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Developments around the 2005 disappearance of high school teen Natalee Holloway, which led to a media frenzy captivating families across the globe, remained stagnant for more than a decade. Despite the family officially declaring the Alabama teen dead in 2012, her disappearance fueled the cultural canon with true-crime TV programming, a Lifetime movie, and more books on Amazon than you care to count.

But it wasn’t until Joran van der Sloot, the primary suspect in her death, was extradited from Peru on extortion charges in 2023 and confessed to Holloway’s killing,...

Hulu's newest psychological thriller series, "Saint X," which premiered on Hulu on April 26, draws inspiration from notable high-profile true crime cases in the media. The series, based on the 2020 novel of the same name by Alexis Schaitkin, centers around the mysterious disappearance and subsequent death of a young woman during a vacation with family on the fictional Caribbean island Saint X. In the aftermath of her death, her family's quest for the truth is complicated by conflicting stories and murky timelines of her final moments alive. Still, her younger sister is persistent to find answers.

Given the feasible storyline of "Saint X," audiences anticipating the series have been curious if the series is based on a true story. While it isn't based on one true event, the show parallels the real-life case of missing 18-year-old student Natalee Holloway, who disappeared while vacationing in Aruba in 2005.

Here's a look at...

Kidnapping Mr. Heineken Alchemy Reviewed for Shockya by Harvey Karten. Data-based on Rotten Tomatoes. Grade:  B Director:  Daniel Alfredson   Screenwriter:  William Brookfield, based on the journalistic reports of Peter de Vries Cast:  Anthony Hopkins, Jim Sturgess, Sam Worthington, Ryan Kwanten Screened at:  Review 1, NYC, 2/5/15 Opens:  March 6, 2015 Did you ever wonder how rich guys have to be before they will hire bodyguards?  When Bill Gates is shown on TV, his bodyguards must be at a discreet distance away.  Surely he has a couple of them with him at all times, perhaps even more than President Obama enjoys.  Kidnapping becomes far too tempting for a rich or  [ Read More ]

The post Kidnapping Mr. Heineken Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.

Jim Sturgess, Sam Worthington and Ryan Kwanten have joined the cast of Kidnapping Freddy Heineken. Embankment Films handles pre-sales.

As previously announced by ScreenDaily, Anthony Hopkins will star in Daniel Alfredson’s action thriller. Alfredson is best known for directing two of the Millennium trilogy, The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest.

Dutch actor Mark van Eeuwen and Australian newcomer Tom Cocquerel have also joined the production, set to begin shooting later this month in Belgium before moving on to Amsterdam and New Orleans.

Hopkins will portray brewery magnate Freddy Heineken, who was kidnapped along with his chauffeur in 1983 and eventually released for a 35 million Dutch guilder ransom, roughly equivalent to $50m by today’s standards.

William Brookfield adapted the screenplay from Dutch investigative reporter Peter de Vries’ bestseller.

Informant Media partners Judy Cairo and Michael A Simpson produce alongside Howard Meltzer under the Informant Europe label.

Informant partner...

Jim Sturgess, Sam Worthington, Ryan Kwanten and Anthony Hopkins have joined the cast of Kidnapping Freddy Heineken. Embankment Films handles pre-sales.

Daniel Alfredson of The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest fame will direct the action thriller.

Dutch actor Mark van Eeuwen and Australian newcomer Tom Cocquerel have also joined the production, set to begin shooting later this month in Belgium before moving on to Amsterdam and New Orleans.

Hopkins will portray the brewery magnate Freddy Heineken who was kidnapped along with his chauffeur in 1983 and eventually released for a 35mn Dutch guilder ransom, roughly equivalent to $50m by today’s standards. William Brookfield adapted the screenplay from Dutch investigative reporter Peter de Vries’ bestseller.

Informant Media partners Judy Cairo and Michael A Simpson produce alongside Howard Meltzer under the Informant Europe label.

Informant partner Eric Brenner serves as one of the executive producers and the project financiers are [link...

Jim Sturgess, Sam Worthington, Ryan Kwanten and Anthony Hopkins have joined the cast of Kidnapping Freddy Heineken. Embankment Films handles pre-sales.

Daniel Alfredson of The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest fame will direct the action thriller.

Dutch actor Mark van Eeuwen and Australian newcomer Tom Cocquerel have also joined the production, set to begin shooting later this month in Belgium before moving on to Amsterdam and New Orleans.

Hopkins will portray the brewery magnate Freddy Heineken who was kidnapped along with his chauffeur in 1983 and eventually released for a 35mn Dutch guilder ransom, roughly equivalent to $50m by today’s standards. William Brookfield adapted the screenplay from Dutch investigative reporter Peter de Vries’ bestseller.

Informant Media partners Judy Cairo and Michael A Simpson produce alongside Howard Meltzer under the Informant Europe label.

Informant partner Eric Brenner serves as one of the executive producers and the project financiers are [link...

This brilliantly acted drama about a 1950s New York girl gang works as both social history and political allegory

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Laurent Cantet started out 14 years ago as a kind of French Ken Loach, using a non-professional cast in the thoughtful leftwing Human Resources to deal with class and industrial relations in a provincial factory. He followed it up with Time Out (2001), about a middle-management executive who conceals his redundancy from his family, and The Class (2008), his Cannes prize-winning study of a year in a tough, racially mixed inner-city school in Paris. Both were also performed by non-professionals, though in between he made Heading South (2005), in which three prominent actresses played Americans visiting Haiti as sex tourists. In his confident, strangely gripping new film Foxfire, he's again working with a largely non-professional cast but this time in the recent American past.

Based on a novel by the prolific,...

Shot in 70mm over a period of five years in 25 countries by Ron Fricke, the man who photographed Koyaanisqatsi and directed Chronos and Baraka, this is a compilation, or collage, of beautiful and striking images put together for suggestive and meditative effect. There is no commentary but there is music, some specially commissioned, and a "concept" devised by Fricke and producer/co-editor/co-writer Mark Magidson, turning on a variety of opposites – growth/decay, wonder/disgust, tradition/rootlessness, purpose/futility, faith/disbelief. Much of the stop-motion or undercranked camerawork is designed to make crowds into seething anthills and to emphasise the absurdity of repetitive work, and it's rather trying. Still, there are so many remarkable images that there is something every few seconds to provoke or please. I was reminded, however, of a line by the New Yorker writer Peter De Vries: "On the surface he may seem deep. But deep down inside,...

In the years since she disappeared, the Alabama girl's family has kept her case from going cold-and a startling new discovery suggests it may have just paid off. By Barbie Latza Nadeau

There is no one as desperate as a parent whose child is missing and presumed dead. Every lead, no matter how far-fetched, is clung to. Such is the case with Natalee Holloway, the 18-year-old Alabama high-school student who disappeared on a senior trip to the holiday island of Aruba on May 30, 2005. Frustrated by the lack of cooperation from the Aruban officials, her parents have spent the last five years keeping her story alive and even conducting their own investigation into what happened to their daughter, turning up countless dead-end clues along the way.

Related story on The Daily Beast: David Kenney and Alaska's Bizarre Murder Case

Their perseverance may have just paid off.

Last week, the latest clue...

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economyBeth Holloway, mother of missing American teen Natalee Holloway, broke into a Peru prison to confront Joran van der Sloot - the man suspected in the case of the younger Holloway's 2005 disappearance - Beth Holloway's attorney, John Kelly, confirmed on Friday's Today show. Kelly said it was Beth Holloway's first face-to-face meeting with van der Sloot since the night her daughter went missing. Natalee Holloway was last seen alive with the young Dutchman on the Caribbean resort island of Aruba. He has publicly said several times...