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In his magnificent new film “A Hero,” another tense, taut and terrific character study, Farhadi tackles the dangers of media manipulation as Rahim Soltani (Amir Jadidi), out on a few days release from prison for an unpaid debt, tries to use the media to set himself free. Rahim’s girlfriend Farkhondeh (Sahar Goldust) luckily stumbles upon a lost purse full of gold at a bus station and et voila, he sees the money as a way of paying off his debts, and getting out of jail, but only to realize the coins aren’t as valuable as he’d hoped....

I broke the news that the official line of reasoning that the studio will be using is that Murray caught COVID and couldn’t shoot his role. He was replaced by Steve Carrell. However, if you take a closer look at the timeline, does it really compute? Back in October 2021, Murray was livestreamed at the New York Film Festival alongside Anderson, Adrian Brody, and others from the set of “Asteroid City”....

Projections now make it that the film will end up with $1.9 billion when all is said and done. It’s already crossed the $300 million mark at the domestic box office, and Tom Brueggemann’s keen eye for these things believes it’ll end up with $500 million total. The ‘Avatar’ sequel will play, literally, exclusively in theaters for the next eight weeks. No competition. It’ll keep making money week after week....

For now, a 174 minute cut was alexclusively shown at both Venice and Telluride. Today comes the news (via Eric Kohn) that Inarritu has snipped 22 minutes of the original runtime, which now sits at 152 minutes. This new cut of the film will have its world premiere this week at the San Sebastien Film Festival. Inarritu’s original cut for the film ran 4 hours and he tells Kohn that he will keep editing it until it’s released to get “the best film while I can,” adding, “You never finish a film....

Production on the film, which was halfway done, shut down and never started back again. Now, RS is getting word that Ansari’s agents were shopping the film around at the Cannes market. It turns out, Searchlight doesn’t want to touch it anymore, but the problem Is that there is zero interest for it. A real shame. Now the film might never be finished and just become a part of Hollywood lore....

After “Bill And Ted’s Bogus Journey,” the duo, still played by Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter, are yet again here to save the day in the threequel, “Bill And Ted Face The Music.” Directed this time by Dean Parisot (“Galaxy Quest,” “Red 2”), and written by the duo of Ed Solomon (“Men In Black”) and Chris Matheson (“Mom and Dad Save the World”), ‘Face The Music’ has Bill and Ted having to deal with their daughters, who have to help their middle-aged dads write a new song to save the universe....

The critics fell hard for directors Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine’s feel-good politico doc which tackles the annual mock gubernatorial race in Austin involving 1,100 boys. Bought by A24 and Apple TV+ for $12 million, the doc takes place at a seven-day program in Texas where more than 500 male teenagers arrive to form their own fake two-party government, run campaigns, and hold elections. It’s better than it sounds. The Boys State program has existed since 1937 and happens annually in every state in the US (except for Hawaii)....

A test screening happened in the West Coast last night and I am in the process of, hopefully, posting a reaction from someone who was in attendance. What I can confirm is that both people I’ve spoken to, who were at the “Bullet Train” test-run, absolutely loved it. Leitch is primarily known as an action director, he kickstarted his career with 2014’s “John Wick,” and followed that one up with “Deadpool 2” and “Atomic Blonde....

Heckler’s drama has fine performances and relevant themes which tap into the current zeitgeist, but what it doesn’t have is that extra something to push it above the herd that’s preceded it. Dealing with a small Klan revival which happened in the 1990s in which some local white men decided to buy a rundown movie theater in Laurens, South Carolina, and renovate it into “The Redneck KKK Museum,” the actual story is no doubt fascinating....

After a shaky start that posits a battle in the stars, very much inspired by “Guardians of the Galaxy,” the film settles down by going back in time to Los Angeles of 1995 where, amusingly, Brie Larson is shot down from the stars into a strip mall Blockbuster Video. Larson‘s Carol Danvers, brought up by the Krees and whose allegiance is to these space warriors, eventually teams up with a CG de-aged Samuel L....

”Falling” is Viggo Mortensen’s directorial debut, an austere, sometimes rewarding film, which features the absolute worst movie father since James Coburn raised hell in Paul Schrader’s “Affliction.” Drawing on his own upbringing, Mortensen loosely bases “Falling” on the relationship his parents had — toxic alpha father, abiding mother. The highlight of the film is a career-peak performance from Lance Henriksen as Viggo’s on-screen dad, Willis. Shifting back and forth between present day and flashbacks, the toxicity that Willis exudes on screen eventually takes its toll....

Meanwhile, on Apple’s iTunes movie chart for the U.S., “Gone With the Wind” skyrocketed to the No. 5 spot (after “The Hunt,” “Birds of Prey,” “Bad Boys for Life,” and “The Invisible Man”). The 1939 American classic was pulled from HBO Max after the streaming company got some major flack due to an op-ed by “12 Years A Slave” screenwriter John Ridley published in the Los Angeles Times on Tuesday....

However, it was the Jennifer Lopez-starring “Hustlers” which surprised tracking experts, opening with a stronger-than-expected$33 million. The film, directed by Lorene Scafaria, was helped by strong reviews and a buzzed-upon TIFF premiere last week. I decided to skip the screening of “Hustlers” at Toronto, mostly due to the film conflicting with “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” on the Saturday schedule. However, it’s not like I didn’t try to catch up with it, I was about to watch it at an additional press screening a few days later but the air conditioning at the Scotiabank theater stopped working and they had to cancel that screening....

In “I Love My Dad,” Patton Oswald plays one of the worst fathers in recent film history. His suicidal son (played by Morsini) finally decides to block him from every social media outlet, which gives daddy the idiotic idea to catfish sonnyboy. He creates a fake Facebook amount, using the name and photos of a real waitress who works at the diner next door. With no driver’s license or any person who wants to drive him across state lines to meet his new crush, sonny boy asks dad to drive him....

The film already has an Oct. 4, 2024 release date, so you can scratch away any hope of seeing this one next year. Director Phillips is clearly going for something much more ambitious than originally perceived with the sequel. They’re throwing the blueprint out of the door and making something singular, unique, a very dark movie musical. The best thing Phillips can do is make a completely different movie than the first one....

The director of “Leaving Neverland” is finally admitting that one of the alleged victims in the infamous Michael Jackson documentary may have perjured himself. I have long maintained that James Safechuck, one of the two victims interviewed in the four-hour doc, has had a history of not just lying but always had an unhealthy obsession with fame. Filmmaker Dan Reed’s “Leaving Neverland” featured Safechuck describing how he was allegedly assaulted in Jackson’s Neverland train station....

“Les Misérables” is playing in competition at Cannes, which is an unusual pick, since first-time efforts tend to not be chosen to compete for the Palme D’or. Ly uses a cop-thriller structure to tell his story; in fact, his film bears more than a few similarities to Antoine Fuqua’s movies, albeit a slightly better version of that testosterone-fueled film. If ‘Day’ lacked in socio-political messaging, Ly more than makes up for it with his take on three cops roaming the streets of an impoverished but culturally rich neighborhood in the banlieu of France’s Montfermeil neighborhood....

“Old” much like most Shyamalan endeavours, has a secretive plot, we probably won’t know too much about it until we actually see the film, which is set to be released on July 23rd. What we do know is that there are a handful of characters who who find a dead body on a beach and “slowly realize” there is something unnatural happening. The mysterious film stars Gael Garcia Bernal, Eliza Scanlen, Thomasin McKenzie, Alex Wolff, Vicky Krieps, and Rufus Sewell....

Maria Schrader’s “She Said” test-screened in the east coast last week. I’m not allowed to post the reaction I got from it, but it’s a very positive one. The film is based on the book by Megan Twohey and Jodi Kantor, the reporting duo who exposed Weinstein in the New York Times which created a domino effect and accelerated the #MeToo movement. Mulligan and Zoe Kazan portray Twohey and Kantor, respectively....

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