2015 Knott's Scary Farm Opening

The 43rd annual world renowned event, Knott’s Scary Farm, returned for 24 horrifying nights September 24 – October 31.

New mazez included “PARANORMAL, INC”, a haunted hospital, “The Dead of Winter” maze where the chilling Snow Queen resides, “My Bloody Clementine”, ride through the Calico Mine where Clementine and her father were brutally murdered centuries ago.
 “Deadly 7”, prowling the darkest corners of Knott's midway and scare zone, the Green Witch and her Deadly 7 is a sadistic crew guilty of more terror than meets the eye.
 Returning mazes included : Gunslinger's Grave, Black Magic, Pinocchio Unstrung, Forevermore, The Tooth Fairy, Voodoo, and Trick or Treat.
 Other attractions included: Infected – Patient Zero, Elvira, the legendary Mistress of the Dark, 160 Acres of Scare Zones, The Hanging: Straight out of Calico, and Fiesta de los Muertos.
 Knott’s Berry Farm’s 43rd season of Halloween haunting will last 24 nights from September 24 through October 31.
Hours are 7pm to 1am on weeknights and Sundays, 7pm to 2am on Fridays and Saturdays.
 For more information visit www.knotts.com

2015 Catalina Island Film Festival

Billy Zane (Titanic, The Phantom, Twin Peaks) received the Maverick Award and Director F. Gary Gray (Straight Outta Compton, The Italian Job, Friday) received the Stanley Kramer Social Artist Award attending the 2015 Catalina Island Film Festival on Friday, September 25th at the Avalon Theater.

Additional honorees included:
Mena Suvari (American Beauty, American Pie) with the Avalon Award.
Inaugural recipient of the Soundtrack of Our Lives Award, legendary songwriter Diane Warren.
Lucas Till (X-Men: Apocalypse, Bravetown) with the Crest Award.
A special tribute to Wes Craven featuring Robert Englund (Freddy Krueger in A Nightmare on Elm Street).
Kristin Davis (Sex & the City, Couples Retreat) received the Conservation Activist Award.

About Catalina Film Festival
Catalina Film Festival is an annual celebration of film on the only West Coast resort island, where blue water and coastal breezes provide the perfect backdrop for films, parties, panels and networking just 26 miles off the coast of Los Angeles. CFF’s beneficiary is the Catalina Island Conservatory. For additional information, visit www.CatalinaFilm.org.

2015 Las Vegas Film Festival

This year’s 2015 Las Vegas Film Festival ran for six consecutive days from August 11-16 in partnership with CineVegas and showcased a wide variety of feature films, shorts, foreign films, documentaries, world premieres, parties, mixers and more.

CineVegas which returned after a six year hiatus, with three features and one short. Including"Guiseppe Makes a Movie," "Jauja" and Bobcat Goldthwait's latest film,"Call Me Lucky."
Goldthwait's documentary "Call Me Lucky" follows the volatile but brilliant comic Barry Crimmins and his experience with activism, comedy and politics. The documentary showcases his immense influence over renowned comedians, as well as his turbulent, but inspiring life story.
"Giuseppe Makes A Movie" follows filmmaker/musician Giuseppe Andrews as he captures the psychotic and intriguing characters that live in his town of Ventura, California. The documentary is a collection of experimental vignettes Andrews culminated after staying in the trailer park where he grew up.
Lisandro Alonso's film "Jauja" serves as the only narrative feature in the festival, and tells the story of an unattainable and mythological land of abundance and happiness. Viggo Mortensen stars as a father who travels with his daughter to find the mythological land of Jauja.

Also added was Johnny Knoxville's produced Evel Knievel documentary “Being Evel “and directed by Daniel Junge.
“Being Evel,” from Oscar-winning documentarian Daniel Junge (“Saving Face,” “The Last Campaign of Governor Booth Gardner”), traces Knievel’s larger-than-life career, from his early days as a tough kid growing up in Butte, Mont., to his final years of illness and financial chaos. His life, says modern-day daredevil Johnny Knoxville of “Jackass” (who cites Knievel as a career inspiration and is a producer of the film), was “fast, faster and disaster.” The film gives the most emphasis to the late ’60s and early ’70s, when Knievel made his name as a daredevil with a legendary failed leap over the fountains at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas (watching him rag-doll-flop onto the concrete is cringe-making), and continued with a succession of much-hyped jumps, ending with the debacle that was his Snake River Canyon rocket blast in 1974.
One interesting feature included “Tangerine” which was entirely shot on an iPhone in LA. The movie is about two transgender prostitutes tracking down the cheating boyfriend/pimp of one of the prostitutes to teach him and his new lover a lesson.

Another funny feature included “Seoul Searching” directed by Benson Lee. About a 1980's John Hughes inspired romantic teen comedy about a group of Korean misfits from around the world forced by their parents to attend a cultural propaganda camp in Seoul resulting in the best summer of their lives.

"Kabuki Spectacle” - Fight with a Carp, show debuts at Las Vegas' Bellagio Hotel & Casino.

Japanese actor Ichikawa Somegoro took the stage and performed a Kabuki piece called “Koi-Tsikami,” or “Fight With a Carp.”
 Singers and dancers performed the ancient Japanese storytelling art at the Bellagio fountains with a massive watery movie screen behind them, and displayed animated scenes. In a classic tale of good versus evil, renowned Japanese actor Ichikawa Somegoro played a handsome samurai who falls in love with a beautiful maiden depicted by fellow Kabuki actor Nakamura Yonekichi only to discover she is actually a giant carp's spirit taking the form of a woman to seek revenge against humans for killing her carp lover. The 30-minute production culminates with a dramatic clash between Somegoro and the carp from an impressive 165-foot stage constructed on Lake Bellagio.
 Shochiku, the world's premier Kabuki producer and global ambassador with artistic partners Panasonic, teamLab and WET and support from MGM Resorts International aims to raise worldwide awareness for the art by orchestrating an elaborate, high-tech performance unlike anything Las Vegas and traditional Kabuki have ever seen. Water screen projection by Japanese artists and masterminds teamLab, Panasonic's state-of-the-art digital technology and spectacular water effects by WET bring the historic Japanese narrative to life in a Vegas-style production.

- Music – New music was composed for this performance and recorded by musicians in Japan. As the scene transitions from spring and summer to autumn, the Fountain displayed a sweeping art form in sync with the beautiful melody of the Shamisen, a Japanese three-stringed musical instrument. Traditional Takemoto chanting brought the music to a dramatic climax for Somegoro's fight scene with the carp.
- Water Screen Projection – teamLab, a group of technology specialists from various fields of the digital society, projected delicate yet dynamic CG images on the vast Fountain screen that are based on original images drawn by Kabuki artists. The beauty of Kabuki unfolded over Lake Bellagio using teamLab's digital technology and Panasonic's 3-Chip DLP Projector PT-DZ21K, which realizes a brightness of 20,000 lumens.
- Fountains of Bellagio – The most ambitious, choreographically complex water feature ever conceived, the Fountains of Bellagio romance the senses with water, music and light thoughtfully interwoven by WET to mesmerize spectators. Set within the 8.5-acre Lake Bellagio, which for the Kabuki Spectacle was transformed into Japan's Lake Biwa, the attraction featured a total of 1,214 fountains that can soar to 460 feet and span more than 1,000 feet.
- The Kabuki Spectacle is part of MGM Resorts' larger commitment to celebrating Japanese culture and the arts, which also includes a recently debuted art installation at Bellagio by renowned sculptor Masatoshi Izumi and the first-ever Japanese-inspired display at Bellagio's Conservatory and Botanical Gardens.

Coaster rolls out Donny Osmond line at the Summer 2015 Las Vegas Market.

The Donny Osmond Home collection at the Las Vegas Market, a full-line group of 120 SKUs of bedroom, dining room, upholstery, home office and accent furniture. The company hosted a “meet and greet” reception with Donny and Debbie Osmond on Monday, August 3rd.

MHz Home Entertainment Announces August 2015 Releases Italian Television Drama DON MATTEO, Sets 11 and 12

MHz Home Entertainment releases two new DVDs in the International Mystery series. Available this month are two new 4 disc box sets featuring new episodes of the popular Italian drama Don Matteo. These titles add to the ever-expanding catalog of extraordinary crime and mystery programming available in the U.S. through MHz Networks.

Terence Hill (famous for his partnership with Bud Spencer in spaghetti westerns such as They Call Me Trinity and My Name is Nobody) stars as Don Matteo, a thoroughly ordinary Catholic priest with an extraordinary ability to read people and solve crimes. He's a parish priest who never met an unjustly accused person he didn't want to help. In fact, he never met anyone marginalized he didn t want to help: the elderly, the homeless, the immigrant, the unemployed. He sees them all as he bicycles along the streets and through the countryside of his parish. He's a hometown boy who was baptized and ordained in Gubbio and is beloved by just about everyone in this stunning Italian mountain village. His easygoing manner endears him to people, making it easy for them to reveal their secrets when they get into trouble. His friend and chess partner is policeman Marshal Cecchini, who slips him information about new cases much to the chagrin of the police chief who isn t at all thrilled about the collaboration. But he s in agreement with Don Matteo about one thing: the importance of justice being served. Don Matteo has one more concern besides justice: to bring a word of hope to the culprit no matter what the crime. These simple tales of redemption and humanity will bring inspiration, a chuckle and a smile.

DVD Set 11 includes episodes 105-116:

A Touch of Rouge, Wellness Therapy, A Restless Spirit, The Secrets of Others, Francesca and the Wolf, The Carousel, I'll Save You, A Valentine for Natalina, Close Encounters, A Stolen Dream, Natalina's Brother, Romantic Crisis

DVD Set 12 Includes episodes 117-128:

The Treasure of Orpheus, Beyond the Wall, Good Boys, A Test for Don Matteo, The Last Jump, The Art of Growing Up, Prime Numbers, Dear Dad, Bear Tracks, Behind Convent Walls, A Question of Honor, Ambitious Goals

The Exorcism of Molly Hartley Arrives on Digital HD October 9 and on Blu-ray and DVD October 20

The Exorcism of Molly Hartley
Molly Hartley (Sarah Lind; Wolfcop) is all grown up, but the unholy demon inside her lives on in this all-new, UNRATED sequel that takes terror to the next level! Six years after graduating high school — and discovering that a secret pact assigned her soul to the devil — Molly is suspected of murder and confined to a mental hospital, where she wreaks supernatural havoc on the staff and patients. Her only hope is an exorcism by a defrocked priest (Devon Sawa; Final Destination) looking to redeem himself and save Molly's life before her hideous "transformation" is complete...but Satan has other plans!

Directed by Steven R. Monroe (I Spit on Your Grave) the UNRATED Blu-ray and DVD features awesome bonus features including a sit-down with experts to discuss the origins of demonic possession, bonus security camera footage giving fans a closer look into Molly’s exorcism and Director Diaries showcasing some of the best scenes from the film!