UniFrance, the French film promotion org, joined forces with the The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to host events on March 7-8 in Paris which aimed at shining a spotlight on French female directors, producers, talent, artists and technicians. The events, which were attended by many French students and young filmmakers at the
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If we’re being honest, I thought “Captain Marvel” was fine, often good. It’s a bummer in some sense, because if I liked it less, it’d help make my point a little bit easier. There are people, however, who do not like “Captain Marvel” for reasons valid and not. I say this because: I am dying
Brie Larson’s “Captain Marvel” is showing plenty of international power with a $302 million international launch — the fifth highest of all-time. With an impressive $153 million debut in North America, Disney’s Marvel Cinematic Universe title totaled a global opening weekend of $455 million, or the sixth highest global debut and the biggest opening of
March 10, 2019 9:33AM PT “Birds of Passage,” Cristina Gallego’s and Ciro Guerra’s sprawling epic film tracing the origins of the Colombian drug trade, took home the $40,000 Knight Marimbas Award (the top grand jury prize) Saturday night at Miami Dade College’s 36th annual Miami Film Festival. The south Florida gathering celebrated cinema with an
The NAACP does not stand with R. Kelly. At Saturday’s nominees luncheon for the 50th NAACP Image Awards, the organization’s president and CEO Derrick Johnson slammed the R&B singer, who recently made waves in a CBS interview with Gayle King. In the viral clip, Kelly yells and cries as he denies his alleged sexual abuse
Brie Larson’s “Captain Marvel” is soaring to a heroic opening weekend of $153 million in North America at 4,310 sites, reviving what had been a slumbering 2019 box office. “Captain Marvel” took in $302 million internationally, giving it an estimated global opening weekend of $455 million — the sixth highest global debut of all time.
It was long after Roger Ailes allegedly sexually assaulted and harassed her that Megyn Kelly went public with her story about the disgraced former Fox News CEO. She explained that she confided in a supervisor but was advised keep quiet and just avoid Ailes if she could. “In retrospect, it was terrible advice,” Kelly said
GUADALAJARA, Mexico — In the world, it would be hard to choose a more exciting figure to introduce a masterclass than Guillermo del Toro, and even more so when that talk is given in the filmmaker’s hometown of Guadalajara Mexico at a festival he has been involved with for its entire 33-year existence. If the
GUADALAJARA — Chilean production company Equeco is at this year’s Guadalajara Intl. Film Festival to pitch a new project, “Pepperoni.” The immigration-themed dark comedy will be the second feature of festival favorite, D.J.-turned-director Tomás Alzamora, better known in Chile as DJ Four-D, who shared exclusive first details with Variety in the lead-up to the Mexican
What if the woman who had been your babysitter when you were 13-years-old went on to become Secretary of State, and was now positioned to be the first female president of the United States? If you were Fred Flarsky (picture a Seth Rogen character more or less identical to every other Seth Rogen character, only
After the recent docuseries detailing sexual assault allegations about music icons Michael Jackson and R. Kelly, “Saturday Night Live’s” Pete Davidson took to the “Weekend Update” desk to try to institute a rule that if you still want to listen to their music, “you just have to admit they’re bad people.” “I’m not saying it’s
Shia LaBeouf made some frank and emotional statements about his personal struggles on the set of “The Peanut Butter Falcon,” his Mark Twain-inspired indie film that premiered at the SXSW film festival on Saturday in Austin, Texas. Zac Gottsagen, an actor with Downs and the film’s lead, also revealed to the Q&A audience how his
March 9, 2019 9:09PM PT The writers at “Saturday Night Live” couldn’t pass up an opportunity to jab at rumors that host Idris Elba could be the next James Bond. “Luther” and “Turn Up Charlie” star Elba hosted the Mar. 9 episode of NBC’s late-night comedy sketch show and took part in “Can I Play
One day after CBS News aired Gayle King’s sit-down with musician and accused sexual predator R. Kelly, “Saturday Night Live” delivered its own take on the interview. In the Mar. 9 cold open of the late-night NBC sketch show, cast member Leslie Jones portrayed King while cast member Kenan Thompson portrayed Kelly. Thompson as Kelly
Amazon’s upcoming adaptation of Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett’s “Good Omens” may center on the relationship between an angel (played by Michael Sheen) and a demon (played by David Tennant), but the show strives to reach out to everyone. “It’s about us — our flaws, that trust and belief in humanity. It’s probably what brings
Just when you think you’ve got Shia LaBeouf figured out, he goes and makes a film like “The Peanut Butter Falcon,” a sincere, Southern-fried buddy movie in the tradition of “Forrest Gump,” from two of the producers responsible for “Little Miss Sunshine.” This was the film LaBeouf was shooting when he was arrested for public
March 9, 2019 7:37PM PT Home invasion proves dangerous to the trespassers’ health in this entertaining black-comedy thriller. It’s the home invaders who find themselves imperiled in “Villains,” the third feature collaboration for directors Dan Berk and Robert Olsen. This black comedy thriller has a good cast to spark a scenario that’s intriguing enough to
How can you tell when a movie star is committed to being taken seriously? It’s hard to ignore when someone like Matthew McConaughey drops a ton of weight, the way he did to play an emaciated HIV patient in “Dallas Buyers Club.” It’s also impressive when such an actor swings hard in the opposite direction,
Austin, Texas is brimming over with Oscar winners, tech moguls and social media influencers, but no one drew more heat with her speaker address than Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. A serpentine line of conference goers stretched around the length of Austin’s convention center — the longest and most hectic so far this year, a SXSW spokesperson told
March 9, 2019 5:00PM PT Small-town cinema staff unleash a demonic spirit from an old film can in this uneven comedy-horror. One of the more amusing promotions in the history of exploitation cinema was for Jess Franco’s sexy-arty 1967 “Necronomicon.” In the U.S., it was released as “Succubus,” but the distributor claimed that title was
When it came to getting the television adaptation of “Good Omens” right, author and showrunner Neil Gaiman mentally ran things by the ghost of his novel writing partner Terry Pratchett. Keeping it true to what he and Pratchett would have wanted was a “mad passion project.” “Normally if you are the writer in television, your
A comedy based on Ramy Youssef’s life was never going to look quite like anything else on TV. Executive produced by Youssef, Jerrod Carmichael, and “Transparent” EP Bridget Bedard, “Ramy” turns a coming-of-age lens on the kind of man who rarely gets that kind of spotlight. Youssef’s onscreen persona (also named Ramy) is a first-generation
As Jordan Peele’s latest horror pic “Us” debuted at South by Southwest, the director and producer held three other screenings nationwide for mostly black audiences, using the hashtag #UsFirst. The Los Angeles screening reportedly played host to several celebs, including John Legend, Janelle Monae, Ryan Coogler, Tracee Ellis Ross, Lakeith Stanfield, Robin Theade, and La
CNN president Jeff Zucker delivered a keynote speech at SXSW Saturday that saw him expressing belief that there was political motivation behind the Justice Department’s lawsuit to stop AT&T’s acquisition of his parent company, Time Warner, as well as discussing the Democratic National Convention’s relationship with the media. Referring to comments Trump said in regard
It’s been 18 years since I escaped the state of Texas, and nothing illustrates how much things have changed in that hyper-conservative stronghold than the rise and near-win of Senatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke in his bid for Senate. On its surface, David Modigliani’s “Running With Beto” is an inside account of that campaign — reminiscent
After a bold pledge to “break up” and regulate monolithic tech companies like Google and Facebook, Sen. Elizabeth Warren came to, uh, the country’s preeminent tech conference to state her case. Appearing in conversation at SXSW on Saturday, the presidential hopeful was immediately asked to address a regulatory proposal she floated at a rally the
Beto O’Rourke received a rapturous standing ovation at South by Southwest on Saturday afternoon after the premiere of the documentary “Running With Beto.” Although the movie plays like the announcement of a presidential run, O’Rourke sidestepped a question about 2020 at a Q&A following the film. “Running With Beto” trails O’Rourke as he mounted a
When Trevor Noah first took over the role of “The Daily Show” host from Jon Stewart in 2015, one year after becoming the Comedy Central show’s senior international correspondent, the television news landscape was changing, becoming ever-more consumed with the contentious 2016 presidential election. Now in the role for a few years, with that news
GUADALAJARA, Mexico — Guillermo del Toro is creating an International Animation Center specializing in stop, motion in his home city of Guadalajara Mexico, the director announced Saturday morning at the Guadalajara Festival, at a masterclass given by Melissa Cobb, Netflix vice president, kids & family. Details remain scarce, but the idea of one of the
CBS had a unique opportunity. Two months after “Surviving R. Kelly” premiered on Lifetime, and more than two decades after allegations of sexual abuse and pedophilia first arose against R. Kelly, Gayle King got to sit down with Kelly to get his comments. According to King, she managed to keep the interview going for 80