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And now, we have the lighting people from PTA’s own “Phantom Thread,” who just did a digital Q&A about ‘Thread,’ stating that they are already scouting locations for PTA’s high school movie. For a while now, we’ve known that PTA was hard at work on this new project. Back in April, it was revealed that Leonardo DiCaprio had passed on the film in favor of working with Guillermo del Toro’s “Nightmare Valley,” which he then dropped out of because he wanted to work with Martin Scorsese instead on “Killers of the Flower Moon”....

Margot Robbie, who played Sharon Tate in “Once Upon A Time In Hollywood,” mentioned in an interview with Variety that there exists a director’s cut of ‘Hollywood’ that runs— wait for it — a whopping 20 hours. In other words, an episodic streaming premiere is inevitably in its future (Netflix?) “There’s a 20-hour cut of “Once Upon a Time in…Hollywood” that would…there’s so much more that you didn’t get to see, that we shot that was amazing, and for a million reasons obviously, can’t make the cut,” Robbie told Variety writer Clayton Davis....

A credible source has told We Got This Covered that an all-out “Avengers vs. X-Men” movie is currently “on the cards” and that Marvel Studios “will begin building to it” once the merger is complete, which suggests that the X-Men may have a few stepping stone projects leading up to the big crossover moment. I have spoken to my contact at Disney and, let’s just say, he didn’t deny it, adding that it was “obvious” that Disney would head in that direction as Thor, Captain America and Iron Man are all being retired post-”Avengers: Endgame” — Disney needs to have some “big name” superheroes to play their cards with, Black Panther and Captain Marvel are just not in the same league....

Is it a surprise that Roman Polanski’s “An Officer and a Spy” tops the poll of polls with an average score of 4.15? Of course not. If you read French film criticism, like I do, you would know that Roman Polanski’s latest has been garnering glowing reviews in Europe. However, American critics have, unsurprisingly, panned the film. Some competition films missing from the below list, which were screened less than 24 hours ago, include “No....

Park Chan-wook’s “Decision to Leave” and Ruben Ostlund’s “Triangle of Sadness” have been selected for the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, according to my sources close to the festival. They are one of the very first films to have been chosen for next May’s event. Both films were trying hard to make the deadline for this past June’s Cannes, but, in the end, just weren’t ready on time for submission. They both subsequently snubbed a Venice premiere in September and opted instead for Cannes 2022, which will mark the festival’s 75th edition....

A popular question of late has been: “When are the 2022 results going to get published?” It turns out that the poll’s results will be unveiled in print and online this coming November. Ballots haven’t even been sent out yet. The last S&S poll was also the first time Orson Welles’ “Citizen Kane” failed to take the number one spot on either the Critics or Director’s lists. Alfred Hitchcock’s “Vertigo” dethroned ‘Kane,’ a film that held the top spot for almost three decades....

Back in 08.14.15, I had written a piece for IndieWire titled “10 Films That Should Be in the Criterion Collection,” and Lee’s film was one of the titles I selected. About ”Bamboozled,” I wrote: “Most people have forgotten how groundbreaking, political and philosophical Spike Lee’s work in the late 80’s and early 90’s really was. “Bamboozled” came out in 2000, when the director was about to enter a new, albeit confusing, phase of his filmmaking career....

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Otherwise, we have the big heavyweights that we were all expecting: “Women Talking,” “Empire of Light,” “Bardo,” “TÁR,” “Bones and All,” and “The Wonder.” All rumors pointing to “The Whale” and “The Son” not showing up to Telluride because its cast/crew couldn’t attend should be put to rest. Florence Pugh has been confirmed NOT to show up for the world premiere of “The Wonder,” the only talent showing up for that movie will be its director Sebastian Lelio....

11:27 pm — Jessica Chastain gets her Oscar for a performance that wouldn’t even rank in her own personal top 5. Although well-meaning, the speech she delivers includes almost every Oscar acceptance speech cliche in the book (orphans, suicide, depression, war, inclusivity). 11:22 pm — Amy Schumer: “I was changing costumes. Did I miss anything? The vibe seems to have changed.” Funny. 11:15 pm — Will Smith wins Best Actor....

“The Oscars are poised to embark on one of the most radical reinventions in the awards show’s long history,” Donnelly has reported. “For the first time in nearly three decades, the biggest night in movies plans to go without a host, individuals with knowledge of the plans told Variety. “Producers will select a crop of A-listers to introduce various segments instead of relying on one marquee name to kick things off in a monologue filled with Trump zingers, said the insiders....

If you remember, before they reached an agreement in late September to keep Spidey within the MCU, Disney and Sony were failing to come to terms on a new agreement to share the character. Holland seems to have been the key to bringing the two studios together with this drunken phone call of his. The actor admitted to the drunk dialing during a December 4th appearance on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!...

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Based on the just-released trailer, we might have a potentially great film in our hands. If you remember, Eastwood had stated in 2008 that “Gran Torino” would be his last performance and that he’d be retiring from acting after that role. His casting in “The Mule” is a surprising turn of events as the legendary star is the central lead in the film. He seems to be in great shape for an 88-year-old geezer....

Exhibit A: USC students now want a USC School of Cinematic Arts Wayne exhibit canceled. A week and a half ago a pair of SCA students, juniors Eric Plant and Reanna Cruz, made some noise on the USC campus by protesting the Wayne exhibit with a banner. USC Annenberg Media correspondent Leanna Albanese reported the protest on 9.27. “When you have an exhibit up that celebrates the idea and the legacy of someone that is blatantly racist, a white supremacist and directly says that he is a white supremacist…it seems as though SCA does not care about [its] students,” Plant told her....

At Venice, the most reliable poll is less obvious, but this year seems to be the Venezia News one composed of critics from Screen International, THR, Film Verdict, Le Monde, The Wrap, El Pais, The Observer, Rzeczpospolita, and Frankfurter Rund. 16 of the 22 competition films have been screened so far. If you’ve been following our Venezia coverage, then the top 3 shouldn’t surprise you: TÁR — 4.1The Banshees of Inisherin — 3....

And so, the Venice Film Festival, it officially appears, is only going to happen if people can physically attend the late August/early September event. That means, either we feel comfortable by late summer to sit in a darkened room, with thousands of cinephiles, to watch a movie or the event is canceled altogether. Speaking to Variety, a spokesperson for the Venice Film Festival has shot down the notion of turning into a digital event: The Toronto International Film Festival has already hinted at an interest in going digital, that is if, by its September event date, the pandemic has still not been totally contained....

Anyway, it looks like the significant players at the Lido this year will be: Soderbergh’s “The Laundromat,” Kelly Reichardt’s “First Cow,” James Gray’s “Ad Astra,” Taika Waititi’s “Jojo Rabbit,”Kore-eda’s “The Truth,” Pablo Larrain’s “Ema,” Roy Andersson’s “About Endlessness” Roman Polanski’s “An Officer and A Spy” and Noah Baumbach’s “Marriage Story.” Ostensibly missing from the list of 21 were The Safdies’ “Uncut Gems,” Noah Hawley’s “Lucy in the Sky,” and Todd Phillips’ “Joker,” all of which, by the way, could be last-minute additions to the fest or make an appearance through the out-of-competition slots....

Gilligan will most likely be directing the film according to sources, as well as writing with Mark Johnson and Melissa Bernstein and executive producing too. A few months back we were one of the first sites to report that Vince Gilligan was going to shoot a “Breaking Bad” movie in New Mexico. However, there wasn’t much to report beyond that, no plot details were mentioned. Bryan Cranston’s Walter White died in the series finale and I had mentioned that, if a film were to be made, chances are it could revolve around Aaron Paul’s Jesse Pinkman....

There have barely been any press screenings since the film premiered at the New York Film Festival in October and some of my fellow journalist colleagues are growing frustrated about the whole thing. Roger Friedman had a piece about this fiasco the other other, writing “Few have seen it or even heard about it. When I’ve mentioned it to civilians, so to speak, they’ve never heard of it. Even Ruth Negga, who’ll be playing Lady Macbeth on Broadway later next winter with Daniel Craig, was fuzzy about it....