The Best Actor and Best Picture race just got slightly more interesting as it looks like James Mangold's A Complete Unknown will be part of this year's Oscar race. Bob Dylan has been the single most important influence on my life. There is no one I've listened to longer and loved that him and his music. In my opinion, the...

This will be the dirtiest election in my lifetime. That much I know for sure. Watching the Democrat machine whir to life the minute Kamala Harris was selected and installed as the candidate for the presidency after Joe Biden suffered a medical emergency -- and for days, he was absent in leadership. We have yet to hear from him. We...

The trailer for Joker: Folie à Deux has just been announced and I have to say, I'm looking forward to this one more and more. The reason is that I rewatched Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver last night for a piece I'm working on and I just fell in love with it all over again. Movies will never be that great,...

After a strong anniversary edition featuring the likes of Poor Things and Io Capitano, the pressure is back on Venice to put together a worthy program despite the production delays caused by the strikes last fall. Well, judging by the lineup announced today, they did just fine. It would appear that both Hollywood studios and arthouse auteurs alike continue to...

Writer/director Derek Magyar’s live-action short RIVER OF GRASS set in the 1970’s Florida Everglades shares the story of a young veteran suffering from PTSD, who returns home to his drug smuggling family. His efforts to prove himself collide with his brothers’ criminal affairs, triggering his erratic behaviour. This thrilling short will receive its US premiere at HollyShorts. Derek Magyar’s directorial...

RaMell Ross' highly anticipated new film, The Nickel Boys, will open the 62nd New York Film Festival in September (which takes it off the list for Telluride). From ABC News: “Nickel Boys,” an adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, will open the 62nd New York Film Festival in September, organizers said Monday. Filmmaker RaMell Ross directed the drama based...

It's the end of July. Our film festival season is nearly upon us. It's still hard to predict this year's race, as we have minimal intel on whether the upcoming films will be good or not. Because there are ten slots for Best Picture and not that many movies being released in theaters, it's probably easier than it might have...

The most typical description of the humor of Bob Newhart is likely to center around the word “deadpan,” which is entirely appropriate when evaluating Newhart’s particular brand of comedy. But I think there’s another aspect that is overlooked: the fact that Bob Newhart was equally adept at playing straight man, or comedian. In fact, you could often see him playing...

Inspired by a true story and personal, Maia Scalia’s directorial debut HIS MOTHER takes the viewer through a gripping and terrifying journey as a mother races to stop her son from doing the unthinkable. This riveting short highlights the complexities of being a mother of a child who commits a violent crime and broadens the ongoing dialogue around mental health...

I mean it as a full-on compliment when I say I knew exactly how Lee Isaac Chung's Twisters would begin. I took my son, home from college for the summer, to my local critics' screening. Over dinner, we talked about the film, and I made a bet with him. I wagered that Chung's film would begin with a character looking...