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The film, a direct sequel to Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 adaptation of Stephen King’s “The Shining,” follows Ewan McGregor as an older Danny Torrence, as he ventures back through his past and inner demons in order to protect a young girl (Kyliegh Curran) from a cult who prey on those with similar abilities to him. The poster itself is incredibly nostalgic and seems to bank on fans of the original buying a ticket on opening weekend for Flanagan’s sequel....

The topic was the inevitability of Nicole Kidman’s “Being the Ricardos” performance being Oscar nominated. We discussed the strength of Academy-voter enthusiasm for Kidman‘s performance and, quite frankly, it is bewildering. “We all know what the Nicole narrative was before everyone saw Being The Ricardos. “She’s wrong for the part, doesn’t look like Lucy, they should have hired Debra Messing,” etc. Then it opened and everyone said “oh, Nicole’s better than we expected…not bad!...

Gray will write and direct “Armageddon Time,” which stars Cate Blanchett, Oscar Isaac, Anne Hathaway and Robert De Niro in “an autobiographical drama about growing up in mid-1980s Queens, New York.” More intriguingly it seems as though Donald Trump and his late father Fred will be one of the characters involved in the story. We all know who Donald is, but his less-famous father Fred was a Queens-based real estate developer who mentored Donald into the eventual real estate mogul that he would become....

I predicted all 8 Best Picture nominees yesterday on Facebook, so kudos to me for that. I don’t see the fate given to “First Man” today as any kind of snub, I knew it wouldn’t connect with the voting body. Ditto “If Beale Street Could Talk.” Snub: Bradley Cooper in Best DirectorCooper’s snub in the Best Director category needs to start us off. Coming off the fall festival circuit, Cooper’s “A Star Is Born” was destined to take the Best Picture prize, but today’s news that Cooper has not been nominated flattens the film’s shot at glory....

Of course, we all knew that “Bohemian Rhapsody” would just kick-start a whirlwind of Hollywood rock biopics. Newcomer Austin Butler plays Elvis Presley. Tom Hanks stars as his manager Colonel Tom Parker. The film has a script by “Fifty Shades of Grey” scribe Kelly Marcel. The first hesitation I had was Tom Hanks’ ridiculous prosthetics and fat suit. That’s usually a major red flag since it could be a distraction while watching the film....

Park has been trying to get ‘Brigands’ made for seven years. This would only be his second English-language film (after “Stoker”) and, by all accounts, it looks he’ll be directing and Zahler writing, from a script he wrote back in 2005. According to Collider, the plot involves “a small frontier town attempting to fend off a crew of murderous criminals using the cover of a thunderstorm to take them for all they’ve got....

Park Chan-wook’s ‘Decision to Leave’ has been bought by MUBI. Yes, the film many were already declaring as the “Palme Chan-wook” has been bought by the globally curated film streaming platform. A Fall 2022 release, in multiple territories including the US and UK, is already in the works for the film. Contribute Hire me Advertise Donate Team Contact Privacy Policy

Every year it’s the same story. Oscar pundits spitball the contenders, trying to shape the race the way they deem most satisfying to their tastes, then the Academy screenings begin in late October and the race changes. With that being said, I keep saying we should not discount Ron Howard’s “Thirteen Lives” — it’s been receiving some of the best responses from Oscar voters at Academy screenings this fall. Howard’s film received the best test scores in MGM history — earning a 97 in the top two boxes and an 86 “definite recommend”....

Jeremy Dawson, a long-time producer of Anderson’s, dating back to 2007, is in France taking care of all the small, and big details, for the upcoming production of Anderson’s next project, which is supposed to be taking place in France. Speaking to Charente Libre, he shot down rumors that it would be a ’50s set musical: “Speaking perfect French, the New Yorker, who has worked with Wes Anderson on several films already, claims that it is not a musical ‘but a film set in France at different times [periods]....

Last we heard from the 60-year-old writer-director was producing genre fare such as 2015’s excellent “Don’t Breathe.” However, as far as directing goes, Raimi hasn’t directed a movie since 2013’s disappointing “Oz the Great and Powerful”– That’s six years without a movie for this venerable director who put a stamp on genre cinema in the late ‘80s and most of the ‘90s. Last year it was reported that Raimi had been working on a mysterious film titled “The Bermuda Triangle” from Skydance Productions....

With Disney apparently asking for 50% of the box-office take for a character who’s most recent outing, July’s ‘Spider-Man: Far From Home’ raked in an impressive $1.1B worldwide, not only the biggest take for any Spider-man Movie, but also the biggest haul by a single film in Sony’s history. Much has been said regarding whether Sony have made the right decision to go it alone (barring any new developments), given the fact that their very reason of turning to Marvel and Kevin Feige in the first place was seemingly down to their incapability to find the right formula for Spidey, with many viewing this announcement as Sony taking all they have learnt from Feige’s producing role on ‘Homecoming’ and ‘Far From Home’ along with the character’s involvement in the final two Avengers Movies, and swinging off into the distance to reap the rewards of all they now know....

Screener links for “Let Them All Talk” are starting to make the rounds, I was told that a bunch of New York-based critics has already received their copies of the film. This likely means that Soderbergh’s latest will premiere on HBO Max in the next few months. Yes, this was never going to be a theatrical release, at least ever since HBO bought the rights to the film. I am also being told that it will not show up at any of the fall festivals, instead opting to premiere digitally....

In case you missed it, on Tarantino and Roger Avary’s The Video Archives Podcast, the filmmaker took aim at the films of today, as well as those from the ‘50s and ‘80s. His theory was that they were bad decades for filmmaking due to the censorship and/or political correctness that seeped through the zeitgeist during those times: The restriction of creativity and cinematic innovation, the requirement to stick to the status quo prevented the most important filmmakers from this decade from properly flourishing in the industry....

Alas, that’s how it goes, it’s always a gamble when you have to choose between Toronto, Venice and Telluride. Some years TIFF gets the better lineup, other years it’s Venice or Telluride. That’s the game we play. Not many people, if any, do all three. On-paper, at least, Venice is the winner this year. Again, on-paper. “White Noise,” which just screened at Venice, irked many by its absence from TIFF and Telluride, but reviews have turned out to be mixed and now there’s a better understanding why T-Ride passed on it....

As mentioned by yours truly when the Fox Searchlight deal went down: “Regardless, this shows Fox must be in don’t-give-a-damn mode when it comes to buying, in other words, a now-or-never attitude towards nabbing a few Oscars before they are officially Disney property next year. However, Malick’s latest film might not do it for them.” Today comes the news that Malick’s latest opus will be released on December 13th. As Oscar-ready a release date as it gets....

And so, what happened? The mainstream studio comedy has suffered quite a bit in the last few years. Nobody has really cracked the code since the Apatow/Hangover era. It’s incredibly telling that “Game Night” is considered one of the bigger hit comedies recently, and yet, it could only scrape $69 million domestically. If anything, the 2010s have been characterized by alternative comedies becoming more mainstream. I’m thinking Taika Waititi, Wes Anderson, Armando Iannucci, Edgar Wright for example....

These are not final, and I’m starting to lean towards 21 filmmakers for Venezia competition: Aronofsky, Dominik, Inarritu, Panahi, Field, Von Trier, Polley, Sachs, Guadagnino, Wilde, Zlotowski, Honore, Gomes, Gavras, Fukada, Alonso, Crialese, Diop, Palaoro, Nicchiarelli, Amelio, Escalante Sadly, I just don’t have as much intel on Venice this year than I had with Cannes, so some of these are very much guesses, albeit educated ones. Missing from my predictions are Florian Zeller’s “The Son” (TIFF-bait) and Martin McDonagh’s “The Banshees of Inisherin (hearing it’s very minor)....

“The Help” actress Bryce Dallas Howard joined that fray soon after, talking about the film, but also giving counterprogramming suggestions. Howard then went on to list “better” black films that are “powerful, essential, masterful,” including “13th,” “Eyes on the Prize⁣,” “I am Not Your Negro⁣,” “Just Mercy⁣,” “Malcolm X⁣,” “Say Her Name: The Life And Death Of Sandra Bland⁣,” “Selma⁣,” “Watchmen⁣,” and “When They See Us.” Now Viola Davis, Howard’s co-star in “The Help,” has admitted that she regrets taking the role in the film....

Dern’s Admiral Holdo was perfectly fine and brought some much-needed tension to some of the scenes she was in; she was a highlight and went out with, quite literally, a bang. But Marie Tran’s Rose Tico was a problem, a character that felt like a non-starter, underdeveloped and thinly written. Of course, we want strong female characters to be included in these big-budget tentpole blockbusters, but Rose wasn’t the answer....

Coinciding with what will very likely be a Cannes premiere, the film is officially set to open on July 24th, 2020. Described as a love letter to journalists, Anderson’s film will apparently follow a journalist who fights hard to create a French magazine in early 20th Century France. According to this morning’s press release, the full title of the film is “The French Dispatch of the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun,” Although not a great deal is known about the plot, the film does have a host of Anderson regulars and newcomers, including, Frances McDormand, Timothee Chalamet, Bill Murray, Saoirse Ronan, Benicio Del Toro, Adrien Brody, Tilda Swinton, Léa Seydoux, and Owen Wilson....