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John G. Avildsen, Director of ‘Rocky,’ ‘Karate Kid’ Films, Dies at 81
14 hours ago | Variety - Film News | See recent Variety - Film News news »
John G. Avildsen, who won an Oscar for directing the original “Rocky” (1976), starring Sylvester Stallone, and also directed all three of the original “Karate Kid” films, has died in Los Angeles. He was 81.
A rep confirmed his death.
Avildsen also won the DGA Award for directing “Rocky,” which also won Oscars for best picture and film editing and was nominated in multiple other categories.
In 2006 Variety interviewed Avildsen, who said that a film with a boxing story didn’t excite him at first, but he was “moved by the urban character study of Sylvester Stallone’s script.” He held out on directing part two in lieu of another project — a decision that Avildsen said was “one of my greatest mistakes.” He returned to the franchise to direct 1990’s “Rocky V.”
In 1983 he was Oscar nominated again, this time for the documentary short “Traveling Hopefully.”
Avildsen developed a reputation for making movies about losers, »
- Carmel Dagan
Marvel Has No Plans For ‘Fantastic Four’
17 hours ago | The Playlist | See recent The Playlist news »
Ever since 20th Century Fox released the severely botched “Fantastic Four” reboot in 2015, fans have been clamoring for Marvel to somehow scoop up the rights, and do the characters justice. And while producer Simon Kinberg has fancied doing a sequel, albeit one that is “brighter [and] funner,” Fox doesn’t seem to be in any hurry. Does that mean the time is right for Marvel to swoop in?
Continue reading Marvel Has No Plans For ‘Fantastic Four’ at The Playlist. »
- Kevin Jagernauth
Bill Butler, Oscar-Nominated Film Editor on 'A Clockwork Orange,' Dies at 83
18 hours ago | The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News | See recent The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News news »
Bill Butler, the British-born film editor who received an Oscar nomination for his work on Stanley Kubrick's 1971 classic A Clockwork Orange, has died. He was 83.
Butler died June 4 at a hospital in Sherman Oaks, his son Stephen Butler told The Hollywood Reporter.
Butler earned his first film editor credit when he collaborated with Melvin Frank on the romantic comedy Buona Sera, Mrs. Campbell (1968), starring Gina Lollobrigida, and he also edited A Touch of Class (1973), The Duchess and the Dirtwater Fox (1976) and Lost and Found (1979) — all three starring George Segal — for the »
- Mike Barnes
Glenn Close to Star in Amazon Zombie Comedy Pilot 'Sea Oak' (Exclusive)
16 June 2017 6:30 AM, PDT | The Hollywood Reporter - TV News | See recent The Hollywood Reporter - TV News news »
Glenn Close is returning to the small screen.
The Emmy-winning Damages alum has been tapped to star Amazon half-hour comedy pilot Sea Oak. The pilot, picked up in March, is described as a mix of zombie drama and family revenge comedy.
Sea Oak revolves around Aunt Bernie (Close), a meek, unmarried woman with no children in working-class Rust Belt City who dies tragically in a home invasion. Compelled by sheer force of dissatisfaction, she comes back from the dead full of rage and determined to get the life she never had. She proceeds to inflict a range of demands on what's »
- Lesley Goldberg
‘All Eyez on Me’ Races Past ‘Cars 3’ at Thursday Box Office With $3.1 Million
22 hours ago | The Wrap | See recent The Wrap news »
Lionsgate/Summit’s “All Eyez On Me” won Thursday night previews with $3.1 million, playing on over 2,000 screens. The studio is projecting an opening of $20 million, with trackers setting an opening weekend range of $17-22 million. “All Eyez on Me” has done well with advance ticket sales, currently ranking second on Fandango, but the film will have to fight against negative reviews that have given it a 27 percent Rt score. Also Read: 'All Eyez on Me' Review: Tupac Shakur Biopic Deserves a Bad Rap Directed by Benny Boom and produced by Lionsgate’s Codeblack Films and Morgan Creek Productions, »
- Jeremy Fuster
Game Of Thrones: Jon Snow’s Name Revealed! [Spoilers]
22 hours ago | LRMonline.com | See recent LRM Online news »
Disclaimer: This post contains spoilers for the upcoming Season 7 of Game of Thrones.
Who is Jon Snow? It’s been a question that A Song of Ice and Fire book fans have been wondering for decades, and Game of Thrones TV fans have been wondering for years. Ever since he was a child, he was labeled as a bastard of the Stark family. Ned Stark brought the child home with him — a supposed result of a fling during Robert Baratheon’s rebellion, but fans knew almost from the get-go that this was just a cover-up. »
- Joseph Medina
10 Takeaways from France’s 2017 Annecy Animation Fest
34 minutes ago | Variety - Film News | See recent Variety - Film News news »
Annecy, France — “Animal Crackers,” “The Big Bad Fox and Other Tales” and “The Breadwinner” proved to be three standouts among titles at a hugely hectic 2017 Annecy Animation Film Festival which is now taking its brand and the quality auteur-driven animated fare it champions on the road.
Here are 10 Takeaways from this year’s edition:
1.The Winners: ‘Animal Crackers’
Competing at Annecy, zany circus comedy “Animal Crackers” boasted a star-studded line-up: How it would perform, however, was anybody’s guess. It proved one of the greatest shows on Annecy’s earth, Variety’s Chief Film Critic Peter Debruge announcing a “delightfully inventive, frequently hilarious animated feature.“ The movie, he mused, suggested “an obvious recipe, but one that too few independent animation companies follow: If you lack the resources to compete with the big boys, put your effort into the writing (and the voices who bring that screenplay to life), which is »
- John Hopewell and Emilio Mayorga
That Time Mark Wahlberg Got Delightfully Owned by His Daughter’s Boyfriend
59 minutes ago | Vulture | See recent Vulture news »
Smooth. »
- Devon Ivie
With Industry and Political Clouds Hovering, Shanghai Film Festival Opens on Quieter Note
1 hour ago | Variety - Film News | See recent Variety - Film News news »
At the shiny Lyric Theater in the heart of China’s biggest city, the Shanghai International Film Festival celebrated its 20th edition Saturday in relatively low-key fashion.
There were the usual speeches, parades of past award winners, and hordes of local media. But the star wattage on the red carpet (which was strewn with gold cups and an oversized Cadillac) was a couple of notches lower than in previous years. And on the industry side, there is similarly little expectation of a deals-announcement frenzy.
Last year the corridors and conference rooms of the festival-owned Crowne Plaza throbbed with slate announcements of jaw-dropping proportions. Numerous new connections were being made between Chinese companies and overseas filmmakers, many from Hollywood.
But the intervening year has been an instructive one. In hindsight, the 2016 Shanghai festival looks like the last hurrah of an old era when everything and anything seemed possible.
Soon after the festival, »
- Patrick Frater
Annecy: Europe’s Cartoon Forum Announces 2017 Line-Up (Exclusive)
1 hour ago | Variety - Film News | See recent Variety - Film News news »
Annecy, France — “Mr. Passenger,” “Papertoyz,” and “The Inventor” figure among 83 TV series projects set for the 2017 Cartoon Forum, which runs Sept. 12-15 in Toulouse, Southern France.
Twenty-four European countries bring new TV projects to Toulouse.
“Mr. Passenger” is a 26-episode series produced by Portugal’s Aim Animation Studios offering poetry and adventure and singular aesthetics. Set in a dream world, the series sees Mr. Passenger and companion Sign Bird explore new routes and discoveries. The project is directed by José Pedro Cavalheiro (a.k.a. Zepe), director of feature “Cândido,” who has just presented a feature project at Annecy’s Mifa market.
Produced by France’s Samka Productions (“Our Neighbors the Marsupilamis”), “Papertoyz” weighs in as a 26-seg hybrid meshing 3D with live-action. Made out of cut-out and folded paper, the main character fearlessly explores with our dangerous, hostile world.
Also from France, and adapting Jean-François Martin’s children’s book, »
- Emilio Mayorga
Film Review: ‘Chameleon’
3 hours ago | Variety - Film News | See recent Variety - Film News news »
Enigmatic “Chameleon” is a minimalist psychological thriller in which a seemingly benign visitor to a well-off lesbian couple’s home turns out to have very sinister intentions. Stingy on conventional thrills, and pretty murky in terms of psychology as well, Jorge Riquelme Serrano’s debut feature is a precisely engineered chamber piece that will sharply divide audiences with both its coolly distanced style and incendiary yet somewhat baffling content.
While some may admire its Haneke-like dispassion amid increasingly alarming events, others may find the element of class-warfare critique under-articulated, or experience the targeting of gay characters here as an expression of, rather than a commentary on, homophobia. Whatever their verdict, festivalgoers will have plenty to debate afterward. Mainstream viewers are likely to be few for an item that so deliberately eschews the standard satisfactions of a commercial suspense narrative.
After a brief, unpinnably weird prologue in which a young man »
- Dennis Harvey
'The Year of Spectacular Men': Film Review | Laff 2017
7 hours ago | The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News | See recent The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News news »
Sisterly chemistry is the natural resource fueling The Year of Spectacular Men, an uneven but sparky comedy showcasing Madelyn Deutch and her real-life sib Zoey, star of such features as Why Him? and Vampire Academy. Revolving around a succession of romantic misadventures, the film was written by Madelyn, whose mostly witty dialogue and assured performance as an aimless college grad updates the archetype of the smart ditz with a modern sexual frankness.
For the twentysomethings with whom the movie is sure to click, the sarcastic jabs at such easy targets as health-conscious New Age types might feel fresh »
- Sheri Linden
Carrie Fisher’s Death Due to Sleep Apnea, Drug Use, Other Factors, Says Coroner
8 hours ago | The Wrap | See recent The Wrap news »
Los Angeles County coroners reported Friday that Carrie Fisher’s death was due to a combination of factors including sleep apnea and “other conditions: atherosclerotic heart disease, drug use.” The coroners office released a short summary on Friday detailing its findings, but no single cause of death was identified. The statement determined that “the manner of death has been ruled undetermined.” While Fisher was very public about her struggles with mental illness and addiction, the kind of drugs taken and the extent to which they contributed to her death is not known; the coroner’s summary stated “How Injury Occurred: Multiple drug intake, »
- Ross A. Lincoln
Protesters Interrupt Shakespeare in the Park’s Trump-Themed Production of Julius Caesar
8 hours ago | Vulture | See recent Vulture news »
“You are all Goebbels,” one protestor shouted, referencing Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s minister of propaganda. »
- Halle Kiefer
Bill Maher Wants to Make America Shop Again on ‘Real Time’ (Video)
8 hours ago | The Wrap | See recent The Wrap news »
Bill Maher used the “New Rules” segment of Friday’s episode of “Real Time” to address a slow-building economic crisis — the decline in brick and mortar shopping causing retail powerhouses to close and eliminating thousands of jobs in the process. For Father’s Day, said Maher, “do the right thing and go out to the mall and get dad a polyester shirt with tin cuff links and a nylon tie in a plastic box. He’ll never wear it because he’s not the door man at a Sicilian whorehouse. But there is a greater cause to be considered: stores are going extinct. »
- Ross A. Lincoln
‘Real Time’ Fact Check: How Did Liberals React to Obama-Themed ‘Julius Caesar’?
9 hours ago | The Wrap | See recent The Wrap news »
When Bill Maher spoke one on one to Breitbart editor-in-chief Alex Marlow at the top of Friday’s episode of “Real Time,” the result was surprisingly little in the way of conflict, but surprisingly plenty of agreement between the ostensible political opposites. But agreement at one point depended on a misunderstanding of recent history, when the topic turned to the uproar over a Donald Trump-themed Shakespeare in the Park performance of “Julius Caesar.” The performance sees the title character re-imagined as a Trump-like figure, complete with ridiculous yellow wig and an oversized red tie. Shakespeare’s play does not endorse the assassination of Caesar, »
- Ross A. Lincoln
‘Bachelor In Paradise’ Contestant DeMario Jackson’s Lawyer Speaks Out (Exclusive)
9 hours ago | Variety - TV News | See recent Variety - TV News news »
“Bachelor In Paradise” contestant DeMario Jackson has been thrust into the spotlight ever since production was shut down on ABC’s dating series, due to allegations of “misconduct” that launched an ongoing investigation by Warner Bros. Television. Jackson is at the center of the scandal along with fellow contestant Corinne Olympios, amid tabloid reports about an inappropriate sexual encounter. Jackson broke his silence earlier this week, saying, “My character and family name has been assassinated this past week with false claims and malicious allegations.”
In an exclusive interview with Variety, Jackson’s lawyer Walter Mosley says his client has suffered because of the recent swirl of coverage.
“This has caused a lot of trauma — both physical and emotional injury,” says Mosley. “It’s been difficult for DeMario and his family. He’s a celebrity for all the wrong reasons.”
Mosley says his focus is on clearing his client’s name, and »
- Elizabeth Wagmeister
Whitney Houston, Laird Hamilton Docs to be Part of Hamptons Film Fest Screening Series
9 hours ago | The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News | See recent The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News news »
The Hamptons International Film Festival's SummerDocs series will return for its ninth year this summer.
Five documentary films will be screened from July 8-Aug. 26 with each screening followed by discussions with filmmakers and subjects led by Hiff co-chairman Alec Baldwin and Hiff artistic director David Nugent.
The films in this year's line-up are Nobody Speak: Trials of the Free Press, Trophy, Take Every Wave: The Life of Laird Hamilton, Whitney: Can I Be Me? and Icarus. Post-screening discussions will be held with, respectively, directors Brian Knappenberger, Christina Clusiau and Shaul Schwarz, Rory Kennedy, Nick Broomfield and Bryan Fogel. Hamilton »
- Hilary Lewis
Female-Focused Athena Film Festival Launches Advertising Awards
10 hours ago | The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News | See recent The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News news »
The Athena Film Festival, celebrating female leaders, has partnered with The 3% Movement to launch the Athena Advertising Awards, which will recognize creative stories about strong, diverse girls and women told through advertising.
“The depiction of women and girls in advertising has steadily been improving, thanks in large part to consumers’ ability to talk back to brands via social media,” 3% Movement founder Kat Gordon said in a statement “It’s time to celebrate brands and agencies that are demonstrating leadership and creating messages infused with ambition, courage, resilience and moxie.”
The awards competition is open to all North American brands »
- Hilary Lewis
The Great British Baking Show Season Premiere Recap: Sumptuous Drizzling
10 hours ago | Vulture | See recent Vulture news »
This is pretty much perfect television. »
- Molly Fitzpatrick
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