Panahi is a director who has always mingled fact and fiction, and here the distinction is more addled than ever, so that by the time the final credits roll it’s not exactly clear what was staged and what was real. One could argue that it is a sound strategy for bypassing stringent scrutiny: create a work of cinema so elusive in its relationship to reality that plausible deniability is baked into its terms of existence....
And at Telluride opening night, writer/director Kenneth Branagh’s 1969 time capsule “Belfast” played well — at the near-empty Werner Herzog Theatre during a driving rainstorm. Most everyone else was checking out either buzzy Will Smith-starrer “King Richard” or Joe Wright’s period musical “Cyrano,” complete with a tribute to “Game of Thrones” star Peter Dinklage. By the end of the weekend, though, word of mouth caught up to “Belfast,” which was clearly heading for the Oscar Best Picture race, along with “King Richard” and Jane Campion’s Venice entry “The Power of the Dog....
“Blue Velvet,” “Main Title” (1986) The first collaboration between Badalamenti and Lynch, “Blue Velvet” boasts a main title that sees the late composer wryly hinting at the devilish duplicity of Jeffrey Beaumont’s (Kyle MacLachlan) descent into a suburban underworld with characteristic brilliance. Presented over a blue velvet curtain, with the embellished names of Isabella Rossellini, Dennis Hopper, and the rest of the singular cast fading in and out, the 1986 film’s opening is at first classic in its theatricality: robust, celebratory, safe....
It’s not like “Rick and Morty” is this sacrosanct bit of culture that can’t be toyed with. The show itself is quick to joke about the ways it’s fudged canon and reworked certain ideas over time. But as is inevitable for something as unwieldy and obsessed over as it is for a notable chunk of its audience, this show was always destined to fold in on itself. In its impressive Season 6 — on temporary hiatus until toward the end of next month — “Rick and Morty” has figured out how to do that and still preserve itself on its road to 100 episodes....
“By use of the Billboard, the Defendants falsely have conveyed to the public that Mr. Baron Cohen has endorsed their products and is affiliated with their business,” Baron Cohen’s attorney David Condon writes in the complaint. “To the contrary, Mr. Baron Cohen never has used cannabis in his life. He never would participate in an advertising campaign for cannabis, for any amount of money.” “The Defendants knowingly misappropriated Mr. Baron Cohen’s portrait, picture, image, likeness, and persona to increase the Defendants’ sales revenues, which, upon information and belief, are approximately $26 million per year,” the complaint continues....
The potential for more awards attention could help its overall revenue in the coming weeks, but even in its first week on PVOD, Pablo Larrain’s portrait of a sliver of Princess Diana’s life enjoyed a strong initial showing. The film is already #4 on Apple TV/iTunes and #8 on Vudu, and #12 on the usually lagging Google Play list. Distributor Neon receives the same box office and VOD take on its films as the top studios, but with a vastly smaller investment....
When the trio are dumped into the world, Jack trades the $40 he’s been given for a night at Rooster’s mom’s house. Gloria gets on board as well, after being picked up in the family’s ‘76 Pacer. Barb (Martha Plimpton, in a “Raising Hope” reunion with Garcia and Dillahunt) is a grade-A character. She’s got hair like Jerri Blank, schemes for days, and a no-nonsense attitude when it comes to her new housemates....
