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3 articles from 2009

16 December 2009 10:57 AM, PST | newser.com | See recent newser news »

The Biggest Loser is getting bigger each year: Next season, 526-pound Michael Ventrella will be the show’s largest contestant ever. Though wanting to help people shed pounds is a good thing, the show seems exploitative when it uses “heaviest ever” to promote itself. PopEater rounds up media experts’ thoughts. Matthew Greenberg, True/Slant: “Of course NBC and Biggest Loser are exploiting the contestants. All reality programming is, at some level, based on exploitation.” Alex Blagg, Celebuzz: “This is America, so bigger is always better. Why would I want to watch a 500-pound morbidly obese woman run on a treadmill towards her »

5 August 2009 11:31 AM, PDT | Fangoria | See recent Fangoria news »

Few films garner a strong enough impact to merit a “classic” label. Even fewer obtain followings large enough to warrant the making of nine sequels. John Carpenter is one of the very few in this business who can lay claim to both accomplishments. Though Halloween began as a small independent feature, it’s now grown into an undeniably successful franchise, and with the release of Rob Zombie’s Halloween 2 reboot just around the corner, it doesn’t appear Halloween’s momentum is anywhere near slowing.  

The Beginning (1978)

In 1978 John Carpenter and Debra Hill poured the artistic cement that would act as a foundation for what would ultimately become labeled horrors slasher sub-genre (there were a few excellent slasher films preceding Carpenter‘s work, but all failed to grab the attention that Halloween captured), a now pivotal piece of the cinematic related horror puzzle. Halloween, was a low budget (the entire »

- no-reply@fangoria.com (Matt Molgaard)

3 April 2009 8:51 AM, PDT | ifc.com | See recent IFC news »

This week's "Fast & the Furious" is the fourth film in an eight-year-long franchise, but only the first to reunite all four stars from the original cast: Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Michelle Rodriguez and Jordana Brewster. (Walker alone starred in 2003's "2 Fast 2 Furious," while Diesel made an uncredited cameo in 2006's otherwise unrelated "Tokyo Drift.") Speaking about the film this week with the New York Times, Diesel said "It's kind of tricky to revisit a character so long after the fact. But it's very cool on a lot of levels to be able to go back to high school and do it all over again."

Returning to a long-running franchise after being missing in action isn't just difficult; it's also unusual. Even if a film series lasts long enough to permit a star to leave and then return, it only happens with the right alchemical mix of fan interest, career desperation, »

- Matt Singer

3 articles from 2009