The Dardenne brothers, Jean-Pierre and Luc, for better or worse, have been the most influential European filmmakers of the 21st century. No doubt about it. Not even close. They have won two Palme d’Ors (“Rosetta ” and “L’Enfant”) using their now heavily imitated brand of intensely realistic, hand-held camera filmmaking. This basically influenced a bunch of film movements in Europe alone, especially the Romanian New-Wave which expanded on the style with uber long-takes. Signs of there being a pushback to the Dardennes happened in 2016 with their drama “The Unknown Girl” which premiered, as with all of their movies, at Cannes but was met with a collective shrug by critics and audiences. Had the Dardennes’ style finally hit a wall with cinephiles? After all, and as mentioned before, it’s been imitated so many times that the powerful effect it once had on us is now all but a cliche of Euro-style filmmaking.
Read moreMartin Scorsese Doc on Bob Dylan to be Released by Netflix in June
Martin Scorsese will be directing another Bob Dylan documentary and he's going the Netflix route, again, for its release.
Read more‘The Hateful Eight' Re-Edited By Quentin Tarantino Into a 4-Episode Netflix Miniseries
A restructured and re-edited “The Hateful Eight” is now available to stream on Netflix. It’s being called an “extended version.” Tarantino has re-edited his 2015 film into a 4-episode miniseries with some added scenes. To be fair, Tarantino himself broke the film down into these chapters with the theatrical version – Whatever the case, it is now specifically split up into four 50 minute episodes with some deleted scenes added into the mix.
“The Hateful Eight” is one of Tarantino’s most underrated films, but it was deemed a box-office "failure" and was met with mixed reviews back in 2015. I loved it. It harkened back to some of the talkier fare he delivered back in the '90s with an added tinge of John Carpenter and Sergio Leone added in for good measure.
Is There Panic in 007 World? ‘Bond 25' Details Announced
‘Avengers: Endgame’ Leaks Online
Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige and Joe/Anthony Russo are pleading with fans not to ruin “Avengers: Endgame,” [via Associated Press] especially after a few scenes had leaked online:
Read moreCritics Poll — Best Movies of the Decade
The much-anticipated Best Movies of the Decade critics poll will be posted next Tuesday. Sorry for the delay, but a bunch of important critics decided to send me their lists at-the-very-last-minute. In other words, theamount of critics participating has risen considerably since last week, which is why I’ve been delaying the results being posted. The final total seems to be 201 lists.
Best Movies of 2019 So Far [UPDATED]
Posted earlier this month:
OK, fine, I’ll budge. Many readers of this site love lists, understandably so, and there have been a few emails I’ve gotten about what the best movies of 2019 have been so far. I won’t list the stuff I saw at Sundance, I’ll just list the movies that have already been released, the cutoff date is April 30th just to give me a little room to manoeuvre.
Read moreGuillermo del Toro to Team With Leonardo DiCaprio on ‘Nightmare Valley'; DiCaprio Rejected PTA For This Project.
Leonardo DiCaprio continues to only work with the highest-tiered of directors. He’s made a career out of only and exclusively choosing the best of the best in Hollywood film directors; Quentin Tarantino, Martin Scorsese, Christopher Nolan, Steven Spielberg, Ridley Scott, Clint Eastwood, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu.
Read moreDisney Axing Fox Projects Left and Right, Mostly Adult Dramas ...
A THR report is saying that Disney are cleaning house and have been axing Fox projects left and right ever since they acquired its assets back on March 20th (for a reported $71.3 billion).
The biggest victims seem to be adult dramas such as the Tom Hanks starrer “News of the World,” an adaptation of Angie Thomas' best-seller “On the Come Up,” and Ted Melfi's mental-hospital-set, Woody Harrelson-starring dramedy “Fruit Loops.”
Of course, this being Disney, they had absolutely no problem in keeping the Matthew Vaughn-directed Kingsman prequel “The Great Game.”
"We are now just only beginning to see how all this consolidation will change how movies get greenlit and made," says a producer involved with a Fox-developed movie. "They are looking at everything."
Film Academy Passes Vote to Rename ‘Best Foreign Language Film' Category to ‘Best International Feature Film'; Allows Netflix Eligibility.
Amid the notion that Steven Spielberg was supposed be Netflix’s arch nemesis in his war against streaming films being eligible for Oscars, which turned into the “Spielberg vs. Netflix” debate, last night’s AMPAS board meeting that would exclude Netflix from Oscar consideration completely fizzled. Spielberg didn’t show up (he was in New York, working on “West Side Story” rehearsals). “Motion pictures released in nontheatrical media on or after the first day of their Los Angeles County theatrical qualifying run remain eligible,” the AMPAS said in a statement.
Read moreTarantino, Malick, Eggers, Jarmusch, Sachs, Almodovar, Dardenne, Joon-ho ...
I never proclaim a film festival edition to be great until the films actually screen. Common sense, right? Sadly, many love to proclaim a film fest to be having a “great year” or “terrible year” just by the lineup announcements. That’s not how it works. Lots of movies disappoint, even from great auteurs. However, Cannes 2019 looks great on-paper and any complaints of a lack of American movies should quickly be dissipated with today’s addition of Robert Eggers’ “The Lighthouse” as part of the Director’s Fortnight lineup, also known a the Quinzaines des Realisateurs.
I already listed the likes of Tarantino (cross your fingers), Malick, Eggers, Jarmusch, Sachs, Almodovar, Dardenne, and Joon-ho in the title, but let me add Dolan, Bonello, Desplechin, Dumont, Herzog, Ferrera and, not to mention, Dexter Fletcher’s Elton John biopic “Rocketman.” And those are just a few of the many familiar names that will be gracing the Croisette this year.. So, give me a break, Cannes is very much alive with relevance and about to embark on a stacked edition next month.
‘Avengers: Endgame' Belongs in the MCU Time-Capsule [Review]
When we last saw the heroic Avengers in 2018’s “Infinity War,” we were all stunned by the devastating final minutes, in which evil Thanos (Josh Brolin) got a hold of all six of the Infinity Stones and snapped his fingers, causing half of the world’s population to be killed. Many of the key MCU players, including Spider-Man, were thus, supposedly, wasted off into a barrage of grim apocalyptic dust. Of course, this being Marvel and Disney, there was absolutely no way this could conceivably be the way the 22-movie MCU ended. And so, here we are with “Avengers: Endgame,” which opens where we last left off: the infamous “Snap.”
Read moreCannes: Directors’ Fortnight Lineup
As reported here last week, Robert Eggers’ “The Lighthouse” will be part of the Quinzaine at Cannes. This years lineup also includes Includes Takashi Miike, Netflix Film ‘Wounds,’ Bertrand Bonello’s latest & a Luca Guadagnino Short.
Read more‘Gemini Man' Trailer: It's Will Smith vs Will Smith in Ang Lee's Latest
“Gemini Man” is all about an older assassin confronting his younger hit-man self — all shot in in 3D HFR (60 or 120 frames per second) by director Ang Lee. Rian Johnson kinda tackled a similar plot with “Looper,” but there seems to be no time travel here nor any narrative playing-around by Lee. This rather seems like a bare-bones action film, which has none of the artful flair Lee brought to his best films (“The Ice Storm,” “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”). Regardless, I am very excited about there being a smartly executed action film on the horizon this year.
Read more‘Better Call Saul' Will End After 6 Seasons, Says Giancarlo Esposito
“Breaking Bad” was quite possibly the greatest TV drama of all time, right up there with “The Sopranos” and “The Wire.” And so, it was with great restraint that I started watching its spin-off “Better Call Saul” four years ago, when it premiered on AMC. Any doubt that I had quickly evaporated by the first episode. The next four seasons would make for some truly compelling television.
Read moreFilm School Removes ‘Birth of a Nation' Posters After Student Protests
It'll be interesting to see if, in a decade or so, "Gone With the Wind" becomes as taboo as "The Birth of a Nation," D.W. Griffith's towering but reactionary slab of racism. Film students and professors will, most likely, be the primary judges for Scarlett O'Hara's plight, much like what’s happening with “Birth of a Nation.”
Read moreDirector Joe Carnahan Isn't Shy In His Hate For ‘The Danish Girl’
Directors Bilall Fallah and Adil El Arbi have just-finished shooting the Will Smith and Martin Lawrence-starring “Bad Boys For Life.”
Joe Carnahan (“Smokin’ Aces,” “Narc” and “The Grey”) was once attached to write and direct the movie and, according to a recent interview he gave (via The Playlist), some of the details of his scrapped sequel included a back-handed dig at Oscar-winner “The Danish Girl.”
“I hated ‘The Danish Girl’ so much,” Carnahan said. “I said, ‘Could you make a poster for ‘The Danish Girl’ and blow it apart?’ And they said, ‘Yeah, we can do that.’ I fucking hated that movie with the white-hot heat of a thousand suns. I think [the people who worked on ‘The Danish Girl’] are all really talented, I just hated that movie, me personally. I’m sure they hate my movies.”
In case you forgot the movie, “The Danish Girl,” was a Tom Hooper-directed Oscar-bait vehicle starring Eddie Redmayne as painter Lili Elbe, one of the first known cases of sex reassignment surgery.
“Bad Boys For Life” was shot via a screenplay by Chris Bremner. The film is set for release on January 17, 2020.
‘Spider Man: Far From Home’ Confirmed as MCU Phase Three Finale, Not ‘Endgame’
“Far From Home” was supposed to kick off Phase Four.
However, at a recent fan event in Shanghai (via Newsweek), Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige is confirming that “Endgame” is not the last chapter in Phase Three of the MCU. The upcoming “Spider Man: Far From Home,” which will be released in July, will actually be the final installment of Phase Three, which began with 2016’s “Captain America: Civil War.”
As mentioned before on this site, I presume phase four will include the likes of “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3,” “Captain Marvel 2,” “Black Panther 2,” “Black Widow,” “Shang-Chi,” “Doctor Strange 2,” and “Eternals.”
‘Knock Down the House' Trailer: Doc Follows Up-and-Coming AOC's Grassroots Campaign
Love AOC or hate AOC, the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez documentary, “Knock Down the House,” which was a hit at Sundance, is actually an excellent cinema-verite work about the emergence of a grass-roots campaign. Directed by Rachel Lears – reportedly the day after the 2016 election – the film follows four women who are running grass-roots campaign all across the country, aiming for congress in the 2018 mid-term elections.
Read more‘Jeremiah Terminator LeRoy’: Kristen Stewart & Laura Dern Can’t Save This Fabulist Tale [Review]
Described as “the greatest literary hoax of our time,” the infamous unmasking of cause célèbre persona/author JT LeRoy in 2005 turned the world of pop culture media upside down. An extraordinary story that made headlines around the globe, the tale in short is: a precocious, sexually ambiguous, then-famous teenage author (LeRoy) — purporting to come from a world of drug addiction, poverty, and sexual abuse — was revealed to be the creation of another writer, a fraud upheld by an actor playing the press-shy persona in public, with her musician/boyfriend as a co-conspirator.
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Whatever plans there were for "Wonder Woman" to go into pre-production, with a 2027 shoot in mind, have been scrapped. Gunn and Safran will be taking their time with this project.