The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is the biggest thing Amazon Prime Video has ever done, and it looks like the TV series based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s writing has delivered big time. Launching with two episodes in 240 counties and territories across the globe on September 1, the J.D. Payne & Patrick […]
Sarah Polley, at the Telluride Film Festival for the world premiere of Women Talking, her latest film as a director, acknowledged how lucky she was as an actress to have worked with so many female filmmakers. They told her to be “fierce” when they saw that she wanted to work behind the camera. Women Talking, based on […]
When the colonels enter the courtroom, they clearly think they are in the clear. A military court has spent a year deciding that whatever excesses the Argentinian police, army and whoever else might have committed, these gentlemen were not down in the muck where these things happened, whatever “these things” were. One by one, they […]
National Cinema Day is underway with 3,000+ participating theaters (30,00 screens) offering $3 tickets, discounted concessions and a four and a half-minute preshow sizzle reel with peeks of upcoming titles from A24, Amazon Studios, Disney, Focus Features, Lionsgate, Neon, Paramount, Sony and Sony Pictures Classics, United Artists Releasing, Universal and Warner Bros. Trailers include Avatar 2: […]
UPDATE, SATURDAY, SEPT. 3: The Artemis 1 unmanned space launch, the first step in a program to return mankind to the moon, was called off once again this morning. NASA officially blamed a leaky fuel line on a propellant tank for the postponement. The ship was set to launch at 2:17 EST from the Kennedy […]
“Candy is better in France,” says a small boy to his brother in a flashback scene in For My Country (Pour La France), Rachid Hami’s personal drama premiering in Horizons at the Venice Film Festival. The boy’s Algerian family is considering moving to France, and his simplistic response sums up his innocent, optimistic view of […]
Forget the overly poetic title, Makbul Mubarak’s terrific Indonesian thriller Autobiography — which premieres in the Venice Film Festival’s Horizons section — is a genuine discovery here, a taut and elegantly staged two-hander that transcends regional politics to make a profound comment on the state of the world today. American arthouse audiences should be especially […]
SATURDAY AM UPDATE: “Estimates aren’t worth a whole lot this morning thanks to the brilliant idea of National Cinema Day,” cried one industry source to us this morning. They were speaking about the challenges for studio box office analysts to peg exactly what’s going to be No. 1 over the 4-day holiday weekend. Despite all […]
A panel of international figures joined forces today at the Venice Festival to pledge their support for filmmakers suffering oppression, harassment and imprisonment around the world. Participants in the panel included the Director of the Venice Film Festival Alberto Barbera, Vanja Kalurdjercic (Croatia, Director of the Rotterdam International Film Festival), Sinem Sakaoglu (Turkey, director), Orwa Nyrabia (Director of the Amsterdam Documentary Film […]
A lesbian gym teacher navigates Margaret Thatcher’s Britain under the “Section 28” law in Blue Jean, Georgia Oakley’s debut feature premiering in the Venice Days section of the Venice Film Festival. While it was featured in the recent documentary Rebel Dykes, the impact of Section 28 has rarely been shown on screen, especially from a […]
Transparent’s Trace Lysette stars in the Venice Competition title Monica, directed and co-written by Andrea Pallaoro, who returns to the Lido after his films Medeas and Hannah. Set in the U.S., Monica stars Lysette as the titular character, a trans woman who is summoned home to help care for her dying mother, Eugenia (Patricia Clarkson). […]
EXCLUSIVE: Leading media agencies Getty, AP and Reuters held impromptu talks with the Venice Film Festival yesterday over “unprecedented” new restrictions on them at red carpets and in press conferences. We understand the agencies have been left frustrated by new broadcast regulations which limit the footage they’re able to use from the red carpet to […]
More than 250 of Israel’s top filmmakers have signed an open letter, saying they will not seek funding from, nor cooperate with the recently–established Shomron (Samaria/West Bank) Film Fund, following the fund’s inaugural film festival in the occupied West Bank. The filmmakers call on the Israeli Academy of Film and Television not to partake in […]
The scourge of the opioid crisis has been documented in the press and in government reports; the culpability of the Sacklers, the multi-billionaire pharmaceutical family whose former company Purdue made the painkiller Oxycontin, has been successfully dramatized. The Sacklers are everywhere in Laura Poitras’ gripping documentary All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, but they are […]
EXCLUSIVE: Daniel Kaluuya is “chilling” on acting following the release of Nope, his latest collaboration with Jordan Peele. “I like the films to come out and have nothing lined up,” he told Deadline. “You’re showing a new performance, a new way, a new space that you were in at that time, so you gotta let […]
Emily Maitlis, whose notorious interview with Prince Andrew forced the disgraced royal to announce his departure from public life, has revealed she believes the prince “had behaved rather well.” The former BBC presenter, who interviewed the prince for its flagship Newsnight programme, told The Times that the duke’s behaviour compared favourably with most politicians. She […]
When Trace Lysette got to Venice for the premiere of the Andrea Pallaoro-directed drama Monica, she learned that she becomes the first Trans actress to headline a competition film here. Lysette plays the title character, a Trans woman who comes home to care for the mother who rejected her years ago, The young woman has […]
Succession star Matthew Macfadyen, who stole the rug from under the warring Roys by betraying wife Shiv last season, has got the seal of approval for his performance in upcoming drama Stonehouse from his real-life wife and co-star Keeley Hawes. Macfadyen has earned plaudits worldwide and been twice Emmy nominated for his portrayal of seemingly spineless […]
From the moment it was published in 1928, D.H. Lawrence’s steamy romance of a commoner and artistocratic wife has met with outrage and enduring popularity. It was so scandalous an unexpurgated version never appeared until an obscenity trial in Britain in 1960 was won by the publisher of the uncut version, leading to 3 million more […]
No documentary has ever won the Oscar for Best Picture. In fact no documentary has ever been nominated. If ever there was an opportunity to change that statistic, at least in terms of a nomination it could be the remarkable, emotional, and uplifting Good Night Oppy which transcends the genre to become a richly rewarding cinematic experience, kind of […]
The end came suddenly for Serena Williams in tonight’s US Open singles match. But she battled until the last point. Now the question remains if we have seen the last of one of the greatest women’s tennis players of all-time. With the capacity Flushing Meadows crowd roaring on every Williams shot and groaning when she […]
The 2022 Creative Arts Emmy Awards are being handed out over two ceremonies starting at 5 p.m. PT Saturday and Sunday at the Microsoft Theater in downtown Los Angeles. Neither will be televised live nor livestreamed, but the highlights will be edited into a package set to air Saturday, September 10 at 8 p.m. ET/PT […]
College football’s championship series is expanding from four to 12 teams, embracing the six highest-ranked conference champions and six at-large teams. The College Football Playoff’s 11-person board of managers unanimously voted Friday for the inflation to take hold in 2026. But it is also encouraging the sport’s commissioners to get on board as soon as […]
SAG-AFTRA is celebrating the upcoming Labor Day weekend with a podcast featuring Liz Shuler, president of the 12.5 million-member AFL-CIO, which represents 57 affiliated unions, including SAG-AFTRA, and workers in every ZIP code in the country. According to Shuler, the future of organized labor is bright. “We are stronger together,” Shuler said on the podcast. […]
Amazon Prime’s new series, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, is set 1,000 years before the famous Peter Jackson-directed films, whose last edition came out 19 years ago, and eight years after the concluding film of The Hobbit trilogy. So what’s a 72-hour delay in reviewing the new series? That’s the stance taken […]
