2022 AFI FILM FESTIVAL

The American Film Institute will be bringing their brief yet robust annual film fest to the heart of Hollywood at the TCL Chinese Theatres on November 2nd to 6th. The Opening Night Film selected will be "Selena Gomez: My Mind and Me", a documentary by Alek Keshishian on the actress and pop singer which chronicles the pressures of stardom while she has open and honest conversation around her own mental health.



The other Red Carpet Premieres are "Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths", Alejandro G. Iñárritu's latest feature about a Mexican journalist (Daniel Gimenez Cacho) who also creates films living in Los Angeles who takes a jounrey back to his home country, grappling with indentity, success and familial bonds; "She Said", a feature film by Maria Schrader, details two New York Times reporters (Carey Mulligan and Zoe Kazan) investigating the subject of sexual assault in Hollywood and the determination to shatter the years of silence, propelling the #Metoo movement; "The Son", Florian Zeller's follow-up to his Oscar-winning film, "The Father", has Hugh Jackman as a divorced man recently remarried and the complicated relationship with his troubled teenage son from his previous marriage; Guillermo del Toro is delivering his version of "Pinnochio" with a whimsical, stop-motion animated film set in 1930's Italy; and "Living" is a British reimaging of Akira Kurosawa’s masterwork "Ikiru" now set in in post-World War II London with Bill Nighy as civil servant who discovers he has an uncurable illness and decides to make a final change to his mundane life before departing this world.







Some of the Special Screenings will include actor, Sarah Polley's first feature film as a director in ten years, "Women Talking" which details eight women living in an isolated religious community struggling with reconciling their reality with their faith. Rooney Mara, Jessie Buckley, Claire Foy, Ben Whishaw and Frances McDormand star; "Nanny", a creepy, horror drama from first-time writer/director, Nikyatu Jusu, follows an undocumented Senegalese woman (Anna Diop) working as a nanny for a wealthy Manhattan family, hoping to eventually be able to bring her child over she was forced to leave behind, while suffering horrific nightmares that threatens her sanity. Michelle Monaghan, Morgan Spector and Leslie Uggams co-star; The latest from director, Alice Rohrwacher ("Happy as Lazzaro") is "Le Pupille", a magical fable about a group of rebellious, young girls at a boarding school who are blessed with good fortune during wartime; "Is That Black Enough For You?!?", the film critic Elvis Mitchell's first time as a director which he constructs a warm and joyous history of African-American life represented throughout cinema.





This year's Guest Artistic Director will be Ava DuVernay, the celebrated filmmaker behind "Middle of Nowhere", "Selma" and "A Wrinkle in Time". She will present three noteworthy, independent feature films: "Hellion" (2014) by Kat Candler, "Mosquita y Mari" (2012) by Aurora Guerrero and "Yelling To The Sky" (2011) from Victoria Mahoney, which will put a spotlight on female directors who were able to creative outstanding works with limited resources.







And the Closing Night film will be the US premiere of "The Fabelmans", Steven Spielberg's semi-autobiographical, coming-of-age drama involving Sammy Fabelman (Gabriel LaBelle), a young boy who falls in love with cinema while coping with family conflict which will ultimately shape him as a filmmaker. Michelle Williams, Paul Dano, Seth Rogen, and Judd Hirsch also star.



The rest of the AFI Film Fest will include new works of world cinema, documentaries, short film competition and AFI Conservatory Showcase that will feature the short films by recent graduates of AFI.

For the complete list of films and to purchase tickets and passes, please click below:

AFI 2022

COMING SOON

For his fourth feature film, Damien Chazelle is taking on the very early days of Hollywood with "Babylon", a time that was filled with excess and decadence. Set in the 1920s, during the transition from silent to sound films, where we follows Manny Torres (newcomer, Diego Calva), a young man trying to break into the movies and lands an opportunity as a film assistant. This leads to him getting involved in the eccentric, carefree lives of Jack Conrad (Brad Pitt), a hard-partying, major movie star and Nellie LaRoy (Margot Robbie), an aspiring actress. 

From the looks of the trailer, "Babylon" will be a wildly extravagant, behind-the scenes drama that digs deep into the dark, underbelly of the movie business, an industry that doesn't seem to have changed all that much in a little over one hundred years. There is also an impressive starry ensemble involved that includes Katherine Waterston, Lukas Haas, Eric Roberts, Olivia Wilde, Jean Smart and Tobey Maguire.

"Babylon" is due in US theaters on December 23, 2022

MOONAGE DAYDREAM (2022)

Directed by Brett Morgen



Where & When: TCL Chinese Theatres IMAX, September 18, 2022 12:20 PM



I still remember clearly the complete shock and disbelief I felt when I heard the news that David Bowie, the influential, enigmatic rock-star alien, had passed away in 2016. With his sensual, otherworldly essence, he gave the impression that he would simply exist forever. Bowie even released a complete new album, "Black Star" two days after he died. At only sixty-nine, the British performance artist, although best known for his innovative music also painted and acted on stage and screen, seemed to have his life tragically cut far too soon. As a musician, Bowie was a true chameleon, continuously shifting and expanding the possibilities of rock & roll. And using his lithe body as a colorful, exhilarating canvas, he helped alter the rigid ideology on gender norms and visual presentation.

Brett Morgen, the filmmaker who has created meditative non-fiction works that have largely focused on seminal figures in pop culture like Hollywood producer, Bob Evans; the still rocking, The Rolling Stones; primatologist, Jane Goodall and the late rock performer, Kurt Cobain, has set his sights on Bowie. "Moonage Daydream", a wildly kinetic mosaic of sound and vision, reflects on the creative life of the rock musician told in his own words, assembled through a series of interviews the artist had given throughout his lengthy career.

Broken up through the different eras of Bowie's intriguing artistic journey, we begin expectedly yet briefly with his early days as an androgynous, shaggy haired mod-rocker before morphing into the genderqueer space alien with a mullet of flaming red-hair, backed-up with his hard-rocking band, the Spiders from Mars. Following this first brush with massive stardom, Bowie shifted gears, not wanting to be defined by Ziggy Stardust, moving into Aladdin Sane with the now-iconic album cover image of the colorful lighting bolt across his face. After a few more albums, he abandoned glam-rock altogether, moving into the Thin White Duke phase and "plastic soul", his homage to American r&b and soul music. Trying to escape years of deep drug addiction in Los Angeles, Bowie heads to Europe, ending up in Germany. Clear-eyed and inspired, he begins to experiment with electronic, ambient sounds, creating a trio of albums later referred to as the "Berlin Trilogy".

With "Moonage Daydream", which is the title of the 1971 song that introduces us to Ziggy Stardust, Morgen has crafted a masterful work of art that poetically explores the roots of Bowie's considerable, wide-ranging artistry. Serving also as editor and utilizing a collision of expressionistic effects, he effectively has Bowie discuss many of his influences and motivations while visualizing his tremendous impact throughout using zippy fast-cuts of various media with the musician's work as a musician and actor. This is the first film about Bowie that has been authorized by his estate, allowing Morgen to use all of his music and have access to Bowie's extensive footage from his personal archives, much of it rarely seen before publicly. Tony Visconti, a musician and producer who had worked with Bowie since his second album in 1969, serves as the film's music producer, helping to put together previously unreleased live tracks with newly created remixed songs for the soundtrack .

Throughout each of his aesthetic and musical transformations, Bowie is revealed to be a true trendsetter and innovator, boldly expressing a queer, rebellious spirit by becoming the face of bisexual chic, wearing make-up and normalizing crossdressing at a time when the world was even less open to such provocative acts. Bowie realized early the power of using short-form film to create alluring imagery and enhance his musical vision, long before people began wanting their MTV in 1981. And he was a natural additional to the music channel which helped propel him into becoming a major pop music superstar with his worldwide smash album, "Let's Dance". Yet the intense pressure and high expectations of this type of fame made Bowie retreat back into his comfort zone of more esoteric musical stylings.

My only real criticism about "Moonage Daydream" would be it's length. While I would be of the mindset that there could never be too much Bowie yet after a while during the one hundred and forty minute runtime, the film does begin to drag a bit and feel overextended largely due to the unstructured format. And I was also left to wonder about the complete exclusion to mention some of the many people, friends, family and colleagues, who contributed significantly to Bowie's success. Thinking this was a creative decision until I saw the segment dedicated to his romance to Iman, the Somali supermodel who is Bowie's widow and love of his life.

Yet it seems strange to completely omit any mention of Angela Bowie, his free-spirited, first wife who clearly had some influence over his early image and opened his mind to a broader, more alternative lifestyle. And she is the mother of his first child, Duncan, now a filmmaker, who went by "Zowie" for the first ten years of his life. The couple both acknowledged their relationship was highly tumultuous with Bowie later admitting that he had married her so she could work in Britain. But they were together for a decade so there might have been something that could have been said, if only briefly.

If you were looking for a documentary filled with warm remembrances by several talking heads, straightforward live performances or salacious details regarding Bowie's drug abuse and various romantic flings, then you will certainly be disappointed. Morgen was far more interested in creating an introspective, visually explosive experience. "Moonage Daydream" is a thrilling, experimental celebration of a true creative genius told in a mesmerizing, deconstructed way that I think the musician would have greatly appreciated.

2022 NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL

This will mark the sixtieth year of the New York Film Festival, an event that has long introduced audiences to the latest cinematic works from the world's celebrated filmmakers and exciting new talent. This year's fest will begin on September 30th and conclude on October 16th.



The new film from Noah Baumbach, "White Noise", which had it's world premiere at the Venice Film Festival last month, will be the Opening Night selection that will make it's North American premiere. This bold adaptation of the Don DeLillo’s 1985 novel stars Adam Driver and Greta Gerwig in a satire about an accidental airborne toxic event that terrifyingly changes their comfortable suburban lives.

The photographer Nan Goldin, who is a subject in this year’s Centerpiece selection "All the Beauty and the Bloodshed", has created two posters (one pictured above) to celebrate the fest's milestone. This documentary by Laura Poitras (which won the top prize of the Golden Lion at Venice) explores the legal battle between Goldin and the Sacklers, the family behind the pharmaceutical company, Purdue Pharma who she held personally accountable for her opioid addiction.

James Gray's latest feature, "Armageddon Time" has been selected as the NYFF 60th Anniversary Celebration screening. This semi-autobiographical, coming-of-age drama, set in 1980's Queens, is about a sixth grade boy (Banks Repeta) who dreams of becoming an artist. Yet his parents (Jeremy Strong and Anne Hathaway) have other plans for his future while he struggles to understand the racism from people (including his parents) about his friendship with an African-American classmate (Jaylin Webb).



The Closing Night selection will be "The Inspection", the riveting feature film debut by Elegance Bratton. Based on Bratton's own experiences, Jeremy Pope stars as a troubled young gay man, forced to live on the streets due to conflict with his homophobic mother (Gabrielle Union), who decides to join the Marines in an attempt to turn his life around. But this is during the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" era, making this even more of a challenge for him.



Other films in the Main Slate include North American and US premieres from international filmmakers like Marie Kreutzer ("Corsage"); Frederick Wiseman ("A Couple"); Jerzy Skolimowski ("EO"); Mia Hansen-Løve ("One Fine Morning"); Cristian Mungiu ("R.M.N."); Davy Chou ("Return to Seoul"); Pietro Marcello ("Scarlet"); Alice Diop ("Saint Omer").







Some highlights from the Spotlight section of the fest includes the film critic, Elvis Mitchell's first time behind the camera with the documentary, "Is That Black Enough for You?!?" which takes an engaging yet scholarly look at the African-American revolution in cinema during the 1970's; The Oscar-winning British director, James Ivory looks back at himself in the documentary, "A Cooler Climate" which he co-directed with Giles Gardner that reveals the contents of a recently found box of film shot in the 1960's during Ivory's life-changing trip to Afghanistan; "Sr" explores the life and career of Robert Downey Sr., the visionary filmmaker best known for his counterculture comedies (who passed away at eighty-five in 2021) from director Chris Smith. And the world premiere of "Till", Chinonye Chukwu’s heartfelt examination of the tragic aftermath of the horrific murder of Emmett Till, a fourteen year old boy from Chicago, with his mother, Mamie (Danielle Deadwyler) demanding the world see what was done to her son, helping to ignite the civil rights movement.



For the complete list of films, events and to purchase tickets, please click below:

NYFF60

JEAN-LUC GODARD (1930 - 2022)

Jean-Luc Godard, one of the most important and influential filmmakers who dramatically shifted the potential of cinema by challenging the conventions of the art form, has died at the age of ninety-one. With the release of his debut feature, "Breathless" in 1960, he helped to establish what would be known as the French New Wave movement which rejected traditional filmmaking methods to explore experimentation with narrative, editing and visual style, which effectively reinvigorated motion pictures. He was also one who strongly championed the idea of the auteur theory which stated that the director was the clear 'author' of a film despite there being many people involved in the making of the project. 

Godard was born into wealth and comfort with his father, Paul was a Swiss doctor and his mother, Odile was the daughter of Julien Monod, a founder of the Banque Paribas. While he did not attend films regularly when he was young, Godard became intrigued with cinema by reading about it in the magazine, La Revue du cinéma. But his interest intensified when he joined several ciné-clubs in Paris, groups dedicated to film screenings and discussions. This lead to Godard to explore film criticism and founded a short-lived magazine, Gazette du cinéma with Jacques Rivette and Maurice Schérer (who would later become better known as filmmaker, Éric Rohmer). He would go on to write for the just established film journal, Cahiers du Cinéma in 1951.

During this time, Godard got his hands on a camera and began to make short films, becoming friendly with other aspiring filmmakers, Alain Resnais, Claude Chabrol, Jacques Demy, Agnès Varda and François Truffaut. Now determined to make his first feature film, Godard went to the 1959 Cannes Film Festival where he got financing from producer Georges de Beauregard and asked Truffaut if he could use an idea they had come-up together about a car thief.

"À bout de souffle" or as it's probably better known, "Breathless", took the world by storm, turning American film noir on it's head by breaking cinematic rules with jump-cuts, non-continuity editing, actual locations, using handheld cameras and writing pages of the script on the day of shooting. The film made Jean-Paul Belmondo, in his first significant role playing criminal, Michel Poiccard and Jean Seberg as his American girlfriend Patricia, into major movie stars and Godard into a celebrated filmmaker.

With his follow-up film, "Une femme est une femme (A Woman Is a Woman)" in 1961 (which would star his future wife, Anna Karina), this began a period, lasting about eight years, where Godard would go on to make movies that reflected his love of Hollywood and film history yet told through his particular vision of cinema. This included "Bande à part (Band of Outsiders)", "Alphaville", "Pierrot le Fou", "Masculin Féminin", "Deux ou trois choses que je sais d'elle (Two or Three Things I Know About Her)", "La Chinoise", "Week-end" and the other film Godard is probably best known for, "Le Mépris (Contempt)", from 1963 that starred Brigitte Bardot, Michel Piccoli and Jack Palance.

By 1968, Godard seemed to have become disillusioned by his fame and the history of conventional cinema, referring to most of it as "bourgeois", deciding to largely move away from mainstream filmmaking and began to shift his focus by taking more of an active political stance in his life and films. His work during this time involved protesting against wars and social injustice, avant-garde documentaries and "Tout Va Bien", a political drama in 1972 which starred Yves Montand and Jane Fonda.

Godard returned to more traditional filmmaking in 1980 with "Sauve qui peut (la vie) (Every Man for Himself)" with Isabelle Huppert and Nathalie Baye. He continued to work regularly throughout the rest of the 1980's and '90's, which included experimental films inspired by Bizet's opera ("Prénom Carmen (First Name: Carmen)"); a modern re-telling of the story of the virgin birth ("Je vous salue, Marie (Hail Mary)"); and an adaptation of a William Shakespeare play ("King Lear"). By the turn of the century, Godard's output had slowed down, making five feature films and essentially abandoning a clear narrative structure, focusing instead on a fragmented montage of images and even experimenting with 3D with "Adieu au Langage (Goodbye to Language)" in 2014. Godard's final film, "Le Livre d'image (The Image Book)" was released in 2018 and was an avant-garde essay about the modern Arabic world.

While he did suffer from some health issues, Godard was not seriously ill yet was simply tired of living. He decided to end his life on September 13th with the assistance of voluntary euthanasia which is legal in Switzerland where the director has lived off and on since childhood. Godard was married twice; to Anna Karina, the Danish actress appeared in eight films with Godard, who were married for five years until 1965. Karina passed away in 2019. He then married French actress, Anne Wiazemsky in 1967, who performed in his films, "La Chinoise" and "Week-end", with the couple ending their marriage in 1979. Wiazemsky died of breast cancer in 2017.

What I think has made Jean-Luc Godard continue to be such a remarkably enduring yet certainly divisive figure in cinema was his strong passion for artistic freedom, to creatively challenge himself with bold, unorthodox work that in turn would entice, frustrate and surprise viewers, opening them up to explore the endless possibilities of meaning in his films.

WINNERS OF THE 2022 VENICE FILM FESTIVAL

This year's Venice Film Festival has ended with Laura Poitras receiving the top prize of the Golden Lion for her latest non-fiction work, "All the Beauty and the Bloodshed". This is only the second time in this International fest's long-running history that a documentary has won this award (following "Sacro Gra" by Gianfranco Rosi in 2013) and the Oscar-winner Poitras has become the third female filmmaker in a row to win this honor. "All the Beauty and the Bloodshed" examines photographer, Nan Goldin's legal battle against the Sackler family for her becoming addicted to their opioids.

The rest of the top prizes went to only a handful of other films; Luca Guadagnino received Best Director for his coming-of-age romantic-horror film, "Bones and All' with the co-star of the film, Taylor Russell winning the Best Young Actor prize. Cate Blanchett received her second Volpi Cup for Best Actress (which she won fifteen years ago for playing Bob Dylan in "I'm Not There") for her mesmerizing turn as a tempestuous, classical music conductor in Todd Field's "Tár", his first feature film in sixteen years. Colin Farrell won for Best Actor for his work in Martin McDonagh's black comedy, "The Banshees of Inisherin" with the director receiving the Best Screenplay prize for the film. And Alice Diop, the French-Senegalese filmmaker who has made her name making several well-received documentaries, received the runner-up prize of Best Film for her first narrative film, "Saint Omer". This story about a pregnant novelist doing research for a book at the trial of a Senegalese woman accused of murdering her baby also won Diop the award for Best Debut Feature.

Here is a partial list of winners of the 2022 Venice Film Festival:

Golden Lion for Best Film: "All the Beauty and the Bloodshed"
Grand Jury Prize: "Saint Omer"
Silver Lion for Best Director: Luca Guadagnino, "Bones and All"
Luigi de Laurentiis Award for Best Debut Feature: Alice Diop, "Saint Omer"
Special Jury Prize: "No Bears"



Best Screenplay: Martin McDonagh, "The Banshees of Inisherin"
Volpi Cup for Best Actress: Cate Blanchett, "Tár"
Volpi Cup for Best Actor: Colin Farrell, "The Banshees of Inisherin"
Marcello Mastroianni Award for Best Young Actor: Taylor Russell, "Bones and All"

Orizzonti (Horizon) Awards:

Best Film: "World War III"



Best Director: Tizza Covi and Rainer Frimmel, "Vera"
Best Screenplay: Fernando Guzzoni, "Blanquita"



Special Jury Prize: "Bread and Salt"



Best Actress: Vera Gemma, "Vera"
Best Actor: Mohsen Tanabandeh, "World War III"
Best Short Film: "Snow in September"

MOST ANTICIPATED MOVIES TO SEE THIS FALL 2022

I can't believe that Labor Day is almost upon us. Not only is it a day to honor and recognize the labor movement and the contributions of laborers in the US but it is also long considered the start of the fall movie season. I have usually put together my own list of movies I am highly anticipating to see over the next four months of the year but time has escaped me, which doesn't allow me enough of an opportunity to do the research to properly share my opinion. So I will offer Vulture's round-up of the upcoming fall/winter movies with twenty-four given a special highlight. 

One thing I am very glad to see is that the list of films that will be released this season is far more robust that what we had this summer with the month of August, in particular, was depressingly slight. There are some that have already received plenty of buzz (the Marilyn Monroe bio-pic, "Blonde"; the sequel to "Knives Out"; the long-awaited "Black Panther" sequel; the even longer-awaited sequel to "Avatar") and others that will probably soon begin to receive award buzz once they start to appear at the upcoming film festivals (Steven Spielberg's semi-autobiographical coming-of-age drama, "The Fabelmans"; Damien Chazelle’s period drama, "Babylon" with Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie; "Decision to Leave", Park Chan-wook’s follow-up to 2016's "The Handmaiden"; David O. Russell’s first film in seven years, "Amsterdam", a mystery-comedy set in the 1930's). This listing includes streaming titles and a few movies that may or may not appear in theaters before the year's end.

Please click below to read:

24 Movies We Can’t Wait to See This Fall 2022