Emotions overflowed as Brian Cox and Michael Keaton, among others, reminded viewers that beleaguered Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky was once a comedian, a member of their ranks. Both Lifetime Achievement winner Helen Mirren and Female Leading Actor winner Jessica Chastain (“The Eyes of Tammy Faye”) reached out to their fellow actors who sustain them. “The thing that kept me going was this community,” said Chastain. “I love my artistic family, my heart is with the international family around the world who is fighting for their safety and freedom....

Jackson revealed that he views the Oscars as a “popularity contest” not rooted in the true meaning of moviemaking: to entertain. The “Pulp Fiction” star famously was snubbed, losing to Martin Landau for Tim Burton’s “Ed Wood” in 1995. “I heard way back when when Martin Landau got the award and I didn’t, ‘C’mon, Sam. Martin’s been nominated so many times. Don’t worry. Your time is coming.’ Excuse me? I didn’t know that’s how it worked,” Jackson told the Los Angeles Times....

“This guy, Michael Richards, breaks character and just starts ripping me a new asshole,” Silverman said. “He points to the window and he goes, ‘Do you see rain in that window? Do you see rain in that window?’ and I go, ‘No,’ and he says, ‘Then why did you say rain?’ It’s not rain. There’s no rain in that window! The line is ‘wind’!” Silverman said she got a “lump in her throat” while Richards was yelling at her for screwing up the dialogue....

While mainstream Hollywood struggles to address human sexuality in any meaningful way, these four recently-released short films explore sex and desire with a refreshing playfulness. Whether it’s a feminist genre take on actual bloodlust, or a comedy about an erotic encounter where the two people never touch, these films celebrate the full spectrum of human desire. They’re all available online, though you’ll have to head over to YouTube for the more explicit titles, and each one has its own unique vibe....

This year’s complete program includes 42 feature films, 56 short films, and, new to the festival this year, five mid-length films. 13 films will be making their world premiere with an additional 15 making their North American premiere. The lineup includes films from 41 countries around the world. Among the full festival lineup, 57% of the films were helmed by women filmmakers and 57% by BIPOC filmmakers. “Our filmmakers, our community, and our country are all under enormous pressure right now,” said head programmer Jessie Fairbanks in an official statement....

Inspired by true events and based on the 2019 podcast of the same name, “The Shrink Next Door” focuses on the bizarre relationship between a psychiatrist to the stars, Dr. Isaac “Ike” Herschkopf, and his longterm patient, Martin “Marty” Markowitz. What starts as a normal doctor-patient dynamic slowly turns into the all-too-charming Ike (Rudd) taking over patient Marty’s (Ferrell) life, from moving into Marty’s home to taking over his family business....

However, the 10-season “SNL” icon revealed that breaking character in sketches was not all fun and games for her. “I felt ashamed, because we’re not supposed to, and there’s something unprofessional about it,” McKinnon revealed during Vulture’s Good One podcast. “And yet sometimes it was just too fun. There was a hint, I guess, of wanting the audience to know like, ‘Oh, man, I love this. You have no idea how much I love Aidy Bryant and how much I love this job and how much I love these jokes....

The box-office appeal of an enduring superhero may be stronger than Omicron, but what about everything else? Theaters need to see that a weak November was the outlier — not the elevated October led by “Venom: Let There Be Carnage.” IndieWire’s box-office estimate for October was right on target, but we leaned pessimistic for November; the guess was it could gross 65 percent of November 2019. Turned out that we were off by 10 points....

Steve-O shot to fame with his “The Goldfish” talent, showcasing a puke-tastic party trick in “Jackass the Series.” “This was an idea that I saved for a special occasion,” Steve-O said in an exclusive sneak peek. “I thought it was going to be a real banger.” The goldfish survived Steve-O swallowing it and then throwing it back up again. Some could even say the goldfish thrived: “It came out swimming,” Steve-O remembers with a laugh....

Director Steven Soderbergh said that the third — and presumably final — “Magic Mike” film was due to his urging. “This third one was being made at my demand,” Soderbergh, who didn’t direct the sequel film “Magic Mike XXL,” told Thrillist. “I was the one that said, ‘I want to do this, and here’s what I want to do.’” Star and co-creator Channing Tatum previously admitted to Variety that he had no interest in reprising his former stripper role, especially after the “Magic Mike Live” show and a four-year acting hiatus....

Early in the supersized finale of “Stranger Things 4” — or what would be roughly one-quarter of the way through a standard TV episode, but what’s less than one-tenth into the 140-minute “Chapter Nine: The Piggyback” — a stoner doofus stumbles into a two-pronged revelation. For plot purposes, Argyle (Eduardo Franco) thinks of the perfect place for Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) to conduct her “mind fight.” His place of employment, Surfer Boy Pizza, not only carries the necessary amount of salt to better focus our hero’s powers, but it’s also got a bathtub-size container to help her travel into her friend’s mind....

As the latest edition takes off, there are plenty of movies worth talking about, from timely dramas such as “Call Jane” (above) to poignant documentaries like “Fire of Love.” These are among the sales titles that face the haziest marketplace in Sundance history, but the industry is hungry for content. What will buyers look for in the days ahead? In this week’s episode of Screen Talk, Eric Kohn and Anne Thompson discuss a few possibilities....

At the opening day brunch, Telluride attendees were already chatting about what they have heard of the films that premiered out of Venice, which had kicked off two days ago. Naturally, the conversation turned to a couple of projects that also happen to be at Telluride as well. While there is still much excitement for “TÁR,” which will close the Cate Blanchett tribute on Saturday night, the previous day’s wave of divisive reviews for “Bardo” had brunch goers wondering whether or not they can power through its ever-evolving runtime (there were whispers that even sure exceeds the 174 minutes listed on the program guide)....

Now that we’ve thrown the worst pandemic of the last century into the mix, the how of seeing a new Christopher Nolan movie starts to get a little complicated, even for him. It starts to feel like less of a joke than a logic puzzle shaded with personal risk, unnerving self-doubt, and a certain moral dubiousness — one that’s compounded if you crow about the experience afterward in a way that might inspire other people to follow suit....

The promise of shooting a movie on your iPhone is often irresistible for filmmakers. Film is a very capital intensive art form, leaving countless great story ideas unmade due to financial or logistical hurdles. So any time a barrier to entry is removed and the medium finds itself a little more democratized, movie lovers’ eyes get a little wider and we all start to plan our masterpieces. The idea that the phone you already carry in your pocket can be used to pursue your Hollywood dreams is exhilirating....

Over a decade into a post-“Creep” world, that tactic pops up not in the marketing materials for “The Chestnut Man,” but the Netflix show itself. Near the end of the first of the season’s six episodes, an assembled group of Danish schoolchildren sing a nursery rhyme about chestnuts, the same marker a murderer leaves at a crime scene as their de facto calling card. As if this one-to-one wasn’t enough, a raw chestnut, still in its outer green casing, falls from a tree....

The move is the first large scale overhaul at the CW after Nexstar, the largest television-station owner in the United States, took control of the channel’s operation on October 3. Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount Global, The CW’s previous owners, sold a majority of their unprofitable joint venture to Nexstar in June. Among those laid off on Tuesday were Paul Hewitt, the CW communications chief since it formed from the merger of UPN with The WB in 2006....

By the time Eastwood himself actually shows up for a minute in the second act, the star grinning at us from inside a motel TV that’s airing a fuzzy broadcast of the 1968 Western “Hang ‘Em High,” the nod seems almost as inevitable and indebted as one of those Stan Lee cameos in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But if superhero movies have unsurprisingly managed to outlive Stan Lee, a film as functional and flavorless as “The Marksman” suggests that Eastwoodism will die along with the man who inspired it....

Shot on 35mm on an 87-day schedule, “The Northman” is a jaw-droppingly ambitious Viking epic, filled with precise detail, extravagant action, and mythic grandeur. The film is as clear as it is complex thanks to the purity of expression that Eggers and Blaschke have been working toward since that now-far-off Edgar Allan Poe adaptation. “Over the course of our time together I’ve tried to simplify the visual experience so that things are presented in the most direct way,” Blaschke told IndieWire....

Now, Oscilloscope Laboratories will open the film April 15 in New York exclusively at Film at Lincoln Center, followed by a Los Angeles opening April 29. Exclusively on IndieWire, you can watch the trailer for the film below ahead of its stateside release. The film centers on Luciano (Gabriele Silli), a meandering outcast in a far-off, late-19th-century Italian village. His life is marred by all manner of conflict, from the dangers of drink to forbidden love, as well as unrest with the prince of the region regarding passage through a certain ancient gateway....