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“Atlantics” has Diop painting with her brushstroke a vibrant portrait of Ada, a young Dakar girl in search of her lover, Souleiman, who went to sea overnight and never came back. Almost exclusively taking place at night, Ada has to eventually deal with the haunted return of her boyfriend, swallowed by the waves of the magnetic Dakarese ocean, not as a full-fledged human being, but as a ghost. I spoke to the talented 37-year-old filmmaker about her native Senegal, what inspired “Atlantics” and the ghosts which haunt her movie....

Pietro Marcello’s “Scarlet” is the opening night film. The Italian director is coming off 2019’s critically-acclaimed Venice competition entry “Martin Eden.” I have been hearing great things about Lea Mysius’ “The Five Devils,” which just came a hair from cracking the official competition at Cannes. Another title to look out for is Mark Jenkin’s “Enys Man,” the UK filmmaker made some major waves in his home country with 2019’s black and white shot “Bait” — a sort of retro kitchen sink exercise, it earned raves upon its release....

The just-released “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” snuck its way into the top 10 this past weekend and will likely climb even higher by next weekend. The film grossed $175.5 million domestically in its opening weekend. Other Disney movies in the current top 10 highest-grossing for the year include “Captain Marvel,” “Avengers: Endgame,” “Spider-Man: Far From Home,” “Toy Story 4,” “Frozen 2,” “Aladdin” and “The Lion King.” Basically, Disney has built a monopoly on the industry by adhering to nostalgic remakes, sequels, reboots superhero movies and animated fare — with the rest of the industry trying to replicate the formula (here’s looking at you, Warner Bros....

I’ll leave it up to you to figure out why Russell’s film skipped the fall fests. It’s set to be released in two weeks and now it’ll have to build buzz organically through various different press and audience events. Here’s one of presumably many reactions that will start trickling in the days to come. It’s a positive one, comparing “Amsterdam” to “American Hustle” set in the ‘30s: The cast is stacked....

Edgar Wright’s highly-anticipated “Last Night in Soho” was supposed to come out this fall, but now comes the news it has been delayed until … April 2021. Get used it to it, folks. The dirty little secret in Hollywood right now is that most, if not all, of the movie year is most likely canceled. The news of Wright’s film being delayed by almost a year is just the start of what will be significant release delays from other studio titles....

This morning, I received this message from a veteran film critic who attended Telluride: Let me just start off by saying that I don’t believe this year’s mediocre Telluride lineup had anything to do with Julie Huntsinger or her team. The real problem I’m starting to notice is the lack of great “Oscar-bait” movies at Venice, which means Telluride probably had a hard time sifting through and finding worthy stuff for their own lineup....

Here’s the official snyopsis: “A mother (Academy Award winner Lupita Nyong’o from Black Panther, Star Wars: The Last Jedi and 12 Years a Slave) and a father (Winston Duke from Black Panther) take their kids to their beach house expecting to unplug and unwind with friends (including Emmy winner Elizabeth Moss from TV series The Handmaid’s Tale). But as night descends, their serenity turns to tension and chaos when some shocking visitors arrive uninvited....

Now I’m getting word that the full-length trailer will be released this coming Wednesday. DGA/press screenings are to be expected during the last week of November. So, things are moving fast in that regard. Whether this sequel makes more money than 2009’s “Avatar” is still up for debate. There’s a lot riding on James Cameron’s sequel, especially since a third chapter has already been shot and the fourth and fifth instalments are currently in production....

Vin Diesel and company are back for “F9” and I honestly couldn’t care less about it. There will be big guns, big muscle, big cars and, really, just big everything because this is America and it’s go big or go home. This ninth chapter will also, I’m just guessing here, end with a big family barbecue where the whole cast is gathered together as the camera slowly rises to the clouds....

Godard confirmed his new project when asked by Les Inrockuptibles: “Yes. It will tell the story of a Yellow Vest woman who breaks up with her boyfriend. The theme is inspired by Racine’s Bérénice. The character brings to mind Bérénice when Titus comes back to the State.” He continues, “It won’t be made just of what you call archival images. There will also be a shoot. I don’t know whether I’ll find what one calls actors....

That, my friends, is no longer a rumor. Director JJ Abrams has confirmed [via IGN] that he spoke to Lucas during the creative process and hinting that it was Lucas who came up with the idea to have Palpatine return in “The Rise of Skywalker.” Abrams claims that Lucas was the person who came up with the idea to put Palpatine in The Rise of Skywalker, but given that Abrams brought up Lucas while discussing the fallen Emperor, it may well have been him....

I thought the 1971 interview Wayne gave to Playboy Magazine was well-known and infamous for its bluntness and the way Wayne came off as being utterly bigoted towards African-Americans, Native-Americans, and homosexual couples. Why must social media be up in arms about it today? What’s the point of it resurfacing almost 50 years later? Does this just prove that people have absolutely no idea how racist things were back in the day?...

Today we learned that Glazer has actually been shooting a new film since August in Auschwitz, Poland. This is stunning news given that this latest project has been delaying its production for quite a few years now. The shoot is set to continue for another month, at least. A Cannes 2022 World Premiere is such an obvious possibility at this point. What we do know about this new project, a holocaust-set story, is that Glazer has been working on it for nearly five years, with A24 attached to produce....

“A mother (Academy Award winner Lupita Nyong’o from Black Panther, Star Wars: The Last Jedi and 12 Years a Slave) and a father (Winston Duke from Black Panther) take their kids to their beach house expecting to unplug and unwind with friends (including Emmy winner Elizabeth Moss from TV series The Handmaid’s Tale). But as night descends, their serenity turns to tension and chaos when some shocking visitors arrive uninvited....

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Today, a jury found Spacey not guilty in regards to the molestation charges brought forth against him by actor Anthony Rapp. There were plenty of holes in Rapp’s account of the events, but I still wondered if Spacey could get out of this one. He did and now we’re wondering what’s next. Spacey had also been charged in 2017 for, allegedly, sexually assaulting the teenage son of former Boston WCVB-TV news anchor Heather Unruh at a Nantucket bar in July 2016....

In a fascinating new interview with The Guardian, Scorsese opens up about the desperate situation theater owners and audiences currently face, and the threat that certain films play in that. Superhero films are mentioned, but he’s more concerned about “the state of cinema” in the broader scope of the term. Scorsese begins by stating what we already knew, but it should be mentioned again, he went to Netflix for “The Irishman” because no other studio wanted to shell out the cash to produce the epic....

Already added to the casting were stalwart actors (above) but now THR is reporting that John Turturro, one of the great character actors of our time, has been cast as Gotham gangster Carmine Falcone. Turturro’s career as a character actor is astounding (Quiz Show, Barton Fink, The Night Of, Do the Right Thing, The Big Lebowski, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Miller’s Crossing), he will no doubt bring a lot of dimension to “The Batman,” a film which already has a stacked cast of talented artists at its helm....

BFI’s Kaleem Aftab tweeted this morning … “There is going to be a movie at Cannes from one of the best American directors in history! He made two of my all time favourite movies (and we can argue all night over others) and fave TV series. This movie has been kept well under wraps… some even doubt it exists!” What a tease. Just when we thought there wouldn’t be a bombshell surprise, this tweet shows up....

My two cents on this is that the film had a low-key premiere in Italy to help build buzz despite theaccusations surrounding Franco. It was probably meant as a fall festival film first but the accusations made it practically impossible and difficult to get into TIFF and Telluride. Contribute Hire me Advertise Donate Team Contact Privacy Policy