This year’s 12th edition of the Scary Movies festival at Film at Lincoln Center premiered Ari Aster’s extended version of “Midsommar” this past Saturday.
When all else fails just blame the Russians.
An 'academic paper' is claiming that half of the criticism on social media that was aimed at director Rian Johnson and "The Last Jedi" was due to 'Russian trolls.'
That's exactly what a new academic paper by researcher Morten Bay has claimed to have found.
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It's been an incredible year for documentaries. "Three Identical Strangers," "RBG" and "Won't You Be My Neighbor" have broken records at the box-office. However, news has come out that Vasarhelyi and Chin's "Free Solo" just had the strongest opening weekend of any documentary in 2018. This movie has to be seen in a theater, NOT on home video.
From my review on 9.16.18:
Read moreWe haven't heard from Peter Jackson since he released "The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies" back in 2014, it must have been an exhausting journey to make that trilogy and I'm sure he needed the time to rest. His next movie is set to be the "Tintin" sequel. In the meantime, Jackson has finished post-production on his WWI Documentary, an ambitious project. This film, comprising of real-footage of the first World War, is set to premiere this October at the BFI London Film Festival.
"They Shall Not Grow Old" will use never-before-seen archival footage of the "great war," all of which will be colorized and restored in 3D format. This is an incredibly fascinating project which will be screened exclusively in theaters on October 16th.
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When Roman Polanski and Bill Cosby were expelled from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, I was rather flabbergasted at how that committee could possibly perceive Polanski to be in the same predatorial league as Cosby.
Cosby drugged and raped more than 60 women in his life. Polanski? He had sex with Samantha Geimer, an underage teenage girl back in 1977. Polanski, angered by the Academy's decision, called it “the height of hypocrisy.” Even Geimerhas been telling news outlets to let it go and stop harassing Polanski for something that happened more than four decades ago, "I've grown up, why can't everybody else?" she recently tweeted.
Read moreIn a recent interview held at the 92nd Street Y (via Yahoo) Bill Murray had to say about the Dustin Hoffman sexual assault accusations:
“Since we’re talking about Dustin Hoffman, I just want to say: Dustin Hoffman is a great man and a really good guy,” Murray said. “And I heard what happened to him, and Dustin Hoffman is a really decent person. He’s a crazy, like a Borscht Belt flirt, he has been his whole life, but he’s a really sweet man.”
Read moreThe last great Will Ferrel comedy was "Step Brothers." It now feels like a prophetic statement on today’s epidemic of stay-at-home millennials, except "Step Brothers" was released 10 years before this disconcerting phenomenon.
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In an interview on “The Talk,” Tim Allen, Mr. Buzz Lightyear, was asked about ‘Toy Story 4’:
“I gotta resist getting emotional because I don’t wanna give it away but this is an incredibly great story. If you’re at all a superhero fan, ‘Infinity War,’ I’m a big superhero fan, that didn’t seem like it was going to work. It was a lot of vignettes that all made sense. This ‘Toy Story 4’ . We’ve only been through it once, there will be several more incantations, but it is so emotional, it’s so funny, it’s so big the idea that they’ve come up with. I’m startled. [‘Toy Story 3’] I thought was amazing. This one, I couldn’t even get through the last scene, OK?”
“Toy Story 4” will be released on June 21, 2019.
Star Wars has been a hot-button topic the last year for many hardcore fans, especially those starting to doubt their faith in the sci-fi enterprise. Of course, enemy numero uno for these pissed off Star Wars fans seems to be Kathleen Kennedy. Pressure has been building up on the Lucasfilm head to steer the ship back to safe ground and regain the trust of many of these, now, rogue fans she may have lost. According to THR, Kennedy has signed a contract extension of three more years, which means that the final chapter of the “Star Wars” Skywalker Saga, ‘Episode IX,’ due in theaters December 2019, will be overseen by Kennedy.
Read moreIt has never been a secret that Denis Villeneuve had a four-hour cut of "Blade Runner 2049" [IndieWire ] and the director's claim that it was “pretty strong.” However, he has admitted that the released 163-minute theatrical version was still the better movie.
Editor Joe Walker, speaking to Collider as to what he left in and took out, gave us more details about the process. He mentions that he was ordered not to cut any of Cinematographer Roger Deakins' amazing shots.
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As per press release:
"Two-time Oscar®-winner Tom Hanks portrays Mister Rogers in Untitled Mr. Rogers/Tom Hanks Project, a timely story of kindness triumphing over cynicism, based on the true story of a real-life friendship between Fred Rogers and journalist Tom Junod. After a jaded magazine writer (Emmy winner Matthew Rhys) is assigned a profile of Fred Rogers, he overcomes his skepticism, learning about empathy, kindness, and decency from America’s most beloved neighbor."
The film will be directed by Marielle Heller ("Diary of a Teenager Girl," "Can You Ever Forgive Me?").
You can add another noteworthy film to your must-see holiday basket. None other than Clint Eastwood will be releasing a film this coming December. The 88-year-old will direct and star in "The Mule," which is based on the true story of an older gentleman who volunteered to lend his services as a drug mule. Eastwood will play the titular mule in the film, which is set to be released onDecember 14th. The film costars Bradley Cooper, Michael Pena, Laurence Fishburne and Dianne Wiest.
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MGM and Warner Bros. have given us a new sneak peat ag what is in store for us this fall with "Creed 2." The anticipated sequel to 2015's reinvention of the boxing movie, which was also a sequel/spinoff of the Rocky franchise, will have Michael B. Jordan back as Adonis Creed, this time facing off against the son of Ivan Drago. Don't worry Rocky IV fans, Dolph Lundgren will be back as Drago in this film. Ryan Coogler will not be returning to the director's chair (a major red flag), instead we get Steven Caple Jr. ("The Land"), an unknown, so let's be open-minded, since the screenplay will be written by Sylvester Stallone. Stallone will also reprise his role as Rocky Balboa.
"Creed 2" opens in theaters on November 21st.
Netflix's “Making a Murderer” should be considered one of the most influential shows of the decade. It opened the door for a slew of murder-mystery dramas, which have all but invaded the TV stratosphere and podcasts such as Serial. If you remember, the non-fiction docu-series chronicled the conviction of two men for a crime that they may, or may not, have committed. By the end of the series, most of America had their own opinion on who did it. It was a magnificently rendered work of art.
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"A Star is Born" should not be perceived, just yet, as the Best Picture front-runner. HE's Jeffrey Wells is correct in perceiving that Kris Tapley oversold the situation when he said the Bradley Cooper-directed film had "the muscle to win all five major Academy Awards (picture, director, actor, actress, and screenplay). Tapley went on to say in his write-up that "it’s that kind of accomplishment.” Good God. An "accomplishment?" A remake of a remake of a remake which includes fairly similar narrative drumbeats the other three versions had. I will admit it, Cooper's film is the most technically accomplished version. However, still, "A Star is Born" is not an accomplishment by any stretch of the imagination. Give me a break.
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"Fahrenheit 11/9" is bombing badly at the American box-office and it's not because it's a bad movie. I was pleasantly surprised by its passionate, anti-establishment discourse when I saw it earlier this month. However, opening to a little over $3 million in 1,719 theaters is bad, really bad. Moore's 2004George W. Bush indictment, and Palme d'Or Winning, “Fahrenheit 9/11” was a product of its time, and it worked wonders at the box-office (check that $19M opening weekend) because Bush, contrary to Trump, was not as consistently covered on television. This just goes to show the grasp and hold Trump has on the American discourse, he wants consistent wall-to-wall coverage so he can manipulate the media as the puppets that they are and, guess what, he is doing just that.
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Another Mel Gibson backlash has started. This week it was confirmed that Gibson was hired by the WB to remake the 1968 Sam Peckinpah-directed classic, "The Wild Bunch." I mentioned how Peckinpah, a well-known working alcoholic who pushes boundaries with his violent movies, and Gibson seemed to be a match made in heaven or is that hell? Regardless, a pushback has occurred, and it all started with a Sarah Silverman tweet reminding of Gibson's persistent history of antisemitism:
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When it comes to dumb decisions, this might just take the cake for worst movie title of the year.
According to an anonymous source, "Focus groups [have] shown that people [at test screenings] didn't realize ["The Girl With the Spider's Web"] was connected to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo." Sony seems to think that Claire Foy‘s punk haircut and dragon tattoo were not enough to communicate to fans that the upcoming "The Girl in the Spider’s Web" is connected to the same popular book series that "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" stemmed from. So they've decided to change their upcoming "The Girl in the Spider’s Web" to "The Girl in the Spider’s Web: A New Dragon Tattoo Story." Again, this is not an Onion story.
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Bill Cosby was today sentenced to spend three to 10 years in a Pennsylvania State penitentiary. Cosby was found guilty on three counts of sexual assault: "Penetration with lack of consent, penetration while unconscious, and penetration after administering an intoxicant."
There were 60 victims, but due to statute of limitations, only Andrea Constand's case counts, just squeaking past the 15 year limit. During sentencing, Judge Steven O’Neill officially named Cosby as “sexually violent predator.”Despite the severe statement, O'Neil indicated that the sentence will most likely be between "22 to 36 months."
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The Star Wars prequels ("Phantom Menace," "Attack of the Clones," and "Revenge of the Sith") don't exactly have the greatest reputation with movie fans, there is, of course, a subculture that absolutely adores them, including none other than James Cameron, but their reputation for being the weakest SW films is well known.
Ron Howard was a guest on the HappySadConfused podcast a few years back and confided with the show's host that George Lucas asked him and a few other marquee filmmakers to direct the “Star Wars” prequels.
I wrote this at TIFF on Jonah Hill's well-fashioned debut as a writer-director "Mid90s":
"Far more solid highlights included Mid90s which has writer-director Jonah Hill reliving his youth in a skateboard coming of age drama. It focuses on the plight of 13-year-old Stevie (Sunny Suljic), tormented by his older brother (a surprisingly threatening performance by Lucas Hedges), who decides to take a crack at hanging with the cool kids at a skateboarding store. Hill’s directorial debut shows a relaxed agility for the craft. The screenplay, written by Hill, feels thoroughly authentic, with dialogue that’s delivered with offhand naturalism. Kudos to the actors, each of whom inhabit their roles with the kind of credibility essential to making this kind of movie work."
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