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Watch: 4-Minute Video Essay Explores The Ambiguity Of Art In Luchino Visconti’s Films
10 hours ago | The Playlist | See recent The Playlist news »
An auteur of many mediums — film, theater, and opera — Luchino Visconti was born into an aristocratic family and boasted a rather infamous roster of friends (Coco Chanel, Giacomo Puccini, and Jean Renoir to name a few) before he developed his own spotlight in neorealist Italian cinema. And though his film repertoire is small, his style exudes knowledge and talent without question. Read More: The Essentials: The 8 Best Luchino Visconti Films In “Death in Venice,” his eleventh film based on the novella by Thomas Mann, Visconti explores not only the themes of underlying sexuality found in the original text, but the significance of ambiguity in art. His protagonists debate the importance of this, declaring that the artist cannot be ambiguous, but that art cannot help to be. In his new video essay, Pasquale Iannone uses footage from Visconti’s “White Nights,” another novella adaptation (this time from the archetypal novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky), with dialogue from “Death. »
- Samantha Vacca
Watch: 5-Minute Stairwell Fight Scene From 'Daredevil' Season 2 Plus Video Details All The Easter Eggs, Secret Cameos & References
10 hours ago | The Playlist | See recent The Playlist news »
"Daredevil" season 2 is now playing on Netflix, and finding flaws with it seems to inspire a lot of heated debate (see the comments section of our review). But for the faithful, the new batch of episodes deliver on the grit that has been promised, along with yet another extended fight sequence. In season one, we had a very "Oldboy" indebted fight scene that ran five minutes long and saw Matt Murdock inflict punishment on an unending stream of baddies (watch it here), and now for season two, our hero faces a similar showdown. This time the action starts in a hallway, but heads to a stairwell, with Daredevil still managing to beat the pulp out of all comers. It's certainly a bit less elegant this time, with the cuts to black to maintain the aura of a "single-take" shot pretty noticeable. But nonetheless, people have been digging this one pretty hard. »
- Kevin Jagernauth
Exclusive: Pam Grier Gets Ambushed In Clip From Blu-ray Release Of Grindhouse Cult Fave 'Black Mama, White Mama'
11 hours ago | The Playlist | See recent The Playlist news »
You may not have seen "Black Mama, White Mama," but it's likely you've heard it. Quentin Tarantino used "Police Check Point" from the score by Harry Betts in "Kill Bill," but if you want to see the movie that first sparked the interest in the director, it's now hitting Blu-ray and we've got an exclusive clip from the release. Starring Pam Grier, and with a story credit belonging to Jonathan Demme, this grindhouse take on "The Defiant Ones" follows Lee (Grier), a tough prostitute and Karen (Margaret Markov), a revolutionary, inmates at a tough women's prison where almost immediately clash. Packed off to a maximum security prison, their transport is ambushed by Karen's guerrilla friends and the two escape into the Filipino jungle. Chained together and with differing escape plans their clash intensifies as Lee wants to retrieve a stash of stolen cash to get her off the island and »
- Edward Davis
As ‘Divergent’ Trends Downward, Hopes For Post-‘Hunger Games’ Dystopian Teen Ya Franchises Look Dour
12 hours ago | The Playlist | See recent The Playlist news »
The blogosphere has written enough thinkpieces and features (ourselves included) about the Ya movie/Teen Dystopia craze to know this trend went into overdrive right around 2012. While “Harry Potter” arguably launched the phenomenon of fantasy Ya adaptations and the rabid millennial audience for it a few years earlier, 2012 became the peak Ya year: “The Twilight Saga” was reaching its final installment and the inaugural “The Hunger Games” was just kicking off. In fact, as popular and noisy as “Twilight” was with tweens, it teed up its successor in a big way: the highest grossing film in the series, “New Moon,” peaked at $338 million domestically while the first ‘Hunger Games’ film exploded with an astonishing $442 million domestic gross, eclipsing every ‘Twilight’ film’s final domestic tally right out of the gate. And while fantasy like “Harry Potter’ and romance fantasy like ‘Twilight’ helped launch the millennial thirst for teens in peril, »
- Rodrigo Perez
“If You Start on 10 on Your Dissonant Scale, How Do You Go Beyond That?” Composer Mark Korven on The Witch
12 hours ago | Filmmaker Magazine - Blog | See recent Filmmaker Magazine news »
A New England folktale envisioned by production designer turned director Robert Eggers has become a critical and box office darling. As striking as The Witch‘s imagery of a 17th century Puritan family exiled to live beside an ominous forest is, it is made even more haunting when combined with the score conceived by Toronto-based composer Mark Korven (Cube). Filmmaker: You must be pleased with the critical and box office reaction to The Witch. Korven: Both have been amazing. I certainly didn’t expect for the movie to go this far. When I started working on it I thought that a lot of people weren’t going […] »
- Trevor Hogg
Ranked: The Films Of Ben Affleck
13 hours ago | The Playlist | See recent The Playlist news »
Judging by the outcry when the decision was announced, this may be an unpopular opinion, but we were on board with the casting of Ben Affleck as Batman/Bruce Wayne in the upcoming "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice." Less perhaps out of all-out fandom than out of a recognition that Batfleck, as he quickly came to be dubbed, seemed to suggest a nuance in the approach to the film that precious little else had given us hope for. (Plus, we also got to call him "Batfleck" — not the first time Affleck's career has been blessed/cursed by a specially-coined portmanteau). Affleck has a complicated sort of charisma as an actor, with the blockish all-American handsomeness of a clean-cut leading man, but something else as well — supporters might call it an intelligence, but detractors see it as a sort of sly smugness: Affleck can be both heroic and hateable. In fact, »
- Jessica Kiang
Lance Armstrong as Modern Crime Story: Stephen Frears on The Program
13 hours ago | Filmmaker Magazine - Blog | See recent Filmmaker Magazine news »
“When I’m out there, physically I’m not more gifted than anybody else. It’s just this desire. This hunger,” intones Ben Foster as Lance Armstrong in the opening narration of The Program. “My mom didn’t raise a quitter and I would never quit. That’s heart, man, that’s not physical. It’s not legs. It’s not lungs. That’s heart. That’s soul. That’s just guts.” That’s the great fallacy of the American underdog sports drama — if you have enough heart and enough guts, you can succeed. It’s the underlying myth of Rocky and even based-on-fact tales of athletic fortitude such as Hoosiers and […] »
- Matt Mulcahey
Ava DuVernay To Direct Fashion World Drama 'The Battle Of Versailles'
13 hours ago | The Playlist | See recent The Playlist news »
Last month, Ava DuVernay signed up to direct two projects in quick succession: Disney's "A Wrinkle In Time" and the sci-fi flick, "Intelligent Life," which is due to be the filmmakers's next movie, with production kicking off this summer. But she's not yet done adding projects to her plate. The latest is "The Battle Of Versailles," which is not the period picture that you'd think it might be. Instead, it's a fashion world drama centered around the November 28, 1973 fashion show that took place at the Palace of Versailles that was a "Captain America: Civil War" style battle between five French designers (Yves Saint Laurent, Hubert de Givenchy, Pierre Cardin, Emanuel Ungaro, and Marc Bohan of Christian Dior) and an American team (Oscar de la Renta, Bill Blass, Anne Klein, Halston, Stephen Burrows and Anne Klein), with both sides showing off their goods in front of the world's elite. The movie »
- Kevin Jagernauth
Dan Trachtenberg Says Damien Chazelle Was Initially Going To Direct '10 Cloverfield Lane,' Talks Deleted Scenes & More
14 hours ago | The Playlist | See recent The Playlist news »
If you haven't seen "10 Cloverfield Lane," you're missing out on a pretty nifty contained thriller that, while a sideways companion to "Cloverfield," is really a movie all its own. And it's an entertaining one at that, a brisk genre piece that has a go for broke third act you can't help but admire. However, the project all started from a spec script called "The Cellar" by Josh Campbell and Matthew Stuecken. Once in the offices of Bad Robot, producer J.J. Abrams got the brainwave to connect it to the "Cloverfield" universe, and Damien Chazelle, pre-"Whiplash," came in and rewrote the screenplay into the movie we know now. And as a matter of fact, he almost got behind the camera too. Read More: Review: ‘10 Cloverfield Lane’ Starring John Goodman, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, And John Gallagher Jr. “Damien was originally going to direct it as well, and then ‘Whiplash’ came up, »
- Kevin Jagernauth
Watch: First Teaser Trailer For 'The Do-Over,' Netflix's Next Adam Sandler Movie
14 hours ago | The Playlist | See recent The Playlist news »
“ ‘[Paul Blart]: Mall Cop’ is a very funny film, and someone should make it, but that’s not what we’re doing. We want to work with visionary filmmakers who are making interesting films that you’re still going to be talking about in three years,” Amazon Studios chief Roy Price recently told Variety about the difference in approach between themselves and Netflix. Indeed, with their competitors serving a massive worldwide market, their original programming has to include fare that's broad enough to attract new subscribers, which means doing things like signing up Adam Sandler for a four-picture deal. We saw the first result of that collaboration with "The Ridiculous 6," which Netflix claimed was their most watched film on its service in its first thirty days of release. And now, comes "The Do-Over." Read More: Netflix Will Spend $5 Billion On Content In 2016; 'The Ridiculous 6' The Most-Watched Film »
- Kevin Jagernauth
Podcast: Over/Under Movies Pits 'Watchmen' Against 'Dredd'
15 hours ago | The Playlist | See recent The Playlist news »
Last week, The Playlist introduced podcast Adjust Your Tracking under its umbrella (listen to their latest episode here). And now we welcome another new podcast, called Over/Under Movies. This show features three critics — Oktay Ege Kozak, Ryan Oliver and Ayt co-host Erik McClanahan — who choose one overrated and one underrated film within the same genre, style, or tone to discuss in each episode. Sometimes the critics agree on the picks, and sometimes they don't, but the conversation is always lively. Make sure to subscribe to The Playlist Podcast iTunes feed as that's where all these shows will live first and foremost. Read More: Review: Alex Garland Says "Keep Your Money" And Stop Buying 'Dredd' DVDs Because A Sequel Will Not Happen This episode focuses on Ryan's picks, as the critics dive into two R-rated comic book adaptations in "Watchmen" and "Dredd." With Zack Snyder's latest, "Batman v. »
- Oktay Ege Kozak
First Look: Netflix's 'Bloodline' Season 2
16 hours ago | The Playlist | See recent The Playlist news »
How do you continue a series when the show's most compelling character has been killed off? That's not a spoiler, as the death of Danny Rayburn is revealed in the first episode of the first season of the terrific Netflix drama "Bloodline," but it did leave the question of how the series could move on without the charismatic presence of Ben Mendelsohn. Well, it appears it's going to be in flashbacks, as the first images and synopsis of season two reveal where the story is headed next. Read More: Interview: Ben Mendelsohn Talks 'Slow West,' 'Bloodline' & Doing His Best Nick Cave Impression In 'Lost River' The actor is back along with Kyle Chandler, Sissy Spacek, Linda Cardellini and Norbert Leo Butz, with John Leguizamo, Andrea Riseborough, Jamie McShane, Jacinda Barrett, Enrique Murciano and Owen Teague joining the ensemble in the new season that will »
- Kevin Jagernauth
Watch: New Trailer For 'Veep' Season 5 Gets Presidential
16 hours ago | The Playlist | See recent The Playlist news »
With the U.S. election continuing to grind on, everyone could use a diversion from that pretty depressing spectacle. Thankfully, HBO has a new season of "Veep" to serve up, and season five doesn't seem to have lost any of its razor sharp edge. Julia Louis-Dreyfuss, Tony Hale, Anna Chlumsky, Reid Scott, Matt Walsh, Timothy C. Simons, Sufe Bradshaw, Kevin Dunn, Gary Cole, Sam Richardson and Hugh Laurie are the ensemble crew for the next batch of episodes that will see Selina Meyer and her crew of dimwits fighting to stay in power. "Veep" returns on Sunday, April 24th. Watch below. »
- Kevin Jagernauth
Jeremy Renner Says He'd Like To Do A Netflix 'Hawkeye' Series
17 hours ago | The Playlist | See recent The Playlist news »
Though part of the superhero Avengers team, Jeremy Renner's character hasn't really had a lot do. In "The Avengers" he was a brainwashed zombie for half the movie, and while his role expanded in "Avengers: Age Of Ultron," the character still plays second fiddle to almost everyone else, and with no solo movie in sight. And with newcomers like Spider-Man and Black Panther sure to take up more of the spotlight, the actor has a solution for giving Hawkeye more to do. "I've really enjoyed getting to explore the character more recently. The Netflix model is where all the character drama goes to now, you're doing a superhero movie or a Netflix or HBO kind of model. So I'd be open to it. Not up to me, though," he said at the Silicon Valley Comic Con (via Comic Book Movie), when asked if he'd be into doing a series. »
- Kevin Jagernauth
Zack Snyder Says The Joker & The Riddler Were Almost In 'Batman v Superman,' Plus Watch New TV Spots & Featurettes
17 hours ago | The Playlist | See recent The Playlist news »
Set to establish the DC Films universe going forward, "Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice" will feature the titular heroes, along with Wonder Woman and Aquaman, and rumored glimpses of more characters we'll see in "Justice League" and beyond. And according to director Zack Snyder, at one point, two iconic Batman villains were considered for appearances. "The Joker and The Riddler both came close to being in this movie. We talked about the possibility of putting them in. [Screenwriter] Chris Terrio and I talked about it a lot and felt that their mythological presence is felt in the movie and that’s cool, but I didn’t want to get my eye too far off the ball because I needed to spend the time, frankly, with Batman and Superman to understand the conflict," the director told Collider. That's the right move, really. We'll see Jared Leto's Xtreme Joker in a »
- Kevin Jagernauth
Miles Teller Explains How 'Fantastic Four' Was "Unjustly Critiqued," Talks Han Solo Audition For 'Star Wars' Spinoff
18 hours ago | The Playlist | See recent The Playlist news »
"Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice" opens this week, and no matter how good or bad or in between it turns out to be, it will likely clear the low comic book movie bar set by last year's "Fantastic Four." 20th Century Fox's failed franchise reboot was a total misfire, with the movie unable to overcome a troubled production. But when asked about it recently on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Miles Teller defended the picture and the people who made it. "People think that when you make something like a 'Fantastic Four' that doesn’t do well, people think ‘Oh you phoned it in’ and it couldn’t be more untrue. You work harder on the bad films, or the films that turn out maybe not the way you intended, because something’s not working. And I thought it was kind of unjustly critiqued that way; there »
- Kevin Jagernauth
To the Ends of the Earth: An Interview with Salomé Lamas
18 hours ago | MUBI | See recent MUBI news »
Salomé Lamas. Photo by Ale Vulcano, courtesy of The Bogliasco Foundation.It's one thing to head to the top of the world to shoot at the highest-altitude human settlement, another entirely different to see the result of that shoot projected on a screen. But if the screen is the giant-sized IMAX at Berlin's Sony Center, the experience may be closer than you'd think. Salomé Lamas may look small next to either the top of the world or the IMAX screen, but the Portuguese director, only 29, is a tough cookie behind her apparently fragile and youthful looks, as can be seen from Eldorado Xxi, the feature film she shot in the Peruvian mining town of La Rinconada, 5500m high in the Andes—a “nightmarish shoot” by her own admission. (And not the first one. While shooting in Transnistria for another project, the Kgb arrested and interrogated her and her crew.) Eldorado Xxi, »
- Jorge Mourinha
The Graphic Design of High Rise
18 hours ago | Filmmaker Magazine - Blog | See recent Filmmaker Magazine news »
Here’s a fascinating article by Mark Sinclair in the Creative Review about graphic design in Ben Wheatley’s High Rise. In most films, contemporary and near-period, production designers will seek clearance to use actual logos and products. When those clearances aren’t granted for whatever reason, the art department will mock something up. But unless there’s been real attention paid to these graphics, they can often look cheesy — like the film equivalent of clip art. The fantastic, dystopian qualities of High Rise — a science fiction tale set in an imaginary pre-Thatcherite early ’70s — has enabled Wheatley and his designers […] »
- Scott Macaulay
Zack Snyder Talks More '300' Sequels, And Explains Why He Prefers 'Watchmen' Director’s Cut Over Ultimate Cut
18 hours ago | The Playlist | See recent The Playlist news »
While Zack Snyder's slo-motion, yell-a-thon "300" hasn't aged very well, the movie, and its sequel "300: Rise Of An Empire" (directed by Noam Murro), made money. The first movie was a smash hit, earning over $450 million worldwide. And though the sequel disappointed domestically, internationally -- which is far more important to studios these days -- the picture pretty much did the same business, and "300: Rise Of An Empire" totaled $337 million around the globe. And while there hasn't been official chatter about more installments, Snyder reveals that conversations of some kind have been happening. Talking with Collider, the director revealed there's an anthology approach being considered, which would see the "300" brand being used to tell more David vs. Goliath-style stories. "We’ve been talking about is there a way, possibly, we move out of Ancient Greece and use it as a framing device for other conflicts that happened throughout »
- Kevin Jagernauth
Cannes Report: New Films From Refn, Wenders, Dolan Tipped For The Croisette, But No 'Light Between Oceans'
19 hours ago | The Playlist | See recent The Playlist news »
The speculation about what films will hit the Cannes Film Festival continues to grow, and while we've got the film we're crossing our fingers for, what you wish for and what you get are often two different things. Last week, the word around the cinephile campfire was that Steven Spielberg's "The Bfg," Shane Black's "The Nice Guys," Woody Allen’s "Café Society," Sean Penn's "The Last Face," and Jeff Nichols’ "Loving" were strongly tipped to hit the fest in various categories. Now some more titles are in the mix. Deadline is tipping Pedro Almodovar's "Julieta," Nicolas Winding Refn's "Neon Demon," Xavier Dolan's "It's Only The End Of The World," Olivier Assayas' "Personal Shopper," Denis Villeneuve's "Story Of Your Life," Tom Ford's "Nocturnal Animals," Andrea Arnold's "American Honey," Paul Verhoeven's "Elle," Tran Ahn Hung's »
- Kevin Jagernauth
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