Daniel Algrant’s Greetings from Tim Buckley is supposed to be Penn Badgley’s revelatory moment as an actor. Playing singer-songwriter Jeff Buckley, Badgley sings live on set and sounds eerily similar to Buckley as he goes into his upper register and harmonizes in abstract ways. Unfortunately, Badgley’s performance ultimately feels empty, as does the film as a whole. Despite being focused on real, complicated people with tragic lives (both at the height of their fame, Jeff’s father Tim died at 28 from an accidental overdose and Jeff drowned at 30), the film never allows the two Buckleys to come across as fully realized characters. It’s 1991 and Jeff Buckley is living in California, a struggling musician. Out of the blue, he gets a call asking him to come to Brooklyn to perform in a tribute concert for his father, who he only met twice in his lifetime. Jeff is bitter about the whole situation – celebrating the man who abandoned him – but he agrees to play nonetheless. While he is there, he is guided musically by his two of his father’s former bandmates, played by William Sadler and Frank Wood. He also forms an immediate connection with the venue’s intern, Allie (Imogen Poots, playing a fictionalized character) and she helps him come to terms with being his father’s son. Jeff’s story of prepping for the tribute concert is intercut with Tim’s (Ben Rosenfield) trip from California to New York at the start of his career in the 1960s.

Michael Winterbottom has made a lot of goddamn movies. Unlike most directors, though, he doesn’t really have a type of film that he sticks to or is known for. This lack of a label allows him to move effortlessly from comedy to drama, political to pornographic artistic, period to contemporary, and once and a while he’ll even dip his toes into the biographical. It’s that last category that his latest film, The Look of Love, resides… alongside strong elements of the dramatic, comedic, period and artistic, of course. Steve Coogan plays real-life multi-millionaire Paul Raymond, a man whose immense fortune came on the backs of nude women dancing in his clubs, posing in his magazines and playing in his bed. Starting in the near present with the death of his daughter, the film flashes back to his early days as proprietor of a classy gentleman’s club and traces his rise in wealth and fame alongside his descent into sleaze and immorality.

The story behind now-legendary singer/songwriter Jeff Buckley’s first introduction to the music world is the sort of dramatic, one in a million tale that’s so simultaneously relatable and unbelievable, it seems like somebody should make it into a movie. So somebody made it into a movie. Or, more specifically, Daniel Algrant made it into a movie starring Penn Badgley as Jeff and Ben Rosenfield as his equally notable singer/song writer father, Tim. The story starts with Jeff as an unknown artist with a famous father, a father that he’s estranged from and never properly knew. His world changes, however, when he’s asked to travel from west coast to east in order to perform at a tribute concert for the man. Suddenly the younger Buckley is put in the position of not only having a big opportunity to show off his talents to the world, but also being forced to wrestle with all of his feelings about a man that he never knew and mostly resents. Of course, we all know that the situation ends with Jeff performing at the show and a new star being born, but it’s the drama of the journey to that point that makes this a story interesting enough to make into a movie.

If Philip Seymour Hoffman, Christopher Walken, Catherine Keener, Mark Ivanir and Wallace Shawn were in a movie together, would you go see it? Director Yaron Zilberman (Watermarks) is even throwing in Imogen Poots for free. This excellent ensemble formed for A Late Quartet, the story of four world-class string players who struggle to stay together. The official synopsis uses the phrase “insuppresible lust.” Hopefully it’s between Walken and Hoffman. Or hopefully it’s the kind that causes a massive rift between two or three people. That might be the case, as this absolutely gorgeous trailer shows. It’s intense and makes a powerful impact with a striking metaphor. Having Beethoven in its corner doesn’t hurt either. This, right here, looks like must-see filmmaking from a new director and a veteran cast.

This week, Fat Guy Kevin Carr flexes his rippling muscles and sets out to live a warrior lifestyle, just like Jason Momoa in Conan the O’Barbarian. But before he can do that, he has to drive a stake through his neighbor’s heart, since he’s certain he lives next door to a vampire. What else could all those sparkles be about? Meanwhile, he sends his kids off to a dangerous 3D, Aroma-Vision mission, hoping they can make it as real spy kids so they can teach him to put on a fake British accent and woo a not-quite-British Anne Hathaway.

I am likely one of very few critics that sat down to watch Craig Gillespie’s Fright Night having not seen Tom Holland’s 1985 original first, but upon doing so after, feel I’ve unintentionally done myself a great service. Now that I’ve seen it, the original is a great film; Chris Sarandon’s Jerry Dandrige and Roddy McDowall’s Peter Vincent are uniquely them, the tone and pace a perfect example of eighties horror done right – smart and campy all at once. Like most re-makes/re-imaginings, if the original felt good and was a part of my film collage growing up, it would have colored my perception of the new offering by default. This certainly isn’t bad, but it’s not always the best way to approach something new. I am glad then that in putting the cart before the horse, I was able to appreciate and have a good bit of fun with this latest offering.

I visited the set of the new Fright Night movie last September and wrote about the experience here. That post covers my thoughts on the whole process, but it’s not all I have to report. No siree, while I was there several members of the cast and crew took time out of their clearly busy schedule to chat with the press. Unheard of you say? It’s true! And here are some words to prove it from the likes of Colin Farrell and Imogen Poots! [These are excerpts from group interviews conducted during the set visit.] Be sure to check out all of our Fright Night coverage here.

I visited the set of the new Fright Night movie last September and wrote (perhaps a bit too honestly) about the experience here. That post covers my thoughts on the whole process, but it’s not all I have to report. No siree, while I was there several members of the cast and crew took time out of their clearly busy schedule to chat with the press. Unheard of you say? It’s true! And here are some words to prove it from the likes of screenwriter Marti Noxon and producer Michael De Luca. [These are excerpts from group interviews conducted during the set visit.] Be sure to check out all of our Fright Night coverage here.

I visited the set of the new Fright Night movie last September and wrote (perhaps a bit too honestly) about the experience here. That post covers my thoughts on the whole process, but it’s not all I have to report. No siree, while I was there several members of the cast and crew took time out of their clearly busy schedule to chat with the press. Unheard of you say? It’s true! And here are some words to prove it from the likes of special effects guru Howard Berger and producer Alison Rosenzweig. [These are excerpts from group interviews conducted during the set visit.] Be sure to check out all of our Fright Night coverage here.

It’s September of last year and I’m standing in a hallway at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Albuquerque, New Mexico, cursing at the door to my room. It’s one of those ubiquitous card key locks, and I’m in no mood for a third trek down the long hall, down the glass elevator, and back to the front desk to admit once again that I’m apparently an idiot who can’t open a door. It’s a brilliant start to my Fright Night press visit that I’m only a part of due to a scheduling conflict elsewhere on the FSR team, and when combined with my already cynical view of the whole set visit concept it hardly bodes well for the next few days. I just don’t see the appeal of it all for anyone aside from the studio and the writer. The studio gets some relatively cheap marketing, the writer gets a free trip, free hotel, and a chance to hobnob with the talent, and the readers get… what? Interview quotes that will be repeated on a dozen different web sites? A puff piece about how awesome the final movie is going to be? Clearly, I’m the wrong person for this particular assignment.

As it turns out, the upcoming Fright Night remake may indeed be awesome. The trailer was impressive and didn’t show anything in particular to be worried about, except for the serious lack of David Tennant. An excuse could be made that they wanted to set up a tone Tennant doesn’t fit, so it makes sense not to include a more comedic character like that. Regardless, a recent clip (via MTV) was just put out on the web, and it’s good. The scene features a nice little moment of Farrell not-so-subtlety warning Yelchin, and it works incredibly well. But one of the few reasons why Fright Night may actually be good is due to some of the solid buzz coming out of the screening MTV just held. I’ve heard from more than a few people that it works pretty well as cool vampire film, and that it’s much better than one might think a Fright Night remake would be. I do hope the film surpasses being more than just another fun horror movie, though.

Were you aware that iconic British poet Robert Graves lived in an open love triangle for many, many years? Are you pretending to know who Robert Graves is right now? Me too. Graves was a formidable poet and historian of ancient world leaders like Roman Emperor Claudius, and it’s always interesting to see the personal life that made such minds tick. Newcomer William Nunez must agree because he’s written and will direct The Laureate based on Graves’s life and his romance of Nancy Nicholson and Laura Riding (both recognized artists in their own rights). According to The Playlist, Orlando Bloom will be offering his authentic accent to the role, Imogen Poots will be playing Riding, and Kerry Condon (from The Last Station) will be playing Nicholson. I honestly know little about Graves’s life, but a hot, sexy, poetic love triangle? That, I think, we all know a lot about.

The Fright Night remake is still over a year away from release, but the first image of character design from the film has already been glimpsed. David Tennant (Dr. Who) stars as a popular Las Vegas magician called upon by some uppity teens to face off against pure evil in the form of Jerry the vampire (Colin Farrell). The role is an updated version of the TV horror host played by Roddy McDowell in the original film. Anton Yelchin, Imogen Poots, and Christopher Mintz-Plasse play the aforementioned uppity youngsters. The image below is of a three-story banner hanging in the lobby of a Hard Rock Hotel & Casino where the Fright Night magic show takes the stage. Behold the mystical stylings of Peter Vincent, Mindfreak!