Searchlight bought “The Night House” for $12 million at Sundance 2020, a supernatural mystery that falls flat on the ground the minute you realize where it’s going.
Read moreTelluride: ‘C’mon C’mon’ and ‘King Richard’ Set for World Premieres; ‘Dune’ and ‘Cry Macho’ Not Going
Despite the Delta variant’s ominous shadow looming all around the United States at the moment, The Telluride Film Festival is less than two weeks away and will most likely go ahead as planned, its 4 days of cinematic nirvana, around the beautiful Rocky Mountains, just around the corner.
Read moreMike Mills’ ‘C’mon C’mon’ Screens In NYC
Yesterday, the New York Film Festival announced the films that would be part of its Spotlight section. An assortment of high-profile films will be part of this sidebar section; those include Denis Villeneuve’s “Dune,” Wes Anderson’s “The French Dispatch,” Maggie Gyllenhaal’s “The Lost Daughter,” Sean Baker’s “Red Rocket,” and, most intriguingly, Mike Mills’ “C’mon C’mon,” starring Joaquin Phoenix.
Read moreMore Plot Details Revealed About Paul Thomas Anderson’s ‘Soggy Bottom’
Not much is currently known about Paul Thomas Anderson’s highly anticipated “Soggy Bottom.” What we do know is that it stars Cooper Hoffman, the 18 year old son of the late great Philip Seymour Hoffman, as a child actor in Hollywood in the early 1970s. Bradley Cooper was cast in the film just a few weeks ago and, this past weekend, the 45-year-old actor returned to the set with his Jon Peters-inspired get-up.
Read moreSean Penn’s ‘Flag Day’: Sentimental Mush and Pretentious Claptrap
Box-Office: ‘The Suicide Squad' Earnings Drop a Whopping 81% in its Second Week
Despite being well-reviewed, James Gunn’s “The Suicide Squad” is officially DOA at the box-office — dropping a whopping 81% in its second week. As it stands, its paltry $42 million cumulative gross will make it very hard to break even. The film has a massive budget of $200 million budget. Yikes.
Read morePalme d'Or Winner ‘Titane' Bombs at French Box-Office; Health Pass Blamed by its Producer
When the Spike Lee-led jury at this year’s Cannes Film Festival awarded the Palme d'Or to Julia Ducournau’s “Titane,” people expected that it would do very well in its native country of France. However, the film has been a total bust there, attracting less than 225,000 ticket buyers [via Le Parisien]. In comparison, past Palme d’Or winners such as “Parasite” (1.7 million ticket buyers) and “Blue is the Warmest Color” (1 million ticket buyers) fared way better at the French box-office. And now, the blame game has begun.
Read moreThe 12 Most Anticipated Fall Festival Films
It’s that time of year again. As we tick into the fall schedule, with festivals on the horizon in every direction, studios begin to line-up their big hitters for possible big theatrical, and potential Oscar runs. However, this year many of the big guns are abstaining and that includes Guillermo del Toro’s “Nightmare Alley,” Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Soggy Bottom,” Steven Spielberg’s “West Side Story,” and Adam McKay’s “Don’t Look Up.”
Read more‘In the Same Breath': Infuriating Doc Tackles China's COVID-19 Coverup [Review]
Nanfu Wang follow-up to her 'One Child Nation' is an HBO documentary titled ”In the Same Breath”, it deals with the Chinese Communist Party coverup of COVID-19 during the early stages of the outbreak.
Read more‘Coda’: Familiar Story Gets Elevated by Star-Making Performance [Review]
CODA,” which stands for Child of Deaf Adults, features the kind of star-making-performance that can lift just about any mediocre script. Something tells me you’ll be hearing the name Emilia Jones many times in the years to come.
Read more‘Bullet Train’ Test Screens …
There is absolutely no way to ignore David Leitch’s “Bullet Train,” a 2022 action movie starring Brad Pitt, Sandra Bullock, Michael Shannon, Brian Tyree Henry, Zazie Beetz, and Aaron Taylor-Johnson. The film is an adaptation of Kotaro Isaka‘s novel of the same name, the book is a darkly satirical thriller dealing with a suitcase full of money and the assassins on the hunt for it.
Read moreFX's ‘Impeachment: American Crime Story' Set For September 2021 Premiere; Beanie Feldstein to Star as Monica Lewinsky, Clive Owen as Bill Clinton
FX surprised many last year by announcing that the next season of “American Crime Story” would be titled “Impeachment: American Crime Story.” In case you didn’t quite figure it out yet, via that title alone, the third season of the serial-driven series will focus on the women swept up in President Bill Clinton’s 1998 impeachment proceedings (Paula Jones, Monica Lewinsky and Linda Tripp).
Read morePTA, Spielberg, Eastwood, Del Toro, and McKay Skipping Festivals
The important directors with new movies at the fall festivals this year are Pedro Almodovar, Jane Campion, Paul Schrader, Denis Villeneuve, Edgar Wright and Paolo Sorrentino … yikes.
Read more‘Annette’: This Cinematic High-Wire Act is Both Brilliant and Frustrating to Behold [Review]
I have seen director Leos Carax’s “Annette” more than a few times now. It’s such an unusual film that I found myself thinking about its strengths, most notably its form and mise-en-scene, not to mention the unusually catchy songs by the Sparks duo of Ron and Russell Mael and completely forgot about the frigid emptiness that resides in its brilliant conceived frames.
Read more‘Homeroom’: Scattershot Depiction of an Oakland High School [Capsule]
This documentary purports to be a profile on students going through the 2020 school year at an Oakland high school. As if the anxiety over test scores and college applications wasn’t enough, a pandemic was about to break — they just didn’t know it.
Read moreNYFF Announces Lineup: Almodovar, Campion, Ducournau, Verhoeven and More
The 59th New York Film Festival will have the majority of its lineup composed of Cannes 2021 titles. A total of 8 competition titles, 5 out-of-competition and 6 from Director’s Fortnight will will make the trek from the croisette to the Big Apple this year, and that includes Julia Ducournau’s Palme d’Or winning “Titane” (which is skipping Telluride).
Read moreTelluride, TIFF Keeping a Close Eye on Delta Cases …
I emailed Telluride head honcho Julie Huntsinger yesterday morning because I’ve been hearing rumours that the upcoming September festival is currently biting its nails in regards to the severe uptick in COVID-19 cases nationwide. The current 3-day average right now in the U.S. is of 100,000 cases per day. That is a six month high.
Read more‘Respect’: Aretha Franklin Biopic is Too Conventional, but Jennifer Hudson Shines in Oscar-Worthy Performance
I’m still in the midst of completing my review of Leos Carax’s “Annette,” which I saw a few weeks ago. I’ve held back all this time due to wanting to watch it again, at least before I can assemble a conclusive opinion on the film. That means my writeup of Leisl Tommy and Jennifer Hudson‘s Respect (8.13.21) will have to wait a few days.
Read moreAn Exquisitely Tongue-in-Cheek Poster for Pedro Almodovar’s Upcoming ‘Madres Paralelas’
It didn’t take much time for director Pedro Almodóvar's latest movie to get a release date. The Spanish-Language “Madres Paralelas” (Parallel Mothers), which will be the legendary director’s 23rd feature-length film, wrapped production this past April and is now set for a September 2021 release in Spain [via El Espanol].
Read moreOfficial Synopsis For James Gray’s ‘Armageddon Time’ Leaks Online
James Gray is set to direct a new movie, this after his long-delayed “Ad Astra” finally hit theaters two Septembers ago to positive reviews. This new project, titled “Armageddon Time,” will bring Gray back to New York. If you remember, Gray’s first 5 movies ( “Little Odessa,” “The Yards,” “We Own the Night,” “Two Lovers,” and “The Immigrant”) were all set in the Big Apple.
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