Film Journal International

03/12/2018

Good things stand the test of time, and as we get ready to close out the year and the 85th year of publication of 'Film Journal International,' we are delighted that we have persevered in our commitment to bring our readers the finest in journalism with the clear and precise goal of presenting the news in a fair, non-biased manner.

That being said, this issue of 'Film Journal International' will be the last publication of this iconic magazine. As reported in our November issue, 'Film Journal International' is being merged with long-running publication 'Boxoffice' and January 2019 will mark a new version of 'Boxoffice.'

Good things stand the test of time, and as we get ready to close out the year and the 85th year of publication of Film Journal International, we are delighted that we have persevered in our commitment to bring our readers the finest in journalism with the clear and precise goal of presenting the new...

27/11/2018

'Stan & Ollie' is an engaging, affectionate portrait of a legendary comedy team at the twilight of their careers.

For film fans of a certain age (this writer included), there is a select group of movie stars who seem larger than life, iconic and eternal: Chaplin, Mae West, The Marx Brothers, Bogart, Dean, Monroe. And surely that special fraternity includes Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, comedy geniuses whose con...

26/11/2018

Bernardo Bertolucci, the Oscar-winning director of 'The Last Emperor,' 'Last Tango in Paris' and 'The Conformist,' died in Rome on Monday at the age of 77. 'FJI' looks back on our 2004 interview with the Italian master for his film 'The Dreamers'.

Bernardo Bertolucci, the Oscar-winning director of The Last Emperor, Last Tango in Paris and The Conformist, died in Rome on Monday at the age of 77. FJI looks back on our 2004 interview with the Italian master for his film The Dreamers.

26/11/2018

Moviegoers gobbled up the latest offerings at theatres over Thanksgiving weekend, with new releases 'Ralph Breaks the Internet' and 'Creed II' grabbing the two top spots with ease.

Moviegoers gobbled up the latest offerings at theatres over Thanksgiving weekend, with new releases Ralph Breaks the Internet and Creed II grabbing the two top spots with ease.Ralph earned $84.5 million over the five-day weekend, giving it the second-highest opening of all time over that period. Its...

26/11/2018

If John Ford’s westerns recount the white, European narrative of settlement in America, they are also archetypal stories of ordinary men and women who are called to extraordinary acts of heroism. It is the latter quality that makes them Hollywood classics. Other cinematic narratives have emerged in recent years of those whose lands Europeans seized, and those whose forced migration sustained America’s early economy.

Among the films that recount the legacy of that violence, the work of African-American writer-director Barry Jenkins--whose 'Moonlight' follow-up, James Baldwin adaptation 'If Beale Street Could Talk,' hits theatres in December--stands apart. His screenplays embed history in characters and their destinies, ennobling them in the process. Jenkins, not unlike John Ford, realizes that the sweep of history is best understood through the depiction of men and women whose lives assume tragic dimensions.

If John Ford’s westerns recount the white, European narrative of settlement in America, they are also archetypal stories of ordinary men and women who are called to extraordinary acts of heroism. It is the latter quality that makes them Hollywood classics. Other cinematic narratives have emerged i...

21/11/2018

Barry Jenkins follows his Oscar-winning 'Moonlight' with this gorgeous tone poem of James Baldwin’s searing, political novel of young love in 1970s Harlem.

The Baldwin estate wisely waited for Barry Jenkins, the Academy Award-winning writer-director of Moonlight, to be the first to film a big-screen English-language adaptation of a James Baldwin novel, and Jenkins wisely chose If Beale Street Could Talk, a story as timely today as it was when it was pu...

21/11/2018

'Ben is Back' plays heavily on one of the most agonizing family and/or social problems in America today—and gets it exactly right when Julia Roberts cuts loose with the gut-wrenching fierceness of a mother’s love when confronting her helplessly drug-addicted son.

The opening scenes are ominous. It’s winter in a small town somewhere in the Northeast. Snow blankets the ground, and all is quiet—except for the Christmas music coming from a local church. Suddenly we’re inside the church, moving in for a close-up on the face of a woman sitting in the pews—...

20/11/2018

Anchored by Natalie Portman’s fiery performance, Brady Corbet’s accomplished and timely sophomore feature wrestles with interwoven curiosities around media, pop culture, celebrity and violence.

With the provocative The Childhood of a Leader, a splendid period piece of gloriously dark visuals and pessimistic echoes of today, actor-turned-director Brady Corbet delivered a rare first film that announced the arrival of a gifted auteur. A singular movie that stays in the mind, Childhood both di...

19/11/2018

Members of a family living on state support are not what they seem in an award-winning drama from Hirokazu Kore-eda.

Families—how they form, how members interact, what they stand for—have been the pre-eminent concern of Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda. Over a career that reaches back to documentary work in the 1990s, he has explored family dynamics with an honesty and insight that has few parallels in cine...

19/11/2018

A bracing rethink of the historical costumer set in England's 18th-century court that features lush visuals, off-kilter humor and a trio of brilliant performances from Rachel Weisz, Emma Stone and especially Olivia Colman.

Among the many pleasures of this year’s New York Film Festival were a couple of films that subvert expectations about genre. Far from a standard biopic, Julian Schnabel's At Eternity's Gate, an account of Vincent Van Gogh's later days, rethinks the portrait film. Similarly, Greek auteur Yorgos Lan...

19/11/2018

'Creed 2' is a solid sequel.

The Rocky saga continues under a different name, but with all the same clichés, in Creed II, an obvious sequel to Creed and a sort-of-stealth reboot of Rocky IV, in which wholesome American grit met steely Soviet aggression.

19/11/2018

The gala opening of the 26th edition of EnergaCAMERIMAGE featured some surprise guests along with the usual array of jury introductions, film clips and special awards before a packed house at the Opera Nova in Bydgoszcz, Poland.

16/11/2018

Quirky, whip-smart documentary posits "Gilligan's Island" as societal satire that addressed nuclear jitters and subconscious fears of having to rebuild after the apocalypse. Sound silly? It's not.

Aside from being The Atomic Cafe for a new generation, The Gilligan Manifesto will have you seeing the 1964-67 CBS sitcom "Gilligan's Island" in a legitimately new way. Series creator Sherwood Schwartz often talked of how the critically lambasted show, about seven castaways on an uncharted tropical....

15/11/2018

Carlos Marques-Marcet's 'Anchor and Hope' is well-executed on nearly every front.

There’s a lovely authenticity to the characters in Anchor and Hope, the latest from writer (along with Jules Nurrish) and director Carlos Marques-Marcet (10.000 Km). It’s true, the setup smacks of indie drollery: A le***an couple living on a houseboat in a roughened part of England decides to ha...

15/11/2018

Convoluted and overstuffed with major characters, this second prequel to the Harry Potter canon nonetheless creates an encompassing, believable and highly grownup world whose most frightening aspect is how much it mirrors ours.

An epic of evil that appears to be but half of a two-part movie—shades of Avengers: Infinity War!—this exquisitely mounted sequel to Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016) skims past any narrative shortcomings through the complete and convincing totality of the wizarding world it creates...

14/11/2018

'Ralph Breaks the Internet' is the smartest kind of sequel.

The smartest kind of sequel, Ralph Breaks the Internet remembers what you liked about the first film. And then, not only gives you more of the same, but something different.

12/11/2018

Viggo Mortensen and Mahershala Ali are a memorable pair of mismatched traveling companions in this very entertaining Civll Rights Era road movie.

Not since The Odd Couple has there been a movie odd couple quite as distinctive as Tony Vallelonga and Dr. Donald Shirley in Green Book, the irresistible new road movie directed by (surprise!) Peter Farrelly of Dumb and Dumber and There’s Something About Mary fame. There’s something almost inevi...

12/11/2018

It’s enough to make the hardest of hearts grow three sizes: 'Dr. Seuss’ The Grinch' topped the box office over the weekend with a $66 million domestic gross. An A- CinemaScore and the coming holiday season indicates a strong hold over the coming weeks is likely.

It’s enough to make the hardest of hearts grow three sizes: Dr. Seuss’ The Grinch topped the box office over the weekend with a $66 million domestic gross. An A- CinemaScore and the coming holiday season indicates a strong hold over the coming weeks is likely.

12/11/2018

Alamo Drafthouse, one of the most prominent independently owned movie chains in the US, will not be showing Netflix's Oscar contender, "Roma," a source close to negotiations between the chain and streaming giant told Business Insider. A source close to Netflix confirmed that Alamo Drafthouse had passed on the movie.

Netflix is taking its first major leap into exclusive theatrical releases of its original movies with Oscar contender, "Roma." However, movie theaters like Alamo Drafthouse are pushing back.

08/11/2018

For tiny tots only, and their long-suffering adults. A predestined hit based on the strong brand and property, this animated adaptation of the classic children's book turns the Grinch from a menace to pathetic.

A saccharine spectacle compared to the animated special "How the Grinch Stole Christmas!" (1966), also based on the classic children's book by Dr. Seuss (Theodor Geisel), this second movie version after the middling 2000 live-action feature neuters the Grinch and turns the good doctor's misanthropic...

08/11/2018

David Mackenzie’s hyper-violent story of Robert The Bruce is absorbing and features action aplenty.

Based on historical events, Outlaw King is set in 14th-century Scotland, when the British Edward I (Stephen Dillane) becomes King of Scotland. He asks the Lords of Scotland—Robert The Bruce (Chris Pine) and John Comyn (Callan Mulvey) among them—to pledge fealty to Edward. Robert The Bruce reluct...

07/11/2018

'Speed Kills' feels startlingly like a 1990s direct-to-video action movie with an inexplicably inflated budget.

1987: Miami speedboat magnate Ben Aronoff’s (John Travolta) showroom is visited by a vaguely but none-too-subtly threatening thug. It’s clear that some things have come home to roost, and while Aronoff puts up a tough front, he wastes no time jumping into his car, only to find himself face-to-fa...

06/11/2018

Friday Harbor is a resort town on San Juan Island, the most populous of the isles that comprise an archipelago famous for its variety of resident and migrating whales. This picturesque spot is in Washington State, a 30-minute flight from Seattle. At the start of the last weekend in October, Lynn Danaher, Karen Palmer, and dozens of volunteers in cheery red vests were making last-minute preparations for the 6th Annual Friday Harbor FILM Festival (FHFF), held Oct. 26-28. Danaher and Palmer, who live on the island, are co-founders of the festival that centers on Pacific Rim narratives.

Friday Harbor is a resort town on San Juan Island, the most populous of the isles that comprise an archipelago famous for its variety of resident and migrating whales. This picturesque spot is in Washington State, a 30-minute flight from Seattle. At the start of the last weekend in October, Lynn Dan...

06/11/2018

CJ 4DPLEX announced that 4DX has broken new records with more than 20 million worldwide attendees in 2018. It will be the first time 4DX has reached the record high attendance–the fastest record since its debut in 2009 – exceeding $250 million at the box office.

05/11/2018

Jia Zhangke’s 'Ash Is the Purest White' had its American premiere at the New York Film Festival on Oct. 1 and opens in U.S. theatres on March 15, 2019. It is the celebrated Chinese writer-director’s eighth narrative feature, and perhaps his most introspective and enigmatic endeavor. At 48, Jia has reached the age, celebrated in myth and the movies, when men embark on their second search for meaning.

Jia Zhangke’s Ash Is the Purest White had its American premiere at the New York Film Festival on Oct. 1 and opens in U.S. theatres on March 15, 2019. It is the celebrated Chinese writer-director’s eighth narrative feature, and perhaps his most introspective and enigmatic endeavor. At 48, Jia has...

05/11/2018

Whatever your views, expect to see 'The Front Runner' thoroughly respect and challenge them.

If you want to know why current politics are the way they are—with candidates’ characters discussed more than their policies, and political reporters competing with gossip columnists—director Jason Reitman asks you look back to 1988.

05/11/2018

Byron Allen’s Entertainment Studios announced that Mark Borde, the president of its theatrical motion picture distribution unit, Entertainment Studios Motion Pictures, will be leaving the company. Borde held the post for three years.

05/11/2018

A scandal-plagued production and a middling critical reception couldn’t keep Fox’s 'Bohemian Rhapsody' from exceeding studio expectations, to the tune of a chart-topping $50 million.

A scandal-plagued production and a middling critical reception couldn’t keep Fox’s Bohemian Rhapsody from exceeding studio expectations, to the tune of a chart-topping $50 million. That’s a few healthy steps…. leaps… gallops… ahead of second-place finisher The Nutcracker and the Four Rea...

02/11/2018

Marcus Theatres, a division of The Marcus Corporation, today announced it has signed an agreement to acquire the assets of Movie Tavern from VSS-Southern Theatres, LLC , a portfolio company of Veronis Suhler Stevenson, a private-equity firm.

02/11/2018

Eminem-produced rap drama 'Bodied' attempts to flip the script by both exploiting and harpooning p.c. culture, but generally defaults to fistfights and lazy insults.

A main tenet of hip-hop is that rappers don’t fight, they battle, with rhymes. A true artist wins greater respect by assassinating rivals spitting lyrics than by engaging in any form of physical violence. The tepid drama Bodied jumps right onto that battleground tracing the odyssey of white kid Ad...

02/11/2018

'Daughters of the Sexual Revolution: The Untold Story of the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders' is a truly engrossing film, one that balances the big picture and the small one.

Forget the “Love Boat” appearances (oh, wait, you already have), but there was a time when The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders were the epitome of a certain kind of ’70s sexiness: leggy and curvy, wearing barely-there white shorts and white-vinyl go-go boots, but also wholesome and fresh-faced. Th...

01/11/2018

In a major course correction, Netflix will open three of its fall award contenders first in select cinemas — including Alfonso Cuaron's Roma — ending the streamer's long-standing insistence on making its original movies immediately available to customers.

'Roma' will be available in some markets more than three weeks before it debuts on Netflix, while 'The Ballad of Buster Scruggs' and 'Bird Box' will get a one-week berth.

31/10/2018

Anyone interested in the work of one of cinema's great directors will learn a lot from the Orson Welles doc 'They'll Love Me When I'm Dead.'

The story behind The Other Side of the Wind, a feature film Orson Welles started in 1970 and never completed, is more interesting than the movie itself. And this is a more conventional documentary than expected from director Morgan Neville, whose Won’t You Be My Neighbor? was released earlier this...

31/10/2018

Is the world ready for “a feminist Batman”?

That’s how director Fede Alvarez describes his new heroine, anyway—and personally, he thinks her appearance is long overdue.

Audiences will soon get to decide for themselves when they see the Uruguayan filmmaker’s most ambitious project yet, Sony’s 'The Girl in the Spider’s Web.' A fresh take on the Nordic noir series, it stars Claire Foy ('The Crown') as cyber-vigilante Lisbeth Salander—and her take-no-prisoners rage feels particularly made for this newly empowering time.

That’s how director Fede Alvarez describes his new heroine, anyway—and personally, he thinks her appearance is long overdue.

30/10/2018

That girl with the dragon tattoo is back and badder than ever, in a secret-agent story that’s part Bond, part bo***ge.

Of course, this mystery series has always had a taste for kink; it was never enough that its villainous masterminds were sadists, they had to be perverts, too. And they’re a big part of this film, which features creepily abusive parents, sexually violent husbands and assorted other monsters, all w...