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The 73rd Berlin International Film Festival has confirmed its dates for next year, with the event set to run from February 16-26, 2023. I’ll continue updating the list below. So far, I have 16 potential titles that could pop up in or out of competition: Christian Petzold’s “The Big Red Sky”Francois Ozon’s “Madeleine”Ira Sachs’ “Passengers”Phillipe Garrel’s “Le Grand Chariot”André Téchiné’s “Les Pieds Sur Terre”Angela Schanelec’s “Music”Cristi Puiu’s “MMXX”Aki Kaurismaki’s “Dead Leaves”Wes Anderson’s “Asteroid City”William Oldroyd’s “Eileen”Lone Scherfig’s “The Movie Teller”Robert Schwentke’s “Seneca”Frauke Finsterwalder’s “Sisi and I”Margarethe von Trotta’s “Bachmann and Frisch”Valerie Donzelli‘s “Love and Forests”Patric Chiha’s “The Beast in the Jungle” Supposedly, word is that Berlin has finally managed to achieve gender parity with next year’s competition....

Farrelly’s “The Greatest Beer Run Ever” will have a splashy world premiere at TIFF. If you remember, the filmmaker’s “Green Book” also had its world premiere in Toronto, and that film went on to win the Best Picture Oscar. “The Greatest Beer Run Ever” is based on the book of the same name by Joanna Molloyand John “Chickie” Donohue. The plot, set in 1967, revolves around a man leaving New York for Vietnam to bring beer to his childhood buddies in the Army while they are fighting the war....

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However, Variety’s Peter DeBruge and The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw are positive. Ditto Cinevue’s John Bleasdale. Ehrlich via Tweet: Meanwhile, very much on-brand, as if totally oblivious to the bad reviews, Variety’s Clayton Davis is calling “The Son” a major Oscar contender. What?! Jackman seems to be getting decent ink, but what looked like a shoo-in for Best Actor is turning into now a massive hurdle for a nom. The more I think about it, the more Brendan Fraser is looking like a lock....

Right now, both Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes are posting 89% approval ratings for Coen’s film. It is set to be released on December 25th in theatres and January 14th on Apple TV. It would be damn-near sacrilege if one were to stream Joel Coen’s film … Current contenders for the Best Cinematography Oscar: Bruno Delbonnel (The Tragedy of Macbeth)Greg Fraser (Dune)Haris Zambarloukos (Belfast)Ari Wegner (The Power of the Dog)Claire Mathin (Spencer)Andrew Droz Palermo (The Green Knight) I imagine Janusz Kaminski (West Side Story), Robert Richardson (Don’t Look Up), and Dan Laustsen (Nightmare Alley) will also be part of the conversation once their respective films are released....

“The Trial of the Chicago 7,” written and directed by Sorkin, is the true story of a group of seven activists that were charged by the federal government with inciting a riot stemming from anti-Vietnam War protests during the 1968 Democratic National Convention. What sticks out like a sore thumb in this otherwise well-edited and excitable trailer is Sacha Baron Cohen, not to mention that wig he’s wearing (or is that his real hair?...

Howard’s film, supposedly, received the best test scores in MGM history — earning a 97 in the top two boxes and an 86 “definite recommend”. It was originally set for release on April 15th but is now scheduled for a November 18th date. The film, which stars Colin Farrell, Viggo Mortensen, and Joel Edgerton, is based on the true story of a rescue mission in Thailand, where a group of young boys and their soccer coach were trapped in a flooding maze-like underground cave....

No, “Unpregnant” is not a straight-up comedy ala “Juno,” but this new HBO MAX movie, from producer Greg Berlanti, does have the excellent Haley Lu Richardson (“Columbus,” “Support The Girls”), starring as a 17-year-old teen who has gotten pregnant, but lives in Missouri, where abortion is illegal (which is not the case in real life). Barbie Ferreira co-stars as her best friend who helps her and goes on a road trip to get the abortion....

The big news, however, is, of course, the success of Jordan Peele’s “Us” at the week-end box-office. It is absolutely astounding to see an original horror movie make close to $70M on its opening weekend. Does this mean that Peele is now included in the shortlist of Hollywood directors that could make a movie successful just by having their name attached to the project? There aren’t many, James Cameron, Christopher Nolan, Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino and, yeah, now Peele belongs there....

Sony Pictures Classics were nice in setting up a screening for me of the film, especially after having missed it at this past January’s Sundance Film Festival. A rep for SPC even confirmed to me that they are most definitely going for a Best Documentary Oscar nomination when it comes to this film and I personally don’t see why it can’t happen. Although not as incisive as it wishes to be, it’s about time someone tackled Cohn’s gloomy but fascinating life....

You’d think Oscar buzz and a 90% on Rotten Tomatoes would mean something, not to mention a cast that includes Rooney Mara, Claire Foy and Jessie Buckley, but forget about it. Nobody wants to watch a stagey movie centered on women, from an isolated religious community, coming to terms with being raped. … or you can just do what most pundits have done this morning and lay the blame on bad weather....

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Lonergan, a legendary playwright, has only released three films as a director (You Can Count on Me, Manchester by the Sea, and Margaret). He painstakingly worked on “Margaret” for years, a film that was supposed to be released in 2005, but Lonergan was taking his time completing his magnum opus in the editing room, this resulted in multiple lawsuits between the filmmaker and Fox Searchlights Studios. Eventually, Fox Searchlight ended up releasing a truncated 150-minute version of the film six years later in 2011....

Variety is reporting that the A24/Apple deal is a multi-year agreement to produce a slate of films for the tech giant. A24 is at the forefront of the indie cinema movement having produced some of the great independent visions of the last few years (“Moonlight,” “The Lobster,” Lady Bird," “Eighth Grade,” A Ghost Story," “Hereditary”). The entertainment heads over at Apple know exactly what they are doing. They are knowledgeable enough to know that not only does the production company they are partnering with have good taste in movies, but they are also at the very forefront of what many consider to be the “cool cats” of the industry....

Speaking to The Guardian, DuVernay was promoting her upcoming Netflix limited series “When They See Us,” but ended up also showing her discontent towards the lack of offers she’s been getting in directing genre films — DuVernay says she is often approached about films dealing with historical events and Black people, but not genre. “I don’t get offered a lot, and what I do get offered is usually historical or something to do with women and black people,” the filmmaker said....

Every once in a while I try to remind people that a comedy like ‘Tropic Thunder’ would just not be able to get made today. Not in this heavily politicized world. And do go ahead and disagree with me on that, because just last week Shaun White dressed up as Stiller’s Simple Jack character for Halloween and caused total uproar, to the point where White had to issue an apology to the Special Olympics....

I disagree. That’s not true at all. If a film is being released in November/December and is helmed by an A-list director, then Toronto/Venice/Telluride isn’t necessarily needed. Scorsese, PTA, Spielberg, Eastwood, Fincher etc. don’t necessarily need their year-end films to do festival launches. A movie’s trajectory can ride solely on its filmmaker if the director is a big enough name, and if the timing of release is fitting, then there is no point in having its status get somewhat lost within the hundreds upon hundreds of films that premiere at TIFF, Telluride, and Venice....