Movies

South by Southwest has a storied tradition of launching studio comedies into the box-office stratosphere—from “Knocked Up” to “Bridesmaids,” “Trainwreck” and “Spy.” On Saturday night, SXSW 2019 most likely found the next underdog hit to add to this esteemed class. “Long Shot” is the story of a secretary of state, Charlotte Field (Charlize Theron), who

“We love cinema.” That’s how Netflix began a statement it issued on Twitter in response to Steven Spielberg’s announcement that he will push for new guidelines regarding the eligibility of movies to compete in the Academy Awards. (Though the connection was obvious, the Netflix statement never mentioned Spielberg by name.) Spielberg, a member of the

UniFrance, the French film promotion org, joined forces with the The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to host events on March 7-8 in Paris which aimed at shining a spotlight on French female directors, producers, talent, artists and technicians. The events, which were attended by many French students and young filmmakers at the

If we’re being honest, I thought “Captain Marvel” was fine, often good. It’s a bummer in some sense, because if I liked it less, it’d help make my point a little bit easier. There are people, however, who do not like “Captain Marvel” for reasons valid and not. I say this because: I am dying

Brie Larson’s “Captain Marvel” is showing plenty of international power with a $302 million international launch — the fifth highest of all-time. With an impressive $153 million debut in North America, Disney’s Marvel Cinematic Universe title totaled a global opening weekend of $455 million, or the sixth highest global debut and the biggest opening of

March 10, 2019 9:33AM PT “Birds of Passage,” Cristina Gallego’s and Ciro Guerra’s sprawling epic film tracing the origins of the Colombian drug trade, took home the $40,000 Knight Marimbas Award (the top grand jury prize) Saturday night at Miami Dade College’s 36th annual Miami Film Festival. The south Florida gathering celebrated cinema with an

Brie Larson’s “Captain Marvel” is soaring to a heroic opening weekend of $153 million in North America at 4,310 sites, reviving what had been a slumbering 2019 box office. “Captain Marvel” took in $302 million internationally, giving it an estimated global opening weekend of $455 million — the sixth highest global debut of all time.

GUADALAJARA, Mexico — In the world, it would be hard to choose a more exciting figure to introduce a masterclass than Guillermo del Toro, and even more so when that talk is given in the filmmaker’s hometown of Guadalajara Mexico at a festival he has been involved with for its entire 33-year existence. If the

GUADALAJARA — Chilean production company Equeco is at this year’s Guadalajara Intl. Film Festival to pitch a new project, “Pepperoni.” The immigration-themed dark comedy will be the second feature of festival favorite, D.J.-turned-director Tomás Alzamora, better known in Chile as DJ Four-D, who shared exclusive first details with Variety in the lead-up to the Mexican

What if the woman who had been your babysitter when you were 13-years-old went on to become Secretary of State, and was now positioned to be the first female president of the United States? If you were Fred Flarsky (picture a Seth Rogen character more or less identical to every other Seth Rogen character, only

Shia LaBeouf made some frank and emotional statements about his personal struggles on the set of “The Peanut Butter Falcon,” his Mark Twain-inspired indie film that premiered at the SXSW film festival on Saturday in Austin, Texas. Zac Gottsagen, an actor with Downs and the film’s lead, also revealed to the Q&A audience how his

Just when you think you’ve got Shia LaBeouf figured out, he goes and makes a film like “The Peanut Butter Falcon,” a sincere, Southern-fried buddy movie in the tradition of “Forrest Gump,” from two of the producers responsible for “Little Miss Sunshine.” This was the film LaBeouf was shooting when he was arrested for public

March 9, 2019 7:37PM PT Home invasion proves dangerous to the trespassers’ health in this entertaining black-comedy thriller. It’s the home invaders who find themselves imperiled in “Villains,” the third feature collaboration for directors Dan Berk and Robert Olsen. This black comedy thriller has a good cast to spark a scenario that’s intriguing enough to

How can you tell when a movie star is committed to being taken seriously? It’s hard to ignore when someone like Matthew McConaughey drops a ton of weight, the way he did to play an emaciated HIV patient in “Dallas Buyers Club.” It’s also impressive when such an actor swings hard in the opposite direction,

March 9, 2019 5:00PM PT Small-town cinema staff unleash a demonic spirit from an old film can in this uneven comedy-horror. One of the more amusing promotions in the history of exploitation cinema was for Jess Franco’s sexy-arty 1967 “Necronomicon.” In the U.S., it was released as “Succubus,” but the distributor claimed that title was

As Jordan Peele’s latest horror pic “Us” debuted at South by Southwest, the director and producer held three other screenings nationwide for mostly black audiences, using the hashtag #UsFirst. The Los Angeles screening reportedly played host to several celebs, including John Legend, Janelle Monae, Ryan Coogler, Tracee Ellis Ross, Lakeith Stanfield, Robin Theade, and La

It’s been 18 years since I escaped the state of Texas, and nothing illustrates how much things have changed in that hyper-conservative stronghold than the rise and near-win of Senatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke in his bid for Senate. On its surface, David Modigliani’s “Running With Beto” is an inside account of that campaign — reminiscent

After a bold pledge to “break up” and regulate monolithic tech companies like Google and Facebook, Sen. Elizabeth Warren came to, uh, the country’s preeminent tech conference to state her case. Appearing in conversation at SXSW on Saturday, the presidential hopeful was immediately asked to address a regulatory proposal she floated at a rally the

Beto O’Rourke received a rapturous standing ovation at South by Southwest on Saturday afternoon after the premiere of the documentary “Running With Beto.” Although the movie plays like the announcement of a presidential run, O’Rourke sidestepped a question about 2020 at a Q&A following the film. “Running With Beto” trails O’Rourke as he mounted a

GUADALAJARA, Mexico — Guillermo del Toro is creating an International Animation Center specializing in stop, motion in his home city of Guadalajara Mexico, the director announced Saturday morning at the Guadalajara Festival, at a masterclass given by Melissa Cobb, Netflix vice president, kids & family. Details remain scarce, but the idea of one of the

Ben Affleck takes center stage in Netflix’s upcoming “Triple Frontier,” and the pic is far from Affleck’s first as an established leading man action star. However, it took him a few films to get his bona fides, going from comedic side character to gruff hero with several stages of evolution along the way. In his

Disney-Marvel’s latest MCU installment, “Captain Marvel,” is launching to an estimated $156 million from 4,310 North American locations after totaling $61.4 million on Friday. The Friday number includes $20.7 million from Thursday previews. Should estimates hold, “Captain Marvel” will rank as the seventh best MCU opening domestically, behind the three “Avengers” movies, along with “Black

A new crop of Mexican fiction films and feature-length documentaries premiering in Guadalajara’s (FICG) Premio Mezcal section are vying for the festival’s largest cash prize of 500,000 pesos ($25,800). Winning the prestigious award virtually ensures a good run on the global festival circuit. As tradition has it, a group of 30 film students from Mexico

March 8, 2019 11:47PM PT A Civil War relic sparks revisionist-history enthusiasm in Lynn Shelton’s loose, funny improv-based comedy feature. There are few chores more taxing on the film festival circuit than sitting through an improv-based comedy whose performers don’t have the skill set to pull it off — an unfortunate sight that’s been turning

Fatherhood has changed Jordan Peele. The writer-director has made no secret about smoking some weed while he was writing “Get Out.” “I didn’t know if [‘Get Out’] was ever going to get made,” Peele said at the 2018 African American Film Critics Association Awards gala. “I’d go home, smoke a little bit of weed and

For all the genius of Jordan Peele’s 2017 debut, “Get Out” — a movie that oh-so-smartly reinforced its horror-movie skeleton with an adamantium-strong (and twice as sharp) racial-tension allegory — audiences seemed to have one critique in common: The movie wasn’t nearly scary enough. People aren’t likely to have the same complaint about “Us,” the

In Austin, everyone can hear you scream. And there seemed to be plenty of shrieks, squeals and even a few sobs at the premiere of Jordan Peele’s latest opus, “Us,” at South By Southwest on Friday night. This film festival in Texas has a strong track record of launching studio blockbusters. Last year, “A Quiet

In today’s film news roundup, the Writers Guild will keep blasting away at major talent agencies, Universal promotes four execs and Jennifer E. Smith sets up a pair of YA projects. WGA BATTLE The Writers Guild of America will release a report Tuesday detailing its assertions of conflicts of interest at CAA, WME, UTA and

Jeffrey Katzenberg and Meg Whitman have unveiled a slate of short-form projects heading to Quibi, their upcoming video streaming service designed for mobile devices. The duo, in an opening day panel at SXSW Film, announced a “Thanks a Million” show from Jennifer Lopez’s company about the power of giving; an origin story to complement Telemundo’s

There’s been no end to public outcry ever since HBO’s “Leaving Neverland” premiered at Sundance Film Festival in January. The painful two-part HBO documentary, which details the alleged sexual abuse that two men endured from Jackson, has resulted in a variety of responses. Many have condemned Jackson’s actions and taken steps to disassociate with the