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Venice: David Linde on How ‘Human Flow’ Encapsulates Participant Media’s New Course (Exclusive)
9 hours ago | Variety - Film News | See recent Variety - Film News news »
Venice, Italy — Participant Media’s David Linde and Diane Weyermann made the trek to Venice for the world premiere Friday of Ai Weiwei’s migrant crisis doc “Human Flow,” which they say encapsulates exactly what the Hollywood mini-major is hoping to achieve with entertainment that aims to drive social change.
“Ai Weiwei wasn’t trying to make an art movie,” Weyermann said about the ambitious piece shot over more than a year in 23 countries by the Chinese artist.
“He was very clear about that. It’s about reaching people. He really truly believes that this is a major crisis, and there are many people out there who don’t know about it,” said Weyermann, Participant’s executive vice president of documentary films. “He wanted to reach a wide audience, to the extent that a filmmaker can.”
“Human Flow,” which Amazon Studios will release theatrically in the U.S. on Oct. 13 in partnership with Magnolia Pictures, »
- Nick Vivarelli
‘Star Wars’ Han Solo Spinoff Adds Paul Bettany
14 hours ago | Variety - Film News | See recent Variety - Film News news »
Paul Bettany has joined the cast of the “Star Wars” Han Solo spinoff, director Ron Howard announced via twitter on Friday.
In his tweet, Howard said, “The Outer Rim just got a little bit wilder,” sharing an image of the director and Bettany on set. He later followed up with a second tweet: “It’s my third opportunity to work with Paul. He’s a blast & so talented.”
The Outer Rim just got a little bit wilder #PaulBettany #ForceFriday pic.twitter.com/KzuAwhcIXy
— Ron Howard (@RealRonHoward) September 1, 2017
It's my third opportunity to work with Paul. He's a blast & so talented https://t.co/8AQn0jFzOh
— Ron Howard (@RealRonHoward) September 1, 2017
Howard took over as director after Phil Lord and Christopher Miller were fired over creative differences. Reshoots are underway for the film, which is expected to hit theaters on May 25, 2018.
The casting of Bettany, known for his roles in “A Beautiful Mind” and Marvel’s “The Avengers,” comes »
- Ricardo Lopez
Will Leonardo DiCaprio Give the Green Light to Joker Movie?
13 hours ago | Variety - Film News | See recent Variety - Film News news »
Warner Bros. would love to see Leonardo DiCaprio as the Joker in the studio’s planned origin tale, according to sources. But it’s way too early to predict whether the versatile star might be interested, and no offer has been made.
The studio’s Joker standalone film, to be directed by Todd Phillips, is expected to have Martin Scorsese on board as an executive producer.
It makes sense that a Scorsese-led Joker would look to involve DiCaprio — they’ve teamed on “Gangs of New York,” “The Aviator,” best picture winner “The Departed,” “Shutter Island,” and “The Wolf of Wall Street.”
But the Joker project could be a real longshot since DiCaprio, who hasn’t made a movie since he won best actor for “The Revenant,” has been attached to numerous projects that never got made, some with Scorsese. The duo are currently in development on “Devil in the White City” and “Killers of the Flower Moon »
- Dave McNary
Director Andy Muschietti Might Have Just Confirmed The It Sequel
14 hours ago | Vulture | See recent Vulture news »
Director Andy Muschietti’s IT remake doesn’t hit theaters until next week, but early buzz makes it sound like the movie is on track for a massive opening. The original film adaptation was a two-part TV mini-series, but so far there has been no official discussion of an automatic green light for the second phase of the story, which focuses on the members of the Losers Club after they’ve all grown up and mostly departed from Spookytown USA, aka Derry, Maine. While studio confirmation for IT part two hasn’t come through yet, Muschietti just confirmed to the Italian outlet Bad Taste that he will prioritize the sequel before his next project »
- Jordan Crucchiola
'The Crow' Reboot Lands at Sony
18 hours ago | The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News | See recent The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News news »
The Crow has a new nest.
The long-in-the-works remake of the cult supernatural revenge action movie that starred Brandon Lee, titled The Crow Reborn, has landed at Sony Pictures, which has signed to distribute the feature project.
The project had spent almost a decade at Relativity with various directors and actors coming and going. When the company went under, the project went into limbo.
Jason Momoa and Corin Hardy were last on board as star and director, and while they are not formally signed on to the Sony version, insiders say the plan does includes them coming on in the »
- Borys Kit
Dick Cheney Biopic Casts Stefania Lavie Owen; Robert Knepper, Armin Amiri Join ‘1st Born’; Tom Choi In ‘Truth Or Dare’
31 August 2017 5:44 PM, PDT | Deadline | See recent Deadline news »
Stefania Lavie Owen has joined Christian Bale, Steve Carell, Amy Adams, and Bill Pullman in Annapura’s Dick Cheney biopic, titled Backseat, written and directed by Adam McKay. The pic chronicles Cheney’s rise to becoming the most powerful Vice President in history. Shooting starts next month. Plan B’s Brad Pitt and Dede Garner are also producing alongside McKay, Will Ferrell and Kevin Messick under their Gary Sanchez Productions banner. Currently, Owens appears in the Hulu… »
With ‘It’ Opening Soon, Pennsylvania Police Warn of More ‘Creepy Clown’ Sightings
21 hours ago | The Wrap | See recent The Wrap news »
Pennsylvania State Police has issued a warning about the possible return of “creepy clown sightings” ahead of the release of Stephen King‘s “It” next week. “With the fall of 2017 upon us, it is anticipated that similar ‘creepy clown’ sightings could be reported starting as soon as September, in part due to the fact that the movie ‘It’ will be released in theaters on 9/8/2017,” the bulletin reads, according to CBS News. “The movie, which is adapted from a Stephen King novel by the same name, portrays an evil demon who takes on the shape of a clown named Pennywise, »
- Beatrice Verhoeven
Box Office: ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ Re-Release Opens With $95,000
21 hours ago | Variety - Film News | See recent Variety - Film News news »
The re-release of Steven Spielberg’s “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” has opened with $95,000 in Thursday night previews at 809 North American sites.
“Close Encounters,” which initially launched in 1977, is expanding Friday to 901 venues including 400 premium large format locations. The 4K restoration of the science-fiction classic, starring Richard Dreyfuss, carries modest expectations with forecasts of less than $1 million for the four-day Labor Day weekend during which overall business is expected to be the slowest in more than a decade.
The original “Close Encounters” was a critical and commercial success with $132 million in domestic grosses and eight Academy Award nominations.
The Weinstein Company’s “Tulip Fever” is also opening Friday at 765 locations with forecasts of less than $2 million. The historical drama, set in 17th century Netherlands, was filmed three years ago and stars Alicia Vikander, Dane DeHaan, Judy Dench and Cara Delevingne.
The Labor Day weekend is going to cap a thoroughly disappointing summer for the domestic box »
- Dave McNary
George Clooney’s ‘Suburbicon’: 1950s Idyll Crimes & Echoes Of Today’s America Hit Venice
46 minutes ago | Deadline | See recent Deadline news »
George Clooney's Suburbicon will have its official world premiere in competition here at the Venice Film Festival tonight. Unveiled to the press this morning, it's being called “Hitchcockian,” “caustic,” “timely” and “political.” The latter qualifiers point to the part of the plot that deals with racial tensions in 1950s America — and which quickly calls to mind the recent events in Charlottesville, Va. Major reviews are still to come on the 1950s-set crime comedy/drama… »
‘Brawl In Cell Block 99’ Is A Bloody, Meaty, Gruesome Blast [Venice Review]
47 minutes ago | The Playlist | See recent The Playlist news »
The book that will someday be written detailing the evolution of the cinematic head-stomp will be divided, rather like the most unfortunate victim of “Bone Tomahawk,” into two halves: before S. Craig Zahler‘s ‘Tomahawk’ follow-up, “Brawl in Cell Block 99,” and after. And by rights it deserves to be a similar marker in the career of star Vince Vaughn, who plays protagonist Bradley — occasional stompee, but more often stomper of said heads.
Continue reading ‘Brawl In Cell Block 99’ Is A Bloody, Meaty, Gruesome Blast [Venice Review] at The Playlist. »
- Jessica Kiang
Piers Handling To Step Down As Toronto Film Festival Director/CEO After 2018
1 hour ago | Deadline | See recent Deadline news »
After nearly 25 years as Toronto International Film Festival Director/CEO, Piers Handling announced this morning that 2018’s festival will be his last. He has guided the festival, which begins next week, from a small gathering to a preeminent 10-day event that is a vital awards season launch pad and acquisitions market for indie films. The festival continues to evolve, including the establishment of the Tiff Bell Lightbox headquarters that has moved the deal making action… »
Telluride Film Review: ‘Darkest Hour’
2 hours ago | Variety - Film News | See recent Variety - Film News news »
With all due respect to Christopher Nolan, no filmmaker has captured the evacuation of Dunkirk better than Joe Wright, who evoked the sheer scale of England’s finest hour via a five-minute tracking shot in “Atonement.” Now, with “Darkest Hour,” Wright returns to show the other side of the operation. Set during the crucial first days of Winston Churchill’s term as prime minster, this talky, yet stunningly cinematic history lesson balances the great orator’s public triumphs with more vulnerable private moments of self-doubt, elevating the inner workings of British government into a compelling piece of populist entertainment.
Whereas Nolan’s “Dunkirk” so thrillingly illustrated the military rescue at Dunkirk, all but banishing Churchill to a newspaper article read aloud at the end of the film, “Darkest Hour” spends nearly every scene at the prime minister’s side — except for the first couple, during which Churchill is dramatically absent, represented »
- Peter Debruge
Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool review – a stranger-than-fiction love story
2 hours ago | The Guardian - Film News | See recent The Guardian - Film News news »
A tremendous central duo breathe life into Paul McGuigan’s endearing retelling of the real-life romance between a struggling young actor and Oscar-winner Gloria Grahame
There is a tremendous warmth and tenderness to this sweet, sad love story starring Annette Bening and Jamie Bell – a stranger-than-fiction true romance that unfolds in Los Angeles, New York, London and Liverpool – and there is a bittersweet rightness in a new song from Elvis Costello over the closing credits: You Shouldn’t Look at Me That Way. Director Paul McGuigan finds the balance between pathos and humour, working from Matt Greenhalgh’s adaptation of a memoir by the actor and writer Peter Turner.
As an unknown, struggling young actor in the late 70s, Turner met and fell in love with Gloria Grahame, the legendary Hollywood star and Oscar-winner who, incredibly, was living in the same north London boarding house. She was in the endgame »
- Peter Bradshaw
‘Darkest Hour’: Gary Oldman Is Simply A Force Of Nature As Winston Churchill [Telluride Review]
2 hours ago | The Playlist | See recent The Playlist news »
Telluride – A little less than three weeks from the publication of this review John Lithgow is expected to win an Emmy for his portrayal of Winston Churchill in the Netflix series “The Crown.” Earlier this year Brian Cox earned positive notices for his own interpretation of the legendary British Prime Minister in the appropriately titled “Churchill.” In fact, Churchill appears in some form or another a few times a year and talents such as Brendan Gleeson, Albert Finny, Bob Hoskins, John Houseman and Richard Burton have tried to capture the once in a lifetime charisma of this historical figure on the big or small screen.
Continue reading ‘Darkest Hour’: Gary Oldman Is Simply A Force Of Nature As Winston Churchill [Telluride Review] at The Playlist. »
- Gregory Ellwood
Telluride: Dueling Premieres Put Gary Oldman And Annette Bening Back In Oscar Hunt
3 hours ago | Deadline | See recent Deadline news »
On the first day of the 44th Annual Telluride Film Festival both Gary Oldman as British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour, and Annette Bening as Oscar winning 50s film star Gloria Grahame in Film Stars Don’t Die In Liverpool firmly planted flags in this year’s Oscar race. Both films made their World Premieres here tonight, as did Greta Gerwig’s well-received directorial debut Lady Bird. Earlier in the day, Alexander Payne’s terrific social satire Downsizing… »
Venice: New Italian Distributor Vision Takes Kechiche’s ‘Mektoub, My Love’
4 hours ago | Variety - Film News | See recent Variety - Film News news »
Venice, Italy – Italy’s ambitious new theatrical distribution player Vision Distribution has acquired Italian rights to Abdellatif Kechiche’s Venice competition entry “Mektoub, My Love: Canto Uno” from Pathe Intl.
The French auteur’s anticipated follow-up to 2013 Palme d’Or winner “Blue Is the Warmest Color” is set during the summer of 1994 in a fishing village in the South of France. The new Kechiche pic will be the first non-Italian film to be released by Vision, which will focus primarily on Italian product.
“Mektoub” is described by Pathe promotional materials as the tale of an aspiring screenwriter named Amin who becomes “enchanted by the many female characters who surround him” and “remains in awe of these summer sirens while his Dionysiac cousin throws himself into their carnal delights with euphoria.”
Launched in January by Murdoch-owned pay-tv platform Sky Italia, Italy’s top pay-tv player, together with five prominent Italian production companies, Vision »
- Nick Vivarelli
Telluride: Gary Oldman Arrives as Instant Best Actor Frontrunner in ‘Darkest Hour’
4 hours ago | Variety - Film News | See recent Variety - Film News news »
For actor Gary Oldman, an Oscar nomination was elusive for many years. An Oscar win, however, could be around the corner.
The chameleonic star had dazzled for decades in an endless string of films — “Sid and Nancy,” “State of Grace,” “True Romance,” “Leon: The Professional,” “The Contender,” “Hannibal,” etc. — until 2011, when his work was finally recognized by the Motion Picture Academy. It wasn’t one of his trademark Baroque performances that got the call, but rather, his icy cool portrait of a British intelligence operative in Tomas Alfredson’s “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.” The man has nothing if not range, and that range now extends to Sir Winston Churchill, about as larger-than-life as it gets.
In Joe Wright’s World War II drama “Darkest Hour,” which unspooled at the Telluride Film Festival Friday, Oldman’s showcase might be his finest hour. He digs into the towering role with uncanny resolve, fearless under gobs of makeup, »
- Kristopher Tapley
Fire Walk With Me: how David Lynch's film went from laughing stock to the key to Twin Peaks
6 hours ago | The Guardian - Film News | See recent The Guardian - Film News news »
In 1992 it was critically savaged and fast forgotten. But the new TV series has helped reveal the film to be a harrowing tour de force that shuns easy answers
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me is David Lynch’s film maudit. With the revival of the director’s seminal TV series currently earning acclaim, it might be hard from today’s perspective to fathom the stink the prequel caused when it was released back in 1992. Although there has been a critical reappraisal in recent times, Fire Walk With Me’s reputation at the time was of the atrocious movie from a director who’d lost his pop-surrealist mojo.
When it was released in 691 screens across the Us on 28 August, the show’s rabid fanbase were feverishly expecting another slice of quirky cherry pie on a bigger canvas, with all their favourite characters back and as adorably odd as ever. Instead, »
- Martyn Conterio
Saoirse Ronan Scores Her Greatest Role In Greta Gerwig’s Winning Directorial Debut ‘Lady Bird’ — Review
6 hours ago | Indiewire | See recent Indiewire news »
In “Lady Bird,” an angst-riddled teen copes with her restrictive Catholic high school, bickers with her doting parents, endures her first heartbreak and dreams of escaping to a far-off place. There’s nothing innately fresh about that premise, but writer-director Greta Gerwig’s semi-biographical riff on her Sacramento upbringing elevates it to a fresh wavelength beaming with wit and insight. Anchored by Saoirse Ronan in a spunky lead role that registers as her very best, the movie confirms that Gerwig’s plucky screen presence translates into a richly confident filmmaking voice.
“Lady Bird” is both snarky and sincere — a touching, markedly feminine ode to growing up that never takes its familiarity for granted. Gerwig earns the ability to make this rite-of-passage saga her own.
“The only thing exciting about 2002 is that it’s a palindrome,” moans Christine McPherson, though she prefers the moniker Lady Bird, as her mother Marion (Laurie Metcalf »
- Eric Kohn
Cohen Media Group Nabs North American Rights to Ziad Doueiri’s ‘The Insult’ (Exclusive)
7 hours ago | Variety - Film News | See recent Variety - Film News news »
Cohen Media Group has acquired North American distribution rights to “The Insult,” Ziad Doueiri’s Lebanon-set drama, which is world-premiering in competition at Venice and will next play at Toronto.
“The Insult” marks the second collaboration between Cohen Media Group and Doueiri following “The Attack.” Cohen Media Group plans on releasing “The Insult” in January. The film will likely represent Lebanon in the foreign-language Oscar race.
Charles S. Cohen, the chairman and CEO of Cohen Media Group who co-produced “The Insult,” described the movie as a “stirring and important film that confronts tough issues with clear-headed purpose.”
John Kochman, executive vice president, added that “Doueiri shows a vivid understanding of the tensions that continue to afflict his homeland in a film that all audiences will embrace.” Kochman negotiated the co-production deal with Jean Bréhat, partner at Tessalit Productions. Nicolas Eschbach’s Paris-based Indie Sales is handling worldwide sales.
Starring Adel Karam (“One Day I’ll Leave”) and »
- Elsa Keslassy
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