However, the biggest news belongs to its history-making director, Nia DaCosta. She is the first Black female director to have a #1 film at the box office. It’s unlikely to be her last; she’s in preproduction on “The Marvels,” the first sequel to “Captain Marvel” — another couple of firsts, as a Black woman hired as a Marvel Studios director and as the highest-budgeted film directed by a Black woman....
More than ever, Academy members are comfortable streaming Oscar contenders at home — and that means things are about get really complicated. Figuring out how to engage voters who can browse their options like a Netflix queue will be one of the biggest challenges this season. Any Oscar-contending film also contends with “the awards corridor” — that narrow period in which too many films fight for a theatrical release slot that will best capture the audience’s and the voters’ attention....
The other nominees include Pixar’s first fantasy, “Onward,” and two entries from Netflix: “Over the Moon,” the gorgeous musical fantasy about the Chinese Moon Goddess from Disney legend Glen Keane (Oscar winner for the “Dear Basketball” short), and Aardman’s “A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon.” With director/chief creative officer Pete Docter at the helm, Pixar accomplished its most ambitious film yet by contrasting gritty New York City with the ethereal Great Before....
Director Sian Heder and her producers went backstage at the Oscars after “CODA” won both Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay, in addition to star Troy Kotsur winning Best Supporting Actor. Heder was quick to highlight the significance of the moment for indie filmmakers. In fact, Heder said that she was, at one time, convinced the film wouldn’t even be able to get made because of her commitment to decisions like casting deaf actors like Kotsur....
While the film’s reported working title is “Soggy Bottom,” UAR confirms the movie is still without an official theatrical release title. Anderson wrote the script and produced the film along with Sara Murphy. MGM backed the film in association with BRON Creative and Ghoulardi Film Company. This info about Anderson’s new movie are the only details UAR is willing to confirm about the project at this time. Anderson shot the majority of his new movie in Los Angeles last fall....
Why the affinity for destruction in Riseborough’s work? “There’s something about the subconscious bubbling up to the surface that feels very honest,” she said. “I don’t know whether that’s just me. But I feel certainly, now more than ever, that there is an underlying frustration, violence, turmoil in all of us. That’s probably why I’m drawn to work like that, because it reflects, perhaps unconsciously, what’s going on in society....
Some movies don’t seem inevitable until they’re made. The most absurd thing about Sion Sono’s “Prisoners of the Ghostland” — a sukiyaki psych-Western that casts Nicolas Cage as a criminal on a mission to rescue a runaway girl from a post-apocalyptic wasteland before the bombs attached to his balls explode — is that it didn’t already exist. This is the first film that Sono shot (predominately) in English, and the first film that Cage shot with a (predominately) Japanese crew, but “Prisoners of the Ghostland” leaves no doubt that these two wildmen speak the same language....
That applied to the film’s careful use of color, and Fennell’s collaboration with costume designer Nancy Steiner and production designer Michael Perry (who joins Fennell on the second half of the podcast). The DGA-nominated director also made it clear these were also colors and images she personally liked. “I like ‘Sweet Valley High,’” Fennell said. “I like Paris Hilton, and I like Britney [Spears, making reference to older music videos], and I like pink....
Now, she’s the latest recipient of a special Teddy Award from the Berlinale, which recognizes a figure “whose work has made an exceptional contribution…to queer perspectives in art, culture and the media.” Past recipients include Tilda Swinton, Christine Vachon, John Hurt, and Udo Kier. Anyone involved in queer film over the last three decades will know Olson. If you were paying attention, you’d notice her name in the special thanks of nearly every queer film restoration or re-release from the last 30 years....
This year’s Razzies, which were handed out on Saturday, included a special category just for Willis, “Worst Performance by Bruce Willis in a 2021 Movie,” highlighting the eight critically reviled titles he starred in last year; he won for “Cosmic Sin.” Just a four days later, the 67-year-old actor’s family made public the news of his medical condition, a disease caused by brain damage that impacts a person’s cognitive and communication abilities....
Which isn’t to suggest that Chin and Vasarhelyi wouldn’t be compelled to Musk on their own accord, or to the astronauts who risked their lives in order to lead SpaceX’s first crewed launch into orbit. The filmmakers’ previous work has been galvanized by a high-intensity approach to Herzogian characters — by a rich affinity for cave divers, free climbers, and anyone else who refuses to settle for the simple comforts of terra firma — and a neurodivergent kajillionaire who dreams of dying on Mars seems like such a natural subject for Chin and Vasarhelyi that Herzog, no stranger to the idea of disguising sponsored content as a more organic form of documentary), is probably kicking himself for not getting to Musk first....
While Mildred was resolute and composed in the face of injustice, Clare is provocative and strong-willed, a sunny seductress determined to live life exactly on her terms. Though they live in very different worlds, Clare has a lot more in common with Negga’s hot-headed “Preacher” character Tulip than she does with Mildred — and with the charismatic Negga herself. In an interview with IndieWire, Negga explained why she embraced her latest onscreen character....
Every year, screenwriters, directors, and producers promote their films on panels, and the likes of Brad Pitt, Bong Joon-ho, Adam Driver, Renée Zellweger, Laura Dern, Viola Davis, Lupita Nyong’o, Saoirse Ronan, Bruce Dern, Jeff Bridges, Melissa McCarthy, Isabelle Huppert, Viggo Mortensen, Rami Malek, Glenn Close, Ben Affleck, Christopher Nolan, and Sam Elliott submit to in-depth tributes. The panels, tributes, special screenings lure local cinephiles and Academy members eager to hear Oscar contenders talk about their creative process....
By focusing his camera on the faces of 30 (or so) app users as they peruse the digital meat market and reflect on their perfect match, Velez allows their phones to become as much of a looking glass as they are a portal. The result of his little experiment is a warm and compulsively watchable movie that flirts with modern ironies (e.g., our dystopian reliance on algorithms to find real human connection) and asks timeless questions (“u up?...
Seed&Spark’s streaming platform allowed filmmakers to submit their work directly; accepted projects enjoyed a 50-50 revenue split. About 100 creators, representing about 200 titles, opted to have their titles transferred to IndieFlix. Similarly, IndieFlix allows filmmakers to submit their work directly to the platform for consideration. They’re paid based on a model that pools subscription revenue and pays filmmakers on a minutes-watched rate. “With the Seed&Spark library, my goal is to get it live and have a home for that content,” said IndieFlix CEO Scilla Andreen....
The “severed” floor — for employees who have elected to go through a surgical procedure that separates their memories of time at work from their sense of self after-hours — has all the normal office accoutrements: desks, bad carpet, the worst break room ever. But it’s also a place slightly out of time, with a modish ’60s aesthetic and nonsense computer operating systems. Just as the Macrodata Refinement team of Mark (Adam Scott), Dylan (Zach Cherry), Helly (Britt Lower), and Irving (John Turturro) are beginning to realize there may be sinister things going on in Episode 7, they’re treated to a visit from floor manager Milchick (Tramell Tillman)....
During an interview on the “Real Ones with Jon Bernthal” podcast, LaBeouf praised “Pearl” actress Goth for reaching out when he was in rehab after two years of not speaking. The duo reconciled in 2021 and welcomed daughter Isabel earlier this year. “She saved my fucking life,” LaBeouf said of Goth, admitting she “took hits” from the media for getting back with him amid abuse allegations and upcoming lawsuit from “Honey Boy” co-star, ex FKA Twigs....
With a non-premium price of $6.99, “The Tax Collector,” distributor RLJE self-reports that it has first weekend rentals over $2 million and played at 129 theaters (mainly drive-ins), where it grossed $309,964. That’s first place among new releases; according to incomplete grosses on Comscore, “The Empire Strikes Back” was #1 overall. But Comscore doesn’t show 34 of the theaters that played “The Tax Collector.” We also don’t know how many of the “Empire” grosses are missing — and will never know, since, like other studios, Disney isn’t reporting reissue grosses....
The good news is that nobody gets buried with their best friend or has to leave them behind; this isn’t the kind of movie in which people die so much as one where everyone wears overalls and André Benjamin plays the patient kiln master at an Oregon arts college. The bad news is that a deadline might be even more distressing for certain types — namely, an insecure sculptor whose landlord (Hong Chau) is so busy rocketing to local fame with her large-scale installation work that she doesn’t seem to care about fixing the hot water....
The sketch is an especially raucous one, with Rudolph’s Welker turning the proceedings into a drinking game, and Baldwin and Carrey taking potshots at one another that are all but lifted straight from the actual debate that took place earlier this week. The host (and not the musical guest) this weekend was Adele, who did manage to perform excerpts from some of her hits in a sketch centered around “The Bachelor....
