $628. Weekend tally: Friday-$172,135; Sat.-$211,925; Sun.-$158,944. The R-rated horror-folktale where a childless couple in rural Iceland make an alarming discovery in their sheep barn, has a estimated cume of $2,037,730.

National Geographic Film’s The Rescue by Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin (Free Solo) has a projected gross of $386,400, or a $700 PSA. Greenwich said the film, about the dramatic rescue of a Thai boys soccer team from a flooded cave, has a total...

IFC presents Mia Hansen-Løve’s Cannes entry Bergman Island, Film Movement brings Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy to the arthouse this weekend, as A24’s surprise hit Lamb and Greenwich Entertainment’s The Rescue go wider week two after a strong open. It’s early days but a nascent specialty revival may be in the works ahead of a stream of potential hits from The French Dispatch to Spencer to Belfast.

Icelandic horror folktale Lamb moves from 500 to over 800 screens after viewers – can we say flocked? – to the Ari Aster-ish genre pic (Hereditary in 2018 was also from A24). Adventure documentary The Rescue, by the directors of Free Solo, where intrepid divers save a Thai boys soccer club trapped in a remote flooded cave, expands from five screens to 552.

“Is there hope? Yes” said Howard Cohen, co-president of Roadside Attractions, which is opening Hard Luck Love Song. “There have to...

since the old times ended, “Hard Luck Love Song” is the kind of movie that would sit right next to someone at the world’s saddest dive bar even if the place was full of nothing but empty seats. Justin Corsbie’s debut would buy you a drink if you couldn’t afford one, hustle you for a hundred bucks in the backroom if you could, and leave you with a big hug on the way out either way just cause it was so grateful not to spend the night alone.

This film has a story that it’s eager to share with anyone willing to listen, and while there isn’t a soul on Earth who hasn’t heard some rendition of “we found love in a hopeless place” a thousand times before, Michael Dorman’s charmingly tattered lead performance turns this into one of the most winsome cover...

The first 40 minutes of “Hard Luck Love Song” are so aggressively off-putting, even the unluckiest of audiences may be tempted to to walk out of the theater or turn off the TV. The arrantly contrived last 20 minutes are equally patience-testing — and borderline loony to boot. Everything in between is bearable, if only by comparison, but not particularly worth the bother.

Director Justin Corsbie and co-writer Ugoretz devote an inordinate amount of time to an interminable slog of a set-up, introducing their protagonist, Jesse (Michael Dorman of Apple TV’s “For All Mankind”), as a struggling country music singer-songwriter who, judging from what we hear of his songs, might do well to give up the struggle. When it comes to making money, he’s more successful as a pool hustler. But not always. When we first see him rolling into an unnamed small city in his battered Chevy Nova, he has his hand in a cast.

The best country songs are simple, direct and unpretentious. The same could be said of Justin Corsbie’s feature debut, based not on a book or a play but rather a song: Todd Snider’s “Just Like Old Times.” The tale of a wandering troubadour afflicted by addiction, gambling and romantic problems, Hard Luck Love Song comes across like, well, a movie based on a country song. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but don’t expect something particularly revelatory.

That the film proves engrossing throughout is due largely to Michael Dorman (For All Mankind), in the central ...

"It'll be just like old times." "That's scary..." Roadside Attractions has revealed the full official trailer for an indie romantic drama titled Hard Luck Love Song, marking the feature directorial debut of filmmaker Justin Corsbie. This premiered at last year's Austin Film Festival, the perfect place for this kind of musician romance tale of ups and downs, and good and bad. At its core, the film is a modern day love story wrapped in a gritty, compelling character study. A love story about a charismatic but down-on-his-luck troubadour living out of cheap motels and making bad decisions. The film is actually based on the song "Just Like Old Times" by Todd Snider. This stars Michael Dorman and Sophia Bush as the two lovers, plus Dermot Mulroney, Eric Roberts, Brian Sacca, Melora Walters, & RZA. So this is a "haunting" love story and a neo-noir western? Well okay, sure why not. Looks...

Event moves up by one day from Nov. 1-5.

AFM 2021 will run entirely online, switching from the previously planned in-person event in Santa Monica and moving up by one day from November 1-5.

The move follows a decision by the Independent Film & Television Alliance (IFTA) board on Thursday morning (August 26) and comes as the Delta variant continues to surge across the United States and the rest of the world.

Many US sellers and filmmakers have been telling Screen the AFM would be their first physical attendance at a festival or market since the EFM in Berlin in February 2020. Buyers...

The Nashville Film Festival will return in late September and early October with a hybrid slate of in-person and online screenings and events — with several music documentaries figuring into the programming, including docs about Brian Wilson, the pioneering 1970s all-female rock band Fanny and the MTV-era group A-ha, plus the world premiere of a film that takes John Hiatt and Jerry Douglas into Nashville’s famed RCA Studio B.

Music-based films take up only a sliver of the overall roster at the Sept. 30-Oct. 6 festival. Among narrative highlights, the festival will wrap up with A24’s “The Humans,” Stephen Karam’s adaptation of his Tony Award-winning play, with Karam and other guests from the film in attendance.

Altogether, 160 films — 45 of which are feature-length entries — have been selected for the 52nd annual festival, a little more than 50 of which will screen in-person at venues throughout Nashville. More than 30 of the features are getting their U.

What happens when the past catches up with you? One man must confront his failures while facing a lifetime of mistakes in “Hard Luck Love Song.” The film takes its cues from a song by musician Todd Snider. “Just Like Old Times” traces the story of two people lost to their version of the American dream. For Snider, the material hit close to home.

Continue reading ‘Hard Luck Love Song’ Trailer: Sophia Bush, Michael Dorman & RZA Star In A Gritty Romance About A Fallen Songwriter at The Playlist.

"A little out of place, a little out of tune..." Roadside Attractions has unveiled a teaser trailer for a film titled Hard Luck Love Song, marking the feature directorial debut of filmmaker Justin Corsbie. This premiered at last year's Austin Film Festival, which seems like the perfect place for this kind of musician romance tale of ups and downs, and good and bad. At its core, the film is a modern day love story wrapped in a gritty, compelling character study. A romance about a charismatic but down-on-his-luck troubadour living out of cheap motels and making bad decisions. Based on the song "Just Like Old Times" by Todd Snider. The film stars Michael Dorman and Sophia Bush as the two lovers, plus Dermot Mulroney, Eric Roberts, Brian Sacca, Melora Walters, & RZA. It's exactly as described - with only 45 seconds of footage so far. Here's the teaser trailer (+ poster) for Justin Corsbie's Hard Luck Love Song,...

“Just Like Old Times,” a fan favorite from singer-songwriter Todd Snider’s critically acclaimed 2006 album The Devil You Know, is not the most likely Hollywood source material.

But that’s exactly what happened with Hard Luck Love Song, the upcoming feature film starring Michael Dorman, Sophia Bush, RZA, Brian Sacca, Toni Robison-May, and Dermot Mulroney. The film features a script based on the Snider fan favorite.

Directed by Justin Corsbie, the film, which is distributed by Roadside Attractions (Manchester By the Sea, The Peanut Butter Falcon) will be released in theaters on October 15th.

Exclusive: Roadside Attractions has acquired Hard Luck Love Song, with plans to release the crime thriller exclusively in theaters on October 15.

Justin Corsbie’s debut feature was inspired by the song “Just Like Old Times” by acclaimed singer-songwriter Todd Snider.

The gritty modern-day love story follows Jesse (Michael Dorman), a charismatic but down-on-his-luck troubadour living out of cheap motels and making bad decisions. Jesse finds himself at an existential crossroads during a chance encounter with his old flame Carla (Sophia Bush), as their complicated past and current troubles threaten to destroy their blissful reunion.

The character-driven feature also stars Dermot Mulroney, Brian Sacca, Melora Walters, Eric Roberts and hip-hop icon RZA.

Corsbie penned the script with Craig Ugoretz. The pic’s producers are Allison R. Smith, Corsbie and Douglas Matejka for Smith & Corsbie’s Dime Box Entertainment.

“Like our previous films The Peanut Butter Falcon, Winter’s Bone and Mud,...

Now in its 27th year, Austin Film Festival continues to champion independent filmmaking and, for this year’s edition, a notable world premiere has its roots in the Texas town. Having grown up in Austin, Justin Corsbie will bow his feature debut, Hard Luck Love Song, at the festival later this month and today brings the first look.

The story follows Jesse, a charismatic but down on his luck troubadour who finds himself at an existential crossroads as bad choices catch up with him during an unexpected reunion with Carla (Sophia Bush), an old flame. Also starring RZA, Dermot Mulroney, Brian Sacca, Melora Walters, and Eric Roberts, we’re pleased to exclusively premiere the first images from the film, courtesy of Synthetic Pictures.

“I spent my childhood in Austin, TX singer/songwriter bars owned by family friends watching performers like Townes Van Zandt, Guy Clark, Steve Earle, Billy Joe Shaver,...

The 27th annual Austin Film Festival has revealed its 2020 virtual lineup, which includes the U.S. premiere of Jonah Malak’s Dave Not Coming Back, and world bows for Paul Kowalski’s Paper Tiger and Felipe Mucci’s Two Deaths of Henry Baker, starring Gil Bellows and Tony Curran.

Aff’s feature slate for the Oct. 22 to 29 event will have 22 world, North American and U.S. premieres, with first looks for Matthew Ya-Hsiung Balzer’s The Catch; Aldo Miyashiro’s Wake Show; Justin Etheredge’s Good; Justin Corsbie’s Hard Luck Love Song; and Will Bakke’s The Get Together.

Austin, as it ...

The 27th annual Austin Film Festival has revealed its 2020 virtual lineup, which includes the U.S. premiere of Jonah Malak’s Dave Not Coming Back, and world bows for Paul Kowalski’s Paper Tiger and Felipe Mucci’s Two Deaths of Henry Baker, starring Gil Bellows and Tony Curran.

Aff’s feature slate for the Oct. 22 to 29 event will have 22 world, North American and U.S. premieres, with first looks for Matthew Ya-Hsiung Balzer’s The Catch; Aldo Miyashiro’s Wake Show; Justin Etheredge’s Good; Justin Corsbie’s Hard Luck Love Song; and Will Bakke’s The Get Together.

Austin, as it ...

Sophia Bush's Surveillance is not moving forward at CBS.

The pilot was apparently a hit in early testing, according to Variety, but it was apparently not a good fit for the Eye network.

The proposed series would have centered on the head of communications for the Nsa, a charming operative who finds her loyalties torn between protecting the government’s secrets and her own.

In addition to Bush, the pilot's cast included Allen Leech, Dennis Haysbert, Raphael Acloque, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Matthew Modine, Nick Blood, Spencer Moss, Tina Huang, Judith Scott, Brian Markinson, and Catherine Curtin.

Related: Sophia Bush Departs Chicago Pd

David C. White, who wrote the pilot, confirmed the sad news on Twitter over the weekend.

“Super bummed Surveillance won’t be going forward, but what an incredible experience it has been working with all of these amazing people,” he wrote.

“My girl @SophiaBush is the Queen.

Exclusive: Wu-Tang Clan member and filmmaker RZA and Eric Roberts will co-star opposite Michael Dorman, Sophia Bush, Dermot Mulroney, and Melora Walters in Hard Luck Love Song. The Americana music-inspired indie hails from Synthetic Pictures and Dime Box Entertainment with Justin Corsbie attached to direct from a script he co-wrote with Craig Ugoretz.

The film is based on singer-songwriter Todd Snider’s song Just Like Old Times from his 2006 album The Devil You Know. It follows Jesse (Dorman), a charismatic but down on his luck troubadour, who finds himself at an existential crossroads as his bad decisions catch up with him. His world spins into further upheaval after a chance encounter with Carla (Bush), an old flame.

RZA will play Louis, has an emotional hold on Carla, and even though he comes to Jesse’s aid, he doesn’t want to let Carla out of their complicated relationship. Roberts is Skip,...

In today’s film news roundup, Dermot Mulroney will play a meth head, production wraps on the transgender drama “Relish,” and Tom Everett Scott’s “Danger One” gets a release.

Castings

Dermot Mulroney and Melora Walters have joined the music-inspired independent feature “Hard Luck Love Song” opposite Sophia Bush and Michael Dorman, Variety has learned exclusively.

Commercial director Justin Corsbie will helm from a script he wrote with Nicholl semifinalist Craig Ugoretz, based on the Todd Snider song “Just Like Old Times.” Allison Smith, Douglas Matejka, and Corsbie are producing; executive producers are Peter Scalettar and Christian Monti.

“Hard Luck Love Song” follows Dorman’s down-on-his-luck troubadour, who finds himself at an existential crossroads as his bad decisions catch up with him. His world spins into further upheaval after a chance encounter with an old flame, played by Bush.

Mulroney’s character is a sketchy meth head with a dangerous side.