Charles Bramesco

Even for a big-name auteur, there’s no shame in directing a commercial every now and then. Martin Scorsese shilled for casinos in Macau, David Lynch repped Calvin Klein, and Wes Anderson’s probably enjoying a lifetime supply of Stella Artois right about now. It’s a nice fat paycheck, and an easy way to keep busy between jobs. Nicolas Winding Refn has never been shy about corporate partnerships, agreeing to a spot for Gucci featuring Blake Lively, not to mention those stylish but inscrutable Lincoln advertisements with koan-dispensing Matthew McConaughey. Refn has now gotten back in the commercial game while his latest feature The Neon Demon (which, how has that not been the title of any of his films until now?) awaits release with a new spot for Hennessy.

Magicians: they’re no longer just people who remind of you of the good choices you made in life when seen at children’s birthday parties. Magicians are now “cool” and “sexy” and “played by Lizzy Caplan.” She’s taking the place of Isla Fisher, who was presumably busy keeping a brave face as she watched her husband of six years crawl into an elephant’s vagina, as one of two new key acquisitions for the fledgling franchise. As the newly released trailer embedded above indicates, she’s one of three newcomers, along with Chinese singer Jay Chou and actual boy wizard Daniel Radcliffe, showing a little range by portraying a character who cannot do magic, but does somehow have access to every single computer in the world, which is slightly more implausible.

The original film collected Burt Reynolds, Roger Moore, Dom DeLuise, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Farrah Fawcett, Jackie Chan, Jamie Farr, and Peter Fonda in a cameo role, which means this new Cannonball Run will be required to cast at least nine beloved famous people if they want to get this up and running. Truly, the Fast and Furious parallels could not be more glaring.

The life of a mid-to-lower-tier band on tour ain’t for the faint of heart. Sleepless nights spent driving the red-eye shift, siphoning gas to save a little pocket change, going days without showering, accidentally driving into the occasional cornfield — it takes a dedicated soul to see it through. But even months spent crashing on floors and couches in kindred souls’ apartments can’t measure up to the torrent of hell that befalls the Ain’t Rights, the tightly-knit punk outfit at the heart of Jeremy Saulnier’s supremely brutal new feature Green Room. Being hungry and smelly is unfun; accidentally witnessing a murder, getting locked in a small room by neo-Nazis hopped up on crank, and viciously picked off one by one is another matter entirely.

Hail, Roman! You look weary, having traveled the many foothills of this great Empire with nothing more than a kind cup of wine and the company of the occasional courtesan for comfort. The libations that your countrymen at ScreenCrush offer today, however, are of a less material sort. We’ve consulted the Oracle at USA Today, who in turn delivered unto us a vision of a gritty, color-desaturated, white-knuckle future. With eyes possessing of all Minerva’s foresight, the Oracle gazed into the distant world of this August, when the great forgotten hero Ben-Hur shall take up the reins of his chariot once more. And yea, the portents foreseen by USA Today herald a future bearing a suspiciously striking similarity to the recent rash of reheated Greek epics.

The tough thing about using someone else’s ideas to make money is that it’s not entirely legal. This lesson had to be learned the hard way this past weekend by Alec Peters, producer of an independent film titled Prelude to Axanar. The Star Trek fan film drew quite a bit of ire from copyright holders Paramount after a crowdfunding effort on Indiegogo brought this grassroots DIY production over half a million dollars last summer. The promise to make a “studio-quality” film including characters, settings, and other elements from the heavily-licensed Star Trek franchise with no engagement from the relevant studio spelled doom for the Axanar team, and now the chickens have come home to roost.

Last week, we took note of a new business venture called Screening Room spearheaded by Napster founder Sean Parker. The proposed service would digitally stream the latest major-studio theatrical releases into the confines of private American homes for a hefty estimated fee of $50 on the same day as in-theater premieres, rendering a trip to the local cineplex less necessary than ever. Naturally, this radical new strategy would change the entire face of the industry, and has accordingly raised hackles on the production, distribution, and exhibition sides of Hollywood. As movie theaters struggle to stay relevant and profitable, Parker’s every press conference sounds like a death knell. And this weekend, both sides of this instantly contentious debate dug in their heels on their positions.

America’s eternally more-chill neighbor to the north has just implemented heartening new measures to ensure gender parity on a wide scale. The National Film Board of Canada has released a new report detailing plans that moving forward, 50% of all production funds will be allocated to films directed by women. No talkarounds...

Sir George Martin, the legendary music producer colloquially known as the Fifth Beatle for his collaborations with the seminal rock group, has died. Though the cause of death has not been disclosed, a representative from Martin’s management company has confirmed that he passed peacefully at his home in England. He w...

Fan theories, a perplexing recent trend in which devotees of a work of fiction claim to unearth hidden truths about it through elaborate and often nonsensical analyses of minor peripheral details, are bigger than all of us. They serve no real purpose other than giving denizens of the internet something to occupy our time while we wait for the sweet release of death, and in some instances can even detract from actual criticism, but for the most part they’re harmless fun. In recent weeks, however, they’ve caused J.J. Abrams a bit of frustration.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens is the sun around which a vast galaxy of tie-ins revolve. The latest installment of the Star Wars franchise is only a piece of a much larger system of products and supplemental material, from the endless rollout of merchandising (that somehow excludes the main character of the film) to the various tidbits of trivia dropped during interviews that fans have hungrily gobb

Thor star Tom Hiddleston was sitting for an interview with British newspaper The Sunday Times when they sprang the Bond question, and the actor was not shy about his desires.