Movie News

Whew.

After an overall worrisome Christmas corridor for moviegoing, the first full weekend of January is bringing relief for Hollywood and theater owners, thanks to Avatar: The Way of Water and new offering M3GAN, a sci-fi themed horror pic from Universal and Blumhouse.

The Way of Water, which was the lone movie to do big business at the year-end box office, will earn anywhere from 40 million to 45 million in its fourth weekend. Sometime on Saturday or Sunday, the 20th Century and Disney tentpole will jump the 500 million mark at the domestic box office, a feat accomplished by only two other films since the pandemic began, Spider-Man: No Way Home and Top-Gun: Maverick. Even before the Covid-19 crisis, this milestone was achieved by a select few in any given year.

M3GAN even beat The Way of Water on Friday with 11.7 million, including 2.75 million in Thursday previews. The Avatar sequel, which

Tár was named best picture by the National Society of Film Critics in the group’s 57th annual vote Saturday.

The film was among the key 2023 winners, as Cate Blanchett was named best actress for her titular role, while writer-director Todd Field prevailed for best screenplay. Also faring well was The Banshees of Inisherin, with Colin Farrell winning best actor for his performances in that and After Yang, while Banshees’ Kerry Condon was chosen as best supporting actress.

Ke Huy Quan continued his awards-season momentum with a best supporting actor triumph for Everything Everywhere All at Once. Additionally, Charlotte Wells landed the best director prize for Aftersun.

The group selected winners in the following categories: picture, director, actor, actress, supporting actor, supporting actress, screenplay and cinematography.

Last year, the group’s selection for best picture was director Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Drive My Car, which went on to win the Oscar for best international feature film.

Global cinema box office revenue weighed in at 26 billion in 2022, a healthy 27 improvement compared with 2021, but still a long way short of pre-pandemic levels.

In its final estimate of the full year to Dec. 31, 2022, research firm Gower Street Analytics calculated that global gross box office takings reached 25.9 billion. That compared with 21.4 billion in 2021.

The 2022 number is 35 below the 2017-19 average in the three years before Covid-19 upended the global film industry. Gower Street estimates that the 2022 number represents an annual loss of 14 billion in gross revenue.

Having been the highest grossing territory in both 2020 and 2021, China relinquished the box office crown to the North American (aka ‘domestic’) market in 2022.

According to Comscore Movies, the North American market achieved an estimated 7.5 billion in 2022. That was 65 up against 2021, but 35 behind the 2017-2019 average.

China is calculated to have finished at approximately 4.33 billion, or some 36 behind 2021. The 2022 China figure was fully 49 down on

The British Academy has revealed the results of the the first round of voting across all 24 categories for the 2023 BAFTA Film Awards, with one — perhaps unexpected — film leading the lineup of films vying for nominations.

According to the initial longlists, Netflix’s anti-war epic All Quiet on the Western Front has emerged as an early frontrunner, named in 15 categories, including best film and director. Lurking just a miniature donkey’s snout behind is Searchlight’s darkly comic Irish drama The Banshees of Inisherin from Martin McDonagh, with 14 slots (including best film, director and leading actor). Further down, Everything Everywhere All At Once and Elvis were longlisted 12 times each, while a four-strong pack — Aftersun, Babylon, Tár and Top Gun: Maverick — landed spaces in eight categories each. Awards pundits may note with interest that although The Fabelmans was named in five categories, there wasn’t space in the 16-strong directors longlist for

Park Chan-wook’s romantic thriller Decision to Leave emerged as the clear favorite when the 2023 Asian Film Awards nominations were unveiled Friday. The Korean maestro’s acclaimed feature, which won best director at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival and is shortlisted for an Oscar in the best international film category, scored 10 nominations, including best film, best director, best screenplay, and many of the major acting and craft categories.

Decision to Leave will face off in the best film category against Japanese auteur Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s 2022 Oscar winner Drive My Car, Kazakhstan film Poet by Darezhan Omirbayev, India’s Ponniyin Selvan: I from Mani Ratnam, and the Philippines’ When the Waves Are Gone from Lav Diaz.

The Asian Films Awards (AFAs) were inaugurated in 2007 and are organized by an academy established by the Hong Kong International Film Festival, the Busan festival and the Tokyo festival. Their remit is to honor the greatest

Bee Movie, a movie that for all intents and purposes should have disappeared from the cultural landscape, remains top of mind thanks to a plethora of internet memes. Social media isn't always lauded as beneficial to the well-being of our psyches, but every once in a while it actually does us some good – reviving forgotten pieces of art and entertainment, keeping them top of mind. It indeed worked its mysterious magic with the reclamation of Bee Movie, an animated film by DreamWorks from 2007 that, without memes' help, probably would have been long forgotten by now.

"Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice" not only featured the titular characters going at it but also introduced a classic DC Comics villain to the big screen. Despite only being the second film in the franchise, Superman (Henry Cavill) battled Doomsday, the monstrous alien life form destined to kill the Man of Steel. Zack Snyder may have pulled the trigger too soon by including the antagonist, but his appearance had been on the filmmaker's mind for quite some time. Long before his theatrical, live-action debut in the ill-fated sequel, Snyder teased the existence of Doomsday in "Man of Steel."

In "Batman v. Superman," Doomsday was a product of Lex Luthor (Jesse Eisenberg) mutating General Zod's body using his own DNA in the crashed Scout Ship in Metropolis. On Krypton, Doomsdays existed before cross-breeding was outlawed by the Law Council, which speaks to how dangerous they are since the same council

B-movies are movies just like any other and they should be respected for that, no matter if they are gold or garbage. For all of movie history, B-movies have been a perfectly reliable means of pure, bonkers entertainment. Audiences love them for their simple digestible thrills, and are easy to forgive them for any shortcomings as long as they deliver the goods in one of a few manners. Devotees will show up and fall head over heels for these projects as long as they have a great premise, interesting characters, fun setting, high kill count, or a particular artist pulling the strings behind the scenes. Sometimes, you have a film like The Burning, a project that uses many of the tools in the B-movie toolbox to its great benefit. Other times, you have Bubba Ho-Tep, a movie that promises a long list of reasons to love it yet hardly delivers on any of them.

Greg Nicotero's work on "The Walking Dead" as a director and special effects make-up supervisor has been nothing short of spectacular. The renowned multi-hyphenate has a long, meaningful history with the horror genre, from his contributions to several horror cult classics to his friendship with former colleague and special effects make-up veteran Tom Savini. Since working under the tutelage of the make-up effects maestro on George A. Romero's 1985 film "Day of the Dead," Nicotero has continued to focus on the genre, lending his talents to slasher properties like "Halloween," "Friday the 13th," and "Scream" along the way.

While serving as the primary director on AMC's "The Walking Dead," Nicotero was known for integrating Easter eggs and tributes to popular films in the horror genre, many of which he himself worked on during his early years as a make-up artist. Similarly, in the zombie survival drama series' ninth season,

Writer George S. Kaufman once said that “satire is what closes on Saturday night.” But nearly a century later, as real life has grown more absurd than most art, satire is everywhere — from popular franchises such as the “Knives Out” films and “The White Lotus” to hits including “Parasite.”

Why now? In our post-Trump world, where truth is subject to debate and issues like racism are impossible for anyone to ignore, talk-show monologues and “Saturday Night Live” skits became some of the only critiques able to break through the noise of political squabbling and call out lies, arguably paving the way for more films dealing in satire.

“Satire always puts events into a societal context, often dealing with hierarchies and economic influences. So if you want to examine the times we are living in, it’s a good starting place,” says writer-director Ruben Östlund, whose “Triangle of Sadness” skewers influencers,

Dystopian science fiction movies often reveal as much about the time they were made as the future they are predicting, although few films have the poles set as closely together as Kathryn Bigelow's "Strange Days." Controversial at the time for its disturbing depiction of sexual violence and racial injustice, the dark neo-noir was released in 1995, slap-bang between its incendiary vision of a society teetering on the brink of chaos at the turn of the millennium and the incident that provided a catalyst to get it to the screen, namely the brutal beating of Rodney King by LAPD officers in 1991.

Reaction from critics was mixed, often praising its atmosphere and technical prowess while questioning Bigelow's judgment and motives, and audiences didn't really know what to do with it. As a result, it bombed at the box office, making back just 8 million against its 42 million budget (via Box Office Mojo).

It's an overused phrase,

As HBO readies for the release of The Last of Us television series, one can’t help but think about the sorry state of video game adaptations throughout the years. Though the tide has slowly begun to change thanks to the likes of Arcane and Castlevania, the idea behind a critically acclaimed live-action adaptation that doesn’t incorporate some type of animated element (Sonic The Hedgehog), is still largely unproven. With the series right around the corner, many people will no doubt be eyeing the past works of those involved. With that in mind, one looks to what might be considered one of the most important aspects of a TV show: the showrunner.

Jackie Chan has been in the entertainment business his entire life. His 1978 film "Snake in the Eagle's Shadow" forever cemented his name as an action star — this was an actor who performed his own stunts no matter how many bones he broke. Jackie Chan is a household name, not just in East Asia but all over the world.

Chan's contribution to the slapstick kung-fu comedy style of films has made him so popular it's impossible to meet someone who doesn't know his name. He's one of the biggest action stars in the world — and even with all the critical acclaim and existing love for his work, the "Drunken Master" star still believed that he needed to do more to continue working and being memorable in the film industry.

In Chan's 2017 profile published by GQ Magazine, the Hong Kong-based star explained how he was always looking for a "different script, different character,

Never afraid to shake up industry norms, A24 is the groundbreaking film studio behind Everything Everywhere All At Once, Uncut Gems, The Lighthouse, HBO's Euphoria, and more. Fresh off a stellar 2022 in which the studio celebrated the release of writer/director Darren Aronofsky's critically acclaimed drama The Whale and Charlotte Wells' superb debut Aftersun, A24 is set to do it all again in 2023.

This February will see the debut of the second and final season of Carnival Row on Prime Video. The series has had a long and rocky road to the small screen, from its origins as a highly sought-after screenplay to a number of behind the scenes creative changes. And as if that wasn't enough, the Covid-19 pandemic kneecapped the second season's production, leading to a major delay in between seasons. Honestly, it's a miracle that Carnival Row still exists.

Comedians David Spade and the late Chris Farley were one of the most memorable comedy duos of the '90s, both as ⅔ of the Gap Girls on "Saturday Night Live" and as co-leads of two of the decade's classic buddy films. Decades beyond the release of the latter film, Penelope Spheeris' "Black Sheep," it still delivers plenty of Farley's physical comedy -- its funniest scenes sees him tussle with a bat and a steep hillside -- and strong buddy chemistry with Spade. But the end product mimics the earlier "Tommy Boy," but without much of that film's magic, leading one of its leading men to wish the movie had been axed.

Coming out of "SNL" fame, Farley signed a two-picture deal with Paramount. "Tommy Boy'' fulfilled the first half, grossing 32 million on a 20 million budget. Following Farley's Tommy Callahan III on a mission to sell brake pads with a less-than-thrilled Spade in tow,

In 2015 the Guinness Book of Records named Count Dracula as the most adapted literary figure with, at that time, over 500 productions making use of Bram Stoker’s iconic character. Underneath the cloak and dripping fangs has always been the suggestion that the monstrous Count is based on a true story, that of Vlad Țepeș, Voivode of Wallachia during the 1400s. The nature of this inspiration has been contentious, with many arguing that Stoker had never heard of Vlad Țepeș, and so he could not be the inspiration behind the story. This comes from the fact that no mention of Vlad Țepeș is made in the hundreds of pages of notes made by Stoker during writing the novel. However, the amount of similarities between the character and the historical figure of Țepeș makes it difficult to avoid drawing parallels. The question then becomes, did Țepeș inspire Count Dracula, or is this

Back when The Strain was first coming on the air, FX president John Landgraf revealed that the show was going to have a finite run between 39 and 65 episodes and, in revealing this news, noted, "What if a television show could be just the length that is optimal for that story?" Such a question feels even more relevant than ever in the wake of how many newbie shows Netflix has canned lately. This phenomenon has been hot on the minds of pop culture observers everywhere now that 1899 has become the latest Netflix show to get cut down in the prime of its life, with the show never making it past the first season. Other notable examples of this trend include First Kill and The Midnight Club, none of which would live to see another day beyond their first season order.

"Evil Dead Rise," the latest film in the "Evil Dead" horror franchise, is setting itself up to be one ferociously fun flick. The trailers revealed glimpses of our new hero, Beth (Lily Sullivan) wielding a chainsaw, we've seen her with the boomstick, and there's a freaky new take on the Necronomicon Ex Mortis — the Book of the Dead.

The red-band trailer promises that this "Evil Dead" entry will be as gory and gross as the rest of the franchise, and its version of the book seems to reflect the film's extra teeth (literally!). So what's up with this new Necronomicon? Is it the same one discovered by Ash Williams (Bruce Campbell) in the woods back in the 1980s? Is it the one from Fede Álvarez's 2013 reboot, found by Mia (Jane Levy) and her friends? Or is it some new, third thing, bringing new lore to the world of Kandarian demons and Deadites?

The 60+ members of the National Society of Film Critics (mostly NYFCC and Lafca members) too some time out on the first Saturday of 2023 to select their honorees for 2022. The top prize went to Todd Field’s “Tar” for Best Film which also won the equivalent prize from the aforementioned Los Angeles and New York critic organizations. The Focus Features release also won Best Actress for Cate Blanchett and Best Screenplay for Field.

Continue reading ‘Tar’ Named Best Film Of 2022 By The National Society Of Film Critics at The Playlist.