As much fun as it would be to pick on SOPA/PIPA some more and make some jokes about how “SOPA,” when said aloud, is Spanish for soup, this is something entirely different. Oh, it still has to deal with censorship, but this is some self-imposed completely idiotic and maddening censorship. On air, movies and television have to play by a set of rules. These rules aren’t totally set in stone, but basically there are some words you can say and some you can’t say. Then there are some you can sort of say, but mostly only in the right context. An example? Pretty much any show on at any time could say “bitch” meaning female dog, because that’s just the definition of the word. If you want to call someone a bitch, generally that’s kept to after 8pm. Cable gets a bigger break than network, as it’s a paid service, but that doesn’t mean they’re immune to fines and more importantly, advertiser backlash, so everyone kind of plays with kid gloves. Of course, it’s parents who should be responsible for policing the television. If a show wants to say bad words, let them. Put it on after 8pm, put a “Language” notice on it, and parents can set their TVs to block it. Easy cakes. I mean, I still don’t understand why HBO, Showtime, and Cinemax won’t show hardcore porn, because why not, amirite? But I’m getting distracted by the thoughts of boobies. This boiling point is specifically about language. [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

Sunday is supposed to be a day of rest. A day of laundry. A day of animation domination, not going to church, not doing a damn production thing, and so on and so forth. AMC’s The Walking Dead has ruined that. Well, actually it hasn’t ruined any of those things, but it has made Sunday a rather contentious day. On one side, the Walking Deadheads. Those who can’t get enough of the AMC television series. On the other side, people who just can’t be bothered to give a damn. Scratch that. They do give a damn. A negative damn. A “this show blows” damn.  And gosh darnit, neither side likes the other. While the two will probably never see eye to eye, you either dig the melodrama or you don’t, there is one argument that is thrown out over and over again: If you don’t like it, don’t watch it. Well that’s bullshit. Mostly.

With massive ratings numbers, AMC has made the call to renew The Walking Dead for a third season. According to the press release, AMC President Charlie Collier was proud of the viewership records being set internationally by the show. That number includes more than 10m that watched the second season’s premiere around the world. Clearly, the zombie invasion is still going strong. This news comes as absolutely no surprise, but it does come with a challenge for showrunner Glen Mazzara to raise the stakes and improve on an already-strong formula for success. There were obvious storytelling differences between the first season and the start of the second, and Mazzara has to find a less ambling direction to drive the story. Not that walking around in the woods for two hours without development isn’t fun. With a third season in the bag, now is the time for them to start tightening up their scripts significantly in order to maintain the level of unease and drama that fans deserve. Taking a television show into a third season is always tricky, so hopefully they’ll get out of their own way, find some ripe stories, and deliver them without resorting to Sheriff Grimes waterskiing over a shark.  

So it’s October and that means only one thing – it’s Anytober at Subway, where any regular Subway sub is just $5. Wait, we’re not sponsored by Subway? Fuck that then, it’s October and on AMC that means the return of the critically acclaimed series The Walking Dead, based on the tremendous Image comic series. I say critically acclaimed because most critics don’t really enjoy horror movies and for some reason they can stomach The Walking Dead and are celebrating it. As a dyed in the wool horror fan (blood red), I’m not afraid to say that The Walking Dead on AMC is tremendously boring, not good horror, not good zombie action, and not even close to being a good adaptation. To fans of the graphic novels, what’s transpiring on the screen is bordering on being offensive. AMC has made a lot of great television, but this ain’t it.

One of the most high profile shows to come out of last year was AMC’s adaptation of the hit Robert Kirkman comic book The Walking Dead. But depending on who you ask, the first season was either the greatest thing ever to grace television or an absolute waste of storytelling potential. This past Saturday, one of the two most highly anticipated panels of the day was for The Walking Dead, mostly due to the fact that the second season of the show premieres tonight on AMC at 10pm.

*The following contains Breaking Bad spoilers in general and a major spoiler for the season four finale in particular. The Breaking Bad bandwagon is one that I avoided  getting on for a long time. After watching seasons one through three in a summer marathon, I found a lot to enjoy in the show, but there certainly wasn’t any drinking of the Kool-Aid being done. And while there still isn’t, I’ll be damned if the ending of season four didn’t at least tempt me to take a sip or two. This season started off rather lackluster compared to the high of the previous season. Sure, Gus slitting Victor’s throat and the cartel shoot-out were among some of the greatest moments of the show’s history, but they were scattered in a field with the likes of Hank’s self-loathing and distractingly annoying advertisements for Denny’s. But the final two episodes of this season made up for the majority of all that lackluster crap. What made the Breaking Bad season four finale special is that the immediate storyline involved is played out over two episodes instead of one. “End Times” is mostly set up for what we saw in “Face Off,” and that’s why “Face Off” is so fucking good. Imagine if the spinning gun scene in “End Times” had instead aired in the same episode as the final shot of the season. It wouldn’t have worked, simply because the final shot was one what required a moment of processing by the audience. Had everything been in [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

Much talk has been circling Kevin Smith these days, especially now that his new film Red State is available to everyone (well, everyone in the U.S. for now) on VOD. And in addition to Red State, the man has successfully built his very own internet radio station (S.I.R.) and put two TV pilots into production, and today we get an update on at least one of them. Back in June it was announced that AMC had commissioned a “presentation” for a Pawn Stars style reality series set within Smith’s N.J. based comic book shop, Jay & Silent Bob’s Secret Stash. The series was set to star Smith’s longtime friends Walt Flanagan and Bryan Johnson and would feature the day-to-day lives of the two (in addition to the other employees of the Stash) as they ran the shop. Today it was announced that AMC has indeed green lit the series, Secret Stash. The first season will consist of six episodes (as per usual with most AMC programming) and will begin airing in the first quarter of 2012. There is no word yet on what day or time the series will air, but if one were to make a safe assumption, it will most likely air on Sunday (which is the only night thus far that AMC has ever aired original programming) nights along with the returning Mad Men. Of course, it’s just as likely that AMC will want to create some competition for the likes of The History Channel or A&E with their respective similar type [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

A couple days ago it was announced that a new startup called MoviePass would work as a sort of Netflix for seeing movies in theaters. For a $50 a month subscription, members of MoviePass could then see as many movies as they wanted. The problem with a service like this is that MoviePass would need the cooperation of all of the nation’s biggest theater chains in order to be a service worth using. I know personally that if a MoviePass-like service were adopted by both AMC and Landmark theaters, then it would be well worth my money to purchase a membership. A pretty big wrinkle in these plans has already surfaced, however, seeing as AMC has already officially announced that they won’t be taking part.

Regardless of individual opinion, no one can say that AMC doesn’t have one of the most diverse line-ups on television. With the adult, contemporary drama Breaking Bad, the murder mystery The Killing, the horror/thriller The Walking Dead and the period drama Mad Men, there’s no doubt that the network loves their genre work. And they are about to make another addition to that slate with a western… yes, you read that right. AMC is doing a western titled Hell on Wheels. And here is the first trailer (via Screen Rant):

Fans of excellent television can rejoice today. This is no April Fools’ joke. AMC and Lionsgate have announced to the world that seasons five and six of everyone’s favorite Madison Avenue soap opera (circa 1960) are a go, and series creator/beating heart Matthew Weiner is on board. After extensive negotiations that were reportedly slowed by Weiner’s desire for a bit more “credit” (read: payola), things have finally been smoothed out and the partnership can move forward on the thing that matters most: showing us what the hell happens to Don Draper next. You can read the entire press release after the jump, if you’d like. In it you will find a very cool bit about a possible option for a seventh season. Yes, you read that right. Seven seasons of Mad Men. Drool.

Zombie fans have been celebrating ever since it was announced that Frank Darabont was developing the graphic novel The Walking Dead into a television series. Some folks questioned the choice of AMC as the right network, but the bet paid off when The Walking Dead premiered last year. It’s the first television series about the zombie apocalypse, and it’s gotten some great reviews. Now, all six episodes of the first season are available on DVD and Blu-ray, and what better way to enjoy them than with a drink in your hand. Because, let’s face it, in the event of the zombie apocalypse, you’ll want plenty of alcohol available to take the edge off.

Are you tired of watching Travis Bickle get angrier and angrier on that tiny 72” Hi-Def plasma TV of yours? Me too, and I only watch your TV when you’re not at home. Imagine how tired I’d be if I did it more often. Fortunately for both of us, AMC is bringing Taxi Driver to the big screen. It’s a consolation prize for Lars Von Trier not forcing Martin Scorsese to remake it, but it’s a consolation prize I’ll take any day of the week. You should too (unless you’re truly hung up on seeing it on a 4K digital projector, and if you are, it’s a completely legitimate hang up), and here’s when you can check out it: Saturday, March 19th @ 8PM and Tuesday, March 22nd @ 8PM. Where do you need to go? Any of these choice AMC Theaters that might happen to be near your home:

Somewhere out there in the internet tubes, Eric Linn decided to splice together all the zombie deaths from the first season of The Walking Dead. Watch it with someone you love. [Daily What]

Odds are since you’re reading this, presumably on the internet and not on our weekly printed newsletter distributed at your local Whole Foods, you’ve heard that Hatchet II is, for the most part, no longer playing in theaters. I don’t want to use the word “pulled” because that just sounds so violent – this is a kid’s site, for fucks sake. So you’re cruising around the internet and probably reading a lot of people’s opinions on why the film was removed from AMC screens. On one hand, the film didn’t make a lot of money. On the other, the film was unrated and some are suggesting the MPAA leaned on AMC to force their hand in removing the film from theaters. I’m sure there are a few other theories out there, at least one of them involving lizard people. Not one content to just blame the lizard people at every turn, I decided to put on my journalist hat (it’s a fedora) and actually talk to someone at AMC. That man is John Campea who has been a presence for years with AMC’s movie blogging and had a hand in helping Hatchet II find its way into theaters.

Today, two summer shows and one fall show that hasn’t aired yet saw renewals for another season including Hung, Memphis Beat, and The Walking Dead. Looks like we’ll be seeing more of Thomas Jane’s man parts, Jason Lee doing a southern accent and zombies attacking a guy on a horse. Look again. Now the horse is diamonds.

You’ve been hearing about it, you’ve seen the stills, you’ve experienced hype. But the time is here to finally see the first footage from the upcoming AMC original series The Walking Dead. The show comes to us from the man with the plan, Frank Darabont. Based on the highly popular indie comic of the same name, The Walking Dead looks like every zombie/horror fan’s wet dream.

AMC continues working their hoodoo in raising the dead, bringing us the best zombie production photo yet.

When it comes to zombie movies, there is often a lot of talk that happens for a long time without much to show it. Think World War Z. Thankfully, The Walking Dead has cast of the curse of development and has moved into the actual filming process under the guidance of director Frank Darabont. Now we’ve got photographic proof.

While you were busy planning a delightful weekend enjoying the sunshine and flying kites, Avatar was sneaking its way back into the theater.

Last night we had a chance to catch up with the Mad Men cast at a cocktail party in Los Angeles, and in true Mad Men fashion we drank Scotch on the rocks while bumming Lucky Strikes from nearby smokers.