20 articles
‘Jungle Book’ Goes Wild With $87M to $88M; ‘Barbershop’ Snips $19.4M; ‘Criminal’ Handcuffed — Box Office Saturday Am
19 hours ago | Deadline | See recent Deadline news »
1st Writethru Sat. 8:23 AM, Previous Friday, 11:24 PM: Disney’s The Jungle Book will become one of the highest April debuts ever with an estimated three-day gross of around $87M to $88M, according to estimates, surpassing Fast Five from 2011 which held the No. 3 spot with $86.19M. (Captain America: The Winter Soldier is No. 2 with $95M in 2104 and Furious 7 is No. 1 at $147.1M last year). Incredibly well reviewed and with an A CinemaScore from an audience pretty evenly… »
Star Wars: J.J. Abrams discusses Rey's parents during Tribeca talk
16 April 2016 3:40 AM, PDT | ScreenDaily | See recent ScreenDaily news »
Star Wars: The Force Awakens director dropped hints during a Tribeca talk with actor-comedian Chris Rock; both men revelead the actors they would most like to work with.
Director J.J Abrams dropped a hint as to the identity of Rey (Daisy Ridley)’s parents - one of the key questions to emerge from the latest Star Wars installment A Force Awakens - during a Tribeca talk in New York.
Taking part in a Q&A with comedian Chris Rock at the Tribeca Film Festival, Abrams told the audience: “Rey’s parents are not in Episode VII. So I can’t possibly say in this moment who they are. But I will say it is something Rey thinks about too.”
The admission that her parents didn’t feature in A Force Awakens seemed to rule out a number of likely suspects including Luke Skywalker, Han Solo or Princess Leia.
However, while the comments »
- sarah.cooper@screendaily.com (Sarah Cooper)
Tony Revolori and Laura Harrier Join ‘Spider-Man: Homecoming’
15 April 2016 7:05 PM, PDT | Variety - Film News | See recent Variety - Film News news »
Tony Revolori and Laura Harrier are in talks to join the cast of Sony and Marvel’s “Spider-Man: Homecoming,” sources confirm to Variety.
Tom Holland stars as the webslinging hero in the reboot, which opens July 7, 2017. He leads the cast opposite Michael Keaton, who Variety exclusively reported was is in talks to play the villain, and Marisa Tomei, who portrays Aunt May.
Revolori (“Grand Budapest Hotel”) will play a high school nemesis of Peter Parker’s in the film while Harrier’s part is another classmate.
Sony and Marvel had no comment.
Jon Watts is directing “Homecoming” from a script by John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein. Kevin Feige and former Sony exec Amy Pascal are producing the movie, which focuses on a teenage Peter Parker’s high school days.
Plot details are still being heavily guarded.
Holland’s Spider-Man will first make an appearance in the upcoming “Captain America: Civil War »
- Justin Kroll
All We Had review: Katie Holmes wows in her meandering directorial debut
12 hours ago | The Guardian - Film News | See recent The Guardian - Film News news »
A stellar, brazen performance by the Dawson’s Creek actor and her strong cast keep this film, about the bond between a wayward mother and daughter, afloat
Katie Holmes directs herself in All We Had, an adaptation of Annie Weatherwax’s popular novel, and delivers the strongest performance of her career. At 37-years-old, the former Dawson’s Creek star is a welcome revelation.
In what marks her most worthwhile role since playing the titular scarred young woman in the 2003 film Pieces of April, Holmes throws herself into portraying Rita, a drug and alcohol addict and homeless mother to a young teen.
Continue reading »
- Nigel M Smith
The Biggest Challenge To The Aquaman Movie, According to James Wan
17 hours ago | cinemablend.com | See recent Cinema Blend news »
While Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice may have polarized audiences, you have to respect the massive opus that director Zack Snyder was trying to tell. This movie was responsible for introducing a lot of things, not the least of which was the existence of the other metahumans who will one day form the first live-action iteration of the Justice League. One of these heroes was Aquaman, who most people may remember as “the water guy with the dolphins” on Super Friends. The character has a pretty big reputation as a lame hero and Warner Bros. has an uphill battle convincing people otherwise. Luckily James Wan, the future director of Aquaman, likes the challenge. James Wan, may be best know for horror films like The Conjuring or more recently Furious 7, spoke with MTV about the character of Aquaman and the goal to subvert audience expectations. »
Italy’s Giuseppe Tornatore to Shoot Movie for China’s Alibaba Pictures
39 minutes ago | Variety - Film News | See recent Variety - Film News news »
Italy’s “Cinema Paradiso” director Giuseppe Tornatore has struck a deal to make a movie with China’s Alibaba Pictures Group, the film making arm of e-commerce giant Alibaba.
The deal was symbolically signed by Tornatore and Zhang Qiang of Apg at the end of a forum on co-productions Sunday on the first full day of the Beijing International Film Festival. Among the witnesses to the signing was Miao Xiaotian, VP of China Film Co-production Corporation.
“The deal is an agreement in principal (without a specific project that is yet agreed),” Tornatore told Variety. He said that it will likely happen within the next two to three years and be a majority Chinese-financed picture.
It was unclear whether the film will use the bilateral co-production treaty between Italy and China that was signed in 2014. The first film that used the treaty was Cristiano Bortone’s “Coffee.”
Tornatore, who has other credits including “Malena, »
- Patrick Frater
The battle to save the Curzon Soho
3 hours ago | The Guardian - Film News | See recent The Guardian - Film News news »
A plan to demolish one of London’s best-loved arthouse cinemas has unleashed a campaign to save it and highlight the growing threat to the heart of the West End
Years ago, as a student, I went to my local arts cinema to see the 1978 remake of the science fiction classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers. At the end of the film, our planet has succumbed to the domination of the alien “pod people”, and all humanity is transformed into a glazed-eyed shambling mass. As the credits rolled, the audience shuffled out as one into a cold misty night and there we all stood, eerily shaken, looking round at each other with the dawning realisation that we were indeed… a glazed-eyed, shambling mass. And happy to be one.
That, in a nutshell, is why there is no substitute for seeing films live, in a cinema, with an audience. The very »
- Jonathan Romney
Eye in the Sky review – a morality tale of modern warfare
3 hours ago | The Guardian - Film News | See recent The Guardian - Film News news »
Helen Mirren and Alan Rickman star in Gavin Hood’s tense thriller exploring the ethics of drone strikes
The peculiarly disengaged nature of modern warfare has been explored in several recent dramas, from Rick Rosenthal’s 2013 thriller Drones to Andrew Niccol’s more celebrated 2014 drama Good Kill. Here, the South African director Gavin Hood assembles an A-list ensemble cast (including Alan Rickman in his last on-screen role) for a provocatively tense thriller that negotiates the moral minefields of its thorny subject matter in crowd-pleasing fashion.
The premise finds geographically disparate players, linked by phones and video screens, arguing the pros and cons of an ongoing drone operation that is unfolding in what feels like real time. While the set-up may be melodramatically contrived, weighing the cost of collateral damage – in this case, an innocent girl’s life against the prospect of multiple terrorist deaths – the result is still impressively ambivalent »
- Mark Kermode, Observer film critic
China is the New Hollywood, Says James Schamus
3 hours ago | Variety - Film News | See recent Variety - Film News news »
Leading U.S. independent producer James Schamus proclaimed Sunday that “China is becoming the new Hollywood.”
The former head of Focus Features and producer of “Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon” was speaking in Beijing at a set-piece seminar on Chinese co-production at the first full day of the Beijing International Film Festival.
He and other speakers who included Chinese producers Yu Dong and Huang Jianxin, and British producer Iain Smith, argued that co-productions have qualitatively changed as the Chinese film industry has hurtled through multiple stages of development in just a few years.
Two years ago at the same seminar, Oliver Stone embarrassed his hosts by flat out saying that co-productions don’t work, and that China needs to learn to examine its own history more critically.
Schamus, who is involved in a partnership with China’s Meridian Entertainment, offered a perspective that was music to the ears of China’s »
- Patrick Frater
The Brand New Testament review – holy fantastical irreverence
4 hours ago | The Guardian - Film News | See recent The Guardian - Film News news »
In this unruly Belgian satire, God is a sadistic, filing-fixated resident of Brussels
In Jaco Van Dormael’s playfully blasphemous Belgian fantasy, God exists, lives in Brussels, and is a total bastard to his wife and daughter. Locked in a Gilliam-esque room of filing cabinets, his unholiness (played by Benoît Poelvoorde, who once turned heads and stomachs in Man Bites Dog) spends his days sadistically abusing the world’s population. Then, resourceful, resentful daughter Ea (Pili Groyne) commandeers his computer, texts the time and date of their deaths to every living soul, and escapes through a washing machine into the wonderland of the world. Here, she must assemble six random apostles while steering clear of her wrathful dad, who is getting a taste of his own earthly medicine. It’s divertingly unruly stuff, which comes on like a cross between Powell and Pressburger’s A Matter of Life and Death »
- Mark Kermode, Observer film critic
Fan review – creepy intrigue and big action
4 hours ago | The Guardian - Film News | See recent The Guardian - Film News news »
Shah Rukh Khan outdoes himself twice in this dual-role psychological thriller
Superb special makeup effects work by Greg Cannom enables Bollywood legend Shah Rukh Khan to play both a screen superstar and his youthful lookalike fan in this enjoyably twisty thriller. Having won a local talent show for the third year running impersonating his waning idol Aryan Khanna, young Gaurav embarks on a pilgrimage to Mumbai to meet his supposed mentor. But after being turned away from his hero’s house, Gaurav’s adoration turns to aggression, directed first toward another actor who taunts Aryan in public, and then toward Aryan himself. It’s a familiar story, but director Maneesh Sharma achieves a surprisingly effective balance between creepy The King of Comedy psychological intrigue and sub-Bourne/Bond action (a rooftop chase is particularly well orchestrated). The eye-catching location work takes in Delhi, Mumbai, London, and Dubrovnik, buoyed by a pounding »
- Mark Kermode, Observer film critic
Our Little Sister – touching family drama
4 hours ago | The Guardian - Film News | See recent The Guardian - Film News news »
Hirokazu Kore-eda’s story of siblings reunited has charm and hidden depths
This utterly enchanting tale of female family bonds (mothers, daughters, sisters) finds three twentysomething siblings travelling to the funeral of their estranged father, and meeting their 14-year-old half-sister for the first time. While Sachi, Yoshino and Chika live together with their shared memories, young Suzu seems all alone, until her new-found family invite her to come and live with them in Kamakura. “She may be your sister, but she’s also the daughter of the woman who destroyed your family,” warns a wary auntie. But despite the melancholic old wounds which her presence reopens, Suzu proves an entirely positive presence in this lovely, generous, and touching adaptation of Akimi Yoshida’s graphic novel Umimachi Diary. Filmed in mid- and long shots, which emphasise group framings over isolated close-ups, Our Little Sister may seem at first glance to be »
- Mark Kermode, Observer film critic
The Jungle Book review – back to the wild in style
4 hours ago | The Guardian - Film News | See recent The Guardian - Film News news »
Jon Favreau brings lush CGI, dark shadows and big-beast stars to a rebooted classic
Related: Disney to make live-action Peter Pan
Like Kenneth Branagh’s Cinderella, Jon Favreau’s “live action” Jungle Book reboot owes as much (if not more) to Disney’s classic cartoon as it does to the tale’s literary source. Using state of the art CGI environments (very little of what you see is actually “live”) and Life of Pi-style animal animations, this breathes delightful new life into a longstanding family favourite, lending digital depth and a hint of darkness to the familiar anthropomorphic encounters, in the process dispelling all memories of 2003’s ill-conceived Jungle Book 2. Neel Sethi is terrific as Mowgli, whose frame and stance eerily echo those of his animated predecessor, while Bill Murray and Christopher Walken lend baggy appeal and mobster menace respectively to the vocal roles of Baloo and King Louie. »
- Mark Kermode, Observer film critic
Spotlight on… Edible Cinema
4 hours ago | The Guardian - Film News | See recent The Guardian - Film News news »
A bite-size guide to the latest viewing experience, in which culinary treats highlight key moments in your film
What is it?
We’ve had 3D cinema, 4D cinema, Secret Cinema, rooftop, hot tub cinema… While we’re not quite at virtual-reality cinema yet, Edible Cinema provides an immersive experience by matching what’s happening on screen with a custom-made menu.
How does it work?
After being greeted at the door with a drink (Bombay Sapphire is a mainstay), you find a tray of food on your seat, divided into little numbered boxes. At the appropriate moment in the film, indicated by a screen-side light box, you eat or drink its contents. So for a scene involving the sea you might get something salty or smoky overtones for a gun fight.
Continue reading »
- Kathryn Bromwich
Criminal review – fantastically stupid
4 hours ago | The Guardian - Film News | See recent The Guardian - Film News news »
Brainless brain-transplant action flick – complete with Piers Morgan cameo
In last year’s dopey dud Self/less, a dying Ben Kingsley had his mind transplanted into the body of Ryan Reynolds. Now, a dying Reynolds has his mind transplanted into the body of Kevin Costner in their fantastically stupid thriller from The Iceman director Ariel Vromen. “They messed with my brain…” complains Costner’s damaged-goods criminal in the opening voiceover, before setting off on a face-punching tour of Merrie London, replete with gorblimey cabbies, disposable coppers, and people who say “Oi, that’s bang out of order!” while Kevin kicks their heads in. He’s been brainsplanted because of some nuclear nonsense involving a “Spanish anarchist” and a hacker called “the Dutchman” (yes, really), but all this thinking is making Kevin’s head hurt. And ours too. Gary Oldman is the CIA chief who Shouts Every Line in a wobbly American accent, »
- Mark Kermode, Observer film critic
Star Wars: The Force Awakens; Criterion Collection; The Survivalist; Emelie; Ukraine Is Not a Brothel – review
5 hours ago | The Guardian - Film News | See recent The Guardian - Film News news »
Adam Driver brings drama to an otherwise by-the-numbers Star Wars sequel, while a prestige Us series of DVD releases hits the UK with Harold Lloyd and Frank Capra classics
As it zooms spiffily on to DVD, while still in cinemas across the UK, Star Wars: The Force Awakens (Disney, 12) stands as both more and less than a single film. The third highest-grossing blockbuster of all time worldwide is, on its own terms, a sensible regrouping of a franchise done damage by its trio of dopey prequels: that very title can be read as a mea culpa of sorts.
Yet it’s impossible to consider it separately from what it follows and potentially precedes; Jj Abrams has refashioned the complete narrative template of 1977’s series starter as a mere warm-up exercise, with all the cautious structural limitations that implies.
Continue reading »
- Guy Lodge
Eisenstein in Guanajuato review – playful, arch, self-absorbed
5 hours ago | The Guardian - Film News | See recent The Guardian - Film News news »
Peter Greenaway’s new film is as much about its own baroque trickery as it is the Russian director’s Mexican adventure
Peter Greenaway’s playfully personal account of Sergei Eisenstein’s time shooting his uncompleted project ¡Que Viva México! is an uneven montage of arch cinematic ticks (triptych split-screens, monochrome/colour fades, circling cameras etc), sociopolitical satire, penetrated naked buttocks (Eisenstein declares that he is losing his virginity 14 years after Russia did the same), and cod-religious meditation upon the creative process. Elmer Bäck provides a crazy-haired symphony of babbling speeches as Eisenstein, the Russian maestro who went to Hollywood to hang out with Chaplin and wound up in Mexico after being turned away by the paranoid Paramount. At times the script drifts into Woody Allen territory (“sex and death – the two non-negotiables”), but it’s never quite as funny or stylistically insightful as it thinks. As the drama progresses, »
- Mark Kermode, Observer film critic
Tribeca Film Review: ‘Dean’
5 hours ago | Variety - Film News | See recent Variety - Film News news »
Familiar as a stand-up performer, a “Daily Show” correspondent, the host of his own Comedy Central show, a musician, a supporting player and a sketch comedian (in that he literally draws sketches), Demetri Martin adds “writer-director” to his resume with “Dean,” which finds his characteristic slightness both a virtue and a liability. Martin stays within his comfort zone as a New York-based illustrator still processing his mother’s death, but the tyro helmer struggles to square his distinct minimalist charm with the second-hand influence of standard-bearers like Woody Allen and Wes Anderson.
An ace supporting cast, led by Kevin Kline, Gillian Jacobs and Mary Steenburgen helps carry his observations on love and grief, but this East Coast/West Coast melan-comedy can’t quite escape the long shadow of “Annie Hall.” Distribution seems certain after this handsome, assured production bows at Tribeca, even if the hope for another “Garden State” phenomenon appears dim. »
- Peter Debruge
Jeffrey Katzenberg Fetes Hillary Clinton Before Clooney Fundraiser
8 hours ago | Deadline | See recent Deadline news »
Hollywood heavyweights had some private time with Hillary Clinton today at Jeffrey Katzenberg and wife Marilyn’s home, before a multimillion dollar fundraiser at George Clooney’s L.A. pad. A major fundraiser for the former Secret of State, the DreamWorks Animation boss invited along George Lucas and his wife Mellody Hobson, Avatar director James Cameron – another big Clinton donor – as well as L.A. olympics bid chief Casey Wasserman, an insider tells Deadline. A co-host… »
Tribeca Film Review: ‘Solitary’
9 hours ago | Variety - Film News | See recent Variety - Film News news »
There’s little hope, but considerable insight, found in “Solitary,” Kristi Jacobson’s documentary about Wise County, Virginia’s Red Onion State Prison, a supermax facility where convicts are holed up for 23 hours a day in separate 8′-by-10′ cells. Shot over the course of a year, the film presents an unfiltered insider’s view of their colorless day-to-days, which are largely spent trying to stave off madness. Although its perspective is a tad too unbalanced, this unflinching look at inmate isolation will — after its premiere at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival — prove yet another sturdy addition to HBO’s nonfiction slate.
Jacobson utilizes a sparse score for glimpses of her setting’s surrounding rural landscape: a gray, misty locale where the closing of local coal mines motivated many to embrace employment at the penitentiary. The majority of “Solitary,” however, is awash in the unholy din of Red Onion, where inmates scream, »
- Nick Schager
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