Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead franchise about demon possession, chainsaws, and the Book of the Dead first debuted in 1983 as low-budget horror gold.

Shortly, after it began to gather a cult following and spawned video games, comic books, and musicals. Now more than 30 years later, Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell, the franchise’s lead actor, are backing a remake by director Diablo Cody (Jennifer’s Body, Juno), which will follow the original story line closely while substituting Bruce Campbell’s swarthy hero Ash for Jane Levy’s female Ash and featuring a cast of young up-and-coming actors.

To fans this is as scintillating as it is confounding: Why not a sequel? Why proverbially fix what ain’t proverbially broken? Well, if news of a remake weren’t enough, Raimi also filed a lawsuit against the production company Award Pictures for planning a sequel.

Doin’ It In the Park, a forthcoming documentary from Bobbito Garcia and Kevin Couliau, reveals the world of New York City pick-up basketball. In gathering footage for the film, the co-directors made visits to 180 courts throughout the five boroughs. You can check out the trailer here.

(Via Flavorpill)

Letters of Note shares four letters from Woody Allen that appear in Diane Keaton’s recent memoir, Then Again.

“Don’t be fooled by THE ARTS! They’re no big deal; certainly no excuse for people acting like jerks & by that I mean, so what if up till now there were very few women artists. There may have been women far deeper than, say, Mozart or Da Vinci but contributing their genius in a different socially circumscribed context.”

BOMBLOG interviews Terrance Nance about his debut feature film An Oversimplification of Her Beauty, mapping life’s transitional moments, and becoming filter-less.

“I’m not going to call what I attempted an experiment, exactly, but I did very much set out to develop this way of conveying experience that didn’t filter anything through the use of metaphor or the language of symbols.”

KALW Radio talks with Rumpus editor Stephen Elliott about his film Cherry and its portrayal of the San Francisco porn industry.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a film where I felt that the adult film industry was represented. This is my community, so these are the people I hang out with. And the portrayal of sex work…it’s just treated like heroin in most movies. You get into sex work and it’s like becoming a junky…it’s the worst thing that can happen to you, and that’s just simply not how it is.”

In this review at SF Appeal, Violet Blue describes Rumpus editor Stephen Elliott’s Cherry as a “strong, complex” film that “unfolds through its layered relationships.” The movie made it’s North American premiere on Tuesday and will screen twice more as part of the San Francisco International Film Festival.

“Cherry is a joyful, wonderful love letter to San Francisco, LGBT communities, kink and porn-positive people. In a bigger sense, it’s a siren’s song to young women everywhere redefining their sexuality at this time in history, media and cultural value clashes over porn and a modern girl’s sexual relationships.”

This weekend brought the television premiere of Richard Parks’ awarding-winning short film Music Man Murray, which documents 88 year-old Murray Gershenz “as he struggles to find a buyer for the hundreds of thousands of records in his LA store.”

For a limited time this week, the documentary can be viewed in full at NPR’s All Things Considered blog. In addition, Weekend Edition spoke with Parks and Gershenz, and The Los Angeles Times has a profile of Gershenz.

The forthcoming film Farah Goes Bang, produced by Rumpus contributor Laura Goode, is “a valentine to contemporary feminism, youth in revolt, and the passionate politics of idealism.” Learn more about the film and help the production team reach their Kickstarter goal here.

In 1981, Philip K. Dick saw a television segment about the forthcoming film Blade Runner, based on his novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. He then wrote a fervent letter to the production company. Dick passed away five months after this letter and before the release of the film.

“The impact of BLADE RUNNER is simply going to be overwhelming, both on the public and on creative people — and, I believe, on science fiction as a field.”

Today is the first day of the 55th San Francisco International Film Festival.

Some highlights: tUnE-yArDs will compose a live score for four Buster Keaton short films, and Yo La Tengo will perform their score for Sam Green’s “live documentary” The Love Song of R. Buckminster Fuller. Plus, Rumpus editor Stephen Elliott’s film Cherry will make its North American premiere.

The upcoming documentary Public Sex, Private Lives has launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for post-production costs. To learn more about the film, and contribute to its completion, click here.

Focusing on the lives of porn performers Lorelei Lee, Princess Donna, and Isis Love, Public Sex, Private Lives “follows the characters as they navigate their lives as artists, daughters, mothers, writers, and women who have made careers in the adult industry.”

The Believer will present Laurel Nakadate’s The Wolf Knife at the IFC Center on Monday, April 9^th at 8pm. The screening, which celebrates the release of The Believer’s new film issue, will be followed by a conversation between Nakadate and Rumpus columnist Rick Moody. …more

“My poems were an essence of images. They had the cinema inside them before I started working for it.”

A quote from Tonino Guerra, in a New York Times obituary about an extraordinary life. Guerra, the prolific screenwriter, poet, novelist and artist, died on Wednesday in northern Italy, at age 92.

Among others, he collaborated with Michelangelo Antonioni, Federico Fellini, Andrei Tarkovsky, and Theo Angelopoulos, and wrote Antonioni’s famous trilogy L’Avventura, La Notte, and L’Eclisse as well as Fellini’s 1973 classic Amarcord.

Son of a fishmonger father and an illiterate mother (whom Guerra himself taught to read and write), he was a poet initially and received his first film credit at age 36, and he continued to work into his eighties. “I believe I have given a little bit of poetry to all the directors I worked with,” he’d said.

The Museum of the Moving Image will be opening a “mini-retrospective” of Hong Sang-soo’s films on March 17th. BOMBlog interviews the director about “process, collaboration, and drinking.” His answers also provide a lesson in brevity.

Sang-soo on why he often returns to the cinematic detail of male characters arm wrestling: “It’s cute.”

Have you heard? A film adaptation of Sugar/Cheryl Strayed’s Wild is in the works! Pacific Standard, a new production banner from actress Reese Witherspoon and producer Bruna Papandrea has bought the rights. Witherspoon will play Strayed in the film. More here.

Our AWP screening of Being Flynn was documented by Ed Negron, a photographer for the AIDS Foundation of Chicago. Click here to peruse his photos.

The film is based on Nick Flynn’s memoir Another Bullshit Night In Suck City. Check out the movie trailer after the jump. …more

Are you going to AWP?

Here’s something amazing we’re getting in on.

The Rumpus (and friends) present a special screening of Being Flynn Friday night at 11pm for AWP conference attendees only. You need a conference badge and you have to arrive fifteen minutes before the movie. Free. Sign up here.

Being Flynn is based on Nick Flynn’s memoir Another Bullshit Night In Suck City. I will be introducing the film. Movie trailer after the break. …more

Director and Rumpus editor Stephen Elliott has been spotted (proudly sporting his Rumpus tattoo) alongside actress Ashley Hinshaw in Berlin. Elliott and Hinshaw are both in Germany for the international premier of Cherry. Click here to learn more about the film.

Ben Gazzara died.

Rumpus editor Stephen Elliott’s first feature film, Cherry, has been accepted into the Berlin International Film Festival. The film will make it’s world premiere February 16 at the 1,600 seat Friedrichsstadtpalast in Berlin.

About Cherry. Stills from the movie.