Month: December 2019

BUENOS AIRES  — With Ventana Sur now firing on multiple cylinders, featuring pix-in post or project competitions for not only art films but also genre pics and animation – two sectors embraced by young creators in Latin America – “Karnawal,” “Restless,” “Summer White” and  “Firsts” proved big winners among Ventana Sur’s arthouse and animation competitions,

“1917,” Thomas Newman The 20-year collaboration of director Sam Mendes and composer Thomas Newman has encompassed midlife crisis (“American Beauty”), crime in the Depression (“Road to Perdition”), the Gulf War (“Jarhead”), marriage in the 1950s (“Revolutionary Road”) and two James Bond adventures (“Skyfall,” “Spectre”). Now they’ve tackled World War I, with “1917,” but Mendes’ much-talked-about

Disney is developing a spinoff of its live-action “Aladdin” with Billy Magnussen reprising his Prince Anders character. The unnamed project is in early development for the studio’s recently launched Disney Plus streaming service. Disney has hired Jordan Dunn and Michael Kvamme to write a script centered on the haughty Prince Anders, one of Princess Jasmine’s

When the Academy announces its shortlist for song nominations on Dec. 16, you can be certain that at least one Disney song will be on it and probably more. Disney songs have been nominated 33 times in the past 30 years, winning 12 of the gold statuettes. This year, the studio has at least four

It’s next to impossible for a documentary score to be Oscar-nominated alongside the dozens of fictional narratives entered each year. But it did happen, just once: In 1975, composer Gerald Fried was nominated for his music for “Birds Do It, Bees Do It,” a documentary on the mating habits of animals. Fried, now 91, perhaps

Ron Leibman, an Emmy-winning actor who garnered a Tony for his work in Broadway’s “Angels in America” and played the father of Jennifer Aniston’s Rachel Green on “Friends,” died on Friday. He was 82. Robert Attermann, CEO of Abrams Artists Agency, confirmed the news to Variety. No further details were immediately available. Leibman, a native

Every year, documentaries that examine crimes are made. Some, such as Ezra Edelman’s “O.J.: Made in America,” Joshua Rofe’s “Lorena” and most recently Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg’s “The Preppy Murder: Death in Central Park,” study a single crime decades after the fact in hopes of establishing a greater clarity and understanding of traumatic events.

The aspirants for best original song from a film this year include Pharrell Williams, a performer-writer who’s familiar in the theme-song field; Regina Spektor, a singer-songwriter who’s just getting her feet wet with big-screen assignments; Diane Warren, whose name is nearly synonymous with the category; and Cynthia Erivo, who surprised everyone by being someone to

At the Marrakech Film Festival to give a masterclass, Italian master Luca Guadagnino spoke about the way he envisioned the sequel to “Call Me By Your Name,” as well as shared memories about his childhood and his vision of filmmaking. Guadagnino said that while the script of “Call Me By Your Name” is “strongly faithful”