Not just because of its apocalyptic subject matter, NOLA-shot This Is The End' certainly feels like the culmination of something. 

Things take a little longer to catch on here in Louisiana. As film director Benh Zeitlin put it to NoDef when we caught up with him last week, "Eventually, someone comes by and says, ‘Put down your laptop, get in this boat, we’re going to show you how to hunt alligator.’" After taking Sundance, Cannes and a lot of the rest of the country, Zeitlin's film Beasts of the Southern Wild will finally play on a Big Easy big screen. After months of anticipation and teasers, the same people that welcomed film crews with open boats can finally see the feature that’s making them famous all over the world. Click through for showtimes:

From Bacchus to Bam Margera to Brad Pitt's bash, the stars of screen haven't shied away from New Orleans. But with the Oscars looming, we're reminded that our local film culture still has a few mountains to climb. The closest we get to a nomination is NOLA native Michael Lewis, who wrote Moneyball, but had nothing to do with the move.  This week, the mayor's office announced the projects that are filming here here now or in the future. Let's see if there's a potential winner among them:

It's not often that New Orleans is the talk of Utah, or even mentioned in the state that Mormons built. But such is the rarified air way up above the Earth in Park City, home to this week's Sundance Film Festival. Beasts of the Southern Wild, which was shot down da bayou, made by a NOLA-based filmmaker and stars the man responsible for those soul-cleansing Buttermilk Drops in the 7th Ward, is the talk of the ski town-turned-indie film polestar. The New York Times even called the movie "the standout of this year’s Sundance and among the best films to play at the festival in two decades." When do we get to see it, guys? (UPDATE: The film took home the fest's top prize) Coverage from Utah: NYT LAT The Atlantic

by Shay Sokol

The Mortician, written and directed by Gareth Maxwell Roberts, will depend on two factors to make a profit after its indie $6 million budget: Method Man and 3D. With overt metaphors, a simple plot, and a lead role played by a Wu-Tang Clan member that cannot act, this film will be tossed in the dustbins quickly. In a desolate city in Tennessee, a boy named Kane (Cruz Santiago) witnesses the murder of his prostitute mother (Judy Marte).

The locally-shot feature-length drama, Brawler, is all decay and redemption, but there isn't any reference to flood or FEMA. Instead, director Chris Siverston trains his lens  on the New Orleans underbelly that might have been identified with New Orleans' past. The world of the film's backroom fighting club (Don't worry, there is no Jack) takes place in backrooms, on Mississippi River boats and in buildings with unglamorous facades.

By Sean Rhoads

To the masses clamoring in the wilderness for more film adaptations of ‘80s Italian horror comics about agoraphobic detectives wrestling with severe Oedipal complexes, your voices have finally been heard. Dylan Dog: Dead of Night, filmed in New Orleans and based on the popular (in Italy) comic series Dylan Dog, is slated for release later this month. ScreenCrave has a clip of the movie’s brain trust extolling New Orleans’ virtues as a horror film location: its “long history of ties to the supernatural,” and those vampire tours. Well, okay, and shooting in London was a little too expensive. Not to mention, it stars Brandon Routh.

There's much ado about Hollywood South these days, what with nonstop no parking signs dotting lampposts and flaming cars all over our nightlife strips. But how to know if we really have a scene? Well, an important indicator has been blowing up recently: tabloid column inches filled. A fortnight after Miley Cyrus ignited a fury by showing up in a post-salvia haze, fellow Disney luminary Zac Efron is generating some ink this week after he had to make a serious sacrifice to our nation for a new movie.