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“This makes no sense,” a U.K. producer railed. “It implies that a U.S. film is meant to shoot in the U.S. But the ‘Harry Potter’ films, ‘Lord Of The Rings,’ ‘Schindler’s List,’ ‘Mission Impossible,’ ‘Gladiator,’ ‘Avatar’ and so many more are U.S films that shot overseas for obvious reasons. Do these films have to shoot in the U.S. from now on? It’s an absurd announcement with no meaning nor understanding of storytelling or creative impulses....”Echoes another London-based producer: “If this goes the distance, it will decimate the industry. But you can’t just stop production,” he said. “When does it come...

A February 27 autopsy of Gene Hackman reveals the 95-year-old Oscar winner died of a combination of “advanced Alzheimer’s disease” and severe heart disease, the Santa Fe Medical Examiner announced today.“It is reasonable to conclude that Mr. Hackman died on February 17,” Dr. Heather Jarrell said in a press conference with Santa Fe Sherif Adan Mendoza and other county officials. “He was in very poor health,” Dr. Jarrell also noted of Hackman, adding that there was evidence that he hadn’t eaten for a number of days. Ms. Arakawa is assumed to have died on or around February 11, officials estimated.

"In every shot and every scene, mostly in closeup, Ronan carries the film with her unselfconsciously fierce and focused presence. Out-of-control-drunk acting in montage is a difficult thing to bring off – as is the representation of precarious sobriety – but she does it with intelligence and plausibility. There is a powerful moment when Rona confesses in her 12-step group that what she mostly feels is a passionate longing for the happiness of being drunk. Later, in an Orkney shop, Fingscheidt allows us to register a visually unemphasised row of bottles behind the shopkeeper while Rona is buying food and...

After a debut screening at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, the Toho Company’s 4K restoration of Akira Kurosawa‘s seminal epic Seven Samurai is hitting the U.S. for a theatrical release through Janus Films. The trailer is in the linked article.Janus will open the restoration on Friday, July 5 in New York at Film Forum after which a Los Angeles premiere will take place at the American Cinematheque’s Egyptian Theatre on Sunday, July 7. The film will open wide on Friday, July 12 in Los Angeles at Laemmle Royal.

So I've been thinking about this for a while, and it's time for a change.

The movie came out on January 25, 2024. There had been very little of the usual promotion. Lockshin’s name was omitted from posters. His name was absent from all marketing materials, such as they were. In any event, the movie was a sensation. The public went to see it, quickly making it the top-grossing Russian movie of all time, in the over-18 category.Furious, the state and its propagandists got to work. As Lockshin says, “a whole campaign” was launched against him and the movie. Propagandists called him a “criminal” and a “terrorist,” and demanded that the movie be pulled from...

...Nikolaj Arcel’s “The Promised Land,” Denmark’s submission for the foreign-language Oscar, has everything you want in an epic film: struggle, romance, period detail, violence, great acting, atmosphere, unforgettable images, a hero played by the great Mads Mikkelsen, a despicable villain and German potatoes. In yet another awards-worthy performance, Mikkelsen plays Ludvig von Kahlen, the 18th century bastard son of a maid and a land owner, who was sent off to the German army as a boy. Having returned to his native Denmark in 1755, Captain von Kahlen (Mikkelsen) has a plan to work the non-arable soil of the Danish “heath”...

...A recent open letter to the Writers Guild of America, written by a WGA member, is saying out loud what so many in the industry fear to say....... [T]he story has resulted in a flood of emails sent to Film Threat. These correspondences paint a picture of an industry where fear of speaking out could result in one being “blacklisted” as problematic... A phrase we heard over and over again is this: “male and pale is stale.”A Modern Black List I am a WGA member and wish to be anonymous.My email isn’t real as I don’t want to accidentally give...

Best Picture American Fiction Ben LeClair, Nikos Karamigios, Cord Jefferson and Jermaine Johnson, Producers Anatomy of a Fall Marie-Ange Luciani and David Thion, Producers Barbie David Heyman, Margot Robbie, Tom Ackerley and Robbie Brenner, Producers The Holdovers Mark Johnson, Producer Killers of the Flower Moon Dan Friedkin, Bradley Thomas, Martin Scorsese and Daniel Lupi, Producers Maestro Bradley Cooper, Steven Spielberg, Fred Berner, Amy Durning and Kristie Macosko Krieger, Producers Oppenheimer Emma Thomas, Charles Roven and Christopher Nolan, Producers Past Lives David Hinojosa, Christine Vachon and Pamela Koffler, Producers Poor Things Ed Guiney, Andrew Lowe, Yorgos Lanthimos and Emma Stone, Producers...

“I grew up watching the Olympics and am thrilled to see the incredible athletes bring their A-game to Paris. It’s a celebration of skill, dedication, and the pursuit of greatness,” said Snoop Dogg in a statement. “We’re going to have some amazing competitions and, of course, I will be bringing that Snoop style to the mix. It’s going to be the most epic Olympics ever, so stay tuned, and keep it locked. Let’s elevate, celebrate, and make these games unforgettable, smoke the competition, and may the best shine like gold. Peace and Olympic LOVE, ya dig?”

Of all the writers retreats in all the summer towns in all of New York, he had to walk into hers. As the sun fades on a perfect Montauk night — setting the stage for a first kiss ... Nora (Greta Lee) tells Arthur (John Magaro) about the Korean concept of In-Yun, which suggests that people are destined to meet one another if their souls have overlapped a certain number of times before. When Arthur asks Nora if she really believes in all that, the Seoul-born woman sitting across from him invitingly replies that it’s just “something Korean people say...

American Fiction stars Jeffrey Wright as Thelonious “Monk” Ellison, an English professor and struggling novelist. Monk prides himself on writing novels that challenge the reader and has become deeply bothered by how the industry repeatedly continues to sell, push, and cash in on clichéd and offensive black narratives. One evening, as a joke, Monk decides to write a book that plays up all of the black narratives and stereotypes he despises. So, under the pen name Stagg R. Lee, Monk sends the book to his agent. To Monk’s surprise, the agent loves it, and the book quickly becomes something everyone...

Yes, science fiction is rooted in profound origins, examining humanity’s deep-seated fear of itself and the intimidating possibility of worlds unknown. But the last two decades have seen a metaphoric rush on sci-fi storytelling that’s left the once niche subgenre a supersaturated movie market. On the one hand, that’s produced an onslaught of sci-fi(ish) titles that aren’t always up to snuff. But on the other, it’s prompted some of the best sci-fi films ever made. Masterworks like “Everything Everywhere All at Once” and “Nope” both arrived this year, and top our list at number five and number eight respectively....Simply put:...

Penguin Random House has altered what it termed the “unacceptable prose” of author P.G. Wodehouse in new editions of his classic Jeeves and Wooster series. The publisher also warned readers of “outdated” terms in the revamped works, the Sunday Telegraph reports.

Best Picture WILL WIN: Everything Everywhere All at OnceA24’s Everything Everywhere All at Once is the likeliest winner, having swept the guilds’ top honors, including the Producers Guild’s, which is decided on a preferential ballot, and also won Critics Choice and Spirit Award prizes, among many others. But the Academy’s preferential ballot wouldn’t seem to favor such a polarizing film — many Academy members love it, but many others found it incomprehensible — so an upset could come from German-language All Quiet on the Western Front, which dominated at the BAFTA Awards (indicating strong European support) and would be Netflix’s...

Are movies still relevant? ... Even as Hollywood rebounds a bit at the box office (up 21 percent in 2022), critics rightly observe that innovation is suffering. Sequels, reboots, and franchises rule the day and artsy “prestige films” can’t find audiences. Part of the problem: audiences have a growing (and justifiable) sense that Hollywood is increasingly less interested in entertaining them than in force-feeding them progressive ideals.As I put together my list, I focused on films that didn’t pit entertainment against artistry or confuse the difference between having something to say and telling audiences what to think. The best movies...

It is hard to try to remake a film that is considered a classic (and even though released 92 years ago still tops lists of the greatest war films ever made), much less trying to do a new take on something that won Best Picture. Berger and his co-writers, Lesley Paterson and Ian Stokell, and his crack team of artisans should be congratulated for making the attempt, and one that actually turns out to be a smart move. Why not tell this very German story from a German POV for a change? It is surprising it hasn’t been done before,...

While you wait for "Glass Onion," the delicious sequel to "Knives Out," to hit Netflix in December, you can indulge your jones for a whodunit by heading to your local multiplex to check out "See How They Run," a comedy-mystery set against the 1953 London theater scene when murder most foul lurks backstage. Luckily, Scotland Yard is on the case in the rumpled person of "Three Billboards" Oscar winner Sam Rockwell, sporting a wry wit and credible British accent to play Inspector Stoppard, a functioning alcoholic trying not to let booze disrupt his nose for sussing out a killer.And what...

It's no secret that we are in the midst of a cultural slump rife with bad films, television, music, and books. Fortunately, there hasn't been a complete absence of great modern art, as evidenced by these three films.

The left’s obsession with centering everything on race and sex has reached a new and despicable low with an upcoming movie called “The Woman King.”The “historical epic film” centers around the real African kingdom of Dahomey, which existed during the Scramble for Africa in the age of empires, around 1800 to 1904.Viola Davis plays General Nanisca, leader of an all-female band of warriors known as the Dahomey Amazons, as she struggles against European attempts to conquer the kingdom....The weirdest thing about this controversy surrounding the trailer is that the story of Dahomey is a genuinely interesting historical narrative....Maybe I’m all...