Actor Maisie Williams named first WWF Global Ambassador for Climate and Nature

Actor Maisie Williams named first WWF Global Ambassador for Climate and Nature Calls for environmental action in powerful announcement film

Today 27th April 2021 — British actor, environmentalist, and filmmaker Maisie Williams is appointed as the first WWF Global Ambassador for Climate and Nature. In a powerful announcement video, Maisie highlights how vital 2021 is in the fight against climate change, as the UK prepares to host a critical climate summit, COP26, in Glasgow, and global leaders set ambitious targets to cut emissions which will limit warming and its impacts on people and nature. Maisie encourages people all around the world to unite and join her in using their voices and platforms, no matter how big or small, to talk about the need for climate action and apply pressure on corporations and policy and decision-makers. Maisie is championing WWF’s global mission to turn around the crisis in climate and nature by 2030, ensuring a future where people and wildlife thrive. This includes pressing world leaders and decision-makers for concrete plans to limit warming to 1.5°C, safeguarding 70% of the world’s coral, securing 4 million km2 of critical coastal ecosystems, and ending deforestation while working to restore the world’s forests. Announced today, ahead of WWF’s 60th anniversary (29th April), Maisie is encouraging people to support WWF’s work on tackling the climate and nature crisis by adopting a threatened or endangered animal. To support Maisie’s anniversary wishes for WWF, please click here. ‘I am honoured and excited to be working with WWF where together we will give the opportunity for people to learn about critical parts of the natural world that are most at risk, and how we can all personally make a difference and preserve them for future generations. I want to showcase the fight back against climate change, including how we can turn around the crisis in our oceans, which are home to such extraordinary diversity of life and sustain us all.’ ‘Through my history of learning about our sustainable future, I have recognised that climate change is often interpreted as an overwhelming force, but my personal goal is to show people everywhere that each and every one of us plays a vital role in making a difference. From small daily life changes, through to supporting larger campaigns directed at a government level for policy change, we can all join the many incredible activists who are working every day to impact change. — Maisie Williams Tanya Steele, CEO at WWF-UK said: “This year is critical for action on climate and nature, with leaders making decisions that will shape our future. Nature is a vital ally in the fight against climate change and we need powerful voices speaking up for its protection and renewal. We’re thrilled to name Maisie as WWF’s first Global Ambassador for Climate and Nature, knowing she shares our passion for restoring the planet we all call home.” Maisie’s new starring role as a WWF Global Ambassador is of vital importance as we take action to put nature on the path to recovery within the next ten years. [1] To find out more about WWF’s work in restoring nature and tackling the causes of its decline, including climate change and what you can do, visit www.wwf.org.uk/what-can-i-do

Bad Girls, a shocking drug-fueled post-modern female rage-odyssey coming early 2021

BAD GIRLS OUT NOW - ORDER HERE A shocking drug-fueled post-modern female rage-odyssey from acclaimed director of THE THETA GIRL, Christopher Bickel, and producer Crystal Colligan

WEST COLUMBIA, SC - Films Colacitta announces the release of BAD GIRLS, a violent underground film by Christopher Bickel, premiering in early 2021.   2021 is poised to be the year of the underground film. Due to the void of Hollywood content caused by the 2020 pandemic, audiences are clamoring for new and unusual programming.   Heading the charge for unique DIY boutique cinema is BAD GIRLS, an eye-popping artsploitation road movie from acclaimed director of THE THETA GIRL, Christopher Bickel. The film's producer, Crystal Colligan, describes BAD GIRLS as a "shocking drug-fueled post-modern female rage-odyssey."

BAD GIRLS gleefully subverts genre tropes in telling its lurid, hyperreal tale. After robbing a strip club, three desperate teenage girls lead a grizzled Federal Agent on a lysergic cross-country chase, scoring a duffle bag full of money, drugs, and a crew of willing kidnapees along the way.   BAD GIRLS is an underground film produced by amateurs in South Carolina for $16,000 -- "about one-half of the CATERING BUDGET for a typical made-for-TV movie," Bickel proudly indicates. The majority of that budget (some of which was raised by crowd-funding, some came from Bickel's day-job in a record store) went to pay the cast and crew a modest daily stipend -- something which director Bickel cites as being "of utmost importance to keeping harmony on set."   Citing influences as diverse as Jack Hill, Russ Meyer, Greg Araki, R Kern, John Waters, and Robert Downey (Sr.), Bickel has crafted a vision more than just the sum parts of those influences -- it is something unique in current underground cinema.   "These are characters people haven't seen before, interacting in a violent world that is almost-but-not-quite our own," says director Christopher Bickel of the "exaggerated reality" of the BAD GIRLS universe. "When you're making a movie for the cost of a used car, you're forced to get creative with the storytelling in ways that Hollywood focus-groups don't allow. You won't find BAD GIRLS in a Walmart because it doesn't belong in a Walmart." Nikolas Schreck, author of The Satanic Screen and The Manson File says, "Not since Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! have three lethal ladies on a rampage lit up the screen like the inviting infernal trio in Christopher Bickel's hallucinatory candy-colored joy ride into the ultraviolent abyss of amoral All-American dysfunction. An artfully stylized irreverent pop art road movie spiked with black humor, Bad Girls races to it's grim conclusion at carnival rollercoaster pace, joyfully making sex, drugs, and rock and roll unrespectable again."

BAD GIRLS will be the second film for underground producer/director Christopher Bickel. His first film, THE THETA GIRL, was widely critically acclaimed and has been distributed all over the world. Though made for roughly the same amount of money as THE THETA GIRL, BAD GIRLS is a much bigger and more complex production. Film Threat's Chris Gore described THE THETA GIRL as "a film that warped my mind," Here's what other critics had to say about Bickel's first film, THE THETA GIRL:   "One of the best exploitation films in a generation" - Nevermore Horror   "This film explodes onto the screen like the lovechild of Ted V. Mikels and Jodorowsky, skull-f**ks you like a tag team of Blue Sunshine and Blood Feast, and when it's done you will say, "Thank you, may I have another." - Psycho Drive-In   "Far, far better than it has any right to be... This is the kind of movie that microbudget indie producers should be studying to up their filmmaking game." - The Slaughtered Bird   "In its wildest moments, you can feel the same sort of creativity and mania of young Sam Raimi and Peter Jackson, cobbling together action and horror out of not-much-at-all." - Cinapse   "Perfectly capturing the look and feel of earlier films THE THETA GIRL carves out its own niche by upping the ante with even more sex and violence than we would have seen in the films it clearly loves so much. This is a kind of perfect distillation of the exploitation genre that would have been a cult classic back in the day...and is destined to be one in today... This is one of my favorite (and possibly one of the very best) films of 2018." - Unseenfilms.net   "THE THETA GIRL is a remarkably inventive, psychedelically captivating, micro-budget mind-banger presently mushrooming into the consciousness of indie fright fare fans, particularly those with a bent toward bravura brain blasting derring-do... THE THETA GIRL is a knockout accomplishment by any standards." -- Mike McPadden, Daily Grindhouse

BAD GIRLS stars Morgan Shaley Renew, Sanethia Dresch, and Shelby Lois Guinn as the titular "Bad Girls." Cleveland Langdale and Micah Peroulis star as two cult rock stars kidnapped by the girl gang. Jonathan Benton stars as a geeky hotel clerk swept up in the madness. Mike Amason and Dove Dupree star as oddly-paired FBI agents following the wreckage of the girls' cross-country crime spree.   BAD GIRLS was co-written by Bickel and star of THE THETA GIRL, Shane Silman.This is a first feature for most of the cast members, though Mike Amason, Cleveland Langdale, Dove Dupree, and Shane Silman are returning from THE THETA GIRL.   DOP Stephen Nemeth is known for his camerawork on the extreme horror film AMERICAN GUINEA PIG: BLOODSHOCK (2015)   More information, including the red band trailer, can be found at www.BadGirlsMovie.com.   Order: https://igg.me/at/badgirlsmovie   Stills: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1XCoA4VPdY9ChcutRpaZIVyoleij1OS1x?usp=sharing   Videos: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1lOKRCvVeiV6_I8M1trL65c1WAbTjqiiH?usp=sharing

BILL & TED FACE THE MUSIC | Teaser Trailer + Official Teaser Poster Released | In Theaters August 21, 2020

In honor of Bill & Ted Day, Orion Pictures has released the official teaser trailer and teaser poster for BILL & TED FACE THE MUSIC. The stakes are higher than ever for the time-traveling exploits of William "Bill" S. Preston Esq. (Alex Winter) and Theodore "Ted" Logan (Keanu Reeves). The now middle aged best friends set out on a new adventure to seek the song that will set their world right and bring harmony in the universe, with the helped by their daughters (played by Samara Weaving and Brigette Lundy-Paine), a new batch of historical figures and a few music legends. The film also stars Kid Cudi, Kristen Schaal, Anthony Carrigan, Erinn Hayes, Jayma Mays, Jillian Bell, Holland Taylor, Beck Bennett, William Sadler, Hal Landon Jr. and Amy Stoch.

  

BILL & TED FACE THE MUSIC will be released in theaters on August 21, 2020.

Watch the Teaser Trailer HERE: https://youtu.be/0hAL7emClFM

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BILL & TED FACE THE MUSIC

Release Date: August 21, 2020

Director: Dean Parisot

Producers: Scott Kroopf, Alex Lebovici, Steve Ponce

Executive Producers: Steven Soderbergh, R. Scott Reid, John Ryan Jr. and John Santilli

Screenplay by: Chris Matheson, Ed Solomon

Cast: Keanu Reeves, Alex Winter, Samara Weaving, Brigette Lundy-Paine, Kid Cudi, Kristen Schaal, Anthony Carrigan, Erinn Hayes, Jayma Mays, Jillian Bell, Holland Taylor, Beck Bennett, William Sadler, Hal Landon Jr. and Amy Stoch

 

SYNOPSIS

The stakes are higher than ever for the time-traveling exploits of William "Bill" S. Preston Esq. and Theodore "Ted" Logan.  Yet to fulfill their rock and roll destiny, the now middle aged best friends set out on a new adventure when a visitor from the future warns them that only their song can save life as we know it. Along the way, they will be helped by their daughters, a new batch of historical figures, and a few music legends - to seek the song that will set their world right and bring harmony in the universe. 

 

Bill & Ted Face the Music is directed by Dean Parisot (Galaxy Quest), from a screenplay by Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon (Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey) - and produced by Scott Kroopf, Alex Lebovici, and Steve Ponce. 

 

BILL & TED FACE THE MUSIC Official Channels

OFFICIAL WEBSITE: www.BillandTed3.com

FACEBOOK: www.facebook.com/BillandTed3  

TWITTER: www.twitter.com/BillandTed3

INSTAGRAM: www.instagram.com/BillandTed3  

HASHTAGS: #BillAndTed3 #FaceTheMusic

Before Burning Man, Lollapalooza, and Coachella there was Desolation Center

With live music on lockdown for the forseeable future, this is the perfect time to catch up on some amazing, rarely seen footage of legendary outdoor shows. Desolation Center is the untold story of a series of guerrilla music and art performance happenings in the 80s which inspired the birth of contemporary festival culture including Burning Man, Lollapalooza, and Coachella. The documentary (originally released in November 2019, and clocking in at 94 minutes in length) combines interviews of punk and post-punk luminaries with rare performance footage of Sonic Youth, Minutemen, Meat Puppets, Perry Farrell, Redd Kross, Einstürzende Neubauten, Survival Research Laboratories, Savage Republic and more, giving viewers unprecedented access to a time when pushing the boundaries of music, art, and performance was like an unspoken obligation. On Tuesday, June 23 the film will be available digitally via Apple TV (iTunes), Google Play, Amazon Instant Video, and many more.

Mat Levy of the digital distributor Passion River Films pointed out to the Deadline site, "At a time where we need it most, Desolation Center celebrates radicalism at its finest. From the music, the movement, and the ultimate legacy these events have forever left us, we are absolutely thrilled to be a part of bringing Stuart Swezey's groundbreaking story (that critics and audiences already love) to an expansive audience that will hopefully be inspired to create something wonderfully disruptive for the love of artistic expression."  Directed by the organizer of the original events and co-founder of Amok Books, Stuart Swezey, Desolation Center tells the true story of how the risky, and at times even reckless, actions of a few outsiders were able to incite seismic cultural shifts. Swezey says, "Taking the music that I found so inspiring and placing it into the wide-open spaces of the California desert or on a boat in the industrial wasteland of LA Harbor became a personal challenge for me. The story of the Desolation Center events is told in the film by eyewitnesses who were participants whether as musicians, artists, organizers or concert-goers."

Perry Farrell and Aaron Sherer, Mojave Auszug, near Mecca, CA 1984 - photo by Mariska Leyssius

The cultural significance of Desolation Center has not been lost on today's top media outlets, with Rolling Stone calling it "a series of important but overlooked shows - nothing like it has been attempted since" and the New York Times declaring that: "Hundreds of punks hit the desert. The modern music festival was born."   As Thurston Moore described to the New York Times, the mood was "one of complete joy and wonder at being together in a place that might as well have been another planet." He said the most radical attribute of Desolation Center was that "it asked no permission," and he called the show "one of the great moments" in the history of Sonic Youth

Audience members in Box Canyon, Mojave Auszug, near Mecca, CA 1984 - Photo by Scot Allen

Desolation Center has screened across the globe including the prestigious European CPH:DOX Film Festival in Denmark, Sheffield Doc/Fest in the UK and its US premiere at Slamdance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. It brought home Audience Awards at SF Indiefest and Chicago Underground Film Festival and was a selection of the 2019 Smithsonian Year of Music, Smithsonian Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, DC. Beginning in Fall 2019, Desolation Center screened in over 60 cities in North America including sold-out screenings in New York, San Francisco, Portland and Seattle.   Starting with the world premiere at CPH:DOX Festival in Copenhagen in March 2019, the response to the first festival screenings has been overwhelmingly positive. In advance of the Chicago Underground Film Festival, Rogerebert.com called Desolation Center "highly recommended . . . a comprehensive you-are-there recount of an unbelievable chapter in music history, made possible by the very facets that define punk rock. . . Desolation Center is like the anti-Fyre Festival doc: the music involved is anti-establishment as hell, the show is an art piece itself, and the whole DIY operation actually worked, a few times over."   Additional acclaim has followed the doc since its release, including a 100% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes, and the Los Angeles Times adding that it is "A historical record of this short-lived time and this singularly L.A. scene...pure to the punk ethos."

Bus and audience members, Mojave Auszug, near Mecca, CA 1984 - Photo by Scot Allen

Sonic Youth setting up gear, Gila Monster Jamboree near Lucerne Valley, CA 1985 - Photo by Bob Durkee

QUOTES: VICE: "The Desolation Center shows managed to avoid the pivotal moment when festivals for the  counterculture shift and become mainstream, inevitably altering their feel and purpose. In some ways, the magic of the shows is that they never had a chance to become diluted by money or time: they were raw, they were real, and, most importantly, they were completely original."    Hollywood Reporter: "A fascinating glimpse at the emergence of a phenomenon"   Kim Gordon (from her book Girl In A Band: A Memoir): "We played in the middle of the Mojave Desert at a festival called Gila Monster Jamboree ... It was a  magical night, one of my favorite shows ever. "    Austin Chronicle: "Stuart Swezey's important and electrifying documentary recounts the chaotic birth of what he dubbed the (now legendary) "Desolation Center" concerts-cum-happenings-cum-anarchy-crazed outings into the far backcountry of the Mojave Desert. They lasted for just two years but laid the foundations for those aforementioned music and art gargantuas. . . . Desolation Center illuminates a short-lived but absolutely momentous time when the Mojave beckoned, free of charge and front-loaded with anarchic artistic overload. Watching Sonic Youth blaze through their song "Death Valley 69" against the backdrop of disorganized yet ecstatic chaos, you're reminded that these desert micro-tests once upon a time had real teeth and zero air-conditioned VIP tents."   Georgia Straight: "The greatest compliment one might pay Desolation Center is this: it somehow manages, against almost impossible odds, to capture the power of events that revolutionized pop music as we knew it. To watch director Stuart Swezey's essential documentary is to marvel at a dust-grimed Sonic Youth ripping through "Death Valley '69" in the California desert long before anyone had heard of Coachella. It's to sit there slack-jawed at the insanity of the Meat Puppets, caught losing their shit on a boat cruise a decade before Kurt Cobain tried to make them a household name with MTV Unplugged in New York. And it's to understand not only the revolutionary power of German noise pioneers Einstürzende Neubauten as they turn sheet metal into sonic art, but also the seeds of multimedia blowouts like Burning Man."   Hyperallergic: "Between the utopian music festivals of the late 1960s and the corporate behemoths they've become, a series of site-specific concerts in Southern California once offered an alternative, wildly independent  vision of what these types of events could be."   KCET Artbound: "Continuing the DIY spirit of early California punk, Swezey set out to keep an emerging genre of  alternative music out of nightclubs and inside mysterious warehouses and rehearsal places. This was in accordance with the principles of what would become known as Desolation Center, a consortium of  post-punk aficionados who resisted the concept of money-making in favor of truly egalitarian  experimental live shows with no guest lists, no paid advertising, and no solicitation of the press."

Feature story in UNCUT:

Savage Republic at Mojave Exodus near Lucerne Valley, CA 1983 - Photo by Scot Allen

See more at Desolationcenter.com

"THE HARDER THEY COME COLLECTOR’S EDITION" RESTORED & BOWING ON BLU AUGUST 20 FROM SHOUT SELECT

THE HARDER THEY COME [COLLECTOR’S EDITION] STARRING REGGAE ICON JIMMY CLIFF DEBUTS ON BLU-RAY™ AUGUST 20 FROM SHOUT SELECT WITH A NEW TRANSFER, NEW BONUS FEATURES, A DOCUMENTARY, AND PERRY HENZELL’S FOLLOW UP FILM NO PLACE LIKE HOME

Los Angeles, CA – A beautifully restored version of The Harder They Come,starring reggae icon Jimmy Cliff, will be released August 20th in a 3-disc Collector’s Edition set by Shout Select, under license from the film's longtime distributor, Xenon Pictures. The release marks the film’s debut on Blu-ray™ in the U.S., and featuring a new transfer from the original 16mm negative, the film has never been seen by the public in this way. Also included is the first-ever home entertainment release of Perry Henzell’slong lost follow up feature, No Place Like Home, which had gone unfinished and was thought to have been lost, as well as Perry Henzell: A Filmmaker’s Odyssey, a new documentary about its genesis and restoration. The Harder They Come [Collector’s Edition] will also include a full slate of new bonus features, shot in Jamaica, to be announced at a later date. Jimmy Cliff stars as Ivan Martin in 1972’s The Harder They Come, the first feature film to come out of Jamaica. An aspiring singer who leaves his rural village for the big city of Kingston, Ivan is hoping to make a name for himself. Robbed of his money and possessions on his first day in town, he finds work with a self-righteous preacher and an unscrupulous music mogul who exploits young hopefuls. In desperation, the simple country boy turns outlaw, at war with both the police and his rivals in the ganja trade. Ivan’s dream of stardom soon becomes a reality as he rises to the top of both the pop charts … and the most-wanted lists. Directed and produced by Jamaican Perry Henzell, and written by Henzell and Trevor D. Rhone, The Harder They Come also stars Janet Bartley, Carl Bradshaw, and Toots and The Maytals. The Harder They Come [Collector’s Edition] also includes the first release of the rarely seen but much discussed film No Place Like Home, also directed by Henzell in the 1970’s. The film follows Susan, a producer from New York, visiting Jamaica to shoot a shampoo commercial. When the commercial’s actress disappears, Susan finds herself venturing further into the island, and drifting further from her real life. Starring Susan O’Meara, Countryman, Carl Bradshaw, and PJ Soles, in her debut film role, the 1973 film went unfinished, and was thought lost for 30 years. No Place Like Home also heralded the first time Jamaican singer Grace Jones was put on film. Henzell was able to lay out his thoughts for finishing the film prior to his death in 2006 and the film was shown as a work in progress at the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival. Accompanying the Blu-ray™ release is Perry Henzell: A Filmmaker’s Odyssey, a new documentary about the creation, restoration, and history of that film. The Harder They Come and its soundtrack, a quintessential album for music fans, have been credited for bringing reggae to the United States when they dropped in 1973, along with The Wailers Catch A Fire, released in the States that same year. 46 years later its impact on the world can still be felt, and the film, and its follow up, can finally be viewed as they were meant to be. About Shout! Factory Shout! Factory, LLC is a diversified multi-platform media company devoted to producing, uncovering, preserving and revitalizing the very best of pop culture. Founders Richard Foos, Bob Emmer and Garson Foos have spent their entire careers sharing their music, television and film favorites with discerning consumers the world over. Shout! Factory’s entertainment offerings serve up feature films, classic and contemporary TV series, animation, live music and comedy specials. In addition, Shout! Factory maintains a vast entertainment distribution network which delivers culturally relevant programming, movie and audio content to all the leading digital service providers in North America and across multiple platforms. Shout! Factory owns and operates Shout! Studios, Scream Factory, Shout! Factory Kids, Shout! Factory Films, Mystery Science Theater 3000, Timeless Media Group and Shout! Factory TV. These riches are the result of a creative acquisition mandate that has established the company as a hotbed of cultural preservation and commercial reinvention. Shout! Factory is based in Los Angeles, California. For more on Shout! Factory, visitshoutfactory.com.

LED ZEPPELIN FILM

LED ZEPPELIN FILM

Caption: Studio group portrait of Led Zeppelin, London, 1968. Clockwise from left: John Bonham, John Paul Jones, Robert Plant, Jimmy Page.

Credit: Photo by Dick Barnatt / Redferns (Getty Images)

Now in post-production, the as yet untitled Led Zeppelin documentary, directed by Bernard MacMahon, celebrates the world’s best-selling rock band on their fiftieth anniversary. The documentary traces the journeys of the four members through the music scene of the 1960s, their meeting in the summer of 1968 for a rehearsal that will change the future of rock, and culminates in 1970 when their second album knocks The Beatles off the top of the charts and they become the number one band in the world.

With brand new interviews of Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, and John Paul Jones, as well as rare archival interviews with the late John Bonham, this documentary will be the first of its kind; the Led Zeppelin story told through the words of the men that lived it, with no outside voices or conjecture. Featuring never before seen archive film and photographs, state of the art audio transfers of the band’s music, as well as the music that shaped their sound, this documentary will be the definitive telling of the birth of the world’s biggest selling rock band. It is the first and only time the band have participated in a documentary in fifty years.

Jimmy Page: “When I saw everything Bernard had done both visually and sonically on the remarkable achievement that is American Epic, I knew he would be qualified to tell our story.”

Robert Plant: “Seeing Will Shade, and so many other important early American musicians, brought to life on the big screen in American Epic inspired me to contribute to a very interesting and exciting story.”

John Paul Jones: “The time was right for us to tell our own story for the first time in our own words, and I think that this film will really bring that story to life.”