“I am aware that a lot of the people, even hard-core ‘Lord of the Rings’ fans assume that a lot of the shots are some tricky sort of camera angle or some CGI shrinking John Rhys-Davies down,” Beattie told Polygon. “I don’t want to burst anyone’s bubbles, but I can only think of a couple of shots where CGI was used to shrink Rhys-Davies down.” Making “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy took its toll on Beattie, who recently had his third knee reconstruction surgery because he blew both of his knees out during filming....

“I thought this was going to happen,” he said in a voice memo on Thursday shortly after he was informed of the decision. “It’s just their attempt to intimidate us. The more noise we make, the less successful that plan will be.” A spokesperson for the BFI London Film Festival told IndieWire that the festival was aware of the situation. “We understand that no reason has been given to Mani Haghighi for the confiscation,” the spokesperson said....

Roald Dahl’s beloved novel “Matilda” is getting another big-screen treatment courtesy of Netflix, this time a rock musical based on the Tony- and Olivier-winning production directed by Matthew Warchus. Thompson stars as headmaster Trunchbull who is set on extinguishing independent thought among her elementary school students, including the brilliant and uniquely gifted Matilda, played by “Darklands” star Alisha Weir. Matilda’s only role model, Miss Honey (Lashana Lynch), encourages Matilda to use her vivid imagination and maintain her curiosity, despite Trunchbull’s demands to get rid of all the “rebels” at Crunchem Hall....

To a young film buff crammed into a swaybacked seat at a Manhattan arthouse, beholding her for the first time was to risk a schoolboy crush. She’s been called “Impossibly lovely” on this site, and that’s true enough — impossible, and yet there she is onscreen. The sturdy lips forming a blossom of a mouth, the eyes that seem focused just a little beyond where we sit watching, the sun-streaked nest of bright blonde hair set dancing on the windy, rocky shorelines of Antonioni’s “L’Avventura” (1960), demand our attention....

The comic book creator revealed to Rolling Stone that “Man of Steel” and “A Star Is Born” producer Jon Peters sent a script to adapt the graphic novel years ago. Gaiman hated it so much that he leaked the “really stupid” script to the press to ensure it never got made. “A guy in Jon Peters’ office phoned me up and he said, ‘So Neil, have you had a chance to read the script we sent you?...

That declaration draws from more than your usual science fiction fare. The Arab spring, African Diaspora movements, centuries of music, and the present blossoming of the continent’s art all influence “Neptue Frost,” a film that fights against exploitation, colonialism, and anti-gay laws. Following the death of their aunt, Neptune (Elvis “Bobo” Ngabo/Cheryl Isheja) flees from their Rwandan village, crossing bodies of water and rural roads in a trek through a country dominated by a totalitarian force known as The Authority....

Netflix stock (NFLX) closed Tuesday at $348.42 per share. When the markets re-opened at 9:30 a.m. ET Wednesday, Netflix was down more than $100 per share to its lowest level since early 2018. It then dropped another $25. It closed Wednesday at $226.19. Last fall, shares briefly traded at $700 apiece. What the hell happened here? For starters, we should point out that the lion’s share of the Tuesday-to-Wednesday loss actually occurred all at once — just after the U....