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Not long ago I vowed never to write about dogs or cats. It seems everyone feels compelled to talk about their pets or show us photos. Even movies.

It’s on overload: a cat named Frodo is a scene-stealer in A Quiet Place: Day One. She faithfully observes the post-dystopian rules of silence, even sensing intricate escape routes through the apocalyptic landscape. A mysterious black cat appears inconveniently in Fly Me to the Moon to upset Scarlet Johansson’s complex plan for the lunar landing.

Thus the tyranny of petdom assaults us from every direction. Few celebrities will agree to be photographed unless there’s also a camera-ready pet to hug (usually not their’s). Politicians have become the exceptions: President Biden’s dog is a serial biter and Trump’s belongs to Nathan’s Famous.

The New York Times last week ran an entire special section about pets, and...

How does an “A” CinemaScore and 4 1/2 star PostTrak movie with a major star and a dog underdeliver at the box office?

The adventure sports-charged, doggie-with-a-heart title Arthur the King from Lionsgate had no chance of winning a crown this weekend with an $8M-$10M projection. However, many expected this well-received movie to come at the top of expectations. It did not with a $7.5M opening.

Also, the misfiring of “A” CinemaScore, mid-budget movies at the box office is becoming a trend.

Arthur the King‘s underperformance had to do with the fact that it looked ripe for streaming by today’s standards and not theatrical, right? That’s why people didn’t show up? Yeah, but that’s not 100% of the reason.

True, stars need to have a come-to-Jesus with themselves when making streaming movies in conjunction with theatrical titles: Do you water down your marquee image by making yourself available for free at home?...

Ali Suliman as Chik, Mark Wahlberg as Michael, Nathalie Emmanuel as Olivia and Simu Liu as Leo in Arthur The King. Photo Credit: Carlos Rodriguez

Geez, the movies have really gone to the dogs. Sure, lots of folks constantly use that as an insult to modern cinema, but with this weekend’s big release it’s a bit true (so pardon the “groaner dad-joke” of a pun). With lots of kiddies enjoying either the end or the beginning of “Spring break”, there’s got to be more for them in the multiplex other than the further adventures of that Kung Fu Panda. And so, it’s the canine stars to the rescue, with this new “good boy” joining the ranks of Rin Tin Tin, Lassie, and even Beethoven. Plus he’s got a bit of an advantage since his tail is a true one (or at least “inspired by true...

“That movie was the President’s idea, not mine, but it was a demand, not a suggestion.”

The speaker was Jack Warner in a 1947 foreshadowing of his Donald Trumpian style. I recalled his remarks this week as I drove onto the Warner Bros lot, the fabled arena where Warner long reigned.

In his heyday, Warner was a Trump pre-clone in terms of temperament and rhetoric – a man who boasted about his mental acuity yet, to Hollywood’s power players, seemed occasionally unhinged.

I was visiting Warner Bros this week to spend some time with David Zaslav, a figure who, in temperament and politics, is the mirror opposite of Warner but whose empire is nonetheless a product of Warner’s erratic vision. Some believe that Zaslav’s studio – Hollywood in general – might still glean some insight from its founder’s idiosyncrasies.

A career maverick, Warner promoted gangster movies like Public Enemy...

If the "John Wick" films are any indication, action heroes could always use a little canine companionship. It just so happens that there's a long-standing aspect of law enforcement where the dog and human relationship is already built-in: The K-9 unit.

You've likely seen numerous buddy cop movies, and even a handful of K-9 films. However, those movies tend to lean heavily on the comedy aspects of man's best friend fighting bad guys. Witness the old Rin Tin Tin series, or the films "K-9" and "Turner & Hooch," for starters. Even last year's Channing Tatum vehicle with the world's most inspired title, "Dog," milked its military mutt more for melodrama than action.

That all changes with "Muzzle," a new film from director John Stalberg Jr. that stars Aaron Eckhart as K-9 cop Jake Rosser. When Jake loses his pup partner, Ace, after a deadly shootout with drug dealers, he...

“You know, it’s funny, I went to the other side of the tracks, didn’t I?” admits Leslie Iwerks as she begins talking about the four-part docuseries “100 Years of Warner Bros.: The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of” that she directed for Max. Why the other side? Because the Oscar and Emmy nominee grew up as the daughter of longtime Disney executive Don Iwerks and granddaughter of Ub Iwerks, the Disney animation legend who worked side-by-side with Walt Disney and co-created Mickey Mouse. Yet here Leslie was tasked with putting together the ultimate history of a studio (Warner Bros.) that has long been a chief competitor of Disney. How did that happen? Her 2019 documentary “The Imagineering Story” that told the tale of Disney Imagineering came to the attention of the Warner Bros. folks. “They really liked it and asked if I could do something similar for them (to celebrate their 100th),” Iwerks says.

He’s an Oscar winner for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and beloved worldwide for his uniquely lo-fi, handmade aesthetic — a highly imaginative and visual DNA that has been liberally scattered across several decades of work, from music videos (think Daft Punk’s seminal Around the World) to commercials (such as the multi-award-winning Levi’s Drugstore), short films (including One Day, in which he’s chased out of toilet cubicle by David Cross dressed as a giant turd), documentaries (the Noam Chomsky starrer Is the Man Who Is Tall Happy?) and features (the delightful Be Kind, Rewind).

Although Michel Gondry is rarely not pouring his creativity into something (he recently turned to TV with the Jim Carrey-starring Kidding), the so-called Crown Prince of Whimsy’s feature output has been considerably less prolific of late, with his last coming in 2015 (the abundantly whimsical Microbe and Gasoline). Thankfully, this is...

"One studio, and countless stories... Every story, no matter its size, is worthy of being told." This weekend during the 95th Academy Awards ceremony, the Burbank-based movie studio Warner Bros aired another promo video for its 100th Anniversary celebration. Back in December, the iconic Hollywood corporation kicked off their 100th birthday party with a much longer "sizzle reel" video, featuring footage from movies from their past and upcoming releases. This version that aired during the Oscars is similar, cut down to only 90 seconds (hey it's expensive to buy time during the Oscars). This is part of their big "Celebrating Every Story" campaign - with local events, screenings of WB favorites, and much more over the next few months. WB first incorporated on April 4th, 1923 as "Warner Brothers Classics of the Screen" and launched with the movie Where the North Begins starring the dog Rin Tin Tin in 1923. I love that...

Spoiler Alert: This interview contains spoilers from the “Poker Face” Season 1 finale, “The Hook,” now streaming on Peacock.

Benjamin Bratt sucked it in like Rin Tin Tin or Anne Boleyn to shoot one standout scene in the Season 1 finale of “Poker Face.” The bit in question featured a poetic recitation of the entire third verse (and one line of the hook) of Blues Traveler’s 1994 earworm “Hook” by Bratt’s character, Cliff Legrand, to Natasha Lyonne’s Charlie Cale while taking her back for judgement by his boss, casino mogul Sterling Frost Sr.

Why does he do this (an act that makes Charlie call him “the fucking worst”)? Only “Poker Face” creator Rian Johnson really knows for sure — but Bratt, Lyonne and “Poker Face” showrunners Nora and Lilla Zuckerman were all on board with the idea once the “Knives Out” and “Glass Onion” filmmaker wrote it into Episode 10, aptly titled “The Hook.

There were numerous superstars during the silent era from the clown princes of comedy Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd to such dramatic and action icons as Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Rudolph Valentino, John Gilbert, Greta Garbo, Gloria Swanson and Lillian Gish. One was a good boy — the German Shepherd Rin Tin Tin. Not only is Rin Tin Tin, aka Rinty, credited with saving Warner Bros., but Hollywood lore also insists he, not Emil Jannings, was the first Best Actor Oscar winner.

With Warner Brothers celebrating its 100th anniversary this year and the Academy Awards just around the corner, it’s time to look at the Rinty phenomenon and its place in Hollywood history.

Rinty wasn’t the first canine star. Blair, the pet collie of British director Cecil Hepworth, headlined his 1905 thriller “Rescued by Rover.” The film was so popular it had to be shot twice because the...

"At Warner Bros., we are storytellers. Instilled into the foundation of who we are… For 100 years, we've been dream-makers." It's time for a celebration of cinema! The iconic Burbank, CA movie studio Warner Bros is celebrating its 100th Anniversary in 2023. To kick off this iconic year, the studio has released a five-minute "sizzle reel" video, a lovely tribute to their 100 years of unforgettable storytelling on screen - it features footage from many of their classic movies and a few television shows (mainly "Friends" and "E.R."). They are also launching a big "Celebrating Every Story" campaign - with local events, screenings of WB favorites, and much more over the next few months. WB first incorporated on April 4th, 1923 as "Warner Brothers Classics of the Screen" and launched with the movie Where the North Begins starring the dog Rin Tin Tin in the summer of 1923. This video below is one of these...

Do you know when the first movie premiere in Hollywood history was held?

On Oct. 18. 1922 Sid Grauman opened his movie palace the Egyptian Theatre on Hollywood Blvd. with superstar Douglas Fairbank’s latest swashbuckler “Robin Hood.” The red carpet was rolled out for Fairbanks, his wife Mary Pickford and their good friend (and partner in United Artists) Charlie Chaplin. It cost 5 to attend the premiere. And the movie, which was the top box office draw, played there exclusively for several months. The Egyptian cost 800,000 to build and took 18 months to complete for Grauman and real estate developer Charles E. Toberman. It is currently being renovated by Netflix in cooperation with the American Cinematheque.

“Robin Hood,” directed by Allan Dwan, was one of the most expensive movies of the silent era, costing just under 1 million. The castle was the biggest set ever made for a silent movie. Some scenes feature over 1,200 extras.

When you see a documentary about a beautiful and breathtaking animal, and the film is built around that species facing a crisis of survival, the problem tends to be one of dwindling population. The bald eagle was once that creature (it’s now doing much better). More recently, there has been concern over the vastly diminished population of elephants in Africa.

“The Mustangs: America’s Wild Horses” presents us with a different sort of conundrum. It’s a friendly, lyrical, and stirring documentary about the horses that still roam the Western wilds of the U.S. — a phenomenon a lot of people don’t even know about. David Philipps, the award-winning New York Times journalist, is interviewed in the film, and he says that when people ask him about his 2017 book “Wild Horse Country,” 90 percent of them are surprised to learn that wild horses still exist. That’s because these...

If crises continue to mount and late-summer box office fails to catch a second wind, Hollywood might have to revisit one of its few remaining sure things: a good dog movie.

Sure, Netflix and Amazon always have vintage canine classics on the shelf to stream, from Benji to Lassie, but a new weepie is also needed in the plexes — one to ease public tensions.

Further, those of us who’ve adopted a best friend to cope with the pandemic now are going back to work or to school. Or simply facing the fact that a best friend is more than we can handle, and so are the vet bills.

Given all this, exhibitors might wonder whether the cast of The Suicide Squad shouldn’t have featured canine stars like Hachi, Marley or even Scooby-Doo rather than live actors cast as Bloodsport, Ratcatcher or Sylvester Stallone’s King Shark.

The pooches...

Lee Aaker, best known for starring as Corporal Rusty of “B-Company” on the 1950s western series “The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin,” died on April 1. He was 77.

Paul Petersen, another former child actor, confirmed the news to Variety and posted a tribute on his Facebook page, along with a signed photo of a young Aaker with Rin Tin Tin, his onscreen canine pal.

“Saying Goodbye to Lee Aaker,” Peterson said. “You have to be a certain age to remember Rin Tin Tin. Lee Aaker passed away in Arizona on April 1st, alone and unclaimed…listed as an ‘indigent decedent.’ As an Air Force veteran Lee is entitled to burial benefits. I am working on that. God knows when a sparrow falls.”

Aaker was born on September 25, 1943. His mother, Myles Wilbour, was the owner of a dancing school in Los Angeles. He was singing and dancing at local clubs by the age of 4. At 8-years old,...

Lee Aaker, who starred in the ABC series “The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin,” died this month near Mesa, Arizona of a stroke, according to a Facebook post from fellow former child actor Paul Petersen. He was 77.

Petersen confirmed Aaker’s passing to TheWrap and said that no service was currently planned.

Born in Inglewood, California, in 1943, Aaker was first found by director Fred Zinnemann and cast for his short film “Benjy,” which was commissioned as a fundraiser video by Los Angeles Orthopedic Hospital and featured Aaker as a boy with scoliosis who is offered the chance to undergo a medical procedure that could cure him, but must first get permission from his parents whom have rejected him because of his condition. Despite being based on dramatized scenes, it qualified for the Best Documentary Short category at the Oscars and won in 1951.

Later that year, Zinnemann brought Aaker back for...

Prince’s unreleased 2010 album Welcome 2 America is the next offering from the singer’s Vault, with the LP finally due out this summer.

Prior to Welcome 2 America’s July 30th arrival, the Prince Estate has shared the title track, a spoken word soliloquy that criticized social media, celebrity culture, music industry monopolies, and more:

“The world is fraught with misin4mation. George Orwell’s vision of the future is here. We need 2 remain steadfast in faith in the trying times ahead,” Prince said in 2010 in a statement shared by the Estate.

Exclusive: CAA has inked screenwriter Matt Lieberman.

Lieberman has been on a hot streak: Between November 2018 and this month, he’s had seven screenplays produced by major studios.

This includes MGM’s animated feature from 2019, The Addams Family which made over $203M WW and netted a profit per Deadline sources of $76M. The Netflix 2018 Kurt Russell feature The Christmas Chronicles which spawned a sequel, Warner Bros.’ Scoob!, as well as his Black List screenplay Free Guy which was turned into a Ryan Reynolds event action comedy at 20th Century Studios, set currently for release on May 21. Free Guy follows a bank teller who discovers that he’s actually an Npc inside a brutal, open world video game.

Lieberman co-penned the animated feature Rumble at Paramount which is set for release on May 14. The movie, set in a world where monster wrestling is a global sport and monsters are superstar athletes,...

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“Light And Dark Sides Of Tinsel Town”

By Raymond Benson

Turner Classic Movies (TCM) has lately been getting into the publishing business with such tomes as The Essentials (two volumes) and now this handsomely-designed and intricately-researched book on some of the lesser known, somewhat sensational stories from Hollywood’s past.

Written by popular Instagrammer Carla Valderrama (@thiswashollywood and @thiswasfashion), This Was Hollywood—Forgotten Stars & Stories (published by Running Press) presents a bundle of Tinsel Town tales that have a slightly tabloid feel to them, and yet they are as irresistible as a sighting of your favorite star at Hollywood and Vine. Many of these accounts come from the long, lost vaults of movieland history.

For example, the book opens with the early beginnings of the town of Hollywood and how the “movies” (as the people in the budding film industry were called by...

In 2011, former Movieline editor S.T. VanAirsdale suggested — not entirely facetiously — that the dog who played Uggie in the then-Oscar contender “The Artist” be considered for his own Academy Award. It wasn’t an ask without precedent, but it was certainly the most public awards campaign for a non-human actor.

Nearly a decade later, it’s time for another: Give an Oscar for the bird(s) that star in Glendyn Ivin’s dramatic real-life story, “Penguin Bloom.” That’s not to diminish the work of the human actors — including a stirring Naomi Watts and a breakout performance by young actor Griffin Murray-Johnston — but there’s a reason why this gentle Aussie drama is named after its sole winged character. Based on the book of the same name by Cameron Bloom and Bradley Trevor Greive, Ivin’s latest feature

Narrated by sensitive tween Noah (Murray-Johnston), “Penguin Bloom” follows the story of the Bloom family,...

“Who cares what a lot of females wear on the beach, as long as I can keep you in a one-piece bathing suit? Baby, you’re a swimmer. You belong in the water. Wet, you’re terrific. Dry, you’re just a nice girl who ought to settle down and get married.”

Esther Williams in Million Dollar Mermaid (1952) is available on Blu-ray From Warner Archive. Ordering information can be found Here

James Sullivan works the carny circuit, promoting the likes of a boxing kangaroo or grappling bear. Then the wheeler-dealer meets a million-dollar idea: beautiful swimming champ Annette Kellerman. She’ll churn through a River Thames PR stunt. Cause a bathing-suit scandal among Boston bluebloods. Headline New York’s Hippodrome. And become a Hollywood swimsation as cameras roll and Rin Tin Tin looks on. Glamorous, amphibious Esther Williams portrays the real-life aquatic star in a splashy biopic costarring Victor Mature...

In today’s film news roundup, David N. Weiss is honored, Rin Tin Tin is getting a modern movie and “The Shasta Triangle” finds a home.

Weiss Honored

David N. Weiss will receive the animation writing award from the Animation Writers Caucus of the Writers Guild of America West.

The award will be presented by Weiss’ writing partner J. David Stem on Thursday at WGA West’s headquarters at the caucus’ annual meeting.

Weiss has credits on “Shrek 2,” “Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius,” the first two “Rugrats” movies, “Smurfs” and “Smurfs 2.” Stem and Weiss served as head writers on the “Rugrats” TV series, “Cybill,” “Mission Hill,” “Are We There Yet?,” “Clockstoppers” and the upcoming remake of “Harvey” for Netflix.

Project Launch

Warner Bros. is developing a modernized version of the German Shepherd Rin Tin Tin, who appeared as a heroic dog in more than two dozen films for the studio in the 1920s.

Exclusive: Warner Bros has set up a movie built around Rin Tin Tin, the venerable German Shepherd that once was credited with saving the studio from bankruptcy in the 1920s, and appeared as the hero in 27 films. Hired to write is Matt Lieberman, who most recently scripted another dog tale for Warner Bros in the upcoming animated film Scoob, and who scripted the just released MGM animated film The Addams Family and Playing With Fire, and he is working on the animated Jetsons. He has upcoming the Shawn Levy-directed Ryan Reynolds-starrer Free Guy that Fox/Disney will be released next July.

Andrew Lazar’s Mad Chance (American Sniper and Cats & Dogs) will produce with the rights holders Sasha Jenson and Jeff Miller. The idea of a hero hound has gained credibility in the revelation that the dog Conan took part in the raid which resulted in the...

Wes Anderson seems to love talking animals. So much so that he has made not one, but two, stop-motion movies starring verbal animals: first, “The Fantastic Mr. Fox,” which featured the voice of George Clooney in the title role, followed by the endlessly eccentric “Isle of Dogs.” This delightful outing opens with a card that reads, “All barks have been rendered into English,” and sure enough, Anderson assembled many of his favorite actors — Bill Murray, Edward Norton, Jeff Goldblum, Tilda Swinton — to do the honors.

That decision has since inspired many a think piece, in which critics questioned the politics of Anderson’s choices. It’s a valid debate, but I’d prefer to tackle another question: Namely, why do we accept talking dogs in the first place?

The earliest example I can find in Western civilization dates back to “Don Quixote” author Miguel de Cervantes, who penned a novella...

Hollywood's enduring infatuation with dogs — the latest manifestation of which, A Dog's Way Home, opens Jan. 11 — can all be traced back to Rin Tin Tin.

The first major canine movie star had a fittingly auspicious origin story: In 1918, Lee Duncan, a U.S. soldier fighting in World War I, discovered him among a litter of German shepherd puppies left to die on a bombed-out field in France. (They were apparently being bred to service the Imperial German Army.) Duncan found homes for the pups and kept two for himself, naming them Rin Tin Tin ...

Hollywood's enduring infatuation with dogs — the latest manifestation of which, A Dog's Way Home, opens Jan. 11 — can all be traced back to Rin Tin Tin.

The first major canine movie star had a fittingly auspicious origin story: In 1918, Lee Duncan, a U.S. soldier fighting in World War I, discovered him among a litter of German shepherd puppies left to die on a bombed-out field in France. (They were apparently being bred to service the Imperial German Army.) Duncan found homes for the pups and kept two for himself, naming them Rin Tin Tin ...

Ever since returning from the Cannes Film Festival I have been dutifully trying to catch up to screenings and openings of June releases I missed along the way. In this one particular case I want to single out a Friday opening, Megan Leavey, which I finally caught up with Saturday. As I say in my video review above, I am a sucker for boy, girl, or anybody and their dog movies. From Old Yeller to My Dog Skip to Marley And Me to anything starring Lassie, Rin Tin Tin, Benji…...

Amy Adams, Dwayne Johnson and Emma Stone are among the latest crop of A-list presenters at this month’s Oscar telecast, producers Michael De Luca and Jennifer Todd announced Thursday. Other newly-named presenters include Riz Ahmed, Javier Bardem, John Cho, Felicity Jones, Leslie Mann, Janelle Monáe, David Oyelowo and Charlize Theron. “No matter who you are or where you live, movies bring us together,” De Luca and Todd said in a joint statement. “Through indelible, fearless performances these extraordinary actors help make it happen. We are thrilled to welcome them to the 89th Oscars stage.” Also Read: No, Rin Tin Tin Didn't Really.

This story about Rin Tin Tin first appeared in the Down to the Wire issue of TheWrap’s Oscar magazine. It was by no means a sure thing that the Academy Awards would come into being. When the Academy first began considering the idea in the late 1920s, few believed that in a Hollywood made up of jealous, jockeying fiefdoms, anyone would vote for pictures or achievements not produced by his own studio. But screenwriter Frank Woods, the Academy’s first paid executive, believed that if the artists who made movies were to tell the world which films they themselves had most admired,...

Rumor the German shepherd took home Best in Show on Tuesday at the 141st Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show.

The 5-year-old dog’s achievement ended a long drought for the Herding Group, which hadn’t produced a Westminster Best in Show winner since 1987. While the German shepherd is an infrequent presence in the dog show circuit’s Winner’s Circle, it is common to see this breed involved in military, police and therapy work.

But is this hard-working breed for you? While it might be tempting to welcome a German Shepherd into your home now that the dog is presiding Best in Show,...

After six years (or 42, from the point of view of its canine star), Brandon Camp’s Benji reboot has finally started filming. Camp—the son of Joe Camp, who directed the 1974 original—has assembled a cast that includes The Purge: Anarchy’s Kiele Sanchez, Gabriel Bateman, Darby Camp, Will Rothhaar, Angus Sampson, Jerod Haynes, and, presumably, a pretty adorable dog.

Less authoritarian than Rin Tin Tin, more approachable than the haughtily aristocratic Lassie, Benji has traditionally been portrayed by scruffy mutts in his on-screen roles. The new Benji was apparently found in a Humane Society after being abandoned in a supermarket parking lot; now he’s on-set in New Orleans, working to foil kidnappings and bring the franchise back after a 12-year hiatus.

[via Deadline]...

Utilizing a tremendous premise in the most laborious way possible, Josef von Sternberg’s The Last Command has to rank among his least dynamic and interesting films. Taking inspiration from an actual Russian general who fled the motherland and was forced to work as a day-player extra in early Hollywood, the 1928 film only treats its present-day setting as a framing device to house a too-familiar tale. Sergius Alexander (Emil Jannings), grand duke and army commander, had a special fervor for quashing revolutionary movements, but, as he’s living on the brink of the Russian Revolution, this task is sure to overwhelm him. Stretching this exposition across an hour of screentime, even someone of Sternberg’s genius cannot find purchase in anything of interest. There’s nothing distinctive about Sergius’s fall from glory, nor the manner in which he wields his power. Nothing in this section is a fraction as...

Chis Marker's Chat écoutant la musiqueThere are dog people and there are cat people, this we know, and there are even people who claim to be of both—though latent sympathies remain unspoken, like with a parent and which child is their favorite. With the Vienna Film Festival welcoming me with a tumbling collection of dog and cat short films spanning cinema's history—the Austrian Film Museum, an essential destination each year collaborating with the Viennale, is hosting a “a brief zoology of cinema” throughout the festivities—it is clear that filmmakers, too, have their preference. Silent cinema decidedly prefers the more easily trained and exhibited canine, with 1907’s surreal favorite Les chiens savants as a certain kind of cruel pinnacle. For the cats, Chris Marker, already the presiding figure over so much in 20th century art, I think we can easily claim is the cine-laureate. One need not know...

Christopher Nolan: Next movie has release date. Next Christopher Nolan movie release date Warner Bros. will release the first post-Interstellar Christopher Nolan movie on July 21, '17. The film has yet to be baptized. Warners, which began its days as the Rin Tin Tin studio, also released Nolan's Batman trilogy movies, which collected $2.463 billion worldwide. Besides, the studio handled the sorta sci-fier Inception (2010), which took in $825.53 million, in addition to earning a Best Picture Academy Award nomination. The outright sci-fier Interstellar, which received mixed-to-unenthusiastic reviews in North America, opened in Nov. 2014. The film went on to gross $675.02 million worldwide, $188.02 million of which in the U.S. and Canada. Paramount handled the domestic release, while Warners took care of the international distribution. Mystery Movie As for Nolan's upcoming effort, in case there is a screenplay (or a blueprint of one) or any prospective cast members, no details have been given out so far.

Greta Garbo movie 'The Kiss.' Greta Garbo movies on TCM Greta Garbo, a rarity among silent era movie stars, is Turner Classic Movies' “Summer Under the Stars” performer today, Aug. 26, '15. Now, why would Garbo be considered a silent era rarity? Well, certainly not because she easily made the transition to sound, remaining a major star for another decade. Think Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, William Powell, Fay Wray, Marie Dressler, Wallace Beery, John Barrymore, Warner Baxter, Janet Gaynor, Constance Bennett, etc. And so much for all the stories about actors with foreign accents being unable to maintain their Hollywood stardom following the advent of sound motion pictures. A Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer star, Garbo was no major exception to the supposed rule. Mexican Ramon Novarro, another MGM star, also made an easy transition to sound, and so did fellow Mexicans Lupe Velez and Dolores del Rio, in addition to the very British...

Uggie: 'The Artist' dog star. Uggie, 'The Artist' scene-stealing dog star, has died The biggest non-human movie star of the 21st century, Uggie, whose scene-stealing cuteness helped to earn Michel Hazanavicius' The Artist the 2011 Best Picture Academy Award, has died. According to his official Facebook page, Uggie had been suffering from prostate cancer; he was euthanized last Friday, Aug. 7, '15. Born in 2002, Uggie was 13 years old. An announcement posted on Tuesday night, Aug. 11, on the Fb page Consider Uggie read: We regret to inform to all our friends, family and Uggie's fans that our beloved boy has passed away. We were not planning on posting anything until we healed a little more but unfortunately somebody leaked it to TMZ and they will be announcing it. In short, Uggie had a cancerous tumor in the prostate and is now in a better place not feeling pain.

Uggie, the Jack Russell terrier featured as Jean Dujardin's faithful pet in "The Artist," has died. His owner and trainer Omar von Muller released a statement on Facebook explaining, "We regret to inform to all our friends, family and Uggie's fans that our beloved boy has passed away … Uggie had a cancerous tumor in the prostate and is now in a better place not feeling pain." -Break- Uggie was integral to the success of "The Artist," which won five Oscars including Best Picture and Best Actor for Dujardin, but the famous canine wasn't included because the Oscars don't have a category for animal performances. The academy put the kibosh on animal actors after Rin Tin Tin received the most Best Actor votes in the first year of the awards, but Uggie's performance didn't go completely unrewarded during the 2011 awards season. He was awarded a special Palm Dog...

Uggie, the Jack Russell terrier featured as Jean Dujardin's faithful pet in "The Artist," has died. His owner and trainer Omar von Muller released a statement on Facebook explaining, "We regret to inform to all our friends, family and Uggie's fans that our beloved boy has passed away … Uggie had a cancerous tumor in the prostate and is now in a better place not feeling pain." -Break- Uggie was integral to the success of "The Artist," which won five Oscars including Best Picture and Best Actor for Dujardin, but the famous canine wasn't included because the Oscars don't have a category for animal performances. The academy put the kibosh on animal actors after Rin Tin Tin received the most Best Actor votes in the first year of the awards, but Uggie's performance didn't go completely unrewarded during the 2011 awards season. He was awarded a special Palm Dog...

Max is an Afghanistan War-set battlefield adventure and a look at the unbreakable bond between a Marine and his military working dog ……. for about the first ten minutes! What’s left for another long hour and a half, despite some moments of bravura and lazy tugs at the heart-strings, is a poorly-written, Texas-set melodrama that I can’t recommend. The end credits for Max play over vintage photos of dogs in combat, from the Civil War to Wwi and WWII to Iraq. Dogs have been trained by the military as scouts, sentries and trackers for centuries and I wish that was the story that the producers of Max had tackled. A kind of canine War Horse might have made for a stirring adventure. On the surface, Max is an old fashioned throwback to more innocent family fare which may seem like a good antidote to the violent and defeatist thrillers...

World War I survivor, silent-movie icon, and enthusiastic face-licker Rin Tin Tin was so popular a star that he very nearly won the inaugural Best Actor Oscar in 1929. In these “everything old is new again” times, Warner Bros. resuscitates the spirit of its very first screen legend with “Max,” which updates the myth of the canine superhero to soothe present-day anxieties. Rin Tin Tin was a four-quadrant celeb, but director Boaz Yakin (“Remember the Titans”) makes no pretense at entertaining adults. When we first see Max the Belgian Malinois (a breed closely related to the German Shepherd) back from...

Back in the golden age, Lassie was television’s top dog; for nearly 20 years, she had little competition besides Rin Tin Tin on her tail. But a recent explosion in canine-themed programming once again has networks and advertisers salivating like Pavlovian pooches at the sound of a bell. • Nat Geo Wild doubled down on puppy love with “BarkFest” with the entire weekend of May 17 dedicated to man’s best friend. • Broadway’s go-to dog trainer, Bill Berloni, just inked a deal with Discovery Family to star in his own show set to air this August. • Last month, CBS scored a daytime Emmy for “Lucky.

Tonight, The Roast of Justin Bieber will air on Comedy Central and the masses will get what they’ve long been waiting for: a public shaming of Justin Bieber. Of course, some of the special’s most notable put-downs of the pop star have been publicized, including insults from the likes of Roast master Kevin Hart (“Justin’s Canadian. He’s actually considered American, because no Canadian has ever been this much of an asshole”), Shaquille O’Neal (“Last year you were ranked the fifth most hated person of all time. Kim Jong-un didn’t even score that low, and he uses your music to fuckin’ torture people”), and Jeffrey Ross (“You’ve become a cocky little shit. You are the King Joffrey of pop”).

While Bieber’s burns are definitely scorching, he’s hardly the only Roastee to get royally humiliated during their special. As we count down to The Roast of Justin Bieber,...

Tonight, The Roast of Justin Bieber will air on Comedy Central and the masses will get what they’ve long been waiting for: a public shaming of Justin Bieber. Of course, some of the special’s most notable put-downs of the pop star have been publicized, including insults from the likes of Roast master Kevin Hart (“Justin’s Canadian. He’s actually considered American, because no Canadian has ever been this much of an asshole”), Shaquille O’Neal (“Last year you were ranked the fifth most hated person of all time. Kim Jong-un didn’t even score that low, and he uses your music to fuckin’ torture people”), and Jeffrey Ross (“You’ve become a cocky little shit. You are the King Joffrey of pop”).

While Bieber’s burns are definitely scorching, he’s hardly the only Roastee to get royally humiliated during their special. As we count down to The Roast of Justin Bieber,...

Johanna Bennett’s and Mandy Ward’s third annual celebration of first time filmmakers concluded on March 9 with a tribute to no one other than Harvey Weinstein. The festival, one that puts forth newly formed filmmakers with the audience they deserve, makes sure that all aspects of filmmaking are met and that the aspiring filmmakers know what to do with their next film. Weinstein, of the famed The Weinstein Company, along with his brother Bob, has shown himself over the years to have supported first time filmmakers when no one else would. And his trust in these filmmakers have only proven themselves to be some of today’s best directors, writers, actors, and more.

In many ways, Weinstein’s support of such filmmakers has created them. Quentin Tarantino would not be a household name had Weinstein not decided to produce Reservoir Dogs, the same goes for Steven Soderbergh’s Sex,...

Peter Greenaway is to return to the legendary Russian film director Sergey Eisenstein for a second feature, The Eisenstein Handshakes, this time to be located in Switzerland, after the Mexican-set Eisenstein in Guanajato.

Greenaway was in Locarno’s neighbouring town of Ascona on Monday to make an appearance at a showcase of Soviet and Russian films presented by the state film archive Gosfilmofond.

¨During our investigations on Eisenstein [for Eisenstein In Guanajato], we discovered two extraordnary things which make it very relevant to Switzerland,¨ Greenaway explained.

¨The very first film festival in world was created in 1929 in La Sarraz, close to the French border, and it was attended by many important experimental film-makers of the time. And the most important guest was Eisenstein who came to Switzerland with his assistant Alexandrov and his wonderful cameraman Tissé.

¨But what is also extraordinary is that the very first film ever made in Switzerland was directed by Eisenstein, so we have...

Digital Release Date: Sept. 23, 2014, Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: Oct. 14, 2014

Price: DVD $29.98, Blu-ray/DVD Combo $38.99, Blu-ray 3D Combo $48.99

Studio: DreamWorks Animation/20th Century Fox Home Entertainment

The movie version of the classic cartoon, Mr. Peabody and Sherman was beloved by critics and moviegoers when it hit theaters, even though DreamWorks was disappointed with the film’s $110.7 million box-office performance.

Based on characters who first appeared in the late 1950s and early 1960 animated TV show Rocky and His Friends and The Bullwinkle Show, Mr. Peabody and Sherman tells the story of an advanced dog, Mr. Peabody (voiced by Modern Family‘s Ty Burrell) and his adopted son Sherman (Max Charles, The Amazing Spider-Man 2). While on an adventure in their Wabac time machine, the pair accidentally cause a rift in time and must go on other adventures to fix it.

The cast also includes Allison Janney (Bad Words), Stephen Colbert (Company) and...

At a special curtain raiser event, Amitabh Bachchan launched the first look of the film ‘Kochadaiiyan’ a Rajnikanth film directed by his daughter, Soundarya. Also there in attendance at the grand event were Rajnikanth, Kajol, Anupam Kher, Jaya Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Subhash Ghai, Shekhar Kapur, Sunil Lulla, and Ramesh Sippy.

India’s first Photorealistic Performance Capture film Kochadaiiyaan is an epic dramatisation of good versus evil starring South Indian megastar Rajinikanth who is cast as the archetypal superhero in a dual role. Also starring in the grand production are Indian A-listers Deepika Padukone, Jackie Shroff and South India’s leading stars R. Sarathkumar, Nazzer, Aadhi, Shobana and Rukmini.

Talking about the evening Mr Bachchan wrote on his blog: “Women Empowerment!! At its best tonight .. as I inaugurate the latest Rajnikanth film directed by his daughter, Soundarya .. a film made on the technology of Motion Picture Capture .. “Kochadaiiyan” … truly amazing...

Everyone — the lovers, the dreamers, and Oscar-winning songwriter Bret McKenzie — got dolled up to watch the world premiere of the Muppets Most Wanted alongside the titular stars last night in Hollywood.

“This is a bucket-list sort of item,” said Tina Fey, who plays a warden at the Siberian gulag where Kermit The Frog is wrongly imprisoned after his lookalike nemesis Constantine slaps a fake mole on his face in the Disney sequel hitting theaters March 21, when Entertainment Weekly caught up with her on the carpet at the El Capitan Theatre. “I met Lorne Michaels. I met John McEnroe. And now I have met the Muppets.

R.I.P. Shirley Temple Black has died at her home in Woodside, California, at the age of 85, reports the New York Times. Born in Santa Monica, California, on April 23, 1928, Shirley Jane Temple began taking dance lessons at the age of three and appeared in her first movie at the age of four. Her first significant role came in 1934, when she was chosen to star in Stand Up and Cheer. She was signed to a year-long contract with Fox based on her performance in that movie and a string of feel-good song-and-dance movies followed. Notes Black in her 1988 autobiography Child Star:

People in the Depression wanted something to cheer them up, and they fell in love with a dog, Rin Tin Tin, and a little girl.

Temple received an honorary Academy Award at the age of six and was the most popular movie star in the U.S. from 1935 to...

San Francisco – She was the biggest movie star in the world at less than 10 years old. Shirley Temple (Black) – who entertained Depression weary audiences through most of the 1930s with her curly haired optimism – died on February 10th of natural causes at 85, according to a family representative.

Shirley Temple in the Film ‘Bright Eyes’ (1934)

Photo credit: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment

Shirley Jane Temple had a remarkable life, beginning at a very young age as a megawatt child star, and after an attempt to transition into young adult roles, a “retirement” at 22 years old. Her next life phase included two marriages – the second lasting 54 years – and a productive era in politics and as a U.S. diplomat.

Temple was born in April of 1928 in Santa Monica, California. Her mother enrolled her in dance classes at the age of three, at the same time creating her famous ringlet hair style (copied...