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Word is out that there are plans to relaunch the Hellboy movie franchise. This would be without the director and his star from the first two films, Guillermo Del Toro and Ron Pearlman. Instead, Stranger Things' David Harbour is in talks to take the lead and UK director Neil Marshall is in talks to direct.    Millennium is in negotiations with producers Larry Gordon and Lloyd Levin for a new installment that would reboot and relaunch the property. Mike Richardson of Dark Horse Entertainment is also producing.   Neil Marshall, the horror director who broke out with The Descent and won raves for his work on Game of Thrones, is in talks to direct the project, which has a working title of Hellboy: Rise of...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

Word is out that the demonic creature Pumpkinhead is about to be unleashed from the grave once more. That’s right: Saw franchise executive producer Peter Block told Clark Collis at Entertainment Weekly that he plans to start shooting a remake of Stan Winston’s classic creature feature in 2017. Block explained while there will be similarities of plot and theme, his […]...

Bob Hawk is the Pierre Rissient of American Independent Films. Pierre was for French cinema what Bob is to American independent cinema. When he discovered a film and told Cannes about it, Cannes programmed it. Those who know Pierre and those who know Bob know that their influence cannot be quantified by the number of films they have fostered in one way or another. Bob’s influence extends in innumerable ways throughout the independent film world. Independent films are Bob Hawk's life, and now his life is an independent film.

After the thrill of watching the documentary “Film Hawk” by Jj Garvine and Tai Parquet whose first, ever-so-shocking film “Keeping the Peace” in 2009 was about the brutal and first such beheading in Iraq, I was whisked off to lunch with Bob and the filmmakers Jj Garvine and Tai Parquet. It seemed as if our lunch were a continuation of the film, so alive and vivid was the film and so full of references and ideas was our conversation.

We immediately began a non-stop talk of passionate love for movies. Bob showed me the tee shirt he wore just for our lunch, a Filmmaker Magazine tee from the early days when Indiewire’s offices were upstairs in the Filmmaker offices. In all the scenes of this film, his tee shirts are remarkable for titles he primarily has worked on or been somehow attached to. He must have hundreds of such mementos of his life.

So how did you make this film? I finally asked, because even if this is “the usual sort of question we get” according to Jj, it is really of interest to me.

Jj and Tai ‘s first film, “Keeping The Peace”, premiered and won the Audience Award at the 2009 Philadelphia Independent Film Festival and went on to be selected for the PBS Pov "United States of Documentaries” series. They are often indistinguishable themselves in their simultaneously answering questions or commenting on the talk. “We decided to make this movie on the day before his 74th birthday when we all went to the IFC Center in New York to see the Spalding Gray movie by Steven Soderbergh. We had a three hour dinner and learned so much about Bob. We then met Soderbergh. Going home we thought his life would make a great story. We knew him because he helped us with our film ‘Keeping the Peace’ but we had never talked about anything but the movie at that time. We said to him, ‘What if we made a short about your life?’ He said ‘What?’ And that was it.

“Film Hawk” itself is a broad swatch of a life well-lived with honesty and integrity. Surrounded by loving family and friends – although he and his brother as boys fought hard and often with each other as they grew up in very different ways. Bob veered toward art and his brother toward sports. Bob knew at an early age he was gay but his brother was strictly sports and girls. They were the sons of a minister, a minister who preached love. Their mother was a copy editor and proofreader – initially of insurance documents -- and Bob credits her with his own love for editing and proofreading. He proofread auction catalogs and the Sharper Image catalog at one point in his life.

Bob: “My mother, who lived to be 97, was a proofreader to the end. She edited and proofed the monthly newsletter of the home in which she lived in good health until she died. In fact, she proofread the April edition of the home’s newsletter, the very month she died.”

He did not like having to be the exemplary son of a minister and he had a stutter. At one point, hearing his father’s oratorical voice in the church, he realized there was a thin line between the church and theater and he choose theater as a young child and he credits his father for his love of dramaturgy and theater.

When he acted, his stutter disappeared and so he acted, though he much preferred working behind the scenes.

Our conversation switched between talk of film and talk of Bob the man. For he is incredibly full of love and life, a man whose boundaries include public and private love and film in one full embrace.

Bob grew up loud and proud, working as a techie Off Broadway in New York City. Even as a high school student he often went to New York City and explored both live theater and underground movies like Jean Genet’s “Un Chant d’Amour” and Kenneth Anger’s “Scorpio Rising”. Those were the predecessors to independent movies, he says.

Eventually he moved to stage managing in San Francisco where he met filmmaker Rob Epstein and contributed his thoughts to the seminal gay-themed documentary “Word Is Out”, made by a film collective that included Rob.

Tai: “Bob was an activist and that led him to film. In 1976 ,when the five hour rough cut of “Word is Out” was previewed for the public in a work-in-progress screening, Bob’s notes as a member of the audience were volumes of comments. In 1978 when Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk were shot and killed by another supervisor, he and Rob, with whom he had become friends, both knew a film had to be made, but it took five years of grassroots fundraising.

Bob: “Rob and producer Richard Schmiechen initially went to Kqed, San Francisco’s public television station, but they turned it down, saying the story was too local. So they went to Wnet in New York, who provided funding for a one hour version. Then we realized that ‘The Times of Harvey Milk’ needed to be a feature, so we went again to Wnet and they gave us the additional money. This was the first film I worked on, as print media researcher and archivist.”

Jj: “Bob researched not only Harvey Milk but the whole era.”

Bob: “I had volumes -- over 600 news and magazine articles -- all organized by 20 main topics like Harvey Milk, George Moscone, Trial, Verdict, Riot, Gay Climate, Dan White and they were cross referenced, so when we had to speak about any subject, we had it ready.”

Says Tai , “Bob’s emphasis is always on storytelling. He even has a sense of arc in his copy editing.”

Tai thought he was a great writer, but Bob is not so sure.

Says Jj : “Bob is not good at original copy because he’s such an editor himself.”

Bob: “Yes, when I write, I feel my editor self looking over my shoulder.”

“The weakness of some narrative indies is that the filmmakers are so eager to shoot that they do not fully develop the script beforehand.”

So Bob is the articulate but silent spokesman for indies, always behind the scenes, editing and tightening scripts, reading copy and imperceptibly influencing a vast body of independent film today.

Tai: “He is like a drop of water in a small stream which he knows runs to the sea and which affects the very water of the ocean.

“Bob is not about connections. He’s about connection.”

There was so much research done for Film Hawk, you must have worked very hard.

Jj: We just listened to Bob and followed all the leads he gave us.

Tai: “Bob is not associated as strictly ‘gay’ or for gay films only. You can see that in his long term relationship to ‘Brothers McMullen’ in the film, but homosexuality is as intrinsic to him as is his whole childhood. He is secure in himself as a person”.

Bob Hawk’s keen insights and feedback became the precious wind that provided flight for many filmmakers. This fiery, eccentric fairy Godfather of indie film not only battled depression, but was the first to discover and champion the talents of Kevin Smith (“Clerks”, “Chasing Amy”), Edward Burns (“The Brothers McMullen”, “Purple Violets”), Ira Sachs (“Keep The Lights On”, “Love Is Strange”) and Scott McGehee and David Siegel (“The Deep End”, “What Maisie Knew”).

Here are what a few have to say about him:

"I didn't ever consider myself an artist, I was just a guy who wanted to make ‘Clerks’, until Bob Hawk started talking about it."

- Kevin Smith

"Bob was always there to encourage me. Bob is a friend and a mentor"

- Ed Burns

With his 30+ year Sundance presence - including work as consultant, programmer, moderator, juror, and impassioned viewer - usually seated front-row and often asking the first question (as in the case of the “Sex, Lies and Videotape” world premiere) Bob deserves kudos and honors and yet has never sought the spotlight for himself.

Not only is this a film about film, but about a man who is as intrinsic to indie films as is the drop of water in a stream that goes into the ocean, but this film should also stand up in educational venues – whether about filmmaking or about standing proud as a gay man in the world.

In many ways this film recalls the classic “Bill Cunningham” that Zeitgeist had such success with in that both films are quintessentially New York films about men whose calling is their life-long love; each is a living example of the importance of love for one’s self and for one’s life lived with passion. “Film Hawk” deserves to be seen at the IFC Center, in the center of New York.

Bob grew up in that time in the 50s when to be gay meant very little to society. Gay men married, had children and if they were lucky they did not find their dual role in life unsettling. He was just at the edge and realized he did not have to go the marriage route and have children, and so he went the art route and his children are numerous.

Bob will be speaking at the Berlinale Queer Academy during the 30th Anniversary of the Teddy Awards and a clip of the film will accompany him. He is also receiving a Maverick of the Year Award from Cinequest this month.

Perhaps the most inside-baseball of films at Sundance this year, Jj Garvine and Tai Parquet’s Film Hawk is an intimate look at film consultant extraordinaire Bob Hawk. Followers of Kevin Smith will know him as the man who discovered Clerks one Sunday morning in the bowels of the Angelika Film Center during the New York Film Market. (Here Kevin Smith provides his usually hilarious and often sincere commentary, often alongside Hawk.)

Checking in with luminaries and friends, Garvine and Parquet have constructed a loving tribute to 76-year-old Hawk, the openly gay son of a Methodist minister who joined the queer immigration to San Francisco in the 1960s, and later to New York. As it turns out, per Smith, Hawk is a Jersey boy at heart, as we discover in a heartbreaking passage later in the story. Hawk’s early interest included theatre prior to the discovery of independent – then...

“As long as she thinks of a man, nobody objects to a woman thinking.” ― Virginia Woolf, Orlando The tweets are coming in fast and furiously from the New York Film Festival.

The Academy has announced the new class of invited members for 2014 and, as is typical, many of which are among last year's nominees, which includes Barkhad Abdi, Michael Fassbender, Sally Hawkins, Mads Mikkelsen, Lupita Nyong'o and June Squibb in the Actors branch not to mention curious additions such as Josh Hutcherson, Rob Riggle and Jason Statham, but, okay. The Directors branch adds Jay and Mark Duplass along with Jean-Marc Vallee, Denis Villeneuve and Thomas Vinterberg. I didn't do an immediate tally of male to female additions or other demographics, but at first glance it seems to be a wide spread batch of new additions on all fronts. The Academy is also clearly attempting to aggressively bump up the demographics as this is the second year in a row where they have added a large number of new members, well over the average of 133 new members from 2004 to 2012. As far as...

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is extending invitations to join the organization to 271 artists and executives who have distinguished themselves by their contributions to theatrical motion pictures.

Those who accept the invitations will be the only additions to the Academy’s membership in 2014.

“This year’s class of invitees represents some of the most talented, creative and passionate filmmakers working in our industry today,” said Academy President Cheryl Boone Isaacs. “Their contributions to film have entertained audiences around the world, and we are proud to welcome them to the Academy.”

The 2014 invitees are:

Actors

Barkhad Abdi – “Captain Phillips”

Clancy Brown – “The Hurricane,” “The Shawshank Redeption”

Paul Dano – “12 Years a Slave,” “Prisoners”

Michael Fassbender – “12 Years a Slave,” “Shame”

Ben Foster – “Lone Survivor,” “Ain’t Them Bodies Saints”

Beth Grant – “The Artist,” “No Country for Old Men”

Clark Gregg – “Much Ado about Nothing,” “Marvel’s The Avengers”

Sally Hawkins – “Blue Jasmine,...

Michael Fassbender and Lupita Nyong’o of 12 Years a Slave were two of the 271 artists and industry leaders invited to become members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which determines nominations and winners at the annual Oscars. The entire list of Academy membership—which numbers about 6,000—isn’t public information so the annual invitation list is often the best indication of the artists involved in the prestigious awards process. It’s worth noting that invitations need to be accepted in order for artists to become members; some artists, like two-time Best Actor winner Sean Penn, have declined membership over the years.

Pop quiz: What do Chris Rock, Claire Denis, Eddie Vedder and Josh Hutcherson all have in common? Answer: They could all be Oscar voters very soon. The annual Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences invitation list always makes for interesting reading, shedding light on just how large and far-reaching the group's membership is -- or could be, depending on who accepts their invitations. This year, 271 individuals have been asked to join AMPAS, meaning every one of them could contribute to next year's Academy Awards balloting -- and it's as diverse a list as they've ever assembled. Think the Academy consists entirely of fusty retired white dudes? Not if recent Best Original Song nominee Pharrell Williams takes them up on their offer. Think it's all just a Hollywood insiders' game? Not if French arthouse titans Chantal Akerman and Olivier Assayas join the party. It's a list that subverts expectation at every turn.

"If you love what you are doing, then you will be successful." When this quotation was first uttered, it's highly unlikely that the speaker imagined it would apply to a man screaming at strangers on a sidewalk about pop culture. But that's exactly the bliss that Billy Eichner decided to follow — and it's working. What started as a series of modest YouTube videos named Billy On The Street has now blossomed into a partnership with Will Ferrell and Adam McKay's comedy site Funny Or Die and an Emmy-nominated TV show on Fuse.

You know it’s worth watching when they’ve got a Mike Tyson cameo.Franklin & Bash returns for a fourth season this summer, and in one episode the boys will have Mr. Face Tattoo to reckon with. The amazing John Michael Higgins (Pitch Perfect, Best in Show) will also star in the episode as Gordon Derringer, a restauranteur and rival of Stanton Infeld (Malcolm McDowell), the head of the law firm. As a power play, Derringer hires Iron Mike to rough up Infeld, but Franklin and Bash take him on instead. Tyson will play himself. Word is out on the...

Today is a good day to be a fan of the Alien franchise. Neca Toys, the company responsible for much plastic-based Alien-themed badassery, has just made the announcement we as fans have been waiting for...

As part of the 35th anniversary celebration of the groundbreaking Alien, Neca will release the first-ever action figures of main character Ellen Ripley that feature the likeness and approval of actress Sigourney Weaver, who was nominated for an Oscar and Golden Globe for Aliens in 1987!

Initial plans include a figure of Ripley in her Nostromo jumpsuit from the original 1979 film, to be followed later by a Ripley figure based on the 1986 movie Aliens, directed by James Cameron.

Prototypes will debut later this summer at San Diego Comic-Con!

The celebration will continue through the year, with a special 35th Anniversary figure appearing in each series of Alien 7″ action figures. Visitors to the booth got a...

Who’s ready for some sequel news? Hopefully you are, because we’ve got three updates about upcoming films with the number two in their titles – including one from Marvel. We’ll get to that Marvel stuff in a bit, but first we've got an update on another cinematic superhero: Jason Statham. Word is out that Nu Image is offering up a sequel to the 2011 action film The Mechanic. Statham would return to his role as a professional assassin with a code of honor in the follow-up, and now there’s talk that a director is interested. Said filmmaker is German director Dennis Gansel. Gansel might not be a household name here in the States, but he’s a pretty well-respected member of the German cinema industry. Hollywood has been interested in luring him...

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Here's a little something odd for fans of British comedy:Word is out that Sightseers star Steve Oram will be making his directorial debut with Aaaaaaaah! - eight 'a's and proper punctuation a vital part of the title, thanks - a film that he describes as Romeo And Juliet meets The Planet Of The Apes. What on earth does that mean? It means no dialogue - not in any recognizable language, anyway - but with all of the actors grunting and otherwise behaving like monkeys.And, yeah, that sounds crazy on paper and it sounds crazy brilliant once you learn who else is involved. The Mighty Boosh's Julian Barrett and Green Wing's Julian Rhind-Tutt will play the rival clan leaders with Hannah Hoekstra (Hemel) and Oram's regular...

[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...

We’re heading towards that time again. The malaise from the slow descent since SummerSlam is about to be driven to a stop by one of the best PPV’s of the year, the Royal Rumble. From there we have a constant raft of new storylines, returning heroes and villainous turns.

Through it all though, as we career along to the 30 year anniversary of the big one, it is the return of an old favourite who always garners the most attention. Even in a year which might see potential returns of Hulk Hogan and Chris Jericho, it’s the returning Phenom who gets the most interest. Who will he challenge? Who will challenge him? Will the streak end or will it remain the most impressive run in sports entertainment?

Word is out that it’s already down to one or two people who could face the Deadman but with the...

Buster Keaton appeared in some very weird movies following the advent of sound pictures. There’s that Mexican sci-fi comedy Boom in the Moon I mentioned on Fsr a while back. There’s the Eastman Kodak industrial film The Triumph of Lester Snapwell, in which he plays a clumsy photographer who travels through time so he can experience an easy-use Instamatic camera. And of course all those crazy ’60s beach movies, where he performed silly slapstick involving bikinis, boobs and a politically incorrect portrayal of a Native American. But his oddest has to be Film, the 1965 short he reluctantly starred in, which was scripted by absurdist playwright Samuel Beckett (his only original written directly for the screen), helmed by theatre director Alan Schneider, produced by controversial publisher Barney Rosset, edited by Oscar-nominated documentarian Sidney Meyers (The Quiet One; The Savage Eye) and shot by legendary cinematographer Boris Kaufman (L’Atalante; On the Waterfront). Almost 50 years since its...

Strap in kids, because Dr Who is about to get weird. Given that we already have a John Hurt vs Peter Capaldi, Bad Doctor vs Good Doctor confrontation in the works for the upcoming season that's not exactly news but the BBC is turning in a surprising direction to make it happen. Word is out that Kill List and Sightseers director Ben Wheatley is on the director roster for the upcoming season of the BBC staple. There doesn't appear to be any official word about his involvement, or how many episodes he will direct, but the Tweet above - and you better believe Empire would not have retweeted it unless there was something to it - indicates that he's on board for at least one...

[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...

Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman's film fetishises the 70s porn style, then tuts at all the exploitation

• News: Deep Throat lawsuit threatens to swallow Lovelace

• Peter Sarsgaard interviewed for Lovelace

• Lovelace: first look review from Sundance

There's plenty to admire about Lovelace, the second feature from documentarians Robert Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman (their first was Howl), including a surprisingly nuanced performance from Amanda Seyfried as the tragic frontierswoman of 70s hardcore porn, and sterling work from Peter Sarsgaard as Lovelace's husband/manager/pimp/owner/dungeonkeeper Chuck Traynor, and from Robert Patrick and Sharon Stone as her emotionally repressed working-class parents. Stone is almost unrecognisable as Linda's ice-cold, Livia Soprano-esque mother, who keeps telling her frightened daughter: "Go back to your husband." (Lovelace, incidentally, has more than a passing kinship with Stone's own tragic heroine in Casino.)

Plus it's the 1970s, so the costume department get to go hog-wild on bellbottoms,...

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Back in 1977, a team of six directors made Word Is Out, a classic 134-minute documentary in which 26 American gays and lesbians, aged from 18 to 77 and mostly from California, talked with frankness and good humour about their experience of coming out, breaking away and finding new lives in an often oppressive world. Sébastien Lifshitz performs a similar job for present-day France, with 11 talking heads, all of them middle-aged or over and mostly from the rural south and around Marseille. They're skilfully edited, placed in their contexts and accompanied by newsreel clips, home movies and old photographs.

Anyone who thought that the land of Proust, Cocteau, Gide, Rimbaud, Verlaine and the haven of Wilde was a place of tolerance and understanding will be surprised by the revelations of prejudice everywhere and the cruel intolerance of a newspaper and the Catholic church. They'll also be heartened by the courage,...

Always a maverick, Japanese director Sono Sion has found a new way to mess with the system. Word is out that Sono is set to direct a live action adaptation of Inoue Santa's manga Tokyo Tribes but rather than go the conventional route and cast the futuristic street gang flick with conventional actors and agencies its creators are taking it straight to the masses and conducting their casting via open auditions on YouTube. Yes, really.though information is there in Japanese only you can visit the project's official YouTube channel now to see introductory videos by both Sono and Inoue along with a couple sample auditions....

[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...

Word is out that Amit Kapoor has started his first production venture from Cynozure Networkz titled, One By Two being co-produced by Abhay Deol, which also stars Abhay and Preeti Desai. Essentially a romantic comedy One By Two, directed by Devika Bhagat, will be the first among other projects which are being produced by Mr. Amit Kapoor (Son of well-known producers and distributors Lalit and Shabnam Kapoor). As per schedule, the film's team commenced shooting in the first week of M...

It’s one of those bad news/potentially good news things. Word is out that the folks behind ABC‘s blockbuster Once Upon a Time are considering a spinoff series for Jefferson/The Mad Hatter. The Jefferson-centric episode from Season 1, “Hat Trick”, was easily one of my favorites of the entire series. That’s the potentially good news.

The bad news is that, for that reason, they’re looking for a replacement for Sebastian Stan, who played the character. The very excellent Stan played Bucky in Captain America: The First Avenger, and according to THR, his work in Captain America: The Winter Soldier and in a play on Broadway are keeping him too busy to be able to take on the project right now.

Thus the hunt for someone new as The Hatter. ABC and producers Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis are deciding if they’ll be putting together a...

Word is out on who will be penning the final chapter of the revolution in The Hunger Games trilogy. According to THR, recent Emmy winner Danny Strong is in talks to handle writing duties for the two-part adaptation of the conclusion of Suzanne Collins’ young adult series. Strong took home two Emmys last week for his work on the HBO miniseries Game Change, based on the exploits former Alaska governor Sarah Palin. He is also known for playing the role of Jonathan on Buffy.

Looking for a must-see list of great gay documentaries? We've got you covered. We recently asked our readers to nominate up to five of their favorite documentary films via write-in vote. Thousands responded and we tabulated the results to bring you the top 25 here. All of these films are definitely worth a look and to help you learn more about titles you might not be familiar with, we've included trailers, links to reviews, official film websites and more. Plus, for three of the titles we've even embedded the full movie thanks to the Logo Docs library.

So here they are, the 25 Greatest Gay Documentaries. Which ones have you already seen? Which ones do you need to see?

25. Saint of 9/11

Summary: Sir Ian McKellen narrates this inspiring portrait of Father Mychal Judge, a New York City Fire Department Chaplain who wrestled with his sexuality, his genuine dedication to life as a priest,...

Sylvester Stallone and his team of aged action heroes ruled the box office with their high-octane throwback The Expendables 2. The title is perfect because it's the kind of disposable flick you can imagine people watching half-assed for years on end on cable while eating, cleaning, making phone calls, taking a sick day, you name it.

Top o' the Box Office *newbies in bold*

01 The Expendables 2 $28.7 

02 The Bourne Legacy $17 (cum $69.5)

03 Paranorman $14 

04 The Campaign $11.8 (cum. $51.6)

05 Sparkle $12 ...more on this one soon 

06 Dark Knight Rises $12 (Cum. $409.9) Review

07 The Odd Life Of Timothy Green $10.9 

The Expendables franchise is weirdly sexist -- how can you have like a dozen action stars per movie (*stars* being a smudgey concept here once you're past the one name icons), many of them past their prime, and never include any of the women who've led or played a major hand in action hits in any decade? Yes,...

Didn't Machete kill the first time? Isn't that the entire point of the character? Heh ...Word is out that Robert Rodriguez plans to return Danny Trejo to the big screen in the second of what is now a planned trilogy of films. First came Machete. Next comes Machete Kills. Is it too much to hope that the third will be titled Machete Kills Everyone?Working from a script by Kyle Ward the plan appears to be to make things bloodier than last time. Deadline describes the story like this:The new film finds Machete recruited by the U.S. Government for a mission which would be impossible for any mortal man. Machete must battle his way through Mexico to take down a madman cartel leader and an...

What's that? Nazis in Berlin?Word is out that long awaited science fiction comedy Iron Sky - in which Nazis hidden away on a secret base on the dark side of the moon invade earth - has been added to the Panorama section of the 2012 Berlin International Film Festival and the team behind the film has released a new trailer / festival announcement in response.I could tell you more but I'd rather watch Udo Kier play with his space zeppelin. You can do the same below....

I can't be the only one thrilled to hear the Association of Moving Image Archivists (Amia) is holding its 2011 conference in Austin this week. If you're not thrilled, you don't know what this means: Fascinating and well-restored movies screening at the Paramount, all free to the public. The last time Amia held its annual conference here was 2005, and for me it was as though the circus was in town. In fact I was tempted to run away with them and become an archivist myself, except a) I don't want to go back to school, b) I don't think I'd be good at it and c) it's not a profession with many job opportunities in Austin. (As opposed to film criticism? Well ...)

The fun kicks off tonight at Alamo Drafthouse Ritz, with the Amia "Reels of Steel" competition at 11:30 pm. Film buffs and archivists will be bringing all kinds of...

Let the awards for The Help start to pile up: The 15th annual Hollywood Film Awards has announced that the film will receive its Ensemble Award. The first award show of the season has got the film’s award buzz getting fierce.

Word is out of the event that the entire cast of The Help including Emma Stone, Bryce Dallas Howard, Octavia Spencer, Viola Davis, Jessica Chastain, Allison Janney, Sissy Spacek, Ahna O’Reilly, Chris Lowell and Mary Steenburgen will all be in attendance. Nothing feeds the Oscar buzz fire like a cast reunited to accept an award!

The first of the award season fetes will take place October 24 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel.

Other recipients of the Hollywood Film Awards that have been announced include J. Edgar’s James Murakami (Production Designer), Visual Effects winner Scott Farrar for Transformers: Dark of the Moon and the delightful Rango for the Hollywood Animation Award.

Word is out that Lauryn Hill’s baby arrived on Saturday, thus making the Fugees star the proud mother of a full Olympic volleyball team. The singer’s new son brings the grand total of children she has with partner Rohan Marley, son of reggae legend Bob, to six. Older siblings Zion, Selah, Joshua, John and Sarah are no doubt excited to have a new baby in the house, though of course that means one more kid to be jealous of just how excellent “To Zion” is.

“Mother and baby are fine,” a source told the site Black Celebrity Kids following the birth, saying that the singer “had a little scare because the baby came out the womb with the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck. All is well now and everyone is happy.” Lauryn Hill’s pregnancy was only announced as recently as June, after the singer explained to...

From Dark Knight to Biblical boatman? Word is out that Christian Bale is in talks to star in Darren Aronofsky's big budget, fantasy oriented adaptation of the story of Noah. There are still a lot of things that have to happen before the film is a go - Aronofsky has to secure another $65 million in financing, for one thing - but Bale is the sort of actor that makes perfect sense for this, someone who can leverage a string of huge box office successes without giving up an ounce of indie sensibility. Noah currently has Fox subsidiary New Regency on the hook for half of the budget with Aronofsky in talks with three major stuios - Fox proper, Paramount and Summit - to...

Iron Man 2.0 writer Nick Spencer will pen a new miniseries about superhero runaways Cloak and Dagger for Marvel Comics later this year. Announced at this weekend's Kapow convention in London, editor Steve Wacker confirmed that the Marvel exclusive writer would be teaming up with Osborn artist Emma Rios on the three-issue miniseres. "Word is out! Me and Emma Rios, Cloak & Dagger! More to come," Spencer wrote on Twitter, after the news broke. The two characters made their debut almost thirty years ago in Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man (more)...

Iron Man 2.0 writer Nick Spencer will pen a new miniseries about superhero runaways Cloak and Dagger for Marvel Comics later this year. Announced at this weekend's Kapow convention in London, editor Steve Wacker confirmed that the Marvel exclusive writer would be teaming up with Osborn artist Emma Rios on the three-issue miniseres. "Word is out! Me and Emma Rios, Cloak & Dagger! More to come," Spencer wrote on Twitter, after the news broke. The two characters made their debut almost thirty years ago in Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man (more)...

Word is out that Warner Bros.’ own financing and production company Alcon Entertainment is in the final stages of securing “film, television and ancillary franchise rights to produce prequels and sequels to the iconic 1982 science-fiction thriller Blade Runner.” An interesting pieces of news on its own – but even more significant is that this package specifically excludes rights to a remake of the film.

Read more on WB’s Alcon in final negotiations for Blade Runner rights; would allow for sequels and prequels…...

Rooney Mara and Jesse Eisenberg in The Social Network

Photo: Columbia Pictures Over the last few days The Social Network has racked up a few more awards, this time taking home the top prize from both the National Society of Film Critics (Nsfc) and the Alliance of Women Film Journalists (Awfj).

Network virtually swept the Nsfc awards winning best picture, director (David Fincher), actor (Jesse Eisenberg) and screenplay (Aaron Sorkin). It also won picture, director and screenplay from the Awfj where it also won best score (Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross), but Colin Firth won the actor award for his performance in The King's Speech.

So, The Social Network continues its run, but this weekend is where it will face its first big tests at the Broadcast Film Critics Awards on Friday, January 14 and the Golden Globes on Sunday, January 16. Neither award show will serve to be the end all,...

The National Society of Film Critics, founded in the 1960s, remains one of the most prestigious critics groups. Though they follow numerous critics groups to their "best!" declarations each year, they don't usually take orders so well. You can always count on a surprise or two though there's still no denying The Social Network.

Olivia Williams takes her first prize for The Ghost Writer

Picture The Social Network (runner up: Carlos and Winter's Bone)

Director David Fincher for The Social Network (ru: Olivier Assayas for Carlos and Roman Polanski for The Ghost Writer)

Actress Giovanna Mezzogiorno in Vincere (ru: Annette Bening in The Kids Are All Right and Lesley Manville in Another Year)

Actor Jesse Eisenberg in The Social Network (ru tie: Colin Firth in The King's Speech and Edgar Ramirez in Carlos)

Supporting Actress Olivia Williams in The Ghost Writer (ru: Amy Adams in The Fighter and tied for...

Well, now that makes sense. It looks like Natalie Portman gave up a lead role in a space movie for the lead role in a better space movie (or at least a more high profile space movie). After having turned down Gravity, it seems Natalie Portman is the front runner to star in Ridley Scott's untitled Alien prequel.

Word is out that Damon Lindelof has completed his script and Fox is thrilled with the story that takes place around 35 years prior to Alien events and aims to recapture the original's horror-suspense feel (as opposed to the action-heavy sequels). The new film also promises to identify the Space Jockey and explore its backstory. Lindelof's script is reportedly a hit with studio executives because it doesn't contain big action sequences (read: expensive) and could likely attain a PG-13 rating.

If for some reason - and I can't imagine turning down such...

The director of To Kill A Killer is auditioning for and is close to a full cast for his next film, tentatively titled "Frankenstein: The Day of the Beast". The titular doctor hires a group of mercenaries to protect him from the film's more feral Monster, giving the flick a more Predator-esque angle. Click through for the film's official Facebook page: Frankenstein 2011.

In an interview with The Independent, director Ridley Scott revealed possible details a two-part 3D prequel to the original "Alien" that focuses on the origins of the infamous xenomorphs, 30 years prior to the first flick. Lost scribe Damon Lindelof is reworking a script Ridley described as being about "...gods and engineers. Engineers of space."

The Deadline reports on meetings between a pool of possible directors for their upcoming adaptation of Suzanne Collins bestseller Hunger Games. David Slade (Twilight: Eclipse), Gary Ross (Pleasantville) and Sam Mendes (Revolutionary Road) are...

Take a moment to grab a bite of the latest TV news in 300 words.

A Gleeful Office

Get ready to Gleek out Office fans. Word is out that an entire upcoming episode of The Office will be dedicated to Glee. Well, watching Glee that is. Even though no one from Glee will appear in the episode I am really hoping the office mates do their take on the cast and sing-a-long with the show. After The Office season 7 opened with such a glorious lip dub, it should come as no surprise that the employees at Dunder Mifflin are all about Glee. And if the episode they watch is as quotable as this week's Glee, we are in for a treat. It's pretty cool of NBC (or is it?) to devote an entire episode of The Office to promoting an already hit show on Fox. [Ausiello]...

The full line up for the 54th BFI London Film Festival was announced in the Odeon, Leicester Square this morning, with a number of highly anticipated films set to light up the capital this October.

The festival runs from the 13th to the 28th of October and will begin with Mark Romanek’s adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s haunting masterpiece Never Let Me Go, and will close with Danny Boyle’s 127 Hours which stars James Franco.

Announcing the roster were Artistic Director Sandra Hebron and the Director of the British Film Institute, Amanda Nevill.

HeyUGuys will be all over the festival this year, it looks like it will be one to remember.

Click here to view the full calendar

The 54Th BFI London Film Festival Programme Launch

London, Wednesday 8 September: The programme for the 54th BFI London Film Festival, launched today by Artistic Director Sandra Hebron, showcases an array of...

Superficially, the 1977 documentary Word Is Out: Stories Of Some Of Our Lives may not seem as relevant now as it once was. Conceived and assembled by The Mariposa Film Group of San Francisco (including Rob Epstein, who went on to make The Times Of Harvey Milk and The Celluloid Closet), Word Is Out has 26 men and women of varying backgrounds looking into the camera and speaking frankly about being gay. The 130-minute film is divided into three parts: first about how the subjects denied and/or hid their sexuality, second about how they accepted themselves and/or found ...

Movies are Saturday night-wasting entertainment and they're transcendent mega-art, but they're also history, living tissues of the past that overpower any other medium we have for preserving experience and retaining cultural memory. This is no small matter, despite the relatively slight influence that film's historical potential has in the consumer marketplace, which is virtually defined by its amnesia. "Word Is Out: Stories of Some of Our Lives" (1977), then, is a gift, not just a film preserved and sold as product, but a piece of the 20th century that will now never quite fade completely from view.

Shot and assembled by a six-person collective (including Rob Epstein, later director of "The Times of Harvey Milk" and "Common Threads"), this film is as simple as it is expansive: amidst the definitive stirrings of the gay rights movement, the filmmakers sat down with 26 gay men and women -- young and old, fat and skinny,...