2018 AWARD SEASON BEGINS

And so it begins. It's that time of year when the movie industry honors what is considered the best of the movies, performances and technicians of the year which is otherwise known as award season. Here is the run-down of some of the winners and nominations so far:

The National Board of Review is always the first of the critics' groups to announce their picks for the best of the year and today they have selected "Green Book" as their Best Film. This 1960's set story, directed by Peter Farrelly, tells of an unlikely friendship during a turbulent time in America was just released in U.S. theaters this past weekend. Viggo Mortensen, who plays the white driver and bodyguard for African-American pianist, Don Shirley (Mahershala Ali) as they travel through the segregated South on a concert tour, received the Best Actor prize for the film. Bradley Cooper and his directorial debut with the remake of "A Star Is Born" also received plenty of attention from the Board with the actor winning Best Director along with Lady Gaga and Sam Elliott receiving Best Actress and Best Supporting Actor for their performances. The NBR Awards will be handed out on January 8, 2019 at Cipriani 42nd Street in New York.

Best Film: "Green Book"



Best Director: Bradley Cooper, "A Star Is Born"
Best Directorial Debut: Bo Burnham, "Eighth Grade"
Best Original Screenplay: Paul Schrader, "First Reformed"
Best Adapted Screenplay: Barry Jenkins, "If Beale Street Could Talk"
Best Actress: Lady Gaga, "A Star Is Born"
Best Actor: Viggo Mortensen, "Green Book"
Best Supporting Actress: Regina King, "If Beale Street Could Talk"
Best Supporting Actor: Sam Elliott, "A Star Is Born"
Best Breakthrough Performance: Thomasin McKenzie, "Leave No Trace"
Best Ensemble: "Crazy Rich Asians"
Best Animated Feature: "Incredibles 2"
Best Foreign Language Film: "Cold War"
Best Documentary: "RBG"
William K. Everson Film History Award: "The Other Side of The Wind" and "They'll Love Me When I'm Dead"
NBR Freedom of Expression Award: "22 July"
NBR Freedom of Expression Award: "On Her Shoulders"

"The Rider", Chloé Zhao's poetic contemporary western, was the unexpected winner of Best Feature at the 2018 Gotham Awards. The New York-based group, which celebrates the best of independent cinema, offered another surprise with Toni Collette receiving a well-deserved Best Actress prize for her ferocious turn as a stressed-out mother in the horror film, "Hereditary". And the Best Actress nominating committee also voted to award a special Gotham Jury Award to Olivia Colman, Emma Stone, and Rachel Weisz for their performances in "The Favourite".

Here is the list of nominations and winners (which were presented on November 26th ) for the 2018 Gotham Awards. The winners are highlighted:

Best Feature:

"The Favourite"
"First Reformed"
"If Beale Street Could Talk"
"Madeline’s Madeline"
"The Rider"



Bingham Ray Breakthrough Director:

Ari Aster, "Hereditary"
Bo Burnham, "Eighth Grade"
Jennifer Fox, "The Tale"
Crystal Moselle, "Skate Kitchen"
Boots Riley, "Sorry to Bother You"

Best Screenplay:

Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara, "The Favourite"
Paul Schrader, "First Reformed"
Tamara Jenkins. "Private Life"
Andrew Bujalski, "Support The Girls"
Cory Finley, "Thoroughbreds"

Best Actress:

Glenn Close, "The Wife"
Toni Collette, "Hereditary"
Kathryn Hahn, "Private Life"
Regina Hall, "Support the Girls"
Michelle Pfeiffer, "Where is Kyra?"

Best Actor:

Adam Driver, "BlacKkKlansman"
Ben Foster, "Leave No Trace"
Richard E. Grant, "Can You Ever Forgive Me?"
Ethan Hawke, "First Reformed"
Lakeith Stanfield, "Sorry to Bother You"

Best Breakthrough Actor:

Yalitza Aparicio, "Roma"
Elsie Fisher, "Eighth Grade"
Helena Howard, "Madeline’s Madeline"
KiKi Layne, "If Beale Street Could Talk"
Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie, "Leave No Trace"

Best Documentary:

"Bisbee ‘17"
"Hale County This Morning, This Evening"
"Minding the Gap"
"Shirkers"
"Won’t You Be My Neighbor?"

The 34th Annual Film Independent Spirit Awards, which honors the best of indie cinema, will be broadcast live on IFC on Feb. 23, 2019. The ceremony, traditionally held the day before the Oscars, will be on the beach in Santa Monica with host, Aubrey Plaza.

Here is the list of nominations for the 2018 Film Independent Spirit Awards:

Best Feature:

"Eighth Grade"
"First Reformed"
"If Beale Street Could Talk"
"Leave No Trace"
"You Were Never Really Here"

Best First Feature:

"Hereditary"
"Sorry to Bother You"
"The Tale"
"We the Animals"
"Wildlife"

Best Director:

Debra Granik, "Leave No Trace"
Barry Jenkins, "If Beale Street Could Talk"
Tamara Jenkins, "Private Life"
Lynne Ramsay, "You Were Never Really Here"
Paul Schrader, "First Reformed"

Best Screenplay:

Richard Glatzer, Rebecca Lenkiewicz & Wash Westmoreland, "Colette"
Nicole Holofcener & Jeff Whitty, "Can You Ever Forgive Me?"
Tamara Jenkins, "Private Life"
Boots Riley, "Sorry to Bother You"
Paul Schrader, "First Reformed"

Best First Screenplay:

Bo Burnham, "Eighth Grade"
Christina Choe, "Nancy"
Cory Finley, "Thoroughbreds"
Jennifer Fox, "The Tale"
Quinn Shephard and Laurie Shephard, Blame"

Best Lead Female:

Glenn Close, "The Wife"
Toni Colette, "Hereditary"
Elsie Fisher, "Eighth Grade"
Regina Hall, "Support the Girls"
Helena Howard, "Madeline's Madeline"
Carey Mulligan, "Wildlife"

Best Lead Male:

John Cho, "Searching"
Daveed Diggs, "Blindspotting"
Ethan Hawke, "First Reformed"
Christian Malheiros, "Socrates"
Joaquin Phoenix, "You Were Never Really Here"

Best Supporting Female:

Kayli Carter, "Private Life"
Tyne Daly, "A Bread Factory"
Regina King, "If Beale Street Could Talk"
Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie, "Leave No Trace"
J. Smith-Cameron, "Nancy"

Best Supporting Male:

Raul Castillo, "We the Animals"
Adam Driver, "BlacKkKlansman"
Richard E Grant, "Can You Ever Forgive Me?"
Josh Hamilton, "Eighth Grade"
John David Washington, "Monsters and Men"

Best Foreign Film:

"Burning" (South Korea)
"The Favourite" (United Kingdom)
"Happy as Lazzaro" (Italy)
"Roma" (Mexico)
"Shoplifters" (Japan)

Best Documentary:

"Hale County This Morning, This Evening"
"Minding the Gap"
"On her Shoulders"
"Shirkers"
"Won't You Be My Neighbor?"

Best Cinematography:

Ashley Connor, "Madeline's Madeline"
Benjamin Loeb, "Mandy"
Sayombhu Mukdeeprom, "Suspiria"
Zak Mulligan, "We The Animals"
Diego Garcia, "Wildlife"

Best Editing:

Joe Bini, "You Were Never Really Here"
Keiko Deguchi, Brian A. Kates & Jeremiah Zagar, "We the Animals"
Luke Dunkley, Nick Fenton, Chris Gill & Julian Hart, "American Animals"
Anne Fabini, Alex Hall and Gary Levy, "The Tale"
Nick Houy, "Mid90s"

John Cassavetes Award (a feature film prize for movies made for under $500,000)

"A Bread Factory"
"En El Septimo Dia"
"Never Goin' Back"
"Socrates"
"Thunder Road"

Robert Altman Award (which honors the director, casting director, and ensemble cast):

"Suspiria"

IN TRIBUTE: NICOLAS ROEG & BERNARDO BERTOLUCCI

It has been a sad few days for film-goers as we have lost two important directors who created influential and distinctive works of cinema; Nicolas Roeg and Bernardo Bertolucci.

NICOLAS ROEG (1928 - 2018)

Roeg, who passed away on November 23rd in London of natural causes at the age of 90, began his career in the camera department in the British film industry. He worked his way up, starting at the age of nineteen, from clapper-loader to camera operator to becoming the second-unit cinematographer on David Lean's "Lawrence of Arabia" in 1962. Roeg impressed Lean enough to hire him to be the cinematographer on his follow-up feature, "Doctor Zhivago". This lead to him becoming an in-demand photographer, working with such noted directors as Roger Corman ("The Masque of the Red Death") François Truffaut ("Fahrenheit 451"), John Schlesinger ("Far from the Madding Crowd") and Richard Lester ("Petulia"). Around 1968, Roeg decided that after twenty-three years in the movie business to try his hand at directing.

His first film was "Performance", (which he co-directed with Donald Cammell) a crime-drama about a London gangster (James Fox) who goes in to hiding after murdering the wrong man in the countryside home of a former rock star (Mick Jagger in his film acting debut). While Roeg had completed shooting in 1968, the studio distributing the film, Warner Bros. did not release it until two years later due to their concern with what was considered explicit sexuality and graphic violence at the time. "Performance" was not a big hit but has since gone on to become a cult classic. Despite this brief setback, Roeg went on to create many idiosyncratic films including "Walkabout"(1971), "Don't Look Now" (1973), "The Man Who Fell to Earth" (1976), "Insignificance" (1985) and "The Witches" (1990). The last film he directed was "Puffball", a little-seen supernatural drama, in 2007. Roeg was married three times (with his second marriage to actress, Theresa Russell who he met on his 1980 film, "Bad Timing") and survived by six children.







BERNARDO BERTOLUCCI (1941 - 2018)

The acclaimed Italian filmmaker, Bertolucci, who died on November 26th after a battle with cancer, began his professional career as a published, prize-winning author at the age of fifteen. Creativity ran in his family as Bertolucci's father, Attilio was a poet and film critic and his brother, Giuseppe was a playwright and theater director. After Bertolucci's father helped filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini get his first novel published, the director hired the young man as first assistant for his film, "Rome on Accattone" in 1961. He became hooked on creating cinema and instead of finishing college, Bertolucci directed his first feature in 1962, "The Grim Reaper (La commare secca)" which was based on a short story by Pasolini. But it was his follow-up 1964 film, "Before The Revolution (Prima della rivoluzione)", a romantic-political drama that brought the fledgling director international attention.

Bertolucci's major breakthrough came in 1972 with the still highly controversial, "Last Tango in Paris" that featured Hollywood star, Marlon Brando and French actress, Maria Schneider. One of the more distressing issues was over the filming of the scripted explicit rape scene involving butter with the then-nineteen year old actress and forty-eight year old, Brando. The problem was that nobody had told Schneider what was going to happen during the shooting of this sequence (in order to get a more realistic response per Bertolucci) and had later stated that she felt completely humiliated and violated.

Other notable films in Bertolucci's career include "The Conformist (Il conformista)" (1970), "1900" (1976), "The Sheltering Sky" (1990), "Stealing Beauty" (1996) and "The Last Emperor", the 1987 epic drama on the life of Puyi, the final Emperor of China which went on to be nominated and win nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director for Bertolucci. He had been married to screenwriter/director, Clare Peploe since 1979.

A PRIVATE WAR (2018)

Written by Arash Amel



Directed by Matthew Heineman



Where & When: The Landmark, West Los Angeles, CA.  November 7, 2018  7:20 PM



"A Private War" examines the riveting life of Marie Colvin, an American-born war correspondent, who put herself continuously in danger by going directly in to the conflict to get the story of the innocent people (mostly women and children) who are truly affected and paid the price of war. The Oscar-nominated British actress, Rosamund Pike delivers a blistering performance as Colvin, completely transforming in to the tenacious yet vulnerable reporter. This engaging drama reveals that Colvin's important work and heroic acts also came at a high price as she ultimately suffered greatly mind, body and spirit.

Colvin was working for the British newspaper, The Sunday Times under the foreign editor, Sean Ryan (Tom Hollander) in 2001. She was covering the Sri Lankan Civil War to report on the humanitarian disaster that was happening there due to the government blockade of food and medical supplies. Colvin and her guides are fired upon by grenades despite identifying herself as a journalist. A nearby blast would cost Colvin to lose vision in her left eye but that didn't stop her from finishing her story for the paper. Although initially reluctant, Colvin begins to wear an eye patch which would also become her badge of honor.

While usually coming across somber and gruff, Colvin could at times be quite charming and seductive which made her very appealing to men. She was involved in a turbulent, short-lived marriage to professor David Irens (Greg Wise) and later hooking up with Tony Shaw (Stanley Tucci), a wealthy businessman. And while Colvin enjoyed these romantic trysts (with others in between), she was well aware that they were not enough to win over her wanderlust.

Yet it is no surprise that her demanding vocation would lead to further complications in her personal life. Colvin, who used alcohol to self-medicate, eventually breaks down from the trauma of her harrowing experiences, leading to hospitalization for PTSD.

Colvin meets Paul Conroy (Jamie Dornan), a British freelance photographer, and they begin to work together, traveling to Afghanistan, Libya and finally, Syria where they went to investigate the civil uprising in Homs in 2012. These attacks were motivated by the crackdown of the government on demonstrators, resulting in hundreds of casualties and thousands of wounded. Determined to make sure the world was aware of all of this adversity, Colvin insisted on going in to the heart of the battle to cover the story.

The director Matthew Heineman has had plenty of experience with fearless investigative reporting through documentary film making. He was behind the multi-award-winning films, "City of Ghosts" which covered RBSS, a Syrian activist group who must live undercover as their country is taken over by ISIS and "Cartel Land" that examined the Mexican drug war and the vigilante groups fighting against the cartels.

With his first narrative feature, Heineman chose a real-life subject that was a kindred spirit and someone he clearly admired. "A Private War", based on a fascinating 2012 Vanity Fair article by Marie Brenner with an effective script by Arash Amel, delivers a compelling drama of the personal conflicts Colvin faced from her desire to live a simple life in a loving relationship to an unrelenting drive to place herself in the frontlines in order to be a champion for the voiceless. Colvin was not exactly selfless yet her needs, health and safety usually took a backseat to fulfilling her obligation to complete her journalistic mission. The director, with the assistance of three-time Academy Award-winning cinematographer, Robert Richardson, uses the unobtrusive style he has applied to film his documentaries to toggle between a sense of urgency in the scenes involving the war-torn countries and intimacy during Colvin's life off the battlefield.

"A Private War" only covers the final few years of the reporter's life and I hope that Mr. Heineman will at some point have an opportunity to do an actual documentary on Colvin which would reveal her entire incredible life and career.

Journalism is under attack today by government officials who have successfully managed to convince some people that reporters are dishonest and creating "fake" news stories, particularly when it happens to involve them. Marie Colvin lost her life trying to report on the brutal reality of what actually happens after bombs are dropped on civilians. This impeccably made drama, "A Private War" not only honors the memory of Colvin but to all of the dedicated journalists who have risked their own lives so that the stories of the many people suffering and forgotten are actually told.

WILLIAM GOLDMAN (1931 - 2018)

William Goldman, one of the most successful and highest paid screenwriters in Hollywood history who went on to win two Oscars for writing "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" (1969) and "All the President’s Men" (1976), has passed away at the age of eighty-seven. He had been struggling with colon cancer and died from complications on November 16th.

He was born in Highland Park, Il. and loved going to the movies as a child. He planed on becoming a novelist and attended Oberlin College in Ohio. However, Goldman didn’t initially show much promise as a writer for he could not get a single story published in the school's literary magazine. After receiving a master’s degree, he began working on his first novel “The Temple of Gold” which was published in 1957. He wrote several other books which were met with mixed reviews and only modestly successful. Goldman also wrote a few plays that went in to production but only had short runs.

Actor, Cliff Robertson, after reading Goldman’s book, “No Way to Treat a Lady,” approached Goldman about writing a screenplay adaption of the novel, “Flowers for Algernon" which he was going to star in. And while they didn’t use his draft (which was later given to another writer, renamed "Charly" and won Robertson a Best Actor Oscar in 1968), Goldman was asked to rewrite a script for another project that would star Robertson. He received his first writing credit with the 1965 comedy-thriller, "Masquerade". Some of the other scripts Goldman would go on to write include "Misery", "A Bridge Too Far", "The Stepford Wives", "Chaplin", "Marathon Man" and "The Princess Bride" .

Despite his impressive accomplishments, Goldman famously stated that writing screenplays is not an art form but simply a skill. He felt that if all you do is write scripts, you might become successful and rich but you won’t be happy as an artist. He wrote a very revealing memoir in 1989 called, "Adventures In The Screen Trade: A Personal View of Hollywood and Screenwriting" where he talks about how to write a screenplay, barbed entries regarding his success and failures in the business and sums up the movie industry with the completely accurate line, "Nobody knows anything."

When he found difficulty getting his scripts in to production, Goldman spent his later years as a much-sought after, uncredited script doctor. One of Goldman's last major projects was a theatrical adaption of "Misery" which made it to Broadway in 2015 and starred Bruce Willis and Laurie Metcalf.

William Goldman was a confident, brutally candid artist who was always willing to speak his mind and share his honest opinion which is a rarity to find in a business that is run by fear, intimidation and fragile egos. He could find a way to tell a great story no matter the challenges of the source material, and despite his misguided opinion, that would create a memorable work of art.

STAN LEE (1922 - 2018)

We have sadly lost Stan Lee, the co-creator of many of the comic-book characters in the Marvel universe, who passed away on November 12th at the age of ninety-five. Lee was responsible for pioneering a new way of storytelling in comics which were initially designed only to appeal to children by addressing more mature themes and in the process keeping readers well in to adulthood. His superhero creations which include Iron-Man, the Hulk, Fantastic-Four, The Avengers, Thor, Doctor Strange, Black Panther and probably the most popular, Spider-Man, helped transform the industry with down-to-Earth characters that were complex with human problems and fears. After they were adapted for the big screen, beginning with "X-Men" in 2000, these heroes became even more popular and the films went on to be global, multi-billion dollar successes.

Born Stanley Lieber in Manhattan, he began his career in comics at the age of seventeen as an assistant for Timely Comics doing various odds jobs before getting a chance to write and create characters. After serving in the U.S. Army during WWII, Lee returned to work at Atlas Comics and soon became editor-in-chief. The company eventually became "Marvel Comics" by 1961 with the first issue of "Fantastic Four" which Lee created with artist, Jack Kirby. This series broke convention with flawed super-powered heroes and helped usher in a new era in comic-books.

In honor of this highly influential creator and to pay loving tribute, here is a video that shows every cameo that Stan Lee has appeared in a Marvel super-hero movie and beyond:

THE WOMEN BEHIND HOLLYWOOD

When people think of the history of cinema and the ground-breaking work of inspired filmmakers, most tend to only come up with the names of important men who were behind the creation of the motion pictures. And while this may be accurate, there were also several women involved in this process whose names are not only rarely mentioned but many seemed to have been completely forgotten.

The New York Times has placed a very long-overdue look at twenty pioneering women who helped shaped the early innovation of the movies. Some names you may be familiar with include Anita Loos, a successful novelist and playwright who brought her talent to the big screen; actress Ida Lupino who after being frustrated with the roles she was getting, formed her own production company and started directing; And Edith Head, the eight-time Oscar winning costume designer who brought undeniable style and glamour to Hollywood. But there is also lesser known talent revealed like Barbara Loden, a director who only made one film but it has since been heralded as an important indie feature ahead of it's time; Marion E. Wong, another filmmaker who only made one film in her career but it was one of the first Chinese-American feature films in 1917; And recognized as the very first female filmmaker beginning back in 1896, Alice Guy Blaché who is thought to have gone on to direct at least 1000 short films in many genres.

Please click below to see the complete list and read about their great accomplishments:

You Know These 20 Movies. Now Meet the Women Behind Them

SUSPIRIA (2018)

Written by David Kajganich



Directed by Luca Guadagnino



Where & When: Arclight Cinemas, Hollywood, CA.  October 30, 2018  7:00 PM



"Suspiria" is a provocative re-imagining of the cult classic horror film by Dario Argento from fellow Italian filmmaker, Luca Guadagnino. The director has stated that when he saw Mr. Argento's 1977 film as a child, he was completely terrified and wanted to recreate those dark emotions he felt with his own film. Mr. Guadagnino's version of "Suspiria" is a bold and bloody surreal extravaganza filled with lurid excess and demented symbolism. Yet the film comes across just as confusing, messy and somewhat redundant like a child's memory of a traumatic event. I'm not sure what I expected Guadagnino's follow-up to his highly-acclaimed, masterful work of the elegiac love story, "Call Me By Your Name" to be but this sprawling tale of overheated black magic was not it.

It's 1977 in West Berlin during the peak of a reign of terror by the militant organization, the Baader-Meinhof Gang; filmmaker, Rainer Werner Fassbinder achieved international success and David Bowie had recently immigrated to the city where he had gone to get sober and eventually inspired to create music that would revitalize his career. Susie Bannion (Dakota Johnson), an American from Ohio, arrives to the divided German city after being invited to attend the Markos Dance Academy. Shy and reserved, Susie grew-up among the Mennonite religious community. Yet despite her very conservative upbringing, she was drawn to the expressive power of modern dance.

The students are upset over the recent mysterious disappearance of their fellow dancer, Patricia (Chloë Grace Moretz). As an attempt to brush aside their concerns and fears, Madame Blanc (Tilda Swinton), the stern yet nurturing lead instructor, tries to get the girls to refocus on rehearsal for the Academy's upcoming performance, "Volk" which translates to "people" in German. Susie catches the attention of Blanc with her natural talent and impresses her enough to become the principal dancer of the piece.

Not long before she vanished, a terrified Patricia had gone to her therapist, Josef Klemperer (Lutz Ebersdorf) to assert that the dance school she attends is controlled by a coven of witches. Highly skeptical of her claims but after he begins to read the missing girl's detailed journals she left behind in his office, Klemperer decides to further investigate the Academy.

Another student, Sara (Mia Goth) also becomes suspicious of the activities by the matrons of the school. She finds hidden rooms that hold ancient religious relics and witnesses supernatural behavior before eventually discovering the terrible secret of what actually happened to Patricia and the other dancers who apparently left the Academy.

It's clear Mr. Guadagnino had no intention of making a basic horror movie. "Suspiria" explores the more obvious themes of feminism and female empowerment along with the less apparent involving the lingering guilt and shame of Germany because of the second World War and the aftermath which caused the country to be split apart. But these intriguing ideas that are touched upon become more muddled as the film progresses and lead to nowhere.

The cinematographer, Sayombhu Mukdeeprom (who also shot "Call Me By Your Name") creates a dark and ominous world with a muted color palette and utilizing classic film techniques that were popularly used back in the 1970's like slow-motion, fast-cuts and zooms. There are vivid dance routines performed in the film which are choreographed by Damien Jalet and inspired by German expressionist dance. The hypnotic score by Thom Yorke of the band, Radiohead certainly adds to the tension and creepy vibe.

Ms Johnson, whose lineage includes the highly charismatic actors, Don Johnson, Melanie Griffith and Hitchcock muse, Tippi Hedren, displays a surprising lack of presence in the film. She does not command the screen but merely takes up space. That is not the case with Ms Swinton who has had a long history of doing potent work with roles ranging from down-to-Earth to completely out-of-this-world. In addition to Madame Blanc, the actress is barely recognizable as she plays two other characters in the film (there has been a lot of chatter identifying which ones but I will leave it to you to guess) which further highlights her remarkable talent. The matrons of the school are played by an interesting mix of International performers and include Ingrid Caven, a German actress and former wife of the bisexual director, Fassbinder; César Award-winning French actress/director, Sylvie Testud; Renée Soutendijk, the Dutch actress who is best known for her work in the early films of Paul Verhoeven in the 1980's and models, Malgosia Bela and Alek Wek. Jessica Harper, who starred in the original "Suspiria" and turned down a role in Woody Allen's "Annie Hall" to appear in the film, also makes a brief cameo.

There is one unsettling scene that this "Suspiria" will probably be best remembered for (with the wild, bloodbath ritual near the end of the film a close runner-up) as it manages to be both imaginative and horrific. After Patricia disappears, Olga (Elena Fokina) is fed up with what is happening at the school and decides to leave. But she doesn't get far. Olga is locked in a rehearsal room while Susie is about to do a practice run of the dance routine. Madame Blanc touches Susie's hands and feet so that with every dramatic dance movement, Olga is violently slammed against the mirrored walls. Her body becomes so twisted and broken that when it's finally over, she barely remains recognizable as a human being. It's almost unbearable to watch yet admittedly fascinating to witness.

"Suspiria" is painfully gruesome, silly and doesn't make much sense. But the director's stylish, expertly crafted revision of an important moment in his cinematic past still manages to occasionally conjure up some thought-provoking terror and innovative fear.

2018 AFI FESTIVAL PRESENTED BY AUDI

The 2018 AFI Film Fest is set to begin on November 8th and run through November 15th. Once again the festival will be held in the heart of Hollywood. "On the Basis of Sex" has been selected to open the fest and will also make its world premiere. Felicity Jones plays Ruth Bader Ginsberg when she was a young lawyer (and long before she becomes a Supreme Court Justice) trying to bring before the US Supreme Court  a case to end gender discrimination. Armie Hammer plays her husband, Martin Ginsberg and also features Justin Theroux, Sam Waterson and Kathy Bates.



While most of this year's Gala Screenings have already made a splash at other fests like the Coen Brothers' western, "The Ballad of Buster Scruggs", Steve McQueen's heist drama, "Widows" and the Audience Award winner at the Toronto Film Festival, "Green Book", there will be a couple of world premieres.

One is the latest film from Susanne Bier, "The Bird Box", a post-apocalyptic thriller which stars Sandra Bullock as a mother who must flee with her children to a place that might offer sanctuary. But this will have to be done blindfolded in order not to look directly at the mysterious force that has destroyed most of the world. The other is the premiere of a new Netflix series by Chuck Lorre ("Two and 1/2 Men"), "The Kominsky Method". Oscar-winners, Michael Douglas and Alan Arkin star as two old friends trying to maneuver through life in LA now that they are no longer young and appealing. The first three of the eight episode series will be screened.





Special screenings will include Pawel Pawlikowski's black & white 1950's Poland set love story, "Cold War"; "Divide and Conquer: The Story of Roger Ailes", a documentary on the late Fox News executive; "Roma", Alfonso Cuaron's semi-autobiographical drama of the life of an upper-middle-class family in 1970's Mexico City; "Stan & Ollie", a bio on the career of Laurel & Hardy, the legendary Hollywood comedy team which stars John C. Reilly and Steve Coogan; and "Vox Lux", the second film from actor turned director, Brady Corbet that stars Natalie Portman as a pop star whose music video inspires a school shooting and how that links to a tragic event in her past. Ms Portman will appear after the screening on November 9th for a conversation at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood.







An evening to honor Nicole Kidman will be held on November 13th with a gala screening of her latest, "Destroyer", a gritty cop drama directed by Karyn Kusama. Ms Kidman will be in attendance and a discussion with the Academy-Award winner will be followed after the film.

There will be special sections at the fest which includes New Auteurs to showcase upcoming filmmakers; American Independents that will represent the best of indie film making; World Cinema which will feature some of the most celebrated International films of the year (that includes seven official Best Foreign Language Oscar submissions), Cinema's Legacy Program and Midnight line-up.

And "Mary, Queen of Scots" has been picked to be the Closing Night film. After briefly being the Queen of France before becoming a widow, Mary Stuart (Saoirse Ronan) decides to return to her home in Scotland to claim her throne. But Elizabeth I (Margot Robbie) now rules over both Scotland and England which creates an intense political rivalry and power struggle between them. This debut feature from theater director, Josie Rourke will makes it world premiere at the festival.

For the complete list of films, to get tickets (which will be free once again) or purchase a pass or gala package, please click below:

2018 AFI Fest