Movies

Friday night’s Palm Springs International Film Festival kicked off its opening night with the world premiere of  “80 for Brady,” Kyle Marvin’s life-affirming comedy about four best friends — played by Rita Moreno, Sally Field, Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin — whose love for the legendary, seven-time Super Bowl Champion quarterback cuts so deep, they

With Sony Pictures Classics’ “The Son,” writer-director Florian Zeller defies expectations about parenthood — and about traditional movie storytelling. He asks big questions, but doesn’t offer easy answers. This has thrown off some audience members who want the film to conform to familiar movie scenarios, or at least to follow the pattern of Zeller’s 2020

“M3GAN” is poised to make a killing in its box office debut this weekend, but it won’t be enough to scare off “Avatar: The Way of Water” from the top spot. Universal’s PG-13 horror is now expected to take a $27 million stab into its opening weekend, which is up from earlier projections. It made

SPOILER ALERT: This article contains mild spoilers for “M3GAN.”  At just 11 years old, Violet McGraw already has a proven talent for capturing the uncanny: playing against it, inhabiting it and grounding it in performances as compelling as they are preternaturally evocative. Her turn as young Nell in Mike Flanagan’s acclaimed Netflix horror series “The

When non-binary actor August Winter read Sarah Polley’s “Women Talking,” they were really excited about the prospect of playing the transgender character Melvin, who finds his identity in a specific, unfamiliar environment — in this case, amid a Mennonite community fighting toxic masculinity. Like most characters in the film, Melvin was a survivor of sexual

In a film featuring a (in some cases literal) murderer’s row of movie-star performances, the “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery” character that has received the most ink since its Netflix premiere on December 23 is Derol, the Corona-toting slacker who briefly appears in only a handful of scenes — but steals every one of

Don Cheadle might not be one of the six original Avengers, but he’s been a mainstay in the Marvel Cinematic Universe for 12 years and counting. Cheadle debuted as James “Rhodey” Rhodes/War Machine in 2010’s “Iron Man 2,” taking over for Terrence Howard. In a new retrospective interview with GQ magazine, Cheadle said Marvel gave

For the first time since 2020, the Palm Springs Film Festival returned to an in-person event this year, with events including Thursday evening’s starry awards gala and Variety’s annual 10 Directors to Watch and Creative Impact Awards brunch. The Friday brunch at the Parker Palm Springs honored “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” actor Angela Bassett with

It’s been 10 years since Sarah Polley directed a film. In between “Take This Waltz” (2012) and her most recent release, “Women Talking,” she wasn’t sure if she would ever be able to direct again due to a brain injury. On this episode of the award-winning Variety Awards Circuit Podcast, we talk with the writer

A new year is upon us, but January isn’t exactly the best time for being a moviegoer. Or maybe it is. New theatrical releases might be limited at the start of each year, but that only makes January 2023 the best time to catch up on the best movies that 2022 had to offer. Many

Si Litvinoff, a film producer and lawyer whose work included “A Clockwork Orange,” “Walkabout” and “The Man Who Fell to Earth,” died Dec. 26 in Los Angeles. He was 93. On “A Clockwork Orange,” Litvinoff acquired the rights to Anthony Burgess’ novel of the same name and developed it with screenplays from Burgess and Terry

A new study from AFI shows that women during Hollywood’s silent era represented a higher percentage of writers, directors and producers. The study comes at a time when recent data shows Hollywood has fewer female filmmakers and directors behind some of its biggest titles. The AFI study, titled “Women They Talk About,” documents the unrecorded

Uruguay’s Coral Cine is closing Spanish distribution rights with Barcelona-based A Contracorriente Films for its documentary “Benedetti, 60 Años con Luz,” which chronicles the 60-year love story of renowned Uruguayan author-poet Mario Benedetti and his wife Luz López Alegre, helmed by Coral Cine’s Andres Varela and shot by Oscar-nominated DoP Cesar Charlone (“City of God”).  Charlone is

Earl Boen, a veteran character and voice actor best known for his role as Dr. Peter Silberman in “The Terminator” movies, died Thursday in Hawaii. He was 81. The actor was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer in the fall of 2022, according to a friend of Boen’s and his family. Boen starred in “The

Paul Mescal is ready to enter the arena. The “Aftersun” and “Normal People” star is in talks to star in Ridley Scott’s hotly-anticipated sequel to “Gladiator,” the 2000 epic that made Russell Crowe a superstar and went on to win an Oscar for best picture. But the film isn’t a prequel and Mescal won’t be

Yvan Attal, the popular French actor-turned-director (“Le Brio,” “The Accusation”), has directed “Breaking Point,” a seductive thriller in which he will star opposite Guillaume Canet, Marie-Josée Croze, Maïwenn and Alma Jodorowsky. SND, the film arm of French commercial network M6 Group, has landed French distribution rights and worldwide sales to the film. The company will

Watch out, “Avatar,” the month of “M3GAN” has begun at the box office. The killer doll movie, from Universal and Blumhouse, won’t knock off “Avatar: The Way of Water” from the top of the box office charts, but it’s aiming to turn a robust profit in its opening weekend. It has already made $2.75 million

“The Woman King” stars the inimitable Viola Davis as Nanisca, but studios being what they are, there was a desire for another big name in the role of her spiritual leader, Amenza.  But then director Gina Prince-Bythewood’s editor Terilyn Shropshire told her about Sheila Atim, who was in another film she was working on, Halle

Tom Hanks dismissed the current nepotism debate when recently talking to The Sun about his family of actors. Hanks is married to actor Rita Wilson, and they have two children: Rapper and actor Chet Hanks and Truman Hanks, who pops up in Tom’s new movie “A Man Called Otto.” Hanks’ son from a previous marriage

PBS SoCal and KCET are partnering with the Newport Beach Film Festival for a broadcast premiere of the “Newport Beach Film Festival HONORS,” scheduled to air Sunday. The 30-minute special will be hosted by Jenelle Riley, Variety’s deputy awards and features editor, and includes interviews with honorees from the event such as Eddie Redmayne, Jonathan

Paris-based company Indie Sales has acquired “The Lost Boys,” the feature debut of up-and-coming Belgian filmmaker Zeno Graton which will play at the Berlin Film Festival in the Generation section. Developed with the support of Cannes’ Cinefondation, “The Lost Boys” is headlined by Khalil Gharbia, the promising young actor of François Ozon’s “Peter von Kant,”

The BAFTA Film Awards have unveiled this year’s longlists for 24 categories, and in the lead are “All Quiet on the Western Front” and “The Banshees of Inisherin.” Netflix’s wartime drama “All Quiet” leads with 15 longlist nods, while Searchlight Pictures’ “Banshees” follows with 14. Meanwhile, A24’s “Everything Everywhere All At Once” and Warner Bros.’

Multi-territory distributor, Trinity CineAsia has acquired U.K. and North American rights to Hong Kong comedy film “Everything Under Control.” The film will be released in the U.S. and U.K. on Jan. 21, simultaneously with its commercial outing in Hong Kong, on the eve of the Chinese New Year holidays. A theatrical release in Canada will

Park Chan-wook’s noirish romance “Decision to Leave” makes the running in the Asian Film Awards by collecting ten nominations, including best film and best director. Hamaguchi Ryusuke’s “Drive My Car,” another awards season favorite which also debuted at Cannes, albeit a year earlier, has eight nominations. Zhang Yimou, the acclaimed mainland Chinese director of “One

Cate Blanchett and Jamie Lee Curtis drove to the Palm Springs Film Festival Gala together, and while Curtis presented Blanchett with the Desert Palm Achievement Award for her performance in “Tár,” the two delighted the audience with banter about who’s the better driver. But Blanchett brought the energy up to a fever pitch when she

Martin Scorsese made a surprise virtual appearance at the 2023 New York Film Critics Circle Awards, where he presented “Tár” director Todd Field with the best feature award. Scorsese, who directed “Tár” actor Cate Blanchett to an Oscar in “The Aviator,” lauded Field’s drama as “a real high wire act” and said the film lifted

As pundits scrutinize every awards group nom for clues to the Oscar big picture, all eyes are on BAFTA, which this week will signal which films have the support of the Academy’s European voting bloc. In recent years, the sizable contingent of English, French and other continental members has swayed the nominations and eventual victors

After just 22 days in theaters, “Avatar: The Way of Water” has raked in $1.5 billion globally, overtaking “Top Gun: Maverick” to stand as the 10th-highest grossing movie in history. It’s a remarkable achievement, especially because opening weekend returns were less stratospheric than Hollywood had anticipated. But James Cameron’s “Avatar” sequel was the de facto

The 34th annual Palm Springs International Film Festival (PSIFF) is set to return in-person from Jan. 5-16 for the first time since 2020, and this year’s line-up of screenings is the most diverse the festival has ever seen, according to PSIFF artistic director Lili Rodriguez. “We always have drama, we always have comedy, we always

Jade Sacker’s new documentary, “A House Divided,” will explore the story of two brothers interracially adopted at birth by a white Morman family, who grew up to become bitter ideological rivals during the Trump era presidency. The examination of how the ties that bind can be severed at a time of hyper-partisanship emerged after Sacker met brothers