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Bret Easton Ellis has written the novels that have inspired such films as Less Than Zero, American Psycho, The Rules of Attraction, and The Informers, and has written the screenplays for The Canyons, The Curse of Downers Grove, and Smiley Face Killers. Now he’s set to make his feature directorial debut with the horror film Relapse – and Joseph Quinn, who played a fan favorite character in season 4 of the Netflix series Stranger Things and will be seen in the upcoming A Quiet Place: Day One, has signed on to star in the film!

Quinn’s Relapse character is Matt Cullen, who checks into rehab after witnessing a horrific death during a drugged-up party. Three months later, he is set to get his life back together, staying at his parent’s mansion in the hills of Los Angeles. But things have changed around Matt and everything seems off balance. Fueled...

Bret Easton Ellis is finally taking a seat in the director’s chair.

After his slated feature directorial debut “The Deleted” was pivoted into a web series on the since-defunct social platform Fullscreen, famed author and screenwriter Ellis will direct horror film “Relapse.” Ellis penned the script about a man (played by “Stranger Things” breakout Joseph Quinn) who witnesses a brutal death during a drug party and is thrust into an unsteady existential crisis upon entering rehab. Variety first reported the news of the project.

The film’s official synopsis reads: “Fueled by his unstable personality and the invading power of social media, Matt Cullen’s paranoia grows, messing up with his rehabilitation program. As he starts using again, a mysterious presence starts growing around Matt, and a monster that has been haunting him since he was a teenager reveals itself. His therapist tries to help, convinced that the monster...

Subversive American author Bret Easton Ellis is set to make his directorial debut with “Relapse,” an elevated horror film he wrote starring “Stranger Things” breakout Joseph Quinn.

Paris-based Snd has boarded the project as producer, alongside Adrian Guerra’s Nostromo (“Penny Dreadful”) and Simon Wallon’s Kiss & Kill (“Bonnie”). Snd will handle worldwide sales on “Relapse,” as well as French distribution, and will tease the title at the EFM with an exclusive sizzle reel.

Quinn, who will next be seen in “A Quiet Place: Day One” and the “Gladiator” sequel, will star in “Relapse” as Matt Cullen, who checks into rehab after witnessing a horrific death during a drugged-up party. Three months later, he is set to get his life back together, staying at his parent’s mansion in the hills of Los Angeles. But things have changed around Matt and everything seems off balance.

“Fueled by his unstable...

Most giant film festivals are all about the present — and future — of cinema by their very nature. Audiences assemble to see premieres of the latest films that will come to define the upcoming months and discover new talent who will make their mark on the form. But given the collective cinephilia of the crowd, smart festivals also devote some of their programming to pay tribute to the rich archives of the medium that deserves recognition or rediscovery.

After two years dormant during the pandemic, the Venice Film Festival's classics sidebar came roaring back. The fest presented a plethora of new restorations that will no doubt trickle out through repertory cinemas and onto specialized physical media. But this section also included a handful of documentaries about cinema itself that took a critical lens to exploring the history and legacy of performers and projects alike. Here's what we took away after watching four informative,...

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A loving tribute to veteran casting director Bonnie Timmermann, Simon Wallon’s Bonnie shoots itself in the foot in its opening minutes. As we watch rough VHS tapes documenting the subject’s early interviews with actors like Benicio Del Toro, Natalie Portman and Kate Winslet — all so impossibly young, beautiful and lovable — we already resent the more mundane docu-stuff to come. Why not just gather all these tapes you can get permission for, have Timmermann do a bit of intro and make it a series for streaming? Most movie buffs would watch hours and hours before getting their fill.

Admittedly, that wouldn’t really be a movie. And Wallon succeeds if, in throwing this stuff up front, he means to convey the excitement a casting agent feels when getting to know someone the whole world is about to love. We get it; we want more.

While she may not be a household name compared to the directors that she has worked for, Bonnie Timmermann’s IMDb reads as a decade-spanning watch list of some of the best films ever made. The legendary casting director behind “The Karate Kid,” “Manhunter,” “Bull Durham,” “Glengarry Glen Ross,” “Armageddon,” and about a hundred other films that you’ve seen gets an earnest, if not exactly insightful, documentary about her work in Simon Wallon’s fawning “Bonnie.”

Using direct interviews with Timmermann, as well as friends and colleagues, and never-before-seen audition tapes, “Bonnie” is perhaps more interesting for what it reveals about the audition process than anything about Bonnie herself — who oddly remains a cipher despite the film being ostensibly about her.

Continue reading ‘Bonnie’ Review: A Legendary Casting Director Gets Her Own Doc, But It’s Maybe More Fawning Then Insightful [Venice] at The Playlist.

Casting director Bonnie Timmermann, behind such films as “Heat” and “Dirty Dancing,” finds herself on the opposite side of the camera in Venice doc “Bonnie,” directed by Simon Wallon. Brian Cox, Mark Ruffalo, Benicio del Toro and Melissa Leo are featured, while Kinology is handling sales.

“It’s almost as if she was the one being auditioned. I wanted to treat her almost like a character in a movie. She is looking straight into the eyes of the audience,” says Wallon.

Adapting to the new role was hard, Timmermann tells Variety in Venice, but luckily it came with some perks.

“Simon put me in a taxi in Times Square. There were lights and cameras everywhere, and somebody screamed: ‘Lady Gaga is in the car!’ I just struck a pose. For two minutes, I was a star.”

Timmermann has discovered plenty of stars over the years, with their old casting tapes now resurfacing in the film.

Amanda Sthers, the critically acclaimed French author, filmmaker and producer, who’s at the Venice Film Festival with the feature documentary “Bonnie,” will produce “Love Birds,” an animated film with an inclusive message, aimed at family audiences.

Sthers will produce the big-budget feature through her recently launched L.A.-based outfit Idea(L) and has teamed up with one of France’s leading animation studios, Tat, whose credits include “The Jungle Bunch” franchise.

Based on Sthers’ idea, the English-language “Love Birds” is written by Debbie Jhoon and J. Michael Feldman, the writing duo behind “Mafia Mamma,” Catherine Hardwicke’s crime comedy with Toni Collette, which Sthers also created and is producing.

“Love Birds” revolves around a female lovebird who travels the country to find her crush. She travels with an annoying but amusing pigeon, and will discover that all forms of love exists in nature, from gay couples to single moms or stepfamilies,...

Los Angeles-based producer Thomas Augsberger is launching Erm Docs, a new documentary division at his Eden Rock Music label whose first title, “Reinventing Mirazur,” will world premiere at the San Sebastian Festival.

A portrait of the extraordinary daring of Argentine-born chef Mauro Colagreco whose three Michelin star restaurant, Mirazur, on France’s Mediterranean coast, was awarded Best Restaurant in the World, “Reinventing Miramar” marks the latest title from French filmmakers Frank Ribière and Vérane Frediani. Prominent producers on France and Spain’s genre scene, they have opened up a parallel second career as director-writers of high-quality culinary doc-features of substance with titles such as Netflix’s “Steak Revolution” and “A la Récherche des femmes chefs.”

Also in the pipeline at Erm Docs is “Bonnie,” a portrait of famed casting agent Bonnie Timmermann directed by Simon Wallon and produced with Amanda Sthers; and “Form Doc,” about the Form Arcosanti Film & Arts...