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Brady Corbet’s “The Brutalist” has already stunned at Venice. Now, the epic drama is unfurling its awards campaign with the first trailer.

“The Brutalist” stars Adrien Brody as László Tóth, a fictional Hungarian Jewish Holocaust survivor and architect who arrives in America to build a massive modern community center. The film spans 30 years in the life of Brody’s László, ranging from his project with his employer (Guy Pearce) to his rocky marriage with his wife (Felicity Jones).

The cast also includes Joe Alwyn, Alessandro Nivola, Raffey Cassidy, and Stacy Martin.

“The Brutalist” is writer/director Corbet’s third film after “The Childhood of a Leader” (2015) and “Vox Lux” (2018); he has also acted in films such as “Melancholia,” “Mysterious Skin,” and “Thirteen.” Mona Fastvold co-wrote the script for “The Brutalist,” with Venice Film Festival artistic director Alberto Barbera comparing the feature to King Vidor’s 1949 adaptation of “The Fountainhead.

A brutal Oscar season is ahead…in a good way.

As the Oscar race heats up, Hollywood is bracing for an intense, wide-open awards season. After its whirlwind tour through the Venice, Toronto, and New York Film Festivals, A24’s newly acquired historical epic “The Brutalist” has emerged as a potential heavyweight in this year’s Academy Awards lineup. Starring Adrien Brody in a career-redefining role as a Hungarian-born Jewish architect who survives the Holocaust and journeys to the U.S., the film screened in front of an influential audience at CAA on Sunday night. The room was filled with industry professionals, journalists, and Oscar winners like Cord Jefferson (“American Fiction”). After the screening, the film’s director, Brady Corbet, and co-writer Mona Fastvold participated in a post-screening Q&a session, giving the audience insight into the seven-year odyssey to bring this project to life.

“The Brutalist” follows 30 years in...

Indie filmmaker Brady Corbet may have had a shockingly small budget for “The Brutalist,” but the writer/director is explaining why more funding would have been even more brutal.

Period piece “The Brutalist” stars Adrien Brody as László Tóth, a fictional Hungarian Jewish Holocaust survivor and architect who arrives in America to build a massive modern community center. Guy Pearce plays László’s employer, with Felicity Jones, Joe Alwyn, Alessandro Nivola, Raffey Cassidy, and Stacy Martin co-starring. The film spans 30 years in the life of Brody’s László.

“The Brutalist” was filmed in Budapest and Tuscany in Spring 2023 after Covid delays on a budget of less than $10 million. The feature debuted at the Venice Film Festival, with North American distributor A24 positioning the drama as an Oscar contender. Focus Features has the international distribution rights.

Corbet told Variety that he spent seven years developing “The Brutalist,” which became a 215-minute...

Writer-director Brady Corbet doesn’t see much difference between constructing a skyscraper and making a movie.

“There are so many similarities,” says Corbet, whose new film “The Brutalist,” which dramatizes the concessions architects are forced to accept, is also an allegory of Hollywood. “We’re usually working for a client. The infrastructure involved is enormous. The number of people required to run these operations is immense, and there are so many compromises you have to make. There aren’t many art forms with so many cooks in the kitchen.”

“The Brutalist” is more concerned with constructing monuments than making movies, but its story seems to be informed by Corbet’s personal experiences with art and commerce. It centers on László Tóth (Adrien Brody), a Hungarian Jewish architect, who arrives in America after being interned at Buchenwald. His path intersects with that of a preening industrialist, Harrison Lee Van Buren (Guy Pearce...

Un joven se convierte en la musa sexual de una provocadora artista.

De acuerdo con Variety, Olivia Wilde Cooper Hoffman y la cantante Charli Xcx protagonizarán el thriller erótico I Want Your Sex, del director Gregg Araki (Mysterious Skin) y coescrito junto a Karley Sciortino (Slutever).

En I Want Your Sex, cuando el novato Elliot (Hoffman) consigue un excitante trabajo para la renombrada artista, icono y provocadora Erika Tracy (Wilde), sus fantasías se hacen realidad cuando Erika le elige para convertirse en su musa sexual. Pero Elliot pronto se encuentra fuera de sí cuando Erika le lleva a un viaje más profundo de lo que jamás hubiera imaginado, a un mundo de sexo, obsesión, poder, traición y asesinato.

El rodaje de la película comenzará en Los Ángeles en octubre.

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In Paul Thomas Anderson's 2021 coming-of-age joint Licorice Pizza, Cooper Hoffman gave a breakout performance as a fresh-faced kid who gets in over his head with an older woman. And now, as Variety's reporting confirms, Cooper Hoffman is set to play a fresh-faced kid who gets in over his head with an older woman once again — albeit with a little less of a '70s nostalgic glow and a little more of a dangerous twist. The actor, son of Philip Seymour Hoffman, has been cast as Olivia Wilde's sexual muse in erotically charged thriller I Want Your Sex, the latest movie from Mysterious Skin auteur Gregg Araki.

Written by Araki alongside his Now Apocalypse co-writer Karley Sciortino, I Want Your Sex — in case the title doesn't quite spell it out clearly enough — looks set to be a typically raw and unflinching feature from the White Bird In A Blizzard filmmaker.

Cooper Hoffman is getting his own “Boogie Nights” breakout moment.

The actor, whose father is late icon Philip Seymour Hoffman, is set to star in Gregg Araki’s upcoming psychosexual thriller “I Want Your Sex.” Hoffman will co-lead the film with Olivia Wilde, IndieWire has confirmed.

The official synopsis reads: “When fresh-faced Elliot (Hoffman) lands an exciting job for renowned artist, icon and provocateur Erika Tracy (Wilde), his fantasies come true as Erika taps him to become her sexual muse. But Elliot soon finds himself out of his depth as Erika takes him on a journey more profound than he ever could have imagined, into a world of sex, obsession, power, betrayal and murder.”

Hoffman previously starred in “Licorice Pizza” and will appear in the upcoming “Saturday Night” about the origins of “SNL.”

“I Want Your Sex” is written by Araki and Karley Sciortino. Araki, Sciortino, Seth Caplan, and Black Bear...

The 81st edition of the Venice Film Festival officially kicks off on Wednesday with the eyes of the film world focused on the Lido.

Long-running festival director Alberto Barbera and his team have unveiled a star-studded lineup, including possible awards season contenders. But which premieres can’t be missed amid the busy program?

THR‘s chief movie critic David Rooney looked through the selection of the big Italian festival to pick some of the most intriguing prospects.

The Brutalist

When Brady Corbet was in Venice at age 16 with Mysterious Skin, instead of flying home with his director Gregg Araki and co-star Joseph Gordon-Levitt, he stayed on a couple extra days to see the new Claire Denis film, The Intruder. That same cinephile curiosity is evident in the choice of filmmakers with whom he’s worked, among them Michael Haneke, Sean Durkin, Lars von Trier, Olivier Assayas and Mia Hansen-Love. Co-written with Mona Fastvold,...

This article is part of IndieWire’s 2000s Week celebration. Click here for a whole lot more.

The 21st century has seen any number of films about the stories people tell themselves in order to rationalize and reconfigure their trauma, but none have been more raw or powerfully true to life than “Mysterious Skin.”

Nineties indie icon Gregg Araki took great risk in adapting Scott Heim’s 1995 novel, the story of a teen hustler who, drawn exclusively to older men as an adult, comes to terms with the fact that his Little League coach groomed and raped him as a child over one summer in 1981 Kansas, and how his sexual behavior later in the ’90s was shaped by those encounters as a result. While Neil McCormack (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) engages in reckless sexual activity, elsewhere a fellow teammate, Brian Lackey (Brady Corbet), who was also abused by the same coach, retreats...

Filmmaker Brady Corbet has premiered features twice before at Venice, but never at this scale.

“The Brutalist” is the director’s first feature since 2018’s “Vox Lux,” which starred Natalie Portman as a pop star haunted by a school shooting. Before that, Corbet also premiered “The Childhood of a Leader” (2015) at Venice, announcing a singular cinematic voice after years of acting in indies like “Melancholia,” “Simon Killer,” “Mysterious Skin,” and “Thirteen.”

As Venice Film Festival artistic director Alberto Barbera revealed during the July 23 press conference announcing the lineup, “The Brutalist” will premiere in competition. It’s also a whopping 215 minutes long, which includes a 15-minute intermission. The film was shot on Vista Vision by Lol Crawley, director of photography on the celluloid-made “Vox Lux” and “The Childhood of a Leader” as well as Noah Baumbach’s “White Noise” more recently. Barbera confirmed that the Italian film festival will screen “The Brutalist” in 70mm,...

Nineties New Queer Cinema icon Gregg Araki has not directed a feature since leaving Eva Green’s body frozen in the suburban snow globe of “White Bird in a Blizzard” in 2014. Since then, the DIY taboo buster has gone the way so many indie directors have to: by applying their personality to TV shows. In Araki’s case, that includes directing episodes of “Dahmer” and “American Gigolo.”

The iconoclastic Southern California filmmaker — known for “The Doom Generation” and “Mysterious Skin” and celebrated for his stylishly drawn stories of youthful sexual identity coming to bloom — also wrote and directed the 2019 series “Now Apocalypse.” Now, he’s teaming up with Karley Sciortino, the co-writer on that Starz show about sex and aliens in LA, for a new movie titled “I Want Your Sex.”

Araki revealed the project in early May, and it’s set up at Black Bear, most recently the production...

Let’s bounce.

After concluding May with discussions of Gregg Araki’s Mysterious Skin (listen) and Ridley Scott’s Alien (listen), we’re delving back into the world of female coming-of-age tales with Lisa Brühlmann‘s 2017 body horror film Blue My Mind.

Blue My Mind sees 15-year-old Mia (Luna Wedler) face an overwhelming transformation which calls her entire existence into question. After getting her first period, her body begins to change radically in some very non-human ways. Despite desperate attempts to halt the process, she is soon forced to accept that nature is far more powerful than her.

Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get a new episode every Wednesday. You can subscribe on iTunes/Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, iHeartRadio, SoundCloud, TuneIn, Amazon Music, and RSS.

Episode 284: Blue My Mind (2017)

Swallow that fish and peel the skin off your legs because we’re discussing Lisa Brühlmann’s...

At long last, Eddie Murphy is reprising his role as street-smart cop Axel Foley in the fourth instalment of the Beverly Hills Cop franchise, which is set to hit Netflix this summer. But, it isn’t easy being a middle aged action star. It’s been nearly thirty years since we last saw Eddie Murphy as Axel Foley, and in a recent interview with People Magazine he admitted that the shoot was a “rough one”.“I did Axel Foley when I was in my 20s. I am not in my 20s anymore,” he said. At any rate, Murphy won’t be the only aged actor from the original to show up, with many of the classic Beverly Hills Cop cast members are set to join him in Beverly Hills Cop: Axel Foley. Here’s everything we know about Beverly Hills Cop 4!

Who’s making it?

Beverly Hills Cop: Axel Foley...

The Perfect Organism.

After kicking off May with discussions of Stephen Sommers’ The Mummy (listen), Trace and I have checked out Audrey Hepburn in Wait Until Dark (listen) and Joseph Gordon-Levitt in Gregg Araki‘s Mysterious Skin (listen).

Now we’re crossing a classic title off our list: Ridley Scott‘s Alien.

Alien tells the story of the crew of the Nostromo as they’re awoken from stasis to answer a distress beacon on a nearby planet. When Kane (John Hurt) is attacked on an alien ship, Warrant Officer Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) refuses to let Captain Dallas (Tom Skerritt) and Navigator Lambert (Veronica Cartwright) back on board with quarantining.

Science Officer Ash (Ian Holm) overrides her command and brings them inside, but as the alien creature on Kane’s face evolves, it becomes clear that there’s more than one antagonist on board the ship and everyone, including Engineers Parker...

Heart-wrenching horror.

After kicking off May with discussions of Stephen Sommers’ perfect action-adventure-horror-romantic-comedy The Mummy (listen) and the iconic jump scare in the Audrey Hepburn-starring Wait Until Dark (listen), we’re delving into the real-life horrors of child sexual abuse in Gregg Araki‘s 2004 adaptation of Scott Heim‘s novel Mysterious Skin.

Mysterious Skin tells the story of how child sexual abuse affects the lives of two pre-adolescent boys in different ways. Neil (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) becomes a reckless, sexually adventurous sex worker, while Brian (Brady Corbet) retreats into a reclusive fantasy of alien abduction. The film is told in parallel narratives before culminating in a heart-breaking reunion that will change each boy’s life forever.

Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get a new episode every Wednesday. You can subscribe on iTunes/Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, iHeartRadio, SoundCloud, TuneIn, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, and RSS.

Episode 282:...

After concluding April with discussions of Ciarán Foy’s Eli (listen) and David Cronenberg’s eXistenZ (listen), we kicked off May with a revisit of Stephen Sommers’ delightful 1999 film, The Mummy (listen).

Now we’re headed into the past with Terence Young‘s adaptation of Frederick Knott‘s “disabled woman in danger” play, Wait Until Dark (1967).

In the film, recently blind Susy (Audrey Hepburn) is menaced by a trio of strange men, including sexually perverse ring leader Roat (Alan Arkin), “nice guy” Talman (Richard Crenna) and portly Carlino (Jack Weston). The men are looking for a doll full of heroin, which is located somewhere in her apartment, but she doesn’t know where!

Can Susy figure out the scam with the help of upstairs neighbor girl Gloria (Julie Herrod) or will she wind up hanging in the closet like Roat’s poor accomplice Lisa (Samantha Jones)?

Be sure to subscribe...

Marking his first narrative feature in a decade, Mysterious Skin and The Doom Generation director Gregg Araki is returning with a new thriller. I Want Your Sex, scripted by Araki and Karley Sciortino, is set to star Olivia Wilde and the first details have been unveiled ahead of a summer shoot in Los Angeles.

Described as a “provocative thriller” which “blithely explores desire, domination, and fantasy, here’s the synopsis: “How far is too far? When fresh-faced Elliot lands an exciting job for renowned artist, icon and provocateur Erika Tracy (Wilde), his fantasies come true as Erika taps him to become her sexual muse. But Elliot soon finds himself out of his depth as Erika takes him on a journey more profound than he ever could have imagined, into a world of sex, obsession, power, betrayal and murder. Featuring outrageous characters and a playful sense of humor, I Want Your...

Gregg Araki is set to direct Olivia Wilde in his next feature, Black Bear’s provocative thriller “I Want Your Sex.”

The film features an original script penned by Araki and Karley Sciortino which blithely explores desire, domination and fantasy.

When fresh-faced Elliot lands an exciting job for renowned artist, icon and provocateur Erika Tracy (Wilde), his fantasies come true as Erika taps him to become her sexual muse. But Elliot soon finds himself out of his depth as Erika takes him on a journey more profound than he ever could have imagined, into a world of sex, obsession, power, betrayal and murder.

Arlie Day (“To Leslie”) and Mike Page (“The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry”) are casting the picture. The film will be produced by Seth Caplan, a past winner of the John Cassavetes Award at the Film Independent Spirit Awards, alongside Black Bear’s Teddy Schwarzman and Michael Heimler.

Olivia Wilde (Don’t Worry Darling) has signed on to star in I Want Your Sex, a new thriller from director Gregg Araki (Mysterious Skin) and Black Bear.

Blithely exploring desire, domination and fantasy, the film asks the question, how far is too far? When fresh-faced Elliot lands an exciting job for renowned artist, icon and provocateur Erika Tracy (Wilde), his fantasies come true as Erika taps him to become her sexual muse. But Elliot soon finds himself out of his depth as Erika takes him on a journey more profound than he ever could have imagined, into a world of sex, obsession, power, betrayal and murder.

Written by Karley Sciortino & Araki, the film will be produced by Seth Caplan, as well as Black Bear’s Teddy Schwarzman and Michael Heimler. Exec producers include John Friedberg and Courtney L. Cunniff. Black Bear will also fully finance the picture...

“I Saw the TV Glow” director Jane Schoenbrun finally celebrated their second feature at the film’s New York City premiere on Wednesday, April 24, in partnership with Rooftop Films. But “I Saw the TV Glow” first premiered back in January at Sundance, under the banner of A24, and with Emma Stone and Dave McCary’s production company Fruit Tree.

“I sent it to [Fruit Tree] and a couple other people, and they were like, ‘Hey, we wanna work with you,'” Schoenbrun told IndieWire. “Then I got a call from Emma Stone who was like, ‘Thank you so much for your business,’ and I was like, ‘You’re welcome!'”

The visually striking film follows two teens who are obsessed with a disturbing young adult TV show that, once canceled, starts to bleed into reality for the characters. David Ehrlich wrote in IndieWire’s review that the film “marries the queer radicality...

Oh, it’s such a wonderful film, this one. The Missing deals with such a delicate issue with such tenderness that it has to be one of the better films of the year. Also, as it is an animated film, it kind of makes it easier to see it through a child’s lens, but it is not a children’s film. There is the topic of sexual abuse seated at the very core of the film, and how the trauma imparted from it ruins the life of a person. The film is hopeful in its explorations as it talks about how love, care, and emotional support are the only ways to get out of hell. But the great thing about The Missing is that it finds a metaphor to talk about these sensitive topics. Much like Gregg Araki’s Mysterious Skin, there are clever yet empathetic ways here to...

Initially inspired by an all too common misreading of the classic novel Lolita in her younger years, filmmaker Victoria Singh-Thompson – last featured on Directors Notes with her caught between cultures coming-of-age drama Don’t Forget To Go Home – wanted to depict the complex layers of trauma and how it affects the way we see the world. The resulting film 14 in February is a fragmented and haunting look at the world through the eyes of a young hard-of-hearing schoolgirl who isn’t yet able to process the experiences she has undergone and dissociates from her memories. The immersive and quietly shocking short is as visually still as it is emotionally frantic, with a focused lens pulling us into its young protagonist’s point of view, accented with purposeful jarring sounds which as a package, disturb and succeed in creating the unease that Singh-Thompson wanted. Making a welcome return to Dn’s pages,...

John Tilley, a longtime distribution exec and advocate for independent film at companies including United Artists Classics, Cinevista and Strand, who was instrumental in introducing the films of Pedro Almodovar to U.S. audiences, died Sunday in New York City. He was 75.

“John was always a consummate encyclopedia of knowledge of the industry, and his pool of friends and colleagues from around the globe always created a sense of family in Cannes, Berlin and more. His work at Strand Releasing was invaluable,” said Marcus Hu, co-president of Strand Releasing.

Filmmaker Ira Sachs said, “John was one of the first people I met in the film business, and he remained one of the kindest. He was open, curious, passionate, opinionated, and wise, and he knew the history of American and queer independent cinema like few others. His loss represents the passing of a generation of pioneers that created the community and industry that we know today.

The twisted, dreamy Glasgow underbelly Aaron John McIntyre conjures up in his short film Gomorrah feels like a marriage of Wong Kar-Wai’s hazy visual language and the bleak dark comedic sensibilities of Danny Boyle’s Trainspotting. It’s hard to believe McIntyre made this film as a student as it feels so confident and assured both in the story he’s telling and the means by which he tells it. The plot follows as a recovering addict as he relapses in the pits of Glasgow’s backstreets. We see him wonder about, monologuing with a deep pessimism for the world he has found himself in. It’s a really impressive film that has certainly put McIntyre on our radar as one to watch for the future. For now though, as Gomorrah continues its festival run, Dn caught up with the filmmaker to talk over the creative decision that resulted in his accomplished vision.

When the companies behind Ira Sachs’ new drama about the shifting currents of intimacy in a troubled love triangle submitted Passages to the Motion Picture Association ratings board, they probably anticipated an R.

But the MPA came back with an Nc-17 rating, forcing the distributor to release the film (which premiered at Sundance earlier this year) unrated rather than risk commercial marginalization or impose cuts that would diminish its intensity. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Sachs painted the MPA as an outmoded relic of the 1950s, detecting a strong whiff of dangerous cultural censorship and possible homophobia behind the seldom issued Nc-17.

Let’s be clear: Passages — which Mubi opened Aug. 4 in Los Angeles and New York before expanding to other cities in the weeks to come — is a movie with a generous amount of sex, both gay and straight. But it’s neither particularly explicit nor remotely gratuitous,...

Our latest roundup of new books related to the world of cinema is full of indelible imagery––the pale face of Lost Highway’s Mystery Man, John Ford’s craggy visage, and, of course, the Neverland sets from Hook.

Lost Highway: The Fist of Love by Scott Ryan (Tucker DS Press)

Last year, Scott Ryan covered David Lynch’s Twin Peaks prequel in Fire Walk With Me: Your Laura Disappeared. (We featured it here.) In 2023, Ryan studies what he calls “the lowest-grossing, most forgotten film of [Lynch’s] career.” Ryan’s Lost Highway: The Fist of Love is every bit as enthralling and insightful as Your Laura Disappeared. The author zeroes in on the elements of Lost Highway that turned off most (but not all) audiences in 1997 but are titillating new (and revisiting) viewers today. Ryan should know; he was one of those who looked away in the nineties: “The first time I saw it,...

Just in time for Succession‘s end, let’s look at method acting. The Criterion Channel are highlighting the controversial practice in a 27-film series centered on Brando, Newman, Nicholson, and many other’s embodiment of “an intensely personal, internalized, and naturalistic approach to performance.” That series makes mention of Marilyn Monroe, who gets her own, 11-title highlight––the iconic commingling with deeper cuts.

Pride Month offers “Masc,” a consideration of “trans men, butch lesbians, and gender-nonconforming heroes” onscreen; the Michael Koresky-curated Queersighted returning with a study of the gay best friend; and the 20-film “LGBTQ+ Favorites.” Louis Garrel’s delightful The Innocent (about which I talked to him here), the director’s cut of Gregg Araki’s The Doom Generation, and Stanley Kwan’s hugely underseen Lan Yu make streaming premieres, while Araki’s Totally F***ed Up and Mysterious Skin also get a run. Criterion Editions include Five Easy Pieces,...

The Sundance Film Festival: London 2023 will close with the U.K. premiere of Nicole Holofcener’s “You Hurt My Feelings.”

The comedy-drama is set in Brooklyn and stars Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Tobias Menzies as a couple whose marriage is thrown into turmoil when she overhears his honest reaction to her latest book.

As previously announced, the festival will open with the U.K. premiere of “Scrapper,” written and directed by Londoner Charlotte Regan, starring Harris Dickinson and newcomers Lola Campbell and Alin Uzun. It follows Georgie, a dreamy 12-year-old girl, who lives happily alone in her London flat, filling it with magic. Suddenly, her estranged father turns up and forces her to confront reality.

Curated by Picturehouse and the Sundance Institute, the 10th edition of the festival is set to take place from July 6-9 July at Picturehouse Central and will showcase 11 feature films that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City,...

Australia should remove its strict censorship of legal sex fetishes and some acts of violence in film, a government-commissioned report has recommended.

The country has a national system of films and games classification that has been little changed since 1995 – the pre-internet, smartphone and streaming era – as well as differing systems in each of the country’s states.

The federal government this week released a report compiled by Neville Stevens in 2020, but not published for more than two years.

Federal communications minister Michelle Rowland said this week that the government would recommend to the states that video games with simulated gambling should attract at least R18+ and that certain types of video games should attract an M classification. She has not commented on the report’s other recommendations.

Australia has famously given outright bans (“refused classification” or “Rc”) to films that include both sex and violence, even if the violence is not related to the sex.

Exclusive: UTA has signed director, producer and writer Joshua Zeman — a leading voice in the true-crime storytelling space — with plans to find him new opportunities in documentary filmmaking, narrative directing, digital content and more.

Zeman is best known for his critically acclaimed debut feature Cropsey, as well as such series as The Killing Season (A+E Networks), Murder Mountain (Netflix) and The Sons of Sam: A Descent into Darkness (Netflix).

Co-directed with Barbara Brancaccio, Cropsey watches as the filmmakers delve into the mystery surrounding five missing children and the real-life boogeyman linked to their disappearances. The Killing Season sees Zeman and Rachel Mills examine unsolved serial killer cases, while Murder Mountain looks at crime surrounding the marijuana industry in Humboldt County, California. And then, there’s The Sons of Sam, which looks at journalist Maury Terry’s conspiratorial thinking surrounding the infamous Son of Sam murders.

Zeman most recently departed from...

A limited series about the Sandy Hook shooting and the ensuing eight-year legal battle between victims’ families and gun manufacturer Remington Arms has landed at Echo Lake Entertainment. Oscar nominee Robin Swicord (“When They See Us”) and Sarah Koskoff will create the show in consultation with several families directly affected by the tragedy and their attorneys.

Swicord, Koskoff and producer Mary Jane Skalski of Echo Lake Entertainment are teaming as executive producers to tell the story of the Sandy Hook case, which uncovered how a New York private equity firm purchased legacy American gun companies in the mid-2000s, effectively creating the equivalent of Big Pharma in the consumer arms industry. Swicord and Koskoff have followed the case closely and are consulting with several families who brought the lawsuit, as well as their attorney, Josh Koskoff (Sarah Koskoff’s brother).

Also Read:

‘The Daily Show': Dl Hughley Says Tucker Carlson...

Joseph Gordon-Levitt first learned about Sundance Film Festival while he was making his big screen debut in 1992’s “A River Runs Through It.” That’s where the film’s director (and Sundance’s founder) Robert Redford gave him a T-shirt emblazoned with the festival’s moniker. But it wasn’t until he was a bit older that he fully understood the rebel spirit that has made Sundance a destination for indie auteurs and artists for decades.

“As a 14-year old, I started watching ‘Reservoir Dogs,’ ‘Sex Lies and Video Tape,’ ‘Swingers,’ ‘Sling Blade,’ ‘Big Night’ and all these movies that were coming through Sundance,” Gordon-Levitt remembers. “That was my thing in my adolescence. That was what I dreamed of doing.”

But getting up the mountain proved difficult. At that time, Gordon-Levitt was best known for his work in “3rd Rock From the Sun,” a broad comedy about a group of alien explorers.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt started acting professionally when most millennials were still learning basic math. At the tender age of 7, Gordon-Levitt began appearing in popular television shows like "Family Ties," "Murder, She Wrote," and "Quantum Leap," which eventually led to roles in the critically acclaimed movie, "A River Runs Through It," and one of my childhood favorites, "Angels in the Outfield." His most notable performance came in 1996 when he landed the part of Tommy Solomon, an alien teenager in the popular series "3rd Rock from the Sun."

A steady gig on a popular sitcom might be enough for some actors, but Gordon-Levitt had loftier goals for his career. He told Vanity Fair in 2020 that he always wanted to act in "serious movies" that would premiere at independent film festivals and end up in art house theaters, but he was a young, attractive, up-and-coming actor during what /Film's Chris Evangelista calls "The Era Of Cool Shakespeare,...

NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.

Museum of Modern Art

Peter Bogdanovich’s very funny, never-before-seen Squirrels to the Nuts has an exclusive run (about which more here), while a retrospective of Larry Fessenden’s genre house Glass Eye Pix is underway.

Metrograph

A Robert Siodmak retrospective has started, as has “Pop Plays Itself,” a collection of musicians onscreen, while Resnais, Demy, and Marker lead Left Bank Cinema; Metrograph A to Z continues with Powell-Pressburger and Ray; Perfect Blue and Son of the White Mare are in “Late Nights“; Charles Grodin is paid tribute with screenings of Midnight Run and Clifford.

Anthology Film Archives

A series on imageless films—featuring Hollis Frampton, Guy Debord, and Derek Jarman—is underway while some of Buster Keaton’s greatest works screen in “Essential Cinema.”

Film Forum

Joseph Losey’s great Mr. Klein has been restored, as has Bronco Bullfrog...

NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.

Metrograph

Resnais, Demy, and Varda lead Left Bank Cinema; Metrograph A to Z continues with Hawks and Lang; Kim’s Video has Hooper and Fulci; The Muppets Take Manhattan screens in Play Time;; Delta Space Mission is in “Late Nights.”

Roxy Cinema

Romeo + Juliet has 35mm showings, while Flaming Creatures and Fuses screen on 16mm this Saturday.

Film at Lincoln Center

A regular performer for Ozu, Mizoguchi, and Naruse, Kinuyo Tanaka is celebrated in a retrospective of films she directed, as restored by Janus, alongside work by her collaborators.

Film Forum

Joseph Losey’s great Mr. Klein has been restored, as has Bronco Bullfrog, while Space is the Place screens this Saturday; Fantasia and Buster Keaton’s Seven Chances play on Sunday.

IFC Center

Late-night showings of Eraserhead, Dune, Twilight, Brazil, and Mysterious Skin have showings.

The post NYC Weekend Watch: Alain Resnais,...

NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.

Film at Lincoln Center

A regular performer for Ozu, Mizoguchi, and Naruse, Kinuyo Tanaka is celebrated in a retrospective of films she directed, as restored by Janus, alongside work by her collaborators.

Bam

“Lynchian” mostly does what it says on the tin—and plenty on 35mm—but also includes those influenced: Perfect Blue, Trouble Every Day, and Uncle Boonmee.

Film Forum

Joseph Losey’s great Mr. Klein has been restored, while School of Rock screens this Sunday.

Roxy Cinema

Manhunter and Ikiru screen on 35mm this weekend.

Paris Theater

The all-35mm Jane Campion retrospective winds down with Holy Smoke and Bright Star.

Metrograph

Metrograph A to Z continues; two Muppet movies screen in Play Time; Eyes Without a Face, Vagabond, and The Young Girls of Rochefort lead “Left Bank Cinema“; South Park and Perfect Blue are in “Late Nights.

NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.

Paris Theater

An all-35mm Jane Campion retrospective is underway, with the director present for The Piano on Sunday.

Metrograph

Films by Varda, Chris Marker, Demy, and Resnais play in a new series on Left Bank cinema; “Metrograph A to Z” returns with Polanski’s Bitter Moon; Heavy Metal, Fantastic Planet, and Perfect Blue screen late.

Museum of Modern Art

A Peter Bogdanovich retrospective has begun, as has a look at the films of Larry Clark.

Roxy Cinema

Prints of Black Orpheus and Pink Narcissus play this weekend.

Film Forum

A new restoration of Joseph Losey’s The Servant begins playing, while Donkey Skin screens on Sunday.

Museum of the Moving Image

As First Look commences the Museum offers “Second Look,” a retrospective of past festivals that includes a print of Chantal Akerman’s Almayer’s Folly and Loznitsa’s Donbass.

Exclusive: Chris Mulkey (On the Basis of Sex, Captain Phillips) has signed on to a starring role in The Redeemer, the indie Western from writer-director Myles Clohessy, which is heading into production in Montana later this month.

The two-time Independent Spirit Award nominee joins a cast that includes Titus Welliver, Brandon Routh, SAG Award winner Robert Clohessy, Mo Brings Plenty, Eddie Spears, Golden Globe nominee Irene Bedard, Timothy V. Murphy and newcomer Baylee Toney, as previously announced.

The Redeemer tells the story of Butch (Mulkey), a washed up war hero in 1880s Montana who embark on a life-or-death rescue mission into the frontier, alongside his estranged son Garrett (Routh), to save his Indigenous wife Aponi (Bedard) and daughter-in-law (Toney), after they’re kidnapped by a gang of violent outlaws led by the formidable former Calvary Captain Randall Ferguson (Murphy). But a harsh winter, the horrors and dangers of the frontier,...

Few performers manage to maintain a high profile in the public eye and are as coveted by filmmakers as Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Having started as a child actor in hit films like “A River Runs Through It” and “Angels in the Outfield,” Gordon-Levitt came into adulthood while starring in the iconic sitcom “3rd Rock from the Sun” and the fan-favorite rom-com “10 Things I Hate About You.” It was in the 2000s where his star rose into the stratosphere, turning in widely acclaimed work in films such as “Mysterious Skin,” “Inception,” and his frequent collaborations with Rian Johnson, including the lead roles in “Brick” and “Looper.” This is all without mentioning his Golden Globe-nominated performances in “(500) Days of Summer” and “50/50,” or his directorial debut firestorm, “Don Jon,” which Gordon-Levitt also wrote and starred in, or the fact that Gordon-Levitt is as talented a musician and singer as he is a performer and filmmaker.

Bleecker Street has secured North American rights to “The Loneliest Whale: The Search for 52,” a new documentary from Joshua Zeman. The film will be released in theaters on July 9.

The documentary centers on the “52 Hertz Whale,” which scientists believe has spent its entire life in solitude calling out at a frequency that is different from any other whale.

“The team of scientists and filmmakers take the audience on a wild search for this mysterious creature,” said Andrew Karpen, CEO of Bleecker Street. “They follow in the steps of the great intrepid explorers searching for nature’s wonders, but also a greater understanding of man’s place in the world and what we must do to ensure its survival.”

Bleecker Street recently released the “The World to Come,” a historical romance with Katherine Waterston and Vanessa Kirby, as well as the Colin Firth and Stanley Tucci drama “Supernova” and the Julia Garner drama “The Assistant.

The Pale Door will be in theaters and on Demand and Digital August 21, 2020

Review by Stephen Tronicek

When you try to attack a genre piece, especially a Western, on a low-budget the story and characters have to do a lot of the heavy lifting. Sure the costumes might look stagey and the frame a little too clean for the period, but at least there’s a good theme to hold onto. The Pale Door, directed by Aaron B. Koontz (Camera Obscura), unfortunately doesn’t quite get there. While it has a few good performances and spirit to spare, it doesn’t have the story to rise above it’s lower budget trappings.

The Pale Door could be best described as a horror/Western. It’s a film about a group of outlaws, including brothers Jake and Duncan, who fail to rob a train and end up in the clutches of a mysterious whorehouse.

Indie auteur Gregg Araki’s outlandishly weird Starz series “Now Apocalypse” has officially been canceled after one season. But there may be a future for the show yet, according to the filmmaker.

“We are shopping for a new home since the show’s cheap, and with the most amazing cast and incredibly passionate fanbase,” said Araki in an email to IndieWire. “The fan reaction let me know that the people who watched it got it exactly as I hoped. The show really is a dream come true for me. I love it so much and am so proud of the work we all did together. And regardless of what happens, I’m happy knowing that it will live forever in the streaming/sharing cosmos.”

Araki continued, “As far as our demo goes, we were told when we got greenlit that, in the wake of their successful app launch, Starz was...

Billy Drago, who was known for playing both charming and villainous roles, has died. He was 73.

The Untouchables actor died on Monday, June 24, in Los Angeles, a representative for Drago confirmed to People on Wednesday.

Drago’s credits include roles in more than 100 TV shows and movies, and he worked with the likes of Chuck Norris, Clint Eastwood and Gregg Araki during his decades-long career.

Some of his most prominent roles include Charmed, The Hills Have Eyes, Mysterious Skin, Walker Texas Ranger and The X-Files.

The Kansas native was born with the name William Eugene Burrows, and began his career...

Billy Drago, who often played harming but chilling gangster roles and appeared in Brian De Palma’s “The Untouchables” and Clint Eastwood’s “Pale Rider,” died Monday in Los Angeles of complications from a stroke. He was 73.

The character actor played Al Capone’s henchman Frank Nitti in 1987’s “The Untouchables.”

On TV series “Charmed,” he put his reptilian stare to good use as the demon Barbas in several episodes over five seasons.

Born William Eugene Burrows in Hugoton, Kan., his actor-director father was said to be of Native American origin. His mother’s family was of Romany extraction; he took their name Drago as his stage name. Starting out as a stuntman, he moved to New York and beginning his acting career.

Drago started acting in the late 1970s, appearing in films including “Cutter’s Way,” “No Other Love” and “Windwalker.” On television, he had guest roles in “Hill Street Blues,...

“Now Apocalypse” has the potential to be the queerest comedy in Emmy history. The awards — and TV in general — have been making strides in Lgbt representation in the last three decades, from 1990s winners like “And the Band Played On” and “Ellen,” to 2000s groundbreakers like “Will and Grace” and “Angels in America” and 2010s champs like “The Normal Heart” and “The Assassination of Gianni Versace.” But Best Comedy Series doesn’t have quite as many queer characters on the forefront this year.

A nomination for “Now Apocalypse” would change that to say the least. While there are top Emmy contenders for Best Drama Series (“Killing Eve” and “Pose“) and Best Limited Series (“A Very English Scandal“) with queer leading roles, the highest ranked comedy in our odds with a gay lead is “Schitt’s Creek,” a dark horse in the category with 68/1 odds. But “Apocalypse” is so unabashedly queer...

There have been quite a few high-quality American films about male prostitution, from John Schlesinger’s Oscar-winning “Midnight Cowboy” to Gus Van Sant’s “My Own Private Idaho” and Gregg Araki’s “Mysterious Skin,” and from France there has been Patrice Chéreau’s “L’Homme blessé,” and several films from André Téchiné, most notably “J’embrasse pas,” which translates as “I Don’t Kiss.”

Camille Vidal-Naquet’s first feature “Sauvage/Wild” is very much in the Téchiné tradition of “J’embrasse pas,” and the subject of kissing or not kissing is actually central to the narrative. What’s most impressive about this film is the intricacy of Naquet’s screenplay, which plays out in a series of subtly mirroring episodes that follow the life of Leo, a 22-year-old street kid played by Félix Maritaud, who made an impression on screen in “Bpm (Beats Per Minute)” and carries this movie almost singlehandedly.

Starting tonight, Starz will release the full 10-episode premiere of its original series Now Apocalypse across its non-linear platforms, and will make the series premiere episode available for free on its Starz.com, Starz YouTube channel, Reddit and Pride Media platforms, including Pride.com, Out.com and Advocate.com.

The giveaway starts at midnight Et/9 Pm Pacific on Friday, March 22. An official selection of Sundance Film Festival 2019 and Canneseries Festival 2019, Now Apocalypse stars Avan Jogia as Ulysses, who is struggling to figure out his life in the surreal city of Los Angeles. Kelli Berglund stars as Carly, Beau Mirchoff as Ford, and Roxane Mesquida as Severine, all of them on quests for love, sex, and fame.

Between sexual and romantic dating-app adventures, Ulysses grows increasingly troubled as foreboding, premonitory dreams make him wonder if some kind of dark...

In one episode of the endearingly peculiar and energetic new Starz comedy Now Apocalypse (debuting on March 10th), the show’s directionless hero Ulysses (Avan Jogia), has sex with a hot delivery guy, then asks if his life is some “never-ending porno.” The delivery guy suggests this was an anomaly for him, but it’s not for Ulysses and the show’s other characters, whose lives can at times seem barely distinguishable from adult films.

Ulysses’ friend Carly (Kelli Berglund) is an aspiring actress whose gifts assert themselves more strongly...

When Brady Corbet took his debut film The Childhood of a Leader to the Venice Film Festival in 2015, it was immediately embraced. Winning two prizes—the Luigi de Laurentiis Award for a Debut Film, and the Venice Horizons Award—its reception at this prestigious festival seemed to herald the emergence of a startling and exciting new voice. An artist with grand ambitions, an experimental spirit and plenty of ideas, the writer/director managed to assemble an impressive cast in his first outing, including Robert Pattinson, Bérénice Bejo, Liam Cunningham, and Stacy Martin, which would seem to further validate the notion that he had something important to say. And yet in Corbet’s mind, all this affirmation wasn’t enough. It wasn’t an easily met portal into a new cinematic world, culminating in the possibilities he hoped for most. To break through to a place of some ease, where he...

Chris Longo Dec 10, 2018

Sex, love, fame and a monstrous conspiracy drive Starz' new late night comedy series Now Apocalypse.

The truth is out there, though you might have to get stoned to see it. Starz announced that its new scripted comedy Now Apocalypse will premiere on Sunday, March 10th at 9:00 p.m. The series will get a lead-in from the long-anticipated American Gods season 2 premiere.

Now Apocalypse was created by indie director Gregg Araki and follows Ulysses (Avan Jogia), who is struggling to figure out his life in the surreal and bewildering (and quite colorful) city of Los Angeles.

The cast also includes Kelli Berglund (Lab Rats) as Carly, Beau Mirchoff (The Fosters) as Ford, and Roxane Mesquida (Gossip Girl) as Severine. Each character is on their own quest for love, sex, and fame, but according to the official logline, Ulysses grows “increasingly troubled as foreboding, premonitory dreams...