“Amy Tan: Unintended Memoir” producer Karen Pritzker and author and subject of the film Amy Tan discussed the chance circumstances that led to the film’s creation. At Sundance Film Festival’s Variety studio presented by AT&T TV, Pritzker and Tan, author of the beloved “The Joy Luck Club” and lead singer in the literary rock garage
Movies
Emerald Fennell’s “Promising Young Woman” reinvents the revenge thriller, giving the cinematic treatment for woman reclaiming their power. On page 20, Cassandra (played exquisitely by Carey Mulligan) is approached by a former college classmate Ryan (played by the charismatically brilliant Bo Burnham). After Ryan delivers a man’s all-too-familiar rude and passive-aggressive questions regarding expectations about
Peter Bogdanovich’s first impression of Cloris Leachman was nothing like the lonely housewife she played in “Last Picture Show.” The director recalled his first meeting with Leachman, who died Wednesday at 94, when he was casting “The Last Picture Show.” “One of the producers was Bob Rafaelson. I said, ‘I don’t know any 30 or
During a conversation between Amanda Seyfried (“Mank”) and Vanessa Kirby (“Pieces of a Woman”) for Variety’s Actors on Actors series, presented by Amazon Studios, Kirby confessed her fandom. “I’ve loved you so much since ‘Mean Girls’ — it’s so iconic,” she said to Seyfried. “Mean Girls,” Seyfried told Kirby, was her first movie. Before then, she’d done soap
Amanda Seyfried (“Mank”) and Vanessa Kirby (“Pieces of a Woman”) sat down for a virtual chat for Variety‘s Actors on Actors, presented by Amazon Studios. For more, click here. Vanessa Kirby, who played Princess Margaret on the first two seasons of Netflix’s “The Crown,” has returned to the streaming service in the acquisition “Pieces of
Vanessa Kirby, who played Princess Margaret on the first two seasons of Netflix’s “The Crown,” has returned to the streaming service in the acquisition “Pieces of a Woman.” In the Kornél Mundruczó film, Kirby plays Martha, whose home birth ends in tragedy, upending her life. The birth scene, early in the movie, is a harrowing
French-Venezuelan biologist and filmmaker Alexis Gambis, whose sophomore drama, “Son of Monarchs,” screens in t Sundance’s NEXT section, has always been fixated on the confluence of art and science. It led him to found the Imagine Science Film Festival, which enters its 14th edition in October, and the five-year old VOD platform Labocine, both of which showcase science
A surge of buying in stocks including AMC Entertainment and GameStop — triggered by activist investors on Reddit and other social platforms — overwhelmed no-fee investment app Robinhood’s ability to cover the frenzied trading. After Robinhood suspended buying of shares in AMC, GameStop, BlackBerry and 10 other volatile stocks Thursday, the company raised an emergency
Lead writer Cilla Jackert’s “Thin Blue Line,” a fresh take on a police procedural, is Sweden’s contender for the Nordisk Film & TV Fond Prize at 2021’s Göteborg Film Festival. Produced during a tumultuous time for police all around the world, the show quickly establishes itself as an intimate portrayal of the lives – both
Indian actor Manoj Bajpayee will star in investigative thriller film “Despatch,” directed by Kanu Behl and produced by Ronnie Screwvala’s RSVP. “The film unfolds in the world of crime journalism and Bajpayee plays a character who finds himself sucked into the murky underbelly of business and crime. Bajpayee, one of India’s most respected actors, has won
As the Brazilian audiovisual sector prepares to return to shooting movies and shows after being halted by the COVID-19 pandemic, new health and safety guidelines are being implemented to prevent further spread of the disease and to protect those involved in production. To ease the burden on already hard-hit producers, Show Me The Fund, a
Picture Tree International has acquired international rights to Danish director Lisa Jespersen’s feature debut, the comedy drama “Persona Non Grata” (Hvor Kragerne Vender), and will introduce the film to buyers at the upcoming Nordic Film Market, after its launch in Nordic Competition during the online edition of Goteborg Film Festival this week. Variety has been
The premise of Prano Bailey-Bond’s Sundance Midnight selection opener is so strong that it’s little wonder the film can’t quite live up — or perhaps down — to it: In a Thatcher’s Britain riven by tabloid-fueled “video nasty” hysteria, a young woman working for the national censorship board is assessing a horror flick, when it
The overloaded Thai equivalent of one of those YA weepies where terminally ill teens scramble to fulfill their bucket lists before expiring at a young age, all-the-feels buddy movie “One for the Road” is determined to leave audiences both shaken and stirred. Your mileage may vary as director Baz Poonpiriya (“Bad Genius”) packs this concoction
In “Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised),” which opened the Sundance Film Festival tonight on a note of heady historical exuberance, we see images from the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival, and they’re like dream visions of a promised land. An ocean of Black faces, stretching back like something out of
Amin Nawabi is not the real name of the Afghan refugee introduced in the Sundance movie “Flee,” nor is that his real face, which has been distorted by animation to protect his identity. As “Flee” unfolds, you may also start to question whether the story Amin shares is even real, doubling back and contradicting itself
Apple tapped director Lulu Wang to showcase the cinematic features of the tech company’s latest iPhone. Wang, who wrote and directed 2019 feature film “The Farewell,” directed a new short for Apple in celebration of Chinese New Year, “Nian,” which puts a fresh twist on a well-known Chinese folktale. (Watch above or at this link.)
Watching “CODA,” the tender, lively, funny, and beautifully stirring drama that opened the 2021 Sundance Film Festival, I had the most out-of-body movie-viewing experience I’ve had in the year since movie theaters closed down. I watched the film at home, on a link, late at night, by myself. But I’ve been going to Sundance since
Now that we’re a year into the pandemic (and have a presidential administration that’s forging a sane response to it), the time feels right for taking stock — for looking back, in a big-picture way, at how the crisis unfolded, the ways it was mismanaged, and how we can learn from the vast pileup of
An endangered musician in a Syrian town controlled by ISIS must sell his beloved piano in order to escape the country in the gripping drama “Broken Keys.” It marks the feature debut of Columbia U.-trained, Lebanese writer-director Jimmy Keyrouz. Inspired by real events, the feature is an expansion of his 2016 Student Academy Award-winning short
Award season is setting in and it’s time to pick the frontrunners for the Golden Globes’ best picture nominees. Variety editors Jenelle Riley and Clayton Davis surveyed the contenders for Awards Circuit, presented by HBO, selecting who will go home with the globe and who is disqualified, critically acclaimed Lee Isaac Chung’s drama “Minari” is
Dakota Johnson is among a slew of actors joining a new feature film from co-directors Tig Notaro and Stephanie Allynne, which marks the first solo financing effort from Erik Feig’s company Picturestart. The project, titled “Am I Ok?,” will see Johnson co-star alongside Sonoya Mizuno, “Coming 2 America” star Jermaine Fowler, Whitmer Thomas, Molly Gordon,
Warner Bros.’ biographical drama about the life and times of Elvis Presley will no longer hit theaters this year. The studio has postponed the film from Nov. 5, 2021 to June 3, 2022. Baz Luhrmann is directing the still-untitled movie, which he co-wrote with Craig Pearce. Austin Butler, who recently appeared as Tex Watson in
Filmed in exotic locations ranging from India and Norway to Italy’s sun-kissed Mediterranean coast, Christopher Nolan’s reality-warping film “Tenet” looks like it was a lot of fun to be an actor in. However, creating the music to accompany it was clearly no yacht cruise. What kind of music evokes a world where (spoiler alert) the
Writer and director Kate Tsang described “Marvelous and the Black Hole” as a “coming-of-age” film about a teenage delinquent (Miya Cech) who befriends a kid’s party magician (Rhea Perlman) who helps her navigate her dysfunctional family and inner demons with the help of sleight of hand magic. The movie, which premieres at this year’s virtual
Zach Braff has been cast in the upcoming Disney Plus remake of “Cheaper by the Dozen.” He will star alongside Gabrielle Union in the movie, which centers on a multiracial, blended family of 12, navigating a hectic home life and their family business. “Cheaper by the Dozen” will debut on the Disney Plus streaming service
Variety senior film writer Matt Donnelly spoke with director Edgar Wright (“Scott Pilgrim vs. The World,” “Baby Driver”) along with Sparks band members Ron and Russell Mael, about the creation of their new documentary in the Variety Studio presented by AT&T TV at Sundance Film Festival. “We’ve always been sort of hesitant,” Russell said about
Timothée Chalamet and Taylor Russell are in talks to star in “Bones & All,” from “Call Me By Your Name” director Luca Guadagnino. The film, with a script from “Suspiria” and “A Bigger Splash” screenwriter Dave Kajganich, is described as a horror-love story, with Chalamet and Russell circling the lead roles. The new film would
All-night bidding wars are as much a staple of the Sundance Film Festival as snow drifts and thin air. The mountaintop gathering highlights the best of indie film and shines a light on the next generation of Tarantinos and Soderberghs. This year looks different. Sundance will go virtual in 2021 due to COVID-19. But that
Director Jude Weng’s “Finding ‘Ohana” starts on a good note and continues that feeling through most of its story, which focuses on a tween girl and her family searching for buried treasure while reconnecting with each other and their Hawaiian heritage. Paying homage to adventure movies like “The Goonies,” “Dora and the Lost City of