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The July lineup at The Criterion Channel has been revealed, most notably featuring the new Wong Kar Wai restorations from the recent box set release, including As Tears Go By, Days of Being Wild, Chungking Express, Fallen Angels, Happy Together, In the Mood for Love, 2046, and his shorts Hua yang de nian hua and The Hand.

Also among the lineup is a series on neo-noir with Body Double, Manhunter, Thief, The Last Seduction, Cutter’s Way, Brick, Night Moves, The Long Goodbye, Chinatown, and more. The channel will also feature a spotlight on art-house animation with work by Marcell Jankovics, Satoshi Kon, Ari Folman, Don Hertzfeldt, Karel Zeman, and more.

With Jodie Mack’s delightful The Grand Bizarre, the landmark doc Hoop Dreams, Orson Welles’ take on Othello, the recent Oscar entries Preparations to Be Together for an Unknown Period of Time and You Will Die at Twenty, and much more,...

Anders Thomas Jensen’s action comedy “Riders of Justice,” starring Mads Mikkelsen, will open the 50th International Film Festival Rotterdam. The festival will be staged in two parts this year: the first, in a hybrid format, running Feb. 1-7, and the second, hopefully a physical event, June 2-6. The awards ceremony will take place on Feb. 7.

In “Riders of Justice,” Mikkelsen plays Markus, a military man who returns home to look after his daughter Mathilde following his wife’s death in a train accident. At first it looks like she was the victim of a tragic piece of bad luck, but then mathematics geek Otto (Nikolaj Lie Kaas), a fellow passenger on the train, shows up with his two eccentric colleagues, Lennart (Lars Brygmann) and Emmenthaler (Nicolas Bro), and floats the theory of a possible murder conspiracy. The film plays in the Limelight section.

Jensen is Denmark’s top screenwriter,...

[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,...

Deauville will be one of the first film festivals to take place physically in France since March.

Kelly Reichardt’s period drama First Cow, Miranda July’s crime comedy caper Kajillionaire and Jonathan Nossiter’s dystopian drama Last Words will be among 14 US titles playing in competition at the Deauville American Film Festival this year.

The festival, unfolding in the upmarket beach resort of Deauville on France’s Normandy coast, will take place September 4-13.

It will be one of the first film festivals to take place physically in France since the Covid-19 pandemic hit in early March, alongside the Angouleme Francophone Festival,...

‘Portrait Of A Lady On Fire’, ‘And Then We Danced’ lead Mubi, BFI Player charts.

Oliver Hermanus’ Moffie topped UK streaming platform Curzon Home Cinema’s (Chc) most-watched films over the weekend, after sidestepping a theatrical release due to the ongoing Covid-19 lockdown.

The gay military drama, which had its world premiere in the Horizons section of Venice, was originally due to receive a UK day-and-date release on April 24. But the continued closure of cinemas meant the film launched exclusively on Chc and performed strongly as audiences continue to seek out home entertainment during quarantine.

From April 24-26, Chc reported...

Specialist streaming service Mubi has teamed up with fashion label Prada’s Fondazione Prada foundation on “Perfect Failures,” a curated selection of movies deemed to have been “widely misunderstood” upon their release.

The joint project will launch on both the Mubi platform and the Fondazione Prada’s website on April 5 with U.S. director Richard Kelly’s 2006 flop “Southland Tales” (pictured) which Variety at the time called “A pretentious, overreaching, fatally unfocused fantasy about American fascism, radical rebellion, nuclear terrorism and apocalypse” in its Cannes festival review.

The overall selection will also include “A Countess from Hong Kong” (1967) by Charlie Chaplin; “Fedora,” (1978) by Billy Wilder; Kelly Reichardt’s “Night Moves (2013); “Un divan à New York” (A Couch in New York), (1996) by Chantal Akerman; and Paul Verhoeven’s “Showgirls” (1995).

The idea is to bring to the fore box office flops, critical disappointments, “shocking divergences from a beloved artist” or pics burdened with production woes,...

Before the entire world shut down, there was an extremely good Kelly Reichardt movie (“First Cow“) halfway into theaters. Now it’s shelved indefinitely, with promises from distributor A24 that it will see theaters again, but our career-spanning look at the American independent stalwart continues.

Read More: Kelly Reichardt On The 16-Year Journey Of ‘First Cow’ & Those Delicious Oily Cakes [Interview]

Known for their lived-in detail, complex female leads and incisive social commentary about class, struggle and identity, Reichardt titles like “Wendy and Lucy” (2008), “Meek’s Cutoff” (2010) and “Night Moves” (2013) examine the age-old cracks in the Pacific Northwest’s rebellious mythology.

Read More: ‘First Cow’: Kelly Reichardt Makes A Tranquil North Western Story About The Nature Of Friendship [Telluride Review]

Often her characters are faced with the difficult choices after bouts of naïveté, trust in “the system” or, frankly, men.

Continue reading Kelly Reichardt: The Essential Films [Be Reel Podcast] at The Playlist.

The 2020 release calendar hit a snag with the coronavirus outbreak, but not before a number of cinematic highlights made their way to U.S. screens. IndieWire spent much of 2019 reviewing films on the festival circuit prior to their release dates, and some of them finally made it to theaters this year. Others simply materialized over the last few months, and we’re all the better for having them.

Our running list of the best movies of 2020 so far only includes movies that have received a U.S. theatrical release or have become available on VOD platforms accessible in North America. Films that received a B+ or higher qualify for the list. We’ll keep it updated as the year continues. Check out brief excerpts below and links to the full review.

More from IndieWire'Adventure Time' Is Slowly Going Off the Air, And Everyone's Moving On'Children of Men' Turns 10: Finding...

Kelly Reichardt’s signature minimalism permeates “First Cow,” a good-natured friendship tale — enmeshed with a subtle critique of capitalism — set in the mid-19th-century Oregon Territory. Based on Jonathan Raymond’s novel “The Half-Life,” the adaptation follows John Magaro’s recluse chef Cookie and Orion Lee’s immigrant runaway King Lu, two dreamers who launch a mischievously lucrative business, frying up biscuits made with milk stolen from the region’s first cow, owned by a wealthy Englishman.

Reichardt entrusted prior collaborators Dp Christopher Blauvelt and costume designer April Napier, to help deliver the film’s look. They drew inspiration from Reichardt’s references, such as “Ugetsu,” Kenji Mizoguchi’s mystery-drama about wartime profiteers, and “The Apu Trilogy,” Satyajit Ray’s coming-of-age classics.

The film shot in cold and wet terrain, but Blauvelt was well-equipped for the elements, having shot Reichardt’s other Pacific Northwest-based pictures, “Certain Women,” “Night Moves” and “Meek’s Cutoff.

There was a stampede of new titles opening this weekend at the specialty box office, and despite coronavirus-induced fears of being in close proximity in theaters, there weren’t any glaring slumps in the indie and arthouse space. Of the films released this weekend, First Cow made some moo-ves at the box office, earning an estimated $96,059 with a per-theater average of $24,015. Not only is that an impressive debut for the A24 title, but it marks a career-high for the talented auteur Kelly Reichardt.

The period film about a prized bovine, starring John Magaro and Orion Lee, had four exclusive runs in New York at the AMC Lincoln Square and Angelika, as well as Los Angeles at the Arclight Hollywood and Landmark. The opening was a solid start for the film that will hopefully fuel the long roll-out that will continue into spring. Reichardt has been lauded for her intimate, cinematic...

A24 is ready to milk the weekend with their new film First Cow from director Kelly Reichardt. The film isn’t about a presidential cow, but it is about a special bovine creature.

Set in the 19th century, the film follows a lone cook (John Magaro) as he travels west with a group of fur trappers. Out of all of them, he connects with a Chinese immigrant (Orion Lee) and they collaborate on a lucrative business that hinges on the participation of a nearby wealthy landowner’s prized milking cow. Through her distinct vision, she tells what seems like a peculiar story but is, in fact, a tale about America and the sensitive depiction of the friendship between two men. All the while, First Cow builds suspense in its own special way.

Co-written by Reichardt and Jonathan Raymond, the film debuted at Telluride in 2019 before making stops at the New...

Over the years, filmmaker Kelly Reichardt has proven to be a rather steady and unique voice in the world of independent cinema. Largely starting with Old Joy (her breakthrough early feature), Reichardt has crafted a host of quality indies, including Wendy and Lucy, Meek’s Cutoff, Night Moves, and Certain Women. Now, she’s back this week with First Cow, which has a feel of mixing some of her greatest hits together, thematically. In that way, she manages to craft perhaps her most accessible work to date. To that end, A24 may well be able to make this one a bit of a small scale crossover success. The film is largely a two hander, looking at an unlikely friendship. After a modern day prologue, we meet Cookie Figowitz (John Magaro). Working as a cook as he heads west, he’s very much a loner, never connecting with anyone. Having joined a...

Kelly Reichardt’s newest film, “First Cow,” calls to mind the work of 19th century landscape artists like Albert Bierstadt or Frederic Edwin Church, whose tactile depiction of each leaf and shard of sunlight is so engrossing that it’s a jolt when you finally notice a couple of tiny figures somewhere in the background, dwarfed by the sheer spectacle of nature.

Most of us have to visit major museums for this experience. But Reichardt paints her own breathtaking landscape and then zooms in on the miniscule humans just trying to survive amidst the greater workings of the world.

She is among the select few modern filmmakers who’ve earned the term “auteur,” and fans will find her personal signatures throughout the film. It’s the fifth of her seven features set in the Pacific Northwest, opens with a scene that brings to mind “Wendy and Lucy,” evokes “Old Joy...

The world trembles on the brink, and liberals are in charge! The nicest President you ever met gives the Soviet Premier an offer anybody could refuse, while technical glitches, not crazy people or radical politics, are blamed for starting WW3. Sidney Lumet’s taut, scary armageddon-outta-here thriller was weighed in the balance against a certain Stanley Kubrick film and found wanting, but unless you’re a stickler for technical details it really works up a buzz. The cast & crew list is a menu of committed liberal talent.

Fail Safe

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 1011

1964 / B&w / 1:85 widescreen / 112 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date January 28, 2020 / 39.95

Starring: Henry Fonda, Dan O’Herlihy, Walter Matthau, Frank Overton, Edward Binns, Fritz Weaver, Larry Hagman, William Hansen, Sorrell Booke, Hildy Parks, Janet Ward, Dom DeLuise, Dana Elcar.

Cinematography: Gerald Hirschfeld

Film Editor: Ralph Rosenblum

Written by Walter Bernstein from the book by Eugene Burdick,...

Peter Sarsgaard is joining Robert Pattinson in Warner Bros.’ “The Batman” in an undisclosed role.

“The Batman” director Matt Reeves tweeted the news on Friday, sharing a gif of Sarsgaard accompanied by a bat emoji.

Pattinson is starring as Batman/Bruce Wayne. The movie also stars Zoe Kravitz as Catwoman, Paul Dano as the Riddler, Colin Farrell as Penguin, John Turturro as crime boss Carmine Falcone, Jeffrey Wright as Batman ally Commissioner Gordon and Andy Serkis as Bruce Wayne’s butler, Alfred. A major role that remains unfilled is Harvey Dent, the district attorney who becomes the villain Two-Face.

Sarsgaard first starred in “Dead Man Walking” in 1995 and broke out in 1999’s “Boys Don’t Cry” and in 2003’s “Shattered Glass.” He starred opposite Ryan Reynolds as Hector Hammond in “Green Lantern” and has credits on “Lovelace,” Kelly Reichardt’s “Night Moves,” Woody Allen’s “Blue Jasmine,” “Black Mass” and “The Magnificent Seven.

Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band recently extended their Roll Me Away tour in North America, and tickets are still available now. Seger, 74, was one of the most famous heartland rock singer-songwriters of the 1960s and 1970s. Among his hit songs are “Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Man,” “Night Moves,” “We’ve Got Tonight,” “Turn the Page” and […]

The post Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band 2019 Tour Tickets On Sale Now [Dates & Ticket Info] appeared first on uInterview.

When I think about the American New Wave, I’m always traveling through the vast open roads of North America, its forever-changing landscapes and mythical American dreams, with all its bittersweet promise. Sonically speaking, I’m in that space, too. So much of the New Hollywood cinema is vast Americana; Death Valley and desert-hot gas stations, the ultimate nihilistic road movie. But so much of it is everywhere else too; sleek Manhattan apartment blocks, the old Wild West, and the outer regions of space. In my head it’s a mixtape of philosophical and artistic ideas, one of cinema’s counter-culture melting pots where more questions are raised than answered and the plot is not driven by a desire for resolution.This mix was dreamed up as a mixtape: driving across state lines, re-adjusting the radio station on the dashboard as the trip moves further towards a destination that is unknown.

The final leg of Bob Seger’s Roll Me Away farewell tour kicks off September 12th in Rapid City, South Dakota and four more dates have just been tacked onto the end that will be the last North American shows of the tour. The four concerts will take place in Boston (October 24th), Toronto (October 26th), New York City (October 30th) and Philadelphia (November 1st). Tickets for these shows go on sale Saturday, September 14th at 10 Et.

Seger hasn’t provided any info about possible future dates outside of North America,...

Few filmmakers wrestle with what it means to be American the way Kelly Reichardt has injected that question into all of her movies. In a meticulous fashion typical of her spellbinding approach, “First Cow” consolidates the potent themes of everything leading up to it: It returns her to the nascent America of the 19th century frontier at the center of “Meek’s Cutoff,” touches on the environmental frustrations of “Night Moves,” revels in the glorious isolation of the countryside in “Certain Women,” and the somber travails of vagrancy at the center of “Wendy and Lucy.”

Mostly, though, “First Cow” unfolds like “Old Joy” in the Oregon Territory. Once again, The appeal of this hypnotic, unpredictable movie comes from how they find that place through mutual failure, and the nature of that outcome in the context of an early, untamed America has rich implications that gradually seep into the frame. Reichardt...

Nate Parker’s politically charged drama “American Skin” is set to play at the 45th edition of the Deauville American Film Festival following its world premiere at Venice.

“American Skin,” which tells the story of a Gulf War veteran whose son is killed by a police officer, marks Parker’s first feature film since the news resurfaced that he had once been charged and acquitted of rape. His debut film, “The Birth of a Nation,” won a prize at Sundance in 2016 but flopped at the box office.

Parker directed and stars in “American Skin.” News of the film’s inclusion in Deauville’s lineup comes a day after it was revealed that “A Rainy Day in New York” by Woody Allen, who has also confronted allegations of sexual assault, would open the festival.

At the same time, Deauville will showcase six films directed by women, the most in the feet’s history,...

Pedro Almodóvar, Bong Joon-ho, and Kelly Reichardt are some of the auteurs hitting the Big Apple to screen their latest works at this year’s New York Film Festival, which runs Sept. 27-Oct. 13 at the Lincoln Center.

Now in its 57th year, the gathering for cinephiles has become a key stop for moviemakers hoping to propel their films into the awards race. To that end, Almodóvar and Bong will bring “Pain and Glory” and “Parasite,” two movies that earned rave reviews out of Cannes and that look to be major contenders for this year’s foreign language Oscar. Reichardt, an indie maverick who has previously scored with the likes of “Meeks Crossing” and “Night Moves,” will screen “First Cow,” a drama that unfolds in the old West.

Their movies are among the 29 films screening as part of the festival’s main slate. Other films that will get splashy premieres at...

Bob Seger has been gigging all over America on his Roll Me Away farewell tour since last November, and he just announced 12 additional shows that will keep him there until at least June. The new dates will see Seger and the Silver Bullet Band hit Detroit, New York, New Jersey, Washington D.C., Virginia Beach, Jacksonville, Charlotte, Raleigh, Springfield, Tulsa and North Charleston.

The Roll Me Away Tour (which was called the Travelin’ Man Tour when Seger originally announced it) features a set of songs from throughout Seger’s entire career,...

Prop master Barry Bedig was literally born into the biz. Yet despite being the son of storied special effects man Sass Bedig, Barry’s youth was largely unaffected by Tinseltown’s glare. Infrequent studio visits with Dad produced understated memories. “I got to ride [Roy Rogers’ horse] Trigger once,” he deadpans.

Obtaining union status at 25 in 1964 at 20th Century Fox after a stint in the U.S. Navy, Bedig was one of the youngest prop masters in the history of Iatse Local 44, having gained the prerequisite 2,000 hours for membership, then passed the daunting written exam.

He hit the big time in 1972 when he was called for Woody Allen’s “Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex but Were Afraid to Ask.” Bedig’s contributions to the seven-segment film would become his career trademark: detail. He was tasked with creating the Jester’s wand for the “Do Aphrodisiacs Work?” sequence — a...

Following up what is perhaps the best film in a stellar career, we thought Kelly Reichardt would move from Certain Women to an adaptation of Patrick DeWitt’s black comedy Undermajordomo Minor, announced a few years back. The director has, instead, gone another route, and the first details on the project have come to light just as production is set to kick off.

Our friends at Ion Cinema dug up a casting call for First Cow, an adaptation of The Half-Life: A Novel from Jonathan Raymond, who has collaborated with Reichardt on the screenplays for Old Joy, Wendy and Lucy, Meek’s Cutoff, and Night Moves. The synopsis reads: “Cookie Figowitz is the hired cook for a group of rough men on a fur trapping expedition in the 1820s Oregon Territory. One night in the woods he meets King-Lu, a mysterious man fleeing from some vengeful Russians. This is the...

Kai Lennox (The Unusuals), Dale Dickey (Leave No Trace), Austin Hébert (Jack Reacher: Never Go Back) and Omar Maskati (Better Call Saul) are set for recurring roles in Unbelievable, an eight-episode Netflix limited series from Erin Brockovich writer Susannah Grant, CBS TV Studios, studio-based producers Sarah Timberman and Carl Beverly and Katie Couric.

Co-written by Grant, who will serve as showrunner, Michael Chabon (John Carter) & Ayelet Waldman (Applebaum), Unbelievable is based on The Marshall Project and ProPublica Pulitzer Prize-winning December 2015 article, “An Unbelievable Story of Rape,” written by T. Christian Miller and Ken Armstrong, and the “This American Life” radio episode about the same case, “Anatomy of Doubt.” It tells the true story of Marie, a teenager who was charged with lying about having been raped, and the two female detectives who followed a twisting path to arrive at the truth.

Details of their characters are not being revealed.

With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options — not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves — we’ve taken it upon ourselves to highlight the titles that have recently hit platforms. Every week, one will be able to see the cream of the crop (or perhaps some simply interesting picks) of streaming titles (new and old) across platforms such as Netflix, iTunes, Amazon, and more (note: U.S. only). Check out our rundown for this week’s selections below.

Certain Women (Kelly Reichardt)

The cinema of Kelly Reichardt lives in quiet, tender observations with deeply rooted characters and location. Even when adding a thriller element as with her last feature, the overlooked Night Moves, her style is never compromised. Her latest feature, Certain Women, is a loosely connected three-part drama adapted from the short stories of Maile Meloy. It’s perhaps the purest distillation of her sensibilities yet...

Tuesday night on “The Voice,” country singer Pryor Baird from Team Blake Shelton was eliminated after being forced to sing for America’s instant save along with Britton Buchanan and Kaleb Lee. Pryor picked The Allman Brothers Band‘s “Soulshine” as his instant save song, but it didn’t excite America as much as Britton’s performance, so the Orcutt, California resident was voted out just one week before “The Voice” Season 14 finale. Watch Pryor’s final “The Voice” performance video above.

See‘The Voice’ Top 8 Instant Save: Was right artist rescued by viewers of season 14? [Poll]

“I want to tell America that this is your guy right here,” Blake pleaded after Pryor’s powerful performance of “Soulshine.” “Did you just hear what I just heard? Listen man, I’ve gotta be honest. I’m surprised to see you in this position right now. It shows you we never really know...

Monday night on “The Voice,” country singer Pryor Baird represented Team Blake Shelton during the live Top 8 episode of Season 14. For this all-important semifinals show, Pryor decided to take on Eric Clapton‘s “Change the World” as it perfectly straddles genres between country and soul. Do You think that Pryor will advance to the Season 14 finale of NBC’s reality TV show? Watch “The Voice” performance video above.

See‘The Voice’ Top 8: How to vote and make sure your favorite artist is in the final

“Pryor, you know why I think America has fallen in love with you?” Blake asked his resident country artist. “First of all, because you’re an incredible singer. But also Pryor seems like that guy that lives next door — that great guy that you know that lives next door that will come over, fix the house when the tree falls on it, whatever. And...

Pryor Baird has made it to the Top 10 on season 14 of “The Voice.” This 35-year-old musician based in Nashville has sung seven songs to date on this reality competition series. Which of these has been your favorite so far? Vote in our poll below and then sound off in our comments section with your thoughts on this edition of “The Voice.”

Do you think that Baird was best with the tune he performed on the May 7 episode: “My Town” by Montgomery Gentry. Or was it his first time in the spotlight when he won over all four coaches with his version of “I Don’t Need No Doctor” by Humble Pie? Perhaps you favor one of the five other songs he has sung in the competition so far.

Take a look at his set list below and then weigh in with your pick. And be sure to make your predictions...

(Welcome to Now Stream This, a column dedicated to the best movies streaming on Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, and every other streaming service out there.) The year ticks on. February comes to a close, and March begins. I can think of no better way to kick-off a brand new month than a list of great movies to […]

The post Now Stream This: ‘Lincoln,’ ‘Night Moves,’ ‘Casino,’ ‘Night of the Living Dead’ and More appeared first on /Film.

Lena Dunham is continuing to bare it all.

Over a week after opening up about both her hysterectomy and recent breakup with Jack Antonoff, the 31-year-old shared a topless photo on social media.

“Night Moves,” the former Girls actress captioned the revealing snap, in which she covered her assets with her hands while wearing only a pair of sweatpants.

Just over a month after People confirmed Dunham had split from her boyfriend of five years, Antonoff, in January, she revealed in a harrowing Vogue essay that she underwent a total hysterectomy last year.

In an Instagram post on Feb. 16, the...

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

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

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

“Divorce” Season 1 was a petrified flower of a TV show. A black comedy that cut deep, again and again, like a particularly thorny rose that you couldn’t stop picking up, Sarah Jessica Parker’s return to HBO was met with an aptly mixed reaction. For some, it was too bleak and too suffocating in its exhausting exploration of a broken marriage. For others, it provided insight into (and thus relief from) one of life’s most prevalent predicaments, making the process of divorce both intriguing in its unexpected challenges and moving in its oh-so-human central characters. The dead rose poked back so much it felt alive, and viewers gleaned something meaningful with every prick.

“Divorce” Season 2 is a rose in bloom, in that much of the elements that scared off onlookers before have been pruned. In their place lies a show intent on discovery, hope, and positive thinking, ushered...

At the San Francisco Film Society’s Doc Stories, Samantha Power — aka President Barack Obama’s U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations — is a true star. “What a crowd,” she tweeted after a rousing standing ovation for Greg Barker’s HBO documentary “The Final Year,” which features her as part of Obama’s foreign policy team. “Huge thanks to SFFilm Doc Stories & to an incredibly engaged San Francisco audience who saw @thefinalyeardoc not as a retrospective, but as a call to action.”

The third annual Doc Stories (Nov. 2-5) was a rich weekend of nonfiction features and shorts that launched with the world premiere of Alex Gibney’s “Rolling Stone: Stories from the Edge, Part I” (HBO) and closed with Chris Smith’s “Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond – Featuring a Very Special, Contractually Obligated Mention of Tony Clifton” (Netflix).

It’s part of Sffilm executive director Noah Cowan’s...

At the San Francisco Film Society’s Doc Stories, Samantha Power — aka President Barack Obama’s U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations — is a true star. “What a crowd,” she tweeted after a rousing standing ovation for Greg Barker’s HBO documentary “The Final Year,” which features her as part of Obama’s foreign policy team. “Huge thanks to SFFilm Doc Stories & to an incredibly engaged San Francisco audience who saw @thefinalyeardoc not as a retrospective, but as a call to action.”

The third annual Doc Stories (Nov. 2-5) was a rich weekend of nonfiction features and shorts that launched with the world premiere of Alex Gibney’s “Rolling Stone: Stories from the Edge, Part I” (HBO) and closed with Chris Smith’s “Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond – Featuring a Very Special, Contractually Obligated Mention of Tony Clifton” (Netflix).

It’s part of Sffilm executive director Noah Cowan’s...

Kelly Reichardt’s ability to capture the plight of everyday people is evident in works like Wendy and Lucy, Old Joy, and Certain Women, all of which perfectly capture the heightened feeling of isolation propelled by the modern world. Her brilliant observations on the ways in which we try to reach out to one another, and our desire to connect are at the center of a mid-career retrospective taking place at the Museum of Modern Art, where they are screening the six films she’s made since 1994. Reichardt is an American auteur in the tradition of mavericks like John Ford and John Cassavetes, who worked outside the system to make sure their visions were never compromised by studio interference.

In the two decades she’s been making films, Reichardt has also become an excellent chronicler of our times. Like the journals kept by the characters in Meek’s Cutoff, in...

By Rob Hunter

Plus 11 More New Releases to Watch This Week on Blu-ray/DVD!

The article ‘Night Moves’ Is the Right Move, and Now It’s on Blu-ray appeared first on Film School Rejects.

Getting out early can be an advantage in the documentary race, which is often front loaded at January’s Sundance Film Festival. While a raft of movies made their mark, the question is which ones can sustain support through the end of the year.

Among that festival’s breakouts were three Syria documentaries. Daring and timely “City of Ghosts” (July 14, A & E/Amazon Studios), which is Matthew Heineman’s follow-up to his Oscar-nominated border drug war thriller “Cartel Land,” will get a major push. Any footage from Syria came from the fearless Raqqa journalists he tracked through Turkey and Germany, where they discover that they are not necessarily safe — anywhere.

It remains to be seen if there will be room for more than one Syrian documentary. HBO Documentary Films is forgoing Emmy consideration for “Winter on Fire” nominee Evgeny Afineevsky’s harrowing “Cries From Syria” (March 10, HBO), planning an Oscar push this fall.

Early word on “Spider-Man: Homecoming” was right: Jon Watts, the director plucked from “Cop Car” obscurity by the production combine of Marvel’s Kevin Feige and Sony’s Amy Pascal, finally made the Spider-Man” movie that Sony (and the rest of us) needed.

It’s highly entertaining. It’s fleet of foot and confident, even though it’s the product of a hugely collaborative effort. And it will yield many dividends beyond box-office returns. Here’s what this new iteration of “Spider-Man” wrought:

1. A directing star is born.

Somehow Watts and a sprawling production team manage to keep the movie on a believably human scale (save for that final airborne set piece). Tom Holland introduced himself as a high-school Spider-Man in “Captain America: Civil War,” so this movie continues from there, with plenty of wit and comedy and a genuine appreciation of what it means to be smart, confident, and...

With this year’s announcement of their new invitees — a record 774 — the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences continues its quest to diversify its largely white male membership ranks across all fields. While the Academy seeks candidates who have “demonstrated exceptional achievement in the field of theatrical motion pictures,” over the past few years, it has notably tried to push towards inclusion and diversity, even as the entertainment industry struggles to meet similar ends.

Read More: Barry Jenkins and Jordan Peele Among the 774 Invited to Join the Academy As It Pushes for Inclusion

As IndieWire’s Anne Thompson notes, “Under the leadership of CEO Dawn Hudson and president Cheryl Boone Isaacs, the 90-year-old Academy has been adding more younger members, women, and people of color to its 17 branches. But after the 2016 #OscarsSoWhite controversy, the AMPAS became even more aggressive about asking its branch leadership to recommend new members.”

This...

With this year’s announcement of their new invitees — a record 774 — the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences continues its quest to diversify its largely white male membership ranks across all fields. While the Academy seeks candidates who have “demonstrated exceptional achievement in the field of theatrical motion pictures,” over the past few years, it has notably tried to push towards inclusion and diversity, even as the entertainment industry struggles to meet similar ends. While it’s still early, this year’s batch of invitees gives us some hope for a brand new, modern Academy — especially these 25.

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After years of waiting, fans are finally able to hear Bob Seger‘s music on digital streaming platforms.

Previously, the only songs you could stream by the gruff-voiced Detroit legend were a pair of little-known Christmas tunes from early in his career, but now 13 of Seger’s albums are available on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, iHeartRadio, Napster and Slacker Radio. In addition, 10 previously unavailable albums have also been released for digital download.

Though several of his albums—six of his earliest (Noah, Mongrel, Brand New Morning, Smokin’ O.P.’s, Back In ’72 and Seven), and every studio work since...

Given that he doesn’t necessarily look or act like a traditional idea of a leading man, the enduring stardom of Jesse Eisenberg is a pleasing thing. It’s now 15 years since we first saw him on screen, in Dylan Kidd’s “Roger Dodger,” and he’s consistently made strong choices that have kept him on the A-list, whether it’s working with acclaimed auteurs like Woody Allen, Noah Baumbach and David Fincher, excelling in smaller indies like Kelly Reichardt’s “Night Moves,” Richard Ayoade’s “The Double” or James Ponsoldt’s “The End Of The Tour,” or selling out while holding onto his credibility in “Now You See Me” or “Zombieland” (though we’ll skip over ‘Batman v Superman‘).

Continue reading Jesse Eisenberg To Write, Direct & Star In J.J. Abrams-Produced TV Comedy at The Playlist.

My favorite thing about taking these weekly trips to the Drive-In is my own selfish thirst for discovery. I need to patch up the holes of missing films on my personal movie screen; there is still so much to see, and sometimes the holes are so big that they obscure the view. Every once in a while though, a film comes along that not only mends the tears in the fabric but strengthens the whole. Such is the case with Night of the Demon (1957), Jacques Tourneur’s masterpiece of shadowy menace and dread, and a new personal favorite.

Released in its native U.K. in December and then stateside in July of ’58 under the new title Curse of the Demon (where 13 minutes were trimmed from an already lean 95 minute running time), this Columbia Pictures production was fraught with anguish before it even appeared to audiences, most famously producer Hal E. Chester...

The Certain Women director on why she cast Michelle Williams and Kristen Stewart in her latest dose of ‘slow cinema’, adapted from Maile Meloy’s stories

Seven films in, Kelly Reichardt has proved herself the modern master of “slow cinema”. Old Joy, Wendy and Lucy and Meek’s Cutoff are unhurried, melancholic dramas. Her often female-fronted films don’t boldly announce themselves, but gently ease you in, enveloping you in their characters’ microcosmic journeys.

Her last film, Night Moves, a thriller about a pair of corn-fed eco-activists (Jesse Eisenberg and Dakota Fanning) who plot to blow up a hydroelectric dam, signalled a shift in tone. But she’s back in what you might call her comfort zone with Certain Women, an adaptation of Maile Meloy’s short-story collection, Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It.

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Right now, you might best know Macon Blair as an actor who often works with Green Room director Jeremy Saulnier. Blair broke onto the scene in front of the camera in Saulnier's 2013 revenge film Blue Ruin, but now the actor has expanded his storytelling abilities behind the lens by writing and directing a new movie for Netflix called I don't feel at home in this world anymore. (yes, with the stylized lower case font and period at the end included). It's about a woman named Ruth (Melanie Lynskey) who enlists the help of a weirdo named Tony (Elijah Wood) to help her track down the guys who broke into her house and stole her stuff. It's a small, self-contained story that works almost like a buddy comedy for the first half before some intense violence abruptly enters the fray and has catastrophic effects on how the movie operates from that point on.

Kelly Reichardt’s movies deal with the quiet desperation of alienated Americans, from the wandering hippie in “Old Joy” to the lost settlers on the Oregon trail in “Meek’s Cutoff.” This year’s “Certain Women” is an especially potent survey of those themes, an ensemble drama of working class characters across the sleepy regions of rural Montana searching for elusive happiness. In the wake of the 2016 presidential election, the movie has renewed topicality as a depiction of blue collar frustrations.

It didn’t take long for that connection to come up on Friday at the Costa Rica International Film Festival, where Reichardt took the stage after a screening of “Certain Women” to discuss her filmography to a crowded room. The filmmaker is currently the subject of a complete career retrospective at the five-year-old festival.

“I’m sorry I don’t speak Spanish and I’m sorry about Trump,” Reichardt told the audience,...

The Costa Rica International Film Festival (Crfic) has announced its complete lineup for its fifth edition. This year, 72 films have been chosen to represent the world’s best in independent cinema, with four world premieres and three Latin American premieres taking place, and over 60 features to be presented for the first time in the region.

“At Crfic we are interested in approaching the idea of artistic diversity; covering a broad spectrum of styles and proposals found in contemporary national and international cinema,” said Marcelo Quesada, Artistic Director for the Festival. “Our identity and our program is built around a free, coherent and risky cinema that moves away from the usual places and bring us closer to different voices and world visions from over 30 countries.”

Read More: Costa Rica Selects Esteban Ramirez’ ‘Presos’ as Oscar Submission

Taking place at the capital city of San José, the festival will run from December...

The Costa Rica Film Festival announced on Tuesday its fifth edition's full lineup, which will feature a retrospective of American director Kelly Reichardt (Certain Women), who will attend the festival held in the city of San Jose from Dec. 8-17.

The retrospective program will screen Reichardt's latest film, Certain Women, starring Kristen Stewart, Laura Dern and Michelle Williams, which took the best film award at the London Film Festival in October. Reichard was also nominated for best director for this film in the upcoming Independent Spirit Awards.

The program also features Reichardt's Night Moves...