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Long before Simon Helberg became a household name as Howard Wolowitz on The Big Bang Theory, he took on a small but unforgettable role in one of Ryan Reynolds’ wildest comedies, Van Wilder. That’s right, this early 2000s movie was packed with outrageous humor and gave both the actors a perfect chance to showcase their comedic timing in the messiest and chaotic way possible.

Now, Van Wilder is set to leave streaming platform Peacock in just 3 days. So, let’s dive deeper to know why Helberg’s over-the-top performance is a must-watch before it disappears.

Simon Helberg and Ryan Reynolds’ College Comedy Van Wilder Is Leaving Peacock Soon Simon Helberg (right) in a still from Van Wilder | Credits: Artisan Entertainment

Before he became the technologically adept but sometimes irresponsible Howard Wolowitz in The Big Bang Theory, Simon Helberg played a nerdy college kid in one of Ryan Reynolds‘s most chaotic comedies,...

You take the good, you take the bad, and there you have... nine seasons and over 200 episodes of one of the most successful sitcoms of all time. Spun out of NBC's other wildly popular series "Diff'rent Strokes," "The Facts of Life" followed the goings-on at a girl's boarding school in upstate New York. The series became a fast hit, thanks to its chipper tone and uplifting sense of humor, as well as the performances from its cast of talented young actors -- many of whom went on to achieve major success in the film and television industry.

Whether they only stayed in the main cast during its experimental first season, joined as a replacement of sorts in the final installments, or played a part in all of its 200-plus episodes, the actors embarked on a range of professional journeys. Some retired immediately afterward, pursuing careers ranging from music and...

When Gone Girl hit theaters in 2014, most of the attention centered on Rosamund Pike’s spine-chilling performance and the film’s toe-curling plot twist. Buried deep amidst the film’s chaos was a blink-and-you-miss-it moment from Ben Affleck that quietly broke a long-standing Hollywood taboo/rule. Do you remember?.

In case you can’t, let us jog your memory, in a quick shower scene for Gone Girl, Affleck went full frontal, in short, challenging the industry that normalized female nudity but kept its leading men all cozy and covered. What’s more surprising is that no one talked about it, leaving the actor’s efforts to break tradition swept under the carpet.

When Ben Affleck went all bare, but Hollywood looked away Ben Affleck as Nick Dunne in stills from Gone Girl | Credits: 20th Century Fox

Ben Affleck going bare in Gone Girl was not just a quick steamy shower scene,...

Kicking things off with a small but enticing update, following last year’s incredible cine-memoir It’s Not Me, Leos Carax is finally prepping a 2026 shoot for his first narrative feature since Annette. While not much is known about the project, a casting call confirms Léa Seydoux and Adam Driver will star in the Paris-set feature. Speaking of Driver: he’s also set to soon shoot James Gray’s Paper Tigers, in which Scarlett Johansson and Miles Teller stepped in for Anne Hathaway and Jeremy Strong, respectively.

Last year, when we spoke to Albert Serra about his planned collaboration with Kristen Stewart for Out of This World, he seemed hesitant if the casting may come together and, indeed, it proved too good to be true. Variety now reports Riley Keough will lead the film alongside F. Murray Abraham and Liza Yankovskaia. The film follows “an American delegation traveling to...

“Leave One Day,” Amélie Bonnin’s feature film that opened the Cannes Film Festival on Tuesday evening, is an unusual film for a Cannes opener in several ways.

It’s a musical, only the third to open Cannes in this century, after Leos Carax’s twisted “Annette” in 2021 and Baz Luhrmann’s lavish “Moulin Rouge!” in 2001. It’s directed by a woman, Bonnin, again only the third time that’s happened in the 2000s, after Maïwenn in 2023 and Emmanuelle Bercot in 2015. And it’s a first-time feature from a female director; the last time Cannes opened with one of those was, well, never.

In one major way, though, “Leave One Day” is quite similar to other recent Cannes openers, in that it’s likely to be largely forgotten a few days into the festival, quickly overshadowed by other films. A slight character study that strains to be charming but only occasionally gets there,...

Opening Cannes, like closing it, has traditionally been a poisoned chalice. The festival has tried a few moves to address the latter, mostly predicated on the fact that, by the end of nearly two exhausting weeks, nobody cares anymore. But first night is still a tough nut to crack, and with the selection of a very local first-time film — a modest, low-key character study with no traditional red-carpet movie stars — festival chief Thierry Frémaux might seem, at first glance, to be giving into the idea that it’s a graveyard slot.

Leave One Day, however, is a smarter choice than it might first appear — a stealth charmer, if you like — and almost certainly a film to baffle the international festivalgoers who descend on Cannes for the meatier stuff, whether that’s the Hollywood A-list fare or the more punishing arthouse discoveries. It will mean much, much more to the French, evoking memories of a country that’s fast disappearing while, at the same time, being fully cognizant of its evolving, multicultural present.

Directed by first-timer Amélie Bonnin, Leave One Day isn’t so notable just for being a musical, since Leos Carax’s Annette filled the same slot just a few years ago. But it is rare to see a film that uses its music choices so playfully and so cleverly. It’s title song, for instance, is a deconstruction of boyband 2Be3’s cheesy 1996 hit; while another key sequence involves French rapper Yannick’s 2000 hit “Ces Soirées-là,” a hip-hop version of Claude Francoise’s 1976 hit “Cette Année-là,” itself a version of The Four Seasons’ 1975 hit “December, 1963” and one of the few songs recognizable to non-French audiences. It sounds fresh, maybe even new. But it’s not new — like K. Maro’s infectious “Femme Like U,” which also features — Yannick’s hit is over 20 years old, and the way pop music distracts us like that, creating a big, blurry disjunct between what was then and what is now, between nostalgia and reality, is central to Bonnin’s film.

The lead in her story is Cécile, played by singer Juliette Armanet, best known for performing John Lennon’s “Imagine” at the opening of the Paris Olympics last year. If you didn’t know that, you might not even guess she was a professional, since Leave One Day isn’t a showcase for slick, show-stopping numbers. Rather, it’s a film that wears its ragged edges with pride, matching music to the cast with a poignancy that will resonate with the French far more than others, who may balk at the clunky translations of songs such as Claude Nougaro’s “Cécile Ma Fille,” a soppy but affecting ’60s chanson sung by Cécile’s father. The same could be said of the story, which as old as time, or at least romantic fiction.

When we meet Cécile, she is just about to find out that she is pregnant. It’s the worst possible moment; she’s something of a foodie star (a regular on cooking show Top Chef) and getting ready to open her own restaurant in two weeks’ time. Her father has just been hospitalized, having suffered a heart attack (his third), and on top of that, she has yet to figure out her new eatery’s signature dish. Nevertheless, she takes to the road and goes home, leaving her business partner/lover Sofiane (Tewfik Jallab) to hold the fort.

Cécile’s backstory is a bit on the nose; her parents, Fanfan (Dominique Blanc) and Gérard (François Rollin), are the proprietors of a roadside diner called The Pitstop, serving the kind of food that Cécile has snootily dismissed as being to haute cuisine “what flip-flops are to haute couture.” Cécile knows she said this because Gérard has made a note of all her Top Chef witticisms, especially one that cut so deeply he knows it by heart: “Truck stops are by the road so you can make a fast getaway.” It’s an awkward homecoming, but Cécile reconnects with some old friends, notably hot grunge mechanic Raphaël (Bastien Bouillon), an old flame of sorts, albeit one she never hooked up with. “We live in a time warp,” his friend says. “Nothing moves.” Which is how Cécile comes to realize that Raphaël, despite his too-cool-for-school demeanor, is still in love with her.

The ensuing love triangle among Cécile, Sofiane and Raphael plays out much as you might expect, which may sound a little underwhelming for a film that’s been given such a high-profile slot at an international festival. This is Cannes, though, and the audiences there are less likely to dwell on the details of such a familiar story and respond more viscerally to the way that it’s being told, triggering memories of all kinds of inter-generational music, all kinds of food and so many things even they wouldn’t think they’d ever see anymore, like a dog having the run of a working kitchen.

Some may wonder why Cannes would open with such a film, but festivalgoers with longer memories will remember the olden days, when someone there thought that three whole hours of The Barber of Siberia would make an awesome curtain-raiser. Compared to that, Leave One Day is a joy; a very particular kind of crowd-pleaser that doesn’t do anything especially new, and, even then, doesn’t really do it in a very distinctive way.

Crucially, though, it has heart, capturing a sense of time having passed and an optimism for the time to come. The cheesy, stopped-clock setup of The Pitstop will be instantly recognizable to any tourist who’s ever found themselves in some backwater bar that’s all Johnny Hallyday this, Pernod that and lots of Gauloises cigarettes. But Bonnin’s film not only embraces those clichés, it celebrates them, and the unexpected, emotional strength of the film lies not in its nostalgia for the past but in its touching belief in our capacity to make peace with the things we have to lose in order to get on with our lives.

Title: Leave One Day

Festival: Cannes

Sales agent: Pathé

Director: Amélie Bonnin

Screenwriters: Amélie Bonnin, Dimitri Lucas

Cast: Juliette Armanet, Bastien Bouillon, Dominique Blanc, François Rollin

Running time: 1 hr 33 min...

Spoiler Alert: This interview contains spoilers from “Poker Face” Season 2, Episode 3, now streaming on Peacock.

FBI agent Luca Clark (Simon Helberg) returned for more action in Episode 3 of “Poker Face,” which is in the midst of a second season boasting more murders, more Charlie (Natasha Lyonne) investigations and more guest stars — including stand-up comedian John Mulaney.

Rian Johnson’s charming murder-of-the-week show features different marquee guest stars in every episode. But since Helberg plays one of the show’s few recurring characters, he’s had a chance to grow the trajectory of Luca since Season 1.

“It’s exciting to see how he fumbles up the ladder, starting from driving around geriatric retired ex-cons in witness protection, all the way to cracking these really significant cases for the FBI and getting into the shit,” Helberg tells Variety. “As an actor, it’s a real dream because I haven’t gotten to...

In the world of sitcoms, Friends and The Big Bang Theory stand out as two of the most successful and beloved shows. Fans and critics alike have often drawn comparisons between the two, from sweet, stable couples to more chaotic relationships, and even the trope of a single friend left by the end.

But beyond these surface similarities, the two sitcoms share a surprising connection: Simon Helberg. Best known for his role as Howard Wolowitz on The Big Bang Theory, Helberg briefly appeared in the Friends universe before starring in the CBS hit.

Simon Helberg starred in the Friends spin-off Joey before The Big Bang Theory

Following the conclusion of Friends in 2004 came Matt LeBlanc’s Joey, a spin-off centered on Joey Tribbiani’s move to Hollywood in hopes of making it as an actor. However, the series was short-lived, as it failed to reach the same heights as its...

Francis Ford Coppola is doubling down on the perplexing Sci-Fi epic Megalopolis with a graphic novel adaptation of his original head-scratching story. Coppola famously spent decades dreaming of Megalopolis and used tens of millions of his money to fund the project’s production. Reactions to the film ranged from audiences saying it’s awful to “it’s so bad it’s good, like Leos Carax’s Annette.” Regardless of how you feel about Megalopolis, Coppola’s passion for the story of architect Cesar Catilina (Adam Driver) is admirable in its steadfast dedication to the premise.

The official synopsis for Megalopolis reads: “Megalopolis is a Roman Epic fable set in an imagined Modern America. The City of New Rome must change, causing conflict between Cesar Catilina, a genius artist who seeks to leap into a utopian, idealistic future, and his opposition, Mayor Franklyn Cicero, who remains committed to a regressive status quo,...

Sparks have shared their new single “Drowned in a Sea of Tears” from their upcoming album Mad!, which the Mael brothers will take on the road this fall on a North American tour.

The song and its corresponding Amber Navarro-directed video that documents Russell Mael’s narrator’s attempts to be “a savior” to a woman trying to pick herself up from emotional turmoil, captured in the visual when the protagonist nearly drowns in her own car as it fills with tears.

“We don’t usually get inspired by anything...

Homing in on one of the key Spanish titles which could move the box office needle, Film Factory Ent. has jumped on worldwide sales rights to multifaceted romantic tragicomedy “Always Winter” (“Siempre es invierno”) the latest movie from David Trueba, a consummate film director and journalist and celebrated novelist hailed by France’s Le Figaro as the “wonder boy of the Iberian cultural scene.”

Film Factory has also shared in exclusivity with Variety a first-look still from the film.

First presented at September’s San Sebastian, “Always Winter” reunites Film Factory with Trueba, actor David Verdaguer and Ikiru Films, Atresmedia Cine and La Terraza Films, sales agent, co-writer and director, star and producers of 2023’s “Jokes & Cigarettes,” which broke out to an appreciable €891,991 at Spanish theaters. Verdaguer, the lead in “Always Winter,” went on to win the 2024 Spanish Academy best actor Goya for his performance in “Jokes & Cigarettes.

The 49th Hong Kong International Film Festival will kick off on April 10 with dual opening features, Japanese drama The Brightest Sun and Malaysia-Hong Kong co-production Pavane for an Infant. Berlin Golden Bear winner Dreams (Sex Love), directed by Norway’s Dag Johan Haugerud, will then bring the curtain down on the event on April 21 as the closing film. The festival’s lineup was unveiled Monday at a press conference at Hong Kong’s Filmart Content Market.

The Brightest Sun is filmmaker Tetsuya Nakashima’s adaptation of a novel by popular Japanese author Bunzo Uchikai. It’s the first film from Nakashima (Kamikaze Girls, The World of Kanako) in seven years. Pavane for an Infant, meanwhile, directed by Chong Keat Aun, is a drama exploring the issue of baby abandonment through the eyes of a female social worker (Malaysian-born Hong Kong actress Fish Liew).

Two local Hong Kong features have been...

Japanese filmmaker Nakashima Tetsuya’s The Brightest Sun and Malaysia-Hong Kong co-production Pavane For An Infant, directed by Chong Keat-Aun, will open this year’s Hong Kong International Film Festival (April 10-21).

Berlin Golden Bear winner Dreams (Sex Love), directed by Norway’s Dag Johan Haugerud, has been set as the closing film of the festival.

Two Hong Kong productions will receive Gala Screenings – Valley Of The Shadow Of Death, starring Anthony Wong, and Oliver Chan Siu-kuen’s Montages Of A Modern Motherhood, which played in Busan International Film Festival’s New Currents section and Tokyo International Film Festival’s Women’s Empowerment strand last year.

Hkiff’s Cinephile Paradise section will screen films such as Geng Jun’s Bel Ami, Vivian Qu’s Girls On Wire, Luca Guadagnino’s Queer, Luis Ortega’s Kill The Jockey and Yeo Siew Hua’s Stranger Eyes.

As previously announced, Hong Kong actor...

Simon Helberg was in it for the long haul on "The Big Bang Theory." He not only stayed on throughout the show's entire 12 season run, but he also appeared in all 279 episodes. When you've got a steady gig, especially in an industry where job security isn't guaranteed, sometimes it's best to hold onto what you have. Still, though he spent well over a decade playing aerospace engineer turned astronaut Howard Wolowitz (a role Helberg was hesitant to audition for), his career outside of that has proven he's willing to break out of the sitcom mold and try new things.

Besides "The Big Bang Theory," Helberg has worked with filmmakers like Leos Carax ("Annette"), Christopher Guest ("For Your Consideration"), and the Coen Brothers ("A Serious Man"). But as is the case with plenty of actors, he felt the urge to become a filmmaker kick in at one point.

In 2014, Helberg co-directed...

When you've been an integral part of a sitcom phenomenon that's been popular for over a decade, it can be easy for people to just see an actor in the confines of their character. It may seem impossible to look at Jim Parsons and not think of Sheldon Cooper, but his work in "Hidden Figures" and "The Boys in the Band" shows an actor that's able to break free beyond the "bazinga" stigma. Simon Helberg has certainly had one of the most interesting careers of the "Big Bang Theory" bunch, having directed his own feature ("We'll Never Have Paris") in addition to starring in films directed by Leos Carax ("Annette") and the Coen Brothers ("A Serious Man").

But since the show's finale, it's Kaley Cuoco who has remained the most prevalent in the spotlight. Although she made waves in 2020 with the critically acclaimed Max original series "The Flight Attendant," she's...

“El Mal,” the show-stopping number sung by Zoe Saldaña in Netflix’s “Emilia Perez,” won the best song Oscar Sunday night for French songwriters Camille and Clément Ducol and their co-writer, the film’s director Jacques Audiard.

Later in the evening, English composer Daniel Blumberg won the original score Oscar for his music for Brady Corbet’s epic “The Brutalist.”

The song “El Mal,” in Audiard’s operatic drama, is a three-minute tour de force for Saldaña as lawyer Rita Castro, a fantasy in which she dances around a room filled with the rich and powerful, decrying the hypocrisy of those responsible for the murders of thousands of Mexicans during the drug wars.

Mick Jagger introduced the category, taking the stage to the strains of the Rolling Stones’ 1968 classic “Sympathy for the Devil.”

After thanking the audience and saying how pleased he was to present the award, he said, “Much as I love doing it,...

MK2 Films, the Paris-based indie powerhouse behind “Anatomy of a Fall,” has tapped former Kinology executive Emmanuel Pisarra as head of acquisitions.

Pisarra, who succeeds Olivier Barbier in this role, joins MK2 Films’ growing team, alongside Vanessa Saal, who was recently named executive consultant and U.K. lead; Yasmine Talli, who oversees co-productions; as well as consultants Frances Harvey and Anna Pokorska.

He will report to Fionnuala Jamison, MK2 Films’ managing director. Pisarra, who is attending the Berlin Film Festival, will be shaping the company’s upcoming slate while also leading sales to France and Benelux.

“I’ve long admired mk2 Films for its fearless, forward-thinking approach to cinema—one that values artistic integrity as much as commercial ambition,” said Pisarra. “Joining its exceptional team at such a pivotal moment is an incredible opportunity.”Pisarra brings extensive experience in acquisitions and sales.

At Kinology, Pisarra spearheaded global sales for films...

Is there any star working today with a career as varied as Marion Cotillard? Anyone who has moved as effortlessly between Hollywood blockbusters — Inception, Dark Knight, Public Enemies — and indies (The Immigrant and Macbeth), from slapstick action comedy like the Taxi films — the French pre-Fast and the Furious car racing franchise that first made her a star — to auteur dramas like Rust and Bone, Annette, and Two Days, One Night?

“I just read scripts and, no matter the genre, if it’s a comedy or a drama, when I feel I can bring something to the movie, that’s when I choose to be part of it,” Cotillard says, speaking via Zoom from her home in Paris. “I don’t plan anything [but] I feel very lucky that I can go between totally different worlds.”

The world Cotillard enters in The Ice Tower, which has its world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival on Feb.

Since Tim Burton's "Batman" arrived in 1989, there's been no shortage of just plain silly moments throughout the franchise's run. The introduction of the bat-nipples in "Batman Forever," George Clooney's Dark Knight whipping out the Bat credit card, anything Arnold Schwarzenegger's Mr. Freeze did in "Batman & Robin." Following that 1997 blunder, however, Christopher Nolan took over the property, giving Batman a new origin story and single-handedly introducing the concept of the "gritty reboot" into the popular lexicon.

2005's "Batman Begins" was an impressively fresh take on a character that had already been reinterpreted multiple times, both on-screen and in the comics. It introduced us to what was dubbed a "grounded" Batman, situating the hero in a Gotham that felt much closer to our own world than any Bat-movie before it. It was a hero's origin tale that Nolan quickly followed up with the Bat-equivalent of "Heat," placing Christian Bale...

Leos Carax’s ability to create some of the most striking and memorable images in modern cinema is beyond question, but his reasons for stringing those images together are often murkier. The idiosyncratic auteur is closer to an abstract artist than a conventional storyteller — a trade-off that has added far more to his career than it has subtracted. That tension fueled his magnum opus “Holy Motors,” which follows a man whose inexplicable need to create and perform prompts him to spend his days cycling through an endless roster of clients who ask him to don different disguises. It’s also what made him the ideal director-for-hire for the beautifully incoherent Sparks brothers musical “Annette.” And it’s why one could argue that his style is better suited to museums than traditional filmmaking.

The Centre Pompidou apparently thought so when it commissioned Carax to make a short film that used images...

Coming off the heels of his most mainstream film, the bonkers Sparks-penned Adam Driver starring rock opera “Annette,” which, in case you forgot, is about a puppet baby who becomes a star, Leos Carax returns with a self-excavating and reflective short. Yet while “It’s Not Me” is being billed as a film, it is much more essayistic and free-associative.

Continue reading ‘It’s Not Me’ Review: Leos Carax’s Film Essay Into His Own Cinematic Oeuvre Is A Little Batsh*t But Never Boring at The Playlist.

Spoiler Alert: This story contains details about specific scenes in “The Last Showgirl.”

Jamie Lee Curtis didn’t hesitate when director Gia Coppola asked her to be in her drama, “The Last Showgirl.”

“The truth is I wanted to be in this because it was called ‘The Last Showgirl’ and Pamela Anderson was going to play the last showgirl,” Curtis said during a Brian Tyree Henry-moderated post-screening Q&a of the Roadside Attractions film at CAA in Los Angeles on Saturday night.

The movie tells the story of Shelly, a 57-year-old Vegas showgirl who has been in the same Las Vegas show for decades. The movie unfolds as Shelly and the rest of the dancers are told that the new owners of the casino are closing the show. Curtis plays Annette, a former showgirl with a drinking and gambling problem struggling to survive as a casino cocktail waitress.

Asked...

So long as there have been Leos Carax films, there has been the Leos Carax persona. After years of watching interviews, Q&a sessions, and docs on his “elusive” character, I first saw him in person this fall and chuckled on sight — seeing Leos Carax is like going to Disneyland and spotting Mickey Mouse or Captain Jack Sparrow, an actor in a costume conforming exactly to some popular (operative word) cultivated image. The distinction, here, is that it was the real thing, and he was simply sitting outside, drinking wine, smoking, surrounded by a den of admirers.

Properly meeting me the following day at a SoHo hotel, he was again wearing the Leos Carax outfit: porkpie hat, sunglasses, tan pants, and a long jacket over a dark-green sweater that fought against unseasonably balmy weather. The director was in town for New York Film Festival screenings of “It’s Not Me,...

At its heart, Emilia Pérez, Jacques Audiard’s unclassifiable transgender Mexican cartel telenovela musical, is a film about transition, transformation and rebirth.

The transformation is not just that of Juan “Manitas” Del Monte, a Mexican drug kingpin who longs to escape a life of violence and death and undergoes gender-affirming surgery to become her true self: the glamorous, vivacious Emilia Pérez. (The magnetic Spanish trans actor Karla Sofía Gascón plays both roles).

Emilia Pérez is also the story of the transmutation of Zoe Saldaña. The Avatar and Guardians of the Galaxy star finally gets to inhabit her own skin on the big screen, neither blue nor green, as Rita Moro Castro, an overworked, overlooked defense lawyer closing in on 40 who has spent her career keeping unrepentant cartel slime out of prison. Manitas gives her an offer she can’t refuse: Help me transition, relocate my family and organize my disappearance,...

The casting process can always be one full of deliberation and uncertainty. For actors who have been in the film industry for decades, they are well aware that a casting director will have a specific vision in mind, backed by the director's prompts. Casting calls, auditions, or tailored roles are all a part of that process, and some actors are much luckier than others when it comes to landing parts with ease. For a film like Annette, the musical drama from 2021, the casting team would have had to deliberate over who was right for these parts. Indeed, it's always difficult to imagine someone else in an iconic role, but for the most part, so many of the biggest roles in the industry were once auditioned for and thus filled by a different performer. Every actor comes to a part with a completely different idea of how to bring that character to life,...

Here’s a very welcome surprise before the end of the year: Leos Carax’s stunning cine-memoir It’s Not Me is getting a release this December. Sideshow and Janus Films announced today that the Cannes and NYFF selection will hit theaters in NY and LA as well as arrive on the Criterion Channel and VOD platforms on December 10.

Here’s the synopsis: “French cinema firebrand Leos Carax has spent 40 years making galvanizing movies that float in the beautifully perplexing nether space between reality and artifice, from Boy Meets Girl and The Lovers on the Bridge to Holy Motors and the recent musical Annette. In his new film, he lovingly evokes the aesthetics of Jean-Luc Godard, paying aptly cheeky respect to the late New Wave master, his own career, and cinema itself, rummaging through a century of movies to situate his work within a continuum of the medium. Rather than self-aggrandize,...

“Holy Motors” auteur Leos Carax has been making genre-defying, mind-bending movies for 40 years, since 1984’s “Boy Meets Girl.” Now he’s accomplishing another first: The first day-and-date theatrical/streaming release to take place on the Criterion Channel, courtesy of Sideshow and Janus Films.

Carax’s latest film “It’s Not Me” will be released December 10 via limited theatrical engagements in New York and Los Angeles while simultaneously streaming on Criterion Channel following a live-stream premiere that day. At the same time, you can purchase “It’s Not Me” on Amazon, Apple, Google Play, and Fandango at Home for $14.99. IndieWire is proud to exclusively debut the trailer and poster for “It’s Not Me” below.

This follows the exclusive streaming premieres on Criterion Channel for “Evil Does Not Exist” and “The Beast.” And it’s unique because Carax has previously indicated his qualms with streaming, even despite the support of Amazon Studios...

Before her tenure in The Big Bang Theory, Kaley Cuoco was notable for her stint in 8 Simple Rules, in which she starred opposite sitcom icon John Ritter, who played Cuoco’s onscreen father Paul. However, their bond wasn’t confined to their gigs on the show, as Cuoco has continued to gush about her time with the actor, who tragically passed away in 2003.

8 Simple Rules | Credit: ABC

Although her connection with Ritter would come in handy during one guest star’s appearance in The Big Bang Theory, Cuoco wasn’t the lone Tbbt cast that shared a personal bond with the TV legend.

Simon Helberg and Kaley Cuoco Had a Personal Connection to John Ritter The Big Bang Theory | Credit: CBS

Before the two met on the set of the Chuck Lorre-led show, it seems Kaley Cuoco and Simon Helberg had already met once, courtesy of John Ritter.

Francis Ford Coppola may just be one of the most well-known and well regarded filmmakers of our time. From The Godfather (1972) to Apocalypse Now (1979), Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992) to The Conversation (1974), his superb filmography still renders him a must-watch for many, even this far along in his career. Expected to be his final film, Megalopolis is as close to a passion project as it comes; self-financed and workshopped since the late 70s, it’s a film that Coppola has had his heart set on making throughout his career. Described as a Roman epic, the story follows genius artist Cesar Catilina (Adam Driver) who seeks to leap the City of New Rome into a utopian, idealistic future, while his opposition, Mayor Franklyn Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito) remains committed to a regressive status quo, perpetuating greed, special interests and partisan warfare. Torn between them is socialite daughter Julia Cicero (Nathalie Emmanuel), the Mayor’s daughter,...

John Woo, the director of such classic action movies as The Killer, Hard Boiled, Face/Off, and A Better Tomorrow, is swapping guns for song-and-dance routines in his next movie. Partnering with the cult music duo the Sparks, Woo is looking to venture into the musical genre in his next untitled project. While the announcement comes as a surprise from those expecting another action thriller, for fans who love how bonkers Woo's movies can be, it marks a welcome surprise as the filmmaker continues to evolve.

Speaking to Empire, John Woo addressed his new musical movie. Apparently taking a page out of Lady Gaga's book, the director was hesitant to label his next film as a full-blown musical. "My next project is actually a half-musical," Woo said, which is currently undergoing re-writes. Most surprisingly, the Sparks brothers (the duo behind the '70s hit "This Town Ain't Big Enough for...

It’s been long enough since Sparks revealed their Annette follow-up X Crucior that you’re forgiven for thinking it might’ve been shelved. I talked to them about it, briefly, in 2021, and a little over a year passed before Focus Features announced they’d acquired the project. Making today a major occurrence: after a tease on the band’s Twitter last week, it’s been confirmed (via Empire) that John Woo will direct the “half-musical,” which the director calls his first project “where I don’t need to hire a stuntman.”

Details remain sadly scant, even as Woo acknowledges some rewrites (from what or why) are underway. Terribly exciting all the same, not only as a collision of two super-distinct sensibilities but a kind-of-fulfillment of the brothers’ longtime love for (and occasional dabbles with) Hong Kong cinema. And it continues a surprisingly verdant time for Woo, who followed last...

John Woo movies always have a spark – the legendary Hong Kong director is responsible for some of the greatest (and most bonkers) action ever committed to the screen, in Hard Boiled and Face/Off and The Killer, to name but a few. But we’ve never had a John Woo movie with Sparks – the legendary cult pop duo also known as Ron and Russell Mael, behind such earworms as ‘This Town Ain’t Big Enough For The Both Of Us’. Until now, that is. Because, as the filmmaker tells Empire in a major upcoming interview, he’s currently working with the art-pop icons on a very different kind of Woo movie.

“My next project is actually a half-musical,” Woo confirms to Empire. “I’m going to be working with the Sparks Brothers, who wrote the script and songs — we are just starting work on some changes to the script.” While the...

French-speaking Belgium hit a high-water mark at the Cannes Film Festival in May, with 11 Belgian co-productions claiming accolades and acclaim across the Croisette. Alongside Critics’ Week opener “Ghost Trail” and the Cannes jury and best actress prize-winner “Emilia Pérez,” eight of those co-productions received support from Belgium’s Federation Wallonie-Bruxelles, while just as many shared a proud Francophone voice.

At Venice, industry delegates built on that robust show of force, touting home-grown projects like Fabrice Du Welz’s police thriller “Maldoror” and co-productions like Aude Léa Rapin’s sci-fi drama “Planet B” and Marie Losier’s music doc “Peaches Goes Bananas,” while young producers took to the Lido to forge new partnerships beyond the traditional mold.

“We’re trying to diversify as much as possible,” says French-speaking Belgium’s Cinema and Audiovisual Center director Jeanne Brunfaut. “Though we tend to partner with [other Francophone countries], we want to encourage our producers to look further afield,...

Sharing the screen as one of the main couples in The Big Bang Theory, Kaley Cuoco and Johnny Galecki’s on-screen romance extended into a real-life relationship. While Penny and Leonard’s relationship blossomed in the show and they even got married, Cuoco and Galecki found themselves at a breaking point.

A still from The Big Bang Theory | Credits: CBS Entertainment

After dating for nearly two years, they broke up. While their split initially led to some uncomfortable moments, revealing their romance to their co-stars was not an easy thing either. Despite the former couple claiming to keep their romance a secret for a long time, the revelation was not surprising to one of their co-stars, who claimed he suspected it from the very beginning.

Simon Helberg Was Not Surprised With Kaley Cuoco And Johnny Galecki’s Relationship

Kaley Cuoco and Johnny Galecki have both admitted to having crushes on...

Last year, /Film ranked the 15 best Adam Driver movies, and the number one film on our list was "Annette," the musical written by the unclassifiable band Sparks and directed by "Holy Motors" helmer Leos Carax in his English-language debut. Adam Driver stars in the film as Henry McHenry, a vulgar stand-up comedian who falls in love with an opera singer and fathers a daughter who has an unusual talent, which he promptly begins to exploit for his own gain. "Annette" is a deeply eccentric film, one that certainly isn't for everyone, but Driver is fantastic in the lead role, stretching himself as a performer (his singing voice? Pretty good!) and playing a character who's easy to hate. He's brash, funny, despicable, occasionally ridiculous, and surprisingly emotional, especially in the movie's final scene, where his daughter finally confronts him about his transgressions.

But according to an interview Carax did with Indiewire...

Arnaud Desplechin’s hybrid documentary “Spectateurs!” (“Filmlovers”) debuted a first trailer ahead of the film’s world premiere at Cannes on May 22.

The 88-minute docu is a love letter to cinema, inspired by Desplechin’s own discovery and passion for cinema.

Per the official Cannes description of the film, Desplechin wrote: “What does it mean, to go to the movies? Why have people been going for over one hundred years? I set out to celebrate movie theaters and their manifold magic. So, I walked in the footsteps of young Paul Dédalus, as if in a filmgoer’s coming-of-age story. Memories, fiction and discoveries come together in an irrepressible torrent of pictures.”

“Spectateurs!” weaves documentary and fiction with a cast including Milo Machado Graner, the young breakthrough actor of Justine Triet’s “Anatomy of a Fall,” and well-known French actors Mathieu Amalric (“The Diving Bell and the Butterfly”) and Françoise Lebrun...

We’re now just about a week away from the highly anticipated Cannes Film Festival premiere of Leos Carax’s next film, a 40-minute cine-memoir about his work titled It’s Not Me. While not much is known about the approach for the project, it does come with this mysterious synopsis:

For an exhibition, that in the end never took place, the Pompidou Museum asked the filmmaker to reply, in pictures, to the question:

Where are you at, Leos Carax?

He attempts an answer – full of questions.

About himself and “his” world:

I don’t know, but if I did, I’d reply that…

The director is also prepping his next feature, following up 2021’s Annette, and thus far it’s only known that it’ll mark a reteam with Adam Driver. Now, we have news that one of the greatest French actresses working today has joined the project. In...

Driver's future success could hinge on star-studded sci-fi Megalopolis's performance amidst a recent mixed movie streak. Legendary director Coppola's first sci-fi endeavor taps Driver as lead in a $120M epic, raising stakes for success. Driver's previous sci-fi movies like Rise of Skywalker and 65 have underwhelmed commercially and critically, adding pressure.

Adam Driver is set to star in a high-budget sci-fi movie, Megalopolis, which needs to perform well to correct a 5-year streak for the actor. Rising to international fame for his role as Kylo Ren in the Star Wars sequel trilogy, Adam Driver has since become one of Hollywood's most coveted actors. He's worked with almost every great director in the industry, from Martin Scorsese to Steven Spielberg to Jim Jarmusch, and will now star in Francis Ford Coppola's self-funded sci-fi epic, which could revolutionize the industry if it succeeds.

Among the many exciting things to...

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The 2024 Academy Awards have come and gone.

Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer (which entered with the most nominations) stole the show this year with seven wins, including best picture, director, actor (Cillian Murphy), supporting actor (Robert Downy Jr.), original score, cinematography, and film editing. Best actress, meantime, went to Emmy Stone for her portrayal of Bella Baxter in Poor Things, while supporting actress went to The Holdovers‘ Da’Vine Joy Randolph.

French director Leos Carax has revealed new details about his upcoming autobiographical film, C’est pas moi, which he says is “about 40 minutes long” and may be ready in time for Cannes.

“It started with a museum in Paris. They asked me to do a self-portrait,” the director explained of the project, which is now in post-production. It is produced by Charles Gillibert and sold by Les Films Du Losange.

Denis Lavant acts in the film, as does his daughter. “The rest of it is images from archives, from other people, and from me with my iPhone,” said Carax. Lavant has...

Shailene Woodley and Jack Whitehall have joined the cast of the animated feature “Girl in the Clouds,” directed by Philippe Riche (“Rabbids Invasion”).

The film, penned by Riche and Luc Bossi, is inspired by the novel “The Little Girl Who Swallowed a Cloud as Big as The Eiffel Tower” by best-selling author Romain Puértolas. Production will start in May 2024 for a Summer 2026 release.

“Girl in the Clouds” tells the story of Providence, who is entrusted with a magic quill that makes everything she writes come true. Faced with this incredible power, she has to choose between living her dreams and saving the world.

Brio Films, whose credits include Michel Gondry’s “Mood Indigo” and “The Extraordinary Journey of the Fakir,” Scope Pictures (“Annette”), Panama Prods. is producing. It’s co-produced by Cocoon Films, Sagax and Bien Sûr Prods. Partners include Canal + Group; Sc Films Intl. is handling worldwide sales, while Angela Demo is casting.

French director Leos Carax returned to the Cannes Film Festival in full force back in 2021 with “Annette” (and we’ll forgive the reader if it feels longer ago than that; Covid was a weird time). Carax’s film was Best Director on the 2021 Croisette, a slew of Césars (including another Best Director win), and made several annual top 10 lists by the time 2021 ended.

Continue reading Adam Driver Reteaming With Leos Carax For Next Film ‘It’s Not Me,’ Says Juliette Binoche at The Playlist.

The timeless tale of Frankenstein lives on — again... and again. It was recently confirmed that Jacob Elordi will star in Guillermo del Toro's upcoming film adaptation. Plus, there's a Bride of Frankenstein remake with Annette Bening and other big names in the works. The Academy Award-nominated Poor Things even has shades of Victor's horrific story woven into its absurd storyline. And now, Oscar winner Diablo Cody (Juno scribe) has taken a stab (pun intended) at the classic tale of man creating monster, who then destroys man.

The marketing team behind Lisa Frankenstein has dubbed the new film from director Zelda Williams (daughter of the late great Robin) a "coming of rage love story," and you'll quickly learn that Tim Burton's extensive work has undoubtedly influenced this new project. Lisa Frankenstein is a wild ride that is often laugh-out-loud funny in an uncomfortable and polarizing sort of way.

Juno...

Qatar’s Doha Film Institute (Dfi) has announced that Leos Carax, Claire Denis, Atom Egoyan, Martín Hernández and Jim Sheridan will serve as Qumra Masters at the 10th edition of its respected talent incubator event, running from March 1 to 6.

They join a long list of top professionals to have participated in the Qumra meeting since its launch in 2014, which has included James Schamus, Naomi Kawase, Asghar Farhadi, Gael Garcia Bernal and Tilda Swinton.

Under the Qumra format, a select group of Mena and international filmmakers and producers of projects supported by the Dfi’s grants program attend the six-day talent and project incubator meeting in Doha.

The Qumra Masters give a masterclass and then provide one-on-one mentorship to the partipants alongside a host of other industry professionals in attendance.

French director Carax is currently working on post-production for his personal work It’s Not Me, which follows his award-winning pop-rock melodrama Annette,...

Claire Denis, Leox Carax, Jim Sheridan, Atom Egoyan and Martin Hernandez will be the Masters for the 10th edition of Qumra, the Doha Film Institute’s annual incubator event.

The four directors plus sound designer and editor Hernandez will discuss their careers in individual talks with the Qumra delegates.

This year’s Qumra will run from March 1-6, with the 10th edition a key milestone for a Middle Eastern film event.

“As the Arab world’s first-of-its-kind talent incubator, Qumra has served as the preeminent platform for emerging talents to give their projects a distinct advantage through invaluable networking sessions with leading industry professionals,...

"Nyad" is a biographical sports drama film that tells the story of Diana Nyad's impressive long-distance swim from Cuba to Florida in 2013. Diana Nyad's swim took over 53 hours without a shark cage, and she completed the journey at the age of 64, becoming an inspiration for many. Despite controversy and the swim not being formally ratified, Nyad's accomplishments continue to be recognized, and she remains active in swimming and motivational speaking.

Nyad tells the true story of Diana Nyad and her long-distance swim from Havana, Cuba, to Key West, Florida, in 2013. The biographical sports drama film premiered on November 3, 2023, on Netflix (it was previously shown for the first time at the 50th Telluride Film Festival on September 1). The movie, directed by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin and written by Julia Cox, is based on Nyad's 2015 autobiography Find a Way. While the film goes into detail about Nyad's remarkable swim,...

Renowned French auteur Arnaud Desplechin, whose latest film “Brother and Sister” competed at Cannes Film Festival in 2022, is currently wrapping his next directorial effort, “Spectateurs!”

Les Films du Losange, which handles French distribution and international sales rights to the title, has unveiled a first still (above) in the run-up to the Unifrance Rendez-Vous With French Cinema market, where it will introduce the film to buyers.

The hybrid project weaves documentary and fiction with a cast including Milo Machado Graner, the young breakthrough actor of Justine Triet’s “Anatomy of a Fall,” and well-known French actors Mathieu Amalric (“The Diving Bell and the Butterfly”) and Françoise Lebrun (“The Book of Solutions”).

Now in post, the docufiction is described by Les Films du Losange as “a love letter to cinema, freely inspired by the director’s own discovery and passion for cinema.”

A Croisette regular, Desplechin previously directed “Deception,” an adaptation of...

Alejandra Villaba García’s “Hyperballad,” Sophia Mocorrea’s “Marriage by Abduction” and Theo Court’s “Three Dark Nights” feature in a 15-title lineup of Ventana Sur’s Proyecta project lineup which is emerging as Ventana’s industry centerpiece as international co-production becomes vital to more ambitious arthouse filmmaking.

Organised by Cannes Marché du Film and the San Sebastian Film Festival, Proyecta received 200 submissions this year, up from 170 in 2022.

There is also good word on a broad range of projects from “The Heart is an Erratic Muscle” to “Moa,” “The Devil’s Well,” “Malena Once Again” and “Water Never Hurt.”

“Hyperballad” has what rates as one of the most potent mixtures in Latin American filmmaking: Genre; an ambitious first feature; and a female director, building on Alejandra Villaba García’s short “Microcastillo,” seen at Cannes’ 2017 Critics’ Week Morelia showcase.

From German-Argentine Sophia Mocorrea, “Marriage by Abduction” scooped the 2021 Les Arcs Talent Village Award,...

Tessa Ía, who broke out heading “After Lucía,” Michel Franco’s Cannes winning first feature, is set to star in “Hyperballad,” which offers what is proving one of the most potent mixtures in cutting-edge Latin American film: Genre, ambition, and a first-feature young woman director.

Directed by Alejandra Villalba García, “Hyperballad” (“Hiperbalada”) is lead produced by Hiperbalada, a production house lead by Villalba Garcñia and pic producer Carlos Paz.

It is co-produced by Mexico’s Piano, behind some of the boldest Mexican movies of recent years, such as the Alfonso Cuarón endorsed “We are the Flesh.” Its cosmopolitan co-production credits run from “Triangle of Sadness” to “Annette” and “Memoria.” Piano’s Julio Chavezmontes will also produce “Hyperballad.”

Sharpening the project’s contempo edge, “Hyperballad” portrays the digital world’s angst, psychosis and “phantasmagoria,” in producer Paz’s word.

Ía will play Tessa, a popular influencer, who returns to her childhood...

Judy Nugent, who portrayed one of the twins on the early TV sitcom The Ruggles and a girl who flies around the world in the arms of the Man of Steel on a heartwarming Adventures of Superman episode, has died. She was 83.

Nugent died on Oct. 26 “surrounded by family at her Montana ranch after a short battle with cancer,” according to a family statement shared by her daughter-in-law and Battlestar Galactica and Chicago Fire actress Anne Lockhart (the older daughter of Lassie and Lost in Space star June Lockhart).

The younger daughter of a prop man at MGM, Nugent also appeared in two films directed by Douglas Sirk: as a wise-cracking tomboy who tries to get a blinded widow (Jane Wyman) to snap out of it in Magnificent Obsession (1954), and as one of the daughters of Fred MacMurray and Joan Bennett’s characters in There’s Always Tomorrow (1956).

Nugent also...