Author: HollywoodReporter

Civil War writer-director Alex Garland is addressing some of the biggest questions circling his upcoming A24 action-drama: Why now? What is he trying to say? And why are Texas and California allies in the film, exactly? At a South by Southwest Film & TV panel the day after the film’s world premiere screening, the Ex Machina and Annihilation filmmaker answered a few of the burning questions about the film. Civil War has raised eyebrows for its timing, coming amid a contentious election year in which President Biden has claimed “democracy is at stake” given his opponent Donald Trump’s history of…

Joe Camp, the writer, director and producer who taught that old dog Hollywood new tricks about animal movies as the creative force behind the 1974 franchise-spawning Benji, has died. He was 84. Camp died Friday morning at his home in Bell Buckle, Tennessee, following a long illness, his son, filmmaker Brandon Camp, told The Hollywood Reporter. Camp also directed and co-wrote the comedies Hawmps! (1976), about the U.S. Cavalry replacing horses with camels in the 1850s, and The Double McGuffin (1979), which revolved around kids trying to thwart a terrorist (Ernest Borgnine) and featured lots of in-jokes about Hitchcock movies.…

The online furor over the comments made by director Jonathan Glazer in his Oscar acceptance speech for The Zone of Interest — where the British director commented on the ongoing war in Gaza — has overshadowed Glazer’s closing statements, in which he dedicated his Academy Award to Alexandria Bystroń-Kołodziejczyk, a woman who fought the Nazis as a member of the Polish resistance. Bystroń-Kołodziejczyk was the inspiration for the night-vision scenes in Zone which show a young girl secretly leaving food for prisoners in Auschwitz. Glazer, who met Bystroń-Kołodziejczyk before her death in 2016, carefully modeled the film’s character on her,…

French star Omar Sy (Lupin, The Intouchables) is joining forces with Fast X and Transporter director Louis Leterrier and producer Thomas Benski (American Honey, Gangs of London) to launch Carrousel Studios, a new European independent studio. Billed as an “artists-first” studio, Carrousel aims to focus on elevated genre, in the film and TV, to “lean into elevated action, thrillers, sci-fi, fantasy and comedy projects,” according to a statement, by taking advantage of “myriad tax credits, subsidies, cost of production, incredible talent (in front and behind the camera) as well as other European incentives.” All three men are represented by CAA…

Netflix’s Shirley is in so many ways a companion piece to the streaming platform’s recent Rustin that the two films could be entries in the same anthology series. Both shed light on influential Black political figures too long undervalued in historical accounts of their era. Both are driven by commanding performances from first-rate actors in the title roles. Both focus on specific chapters of the lives they depict, mostly skirting the clichés of cradle-to-grave biopics. But both also struggle to frame their subjects in the forceful dramatic terms they merit, getting stuck in too much expository talk and at times…

The details of American politics do not concern Alex Garland in Civil War. Despite the controversy it’s already courted about its supposed prescience, the unsettling feature from the British filmmaker doesn’t predict a future based on the country’s current two-party system. Garland is far more interested in the United States’ self-regarding exceptionalism, its belief in its own safety from executive instability. He is fascinated by how factionalism instigates conflict and how no nation is immune to the results of its violence.  Civil War The Bottom Line A subversive and unsettling exercise. Venue: SXSW Film Festival (Headliner)Release date: Friday, April 12Cast:…

Grant Page, the larger-than-life Australian stunt performer famous for his jaw-dropping work in films including Mad Max, The Man From Hong Kong and Mad Dog Morgan, has died. He was 85. Page died Thursday when the car he was driving near his home in Kendall on the coast of New South Wales hit a tree, his son Leroy Page told Daily Mail Australia. Page worked with director Brian Trenchard-Smith on more than a dozen projects, including The Stuntmen (1973), King Fu Killers (1974), The Man From Hong Kong (1973) — where Page fights martial arts expert Jimmy Wang Yu in…

Sam Mercer, who produced eight M. Night Shyamalan films starting with the spooky blockbuster The Sixth Sense, has died. He was 69. Mercer died Feb. 12 at his home in South Pasadena after a battle with younger-onset Alzheimer’s, his wife, Tegan Jones, told The Hollywood Reporter. Mercer was seen as an out-of-the-box hire when he joined Industrial Light & Magic in September 2015 to oversee and coordinate activities of the VFX giant’s studios in San Francisco, Vancouver, London and Singapore. However, he left the next year after being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Mercer began his career as a location manager on…

Lindsay Lohan may not like watching her own movies, but admitted she got emotional when she saw her son watching one of her beloved films. The actress stopped by The Drew Barrymore Show on Thursday, where the host asked her whether she watches the films she had starred in. Drew Barrymore noted that she can’t because it feels “indulgent.” While Lohan said she doesn’t seek out her movies, she will occasionally have one on in the background. “I mean, if someone wants to watch it and I’m there, I put it on and I’m like cooking in the kitchen or…

A24 revealed its provocative action drama Civil War at the South by Southwest Film & TV Festival on Thursday night. Screening to a packed audience at Austin’s Paramount Theater, Civil War was revealed to be a tribute to war journalism that veers away from the politics that led to the central conflict. The movie simply questions what the practicalities and horrors of a civil war would look like in modern-day America. The film (trailer below) from acclaimed writer-director Alex Garland (Ex Machina) imagines a near-future dystopia where the United States has been torn apart under the authoritarian rule of a three-term president…