Actress-turned-director Regina King has adapted Kemp Powers’ play “One Night in Miami” for the screen with mixed results. The big sell here is the “what if” scenario the film tries to lure us with. What if .. on February 25th, 1964, after 22-year-old Cassius Clay defeated Sonny Liston in Florida to become the world heavyweight boxing champion, a post-celebration with Malcolm X, Sam Cooke, and Jim Brown, all close friends at the time, would have happened....

After Netflix, Disney+ comes in a distant second, much due to the massive success they’ve had with “The Mandalorian.” However, it was “Ozark” that was the most-watched show of 2020. From December 30, 2019 through December 27, 2020, Ozark’s 30 episodes, spanning three seasons, garnered more than 30,462 billion minutes of total viewing, according to Nielson. When season 3 of “Ozark” was released on Netflix on March 27, 2020, the crime drama starring Jason Bateman and Laura Linney scored close to triple the viewership the series garnered the first day of its Season 2 premiere on August 31, 2018....

The FYC awards/Oscars campaign will be going for Best Picture, Best Director, Actor, Screenplay, Original Song, Score, Editing, Cinematography, Sound, Production Design, VFX and more categories. It’s a full-fledged campaign. As far as 3-hour movies go, “Bardo” stands a better chance at getting nods than “RRR,” especially if Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu uses that pendulum of his to forecast the predictions. “RRR” needs momentum and, as far as Oscar voters go, is it realistic enough to believe that they will be willing to watch a 3-hour Indian action musical about the evils of British colonialism?...

Enter the kitschy funhouse of “Shazam!” Directed by David F Sandberg (whose “Lights Out” remains one of the great underrated gems of the horror genre this decade). His latest movie feels like it belongs in the ‘80s tradition of young kids caught up in extraordinarily bizarre situations, such as “The Goonies,” and “Gremlins.” “Stranger Things” ran with these influences as well in 2014 to become a mega-hit for Netflix, “Shazam” wants to be just as significant, but I don’t think it is....

‘No Way Home’ will set records in digital rentals and purchases, but a behind-the-scenes war was brewing for months about its streaming home. Now I’m hearing that it’s going exactly where Sony Pictures’ priorities lie, not mention it’s loyalties: Starz. You’re probably wondering, “Starz?!” Yes, Starz, the app and pay cable channel that is U.S. only and that almost nobody is a subscriber to. Starz is set to stream “Spider-Man: No Way Home” “sometime over the next six months....

Set in Bethel’s Farm on 124th Street, the Harlem-based fest was happening around the same time as Woodstock, during the summer of 1969. In that scorching heat, masses gathered at New York’s Mount Morris Park for a “celebration of African American musical and cultural expression.” The lineup of artists performing was filled with legends; Mahalia Jackson, The 5th Dimension, the Staple Singers, Sly and the Family Stone, David Ruffin, B....

According to the report, most of the Americans buying tickets for “Tenet” stem from the Southern regions of the United States, as those states account for 45% of the ticket sales in the country. And worldwide, it appears that 70% to 80% of all ticket purchases are coming from men. Then again, I wouldn’t be surprised if other Nolan films also had those male-to-female demographics. Meanwhile, overseas, the film is set to have a wowza $25 million weekend, but Warner Bros....

I reviewed “The Lodge” for The Playlist at Sundance [Read More]. In my review I wrote: ’The Lodge’ is a meditative plumbing of the darkest parts of the human psyche, our vulnerabilities, and self-doubts and it’s these personal fears that resonate loudly.” Except for an all-too-safe climax, the film is a complete horror knockout. The kind of arthouse horror we should continue to support. NEON nabbed the rights to the film, it’s not going to be a major hit quite like past Sundance faves such as “Hereditary” and “Get Out,” but it is a cant-miss-experience for cinephiles that have been craving for quality genre fare this year....

Consider this not a review, but an amalgam of thoughts about the film. Because, otherwise, if I describe what this film is about it would take away the sheer thrill of discovering this movie’s per-minute surprises. Yes, this is a midnight movie through and through, one filled with a suffocating amount of implausibilities that somehow don’t even matter. After her film debut “Raw,” which seems absolutely tame in comparison to this one, Ducournau is trying to go balls-out bonkers here, raising the insanity levels to 11....

The latest superhero creative irked by Scorsese’s comments is Damon Lindelof, creator of HBO’s upcoming superhero drama “Watchmen.” Speaking to Variety at the “Watchmen” world premiere, Lindelof said Scorsese was rather misguided in comparing Marvel movies to “theme parks.” “There’s a space in Marvel movies that they are beginning to explore and are beginning to be provocative and interesting. ‘Logan’ or ‘Black Panther’ are very close in my opinion to cinema and to put all Marvel movies in the same box doesn’t seem fair....

However, along with the always intriguing Next, Midnight Madness and Competition, there is the “Premieres” section, which has given us in recent years “Manchester By the Sea,” “Call Me By Your Name,” and “Boyhood,” among many others. I have narrowed down a wish-list for this year’s edition. 15 or so titles that could premiere with considerable “buzz” attached to them. Then again, these films could hold out from the fest, potentially frightened by the virtual component, and instead go for for non-hybrids such as Berlin, Cannes or Venice....

Bitcoin: The End of Money As We Know It This is an hour-long movie, created in 2014 by Thorsten Hoffman, which has become one of the best movies for anyone who has an interest in cryptocurrencies. It has multiple interviews with experts in blockchain, cryptocurrency investors as well as some of the earliest adopters of crypto to try and explain how and why cryptocurrencies were created, and the potential for it over the next few years....

I also pondered whether the movie was ready for Telluride. Well, it turns out that, according to Payne himself, “The Holdovers” cut shown in California was a “work-in-progress.” The film just isn’t finished. “The Holdovers” will most certainly be going to the Cannes Film Festival next year where Payne has been a mainstay in competition since 2002’s “About Schmidt.” It’s a no-brainer prediction on my part — the chances of seeing Payne at Cannes ‘23 are quite high....

Now Deadline is reporting that a private screenings will occur at TIFF for “The Holdovers” and the plan might be a possible late-December release to qualify for Oscars: Filming on “The Holdovers” began in Massachusetts on January 27, 2022 and there were some reshoots in late April. I was under the impression that they might wait this one out until Cannes 2023, and maybe they still will. “The Holdovers” has Payne reuniting with his “Sideways” star Paul Giamatti....

“Like everyone else, we were stuck inside a lot this year, and with streaming further blurring the lines between theatrical movies and television features, I’ve expanded the list to include visual storytelling that I’ve enjoyed this year, regardless of format,” Obama tweeted. Obama’s list includes one project (“Crip Camp,”) he most likely did see, from his Higher Ground production company, started by himself and wife Michelle Obama in 2018. On the narrative side, we’re supposed to go along with the notion that his royal highness sat through “Beanpole,” “Bacurau,” “Collective,” and “Martin Eden....

It sounds tasteless, but it isn’t. This is a sexy, provocative, and timely statement-— it plays like a 21st century Last Tango In Paris — that isn’t afraid to tackle the complexities of sexual connection in the digital media age. The questions being asked are uncomfortable, but necessary. Has sex been too commercialized by the internet that its principles are now scattershot? Is the definition of intimacy today very different than it was just a decade ago?...

10 Nominees for Best Documentary Feature American Factory, Apollo 11, The Biggest Little Farm, The Cave, Honeyland, The Kingmaker, Knock Down the House, Leaving Neverland, Maiden, One Child Nation, They Shall Not Grow Old Not a bad bunch, but there are some missing titles. Maybe a good blueprint for them should have been my own list of the year’s best docs. World of Reel’s best Docs of 2019 (1) Midnight Family (2) David Crosby: Remember My Name (3) American Dharma (4) They Shall Not Grow Old (5) Hail Satan (6) Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story (7) Ask Dr....

The Pursuit of Happiness In the sea of high-quality films nowadays, a truly inspiring movie for students that we’d recommend is “The Pursuit of Happiness.” The emotion “cloths to diamonds” biography written by Chris Gardner serves as the inspiration for the film The Pursuit of Happiness, which is about triumphing over adversity and remaining loyal to one’s own moral compass. The narrative describes Gardner’s ordeal of spending almost a year living on the streets while simultaneously caring for his small kid and doing unpaid internships as a stockbroker....

People were saying Jordan Peele’s film would be at $100 million domestically by now, but it likely won’t even reach that mark by Sunday. Peele’s ambitious sci-fi epic is project to make around $7-8 million this weekend, its third week of release. Peele’s previous films, “Get Out” and “Us,” managed to gross $175 million total each. Also, for the last time, I’m not hating on this film or its filmmaker, I thought Peele’s first two films were one of the best American efforts of their respective years....

If you remember, Szifron’s “Wild Tales” was the movie absolutely everyone was talking about at Cannes 2014. The film, consisting of six short stories, tackled the extremities of human behavior and what happens when people are pushed to the brink. Other 2014 highlights included Xavier Dolan’s “Mommy,” Bennett Miller’s “Foxcatcher,” Jean-Luc Godard’s “Goodbye to Language,” Andrew Zvyagintsev’s “Leviathan,” The Dardennes’ “Two Days and One Night,” Abderrahmane Sissako’s “Timbuktu,” and Mike Leigh’s “Mr....