Movies

Anyone who loves musical theater owes it to themselves to see “Bathtubs Over Broadway,” a delightful deep-dive documentary into one man’s obsession with the obscure world of industrial musicals — corporate-sponsored song-and-dance revues from the golden age of American capitalism. Think of it as “big-brand music,” commissioned for company retreats where they would be performed just

November 30, 2018 2:45PM PT Japan’s The Fool (“River’s Edge”) the U.K.’s Third Window Films (“Lowlife Love”) and Germany’s Rapid Eye Movies (“Ruined Heart”) have joined forces to back “Barbara,” a live action adaptation of the 1970s erotic manga by Osamu Tezuka. “Barbara” Osamu Tezuka’s reimagining of ‘The Tales of Hoffmann’ as an adult-orientated fantasy

November 30, 2018 2:44PM PT Imtiaz Bijon Ahmed, whose “Live From Dhaka” won two Silver Screen Awards in Singapore in 2016, has brought Germany’s Razor Film on board his new film “Paradise.” Set on a small, isolated island off the coast of Bangladesh, the film will follow a 14-year-old student at an Islamic school whose

November 30, 2018 2:30PM PT Thai director, Wisit Sasanatieng (“Tears of the Black Tiger,” “Ten Years: Thailand”) will see his next movie “Reside” head into commercial release in Thailand from next week. While horror is a main staple of Thai cinema, “Reside” is a rarity in that it is pitched as a new form of

Most of Singapore’s current crop of globally-known filmmakers cut their teeth on short films. And the format continues to be a popular one in the city-state. The Singapore International Film Festival’s Singapore Panorama shorts strand showcased some of the best and most diverse new local work at the National Museum of Singapore on Nov. 29

“Mary Poppins Returns” is being hailed as “practically perfect in every way” and a worthy followup to the 1964 classic. It’s a movie that recaptures the optimism and magic that made the original such a beloved family film. Though Dick Van Dyke makes a singing and dancing return in “Mary Poppins Returns,” best actress Oscar

After being interrupted last year, the Marrakech Film Festival returned with a bang for the opening of its 17th edition. A flurry of stars and industry figures graced the red carpet including jury president James Gray (“The Immigrant”), and jury members Dakota Johnson (“Suspiria”), who was wearing a glitzy pink gown, Lynne Ramsay (“You Were

The second weekend of “Ralph Breaks the Internet” is dominating North American moviegoing with an estimated $28 million at 4,017 locations, early estimates showed Friday. The second weekend of “Creed II,” the third weekend of “Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald,” and the fourth frame of “The Grinch”  are battling for second place in the

November 30, 2018 12:59PM PT Irwin Reiter, who recently served as the Weinstein Company’s executive vice president of accounting and financial reporting, is launching a consulting firm. Dubbed Reiter Audit, the company has signed a non-exclusive financial consulting role with Lantern Entertainment. In that capacity, it will be involved in all forms of finance, accounting

Bradley Cooper’s friends and colleagues gathered at the Beverly Hilton on Thursday night to salute his career as he was presented with the American Cinematheque’s 2018 Sid Grauman Award. “When we do these Q&As and things together, sometimes you call me Gaga, but we both know that you call me Stefani,” Cooper’s “A Star Is

Andy Serkis has played a hobbit, a monstrous gorilla and a lovable bear. This week, though, he traded his motion capture suit for a luxury wool two-piece and a Beverly Hills salon coif to play himself — or, at least, the latest version of himself — a Hollywood director. He wears it well. That fact,

Ventana Sur’s Blood Window stands out as one of Latin America’s most important events for the promotion and advancement of genre filmmaking. According to Blood Window coordinator Javier Fernández, genre filmmaking has become a Helms Deep-type bastion for independent filmmakers looking to create cinema on their own terms and with limited budgets. “Genre is, in

Andrés Kaiser’s found-footage thriller “Feral,” a Fipresci and Best Mexican Feature winner after its world premiere at the Los Cabos Film Festival, has been picked up by U.K. sales company One Eyed Films in the run-up to this year’s Ventana Sur. A participant at last year’s Ventana Sur Blood Window and Impulso Morelia works in

“The Possession of Hannah Grace” materialized with $625,000 at 1,866 North American locations on Thursday night. Sony’s supernatural horror film, the weekend’s only nationwide opening, is set to debut at 2,065 sites, with the studio anticipating a three-day performance of about $3 million. The sophomore weekend of “Ralph Breaks the Internet” is pegged to take

Wild West capitalism hits the Far East with a vengeance in documentarian John Maringouin’s adventuresome first narrative feature, “Ghostbox Cowboy.” This original if sometimes befuddling vision blurs the line between fiction and documentary elements, conventional storytelling and improvisational collage, all to oft-bracing effect. Starring indie-cinema regulars David Zellner and Robert Longstreet as Yank hustler-entrepreneurs wading

November 30, 2018 7:20AM PT After a six-year hiatus between her acclaimed 2011 Cannes entry “We Need to Talk About Kevin” and its follow-up “You Were Never Really Here” – which has eight nominations at the British Independent Film Awards and and four nominations for the Indie Spirit Awards – Scottish director Lynne Ramsay is

Awards season is upon us once again and as has appropriately been the case for the past few years, it will be dominated by talk of diversity. We have made great strides in this arena, and yet I feel one group seems to have been conspicuously left behind — the disability community. Although 20% of

The rebooted Cairo Film Festival has wrapped with the event’s top prize, the Golden Pyramid, going to “A Twelve-Year Night,” Uruguay’s candidate for the foreign-language Oscar. The award, presented Thursday night, came with a $20,000 check that was given to the producers of “Night,” a harrowing drama about Uruguay’s former military dictatorship. Thai auteur Phuttiphing Aroonpheng’s hypnotic “Manta

November 30, 2018 4:18AM PT As part of the Marrakech Intl. Film Festival’s reinvention for its 17th edition, artistic director Christoph Terhechte and his programming team created a section to challenge the cinematic representations of countries usually seen only through the lens of stereotypes. Looking for yet another dose of Latin American poverty porn? On

If you look to the British Independent Film Awards for a clear snapshot of, well, British independent film, this year’s otherwise sturdy list of nominations may come as a disappointment to you. A branch of cinema that once conjured images for many of stern, rain-lashed kitchen-sink drama and plucky community comedy has a far broader,

It’s hard to believe that Felicity Jones has been working in the film industry for only a decade. Since her bigscreen debut in 2008’s “Flashbacks of a Fool,” the unassuming 35-yearold has gained incredible momentum over the 20 films she’s made, effortlessly moving from English period dramas to U.S. indies, studio prestige pics and Hollywood

Yorgos Lanthimos’ “The Favourite” is leading the field in what looks like a banner year for the British Independent Film Awards, but amid the celebrations, producers are grappling with unprecedented change. The BIFAs are a bellwether for the U.K. biz. “We see it as a health check on what things are looking like — there

Young Saudi director Mahmoud Sabbagh’s groundbreaking romcom “Barakah Meets Barakah,” about the complexities of dating among his compatriots, made a splash at the 2016 Berlinale and became his country’s contender for the foreign-language Oscar. His new film is black comedy “Amra and the Second Marriage,” in which a 40-something housewife “feels suffocated by a very closed

November 29, 2018 5:32PM PT Jillian Apfelbaum has been named executive vice president of content at Village Roadshow Entertainment Group. As part of an internal mandate to up production volume, Apfelbaum has been tasked with finding and developing feature films, and keeping an eye on potential television and digital opportunities. She will report to Bruce Berman,

November 29, 2018 5:17PM PT A horror film set in a morgue, featuring a graphic-looking demon cadaver, may disappoint those who thought they were getting an exorcist flick. In theory, putting “possession” in the title of a horror movie should add to its box-office allure. But it probably won’t take long for word to trickle

In today’s film news roundup, Eric Bana will star in Australian drama “The Dry,” Magnolia buys “Hail Satan?,” and South Africa’s Oscar entry “Sew the Winter to My Skin” gets U.S. distribution. CASTING Eric Bana will star in the Australian police drama “The Dry,” a feature adaptation of Jane Harper’s bestselling novel, with shooting starting

November 29, 2018 4:00PM PT Composer Nicholas Britell reunited with two past collaborators for high-profile December releases: Barry Jenkins (“Moonlight”) on “If Beale Street Could Talk” and Adam McKay (“The Big Short”) on “Vice.” “If Beale Street Could Talk,” based on the James Baldwin novel of young lovers in 1970s Harlem, is “a really powerful

November 29, 2018 4:00PM PT Chris Robinson, best known for his work on the Fox TV series “Star,” has been tapped to direct Universal’s untitled LeBron James movie. Juel Taylor and Tony Rettenmaier wrote the script for the film, which is based on James and Buzz Bissinger’s book, “Shooting Stars,” and the events of James’

November 29, 2018 3:40PM PT Two-time Oscar nominee Carter Burwell has penned music for the films of Joel and Ethan Coen for more than 30 years, including such classics as “Fargo” and “The Big Lebowski.” But “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs” was unique: a six-part Western with stories ranging from comic to bleak. As Joel

Los Angeles-based Danny Bensi and New York-based Saunder Jurriaans collaborated long-distance on the score for “Boy Erased,” Joel Edgerton’s powerful examination of “gay conversion therapy” starring Lucas Hedges as the conflicted son of a Baptist minister. “It was quite a struggle,” says Bensi, “the dramatic, emotional, societal aspects: how do we navigate through all this