With cinema grinding to a complete halt and the summer film slate practically wiped away due to the continuing Coronavirus pandemic, one thing in the world of film remains up in the air as we continue to move through 2020, next year’s Oscars.
Read moreJudd Apatow's ‘King of Staten Island' Skipping Theaters, Going Straight to VOD
There were only a handful of big studio movies I was looking forward to this summer. Most have been delayed to a later release date (“The French Dispatch,” “Top Gun: Maverick,” “Soul,” “A Quiet Place II,” “In the Heights”) whereas one remaining title is still set for a July release, although I presume it will be rescheduled (that would be Christopher Nolan’s “Tenet”). However, today there some good news came in the form of at least one hotly anticipated summer movie skipping theaters for on-demand rental.
Read more‘Extraction': No Brains, All Action [Review]
Fine, “Extraction” is a dumb and disposable action movie. I won’t argue with that. And yet, there are thrilling sequences worth visiting in this R-rated Netflix bullet-fest, so much so that I wish I had experienced them on the big screen instead of my home screen. Damn you, COVID.
Read moreLeos Carax's Upcoming Musical ‘Annette' is 95% Singing Dialogue
Filmmaker Leos Carax’s last release was 2012’s “Holy Motors.” That Cannes-premiered movie ended up not only getting critically-acclaimed, but also appeared in a slew of best-of-the-decade lists, even finishing 20th on our 2010’s critics poll of the best movies of the last decade.
Read moreAMC Says it Will Wait to Reopen Theaters Until July's ‘Tenet' and ‘Mulan' Releases ...
AMC has released a statement indicating that, given the lack of new releases between now and July, the multiplex will only reopen its theaters in July when “Tenet “(scheduled for release on July 17) and “Mulan” (delayed until July 24) could potentially bring the masses back to theaters. Good luck with that, AMC [Via The Hollywood Reporter].
Read moreDirector Olivia Wilde's #TimesUp Psychological Thriller Casts Pugh, LaBeouf and Pine
Deadline’s Mike Fleming Jr. had reported last summer that there was a bidding war to nab Olivia Wilde’s “Don’t Worry Darling,” a psychological thriller about a 1950s housewife whose reality begins to crack, revealing a disturbing realization that she is being suppressed. Fleming claimed 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.”
Read more‘To The Stars’ Is A Beautiful, But Familiar, Coming Of Age Tale [Review]
The bible belt of early 1960s rural Oklahoma wasn’t a great time and place in America for outsiders. And this god-fearing country is certainly no place for two girls that may be slowly falling in love and calling too much public attention to all the time they’re spending together. Director Martha Stephens (co-director of 2014 Sundance film “Land Ho!” with Aaron Katz) adapts Shannon Bradley-Colleary‘s screenplay on intolerance and class-warfare in pre-sexual revolution America into an artfully visual feast, but one that unfortunately plods along at an uneven pace into heavy-handedness as the drama intensifies. It’s a missed opportunity for something more poignant.
Read moreJoe Biden Rejects $2800 Campaign Donation From Louis C.K.
A $2,800 donation made by serial masturbator/comedian Louis C.K to the Joe Biden campaign on March 4th has been rejected by the Biden campaign [via Time magazine]. No additional information was given about the Biden campaign’s decision. C.K. has also been silent about it since the story broke yesterday.
Read more‘The True History of the Kelly Gang' ... [Review]
I saw the first 30 minutes of Justin Kurzel’s “The True History of the Kelly Gang” at last September’s Toronto International Film Festival — I was tired, it was a long day, I wasn’t feeling it and thus decided I would eventually give it another shot when it would be in theaters. Now, with the COVID-19 pandemic raging on, the film is being released via video-on-demand platforms. Having finally seen the whole thing, I can safely say that Kurzel’s film, recounting the life of Ned Kelly, is a wildly ambitious mess.
Read moreAmazon's Digital SXSW Turns Into a Bust; Only 5% of the Lineup Agrees to Take Part
I had hopes that Amazon Prime partnering with the SXSW Film Festival would result into something worthy, but, alas, I’ve been proven wrong with the announcement that only 5% of the films that were supposed to premiere at the Austin festival in March will take part in this digital Amazon venture.
Read more‘Bad Education’: Hugh Jackman Delivers his Best Performance in School Embezzlement Drama [Review]
Directed by Cory Finley (“Thoroughbreds”) from a screenplay written by Mike Makowsky, who was a student when the Roslyn School District drama occurred in the mid-aughts, “Bad Education” is a darkly hilarious take on the most egregious and lucrative financial crime in the history of the US school system.
Read moreWoody Allen’s ‘Rifkin’s Festival' Set for Fall Release in Spain
Woody Allen has a new movie coming out this fall, but you wouldn’t know about it since he’s become person-non-grata in the States. Hell, even his last movie, the 2018 Amazon-dumped “Rainy Day in New York,” has yet to be released here. However, that hasn’t stopped the 84-year-old director from continuing to work — Europeans have welcomed him with open arms and been willing to finance the cinematic endeavors he chooses to write and direct.
Read more‘American Psycho’ Director Mary Harron Calls ‘Joker’ Backlash ‘Ludicrous’
Todd Phillips’ “Joker” is still being talked about almost 7 months since its release (a sure sign of a great movie). If you remember, it had sent shockwaves around the movie world last September by winning the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. Of course, that didn’t stop American critics from going all “woke” and medieval on the film (I’m talking to you, Mr. Ehrlich) which irked me to no end and even prompted yours truly to write an op-ed (‘Joker’ is Not the Problem, the Media Is) which ended up going viral on social media.
Read moreSofia Coppola Details New Bill Murray Film ‘On The Rocks’
TIFF Says “Postponing Is Definitely Not A Possibility”
With the Cannes Film Festival all but canceled, the pressure now mounts towards Venice and the Toronto International Film Festival, both scheduled for September. Unlike Cannes’ anti-streaming stance, the two major fall festivals have been more lenient towards Netflix and other streaming platforms. Will they go digital? It’s looking more and more likely …
Read moreI Have Seen Josh Trank's ‘Capone' ...
These shouldn’t be desperate times for movie fans. Fine, we can’t physically go to movie theaters to watch the latest releases, but it’s a great time to catch up with all the great movies you may have missed from the ‘30s, ‘40’s ‘50s, ‘60s etc. With all that being said, there are a number of interesting movies about to be released in April, May, and June (I’ll be covering those titles in an article published later today).
Read more‘The Wrong Missy': David Spade Is Back In This '90s-Esque Netflix Comedy [Trailer]
Now that most of the summer movie release slate, between May and July, has been rescheduled, we will have to look towards streaming platforms such as Netflix, Disney, and AppleTV+ to quench our moviegoing appetites this summer. Netflix’s “The Wrong Missy” might not be the kind of counter-programming people wanted in place of “The French Dispatch,” but, hey, it’ll have to do for now.
Read moreVenice Film Festival May Still Take Place With Mostly European Movies and Surgical Mask-Wearing
John Boyega Defends ‘Rise of Skywalker’ After Fan Calls it an ‘Embarrassment'
John Boyega is not going to take any “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” criticisms. He thinks the third and final film in the Disney trilogy is worthy and he’s going to make sure you know it.
Read moreGuillermo del Toro, Rian Johnson, Darren Aronofsky, Ari Aster and Others Share Their Isolation Movie Watchlists
Guillermo del Toro started a giant Twitter thread revealing the films he’s been watching while on break from filming his new movie, “Nightmare Alley.” The director of “Pan’s Labyrinth” then encouraged other filmmakers to weigh in with their own watch lists, what happened next was a joyous celebration of quarantine movie watching, with the likes of Darren Aronofsky, Ari Aster, Ava DuVernay, Sarah Polley, Edgar Wright, Rian Johnson, Brad Bird, Scott Derickson, James Mangold, and many more chiming in.
Read more
Brady Corbet's “The Origin of the World,” his X-Rated epic about "Northern California’s economy" in the 1970s epic, has now started production in South Africa under the working title “SALT FLATS.”