“It’s a poorly made film, and Affleck is merely “charming.” Clooney has Affleck playing his Manhasset bartender character with a conspicuous “Long Island accent,” on top of which his supporting character does nothing but offer pearls of wisdom about this and that. An inconsequential character in an inconsequential movie. Affleck is a big movie star, and remember that he’s a working-class Boston guy. He doesn’t need to do an “accent”....
Buzz is growing for Chinonye Chukwu’s “Till.” A trailer was released this morning. Chukwu’s film is slated for a primo October 21st release date, it’s a biopic tackling Mamie Till-Mobley (Danielle Deadwyler), an American educator and activist who pursued justice after the 1955 lynching of her 14-year-old son Emmett Till (Jalyn Hall). Test-screenings have also been excellent, with the word “intense” having been uttered a few times. Danielle Deadwyler looks fantastic in the trailer,....
The CinemaCon screening a few weeks ago did hint at a potential quality sequel, but my oh my has this exceeded expectations. The Ankler’s Jeff Sneider, a reader of this site, says he’s utterly convinced that it will get a Best Picture nomination. The industry has drastically changed, and the AMPAS are much more open to honor a well-reviewed action film like “Top Gun: Maverick.” A 100% on Rotten Tomatoes (based on 44 reviews) and an 81 on MC (based on 34 reviews)....
Spielberg’s film has so far made just $36.6 million in WORLDWIDE ticket sales — that includes just $23 million domestically. It’s an astonishingly low figure for a movie whose budget is said to be over $100 million, not including marketing costs. What Disney should now do is just release the damn thing on its streaming platform to see if it can be revived by an over-35 adult audience now more into streaming stuff at home than going to the movie theatre....
The budget on the Netflix original is said to have skyrocketed to $140+ million. Of course, there is no way an adaptation of DeLillo’s novel should be more than $30-50 million, there is no CGI needed and it’s mostly characters monologuing with each other in various rooms. And yet, the budget completely ballooned for this one. Is it any wonder that Netflix have decided to strip back on their auteur “vanity” projects?...
Many will point out the disappointing receipts as having to do with the film also playing on HBO Max at no extra charge for its subscribers. Who knows. Clearly, the streaming option greatly reduced the theatrical audience, but by how much? WW84’s opening weekend was somewhat impressive, given there is a pandemic going on, but did moviegoers only realize a week later that it was available to stream online?...
In Adam McKay’s “Step Brothers,” Ferrell and Reilly played two grown-up man-children being forced to live together as brothers in the same house. Greeted with mixed reviews (55% on Rotten Tomatoes,53 on Metacritic), the film nevertheless garnered top box-office money ($100M domestically). Still, the way critics beat up on the film, with Roger Ebert giving it 1.5 stars and famously saying “When did comedies get so mean?” nobody in their right mind foreshadowed the inevitable fanfare the film would garner on home video and TV....
It sounds politically-charged and it probably will be. McKay told Rolling Stone earlier in the year that his film was set to tackle a global catastrophe and a bumbling U.S. President who refuses to listen to his White House scientists advice McKay has decided to bring in an all-star cast with him in the process, I have, honestly, never seen a better and more talented cast assembled for a movie....
Almodovar’s “Parallel Mothers” is not one of his best movies. American critics seem to like it a lot, but European cr Many thought that Almodovar’s best shot was winning the Palme for “Pain and Glory” back in 2019, but “Parasite” would end up winning that year. He lost his cool in 1999 when everyone was predicting “All About My Mother” to win the Palme d’Or only for Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardennes’ “Rosetta” to pull off the surprise win....
A writer by the name of Holly Williams has written one of those this-classic-is-problematic think pieces for The Independent. Williams tackles, of all the movies, Richard Curtis’ “Love Actually” which isn’t any kind of masterpiece, but has become a well-loved film for many during the holiday season. Williams aims to strip that joy out of people with this piece — she sounds, like all these virtue-signalling writers, a total narcissist grinch....
Another change this year will be the announcement of winners during commercial break, a decently thought-out venture but which I had no idea would include the axing of the Cinematography category. Of all the categories that could be put on the commercial break back burner, you would think the Academy would have the decency to air the winner of the Cinematography award, an important part of the visual creative process, maybe only second to the director, and a technical aspect of film which has become more popular in recent years due to the emergence into the mainstream of such stalwarts as Emmanuel Lubezski and Roger Deakins....
Here’s the gist of the accusation: A woman claimed to have gone on a date with Aziz. It went well, to the point where they ended up in his apartment kissing and undressing themselves. They started to have sex. At some point during the intercourse she told him she wanted to take things a little slower. So he accepted, but only for a second — quickly after that “break,” Aziz convinced her to continue, despite her claiming that she felt “uncomfortable,” about it....
There are still persistent rumours that new films by Christian Petzold, Angela Schanalec, and Helena Wittmann are expected to also play in competition. Alain Guiraudie’s “Viens Je T’emmène” is set to screen in a sidebar section. The entire lineup for the 72nd Berlin Film Festival will be announced on Wednesday at 11am CST. Contribute Hire me Advertise Donate Team Contact Privacy Policy
And yet, it’s always fun to speculate way ahead of time when it comes to the Best Director category. Why? Because we want the best filmmakers to win so that they have more freedom to make more movies. It’s as simple as that. This site is also one primarily focused on the auteur. That’s our bread and butter, what distinguishes us from the other movie-related sites. We celebrate “the director....
So, despite mixed reviews, “The Whale” is doing pretty great all things considered. People are very curious about this movie and the fact that Brendan Fraser has been everywhere this awards season has helped tremendously. We might finally have an indie movie here that could put up some decent numbers this fall awards season. The snubbing of “The Whale” on the AFI and NBR lists wasn’t so surprising, that is if you strolled past the conspicuous marketing of the film and went straight to the review aggregators....
“The Upside,” an American remake of the French film “Les Intouchables,” has the actor playing a wheelchair-using billionaire who hires a former criminal, played by comedian Kevin Hart, to be his caretaker. “As actors we’re asked to play other people,” says the Breaking Bad star. There has been a major push for Hollywood to expand casting in movie roles and perhaps even hire someone who is quadriplegic to play the role of a quadriplegic....
McKay’s follow-up to “The Big Short,” is the story of ’evil-doer’ Dick Cheney, as played by a ballooned Christian Bale. Cheney was put on the ticket to add “experience” to the Bush Presidency. He was the “man behind the curtain,” the “puppet master” if you will, and, according to many first-hand accounts, ran the day-to-day operations in the White House. He was also one of the architects of the “war on terror,” bypassing various laws, wielding unprecedented power, which then led to the misbegotten invasion of Iraq....
“Look at all of us! A bunch of lucky buggers,” “Vice” star Christian Bale says to the audience accepting the award for best actor in a comedy or musical. “Thank you to Satan for giving me inspiration” to play former vice president Dick Cheney in the film, he jokes, and also asks who his next “charisma-free role” will be: “Mitch McConnell, maybe?” “He was a wonderful family man — he’s a great dad, he’s an avid reader, he has a brain like a vice and he constantly reads history,” the actor said in an interview last month....
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As I’ve mentioned before, there is no movie I anticipate more than Fincher’s tackling of the making of “Citizen Kane,” zeroing in on the rivalry between ‘Kane’ screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz, and director Orson Welles. Gary Oldman is set to play the legendary screenwriter. Fincher’s late father, Jack Fincher, wrote the screenplay for “Mank” more than two decades ago. Cinematographer Erik Messerschmidt will be in charge of the black and white photography....
