Janelle Monáe stepped onto the black carpet at the premiere of “Antebellum” on Monday night in Los Angeles in an Elie Saab gown, XIV Karats jewels, Christian Louboutin heels, a clutch from Carolina Santo Domingo and a custom-made N95 face mask by Aliona Kononova. “It’s so weird, but you know what? I’m rolling with it,”
Movies
DreamWorks Animation has launched development on the adventure-fantasy “Ronan Boyle and the Bridge of Riddles” as a movie with Irish director Fergal Reilly signed to direct as part of an overall deal with the studio. Tom Lennon’s “Ronan Boyle and the Bridge of Riddles” was a New York Times bestseller that was published last year
Chadwick Boseman was buried near his South Carolina hometown six days after he died, according to a death certificate obtained on Monday by The Associated Press. The late “Black Panther” star was laid to rest on Sept. 3 at Welfare Baptist Church Cemetery in Belton, S.C., just 11 miles away from his hometown of Anderson,
Looks like Madonna is her own lucky star. In what seems to be an unprecedented creative move, the pop icon will direct a film about her life and career — one that’s been heavily teased on her social media accounts, through script sessions with her Oscar-winning co-writer Diablo Cody. That Madonna, whose staggering five-decade career
Given the controversies and allegations surrounding Nate Parker, many were surprised by the announcement that he would be directing David Oyelowo’s film “Sweet Thunder,” a biopic about boxing great Sugar Ray Robinson. During a conversation as part of the Toronto Film Festival, Oyelowo defended his decision to work with the filmmaker. “I have a pretty
A campaign waged against Netflix over “Cuties” and the film’s sexualized portrayal of children produced a surge in U.S. subscription cancellations over the weekend, according to research company YipitData. Netflix subscriber churn rates began to rise Sept. 10, the day after the release of “Cuties” on Netflix, when the hashtag “#CancelNetflix” was in the top-trending
“I Am Slave” director Gabriel Range’s “Stardust,” that chronicles the young David Bowie’s first visit to the U.S. in 1971, a trip that inspired the invention of his iconic alter ego Ziggy Stardust, will open the 28th Raindance Film Festival. Like several other festivals this year, Raindance will be a hybrid version comprised of a
Pawo Choyning Dorji’s directorial debut “Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom” has been selected to represent Bhutan in the international feature race at the Oscars. “Lunana: A Yak In The Classroom” is the second Oscar entry from Bhutan, a landlocked country in South Asia. The first official Bhutanese Oscar submission was in 1999 with Khyentse
[Warning: This report contains multiple spoilers.] Even though Disney bent over backwards to create a live-action “Mulan” that would appeal to China, disgruntled Chinese viewers have dubbed it “the worst ‘Mulan’ in history,” saying that it feels “wooden” and offensively inauthentic. The poor reception means that the $200 million Disney blockbuster will gain little traction
Slippery, supple and sinuous, Hungarian director Lili Horvát’s deliciously reworked psychological noir is a spiral staircase, polished to a glossy shine, down which unreliable motivations, self-delusions and romantic obsessions tumble in gorgeous 35mm. Pivoting on a terrifically self-possessed performance from lead Natasa Stork — in her debut screen performance — “Preparations to Be Together for
Ashina Sei, an established actor in high demand for TV dramas and films, was discovered dead in her Tokyo apartment Monday. Both Tokyo police and her agency have confirmed that she died of suicide, age 36. Born in 1983 in Fukushima Prefecture as Igarashi Aya, she came to Tokyo while still a teenager and soon
Principal shooting is set to begin next month on the latest feature from critically acclaimed Russian director Yury Bykov, whose sophomore film “The Major” played in Cannes’ Critics’ Week, Variety has learned. “The Owner” is produced by Ilya Stewart, Pavel Buria, and Murad Osmann of Moscow-based Hype Film (“Leto,” “Sputnik,” “Persian Lessons”), in their first
Actors Kingsley Ben-Adir, Eli Goree, Aldis Hodge and Leslie Odom Jr. take on a major challenge in “One Night in Miami” playing real-life legends Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali, Jim Brown and Sam Cooke, respectively. Hodge was the first actor to sign on for the historical drama directed by Regina King, while Ben-Adir and Goree had
John Boyega announced he is stepping down as a brand ambassador for the British cologne company Jo Malone after he was cut out of the Chinese version of a commercial he originally conceived, directed and starred in. “I have decided to step down as Jo Malone’s global ambassador. When I joined the brand as their
There are good movies, there are bad movies, and then there is “Good Joe Bell,” a uniquely terrible treatment of an important topic — broadly described as “inclusivity” and “tolerance” by the film’s wild-eyed protagonist (Mark Wahlberg) — whose hubristic title is the first clue that it’s not playing fair. Joe Bell was a man
STX is moving Gerard Butler’s sci-fi thriller “Greenland” from Sept. 25 in the U.S. to an undisclosed date in the fourth quarter. The film has opened in overseas territories, including Belgium (July 29), France (Aug. 5) and Scandinavia (Aug 12), and taken in $11.5 million, led by $4.4 million in France, $2.5 million in Taiwan
Jason Momoa has spoken out about his experience on the “Justice League” set, saying he, Ray Fisher and other cast members were treated in a “s—ty way” by Warner Bros. On Sept. 8, the “Aquaman” star first showed support for Fisher and his allegations of “abusive” and “unprofessional” behavior from director Joss Whedon and producers
MONDAY, SEPT. 14 ‘Marry Me’ Arriving Valentine’s Day Weekend Universal Pictures will release the romance film “Marry Me,” starring Jennifer Lopez and Owen Wilson, on Feb. 12, the start of the Valentine’s Day weekend. Lopez is starring as a musical superstar and Wilson is portraying a divorced math teacher. Lopez’s character is about to marry
It’s been seven years since the Boston Marathon bombing put the Massachusetts capital in the headlines for all the wrong reasons, and beyond the odd bright flash of #BostonStrong graffiti on a shabby streetscape, it’s not discussed directly in “City Hall.” It doesn’t need to be: Its community-wide burden of grief, caution and a shared
Actress Chloë Grace Moretz stars in “Shadow in the Cloud,” an action/horror film about a female World War II pilot. Warning, small spoiler talk ahead. The film, which follows an officer named Maude Garrett, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on Sept. 12. As part of Variety‘s Virtual TIFF studio, presented by Canada Goose,
Running Sept. 18-26, and aiming to maintain an on-site format and all its main sections, 2020’s 68th San Sebastian Film Festival takes place in extraordinary times. The impact of COVID-19 will play out throughout the festival, for bad and for good. Here are some high-lights of an extraordinary edition of the biggest movie event in
In writer-director Emma Seligman’s hilarious, sneakily eruptive debut feature “Shiva Baby,” the acerbic Danielle is many things: an East Coast college senior majoring in gender studies; a young, bisexual Jewish woman; a sugar baby testing out the transactional powers of her sexuality. That last slice of her identity is a leap, but it’s the one
Regina King is not only bringing history to life with her film “One Night in Miami,” she’s making history of her own. After becoming the first Black female director to have a film at the Venice Film Festival, King and her cast reunited at the Toronto International Film Festival to celebrate the movie’s early positive
Bleecker Street has picked up the U.S. rights to director Alexis Bloom’s animated documentary “The Klarsfelds,” which centers on real-life Nazi hunters Serge and Beate Klarsfeld. “Alexis and the team are creating a provocative and thrilling account of two of the most legendary Nazi hunters,” Bleecker Street CEO Andrew Karpen said in a statement announcing
During an interview at Variety’s virtual studio at the Toronto International Film Festival, Kate Winslet — who stars in the festival’s lesbian romance “Ammonite” — elaborated on the regrets she recently expressed about working with directors Woody Allen and Roman Polanski. In an interview with Vanity Fair that published last week, Winslet talked about how the #MeToo
In her debut feature film, “Why Not You,” writer-director Evi Romen explores the tragic consequences of a deadly attack in a gay club in Rome and the ostracization of outsiders in a small South Tyrolean community in northern Italy. The story follows Mario, a troubled but artistic young man, portrayed by Thomas Prenn (“Biohackers”), who
“Cuties” filmmaker Maimouna Doucouré says that Netflix’s initial marketing campaign opened up the film to a level of criticism that it didn’t receive after its Sundance Film Festival debut in January, and that she’s fighting “the same fight” as her critics. Speaking on Monday as part of a virtual 10 Talents to Watch panel hosted
“I’m having an old friend for dinner”-Hannibal Lecter, “The Silence of the Lambs” Marlon Brando, Gary Cooper, Tom Hanks, Dustin Hoffman, Fredric March, Jack Nicholson, Sean Penn, Spencer Tracy. Besides being some of history’s finest performers, they are also the select few that have won two Academy Awards for best actor, with just Daniel Day-Lewis
Rachel Brosnahan’s crime drama “I’m Your Woman” will open AFI Fest, which is going virtual for its 34th edition on Oct. 15-22. The festival, an early stop on the awards season circuit, announced a month ago that it had opted to forgo physical events. The full lineup and schedule will be unveiled in October. Directed
Rami Malek plays the newest James Bond villain, Safin, in the upcoming “No Time to Die.” A new video uploaded to the James Bond 007 YouTube channel on Monday gave the first detailed view into Malek’s character, a man bent on revenge. But he’s also convinced that the destruction he causes — and his plot