The FirstShowing.net Lounge: Kicking Off the Summer in Style!

If you're not from Colorado Springs, you're probably not all that familiar with our local events. In addition to all of this wonderful coverage we provide here on the web, FirstShowing.net actually hosts midnight events at our favorite local movie theater here in Colorado. If you are from Colorado Springs, then you know we host some of the best midnight movie events you'll ever find. We give away full-size posters, shirts, hats, comic books, video games, and much more right to the fans who make it out to the midnight showings. This is what we're all about - the first showing, the midnight movie, and camping out. I thought I'd give all of you who aren't located in Colorado a small taste of what it is we do beyond the web.

April Fools Shenanigans Spread Across the Web

For whatever reason, I'm not up for playing the April Fools Day game and writing up a tricky / funny post just for the fun of it. Doesn't mean I don't like to have fun, but I'm just not all about trying to fool people with fake news. Instead, I thought I'd wrangle up all the good April Fools news articles around the web that I can find and send them your way. The least we can do is all get a kick out of the good stuff that the others have come up with! That photo above comes courtesy of Peter over at SlashFilm, who made that to represent the latest casting news - Jake Gyllenhaal will take over for Tobey Maguire as Spider-Man in the fourth film!

Bollywood Publicist Threatens Our Livelihood and Iron Man Coverage

A few weeks back I start getting numerous emails from a random publicist trying to get me to add two unknown films to our release schedule. Normally I take a good look at the films and throw them on there if I'm familiar with them in the slightest. Being in this industry, I've usually heard of every and any movie, literally. However these two I'd never heard of and I skipped the e-mail; if I catch a trailer or hear about them at another future point, I can always add them at that time. But no, that wasn't the end of this guy. After getting a phone call a few days back and declining the addition yesterday, he threatened to disallow us from covering Iron Man because they rep the "third and fourth billing actors."

Heading to SXSW and ShoWest - Fun Times!

Just letting you know that Ken Evans and I are heading out to the SXSW Film Festival today in Austin, TX and will be there for 10 days - until next Sunday, March 16th. In addition, I'll be skipping out to Las Vegas for ShoWest next week from Tuesday to Thursday before heading back to Austin to finish out that fest. Although you might not hear about all the parties we're going to, you will hear about all the movies we're seeing, interviews we're coordinating, and everything else fun that's going on in Austin and Vegas. If you're a fan of the site and happen to be in Austin, drop us a line / e-mail, maybe we'll catch some drinks and BBQ one night! We've also posted a few of the things you can look forward to hearing about below.

WonderCon / San Francisco Meet-Up Anyone?

Update: If anyone is interested, we're meeting at 8:00PM at Jillians at the Metreon right next to the convention center.

Tomorrow afternoon I'm heading to San Francisco for the weekend to enjoy the excellence that is WonderCon, the smaller brother of the San Diego Comic-Con. Peter from SlashFilm and I will have a bit of free time on Friday night, February 22nd, and we're considering catching some dinner and drinks with anyone who wants to join us. If you live in San Francisco and might want to meet-up, comment below and let us know. We're just trying to gauge interest and see how man San Franciscans might be up for enjoying some brews with the two film geeks behind FirstShowing.net and SlashFilm.com!

Reminder: AMC Best Picture Showcase Next Saturday

AMC Theatres is keeping up with their tradition of running a Best Picture Showcase on Saturday before the Oscars. The showcase features all fives of the Best Picture nominees for only $30. It's not only a pretty sweet deal, but I'll be damned if it's not an awesome experience. Most people never get to see more than one of the Best Picture nominees, and it's a damn shame, because they're all usually great movies. This year is certainly no exception and if you haven't seen all of them yet, here is your chance.

Valentine's Day E-Cards: Hellboy II and Get Smart!

Happy Valentine's Day to all of our readers out there! I'm guessing most of you are either watching the new Indiana Jones trailer, out on dates with your significant other (or wishing you were out on one), or gearing up to go to the movie theater and catch one of the four new films that open today (Definitely Maybe, Jumper, The Spiderwick Chronicles, Step Up 2 the Streets). But if you've got an extra free moment and want to send a fun lil' Valentine's Day e-card to someone, then here is your chance! Universal has put out a Hellboy II: The Golden Army e-card and Warner Brothers has put out a Get Smart e-card that you can send to your friends below.

Alex's Escape from Utah

I just arrived home from driving for 15 hours straight, no joke. And I've got the flu with a terrible soar throat. I wanted to let everyone know why there hasn't been any updates in the past 24 hours, and that's why. I'm exhausted, I feel terrible, and I can hardly breathe. However, I feel even worse leaving the site go without any updates, so I'll do my best to get caught up ASAP. I won't let this happen again - we're a reliable news source and we always make sure we're one of the first to bring you the movie news you want. I hope you can all be understanding just this once.

Didn't Get Very Far - We're Snowed In!

Apparently this Sundance adventure isn't over yet. Just as I was heading out on the road to drive home, a giant storm dumped about two feet of fresh snow all over the northern Utah / Wyoming area. Not only is I-80, the main highway in/out of Park City, entirely closed, but now I'm stuck here for one more night. That photo above, believe it or not, is the view from my car - you can barely see that other car in front of me. Just thought I'd let everyone know that posting may be a bit sporadic as I battle the storm and attempt to get home to Colorado.

Traveling to Sundance Today

In a matter of minutes I'm about to head out the door and embark on an 8-hour drive to Park City, Utah to setup camp for the upcoming Sundance Film Festival. Although it's only my second year attending, this journey has become a tradition and I will always without a doubt drive every year, because there's nothing like riding alone through the cold, barren wasteland of Wyoming, listening to music full blast, and thinking about the weeks of great independent cinema to come. So on that note, we shall be back in action later this evening coming to you live from the mountains of Utah!

Performancing Blog Awards - Editors' Choice for Best Entertainment Blog!

Blogging website Performancing.com recently held its annual awards, The Performancing Blog Awards, that recognize excellence in blogging and FirstShowing.net has won the Editors' Choice for Best Entertainment Blog! Voting was held over the last week via the Performancing website, and although our good friends at SlashFilm won the actual Readers' Choice award, we both ended up on top. All of us here at FS.net are truly honored to have been named one of the Best Entertainment Blogs by Performancing. It means so much to see all of the hard work that we put into it actually get recognized. Congrats to SlashFilm as well for winning the Readers' Choice.

Meet Our Newest Writer: Eli Bildner

Here at FirstShowing.net, I've always wanted to try to provide an environment where all kinds of different people will enjoy what we have to offer. We also want a place where numerous voices can be heard, not just one, and thus we've slowly begun adding a few new writers over the last year. You have probably noticed Ken Evans and Jaq Greenspon, but now it's time to bring on at least one more. His name is Eli Bildner and he'll be contributing often with more of the content you all love to read. So let's give him a warm welcome to the FirstShowing.net community. Below he's written an introduction and listed a few of his favorites so that you can hopefully get to know him a little bit better.

Update from Crowded Las Vegas

I just wanted to chime in with an update and apologize for the lack of updated news and information, as I've been overloaded here in Las Vegas. As I mentioned previously, I'm down here at CES and it's more crowded than you can ever imagine. We just brought on a new writer, which will be introduced on the site here today, and we're hoping to keep up and get back on track with the news later today. Thanks for your patience - we'll be back up and running at normal speed very soon!

Heading Out to CES!

I just thought I'd put up a courtesy post letting everyone know I'll be out in Las Vegas attending CES (the Consumer Electronics Show) until Friday this week. I'm flying out there this morning and will be battling the gigantic crowds and fighting for free swag all week long. I'm not there for any FirstShowing.net coverage, but will still be providing the regular updates on the site. You won't hear much from me about the show, unless I run into an occasional gem, like last year's Simpsons Movie cell phones (that were never actually made) or the Spider-Man 3 clip. But in the meantime we're bringing on another writer, who I'll introduce in the next few days, to help us keep up with the regular news.

Welcome to FirstShowing.net in 2008!

If you refresh the page you'll now see the slightly improved version of FS.net! We thought, why fix what ain't broken, so let's stick what everyone knows and loves the most. One of the newest elements is the logo. We designed a brand spankin' new and improved logo that will hopefully identify and brand the FirstShowing.net name everywhere you go. We've also added the new "Featured Articles" flash box in the upper right corner, and we're still working out a few kinks with that. Beyond that we're working on implementing a few tweaks and improvements in various places on the site. Read on for more details.

FS.net's New Year's Resolutions!

Ever since I was in elementary school I was taught to make New Year's Resolutions. Now whether I actually upheld them is a different story. To help improve FirstShowing.net and kick off the new year, I thought I'd list out some of our New Year's Resolutions for the site. Both as a fun gesture for all of our readers and also as a way to inform you (and keep me on track) in terms of what we're hoping to do to improve and grow in 2008. So have at it and take a look at some of our New Year's Resolutions, and don't forget to keep on my tail if we start to fall behind on a few of them.

Happy New Year from FS.net!

As the clock begins to strike midnight across the US, we want to wish everyone out there a Happy New Year! Crack open that bottle of champagne and celebrate - as this has been a phenomenal year and we can't go without a champagne toast to all of you, our readers, who have made this such an incredible year. You've probably already read our article on why 2008 will be awesome, and now it's finally here. Too bad you're not in Colorado, we'd be pouring you a glass of our champagne.

Will Ferrell's Celebrity New Year's Resolutions

Remarkably it's already New Year's Eve and 2008 is right around the corner. This has been one of the quickest years ever, or at least so it feels. With New Years always comes New Year's Resolutions and thanks to the guys at FunnyorDie.com, we've got a couple of (hilarious) Celebrity New Year's Resolutions. Will Ferrell presents a number of harshly videotaped resolutions from himself, Mila Kunis, James Franco, Sean Hayes, Fergie and more. Before you start writing your own New Year's Resolutions, fire this up and hear from all the celebs first.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from FirstShowing.net!

From all of us here at FirstShowing.net, we wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy Holidays! Whether it's snowing or whether the sun is shining wherever you may be, we hope you're enjoying this wonderful day with your family and friends with a smile on your face. If you happen to catch one of the movies that opens in theaters today, then certainly enjoy it. We'll be back again on Wednesday to finish off this fantastic year. See you again soon!

Writers Strike Update: SAG Pledges WGA Support Too

It's been quite a while since we've updated the Writers Strike here on FS.net, and it's primarily because there hasn't been too much extraordinary to mention. Unfortunately the strike is still underway with no signs of stopping. Although a proposal was made a few weeks ago, it was quickly torn apart by the writers and has since been long forgotten. The most recent news on the strike as of Monday is that the writers have decided to reach out to individual studios and companies instead of dealing directly with the AMPTP (Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers) on a whole.