It’s hard not to get a little giddy when you read the names Pedro Almodóvar, Ethan Hawke, and Pedro Pascal in the same sentence as “gay western.” Anyone familiar with the iconic Spanish director’s work was probably imagining scenes in their head starring two of pop culture’s favorite daddies the second the short film was announced. Now that it’s finally...

With the major Fall film festivals - Venice, Telluride, and Toronto - behind us, it's time to shift our focus to the 2024 Oscar race. It's all fun and games until we actually see the films, right? Despite the hurdles such as the writers' and actors' strikes, this year promises to be a remarkable one for the film industry. Of...

We have an idea of what ballet "should look like." In films like Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan, Robert Altman's The Company and even the beloved Center Stage, we see the exertion and the (literal) blood, sweat, and tears is takes to leap to the top. Those films all center on characters with equal amounts of privilege and dedication. David Petersen's Lift,...

I had a plan for how this TIFF was going to go. I was going to meet friends for drinks, have proper meals between screenings, and make an earnest attempt at planning my schedule in advance. Wishful thinking. I barely got to see much of anyone and sustained myself with protein bars stashed in my purse and pure adrenaline. Due...

“It’s a very lonely sort of life,” Claire Foy’s youthful ghoul of a mother says to her son, who clearly eclipses her age of death in their posthumous meetings (undeniably gorgeous as Andrew Scott may be). He, Adam, has just come out to her as gay, and she dishes out all the worrywart talking points of a mother who didn’t...

Next Generation Indie Film Awards Foundation announced today the nominees for its 2023 Awards Gala, taking place on October 29th at Loews Hotel in Los Angeles for its third year. Next Generation Indie Film Awards is a non-profit organization started by award-winning film producers and the founders of Next Generation Indie Book Awards supporting filmmakers through its annual awards and...

The countdown to the 2024 Sundance Film Festival starts now! With the 40th edition of the Festival just months away — taking place from January 18-28 in Park City and Salt Lake City, Utah and online from January 25-28 — the nonprofit Sundance Institute revealed today the Festival site, ticketing details, and on sale dates. Find everything you need to...

NEWPORT BEACH, CA (September 20, 2023) – The 2023 Newport Beach Film Festival (NBFF) announced that the festival’s opening night will be the Los Angeles Times Envelope screening of The Absence of Eden, directed by Marco Perego and starring Zoe Saldaña, on Thursday October 12 at the Edwards Big Newport. The festival will close with Focus Features’ The Holdovers, directed by Alexander Payne, on Thursday, October 19 at...

I've spent what probably amounts to entirely too much time trying to think of ways to divide the 40-something films I saw during the Toronto International Film Festival into appropriately-themed diaries. As I began working on part two, a commonality emerged among this next crop of eight films; there was just something about them—a performance, the chemistry between leads, a...

"When they look at you, they see what they want to be. When they look at me, they see what they are." -- Richard Nixon (Anthony Hopkins) Despite its director's leftist leanings, Oliver Stone's 1995 biopic / political thriller hybrid Nixon refuses to paint our 37th president as a demon. Political and popular culture desperately needs to render his legacy...

I've been saying that Lily Gladstone is the lead in Killers of the Flower Moon for a while now. But for whatever reason, pundits kept placing her in the supporting category. This, to me, always seemed strange, even if I did play along. Too many pundits really do believe that we decide the race. That we decide the frontrunners. That...

Today, Montclair Film announced its 2023 Opening Night, Centerpiece, and Closing Night Films, and The 2023 Montclair Film Festival Honors for the 12th Annual Montclair Film Festival, taking place October 20-29, in Montclair, NJ. On Friday, October 20 at 7:00 PM at The Wellmont Theater, the festival opens with DREAM SCENARIO, written and directed by Kristoffer Borgli. In DREAM SCENARIO,...