News

Aaron Kaufman, who directed the documentary Superpower about the war in Ukraine alongside Sean Penn and was a longtime producing partner of Robert Rodriguez, has died. He was 51.

Kaufman died Thursday in Las Vegas, Verdi Productions President Chad Verdi told The Hollywood Reporter on Sunday. Reports indicated that Kaufman died of an apparent heart attack.

“It’s a very sad time for everyone who loved Aaron,” Verdi wrote in an email to THR. “Aaron passed away Thursday night. He and I spoke by phone about 20 minutes prior to 911 being called. He was in great spirits and was headed to dinner. Life is short and family and friends are everything. I miss him a lot already.”

Kaufman may be best known for the Emmy-nominated documentary, but he also wrote, directed and produced several films, including Machete, Machete Kills, Urge and Sin City: A Dame to Kill For. He also executive produced The Greatest,...

Aaron Kaufman, a writer, director and producer whose credits include “Superpower” and “Machete Kills,” died on Thursday evening in Las Vegas after suffering an apparent heart attack. He was 51.

Kaufman’s death was confirmed by Chad Verdi, the film financier behind “The Irishman” as well as several of Kaufman’s past and upcoming projects.

The Long Island native, who was Robert Rodriguez’s longtime producing partner, is best known for co-directing with Sean Penn the Emmy-nominated documentary “Superpower,” which traced the political rise of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy. While Penn became the face of the 2023 documentary, it was Kaufman who had been on the ground in Ukraine in February 2022 when the ongoing war with Russia broke out. Kaufman had been in Kyiv in the weeks leading up to Russia’s invasion and had been in the bunker with the Ukrainian leader during the perilous first days of the conflict. (Penn...

In Seven Cemeteries, a recent parolee (Danny Trejo) gets a Mexican witch to resurrect his old posse so that they can help him save a woman's ranch from a ruthless drug lord.

The movie also stars Sal Lopez, Samantha Ashley, Efren Ramirez, Vincent M. Ward, Lew Temple, Richard Esteras, and Maria Canals-Barrera, and is every bit as delightfully bonkers as it sounds. 

You don't need us to tell you that Trejo is an icon and his many credits include the likes of Con Air, Machete, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, Breaking Bad, and Dusk till Dawn. Earlier this week, we had the good fortune to sit down with Danny to discuss his role as Bravo in this action-packed supernatural romp from filmmaker John Gulager.

During our interview, Trejo reflects on his extraordinary career, revealing what brings him back to this genre again and again. And, for this project, he talks...

A while back, a terrific book about the golden age of action stars called “The Last Action Heroes” came out (buy it here). Written by Nick De Semlyen, the book takes a very affectionate look at all of the icons we grew up with in the 80s and 90s, with one notable exception. Steven Seagal does not come off well in the book – at all. One of the wildest stories from the book recounts a time when Seagal grew outraged over the fact that a meeting room he wanted was being occupied by the legendary Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau.

The two actors, who would have been in their late sixties then, were participating in a read-through for their hit comedy Grumpy Old Men. According to the book, the vibe in the room was light, with the two old pros cracking up their director, Daniel Petrie and assembled guests. One of them was William Osborne,...

In the next episode of Celebrity Iou, actor Danny Trejo expresses his gratitude to his ex-partner and best friend by renovating her backyard. With the help of Jonathan and Drew, Trejo transforms a wasted space into a multifunctional getaway. Trejo, known for his tough guy roles in Machete and Spy Kids, pulls out all the […]

Celebrity Iou: Danny Trejo’s Backyard Domination...

Patrick Lussier's 2011 film "Drive Angry" might belong to a genre hereby designated "neo-grindhouse." There was a wave of films in the late 2000s and early 2010s that sought to evoke the style or the content of a very specific type of exploitation movie that was popular in the 1970s. In addition to the Quentin Tarantino/Robert Rodriguez 2007 twofer "Grindhouse" and its spinoffs, films like "Redline," "The Man with the Iron Fists," "Turbo Kid," "Kung Fury," "Hatchet," "Torque," "Deathgasm," "House of the Devil," and "The Love Witch" popped up on the regular. 

"Drive Angry" gleefully embraced its goofy, action/horror premise with aplomb. A dead race car driver named (sigh) John Milton (Nicolas Cage) escapes the clutches of Hell having stolen Satan's persona gun, a device called the Godkiller. On his tail is Satan's Accountant (William Fichtner), assigned with nabbing John and dragging him back to Hell. John,...

Rob Zombie has said that for every one film project of his that moves forward, there are five potential projects that fall by the wayside. We haven’t heard of quite that many unmade Rob Zombie movies, but we have heard of several over the years that never got off the ground… and unfortunately, most of them sounded pretty interesting. A little over a year ago, Zombie had said he didn’t know what his next movie is going to be, but he did know what it’s not going to be: he won’t be continuing his Firefly franchise, and he doesn’t want to make a sequel to The Munsters (which was poorly received). So while he figures out his next cinematic move, we we have put together a list of Rob Zombie Movies We Want To See!

Dr. Satan Prequel/Sequel

Okay, so this flies right in...

Over his many years of activity, Danny Trejo has established an exemplary career filled with various and diverse roles in both movies and video games. Recently, the actor revealed his favorite game, and despite having a sort of appearance in 7 Days to Die, this is not his favorite game.

On his social media, the actor revealed that this particular game is more related to Nintendo’s Animal Crossing than the survival title. The actor also tagged the studio because it used his likeness in a character model that resembled him without his knowledge.

A Strange Way to Connect With Danny Trejo by the People Behind 7 Days to Die 7 Days to Die is not the favorite video game of Danny Trejo. Animal Crossing won that privilege. Image Credit: Nintendo

This actor is known for being very active on social media and being grateful for his numerous roles throughout his extensive career.

Machete star Danny Trejo was enjoying the Fourth of July celebrations in California on Thursday until things took a turn after his vintage car was pelted with water balloons. The From Dusk till Dawn actor was attending the Independence Day parade in Sunland-Tujunga, California, when a fellow partygoer attacked Trejo’s vintage convertible with a water balloon. This upset Trejo, who got out of his car to confront the assailant, resulting in a street scuffle. As reported by TMZ, Trejo and his friends exited the vehicle but apparently confronted the wrong people. This led to lots of pushing and shoving, with bystanders holding Trejo back as he yelled at the culprits. One bystander captured part of the confrontation on video and later shared it on social media (which you can watch below). “He got hit with a water ballooning his #vinyage car, came down and a brawl broke out. Not cool Sunland Tujunga.

Danny Trejo, the legendary actor whose rugged charisma has graced hundreds of films and TV shows, just dropped a bombshell that has caused a stir in both Hollywood and the gaming world. Trejo, best known for his iconic roles in Machete, Heat, and Desperado, has now revealed an unexpected side to his larger-than-life persona: he’s a gamer, and not just any game has caught his attention, but the zombie survival hit 7 Days to Die.

In a tweet that quickly went viral, Trejo shared a screenshot from 7 Days to Die featuring a character who bears an uncanny resemblance to his signature tough-guy look. This revelation comes at a perfect time, as The Fun Pimps recently announced the launch schedule for the game’s long-awaited 1.0 version, with public testing now live after over a decade in Early Access.

Danny Trejo’s Machete Slices Through 7 Days to Die’s Zombie Apocalypse Danny...

Every summer, The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences invites a deluge of new members to join its ranks. Since #OscarsSoWhite back in 2015, the Academy has moved away from its elitist tendencies and toward embracing younger and more diverse artists and executives from all over the world. This year’s invited class is no exception.

If the invitees all accept Academy membership, the total members will number 10,910 and voting members 9,934. And with the addition of the 2024 members, 35 percent of Academy members identify as women, 20 percent of Academy members are from underrepresented ethnic and racial communities, and 20 percent of Academy members are from countries or territories outside the U.S.

As usual, a slew of Oscar nominees and winners are gaining admittance to the club (71 Oscar nominees and 19 winners), including actors Lily Gladstone (“Killers of the Flower Moon”), Sandra Hüller, and Da’Vine Joy Randolph (“The Holdovers”), costume designer Holly Waddington...

Jessica Alba, Lily Gladstone, Greta Lee, Catherine O’Hara, and S.S. Rajamouli, director of “Rrr,” are among the 487 artists and executives invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. With all expected acceptances, AMPAS membership will rise to 10,910 from 10,817 last year, with 9,934 members eligible to vote in the upcoming 97th Oscars in 2025—an increase from last year’s 9,375.

This year’s invitees include 44% women, a 4% increase from 2023, and 41% from underrepresented ethnic and racial communities, marking a significant 7% rise. The actors, casting directors, costume designers, documentary, executives, makeup artists and hairstylists branches have invited more women than men. The actors, directors, documentary, and writers branches mainly comprised artists from underrepresented communities.

The directors branch features the most impressive array of filmmakers from both international and domestic spheres, such as Lila Avilés (“Totem”), Jayro Bustamante (“La Llorona”), Jd Dillard (“Devotion”), Alice Diop (“Saint Omer”), Boots Riley (“Sorry to Bother You...

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences said Tuesday that it is extending invitations to 487 to join the membership ranks of the Oscar organizer. If all accept, it will bring the Academy’s total membership to 10,910, of which 9,934 would be voting members.

This year’s list across 19 branches include 2024 Oscar winners Da’Vine Joy Randolph from The Holdovers; Poor Things costume designer Holly Waddington and production design team James Price, Shona Heath and Zsuzsa Mihalek; 20 Days in Mariupol director Mstyslav Chernov, War Is Over! producer Brad Booker; The Zone of Interest sound duo Tarn Willers and Johnnie Burn; the Godzilla Minus One VFX team Tatsuji Nojima, Kiyoko Shibuya, Masaki Takahashi and Takashi Yamazaki; American Fiction writer-director Cord Jefferson; and Anatomy of a Fall writing duo Justine Triet and Arthur Harari.

Jefferson and Triet are among eight names on the list who were invited to more than one branch (noted...

For a good part of the last decade, actor Jessica Alba has tried to mold herself as an action star, to varying results. Her latest attempt, in Indonesian director Mouly Surya’s Hollywood debut, Trigger Warning, streaming on Netflix, seems to be a step in the right direction. Clearly inspired by action classics like Rambo and Machete, Trigger Warning is a one-woman army show, with Jessica Alba carrying the movie from the very first scene to the last. However, well-crafted action set pieces against the scenic backdrop of western America cannot hide the glaringly bland plotline, poorly written side characters, and very generic treatment of the movie as a whole. Jessica Alba’s return to mainstream action would have benefited from a more violent treatment of the narrative, which is teased throughout the movie, only to turn out disappointingly tame in the end. Another aspect that will feel a bit...

Plot: Special Forces commando Parker is on active duty overseas when she gets called back to her hometown with the tragic news that her father has suddenly died. Now the owner of the family bar, Parker reconnects with her former boyfriend-turned-sheriff Jesse, his hot-tempered brother Elvis and their powerful father Senator Swann, as she looks to understand what actually happened to her dad.

Review: It has been five years since Jessica Alba’s last big screen role. While she led the Bad Boys spin-off L.A.’s Finest alongside Gabrielle Union the year after, Alba has spent the last half-decade working as Chief Creative Officer for The Honest Company, which she co-founded. While she recently stepped down from that role, her work on Trigger Warning goes back to 2021. The three-year road for Alba’s first leading role in a decade should indicate the quality of the finished product. Marketed as being an...

Art the Clown is making his return to theaters nationwide with Terrifier 3 on October 11, 2024, and Bloody Disgusting can confirm that a horror legend has joined the slasher sequel.

Makeup effects master Tom Savini will be making an appearance in director Damien Leone’s Terrifier 3, which Cineverse and Bloody Disgusting are bringing to the big screen!

Tom Savini’s work has long been a huge source of inspiration for Leone, whose Terrifier movies are of course loaded with the kind of practical effects-driven brutality that Savini helped pioneer. From the very first arrival of Jason Voorhees on screen in the original Friday the 13th to the splatter effects in horror classics including Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead, Savini is one of the all-time great masters in the world of special makeup effects, elevating the art of horror movie gore and paving the way for all...

Netflix has debuted the first official trailer for Trigger Warning, an upcoming action thriller that stars Jessica Alba (Fantastic Four; Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer; Sin City) in the lead role as a skilled Special Forces commando who takes ownership of her father's bar after he suddenly dies, and soon finds herself at odds with a violent gang running rampant in her hometown.

Speaking with Entertainment Weekly, Alba expressed her excitement and inspiration for making this film. "I loved Die Hard. I loved Star Wars. I loved Lethal Weapon, Beverly Hills Cop, all these movies I grew up with, but I always felt like I wanted to see the women kicking ass instead of always being saved."

In addition to Alba, the supporting cast features Mark Webber, Tone Bell, Jake Weary, Gabriel Basso, Anthony Michael Hall, Kaiwi Lyman, and Hari Dhillon.

Mouly Surya helmed the upcoming actioner, with...

Elisabeth Costa de Beauregard Segel’s Storyboard Media has begun talks with buyers here on the action thriller Wages Of Sin with Danny Trejo.

Paul Sloan from Green Book stars in the film alongside Trejo, whose credits include Machete and From Dusk Till Dawn, and Jeremy Luke from The Irishman.

The Los Angeles-set story centres on a man who gets framed for a crime and is targeted by a criminal fentanyl enterprise.

Victor Rios makes his directorial debut for 333 Pictures and Boatyard Productions and Stephen Cyrus Sepher wrote the screenplay.

Sepher and Nazo Bravo serve as producers while Costa...

Uwe Boll’s migrant crisis thriller “Run” is making its market debut in Cannes via Stuttgart-based sales company Kinostar.

Boll just wrapped shooting on his latest pic and unveiled the first images from the production. Shot entirely in the resort town of Baška on the Croatian island of Krk, which doubles for a coastal community in Italy, “Run” follows a group of desperate migrants as they make landfall after a perilous journey across the Mediterranean Sea and the impact of their arrival on locals and tourists.

The cast includes Emmy and Tony award winner Amanda Plummer, James Russo, European Film Award winner Ulrich Thomsen, BAFTA winner Barkhad Abdi (“Captain Phillips”), Kristen Renton, Daniel Sauli, Marcus Henderson, Mohammed (Michel) Qissy, Sammy Sheik, Costas Mandylor, Daniela Piperno (“Ferrari”), Ezra Mabengeza, Hannah Balogun and Matteo Pasquini (“Return to Silent Hill”).

“It was a real pleasure to work with this extraordinary ensemble cast and the talented crew,...

Iconic actor Danny Trejo is set to receive one of the biggest honors of his career.

The star of Machete, From Dusk Til Dawn, Spy Kids, Con Air, Heat, and hundreds of other films and television series will be honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Santa Fe Film Festival on Thursday, the festival’s opening night. His new film, American Underdog, will hold its U.S. premiere at Sfff that night, kicking off the event that runs in New Mexico’s capital city from April 25-28.

“Danny Trejo has developed a prolific career in the entertainment industry with a hard earned and atypical road to success,” the festival notes. “From years of imprisonment to helping troubled youth battle drug addictions, from acting to producing, and now on to restaurant ventures, Trejo’s name, face, and achievements are well recognized in Hollywood and beyond, but it is his continuous...

Turns out, Danny Trejo actually might be wielding a machete soon, as the eponymous franchise is still on track to be a trilogy. During a recent discussion with Rob Zombie for Interview magazine, the almost-80-year-old actor Trejo incorrectly stated that “Machete” and “Machete Kills” director Robert Rodriguez “sold part” of the franchise, and therefore it’s unlikely another will be made.

“God, I guess Robert [Rodriguez] screwed up and sold part of ‘Machete,'” Trejo said, “to Russians or something. Everyone always asks, ‘When are you doing “Machete Kills in Space?”‘” Director Zombie added that he’d love to see “Machete Kills in Space,” saying, “I thought for sure it was going to happen. It’s so ridiculous.”

However, Rodriguez exclusively told IndieWire that Trejo’s comments are thankfully “incorrect” and a third “Machete” film may still slice up cinemas soon.

“I retain all the rights,” Rodriguez told IndieWire in an email.

Tubi’s upcoming titles for April include five new Tubi Originals:

YA comedy Crushed, starring Bebe Wood Two titles timed to the 110th anniversary of the Titanic’s sinking – a documentary, Mysteries From The Grave: The Titanic, and a horror film, Titanic 666, starring AnnaLynne McCord (“90210”), Keesha Sharp (“Empire”) and Jamie Bamber (“Battlestar Galactica”) Action movie Lord Of The Streets, featuring

Mma stars Quinton “Rampage” Jackson and Anderson Silva.

The action sci-fi film Corrective Measures, starring Michael Rooker (“The Walking Dead”), Bruce Willis (“The Sixth Sense”) and Tom Cavanaugh (“The Flash”)

Unless otherwise noted, all titles below will begin streaming on April 1.

Tubi Originals

Crushed – 4/1 – After the hottest guy in school likes her Instagram photo, a high-achieving, high-strung high school girl carries out totally crazy schemes to hook up with him before the senior class trip ends. But things spiral when her obsession gets out of control.

Mysteries From...

Lindsay Lohan is an American actress, singer, songwriter, and entrepreneur. She rose to fame as a child actress in the late 1990s and early 2000s, starring in popular films such as “The Parent Trap” and “Mean Girls.” However, she has also faced a number of personal struggles and legal issues throughout her career. Despite this, she continues to be a well-known and influential figure in the entertainment industry.

Early Life and Career Lindsay Lohan in Mean Girls (2004)

Lindsay Lohan was born in New York City in 1986. As a young child, she began modeling and appearing in commercials, before getting her big break at age 11 starring as both Hallie Parker and Annie James in the 1998 remake of The Parent Trap opposite Dennis Quaid. The film showcased Lohan’s talent and versatility as an actress at a young age. She continued booking roles, appearing on soap operas like Another World and in...

Eli Roth's 2023 slasher film "Thanksgiving" famously started its life back in 2007 in the form of a fake trailer sandwiched in between Robert Rodriguez's "Planet Terror" and Quentin Tarantino's "Death Proof," two movies released as a single mega-feature called "Grindhouse." The goal of "Grindhouse" was to recreate the experience of seeing a cheap exploitation double-feature in a run-down New York theater in the early 1980s, complete with film scratches, missing reels, and several previews for upcoming ultra-salacious genre movies. The trailers were all fake at the time, but since 2007, the trailers for "Machete," "Hobo with a Shotgun," and "Thanksgiving" have been made into real movies.

Roth, as the director's fans know, is a voracious cineaste, and has likely spent more time watching movies than most people. He also wears his influences on his sleeve; in the credits for Roth's 2013 cannibal film "The Green Inferno," he includes a list...

We all know what happened after 2004’s Mean Girls – Regina became a lacrosse champ, Karen used her psychic boobs to present the morning weather announcements, Gretchen co-opted the Cool Asians, and Cady floated in a newly repaired girl world… while keeping a beady eye on any emerging Young Plastics set to reinstate the old hierarchy. Now there’s a film of the musical of the film.

But to the actors who played them in the original? Oscar nominations, pop careers, Hallmark Christmas movies, prestige streaming dramas, LGBT+ firsts, and much more.

Lindsay Lohan: Ex-Popstar Now in a Cosy Netflix Movie Niche

If ever a household-name actor were due a late-in-life career renaissance, it’s Lindsay Lohan. The crazy thing is that, due to an extremely early start in the entertainment world aged three, it’s not even that late in her life – there’s still plenty of time for...

What better time to celebrate "Thanksgiving" than midwinter? Eli Roth's latest slasher is officially due out on digital, DVD, and Blu-Ray before the month of January is through, which is good news for horror fans trapped in the doldrums of what is traditionally the worst month for the genre. If you haven't already seen the colonial holiday kill-fest, which was built around a fake movie trailer Roth made for the film "Grindhouse" way back in 2007, you can check it out on premium video on demand now.

You can also watch it for a cheaper price digitally on January 16, 2024, or grab a DVD or Blu-ray version on January 30 -– just make sure to watch out for a mob of shoppers, a la the film's Black Friday-set opening scene. If "Thanksgiving" somehow wasn't on your radar before, here's a quick primer: The movie takes place in the town of Plymouth, Massachusetts,...

Eli Roth’s gory and twisted slasher Thanksgiving is yours to own on DVD and Blu-Ray next month. More details here:

Thanksgiving was one of the bigger surprises of 2023, especially after an uneven year of horror films. Released relatively late in the year, Thanksgiving was met with a lot of positive buzz, including from us.

We wrote in our review that “Thanksgiving is probably the best no-budget, straight-to-streaming, goofy horror flick you’ve ever seen – except it’s distributed by a major studio.”

Thanksgiving follows a town terrorised by a serial killer in a pilgrim costume. Patrick Dempsey, Nell Verlaque, Addison Rae, Jalen Thomas Brooks, Milo Manheim and Rick Hoffman star.

Well, if you missed Roth’s gloriously gory film in the cinemas or you’re just a big fan of physical media, you can buy the disc version of Thanksgiving very soon. The film is due to be released...

One of HBO’s former hot properties returns in a big way this January, as True Detective season four finally arrives on the service. Will this be a return to form for the gritty show? Well, that remains unclear, but this time around the anthology series will follow detectives Liz Danvers (Jodie Foster) and Evangeline Navarro (Kali Reis) as the long winter darkness in Alaska. When eight people at the Tsalal Arctic Research Station vanish without a trace, these detectives need to get on the case quickly.

Also hitting Max this month is the final season of Sort Of. Season three finds Sabi (Bilal Baig) dealing with the unexpected death of their father, and making some big life choices as a result.

Here’s everything coming to (and leaving) HBO and Max this month…

HBO and Max New Releases – January 2024

January 1

90 Day Fiancé: Holiday Special 2023 #3 (TLC) 90 Day Fiancé Pillow Talk...

Two days ago, I mentioned to the loved ones I was spending Christmas with that I knew exactly where I was 25 years earlier. On the evening of December 25, 1998, I was sitting in a movie theatre, taking in an opening day screening of director Robert Rodriguez‘s alien invasion horror film The Faculty (watch it Here). Now, two days after the film’s 25th anniversary, scooper Daniel Richtman has revealed on his Patreon page that Rodriguez is producing a remake of The Faculty!

That’s all of the information that’s available at this time. The Faculty is getting a remake and Robert Rodriguez is on board as producer.

Rodriguez directed the original The Faculty from a screenplay by Scream writer Kevin Williamson (working from a story by David Wechter and Bruce Kimmel). The film has the following synopsis: To the students at Harrington High, the principal and her posse of...

Max’s January 2024 lineup includes season four of True Detective, led by Oscar-winner Jodie Foster, as well as the third and final season of Sort Of with Bilal Baig. Max is also kicking off the new year with the debut of On The Roam, an eight-part documentary series featuring Aquaman star Jason Momoa.

The streaming service’s January 2024 roster includes the return of Real Time with Bill Maher for season 22, along with the seventh season of Rick and Morty. The critically acclaimed documentary Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project arrives on January 8.

Series & Films Arriving On Max In January 2024:

January 1

90 Day Fiancé: Holiday Special 2023 #3 (TLC)

90 Day Fiancé Pillow Talk: Single All The Way (TLC)

The A-Team (2010)

After Earth (2013)

Alvin and The Chipmunks: The Squeakquel (2009)

Aniara (2019)

Austenland (2013)

Bachelorette (2012)

Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me (2013)

Body at Brighton Rock (2019)

Booty Call (1997)

The Breakfast Club (1985)

The Brothers (2001)

Cabin Fever (2003)

Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever...

Thanksgiving Movie Review Rating:

Star Cast: Patrick Dempsey, Addison Rae, Milo Manheim, Jalem Thomas Brooks, Neil Verlaque, Gabriel Devenport

Director: Eli Roth

Thanksgiving Movie Review Out! ( Photo Credit – IMDb )

What’s Good: The movie presents a number of very gruesome and often funny murder scenes that will leave you laughing out loud.

What’s Bad: The characters are paper-thin, and the villain’s motivations are just as dumb.

Loo Break: The second act is too long for what it offers, so you can take a break before the insanity of the third act ensues.

Watch or Not?: Only if you are in the mood for gory kills; if not, the movie doesn’t have much to offer.

Language: English

Available On: Theatrical release

Runtime: 106 Minutes

User Rating:

Eli Roth goes back to its horror roots with Thanksgiving, a film that tells the story of a group of teenagers after...

In 2005 and in 2007, director Tim Story made a pair of feature films starring the Fantastic Four, one of Marvel Comics' most superlative titles. "Fantastic Four," created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, was more or less a family sitcom except the three family members and their best friend all happened to have superpowers. It was light and comedic, while also featuring bloviating, demonstrative supervillains who shouted regularly about the glories of world domination. It was a comic book series that declared itself to be The World's Greatest Comics Magazine! 

Story's feature film adaptations were not very well received when they were released. 2005's "Fantastic Four" only bears a 28% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, while its sequel, "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer," only has a 38% approval rating. Moreso, Marvel Comics fans were harsh to Story's movies, hating their cartoony tone and corny scripts. It's worth acknowledging, however, that Story's...

The episode of Revisited covering Grindhouse was Written by Cody Hamman, Edited and Narrated by Lance Vlcek, Produced by Tyler Nichols and John Fallon, and Executive Produced by Berge Garabedian.

Quentin Tarantino. Robert Rodriguez. Rob Zombie. Edgar Wright. Eli Roth. Back in 2007, these five filmmakers joined forces, all contributing to the same project. A film that brings us sights like deformed, decomposing zombies. Vehicular homicide. Limbs replaced with weaponry. Danny Trejo wiping out bad guys. A holiday slasher. Supernatural beings dripping white goo. And even some Nazi werewolves. It was a fun experiment… and a box office bomb. The film is called Grindhouse (watch it Here) – and we think it’s time for it to be Revisited.

In the ‘90s, Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez decided to collaborate on From Dusk Till Dawn, with Rodriguez directing from a screenplay by Tarantino. The result was one of the most entertaining vampire movies ever made.

Franchise entries “Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” (Lionsgate) and “Trolls Band Together” (Universal) opened to respectable levels, if below their precedents, to take #1 and #2 in theaters this weekend. However, “The Marvels” (Disney) set another record: After an McU-worst opening the film outdid itself with an estimated 78 percent drop. At $10.2 million, it’s neck-and-neck with the opening of Eli Roth’s “Thanksgiving;” on Monday, we’ll know which one landed at #4.

Not every Disney MCU film is #1 in its second weekend — but to place third or lower is without precedent. The $220 million production stands at $65 million domestic, with no chance of reaching $100 million; worldwide, it will be lucky to gross $200 million.

Theaters are fortunate that three new films dared to open the week after an MCU release (aided by the timing of Thanksgiving just ahead). The range of titles totaled about $115 million for the weekend, up 15 percent from last year.

Thanksgiving Parade from TriStar Pictures and Spyglass Media Group, LLC Thanksgiving

Back in 2007, Quentin Tarantino rounded up some pals for a release called Grindhouse, intended to re-create the experience of going to a drive-in for a schlocky double feature, complete with jingles for the snack bar and fake trailers for other movies. Funny thing about the way that turned out.

The Grindhouse package did fairly well at the box office but the trailers eventually outstripped its performance by a wide margin. Robert Rodriguez’s Machete clip turned into two wildly successful comedic gore-fests, with a third on the way, and boosting Danny Trejo into the stratosphere of celebrity status. Hobo With A Shotgun became a cultish outing for Rutger Hauer. Two other trailers stayed as such – Edgar Wright’s Don’T and Rob Zombie’s Werewolf Women Of The S.S. Eli Roth’s Thanksgiving teaser preview is now the...

Nell Verlaque stars in TriStar Pictures and Spyglass Media Group’s ‘Thanksgiving’

Way back in 2007, when Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez teamed up for the epic shlockfest Grindhouse, they got some of their pals to produce fake, genre-perfect trailers to go along with their two features. A couple of these, Machete and Hobo with a Shotgun, have actually been made into real movies since, but the one that fans have been clamoring to be produced is Eli Roth’s Thanksgiving. Finally, more than 15 years later, Roth has given the people what they want. Thanksgiving is here.

Set in the town of Plymouth, Massachusetts, Thanksgiving opens up with a riot at a Right-Mart Black Friday sale that, as all good Black Friday sales do, begins at 6:00pm on Thanksgiving Day. Lives are lost and lawsuits are settled, and one year later, everything is back to normal.

Well, not really. Much...

Eli Roth is home for the holidays with enough fiendish fun and ripped flesh to send horror fans to theaters multiple times between now and Thanksgiving.

The “Hostel” director hasn’t touched his signature genre in almost a decade, but he’s been cooking up his latest film with writer Jeff Rendell since they were teenagers — and it’s more than worth the wait. The duo first realized their childhood concept of an eponymous “Thanksgiving” slasher as a fake trailer appearing in Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino’s “Grindhouse” in 2007. That cinematic morsel immediately stirred up cries for a full-blown adaptation, and for its annual re-watchers, the feature-length “Thanksgiving” is exactly what you’d expect.

Part “Thankskilling,” part “Scream,” this modern horror-comedy is a brilliant retrofitting of the moments you already know and love from the “Grindhouse” version (cheerleader trampoline stab!), serving up the original idea cranked to high heat...

Grindhouse is one of the most influential box office failures of the 21st century. Despite grossing a paltry $25.4 million at the box office on a budget of around $60 million, Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino’s 2007 love letter to exploitation cinema has managed to spawn four spin-off movies — Machete, Machete Kills, Hobo with a Shotgun, and now Thanksgiving— in addition to reintroducing a vintage aesthetic that has been mimicked by countless other throwback movies.

Rodriguez’s Planet Terror and Tarantino’s Death Proof each have their merits — the former plays like a satirical pastiche of nonstop action, while the latter is more indicative of genuine exploitation fare — but Grindhouse is more than just a double feature. It’s an experience, complete with faux aging to recreate the look of beat-up film prints along with vintage interstitials and retro-inspired trailers for nonexistent movies.

Planet Terror is the first part of the double bill,...

For director Eli Roth, "Thanksgiving" has been a movie over 16 years in the making. Originally meant as an in-joke, the horror movie's origins are as humble as it gets: a fake trailer for a hypothetical, extremely low-budget, and uber-violent slasher that bridged the two films featured in Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez's experimental double feature "Grindhouse" back in 2007. This concept could've easily remained a fun, if inconsequential footnote in a long-gone era of B-movie sleaze. Instead, the film now joins fellow fake trailers "Machete" and "Hobo With A Shotgun" as "Grindhouse" spin-offs (of a sort) that have since gone from parody to reality.

The miracle of it all, of course, is that most would've expected an oddity like "Thanksgiving" to settle for little more than empty pastiche, impotently aping the '80s slashers Roth so blatantly tried to evoke in his early directing efforts. Those who've watched the original...

You don’t make a movie called Thanksgiving without mentally preparing for critics to label it a turkey. I suspect that pun will be dispensed quite a lot in reviews of Eli Roth’s latest slasher, reheated like leftovers from the holiday and all the more flavorless with every bite. Possibly from low expectations––this is, after all, an adaptation of a fake in-movie trailer from a box office flop approaching 17 years old, spin-offs of which are the underwhelming likes of Machete and Hobo with a Shotgun––I didn’t find myself in that camp, even if the taste it left in my mouth wasn’t altogether pleasant.

With 2006’s Hostel, Roth popularized the “torture porn” genre within the mainstream, but even as his films have become more slapstick in violence, the benevolence with which they treat their characters remains the same. At his worst, it would seem Roth sees...

“Thanksgiving,” a cheerfully debased — or maybe I should say de-basted — slasher film directed by Eli Roth, marks the third time that one of the luscious mock trailers from Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez’s “Grindhouse” has been spun into a feature film. The first such movie, Rodriguez’s “Machete,” worked better than anyone might have expected; it gave Danny Trejo perhaps the best lead role of his career, and it was tasty enough in its high-zooming vengeful action hyperbole to spawn a sequel.

Roth’s trailer for “Thanksgiving,” on the other hand, was a bloody perfect, outrageously transgressive parody of the holiday horror genre that had long gone out of style. The best thing about it may have been the narrator, with his ultra-low voice of deadpan drive-in psychosis. The “Thanksgiving” trailer, as indelible as a great Mad parody, was two-and-a-half minutes of concentrated schlock heaven. Was it worth turning into an actual movie?...

It's been 16 years since "Grindhouse" was released and it's still one of the most fascinating genre movies to ever hit theater screens. Not so much in terms of quality (the movie has its die-hard fans and exasperated critics still to this day), but in just how influential it was, especially for a movie that bombed so spectacularly at the box office. 

To brush you up on the movie, it was Robert Rodriguez hot off of "Sin City" and Quentin Tarantino joining forces to pay homage to a particular favorite period of genre filmmaking: the "Grindhouse Era." That's where really gory, sleazy, typically super low-budget horror movies had their place to shine in rundown theaters. It was an era of little to no executive oversight, so anything went in these hyper-violent movies.

In terms of influence, there have been multiple horror movies trying to capture that throwback "grindhouse" aesthetic, usually to...

Thanksgiving Photo: Tristar Pictures Recalling the most annoying opinion anyone can have about moviegoing, the most best part of Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez’s Grindhouse double feature was the trailers. That’s not to take anything away from Deathproof, which remains Tarantino’s most underrated effort, but the trailers...

ThanksgivingPhoto: Tristar Pictures

Recalling the most annoying opinion anyone can have about moviegoing, the most best part of Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez’s Grindhouse double feature was the trailers. That’s not to take anything away from Deathproof, which remains Tarantino’s most underrated effort, but the trailers lingered...

Robert Rodriguez is a filmmaker with an incredibly eclectic filmography. Sometimes he’ll do a big-budget sci-fi film, such as “Alita: Battle Angel,” but then he might go and make a new ‘Spy Kids’ film with his kids. Perhaps he’s best known for films like violent action films like “From Dusk Till Dawn,” “Desperado,” or even “Machete.” So, what happens when a filmmaker who is no stranger to heaping amounts of gun violence decides he doesn’t want to do that sort of thing anymore?

Continue reading Robert Rodriguez Isn’t Sure He’d Do Another ‘Desperado’ Film Because Of The “Glorification” Of Gun Violence at The Playlist.

Spooky season now extends through the fourth Thursday in November with Thanksgiving, the upcoming slasher from Eli Roth. Sony Pictures has shared its official trailer before it comes to theaters November 17th.

Technically, this could be considered the second Thanksgiving trailer that’s seen the light of day: Back in 2007, Roth made a faux trailer to be presented in the middle of Grindhouse, Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino’s double feature. Also titled Thanksgiving, that hypothetical movie took cues from holiday-themed horror classics like Halloween and My Bloody Valentine, with its killer dressed as a pilgrim.

The 2023 Thanksgiving isn’t quite as obviously indebted to ’70s exploitation flicks, but like its first iteration, it centers around a series of murders in Plymouth, Massachusetts. A year after a local Black Friday sale became a literal bloodbath, the entire town is on edge once again as they attempt to stop the pilgrim-clad killer,...

Every major holiday could stand to have a slasher movie themed around it, especially one with a sunny disposition masquerading the grim truth behind it like Thanksgiving. Such was Eli Roth's thinking when he made his fake "Thanksgiving" movie trailer for Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino's "Grindhouse" experiment back in 2007. Roth's original short is a collection of scenes of people getting brutally decapitated over the Thanksgiving holiday frame by a serial killer dressed as a Pilgrim. It's grotesque, juvenile, and tasteless. In other words, it's everything you either love or hate about Eli Roth's horror work in general.

16 years later, Roth has finally gone and turned "Thanksgiving" into a full-fledged film, just like the fake "Grindhouse" trailers turned actual films "Machete" and "Hobo with a Shotgun" before it. Roth's slasher also marks his return to the realm of hard R-rated genre fare after his brief detour into...

Plot: When the children of the world’s greatest secret agents unwittingly help a powerful Game Developer unleash a computer virus that gives him control of all technology, they must become spies themselves to save their parents and the world.

Review: Robert Rodriguez has always had two distinct film output: mature genre offerings aimed at adult audiences and family-friendly action flicks aimed at the youngest viewers. While Rodriguez’s Troublemaker Studios has used in-house special effects work to deliver pulpy flicks like Machete and the recent Hypnotic, the full-blown CGI worlds of the Spy Kids films have given the indie filmmaker a playground to make every childhood fantasy come to life. After four films centered on the Cortez family of spies, Rodriguez and his son Racer Max have written a franchise reboot centered on two new pint-sized agents as they use their knowledge of video games to save their parents and the world.

Clockwise from top left: El Mariachi (Columbia Pictures), Desperado (Sony), Spy Kids (Lionsgate), Alita: Battle Angel (Fox), Planet Terror (Scream Factory), Sin City (Paramount)Graphic: AVClub

Hit or miss seems like the best way to describe Robert Rodriguez’s films. The indie darling-turned-hot shot action director famously raised a few...

It’s not just a turkey that gets carved in the teaser trailer for Sony Pictures’ holiday-themed horror offering Thanksgiving.

The slasher film from director Eli Roth hits theaters Nov. 17 and stars Patrick Dempsey and Addison Rae. Thanksgiving is based on a fake trailer that Roth made for co-directors Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino’s 2007 film Grindhouse.

Thanksgiving focuses on a serial killer heading to a small Massachusetts town with the goal of making the titular holiday a bloody one. The cast includes Jalen Thomas Brooks, Nell Verlaque, Milo Manheim, Gina Gershon, Tim Dillon and Rick Hoffman.

“Thanksgiving is a time for appreciation,” Hoffman’s character says in the teaser. “It’s a time to remember our many blessings — to celebrate with the ones that we love the most — and a time for all families to be together.”

The spot shows an axe-wielding villain in a pilgrim hat wreaking havoc on the town’s denizens,...