Month: October 2020

Rhonda Fleming, star of the 1940s and ’50s who was dubbed the “Queen of Technicolor” and appeared in “Out of the Past” and “Spellbound,” died Wednesday in Santa Monica, Calif., according to her secretary Carla Sapon. She was 97. Fleming appeared in more than 40 films and worked with directors such as Alfred Hitchcock on

A series of suicides in the Japanese entertainment world, including reality TV star Kimura Hana in May, actor Miura Haruma in July and actresses Ashina Sei and Takeuchi Yuko in September, have raised questions about not only their specific tragedies, but also conditions in Japanese society as a whole that may have contributed to an

Michael B. Jordan will produce “Static Shock,” a movie adaptation of the comic book unveiled by Reginald Hudlin during August’s DC FanDome. Jordan revealed on Friday that he will produce the pic through his Warner Bros.-based Outlier Society banner. Static, aka Virgil Hawkins, was created by Milestone Media and DC Comics in the 1990s. The

Variety‘s 10 Screenwriters to Watch panel at the Mill Valley Film Festival brought together a group of talented screenwriters who have penned some of the year’s most exciting films. The virtual event also included a one-on-one conversation with Variety‘s creative impact in screenwriting award recipient, Charlie Kaufman. Kaufman gave viewers a behind-the-scenes look at his

“I don’t see how we could have made the film now had we not shot in Chicago,” writer and director Aaron Sorkin says of his new film “Trial of the Chicago 7,” now streaming on Netflix. Five decades after it took place, Aaron Sorkin tells the story of the seven defendants who were charged by

The sheer range of genres represented by this week’s new releases — from Liam Neeson thriller “Honest Thief” to romantic weepie “2 Hearts” — suggests that distributors of all kinds are doing their best to give audiences the kind of selection they enjoyed before the lockdown. Well, nearly all kinds of distributors. The major studios

With characteristic modesty and humor, the Dardenne brothers opened up about their career at a masterclass in Lyon for the Lumière Festival, where they are receiving the Lumière Award for lifetime achievement. But before they answered the questions put to them by festival director Thierry Frémaux, the Belgian brothers graciously gave way to a couple

Early on in “Cicada,” a secondary character drops the old maxim, attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, that art is never finished, only abandoned. It’s a pointed moment of self-awareness in a film of many. Writer-director-producer-editor-star Matthew Fifer’s debut feature processes lived experience into a cracked, anguished work of autofiction, raggedly cathartic and needfully unresolved as

In the satirical horror film “Bad Hair,” which debuts Oct. 23 on Hulu, Elle Lorraine plays Anna, a young woman who adopts a new look in order to land a hosting gig at a “106 & Park”-like music countdown show. The hairstyle gets Anna the recognition she’s after, but it comes at a price. Though

Mary Lambert had directed mainly music videos (Janet Jackson’s “Nasty,” Madonna’s “Like a Prayer,” among others) when she took the job helming “Pet Sematary” in 1989. It was her second feature film, after 1987’s Ellen Barkin starrer “Siesta.” But Lambert had read the Stephen King book, about the Creed family — Louis and Rachel and

Entertainment professionals overseeing everything from streaming to podcasts and sports broadcasts took part in the virtual Variety Entertainment & Technology Summit presented by City National Bank on Wednesday and Thursday. The summit’s focus covered the growth of online content consumption and technology’s role in helping entertainment companies survive the COVID-19 pandemic. Below are 10 takeaways