Movies

Lucasfilm is developing a new “Star Wars” feature film with “Sleight” writer-director J.D. Dillard and “Luke Cage” writer Matt Owens, Variety has confirmed. The project is still in its very early stages, and all further details — characters, location, time period within the “Star Wars” creative galaxy — remain a mystery. That includes whether Dillard would

It’s no secret that I have suffered some losses lately. For better or worse, my pain and grief are public. But I understand the opportunity to face the pain, learn from it, and model a behavior. I wouldn’t want it any other way. But there are hundreds of thousands of kids across the U.S. —

To best appreciate the competitiveness and quality of the outstanding motion picture nominees for the 51st NAACP Image Awards, which takes place on Feb. 22, check the numbers. All five of this year’s nominees — “Dolemite Is My Name” “Just Mercy” “Harriet” “Queen & Slim” and “Us” — scored well on Rotten Tomatoes. To wit,

February 21, 2020 1:00PM PT Playing — once more — a hard-living musician brought down by his own body, Riz Ahmed electrifies Bassim Tariq’s British culture-clash drama. The last time festival audiences saw Riz Ahmed on screen, he was tearing it up on stage as a hedonistic muso before being plunged into emotional freefall by

February 21, 2020 1:42PM PT An unusual mashup of desert noir thriller and inspirational melodrama falls between two stools — and just lies there. “Emerald Run” is one of the weirdest hodgepodges to make its way to theater screens and digital platforms in quite some time. Unfortunately, oddness is just about the only thing this

February 21, 2020 1:30PM PT Giorgio Diritti’s mélange of impressionistic episodes and straightforward biopic recreations make “Hidden Away” more a record of a performance than a satisfying cinema experience. Antonio Ligabue holds an unusual place in the annals of mid-20th-century Italian art, championed by those who feel his boldly-colored, largely naive paintings are the product

Take two parts De Palma, one part Zulawski, four parts “Berberian Sound Studio” and dissolve the whole in about a million parts water, and the resultant dilute solution might approximate “The Intruder,” an oddly flavorless supernatural psycho-thriller from sophomore Argentinian director Natalia Meta. The claustrophobically close-up tale of a woman’s mental unraveling in the wake

Sony Pictures Classics has picked up distribution rights in North America and multiple international markets to the science-fiction drama “Nine Days,” starring Winston Duke. The film, directed by Edson Oda from his own script, also stars Zazie Beetz, Bill Skarsgård, Benedict Wong, Tony Hale, David Rysdahl, and Arianna Ortiz. Oda received the Waldo Salt Screenwriting

February 21, 2020 12:02PM PT British musician Yola will play singer Sister Rosetta Tharpe — dubbed the Godmother of rock and roll — in Baz Luhrmann’s musical drama “Elvis,” sources tell Variety. The Warner Bros. film stars Austin Butler in the title role, Tom Hanks as Elvis Presley’s manager Colonel Tom Parker, Maggie Gyllenhaal as

If it weren’t for the work he’d done in the Japanese fishing village of Minamata, W. Eugene Smith’s legacy would likely be that of a war photographer, or else as one of the leading contributors to Life magazine, whose immersive approach to his subjects helped pioneer the concept of the photo essay. But Smith did

February 21, 2020 11:11AM PT A series of leaked images and a 12-second video taken from the set of “The Batman” reveal the first look at the Batcycle and the full Batsuit. The unauthorized images were taken during an outdoor location shoot for the film at the Glasgow Necropolis cemetery in Scotland, according to the

A few years ago, I found myself at the Barneys department store in Beverly Hills on Dec. 24, wandering around on the men’s floor. It was almost closing time, and there was something depressing about being at Barneys at dusk on the night before Christmas. The store was empty, almost ghost-like, except for another shopper,

After the sudden death of her mother, an introverted teenager is taken in by an estranged female relative, who turns out to be the matriarch of a dangerous criminal family. If the essential logline of Danish director Jeanette Nordahl’s quietly tense debut “Wildland” sounds more than a little familiar, perhaps the same thought occurred to

30West is to acquire a significant minority stake in Altitude Media Group, the British film company led by Will Clarke and Andy Mayson. The move marks 30West’s second corporate investment after it took a stake in 2018 in U.S. film distributor Neon, whose Korean film “Parasite” won an Oscar for best picture – the first

“Painterly” might be an overused term to describe a certain aesthetic of period cinematography, informed by candlelit interiors and sweeping outdoor compositions. But it seizes the essence of French writer-director Céline Sciamma’s deeply feminist 18th-century gay romance set on the coast of Brittany, “Portrait of a Lady on Fire,” which debuted in theaters on Valentine’s

Viacom International Studios (VIS) has signed an exclusive first look development deal with Infinity Hill. The companies will co-develop and co-produce a slate of Spanish-language features, filmed globally and utilizing international talent on both sides of the camera. Infinity Hill is the new label from longtime Telefonica and Viacom exec Axel Kuschevatzky, one of the

Since taking the helm at German regional funder Filmförderung Hamburg Schleswig-Holstein (FFHSH) last year, Helge Albers has revamped the organization, worked to increase its budget by €3 million ($3.3 million) and introduced new initiatives aimed at young filmmakers. Albers, a former film producer who previously served as head of the German Producers Assn. and a

Growing demand for a united European response to the ever encroaching dominance of streaming platforms will be high on the agenda at this year’s European Film Market in Berlin. The first EFM to take place under the leadership of new Berlin Film Festival heads Mariette Rissenbeek and Carlo Chatrian is also introducing a new initiatives,

Pixar’s “Onward” saw its world premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival, and the film’s director, Dan Scanlon, and producer, Kori Rae, talked to the press at the festival about the film, which follows brother elves on a magical quest to reconnect with their late father. Tom Holland and Chris Pratt voice the brothers who

Johnny Depp arrived at the Berlin Film Festival Friday to support the film “Minamata,” in which he plays celebrated war photographer W. Eugene Smith. In the film, based on real events, Smith is pitted against a powerful corporation responsible for poisoning with mercury the people of Minamata in Japan in 1971. Also in Berlin were

February 21, 2020 2:33AM PT German media company Leonine has closed an all-rights licensing deal with Pathé Films on “Asterix & Obelix, The Silk Road” for Germany and Austria. The feature film, based on the characters created by René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo, marks the fifth live-action adventure of Asterix and Obelix, and will take

Under the new leadership of industry veteran Kristina Zimmermann, Orange Studio, the film/TV division of the French telco group Orange, is launching three new projects at Berlin’s European Film Market: “Last Film Show,” “Old Fashioned” and “Love Song for Tough Guys.” Directed by Pan Nalin (“Samsara”), “Last Film Show” follows Samay, a 9-year-old boy living

Memento Films Intl. (“Call Me By Your Name”) has acquired the Aussie revenge tale “The Drover’s Wife,” the film adaptation of Leah Purcell’s successful Australian stage play. Purcell is on board to adapt, act and direct the film which Oombarra Prods. and Bunya Prods. (“Sweet Country”) will produce. Memento Films Intl. is handling world sales

Brussels-based company Best Friend Forever has acquired international sales rights to Caroline Monnet’s feature debut “Bootlegger” which won best screenplay at Cannes’ Cinefondation in 2017. A well-known contemporary artist, Monnet has shed light on Indigenous identity and has debunked stereotypes through her works, which have been shown at the Whitney Biennial in New York, Palais

I’ve got this friend who makes his own clothes. Not the generic kind cut from dowdy prairie-dress patterns, but chic, design-it-yourself garments that look better than most anything you’d find on a ready-to-wear rack. I figure he’s the only person I know who’s not guilty of contributing to the kind of sweatshop misery writer-director Michael

February 20, 2020 10:42PM PT Gaumont is reteaming with actor-turned-director Franck Dubosc on another comedy: “Rumba Therapy” follows his hit 2018 pic “Rolling to You,” which was one of the highest-grossing films in France and abroad. “Rumba Therapy” stars Dubosc as a man in his 50s who lives alone after having abandoned his wife and

World sales agency WestEnd Films has boarded “The Score,” a heist musical starring Johnny Flynn (“Emma,” “Stardust”), Will Poulter (“The Revenant”), Naomi Ackie (“Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker”) and Antonia Thomas (Netflix’s “Lovesick”), from one of the producers of Beatles music themed hit “Yesterday,” which grossed $154 million worldwide. “The Score” combines a heist

Iranian auteur Mohammad Rasoulof, whose sixth feature “There is no Evil” screens in competition at the Berlinale, is one of his country’s most prominent directors even though none of his films have screened in Iran where they are banned. In 2011, the year he won two prizes at Cannes with his censorship-themed “Goodbye,” Rasoulof was sentenced

Sony Pictures Intl. Prods. and El Estudio, a major new independent production player in the Spanish-speaking world, are teaming to produce a Mexican version of breakout Cuban feature “Juan of the Dead,” with Emilio Portés directing. Chronicling a U.S. zombie invasion of Mexico, the remake marks one in a strong first slate of titles from

February 20, 2020 10:01PM PT “Parasite” star Song Kang-ho will head the cast of airborne disaster action move “Emergency Declaration.” Jeon Do-yeon and Lee Byung-hun co-star, making “Declaration” one of the powerful casts ever assembled in a Korean movie. The film is in pre-production and aiming for an end-of-year release. Leading studio Showbox will begin