News

Oscilloscope Laboratories has acquired North American rights to “Vulcanizadora,” a dark comedy from Joel Potrykus, the indie director behind “Ape” and “Buzzard.” The movie stars Potrykus along with the guerrilla filmmaker’s longtime collaborator Joshua Burge. Financial terms of the sale were not immediately available.

According to the official description: “The film follows two friends as they trudge through a Michigan forest with the intention of following through on a disturbing pact. Once their plan goes shockingly awry, the haunting consequences of their failure can’t stay hidden for long.”

“Vulcanizadora” premiered at the 2024 Tribeca Film Festival, scoring strong reviews with Variety praising the film as “surprisingly moving in its depiction of mid-life crisis.” Oscilloscope first collaborated with Potrykus on the breakout cult favorite, “Buzzard.” “Vulcanizadora” marks the fourth collaboration for Potrykus and Oscilloscope Laboratories.

“Vulcanizadora” was shot in 16mm and written and edited by Potrykus. The movie was produced by Ashley Potrykus,...

While there was a noticeable drought for pick-ups at the Sundance Film Festival this year, movie sales continue to trickle out from Park City a few weeks later.

In fact, Oscilloscope Laboratories acquired the North American rights to Albert Birney’s black-and-white fantasy odyssey “Obex” on Thursday, TheWrap has learned.

Birney starred in, produced, directed and co-wrote the surreal film with Pete Ohs. It marks the filmmaker’s solo, live-action directorial debut. Producers include Birney, Ohs, Emma Hannaway and James Belfer.

“The film follows Conor Marsh (Birney), a man living a secluded life with his dog, Sandy, until one day he begins playing Obex, a new, state-of-the-art computer game. When Sandy goes missing, the line between reality and game blurs and Conor must venture into the strange world of Obex to bring her home,” per the logline.

“I’ve long been captivated by the unique and thought-provoking films released by Oscilloscope Laboratories,...

Oscilloscope Laboratories has acquired North American rights to “Obex” following its debut at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. The surreal, black-and-white fantasy film was directed by Albert Birney (“Strawberry Mansion”) who wrote the script with Pete Ohs (“Jethica”). Birney also stars in the film.

The film was widely praised for its imagination and style, with Variety calling it “entrancing and singular” and comparing it favorably to “I Saw the TV Glow.” It follows Conor Marsh (Birney), a man living a secluded life with his dog, Sandy, until one day he begins playing Obex, a new, state-of-the-art computer game. When Sandy goes missing, the line between reality and game blurs, and Conor must venture into the strange world of Obex to bring her home.

The producing team includes Birney, Ohs, Emma Hannaway and James Belfer, the founder and CEO of production company Cartuna. “Obex” marks the company’s third collaboration with Birney,...

If film is, as Roger Ebert famously put it, a machine that generates empathy, then there's perhaps no other artistic medium out there so perfectly suited to communicating and eliciting sadness. By the same token, movies are maybe the best medium at laying out a persuasive case for the value of sadness as an aesthetic experience. A good cry at a movie can be cathartic, therapeutic, restorative, sobering and educational, or merely painful and gut-wrenching and still have value for its sheer depth of experience.

To compile this ranking of the 15 saddest movies ever, we've tried to go beyond the territory of efficient tear-jerking, and look instead for those films that are positively drenched in gloom, pain, misery, and despair from beginning to end — the movies that articulate sadness as an existential constant as opposed to a momentary state. Get the tissues ready, take a deep breath, and happy (or not) viewing.

Natalie Portman, Michelle Williams and Sebastian Stan will be honored at the Deauville American Film Festival which celebrates this year its 50th anniversary in the seaside town of French Normandy.

Portman and Williams will receive the Deauville Talent Award for their career achievements, while Stan will be honored with the Hollywood Rising Star Award.

“Portman has always taken on demanding roles (…) that are marked by this ambivalent presence, a mixture of strength and fragility. She has proven throughout her career that she can play all kinds of characters with depth and accuracy,” stated the Deauville Film Festival which is under the new leadership of Aude Hesbert.

Portman earned a Golden Globe nomination for her role in Todd Haynes’ “May December” which was presented at the Deauville Film Festival in 2023. The actor was already celebrated last year with a Deauville honorary tribute but was not able to attend the festival due to the SAG-AFTRA strike.

Larry Fessenden is back with new werewolf horror movie Blackout, which is Now Available on Digital/VOD at home courtesy of Dark Sky Films.

Blackout is the third film in Fessenden’s monster trilogy, following Habit (vampires) and Depraved (Frankenstein). Watch a clip below for a sneak peek at his latest monster!

The film follows small town artist Charley (Alex Hurt), a tortured man whose drinking binges blur with his sneaking suspicion that he might likely be a werewolf. He distances himself from those he loves and sinks deeper into solitude, his flashes of memory of his nighttime grisly acts manifested through his artwork.

Fessenden tells us, “I am interested in finding new truths in the classic monster tropes of my youth. The essence of each creature dictates the milieu of the film, and of course, the werewolf is both out of control and regretful so that duality shaped my story.

Larry Fessenden (Habit, Depraved) is back with new werewolf horror movie Blackout, and the official trailer has been unleashed today along with release information.

Dark Sky Films will first bring the modern day werewolf movie to theaters in NYC on March 13, followed by a wider release on Digital/VOD at home on April 12, 2024.

The film’s one week exclusive NYC theatrical engagement will take place at the IFC Center beginning March 13th, and it will feature special cast appearances and a Q&a.

Blackout marks the second pairing of Glass Eye Pix, the New York production shingle headed by Fessenden, and Yellow Veil Pictures, having previously collaborated successfully on world sales for Fessenden’s 2019 Depraved, which was released by IFC Midnight in the US.

The film follows small town artist Charley (Alex Hurt), a tortured man whose drinking binges blur with his sneaking suspicion that he might likely be a werewolf.

Metrograph is expanding its theatrical distribution business and has hired former A24 executive David Laub as head of Metrograph Pictures.

Laub will reported to CEO Christian Grass and will assemble a team to build a slate of prestige theatrical releases covering independent, international, and documentary.

The company aims to acquire completed films and board projects at earlier stages to potentially provide financing, and is looking at projects with an aim to get up to 10 “robustly supported” releases per year.

Laub will attend Berlin next week to scour the festival and market for potential acquisitions.

Until Tuesday’s announcement the company,...

We recently learned that five years after Dragged Across Concrete, S. Craig Zahler will soon announce his next feature. In the meantime, the director has unveiled his favorite music, books, and––most pertinent to this site––films he watched in the past year.

The 21-movie list includes not only his ten favorites of the year but revival screenings as well, including Béla Tarr and Ágnes Hranitzky’s Werckmeister Harmonies, Kelly Reichardt’s Wendy and Lucy, Masaki Kobayashi’s Harakiri, Gaspar Noé’s Irreversible, Nagisa Ôshima’s The Pleasures of the Flesh, Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Memoria, and William Friedkin’s The Exorcist.

When it comes to new releases, amongst the favorites of the Bone Tomahawk director were Sean Durkin’s The Iron Claw, Skinamarink, Godzilla Minus One, the Indian action-thriller Jawan, films by Martin Scorsese and Jonathan Glazer, and the latest in the Saw franchise.

Check out the list below.

Godzilla Minus One...

Larry Fessenden (Wendigo, Habit, Depraved) is back with a new werewolf horror movie titled Blackout, and THR reports today that it’s found a home at Dark Sky Films.

Dark Sky Films has acquired North American rights to Blackout, and they’re aiming to release Fessenden’s latest in theaters and on Digital outlets in the first quarter of 2024.

Blackout marks the second pairing of Glass Eye Pix, the New York production shingle headed by Fessenden, and Yellow Veil Pictures, having previously collaborated successfully on world sales for Fessenden’s 2019 Depraved, which was released by IFC Midnight in the US.

The film follows small town artist Charley (Alex Hurt), a tortured man whose drinking binges blur with his sneaking suspicion that he might likely be a werewolf. He distances himself from those he loves and sinks deeper into solitude, his flashes of memory of his nighttime grisly acts manifested through...

Larry Fessenden is back with a new werewolf horror movie titled Blackout, and Bloody Disgusting has some exclusive first-look imagery to share today.

Check out the images below and read on for everything you need to know…

Blackout marks the second pairing of Glass Eye Pix, the New York production shingle headed by Fessenden, and Yellow Veil Pictures, having previously collaborated successfully on world sales for Fessenden’s 2019 Depraved, which was released by IFC Midnight in the US.

The film follows small town artist Charley (Alex Hurt), a tortured man whose drinking binges blur with his sneaking suspicion that he might likely be a werewolf. He distances himself from those he loves and sinks deeper into solitude, his flashes of memory of his nighttime grisly acts manifested through his artwork

Blackout is the third film in Fessenden’s monster trilogy, following Habit (vampires) and Depraved (Frankenstein). This film continues...

Portland local Todd Haynes turned out at the Oregon city’s art museum in late June not to tout his own movies — and he certainly has a major one on the horizon thanks to Netflix’s Cannes pick-up “May December” — but to celebrate his peers: namely screenwriter and author Jon Raymond, longtime collaborator of Haynes’ friend Kelly Reichardt. Raymond also co-wrote with Haynes the script for his acclaimed 2011 HBO miniseries “Mildred Pierce” and developed the story for Haynes’ upcoming gay romance starring Joaquin Phoenix.

Haynes, who moved to Portland in 2000, was among speakers at the Portland Art Museum Center for an Untold Tomorrow’s (Pam Cut) Cinema Unbound Awards, which honored the likes of Raymond, Guillermo del Toro, Tessa Thompson, Jacqueline Stewart, and Portlander Fred Armisen. The lively gala was held in honor of not only raising funds for the museum — one of the largest in the country and now...

Michelle Williams always delivers grounded, deeply moving performances but is rarely showy about it. Her work with frequent collaborator Kelly Reichardt -- including "Wendy and Lucy" and "Showing Up" -- best illustrates this quiet brilliance. Reichardt makes minimalist, unhurried films that demand both precision and flexibility from her actors.

In addition to her films with independent directors like Reichardt, Williams also delivers exemplary turns in bigger films, which pair her king with legendary directors like Martin Scorses and Steven Spielberg. Her roles in Reichardt's "Certain Women" and Spielberg's "The Fabelmans" couldn't be more different, but her simultaneous sense of grace and familiarity are common threads. Even in her most theatrical performances -– notably "The Fabelmans" -– Williams always feels like a woman you could really know or someone you might see on the street.

Despite her status as a five-time Oscars nominee, Williams seems to somehow still fly under the radar,...

The new A24 film “Showing Up” comes from writer/director Kelly Reichardt (“First Cow“) and the filmmaker reunites with Oscar-winning actress Michelle Williams (“The Fabelmans“). The pair previously worked together on “Wendy & Lucy,” “Meek’s Cutoff,” and “Certain Woman” and all those collaborations are arguably both their best works.

Continue reading Watch An Exclusive Clip From Kelly Reichardt’s A24 Drama ‘Showing Up’ Starring Michelle Williams, Hong Chau & Judd Hirsch at The Playlist.

Kelly Reichardt, Michelle Williams Graphic: Rebecca Fassola The film canon is built on partnerships between directors and their personally beloved actors. These ongoing collaborative companionships can elevate a director’s work, clicking in all the necessary emotive elements, and their shared sense of trust—cultivated on screen and off—can...

Showing Up contains many of the hallmarks of a classic Kelly Reichardt picture: a Pacific Northwest setting, a Jonathan Raymond co-writing credit, Christopher Blauvelt cinematography, a rich ensemble cast, and an unrivaled attention to locations, production design, and wardrobe. There’s also Michelle Williams appearing in her fourth Reichardt film, their collaboration having begun with 2008’s Wendy and Lucy.

In Showing Up, Williams is Lizzy, a talented sculptor who finds herself a bit worn down by the realities of modern life. By all accounts she has a decent day job––something she likely wouldn’t refute––working in the office of the liberal arts college she attended. Outside of offering her rent and cat food money, the position keeps Lizzy plugged into the local art scene and most importantly grants her free access to the campus kiln (operated by André Benjamin in a joyful role).

Outside of Williams, that aforementioned...

Chicago – The acclaimed director Kelly Reichardt has been an influencer in cinema since her debut film “River of Grass” in 1994. Her multi-award winning films include “Wendy and Lucy” (2008), “Meek’s Cutoff” (2010) and “First Cow” (2019). Her most recent film, set to release April 7th, is “Showing Up.”

Long time Reichardt collaborator Michelle Williams portrays Lizzy, an academic sculptor artist in Oregon (where Reichardt sets her films) who is getting some recognition feelers from New York City. But for the moment she lives a spartan life in an artist’s community, aided by her colleague and landlord Jo (Hong Chau), and her continued connection to her divorced parents Bill (Judd Hirsch) and Jean (Maryann Plunkett). When her brother Sean (John Magaro) has an episode related to his ongoing bi-polar disorder, one of the Lizzy’s most important gallery shows is heading towards disruption.

Michelle Williams in ‘Showing Up,’ Co-Written/Directed by Kelly Reichardt...

Unicorn Wars: "It’s Bambi meets Apocalypse Now in this provocative and strangely beautiful horror comedy from acclaimed filmmaker and illustrator Alberto Vazquez (Birdboy: The Forgotten Children), who uses its outrageous candy-colored premise to explore religious zealotry, the tortured legacies of military fascism, and the depths of the soul.

For ages, teddy bears have been locked in an ancestral war against their sworn enemy, the unicorns, with the promise that victory will complete the prophecy and usher in a new era. Aggressive, confident teddy bear Bluet and his sensitive, withdrawn brother Tubby could not be more different. As the rigors and humiliation of teddy bear bootcamp turn to the psychedelic horrors of a combat tour in the Magic Forest, their complicated history and increasingly strained relationship will come to determine the fate of the entire war."

Director/Writer/Art Director: Alberto Vázquez Executive Producers: Chelo Loureiro, Iván Miñambres, Nicolas Schmerkin...

Yellow Veil Pictures announced today they have boarded world sales on Blackout, Larry Fessenden’s werewolf horror film that’s currently in post-production, and have released the first teaser poster. The film wrapped principal photography in the fall in New York’s Hudson Valley and will hit the festival circuit later this year.

Blackout marks the second pairing of Glass Eye Pix, the New York production shingle headed by Fessenden, and Yellow Veil Pictures, having previously collaborated successfully on world sales for Fessenden’s 2019 Depraved, which was released by IFC Midnight in the US to great acclaim.

The film follows a fine-arts painter convinced he is a werewolf wreaking havoc on a small American town every full moon. It is the latest addition to Fessenden’s own Monsterverse, along with his breakout feature, the vampire-themed Independent Spirit Award-Winning feature Habit (1995) and 2019’s Frankenstein riff, Depraved.

Winner of the 1997 Someone to Watch Spirit Award,...

Two years after First Cow, which we collectively named our favorite film of 2020, Kelly Reichardt returns with a work like a line drawing: neat, lean, evocative. Showing Up is about art, how art is made, and the people who use their time to make it. It stars Michelle Williams, an actress who has always been at home to the quiet rhythms of Reichardt’s filmmaking, appearing over the years as a down-on-her-luck drifter in Wendy and Lucy (2008), a settler on the wagon trail in Meek’s Cutoff (2011), and as a woman burdened by a belittling man in the director’s anthology Certain Women (2016).

In Showing Up, Williams plays Lizzie, a sculptor who is neither famous nor struggling, but somewhere in-between: an undefined lower-middle-class of artist that cinema tends to overlook. Lizzie is hard-working, passionate about her craft, protective of it, and rather good at what she does (foot-high clay sculptures of...

Feted on the Croisette this year – receiving the Carrosse d’Or award from the Directors’ Fortnight, Kelly Reichardt had to wait until the last day of competition to showcase her understated Showing Up – her fourth film collab with Michelle Williams. Reichardt has been to Cannes only one time before – when she premiered Wendy and Lucy in the Un Certain Regard section.

An artist wants to take a day off to finalize her sculptures for her upcoming show…and life gets in the way. A series of distractions and a nagging hot water issue for apartment’s shower annoy the hell out of Lizzie.…...

Filmmaker Kelly Reichardt’s work with Michelle Williams has spanned four movies now with the Cannes Film Festival closer Showing Up.

In the movie, Williams plays a sculptor preparing to open a new show as she balances her creative life with the daily dramas of family and friends. The show could be a game changer for her.

Similar to previous Reichardt features, Showing Up is a portrait about the nuances and minimalism in life. Deadline reviewer Stephanie Bunbury points out that “Each character’s drama, if you could call it that, lies under the surface.” Bunbury also says, “Showing Up is about endless, tiny acts of persistence. Very little happens.”

“We keep writing about introverts,” said Reichardt at the Cannes presser this Am about her work with Williams which also spans Meek’s Cutoff, Certain Women and Wendy and Lucy.

“That gets left on Michelle’s shoulder a lot,” added the director,...

Sometimes we really do need some direction in life. Wandering around without any real plans or hopes or dreams can only take you so far - wisdom for all of us to consider. One of the last films to premiere at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival is the latest from acclaimed American indie filmmaker Kelly Reichardt, her highly anticipated follow-up to the award-winning First Cow. As a huge fan of First Cow, and an admirer of her early minimal films like Old Joy and Wendy & Lucy, I was looking forward to seeing what she has been working on. Alas, Showing Up one of her worst films so far, an aimless and drab creation that is nothing more than a meandering showcase of entirely uninteresting artists who have never made anything of value but still keep going. It seems after First Cow all she could possibly think of was to film in her own backyard,...

Lizzy Carr (Michelle Williams), the central character of Kelly Reichardt’s “Showing Up,” is a sculptor who is finishing up a series of ceramic figures she’ll be presenting in a gallery show. We see her working, throughout the movie, on the small clay statues — all women, each one about a foot tall, some mounted on rods, all with an intentionally rough, patchy surface that may look awkward and unpolished if you’re close up to it, but when you stand back a bit you see the aesthetic elegance of her style. (Giacometti would understand.) She’s making sculptures of female characters who look a bit ghostly in their lack of perfect line, but that’s part of their design (they all appear a little tormented), and that quality is balanced by the delicate surprise colors they’re painted with, which express their inner life. There’s no question: Lizzy has talent.

The exquisite and sublime journeys of Oregon-based filmmaker Kelly Reichardt are arguably, more or less, incidental or oblique political statements about survival in America, often focusing on two or more friends, usually outsiders, and their struggle to endure. “Wendy And Lucy,” about a destitute woman and her soulmate canine companion, was overt about human inequity and hardship; “Meek’s Cutoff” depicted the unbearable burden of living off a hostile, unforgiving land; and “First Cow” presented the warm, but sad futility of two friends trying to sustain themselves under the grueling rigors of nascent American capitalism.

Continue reading ‘Showing Up’ Review: Kelly Reichardt Captivates With A Warm & Comical Look At The World Of Arts & Crafts [Cannes] at The Playlist.

“First Cow” may not have been anywhere near as soul-devouringly sad as “Wendy and Lucy,” but that bittersweet frontier comedy about two friends who get milked to death while trying to make an honest buck was still bleak enough to leave me very scared for the heroine of Kelly Reichardt’s latest film about desperate people and the animals with which they run afoul. Or, a fowl, as the case may be in the director’s feathery “Showing Up,” who reluctantly finds herself nursing an injured pigeon during the most important week of her not-quite career.

The good news is that nobody gets buried with their best friend or has to leave them behind; this isn’t the kind of movie in which people die so much as one where everyone wears overalls and André Benjamin plays the patient kiln master at an Oregon arts college. The bad news is...

Actress Michelle Williams and filmmaker Kelly Reichardt (“Wendy & Lucy“) have reunited for the drama “Showing Up,” a low-budget pic that sees Williams play a tightly wound artist named Lizzie. The film will be heading to the Canes Film Festival where it is notably one of the few movies playing there that has been helmed by a female director.

During a new interview with Variety, Williams talked about “Showing Up” and gave updates on other dramatic projects that have been in development for a while now.

Continue reading Michelle Williams Says Todd Haynes’ Peggy Lee Biopic Is Dead & Talks About Speaking Out On Pay Equity In Hollywood at The Playlist.

Michelle Williams doesn’t quite know how to describe it.

There’s just this thing that comes over her when she’s on a movie set, granting her a transportive ability to shape-shift and access untapped reservoirs of emotion somewhere between the time a director yells “action” and “cut.”

“Everything opens up,” she says. “And I’ve found that the more I practice acting, the better I can navigate this kind of dream space. It’s a space where you don’t really exist. There’s no beginning, there’s no end. You’re in your unconscious.”

Whatever she’s tapping into, it seems to be working. It enabled her to plumb the depths of despair as the grieving mother in “Manchester by the Sea,” and summit the heights of absurdity as the Goop-ified cosmetics CEO in “I Feel Pretty.” And it’s on display in every frame of her newest film,...

Michelle Williams is expecting her third child. The Oscar-nominated actress, 41, and her husband Thomas Kail, 44, will welcome the baby this fall, Variety has learned.

“It’s totally joyous,” Williams tells Variety. “As the years go on, you sort of wonder what they might hold for you or not hold for you. It’s exciting to discover that something you want again and again, is available one more time. That good fortune is not lost on me or my family.”

It will be the second child for the couple — their son, Hart, was born in 2020. Williams has a 16-year-old daughter Matilda from her relationship with the late actor Heath Ledger. Kail, best known for directing “Hamilton,” worked with Williams on “Fosse/Verdon.”

Williams gave birth to Hart during lockdown, and she says that raising a young child has helped to put all the dark headlines from the pandemic era in perspective.

“It...

This year’s crop of filmmakers at the Cannes Film Festival does not represent a new benchmark in terms of gender diversity.

Since becoming the first international festival to sign a gender parity pledge in 2018, Cannes has failed to make substantial progress in ramping up the representation of female directors in competition, which remains dominated by male directors.

Cannes director Thierry Fremaux told Variety last week that he was aiming to “hopefully” have a “stronger presence of female directors” in 2022. But so far, it’s not looking like he’s achieved that goal.

At this point, there are only three films by female directors in competition out of 18 titles. The proportion is on par with last year when four of the 21 titles were from female filmmakers. That matched a previous high of four female moviemakers from the 2019 edition.

This year’s competition boasts a handful of well-established veteran directors such as Kelly Reichardt,...

The 2022 Cannes Film Festival announced its 75th anniversary lineup on Thursday morning in Paris, with films selected for the prestigious festival including “Three Thousand Years of Longing,” George Miller’s first film since “Mad Max: Fury Road”; “Showing Up,” which finds indie director Kelly Reichardt reuniting with her “Wendy and Lucy” and “Certain Women” star Michelle Williams; and “Crimes of the Future,” a reportedly disturbing David Cronenberg drama whose cast includes Kristen Stewart, Lea Seydoux and Viggo Mortensen, who starred in three Cronenberg films between 2005 and 2011, including “A History of Violence” and “Eastern Promises.”

Other films include two music documentaries: “Trouble in Mind,” a Jerry Lee Lewis film by Ethan Coen, and “Moonage Daydream,” an authorized David Bowie work by Brett Morgen.

The 18 films in the main competition include several from Cannes regulars, including the Dardenne brothers (“Tori and Lokita”), Claire Denis (“Stars at Noon”), James Gray (“Armageddon Time”), Hirokazu...

American auteur Kelly Reichardt, an icon of the international film community thanks to her signature “slow cinema” style, will be honored by the Locarno Film Festival with its Pardo d’onore Manor lifetime achievement award.

Since making her acclaimed 1994 debut “River of Grass,” Reichardt has followed her own singular orbit as a true outlier of indie cinema over the course of nearly quarter of a century and a dozen works including “Old Joy,” “Wendy and Lucy,” “Meek’s Cutoff,” “Night Moves,” and “First Cow” — which opened Locarno in 2020 — that have cemented her reputation as one of the most distinctive voices in cinema today.

Reichardt’s new pic “Showing Up” is tipped to premiere in Cannes in May.

The Swiss fest dedicated to indie and cutting-edge cinema in a statement described Reichardt’s films, which she also edits, as being “characterized by intense research on realism and hallmarked by proudly independent creative and production processes.

Larry Fessenden in Habit. Image courtesy Glass Eye Pix.In Kelly Reichardt’s Wendy and Lucy (2008), Michelle Williams’ road-tripping heroine has a harrowing nighttime encounter with a derelict played by Larry Fessenden—a witty bit of casting calling back to the latter’s starring role in Reichardt’s 1994 debut, River of Grass. There, a leaner, lankily handsome Fessenden essayed an Everglades variation on Martin Sheen, except that instead of a charismatic crackshot, his character Lee is a hopeless fuckup who can’t handle his borrowed gun; in a genre full of wrong men on the run for murders they never committed, he may be the only one who failed to hit the target in the first place. It’s possible to imagine that Fessenden’s unnamed, unmoored character in Wendy and Lucy is Lee fifteen years later, still on the outside looking in and relocated to the Pacific Northwest. Even if not,...

Multi-faceted filmmaker Mark Duplass discusses the movies he wishes more people knew about with hosts Josh Olson and Joe Dante.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Duck Butter (2018)

The Puffy Chair (2005)

Prince Of Broadway (2008)

Tangerine (2015)

The Florida Project (2017) – Dennis Cozzalio’s review

Red Rocket (2021)

Starlet (2012)

Take Out (2004)

Mack & Rita (Tbd)

Old Joy (2006)

First Cow (2020)

Wendy And Lucy (2008) – Dennis Cozzalio’s favorite movie of 2020

Henry Fool (1997)

Trust (1990)

Amateur (1994)

Medicine For Melancholy (2008)

Shang-Chi (2021)

Your Sister’s Sister (2011)

My Effortless Brilliance (2008)

What the Funny (2008)

Humpday (2009)

True Adolescents (2009)

Man Push Cart (2005)

The White Tiger (2021)

Baghead (2008)

The Do-Deca-Pentathlon (2012)

Language Lessons (2021)

Stevie (2002)

Hoop Dreams (1994)

American Movie (1999)

What Happened Was… (1994) – Ti West’s trailer commentary

Manhunter (1986) – Josh Olson’s trailer commentary

My Dinner With Andre (1981)

Creep (2014)

Grown-Ups (1980)

Abigail’s Party (1977)

Nuts In May (1976)

Secrets And Lies (1996) – Glenn Erickson’s Criterion Blu-ray review

Naked (1993)

Parallel Mothers (2021)

The Freebie (2010)

East Of Eden (1955) – Larry Cohen’s trailer commentary

Strange...

A24 and director Kelly Reichardt‘s (“Wendy & Lucy“) upcoming film “Showing Up” takes place within the art scene with Kelly reuniting with four-time Oscar nominee Michelle Williams (“Manchester By The Sea“), who plays an artist about to have a career-changing art exhibition while attempting to her chaotic life that should inspire some fantastic artwork.

Read More: Michelle Williams & Kelly Reichardt Reunite For A24 Film ‘Showing Up’

There has been a huge casting update from Deadline, as the studio has added a whole bunch of additions to “Showing Up.” The group of talented actors joining Williams includes Hong Chau (“Inherent Vice,” “Downsizing,” “Watchmen“), Judd Hirsch (“Uncut Gems“), André Benjamin (“High Life“), John Magaro (“Overlord“), Maryann Plunkett, Heather Lawless, Amanda Plummer, Larry Fessenden, and James Le Gros.

Continue reading ‘Showing Up’: Hong Chau, Andre Benjamin, Judd Hirsch, John Magaro & More Join Michelle Williams In Kelly Reichardt’s New Feature at The Playlist.

The new company will focus on French genre feature films and series.

France’s Wild Bunch International (Wbi) and Capricci are joining forces to create a new production company called Wild West which will be focused on French genre feature films and series.

Its remit will encompass genre “in its broadest sense” and span horror, fantasy, sci-fi, crime, thriller and superhero films.

The joint venture will officially kick off its activities with a special event in the French city of Bordeaux next week (June 9 and 10) at which it will present its first slate of films. Alongside this physical event, there...

“Mayday,” which took its first European bow at the Rotterdam Film Festival this week after premiering at Sundance, is the debut feature of U.S. writer/director Karen Cinorre.

The film tells the tale of oppressed young waitress Ana working at a wedding, who falls through an oven into a female-dominated utopia.

The character then joins group of seemingly like-minded soldiers who are involved in a Siren-like mission to lure male soldiers to their deaths via fake mayday calls.

The feature is one of a number of films vying for this year’s Tiger Award at Rotterdam exploring female self-realization and shares similar revenge fantasy themes to fellow Sundance breakout, Emma Fennell’s “Promising Young Woman.”

While Cinorre’s original script for the film pre-dates both the #MeToo and “Time’s Up” movements, she remains hopeful that these events have created “a new openness” that has meant films like hers are more likely to get made.

A biopic of Peggy Lee that’s been kicking around Hollywood for nearly a decade is getting revived by “Far From Heaven” and “Carol” director Todd Haynes. Deadline has the scoop that Haynes will reunite with his “I’m Not There” and “Wonderstuck” star Michelle Williams, who will play the jazz chanteuse in the film. Williams is stepping in for Reese Witherspoon, who was attached when the project was first announced back in 2014. The script is written by Tony and Pulitzer winner Doug Wright.

Billie Eilish is also in talks to come on board as an executive producer, as she is an admirer of the vocalist, who burst out of the big band era and died in 2002. Lee is famous for her rendition of tracks like “Fever,” “I’m a Woman,” “Lover,” and “Is That All There Is?” Peggy Lee was also an actor onscreen and earned an Oscar nomination for...

Exclusive: The long-in-development Peggy Lee biopic Fever not only looks to have found a new studio to call home, but also a new star to play the legendary singer. Sources tell Deadline that MGM is in talks to come aboard the Peggy Lee biopic, with Academy Award nominee Todd Haynes set to direct and four-time Academy Award nominee Michelle Williams on board to star.

The film will be produced by Marc Platt, Reese Witherspoon and Pamela Koffler & Christine Vachon via their Killer Films production company. It is understood that multi-Grammy-winning artist Billie Eilish, mother Maggie Baird and Record Label partner Justin Lubliner have expressed interest in Fever and are in early discussions with the filmmakers to come on board as executive producers for the feature film.

Eilish was part of a celebration of Lee’s life and career last May and has always seen Lee as one of her inspirations for her music.

For her eighth feature film, Kelly Reichardt returned to the American frontier to tell the story of a baker from the Northeast (John Magaro) and a Chinese immigrant (Orion Lee) who together build a profitable baking business in the Oregon Territory using stolen milk from the area’s first milk cow. Based on a script she co-adapted with Jonathan Raymond from his novel “The Half Life,” Reichardt works within her wheelhouse of the American West as a setting to provide one of the year’s most acclaimed indie films. In November we asked if it could be her first Oscar contender, but now we’re wondering how many categories it’s being underestimated in.

The film has found early success for its screenplay. Regional critics groups have nominated it consistently, leading to a runner-up placement with the National Society of Film Critics. As Reichardt’s potential breakthrough with the academy,...

A24 has revealed two exciting new projects in the works: The latest collaboration between Kelly Reichardt and Michelle Williams, as well as a new TV series produced by Amy Adams. “Showing Up” is set to mark the fourth Reichardt film to star Williams, following “Wendy & Lucy,” “Meek’s Cutoff,” and “Certain Women.” The project is said to be a vibrant and witty portrait of an artist in the lead-up to a career-making exhibition. Reichardt announced the project during a conversation with “Manchester by the Sea” filmmaker Kenneth Lonergan on The A24 Podcast.

The company also announced that it has teamed with Amy Adams to adapt the alt-feminist Western “Outlawed” for television. Written by Anna North, the New York Times bestseller, which debuted earlier this month, follows a young midwife through her initiation into the infamous Hole in the Wall Gang. In the novel, the real-life band of 19th century outlaws...

Production scheduled for summer.

Kelly Reichardt, whose First Cow has just picked up three Spirit Award nominations on Tuesday, is reuniting with Michelle Williams on her next feature for A24, Showing Up.

Reichardt confirmed the news in a conversation with Kenneth Lonergan on the latest episode of the A24 podcast that dropped on Tuesday (January 26).

Production is scheduled for the summer. Reichardt and long-time writing partner Jon Raymond wrote the screenplay about an artist on the verge of a career-changing exhibition.

As she navigates family, friends, and colleagues in the lead up to her show, the chaos of life becomes the inspiration for great art.

Exclusive: In what is turning into quite a successful partnership, Michelle Williams and Kelly Reichardt look to have found their next project together. A24 has come on to Reichardt’s next film Showing Up with Williams attaching herself to star. The news was confirmed via a new episode of The A24 Podcast, which drops today, that features a conversation between Kenneth Lonergan and Kelly Reichardt. The project is mentioned at the top of the podcast. This will mark the fourth film, the two have worked on together, having previously collaborated on Wendy & Lucy, Meek’s Cutoff, and Certain Women.

Showing Up is set to go into production summer 2021. The script is written by Reichardt and her long-time writing partner, Jon Raymond. Neil Kopp, Anish Savjani, and Vincent Savino will produce. Scott Rudin and Eli Bush will serve as executive producers.

Reichardt’s latest film is a vibrant and sharply funny...

The 50th anniversary event will take place in February and June.

Danish director Anders Thomas Jensen’s comedy Riders Of Justice starring Mads Mikkelsen will open the 50th International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR). The festival is taking place as multi-part event from February to June 2021, with the first part running as hybrid festival from February 1-7. Organisers hope it will culminate in a physical event from June 2-6, 2021.

Some 60 titles spanning the Tiger Competition, Big Screen Competition and its Ammodo Tiger Shorts and Limelight sections are screening in February.

The festival’s flagship Tiger Competition will showcase 16 titles, which will...

For her eighth feature film, Kelly Reichart returned to the American frontier to tell the story of a baker from the Northeast (John Magaro) and a Chinese immigrant (Orion Lee) who together build a profitable baking business in the Oregon Territory using the stolen milk from the area’s first milk cow. Based on a script she co-adapted with Jonathan Raymond from his novel “The Half Life,” Reichardt works within her wheelhouse of the American West as a setting to provide one of the year’s strongest indie films. Could it be her first Oscar contender?

Reichardt is one in a growing number of American independent filmmakers who could finally break through into the mainstream and catch the eye of the academy. Directors that have already made that jump after a series of successful indie films include Wes Anderson, Richard Linklater, Barry Jenkins, and David O. Russell.

SEEOscar Predictions for Best Actor & Actress: Variety vs.

[Editor’s note: The below piece was originally published on February 26, 2019. It has been expanded from the 100 greatest films directed by women of all time to the 111 greatest, as of October 3, 2020.]

For as long as there have been movies, there have been women making them. When the Lumière brothers were shocking audiences with their unbelievable depiction of a running train, Alice Guy-Blaché was pioneering her own techniques in the brand-new artform. When D.W. Griffith was pioneering advances in the art, and building his own studio to make his work, Lois Weber was doing, well, the exact same thing.

When Hollywood was deep in its Golden Age, Dorothy Arzner, Dorothy Davenport, Tressie Souders, and many more women were right there, making their own films. It’s not even a trend that really abated, because it was never a trend. For so long, women being filmmakers was simply part of the norm, and while recent studies have made it clear that the industry needs a wake-up call when it comes to the skills of some of our finest working filmmakers (who just so...

Welcome back to Intermission, a spin-off podcast from The Film Stage Show. In a time when arthouse theaters are hurting more than ever and there are a plethora of streaming options at your fingertips, we wanted to introduce new conversations that put a specific focus on the films that are foundational or perhaps overlooked in cinephile culture. Led by yours truly, Michael Snydel, Intermission is a 1-on-1 supplementary discussion podcast that focuses on one arthouse, foreign, or experimental film per episode as picked by the guest.

For our ninth episode, I talked to Executive Editor of Seventh Row, Orla Smith, about Kelly Reichardt’s 2016 film Certain Women, which is currently available to stream on The Criterion Channel. Throughout her career, Reichardt has been one of the great observers of the “ordinary.” Her past otherworldly visions of the Pacific Northwest complement and antagonize characters beset by institutional and individual alienation. Transplanted to Montana,...

It is good news of sorts that the first official Academy Awards screener that was mailed to members this week, “First Cow,” is directed by a woman, Kelly Reichhardt, and features Asian actor Orion Lee. Diversity counts more than ever these days. The filmmaker’s minimalist style usually caters more to the Independent Spirit crowd as well as such international festivals including Cannes and Venice when it comes to cinematic honors. Her previous movies include “Old Joy,” “Wendy and Lucy,” “Meek’s Cutoff” and “Certain Women,” the last three starring Michelle Williams.

The 2021 Oscar nominations won’t be announced until mid-March and the 93rd ceremony won’t take place until April 24 due to delayed productions and constantly moving opening dates because of the coronavirus pandemic. But the well-reviewed “First Cow” had its premiere at Telluride Film Festival last year and opened theatrically on March 6 to a strong first weekend. But the...

Some spoilers follow for “First Cow.”

Kelly Reichardt’s films are chameleons. At first, they seem like romanticized versions of American tropes: the bond between a girl and her dog, in “Wendy and Lucy;” a pair of friends on a camping trip, in “Old Joy;” the pioneering spirit of early settlers, in “Meek’s Cutoff.” But look again, and the deeper emotional truths of these films are revealed: the crippling grip of poverty; the foreign terror of the frontier; the loneliness of adulthood.

Continue reading ‘First Cow’: Gentle Moments Shouldn’t Overshadow Kelly Reichardt’s Enraged Tragedy Of American Greed at The Playlist.

Orion Lee (left) as “King-Lu” and John Magaro (right) as “Cookie” in director Kelly Reichardt’s First Cow, released by A24 Films. Credit : Allyson Riggs / A24 Films

Kelly Reichardt’s First Cow offers a tale of friendship and American dreams, set in a hardscrabble frontier outpost in early 19th century Oregon territory, place that is less a community than a microcosm of the flaws of capitalism carved out of a green, lush wilderness. Two friends, a quiet, gentle baker known as Cookie (John Magaro) and a talkative, ambitious Chinese immigrant named King-Lu (Orion Lee) hatch a scheme to sell baked goods made with milk pilfered from the area’s first and only cow, the property of the wealthy local bigwig, known as Chief Factor (an excellent Toby Jones), who rules the outpost like the British lord he fancies himself.

There is, of course, a cow, a beautiful brown pedigreed milk cow,...