Oh, Italy. As beautiful as that country is, it still refuses to adhere to a lot of the “woke” mentality leaking into many Western countries, especially the United States.

It looks as though Xavier Dolan’s Cannes entry “Matthias & Maxime,” will not be going to TIFF.

Mendes filmed his WWI epic “1917” to look like one long take, ala Alejandro Iñárritu’s “Birdman.”

The first trailer for Universal Pictures’ Queen & Slim is here and it looks like a socio-political/African-American version of “Bonnie and Clyde” and “Thelma & Louise.”

Actress Samantha Morton (“Morvern Callar,” “Minority Report”) has been nominated for two acting Oscars, including a Supporting Actress nod for 1999’s Woody Allen-directed “Sweet and Lowdown.” Speaking to Vanity Fair, Morton mentions that her time shooting “Sweet and Lowdown” with Allen was a memory she will always cherish.

Deadline’s Mike Fleming Jr. is reporting that there is a studio war to nab Olivia Wilde’s “Don’t Worry Darling, “a psychological thriller with shades relevant to the Time’s Up Era. Fleming claims to have “heard that between studios and streamers, there might be a dozen offers on the table for a movie that will happen very quickly. The auction should close by the weekend.” The 35-year-old actress is set direct and star in the film.

Will there be anything bigger, news-wise, today than Netflix finally releasing the first trailer for Martin Scorsese’s “The Irishman”? Don’t count on it. The upcoming mob drama spans decades and follows Frank Sheeran’s (Robert De Niro) journey into the dark side of the American political process. It’s, quite simply, the most anticipated movie of the year.

Christian Bale and Matt Damon star in the racing biopic “Ford v Ferrari.” James Mangold’s Race-car drama will deal with the Ford Motor Company’s rivalry with Enzo Ferrari’s racing empire in 1966. Mangold, best known for having directed “Logan” and “I Walk the Line,” has been directing adult dramas now for close to 20 years in Hollywood, which is truly and unprecedented feat given the amount of paradigm shifting that has happened at the movies since then. He’s survived the onslaught. He’s somewhat maintained his integrity as an artist, even amidst all the changes and obsessions with superheroes and the near-total dissolving of the mid-budget adult drama.

I was invited to participate in IndieWire’s Quentin Tarantino poll. The results, published yesterday, had “Inglourious Basterds” garnering the most votes and named the best film of QT’s career. There weren’t too many participants, ‘Basterds’ earned 11 votes, but if this were a larger poll, with hundreds of critics participating, then it would have been a cakewalk for “Pulp Fiction” to win. The 1994 classic changed the entire movie industry and should be considered one of the greatest movies ever made.

Luca Guadagnino’s “Suspiria” was a perplexing mix of arthouse and horror which divided critics and audiences alike. A 150 minute dive into the abyss of the unknown. I found it to be a fascinating mess of a film, one which never really found its groove but proved that Guadagnino could stage dread to the nth degree.

I saw Robert Eggers‘ “The Lighthouse” at Cannes, a slow-building tale of the sea and the madhouse isolation, filled with booze, demons and nightmares, that comes in feeling so alone and vulnerable as a man.  Robert Pattinson is, as usual great, but I wouldn’t call this his best performance; essential and peak Patttinson will always be his turn in The Safdies’ “Good Time.” The real reason to watch this is for Eggers’ astute and deeply folklore-indebted stylings and, of course, a madman-esque performance from Willem Dafoe as the old bearded sea dog.

I have been consistent in my insistence that Noah Baumbach’s “Marriage Story” will be the movie everybody raves about this fall festival season. I had already heard two accounts that used the word “masterpiece” in their admiration for the film; Not to mention the fact that it has now, as predicted, been chosen for all four major fall festivals (Toronto, Telluride, Venice and New York). That’s right, the New York Film Festival has just announced today that Baumbach’s latest will be the centerpiece selection of the festival, which is usually a slot reserved for the film the NYFF have the highest aspirations for, the centerpiece of the whole event.

The first season of David Fincher’s Netflix series “Mindhunter” was great. Its 10 episodes felt like perfectly mastered individual vignettes which delved into the heart of the “American darkness.” There was a sense of brooding discovery as Fincher’s series decided to delve into the psychological science behind serial killers.