Are you ready for SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE: THE SECOND FOLIO RISES, BAD SANTA: PIG IN THE CITY, and ROUNDERS 2: TOKYO GRIFT? The new management at Miramax are teaming with the company’s founders (The Weinstein Company) to make sequels and TV adaptations of various titles, in addition to collaborating on DVD/Blu-ray special features. Badass Digest has some suggestions if their ears are open.

Two years ago, “DANNY PRODUCTIONS” uploaded a video to YouTube. In it, little Wendy Sulca sings a special song to all the people of Perú (in spanish). It now has nearly 4 MILLION hits. Badass Digest has subtitled it in English, and you’ll never be the same. Girl Talk what? Cee Lo who?

Criterion’s big box set release of the year hits the street tomorrow (Nov. 23rd), and it’s a tightly-packed journey through a particularly important period in American cinema. Everyone has heard of the big-name movies found here (EASY RIDER, FIVE EASY PIECES, THE LAST PICTURE SHOW, and THE KING OF MARVIN GARDENS), but lesser-known pictures like HEAD (featuring The Monkees), DRIVE, HE SAID (Jack Nicholson’s directorial debut), and Henry Jaglom’s debut A SAFE PLACE (which co-stars Orson Welles) are all equally important parts of the story behind them all.

I’ve managed to at least get messages sent to our winners, but needed to put this post up to get the attention of a couple of others. There were a bunch of great entries out of the 60+ that we received. These were the most epic.

One of the great joys of the cinema is finding a movie that you love as much as someone else. Finding one that you love in spite of its bad reputation or dubious quality can be even better in some cases. TROLL 2 has a horde of people who fall into both camps, and have exalted it despite the fact that it’s practically unwatchable. Michael Stephenson, the child star of the movie, grew into a documentary filmmaker. He made a film about the cultural phenomenon that’s sprung up around it since the movie debuted 20 years ago. That movie, BEST WORST MOVIE, hits DVD tomorrow, and if you pirate it, I will punch you in the face until you bleed.

In February of next year, Criterion is upgrading two titles to Blu-ray, releasing a couple of long-awaited contemporary films, and bringing a couple of major classics into the Collection. Read on for the details that were just announced.

Last year, Criterion picked up the rights to the entire surviving filmography of Charlie Chaplin.  The first release in what’ll be a long-running series is my favorite Chaplin film by far, MODERN TIMES.  It’s one of the top Criterion releases of the year, and that truly makes it one of the best of the best.  It hits the street on November 16th (next Tuesday), so yes, that means that it will qualify for Barnes & Noble’s currently-going 50% off Criterion sale.

I was friends with George Hickenlooper, the director of the stunning HEARTS OF DARKNESS: A FILMMAKER’S APOCALYPSE.  We bar-hopped around Austin most of last Thursday night after the Austin Film Festival presentation of his new film, CASINO JACK.  We were making plans to do some cool things.  One of them was to independently record him doing a HEARTS OF DARKNESS commentary, which he wasn’t asked to do by the studio for its recent Blu-ray release.  This morning, he was found dead in Denver at age 47.

SCOTT PILGRIM VS THE WORLD hits Blu-ray and DVD with the punch of a Kung Fu chopfest on November 9th. I’ve spent the last couple of days devouring every last one of the features on the Blu-ray.  Read on for Badass Digest’s comprehensive review of the disc worth blind-buying in utter defiance of box office grosses.  Yet another giveaway contest is buried somewhere in there too…

In his Fantastic Fest 2009 intro to the film, Alamo Drafthouse programmer Zack Carlson told everyone that Nobuhiko Obayashi’s HOUSE would rock their world so hard that it would bend reality enough to reverse their gender. He was absolutely correct.