I remember being severely disappointed by Samuel L. Jackson’s remake of “Shaft” back in 2000, then again I’m not necessarily a fan of the 1972 Richard Roundtree-starring original, it’s all part of the silliness of Blaxploitation, give me “Superfly” any day of the week. But, count me as looking forward to this father and nephew duo sequel, along with Shaft III aka John Shaft Jr. aka JJ (played by Jessie Usher) in the upcoming, still, titled “Shaft.” Yup, three film with the same goddamn title. It was originally titled “Son of Shaft.”
Read moreMichelle Rodriguez Says Liam Neeson Not a Racist Due to Way He Kissed Viola Davis in ‘Widows'
Steve McQueen's “Widows” begins with the wondrously set-up image of Viola Davis and Liam Neeson in bed together and passionately kissing. Some of the audience I saw the film with actually gasped at the scene and how, quite frankly, erotic the smooching was. Was it because Davis is an African-American woman and Liam Neeson is pure Irish white? Quite possibly. The reaction was telling; it showcased how some people are still in total denial that an interracial couple can have a passionate on-screen romance.
Read moreWoody Allen Sues Amazon For $68 Million Lawsuit; Claims Breach Of Contract Due To “A 25-Year-Old, Baseless Allegation”
Woody Allen will not go down without a fight.
After accusations of child molestation being brought back to the forefront last year, most notably by Ronan Farrow and Mia Farrow, the filmmaker, whose latest work “A Rainy Day in New York” seems to be in total limbo, has decided to sue Amazon for $68 million
Read more‘Midnight Family' is A Thriller About Mexican Ambulances That Happens to Be Non-Fiction [Sundance Review]
Despite a population of close to 9 million, Mexico City’s government operates only 45 emergency ambulances. This shortage crisis has resulted in private paramedics becoming first responders to the critically injured. One of them is the Ochoas family, zigzagging through high-speed ambulance rides to care for the critically injured. Despite being unregistered, they are the underground lifeline for many. At first, you don’t know if what you’re watching is fiction or non-fiction. The masterful cinema vérité camerawork in Luke Lorentzen’s “Midnight Family” has a knack for sucking us into after-hours Mexico City and the fractured health care system at its disposal. From local competition to police bribes to patient’s unwillingness to pay their bills, the Ochoas have to navigate through all of that to make ends meet, then there’s the ethically questionable practice of making money off dying poor patients. This 81-minute masterpiece will change the way you look at documentaries forever; its style reads like an action movie, its themes like a socio-political drama, and, yet, it still is very much a work of non-fiction, with a camera always exactly positioned to capture a society on the brink of moral collapse. [A]
Spring Movie, err, Preview?
I, quite honestly, can’t help but think that for most of the Spring I’ll have to sit back, at the comfort of my own home, and catch up with a bunch of gems from the ‘40s and ‘50s. With the exception of J.C. Chandor’s “Triple Frontier” (March 13th) and Jordan Peele’s “Us” (March 21st) I have absolutely no excitement for the slate of studio films coming out between now until the end of April. I mean, unless you’re pumped for “Captain Marvel” (March 7th), “Dumbo” (March 29th) and “Avengers: Endgame” (April 26th), this is going to be a very stale season for cinephiles until Cannes kicks off in May. Maybe I should just go to SXSW.
Paramount Cancels David Fincher's ‘World War Z’ Sequel
David Fincher’s sequel to the 2013 zombie flick “World War Z” has been cancelled, The Playlist reports
Paramount is halting pre-production on the sequel due to “budgetary issues.” The sequel was supposed to start shooting this spring in Atlanta. There are no efforts to revitalize the film, at least as of this moment. This means Fincher is free as a bird to pick his next project. He has already wrapped up the second season of his Netflix show “Mindhunter” but hasn’t released a feature-length feature since 2014’s “Gone Girl.”
Is Liam Neeson's Career Damned? Calls For Him to Be Digitally Removed From 'Men In Black' after Controversial comments
Martin Scorsese's “The Irishman" will arrive on Netflix in October, theaters in late September
Martin Scorsese's “The Irishman” will be coming to Netflix this October. That is, at least, what I was told by a member of the cast/crew at Sundance last week. And which has been all but confirmed by star Sebastian Maniscalco on the Joe Rogan podcast, this afternoon by saying "It's coming out in October."
Robert De Niro, Al Pacino and Joe Pesci will star in the gangster film, based on the book “I Hear You Paint Houses” by Charles Brandt and tells the tale of gangster/assassin Frank 'The Irishman' Sheeran.
“Late Night" Tackles Feminism In Commercially Friendly Ways [Sundance Review]
The idea that we can modernize familiar narrative tropes is something that Hollywood always strives in achieving. After all, why change a formula that has been working so well, and making money, on audiences since the beginning of time when you could just freshen it up for contemporary audiences, whose sensibilities, let’s be frank haven’t changed all that much. Please keep in mind that in the millions of years the homosapien has lived on this planet, their DNA has barely changed, nor has their way of responding to triggers which prompt the usual emotional reactions.
Read more‘Last Black Man In San Francisco' Can't Overcome Its Thin Drama, Even With Impressive Visual Style [Review]
Aesthetics and substance are two entirely different things in cinema. You could have a film that is bracingly inventive in its visual approach but falls flat in the narrative drama. Ditto the reverse, a visually flat film with a well-realized narrative. The latter is usually worth a recommendation, but the former can be problematic, even when you have a film as visually accomplished as Joe Talbot’s “The Last Black Man in San Francisco.”
Read moreLiam Neeson: “I Am Not Racist”
On Monday morning, Liam Neeson admitted that 40 years ago, when he was in his mid to late 20s, he walked the streets of black neighborhoods with a weapon around 40 years ago, hoping to look for the black man that raped a female friend of his. “After [learning of the rape] there were some nights I went out deliberately into black areas in the city looking to be set upon so that I could unleash physical violence,” he said. “And I did it for maybe four or five times until I caught myself on, and it really shocked me, this primal urge I had. It shocked me, and it hurt me. I did seek help.”
Read moreMads Mikkelsen Can’t Save The Survivor Minimalism Of ‘Arctic’
When a director decides to venture into a well-worn genre, comparisons to far superior films are inevitable. And so, a film like Joe Penna‘s feature-length directorial debut, “Arctic,” a survival drama, will no doubt run the risk of being compared to its spiritual predecessors: Danny Boyle‘s “127 Hours,” J.C. Chandor‘s “All is Lost” and Joe Carnahan‘s “The Grey.” The correlation potentially weakens the film, but like all great art, if imitation can transcend or even equal its inspirations, then all the better.
Read more‘Luce’: Julias Onah’s Powerfully Constructed Psychodrama Of Race & Social Politics Is Brilliantly Tense [Sundance Review]
In two short years, America, has turned race, privilege, and class into incendiary topics while amplifying intolerance, and Julias Onah‘s powerfully constructed “Luce,” mixes all these socio-political subjects into a provocative Molotov cocktail that shatters, burns and leaves no easy answers.
Bret Easton Ellis Says ‘Black Panther' Doesn't Deserve Oscar Love, Says No One Thinks It’s ‘That Good’
“American Psycho” author Bret Easton Ellis is sharing my exact sentiments about “Black Panther” not deserving its Oscar nomination for Best Picture. In fact, he actually, shock., claims that Oscar voters are supporting it just for diversity, not because it’s good. Which is true.
Read moreA Few Thoughts on Sundance 2019
Before I reveal my best of the fest I need to mention the elephant in the room …
Throughout the fest I wanted journalists to be honest with me about why they thought this year's program was lackluster, at least in terms of the narrative features. Amost all of them mentioned the fact that Sundance's militant and adamant stance on inclusivity was to blame. Of course, you won't get these critics admitting that on print, but many personally confessed that was a problem.
Read more“Roma" Cannot Win Best Picture Because It Is Way Too Arthouse For Academy Tastes
I still predict “Green Book” will take Best Picture. I do not believe Sasha Stone’s assessment that “Roma” will win due to preferential balloting. Fact of the matter is this; Many in the industry aren’t actually as smitten-ed by “Roma” as film critics are. They respect it, believe it to be a beautifully realized tone-poem about memory and despair, but, otherwise, the film that will win is the film that can strike a chord with the majority. An arthouse, almost plotless, movie about a Mexican Nanny rummaging in an existential crisis in Mexico cannot. Sorry.
Sasha Stone says: “I disagree with Zack Sharf‘s assessment. I think Roma creeps up the ballot out of guilt and obligation and appreciation for craft, even if people don’t love it. I think Roma‘s best chance of winning is actually on a preferential ballot, and yet the Best Picture race remains wide open at this point. The only movies that have won anything so far are Bohemian Rhapsody, Green Book and Black Panther, and none of them have Oscar nominations for Best Director. It’s a really crazy and unpredictable year.”
Alfonso Cuaron wins the DGA for “Roma”; Well-Positioned to Win Second Best Director Oscar.
Alfonso Cuaron has won the DGA for “Roma.” This doesn’t necessarily mean his film is now the one to beat in terms of Best Picture odds, but it does position it quite well in the grander scheme of things, and as a natural adversary of current frontrunner “Green Book.” Cuaron beat out "A Star Is Born‘s Bradley Cooper, Green Book‘s Peter Farrelly, BlacKkKlansman‘s Spike Lee and Vice‘s Adam McKay. The latter is a film that has been unfairly shunned by critics, despite the industry’s liking of it. I believe McKay’s film will age like fine wine. McKay did get the award for Television directing for his excellent work in one of last year’s very best shows HBO’s “Succession.”
In other news, Bo Burnham won best first feature for “Eighth Grade” actually beating out Bradley Cooper and “A Star is Born.” INSANE.
‘Untitled Amazing Johnathan Documentary’ Is A Riveting, Twisted Examination Of Non-Fiction Filmmaking [Sundance Review]
The unbelievable strangeness inherent in truth has made for some incredibly destabilizing documentaries about the blurred lines of fact and fiction. Films like “Dear Zachary,” “Catfish,” “Exit Through The Gift Shop” and “The Imposter” all blow themselves up in the middle all featuring “oh shit!”-like twists so disarming, so surprising they make one question the very reality and existence of what you’ve been watching. So, prepare to be fooled, thrilled and surprised with a new classic of this upending subgenre with “Untitled Amazing Johnathan Documentary,” a doc that uses the integral subject of magic and artifice to create a riveting meta-story about the illusory nature of truth, trust and the self-examining questioning of what you thought to be real.
‘The Lodge’: Arthouse Horror Chalks Up Another Win In This Claustrophobic Family Drama [Sundance Review]
Arthouse horror is on a tear right now, and it’s no secret. One of the most inspiring movements in American cinema right now, modern classics like “Hereditary,” “Get Out,” “The Witch,” “It Follows,” et al. have reinvigorated a genre blunted by the cheap slasher films of the ’80s and ’90s and sparked something of a movement, thoughtful, emotionally bruising and sometimes glacially paced horror. Who knows, look back in 10 years, and cinema historians may find an even deeper correlation that we can see to our toxic, uncertain times, and this cinema of unease and collective trauma.
‘Blinded By The Light’: The Transformative Power Of Bruce Springsteen Fuels This Excellent Crowdpleaser [Sundance Review]
Heartwarming, life-affirming cinema always has the perilous potential for turning mawkish. But uplifting music, free of the sometimes overwrought dimensions of moviemaking, is usually free of such burdens. Zeroing in on the advantages of the latter and mostly avoiding the pitfalls of the former, filmmaker Gurinder Chadha succeeds in achieving that exuberant, ineffable feeling when music can change your life. In her inspiring new drama “Blinded by the Light,” Chadha (“Bend it Like Beckham“) taps into the anthemic spirit of the always-stirring songs of Bruce Springsteen.
The short version: "Woman Unknown" was a compromise. The jury deadlocked over "Possible Love" and "NAZA," not able to com to terms, fell back on their #3, May el-Toukhy's film.