Movies

After rolling winners with his last two indie outings, Tangerine and The Florida Project, director Sean Baker makes it a trifecta with Red Rocket, a wild ride about a big-time male porn star who returns penniless from LA to his native Texas to figure out and regain his groove. Like Baker’s previous films, this one

Arnaud Desplechin returns to the Cannes Film Festival with Deception (Tromperie), a self-indulgent Philip Roth adaptation that’s only marginally better than 2017’s derided Ismael’s Ghosts. One of the late Roth’s most openly personal novels, it details a string of affairs conducted by Jewish-American writer “Philip,” here played by French actor Denis Podalydes, speaking French. In

International and indie film distributor Well Go USA Entertainment has acquired North American rights to Korean film Escape From Mogadishu. It will open in theaters in the U.S. and Canada August 6 following a July 28 release in Korea. The film is based on true events and chronicles the harrowing experience of bitterly opposed North

As Bill in Tom McCarthy’s Stillwater, Matt Damon is an Oklahoma roughneck fighting for his estranged daughter (Abigail Breslin)’s release from a Marseille prison. Along the way, he experiences a renaissance of sorts, as he connects with single mother Virginie (Camille Cottin), faces cultural differences, and gets another chance at family life. Speaking at Deadline’s

EXCLUSIVE:  Emmy-Award winning producer and director Daniel Minahan  and Oscar winning producer Peter Spears  are teaming with Ley Line Entertainment to develop the feature film On Swift Horses based on the Shannon Pufahl novel of the same name. On Swift Horses follows  Muriel and her husband Lee who are beginning a bright new life when he returns from the Korean

Questlove’s Summer of Soul (…Or When The Revolution Could Not Be Televised) will hit a cumulative $1.4 million rising to an estimated $1.47 million Monday with a $375,000 second-week gross in 752 theaters. The best performing documentary so far this year “may possibly get to $2 million, that’s our goal,” said Searchlight Pictures head of

Disney/Marvel’s Black Widow started offshore rollout on Wednesday in 11 material markets including France, Italy and the UK, grossing an estimated $4.9M for the day and setting new post-Covid benchmarks. Not included in the total above are Korea previews of $1.8M yesterday. Early social sentiment there is strong (Naver 9.22/CGV 96%). In the UK and

If you’ve ever fancied taking the train from Moscow to the far northwestern Russian city of Murmansk above the Arctic Circle, Compartment No. 6 (Hytti No. 6) will almost certainly cure you of the urge. At the same time, Finnish director Juho Kuosmanen’s second film, which is about such a journey, offers up vivid emotional

Chilean filmmaker Dominga Sotomayor, who is one of the directors on Neon’s anthology movie The Year Of The Everlasting Storm which premieres in Cannes next week, is set to write and direct Niebla for RT Features’ Rodrigo Teixeira. Film takes place on a cruise ship heading towards a distant nondescript coastline. In the middle of

Los Angeles County inn Friday reported 1,107 new Covid-19 infections, double the number it reported a week ago and the county’s highest daily figure since March. Those higher cases counts are being detected despite a big fall in testing since the start of the year. There are 320 people with COVID-19 currently hospitalized; an increase

EXCLUSIVE: Television movies are starting to get a bit of heat in the digital age. The classic movie of the week genre was a staple of the 1980s but has subsided over the last few years. Lionsgate and MarVista Entertainment are hoping to kickstart the made-for-television movie trend with a new deal that will see

Andrea Arnold turns her astute observational skills to the bovine world in Cow, a Cannes Premiere with a difference. It’s a documentary that follows a cow on an English farm over time, watching her intently as she gives birth and gives milk. Humans are only featured when they enter her orbit, and snatches of dialogue

EXCLUSIVE:  In response to this past weekend’s hugely successful global streaming debut of The Tomorrow War, Skydance and Amazon Studios are in discussions, I hear, on the development of a sequel to the Chris Pratt sci-fi pic. I understand discussions are in place to bring the whole creative gang back both in front of and

Saturday Night Live director Paul Briganti will helm Monarch Media’s Chris Pratt indie feature comedy The Black Belt. The 2020 Black List script by Randall Green follows a shy, unassuming teen boy on a quest for an expertise in karate, and the unorthodox uncle who guides him along the way. Pratt, as we previously told you, will

The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures announced on Wednesday that timed advance admission tickets for the new venue will be available beginning August 5, 2021 at 9 a.m. PT at academymuseum.org and on the museum’s new app. Opening on September 30, 2021 in Los Angeles, the museum will be the largest institution in the United

One day after stepping down as Amazon CEO, the richest man in the world, Jeff Bezos, got even richer. Bezos ceded the CEO reins to protege Andy Jassy on Monday. He is still the company’s largest shareholder at 11% compared to the next-largest shareholder, Vanguard Group, which holds around 6.5%. With his title now executive

Judas and the Black Messiah director-producer and co-scribe Shaka King, producers Ryan Coogler and Charles D. King and star Lil Rel Howery are collaborating on an untitled original movie centering around an American political insurrection. King will direct and also produce along side Coogler’s Proximity label and Charles D. King’s MACRO alongside Howery. Details are being kept

Lauren Shuler Donner, the wife and sometimes producing partner of husband Richard Donner, who died Monday at age 91, was understandably emotional when I spoke with her today. She expressed sadness at the loss, as well as sympathy for the loss of movie lovers everywhere who were fans of Superman, The Omen, The Goonies, Ladyhawke, Scrooged,

Quentin Tarantino has purchased Los Angeles’ the historic Sunset Boulevard venue Vista Theatre, the director and film buff announced on a podcast. “I bought the Vista on Sunset,” Tarantino said today on Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert podcast. “We’ll probably open it up around Christmas time. And again: only film. It won’t be a revival house.

A quarter-century ago, Will Smith’s Capt. Steven Hiller was “a little anxious to get up there and whoop ET’s ass” and save Earth from alien invaders in Independence Day. In 2021, the actor paid it forward in a less-dramatic but equally cool way: He paid a reported $100,000 to save New Orleans’ Fourth of July fireworks