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Harmony Korine met photographer Larry Clark while he was still a teenage skater bumming about Greenwich Village in New York. Clark and Korine began talking, and Clark revealed that he wanted a screenplay, written with an authentic point of view, all about modern, largely unsupervised teens and the way they wrestle with the AIDS crisis. Korine was happy to participate, and wrote the screenplay for the highly controversial "Kids," released in 1995. "Kids" was dark and edgy at the time, as it was incredibly frank about the sex lives of high school students. Even today, opinions on the film are mixed. 

Korine, however, instantly became a new Enfant Terrible in the indie cinema world, and made his directorial debut in 1997 with "Gummo," a stylized poverty drama about a random assortment of oversexed and undereducated Ohioans recovering from a recent tornado. He followed that film with "julien donkey-boy" in 1999, which he made...

U.S. director and artist Harmony Korine, whose films include “Gummo,” “Spring Breakers” and “Beach Bum” – which stars Matthew McConaughey as a stoner poet named Moondog – is being honored by the Locarno Film Festival with its Pardo d’onore Manor lifetime achievement award.

Born in Bolinas, California, in 1974, Harmony Korine broke out in the filmmaking world in 1995 when he wrote the screenplay for Larry Clark’s controversial “Kids.” In 1997 he made his directorial debut with “Gummo,” a realistic look at youth alienation in America, for which he won awards at the Venice Film Festival’s Critics’ Week and at the Rotterdam fest.

In 1998, he directed his first music video for the song “Sunday” by Sonic Youth, starring Macaulay Culkin. The same year Korine published his debut novel “A Crack-Up at the Race Riots.”

Korine’s second feature “Julien Donkey-Boy,” the experimentally told story of a schizophrenic, went to Venice in...

Stars: Matthew McConaughey, Snoop Dogg, Isla Fisher, Stefania Lavie Owen, Martin Lawrence, Zac Efron, Jonah Hill, Donovan St V. Williams, Clinton Archambault, Jerry Ascione, Ricardo Matallana, Joshua Ritter | Written and Directed by Harmony Korine

The Beach Bum is directed by independent auteur filmmaker Harmony Korine and his first feature film in a seven-year interval after his critically abolished but cult classic feature Spring Breakers, that gave the filmmaker a second wind of sorts after a decade of influence in the 90s with Kids, Gummo and Julien Donkey-Boy. His latest – structurally speaking – is a complete disaster but this a Harmony Korine film and the truly outlandish provocative nature is superbly chaotic and downright outrageously infectious. A terrific hangout film with one very unique superb leading character of Moondog, expertly performed by Matthew McConaughey.

As stated above, the structure utilised by Korine and editor Douglas Crise is virtually non-existent. Forget about act...

Close-Up is a feature that spotlights films now playing on Mubi. Harmony Korine's Mister Lonely (2007) is showing March 24 - April 23, 2018 and Trash Humpers (2009) from March 25 - April 24, 2018 on Mubi in the United States. The schizoid characters populating Harmony Korine’s very literally titled Trash Humpers are too busy fornicating with trees and trash cans to talk, but when they do, they speak in thought-provoking tongues. As the writer/director’s 2009 feature comes to an end, a character interrupts a late-night vandalism spree to deliver a subdued monologue: “When I drive here at night I can smell the pain of people… smell how they are just trapped… it hurts me to think they’re all living such balanced lives.”Should there be a manifesto to the grotesque philosophy embraced by the humpers, this will probably be it. Premiered at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival (and winner of the Dox award...

Following his star turn in “Gold,” actor Matthew McConaughey will star in “The Dark Tower,” an adaptation of Stephen King’s acclaimed series of novels by the same name, but McConaughey already has another film in the pipeline. According to Variety, McConaughey will star in Harmony Korine’s new film “The Beach Bum.” Principal photography is set to begin this July.

Read More: Matthew McConaughey Says ‘It’s Time For Us To Embrace’ Donald Trump

The film follows the adventures of Moondog, “a rebellious and lovable rogue who lives life large,” according to a statement. Producer John Lesher says that, “Harmony has crafted the perfect movie for our dark and serious time — a refreshingly original, irreverent, and hilarious stoner comedy that only he could create.”

Korine first rose to fame writing Larry Clark’s “Kids,” a controversial independent film about a group of New York City teenagers. He later directed films like “Gummo,...

In between working on his upcoming features, “The Trap,” with Benicio del Toro and Al Pacino, and “Tampa,” an adaptation of Alissa Nutting’s novel by the same name, Harmony Korine directed NBA Mvp Stephen Curry in a new Under Armour advertisement titled “Make That Old.”

Set to “Nobody Knows” by T.L. Barrett and the Youth for Christ Choir, the spot features young fans commenting on the Golden State Warriors player about how he was criticized for being too small, living in his father’s shadow, then praising him for his achievements. Curry then enters a glowing neon pink court, dribbles, does some practice runs and continues to train.

The commercial, which has the Harmony-style dark, gritty, neon vibe, is meant to promote Curry’s newest shoe in his sneaker line. It’s also a way to show that he’s put the Warriors’ loss in the 2016 NBA Finals behind him.

Brogan Morris Oct 20, 2016

Werner Herzog's villainous turn in the first Jack Reacher movie is the Bond villain we've been missing...

This article contains spoilers for the first Jack Reacher movie, and for Spectre.

It stars Tom Cruise, driving a muscle car at traffic at the height of his reckless stunts phase. It has a stellar supporting cast of Oscar winners (Robert Duvall), nominees (Rosamund Pike, Richard Jenkins), and shoulda-been-nominees (David Oyelowo, two years before he gave one of the performances of the century in Selma). It’s written and directed by the Academy Award-winning Christopher McQuarrie, and adapted from a book in a remarkably popular series of them. And yet, despite all that pedigree, action franchise-kickstarter Jack Reacher remains curiously forgettable.

Reacher, which has sequel Jack Reacher: Never Go Back out this Friday, is a serviceable actioner, no more no less. Still, if you remember the film at all,...

Director Harmony Korine and Gucci Mane have teamed up for a new ad for the apparel brand, Supreme. Filmed at the rapper’s home, the one-minute clip starts off with him playing the piano, singing and talking about the brand. Gucci, dressed in white shirt with the Supreme logo, red pants and scarf, talks about his shopping habits and how he never goes into the store, just simply online shops and “hits the button.”

At the end of the video, the rapper is seen entering his recording studio and jamming to some music. Both Gucci and Korine worked together on the 2012 film “Spring Breakers.” The director also recently visited him while he was in prison at the beginning of the year.

Read More: Rihanna’s “Needed Me” Video: Watch The Nsfw Harmony Korine-Directed, 4/20-Themed Clip

The indie helmer is known for his cult classics such as “Gummo” and “Julien Donkey-Boy.

Though he's remained prolific as a filmmaker ("Queen Of The Desert" will hit next year, and he's already gearing up on "Vernon God Little"), Werner Herzog has become strangely in demand as an actor as well in recent years. The filmmaker cropped up occasionally in German cinema, but from the late 1990s, with "What Dreams May Come" and more notably Harmony Korine's "Julien Donkey-Boy," he has appeared increasingly in American film and TV. The German directing legend has lent his voice to "The Simpsons," "Metalocalpyse," the upcoming "Penguins Of Madagascar," Miyazaki's "The Wind Rises" and even played the villain in Tom Cruise actioner "Jack Reacher." But it sounds like we'll be seeing him on a small screen in one of the unlikelier possible venues, in a cameo on NBC's long-running, sweet-natured sitcom "Parks & Recreation." According to Flavorwire (via the Av Club), Herzog...

Virtuoso devisers of works of science fiction envision a reality that is both fantastical and palpable. They mold metaphoric manifestations of the coming times that are inevitable considering the current carryings-on of their fellow man.

Nowadays, none of these visions are utopian. Dystopian nightmares are plaguing our literary works and cinemas, reflecting the inoperativeness besetting our governmental institutions, the greed swathing our unassailable international corporations, and the zealous indifference of our neighbors.

But has it ever been any different? Metropolis (1926), The Time Machine (1960), A Clockwork Orange (1971), Soylent Green (1973), Blade Runner (1982) and Dark City (1998) all were forerunners of The Hunger Games, Divergent, and even the Transformer series.

Now the Korean auteur Bong Joon Ho, who's never perused humanity through rose-colored glasses (e.g. The Host (2006); Mother (2009)), has adapted the French graphic novel, Le Transperceneige, and the result is gleefully entertaining and conceptually refreshing.

In the year 2014, the world's leaders, to combat...

We are now officially half way through the year and so I’ve asked our staff to vote for their favourite films released thus far. Hollywood blockbusters may have disappointed us, but thankfully we can always rely on independent filmmakers to create some truly inspiring films. Rounding out the special mentions is Terrence Malick’s To The Wonder, Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel, and Cate Shortland’s Lore – all missing the cut by a couple of points.

****

#15: Iron Man 3 (24 points)

Directed by Shane Black

Written by Drew Pearce & Shane Black

USA, 2013

Fun has become a slightly forgotten commodity in the summer blockbuster, with many studios and filmmakers now inspired by the efforts of directors like Christopher Nolan to be as grim as possible. The modern superhero often has to be angst-ridden or otherwise mentally scarred to make an impact on audiences, so it’s a pleasant surprise...

Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: July 9, 2013

Price: DVD $21.98, Blu-ray $27.99

Studio: Lionsgate

James Franco and the gals get their party on in Spring Breakers.

The colorful, bikini-and-nudity filled comedy-drama film Spring Breakers stars one-time child stars Selena Gomez (Monte Carlo) and Vanessa Hudgens (Sucker Punch) who are revealed to be all grown up with their latest film.

The two are joined by co-stars Rachel Korine (The Fourth Dimension) and Ashley Benson (TV’s Pretty Little Liars) as a quartet of childhood friends and college students who decide to head down St. Petersburg for the annual rites of spring break. To obtain the funds for their journey, two of the gals rob a fast food restaurant using hammers and realistic-looking squirt guns, prompting their a “vacation” the includes more crime, extensive drinking, run-ins with the law and a fateful encounter with a St. Pete-based rapper and hood by the name of Alien (James Franco,...

Spring Breakers has wowed some audiences and weirded out others, which is about what you.d expect from the most recent film from director and writer Harmony Korine, whose past work includes Kids and Julien Donkey-Boy. The flick is still making its way through theaters, but if this is one you plan to catch at home, you.ll be able to do so when Lionsgate Home Entertainment brings the film to Blu-ray and DVD on July 9. Korine.s work this time around has attracted a pretty stellar cast, including James Franco, former Disney darlings Vanessa Hudgens and Selena Gomez, Ashley Benson, and Rachel Korine. The flick starts with a robbery, runs through plenty of the spring break rites of passage, and focuses on the criminal underbelly of a city. That.s a lot to pack into a film with a runtime of 94 minutes, and Spring Breakers makes the most of...

Maybe it's our fault for watching too many late-night talk shows in the late 1990s (to be fair this writer was in his pre-teens, and also on the wrong continent) but we'd never in a million years have thought that Harmony Korine, the one-time enfant terrible of the independent world as the writer of "Kids" and director of "Gummo" and "Julien Donkey-Boy," would be a popular figure on the late-night circuit. But as his latest film, "Spring Breakers," becomes a surprise hit (it's already comprehensively outgrossed everything Korine's ever made up to this point), it turns out that Korine actually did frequent that circuit, appearing on David Letterman's "Late Show" three times between 1995 and 1998 as a sort of boho freakshow act, but has seemingly been the subject of an infamous ban for unknown reasons since then. But Letterman had "Spring Breakers" star James Franco on his show last night,...

Spring Breakers

Starring James Franco, Selena Gomez, Vanessa Hudgens

Directed By: Harmony Korine

Rated R

After nearly 20 years in the film industry, beginning with his screenplay for Larry Clark’s Kids in 1995, Harmony Korine has made what’s easily his most accessible and straightforward film since his daring debut. However, bear in mind that this comparison comes in regards to the avant-garde works like Gummo and Julien Donkey-Boy that the director made his name on. In this run Korine is working with a cavalcade of teen stars including High School Musical’s Vanessa Hudgens, Disney starlet Selena Gomez, Pretty Little Liars’ Ashley Benson and Harmony Korine’s own wife, Rachel Korine.

Spring Breakers is still a mess, a hot mess in fact. It’s not unlike some wild party from your college days that you only vaguely remember and you’re not quite sure whether you had a good time or not,...

The annual exodus of American students to beach resorts has become a raucous rite of passage. Harmony Korine's new film has a surreal take on the mayhem

Four pretty girls in swimsuits doing wrong in an orgy of lust and violence: it's an all-American movie fantasy to cheer any Hollywood executive.

In the hands of Harmony Korine, the rebellious auteur behind the ground-breaking Kids, and featuring Disney starlets Selena Gomez, Vanessa Hudgens and Ashley Benson as well as James Franco, Spring Breakers promises to be one of the most unusual, challenging mainstream films of the season.

Suggestive "slo-mo" shots of young women enjoying the eroticised rituals of one of America's student rites of passage – the riotous spring vacation – may suggest Korine is straying dangerously close to a teen exploitation movie. But then again, Korine's observation of spring break and its staples of sun, drinking, drugs and teenage hormones, could...

Directed by: Harmony Korine

Written by: Harmony Korine

Featuring: Selena Gomez, Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Benson, Rachel Korine, James Franco

So, yeah, Harmony Korine.

Love him or hate him, Korine is one of those filmmakers everyone has an opinion about. Is he a visionary genius? An overrated hack? Whatever he is, one thing is certain: His movies arouse such polarizing opinions because they are typically pretty odd. And his latest flick, Spring Breakers, might just be the oddest so far due to the fact that it's so, well, normal.

The former cinematic brat is now a 40-year-old man, and much like his mentor, Larry Clark, he's still turning out flicks about troubled young people. But the kids of Spring Breakers have much more ordinary problems than the characters who populated Gummo and Julien Donkey-Boy. In fact, Spring Breakers is likely the most conventional project he's been involved in since he wrote Clark's Kids,...

Tags: Spring BreakersIMDbAshley BensonHeather MorrisSelena GomezVanessa HudgensRachel Korine

Spring Breakers is not a teen movie. I repeat, not a teen movie. Get rid of any notions you have of the film based on its stars, Disney darlings Vanessa Hudgens, Selena Gomez and Pretty Little Liars’ Ashley Benson. In fact, these fresh-faced beauties smash through their perceived personas like a baseball bat through grandma’s fine china. (Heather Morris even pops in for a brief, and unexpected cameo.)

The movie starts out with the girls stuck on their college campus during spring session. Turns out they haven’t saved enough scratch to get them to Florida for spring break, and the boredom and pent up aggression is beginning to mount. Three of the girls, Brit (Benson), Candy (Hudgens,) and Cotty (Rachel Korine) come up with a plan to solve their problems. It’s the ease in which they come to this...

If you regularly attend your local arthouse theater, you're likely to have heard the name of "Harmony Korine." Maybe you've even seen some of his sporadic filmography that ranges from reputable films like Julien Donkey-Boy and Larry Clark's Kids (which Korine wrote) to more divisive ones like Gummo and Trash Humpers . and in the latter cases, you may have sworn to never pay to see one of his movies ever again. To those latter people, Korine's latest film Spring Breakers may come as a bit of a surprise since it's a shockingly accessible crime thriller, starring no less than former Disney Channel stars Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudgens as two of four friends--along with Ashley Benson and Korine's wife Rachel--who travel down to St. Petersburg, Florida for spring...

Harmony Korine is best known as the director of resolutely uncommercial art flicks like Gummo, Julien Donkey-Boy, and Trash Humpers, but his oeuvre takes a seriously giddy turn with the colorful new babes-in-bikinis crime flick Spring Breakers, starring James Franco and Selena Gomez. "In the way that it was exciting for those stars to come to my side, it was exciting for me to go to that side as well," confesses Korine, who's made the most mainstream film of his career in Spring Breakers. Still, don't get it twisted: This is still an utterly insane, psychedelic, art-movie fantasia. And though barely legal Florida debauchery may seem like an unlikely subject for Korine to tackle, it's actually a key strand in his DNA. "Growing up in Tennessee, spring break was just part of the culture," he says. "In high school, everyone would jump in a car and drive from Nashville to...

New York's Museum of the Moving Image is preparing a full retrospective of the films of controversial independent director Harmony Korine, running from March 8-22. While none of Korine's writing collaboration with director Larry Clark will be shown, the series will include screenings of all five of Korine's directorial features, including a special advance screening of the upcoming "Spring Breakers" with Korine in attendance on March 12th. Read More: Spring Break Comes Early This Year "Gummo" will open the series, followed by screenings of "Mister Lonely," "Julien Donkey-boy," and "Trash Humpers," which will close the series. Admission to each screening, excluding "Spring Breakers," which requires a separate ticket purchase, is included with a ticket to the museum on any screening day.  For those not able to attend the retrospective, "Spring Breakers," will be released...

Side By Side

Written by Christopher Kenneally

Directed by Christopher Kenneally

USA, 2012

A reasonably comprehensive primer on the rise of digital film and its implications on every facet of filmmaking, exhibition, and conservation, Side by Side manages to corral enough of the film world’s most outspoken filmmakers, as well as a less-familiar but equally influential collection of editors, DPs, colorists, effects supervisors, and industry types, that its attempt to summarize such a massive issue mostly holds together while only occasionally feeling like an infomercial for contemporary moviegoing.

Buoyed by a balance of film cips, archival footage, and new interviews, producer and host Keanu Reeves eases into the specifics of photochemical film shooting and exhibition, carefully laying out the joys and difficulties of a science that remained more or less unchanged for a century, before chronicling the evolution of digital film, from its invention to its first uses in serious filmmaking.

In theory, Spring Breakers could possibly be the most .out there. release of the year, and it.s still the beginning of February. Anything coming from the dark and dangerous mind of Harmony Korine is bound to turn heads while turning some away in the process. To have written such polarizing films such as Kids, Julien Donkey-Boy, and most recently Trash Humpers, Korine has one of the most singularly distinct imaginations in cinema. Spring Breakers is his most conventionally-conceived film to date, and boasts a bevy of stars stepping outside of their comfort zone for their roles. These controversial characters are the subjects of a bunch of new French theatrical posters, courtesy of French website Ecranlarge. Take a look... Everybody is mostly dressed the same as they were in the other posters, but each character gets their own shot at trying to look hot. Whatever your own opinion of young...

I’ve never been a fan of Harmony Korine’s films. While I can appreciate the fact that he’s trying to do something different, films like “Gummo” and “Julien Donkey-Boy” have always left me cold. His upcoming film, “Spring Breakers”, however, looks fucking fantastic. Just check out the latest red band trailer for the star-studded affair. The cast of “Spring Breakers” isn’t what you would normally expect from one of Korine’s projects. James Franco isn’t a surprise; he’s down to participate in pretty much whatever weird ass hipster movies are coming out. But what about teenybopper princesses like Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudgens? Granted, “Spring Breakers” was probably an absolute blast to make, but this isn’t exactly what you anticipate from the Disney Channel alums. It, too, is also something completely different for them, what with the drugs, violence, nudity, and curse words. Here...

Odd List Ryan Lambie Jan 8, 2013

As Werner Herzog lights up the screen as the villain in Jack Reacher, we look at a few other directors who've turned evil for the movies...

It takes a certain kind of actor to bring a truly great villain to life. They need to be able to reach into the darkest recesses of their psyche, certainly, but they also need to bring a touch of something extra, too. They need to convince us not only that they're cruel, but that they're also human beings - after all, the best movie villains are often seductive and magnetic as well as unspeakably amoral.

While the finest antagonists are usually played by actors, there have been occasions where directors have stepped in front of the camera to indulge their inner demon. The list that follows attempts to deal exclusively with performances from people known primarily as directors first,...

Director Werner Herzog has had a long career in both feature filmmaking and documentary filmmaking, with critical acclaim in both fields throughout the years. Occasionally, however, he has also decided to step in front of the camera, notably in several movies written and directed by other individuals, his biggest role coming in Harmony Korine’s 1999 feature Julien Donkey-Boy. Herzog, however, has never played an action movie villain, so the announcement that he’d signed on to the lead antagonist role in the movie adaptation of Lee Child’s novel One Shot, titled Jack Reacher were announced, many were surprised at the choice. Tom Cruise takes on the titular role, with Rosamund Pike, Jai Courtney, David Oyelowo, Richard Jenkins, and Robert Duvall joining the cast. A new trailer for the movie has now been released, and can be seen below.

Spring Breakers

Written by Harmony Korine

Directed by Harmony Korine

USA, 2012

Harmony Korine’s Spring Breakers is a frenzied cornucopia of sex, drugs, alcohol, and neon hued imagery; further proof that the 39-year-old filmmaker continues to operate under the guise of his own dynamic form. Known for such films as Gummo, Julien Donkey-Boy, and Trash Humpers, Korine has at once made his most commercial film while also displaying a tangible maturity as a filmmaker – doing so in the only way he knows how.

The dynamic cast is mainly comprised of a foursome of small-town girls looking to shed their boredom and cut loose on spring break in Florida: Faith (Gomez), Brit (Benson), Candy (Hudgens), and Cotty (Rachel), Korine’s wife. Looking to score some extra cash to fund their trip, the girls knock of a diner much to the chagrin of Faith who dismisses the act at first, but eventually...

Spring Breakers

Written by Harmony Korine

Directed by Harmony Korine

USA, 2012

One of the more highly publicized entries in this year’s festival thanks to the Gummo and Julien Donkey-Boy director Harmony Korine’s instantly notorious casting of bubblegum sensations Selena Gomez, Vanessa Hudgens and Ashley Benson, Spring Breakers is a part-comedy, part-horror, part-cautionary tale – like Scarface meets The Real Cancun. Four particularly impressionable teens escape to an exaggerated version of St. Petersburg, Florida to cut loose on the beach during Spring Break, eventually meeting a hustler called Alien (James Franco) who changes their lives.

For our establishing plunge in to this world Korine thrusts us headlong in to a heedless, animalistic rut – a reservoir of excess sexual energy and booze – not unlike the comparatively tame but similarly intentioned Spring Break content broadcast annually on MTV. This unforgiving sequence of unsupervised youth’s media-cultivated behavior, insignificantly triumphant sexism and enthusiastic self-objectification,...

In the omnibus film The Fourth Dimension, Brooklyn based Vice Magazine along with commercial company Grolsch Film Works dispatched three filmmakers to tackle on a subject matter that must have been elicited from a hazy drug fueled debate. At least that is how it seems to deal with its abstract subject matter, the concept of the fourth dimension otherwise known as the unification of space and time, or space-time continuum. Apropos to cinema, the concept seems to fit perfectly and offers up a treasure trove of possibilities both scientific and philosophical. But the lack of cohesiveness to each short film make the overall structure a chore to get through and will leave you scratching your head in bewilderment rather than having deep philosophical conversations about space and time.

The opening short film, and arguably the best of the bunch, is Harmony Korine’s The Lotus Community Workshop starring Val Kilmer as himself.

Last Friday night, “The Fourth Dimension” made its world premiere at the San Francisco International Film Festival, a collaborative film that we thought got satisfying results out of its premise. In attendance were the set of directors responsible for the three short films created based on a collection of random instructions generated by Vice Films producer Eddy Moretti in a collaboration with Grolsch Film Works. The directors tapped included Harmony Korine (“Trash Humpers,” “Gummo”), Aleksei Fedorchenko (“Silent Souls”) and Polish director Jan Kwiecinski, making his big screen debut. We sat down to talk to Harmony Korine and Val Kilmer -- who stars in Korine’s film as a ridiculous motivational speaker -- about their short, “Lotus Community Workshop.”

The description of Korine creating a film within a structured set of rules may sound familiar. Back in 1999 Korine created his sophomore feature narrative “Julien Donkey-Boy” under the notably restrictive rules of the Dogme 95 movement.

Side By Side

Written by Christopher Kenneally

Directed by Christopher Kenneally

USA, 2012

A reasonably comprehensive primer on the rise of digital film and its implications on every facet of filmmaking, exhibition, and conservation, Side by Side manages to corral enough of the film world’s most outspoken filmmakers, as well as a less-familiar but equally influential collection of editors, DPs, colorists, effects supervisors, and industry types, that its attempt to summarize such a massive issue mostly holds together while only occasionally feeling like an infomercial for contemporary moviegoing.

Buoyed by a balance of film cips, archival footage, and new interviews, producer and host Keanu Reeves eases into the specifics of photochemical film shooting and exhibition, carefully laying out the joys and difficulties of a science that remained more or less unchanged for a century, before chronicling the evolution of digital film, from its invention to its first uses in serious filmmaking.

"Snow Piercer," the English-language debut of Korean auteur Bong Joon-Ho, got a pretty neat little boost last night when one of its previously-announced cast members, Octavia Spencer, only went and won herself a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her performance in "The Help." The award was widely expected, but nevertheless, having the actress on board can only help to raise the profile of the project.

Not that it necessarily needed it: the film, an adaptation of the French graphic novel "Le Transperceneige," about a train carrying the only survivors of a post-apocalyptic future, already has an extremely promising cast on board with Chris Evans, Jamie Bell, Tilda Swinton, Song Kang-Ho and John Hurt all signed up alongside Spencer. And it just got some more good news this morning, with Variety reporting that Scottish actor Ewan Bremner has boarded the project.

Bremner broke through as Spud in "Trainspotting," and has gone...

Congratulations to Gareth Earls! A DVD and signed poster will be on their way.As January drags to a close, what better way to blast out those winter blues than with the cracking sci-fi romance, Perfect Sense. What's that? Still waiting for a post-Christmas pay day? Well, fear not Twitchers, because to celebrate the DVD release on 30th January we have a copy of the DVD, plus a quad poster signed by Ewan McGregor to give away to one lucky reader."Directed by David Mackenzie (Spread; Young Adam; Hallam Foe) from a script by award winning Danish writer Kim Fupz Aakeson (To Love Someone; Pure Hearts) the film co-stars Connie Nielsen (Gladiator), Ewen Bremner (Trainspotting; Snatch; Julien Donkey-Boy), Denis Lawson (Star Wars; Marchlands) and Stephen Dillane (44 Inch Chest;...

You're the star of a Disney Channel series, with a bit of a pop career on the side, and a boyfriend called Justin Bieber. So what's your next project? Why, a film by the director of Gummo, Julien Donkey-Boy and Trash Humpers, of course. Selena Gomez has just joined Harmony Korine's Spring Breakers. That sound you can hear is Uncle Walt spinning in his cryo-chamber.Spring Breakers does actually sound unusually mainstream for Korine, although given that his last film involved masked octogenarian tramps having sex with dustbins, it's all relative. This one's about four college girls cutting loose and funding their spring break by robbing a restaurant. When they're arrested and jailed, they then find themselves entangled with the drug-runner who bailed them out, and who wants them to whack his main competitor.James Franco is already attached to play the dope dealer, and Vanessa Hudgens and Emma Roberts...

Anyone would be lucky to spend spring break with James Franco.

And writer-director Harmony Korine is one lucky fella, as he's lured the "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" star to his latest bit of cinematic madness, "Spring Breakers," according to Variety.

"Spring Breakers" follows a group of college girls who rob a restaurant in order to afford their road trip to the beach. Franco is set to play a rapping drug and arms dealer who bails them out of jail and entices them to kill his arch-rival.

Emma Roberts ("Scream 4"), Vanessa Hudgens ("Sucker Punch") and Selena Gomez ("The Muppets") are currently in talks to play the novice criminals. Roberts would be playing a Southern hellraiser who feeds off of danger, while Gomez would be a playing a shy religious girl who isn't into all of this thrill-seeking. Hudgens would be playing... well, guess we'll just have to wait and see.

From anyone but Harmony Korine, known for scripting Kids and directing Gummo, Julien Donkey-Boy, and Trash Humpers, the plot for Spring Breakers would sound like a wild piece of material. For Korine, it almost sounds like a family film. The story follows four late-teen girls who rob a restaurant in order to finance a spring break trip, and end up enlisted to kill the rival of their drug dealer. Now Emma Roberts is in talks to play one of the four girls, and James Franco is attached to play the dealer. Variety [1] describes the plot: [Spring Breakers] follows four college-aged girls who rob a fast food restaurant to afford spring break in Florida, only to get arrested upon their arrival... Alien, a rapping drug and arms dealer, bails them out and entices them to kill his arch-rival, a murderer who is appropriately named Arch. I can see this turning into quite a scary piece of work,...

Avant-garde filmmaker Harmony Korine shocked his fans with news of extended talks with popular Disney actresses Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudgens joining his upcoming comedy Spring Breakers. Variety reported today that Gomez, Hudgens and Emma Roberts looked to join James Franco on the comedy about four college girls who rob a restaurant to collect enough money to pay for their spring break getaway. Korine, who wrote the gritty indie classic Kids and wrote and directed the experimental dramas Gummo, Julien Donkey-Boy, Mister Lonely and Trash Humpers, looked to be widening the potential audience for his next film by casting the popular Disney Channel actresses.

Avant-garde filmmaker Harmony Korine shocked his fans with news of extended talks with popular Disney actresses Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudgens joining his upcoming comedy Spring Breakers. Variety reported today that Gomez, Hudgens and Emma Roberts looked to join James Franco on the comedy about four college girls who rob a restaurant to collect enough money to pay for their spring break getaway. Korine, who wrote the gritty indie classic Kids and wrote and directed the experimental dramas Gummo, Julien Donkey-Boy, Mister Lonely and Trash Humpers, looked to be widening the potential audience for his next film by casting the popular Disney Channel actresses.

Christopher McQuarrie’s upcoming adaptation of the Lee Child novel “One Shot” continues to make curious casting decisions. First it cast Tom Cruise, the diminutive head of the militant wing of the Church of Scientology, as the hulking, brute of a protagonist Jack Reacher. And now it has cast a German man in the role of The Zec, a Russian ex-pow who acts as the story’s antagonist. And not just any German man, the most German man in the world: Werner Herzog. To the public at large, that name might not mean much, but for those of us reading a film site, it’s kind of a big deal. Herzog is one of the most respected directors of film on the planet, his narrative works include things like Fitzcarraldo and Aguirre: The Wrath of God and his documentary work includes titles like Grizzly Man and the upcoming Into the Abyss. We...

Well this has got to be one of the most unexpected and exciting pieces of movie news I've heard so far this year. Paramount has just announced that German filmmaker Werner Herzog will play the villain in their upcoming adaptation of Lee Childs' One Shot. No joke! With all the fan backlash surrounding Tom Cruise being cast as the protagonist Jack Reacher, it's about time they found something to get people excited about this project. Of course, from a commercial standpoint, Herzog's casting will mean absolutely nothing, but for a certain group of cinephiles, their minds are now blown. Rosamund Pike, Richard Jenkins and Robert Duvall have also signed on to star in the film. According to Variety, Herzog will play a character named The Zec, "an ex-prisoner of war who arranges and stages the killing" of five people. While a sniper is accused of the murders, Jack Reacher steps...

Not many actresses would be able to recover from doing "that scene" in Vincent Gallo's "The Brown Bunny," but then again, Chloë Sevigny has hardly played by anyone's rules. She broke out in the controversial "Kids" and from there has amassed an impressive CV working with directors like Lars von Trier ("Dogville," "Manderlay"), David Fincher ("Zodiac"), Woody Allen ("Melinda & Melinda"), Whit Stillman ("The Last Days Of Disco"), Jim Jarmusch ("Broken Flowers") and Harmony Korine ("Gummo," "Julien Donkey-Boy"). She's also come on the radar of mainstream America with her role in the HBO series "Big Love." However, her next role…...

We get it, James Franco: you're almost always high and you're always weird. But the actor and last night's Oscar host seems determined to continue driving home the point he's been making for about a year, since he enrolled simultaneously in Nyu and Columbia, his Three's Company-themed performance art and befuddling stint on General Hospital and countless other little odd side-projects.

Now Franco is teaming up with auteur Harmony Korine, who penned Larry Clark's Kids and directed such disturbing art-house films as Gummo and Julien Donkey-Boy, to make a "street gang movie." Franco and Korine plan to shoot actual skirmishes between real L.A. street gangs, even allowing them to use real weapons in the fights.

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What does it feel like to go from one under-seen Sundance competitor to a Harvey Weinstein-distributed indie smash starring two of the hottest actors in the business, the first disappearing in the middle of a booming independent climate and the second peaking during one of the biggest buying lulls in recent memory?

Tfs talked to Derek Cianfrance about this feeling, learning film from stuff like Creepshow and Airplane 2, stealing tape recorders and man-handling HBO via VHS tapes. There’s also his next Gosling project, The Place Beyond The Pines, his long-gestating Metalhead and the difference between film and video.

Tfs: How’d it all start for you? Where are you coming from? How did you break into the business? And how’d you find yourself making your dream project and getting an Oscar nomination [for Michelle Williams] out of it?

Derek Cianfrance: When I was a kid I always wanted to make movies.

Former semi-professional skateboarder and Kids scribe Harmony Korine is making plans for his new film, and in doing so, he's turned to a rather unlikely lead. Marlon Wayans, best known for his famous family and goofy persona, has signed on to star in the Dogme 95 director's upcoming Twinkle Twinkle. The plot will follow a hitman who disguises himself in a dollar bill costume. Maybe not as weird as Gummo or Trash Humpers, but the upcoming project is definitely far from normal and thus falls well into the Harmony Korine wheelhouse. According to The Wrap, there's no word yet on when this might start shooting, but I'm already on board. Marlon Wayans has been nothing short of excellent in the dramatic roles he's chosen, and anyone who saw Julien Donkey-Boy can attest to just how powerful, scary and uncomfortable Korine's work can make an audience. Yes, the content's graphic nature and...

Marlon Wayans ("Requiem for a Dream," "G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra") has scored the lead role in the indie comedy "Twinkle, Twinkle" reports The Wrap

The comedian plays an ex-hitman with a penchant for dressing up in a costume designed to look like the U.S. dollar bill.

Harmony Korine ("Mister Lonely," "Julien Donkey-Boy"), whose previous work has proven quite surreal, will use a more regular narrative structure for this project.

Production kicks off in Nashville, Tennessee later this year.

• Bill Stamets and Roger Ebert

The 46th Chicago International Film Festival will play this year at one central location, on the many screens of the AMC River East 21, 322 E. Illinois. A festivalgoers and filmmakers' lounge will be open during festival hours at the Lucky Strike on the second level. Tickets can be ordered online at Ciff's website, which also organizes the films by title, director and country. Tickets also at AMC; sold out films have Rush Lines. More capsules will be added here.

"127 Hours" (USA)A tour de force by James Franco and Danny Boyle ("Slumdog Millionaire"). Many are familiar with the true story, and just as many probably thought it could never be filmed. Boyle succeeds. A climber named Aron Ralston went climbing by himself in remote canyons, and was trapped deep in a crevice when a falling rock pinned his arm. He had limited food and water, no...

Trash Humpers is a hilarious display of freakishness that finds director Harmony Korine dabbling in some of the same territory as early films like Gummo and Julien Donkey-Boy. The film's random flow of antagonistic imagery and lo-fi aesthetic -- the whole thing looks like it was cobbled together from degraded VHS tape -- combine to make Trash Humpers one of the more entertainingly depraved movies to emerge from the 2009 festival circuit.

Now that the both the festival and theatrical run has wound down, Trash Humpers will soon be available for home consumption. Drag City is releasing the film on Region 0 DVD on September 21st in the U.S. A digipak version and an autographed limited edition will be available.

UK distributor Warp Films is also geaing up for a release, but their plans are a little more unorthodox. In addition to a Region 0 DVD, Warp will offer Trash Humpers in...

SXSW Presents: Trash Humpers – Monday 6/28-Wednesday 6/30 at 7:00pm @Ritz

Advance tickets available here

To be honest, I’m not really sure what Trash Humpers is. The trailer, which knocks my bloody socks off every time I see it, is actually terrifying. I’m not saying that lightly, as one might say about a run-of-the-mill horror film. This little bit or craziness makes me uncomfortable, like I’m watching something that is evil. And I like it.

The word that seems to be circulating among the critics is “nightmare.” The film seems to capture something unconscious but definitely frightening. “Trash Humpers follows a small group of elderly semi-mutants through the shadows and margins of an unfamiliar world,” SXSW writes.

The film comes from the twisted mind of Harmony Korine, the auteur-provocateur who is responsible for Kids, Gummo, Julien Donkey-boy, and Mister Lonely. His films are oft-despised for their upsetting aesthetic and unconventional,...

Director: Harmony Korine Writer: Harmony Korine Starring: Rachel Korine, Travis Nicholson, Brian Kotzur, Harmony Korine Shot in handheld Pov – as if someone found an old VHS tape from the 1980s – Trash Humpers follows a gruesome threesome of elderly sexual deviants. Okay, let’s not beat around the bush – the title is quite literal – these old perverts have a strange penchant for grinding on trash cans and other inanimate objects. They also drag baby dolls from their bicycles, tap dance in parking lots, and kill televisions (they must be fans of Ned’s Atomic Dustbin). Every film by Harmony Korine has a few “what the fuck?” moments; but Trash Humpers is the first to be one long, uninterrupted “what the fuck?” moment. I have taken a lot of time to chew on this review; but, over a month later, I still find Trash Humpers to be lodged in my stomach impenetrable by digestive fluids.

The last of the great auteur directors voices the role of a plastic grocery bag in a philosophical short film by much-tipped director Ramin Bahrani

A strange moment punctures the sentimentality of Robin Williams's 1998 drama-fantasy What Dreams May Come. Williams, the Orpheus-like character who trawls through hell in search of his wife, is stepping across what the film somehow manages to portray as a dull, unscary field of human heads. One of the heads calls out to him. It is Werner Herzog. "You're Klaus!" the Herzog head cries, confusing Williams with Klaus Kinski in a way nobody ever has or will again. "Welcome, welcome!"

If it seems like a bizarre cameo for the last of the great auteurs, consider that this is also the man who dragged Joaquin Phoenix from a mangled car, then took off before Phoenix could thank him, the man who got shot during an interview...