“Twenty-eight years after losing my brother, Brandon Lee, to a very similar situation — one that allowed real bullets onto a film set and that made actors into agents of death — I’m finally in a sound enough mental and emotional space to raise my voice,” Lee writes. “So here goes. And I don’t take or want credit for these ideas, by the way. I’m just the sympathetic character who gets the good lines....
Of course, your greatest asset can just as easily be your biggest drawback; being “best in the business” can also make it impossible to succeed in the face of a massive paradigm shift like the one faced by ViacomCBS as it tries to create a competitive streaming platform at the 11th hour. IndieWire Editor-in-Chief Dana Harris-Bridson and film reporter Chris Lindahl break it down, along with an argument for why former “Head of the Class” star Robbins might represent the best hope for Paramount+....
The film follows two brokers who sell orphaned infants, circumventing the bureaucracy of legal adoption, to affluent couples who can’t have children of their own. After an infant’s mother surprises the duo by returning to ensure her child finds a good home, the three embark on a journey to find the right couple, building an unlikely family of their own. Japan wound up submitting “Plan 75” as its ambassador in the Best International Feature race over “Broker....
Seemingly everywhere at this year’s festival are reminders of a global film industry clawing its way back after two horrible pandemic years. Projects started ramping up in recent months, with Cannes arriving right as talent on both sides of the camera barely could make room in their schedules for the festival. At the opening night dinner following the premiere of “Final Cut,” held at the Majestic Hotel, many attendees buzzed with excitement about the potential to get back to work even as they basked in the energy of the current moment....
It’s so good to see Jennifer Lawrence play a real person again. Despite the quiet strength she brought to the “Hunger Games” franchise, and the outlandish joy she mined from the likes of “mother!” and “Red Sparrow,” a long run of dreadful “X-Men” sequels and over-cranked David O. Russell fiascos have dulled one of America’s brightest young movie stars to the point where it’s become easy to forget how good she can be....
The slew of supporting actor candidates in “Chicago 7” have agreed to compete together, including the cast’s arguable leads, Sacha Baron Cohen as Yippie leader Abbie Hoffman, who in the movie tussles with Oscar-winner Eddie Redmayne’s more moderate anti-war activist Tom Hayden. Now Baron Cohen will likely get the slot that might have otherwise gone to Jeremy Strong (Yippie Jerry Rubin), Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (Bobby Seale), Mark Rylance (defense lawyer William Kunstler), or Frank Langella (Judge Julius Hoffman)....
The “Lightyear” actor addressed the ban of the film due to a same-sex kiss, with the “Toy Story” prequel barred from premiering in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Kuwait. The queer love story features scientist Hawthorne (voiced by Uzo Aduba) and her wife. A kiss between the two characters was cut from the film and later reinstated amid criticism against Disney for initially giving political donations to the backer of Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill....
“It was not 100 percent off the table,” Snyder recently told MTV (via THR) about the early discussions of setting “Man of Steel” in the same universe as “The Dark Knight” movies. “We did talk about it a little bit. The whole thing is that I think it’s difficult.” Why so difficult? The ending of Nolan’s “The Dark Knight Rises” is one of the reasons, according to Snyder. “It would’ve been interesting because, just doing the math, if we had done that, the Batman in this movie would’ve been Joseph Gordon-Levitt,” the director said....
As IndieWire film reporter Chris Lindahl wrote last week upon the announcement Los Angeles theaters can re-open: “It’s a significant milestone for an exhibition sector roiled by the pandemic. Following the reopening of New York City theaters last month, this means the country’s two largest theatrical markets will be back in business, which could begin to pave the way to a return to normalcy for theatrical releases.” “The reopening of Los Angeles theaters will likely inspire confidence in distributors, who have been reluctant to release films in theaters for much of the pandemic,” Lindahl continued....
Cinépolis CEO Alejandro Ramírez Magaña, who oversees the world’s fourth-largest theater chain, had a message for studio execs sitting at front-and-center reserved tables: The best way to avoid piracy is a healthy and exclusive theatrical window. On the flip side, day-and-date streaming is perfect if you want your film to be pirated — it’s virtually a guarantee for illegal downloading and a loss of revenue. And: He brought receipts (and his corporate communications team sent them to IndieWire)....
By then theaters should be reopened and capacity restrictions reduced, but for Apple — and perhaps for some studios, too — that’s not the primary market driver. Searchlight will follow a similar plan for Questlove’s “Summer Of Soul (Or, When The Revolution Could Not Be Televised),” which broke a Sundance documentary record with its $12 million buy. It goes day and date, in theaters and on Hulu, July 2....
When we last saw Larry David, it wasn’t on “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” He was peering through his back window in the pages of The New York Times. Or he was reviving his “SNL” alter ego, Senator Bernie Sanders, from what appeared to be a chair in his home office. Or he was explaining the virtues of stay-at-home orders on behalf of the State of California. (“I basically want to address the idiots out there…” remains a timeless introduction....
While Netflix apologized for inappropriately marketing the film, the September 9 debut of “Cuties” on the streaming platform has caused backlash to explode on social media. Rallying calls for Netflix subscribers to delete their accounts because of “Cuties” resulted in the Twitter hashtags #DeleteNetflix and #CancelNetflix becoming top trends in the U.S. on September 10. The renewed backlash forced Netflix to issue a follow-up statement defending the film. “‘Cuties’ is a social commentary against the sexualization of young children,” a Netflix spokesperson said in a statement to Variety....
Elfman always had a recorder on him at the time in case ideas struck on the fly, so he used it on the airplane to begin composing the “Batman” original score. The composer would take frequent trips to the airplane bathroom to play ideas that were coming to mind during the trip. “I start running in the bathroom [and hum phrases] and I go back to my seat, and I’m thinking, I’m thinking,” Elfman said....
The writer-director said as much during 2022 CinemaCon when premiering the intensely horrific trailer for “Crimes of the Future,” which now publicly has made its debut. The body horror sci-fi epic marks “The Fly” director’s return to Hollywood after eight years, following 2014’s “Maps to the Stars.” The film stars Viggo Mortensen and Léa Seydoux as celebrity performance artists who publicly showcase the metamorphosis of human organs in avant-garde performances....
The “Stranger Things” star has previously spoken out on the merits of method acting, and in a recent interview with British GQ, Harbour assured that he is “very much trained in classical American method acting,” which doesn’t encourage taking the roles home with you. “When I was younger — it’s so embarrassing — but I remember playing that famous Scottish King,” said Harbour, who played Macbeth onstage in college at Dartmouth in his early days....
“As an employer, this is beyond politics,” Simon wrote on Twitter. “I’m turning in scripts next month on an HBO non-fiction miniseries based on events in Texas, but I can’t and won’t ask female cast/crew to forgo civil liberties to film there. What else looks like Dallas/Ft. Worth?” The Dallas Film & Creative Industries Office, formerly known as the Dallas Film Commission, pushed back against Simon with a post that read: “Laws of a state are not reflective of its entire population....
Over the past few weeks, “Desus and Mero” has been tossing in some filmed segments done outside the two hosts’ respective home studios. Few of them have been fueled by as much unadulterated joy as Desus Nice and The Kid Mero’s visit to Cambridge, Massachusetts, curated by the ever-illustrious Yo-Yo Ma. Within seconds of meeting, they’re giving each other giant mutual appreciation bear hugs. Before long, they’re having a hearts-to-heart at a local barbershop....
XTR, which took five co-financed films to Sundance 2020 — including well-received docs “Feels Good Man,” “Mucho Mucho Amor,” and “Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets” — plans to roll out Documentary Plus+ this fall; a representative said they’re hoping for the end of September. Billed as a “highly curated documentary streaming service,” Documentary Plus+ aims to “provide audiences with the best in documentary film and further serve as a permanent home for the work of nonfiction filmmakers along with added distribution and amplification of their projects across all social channels....
The official synopsis for “Dog” reads: “[The film] is a buddy comedy that follows the misadventures of two former Army Rangers paired against their will on the road trip of a lifetime. Army Ranger Briggs (Tatum) and Lulu (a Belgian Malinois dog) buckle into a 1984 Ford Bronco and race down the Pacific Coast in hopes of making it to a fellow soldier’s funeral on time. Along the way, they’ll drive each other completely crazy, break a small handful of laws, narrowly evade death, and learn to let down their guards in order to have a fighting chance of finding happiness....
