And so, with all that being said, President Trump took to Twitter this morning to call out Spike Lee for putting a “racist hit” on him at the Academy Awards. Lee’s speech, after being announced as the winner for Best Adapted Screenplay, urged Americans to vote wisely in the upcoming 2020 presidential election. “When we regain our humanity it will be a powerful moment,” Lee said. “The 2020 election is around the corner – let’s all mobilize and be on the right side of history....

Although the film was rumored to have a budget of $85-$100 million, Forbes is saying au contraire. Reeves’ PG-13 vision will cost the WB a total of $185 million. Somewhat of a risk for what is said to be a 175 minute arthouse Batman movie, but doesn’t compare to the $180 million the WB shelled out to James Gunn for his R-rated “The Suicide Squad” (which bombed). In case, you missed them, you can click on the previously posted first, second and third reactions of “The Batman” back when it was test-screened late last year....

A test screening of “The Northman” happened on Tuesday at a Burbank, California AMC theatre. A few brave thespians reported back on their thoughts. Suffice to say, what we have here is an ambitious, massive even, film that is said to have a $110 million budget. Obviously, if you read the three test-screening reactions below, beware of spoilers. Reaction #1 Reaction #2: Reaction #3 “The Northman” has a screenplay co-written by Icelandic novelist and poet Sjón Sigurdsson....

We are not going to wait until January, which is when Sight and Sound will publish the individual ballots, but we also won’t be publishing all 458 lists. I’ve been playing detective this afternoon and sniffing around for top tens from the directors’ poll, a Twitter use (linked above) is spilling the majority of them. So far, 45 or so have been found. We’ll keep updating this post anytime a new list pops up....

2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick)8 1/2 (Fellini) Ashes and Diamonds (Wajda)Citizen Kane (Wells)Diary of a Country Priest (Bresson)Ikiru (Kurosawa)The Leopard (Visconti)Ordet (Dreyer)Paisa (Rossellini)The Red Shoes (Powell & Pressburger)The River (Renoir)Salvatore Giuliano (Rosi)The Searchers (Ford)Ugetsu (Mizoguchi)Vertigo (Hitchcock) Out of the fifteen films he chose — no female director? no black director? How dare you Martin Scorsese! Don’t you know that the times have changed? GET WITH THE PROGRAM, OLD MAN! In all seriousness, Scorsese recently mentioned in a Chicago-set conversation with Jeffrey Katzenberg that his favourite all-time film was Powell & Pressburger’s “The Red Shoes....

Based on an erotic novel by author Blanka Lipinska, “365 Days” stars Michele Morrone as Massimo, a member of Italian mafia who fails to protect his father from an assassination after being distracted by a beautiful woman. Massimo then becomes obsessed with this woman, a Polish sales agent named Laura, so much so that he ends up kidnapping and imprisoning her. Say, what? Massimo’s plan is for Laura to fall in love with him, and she has 365 days to do so or she can ust go back to her unhappy life in Poland....

“The Fabelmans” is said to have one of his best final shots, and the film supposedly gets better and better as it goes along. Even his most arduous detractors will surely want to see how that film turns out. I’ve scrolled through his filmography of 33 films and I’ve liked, at the very least, 18 of them. That’s not a terrible ratio. These are, to my eyes, at least, the 10 most accomplished films of his career: Schindler’s ListJawsClose Encounters of the Third KindAI: Artificial IntelligenceMinority ReportRaiders of the Lost ArkMunich Saving Private RyanDuelCatch Me If You Can Now to answer the “never-ending” question that’s been recurrently asked over the years: is Spielberg an auteur?...

Every year, we anticipate the program that Festival head Julie Huntsinger will reveal to festivalgoers who made the trip. They will experience one of the best curated film events in the world. The lineup of 30-something films, only revealed a day before the festival begins, can shift the Oscar race in the blink of an eye. This year, the table is set for Telluride to deliver a couple of marquee world premieres: “King Richard” and “C’mon C’mon....

There’s also this juicy bit of news, Todd Phillips’ “Joker” has been announced as an NYC premiere screening at the New York Film Festival. What does that mean? Quite simply, “Joker” will be screening somewhere else in the U.S. before NYC and, maybe, just maybe, that somewhere else could be Telluride, but I still highly doubt that given that it could just mean that an L.A premiere is happening before NYFF....

The festivals somewhat struggled as well with quality, a sign of an industry trying to adjust back to normalcy. Cannes, Venice, Sundance and Toronto all had off years. Maybe 2023 will be a better one, I’ve already tackled the 80+ films that show real promise. A real tell-tale sign that things were not going as planned this year were the number of films delayed to next year, statements by Scorsese, Aster, Anderson, Glazer, Lanthimos, Fincher and Scott all opted for a 2023 release....

“Army of the Dead” (May 21st) “A Quiet Place Part II” (June 4th) “Cruella” (May 28th) “In the Heights” (June 11th) “Pixar’s Luca” (June 18th) “Black Widow” (July 9th) “Old” (July 23rd) “The Green Knight” (July 30th) “Stillwater” (July 30th) “The Suicide Squad” (August 5th) “Respect” (August 13th) “Free Guy” (August 13th) “The Beatles: Get Back” (August 27th) “Candyman” (August 27th) Contribute Hire me Advertise Donate Team Contact Privacy Policy

Every January, we look ahead at what the streaming giant’s lineup of films will look like and it seems as though it gets better with each passing year. In 2021, Netflix delivered awards players such as “The Power of the Dog,” “Passing,” “The Lost Daughter,” “Tick… Tick… Boom!” and “Don’t Look Up.” This year, we can look forward to new films by such esteemed directors as David Fincher, Noah Baumbach, Guillermo del Toro, Andrew Dominik, Richard Linklater, and Rian Johnson....

Paul Thomas Anderson’s next film, supposedly titled “Soggy Bottom,” wrapped up production just last month. As we’ve mentioned in the past few months, the latest, and highly-secretive, film from the director of “There Will Be Blood” and “The Master” takes place in Southern California during the 1970s and follows a kid actor’s teen years attending high school in the San Fernando Valley. There have been rumors pointing towards the character that Bradley Cooper plays being Jon Peters, the producer of 1976’s “A Star is Born,” leading to speculation that this could be about the making of the Streisand-Kristofferson film (cheeky kind-of-casting when you realize Cooper also wrote, directed and starred in his own remake of the film back in 2018)....

Notice how I’m writing this in the past tense. According to a Collider interview with cinematographer Phedon Papamichael, Mangold’s Bob Dylan film has been axed due to the recently released COVID precautions that studios are taking. Papamichael added that Mangold is now looking at directing other projects. Does this mean Mangold will now be focusing on Indiana Jones 5? Mangold’s track record as a director is more-than-decent, his filmography includes the likes of “Ford v Ferrari” “Logan,” and “I Walk the Line....

Polanski is a convicted rapist that, in the late ‘70s, fled to Europe to escape jail time in the States. “I don’t separate the man from the art. I think that important aspects of the work emerges in the man,” Martel said. “A man who commits a crime of this size who is then condemned, and the victim considers herself satisfied with the compensation is difficult for me judge… It is difficult to define what is the right approach we have to take with people who have committed certain acts and were judged for them....

There are hundreds of movie genres, so everyone has their unique taste. The one thing that the billions of people who love watching movies for entertainment have in common is the need for entertainment that suits them. A typical film runs for at least 90 minutes, so unless you had other things in mind to occupy your time while you watch the movie, you really don’t want to waste it all on a piece that doesn’t suit you....

I truthfully don’t know the absolute answer. What’s peculiar about Diop not being at Cannes is that her film was definitely submitted there and the selection committee really liked it. “Saint Omer” definitely made the shortlist, but not more than 48 hours later, even before Cannes even announced their lineup, I found out that Diop’s film ended up being taken by Venice. I believe this was a case of Cannes waiting too long to lock it up and Venice quickly taking advantage of that opportunity to grab “Saint Omer”....

Smith officially apologized today. Maybe it’s because there are rumors that his upcoming epic “Emancipation” might actually be released this year. It was a genuine apology, but is all forgiven? The multiple camera angles in the apology video destroy any chance at earnestness. Smith was not interviewed by an objective party. It all looks like one big PR stunt on the part of Smith, as he controls the narrative without being asked the hard questions....

However, there might be a major obstacle on his path to Oscar glory. There was a stunning rumor being spread by a rival publicist during the Telluride Film Festival that claimed that Smith wasn’t vaxxed and that’s why he was a no-show at the fest. I took that rumor with a grain of salt. The months went ahead, “King Richard” consequently screened at the BFI London Film Festival and he was still a no-show....

We all know about the corruption in the Iranian judicial system, kangaroo courts are a daily occurrence in the land of Khomeini. Regardless, it is quite significant that two-time Oscar-winning Iranian director Asghar Farhadi was found guilty of stealing the premise for his new film, “A Hero,” from an earlier non-fiction film, “All Winners All Losers”, made by Azadeh Masihzadeh, a former film student of Farhadi’s. A second judge will now determine Farhadi’s punishment....