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Set in and around New York’s meatpacking district in the mid-aughts, Tom Dicillo‘s 2006 drama/comedy Delirious is a film about mercenary paparazzi, venal agents and managers, and the commercial manufacture of fame. That said, the picture, available now on Blu-ray and digital platforms in an official directors cut 15 years after its release, is surprisingly sweet. Set well before Instagram and TikTok created new categories of celebrity, Delirious depicts a world where genuine human emotion can co-exist amidst planted Page Six items and staged photo calls. In a rich performance snapping from broad comedy to lacerating self-pity Steve Buscemi plays Les […]

The post "In a Strange Way, the Film Feels Absolutely New to Me": Director Tom Dicillo on the Release of the Director's Cut of His 2006 Feature, Delirious first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Hollywood studios have shown an affinity for pulling red hot indie filmmakers out of the low-budget space and into the director’s chair for big-budget tentpoles. Such a career trajectory could have been in the cards for Lee Daniels, who revealed to Collider that he pitched a Wolverine movie to 20th Century Fox at the request of Wolverine himself, Hugh Jackman. It turns out Jackman was a huge fan of “Precious,” Daniels’ 2009 indie sensation that won Mo’Nique the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress.

“A lot of actors call me. I remember after I did ‘Precious,’ Hugh Jackman called and wanted me to do a Wolverine,” Daniels said. “And he sent me into the studio to Fox, I guess that’s where they do them at. And I had never done a studio film before and it was a disaster.”

Daniels continued, “I literally pulled over…Yeah, it was at Fox

Raya and the Last Dragon, the latest animated entry from Walt Disney Animation Studios, hits theaters and Disney+ with Premier Access this Friday, which means it’s time for a fun little behind-the-scenes look at the flick. The video below features Kelly Marie Tran, who voices the eponymous character, showing off the makeshift recording studio she set up […]

The post ‘Raya and the Last Dragon’ Production Diaries: Kelly Marie Tran Reveals Her Makeshift At-Home Recording Studio appeared first on /Film.

Short stories don’t often get the respect they deserve, and short films — which the film industry has deemed worthless rather than figure out how to monetize — don’t often get any respect at all. Unless, that is, several of them are packaged to resemble a feature, like three kids stacked on top of each other inside a trenchcoat and trying to pass for a single adult.

A playful triptych of self-contained vignettes (complete with their own credit blocks) that are bound together by a shared fascination with memory, coincidence, and the deep truths that shallow lies tend to uncover, Hamaguchi Ryūsuke’s wonderfully beguiling “Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy” is neither fish nor fowl. It feels more like a single film than it does a trio of smaller ones that have been stitched together into a makeshift anthology, but the finished product is only greater than the sum of

Though there have been occasions to wish he didn’t write so much of it, nobody writes dialogue quite like Quentin Tarantino. We know that because so very, very many have tried, fueling a whole subgenre of blatant “Reservoir Dogs” and “Pulp Fiction” imitations that mercifully began subsiding around the turn of the millennium, but still pop up at least a couple times per year. What they usually have in common is a brash confidence in the wit of their snappy patter and ingenuity of their pretzeling plots — as well as frequently being dead wrong on both counts.

“Pixie” is an Irish tale, and as a result also recalls the screen work of the McDonaugh brothers in their more Tarantino-esque modes. But this collaboration between veteran producer Barnaby Thompson (whose only prior directorial features were the lead-footed “St. Trinian’s” reboots) and his writer son Preston goes beyond homage or aspirational imitation,

Out with the old, in with the rebranded. ViacomCBS launched its Paramount+ streaming service on March 4, and the media conglomerate is hedging its bets that the platform and its slew of upcoming high-profile content will allow it to carve a major place for itself in one of the most competitive parts of the entertainment industry.

Paramount+ is not ViacomCBS’ first foray into the streaming industry: The service is effectively a rebrand of CBS All Access, which launched in 2014. CBS All Access subscribers will not notice any service interruption and all of the original platform’s content is available on Paramount+. The rebranded service sells the same ad-free $9.99 per month subscription tier as CBS All Access, while a $4.99 ad-supported tier will launch in June and is $1 cheaper than CBS All Access’ ad-supported option.

Content is king in the streaming industry and Paramount+ will exclusively stream a slew of films and television

If you had “Ray Romano reads a rendition of Beyoncé’s ‘Crazy in Love'” on your 2021 Bingo card, you’re in luck. Because that’s the whole gist of the Made for Love trailer — as well a the promise of Palm Springs star Cristin Milioti in another twisty sci-fi dark comedy. Watch the Made for Love trailer below. Made […]

The post ‘Made for Love’ Trailer: Cristin Milioti is Stuck in a Dystopian Relationship in HBO Max’s Dark Comedy Series appeared first on /Film.

Imax’s quarterly revenue beat Wall Street’s expectations even as its losses were steeper than expected. The theater company reported revenues of $56 million, a 55% drop from the prior-year quarter’s revenues of $124.3 million. It also logged a net loss attributable to common shareholders of $21.2 million, or 36 cents per diluted share. That’s down from a profit of $18.2 million or 29 cents per share in the prior-year period, a time before coronavirus upended moviegoing.

Imax was projected to record a loss of 20 cents on revenue of $47.14 million. The company attributed its stronger than expected sales to the return of moviegoing in China and Japan. Movies like “Detective Chinatown 3” have done huge business in China, fueling a box office revival in the country and potentially setting the stage for positive news in an industry that has been battered by the public health crisis. The results goosed Imax shares, causing the stock

Even after two of his features were derailed by the pandemic, Japanese director Ryūsuke Hamaguchi had a busy 2020. After breaking out with his 2016 film Happy Hour, Hamaguchi returned in 2018 with what he described as his first “commercial film,” Asako I and II, as opposed to a smaller, independent production. Adapted from a Haruki Murakami short story, Drive My Car is Hamaguchi’s current “commercial” project, while the smaller-scale Berlinale 2021 premiere Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy is his smaller, independent film. (When not in production on these films, Hamaguchi, along with director Kōji Fukada and two of his Happy Hour producers, helped spearhead a […]

The post Pre- and Post-Pandemic Rohmer: Ryūsuke Hamaguchi on Berlinale 2021 Premiere Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

On the March 4, 2021 episode of /Film Daily, /Film senior writer Ben Pearson is joined by /Film managing editor Jacob Hall and writer Hoai-Tran Bui to talk about the latest film and TV news, including Alamo Drafthouse’s bankruptcy, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and Paul Bettany’s troll (or was it?) for the WandaVision […]

The post Daily Podcast: Movies That Are Better Than the Book, Paul Bettany’s WandaVision Troll, Alamo Drafthouse, and More appeared first on /Film.

Most parents have the odd stressful moment when they jokingly wonder if they’re raising a devil’s spawn. Unfortunately for Andi Matichak, that notion seems neither humorous nor hyperbolic in “Son,” wherein the star of David Gordon Green’s “Halloween” reboot has a more “Rosemary’s Baby”-ish problem on her hands.

This latest, Heartland-set feature from Irish writer-director Ivan Kavanagh (“Never Grow Old”) echoes his prior horror exercise, 2014’s “The Canal,” in that it similarly means to keep us uncertain whether our protagonist is bedeviled by supernatural peril or delusional psychosis. But that line isn’t trod quite so nimbly this time, and the film suffers somewhat from striking an oddly earnest tone (despite some gory bits) without necessarily being very convincing, when it might better have gone for straight nerve-jangling suspense. It’s an intriguing, watchable but mixed bag that Rlje Films is releasing March 5 to available theaters,

As society has progressed over time, cultural touchstones from the past have become outdated and in some cases problematic. That can make revisiting classic films a little troublesome. How can we revisit, revere and respect classic movies that have such blatantly racist characters and outdated depictions of our culture? Turner Classic Movies may have the answer. […]

The post New ‘Reframed’ Series at Turner Classic Movies Will Provide Cultural Context for Problematic Older Films appeared first on /Film.

Director Shaka King tasked singer and songwriter H.E.R to bring home the end of “Judas and the Black Messiah.” Her challenge was what tone to go for.

The original song contender “Fight For You” is a hopeful one. As a fan of Fred Hampton’s story, the songwriter knew she could make a masterpiece drawing on artists such as Marvin Gaye, Nina Simone and Sly and the Family Stone. “That whole era, the late ’60s and ’70s is my favorite, and my favorite era of music is soul music.”

When it came to the instruments, H.E.R says she picked up a bass and added aggressive drums as a start.

With that in mind, the song started to come together. As she was writing it, she notes, “There’s not much that separates that time and that story from what’s going on right now with the

International sales agency The Open Reel has scored a number of sales at the Berlin European Film Market (EFM).

Daniel Sánchez López’s BFI Flare Lgbtiq+ Film Festival selection “Boy Meets Boy,” a German production, has sold to Peccadillo Pictures for the U.K. and Ireland and to Optimale to France and Francophone territories. The film, about a brief encounter in Berlin between two young men, previously sold to Salzgber for Germany and German-speaking territories, Gagaoolala for South and Southeast Asia and to Ariztical for North America.

Jessé Miceli’s Cambodia/France production “Coalesce” has been sold to Gagaoolala for South and Southeast Asia and to Ariztical for North America. The Phnom Penh-set film follows three disparate lives in the city.

Ariztical has also picked up David Moragas’ Spanish production “A Stormy Night” for North America. The film follows two boys who have to weather 12 hours of a New York storm together.

What does it feel like when your relationship to the world around you unexpectedly and dramatically alters? It’s a question “Sound of Metal” writer/director Darius Marder had to think through at every step of the process of telling the story of Ruben (Riz Ahmed), a recovering addict and hardcore drummer who loses his hearing.

While on the Filmmaker Toolkit Podcast, Marder and Ahmed discussed how the key to tuning the audience into Ruben’s experience was to first create an immersive and realistic experience for the actor on set. “It all boils down to the same thing, which is veracity,” explained Marder. “When we look upon truth and we feel truth. … I think we recognize something fundamentally human when that happens.”

To prepare for the role, Ahmed learned American Sign Language (Asl) and how to drum. He even wore a custom device in his ears that emitted white noise,

Joan Weldon, an opera singer and actor who starred in the 1954 sci-fi film “Them!,” died on Feb. 11 in her home in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., her family announced Thursday. She was 90.

“With profound sadness, we announce the passing of Joan Louise Weldon Podell, a loving and devoted mother, wife, grandmother and dear friend, on February 11th, 2021, who passed away peacefully at her home in Fort Lauderdale Fl,” the family wrote. “A talented and successful opera singer and actress of theatre, film, musicals and television, she was simply known to many as Joanie, whose love for light-hearted pranks and practical jokes spread joy wherever she went.”

In “Them!,” which was nominated for a special effects Oscar and spawned a series of “big bug” movies in Hollywood, she played Dr. Patricia Weldon, who helps destroy the colony of mutant ants along with her doctor father.

Weldon made her professional stage debut at 16 years old,

Hulu’s “The United States vs Billie Holiday” won the top prize and Aaron Sorkin (“The Trial of the Chicago 7”) was a double winner in AARP Magazine’s annual awards, while “This Is Us” and “The Queen’s Gambit” were saluted in AARP’s first TV honors.

The winners:

Picture/Movie for Grownups: “The United States vs. Billie Holiday”

Actress: Sophia Loren (“The Life Ahead”)

Actor: Anthony Hopkins (“The Father”)

Supporting actress: Jodie Foster (“The Mauritanian”)

Supporting actor: Demián Bichir (“Land”)

Director: Aaron Sorkin (“The Trial of the Chicago 7”)

Screenwriter: Aaron Sorkin (“The Trial of the Chicago 7”)

Ensemble: “One Night in Miami”

Intergenerational: “Minari”

Buddy picture: “Da 5 Bloods”

Time Capsule: “Mank”

Grownup love story: “Supernova”

Documentary: “A Secret Love”

Foreign/international film: “Collective” (Romania)

Actress (TV): Catherine O’Hara (“Schitt’s Creek”)

Actor (TV): Mark Ruffalo (“I Know This Much Is True”)

Series: “This Is Us” (NBC

Apple TV+ has just ordered its first Korean-language project. Kim Jee-woon, who directed A Tale of Two Sisters and I Saw the Devil, will write and direct a new series called Dr. Brain for the streaming service, and Parasite actor Lee Sun-kyun will star. The series is based on a Korean webtoon of the same name, and follows a scientist who […]

The post ‘Dr. Brain’: Apple TV+ Orders New Sci-Fi Series From ‘I Saw the Devil’ Director Kim Jee-Woon appeared first on /Film.

Hulu is heading to high school. The streamer has greenlit production on “Sex Appeal,” a teen comedy about the not-so-exact science of love.

Directed by Talia Osteen in her feature directorial debut, “Sex Appeal” will star Mika Abdalla (Netflix’s “Project Mc2”) and Jake Short (Hulu’s “All Night”). Tate Hanyok, whose credits include “Transparent” and “Superstore,” will write and executive produce the film. Production company American High is backing the project.

“Sex Appeal” centers on high-schooler Avery Hansen-White (Abdalla), a perfectionist at least by her own standards. When her long-distance boyfriend hints at wanting to take their relationship to the next level at the upcoming Stem conference (otherwise known as “nerd prom”), she sets out to master her sexuality. As she begins to study the mechanics of love, she realizes that relationships require less science and more heart.

“This is the movie I wish I had when I was in high school,

Before Wakanda, there was Zamunda, the fictional African kingdom Eddie Murphy’s Prince Akeem stood to inherit in “Coming to America.” As depicted in John Landis’ hit 1988 comedy, Zamunda was a country untouched by colonialism, where Black culture was celebrated as never before on-screen. In particular, its multifaceted showcase of African fashion, music and dance are exquisite, and throwaway jokes (like the Soul Glo TV spot) remain quotable to this day.

Alas, many critics dismissed the movie as a trite fairy tale at the time, failing to grasp the radical novelty that Zamunda represented to Black audiences. Thirty years later, they wouldn’t dare make the same mistake with “Black Panther,” recognizing that film’s exuberant Afrocentrism as what set it apart from other Marvel movies. But Eddie Murphy got there first, and now, in the golden years of the Golden Child’s career, the comic is cashing in once again.