This year’s TCM Classic Film Festival will take place on May 6-9, kickstarting things with a 60th anniversary screening of “West Side Story,” with virtual appearances by star Rita Moreno, Russ Tamblyn, and George Chakiris. The event will have two “venues” for fans to watch content. Those with cable will be able to tune into TCM for a lineup of classics, to be presented by both TCM hosts and unnamed special guests....
After a much improved October showing at the multiplex, can we expect the upcoming holiday grosses to come close to a recent rise at the multiplex? Don’t get your hopes up. New releases “Encanto” (Disney), “House of Gucci” (United Artists), and “Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City” (Sony) all open wide November 24, and will compete with recent winner “Ghostbusters: Afterlife” (Sony). That’s a decent lineup, but it isn’t expected to provide box office at a level close to what the last “normal” Thanksgiving, back in 2019, looked like....
It’s not quite the summer, but studios are all ready rolling out their biggest franchises for delightful popcorn flicks that make movie lovers sprint to the multiplexes. This year might look a little different, but indicators of normal life gradually returning are always welcomed signs. “Godzilla vs. Kong” feels like a return to the big-budget summer blockbusters that moviegoers became accustomed to, before the pandemic. It’s the kind of movie that doesn’t require much of a synopsis, beyond its three-word title....
Pixar’s “Soul” was the top animation contender with five nominations, while the feature competition was split between “Project Power,” the Netflix superhero film, Robert Zemeckis’ “The Witches” (which streamed on HBO Max), and Disney’s live-action “Mulan” (which streamed on Disney+), each garnering three nominations. Joining “Project Power” and “The Witches” in the top photoreal feature category were Netflix’s “Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey” and “The Midnight Sky” (the sci-fi directed by George Clooney), and Christopher Nolan’s time-inversion “Tenet....
“Set in a sprawling, epic world where magic exists and only certain women are allowed to access it, the story follows Moiraine (Pike), a member of the incredibly powerful all-female organization called the Aes Sedai, as she arrives in the small town of Two Rivers. There, she embarks on a dangerous, world-spanning journey with five young men and women, one of whom is prophesied to be the Dragon Reborn, who will either save or destroy humanity....
Exhibition now operates like every other industry under the law, including rules governing anti-trust, monopolistic, and unfair business practice behavior. The ruling by U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres means the elevated rules governing studios no longer apply. Here’s what this means: It eases the barrier to studios operating theaters The 1949 decree made it illegal for a theater owner to produce and distribute movies. For about two decades, five studios — MGM, RKO, Paramount, 20th Century Fox, and Warner Bros....
Last year, the festival provided minimal and scaled-back, in-person, socially distanced, and vaccine-mandated screenings at its various venues throughout the city. Despite its unusual format, the 2021 edition of TIFF provided an opportunity to experience the unique challenges and opportunities of forging forward with a physical film festival in the era of COVID-19, in spite of the many risks and reservations. The festival shifted entirely to a virtual format in 2020 (as did the near entirety of the festival world), but offered a healthy selection of its titles on the TIFF screening platform....
