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(Welcome to Tales from the Box Office, our column that examines box office miracles, disasters, and everything in between, as well as what we can learn from them.)

It is remarkably difficult to picture now, but there was a time when superhero movies were not the dominant force in Hollywood. They were, at best, a fluke when they worked. Marvel only gained its first mainstream hit with "Blade" in 1998 and, frankly, its $131 million global haul is very modest by modern standards. That movie, however, opened the door for 2000's "X-Men," which is arguably the watershed moment in superhero movie history, with "Spider-Man" blowing the door wide open in 2002.

"X-Men" taking in nearly $300 million worldwide against a $75 million budget gave 20th Century Fox confidence to move forward with a sequel almost right away, and that sequel would arrive in 2003 in the form of "X2," aka "X2: X-Men United." In every conceivable way,...

It looks like Harry Potter might be making it to the small screen, after books, movies, games, theme parks, and even a Broadway play. Rumor has it that HBO is working on an exclusive series in this universe, leading to all kinds of speculation as to what the series might be. Ideas for sequels, prequels, spin-offs, and more abound, but one thing isn't clear yet (beyond whether this is officially happening) - and that's if it's even worth attempting.

Related: Casting The Original Order Of The Phoenix For HBO Max's Harry Potter Show

Harry Potter is a hugely successful franchise, and for many fans, it was a defining part of their childhood. However, the success of the original books and films doesn't guarantee that a follow up would do as well. So should HBO create a new series based in the wizarding world, what will make it likely to recapture the magic of the original,...

As Academy voters plow through some 90 submissions for Best International Feature, there’s a little-seen entry that’s a must-see: “My Little Sister,” starring award-winning German actress Nina Hoss in an incendiary performance as a woman fighting for her brother’s life.

The film’s low profile was all but inevitable: It debuted at the 2020 Berlinale, the film festival that got in just under the wire before Covid created a global lockdown. “It was a beautiful opening night,” said Hoss. “I didn’t know what would happen to the film. We waited. We brought it out [in October] in Berlin under hygienic regulations. We had a little cinema tour through places in Germany. Then we had lockdown again.” Watching “My Little Sister” during its brief theatrical run, Hoss said she was struck by how many scenes featured hospitals and face masks.

Written and directed by documentary filmmakers Stéphanie Chuat and Véronique Reymond,...

As Academy voters plow through some 90 submissions for Best International Feature, there’s a little-seen entry that’s a must-see: “My Little Sister,” starring award-winning German actress Nina Hoss in an incendiary performance as a woman fighting for her brother’s life.

The film’s low profile was all but inevitable: It debuted at the 2020 Berlinale, the film festival that got in just under the wire before Covid created a global lockdown. “It was a beautiful opening night,” said Hoss. “I didn’t know what would happen to the film. We waited. We brought it out [in October] in Berlin under hygienic regulations. We had a little cinema tour through places in Germany. Then we had lockdown again.” Watching “My Little Sister” during its brief theatrical run, Hoss said she was struck by how many scenes featured hospitals and face masks.

Written and directed by documentary filmmakers Stéphanie Chuat and Véronique Reymond,...

This has been a trying year for movies, with the closing of cinemas in the pandemic, and a pivot by many filmmakers and stars to streaming service projects. As we wait for the boom times to return once a Covid vaccine establish herd immunity and movie theaters fill again, it seemed worthwhile to reflect on what a great first quarter the 21st century has been for movies. Deadline’s Pete Hammond, Todd McCarthy, Joe Utichi and Mike Fleming Jr accepted the challenge to choose the most influential so far.

This is an impossible task. We’ve limited ourselves to live-action films and leaned into pictures that allowed for discussion of the output of directors. So, while 2007’s Paranormal Activity isn’t here despite hatching a slew of low-cost, high-gross found-footage and genre movies, you will find here Get Out, the Best Picture Oscar-nominated culmination of Jason Blum’s genre dynasty...

Christian Petzold’s “Undine,” for which Paula Beer won the Silver Bear for best actress at the Berlin Film Festival, has won the Arab Critics’ Award for European Films. Petzold received the award virtually at the Cairo Film Festival, which is running physically until Thursday.

The award, which was launched by European Film Promotion and Arab Cinema Center last year, was voted for by 56 film critics from 14 Arab countries. Twenty-two European films had been nominated by the European film institutions that comprise Efp.

The film, which plays as part of Cairo’s official selection, centers on Undine, who works as a historian and lecturer in urban development in Berlin. When the man she loves leaves her, the myth of Undine haunts her.

In the myth, the water spirit Undine can only lead an earthly life and attain a soul through the love of a human being. When her lover betrays her,...

Executive and former agent joined company in 2006.

Arianna Bocco has been named president of IFC Films.

Bocco, a popular and widely respected presence on the festival and market circuit, joined the company in 2006 and has spent more than a decade overseeing acquisitions and productions for IFC Films as well as genre label IFC Midnight.

In her new role she will continue to oversee acquisitions, production, marketing and publicity, while adding oversight of theatrical film distribution and the burgeoning IFC Films Unlimited subscription streaming service.

She will now report to Miguel Penella, AMC Networks president of SVoD, who oversees the company...

AMC Networks on Wednesday said that longtime film executive Arianna Bocco has been named president of its IFC Films division. Bocco was previously EVP of Acquisitions and Production. She replaces departing IFC Films Co-President Lisa Schwartz. Schwartz had served as Co-President with Jonathan Sehring who retired at the end of 2018.

Bocco has spent more than a decade overseeing acquisitions and productions for IFC Films as well as genre label IFC Midnight.

In her new role, Bocco will continue to oversee acquisitions, production, marketing and publicity, while adding oversight of theatrical film distribution and the fast-growing IFC Films Unlimited subscription streaming service. Bocco will report to Miguel Penella, AMC Networks’ president of SVOD, who oversees the company’s new premium subscription bundled offering AMC+, which includes IFC Films Unlimited; its portfolio of subscription video on demand services Acorn TV, Shudder, Sundance Now, and Umc; as well as Rlje Films. Penella reports to Ed Carroll,...

A year and a half after Laverne Cox became the first transgender person to grace the cover of Time Magazine, National Geographic followed suit with its own explosive issue. For its 2016 cover story, The Gender Revolution, National Geographic’s Robin Hammond photographed 80 nine-year-olds in eight countries. Poised gracefully on the cover was nine-year-old Avery Jackson, staring serenely into the camera, her bright pink hair and outfit striking a vivid complement to the magazine’s iconic yellow border. Jackson is one of four transgender kids profiled in “Transhood,” a tender-hearted documentary that humanizes trans kids while avoiding many of the usual gawking pitfalls. Following a timeline when trans rights have been consistently under attack, “Transhood” is a vital record of what it’s like to grow up trans in the Trump era.

Filmed in Kansas City, Missouri over the course of five years, “Transhood” shrewdly focuses its lens on families and...

New Foreign

“Parasite” is an often-brutal examination of wealth inequality, and yet its Best Picture win still counts as one of the few universally uplifting moments that 2020 had to offer. This Blu-ray release from The Criterion Collection arrives fully-loaded with extras, including director Bong Joon Ho’s black-and-white rendering of the film — anything but an afterthought, it’s a version that he and cinematographer Kyung-pyo Hong had in mind all along — commentaries, interviews, and a new essay from onetime TheWrap film critic Inkoo Kang.

Also available: Cameroonian college students get pulled into the dark web to pull a “Scam République” (IndiePix); anime saga “Digimon Adventure: Last Evolution Kizuna” (Shout/Toei) celebrates the franchise’s 20th anniversary; “Three Comrades” (IndiePix) go out to unwind on a Friday night and wind up on an unexpected spree.

Chilean stop-motion feature “The Wolf House” (KimStim) uses unsettling visuals to spin a fable about the...

In some respects, Phoenix frontman Thomas Mars and his bandmates were already prepared for the many creative pivots the Covid-19 pandemic has necessitated.

Even before the pandemic, the group had established what Mars describes as an “archiving system” from the in-person recording sessions for its 2017 album “Ti Amo” and forthcoming follow-up so that each member can complete any remaining work remotely. Even before the Zoom boom, the process helped Mars established a good virtual workflow with his bandmates.

“It’s something we’re really proud of and we’re constantly improving because we are far from each other: I live in New York City, one lives in Rome, two are in Paris,” Mars says. “Whenever we meet, we record everything we do together so we have enough to work on when we separate.”

One of the last projects Phoenix was able to mostly complete pre-lockdown was the band’s original...

After earning the Oscar earlier this year for what we’ll just take as an achievement award for the last decades-plus of stellar work, Joaquin Phoenix is eying his next projects. If the pandemic hadn’t hit, A24 would likely be debuting his Mike Mills collaboration C’mon C’mon this fall, but that seems to have been saved for 2021. Now, he’s boarded another film, which is shaping up to be quite the epic.

Reuniting after Gladiator, Ridley Scott will direct Phoenix in Kitbag, a Napoleon Bonaparte biopic. Deadline reports the film is being fast-tracked over at 20th Century Studios, and will shoot after Scott completes The Last Duel, which just wrapped production, and his forthcoming, star-studded Gucci family drama, which begins shooting in Italy this March. With that timeline, we could expect it to arrive perhaps by late 2022 at the earliest.

Phoenix, no stranger to biopics after Walk...

Stricken with Covid-19 earlier this year, celebrated German filmmaker Christian Petzold has been a busy cinephile in quarantine. But during a recent New York Film Festival podcast promoting the premiere of his latest film “Undine,” he didn’t mince words about his experiences using streaming platforms that, according to him, don’t offer much in the way of curation. (The Film Stage first picked up details out of the conversation.)

“I make a film festival on my own based on my DVD library, and this was the best festival I have ever been to,” he said. “I have seen two Ozu movies, one Bresson movie, three Chabrol movies… I hope in the future we have curated programs, really curated programs. Therefore I hate Amazon and Netflix. It’s not curated. I have a headache after.”

Meanwhile, he’s prepping a new project. Petzold has explored themes of desire in his past films,...

In some respects, Phoenix frontman Thomas Mars and his bandmates were already prepared for the many creative pivots the Covid-19 pandemic has necessitated.

In the last three years pre-pandemic, the group has established what Mars describes as an “archiving system” from any in-person recording sessions for its 2017 album “Ti Amo” and forthcoming follow-up so that each member can complete any remaining work remotely. Even before the Zoom boom, the process helped Mars established a good virtual workflow with his bandmates.

“It’s something we’re really proud of and we’re constantly improving because we are far from each other: I live in New York City, one lives in Rome, two are in Paris,” Mars says. “Whenever we meet, we record everything we do together so we have enough to work on when we separate.”

One of the last projects Phoenix was able to mostly complete pre-lockdown was the band...

Similar to his archenemy, the Joker has remained one of the most iconic figures in popular culture for over 80 years because the character can constantly be reinvented, reinvigorated, updated and tweaked to suit modern audiences just like Batman. Every generation tends to get their own version of the Clown Prince of Crime, although not all of them are guaranteed to ascend to legendary status.

Cesar Romero’s camp prankster, Jack Nicholson’s scenery-chewing mobster, Mark Hamill’s cackling antagonist, Heath Ledger’s psychotic anarchist, Gotham‘s unhinged Valeska twins, Jared Leto’s wannabe Juggalo and Joaquin Phoenix’s disturbed loner couldn’t be more different from each other performance-wise, but they’re all very much representative of the Joker’s core values and belief system.

WB Releases Three New Joker Posters 1 of 4

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After Phoenix’s Arthur Fleck saw him become...

Pearl Jam, David Byrne and Jenny Lewis are among the many artists featured on Good Music to Avert the Collapse of American Democracy: Volume Two. The collection will be available on Friday for 24 hours only as part of the Bandcamp Fridays series.

The tracklist is nearly twice the size of the first edition, with 77 previously unreleased recordings. Pearl Jam — who recently announced a massive voting initiative themselves — contributed the new song “Get It Back.” Byrne’s “People Tell Me” is a demo from the Joan of Arc: Into the Fire musical,...

The Venice Film Festival, which reinvigorated the fall festival season with a physical event that began on September 2 in Italy, concluded on Saturday with its annual awards ceremony. See the full list of winners and watch the live stream below.

Led by president Cate Blanchett, the jurors for the main competition included Austrian director Veronika Franz, British filmmaker Joanna Hogg (“The Souvenir”), Italian writer and novelist Nicola Lagioia, German filmmaker Christian Petzold, actor Matt Dillon (“Crash”), and French actress Ludivine Sagnier.

Together, they awarded the festival’s top prizes, including the Golden Lion, which last year went to “Joker” under jury president Lucrecia Martel. This year’s Golden Lion went to “Nomadland,” which received a rapturous reception out of the Toronto International Film Festival as well this week, and looks to be headed straight for Oscar contention.

Meanwhile, in the Orizzonti, or Horizons, section running parallel to the main competition,...

by Nathaniel R

We have our second contender for Best International Feature at the forthcoming Oscars. Poland was first to announce but now we also know which film Switzerland will send. They're going with My Little Sister which stars two familiar German greats Nina Hoss and Lars Eidinger. Hoss and Eidinger are only six months apart in age in real life and early reviews of their performances are strong so we can't wait to see them as twins. The movie is directed by Stéphanie Chuat and Véronique Reymond, a directing duo that Switzerland submitted once before in 2010 for The Little Bedroom...

In a fraught years for film festivals, some good news: the Venice Film Festival, one of the world’s starriest annual film events — and one that has previously resisted pressure to program more female filmmakers — has nearly reached gender parity with its competition lineup. This year’s festival will host eight films directed by women in its highest-profile section, where they will compete for the Golden Lion. Only four women have won the prize since the festival started in 1932, with Sofia Coppola as the most recent winner for “Somewhere” in 2010. The other past winners were Mira Nair, Margarethe von Trotta, and Agnès Varda.

The 2020 festival will play home to new films from a variety of the industry’s top female directors, including Chloe Zhao, Mona Fastvold (“The World to Come”), Emma Dante (“Le Sorelle Macaluso”), Nicole Garcia (“Lovers”), Susanna Nicchiarelli (“Miss Marx”), Malgorzata Szumowska (“Never Gonna Snow Again”), Julia Von Heinz...

While the coronavirus pandemic has canceled major festivals such as Cannes and Telluride, the 2020 Venice Film Festival is moving ahead as planned and will be the world’s first major film festival since Sundance and Berlin at the start of the year. Venice 2020’s main selection will be split into three sections: Venezia 77 (aka the main competition), Out of Competition, and Horizons. The titles selected for the main competition will compete for the Golden Lion, which was awarded last year to Todd Phillips’ “Joker.”

As previously announced, Daniele Luchetti’s drama “Lacci” will open the 77th Venice Film Festival on September 2. The movie is the first Italian title to open Venice in 11 years. The last Italian opener was Giuseppe Tornatore’s “Baarìa” at the 2009 festival. “Lacci” is included in this year’s Out of Competition section. Chloe Zhao’s “The Rider” follow-up “Nomadland” was also confirmed for a world premiere...

This article is dedicated to Mark, one of our subscribers (thank you!), who requested a piece on River Phoenix -Editor.

by Cláudio Alves

It's difficult to write, it's difficult to think, about River Phoenix without the tragedy of his premature death casting a dark shadow over all other considerations. His acting is often talked about in terms of wasted potential, another facet of the same mythos that James Dean inhabits in the public consciousness. Sure, his film work is important, but only as far as it adds to the narrative of a flame that burned too bright and died out too soon. That can be a blessing to one's legacy, a promise of cultural immortality. However, it's also a curse that makes a young actor's amazing career into a footnote of a Hollywood tale of doom and gloom. River Phoenix was and is more than the protagonist of a real-life story about dying young.

Spoiler Alert: Do not read if you have not yet watched “Crisis Theory,” the finale of “Westworld” Season 3.

Dolores may have been killed off — or erased — on “Westworld,” but that doesn’t mean the actor who portrayed her, Evan Rachel Wood, is necessarily done with the show.

“I want to come back,” Wood, who has earned two Emmy nominations for her work as the show’s leading robot, says on Thursday’s episode of the Variety and iHeart podcast “The Big Ticket.”

Wood recalled how she learned that series co-creators and showrunners Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy were planning Dolores’ demise.

“I found out I think halfway through Season 3, or towards the end,” Wood said. “We really find out the arc of our characters episode by episode. We get a general idea at the beginning of each season; they tell us where our characters are at, what their mission is,...

(We spoil the entire ending of “Dark Phoenix” here, and since this is about the full franchise we’ll also have spoilers for the rest of the “X-Men” movies as well)

“X-Men: Dark Phoenix” was the lowest grossing entry in Fox’s “X-Men” movie franchise, and it wasn’t close. But the flick, which concludes the main series of “X-Men” movies that began all the way back in 2000, has landed on HBO, and we’re all in coronavirus quarantine, and so a lot of folks are finally giving it a shot. Might as well just go for it, right? “Dark Phoenix” is the capper on a movie series that has been around for two decades, and the oldest of all the current Marvel franchises. You oughtta see how it all ends.

It’s only the end of this whole thing because of the Disney-Fox merger, of course — “X-Men: Dark Phoenix...

Norwegian producer Gudny Hummelvoll, whose Hummelfilm shingle worked in tandem with Sweden’s Yellow Bird on hit climate-crisis thriller “Occupied,” has been elected President of the European Producers Club.

Hummelvoll is the first woman to head the organization of 130 prominent independent film and TV drama producers across Europe, including the U.K., who since 1993 have been jointly thrashing out pressing audiovisual industry issues and lobbying European Union legislators.

She replaces Spanish producer Alvaro Longoria, head of Spain’s prominent and prolific Morena Films, in the organization’s top role. Longoria is now one of Epc’s three vice presidents, alongside Dariusz Jablonski, head of Poland’s Apple Films, and Paula Vaccaro of Pinball London.

In her first interview as Epc leader Hummelvoll underlined the importance of working towards greater diversity as a group.

“The producer is at the heart of the industry,” she said. “She/he chooses subjects, and develops...

This Rick And Morty review contains spoilers.

Rick and Morty Season 4 Episode 10

Up until now, the thesis of Rick and Morty’s fourth season has been “Forget serialization! Everything is one-off sci-fi gag adventures now!” Some fans even read the story train episode as the series’ vocal rejection of serialization, the way it crammed a ton of fan favorites into a glimpse at a hypothetical series finale only to laughingly point at everything and say “get an eyeful now, nerds, because this dumb bullshit is never going to happen!”

Luckily, the season finale indicates that serialization is not entirely dead as “Star Mort Rickturn of the Jerri” catches up with a whole load of plot threads from season two and three. You might call it the combo-sequel to “The Wedding Squanchers,” “Pickle Rick,” and “The ABCs of Beth”. It’s packed with continuations to the character stories of Bird (now Phoenix) Person,...

Sylvester Stallone knows a thing or two about resurrecting his long-dormant and most popular franchises after bringing both Rocky Balboa and John Rambo back to the big screen in recent years, and now he’s in the early stages of creating a follow-up to what many of the actor’s fans regard as one of his unsung greats.

It was recently confirmed that a sequel to 1993’s Demolition Man was in the works, and unsurprisingly, those with a strong affinity for the original are very much on board with the news. While no other details are available yet about John Spartan’s return, we’ve already heard that Wesley Snipes is also wanted to reprise his role as Spartan’s arch-nemesis Simon Phoenix, and now some new plot details have come our way which shed some light on how that may work.

According to our sources – the same ones who...

For director Ridley Scott, it was one look at a 19th-century neoclassical work of art that convinced him to make the Oscar-winning picture “Gladiator.” Jean-Léon Gérôme’s painting “Pollice Verso” depicts an armored gladiator in the ring, triumphantly facing onlookers as the crowd reacts with thumbs turned down, signaling their approval for the fighter to deliver a final, fatal blow. Without even knowing what the film’s story would be, Scott signed on to build a Roman Empire saga that would go on to score five Academy Awards.

Raking in over $460 million dollars globally on what Scott told Variety was at the time a massive budget of $103 million, the film triumphed at the box office when it debuted on May 5, 2000. The Russell Crowe and Joaquin Phoenix action drama paved the way for more historical epics like “300,” “Troy” and “Centurion.” Steven Spielberg at Dreamworks, already in a three-picture deal with screenwriter David Franzoni,...

In an aim to help now-shuttered independent theaters, IFC Films will allow cinemas to screen 200 of its library titles for free once they open back up. The distributor hopes that favorites like “Frances Ha,” “Y Tu Mamá También,” and even “The Human Centipede” will help drive audiences back to theaters in the coming months, a time when fewer and fewer new releases are being scheduled.

The Indie Theater Revival Project‘s offerings will be available to theaters beginning May 29, with traditional rental fees for library titles waived for theaters in the first 30 days that they’re open, starting from whatever date they reopen their doors. That means more money in the pockets in the form of ticket sales for local theater owners who have been faced with a near-zero revenue stream after closing their doors last month.

More from IndieWireHow France Is Supporting Its Film Industry During a Global CrisisWhy...

Curated retrospectives include Cannes winners, genre, family documentaries.

IFC Films has launched The Indie Theater Revival Project and curated 20 retrospective programmes for Us theatres when they emerge from lockdown, offering library titles for free during the first month they open.

The selections comprise approximately 200 films spanning IFC Films’ 20-year history – the company celebrates its anniversary this year – and IFC Films said on Tuesday (21) it will make them available to cinemas starting on May 29.

Theatres will be able to book any number of the retrospective programmes, in part or in total, any time through the first month after they reopen. No...

Curated retrospectives to be made available for participating theatres.

IFC Films announced on Tuesday (21) The Indie Theater Revival Project and has curated 20 retrospective programmes for Us theatres to screen when they reopen in the weeks and months ahead.

The selections comprise approximately 200 films spanning IFC Films’ 20-year history – the company celebrates its anniversary this year – and will make them available to cinemas starting on May 29.

Theatres will be able to book any number of the retrospective programmes, in part or in total, any time through the first month after they reopen. No film rental will be due for any of...

In an effort to help independently-owned movie theaters recover from the coronavirus pandemic, IFC Films announced on Tuesday that it will offer over 200 of its films to those theaters without any rental fees. This will help give those theaters some classic films to screen when they reopen while they wait for new films to be released.

“Independent theaters across the country have been essential partners for us at IFC Films, and we would not be where we are today without their support,” the distributor announced in a statement. “We wanted to take the first step and let theaters know that we are committed to helping them reopen their doors by providing a selection of films to program while the new release landscape gets back to normal.”

Dubbed “The Indie Revival Project,” the program will offer selections from IFC’s catalog in various curated packs, including a “Yes We Cannes!” program...

IFC Films is offering embattled indie theaters hundreds of films from its library to screen when they re-open from their mass Covid-19 related shutdown.

The movies, which include such IFC classics as “Y Tu Mama Tambien” and “Boyhood,” will be made available to cinemas without any rental fees. The retrospective program boasts roughly 200 films. Theaters will not be charged any film rental.

“We are honoring the partnership we’ve had with theaters over the last 20 years and we’re sending them a message of solidarity and gratefulness,” said Lisa Schwartz, co-president of IFC Films. “They’ve been with us since beginning and when they come back, we want to be there with them.”

The indie studio is currently celebrating its 20th anniversary and had been putting together programming to honor the occasion. After coronavirus closed most theaters in March, IFC began to rethink its plans.

“This was a positive way...

Tiger King star and convicted criminal Joe Exotic just might get an early release from prison, as Donald Trump has promised to "look into" potentially giving the pop culture icon a presidential pardon. At a government briefing on Wednesday, Trump fielded questions from the press and was directly asked by a reporter about his opinion on the hit Netflix series and how he feels about Joe Exotic. Though the president of the United States seems to suggest he hasn't yet caught Tiger King, Trump also says he'll take a look at Joe's situation to see if the former big cat breeder genuinely deserves to be pardoned.

"I don't know, I know nothing about him. He has 22 years for what, what did he do?" Trump told a reporter when he was first asked about Tiger King. The president is then informed about the charges against Joe Exotic, which involves allegations of...

After Joker had dominated the cultural conversation for months, establishing itself as one of the defining titles of 2019 in the process by becoming the highest-grossing R-rated movie in history and landing eleven Academy Award nominations, you just knew that Warner Bros. would suddenly decide that there was franchise potential in Arthur Fleck’s story.

This was the studio that gave director Todd Phillips a relatively meager $55 million budget because they didn’t particularly want to make it in the first place, which ultimately saw them lose out on a huge share of the profits, but after such overwhelming critical and commercial success, they appeared to change their tune awfully quickly.

Having previously knocked back the opportunity to play the McU’s Doctor Strange, Joaquin Phoenix doesn’t seem like the type of actor who’d be interested in headlining a comic book franchise that would dominate his career for years,...

April 11, 2020 | Start the Film: 5:00pm Cst | Join the Q&a: 7:00pm Cst

On April 11th, film festival audiences from across North America will join together for a virtual screening of the independent film Phoenix, Oregon and filmmaker Q&a. Plus, when you purchase tickets using the link below, proceeds will be split with Cinema St. Louis.

Check Out the Trailer for Phoenix, Oregon :

Cinema St. Louis is participating in the first Film Festival Day, with 29 other film festivals across the Us, an initiative of the Film Festival Alliance, a collaborative community of mission-driven film festivals, and Theatrical At Home.

More than 175 film festivals across North America have been cancelled or postponed as a result of Covid-19. Movies unite us in a way that no other art form can and film festivals play an essential role in connecting our community to support the works of independent storytellers. Please...

Rita Ora has learned “How to Be Lonely” on her new song, and the accompanying video sees the singer explore all the stages of going through a breakup.

Ora’s latest is a surreal visual that sees her grieving to the extreme: she walks on literal eggshells, dances with a skeleton and lets a giant bear hold her. Mostly, she sings directly to the camera with glittery tears streaming down her face. Toward the end, she is confronted by an alien and a campy, outer-space version of herself who land in a spaceship.

Joker was a monumental success for Warner Bros. The DC movie earned more than a billion dollars despite a modest budget, making it the highest grossing R-rated film in history. And though director Todd Philips was adamant before release that there would not be a Joker 2, money talks and if the studio believes there’s more money out there, then they’re going to produce a follow-up. And it seems there’s indeed more money to be made.

We’ve heard countless reports that’ve pointed to a sequel being in early development and now, to give us an idea of what it could look like, YouTube user StryderHD has another cool fan trailer for us, featuring Joaquin Phoenix’s return to the Oscar-winning role and teasing what appears to be a pretty intriguing follow-up.

Phoenix is obviously terrific in the titular role and this teaser shows a lot of his brilliant work from Joker.

Blizzard has confirmed that Hearthstone’s next expansion is a Burning Crusade-inspired game-changer called Ashes of Outland.

“Ashes of Outland, Hearthstone’s next expansion and the first in the Year of the Phoenix, brings Blizzard’s smash-hit digital card game to the shattered and war-torn world of 2007’s World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade,” Blizzard said in a press release. “The legendary Illidan Stormrage, self-proclaimed Lord of Outland, stands along with his cabal of Demon Hunters against the hazards of this broken world. Gangs of raiders and demons scour the land clad in scrap iron armor, assailing the scattered pockets of civilization—including those taking refuge in the slums of the once-proud Shattrath City.”

The fact that Blizzard is turning to The Burning Crusade for this next Hearthstone expansion is fascinating. Not only is Burning Crusade considered to be one of the best World of Warcraft expansions ever, but it...

Rita Ora has released a new single, “How to Be Lonely.” The track was written by Lewis Capaldi, who also played guitar and sang background vocals on the tune.

“This song is inspired by lots of different periods of my life; times where I’ve come to realize that we’re all valuable people, something we should cherish, and that while connections are important, we don’t ever need the approval of others,” Ora said in a statement. “When you’re alone, remember that you are enough and that you...

Among its many live action Marvel TV shows in development, Disney+ will also bring fans a new animated series, What If? The show’s lead actor will be Jeffrey Wright (Westworld), playing Uatu, the Watcher who lives on the moon and observes all happenings in the entire multiverse. And he occasionally gets involved…

The show is based on a 1977 comic series that has always been a chance for Marvel to explore how its most famous stories would have progressed differently had slight changes been made. Stories like “What If…Magik had been Doctor Strange’s apprentice?” or “What If…The Phoenix hadn’t died?” put a tiny spin on existing comics continuity and came up with interesting answers. Also, most of the time the Earth exploded. These books are tons of fun.

The latest news on Marvel’s What If? comes out of the Quebec City-based animation studio, Squeeze. It...

For animation feature fans it’s been a long cold couple of months since the Christmas Day release of Spies In Disguise. Well, the drought is finally over. This weekend sees the first big studio feature animated flick of 2020, and we’re not counting Sonic The Hedgehog or Call Of The Wild which had CGI stars (or co-stars) working with humans against mostly real backdrops. And it’s the “jackpot” for fans because it’s from the talented folks from Emeryville, CA: Pixar. Though it’s a tad early (they generally release their works in Summer or close to the end of the year), it’s because it’s the first time in five years that they’ve got two flicks in the same year (Soul arrives in June). Oh, and another reason to be interested: this is the first original, non-sequel in over two years (it was franchise time...

Marvel announced the first major crossover of Jonathan Hickman’s Dawn of X era of X-Men. X of Swords will tie all the X-titles together in a ’90s throwback, 15-part crossover touching every single book in the line.

“One of the cool things we are able to do now, because we’ve established the X-line and really know where we’re going, is that we’re able to try some different things out,” Hickman said in a statement. “X of Swords will be an old school crossover that meanders through the entire line. It’s almost like chapters of a story.”

Hickman, you’ll recall, reinvigorated the X-Men line with House of X and Powers of X. And like Powers of X, X of Swords is using the Roman numeral X as a sort of low-nerdy double entendre. Where Powers of X examined four time periods of exponential scales, X...

The German-language romance premiered this week in the Berlin competition line-up.

IFC Films has picked up Us rights to writer-director Christian Petzold’s Berlin competition entry Undine.

IFC, which previously handled Petzold’s 2014 drama Phoenix in the Us, plans to release Undine, which has been well received by critics at the Berlinale, in the autumn. The German-language romance starring Paula Beer and Franz Rogowski is the story of a beautiful Berlin historian whose world collapses when the man she loves leaves her.

IFC Films executive vice-president of acquisitions and productions Arianna Bocco commented: “We are so excited to be back...

In Undine, the new film by Christian Petzold, a fable of love inspired by the aquatic nymph is unexpectedly layered with a detailed history of the urban development of modern Berlin. Or perhaps this history does make sense, since Berlin, like Washington, D.C., was built on a swamp, and what lies beneath each city always seems a latent, albeit usually metaphorical, threat. This strange mix of story and history should come as no surprise to fans of the director, who by now should be used to his frequently subtle layering of unresolved German political tensions into his sleek, cerebral revisions of genre storytelling. But in Undine this is not layered, it is literally said: the titular character is a historian and public guide for the city’s history, and we hear several abbreviated bursts of exposition combined with caressing camera movements across scale models of the city showing pre- and post-reunification edifices,...

IFC Films has acquired the U.S. rights to “Undine,” the latest film from director Christian Petzold, the filmmaker behind critical darlings “Phoenix,” “Barbara” and “Transit,” the distributor announced Tuesday.

The film starring Paula Beer and Franz Rogowski is a modernized re-telling of an ancient myth about a mysterious water spirit that’s now set in the modern world. The film premiered at the Berlinale in competition, where Petzold previously won the Silver Beaar in 2012 for “Barbara.”

IFC Films will release “Undine” in the fall of 2020.

Also Read: Liam Neeson's 'Made in Italy' Lands at IFC

Set in Berlin, Undine works as a historian lecturing on Berlin’s urban development. She knows all about the Humboldt Forum, and has a knack for dressing. She is nonchalantly beautiful, and the way she imparts her knowledge about the city that was built on a swamp is as professional as it is graceful.

IFC Films has acquired U.S. rights to “Undine,” a reimagining of an ancient myth from Christian Petzold. The deal continues the relationship between the indie distributor and the German auteur — the two previously worked together on Petzold’s “Phoenix.”

“Undine” debuted at this year’s Berlin International Film Festival. IFC Films will release the movie in the fall of 2020.

The movie reworks an ancient story of a mysterious water spirit by setting it in modern Berlin. It follows a historian named Undine who is working in urban development. Her carefully orchestrated world crumbles when the man she loves leaves her. That sets Undine on a path to kill her betrayer and return to the water.

Petzold previously won the Silver Bear at the 2012 Berlin Film Festival for his movie “Barbara,” and was also selected as the German entry for the best foreign language Oscar at the 85th Academy Awards.

In the last decade, Christian Petzold has emerged as Germany’s preeminent working filmmaker, rooting the country’s national strife in intimate stories that span its historical identity: With “Phoenix” (which depicts the immediate psychological turmoil in the aftermath of WWII), “Barbara” (the paranoia of East Germany in the Cold War), and “Transit” (the lingering fears of a return to fascism), Petzold has churned out an astute trilogy of thrillers steeped in German fixations.

His latest, “Undine,” will disappoint fans because it reduces those potent themes to a shallower romantic ghost story that never goes quite as deep as its predecessors. However, Petzold remains a master of capturing frantic characters doomed by dark obsessions, and .

That starts with its taut opening scene, as the stern title character tells off her partner Johannes (Jacob Matschenz) as he reveals his relationship to another woman. Petzold frames the scene as a tight showdown between two stone-faced people,...

Christian Petzold’s “Undine” begins with a breakup. Framed tightly on the face of lead actor Paula Beer, we absorb the news as she does. But this is no ordinary separation, and as jilted lovers go, Undine’s far from typical. Her name betrays what sets her apart, although in the vast realm of mythological entities, undines are hardly the well-understood creatures that Petzold’s revisionist contemporary fable assumes. As a result, this overripe romantic tragedy — which represented the Berlin School in competition at the Berlin Film Festival — won’t have the same impact abroad as the three critical darlings that preceded it, “Barbara,” “Phoenix” and “Transit.”

“If you leave me, I’ll have to kill you,” Undine tells Johannes (Jacob Matschenz), who has beckoned her to their usual café, across the street from the Berlin City Museum, where she works as a historian. This is the part in water...

The film is directed by Swiss duo Stéphanie Chuat and Véronique Reymond.

In advance of the Berlinale, German powerhouse Beta Cinema has snapped up international rights to Berlinale competition entry My Little Sister (Schwesterlein) from Swiss director duo Stéphanie Chuat and Véronique Reymond.

My Little Sister stars in Silver Bear winner Nina Hoss and Lars Eidinger (Personal Shopper). Also in the cast is Marthe Keller.

The film is produced by Ruth Waldburger’s Vega Film in co-production with Rts, Srg/Ssr, and Arte. It is the latest venture from Swiss director-duo Chuat and Reymond (The Little Bedroom), who co-directed all...

It is a good thing the Academy Awards are getting it over with two weeks earlier than normal, because this year’s truncated season’s suspense quotient has been virtually zapped by the weekly procession of the same winners we have been witnessing Sunday after Sunday for the past month, Renee Zellweger, Brad Pitt and Laura Dern have this thing locked and no amount of frantic last-minute campaigning in the two days left of Oscar voting is likely to change that outcome. It’s done. Put a fork in it. How this lack of suspense affects ABC’s ratings is anyone’s guess. It will be an acting feat for this quartet to look shocked.

Also with its commanding sweep of seven wins, Universal and DreamWorks’ 1917, which took Best Film and Director and five other wins from the British for their homegrown hit war epic, is a cautious frontrunner to repeat in the Best Picture winners circle a week from tonight. I say cautious because even though it took the expected win at BAFTA, and has previously won at better Oscar predictors like DGA, PGA and Golden Globes, the tricky voting method the Motion Picture Academy uses — requiring voters to rank their choices from 1 to 9 — has been prone lately to deliver upsets when the final envelope is opened. BAFTA does not use that method, and actually only the PGA does, so that could be the best indicator. The Producers Guild also climbed aboard the 1917 bandwagon, so smart bettors might want to go there too, even though my heart still pounds a little when we get to Best Picture because of the recent past, where we’ve been a little surprised. There’s still a chance Oscar could produce an upset, and anything but 1917 right now would qualify for that distinction.

As for BAFTA, I would say it is looking good for the Brits to break their losing streak of the past five years in which their Best Film award did not match Oscar’s. They have been in a deep funk in that regard, especially considering the previous six years ending with 2013’s 12 Years a Slave matched Oscar exactly in their top choice, but 11 times overall in this millennium they have differed, a mixed track record to be sure. No matter what happens in the Picture category, BAFTA looks to be on the money in other wins for 1917 including a near-certain shot for Mendes, who looks more than likely to win his second Oscar in the category exactly 20 years since winning for his film debut with 1999’s American Beauty which also took Best Picture (but Mendes wasn’t a producer on it). He didn’t share at all in its BAFTA glory back then because even though it won Best Film there, he lost to Pedro Almodovar (All About My Mother) in the Directing category. This is his first directing BAFTA and he took a major haul today, also sharing in Best Film and Best British Film.

There simply were no shockers here unless you want to count last week’s big Annie winner Klaus, which won for Animated Film at BAFTA, as a surprise. It is certainly a huge win for Netflix as it reps its first in-house effort in animation. Its win against three sequels however means BAFTA went for originality in this case, with the rest of those nominees splitting the difference. Only one of them, Toy Story 4, returns to compete again next week on the Oscar stage.

In the bad news for Netflix, as it has been all season, The Irishman was completely shut out, despite 10 nominations; and Sony’s great hope, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, another key Oscar player this year, almost was zapped save for Pitt’s sure-thing Supporting Actor trophy, and another hilarious speech even though it was read by Margot Robbie for the absent Pitt, who is either hiring comedy writers for the season or is just a natural wit. Joker, which came into BAFTA, as it is at the Oscars, with a leading 11 nominations, won three today, but since its Casting win is not a category at the Oscars (yet), the other two it won — for Phoenix and Music Score — are basically the only wins it has had elsewhere, and the result is likely to be the same on Oscar night.

The screenplay categories at BAFTA produced the same two winners last night at the Writers Guild, with Jojo Rabbit named Best Adapted and Parasite Best Original. I had thought Quentin Tarantino might take the latter at BAFTA and the Oscars (he wasn’t eligible at WGA), and he may still next Sunday at the Dolby, but this one-two punch this weekend for Parasite could help put that over the top. It’s close. I have been predicting Jojo in Adapted, despite no previous writing wins this season, to prevail at the Oscars in its category. It is easily the most original of the adapted scripts, and these two back-to-back wins make that more likely, even with lots of publicity for Greta Gerwig’s Little Women and the feeling in some quarters it could be a consolation prize in part for not being included in the Best Director lineup. I will stick with Taika Waititi going into the final act.

Parasite of course has its other BAFTA win for Film Not In The English Language, also in the bag for Oscar’s International Film category. Last year, BAFTA showed no resistance to the fact it was foreign, or even on Netflix, in awarding Roma its top prize, but Oscar is a much harder mountain to climb in that regard since no film has won both foreign and Best Picture categories. Parasite is enormously popular with Oscar voters I talk to and could be the most likely spoiler in Best Picture since it will have a ton of No. 2 votes, which is crucial in the Academy’s preferential system that tries to get consensus.

Only seven days to go, so we don’t have to wait long, but it appears that most of the same people who just climbed the stage at the Royal Albert Hall are likely to repeat next Sunday at the Dolby.