Movies

Downtown Los Angeles is a very different place than it was when the Los Angeles Conservancy kicked off its  “Last Remaining Seats” film screenings in movie palaces 35 years ago. When the annual series hits key theaters this month (after taking the last couple of Junes off for the pandemic), there will be far less

While the police force faces a massive task of image rehabilitation on screen, these are unexpectedly rich times at the movies for anyone with a firefighter fetish. After an unsurprisingly long wait for one film featuring a team of strapping laddermen in sensual dance formations, two have come along at once. Taking the queer emergency

The striking if not really shocking success of “Top Gun: Maverick” is built around the simple fact that it’s an exquisitely executed blockbuster. It seems to have everything a commercial retro action movie would need: a prime movie star — one of the only ones left — who still knows how to fold a movie

There’s a reason so many horror films — specifically the classic slashers of the ’70s and ’80s — make teenagers their imperiled protagonists. It makes for fun, squirmy viewing to see the relatable vulnerabilities of that age, with its fumbling sexual encounters and peer-pressure anxieties, sliced open by whichever knife-wielding maniac or mask-wearing ghoul happens

One of the most enjoyable South Korean action movies in recent years, 2017’s “The Outlaws” was a deft mix of brutal gang-warfare thrills and Keystone Cops comedics. It provided an ideal vehicle for Ma Dong-seok aka Don Lee (“Train to Busan” and “Eternals”) as the police investigator whose hit-first-ask-permission-later methods regularly got the job done

David Cronenberg’s “Crimes of the Future” has a heady premise: As a disease called “Accelerated Evolution Syndrome” causes unusual organs to grow inside the body of Saul Tenser (Viggo Mortensen), his partner (Léa Seydoux) surgically removes them in front of a live audience. Needless to say, the world-building is a bit complicated! Luckily, the director

“Top Gun: Maverick” reunites filmmaker Joseph Kosinski with Tom Cruise after their work together on “Oblivion,” but that’s not the director’s only reunion in the film. Kosinski also re-teamed with Miles Teller, who earned acclaim for the director’s under-seen “Only the Brave” and has a role in his upcoming Netflix movie “Spiderhead.” Teller stars in

“Framing Agnes,” a hybrid narrative and documentary feature film that explores trans lives and history, has sold North American distribution rights to Kino Lorber. Directed by Chase Joynt, the film closely and accurately depicts the journey of trans people past and present through reenactments of transcripts from a notable 1960s UCLA gender study. Based on

Marvel fans are getting a streaming surprise this month as Disney has confirmed that its summer blockbuster “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” is making a quicker jump from theaters to Disney+ than expected. With the “Doctor Strange” sequel’s June 22 streaming launch, Disney+ officially has the biggest streaming event of the month. It’s

To many, Elvira is the horror hostess who gained notoriety in the 1980s with that signature fitted black dress, raven black nails and stark red lips. To her friends and family, she is simply Cassandra Peterson. As Elvira, Peterson served as the Mistress of the Dark for four decades, starring in dozens of B-movies and

“Jurassic World: Dominion” is off to a roaring start at the international box office. The blockbuster hopeful opened in 15 major markets this week, including the likes of Italy, Mexico and Brazil, and has already sunk its teeth into $16.7 million through Thursday. “Jurassic World: Dominion” is expected to bring in more than $45 million

Louis C.K. is readying the release of “Fourth of July,” a new comedy-drama that marks the controversial comedian’s first feature directorial effort since admitting to sexual misconduct in 2017. The film, which C.K. also co-wrote with Joe List, centers on a recovering alcoholic from New York City who clashes with family on their annual July

On Wednesday evening in New York City — about 60 miles and a ferry ride away from its subject— “Fire Island,” Joel Kim Booster’s romantic comedy about a weekend spent in New York’s chosen queer haven, held its premiere at the SVA Theatre. On 23rd Street in Chelsea, guests including Alok Viad-Menon, Jackie Cox, Peppermint

Paris-based sales company Charades has closed a raft of deals on “Forever Young,” Valeria Bruni Tedeschi’s film which competed at Cannes and earned a warm critical welcome. “Forever Young” opens at the end of the 1980s in Paris and follows a young troupe of comedians who have just have been admitted to Les Amandiers, the

Pixar has released an advanced track from the soundtrack of the upcoming “Toy Story”-related film, “Lightyear”: “Mission Perpetual” by composer Michael Giacchino. The film is an origin story focusing on “Toy Story’s” beloved Buzz Lightyear. The film introduces Buzz, voiced by Chris Evans,  as a human space ranger who inspired the toy line seen in

Cannes competition title “Pacifiction,” from “Liberté” director Albert Serra, has been acquired for the U.S. by specialty distributors Grasshopper Film and Gratitude Films. Serra won the Un Certain Regard section’s Special Jury Prize in 2019 for “Liberté” and cracked the festival’s official selection this year with “Pacifiction.” The film is set on the French Polynesian

Adam Sandler, LeBron James and Queen Latifah were met with deafening cheers from hundreds of fans who lined the streets around Westwood’s Regency Village Theatre at the “Hustle” world premiere on Wednesday night. James produced the Jeremiah Zagar-directed Netflix sports drama which stars Sandler as Stanley “Sugarman” Beren, a washed-up basketball scout who sees a

Her name is Roxy, but the village girls call her Toxic. With peroxide-blond hair and the Lolita-like naiveté of a vintage sexploitation-movie heroine, Roxy wanders through a post-apocalyptic world as unfamiliar to us as it is to her — for we have all stepped into the parallel dimension that is underground filmmaker Bertrand Mandico’s erotic

Restored versions of Chinese language cinema classics Wong Kar-wai’s “Days of Being Wild” (1990) and Jia Zhangke’s first full-length feature “Pickpocket” (“Xiao Wu”) 1998) will lead the inaugural program of Hong Kong’s M+ Cinema, which will be opened to the public on June 8. The opening program also features the Hong Kong premiere of one

A gleaming and delightful anime with a large appetite for tenderness and laughter, director Ayumu Watanabe’s mother-daughter saga “Fortune Favors Lady Nikuko” boundlessly adores its titular character even when it lingers a tad too long on her happy-go-lucky naiveté or ample love of food. We get introduced to Nikuko (Shinobu Ôtake), a charming thirtysomething living

Years before “Uncut Gems,” you could see Adam Sandler was a good actor. He’d taken a step out of the ha-ha zone as early as “Punch-Drunk Love” (2002) — and going back as far as “The Wedding Singer” (1998), which he made after only two of his knockabout big-hit farces (“Billy Madison” and “Happy Gilmore”),

The 21st edition of the Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival opened with “Mija,” a Disney original documentary film about Doris Muñoz and Jacks Haupt, two daughters of undocumented immigrants navigating the music industry. For Isabel Castro, who makes her directorial debut with the film, opening the festival is a perfect reflection of the themes

Longtime friends and filmmakers Quentin Tarantino and Roger Avary will launch their first podcast next month on which they’ll revisit some of their favorite old B-movies and discover new ones. Set to premiere July 19, “The Video Archives Podcast” will feature the duo rewatching and discussing movies pulled from the actual collection of VHS tapes

Joseph Kosinski is flying high off the success of “Top Gun: Maverick,” which debuted to a record-breaking $160 million over the Memorial Day weekend frame. The sequel is the first bonafide box office success for the director, who started his feature directorial career with Disney’s “Tron: Legacy.” That sequel earned $400 million worldwide, but that

Traveling with strangers can be hard, but traveling with strangers and a murderous alien parasite proves considerably worse in “The Passenger.” This sharply executed, good-humored horror opus represents a promising first dual directorial effort for Fernando Gonzalez Gomez and Raul Cerezo, each of whom has a number of shorts under his belt. While not quite

The “Arachnophobia” remake has (eight) legs, with Amblin Partners announcing Thursday that it has closed a deal with Christopher Landon (“Paranormal Activity”) to write and direct the horror-comedy. The original 1990 film, directed by Frank Marshall, tells the story of a small California town that is invaded by a colony of deadly South American spiders

Isidoro Raponi, a mechanical effects artist who worked on blockbuster films such as “Alien” and “E.T.,” died May 27, a representative confirmed to Variety. He died of congestive heart failure at a rehab facility in Los Angeles. He was 76. Born in Frosinone, Italy in 1945, Raponi got his start working as apprentice for effects

The formula for many sports movies is classically simple yet satisfying. Step one: introduce an underdog. Step two: training montage. Step three: win the trophy. It’s a successful formula that has been used for decades. For “The Phantom of the Open” director Craig Roberts and screenwriter Simon Farnaby, though, they’re not interested in following that

Two of television’s most iconic idiots are back. “Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe,” a new animated feature film starring the ’90s MTV characters, is set to premiere on Paramount+ June 23. The news was announced alongside the release of the official trailer for the film (see below), which sees Beavis and Butt-Head (both voiced

After Antoni Porowski was cast on Netflix’s 2018 reboot of “Queer Eye” and skyrocketed to fame as the makeover show’s boyishly charming food expert, he found himself struggling to say no. For years, he’d hustled as a busboy and waiter in upscale New York eateries while auditioning for acting gigs. So when he finally got