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Stars: Jean-Claude Van Damme, Jacqueline Fernandez, Andrei Lenart, Peter Stormare, Maria Conchita Alonso, Talia Asseraf | Written by Jim Agnew | Directed by Valeri Milev

Kill ‘Em All 2 picks up seven years after the events of the original, which makes sense since there’s seven years between the films, with Phillip reconnected with his daughter Vanessa and the two of them hiding out in southern Italy.

They obviously didn’t do a good job of it, as within the film’s first few minutes they’re attacked by goons working for Vlad Petrovic who is out to avenge the death of his brother Dimitri who was killed in the first film. This puts them on the run, trying to stay alive long enough to deal with Vlad and his crew, and the only way to do that is to kill ’em all.

I haven’t seen the original, and to be honest...

September marks Marcello Mastroianni’s centennial, and the Criterion Channel pays respect with a retrospective that puts the expected alongside some lesser-knowns: Monicelli’s The Organizer, Jacques Demy’s A Slightly Pregnant Man, and two by Ettore Scola. There’s also the welcome return of “Adventures In Moviegoing” with Rachel Kushner’s formidable selections, among them Fassbinder’s Mother Küsters Goes to Heaven, Pialat’s L’enfance nue, and Jean Eustache’s Le cochon. In the lead-up to His Three Daughters, a four-film Azazel Jacobs program arrives.

Theme-wise, a set of courtroom dramas runs from 12 Angry Men and Anatomy of a Murder to My Cousin Vinny and Philadelphia; a look at ’30s female screenwriters includes Fritz Lang’s You and Me, McCarey’s Make Way for Tomorrow, and Cukor’s What Price Hollywood? There’s also a giallo series if you want to watch an Argento movie and ask yourself,...

In Ti West’s 1979-set slasher movie X, Mia Goth played would-be porn star Maxine and elderly killer Pearl. Spinning the film out into a triptych rather than a trilogy, the 1919-set Pearl was about the younger days of the murderess, while MaXXXine is set in 1985 and catches up with what the final girl of the Texas Porn Star Massacre did next in her life. Eventual binge-watchers will notice the way elements recur with variations across all three movies — something Maxine does at the climax mirrors what Pearl did in her film.

In a moment of metatextuality which functions also as a scare scene, Maxine has her head coated with goo as a make-up artist makes an impression to be used to create a severed-head prop for a dream sequence. She is transformed by dripping white gunk into the ghost image of old Pearl, who actually told her she would end up looking like her.

Stars: Kansas Bowling, Jessica Flux, Krystal Shay, Ginger Lynn, Josh Parks, Nina Lanee Kent, Victoria Dementieva, Bryan Hurd, Drew Marvick | Written and Directed by Paul Ragsdale, Angelica De Alba

Murdercise, the latest film from Paul Ragsdale and Angelica De Alba who previously gave us Streets of Vengeance and Slashlorette Party looks at an 80s fad that’s been surprisingly underutilized in retro films, the aerobic workout video craze.

For those unfamiliar with it, it involved several models in skin-tight leotards or skimpy bathing suits bouncing around doing various fat-burning and body-toning moves with the viewer following along at home breaking a sweat and getting into shape. More commonly it was bought by desperately horny guys who couldn’t get their hands on Playboy videos and were sweating for an entirely different reason.

The film opens true to 80s form with a shower scene involving a woman who looks to be...

A documentary series about the disgraced former 1970s British pop star Gary Glitter (real name Paul Francis Gadd) is in the works at Netflix, the streamer has confirmed.

The three-part series, with the working title “Hunting Gary Glitter,” will feature previously unseen photographs and archive footage and will cover Glitter’s life story and his later conviction for child sex abuse and a series of sexual offences.

The series will have exclusive access to the journalists who pursued Glitter over several years across the world in order to bring him to justice and alerted authorities to his whereabouts in Southeast Asia, ultimately leading to his arrest. It will also feature conversations with some of Glitter’s victims. It is directed by Sam Hobkinson and being produced by Cammy Millard (“The Puppet Master”).

The production has been underway for a number of months, Netflix said. The production company is Voltage Films,...

Netflix is in production on a documentary series about the global hunt for disgraced pop star and convicted pedophile Gary Glitter, one of the most notorious figures in British public life.

Following reports that emerged this weekend, the streamer has now confirmed its series on Paul Francis Gadd, who rose to fame in the 1970s and ’80s as one of the leading stars of the glam rock scene under the stage name Gary Glitter, but in 2006 was convicted of child sexual abuse, and a series of sexual offenses — including attempted rape — in 2015. He was recently released after serving half of his sentence.

The three-part series — set to cover his life story and later conviction — features previously unseen photographs and archive footage, and has exclusive access to the journalists who pursued Glitter across the world over several years in order to bring him to justice. It was their work that would...

Exclusive: Face/Off and Hacksaw Ridge producer David Permut has acquired Steve Lillbuen’s true crime book The Devil’s Cinema about Canadian filmmaker Mark Twitchell who was convicted of first degree murder in 2011.

Twitchell is serving a life sentence for the murder of John Brian Altinger, whom he lured into a “kill room” set up in his garage-turned-film-studio. Twitchell bludgeoned and stabbed Altinger, before cutting him apart and then dumping his remains in garbage bags. His arrest and trial attracted substantial media attention since his crimes were inspired by TV series Dexter and lead character Dexter Morgan, prompting some outlets to refer to Twitchell as the “Dexter Killer”.

The shocking story will be featured this month on an upcoming episode of CBS’s true crime series 48 Hours.

Brit filmmaker Sam Hobkinson, whose credits include true-crime doc Kleptocrats, Netflix factual feature Misha And The Wolves and the same streamer’s mob series Fear City,...

Dick Halligan, who won two Grammys for his early work with the group Blood, Sweat and Tears and later turned to film and television work, died Jan. 18 in Rome, Italy at age 78. The family cited natural causes.

Halligan was a member of Blood, Sweat and Tears for the horn-driven rock band’s first four albums. He played trombone on the group’s heralded 1968 debut, “Child is Father to the Man,” then moved over to keyboards and flute for their second album, the self-titled, “Blood, Sweat and Tears,” after co-founder and keyboardist Al Kooper left the band. With David Clayton-Thomas coming in as the grittier new lead vocalist, the group had a major commercial breakthrough and went from the counterculture cult popularity of the debut to winning the 1969 album of the year Grammy for the sophomore release. Halligan remained on board for two more albums before taking his leave in 1971.

It...

Zeros and Ones"The fact that we’re still making movies is a fucking miracle."—Abel FerraraAbel Ferrara has, for most of his career—most of his life, really—been more comfortable amid scum and sewage and sin, the tawdry, oil-slick sleaze of pre-Giuliani New York, than he has polite society. He was, in his youth, into middle age, even now, at 69—a family man and ten years sober after a lifetime of insalubrious activities—not one to give a fuck. He's more 42nd Street than 54th, and yet he got a nice retrospective at MoMA a couple years ago. He cut his teeth on porn and exploitation that, while just as schlocky as anything else with a similar budget and penchant for perversity, is obviously made by a mad genius, one who doesn't entirely fit in with the other weirdos of New York. Consider the ferocity of his early films,...

Netflix has hired Adam Hawkins to lead its documentary series team in the U.K.

Hawkins will join the streamer later this year from Raw, where he is currently U.S. creative director of the team responsible for developing hits, including the Emmy-winning Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy, Don’t F**k With Cats: Hunting An Internet Killer and Fear City. Adam was also an executive producer of Stanley Tucci: Searching For Italy (with Eve Kay), Three Identical Strangers (with Tom Barry and Dimitri Doganis), Don’t F**k with Cats: Hunting An Internet Killer (with Doganis).

Hawkins will report to L.A.-based director of documentary series Gabe Spitzer and ...

Illustration by Jeff CashvanMovie-lovers!Welcome back to The Deuce Notebook, a collaboration between Mubi Notebook and The Deuce Film Series, our monthly event at Nitehawk Williamsburg that excavates the facts and fantasies of cinema's most infamous block in the world: 42nd Street between 7th and 8th Avenues. For each screening, my co-hosts and I pick a flick that we think embodies the era of all-night moviegoing down the “Flamboyant Floodway,” and present the theater at which it premiered.Back in October 2013, for our second screening at Nitehawk, we presented Abel Ferrara’s second feature—so, we thought for our second Mubi column we would feature the film a second time. You dig?Every screening concludes with our 'famous' raffle, the grand prize of which is always an original poster by the 'Maestro’ Jeff Cashvan. Enter for your chance to win Jeff’s one-sheet above by shooting us an email and saying ciao: thedeucefilmseries@gmail.

“Misha checked every box for the type of woman we seek to interview,” states a radio host with a pleasingly mellifluous voice at the start of Misha and the Wolves, a twisty documentary that made its world premiere at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival. “Sometimes a story is so astonishing,” the host adds, that “it feels unbelievable.” Indeed, the story of Misha Defonseca checks a number of boxes on the documentary checklist. Serious surprises? Juicy legal proceedings? Jaw-dropping historical details? Check, check, check. And there is one more box to check: Stories that were too good to be true.

That is not exactly a spoiler; there is no hiding the knowledge that all in Misha and the Wolves is not what it seems. Even the film’s Sundance description makes no attempt at subterfuge: “Author Misha Defonseca’s memoir took the world by storm, but fallout with her publisher-turned-detective exposes the...

Recently, a friend asked me what Tiny Pretty Things — the new series I’ve been mainlining for reasons we’ll get into in a moment — was all about.

“Ballet, bitches and butts,” I said, with zero shame. (Note to Netflix, which streams the show: Feel free to use that as a blurb!)

More from TVLineGinny & Georgia First Look: Is Netflix's New Dramedy the Next Gilmore Girls?To All the Boys: Always and Forever Trailer: Lara Jean and Peter's Final Chapter Premieres This FebruaryNetflix Trailer Teases To All the Boys 3, Third Kissing Booth and More Movies

My friend knew to...

The competitive world of ballet has become a lot more cutthroat than it already is.

On Netflix's newest addictive soapy drama, Tiny Pretty Things takes the refined and regimented world of ballet and injects it with a big dose of teen drama. Beautifully skilled dances and juicy backstabbing makes this a perfect recipe for becoming your next guilty pleasure.

The series strives to be a mix of Black Swan and another Netflix hit, Elite. However, the ballet company's salacious antics are sometimes overshadowed by the hook-ups of its teen characters. And, let's not forget the build-up to the conclusion that didn't hit its mark.

[Spoiler Warning: This review will discuss some plot points of Tiny Pretty Things Season 1. If you have yet to binge-watch the series, finish and come back to read.]

Tiny Pretty Things Season 1 carries many of the similar framework beats from Netflix's Elite.

There is a prestigious school where only the acclaimed get to attend, and...

A demon driver’s ed teacher, a shrunken Buffy, and a pre-teen Dawn.

No, these aren’t Buffy Season 8 comic stories, but rather ideas for the much-discussed but never actually made Buffy: The Animated Series. In development hell since the days when Buffy the Vampire Slayer was still on the air, the show would have featured episodes written by faves like Jane Espenson, Steve DeKnight, Drew Greenberg and Doug Petrie, as well as creator Joss Whedon himself.

After the idea was conceived by Whedon and Jeff Loeb in 2001, a four-minute presentation (which you can now watch here) was written and drawn in 2004 with voice work completed by principle cast including Alyson Hannigan, Nicholas Brendan, and Anthony Head. But by 2005, Whedon declared the show to be dead. So what happened?

It wouldn’t have been a straight spin-off or sequel, but rather it would have taken place during the parent series...

(Welcome to Now Stream This, a column dedicated to the best movies streaming on Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, and every other streaming service out there.) The Firm Now Streaming on Netflix and Amazon Prime Video Release Date: 1993 Genre: Thriller Director: Sydney Pollack Cast: Tom Cruise, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Gene Hackman, Ed Harris, Holly Hunter, Hal Holbrook, David Strathairn The Firm […]

The post Now Stream This: ‘The Firm’, ‘The Last Dance’, ‘Fear City’, ‘Palm Springs’, ‘Airplane!’, ‘Shattered Glass’, and More appeared first on /Film.

Director Sam Hobkinson’s Fear City: New York vs The Mafia details the historic investigation and prosecution of New York’s criminal Commission. The resulting convictions of the law enforcement actions marked an end of an era. New York was no longer under the thumb of mob bosses; businesses maintained control of their goods, manufacturing and trafficking; the thin blue line thickened.

As the documentary points out, the Mafia was untouchable when they controlled illegal street trade, but when they made offers which legitimate business couldn’t refuse, law enforcement stepped in and cleaned up. Fear City: New York vs The Mafia depicts this specific period in New York as a war zone. “The Bronx was burning every night,” Guardian Angel founder Curtis Sliwa says in the documentary.

While much of the day-to-day peril of city living has been exaggerated into legend, this is what drew a British...

Detailing the New York City mob crackdown in the mid-'80s, Netflix's Fear City: New York vs. the Mafia brings to life its three-part docuseries with real accounts from FBI agents, attorneys, and past mob members. One of its key featured players is Michael Franzese, a former caporegime for the Colombo family who lived the gritty life himself. We don't hear too much about Franzese's postmob situation in the documentary, but he has had quite the career arc, going from a mobster to a motivational speaker. While no longer a member of the mob, the 69-year-old certainly uses his past as a talking point in his lectures and interviews today.

Born in 1951, Franzese grew up the son of Colombo underboss John "Sonny" Franzese. Though he studied pre-med at Hofstra University in 1969, he dropped out to take care of his family when Sonny was put in prison. Franzese became deeply involved with the mob himself,...

Blue Underground is bringing two cult classics from Lucio Fulci to 4K on August 25th! Here's a look at the bonus features and cover art for 4K restorations of The New York Ripper and The House by the Cemetery:

From the Press Release: "Blue Underground is proud to present critically acclaimed restorations of The New York Ripper and The House By The Cemetery in true 4K Ultra High Definition with Dolby Vision Hdr and a new Dolby Atmos audio mix, bursting at the seams with hours of new and archival extras.

"We put a lot of time and work into restoring these films," said William Lustig, President of Blue Underground. " We're thrilled that fans can now view them at home in true 4K Ultra HD, with Dolby Vision High Dynamic Range and new Dolby Atmos audio mixes."

The New York Ripper

Someone Is Taking A Big Bite Out Of The Big Apple.

As police forces across the country are held under tighter scrutiny for crimes against the people they swore to serve, Netflix will feature a previous victory law enforcement can brag about. The three-part series, which premieres July 22, presents the prosecution’s case for the Mafia takedown in New York City during the 1970s.

“Throughout the 1970s and ’80s, the ‘Five Families’ of the New York mafia—Bonanno, Colombo, Gambino, Genovese and Luccese—held a powerful, and seemingly insurmountable, grip on the city,” according to the official synopsis. Directed by award-winning documentarian Sam Hobkinson, Fear City: New York vs The Mafia details “the incredible story of the history-making organized crime investigation and subsequent prosecution case brought against New York’s most formidable mob bosses.”

Fear City was created by the Raw and Brillstein Entertainment, the same production companies which made the docuseries Don’t F*ck With Cats. The documentary series...

Netflix has released the trailer for Fear City, a three-part series about the Mafia takedown in New York City during the 1970s. The series premieres July 22nd on the streaming platform.

Created by the same production company as the docuseries Don’t F*ck With Cats, Fear City explores a derelict time in New York’s history, where the five Mafia families took control of Manhattan. The series follows the FBI’s concerted effort to take down all five families at the same time.

“I grew up in the ’70s and ’80s in the UK.

Netflix has confirmed most of its upcoming content for July, so it’s time to take a look at what’s on the horizon. It’s a quiet-ish month for the streaming giant, but we assume it’ll only get quieter in the next part of the year as the industry shutdown continues to impact release schedules everywhere. Nonetheless, Netflix still has some intriguing projects to offer, for the time being.

July will see the return of The Umbrella Academy for its highly anticipated second season, but Netflix also has a few new gambles in the form of its Unsolved Mysteries and The Baby-Sitters Club reboots, along with a brand new spin on the Arthurian legend with its Lady of the Lake series, Cursed. Elsewhere, Charlize Theron stars as an immortal badass in comic book adaptation The Old Guard and we’ll take another trip into teen rom-com territory with...

The Salisbury Poisonings is coming to AMC. The four part drama aired on BBC as a limited series, and the cast includes Anne-Marie Duff, Rafe Spall, MyAnna Buring and Johnny Harris.

revealed more about the series in a press release. Check that out below.

“AMC announced that The Salisbury Poisonings, the limited series from and Dancing Ledge which was the biggest overnight launch of a new drama in the UK in six years, will make its exclusive U.S. debut on the network this fall, following a deal with global producer and distributor Fremantle. Based on the incredible true story of the 2018 Novichok poisonings and the impact it had on a local community, the four-part drama stars Anne-Marie Duff, Rafe Spall (Trying), MyAnna Buring (The Witcher, Ripper...

I can’t always write about lesser known films. I mean I can, but I think it’s important to look at films known but not necessarily loved within their specific sub-genre. Case in point: Lucio Fulci’s The House by the Cemetery (1981), the last film in his loose “Gates of Hell” trilogy, and usually considered the least of the three. It certainly was by me - until my latest viewing, that is; while not epic in scope like The Beyond (‘80) or as atmospheric as City of the Living Dead, it has a straightforwardness that I find refreshing. As straightforward as Fulci can get, I suppose, in all his Fulci-ness.

For those unaware of the late director and the level of his import, we will need to consult with Cushing’s Ghoulish Glossary, which states:

Thought for many years by individuals with their heads firmly ensconced up their own rectum...

Abel Ferrara's King of New York (1990) and 4:44 Last Day on Earth(2011) are playing April – May, 2019 on Mubi in the United States.The world has shrunk around Abel Ferrara. He was once able to shoot every corner of his oft-filmed hometown in movies like Fear City, Ms. 45, RXmas, The Addiction, Bad Lieutenant and King of New York as if it were Babylon. It's darkest corners and towering skyscrapers, its crooked cops, princely dealers and bottom-feeding scum riding an unpredictable wave of fortune and misery. And fittingly Ferrara himself fell prey to that same tide and by the time he wanted to make 4:44: Last Day on Earth, he was no longer the in-demand presence he once was. King of New York and 4:44 are perfect twins, charting the disintegrating mental peace two men with storied pasts. Drug addictions, prison time, lost potential, lost time, both men have to...

Brian DePalma has always come under the gun of the Movie Police, whether it’s for charges of Hitchcock “homages” or misogynistic attitudes towards his female characters. Well round up the paddy wagons for Body Double (1984), the clever thriller that mixes Vertigo, Rear Window, and the adult film industry into one heady stew that audiences took a hard pass on at the time. Maybe it was too classy?

Released in late October by Columbia Pictures, Body Double returned less than its $10 million budget and garnered the same mixed reviews that followed DePalma around for most of his career. (For those keeping count, Ebert gave it a three and a half star review; did his appreciation of the female form inform his opinion? Discuss amongst yourselves.) Regardless of its box office demise, Body Double lives on as one of DePalma’s cleverest magic tricks, a cinematic sleight of hand gussied up in fishnets and mirrored ceilings.

“All the films in this book share an air of disreputability… I have tried to avoid using the word art about the movies in this book, not just because I didn’t want to inflate my claims for them, but because the word is used far too often to shut down discussion rather than open it up. If something has been acclaimed as art, it’s not just beyond criticism but often seen as above the mere mortals for whom its presumably been made. It’s a sealed artifact that offers no way in. It is as much a lie to claim we can be moved only by what has been given the imprimatur of art as it would be to deny that there are, in these scruffy movies, the very things we expect from art: avenues into human emotion and psychology, or into the character and texture of the time the films were made,...

Ryan Lambie Nov 24, 2016

Maverick director Abel Ferrara talks to us about his career in movies, from Driller Killer to Bad Lieutenant and Body Snatchers...

When British distributor Vipco put out full-age ads depicting a particularly bloody scene from Driller Killer, the movie became an unwitting part of the 'video nasty' moral flap of the early 80s. Suddenly, director Abel Ferrara's low-budget, quick-and-dirty horror-arthouse-drama about a young artist going crazy in Manhattan was lumped in with such films as Cannibal Holocaust, Last House On The Left and the tawdry SS Experiment Camp.

See related  Yonderland: saluting a brilliant fantasy comedy Yonderland series 3 episode 6 review: Swapsies Yonderland series 3 episode 5 review: The Negatus Redemption Yonderland series 3 episode 4 review: Boo

Banned from 1984 until 1999 (when it was released with nearly a minute of cuts), Driller Killer is about to get a restored, 4K edition courtesy of Arrow Films, which presents the original theatrical version...

Abel Ferrara's Fear City (1984) is playing on Mubi June 19 - July 18, 2016 in the United States.Abel Ferrara’s first feature film, 9 Lives of a Wet Pussy, which I have not seen, was a late-70s porno made three years before his cult hit The Driller Killer. Paired with the director’s politics, his debut is likely an orgy of contradictions: rugged but titillating, primal and intellectual, feminist yet exploitive of women’s bodies. Ferrara’s most profound work isn’t political in any usual sense. His films don’t have a message or agenda, and if any other filmmaker were to make them, they would be mute or problematic—shocking sex and violence without significance or pathos. He has a unique way with images and cuts, creating meaning through feeling, and not the other way around. He often works within the confines of genre and exploitation films, but never feels imprisoned.

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 the interwebs. 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 Instant Video, and more (note: U.S. only). Check out our rundown for this week’s selections below.

Aferim! (Radu Jude)

Leave it to a Romanian director to make a movie that best expresses the dangers of the dyed-in-the-wool mindset of modern America. Culled partly from historical documents, Aferim! is a twisted history lesson whose messages transcend its insular time period of 19th-century Romania. Its story concerns Constable Costandin (Teodor Corban) and his son, Ionita (Mihai Comanoiu), who chase after a wanted Gypsy slave...

Get ready, campers! It’s a big week for all you Angela Baker fans out there as this Tuesday the good folks at Scream Factory are releasing Collector’s Edition Blu-ray/DVDs for the first two Sleepaway Camp sequels: Unhappy Campers and Teenage Wasteland.

June 9th will also be the day that two great cult classics—Society and Spider Baby—are being celebrated with their very own Special Edition releases from Arrow Video. The folks at Turner Classic Movies are giving The Hunchback of Notre Dame a high-def upgrade as well. And as if all that wasn’t enough, TV lovers have The Strain Season 1 Collector's Edition Blu-ray Box Set (available exclusively on Amazon ahead of a July 14th wide home media release) and Teen Wolf Season 4 to look forward to, and we also have a ton of indie horror titles coming to DVD and Blu-ray, including Debug,...

Scavenger’s Song: Johnson’s Chilling, Stylized Sophomore Feature

Opening with a brooding, atmospheric ambience as we drift through a throbbing drug bust set to an electric synth score, Gerard Johnson’s exciting sophomore film, Hyena, recalls early 80’s efforts from the likes of Abel Ferrara or Michael Mann, an exciting concoction of style and tone overlaying familiar narrative tropes. Though the film doesn’t quite maintain this level of elation, dipping into a customary groove that reveals little outside of the inevitable consequences that accompany the actions we see here, Johnson proves to be a promisingly abrasive new voice coming out of the UK. Utilizing the talents of DoP Benjamin Kracun (For Those in Peril, 2013), and bringing along composer Matt Johnson and editor Ian Davies from his 2009 debut, serial killer film Tony, the end result is an unsettling nightmare sporting an arresting energy often absent from trajectories so recognizable.

After making blood-splattered summer memories at Camp Arawak, the Sleepaway Camp franchise pointed its cameras at two new seasonal spots: Camp Rolling Hills and Camp New Horizons. Crackling bonfires, burned flesh, and slice-and-dice slayings wound their way into the busy camp curriculums in both Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers and Sleepaway Camp III: Teenage Wasteland, and to help kick off their Summer of Fear: Part 2, Scream Factory will release both Pamela Springsteen-starring sequels in bonus features-packed Blu-ray / DVD Collector's Editions on June 9th:

Press Release - "This summer, Scream Factory™ invites horror enthusiasts and movie collectors to further venture into the great outdoors and experience what Camp Rolling Hills and Camp New Horizons have to offer – nature walks, randy campers, puritanical camp counselor, murder and a feast of gory goodness! Fans of the popular Sleepaway Camp movies rejoice as the collector’s editions of Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers...

Arriving for the first time on Blu-ray is the 1988 classic gender politics rom-com Working Girl. Famous for giving us Melanie Griffith her most iconic role and it’s Oscar winning track “Let the River Run” by Carly Simon, the film was director Mike Nichols’ return to box office and awards success following the lesser celebrated Heartburn (1986) and Biloxi Blues (1988). And it would be his last Oscar nod for Best Director.

The Wall Street Cinderella story (a template writer Kevin Wade would retool once again in 2002 for Maid in Manhattan) begins in the secretarial pool, where ambitious and intelligent Tess McGill (Melanie Griffith) wishes to rise above her station and snag a ticket up the corporate latter. Having no fear of battling her way through a masculine sea of privilege, including not being afraid to act out after having been pimped off by her boss (Oliver Platt) to a high roller...

Hot! Festival 2014: The NYC Celebration of Queer Culture Dixon Place

161A Christie Street, NYC

July 5 through August 2, 2014

Presented with the enormous variety that the creative arts in New York City offer me, I find myself, from time to time, concluding that self-expression is rather highly overrated. Then I encounter something that reverses that whimsical declaration. One such event was a recent press preview of several segments from Hot! Festival 2014: The NYC Celebration of Queer Culture. If the five thrilling, outrageous, poignant, and all-in-all utterly engaging presentations I experienced that afternoon is any indication of what this nearly one month festival includes, it behooves you to attend as many of the varied performances as you are able!

A stunning dance scene from “Diaghilesque” opened the presentation -- a beautiful re-imagining of the style of Ballets Russes in Paris from early in the last century. Choreographed by Faux Pas Le Fae,...

Fear City

Written by Nicholas St. John

Directed by Abel Ferrara

USA, 1984

New York City holds a large cinematic history of being a hotspot for noirish sleaze, a stage for a morally ambiguous society held together by a justice system without empathy or remorse. The playground was manifested in Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver as a window to the subversive end to the American Dream, a place underneath the hopeful symbols of the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty. The apocalyptic mood of Scorsese’s revelation was transplanted into the works of Abel Ferrara, a Bronx-born local whose early focus on the deep evils of his immediate landscape labeled him a mainstay in exploitative film. After The Driller Killer (1979) and Ms. 45 (1981), Ferrara continued his narrative strength of depicting the consequences of homicidal justice-seekers with Fear City, regarded as a relative failure due to its mainstream compromises without mainstream appeal.

Moviefone's New Release Pick of the Week "Salmon Fishing in the Yemen" What's It About? A stuffy fisheries expert (Ewan McGregor) is sent on the bizarre mission to bring the sport of fly-fishing to Yemen, all paid for by a sheik. See It Because: This is about as far from your typical rom-com as you can get. A pleasant surprise from beginning to end, the movie is funny, charming and not derivative at all. We also reveled in the comedic performances of Ewan McGregor, Emily Blunt and Kristin Scott Thomas. (Also Available on Redbox | Amazon Instant Video) Moviefone's Blu-ray Pick of the Week "Singin' In the Rain" 60th Anniversary Ultimate Collector's Edition What's It About? The beloved Gene Kelly-starring musical concerns a blossoming Hollywood romance between a leading man and a chorus girl, amidst the transition from silent films to "talkie" pictures. See It Because: You've never seen "Singin' in the Rain...

David Bowie Buy: iTunes.com Genre: Rock Song: Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps) Album: Scary Monsters Ryan Adams Buy: iTunes.com Genre: Rock Song: Halloweenhead Album: Easy Tiger Elliott Smith Buy: iTunes.com Genre: Alternative Song: Fear City Album: New Moon John Cale Buy: iTunes.com Genre: Rock Song: Fear Is a Man's Best Friend Album: The Island Years Ladytron Buy: iTunes.com Genre: Electronic Song: Ghosts Album: Velocifero Jukebox the Ghost Buy: iTunes.com Genre: Alternative Song: Where Are All the Scientists Now? Album: Let Live and Let Ghosts Mekons Buy: iTunes.com Genre: Alternative Song: Psycho Cupid (Danceband on the Edge of Time) Album: Fear and Whiskey Bob Schneider Buy: iTunes.com Genre: Rock Song: Ghosts (Bonus Track) Album: Lovely Creatures (Bonus Track Version) The Dears Buy: iTunes.com Genre: Alternative Song: Fear Made the World Go Round Album: Gang of Losers The Low Anthem Buy: iTunes.com...

We're exactly two months away from the second annual Monsterpalooza, which is returning to the Marriott Burbank Convention Center April 9-11, 2010. To help get people fired up for the event, which features special effects artists from the horror industry along with their many works, the promoters have revealed the expanded guest list along with a slew of presentations and demos that will be taking place over the weekend.

Confirmed guests so far include:

Verne Langdon - Monster Of Ceremonies

Michael Westmore - Academy Award Winning Makeup Artist - Mask, Star Trek, Raging Bull

Tom Burman - Award Winning Makeup Artist - Island Of Dr. Moreau, The Goonies, Nip/Tuck

Barney Burman - Proteus F/X - Dawn Of The Dead, Matrix Reloaded, Star Trek 09

Rob Burman - The Fly, The Thing, Star Trek 09

Amalgamated Dynamics - Academy Award Winners Tom Woodruff & Alec Gillis - Starship Troopers, Avp

Knb - Academy...