Ben Umstead
East Coast Editor; Los Angeles, California

Born in New England, bred around the Capital Beltway, and schooled in the heart of Hollywood, Ben joined Team Twitch in the summer of 2009 when he moved to NYC. He can once again be found wandering the streets of Los Angeles.

Zombies On A Plane! - New WORLD WAR Z Trailer

It's been a long, long time coming, but a movie adaptation of Max Brooks' best-selling book World War Z (unsurprisingly with little resemblance to the tome other than its title) is in fact coming. With a June 21st release date... More »
  

TV Review: COMMUNITY S4E07, Economics Of Marine Biology (Or, It's Starting To Feel Like Home Again)
No doubt I've been extra wary towards Community this season what with new showrunners David Guarascio, Moses Port and their (largely new stock of) writers taking over for the old hands that have moved on. I've sometimes been very critical... More »
  

New Trailer For TRANCE Confirms That, Hell Yes, It Is No Doubt A Danny Boyle Film!
And I'm talking the dark, brooding, then spastic, crazy upside trickster narratives that got Danny Boyle squarely on the indie map a full two decades ago. Because while Slumdog Millionaire and 127 Hours have their place (for good or bad)... More »
  

Jude Law Bows Out Of JANE GOT A GUN
Just a few short hours after Warrior director Gavin O'Connor came to save the day in the wake of Lynne Ramsay's departure comes more ill news from the set of the Natalie Portman starring and produced western Jane Got A... More »
  

Steve Coogan Is In DOUBT

In Michael Winterbottom's The Trip Steve Coogan stars as a slightly manically magnified version of himself. The film has a rather hilarious running gag, and then clever nightmare sequence, wherein the actor-comedian deflects an offer to star in a U.S.... More »
  

Director Lynne Ramsay Doesn't Show Up For First Day Of Filming JANE GOT A GUN
In what must be one of the most left-field stories to come out of the industry in recent memory, We Need To Talk About Kevin helmer Lynne Ramsay never showed up for the first day of production on her new... More »
  

Sympathy For Mr. Zombie: Here's The International Trailer For HALLEY
I guarantee you won't find another trailer or film that takes to the idea of the zombie with such a sympathetic and existential gaze as you will with Sebastián Hofmann's Halley. Our very own Ard Vijn had this to say... More »
  

Interview: Hosoda Mamoru Talks WOLF CHILDREN, The Magic Of Hand-Drawn Animation And Parenting
Anime director Hosoda Mamoru hardly needs an introduction around these parts. Heck, our enthusiasm for his Summer Wars is just about legendary. Still considered a bit of an young upstart in his native Japan when compared to the old-guard animators,... More »
  

TV Review: COMMUNITY S4E06, Advanced Documentary Filmmaking (Or, We Need To Talk About Kevin... I Mean Chang)
After last week's episode where Jeff confronted his estranged father, moving on from a darker side in his life, last night's episode returned to the Greendale Campus and an issue that's been sorta loosely and peripherally dangling over the entire... More »
  

Director Cristian Mungiu Takes Us BEYOND THE HILLS In This Exclusive Featurette
It's funny the films I can get so enthusiastically, heck almost manically fanboy-ish about. Much of that kind of energy is reserved for the Spider-Mans and Batmans of the world, but for me it's usually something like... well, Cristian Mungiu's... More »
  

SXSW 2013 Review: SWIM LITTLE FISH SWIM Is A Sincere Look At The Stubbornness Of Artists
The opening moment of Ruben Amar & Lola Bessis' Swim Little Fish Swim (his feature directorial debut, her directorial and feature acting debut) finds Bessis in a rather precarious position: hogtied and posing for a grizzly-bearded naked painter. This moment... More »
  

SXSW 2013 Exclusive: SWIM LITTLE FISH SWIM Trailer Makes A Delightful Splash
Director Ruben Amar is no newb to the world of film festivals, what with his slew of short films, including Checkpoint, playing the likes of Slamdance, Saraosta and Palm Springs. Teaming up with his fellow French compatriot Lola Bessis for... More »
  

Take A Gander At The UK Trailer For Winterbottom's THE LOOK OF LOVE
We do love us some Steve Coogan 'round these parts. And when he teams up with director Michael Winterbottom... well we're all the better for it. Past evidence on that front including the deranged 24 Hour Party People and the... More »
  

TV Review: COMMUNITY S4E05, Cooperative Escapism In Familal Relations (Or, The Challenges That Come With Expectations And Closure)
Jeff's challenges around the absence of his father most of his life have played an important role in Community since the early days of the study group. There have been key moments in each season that have touched upon his... More »
  

Experience The Dark Side Of Dubstep In The Teaser For SXSW Title SNAP *Video Now Embedded*
You know about those young whippersnappers out there dancing and grinding and convulsing to a new brand of electronic music that they've titled dubstep, right? Well, who would have thought that anybody would ever make a dark, psychological drama with... More »
  

Tribeca 2013: Spotlight And Midnight Sections Announced, RABIES Directors' Next BIG BAD WOLVES Set To Premiere

Yesterday we brought you word of the 12th Annual Tribeca Film Festival's World Narrative and World Documentary Competition films, plus the always intriguing Viewpoints section. Today we've got wind of their crackling Midnight lineup, Spotlight films, the Special Screenings, and... More »
  

Sarah Polley Digs Into The Strange Practice Of Storytelling In The Trailer For STORIES WE TELL
Getting solid buzz on the festival circuit last year, Stories We Tell has actor and director Sarah Polley turning the focus right onto her own family roots and the strange stories, both helpful and harmful, that can be told amongst... More »
  

Greta Gerwig Dances Her Sorrows Away In The Trailer For Noah Baumbach's FRANCES HA
When it played at TIFF last fall, our own Ryland Aldrich had this to say about Noah Baumbach's latest film Frances Ha, starring his newest muse and once Mumblecore stalwart Greta Gerwig:  ...this is a very strong character comedy from... More »
  

Tribeca 2013 Looks Into The Future, Unveils Their World Narrative And Doc Lineups

Yes, Sundance, Slamdance and Berlin are barely behind us, and SXSW hasn't even started yet, but here we are, friends: the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival is looming ever near... near being April. April 17th - 28th to be exact. In... More »
  

Watch The Hilariously Absurd, Yet Genuinely Bittersweet Short Film TURTLE
One sure-footed thing about going to a festival like Slamdance is, ironically enough, the mini-surprises that can come in the form of short film programming. Playing in front of the Grand Jury prize winning feature The Dirties this past January,... More »
  
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Fifteen Unfilmable Novels And The Directors Who Should Try Anyway

Ah, the 'unfilmable' novel. Go back ten or fifteen years and it seems everyone had some sort of list of great novels that could never be brought to the screen. The limitations at the time were largely technical and in recent years those lists have dwindled with titles such as... More »

Jason Gorber's Cineruminations: On MAN OF STEEL, SuperJesus, and THIS IS THE END's Jewpocalypse

Back in 1933, while Hitler was ascending into power in Germany and diasporic Jews throughout the world looked on with concern, two high school students created one of the most indelible mythical heroes of the last century. Borrowing from the Nietzschean concept of the Übermensch, Joe Shuster and Jerry... More »

Twitchvision: Talking MAN OF STEEL and THIS IS THE END

This is the big week of Superman's return, with Zack Snyder's take on the caped saviour hitting our screens. While my opinion's kind of mixed on the film, there's still plenty to admire about it. I also discuss the overt Jesus imagery throughout, as expanded in a full cineruminations column... More »

70s Rewind: Bridges, Barbra, Bogdanovich, Brynner

Amazon's Prime Instant streaming service is not as well-established as Netflix and has far more modest offerings in off-beat and strange cinema. Still, since I temporarily dropped Netflix, I've been diving deeper into Amazon's catalog, and discovered a good number of films from my favorite movie decade. Here's a selection... More »

LA Film Fest 2013: Twitch Picks 12 Must-See Films

It's LA Film Fest time with LA's downtown fest kicking off tonight with Pedro Almodovar's I'm So Excited. Twitch will be on hand with a small crew to bring you news and reviews from around the fest. You can follow us on twitter at @TwitchFilm | @BenUmstead | @AlexKoehne... More »
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