COMING SOON

The latest addition of a family involved in filmmaking are the Eggers brothers. Currently, Robert is the most well-known as the writer and director behind the films, "The Witch", "The Lighthouse" and "The Northman". His brothers have been participating in the creative process with him; Max co-wrote "The Lighthouse" and Sam worked as a production assistant on Robert's first feature, "The Witch". Now these two Eggers brothers have teamed-up to make their own directorial debut with "The Front Room", a psychological thriller based on the short story by Susan Hill.

While Robert is known for his eerie films that are historically set in the distant past with mythological context, Max and Sam are working in the contemporary world yet still within the realm of horror. Their story follows a young couple, played by Brandy and Andrew Burnap, who are expecting their first child. Due to circumstances and financial opportunity, they take in his stepmother, Solange (Kathryn Hunter) to live with them. Not only does she turn out to be very demanding and ornery but Solange also claims that a holy spirit has taken over her, giving her powers that she's is not using for good deeds. With elements of "Get Out" and "Rosemary's Baby", "The Front Room" touches on the disturbing legacy of racism in this country while delivering creepy, supernatural chills.

"The Front Room" is due in US theaters on September 6, 2024

As for Robert, he also has a new film set to be released later this year on Christmas Day with "Nosferatu". It is a new retelling of the classic vampire fable created by Bram Stoker in 1897 and was originally made as the German Expressionist silent film by F.W. Murnau a little over one hundred years ago. This has long been a passion project for Eggers and while it does appear he has nodded to Murnau's concepts, his film will clearly be his original vision of this gothic tale. The story involves a disturbed young woman (Lily-Rose Depp) that becomes the object of obsession by the mysterious and terrifying Count Orlok, played by Bill Skarsgård with the Swedish actor seeming to have become the go-to-guy to take on dark, creepy characters from Pennywise in the "It" films to the upcoming reboot of "The Crow". Nicholas Hoult, Emma Corrin, Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Willem Dafoe also star.

"Nosferatu" is due in US theaters on December 25, 2024

DONALD SUTHERLAND (1935 - 2024)

Donald Sutherland, an esteemed actor who had appeared in well over one hundred films and television programing, has sadly passed away on June 20th at the age of eighty-eight. The Canadian-born performer had been ill over the last few months. For over sixty years, Sutherland consistently delivered extraordinary and memorable screen work.

Sutherland was born in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada on July 17, 1953. He had suffered through bouts of rhematic fever and polio as a child. Sutherland went on to attend Victoria University in Toronto where he double majored in engineering and drama. After deciding that the life of an engineer wasn't really for him, he went to study acting further at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts in 1957. 

A few years later, Sutherland began getting small parts in several British films and television shows. His first major supporting role was in the 1965 horror film from Hammer Studios, "Fanatic" (released in the US as "Die! Die! My Darling!") with Tallulah Bankhead and Stephanie Powers. An impressive appearance on an episode of "The Saint" with Roger Moore helped lead to his big career break. He was cast in the Hollywood feature, "The Dirty Dozen", an all-star WWII drama that became a box-office hit in 1967.

With his subsequent performances in "Kelly's Heroes", "Klute" and "M*A*S*H*", Sutherland went on to become a respected actor and popular leading man in the movies throughout the 1970's. Other notable films the actor appeared in include "Don't Look Now", "The Eagle Has Landed", "1900", "The Great Train Robbery", "Fellini's Casanova", "National Lampoon's Animal House", the 1978 remake of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" and "Ordinary People", Robert Redford's first film as a director which went on to win the Best Picture Oscar in 1980. 

Sutherland continued to a major presence in cinema, appearing in "The Eye of the Needle", "A Dry White Season", "Backdraft", "A Time to Kill", "Six Degrees of Separation", "Outbreak", "Space Cowboys" and in the "Hunger Games" film series.

He would receive many nominations and awards (which include winning an Emmy and Golden Globes) yet shockingly, after many incredible performances throughout his career, Sutherland had never received even one Academy Award nomination. But he did finally receive an Honorary Oscar in 2017 which recognized his many amazing achievements in cinema.

BABES (2024)

Written by Ilana Glazer and Josh Rabinowitz



Directed by Pamela Adlon



Where & When: Los Feliz 3, Los Angeles, CA. June 3, 2024 9:45 PM



In the movies, pregnancy has been typically displayed as women being somewhat uncomfortable, wearing unflattering oversized clothing as their bellies grow while having a strange desire for pickles. Then the baby arrives with the mother, after some pushing and a little sweat, looking refreshed and ready to get back out in the world. But with "Babes", a comedy that marks Pamela Adlon's feature film debut as a director, we are given a more realistic (and humorous) look at the nine months involved (and after) for a woman, revealing many possible complicated mental challenges and extremely, uncomfortable physical situations that she may go through before giving birth.

Ilana Glazer (who co-wrote the screenplay with Josh Rabinowitz) and Michelle Buteau play Eden and Dawn, best friends since middle school, who are out on their annual Thanksgiving tradition of an early movie, followed by a hearty meal. But Dawn is pregnant and goes into labor in the middle of their outing. Eden is with Dawn and her husband, Marty (Hasan Minhaj) as they welcome their first child. Since she's not family, Eden is sent on her way by the nurse despite returning to the hospital with a celebratory sushi dinner for them all.

On the subway ride home, Eden meets a man named Claude (Stephan James). After bonding over sushi, shared life experiences and a quirky sense of humor, they spend the rest of the evening together before ending up in bed together. Eden is surprised that Claude doesn't reply to any of her texts but assumes it was going to be nothing more than a one night stand. With Dawn suffering from postpartum and struggling with breastfeeding, Eden invites her bestie over to cheer her up with a wild night of drinks and drugs. While under a hallucinogenic state, Eden has a sense that she is pregnant and after taking several tests discovers that a baby is actually on the way. An attempt to track down Claude only leads to the sad discovery that he will be unable to help with their child. But Eden decides she wants to keep the baby and raise it as a single mother, especially since she'll have her best friend around to help her out.

With it's rapid fire jokes, broad characterizations and loose structure, "Babes" has far more in common with a television sitcom than a feature film. This isn't all that surprising since Glazer (co-creator/writer of "Broad City") and Adlon (co-creator/writer of "Better Things") have both spent an extensive period of their careers creating and finding great success on television. And there isn't much of a visual style to be found here with the set-ups and the camera work by Jeffrey Kim pretty much ignoring the opportunity for grander cinematic effects, preferring to remain in the narrower visual scope of the small screen.

Yet this can all be overlooked for "Babes" is laugh-out-loud funny, offering hilariously sharp observations (some very TMI) on pregnancy and motherhood that is rarely discussed in entertainment. But at it's core, "Babes" is about female friendship and the struggle to maintain that tight bond while life changes forces the relationship to shift and evolve. This is helped by Glazer and Buteau having a great chemistry that makes you believe that they have been life-long buddies, managing to remain friends even after going through puberty together.

"Babes" is absolutely enjoyable in a breezy, well-written situation comedy, sort-of-way. Yet it doesn't feel special, never rising much above anything you could watch in the comfort of your home, missing a chance to boldly make a much needed and too infrequently made big screen comedy about women for women by women.

61 ESSENTIAL QUEER HORROR FILMS

It is well known fact that for a very long time any direct depiction of homosexuality in Hollywood movies was strictly forbidden. The Hays Code, which went into effect in 1934, held firm a moral guideline in American cinema until a little over thirty years later when it was abandoned, allowing filmmakers to finally display a more accurate worldview of real life. 

Now that doesn't mean that during that restrictive era some clever cinematic creators found a way to inventively sneak in a bit of queer subject matter into their films by using subtle subtext. And one of the most perfect genres to utilize this was in the horror genre where the characters were already considered strange, dangerous and outsiders to society. In celebration of Pride month, Vulture has made a guide to queer horror cinema with the list recently updated.

To see the complete list of films, please click below:

61 Essential Queer Horror Films