Movies

In today’s Global Bulletin, the BBC launches its “Songs to Live By” podcast with Warner Music Group; Netflix orders “Santo” from Spain’s Nostromo Pictures; Mubi makes two executive hires; and “Jersey Boys” heads to London’s West End. PODCAST The BBC has launched “Songs to Live By,” a new podcast series hosted by Vick Hope celebrating

Television and live events veteran Glenn Weiss will return to direct the 93rd Academy Awards. “Our plan is that this year’s Oscars will look like a movie, not a television show, and Glenn has embraced this approach and come up with ideas of his own on how to achieve this. We’re thrilled to have him

It’s tricky deciding what kind of cheese “Deadly Illusions,” a diverting thriller starring Kristin Davis and Dermot Mulroney streaming on Netflix, is exactly. Soft and overripe, from the look of it. Which poses the question, when is its cheesiness intentional and when is it clumsy? From the movie’s nudging title sequence — with steady fretful

Daniel Radcliffe is the latest to join the cast of Paramount’s “The Lost City of D,” taking on a villainous role in the romantic adventure. Radcliffe joins Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum in the film, which follows a reclusive romance novelist (Bullock), who was was sure nothing could be worse than getting stuck on a

As productions gear up again with more cameras starting to roll, it’s likely that sets won’t look the same as before the pandemic. COVID protocols have emphasized working with smaller crews and experimenting with virtual and remote filming. Location manager J.J. Levine (“The D Cut”) has also seen changes in the way sites are procured.

Some pundits worry that the Oscar ceremony won’t feel like the real thing, because the late date (April 25) is disorienting and because the show will be divided between two venues, L.A.’s Union Station and the traditional Dolby Theatre. In truth, a fluid date and multiple locations go back to Oscar’s earliest days. The first

The 44th Japan Academy Film Prize ceremony was held on Friday at the Grand Prince Hotel New Takawana in Tokyo, despite a state of emergency still in force on the nation’s capital. One big winner was Uchida Eiji’s gay-themed drama “Midnight Swan” with took the best picture prize, while star Kusanagi Tsuyoshi was awarded best

The SXSW Film Festival has announced the full list of 2021 Grand Jury prize winners. The award ceremony honors the superlative creativity and talent demonstrated by filmmakers and designers in the SXSW Film Festival program. The festival virtually screened 75 features, 84 shorts and music videos, 11 episodic selections, 20 virtual cinema projects, 14 title

Documentary film festival Visions du Réel, which runs April 15-25, has unveiled the 29 projects that will be presented in its industry program, VdR-Industry. The project will participate in the three key forums in the industry section: VdR-Pitching, VdR-Work in Progress and VdR-Rough Cut Lab. Industry activities will take place from April 14-22, both online

Channeling the aesthetic and urgency of a driven multimedia creator, “Wojnarowicz” chronicles the too-short life of a determinedly “outsider” artist who was among the most furiously outspoken victims of the AIDS epidemic. Chris McKim’s documentary is largely composed of materials from the late subject’s archives, woven into a collage whole that is equal parts biography,

The title for “The Fabulous Filipino Brothers” makes it sound like a movie about a now-obscure troupe of singing-dancing siblings who once opened for Frank Sinatra in Las Vegas, and were audience favorites back in the day on “The Ed Sullivan Show.” As it turns out, however, this engagingly freeform comedy has an entirely different

You’ve never seen Udo Kier like this before. The heavily accented German character actor, who got his start in Andy Warhol’s “Flesh for Frankenstein” and was finally accepted as a member of the Motion Picture Academy this past year, has spent the intervening decades alternating between art films and exploitation movies, appearing as Nazis and

Warner Bros. has decided not to pursue a $100 million plan to build an aerial tramway from its Burbank studio lot to the iconic Hollywood sign atop Mount Lee. The studio confirmed Thursday that the Hollywood Skyway project would no longer be pursued, primarily due to safety concerns as well as a number of logistical

SPOILER WARNING: This story discusses major plot points in both 2017’s “Justice League” and 2021’s “Zack Snyder’s Justice League.” For years, Zack Snyder fans have been left to wonder what exactly had changed from his original vision for “Justice League” to what debuted in theaters in 2017. All anyone’s known for certain was that in

“In the Heights” will hit theaters, and HBO Max, sooner than expected. The adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s hit musical is slated to open on June 11 instead of June 18. Director Jon M. Chu shared the news on Twitter writing, “Surprise. We coming to Theaters one week earlier!!! There has been so much demand since

In Hollywood, they say, everyone loves a comeback. That would seem to be the hope at entertainment conglomerate Endeavor, which is seeking a new public offering after a last-minute scrap in 2019. The parent owner of Ultimate Fighting Championship and talent agencies WME and IMG is in the process of planning a new IPO, Variety‘s

Top Chinese director Feng Xiaogang will step in front of the camera alongside Chinese-American actor-director Joan Chen in a local adaptation of the 2009 Hollywood tearjerker “Hachi: A Dog’s Tale,” which began shooting Thursday. It is currently set to premiere on New Year’s Eve. Feng is best known for his work as a director on

Imagine thinking you’re diverse because your 87-person exclusive club has a few people from Bangladesh, the Philippines, Japan and a smattering of other countries. That’s what the Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s defense for their lack of members of color has been until very recently. You might as well just say you’re not racist because you

Who shot Christopher Wallace, aka Biggie Smalls? It’s crazy to think that a Hollywood movie can solve a homicide the Los Angeles Police Department couldn’t crack. But conspiracy-minded “City of Lies” — which opens 24 years and 10 days after the rap legend’s murder on March 9, 1997 — suggests that the Notorious B.I.G.’s death

UPDATED: The anonymous woman who first made allegations about Armie Hammer on social media has come forward publicly. “I thought that he was going to kill me,” the woman, named Effie, said through tears on Thursday during a press conference with her attorney, Gloria Allred. Effie is accusing Hammer of violent rape and physical abuse,

Aaron Sorkin is widely considered the king of film and TV dialogue. Actors line up for a chance to feast on his words and the opportunity to deliver a Sorkin-penned speech. And yet his monologues never seem out of place; they fit organically into his stories and his characters. Sorkin says there’s a musicality to

There’s a pointed takedown of very-online living fighting to emerge from the many zany, bloody distractions of “Paul Dood’s Deadly Lunch Break,” though even if it succeeded, it probably wouldn’t be all that fresh. Wringing bleak comedy from the psychological collapse of a naive middle-aged man chasing talent-show glory, this uneven sophomore feature from director

“Happily” is what happens when a cute conceit goes nowhere intriguing. Writer-director BenDavid Grabinski’s feature debut tries to generate comedic menace and mystery from the aftermath of a bizarre encounter between a preternaturally lovey-dovey California couple and an enigmatic stranger, but there’s nothing particularly amusing or suspenseful about the weirdness that ensues. Stranding a host

Now that Oscar noms are in and planning for the 93rd Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre and Union Station is underway, I’m hoping the next announcement we hear is that the evening will serve as a fundraiser for COVID relief. Following the Academy’s $6 million donation last April to The Actors Fund, the Motion

Ernest Hemingway famously once said, “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” What Papa Hemingway meant, of course, is that the craft of writing is emotional, draining and often psychologically taxing, especially when mining stories that bring to the fore crucial social issues such as racism,

Vertical Entertainment has landed North American and U.K. rights to “We Broke Up,” a romantic comedy starring William Jackson Harper of “The Good Place” fame and “You’re the Worst” actor Aya Cash. The movie, written and directed by Jeff Rosenberg, is slated to premiere in theaters and on demand on April 23. “We’re thrilled to

With the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn. mired in a scandal over its lack of Black members and shoddy ethical practices, many in show business are wondering if the Golden Globes have permanently lost their luster. According to top film executives, agents and celebrity wranglers, studios and stars aren’t quite ready to tell the HFPA to

Almost inevitably, Hollywood will help shape the cultural memory of the COVID-19 pandemic. But how? Several quarantine films have already come out, but they haven’t quite hit the mark. They emphasize social isolation, while foregrounding their production constraints, or delve into disaster tropes, like the much-panned “Songbird.” It will take some time — and the

It was a really big deal this week that more than 100 of Hollywood’s most powerful public relations firms told the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn. they would urge their high-profile clients to avoid working with the organization until it can “swiftly manifest profound and lasting change” to address its longtime discriminatory, unethical and corrupt practices.

Hollywood producers and filmmakers think they know what audiences want after a roughly a year of being stuck in their homes, cut off from friends and family while a global pandemic raged. “People want to escape,” predicts Milan Popelka, chief operating officer of FilmNation, the company behind “Arrival” and “Late Night.” “Stories that are more