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Despite the gushing reviews, I was no fan of the original “Black Panther.” I found it stale, uninvolving and its Hamlet-inspired narrative awfully familiar. You never truly felt engrossed. Regardless, the film garnered a Best Picture nomination and made a billion dollars worldwide. Not to mention, the critics went gaga for it, taking the inclusive-narrative bait and calling the film “groundbreaking” — Which, on-paper, it was. Although people decided to pretend “Blade” never existed....

The title itself, “No Time to Die,” harkens back to older Bond titles such as “Live and Let Die,” “You Only Live Twice,” and “Tomorrow Never Dies.” and the newly released synopsis does seem to give us a very Bond-esque plot, filled with evil scientists, a race against the clock and CIA/Mi6 intrigue: In No Time To Die, Bond has left active service and is enjoying a tranquil life in Jamaica....

A carefully crafted campaign was concocted yesterday to plant the seed, so to speak, to make it a contender. In the morning, we heard that A24 had picked up the film for US distribution. Then, immediately after, Scott Feinberg tweeted that it was “great” and “may well be the eventual the Palme d’Or winner.” This upped the ante and had everyone here excited to see it. Dhont’s film starts off fairly well in its depiction of two 13-year-old boys, Leo (Eden Dambrine) and Remi (Gustav De Waele), who are very close friends, but there’s clearly something going on there....

A festival programmer told me it was puzzling that Venice decided to screen the film, maybe they needed the star wattage? Regardless, we have a reaction via Gold Derby: Wilde raised some eyebrows at CinemaCon by comparing her film to “Inception”, “The Matrix” and “The Truman Show.” Talk about raising expectations. The film is said to be a psychological thriller about a 1950s housewife (Florence Pugh) whose reality begins to crack, revealing a disturbing realization that she is being suppressed....

Zzzzz …. “F9” has already been released in China, accumulating more than $200 million at the Chinese box office (via THR) and earning $255.9 million globally. All this, and it’s still set for release in the U.S. on June 25th. Eveb though, the addition of F9 to the Cannes 2021 lineup is a mediocre one, to say the least, it’s only expected to be screened at the Beach, not at the prestigious Lumiere cinema where, if it were shown there, the Gods of cinema would have likely bowed their heads down in shame....

Yes, the ninth installement of the “Fast & Furious” franchise will be a very popular movie with the low-IQ movie crowd and they tend to show up in droves to watch these movies. Universal probably figured May was too early a date to make maximum profits in theatres, what with science experts not really knowing, despite speedy vaccine rollouts, when the virus will slow down and things could go back to some kind of “normal”....

Best Picture “Roma” (Netflix) “A Star Is Born” (Warner Bros.) “BlacKkKlansman” (Focus Features) “Green Book” (Universal) “Vice” (Annapurna) “Black Panther” (Marvel/Disney) “The Favourite” (Fox Searchlight) “Bohemian Rhapsody” (Fox) Snubs: “If Beale Street Could Talk” will be shut out of a nomination. I’ve heard enough here-and-there whispers that many are just not connecting with these titles. Best Director Alfonso Cuaron (“Roma”) Spike Lee (“BlacKkKlansman”) Bradley Cooper (“A Star Is Born”) Yorgos Lanthimos (“The Favourite”) Adam McKay (“Vice”) Best Actor Christian Bale (“Vice”) Rami Malek (“Bohemian Rhapsody”) Bradley Cooper (“A Star Is Born”) Viggo Mortensen (“Green Book”) Ethan Hawke (“First Reformed”) Best Actress Olivia Colman (“The Favourite”) Glenn Close (“The Wife”) Lady Gaga (“A Star Is Born”) Melissa McCarthy (“Can You Ever Forgive Me?...

“I Wanna Dance With Somebody” is directed by Kasi Lemmons (“Harriet”) from a screenplay written by Anthony McCarten, the writer behind acclaimed biopics such as Darkest Hour and Bohemian Rhapsody. “This was a standard biopic, but Naomi Ackie is amazing as Whitney. Moonlight’s Ashton Sanders was so good as Bobby Brown. Stanley Tucci as Clive Barker is also good, charming and funny, they even note Davis’ bisexuality.” “Brown is portrayed as a little worm....

Wang’s doc was made from an immeasurably well-informed point of view, Wang is a dual citizen of both the U.S. and China. Through her vast wealth of connections in the mainland, she paints a none-too-pleasant portrait of the CCP and its leader President Xi Jiping. She uses archival sound-bytes and clips from Chinese state media, hires local camera people to shoot secret footage in Wuhan hospitals and even manages to contact doctors from private clinics, including one near the seafood market identified as the possible point of origin for the virus....

Unsurprisingly, Taika Waititi’s “Jojo Rabbit” won the coveted TIFF people’s choice audience award today. I should have predicted this on-print days earlier because I was part of the minority that believed a ‘Jojo’ win would happen. Why? Well, quite simply, much like last year’s winner “Green Book,” Waititi’s film was the most enthusiastically received by the Toronto crowd. It helped that there were ‘Jojo’ banners and posters stamped everywhere you went on King Street....

The Lucretia Martel-led Jury at the 76th Venice Film Festival just awarded Todd Phillips’ “Joker” the Golden Lion for best film of the competition. Roman Polanski’s controversy-filled “An Officer and a Spy” won the Silver Lion, aka the second place prize. What does this all mean? Well, it once again proves that wokesters on Social Media cannot and will, hopefully, never dictate what is acceptable and what isn’t. Attacking art for what you deem to be, in your own small world, unacceptable, does not necessarily prove that you are right....

“It’ll be a while,” Feige said when asked about bringing the X-Men into the MCU. “It’s all just beginning and the five-year plan that we’ve been working on, we were working on before any of that was set. So really it’s much more, for us, less about specifics of when and where [the X-Men will appear] right now and more just the comfort factor and how nice it is that they’re home....

What we know about Scott’s “Kitbag” is that it will be a personal look at the life of Napoleon. The IMDB synopsis claims that it will track his “swift, ruthless climb to emperor through the perspective of his ‘addictive and often volatile’ relationship with Josephine.” According to The Oxford Mail, filming on “Kitbag” will begin in January, with a source from the set explaining that “various battle scenes” will be filmed in the Oxfordshire....

Greta Gerwig’s much-anticipated “Little Women” just screened in L.A. and NYC. A social media embargo has lifted on Gerwig’s adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s famous novel and it appears that there are fans, but also many people with reservations, which is quite odd as many film critics tend to not want to express too many negative things in their Twitter reactions so as to appease the studio bigwigs that watch their every move....

Driver will be part of a cast that also includes Nathalie Emmanuel, Forest Whitaker, Laurence Fishburne and Jon Voight. Cate Blanchett is rumored to also have a cameo . A synopsis has leaked for the film, it sounds absolutely EPIC: So, how many A-list directors has Driver now worked with in his short, but staggeringly impressive career? Coppola, Scorsese, Coen, Eastwood, Baumbach, Spielberg, Abrams, Jarmusch, Nichols, Soderbergh, Scott, Abrams, Lee, Gilliam, and Carax … Contribute Hire me...

A Variety interview with Coppola has “Megalopolis,” which would mark his first film since 2011’s “Twixt,” potentially shooting in the fall. It’s been reported that Coppola will invest $120 million of his own money to make the damn thing The legendary writer-director sold a portion of his wine empire to finance the upcoming epic. Why? Because he damn well can. He probably has money to spare. At least this will give the master TOTAL CREATIVE CONTROL over the whole project....

Dealing with a Scottish woman (Swinton) traveling in South America who begins to notice strange sounds in her head and wonders about their appearances, this was a film that either enveloped you into a hypnotic state or left you bored to tears. I dug it. Weerasethakul, whose masterful “Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall Past Lives” won the Palme d’Or back in 2010, has been a cinematic influencer ever since 2004’s “Tropical Malady,” but his films aren’t for everyone....

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Take for example, the just-announced Dramatic Grand Jury Prize winner, Nikyatu Jusu‘s “Nanny.” A mediocre film that shouldn’t have won anything. At least the jury justly gave their directing prize to Jamie Dack, whose “Palm Trees and Power Lines” was the riskiest work of the ten films competing in competition. An unflinching look at a 17-year-old girl’s relationship with a sketchy man more than twice her age, it’s one of the hardest watches I’ve had to endure these last few years....

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