News

With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options — not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves — we’ve taken it upon ourselves to highlight the titles that have recently hit platforms. Every week, one will be able to see the cream of the crop (or perhaps some simply interesting picks) of streaming titles (new and old) across platforms such as Netflix, iTunes, Amazon, and more (note: U.S. only). Check out our rundown for this week’s selections below.

The Blackcoat’s Daughter (Osgood Perkins)

Osgood Perkins’ debut feature, The Blackcoat’s Daughter – originally known as February at its premiere at Tiff last year – is a stylish exercise in dread, teasing out its slow-drip horrors with precision, and building a deliriously evil presence that hovers along the fringes. However, there’s a thin line between mystery and vagueness in storytelling, and it becomes difficult to decide where a...

Boot Camp lasted five weeks - yes, that's right, five weeks - but tonight, we finally have some progression, and the final 24 are off to Judges' Houses to be whittled down to the final 12. Cheryl takes the Groups to Rome, Simon takes the Overs to the South of France, Rita takes the Girls to La... and Nick takes the Boys to the Cotswolds. Awkward.

Join us from 8pm and we'll bring you all the action live as it happens. We can't wait to comment on all of the judges' interior design prowess (and also, we suppose, whether the acts are any good). In the meantime, here's 8 of the past best ever Judges' Houses moments - we wonder what kind of tears, celebrity cameos and pool-jumping antics we've got in store this evening?

22:22And that's it! It took two and a half hours, but we made it! We're so glad that our favourites 4th Impact,...

In an unprecedented event, the cast of the Star Trek film franchise has created a unique philanthropic initiative in partnership with Omaze. The Star Trek: To Boldly Go campaign will support the cast’s personal selection of nine global causes, which will each receive equal portions of the funds raised when fans enter for a chance to win a walk-on role in director Justin Lin’s Star Trek Beyond, the third film in the blockbuster franchise, which will be released on July 8, 2016. The campaign runs from 12:01 a.m. Pst on July 14, 2015 until 11:59 p.m. Pst September 1, 2015.

To coincide with the campaign’s launch, cast members John Cho, Simon Pegg, Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoë Saldana, Karl Urban, Anton Yelchin and Idris Elba recorded a special video message on the iconic Starship Enterprise bridge set. The video, seen above, kicked off production and features the cast inviting fans to...

In an unprecedented event, the cast of the Star Trek film franchise has created a unique philanthropic initiative in partnership with Omaze.

The Star Trek: To Boldly Go campaign will support the cast’s personal selection of nine global causes, which will each receive equal portions of the funds raised when fans enter for a chance to win a walk-on role in director Justin Lin’s Star Trek Beyond, the third film in the blockbuster franchise, released on July 8, 2016.

The campaign runs from 12:01 a.m. Pst on July 14th until 11:59 p.m. Pst September 1st.

To coincide with the campaign’s launch, cast members John Cho, Simon Pegg, Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoë Saldana, Karl Urban, Anton Yelchin and Idris Elba recorded a special video message on the iconic Starship Enterprise bridge set. The video, released today, kicked off production and features the cast inviting fans to make...

Twilight Time is celebrating its 4th anniversary with a major promotion that sees some of their limited edition titles reduced in price through April 3. These are the titles on sale.

Group 1

Retail price point: $24.95

Picnic

Pal Joey

Bite The Bullet

Bell, Book, And Candle

Bye Bye Birdie

In Like Flint

Major Dundee

The Blue Max

Crimes And Misdemeanors

Used Cars

Thunderbirds Are Go / Thunderbird 6

Group 2

Retail price point: $19.95

Rapture

Roots Of Heaven

Swamp Water

Demetrius And The Gladiators

Desiree

The Wayward Bus

Cover Girl

High Time

The Sound And The Fury

The Rains Of Ranchipur

Bonjour Tristesse

Beloved Infidel

Lost Horizon

The Blue Lagoon

Experiment In Terror

Nicholas And Alexandra

Pony Soldier

The Song Of Bernadette

Philadelphia

The Only Game In Town

Love Is A Many Splendored Thing

Sleepless In Seattle

The Disappearance

Sexy Beast

Drums Along The Mohawk

Alamo Bay

The Other

Mindwarp

Jane Eyre

Oliver

The Way We Were...

By her own admission, Sarah Silverman wasn’t prepared for her last stint on “Saturday Night Live,” which only lasted 18 total episodes. But was it really a matter of her not being prepared, or simply that her brand of comedy has never matched up with that of the show? That doesn’t make one brand better than another, but certainly produces a potentially odd mix when the two sides reunite tonight. If the show can write to her strengths rather than force her into an uncomfortable mode, this could be quite the unique episode. If not…well, last week’s premiere was pretty good, right? (And I’ve already bought tons of swag from the “Pam 2: The Winter Pam” online store.) Along for the ride tonight is musical guest Maroon 5. As always, I’ll grade each sketch live as they occur. As always, a vocal minority will take...

Bill Hader on “SNL” newbie Pete Davidson: "I told Lorne Michaels about him” Davidson, the breakout star of "SNL's" season premiere, has a small part in Hader and Amy Schumer’s movie “Trainwreck” from director Judd Apatow. "I told Lorne Michaels about him, said he was really funny,” says Hader. "And then they auditioned him for a piece, and Lorne called me to say Pete got the show. I was like, ‘Oh my God, that’s wonderful!’” Then, Hader says Michaels surprised him with a question: “And then he said, “Uh, also, do you want to host?’ It was a total afterthought!” Plus: See Davidson, Hader and Schumer together on the set of "Trainwreck." “The Simpsons” paid a brief tribute to Joan Rivers Rivers was a last-minute addition to the season premiere, appearing in a mythical “Jewish Heaven.” Says exec producer Al Jean: "About a week after she passed away,...

By Jennica Lynn Johnson

Does possession happen to people in real life? Is the Devil real? Tears streaming down my face, those were the kinds of questions weighing heavily on my mind after my first viewing of The Exorcist (1973). The fear of becoming Satan’s next vessel was instilled in me at nine years old.

Since its 1973 release, The Exorcist inspired the production of many copycat films with Beyond the Door (1974) aka Che Sei? being the “most commercially successful,” according to Nikolas Schreck, author of The Satanic Screen: An Illustrated Guide to the Devil in Cinema. In fact, Beyond the Door star Juliet Mills confessed that the film was believed to resemble The Exorcist so closely that Warner Bros. had to be paid approximately $90 million. Although still loaded with as much shock value as The Exorcist, Beyond the Door reveals a sneakier, more seductive side to satanic culture and there...

The Following Episode 207

“Sacrifice”

Written By: Scott Reynolds

Directed By: Adam Davidson

Original Airdate: 3 March 2014

In This Episode…

Joe, Emma, and Mandy drive out to a gate in the middle of nowhere to wait for Robert. He was a Roderick recruit, and he is part of another cult. Joe assumes they will be a vulnerable group, easily swayed, but he admits he is “winging it.” They are greeted by eager young Robert - and a handful of armed militia-types, led by a woman named Julia. She demands they humble themselves and drop to their knees, hands behind their backs. The go with it, are zip-tied, hooded, and tossed into vans. Once inside the compound, they are ordered to strip and shower, “divesting” themselves of their belongings and identities. Mandy is scared; Joe tells her to go along with it.

Joe and his girls are dressed in white robes and plain white masks.

When you think of the movies you really love, your memories of a great many of them are probably linked, in one way or another, to music. Yet movies and music remain, at least in our heads, beautifully complimentary yet distinct things, like food and wine, or football and big TVs. They shouldn’t, though. A musical, of course, is its own special mashup. Yet there are so many other incredible ways that movies and music can merge. The title sequence of Singin’ in the Rain is a great number — and so, in its way, is Ewan McGregor’s performance...

Connect with Breezy @ facebook – twitter and www.philosofreaky.com

Something Breezy this way comes…

Well the time is here, we have hired a new contributor, and it’s pretty exciting times once again for the City of Films.

Bree Emmerson (hereafter to be referred to as Breezy) has been a long time reader and supporter of CoF so it’s only fitting that she finally join our team as we embark on our tenth year in 2014. In the short time that I’ve known Bree I came to realize at least one simple truth about her, she’s busy.

She’s a creative being who should inspire all of us to make it a 25 hour day. Then you get into science and the earth rotations and I get tired. Trust me though when I tell you she’s always on the go.

Breezy lives to learn and educate; she’s a multi-talented,...

In September 1997, my first year covering the Toronto Film Festival as an earnest young accredited journalist, I wrote the following: "I'm not sure how many years it has been going on, but one of the most enjoyable things that I've discovered at this year's festival are the 'Midnight Madness' screenings. The programmers have amassed an eclectic, diverse program ... this is the true spirit of the festival."

What I hadn't quite caught onto was that Midnight Madness, the Tiff showcase for the weird and the wonderful, had been going on for a decade by that point. Originally programmed by Noah Cowan (who would eventually become co-director of the Fest and is now the Artistic Director for Tiff's Bell Lightbox Theatre), this internationally renowned subsection of Tiff's film selection has grown under the steady hand of Colin Geddes, who started that same year I first discovered the programme's magic.

On this,...

South By Southwest is largely awesome as a condition of place. Austin is an amazing case study that has much going right. It is a city of filmmakers, lovers and scholars with public and private support. An organization with the most visible influence is the Austin Film Society, which sponsors filmmaker financially through the new Texas Filmmakers Fund (partly funding two strong films I saw – Where Soldiers Come From and Five Time Champion) amongst other initiatives. I think SXSW Film has grown partly because Texas filmmaking has grown. There is a large display of strong work including the festival’s Lone Star States showcase. This is as much a local festival as it a national festival (and shockingly less so an international festival, with very little work from other non-traditional Hollywood funding bodies like Europe).

The flexibility of SXSW to discover new voices is one of their leading strengths. If...

Hollywood lost a legend today when two-time Academy Award winner Elizabeth Taylor finally succumbed to a long illness. Though the star of films like Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof passed away just hours ago, notable personalities have already taken to Twitter to post messages of remembrance and celebration. We’ll be adding to this post as the day goes on and more celebs tweet about the violet-eyed star — who, by the way, had a Twitter account of her own: @DameElizabeth. Her last tweet was sent out February 9, right before she was hospitalized for congestive heart failure.

Lucky us. The untitled Bond 23 just got a release date (here) at long last, and we’re really excited here at Killer Film. Along with the exotic locations, the gadgets, the cars,the theme song, the license to kill, we especially love the Bond Girls. Whether they’re the main character or a sexy supporting one, the Bond Girl is one of the most important aspects. It’s still to early to know who will be cast as the Bond Girls in Bond 23, but that’s why we are here. Donny Broussard and Jon Peters offer their picks at actresses they would love to see in a Bond Girl role!

Jon’s Picks:

- Freida Pinto (from Slumdog Millionaire, Rise of the Apes)

To me, she is the most obvious choice. Young, gorgeous, and can really act, Freida Pinto could be a main star in the upcoming film.

I don’t think there is a singular film-maker I’ve found myself having written more about than Australia’s own Dr. George Miller. And now, writing this, I’m still not quite certain of the best way to introduce him, if indeed such a thing is necessary at all. The last of cinema’s thoroughly modern myth-makers – those implicit, anthropological followers of Campbell and Jung, before George Lucas arrived and gunked up the works with his clunky concretizations – and a college lecturer on the indelible powers of those myths on our collectives psyches and their places in modern cinema, in his spare time. The single-handed spokesman for Australia’s burgeoning film industry, and their self-proclaimed answer to our own Steven Spielberg – although, that’s an arguable comparison, I think. Here is a director whose output has equaled one film in the past ten years – and, just one other film...

The Vancouver International Film Festival is my baby. In its 29th year, this is the event I look forward to every year. The lists I've kept through the year come out and I eagerly look through the list of titles in search of those little gems and every year Viff responds with a huge assortment of titles. This year's festival is no different.

Some of the titles we're most eagerly anticipating include Tsumetai Nettaigyo’s Cold Fish (trailer), Gareth Edwards’ Monsters (trailer, review), Jo Sung-Hee’s apocalyptic road movie End of Animal, Carl Bessai’s Repeaters (trailer) and Xavier Dolan's Heartbeats (trailer, review).

There's loads more so be sure to check the titles (so far) after the break. Many more to be announced in the coming days.

Canadian Images

Altitude (Kaare Andrews), B.C.

View trailer

A weekend getaway aboard a small plane turns deadly for a rookie pilot and four teenage friends.

We never thought we'd see "7th Heaven's" Reverend Camden kissing dudes, but stranger things have happened... maybe. Stephen Collins, best known for his million years on The WB's family fare, is headed to "Brothers & Sisters" as a love interest for Uncle Saul (Ron Rifkin).

Sources tell E! Online that producers are hoping to turn Collins' role into a multi-episode arc. ABC owns this guy right now -- he's a regular on the upcoming superhero family show "No Ordinary Family," and has enjoyed a recurring role as Addison's (Kate Walsh) father on "Private Practice."

Saul's love life, which has always been a rocky road, just got further complicated in the season finale, when he discovered that he contracted HIV many years earlier. Though he was free of symptoms in the finale, there's no telling where his health will be when Season 5 begins on Sept 26, since a year has passed since we last saw the Walkers.

Nathaniel: And so we come to the top film in our List O' Impatience called "We Can't Wait: Summer and Beyond" There's still neither trailer nor official stills. With Malick, you always have to wait. Even when you feel you can't.

The Tree of Life

Directed by Terrence Malick

Starring Brad Pitt, Jessica Chastain and Fiona Shaw (in the 1950s) Sean Penn and Joanna Going (in present day)

Synopsis (don't read if you don't wanna know the very basic template) Malick has described the film as a "mystical epic". There's rumored to be a section of the film about prehistoric Earth. But most of what we know is that it's a story in two main parts. First, a story about the eldest boy in a young family in the 1950s (Brad Pitt is the father) and the loss of innocence. The second part is about the boy as a disillusioned...

Another year has come and nearly gone, which means it’s once again that time of year to reflect on the cornucopia of movies released in theaters over the last 12 months. While we’re all eager to find out what movies rank amongst the best of 2009, the Movie Geeks prefer to start with the bad news and finish with the good news. So, this week we pull all the stops and lay out the Bottom Ten Worst Movies of 2009.

10. Whiteout

There’s pretty much only one thing this thriller (in name only) has plenty of. White. It’s not exciting. It’s not suspenseful. It doesn’t make you care one iota whether anyone lives or dies. It’s really one of those movies that, at the end of the day, is just a waste of space, time, and money. When your “thriller” gets its culminating action scenes and suspense...

Director Peter Jackson has had one of the most unusual journeys in contemporary film history, going from frantic micro-budgeted shock-horror-comedy grossouts shot in his native New Zealand in the mid-80s to helming some of the biggest-budgeted and highest-grossing screen fantasies ever, notably the once-deemed impossible-to-film Lord of the Rings trilogy. His latest picture is an adaptation of the horrific and hopeful afterlife saga The Lovely Bones, based on Alice Sebold’s best-selling novel about a young girl’s quest for peace and resolution in the wake of her brutal rape and murder.

Jackson graciously consented to entertain questions from The Auteurs community members for a brief interview, which was conducted by Notebook contributor and former Premiere film critic Glenn Kenny. We were able to successfully pitch five questions; they, and their answers, follow.

***

Kyle St-amour-brennan asks: What are your thoughts on the current economic climate in relation to film production?...

Burbank – Chat Fatigue is coming.

Forget swine flu (or H1N1); Chat Fatigue will be the sickness that will overtake millions this fall. The group most susceptible to this are NBC viewers. Now that Jay Leno will be taking over the 10 p.m. slot from Monday to Friday (starting Sept. 14) on the Peacock network, viewers will get four hours of people sitting behind desks and talking directly to the camera.

Can the average viewer really handle going from Leno to local news to Conan O’Brien to Jimmy Fallon to Carson Daly? How many guys in suits and ties sitting behind a desk do you want to experience after an 8 hours of work day with guys in suits and ties sitting behind desks? They’re all going to stare at you through the boob tube and jibber jabber. Kinda like the doofus with the desk next to you at work.

Rob Hunter loves movies.  He also loves working as Jack Burton's favorite mechanic helping to keep the Pork Chop Express tuned to a 6.9 on the Richter scale.  These two joys come together in the form of cash money payments that he receives every week and immediately uses to buy more DVDs.  So join us each week as he takes a look at new DVD releases and gives his highly unqualified opinion as to which titles are worth BUYing, which are better off as RENTals, and which should be AVOIDed at all costs. A quick (and fairly obvious) disclaimer:  The main purpose behind this column is to highlight the various new DVD releases each week.  The division of the titles into Buy, Rent, or Avoid categories is based on many things... the quality of the movie or show, the quality of the extra features, and the replay value of the content overall.  The...

The International Association of Media Tie-In Writers is pleased to announce this year's nominees for the 2009 Scribe Awards, which honor excellence in licensed tie-in writing—novels based on TV shows, movies, comics, and games. In addition, Keith R.A. DeCandido, whose Farscape series for Boom! has just gone to third printings on the first two issues and a second printing on #3, will be awarded the Iamtw Grandmaster Award at the awards ceremony at the San Diego Comic-Con-- assuming he can get a hotel room.

The nominees for this year's awards are:

Best General Fiction Original

Burn Notice: The Fix by Tod Goldberg

Criminal Minds: Finishing School by Max Allan Collins

CSI: Headhunter by Greg Cox

Best General Fiction Adapted

Death Defying Acts by Greg Cox

Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull by James Rollins

The Tudors: King Takes Queen by Elizabeth Massie

The Wackness by Dale C.

"The Insider" has the updated list of the 51st Annual Grammy Award winners as they come in! See the winners names below underlined. For recordings released during the Eligibility Year: October 1, 2007 through September 30, 2008: Record Of The Year -Chasing Pavements/Adele -Viva La Vida/Coldplay -Bleeding Love/Leona Lewis -Paper Planes/M.I.A -Please Read The Letter/Robert Plant & Alison Krauss Album Of The Year -Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends/Coldplay -Tha Carter III/Lil Wayne -Year Of The Gentleman/Ne-Yo -Raising Sand/Robert Plant & Alison Krauss -In Rainbows/Radiohead Song Of The Year -American Boy/William Adams, Keith Harris, Josh Lopez, Caleb Speir, John Stephens, Estelle Swaray & Kanye West, songwriters (Estelle) -Chasing Pavements/Adele Adkins & Eg White, songwriters (Adele) -I'm Yours/Jason Mraz, songwriter (Jason Mraz) -Love Song/Sara Bareilles, songwriter (Sara Bareilles) -Viva La Vida/Guy Berryman, Jonny Buckland, Will Champion & Chris Martin,...

"Tha Carter III"? Not even close. Try "Tha Carter VIII."

New Orleans rapper Lil Wayne, who is on track to have the best-selling album of 2008, also leads the nominations for the 51st annual Grammy Awards with eight, including album of the year for "Tha Carter III."

Right on his heels is British rock quartet Coldplay with seven, including album of the year. The band's "Viva la Vida" was released a week after "Tha Carter," and the two controlled the top two spots of the Billboard 200 for five weeks in the summer.

Jay-z and Kanye West grabbed six noms each, as did Ne-Yo, including album of the year for "Year of the Gentleman."

"When I was putting (the album) together, I was trying to do something that more people would enjoy besides my pop and R&B core," Ne-Yo said. "I wanted to do something the whole world could enjoy."

The...