It’s always interesting to see how film programmers, curators and historians rate the year’s best films. Some of the films that made the top ten include Albert Serra’s “Pacifiction,” David Cronenberg’s “Crimes of the Future,” Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Licorice Pizza” and Jordan Peele’s “Nope.” The individual ballots are quite fascinating as well. Eclectic French filmmaker Alain Guiraudie believes “Don’t Worry Darling” is one of the best movies of the year....

The NBR is made up of film enthusiasts, industry professionals, academics, and filmmakers. They are usually the first major group to announce their year-end awards, with the New York Film Critics Circle usually announcing their picks a few days later (this year the NYFCC are announcing on December 4th, which is tomorrow). Last year, the National Board of Review honored eventual Oscar winner “Green Book” with its top prize. Past NBR winners for Best Film this decade include “Her,” “Zero Dark Thirty,” “The Post,” “Manchester by the Sea,” and “Mad Max: Fury Road....

So, is it any surprise that Netflix’s Kurt Russell-starring Santa Clause movie “The Christmas Chronicles” was announced to have passed the 20 million streams mark yesterday? Of course not. After all, some of the most popular Netflix movies this year came from the unlikeliest of sources: “Set It Up.” “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before” and “The Kissing Booth.” You know the numbers for “The Christmas Chronicles” are huge because the streaming tends to usually never report its viewing numbers for original television and film offerings....

Producer, director, and creator extraordinaire Ryan Murphy (creator of “Glee” and “American Horror Story”) has decided to rewrite Hollywood history in the aptly titled “Hollywood” (Netflix 05.01.20). A new limited series from Murphy and Ian Brennan. The show follows aspiring actors and directors in a post-World War II Hollywood and how Tinseltown may have looked like had the decades-old power dynamics been shattered in favor of more progressive attitudes, openly gay actors, militant feminists actresses, and people of color taking on leading roles....

In the meantime. Paul Thomas Anderson is instead planning on touring “Licorice Pizza” to various different cities and states in the United States, much like he did with “Phantom Thread” in 2017. Mum’s the word for the rest of the field. With only the AFI Film Festival left to unveil world premieres, the clock is ticking on whether Adam McKay will want to return to the festival that launched “The Big Short” back in 2015....

Fact of the matter is that for all of the artful ambition Luhrmann paints his films with, he’s first and foremost a man of the people. He makes movies for the mainstream and that can be seen not just in “Elvis,” but also “Moulin Rouge,” “The Great Gatsby,” “Strictly Ballroom” and “Romeo & Juliet.” All of these were crowd pleasers. So it’s not really that surprising to learn that “Elvis” had a rousing screening for Oscar voters on Saturday....

You can add the movie to the shortlist of 2022 contenders so far. We are almost halfway through the year and two Best Picture contenders have been released: “Everything Everywhere All At Once,” and “Top Gun: Maverick.” ‘Maverick,’ through today, has grossed $160 million domestically. Overseas, there’s another $124 million, at least. The worldwide total is going to hit $300 million today. Its A+ CinemaScore hints at an all-out audience crowd pleaser....

Paramount is halting pre-production on the sequel due to “budgetary issues.” The sequel was supposed to start shooting this spring in Atlanta. There are no efforts to revitalize the film, at least as of this moment. This means Fincher is free as a bird to pick his next project. He has already wrapped up the second season of his Netflix show “Mindhunter” but hasn’t released a feature-length feature since 2014’s “Gone Girl....

Palme d’Or winning director Ruben Ostlund is also not bringing his “Triangle of Sadness” to Cannes this year. Rather, he will wait until next year’s edition of the fest. The same with Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Soggy Bottom,” that one is banking on a Venice world premiere. Look for my final predictions on Tuesday. Contribute Hire me Advertise Donate Team Contact Privacy Policy

“They Shall Not Grow Old” will use never-before-seen archival footage of the “great war,” all of which will be colorized and restored in 3D format. This is an incredibly fascinating project which will be screened exclusively in theaters on October 16th. “On the centenary of the end of First World War, Academy Award-winner Peter Jackson (The Lord of the Rings trilogy) presents the World Premiere of an extraordinary new work showing the Great War as you have never seen it....

Here some of the reviews: Wendy Ide (ScreenDaily): “Visually glorious, frequently very funny and genuinely profound, this is a picture which cries out to be seen on the big screen.” Kevin Harley (Total Film): “Moving ever-onward from the sequels years, Pixar gets right back in the zone with Soul. Deep, witty, and fast on its jazz-loving feet, it doesn’t miss a beat.” Leslie Felperin (The Hollywood Reporter): “This densely packed, exquisitely executed and just a teensy bit batshit film is peak Pixar....

In a new interview with Premiere (via The Playlist), Tarantino called David Fincher’s 2010 Facebook movie “The Social Network" the best movie of the decade, adding that its screenwriter, Aaron Sorkin, was “the greatest active dialogist.” Tarantino’s full quote: “The Social Network” ranked #5 on World Of Reel’s industry poll of the best films of the 2010s, published last May. Fincher’s film was a major statement on the advent of social media, and our unhealthy, selfish obsession with “friending”, self-image, which ultimately led to a lack of human-to-human connection in the post-Facebook world....

Whilst interviewed by Business Insider’s Jason Guerrasio, Liotta was asked which director he would love to work with. After answering Woody Allen, Guerassio then retorted, “despite the allegations against him?” to which Liotta replied, “I believe what [Woody Allen] says. I don’t think he did what they accuse him of. He’s too — for his particular case I don’t buy it.” Liotta joins a growing number of actors and actresses who have vehemently defended Allen, despite the legendary writer-director being nixed by “cancel culture” due to decades-old allegation resurfacing in the #MeToo era....

Keeping the screenwriting team of the previous film, but with a noticeable director change, original helmer Tim Miller had artistic differences with star Ryan Reynolds, this sequel doesn’t deliver the freshness of the original, instead, the result is actually quite disturbing. Reynolds joins the writing team for “Deadpool 2,” and because of that, we feel the creative freedom of new director David Leitch all but sucked out of his hands....

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The legendary Polanski has remained a controversial figure ever since his arrest in 1977 for drugging and raping a 13-year-old girl. Pleading guilty to the lesser offence of unlawful sex with a minor, Polanski served 42 days in jail but then became a fugitive of the U.S. by fleeing the country after learning that a judge was planning on giving him a long sentence. In the aforementioned interview, the 86 year-old Polanski discusses, with French writer Pascal Bruckner, being “cancelled” in Hollywood due to #MeToo I don’t recommend scrolling through the interview if you don’t want to read Bruckner’s praising and defending of Polanski, especially when he asks the director how he can possibly be “surviving the present-day neo-feminist McCarthyism”....

“Devil in the White City,” based on the book by Erik Larson, tells the story of an architect and a serial killer, both trying to leave their mark on the city, and the true events that changed their lives forever at the 1893 Chicago World Fair.” ‘White City’ will be produced by Paramount Television, with an unknown air date on the streaming network Hulu. Variety did confirm last year that Scorsese and Dicaprio’s sixth collaboration together would be “Killers of the Flower Moon” wehich will start production this summer....

As mentioned above, a Caltech professor by the name of Girish Shambu was hired in early summer as a “voting consultant” for the 2022 Sight and Sound poll. He blew the doors wide open by mixing the “chains of recommendation.” Even though he claims that he didn’t want changes to occur, a tweet written by him dated 08.08.22 might say otherwise. Now, we’re all wondering, who some of the other consultants hired were … Contribute Hire me...

‘Last Black Man’ is heavily influenced by Spike Lee’s filmmaking. Much like Lee’s films, it examines race relations, gentrification and urban poverty in Black America. These themes, and Lee’s immaculate style of filmmaking (a few Lee-esque dolly shots show up) are used by Talbot in the movie. Of course, there is nothing wrong in finding your own directorial voice by using exterior influences. But, something tells me, that my friend can’t surely be the only person complaining about Talbot being white....

Lee already has already released one film in 2020, the overpraised Netflix entity “Da 5 Bloods.” Lee is no slouch to the documentary genre, in fact, some of his best movies have been non-fiction (“4 Little Girls,” and the 4-hour Katrina masterpiece “When The Levee Breaks”). As seen in the new teaser for “David Byrne’s American Utopia,” the new project is a filmed version of Byrne’s acclaimed Broadway show that featured performances of his own songs, both solo and with the Talking Heads....