Movies

In 2016 a fire nearly destroyed the only arthouse cinema on the East End of Long Island. Five years and $18 million dollars later, the iconic, century-old Sag Harbor Cinema is once again open for business. A former whaling village, Sag Harbor, NY, located between Southampton and East Hampton, was at one point a thriving

Iconic Japanese actor and director Kitano Takeshi has filed suit against Bandai Namco Arts, a member of the Bandai Namco media group, for copyright violation, the Daily Shincho paper revealed in its latest issue, which hit newsstands on Thursday. According to the exclusive report, which has been circulated widely in the Japanese media, Kitano made

The production shutdown prompted by the coronavirus pandemic last spring would have been reason enough to sound the alarm in Romania. But bigger trouble is brewing over the country’s rebate scheme, which has been imperiled by a bureaucratic logjam currently dragging into its second year. After a bureaucratic reshuffle following a change in government in

After swatting back the COVID-19 scourge to some extent, Puerto Rico opened its ports in June 2020. With the year-long curfew lifted in May this year, it’s been business as usual on this Caribbean island of roughly 3,500 square miles. The capital of San Juan held its first live audience concert on June 26, 2021

After production dipped following a hard lockdown last spring, when the coronavirus pandemic first swept across Europe, Greece was quick to get cameras rolling again, thanks to swift action from the government. Now the sun-splashed Mediterranean nation is set to sizzle, with a slate of high-profile projects underway or scheduled to shoot this summer. Production

Dotted by hilltop views and an historic city center, France’s southwestern city of Angoulême had certainly played host to a handful of live-action shoots in recent years. But for the most part, the commune, just under 50,000 strong, had made its name as the country’s cartoonist capital, the place where Gallic scribblers go to burnish

Turns out love and hookup seekers aren’t the only ones who fib online. In the winning indie rom-com “7 Days,” two mothers gin up glowing profiles for their children on an Indian marriage website. After a decidedly arid date at a drought-dried reservoir, Ravi and Rita wind up at her rental home. Each of them

Female-led independent production company Aquarius Films has hired Miranda Culley as the company’s new MD and Erica Harrison as head of development, with effect from July 1, 2021. Culley is replacing Rachel Okine who is leaving Aquarius to become the new head of features and development at Australian streaming service, Stan. Culley has 25 years

Changes in Oscar’s music rules, as announced today, will make a lot of film composers happy. The major change is that an original score no longer needs to consist of at least 60% of the total music in the film. That number has been substantially lowered, to 35%, potentially increasing the number of eligible scores

In “Bring Your Own Brigade,” Lucy Walker acts as a compassionate and dogged guide into the inferno. A transplant to the American West — California, to be more precise — from verdant Britain, the documentary filmmaker cast herself as a concerned and rightly flummoxed outsider while investigating increasingly extended and catastrophic wildfire seasons. “Why is

Welcome to this week’s “Just for Variety.” It’s official! Charlize Theron tells me that the script is done for the sequel to “The Old Guard,” her Netflix film adaptation of the graphic novel of the same name. Cameras will start rolling in the first quarter of 2022. The gay couple, played by Marwan Kenzari and

In yet another move seemingly engineered to boost the visibility of the Critics Choice Awards and position it as an alternative to the Golden Globes, the Critics Choice Association will introduce the World Movie Awards in 2022, which will be guided by a new branch of international members. The awards will celebrate the finest in

Travis Coles and Michael Urie are starring in “Summoning Sylvia,” a LGBTQ+ horror comedy. The feature film recently wrapped production, and its previously unannounced cast also includes Frankie Grande (“Henry Danger”), Nicholas Logan (“I Care a Lot”), Troy Iwata (“Dash & Lily”), Noah Ricketts (Frozen), Sean Grandillo (“Scream: The TV Series”), Camden Garcia (“Station 19”),

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association has announced new eligibility guidelines for future Golden Globe Award shows, despite NBC announcing the cancellation of the annual telecast in 2022. The new rules will allow non-English language films to compete in their top categories, following the “Minari” backlash last awards season. In addition to allowing non-English language films

More concerned with paying homage to ’90s-era Quentin Tarantino than telling a contemporary coming-of-age tale with believable stakes, co-helmers Manuel Crosby and Darren Knapp’s debut feature “First Date” saddles a young couple not with a romantic night out, but with a haphazard all-nighter crime-comedy that’s mostly unfunny and free of convincing suspense. Instead, we get

The “Purge” movies started off, in 2013 (we’re coming up on a decade of high-spirited fun!), as a dystopian action fantasy set in a metropolis gone mad. The series has always had a pop political dimension, most of it related to the New Founding Fathers of America, the ominous ruling party that institutes the Purge

Born of a merger between two film companies in 1951, Toei is one of Japan’s leading film producers, distributors and exhibitors, with a wide range of media businesses. Starting in the 1950s with samurai swashbucklers and continuing in the 1960s with actioners featuring Japan’s native gangsters, the yakuza, Toei gained a reputation as maker of

I have great admiration for people who refuse to fit in, go against type and live by their own rules and convictions. I applaud those who are bold, provocative and fearless in their life and career choices. That is precisely why I count myself a devoted fan of Tilda Swinton and her daring, unpredictable nature

Mask mandates are no more in California and New York, where COVID-19 cases have plummeted — and so much of the entertainment industry is based. Now Hollywood is largely in soft-launch mode, not for the premiere of a particular film but for its biggest comeback yet: itself. While television and film productions have adhered to

European filmmakers are fortunate to have a friend in Brussels who reliably lends a hand getting their movies made and seen. For the past 30 years, the European Union’s Media program has supported film industries across the EU in myriad ways, investing more than €2.6 billion ($3.1 billion) in programs that boost the output of

Any “Fast” fan knows there’s nothing stronger than family. But the second weekend at the box office for “F9: The Fast Saga” will test the potency of the film’s big-screen appeal, as well as lingering skepticism from moviegoers as the cinema industry emerges from the pandemic. The ninth entry in Universal’s “Fast & Furious” saga

Bill Cosby’s sexual assault conviction has been overturned by a Pennsylvania court, according to AP. Cosby was charged in 2015 and arrested just days before the 12-year statute of limitations expired on newly unsealed evidence. At his trial, a judge at first allowed only one other accuser to testify, but then proceeded to allow five

Amazon formally asked the Federal Trade Commission to block recently appointed agency chair Lina Khan — an outspoken critic of Amazon and other tech giants — from participating in antitrust reviews involving the company because she has shown a demonstrable bias against Amazon. Amazon on Wednesday filed a motion requesting Khan’s recusal with the FTC

Le Pacte has nabbed the distribution rights to two features ahead of the Cannes Film Festival. The Paris-based outfit will be in charge of worldwide sales for a thriller from “Les Misérables” writer Giordano Gerdelini, and a family drama from “Diane Has the Right Shape” director Fabien Gorgeart. Gerdelini’s “On the Edge” (original title “Entre

Tilda Swinton has said she’s “very grateful” for a renewed discourse around her casting as The Ancient One in “Doctor Strange” — a hot topic for representation in Hollywood that re-emerged last month when Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige expressed regret at casting her in a role that was portrayed by an elderly Tibetan man

“The Devil Wears Prada” turns 15 on June 30, but like any good fashion piece, it remains timeless. Anne Hathaway plays Andy Sachs, a recent college graduate who has come to work at Runway, a high-fashion magazine overseen by haughty editor-in-chief Miranda Priestly, played by Meryl Streep. Emily Blunt co-stars as Andy’s colleague, Emily, with

“Medusa,” the latest film from rocketing Brazilian director Anita Rocha da Silveira, has released a twisted, neon-soaked trailer ahead of its debut at the Cannes Film Festival next week. Set in contemporary Brazil, “Medusa” tells the story of 21-year old Mariana, who belongs to a world where women must always look perfect. In the trailer,

Well, they made a sequel to “The Boss Baby.” The 2017 DreamWorks film, extremely loosely based on Marla Frazee’s children’s book series, bet big on the appeal of a dyspeptic, super-intelligent, black-suited infant speaking with the voice of Alec Baldwin while doing un-babylike things, and it was a bet that paid off handsomely, to the

Warner Bros. Studios at Leavesden (WBSL), U.K., has expanded its facilities with the launch of three new sound stages and V Stage, a virtual production stage. “House of the Dragon,” HBO’s “Game of Thrones” prequel, is confirmed as the first production to use the new facilities. In addition to the extensive exterior backlot at the

Kinology, Gregoire Melin’s indie sales outfit which has four films competing at Cannes, has boarded “Argonuts,” a Pixar/Dreamworks-style family animated feature made by TAT, the team behind “The Jungle Bunch.” Budgeted north of 10 million euros ($12 million), “Argonuts” is set in a magical yet hostile world of Greek mythology and follows the action-packed journey