Telluride Unveils Its Strike Year Lineup
One of the primary charms of the small but mighty Telluride Film Festival has always been its chance meetings. Sharing a gondola ride with an auteur. Trading theater line gossip with an exec. Reaching for the same hat at that shop on Colorado Ave. as an Oscar winner (it looks better on her, obviously). But […]
- By
Priscilla Presley Entrusts Sofia Coppola to Tell Her Story: “I Felt She Could Get Me”
Priscilla Presley was trying on clothes in the fitting room of a Beverly Hills boutique when she overheard two women whispering about her. It was the mid-1960s, and Priscilla — who had met Elvis in 1959 when she was 14 and he was 24 — in some people’s eyes was living out the fantasy of […]
- By
SAG-AFTRA’s Controversial Interim Agreements Rescue — and Baffle — Indie Producers
When Exhibiting Forgiveness, the first movie from African-American painter Titus Kaphar, started shooting in New Jersey in June, producers of the independent film were bracing themselves for a potential SAG-AFTRA strike. “We started with our fingers crossed,” says producer Jamie Patricof of the movie, which stars a cast of as-yet unannounced SAG actors, including at […]
- By
The Auteurs of San Quentin
Like many independent filmmakers, Anthony Gomez has some quibbles with his own work. He wishes he’d had more time to shoot. His lead looks natural on camera but the voiceover delivery is stiff. A friend came through with some original music, but the post process was crazy. The usual stuff. What’s unusual is that Gomez, […]
- By
“This Can’t Be Safe. It’s Got to Have Bite”: Christopher Nolan and Cast Unleash ‘Oppenheimer’
One windy night in March 2022, in the desert outside Belen, New Mexico, Cillian Murphy was waiting to climb a 100-foot steel tower, a copy of the one that held the first nuclear bomb ever detonated in 1945. The conditions were right for summoning the emotion of the historic scene the Irish actor was about […]
- By
Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Partners Cuts 20 Percent of Staff
Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Partners has cut some 20 percent of its workforce, as the company resizes amid a new multiyear deal with Universal. Those leaving the 90- to 100-employee company include staff in marketing, international and post-production. Under Amblin’s new deal with Universal, the studio will co-finance the company’s movies. Previously, Amblin would find its […]
- By
Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese and Paul Thomas Anderson “Heartened” About TCM After Talks With David Zaslav
Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese and Paul Thomas Anderson are reassuring fans of Turner Classic Movies, the classic film network and brand in the midst of a shake-up that has startled cinephiles. In a joint statement released Wednesday, the three filmmakers said that Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav had reached out to them earlier in […]
- By
An “Existential Fight” Looms If Actors Join the Writers Strike
Not since 1980 — when they shut down production over residuals from now-quaint tech like videotapes and cable TV — have Hollywood’s actors gone on strike against the major film and TV studios. But with SAG-AFTRA voting to authorize a strike by a nearly 98 percent margin, another historic labor action is possible over a […]
- By
Taika Waititi: “Am I Allowed to Laugh at This?”
Taika Waititi and Sterlin Harjo have a routine they’ve done at parties that kills. They perfected it at Sundance in the early 2000s, in a condo dance-off with two Navajo guys. “Taika would strike this Michael Jackson pose with his hand pointing in the air and unbutton the pearl button on his shirt,” says Harjo, […]
- By
Cannes Diary: Fest Offers Stars a Rare Privilege – Aging Without Shame
There are two Harrison Fords in Indiana Jones: The Dial of Destiny: a digitally de-aged adventurer battling Nazis over plundered artifacts in 1944, and a retiring college professor reluctantly called back into the high-speed chase life in 1969. The one who gets the movie’s shirtless scene? That would be 1969 Indy, played by the contemporary Ford, now […]
- By
Cannes Diary: Will Artificial Intelligence “Democratize Creativity” or Lead to Certain Doom?
On May 17, as bodies lined up in the rain outside the Cannes Film Festival Palais for the chance to watch a short film directed by Pedro Almodóvar, an auteur known most of all for his humanism, a different kind of gathering was underway below the theater. Inside the Marché, a panel of technologists convened to […]
- By
Cannes: Relaunched French 50/50 Organization Fact-Checks Fest on Female Representation
Last year at Cannes, there was a notable void in the vocal female activism that has characterized the festival since the start of the #MeToo movement, as both Time’s Up U.S. and its French corollary, Collectif 50/50, had recently imploded in controversy. But unlike Time’s Up, which is now effectively defunct in the U.S., the […]
- By