Movies

Those who complain “immigrants are stealing our jobs” hardly seem likely applicants for the jobs held by protagonists in “Fruits of Labor” — such as cleaning other people’s houses or working the graveyard shift in a food processing plant. Constant hard work doesn’t seem to bring the American Dream much closer for this Mexican American

“Economic inequality” is a phrase that not long ago was seldom heard outside various ivory towers. But in recent years, the proliferation of billionaires, contrasting shrinkage of the middle class and livable wages, not to mention Big Money’s ever-increasing political clout, have all dragged that concept into popular awareness. Conservatives have fought back by renewed

Since we’ve already had faith-based features involving football (“Woodlawn,” “Facing the Giants”), baseball (“Where Hope Grows”), basketball (“Slamma Jamma”), boxing (“Carman: The Champion”), competitive skateboarding (“Hardflip”) and even mixed martial arts (“The Fight Within”), it was doubtless inevitable that someone would produce a movie where the Lord works in mysterious ways on the golf course.

Huayi Brothers, China’s longest-standing privately-owned film studio, has notched its third consecutive year of losses despite producing the world’s highest grossing film in 2020, its annual report showed. The company’s revenues for 2020 fell by 33% year-on-year to $232 million (RMB1.5 billion) while net losses hit $162 million (RMB1.05 billion). The figures continue a losing

The 1978 theft of Charlie Chaplin’s coffin from its rural Swiss resting place was the kind of bizarre case — equal parts absurd caper and poignant story of human desperation, escalating wildly and ending with peace restored — that you’d expect to have been the subject of at least one hefty true-crime movie. Instead, it

Overlong and erratically paced, Brendan Kyle Cochrane’s New York City-based “Equal Standard” opens with a self-conscious scene that heavy-handedly hints at an impending tragedy. There in the sun-dappled kitchen of the happy Jones family, Detective Chris (Tobias Truvillion), Sergeant Jackie (Syleena Johnson) and their adorable daughter lovingly go about their rosy morning routine, while an

When H shows up for work in Guy Ritchie’s “Wrath of Man,” no one at Fortico Security has much reason to suspect he might have any motive other than protecting the cash for the armored-truck outfit. The new guy — who looks an awful lot like the bald bloke from the “Crank” and “Transporter” movies

Jimmy Rich, who served as Robert Downey Jr.’s assistant since 2003, has died. He was 52. Downey, 56, shared the news of the “terrible and shocking tragedy” on his Instagram page, where he revealed Rich was in a fatal car accident on Monday night around 8 p.m. The pair first worked together on 2003’s “The

The New York City courtroom in which, 17-year-old honors student Steve Harmon stands accused of felony murder, isn’t the customary dark wood and tan walls affair. “Monster” there’s a reason beyond stylish production design for the palette of grays. For the involving, nuanced drama — a Sundance 2018 competition title starring Kelvin Harrison Jr. —

In the new movie “Here Today,” Billy Crystal and Tiffany Haddish play an unlikely duo who form a May-December friendship. Off-screen, the comedy stars have grown just as close. In fact, when Haddish celebrated her bat mitzvah in late 2019 with a star-studded shindig, Crystal was in attendance alongside Wanda Sykes, Common, Jimmy Kimmel, Chelsea

Italy’s David di Donatello Awards historically have been dominated by men in the key best picture, film, and producer categories. And this year is no exception. All told, out of a total of 145 movies vying for the top Italian film prizes 17 are directed by women, which amounts to a mere 12%. Women account

If there were Oscars for chutzpah, “The Unthinkable” would be a cinch: The first feature for a Swedish collective who’ve been making short films together since childhood, it manages a sprawling story with considerable spectacular action to technically commanding effect on a relatively miniscule, partly Kickstarter-funded budget. Yet Crazy Pictures’ disaster movie/thriller/romance/dysfunctional family drama is

David di Donatello Academy president Piera Detassis, who is also Hearst Italia’s film editor at large, is the first woman to head the organization behind Italy’s equivalent of the Oscars, which she has been busy overhauling and pushing toward greater gender parity. The current ratio of women among the academy’s 1,578 voters is roughly 30%,

AMC Entertainment’s quarterly financial results demonstrate that moviegoing may be slowly returning after months of COVID-related struggles, but cinemas still have to dig out of a deep hole left by a public health crisis that decimated their business. Revenues at the world’s largest exhibition chain topped out at $148.3 million, down 84.2 percent from the

Two years after a devastating fire ripped through the Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris, French producer Christine Le Goff (“Sacred Space”) is preparing an ambitious three-part documentary series exploring how the 800-year-old landmark will be reconstructed and how it was originally built. Titled “Raising Notre-Dame,” the documentary series was commissioned from Paris-based banner ZED by Arte

Michael B. Jordan hopes “Tom Clancy’s Without Remorse” isn’t the last audiences will see of him as John Clark. “At the end of the day we wanted it to be a franchise, but we also know that you got to do one good movie first,” Jordan tells me on this week’s episode of the “Just

Sony’s “Cinderella,” an adaptation of the classic fairy tale starring Camila Cabello, is skipping its planned theatrical debut. The film will instead premiere on Amazon Prime Video later this year. An exact release date has not been set yet. Sony originally intended to open “Cinderella” on the big screen this July, but the studio opted

STX Films has named Nasim Cambron executive vice president of publicity, Adam Fogelson, chairman of STX films motion picture group, announced Thursday. Cambron rejoins STX Films to oversee all feature film publicity for the studio, after a stint as publicity manager in Netflix’s feature film division. In her new role, Cambron will coordinate communication efforts

“Community” and “Love” star Gillian Jacobs and “Aladdin” break-out Marwan Kenzari are set to lead Berlin-set romantic comedy “Any Other Night.” Written by Patrick Whistler and directed by Michiel Ten Horn, the comedy follows two strangers thrown together as their lives are falling apart. Freshly dumped Maggie (Jacobs) and flailing cab driver Max (Kenzari) meet

Though George Clooney turns 60 on May 6, the actor-director-producer-writer-all-around-beloved-King-of-Hollywood, as we’ve pointed out before, is timeless. Throughout his career, there have been notable highs (he won Oscars for supporting actor in “Syriana” and for producing best picture winner “Argo”) and legendary lows (he’s more apt than anyone to take shots at “Batman & Robin.”)

Gabourey Sidibe is set to make her feature directorial debut with the psychological thriller “Pale Horse” for Gamechanger Films. The film is being co-developed and financed by Gamechanger, a production company and development fund dedicated to projects by and about women, people of color, the LGBTQ+ community and people with disabilities. The film is slated

Variety's Awards Circuit is home to the official predictions for the upcoming Oscars and Emmys ceremonies from film awards editor Clayton Davis. Following history, buzz, news, reviews and sources, the Oscar and Emmy predictions are updated regularly with the current year's list of contenders in all categories. Variety's Awards Circuit Prediction schedule consists of four

Matt Taibbi’s “Hate Inc.: Why Today’s Media Makes Us Despise One Another” has been optioned by Vespucci, a media company that has made a practice of teaming up with journalists on movies, shows and podcasts. Vespucci partnered with Charles Dorfman’s production company Samuel Marshall Films to option the rights to the non-fiction book. The plan

IFC Films has nabbed North American rights to “John and the Hole,” an unorthodox coming-of-age story that had its premiere at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. Directed by visual artist Pascual Sisto, the film follows 13-year-old John (Charlie Shotwell) who decides to drug his well-to-do parents (Michael C. Hall and Jennifer Ehle) and older sister

Documentaries and pictures made by female filmmakers dominated the prize ranks of South Korea’s Jeonju International Film Festival. Some, including “Splinters” which won the festival’s Grand Prize, were qualified on both counts. “Splinters” aka “Esquirlas,” is an Argentinian-made documentary about the military-industrial complex, which premiered last year at the Mar Del Plata festival. It emerged

Director and producer Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers opens her documentary “Kímmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning of Empathy” with a peaceful, slow-motion scene of buffalo calves grazing alongside their mothers while the voice of the filmmaker’s mother, a family doctor, is heard gently speaking to a mother about her baby. A coproduction between Tailfeathers’ Seen Through Woman Productions and the

Canadian documentary cinema takes center stage at Hot Docs, with films screening across programming strands, and pitch events—such as Forum and Deal Maker—connecting the global doc marketplace to the Canadian industry on its home turf. The 2021 slate includes 17 Canadian-produced features, most world premiering in the competitive Canadian Spectrum program, and seven international feature

BAFTA-winning director Morgan Matthews (“X+Y”) will begin principal photography on May 10 on a sequel to the all-time British kids’ classic “The Railway Children.” “The Railway Children Return” will shoot in locations around the U.K. from the original 1970 film, including Oakworth Station, Haworth and The Bronte Parsonage. The iconic Keighley & Worth Valley Railway

Having chronicled countless landmark moments in African-American history, acclaimed documentary filmmaker Stanley Nelson (“The Black Panthers,” “The Murder of Emmett Till”) understands the stakes at a time when both the culture at large, as well as the documentary industry, are in the midst of a wholesale reckoning. “It’s clear that the voices of [BIPOC filmmakers]

The producers of this year’s International Feature Film Oscar winner “Another Round” and Berlin Silver Bear winner “Natural Light” have been selected for European Film Promotion’s Producers on the Move program, which promotes promising producers and fosters international co-productions. The 20 participants for the program, which runs online from May 17-21, will be presenting their