Indie News

Noel Clarke has come on board “The Corrupted,” joining lead Sam Claflin and Timothy Spall, Hugh Bonneville, and David Hayman in the British crime thriller. Rep Crime, Eclipse Films and Riverstone Pictures said Friday that principal photography is now underway on the film, which will shoot at various locations in the U.K.

Clarke recently set up a new U.K. production company, Unstoppable. He can currently be seen in Netflix film “Mute,” and will star in Sky’s upcoming buddy cop drama “Bulletproof.”

In “The Corrupted” he plays a policeman, detective sergeant Neil Beckett. He joins a high-caliber British cast that also includes Naomi Ackie (“Lady Macbeth”), Charlie Murphy (“Peaky Blinders”), Joe Claflin (“Grantchester”), Sam Otto (“The State”), and Akbar Kurtha (“24”). Ron Scalpello (“My Name Is Lenny”) directs “The Corrupted,” which was written by Nick Moorcroft (“Urban Hymn”).

“We have assembled a great cast of amazing actors, and

Samuel Goldwyn Films has acquired worldwide rights (English-speaking territories) to Wait for Your Laugh, Jason Wise's documentary about the life and career of actress and comedian Rose Marie.

Samuel Goldwyn Films plans to release a DVD with extras in the spring, while releasing the film across numerous digital platforms. Vitagraph Films earlier acquired the North American theatrical rights to Wait for Your Laugh, just before Marie, who went toe-to-toe in a man’s world as wisecracking comedy writer Sally Rogers on the legendary 1960s CBS sitcom The Dick Van Dyke Show, died in late December 2017 at 94.

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For as tidily as “Wild Wild Country” can be summed up — “It’s the docuseries about an Indian cult leader!” — the show overall is an incredibly dense examination of religion, immigrants, and Americans’ perception of both. As intense as it is illuminating, the six-episode Netflix series deconstructs misconceptions about cults while exposing incredibly dark secrets at the same time — and that’s where the doc finds its power: Just when you think you know what it’s about, there’s quite a surprise around the next corner.

Directed by Chapman and Maclain Way (“The Battered Bastards of Baseball”), “Wild Wild Country” focuses on what at first seems like a relatively simple conflict. Followers of an Indian spiritual guru decided to build a commune in Oregon, and their neighbors were none too pleased about it. But what started as an uncomfortable wariness of the unknown soon turned nasty, then openly hostile,

Somehow Andrew Haigh has become one of the most down low cinematic auteur working today. He’s directed and written three critically acclaimed films in a row and guided the legendary Charlotte Rampling to her first Academy Award nomination in just his second film, “45 Years.” And yet, he somehow hasn’t become the darling of the cinephile set or, cough, “film twitter” as of yet. (And we haven’t even talked about his contributions to the landmark HBO TV series “Looking”).

The Devil's BackboneIt's no insult to say that a horror movie is more poignant than scary, at least not when the director is Guillermo Del Toro. That's the main takeaway from his 2001 cult classic The Devil's Backbone, a ghost story set at a haunted orphanage during the Spanish Civil War, and a film that spends so much more time on the lives of its ensemble than on trying to scare us that it testifies to either the inadequacy or the versatility of the "horror" label. It is the kind of horror that wants us not to be afraid of things that go bump in the night. And of its many moments of tenderness, one of the best goes to its villain: Jacinto (Eduardo Noriega), a young man who, having been raised at the orphanage and then kept on as its groundskeeper, storms the place with a plan to relieve it

One of the more unexpected spin-offs of the last few years, Eugene Richards‘ “Thy Kingdom Come” is a pseudo-documentary pieced together from excised footage of Javier Bardem’s character Father Quintana from Terrence Malick’s 2012 film “To The Wonder.” Richards, a famous photographer in his own right, was contacted by Malick to find real people to interact with Bardem’s character.

Comedian James Adomian accuses “Saturday Night Live” of being homophobic to gay men and stealing jokes in a new interview with The Daily Beast. Adomian, an out gay comedian best known for his celebrity impressions and for appearances on “Comedy Bang! Bang!” and “Chicago Trap House,” auditioned for the NBC sketch comedy series 13 years ago and did not get cast. According to The Daily Beast, the show has only had one openly gay male cast member, Terry Sweeney, who was on the series during the 1985-1986 season.

“It would be nice if they put a gay man on camera on that show,” Adomian said, “I’ve been out of the closet the whole time since I auditioned 13 years ago. You would think that they would have tried to put someone else on that was a gay man. It’s about time.”

Jake Weisman, the comedian who co-created and co-stars in Comedy Central’s series “Corporate,

In what can only be described as a dramatic Friday surprise, Variety reports that Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences President John Bailey is being investigated for sexual harassment.  Bailey is in the middle of his first year as President of the Motion Picture Academy responsible for the Academy Awards and the upcoming Academy museum.

According to the trade outlet, the organization received three allegations of sexual harassment on Wednesday and immediately began an inquiry. 

As long as there have been queer people, there has been queer community. We flocked to coastal cities like New York and San Francisco, and when we could not do that, we gravitated toward each other in more conservative regions, making Atlanta, Salt Lake City, and Minneapolis into unexpected queer meccas. But not everyone has the financial freedom to leave it all behind and get the hell out of Dodge, and some people wouldn’t want to even if they could. As the tides of progress move swiftly forward, even the most conservative institutions are becoming more accepting. At this year’s SXSW Film Festival, two new documentaries, “TransMilitary” and “The Gospel of Eureka,” uncover Lgbtq triumphs in two places you’d least expect: organized religion and the military.

Directed by Gabriel Silverman and Fiona Dawson, “TransMilitary” charts the fight for transgender individuals to serve openly in the U.S.

Terry Gilliam has a lot to say about the #MeToo movement and Harvey Weinstein. A lot to say. Unfortunately for Gilliam, it looks like there might be an apology in his future.

Gilliam was recently interviewed, when he was asked about the Harvey Weinstein controversy. Mincing no words, it seems like Gilliam thinks there’s plenty of blame to throw at Harvey, but also, apparently, a lot of “ambitious” women.

Matt Green seems to get asked a lot what he does for work. The answer, which he repeats well over a dozen times in the new documentary “The World Before Your Feet,” is “nothing.” Not because he can’t, isn’t qualified, or is independently wealthy (though it often feels that way), but because he just doesn’t. This answer, of course, leaves people feeling incredulous. Because how else do you define Matt?

“Diary of a Teenage Girl” filmmaker Marielle Heller is back with her next film, and this time she’s enlisting an A-list star for the lead role. In a trailer that premiered as part of Entertainment Weekly’s “Female Filmmaker Friday,” Heller introduces her newest film, “Can You Ever Forgive Me?” And this time, Heller has comedic actress Melissa McCarthy as the lead, in what is sure to be McCarthy’s darkest, and most dramatic, role yet.

2018 might really be the year of Tommy Wiseau. After the release of “The Disaster Artist,” the filmmaker of dubious origin has graciously re-entered the entertainment spotlight to better our lives. Recently, Wiseau teamed up with Nerdist to audition for the role of The Joker (Heath Ledger edition) and the results are almost indescribable. It’s hard to figure out what to focus on first: his over-the-top delivery, his unsettling scream-laugh, or the moments where he breaks character and just smiles shyly at the screen.

Shortly after, Wiseau got his chance to wreak havoc on actual Gotham when YouTube channel Bup edited the actor’s portrayal into Christopher Nolan’s “The Dark Knight” itself. The video already has over 44,000 well-deserved views on YouTube.

The horror on every character’s face blends well with the grainy edit, adding a sort of nightmarish surrealism to a video that’s already hard to watch in the best way possible.

“The Diary of a Teenage Girl” helmer Marielle Heller snagged a slew of potential projects after her 2015 breakout starring Bel Powley, but she’s finally back in theaters this fall thanks to a long-gestasting film that speaks to her fascinating with wild true stories and asks one big question: “Can You Ever Forgive Me?” And what a movie to remind people how talented Heller is, thanks to a notoriously nutty story and the canny casting of Melissa McCarthy in a role that demands drama.

Based on Lee Israel’s autobiography of the same name — and with a Nicole Holofcener script to boot — the film unspools the crazy story of Israel (McCarthy), once a lauded celeb biographer who turned to fraud and plagiarism when her coffers dried up. And it wasn’t just stories or books she faked, but letters from famous people, which she then sold to unsuspecting buyers (and

Girl Talk is a weekly look at women in film — past, present, and future.

When a first-look image of Karen Gillan in costume arrived online last September for her role in “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle,” the adventure film was blasted for dressing her in tiny shorts and a bare midriff while her all-male co-stars sported more practical duds. At the time, Gillan tweeted, “Yes I’m wearing child-sized clothes and Yes there is a reason! The pay off is worth it.”

When the film finally arrived last fall, Gillan’s promise proved out. As Martha, she plays an awkward teen who gets tossed into a video game with a pack of her high school brethren, and must fight her way out. The character of Martha is also played by Morgan Turner, said awkward teen who turns into the video game avatar Ruby Roundhouse when she enters the “Jumanji” game.

Stop-motion animation is an incredibly detailed art form. While technology has helped stop-motion animators plan out scenes, and make their animation look better than ever before, there are no real short-cuts that computers have created, as with other forms of animation. Every movement is painstakingly created by hand. Every character, sculpted by hand. So, when you get a chance to watch the stop-motion animators do their craft, you should watch.

In preparation for the release of Wes Anderson’s “Isle of Dogs,” Fox Searchlight has released another featurette for the film.

Some icons are so enduring, so ubiquitous, so larger than life, they take on an air of invulnerability. Some renowned figures seem to last forever and it’s possible to take them for granted. Take Alfredo James Pacino, who has been around for on screen for five decades in every role imaginable and somehow is just two years away from turning 80 years old (he turns 78 next month). The thought blows our mind, frankly.

John Bailey, who was elected President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences last August, is under investigation for sexual harassment. Variety first reported the news, noting that AMPAS received three different harassment claims on Wednesday and immediately launched its investigation. Bailey, 75, is a cinematographer and occasional director who received the American Society of Cinematographers Lifetime Achievement Award in 2015 and a Best Artistic Contribution prize from the Cannes Film Festival in 1985 for Paul Schrader’s “Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters.”

No details about the nature of the claims has been released. These allegations come in the midst of the #MeToo and Time’s Up movements, which began when Harvey Weinstein was accused of sexual harassment, assault, and rape by dozens of women beginning last October. Weinstein himself was expelled from the Academy, an incredibly rare move.

Last month’s Oscars featured a video tribute to Time’s

Two weeks after the end of awards season, we have a whole new set of events to talk about, starting with the SXSW Film Festival. That’s where Steven Spielberg’s “Ready Player One” premiered in a secret screening slot during the festival’s opening weekend, surprising many audiences by delivering a far more satisfying ride than expectations had suggested. Spielberg was on hand for the festival’s lively premiere, where even sound problems couldn’t dampen the enthusiasm for the final product. But does that mean this epic dose of eighties nostalgia will become a commercial hit?

Read More:‘Ready Player One’ Review: Steven Spielberg Delivers Astonishing Sci-Fi Spectacle and Relentless Nostalgia — SXSW 2018

That’s a major talking point in this week’s episode of Screen Talk, as Eric Kohn and Anne Thompson trade notes from their experiences watching the movie. Kohn also offers some additional highlights from SXSW,

New Jersey-based filmmaker Tommy Avallone is gathering serious buzz at SXSW for his The Bill Murray Stories: Life Lessons Learned From a Mythical Man, a doc charting Bill Murray’s impromptu drop-ins on “the regular folk” — encounters seem closer to urban legends than actual experiences. Even Bill Murray himself said at ComicCon in 2015 that the stories — such as his bartending at the Shangri-la bar in Austin during SXSW 2010 or his showing up at a birthday party in South Carolina after a basketball game or his washing dishes at someone’s house party in St Andrews, Scotland — weren’t […]