New York hearts Milk, Los Angeles prefers Wall-E
With award season in full swing, Milk and Wall-E have proven to be be the big winners on both sides of the coast. The New York Film Critics Circle named the Gus Van Sant-directed drama as its best film, while the Los Angeles Film Critics Association went for Pixar's latest opus.... read more
Sin City 2 works out its snags; April start date planned
Frank Miller recently confirmed to IGN that Sin City 2 is still very much alive, even though the long-expected sequel had stalled for so long. Originally planned for a swift production to follow the 2005 hit, the movie has repeatedly run into snags, including another major project for Miller due out later this month, The Spirit. ... read more
Battlestar Galactica webisodes begin today
With the second half of the final season of the best TV show of 2008 set to debut early next year, devotees have one more reason to be excited about the next few weeks. SciFi is serving up some mini-episodes on the web, like during the lead-up to the third and fourth seasons.... read more
Golden Globe nominations announced
After the awkward press conference that became of last year’s Golden Globes, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association rolled out the expected nominees this morning for a show that is now guaranteed to draw all the names who shunned it last year.... read more
Kids in the Hall reuniting for new series
Earlier this year the Kids in the Hall, Canada's heir apparent to the Monty Python absurdist sketch-comedy throne, embarked on their first large-scale tour in six years. The tour finished up back in June, but it wasn't just good news for people lucky enough to catch the group live. It also got the Kids thinking about working together for more than just pulling their old sketches together. Or even putting out some new sketches, as it's been announced that the group is working on a comedy miniseries for CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation).... read more
In reversal, Dark Knight score up for Oscar
The Dark Knight’s increasingly plausible Oscar hopes hit a snag in at least one category when the academy ruled that its score was ineligible for an award because five composers were credited, even though it was widely acknowledged to be primarily the work of Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard. ... read more
Johnny Depp acquires Hand of Dante as possible star vehicle
Johnny Depp is not lacking in the upcoming projects department. In the last few months he has secured another Pirates sequel, an animated flick with Gore Verbinski, an Alice in Wonderland adaptation with favored partner Tim Burton and rumored roles in Sin City 3, The Lone Ranger remake and Dark Shadows. On top of his acting gigs, Depp is currently looking for a director for Rex Mundi, a Dark Horse comic he bought the rights to back in 2006.... read more
Spike Jonze working on Maurice Sendak documentary
Hunter Hill and Perry Moore were unlikely directors for Lake City. It was their first feature and the two had extremely limited experience with film, the only other credits to their names Moore's work as executive producer on the Chronicles of Narnia films. Whatever its success, it was a bold undertaking. Apparently it or Hill's work with Paper magazine attracted the notice of Spike Jonze, who's currently at work on the effects and post-production of Where the Wild Things Are.... read more
Jay Leno stays with NBC for The Jay Leno Show
By now, we all know the 411: Jay Leno is set to go to ABC retire in 2009, Conan O'Brien will take his slot at 11:35pm on the The Tonight Show and Jimmy Fallon has been given O'Brien's old chair on Late Night. As far as we knew, that was the end of the story. But nothing is clear cut in TV land these days, and NBC has announced that Leno is staying on at the network in a new time. ... read more
Murk surrouding Ridley Scott's Nottingham cleared up
Ridley Scott’s Nottingham just got a lot more sensible—and a lot less cool. ... read more
Director Catherine Hardwicke out for Twilight sequel
Whether she was fired or walked off and came to a “mutual decision” with Summit Entertainment, director Catherine Hardwicke will not return for New Moon, the sequel to Twilight. ... read more
Slamdance announces 2009 features
In an answer to last week's announcement of Sundance's 2009 line-up, its little sibling Slamdance has now announced its own film slate. Slamdance was founded under the auspices that Sundance had become too commercial and features films that aren't really independent. Its requirements include a $1 million or smaller budget and no contract for theatrical distribution. Because of this, it's rare to be aware of the directors or actors unless you know them personally. There's usually less polish, but far more variety than what gets shown at Sundance.... read more
The Dark Knight to pass $1 billion with Jan. 29 re-release
We already warned you that The Dark Knight would re-open in January in order to make a big Oscar push (and, you know, to make some more money). Well, now we have a date: Jan. 29. No word yet from Warner Bros. on how many screens the film will re-open on.... read more
Romanek adaptating Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go
One of the brightest lights of music video directors has long been Mark Romanek. Although he never had quite as much vision as his Propaganda peers David Fincher and Spike Jonze, there's no denying his technical mastery. If other directors sometimes treated videos like short films, Romanek used his chameleon-like skills to match his filmmaking to whatever best fit with the music. ... read more
Shia LaBeouf signs on for John Grisham adaptation
As is the custom for a young actor on his way up, Shia LaBeouf has agreed to star in The Associate, the latest film adaptation of a John Grisham novel. ... read more
Taxi Driver and Raging Bull writer headed to Bollywood
Hollywood’s half-curious, half-envious relationship with its prolific sister industry, Bollywood, has produced a surprisingly small amount of overlap through the years. But of all the names we might have expected to make the jump from one to the other, Paul Schrader isn’t among them. ... read more
Who is the best character from HBO's The Wire?
Vote in PasteMagazine.com's latest poll... ... read more
TheAuteurs.com offers social network for film lovers
In our haste to highlight the awesome new Criterion Collection website earlier this week, we failed to mention the new site TheAuteurs.com, whose creators were the principal architects for Criterion’s new ventures. The fledgling site, pitched as an online movie theater as well as a social-networking start-up for adventurous filmgoers, features message boards, daily features and free streaming movies. ... read more
Ben Stiller talks Zoolander 2
Don't ever, ever tell Derek Zoolander he's only got one look. Perhaps taking a cue from BFF Owen Wilson, Ben Stiller revealed recently that he's set to take another walk down the runway as the consummate male model.... read more
Sundance announces 2009 selections
Sundance may not be the biggest film festival around, nor is it even the most independent anymore with the preponderance of festivals like Slamdance. But it probably has the most cultural cache, and even with the current independent film distribution problems it's still one of the places people search for new talent. With the festival only 42 days away, the folks behind it have announced its selection of 118 feature-length films. Below are the films in contention for documentary and "dramatic" (i.e. non-documentary) features.... read more
