May 1, 2019 7:47AM PT Ant Timpson’s dark, blood-splattered comedy runs out of steam and originality as it follows an urban hipster facing major daddy issues in a coastal Oregon town. And you thought you had daddy issues. Weigh them against Elijah Wood’s troubles in debuting director Ant Timpson’s moderately funny and strangely dated gross-out
Movies
In “UglyDolls,” an air-popped animated musical fairy tale about learning to embrace the ugly — that is, ordinary (that is, extraordinary) — specimen most of us are, the title plush toys are monochromatic fuzzy-felt factory rejects who get tossed off the assembly line for one reason or another. Each has a flaw that fails to
May 1, 2019 6:30AM PT “The Fate of the Furious” director F. Gary Gray was tapped to direct a film version of the “Saints Row” series of video games, currently in the early planning stages, IGN reported Wednesday. Greg Russo will write the screenplay for the adaptation. Russo is also scripting movie reboots of “Mortal
TORONTO — In 2008, the Mexican government sent the army to fight drug traffickers in the rugged region along the U.S. border. What at first glance seemed like an attempt to rein in the powerful cartels turned into an epidemic of state-sponsored violence, leading to the murders and disappearances of countless journalists, human rights activists,
Social satire “Boyz in the Wood,” starring Eddie Izzard, will open the 73rd edition of the Edinburgh Intl. Film Festival on June 19. Set in the Scottish Highlands, the film follows four city boys trying to escape a mysterious huntsman, played by Izzard, as the Highlands’ police force trails behind. Rian Gordon, Samuel Bottomley, Viraj
April 30, 2019 11:32PM PT Agreeing to attend weddings together, two single friends make an unlikely connection in Jeff Chan and Andrew Rhymer’s winning rom-com. “Plus One” is proof of the continued vitality of traditional romantic comedy formulas. Yet far more thrillingly, it’s a testament to star power — which it has in spades, courtesy
April 30, 2019 11:23PM PT In this week’s edition of the Variety Movie Commercial Tracker, powered by TV ad measurement and attribution company iSpot.tv, Marvel claims the top spot in spending for the second week in a row with “Avengers: Endgame.” Ads placed for the superhero film had an estimated media value of $6.54 million
You could call it a meeting of the multi-hyphenates. Musician, activist and “Sorry to Bother You” director Boots Riley sat down for a chat with DJ, producer, author and “The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon” musical director Questlove for a wide-ranging chat at the Tribeca Film Festival Tuesday night. During the conversation, the two touched
Baz Luhrmann’s Tom Hanks-starring Elvis film is set to shoot significant portions in Australia, it has been confirmed. The currently untitled film, backed by Warner Bros., will explore the life and music of Elvis Presley, including his rise to fame, his unprecedented stardom, and his impact on the world. It will also delve into his
A visionary who flew too close to the sun. A dream of success that became a nightmare. A golden boy turned prince of darkness. Name your grandiose American metaphor, and the saga of John DeLorean, the GM-executive-turned-lone-wolf-entrepreneur who invented the car of the future (only to see it relegated to the junkyard of the past),
“I don’t run away from nothing, I run to it,” says Gemma, the quietly resilient teenager at the center of “Scheme Birds.” Few would blame her for doing the reverse, having been abandoned in infanthood by her parents in the harsh projects of Motherwell, a deprived, lusterless Scottish town a few miles outside Glasgow. It’s
Michael J. Fox doesn’t let Parkinson’s disease get him down. He takes life step-by-step when he fears he will fall, he laughs through hardship, and he helps others who are struggling to do the same. “I don’t know much about acting, but I know what people have told me and what acting teachers have told
April 30, 2019 4:12PM PT Newcomer Daniela Melchior looks to be the latest addition to the team, as sources tell Variety the Portuguese actress has been tapped to play Ratcatcher in Warner Bros. and James Gunn’s “The Suicide Squad.” She joins new members John Cena and Idris Elba, with Margot Robbie reprising her role as
Since its inception half a century ago, Film at Lincoln Center has championed outsiders, both geographically and artistically. It’s stood up to the Catholic Church, the U.S. Customs Office, and its own donors to screen the work it believed in — and jump-started the careers of internationally renowned actors and directors in the process. At
TORONTO — It wasn’t long after Julia Reichert arrived on the campus of Antioch College half a century ago that, she admitted, she “got really turned around very quickly.” The product of a working-class family from a small Midwestern town, Reichert was thrust into the roiling tumult of 1960s campus life, with anti-war demonstrations and
Quentin Tarantino showed a sneak peek of “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and television pioneer Norman Lear was honored with a new building that will be named after the “All in the Family” creator during a two-hour all hands meeting on Tuesday. Chris Miller, “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” producer, was on hand to celebrate
April 30, 2019 11:53AM PT Sony Pictures Classics announced Tuesday that it has acquired the rights to the film “Frankie” in North America and numerous international territories. The film will premiere in competition at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Ira Sachs directed the project, and co-wrote “Frankie” with Mauricio Zacharias. Isabelle Huppert, Marisa Tomei, Greg
Robin Wright will go off the grid in her feature film directorial debut, “Land.” She will also star in the movie, playing Edee Mathis, a woman consumed by grief who resolves to remove herself completely from life as she has known it. Wright directed several installments of “House of Cards,” but this marks her first
April 30, 2019 9:55AM PT London-based Film Constellation has boarded American director Annie Silverstein’s feature debut “Bull” in the run up to the Cannes Film Festival where the movie will have its world premiere in Un Certain Regard. Film Constellation, which also reps Werner Herzog’s Cannes’ special screening title “Family Romance, LLC,” has acquired international
Alfonso Cuaron’s triple-Oscar winning “Roma” is to get a theatrical release in China on May 10. The release will be handled through distributor Estars, making use of the circuit of 3,900 screens assembled by the Nationwide Alliance of Arthouse Cinemas. “Roma” was produced by Esperanto Filmoj and Participant Media and released by streaming giant Netflix
The bosses and directors of the world’s largest media companies aren’t going to win many popularity contests. They anger a lot of people, including investors, when they approve out-of-whack pay packages for their CEOs. Their lavish salaries and generous awarding of stock options to key leaders enrage politicians on the left and threaten to become
Some actresses dream of winning an Oscar. For others, an Emmy or Tony. But Zoe Saldana has a different dream now that there’s a chance that “Avengers: Endgame” could eventually surpass “Avatar” — which also starred Saldana — as the highest-grossing movie of all time. “If it does, I’m so much of a geek that
April 30, 2019 7:45AM PT Japan’s Koichi Sato (“Terminal,” “Whiteout,” and “Unforgiven”) and Ken Watanabe (“Inception,” “Letters from Iwo Jima,” “Godzilla,” “The Last Samurai”) star in “Fukushima 50,” a forthcoming film recounting the events of the East Japan earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear meltdown of 2011. The survival action drama is directed by Wakamatsu Setsuro (“The
Hulk-size spoiler alert: Do not read on if you have not seen “Avengers: Endgame.” “Avengers: Endgame” dropped a hammer on box office history, grossing a record-eviscerating $356 million in North America and setting a new benchmark for a global opening weekend at $1.2 billion. But if we’ve taken any lessons from Marvel and its cinematic
“Godzilla: King of the Monsters” will hit Chinese theaters on May 31, day-and-date with the U.S. The third installment of Legendary’s MonsterVerse franchise is also backed by Warner Bros. and China’s Huahua Media. In the special effects-laden extravaganza, a crypto-zoological agency faces off with Godzilla, who in turn clashes with monsters Mothra, Rodan and King
When I first met John Singleton, I was a newly promoted creative executive at Columbia Pictures under Dawn Steel and Amy Pascal. I was trying to replace myself in the story department with a reader of color. I’d heard about this kid who was coming out of USC who wanted a job as a reader.
Hollywood stars owe Netflix a big thank-you. The streaming service is bolstering pay packages for the most famous actors in the business at a time when studios are getting downright stingy about writing generous checks. Ryan Reynolds, for instance, is getting $27 million to star in “Six Underground,” a Michael Bay film about a billionaire-financed
The life and work of iconic Mexican artist Frida Kahlo will be the subject of a new animated film from U.K.-based Lupus Films and Universal Content Group. Paloma Baeza has signed on to direct the as-yet-untitled, female-led project. Salma Hayek produced and starred in a biopic of Kahlo, “Frida,” which scored six Oscar noms. The
China’s Belt and Road Initiative comes under the spotlight at this year’s Far East Film Festival in Udine, Italy. A documentary film by an Italian journalist Pio d’Emilia will tackle the controversial subject and make its international festival premiere on Friday. The premiere of “Yi Dai Yi Lu One Belt One Road” comes just a
“Crazy Rich Asians” director Jon M. Chu and Thai helmer Nattawut “Baz” Poonpiriya have boarded Netflix’s planned retelling of last year’s dramatic rescue of a boys’ soccer team trapped in a cave in Thailand. Chu and Poonpiriya, who directed Asian hit film “Bad Genius,” are partnering with Netflix and SK Global Entertainment on the story