17 articles
Box Office: ‘Zootopia’ Still King, ‘10 Cloverfield Lane’ Debuts Strong
20 hours ago | Variety - Film News | See recent Variety - Film News news »
“Zootopia” remains king of the box office jungle this weekend, having crossed $100 million in domestic receipts after taking in $12 million on Friday, according to studio estimates.
The animated animal romp with a message should generate a healthy three-day total around $50 million from 3,827 locations in its second frame. Ginnifer Goodwin and Jason Bateman star.
In second place is Paramount thriller 10 Cloverfield Lane, which took in $9 million on its opening day and ought to wrap up its first weekend with up to $23 million. Mary Elizabeth Winstead and John Goodman star in the follow-up to 2008’s “Cloverfield,” which grossed $170 million worldwide. The film is benefiting from strong word of mouth; one Variety pundit suggests Goodman deserves Oscar attention for his turn.
Fox’s “Deadpool” and Focus/Gramercy’s “London Has Fallen” appear to be neck and neck for third place, with each expected to bring in about $10 million for the weekend after nabbing $3 million each on Friday. »
- Marianne Zumberge
‘Little Prince’ Director Mark Osborne Says Paramount Will No Longer Handle Film’s Us Release
15 hours ago | The Wrap | See recent The Wrap news »
Paramount Pictures will no longer handle the U.S. release of “The Little Prince,” according to Mark Osborne, the animated film’s director. The film had been set for a March 18 release date. Osborne took to Twitter to announce the news, which was not confirmed by Paramount. “Many thanks to everyone for the outpouring of love and support in these strange times,” he wrote in a series of Tweets today. “As it turns out, the much anticipated U.S. release of this special and unique film will have to be anticipated just a little bit more. … All I can say is #thelittleprince will in fact. »
- Beatrice Verhoeven
SXSW Kicks Off with Mud Wrestling and Booze in Richard Linklater’s ‘Everybody Wants Some’
11 March 2016 9:45 PM, PST | Variety - Film News | See recent Variety - Film News news »
SXSW Film opened with the world premiere of Everybody Wants Some on Friday night, complete with mud wrestling, booze and disco. That was just onscreen at the Paramount Theatre in Austin, but the antics inside the auditorium also got a little wild.
The audience was laughing and hooting throughout the Richard Linklater comedy, centered around a 1980 college baseball team, often over sips of beer (served at the laidback concession stand).
Festival director Janet Pierson introduced the film, reminding the crowd of the director’s Texas roots. Linklater set the evening’s screwball tone by pretending that the president (who had given a SXSW keynote speech earlier on Friday afternoon) had planned on attending. Then, on a projector screen, he showed a handwritten note that was supposedly from Obama, with scribbling in red ink: “I had a blast in college in 1980! Rock on – Barry.”
At the film’s after-party at the swanky South Congress Hotel, »
- Ramin Setoodeh
‘Star Trek Beyond’ Reshoots Planned for Next Week with a New Cast Member Coming Aboard
17 hours ago | Slash Film | See recent Slash Film news »
With just four months until the film hits theaters on July 22nd, it appears Star Trek Beyond needs some adjustments before it hits the big screen. The sequel from director Justin Lin will be undergoing some reshoots, and along with that a new cast member is being added to the mix. Find out what’s going […]
The post ‘Star Trek Beyond’ Reshoots Planned for Next Week with a New Cast Member Coming Aboard appeared first on /Film. »
- Ethan Anderton
Half-Life and Portal Movies Are Still Happening, According To J.J. Abrams
16 hours ago | cinemablend.com | See recent Cinema Blend news »
Can you even think of a more dicey investment for a Hollywood studio than a video game adaptation? The genre has a long history of failures, and has remained more or less dormant over the last few years. That being said, adaptations of two of the most wildly popular modern video games may in fact become a reality very soon. Nerd emperor J.J. Abrams has just confirmed that adaptations of Half-Life and Portal are currently in development and will materialize at some point in the near future. Sitting down with IGN to promote 10 Cloverfield Lane, J.J. Abrams admitted that he’s currently taking part in the development of movies based upon Half-Life as well as Portal. However, when he was asked if he'd be filming soon he said: Not yet, but they're in development… And we've got writers, and we're working »
SXSW Film Review: ‘Keanu’
1 hour ago | Variety - Film News | See recent Variety - Film News news »
A two-hour online cat-video binge would yield as many “awws” and probably far more laughs than “Keanu,” an initially amusing but fatally overstretched action-comedy that marks a lamer-than-expected big-screen outing for Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele following the conclusion last year of their frequently brilliant cable series. Enjoyable for a good 15 minutes or so, mostly due to the scene-stealing powers of the adorable, much-coveted kitty whose name gives the movie its title, this is otherwise a stale, repetitive effort whose one-joke premise — two suburban buddies forced to pass themselves off as gangsters in a grimy underworld where they clearly don’t belong — never achieves comic liftoff, much less the richly subversive dimensions typical of Key and Peele’s best work.
The Warner Bros./New Line release debuted as a “work-in-progress” at SXSW ahead of its planned April 29 release, though it would take more than a few technical tweaks to significantly improve what feels, »
- Justin Chang
South Korea's Kakao, China's Huace plot five comic adaptations
2 hours ago | ScreenDaily | See recent ScreenDaily news »
Exclusive: Titles include Just One Shot and supernatural fantasy Help! Breakup Ghost.
South Korean mobile platform Kakao is partnering with leading Chinese film and TV media enterprise Huace Group to adapt five Daum Webtoon comic titles for the big screen in China.
Launched in 2003, Kakao’s Daum Webtoon platform has a reputation for running popular comics with strong storylines and fully-developed characters such as Moss and Secretly, Greatly, which have been adapted to film while Misaeng (Incomplete Life) made it to TV.
Kakao and Huace Group signed deals on four webtoon titles - supernatural fantasy Help! Breakup Ghost, gambling mystery Just One Shot, doppelganger fantasy Girl in the Mirror, and Cashero, a comic drama about an impoverished but feisty brother and sister making their way in the world.
The companies are also about to close a deal on the one-sided office romance My Boss Dies Once a Day.
Kakao said the deals are for the titles to be adapted »
- hjnoh2007@gmail.com (Jean Noh)
SXSW: Very Sleepy Crowd – Mostly – Loved Work in Progress ‘Keanu’ Screen
2 hours ago | Deadline | See recent Deadline news »
Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele’s feature film debut Keanu is absolutely hilarious and packed with instantly quotable and almost certainly classic lines throughout. But judging from the audience reaction last night during the film’s first ever public exhibition at SXSW in a work-in-progress screening held at the Paramount Theater shortly after 12:30 Am, it’s not quite there just yet. The laughter – and “awws” – were continuous during the first half of the film, which… »
SXSW: Key and Peele’s ‘Keanu’ Draws Mixed Reception at Midnight Screening
3 hours ago | Variety - Film News | See recent Variety - Film News news »
On Saturday night, South by Southwest unveiled a work-in-progress midnight showing of New Line’s “Keanu,” starring the Comedy Central duo Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele. But while the movie was at first met with hearty laughter in Austin, audience response was more mixed by the time the end credits rolled.
Some diehard fans waited as long as three hours for a seat inside the Paramount Theatre, but at least they had a chance to take home a keepsake. Jut as the movie began at 12:40 a.m., Key and Peele took the stage and tossed out cat stuffed animals into the crowd.
This was meant as a shout-out to the film’s star, an adorable feline who arrives on the doorstep of Peele’s recently single character. But after Keanu is kidnapped, the picture turns into a traditional police caper with dangerous drug lords, undercover cops and a cameo from Anna Faris, »
- Ramin Setoodeh
The Witch review - original sin and folkloric terror
4 hours ago | The Guardian - Film News | See recent The Guardian - Film News news »
Robert Eggers’s Sundance-garlanded period horror is a chilling study of fear and the devils that live within us all
“What went we out into this wilderness to find?” Subtitled A New England Folktale, writer-director Robert Eggers’s Sundance prize-winning feature debut is an atmospheric chiller rooted in the fertile soil of religious zealotry, social isolation and original sin. On the surface, it is the story of a puritanical 17th-century English family enduring an American nightmare, tormented by a wicked witch who steals their children and their souls. But beneath that surface lurks something more disturbing – a tale of God-fearing folk whose terrified belief in the twisted fantasies of folklore hides their own darker secrets.
We open with the beleaguered family leaving their New World community to live alone on the very edges of civilisation. As they depart, singing “I will confess…”, cinematographer Jarin Blaschke’s archaic framing – the taller, »
- Mark Kermode, Observer film critic
Anomalisa review – uncanny stop-motion
5 hours ago | The Guardian - Film News | See recent The Guardian - Film News news »
Charlie Kaufman’s ingeniously animated tale of a man in midlife crisis doesn’t quite hold together
When it comes to navel-gazing, writer and sometime director Charlie Kaufman is in a world of his own. Like Michel Gondry, with whom he collaborated on 2004’s brilliant Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Kaufman’s work is best when mediated by the input of others; from director Spike Jonze, with whom he worked on Being John Malkovich (1999) and Adaptation (2002), to George Clooney, who directed 2002’s underrated Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. In 2008, Kaufman went it alone with Synecdoche, New York, serving as both writer and director on a project so personal it became utterly impenetrable.
There’s an uncomfortable intimacy to the drama, an element that makes Michael’s predatory nature all the more unsettling
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- Mark Kermode, Observer film critic
Fifty Shades of Black review – don’t go there…
5 hours ago | The Guardian - Film News | See recent The Guardian - Film News news »
Marlon Wayans’s El James cinema parody just isn’t funny
As if Scary Movie, Epic Movie, Vampires Suck et al weren’t bad enough, here comes another depressing “cinema parody” that isn’t half as amusing as the film(s) it wants us to laugh at. “How do we make this funny?” muses co-writer/star Marlon Wayans in the production notes. “The key was to im agine ‘What if Christian Grey were black?’” Cue jokes about wallet and car theft, fried chicken and Bill Cosby, alongside glasshouse/brick complaints about El James being a rubbish writer. When it all runs out of steam, the cock-and-ball routines downshift into riffs from Whiplash and Magic Mike, but sadly, these aren’t funny either.
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- Mark Kermode, Observer film critic
Next to Her review – heartfelt Israeli drama
5 hours ago | The Guardian - Film News | See recent The Guardian - Film News news »
This tale of a woman tending to a younger sister with special needs has depth and compassion
This heartfelt, moving and honest tale of a young woman tending to the special needs of her younger sister in present-day Israel was partly inspired by writer/star Liron Ben-Shlush’s experiences with her own much-loved sibling. Dana Ivgy researched the role of Gabby at the hostel where Ben-Shlush’s sister now resides, and she brings to the screen a compassionate conviction that director Asaf Korman (Ben-Shlush’s husband) takes full advantage of. While it seems at first that Gabby is the needy one who leaves little space for her older sister’s private life, it soon becomes clear that it is Chelli who cannot bear the prospect of separation. Yaakov Zada Daniel does an excellent job of keeping interloper Zohar’s true motives uncertain, leaving us as anxious as Chelli about how far to trust her boyfriend. »
- Mark Kermode, Observer film critic
The Divergent Series: Allegiant review – dull dystopia
5 hours ago | The Guardian - Film News | See recent The Guardian - Film News news »
The latest instalment of the byzantine Divergent series drags its heels in anticipation of next year’s follow-up
The weakest of the Divergent movies to date, this third instalment finds Tris (Shailene Woodley, still the series’s strongest asset) venturing beyond the walled boundaries of Chicago, through the toxic deserts of the Fringe, and into the shiny arms of the Bureau of Genetic Welfare. Here, she encounters David (Jeff Daniels, smilingly sinister from the off) who delivers much expositional balderdash about the nature of the city’s Factions while wandering through overdesigned surroundings which appear to have fallen through a Tomorrowland-sized hole in the time-space continuum.
Only Miles Teller seems to enjoy himself as Peter, in whose snarky company I would have much rather remained throughout
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- Mark Kermode, Observer film critic
The Ones Below review – Polanski-esque chiller
5 hours ago | The Guardian - Film News | See recent The Guardian - Film News news »
David Farr’s tale of a young couple and their peculiar neighbours downstairs oozes anxiety and paranoia
This home-grown psychological chiller starts with an ultrasound image of an unborn baby’s face and a la-la-la theme which evokes Krzysztof Komeda’s lullaby from Rosemary’s Baby. The spirit of Polanski looms large as young middle-class couple Kate (Clémence Poésy) and Justin (Stephen Campbell Moore) find their expectant anxieties mirrored by the new couple in the downstairs flat, with whose barely repressed “otherness” they become inextricably, guiltily intertwined. Playwright and theatre director David Farr (who co-wrote Joe Wright’s Hanna and scripted TV’s The Night Manager) makes a solid fist of his big-screen debut as writer/director, generating some small-scale chills which are undiminished by the occasionally creaky dialogue. Cinematographer Ed Rutherford, who did such brilliant work for Joanna Hogg on Archipelago and Exhibition, uses woozy camera moves to capture »
- Mark Kermode, Observer film critic
Kung Fu Panda 3 review – amiable and colourful
5 hours ago | The Guardian - Film News | See recent The Guardian - Film News news »
The third outing for Jack Black’s furry high-kicker is enjoyable and, on occasion, spectacularly beautiful
Co-produced by DreamWorks Animation in the Us and Oriental DreamWorks in China, this third instalment in the animated franchise finds panda Po (voiced by Jack Black) reunited with his biological father Li (Bryan Cranston) who leads him to a secret panda village where he learns life lessons that will help him fight Kai (Jk Simmons), recently returned from the spirit realm. It’s amiable, colourful fare, buoyed up by occasional moments of beauty, most of them in the dazzling background designs – both worldly and otherworldly.
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- Mark Kermode, Observer film critic
The Dressmaker; Game of Thrones 5; Time Out of Mind; Güeros; Flowers and more – review
6 hours ago | The Guardian - Film News | See recent The Guardian - Film News news »
Kate Winslet camps it up with a sewing machine, Richard Gere impresses as a vagrant, while Güeros and Flowers offer contrasting Hispanic flavours
No major releases dare battle Game of Thrones in the DVD market this week: the highest-profile title to take on the denizens of Westeros is The Dressmaker (Eiv, 12), and with all the goodwill in the world, Jocelyn Moorhouse’s daffy Aussie oddity doesn’t pose much of a threat to anyone. Moorhouse has been formidable before: her 1991 debut, Proof, was a blade-cut marvel, but her subsequent Hollywood work was blanded-out and deodorised. The Dressmaker, a homecoming story for Moorhouse and protagonist alike, ain’t bland, but it’s manically florid and overdesigned. Earthy outback comedy, film noir and cornball romance are patched together in the tale of glamorous seamstress Tilly (a bemused-looking Kate Winslet), who returns to her scrubby home town in a dust cloud of criminal controversy, »
- Guy Lodge
SXSW Film Review: ‘Hush’
6 hours ago | Variety - Film News | See recent Variety - Film News news »
Silence is golden in “Hush,” one of the more inspired concoctions to emerge from the busy Blumhouse horror-thriller assembly line in recent years. Reuniting producer Jason Blum with his “Oculus” director Mike Flanagan, this simple cat-and-mouse game gets a big boost from a novel premise — the heroine is deaf — only to lose ground with a familiar follow-through and downright pedestrian third act. It would be a challenge to sell the pic’s admirably modest virtues to multiplex auds, making Netflix (who nabbed rights prior to the SXSW fest bow) an ideal venue to connect with genre fans able to appreciate the effort despite the flaws.
Maddie (Kate Siegel) lives a quiet life in a secluded house in the woods, with only a feline friend (lovingly dubbed Bitch) and the occasional drop-in from a chummy local (Samantha Sloyan) for company. That isolation provides the perfect environment to finish her next novel »
- Geoff Berkshire
‘In A Valley Of Violence’ Lives Up To Its Name – SXSW Day 2
6 hours ago | Deadline | See recent Deadline news »
Day 2 of SXSW is still going strong here in Downtown Austin as I write this at 11:15 Pm local time, and things won’t shut down for another few hours thanks to midnight screenings and the mindscrew of the switch to Daylight Savings Time. Aside from copious screenings — I saw SXSW co-founder Louis Black’s documentary Richard Linklater: Dream Is Destiny (it’s great by the way) — there was a minor controversy that flared up today courtesy of an overzealous SXSW volunteer who… »
SXSW Film Review: ‘In a Valley of Violence’
7 hours ago | Variety - Film News | See recent Variety - Film News news »
Walking a fine line between charming lark and smirking goof, Ti West’s “In a Valley of Violence” is a Western homage that has its heart in the genre, but not so much in the story. Stripping its gunslinger plot down to the most essential pillars, the film has plenty of incidental pleasures to offer: a few chuckles, some typically Westian explosions of violence, a deliriously fun score, and a pair of perfectly solid performances from Ethan Hawke and John Travolta. (The real standout performance, however, comes courtesy of Jumpy, the magnificent collie who stars as Hawke’s dog.) But there’s a nagging emptiness where its center ought to be, a feeling that what we’re watching isn’t a finished film so much a proof of concept, a skilled, slightly warped cover version of a familiar tune. West’s grasp of the rhythms and the grace notes of the Western idiom is undeniable, »
- Andrew Barker
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