Movies

Back in the age when what we used to call the press was first discovering itself as “media,” there were unprecedented events — standoffs and uprisings, mass gatherings and cataclysms — that the new media world, transmitting and shaping the reality of those events, wound up making even more unprecedented. George Wallace, in 1963, standing

Hamaguchi Ryusuke’s “Drive My Car” and Asghar Farhadi’s “A Hero,” two films that debuted in Cannes, emerge as the strong favorites for the Asia Pacific Screen Awards, after nominations were announced on Wednesday. Both films are nominated for best film, best directing, best screenplay and best performance by an actor. The best film category is

Chilean Constanza Fernández’s sophomore pic “(Im)patient” (“El Pa(de)ciente”) is celebrating its world premiere at the Busan Intl. Film Festival in South Korea on Oct. 9 although Fernandez has mixed feelings about it. “Korea’s Covid restrictions continue to be super restrictive so I can’t attend it,” Fernandez told Variety, adding “I won’t be able to fully enjoy

An event like the Festival Lumière, with its wide remit that sees classic films and retrospectives rub shoulders with the very latest and chic-est new titles, is always going to boast a thicket of hidden connections and surprising collisions. This year, for example, you could go from watching “8 ½,” Federico Fellini’s 1963 metafiction about

Swedish cult film streaming service Cultpix, which launched in April, continues to beef up its catalogue while expanding deals with distribution partners. Company co-founders Rickard Gramfors and Patrick von Sychowski will be attending the Lumière Festival’s International Classic Film Market (MFIC) in Lyon, France, where they will be on the lookout for new acquisitions. “This

Popular Bollywood star Ayushmann Khurrana (“Gulabo Sitabo”) will star in “Action Hero,” from T-Series and Colour Yellow Productions. The film will feature an actor’s journey, in front of and behind the lens, and promises slick action and an offbeat satirical sense of humor. This will be Khurrana’s first film in the action genre. Anirudh Iyer,

Thursday saw the world premiere of the French-made, Korea-set romantic thriller, “Vanishing” at the Busan International Film Festival. Its director Denis Dercourt said that the movie attempts to straddle both cultures. Adapted from the Peter May novel, “The Killing Room,” the script was in the works for eleven years, according to Alexis Dantec, the film’s

Ava Ostern Fries, the wife of producer Chuck Fries whose experiences as a Beverly Hills Girl Scout leader  inspired the film “Troop Beverly Hills,” died Oct. 2. She was 87. Born in Dexter, Mo., she moved to Los Angeles after graduating the U. of Tulsa. She started out teaching and acting before joining Danny Thomas

The high-stakes negotiations between the studios and the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees will continue on Saturday, as the two sides continue to talk on a range of issues. The union is seeking movement on its key priorities — including long hours and streaming pay scales — but has advised that it will not

Abu Shahed Emon, a Bangladeshi filmmaker with close ties to Busan, is back at the festival with “No Ground Beneath the Feet,” directed by debutant Mohammad Rabby Mridha. He braved two weeks of quarantine to be in Busan in person. The film, which premieres at the festival’s ‘A Window on Asian Cinema’ strand, follows the

Singapore-based distributor and producer Clover Films has partnered with Taiwan’s Machi Xcelsior Studios for the worldwide theatrical rights (except Taiwan and South Korea) to Giddens Ko’s “Till We Meet Again.” The film is a fantasy romance starring Kai Ko (“You Are The Apple Of My Eye”), Gingle Wang (“Detention”) and Vivian Sung (“Our Times”) that

Streaming viewership for David Chase’s “The Many Saints of Newark” is coming into focus, as is the massive bump it gave the series that inspired it, “The Sopranos,” according to WarnerMedia’s metrics. While the film’s theatrical rollout last weekend earned $4.6 million at the domestic box office, its performance on HBO Max underscores an important

Film financier Peter Samuelson and showrunner-director Jonathan Prince have joined forces to launch PhilmCo, a production and distribution banner designed to produce socially-conscious movies and TV shows with a built-in philanthropic component. Samuelson and Prince are working with private investors to fund the development of a range of projects that are about to be shopped

Matt Damon has cemented himself as one of the most recognizable and passionate actors of his generation. To celebrate his birthday, Variety is ranking his best film performances. Getting his early start and breaking through with small, cameo roles in movies such as “Mystic Pizza” (1988) and the prep-school drama “School Ties” (1992), it was

An overwhelming majority of film and TV workers have given the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees permission to strike if the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers doesn’t offer them a better deal. The 60,000 crew members representing 13 Locals who often work 16-18 hour days are seeking shorter hours, wage scales and

Cillian Murphy will play J. Robert Oppenheimer, the American physicist whose role running the the Los Alamos Laboratory and involvement in the Manhattan Project has led him to be dubbed the “father of the atomic bomb.” The “Peaky Blinders” star has been confirmed to take the title role in “Oppenheimer,” Christopher Nolan’s upcoming historical epic.

We have all the time in the world… to debate the relative merits of 50 years of James Bond music, as we do each time a new entry, like Billie Eilish’s “No Time to Die,” is added to the canon. And in the case of the film of that name, a long-distant Bond song has

Closing out the New York Film Festival, Pedro Almodóvar’s newest venture, “Parallel Mothers,” debuted with an endearing and scintillating turn from Penélope Cruz and newcomer Milena Smit, both of whom will be angling for much-deserved awards attention. But can it go any further than that? Fresh off winning the prestigious Volpi Cup at the Venice

The search is on for the next James Bond actor after Daniel Craig finishes his run, but the hunt for the next 007 director already has a new volunteer: Denis Villeneuve. On the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast, hosted by Josh Horowitz, Villeneuve said he’s a huge Bond fan and it would be a dream for

Despite having never made a documentary, Todd Haynes didn’t hesitate when Universal Music Group’s David Blackman approached him in 2018 to make a nonfiction feature about the enormously influential rock band the Velvet Underground, which was initially mentored by Andy Warhol and launched the careers of Lou Reed, John Cale and Nico. The Oscar-nominated director

With his breathless, soul-piercing “The First Wave,” director Matthew Heineman makes a tough cinematic proposition. He asks his audience to travel back to March 2020 and relive the early, frightening days of the COVID-19 crisis in New York City, when the Big Apple quickly became the world’s coronavirus epicenter through four deadly months. More graphic

A terminally ill prisoner and a despondent hospital worker steal a hearse stuffed with mob money in “Heaven: To the Land of Happiness.” This combination of odd-couple road movie and crime comedy moves along nicely for about half the running time but loses momentum when sentimentality and drawn-out male bonding take precedence over the film’s

“It’s been a rough year,” Justin Bieber says from the roof of the Beverly Hilton Hotel. The pandemic has forced nontraditional venues to step in for arenas, and livestreams to take the place of in-person gatherings — even on a major holiday like New Year’s Eve. With only 280 people in attendance, and nearly as

INVESTMENT Ex-Skyscanner CEO Gareth Williams, former XIX Entertainment president James Clayton, Hollywood entertainment lawyer Kevin Yorn and multi F1 Grand Prix-winning motor racing driver Mark Webber are among an eclectic group of investors who have together invested £2 million ($2.7 million) in U.K. production and distribution company Noah Media Group. Noah’s credits include Grierson award-nominated

Women In Film, Los Angeles hosted its first fundraising event since 2019 following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Formerly named the Crystal + Lucy Awards, the WIF Honors: Trailblazers of the New Normal gala was held on Wednesday night at the recently opened Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in L.A. Ahead of entry, all

Leading Korean film sales agent Finecut has taken international rights to stylish genre actioner “Project Wolf Hunting.” The company will launch it at the Busan International Film Festival’s Asian Contents and Film Market which starts at the weekend. Directed by Kim Hongsun, the film is set on board a cargo ship which is being used

Gravitas Ventures and Kamikaze Dogfight have acquired the U.S. and Canadian rights for Nathan Crooker’s film “Isolation.” The feature-length anthology connects nine stories of people from all over the world confronting their darkest fears during the pandemic. Crooker, who produces the film, tasked 11 filmmakers with creating their stories using only the production equipment and

The studios have made some concessions on IATSE’s demands regarding long production hours, but an agreement still remains “a ways off,” according to an update from one IATSE local on Thursday. David O’Ferrall, the business agent of IATSE Local 487, told members that the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers had agreed to 10-hour

NBCUniversal’s Global Talent Development and Inclusion (GTDI) group announced an expansion of its Spellcheck for Bias partnership with the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media. After a year-long pilot initiative using the tool to create more opportunities for Latinx representation on screen, GDTI will continue to expand Spellcheck for Bias to improve Black and

Trinity Cine Asia has acquired all U.K. and CIS rights to Chinese disaster film “Cloudy Mountain” from Beijing Blossoms Entertainment. The film first debuted on Sept. 17 in China, and went on to lead the box office there for two weeks. It has grossed $66 million to date, having sold $1.7 million in pre-sales in