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Normally this is the part where we take you on a brief temperature check on—if not philosophical flight of fancy over—the state of the movie industry and how that will factor into what’s occupying most of the real estate in Oscar voters’ heads. We usually delve into why in fact the whole annual spectacle serves just about anything but the purported task of rewarding the previous year’s best cinematic work. How does Parasite represent the best-case scenario for a more international AMPAS? Does Tár surgically unpack our anxieties about representation, or does it just exploit them? Why Green Book, why now? But seeing how Mark Harris, in this weekend’s New York Times, pretty thoroughly wrapped up that legwork this go-around, and recognizing that there’s only so many angles we can take to argue the functional utility that Oppenheimer has market-cornered in this year’s race,...

Exclusive: Oscar winning Nomadland producer Peter Spears has optioned Mike Nichols: A Life, the 2021 biography of the director by Mark Harris, for development as a dramatic feature film.

The planned adaptation of the book, a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist, will not be a cradle-to-grave biography but will focus on a young Nichols as he journeys from Broadway to Hollywood to make his first film, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), depicting his high-stakes collaboration with the film’s two married stars, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.

Spears will develop the film for his production company, Cor Cordium. His other producing credits include the Oscar-winning Call Me by Your Name (2017), Bones and All (2022), and On Swift Horses, with Jacob Elordi, Daisy Edgar-Jones, Diego Calva, and Will Poulter, which will open later this year. Harris is also the author of Pictures at a Revolution (2008) and the World War II filmmaking history...

Much like movies, television, and streaming platforms, it’s been a densely packed year for horror books as well. If the selection of horror movies available this year feels overwhelming, it pales in comparison to the horror renaissance that the book world offered this year.

The horror book industry has truly become more robust and expansive than ever, with 2023 bringing no shortage of fear-inducing reads through fiction and nonfiction alike.

Whether you’re in the mood for supernatural chills, slasher thrills, visceral terror, or insight into your favorite horror films and tropes, 2023 had it all.

Here are the ten best horror reads of the year.

10. How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix

Bestselling author Grady Hendrix gives his spin on a horror staple: the haunted house. Louise gets called back to her hometown after her parents die in an accident. More than begrudgingly leaving her daughter with her ex,...

The AFI Awards has made its selection of the top 10 television series of 2023, a list that includes the first-year comedies “Jury Duty” (Amazon Freevee) and “Poker Face” (Peacock) along with HBO’s post-apocalyptic freshman drama “The Last of Us” and the Netflix limited series “Beef” along with Apple TV+’s “The Morning Show,” the HBO drama “Succession” and Hulu’s “Only Murders in the Building.” There are also three programs also on last year’s list: the ABC comedy “Abbott Elementary” and FX’s “The Bear” (streaming on Hulu) and “Reservation Dogs.”

Among the acclaimed programs that were passed over are “Ted Lasso,” “The Crown,” “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” “Barry,” “The Diplomat” and “A Small Light.”

“As our nation and our world continue to navigate difficult times, AFI is honored to shine a proper light upon these works of art that lift us up and, ultimately, lead us to empathy,...

The AFI Awards has made its selection of the top 10 films of 2023, a list that includes the summer bl9ckbusters “Oppenheimer” and “Barbie” along with director Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon,” the Netflix drama “May December,” the Leonard Bernstein biopic “Maestro,” director Yorgos Lanthimos’ “”Poor Things,” Alexander Payne’s “The Holdovers,” “American Fiction,” “Past Lives” and the animated “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.”

Over the past two decades, the AFI list is a pretty accurate indicator of how the Academy Awards category for Best Picture will look. Last year, only three movies not included in the AFI top 10 – “All Quiet on the Western Front,” “Triangle of Sadness” and “The Banshees of Inisherin”- made that Oscar group.

Among the acclaimed films that were passed over are “The Color Purple,” “Anatomy of a Fall,” “Air” and “The Zone of Interest.”

See‘Oppenheimer’ maintains lead over ‘Killers of the Flower Moon...

Group also unveils top 10 TV shows of the year.

The awards group picks continue to roll in with American Film Institute unveiling its film and TV selections for the AFI Awards 2023.

The top 10 films are: American Fiction, Barbie, The Holdovers, Killers Of The Flower Moon, Maestro, May December, Oppenheimer, Past Lives, Poor Things, and Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse.

AFI’s top TV shows of the year are: Abbott Elementary, The Bear, Beef, Jury Duty, The Last Of Us, The Morning Show, Only Murders In The Building, Poker Face, Reservation Dogs, and Succession.

Honourees will assemble at the annual AFI Awards...

The American Film Institute (AFI) has announced its annual list of best films and TV for the past year. The 2023 honorees include summer smash hits “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer”; plus streamer-backed fare like “Killers of the Flower Moon,” “Maestro,” “May December,” and “American Fiction”; and indie films “The Holdovers,” “Poor Things,” and “Past Lives.” Animated feature “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” was additionally among the top 10 picks.

Television series “Abbott Elementary,” “Succession,” and “The Bear” returned to the AFI list, as well as new series “Jury Duty,” “Poker Face,” “The Last of Us,” and “Beef.”

“As our nation and our world continue to navigate difficult times, AFI is honored to shine a proper light upon these works of art that lift us up and, ultimately, lead us to empathy,” Bob Gazzale, AFI President and CEO, said in an official statement. “That we do so without competition is AFI’s hallmark, and we...

"You've never heard of the Millennium Falcon?" Han Solo (Harrison Ford) asks Obi-Wan Kenobi (Alec Guinness) in "Star Wars: A New Hope." Although the term "iconic" should be used as sparingly as possible, the Millenium Falcon deserves to be described as such — as Han explains, this is the ship that made the Kessel Run in "less than twelve parsecs" and has helped many outrun Imperial starships in the heat of battle. The role that the Falcon ended up playing during the Galactic Civil War cannot be overstated, and when J.J. Abrams decided to bring the legendary ship back in "Star Wars: The Force Awakens," everyone on the film's creative team had to work hard to convincingly recapture the nostalgia surrounding the Falcon and what it represents.

A vehicle that was initially used for small-time smuggling operations suddenly played a major role when Han and Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) blasted through...

Actor and singer Inga Swenson, who played Gretchen the cook on the popular ’80s sitcom “Benson,” on Sunday in Los Angeles. Swenson died of natural causes, according to TMZ. She was 90.

She was known for starring as Gretchen Kraus in the ABC series “Benson,” which aired for seven years from 1979 to 1986. The show follows Benson DuBois (Robert Guillaume) who is hired as head of household for a governor; Gretchen was the German cook with whom Benson had a workplace rivalry and friendship. For her role as Gretchen, Swenson was nominated for three Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Supporting Actress. “Benson” was a spin-off of the show “Soap,” in which Swenson also appeared for multiple episodes as the character Ingrid Svenson.

A trained lyric soprano, Swenson also had a successful career on Broadway, performing in lauded starring roles in the 1960s. She starred as Lizzy Curry in “110 in the Shade” and Irene Adler in “Baker Street,...

Inga Swenson, the two-time Tony-nominated singer and actress who as the dictatorial German cook Gretchen Kraus sparred with Robert Guillaume‘s character on the 1980s ABC sitcom Benson, has died. She was 90.

Swenson died Sunday night of natural causes in hospice care in Los Angeles, her son, Mark Harris, told The Hollywood Reporter.

Swenson also sparkled in two critically acclaimed 1962 films released seven weeks apart — as the mother of Helen Keller (Patty Duke) in Arthur Penn’s The Miracle Worker (1962) and as the wife of a U.S. senator with a dark secret (Don Murray) in Otto Preminger’s political thriller Advise & Consent (1962).

On the strength of those performances, the Nebraska native — no, she was not born in Germany — was cast in 1963 as the spinster Lizzy in 110 in the Shade, based on N. Richard Nash’s play The Rainmaker. She received a Tony nomination for best actress in a musical for that performance,...

Disney CEO Bob Iger sat down for an interview Thursday morning and started trending immediately after he said that the WGA and SAG-AFTRA’s conditions were “just not realistic” and that the prospect of a writers and actors strike was “very disturbing.”

Iger’s comments come on a historic day, when SAG-AFTRA is expected to announce they are joining WGA on the picket lines after their Wednesday contract negotiations deadline passed without a deal. It would be the first Hollywood double strike in sixty years.

Also notable for context, Iger’s comments arrive the day after his Disney contract was extended for an additional two years. Sky-high executive salaries have become a lightning rod during the WGA strike and a rallying cry on social media as CEOs.

“The lack of self awareness in this business never ceases to amaze me,” actor Anson Mount said on social media in response to Iger’s Thursday comments,...

The end of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and debut of a for-profit Golden Globes Awards, announced by billionaire Todd Boehly’s Eldridge Industries on Monday, sparked confusion and skepticism across Hollywood that seemed unlikely to turn the page on the awards’ tainted past.

“Good to see that the Globes will continue its two most hallowed traditions: Questionable procedures and baffling chaos,” tweeted movie journalist Mark Harris. “They have done what I thought was impossible and… made it worse.”

Harris was referring not just to the awards becoming less transparent as a for-profit business, but to a complicated two-tiered voting system in which about 100 voters will be paid to watch programs and movies, and another 200 will not.

The 95 current members of the HFPA have been offered five-year deals that will pay them $75,000 per year to remain as Globes voters and to also fulfill unspecified tasks related to the awards show.

The 39th annual Film Independent Spirit Awards will be held on Feb. 25, 2024. The Spirit Awards, which will again be in-person and hosted in Los Angeles, will celebrate the year for independent voices and storytellers while celebrating diversity, originality and uniqueness of vision.

Hasan Minhaj hosted last year’s ceremony. This year’s ceremony marked a switch to gender-neutral acting categories as well as an introduction of a Best Breakthrough Performance Award and Best Supporting Performance in a New Scripted Series Award. Honorary co-chairs were Sian Heder and Chloe Zhao, alumni of Film Independent’s Artist Development programs which are celebrating their 30th anniversary.

While intended to celebrate indie film and comparatively low-budget cinema, the Spirit Awards have found their nominations and winners often aligned with the Academy Awards as the Oscars have themselves skewed comparatively more indie while Hollywood has seen less success with the kind of old-school studio programmer...

With CNN facing a storm of criticism for its handling of a town hall event with Donald Trump, the network’s star anchor Anderson Cooper addressed the backlash on air Thursday night.

The cable news network has been on damage control since Wednesday night’s calamitous town hall moderated by Kaitlan Collins, an event that saw the former president repeat a number of lies about the 2020 election, the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and the pandemic, as well as peddle conspiracy theories and disparage and defame a sexual assault victim who had just this week been awarded a $5 million settlement against him. Pundits from across the political spectrum were almost unanimous in thinking that the event was a huge win for Trump and an unmitigated disaster for CNN.

On CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360°, Cooper opened the show by directly addressing the overwhelmingly negative reaction to the town hall, acknowledging...

Following widespread backlash that included calls by prominent journalists for CEO Chris Licht to resign, CNN released a statement defending Wednesday night’s Donald Trump town hall presentation, as well as the event’s moderator, Kaitlan Collins.

“Tonight, Kaitlan Collins exemplified what it means to be a world-class journalist. She asked tough, fair and revealing questions. And she followed up and fact-checked President Trump in real time to arm voters with crucial information about his positions as he enters the 2024 election as the Republican frontrunner. That is CNN’s role and responsibility: to get answers and hold the powerful to account,” the network said in a statement Thursday night.

Many critics beg to differ.

The town hall, which took place in New Hampshire Wednesday night, was filled with an audience of Republican and GOP-leaning independents, who laughed and cheered after nearly all of Trump’s wild statements. CNN gave Trump...

CNN’s live townhall Wednesday with Donald Trump might have been well received by the painfully obvious pro-Trump audience in the studio, but if social media is any indication viewers at home were far less amused.

The struggling cable news outfit was excoriated widely on Twitter during the event — and for hours after. Some said the broadcast was “not a town hall,” but a “rally” for Trump, others dismissed it as “a Trump infomercial,” and Democratic congressional representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said simply that CNN “should be ashamed.”

And many who watched called for CNN CEO Chris Licht to resign.

So what upset them? For one thing, the event featured what appeared to be an audience solely made up of Trump supporters. For another, it amounted to just over an hour in which the disgraced ex-president lied repeatedly, dissembled, evaded questions and advanced yet more false claims about the 2020 election.

Trump...

"The Fabelmans" tells the tale of Steven Spielberg's childhood, how he found his love of movies, and how he eventually got introduced into the harsh world of the film business. Spielberg's first meeting with world-renowned director John Ford is a huge part of his legend. Ford was an incomparable character, and Spielberg knew that whoever would play him had to be just as unique as Ford was. The filmmaker eventually cast David Lynch, and it's hard to imagine Ford being played by anyone else. But, believe it or not, Lynch wasn't Spielberg's first choice for the part — in fact, it wasn't Spielberg's idea in the first place.

The "Jaws" director has worked with screenwriter Tony Kushner on every film since his 2005 thriller "Munich." Kushner was previously a popular playwright, having penned "Angels in America." He has been collaborating more or less exclusively with Spielberg for decades, with screenwriting credits...

Even for Richard Linklater, who famously shot a little bit of “Boyhood” each year from 2002 to 2013, his “Merrily We Roll Along” is ambitious.

Linklater plans on shooting Stephen Sondheim’s 1981 musical every couple of years for the next 20 years. One sequence that had already been filmed, the concluding number “Our Time,” had to be reshot following Paul Mescal replacing Blake Jenner in the cast. (Beanie Feldstein and Ben Platt are also in the cast.) That means we’re looking at a release for “Merrily We Roll Along” in the early 2040s.

“Merrily” famously tells its story in reverse-chronological order over 20 years, to show how movie producer Franklin Shepard (Mescal) abandons his friends as he moves through Hollywood. And as opposed to a conventional production in which makeup would age or de-age the actors during the course of a typically compressed film shoot, Linklater wants to capture the process of aging,...

If there’s one oft-unsung medium for horror, it’s arguably books. There’s an insane plethora of spine-tingling tales of terror in book form for all tastes – and from all decades – just awaiting discovery. Not just fiction but nonfiction deep dives into horror cinema to satiate all fans.

And many exciting new additions to the shelf are slated for release this year. Whether you’re in the mood for short stories, a slasher sequel, or spooky Halloween comfort, 2023 has it all.

We narrowed it down to the ten upcoming horror books we can’t wait to read.

How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix – January 17

Bestselling author Grady Hendrix gives his spin on a horror staple: the haunted house. Louise gets called back to her hometown after her parents die in an accident. More than begrudgingly leaving her daughter with her ex, Louise dreads dealing with her brother Mark most of all.

How’s that for a headline? Considering it’s been out for a month, if you’ve wanted to see Steven Spielberg’s stellar autobiographical drama The Fabelmans, you’ve had the chance, so it shouldn’t be much of a spoiler what is contained in the final sequence of the film. Following a conversation with Paul Thomas Anderson, Spielberg got on stage this past weekend at the DGA in NYC with none other than Martin Scorsese to discuss the making of the film and they touched on precisely how David Lynch became John Ford.

Much of the rest of the story behind the incredible bit of casting is known, courtesy of our chat with Tony Kushner, including how Kushner’s husband Mark Harris recommended David Lynch, but it took convincing on Laura Dern’s part to get the director to take the role. Now, in the talk with Scorsese,...

“I’ve been very private about my private life, and I’ve never gone public with my private life until now,” Steven Spielberg said Sunday. It was the existential threat of the Covid pandemic at its most lethal back in 2020 that nudged his very personal family story to the big screen.

“What I thought was that if I had to make one more movie, if I had to tell one more story, what would that story be? And that’s why I decided to put this into production,” he told Martin Scorsese at a Q&a after an NYC screening of The Fabelmans at the DGA Theater.

“My mom and I had a secret for a long time, and my mom would always say to me, ‘Gee Steve, this would be a really terrific movie. Why don’t you make that move some day.’ So I had her coming at...

Rapper Kanye West went on a horrific antisemitic tirade during an appearance on Alex Jones’ ‘Infowars’ talk show in which the controversial rapper praised Hitler.

It’s the latest in a string of controversial media appearances for West, who has been dropped by brands such as Adidas due to his antisemitic remarks, reports ‘Variety’.

West told Jones that Hitler, like every human being, brought value to the world. He also said he sees good things about the Nazi founder. Later in the interview, West made antisemitic jokes about former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, reports ‘Variety’.

The rapper’s latest antisemitic remarks were instantly condemned on social media. Writer Mark Harris tweeted: “The Kanye horrors are laughable but also terrifying. When pro-Nazi rhetoric gets this kind of repeated public airing, the discourse eventually edges into ‘Well that was awful, but can’t we at least talk about…'”

“It’s...

Few were surprised that Steven Spielberg assembled an A-list cast for “The Fabelmans” that included Michelle Williams, Seth Rogen, and Paul Dano. Who wouldn’t want to help Hollywood’s biggest director make a movie about his own childhood? But despite Spielberg’s pedigree, one name on the cast list still raised plenty of eyebrows: David Lynch.

The eccentric filmmaker plays John Ford in a key scene in “The Fabelmans,” but even the film’s creative team was surprised that he took the role. In a new interview with The Film Stage, Tony Kushner told the story while speaking about the process of casting the film, which he co-wrote with Spielberg.

“We often say, when we’re getting into casting, ‘Who’s going to play this person?’ Sometimes we sort of know, but a lot of times, in the four movies that we’ve made, it hasn’t been determined,...

The longest answer you’ve ever received might as well come from Tony Kushner, whose status American writer par excellence exceeds most known precedent or (full disclosure) nearly my own time on this earth. That was before he became more or less Steven Spielberg’s preferred screenwriter, a pairing that has yielded some of the wisest collaborations in modern American cinema. So whatever my experience speaking to filmmakers (with which I frankly think I’m quite learned) there was some need to arrive prepared.

When Kushner is (put lightly) keen with words it engendered a full-throated conversation about Spielberg’s best film since—I think no coincidence—Lincoln or Munich. Immediately after seeing The Fabelmans I said such distinction probably stemmed from Spielberg turning into dramatic material what most wouldn’t take outside a psychoanalysis session; in certain ways Kushner, as the director’s deeply privileged interlocutor, is the best man to ask about this.

Minor spoilers for Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans–but it might be worth it!

It’s no surprise that Steven Spielberg is a great admirer of some of Hollywood’s greatest directors. One such icon is John Ford, best known for The Searchers, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and The Grapes of Wrath. Since Steven Spielberg’s latest puts much emphasis on his early days as a budding director, it made since he would include one of his heroes. But who would play John Ford? Spielberg recruited none other than David Lynch, lending what seems to be a noteworthy cameo with an even more memorable payment.

Normally, such a circumstance might see the cameo lender get a small check or just chalk it up to doing a solid for a fellow director. But remember, it’s David Lynch, so he had a rather unusual request if he was going to turn up.

Click here to read the full article.

As a critic and scholar, Elvis Mitchell has spent his career writing about film. With the doc Is That Black Enough for You?!?, he tried his hand at making one himself.

The documentary, which will screen at AFI Fest before heading to Netflix on Nov. 11, is part visual essay and part academic deep dive into the Black cinema of the 1970s and the contribution of Black filmmakers and creatives to that decade of moviemaking. An achievement in archival work, the doc, which counts David Fincher and Steven Soderbergh as producers, deftly moves through works by Melvin Van Peebles, Gordon Parks Jr. and Sidney Poitier and films including Blacula, Shaft and Coffy, among a dizzying amount of others. “For audiences quick to dismiss or asleep to the contributions of Black filmmakers,” THR‘s Lovia Gyarkye wrote in her review, “this is required viewing.”

Ahead of its AFI Fest bow,...

Steven Spielberg's 2012 film "Lincoln" is easily the filmmakers' best, and it's not even close. "Lincoln" tells the story of the 16th U.S. President's fight to pass the 13th Amendment after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, in the hopes to stymie Southern states' efforts to reinforce slavery after its abolition, but — being made in 2012 — it had more on its mind than a mere historical document. "Lincoln" was written by Tony-winning playwright Tony Kushner, who had finally legally married his husband Mark Harris in 2008. Same-sex marriage was slowly become legal nationwide in 2012 after far too many years of struggle...

The post Daniel Day-Lewis' Method For Locking Down Lincoln's Voice Required Some Digging appeared first on /Film.

Ask 100 people in the entertainment industry what the Academy Awards telecast should entail, and you’re bound to get 100 different opinions. But it’s safe to say that all 100 would agree that what happened at the Oscars on Sunday was not the way to go.

There was, of course, the specter of Will Smith smacking Chris Rock on the air, in retaliation for Rock’s “G.I. Jane 2” joke about Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, who is bald due to alopecia, a diagnosis she revealed in 2018. The incident, followed by Smith’s regretful-yet-defiant acceptance speech for best actor, vaporized excitement inside the Dolby Theatre and devoured any conversation about the Oscars online that was not about What Will Smith Just Did on Live TV. (Smith apologized to Rock and the Academy in a statement on Monday.)

“I think it’s incredibly disappointing,” says one Academy member, who spoke anonymously to remain candid.

William Hurt was tall, blond, and attractive, and the product of a prep-school education and training at Julliard. For someone whose first movie came out in 1980 — the year Ronald Reagan was elected and “The Official Preppy Handbook” was published — he could have had a much different career as an actor, one that was blander, less eccentric, and less daring.

But the approachable exterior camouflaged a complicated, difficult artist, one who constantly challenged himself, even when dealing with his own inner demons. As Mark Harris noted on Twitter upon hearing of Hurt’s death at the age of 71, “Hurt always seemed profoundly uncomfortable being a good-looking leading man, which may be one reason that his performance in ‘Broadcast News’ is absolutely perfect — he understood that he was playing someone who was miscast.”

Before making his way to the screen, Hurt had already established his bona fides on the New York stage,...

When Steven Spielberg first pitched the idea of doing a new adaptation of “West Side Story” to Tony Kushner over breakfast eight years ago, the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer was slightly apprehensive about the prospect. As Kushner recalled in an interview with the New York Times last year, he left their meeting and told his husband, the writer Mark Harris, “You’re not going to believe this. He’s lost his mind.”

“It’s sort of funny because I hadn’t realized, I think, until the film came out and I started looking at some of the responses that I wasn’t the only one who thought that,” Kushner tells Gold Derby in an exclusive video interview. But as Kushner quickly found out and audiences began to realize when “West Side Story” started screening in early December, the source text for the iconic musical is so robust and malleable, it was...

For years, one little acronym has been deemed anathema to film culture: VOD. The usual complaint routine deems it a dumping ground, home to busted theatricals and the hellish limbo where even worthy titles flounder in obscurity. Here’s the truth: VOD is the greatest gift to specialized distribution in the last 20 years, and anyone invested the survival of the movies must embrace it.

The theatrical landscape is harsh and barren. Sundance is virtual for the second year in a row. Arthouse releases flatline around the country; so do awards-season titles. “Spider-Man: No Way Home” dominates the multiplexes, Netflix’s “Don’t Look Up” dominates the discourse, and everything else looks like an asterisk.

Let’s not kid ourselves. These are bleak times for almost any movie without an eight-figure marketing budget and/or the algorithmic power of a major streamer. Also: That’s nothing new. When hasn’t exciting cinema been a tough sell?...

Sidney Poitier, the first Black actor to win an Academy Award (for his performance in 1963’s “Lilies of the Field”), has died at age 94. Tributes from friends and famous fans immediately began to pour in, honoring a trailblazer who forged a way forward for Black performers. Poitier enjoyed a lengthy career, first on Broadway and then starring in films including “In the Heat of the Night,” “A Raisin in the Sun” (in which he reprised his starring role from Broadway), “To Sir, With Love,” “A Patch of Blue,” and “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.”

“What a landmark actor. One of a kind. What a beautiful, gracious, warm, genuinely regal man,” Jeffrey Wright shared on Twitter. Lee Grant, his co-star in “In the Heat of the Night,” tweeted, “Sidney was a force of nature. One of [the] most intelligent, beautiful, and unstoppable human beings I’ve ever known. He made our world,...

From her earliest days preparing to play Anita in the original 1961 “West Side Story,” Rita Moreno has never been averse to script changes. In fact, if it weren’t for a little update to the lyrics for “America,” the show’s most memorable dance number and Anita’s big star moment, she may never have accepted the role that came to define her career. After landing the role in the movie, Moreno began preparing using the original Broadway script, with a book by Arthur Laurents and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. When she came to the lyric “Puerto Rico, you ugly island, island of tropic diseases,” her heart sank.

“I went, ‘I can’t do this. I can’t do this to my people.’ I was on the verge of calling my agent and saying, ‘I have to pull out,’ knowing that he would just scream at me and not understand...

Mandy Patinkin’s Judge Hal Wackner, the latest kooky character on the Paramount+ series “The Good Fight,” makes his litigants end each lawsuit by saying to one another, “I respect and I love you.” Critics have shared the exact same sentiment about this criminally underrated series, which has been earning some of the best notices of its entire run for its brilliantly bizarre fifth season that wraps up on Thursday.

Its new characters, including Patinkin’s Wackner and Charmaine Bingwa‘s enigmatic new lawyer Carmen Moyo, topical episodes on medical racism in the treatment of Covid-19 and hilarious, moving visits from historical figures like Elaine May’s Ruth Bader Ginsberg have earned the plaudits of critics. Kevin Fallon (Daily Beast) calls the season “flawless,” writing that the show is “having what may be its best season ever,” including “the most thrilling stretch of episodes in a TV series this year.

Though Charles Grodin was known for his droll, deadpan humor and awkward, uncomfortably hilarious moments on screen, he’s being remembered with the utmost warmth and sincerity on Tuesday following news of his passing.

Icons of comedy and film like Steve Martin, Albert Brooks, Kathy Griffin, Marc Maron, Patton Oswalt and many more shared their experiences meeting and working with Grodin, with Martin referring to him as “one of the funniest people I ever met.”

“I loved Charles Grodin so much. He would bust my balls and give me so much s— in a way that left me no choice but to giggle with glee. Never mean spirited, just quick and brilliant,” Griffin said in a tweet.

“A brilliant comedy actor. I had the wonderful experience of working with him in my first feature ‘Real Life’ and he was amazing. Rest In Peace, Chuck,” Brooks added.

Fans and celebs online...

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.

Audition (Takashi Miike)

Perhaps I’ve been subconsciously squeamishly avoiding it, but I’ve been waiting to see Takashi Miike’s Audition for some time and now the opportunity has easily arrived courtesy of Mubi. As Daisy Phillipson writes for Little White Lies, “On closer inspection, however, Miike asks us to consider the cultural context in which the film is set. Based on a novel by Ryu Murakami, who often uses social commentary to skewer concerns facing modern Japan, Audition offers an ingenious twist on national femininity by subverting the passive female horror narrative.”

Where to Stream: Mubi (free for 30 days)

The Conformist (Bernardo Bertolucci)

One of the most ravishing movies ever made,...

Now that we’re entering Year 2 of our pandemic purgatory, here’s at least one positive takeaway: We’re coming to terms with our past — our movie past, that is. Two films circa 1951 and 1966 represent a personal case in point. Miracle In Milan (1951) starts with a lost baby and an operatic cop, but it’s touching and absurdist. Lawrence of Arabia (1962) delivers an empathetic protagonist with a Trumpian addiction to violence that seems relevant.

The fact that films like these are being re-visited and debated tells us something about our post-viral culture: A vacancy sign hangs over what passes for the movie scene. But viewing classic movies demands qualities I am deficient in –- patience, for example.

Pre-streamer filmmakers were leisurely in their pacing, which by today’s standards seems gratifying, yet soporific. “Leave lots of string between the pearls,” Billy Wilder used to advise his acolytes, which translates into...

Natalie Portman was 19 years old when she was cast alongside Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Christopher Walken in Mike Nichols’ Central Park production of “The Seagull.” As the Oscar-winning actress tells author Mark Harris in his new book, “Mike Nichols, A Life” (now available for purchase), it was the director who gave her the encouragement to stand next to acting titans such as Streep and Hoffman and not feel completely out of her league. Nichols became a mentor figure to Portman during the production, the likes of which Portman never had or never would have again in Hollywood.

As Harris writes in “Mike Nichols, A Life”: “‘I was nineteen,’ says Portman, ‘and I hadn’t done anything I had needed to research except for Anne Frank. I’d watch Phil [Hoffman] write down question after question in his notebook, and Meryl [Streep] would make up songs to sing and put...

Writer-director Deon Taylor will direct the upcoming film “Freedom Ride,” based on first-person accounts of the original freedom riders, including the late Congressman John Lewis.

Taylor and his Hidden Empire Film Group partner Robert F. Smith will executive produce the project, joining a producing team that includes civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump and his company, Brooklyn Media, as well as The Hideaway Entertainment and Inde Companies.

“John Lewis once said, ‘You are a light. You are the light! Never let anyone — any person or any force — dampen, dim or diminish your light…Release the need to hate, to harbor division, and the enticement of revenge. Release all bitterness. Hold only love, only peace in your heart, knowing that the battle of good to overcome evil is already won.’ His words not only resonate with me as human, but inspire me to tell his amazing story,” Taylor said in a statement.

In today’s TV news roundup, OWN premiered a trailer for its new legal drama “Delilah,” and Charter Communications announced that president and chief operating officer John Bickham will retire in 2022.

First Looks

OWN dropped a trailer for “Delilah,” which hails from Craig Wright. The new drama series, which is set to debut in March, follows its titular character (played by Maahra Hill) after she leaves a prestigious white-shoe law firm to raise her children. Now, she takes on oft-ignored cases, representing disenfranchised groups and going toe-to-toe with the powerful and privileged. But this time, she’s up against her best friend and fellow attorney Tamara (Jill Marie Jones) — and lives are at stake. Watch the trailer below.

Executive News

Fox News Media has tapped The Federalist publisher and co-founder Ben Domenech as a contributor, CEO Suzanne Scott announced. In the role, Domenech will provide political commentary across all Fox...

Mark Harris has written two remarkable books, both about important moments in Hollywood history. The first, “Pictures at a Revolution,” dealt with the Oscar race of 1967 and how that year’s Best Picture nominees represented the past, present and future of the industry. Then there was 2014’s “Five Came Back,” about the A-list directors who left their careers behind to take part in WWII — and how their work changed upon their return.

Now, Harris has written almost 600 pages about one man only, and it may be the best biography of an artist in a very long time. That man is performer-turned-director Mike Nichols, the winner of one Oscar, two Emmys and eight Tony Awards. “In the last two books, I had the luxury of going back and forth between main characters,” said Harris, who titled his work “Mike Nichols: A Life.” “In this one, I had no one else to cut to.

Like the National Film Registry but in a more 'in the now' kind of way the American Film Institute offers up a top ten list each year meant to denote American screen entertainments that are "culturally and artistically representative" of the artform that year. This year's jury included luminaries like Oscar winner Marlee Martlin, Oscar nominees Cynthia Erivo and Rian Johnson, Honorary Oscar winner Wes Studi, 2021 Kennedy Center Honoree Debbie Allen, Emmy winner Amy Sherman-Palladino, Director Lulu Wang, film historians like Molly Haskell, Mark Harris, and Leonard Maltin, and many more including critics from Los Angeles Times, Rolling Stone, TV Guide, and The Washington Post. Here's what they came up with after the jump...

The American Film Institute’s annual lists showcasing the top 10 movies and TV shows of the year always include multiple awards frontrunners and this year is no exception. The two juries — which are a mix of critics, academics, and film professionals — always celebrate the best of American cinema and television. Given its Broadway provenance, “Hamilton” landed a Special Award from the American Film Institute juries, as internationally-flavored Bong Joon Ho’s “Parasite” and Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s “Fleabag” did last year.

This year’s crop is diverse, with films from lauded veterans Spike Lee, David Fincher, and Pete Docter alongside relative newcomers to the awards conversation like Shaka King, Chloe Zhao, and Lee Isaac Chung.

Like last year, eight of the ten films were directed by men, with two women, Zhao (“Nomadland”) and Regina King (“One Night in Miami”), also on deck for the honor. On the TV side, newcomers “Bridgerton,...

The American Film Institute’s annual lists showcasing the top 10 movies and TV shows of the year always include multiple awards frontrunners and this year is no exception. The two juries — which are a mix of critics, academics, and film professionals — always celebrate the best of American cinema and television. Given its Broadway provenance, “Hamilton” landed a Special Award from the American Film Institute juries, as internationally-flavored Bong Joon Ho’s “Parasite” and Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s “Fleabag” did last year.

This year’s crop is diverse, with films from lauded veterans Spike Lee, David Fincher, and Pete Docter alongside relative newcomers to the awards conversation like Shaka King, Chloe Zhao, and Lee Isaac Chung.

Like last year, eight of the ten films were directed by men, with two women, Zhao (“Nomadland”) and Regina King (“One Night in Miami”), also on deck for the honor. On the TV side, newcomers “Bridgerton,...

Netflix leads the list of for the American Film Institute’s AFI Movies of the Year with four films, a record haul for them or any streamer in this annual prestigious list that often mirrors the lion’s share of future Oscar Best Picture nominees.

Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods, David Fincher’s Mank, George C. Wolfe’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom and Aaron Sorkin’s ever-relevant The Trial of the Chicago 7 made the cut for Netflix in this pandemic-affected year Among other streamers Amazon Studios also had an impressive showing with two films including Sound of Metal and Regina King’s directorial debut One Night In Miami. Disney+ scored with Pixar’s animated Soul, while the Mouse House studio’s Fox acquisition Searchlight is there with Nomadland.

In a sign of these times, or at least the delayed potential contenders from what we would call major studio releases,...

John le Carré was lauded Sunday as a writer’s writer whose productivity and singular storytelling style was praised by fans ranging from late night star Seth Meyers to fellow novelists Stephen King and Paulo Coelho.

Le Carré, who died Dec. 12 at the age of 89, was known as a master of espionage fiction who turned out 25 novels over more than a half-century of writing. His signature works — including “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” and “The Spy Who Came in From the Cold” — captured drama and tension of Cold War geopolitical jockeying like no other contemporary scribe.

Le Carré’s novels were widely adapted as film and TV properties over the years, including 2005’s “The Constant Gardener,” which earned an Oscar for star Rachel Weisz, and 1965’s “The Spy Who Came in From the Cold,” starring Richard Burton. AMC had a hit in 2016 with limited series “The Night Manager,” starring Tom Hiddleston and Hugh Laurie.

David Fincher’s “Mank,” a drama set in the Hollywood of the 1930s and ’40s and focusing on “Citizen Kane” screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz, has found itself embroiled in an argument that began when Fincher was only 8 years old. It’s a battle whose combatants included film critic Pauline Kael, director Peter Bogdanovich and Orson Welles himself.

At issue is the question of how much Welles contributed to the “Kane” script, for which he and Mankiewicz are both credited. Welles’ critics say the screenplay was almost entirely Mankiewicz’s creation, with the director-actor-producer trying to seize writing credit from the man who actually did the work. Welles’ supporters say that Mankiewicz and Welles simultaneously wrote first drafts, which Welles then turned into the final script, largely without input from Mankiewicz.

“Mank” does not adhere strictly to either viewpoint, and much of the film is devoted more to the California gubernatorial election...

The Supporting Actress Smackdown series picks an Oscar vintage -- 1991 this time -- and explores. 

The Nominees Oscar went with two sentimental favourite veterans (Jessica Tandy and Diane Ladd) and three first-timers who were having hard-to-ignore years. This shortlist was full of characters: a chatterbox octogenarian, an agressively needy video store owner, a sexually mercurial teenager, a monstrous southern matriarch, and a proto-feminist in the deep south.

The Panel  Here to talk about the performances and films are, in alpha order, entertainment journalist Mark Harris ("Pictures at a Revolution", "Five Came Back"), Tony winning actress Nikki M James (The Book of Mormon, The Good Fight), Tony nominated actor Rory O'Malley (The Book of Mormon, Hamilton), Vanity Fair's deputy editor Katey Rich, Drama Desk winning actor Nick Westrate (Casa Valentina, Turn: Washington's Spies), and your host at The Film Experience, Nathaniel R. Let's begin...

1991

Supporting Actress Smackdown + Podcast  

The...

Bruce Fretts, longtime critic and entertainment journalist for Entertainment Weekly, TV Guide and other publications, died Friday at age 54.

According to his brother Chris Fretts’ Facebook post, Bruces Fretts had been battling Neuroleptic Malignant Syndrome (Nms), a rare reaction to certain medications including those that treat schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and other mental health conditions.

During a long and storied career as an entertainment journalist, Fretts worked as a critic for a decade at Entertainment Weekly in the 1990s and later as a writer and editor at TV Guide — where he wrote the “Cheers and Jeers” column on the back page for many years. Since 2014, he served as articles editor for Closer Weekly. In addition, he worked as a freelance writer and interviewer for a variety of outlets, such as the New York Times, the SAG-AFTRA Foundation and Emmy magazine.

He is survived by two children, Jed and Olive.

Also Read:...

Carl Reiner, a comedian, actor, and director best known for his roles on the Dick Van Dyke Show and the Ocean's movies, has died.

He was 98.

Variety first reported the news.

According to reports, Reiner passed away at his home in Beverly Hills Monday night, and was surrounded by his family.

He died of natural causes, according to his assistant, who shared the news wit Variety.

Reiner's manager George Shapiro took to Twitter earlier this week to share a photo of Reiner, his daughter, and Mel Brooks.

Reiner has been a part of some of the biggest TV shows and movies around, with an IMDb page that boasts more than 400 credits to his name.

In addition to starring in The Dick Van Dyke Show, he also created it. The popular series aired from 1961 to 66 and earned Reiner several Emmy wins.

Throughout his multi-decade career, he scored nine Primetime Emmy wins.