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The official website for the upcoming TV anime Young Ladies Don't Play Fighting Games released a teaser trailer today, alongside announcing initial staff members for the series and two new voice cast members. The anime adaptation of Eri Ejima's fighting game-themed comedy manga series is set to premiere in 2025 . The trailer shows the two main characters, Aya Mistuki (voiced by Ikumi Hasegawa) and Mio Yorue (voiced by Kana Ichinose), playing Street Fighter 6 , the latest entry in Capcom's internationally popular Street Fighter fighting game series, in a heated competition. The site additionally announced there will be an official collaboration with Street Fighter 6 in the anime's story. Young Ladies Don't Play Fighting Games Anime Teaser Trailer The site also announced two new voice cast members, including Sayaka Senbongi (Mumei in Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress ) as Yu Inui and Shino Shimoji (Akari Ozora in Aikatsu! ) as Tamaki Ichinose. The site describes...

The upcoming TV anime adaptation of Yura Urushibara’s Tougen Anki manga revealed a bunch of premieres tonight, including two convention premieres and when the series will debut on Japanese TV. The series also announced that Japanese rock band Band-maid ( Zenshu ) will perform the ending theme song “What is justice?” Tougen Anki will get its world premiere at Afa Indonesia 2025 on June 7, followed by its Japanese premiere of the first three episodes on June 21 at United Cinemas Toyosu, and finally its US premiere at Anime Expo 2025. Each of these premieres will have its own special guests. The series will premiere on TV in Japan on July 11. Related: Tougen Anki Anime Releases Second Trailer, Key Visual Akita Shoten serializes the original Tougen Anki manga by Yura Urushibara in their Weekly Shonen Champion manga magazine. Yen Press publishes an English language version of the series under the title Tougen Anki: Legend of the Cursed Blood...

During the stage event at AnimeJapan 2025 today, the upcoming Tougen Anki TV anime reveals a second trailer and a new key visual. The new clips highlights the protagonist Shiki Ichinose’s experience at Rasetsu Academy, a school dedicated to training Oni. Tougen Anki 2nd Trailer The new trailer also features the anime's opening theme song "Overnight" performed by the four-member Japanese alternative rock band The Oral Cigarettes . The band's vocalist and guitarist Takuya Yamanaka said, "I'm very honored to be performing the opening theme for Tougen Anki! In this song, I tried to capture the spirit of the protagonist, who continues to uphold justice even when he’s far from his ideal self. I believe his circumstances are something many people can relate to in everyday life. Rather than living in regret thinking, “I wish I could’ve been more like this…,” my hope is that this song will give someone the push they need.

Tougen Anki , an upcoming TV anime based on the supernatural shonen manga, has published a wealth of new information about the series, including a new trailer, new key art, the main staff, and additional cast members. The series will broadcast in Japan on the Nippon Television network beginning in July 2025. Tougen Anki Trailer The new cast members include: Homare Byobugaura voiced by Manaka Iwami Ikari Yaoroshi voiced by Shogo Sakata Juji Yusurube voiced by Natsuki Hanae Rokuro Kiriyama voiced by Kaito Miura Kuina Sazanami voiced by Aimi Akita Shoten serializes the original Tougen Anki manga by Yura Urushibara in their Weekly Shonen Champion manga magazine. Yen Press also publishes an English language version of the series under the title Tougen Anki: Legend of the Cursed Blood . Ato Nonaka directs the TV anime at Studio Hibari while Hiroyuki Hashimoto acts as assistant director. Yukie Sugawara provides the series composition and scripts,...

Counselor Deanna Troi's (Marina Sirtis) best Star Trek: The Next Generation episode saw her become a Romulan. Courtesy of her Betazoid mother Lwaxana Troi. Troi could also sense when others were hiding something, making her an important advisor to Captain Picard and an invaluable asset to the Enterprise-d's crew.

Star Trek: The Next Generation, however, did not always make the best use of Counselor Troi's abilities, often reducing her to pointing out the obvious or relegating her to the sidelines. There were many times when Deanna Troi deserved better as a character, and she did not truly get the chance to shine until Tng's final seasons. It was not until Tng season 6 that Troi finally got to wear a regular Starfleet uniform rather than her usual civilian bodysuits. Troi's strongest episode came in Tng season 6, episode 14, "Face of the Enemy," when she was kidnapped and turned into a Romulan for an undercover mission.

Lionsgate has taken another step towards a proposed separation of its studio operations from Starz, its pay TV and streaming business.

On Wednesday, the Hollywood studio disclosed the public filing of a Form S-4 registration statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission around the long-awaited separation of its studios business, to be called Lionsgate Studios Corp., and its media networks business, mainly Starz.

The SEC filing offers a joint proxy statement and prospectus that calls for Lionsgate’s studios business, known as LG Studios, to formally split from Starz to produce two separately traded public companies. The first, Lgec, will be renamed Starz Entertainment Corp., and New Lionsgate will be called Lionsgate Studios Corp.

Earlier, Lionsgate spun off its film and TV studios business in a Special Purpose Acquisition Company (Spac) to create a separately traded public company, with an eye to a formal separation from Starz down the road.

The 2000s were an incredible decade for filmmaking in general, but particularly for the war genre, which saw many modern classics being released. Many directors continued the traditions from the best war movies from generations past, pushing films about war to their limits with grand action sequences and intimate personal narratives on the battlefields. War films, by nature, lend themselves to epic, action-filled tales that feature some of the best and worst characteristics of human behavior and psychology.

Some of the best war films of all time were released in the 2000s, such as the haunting The Pianist and the captivating Inglourious Basterds, both of which represent how unique and different films in this genre can be. The Pianist is a harrowing story that follows one man's realistic journey through the Holocaust in heart-wrenching and authentic scenes, while Tarantino's epic takes a fictionalized look at an alternate reality of...

When you talk about action-adventure survival games set in the underwater world, one name that comes to mind is Subnautica. This long-hailed title made its entry in the gaming arena a decade ago, and since then has been winning the hearts of all the players for its flora and fauna aesthetics.

Subnautica 2 is going to be released in 2025. | Credit: Unknown Worlds.

Now, the excitement level is sky-high as Unknown Worlds has recently announced Subnautica 2. And this excitement is going to reach a whole new level as a developer of the game has teased us with an important detail.

Subnautica 2 Map Will Be Bigger Than Its Predecessor We are probably getting a bigger and deeper map in Subnautica 2 than its predecessor. | Credit: Unknown Worlds.

After the announcement of Subnautica 2, a fan asked Unknown Worlds developer Scott MacDonald about the size of the map in the upcoming title on Twitter. He asked...

Making a sequel for a war movie is a difficult thing to do, as has been proven by the countless amounts of strange ideas for follow-ups to classic militaristic films over the years. The best war movies give in-depth glimpses on the true horrors of war while also featuring exciting action. Historical accuracy doesn't hurt either, though it isn't strictly required to generate a powerful story depicting the terrors of combat. However, it can be difficult to capitalize on the success of a war movie for various reasons.

A big part of the difficulty that comes with generating ideas for a war movie sequel is the adherence to real-life conflicts, which already have predetermined endings. It can be hard to find excuses to revive a recognizable war movie IP while staying faithful to actual history, putting follow-ups to war films in a difficult place. While the odd box office success...

Supernatural mystery mobile game Tasokare Hotel revealed today a TV anime adaptation of the game is in the works, set for a January 2025 premiere. Alongside the announcement, the first teaser trailer, the first visual and the lead staff and cast were uncovered for the anime which is set in the twilight between life and death. The lead cast for Tasokare Hotel includes: Neko Tsukahara  voiced by Rika Momokawa Atori Haruto  voiced by Koudai Sakai Masaki Osoto  voiced by Yusuke Shirai Hotel Manager  voiced by Kanehira Yamamoto Ruri  voiced by Yuki Nagano Menow  voiced by Natsue Sasamoto Kiriko  voiced by Takashi Narumi Related: In/Spectre 2 English Dub Reveals Cast & Crew, Release Date Kousuke Fujishima directs Tasokare Hotel at anime studio Pra, based on the original mobile game from Benoma Ray and Seec. Yuko Hariba is doing the character and costume design for the anime with Yuko Hariba, Minefumi Harada, Yuki Yabuta...

In the "Star Trek: The Next Generation" episode "Face of the Enemy," Counselor Troi (Marina Sirtis) is kidnapped by Romulans. She is given surgery against her will to look like a Romulan commander, and told by her captor, Subcommander N'Vek (Scott MacDonald) that she is to pose as someone named Rakal, a Major in the Tal Shiar, essentially the Romulan Secret Service. Because Troi is half Betazoid, she can intuit the emotions of others and, crucially, tell if they're lying or scheming. N'Vek reveals that he needed a secret Federation ally to convince his captain, Toreth (Carolyn Seymour), to deliver a secret payload to a Starfleet vessel. The payload, audiences will later learn, is a small team of Romulan diplomats held in stasis. The diplomats need to be delivered to the Federation, as they intend to defect.

Toreth, however, is intelligent and strong-willed and won't take suggestions from N'Vek, hence...

Not every movie can be great. Unfortunately, films like Jack Frost exist. And no, I'm not talking about the 1998 Michael Keaton comedy. One year before that, in the bountiful age of 1997, another cinematic experience came into existence. That would be another film called Jack Frost, but instead of being a nice family comedy, this one is a Christmas-themed slasher film. In it, a serial killer named Jack Frost (Scott MacDonald) is killed by the authorities, only for his DNA to fuse with snow on the ground. The result is Frost being resurrected as a savage, bloodthirsty snowman. Sounds like it could be a fun time, right? After all, holiday-themed slasher movies are typically self-aware and comedic enough that they can get a pass for any other shortcomings. The thing is, most other slasher movies try. Jack Frost does not.

All Jack Frost Films Ever Made(Photo Credit –IMDb)

Santa Claus is and will always be the face of Yuletide. He’s an old, polite, white-bearded man who gives everyone gifts; what’s not to love there? So, it is safe to say no one can replace the good old Santa Claus. However, there are some Christmas figures that do not nearly get as much love from the world as Santa, despite being as interesting, if not more, than Father Christmas. One such character is Jack Frost.

While technically not a ‘Christmas figure,’ Jack Frost has always been associated with the festival. He’s essentially the face of winter, the personification of cold, and the guy who gives everyone the frosty fingers and snowed-in days. The first recorded mention of Jack Frost in literature was in 1734 in a book called “Round About Our Coal Fire, or Christmas Entertainments.”

Jack Frost...

DS9 broke Star Trek rules by having new life come to them instead of seeking it out, causing a potential diplomatic incident. O'Brien's informal First Contact with Tosk was refreshing compared to the stuffy diplomatic procedures of Tng, prioritizing the individual over the species. O'Brien's intervention to free Tosk respected both the traditions of the Tosk and the Hunters, breaking the Prime Directive but promoting mutual understanding.

The first new aliens to arrive from the Gamma Quadrant gave Star Trek: Deep Space Nine a chance to break a big rule from its parent show, Star Trek: The Next Generation. Set aboard a space station in orbit above Bajor, DS9 was always designed as a counterpoint to the deep space exploration of Tng. Where the crew of the USS Enterprise-d would seek out new life, the crew of Deep Space Nine had new life come to them, via the wormhole into the Gamma Quadrant.

Odo's approach to law enforcement on Deep Space Nine was progressive, as he never relied on guns or lethal force. Odo's Changeling abilities and brusque manner allowed him to surprise and intimidate criminals without violence. Odo only used a phaser once in the entire series, breaking his rule when he believed Kira's life was in danger, highlighting his deep love for her.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's supercop Constable Odo (Rene Auberjonois) never carried a gun and there was a very good reason why he once broke this rule. In DS9 season 1, episode 5, "Captive Pursuit", the titular space station becomes an unwitting location for an intergalactic hunt after a damaged ship arrives from the Gamma Quadrant. Aboard the ship is Tosk (Scott MacDonald) a member of a reptile species that is specifically bred to be hunted by a species known only as the Hunters. When the Hunters beam...

Despite initially being seen as too arrogant by audiences, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's resident physician, Dr. Julian Bashir (Alexander Siddig), was a multifaceted character, as demonstrated by his ten best DS9 episodes. When Julian was first introduced in DS9, he was a young Starfleet doctor, fresh out of Starfleet Academy and seeking the challenges of working in pioneer medicine. The discovery of the wormhole and easy access to the Gamma Quadrant gave the young doctor his wish, and some of his best episodes see Julian put his considerable medical skills to the test inside Dominion territory.

It was those experiences, Bashir's love for old-fashioned spy stories, and his hitherto undisclosed genetic augmentations that brought him to the attention of Star Trek's nefarious black ops group, Section 31. Julian's investigation of Section 31 gave him one of the most fascinating arcs in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's final two seasons,...

It’s time for a new episode of our Best Horror Party Movies video series, and with this one we’re celebrating the holidays by taking a look back at the 1997 killer snowman movie Jack Frost (watch it Here)! To find out how we would build a party around Jack Frost, check out the video embedded above.

Directed by Michael Cooney from a screenplay he wrote with Jeremy Paige, Jack Frost has the following synopsis:

As notorious serial killer Jack Frost is being driven to his execution, the truck carrying the murderer encounters a bizarre accident that transforms him into a mutant snowman. Sheriff Sam Tiler, who caught the psychopath originally, has remained concerned about his return, and it seems that his fears were well-founded. Before long, bodies pile up, all killed in gruesome wintry ways.

The film stars Christopher Allport, Stephen Mendel, F. William Parker, Rob Labelle, Shannon Elizabeth,...

"You gotta be the meanest fighter God ever created." Hulu has unveiled the full-length official trailer for an incredible new sports biopic series titled Mike, about the infamous boxer Mike Tyson. This looks like a knock out! "Mike is an unauthorized and no-holds-barred look at the life of Mike Tyson – and it is one wild ride." This is from the same team that made I, Tonya, featuring Craig Gillespie directing episodes, and Steven Rogers writing the script - which seems like the perfect filmmaking team to handle this story. I don't think they will shy away from how abusive he is, which is an honest part of his character. Trevante Rhodes (from Moonlight) stars as Mike, with a main cast including Harvey Keitel as boxing coach Cus D'Amato, Scott MacDonald, Suzette Lange, Laura Harrier as Robin Givens, plus Russell Hornsby as Don King. I'm definitely planning to fire this up when it's out on Hulu.

"You may know Tyson, but do you know Mike?" Hulu has revealed the first teaser trailer for a new sports biopic series titled Mike, about the infamous boxer Mike Tyson. This mini-series, formerly known as just Iron Mike, will be streaming on Hulu at the end of August, and it will feature 8 episodes in total. "Mike is an unauthorized and no-holds-barred look at the life of Mike Tyson – and it is one wild ride." This is from the same team that made I, Tonya, featuring Craig Gillespie directing episodes, and Steven Rogers writing the script - which seems like the perfect filmmaking team to handle this story, and all the crazy sides of it. Tyson is a quite interesting character, that's for sure! Trevante Rhodes (from Moonlight) stars as Mike, with a main cast including Harvey Keitel as his boxing coach Cus D'Amato, Scott MacDonald, Suzette Lange, Laura Harrier as Robin Givens,...

Close-up is a feature that spotlights films now playing on Mubi. John Smith's Citadel is exclusively showing starting January 25, 2021 in Mubi's Brief Encounters series. "We truly did everything we could and continue to do everything we can to minimise loss of life and to minimise suffering during a very, very difficult stage in a very, very difficult crisis for our country." —Boris Johnson, January 26th, after the UK tops 100,000 Covid-19 deathsAlthough the first shots in Citadel, John Smith’s caustic city symphony, were recorded pre-Covid, the idea for the film began to take root once the veteran British artist found himself, like so many of us, in a state of enforced confinement. Shot from his bedroom window during Britain’s first lockdown, Citadel emerges from the artist’s long-standing interest in capturing how changing light conditions impact his surroundings: in this case, the shiny, glazed surfaces of East London’s floating-island financial district.

Do you feel that chill in the air? Winter has once again descended to encase us in her cold, deathly embrace. But, of course, winter does not come alone. She brings with her a golem made from the very snow she produces to freeze us down to our bones. This avatar mocks us by shaping itself in a distorted facsimile of the human form cobbled together with coal, carrots, and despair. I refer, of course, to the snowman, the ultimate bodhisattva of the season of death.

Human beings often try to make sense of life’s horrors through story, and in the late ’90s not one, but two films dared plunge the depths of the uncanny dread induced by snowmen. And such was the terrifying nature of both films that they each earned the title Jack Frost.

The first attempt, made in 1997 by Michael Clooney, is what one might call the more straightforward horror tale,...

Offon by Scott Bartlett (1968)

This film’s title is spelled various ways in different sources. Variations include Off-On, Off/On, and Offon. The Canyon Cinema Catalog 3, published in Spring 1972, spells it Offon. However, all film titles in the catalog are spelled in all caps, so the Underground Film Journal has opted to spell it as Offon, also based on the title screen, which is in all caps. Some sources also give a completion year of 1967, but 1968 is correct.

Offon is considered one of the first works to combine film and video together. It was celebrated upon its release for both its technical ingenuity as much as for its artistic integrity.

Over the weekend of May 10th, 1968, Offon screened at the first Yale Film Festival at Yale University, where it was awarded First Prize by judges Annette Michelson, Willard Van Dyke, Bernard Hanson, and Jonas Mekas, who wrote about the festival...

Flight by Greta Snider (1997)

San Francisco-based filmmaker Greta Snider is primarily known for her unique spin on documentaries. At first glance, Flight may seem like a straight-up experimental film, but reading its official description by Snider shows the work’s documentary essence:

My father’s photographic legacy, compiled and transformed into light. His family photographs, his hobbyist pictures of trains and roses, his airplanes and his obsession with birds circling…these images are imprinted onto the film, like a fingerprint or trace. The film is hand-processed and hand-exposed without a camera (as with Ray-o-Grams).

In the book The Garden in the Machine, Scott MacDonald describes the “rayogram” technique, which was pioneered in the 1920’s by Man Ray with his film Retour a la raison (1923). A “rayogram” is when a filmmaker places objects onto film stock and exposes the film to light. The end result, as you can see in Flight,...

In December 1966, the Canyon Cinema Cooperative in San Francisco, California published their first Catalogue of experimental and avant-garde films to rent. This was four years after the Film-Makers’ Cooperative had begun distributing underground films in New York City.

Canyon first listed films to rent in the November ’66 edition of their News newsletter, then published the catalog separately one month later. In the book Canyon Cinema, Scott MacDonald notes that the News listed just 31 filmmakers with films. Only six of them had multiple films listed; while the rest listed just a single film each.

The first standalone catalogue expanded on that first listing of filmmakers, but is still a modest publication at just sixteen pages, plus the covers. The catalogue includes 45 filmmakers — some are listed as pairs — and many more filmmakers have multiple films listed. For example, Larry Jordan has eight films listed, Robert Nelson six and Bruce Baillie four.

There...

In 1966, after six years of existence, the Canyon Cinema experimental film collective of San Francisco, California started its own cooperative distribution center, first listing films in the November ’66 issue of their News newsletter, in which they stated that they would be following in the footsteps of New York City’s Film-Makers’ Cooperative that had been distributing underground films since 1962.

This origin of the Canyon Cinema cooperative is covered in Scott MacDonald’s exhaustive history of the organization, in which he lays out the timeline of publication of the first two catalogs:

November 1966: Canyon lists films to rent in their News publication

December 1966: Canyon Cinema Cooperative Catalog, Number 1

1968: Catalog Number 2

1969: Catalog Number 2, Supplement Number 1

1970: Catalog Number 2, Supplement Number 2

1970: Catalog Number 2, Supplement Number 3

MacDonald states that the second Catalog was 128 pages long, but the Supplement Number 1 begins its numbering on its title page with Page 125. The...

This is an article about the second issue of the avant-garde arts zine Idiolects. An article on the first issue can be read here.

For a small publication with no advertising to support it, publishing on a quarterly basis was an ambitious and impressive achievement for Idiolects. This second issue covers avant-garde happenings in New York City from August to November 1976, primarily film, but not exclusively.

While again there is special thanks given to the Collective for Living Cinema in issue #2’s indicia, there’s no indication that the Collective was providing financial support. The first issue had a cover price of 10 cents, but the second issue has no price and offers a complicated subscription scheme where potential subscribers are invited to send in whatever amount they want that Idiolects would deduct the price for each issue until subscribers’ accounts reach zero.

This issue also actively encourages submissions from authors...

And Sometimes the Boats Are Low by Leighton Pierce (1983)

As of this writing, there does not appear to be much written about this particular film by Pierce, even though there is quite a bit written about his work in general, particularly by film historian Scott MacDonald.

Two known screenings of the film have been at the 3rd Experimental Film Festival in 1986 run by the Experimental Film Coalition; and at a “Personal Cinema Program” event at the Millennium Film Workshop in New York City on November 30, 1987. The “Personal Cinema Program” included Pierce’s And Sometimes the Boats Are Low, plus his films Not Much Time (1982) and The Miracle of Change (1984).

(Note: In the mid to late ’80s, Pierce credited his work as “J. Leighton Pierce.” Since that time, he has dropped the “J.” and is written about just as “Leighton Pierce.”)

Although there isn’t much written specifically on And Sometimes the Boats Are Low,...

Late Nite Grindhouse closes out the year with a film that goes against our typical programming by programming a silly horror film called Jack Frost. This Z-Grade horror-comedy is something that I think we all need after this emotionally turbulent year. Utterly ridiculous, Jack Frost is the perfect communal film that will make you laugh and wonder how in the hell this got made.

As notorious serial killer Jack Frost (Scott MacDonald) is being driven to his execution, the truck carrying the murderer encounters a bizarre accident that transforms him into a mutant snowman. Sheriff Sam Tiler (Christopher Allport), who caught the psychopath originally, has remained concerned about his return, and it seems that his fears were well-founded. Before long, bodies pile up, all killed in gruesome wintry ways. Can the sheriff stop Frost’s icy reign of terror?

Late Nite Grindhouse presents Jack Frost Friday, December 9th Saturday, December...

“Is it cold in here or is it just me?”

Jack Frost (1997) screens Midnights this weekend (December 9th and 10th) at The Moolah Theater and Lounge (3821 Lindell Blvd, St. Louis, Mo 63108) as part of Destroy the Brain’s monthly Late Night Grindhouse film series.

Refuse to take a killer snowman seriously at your own risk! Jack Frost went straight to VHS in 1997 and has established quite the cult reputation. On a routine prisoner transport, a massive car accident results in a serial killer, Jack Frost (Scott MacDonald), being genetically mutated into a ravenous mutant killer snowman who runs around stalking a small, isolated town during a snowstorm. Traveling with the snowdrifts, Jack seeks a revenge on the local sheriff who ended his first long reign of terror. His new rampage leaves a trail of (often hilarious) murders in his wake.

You just can’t help but laugh at the (intentional...

If Frosty the Snowman is a little too holly and jolly for your tastes, then you might want to consider adding Vinegar Syndrome's Blu-ray / DVD release of Jack Frost (1997) to your stocking this holiday season.

From Amazon: "On his way to be executed, the vehicle containing notorious serial killer Jack Frost collides with a hazardous chemical truck, turning Jack into a snow covered mutant and unleashing him on the unsuspecting town of Snomonton, 'The Snowman Capitol of the Midwest'. Jack immediately takes advantage of his newfound freedom and blizzardy abilities to seek revenge on the bungling Sheriff, played by Christopher Allport (To Live And Die In L.A.), that accidentally ended his cross-country killing spree. On his way to the Sheriff, Jack terrorizes the snow-man themed town and murders its residents in a variety of winterized ways. Can the residents of Snomonton fight back against the psychopath snowman from Hell...

Donald Trump vs. Starbucks' War on Christmas. The War on Christmas: The movies that come to mind We're still in November, but the War on Christmas – according to online buzz, a second cousin once removed of the War on Cops – has begun. Weeping and gritting of teeth has seized certain population segments in the U.S.A. (and perhaps other countries as well) after Fox News, that beacon of intellectual freedom at the end of the cable news tunnel, announced that … Starbucks' holiday season cups are a) red b) devoid of Christmas decorations. Could it be a satanic conspiracy disguised as politically correct inclusiveness? The result of a communist takeover at the Seattle-headquartered company? Cruel and unusual Christian persecution in the form of paper cups? Your guess is as good as mine. Far-right Republican icon, U.S. presidential candidate, and 2015 political circus ringmaster Donald Trump seems to think that Starbucks...

Spike your eggnog! It's time for a month of Awfully Good holiday movies! Jack Frost 2: Revenge of the Mutant Killer Snowman (2000) Director: Michael Cooney Stars: Christopher Allport, Scott MacDonald, Eileen Seeley The killer snowman is back! And this time he follows his original victims to an island resort in the Bahamas. Jack Frost 2 had a long way to go to top the 1996 original, mainly due to a lack of snowman sex with Shannon Elizabeth. (No, seriously. Click...

This Week’s Absolute Must Read: Mark Toscano’s touching tribute to the recently deceased Robert Nelson. I posted this link up a few days ago in Nelson’s Bad Lit obit, but I know from my stats that not many of you clicked it. If you haven’t read this yet, you must do so. Nelson is one of the under-appreciated greats of the ’60s underground and his work may have been lost forever if not for Toscano. This is important. Go read. And learn.Also on Nelson, Making Light of It has scanned in and posted Scott MacDonald’s interview with the filmmaker for his Critical Cinema series.And, while you’re at it, go check out Canyon Cinema’s Robert Nelson offerings and read up on his work.And in “classic” underground filmmaker news, Experimental Cinema has the scoop on Criterion putting out a Hollis Frampton DVD and Blu-ray.

As a followup to Jesse Cataldo's guide to the inaugural edition of the Museum of the Moving Image series First Look, which runs through January 15, when it closes with Raya Martin's Buenas Noches, España (he'll be there — and that's the trailer above, of course), I thought I'd round up a few supplementary items, starting with Eric Hynes's overview in the Voice, where he notes that First Look "already has a discernible identity":

In each their own way, the invited filmmakers approach film as a terrain for formal dexterity. They hail from all over the world—representing 11 countries and four continents — but nationality seems well beside the point. These are films in which borders are crossed as a matter of course: An Italian filmmaker tails a hero of the Armenian avant-garde (The Silence of Peleshian), while a Belgian master conjures Malaysia in the Cambodian jungle (Almayer's Folly); dramas resemble...

Work on Bad Lit’s Underground Film Timeline has picked up in earnest lately and I’m pleased to report that I have successfully added data from Scott MacDonald’s incredible book Canyon Cinema: The Life and Times of an Independent Film Distributor to it. That, plus some significant design changes make the Timeline worth checking out if you haven’t in awhile.

Canyon Cinema was a fairly quick book to index for the Timeline. While MacDonald meticulously provides time-related reference to events in the legendary film distributor’s history, such as the publication dates of each of Canyon Cinema’s Cinemanews magazine issues as well as the publication dates of each of their catalogs, the mission of the Timeline is to only provide information regarding significant events in underground film history.

That said, I was able to grab some great stuff from the book, particularly as it relates...

No one flipped the bird over Easter. Rio was Number One at the box office this weekend for the second week in a row with $28.8 Million. Tyler Perry’s Madea’s Big Happy Family premiered in Second Place with $25.7 Million. Water for Elephants premiered in Third Place with $17.5 Million. Hop was Fourth with $12.4 Million for $100.5 Million so far. Scream 4 was Fifth with $7.1 Million. African Cats (which premiered this weekend), Soul Surfer, Insidious, Hanna, and Source Code rounded out the top ten respectively.

Tyler Perry’s Madea’s Big Happy Family is an 2011 comedy-drama film based on the Tyler Perry play of the same name and the eleventh film in the Tyler Perry film franchise. It stars Loretta Devine, Shad “Bow Wow” Moss, David Mann, Cassi Davis, Tamela Brown Mann, Lauren London, Isaiah Mustafa, Rodney Perry, Shannon Kane, and Tyler Perry.

Water for Elephants is a 2011 American drama film based...

Chicago – While Robert “Twilight” Pattinson has persuasively branched out beyond his typecasting of reanimated and preternatural corpses, his miscast union in the tensionless “Water for Elephants” with pin-up circus spectacle Reese Witherspoon works as well as an elephant trying to spoon a sworn-enemy lion.

Rating: 2.5/5.0

Despite an uneven plot progression that theatrically only brings a comatose life to Sara Gruen’s 2006 best-selling historical novel, sadistic ringmaster Christoph Waltz (Oscar winner for Quentin Tarantino’s “Inglourious Basterds”) and flashback story teller Hal Holbrook (Oscar nominated for Sean Penn’s “Into the Wild”) are the film’s only redeeming salvations.

Waltz, who’s hopelessly haunting in 2009’s “Inglourious Basterds” as the film’s principal Nazi nemesis, resuscitates similar gestures and speech patterns. While he’s playing a very similar character within a completely different and convoluted traveling circus story, he’s the primary character who’s making interesting use of his supporting screen time.

Here’s the full Underground Film Links post for today, 22 links in total:

According to Cineflyer, filmmaker Deco Dawson has issued a Cease and Desist Order to the The Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art for screening a film entitled The Lotus Eaters credited to artist Marcel Dzama, to which the museum has complied. At the heart of the matter is that Dzama’s film is really Dawson’s own Film(dzama), but with the proper credits cut off that attribute the film to Dawson. A strange and sad case.The Brooklyn Downtown Star newspaper profiled underground film couple Penny Lane and Brian Frye about their work-in-progress documentary Our Nixon, which is put together out of home movies made by the original Watergate gang.Rodney Perkins reprints his review of the return of Coffin Joe in José Marica Marins’ Embodiment of Evil, which will be released on DVD/Blu-Ray this week.

Above: Michael Snow’s Walking Woman (one of a series, 1960s)

On Sunday, I’ll be programming and, maybe, leading some sort of discussion in Brooklyn at UnionDocs about Alberto Cavalcanti’s Rien que les heures (1926), Joris Ivens’ Philips Radio (1931), and Michael Snow’s One second in Montreal (1969). I’m happy that I more or less managed to oppose my jobs as programmer and critic. As programmer, I put together three films from the Museum of Modern Art 16mm archive that I wanted to see and ostensibly have very little to do with each other, historically or generically: my programmer’s note on city symphonies defines exactly the sort of architectonic, gridded film these ambient, haiku-like movies are not. As critic, I’m stuck with three films whose only connections can be in the viewer’s eye, as Snow’s So Is This tells its audience, where they come in...

From 20th Century Fox and Flashpoint Entertainment, Sneak Peek the new poster supporting the feature "Water For Elephants", based on the novel by author Sara Gruen.

Directed by Francis Lawrence, from a screenplay by Richard Lagravenes, "Water For Elephants" stars Robert Pattinson as 'Jacob Jankowski', Reese Witherspoon as 'Marlena', Christoph Waltz as 'August', Mark Povinelli as 'Kinko/Walter', Jim Norton as 'Camel', Scott MacDonald as 'Blackie', Ken Foree as 'Earl' and Paul Schneider as 'Charlie O'Brien' :

"...As a young man, 'Jacob Jankowski' (Pattinson) was tossed by fate onto a rickety train that was home to the 'Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth'. It was the early part of the great Depression, and for the older Jacob (Hal Holbrook), now ninety, the circus world he remembers was both his salvation and a living hell. A veterinary student just shy of a degree, he was put in charge of caring for the circus menagerie.

1690s Scotland, 1930s Austria, 2008 Iceland -- all are small countries that suffered economic collapses. Scott MacDonald and Andrew Novo's new book argues that small nations are especially vulnerable and ill-equipped to rebound. "You have a limited universe of talent to draw from," MacDonald says. "It does function in some ways like a limited gene pool." Lest Lesotho and Kiribati despair, they might consider the success of pint-size Luxembourg, which has kept its ambitions modest and separated its political and economic spheres. In other words, it's time for Iceland's corporate Vikings to dock their longships. -- Michael Silverberg

Mon, January 31 Read When Small Countries Crash

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[Image by OddurBen]...

Jan. 23

7:30 p.m.

Museum of the Moving Image

35 Avenue at 37 Street

Astoria, NY 11106

Hosted by: Academy Film Archive

Mark Toscano, a preservationist at the Academy Film Archive, presents an evening of restored masterworks and rarities as part of the Museum of the Moving Image’s Avant-Garde Masters series.

After being closed for three years, Momi has recently reopened with a $67 million renovation that features a brand new 267-seat theater and a 68-seat screening room.

The films of this particular screening have been chosen by Toscano based on an inspiration from Keewatin Dewdney’s 1967 film The Maltese Cross Movement, which is included in the lineup. Dewdney’s film and the others “playfully explore many elemental and metaphorical aspects of celluloid cinema.”

A couple other highlights in the lineup, which is listed in full below, include an early experimental film by indie screenwriting expert J.J. Murphy, Sky Blue Water Light Sign,...

Welcome to the first Underground Film Links post of 2011! I predict it’s going to be an amazing year for these! (So, get to work…)

This week’s must read is a fine list of resolutions for filmmakers put together by Scott Macaulay of Filmmaker Magazine. This is one of those articles I wasn’t sure I’d enjoy, but they’re really great suggestions. Since the year ended, there are, of course, lots of lists going around. First, In These Times has a round-up of the 10 Best Political Documentaries, which covered some pretty big issues. R. Emmet Sweeney of TCM’s Movie Morlocks has his Top 10 Genre Movies of 2010, of which I’ve only seen The Crazies and thought was great as well. SF360 has a mess of Top 10s in its annual survey of Bay Area critics. This is notable particularly since Jonathan Marlow of the S.F.

In the fall of 1946, Frank Stauffacher mounted a major, and very influential, retrospective of avant-garde film in the U.S. at the San Francisco Museum of Art. The series was called “Art in Cinema” and it featured ten different programs from filmmakers in the U.S., France, Germany and Canada.

By the mid-’40s, the avant-garde hadn’t taken a strong hold in the U.S. yet, so the majority of the films screened came from Europe, or by Europeans who relocated to the U.S. However, by that time also, the European avant-garde had pretty much completely petered out. Still, Stauffacher wanted to show that there was a continuity to avant-garde film history that, up until that point, had yet to be fully considered.

In conjunction with the series, the San Francisco Museum of Art published a catalog, pretty much like one would find with any major art exhibit.

There are many things one could say about the Criterion Collection.

One could say that they are the single most important home entertainment distributors working today. That same person could also say that no one does cinematic restoration better than them. However, I think the Collection is a mass of film that is far more important and influential than on just a simple technical level.

To me, the collection is all about discovery; true, blue cinematic discovery.

Science Is Fiction, the collection’s release of 23 films from the famous filmmaker Jean Painleve is the epitome of this feeling.

At the start of the just completed Barnes And Nobles 50% off Criterion sale, I had a few films on my list to pick up. First, there was of course my favorite film of all time, Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless, a film that for some reason, always ended up out of my hands.

This is the formal announcement for a new resource project on Bad Lit: The underground film bibliography. This is a list of all the books ever written on the history of underground film, as a movement or about individual filmmakers. The list is actually a work in progress, but it contains enough books on it at this point that I thought it was about time to start promoting it.

There aren’t that many books written on underground film. However, I am surprised at how many books I found to include on the list so far — and that I have a few more I know I need to add. And I’m sure there are a bunch more I still don’t know about.

As of this writing, there are 35 books on the list, which is about a dozen more than I thought the list would contain. I haven...

"I've got a lot of patience, baby / but, that's a lot of patience to lose."--Laura Nyro

In his aptly-entitled essay-interview with James Benning for Artforum International--"Testing Your Patience"--Scott MacDonald emphasizes how Benning's films "confront the hysterical consumption modeled and sold by American commercial media and attempt to retrain those who come to see the films, testing viewers' patience in order to reinvigorate their perceptual capacities" and, thereby, offering "the possibility of perceptual retraining and psychic cleansing." As Benning shifts away from the constraints of 16mm filmmaking and flexes the potential of HD work, the opportunity to lose patience and reinvigorate perception increases exponentially.

 ...

The term “underground film” has never enjoyed a popular definition. Oh, some writers have attempted formal definitions, but I doubt there will ever be one that is popularly agreed upon. It’s not even a term that can be agreed upon to be used. But, it is used and I personally have billed this site “The Journal of Underground Film,” so I thought I’d give my general perception of what “underground film” might mean to contribute to an ongoing dialogue about it.

And I prefer to consider writing a post like this as contributing to a dialogue because I do not have any interest in trying to build a definition myself. However, what I can say is that “Underground film” is not a genre. Actually, what leads me to use the term “underground” is that it feels to me to be a catch-all for other genres.

Avant-garde, experimental, poem,...

Note: This is an updated version of our earlier story, new details and video below!

Fangoria will host a free screening of Terribly Happy, the award-winning Danish thriller, at the Tribeca Cinemas (54 Varick Street; at Laight Street, one block below Canal Street) on Tuesday, January 12 at 7 p.m. You can see our exclusive trailer below. Compared to the films of David Lynch (Blue Velvet) and the Coen Brothers (No Country For Old Men, Blood Simple), the critically acclaimed Terribly Happy follows a Copenhagen police officer (Jakob Cedergren) who, following a nervous breakdown, is transferred to a small provincial town to take on the mysteriously vacated Marshall position and subsequently gets mixed up with a married femme fatale. Co-writer/director Henrik Ruben Genz will attend the Fango night and participate in a Q&A following the screening. Macabre and dark, Terribly Happy has won 19 major international awards and is the official...