Connoisseurs of great, ratings-challenged TV shows thought they'd died and gone to heaven when cable channel Trio introduced its Brilliant But Cancelled programming block back in 2003. Trio unearthed some fascinating pilots that never made it to air, such as a TV version of Fargo with Edie Falco, and critically acclaimed but short-lived series such as East Side/West Side with George C. Scott. When Trio was shut down after NBC bought parent company Universal, it seemed that the cool concept had bitten the dust. But the channel's creator Lauren Z
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Question: That German guy in the Volkswagen "Unpimp My Ride" commercials looks very familiar — I think I've seen him in movies, but I can't place him. Can you help?
Answer: The actor in Volkswagen's "Unpimp My Ride" commercials is Swedish-born actor/director Peter Stormare, whom most people first noticed in Fargo (1996). He was one of the two hired kidnappers; the other was Steve Buscemi. He's also in TV's Prison Break, playing a hard-ass Italian prisoner. Stormare's forte is playing freaky, which the Volkswagen ads exploit to the hilt: I think my two favorite among his many bizarro roles are pornographer Dino Velvet in 8mm (1999) and the Devil himself in Constantine (2005). But I'll watch him in just about anything, because you can always count on his not-of-this-Earth spin.
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There are a lot of movie directors who spend their entire careers working in a single genre. In a fickle industry where a couple of bombs can lead to prolonged unemployment, there's a certain job security in mining similar subject matter. On the rare occasion when a filmmaker does step out of character, they frequently find themselves chastised by critics and ignored by audiences that are shackled with expectation. Apparently, these concerns didn't weigh heavily on Harold Ramis when he decided to make The Ice Harvest. A dark yarn with a moral compass as slippery as the setting, The Ice Harvest is a far cry from the flicks that made Ramis. In fact, nothing in Animal House, Caddyshack or
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Marilyn Manson will play the author of Alice in Wonderland — as well as make his film-writing and -directing debut — in Phantasmagoria: The Visions of Lewis Carroll, to begin production this summer.... Fargo's Joel and Ethan Coen are in talks to write-direct-produce an adaptation of the novel No Country for Old Men, to perhaps star Tommy Lee Jones.... Evanna Lynch, a 14-year-old schoolgirl from Ireland, has landed the role of Luna "Looney" Lovegood in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which starts filming Feb. 6.
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