Movies

Movie fans who are missing the big screen experience with their friends can get their fix at an Alamo Drafthouse. For just $150, guests can invite up to 30 of their friends to rent out an entire Alamo Drafthouse theater in certain locations. There are more than 40 movie options to choose from, ranging from

Ever since the ’50s, when the motion-picture industry felt existentially threatened by the rise of television (much as forces within it today feel existentially threatened by the rise of streaming), the movies have found ways to entice people into theaters with added benefits. 3D was the original P.T. Barnum attraction (the golden age of 3D

Director David Ayer and RLJE Films’ action movie “The Tax Collector” brought in an estimated $317,000 this weekend. The movie, which is star Shia LaBeouf’s latest turn at playing an extreme character, played at 129 theaters over the weekend, earning a per-screen average of $2,457, according to Comscore. The film played at a mix of

“Do You Remember Dolly Bell?,” the directorial debut of iconic Serbian filmmaker Emir Kusturica, has joined Heritage Online, the Locarno Film Festival’s recently launched platform for classic movies. Set in Sarajevo in the mid-1960s, the film—an irreverent, coming-of-age story about a young man who falls in love with a prostitute—earned Kusturica the Golden Lion for

Halted by COVID-19, and now part of Locarno’s The Films After Tomorrow competition, Lav Diaz’s “When the Waves Are Gone” looks set to mark the first time the Filipino auteur will enjoy the upsides of full-force international co-production. That co-production involve, moreover, some of highest-profile art film producers currently working in Europe. Winner of Locarno

“Traveller,” the first major screen credit of “The Crying Games’” Neil Jordan, Canadian Denis Coté’s debut feature “Drifting States” and Arturo Ripstein’s “The Place Without Limits,” a 1977 Mexican LGBTQ movie, are three titles featured in the inaugural lineup of the Locarno Film Festival’s Heritage Online section. Another, 1954 Egyptian transgender comedy “Miss Hanafi,” underscores

Lyon-born filmmaker Elie Grappe should be anxiously awaiting the world premiere of his first feature “Olga,” but like so many other filmmakers was forced to put everything on hold when the COVID-19 pandemic ground production around the world to a halt. Instead, this year his unfinished film will participate with a host of other similarly

Cinematographer Jay Keitel, a CalArts alum, credits his cinematic sensibilities to his time in experimental filmmaking and animation. Such background pushes him to go beyond traditional narrative form. In Amy Seimetz’s sophomore feature “She Dies Tomorrow,” (bowing across virtual cinemas this weekend) about a woman (Kate Lyn Sheil) certain she is living her final hours,

Former Bond and “Penny Dreadful” actor Eva Green is being sued in London’s High Court for allegedly derailing a £4 million ($5.22 million) sci-fi thriller, “A Patriot,” in which she was to have starred alongside Helen Hunt and Charles Dance. A deal was announced in May last year for Green, whose recent credits include “Dumbo,”

Paramount Pictures has decided to pause on making another “Star Trek” movie, nine months after hiring “Fargo” and “Legion” creator Noah Hawley to write and direct the next installment of franchise. The decision comes five weeks after the studio named former 20th Century Fox film executive Emma Watts to be president of the Paramount Motion

Forget it, Ben. It’s Chinatown. Ben Affleck will dig deep into Hollywood history with an upcoming adaptation of “The Big Goodbye: Chinatown and the Last Years of Hollywood,” an inside look at the making of the film noir classic. The film has been set up at Paramount, which is only fitting given that it was

While the Hollywood studios continue to keep their tentpoles locked up till most American cinemas reopen, indie distributors are releasing a handful of smaller movies with big stars in supporting roles this week. Can’t wait to see Robert Pattinson in “Tenet”? Well, you can always catch him in the festival-anointed imperialist critique “Waiting for the

Dwayne Johnson, James Gunn, Idris Elba, Chris Pine, Gal Gadot, Idris Elba, Margot Robbie, Robert Pattinson, Ezra Miller and Zack Snyder have all been announced as attendees at the DC FanDome on Aug. 22. Warner Bros. first unveiled the virtual fan experience in mid-June , featuring the casts and creators of key properties, including “Wonder

Amka Films, the Swiss indie shingle founded by prominent producer Tiziana Soudani – who sadly passed away in January – is carrying on its activities under a trio of women led by her daughter Amel Soudani. The company is known for its involvement in prizewinning films by prominent directors from nearby Italy, such as Alice Rohrwacher (“The

A producer on Alejandro Jodorowsky’s “Endless Poetry” is fighting to reclaim a $200,000 loan repayment as part of an ongoing legal dispute with the cult filmmaker’s Satori Films banner. A Paris tribunal has directed Satori Films to pay Amir Abbas Nokhasteh, an executive producer on “Endless Poetry,” almost $200,000 in repayment of a loan from

Since 2016, Maria Ressa and her team of journalists at the Philippines-based news site Rappler — which she co-founded and serves as executive editor — have been squarely in the cross-hairs of the country’s president Rodrigo Duterte. It’s part of an ongoing battle between the president and Pinoy journalists, Ressa included, who have covered his

The late lyricist Howard Ashman gave us the gift of many of the most-loved Disney songs of the modern era, teaming with composer Alan Menken to write “Beauty and the Beast’s” “Be Our Guest,” “The Little Mermaid’s” “Part of Your World” and “Aladdin’s” “Friend Like Me.” In the new documentary “Howard,” streaming on Disney Plus

When Filipino American documentary filmmaker Ramona S. Diaz saw reports of people being killed in the streets as part of newly elected Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs, she knew what she wanted her next project to focus on. But when she arrived in the country, she discovered so many journalists covering the story

After it was forced to scrub this year’s edition due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Tribeca Film Festival has announced it will return in 2021. Next year’s festival will run from June 9 to 20 in New York City. “We look forward to celebrating the 20th anniversary and to honoring what our founders Jane Rosenthal

Antitrust rules barring studios from owning movie theaters were swept aside Friday after a federal judge approved an effort by the Justice Department to do away with the Paramount Consent Decrees. These laws have been in effect since the golden age of movies. They were intended to break up the stranglehold that major studios such

“Judas and the Black Messiah” writer and director Shaka King has defended the casting of Daniel Kaluuya in the role of American civil rights leader Fred Hampton. The historical biopic, produced by Ryan Coogler and endorsed by Hampton’s son, Fred Hampton Jr, positions the British actor as the iconic leader of the Black Panther Party

The news that Lucrecia Martel was working on a new feature film — less than three years after premiering 2017’s “Zama” — was excitedly received by world cinema buffs: nine long years had separated “Zama” and her previous feature, “The Headless Woman,” and admirers of the enigmatic Argentine auteur had no reason to expect a

The Lithuanian Film Center will present five classics of Lithuanian cinema in the Locarno Film Festival’s online screening room as part of Heritage Online, the festival’s recently launched, first-of-its-kind platform that will serve as a database of films that premiered prior to 2005. A highlight will be “The Girl and the Echo,” by Arūnas Žebriūnas,

Andreas Fontana’s “Azor,” the latest production between Switzerland’s Alina Film and Argentina’s Ruda Cine, partners on Locarno Golden Leopard winner “Back to Stay,” has scored a world sales deal from Brussels-based Be For Films. A scathing take on Swiss banks’ shady dealings during Argentina’s Junta dictatorship, “Azor” is one of the 10 Swiss titles featured

Following a two-year absence, France will be back among the partner countries of Locarno Pro’s Alliance 4 Development platform that facilitates cooperation between existing co-development funds in Switzerland, Italy, Germany and – well – France, once again. Launched by the Locarno fest’s industry side in 2014, the initiative aims to test market potential and to

What surely would have made a good reality-TV series — three juvenile delinquents from the big city, plus an awkward kid with no friends, are dropped in the Scottish Highlands and left to find their way back to civilization — works even better as a dark comedy goof when a couple of lunatics start shooting

Once in a weird while, a movie mimics the flaws — and charms — of its protagonist’s journey to an uncanny degree. Like high schooler Quinn Ackermann, a two-left-footer who does a crash course in dancing in order to get into her first-choice college, “Work It” often feels like it too crammed in hopes a

Among the oldest stories in the romantic comedy playbook is that of the bright, brashly independent heroine who claims she doesn’t need a man, only for the perfect one to waltz into her life at that very moment. The genre exists to defeat singledom: A romcom without a life-changing romance, after all, is just a

Warner Bros. has released the official trailer for “Judas and the Black Messiah,” a biopic about the assassination of Black Panther Party leader Fred Hampton. Directed by Shaka King, the film stars Oscar-nominated actor Daniel Kaluuya as Hampton, chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party, and Lakeith Stanfield as William O’Neal, a

Surely, it can’t be long before we see a new addition to “The Film Critic’s Lexicon,” in the chapter devoted to such shorthand similes as “feels like a Hallmark movie,” “resembles an after-school special” and that old standby, “Tarantinoesque.” Chances are very good there will be something on the order of “good enough for lockdown”