From celestial jazz to notions of great spirituality, the creative team behind Pixar’s “Soul” had the challenge of bringing abstract ideas about the unknown to life through animation. The film, which debuts on Disney Plus on Christmas Day, focuses on Joe (voiced by Jamie Foxx), a middle school teacher who dreams of being a jazz
When Charlie Chaplin passed away on Christmas Day in 1977, aged 88, he left the screenplay for a last unfinished film titled “The Freak,” a passion project about a young woman with wings named Serapha who is exploited in all kinds of ways. Italy’s Cineteca di Bologna archives, which have long been in charge of
With their two Grammy nominations for the album “Saturn Return” and song “Cabin,” the Secret Sisters are representing not just for sibling duos but, implicitly, for the rare power of an all-female (or almost all-female) team. The project found sisters Laura Rogers and Lydia Slagle again bringing on as producer no less a name than
Variety asked some of the behind-the-scenes artists about their challenges and joys working on the year’s most prominent films. Nicholas BeckerSound Design, “Sound of Metal”“The most powerful scene in terms of sound is the last one, which ironically has none at all. Usually when there’s silence in film, the convention is to put a little
Hulu is wrapping up a deal for domestic distribution rights to “The United States vs. Billie Holiday,” a move that will likely allow the drama to premiere in time for Oscars consideration. The film, which is directed by Lee Daniels and stars Andra Day as the legendary jazz and blues singer, was being shopped to
Kevin Spacey posted a Christmas-themed YouTube video, marking the third year in a row that he has shared clips to his channel. This year’s video, titled “1-800 XMAS,” was a more somber affair than past years, offering compassion to people struggling over the holiday season. “If you’re standing in a place that you can no
MrBeast, the popular YouTube hype-master, is launching a reprise of “Finger on the App” — quadrupling the cash prize to $100,000 to whomever can literally keep their finger on the game the longest. Jimmy Donaldson, a.k.a. MrBeast, launched the first “Finger on the App” contest June 30. The game had nearly 1.1 million downloads and
The New York Film Critics and the Los Angeles Film Critics Assn. handed out their awards this past week. The two orgs traditionally provide a starting place for AMPAS members viewing movies over the holiday break, pointing them to under-the-radar films and performances. Here are the movies that received the biggest boosts: BIGGEST WINNERS Chloé
Jamie Foxx believes he and his character Joe Gardner, a passionate jazz pianist and music teacher, in Pixar’s animated dramedy “Soul” are a lot alike — they both like jazz, teaching children and chasing dreams. “Like when Ed Sheeran slept on my couch for six weeks, Nick Cannon and all those other people that have
When Pedro Pascal was offered the role of Max Lord in “Wonder Woman 1984,” he’d been working almost non-stop since his breakout performance as Oberyn Martell on “Game of Thrones.” In just a few short years, the Chilean-born actor had bounced from shooting the Netflix series “Narcos” to action franchises “Kingsman: The Golden Circle” and
Cinematographer Dariusz Wolski would love it if people could see his latest film, the Tom Hanks Western “News of the World,” on the big screen as it was intended. But although Universal will carry out a limited theatrical release starting on Christmas Day, he realizes Academy voters and critics group members will probably consume the
SPOILER ALERT: Do not read if you have not yet watched the second episode of “The Stand,” streaming now on CBS All Access. Jovan Adepo has developed a niche portraying iconic characters on the small screen. He starred as the adult-age Antron McCray in Netflix’s fact-based “When They See Us” in 2019, and brought Lionel Jefferson
Hair, make-up and costumes are all are powerful tools in storytelling and each add to the authenticity of the narrative. For “Shirley,” costume designer Amela Baksic immersed herself in researching archival photos of horror and mystery writer Shirley Jackson. She also relied on Life magazine photo essays to look at college life in the 1940s.
Regina King saw every Black man that she loved in the men of “One Night in Miami” and wanted them to see themselves. “You better not ‘f’ this up,” King says she would say to herself during the entire shoot, and even after. In this week’s Awards Circuit Podcast, King talks about why she wanted to
Just a year ago, Shia LaBeouf was having a career resurgence. After being widely praised for his autobiographical film, “Honey Boy,” which he wrote and starred in, and the indie drama “The Peanut Butter Falcon,” LaBeouf landed a coveted role in the upcoming thriller, “Don’t Worry Darling,” the highly anticipated follow-up to Olivia Wilde’s directorial
While the North American box office pulls in less than $5 million per weekend due to COVID-19, the China and Japan markets are not only open, but also capable of breaking theatrical records. It may feel logical to hurry more U.S. movies into Asian release, but when the real winners across the continent in 2020
Get ready to go into a new year in fighting shape: Netflix is launching the third season of “Cobra Kai” a week earlier than originally planned, now set to drop all episodes on Jan. 1. The day after the season streams, the cast of “Cobra Kai” will appear on “The Netflix Afterparty” to talk about
UPDATED: Shares of FuboTV took another steep dive Thursday after a team of Wall Street analysts initiated coverage of the internet pay-TV company with a “sell” rating and said its recent stock price run-up was “just plain egregious.” FuboTV shares closed down 16% in holiday-shortened trading Dec. 24, to $44.18 per share. That came after
It’s a Christmas miracle. Four and a half years after the U.K. voted to leave the European Union (EU) in 2016, the two negotiating sides have finally arrived at a Brexit deal. The agreement will allow for tariff and quota-free trade in goods and services across a range of areas. Crucial for film and TV
Julie Delpy’s first TV drama, “On the Verge,” is one of the rare shows that managed to shoot in Los Angeles between the first and second waves of the pandemic. Produced by The Film TV for France’s Canal Plus and Netflix, the 12-episode series endured a three-month delay and then filmed from late August until
Universal Pictures will take over the distribution and marketing of Warner Bros. theatrical releases in Hong Kong and Macau from January 1, 2021 onwards. WarnerMedia is understood to be laying off around a dozen employees as part of the change. A WarnerMedia regional spokesman in Singapore was unable to confirm or deny the information, though
For the longest time, cinematographers have referenced paintings and still photography, whether recreating those images or riffing on them to create the moving images in films. It was no different for Chloé Zhao’s “Nomadland,” which captured the beauty of America, and Regina King’s “One Night in Miami,” which was influenced by historical events. Even more
It takes a village to make a motion picture come to life, with different departments and talents working together. We spoke to some of the artists who collaborated on films about how they enhance each other’s contributions and serve a filmmaker’s overall vision. “Over the Moon”(Netflix)Songwriters: Christopher Curtis, Marjorie Duffield, Helen ParkMusic is the crutch
India’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has announced the merger of four of its film media units, Films Division, Directorate of Film Festivals, National Film Archives, and Children’s Film Society, with the National Film Development Corporation (NFDC). The NFDC will now carry out all the functions that were being performed by the separate film units,
What “Charlotte’s Web” did in the popular imagination for the humble, much-maligned barn spider, “My Octopus Teacher” sets out to achieve for the eight-limbed mollusc of its title — a creature of great, shimmery beauty and mystery regarded by many with more bemusement than affection. That’s a PR status that has kept hungry humans high
The chairman of China’s Yoozoo Group Lin Qi, an executive producer on Netflix’s upcoming high-profile sci-fi adaption “The Three-Body Problem,” is currently hospitalized after what a police report indicated Wednesday may be a murderous poisoning carried out by a colleague involved in managing that IP. Netflix announced in September that it will adapt all three
“Migrants,” a deeply textured eight-minute animated short about a polar bear cub and its mother driven to look for a new home because of climate change, has been named the best short of VIEW Fest, the short film festival sponsored by the VIEW Conference in Turin, Italy. The story touched the international jury with its
For American audiences, who’ve been deprived of a traditional release slate while the country copes with the COVID-19 pandemic, Christmas Day brings the closest thing to a blockbuster weekend that 2020 has seen so far — including the delayed releases of a few films originally intended for earlier in the year. Two of the week’s
When it came to the great boxed sets of the year, you never really had to work your way out of the P’s: the Tom Petty and Prince releases alone could have covered all your archival needs for 2020. Each artist’s estate opened up the vaults to celebrate a single classic album — “Wildflowers” in
Warner Bros. has announced release dates for three of its upcoming films: George Miller’s “Mad Max: Fury Road” prequel, titled “Furiosa”; a musical adaptation of “The Color Purple”; and the family film “Coyote vs. Acme.” All three films will debut in theaters in 2023. “Furiosa,” starring Anya Taylor-Joy in the title role, has been set