As the movie that ushered in both the modern-day superhero genre and a new peak in the art of saturation marketing, Tim Burton’s “Batman” has a legacy that’s hard to overstate. Virtually everything associated with the 1989 comic-book adaptation became a cultural phenomenon, from Burton’s mischievous, mainstream-goth aesthetic to the meta-narrative of the film’s record-breaking
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Argentinian director Lucrecia Martel has been named the president of the jury at this year’s Venice Film Festival, the event’s 76th edition. Venice chief Alberto Barbera praised Martel as “Latin America’s most important female director and one of the top female directors worldwide,” adding that she had achieved this status with just “four feature films
Better days may be a long way off yet for the embattled Chinese drama “Better Days,” which has canceled its mainland China release just three days before the film was to hit theaters. The movie was also pulled at the last minute from the Berlin Film festival lineup in February amid tightening control by China’s
Disney and Pixar’s “Toy Story 4” has debuted to record-breaking opening weekends all over the world – but not in China, where it was soundly beaten by a nearly 20-year-old Japanese anime classic, Ghibli Studios’ “Spirited Away.” While “Toy Story 4” made film history in territories around the world with the largest-ever three-day opening for
Run a finger along any of the surfaces in Alistair Banks Griffin’s sophomore feature “The Wolf Hour,” and it will come up slicked with sweat, grime and the residual soot of the city. It is the summer of 1977, and it’s hotter than hell. June Leigh (Naomi Watts) perches on the window sill of the
The Palm Springs International ShortFest wrapped Sunday with top prizes going to “The Christmas Gift,” directed by Bogdan Muresanu, for best of the festival, Nara Normande’s “Guaxuma” for best international short and Horatio Baltz’s “King Wah (I Think I Love You)” for best North American short. The festival is the largest shorts-focused event in North
I recently came down with an acute case of movie-world-itis — call it “franchise fatigue” fatigue. The symptoms are as follows. It’s blockbuster movie season (otherwise known as: any given week of the year), and a handful of sequels, reboots, and tentpole-smash wannabes have all come out and performed badly. The media predictions of weekend
June 23, 2019 1:15PM PT A well-made but familiar tale of a small-time Chongqing hustler’s choice between money and morals during a kidnapping gone awry. Official statistics imply that violent crime is close to an all-time low across China today, but you would hardly guess as much from the glut of commercial-leaning crime and gangster
Disney’s domination over the box office only seemed to strengthen this weekend as “Toy Story 4” easily topped box office charts. The fourth entry in Pixar’s animated series collected $118 million in ticket sales when it debuted in 4,575 North American theaters. While that haul is significantly below expectations, which anticipated a start near $140
China’s top film festival showered its highest three honors on the Iranian film “Castle of Dreams,” hours after American President Donald Trump said the U.S. would on Monday impose “major additional sanctions” on Tehran. The drama about family, separation and keeping one’s promises, collected a trio of prizes on Sunday night at the Shanghai International
The recent decision to legalize gay marriage in Taiwan – the first place in the Chinese world to do so – caused a stampede of people to rush to registry offices across the island. It may open the way to more LGBT films as well. One movie that clearly acknowledges the historic moment is “Your
Many attendees of the Shanghai Intl. Film Festival likely know little about the ShanghaiPRIDE Film Festival, the other event in town every June. Unlike the former, government-sponsored one, ShanghaiPRIDE operates in a legal grey zone due to its celebration of LGBTQ content, which is frowned upon by Chinese censors. This year, ShanghaiPRIDE’s non-profit event ran
Coming off his best actor win at the Berlin International Film Festival for the Wang Xiaoshuai-directed “So Long My Son,” Wang Jingchun is this year acting as a main competition jury member at the Shanghai International Film Festival, which concludes Sunday. He was last a jury member for the shorts selection at the festival five
Making a dramatic feature about people who are autistic presents a steep challenge. How do you get an audience to connect with individuals whose defining trait is their inability to connect? “Rain Man,” a popular entertainment that I take utterly seriously, was structured almost entirely around the dramatic conundrum posed by that question. Dustin Hoffman’s
China’s acting superstar Gong Li was last month the recipient of the Kering Women In Motion award at Cannes. She spoke with Variety about her upcoming roles, the political context of acting today, and her return to Shanghai. Variety What was the significance to you of the Kering Award?Gong Li “I understand it as a
June 22, 2019 2:02PM PT Los Angeles police arrested a man Friday in connection with the theft of a Marilyn Monroe statue. According to police, Austin Mikel Clay is accused of climbing the Ladies of Hollywood sculpture and sawing off the statue with a hacksaw. The statue remains missing. Clay was also arrested last year
June 22, 2019 1:28PM PT Tom Holland just can’t seem to keep his mouth shut. The “Spider-Man: Far From Home” Star continued his spoiler streak during Friday night’s episode of the “Graham Norton Show” when he revealed one of the major deaths from “Avengers: Endgame.” “The film is a direct continuation of “Avengers: Endgame” so
June 22, 2019 12:18PM PT A wryly engrossing, well-observed story of a man floundering in his forties, given a novel spin by its setting in modern, middle-class Shanghai. “I heard a foreign language. Are they foreigners?” one Chinese waitress asks another when they’re out of earshot of the table of men speaking accented English at
Danny Boyle’s Beatles-nostalgia film “Yesterday” has secured a theatrical release date in mainland China. The film, which premiered at the Tribeca festival in May, is a musical fairy tale about a world without the Fab Four, and an indie rocker who brings them back. Boyle was previously head of the competition jury at the Shanghai International
[SPOILER ALERT: Do not read ahead until you have seen “Toy Story 4.”] Bo Peep is back — and is a bonafide badass. After being absent from “Toy Story 3,” Annie Potts returns for the fourth installment of Pixar’s beloved series to reprise her role as the porcelain sheep herder. And “Toy Story 4” gives
Disney Pixar’s “Toy Story 4” is reaching for the skies this weekend with a solid $47 million in Friday ticket sales, though weekend estimates are below Disney’s earlier projections. Although initial estimates had placed the film north of $140 million for its domestic opening weekend, the strong premiere still looks promising for the family flick,
Director Sonthar Gyal has a long history with the Shanghai International Film Festival, where he is a jury member this year. His directorial debut, “The Sun Beaten Path,” participated in the Asian New Talents section in 2011, as did his second film, 2015’s “River.” His third, last year’s “Ala Changso,” won the grand jury and
The British Academy of Film and Television Arts this week extended its growing “Breakthrough” talent initiative to China. It teamed with financier Yu Holdings to launch BAFTA Breakthrough China at the Shanghai International Film Festival, with British actor Tom Hiddleston (“The Avengers,” “The Night Manager”) set as an ambassador for the scheme. BAFTA chief executive
There is huge potential market for animation films in China. But Chinese companies are struggling to make the content to fulfil that demand, said Lightchaser Animation Studios’ co-founder Yuan Ye in Shanghai. “Although animation education in China has improved, when it comes to character effects or other technical skills, they don’t teach any of it in
June 21, 2019 4:44PM PT Singapore director Daniel Yam has begun shooting Chinese-language fantasy adventure film “The Fatekeepers.” The story involves a group of youngsters who discover that the country’s feng shui (Chinese geomancy) has fallen out of whack. That is causing natural disasters such as fish being washed up on shore, hailstorms, and imminent
There’s a new documentary about Bill Wyman hitting theaters, and contrary to expectations, perhaps, it’s not a silent movie. But it is titled “The Quiet One,” in deference to the legendary bass player’s reputation as the most reserved of the Rolling Stones, an image he thinks he merited only by being pitted against some of
June 21, 2019 4:14PM PT Cailee Spaeny is in negotiations to star as one of the young witches in Sony Pictures’ remake of 1996’s “The Craft” for Blumhouse and Red Wagon Entertainment. Robin Tunney starred in the original, portraying a new arrival at a high school who’s sought out by three students, played by Fairuza
No pulsating, psychedelic, pop-punk phantasmagoria ought to be as moving and smart as “We Are Little Zombies.” But Makoto Nagahisa’s explosively ingenious and energetic debut (imagine it as the spiritual offspring of Richard Lester and a Harajuku Girl) holds the high score for visual and narrative invention, as well as boasting a [insert gigantic-beating-heart GIF]
Tales of spooky occurrences on the sets of horror movies like “The Exorcist” and “Poltergeist” have circulated for years, and it looks like “The Conjuring” franchise is following in their footsteps in that regard. The cast of “Annabelle Comes Home” shared their unnerving stories from set at the film’s premiere on Thursday night at the Regency
Disney-Pixar’s “Toy Story 4″ is heading toward $135 million in its opening weekend in North America, early estimates showed Friday. If the forecast holds, “Toy Story 4” would rack up the third-biggest debut of 2019 after “Avengers: Endgame” at $357 million and “Captain Marvel” at $353 million. “Toy Story 4” opened impressively with $12 million