Hansen-Løve has a new film — a period piece set in England. “If Love Should Die” will focus on the 18th-century English philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft. This was announced three years ago, and it is finally happening.
Venice keeps trudging along. Twelve of the 21 films in competition have now been screened. Tomorrow, we’ll get to see Casey Affleck’s “Company,” Florian Zeller’s “Bunker,” and Ilya Khrzhanovsky’s “DAU.”
The project was gaining steam in 2023, and then the WGA strikes hit, which deflated the entire thing. At the time, Austin Butler and Colin Farrell were in talks to star as the film’s two leads.
Luca Guadagnino doesn’t make short movies. His latest, “Artificial,” is yet another example of the indulgence he tends to bring to all of his films.
This year’s 12th edition of the Scary Movies festival at Film at Lincoln Center premiered Ari Aster’s extended version of “Midsommar” this past Saturday.
Steve McQueen’s “Lover’s Rock” is a formally bold 70-minute dance party. McQueen uses his camera in unique & original ways. Some moments in this movie feel damn-near transcendent in the way they use moving bodies, music & photography to immerse the viewer in moments of pure ecstasy.
More to come …
“The Nest,” director Sean Durkin’s follow-up to his acclaimed 2011 feature “Martha Marcy May Marlene” premiered at Sundance in January to, mostly, positive reviews. I was told it would be part of Cannes’ Un Certain regard selection. Alas, that film festival was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Read more“Good Joe Bell” is a statement very confused with itself. In fact, it’s as confused as its wide-eyed titular protagonist (played by a miscast Mark Wahlberg), a short-tempered man who doesn’t seem to understand the plight his openly-gay and bullied son went through in high school.
Read moreDisney has already had two of their blockbusters entirely skip theaters and go straight to Disney+ (“Artemis Fowl.” and “Mulan”) which begged me to ask the obvious question, would Pixar’s “Soul” be next? This past July, I contacted my source at Disney who then confirmed to me that there were indeed plans to do move “Soul” to the streaming service. I reported about it and was unsurprisingly met with negative responses, mostly from people who couldn’t accept the fact that Disney would just dump such a prize-worthy feature like that as streaming content.
Read moreMexican director Michel Franco’s “New Order,” a dystopian shocker that resonates in these deeply troubling times, is not just his most grueling movie to date, and that’s already a feat in itself, but also his best and most accomplished work. If you were already not a fan of the guy’s work, then this won’t necessarily convert you, but, regardless, it’ll convince you of his technical talents as a director.
Read moreMost people consider the legal profession very exciting. Although it’s quite complicated and demanding, it sets interesting challenges. Therefore, this job can never be dull and boring. That is one of the reasons why there are so many movies about lawyers. They are often portrayed in films because this occupation fascinates people. Most of us are curious about their work, so films about lawyers get very popular. But do they always show the truth?
Read moreFor 128 minutes, Vanessa Kirby has you hooked to her every move in Kornel Mundruczo’s “Pieces of a Woman.” As Martha, a high-powered executive who loses her child during a harrowing home birth, Kirby mesmerizes by showcasing the human frailty and devastation that happens when tragedy comes knocking at the door. Kirby’s acting tour-de-force reminded me of Gena Rowlands’ masterful work in John Cassavetes’ 1974 classic, “Woman Under the Influence.”
Read moreServed on a pitch-black platter, Ethan J. Blakeson's nastily rendered “I Care a Lot” has no likable characters. In fact, everyone in this dark comedy is either a sociopath, a psychopath, or both.
Read moreHere’s the first teaser for Aaron Sorkin’s Netflix-distributed “The Trial of the Chicago 7.” This is Sorkin’s second film as a director, after 2018’s “Molly’s Game,” but, first and foremost, he’s known as the legendary screenwriter of “The Social Network,” and “The West Wing.”
Read moreAlthough it opened in 100 additional theaters this weekend, Tenet’s box-office actually went down by 29 percent in its second North American weekend. Yes, Christopher Nolan’s sci-fi epic made a *whopping* $6.7 million in 2,910 theaters. A disappointing result which will now have studios delaying their big titles furthermore.
Read moreDirector Antonio Campos’ “The Devil All The Time”, a sprawling mosaic of religion, family, and DNA, is what one could describe as an “Appalachian noir.” It’s a tale filled with gougers, murderers, and losers — nobody wins in Campos’ weighty film and, set in an America on the brink of change, maybe that’s the point.
Read moreChloe Zhao‘s “Nomadland,” which just won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, is not going to be a film for the masses, and all the better for it. This is a moody, and mesmerizing third film from the Chinese-American filmmaker, after her triumphant 2018 film, “The Rider.” Much like her previous efforts, this is Zaho’s 21st-century depiction of Americana angst, mixing non-fiction and fiction filmmaking in effortless fashion.
Read moreKate Winslet has pulled a Timothee Chalamet and thrown Woody Allen and Roman Polanski under the bus, cleansing herself from past “sins.” She now again has a “clean” slate according to the Twiteratti wokesters and now has a path for the Academy to safely, without any backlash, nominate her much-buzzed performance in the upcoming “Ammonite.” Good God, Kate.
Read moreWoody 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 embark on.
Read moreIs “Wonder Woman 1984” going to be delayed yet again? The first weekend of “Tenet” in North America proved that it’s going to be a long road ahead for Christopher Nolan’s film. “Tenet” grossed just $20 million during labor day weekend, which means it’s going to stay in theaters for the next few months to come, just to gross whatever it was supposed to have made in a pandemic-less world. Before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, protections were that Nolan’s film would have opened with a box-office of anywhere between $60-$85 million.
Read moreNetflix apologized after a controversial poster for the film “Cuties,” which has a pre-pubescent girl “becoming fascinated with a twerking dance crew,” went viral. The aforementioned poster, portraying four girls in suggestively risqué poses, sparked widespread backlash and a Change.org petition to halt the release of the film., prompting Netflix to apologize for what it called “inappropriate artwork.”
Read more“Dune” was considered an unfilmable novel for the longest time, even before David Lynch’s botch attempt in 1984. There is just too much going on in Frank Herbert’s novel to fully envision a successful cinematic attempt, alas, director Denis Villeneuve, a Herbert fanatic, has decided to take on the impossible task. Today’s newly released trailer doesn’t necessarily pull up the hairs off my skin, nor does it really excite me in ways I was anticipating, no, instead, as far as I’m concerned, it qualifies as a red flag
Read moreThe Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences has announced new representation and inclusion standards for all would-be seekers of a Best Picture Oscar.
Read moreDespite U.S. press being unable to attend this year’s 77th Venice Film Festival, there is still a ban in place for U.S. travelers to Europe, the plan was to go half-digital so that, stateside at least, film journalists could create coverage, not to mention, considerable buzz for not just the Biennale, but the film industry as a whole. I will be jotting down dispatches for the next few days as the films continue to be screened in Italy, here’s the first one.
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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.”