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Danny Trejo: The actor who went from prisoner to film star [Image] Danny Trejo has been shot, stabbed, crushed, eaten and tortured . . . multiple times. Con Air, Zombie Hunter and 3-Headed Shark Attack (yes . . . that's a real film) are just three of the movies in which he's ended up dead. If you're a Breaking Bad fan, he's the guy whose head famously ends up on top of a tortoise. According to one survey, the 76-year-old has died on screen more than any other actor. "It shows I've been working," he jokes. And if you didn't...

Can anyone here recommend good patriotic films that would be suitable for a family to watch together this July 4th weekend? I have kids that range from age 9 to 14. Thank you.

Movie theater closures and the uncertainty created by COVID-19 will have a devastating impact on the box office, according to a new note from research company MoffettNathanson. The Wall Street analyst firm predicts that revenues from ticket sales will be cut in half, falling from $11.4 billion in 2019 to $5.5 billion in 2020. That’s a 52% plunge, and it’s a drop that could be even steeper if cinemas don’t reopen in July and if summer blockbusters such as “Tenet” and “Mulan” that are supposed to debut that month get pushed back deeper into the year. They note that it...

Spike Lee spoke out in late April against movie theaters re-opening amid the coronavirus pandemic, and now the Oscar winner tells Vanity Fair he most likely will not be going to movie theaters until there is a vaccine for the virus being distributed. Lee is releasing his new film, the Vietnam War drama “Da 5 Bloods,” straight to Netflix on June 12. The director was supposed to begin production this summer on an adaptation of the graphic novel “Prince of Cats” for Legendary Pictures, but Lee told Vanity Fair he doesn’t see filming on any Hollywood production happening anytime soon....

California Gov. Gavin Newsom sees the state as mere days away from new guidelines to further open up from the coronavirus pandemic, but entertainment industry insiders are feeling broadsided by today’s announcement. “WT [Expletive]?” said one top cable executive to Newsom today announcning he would reveal plans on May 25 that could spur shuttered film and TV production back to work sooner rather than later. “Have they talked to the unions, because I don’t think that’s going to jive with them,” the exec added. “We’ll look at the guidelines when they come out on Monday,” a spokesperson for the WGA...

Out, a short film from Pixar Animation Studios streaming on Disney+, features Pixar’s first gay main character. The 9-minute film debuted Friday as one of seven films in the studio’s SparkShorts program. SparkShorts aims to “discover new storytellers, explore new storytelling techniques, and experiment... main character Greg is preparing to move into the city with his boyfriend, Manuel. Greg is gripped by the difficulty of coming out as gay to his parents, who have paid a surprise visit to help him pack for his move.... Pixar films, including the Toy Story franchise and this year’s Onward, have featured minor gay...

If you're not too good to enjoy people falling off cliffs or getting kicked in the face, 'The Wrong Missy' will be worth your time.Frivolity has fallen out of fashion in Hollywood comedies. Laughter is now merely part of a didactic journey to an emotional crescendo. Simple slapstick for the point of slapstick is rare. It’s exhausting to continuously be fed vegetables with our comedy, even if films like “The Big Sick” and “Trainwreck” are more carrot cake than Brussel sprouts. “The Wrong Missy” is just cake. Nothing fancy, maybe a box cake, but cake nonetheless. Netflix’s new Happy Madison-produced...

The full reopening of the film and TV industry probably won’t be possible until a vaccine is developed to combat the coronavirus and testing and tracing of the virus’ spread are in place, according to David White, national executive director of SAG-AFTRA. White shared that view during a media conference call today with the top leaders of the industry’s unions and guilds, including representatives of the DGA, IATSE, Actors’ Equity and the WGA East. “As a general matter, it’s worth noting that a vaccine is right now maybe not a consensus but overwhelmingly viewed as the time when everything can...

While many are starting the transition back to offices and whatnot, there are still those of us setting up shop at home. As we enter yet another week of this unusual arrangement, I’m sure a great number have come to point of the vultures in Disney’s “The Jungle Book,” where we’ve run out ideas about how to spend our time. Now, maybe your life is busy enough as it is and you don’t need any suggestions to fill the hours, but I think there are enough who are a little sick of all this “freedom.” Perhaps you’re a hobby sort...

Paramount is set to go to the future with 2084, a sci-fi film from The Batman writer Mattson Tomlin. The project is being described as a “spiritual sister” to George Orwell’s classic 1984, which really just sounds like they’re adapting 1984 but changing the year so it’s no longer dated. The script is also described as having a tone similar to both The Matrix and Inception. THR has the scoop on 2084, which was just snapped up by Paramount. Lorenzo di Bonaventura will produce. And just what is this movie about? Don’t ask, because no one is saying. Instead, the...

MKM Partners' Eric Handler downgrades the stock to a "sell," estimating its "cash burn rate in a no-revenue environment is running at $155 million per month, which likely keeps AMC liquid until June/July." Wall Street analysts are seeing a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing from cinema giant AMC Theatres as increasingly likely. MKM Partners analyst Eric Handler on Thursday downgraded his rating on shares of the exhibitor from "neutral" to "sell," saying that "bankruptcy appears likely." That followed Loop Capital analyst Alan Gould's Wednesday downgrade to a "sell" in a report that concluded: "We think bankruptcy is a distinct possibility, and...

Harlem resident Mark Evans had a great job as a Teamster driver on the CBS drama “Bull” when the coronavirus crisis abruptly closed the curtain on all film and TV production across New York. The self-proclaimed “doomsday prepper” said he wasn’t surprised to get his pink slip March 13. But now the magnitude of the shutdown is starting to hit home. **SNIP** Overall, New York City’s film and television sector employed 76,552 people in 2017 – a nearly 37% increase since 2008, according to a report released last October by city Comptroller Scott Stringer. The industry paid an estimated $9.2...

Among the many lasting cultural changes this pandemic is poised to bring about will be serious shifts in the entertainment industry. China started reopening its dormant movie theaters just as the U.S. box office “hit zero for the first time” last weekend. The lights were back on at only 5 percent of the country’s cinemas, and ticket sales were paltry. Now they’re dark again. As of Wednesday, more than 26,000 AMC employees were laid off or furloughed, including all 600 members of the China-owned theater chain’s corporate staff.Among the many lasting cultural changes this pandemic is poised to bring about...

On March 12, the London premiere of Mulan had just wrapped when the film’s director Niki Caro received the call everyone was anticipating. Executives in Los Angeles had made the decision to pull the Disney tentpole and were about to make the announcement, scuttling plans for a European junket that was had just kicked off. The move didn’t come as a surprise. After all, less than a day before, President Donald Trump announced a new ban on most travel from Europe, aimed at stopping the spread of the coronavirus. That travel ban torpedoed any plans to promote the $200 million...

A world gone by. Colorized film from the last years of the Austro-Hungarian Imperial Court showing Franz Joseph, Archduke (later Emperor) Karl and the Archduchess Xenia, and I think I saw the ill-fated Franz Ferdinand in there as well. Background music is the old imperial anthem Gott Erhalte Franz den Kaiser.

Disney-Pixar’s Onward will feature the first self-identified LGBTQ character in an animated Disney film. While this isn’t the first time Disney has featured its first LGBTQ character in its cinematic universe, it is the first animated film.... The character, Officer Specter, will appear briefly in the film’s story, in a scene where she is discussing her girlfriend with other characters. While it is unclear if Specter represents the lesbian or bisexual communities, it is a clear alignment with the LGBTQ community...

Hollywood has always had a problem with America's Judaeo-Christian culture, particularly now, putting itself at odds with a large part of its audience. That's left a gate open for new ideas, and entrepreneurs, using new technologies and approaches to fill the gap. So, a very successful series about the life of Jesus, called "The Chosen," creatively attempting to tell the story of Jesus from the point of view of the people around him, has taken off from under the radar. The streamed series, which can be viewed on as a multi-season television program, pretty much the first of its kind,...

The annual César Awards, more commonly known as the “French Oscars,” are coming up in a couple of weeks and, as usual, it appears that the panel of judges still haven’t caught on to the whole #MeToo thing that’s been going on. When the big show takes place, the majority of the nominations have been given to convicted rapist and child predator Roman Polanski. He apparently released yet another film named “An Officer and a Spy” (or “J’accuse”) and the French critics can’t get enough of it.Thankfully, there are at least some folks across the pond who understand what...

On this day in 1890, the writer Boris Pasternak was born into an affluent and cultured Russian-Jewish family. His father, Leonid, was a renowned artist and professor at the Moscow School of Painting; his mother Rosa, nee Kaufman, was a concert pianist. His parents’ social circle included notable figures of the day such as Sergei Rachmaninoff and Leo Tolstoy. The influence of this creative community led the young Pasternak to study first music and then philosophy, both in Russia and abroad. In 1912 he abandoned academia to pursue his true calling: poetry and prose. The outbreak of World War I...

Parasite may be getting the awards-season love, but a vibrant new generation of filmmakers is ready to emerge from the shadow of established masters like Bong Joon Ho and Park Chan-wook... The overdue official recognition from the West has been doubly meaningful--as 2019 also marks the 100-year anniversary of the country’s first feature film, Kim Do-san’s 1919 kino-drama, The Righteous Revenge. It’s likely that Parasite’s success — the film recently raced past the $100 million mark at the worldwide box office — will come to be viewed as the culmination of the "New Korean Cinema," the renaissance of the country’s...