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Jennifer Jason Leigh came from a showbiz family. Her father was Vic Morrow, a prolific film and TV actor who starred in the series "Combat!" Her mother was Barbara Turner who acted in many TV shows throughout the '50s and '60s, and who wrote the screenplays for "Petulia," "Cujo," "Georgia," and "Pollock." Leigh started attending acting workshops when she was still a teenager, studying with Lee Strasberg. At age 16, she started to land her first professional acting gigs, appearing in an episode of "Baretta," and in the film "The Young Runaways." In 1981, she caught the public's eye playing a young woman battling anorexia in the TV movie "The Best Little Girl in the World," but it wasn't until her role in 1982's "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" that the world took proper notice.

After that, Leigh was an actress to look out for. Her intense performances always lend...

Composer Laura Karpman is coming off perhaps her most prolific and celebrated year to date. In 2023, she not only boasted more than a half-dozen projects but converted two of them into major award nominations. Her musical score for the Cord Jefferson feature “American Fiction” starring Jeffrey Wright landed Karpman her first Academy Award nomination. And her score for the documentary feature from director Stephen Kijak, “Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed” produced her eighth Emmy nomination (she’s won once). “I’m really, really busy right now,” she says with a knock-on-wood smile. “It’s a very good time.” Watch the exclusive video interview with Karpman above.

It’s worthy of note that both “American Fiction” and the Rock Hudson doc feature jazzy scores to help the filmmakers tell their stories. “All That Heaven Allowed” paints a fascinating but bittersweet portrait of the film icon’s life as a closeted...

By the time he died at 59 on October 2, 1985 as the most famous early casualty of the AIDS crisis, Rock Hudson had unwittingly become more than just a tragic victim of a horrible disease; he was also one of the first star actors of his generation to be outed as gay. It was something he zealously guarded by necessity in order to remain a star. It’s at the center of the HBO/Max film documentary “Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed,” which paints a fascinating but bittersweet portrait of the film icon’s life in the closet. “It goes back to the ethics of the day,” believes the film’s director Stephen Kijak (pronounced “Kayak”). “One didn’t speak of those things.” But a code of silence also helped Hudson keep his secret across decades. “There was such goodwill around him,” he adds. “He was notoriously the nicest man in Hollywood.

Exclusive: A List Media Entertainment and Magnolia Pictures Home Entertainment are partnering to distribute the Oscar-qualified music documentary Yoshiki: Under the Sky on digital platforms in North America.

The film, which has been released in more than 130 cinemas in Japan, Europe and the U.S. to date, marks the directorial debut of Yoshiki, the musician and composer known for founding and leading bands X Japan and The Last Rockstars. Yoshiki: Under the Sky was “conceived during the pandemic when musicians could not connect with their fans,” according to a release about the documentary, gathering “an extraordinary collection of international artists for an emotional journey through the pain of losing loved ones and uniting globally through the healing power of music.”

Nicole Scherzinger in ‘Yoshiki: Under the Sky’

The release adds, “Shot in Germany, Beijing, Tokyo, and L.A., the film features interviews and performances from Sarah Brightman (UK), Nicole Scherzinger (USA), St.

Heath, the longtime bassist of Japan’s most popular rock group X Japan, has died, the group confirmed today. He was 55.

The musician died October 29 of colorectal cancer, according to a statement from the group.

“It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of X Japan’s esteemed bass player Heath after his battle with colorectal cancer, on October 29th, 2023, at the age of 55,” the group said in a statement. “His cancer was found during an examination in June of this year. Despite his efforts to battle the disease, his condition declined suddenly in October, and he took his last breath in the hospital.

“We would like to express our heartfelt gratitude to those who cherished Heath throughout his lifetime. We, the members of X Japan have personally bid farewell to Heath, but are still deeply saddened and dismayed by his sudden loss.”

Heath outside Madison Square Garden...

The programme for Doclisboa’23 is now known; the festival will take place between 19 and 29 October at the usual venues: Culturgest, Cinema São Jorge, Cinemateca Portuguesa – Museu do Cinema and Cinema Ideal. In all, the 21st edition of Doclisboa is showing 250 films from 42 countries, including 35 world premieres and 39 Portuguese films. The films reveal the pulse of the world and those who inhabit it.

Doclisboa travels to the inside of the human brain through the lens of Werner Herzog (Theater of Thought), and to the pressing issues of work in The Liberated Broom, Listen to the Story I Was Told, by Coline Grando; delves into memories of past wars and to the current war in Ukraine; film archives; music; and dance.

The press conference was held this morning at Culturgest and was hosted by Miguel Ribeiro (Director of Doclisboa), Mark Deputter (Chairman of the Board – Culturgest), Marco Guerra (Head of the Cultural...

The Portuguese festival showcases documentaries from around the world.

The 21st edition of DocLisboa will open with Wang Bing’s Man In Black, and will close with Baan from Portuguese director Leonor Teles.

Man In Black premiered at Cannes and Baan made its debut at Locarno earlier this year.

The festival will take place in Lisbon from October 19-29.

Wang Bing, via videoconference, and Telles both participated in the festival press conference on September 28 at which festival director Miguel Ribeiro revealed this year’s programme in full.

Bing explained his film profiles 86-year-old Wang Xilin, one of China’s most important contemporary classical composers,...

Universal Pictures has debuted a poignant trailer for the upcoming documentary on a Hollywood legend ‘Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed.’

The documentary is an intimate portrait of actor Rock Hudson, one of Hollywood’s most celebrated leading men of the 1950’s and ‘60’s and an icon of Hollywood’s Golden Age, whose diagnosis and eventual death from AIDS in 1985 shocked the world, subsequently shifting the way the public perceived the pandemic.

Directed by celebrated documentary filmmaker Stephen Kijak the film features a wealth of interviews from Doris Day, Linda Evans, Piper Laurie, Douglas Sirk and Ross Hunter who all worked alongside Rock Hudson, in addition to interviews with Rock Hudson’s friends Armistead Maupin and Allison Anders, and author of All That Heaven Allows: A Biography of Rock Hudson, Mark Griffin.

Hudson became a number one box-office superstar in sweeping melodramas like ‘All That Heaven Allows,’ ‘Giant’ (starring opposite...

The most important thing about “Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed” is that, within the essential act of reclamation it provides for the star, it doesn’t just write off the Hollywood icon’s life as sad. That’s a remarkable thing for a documentary in which its last 40 minutes are as harrowing a depiction of AIDS in the ’80s there’s been in a film since “How to Survive a Plague.”

Certainly, it’s infuriating and upsetting on many levels: that Hudson wasn’t allowed to fly on a commercial airliner because of his diagnosis and had to rent an Air France Boeing 747 at the cost of $250,000 to return home to Los Angeles from Paris as it became clear his experimental treatment there had failed. And the revelation that his friend Nancy Reagan even urged her husband to deny him treatment at a military hospital is beyond enraging.

Stephen Kijak...

On June 28, 2023, “Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed,” directed by Stephen Kijack, premiered on HBO to acclaim from critics, resulting in a score of 77% on Rotten Tomatoes. The biography of renowned actor Rock Hudson is examined in this relevant investigation of Hollywood and LGBTQ+ identity, from his public “ladies’ man” character to his private life as a gay man. Read our full review round-up below.

Peter Debruge of Variety writes, “During his lifetime, Rock Hudson was a model for American masculinity. That changed after his death, when the strapping, straight-acting (but occasionally sensitive) hunk from Winnetka became the poster boy for Hollywood homophobia: a closeted star who’d been forced to play a role his entire career that wasn’t true to himself, on screen and off. ‘Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed’ treats that compromise as a tragedy, leaning on the fact Hudson died of AIDS to underscore the injustice,...

Frameline, the San Francisco International LGBTQ+ Film Festival concluded its 47th iteration on Saturday, June 24, with a screening of Taylor Mac’s 24-Decade History of Popular Music, directed by Oscar-winning duo Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman (The Celluloid Closet). The documentary feature about the titular performer’s singular spectacle was preceded by the Festival’s annual Award Ceremony, which reaffirmed the dynamic future of queer cinema.

This year, the 11-day Festival ran from June 14–24, 2023, with events held in theaters across San Francisco, including the historic Castro Theatre, located in the heart of the city’s LGBTQ+ cultural district, and the Roxie Theater, Frameline’s longest-running partner theater. Frameline47 also returned to Oakland this year, featuring the Festival’s first-ever Oakland Opening Night (Jac Cron’s Chestnut) and Centerpiece (Hannah Pearl Utt’s Cora Bora) films, both of which screened at The New Parkway Theater. With a full slate of upwards of 90 in-person screenings and programs,...

Like a lot of all-American dreamboats, Roy Harold Fitzgerald (née Scherer Jr.) made his way to Hollywood after World War II, making good on the offer to look up a friend’s brother should he ever find himself in the greater Los Angeles area. The ex-Navy mechanic had matinee-idol looks, a cornfed wholesomeness, and a lean-beefcake physique; anyone who took one look at Fitzgerald would have immediately thought, “He ought to be in pictures.” The young man had been told that acting was “sissy stuff” when he was growing up in the Midwest,...

It’s heaven on earth for Golden Age of Hollywood fans. Coming Wednesday, June 28, 2023, HBO and Max will release “Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed,” an intimate Original Documentary about one of Hollywood’s most celebrated leading men. The silver screen superstar starred in major blockbuster comedies and drams in the 1950s and 1960s, including “Pillow Talk,” “Giant,” and “All That Heaven Allows.” A symbol of masculinity and heterosexuality during the age, the documentary will detail the actors’ career and secret personal life as a gay man. “Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed” will debut on HBO and will be available to stream on Max on Wednesday, June 28, 2023, at 9 p.m. Et. You can watch with a 7-Day Free Trial of Max.

How to Watch 'Rock Hudson: All that Heaven Allowed' When: Wednesday, June 28, 2023 Where: Max Stream: Watch with a 7-Day Free Trial of Max. 7-Day Free Trial...

Just over 30 years ago, director Mark Rappaport in his playful deconstructionist essay Rock Hudson’s Home Movies, cleverly mined the queer subtext in the midcentury Hollywood superstar’s screen work to speculate on his inner conflict as a gay public figure confined to the closet. Stephen Kijak’s more conventional, though also more heartfelt docu-portrait, Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed, takes a similarly cheeky approach to sniffing out coded behavior in a staggering array of clips that find just as much pathos as amusement.

Contextualizing Hudson’s regimented stardom against the relative freedom with which he lived his sexuality within a trusted circle, the HBO film paints him less as a victim of repressive times — though he certainly was that — than as a savvy product of the studio system who learned quickly how to play the game without losing his sense of self.

The tragic conclusion of his life...

Today, Outfest announced the centerpiece events and special awardees that will headline the 41st Outfest Los Angeles Summer Festival presented by Warner Bros. Discovery and Genesis Motor America, taking place July 13 – 23 in venues around Los Angeles.

Outfest will honor actor, producer and musician Amandla Stenberg with its Platinum Maverick Award, to be presented at the festival’s opening night celebration on July 13th at the Orpheum Theatre. The award recognizes Stenberg’s artistry in film and music, and her unapologetic use of her platform for fierce advocacy and activism within the LGBTQ+ community. Stenberg will also appear alongside actor Bobbi Salvör Menuez and director Jacqueline Castel at the Redcat in downtown Los Angeles at Outfest’s July 15th Platinum Centerpiece screening of My Animal, the trio’s queer horror romance that world premiered earlier this year at Sundance.

Following the My Animal screening on July 15th will be the Platinum...

During his lifetime, Rock Hudson was a model for American masculinity. That changed after his death, when the strapping, straight-acting (but occasionally sensitive) hunk from Winnetka became the poster boy for Hollywood homophobia: a closeted star who’d been forced to play a role his entire career that wasn’t true to himself, on screen and off. “Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed” treats that compromise as a tragedy, leaning on the fact Hudson died of AIDS to underscore the injustice, but Stephen Kijak’s documentary does him a disservice, reducing Hudson’s career — in exactly the way he went so far out of his way to avoid — to the dimension of his sexuality.

Built around interviews with a handful of former lovers and friends, Kijak spills private details from Hudson’s personal life, ranging from whom he shagged to how he arranged such trysts in the first place. A...

To those who don’t obsessively watch TCM, or generally eschew movies made before 1980, Rock Hudson is little more than a factoid, best remembered for his sexuality than for the movies he made. And yet, while Hudson today is known as a gay man, it was something that he did his best to keep hidden and, as Stephen Kijak lays out towards the end of his HBO documentary, would have taken to the grave if he could have.

“Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed” is in the vein of other prominent documentaries aimed at telling the real story behind the Old Hollywood façade, including HBO’s most recent “The Last Movie Stars.” The revelations within the documentary’s 104-minute runtime aren’t revolutionary, but seek to give viewers an authentic look at a man whose life so often was swathed in artifice.

It’s impossible to underscore Hudson’s appeal...

Director Stephen Kijak does something disarmingly unexpected with the opening minutes of his biographical documentary “Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed.” He gives us the de rigueur rapid-fire “why he mattered” montage, of course; it’s all but written into law for films like this. But while most bio-docs make that their credit sequence, this one puts it after the title and the real opening; the pre-title sequence here is a mini-fantasia, a very queer visualization of one of Hudson’s dreams, a vivid illustration of how he saw himself.

Continue reading ‘Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed’ Shines a Light On The Secret Life Of A Hollywood Icon [Tribeca] at The Playlist.

Rock Hudson’s life as a closeted Hollywood icon is now captured in documentary “Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed.”

Helmed by Stephen Kijak (“We Are X,” “Shoplifters of the World”), the HBO film charts the “Giant” heartthrob’s career as an actor of the studio system until his final role in “Dynasty” ahead of his 1985 death from AIDS.

Among the most iconic Hollywood men of the 1950s and ’60s, Rock Hudson embodied masculinity and straightness until his diagnosis and death from AIDS in 1985 shattered those notions in the eyes of the public. “Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed” tells the story of Hudson as a man who lived a double life; while his public persona was meticulously curated by his handlers, controlled by the studio system, and falsely anchored by a lavender marriage, Hudson had to keep his homosexuality behind closed doors due to anti-gay sentiments at the time,...

The Tribeca Festival excised “Film” from its name in 2021, and while it’s true that the annual celebration of all things entertainment has expanded to include plenty of television and immersive programming, the movies make it a must-attend event. This year’s lineup is no exception. It has big-name actors such as Michael Shannon and Jennifer Esposito trying their hand at directing, along with revelatory performances from stars like Nick Jonas. But what makes Tribeca so exciting is that it’s a springboard for bold new voices. As the fest gets ready to kick off on June 7, here are nine movies not to be missed.

First Time Female Director

Chelsea Peretti, who stole scenes as the social media-obsessed assistant on “Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” slides behind the camera for this comedy about a writer who is forced to take over a production of her latest play after her male predecessor is fired for inappropriate behavior.

Frameline announced the full program for the 47th annual San Francisco International LGBTQ+ Film Festival.

Running June 14-24, with a streaming encore to follow from June 24-July 2, Frameline47 returns with nearly 90 film screenings, including 12 world, 16 North American, and 9 U.S. premieres. In celebration of the Festival’s 47th iteration, Frameline will host 47 screenings at the Castro Theatre, which equates to an average of four screenings per day throughout the 11-day event.

This announcement comes on the heels of Frameline’s recent unveiling of three marquee presentations: the Opening Night film, Andrew Durham’s FairyLand, which will feature an in-person appearance from producer Sofia Coppola; the Oakland Centerpiece, Hannah Pearl Utt’s Cora Bora, featuring Hacks star Megan Stalter; and the Pride Kickoff film, Jordan Danger’s God Save the Queens, featuring drag icon Alaska, who will perform during the afterparty at Oasis.

The 47th iteration is set to be Northern...

Frameline has announced the full program for the 47th annual San Francisco International LGBTQ+ Film Festival (Frameline47). Running June 14 through 24, with a streaming encore to follow from June 24 through July 2, Frameline47 returns with nearly 90 film screenings, including 12 world, 16 North American, and 9 U.S. premieres.

Frameline will host 47 screenings at the historic Castro Theatre and other venues throughout the Bay Area. This announcement comes on the heels of Frameline’s recent unveiling of three marquee presentations: the Opening Night film, Andrew Durham’s Sundance favorite “Fairyland,” which will feature an in-person appearance from producer Sofia Coppola; the Oakland Centerpiece, Hannah Pearl Utt’s “Cora Bora,” featuring “Hacks” scene-stealer Megan Stalter; and the Pride Kickoff film, Jordan Danger’s “God Save the Queens,” featuring RuPaul drag icon Alaska, who will perform during the afterparty at Oasis.

This year’s iteration is set to be Northern California’s largest film festival in 2023, according to Frameline.

Tribeca Film Festival Artistic Director Frédéric Boyer with Anne-Katrin Titze: “There’s a first film from Germany, which I think is brilliant.”

In the first instalment with Tribeca Film Festival Artistic Director Frédéric Boyer we discuss Christian Petzold’s Afire; Frédéric Tcheng’s Invisible Beauty (on Bethann Hardison); Ethan Berger’s The Line (on the recommendation of Robert Eggers’ The Witch producer Jay Van Hoy); Michael Shannon’s Eric Larue; David Duchovny’s Bucky F*cking Dent; John Slattery’s Maggie Moore(s); Steve Buscemi’s The Listener; Anna Roller’s Dead Girls Dancing; Maria Fredriksson’s The Gullspáng Miracle; Michael Selditch’s Happy Clothes: A Film About Patricia Fields, and Stephen Kijak’s Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed.

Christian Petzold’s Afire, starring Paula Beer, Enno Trebs, Langston Uibel, and Thomas Schubert

The 21st edition of...

Sydney Film Festival has revealed the first 22 titles on its line-up for this year, which will see the festival return to cinemas around the city after 2020’s virtual iteration.

Leading the pack are a contingent of local docos including Philippa Bateman’s Wash My Soul in the River’s Flow; Amanda Blue’s Step into Paradise and Eddie Martin’s The Kids, recently selected for Tribeca.

Sff will also boast the Nsw premiere of Kiwi film The Justice of Bunny King, Gaysorn Thavat’s debut feature led by Essie Davis and Thomasin McKenzie; and Nz-Canadian co-production, NIght Raiders, directed by Danis Goulet and executive produced by Taika Waititi.

Festival director Nashen Moodley is excited to return to an in-person event come August, noting the festival already had a “incredible” response to its summer season in January at the State Theatre, when it screened High Ground, Firestarter, Girls Can’t Surf, Minari and Another Round.

Rlje Films is releasing Stephen Kijak's drama/comedy Shoplifters of the World on DVD and Blu-ray today. We have two Blu-rays to give away to our readers in the U.S. Look below for your chance to win a copy this week.   In the Summer of 1987, four friends, reeling from the sudden break-up of the iconic British band The Smiths, embark on a night out of partying to mourn their musical loss. At the same time, an impassioned Smiths fan takes a local radio DJ hostage at gunpoint and forces him to play nothing but Smiths tracks. With the radio station playing as the soundtrack to their night, the friends go on a wild journey of self-discovery that will transform them forever. Featuring an incredible soundtrack...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

Rlje Films will release the drama/comedy Shoplifters Of The World on DVD and Blu-ray on June 1, 2021. The DVD will sell for an Srp of $27.97 and the Blu-ray for an Srp of $28.96

Now you can win the Win the DVD of Shoplifters Of The World We Are Movie Geeks has three to give away. Just leave a comment below telling us what your favorite movie is with the word ‘World’ in the title (mine’s The World Is Not Enough. It’s so easy!)

1. You Must Be A US Resident. Prize Will Only Be Shipped To US Addresses. No P.O. Boxes. No Duplicate Addresses.

2. Winner Will Be Chosen From All Qualifying Entries

Written and directed by Stephen Kijak (We Are X, Sid & Judy), Shoplifters Of The World stars Helena Howard (Amazon’s “The Wilds,” Madeline’s Madeline), Ellar Coltrane (Boyhood, Showtime’s “The Good Lord Bird”), Elena Kampouris (Children of the Corn,...

Bays will take on the role for an initial three-year period from October.

Mia Bays has been described as a “force of nature” who “really fights for what she believes in” by those with whom she has worked closely. Bays was revealed yesterday as the new director of the BFI FIlm Fund, one of the most influential positions in the UK film industry,

Alison Thompson, co-founder at UK production, finance and sales firm Cornerstone Films, is on the board of female-focused film charity Birds’ Eye View, where Bays is presently director-at-large. “Mia has a fairly unique skillset, having worked as...

In the Mood for Morrissey: Kijak Languishes in Eighties Angst

Documentarian Stephen Kijak returns to narrative filmmaking for the first time since his 1996 debut Never Met Picasso with 1980s period piece Shoplifters of the World. At first glance, the title doesn’t provide any clues to the film’s intentions, but the specific time and place of this 1987 Colorado set tale will likely appeal to audiences holding the same sentiments as its main characters, a reverence for The Smiths. amzn_assoc_tracking_id = "ioncinema03-20"; amzn_assoc_ad_mode = "manual"; amzn_assoc_ad_type = "smart"; amzn_assoc_marketplace = "amazon"; amzn_assoc_region = "US"; amzn_assoc_design = "enhanced_links"; amzn_assoc_asins = "B007FGPZTS"; amzn_assoc_placement = "adunit"; amzn_assoc_linkid = "ba7dc05fb23cb4c4823d8527d6c8269e";

The short-lived British indie band lasted five years and released four studio albums, defining an entire generation of angst-ridden teenagers drifting into a melancholically inclined adulthood.

The story goes that a young Smiths fan was so devastated by news of the band’s 1987 breakup that he drove to a Denver radio station with a loaded pistol and a harebrained plan to make the DJ broadcast literary mope-rock all night long. It’s a lot easier to say “please, please, please let me get what I want” with a gun in your hand. Being a Smiths fan, however, our heartbroken hero was too sensitive to point a gun at someone; if meat is murder, then murder would really be murder. So he sat in his car, sang “I Know it’s Over,” and turned himself in to the local police station where he could wallow in a cell worthy of his mood.

“Based on true intentions” (a real “uh oh” of an opening title card), Stephen Kijak’s long-gestating “Shoplifters of the World” essentially wonders what might...

More films with Eddie Izzard and Judi Dench is something that the world needs. They starred together in Stephen Frears’ Victoria & Abdul in 2017 and now they reunite in the Andy Goddard-directed Six Minutes To Midnight which will be released by IFC Films in theaters and on demand starting today.

Written by Izzard, Goddard and Celyn Jones, Six Minutes To Midnight is based on true events from 1939. The film follows teacher Thomas Miller (Izzard) who has taken a last-minute and controversial role teaching English to the daughters of high-ranking Nazis at the Augusta-Victoria College, Bexhill-on-Sea – a finishing school on the south coast of England.

Under the watchful eye of their headmistress Miss Rocholl (Dench), and her devout assistant Ilse Keller (Carla Juri), the girls practice their English and learn how to represent the ideal of German womanhood.

When the body of a former teacher is discovered, it triggers a...

With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options—not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves–each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit platforms. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

Bad Trip (Kitao Sakurai)

The Eric Andre persona is best understood by his popular late-night Adult Swim series, succinctly titled The Eric Andre Show. In every episode Andre’s irreverent and self-destructive behavior leads him to trash his set, causing bodily harm, and torturing a slew of celebrities that range from Jimmy Kimmel to the Real Housewives of Atlanta. Andre is the equivalent of a magic mushrooms trip: wildly confusing, incoherent, sometimes causing one to burst at the seams with ecstatic comedic moments. Andre’s energy finds the perfect vessel in Bad Trip, his first starring role with a script he wrote with frequent collaborator and director Kitao Sakurai.

Director Stephen Kijak has made a string of documentaries that are focused on music, among them “We Are X,” “Jaco,” “Stones in Exile,” “Scott Walker: 30 Century Man” and “Sid & Judy.” That ought to mean that he’s got an understanding of the musical life – but more to the point for his new narrative film, “Shoplifters of the World,” it should mean that he has an understanding of fandom, too.

“Shoplifters of the World” may be titled after a song from the ’80s British band the Smiths, and it may play to a nonstop soundtrack of that and almost two dozen more songs from the Manchester-based maestros of morose, but it’s not a movie about the Smiths. It’s a movie about the fans, about what music can mean in the life of people who love it – as Fairuza Balk’s character, Sapphire, says in Cameron Crowe’s “Almost Famous,...

The Smiths are dead. That’s the news Cleo (Helena Howard) punctuates with a scream loud enough to wake everyone in Denver, Colorado but her own passed out drunk mother on the couch. So she drives to the one place she knows she’ll find a kindred spirit: the record store. Dean (Ellar Coltrane) is reading the news behind the counter as she walks in, the obvious air of depression looming above him before his boss (Thomas Lennon) stomps in to say that he needs to stop playing Morrissey and Marr’s music in memorialization since it’s always been too much of a downer. What he doesn’t realize that Cleo and Dean do, however, is that not everyone wants escapism from their art. Some seek an understanding that they aren’t alone.

That’s what this music gave a generation as its melodies became their home and saved...

I was a little bit late to the Smiths party, without knowledge of what alternative music was until a handful of years later when a small Am radio station outside of Vancouver began broadcasting at the end of the 80s. By then the band had broken up and their legacy was in its infancy.    I don't know how I would have reacted to the breakup of The Smiths but I don't think I would have gone as far as to take over a radio station by gunpoint and demand they play nothing but Smiths tracks. Still, if there is a director out there who could capture this moment in time then Stephen Kijak may be the guy with his new film Shoplifters of the...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

"This night... will open our eyes." Rlje Films has released an official trailer for an indie titled Shoplifters of the World, from a British director of music docs named Stephen Kijak. Set in the summer of 1987 in Denver, Colorado, the film follows four friends. One crazy night in the life of four friends reeling from the sudden demise of iconic British band The Smiths, while the local airwaves are hijacked at gunpoint by an impassioned Smiths fan. Starring Helena Howard, Ellar Coltrane, Elena Kampouris, Nick Krause, James Bloor, Thomas Lennon, and Joe Manganiello. This isn't the only Smiths tribute film (also: The More You Ignore Me) but it does look like this'll be good. "Featuring an incredible soundtrack – including 20 songs from The Smiths – Shoplifters of the World is a glorious ode to the craziness of the '80s and the power of music ...

‘Rock Hudson: Accidental Activist’ to be directed by Stephan Kijak.

A documentary about how Hollywood icon Rock Hudson became “the single most influential AIDS patient ever” is in the works from UK outfit Altitude.

Rock Hudson: Accidental Activist will be directed by Stephen Kijak, with Altitude on board to produce and handle international sales, introducing the project to buyers at AFM online next week.

Altitude Distribution will release the film in the UK and Ireland.

The film will explore how Hudson’s death from AIDS-related complications in 1985 shocked the world and upended decades-old assumptions about his image. It also brought attention to the disease,...

One of Hollywood’s most famous leading men is getting the feature documentary treatment.

Rock Hudson: Accidental Activist comes from Stephen Kijak (Scott Walker: 30 Century Man, We Are X) and producers George Chignell (Citizen K, Listen to Me Marlon) and Will Clarke (Horrible Histories: The Movies — Rotten Romans, Filth), with Altitude set to produce and handle international sales, introducing the project to buyers at the virtual American Film Market next week.

Altitude Distribution will also release the film in the U.K. and Ireland.

An icon of the Golden Age of Hollywood, Rock Hudson was the man all women wanted and all ...

One of Hollywood’s most famous leading men is getting the feature documentary treatment.

Rock Hudson: Accidental Activist comes from Stephen Kijak (Scott Walker: 30 Century Man, We Are X) and producers George Chignell (Citizen K, Listen to Me Marlon) and Will Clarke (Horrible Histories: The Movies — Rotten Romans, Filth), with Altitude set to produce and handle international sales, introducing the project to buyers at the virtual American Film Market next week.

Altitude Distribution will also release the film in the U.K. and Ireland.

An icon of the Golden Age of Hollywood, Rock Hudson was the man all women wanted and all ...

In today’s TV news roundup, the cast and creator of “The West Wing” will reunite for a voting special, and Syfy greenlit “The Pole,” an animated adult comedy show featuring Bobby Moynihan and Jillian Bell, with Nicole Byer and Colin Jost.

Dates

“Somebody Feed Phil,” a show where creator and host Phil Rosenthal travels the world and explores different cuisines, will have its Season 4 premiere Oct. 30 on Netflix. The upcoming season will see Rosenthal travel to Rio de Janeiro, San Francisco, Singapore, The Mississippi Delta and Hawaii on his food-tasting mission, which also combines comedy into the mix. Rosenthal also serves as an executive producer for “Somebody Feed Phil” alongside Rich Rosenthal, John Bedolis, Christopher Collins and Lydia Tenaglia.

HBO Max revealed a that its upcoming project starring fashion designer Jenna Lyons, “Stylish with Jenna Lyons,” will premiere on Nov. 26. She previously served as the creative director and president of J. Crew,...

AMC Networks-owned Rlje Films has swooped for U.S. rights to “Shoplifters of the World.”

Inspired by true events, “Shoplifters of the World” is set over the course of one night in the life of four friends who are reeling from the sudden dissolution of British band The Smiths. The same evening, a local radio station is also hijacked by an armed, impassioned Smiths fan, resulting in a madcap evening that sends up the spirit of the 1980s.

Starring Joe Manganiello (“Magic Mike”) as the radio DJ and Ellar Coltrane (“Boyhood”) as the hijacker, the film also stars Helena Howard (“Madeline’s Madeline”) and Elena Kampouris (“Before I Fall”). “Shoplifters of the World” is written and directed by Stephen Kijak (“We Are X”) and also features 20 tracks from The Smiths.

The U.K.’s WestEnd Films, which is handling international rights, has also sold the film into Japan (Parco), China...

HBO Max has announced the all-star cast assembled for the LGBTQ+ docuseries Equal. The four-part docuseries will debut in October, just in time for LGBT History Month. All 18 actors assembled will portray an assortment of activists, artists, political figures, and everyday citizens whose lives are now integral parts of LGBTQ+ history and the fight for equality. Among the cast of Equal are some familiar faces: Samira Wiley, Anthony Rapp, Cheyenne Jackson, Jamie Clayton, Theo Germaine, Keiynan Lonsdale, and Jai Rodriguez. Filmmaker and producer Stephen Kijak (Sid & Judy) serves as showrunner. Additionally, Kijak directs Episodes 1, 3, …...

HBO Max has unveiled the full cast for Equal, its upcoming four-part docuseries chronicling landmark events and the forgotten heroes of the LGBTQ+ movement, from Greg Berlanti’s Berlanti Productions, Jim Parsons and That’s Wonderful Productions, Scout Productions, Jon Jashni (Lost in Space) and Warner Horizon Unscripted Television.

Samira Wiley, Cheyenne Jackson, Anthony Rapp, Sara Gilbert, Shannon Purser, Heather Matarazzo, Jamie Clayton, Isis King, Gale Harold, are among the cast members who will portray the Lbgtq+ visionaries in the docuseries that contains never-before-seen archival footage. A full list with character descriptions follows below.

Part one of the docuseries explores the rise of early organizations, The Mattachine Society and the Daughters of Bilitis in Los Angeles and San Francisco, respectively; part two stories chronicles the 20th century trans experience, bookended by the 1966 Compton Cafeteria riots in San Francisco; part three examines the contributions from the Black community on the growing LGBTQ...

HBO Max has announced the cast of “Equal,” the streamer’s upcoming four-part docuseries about the history of the LGBTQ civil rights movement.

Along with never-before-seen archival footage, Anthony Rapp, Samira Wiley, Sara Gilbert, Cheyenne Jackson, Alexandra Grey, Jamie Clayton and Shannon Purser are just some of the names who portray gay rights activists from the turn of the century to the 1970s following the Stonewall Riots.

“Equal” will premiere in October in recognition of LGBTQ History Month. Produced by Scout Productions (“Queer Eye”), Greg Berlanti’s Berlanti Productions and Jim Parsons and Todd Spiewak’s That’s Wonderful Productions, the series is directed by Stephen Kijak (“Sid & Judy”) and trans director Kimberly Reed (“Prodigal Sons”).

Here, Variety gives you a look at the first images of the cast, most of whom are LGBTQ.

Movies to watch when you’re staying in for a while, featuring recommendations from Dana Gould, Daniel Waters, Scott Alexander, and Allison Anders.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Destroy All Monsters (1969)

Planet Of The Apes (1968)

Beneath The Planet of the Apes (1970)

Escape From The Planet Of The Apes (1971)

Conquest Of The Planet Of The Apes (1972)

Battle For The Planet Of The Apes (1973)

Suparpie

The Wizard Of Oz (1939)

Hello Down There (1969)

Koyaanisqatsi (1982)

Thirteen Days (2000)

Stalker (1979)

Last Year At Marienbad (1961)

No Exit (1962)

The Exterminating Angel (1962)

Sleeper (1973)

The Tenant (1976)

Final Cut: Ladies And Gentlemen (2012)

The Adventures of Ford Fairlane (1990)

La classe américaine (1993)

The Sex Adventures of a Single Man a.k.a. The 24 Hour Lover (1968)

The Omega Man (1971)

Soylent Green (1973)

Knives Out (2019)

The Hunt (2020)

Banana Split (2020)

The Cocoanuts (1929)

Animal Crackers (1930)

Monkey Business (1931)

Horse Feathers (1932)

Duck Soup (1933)

A Night At The Opera (1935)

The Incredible Two-Headed Transplant (1971)

Susan Slade (1961)

My Blood Runs Cold...

It’s been exactly 50 years since Judy Garland’s death from an accidental drug overdose, an event so devastating for the gay community, legend tells it sparked the Stonewall riots. Now, in 2019, the beloved singer and show-woman known for her turbulent past is undergoing a long overdue reputation rehabilitation.

Time is a cruel mistress, even — especially — to legends. But just when pop culture had nearly forgotten about the little girl with the voice like raw honey, or the more mature force of nature with a silver-tongued wit, Hollywood has finally done right by Judy. This year has produced two tender and finely-tuned films worthy of bearing her name, each telling a version of the truth re Judy’s life, something even her own daughter admits she can never fully understand. Both films make her immense talent decadently clear, proudly proclaiming via glittering ruby marquee: They just don’t make ’em like they used to.

Larry Junstrom, a founding member of Lynyrd Skynyrd and the longtime bassist for .38 Special, has died, according to a post on .38 Special’s Facebook page. He was 70.

Junstrom was in an early incarnation of Skynyrd, with singer Ronnie Van Zant, guitar players Gary Rossington and Allen Collins, and drummer Bob Burns. He exited the band prior to the recording of their debut album, 1973’s Pronounced Leh-nerd Skin-nerd, which made way for Leon Wilkeson to join as bassist.

In 1977, Junstrom enlisted in another Southern rock band, the Donnie Van Zant-fronted .38 Special,...

Showtime Documentary Films today announced it will premiere the new documentary Sid Judy from director Stephen Kijak Stones In Exile, We Are X, producer Diane Becker and Academy Award winning producer John Battsek Eric Clapton Life In 12 Bars, Listen To Me Marlon on Friday, October 18 at 8 p.m. Etpt. Narrated by Emmy winner Jon Hamm Mad Men and Academy Award nominee Jennifer Jason Leigh Patrick Melrose, Sid Judy explores the dramatic career and personal struggles of the talented and tragically short-lived entertainer Judy Garland through rare concert footage, never-heard-before voice recordings and personal photos. The film premiered at the Frameline Festival in San Francisco in June and will screen at Outfest Los Angeles on Saturday, July 27 at the iconic Ford Theater in Hollywood.

The tumultuous marriage of Judy Garland and Sid Luft gets the documentary treatment on Showtime this October, with director Stephen Kijak Sid & Judy making use of the recently public observations of Luft as well as never-before-heard recordings by Garland.

Showtime Documentary Films announced the doc today, with a TV premiere of Friday, October 18, 8 p.m. Et/Pt. Jon Hamm and Jennifer Jason Leigh narrate the film, which screened in June at the Frameline Festival in San Francisco and is set for Outfest Los Angeles on Saturday, July 27 in Hollywood.

Luft was Garland’s third husband as well as, for a while, her manager. In Showtime’s description, Sid & Judy chronicles their life together through “Luft’s observations, only recently made public, and Garland’s own words…” What emerges, says Showtime, is “a poignant portrait of a woman whose vulnerabilities were exploited by an industry she helped build, but whose resilience,...

Frameline Film Festival announced Tuesday the first 12 films heading up the lineup for the 43rd annual Lgbtq film festival, which takes place in San Francisco’s famous Castro district. The opening night film will be the Elizabeth Debicki-starring Virginia Woolf lesbian drama “Vita & Virginia,” which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival last fall. Two documentaries will round out the centerpiece and closing night screenings: “Gay Chorus Deep South,” and the world premiere of the Judy Garland focused “Sid & Judy.”

“People question the place of film festivals in a now media-saturated culture, but the Festival is about communities: bringing everyone together to celebrate and expand our knowledge of the world around us, as well as ourselves,” Frameline Executive Director Frances Wallace said in a statement. “Frameline’s Festival attendance increased in 2018, and we predict a continued expansion of our audience this year. The Lgbtq+ world has never been...

Total of 12 features set for London offshoot of Utah event.

This year’s Sundance London, the satellite offshoot of January’s Sundance Film Festival in Utah, has unveiled its programme for the event taking place May 30 - June 2.

On the industry side, talks range from focuses on risk-taking in independent filmmaking to how women directors are being affected by the industry putting an increased emphasis on inclusivity.

In the latter panel, Animals director Sophie Hyde will join Sundance director of programming Kim Yutani and writer and activist Kate Muir to debate the future of indie film for women.

Corporate Animals...