News

Finding ways to take creative risks in the tricky environment of corporate studio financing was a major talking point at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

As a mixed Indigenous woman, Kali Reis, who’s featured in the drama “Rebuilding” alongside Josh O’Connor, often reflects on her own values before signing onto a role or agreeing to a new project.

“I look like a lot of misrepresented and underrepresented communities and if they see me speaking up and staying true to myself, that means more to me than getting cast in a major project,” Reis explained.

Havana Rose Liu, Logan Lerman, Cooper Raiff and Sophie Nélisse joined Reis at the “Risk Takers” panel moderated by Matt Donnelly, Variety‘s Senior Entertainment and Media Writer. The panel was presented by Variety & Acura Cocktails and Conversations at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

“Yellowjackets” star Nélisse, who was at Sundance this year...

Exclusive: Molly Gordon (Theater Camp), Logan Lerman (We Were the Lucky Ones), Geraldine Viswanathan (Drive-Away Dolls) and John Reynolds (Search Party) are set to star in Oh, Hi!, an indie comedy written and to be directed by Sophie Brooks (The Boy Downstairs), who conceived the story with Gordon.

Entering production in New York this month, the film centers on Iris (Gordon) and Isaac (Lerman), whose first weekend away as a couple is going so well — until Isaac mentions he didn’t know they were a couple. Iris is sure he’s just confused….so she decides to hold him captive until they get on the same page.

Brooks and Gordon developed the project alongside producers David Brooks and Dan Clifton. Julie Waters will also produce for Watermark Media, which is financing with QWGmire, AmorFortuna, and Bespoke Production Capital. The executive producers are Evan Dyal, Molly C. Quinn, Matthew M. Welty,...

Exclusive: Pulitzer Prize-winning August: Osage County playwright Tracy Letts has signed with UTA for representation in all areas, the agency said today.

A prolific playwright and actor, Letts’s career in theater has spanned decades, including the Tony- and Pulitzer-nominated The Minutes, which he wrote and starred in. The dark comedy opened on Broadway on April 17, 2022.

Letts’ other recent Broadway productions include his play Linda Vista in 2019. The same year, he starred opposite Annette Bening in a Broadway revival of Arthur Miller’s All My Sons, and he won a Tony for his portrayal of “George” in the 2012 revival of Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Letts was honored with the Pulitzer in 2008 for his August: Osage County, winner of five Tony awards including Best Play.

In 2019, Letts played Henry Ford II in James Mangold’s Ford v Ferrari and starred in Greta Gerwig’s Little Women.

Having recently shifted away from their one-film-a-day approach, Mubi has now unveiled their October lineup, which is headlined by Ira Sachs’ stellar drama Passages following its theatrical run this summer. The slate also features handpicked selections by Sachs, with work by Maurice Pialat, Luchino Visconti, Jack Hazan, Shirley Clarke, and Tsai Ming-liang.

Also arriving in October is “Watch If You Dare: Horror Halloween,” a series featuring a trio of giallo classics, with The Fifth Cord, The Possessed, and Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion, alongside Guillermo del Toro’s The Devil’s Backbone and more. The service will also spotlight the work of underseen Japanese director Yasuzô Masumura, including his aching melodrama Red Angel, his biting workplace satire Giants and Toys, his thrilling noir Black Test Car, and more.

Check out the lineup below and get 30 days free here.

October 1

The Infiltrators, directed by Alex Rivera, Cristina Ibarra | National Hispanic Heritage Month

The Vanished Elephant,...

Exclusive: Luke Wilson (Horizon: An American Saga) and Greg Kinnear (The Present) are set to star in You Gotta Believe, a film based on the inspirational true story of Fort Worth, Texas’ 2002 Westside Little League team. Others on board for roles in the pic from Santa Rita Film Co. include Sarah Gadon (Ferrari), newcomer Michael Cash, Etienne Kellici (Horizon: An American Saga) and Molly Parker (Deadwood).

Directed by Ty Roberts, who previously worked with Wilson on the Great Depression football drama 12 Mighty Orphans, the film currently in production follows a team of Little Leaguers who dedicate their season to a player’s dying father and, in the process, defy all odds to make it to the Little League Baseball World Series championship in a game that became an ESPN classic. Wilson will play the role of the dying father, Bobby Ratliff, with Kinnear as Coach Jon Kelly.

The film...

Logan Lerman has been cast in “We Were the Lucky Ones,” Hulu’s upcoming limited series based on Georgia Hunter’s 2017 novel of the same name.

Inspired by a true story, the series follows a Polish Jewish family that is separated by World War II and determined to survive and reunite. Lerman plays Addy, the middle child, who is 25 years old at the start of the war. He is an adventurer who lives in Paris as an engineer while also enjoying budding success as a music composer, and has an ability to find common ground with dissimilar people and a talent to fix anything. Addy’s character is inspired by Hunter’s grandfather, who was a young man in the late 1930s.

Lerman is best known for leading the 2010 and 2013 “Percy Jackson” films as well as 2012’s “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” with additional credits including “The Butterfly Effect,...

Exclusive: Verve has inked 3x Oscar-nominated filmmaker, producer and former Focus Features Features CEO James Schamus in all areas.

Early in his career, Schamus formed a creative partnership with filmmaker Ang Lee, and would go on to found production company Good Machine alongside Ted Hope and David Linde, which eventually sold to Universal Studios. Following that in 2002, as the CEO of Focus Features, Schamus went on to oversee a bulk of award-winning and Oscar lauded, generation-defining classics such as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Lost in Translation and Brokeback Mountain among many others.

Schamus was nominated as producer for Lee’s Brokeback Mountain, and received nods for Adapted Screenplay and Original Song (“A Love Before Time”) for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. That pic, on which Schamus was also an EP, notched 4 Oscar wins including Best Foreign Language Film, Art Direction, Original Score, and Cinematography.

In addition to his Oscar nominations,...

It is fitting that All My Puny Sorrows is making its world premiere at the 2021 Toronto International Film Festival. This is a quintessential TIFF film. There is the lovely Mongrel Media animated logo opening the proceedings. The setting is a blustery Winnipeg. It has an illustrious pedigree, based on a bestselling and award-winning novel from beloved Canadian author Miriam Toews. The cast features festival favorites Alison Pill and Sarah Gadon. And the director, Michael McGowan, has a hockey musical (!) in his past.

None of these elements should be considered problematic––well, perhaps the hockey musical. And yet they all contribute to the sense of overfamiliarity and predictability that burden All My Puny Sorrows. It is by no means a misfire and features a trio of tremendous performances from Pill, Gadon, and Mare Winningham. But given the source material and the ingredients, Sorrows certainly qualifies as a disappointment.

Dealing with sisterherhood,...

It’s summer, everyone! And with its relatively sparse list of new releases for July 2021, Hulu seems to be subtlety imploring its subscribers to go outside.

Don’t get us wrong: Hulu’s library offerings get a big upgrade this month. July 1 sees the arrival of great films like Galaxy Quest, Fargo, and Caddyshack. Bill and Ted Face the Music premieres on July 2 and its followed by Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar on July 9. Not bad stuff! It’s just that, outside of the library titles, there isn’t much to go off of.

Hulu’s only major original release this month is the FX on Hulu production American Horror Stories on July 15. As its name implies, the show is a spinoff of American Horror Story and will feature self-contained horror episodes rather than a season-long arc. If you’ll allow this geriatric millennial to deploy one truly ancient meme: “Yo dawg,...

“Succession” is filling out its cast ahead of the HBO show’s upcoming Season 3.

Sanaa Lathan, Linda Emond, Jihae have all joined the Golden Globe and Emmy-winning series. They join current series regulars like Brian Cox, Jeremy Strong, Kieran Culkin, Sarah Snook, Hiam Abbass, Nicholas Braun, Peter Friedman, Matthew Macfadyen, Alan Ruck, and Rob Yang.

Ambushed by his rebellious son Kendall (Strong) at the end of Season 2, Logan Roy (Cox) begins Season 3 in a perilous position. Scrambling to secure familial, political, and financial alliances, tensions rise as a bitter corporate battle threatens to turn into a family civil war.

Lathan will play Lisa Arthur, a high profile well-connected New York lawyer. Lathan’s past credits include the films “Alien vs. Predator,” “Love & Basketball,” and “Nappily Ever After” as well as shows like “The Affair,” “Shots Fired,” and the reboot of “The Twilight Zone.”

She is repped by CAA and Morris Yorn.

Much of the hypnotic pull of Charlie Kaufman’s “I’m Thinking of Ending Things” belongs to the soundscape created by composer Jay Wadley, who draws from Debussy, Ravel, and Stravinsky to create a palpable atmosphere of menace and swirling uncertainty. In the featurette below and exclusive to IndieWire, Wadley breaks down his process, the head-exploding opportunity of working with writer/director Kaufman, and the influences that drove him to compose the 100% original ballet that caps the film.

As delirious as Jessie Buckley’s character, a woman adrift in her relationship while on a fraught road trip to meet her boyfriend’s (Jesse Plemons) parents (Toni Colette and David Thewlis), becomes, so too is the audience plunged into a fragmenting mind whose sanity is shifting like tectonic plates, a seism just around the bend. That’s in part due to the music, which hurtles between genres, culminating in the film’s biggest set piece,...

Logan Lerman and Asa Butterfield will star in the film as a young Karl Rove and Lee Atwater in “College Republicans,” which topped the Black List in 2010, according to an individual with knowledge of the project.

James Schamus is set to direct Wes Jones’ buddy comedy. Based on true events, set in the summer of 1973, aspiring politician Karl Rove wants to become the next national chairman of the College Republicans — but the odds are stacked against him. He and his new campaign manager Lee Atwater set off on a road trip to drum up support before the vote and discover some dirty tricks along the way before ending up at the contested College Republican National Convention.

Also Read: 'Indignation' Review: Logan Lerman Carries Philip Roth's Study in Stubbornness

Logan Lerman; Lee Atwater in 1982 (Getty Images; White House Photographic Collection)

Producing the project are Likely Story’s Anthony Bregman and Peter Cron,...

Exclusive: Participant has boarded Abacus, the drama that Justin Lin will direct based on a script by Kenneth Lin and James Schamus. Participant joins as financier, and producer alongside Lin’s Perfect Storm Entertainment. Lin is producing with Ernesto Foronda and Elizabeth Urwin for Perfect Storm. Also producing is Mark Mitten. Exec producing are Participant’s Jeff Skoll and Anikah McLaren, along with Steve James, who helmed the Oscar-nominated 2016 documentary on which the film is based.

Perfect Storm Entertainment acquired the rights to the James-directed docu Abacus: Small Enough to Jail in 2017, after the film had a breakout premiere at the 2016 Toronto Film Festival. James separately directed the docuseries America to Me and City So Real for Participant, so the fit is good here.

Abacus is inspired by the true-story of the Sung family, whose family-run bank was the only U.

I did a double take when I saw the headline myself. Despite only launching a week ago, a not inconsiderable number of titles will be leaving HBO Max at the end of June. Logically, distribution contracts that were already running out weren’t going to stop running out just because Warner launched their new service, so you best get on these quick.

Here’s the list of all the movies leaving HBO Max on June 30th:

The Abyss

Akeelah and the Bee

American Wedding

An Ideal Husband

Arthur

Asylum

The Beverly Hillbillies

The Big Green

Blindspotting

Bye Bye, Love

Empire of the Sun

Glengarry Glen Ross

Grandma’s Boy

Great Expectations

A Handful of Dust

Head Full of Honey

Heaven & Earth

Hellboy

The Hoax

I Love You Phillip Morris

Indignation

Jiminy Glick in Lalawood

Jobs

Johnny English

Keeping Up with the Steins

Kin

Les Miserables

Hellboy Gallery 1 of 6

Click to...

The phrase “It’s not the destination, it’s the journey,” which has often (and perhaps erroneously) been attributed to American writer Ralph Waldo Emerson, was a familiar saying by about 1920. And it makes perfect sense that the phrase roughly coincides with the dawn of cinema, because filmmakers have been cinematically paraphrasing it for much of the last 100 years.

The latest example is “End of Sentence,” a road movie from first-time Icelandic feature director Elfar Adalsteins. The film drops John Hawkes and Logan Lerman in the northwest of Ireland for a father-son adventure that suggests that it’s not the journey or the destination – it’s the travelers who are on that road.

That’s because Hawkes and Lerman are subtle, naturalistic performers who spin gold out of settings that could easily seem clichéd. You pretty much know that these guys are on the road to understanding, acceptance and reconciliation,...

The first thing you ight notice about Elfar Adalsteins’ “End of Sentence,” , is that it seems to have everything backwards. John Hawkes should be playing the bitter jailbird, and Logan Lerman — who’s almost single-handedly kept the “nice Jewish boy” archetype relevant and appealing thanks to his work in the likes of “Indignation” and Amazon’s “Hunters” — should be the nervous wreck who lets people walk all over him. In a story about the intergenerational echoes of bad parenting, we expect the dad to be the one who’s hardened by inherited abuse, and his kid to be the one who cowers from it. But that’s how trauma gets handed down like some kind of blood-stained family heirloom: If you try to be the antithesis of the man who raised you, it’s only a matter of time before you start to resemble the man who raised him.

Lighter...

Exclusive: The cast of Quibi’s Liam Hemsworth-fronted untitled action thriller continues to grow with Jimmy Akingbola, Sarah Gadon and Zach Cherry in recurring roles. The trio joins previously announced cast members Christoph Waltz and Natasha Liu Bordizzo

The series from Scorpion creator Nick Santora follows Dodge Maynard (Hemsworth) who, out of desperation to take care of his pregnant wife before a terminal illness can take his life, accepts an offer to participate in a deadly game where he soon discovers that he’s not the hunter but the prey. Gadon is set to play Dodge’s wife Valerie and Cherry will step into the role of Looger, Dodge’s best friend from childhood. Akingbola’s role is being kept under wraps.

Santora will write and executive produce the series. Emmy-nominated director Phil Abraham (Mad Men) will helm and also executive produce. The yet-to-be-titled series comes from Santora, producer Gordon Gray,...

Watch intrigue and drama unfold in the trailer for Motherless Brooklyn, starring Writer/Director Edward Norton, Bruce Willis, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, with Alec Baldwin and Willem Dafoe. Only in theaters November 1.

It was announced that the movie will be the closing night selection at the 57th New York Film Festival.

https://www.filmlinc.org/nyff2019/films/motherless-brooklyn/

This is Oscar/Awards season bait… for sure! We can’t wait for this one!

Lionel Essrog (Edward Norton), a lonely private detective living with Tourette Syndrome, ventures to solve the murder of his mentor and only friend, Frank Minna (Bruce Willis). Armed only with a few clues and the engine of his obsessive mind, Lionel unravels closely guarded secrets that hold the fate of New York in the balance. In a mystery that carries him from gin-soaked jazz clubs in Harlem to the hard-edged slums of Brooklyn and, finally, into the gilded halls...

The Fleadh is a key festival in the Irish filmindustry calendar and the country’s largest film market.

Us producer, writer and director James Schamus will deliver a keynote speech at the Fleadh Forum at the Galway Film Fleadh (July 9-14).

Schamus is the latest high-profile guest to be announced as an attendee at this year’s Fleadh, a key festival in the Irish film industry calendar and the country’s largest film market.

The award-winning screenwriter (The Ice Storm), producer (Brokeback Mountain) and director (Indignation) is the former CEO of Focus Features and now runs his own New York-based outfit Symbolic Exchange.

Cornerstone Films has boarded sales on Josephine Decker’s “Shirley,” the psychological drama starring Elisabeth Moss as famed horror author Shirley Jackson, whose “The Haunting of Hill House” was recently turned into a Netflix series.

“Shirley” is based on the screenplay by Sarah Gubbins (“I Love Dick”), adapted from the novel by Susan Scarf Merrell. Michael Stuhlbarg (“The Shape of Water”) plays Jackson’s college professor husband Stanley Hyman.

Logan Lerman (“Indignation”) and Odessa Young (“Assassination Nation”) play a young couple who move in with Shirley and Stanley and find themselves fodder for a psychodrama that inspires Shirley’s next novel.

Cornerstone Films will screen footage from “Shirley” in Berlin as the presales effort gets underway at the Efm. Paradigm and UTA are overseeing North American sales.

U.K.-based Cornerstone is run by Alison Thompson and Mark Gooder. “Josephine Decker is one of the most exciting new voices in American cinema and she is,...

James Schamus has been through many career stages. For 12 years, he ran Focus Features, bringing the sensibilities of a veteran independent producer and cinephile into the studio arena, where he shepherded along revered arthouse hits ranging from “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” to “Brokeback Mountain.” Focus owner Universal fired Schamus during a period of restructuring for the company in 2012, and he chose to avoid the same path for his next move.

“After I got fired, I made a very conscious decision not to keep my status, figure out how to get my ticket to the Academy Awards, or attach myself to all these projects as an executive producer so I could be on the red carpet,” he said, during a public conversation at the 10th annual GlobeScreen Conference in Manhattan on Wednesday night. “I decided to take the smallest financing deal that I could. It was hard.” He turned a lot of offers.

Philip Roth, the American novelist responsible for such seminal works as “American Pastoral” and “Goodbye, Columbus,” died Tuesday. He was 85.

The New Yorker reported that friends close to Roth had confirmed his death.

Throughout his career, Roth won two National Book Awards in addition to the Pulitzer Prize for fiction for his 1997 book “American Pastoral,” which featured his recurring alter ego Nathan Zuckerman. He was well known for writing about the Jewish experience, as well as American ideals, personal identity, and the human body, through autobiographical fiction.

Roth was born in Newark, N.J. in 1933 to first-generation parents and grew up in the Weequahic neighborhood, which would go on to provide the setting for his famous novel “Portnoy’s Complaint.”

His career was prolific, beginning with 1959’s “Goodbye, Columbus” and spanning well into the 2000s, with “Exit Ghost” in 2007. In 2012, he announced he would be retiring from writing fiction after...

The Oscar nominated coming-of-age film Lady Bird has been making a lot of buzz in the world of cinema. The film is nominated for several awards at the upcoming Oscars including Best Film, Best Director (Greta Gerwig), and Best Original Screenplay. The film stars Saoirse Ronan (Lady Bird) and Laurie Metcalf who have a complexed mother-daughter relationship. Below is the synopsis and details on its in-home release.

In Lady Bird, Greta Gerwig reveals herself to be a bold new cinematic voice with her directorial debut, excavating both the humor and pathos in the turbulent bond between a mother and her teenage daughter. Christine “Lady Bird” McPherson (Ronan) fights against, but is exactly like, her wildly loving, deeply opinionated and strong-willed mom (Metcalf), a nurse working tirelessly to keep her family afloat after Lady Bird’s father (Letts) loses his job. Set in Sacramento, California, in 2002, amidst a rapidly shifting American economic landscape,...

After teaming up with Robert Eggers for his renowned 2015 film, The Witch, Rt Features and A24 will reunite with the visionary filmmaker for his next movie, a horror fantasy film called The Lighthouse, starring Robert Pattinson:

Press Release: (Los Angeles, CA) February 15, 2018 - Rt Features and A24 announced today they will reteam with Robert Eggers on The Lighthouse, the renowned filmmaker’s eagerly anticipated follow-up to The Witch. The new project is a fantasy horror story set in the world of old sea-faring myths, and will go into production this spring. Robert Pattinson, coming off his highly touted performance for Good Time, has joined the project.

The script was written by Robert Eggers and Max Eggers. Rt Features’ Rodrigo Teixeira and Lourenço Sant’ Anna developed the project with Eggers and will produce, alongside Parts & Labor’s Jay Van Hoy, and Youree Henley. A24 acquired worldwide rights and will distribute the film in the U.

This hasn’t exactly been a great year for men. The male brand has seen better days. The product is still the same as it’s been for the last few millennia — the patriarchy is one hell of a preservative — but its iron hold on the marketplace is slipping. Society as a whole is finally coming to grips with a grim fact that so many people had already learned the hard way, that so many people had been silenced and shamed into keeping like a secret: Men are defective.

That’s not to say that all men are broken, but rather that all men are capable of the abuses for which the worst of us are now being ex-communicated, that all men are culpable for allowing those abuses to continue, and that all men are corruptible when endowed with the power that we have always assumed as a natural right.

For two decades, Sarah Polley has been desperately trying to adapt Margaret Atwood's book about a young woman who was abused, mistreated and silenced in the mid-1800s. By the time the 38-year-old actor-turned-writer/director brought the author's 1996 historical novel Alias Grace to the small screen – the six-hour miniseries began streaming on Netflix in early November – she had no idea she'd end up discussing the very same issues taking place in the 21st century. "I was imagining when I did press for [this], I would be introducing this as a conversation,...

In light of the recently amplified conversation surrounding sexual harassment and sexual assault in Hollywood, Margaret Atwood’s 1996 novel, Alias Grace, feels at once timely and timeless. The new six-part Netflix miniseries, set in 19th-century Canada, tussles with a lot of the same themes that are making headlines today: female agency, abortion, immigrant rights and class tensions.

Adapted by Sarah Polley for the screen, Alias Grace weaves in and out of the life of Grace Marks, an Irish immigrant and servant girl who finds herself thrust into the public spotlight as a “celebrated murderess” after her master and his mistress are brutally killed at their farm. Grace and stableman James McDermott are both convicted of the crime. But while McDermott (Kerr Logan) is hanged, Grace is sentenced to life imprisonment. A church committee sets out to prove her innocence, citing hysteria or psychological issues (Grace cannot recall committing the murders), enlisting the help of Dr. Simon Jordan (Edward Holcroft), a physician...

Projected on the screen behind his podium, the title card for James Schamus’ keynote at Saturday’s Produced By conference read: “Can Cinema Be Saved? Probably not, but let’s give it one last try.”

The even-keeled former head of Focus Features is widely respected as being one of the most knowledgable figures in film — mixing a deep appreciation for the art form and an even deeper understanding of the history and economics of movie distribution — but started his talk on a surprisingly alarmist note.

“It’s too late [to save cinema], but if we have a chance to do it, this coming year is probably the last chance we will ever have,” said Schamus. “Last year, as I will demonstrate shortly, was most likely the turning point where the actual strings of American cinema’s actual death knell could honestly be heard by those with their ears to the ground.”

Staying in character,...

Lady Bird is one of the year’s great joys. Greta Gerwig’s debut as a solo writer-director is so wise, so funny, and so remarkably assured that it seems to have flown in out of nowhere. Where did this nearly perfect coming-of-age comedy and emotionally affecting study of youth, social status, and financial malaise come from? The answer has been hiding in plain sight. As an actress, Gerwig has shown inimitable intelligence in films such as Frances Ha and 20th Century Women. She has now moved behind the camera for a 2002-set study of a Sacramento teen’s final year of high school, starring Saoirse Ronan, Laurie Metcalf, Tracy Letts, Lucas Hedges, and Timothée Chalamet, with music by Jon Brion.

Even after mentioning the involvement of such an ensemble of talent, I’m not sure anyone could have anticipated just how strong a film Lady Bird would be, or...

Written and directed by critically acclaimed filmmaker Azazel Jacobs, and starring three-time Academy Award® nominee Debra Winger (Best Actress, An Officer and a Gentleman, 1982), The Lovers arrives on Blu-ray™ (plus Digital HD) and DVD August 1 from Lionsgate. Theatrically released by A24, The Lovers is a refreshing, funny look at love, fidelity, and family. The critically acclaimed film features a standout ensemble cast, including Tony Award® winner Tracy Letts (The Big Short, Indignation), Aidan Gillen (Sing Street, “Game of Thrones”), Melora Walters (The Butterfly Effect), Tyler Ross (Zombieland), and Jessica Sula (Split), and is Rotten Tomatoes Certified Fresh.

Now you can own The Lovers on Blu-ray. We Are Movie Geeks has Four copies to give away. All you have to do is leave a comment answering this question: What is your favorite movie starring Debra Winger? (mine is Urban Cowboy!). It’s so easy!

Good Luck!

Official Rules:

1. You Must Be A Us Resident.

Welcome to PeekTV, your daily look at the best that television has to offer. In each installment, we make three picks for the best shows to watch and…toss in a little extra.

Monday, May 22 What Happened Last Night?!

(What hath be-pickled our beloved Belchers? Check out this past weekend’s TV picks to find out.)

“Jane the Virgin”

“Chapter Sixty-Four,” CW – 9:00 p.m.

Synopsis: In the Season 3 finale, Rogelio and Xo are excited for their big day, but Rogelio gets some shocking news. Meanwhile, Jane learns about a mysterious letter Michael wrote; Rafael asks Luisa to leave; and Petra’s skeptical about Jane’s feelings for Rafael.

Why You Should Watch: “Jane the Virgin” has had a tumultuous third season, highlighted by a major twist that few people saw coming. If that’s what the show had cooked up for midseason, we can only guess what the finale has in store.

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveriesNEWShttps://tribecafilm.com/stories/tribeca-2017-jury-awardsFilmmaker Ricky D'Ambrose, who has made several excellent video interviews with directors for the Notebook, is kickstarting his feature debut, Notes on an Appearance. Above is a beguiling, cryptic teaser for the project. The Tribeca Film Festival wrapped last week (read our coverage) and the many awards have been announced, including Keep the Change for U.S. Narrative, Son of Sofia for International Narrative, Bobby Jene for Documentary, and Treehugger : Wawona for the immersive storytelling Storyscapes Award.Recommended VIEWINGSpeaking of Tribeca, the festival hosted a The Godfather and The Godfather: Part II reunion and on-stage conversation with director Francis Ford Coppola, Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, and more. Lucky for us, they broadcast and recorded the whole thing.Bill and Turner Ross's stellar documentary 45365, winner of the Grand Jury Prize at SXSW in 2009, is now free to stream online.

Comedy currently shooting in Brooklyn.

Molly Ringwald and Brian d’Arcy James have joined Brendan Meyer, Jemima Kirke, Harley Quinn Smith and Sam McCarthy on Melissa B. Miller-Costanzo’s debut feature.

Ringwald and d’Arcy James star in All These Small Moments as parents of a teenage boy who develops a crush on a woman he sees on a bus.

Moving Pictures Artists’ Lauren Avinoam and Jed Mellick are producing the comedy with Vineyard Point Productions’ Katie Leary.

All These Small Moments is currently shooting in Brooklyn and will debut in 2018. UTA Independent Film Group represents Us rights.

Miller-Costanzo is an art department veteran whose credits include Indignation, The Fighter, Precious and The Extra Man.

Ringwald most recently appeared in King Cobra and The CW’s Riverdale and rose to prominence in classic 1980s teen films like Pretty In Pink, The Breakfast Club, and Sixteen Candles.

d’Arcy starred in Spotlight and the Netflix original series 13 Reasons...

After the wildly popular reception of the “It” trailer, author Stephen King tweeted a message on April 4 that made fans very hopeful for the adaptations slated to drop in 2017:

The Mist, Mr. Mercedes, 1922, Gerald’S Game, The Dark Tower, and It: Believe it or not, they all look awesome.

— Stephen King (@StephenKing) April 4, 2017

King’s films and TV series have a tendency to be varied in terms of quality, but if that tweet is to be believed, there’s a definitely a renaissance afoot. Now that filmmakers seem to be able to hit the right tone from his work, here are five properties which have never been adapted that could make for successful endeavors, along with director and lead actor picks that would be pitch-perfect. To narrow down the picks, any novel or short story that is in some stage of acquisition, development, or that has been made already is ineligible.

This year will mark a decade since the release of The Savages, the second feature from Slums of Beverly Hills director Tamara Jenkins. Starring Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman, it was a powerfully-acted, perceptive look at familial struggle, and we’ve been waiting ever since for her follow-up. 10 years later, it is finally coming and a cast has already been set.

Financed and distributed by Netflix, Private Life stars Paul Giamatti, Kathryn Hahn, Molly Shannon, and John Carroll Lynch. Jenkins’ script follows a married couple (Giamatti and Hahn) who are struggling with infertility and its damaging effect on their relationship, but when their niece offers up her eggs, things change. Shannon, who picked up an Indie Spirit award for Other People this year, will play the niece’s mother, while Lynch plays Giamatti’s brother and Shannon’s husband.

Produced by Anthony Bregman and Stefanie Azpiazu (Enough Said, Indignation...

Netflix announced today that it will release “Casting JonBenet,” Kitty Green’s innovative hybrid documentary inspired by the infamous murder of six-year-old pageant queen JonBenet Ramsey, on April 28. The film played the Sundance Film Festival in U.S. Documentary Competition this January to rave reviews, currently boasting a 100% fresh approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Read More: ‘Casting JonBenet’ Review: When a Murder Fuels a Fascinating Documentary Experiment — Sundance 2017

20 years after the murder, Green stages a casting call for young actresses to play the late child beauty pageant queen, interviewing the fresh hopefuls and their parents about the murder and its relevance today. In the vein of “Kate Plays Christine,” another inventive documentary about an infamous death which recreates real life events, the film uses new methods to explore its subject.

Reviewing “Casting JonBenet” for IndieWire, Eric Kohn wrote, “The movie doggedly avoids conventions of the non-fiction genre… When the concept really clicks,...

Sometimes a movie just does not have any reason to exist. That would be the case with Shawn Christensen‘s misbegotten Sidney Hall, a film which offers a mystery that never feels mysterious, falls so flat one is bewildered as to why and how such a project could even be green lit.

Squandering a fine class of young talent, which includes Logan Lerman and Elle Fanning, the drama is tediously realized on page by screenwriter Jason Dolan and director Shawn Christensen (Before I Disappear), who appears to be game with stylish visual decisions, but can’t find a way to get the audience engaged.

The film begins with its titular character, Sidney (Lerman), reading aloud to the class an essay that ends up being a masturbatory fantasy about a cheerleader. The conservative teacher, who asked for an essay on the meaning of life, is obviously appalled. A particularly questionable decision...

by David Upton

Congratulations are due: Logan Lerman’s endearing baby face has lasted to his twenty-fifth birthday! It's not that unusual for actors to play teenagers even into their thirties, but Lerman seems especially stuck in transition, repeatedly playing similar tunes of young men who are particularly prey to societal pressures. Last year’s Indignation threw him back in time, with his personal dramas set against an Ohioan college in 1951, but it was his previous college adventure that has proven Lerman’s career high to date...

Sundance 2016 will always be remembered for the record-breaking $17.5 million sale of Nate Parker’s “The Birth of a Nation” to Fox Searchlight, on the heels of the #oscarsowhite backlash — and for the massive marketing fallout that followed in light of Parker’s rape-trial acquittal. With a domestic gross under $16 million, it led to one of the bigger failures among Sundance sales relative to expense.

Netflix outbid Searchlight for “The Birth of a Nation,” but the producers favored the theatrical route (including that company’s proven awards expertise and commercial success) and accepted less money. One wonders if it had been a high-profile Netflix film if the post-Sundance controversy about Nate Parker’s college days would have had the same impact or effect. It will be curious to see if any producer this year is as quick to turn down a high offer from Netflix or similar non-theatrical buyer.

Those memories could temper bidding wars,...

Comprising a considerable amount of our top 50 films of last year, Sundance Film Festival has proven to yield the first genuine look at what the year in cinema will bring. Now in its 39th iteration, we’ll be heading back to Park City this week, but before we do, it’s time to highlight the films we’re most looking forward to, including documentaries and narrative features from all around the world.

While much of the joy found in the festival comes from surprises throughout the event, below one will find our 20 most-anticipated titles. Check out everything below and for updates straight from the festival, make sure to follow us on Twitter (@TheFilmStage, @jpraup, @djmecca and @FinkJohnJ), and stay tuned to all of our coverage here.

20. Come Swim (Kristen Stewart)

With her pair of career-best performances under the direction of Olivier Assayas, as well as working with Kelly Reichardt, Woody Allen,...

Chicago – It’s that time of the film year, the “Ten Best” lists. In representing my 2016 picks – as “Patrick McDonald” – I looked for the emotional experience as much as anything. I think every filmgoer, from the most casual to the ardent buff, adhere to their favorites through that feeling of connection.

There are honorable mentions all over the place, often just missing the 10th spot – I like to characterize them as all tied for eleventh. My favorite superhero film was “Captain America: Civil War,” for the Marvel Comics angst that works best in this genre of movies. The dramas “Arrival,” “Elle,” “Little Men” and “A Monster Calls” were excellent and heartfelt experiences. I loved the wacky tribute that writer/directors Joel and Ethan Coen gave to 1950s Hollywood in “Hail, Caesar!” And after watching it again after initial reservations, I realized and connected to the ardent celebration in the musical “La La Land.

Netflix announced today that it has acquired worldwide rights to Kitty Green’s documentary “Casting JonBenet,” which will have its world premiere at the 2017 Sundance Film Festivalin the Us Documentary Competition, the first time a nonfiction work from the company will compete.

Read More: Weinstein Co. and National Enquirer Aim to Beat CBS with Their Own JonBenet Ramsey Docuseries

The film is a sly and stylized exploration of the world’s most sensational child-murder case, the still unsolved death of six-year-old American beauty queen, JonBenet Ramsey. Over 15 months, the filmmakers traveled to the Ramseys’ Colorado hometown to elicit responses, reflections and even performances from the local community. In doing so, Casting JonBenet examines how this crime and its resulting mythologies have shaped the attitudes and behavior of successive generations of parents and children.

The film is co-produced by Green (“Ukraine is Not a Brothel”), Scott Macaulay (“Gummo”) and James Schamus,...

A total of 145 scores were recently announced as being eligible for this year’s Academy Award, with everything from perceived frontrunner “La La Land” (Justin Hurwitz) and “Jackie” (Mica Levi) to outliers like “Sausage Party” and “Elle.” The final five will be nominated on January 24. In the meantime, avail yourself of this Spotify playlist featuring selections from 110 of the eligible scores — as well as the full list of every eligible score.

Read More: Oscar Best Score Contenders: The Inside Story of Creating 5 Diverse Frontrunners

Read More: Oscars 2017: Listen to 70 Songs Eligible for This Year’s Academy Award

The Abolitionists,” Tim Jones, composer

“Absolutely Fabulous The Movie,” Jake Monaco, composer

“The Accountant,” Mark Isham, composer

“Alice through the Looking Glass,” Danny Elfman, composer

“Allied,” Alan Silvestri, composer

“Almost Christmas,” John Paesano, composer

“American Pastoral,” Alexandre Desplat, composer

“The Angry Birds Movie,” Heitor Pereira, composer

“Anthropoid,” Robin Foster, composer

“Armenia, My Love,...

Ignore any suggestion that 2016 was not a fantastic year for cinema. Moments linger (the campfire dance in American Honey, the final encounter in Certain Women, the Tracy Letts–Logan Lerman debate in Indignation, the first ten minutes of High-Rise, both “Camelot”-soundtracked sequences in Jackie, any scene that featured Ralph Fiennes in A Bigger Splash) and performances resonate (everyone in Moonlight, Emma Stone in La La Land, Kate McKinnon in Ghostbusters).

Choosing ten favorites and five honorable mentions is nasty business; I wish I could have included Warren Beatty’s Rules Don’t Apply, a ridiculously underrated film that does not deserve to be remembered as a flop. But it just missed the cut. (Also, I was unable to see Silence in time for end-of-year consideration.) What these fifteen films have in common is the ability to surprise, confound, and delight in equal measure. Let’s see 2017 top that.

Honorable...

In 1951 Ohio, a Jewish boy from Newark attends college and meets the girl who will change the rest of his life. Opening in a nursing home, we meet Olivia (Sarah Gadon) for the first time, preparing us for a look back in time. The scene instantly changes to a Korean war scene with Marcus […]

Source: uInterview

The post ‘Indignation’ BluRay Review: An Engrossing Period Piece appeared first on uInterview.

Like a divine consolation for our collective heartache, the world was gifted with an absurd volume of beautiful new things to listen to in 2016. But epochal new albums from the likes of Radiohead, Anohni, Frank Ocean, David Bowie, Leonard Cohen, and the sisters Knowles (to name just a few) only told a small part of the story, as much of the year’s best new music was Trojan horse-ed into our lives via the movies.

The Best of 2016: IndieWire’s Year in Review Bible

Conner4Real wrote pop songs as catchy and profound as anything by The Weeknd, Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling exchanged a series of bittersweet ballads, and a Polynesian princess followed her voice over the horizon. But it was the instrumental pieces that cut the deepest, as many of the best new films were proudly inextricable from their scores. “Moonlight” and “La La Land,” currently dominating the awards circuit,...

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences today announced that 145 scores from eligible feature-length motion pictures released in 2016 are in contention for nominations in the Original Score category for the 89th Academy Awards.

The eligible scores along with their composers are listed below, in alphabetical order by film title:

“The Abolitionists,” Tim Jones, composer

“Absolutely Fabulous The Movie,” Jake Monaco, composer

“The Accountant,” Mark Isham, composer

“Alice through the Looking Glass,” Danny Elfman, composer

“Allied,” Alan Silvestri, composer

“Almost Christmas,” John Paesano, composer

“American Pastoral,” Alexandre Desplat, composer

“The Angry Birds Movie,” Heitor Pereira, composer

“Anthropoid,” Robin Foster, composer

“Armenia, My Love,” Silvia Leonetti, composer

“Assassin’s Creed,” Jed Kurzel, composer

“Autumn Lights,” Hugi Gudmundsson and Hjörtur Ingvi Jóhannsson, composers

“The Bfg,” John Williams, composer

“Believe,” Michael Reola, composer

“Ben-Hur,” Marco Beltrami and Buck Sanders, composers

“Bilal,” Atli Ӧrvarsson, composer

“Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk,” Mychael Danna and Jeff Danna,...

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) has announced the 145 scores eligible in the Best Original Score category, includeing work from “Jackie” and “La La Land.” The latter film, a musical directed by “Whiplash” helmer Damien Chazelle, picked up the Los Angeles Film Critics Association’s award for Best Music earlier this month; “Jackie” was the category’s runner-up. Notably absent, meanwhile, are “Arrival” (which just landed a Golden Globe nod), “Manchester by the Sea” and “Silence.”

Read: ‘La La Land’: Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling’s ‘City of Stars’ Duet Will Sweep You Off Your Feet – Listen

Justin Hurwitz composed and orchestrated the “La La Land” score, while “Jackie” marks “Under the Skin” composer Mica Levi’s second silver-screen effort. Decades after becoming one of the world’s most renowned film composers, Ennio Morricone won last year’s Oscar for his work on Quentin Tarantino’s “The Hateful Eight.

This year featured two feature-length adaptations of Philip Roth novels. One was James Schamus’ “Indignation,” based on Roth’s 2008 novel, while the other was Ewan McGregor’s directorial debut “American Pastoral,” based on Roth’s 1997 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel.

The film starred McGregor himself as Seymour “Swede” Levov, a former high school athlete turned successful businessman with a beauty queen (Jennifer Connelly) as a wife. But when their politically radical daughter Merry (Dakota Fanning) is accused of a violent crime, Swede is forced to make sense of the chaos that is his life. It also stars Rupert Evans (“The Man in the High Castle”), Valorie Curry (“Veronica Mars”), David Strathairn (“Good Night, and Good Luck”) and Uzo Aduba (“Orange Is the New Black”). Watch an exclusive trailer for the film’s home video release below.

Read More: ‘American Pastoral’ Critical Roundup: Reviewers Are Not Impressed By Ewan McGregor’s Directorial Debut...

“The guy is a god. If you have any interest in American theater, you know this guy. You know and fear him.”

These are the first words director James Schamus had to say when asked for his thoughts on Tracy Letts. Indeed, the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and Tony Award-winning actor is a legend of the stage, but only recently has he broken into film and television — as an actor. His latest role is on the HBO series, “Divorce,” and it’s a part that was only supposed to last one episode.

“I died in the pilot,” Letts bluntly put it, when IndieWire spoke with him in his Chicago home.

“But they liked him so much, they asked him to come back,” added Carrie Coon, Letts’ wife, former co-star on stage, and the current star of HBO’s “The Leftovers.”

Indeed, Letts’ character — the brash and successful Nick, married to Molly Shannon...