Paul Schrader was heavily inspired by Robert Bresson’s “The Diary of a Country Priest” for his 2018 magnum opus “First Reformed.” In “The Card Counter,” Schrader again goes all in with Bresson, even recycling a couple of scenes from his own “American Gigolo” (which was partly inspired by Bresson’s “Pickpocket”) for another minimalist character study about redemption.

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.

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.

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.

Sean Penn’s disastrous “Flag Day” opens in U.S. theatres this coming Friday. Here’s what I had to say about it at this past July’s Cannes Film Festival on 07.11.21:

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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].