film

Richard Linklater Says AI Can’t Capture Human Genius in Film

Can great art be made without human genius and all its flaws? It's a vital question at a time when artificial intelligence threatens to subsume Hollywood. Through new movies Nouvelle Vague and Blue Moon, director Richard Linklater offers an answer—delving into the lives of two brilliant, volatile men whose films and plays shaped French New Wave ...

Behind Bars, On Screen: Inside the San Quentin Film Festival

Held inside a notorious prison among some of California's most dangerous felons, the San Quentin Film Festival is not your typical Hollywood affair. Red-carpet interviews take place just yards (meters) away from a now dormant execution chamber where hundreds of death-row inmates met grisly ends. Convicted murderers sit alongside famous actors ...

Bjorn Andresen, Remembered for 'Death in Venice', Dies After Cancer Battle

Bjorn Andresen, a Swedish actor known for his performance in Luchino Visconti's award-winning Death in Venice (1971), has died at the age of 70, an associate told AFP Monday. At the age of 15, Andresen was approached by the Italian director, who was searching for an actor to play Tadzio, a beautiful adolescent who composer Gustav von Aschenbach, ...

'Chainsaw Man – The Movie' Slashes Competition at North American Box Office

Japanese anime feature Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc triumphed at the North American box office, debuting in the top spot at $17.3 million and besting a much-anticipated biopic about Bruce Springsteen, industry estimates showed Sunday. Chainsaw Man, from Sony and Crunchyroll, had already scored big successes in Japan and across Asia, noted ...

George Clooney Explores Passage of Time in Netflix Film ‘Jay Kelly'

George Clooney plays an actor looking back at his past in Netflix's Jay Kelly, but in real life, the US star has his eyes on the future. "I'm not really ready to look backwards and sort of rest on it," the 64-year-old actor told AFP on Thursday at the film's premiere at the American Film Institute festival in Los Angeles. Unlike his title ...

French Cinema Legend Brigitte Bardot, 91, Returns Home After Brief Hospitalization

Former French screen icon Brigitte Bardot was briefly hospitalized for an operation but is back home and convalescing, her office told AFP in a statement on Friday. The health of the 91-year-old, who lives in Saint-Tropez in the south of France, had been the subject of persistent rumors in recent days. The former actor spent a few days at the ...

Guillermo Del Toro Backs Paris Stop-Motion Animation Studio

Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro said Friday he was teaming up with a Paris film school and Netflix to launch a training studio to help old-fashioned stop-motion animation techniques survive. Stop motion is the oldest form of animation, involving manipulating real-life models to create films frame-by-frame. It dates back to the late 19th ...

Drive-In Dreams Fade as America’s Outdoor Theaters Struggle

Film buffs sit snugly in cars watching a drive-in movie, munching popcorn on a lovely recent fall night. Michelle Hutson, 52, has been coming to the Family Drive-In since childhood, enjoying what is now a dying form of quintessentially American entertainment. With a sigh, she notes she might soon see the last picture show as the nearly ...

Claudia Cardinale, Iconic Italian Actress and Muse of Fellini and Visconti, Dies at 87

Sixties screen siren Claudia Cardinale, who died on Tuesday aged 87, entranced audiences across the globe with the sultry gaze that made her the muse of Luchino Visconti and Federico Fellini. With her fierce beauty and husky voice, Cardinale not only captivated Italy's greatest filmmakers, but she also played opposite most of the leading men of ...

‘American Gigolo:’ The Film That Put Giorgio Armani on the Map

In 1980, America discovered American Gigolo and its protagonist, Julian Kaye, portrayed by Richard Gere. His silhouette, sculpted by the California light, moves through his modern apartment and pauses before an endless wardrobe. It is not just a display of suits. In every movement and every choice of jacket or shirt, there is something new, a ...

“My Father’s Shadow”: Nigeria’s First Cannes-Winning Film Returns Home

Now back in Lagos for the film’s local release, Davies reflects on the film’s deeply personal themes and its resonance with a nation still grappling with the legacy of its political past. Akinola Davies, the director of My Father's Shadow, Nigeria's first film to win an award at the Cannes film festival, is savoring his return to Lagos, the ...

'Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale' — A Farewell Fit for Royalty

Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale marks the end of an era for one of Britain’s most iconic series. Directed by Simon Curtis and written by series creator Julian Fellowes, this third and final film revisits the beloved Crawley family and their loyal staff, taking audiences back to the stunning Highclere Castle one last time. Set in the 1930s, the ...