Monday, March 9, 2020 at 3:00PM by Jason Adams
Is Alex Garland's Ex Machina a horror film? For all of its Frankensteinian elements I could be swayed towards a yes or a no, but when it comes to viewing the film via Sonoya Mizuno's character of "Kyoko" -- Mizuno can currently be seen co-starring on Garland's Hulu show Devs -- the "yes" argument feels substantive and then some...
Monday, March 9, 2020 at 10:41AM by Nathaniel R
It is with great sadness we must announce the passing of Max von Sydow. The international acting legend had worked steadily since his big screen debut in Sweden in 1949. Multiple Swedish classics followed including Miss Julie, Wild Strawberries, and The Virgin Spring. International fame happened quickly through his mutli-film collaboration with Sweden's most celebrated auteur Ingmar Bergman. By the mid 60s he began headlining international productions, first as Jesus in The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965) and by the 1970s he was a mandatory for prestige all star productions (Voyage of the Damned, The Exorcist). He's been a mainstay of cinema for 70 years, that exceedingly memorable long face flipping from sweet to sinister to authoritative to wise (and everything inbetween) on command for the demands of any role.
Before his death he completed a lead role in an as yet unreleased WW II drama Echoes of the Past which is currently in post-production. Let's pray it's a fitting swansong for one of the inarguable greats.
We had the privilege of interviewing him over coffee when he was making the awards rounds for The Diving Bell and Butterfly and he was sweet, humble, and talkative about his career and the cinema. We've begged the Academy to give him an Honorary Oscar quite frequently but, tragically, they didn't listen and they've missed their long long window to do so.
After the jump the first 10 Max von Sydow roles that jumped to mind in no particular order when we heard the news...
Sunday, March 8, 2020 at 9:16PM What did you see this weekend? Pixar's Onward was the big winner with a $40 million haul. The hot ticket in platform release was Kelly Reichardt's First Cow which had the weekend's highest per screen average at just 4 theaters.
| Weekend Box Office March 6th-8th (ESTIMATES) 🔺 = new or expanding / ★ = recommended |
|
| WIDE RELEASE (800+ screens) |
PLATFORM TITLES |
 Onward |
 First Cow |
| 1 🔺 ONWARD $40 *new* |
1 🔺 PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE $540k on 334 screens (cum. $3.3) TOP TEN LIST ★ |
| 2 THE INVISIBLE MAN $15.1 (cum. $52.6) *new* REVIEW | 2 🔺 BAAGHI 3 $475k *new* |
First Cow, Onward, Wendy, box office Sunday, March 8, 2020 at 10:00AM In honor of Rachel Weisz's 50th birthday this weekend, we’re revisiting The Deep Blue Sea with a bonus entry in the "Almost There" series. Here's Cláudio Alves...
To portray depression compellingly is a great challenge for any actor. The danger in in authentic internalization is becoming a dull and an uninteresting subject for the camera, an unsolvable cipher. On the other hand, attempts at creating entertainment out of a depressed person is a good way to fall into the perilous pit of superficiality. Mental health issues are thus transformed into walls that block the audience's emotional investment or colorful quirks with no relation to reality. It's a difficult tight rope but some great thespians can walk it. More importantly, some can do it and make it look easy.
Such is the case of Rachel Weisz who came close to a nomination for Best Actress in 2012 thanks to her virtuoso work in Terence Davies' sad song of love and postwar despondency, The Deep Blue Sea…
Saturday, March 7, 2020 at 5:25PM by Lynn Lee
Company may be approaching its 50th birthday, but it’s never looked hipper – not that it ever really went out of fashion. But between its prominent appearance in last year’s Marriage Story, a recent successful gender-switched revival in London that’s transferring to Broadway (previews just started!), Sondheim’s musical about a thirtysomething Manhattan bachelor and his various coupled friends is definitely having a(nother) moment.
Which raises the inevitable question: why hasn’t anyone tried to make a movie out of it? Could it even work as a movie? I think it could...
