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Looking back over the past decade, I can think of just two films that have done justice to the idea of play — the special way that creativity and imagination combine in the human brain to entertain us. The first was a lighthearted art film called “Faces Places” from forever-young director Agnès Varda in which

When Norwegian figure skater Sonja Henie zipped into Hollywood, she was a talent the industry had never seen before, or since — a three-time Olympic ladies’ singles champion (a record she continues to hold) whose chipper, if chilly romantic comedy hits kept Twentieth Century-Fox solvent in the build-up to World War II, in part because

January 26, 2019 1:00PM PT Jacqueline Olive’s documentary asks a disturbing question: Does lynching still exist in the U.S.? “Always in Season” asks a startling question: Could it be that lynching, one thing we think can be safely relegated to the pre-Civil Rights Movement era, is actually still practiced as a form of racial terrorism

January 26, 2019 12:32PM PT Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, one of Sundance’s most anticipated attendees, has canceled her trip to Park City, Utah. The freshman Congresswoman announced the decision in a tweet. “For almost two years, a mom followed several women as we ran for Congress. I was one of them,” she wrote. “Due to complications from

January 26, 2019 10:00AM PT An Iranian-American filmmaker from Los Angeles and a screenwriter from Oakland are the winners of the first grants from the Macro Episodic Lab Powered by the Black List designed to nurture the careers of storytellers of color. Sahar Jahani and K.C. Scott will each receive development support and a budget

January 26, 2019 9:52AM PT After a mass extinction, a robot raises a little girl in a handsome, if derivative sci-fi thriller that salutes its own parentage “I Am Mother” director Grant Sputore’s parentage is obvious: James Cameron crossbred with Ridley Scott. There are worse families to come from if you’re a young talent entering

Gugu Mbatha-Raw will star in the humanitarian drama “Seacole,” based on the life of pioneering Jamaican nurse Mary Seacole, Variety has learned exclusively. Charlie Stratton will direct from a screenplay he’s written with Oscar-nominated Dianne Houston (“Tuesday Morning Ride”) and Marnie Dickens. The project is to be co-produced and financed by Epic Match Media and

In a weekend dominated by holdovers, M. Night Shyamalan’s “Glass” will likely top the box office again in its second frame with an estimated $16 million. The third part in a trilogy that includes “Unbreakable” and “Split” has earned $59 million domestically and nearly $54 million internationally since its debut despite generally unfavorable reviews. If

Try as we might to dissuade vulnerable young parents in the movies from relocating their families to rambling, deserted homes in the countryside, preferably on the edge of a dark, looming forest, sometimes they simply have to learn for themselves. Happily, Lee Cronin’s “The Hole in the Ground” is largely in on the joke, putting

Amazon has closed a $13 million deal for “Late Night,” a buzzy comedy about diversity in a late night talk show writers room that is written by, produced, and stars Mindy Kaling. It is the first major sale out of the Sundance Film Festival. “Late Night” co-stars Emma Thompson as a prickly comic who grudgingly

Released by Netflix on Friday, action-thriller “Polar,” a Netflix Original Movie starring Mads Mikkelsen (“Hannibal”), stands about half-way between OTT comic noir and big multiplex action-thriller. It opens with an aerial shot creeping over woods towards a mansion somewhere in Chile as a motley squad of assassins moves in for the kill. The target, Michael

January 26, 2019 2:33AM PT After a terminal cancer diagnosis, a man and his best friend embark on an unusual road trip in Alex Lehmann’s amusingly low-key dramedy. A movie about cancer has no right to be as consistently amusing as “Paddleton” — a triumph for which credit should be spread around, even if it

January 26, 2019 2:10AM PT Beneath the witty, sexy allure of Gabriel Mascaro’s fluorescent sci-fi lies a hot protest against President Bolsonaro’s vision for Brazil. “It was 2027. Brazil had changed.” These are the first words spoken in “Divine Love,” delivered in remote voiceover by a strangely impassive-sounding child — and even as the film’s

After things go really wrong in Alex Gibney’s documentary “The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley,” one of his interview subjects jokes about developing a truth serum. Now there’s a million-dollar idea — maybe even a nine-billion-dollar idea. That was the astronomical valuation staked on a company called Theranos, founded by Silicon Valley darling

January 26, 2019 1:27AM PT After the seeming sexual assault of a drunk teenage girl is murkily caught on film, the victim searches for answers in a movie that doesn’t believe in them. The cellphone video at the center of Pippa Bianco’s “Share” is hard to discern, which is just how the unsettling writer-director wants

Michel Legrand, three-time Oscar winner and composer of such classic film songs as “The Windmills of Your Mind,” “I Will Wait for You,” “You Must Believe in Spring” and “What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life?”, along with the groundbreaking musical score for “The Umbrellas of Cherbourg,” has died. He was 86. Legrand

January 26, 2019 12:48AM PT Russell Mulcahy’s seriocomic imagining of Errol Flynn’s pre-stardom adventures is hugely satisfying old-fashioned fun. A jauntily old-fashioned adventure that plays like the nautical equivalent of a picaresque road movie, “In Like Flynn” offers a fanciful glimpse at the pre-fame formative experiences of Old Hollywood luminary Errol Flynn, indicating that the

“Focus: Nordic Comedy is a tribute to the contemporary Nordic comedy and an attempt to try to understand humor’s social and political role in today’s culture,” says Göteborg fest artistic director Jonas Holmberg. He admits that it was partially conceived as an antidote to the fest’s other focus on the Apocalypse. He says, “The Apocalypse

Of all the terrifying things Harvey Weinstein has ever said — insults hurled, jobs threatened, tantrums unleashed — perhaps the most blood-chilling are these six words: “Don’t you know who I am!?” That’s the line actress Nannette Klatt recalls the producer bellowing when she declined his advances in a private hotel-room meeting. For decades, Weinstein

The Michael Jackson estate has issued a statement on the film “Leaving Neverland,” which premiered at Sundance on Friday morning (Jan. 25). The documentary was screened at Park City, Utah’s Egyptian Theater. The Estate issued its statement about 12 hours after the film debuted, taking issue with what it calls “the kind of tabloid character

It’s been a while since Emma Thompson landed a lead role she could sink her comic incisors into, so you’re grateful for every well-played frozen stare and whiplash line reading she serves up in “Late Night.” The movie, written by Mindy Kaling and directed by Nisha Ganatra (“Chutney Popcorn”), is a light and spiky office

“I Am Mother” depicts a future in which humanity has been nearly wiped out and robots are left to pick up the pieces. The thriller, which debuted on Friday at Sundance, sounds a cautionary note about the perils of automation. It’s a message that resonates with Hilary Swank. the Oscar-winning actress who stars in the

Sony Pictures has set Jason Reitman’s “Ghostbusters” sequel for a July 10, 2020, release date. The studio made the announcement late Friday afternoon, 10 days after disclosing that it revealed that Reitman was on board to direct the untitled sequel. Reitman’s father, Ivan, directed the original “Ghostbusters,” starring Bill Murray, Harold Ramis, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie