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Editor’s Note: This review was originally published during the 2024 Tribeca Festival. Vertical releases “Griffin in Summer” in select theaters Friday, August 29, 2025.

Griffin Nafly (Everett Blunck) is not like other 14-year-olds. Consider his contribution to his school’s end-of-the-year talent show: a snippet of his latest play in which he reads for both lead roles, a disaffected stockbroker and his drunk wife, as they scream and carry on about everything from infidelity to abortions. While everyone else is happy with pop song duets, it’s Griffin — too old for his years, too young to really break free — who wants to bring some actual art to the suburban stage.

And while that might all be Ok, even kinda fun, the real problem isn’t just that Griffin isn’t like most other 14-year-olds, it’s that he’s not even really like his closest friends either. While his childhood pals, including...

The Gilded Age star Carrie Coon is returning to Broadway in Bug, written by her husband Tracy Letts (August: Osage County).

Letts’ play heads to Broadway following its 2021 run at Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre. The production begins performances on Wednesday, December 17 at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre with opening night set for Thursday, January 8, 2026.

Bug, directed by David Cromer (Prayer for the French Republic), revolves around an unexpected and intense romance between a lonely waitress, played by Coon, and a mysterious drifter, played by Namir Smallwood. What begins as a simple connection between two broken people in a seedy Oklahoma motel room twists into something far more dangerous. When reality slips out of grasp, paranoia, delusion, and conspiracy take over in this sexy psychological thriller, per the synopsis.

Cast also includes Randall Arney as Dr. Sweet, Jennifer Engstrom as R.C. and Steve Key as Jerry Goss.

Bug marks Coon...

Manhattan Theatre Club will present the Broadway premiere of Bug, written by Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize winner Tracy Letts, and directed by Tony Award winner David Cromer. This production of Bug comes to Broadway following its 2021 run at Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre. Check out photos from the Steppenwolf production here. Bug begins performances on Wednesday, December 17, 2025 at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre. Opening night is Thursday, January 8, 2026. Bug will star three-time Emmy Award nominee and Tony Award nominee Carrie Coon as Agnes White, Namir Smallwood as Peter Evans, Randall Arney as Dr. Sweet, Jennifer Engstrom (Sweet Bird of Youth at...

Beyond Hope A long time ago…in this galaxy that was this one right here that we’re on right now… ‘Star Wars: A New Hope’ hit theaters. At the time, in 1977, the title was simply ‘Star Wars’. Now, as the 50th anniversary of that original release approaches, the monomyth that gave rise to this great cinematic institution, the original ‘Star Wars’ will be re-released in theaters. The sole disappointment of the Star Wars fans is that they must wait another 2 years for the event. The property is approaching its half-century mark, and yet it has not only persevered but flourished- into what many argue is an overly wide and winding expanse. By virtue of the franchise’s sheer lucrativeness, those who were supposedly meant to be its stewards seem to have rejected the idea of a dignified conclusion- a harsh reality that the fans, however reluctantly, however woefully, have long since come to accept.

Eileen Fulton, the award-winning actress who captivated audiences for five decades with her portrayal of the fiery and iconic Lisa Grimaldi on CBS’ As the World Turns, has died at the age of 91. Fulton passed away on July 14 in her hometown of Asheville, N.C., after “a period of declining health,” her family announced.

A trailblazer in daytime television, Fulton first joined As the World Turns in 1960. Initially cast for a three-month summer storyline, her performance as one of TV’s first “bad girls” transformed the role into a cultural phenomenon. Her 50-year tenure, spanning until the series’ final episode in September 2010, makes her one of the longest-running actors in soap-opera history.

Fulton’s contributions to the world of daytime drama earned her numerous accolades, cementing her legacy as a soap superstar. She was nominated for one competitive Daytime Emmy: Best Supporting Actress in 1988 (she lost the award to All...

Steppenwolf Theatre Company just celebrated opening night of Noah Diaz’s Chicago premiere of You Will Get Sick. Directed by Artistic Director Audrey Francis, the cast features ensemble members Cliff Chamberlain, Amy Morton (Tony nominations: August: Osage County and Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?) and Namir Smallwood, with Jordan Arredondo (Steppenwolf debut) and Sadieh Rifai (First Look Repertory of New Work). A young man with a secret. An older woman who will listen. A predatory flock of birds. An upcoming audition for The Wizard of Oz. Welcome to You Will Get Sick, a wildly imaginative new play that traces the hilarious and deeply moving saga of one man’s illness and his unlikely caretaker’s pursuit of her dreams. Noah Diaz’s Chicago debut is equal parts buddy-comedy, form-bending experiment...

For Brittany Cartwright and Jax Taylor, stars of Bravo’s hit reality show “The Valley,” toxic arguments were nothing new. It’s why Cartwright left Taylor in January 2024, taking their young son, Cruz, with her. But last July, two days before the show’s second season started production, Taylor crossed a line. Cartwright and Cruz visited him at the Valley Village home where he continued to live, and while looking at the family iPad, Taylor found intimate texts between Cartwright and a friend of his. As Taylor later recounted in the Season 2 premiere, “I went full fucking unhinged rage.”

In a frenzy, Taylor flipped over a coffee table — which, Cartwright says on the show, hit her knee, hurting her, and “it turned black immediately.” He punched the wall. He threw furniture, breaking one of the kitchen bar stools. All the while, 3-year-old Cruz was in the next room.

In the show’s April 15 premiere,...

Three months after making history as the first Black man to win the Oscar for Best Costume Design for his work on Wicked, Paul Tazewell scored the Tony Award on Sunday for Best Costume Design of a Musical for Death Becomes Her. That makes him just the second person in history to win an Oscar and Tony for costume design in the same calendar year.

"Having been a part of Death Becomes Her and creating a piece of theater where people can be laughing and joyful, I think that that makes a huge difference in people's lives," Tazewell told Gold Derby a week ago. "That's why I do what I do.

Read: 'Death Becomes Her' costume designer Paul Tazewell on creating show's spectacular outfits: 'Theater-making is about the impossible' (exclusive images)

Tazewell previously won the Tony for Hamilton in 2016, joining the following list of individuals who won both...

Even though it aired for seven seasons between 1997 and 2003, "Just Shoot Me!" isn't as appreciated as it should be. While it's rarely considered to be one of the best sitcoms of all time, "Just Shoot Me!" was a strong part of NBC's late-'90s sitcom lineup, following the lives of employees at a fashion magazine, namely the outspoken Maya (Laura San Giacomo) and her boss and father, Jack (George Segal).

The show's supporting cast also includes lots of great comedians, as well as a slew of guest stars like Joe Rogan, Jessica Walter, and Mark Hamill. It's even produced one of the greatest sitcom episodes of the past 30 years with "Slow Donnie," a season 3 episode featuring David Cross pre-"Arrested Development." 

Whether you agree "Just Shoot Me!" is an underrated sitcom that you should check out or not, its cast has gone on to do quite a lot since the show ended.

Paul Tazewell recently made history as the first Black man to win the Oscar for Best Costume Design for his work on Wicked. Now, he's currently the frontrunner to win Best Costume Design of a Musical at this year's Tony Awards for Death Becomes Her. If he prevails, Tazewell would be just the second person in history to win an Oscar and Tony for costume design in the same calendar year.

Tazewell is already a Tony winner, having previously triumphed for Hamilton in 2016. In fact, he's now on the following list of individuals who have won both Tonys and Oscars for costume design:

Irene Sharaff — won her first Oscar in 1952 for An American in Paris; won the Tony in 1952 for The King & I; won four more Oscars in 1956 for that musical's subsequent film version, 1962 for West Side Story, 1964 for Cleopatra, and 1967 for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. Cecil Beaton...

Richard Burton never got around to writing an official set of memoirs before his untimely, alcohol-hastened death in 1984, though the star’s posthumously published diaries are among the great volumes of their kind in the showbiz library: sometimes brutally candid about himself, often savagely catty about others, and reflective of a wry, wicked mind behind the boorish antics that kept him in the headlines. There’s little of that wit or mischief to be found in Marc Evans’ quiet, earnestly soft-hearted biopic “Mr. Burton,” though that discrepancy is at least partly the point.

Dramatizing the Welshman’s formative early years as an actor, from his rough working-class adolescence to the brink of celebrity in his mid-twenties, Evans’ film intends to show us an unformed boy scarcely recognizable as the imposing, burgundy-voiced lead of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” and “Look Back in Anger,” right down to his unfamiliar childhood name: Richie Jenkins.

Scott Rudin is planning to return to Broadway next season.

The film and theater producer, who left the Broadway industry in 2021 after an article in The Hollywood Reporter detailed numerous claims of Rudin bullying assistants, now says he plans to stage three Broadway productions next season, with two starring Laurie Metcalf and directed by Joe Mantello, according to The New York Times.

As he prepares his return, Actors’ Equity says it will safeguard against any “bullying, harassment and discrimination” for stage managers or actors on productions he would be involved in.

“If Rudin is producing on Equity agreements, we will enforce them. They include strong protections against bullying, harassment and discrimination – stronger now even than when he last used them in 2021. Anyone who experiences or witnesses bullying, harassment, discrimination, etc in a workplace where Equity contracts are in use, whether or not they themselves are an Equity member, can file...

Carrie Coon is a gift. Ever since she made her Broadway debut as Honey in the 2010 revival of Edward Albee's "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?," she's been one of the most sought-after actors for the kinds of roles that are reserved for performers who have that extra oomph factor. It's an ineffable quality. You just know it when you see it, and Coon possesses it in spades. She was transcendent on television as the grieving Nora Durst in "The Leftovers," the dogged sheriff Gloria Burgle in "Fargo" season 3, and would-be New York City socialite Bertha Russell in "The Gilded Age," and has also been sensational in movies like "Gone Girl," "His Three Daughters," and "Lake George." Coon is both an invigoratingly versatile actor and an arresting presence regardless of her character's demeanor.

When Coon was cast for the third season of Mike White's acerbic actors' showcase "The White Lotus,...

To celebrate the release of A Touch of Love now available on Blu-Ray, DVD and Digital, we are giving away 2 Blu-Rays to 2 lucky winners!

Directed by Emmy award-winning director Waris Hussein and adapted by Margaret Drabble from her novel ‘The Millstone’. The film stars Oscar-winning actress Sandy Dennis (Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?) and the eminent Sir Ian McKellen in his first significant film role.

Sandy Dennis stars as Rosamund, a student and daughter of emotionally distant parents. After her first sexual encounter with handsome television announcer George played by Ian McKellen, Rosamund discovers she’s pregnant. After her failed attempt to terminate the pregnancy, she decides to keep the baby, despite pressure from friends and relatives. Preparing herself for the indignities and isolation that being a single mother will bring, she is adamant about not revealing the identity of the father, realising that however much she may need a husband,...

It'd be way too trite and (dare I say it) pretentious to claim that "Black Bag," Steven Soderbergh's second movie of 2025 following the minimalist ghost story "Presence," is actually a feature-length dissertation about how filmmaking has more in common with spycraft than you'd think. Watching this slickly-made espionage thriller, however, might leave you with the impression that the thought has crossed his mind once or twice. For someone who routinely directs multiple movies (and TV show episodes!) a year and insists on handling everything from editing to cinematography himself, it's fair to wonder when exactly this guy sleeps, eats, or lives anything close to a normal life outside of the camera. So, maybe it was only inevitable that he'd finally reflect this exact experience on the screen with one of the smartest, laser-focused, and downright obsessive spy movies in quite some time.

Soderbergh hasn't returned to this setting since 2011's "Haywire,...

It’s time to review the 2025 Oscar nominations! That’s because tonight is the 97th Academy Awards (learn how to watch here), and, my, have things in the Oscar race changed since this full list of noms was unveiled January 23. See the complete list of nominees for the 2025 Oscars below, and see our full list of Oscar predictions here.

“Emilia Pérez” seemed like the definitive Best Picture frontrunner at that time, cleaning up with 13 nominations. Now, following the implosion of Best Actress nominee Karla Sofía Gascón, and the growing outcry against the film in Mexico, its Oscar chances seem pretty much dead, except for likely Best Supporting Actress winner Zoe Saldaña and maybe Best International Feature. In her own final Oscar picks, Anne Thompson also has “El Mal” from the Jacques Audiard movie winning Best Original Song.

Mind you, “Emilia Pérez,” in scoring 13 noms, tied with multiple other films such as “Gone with the Wind,...

Elizabeth Taylor was the glamorous Hollywood icon who starred in dozens of movies throughout her career, collecting two Best Actress trophies at the Oscars and three additional nominations. But how many of those titles remain classics? Let’s take a look back at 15 of her greatest films, ranked worst to best.

Born in 1932, Taylor began her career as a child actress, landing her first leading role when she was just 12-years-old with “National Velvet” (1944). She quickly transitioned into adult stardom, earning her first Oscar nomination as Best Actress for “Raintree County” (1957). Subsequent bids for “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” (1958) and “Suddenly, Last Summer” (1959) quickly followed.

She collected her first statuette playing a prostitute with man troubles in “Butterfield 8” (1960), a film she openly hated. Her win probably had more to do with an emergency tracheotomy she underwent right before the ceremony than the performance, but either way, Taylor was...

The papal drama “Conclave” has been named the best film of 2024 at the Ee BAFTA Film Awards, which took place on Sunday in London.

Voters from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts spread the wealth, giving “Conclave” and “The Brutalist” four awards each and giving two to “Dune: Part Two,” “Wicked,” “Emilia Perez,” “A Real Pain,” “Anora” and “Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl.”

The win for “Conclave” is the most significant for the film in a season in which “Anora” has been winning most of the major awards. It also gave director Edward Berger two BAFTA Best Film wins in the last three years, following his first for “All Quiet on the Western Front” two years ago.

The only other directors to have two films win the top BAFTA award in a span of three years are Mike Nichols (“Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” and “The Graduate...

When it comes to legends of the big screen, few names loom larger than Richard Burton. With his rugged good looks, incomparable baritone, reputation for raising hell, and magnetic charisma, the seven-time Oscar nominated Welshman — star of Look Back In Anger, Cleopatra, Becket, Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? — sits comfortably among Hollywood's all-time greats. But before there was Burton, there was Richard Jenkins, a young boy from Port Talbot with a head full of dreams and a long, long way to go to realise them. It's this story that Marc Evans' Mr. Burton – which stars Harry Lawtey (Joker: Folie À Deux) as a pre-Hollywood Jenkins, and Toby Jones as his unlikely mentor (and eventual adoptive father) Philip Burton – is set to tell. Check out an exclusive first trailer for the film below:

Releasing in this, the year that marks Richard Burton's 100th birthday, Mr. Burton promises to tell quite the origin story.

Time Addicts ** Australia 2023 Dir: Sam Odlum. 92 mins Desperation, drugs and time travel paradoxes in the house force Denise and Johnny to battle the past the future and themselves in Sam Odlum’s Time Addicts. Dialogue and scene-chewing screechy voices abound in this Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? (1966) by Mike Nichols crossed with [...]

The post Film Review: Time Addicts (2023) first appeared on Horror Screams Video Vault - Supporting Independent Horror.

There’s something embarrassing about being hunted down by a gangster who calls himself Leftie and runs around with a henchman called Lonnie. Those names should belong to the sweet old guys at the local nursing home. Instead, in the trailer for the action-comedy Riff Raff, they belong to Bill Murray and Pete Davidson, a gun-wielding duo out for revenge.

“You know, once you start killing, it sort of becomes your de facto solution for every problem,” Leftie (Murray) says in the clip. Killing is what kicked off this whole ordeal in the first place.

Before “Emilia Pérez” made history with 13 nominations at the 2025 Oscars — tying with “Gone with the Wind,” “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” and “Oppenheimer” for the second-most nods of all time — the film’s producers have backed a slew of indie hits.

Now, the filmography from producers Pascal Caucheteux and Grégoire Sorlat and their banner Why Not Productions is getting its due on the big screen. IndieWire can announce that with support from Netflix, the top Why Not Productions features will return to theaters. That includes Gregg Araki’s iconic 1995 Nc-17 crime film “The Doom Generation,” Claire Denis’ “White Material,” and Lynne Ramsay’s “You Were Never Really Here.”

Araki will appear for a Q&a with “The Doom Generation” at the Egyptian on Thursday, February 6 following the 7:30 p.m. show.

Additional directors featured in the program include Ken Loach, Arnaud Desplechin, and Cristian Mungiu. The program also will have...

For a race that seemed as unpredictable as any in recent history, the 2025 Oscar nominations came and went without many huge surprises. All the expected acting contenders — including frontrunners like Demi Moore, Adrien Brody, Timothée Chalamet, Zoe Saldaña, and Kieran Culkin — were bestowed with nominations on Thursday, as were several films long predicted to score Best Picture recognition. But while the 97th Oscars were perhaps shorter than usual on snubs and surprises, the list of nominees did clarify which films Academy voters truly loved and what might ultimately win Best Picture in March. Ahead are the key takeaways from the 2025 Oscar nominations.

Emilia Pérez is the front-runner to beat

With 13 Oscar nominations on Thursday, including Best Picture, Best International Feature, Best Director, and acting nominations for Karla Sofia Gascón and Zoe Saldaña, Emilia Pérez is not just the year’s top Oscar contender but one of the most decorated nominees in history.

As we wrap an epic day of coverage of the Oscar nominations, here are some final observations:

—It’s ironic that there will be no Best Song performances at this year’s 97th Academy Awards, because music-driven movies have rarely, if ever, made such an impact. This is the first time that three music-oriented/musical films have been nominated for Best Picture in the same year: Emilia Pérez (with its chart-topping 13 nominations), Wicked (with its 10), and the Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown (with eight). The last times that even two musicals faced off for Oscar’s biggest prize was in 1964 with My Fair Lady and Mary Poppins and in 1968 with winner Oliver! and Funny Girl.

—Emilia Pérez snared more noms than any foreign language film ever with 13, to lead all comers Thursday. It joins an impressive list of other 13-time Oscar nominees that includes The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,...

In case anyone needed a reminder that “Film Twitter” and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences are not populated by the same people, Emilia Pérez, the polarizing French-directed, Spanish-language musical about a trans Mexican gangster, landed a field-leading 13 Oscar nominations on Thursday morning. That tally — encompassing noms for best picture, director, actress, supporting actress, adapted screenplay, international feature, cinematography, film editing, makeup/hairstyling, original score, sound and two for original song — smashed the record for a non-English-language film (previously held by Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Roma, which had 10 each) and is just one shy of the all-time record for any film (All About Eve, Titanic and La La Land each landed 14).

Is Jacques Audiard’s Netflix film unbeatable? Of course not. Plenty of people have issues with the film, including many members of the Mexican and trans communities, who find it offensive, and critics and general audiences,...

Fernanda Torres and Karla Sofía Gascón made history on Thursday as the first pair of Best Actress Oscar nominees for non-English language performances in nearly 50 years. Torres stars in Sony Pictures Classics’ I’m Still Here from Brazil, while Gascón leads in Netflix’s Emilia Pérez from France. This marks the fourth time two actors have been nominated for non-English roles for different movies in the same year. They will compete against Cynthia Erivo (Wicked), Mikey Madison (Anora), and Demi Moore (The Substance). Both films are cited for Best International Feature and Best Picture while Emilia Pérez became the most-nominated international movie with 13 mentions.

In the Walter Salles‘ political biopic, Torres portrays Portuguese-speaking human rights activist Eunice Paiva, who searches for her missing husband, politician Rubens Paiva, during the Brazilian Military Dictatorship in 1971. Torres’ only precursor recognition was at the Golden Globes, where she surprised in Best Drama Actress. Despite missing at the Critics Choice,...

Joan Plowright, the heralded actress of stage and screen who was also the widow to Laurence Olivier, has passed away. Dame Joan Plowright was 95.

A native of Lincolnshire, England, Joan Plowright – who studied at the famed Bristol Old Vic Theatre School – first made her London stage debut in the mid-’50s. Soon after, she was working alongside Laurence Olivier, then already a well-established icon of the stage and screen himself, having combined these talents in an almost unprecedented way with Henry V and Hamlet. (He was also fresh off of his divorce from Vivien Leigh.)

The month after Joan Plowright married Olivier, she won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for A Taste of Honey. Plowright remained committed to the stage, steadily appearing in productions into the early ‘90s. Some key productions include The Crucible; Uncle Vanya; Three Sisters; Saturday, Sunday, Monday; Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?...

John F. Burnett, the veteran film editor who cut Grease, And Justice for All and Murder by Death and films for directors George Cukor, Blake Edwards and Sydney Pollack, has died. He was 90.

Burnett died Oct. 24 of natural causes in Lincoln, California, his son, cinematographer and producer John Earl Burnett, told The Hollywood Reporter. He said he chose not to disclose the news of his death until now for “personal family reasons.”

Burnett also worked with directors Robert Ellis Miller on The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1968), The Girl From Petrovka (1974) and Bed & Breakfast (1991) and with Herbert Ross on The Owl and the Pussycat (1970), The Sunshine Boys (1975) and The Goodbye Girl (1977).

He edited two sweeping ABC miniseries adapted from epic novels by Herman Wouk, 1983’s The Winds of War and 1990’s War and Remembrance, winning an Emmy (shared with Peter Zinner) for the latter.

Burnett got his start at Warner Bros.,...

Meryl Streep is the best of the best.

Her performance in Sophie’s Choice (1982) has been voted the greatest Oscar Best Actress winner ever, according to a Gold Derby ballot cast by 21 of our film experts, critics, and editors, who ranked all 97 movie champs.

Diane Keaton ranked second for Annie Hall (1977), with Jodie Foster following in third for The Silence of the Lambs (1991). Liza Minnelli for Cabaret (1972) and Vivien Leigh for A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) rounded out the top five.

At the bottom of the list of the Best Actress winners is Mary Pickford for Coquette (1929). Just above that film in the rankings are Luise Rainer for The Great Ziegfeld (1936), Helen Hayes for The Sin of Madelon Claudet (1932), Loretta Young for The Farmer’s Daughter (1947), and Marie Dressler for Min and Bill (1931).

Another recent Gold Derby poll of cinema experts declared The Godfather (1972) as the greatest Best Picture Oscar winner of all...

The performance by Meryl Streep in Sophie’s Choice (1982) has been voted the greatest Oscar Best Actress winner ever. The results are from a recent Gold Derby ballot cast by 21 of our film experts and editors, who ranked all 97 movie champs.

Ranking in second place is Diane Keaton for Annie Hall (1977). Following in third place is Jodie Foster for The Silence of the Lambs (1991). Rounding out the top five are Liza Minnelli for Cabaret (1972), and Vivien Leigh for A Streetcar Named Desire (1951).

At the bottom of the list of the Best Actress winners is Mary Pickford for Coquette (1929). Just above that film in the rankings are Luise Rainer for The Great Ziegfeld (1936), Helen Hayes for The Sin of Madelon Claudet (1932), Loretta Young for The Farmer’s Daughter (1947), and Marie Dressler for Min and Bill (1931).

Another recent poll had The Godfather (1972) declared as the greatest Best Picture Oscar winner of all time (view...

Niels Arestrup, the French-Danish actor and muse to Emilia Pérez director Jacques Audiard who appeared in international features including Steven Spielberg’s War Horse and Julian Schnabel’s The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, has died. He was 75.

Arestrup’s wife, Isabelle Le Nouvel, confirmed his death to Agence France-Presse on Sunday, saying he died “at the end of a courageous fight against illness.”

Arestrup will forever be linked to Audiard and his performances in the filmmaker’s The Beat That My Heart Skipped (2005) — playing the criminal father to Romain Duris’ would-be concert pianist — and A Prophet (2009), in which he embodies a terrifying Corsican mob boss who runs his operation from within prison.

Arestrup won best supporting acting César awards, France’s equivalent of the Oscar, for both roles, and the performances solidified his image as an onscreen villain with a piercing blue gaze who is barely holding back the violence within.

Like most fans of cinema, I enjoy reading a lot of reviews; not just to find a worthwhile movie to watch, but also to gain some insight and look into different perspectives on films that I find interesting. I especially like reading film reviews from the past to see how assessments back then measure up to how the film is viewed today, and to examine whether similar evaluations of the directors and predictions regarding their careers have aged well.

We all know how certain movies, like “The Thing” and “Blade Runner,” were poorly received during their time, only to become highly influential within their genres later on. But it’s even more fascinating to read why these movies were panned and what led to their reassessment. With that in mind, I would like to talk about eight reviews or assessments that I found particularly fun to revisit with the benefit of hindsight.

Since 2012, when she broke onto Broadway with “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?,” Carrie Coon has shared the stage (theatrical and sound) with a formidable number of acting icons. In “The Post,” she stood opposite Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep (while being directed by some nerd named Steven Spielberg). Then there’s “Widows” with Viola Davis, “The Nest” next to Jude Law, two “Ghostbusters” movies alongside Bill Murray, and, this critic would argue, “The Leftovers,” across from the incomparable Ann Dowd. Soon, she’ll be traveling back to “The Gilded Age” where she’ll thrust and parry with none other than Christine Baranski and Audra McDonald.

There are plenty more Oscar, Emmy, and Tony winners to add to the list — and more to come in the years ahead — but for all the praise Coon heaps on her cherished co-stars, she said there were only two times when she was “scared to...

In 1919, Hollywood was already under scrutiny. In the eyes of hanky-wringing, ultra-conservative watchdog groups, the film business had become a haven for sex and violence, presenting lascivious and salacious material to an unwitting, impressionable public. By 1921, the government was already proposing dozens of pieces of legislation to censor film content and reign in the indecency. The bulk of the proposed laws were draconian and terrible, and several states began forming specialized media censorship boards, each with their own rules. The film industry wouldn't have been able to comply with them all, as each state had a different decency standard. In response to the widespread moral panic, the film industry at large agreed to a means of self-censorship, hiring a conservative Presbyterian minister named Will H. Hays to oversee studio content and make sure no one was being naughty. 

Initially, Hays met with Hollywood muckety-mucks E.H. Allen of Paramount, Irving G.

Last month playwright Jez Butterworth brought his latest work, “The Hills of California,” to Broadway. The haunting family drama explores the relationships between four sisters and their dying mother in their creaky seaside home, seamlessly moving back and forth in time between 1976 and 1955. The play previously bowed in London earlier this year, and before coming stateside it earned two Olivier Award nominations for Best New Play and Best Actress for Laura Donnelly, who reprises her performance in New York.

Since his Broadway debut only 13 years ago, Butterworth has quickly established himself as one of the theater’s most accomplished contemporary playwrights. He has two Tony nominations to his name, for New York debut “Jerusalem” in 2011 and for his Tony-winning epic “The Ferryman” in 2019. Those nominations alone already tie him with theater royalty including Ayad Akhtar, Tony Kushner, Tracy Letts, David Mamet, Lynn Nottage, Eugene O’Neill, and Wendy Wasserstein — all...

Brendan Patrick Hughes’s “Dindin” is a chamber drama that revolves around four middle-aged people – a married couple and their two friends. It is based on a play that a cast member wrote and others decided to turn into a movie. All of them are theatre actors. So, the film feels almost like a play unfolding in the presence of cameras around. After all, it is basically just four people sitting across a table discussing a wide range of topics through a free-flowing conversation, shot mostly in black and white. In its limited setting, what matters are mainly the performances and the writing.

In such cases, the actors need to be skilled enough to make the conflicts seem believable or the stakes urgent. Their faces need to be lit in specific ways to reveal more details of their shifting dynamic. With its monochromatic setting, the lighting, camera angles, and composition...

The psychological thriller “Bone Lake” had its premiere at Fantastic Fest 2024 to critical acclaim. The film combines elements of horror, comedy and intimate relationships into an exploration of modern love.

Directed by Mercedes Bryce Morgan, “Bone Lake” follows two couples who book the same lakeside vacation home without realizing it. Their unexpected meeting turns awkward and then sinister. The film stars Marco Pigossi and Maddie Hasson as a stressed couple, and Alex Roe and Andra Nechita as a more reckless pair.

Morgan sought to balance humor with disturbing themes. She cited the classic “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” as an inspiration but said “Bone Lake” brings a “comedic, horror, psycho-sexual” perspective. Both actors and critics agree the movie successfully tackles deeper topics through its genre format.

Pigossi found his grounded character interesting against the increasingly bizarre situation. Nechita enjoyed portraying her character’s complexity, from sweetness to manipulation. Cinematographer Nick Matthews...

Like sisters are supposed to, the stars of “His Three Daughters” will support each other throughout this year’s Oscar race.

Carrie Coon, Natasha Lyonne, and Elizabeth Olsen — all praised for their performances in Azazel Jacobs’ family drama — have chosen to submit for Oscar consideration in the supporting actress category, it was revealed to Variety exclusively. In addition, co-stars Jovan Adepo, Jay O. Sanders and Rudy Galvan will be vying for supporting actor consideration.

Read: You can see all Academy Award predictions in all 23 categories on one page on the Variety Awards Circuit: Oscars.

Written and directed by Jacobs, “His Three Daughters” follows three estranged sisters reuniting to care for their terminally ill father in his Brooklyn apartment. The film premiered at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival and was acquired by Netflix for a reported $7 million. It has since received glowing reviews, maintaining a 98% score on Rotten Tomatoes. Variety’s chief film critic,...

I will describe him as I see him. He is a great, soft jelly thing. Smoothly rounded, with a huge mouth.

Ruben Fleischer's 2018 film "Venom" features a truly strange creature at its center. The film's main character is Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) a reporter from San Francisco who has fallen on hard times. Unexpectedly, he is attacked by a living blob of alien glop from beyond the stars, and the tar-like being seeps into his skin and occupies his body. The being, calling itself Venom, begins to communicate with Eddie psychically, encouraging him to hurt others and to generally be more reckless and daring. Occasionally, the glop seeps out from Eddie's body and wraps itself around his exterior, transforming them both into a slick, goo-skinned humanoid monster with massive puffy eyes and hundreds of razor-sharp teeth. In human form, Venom loves to bite off people's heads and eat them.

There’s no question Carrie Coon broke out with HBO series “The Leftovers.” Landing that role was a big deal for the actress. “I had little on-camera work up to that point,” she told IndieWire over Zoom. “I had done some commercial work in Chicago. I had done one guest star on ‘The Playboy Club,’ with Laura Benanti. I didn’t have that much on-camera experience.”

But a Tony nomination for her performance as Honey in Steppenwolf’s 2012 production of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” opened doors to meetings with casting directors — and her husband Tracy Letts. Ellen Lewis had Coon in for an audition. “I met with Damon [Lindelof],” said Coon. “I shot the pilot, which was only one speech, and then I went off and did ‘Gone Girl,’ which I also booked off a tape in my living room. I went through David Fincher boot camp. [‘The Leftovers’] was my first series regular job.

Ron Howard has always taken pride in being an eclectic filmmaker — in the last 40 years, he has made movies about mermaids, cocoons, auto factories, astronauts, firefighters, newspapers, beautiful minds, cave rescuers, the Grinch, the Da Vinci Code, the Beatles, and Pavarotti. But at the Toronto Film Festival premiere of his latest movie, “Eden,” he declared that the film stands farther apart from his other work than anything he has ever done. He’s right, though not for the reason he thinks.

“Eden,” which is based on events that unfolded 100 years ago on one of the Galápagós Islands, is a difficult movie to characterize. It’s been labeled as a “thriller,” but I would describe it as a misanthropic survivalist “Robinson Crusoe” meets “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” with deranged footnotes by Friedrich Nietzsche. For Howard, the film sure is different. Yet there’s another word for it — the word is terrible.

Emma Watson’s transition from child star to global icon has been marked by a blend of self-awareness and maturity. Unlike many of her predecessors, Watson has skillfully balanced the demands of fame with a focus on personal growth and authenticity. This is particularly noteworthy considering that Emma Watson joined the Harry Potter franchise at just nine years old.

Emma Watson as Hermione Granger in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire || credits: Warner Bros Pictures

This stands in contrast to earlier stars like Elizabeth Taylor, who, despite her remarkable talent, experienced the pressures of growing up in the public eye, including having her first kiss on screen – a milestone that can feel particularly invasive. Watson has expressed gratitude for avoiding such early, highly scrutinized moments.

Emma Watson’s Commitment to Avoiding the Trap of Growing Up Too Quickly

Emma Watson has established her place in Hollywood with several well-acclaimed projects under her belt.

She was the most famous woman in the world. Her marriages (there were eight), affairs, jewelry and medical disasters were all exhaustively chronicled by the tabloids and paparazzi. But away from the klieg lights, a different side of Elizabeth Taylor — witty, wounded, desperate to prove herself — was shared with the tight circle of confidants who surrounded her during her tumultuous life.

And it’s one that Nanette Burstein, director of the new HBO documentary “Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost Tapes,” was able to highlight after the Taylor Estate contacted her and allowed her to sort through 40 hours of unreleased audio from interviews the screen legend conducted in the 1960s with journalist Richard Meryman.

“It’s extremely rare to have a legendary movie star be so candid about their inner life,” Burstein says. “It was an opportunity to not only understand this revered person in cinema history, but also to chart the...

The HBO Original documentary Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost Tapes, directed by award-winning filmmaker Nanette Burstein, debuted on Saturday, August 3rd on HBO and streaming on Max. An official selection of the 2024 Tribeca Film Festival, the film had its world premiere at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival.

Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost Tapes allows Elizabeth Taylor’s own voice to narrate her story, inviting audiences to rediscover not just a mega star of Hollywood’s Golden Age but a complex woman who navigated lifelong fame, personal identity, and public scrutiny on a global stage from early childhood. Through newly recovered interviews with Taylor and unprecedented access to the movie star’s personal archive, the film reveals the complex inner life and vulnerability of the Hollywood legend while also challenging audiences to recontextualize her achievements and her legacy.

In 1964, at the height of her fame, Elizabeth Taylor sat down with journalist Richard Meryman for a candid,...

The HBO Original documentary Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost Tapes, directed by award-winning filmmaker Nanette Burstein, debuts Saturday, August 3 (8:00 p.m.–9:45 p.m. Et/Pt) on HBO and will be available to stream on Max. An official selection of the 2024 Tribeca Film Festival, the film had its world premiere at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival.

Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost Tapes allows Elizabeth Taylor’s own voice to narrate her story, inviting audiences to rediscover not just a megastar of Hollywood’s Golden Age but a complex woman who navigated lifelong fame, personal identity, and public scrutiny on a global stage from early childhood.

Photo Courtesy of HBO

Through newly recovered interviews with Taylor and unprecedented access to the movie star’s personal archive, the film reveals the complex inner life and vulnerability of the Hollywood legend while also challenging audiences to recontextualize her achievements and her legacy.

In 1964, at the height of her fame,...

Hell yeah! HBO and Max’s new releases for July include the two-episode debut of Harley Quinn spinoff series Kite Man: Hell Yeah! (July 18) that follows the titular villain and his girlfriend the Golden Glider as they take their relationship to the next logical step – opening a bar for supervillains together. Hilarious hijinks are bound to ensue as Gotham’s hottest new bar takes off.

Football fans will get to follow the New York Giants in this season of Hard Knocks: Offseason starting July 2. This non-scripted series will follow the team as they prepare for their highly anticipated 100th season.

Notable movie releases this month include Love Lies Bleeding (July 19), the Katy O’Brian and Kristen Stewart-starring feature about the love affair between a reclusive gym owner Lou (Stewart) and bodybuilder Jackie (O’Brian). Anyone wanting to rewatch the original Twister before its sequel premieres in theaters this month are in luck,...

Zoë Chao of Peacock’s sci-fi rom-com If You Were the Last and Hadestown‘s Amber Gray will be among the cast of Manhattan Theatre Club’s Broadway staging of Jonathan Spector’s new comedy Eureka Day in December, producers have announced.

In addition to Chao and Gray, the full cast of Eureka Day will include Jessica Hecht, Bill Irwin (Tony Award winner for Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?) and Thomas Middleditch.

The all-new production follows an acclaimed London run.

Maleah Joi Moon has become the 101st performer to win a Tony Award for their first outing on a Broadway stage for her performance in the musical “Hell’s Kitchen.”

She won Best Actress in a Musical at the 77th Tony Awards for portraying Ali, a 17-year-old girl searching for her place in the world while living in the titular New York City neighborhood and also being restrained by her overbearing mother. She is the 10th person to win the category for her Broadway debut. She joins:

Elizabeth Seal, “Irma La Douce” (1961)

Anna Maria Alberghetti, “Carnival” (1962)

Liza Minnelli, “Flora the Red Menace” (1965)

Leslie Uggams, “Hallelujah, Baby” (1968)

Alexis Smith, “Follies” (1972)

Natalia Makarova, “On Your Toes” (1983)

Lea Salonga, “Miss Saigon” (1991)

Catherine Zeta-Jones, “A Little Night Music” (2010)

Cynthia Erivo, “The Color Purple” (2016)

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Other performers who pulled off this accomplishment in recent years include...

Everett Blunck shines as Griffin in a star-making performance. Griffin in Summer skillfully balances humor, heart, and adolescent struggles. The film's hopeful and earned ending hits all the right emotional notes.

Most people remember their first crush if not the person, then it's that initial feeling that lingers, but there's something about a young queer person's first crush that just hits different. It's not just discovering the capacity to really like someone it's the unearthing of a part of yourself that feels wholly new, wildly exciting, and a little bit scary. Griffin in Summer, a brilliant new feature from debut writer-director Nicholas Colia, is about one of those first crushes, but it becomes so much more over the course of its brisk runtime.

Griffin in Summer (2024)

Director Nicholas ColiaRelease Date June 6, 2024Writers Nicholas ColiaCast Gabriel J. Perez, Johanna Coln, Everett Blunck, Michael Esper, Abby Ryder Fortson, Owen Teague, Kathryn Newton,...

A celebrity from the age of 11, Elizabeth Taylor was practiced at public relations for almost all her life, so there aren’t many personal revelations in Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost Tapes. But Nanette Burstein’s elegantly constructed documentary, mostly in Taylor’s own words backed by illuminating archival images, works as a lively bit of film history about movie stardom in the volatile 1960s as the studio system was fading and the media exploding.

The film — which premiered at Cannes in the Cannes Classics sidebar — is based on 40 hours of recently rediscovered audiotapes, recordings Taylor made in the mid-1960s for a ghost-written memoir (long out of print). It was the most frenzied moment of her fame, when she was coming off the paparazzi-fueled scandal that was Cleopatra. Taylor, who died in 2011, recalls her many marriages — four when she made these recordings, since she was on the first of two...