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This piece was originally published in Issue 4 of Notebook magazine as part of a broader exploration of cinematic soundscapes in their diverse sonic forms. The magazine is available via direct subscription or in select stores around the world.Growing up, I experienced stage fright—I wasn’t comfortable performing in front of an audience. I wanted to change that aspect of myself, so in high school I joined a theater group. There, I learned about various traditional Japanese art forms that focus on oral storytelling, for example rakugo and kōdan.1 My encounters with these art forms led me to benshi. I had assumed there were no benshi alive anymore, that the tradition had died out. But then, when I was eighteen, I saw a performance by Midori Sawato and was completely taken aback; it was my first encounter of actual benshi, active in the present day. The performance was captivating.

This piece was originally published in Issue 5 of Notebook magazine as part of a broader exploration of the instructional form. The magazine is available via direct subscription or in select stores around the world.On October 18, 1962, Twa flight 801 from Rome touched down at New York’s Idlewild Airport. Among the passengers was an actress by the name of Dolores Hart, and she was more anxious on the ground than she was in the air. Hart was the star of MGM’s forthcoming sex romp, Come Fly With Me, about three airline hostesses looking to score rich husbands. The film had wrapped in Vienna in August, and Hart was scheduled for a grueling cross-country promotional campaign. But that wasn’t what had her anxious. Just days before her 24th birthday, Hart was wrestling with the idea of ditching the film industry and—despite smooching Elvis Presley in Loving You, defending a...

This feature was published in Issue 5 of Notebook magazine as part of a broader exploration of the instructional form. The magazine is available via direct subscription or in select stores around the world.Lupino Lane’s acrobatic slapstick, saucer-eyed charm and comic timing made him a sensation in the music halls of his native London and on cinema screens around the world. He guaranteed his place in pop culture posterity when he first presented the sharp-elbowed strolling dance, “The Lambeth Walk,” in the 1937 hit West End musical Me and My Girl. Lane also starred in Albert de Courville’s film adaptation The Lambeth Walk in 1939, which transformed the cockney jig into a global craze. Lane was born in 1892 into the Lupino theatrical dynasty, which traced its on-stage activities back to the seventeenth century and would soon swell to include his young cousin Ida Lupino, who followed him to Hollywood. Under the moniker “Little Nipper,...

The Boys star Nathan Mitchell shares an update on the final season of the hit Prime Video series and what the audience can expect from Black Noir, the character he plays in the show. While he couldn’t give specifics, he teased fans that they have some crazy stuff in store for them.

Black Noir in The Boys / Amazon Prime Video

Season 5 will be the final installment in the satirical superhero television series, but showrunner Eric Kripke promised that there will be more spinoffs to come and more interesting stories to look forward to.

Nathan Mitchell Provides Hopeful Updates On The Boys Season 5

In an exclusive interview with The Direct, The Boys star Nathan Mitchell revealed they will soon be back in production after Season 4 wrapped up last month.

I’ve heard inklings, but hopefully, we head back. I don’t know if I can officially say when we go back.

Rachel McAdams, known for her beyond-unforgettable role in The Notebook, took another shot at a love story with Channing Tatum, but fans didn’t hold back their opinions. McAdams’ The Vow, though heartfelt, struggled to escape the shadow of her iconic chemistry with Ryan Gosling. While Tatum’s performance brought its charm, it’s clear that Gosling’s absence left a noticeable gap.

Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling in The Notebook | Gran Via

Dive into the drama as McAdams steers through the tricky terrain of love stories and fan expectations, proving that some on-screen pairings are just too iconic to be replaced!

Rachel McAdams’ The Vow falls flat in the wake of The Notebook magic Rachel McAdams And Channing Tatum In The Vow | Spyglass Entertainment

Rachel McAdams, the queen of tragic romance, dropped another tearjerker, The Vow. But hold your tissues, folks, ’cause this one’s a clunker. Fans were crying,...

After three weekends of Pixar’s “Inside Out 2” dominating to become the biggest blockbuster of the year, another animated sequel took over the 4th of July weekend. Read on for the weekend box office report.

Universal released Illumination Entertainment’s animated sequel “Despicable Me 4,” once again starring Steve Carell as the voice of Gru, into 4,428 theaters on Wednesday. After making $27 million on Wednesday, and another $20.4 million on July 4, the franchise favorite earned another $75 million (estimated) over the three-day weekend for a five-day total of $122.6 million, including Wednesday and Thursday. With that, the “Minions” franchise holds three of the biggest Fourth of July openings and the biggest since “Minions: The Rise of Gru” opened with $107 million in 2022.

Even though reviews were mixed at best with 54% on Rotten Tomatoes, audiences rated it higher, going by its “A” CinemaScore.

“Despicable Me 4” opened in 52 additional markets, including Mexico, Spain and Brazil,...

Portraying an iconic Mattel toy alongside Margot Robbie’s Barbie may be a new pinnacle in Ryan Gosling’s career, but, before landing Oscar nominations and attaining critical acclaim, he’d been singing and dancing away as a Mouseketeer.

Ryan Gosling in Barbie (2023) | Warner Bros.

That’s right, The Mickey Mouse Club was the opening gambit of Gosling’s ascent toward stardom. But over the years, the Canadian actor has come to form a mercurial relationship with Disney for a rather peculiar reason that may or may not be true.

Ryan Gosling Has a “Love-Hate” Relationship With Disney

If there’s one thing Ryan Gosling loves about Disney, it’s Disneyland, so much so that he’s visited the theme park more times than he can count, and a lot of times, by himself. But if there’s one thing he despises about Disney, it’s to do with the...

There’s no telling when and how on-screen chemistry could end up morphing into reality. Just look at what The Notebook did to Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams. In classic enemies-to-lovers fashion, the pair went from wanting to strangle each other to falling head over heels in love.

The Notebook (2004) | New Line Cinema

But while their real-life romance didn’t get the chance to burgeon, Gosling still believed that the flames of their passion burned much brighter than the iconic love story between their characters on-screen.

Ryan Gosling & Rachel McAdams’ Romance Transcends The Notebook

Nicholas Sparks may have penned one of the greatest romantic tales of all time, but Ryan Gosling opined that his love story with co-star Rachel McAdams was far more idyllic than Noah and Allie’s could ever be.

In a GQ interview, Gosling, 43, made it abundantly clear that he and the Mean Girls star were nothing...

Gena Rowlands, the legendary actress who memorably played a woman with dementia in The Notebook, has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, her son and the film’s director Nick Cassavetes has told Entertainment Weekly.

The 2004 movie classic directed by Cassavetes starred Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams as a young couple who fall in love, but are kept apart by barriers of wealth and class. Their story is recounted years later by an elderly man played by James Garner to Rowlands, who is first identified a fellow nursing home resident with dementia. It’s later revealed that Garner and Rowlands are the married, older versions of the characters played by soulmates Gosling and McAdams.

“I got my mom to play older Allie, and we spent a lot of time talking about Alzheimer’s and wanting to be authentic with it, and now, for the last five years, she’s had Alzheimer’s,...

Ryan Gosling is undoubtedly one of the best actors of his generation, starring in a diverse range of films that have shown his versatility as an actor. Outside of films, he is a very charismatic, witty, and funny personality who always charms the media and audiences with his hilarious comments. He is also a family man, married to Eva Mendes, and has two daughters.

Ryan Gosling was recently seen in The Fall Guy | Universal Pictures

The actor was initially very private about his personal life and his dynamic with his family. But, he has been opening up and showering them with love in recent years. Gosling had high praise for the angels in his family while also ridiculing his The Nice Guys co-star Russell Crowe.

Ryan Gosling Gushes About His Angelic Family While Mocking Russell Crowe

Ryan Gosling and Eva Mendes in The Place Beyond The Pines | Focus Features

Ryan...

Ryan Gosling Blamed Show Business For Rachel McAdams Breakup. (Photo Credit – Instagram)

There’s no greater showmance for the Millenials than that of The Notebook costars Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams. In the 2000s, fans couldn’t get enough of the relationship between Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling, the two leads of Nicholas Sparks’ film The Notebook. Fans were equally invested in their breakup after Ryan Reynolds revealed they parted ways because of “Show Business.”

Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling had a rocky start after they met on the set of The Notebook in 2003. According to Et, the pair often butted heads, and Ryan even tried to get Rachel fired!

Director Nick Cassavetes revealed, “Ryan came to me, and there’s 150 people standing in this big scene, and he says, ‘Nick, come here.’ And he’s doing a scene with Rachel, and he says, ‘Would you take her out of...

Notebook is the official publication partner of the 2024 Locarno Critics Academy. This ten-day summer workshop immerses emerging critics in the craft of covering film festivals. Today, we’re excited to announce the ten selected participants.“​​In 2024, the task of selecting ten writers for the Critics Academy was more herculean than ever before,” said the Academy’s co-organizers, Christopher Small, responsible for the texts and publications of the Locarno Film Festival, and Chloe Lizotte, Deputy Editor of Notebook. “No doubt thanks to a new editorial partnership with Notebook, we received more than twice as many applications than in any other year. Our selection will bring a diverse group of writers to the festival in August, traveling to Locarno from all around the globe: Argentina, China, the Dominican Republic, France, Mexico, Romania, Singapore, Switzerland, and the United States. “These critics have varied interests and styles, writing diaristically, historically, academically, commercially—but always,...

Sonakshi Sinha and Zaheer Iqbal are set to officially announce their relationship, will be getting married later this month. The couple has chosen June 23 as their wedding date, and the ceremony is planned to take place at a venue in South Mumbai. Sonakshi’s father, veteran actor Shatrughan Sinha, has given his blessings to the couple.

Both Sonakshi and Zaheer have launched their Bollywood careers with films produced by Salman Khan. Sonakshi debuted with the blockbuster “Dabangg” in 2010, while Zaheer made his first appearance in “Notebook” in 2019. They have also shared the screen in the film “Double Xl”.

Zaheer recently posted a heartfelt message on social media for Sonakshi’s birthday, sharing several affectionate photos of the two together. The post included a tight hug, some selfies, and a glamorous black-and-white shot, accompanied by the caption “Happy Birthday Sonzzz.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Zaheer Iqbal...

Who doesn’t remember as a kid getting the Scholastic catalogue in school and ordering the latest Goosebumps books? You’re about to do it again, only this time, it’s for the first book inspired by Poppy Playtime in Poppy Playtime Orientation Notebook.

Mob Entertainment, the creators of the Poppy Playtime franchise, have announced a new partnership with Scholastic to release the first of many books that delve into the lore of the popular video game series. The novel “promises an unforgettable journey into the enigmatic realm of Playtime Co. and the origins of Huggy Wuggy, the Smiling Critters, and other favorite characters from the hit horror video game.”

“This partnership with Scholastic marks a significant milestone for Mob Entertainment, solidifying our commitment to transmedia storytelling,” said Mob Entertainment co-founders Zach Belanger and Seth Belanger. “Each chapter of our video game series exposes more about Playtime Co. and we...

At first, I was shocked by the news that Participant Media was dying. Such an appealing company. Smart. Mindful. Vibrant. Forward-thinking. The producer of intelligent films like Spotlight and Green Book, with a distinctly progressive message.

How could this be?

Then it finally hit me. Whatever else may have happened—announcing the shutdown, proprietor Jeff Skoll cited “revolutionary” changes in the entertainment business—Participant went under, I believe, because most of high-end Hollywood jumped into the company’s basically sound but modestly sized boat. The purpose-film niche was swamped.

It’s almost hard to remember that 20 years ago, when Participant was founded, the notion of a self-consciously message-oriented, activist film company was actually novel.

But, cinematically speaking, it was a much different world in 2004. The top movie that year was Shrek 2—not much message there. Culturally, the big story was a religious film, The Passion of the Christ. That hasn’t happened since.

Actress Pranutan, who made her acting debut with ‘Notebook’ revealed the story behind her name and its connection with her grandmother, legendary actress Nutan. Pranutan appeared on the special episode of singing reality show ‘Indian Idol 14’, ‘Celebrating Nutan Ji’. Ace actor Mohnish Bahl, was accompanied by his wife, Ekta Sohini, and daughters, Pranutan and Krishaa.

During the episode, Pranutan shared how her grandfather Rajnish Bahl wanted to name her after the ‘Nagina’ star Nutan.

She said: “My grandfather named me; he wanted to name me after his late wife, ‘Nutan.’ However, at the request of my dad, who couldn’t bring himself to call me Nutan out of respect for his mom, I was named Pranutan, which means a new life.”

The episode saw Nagpur’s Utkarsh Wankhede’s marvelous performance of the songs ‘Dil Ka Bhanwar Kare Pukar’ and the title track from the film ‘Tere Ghar Ke Saamne’.

On the work front,...

Mumbai, Jan 18 (Ians) Actress Pranutan Bahl, granddaughter of legendary actress Nutan, is set to star in her maiden Hollywood feature ‘Coco & Nut’, opposite American actor-filmmaker Rahsaan Noor.

Billed as a “spirit-lifting romance”, the charming love story is directed by Rahsaan Noor.

“Feeling worthless, an ambitious young woman (Pranutan) fighting to save her marriage gets a pick-me-up from her know-it-all college sweetheart (Rahsaan),” the official logline of ‘Coco & Nut’ reads.

Production for the film will be in English and Hindi and will take place entirely in Chicago from June to July this year, with a diverse cast and crew drawn from both the United States and India.

After films like Salman Khan backed ‘Notebook’ (2019) and comedy drama Helmet (2022), the upcoming film marks Pranutan’s International debut.

“I’ve always wanted to do a romantic drama,” Pranutan expressed.

“‘Coco & Nut’ is a beautiful story in which my character, Nut, journeys through a transformative phase in her life.

The worlds of fashion and film are tailor-made for each other in Season 5 of the critically acclaimed “Mubi Podcast.”

The new season of the global streaming platform, production company, and film distributor’s ongoing audio series debuts January 25, and IndieWire announces this year’s slate of guests and topics below. Titled “Tailor Made” and hosted by arts and travel reporter Rico Gagliano, the documentary podcast’s newest installment is available on all major platforms and via Mubi’s publication, “Notebook.”

Each episode of the season “tackles a landmark movie that captured a major fashion look of an era, and then decodes what that look meant — to the culture that spawned it, the people who wore it, and the audiences who watched it on screen,” per Mubi.

From Jean Seberg’s inimitable style in Jean-Luc Godard’s “Breathless” to a two-part exploration of how fashion folds into Sofia Coppola’s entire career,...

“Sleepless in Seattle,” “Punch-Drunk Love” and four more films from Columbia Pictures will make their 4K Ultra HD debut Feb. 13, 2024, via Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.

Columbia Classics 4K Ultra HD Collection Vol. 4, the latest installment in Sphe’s series of limited edition sets culling critical and commercial hits from the studio’s storied library, will feature Nora Ephron and Paul Thomas Anderson’s romantic comedies — along with Howard Hawks’ “His Girl Friday,” Stanley Kramer’s “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner,” Robert Benton’s “Kramer vs. Kramer” and John Carpenter’s “Starman.” In addition to more than 30 hours of legacy bonus content for each film, the set includes a bonus disc featuring the entirety of the 1986 “Starman” television series, as well as an 80-page hardbound book exploring the impact and legacy of the six films.

Matching its predecessors, the packaging for the set showcases the included titles, and opens to display...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSSubscribe to Notebook magazine before November 1 to receive Issue 4, which explores cinematic soundscapes in their diverse sonic forms and includes contributions from filmmakers like Pedro Costa, Garrett Bradley, and Dominga Sotomayor, pop musician Julia Holter, plus a wide range of artists, writers, and scholars. Subscribers will also receive with this issue a very special gift, a seven-inch record featuring a song by filmmaker Gus Van Sant and a field recording by sound designer Leslie Shatz.This week brought the sad, shocking news that the legendary Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-hsien has retired from filmmaking due to illness. Hou's family confirmed in a statement that he is battling Alzheimer's, and the effects of long Covid have forced him to stop making films; they requested privacy during this time, adding that he is healthy overall, in the presence of family.

Fresh off Britney Spears’ reveal in her upcoming memoir, “The Woman in Me,” that she made it to the final round of auditions to play Allie opposite Ryan Gosling in “The Notebook, the Daily Mail has exclusively shared the pop singer’s emotional casting tape. In the video, Spears is brought to the edge of tears while reading a scene opposite Gosling, who is off camera during the audition. The singer, who had previously only acted in the film “Crossroads” at the time of this audition, was tasked with reading a scene in which Allie tells Gosling’s Noah she is going to marry another man.

“I’m not staying,” Spears says in character. “I tried to call you to tell you that I wasn’t going to stay — but nobody answered the phone… Noah, you can’t marry two people. And I’m marrying Lon, so I should go,...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSWe’re thrilled to introduce Notebook’s email newsletter, the Weekly Edit: a mix of our latest essays, interviews, and festival coverage, with a few archival gems to boot. Learn more and sign up here.REMEMBERINGThe Cow.This weekend brought devastating news that Dariush Mehrjui, the landmark Iranian filmmaker, and his wife and screenwriting partner Vahideh Mohammadifar were found murdered in their home. A lifelong enemy of state censorship, Mehrjui helped kick off the Iranian New Wave with his second feature, The Cow (1969), which was denied an export permit when it was originally completed. “Despite the fact that the film was funded by the Ministry of Culture and Arts, the Pahlavi regime preferred not to have the film’s portrayal of rural Iranian village life color the nation’s desired image of modernity on the world stage,...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.The Deep Blue Sea.REMEMBERINGTerence Davies has died, aged 77. Michael Koresky, who wrote a monograph on Davies in 2014, penned a beautiful Sight & Sound obituary, in which he wrote that “no one made movies like Davies, who precisely sculpted out of a subjective past, creating films that glided on waves of contemplation and observation, inviting viewers to join him in the burnished darkness of a past about which he felt complex, contradictory feelings.” Last year, Dan Schindel wrote for Notebook about the role of poetry in Benediction (2022), and in 2012, Michael Guillen interviewed Davies about The Deep Blue Sea (2011). "The problem with film is that it's always in the eternal present,” says Davies. “But it's closest, I think, to music. You don't have to be a musician to follow a symphonic argument. If you love the music,...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSOn July 13, SAG-AFTRA issued a strike order, joining the WGA, who have been striking since May. In an incendiary speech, the guild’s president, Fran Drescher, said: “SAG-AFTRA negotiated in good faith and was eager to reach a deal that sufficiently addressed performer needs, but the AMPTP’s responses to the union’s most important proposals have been insulting and disrespectful of our massive contributions to this industry…Until they do negotiate in good faith, we cannot begin to reach a deal.” This Vulture Q&a with Jonathan Handel, author of Hollywood on Strike!: An Industry at War in the Internet Age, delves into the details of the work stoppage.Applications are open for Open City Documentary Festival & Another Gaze’s third annual critics’ workshop, which will take place in early September during the festival.

On the plane after dropping her children off to her ex, the lyrics would pour out of Kelly Clarkson.

“To be just frank,” the star says, “there would be times I’d fly my kids to my ex and then I’d have to fly back and then wake back up hours later for work again. And I was exhausted physically, mentally, emotionally. On those flights back when I’m by myself, those were the really hard moments. And that’s when a lot of the songs were written because there’s so much that was going on and I was processing so much. Honestly, a lot of the songs were written in those moments on the way back.”

Kelly Clarkson and ex-husband Brandon Blackstock

She continues, half-joking and half-serious: “I should have named the album On the Way Back.”

The singer went with another title — chemistry — and the 14-track...

Below you will find the results of Notebook's critics' poll for the best films of the Cannes Film Festival, as well as an index of our coverage of the festival.Awardstop 101. Fallen Leaves (Aki Kaurismäki)2. The Zone of Interest (Jonathan Glazer)3. May December (Todd Haynes)4. Anatomy of a Fall (Justine Triet)5. Close Your Eyes (Víctor Erice)6. Killers of the Flower Moon (Martin Scorsese)7. La chimera (Alice Rohrwacher)8. The Pot-au-feu (Tràn Anh Hùng)9. A Prince (Pierre Creton)10. Last Summer (Catherine Breillat)(Poll contributors: Pedro Emilio Segura Bernal, Anna Bogutskaya, Jordan Cronk, Flavia Dima, Lawrence Garcia, Leonardo Goi, Daniel Kasman, Jessica Kiang, Roger Koza, Elena Lazic, Beatrice Loayza, Guy Lodge, Łukasz Mańkowski, Savina Petkova, Caitlin Quinlan, Vadim Rizov, Christopher Small, Öykü Sofuoğlu, Blake Williams)DISPATCHESThe Obscenity of EvilLeonardo Goi on The Zone of Interest (Jonathan Glazer), The Sweet East (Sean Price Williams), Eureka (Lisandro Alonso), and Killers of the Flower Moon...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI, and sign up for our weekly email newsletter by clicking here.NEWSLeos Carax in Holy Motors (2012).On Monday, SAG-AFTRA members voted 97.9 percent in favor of a strike if their contract negotiations stall. This sets the stage for an industry-wide work stoppage in solidarity with the Writers Guild, even after the weekend’s news that the Directors Guild had reached a tentative agreement with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.Away from Hollywood, CG Cinema have confirmed that Leos Carax has wrapped production on a new film, C’est pas moi, set to release in 2024. This is a "free format" self-portrait, spanning the "major stations" of Carax's four-decade career amid "the political tremors of the time." The images shared by CG Cinema feature Denis Lavant in character as Monsieur Merde, made infamous in...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI, and sign up for our weekly email newsletter by clicking here.NEWSWe’re excited to share the cover for Issue 3 of Notebook, which features a photograph of pioneering Indian actor-producer Devika Rani. Last week we sneak-previewed what will be the subscribers-only gift: a weatherproof sleeve. Subscriptions for the magazine are always open, but in order to receive Issue 3, you’ll need to subscribe by June 1. So if you haven’t yet, don’t hesitate! Some news from the Golden Apricot International Film Festival in Yerevan, Armenia. Notebook contributor Leonardo Goi will be organizing their Critics Campus, a four-day workshop for emerging film critics, in early July. Applications are now open: submit yours today. Recommended VIEWINGHow To With John Wilson is returning for its third, and final, season, which will premiere July 28 on "Max," the...

Rachel McAdams’ mother is desperate for her to make a ‘Game Night’ sequel. The 44-year-old actress had a great time working on the 2018 action comedy – in which she played Annie Davis – and she’d love to make a follow-up film, partly because she enjoyed collaborating with directors Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley, but also because she doesn’t want to disappoint her mom, Sandra. She told Empire magazine: “You know, right after my mom saw that movie, she was like, ‘You have to do a sequel’. “I would totally be down for that. I love (John and Jonathan) and I love a game night, so it’s the perfect package for me. “Also, I don’t wanna disappoint my mom.” Rachel also hasn’t ruled out making a return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe after last appearing as Christine Palmer in ‘Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness’, despite...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI, and sign up for our weekly email newsletter by clicking here.REMEMBRANCEIsland in the Sun.The singer, actor, and civil rights activist Harry Belafonte has died, aged 96. Christina Newland wrote a piece on Belafonte for Notebook in 2020, praising his politics, his style, his music, and his work ss stage and screen. "His impact on American mid-century life has been so significant that it’s difficult to define him as any single thing, or to see him occupying only one role."NEWSNo Bears.Jafar Panahi has left Iran for the first time in fourteen years, it is being reported. Posting from an airport, his wife Tahereh Saeedi tweeted that, “after 14 years, Jafar’s ban was cancelled" and, that finally, the pair are "going to travel together for a few days…”The Cannes Film Festival have...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI, and sign up for our weekly email newsletter by clicking here.NEWSKillers of the Flower Moon.Amid brewing Cannes selection rumors, a US theatrical release date has been announced for Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, which is being co-distributed by Apple and Paramount. The film will open in limited release on October 6 before expanding nationwide on October 21. This speaks to Apple’s new strategy to spend $1 billion a year on theatrical releases, geared toward raising its profile in the film industry.Unions representing screenwriters in the US are currently negotiating for better working conditions and equitable wages in a new three-year contract. The New York Times looks at whether or not a strike might be likely after the current agreement expires on May 1.Recommended VIEWINGWe’re thrilled to exclusively premiere Mdff...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI, and sign up for our weekly email newsletter by clicking here.NEWSThe Act of Killing. Though he’s known for nonfiction, Joshua Oppenheimer just began production on a musical about the end of the world, fittingly called The End. Filming now in Dublin, it stars Tilda Swinton and George Mackay, via the production company’s website.After 23 years, A.O. Scott is stepping away from film criticism at the New York Times, transitioning to a new role as a critic at large for the Book Review. He conducts his own exit interview.In comedy news, Safdie muse and Razzie record-breaker Adam Sandler was awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor this week in Washington, D.C.Finally, we’re thinking of the character actor Lance Reddick this week, who died suddenly last Friday at...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI, and sign up for our weekly email newsletter by clicking here.NEWSEverything Everywhere All at Once. Everything Everywhere All at Once swept the 95th Academy Awards this weekend, winning Best Picture, Director, Original Screenplay, Editing, and three of the four acting prizes. Read the full list of winners here, and keep your eyes peeled for commentary from our end soon.According to The Hollywood Reporter, Quentin Tarantino is preparing to shoot what could be his final film, The Movie Critic, this autumn. It's set in mid-1970s Los Angeles and will center on a female lead; many are speculating the film could be about Pauline Kael. (Recently on Notebook: read Carlos Valladeres on Tarantino's forays into the written word.)Finally, Jacobin reports on VFX-iatse’s efforts to organize visual effects workers, citing...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI, and sign up for our weekly email newsletter by clicking here.NEWSOn the Adamant.The Berlinale wrapped up over the weekend. The Golden Bear was awarded to Nicolas Philibert’s On the Adamant, while other major prizes went to Christian Petzold, Philippe Garrel, Angela Schanelec, and Dp Hélène Louvart. You can browse the full list of winners on Notebook, and keep your eyes peeled for our reports.In other festival news: Ruben Östlund will preside over this year’s Cannes jury, and the full lineup has been unveiled for Film at Lincoln Center and MoMA’s New Directors/New Films.The pioneering Senegalese filmmaker Safi Faye—the first African woman to make a commercially distributed feature film—died last week at the age of 80. Writer and programmer Yasmina Price recently surfaced a thread of archival material,...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI, and sign up for our weekly email newsletter by clicking here.NEWSStanley Kubrick in Filmworker.Stanley Kubrick’s long-lost passion project, a biopic of Napoleon Bonaparte, may soon be realized. This week at the Berlinale, Steven Spielberg expanded on plans to executive-produce a seven-part series for HBO based on Kubrick’s original script.In June, Terence Davies will begin filming an adaptation of Stefan Zweig’s The Post-Office Girl. According to a production announcement, the cast includes Sophie Cookson, Richard E. Grant, and Verena Altenberger.Recommended VIEWINGWe’ve been enjoying the “redefining the food film” video-essay series on Vittles, a food and culture newsletter. Below is Andrew Key’s discussion of A Woman Under the Influence, and the ways that food can tear us apart:Shellac has shared a first trailer for Angela Schanelec’s Music,...

The Floor Plan Croissant painting "The Grand Central Terminal Staged" (2022) is featured in Issue 2 of Notebook magazine, in the piece "It's Grand... and it's Central!" The issue is currently available in select stores around the world.Boryana Ilieva, aka Floor Plan Croissant.It’s an indisputable truth that film sets are worlds of their own. Production and set design is no less than world-building, defining and fleshing out the spaces in which characters roam. Interiors are often created in accordance with the protagonist that inhabits them, an extension of their inner world as a home—think of the lush London townhouse in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Phantom Thread (2017) matching the orderly opulence of dressmaker Reynolds Woodcock (Daniel Day-Lewis). Often, people find themselves in hotel rooms or holiday rentals which are temporary homes to a searching soul, and it is precisely the pronounced character of these interiors as transient places that...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI, and sign up for our weekly email newsletter by clicking here.NEWSNewly-minted Oscar nominee Andrea Riseborough in To Leslie.The 95th Academy Awards unveiled their full list of nominees yesterday. Browse the categories and relevant coverage on Notebook to prepare for the ceremony, airing March 12. (Andrea Riseborough made the cut.)On Monday, the Berlinale announced their main competition lineup, including new films by Angela Schanelec, Christian Petzold, Margarethe Von Trotta, and Philippe Garrel. Meanwhile, their Encounters section features new films from Hong Sang-soo, Dustin Guy Defa, Tatiana Huezo, and more. Notebook has the full lineup here.Last Wednesday, January 18, filmmaker, critic, and producer Paul Vecchiali died at the age of 92. Patrick Preziosi summed up a bit of his impact in his Notebook Primer on Vecchiali’s film company, Diagonale, “a solar system of the utopian possibilities of cinematic community.

Brooke Adams in Invasion of the Body Snatchers.Movie-lovers!Welcome back to The Deuce Notebook, a collaboration between Mubi's Notebook and The Deuce Film Series, our monthly event at Nitehawk Williamsburg that excavates the facts and fantasies of cinema's most infamous block in the world: 42nd Street between 7th and 8th Avenues. For each screening, my co-hosts and I pick a title that we think embodies the era of 24-hour movie grinding, and present the venue at which it premiered…This month, we welcome our friend and guest writer Madelyn Sutton, whose delicious piece on naughty nuns was featured last September. Madelyn recently spoke with the enigmatic and inimitable actress Brooke Adams—who, in 1978 alone, appeared (at the same time) at both mainstream cinemas and uptown arthouses in Kaufman’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Malick’s Days of Heaven. This year’s re-release of Michael Roemer’s...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSAnne Heche in Psycho.Anne Heche has died at the age of 53, one week after sustaining critical injuries in a car accident. At Vulture, Matt Zoller Seitz offers a tribute to her "elastic," unclassifiable talent over 35 years of screen roles.Best known for Half of a Yellow Sun, an adaptation of the Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie novel, Nigerian director and novelist Biyi Bandele died aged 54 last week. His second feature, Elesin Oba, The King’s Horseman, is set to premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival next month.In New York, the Downtown Community Television Center (Dctv) will open a documentary cinema in lower Manhattan's Chinatown district, screening first-run debuts and curated programs starting on September 22.Mid-century Italian screen icon Gina Lollobrigida has said she will run for the Sovereign and Popular Italy party (ISP...

Welcome to the return of Intermission, a spin-off podcast from The Film Stage Show. Led by yours truly, Michael Snydel, I invite a guest to discuss an arthouse, foreign, or experimental film of their choice.

For the thirteenth episode, I talked to Susannah Gruder, a New York-based film critic with bylines at outlets including Reverse Shot, Bright Wall/Dark Room, Indiewire, Mubi Notebook, and Hyperallergic. On today’s episode, we talked about George Sluizer’s 1988 French/Dutch existential procedural, The Vanishing (available on the Criterion Channel). An adaptation of Tim Krabbé’s The Golden Egg, the film’s premise is familiar: A couple is on vacation (Gene Bervoets and Johanna ter Steege), they stop at a crowded rest stop, and one of them seems to disappear into thin air. But while Sluizer’s sleek but collected approach nods to mind game masters like Alfred Hitchcock and suggests the forensic obsessions of latter-day crime thrillers,...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSAbove: Titane (2021).Actor Vincent Lindon has been announced as the president of this year's Cannes competition jury, leading a group that includes Rebecca Hall, Deepika Padukone, Jeff Nichols, and Joachim Trier. The festival has also added several pleasant surprises to the lineup: films by Serge Bozon, Albert Serra, Louis Garrel, Patricio Guzmán, and more.Subscribe to our limited-edition, print-only Notebook magazine by April 30 to secure your copy of Issue 1, featuring a conversation between Ryusuke Hamaguchi and Yoshitomo Nara, a carte blanche contribution by Christopher Doyle, and much more.Recommended VIEWINGAbove: I Know Where I'm Going! (1945) .Martin Scorsese's Film Foundation has launched a virtual screening room for restored films, called the Restoration Screening Room. The fun begins with Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's 1945 film I Know Where I'm Going!, which will be available for...

If any film can lay claim to having inspired the most beautiful promotional art over the years, Fritz Lang’s 1927 Metropolis must be a very strong contender. The original German three-sheet poster designed by Heinz Schulz-Neudamm was a highlight of the Museum of Modern Art’s first ever exhibition of movie posters in 1960 (I wrote about the exhibition for Issue #0 the of Notebook magazine) and now holds the record for the most expensive movie poster ever sold at auction. (Rumor has it that Leonardo DiCaprio owns one of the four existing copies while another can currently be seen on display at MoMA). I’ve written about Boris Bilinsky’s stunning French poster for the film in the past. And then you have beautiful contemporary Mondo posters by the likes of Kilian Eng and William Stout.But the trove of exquisite Metropolis art was expanded recently when two very rare Japanese...

Ryan Gosling has us crying yet again. But this time, we're shedding tears over a role he didn't play. Atlanta creator and star Donald Glover recently let it slip that the Notebook actor almost starred in an episode of the critically-acclaimed show.  "He said he was a big fan, but he had something else, and it just didn't work out," Glover told reporters at Atlanta's season three red carpet premiere. "I was so bummed because the part was so great for him!" Even though Gosling's appearance fell through, fans are still glad to see new episodes of Atlanta. After all, it's been nearly four years since Earn (Glover),...

My favorite film of the Berlinale was Queens of the Qing Dynasty, Ashley McKenzie’s ambitious and otherworldly fantasia about a “queer friendship romance” between a suicidal young woman and a Chinese immigrant she meets while hospitalized. Inspired by two teenagers she befriended during the casting of her previous feature, Werewolf (2016), McKenzie first sketched out the central character, Star (Sarah Walker), whose everyday life is mediated by endless negotiations with social workers, doctors, guardians, landlords and the various bureaucracies that employ them. Star is aging out of child protective services and has been deemed unfit to live independently, so as […]

The post Berlinale 2022 Critic’s Notebook: Queens of the Qing Dynasty, Dry Ground Burning, Rewind and Play, Camouflage, Happer’s Comet, The Middle Ages first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

My favorite film of the Berlinale was Queens of the Qing Dynasty, Ashley McKenzie’s ambitious and otherworldly fantasia about a “queer friendship romance” between a suicidal young woman and a Chinese immigrant she meets while hospitalized. Inspired by two teenagers she befriended during the casting of her previous feature, Werewolf (2016), McKenzie first sketched out the central character, Star (Sarah Walker), whose everyday life is mediated by endless negotiations with social workers, doctors, guardians, landlords and the various bureaucracies that employ them. Star is aging out of child protective services and has been deemed unfit to live independently, so as […]

The post Berlinale 2022 Critic’s Notebook: Queens of the Qing Dynasty, Dry Ground Burning, Rewind and Play, Camouflage, Happer’s Comet, The Middle Ages first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSDore O.'s Alaska (1968)The German avant-garde artist Dore O., whose poetic films were at once vast and intimate explorations of dreams, has died at 75. O. was a founder of the Hamburg Filmmakers Co-op (1968-1974), a participant in the famous German exhibit documenta 5 in 1972, and a prolific painter. The DVD label Re:voir Video had recently released a collection of six restored films by O. In 1988, the critic Dietrich Kuhlbrodt wrote: "Dore O. has become classic, and suddenly it turns out that her work has passed the various currents of time unharmed: the time of the cooperative union, the women's film, the structuralists and grammarians, the teachers of new ways of seeing."Subscriptions are now open for Notebook magazine, our print-only publication devoted to the art and culture of cinema. Subscribe now and you’ll...

America has officially celebrated Women’s History month since the 1980s when a feminist surge for equal job opportunities and education blossomed out of local celebrations and the International Women’s Day holiday, as well as Women’s History Week. And for the entire month of March, the streaming service HBO Max is celebrating Women’s History Month with programming devoted entirely to stories about women.

HBO Max is stacked with movies and shows that show complex female leads, and along with their spotlight page offerings, HBO is offering a first ever in-app trivia experience to celebrate the event. The HBO Max Women’s History Month Trivia tray allows fans to discover entertainment milestones that all involve women. To reveal the answer, viewers can simply click or tap the tile.

HBO Max has curated a list of films, TV shows and documentaries that reflect empowering and challenging female characters, overlooked and underrated performances,...

A selection at Cannes, TIFF, NYFF, Busan, IDFA, Doc NYC, and many more, Payal Kapadia’s directorial debut A Night of Knowing Nothing is one of my early favorites of this year. A poignant mix of fiction and documentary, with a remarkable, dreamlike sense of time, the film imagines love letters uncovered at the Film and Television Institute of India, but soon evolves into a look at protest and the value of education without ever abandoning its hypnotic formal approach.

Shot on and off over the course of two years, the film went on to win the best documentary at Cannes and now Cinema Guild will release it in theaters beginning February 11 at the Musem of Modern Art, followed by a national rollout. Ahead of the release, we’re pleased to debut the exclusive trailer.

“The more I thought about it, the more I began to think that perhaps all films are political,...

Above: Hungarian poster for The Girl. Designer unknown.It is a banner month for Hungarian Cinema in New York. While the downtown Metrograph is showing six restored classics by the great Miklós Jancsó, uptown at Film at Lincoln Center a major retrospective of the films of the equally important Márta Mészáros starts today. Mészáros was married to Jancsó from 1958 to 1973 and they had three children together, but her quiet, observant, and very personal films could hardly be more different. There is already an excellent primer to Mészáros’s films on Notebook (last year Mubi hosted the online retrospective Independent Women: The Pioneering Cinema of Márta Mészáros in many countries), so I direct you there for more information on her extraordinary life and 60-year career (she is now 90-years-old and made her last film just five years ago). Film at Lincoln Center is cramming eleven of her best films (she’s...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSHong Sang-soo's The Novelist's Film (2022)The competition slate has been announced for this year's Berlinale, featuring the latest by Hong Sang-soo, Claire Denis, Rithy Panh, Phyllis Nagy, Ulrich Seidl, and more. Find the rest of the lineup here. In an interview with Variety, executive Mariette Rissenbeek and artistic director Carlo Chatrian discuss their plans for the festival to be an in-person event. Actor Michel Subor has died at the age of 86. Subor captivated audiences with his performances in films like Jean-Luc Godard's Le petit soldat (1960)—he also was the narrator for François Truffaut's Jules and Jim (1962)—and a number of films by Claire Denis, from Beau travail (1999) and L'intrus (2004) to White Material (2009) and Bastards (2013). We recommend reading Yasmina Price's excellent essay on L'intrus and Subor's distinct historiography as an actor. Recommended VIEWINGThe...