Movies

Here’s the kind of movie that “Gunpowder Milkshake” is. It’s a rogue-assassin-hunting-down-the-assassins-who-are-hunting-her thriller, starring a charismatically affectless Karen Gillan as Sam, the rogue in question (though, in fact, she has done nothing wrong). At one point she finds herself in a car with an 8-year-old girl, Emily (Chloe Coleman), who she has just rescued from

At the same time Quentin Tarantino announced last week that he had bought and would restore the historic single-screen Vista Theatre in Los Feliz, the mouthy Hollywood director inexplicably threw major shade on some of the big theater chains that were forced to close during the pandemic. “I never like any theater closing, but some

“The Salamander Child” by Belgian director Theo Degen, hailing from the INSAS film school, was named as the top prize winner at the Cannes Film Festival’s Cinefondation student film section. The announcement was greeted by vigorous applause and widespread approval. The jury comprising Tunisian writer, Kaouther Ben Hania, Swedish writer-actor-director, Tuva Novotny, French writer-director Alice

A key sequence in David Lowery’s “The Green Knight” took more than a year to work on in the editing room. Not only did the director-editor have to define the movie’s character arcs, but he had to build tension and set up the epic quest that propels the story. Lowery, who also directed and edited

One of Jeffrey Lurie’s first jobs was cooking hot dogs and selling soda at General Cinema, his family’s chain of drive-in movie theaters. When not working the grill or pouring fountain drinks, he was tasked with checking the trunks of customers to see if anyone was sneaking in friends without buying tickets. Decades later, Lurie

Neon will donate to Direct Relief and its global COVID-19 relief efforts as part of its release of “The Year of the Everlasting Storm.” The anthology feature world premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on July 14 as part of the Special Screening section, and will be released theatrically later this year. News of the distributor’s

Specialty U.S. distribution company KimStim is to give a North American release to “Wood and Water,” a German-made feature set against the backdrop of the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong. The film premiered in the Deutsche Perspektive section of this year’s erlinaleand won the Compass-Perspektive Award special mention during the Berlin festival’s summer edition. It

Nicolas Cage instinctively knew how to play Rob, the melancholic truffle forager at the center of “Pig.” The indie film explores Rob’s connection to his pet pig and his tortured relationship with his past celebrity as a renowned chef. Cage, one of the top action stars of the late 1990s and early aughts, related to

The Geena Davis-led Bentonville Film Festival announced the 2021 selections for its narrative, documentary, short and episodic film competition. “We are proud to offer audiences an inspirational line up celebrating diversity and inclusion on screen and behind the camera, to demonstrate the power of intersectional equity in entertainment media. Through our unique inclusion qualifiers, we

As the breakout star of the Oscar-winning “Minari” and a budding fashion icon, Alan S. Kim is combining two of his passions for a new creative project. The 9-year-old leads the short film “Another Day in the City,” shot by Cass Bird for fashion brand Thom Browne, which dropped on Thursday. Kim, who wore the

The Palais des Festivals, currently housing the 75th edition of the Cannes Film Festival, was hit by a temporary lockdown on Thursday afternoon. The building was briefly closed but has since reopened. Police said at 3pm local time that they had found a suspicious package in a storage area at the back of the building

Eugenio Derbez will star in Netflix’s “Lotería,” a family adventure film inspired by the iconic Lotería Don Clemente card game. The movie will be directed by Emmy nominee James Bobin (“Dora and the Lost City of Gold,” “Alice Through the Looking Glass” and “The Muppets”) with a script by Roberto Orci (“Transformers,” “Star Trek,” “Mission

In a late move, the Cannes Film Festival has announced the addition of a new film to its official line-up. The documentary, “Revolution of Our Times,” depicts recent political and social events in Hong Kong, and will play on Friday in a special screening. Cannes this year is chock full of issue-led programming about climate

CNN Films and HBO Max have partnered with Dogwoof on a new documentary feature that will explore the impact Arthur Ashe had on tennis and HIV activism. During his momentous tennis career, Ashe won three Grand Slam singles titles and became the first-ever Black player to join the United States Davis Cup team. He retired

Grasshopper Film and Gratitude Films have jointly acquired U.S. distribution rights to Abdullah Mohammad Saad’s Cannes Film Festival’s Un Certain Regard selection “Rehana” from sales agent Films Boutique. The film will open in cinemas in early 2022 followed by digital, home video, and non-theatrical releases. The deal was negotiated by Ryan Krivoshey of Grasshopper Film

The only one of several same-titled movies in recent years to make a significant commercial dent, Adam Robitel’s 2019 “Escape Room” proved a considerable sleeper hit, making back many times its modest $9 million budget. Ergo “Escape Room: Tournament of Champions,” which brings back the first edition’s director, surviving characters and other elements in another

Top Indian actor Taapsee Pannu has launched production company Outsiders Films alongside former Sony Pictures Networks executive Pranjal Khandhdiya. Pannu who works in both Bollywood and the South Indian film industries, is known for her eclectic choice of roles including “Thappad,” for which won best actress at India’s prestigious Filmfare awards, “Badla” and “Mulk.” Khandhdiya’s

The lovechild of passion and talent, Justin Chon’s “Blue Bayou” — a lyrical and emotional portrait of identity and family — is a piece that drums up lots of support within the film community, general audiences, and the Academy Awards in various branches. Leaving you in a puddle of tears by the end credits, the

The first thing you notice when going to Babi Yar is just how close the ravine is from Kiev. So close that if the wind was right in those final days of September 1941, the city residents could almost certainly have heard the gunfire as Nazi soldiers slaughtered 33,771 Jews. Standing on the site, one

The number of films about Giacomo Casanova is legion, which makes the question “why another one?” especially relevant. What insight can be found to kindle enough interest to pour reportedly more than $7.5 million into a retelling of the great diarist’s life? Given Benoît Jacquot’s success with his earlier costume drama “Farewell, My Queen,” based

American cartoonist Adrian Tomine uses the graphic novel to do what that other form of literature — the standard gray-words-on-white-paper short story — simply hasn’t been able to achieve. Like any writer, he can go inside his characters’ heads, taking the X-ray of their most private insecurities and rendering it visible to the reader. “Is

Sam Richardson may be best known for his comedic roles in “Veep,” “I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson” and “The Detroiters,” but this summer, the funny guy is taking on furry beasts in “Werewolves Within” and spike-shooting aliens in “The Tomorrow War.” Playing skittish draftee Charlie, Richardson adds levity to “The Tomorrow War,”

The story of a high school girl who’s forced — alongside her dimwitted boyfriend and kind uncle — to fend off a pair of armed thieves, “How to Deter a Robber” delivers the blandest take possible on its home-invasion scenario. With low stakes and even lower energy, writer-director Maria Bissell’s feature debut isn’t sure if

Bleecker Street and ShivHans have secured U.S. rights to “Golda,” a biopic about Israel’s only female prime minister, Golda Meir. The film stars Helen Mirren, an expert at revealing the inner lives of public figures in films like “The Queen.” It will be directed by Guy Nattiv, an Oscar winner for his short film “Skin,”

Professional basketball players are a marvel seemingly created by an animator’s pen: elongated arms, mountainous shoulders, whirlwind speed and an ability to leap over defenders in a single bound. Even among other athletes, they’re unique physical outliers incapable of blending into a crowd — let alone a movie — unless playing themselves. Or unless their

Reggie Bush is ready to tell his side of the story in a new documentary from Believe Entertainment Group, the studio behind the Oscar-winning “Dear Basketball.” Before he achieved NFL stardom as a running back for the New Orleans Saints, Bush was one of the top college football players in the country. But his time

What did you do during the coronavirus lockdown of 2020? Grow a beard? Make bread? Write the Great American Novel? For creative types cooped up during the pandemic, the pressures to adapt to the moment felt enormous, but so did the limitations. Premiering at Cannes 2021, “The Year of the Everlasting Storm” springs from those

Spanish film agency ICAA, under its Just Spainted label, is presenting its 2cool4school shorts selection at Cannes’ Short Film Corner. The showcase includes graduation works from Spain’s freshest talents, trained at its most prestigious cinema schools such as Madrid’s ECAM, Barcelona’s Escac and UAB, Valencia’s Fine Arts University and the Basque Country’s Elías Querejeta Zine

Black Widow has faced down mad titans and genocidal robots, but can the veteran Avenger take down a band of scrappy Looney Toons? It’ll be a showdown between Disney’s and Marvel’s “Black Widow” and the Warner Bros. sequel “Space Jam: A New Legacy” at the domestic box office, with Scarlett Johansson’s superhero adventure poised to

Omar El Zohairy’s comedy-drama “Feathers” has won the Nespresso Grand Prize at Critics’ Week, the Cannes Film Festival’s strand dedicated to first and second films. Set in contemporary Egypt, “Feathers” follows the journey of a woman with three children whose idealist husband is turned into a chicken by a magician in a magic-trick gone awry.