“For an intellectual product of any value to exert an immediate influence which shall also be deep and lasting, it must rest on an inner harmony, yes, an affinity, between the personal destiny of its author and that of his contemporaries in general.”—Thomas Mann, Death in Venice Barry Lyndon. I can’t believe there was a time when I didn’t know that name. Barry Lyndon means an artwork both grand and glum. Sadness inconsolable. A cello bends out a lurid sound, staining the air before a piano droopingly follows in the third movement of Vivaldi's “Cello Concerto in E Minor.” This piece, which dominates the second half of the film, steers the hallowed half of my head to bask in the film’s high melancholic temperature. Why should I so often remember it? What did I have to do with this film? I only received it with...

On Saturday, the biggest names in entertainment, journalism, sports, and music joined educators, parents, and more for “Eif Presents: Xq Super School Live,” a one-hour telecast and multi-platform event that invited the public to help rethink the future of American high schools.

DJ Khaled and son Asahd Tuck Khaled speak onstage during the Xq Super School Live

Credit/Copyright: Christopher Polk/Getty Images for Eif

Among the stars who took part were J.J. Abrams, Mahershala Ali, Kelsea Ballerini, Maria Bello, Cate Blanchett, Chance the Rapper, Common, James Corden, Miranda Cosgrove, Cindy Crawford, Portia Doubleday, Michael Ealy, Kevin Frazier, Matt FX, Bill Hader, Tony Hale, Tom Hanks, Salma Hayek Pinault, Sean Hayes, Samuel L. Jackson, Allison Janney, Jax, DJ Khaled, Gayle King, Norman Lear, Marshawn Lynch, Rami Malek, Thomas Mann, Joel McHale, Alano Miller, Hasan Minhaj, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Maren Morris, David Muir, Randall Park, Chris Paul, Tanika Ray, Conrad Ricamora, Melissa Rivers,...

Today, Xq Institute and the Entertainment Industry Foundation (Eif) announced that more stars will participate in “Eif Presents: Xq Super School Live,” a one-hour telecast and multi-platform event that will invite the public to help rethink the future of American high schools.

Among those set to participate are J.J. Abrams, Kelsea Ballerini, Maria Bello, Cate Blanchett, James Corden, Cindy Crawford, Michael Ealy, Matt FX, Salma Hayek Pinault, Sean Hayes, Allison Janney, Jax, DJ Khaled, Gayle King, Norman Lear, Marshawn Lynch, Joel McHale, Alano Miller, Hasan Minhaj, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Maren Morris, David Muir, Chris Paul, Tanika Ray, Conrad Ricamora, Adam Rodriguez, Al Roker, Ian Somerhalder, Karla Souza, Ringo Starr, Justin Timberlake, U2, Chris Wallace, Matt Walsh, Reggie Watts, D’Wayne Wiggins, and Jesse Williams, as well as East Los High stars Ashley Campuzano, Jorge Diaz, and Danielle Vega.

The live special will also include musical performances by Kelly Clarkson, Jordan Fisher and Hunter Hayes.

Now it’s a party!

Hunter Hayes, Kelsea Ballerini and Maren Morris are joining the lineup of the Entertainment Industry Foundation Presents: XG Super School Live, a telecast aiming to inspire the reshaping of high school so it prepares students for success in college, career and life.

The country singers join previously-announced stars Samuel L. Jackson, Tom Hanks, Andra Day, Mahershala Ali, Tony Hale, Bill Hader, Christian Slater, Common, Randall Park, Rami Malek, Portia Doubleday, Thomas Mann, Anna Deavere Smith, Miranda Cosgrove, Melissa Rivers, Jordan Fisher and Kevin Frazier.

Related Video: Kelsea Ballerini Talks Facing Off Against Maren Morris at...

Samuel L. Jackson, Tom Hanks, Mahershala Ali, Tony Hale, Bill Hader, Christian Slater, Common, Randall Park, Rami Malek, Portia Doubleday, Thomas Mann, Anna Deavere Smith, Miranda Cosgrove, Melissa Rivers, Kevin Frazier and many more will participate in “Eif Presents: Xq Super School Live,” a special one-hour telecast which will invite the public to help rethink the future of American high schools.

They will join Viola Davis and Julius Tennon, who also serve as executive producers, in the all-star telecast, which will air live from Los Angeles on all four major U.S. networks – ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC – on Friday, Sept. 8 at 8:00-9:00 Pm Et live/Pt tape-delayed.

In September 2015, Xq: The Super School Project launched an open call to rethink and design the next American high schools. Since then, thousands of communities across the country have come together to reimagine high school education. “Eif Presents: Xq Super...

Ryan Lambie Aug 25, 2017

We talk to the actor behind one of cinema's great villains - Terminator 2's Robert Patrick...

It's more than 25 years since Terminator 2: Judgment Day first emerged, but actor Robert Patrick still carries the same cool, shark-like look of his shape-shifting villain, the T-1000. When Patrick fixes me with his sharp blue eyes, I can almost imagine his right arm quietly morphing into a sharp, chrome spear... and then he smiles, lets out a raucous laugh and the illusion is, thankfully, broken.

See related  The Greatest Showman: first pics from Hugh Jackman musical The Greatest Showman On Earth: Zendaya joins Hugh Jackman in cast

In London to promote the 3D re-release of T2, and it's testament to how well-made James Cameron's sci-fi sequel is that it holds up so well all these years later. For his part, Robert Patrick doesn't appear to have tired being...

Exclusive: Olivia Colman (The Lobster), Alice Englert (Ginger and Rosa) and Thomas Mann (Me, Earl and the Dying Girl) have been set to star in Them That Follow, which Brittany Poulton and Daniel Savage will direct from their original screenplay. Bradley Gallo and Michael Helfant will produce for Amasia Entertainment, along with Gerard Butler, Alan Siegel and Danielle Robinson for G-base. Amasia is financing an October shoot in Ohio. Them That Follow is a dramatic thriller…...

Opening in L.A. and other cities June 16, “Stefan Zweig: Farewell to Europe” is a stylishly accomplished and intellectually well thought out character study of a man who was the most popular author in the world in the 1920s and 1930s and who, today, is nearly forgotten. Told through six windows of 20 minutes each, this unique storytelling technique gives the film an immediacy as each part of Stefan Zweig’s life plays out in real time.

Stefan Zweig’s books have been made into 23 movies around the world, including his novel, Letter from an Unknown Woman, which was adapted to the screen in 1948 by Max Ophüls and starred Joan Fontaine and Louis Jourdain. His writings have also inspired Wes Anderson’s “Grand Budapest Hotel”.

Having just read his memoir, The World of Yesterday and having been on my own private search for what it means to have to leave your...

Oh, we're going be awhile unpacking this one. Just what in the frozen Minnesota hell happened last night? A swerve. In the third episode of Fargo Season 3, we got a swerve. Eden Valley's ex-chief of police Gloria Burgle (Carrie Coon) heads to Los Angeles to continue looking into the murder of her stepfather Ennis Stussy (Scott Hylands), or should we say Thaddeus Mobley.

But Stussy's death was an open and shut case, right? Maybe not. His assumed killer was Ray's halfwit parolee, Maurice LeFay (Scoot McNairy -- a Fargo-ish name is there ever was one). The police even found LeFay's fingerprints at the scene. And yet, the circumstances of Ennis's killing still seemed off somehow. For example, why did LeFay glue Ennis' mouth and nose shut just to steal some stamps? It's an odd way to kill a man (I presume), and rather too severe -- even for Fargo.

“Nothing in the world is irreversible, not even capitalism.”—Fidel CastroTen years in the making, almost forty in clandestine obscurity, Fernando Birri's Org (1967-1978) had almost disappeared after its premiere at the Venice Film Festival and resurfaced for the first time, in its legitimate and restored form, at this year's Berlinale where it was screened in Forum. A hallucinatory deluge of colors, sounds and syncopated reveries, Org is an onomatopoeic film where the aesthetic and political tensions of a decade coalesce into an unresolved crucible of psychedelic militancy. The cinema of Dziga Vertov and Guy Debord is projected through the canvases of Roy Lichtenstein, social realism is supplanted by a third worldly modernism. Of the many semiotic victims strewn along the film's path is the convulsive plot which remains illegible throughout and yet alludes to an archetypal structure that is undermined at its very basis. The festival helpfully described...

Ask a certain crowd of people what the defining MTV show of their childhood was, and it’s not Trl, or Real World or Jersey Shore. It’s Daria. Though Ms. Morgendorffer had been seen on Beavis and Butt-Head before, the March 3, 1997, premiere of Daria proved that the two shows couldn’t be more different. Let’s take a fond trip back to Lawndale for a closer look at the best animated misanthrope of the ‘90s.

1. B&B-h creator Mike Judge had no involvement in Daria …

Judge agreed to release the character, but that’s where his involvement with the show ended.

There are shades of Stanley Kubrick and Stephen King in this operatically claustrophobic horror film about a sinister alpine spa

Gore Verbinski’s macabre conspiracy horror A Cure for Wellness is long. Very long. It is two and a half hours long, but you can’t be sure if it isn’t two and a half days, or two and a half months, or if some of the scenes unfolding on screen may in fact be hallucinations you are having privately. Yet there is something eerily mesmeric in it.

The action is set in a creepy Swiss alpine spa where rich people take the waters. In one scene, a male nurse is seen reading Thomas Mann’s Magic Mountain. Maybe he was finished with Ian Fleming’s Thunderball. Dane DeHaan plays Lockhart, an arrogant young Wall Street hotshot tasked by his hatchet-faced superiors with journeying to this very spa and...

In addition to fake news, “A Cure for Wellness” is also being promoted via more conventional means, namely a reddit Ama with director Gore Verbinski. The helmer, formerly of “The Ring” and “Pirates of the Caribbean,” fielded questions about the inspiration for his strange new thriller, whether “Rango” will ever receive a sequel and whatever happened to his “Bioshock” adaptation (spoiler alert: not happening anytime soon).

Read More: ‘A Cure for Wellness’ Is Using a New Kind of Viral Marketing: Fake News

On the “Rango” sequel:

“I don’t think so. I think that we put everything we possibly could into ‘Rango’ and I guess you never say never, but I would like to go back into animation again. But try something completely different.”

On his movie based on “Bioshock,” a popular video game:

“Well it’s no short answer to that question but we were eight weeks prior shooting when the plug was pulled.

Exclusive: While years of attempts to adapt his seminal novel A Confederacy of Dunces have so far proven futile, a drama about John Kennedy Toole and the fascinating story behind his book is coming together as a film. Susan Sarandon, Thomas Mann and Diane Kruger are attached to Butterfly in the Typewriter, a biopic about Toole’s brief but extraordinary life. David DuBos will direct his scripted adaptation of the Cory MacLauchlin book. Oley Sassone is producing. The…...

Exclusive: Ben Mendelsohn, Edie Falco and Thomas Mann have been set to star in Nicole Holofcener's new project, The Land of Steady Habits. The film, based on Ted Thompson’s novel, reunites Holofcener with frequent collaborator Anthony Bregman, who will produce through his New York-based banner Likely Story with Stefanie Azpiazu. Netflix is fully-financing the project and distributing worldwide. Holofcener will direct from her own adapted script, which focuses on Anders…...

Author: David Sztypuljak

Every year, Ee sponsor the BAFTA Rising Star Award at the British Academy of Film and Television Awards here in London town. The award is always a fascinating one since it’s voted for by the public.

Star Wars’ John Boyega won the 2016 BAFTA Rising Star Award

The nominations have just been announced from BAFTA HQ are in the running for the 2017 spot are all listed below. It’s going to be very interesting to see who takes the win this year with the likes of Tom Holland as Spider-Man being so mainstream and Anya Taylor-Joy appearing in the likes of The Witch.

Previous winners of the award include James McAvoy, Eva Green, Shia Labeouf, Noel Clarke, Tom Hardy, Juno Temple, Will Poulter, Jack O’Connell and last year the award was taken by Star Wars star John Boyega.

This year the nominations are as strong as every with Laia Costa,...

One of the most amazing things to happen to television in recent years was the fact that the second series of Fargo was actually good. It was a lot better than just good, but after the unbelievable first season, to come back with anything at all is a triumph. Now, because pushing your luck is something we should always strive for, the third series is heading our way, and it has already been announced that Ewan McGregor, Carrie Coon, and Mary Elizabeth Winstead will be involved.

Well, now you can add David Thewlis, possibly the most underrated actor working today, Michael Stuhlbarg, and Jim Gaffigan.

This time around, the show is set in 2010, which is to go wildly sideways already, and features Ewan McGregor playing Emmit and Ray Stussy. The dynamic between McGregor’s roles is obviously going to be a main focus, and the show has Emmit, the Parking Lot...

I knew almost nothing about A Cure for Wellness prior to Fox’s 2017 Showcase event, except that it was the latest from Gore Verbinski, director of The Ring and the first three Pirates of the Caribbean movies, and that the first teaser videos quietly released a few weeks ago were the perfect combination of bizarre and mysterious, putting it right to the top of my “must-see without knowing anything more about it” list.

That said, experiencing the first act of A Cure for Wellness recently left me more or less safely unspoiled from any major surprises, and definitely whet my appetite (pun intended) until the film is released in February 2017. I will try not to give away too much, but here are my impressions from what we’ve seen so far from Verbinski’s latest.

A Cure for Wellness opens with ominous, stark shots of office buildings in New York City.

Still more folks are headed up to the icy cold plains of Fargo. The FX series is rounding out its season 3 cast with a slew of new additions including Michael Stuhlbarg, Scoot McNairy, Shea Whigham, Karan Soni, Fred Melamed, and Thomas Mann. Click through for all the latest details on the Fargo season 3 cast, including which characters these stars will be playing. […]

The post FX’s ‘Fargo’ Rounds Out Season 3 Cast With Michael Stuhlbarg, Scoot McNairy & More appeared first on /Film.

“Fargo” has added Michael Stuhlbarg, Shea Whigham and Thomas Mann to its Season 3 cast, TheWrap has learned. Additionally, Karan Soni and Fred Melamed round out the cast, led by Ewan McGregor, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Carrie Coon and Scoot McNairy. McGregor is set to play duel roles as brothers Emmit and Ray Stussy at the center of the story. Emmit, the Parking Lot King of Minnesota, is a handsome, self-made, real estate mogul and family man who sees himself as an American success story. His slightly younger brother, Ray, on the other hand is more of a cautionary tale. Balding and.

Exclusive: Andrew Haigh’s 45 Years follow-up stars Charlie Plummer and Steve Buscemi.

Screen can exclusively reveal the first image from Lean On Pete, the new feature from director Andrew Haigh following his critically-acclaimed drama 45 Years.

Produced by The Bureau, the picture stars Charlie Plummer in the lead role of Charley Thompson, a fifteen-year-old boy who takes a summer job with a washed-up horse trainer. There, he befriends a failing racehorse named Lean On Pete.

Steve Buscemi, Chloe Sevigny and Travis Fimmel also feature in a cast that has added Steve Zahn, Amy Seimetz, and Thomas Mann.

The film is an adaptation of Willy Vlautin’s novel of the same name. Tristan Goligher is producing for The Bureau and the project was co-developed and funded by the BFI and Film4.

Andrew Haigh commented: “Willy’s book is unsentimental, honest, and deeply affecting. I’ve thought about Charley Thompson every day since I first read the book four years...

Exclusive: Andrew Haigh’s 45 Years follow-up stars Charlie Plummer and Steve Buscemi.

Screen can exclusively reveal the first image from Lean On Pete, the new feature from director Andrew Haigh following his critically-acclaimed drama 45 Years.

Produced by The Bureau, the picture stars Charlie Plummer in the lead role of Charley Thompson, a boy who, hoping for a new start, takes a summer job with a washed-up horse trainer. He then embarks on a perilous journey in search of his long lost aunt and a possible home, his only companion the stolen racehorse Lean on Pete.

Steve Buscemi, Chloe Sevigny and Travis Fimmel also feature in a cast that has added Steve Zahn, Amy Seimetz, and Thomas Mann.

The film is an adaptation of Willy Vlautin’s novel of the same name. Tristan Goligher is producing for The Bureau and Film4 is co-financing.

Andrew Haigh commented: “Willy’s book is unsentimental, honest, and deeply...

Francis Ford Coppola went back to UCLA last month for help making his experimental “Distant Vision.” He touted his live cinema student workshop at a modest Saturday morning press conference at his alma mater. “Distant Vision,” broadcast and streamed live Friday night, was a far cry from the circus-like atmosphere surrounding “One From the Heart” back in the ’80s at his Hollywood Zoetrope Studios. But then and now, the filmmaker strives to perfect a new electronic hybrid.

That’s because Coppola’s grown increasingly weary of “canned” performance and longs for the thrill of experiencing something live again that’s more immediate and visceral.

“Could there be live cinema and how is it different from live television?” Coppola said at the conference. “And how would you do it and why would you do it? People ask me why I would want to give up that control. But there’s something...

An auteur of many mediums — film, theater, and opera — Luchino Visconti was born into an aristocratic family and boasted a rather infamous roster of friends (Coco Chanel, Giacomo Puccini, and Jean Renoir to name a few) before he found his own spotlight in neorealist Italian cinema. And though his film repertoire is small, his style exudes knowledge and talent without question. Read More: The Essentials: The 8 Best Luchino Visconti Films In “Death in Venice,” his eleventh film based on the novella by Thomas Mann, Visconti explores not only the themes of underlying sexuality found in the original text, but the significance of ambiguity in art. His protagonists debate the importance of this, declaring that the artist cannot be ambiguous, but that art cannot help to be. In his new video essay, Pasquale Iannone uses footage from Visconti’s “White Nights,” another novella adaptation (this time from the archetypal novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky...

The Godfather director talks new Italian-American saga, risk-taking and how George Lucas got “lost” in Star Wars.

Francis Ford Coppola’s next film may be his last. But it may also be one of his most ambitious.

Speaking at the Marrakech International Film Festival (Dec 4-12), the 76-year-old director of The Godfather trilogy revealed details of the new multi-generational Italian-American saga he is developing, titled Distant Vision.

Coppola compared the project to novelist Thomas Mann’s family saga Buddenbrooks.

“I may only make one film more in my life, but it may be very long, and it may go in different places,” said the five-time Oscar winner.”It’s sort of like Buddenbrooks because it’s about three generations of a family.

“It happens during the birth of television; the growth and omnipresence of television and finally the end of television as it turns into the internet. Then I decided that I wanted to do it as live...

The life of a professional boxer can be desperate and toilsome. Unless you’re a marquee prizefighter, there’s little money to be made, leaving many fighters stricken by poverty. Yet, few professions are so straightforward. Almost disturbing in its simplicity, you punch your opponent until they fall down, whilst they try to do the same to you.

In cinema, the boxer is an ever-present figure, often solitary and driven to succeed by demons from the past. Creed, Ryan Coogler‘s new addition to the Rocky series is out this week in a wide release, and garnering some very positive reviews (including our own). There’s no better time to brush up on your boxing movies, as it’s an enthralling little sub-genre, ripe for explosive violence and drama.

We compiled ten of the best boxing movies below, so check them out, and let us know your favorites.

Ali (Michael Mann...

Writer Jesse Andrews and director Alfonso Gomez-Rejon overturn the formula for the modern teen comedy: they lay on the quirky storytelling and goofy movie parodies, but also give us characters that are reasonably human and complex. We're soon invested in a warm and rewarding drama. Young actors Thomas Mann, Rj Cyler and Olivia Cooke deal with real problems, and the movie doesn't try to change the subject to sex in every scene. A charming show, very worthwhile. Me and Earl and the Dying Girl Blu-ray 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment 2015 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 105 min. / Street Date October 6, 2015 / Starring Thomas Mann, Rj Cyler, Olivia Cooke, Nick Offerman, Connie Britton, Molly Shannon, Jon Bernthal, Katherine C. Hughes, Matt Bennett. Masam Holden. <Cinematography Chung-hoon Chung Film Editor David Trachtenberg Original Music Brian Eno, Nico Muhly Written by Jesse Andrews from his novel Produced by Jeremy Dawson, Dan Fogelman, Steven Rales Directed by Alfonso Gomez-Rejon...

After being a major influence on his work, Martin Scorsese worked with Milestone Films to bring forth a stellar-looking restoration of Luchino Visconti’s 1960 classic drama Rocco and His Brothers. After stopping by various festivals, including Tiff and Nyff, it’ll be released in NYC and Los Angeles next month, followed by hopefully a home release.

We now have a new trailer, which is fairly brief, but gives us a glimpse at the restoration while introducing our main ensemble. Starring Alain Delon, Annie Girardot, and Claudia Cardinale, check out the trailer and gorgeous poster (designed by Lauren Caddick) below for the film which kicks off its three-week run at Film Forum on Friday, October 9.

Joining the tragic exodus of millions from Italy’s impoverished south, the formidable matriarch of the Parondi clan (Katina Paxinou, Best Supporting Oscar winner, For Whom the Bell Tolls) and her brood emerge from Milan’s...

An affectless teenager’s life is turned around when he encounters his leukaemia-stricken neighbour

The title serves as fair notice: here’s another Sundance-approved pseudo indie reconstituted from equal parts quirk and fluff. Whatever insight resided in Jesse Andrews’ Ya novel – about an affectless teen film buff (Thomas Mann) renewed via encounters with his leukaemia-stricken neighbour (Olivia Cooke) – director Alfonso Gomez-Rejon doodles over with nerdy movie mock-ups, sensitive Eno soundscapes, and talking Hugh Jackman posters tacked to wallpaper intended, at the last, to signify personal growth.

Continue reading...

Me, Earl and the Dying Girl hits UK cinemas tomorow. If you missed our 5* review of the film you can have a read here. We also have merchandise from the movie we’re giving away here. Our man Nathan McVay got a chance to sit down with some of the cast of the movie Thomas

The post Exclusive Interview: Thomas Mann, Rj Cyler & Olivia Cooke talk Me, Earl and the Dying Girl appeared first on HeyUGuys.

German actor to receive Lifetime Achievement Award.

German actor Armin Mueller-Stahl is to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Zurich Film Festival (Sept 24-Oct 4).

Following the award ceremony, Mueller-Stahl will present Jim Jarmusch’s Night On Earth at the Arthouse Le Paris cinema on Sept 28.

Mueller-Stahl is one of the few German actors of distinction whose careers have spanned East Germany, West Germany and Hollywood. His most noteworthy films include Lola (1981), Oberst Redl (1985), Momo (1986), Music Box (1989), Night On Earth (1991), Das Geisterhaus (1993) and Shine (1996).

Zff co-directors Nadja Schildknecht and Karl Spoerri said: “We are proud to welcome 84-year-old Armin Mueller-Stahl as our guest to this year’s festival. He is, in our opinion, one of the most important German actors of all time. His skills as a polyglot performer oscillating effortlessly between stage and screen, Germany and the USA, have more than earned him this award.”

Raised in the German Democratic Republic (Gdr) and initially trained as a concert...

On August 14, 1971, Stanford University psychologist Philip Zimbardo initiated an experiment that has resonated for the succeeding 44 years. Twenty-four volunteers were rounded up and randomly divided into groups of "prisoners" and "guards," with the intent to study the psychology of individuals in the penal system. What happened is dramatized in the harrowing "Stanford Prison Experiment" and today we have an exclusive clip from the film. Read More: Review: Provocative And Unnerving 'Stanford Prison Experiment' with Ezra Miller, Tye Sheridan, Johnny Simmons, More  Logan Miller, Tye Sheridan, Ki Hong Lee, Thomas Mann, Moises Arias, Olivia Thirlby and Billy Crudup star in the movie showing the incremental but intense breakdown in the simulated jail, as the "guards" become mad with power and the "prisoners" are degraded. In the scene below, you get a sense of how things went badly. And yet, despite the notorious outcome...

Personally I think Paolo Sorrentino is too young to be ruminating on age. But to listen to Harvey Keitel and Michael Caine as they face the hurdles of growing old is a treat. And in the end, this is a film about youth, not old age.

In the 1980s producers Hisami Kuroiwa and Peter Newman created the two hit films “Smoke” and “Blue in the Face” in which Harvey Keitel played a younger version of himself while living in Brooklyn in a working class neighborhood. Now in “ Youth”, he is a director of some note, planning his next production to star the great “Brenda” (Jane Fonda) while holing up with his crew in an A level sanitorium (spa) somewhere in the Swiss Alps. La Fonda is superb as a brassy, vulgar star who in her sneering way causes Harvey to lose hope in the future. Future is an attribute of Youth.

While memory shows the past forgotten and far away, it is the future that looks so close and that keeps us young. Harvey Keitel demonstrates this to his crew by having them look though the different ends of a telescope. The demonstration of the different views captures the essence of this film as it looks out upon the beautiful clean mountain nature of the Swiss Alps.

Michael Caine, a retired composer and conductor, and his daughter played by Rachel Weisz, are superb as only a father and daughter of their high caliber could be. While Caine refuses to appear before the Queen to conduct his simple tunes created and sung only by his deceased wife, he is able to conduct nature and its noises divinely and is able to reconstruct a future for himself and his daughter.

This Pathe-sold, Pathe coproduction between Italy, France , Great Britain and Switzerland, looks like the sequel to “A Great Beauty” and like most sequels, it falls short of its model. Part Fellini and party Thomas Mann (Magic Mountain) the visuals and the music almost exceed the film itself. However, the cast holds the entity together and like life on Magic Mountain, the audience must allow itself to sink into the posh comfort while dealing with the distinct discomforts of life’s aging processes.

In the press conference, a large dias with Paulo Sorrentino, Paul Dano

Harvey Keitel, Michael Caine, Rachel Weisz and Jane Fonda, in a smallish press room spoke of what made them work on this film; what past roles they, like the actor in the film, could not shake off; their thoughts on aging, how it is to work in Hollywood with Hollywood mores.

Watch the press conference here:

http://www.festival-cannes.com/en/mediaPlayer/15329.html

Jane said, “This film is not a satire on Hollywood, it is very true to life. The relationship between the actress Brenda, and her producer-director is very true to life, ‘a la Sorrentino’, that is, somewhat surreal.”

Michael Caine’s response to the question of working in Hollywood and the relationships among actors, directors and producers was that “Making movies is the same everywhere, only [in Hollywood] you get more money for it.”

It has been 49 years since Michael Caine was in Cannes. “Alfie” 50 years ago won in Cannes, but he did not, and so he never came back. This time however he loves the film so much that he would go with it anywhere for free. “If any of us gests an award we all [the cast] should get awards.”

Someone asked Sorrentino about his choice of the Norwegian group. He looked a bit confused and said he did not choose them. His music supervisor and composer, David Lang did it all.

His Dp, Luca Bigazzi, and he have been friends for a very long time and Sorrentino’s own vision and the Dp’s are very close to the same. It is the visuals which are always most outstanding in his films and within such a framework, the characters he studies are rigorously tested by the high level of circumstances in which they must perform. This is literal for the actors as well as for the characters who find themselves in the top, almost god-like position.

When asked, “Have any roles stuck to them longer perhaps than they would like?”

· La Fonda immediately spoke up naming “Barbarella” which has stuck to her and said she, she is conflicted by it.

Harvey answered “no”. · Rachel said “The Mummy”. “I don’t regret it at all, but young people are always saying, ‘Oh you’re from ‘The Mummy’. I like it.”

· Michael Caine said “Alfie” and commented on Alfie being a womanizer whereas he has been married to the same woman for 46 years.

Why is Sorrentino so interested in the passage of time?

“This is the only thing that interests people”, he said, “me at least. The theme fascinates me. I am passionately interested in the future which gives us freedom. The future gives us the feeling of youth. Optimistically, it dispels our fears.”

The question arose about how Sorrentino got such a wonderful ensemble:

Harvey: “Everyone of us has personal reasons for working in this film. We all have feelings about time.”

Paul Dano: “For me, it comes from the writing. I pore over it and figure out how we’ll do what we do. Paulo’s writing is wonderful.”

Rachel agrees with both but for her it’s all about the director, unifed in turn by a piece of music. How a director directs gives a point of view. If another director directed this movie, it would be an entirely different movie.

Michael Caine, who already cited the fact that both he and Harvey Keitel were soldiers though at different times, but that they share a soldierly bond in their long-time friendship, again cited being a soldier, going into an extremely dangerous situation in which you try to keep everyone alive. This was his experience with “Youth”.

Paolo added that “Music and cinema are two forms of art, two forms of beauty that will never disappear and is constantly changing”

On aging:

Jane spoke of her obvious make up in her scene, showing her vulnerability to aging.

Michael Caine spoke of showing his aging body.

Jane answered, “Yes one is vulnerable playing an old woman putting up the mask of makeup. When she removes it (and the wig) she becomes very vulnerable and that is fun to play.”

How does Jane Fonda define youth?

“Age is very much a question of attitude. If you have passion in your life, you are young. You remain young and vital in mind when you have passion in your life. I do and the film does.”...

It remains arguably the most notorious psychological experiment ever conducted by students and to this day sends chills down the spine of many a shrink. In 1971, Stanford University conducted an experiment in which student volunteers were put into a simulated jail where some of the students were made to be prisoners and others were made to be guards as an attempt to study human nature and reaction to authority.

What they failed to anticipate was that the human element went out the window in just days as the personalities of those involved quickly changed to their new roles, the guards becoming sadistic abusers and the prisoners meek and submissive victims.

Now a new indie film has been made which documents the famed incident with Crudup starring as psychologist Philip Zimbardo who was behind the experiment. Olivia Thirlby, Ezra Miller, Michael Angarano, Jesse Carere, Keir Gilchrist and Thomas Mann also star.

Plot: An awkward high school senior, Greg (Thomas Mann) who moonlights as an aspiring filmmaker with his best pal, Earl (Ronald Cyler II) befriends a leukemia-stricken classmate, Rachel (Olivia Cooke). What begins as a simple friendship soon blooms into something deeper when Rachel.s health takes a turn for the worse, leaving Greg and Earl scrambling to make her a film of her own while there.s still time for her to... Read More...

This review was originally published during our coverage of the 2015 Sundance Film Festival. It is being reposted for the film’s theatrical release.

I watch a lot of movies – a whole lot. They’re a big part of my life, helping me and many others like me live this vicarious, often romanticized existence where the guy gets the girl, or doesn’t, or the girl shoots him in the face, or whatever. Over time, after many, many hours frittered away in front of various screens, any seasoned movie-watcher starts to formulate their own rules for what they consider to be truly great cinema. I have a few of these rules bouncing round my head every time I sit down at a picture show, but there’s one that sticks with me more than all the others: A film will go a long, long way, provided it has a good heart.

Exclusive: Thomas Mann and Jenny Slate are in talks to join Dakota Fanning in Brain On Fire. Glassland's Gerard Barrett is directing his scripted adaptation of the Susannah Cahalan's bestselling memoir Brain On Fire: My Month Of Madness, with Fanning playing the author during a terrifying and sudden descent into insanity as the result of a mysterious illness. Charlize Theron, Beth Kono and Aj Dix are producing for Denver and Delilah Films, and Rob Merilees for Foundation…...

The Fault in Our Stars gets a darkly comic twist in the movie adaptation of Jesse Andrews's novel Me & Earl & the Dying Girl.

Greg Gaines (Thomas Mann) is an awkward Pittsburgh high school student whose dreary life changes forever when he's pushed into comforting a dying classmate named Rachel (Olivia Cooke).

The aspiring filmmaker Greg and his best friend Earl (Ronald Cyler II) decide that the best way to help Rachel through her final months is to make her the star of their next movie.

Andrews has adapted his debut novel for the big screen, with directing duties going to American Horror Story's Alfonso Gomez-Rejon.

The film took the prestigious Us Dramatic Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival earlier in the year.

The ensemble cast for the comedy includes Connie Britton, SNL's Molly Shannon, Nick Offerman and The Walking Dead star Jon Bernthal.

Me & Earl...

We now know when we'll be able to reenter the creepy confines of 112 Ocean Avenue, but it won't be anytime this year, as Amityville: The Awakening has been set for a 2016 calendar spot.

Blumhouse revealed via Twitter today that Amityville: The Awakening (once scheduled for a January 2nd debut) will be released by Dimension on April 15th, 2016.

The latest installment in the Amityville horror movie franchise follows a single mother (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and her three children as they move into the dreaded 112 Ocean Avenue home in New York, unaware of its bloody, possessive history. One of the kids, a teenager played by Cameron Monaghan, is bed-ridden in a coma-like state, but his new home is looking to wake him up for its own malevolent agenda.

Written and directed by Franck Khalfoun (2012’s Maniac), Amityville: The Awakening movie stars Bella Thorne, Cameron Monaghan, Mckenna Grace, Taylor Spreitler, Thomas Mann, and Jennifer Jason Leigh.

Neil Armfield.s Holding the Man, Simon Stone.s The Daughter, Jeremy Sims. Last Cab to Darwin and Jen Peedom.s feature doc Sherpa will have their world premieres at the Sydney Film Festival.

The festival program unveiled today includes 33 world premieres (including 22 shorts) and 135 Australian premieres (with 18 shorts) among 251 titles from 68 countries.

Among the other premieres will be Daina Reid.s The Secret River, Ruby Entertainment's. ABC-tv miniseries starring Oliver Jackson Cohen and Sarah Snook, and three Oz docs, Marc Eberle.s The Cambodian Space Project — Not Easy Rock .n. Roll, Steve Thomas. Freedom Stories and Lisa Nicol.s Wide Open Sky.

Festival director Nashen Moodley boasted. this year.s event will be far larger than 2014's when 183 films from 47 countries were screened, including 15 world premieres. The expansion is possible in part due to the addition of two new screening venues in Newtown and Liverpool.

As previously announced, Brendan Cowell...

Michael Mann, likely hoping to bounce back from Blackhat- the critical and financial flop he released earlier this year-, is preparing his next project. The revered director, responsible for films like Heat, The Insider, and Ali is now preparing to bring Enzo Ferrari's life story to the big screen. The Italian automotive mogul is responsible for the iconic brand of cars that bare his name: Ferrari.

Mann, as he's been known to do, has been doing exhaustive research on the man, and has combined two separate scripts that were based off of the book "Enzo Ferrari: The Man, The Cars, and The Races" by Brock Yates into one. Those two, now merged scripts were written by Troy Kennedy Martin (The Italian Job) and David Rayfiel (The Firm).

The Rayfiel script was going to be used by Sydney Pollack when this film was first conceived back in 2004, with...

Criterion brings British auteur Nicolas Roeg’s most famous title to the fold, 1973’s enigmatic Don’t Look Now, a title that has influenced generations of filmmakers since its successful reception, and marks the director’s fifth title to be included in the illustrious collection. A refracted dreamscape of symbols and motifs, the film is a brooding jigsaw puzzle that doesn’t insist on answering all your questions, and happens to feature an unforgettable finale that’s lost none of its affect (despite providing iconic fodder for famed parodies, ranging from memorable bits in “Spaced” to “Absolutely Fabulous”).

After the drowning of their preadolescent daughter, Christine, in the backyard of their estate, John and Laura Baxter (Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie) take off for Venice, where John accepts a job to restore some mosaics in one of the city’s many dilapidated churches. However, once there, the couple is introduced...

13 Hours

James Badge Dale ("Iron Man 3") has scored one of the lead roles in Michael Bay's "13 Hours" at Paramount Pictures. John Krasinski is also onboard this film adaptation of the Mitchell Zuckoff book.

The story chronicles of the deadly assault on the U.S. State Department Special Mission Compound in Benghazi, told from the perspective of the six-member security team that fought to protect the other people stationed there. Dale will play the leader of the security team. [Source: Deadline]

Sky

Diane Kruger ("The Bridge") and Norman Reedus ("The Walking Dead") have joined the cast on Fabienne Berthaud’s English-language debut "Sky" which has just begun filming. Berthaud co-wrot the film with Pascal Arnold.

Gilles Lellouche, Q’orianka Kilcher, Lou Diamond Phillips, Lena Dunham and Joshua Jackson also star in the story of a woman’s lifelong wandering that turns into an intimate reawakening in foreign lands. [Source: Screen]

Living On Video...

Billions

Malin Akerman ("Watchmen") has been cast in Showtime's new drama pilot "Billions" alongside Damian Lewis and Paul Giamatti. Akerman plays Lara Axelrod, a former nurse who is now married to billionaire Bobby 'Axe' Axelrod (Lewis).

The story is a fictional tale of the high finance world, examining what happens when Lewis' brilliant, ambitious hedge-fund king character collides with hard-charging, whip-smart U.S. Attorney Chuck Rhoades (Giamatti). Filming is now underway in New York. [Source: THR]

Fun House

Nicholas Braun ("The Perks Of Being A Wallflower") will join Tina Fey and Margot Robbie in "Fun House" at Paramount Pictures. Braun will play the cameraman who works with Fey's character.

An adaptation of Kim Barker’s wartime memoir "Taliban Shuffle," Fey plays a journalist and self-confessed adrenaline junkie who recounts her six years of reporting on terrorism and international affairs in Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. [Source: Deadline]

Things You Missed While You Were Gone

Jena Malone...

The official awards for the 2015 Sundance Film Festival were announced tonight at a ceremony in Park City. We've been anxiously awaiting the results of the awards at Sundance, and now we know who won big - Me & Earl & the Dying Girl, directed by Alfonso Gomez-Rejon, starring Thomas Mann and Olivia Cooke. It landed yet another double header win - Audience Award and Grand Jury Prize, which puts it up there with the likes of Whiplash last year, Precious and Fruitvale as other big double-header winners. There were plenty of other excellent awards and jury prizes given out, so read on for the full list of 2015 winners. Here's the full release of winners with synopsis info next to each. The 2015 festival wraps up this weekend. 2015 Sundance Film Festival Jury Awards: The U.S. Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic was presented to: Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (Director: Alfonso Gomez-Rejon, Screenwriter:...

There are more dying-teen love stories on the horizon. One of the most admired films to premiere at Sundance is Alfonso Gomez-Rejon's Me & Earl & the Dying Girl, adapted from a young-adult novel of the same name. The film stars Thomas Mann as a witty, creative, but isolated high-school senior named Greg, who is forced to visit his classmate Rachel (Olivia Cooke), who has just been diagnosed with leukemia. Needless to say, Greg and Rachel don’t just hang out that one time. From standing ovations to audiences sobbing in unison, director Alfonso Gomez-Rejon’s highly personal film is generating highly personal responses. Gomez-Rejon spoke with John Horn, host of Southern California Public Radio's new arts and entertainment show, "The Frame," about the highly personal nature of the film, sparking a bidding war, and rushing to complete the film just hours before Sundance started. (Listen to part of the interview below,...

Dozens of new independent movies premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival over the past several days, and now it's time to take a look at the ones that truly left a mark. With the Academy Awards only weeks away (watch them live February 22), we thought it'd be fun to highlight our favorites by giving them some special awards. So what movies should you be putting on your radar? Check out our recommendations below.    Best Movie About Two Dudes and a Dying Girl Me and Earl and the Dying Girl This quirky tearjerker about a high school senior whose mother forces him to befriend a classmate with leukemia stole the hearts of everyone who watched it. The film, starring Thomas Mann, Olivia Cooke and newcomer Rj Cyler, is sweet and nerdy -- like a Wes...

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The tale of a loner who befriends a fellow high school student with leukemia has become the breakout hit of theSundance Film Festival.

Fox Searchlight bought Me and Earl and the Dying Girl after its well-received premiere Sunday for a reported $12 million, a record price for a Sundance movie.

The film stars Thomas Mann as Greg Gaines - the "me" in the title, and British actress Olivia Cooke is the "dying girl," while newcomer Rj Cyler is "Earl" - Gaines' best friend. The audience at Sundance's Eccles theatre gave the film a five-minute standing ovation as credits rolled.

"It was really emotional. We had seen the movie before but obviously it's a really different experience seeing it with a huge group of people who have no idea what they're about to see. And then the credits start rolling and everyone stands up and starts clapping. I mean, you start bawling.

Self-loathing and insecurity are symptoms as definitive of adolescence as growth spurts and acne. Movies that explore the treacherous process of growing up are a dime a dozen, but few recent efforts encapsulate the layered fears that accompany the coming of age experience with as much wit and depth as Alfonso Gomez-Rejon's "Me, Earl, and the Dying Girl." For 17-year-old Greg Gaines (Thomas Mann), being social is more stressful than satisfying, his immense self-consciousness crushing any desire to form lasting relationships. His sole companion is his coworker Earl (Rj Cyler), with whom he's been making whimsical adaptations of classic films since childhood with titles like "49th Parallelogram" and "It’s a Punderful Life." While Greg just wants to make it through his senior year as inconspicuously as possible, his mother soon tramples on his plans to maintain a friendly distance when she insists that he spend time with Rachel,...

Every year I go to Sundance, there's always one unique film gem that sticks out above the rest. Me and Earl and the Dying Girl is that film this year, not just for me but for everyone that I've talked to that has seen it. This has taken my number one spot of favorite movie at the festival this year, and it is one I can see being on my list of favorites at the end of the year. It is seriously that amazing. It's one of those movies I'll be talking to people about all year every chance I get.

The film is a quirky, heartwarming coming-of-age comedy that has a gentle touch of drama. The story follows a high school teen named Greg Gains (Thomas Mann) who thinks he has mastered the art of making it through high school without making friends or enemies and avoiding social situations.