“What’s special about the film,” said NYFF head programmer Dennis Lim at Friday’s virtual press conference, “was its unusual, unpredictable tone. It’s surreal and dark and deadpan, and also heartfelt, as some changes happen moment to moment.” The thrice Oscar-nominated Pfeiffer (“Dangerous Liaisons,” “The Fabulous Baker Boys,” “Love Field”) runs with the juicy role of an over-the-top New York socialite who peels off 100 Euro notes everywhere she goes. The character “could seem caricaturish on the page,” Pfeiffer said....

The festival experimented with an October festival berth and virtual festival last year during the pandemic; after three years running both AFI Fest and AFI Docs, director Michael Lumpkin retired in March, 2021. He is yet to be replaced; for the moment the woman in charge is Sarah Harris, who moved into Director of Programming at AFI Festivals to replace the departing Lane Kneedler. And the festival has moved back to its usual November slot, when it can take advantage of late-breaking Oscar contenders like Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper” and Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln....

“That character was basically more me than Bebe Buell or Pennie Trumbull. She looked way more like me.” Barres says, noting her issue was with Crowe never consulting her about the project. Barres says Penny Lane was “stolen” and “ripped off” from her considering Hudson told her she read her book, “I’m With the Band,” for research and hung up photos of Des Barres in her dressing room. Des Barres wrote a film script based on her life but “Almost Famous” and Penny Lane’s popularity “made it impossible for me to sell my film....

Inspired by Warner’s memoir “All Things Possible: My Story of Faith, Football, and the First Miracle Season,” “American Underdog” is basically “Rudy” if Rudy Ruettiger had been played by an ultra-yoked superhero (“Shazam!” star Zachary Levi) instead of a po-ta-toes-obsessed hobbit. Unlike the pint-sized benchwarmer who was carried off the field during his senior year at Notre Dame, however, Warner has to wait a bit longer for his Wheaties box moment (despite a throwing arm with enough firepower to earn a spot on Lauren Boebert’s Christmas card)....

“We didn’t get to speak too much before the actual read-through,” Foster said. “We just sort of kind of waved from across the room and then sat down at the table. And as you launched into Hannibal Lecter, I felt a chill come over the room. In a way, it was like we were almost too scared to talk to each other after that.” Foster wasn’t the only one terrified of Hopkins on the set....

The Arclight notice, dated March 29, states that parent company Pacific Theaters Exhibition has not paid March 2021 rent of $181,900.40. (That projects to just under $2.2 million for a full year.) The notice states that it is due in full, payable to collections agent Caitlin Brannon. Reached at her office, Brannon confirmed the notice but would not further confirm its status beyond, “It’s in legal now.” When legal restrictions were in place, many theaters could argue against rent....

The wide release is not a standard pattern for awards titles, but a lot has changed since the last conventional awards year of 2019. Even the Oscar strategy isn’t immune to the changes in the exhibition landscape. Previously, a platform release for “Babylon” would have opened on multiple screens at the Arclight Hollywood and The Landmark. Those two Los Angeles theaters had a unique potential to generate massive grosses, giving films an immediate boost....

Where to Watch ‘Beforeigners’: HBO Max TV is littered with “what if” stories — worlds that take our own and add one huge change. Often, that means organizing a show around one massive mystery or event and following the people left to parse the aftermath. The main thing that separates “Beforeigners” from other shows like it is the massive time jump it takes in its very first episode. After introducing its inherently hook-y premise — groups of people from centuries, and even millennia, past pop up in the water outside present-day Oslo — the show immediately chooses to spend its time in a world where that new reality isn’t as unfamiliar....

Cumberbatch, who is up for a Best Actor Oscar for the film, made the remarks during a recent BAFTA Film Session. “I’m trying very hard not to say anything about a very odd reaction that happened the other day on a radio podcast over here,” he said. “Without meaning to stir over the ashes of that … someone really took offense to — I haven’t heard it so it’s unfair for me to comment in detail on it — to the West being portrayed in this way....

Fans of the ‘90s aesthetic have a special appreciation for the television that came out of the era, especially classic sitcoms including “The Nanny,” which is now officially streaming on HBO Max. The series, co-created by Fran Drescher who stars as a straight-talking Jewish fashionista from Queens who gets hired as a nanny to the children of a former Broadway star, is one of the many classic TV shows that you can find on streaming platforms....

Products featured are independently selected by our editorial team and we may earn a commission from purchases made from our links. No matter how convenient our digital lives are, there’s still something special about physical media — especially when it’s so beautifully and thoughtfully curated by the Criterion Collection. Each of Criterion’s releases takes an exemplary film, from auteur classic to Hollywood blockbuster and everything in between, and includes a slew of special features — commentary tracks, restored film transfers, essays about its importance in the cinematic pantheon — that help “deepen the viewer’s understanding and appreciation of the art of cinema....

Following the shocking news Sunday night that Robert Iger had returned as Disney CEO to replace his own successor in Bob Chapek, company stock (DIS) jumped as much as 10 percent. Don’t let the park gates hit you on the way out, Chapek. The Iger resurrection was enough for research firm Moffett Nathanson to declare the “Magic Is Back.” The equity analysts upgraded shares of DIS to “outperform,” or a Buy, with a new price target of $120 (+$20 from its previous $100 PT)....

These numbers cap a week of bad-to-worse news for theaters. Announcements from Universal codifed its Premium VOD plans, which suggest that the new maximum window, likely adapted by other distributors, is five weekends after opening. Warner Bros. placed “Wonder Woman 1984” on HBO Max for 30 days, along with theaters that want to play it. (The logic behind the 30-day rule is murky; perhaps the hope is by the end of January, more theaters will be open?...

Renaud, who previously reported from hot spots including Iraq, Afghanistan, Mexico, and Haiti, was in Ukraine to cover the war. He was killed in Irpin, a suburb of Kyiv that has been aggressively hit with Russian artillery fire. The news was confirmed by a member of Kyiv’s regional police force. In addition to his award-winning work as a journalist, Renaud was an acclaimed documentary filmmaker who maintained an association with the independent film community....

The official synopsis from Netflix for the special reads: “‘Chadwick Boseman: Portrait of an Artist’ is an intimate look at the Oscar-nominated actor’s incomparable artistry, and the acting process which informed his transformative performances. Viola Davis, Denzel Washington, Spike Lee, George C. Wolfe, Branford Marsalis, Phylicia Rashad and more take us behind the scenes to explore Boseman’s extraordinary commitment to his craft.” Boseman is the frontrunner to win the Oscar for Best Actor this year thanks to his performance in the Netflix original drama “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom....

Boseman was paid tribute by his co-star Andre Holland, with whom he starred opposite as Jackie Robinson in “42.” Of a memorable moment in promoting the film, Holland said, “There was an acknowledgment in his face that his light would never be the same and there was also this clarity in his eyes that he was ready to meet that moment and many more. Chad went on to play many more important characters and he always kept himself committed to his craft… he honored his calling each and every time he went to work....

Director Charles Burnett has been documenting Black struggle for decades, and said he was optimistic about the filmmaking that could emerge from these tumultuous times. “I look forward, hopefully, that something really amazing will come out of storytellers that talk about this particular period, because this is probably one of the most unusual periods that we’ve confronted in every respect,” he said. “With this pandemic, we don’t know at this moment who’s going to live or die....

“There were a few times when Daniel Craig and I went a little far at the table discussing what the scene might be able to do,” Mikkelsen recently told Vulture about the nude torture scene. “It was a scene where I tortured him and he’s stripped naked to the chair, which was kind of radical. We’ve never seen Bond naked, and we’ve never seen him that fragile, and then obviously there are some undertones with the rope....

As first reported by Rotten Tomatoes Awards Editor Jacqueline Coley, the “Judas and the Black Messiah” Oscar winner confirmed he is not reprising the role of W’Kabi in Marvel’s “Black Panther” follow-up, the first Marvel film featuring the titular superhero without the late Chadwick Boseman. Kaluuya cited scheduling conflicts with Jordan Peele’s “Nope,” in theaters July 22. “Wakanda Forever” has a current release date of November 11 from Walt Disney Pictures....

And yet, despite those increasingly ridiculous examples, Blomkamp’s impetus to let digital tools drive his storytelling has never been more transparent or contrived than it is in his DOA new horror film “Demonic,” which leans on three sequences created with volumetric capture (described by Blomkamp as a kind of three-dimensional video system through which the actors are simultaneously recorded with 260 cameras and then “turned into geometry”) to spice up an undercooked possession saga....