Movies

In the late 20th century, a system of categorizing personalities into “Type A” and “Type B” gained mainstream pop-psychological traction. The theory may have since fallen out of favor, but sometimes it’s hard not to be reminded of it, like when watching Selman Nacar’s sober, stressful second feature, “Hesitation Wound.” Defense attorney Canan (an outstanding

The Zurich Film Festival, which runs Sept. 28 – Oct. 8, will honor the Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen with its Golden Eye award in recognition of his “successful career and versatility,” the Swiss event said Monday. Mikkelsen will accept the award on Oct. 6, and will present his latest film, “The Promised Land,” which had

There’s a rather simplistic, retro “don’t forget where you came from” message lurking within “It Lives Inside,” suggesting that people who leave their native culture behind might well attract — or even deserve — torment from its ancient mythological spirits. But that faintly reactionary finger-wagging is subsumed by the moment-to-moment effectiveness of writer-director Bishal Dutta’s

Indian star Karthik Sivakumar, known by his screen name Karthi, is bullish about upcoming release “Japan,” his 25th film. The film is due to release in November during the Deepavali holiday frame in Tamil, Telugu and a few other languages. “It’s a crime thriller, it’s got a manhunt to it. But apart from that, the

‘Expendables 4’ narrowly took top place at the mainland China box office on a quiet weekend preceding the National Day holiday season at the end of the month. “A Haunting in Venice” opened outside the top five. Data from consultancy firm Artisan Gateway shows “Expendables 4” earning $10.9 million (RMB78.6 million) over its debut weekend.

Two Hollywood new releases, “A Haunting in Venice” and “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Mutant Mayhem” failed to make much of an impression on the South Korean box office in their opening weekend. Instead, local fantasy drama “Sleep” headed the chart for a second time. “Sleep” earned $2.38 million in its second weekend, a creditably modest

In a recent interview with the British Film Institute, Tim Burton discussed the impact of Warner Bros. scrapping “Superman Lives,” which had Nicolas Cage attached as the titular hero, as well as how he felt seeing Cage as Superman and Michael Keaton’s Batman in DC Studios’ “The Flash.”  “No, I don’t have regrets,” Burton said

Variety Awards Circuit section is the home for all awards news and related content throughout the year, featuring the following: the official predictions for the upcoming Oscars, Emmys, Grammys and Tony Awards ceremonies, curated by Variety senior awards editor Clayton Davis. The prediction pages reflect the current standings in the race and do not reflect personal preferences

Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” keeps climbing at the box office with more than $900 million in global ticket sales to date. Over the weekend, the R-rated historical drama added $12.8 million globally, including $10.7 million overseas and $2.1 million domestically. After nine weeks of release, “Oppenehimer” has grossed a staggering $910 million worldwide, with $318 million

Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” has generated $626 million at the domestic box office, overtaking Marvel’s 2012 blockbuster “The Avengers” ($623 million) as the 11th-highest grossing release in history. In order to crack the top 10, “Barbie” will need to outpace 2015’s “Jurassic World” (No. 10 with $653 million), “Titanic” (No. 9 with $674 million), “Avengers: Infinity

Britain’s official post-WWI administration of Palestine lasted from 1920-48 and is probably the UK colonial enterprise least addressed by its fiction filmmakers. But now prolific writer-director Michael Winterbottom (“The Trip,” “A Mighty Heart”) uses that complicated era as a backdrop to the compelling historical romance “Shoshana.” A passion project 15 years in the making and

It’s another close race at the box office. The Warner Bros. thriller “The Nun II” is projected to ever-so-slightly outpace the competition with $14.7 million in its second weekend. But Disney’s murder mystery “A Haunting in Venice” is inching behind with a middling $14.5 million, so it’s possible the order could flip by the time

 “American Fiction,” Cord Jefferson’s blistering satire of race and media, captured the Toronto International Film Festival’s people’s choice award, bolstering its Oscars chances. TIFF’s people’s choice award is considered to be among the best predictors of eventual awards success, though the 2023 festival hosted a weaker lineup than most years due to the writers and actors

Horace Ové, director of “Pressure” (1976), the first full-length Black British film, died on Sept. 16. He was 86. Ové’s son Zak posted on Facebook: “Our loving father Horace, took his last breath at 4.30 this morning, while sleeping peacefully. I hope his spirit is free now after many years of suffering with Alzheimer’s. You are

For decades, as I’ve watched Sylvester Stallone on talk shows or caught bits and pieces of promotional interviews with him, my impression, without pondering it much, has been that he’s a dude with a certain charismatic native intelligence. Yet “Sly,” the infectious and fascinating portrait of Stallone and his movies that premiered today at the

The loftier and more dangerous the goal, the finer the line that separates the Guinness Book of World Records from the Darwin Awards. At a certain point, surviving is the only real difference. Do-or-die marathon swimmer Diana Nyad dreamed of swimming from Cuba to Florida. That’s 110 miles of unpredictable open ocean. Prior to her,

Director Richard Linklater expressed his admiration for Greta Gerwig’s record-breaking “Barbie” in a recent interview with NME. He specifically praised the musical numbers in the fantasy comedy, which include “I’m Just Ken,” performed by Ryan Gosling. “I liked the musical numbers,” Linklater said. “I liked the movie a lot. It’s worth seeing a couple times.

Long before Bethenny Frankel began fighting for reality stars’ rights, there was  “Denpa Shonen: A Life in Prizes,” a Japanese reality show that began airing in 1998. The show starred aspiring comedian Tomoaki Hamatsu, nicknamed Nasubi.  In a room by himself and naked, Nasubi had to fill out contest coupons in order to win what

That perky exclamation point sets the tone for “Coup!,” a story of murder, class struggle, One Percent entitlement and a global pandemic that nonetheless unfolds with all the eager, scrappy energy of an off-Broadway musical, minus most of the songs. The pandemic in question is not the one you’re thinking of — Austin Stark and

The unkillable vampire legend gets one of its frequent cinematic resurrections (this Venice Film Festival alone boasted three more: “El Conde” in competition, “En Attendant la Nuit” in Horizons and “The Vourdalak” in Critics’ Week) with Québécois director Ariane Louis-Seize’s sweetly gothy Venice Days winner, a film wittily — if too comprehensively — described by

What happens when an immovable object meets a fatigued force that keeps whacking its head against said object in defeated frustration? That’s the question proposed by ’s debut feature, “Mother, Couch.” Executive produced by and starring the once-boyish, now often forlorn Ewan McGregor, the film follows David, a frumpy middle-aged family man whose mother (Ellen

Hercule Poirot is back on the case this weekend, with Kenneth Branagh’s “A Haunting in Venice” hoping to best a very quiet box office in its opening. The horror-tinged whodunnit scored $5.5 million from 3,305 theaters on its opening day, a figure that includes $1.2 million in Thursday previews. The film gets a boost from

Three documentaries have been selected to to participate in the inaugural Diane Weyermann fellowship program, which will kick off Sept. 15 at Maine’s 19th edition of the Camden Intl. Film Festival. The projects are: “The Last Nomads,” a co-production of Serbia, Montenegro and France, directed and produced by Biljana Tutorov, co-directed by Petar Glomazić, and

“The Royal Hotel,” the setting of Kitty Green’s ulcer-inducing thriller, is a sun-baked bar in a rural Australian mining town surrounded by terrain so monotone that Canadian backpackers Hanna (Julia Garner) and Liv (Jessica Henwick) can’t keep their eyes open on the way in. The two young women arrive at their barmaid jobs with a

A24 has acquired theatrical distribution rights to “Sing Sing,” five days after the Colman Domingo-starring drama made its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. The indie banner confirmed the deal Friday evening. Directed by Greg Kwedar, the film is inspired by the Rehabilitation Through the Arts program at the Sing Sing Correctional Facility

Veteran executive Peter Oillataguerre is returning to Amazon MGM Studios in the newly created role of head of feature film production. Studio chief Jennifer Salke announced Oillataguerre’s hiring in a memo to staff on Friday. “With more than 20 years of industry experience, Peter is a seasoned executive with considerable expertise in the world of

In a new profile on Paul Dano published by The Guardian, his “The Batman” director Matt Reeves confirms they filmed “70 or 80 takes” of the Riddler and Batman’s final confrontation in the 2022 DC comic book tentpole. Dano starred as the film’s villain opposite Robert Pattinson. The film earned rave reviews (it was named

A meeting that had been scheduled for today between the leaders of the Writers Guild of America and a group of concerned showrunners has been postponed as the guild prepares to resume contract bargaining talks with Hollywood’s major studios next week. The meeting was set to take place on Friday. Kenya Barris, Noah Hawley and

Of all the stories and sides of Leonard Bernstein that Bradley Cooper decided to leave out of “Maestro,” the most infamous is surely the “Radical Chic” episode. In 1970, a New York magazine cover story, written by Tom Wolfe and entitled “Radical Chic: That Party at Lenny’s,” spent 20,000 words describing, in delectable you-are-there detail,

Variety Awards Circuit section is the home for all awards news and related content throughout the year, featuring the following: the official predictions for the upcoming Oscars, Emmys, Grammys and Tony Awards ceremonies, curated by Variety senior awards editor Clayton Davis. The prediction pages reflect the current standings in the race and do not reflect personal preferences