Indie News

You have to imagine that there’s nothing more daunting in the film industry than having your first film be so critically-acclaimed, that now everyone is anxiously awaiting your follow-up film, which they expect to be just as good, if not better. That’s exactly what director Sandi Tan has to deal with, as her 2018 doc “Shirkers” found itself with no shortage of positive reviews and awards. Now, with all that added pressure, apparently Tan has decided to tackle a narrative feature, titled “The Idiot.”

Based on the autobiographical novel by Elif Batuman, “The Idiot” tells the story of a young girl that falls in love with a classmate and begins to make a series of decisions that earns her the title namesake.

Amazon Studios has acquired an untitled comedy film pitch from Ike Barinholtz and his writing partner David Stassen that will be produced by La La Land's Jordan Horowitz. The Blockers star is writing the screenplay with Stassen as a potential co-starring vehicle.

The story kicks off when a scandal forces a female politician to leave Washington, D.C., and head back to her small town in Ohio. Once there, she helps her 12-year-old niece run a campaign for her middle school election. But things get complicated when she finds out her niece is facing off against the son of the ...

With Emmy Award nomination voting getting underway in a matter of days, the race is beginning in earnest, and this year’s liveliest battle may be found in the limited series categories, where a bevy of Oscar winners and former nominees fight it out to see who will reign supreme come September.

Patricia Arquette, who starred in Showtime’s prison break series “Escape at Dannemora,” is probably still the frontrunner for her Golden Globe-recognized turn, but underestimate four-time Oscar nominee Michelle Williams at your own peril, as her performance in FX’s “Fosse/Verdon” as titular Broadway legend Gwen Verdon could make her a TV Academy golden girl. Meanwhile, “Sharp Objects” tries to hold onto the buzz from last summer and push HBO’s nomination count skyward.

Welcome to this year’s special Emmy Edition episodes of Screen Talk, where Anne Thompson has a new co-host in IndieWire’s newly minted TV Awards Editor Libby Hill.

“Black Mirror” Season 5 has debuted on Netflix to some of the franchise’s worst reviews, with particular scorn being given to the Miley Cyrus-starring episode “Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too.” The episode finds Cyrus riffing on her own industry experiences by starring as Ashley O, a global pop star coming undone because of the pressures to keep up her uber-positive pop persona. While Cyrus has drawn strong notices for pulling off the role, the episode as a whole has been criticized for going “wildly off-the-rails without bringing any depth.”

“This is a mess,” IndieWire critic Ben Travers writes in his C- review of the episode, making it IndieWire’s worst-reviewed installment of Season 5. “This overly cutesy entry feels like the biggest punt of them all. Somewhere buried within the 67-minute episode is a discussion about replacing pop stars with holograms and mining their memories for new marketable material, but

When Phoebe Waller-Bridge started writing the second season of “Fleabag” she knew she wanted a scene where the principal characters gathered around a dinner table. So inspired by the scenario, the creator-star eventually wrote, in one big creative “whoosh,” an entire episode based on it.

“There’s something quite theatrical about it all being in one location, and I find that quite inspiring, quite exciting, because it’s all about the flow of the dialogue then,” said Waller-Bridge. “You don’t have to think so much about telling a story over a longer period of time. It was just in the moment. The thing that excites me most about writing is the moments between people actually saying things to each other. And so this actually was joyful for me, because I got to stretch it out over the whole episode.”

Waller-Bridge, who has written every episode of “Fleabag,” doesn’t have a writing staff,

“Rocketman” made $25.7 million in its opening weekend, upending all estimates. It’s on track for perhaps $200 million in worldwide theatrical which, with ancillary revenue, is more than enough to turn a profit with a production cost of around $40 million. However, it’s nowhere near the $900 million global take for “Bohemian Rhapsody” just seven months ago — and with studios suddenly excited about replicating that success, it makes sense to examine what determined the difference.

Career-spanning sales might suggest Elton John was as big a draw as Queen; rough estimates have John at around 300 million units sold, while Freddie Mercury and company sold around 250 million. But translating music stardom into movies is far trickier than that.

‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ had first-mover advantage

As a music biopic, it stood alone; nothing similar had a wide release since “Straight Outta Compton” in 2015. It came a few weeks after “A Star Is Born,” which exposed its audience to the trailer,

The week in Marvel Cinematic Universe actors standing up against homophobia continues with Chris Evans. The Captain America actor is going viral on social media after calling out the three Boston men who are trying to mount a straight pride parade. Evans was born in Boston, which makes the matter a bit more personal.

The Washington Post published a story June 5 detailing the attempts of the three Boston men. Leader Mark Sahady is attempting to get a permit from the Boston government to throw an official straight pride parade. The event to celebrate heterosexuality is being mounted to make fun of the left’s obsession with identity politics, but Evans isn’t laughing.

“Wow! Cool initiative, fellas!!” Evans wrote on Twitter. “Just a thought, instead of ‘Straight Pride’ parade, how about this: The ‘desperately trying to bury our own gay thoughts by being homophobic because no one taught us how

After more than a quarter century of publication, Filmmaker has a huge archive, and most of our print articles have never appeared online. Over the next several months we’ll be correcting that by curating some of our best articles and interviews, particularly from directors who continue to make strong and vital work today. We’ll start with this Winter, 1999 interview of Michael Almereyda by Ray Pride, published on the release of his film Trance, that is also an excellent overview of his early directing career and Hollywood screenwriting work. — Editor Filmmakers working outside the major studios often find themselves […]

After more than a quarter century of publication, Filmmaker has a huge archive, and most of our print articles have never appeared online. Over the next several months we’ll be correcting that by curating some of our best articles and interviews, particularly from directors who continue to make strong and vital work today. We’ll start with this Winter, 1999 interview of Michael Almereyda by Ray Pride, published on the release of his film Trance, that is also an excellent overview of his early directing career and Hollywood screenwriting work. — Editor Filmmakers working outside the major studios often find themselves […]

After 20 years, the “X-Men” film franchise comes to an end this week with the release of “Dark Phoenix.” Billed as the culmination of the entire franchise, ending with the most celebrated story in the entire canon of X-comic books, “Dark Phoenix” should be a triumphant send-off for one of the godfathers of this modern superhero era. And yet, it’s not that.

Continue reading ‘Dark Phoenix’ Holds Lowest Rotten Tomatoes Score In The X-Franchise, Proving Review Aggregation Is Outdated & Needs To Evolve at The Playlist.

Did Patty Jenkins just spoil something big about the upcoming Warner Bros. tentpole “Wonder Woman 1984”? The director announced on social media “1984” will not be coming to San Diego Comic-Con later this summer, but the bad news was made a bit easier with the debut of a visually eye-popping new poster for the blockbuster. The one-sheet includes the image of Gal Gadot’s Diana Prince wearing the iconic Gold Armor from the comic books, which means Wonder Woman could be taking flight on the big screen in 2020.

“Wonder Woman 1984” is set to follow Diana during the Cold War as she comes into conflict with the Soviet Union and a new foe called Cheetah (Kristen Wiig). Jenkins and Gadot have kept additional plot details under wraps, which is why the debut of Gadot wearing the Gold Armor should prove exciting for comic book fans. In the comics, Diana’s Gold

One of the most sensational films to come out of the 2019 Sundance Film Festival, “Honeyland” takes the daily minutiae of a Macedonian beekeeper and turns it into a haunting elegy for the perilous balance in which the natural world now hangs. The stunning documentary was the most awarded film at Sundance, taking home the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize, a Special Jury Award for cinematography, and another Special Jury Award for Originality. Now, in the first official trailer, audiences can have a first look at the gorgeous cinematography and fascinating non-fiction storytelling that made “Honeyland” such a sensation.

Per the official synopsis: “Hatidze lives with her ailing mother in the mountains of Macedonia, making a living cultivating honey using ancient beekeeping traditions. When an unruly family moves in next door, what at first seems like a balm for her solitude becomes a source of tension as they, too, want to practice beekeeping,

We’re almost exactly a year away from the worldwide release of the Patty Jenkins’ sequel to her incredibly successful “Wonder Woman” superhero film. “Wonder Woman 1984” is near the top of every comic book fan’s must-see list for 2020 and rightfully so. However, even though a year out isn’t all that uncommon for a studio to begin promotion of a superhero film, WB is playing it close to the vest in 2019, leading to the decision to actually pull out of one of the biggest film events of the year — the San Diego Comic-Con.

Continue reading Patty Jenkins Shows Off New ‘Wonder Woman 1984’ Poster & Announces WB Won’t Be At This Year’s San Diego Comic-Con at The Playlist.

The eighth episode of “What We Do in the Shadows” opens with two telling details when it comes to appreciating Stefani Robinson’s writing. For one, it’s extremely peculiar. The first shot finds the Romani vampire Nadja (Natasia Demetriou) floating outside a second-story window, watching a young woman (played by Beanie Feldstein) staring at herself in the mirror as her reflection betrays her reality. Something is wrong here — in case the floating vampire wasn’t tip-off enough.

Aside from the bizarre nature of events, the opener is also visually striking. From there, the bitten girl shows more signs of “blossoming into her full vampiric state,” as she levitates above her bed (as her roommate captures it on her iPhone), hisses at people from a park bench, and catches fire when exposed to sunlight — in the middle of an art history class. The montage is quickly paced and character-driven, yet

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSBarry Jenkins by Liz Seabrook for Little White LiesBarry Jenkins is set to direct a film about the life of the late Alvin Ailey, the choreographer considered one of the most important of the twentieth century. Recommended Viewinga wonderfully lush and eerie trailer for the 4K restoration of Nicolas Roeg's Don't Look Now, which opens in theaters on July 5. The BFI and the Royal Astronomical Society have uncovered the very first film of a solar eclipse, captured by British magician Nevil Maskelyne in 1900. One century after the solar eclipse was first captured on film, arrives the first trailer for James Gray's Ad Astra, which stars Brad Pitt as an astronaut searching for his missing father—who was involved in a government project on extraterrestrial life—in space. The official trailer for Carlos Reygadas's Our Time,

It’s been well over a year since we last heard word on the upcoming film from director (and Limp Bizkit frontman) Fred Durst and star John Travolta, titled “Moose.” At the time, the actor was raving about how much fun he had filming the movie, and how it was his “favorite experience” in his entire career. While we aren’t sure if that translates to quality, what we do know is that Travolta looks batshit crazy in the movie, and lucky for film fans, we’ll finally get the chance to see it soon enough, under its new title “The Fanatic.”

According to Bloody Disgusting, it’s being reported that “The Fanatic” has been picked up by Amazon, no less, for a VOD release later this month, with a select theatrical release in the fall.

Continue reading Bonkers John Travolta & Fred Durst Collab ‘The Fanatic’ Reportedly Getting Dumped On

Sofia Coppola and Bill Murray’s highly anticipated reunion movie “On the Rocks” was set to film June 3 on Thompson Street in New York City, but the production’s shooting plans got a curveball thanks to flower shop owner Julia Testa. As reported by Vulture, Testa protested against the movie using her street and storefront during filming because the production was not willing to match the amount of money she would lose because of the production affecting street traffic.

Testa told Vulture her Soho store would lose an estimated $2,500 because of the film, but the production was only willing to pay her $400 at first and then $1,000 after a bump up. Testa took matters into her own hand by filling her storefront with protest banners. One giant pink sign hung from the outside banner and read: “Movie shoots kill small business. Come in, we’re open!” Other signs called out the

Summer hasn’t even officially started yet, and there are already so many excellent TV shows, limited series, and movies to catch up on — from favorites like “Better Things” and “Barry,” to perfect series cappers like “Deadwood” and “You’re the Worst,” to new series bound to light up best of lists for years to come like “Tuca & Bertie” and “Russian Doll.” You’re in for a long three months indoors if you want to see the best of the year so far.

And even the 10 best 2019 shows listed below don’t fully encompass what’s worth watching. Honorable mentions go to Hulu’s sharp comedy “Shrill,” Comedy Central’s crazy strong final season of “Broad City,” IFC’s inventive and observant “Documentary Now!,” HBO’s return-to-form season of “True Detective,” and a little Amazon series that’s the furthest thing imaginable from a “Catastrophe.”

So read on, set your priorities,

As crazy as it sounds that there’s a studio out there currently producing a new installment of the ‘Bill & Ted’ franchise, Hammerstone Studios is actually doing it. This year, stars Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter are returning to their roles of Theodore “Ted” Logan and William “Bill” S. Preston Esq., respectively, albeit much older, with kids of their own. And now, we finally know who the lucky ladies are that will be able to call the time-travelers “Dad.”

According to Hammerstone, actresses Brigette Lundy-Paine and Samara Weaving have signed on to star as Billie Logan and Thea Preston, daughters of the titular duo, in “Bill & Ted Face the Music.” As is fairly common in this franchise, ‘Face the Music’ follows the friends, Bill and Ted, as they get visited from a person in the future that warns them of universal destruction, with only the music of Wyld Stallyns

Sometimes, telling an immersive story set in another world means being removed from your own, even if only for a week. The team behind the new six-episode fiction podcast “Earth Break: A Few Suggestions For Survival, With Additional Hints and Tips About How to Make Yourself More Comfortable During the Alien Apocalypse” got to do just that.

“We recorded on five consecutive days. And I’m so glad we did it that way,” director Aaron Katz told IndieWire. “We got to this intense place where our reality was this show for that week.”

In the show that eventually emerged from that process, Jenny Slate, who extensive voicework credits including “Big Mouth” and “Bob’s Burgers,” stars as Lynn Gellert, the sole survivor of an alien invasion who is recording her efforts to stay alive for an audience she knows she may not ever meet.

“Earth Break” takes some of its cues from a found-audio premise,