Movies

While the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences once again ponders an Oscars telecast without a host, the Golden Globes is returning to one who completely changed the awards-hosting game. The Globes had gone without a host for most of its history when it chose Ricky Gervais to emcee the 2010 show. He was

For movies that take place in ye grand olde 20th century, or earlier, directors often go for period-specificity for everything that appears on screen. When it comes to the music coming through the speakers, though, that can be another matter, as filmmakers tend to be fine with anachronisms in scoring and sometimes even songs. Here’s

World War II has been a favorite subject of Hollywood since 1940, before the U.S. even entered the fighting. But the industry has been less interested in World War I, aka The Great War or The War to End All Wars (as it was sadly/optimistically dubbed). In the past 25 years, there have been 16

January 2, 2020 9:28AM PT “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” was the clear choice for moviegoers hoping to celebrate the dawn of 2020. The Skywalker saga finale topped the New Year’s Day box office, grossing $16.9 million and pushing its domestic haul past the $400 million mark. “The Rise of Skywalker” is trailing the

Strand Releasing has acquired North American rights to José Luis Montesinos’s Spanish-language thriller “Ropes” which world premiered at the Sitges Film Festival. Represented in international markets by Reel Suspects, “Ropes” follows Elena, a young quadriplegic who is mourning the recent death of her sister and has moved to a country house with her father. While

Margot Robbie founded LuckyChap Entertainment in 2014 with her now-husband, Tom Ackerley, and friends Josey McNamara and Sophia Kerr. Its mandate: Tell women’s stories on screen and support women creators behind the scenes. “I, Tonya,” with Robbie as Tonya Harding, was LuckyChap’s first release, ensuring the company came to the marketplace with an assertive howl

Margot Robbie has excelled at playing real people on screen. In 2019, she played Sharon Tate in Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” and the year before, she took on Queen Elizabeth I in “Mary Queen of Scots.” In a career-making performance — for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe, a

Hollywood’s glass ceiling may not be shattered, but it’s showing some cracks. The number of top-grossing films directed by women reached record levels in 2019, according to a new study by the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative. Much of the past decade in the entertainment industry has been dominated by a debate about the lack of

Distinguished film writer and director, Mabel Cheung Yuen-ting has joined the Hong Kong International Film Festival Society as its vice chairperson. She takes over from Johnnie To, who had held the post for the five years since 2014. “This is a wonderful opportunity for me to become further engaged in the promotion of film culture

MADRID  —  Disney. An extraordinary Mouse House septet, all ranking in Spain’s Top 10, drove its 2019 box office to its biggest cinema theater ticket sales in the decade, according to Comscore figures released Thursday. The last time movies in Spain scored more spectators was 2009, said David Rodríguez, general manager, Spain & Portugal, Comscore

Political problems that turned violent in the last few months weighed on the theatrical box office in Hong Kong, especially in the second half of the year. But the territory’s full year outcome was a 2% dip, rather than a precipitous plunge. Gross revenues for 2019 totaled HK$1.923 billion ($245 million), compared with HK$1.957 billion

One of the strangest and most vexing things about reviewing movies for a trade paper like Variety — which involves covering films at festivals and markets, as opposed to those consumer newspaper critics who follow the theatrical release schedule — is the fact that so many of the films we cover don’t have U.S. distribution

Mollie Fitzgerald, who had a minor role in “Captain America: The First Avenger,” was arrested on Tuesday in connection to the stabbing death of her mother last month, police said in a statement. According to the police statement, on Dec. 20, law enforcement officials responded to an armed disturbance at the Oltahe, Kan., home of

Jack Garfein, the longtime teacher, director, writer, producer and pivotal member of the Actors Studio died on Dec. 30 due to complications from leukemia, according to Playbill. He was 89. Garfein’s influence and expertise touched the lives of many names from directors George Stevens and John Ford to actors Sissy Spacek and Bruce Dern. Garfein

The film business is now caught in such a swirling hurricane of change that few pretend to know which way is up. A couple of years ago, Netflix was an interloper; now it’s poised to dominate the Academy Awards. Movies and television increasingly flow into each other, and the streaming revolution is only just starting

Moviegoers flocked to “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” on New Year’s Eve, choosing to ring in 2020 by ringing out the nine-film saga about the rise, fall, rise, fall, and rise again of cinema’s preeminent Jedi family. The Walt Disney Studios and Lucasfilm release pulled in an estimated $13.1 million on Tuesday as much

January 1, 2020 8:38AM PT The first trailer for “A Quiet Place 2” has dropped and with it a backstory about the alien invasion from John Krasinski and Emily Blunt’s first feature film together. The original 2018 horror flick, directed and co-written by Krasinski, takes place after an alien invasion wipes out most of Earth’s

There are many shades of loneliness, but the tatty gray isolation of a seaside town in the off-season provides a peculiarly perfect background hue for two bereaved late-teenage siblings in Argentinian director Mateo Bendesky’s elusively offbeat “Family Members.” Only Bendesky’s second feature, its contemplative remove — despite the humor inherent in many of its observations

It’s punishment more than practice that makes “The Perfection,” which is less a horror film per se than a grisly yet upscale grand guignol melodrama. Richard Shepard’s very tricky suspense film, co-written with the TV writing-producing team of Eric Charmelo and Nicole Snyder, has been a success for Netflix. The streaming service released the film

Sun Valley, Idaho has been a holiday haven for members of the entertainment industry since the golden era of Hollywood, when the likes of Gary Cooper and Clark Gable flocked to the affluent ski resort. Today, the area remains a favored vacation getaway for such actors and filmmakers as Tom Hanks, Clint Eastwood and Chelsea

Roger Corman is alive and well and up to his old tricks. At 93, the prodigiously prolific director, producer and mini-major mogul has been in the business long enough to receive scores of lifetime achievement awards — he’ll be getting another one this week in Houston, courtesy of the Houston Film Critics Society — and

The most revealing part of Kevin Hart’s new Netflix series is not his Oscar contrition, marital drama or struggles with ego — it’s the rare glimpse at the nail-biting business of celebrity crisis management. The six-part documentary “Kevin Hart: Don’t F**k This Up” premiered last Friday, and offers access to the turbulent 2019 the top

So you thought compact discs were a dead format? Not to soundtrack collectors. Film music labels continue to thrive, turning from current scores to, increasingly, limited-edition expansions and even new recordings of classic scores from the past. Many film studios have (as they did in the 1950s and ’60s) formed their own in-house music labels

December 31, 2019 10:04AM PT Joel Kinnaman and Rosamund Pike head up a Feds-versus-cops-versus-mobsters B-thriller that knows its limits, and works tidily within them. The mere opening salvo of “The Informer” contains nearly enough plot to keep many a lesser shoot-’em-up exercise occupied for an hour or two: Just 10 minutes into Andrea Di Stefano’s

Even as Netflix and other platforms continued to gain ground, France’s theatrical box office broke a 50-year record with 213 million ticket sales, showing that movie-going and streaming can co-exist. Admissions increased by 6%, and the French B.O. clocked in at about €1.4 billion ($1.57 billion), a slight increase on 2018. Hollywood titles ruled the

U.S. shark survival horror film “47 Meters Down: Uncaged” will be unleashed on China January 10. Chinese reports say that three other Golden Globe nominees with Oscar buzz — “Marriage Story,” “Little Women” and “Jojo Rabbit” — are supposed to hit the country as well, but their release dates have yet to be set and

Box office returns in Italy rose 14% in 2019 to €630 million ($706.5 million), a welcome uptick prompted by a joint effort made by Hollywood and the local industry this year to schedule more summer releases, after the country in 2018 had suffered its worst results in a decade in terms of movie ticket sales. Italian

Visual artist and futurist Syd Mead, who helped shape the look of influential sci-fi films including “Blade Runner,” “Tron,” “Aliens” and “Star Trek: The Motion Picture,” died Monday of complications from lymphoma in Pasadena, Calif. He was 86. Autoline journalist John McElroy first reported the news, which was confirmed by his spouse Roger Servick to

Say goodbye to the holiday season and hello to the Golden Globes. The Hollywood Foreign Press Association hosts its annual shindig at the Beverly Hilton on Sunday, but some actually get an early start on the partying four days before at the Palm Springs International Film Festival’s opening night awards gala. Then it’s time to

December 30, 2019 1:00PM PT Sony might be back to the drawing board with “Uncharted,” the studio’s long-in-development adaptation of the popular video game starring Tom Holland and Mark Wahlberg. Sources tell Variety that scheduling constraints for Holland, who will be busy filming the next “Spider-Man” sequel for Sony, will halt production of “Uncharted.” If