After Scorsese, Coppola, Almodovar, and company, another significant director has fired shots at Marvel movies. This time it’s John Woo. The director of such classics as “The Killer” and “Hard Boiled” was at the Hawaii International Film Festival, where he received the festival’s Halekulani Lifetime Achievement Award. Woo actually made the anti-Marvel comments when he was on-stage, delivering his acceptance speech.

Accentuated by the superb staying power “Joker” has had at the box-office, the Joaquin Phoenix starring film has now officially crossed the billion-dollar mark, making it the first R-rated film in history to do so, all this despite it not being released in China (no doubt related to the Hong Kong protests). The film accomplished the feat just over one month after its Oct. 4 theatrical release.

Just when you thought expectations needed to tamper for Greta Gerwig’s likable but slight “Little Women,” here come IndieWire’s Eric Kohn and Anne Thompson now positioning it as a “contender” in several categories, adding that “Greta Gerwig’s studio adaptation of the treasured novel is poised to shake up the Oscar conversation.”

Martin Scorsese was honored with the 14th annual Kirk Douglas Award by the Santa Barbara International Film Festival Thursday night. He received a nice big juicy kiss on the cheek from presenter Leonardo DiCaprio. [via THR]

There has been considerable backlash ever since claims came out of the HBO “Finding Neverland” that Jackson sexually abused the two men featured in the film. I’ve tried not to have an opinion on whether he did it or not. Having followed the Jackson case for the better part of two decades, shifting opinions more times than I can remember, to the point where I have somewhat settled with permanent neutrality.

It’s that time of the year again when we are ready to close the books on the movie year and look forward to what might be in store at Sundance in January. I will be there, rooming with Hollywood-Elsewhere thespian Jeffrey Wells.

John Travolta's career looks like it desperately needs a second comeback. We thought it might happen with his excellent turn as OJ Simpson's lawyer, Robert Shapiro, in 2016’s “The People V. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story.” Ever since then? Nada. Zilch. Zero.

An independent research firm has announced that, over the course of its first 24 hours since going live,  Disney+ was downloaded 3.2 million times via mobile. Deadline are also now reporting that up to 10 million people have subscribed to Disney+ which could explain why users of the streaming service we’re having issues logging in yesterday — Disney didn’t expect the mass amount of traffic

It looks as though Disney, Pixar, and DreamWorks will be facing off against each other in the animated Oscar category as “Toy Story 4,” “Frozen II” and “Abominable” are the current frontrunners to win the Oscar. This year we had a record 32 submissions for the category, not counting Jon Favreau's “The Lion King,” which seemed to be some sort of odd hybrid of photo-realism and CGI. However, I am ready to omit “The Angry Birds Movie 2,” “The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part” and  “The Secret Life of Pets 2,” all three made more than $200 million domestically, but the reviews weren’t very good and consensus seems to be that they just didn’t live up to expectations.

The trailer for Paramount’s upcoming live-action “Sonic the Hedgehog” was bad, real bad. Jim Carrey was overacting, basically spoofing his old self, as the villain, whereasSonic looked a little … off. So much so that the intense backlash stemming from fans led to Paramount and Sega announcing that they would be re-designing Sonic’s CGI look from scratch. The film’s release, which was supposed to happen this month, was immediately pushed back to February 2020. The film’s production budget is now said to be well over $100 million. It doesn’t help that this just-released poster completely omits star Ben Schwartz’s name and that Jim Carrey looks like a Bollywood villain.

Every generation has a cinematic master. You know, a director who stands above the rest in terms of artistry and groundbreaking works. These directors tend to be the ones that everyone else tries to catch up to. There usually are, with every generation, only a few that can have the title of ‘master.’ Paul Thomas Anderson is most definitely one.

Damien Chazelle’s “Babylon” is said to take place during the transition from silent films to talkies and will feature a mix of real-life and fictional characters. It is set to star Emma Stone and also, rumor has it, Brad Pitt. [Via THR]

Due to an embargo that may very well extend into December, I cannot extensively talk about Greta Gerwig’s “Little Women.” I could easily just tweet about it since social media reactions are not being embargoed, but most people who are chiming in about Gerwig’s second feature on Twitter actually liked it. I tend to stray fae away from tweeting about films I don’t like. Just out of common courtesy for the cast and crew of any given film. However, on this site the gloves always come off, the only problem is I am currently being withheld by embargo

“Doctor Sleep,” the sequel to Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining,” was projected to open with a $25-30 million tally this past weekend at the box-office. That didn’t happen. In fact, the Veterans Day box office became a bloody metaphor for the vast indifference many audiences have had with sequels this year.