News

After a hiatus as theaters in New York City and beyond closed their doors during the pandemic, we’re delighted to announce the return of NYC Weekend Watch, our weekly round-up of repertory offerings. While many theaters are still focused on a selection of new releases, there’s a handful of worthwhile repertory screenings taking place.

Film Forum

There’s a rare opportunity to see Martin Scorsese’s Hugo in 3D this Sunday, while a stacked series of road movies is underway and the miraculously rediscovered and restored Iranian film Chess of the Wind continues.

Museum of the Moving Image

Seasons 8-11 of On Cinema are screening this weekend; On the Waterfront and Little Fugitive play for “Made in New York“; “See It Big: Extravaganzas!” offers films by von Sternberg, Fellini, and Wes Anderson.

Roxy Cinema

Fox and His Friends and The Last Detail have 35mm showings.

Metrograph

A series on punk cinema is underway,...

Michelle Williams is attached to star in the biopic “Fever” about the life of singer Peggy Lee. The film will now be directed by Todd Haynes, and MGM is in talks to acquire it, two individuals told TheWrap.

“Fever” was once a project that had Reese Witherspoon attached to star with a screenplay by the late Nora Ephron, but this latest package of the film is still in its early days.

Pop star Billie Eilish has expressed interest in being an executive producer on the film along with her mother, Maggie Baird, and record label boss Justin Lubliner. Eilish previously participated in an online 100th anniversary celebration of Lee’s contributions to music.

“Fever” began as a project under Fox 2000, but was put on hold after Ephron passed away in 2012 and after Witherspoon departed the film. Fox 2000 was then closed in Disney’s acquisition of 20th Century Fox, and the project was shelved.

ENTERTAINMENTAfter her eviction, 10 contestants remain on the show. Digital NativeDigital NativeAfter more than 60 eventful days in the Bigg Boss Tamil house, Archana Chandhoke was the latest on the show to be evicted. Archana entered the house as a wildcard contestant and had faced several controversies in the past few weeks. Aajeedh, Archana, Aari, Rio, Som, Anitha and Shivani faced this week's eviction through the show’s first-ever open nomination. After Archana’s eviction, 10 contestants remain in the Bigg Boss house. While exiting, Archana said that she stood by her “love strategy”. This week, Anitha and Rio had a disagreement once again due to the ‘Boring Performer’ title given to Anitha, despite all her efforts and the burden of captaincy. She accused Rio of being a “coward” for walking away from a conversation, which provoked him. The task called ‘Hen vs Fox’ picked up the pace of the show. The task...

Fox News wants to talk more about the weather.

On Wednesday, the Fox News Media division unveiled plans for an advertising-supported streaming weather service, Fox Weather, to debut in the third quarter of 2021 and complement the traditional news operation.

Sharri Berg, currently the COO of news and operations for Fox Television Stations, will become president of the online weather channel, reporting to Suzanne Scott, CEO of Fox News Media. Berg will also step down as the executive vp of news operations for Fox News Channel.

“As Fox News Media continues to deliver the best in news content,...

Fox News wants to talk more about the weather.

On Wednesday, the Fox News Media division unveiled plans for an advertising-supported streaming weather service, Fox Weather, to debut in the third quarter of 2021 and complement the traditional news operation.

Sharri Berg, currently the COO of news and operations for Fox Television Stations, will become president of the online weather channel, reporting to Suzanne Scott, CEO of Fox News Media. Berg will also step down as the executive vp of news operations for Fox News Channel.

“As Fox News Media continues to deliver the best in news content,...

“This Is Us” and “The Masked Singer” have resumed their battle at the top of the delayed viewing charts.

For the week of Oct. 26, the NBC drama managed to come out on top with its season 5 premiere. From a 1.4 rating among adults 18-49 in Live Same Day, “This Is Us” grew 64% to a 2.3 rating, narrowly seeing off “Masked Singer” at a 2.1 rating. The Fox singing series got the better of “This Is Us” in the delayed charts once all was said and done last season, so it remains to be seen which of the two will emerge victorious in the 2020-21 season.

After those two, a couple of ABC shows in “The Conners” and “The Bachelorette” grew their audiences by a 0.4 rating, with the former ending up at a 1.8 and the latter at a 1.2.

The total audience chart for the weeks paints a similar picture, with “This Is Us” far...

President Trump was going to make a speech from the White House about the 2020 election, a process so unique and unprecedented that, at well past 2 in the morning eastern time, no news organization could predict who was going to be the winner. Before he got on camera, however, Norah O’Donnell had something to impart to her viewers.

“We at CBS News are not projecting in this presidential race. We will not disenfranchise the millions of voters in those battleground states and the hundreds of thousands in Georgia who also have not had their votes counted,” said O’Donnell, speaking during CBS News coverage of the election well after most viewers normally watch her on “CBS Evening News.” Moments later, as Trump spoke, anchors on NBC, MSNBC and CNBC broke into his comments — during which he falsely claimed he had won the election despite millions of votes left uncounted – – and Savannah Guthrie,...

During an election day interview on Fox, Trump moaned about the way the network has covered him during the current election cycle. And although the hosts pushed back slightly while the president whined, they ended the interview in their usual sycophant style by wishing Trump luck in securing another term in office and then gushing that he called into the show, calling it “awesome.”

Trump whines about Fox coverage as Fox hosts gush over him https://t.co/LTeguc6Uwk pic.twitter.com/PjaJk1OlYi

— Peter Wade (@brooklynmutt) November 3, 2020

Likely...

For many people, the 2020 presidential election isn’t a game. At least one company thinks it could be.

After giving users of a mobile-gaming app a chance to win $50,000 if they chose the right outcomes of six different elements of the recent presidential debate between President Trump and Joe Biden, Fox Bet is offering a similar opportunity around Election Night. Participants must guess a likely outcome to such things as the percentage of the popular vote Kanye West receives in Colorado or the first thing President Trump will mention in a tweet on Election Day. “Pick to win” games such as this one (Fox Bet calls it “Super 6” because it involves six projections) do not involve actual betting by participants, but can keep fans engaged because they have the chance to win money based on the accuracy of their predictions.

“The game was created for sporting events,” says Kip Levin,...

Animator/writer/director Jorge Gutierrez (Maya and the Three) is expanding his relationship with Netflix, signing an overall deal with the streaming giant for original content. Under the pact, the Emmy-winning Gutierrez will write, direct, and produce new animated films, series and interactive projects across preschool, kids & family and adult animation via his Mexopolis production company.

Gutierrez is the creator, writer and director of the upcoming Netflix animated limited series Maya and the Three, a Mesoamerican fantasy epic set to premiere globally in 2021. Set in a mythical Mesoamerican inspired world, in Maya and the Three, a warrior princess embarks on a quest to recruit three legendary fighters to help save the world of men and gods.

Gutierrez is the director and co-writer of the Guillermo Del Toro produced animated feature The Book of Life for Fox which earned him a 2014 Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Animated feature film. He...

President Trump faced questions on racial injustice and his handling of the coronavirus pandemic during an ABC town hall, which drew around 3.8 million total viewers on Tuesday night.

That number put the town hall on third place overall, narrowly trailing “Big Brother” (4 million) and a new episode of “America’s Got Talent” (5.7 million). It must be said that sit down with Trump wasn’t exactly given the strongest possible lead in, as the Disney-owned network aired two reruns of “Modern Family” right before it, both of which scored a 0.3 rating in the key 18-49 demographic and an average of around 2 million viewers. The town hall itself doubled that with a 0.6 rating, before a replay of “The Conners” dipped back down to a 0.3 and 1.9 million pairs of eyeballs immediately afterwards.

“Big Brother” won the night ratings-wise with its first Tuesday episode of the season scoring a 1.0 in the key demo. That’s...

Things move fast on Star Trek: Lower Decks Season 1 Episode 2 and along two totally separate plot tracks so it sometimes feels like watching two completely different episodes.

If you squint hard, you can sort of make out a unifying theme of being true to your calling despite obstacles and insecurities.

But, admittedly, you gotta squint really hard.

The most challenging thing I find about writing about brand new, sci-fi shows is that they are infamous for inventing terminology and names and they never provide a spelling guide in advance.

For example, here, we're introduced to a Klingon general not in canon.

His name is pronounced "Kor-in" but a comment by Mariner insinuates there should be an apostrophe in it. So, I'm going with "K'rin" although "Qo'rin" would be completely possible, knowing the Klingon language's penchant for using Qs.

Memory Alpha will correct me eventually, I'm sure.

Boimler: I'm going to...

Netflix is closing in on a deal to buy worldwide rights to Amy Adams' The Woman in the Window from the Disney-owned 20th Century stable, sources confirm.

The Fox 2000 adult drama is the latest Hollywood studio film to bypass a traditional theatrical release and head straight for streaming or premium video-on-demand amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Midrange and smaller titles are particularly vulnerable as studios will be dealing with a backlog of tentpole fare to release on the big screen once theaters re-open.

Woman in the Window, based on the best-selling 2018 novel by A.J. Finn about an agoraphobic child ...

Netflix is closing in on a deal to buy worldwide rights to Amy Adams' The Woman in the Window from the Disney-owned 20th Century stable, sources confirm.

The Fox 2000 adult drama is the latest Hollywood studio film to bypass a traditional theatrical release and head straight for streaming or premium video-on-demand amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Midrange and smaller titles are particularly vulnerable as studios will be dealing with a backlog of tentpole fare to release on the big screen once theaters re-open.

Woman in the Window, based on the best-selling 2018 novel by A.J. Finn about an agoraphobic child ...

Nicolle Wallace’s Deadline: White House will expand to two hours and Chuck Todd’s Mtp Daily will move to early afternoon as part of MSNBC’s overhaul of its daily lineup.

The changes, which have been anticipated, mean that the afternoons will start with Andrea Mitchell Reports at noon Et, followed by Mtp Daily at 1 Pm. Katy Tur’s 2 Pm hour will remain in place, and that will be followed by a 3 Pm show anchored by Ayman Mohyeldin, a foreign correspondent who has been co-anchoring an early-morning show. Variety first reported on the plans.

The new lineup will launch on Aug. 19, the first day of the Democratic National Convention.

Todd also will expand the Meet the Press brand into streaming, with plans for a weekly program set to launch in September that will appear on NBC News Now and Peacock, the recently launched NBCUniversal streaming service. Todd also will...

Exclusive: Tameka ‘Tiny’ Harris (T.I and Tiny: The Family Hustle) and Fox Soul, a live, ad-supported streaming channel aimed at African-American viewers, are teaming on The Mix, described as “a high energy live millennial/Gen-z talk show where no topic will be off limits.” Hosted by Zonnique (T.I. and Tiny: The Family Hustle), Romeo Miller (Ex On The Beach/Peak), Anton Peeples (Mr. Mom), newcomer Jamie DuBose, and Jazz Anderson (TV personality & rapper), The Mix will premiere on Tuesday, August 4 at 7 pm Pst/10 Pm Est on Fox Soul. Four-time Emmy-nominated producer, Jill King will serve as Executive Producer and Showrunner.

Topics on The Mix will range from Black Lives Matter, current affairs, dating apps, viral trends, to breaking news for the culture, according to producers.

“I wanted to create a show that would serve as a platform for young voices in today’s evolving culture,...

Ed Henry, who was recently fired from Fox News, and other talent from the conservative cable news network were accused of sexual misconduct in a new lawsuit filed on Monday.  In the lawsuit filed by legal representatives for Cathy Areu, a guest who appeared multiple times on Fox News, and Jennifer Eckhart, a former associate producer for Fox Business, Henry is accused of sexual harassment of both women. Eckhart also alleged Henry raped and sexually assaulted her. Additionally, Areu accused Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and other men employed by Fox News of sexual harassment. In response to the filing, Fox News released a statement denying the allegations against Carlson, Sean Hannity and Howard Kurtz,...

Blerg: The 30 Rock reunion/NBC upfront presentation that aired on NBC on Thursday night didn't draw much of an audience. ABC's game shows were down as well, although the finale of Fox's Labor of Love ticked up a little.

The 30 Rock special, which doubled as a pitch to advertisers about NBCUniversal's portfolio — including the just-launched Peacock streaming platform — drew a 0.4 rating among adults 18-49 and about 2.5 million viewers in the fast national ratings. Those numbers may come down in the final ratings, as a number of NBC affiliates opted not to air ...

After decades spent fighting TV’s never-ending battle for morning-news dominance, NBC’s “Today” is launching a salvo on another front: Hollywood’s streaming wars.

NBC is set to debut “Today All Day,” a round-the-clock “feed” of material from its venerable A.M. program. The offering will be available starting Wednesday on Peacock, the new streaming-video outlet from parent NBCUniversal, as well as on Today.com. NBC hopes to distribute the new product via other venues as well, says Chris Berend, executive vice president of digital for NBC News Group, in an interview.

The show’s four weekday hours and its two weekend editions will remain intact on NBC’s broadcast network. But streaming fans should not expect to get caught up on the news by Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb at 7 a.m. on the dot or watch Al Roker tell them to stand by for weather “in your...

NBC won Monday night with The Wall delivering a 0.7 rating in the adults 18-49 demographic and 3.99 million viewers, marking a season-high audience for the game show. The Titan Games ticked down in the demo with a 0.7 and 3.91 million viewers, but the reality sports competition and The Wall still managed to top the night. Meanwhile, the network gave audiences a splashy special preview of the wild game show Cannonball which delivered a 0.6 in the demo and 2.75 million viewers. The show official debuts on the USA Network on July 9.

ABC’s The Bachelor: The Greatest Seasons Ever held steady with its episode that spotlighted JoJo Fletcher’s season of The Bachelorette.

The CW was steady across the board with new episodes of Whose Line Is It Anyway? and

Penn & Teller: Fool Us.

Elsewhere, CBS populated its Monday night with reruns of The Neighborhood, Bob Hearts Abishola, All Rise and...

The Simpsons will no longer feature white actors voicing non-white characters, according to Variety. The Simpsons producers did not say whether the roles will be recast or written-out.

“Moving forward, The Simpsons will no longer have white actors voice non-white characters,” the producers said in a statement.

The Fox series made a similar action three years ago, in response to Hari Kondabolu’s TruTV documentary The Trouble With Apu. Hank Azaria, who voiced the Indian-American Kwik-e-Mart owner Apu Nahasapeemapetilon for more than 30 years, stepped down from the role. The new mandate may bring the character back with a more appropriate actor in the part. Matt Groening said the character will remain as recently as last summer. Tress MacNeille voices Manjula Nahasapeemapetilon. Harry Shearer voices Apu’s brother Sanjay and Dr. Julius Hibbert, who is a spoof of Bill Cosby’s Dr. Huxtable character.

Azaria also voices Drederick Tatum, who is based on Mike Tyson,...

They’re two of the biggest questions that occupy Marvel fans’ thoughts: what happened to Captain America after he went back in time in Avengers: Endgame and how exactly does Stan Lee manage to cameo everywhere in the McU, regardless of time or space? Well, this wild fan theory wonders if these two mysteries are actually linked. Yes, what if Stan Lee is actually old Captain America?

As shared on the r/FanTheories subreddit, the theory hinges on Lee’s similarity in age to Steve Rogers once he lived a happy life married to Peggy Carter in the past. The Redditor wonders if, presumably before he arrived at that lakeside to give his shield to Sam Wilson in Endgame, Old Lee Cap went on to hop around the timeline in order to check up on his friends and allies. This would explain why he’s always hanging around the heroes of the Marvel universe.

The Stan Lee cameo has been a cherished tradition in Marvel movies for a long time now. But with the iconic comic book creator no longer with us, it seems a new tradition may be about to take its place. Namely, the Deadpool cameo.

At least, that’s according to insider Roger Wardell, who’s got a proven track record when it comes to Marvel scoops, accurately leaking a lot of information about Endgame last year, while also dropping several other nuggets over the past little while that’ve proven to be true.

Taking to Twitter earlier this month – on what seems to be a new and presumably, replacement, account – he shared the following bit of information:

Marvel considering to utilize Deadpool for brief cameos after DP3 release. Stan Lee will continue to show up in more sophisticated and subtle manner.

Relive All Of Stan Lee's Marvel Cameos With This...

At this point in May, our list of remaining bubble shows is typically hovering at or around zero. But the global coronavirus pandemic has thrown the fall scheduling process into upheaval, leading many of the major broadcast networks to delay renewal/cancellation decisions on their remaining in-limbo series until later this month (or beyond).

According to our latest tabulations, the casts and crews of 25 (!!) scripted series (broadcast only) are still awaiting word on the fate of their day jobs. The verdict is already in on most CBS and CW shows, so many of the two dozen-plus question marks are concentrated at ABC,...

Marvel is yet to officially announce how it intends to bring Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool into its shared cinematic universe, but judging by the amount of leaks that are springing up on the subject, it sounds like the comic book titan has big plans for the mutant anti-hero in the McU.

Reports suggest that not only is Deadpool 3 rapidly taking shape, but Marvel is already kicking around ideas for his fourth solo outing, too. We recently heard that Wade Wilson’s love interest, Vanessa, could be sidelined for his next movie, only to return in Deadpool 4, and now we’re hearing that it’ll be a similar deal for his trusted sidekick, Weasel.

There’s been some back and forth on the character’s involvement as of late, with initial reports saying he’d be back in the threequel but recast. Then, we heard that he wouldn’t be in...

By the end of Wednesday’s “The Masked Singer,” fans will know which three contestants will be moving on to compete in next week’s finale. Soon after that reveal, the singing competition’s aftershow, “After the Mask,” will feature guests Gavin DeGraw and “Masked Singer” alums Wayne Brady (a.k.a. Season 2’s winner The Fox) and Adrienne Bailon (Season 2 finalist The Flamingo) discussing the big unmasking, TheWrap has learned exclusively.

Joining that trio on this week’s “After the Mask” are host Nick Cannon and “Masked Singer” judge Robin Thicke and JJ, Tj and Derek Watt (the hosts of Fox’s upcoming competition series “Ultimate Tag”), along with whichever contestant gets eliminated from the show on Wednesday: Rhino, Frog, Turtle or Night Angel.

The previously eliminated Season 3 contestants include Kitty (Jackie Evancho), Astronaut (Hunter Hayes) Banana (Bret Michaels), Kangaroo (Jordyn Woods), White Tiger (Rob Gronkowski), T-Rex (Jojo Siwa...

The unemployment rate reached 14.7% in April, as the coronavirus pandemic ravaged the job market.

The Labor Department said that 20.5 million jobs were lost, in the first full month of figures since the coronavirus crisis shut down much of the U.S. economy. That is the greatest net loss of jobs on record.

Employment in arts, entertainment and recreation fell by 1.3 million, the Labor Department said. The biggest hit was to the leisure and hospitality industry, where jobs fell by 7.7 million. The bulk of that was in food services and drinking places, which shed 5.5 million jobs, and the retail sector also took a big hit, declining by 2.1 million.

President Donald Trump was on the phone with Fox & Friends as the figures were announced. He said that the numbers were “totally expected.” “Even the Democrats are not blaming me for that,” he said.

“Those jobs will all be back and they will all be back very soon,...

A day after Guns N’ Roses’ “Live and Let Die” blared as Donald Trump toured an Arizona factory, Axl Rose turned to Twitter to castigate the administration’s Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.

“It’s official! Whatever anyone may have previously thought of Steve Mnuchin he’s officially an asshole,” Rose tweeted Wednesday afternoon.

It’s unclear what prompted Rose to specifically lash out at Mnuchin, but as The Hill notes, the Treasury Secretary did appear on Fox Business earlier this week to discuss when Americans will be able to fly internationally again.

In the spring of 1975, long before he became one of the U.K.’s most respected producers, Paul Webster got his first job in the film industry working as a dispatch clerk in the basement of the Gate Cinema in Notting Hill, checking celluloid reels for damage before they could be fed into the projector. For his first job, he had to inspect the reel of Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s “Fox and His Friends.”

“I picked it out very gingerly from the can…and the middle just fell out,” he told an audience in Rome during “X Rays on the UK,” a conversation hosted by Mia in cooperation with the BFI, the British Council, and the British Embassy in Rome, and moderated by Wendy Mitchell.

“I then spent my first morning in the film industry trying to put it back together again without breaking the film or damaging it, and...

Since any New York City cinephile has a nearly suffocating wealth of theatrical options, we figured it’d be best to compile some of the more worthwhile repertory showings into one handy list. Displayed below are a few of the city’s most reliable theaters and links to screenings of their weekend offerings — films you’re not likely to see in a theater again anytime soon, and many of which are, also, on 35mm. If you have a chance to attend any of these, we’re of the mind that it’s time extremely well-spent.

Museum of the Moving Image

The 70mm series continues with The Right Stuff, The Dark Crystal, and a Ukrainian trilogy.

Metrograph

A new print of The Green Ray screens this weekend, while Antonioni films continue running and “A to Z” runs.

Museum of Modern Art

The sci-fi series winds down, with Children of Men among its ranks.

The late cinematographer Michael Ballhaus didn’t grow up watching movies. His parents were stage actors, and he first fell in love with the art of performance. And as a cinematographer, one of his many gifts was the way he captures actors’ faces and how his camera found its rhythm with their movements and emotions.

Read More: Martin Scorsese Remembers His Cinematographer Michael Ballhaus: ‘He Changed My Way Of Thinking’

He fell in love with movies at age 20 when he visited the set of Max Ophuls’ “Lola Montes.” Ballhaus spent 10 days on the circus set and became entranced by the period style and the master director’s virtuoso swirling camera movement. Not until Ballhaus’ later Hollywood work, on films like “The Age of Innocence” or “Bram Stoker’s Dracula,” did he get the chance to work on lavish sets and play with all the toys of prestige filmmaking. Yet...

Michael Ballhaus shot several of Scorsese's films, including Goodfellas. Cinematographer Michael Ballhaus has died, aged 81. Nominated three times for an Oscar - for Broadcast News, The Fabulous Baker Boys and Gangs Of New York - the Berlin-born filmmaker passed away after a short illness.

In a career that spanned more than five decades, he worked with directors including Rainer Werner Fassbinder (The Marriage Of Maria Braun, Fox And His Friends and others), Francis Ford Coppola (Bram Stoker's Dracula) and Martin Scorsese (including Oscar-winner The Departed and Goodfellas).

Scorsese led the tributes last night. In a statement he said: "By the time we met, he had already made film history with Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and I revered him. He was a lovely human being, and he always had a warm smile for even the toughest situations — anyone who knew him will remember his smile. We started working together in the '80s,...

Each month, the fine folks at FilmStruck and the Criterion Collection spend countless hours crafting their channels to highlight the many different types of films that they have in their streaming library. This April will feature an exciting assortment of films, as noted below.

To sign up for a free two-week trial here.

Monday, April 3 The Chaos of Cool: A Tribute to Seijun Suzuki

In February, cinema lost an icon of excess, Seijun Suzuki, the Japanese master who took the art of the B movie to sublime new heights with his deliriously inventive approach to narrative and visual style. This series showcases seven of the New Wave renegade’s works from his career breakthrough in the sixties: Take Aim at the Police Van (1960), an off-kilter whodunit; Youth of the Beast (1963), an explosive yakuza thriller; Gate of Flesh (1964), a pulpy social critique; Story of a Prostitute (1965), a tragic romance; Tokyo Drifter...

He tormented his actors, threw drinks at his cameraman, and died of an overdose at 37, leaving behind two dead lovers – and an extraordinary body of work. As a Fassbinder season begins at the BFI, Hanna Schygulla reveals how she survived

It is 35 years since the magnificent and monstrous director Rainer Werner Fassbinder died from a drugs overdose. His addiction to alcohol and cocaine was as widely known as his bisexuality, and his propensity for cruelly manipulating anyone who entered his orbit. Though he was just 37 years old at the time of his death, he had already made more than 40 features: most famously Fear Eats the Soul, a melodrama about a German widow who falls for an Arab immigrant more than 20 years her junior; Fox and His Friends, starring Fassbinder himself as a gauche carnival worker exploited by his boyfriend; and The Marriage of Maria Braun, in which a single-minded newlywed...

What a surprising city Rotterdam is and the Festival and Cinemart are full of surprises too.

Being in The Netherlands is like a homecoming for me. My first major job in the film industry was with 20th Century Fox International and City Fox Films in Amsterdam in 1975 which is when I first attended the International Film Festival of Rotterdam, three years after its founding by Huub Bals. It was much smaller then. Iffr’s logo is a tiger, loosely based on the M.G.M. lion as an alternative. From the beginning, the festival has profiled itself as a promoter of alternative, innovative and non-commercial films, with an emphasis on the Far East and developing countries. It has become one of the most important events in the film world, an integral part of the winter circuit of Sundance, Rotterdam and Berlin Film Festivals.

“Fox and HIs Friends”

Except for my...

Aaron welcomes Keith Enright, The Completionist, to discuss the latest and greatest in the Criterion world. We discuss the April 2017 releases, Something Wild, Fox and His Friends, and the latest content from FilmStruck.

Episode Links & Notes

4:25 – In Memoriam: John Hurt, Emmanuelle Riva, Mary Tyler Moore

13:30 – April 2017 Criterion Releases

31:00 – Something Wild

36:50 – Fox and His Friends

42:10 – Cameraperson Preview

44:30 – Short Takes (High Noon, Gimme Shelter)

56:00 – FilmStruck

1:12:00 – Barry Jenkins in the Criterion Closet

1:15:00 – 2016 Best of the Year

Criterion – The Young Girls of Rochefort Criterion – The Umbrellas of Cherbourg Criterion – Woman of the Year Criterion – Buena Vista Social Club Criterion – Rumble Fish Criterion – Tampopo Joshua Reviews Something Wild https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/4396-fox-and-his-friends-social-animals Trevor Reviews Fox and His Friends On the Channel – Adventures in Moviegoing with Roger Corman Barry Jenkins Visits the Criterion Closet Criterion Forum – Best of 2016 Thread Janus Films — Taipei...

Buzzfeed It's official Will & Grace (& Karen & Jack) is returning to NBC for a ninth season. The series ended on May 18th, 2006 over 10 years ago but their recent one-off election special got everyone excited again.

Av Club supposedly that long hinted at Eastern Promises sequel will start shooting in only two months and supposedly Viggo Mortensen and Vincent Cassell will return. We'll believe this when I see it but would be happy to do so

Criterion Ira Sachs on Rainer Werner Fassbinder's classic Fox and His Friends

Arnaud Trouvé offers up César nomination predictions. If you can read French you'll enjoy it more

THR It's Octavia Spencer for "Woman of the Year" and Ryan Reynolds for "Man of the Year" at Harvard's annual Hasty Puddings celebration. Someone cast them in a rom-com together!

Coming Soon Sony Pictures Animation slate to come from The Smurfs onward

About Last Night a long...

Early in Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s 1975 film Fox and His Friends, the naive protagonist Franz Biberkopf (played by Fassbinder himself) shows he’s not quite as naive or, at least, not quite as innocent as we may be led to believe through the remainder of the film. Biberkopf, who goes by the nickname Fox, plays the lottery as if it’s some religious ritual, filled with hope and faith that his fortunes will change quickly when change sees it’s fit to come his way. Fretful because he doesn’t have the money to purchase his ticket, Fox carries out a swindle so naturally that he’s surely done it before. Or perhaps Fassbinder is saying this is natural because this is just how humans behave. In either case, Fox enters a flower shop, flirts lightly with the gay florist in order to gain trust and instill desire, and then...

To revisit Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Fox and His Friends in 2017, some forty years after its 1975 release, is to realize how unnervingly astute the prolific and infamous filmmaker managed to convey the troubling classist ideals which continue to plague the queer community in the same fashion across cultures today.

Continue reading...

Warner Archive Delivers the Best Way to Enjoy a Bad Day at Black Rock

Welcome to this week in home video! Click the title to buy a Blu-ray/DVD from Amazon and help support Fsr in the process!

Pick of the WeekBad Day at Black Rock [Warner Archive]

What is it? A one-armed man arrives via train in a remote western town, and the populace reacts with suspicion and violence.

Why buy it? Spencer Tracy excels as the polite but mysterious stranger whose presence sets everyone on edge, and the more he probes the harder they push. The film explores threads of America’s deep-seated racism and small-town insulation, and it pairs that commentary with a steadily increasing suspense. The themes and actions here are still sadly relevant, even now, and it makes for an important watch that still manages to entertain. Tracy’s potential adversaries include Lee Marvin, Ernest Borgnine, Walter Brennan, and...

Rainer Wener Fassbinder has always been an artist I've respected by reputation, rather than through a deep knowledge or understanding of his work. In fact, I've only see a handful of Fassbinder films and I will admit to tapping out of the 15-hour Berlin Alexanderplatz several episodes before it ended. However, as I've grown older, and have now actually reached the age at which Fassbinder's life and career ended, I've grown far more interested in the view he had of the world and the immense body of work that resulted. The greatest of which I've encountered so far is this film, 1974's Fox and His Friends. Fassbinder is Franz, or Fox to his friends working at the carnival, and at the beginning of our story...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

We get a visit from a ghost of Criterion past as we explore the week of Criterion. Trevor, David, Mark and Aaron get into the first release of the year, plus we talk about Terry Gilliam, Coming of Age films, rumors of Tree of Life and plenty more.

Episode Links & Notes

4:00 – The Ghost of Trevor?

6:50 – His Girl Friday

28:20 – Upcoming Releases (Something Wild, Fox and His Friends, Black Girl)

30:45 – Short Takes (12 Angry Men, A Touch of Zen, Zazie dans le Métro, Valerie and Her Week of Wonders)

56:15 – FilmStruck

1:19:00 – Wish List for April Announcements

1:23:00 – Pieces of Flair

Criterion Close Up 13: Mulholland Drive & the Ghost of Trevor David Reviews His Girl Friday DVD Beaver – His Girl Friday The Criterion Collection – His Girl Friday Criterion Reflections – Zazie dans le Métro Reddit – The Tree of Life is Coming to Criterion Episode Credits Aaron West: Twitter...

This time on the Newsstand, Ryan is joined by Arik Devens to discuss the January 2017 line-up announcement from the Criterion Collection and the launch of FilmStruck.

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Links The January 2017 Criterion Collection line-up … His Girl Friday (1940) – The Criterion Collection Fox and His Friends (1975) – The Criterion Collection Something Wild (1961) – The Criterion Collection Black Girl (1966) – The Criterion Collection The latest wacky email newsletter drawing from the… The latest wacky email newsletter drawing from The… FilmStruck: Created by the movie lovers at Turner Classic Movies (TCM) and The Criterion Collection Marcello Mastroianni on FilmStruck Michel Legrand on FilmStruck Masterclass: Kirsten Johnson & Michael Moore on Unintended Consequences on FilmStruck Criterion Live at the Metrograph on FilmStruck Essential Arthouse on FilmStruck Le Samouraï on FilmStruck Streamline | The Official Filmstruck Blog Episode Credits Ryan Gallagher (Twitter / Website) Arik Devens (Twitter / Website)

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The Criterion Collection has announced its slate for January, 2017, with offerings from Howard Hawks (“His Girl Friday”), Rainer Werner Fassbender (“Fox and His Friends”), Jack Garfein (“Something Wild”), and Ousmane Sembène (“Black Girl”). Check out the covers for the films below as well as synopses provided by the Criterion Collection. For more information on the special features and technical specs of each of these films, visit the Criterion Collection website.

Read More: The Criterion Collection Announces December Titles: ‘Heart of a Dog,’ ‘The Exterminating Angel’ and More

“His Girl Friday” (Available January 10)

One of the fastest, funniest, and most quotable films ever made, “His Girl Friday” stars Rosalind Russell as reporter Hildy Johnson, a standout among cinema’s powerful women. Hildy is matched in force only by her conniving but charismatic editor and ex-husband, Walter Burns (played by the peerless Cary Grant), who dangles the chance for her to scoop...

It’s no real secret that we’re reaching a tipping point with home video. Streaming is proving a better and better option for the casual consumer every day, and even the cinephile dollar, which has rather successfully driven home video decisions for the past couple of years, has such services as Hulu, Fandor, Mubi, and – soon – FilmStruck vying for their attention. Physical distributors have subsequently doubled down on their most successful and acclaimed models. Criterion is going big on new-to-disc, big international titles with new restorations (Brighter Summer Day, Paris Belongs to Us, A Touch of Zen) and lavish new editions of American classics (The New World, Dr. Strangelove). Kino is investing in silent classics (Fantomas, The Phantom of the Opera, Diary of a Lost Girl) while diversifying to include more American studio titles. Masters of Cinema is going into deep specialty stuff with an Early Murnau box and Edvard Munch.

In this episode of Off The Shelf, Ryan and Brian take a look at the new DVD and Blu-ray releases for Tuesday, April 12th 2016.

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Follow-Up Star Wars: Rogue One trailer / Rebels News Arrow Video: The Swinging Cheerleaders, Crimes of Passion, Female Prisoner Scorpion: The Complete Collection, Blood and Black Lace (Us only) & Satan’s Blade (UK Only). Arrow Academy: Effi Briest, Fox and His Friends, The Ox-Bow Incident Criterion: McCabe & Mrs. Miller Kino Lorber: One Million Years B.C., Cry of the City Shout Factory: Death Wish II (w/ Unrated cut) Twilight Time: July & August Line-up and Sale Mill Creek: 2 William Castle Double Features Universal: Black Dog Links to Amazon A Prayer for the Dying Bride of Re-Animator Chato’s Land Cutter’s Way Destroyer / Edge of Sanity Heroes Reborn: Event Series In the French Style It Follows Julia Justice League...

Each week, the fine folks at Fandor add a number of films to their Criterion Picks area, which will then be available to subscribers for the following twelve days. This week, the Criterion Picks focus on eight films from Rainer Werner Fassbinder.

Fall in love with a giant of New German Cinema with a selection of curated highlights from the prolific yet truncated career of iconoclast director Rainer Werner Fassbinder.

Don’t have a Fandor subscription? They offer a free trial membership.

Ali: Fear Eats the Soul

The wildly prolific German filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder paid homage to his cinematic hero Douglas Sirk with this update of that filmmaker’s 1955 All That Heaven Allows. A lonely widow meets a much younger Arab worker in a bar during a rainstorm. They fall in love, to their own surprise, and to the outright shock of their families, colleagues, and drinking buddies. In Ali: Fear Eats The Soul,...

“We’re all pigs,” remarks a character late in Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s 1971 classic The Merchant of Four Seasons, on observation one could apply to most of the desperate and disparate characters littered throughout the German New Wave master’s oeuvre. In this instance, the comment is made by the protagonist’s familial successor. Fassbinder’s flaccid fruit vendor shrinks into the shadows of his own periphery, a failed patriarch reduced to the general fate of mediocre men in times of societal resurgence, (here specifically in the 1950s, the post-war period of the German economic miracle) marked for replacement by a trusted friend, stepping in to pinch-hit. Regarded as one of Fassbinder’s best early titles, it is one of his most accessible Sirkian inspired melodramas earning notable critical applause during an impressively fruitful period, imbued with the director’s favorite themes concerning dwindling personas of those foolish enough to...

"It is an awful thing to be betrayed by your body, David Levithan asserts in his novel Every Day." And it's lonely, because you feel you can't talk about it. You feel it's something between you and the body. You feel it's a battle you will never win . . . and yet you fight it day after day, and it wears you down. Even if you try to ignore it, the energy it takes to ignore it will exhaust you." 

The above monolog perfectly mirrors the inner life of Sebastian (Saga Becker), the Swedish antihero/heroine of Ester Martin Bersgmark's accomplished offering, Something Must Break, which one critic encapsulated as "bleak" while confronting a urinal after a recent Tribeca Film Festival press screening.

An outcry against society's binary gender system that insists we must all delegate ourselves to being either male or female while residing in a generic Ikea-land, the film pursues...

Touchstone Pictures

What is it about Wes Anderson films that movie buffs love most? Is it the host of quirky characters played by top-tier cast members? Is it the blend of melancholic themes with oddly specific contextual comedy? The saturated, obsessive, painterly composition in every one of his shots? Or is it the list of killer songs that accompany and define all of his movies, offering jubilant iPod additions as well as characterisations to the films?

In honor of the release of Wes Anderson’s new feature The Grand Budapest Hotel – which looks to be the director’s most idiosyncratic work yet – here are 8 unforgettably distinctive scenes from Anderson’s films that are characterised by the director’s pitch-perfect choice in music selection.

These scenes are so unique they could only have come from the one-of-a-kind mind of Anderson, and are complimented by sublime soundtrack choices that become inextricably associated...